microsoft word 00 editorial comment.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(4) december 2014, special edition: san dispute resolution, pp. iii-iv. editorial comment     focus on the san community of platfontein: generating the knowledge of a first nation people for dispute resolution   the san writing retreat held at roodevalei lodge (gauteng) during july 2014, was a remarkable and extraordinary event. twenty-seven persons gathered to process the data collected and collated during the second phase of a three-year longitudinal study for the san dispute resolution project. what is remarkable is that the writing retreat was attended not only by academics but also, in particular by members of the san community located at platfontein some eighteen kilometres north of kimberley. members of the community comprised not only the field researchers but also community elders. the extraordinary nature of the event is the synergy created through knowledge sharing between formal and informal knowledge holders. the writing retreat gave effect to the concept of “cognitive justice” through the recognition of a fraternity of knowledge. the writing retreat endorsed the “other” knowledge expressed through the lived experience of the san community at platfontein, knowledge that is so often relegated to the periphery of the dominant knowledge system. by means of participatory research, the “other” knowledge is no longer “museumised” like some odd artefact in a museum that is interesting but unrelated to contemporary issues. a genuine knowledge partnership integrates community knowledge into the mainstream and hence it informs and critically interrogates conceptual research. this understanding was central to the writing retreat. community members and academics were cloistered for three days as eight hundred typed pages of transcripts containing the community narratives were jointly evaluated, interpreted and supplemented by means of additional interviews with the key community knowledge holders. the articles in this special issue are the product of the writing retreat. there are also two other highly significant aspects of the writing retreat. the first is that it was unanimously decided that the articles would not only be subject to the quality control of a double-blind peer review but that in addition, out of respect for the principle of the equality of knowledge, the community would also review them. secondly, in order to preserve the integrity of the transcripts and to respect the confidentiality of their contents on ethical grounds, academics at the writing retreat decided to establish an archive to house all the material gathered during the course of the project. the result is the establishment of the san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) that is administered by the library of the university of south africa (unisa). sandroa may be accessed in unisa’s institutional repository at http://uir.unisa.ac.za, as part of the college of law repository. only partial access to sandroa is permitted since resources that are subject to the informed consent of the community may only be accessed once the necessary permission is granted. the writing retreat is not an event isolated from the research agenda of the institute for dispute resolution in africa (idra) that is located within the college of law, university of south africa. the san dispute resolution project is one of idra’s three projects that apply various methodologies within the broader context of community-based participatory research. editorial comment iv no matter how impoverished or marginalised a community might be, idra regards the knowledge within a community as its most valuable asset and treats this resource with great respect on the basis of an equal knowledge partnership. idra is established as a transdisciplinary research institute. experience arising from its community-based participatory research teaches that the narrative knowledge within communities is transdisciplinary since it cuts across conventional disciplines. community knowledge is holistic in that it transcends the boundaries of academia’s fragmented disciplines and is thus capable of informing and interrogating formal knowledge as well as providing practical solutions to deep-rooted problems. apart from those articles that provide the background to the san community, the conceptual framework of the remaining articles is informed by community knowledge. grounded on an interaction between formal and informal knowledge, each of these articles probes the causes of conflict and dispute within the community and identifies the architecture for resolving these problems. essentially, these articles are linked to the design and implementation phases of the project, which is solution orientated. idra acknowledges with gratitude and esteem the support of prof johann tempelhoff for his active involvement as a member of the research team culminating in his contribution to this special issue as well as his continued support in making this special issue possible. the deepest gratitude is also expressed for the san community of platfontein for the manner in which they have positively embraced the project as well as to dr dries velthuizen, the project leader, for his intellectual acumen and dedication. a vote of thanks also goes to prof narend baijnath, unisa’s pro-vice chancellor, who is responsible for the portfolio of community engagement and outreach; to prof rushiela songca, executive dean and prof melodie slabbert, deputy executive dean of the college of law; and, to prof sunette pienaar, executive director of the directorate of community engagement and outreach. their on-going support and interest has given impetus to the project. the project is wholly funded by unisa, which should be acknowledged publically.   prof john faris head: institute for dispute resolution in africa university of south africa pretoria td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. vii – viii. editorial comment action research or transdisciplinary research? is there indeed a difference between action research and transdisciplinary research? this was the subject under consideration in the closing panel discussion at the september 2010 conference of the swiss academies of arts and sciences on “transdisciplinarity: implementation in interand transdisciplinary research practice and teaching” held in geneva, switzerland. researchers in all parts of the world have discussed the matter extensively in recent years, especially in the fields of biological science, technology, management studies and health sciences. in some quarters, there have been arguments to the effect that transdisciplinarity is merely another nuance of action research, which emerged for the first time in 1946 at the massachusetts institute of technology where kurt lewin (1890-1947) coined the term in a study dealing with minority problems.1 in view of the ongoing debate, it was an appropriate theme to take up at the international conference annually attended by some of the world’s top practitioners in the field of transdisciplinarity. the keynote speaker of this session was prof. morten levin,2 who spoke on “action research and transdisciplinarity – implementation as the knowledge creation process”. levin, a specialist in the field with many years of practical research experience, was of the opinion that there is little difference between the two and that everything basically revolves around the issue of implementation. from that end, he explained, the real sense of knowledge emerges. this implies that there is the need to identify real life problems, devise appropriate action and find proactive solutions. the core concepts of action research, he went on, involves: understanding the activity cycle and using social science techniques to determine the data and how to analyse it; establishing appropriate workforms by means of constructing arenas for problem solving and learning; and developing an action research strategy with the aim of solving the pertinent question or questions. for him, the controversial aspect of transdisciplinarity is that real life problems (issues) are in fact multifaceted, contextual and holistic. at the same time science tends to be particular, specialised and compartmentalised into professions. this, he explained, presents major problems 1 . k lewin, “action research and minority problems” in the journal of social issues, 2(4) 1946, pp. 34-46; gi susman and rd evered, “an assessment of the scientific merits of action research” in administrative science quarterly 23(4), december 1978, pp. 582-603. 2 . department of industrial economics and technology management at the norwegian university of science and technology. editorial comment viii for efficient research activity, whereas action research tends to face the real life problems and accordingly gives priority to relevance of knowledge and confronting rigour as the next challenge. apart from a lively conference audience who had many questions and comments, there was also a panel of prominent td practitioners and research leaders, including professors aant elzinga,3 larissa krainer,4 carol deprés5 and roland scholz,6 all of whom articulated their views on action research and transdisciplinarity. on the whole, the panellists and members of the audience were favourably disposed towards action research – but only as a subsidiary form of transdisciplinarity. for most td practitioners, a strong corpus of theoretical and methodological knowledge has been formulated on the approach since the 1970s. academic and research managers in many countries have invested much of their time and effort in strengthening transdisciplinarity and have secured a significant reputation for the approach in the research and science environment. they also expressed some concern about the fact that mode 1 research does not necessarily feature in action research. it tends to be more inclined towards mode 2-type research. there seemed to be consensus in the audience that transdisciplinarity could pride itself on having made considerable inroads. it has gained both depth and identity, especially in diverse fields of philosophical discourse. this trend, it was argued, has been one of the major strengths of transdisciplinarity in recent years. from the lively discussion and exchange of ideas it was evident that the jury is still out on this matter. on the whole, it would seem that there are a variety of routes to creating knowledge. the fact that action research and transdisciplinarity tend to overlap in some areas suggests that we find ourselves, at the dawn of the 21st century, in an invigorating era of scientific thinking where many elements of the whole of reality still need to be understood in comprehensible chunks of consciousness. of special interest in this issue of td we are privileged to stimulate the thinking of our readers in the fields of philosophy and management studies with contributions by prof. fanie de beer of the university of pretoria7 and prof. aant elzinga of sweden.8 in terms of empirical research there are some interesting contributions in the fields of environmental studies, psychology, counselling, education and military studies. 3 . gothenburg university, sweden. 4 . university of klagenfurt, austria. 5 . university of laval, canada. 6 . swiss federal institute of technology. 7 . meervoudige denke: versmoor/vermoor inmstellings denke?/ multiple thinking: do institutions smother/kill thought? pp. 291-306. 8 . new public management, science policy and the orchestration of university research – academic science the loser, pp. 307-332. td 15-1_2019_contents.indd http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents i original research solid waste management practices in zimbabwe: a case study of one secondary school brenda chatira-muchopa, munyaradzi chidarikire, kudzayi s. tarisayi the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a636 | 06 june 2019 original research views from the margins: theorising the experiences of black working-class students in academic development in a historically white south african university mlamuli n. hlatshwayo, kehdinga g. fomunyam the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a591 | 23 july 2019 original research exploring the quality of grade 12 accounting education textbooks jabulisile ngwenya, orhe arek-bawa the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a662 | 27 august 2019 original research investigating career guidance implementation between historically advantaged and disadvantaged schools petronella jonck, eben swanepoel the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a637 | 25 september 2019 original research the feasibility of electronic voting technologies in africa: selected case examples kealeboga j. maphunye the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a621 | 26 september 2019 original research assessing the role of civil society in poverty alleviation: a case study of amathole district in the eastern cape province of south africa xolisile g. ngumbela, thozamile r. mle the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a547 | 30 september 2019 original research consequences of (un)regulated party funding in south africa between 1994 and 2017 kealeboga j. maphunye, kgobalale n. motubatse the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a557 | 08 october 2019 original research understanding the impact of financial sustainability on south african municipalities abe mbulawa the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a656 | 30 october 2019 84 89 100 110 119 130 140 150 page i of ii table of contents i editorial the ethiopian example: time for taking bold steps in our neck of the woods? johann tempelhoff the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a792 | 12 december 2019 original research transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting msizi v. mkhize the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a451 | 28 february 2019 original research heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy and the quest for epistemic justice renate schepen, anke graness the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a554 | 28 may 2019 original research impact of social entrepreneurs on community development in the cape town metropolitan municipality area, south africa russ ngatse-ipangui, maurice o. dassah the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a474 | 30 january 2019 original research into the future: donkergat military training area and the langebaan ramsar site jan t. marx, ian liebenberg the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a566 | 26 february 2019 original research a narrative analysis of barriers encountered by a sample of immigrant entrepreneurs in the eastern cape province of south africa justice muchineripi, willie chinyamurindi, tendai chimucheka the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a556 | 20 march 2019 original research xenophobic violence and criminality in the kwazulu-natal townships bethuel s. ngcamu, evangelos mantzaris the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a606 | 23 april 2019 original research citizenship education for lesotho’s context: towards a stable democracy rasebate i. mokotso the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a549 | 13 may 2019 original research investigating sexuality education in south african schools: a matter of space, place and culture eben swanepoel, christa beyers the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a612 | 23 may 2019 1 3 21 28 38 49 58 66 75 vol 15, no 1 (2019) issn: 1817-4434 (print) | issn: 2415-2005 (online)the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents ii original research the financial sustainability challenges facing the south african non-profit sector mmabatho maboya, tracey mckay the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a693 | 19 november 2019 original research the role of parliament in promoting active citizenship in relation to the grade 11 life orientation in the south african curriculum agnetha arendse, juliana smith the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a629 | 22 november 2019 original research towards strengthening collaboration between district and local municipalities in south africa: insights from ehlanzeni district municipality douglas n. magagula, ricky m. mukonza, rasodi k. manyaka, kabelo b. moeti the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a673 | 25 november 2019 original research the moravian heritage of community musicking devandre boonzaaier, alethea c. de villiers the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a641 | 28 november 2019 original research a reflection on the role, potential and challenges of transdisciplinarity at the university of fort hare chene e. ward, nomzamo dube, siphamandla nyambo, christopher t. chawatama the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a648 | 12 december 2019 165 175 184 194 204 review article water and the environment in southern africa: a review of the literature since 1990 mark nyandoro the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a679 | 13 november 2019 review article exploring service delivery protests in post-apartheid south african municipalities: a literature review bethuel s. ngcamu the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a643 | 14 november 2019 correction erratum: employing sentiment analysis for gauging perceptions of minorities in multicultural societies: an analysis of twitter feeds on the afrikaner community of orania in south africa eduan kotzé, burgert senekal the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a650 | 21 august 2019 correction corrigendum: the poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliation andreas g. velthuizen, kate d. ferguson the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a649 | 21 august 2019 reviewer acknowledgement the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 15, no 1 | a773 | 11 december 2019 213 225 234 235 236 page ii of ii 223 history, historians & afrikaner nationalism; essays on the history department of the university of pretoria, 1909-1985. f.a. mouton (ed), nicholas southey & albert van jaarsveld. kleio, vanderbijlpark, 2007 252 pp isbn 1-868225-04-6 pieter de klerk noordwes-universiteit historici verbonde aan die departement geskiedenis van die universiteit van pretoria (up) het reeds heelwat oor die geskiedenis van hul eie departement geskryf. f.a. van jaarsveld het ‘n hoofstuk van sy boek afrikanergeskiedskrywing (1992) gewy aan die departementshoofde vir geskiedenis aan up, terwyl louis a. changuion in die tydskrif historia van november 2004 ‘n artikel gepubliseer het oor die geskiedenis van hierdie departement. die boek onder bespreking, grotendeels geskryf deur prof. f.a. mouton, tans van die universiteit van suid-afrika (unisa), maar vroeër ‘n student en dosent in dieselfde departement, bied die nuutste en mees omvattende studie van up se geskiedenisdepartement. hierdie werk, waarvan die meeste hoofstukke reeds vantevore as tydskrifartikels verskyn het, handel oor agt historici wat almal ‘n tyd lank aan up verbonde was en het, anders as die twee bogenoemde publikasies, ‘n besondere tema. mouton skryf in sy voorwoord dat hy homself ten doel gestel het om na te gaan hoe die agt historici se loopbane en geskiedwerke bepaal is deur die departement se toewyding aan volksgeskiedenis, dit wil sê afrikanergeskiedenis. hy wil ook aantoon hoedat die departement homself geleidelik losgemaak het van die doelstelling om die saak van afrikanernasionalisme te dien. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 223 226. boekresensie 224 in die eerste twee hoofstukke word goed aangetoon dat die strewe in die vroeë twintigste eeu om up (aanvanklik bekend as die transvaalse universteitskollege) ‘n volledig afrikaanse instelling te maak ‘n sterk negatiewe invloed op die eerste hoof van die departement geskiedenis, leo fouché, en sy engelstalige kollega j.a.i. agar-hamilton gehad het. in die derde hoofstuk word geskryf oor a.n. pelzer, en mouton probeer aantoon dat hy, soos sy voorganger, i.d. bosman (aan wie daar nie ‘n hoofstuk gewy is nie), die departement aangewend het as ‘n instrument om afrikanernasionalisme te bevorder. in die vierde hoofstuk skryf hy oor jan ploeger, ‘n nederlandse immigrant wat slegs enkele jare tydelik aan die up werksaam was en wie se loopbaan negatief geraak is deur persepsies dat hy nie ten volle toegewyd was aan die afrikanersaak nie. in sy hoofstuk oor die polemiek in die vroeëre vyftigerjare tussen f.a. van jaarsveld en t.s. van rooyen, wat albei eers later dosente aan up sou word, bring mouton en sy medeskrywer, albert van jaarsveld, die rol wat politieke verskille en ook naywer tussen leidende afrikaanse historici in hierdie pennestryd gespeel het na vore. die laaste drie hoofstukke handel oor f.j. du toit spies, f.a. van jaarsveld en w.a. stals, en mouton dui aan dat hulle die departement weg van ‘n eng nasionalistiese benadering gestuur het. mouton en sy medeskrywers het deeglike navorsing gedoen en ook toegang tot die persoonlike dokumente van sommige van die historici gehad. hulle spits hulle hoofsaaklik toe op die biografiese aspek en bied baie interessante leesstof oor die professionele lewe van veral die eerste ses van die bogenoemde geskiedkundiges. die laaste twee hoofstukke, oor van jaarsveld en stals, is heelwat korter as die eerste ses en geskyf as huldeblyke na hul oorlye. oor van jaarsveld, waarskynlik die bekendste en belangrikste figuur in die groep, is daar reeds heelwat deur andere geskryf. mouton werp nuwe lig op aspekte van sy vroeë loopbaan in hoofstuk vyf, maar sy werksaamhede as akademikus by die unisa, die randse afrikaanse universiteit en, uiteindelik, up, word hier nie uitgebreid behandel nie. daar word ook nie diep ingegaan op die wetenskaplike bydraes van die agt historici nie, behalwe in die geval van agar-hamilton, in ‘n hoofstuk geskryf deur mouton en nicholas southey. oor fouché, pelzer en spies se geskiedskrywing is daar meer inligting te vinde in die genoemde geskrif van van jaarsveld. ‘n mens sou graag meer wou verneem oor die werk wat veral ploeger gelewer het, aangesien daaroor nie veel in ander publikasies geskryf is nie. die boek is dus nie in die eerste plek ‘n kritiese studie van bydraes tot die afrikaanse geskiedskrywing of selfs van die wyse waarop hierdie geskiedskrywing deur nasionalistiese strewes beïnvloed is nie, maar veral ‘n gevallestudie oor die invloed wat politieke ideologieë, en in besonder nasionalisme, op die akademiese beoefening van geskiedenis kan uitoefen en hoe dit die loopbane van geskiedkundiges beïnvloed. boekresensie 225 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 223 226. die skrywers van hierdie studie slaag dan ook in die algemeen daarin om aan te toon watter negatiewe gevolge afrikanernasionalisme op die beoefening van geskiedenis aan up gehad het. hulle ontsnap egter nie heeltemal aan die gevaar om bepaalde gevolgtrekkings so sterk te beklemtoon dat dit soms eensydig voorkom en daarmee aan geloofwaardigheid inboet nie. mouton sien byvoorbeeld ploeger se loopbaan as “a case study of the intolerance and exclusivity of afrikaner nationalism, and the abuse of history for ethnic mobilisation and the legitimisation of the present” (p 156), maar uit die hoofstuk blyk dat ander faktore ook daartoe bygedra het dat hy nie ‘n universiteitspos kon bekom nie, waaronder die skaarsheid wat daar in die veertigeren vyftigerjare aan sulke poste was. in die geval van van jaarsveld word geskryf dat sy kritiek op afrikaanse geskiedskrywers daartoe gelei het dat hy nie maklik ‘n akademiese aanstelling kon kry nie, en dit het as ‘n waarskuwing gedien aan ander historici “not to challenge the custodians of the othodox interpretation of the afrikaners’ past” (p 195). dit lyk egter waarskynlik dat, as daar minder goed gekwalifiseerde historici en meer vakatures in geskiedenisdepartemente was, ploeger en van jaarsveld nie soveel probleme in hul vroeë loopbane sou ondervind het nie. van rooyen, wat in die polemiek met van jaarsveld juis die ortodokse afrikanernasionaliste se geskiedwerke verdedig het, moes byvoorbeeld drie jaar langer as van jaarsveld op ‘n permanente akademiese aanstelling wag. mouton en sy medewerkers sien afrikanernasionalisme hoofsaaklik as iets wat doelbewus deur intellektuele en politieke leiers aangewakker en bevorder is eerder as ‘n krag wat binne ‘n gemeenskap werksaam was en mense se beskouinge in ‘n bepaalde rigting gestuur het. hulle staan baie krities teenoor nasionalisties gesinde historici en toon min begrip vir die invloed wat ‘n bepaalde geestesklimaat op mense se wetenskaplike werk het. soos algemeen onder historici bekend, is talle geskiedwerke wat, oral ter wêreld, sedert die vroeë negentiende eeu gelewer is in mindere of meerdere mate deur nasionalistiese beskouings beïnvloed, en sommige van hierdie werke word meesal as van hoë gehalte beskou. tans toon die publikasies van baie historici in suidafrika en ander afrikalande die invloed van afrika-nasionalisme of afrikanisme. soos reeds gemeld, dui mouton aan dat spies, van jaarsveld en stals wegbeweeg het van die eng nasionalisme van die veertigeren vyftigerjare. hulle taak is egter baie vergemaklik deurdat die ideaal van ‘n afrikaner-gedomineerde republiek in 1961 bereik is en afrikanernasionalisme daarna verflou het, sodat die denkklimaat verander het. mouton verwys wel hierna, sonder egter om die rol van die veranderende agtergrondsfaktore uitgebreid te bespreek. ook al stem ‘n mens nie heeltemal met mouton et alia se uitgangspunte en algemene benadering saam nie, bly hul boek ‘n belangrike toevoeging tot die werke wat daar oor die afrikaanse geskiedskrywing bestaan. boekresensie 226 dit is eenvoudig en boeiend geskryf en toeganklik vir ‘n veel wyer leserspubliek as die klein groepie suid-afrikaanse historici. die boek bevat foto’s van die agt geskiedkundiges en is tipografies baie goed versorg. dat dit moontlik was om ‘n boek oor ‘n betreklik gespesialiseerde onderwerp soos geskiedskrywing uit te gee, behoort te dien as ‘n inspirasie vir ander historici om selfstandige publikasies, en nie net artikels in akademiese tydskrifte nie, te lewer. boekresensie book review new method, same curriculum – taking a step back to reflect on ‘doing’ comprehensive sexuality education in the 21st century book title: troubling the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity in south african education author: dennis a. francis isbn: isbn-10: 9781137530264 isbn-13: 978-1137530264 publisher: palgrave macmillan, 2017, r1507.05* *book price at time of review review title: new method, same curriculum – taking a step back to reflect on ‘doing’ comprehensive sexuality education in the 21st century reviewer: eben swanepoel1, affiliations: 1department of education, faculty of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa corresponding author: eben swanepoel, swanepoeleh@outlook.com how to cite this book review: swanepoel, e., 2020, ‘new method, same curriculum – taking a step back to reflect on ‘doing’ comprehensive sexuality education in the 21st century’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a803. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.803 copyright notice: © 2020. the authors. licensee: aosis openjournals. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. a year prior to the writing of this book review, in 2019, the introduction of a revised and more structured lesson plan framework for comprehensive sexuality education (cse) witnessed heated public debate, especially amongst parents on social media, as promoting perverse and anti-christian content towards sexuality and diversity in south african schools. central to this public scrutiny is the subject life orientation, the mandatory subject implemented in post-apartheid south africa to constitutionally align values of harmony, acceptance and reconciliation amongst learners as a core initiative to rectify imbalances of violence and intolerance in post-apartheid south africa. the question however remains as to whether public opinion is uncritically focused on curriculum content without systemically scrutinising the macro-system of oppression imbedded in incongruent teachings and curriculum coverage set out in the past already. at the front, south africa is currently challenged by increased gender violence, with the human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (aids) pandemic and teenage pregnancies at a rapid rise each year. my review of the book by d. francis, entitled troubling the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity in south african education, is aimed at entering the discourse about the changing method of teaching about gender and sexuality in schools as not being based on a new curriculum, but instead reiterating the need for stakeholders to re-learn and reflect on the dynamic landscape of teacher education to align with standards already upheld through curriculum and constitutional ideals often construed in classrooms because of silencing textbook and curriculum knowledge. specifically, contextualising the socio-historical backdrop of silence and bias-based teaching of gender and sexuality, francis highlights the systemic influence of south african school systems deconstructing critical topics of sexuality and gender diversity, and in turn perpetuating discord and intolerance through previous teaching methods rooted in silence, bias and oppressive views to the detriment of shaping pro-active learners in society. by not troubling the self in relation to the macro-system influences of oppression, we are in danger of perpetuating gender violence and discrimination not only through curriculum and policy alone, but also through ways of ‘doing’ which are left unchallenged on part of teachers and stakeholders who interpret curriculum content inconsistently, evoking emotive responses (such as those evident through current societal reactions to the structured cse curriculum layout), bias and silence in classrooms surrounding gender and sexual diversity. i reflect on the work of francis as a critical and systemic exploration of the lived experiences of south african youth and teachers in schools to challenge public perceptions about gender and sexual identity, acceptance and tolerance. the relevance of francis’ book, 4 years after the first publication, shows the longitudinal validity of dismantling oppressive perceptions that root south african education and public bias in closed-systems of cultural knowledge, unyielding to re-learn values of peace and reconciliation across diverse cultural boundaries, such as identity diversity, religion and culture. at its core, the book recognises the systemic influences of heteronormativity and homophobia within the south african school contexts as parallel to oppressive societal values rooted in stagnant socio-historical knowledge systems of racism, sexism and homophobia. these facets of oppression are often construed by a decontextualised understanding of culture as dynamic, thus rooting knowledge in teachings which are detrimental to learner needs of the 21st century, especially with new generational underpinnings of knowledge systems constantly developing (depalma & francis 2014). focussing not only on curriculum and policy challenges towards anti-oppressive education, the discourse francis enters encompasses the overarching constitutional values at the fore to elucidate challenges faced by teachers and researchers during the teaching and researching of sexuality and gender diversity against the backdrop of anti-apartheid south africa. the content areas of teaching learners about sexual orientation and diversity have been central to arguments that the curriculum is anti-christian, verging on ‘pornographic’ material, and promoting familial structures beyond the normative heterosexual family structure as being acceptable. these discourses however are rooted in the exact oppressive values that life orientation and cse aim to trouble, deconstruct and synthesise into the constitutional ideals of peace and reconciliation amongst multicultural citizens bringing forth the practice and spirit of ubuntu. it is not that a new knowledge is being implemented, but rather a re-negotiated way in which the knowledge is conveyed at grassroots level by teachers in the classroom. the book troubling the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity in south african education challenges these misconceptions beyond the vanity of a structured curriculum towards understanding the larger role of educators in ultimately evoking a voice to the set curriculum, and subsequently in dismantling oppressive attitudes at macro-societal level. the book situates teachers as fundamental agents of change in the process of restorative practice within societal harmony through evoking a macro-level emotional underpinning about the oppressive aftermath and experiences of lesbian, gay or bisexual (lgb) youth in south african schools. emotions, as reygan and francis (2015) articulate, are central to social justice, with teachers enabling socially unjust teachings through negative perceptions and silence surrounding topics of diversity and sexuality in the classroom. francis challenges the reader to enter a reflective narrative with the self, contextualising teaching about gender and sexuality diversity as core to situating a curriculum on messages of collaborative values promoting love, intimacy and harmony as core principles to a harmonious multicultural society. francis, in retrospect, challenges all stakeholders of anti-oppressive education to sit back and reflect, both on the self and on ways of ‘doing’ beyond theory and by extension not at merely the face value of curriculum alone. instead, we are situated as observers to the macro-level influence of school systems where ways of doing have been unyielding to decades of curriculum change and development aimed at preparing learners to enter the globalised vocational market with values of respect for diversity and culture. specifically, troubling the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity in south african education troubles the emotive preconceived notions and contextual understanding of sexuality and gender at individual level as parallel to classroom practice ideals in an effort to curb silence in not only classrooms but also society at large. this book holds strong merit for teacher induction, current teachers teaching life orientation as well as stakeholders such as parents to better negotiate an understanding of the value of a layered, structured and pre-set curriculum as part of the process towards social justice and breaking the silence surrounding issues of gender and sexual violence, teenage pregnancies and hiv and aids in south african schools. francis draws on an inclusive sample of 33 life orientation teachers in the free state province of south africa, of which five teachers were identified as lgb. the sample spans across farm schools, rural and urban areas. the second sample consists of 19 lgb learners. of note is that the wider spectrum of inclusive identities such as transgender and intersex are not silenced or ignored, but that the data dissemination and subsequent reporting were informed by the narratives of the participants who were active agents in shaping their perceived identities during the data collection process. while located specifically in the free state, the book is one of the first committed books based on queer education of this depth in south africa. while data centre on teachers and learners, francis draws on all aspects of ‘doing’ teaching and research towards inclusive sexuality and gender diversity in schools, spanning to the intersections of how researchers enter communities with preconceived notions of inclusivity, deficit-centred frameworks and invisibility towards learners of diverse sexualities and genders. with this refection, all stakeholders become accountable to re-negotiate ways of doing theory and practice, and to challange knowledge which is not on par with socially just ideals. the reader is challenged to return to grassroots level understanding regarding how we ‘do’ research and teaching in the realm of sexuality and diversity. it is argued that teaching and research is a futile endeavour if not done from the vantage point of restoring agency to learners who are, in fact, often more knowledgeable about their own identities than adults may believe, if we only take the time to listen. references depalma, r. & francis, d., 2014, ‘silence, nostalgia, violence, poverty…: what does “culture” mean for south african sexuality educators?’, culture, health & sexuality 16(5), 547–561. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2014.891050 reygan, f. & francis, d., 2015, ‘emotions and pedagogies of discomfort: teachers’ responses to sexual and gender diversity in the free state, south africa’, education as change 19(1), 101–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/16823206.2014.943259 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 129-135. book review: a useful reference source for systems thinking martin reynolds, sue holwell (eds), systems approaches to managing change: a practical guide (springer, london, 2011). 1st edition., 2010, xiv, 309 p. 129 illus. softcover, isbn 978-1-84882-808-7 price: euro 69,95 introduction at the outset, it is perhaps useful in the spirit of a systems approach to begin with perspective that i am taking in reviewing this book. it is as a scholar-practitioner within the broad framework of systems thinking and complexity theory. as such i see myself as an insider reviewing a landscape that i have some familiarity with, rather than as an outsider who is looking at a new landscape. i shall frame this review by providing a description and an appraisal of each of the chapters primarily on its own. thereafter i shall provide some reflections on the connections between chapters and on the book as a whole. thus, within a systems tradition, we may say that i begin with parts, then look at the interrelationships between the parts and finally consider the emergent properties as reflected in the whole. introducing systems approaches the first chapter written by the editors, martin reynolds and sue holwell, introduces systems approaches. it begins with three news stories in easter 2009 and uses these stories as a backdrop to reflect on big and intractable problems facing the world. the discussion proceeds to make the distinction, common in systems thinking, between a difficulty and a mess. the point is made that system approaches help us in thinking about complex situations, alternately referred to as “messes”, wicked problems, the swamp and resource dilemmas. the chapter contrasts conventional thinking with systems thinking, and also indicates that systems thinking is not homogenous and monolithic, but rather has multiple strands and made up of different schools of thought. reynolds and holwell highlight two major strands namely hard and soft systems thinking, or as they put it so nicely, “thinking about systems “ and “systems thinking”. this raises the important point about whether systems are best thought of as ontological entities existing in some objective way in the real world or rather as epistemological devices for learning. it is not surprising that this theme permeates some of the other chapters especially those on soft systems methodology and critical systems heuristics. the authors then present four typologies and perspectives on systems thinking before offering their own. they motivate their perspective and the selection of the five approaches presented in the book on the basis that there is a rich interplay between the situation, the practitioner community and the methodology of each of the selected approaches. they further argue that all five approaches deal with understanding interrelationships, dealing with different perspectives and addressing power relations in relation to systems intervention in different ways. the chapter ends with a short description of each of the selected systems approaches, namely system dynamics, the viable system model (vsm), strategic options development and analysis (soda), soft systems methodology (ssm) and critical systems heuristics (csh). bodhanya 130 system dynamics chapter 2 covers system dynamics written by john morecroft, a seasoned scholar and practitioner of system dynamics. morecroft studied under the tutelage of jay forrester, the founder of system dynamics. forrester was also his doctoral advisor. the reader is left in no doubt about the credentials and the deep competence of the author. this testimony is borne out in the chapter itself. as a text on system dynamics it is an excellent piece of work, with many useful examples, and good coverage of important system dynamics concepts including feedback structure, behaviour through time, assetstock accumulation, causal loop diagrams, and system dynamics modelling and simulation. it is not surprising that this chapter will be valuable, given that it draws extensively from morecroft's own book based on a course run at london business school for more than 20 years. herein is the strength of the chapter, but herein lay its biggest weakness as well. having read morecroft's book strategic modelling and business dynamics on more than one occasion, i found this chapter in some ways a wonderful summary. while it will certainly be useful for novice systems practitioners, it will be challenging and will not be able to serve as a practical guide without additional support from other resources or some form of apprenticeship in system dynamics. the example of drug related crime will be challenging for even a system dynamics novice let alone a novice not familiar with systems concepts. for example, the graphical input function will be a mystery to such readers. a novice requires a gradual build up from basic constructs before more advanced modelling examples. this could include stock-flow renditions of a positive feedback loop, a negative feedback loop, followed by combinations that demonstrate, for example, shifting loop dominance. this chapter is not a beginner guide to system dynamics. viable system model chapter 3 presents the cybernetics-based viable system model (vsm) developed by stafford beer. it is written by patrick hoverstadt, an experienced vsm practitioner. it presents some of the key cybernetics concepts such as recursion, ashby’s law of requisite variety, variety management, and the conant-ashby theorem. the different uses of vsm as a means of diagnosis, design and for attaining self-knowledge is noted. the last use is interesting as it highlights that the ability to manage an organisation depends on the ability of the organisation to model itself. this is a direct result of the conant-ashby theorem that states that “every good regulator of a system must be a model of the system” (p.88). the chapter briefly describes each of the 5 major sub-systems of the vsm. these are s1 (0perations), s2 (coordination), s3 (delivery), s4 (development) and s5 (policy). hoverstadt refers to the important need for variety management by showing how variety is amplified and attenuated within the vsm, a process that he refers to as balancing the complexity equation. this is followed by a fairly detailed discussion of each of the sub-systems, together with explanatory examples. it is unfortunate that the author does not provide adequate references for some of these examples, and hence his use of them is limited to anecdotes. there is a section in relation to system 4, entitled managing change covering about 2 pages. it notes some of the problems with conventional approaches to change. these relate to differential speeds of change and boundary co-ordination which turns the intended homogeneous, undifferentiated, wholecompany change programmes to heterogeneous, highly differentiated, fragmented change in practice. hoverstadt attributes these problems primarily to boundary crossovers. he argues that vsm overcomes this problem through what he terms “mosaic change”. this, in essence is through structural redundancy (having additional spare capacity) and engaging in change in “discrete” packets. the latter refers to changing one component and all things connected to that component. while the argument regarding structural redundancy based on the vsm has merit, the second prescription seems more far-fetched. this is because a systems approach implies myriad feedback loops, with the variety equations requiring major adaptation even when a single component is changed. book review: systems thinking td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 129-135. 131 it is curious that in defining the identity of an organisation when covering system 5, hoverstadt draws on espejo et al. (1999) in applying the mnemonic tascoi. it is clear that this is a convoluted derivative of catwoe developed by checkland, but there is hardly a mention of ssm or the work of checkland when there is a later chapter on this (see chapter 5). the reflections section at the end of the chapter raises an important issue of application of vsm as a model or a methodology. this is an important point in a book about approaches and methodologies for managing change. in summary, the chapter is well-written, and provides a very good advanced introduction to the vsm. readers knowledgeable about cybernetics and vsm aficionados will likely to find this chapter a handy reminder and reference. it will be somewhat overwhelming to the novice to vsm. strategic options development and analysis chapter 4 presents strategic options development and analysis (soda). it is written by colin eden and fran ackermann, the originals developers of soda. in essence, soda is a graphical technique for mapping out major attributes and facets of problematic situations. it is based on the underlying techniques of cognitive mapping (inspired by kelly’s theory of personal constructs) and causal mapping. the authors suggest that soda is made up of four interacting theoretical perspective viz. the individual from cognitive psychology, organisational and groups as negotiated enterprises, consulting practice in terms of the interaction between facilitator and client group, and the role of technology in the form of a visually interactive model. soda may be considered a sensemaking approach based on an ontology of social construction. in this sense, it shares an interpretive stance with ssm. the chapter provides detailed coverage of soda, the underlying methods and techniques, guidelines for mapping and explanatory notes. although some of the mapping techniques may be used individually, soda is more commonly applied in group settings. it includes the manual mode of the oval mapping techniques. detailed guidelines are provided for facilitation of oval mapping technique workshops. specialised software, decision explorer, is available for soda. the chapter also provides coverage of running workshops supported by the software. soda is in essence a problem structuring method that enables participants to negotiate meaning through group engagement based on cognitive and, or causal mapping. it is thus flexible in terms of application in a variety of domains and focus areas e.g. strategy-making, and problem solving. the key issue for me is why soda is privileged in this text. there are other facilitated group methods that could have equal claim. it is also not clear the extent to which it is a systems methodology. there are a variety of systems diagramming approaches which offer a more flexible approach. the oval mapping technique, for example, is not dissimilar to affinity diagramming which is only one of many ways of diagramming. as a counterpoint, similar techniques are also used in a variety of managerial group processes such as scenario planning. while one can see the use of soda for managing change, there is not an explicit discussion of this in the chapter. soft systems methodology chapter 5 provides coverage of soft systems methodology. it is written by peter checkland, the originator of the methodology together with john poulter, an experienced ssm practitioner. the chapter is excellent as a concise presentation that represents the distilled wisdom of some 30 years of theoretical refinement and practical guidelines for ssm. it provides useful coverage of the historical development of ssm and its early roots as an action-research approach that departed from the then systems engineering framework which was originally attempted by checkland and colleagues in the human and social realm. while ssm is a well-established methodology for understanding and working with social complexity, it is still quite radical when compared to other approaches for dealing in complex problem contexts. let’s consider how ssm departs from more conventional approaches. bodhanya 132 firstly, ssm does not refer to problems but rather considers “problematical situations”. the motivation is that problem implies solutions that may be well-defined. well, dealing with real life, quite often we have difficulty pinning down exactly what the problem is. furthermore, even when one or some of us define the problem as we see it, not surprisingly others see the world differently, and hence have different problem definitions. ssm suggests that real life is made up of a flux of events and activities which are constantly changing. thus, we have different stakeholders who have multiple and interacting perceptions of reality. this gives rise to one of the central and most enduring notions that underpin sssm, namely that of worldview. each one of us brings a different worldview to a given problematical situation, and construct our reality of the world as embedded in that situation based on that worldview. the next radical departure in ssm is its distinction between hard and soft systems. at surface value one tends to associate hard with things like deterministic, pre-defined, and algorithmic etc. and soft with human, behavioural, and indeterminate. while these do help us discern between hard and soft, for checkland this is not really what it is. soft systems in checkland’s view shifts systemicity from the world to systemicity in the mind. he does not consider systems as ontological entities that somehow map isomorphically to some objective real world. rather, systems are mental constructs in the mind of the perceivers. this puts checkland firmly in the camp of the social constructivists. it also draws the line in the sand when considering some other systems approaches. as opposed to construing the world as systemic, ssm calls for the process of enquiry about the world to be systemic. more so, the process of enquiry is construed as learning system. this leads to the idea of a never-ending cycle of applying ssm in an action research oriented way. we may tie this into the four main activities of 1) finding out about the problematical situation, 2) constructing purposeful models based on declared worldviews 3) comparing what we found out with the models as a way of creating structured discussions that enable the stakeholders to reach some form of accommodation about change, which hopefully leads to action to improve the problematical situation and the cycle repeats itself. for the purpose of this review it is not necessary to discuss the various tools and methods, covered in the chapter, that are embedded in ssm that enables the practitioner to apply it. suffice to say that ssm has 3 separate forms of analysis in relation to the intervention, roles and norms, and issues of power. it has sufficient practical power and clear guidelines on applications of these tools. the chapter is replete with the hand-drawn diagrammatic models that are the sine qua non of checkland and ssm itself. these are extremely powerful devices for learning, exploring and applying ssm. perhaps the strength of ssm is that its essential wisdom has become embedded in a single page as illustrated in the diagram in figure 5.29 (p.241) of the book. as has been the case with the chapter on system dynamics this chapter is largely drawn from a previous publication. in this case, it is based on checkland and poulter’s , learning for action: a short definitive account of soft systems methodology and its use for practitioners. the chapter is an excellent text for those who are already familiar with checkland's work. for those that are not, it is an exciting chapter, but will be a challenge. critical systems heuristics chapter 6 on critical systems heuristics (csh) is written by wernher ulrich the developer of the framework, together with martin reynolds, an experienced practitioner of csh and an academic at the open university in the united kingdom. reynolds is also one of the editors of the book itself. csh is meant to be a philosophical framework for supporting reflective practice. it is constructed around the tool of boundary critique, which in turn is about exploring and critiquing boundary judgments. the boundary judgments are guided by a set of 12 questions. these questions are drawn by considering the following sources of influence viz. motivation, control, knowledge and legitimacy, crossed against the following judgements informing a system of interest viz. social roles (stakeholders), specific concerns (stakes) and key problems (stakeholding issues). these yield the set of 12 boundary questions which are meant to show the differing and contrasting judgements about book review: systems thinking td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 129-135. 133 problem situations, and are a mechanism for understanding how people frame situations. the boundary questions may be asked in two modes the is mode and the ought mode. in essence, what the boundary questions are intended to do is to understand the multiple perspectives that people bring to a situation, making the boundary judgements explicit, and finding ways to deal with differences in a more constructive manner. the authors locate csh within two strands of theory, 1) systems thinking as embodied in the philosophical thought of c. west churchman, and 2) the tradition of pragmatism and practical philosophy in the works of charles peirce (1878), william james (1907) and john dewey (1925) combined with the tradition of european social theory as found in the work of habermas. the authors suggest that this unique combination of philosophical tradition and thought that has informed csh has enabled it to significantly influence critical systems thinking. a critical systems thinking approach accentuates that all approaches, methodologies, and models are partial and serve some interests better than they serve others. it is therefore important to explore what is included and what is left out and to explore situations from multiple perspectives. this is what csh enables systems practitioners to do. the chapter offers two case studies of csh in practice. the first is an evaluation study in botswana that looked at participatory planning for rural development in the area of natural resources use. the second considered participatory based decision making in a geographically distributed setting of stakeholder groups in remote areas in guyana. one of the objectives was to explore how various computer-assisted tools could assist in such kind of distributed decision making. there is a lot of detail on each of the case studies and how csh and boundary critique was used in two different ways in each of these case studies, respectively. the closing sections of the chapter touches on developing csh skills and competencies in boundary critique, the ethos of professional responsibility and complementarism with other methodologies to support reflective practice. i found this chapter rather dense and quite difficult to understand. it makes one feel that csh is not for the faint-hearted. while i accept the value of boundary judgments, and see the utility of some of the tools such as the framework of 12 questions for boundary critique and the “eternal triangle”, i find the rest of the presentation of csh rather abstruse. it seems to me that it should be left to those who prefer high-end philosophical musing and intellectual abstractions rather than the focus on the more prosaic issues that practitioners will be more comfortable with initially. admittedly, from all of the systems approaches covered in the book, critical systems heuristics, is the one that i am least familiar with. epilogue the final chapter and epilogue of the book begins to look at the commonalities between the five approaches. some of these include: • long established practice • rooted in systems concepts such as emergence, hierarchy and communication • focus on the 3 significant orientations of inter-relationships, multiple perspectives and boundary judgments • not static but have been subject to ongoing development based on learning from practice. • assume that complex situations cannot be resolved without iterative and cyclic processes • use of models and diagrams (with a particular focus on them as a means of learning) the chapter also considers the interaction of a particular methodology with its own practitioner community, with the wider systems community, and finally with other communities of practice. these distinctions are captured in three influence diagrams. the final pages of the book revisit the three media stories with light reference to each of the five approaches. bodhanya 134 reflections on the sum of the parts when picking up the book the first question that it begs is who is this meant for? this is not clear at first glance, and indeed still remains somewhat of a mystery even after having finished the book. herein, lay the first difficulty: what stance should be adopted in reviewing the work. given that the target reader has not been explicitly identified, one has to surmise by looking more closely at the title. i shall leave the first part of the title, systems approaches, aside for now. the title indicates that it is a practical guide, thus the book is really targeted at practitioners – but what type of practitioners? managing change hints that it will be a fairly broad sweep of practitioners i.e. managers in organisations that are involved in designing, implementing and overseeing change. the preface seems to confirm this as it refers to improving intervention to help change situations for the better. at one level, therefore, this book is about change management. it is curious that the book barely references any change management literature per se. this in itself speaks volumes. firstly, it indicates that there are domains and practitioner communities that are inherently concerned about change and improvement that are far removed from systems approaches. the accusation is levelled the other way as well. one notices that despite all the talk of change amongst systems scholars and practitioners, we tend to also not fully immerse ourselves in the context of our would-be adherents or beneficiaries in both scholarly and practitioner communities. there is hardly any mention of the vast change and organisational development (od) literature, or of authors such as lewin, kotter, bennis, moss kanter, schein and others. no mention of whole systems change a la emery and trist, future search, search conferences, appreciative inquiry, open space or scenario planning. while one may not expect a systems book to explore any of these in detail, they do warrant a mention if only to identify their shortcomings, in a book that is purportedly about managing change the editors state that: ... this volume is an accessible exposition of the fundamentals of five compatible but different approaches and in addition is an opportunity to update guidance on the use of each approach (p.1). i have some difficulty in fully understanding the choice of the five systems approaches despite the apparent motivation about the rich interplay between the situation, the practitioner community and the methodology of each. surely this applies to a variety of other approaches as well. for example, i believe that a chapter covering whole systems change approaches needs to be included in a book devoted to systems approaches to change. this, like an array of other approaches would also meet the criterion cited for inclusion in the previous sentence. i am also not as convinced about why a whole chapter was devoted to soda, as indicated in my discussion earlier. for a book about systems there is a paucity of accentuating the systemicity within the book itself. there is insufficient discussion about the relationships between the various approaches, how they may or may not be used in combination with each other, and what their strengths and weaknesses are in general and relative to each other. there is hardly any cross-referencing between chapters. i also believe that there was a missed opportunity that if pursued would have significantly enhanced this volume. there is a growing body of literature and an extended community of practitioners that draw on complexity theory and complex adaptive systems for working and dealing with complex, problematical situations. such work certainly warrants at least one chapter in the book. it is noteworthy that here was not even a mention of complexity theory or complex adaptive systems. this is regrettable as although systems scholars and complexity theorists are sometimes in contention, both fields of endeavour are also complementary in many ways and can enhance each other. finally, despite some of the minor misgivings that i have referred to in this review, my final observation is that, overall, this is an excellent resource that will be valuable to systems scholars and book review: systems thinking td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 129-135. 135 practitioners alike. it should at minimum be a reference source alongside other systems thinking resources such as jackson’s creative holism for managers, and senge’s the fifth discipline. dr shamim bodhanya, leadership centre, university of kwazulu-natal durban, south africa iii td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 2, december 2007, pp. i ix. taalbeleid van td td het sedert sy stigting in 2005 ten doel gehad om die beginsel van veeltaligheid ten volle te ondersteun. benewens erkenning vir die elf amptelike tale van suid-afrika, sal die redaksie bydraes in enige van die wêreldtale met groot graagte met die oog op publikasie in oorweging neem. die riglyne wat gevolg word in artikels van hierdie aard is in die redaksionele beleid vervat wat elders in die tydskrif verskyn. abstract introduction conclusion acknowledgement references footnotes about the author(s) bertha m. spies musical arts in south-africa: resources and applications, north-west university, south africa citation spies, b.m., 2017, ‘fusion of time and space in hans roosenschoon’s music: a pre-analytical strategy’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a343. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.343 original research fusion of time and space in hans roosenschoon’s music: a pre-analytical strategy bertha m. spies received: 05 may 2016; accepted: 26 aug. 2016; published: 28 apr. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract in order to promote access to non-tonal music, the fusion of musical time and space may be considered as a point of departure. as a pre-analytical strategy, it relies on direct experience of the music as it is heard instead of on specialised music theoretical knowledge. the music of hans roosenschoon is used to illustrate five ways in which the fusion of time and space manifests itself on a metaphorical level, namely the integration of western and african cultural spaces through music as a temporal art form, the blending of time and space in the music itself and the fusion of art music from the past with everyday life by electronic means. a true story from the south african past that combines with a visual image associated with cape town represents another version of fusing time and space, while on a metaphysical level past and present coalesce as melodic references to schubert’s music are used to signify abstract ideas. listening to music directly rather than through the filter of a rational analytical system helps to develop an appreciation of non-tonal music, a kind of music that is often regarded as inaccessible. introduction does beauty lead to wisdom, phaedrus? yes, but through the senses. (britten 1973) with these words the celebrated writer gustav von aschenbach begins his phaedrus monologue in benjamin britten’s death in venice, an opera based on thomas mann’s novella. von aschenbach’s monologue refers to plato’s dialogue between socrates and one of his young admirers, phaedrus. in the novella, the writer ‘is caught between apollonian order and dionysian licence’ (spies 2002:8). the conflict in his mind is portrayed by the combination of sound (musical and otherwise) and visual images when britten’s music accompanies picturesque shots of von aschenbach’s gondola trip to venice in tony palmer’s film version of britten’s opera (2012). the effect of moving images combined with music could be perceived as a kind of communication without words, of ‘speaking’ through the senses. on a subjective level, perceivers could interpret the message in various ways. but on a more concrete level this filmic version of von aschenbach’s trip to venice signifies in a dualistic way (reflecting his mind vacillating between the rational and the intuitive) the contrast between the impressive architectural structures, sometimes faintly visible through the enveloping mist, and the sound of water splashing against the gondola, the play of light on dark water and the sound of church bells (this excerpt of the film is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goqgctrwzqw). in another article i used the direct communication between a visual image and the viewer as the basis for my search for understanding ‘the interaction between two different cultures’ (spies 2016:32).1 i argued that the direct experience of melodic motifs can facilitate this project because ‘[m]usic is still the most immediate of all aesthetic experiences’ (kramer 1995:18) and, specifically, melodic contours ‘speak’ directly to the listener ‘without first having been subject to systematisation’, a strategy that is typical of musical analysis (spies 2011:188). in their discussion of ‘understanding in [the listener’s] response versus understanding through analysis’, koopman and davies (2001) differentiate between understanding ‘a work from the inside’ and analytical strategies that ‘approach music from the outside, that is as an artefact put together in an ordered way’ (267–268). anchored in 18th-century cartesian thought (christensen 1993), music theory as a discipline is, generally speaking, more concerned with rational operations than with the aesthetic experience of music as sound. this article aims to counter the traditional distrust of the senses by demonstrating that, specifically, sound (hearing and listening) and sight (seeing) can also facilitate access to non-tonal music, a kind of music that is often regarded as difficult to understand. in order to promote the direct experience of music, this article provides links to audio files on youtube. music is generally regarded as a temporal art form, but in spite of the 850 articles and books that deal with time and music listed in 1985, ‘musical time is not usually considered a subject of music theory at all’ (kramer 1988:2). although the issue of musical space ‘is a problem that has long concerned aestheticians’ (morgan 1980:528), even less has been written about the spatial nature of music. more specifically, susan mcclary state that ‘american musicology and music theory have rarely been interested in examining the temporal and spatial dimension of music per se’ (1989–1990:107). it seems as if the situation has not changed much because musical time and space still do not figure in the article on analysis in grove music online (bent & pople 2007–2016).2 the focus on musical time and space could be regarded as an approach that relies more on direct experience of the music and less on specialised music theoretical knowledge. it is therefore a pre-analytical strategy because it takes as its point of departure the music as it is heard – even an untrained person can hear when a sound is high or low, or when it goes up or down. small or big leaps, blocks of sound, thick or thin lines that move through space, with or without trills or smooth undulations such as tremolos, are also easily identifiable. indeed, eero tarasti (1994) asks: what else does a musical composition offer us but song lines, paths, routes we take through musical space? … listening to a composition is like journeying through this imaginary space. (p. 78) as music moves through structured space, ‘[m]usical space is thus inseparable from musical time, just as musical time is inseparable from musical space. … musical space is the framework within which, and through which, the actual sequence of musical events is shaped. … [t]he notion of musical space seems especially appropriate to much recent music’ (morgan 1980:529, 533). if the fusion of musical time and space is the point of departure in the pursuit of understanding non-tonal music, it could add a new dimension to existing systems of analysis. in this article, the notions of time and space are extended metaphorically because metaphor creates ‘new modes of representing or describing reality’ (kassler 1991:xi).3 with regard to musical space more specifically, in non-tonal music the notion of duration is not only restricted to note values, but it could be extended to include blocks of sound that are prolonged to create sound bands of various lengths and various thicknesses. what is more, these blocks or bands of sound can also have various textures (brittle, pizzicato, porous, solid or smooth), or they can have flat surfaces created by sustained notes or chords, repeated notes or chords, repeated melodic or rhythmic patterns. blocks or bands of sound are part of the three-dimensional model of tonal space that hans roosenschoon started working on when he was a student in london in the 1970s (pers. comm., 03 september 2015), a model that he still uses in his teaching at stellenbosch university (roosenschoon 2015). figure 1 shows his drawing of ways in which pitches combine to form various kinds of sound bands. figure 1: the combination of pitches forms blocks or bands of sound. dynamics and articulation also create the illusion of musical space – in figure 2 the sustained note in the first line, the squiggly patterns in the second and the isolated accents in the third line, respectively, represent the background, middle ground and foreground of musical space. figure 2: articulation and dynamics create levels of sound. figure 3 shows how the composer creates progression in music that does not rely on the functional harmonic structures of tonal music. figure 3: non-tonal means to produce progression. a variety of dynamics (loud, soft, getting louder, getting softer), changes in density and increasing or decreasing impulses per beat also help to establish points of arrival in bands of sound.4 creating points of arrival in this way has the same function as the harmonic progression that moves towards a cadence in tonal music. ‘variations in texture constitute one of the most important and readily observable features of musical development, and they produce an effect that is unmistakably “spatial” in quality’ (morgan 1980:528). timbre, tone quality, articulation and tempo also influence the effect of sound as it travels through time.5 analytical strategies normally include spatial concepts, but in my opinion they are not dealt with specifically as spatial phenomena. in the broadest terms, musical space entails the overall structure of the work, while smaller musical spaces involve movements, sections, phrases and motifs. melodies, rhythmic patterns, ostinatos, repetitions, chords and intervals, whether horizontal (melodic) or vertical (harmonic), also occupy spaces. roosenschoon defines stratified layers of sound as the vertical sound complex that changes from moment to moment as a result of the variable tone spectra and the varied dynamic impact of each individual moment. … it is the shaping of this sound complex – horizontally distributed layers and vertically distributed sound splashes – and the instrumentation that such geometric constructs calls for that are such tremendous creative challenges for me. (roosenschoon 2009) considering time and space as metaphors, i have chosen five topics to illustrate various ways in which hans roosenschoon fuses them in his music, including the integration of western and african cultural spaces in music as a temporal form of art, the blending of time and space in the music itself, and the fusion of art music from the past with everyday life by electronic means. a true story from the south african past that combines with a visual image associated with cape town represents another version of fusing time and space, while on a metaphysical level past and present coalesce as melodic references to schubert’s music are used to signify abstract ideas. music fuses western and african cultural spaces long before it was considered politically correct to incorporate indigenous african elements into western music, hans roosenschoon composed makietie for brass quintet (1978) while he was a student in london. the title of makietie is of zulu origin and the word itself is an informal afrikaans expression for a celebration. but the composer based the work on melodic materials borrowed from the xhosa song qongqothwane,6 because ‘[t]he physical earthiness and the unspoilt nature of indigenous african music, with its boundless energy attract him’ (du plessis 1989:43). players are instructed to whistle the tune, exhale through their instruments, produce tongue clicks and stamp their feet to produce a mood of uninhibited and spontaneous celebration. the song first appears almost as if out of focus, that is in 3/4 time instead of the original 4/4 time (see figure 4). eventually the real xhosa song crystallises towards the end of the work, but then not played by the instruments but whistled by the players. the fact that the original source of this work only appears later on in the work could be regarded as the music moving towards a point of arrival, or, as the composer later described the technique, as moving towards the origin (muller 2002). figure 4: qongqothwane as quoted in bars 43–12. qongqothwane begins with a descending major third interval (a–f) and the first four-bar phrase in figure 4 ends with a descending minor third (f–d). the melodic contours in this xhosa song are generally descending and the answering phrase ends with the last four pitches of the descending pentatonic scale (here a–g–f–d–c). by means of different kinds of variations the composer first explores the potential of the major third and after that the minor third to set up various kinds of textures and various kinds of layers. for example, from bar 31 (figure 5) staggered entries of sustained notes on a and f played by the two trumpets, the horn and the trombone occur. the auxiliary note figure created by microtonal inflections on a and f (in contrary motion) first changes into a slow trill figure and then systematically increases its number of impulses per beat, creating the effect of movement through space. later on in bar 118 (second system of figure 5) staggered entries of variations of the descending major and minor third eventually form a sound band consisting of five layers (the fifth layer played by the tuba is not shown in figure 5). figure 5: makietie, bands of sound consisting of repeated major and minor thirds. according to the south african composer bongani ndodana-breen, layered music is typical of african music. he also regards patterns that do not change, or patterns that grow in interaction with other patterns to change into new patterns, as typical of the music of the continent (in van rooyen 2013:3). spatial effects caused by the way in which pitch is organised in makietie include tremolos on the major third (at b. 60) and the minor third (at b. 126), a repetitive pattern based on the descending pentatonic three-note motif (g–f–d from b. 280) and the staggered entries of sustained notes from the pentatonic scale on d flat, introduced in descending order (bb. 489–493). the way in which time is organised also creates spatial effects. the systematic increase or decrease of the number of impulses per beat in asynchronic rhythmic patterns produces the effect of progression. (see figure 5, also bars 98–116 and 151–186.) considering the musical space as a whole, almost two-thirds through the piece (b. 316) the return of qongqothwane as it is quoted in bars 43–12 is prepared for by the repetition of the descending three-note pentatonic melodic pattern that is repeated for 16 bars (listen to makietie on youtube at https://youtu.be/diedzovjckg).7 fusion of time and space in the music itself when the south african broadcasting corporation (sabc) invited roosenschoon to compose a work that could be regarded as a ‘signature’ of his style, he took the request literally by using as point of departure a tone row of 14 notes derived from his name. anagram (1983) is not strictly serial, however, but the set of notes determines the nature of vertical and horizontal structures. although the composition reflects the principal characteristics of his style at the time, his later music turned out to be more accessible than this short five minute work with its strong modernist associations. controlled aleatory effects evoke lutosławskian soundscapes8 – a player or a group of players repeat a prescribed pattern until a specific moment has been reached. if such a fragment is followed by a straight line, ‘the given fragment is to be repeated ad libitum a number of times and is abruptly stopped at the conductor’s cue’. if the fragment is followed by a wavy line, it is repeated in the same manner, but then it ‘is to be completed when the conductor’s cue is given. … when more than one player is required to play an identical fragment, their playing need not be synchronized’ (according to the composer’s instructions in the score). the combination of layers creates prolonged bands of sound that fill the musical space. the nature of the ‘musical filling’, either in the form of sustained notes in the various parts, as unsynchronised trills and tremolos, as repeated patterns or as pointillist effects, results in thick or thin textures. when bands of sound systematically contract (for example, on pp. 5 and 6 of the score), they create points of arrival. even when they are static, the change in dynamics (such as effected by crescendo and sf) creates the effect of progression, a typical spatial characteristic (figure 6) (listen to anagram on youtube at https://youtu.be/4_lacjlbjjc). figure 6: anagram, page 1. fusion of music from the past with everyday life roosenschoon wrote if music be (1984), an electronic work for tape collage realised in a recording studio (1985), as ‘a homage to the art of j.s. bach. this tribute, however, is not in the form of an imitation of the bach style; rather, a sound adventure’ (roosenschoon 1986b:109). apart from the b–a–c–h motif, the bass line and short fragments from the crucifixus of his mass in b minor occur throughout the work and at some point these elements provide the basis for a pop song. fragments of music by other composers, for example, mozart (eine kleine nachtmusik) and dvořák (new world symphony) are also quoted. the title is taken from shakespeare’s twelfth night: ‘if music be the food of love, play on!’ near the end of the work roosenschoon (1986b) provides his own variation on the title: if love of play be the food of music if music feeds love’s play if play for food be loving music if love of music be food for play then music be the food of love. (p. 109) the music is written for a keyboard synthesizer, string ensemble, pop group and voices reciting a line. the introduction of familiar sound clippings taken from everyday environments creates experiences that range from the dramatic to the humorous and even the absurd. spatial effects are again created by layers of sound and electronic sound masses. in section ii a radio commentator reports on a horse race with the horses given the fictional names of if, lover, midsummer night, the duke, musical, exposition, presto, play on, joker and junk food, with play on announced as the winner. south african composer chris james (1986:111) regards ‘roosenschoon’s ability to draw on and integrate material from a wide variety of sources [as] remarkable and his instinctive feeling for drama and comic relief is noteworthy’ (listen to if music be on youtube at https://youtu.be/wjnfjyst-vu). fusion of a south african story with a visual image the cape malay song about the arrival of a ship, daar kom die alibama (here comes the alabama), forms the basis of architectura – a soundscape of cape town (1986a). during the american civil war this raider from the southern states visited cape town harbour for provisions and repairs in 1863. the alabama was met by a crowd of excited spectators and the result was the minstrel song, which is still sung during the new year’s celebrations of the malay people of cape town (stevens 2010) (the song is on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbro7dqo8dc). in minimalist fashion the first eight bars of the song are repeated over and over to portray the arrival and departure of the alabama (figure 7). at the beginning of the work the staggered entries in the style of a canon cause a systematic rise in pitch level. an increase in density is also linked with a systematic rise in dynamics at every level of entry. beginning in the dark, lowest register of the double basses playing pp, one can hear and almost see in one’s mind’s eye the approach of the famous ship the alabama, which comes from afar, and how it comes nearer and nearer to cape town’s harbour. similarly the opposite procedure, namely the systematic lowering of pitch levels, density and dynamics (from b. 292), depicts the alabama leaving the harbour. figure 7: architectura, bars 1–4 with the words of the afrikaans song. but this music could also represent a static picture and initially it reminded me – an idea most probably prompted by the title of the work – of the physical structure of a dutch gable, which is such a prominent architectural feature in the western cape. after i had written the initial version of this article, i asked the composer whether he had this architectural design in mind when he wrote architectura. he replied that he actually intended to portray table mountain, that famous landmark which appears on so many pictures of cape town (figure 8). so i made a graphic representation of the work and it indeed turned out to look more like table mountain than the dutch gable that i had in mind. figure 8: table mountain, cape town. the first 92 bars and the final 94 could be heard as a relative representation of the upward and downward slope of the mountain. the effect of the ascending slope is created by 11 entries of the alabama 8-bar phrase played by members of the string section, every entry being a fourth higher than the previous one. every entry is repeated until the intensity of the staggered entries is relaxed to create a kind of indent that leads to the middle section. in bar 115 a thick sound band that covers 4 and a half octaves introduces the middle section of the three-part structure. here the effect of stasis is the result when various patterns of sustained notes, repeated notes and repeated motifs are combined asynchronically to create bands of sound. at the climax in bar 285, preceded by an increase in density and dynamics, the first trumpet plays the alabama phrase. here the score shows 22 lines of thematic material because all the stringed instruments start at various points of the 8-bar alabama phrase to repeat the phrase until the end of the piece. beginning on e (bar 292), the first violin introduces the downward slope of the gable with an entry of the alabama phrase in c major. in figure 9 the right-hand bullets portray the downward slope of the gable or mountain side. each bullet represents the final note of the repeated 8-bar phrase, because after that note has been reached, that specific instrument is silent for the rest of the piece. the last four entries are again played in the lower register of the double basses. figure 9: graphic representation of architectura. it must have been the first impression of the ascending slope that reminded me of the dutch gable that features so prominently in the buildings of the western cape. so to conclude the discussion of architectura, i would like to include two versions of the dutch gable. the waviness in the outline of the gable in baroque style (figure 10) shows rococo influence and the gable of the school at noordhoek (figure 11) is a rare example of a stepped gable, a more accurate visual resemblance of the staggered entries of architectura. figure 10: back of ida’s valley, stellenbosch. figure 11: school at noordhoek. but whichever picture the music evokes in the listener’s mind, in architectura a true south african story from the distant past combines with a visual image that represents a specific static space, fusing time and space by means of musical expression (listen to architectura on youtube at https://youtu.be/uvzs5gfvgwg). fusing the past and the present through music roosenschoon’s menorah for orchestra (2005) fuses time and space as elements of schubert’s music merge with the musical representation of the structure of the candelabra to signify philosophical ideas. on the one hand, this work not only links with the musical past but also with the distant past of the composer’s ancestors and, on the other hand, it also resonates with sound effects of his physical space, that is, sound effects also associated with africa, to arrive at signification on a metaphysical level. he ascribes his interest in the kabbalah and the menorah to his fascination with his jewish connections in the distant past.9 according to a certain roosenschoon in the netherlands, where the composer was born, the surname is of swedish origin (rosensen); from there it travelled to germany (rosenschön) and after that immigrants took the surname to the netherlands (personal communication, march 1, 2013). in a number of compositions roosenschoon uses well-known motivic material from what are traditionally known as the baroque, the classical and the romantic eras. schubert’s (1817) an die musik and his incomplete eighth symphony are the inspiration for menorah. the layered musical texture of menorah was influenced by the composer’s involvement with the chopi and their participation in the performance of timbila:10 when one compares the xylophone music of timbila (1985) with, for example, the meno mosso section (beginning at b. 51) from menorah, the similarities between the sound complexes should, in my opinion, illustrate the … approach that i developed towards an assimilation of elements from african music. (personal communication, march 1, 2013) the seven sections resemble the menorah’s arch form on macro level: the first three gathering momentum as they unfold, arriving in the middle, the focal point of the work, where a very lyrical theme slowly evolves, and strengthening the idea of cycles even further. from there the work moves back, through three sections once again, to its origin – this path being different from the one it followed to the centre, yet having some resemblances to it. (roosenschoon 2013) musical space is filled with a seven note musical figure that also symbolises the seven arms of the menorah. this pattern a–b–c–a–g–e–f, which occurs throughout the work, relates to the opening theme of schubert’s unfinished symphony (roosenschoon 2006). the number 7 also plays an important role in the fashioning of the music as it proceeds through space: seven notes from the opening theme are rearranged seven times to form seven horizontal lines which serve either as the top, middle or bottom line onto which the composer attaches vertical sonorities. the introduction also establishes the importance of the number 7 through the way in which a motif expands systematically to seven impulses per bar (see figure 12). figure 12: menorah, bars 11–14. prominent melodic motifs in schubert’s lied an die musik, provide the basis for connecting roosenschoon’s music with metaphysical ideas. because these motifs are linked with words, it facilitates access to understanding on a deeper level of signification. a free english translation of franz von schober’s german poem is shown in box 1.11 box 1: words of an die musik (schubert). source: schubert (1817) the downward leap of a sixth that points to schubert’s an die musik plays an important role in roosenschoon’s composition – its first motif marked p espressivo is borrowed from the beginning of schubert’s lied more specifically the interval that accompanies ‘holde kunst’ (see figures 13 and 14). figure 13: roosenschoon, menorah, bars 1–7. figure 14: schubert, an die musik, beginning and end. at the end of the first verse of schubert’s an die musik the descending minor sixth appears against ‘bess’re’ and ‘welt’ [better, world]. this interval also accompanies ‘kunst’ and ‘danke’ at the end of the second and final verse, marked with slurs at the end of figure 14 [art, thank you]. the words ‘kunst, ich danke (dir!)’ also connect the leap c–e with g–b through ‘ich’ [i, the singer or musician] to form a three-note motif (c–e–g) that appears at the beginning of menorah (first motif in figure 13) (listen to menorah on youtube at https://youtu.be/2t1vofsdmrs). although the menorah is normally associated with judaism, for roosenschoon the candelabra with seven arms ‘symbolises purity, harmony and the perfection of heaven and earth’ (roosenschoon 2013). by linking with the specific phrase of schubert’s song, menorah may be regarded as a homage to music and a demonstration in sound of the inner bond between the composer and his art, music, as well as the belief in music’s potential to help create a better world: artists are like discoverers – what they innovate should, at least, be important to themselves, and to their development. if their work enlightens our experience of being in a spiritual sense, and in the lives we live in society, then this calls for a celebration. (roosenschoon 2013) conclusion this article showed how various ways in which musical time fuses with space, be it cultural, musical, social or historical space, can speak directly to listeners through their senses. finally, the discussion of menorah also showed that music, when aided by the words in schubert’s an die musik, has the ability to express abstract ideas on a metaphysical level. in the absence of a constative dimension,12 musical expression here relies on schubert’s motifs to emphasise the potential of music as an art that helps to create a better life. acknowledgement i would like to thank hans roosenschoon for putting at my disposal recordings of his music, scores, documents and correspondence. competing interests i declare that i have no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced me in writing this article. references bent, i.d. & pople, a., 2007–2016, ‘analysis’, in s. sadie (ed.), the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, viewed 10 january 2016, from http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com britten, b., 1973, death in venice: an opera in two acts, op. 88, faber, london. christensen, t., 1993, rameau and musical thought in the enlightenment, cambridge university press, cambridge. clifton, t., 1983, music as heard: a study in applied phenomenology, yale university press, new haven, ct. du plessis, p., 1989, ‘roosenschoon: composer’, ada: art, design. architecture 6, 42–43. fransen, h., 1969, architectural beauty of the old cape as seen by arthur elliott, a.a. balkema, cape town. james, c., 1986, ‘hans roosenschoon: if music be’, south african journal of musicology 6, 109–111. kassler, j.c. (ed.), 1991, metaphor: a musical dimension, gordon & breach, sydney, pp. xi–xii. koopman, c. & davies, s., 2001, ‘musical meaning in a broader perspective’, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 59(3), 261–273. kramer, j.d., 1988, the time of music: new meanings, new temporalities, new listening strategies, schirmer, new york. kramer, l., 1995, classical music and postmodern knowledge, university of california press, berkeley, ca. makeba, m., click song [sound recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onblru8sfok mcclary, s., 1989–1990, ‘this is not a story my people tell: musical time and space according to laurie anderson’, discourse 12(1), 104–128. morgan, r.p., 1980, ‘musical time/musical space’, critical inquiry 6(3), 527–538. muller, s.j.v.z., 2002, interview with hans roosenschoon, 05 december, provided by the composer. palmer, t., (producer), 2012, death in venice: the opera by benjamin britten [video recording]. excerpts from the film viewed 13 september 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goqgctrwzqw roosenschoon, h., 1978, makietie [sound recording]. https://youtu.be/diedzovjckg roosenschoon, h., 1983, anagram [sound recording]. https://youtu.be/4_lacjlbjjc roosenschoon, h., 1984, if music be [sound recording]. https://youtu.be/wjnfjyst-vu roosenschoon, h., 1985, timbila [sound recording]. http://youtu.be/arymzjv4mqk roosenschoon, h., 1986a, architectura: a soundscape of cape town [sound recording]. https://youtu.be/uvzs5gfvgwg roosenschoon, h., 1986b, ‘if music be – an introduction by the composer’, south african journal of musicology 6, 109–110. roosenschoon, h., 2005, menorah [sound recording]. https://youtu.be/2t1vofsdmrs roosenschoon, h., 2006, programme notes to the performance of menorah by the jpo on 22 and 23 march. roosenschoon, h., 2009, ‘between heaven and earth: cultural diversity in the music of hans roosenschoon’, keynote address presented at the conference music and migration organised by the new zealand musicological society, university of canterbury, christchurch. roosenschoon, h., 2013, hans roosenschoon homepage, viewed 28 january 2013, from http://www.roosenschoon.co.za/ roosenschoon, h., 2015, lecture notes. schubert, f., 1817, an die musik, op. 88, d547, viewed n.d., from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/an_die_musik spies, b.m., 1994, ‘oppervlakkonstrukte as sleutel tot dieperliggende strukturele verhoudings: ‘n huldeblyk aan witold lutosławski (1913 1994)’, suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir musiekwetenskap 14, 49–63. spies, b.m., 2002, ‘representation and function of characters from greek antiquity in benjamin britten’s death in venice’, literator 23, 1–18. spies, b.m., 2011, ‘tematiese fisionomie skep toegang tot drie uiteenlopende 20e-eeuse komposisies’ [thematic physiognomy creates access to three divergent 20th-century compositions], litnet akademies (geesteswetenskappe) 8(2), 188–209. http://www.oulitnet.co.za/akademies_geestes/pdf/la_8_2g_spies.pdf spies, b.m., 2014a, ‘signification in atonal, amotivic music? – extending the properties of actoriality in ligeti’s second string quartet’, semiotica: journal of the international association for semiotic studies 202, 321–343. spies, b.m., 2014b, ‘time and space – the context of hans roosenschoon’s music’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 10, 355–379. spies, b.m., 2016, ‘peter klatzow’s words from a broken string: two cultures meet in the distant past’, journal of the musical arts in africa, 13(1–2),32–51. stevens, j., 2010, here comes the alabama, viewed 2 april 2013, from http://www.jason-stevens.com/2010/07/here-comes-the-alabama-daar-kom-die-alabama/ tarasti, e., 1994, a theory of musical semiotics, indiana university press, bloomington. van rooyen, i., 2013, ‘laag op laag: talent en vernuwing’, die burger by, 16 march, p. 3. footnotes 1. two photos of the first performance of peter klatzow’s words from a broken string provided the basis for my argument in the last article. 2. the online version of the new grove dictionary of music and musicians gives 2007–2016 as the copyright date because it is ‘updated three times a year’ (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com). 3. this article does not deal with notational space (graphic representation of the score), physical performance space and ‘spatial’ music that refers to the position of speakers. 4. spies (2014a) proposed various modalities of goal-directed kinetic energy in györgy ligeti’s second string quartet (1968) in order to promote an understanding of the overall design. 5. clifton (1983) and tarasti (1994) provide more information on musical time and musical space. 6. this song, known as the click song, became famous through miriam makeba’s performance. listen on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onblru8sfok 7. i am grateful for the assistance of mart-mari swanevelder (north-west university) who, with the permission of the composer, uploaded his music to youtube. 8. see spies (1994) for a discussion of controlled aleatory in the creation of sound bands in lutosławski’s string quartet. 9. roosenschoon’s father told him about his jewish ancestry. 10. for a discussion of timbila, see spies (2014b). listen to this work on youtube at http://youtu.be/arymzjv4mqk 11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/an_die_musik 12. constative utterances express facts and true or false statements. tourists’ willingness to pay to view otters 97 td, 1 (1), december 2005 tourists’ willingness to pay to view otters along the wild coast, south africa: a potential for increased ecotourism lihle dumalisile, michael somers, michele walters & jan nel1 abstract. this article reports on tourists’ willingness to pay to view cape clawless otters aonyx capensis along the eastern cape wild coast, south africa. we collected data from a survey carried out using a structured, selfadministered questionnaire. we analyzed 67 completed questionnaires, of which 60 respondents (89.5%) indicated that they would be interested in viewing otters and would be prepared to pay an extra fee, over and above the normal entrance fees, for a trained guide to show them otters. the remaining 7 (10.4%) respondents indicated that they would reconsider and pay if this would create jobs for members of the local community. most (98.4% and 91.8%) of the respondents also indicated that they would still pay even if there was only a 50% or 25% chance of seeing otters. most of the respondents were willing to pay either less than r50.00 (ca us$8.00) or r50.00r100.00 to view otters regardless of the chances of seeing them. we conclude from our results that otters do have the potential to increase ecotourism in the area, and also to contribute financially to the poverty stricken local dwesa community. keywords. aonyx capensis, cape clawless otter, small carnivores, rural development. introduction visiting areas of natural beauty, or ecotourism, is gaining popularity in many countries around the world (gössling 1999; kepe 2001), and is assumed by some to provide a mechanism for the maintenance of biodiversity (miller et al. 1995). for instance, in gauteng province, ecotourism has replaced hunting as the primary revenue earner for the majority of game farms (reilly et al. 2003). in south africa tourism has been seen as a potential driving force behind national economic development and also as a catalyst for job creation (rogerson 2002). as effective job creation remains perhaps the most elusive objective of the south african government further expansion of the tourism industry is being actively pro1 lihle dumalisile, michael somer and michele walters are are attached to the applied behaviour and ecology laboratory, centre for invasion biology, department of zoology, walter sisulu university, private bag x1, 5117 unitra, south africa. jan a.j. nel is attached to the department of zoology and botany, university of stellenbosch, private bag x1, 7602 matieland, south africa. all correspondence should be addressed to michael somer at michaelsomers@yahoo.com. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 1 no. 1, december 2005 pp.97-106 dumalisile, somers, walters & nel 98 moted by all (mahony & van zyl 2002). small carnivores are shy and secretive in behaviour. as a result, they have often been overlooked in biodiversity and conservation management studies. as the economic impact (real or perceived) of wildlife has a strong influence on people’s attitudes towards conservation (infield 1988), it is unfortunate that small carnivores are often overlooked from an economic perspective. large carnivores, on the other hand, are frequently the main focus when it comes to carnivore conservation, with the rationale being that carnivores are renaissance taxa, involving a synthesis of conservation problems, causal factors and solutions (gittleman et al. 2001) and that protection of other taxa in lower trophic levels is assured. small carnivores can be popular with the general public but are just seldom seen and therefore not appreciated. by virtue of their popularity with the public (white et al. 1997; 2001) otters are ideal targets for conservation strategies based on financial incentives from ecotourism. cape clawless otters aonyx capensis are widely distributed in sub-saharan africa (rowe-rowe & somers 1998; nel & somers 2002) and occur mainly in freshwater habitats such as rivers, marshes, lakes and dams where they eat predominantly freshwater crabs potamonautes spp. they also occur in marine habitats where there is fresh water nearby (van niekerk et al. 1998). cape clawless otters usually feed alone but they may occur in groups of up to five (rowe-rowe 1978; arden-clarke 1983; somers 2000a). they are specialized crab eaters, but also feed on fish, frogs, insects and occasionally birds (waterfowl) and small mammals, such as shrews and rodents (reviewed in rowe-rowe & somers 1998). in marine habitats they eat mostly fish followed first by crabs, then by octopus or lobster (van der zee 1979, 1981; arden-clarke 1983; verwoerd 1987; somers 2000a, b). cape clawless otters are typically active from dawn for 2.6 h and from sunset for a mean of 2.3 h (somers & nel 2004). during the heat of the day they rest in dry places, in holes in the ground, under rocks, in sheltered places in erosion gullies or in dense reed beds adjacent to their habitat (somers 2001). the pattern of female home ranges suggests territoriality. males have overlapping home ranges, both with other males and females (somers & nel 2004). in fresh water, total home range length varies from 4.9 to 54.1 km. the total area of water used ranges from 4.9 to 1062.5 ha (somers & nel 2004). in a marine habitat home range varies from 5.4 to 19.5 km of coast (arden-clarke 1986). the research, conducted for the purposes of this study, was aimed at determining whether tourists at dwesa nature reserve on the coast of the eastern cape province were interested in seeing otters and whether they were willing to pay to do so. this was done through a questionnaire survey directed at tourists visiting this reserve. tourists’ willingness to pay to view otters 99 td, 1 (1), december 2005 study area and methods sampling was done in dwesa nature reserve, which is situated on the eastern cape wild coast in south africa between 32°12’ – 32°20’s and 28°48’ – 28°58’e (mckenzie 1979). the reserve is ca 3900 ha in size and is contiguous with cwebe nature reserve (2140 ha) to the north. vegetation types are mainly coastal forest, thornveld and valley bushveld (acocks 1988). the area has a warm temperate climate with the coldest months being between -3°c and 18°c and the warmest months below 22°c, but at least four months above 10°c. annual precipitation is 875mm, falling between september and january with the dry season lasting from may to august, with approximately 35-40mm falling in each of these months (mckenzie 1979). a survey procedure was used to assess if tourists at dwesa would be interested in seeing otters and, furthermore, if they would be willing to pay a trained guide to show them otters. to give the respondents the opportunity to complete the questionnaires in their own time, the survey was done by way of a structured, self-administered questionnaire. a total of 120 questionnaires were handed out to tourists between july and october 2004. tourists were presented with the questionnaires upon their arrival at dwesa and asked to fill them in and return them to the reception desk when finished. the questionnaire contained a brief introduction stating who was administering it, what the aim was and that the information may be used by management for future planning. there were 30 questions which consisted of different structured questions including open questions, closed questions and rank ordering questions. some of the questions were personal (such as gender, age, nationality, residency, level of education, income, reasons for visiting dwesa). a chi square (χ2) test was used to test for independence between nationality (south african vs. non-south african) of the respondents and willingness to pay a trained guide to show them otters, and also between the respondents’ knowledge of otters and their willingness to pay. results we received 67 completed questionnaires. many of the respondents did not respond to personal questions such as age, gender, residency, level of education and income. responses to some of the questions are provided in table 1.2 six (9.0%) respondents were not interested in paying a trained guide to show them otters and one (1.5%) was undecided. all the respondents that were initially uninterested in paying and the one that was undecided indicated that they would reconsider and pay if it meant employment of members of the dwesa community. nationality and willingness to pay a trained guard were independent of 2. see table at the end of this text. dumalisile, somers, walters & nel 100 each other (χ2 = 2.67, df = 1, p = 0.10) as was the respondent’s knowledge of otters and their willingness to pay (χ2= 0.30, df = 1, p = 0.58). most of the respondents were willing to pay either less than r50.00 (ca us$8.00) or r50.00-r100.00 to view otters regardless of the chances of seeing them. we found that the number of respondents that would pay less than r50.00 to view otters, increased as the percentage chance of seeing otters decreased, while the number of respondents that would pay r50.00-r100.00 to view otters decreased as the percentage chances decreased (fig. 1). five (8.3%) respondents indicated that they would pay r100-r150 for both 100% and 50% chances of seeing otters and 1 (1.8%) would pay the same amount for 25% chances of seeing otters. none of the respondents would pay r150-r200 to view otters, while only one (1.7%) would pay more than r200 for all chances of seeing otters (fig. 1). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 <r50 r50-r100 r100-r150 r150-r200 >r200 amount p er ce nt ag es 100% 50% 25% figure 1. the willingness to pay varying amounts for different chances of seeing cape clawless otters aonyx capensis in dwesa nature reserve. discussion the most striking result is that almost all tourists to dwesa nature reserve wanted to view otters and were willing to pay to do this. also those respondents who showed no interest in paying a trained guide to show them otters, indicated that they would reconsider and pay that would create employment opportunities for members of the dwesa community. considering the percentage of tourists willing to pay to view the rare and endangered african wild dog lycaon pictus in four large south african reserves namely kruger national park (73.4%), pilanesberg national park tourists’ willingness to pay to view otters 101 td, 1 (1), december 2005 (78.9%), djuma game reserve (52.3%), and ngala game reserve (65%) (lindsey et al. 2005), otters appear to be highly rated as a species to view. however the amount ($12.00-$59.00) (lindsey et al. 2005) tourists are willing to pay to view wild dogs was greater than for otters. unexpectedly we found that the number of respondents that would pay less than r50.00 to view otters increased as the percentage chance of seeing otters decreased. this we consider a result of our small sample size and as expected the number of respondents that would pay r50.00r100.00 to view otters decreased as the percentage chances decreased. there were no unexpected results from comparing the willingness to pay and gender, age and residency of the respondents. it was expected that with some knowledge would come a greater desire to see otters. our results did not show this. this is perhaps due to us not specifying the source of knowledge (that is whether in the wild, on television, in a picture or otherwise). also unexpectedly the nationality of the respondents and their willingness to pay shows that nationality and the willingness to pay were not related. the reason for these two findings may simply be that almost all were willing to pay. as expected non-south africans were willing to pay more than south africans for such a unique experience. guiding offers opportunities to expand community involvement, through employment of game guides, and environmental education components of ecotourism with the quality of wildlife viewing possibly significantly improved through the use of guides (kerley et al. 2003). we propose that the ease with which otters can be viewed at dwesa be investigated and appropriate arrangements made to train guides to observe the otters in the present study area. at kogel bay in false bay (western cape province, south africa) it is possible, with some training, to view otters on 30% of visits (somers 2000a). we predict a similar or better chance of seeing otters along the pristine eastern cape wild coast. as many tourists are willing to pay r50.00 or more to view otters, a steady income for at least one trained guide at each suitable reserve along the wild coast (and perhaps elsewhere) is attainable. this would involve ca three hours of work in the early morning to catch the ca 2.6 hours of otter activity (somers & nel 2004). seeing otters during the nocturnal activity bout is not considered feasible. also, most of the respondents visited dwesa for holiday or some other nature based activities such as fishing, sightseeing or bird watching. we propose that watching otters or other taxa besides birds should be encouraged and actively promoted. we conclude from our results that otters do have the potential to increase ecotourism in the area, and also to contribute financially to the poverty stricken local dwesa community, and possibly other communities along the wild coast. finally it is essential to be realistic about the impacts of tourism investment on the rural development and economic growth (mahony & van zyl 2002). local tourism initiatives may contribute to addressing local socioeconomic needs; but they have limited impacts on a macro scale (mahony dumalisile, somers, walters & nel 102 & van zyl 2002). we therefore do not propose otter ecotourism to be a solution to the greater problem of poverty but only a small contribution. acknowledgements we thank all those members of the public who completed our questionnaire. mandisa mgobozi is thanked for assistance in the field. we thank the staff at dwesa nature reserve for permission to do the work and for distributing the questionnaires. markus gusset is thanked for useful comments on the manuscript. we thank the national research foundation (ld, mjs, mw jajn) and dst-nrf centre of excellence for invasion biology (mjs) for funding. tourists’ willingness to pay to view otters 103 td, 1 (1), december 2005 table 1. results of a questionnaire to determine willing to pay to view cape clawless otters aonyx capensis at dwesa nature reserve. values outside parentheses refer to number of respondents and values inside parentheses refer to percentages. t otal g en d er a ge (in years) r esid en cy1 n ation ality2 p ers. e xp erien ce3 k n ow led ge4 m ale f em ale 1 6 3 0 3 1 4 5 4 6 6 0 u rb an r u ral s a n on -s a y es n o y es n o a re you in terested in seein g otters? y es 6 1 (9 1 .0 ) 2 5 (8 6 .2 ) 2 6 (1 0 0 ) 1 2 (1 0 0 ) 1 5 (1 0 0 ) 6 (8 5 .7 ) 2 9 (9 6 .7 ) 2 (1 0 0 ) 4 3 (8 9 .6 ) 1 8 (9 4 .7 ) 3 0 (8 8 .2 ) 3 1 (9 3 .9 ) 3 4 (9 1 .9 ) 2 7 (9 0 .0 ) n o 5 (7 .5 ) 3 (1 0 .3 ) 5 (1 0 .4 ) 4 (1 1 .8 ) 1 (3 .0 ) 3 (8 .1 ) 2 (6 .7 ) u n d ecid ed 1 (1 .5 ) 1 (3 .4 ) 1 (1 4 .3 ) 1 (3 .3 ) 1 (5 .3 ) 1 (3 .0 ) 1 (3 .3 ) w ou ld you b e p rep ared to p ay an extra fee for a train ed gu ard to sh ow you otters? (1 0 0 % ch an ces) y es 6 0 (8 9 .5 ) 2 6 (8 9 .7 ) 2 5 (9 6 .2 ) 1 2 (1 0 0 ) 1 4 (9 3 .3 ) 7 (1 0 0 ) 3 0 (1 0 0 ) 1 (5 0 .0 ) 4 1 (8 5 .4 ) 1 9 (1 0 0 ) 2 9 (8 5 .3 ) 3 1 (9 4 .0 ) 3 3 (8 9 .2 ) 2 7 (9 0 .0 ) n o 6 (9 .0 ) 3 (1 0 .3 ) 6 (1 2 .5 ) 5 (1 4 .7 ) 1 (3 .0 ) 4 (1 0 .8 ) 2 (6 .7 ) u n d ecid ed 1 (1 .5 ) 1 (3 .8 ) 1 (6 .7 ) 1 (5 0 .0 ) 1 (2 .1 ) 1 (3 .0 ) 1 (3 .3 ) if yes, h ow m u ch w ou ld you b e p rep ared to p ay? < r 5 0 2 7 (4 4 .3 ) 9 (3 4 .6 ) 1 3 (5 0 .0 ) 6 (5 0 .0 ) 5 (3 3 .3 ) 4 (5 7 .1 ) 1 2 (4 0 .0 ) 2 (1 0 0 ) 2 1 (5 0 .0 ) 6 (3 1 .6 ) 1 6 (5 5 .2 ) 1 1 (3 4 .4 ) 1 7 (5 1 .5 ) 1 0 (3 5 .7 ) r 5 0 -r 1 0 0 2 8 (4 5 .9 ) 1 2 (4 6 .2 ) 1 3 (5 0 .0 ) 6 (5 0 .0 ) 9 (6 0 .0 ) 2 (2 8 .6 ) 1 5 (5 0 .0 ) 1 8 (4 2 .9 ) 1 0 (5 2 .6 ) 1 1 (3 7 .9 ) 1 7 (5 3 .1 ) 1 2 (3 6 .4 ) 1 6 (5 7 .1 r 1 0 0 -r 1 5 0 5 (8 .3 ) 4 (1 5 .4 ) 1 (6 .7 ) 2 (6 .7 ) 2 (4 .8 ) 3 (1 5 .8 ) 2 (6 .9 ) 3 (9 .4 ) 3 (9 .1 ) 2 (7 .1 ) r 1 5 0 -r 2 0 0 > r 2 0 0 1 (1 .7 ) 1 (3 .9 ) 1 (1 4 .3 ) 1 (3 .3 ) 1 (2 .4 ) 1 (3 .1 ) 1 (3 .0 ) if th ere w as on ly a 5 0 % ch an ce of seein g otters, w ou ld you still b e p rep ared to p ay? y es 6 0 (9 8 .4 ) 2 6 (1 0 0 ) 2 5 (9 6 .2 ) 1 2 (1 0 0 ) 1 4 (9 3 .3 ) 7 (1 0 0 ) 3 0 (1 0 0 ) 1 (5 0 ) 4 1 (9 7 .6 ) 1 9 (1 0 0 ) 2 9 (1 0 0 ) 3 1 (9 6 .9 ) 3 3 (1 0 0 ) 2 7 (9 6 .4 ) n o 1 (1 .6 ) 1 (3 .8 ) 1 (6 .7 ) 1 (5 0 ) 1 (2 .4 ) 1 (3 .1 ) 1 (3 .6 ) if yes, h ow m u ch w ou ld you b e p rep ared to p ay? (5 0 % ch an ce) < r 5 0 3 2 (5 3 .3 ) 1 2 (4 6 .2 ) 1 6 (6 4 .0 0 8 (6 6 .7 ) 6 (4 2 .9 0 4 (5 7 .1 ) 1 4 (4 6 .7 ) 1 (1 0 0 ) 2 5 (6 1 .0 0 7 (3 6 .8 ) 2 0 (6 9 .0 ) 1 2 (3 8 .7 ) 2 0 (6 0 .6 ) 1 2 (4 4 .4 ) r 5 0 -r 1 0 0 2 2 (3 6 .7 ) 1 0 (3 8 .5 ) 9 (3 6 .0 ) 4 (3 3 .3 ) 7 (5 0 .0 0 2 (2 8 .6 ) 1 3 (4 3 .3 ) 1 2 (2 9 .3 ) 1 0 (5 2 .6 ) 7 (2 4 .1 ) 1 5 (4 8 .4 ) 1 0 (3 0 .3 ) 1 2 (4 4 .4 ) r 1 0 0 -r 1 5 0 5 (8 .3 ) 3 (1 1 .5 ) 1 (7 .1 ) 2 (6 .7 ) 3 (7 .3 ) 2 (1 0 .5 ) 2 (6 .9 ) 3 (9 .7 ) 2 (6 .1 ) 3 (1 1 .1 ) r 1 5 0 -r 2 0 0 > r 2 0 0 1 (1 .7 ) 1 (3 .8 ) 1 (1 4 .3 ) 1 (3 .3 ) 1 (2 .4 ) 1 (3 .2 ) 1 (3 .0 ) if th ere w as on ly a 2 5 % ch an ce of seein g otters, w ou ld you still b e p rep ared to p ay? y es 5 6 (9 1 .8 ) 2 4 (9 2 .3 ) 2 3 (8 8 .5 ) 1 1 (9 1 .7 ) 1 3 (8 6 .7 ) 5 (7 1 .4 ) 2 8 (9 3 .3 ) 3 7 (8 8 .1 ) 1 9 (1 0 0 ) 2 6 (8 9 .7 ) 3 0 (9 3 .8 ) 3 1 (9 3 .9 ) 2 5 (8 9 .3 ) n o 5 (8 .2 ) 2 (7 .7 ) 3 (1 1 .5 ) 1 (8 .3 ) 2 (1 3 .3 ) 2 (2 8 .6 ) 2 (6 .7 ) 2 (1 0 0 ) 5 (1 1 .9 ) 3 (1 0 .3 ) 2 (6 .3 ) 2 (6 .1 ) 3 9 1 0 .7 ) if yes, h ow m u ch w ou ld you b e p rep ared to p ay? (2 5 % ch an ce) < r 5 0 4 0 (7 1 .4 ) 1 5 (6 2 .5 ) 1 7 (7 3 .9 ) 1 0 (9 0 .9 ) 5 (3 8 .5 ) 2 (4 0 .0 ) 1 5 (5 3 .6 ) 2 9 (7 8 .4 ) 1 1 (5 7 .9 ) 2 0 (7 6 .9 ) 2 0 (6 6 .7 ) 2 4 (7 7 .4 ) 1 6 (6 4 .0 ) r 5 0 -r 1 0 0 1 4 (2 5 .0 ) 7 (2 9 .2 ) 6 (2 6 .1 ) 1 (9 .1 ) 8 (6 1 .5 ) 2 (4 0 .0 ) 1 1 (3 9 .3 ) 7 (1 8 .9 ) 7 (3 6 .8 ) 6 (2 3 .1 ) 8 (2 6 .7 ) 6 (1 9 .4 ) 8 (3 2 .0 0 r 1 0 0 -r 1 5 0 1 (1 .8 ) 1 (4 .2 ) 1 (3 .6 ) 1 (5 .3 ) 1 (3 .3 ) 1 (4 .0 ) r 1 5 0 -r 2 0 0 > r 2 0 0 1 (1 .8 ) 1 (4 .2 ) 1 (2 0 .0 ) 1 (3 .6 ) 1 (2 .7 ) 1 (3 .3 ) 1 (3 .2 ) 1 r esid en cy: r efers to th e qu estion w h eth er a resp on d en t lives in a ru ral or u rb an area. 2 n ation ality: r efers to w h eth er a resp on d en t is a s ou th -a frican citizen or n ot. 3 p ers. e xp erien ce: r efers to w h eth er a resp on d en t h as ever seen an otter or n ot. 4 k n ow led ge: r efers to w h eth er a resp on d en t h as an y k n ow led ge of dumalisile, somers, walters & nel 104 references acocks, j.p.h. 1988. veld types of southern africa. mem. bot. surv. s. afr. 57: 1-128. arden-clarke, c.h.g. 1983. population density and social organisation of the cape clawless otter, aonyx capensis schinz, in the tsitsikama coastal national park. m.sc. thesis, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa. arden-clarke, c.h.g. 1986. population density, home range size and spatial organization of the cape clawless otter, aonyx capensis, in a marine habitat. j. zool., lond. 209: 201-211. gittleman, j.l., funk, s.m., macdonald, d.w. &. wayne, r.k. 2001. why ‘carnivore conservation’? in: j.l. gittleman, s.m. funk, d.w. macdonald &. r.k. wayne (eds.), carnivore conservation (pp. 1-8). cambridge university press, cambridge. gössling, s. 1999. ecotourism: a means to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem functions? ecol. econ. 29: 303-320. infield, m., 1988. attitudes of a rural community towards conservation and a local conservation area in natal, south africa. biol. conserv. 45: 21–46. kepe, t. 2001. tourism, protected areas and development in south africa: views of visitors to mkambati nature reserve. s. afr. j. wildl. res. 31: 155-159. kerley, g.i.h., geach, b.g.s. & vial, c. 2003. jumbos or bust: do tourists’ perceptions lead to an under-appreciation of biodiversity? s. afr. j. wildl. res. 33: 13-21. lindsey, p., alexander, r.r., du toit, j.t. & mills, m.g.l. 2005. the potential contribution of ecotourism to african wild dog lycaon pictus conservation in south africa. biol. conserv. 123: 339-348. mahony, k. & van zyl, j. 2002. the impacts of tourism investment on rural communities: three case studies in south africa. dev. sth. afr. 19: 83-102. mckenzie, b. 1979. the grasslands of the dwesa nature reserve. habitat working group report, university of cape town. miller, k., allegretti, m.h., johnson, n. & jonsson, b. 1995. measures for conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of its components. in: v.h. heywood (ed.), global biodiversity assessment (pp. 915-1061). united 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availability and distribution of cape clawless otter spraints and resting places along the south-west coast of south africa. s. afr. j. wildl. res. 28: 68-72. verwoerd, d.j. 1987. observations on the food and status of the cape clawless otter aonyx capensis at betty’s bay, south africa. s. afr. j. zool. 22: 33-39. white, p.c.l., bennett, a.c. & hayes, e.j.v. 2001. the use of willingness-to-pay approaches in mammal conservation. mammal. rev. 31: 151-167. dumalisile, somers, walters & nel 106 white, p.c.l., gregory, k.w., lindley, p.j. & richards, g. 1997. economic values of threatened mammals in britain: a case study of the otter lutra lutra and the water vole arvicola terrestris. biol. conserv. 82: 345-354. students’ hiv/aids awareness 165 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 165-180 hiv/aids perceptions, attitudes and awareness of undergraduate students christo van wyk� abstract. the central question to be examined revolves around the perceptions, attitudes and awareness regarding hiv/aids among undergraduate students at the north-west university (vaal triangle campus). therefore, the objective of this research was to assess these perceptions, attitudes and awareness regarding hiv/aids. a convenience sample of undergraduate students was used in a cross-sectional design (n = 290). a semi-standardised questionnaire as well as a biographical questionnaire was administered. the semi-standardised questionnaire was proven to be reliable. cronbach’s alpha coefficient of between 0.65 and 0.71 was obtained. descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. results indicated that students experienced and perceived differences with regards to their biographical variables in terms of their perceptions, attitudes and awareness regarding hiv/ aids. differences were also found between students in different study modules and study years. the findings revealed that the majority of the students were quite knowledgeable regarding hiv/aids. while some students had detailed knowledge of the disease and its prevention, others (the minority) were either completely ignorant about it or deny its existence. recommendations were made for future research in the area of hiv/aids within the context of tertiary education. keywords: hiv/aids, perceptions, undergraduate students. introduction hiv/aids has reached epidemic proportions in south africa and has serious consequences for individuals as well as for south africa’s health resources and the economy. the negative impact of hiv/aids may in future adversely affect efforts directed at addressing structural problems, including high levels of unemployment, the skills shortage and high levels of income inequality. as human beings search for order and meaning in their different environments, they struggle to explain the causes of the events they observe. there are different theories that can be applied when testing people’s perceptions, for instance the ecological theory, the attitude theory and the attribution theory. for this research, it has been decided ��� prof. christo van wyk is attached to the prof. christo van wyk is attached to the workwell research unit for people, policy & performance, school of behavioural sciences, north-west university (vaal triangle campus). td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 165-180 van wyk 166 to use the latter. attribution theory is seen as very relevant to the study of a person’s perceptions, event perceptions and attitude change, which can than lead to individuals impacting their own self-esteem, as well as their own levels of anxiety. examples of self-attribution theory include situations that may be positive or negative. the attribution theory also explains how we judge others. we observe their behaviour, we evaluate their behaviour as intention or purpose, and then we draw a conclusion, which is an attributed disposition. inaccurate or not, this is a common human behaviour that transcends many social interactions (heider, 1944; jones & davis, 1965; kelley, 1967). the aim of this study is to analyse the perceptions, attitudes and levels of awareness of undergraduate students at the north-west university (vaal triangle campus) in south africa regarding hiv/aids. it focuses on the knowledge level, attitudes, practices and behavioural factors central in influencing the students’ views of the epidemic. for this research, a quantitative design was used and a total of 290 students responded by completing a semi-standardised questionnaire as well as a biographical questionnaire. problem statement two decades have passed since the start of the epidemic caused by the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, otherwise known as aids. the literature on aids is extensive, yet relatively little attention has been devoted to testing the perceptions of the different role players, and more specifically the youth, regarding this disease. by the end of 2002, the number of people living with hiv/aids worldwide was estimated at 42 million. of these, 3.2 million were children under the age of 15 years (unaids and who, 2002). more than 90% of all adult hiv infections occur in developing countries and two-thirds occur in subsaharan africa. the south african population was expected to grow from 43.7 million in 1999 to 51.3 million in 2010 in the absence of hiv/aids. however, because of the high incidence of hiv/aids, the population is only expected to reach 47 million in 2010 (kaiser family foundation, 2000). it was estimated that the hiv-positive population in 2004 in south africa was approximately 3.83 million, which translates into an hivprevalence rate of 15.2% of the adult population. the accumulated aids deaths up to 2004 were estimated to be 1.94 million (stats sa, 2004). hiv/aids is one of the leading causes of death in sub-saharan africa and is a major contributor to the infectious disease component of the present and future disease burden. in south africa, the number of deaths due to aids is expected to increase from 120 000 in 2000 to between 545 000 and 635 000 in 2010 (kaiser family foundation, 2000). abt associates (2000) project that by 2010 the labour force will, in the students’ hiv/aids awareness 167 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 165-180 absence of substitution, decline by 8% for the highly skilled, 10% for the skilled and 11-13% for the semiand unskilled workers. quattek (2000) predicts an average decline of 10% over the period 20002015 across all skills levels. as a result it may be difficult to maintain and increase the pool of sufficiently skilled people needed to match the skills demand as well as the expected economic growth. vass (2002) reported that this situation may not ease, as hiv/aids is likely to exacerbate the current shortage of skilled labour in the absence of sufficient replacements and retraining. the epidemic also affects many people’s life expectancy at birth. during the period 1996-1999, the life expectancy in the era of aids in south africa declined from 63 to 55 years. in neighbouring countries also hard hit by the disease, namely botswana and zimbabwe, life expectancy dropped from 65 to 47 years and from 53 to 44 years respectively (sunter & whiteside, 2000). according to van aardt (1999), about 21% of south africa’s workforce will be hiv-infected by 2010 and about 3% will have full-blown aids. in the same period, the number of employees lost to aids could amount to between 40% and 50% of the current workforce in some south african companies (kaiser family foundation, 2000). year early stages middle stages later stages total 2002 1 810 120 2 458 040 931 840 5 200 000 2004 1 659 080 2 815 480 1 425 440 5 900 000 2006 1 795 600 2 955 370 1 949 030 6 700 000 2008 2 123 250 3 142 500 2 234 250 7 500 000 table 1 hiv-positive population by stage, 2002 to 2008 in south africa (source: bmr, 2004). a significant increase in the number of hiv-positive people in the various stages of the hiv/aids lifecycle, particularly the later stages, is expected during the period 2002 to 2008. table 1 reflects the estimated number of people in south africa in the early, middle and late stages of the hiv/aids lifecycle during this period. it appears from table 1 that the number of south africans in the early stages of the hiv/aids lifecycle will show only limited growth from about 1,8 million in 2002 to about 2,1 million in 2008 (17% growth rate). however, far stronger growth (28%) is anticipated in the middle stages, namely from about 2,5 million in 2002 to about 3,1 million in 2008, while the strongest growth (140%) is expected in the number of people in the later stages of the hiv/aids lifecycle, namely from about 0,9 million in 2002 to about 2,2 million in 2008 (bmr, 2004). vass (2002) reports that the macro-economic modelling results indicate that, given the impact of hiv/aids, labour force growth will decline, van wyk 168 resulting in a smaller labour force when compared to a no-aids scenario. quattek (2000) predicts an 18% decline in the labour force by 2015, while abt/metropolitan predicts a decline of 21% by 2015 (ber 2001). the projected reduction in the labour force follows from the projected reduction in the population growth rate to 0% in 2009 and a negative growth rate of -0.5% by 2015. there has not been much research on the perceptions, attitudes and awareness of undergraduate students regarding the epidemic. pretorius, roos and visser (1995) conducted a qualitative investigation to explore the perceptions and quality of human conduct of students with regard to hiv/aids in depth, and to elicit their views on possible components of an effective campus hiv/aids prevention strategy. they came to the conclusion that students fear hiv/aids. furthermore, they concluded that students are aware of the disease, but do not really understand it. there is a need for the integration of facts gleaned mainly from the media. this lack of understanding may be contributing to their fear. grunseit & aggleton (1998) came to the conclusion in their research that it would appear that education may have greater success when it comes to changing attitudes and increasing levels of factual knowledge than in modifying sexual practice. culture plays a vital role in determining the level of health of the individual, the family and the community. this is particularly relevant in the context of africa where the values of extended family and community significantly influence the behaviour of the individual (airhihenbuwa & webster, 2004). the research of norman & carr (2003) also indicated that it is clear that culturally-appropriate and stage-specific strategies are urgently needed. stage description 1 who stage 1: acute hiv infection 2 who stage 2: early disease 3 who stage 3: late disease 4 who stage 4: aids 5 receiving antiretroviral treatment 6 discontinued antiretroviral treatment table 2 stages of hiv/aids used in assa 2002 (source: dorrington, bradshaw, johnson and budlender, 2004). the ultimate stage of the virus is full-blown aids. at this stage, in most cases symptoms such as weight loss and balding start to show. chronic diarrhoea is also common. a majority of respondents, having heard about the symptoms or having seen aids victims, felt that co-workers with fullblown aids should be put off work and be given sick pensions. this was based on the fact that people suffering from aids would not cope with students’ hiv/aids awareness 169 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 165-180 duties performed in the mine, which demand physical strength. some of them looked at the situation from an economic perspective and felt that the longer people with aids stayed on board; the more there would be a decline in production. (van wyk & tshivase, 2005). method research design a cross-sectional survey design was used to achieve the study objectives (shaughnessy & zechmeister, 1997). it was decided to use a crosssectional survey design for this research because it was the most appropriate design to use. this investigation was done by administering semi-structured questionnaires to a group of undergraduate students in the behavioural sciences at the vaal triangle campus of the north-west university. a convenience sample of the available students was obtained and a total of 290 (n = 290) students completed the questionnaires. participants the group of students who participated in the research consisted of 41% males and 59% females. the majority of students (71%) are b.comstudents and the rest (29%) are b.a-students. most of the students (95%) were between the ages of 18 and 23 years. afrikaans-speaking students constituted 34% of the group and the english-speaking students constituted 31%. students with an african language as mother tongue constituted 34% of the participants. the main african language groups were zulu (17%), venda (8%), xhosa (6%) and tswana (3%). a few students (1%) were chinese-speaking. measuring instruments for the purpose of this research a semi-structured questionnaire was developed by the researcher. the questionnaire consisted of two subscales, namely part 1 (testing their awareness of and knowledge about hiv/aids) and part 2 (testing their perceived attitudes towards hiv/ aids). because the topic being studied is sensitive it was essential to assure respondents of anonymity and confidentiality. the questions posed were closed-ended questions based on a 5-point lickert scale (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree and don’t know). this is a newly-designed questionnaire. no data is available regarding the validity and reliability of the measuring instrument. apart from the questionnaire, a biographical questionnaire was also distributed. van wyk 170 brookes, shishana & richter (2004) developed questionnaires for adults (25+ years of age), for youth (15 to 18 years of age), and for children (12 to 14 years of age) in their hiv/aids behavioural survey. they also reported that most international hiv/aids behavioural surveys have targeted the following age cohorts: adults 25 to 49 and youth 15 to 24 years of age. statistical analysis the statistical analysis was carried out with the aid of the spss program (spss, 2003) and sas program (sas institute, 2000.) results a biographical questionnaire was developed to gather information about the demographic characteristics of the participants. information that was gathered included the following: field of study or degree, year of study, gender, age, and home language. there were also questions regarding their friends/family as well as some questions regarding hiv/aids training. nearly all the respondents (98.6%) are of the opinion that aids is a killer disease. the minority of the respondents (15.6%) reported that friends/relatives died of aids recently. descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data and the results is reported in table 3. dimension n min. max. mean sd c alpha awareness 266 20.00 85.00 42.40 10.84 .71 attitude 273 16.00 50.00 24.81 4.85 .65 table 3 descriptive statistics and cronbach’s alpha coefficients as indicated in table 3, the questionnaire was proven to be reliable. cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.71 and 0.65 were obtained regarding the level of awareness/knowledge of the respondents and their attitude towards hiv/aids respectively. the chronbach’s alpha coefficients, varying from 0.65 0.71, compare reasonably well with the guideline of 0.70, demonstrating that a large portion of variance is explained by the dimension (internal consistency of the dimensions) (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). according to hair et. al (1998), cronbach’s alpha value may be decreased to 0.6 in exploratory research. it can therefore be concluded that all factors are internally reliable. awareness/knowledge of hiv/aids as well as the perceived attitude towards the disease the items which addressed this issue identified the knowledge level of respondents about hiv/aids and their belief in its existence. the students’ hiv/aids awareness 171 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 165-180 respondents’ knowledge of aids was above average. the majority of the respondents (99%) believe that aids is a killer disease. the results indicate that the students have a positive attitude towards the prevention of hiv/aids and that they agree to the principle of having safe sex. statements regarding awareness and knowledge agree % disagree % unsure % total % 1 about 12.6% of south africans (5.58 million) are currently estimated to be suffering from hiv/aids. 67 8 25 100 2 by the end of 2002, the number of people living with hiv/aids worldwide was estimated at 42 million. 61 6 33 100 3 more than 90% of all adult hiv infections occur in developing countries and two-thirds occur in sub-saharan africa. 49 15 36 100 4 in south africa, the number of deaths due to aids is expected to increase from 120 000 in 2000 to between 545 000 and 635 000 in 2010. 69 7 24 100 5 according to recent research, about 21% of the south african workforce will be infected by 2010 and about 3% will have full-blown aids. 59 14 27 100 6 hiv transmission through other modes such as intravenous drug use, blood on blood contact and homosexual contact constitute a very small proportion of all infections. 42 46 12 100 7 many studies in south and southern africa have clearly demonstrated that hiv/aids contributes to a rise in poverty, and that poverty reduces the ability of poor people living with hiv/aids to cope with the disease. 79 11 10 100 8 in south africa, a failure to address the epidemic effectively has led to an increase in national hiv prevalence from less than 1% in the early 1990’s to more than 10% in 2003. 56 10 34 100 9 to date, no drug has been found to be effective against the virus, although efforts are being made to produce a vaccine. 67 22 11 100 table 4 results regarding the respondents’ level of awareness and knowledge regarding hiv/aids van wyk 172 table 4 summarises the percentages of respondents indicating their perceptions regarding their awareness of and knowledge about hiv/ aids. more than two-thirds (67%) of the 290 respondents indicated their agreement with statement 1 that about 12.6% of south africans (5.58 million) are currently estimated to be suffering from hiv/aids. this corresponds with the results of statement 2, where about two-thirds (61%) of the respondents agreed with the statement that by the end of 2002, the number of people living with hiv/aids worldwide was estimated at 42 million. about half (49%) of the respondents agreed with statement 3 that more than 90% of all adult hiv infections occur in developing countries and two-thirds occur in sub-saharan africa. the majority of respondents agreed with statements 4 and 5 regarding aids deaths and hiv infection rates (69% and 59% respectively). there were mixed responses from the respondents regarding statement 6: “hiv transmission through other modes such as intravenous drug use, blood on blood contact and homosexual contact constitute a very small proportion o all infections.” the majority of the respondents (79%) agreed with statement 7 that hiv/ aids contributes to a rise in poverty and that poverty reduces the ability of poor people living with hiv/aids to cope with the disease. more than half of the respondents (56%) agreed with statement 8 and one-third (34%) were unsure. statement 8 focused on south africa’s statistics with reference to our hiv-prevalence rates. about two-thirds (67%) of the respondents agreed with statement 9, which read: “to date, no drug has been found to be effective against the virus, although efforts are being made to produce a vaccine”. the results of the questionnaire regarding the perceived attitudes of respondents towards hiv/aids are summarised in table 5. most of the respondents (93%) disagreed with statement 1 that read: “i do not believe that aids exists. they say it comes with sexual contact, but there is no disease that can emanate from sex.” this result corresponds with statement 2 where the majority of the respondents (77%) agreed with the statement: “i have seen people dying of aids, hence i believe it exists.” statements 3 and 4 focused on condom use. the majority of the respondents reported that, to be on the safe side, it is better to use condoms (93%) and disagreed with the statement that they do not use condoms because they do not like them (83%). the majority (82%) also agreed that it is critical to reduce the stigma of hiv/aids in response to statement 5. this result corresponds with their agreement to statement 9 that discrimination and rejection are the most cited reactions regarding a carrier’s hiv/ aids status, therefore people resort to silence about their status (89%). students’ hiv/aids awareness 173 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 165-180 no statements regarding attitudes towards hiv/aids agree % disagree % unsure % total % 1 “i do not believe that aids exists. they say it comes with sexual contact, but there is no disease that can emanate from sex.” 5 93 2 100 2 “i have seen people dying of aids, hence i believe it exists.” 77 12 11 100 3 “since aids is invisible, to be on the safe side always use a condom when having sex”. 93 6 1 100 4 “although they say condoms prevent infection because they trap body fluids, i don’t use them myself. i don’t like them.” 8 82 10 100 5 “it is critical to reduce the stigma and to encourage openness. only in this way can we get a sense of the scale of the problem. this would be achieved through successful mass voluntary counselling and testing.” 82 8 10 100 6 once a person suffers from aids, he/ she may not live longer than two or three years and his/her ability to work may be impacted during that time. in the working environment, affected employees should be transferred to areas/departments where duties are less strenuous. 46 46 8 100 7 because sexual behaviour is often determined by rational, conscious decisions, it is not surprising that educating people and giving them information about the dangers of hiv/ aids does not always persuade them to give up having unprotected sex. in some cases, society and traditional customs determine human behaviour much more strongly than education and knowledge. 83 8 9 100 8 a person can live with the hiv virus for many years without any outward sign of infection. 79 18 3 100 9 discrimination and rejection are the most cited reactions regarding a carrier’s hiv/aids status. therefore, people resort to silence about their status. 89 8 3 100 10 although the first cases of aids occurred among homosexuals, most of the hiv incidences in south africa are currently spread through heterosexual contact. 66 11 23 100 table 5 perceived attitudes towards hiv/aids van wyk 174 there were mixed results regarding statement 6 that aids-sufferers in the working environment should be transferred to areas/departments where duties are less strenuous. less than half of the respondents (46%) agreed with this statement and the same percentage (46%) disagreed with the statement. the majority of the respondents (83%) agreed with the fact that although people are being educated on hiv/aids, giving information about the dangers of hiv/aids does not always persuade them to give up having unprotected sex. in some cases, society and traditional customs determine human behaviour much more strongly than education and knowledge (statement 7). two-thirds of the respondents (66%) agreed with statement 10 that read: “although the first cases of aids occurred in homosexuals, most of the hiv incidences in south africa are currently spread through heterosexual contact”. discussion the objectives of this study were to analyse the perceptions, attitudes and level of awareness of undergraduate students at the north-west university (vaal triangle campus) in south africa regarding hiv/aids. an in-depth discussion of the descriptive statistics of the individual variables falls beyond the scope of this research. however, a few comments are made on those factors with significant statistical results (confirmatory factor analysis was done and two factors were extracted). the following section deals with the descriptive statistics of section b of the questionnaire. table 4 provides a profile of the respondents’ awareness of and knowledge about hiv/aids. it should be noted in table 4 that a 3-point scale was used with the categories agree, disagree and unsure. this was done from the initial 5point scale (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree and unsure) for the purpose of analysis. from table 4 it is evident that the majority of the respondents answered the statements correctly (average 61%). the average negative response (disagree) is 15%, according to table 4. only statement 6 resulted in mixed responses from the respondents. this statement focused on hiv-transmission through other modes such as intravenous drug use, blood on blood contact and homosexual contact that constitute a very small proportion of all infections. this corresponds with the findings of lim & loo (2000). their findings suggest that respondents surveyed were generally knowledgeable about the four main modes of hiv transmission, namely through sexual contact, through the sharing of contaminated needles among hiv drug users, through transfusion of contaminated blood products and from an infected mother to her baby during pregnancy. students’ hiv/aids awareness 175 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 165-180 furthermore, table 4 revealed an average unsure response of 24% on the statements regarding the respondents’ awareness of and knowledge about hiv/aids. the deduction can be made that this unsure response can be seen as a lack of awareness of and knowledge about hiv/aids among students. visser, roos and korf (1995) found that most students knew what methods to use to prevent them from contracting aids, but this does not mean they actually apply the knowledge to protect themselves. lance (2001) reported that 69.7% of the students answered statements regarding their knowledge of hiv/aids correctly. in this research, 77.6% of the students perceived themselves as having high hiv/aids knowledge. from table 5 it is evident that the majority of respondents answered the statements regarding their perceived attitudes towards hiv/aids correctly. the average correct response was 79% and the average wrong (negative) response was 13%. statement 6 resulted in mixed responses from the students. this statement focused on the idea that affected employees in the working environment should be transferred to areas/ departments where duties are less strenuous. the average unsure response from table 5 is 8%. visser, roos and korf (1995) found that students had a basic knowledge of aids, although the depth of the knowledge at the different tertiary institutions varied. although most of their respondents knew the basic facts, their knowledge was often superficial and they did not really understand how the facts fit together. however, they expressed a wish to be better informed about the transmission and effects of the disease. harding, anadu, gray and champeau (1999) reported that their results indicated that the students were knowledgeable about transmission and symptomatology but there were some misconceptions about the mode of transmission of hiv. serlo & aavarinne (1999) found in their research that their respondents (students) estimated their knowledge as insufficient and defined hiv more correctly than aids. this research was administered only at one campus of the north-west university, and therefore one could argue that the findings are not necessarily a generalisation of the level of awareness and attitudes about hiv/aids of all undergraduate students (at tertiary institutions in south africa). it does, however, serve as a point of reference for future research on this topic. apart from the fact that the research was only administered at one campus of a university, it also had the limitation that the questionnaire was a self-reported questionnaire, and not a longitudinal study. van wyk 176 conclusion and recommendations hiv/aids has reached epidemic proportions in south africa and has serious consequences for individuals as well as for south africa’s health resources and the economy. in the long run, the negative impact of hiv/aids may adversely affect efforts directed at addressing structural problems, including high levels of unemployment, skills shortages and high levels of income inequality. the aim of this research was to analyse the perceptions, attitudes and level of awareness of undergraduate students at the vaal triangle campus of the north-west university in south africa regarding hiv/aids. it was found that the respondents (students) were generally knowledgeable about the modes of hiv/aids transmission. furthermore, the deduction can be made that the majority of the students have a level of knowledge about and awareness regarding hiv/aids. an important conclusion is that a general strategy or programme would not be feasible, since the differences between the various student communities and subsets of students at one institution are too pronounced. it can therefore be stated that the focus in a prevention programme for students would have to be on the needs, beliefs, customs and traditions of the individual and not on those of students in general. based on the results of this study, the following recommendations are made for future research in the area of hiv/aids. these will be in line with the factors influencing the perceptions of students regarding the epidemic. an hiv/aids prevention programme should be developed and implemented on campuses to promote changes in lifestyle in order to prevent the spread of hiv/aids. awareness programmes can help in creating awareness concerning and understanding of the disease; to address negative attitudes and misconceptions about hiv/aids. awareness programmes should help to influence the social climate on the campus to support preventative behaviour. customs and traditions of students should be taken into consideration when developing these programmes. transdisciplinary research should be promoted and administered to help curb this global pandemic. in view of the fact that not much research has been done in the area of hiv/aids in the tertiary sector of education, further studies should be undertaken on a wider scale (and in transdisciplinary contexts) in order to generate a better and more general overview of the attitudes, perceptions and awareness of undergraduate students concerning aids. research on knowledge about hiv/aids and the practices of unprotected sex tends students’ hiv/aids awareness 177 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 165-180 to be cross-sectional. future research needs to focus on longitudinal studies of the sexual behaviour and safer-sex practices of heterosexual students in the tertiary sector. references abt associates inc. 2000. demographic impact of hiv/aids in south africa. sandton: abt associates inc. airhihenbuwa, co, & webster, j de w. 2004. culture and african contexts of hiv/aids prevention, care and support. journal of social aspects of hiv/aids 1(1):4 -13. ber, see bureau for economic research. brookes, h, shisana, o & richter, l. 2004. the national household hiv prevalence and risk survey of south african children. pretoria: hsrc. bmr, see bureau of market research bureau for economic research. 2001. the macro-economic impact of hiv/aids in south africa. research note no 10. beo stellenbosch: university of stellenbosch. bureau of market research. 2004. the projected economic impact of hiv/aids in south africa, 2003-2015. pretoria: unisa, bureau of market research 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journal of social aspects of hiv/aids, 2(1):203-216. visser, mj, roos, jl & korf, l. 1995. aids prevention on the campus. south african journal of higher education, 9(2):165-174. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. local service delivery enhancement – attitudes: a case study of the nelson mandela bay municipality i tsatsire, jd taylor and k raga * abstract in this article, the new developmental mandate assigned to local government is reviewed using the nelson mandela bay municipality (hereafter referred to as the nmbm) as a case study. the concept of developmental local government is of cardinal importance as it imposes additional specific obligations on municipal councils. in addition, the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 (hereafter referred to as the constitution) requires local government to render quality, affordable and sustainable basic services. therefore, councillors are now required to meet specific constitutional and other developmental legislative prescriptions pertaining to their communities and areas of jurisdiction. an empirical survey was conducted at the nmbm to test selected senior officials and councillors’ attitudinal responses to service delivery and the new developmental mandate assigned to local government. the survey intended to establish whether there was institutional capacity to enhance basic service delivery. these findings are elaborated upon in this article. keywords: municipal governance, developmental local government, service delivery, legislation, ward committee system, capacity of councillors. disciplines: public management, public administration, development studies. * dr israel tsatsire, (e-mail: itsatsir@mandelametro.gov.za) is chief operations officer, nelson mandela bay municipality, port elizabeth. dr john derek taylor (e-mail: derek.taylor@nmmu.ac.za) is senior lecturer, department of political and governmental studies, nelson mandela metropolitan university. dr kishore raga (e-mail: kishore.raga@nmmu.ac.za) is principal lecturer, department of political and governmental studies, nelson mandela metropolitan university. tsatsire,  taylor  and    raga   272 1. introduction municipalities, in terms of the new developmental mandate, are required to exercise a representative function with enhanced community participation to achieve service delivery, social and economic development and a healthy environment. section 153 of the constitution identifies local government as being responsible for setting the developmental framework in their respective jurisdictions. although municipalities are expected to represent their local communities in a democratic and accountable manner, developmental frameworks will vary from municipality to municipality and will reflect the diverse political dynamics of respective areas. in addition to providing traditional municipal services, municipalities must now lead, manage and plan for development. section b of the white paper on local government (1998), describes the kind of leadership municipal councils must provide. furthermore, municipalities are required to facilitate enhanced participation with communities, organisations and business to contribute to the development of the area. it also describes the integrated development plan (idp) which is the new approach to planning to assist municipalities to fulfil their developmental role. councillors and officials are now required to function in a political environment which imposes additional responsibilities. to comply with legislative prescriptions (directives) in terms of the developmental mandate, councillors are required to adopt numerous policies that have an impact on communities at large. in addition, for councillors to perform their governing functions effectively, they must acquire the ability to function objectively and make rational recommendations in committee and council meetings. to achieve this, councillors need to have a broad and thorough understanding of the communities they represent. therefore, the governing function of councillors cannot be delegated as they are separately or jointly accountable to the community they represent. finally, full-time councillors are also members of the mayoral executive committee and chair the relevant standing committees at the nmbm. this article reviews through an empirical survey the institutional capacity-building needs of nmba councillors. 2. definition of terms the following definitions of terms are proposed for purposes of the article: developmental local government: the white paper on local government (1998:37), defines developmental local government as local government committed to working with citizens and groups within the community to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic and material needs and improve the quality of their lives. municipality: a municipality is a corporate body and has specific roles and responsibility areas, a political structure, political office-bearers and a municipal manager and has jurisdiction in a defined geographical area as determined by the local government: municipal demarcation act 1998 (craythorne 2006: 119). metropolitan municipality: a metropolitan municipality has exclusive executive and legislative authority in its area, as described in section 155(1) of the constitution. local  service  delivery  enhancement   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. 273 capacity: in the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998, municipality capacity includes the administrative and financial management capacity and infrastructure that enables a municipality to collect revenue and to govern on its own initiative the local government affairs of its community. councillor: the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 defines a councillor as a member of a municipal council. local governance: local governance requires that institutions around local governments are engaged in the design and implementation of economic and social policy with business elites, community leaders, development corporations, training and enterprise councils, as well as voluntary groups (http://www.answers.com/topic/local-governance). 3. local government and service delivery the transformation of south african local government has a number of important implications. the first implication is that the status of local government has changed. it has been given more responsibilities and structures have been amended to suit its new responsibilities. planning is now integrated and developmental, and municipal performance must be measured and judged by the municipality itself, by residents, and by both the provincial and national governments. other added responsibilities and requirements include the need for local government to be selfsustaining so as to be developmental. the closeness of local government to the places where needs are felt, means that it is strategically located to perform its mandate of providing basic services to the people, as a first step towards developing communities in south africa (section 152 of the constitution). the delivery of basic services greatly assists in poverty eradication and community development. local government is now also expected to render limited free basic services. for example, basic water as 6000 litres (6kl) per household per month and basic electricity as 50 kilowatt hours per household per month to communities who cannot afford to pay for municipal services, as per the 2000 election manifesto of the ruling african national congress (anc) government. this manifesto views access to basic services as universal and a constitutional requirement (http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2008/08032708451001.htm). local government cannot fulfill its mandate without a partnership with the provincial and national governments. establishing and maintaining sound intergovernmental relations have, therefore, become vital in ensuring the success of local government. the rendering of services has to take place within the spirit of co-operative government, as stated in chapter three of the constitution. furthermore, the intergovernmental relations framework act 13 of 2005 establishes a framework for the national government, provincial government and local government to promote and facilitate intergovernmental relations; to provide for mechanisms and procedures to facilitate the settlement of intergovernmental disputes; and to provide for matters connected therewith. therefore, the national, provincial and local government spheres should work together to address the many societal problems facing south africa. however, the infrastructural and other service backlogs caused by apartheid are of such a nature that local government needs substantial resources, mostly financial and quality human resources, to sustain service delivery. tsatsire,  taylor  and    raga   274 as no single sphere of government can, in isolation, provide services and deal with challenging backlogs in service delivery whilst being developmental, services have to be provided in collaboration with other spheres of government. these include agencies of government, community-based organisations, supported by the private sector, non-governmental organisations and the community itself. integration of service delivery can also be facilitated through engendering a sound co-operative ethic in the practice of government. cooperative government in the form of sound intergovernmental relations forces all spheres to place collective national interest above geographic and spherical interests. every government institution should make an indispensable contribution to the ultimate goal of the state, namely, the advancement of the general welfare of its citizens. with new boundaries, new structures and new systems, it also became clear that local government could not survive without a new financial management system. this led to the passing of the local government: municipal finance management act 56 of 2003 (hereinafter referred to as mfma). the preamble to the mfma states that the purpose of this legislation is to secure sound and sustainable management of the financial affairs of municipalities and other institutions in the local sphere of government; to establish treasury norms and standards for the local sphere of government; and to provide for matters connected therewith. the constitution also positions local government as an independent sphere of government, interrelated to and interdependent with the national and provincial governments. to give it a collective voice, local government speaks from a position of strength through organised local government, as embodied in the south african local government association (hereafter referred to as salga). section 2.1 which now follows provides an overview of the status of developmental local government. 4. status of local government the principles of local government (2006) define the status underlying developmental local government as: (a) the constitution grants local government original powers. local government is no longer a function of provincial government, or a third level of government. it has become a sphere of government in its own right. it is part of a system of co-operative government and governance, which includes provincial and national spheres. (b) local government is no longer a site for the delivery of services only, but a crucial site for social and economic development. this requires local government to have a strong developmental focus. (c) local government, within its constraints, has to appropriately contribute to both economic growth and social redistribution. (d) local government is a key arena for the democratic participation of ordinary citizens. (e) municipalities constituting the new local government system have to be financially viable and sustainable. (f) over time, through appropriate negotiations, more powers and functions can be devolved to local government (http://www.sacp.org.za). local  service  delivery  enhancement   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. 275 according to section 151 of the constitution, the local sphere of government consists of municipalities, which must be established for the whole of the territory of the republic of south africa. as the executive and legislative authority of a municipality is vested in its municipal council, the municipality has the right to govern, on its own initiative, the local affairs of its community, subject to national and provincial legislation, as provided for in the constitution. in addition, national and provincial government may not compromise or impede a municipality’s ability or right to exercise its powers or perform its functions. the above provision in the constitution positions local government as an independent sphere of government, interrelated and interdependent with national and provincial government. the formal recognition of local government in the constitution as a sphere of government has enhanced the status of local government as a whole (south africa yearbook 2006/2007). furthermore, municipalities have been accorded a developmental role to enhance service delivery. in this regard, the constitution requires municipalities to structure and manage their administration budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of communities and to promote social and economic development. the core aspects of developmental local government are described in section 2.2 which follows. 5. developmental role of local government section 23(1) of the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 presents the vision of developmental local government, as envisaged in the constitution: a municipality must undertake developmentally orientated planning so as to ensure that it: (a) strives to achieve the objects of local government set out in section 152 of the constitution b) gives effect to its developmental duties as required by section 153 of the constitution. salga (2006) has expressed concern that there appears to be a lack of common understanding, both within and outside local government, of what developmental government really means. it argues that being developmental means that local authorities need to shift their focus from infrastructural services to social and economic development. this implies a shift from an emphasis on service delivery to the impact of service delivery outputs on the quality of life of communities. this approach, salga argues, necessitates the formulation of a corporate development strategy that is not just the sum of the service delivery objectives or individual functions, but that represents a set of decisions or choices about what interventions need to be made within a municipality’s external environment to produce the desired development impact (http://www.hologram.org.za). in addition, as the constitution enshrines the rights of all people in this country to dignity, equality before the law, freedom and security, it affirms rights to freedom of religion, expression, culture, association and movement, as well as political, labour and property rights. the constitution further commits government to take reasonable measures, within its available tsatsire,  taylor  and    raga   276 resources, to ensure that all south africans have access to adequate housing, health-care, education, food, water and social security. the white paper on local government (1998), cautions that the reality of south african cities, towns and rural areas differ dramatically from this ideal. certain communities are still geographically divided and live in dire poverty, isolated from services and opportunities. the previous local government system failed to address the greatest needs of the majority of south africans, while the current system has not yet been able to reverse these long-standing patterns of inequality and unmet human needs (tsatsire 2008:139). section 2.3 below outlines the characteristics of local government as identified by the white paper on local government (1998). 6. characteristics of developmental local government the white paper on local government (1998), prescribes that developmental local government has four interrelated characteristics, namely: (a) maximising social development and economic growth; (b) integrating and co-ordinating; (c) democratising development; and (d) leading and learning. in the context of the above characteristics, developmental local government is local government committed to working with citizens and groups within the community to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic and material needs and improve the quality of their lives. with the changes in local government legislation and structures, it is inevitable that the roles of local government councillors, officials and the community will be more in keeping with the new dispensation. the new developmental legislation that has been drafted and enacted now requires communities to participate in local governance in order to ensure a local government that is accountable, transparent and responsive to community needs (planact 2001). section 3 describes the research instrument used to conduct the empirical survey. using nmbm as a case study, the survey aimed to provide an understanding of the participants’ attitudes, perceptions and knowledge so that the critical challenges facing developmental local government in south africa could be addressed. a quantitative approach was used and the sample included selected senior officials and members of the mayoral executive committee. 7. empirical research 7.1 research instrument the research was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire with structured statements and no open-ended questions. however, provision was made for a swot analysis so that the participants could express their opinions. english was used as the medium of communication as council and standing committee meetings are conducted in english. local  service  delivery  enhancement   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. 277 it was assumed that the measuring technique employed, namely, a five-point likert scale, would presuppose that a particular test item had the same meaning for all respondents, and thus a given response was scored identically for everyone making it. rating value 1 = strongly agree 2 = disagree 3 = undecided 4 = agree 5 = strongly agree the interpretation of the research findings was divided into three sections, namely: section a (independent variables), b (dependent variables) and c (perceptions of the most important developmental challenges facing the nmbm). 7.2 test sample pre-testing highlights unforeseen difficulties in the layout of the questionnaire and in the wording of the questions. any difficulties can, therefore, be corrected before the full-scale study is undertaken. pre-testing was done using ten respondents (five senior officials and five standingcommittee chairpersons). after the pre-test, the questionnaire was referred to a statistician for final approval so that the data contained in the questionnaire could be quantified and subjected to statistical analysis. the target population included 75 officials and 11 standing-committee chairpersons. this group was selected because it is strategically situated at the nmbm and the participants take key decisions both politically and administratively. as the survey achieved a response rate of 77.9%, the research findings are based on 67 completed questionnaires of the target research population of 86. 7.3 data processing a statistician from the nelson mandela metropolitan university (hereinafter referred to as nmmu) utilised the computer programme “sas” to process the collected data and to generate the various statistical results. the relative values pertaining to the set statements that emerged from the survey were transferred in codified form to a computer database. 7.4 interpretation of research findings the objective of the empirical survey was to test attitudinal responses to aspects such as the institutional capacity of the nmbm to deliver services, public participation, co-operative government, development challenges and political administrative dichotomy. the inherent subjectivity in attitude surveys was realised and kept in mind during the analysis of the results. however, according to zimbardo and ebbeson (1969:125), it is possible to measure subjective attitudes by using quantitative techniques, so that each individual’s opinion can be represented by some numerical score. 7.5 empirical survey results statement b1: municipalities have not yet come to terms with their developmental role. the results indicated that 45% of the respondents agreed with the statement, 12% were undecided, while 43% responded negatively. tsatsire,  taylor  and    raga   278 section 153 of the constitution gives municipalities a mandate to structure and manage their administration, budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of the community and to promote the social and economic development of the community. further developmental responsibilities have been imposed upon municipalities in terms of prescriptions contained in a number of acts pertaining to local government. statement b2: developmental local government starts with service delivery, and if this is failing, then local government cannot be said to be developmental. altogether 48% of the respondents agreed with the statement, 22,38% strongly agreed, 4,47% were undecided and 25,37% either disagreed or strongly disagreed. the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 requires municipalities to give priority to the basic needs of the local community, promote its development, and ensure that all residents have access to at least the minimum level of basic services. according to carrim (2001:41), basic service refers to a service that is necessary to ensure an acceptable and reasonable quality of life, and, if not provided, would endanger public health or the safety or the environment. basic services include clean water, sanitation and refuse removal. these services can be provided by a municipality itself or through other alternative service delivery methods in terms of the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000. this act further states that service delivery mechanisms and standards should be regularly reviewed with the intention of improving and extending them. it can be inferred from the above responses that the majority (70.38%) of the respondents do not consider that local government can be developmental. statement b3: municipalities do not have stable financial resources to be able to sustain service delivery without national government support. the survey responses indicated that 66% of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement; 27% either strongly disagreed or disagreed, while 7% were undecided. according to the constitution, local government is a sphere of government with its original constitutionally enshrined powers and functions. this means that it is not a third level of government, as was the case in the past, and it is not a function of national or provincial government or subordinate to them. local government is independent, although it is interrelated with provincial and national government in one overall system of co-operative government. however, the results from the survey indicated that municipalities were not perceived as financially autonomous. despite additional financial assistance from the higher spheres of government, numerous municipalities failed to spend their budgets, which remain a matter of concern. statement b4: municipalities have basic service delivery backlogs that are affecting their ability to be developmental. local  service  delivery  enhancement   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. 279 the result indicated that 75% of the respondents supported the statement; 22% responded negatively, while 3% were undecided. the responses to this statement indicate that service delivery is the starting point in a developmental state. service delivery and socio-economic development should, therefore, go hand in hand. statement b5: the current system of three spheres of government is not promoting municipal service delivery. altogether 52,23% of the respondents agreed with the statement; 7,46% strongly agreed, 9% were undecided, while 31,34% either strongly disagreed or disagreed. the recent 2007 process to review provincial and local government systems further justifies the respondents’ responses that the current system of three spheres of government is not promoting municipal service delivery (interafrica 2009). the policy review process for local and provincial government (2007) provides the following reasons for the possible restructure of the spheres of government: (a) practical experiences and lessons learnt during the implementation of the current system of government. (b) south africans expect more responsive, accountable, efficient, equitable and affordable government and a better quality of service. (c) local government came into being much later than the two spheres of government and incorporating local government into the system of cooperative governance has proved to be complex. (d) the absence of a definite policy on provincial government has generated uncertainty about the role of this sphere of government in reconstruction and development. (e) it has been difficult to devise a mechanism to address local government skills and capacity challenges based on project consolidate lessons. the concept of integrated service delivery is complicated when provincial department service delivery areas (for example, health or education districts) are not contiguous with municipal boundaries. however, re-defining provincial department service delivery areas to make them coterminus with municipal boundaries has helped somewhat. but the key challenge still remains one of ‘overcoming a level of incoherence’ in the execution of national development priorities. the management of service delivery programmes often founders on questions of jurisdiction between departments, organs of state or spheres when policy priorities cut across ministerial mandates and traditional policy fields. the result is a general inability to forge collaborative partnerships or to find common ground for action (intergovernmental relations framework act: an inaugural report 2005/6-2006/7). statement b6: local government in south africa is over legislated. tsatsire,  taylor  and    raga   280 altogether 42% of the respondents either strongly disagreed or disagreed; 37,31% agreed, 10,44% strongly agreed, while 10,44% were undecided. the responses indicated that inasmuch as legislation was needed to provide a broad framework for local government, aspects of its implementation and compliance were equally important. as legislation should be enabling instead of impeding delivery, it should simplify and not complicate service delivery issues. furthermore, the issues of skills and capacity to implement legislation should be given attention, as identified by the respondents in the swot analysis. this is an area in which salga should play an important role to ensure municipal capacity development enables both delivery and compliance. statement b7: recent service delivery protests (2006/07) in the nmbm are an indication of the lack of public participation and regular communication between the council and the community. the result indicated that 52,23% of the respondents agreed with the statement; 7,46% strongly agreed, 31,34% disagreed and strongly disagreed, while 9% were undecided. in terms of the above percentages, the respondents indicated that there was a lack of communication between the nmbm and the local communities. the new system of developmental local government is constitutionally embedded and residents and local institutions are expected to play a significant role in the governance process. this includes taking part in planning activities and budgeting. communities should be informed by municipalities of the standard and level of services and reasons for any deviation from predetermined standards. this requires a constant flow of information and feedback. statement b8: the ward committee system is not functioning properly in deepening democracy and promoting public participation in government. the result indicated that the majority of the respondents (55,22%) agreed with the statement; 16,41% disagreed, while 12% were undecided. these responses indicated a weakness in the ward committee system. in terms of the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000, a municipality must develop a culture of municipal governance that complements formal representative government with a system of participatory governance. residents, therefore, have a right to participate in municipal decision-making processes. the ward committee system is one of the public participation structures established to fulfill this role. however, according to the respondents, it was not utilised optimally. statement b9: low voter turnout in local government elections is an indication of community dissatisfaction with municipal service delivery. the results indicated that 43,28% of respondents disagreed with the statement; 7,46% were undecided, 39% agreed, while 10,44% strongly agreed. local  service  delivery  enhancement   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. 281 participation in government starts with taking part in an election and goes beyond elections. voter apathy has a potential to spill over to non-participation in decision-making processes, thereby making the government less accountable. statement b10: the constitutional requirement for the need for public participation and consultation tends to delay service delivery. altogether 69% of the respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement; 12% were undecided, while 19% agreed. the above result indicated that public participation enriches service delivery. it also indicated the general respect for the highest law of the land by the nmbm. to complement the constitution, the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 makes provision for the participation of residents in the: (a) preparation, implementation and review of the idp; (b) establishment, implementation and review of a municipality’s performance management system; (c) preparation of a municipality’s budget; and (d) decision about the provision of municipal services. despite the above measures to enhance public participation and consultation, apathy still prevails in many communities. statement b11: media focus on poor service delivery assists in improving service delivery. altogether 34,32% of respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement; 13,43% were undecided, 42% agreed, while 10,44% strongly agreed. this indicated strongly that local governance has to take place in an open and transparent manner, hence the passing of national legislation on access to information held by the state. statement b12: local government is not fully abiding by the following eight batho pele principles relating to service delivery: (a) consultation (b) service standards (c) access (d) courtesy (e) information (f) openness and transparency (g) redress; and (h) value for money. altogether 19,40% of the respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement; 4,47% were undecided, 69% agreed, while 7,46% strongly agreed. tsatsire,  taylor  and    raga   282 an analysis of responses indicated that the majority of the respondents believed that local government was not abiding by the batho pele principles. this could be attributed to the fact that the batho pele principles (1997) initially focused on national and provincial government, not on local government (fox 2005). it is only recently that attention has been given to local government as well (tsatsire 2008:266). efforts towards establishing a single public service, which is currently on hold, could assist in building a sense of duty and responsibility to the local communities, irrespective of in which sphere public officials are located. statement b13: the auditor-general’s audit qualifications are an indication of the lack of proper financial management and controls in municipalities. altogether 63% of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement; 10% were undecided, while 27% disagreed. the aim of the local government: municipal finance management act 56 of 2003 is to secure sound and sustainable management of the financial affairs of municipalities and other institutions in the local sphere of government, to establish treasury norms and standards for the local sphere of government and to provide for matters connected therewith. responses, therefore, indicate that audit qualifications are an indication of non-compliance with this act. statement b14: municipalities are faced with the challenge of forward planning, resulting in service delivery disruptions, due to ageing infrastructure. only 4,47% of respondents disagreed with the statement; 10,44% were undecided; 73,13% agreed, while 12% strongly agreed. the positive responses present the worrying reality of the south african government’s approach to issues of infrastructure maintenance and upgrades. there has been a series of service disruptions throughout the country, mostly in bigger metropolitan municipalities, as a result of ageing infrastructure (tsatsire 2008:271). this situation presents challenges, especially considering the rate of growth and investment in major cities as well as the coming soccer fifa world cup 2010. although infrastructural transfers from the national government have increased annually by 21% since 2000, numerous challenges still exist (national government: infrastructure transfer 2009 http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents). there is, therefore, added pressure on the existing infrastructure to meet current and future growth demand. statement b15: the idps of municipalities are not realistic. altogether 30% of the respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement; 16% were undecided, while 54% either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. the results indicated that idps were wish-lists and not achievable. therefore, the majority of the respondents felt that the idps of municipalities were, not realistic. in addition, since they are linked to the performance management system, managing the performance of a plan that is not realistic and measurable presents a challenge. local  service  delivery  enhancement   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. 283 according to the local government bulletin 2007, idps suffer from a number of shortcomings. for the policy review process for local and provincial government (2007), these include the following: (a) poor quality and unrealistic development objectives. (b) lack of inter-governmental co-ordination, as idps do not talk to provincial and national plans; and (c) inability of idps to alter past planning methods, especially spatial planning and socio-economic inequalities (http://www.dplg.gov.za). it can be deduced from the above findings that the idp process is complex as numerous roleplayers have to be consulted and resolutions are required to be adopted within prescribed time frames. statement b16: local government has not yet fully understood its economic development role. altogether 18% of the respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement; 6% were undecided, while 76% either agreed or strongly agreed. the past system of local government was not developmental in nature. now local government is expected to be developmental, which means it also has to focus on economic development. municipalities, therefore, have to identify various mechanisms to stimulate the local economy in their areas, for example, through tourism initiatives, to create employment opportunities for small, medium and micro enterprises (hereinafter referred to as smmes). statement b17: the nmbm has the capacity to meet all national service delivery targets in terms of the national government vision 2014. altogether 57% of the respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement; 21% were undecided, while 22% either agreed or strongly agreed. according to the idp of the nmbm (2007), the strategic agenda of the municipality is shaped by the national, provincial and local perspectives. the national service delivery targets are included in the local government election manifesto of the ruling party, since delivery takes place at the local level. failure to meet these national targets is not the failure of national government alone, but the failure of all spheres of government. 8. conclusion in this article, the empirical survey of selected councillors and municipal officials in managerial positions was explained. the results were interpreted against the background of the assumption that the nmbm, like other municipalities in south africa, was confronted by numerous challenges in all five key performance areas of the local government transformation agenda, namely: municipal transformation and institutional development; basic service delivery and infrastructure development; local economic development; municipal financial viability and tsatsire,  taylor  and    raga   284 management; and good governance and public participation, which are threatening its developmental agenda. councillors, as community leaders, should play a pivotal role in building a shared vision with the community by mobilising local government resources for the improvement of basic services. developmental local government requires local authorities to become more strategic, visionary and influential in the manner in which they operate. municipal councils and officials also have a crucial role to perform as policy makers and advisors, as thinkers and innovators and as custodians of the principles of local democracy. efforts towards establishing a single public service, which is currently on hold, could assist in building a sense of duty and responsibility to the local communities, irrespective of in which sphere public officials are located. list of sources acts see south africa. carrim, y. 2001. from transition to transformation: challenges of the new local government system. the african communist. first quarter. craythorne, dl. 2006. municipal administration: the handbook. juta: kenwyn. fox, w. 2005. public goods and service delivery: batho pele revisited. administratio publica. vol. 13. no. 1. july 2005. nelson mandela bay metropolitan municipality. 2007. profile of nelson mandela bay. nelson mandela bay metropolitan municipality. 2007. state of nelson mandela bay report. nelson mandela bay metropolitan municipality. 2007. integrated development plan. nelson mandela bay metropolitan municipality. 2007. intergovernmental relations policy. planact, 2001. module 2: how local government works. braamfontain: ultra litho. south africa yearbook. 2006/2007. the south african communication service. pretoria: government printers. local  service  delivery  enhancement   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 271 – 286. 285 south africa. 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa of 1996. pretoria: government printers. south africa. 1998. local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998. pretoria: government printers. south africa. 1998. the white paper on local government. pretoria: government printers. south africa. 2000. local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000. pretoria: government printers. south africa. 2003. local government: municipal finance management act 56 of 2003. pretoria: government printers. south africa. 2005-2007. the implementation of the intergovernmental relations act. an inaugural report 2005/2006-2006-2007. south africa. 2005. intergovernmental relations framework act 13 of 2005. pretoria: government printers. south africa. 2007. local government bulletin. november/december. tsatsire, i. 2008. a critical analysis of challenges facing developmental local government: a case study of the nelson mandela metropolitan municipality. (unpublished thesis for the dphil degree, nmmu). principles of local government. 2006. http://www.sacp.org.za. date of access: 03 october 2008. policy review process for local & provincial government. 2007. http://www.dplg.gov.za. date of access: 17 october 2008. public participation in local government. 2007. http://www.hologram.org.za. date of access: 14 september 2008. free basic services (fbs). 2008. http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2008/08032708451001.htm. date of access: 01 october 2008. definition: local governance. 2008. http://www.answers.com/topic/localgovernance. date of access: 11 august 2008. national government: infrastructural transfers. 2009. http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents. date of access: 19 april 2009. internafrica. 2009. http://www.internafrica.org/2007_05_01_archive.html. date of access: 7 march 2009. zimbardo, p. & ebbeson, eb. 1969. influencing attitudes and changing behaviour. massachusetts: addison-wesley. td  the  journal  for  transdisciplinary  research  in  southern  africa   editorial  policy   1. td is an international transdisciplinary journal for research in all   fields   of   scientific   endeavour.   it   is   published  and  edited  in  the  vaal triangle faculty of north-west university in south africa. 2. contributions may be in the natural sciences or the humanities. articles, in which transdisciplinary collaboration between natural and the social or human sciences are explored, are most welcome. 3. the term transdisciplinarity is meant to imply the integrated use of conventional scientific theory and methodology in an effort to explore quantum frontiers of new knowledge in all spheres of scientific endeavour. 4. regionally editorial content can be based on empirical research in southern africa. 5. authors can make individual contributions or submit work, done in teams. 6. td is a peer reviewed journal. contributions of authors will be subject to review by two or more reviewers in disciplines used in the research and writing of an article. 7. language of the journal: articles may be in any of the 11 official languages of south africa. it could also be in any of the major international languages, e.g. french, italian, japanese, dutch, german, portuguese and spanish. 8. a maximum of 30 per cent of the editorial content of each edition of the journal may be in a non-english language. 9. abstracts: contributions must be accompanied by an abstract of not more than 250 words in the language in which the article is written. should the text not be in english, an abstract in english (250 words), as well as an executive summary of the article content (about 1 500 word) should accompany the article. 10. titles of articles: the titles of articles should preferably not exceed 20 words. 11. names of authors: the names of authors and their institutional affiliation must accompany all contributions. authors also have to enclose their telephone and fax numbers, email addresses and  postal  addresses.   12. reference system: the reference system of authors will be respected by the editorial management, providing it is current in the academic writing in the particular disciplines used to research and write the article. references must also be clear, lucid and comprehensible for a general academic audience of readers. the harvard and apa reference styles are acceptable. the conventional footnote system of references may also be used. 13. illustrations: editorial material, with illustrations, photographs, tables and graphs is welcome. the illustrations should however be of a high-density quality. should the files be large, they have to be posted in separate emails and appropriately numbered in sequence. 14. articles should be posted to the editorial secretary electronically at johann.tempelhoff@nwu.ac.za. notification of receipt of material will take place within 48 hours. 15. text format: text must be in 12pt text, with double spacing. text should preferably be in microsoft word. 16. the length of articles should preferably not exceed 8 000 to 10 000 word or 15 to 20 journal pages. 17. articles that have been published previously in other journals may not be republished in the journal.   microsoft word 07 vd west et al .docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. an efficiency analysis of basic service provision in south african local government (2006/7 to 2008/9) g van der westhuizen,1 b dollery2 and b grant3 abstract the south african local government sector has undergone changes in the post-apartheid era as policy makers have sought to improve basic services provided to disadvantaged local communities. while scholars have considered various dimensions of the reform program, little effort has been directed at evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency dimensions of the changes in service provision, with some notable exceptions (van der westhuizen and dollery, 2009; krugell, et al., 2010). this article seeks to contribute to this literature by evaluating the efficiency with which municipalities have provided (reconstruction and development program) rdp water, rdp sanitation rdp electricity and rdp refuse removal, using data envelopment analysis techniques (dea) applied to panel data from 2006/2007 to 2008/2009 for 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities. keywords: efficiency, local government, local service provision, south africa. disciplines: natural sciences (mathematics) and social sciences (economics, econometrics, political science), and applied professions studies (management and public management). 1. introduction post-apartheid policy makers inherited a landscape characterised by extreme economic, spatial and social inequality between the different ethnic communities, which had been segregated into separate urban areas. various policy instruments were adopted to ameliorate these inequalities, the most important of which was the 1994 reconstruction and development programme (rdp), which aimed to coordinate central, provincial and local government programs into an integrated national approach (lester, nel and binns, 2000). the rdp emphasised the role of local government in implementing rdp targets. a more detailed vision of this process was set out in the white paper on local government (republic of south africa, 1998, p.17) which advanced the concept of ‘developmental local government’ in encouraging local economic development and local economic growth (see, for example, nel and binns, 2002). the white paper on local government proposed four major aims for developmental local government: (a) the provision of a basic level of household services to households without these services as a matter of urgency; (b) the integration of 1 . corresponding author, prof. gert van der westhuizen is attached to north-west university (vaal), south africa. email: profgertvdwesthuizen@gmail.com 2 . prof. brian dollery is attached to the centre for local government, the university of new england, australia. 3 . dr. bligh grant is attached to the centre for local government, the university of new england, australia. basic service provision in sa local government td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. 269 formerly segregated urban areas; (c) the stimulation of local economic growth and local job creation; and (d) that local ‘community empowerment’ should be fostered. the importance of these goals in the overall rdp strategy, as well as the centrality of the local government sector in achieving these goals, placed a heavy burden on south african local government which had historically focussed on a comparatively narrow range of ‘services to people’. moreover, local government was ill-equipped to tackle these formidable challenges given its limited administrative and technical capacity (buthelezi and dollery, 2004; dollery et al., (2005), acute funding constraints (bahl and smoke, 2003), and weak financial management (dollery and graves, 2009; graves and dollery, 2009). given the immensity of the difficulties faced by south african local government, the importance of the rdp basic local service targets, and the constraints on the capacities of the local government sector, it is essential that policy makers are informed by sound empirics of how well the municipal system has performed. the empirical analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency with which south african local government has delivered basic services in the post-1994 era can be decomposed into two broad strands. in the first place, scholars have sought to measure the effectiveness of basic service provision based on various kinds of socioeconomic indicators (krugell et al., 2010). three main approaches have been adopted in order to investigate this question. firstly, national-level development indicators have been deployed (see, for example, hirschowitz and orkin, 1997; budlender, 1999; møller and devey, 2003; ngwane et al. 2003; le roux booysen 2003; leibbrandt et al. 2006). in general, krugell et al. (2010: 310) have observed that while this line of inquiry has established ‘the familiar south african picture of disparities in access to basic services and improvements since 1994’, it did not allow ‘further distinctions of the performance of local governments in meeting the basic needs of their communities’. secondly, in order to obtain a clearer perspective on local performance, researchers examined specific surveys of more disaggregated ‘quality of place’ indices, in particular areas (møller and jackson, 1997; møller, 2001; sotshongaye and møller, 2000). finally, a third avenue of investigation has considered instances in which poor service delivery sparked public protest, such as botes et al. (2007), which examined four case studies of local unrest. while this line of inquiry has generated useful broad results, it has not provided policy makers with a sufficiently detailed comparative local perspective on local delivery performance. in an effort to provide greater clarity, krugell et al. (2010, 321) examined ‘the progress made in the delivery of basic services across local municipalities in south africa’ by means of constructing of a ‘service delivery index for each municipality and analysis of variance to explain the changes in service delivery over the period 2001-2007’. they found that ‘mean access to basic services showed a marked improvement, but that the variation of access to basic services between places increased’. a second embryonic empirical approach has focused on the efficiency rather than the effectiveness with which south african local government has delivered basic services under the rdp framework. this approach was followed by van der westhuizen and dollery (2009) who estimated the productive efficiency with which municipal councils provided electricity, domestic waste removal, sanitation and water in line through the rdp using data envelopment analysis (dea) techniques applied to cross-sectional data covering the period 2006/2007 for local municipalities as well as district municipalities. they found that eight out of the nine south african provinces had one or more local municipality that was fully technically efficient, with the single exception of the western cape, and concluded that there van der westhuizen, dollery & grant 270 were significant inter-provincial differences in the relative efficiencies of local municipalities. van der westhuizen and dollery (2009) added the caveat that data irregularities implied their findings should be treated with caution. the present article seeks to augment this nascent efficiency measurement literature by investigating the efficiency of rdp water, rdp sanitation, rdp electricity and rdp refuse removal provision using dea methodology with panel data covering the period 2006/2007 to 2008/2009 for 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities. the article is divided into five main parts. section 2 offers a brief description of the institutional structure of south african local government by way of background. section 3 provides a synoptic generic outline of efficiency analysis, focusing on data envelopment analysis. section 4 considers the complexities of efficiency analysis in the local government milieu. section 5 summarises the data and models employed in the analysis. section 6 discusses the results obtained from the estimation process. the article ends with some brief concluding comments in section 7. 2. structure of south african local government the south african local government sector is comprised of three types of local authority: metropolitan municipalities, district councils and local councils. metropolitan municipalities hold executive and legislative authority over municipal functions for the major urban areas of cape town, durban, the east rand, johannesburg, port elizabeth and pretoria. district councils have municipal executive and legislative authority over large geographical zones, holding responsibility for district-wide capacity-building and planning. the spatial jurisdiction of each district council usually contains several local councils which have responsibility for service provision within the regulatory and planning established framework established by the district council. in total, south africa has 284 local government entities comprised of these three types of local authority (atkinson, 2002). this structure is explicitly tied to developmental policy. for example, district municipalities and local municipalities share responsibility to make sure that all communities, including deprived particularly communities, have equivalent access to services. moreover, the resources necessary for this purpose derive in part from the fact that because district municipalities typically encompass both affluent and poor communities, cross-subsidisation becomes possible allowing financially stressed, low capacity local municipalities to provide basic services to poor communities. the structure also provides scope for shared services which can yield generate scale and scope economics. district municipalities discharge numerous functions. for instance, district councils undertake development planning for the district municipality, supply bulk water, bulk electricity; bulk sewerage purification, main sewerage disposal, waste disposal sites, municipal roads, storm water drainage, municipal public works, street lighting, municipal parks and recreation facilities. while south african local government has traditionally provided a comparatively narrow range of services, the white paper on local government and the rdp has seen the role of municipalities expanded to include a greater range of service objectives. 3. efficiency measurement and data development analysis according to the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta) (2009:7), ‘a municipality must structure and manage its administration and budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of the community, and to promote the basic service provision in sa local government td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. 271 social and economic development of the community, and participate in national and provincial development programs’. if a municipality can achieve these objectives consistently, given its financial and administrative capacity, then it represents a ‘functional, wellperforming municipality’. under these circumstances, a ‘functional, well-performing municipality’ is one that is economically efficient. for many years efficiency measurement has been a subject of considerable interest to public policy makers. farrell (1957:254, 258) defined a simple measure of firm efficiency, which could account for multiple inputs, and proposed that the efficiency of any given firm consists of two components: technical efficiency (i.e. the ability of a firm to maximise output from a given set of inputs) and allocative efficiency (i.e. the ability of a firm to use its inputs in costminimising proportions, given their respective prices). total or economic efficiency (also known as cost efficiency) is the result of combining these two measures. according to cook and seiford (2009:1), charnes et al. (1978) expanded on the farrell approach, responded to the need for satisfactory procedures to assess the relative efficiencies of multi-input multi-output production units, and introduced a powerful methodology in the form of data envelopment analysis (dea). the original idea behind dea was to provide a methodology whereby, within a set of comparable decision making units (dmu’s), those entities exhibiting best practice could be identified and could form an efficient frontier. the methodology enables us to measure the level of efficiency of non-frontier units and to identify benchmarks against which such inefficient units can be compared (cook and seiford, 2009:1-2). dea involves the use of linear programming methods to construct a nonparametric piece-wise surface (or frontier) over the data. efficiency measures are then calculated relative to this surface (coelli et al., 2005:162). the linear programming method may involve an input-orientated or output-orientated model. input-orientated models are preferred where firms have particular orders to fill (such as the supply of water and electricity in the case of local governments) and hence the input quantities appear to be the primary decision variables. output-orientation may be more appropriate where firms may be given a fixed quantity of resources and asked to produce as much output as possible. in essence, one should select the orientation according to which quantities (inputs or outputs) the managers have most control over (coelli et al., 2005:180). input-orientated and output-orientated models may include constant returns to scale (crs) or variable returns to scale (vrs) assumptions. a vrs estimate is obtained as the minimised value of the objective function in the following lp: error!θn s.t. yλn – yn ≥ 0 θn xn – x λn ≥ 0 j' λn = 1 (vrs constraint) λn ≥ 0, θn ≥ 0 where y = (y1, ... , yn) is a j × n matrix of observed outputs, x = (x1, ... , xn) is an i × n matrix of observed inputs, λn is an unknown n × 1 vector, and θn is an unknown scalar where j is an n × 1 vector of ones. van der westhuizen, dollery & grant 272 4. local government efficiency measurement the characteristics of local government service provision have made it difficult to develop precise measures of productive efficiency, particularly for benchmarking and comparative performance measurement. these characteristics encompass the following complicating factors: (a) multiple inputs and outputs in service provision; (b) the difficulties involved in determining the costs of service provision; (c) numerous stakeholders each competing needs, and (c) ‘non-discretionary’ factors which fall outside the control of local government (worthington and dollery, 2002). in the realm of local government empirical analysis, five different approaches have been employed in local public sector efficiency analysis (worthington, 2001): least squares econometric production models; the deterministic frontier approach; the stochastic frontier approach; the fee-disposal hull approach; and the dea approach. dea is often used to measure the relative efficiency (or productivity) of entities in the same industry, such as the local government sector. dea generally represents the preferred measure of relative efficiency for local government entities since they are quintessentially complex organizations in complex environments. in particular, dea allows us to analyse multiple outputs of local authorities, where binding budgets and other constraints are in operation. in sum, dea merges available input and output data on a municipality into a unitary measure of productive efficiency which can be used to gauge the relative efficiency of local authorities in comparison to each other. output measures used in dea estimates of local government have typically used only quantitative measures, as well as ‘non-discretionary’ quantitative output measures, such the number of residents requiring a specific service. worthington and dollery (2000) and worthington (2001) provide detailed surveys of the empirical efficiency analysis in local government. 5. data and model the data used for the analysis in this article represent budget data for the relevant variables used. in common with all efficiency measurement exercises, the quality of the data obviously determines the quality of the results obtained from the analysis. this raises various potential problems in the present context. for instance, an improved municipal budgeting process may change efficiency results without any corresponding real change in local services actually delivered. however, there is some evidence which suggests that this may not be a significant problem in the time period under review (dollery and graves, 2009:162-174). panel data covering the fiscal year 2006/2007 to the fiscal year 2008/2009 were employed, which included 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities. according to bahl and smoke (2003), securing adequate and satisfactory data on south african local government represents a formidable challenge to all researchers in the area. due to the inability of individual local municipalities and individual district municipalities to supply adequate and satisfactory data that could be used to estimate the efficiency of various local services, we were obliged to use data published by the demarcation board of south africa for the sample period, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, and 2008/2009. this data comprised inter alia total number of households, rdp water, rdp sanitation, rdp electricity, rdp refuse removal, the number of staff, various types of income that can be aggregated as total operating income and staff costs. the number of households, rdp water, sanitation basic service provision in sa local government td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. 273 electricity and refuse removal are derived from the 2001 national census. this was adjusted to represent number of households in 2006/2007 up to 2008/2009 using the population growth rate in proportion to the estimates of the population per province (statistics sa, 2008). a dea was performed using as output variables the total number of households receiving rdp water, rdp sanitation rdp electricity and rdp refuse removal. for input variables, the rand value of staff costs and total operational income were used. total operational income was employed as an input since this represented the aggregate funds expended to deliver the various local services under review; it incorporates the rand value of rates income, services income and government grants. the software package deap version 2.1 developed by coelli (1996) is ‘purpose-built’ to solve the dea problem in efficiency estimation procedures and typically forms the methodological basis for many local government efficiency measurement exercises. accordingly, it has been used for the estimations reported in this article to generate estimates of technical efficiency and scale efficiency. the efficiency estimates are executed under variable returns to scale (vrs) under input-orientated approaches. the input-orientated approach applies to the situation in which the local and district municipality seek to deliver the desired output with the minimum inputs. following coelli et al. (2005:172), the use of the constant returns to scale (crs) specification when not all entities are operating at the optimal scale results in measures of relative efficiency (te), which are confounded by scale efficiencies (se). the use of vrs specification thus permits the calculation of te devoid of these se effects. scale efficiency can be estimated by dividing a crs estimate of technical efficiency by a variable return to scale (vrs) estimate. 6. discussion of results the comparative relative efficiency estimates for district municipalities are depicted in table 1. the average technical efficiency estimate during the year 2008/2009 was 46.0% indicating that the district municipalities should, on average, be able to reduce inputs by 54% without any reduction in outputs. between 2006/2007 and 2008/2009 the mean technical efficiency estimate increased from 38.1% to 46.0%, while the median for technical efficiency increased from 27.7% to 33.3%. this means that, on average, some district municipalities were able to reduce inputs without any reduction in outputs. during the same period the mean scale efficiency estimate increased from 71.8% to 79.2% and the median scale efficiency estimate increased from 76.1% to 88.0%. during the period 2006/7 to 2008/9, thirty four district municipalities experienced an improvement in technical efficiency, while twelve district municipalities experienced deterioration in technical efficiency. during 2006/7, two district municipalities were fully technical and scale efficient, and during 2008/9 five district municipalities were fully technical efficient and three were fully scale efficient. over the three year period, the majority of the district municipalities were operating at increasing returns to scale, meaning that they operated at a scale that was too small in efficiency terms. a number of district municipalities experienced considerable improvement in technical efficiency during the sample period. during the period 2006/2007 to 2007/2008, district municipality dc46 experienced the highest improvement in technical efficiency. during the period 2007/2008 to 2008/2009, district municipality dc12 experienced the highest improvement in technical efficiency, while during the sample period, 2006/2007 to van der westhuizen, dollery & grant 274 2008/2009, district municipality dc48 experienced the highest improvement in technical efficiency. the district municipality with the highest net improvement in technical efficiency during the sample period is dc48. table 1: comparative relative efficiency estimates for district municipalities district 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009 te se returns te se returns te se returns dc1 0.100 0.729 irs 0.091 0.731 irs 0.110 0.726 irs dc2 0.115 0.980 irs 0.128 0.991 irs 0.143 0.991 irs dc3 0.128 0.630 irs 0.134 0.639 irs 0.135 0.687 irs dc4 0.089 0.913 irs 0.115 0.901 irs 0.121 0.974 drs dc5 0.198 0.203 irs 0.196 0.197 irs 0.205 0.231 irs dc6 0.291 0.303 irs 0.263 0.267 irs 0.267 0.434 irs dc7 1.000 0.592 irs 0.356 0.399 irs 0.324 0.480 irs dc8 0.276 0.453 irs 0.220 0.512 irs 0.254 0.643 irs dc9 0.369 0.706 irs 0.355 0.679 irs 0.359 0.742 irs dc10 0.184 0.717 irs 0.170 0.674 irs 0.188 0.752 irs dc12 0.295 0.761 drs 0.151 0.677 drs 1.000 0.157 drs dc13 0.162 0.761 irs 0.153 0.769 irs 0.190 0.963 irs dc14 0.091 0.417 irs 0.118 0.417 irs 0.113 0.691 irs dc15 0.098 0.769 irs 0.095 0.788 irs 0.179 0.994 irs dc16 0.729 0.394 irs 0.972 0.336 irs 1.000 0.470 irs dc17 0.606 0.991 drs 0.547 0.988 drs 0.643 0.863 drs dc18 0.688 0.936 irs 0.661 0.964 irs 0.658 0.936 drs dc19 0.776 0.915 irs 0.696 0.921 irs 0.868 0.990 irs dc20 0.816 0.786 irs 0.737 0.803 irs 0.717 0.947 irs dc21 0.070 0.713 irs 0.063 0.671 irs 0.082 0.967 irs dc22 0.278 0.995 drs 0.159 0.998 0.240 0.989 irs dc23 0.088 0.654 irs 0.086 0.673 irs 0.095 0.976 irs dc24 0.640 0.353 irs 0.627 0.396 irs 0.649 0.630 irs dc25 0.770 0.655 irs 0.774 0.660 irs 0.644 0.792 irs dc26 0.175 0.569 irs 0.084 0.587 irs 0.116 0.936 irs dc27 0.222 0.376 irs 0.222 0.405 irs 0.288 0.680 irs dc28 0.184 0.762 irs 0.215 0.825 irs 0.227 0.952 irs dc29 0.089 0.655 irs 0.118 0.613 irs 0.165 0.897 irs basic service provision in sa local government td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. 275 dc30 0.646 0.952 irs 0.657 0.975 irs 0.860 0.988 drs dc31 1.000 1.000 0.872 0.986 irs 1.000 1.000 dc32 0.560 0.964 irs 0.950 0.852 drs 1.000 1.000 dc33 0.435 0.987 irs 0.472 0.991 drs 0.612 0.970 drs dc34 0.502 0.932 drs 0.483 0.907 drs 0.782 0.984 drs dc35 0.111 0.984 irs 0.444 0.965 drs 0.488 0.997 irs dc36 0.834 0.791 irs 0.507 0.846 irs 0.665 0.980 irs dc37 0.678 0.956 drs 0.822 0.817 drs 1.000 1.000 dc38 0.237 0.892 irs 0.144 0.925 irs 0.234 0.990 irs dc39 0.439 0.655 irs 0.329 0.658 irs 0.342 0.722 irs dc40 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.763 drs 1.000 0.714 drs dc42 0.180 0.998 0.152 0.996 irs 0.290 0.582 drs dc43 0.177 0.428 irs 0.145 0.471 irs 0.195 0.854 irs dc44 0.156 0.374 irs 0.184 0.369 irs 0.209 0.823 irs dc45 0.043 0.158 irs 0.353 0.318 irs 0.351 0.441 irs dc46 0.360 0.446 irs 1.000 0.412 irs 0.700 0.489 irs dc47 0.468 0.902 irs 0.362 0.922 irs 0.469 0.988 irs dc48 0.167 0.930 irs 0.178 0.998 1.000 0.423 drs mean 0.381 0.718 0.382 0.710 0.460 0.792 min 0.043 0.158 0.063 0.197 0.082 0.157 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.998 1.000 1.000 note: te = technical efficiency; se = scale efficiency; irs = increasing returns to scale; drs = increasing returns to scale. the comparative relative efficiency estimates for local municipalities are reported in table 2. from the results it is clear that between 2006/7 and 2008/9 four provinces experienced deterioration in technical efficiency, three provinces experienced improvement in technical efficiency while two provinces experienced mixed results. in the case of scale efficiency, five provinces experienced deterioration while four provinces experienced an improvement in scale efficiency. the median technical efficiency during 2006/7 was 44.3% and during 2008/9 the median technical efficiency was 52.8%. the median scale efficiency during 2006/7 was 85.9% and during 2008/9 the median scale efficiency was 86.4%. it is clear that there was an improvement in both technical and scale efficiency. van der westhuizen, dollery & grant 276 table 2: comparative relative efficiency estimates for local municipalities (average per province) local municipality 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009 te se te se te se wc 0.298 0.890 0.267 0.886 0.260 0.889 nc 0.529 0.713 0.474 0.722 0.485 0.753 ec 0.412 0.834 0.416 0.852 0.528 0.908 fs 0.443 0.879 0.447 0.878 0.482 0.864 kzn 0.501 0.784 0.466 0.794 0.547 0.876 mp 0.428 0.867 0.455 0.863 0.551 0.833 lim 0.636 0.895 0.504 0.878 0.576 0.904 nw 0.490 0.859 0.483 0.829 0.591 0.820 gt 0.422 0.843 0.440 0.818 0.440 0.814 median 0.443 0.859 0.455 0.852 0.528 0.864 note: te = technical efficiency; se = scale efficiency , wc: western cape, nc; northern cape, ec; eastern cape, fs: free state, kzn: kwazulu natal, mp: mpumalanga, lim: limpopo, nw: north west, gt: gauteng. table 3 contains the efficiency estimates for the top ten district municipalities over the period of three years instead of each individual year. nine district municipalities were fully technically efficient during this period. only two of the top ten district municipalities were fully scale efficient during this period, with five of them operating at increasing returns to scale, meaning that they were operating at a scale that was too small in efficiency terms. three district municipalities were operating at decreasing returns to scale, meaning that they were operating at a scale that was too large in efficiency terms. the names of two provinces (western cape and limpopo) do not appear in the list of the top ten district municipalities. the names of three provinces (eastern cape, kwazulu natal and north west) appear twice in the list of the top ten district municipalities. table 3: top ten relative technically efficient district municipalities – 2006/2007 to 2008/2009 district te se returns dc7 nc 1.000 0.592 irs dc12 ec 1.000 0.225 drs dc16 ec 1.000 0.288 irs dc24 kz 1.000 0.230 irs dc25 kz 1.000 0.506 irs dc31 mp 1.000 1.000 dc37 nw 1.000 0.651 drs dc40 nw 1.000 1.000 dc42 gt 1.000 0.182 drs dc20 fs 0.963 0.673 irs note: te = technical efficiency; se = scale efficiency; irs = increasing returns to scale; drs = increasing returns to scale. basic service provision in sa local government td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. 277 the efficiency estimates over a period of three years, instead of for each individual year, for the bottom ten district municipalities are reported in table 4. three of the district municipalities were less than 10% technical efficient. between the bottom ten district municipalities, technical efficiency ranges between 4.4% and 12.8%. all of these entities were operating at increasing returns to scale, meaning that they were operating at a scale that was too small. the names of two provinces (western cape and kwazulu natal) appear three times on the list of the bottom ten technically efficient district municipalities, and the name of the eastern cape appears twice. the names of four provinces (north west, mpumalanga, free state and gauteng) do not appear on this list. table 4: bottom ten relative technically efficient district municipalities – 2006/2007 to 2008/2009 district te se returns dc14 ec 0.128 0.296 irs dc1 wc 0.122 0.602 irs dc2 wc 0.116 0.985 irs dc29 kz 0.114 0.519 irs dc15 ec 0.112 0.675 irs dc35 lim 0.112 0.975 irs dc23 kz 0.107 0.540 irs dc4 wc 0.096 0.855 irs dc21 kz 0.087 0.584 irs dc45 nc 0.044 0.155 irs note: te = technical efficiency; se = scale efficiency; irs = increasing returns to scale; drs = increasing returns to scale. the efficiency estimates over the period of three years, instead of for each individual year, for the top twenty technically efficient local municipalities are reported in table 5. the names of six provinces appear on the list (northern cape four times, kwazulu natal four times, limpopo four times, free state three times, mpumalanga three times and the eastern cape twice). the names of two provinces, the western cape, gauteng and north west are not on the list. five of these municipalities were fully scale efficient, meaning that they were of the right size. thirteen local municipalities were operating at decreasing returns to scale, meaning that they were operating at a scale that was too large, in efficiency terms and two were operating at increasing returns to scale, which means that they were operating at a scale that was too small in efficiency terms. van der westhuizen, dollery & grant 278 table 5: top twenty relative technically efficient local municipalities – 2006/2007 to 2008/2009 local municipality te se returns nc078 1.000 1.000 nc081 1.000 0.291 irs nc084 1.000 0.726 irs nc091 1.000 1.000 ec125 1.000 0.358 drs ec442 1.000 0.769 drs fs172 1.000 0.368 drs fs184 1.000 0.589 drs fs185 1.000 0.942 drs kzn213 1.000 1.000 kz236 1.000 1.000 kz252 1.000 0.538 drs kzn433 1.000 0.966 drs mp315 1.000 0.762 drs mp316 1.000 0.498 drs mp325 1.000 0.487 drs lim332 1.000 0.722 drs lim342 1.000 1.000 lim343 1.000 0.844 drs lim344 1.000 0.546 drs note: te = technical efficiency; se = scale efficiency; irs = increasing returns to scale; drs = increasing returns to scale. the efficiency is estimated over the period of three years instead of for each individual year, for the bottom twenty technically efficient local municipalities are reported in table 6. the name of four provinces (north west, mpumalanga, gauteng and limpopo) appear only once on the list, while the name of the northern cape appears nine times. the only province that has no local municipality in the bottom twenty is the free state. fourteen of the local municipalities operated at increasing returns to scale, meaning that they operated on a too small scale, in efficiency terms, five operated on decreasing returns to scale, meaning that they operated on a scale that was too large in efficiency terms, while one local municipality was fully scale efficient, meaning that, in efficiency terms, it was operating at the right size. the technical efficiency in this group ranged between 6.9% and 35.9%. basic service provision in sa local government td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. 279 table 6: bottom twenty relative technically efficient local municipalities – 2006/2007 to 2008/2009 local municipality te se returns nw401 0.359 0.912 irs ec126 0.357 0.985 irs ec102 0.354 0.987 irs ec152 0.348 0.608 irs kzn432 0.343 0.507 irs mp303 0.341 0.988 drs ec108 0.330 0.941 drs wc042 0.308 0.992 drs wc048 0.305 0.944 drs kz284 0.303 0.999 ec138 0.292 0.840 irs ec151 0.282 0.923 irs wc047 0.281 0.998 irs gt422 0.259 0.972 drs ec135 0.250 0.960 irs nc452 0.234 0.994 irs lim362 0.210 0.956 irs ec154 0.197 0.635 irs ec153 0.184 0.881 irs nc451 0.069 0.934 irs note: te = technical efficiency; se = scale efficiency; irs = increasing returns to scale; drs = increasing returns to scale. 7. concluding remarks the results obtained from this second attempt at measuring relative efficiency in south african local government should be regarded with caution mainly because the data from which they were derived are questionable. it would have been preferable to employ data provided directly from a large sample of district municipalities and local municipalities. however, since this once more proved impossible, we were obliged to use the only available data. from the results it is clear that there has been an improvement in the mean technical efficiency estimate of district municipalities during the sample period. the mean technical efficiency estimate increased from 38.1% to 46.0% which means that the district municipalities were able to reduce its inputs without any reduction in outputs. during this period the median for technical efficiency increased from 27.7% to 33.3% which indicates that there has been an increase in the number of district municipalities which experienced improvement in technical efficiency. thirty four district municipalities experienced improvement in technical efficiency, while twelve district municipalities experienced deterioration in technical efficiency. a number of district municipalities experienced considerable improvement in technical efficiency during the sample period. in the case of local municipalities, four provinces experienced deterioration in technical efficiency, three provinces experienced improvement in technical efficiency while two van der westhuizen, dollery & grant 280 provinces experienced mixed results. five provinces experienced deterioration in scale efficiency and four provinces improvement in scale efficiency. according to the median efficiency estimates there has been an improvement in technical and scale efficiency. if the efficiency estimates are calculated over the period of three years instead of each individual year, nine of the ten top district municipalities were fully technical efficient. only two of the top ten district municipalities were fully scale efficient. the names of two provinces (western cape and limpopo) do not appear on the list of the top ten district municipalities, while the names of three provinces (eastern cape, kwazulu natal and north west) appear twice in the list of the top ten district municipalities. in the list of the bottom ten district municipalities the names of two provinces (western cape and kwazulu natal) appear three times and the name of the eastern cape appear twice. the names of four provinces (north west, mpumalanga, free state and gauteng) do not appear on the list. when the efficiency estimates for local municipalities are calculated over the three years period instead of each individual year, the names of six provinces (northern cape four times, kwazulu natal four times, limpopo four times, free state three times, mpumalanga three times and eastern cape twice) appear on the list of the top twenty technically efficient local municipalities. the names of three provinces, the western cape, gauteng and north west do not appear on the list. in the case of the bottom twenty technically efficient local municipalities, the name of four provinces (north west, mpumalanga, gauteng and limpopo) appear only once on the list, while the name of the northern cape appears nine times. the only province that has no local municipality in the bottom twenty is the free state. compared to the results in a previous study by van der westhuizen and dollery (2009), there has been a slight deterioration in the average technical efficiency of district municipalities (47 per cent to 46 per cent), while there has been a substantial improvement in the average scale efficiency of district municipalities (64.1 per cent to 79.2 per cent). a lack of comparable tables of the results for local municipalities makes it impossible to compare the previous results with those obtained in the previous study. published budget data will no longer be available from the demarcation board of south africa which means that a similar study covering a longer sample period will no longer be possible. the results obtained in this study should be read in conjunction with the following. cogta (2009) investigated the reasons for the poor performance by district and local municipalities. cogta (2009:5) seek to answer the following questions: “is the municipality delivering on the desired outcomes, and is it operating on a sustainable basis?” “what is the state of local government in 2009 and what must be done to restore the confidence of our people in this sphere of government by 2011 and beyond?” cogta (2009:7) states that a municipality must structure and manage its administration and budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of the community, and to promote the social and economic development of the community, and participate in national and provincial development programmes’. for this reason municipalities were categorised in four different groups according to the performance. according to cogta (2009:63) municipalities are showing a poor ability to accurately plan and spend their budgets (i.e. credible budgets). a credible budget is regarded as one with a variance of less than 20 per cent. 35 municipalities overspent their total adjusted budgets to the total amount of r2.6 billion while 182 municipalities under spent to the amount of r19.1 basic service provision in sa local government td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 268-282. 281 billion. when analysing the capital adjusted budget spending, 177 municipalities under spent to the amount of r7.3 billion and 32 municipalities overspent to the amount of r350 million. analysis of the operating adjusted budget indicates that 24 municipalities overspent their operating budget to the value of r2.6 billion while 166 municipalities under spent to the value of r12.3 billion. a very significant risk going forward is that municipalities’ spending plans outstrip realistically collectable revenues. references atkinson, d. 2002. local government, local governance and sustainable development. pretoria: hsrc press. bahl, r. and smoke p. 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department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs. sotshongaye, a. and møller ,v. 2000. ‘we want to live a better life like other people’: selfassessed development needs of rural women in ndwedwe, kwazulu-natal. development southern africa, 17(1), 117-134. van der westhuizen, g. and dollery, b. e. 2009. efficiency measurement of basic service delivery at south african district and local municipalities. journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), 162-174. worthington, a. c. and dollery, b. e. 2000. measuring efficiency in local government. public productivity and management review, 23(4), 469-485. worthington, a. c. 2001. the empirical measurement of local government efficiency. in b. e. dollery and j. l. wallis (eds.), the political economy of local government (pp. 71113). cheltenham: edward elgar publishers. abstract introduction shifts in public service delivery paradigms ethics and mobile government mobile government in south africa cases of mobile government at south african municipalities local mobile government ethical dilemmas a proposed ethical framework for local mobile government recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) sandra makwembere department of people development and technology, faculty of business sciences, walter sisulu university, east london, south africa rufaro garidzirai department of management, faculty of business sciences, walter sisulu university, east london, south africa citation makwembere s, garidzirai r. a case for ethical frameworks to enhance mobile government implementation at south african municipalities. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a826. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.826 original research a case for ethical frameworks to enhance mobile government implementation at south african municipalities sandra makwembere, rufaro garidzirai received: 31 jan. 2020; accepted: 10 dec. 2020; published: 19 mar. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract interest in mobile government (m-government) is growing globally. mobile government refers to the use of wireless and mobile technologies to deliver services to citizens, businesses, employees and other government entities. presently, technological advancements take place despite questions on whether the existing policy and regulatory frameworks are suitable to regulate the effects of m-government. with m-government, municipal operations take place in virtual spaces where the consequences of such operations are still largely unknown and the frameworks that are apt to minimise any long-term effects on society are yet to be defined. this conceptual article suggests that ethical frameworks should be encouraged as part of mobile government implementation in municipalities to encourage reflective municipal practices and to improve judgement and behaviour in m-government decision-making. it contributes to debates on approaches to comprehensively support and guide mobile government towards positive municipal service delivery outcomes. keywords: m-government; ethics; ethical frameworks; municipal service delivery; e-government; mobile technology. introduction globally, mobile government (m-government) is embraced by governments to modernise their diverse service delivery processes. mobile-government can be viewed as an extension of electronic government (e-government). elecronic-government involves the use of information and communication technologies (icts) to improve interactions between government and business (g2b), government and citizens (g2c), government and employees (g2e) and government and government (g2g). as an extension of e-government, m-government goes beyond these platforms to use mobile technologies. it serves a multitude of purposes. like e-government, m-government has not only brought changes to service delivery channels but to public policy and practice. the scope of outcomes has been broad, from normative changes to policy adjustments to legislative reforms and to even shifts in political economies.1,2 research has yet to fully grasp all the changes. in south africa, significant e-government and m-government-related changes have occurred over the years. despite the fact that conceptualisations of technology are ambiguous, government has been under pressure to implement new technologies, often guided by private sector providers. without assistance from the private sector, government innovation processes would risk moving at a slower pace and being less responsive because of bureaucratic government’s internal processes and limited technology skills. as weber3 argued, bureaucracy is the most efficient and rational way to structure organisations. yet, in the present digital age it is a blight. mobile government needs changes to organisational processes, amongst other things, so that they are more flexible and less hierarchical to match citizens’ service needs. mobile-government at a local government level or local m-government can be distinguished from m-government at provincial or national levels. in view of local government’s mandate, municipality systems and structures need to be apt to mould m-government for sustainable service delivery benefits. the evidence of what local m-government offers is still unfolding; hence, as local m-government is implemented, holistic approaches to dealing with risks should be sought. these should not focus on financial risks alone but include non-financial risks such as embedding beliefs, values and behaviours contrary to those that are expected in the public sector. ethical frameworks can provide boundaries and structure to managing non-financial risks associated with m-government. without them, the often covert and informal processes around local m-government will be left unidentified and unquestioned. a deeper understanding of the ethical dimensions of local e-government systems and practices is arguably necessary today.4,5,6,7 the laws that regulate the use of technology by government might exist, but they do not cater for important implicit issues related to individual judgements and behaviours.1,2 the lapses in the existing laws create incentives for behaviours that can compromise service delivery when m-government is implemented. local m-government is shaping society and decisions made and responsibilities need to be interrogated. concerns should not only be around the design of the m-government technologies. as organisations are social systems, concerns should be extended. this article proposes that ethical frameworks are necessary for m-government implementation by municipalities to achieve positive service delivery outcomes. technology misuse and negative social impacts need to be limited. what follows is a section with an overview of shifts in public service delivery paradigms from e-government paradigms to m-government paradigms. the paradigm shifts not only inform government work processes but also have implications for organisational beliefs, values and practices. the following section provides examples of m-government implementation experiences. questions about the ethical adequacies are raised. the proceeding sections then present the kind of ethics frameworks that could be explored for local m-government. the article concludes with recommendations. shifts in public service delivery paradigms the incorporation of modern technologies in government service delivery processes has placed governments on trajectories where a combination of administrative, fiscal and service delivery reform, amongst others have been witnessed.8,9,10 notions of improved service delivery, reduced costs, responsive government, citizen-centric service delivery and flexible work arrangements are packaged with almost every project where governments introduce a new technology to its environments. government workplaces look quite different now compared with how they looked 30 years ago. electronic government is a concept that is changing the face and experience of service delivery. ho11 argued that governments introducing e-government move towards what can be referred to as an e-government service delivery paradigm. this paradigm emphasises coordinated network building, external collaboration and customer orientation.11 table 1 illustrates the differences between the bureaucratic paradigm, which exists before e-government is introduced and the e-government paradigm conceptualised by ho.11 table 1: shifting paradigms in public service delivery. the table points to the multilevel changes produced by the e-government paradigm. it transforms the organisational principles in government, which in turn provides different channels and experiences of service delivery.11 however, the e-government paradigm is not without limitations. as it focuses on the organisation, it reflects little of social factors. organisations can be defined as social systems characterised by: (1) specific objective or function, (2) differentiated system structure and (3) links between system subsystems and the environment.12 as makwembere13 found, managing e-government implementation requires an understanding of organisations as forms of social systems. there are also social systems within the organisation itself and the organisation is part of social systems that extend its boundaries. the m-government concept ‘consists of the interactions between mobile state administrations, mobile citizens and mobile officials’ (p. 14).14 the introduction of mobile technology has filled gaps in e-government. more people have mobile devices in comparison to those with internet access. kushchu and kuscu15 found mobile access to be growing as a daily part of life and that governments need to have more mobile activities. unlike e-government which relies on the internet, m-government relies on mobile connectivity. it uses wireless technologies and mobile instruments such as mobile networks (e.g., broadband), mobile devices (e.g., feature phones, tablets) and related technologies (e.g., short message service [sms], voice calling). questions have been raised about whether m-government will replace e-government. snellen and thaens14 argued that the shift from e-government to m-government is a fundamental change. it has a potential to nurture a different set of relationships compared with e-government. whilst there are numerous studies on e-government maturity models, little has been written on m-government maturity models. tozsa and budai16 proposed four stages using the gartner group four stage model. the stages can be summarised as follows: level 1 (information): at this stage, communication is carried out using sms. users receive and respond to information through mobile network. level 2 (interaction): at this stage there is a collective transactional type of interaction, which occurs with prompt responses via sms or multimedia messaging service (mms) technologies. level 3 (transactional): at this point, government offers services through different types of transactions, which are conducted through the use of mobile technologies over a mobile network. level 4 (transformation): here, systems that have back-end functionality are implemented by the government and are used to process administrative services through mobile technology. fasanghari and samimi17 offered a six-stage model based on a general view of technology, security and infrastructure. the stages can be summarised as follows: stage 1 (e-government): during this stage citizens access government services with the infrastructures provided by e-government. stage 2 (migration): at this stage there is accessibility of information through using mobile devices. stage 3 (primary interaction): here, citizens use their mobile devices to primarily interact with government websites and are able to search specific information using their mobile devices. stage 4 (full interaction): at this point citizens are able to interact and communicate with government on a full scale through mobile devices compared with stage 3. stage 5 (transaction): at this stage, citizens are provided with an opportunity to conduct transactions based on the services that the government offers. online interaction between citizens and government officials is more effective. stage 6 (ubiquity): at this final stage, the government makes services available in a ubiquitous way. services or information are made available without any prior requests being made, for example, messages on weather forecasts. the two models provide examples of how m-government development can be understood, but further model development is needed, especially for developing contexts with various socio-economic, socio-political and socio-cultural dynamics that differ from more developed contexts. whilst changes in paradigms in public administration as previously described may be argued to improve organisational structures or processes, one needs to ask: does the m-government paradigms produce social systems for ethics to work? are the changes to social systems associated with m-government taking place ethically? are there ways to make ethical assessments to judge m-government implementation accordingly, for example, based on consequences versus compliance? ethics and mobile government ethics is deemed to be an important component of good governance. traditional ethical scholars ignored technology because ethics was understood as concerned with human behaviour and technology was thought to be neutral.4 four kinds or groupings of ethical theories can be described: consequence, duty, contract and character based. consequence-based ethical theories hold that the consequences of actions and/or policies provide the measure against which moral decisions are evaluated. hence, should a person be faced with choosing between action a or action b, the morally correct action will be the one that results in the most desirable outcomes. according to utilitarians, the outcomes for the majority in a particular society are of supreme consideration. they stress the ‘social utility’ of actions and policies by focusing on their consequences thereby emphasising the roles of acts and policies in yielding social good. duty-based ethical theories hold that each person has an obligation or duty to his or her fellow human beings. kant (1724–1804) held the premise that every person has the same moral worth and should not be treated as a means to an end thus he did not accept that morality could be grounded in the results of human actions. ross18 believed that when two or more moral duties conflicted with each other, it was necessary to look at the individual circumstance to establish which duty would supersede the other. the individual circumstances would be important in determining the morally acceptable course of action and duty is a criterion for defining morality. ross18 listed various prima facie duties people must follow. for example, honesty, meaning that every person has a prima facie duty, to be honest. where two or more prima facie duties clash, ross18 held that a person could determine what his or her actual duty would be through a deliberate process of ‘rational intuitionism’. contract-based theories emphasise the existence of moral systems based on contractual agreements between individuals. related to these are rights-based theories of morality, which recognise that all people have certain natural rights. character-based ethical theories focus on criteria related to character acquisition and character development. to become an ethical person, one requires the development of virtues.13 by acquiring the right virtues, one could become a moral person. contemporary ethicists are increasingly paying attention to the effects of technology. for example, johnson4 writes of anticipatory ethics. it refers to (1) engagement with the ethical implications of a technology while the technology is still in the earliest stages of development and (2) engagement that is targeted to influence the development of the technology. (p. 64)4 it is a fairly new approach that addresses ethical issues related to technology. as there is an absence of discussion on the ethics of local m-government and articulation of these matters where the implementation of projects is reported, anticipatory ethics offers an important outlook. scholars have explored the ethical issues of emerging technologies, including in e-government.5,6 mullen and horner7 found four categories of ethical issues with e-government: (1) those related to electronic environments, (2) those dependent on electronic environments, (3) those determined by electronic environment and (4) those unique to electronic environments. there appears to be little scholarly attention to ethical issues in m-government, more especially at a local government level. most municipalities have codes of ethics, but no ethical framework is transparently applied in the implementation of local m-government. an ethical framework, as part of a risk management strategy, would address ethical issues related to local m-government implementation. local government is a channel for realising the aspirations of society as embodied in the constitution. privacy, security, copyright and access tend to be emphasised in literature. frameworks that enhance ethical focus can deal with questions such as ‘is m-government harming people and in what way?’. ethical responsibilities can be better outlined to ensure that m-government development processes ethically achieve desired service delivery outcomes. there are several possible impacts that could compromise ethical service delivery. policy and legislative frameworks that make ethics an important feature of m-government development can protect important societal values, principles and beliefs. already ethics in the public service has gained scholarly attention. what is missing is an extension of these debates to m-government implementation at local government level. ethical or unethical actions are predominantly ‘a function of both the individual’s characteristics and the environment in which he or she works’ (p. 123).19 understanding of why people make unethical decisions is incomplete, but choices can be planned ahead to reduce unethical actions. there are matters of ethics linked to the design process of m-government and the actual technologies created and matters of ethics after the municipality has taken the decision to roll out m-government technologies. the processes are related and the people involved in the processes function with a moral sense that needs to be guided to achieve positive collective public outcomes. mobile government in south africa south africa is classified as a relatively new industrialised country and is making swift steps to m-government. the country has been performing well in the mobile fraternity as it is ranked fifth in the world.20 statista20 reports that the number of people with cell phones exceeds the total population by 20%. simply put, most of south africa’s citizens have access to mobile phones because they are replacing desktops and laptops. this development has contributed to the acceptance of the m-government ideology. proponents of the m-government systems argue that the m-government concept is convenient, saves time, minimises costs and can minimise corruption.21,22 however, despite the benefits attached to m-government systems, they are still at initial stages. the driving force behind m-government implementation is the eight batho pele principles: courtesy, service standards, access, consultation, information, redress, openness and transparency and value for money. the batho pele principles emphasise placing citizens first when providing services.23 the principles have to be realised through the mobile technologies used. an increase in the number of citizens using mobile technology signals a willingness by citizens to use the m-government ideology to access government facilities. given that most of the south africans are living in extreme poverty, it is necessary for the south african government to invest more in responsible and ethical expansion of m-government infrastructure. the introduction of m-government has attracted scholarly attention, with a number of studies probing whether m-government is a viable option in south africa. maumbe and owei24 argued that introducing m-government system increases the unemployment rate in south africa. this is because the mobile technology is deemed to perform the work that was supposed to be done by local residents. they further argued that m-government facilities are expensive to set-up. despite their argument that m-government facilities are expensive and promote unemployment, mehlomakulu25 propounded that it is the best way for a country to communicate with its citizens and improve service delivery. similarly, dlamini and mpekoa26 also argued that the m-government system improves service delivery. they emphasised that there is a need to come up with m-government mature models that are uniform and consistent. this would require that the government design universal applications on the mobile phones of citizens that allow them to, for example, pay bills and enquire about account balances. a recent survey by dlamini and mpekoa26 concluded that the m-government system improves the communication of a country with its citizens. however, there are looming questions on how m-government systems can be prioritised through ethically sound processes whilst building citizens’ trust. there is a relationship between ethics and trust. as most citizens use mobile technology, the trust built through more ethical processes is crucial to m-government adoption. ogunleye, van belle and fogill27 found that south african citizens are ready for m-government. the majority of the respondents in their study expressed interest in interacting with government using mobile services. this included paying their bills, requesting bill balances and making enquiries. the findings were linked to the high infiltration of mobile phones. pertinent to note is that rural residents also expressed their willingness to communicate with the government although they do not have internet. from the surveys and studies carried out on m-government in south africa, it has proven to be well used to communicate with the country’s citizens and eliminate red tape, thus improve service delivery in south africa’s government. the systems are advantageous at a local level as municipalities have a broad legislative mandate. arguably, it is easier to manage the system as a micro system as compared with a macro system. cases of mobile government at south african municipalities there are a number of examples of m-government implementation at a local government level. the stellenbosch municipality28 implemented the m-government system by launching the housing application to all the residents in the municipality. the main objective of the application is to allow the residents to apply for houses online and avoid enquiries queues. the municipality launched the application for residents to put their profile that will link them to all the financial services that finances houses. the application was designed so that it should not consume large amounts of data. my ekurhuleni app was put in motion by the ekurhuleni local municipality. this project was also funded by vodacom with the purpose of improving communication between the government and its citizens. in addition, the application was designed to report any service needed and to give suggestions on how the local government can improve service delivery.29 the buffalo city metropolitan municipality launched a mobile application that permits citizens to pay bills, buy electricity and view their monthly statements. the objective of the implementation of the m-government system was to avoid long waiting periods and improve the service delivery. the application also gives residents the option to report any electric or plumbing faults.30 the city of johannesburg metropolitan municipality has set in place a mobile system that makes municipal operations easier for the residents. the mobile system provides municipality statistics, residents’ profiles, consumption, enables residents to check balances and pay bills online.31 thinyane, siebörger and reynell32 conducted a study on the use of mobiles in the makana local municipality targeting the grahamstown community. the study used the mobisam initiative and investigated the use of mobile phones in communicating with the local government. the results show that only 10% of the residents are without phones. in that 10%, 5% can have access to phones if need be. the respondents further state that they use cell phones to communicate with their leaders for service delivery. despite using the mobile phones, the survey further revealed that the m-government system introduced the software via the playstore. the respondents also suggested that the application should include xhosa and other local languages.32 local mobile government ethical dilemmas the m-government initiative has proven to improve service delivery in local municipalities. however, there are ethical dilemmas that the local government has faced in implementing this initiative. for instance, acquiring the m-government softwares and wireless network is a difficult task. the implementation of m-government means that the local government has to acquire all the licenses and resources for the initiative to be a success. acquiring such licenses is costly and requires a huge capital outlay.33 this dilemma best suits the free state local municipalities. the municipalities are finding it difficult to acquire the required licenses and resources for m-government.25 another dilemma faced is the acceptance of the m-government initiative. there is a higher probability that the majority of the local resident’s resist change from a traditional way of doing things to m-government initiative.34 for instance, the majority of buffalo city municipality residents are resisting change by not utilising the software that was introduced to address the improvement of service delivery.30 rather, the majority of local residents prefer to queue at a local municipality for help. such situations can lead to the rejection of the m-government in the long run. thinyane, siebörger and reynell32 further highlight another barrier to m-government in the makana local municipality. the authors mention that m-government software is not compatible with the local residents’ phones and that linking m-government software and residents’ mobiles is not an easy task as it involves some legal intervention. an additional ethical dilemma is the security of m-government systems.35 this includes information protection, personal information and email protection policies. it is sensitive to local residents for the local government to keep their private information. the residents fear that the information can be used by hackers, terrorists and hijackers to achieve their infractions. therefore, government officials found it difficult to implement the m-government system fully. the western cape province exemplifies this. the residents have accepted the m-government initiative but they fear that their privacy is at risk.36 an additional dilemma linked to the previous one is that local municipalities are faced with the ambiguous data protection law.26 it does not give the local municipalities the jurisdiction to allow the residents to sign documents online. this puts the local government at a compromising position to fully commit to the m-government initiative. on the other hand, some local residents hesitate to use the mobile services as they are fearful of fraudsters. fraudsters often imitate municipalities on mobile platforms and try to get payment out of citizens. this has happened to many local municipalities. for example, a fraudster posing as the executive mayor of polokwane municipality was asking for money to be deposited into their account in exchange for jobs and tenders.37 in durban, an sms fraudster circulated information to residents that their applications for a fake ethekwini municipality learnership programme were successful and that they should pay a fee to secure their place.38 a proposed ethical framework for local mobile government mobile government is a subset of e-government.39 ethical frameworks that underpin e-government ought to have a unique set of imperatives36 thus so do frameworks that underpin m-government. kaisara and panther40 recognised ethical issues for the e-government sector as privacy, e-inclusion, accessibility, property and accuracy. local government embodies a variety of complex norms and values. ethical values are not all-encompassing. those which apply to local m-government implementation would need to be crafted. the constitution and different pieces of legislation transfer ethical values in legal forms. accountability, justice, respect and transparency are amongst the main ones. however, laws are not always based on ethics. regarding m-government, without delving into the complexities of the relationship between ethics and law, one can ask what the nature of the ethics which should be applied for local m-government is, and whether present legislation adequately requires this. a range of ethical values in municipalities become relevant when applying technology. information and communication technology practitioners, for example, are trained to apply ethics in their design and provision of technology. they are trained to conduct their business ethically. however, municipal duty bearers, as clients with constitutional responsibilities, should think critically about what it means for them to implement technologies ethically. specifically, what it means to implement m-government, a major government mandate, ethically. each municipality has distinct social contextual issues, such as culture and politics, which act as factors influencing local m-government implementation and should not be overlooked. furthermore, internal and external actors, their interests and values, as well as the processes by which the m-government technologies are developed are important considerations. presently, technologies are significantly changing society. as such, resolutions on the ethical values needed to guide local m-government implementation can assist with on-going reflexive decision-making. sensitivity to ethical issues can limit unethical implementation. it should be noted that municipalities are not homogenous and neither are the people using m-government systems. the breadth of m-government means that in choosing to follow a more ethical path to local m-government implementation, decision makers can only hope to make the best possible decisions at a particular time. the multifaceted features of applications mean that outcomes can be achieved simultaneously but the impacts may not necessarily manifest simultaneously. the territorial, demographic and jurisdictional basis of states have shifted with new technological applications.14 public administrators need to proactively design and implement m-government systems whilst applying an ethical framework to minimise ethical dilemmas. municipalities may apply a combination of ethical theories based on their perceived strengths. an ethical framework needs assessment and evaluation aspects. the assessment aspect should include various reflections that can be made during decision-making on m-government. the evaluation aspect should comprise reflections to be made after actions are taken. these are considerations administrative decision makers and those responsible for municipal oversight can make. the following assessment questions can be included: what are the ethical and social aspects of the situation? what are all the available options? what factors impact the available options? what values do the potential actions fulfil? do any values conflict? how will this be resolved? do the actions optimise the common good or benefits of all recognised constituencies? what actions will achieve the most good at the time of intended implementation? what are the acceptable and unacceptable potential consequences of the actions? do the actions respect the rights of individuals involved? do the actions respect justice to and fairness for all parties involved? what are the potential institutional and non-institutional constraints? what knowledge and skill is needed to carry out the action? is it available? the following evaluation questions can be included: have the processes and outcomes been handled in the best possible way? what might have been done differently? table 2 further proposes stages of an ethical framework that could be applied to m-government implementation.41 furthermore, ethical attributes are emphasised along with a framework. for example, transparency and prudence. the attributes have what can be termed functional and symbolic benefits.42 functional benefits relate to performance whilst symbolic benefit refers to extrinsic advantages. whilst the concepts are used for marketing in the private sector, they are applicable in the public sector where service performance must ensure that needs are met through the consumption of public goods and extrinsic advantages must be realised, for example, human dignity. role players (such as municipal staff, municipal management, political leadership, the auditor general) and their roles can be outlined. table 2: stages of the ethical framework. recommendations the following are recommendations that can support more ethical decision-making over local m-government and the development of ethical frameworks by municipalities and key stakeholders such as mobile network providers: develop a written ethical framework develop m-government ethical training that goes beyond the existing codes of ethics and codes of conduct to foster ethical culture in leadership over local m-government develop ethical indicators for local m-government implementation for accountability purposes conduct cost-benefit analysis of local m-government projects that include social costs and social savings improve local m-government monitoring and evaluation skills to deal with quantitative and qualitative measures develop social impact frameworks with local m-government implementation frameworks to minimise unethical implementation develop simple software applications that have simple functions and are simple to use use a bottom-up consultative approach to involve more stakeholders for better results pursue user-friendly frameworks relevant for and shared with all their stakeholders for improved adoption facilitate widespread m-government adoption by all municipalities, which prioritises regularly monitoring improvements to service delivery and accountability conclusion the enduring socio-economic problems in society propel the south african government to use more advanced technologies to address these. as the available m-government technologies rapidly offer more capabilities, government laws and policymaking will not be able to respond in as quick a manner. a potential risk is that the effects of m-government related technological changes will continue to occur in obscure ways, thus proactive measures need to be taken. policy and legislation cannot be expected to cover all the intricacies of m-government’s evolution. before m-government outpaces government’s ability to regulate it, an exploration into what kinds of frameworks can improve future outcomes are worth pursuing. ethical frameworks for m-government would be worth implementing to improve judgements, decision-making and safeguard society from irreversible degradation. the success of m-government is generally measured by the level of mobile technology use in municipalities. however, looking to the near future, such a measure should be accompanied by an assessment of ethical steps institutionalised to achieve growth in technology use. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions s.m. and r.g. contributed equally to this work. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references rose j, flak ls, saebo o. stakeholder theory for the e-government theory: framing a value-oriented 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ethics in e-government: an analysis of developments in the www era. paper presented at: 6th international conference on e-government; 2006. sep 30–oct 1; cape town, south africa; s.l.: academic conferences limited; 2006. pp. 45–53. markkula centre for applied ethics. a framework for ethical decision making [homepage on the internet]. c2020 [cited 2020 jan 3]. available from: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/ bodur ho, gao t, grohmann b. the ethical attribute stigma: understanding when ethical attributes improve consumer responses to product evaluations. j bus ethics. 2014;122:167–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1764-5 abstract introduction literature review research methodology and design findings discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) jabulisile c. ngwenya department of commerce, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa nosihle v. sithole department of commerce, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mercy okoli department of commerce, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation ngwenya jc, sithole nv, okoli m. teachers’ experiences of teaching accounting in the context of curriculum changes in south africa. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a873. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.873 original research teachers’ experiences of teaching accounting in the context of curriculum changes in south africa jabulisile c. ngwenya, nosihle v. sithole, mercy okoli received: 02 may 2020; accepted: 04 feb. 2021; published: 12 apr. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract accounting as a subject is plagued by persistent changes because of shifts in the discipline originating from the developments in the profession. this study focuses on teachers’ experiences of teaching accounting as a subject during the time of curriculum change. it adopts an interpretive qualitative case study design to get a thorough understanding of accounting teachers’ experiences. data were obtained through reflective journals and semi-structured interviews from five purposively selected accounting teachers. the results of the findings indicated that accounting teachers often struggle to teach new content as learners lacked adequate background knowledge needed to learn accounting in succeeding grades. the unique language of the subject, shortage of textbooks and insufficient assessment activities in the textbooks constrained the teaching of accounting. in addition, school management and accounting specialists were found wanting in terms of the support offered to teachers as well as and providing regular advisory services to them because of insufficient knowledge of the subject and inadequate supervision skills. the study recommended that heads of departments should be fully trained on curriculum changes in their subjects to be able to provide guidance and supervise teachers under their leadership. on-going support should be provided by the subject advisors in schools to assist teachers with challenging topics and teaching strategies. keywords: accounting; accounting teachers; curriculum changes; language of accounting; teachers’ experiences; teaching of accounting; teaching resources. introduction the south african educational landscape has gone through a number of changes over the past two decades. it is worth noting that the introduction of the national curriculum statement (ncs) in 2006 and the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) in 2014 in the further education and training (fet) band resulted in redesign and the reconceptualisation of all subjects offered in the fet phase. curriculum changes were necessary to foster the skills needed for a democratic society and the globalised world.1,2 the changes that were reflected in accounting as a school subject were intended to better align it with the international accounting standards in the accounting profession.3,4 as such, it altered the misconception teachers and learners had whereby they regard accounting accounting as a routine subject that is only centred on the process of bookkeeping and recording of transactions.5,6 another major change in accounting was the introduction of new topics which gave rise to a shift in the prescribed subject content and the movement of topics within the grade and across the grades.7 addition of new content resulted in expanded breadth and depth in the accounting curriculum. consequently, accounting is now inclined towards cognitive levels which require description and understanding of the relationship between concepts as well as complex reasoning.6,7,8,9 myers4 notes that these changes and subsequent restructuring in the accounting curriculum have had serious implications in terms of adjustment of teaching, learning and assessment. makunja10 argues that whilst implementation of the change in curriculum has to be resource-intensive to succeed, the teacher remains the key driver of a successful curriculum transformation. in line with this view, okoth11 advocates that failure to align teacher-training methods to the needs of teachers can restrict the development of their content knowledge. this failure may lead to unsuccessful implementation of curriculum reforms by the teachers, which is then attributed to their poor conceptual understanding of reforms in their specific subjects.1,11,12,13 whilst teachers do undergo training to keep abreast of new developments in education, the extent to which training prepares them is questionable. this is particularly the case in accounting where teachers were expected to change to a conceptual approach in teaching of content knowledge. with research indicating teachers’ difficulties in implementing the curriculum changes1,10,14,15 and students’ high failure rates, conducting a study that focuses on teachers’ experience of teaching in the context of the curriculum changes is clearly important. furthermore, research has shown that ever since the implementation of the caps in the fet phase in south africa, very little research has been embarked on in accounting.6,8,9 this paucity makes the findings reported in this article particularly notable as it adds to knowledge in the current research in accounting education, predominantly regarding teachers’ experiences of teaching the subject in the context of the curriculum change. the question that guides the research is as follows: what are the teachers’ experiences of teaching grade 12 accounting in the context of curriculum changes in south africa? literature review teachers’ experiences of implementing curriculum changes research has shown that effective implementation of a curriculum in schools hinges on school-based condition.10,11,12,13,16 almost all the authors mentioned previously emphasise that most hindrances in the effective implementation of the new curriculum are found within the schools. makunja10 and okoth11 highlight the fact that insufficient teaching and learning materials to support the implementation is a major challenge to curriculum implementation. textbooks offer teachers structured and thorough presentation of the subject matter. however, numerous studies have found that teachers were not provided with enough textbooks.10,11,12 shilling12 points out that teachers’ lack of adequate content knowledge is one of the main hindrances to the effective delivery of a curriculum. this calls for necessary teacher development because successful implementation of any curriculum is reliant on the teachers’ potential to translate the written curriculum into classroom learning experiences. however, lack of teachers’ professional development has been identified in literature as one of the obstacles to curriculum implementation.12,13,17 as the curriculum changes and implementation affect teachers in significant ways, training the teachers who are expected to make the curriculum a classroom reality is of utmost importance. if relevant support is not provided to teachers to cope with the additional demands because of changes in content, the execution process will be ineffective. makunja10 regards frequent supervision of teachers as one means of monitoring implementation of the curriculum. makunja adds that it is the obligation of the heads of departments and head teachers to supervise curriculum implementation. however, research suggests that because of incompetent school leadership and management, there is often a failure to offer sufficient support and monitoring of actual execution of curriculum changes in the classroom.10,12,13,17 teaching of accounting research in accounting education3,4,5,18 highlights that changes in the accounting curriculum required teachers to modify their teaching and assessment methods to align them with the demands of the new curriculum. the assumption was that the adoption of diverse teaching approaches could lead to advancement of accounting proficiencies that are required in order to succeed in the profession. this is confirmed by thomson and washington,16 who found that using alternative teaching strategies encouraged the development of the critical thinking skills learners need in solving financial problems. however, with regards to assessment, ngwenya and maistry27 that there are problems with teachers’ understandings and interpretations of assessment in schools. accounting is a discipline that requires more practice than most others because of its practical nature.3,5,16,18 erasmus and fourie18 advise that a range of assessment tasks should be given to learners to involve them in discussion whilst encouraging them to think creatively. this means that in accounting, assessment activities must cover the entire content of the subject as well as the variety of skills that cover a range of cognitive levels to cater to different learner abilities. however, research has revealed that formative assessment is not understood by teachers because of a lack of conceptual understanding of accounting.5,18,27 this has an impact on effectively teaching it. the situation is worse in rural schools where teachers are faced with the challenges of large classes and a shortage of resources, especially textbooks. because of this, many learners attain poor outcomes. whilst in accounting, learners are confronted with scenarios that entail multiple and different solutions, providing feedback was found to be challenging as learners struggled to formulate solutions because of language impediment.6 in addition, it was difficult for teachers to write diverse lengthy comments when providing feedback to large classes in rural schools. teaching and assessment in accounting requires understanding and using a variety of teaching and assessment strategies. theoretical framework this study was framed with the curriculum implementation theory developed by rogan and grayson.19 the theory involves profile of implementation, capacity to support innovation and support from outside agencies as its three main concepts. the profile of implementation permits one to recognise the degree to which the new curriculum is executed in the classroom.19 according to rogan and grayson,19 factors to consider during a curriculum change include knowledge of how to execute change, learners’ prior knowledge, language use and classroom interaction. capacity to support innovation recognises how the school context can support or hinder curriculum implementation in terms of physical resources, school ethos and management, teacher factors and learner factors.19 fullan20 argues that access to physical resources is essential because inadequate resources can inhibit the ability of the teachers and learners to successfully implement the curriculum. according to rogan and grayson,19 outside agencies interact with a school to provide external support with the aim of facilitating curriculum implementation. these outside agencies could be government departments, ngos and unions that may provide material and non-material support and monitoring on the curriculum changes in the school context. in this study, external support will focus on non-material support offered through professional development. this kind of support is crucial in supporting and monitoring the recurring implementation changes in accounting. research methodology and design the interpretivist paradigm using a qualitative case study strategy was adopted in the study, as we were interested in understanding the experiences of accounting teachers in teaching grade 12. the choice of the interpretivist paradigm is based on our belief that there are multiple, socially constructed realities, which affect our decisions regarding the interpretation of data.21,22 as the aim was to obtain a thorough understanding of accounting teachers’ experiences, adopting a qualitative case study design was deemed suitable.23 in accordance with the main assumption of the case study, in this study the bounded system23 was a group of five accounting teachers. the choice of schools was based on the accessibility of the participants to us as researchers as well as their willingness to participate in the study. this necessitated confining the study to neighbouring schools where we work. therefore, five schools in umlazi south district were chosen as they were easily accessible and willing to participate.24 five accounting teachers who were teaching accounting in grade 12 were handpicked (one teacher per school) as they shared common characteristics.21 the number of participants is supported by farrugia,22 who argued that in qualitative sampling the researcher selects a small number of participants who will provide in-depth information about a given phenomenon under study. semi-structured one-on-one interviews were conducted to probe the accounting teachers’ experiences of teaching accounting in grade 12. interviews that lasted approximately 45 min each were conducted at the participants’ workplace during their free periods. prompts were used to ensure uninterrupted conversation. in addition, the interviews were tape-recorded after obtaining the assent of each individual participant. recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim to ensure that the participants’ views were captured correctly during transcribing. participants’ experiences of teaching accounting in grade 12 were supplemented through teacher reflective journals. also, the use of teacher reflective journals allowed us to capture information that may have been omitted in the interviews; in that way, relevant information was gathered. teachers were asked to write their experiences of implementing accounting changes in their personal journals. thematic analyses were utilised to analyse the data obtained from face-to-face interviews and reflective journals.21 the data analysis process began by transcribing face-to-face interviews to textual data. the transcripts were then read several times to identify units of meaning, in order to access the deeper meaning of the responses received. the categories were established by means of open coding. categories were then revised and grouped into specific themes to report the findings. themes that developed from the interviews were employed to analyse reflective journals. findings the findings will be reported through the following two themes: factors influencing implementation in the classroom and capacity and support to implement a new curriculum. verbatim quotes are used to capture participants’ experiences. factors influencing implementation in the classroom teachers found that learners’ background knowledge or preparedness, instructional language and unique language of accounting and assessment in accounting were found to be the main factors that hampered the implementation of changes in the accounting curriculum. learners’ background knowledge in accounting prior knowledge and perceptions that learners arrive with in the classroom form the foundation for new knowledge they construct. in accounting, learners’ background knowledge is crucial as each topic builds on the previous knowledge. findings showed that teachers were worried that learners had not acquired adequate background knowledge in previous grades as they lacked understanding of the basic accounting principles. brian further explained that lack of background knowledge might be because of the way the financial literacy content is structured in grades 8 and 9. the topics are not taught consecutively: ‘in economic and management sciences (ems) there are three components and financial literacy topics are scattered and not taught in one term’. teachers mentioned that the accounting content in grade 9 is too simple to give learners the relevant skills they need for further learning in the subject. as a result, they get inadequate exposure to knowledge and skills they are expected to acquire before they get into the fet phase. zuzeka added that when learners got to grade 10, they lacked sufficient understanding of foundational concepts and principles that were pertinent in learning accounting in the subsequent grades: ‘what i have seen in all the years of teaching accounting in the fet phase, when learners get in to grade 10 they can name accounting terms but they do not understand, they just memorise theme and this affects their learning in grade 11 and 12.’ (zuzeka, fet accounting teacher, 22 march 2019) in accounting, students learn better when they build on preceding knowledge, which helps them reinforce the connections between present knowledge and the new concepts about to be learnt. teachers concur that because many learners come to grade 12 with limited previous knowledge, textbooks should give them the full background knowledge needed to learn grade 12 content. however, teachers raised concerns about the information found in textbooks with respect to previous knowledge that a learner is required to possess prior to learning the new topic. teachers’ responses revealed that textbooks fell short in providing support regarding previous knowledge: ‘our learners are not well-prepared, even though they face the challenge of forgetting. especially in new topics there is nothing in the textbook that reminds me about previous knowledge of learners. i use my experience.’ (zama, fet accounting teacher, 22 march 2019) language of instruction and the unique language of accounting teachers experienced language as one of the serious impediments in the teaching of accounting in grade 12. teachers explained that learners who were not fluent in the language of instruction often found it difficult to comprehend the new concepts. although the language of teaching hindered effective learning of accounting, teachers believed that the unique language of the subject intensified the challenges. this had major consequences for the teaching and learning of the subject. teachers mentioned that the language of accounting is unfamiliar to learners, and terminology encountered in the subject is difficult to master and comprehend. this is confirmed by senzo who added that because accounting is a subject with its own distinctive language, learners often fail to understand new knowledge as they find it difficult to make sense of the unique concepts of the subject. the situation is worsened when the language of teaching accounting is the learners’ second language: ‘you know language is the reason why my learners fail accounting because in grade 12 or any other grade, accounting has its own vocabulary which learners must get used to. if they do not understand simple english it becomes difficult to understand the subject.’ (senzo, fet accounting teacher, 25 march 2019) teachers said the language barrier added to learners’ challenges in solving financial problems. zama noted that learners often could not analyse financial information because of an inadequate understanding of the language of accounting. learners frequently struggle to provide sound solutions to the financial problems. although they understand the information provided, they often find it challenging to formulate responses because of linguistic limitations in communicating in english: ‘in most cases they find it difficult to answer questions in tests. it is difficult to come up with the answers in english’ (zama, fet accounting teacher, 22 march 2019). teachers were of the opinion that it was their responsibility to explain the text in the mother tongue first and then revert to english in an attempt to clarify new concepts and to assist learners in understanding the task requirements. teachers believed they were compelled to use the learners’ home language to facilitate the learning of accounting. therefore, they make use of code switching in teaching accounting to overcome the challenge and to encourage learning. this is what beauty (fet accounting teacher, 01 april 2019) said: ‘i always code switch. it helps a lot especially when i’m introducing new topics. i always explain each word on the topic in english and isizulu’. furthermore, teachers were concerned that learners were often passive in the classroom and rarely engaged in meaningful discussions as they were required to respond in english. however, teachers found group discussions to be a learning space that provided support in allowing learners to share their ideas and thoughts freely within their groups using their home language. teachers raised concerns that although the use of code switching helped in clarifying new concepts, other accounting concepts could not be explained in isizulu. there were words that did not have an equivalent in the learners’ mother tongue because they originated from another language apart from english. as a result, teachers had to use visuals like pictures to illustrate the new concepts. whilst visuals were believed to be of great help in enhancing the learning of new and unfamiliar concepts, teachers raised concerns that pictures that were meant to enrich learning of new concepts were hazy in the textbooks they were using. furthermore, teachers expressed their discontent that schools do not have funds to buy accounting posters that are pertinent in illuminating unfamiliar concepts: ‘in the books, there are pictures and other graphics to emphasise new concepts and help learners understand. but they are in black and white and they are not clear. posters are better.’ (zuzeka, fet accounting teacher, 22 march 2019) ‘we raised the issue of putting up posters with terms and pictures, but the principal said there is no money.’ (senzo, fet accounting teacher, 25 march 2019) sometimes teachers are compelled to use the learners’ home language to facilitate the learning of accounting as the language of instruction was a barrier to learning. as a result, teachers on many occasions had to switch to the mother tongue for further explanation of new concepts. in addition, they used the learners’ everyday experiences and immediate environment to clarify new knowledge. assessment in accounting accounting teachers explained that the practical nature of the subject requires learners to undertake repeated and frequent written activities and tutorial exercises. these help teachers to consolidate the learning of new knowledge and check the learners’ level of understanding. in accounting, different forms of assessment should be used to allow students to practice what they have learnt. however, teachers raised concerns that teaching and assessment of new knowledge was a challenge because there were insufficient activities in the textbooks to allow students to review what had been learnt in class: ‘we normally encounter problems when teaching new topics. there are fewer activities in the textbooks to practise.’ (senzo, fet accounting teacher, 25 march 2019) whilst it is imperative for learners to be equipped with critical skills in class to prepare them for examinations, teachers were perturbed by the shortage of problem-solving activities in the textbooks. teachers indicated that there were too few activities that allowed learners to evaluative financial information and show creative cognitive thinking. on the same issue, zama (fet accounting teacher, 27 march 2019) highlighted that activities found in the textbooks were mostly on the lowerand middle-order cognitive level as they require learners to apply procedural knowledge: ‘i always have a problem when i want to give my learners more work in problem solving. the activities are not challenging learners. they are very easy’. whilst examination papers cover all cognitive levels, teachers were worried that activities found in their textbooks did not match the standard of questions in the national senior certificate examination papers in terms of the level of challenge. this challenges learners when they are writing examinations because they are not sufficiently equipped to answer the higher order questions: ‘evaluation and creativity are not covered adequately. there are no higher-order activities to help teachers to prepare learners for the examinations.’ (beauty, fet accounting teacher, 01 april 2019) teachers felt that the level of challenge of the activities given in class failed to prepare learners for examinations. teachers therefore use past examination papers and the examination guideline. capacity and support within the school accounting teachers expressed their views on how physical resources and support from school management and learners hampered or supported the implementation of curriculum changes in school. physical resources teachers regarded textbooks as the main resource they needed to support the implementation of the caps accounting curriculum. they further explained that when the new curriculum was implemented in 2014, enough textbooks were ordered for the number of learners who were in grade 12 in that specific year. however, teachers mentioned that there was a shortage of textbooks because of the increased number of learners: ‘because there are more learners in my class than the previous years, other learners do not have textbooks.’ (zuzeka, fet accounting teacher, 22 march 2019) beauty confirmed that when textbooks were lost or when the number of learners increased, textbooks were not replaced and, as a result, there were not enough for all the learners in class. teachers felt that understanding accounting concepts depended on the information found in the textbooks. what is remarkable though is that prescribed textbooks do not provide a detailed explanation of the unique concepts. teachers mentioned that they encountered problems when preparing lessons, especially for new topics, because they do not have enough teachers’ textbooks to consult to get different perspectives on the topic. teachers indicated that other textbooks did not have sufficient content, and as a result, they found it problematic to prepare lessons: ‘textbooks should give us more knowledge about new accounting terminology when doing lesson plans. definitions are there but do not give full information; [for example] the buyback of shares is not explained clearly.’ (beauty, fet accounting teacher, 01 april 2019) this shortcoming compelled senzo (fet accounting teacher, 25 march 2019) to use more than one textbook to teach new concepts. it is however unfortunate that he had to buy other accounting textbooks using his own funds because the school could not afford to buy additional textbooks: ‘i bought two books because they explain new terms clearly but i do not have a teacher’s guide. the school does not have money to buy them’. teachers expressed concerns about the coverage of content within the main topics. they indicated that whilst the new topics appeared in the textbooks, information provided was not comprehensive enough for learners to understand the topic. in addition, textbooks do not provide teachers with sufficient content to explain the topics thoroughly in class. school management in this study, all teachers were accounting specialists with adequate qualifications. although teachers were well equipped and had relevant expertise to teach accounting, they were concerned about major changes in the caps accounting curriculum. teachers mentioned that the introduction of new topics was seen as a huge change in accounting. although they had been teaching some new topics, they were still not confident to teach others. teachers added that accounting is not about calculations anymore; it requires understanding of theory to be able to analyse financial information and to solve financial problems. they often found it challenging to equip learners with the analytical skills needed to analyse financial information. their main concern was that they often did not get adequate support from the school management: ‘there are different topics that have been added: buying back of shares and calculation of average price. there is more theory and learners have to understand it. if i ask my hod, she does not know these new topics.’ (brian, fet accounting teacher, 30 march 2019) beauty (fet accounting teacher, 01 april 2019) added that other new topics were not easy to introduce; she does not get enough support from management. the situation is exacerbated by the fact that the commerce head of department (hod) was not an accounting specialist: ‘my hod does not help me much; she did not know much about accounting, she majored in business studies’. because teachers do not get the support they need from management, they rely on other accounting teachers in the cluster: ‘i get help from the cluster coordinator, who is very good in accounting.’ (zuzeka, fet accounting teacher, 22 february 2019) zama said her hod had limited understanding of the changes in the grade 12 curriculum, as he was not teaching that grade: ‘my hod never supported me with the challenges i had in caps accounting content; instead, he gave me permission to consult cluster colleagues.’ (zama, fet accounting teacher, 27 march 2019) the fact that teachers got insufficient support from their heads of department was concerning. they indicated that their principals were very supportive even though some did not fully understand the curriculum being implemented. learners’ parental support whilst parental involvement in learners’ learning is of paramount importance, teachers were concerned that parents did not support their learners. learners from certain backgrounds were less likely to get sufficient support. teachers mentioned that most learners do not get the necessary guidance and support in the completion of school tasks because they come from grandparent-headed and child-headed families. a number of learners were grappling with multiple and competing responsibilities as they were also expected to take up parenting responsibilities and household duties. this is what teachers said: ‘in my class there are children who live with their grannies. they are old and they do not come to school when you call them.’ (zama, fet accounting teacher, 27 march 2019) ‘our learners do not have time to do homework because when they come back from school they have to cook, and do washing for other children and some have no parents to support them.’ (zuzeka, fet accounting teacher, 22 march 2019) teachers added that some learners normally do not do homework because of problems emanating from their home context. teachers commented that they do not receive support from many of the parents in successful implementation of curriculum changes. some of the children, when they get home, are required to take up family responsibilities and daily errands. as a result, they do not have enough time to focus on their schoolwork. capacity and support from outside the school teachers regarded in-service training offered by the department of basic education (dbe) as the main factor affecting support received outside the school. professional development all five teachers agreed that they had received training on the changes in accounting, but said it was not enough. they were concerned also about the time allocated for the workshops, saying it was insufficient to grasp all the information on new content. they had this to say: ‘yes, i did get some training … it helped me because i was officially informed about these curriculum changes in accounting but the time was not enough.’ (senzo, fet accounting teacher, 25 march 2019) ‘for me there was little time to unfold every change that took place. i had to train myself on some topics, so that was a challenge for us.’ (zama, fet accounting teacher, 27 march 2019) senzo was discontented over the way the workshops were conducted. he stated that those who were conducting workshops seemed not to be adequately knowledgeable. he added that the workshops were not practical enough to help teachers with classroom implementation: ‘subject advisors were mostly telling us about changes in the accounting curriculum. practical examples were not given. i met with other teachers. we discussed all our problems and they gave me methods of explaining the new concepts.’ (senzo, fet accounting teacher, 25 march 2019) senzo was not satisfied with the workshop, and saw workshops primarily as a space for advanced networking. he commented that the space provided him the opportunity to discuss his challenges with other grade 12 teachers. this assisted him in developing classroom strategies to handle difficult concepts. teachers were of the impression that after attending workshops, consistent monitoring should have been provided to support them with implementation. they expressed concerns that the dbe did not offer constant monitoring. zama added that there had never been school visits by the subject specialists to attend to individual teacher’s challenges with the implementation, especially as there were continuous changes in accounting: ‘in my district, monitoring never took place; subject advisors were coming to school if there has been a request or if a school is failing’. teachers were only invited to attend workshops informing them about the dates for common examinations and the review of the past year’s results at the beginning of the year. they normally saw the workshop space as an opportunity to share information about different accounting topics and how to teach them creatively. discussion the purpose of the study was to explore teachers’ experiences of teaching grade 12 accounting in the context of curriculum changes in umlazi south district in south africa. according to ajani,25 if students don’t have sufficient related knowledge, they are likely to have difficulties in understanding new content. therefore, he underscores the importance of background knowledge in learning new knowledge. according to this study’s findings, accounting teachers found that that inadequate learners’ background knowledge contributed to a delay in the successful implementation of the subject in the classroom. for accounting learners to grasp key financial transaction, as well as analysis, interpretation and communication of financial statements, they must understand accounting language and fundamental concepts of principles and practice.26 language was pronounced a main hindrance in teaching accounting, as grade 12 learners failed to understand financial information and were unable to make sound decisions. findings revealed that for second language speakers of english, the type of scenarios and the unique language of accounting impeded the effectiveness of teaching and learning in this subject. learners were normally scared to talk in class because their command of english as the medium of instruction was not good enough. the teachers’ views and experiences are consistent with myers,4 who found that students had to first translate accounting concepts into english and then translate them into unique meanings in the accounting world. to accommodate learners, teachers had to use group discussions as a strategy to encourage them to share their ideas and thoughts. this created a learning space that provided support in allowing learners to express their views freely within their groups using their home language. in kwazulu-natal, schools are allocated funds to purchase one prescribed textbook for each learner. because of a shortage of funds to buy more books for teachers, most teachers rely on this prescribed textbook to teach. makunja10 regards textbooks as one of the teaching and learning resources whose availability can sustain the implementation of a curriculum. however, the teachers reviewed in this study experienced a shortage of textbooks and this hindered effective implementation of changes in accounting, as they were viewed as essential teaching and learning material. in addition, teachers found textbooks wanting in helping them with sufficient information required to teach the new content. findings revealed that support from parents was lacking in various home conditions. whilst the subject required learners to do practice activities at home, teachers had the challenge of learners not doing their homework. teachers reported that heads of departments did not provide sufficient and effective support they required owing to insufficient subject knowledge and inadequate supervision skills. this is in line with sabola17 who found that it was difficult for heads of departments to provide supervision on a subject they did not specialise in. sabola’s finding is confirmed in this study as commerce hods were not confident enough to offer advisory support to the accounting teachers because they did not understand the new content. the situation was aggravated by the fact that some of the commerce hods were not accounting specialists. teachers confirmed that a lack of thorough in-service training to prepare teachers for curriculum changes is one of the major challenges affecting the successful implementation of the curriculum.10,11 although teachers were invited to attend workshops, teachers found them to be ineffective in providing them with the knowledge they needed to understand new content. there was not enough time allocated for training for facilitators to address and clarify all the changes adequately, and attend to individual teacher’s challenges. although they did not learn much from the dbe workshops, the five teachers said that these workshops provided a platform for teachers to speak out and ask for support and guidance from teachers outside their own schools. they were less interested in the workshop content itself; instead, the gathering rendered informal networks of support. findings revealed that facilitators for the workshops lacked adequate understanding of the new content in accounting. as such, teachers got an opportunity to consult other teachers in the cluster on issues pertaining to content delivery that may need further clarification. it is worth noting that supervising curriculum implementation through provision of advisory services and regular monitoring assist in fostering the professional development of teachers.14 such services provide teachers with appropriate information for their professional advancement whilst promoting good pedagogical practices. nevertheless, findings revealed that advisory support was not offered to accounting teachers in the teaching of new content in schools. teachers indicated that subject advisors seldom provided follow-up visits to schools after teachers had attended workshops and to monitor implementation of curriculum changes. conclusion stemming from the continuous curriculum changes in accounting and the need for teachers to implement the changes, this article sought to explore accounting teachers’ experiences of teaching the new accounting curriculum in schools. the outcome of this study indicated that numerous factors were experienced by teachers as hindering their efforts to successfully implement curriculum changes in accounting. whilst advisory support was important during the execution phase of frequent curriculum changes in accounting, findings from this study indicated that regular supervision and continuous support was not offered to teachers by relevant dbe stakeholders. this frustrated teachers’ attempts to get to grips with new content and ensure effective instruction. keeping in mind that accounting is regarded as a subject that necessitates regular practice because of its practical nature, there was an outcry from teachers who participated in this study regarding the shortage of textbooks. furthermore, textbooks were found deficient in guiding and supporting teachers with adequate activities and a relevant questioning style. if the above obstacles can be addressed accordingly, it could lead to a better teaching experience for accounting teachers as well as a more successful implementation of curriculum changes. for instance, if on-going support was provided by subject advisors in kwazulu-natal schools to assist teachers with challenging topics and teaching strategies, teachers would gain more confidence in their skills, and this would enhance their teaching greatly. drawing from the findings presented, making textbooks available to teachers in addition to the prescribed one is recommended to assist in enhancing authentic teaching and learning and in seeing concepts from different perspectives. the study also recommended that heads of departments should be fully trained on curriculum changes in their subjects to be able to provide guidance, supervision and other support services to teachers under their leadership. this study is, however, limited in that the findings only represent the experiences of five teachers from five schools in one district. therefore, results cannot be generalised beyond this sample. there is also potential for further research to shed light on the broader scope of experiences of teaching the new accounting curriculum, which could yield diverse results. subsequent research could be a quantitative study with a large number of accounting teachers in several districts. we thus conclude that the outcome of this study should inform research on the school teaching experience. documenting the experience of teaching the accounting changes can help the subject advisors and school management to understand the common factors that can affect the teaching of accounting in the context of curriculum change, and to find possible ways to navigate them. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions j.c.n. and n.v.s. conceptualised the study. n.v.s. collected and analysed data with the assistance of both j.c.n. and m.o. j.c.n. wrote the first draft and m.o. conducted the literature review. all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript. ethical considerations permission to conduct this study was granted by the university of kwazulu-natal (ref. hss/1262/01bm), the department of education, the school principals as well as the participating accounting teachers. other ethical procedures, procedures, which informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity, and voluntary participation were explained to the participants and adhered to throughout the duration of the study. all participants were kept anonymous by giving them pseudonyms (zama, beauty, brian, zuzeka and senzo). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or 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discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) makhulu a. makumane department of languages and social education, faculty education, national university of lesotho, roma, lesotho sandiso ngcobo department of communication, faculty of management sciences, mangosuthu university of technology, durban, south africa citation makumane ma, ngcobo s. the representation of curricular spider-web model in the lesotho curriculum and assessment policy framework. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a796. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.796 original research the representation of curricular spider-web model in the lesotho curriculum and assessment policy framework makhulu a. makumane, sandiso ngcobo received: 04 dec. 2019; accepted: 28 oct. 2020; published: 24 mar. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract over the years, curriculum reforms have formed part of lesotho’s attempt to address the socio-economic development factor through education policies such as the lesotho curriculum and assessment policy (cap) framework, introduced in 2009. this framework is meant to guide curriculum development and design processes. through content analysis, this article seeks to highlight the representation of the curricular spider-web model’s concepts, which guide effective curriculum development, in the policy framework. curriculum and assessment policy framework and the guide to continuous assessment document, which is a counteractive document that acts as an amendment of the 2009 policy, were analysed using the guided analysis method. findings suggest that there are some concepts, which are neglected by the framework. this may have a negative bearing on the curriculum development process. this article draws from the curricular spider-web to recommend a review of the cap framework towards inclusion and alignment of omitted concepts for the facilitation of an effective curriculum design process. keywords: lesotho; cap; curriculum development; policy; spider web. introduction education plays a vital role in the advancement of lesotho’s socio-economic development and national development.1 amongst other efforts, the gol has integrated french into the secondary school curriculum with the hope that it will assist towards enhancing the inconsistent economy, promote personal growth and national development.2 this effort appears to have been embraced by a promising number of learners.2 however, over the years, different curricula have been introduced, although with little success, in response to personal (habitual), social and professional needs of the society and of the country as a whole.3 spaull4 described such a situation as an indication of a dysfunctional education system in which learner’s academic achievement would tend to be inconsistent with national curriculum standards and international assessments. similarly, the dismal attempts in curriculum development in lesotho appeared to be a result of an apparent misalignment between curriculum and assessment. however, molapo and pillay5 acknowledged that curriculum change is a global challenge that, therefore, requires creative solutions. in an effort to salvage the situation, lesotho government introduced the curriculum and assessment policy (cap) framework in 2009 in view of achieving educational goals for national development. according to raselimo and mahao,3: p.1 the 2009 cap was initiated ‘as a strategy to minimise the negative influence of examinations on the education system by integrating curriculum with assessment’ in order to curb concerns pertaining to the alignment of school and public examination. the main aim of this education policy is to guarantee access, quality, equity and relevance, that is, facilitated through education (ministry of education and training, hereafter moet).6 in addition, the policy is meant to amalgamate societal problems with the overall developmental goals of the country. such problems, which include the rampant spread of hiv, high unemployment rate, high poverty and environmental degradation, seemed to pose a threat to the socio-economic development of lesotho.3 thus, to deal with these seemingly imminent threats to sustainable development, the 2009 cap was introduced, where knowledge was seen to be derived from ‘pressing’ societal issues to promote local knowledge, as well as school knowledge, where global trends, through prescribed content are included in view of embracing the concept of globalisation.7 in other words, both local knowledge and school knowledge were seen as imperative in ensuring quality and relevance in the education sector.3 in essence, the education policy, through its adaptation of the integrated curriculum and its advocacy of using the learner-centred approach, supports lifelong learning, production and work-related competencies.6 the framework is intended to guide the process of curriculum design and development in line with the introduction of the concept of an integrated curriculum, which includes vocational and life skills orientation programmes in mainstream schools.6 notably, this policy framework premises a significant reform in the form of a shift from an examination-oriented education system to a more process-oriented system that integrates teaching and learning with assessment for a more effective curriculum.3 lesotho’s introduction of the cap framework is in line with the view expressed by brasof and mansfield8 on the importance of governments to address challenges with their education systems if they are to uplift the standard of their children’s education and compete globally. therefore, the success of the cap framework can be examined against whether it addresses all the pertinent curriculum concepts, and thus, conforms to the internationally recognised curriculum spider-web model. it is in this sense that the article critically analyses content presented in the cap framework in order to identify the representation of van den akker’s9 curricular spider-web model. this model, with its provision of guiding questions (see figure 1), is deemed to be instrumental in steering effective curriculum development. an effective curriculum design is expected to contribute to developing the targeted learning outcomes.10 in the case of lesotho, this would mean that the cap should be able to achieve educational goals for national development. figure 1: curricular spider web. available research appears to have focussed mostly on the alignment of textbooks with cap’s framework. for example, ngwenya and arek-bawa11 adopted the qualitative content analysis (qca) approach to investigate the quality of two grade 12 accounting textbooks in south africa in respect to content, structure and organisation, guidance and support and assessment tasks. in contrast, this article addresses the gap in research that explores the alignment of the curriculum to cap framework in the lesotho context. the purpose of this evaluation is, therefore, to determine if there is consistency between curriculum and practice. thus, as one of lesotho’s cap’s main aims is to guide the curriculum development process, as such, the adopted model proved fitting to determine whether essential curriculum concepts are captured in the cap framework, as negligence thereof has proven to have adverse outcomes, especially during curriculum enactment. aligned with the aim of this article, which is to scrutinise the representation of the curricular spider web and teaching and learning signals in the policy framework, an attempt is made to answer the following question: what is the representation of the curricular spider-web model in the cap? it is hoped that addressing this question might sensitise policymakers to factors that contribute to effective curriculum development and thus initiate a policy framework that subscribes to the curricular spider-web model. conceptual framework: curricular spider-web model the concept of curricular spider-web model was introduced by van den akker9 in view of clarifying the importance of the relationship between curriculum concepts that form the core of the curriculum. as the curriculum is seen as a plan for teaching,12 there exists a framework of concepts that tackle specific questions that guide curriculum development.13 this framework is known as the curricular spider web. it comprises 10 concepts that are interlinked and thus affects each other. this denotes that a change in one concept during curriculum development results in a domino effect that affects other concepts.14 this assertion suggests that the spider web highlights the importance of each curriculum concept in contributing to a successful curriculum that addresses educational needs. van den akker et al.15 asserted that ‘the spider web thus illustrates a familiar expression; every chain is as strong as its weakest link’. this contention implies that should there be a concept that is neglected during the process of curriculum development, the curriculum is likely to be compromised. the spider web thus demonstrates the susceptibility of the curriculum and how the alignment of its concepts is essential to ensuring attainment of goals stipulated in the policy framework and in the intended curriculum. figure 1 illustrates the curricular spider web as adapted from van den akker.9 as figure 1 shows, there are 10 concepts in the curricular spider web. rationale, as defined by van den akker et al.,13 alludes to universal principles or reasoning of a plan to be executed. this concept deals with the ‘why’ question, that is, why the curriculum is being conceived, which then translates into the vision, as devised by policymakers.16 however, as mpungose17 posited, policymakers should establish the ‘why’ of teaching a subject (rationale) before curriculum development in order to help developers understand the essentiality of that particular subject/discipline. furthermore, berkvens et al.14 think that rationale is influenced by three propositions: personal (habitual representation), social (social representation) and professional (factual representation). in essence, policymakers need to take into consideration these three propositions at the macro (national) level whilst devising a policy in order to guide the micro (educator) level of curriculum design. this article is, therefore, based on the assumption that policymakers are influenced by their habitual representation in determining both the social and factual representation. this suggests that they take into consideration the need for a policy to contribute towards the immediate needs of the society and towards the application of the cognitive domain by learners.18 as the curriculum is designed for learners, there are vital core questions that curriculum developers/designers need to use as a guide during the development process.14 these are: why are they learning? (rationale); towards which goals are they learning? (aims and objectives); what are they learning? (content); how are they learning? (learning activities); how is the educator facilitating their learning? (educator role); with what are they learning? (materials and resources); how is learning accessed? (accessibility); where are they learning? (location); when are they learning? (time) and how is their learning assessed? (assessment). addressing these questions during curriculum development favours effective enactment of the curriculum.9 research design and methodology this article uses the qca research method to systematically and objectively describe and broadly quantify the phenomenon in the text in question.19,20 qualitative content analysis was considered as suitable for this study as it (the study) is aimed at examining the representation of the curricular spider-web concepts in the cap framework (text) in order to study the implications thereof for effective curriculum development/design process. hence, the method used for data generation was document analysis, where the cap framework was used. punch21 argued for the use of documents in data generation as they are often rich in data. document analysis is, however, sometimes presented with a problem of incompleteness, where documents being analysed might have gaps that cannot be filled.22 to overcome this challenge, the guide to continuous assessment (cass) document, which is a counteractive document that acts as an amendment of the 2009 policy, was also analysed. these two documents helped to establish whether the curricular spider-web signals were represented therein to effectively guide the curriculum development/design processes. the data analysis method used for this study was guided analysis.23 this method, as described by samuel23, involves determining categories before the generation of data and having to modify the categories as per interaction with data at the analysis stage. thus, the categories that were developed a priori (samuel23) are negotiated and refined in the light of accommodating generated data.16 this method of analysis fitted for this study as it was possible for categories to surface that were not initially envisaged. the categories in this study were informed by the curricular spider-web concepts, thus, sections that were meant to address these concepts were sampled. ethical consideration the study involved content analysis which required that the researchers take into account applicable ethical issues by avoiding bias, assumptions and theoretical orientations from interfering with the findings. findings and discussion analysis of curriculum and assessment policy framework in relation to the curricular spider web and/or signals the analysis is presented in categories in view of clearly highlighting the representation, or lack thereof, of each curricular spider-web concept and/or signal. category 1: assessment assessment should evaluate the attainment of educational and curriculum aims of educational programmes at all levels. thus there is need to broaden the modes of assessment to include the following: formative assessment, which comprises both diagnostic and continuous assessment, monitoring of educational progress through a national educational assessment carried out at regular intervals; and summative assessment (which usually tests mostly cognitive domain) for selection and certification purposes (p. viii).6 from the given quotation from the policy framework, as far as assessment is concerned, habitual representation and factual representation are recommended to diagnose learners’ current knowledge for improvement and further learning (formative assessment) and to evaluate the learners’ cognitive domain for promotion and certification purposes (summative assessment).6 notably, however, the policy framework makes no mention of peer assessment. it does consequently mention the use of cass that, as the name suggests, is an on-going assessment process that helps to improve learning (examinations council of lesotho, thereafter ecol).24 nevertheless, cass is somewhat married to formative assessment in the policy framework, which might be misleading to curriculum developers in the sense that it might be mistaken for an educator-centred form of assessment (assessment for testing in place of assessment for learning). exclusion of peer assessment in the policy framework implies that curriculum developers and designers possibly neglect social representation that takes into consideration learners’ views during the assessment process. in an attempt to remedy an oversight of leaving out peer assessment strategy, the ecol devised a counteractive document in 2012 to provide a guide in using cass. the document acts as an amendment of the policy and recommends peer assessment as a way of ‘making sure that learners help each other and deepen their own learning’ (p. 30)24 and as a strategy for time preservation. although peer assessment is recommended, the ecol cautions curriculum designers not to favour it as the only means of assessment as learners still entrust educators with the role of being assessors. this suggests that the document recommends that educators take charge of the assessment process and should thus limit learner involvement, although not totally discard it as a form of assessment. thus, both documents, albeit with different potency, favour the use of factual and habitual representations, seemingly neglecting or downplaying the effectiveness of social representation as far as assessment is concerned. this assessment approach appears to go against the view that favours the utilisation of more traditionally structured and didactic modes and experiential and inquiry-based modes in designing a curriculum that can fully develop all of the desired learning outcomes.10 category 2: teaching activities learners are to become more responsible for their own learning processes and thus should be able to identify, formulate and solve problems by themselves and evaluate their work. hence teaching methods which are learner-centred based more on learners’ own activities (p. 22).6 teaching activities are termed as pedagogy in the policy document. the given quote suggests that problem-centred activities should be prioritised as they allow for consideration of the needs and interests of the learner.25 problem-centred activities favour active participation of the learner in knowledge construction, which enables learners to participate and interact to simulate life-like situations. therefore, learners need to be exposed to skills that would enable them to participate and function in their society.6 thus, the policy advocates for social representation, as it recommends for a pedagogical paradigm that addresses the needs and interests of the learners and consequently speaks to the concept of the integrated curriculum. in addition, the framework is cognisant of the fact that learners also need to be exposed to the professional and/or global world:6 curriculum should therefore promote the creation, acquisition and utilisation of knowledge and skills as well as development of attitudes and values necessary for participation in advancing personal and socio-economic development and participation in globalisation. (p. 14) this assertion denotes that the policy considers factual knowledge to be of great importance to the growth of the learner. consequently, in addition to local and contextualised activities, curriculum developers are advised to propose activities that would make learners aware of the global world through technological and/or entrepreneurial activities.6 accordingly, there exists factual representation in terms of teaching activities. furthermore, the policy advocates for ‘increased awareness and participation in democratic processes and promotion of human rights, peace, stability and prosperity …’ (p. 14).6 this citation mirrors freire’s political pedagogy theory, which strives to emancipate the oppressed from a false view of knowledge and to give them a voice in taking responsibility to form opinions that would shape their independent lifestyles.26 complementing this view is moloi’s27 argument for the use of critical pedagogy as a method of teaching for learner engagement in curriculum development and decision-making because of its capacity to enable stakeholders to challenge and struggle against any form of social oppression that dehumanises and renders them failures. this appears to indicate that the policy equally addresses individual growth, thus signifying habitual representation in terms of teaching activities. category 3: content sharma et al.28 asserted that the intertwined nature of content and context requires that educators involved in curriculum organisation may need to create lesson plans and syllabi within the framework of the given curriculum to meet the needs of the learners. in the same breath, the policy framework suggests that content be contextualised to address local needs3,6 [t]raditional school subjects within the current school system do not adequately address most of [the social] problems and challenges. hence they have to be refocused by placing them within the social context. (p. 15) cross, mungadi and rouhani29 posited that such a policy reform encourages local and community participation and relevant stakeholders in order to incorporate societal needs in the education system. this assertion alludes to stenhouse’s30 theory of curriculum development, which advocates for community involvement in curriculum design to address the needs of the society whilst also empowering that particular society through its learners. nembhard’s31 study found that educators welcomed the flexible curriculum, which allowed them and learners more opportunities to interrogate the topic content and address issues of social justice. this understanding has also been found to exist amongst publishers of accounting textbooks in south africa. the publishers were found to have produced textbooks that were aligned with the curriculum requirements in terms of both the content and its connections with real-life situations, which contributed to a better understanding of content.11 the lesotho policy on education proposed an interdisciplinary curriculum, which disposes of subject boundaries and addresses issues related to ‘intelligence, maturity, personal and social development of the learner for survival purposes …’ (p. 15).6 this implies that content is taken from everyday knowledge (horizontal curriculum) and is thus context-dependent.32 the policy, therefore, recommends that critical issues such as the high unemployment rate, endemic poverty, rampant spread of hiv and aids, gender inequality and inequity and threats to democracy, should form part of the content in view that learners are equipped with knowledge, attitudes, values and skills to solve them.6 this denotes that curriculum developers have to take into consideration societal needs, therefore, invoking social representation. the above assertions highlight yet another contradiction inferred from the policy. explicitly, the policy advocates the adaptation of the integrated curriculum, where societal issues are prioritised and form part of the content to be addressed. nevertheless, in the same breath, although passively addressed, the policy also suggests that academic standards be adhered to in order to equip learners with critiquing skills and to position them in the global world, where they would be part of globalisation. in this way, both horizontal and vertical curricula, as conceived by stenhouse30 and tyler33, respectively, are recommended. a blend of these curricula breeds what montouri34 terms creative inquiry, where learners acquire the opportunity to build their school of thought through self-inquiry and the accumulation of facts through proven research. the attempt to use both curricula, however, might prove problematic during the development process as developers, using their discretion, might favour one over the other, and thus diverting risk from addressing educational goals. category 4: educator roles educators, as curriculum designers, act as a bridge between policy and practice.35 it would thus seem befitting for the policy framework to clearly outline the role(s) of the educator in ensuring a smooth transition from policy to effective enactment of the curriculum. however, the policy makes no mention of educator role(s), at least not elaborately. what is inferred in the policy is that educators play the role of a facilitator. ‘therefore, the new trend should move from teaching to facilitating learning’, (p. 15).6 the quotation implies that the educator assumes the role of facilitating knowledge construction and an active learning process to address learner’s needs.36 thus, there is social representation in terms of a role to be undertaken by the educator as learner’s needs are taken into consideration by helping them find their voice in order to situate themselves as independent individuals in a society. the guide to cass document, which is a supplementary document to the policy, mentions the educator as a facilitator, albeit at the assessment level, as an agent for assessment of learning.24 this assertion suggests that educators are not only required to be facilitators of knowledge construction but also of assessment to establish what learners still need to acquire, and thus provide appropriate tools to aid with that process. therefore, it stands to reason that the policy should clearly outline the role of educators as interpreters and designers of learning programmes and the competencies embedded within this role, whilst taking into consideration different teaching and learning contexts.37 in this way, discrepancies between policy and practice may be significantly reduced. this could be carried out by minimising the absolute freedom of educators in interpreting the policy through the provision of flexible guidelines that can be bent to accommodate personal experiences and to address a prevailing context. consequently, educators as designers of the curriculum could still engage their personal and unique interpretations (habitual representation) of the policy as influenced by their experience(s) with the environment. in this capacity, educators are allowed to design a curriculum that allows them to have a say in how learners should learn, as influenced by their unique context(s), as recommended by stenhouse.30 however, such individual interpretations by educators, to a certain extent, should be guided by pointers, which would help prevent educators from misconstruing the policy. the cap also covertly entrusts educators with the role of subject specialist. this is deducted from the listed core subjects that contribute to the formation of learning areas in the policy document.6 inciting an example from the policy, the core contributing subjects for the linguistic and literary learning area are sesotho, english, arts and crafts, drama, music and other languages, which may include french, german and spanish.6 from the mentioned subjects, it suffices that specialists are needed to provide in-depth knowledge of these disciplines. this suggests that educators should have content knowledge, which enlists their theoretical and conceptual knowledge of the discipline in question.38 this knowledge is informed by facts and schooled knowledge. however, the role of an educator as a subject specialist has not been presented as an apparent entity in the policy. this poses a threat to this role, which is overlooked by not only curriculum developers, but also educators who are expected to expertly execute it.39 this role should be clearly outlined because of its pedagogical implications addressed in the policy.40 this would help educators to execute their role of imparting knowledge effectively, whilst still allowing room for learners to be independent thinkers and to construct knowledge that is befitting to their personal, societal and professional growth. category 5: goals according to raselimo and mahao,3 education policy has a bearing on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. also, the authors state that education policy presents what should essentially be covered in schools. it is befitting, then, to discuss goals that have been outlined in the policy document as they depict aims, objectives and outcomes that should be attained through interaction with the curriculum.41 aims are general statements that outline long-term intentions of teaching/learning.12 in other words, aims outline a general idea of what learners ought to be able to do at the end of a specified learning period, which is normally long term. in this instance, aims are written from the policymakers’ point of view to highlight and indicate knowledge to be covered. the policy presents both aims and curriculum aims.6 aims, as presented in the lesotho policy statement, outline general knowledge that is expected to be acquired through the learners’ acquaintance with education. the defined aims include6: … equipping learners with attitudes and skills which enable them to respond to socio-economic and technological challenges and ‘providing opportunities for learners to participate in activities promoting democratic principles, human rights and emerging issues in a society’. (p. 12) these aims provide curriculum developers/designers with a blueprint of what a curriculum needs to cover.42 this suggests that the outlined aims highlight a vague guide of what educators need to cover during practise. this thus leaves room for multiple personal interpretations of these aims, which might distort the overall idea of curriculum intentions. as aims are supposed to outline what has to be covered based on the intentions of the policy,41 aims provided in the policy must be clear and unambiguous to avoid misinterpretations. the cited scholars’ assertion is applicable to curriculum aims, which, at close inspection, seem to outline objectives. one curriculum aim is that: ‘at the end of secondary education, students should apply acquired knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for effective participation in democratic processes and social activities’ (p. 13).6 objectives, as posited by kennedy et al.41 provide specific statements of educational intentions, and the latter quotation seems to outline such intentions. consistent is khoza’s43 assertion that objectives represent specific aims. the policy statement, thus, seems lacking in establishing a clear distinction between aims and curriculum aims. this omission leads to the wrong allusion that aims and curriculum aims are synonymous. clarity could be achieved by altering the wording, that is, replacing curriculum aims with more accurate curriculum objectives. objectives then would be understood as a means of reaching aims, although disparate from aims, as they are more specific and relatively short term.44 in this way, curriculum developers would be able to differentiate between the two concepts and use aims to inform objectives that would guide the effective enactment of the curriculum. tyler33 is insistent on the fact that a clear outline of objectives is paramount in ensuring that educational purposes are accomplished. also, tyler posited that clearly outlined objectives provide knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that aid learners to deal with life problems. objectives, termed as curriculum aims in the policy framework have been framed in a way that adheres to tyler’s latter assertion. this is because they outline what learners should ideally have acquired after a specified time. the policy makes no mention of learning outcomes but does outline competencies, which are, to some extent, alluded to as outcomes. this brings to the surface yet another discrepancy in the policy statement in the sense that the policy advocates active participation of learners through the use of problem-centred activities. the omission of learning outcomes in the policy might be problematic as, according to moon45, effective learning takes place when learners are exposed to a clear outline of what they are expected to achieve at the end of a prescribed period. therefore, the exclusion of outcomes in a policy document is contradictory to the type of curriculum recommended in the policy, which is an integrated curriculum. essentially, an objectives-oriented policy risks the passive participation of learners and seems to encourage educator-centred activities in place of problem-centred activities. in remaining faithful to and consistent with the concept of the integrated curriculum and what it stands for, the policy should include learning outcomes that would serve as guidelines for curriculum developers and designers, and at a later stage, learners.46 category 6: resources resources are divided into hardware, software and ideological ware.47 khoza16 posited that hardware is any tangible resource or tool that helps the process of teaching and learning in education. this may include chalkboards, computers and textbooks. software resources, according to khoza48, are materials/tools that are produced for the hardware in view of displaying information during the teaching and learning process. software resources, such as powerpoint, can be seen, but cannot necessarily be touched unless when printed. ideological-ware resources are cognitive processes that manage learner actions in view of effectively using technology for learning and research.49 in other words, these resources drive any lesson in education as learning is about ideology and not necessarily about technology.48 however, these resources are not addressed in the policy. this omission presents both positive and negative implications. the positive implication is that curriculum developers and designers are free to select the resources that they deem appropriate and relevant in contributing to the attainment of goals.48 this then suggests that educators have a say in the selection of resources that would ultimately aid in the learning process. nevertheless, as the selection of resources is reliant on goals to be achieved,41 misinterpretation of goals by educators might lead to a selection of irrelevant resources, thus further jeopardising the attainment of goals. ideally, the policy should provide pointers regarding which resources would best help in the achievement of set goals. this affords developers a guideline, albeit not a rigid one, in selecting resources that would allow for an effective learning environment. this is especially resonant with ideological-ware resources, which provide the basis of learning in the sense that they influence teaching/learning goals.48 ideological-ware resources are especially vital because they help to determine relevant hardware and software resources. immaterial of their nature, resources have been identified as crucial in curriculum implementation and learner performance by many educators in south africa and across the globe.5 category 7: accessibility in terms of accessibility, the policy takes note of the constitution of lesotho and its stance on the essentiality to avail education to all people of lesotho, regardless of their physical and social bearing, with one clause stating, ‘a child who is physically and mentally handicapped is given the special treatment, education and care required by his/her condition’ (p. i).6 in other words, the policy is cognisant of the vitality of provision of education to every child, irrespective of their physical or mental condition.50 this implies that no child should be denied access to education. physical access has been addressed in the policy as it considers the fact that there are learners who are not able to physically access education. the policy recommends that such learners receive special treatment and be granted access to the learning environment. in mpungose’s51 view, this surmises that physical infrastructure should not impede access to education. in other words, if there are physically people with disabilities, it should be ensured that appropriate infrastructure is made accessible to them. in this way, the needs of each learner are taken into consideration in order to allow knowledge construction to take place.52 the policy seemingly recommends making education physically accessible to all and insists on curriculum developers taking into consideration learners’ interests. in addition to physical access, the policy equally promotes financial accessibility relating to education. this is evidenced in the declaration that one of the reasons the policy was reformed was to accommodate ‘new developments, including the free primary education strategy, which require policy re-articulation and refinement’ (p. v).6 this assertion demonstrates efforts by the moet to make education financially accessible and equitable, at least at the basic education level, to learners with different financial backgrounds.53 according to the moet6, the free primary education policy was enacted in most of lesotho primary schools in 2000. it is noteworthy to mention that primary education in lesotho accounts for the first 7 years of learners’ formal education. in line with this initiative by the government to render education financially accessible, morojele54 found that a lack of infrastructure and insufficient teaching resources were some of the impediments that were compromising effective implementation of the policy. this was mainly because of the influx of learners into schools as enticed by the notion of free primary education. however, despite the presence of free primary education policy, society is still partially responsible for ensuring that learners have financial access. as lerotholi55 claimed, parents and community members are still largely responsible for financially supporting education. the situation is motivated by the fact that free primary education is only applicable in government-supported schools. this indicates that learners whose parents have financial capacity are more advantaged to access quality education, where the educator–learner ratio is within educational standards, as compared with those who hail from financially disadvantaged families. in addition, at post-primary level, the community is completely responsible for financially supporting learners to ensure the continuation of studies. this suggests that financially disadvantaged learners may struggle to access education. category 8: location and time location and time are viewed as different concepts in the curricular spider web by van den akker.9 however, for this article, they are merged and treated as one concept as they greatly influence each other. location in education is a knowledge-based environment, where teaching and learning take place.56 time as a curricular spider-web concept is concerned with ‘when’ educators are teaching.9 according to van den akker et al.,13 allocation of time is essential to determine how much time can be spent on specific learning tasks. this assertion echoes that of khoza48, who proclaimed that time is essential, especially when it comes to traditional face-to-face instruction. this is because educators need to adhere to the allocated time for efficient enactment of the curriculum. the policy framework neglects to mention the location and time in which education is expected to take place. for instance, is the learning environment supposed to be a traditional face-to-face instruction, online learning or a combination of both (blended learning)? although information and communications technology (ict) is vaguely mentioned under the scientific and technological learning area, it remains uncertain if this would be carried out theoretically or practically. the policy should thus be vocal in terms of the teaching environment within which educators and learners are expected to function. this also applies to the concept of time, which should be specified to give educators a rough idea regarding how much time can be spent on specific learning tasks.50 in addition, the policy fails to indicate how much time may be allocated for each learning area, and this may result in discrepancies in different schools, where one learning area may be allocated more time in one school than the other. conclusion as declared by van den akker et al.,15 utilisation and alignment of curriculum concepts guarantee an effective teaching and learning environment. seemingly although, the lesotho policy statement neglects to address some curriculum concepts, as demonstrated here. this seems to suggest that curriculum developers and designers who continuously refer to and are faithful to the policy framework for the provision of pointers might be neglecting some curriculum concepts during the development of the curriculum. this might compromise the attainment of educational goals. van den akker57 further attested that policy reform is especially difficult on educators, who are tasked with its enactment, as they are usually ‘poorly informed about an intended innovation’ (p. 178). this implies that the policy should be clear and concise in order to facilitate its successful enactment. it is for this reason that this article recommends a revision of the current policy framework in view of including the curricular spider-web concepts in order to facilitate the effective curriculum development/design process. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions the work presented in this article was developed from the doctoral study undertaken by m.a.m. at the university of kwazulu-natal. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references government of lesotho. lesotho vision 2020 document. maseru: gol; 2000. 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africa: the local government sphere in context purshottama s. reddy received: 16 mar. 2016; accepted: 19 aug. 2016; published: 03 dec. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the post-1994 democratic developmental south african state opted for a strong local government system which has been constitutionalised, in terms of chapter 7 of the constitution of the republic of south africa act 108 of 1996. the politicisation of the local bureaucracy was inevitable as the ruling party sought to ensure that the executive leadership of municipalities shared the same political ideology and vision to facilitate local development. this raises the question, where does politicisation commence and end, and what is the ideal local political interface for efficient and effective service delivery and, more importantly, to ensure good governance? these questions have to take cognisance of the fact that south africa is a ‘struggle democracy’ and development has to take place in historically disadvantaged areas, where services have been poor or non-existent. the historically advantaged areas have to also be maintained and upgraded, as they are key to financial sustainability of the municipalities. the increasing service delivery protests is a matter for concern, if one has to take cognisance of the popular adage highlighted in official literature, ‘if local government fails, south arica fails’. given that the struggles for a democratic south africa were fought at the grassroots level, this has to translate to an improved quality of life for local communities. consequently, sound political management is key to enhanced municipal service delivery and ultimately good local governance. this paper reviews political trends and developments up to 2016, but excludes any discussion on the recent local government elections. introduction globally, the term service delivery is a popular phrase that is used to denote the distribution of basic communal needs and services, notably housing, water and sanitation, land, electricity and infrastructure, which local communities have taken for granted and become dependent on for their daily existence. however, in the south african context, the delivery and ongoing upkeep of these basic services have proved to be unreliable at times, greatly inconveniencing and endangering local communities. the resultant response, particularly in the past decade, has been increasing ‘service delivery protests’ or protests demanding ‘better service delivery’ 1(www.blogs.cfr.org/cambell/2014/05/15/south-africa-what-does-service-delivery-really-mean/; booysen 2012a; dassah 2012; reddy 2010) political infighting and related clashes between the political and management components in local government in south africa have also adversely affected municipal service delivery. it is a given that the public sector in an african context has always been deemed to be political in nature and south africa is no exception (booysen 2012a; cameron 2003; 2010; de visser 2010). on a more practical and realistic level, there have also been challenges experienced relative to the political–administrative interface at the local sphere. south africa as a democratic state has only been in existence for just over two decades and is a young democracy (ndudula 2013:3). the local sphere of government is particularly crucial as it signifies grassroots governance and local democracy, which are considered to be closest to the people, and more importantly, it is at the coalface relative to the delivery of basic services. this paper critiques the politicisation of local government and the resultant implications for municipal service delivery in the broader context of developmental and good local governance. it also critically reviews the ‘cadre deployment’ policy of the ruling party, which has generated a great deal of debate and discussion in political, academic and social circles, as such policies have provided the impetus for the election and appointment of senior municipal functionaries in local government in the past two decades. the concluding part of the paper focuses on possible solutions and recommendations as a way of moving forward to address the key thematic issues highlighted. the research methodology adopted for this study was a desktop literature review of key trends and developments in the field, drawn from books, journals, official publications, legislation and policies, newspaper articles, websites and dissertations. in addition, there were also focused and structured discussions with high-ranking municipal functionaries and a manager of a non-governmental organisation active in local government in the province of kwazulu-natal. politics, politicisation and service delivery contextualised in south africa conceptual framework: politics and service delivery politics and politicisation ndudula (2013:6), quoting hanekom et al., defines politics as being the aspirations for and, more importantly, the retention of power over residents of a particular jurisdiction by certain individuals or groups of individuals. inherent in the definition is the allocation of values authoritatively in such a manner that it seeks to regulate or accommodate conflicts within the local communities in question. the individuals or groupings will, through a locally defined process, introduce policies and programmes that will enhance the quality of life of their constituents. the process also determines who shall assume local leadership positions and furthermore how power shall be exercised in the municipal jurisdiction. this is viewed in a local government context as the democratic and authoritative allocation of scarce public resources throughout the municipal jurisdiction, with organised governments or grouping having developed a political relationship with one another in the process (thornhill 2012:57). thornhill (2012), quoting walsh, fox and meyer, points out that it is important to refer to politics as a basic and critical process in the public sector as it not only implies party politics but also politics as part of a wider decision-making process, that is, questions relative to who receives what, when and where, in a service delivery context at the local level. it is a conflict resolution process which ultimately determines resources distribution, that is, who decides which power and influences are to be taken cognisance of; whether and how governmental power is to be exercised; and the apportionment of values in a defined state, region or municipality (van der waldt 2014a). the majority grouping in any representative public structure or body is actually responsible for determining political power and defining relationships. in this context, it should be noted that power is not the domain of any single individual and has to be collectively exercised. politics is the realm of the politicians and is practised at the local sphere of government by the councillors and the executive component of the council, that is, the mayor, deputy mayor, speaker, chairperson of the executive/standing committee and members of the mayoral committee (thornhill & cloete 2014:76–79; van der walt 2014b). thornhill (2012:57) points out that although local politics or the political process may appear to be simplistic, it is quite complex as it involves analysing the available factual information on hand, and this has to be done within a particular value framework, defined by a political party or even an interest/pressure group in a defined jurisdiction. thornhill argues further that local politics involves the attachment of values to factual information, determining the relative importance of requests by society generally or a certain segment for a particular municipal service, and the quantity, quality or extent of services to be delivered locally (2012:58). the constitution of the republic of south africa act, 1996 (act 108 of 1996), provides the legal basis for political governance of the country, province, district/metropolitan area or municipal area.2 the political component, which is the council at the local level, is responsible for initiating and overseeing the executive actions of officials appointed to act on its behalf in terms of discharging its governmental responsibilities. the council exercises an oversight function over the administrative activities of the municipalities. section 157 (2) has created space through the proportional representation system for party politics and ultimately political direction in local government (de visser 2005; reddy 2010). shah, in de visser (2005), believes that the institutional integrity of a government level is undermined if firm political views from centralised structures have to be translated to practice at lower levels. ‘“politicisation” is the substitution of political for merit-based criteria in the selection, retention, promotion, rewards and disciplining of members of the service’ (pieters & pierre 2004:2). the implication is that the municipal service is governed largely by political considerations, be it in appointments, dismissals or even the delivery of basic municipal services. consequently, in this context political considerations, to a large extent, will be dictated by the political philosophy of the ruling political party any point in time. service delivery service delivery in the context of local government is the provision of municipal goods, benefits, activities and satisfactions that are deemed public, to enhance the quality of life in local jurisdictions. within this framework, particular reference is being made to the discharging of municipal services, which can either be tangible or intangible. the former refers to the provision of municipal services that are construed as being visible to local communities, such as, inter alia, public housing, roads, water and sanitation systems, and public transport, whilst the latter refers to services that are regarded as being essential, but not necessarily visible, such as public drainage and sewage systems and public safety standards (ndudula 2013:10). craythorne, in nealer (quoted by reddy & naidu 2012), adds a legal dimension to all of this, in that ‘a municipal service, … is a service that a municipality in terms of its powers and functions provides or may provide to or for the benefit of its responsibility area irrespective of whether, … such a service is provided, … through an external, … or, … internal mechanism’ and whether ‘fees are levied in respect of such a service or not’. a municipal service deemed basic is ‘necessary to ensure an acceptable and reasonable quality of life and, if not provided, would endanger public health, or safety or the environment’3 (reddy & naidu 2012:94). municipalities are regarded as the custodian of public funds and consequently they have been tasked with utilising these resources to address the basic needs of local communities, notably infrastructure, electricity, water, refuse removal and the spatial development of localities. govender and reddy (2012:71) highlighting aspects of the 2008 local government budget and expenditure review argue that local government investment has not yielded the anticipated returns expected from the national economy. they add that collectively, poor governance, inappropriate spatial planning, inadequate social infrastructure and massive service backlogs have emerged as constraints to poverty reduction and economic growth. the resultant effect of these constraining factors is that it could undermine the future sustainability of other key sectors as well (govender & reddy 2012:71). service delivery protests originated during the apartheid era in south africa as they were used as strategies to express dissatisfaction with the lack of services as well as target ethnically based structures. more specifically, the overall goal was to develop community-based structures and social movements to oppose the apartheid system. alexander, as quoted by govender and reddy (2012:72), points out that protests beyond the 1994 local government dispensation can be viewed as expression of needs and grassroots protests against the poor quality of service delivery and related issues. a ‘service delivery protest’ is ‘galvanised by inadequate local services or tardy service delivery, the responsibility for which lies with the municipality’ (allan & hesse n.d.). the catchphrase has proved useful in relation to the local government vocabularly as it is used to describe and draw attention to similar incidents occurring locally, provincially and nationally. there is a firm belief in local communities in south africa that ‘voting helps and protest works’ when deciding on a proposed course of action in terms of highlighting service delivery deficiencies at the local level (alexander 2010:29). according to ramjee and van donk (2011:6), the country has been a constitutional democracy for almost two decades and the citizenry believe that it is a reasonable period to reflect on and assess how far it has moved beyond the pre-1994 sociopolitical and apartheid legacy. they add that in this context, citizens tend to derive some justification in expressing their dissatisfaction in some tangible way with local governance and more specifically poor service delivery (2011:6). the protests have taken on several different forms, namely, police confrontations, municipal functionaries forced to resign, toyi-toying, mass meetings, submission of memoranda, and petitions, processions, stayaways, chasing unpopular residents out of townships, election boycotts, road blockades, construction of barriers and burning of tyres, and the destruction of property and looting (alexander 2010:26; booysen 2012b; tshishonga 2015:136). there are several analysts who believe that the service delivery boycotts are basically a rebellion by the poor against neo-liberal policies. the protests seem to be originating and taking place in the poorer neighbourhoods, namely, townships and informal settlements rather than the suburbs (alexander 2010:26).4 todes (cited in dassah 2012:2) adds that following the ushering in of a neo-liberal policy framework in 1996, the indigent in south africa have been increasingly abandoned in favour of economic implications. in this context, the protests at the local level can be viewed as the indigent and marginalised rebelling and at the same time attempting to initiate social change at the grassroots level in terms of improving their lives. continuing with this line of thinking, duncan (2009) points out that the mbeki administration was responsible for the introduction of neo-liberal policies and adds that during that era, protest action was an integral part of political life. it increased during the zuma administration, and williams (cited in dassah 2012:2) is of the view that the demands for social justice are in essence an opposition to neo-liberalism, which to a large extent tends to privatise the basic needs of the citizenry, relying on the ubiquitous market, resulting in the commercialisation of virtually every aspect of society. he added that the discourse on service delivery and public protests generally has also highlighted other issues, such as increasing unemployment, poverty and inequality, especially among black south africans. perhaps the statement made by the then deputy minister of provincial and local government, yunus carrim (2010) contextualises the discussion and does raise some concerns: most of the protests are about service delivery issues. but they are also about a range of other municipal issues including maladministration, nepotism, fraud and corruption and the failure of councillors and administrators to listen to residents. but it is the rage of some sections of the protestors and the extent of violence and destruction that they wreak that is striking. it reflects a far more fundamental alienation of people from our democracy. it suggests an accurate sense of marginalisation and exclusion, … the nature and scope of the protests we are witnessing are not part of a healthy growing democracy. powell (2012:2) reflecting on recent trends and developments points out that local government mirrors the larger political and socio-economic challenges that are shaping south african society. he adds that two decades of policy reform are yet to usher in a new society as envisioned in the local government white paper of 1998. it would appear that the systems in place for local government funding do appear to be insufficient, and the functions delegated to this sphere are quite onerous. however, this is not necessarily the case as the local sphere has several sources of funding which can be tapped. it is imperative that municipal functionaries tasked with financial responsibilities are adequately qualified and have the required technical expertise to access the funding available in the form of grants and subsidies. the politicisation of local government has created a challenge in this regard as the necessary skills at the local level are, at best, marginally available, and the political and management will to take firm and decisive action is lacking (reddy 2015a; zybrands 2012:68, 88). the key question tends to focus on political will, which to a large extent drives the administration and is an integral part of local governance. the local governance system, given the challenges is inadequately designed and at best poorly managed, often by people who are accountable to their political principals rather than the constituents below who are at the receiving end of poor service delivery (booysen 2012a:7). local government is key to basic service delivery and, furthermore, can be viewed as the engine of local development. however, as gumede (cited in reddy 2010:81) points out a large percentage of the local communities are yet to receive rudimentary services and ‘for most township residents the most basic of service delivery, getting a pavement fixed or the rubbish cleared that is piled up on the streets is a distant dream’, and this is a matter of concern and has contributed to the dysfunctionality of local government in the past decade. according to booysen (2012a:5), one of the major areas of concern for the local communities in south africa generally is that the local government is in the majority of cases, continuously dysfunctional and is often the unstable coalface of interaction with the people. she points out that it is the (already weak) ‘local’ sphere that often bears the brunt of dissatisfaction with the national and provincial government as it is in close proximity to local communities. furthermore, the municipal functionaries and physical facilities of the municipalities are more visible and accessible to the local citizenry. there seems to be more public accountability in local government than at either the provincial or national government level. this together with the mixed electoral system with its own set of dynamics have in fact provided the impetus for much of the dissatisfaction and resultant local protests nationally (pieterse et al. 2008:20). in fact, it is believed that there are many more opportunities for political deviance and dissent at the local level, rather than targeting national or provincial government which are more remote physically. the reasons for local governments being targeted can be attributed to the following: greater visibility of weaknesses in local governance, notably corruption and maladministration. the local bureaucracy and political component is more exposed to the local communities and the electorate. being the target of protests that expose and try to hold to account local politicians and bureaucrats. standing as evidence of institutional underdevelopment and lack of sufficient human capacity. bearing responsibility for the flaws and mistakes of the national and provincial government. provincial and national party leadership manoeuvres to improve (or manipulate) the local representatives (booysen 2012a:2). the dysfunctionality of local government in the south african context has assumed several different forms, notably the lack of political and management will to making sound appointments, acting decisively on contentious issues, the failure to pass municipal budgets, the inability to gain qualified audits, and the failure to communicate with local communities and address their needs. there has also been a question mark placed on the quality of local government representation and the perceived accountability of councillors as part of the local citizen interface (booysen 2012a:5). in the past decade, there have been several interventions5 by the national and provincial governments to address this dysfunctionality in local government; however, there has not been any substantial improvement in service delivery (reddy 2015a). municipalities have, in terms of schedules 4 and 5 of the constitution, functions that are explicitly detailed. it would appear that since their establishment they have been discharging their functions with limited funds at their disposal. however, they have not maximised their sources of revenue, collected all revenues due to it or been creative about additional sources of revenue. zybrands has also highlighted several other challenges that have impacted negatively on service delivery since the ushering in of the post-1994 local government dispensation, namely: unfunded mandates, where municipalities are not funded or receive very little funding for services such as housing, library services, tourism, welfare services and support for the commission.6 financial viability: the demarcation process has resulted in some municipalities not having an economic base and being financially viable (reddy 2010:82). they are dependent on grants from other spheres of government. legal compliance: there is a compliance-driven governmental approach as opposed to a service delivery one. quite often, there are first world standards and third world competencies, resources and needs. it has been difficult for municipalities to comply with prescripts. sound fiscal discipline is not compatible with deficient political leadership. as long as ‘cadre deployment’ is practiced and municipalities are forced to practice financial discipline, the financial future of municipalities will remain bleak. guiding local economic development to address unemployment and poverty alleviation: there is no money for led projects and additional work should be channelled to emerging service providers through the supply chain management system (see reddy & wallis 2015b). establishing an investment-friendly environment: through cheap land, concessionary tariffs and tax holidays (zybrands 2012). these challenges have been high on the municipal agenda for over a decade and the government has attempted to respond to these issues but with limited success. it requires firm commitment, a certain level of seriousness and passion by the key role players if more specifically the latter points are to be addressed. the dilemmas of local government politicisation the election or appointment of municipal functionaries who are not adequately qualified and based on political patronage and nepotism is a constraint on the efficient and effective performance of local government (booysen 2012b). in this context, zybrands (2012:82 and refer also to tshishonga 2015) cites several examples of what has transpired with regard to senior local government appointments over the years. for example, x is a school principal, who has been fired for fraud, and has been appointed a municipal manager; y is a geography teacher who has been appointed a chief financial officer of a municipality; and z, who does not have any technical skills, is appointed as technical manager after the provincial premier intervened (2012:82) (see also cameron 2010:686; de visser 2010:95). local government has been the sphere where much of the political patronage has taken place with disastrous consequences, particularly for service delivery. a significant number of municipalities bear ample testimony to the failures of local government and the inability of the ruling party to deliver on improvements despite, a series of interventions and strategies. in this regard, booysen (2012b:352) points out that ‘faltering local government, graphically exposed to policy realisation deficits and multiple cases of overt corruption, mismanagement and inappropriate appointments – often elicits popular disdain. she adds that political reward, patronage and nepotism are some of the key characteristics of local government politics and demonstrable evidence of this locally quite often triggers protest among the local communities. zybrands (2012:87) points to a possible solution and that is ‘the appointment of competent and qualified staff and compliance with the laws, rules and regulations could help solve this conundrum. the question remains whether there is sufficient political will to do so’ (refer also to reddy 2015a). according to habib (2015), when municipal leaders are challenged on service delivery issues, their most common response privately is ‘look at the (poor) quality of the people that i have around me’. he then asks the question, who appointed these people, and adds in a rhetorical response that ‘to disown the appointments one had made, and the consequences thereof, is a manifestation of unaccountable leadership’ (2015), which unfortunately has constituted the basis of local government failure in south africa. there is constant reference by municipal functionaries of ‘world class cities’, but at the same time the traffic lights are quite often not functioning; the grass on the verges are not regularly trimmed; water pipes are constantly broken or even leaking; portholes are multiplying; telephones are often unanswered and there is widespread urban decay throughout the municipal areas resulting in a depreciation of property values and loss of potential income for the municipalities. the longitudinal implications of the failure to act decisively and the negative impact it is likely to have on sustainable local government has not yet fully registered with the municipal functionaries. president zuma, speaking at a south african local government association (salga) conference, urged municipalities to appoint competent staff and added that there should be no compromise on ensuring that officials have the necessary qualifications. he criticised municipal functionaries who hired family or friends with no skills, saying ‘don’t employ people because you feel for them or they are your friend or cousin. employ people to do work’ (times 25 march 2015). he also questioned the use of consultants who were paid a total of more than r30 billion in the 2013 and 2014 financial year. he pointed out that ‘if those of us who are employed to do the work with specific skills now use consultants, what then are we employed to do?’ (times 25 march 2015). perhaps, that is the question that municipal councils and political parties should reflect on, particularly in relative to poor service delivery. it seems that the politicisation of local government or political involvement is not in itself an issue, but the particular aspect of that involvement is. politicians can play a role in influencing local government processes positively if they are committed to organisational solutions and promote the institutionalisation of constitutional values and principles. the mayor of umtshezi municipality in kwazulu-natal, cllr. b dlamini in an interview on 27 march 2015 identified the challenges experienced in local government relative to the political – administrative interface: delays due to political interference that lead to massive service delivery backlogs, e.g. the handing over of housing units after they have been completed. sometimes, it is a question of politics versus the needy. lack of accountability and poor communication with communities as the ‘big man syndrome’ kicks in due to local leaders thinking that they have political protection and become untouchable. problems with the political administrative interface, resulting in paralysis as bureaucrats play, instead of implementing the mandate of the political leadership (government) of the day. corruption and fraud, with political ‘mandates’ that are illegal and have obscure origins leading to, inter alia, negative audit opinions due to poor financial management. violent service delivery protests, which are increasing especially when local government. elections are drawing near and individual politicians jostle for councillor positions. weak civil society formations that become embedded in the political lives of local leaders instead of holding local government to account; they fight personal battles as proxy for unfair (bordering on illegal) access to power and resources. scarcity of skills leading to limited municipal capacity, in the political and administrative components of the council. political issues both within the municipality and also intergovernmentally impacting negatively on governance and service delivery (refer also to booysen 2012a; reddy 2010; 2015a; republic of south africa 2009). the ruling party will, in the final analysis, have to bear the costs of these choices as there has been a decline in its voter base in the major metropolitan areas of south africa.7 the urban voter is sophisticated, educated and demanding, and such citizens have choices that they can exercise as a result of their economic status. they are not dependant on the ruling party for an income, be it a state grant or even jobs. the government ushered in the local government: municipal systems amendment act 2011 (act 7 of 2011) which has prohibited political office-bearers from occupying senior management positions in local government (tshishonga 2015:131). it was a firm step to ensure that the municipal administration was not subject to any undue political pressure. however, it remains to be seen whether this legislation will have the desired effect when, as powell (2012:26) points out, a ‘post in a municipality is the gateway to a middle-class lifestyle in a city, town or rural area and when the informal rules of the profiteer trump formal processes and the law’. as indicated previously, the challenge in local government is compliance and respect for the law, and more specifically the need to take firm and decisive action which is lacking. policies impacting on the budget that are poorly formulated and implemented, more specifically on debt collection and credit control; and the non-adjustment of tariffs, charges and rates to meet increasing expenditure, leads inevitably to a exponentially growing gap between expenditure and revenue. zybrands (2012:82) believes that this trend has been a popular course of action in manipulating the local electorate and adds that the larger the gap, the more unlikely it can be closed again without major public protests and financial bailing out by the national or provincial spheres of government. supply chain management procedures for the provision of municipal goods and services have provided ample opportunities for self-enrichment, patronage and the favouring of family members and friends (tshishonga 2015). zybrands (2012:82) is of the view that such activities have been so endemic in local government that drastic measures have to be taken for this state of affairs to be remedied. he adds that possible solutions in addressing this issue include forfeiture of illegal gains and more successful prosecutions. all of this has taken place despite major reform in local government procurement policies and practices (see reddy & wallis 2015b). a key characteristic of aspiring and serving politicians is making unrealistic promises on basic service delivery and the creation of jobs. however, once they are elected, it is very difficult to hold them publicly accountable for their deeds and actions (thornhill & cloete 2014:65). this lack of public accountability by the councillors and the inaction by the municipality quite often leads to violent protests in the form of marches, looting, and even the physical destruction of property. zybrands (2012:82) points out that in sharp contrast to poor and failing service delivery, there is also needless spending of public funds on non-service delivery issues such as, inter alia, expensive mayoral vehicles, overseas trips and funeral expenses for councillors. dlamini ([umvoti municipality] pers. comm., 27 march 2015, p. 3) points out that the local government establishment is by its very nature political and in reality there is a thin line separating the administrators and the politicians. local government is the only sphere in south africa where local communities vote directly for the politicians. dlamini ([umvoti municipality] pers. comm., 27 march 2015, p. 3) adds that direct voting makes local government political in nature but at the same time argues that this is not necessarily a problem, ‘as the effective delivery of services depends on people who understand and are loyal to the policies and programmes of the government of the day. no political party in the world can implement its manifesto without loyal troops that understand and subscribe to its principles’. the appointment of functionaries loyal to the ruling party or political party deployment is a global phenomenon; however, it is imperative that such deployees have the requisite qualifications and experience, more specifically in a developing country like south africa where there are historical backlogs. there is no doubt that the local government sphere is highly contested in south africa as it is the site where basic service delivery takes place. according to ngubane (pers. comm., 26 march 2015), a former mayor of umvoti municipality in kwazulu-natal, political parties wish to be seen on the ground: ‘they deploy their strong people with political party mandates, to implement party policies and programmes, … [and] cadre deployment compromises the recruitment of suitably qualified people to do the job.’ he adds that the politicisation of local government works against the mandate of the very constitution that is designed to cater for and protect the citizens of the country. it comprises practice and brings about uneven or poor service delivery, and the exclusion of communities and people not belonging to the party. politicisation creates an opportunity for corruption in local government, which in turn impacts negatively on service delivery (reddy 2010; tshishonga 2015). it would appear that it will take some time before political maturity prevails and service delivery will be accorded a high priority on the municipal agenda. enhanced skills and leadership for effective service delivery good leadership in terms of the batho pele principles is a critical component of successful organisations (www.kznhealth.gov.za/bathopele.htm). the comments made by pretorius and schurink (2007:23) (quoting a research participant) on staff training and development have considerable relevance because ‘in leadership, people that are skilled have got expertise, are capable and confident and got vision, so that in return the people that are recruited to the organisation have the necessary skills, necessary expertise, they share in values of the organisation, they are willing to go out and do things, and that is the only way you can enhance service delivery’. the neglect of the cadre deployment policy has, according to the african national congress (anc), contributed to the current challenges and weaknesses experienced faced by the organisation post-1994, and to this end, the anc’s 4th national policy conference reaffirmed that a ‘contingent of cadres should be produced who are competent, committed, disciplined and conscientious’ (anc 2012:3). it recommended that ideological, academic and ethical training and political preparation should constitute the basis of ‘deployment’. the conference also affirmed that the performance of cadres deployed should be rigorously monitored and evaluated before they are elected or appointed to leadership positions. it emphasised that academic qualifications should be an integral part of cadre deployment (anc 2012:3). despite the decisions taken and the recommendations made by the ruling party, there has been very little change and the implications for local government and more specifically service delivery has been disastrous to say the least. the service delivery protests have continued unabated and perhaps the results of the 2016 local government elections will jolt the ruling party to reality. way forward: policy recommendations the following firm recommendations are made in chartering a way forward for the post-1994 local government democratisation and decentralisation project in south africa: some degree of political maturity should be prevalent in municipal councils, more specifically among the different political parties. the critical issues of good governance, best practices and enhanced service delivery should be high on the municipal agenda as opposed to cheap political point scoring and rivalry, which are superfluous at this stage of the country’s development; political parties should ensure that municipal functionaries deployed to local government, especially those holding leadership positions, such as mayors, deputy mayors, speakers, municipal managers, and executive and senior managers, are committed and passionate about enhancing service delivery and improving the lives of residents in local communities. more importantly, they should have the requisite skills and be well capacitated for the task on hand; there should be respect for law and order by individuals in both the municipalities and local communities in terms of following through with legislation and compliance. coupled with this respect for the law, there should be the required organisational public accountability to the local communities and ultimately to the political parties. the lack of public accountability and the disregard for law and order is, in fact, the main source of dysfunctionality within municipalities; and the local government system has been undergoing a process of continuous institutional restructuring over a 21-year period. the system has to be stabilised and the structures in place need to develop politically and institutionally. the government has unfortunately attempted to address poor municipal leadership through technical interventions, which have by and large not addressed the basic challenges of local government relative to service delivery. conclusion a major priority following the ushering in of a democratic state was addressing the developmental backlogs, particularly at the local sphere of government. however, two decades on, the issue of service delivery is a very contentious topic that is high on the municipal agenda nationally. critical questions in this regard, especially in a south african context, are whether there is delivery in relation to certain basic services and what is the quality of the service being provided? there have been several government initiatives introduced to address service delivery challenges and the dysfunctionality of municipalities to date, and none of them have really borne any fruition in terms of responding to the local governance crisis. at the same time, residents in local communities have become very agitated and in some cases have even resorted to violence in expressing their frustration at poor service delivery. the south african local governance system, if judged according to the legislative and policy framework, can be described as ‘world class’ internationally; however, to complement that framework, there has to be the requisite human and financial resources committed to the municipal structures and ensuring that the system works. those responsible for the political deployment of municipal functionaries have to take into account the passion, commitment, competence, qualifications and ethical leadership of those in line to be appointed or elected. having ‘struggle credentials’ is not good enough as anc ‘deployees’ will be playing a pivotal role in formulating and implementing policies relative to service delivery and development. such delivery is the essence of developmental local government and it is also a constitutional imperative. in the final analysis, there should be a radical shift from the policy of ‘cadre deployment’ and political patronage as it violates the essential principles of good local governance. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references african national congress, 2012, recommendations from the 4th national policy conference, gallagher estate, midrand, johannesburg, 26–29th june. alexander, p., 2010, ‘south africa’s service delivery protests: a preliminary analysis’, review of african political economy 37(123), 25–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03056241003637870 allan, k. & heese, k., n.d., understanding why service delivery protests take place and who is to blame, municipal iq, viewed 13 march 2016, from www.municipaliq.co.za bekink, b., 2006, principles of south african local government law, lexis nexis butterworths, durban. booysen, s., 2012a, ‘sideshow or heart of the matter? local politics and south africa’s 2011 local government elections’, in s. booysen (ed.), local elections in south africa: parties, people and politics, pp. 1–10, sun press, bloemfontein. booysen, s., 2012b, ‘conclusion’, in s. booysen (ed.), local elections in south africa: parties, people and politics, pp. 351–359, sun press, bloemfontein. cameron, r., 2003, ‘politics–administrative interface: the case of the city of cape town’, international review of administrative sciences 69, 51–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0020852303691004 cameron, r., 2010, ‘redefining political–administrative relationships in south africa’, international review of administrative sciences 76, 676–711. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0020852310381204 carrim, y., 2010, towards better understanding of the service delivery protests, national council of provinces, department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs budget vote, cape town. chen, l., dean, j., frant, j. & kumar, r., what does ‘service delivery’ really mean in south africa?, viewed 29 september 2014, from http://blogs.cfr.org/cambell/2014/05/15south-africa-what-does-service-delivery-really-mean/ dassah, m.o., 2012, ‘a critical analysis of factors underlying service delivery protests in south africa’, journal of african and asian local government studies 1(2), 1–28. de visser, j., 2005, developmental local government: a case study of south africa, intersentia publishers, antwerpen. de visser, j., 2010, ‘the political–administrative interface in south african municipalities: assessing the quality of local democracies’, commonwealth journal of local governance, special issue, march, 86–101. duncan, j., 2009, ‘desperately seeking depth: the media and the 2009 elections’, in r. southall & j. daniels (eds.), zunami: the south african elections of 2009, pp. 133–154, jacana, sunnyside. govender, j. & reddy, p.s., 2012, ‘failing the public through public policy: a review of the local government experience in south africa’, african journal of public affairs 5(1), 69–82. habib, a., 2015, ‘send in the competent in place of the cadres’, sunday times, 4 january 2015, p. 17. ndudula, m.r., 2013, ‘an analysis of the politics–administrative interface and its impact on delivery of municipal services: a case of the mnquma local municipality’, mpa dissertation, university of fort hare, alice. pieters, b.g. & pierre, j., 2004, ‘politicisation of the civil service: concepts, causes and consequences’, in b.g. pieters & j. pierre (eds.), politicisation of the civil service in comparative perspective, pp. 41–54, routledge, london. pieterse, e., parnell, s., swilling, m., van donk, m., 2008, ‘consolidating developmental local government’, in m. van donk, m. swilling & e. pieterse (eds.), consolidating developmental local government: lessons from the south african experience, pp. 2–23, isandla institute, cape town. powell, d., 2012, ‘imperfect transition – local government reform in south africa (1994–2012)’, in s. booysen (ed.), local elections in south africa: policies, parties and politics, pp. 11–30, sun press, bloemfontein. pretorius, d. & schurnik, w., 2007, ‘enhancing service delivery in local government: the case of a district municipality’, south african journal of human resources management 5(3), 19–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajhrm.v5i3.148 ramjee, m. & van donk, m., 2011, introduction: recognising community voice and dissatisfaction, good governance learning network, cape town. reddy, p.s., 2010, ‘democratic decentralisation and local democracy in south africa re-examined: quo vadis?’, politeia: south african journal for political science and public administration 29(3), 66–87. reddy, p.s., 2015a, ‘post local governance and development in south africa: quo vadis?’, in p.s. reddy & m. de vries (eds.), quo vadis?: local governance and development in south africa post 1994, pp. 328–329, bruylant publishers, belgium. reddy, p.s. & naidu, r.a., 2012, ‘development and local governance: the south african experience’, in b.s. baviskar & a.n. roy (eds.), local governance: a global perspective, pp. 107, ministry of information and broadcasting, government of india, new delhi. reddy, p.s. & wallis, m., 2015b, ‘involving smmes’, in p.s. reddy & m. de vries (eds.), quo vadis?: local governance and development in south africa post 1994, pp. 237–259, bruylant publishers, belgium. republic of south africa, constitution of the republic of south africa act, 1996 (act 108 of 1996). republic of south africa, 2009, state of local government: overview report: national state of local government assessments, department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs, pretoria. times, 15 march 2015. ‘jz : if i were a dictator’, p. 4. thornhill, c., 2012, ‘effective political–administrative relationships for policymaking and implementation’, african journal of public affairs 5(1), 56–68. thornhill, c. & cloete, j.j.n., 2014, south african municipal government and administration, van schaik publishers, pretoria. tshishonga, n., 2015, ‘the increased politicisation of human resources recruitment’, in p.s. reddy & m. de vries (eds.), quo vadis?: local governance and development in south africa post 1994, pp. 129–146, bruylant publishers, belgium. van der waldt, g., 2014a, ‘fostering local democracy’, in g. van der waldt et al. (eds.), municipal management: serving the people, pp. 23–51, juta and company, cape town. van der walt, c., 2014b, ‘municipal structures’, in g. van der waldt et al. (eds.), municipal management: serving the people, pp. 73–87, juta and company, cape town. batho pele: people first: batho pele principles in isizulu, viewed 14 august 2015, from www.kznhealth.gov.za/bathopele.htm zybrands, w., 2012, ‘municipal structures and finances – predicaments and performance challenges’, in s. booysen (ed.), local elections in south africa: policies, parties and politics, pp. 67–88, sun press, bloemfontein. footnotes 1. south africa is viewed in some circles as the protest capital of the world (tony & lei 2010; soony 2006 in dassah 2012). 2. see section 151(3) of the act. 3. the constitution has not defined basic services, but according to bekink (2006:288) they are universally referred to as water and sanitation, electricity, housing and roads. 4. research from municipal iqs hotspots clearly indicates that the majority of protests are in informal settlements in the larger metropolitan municipalities and is a regular recurrence (allan and heese.n.d.). 5. includes project consolidate; five year strategic agenda for local government 2006 – 2011; turnaround strategy for local government and the back to basics programme in local government. 6. see reddy (2010 77-78) for a more detailed discussion of this issue. 7. anc support in the johannesburg, tshwane and ekurhuleni metropolitan areas is barely more than 50%, and is 48% in the nelson mandela municipality. there has been a decline in support in all these areas (habib 2015:17). td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 136-138. book review: following a complexity route to transdisciplinarity ton jörg, new thinking in complexity for the social sciences and humanities: a generative, transdisciplinary approach, (springer, dordrecht, heidelberg, london and new york, 2011). 1st edition. july 2011, xii, 321 p. 98 illus., 19 in colour. hardcover, isbn 978-94-007-1302-4 price: euro 127. since the 1980s complexity theory has been at the cutting edge of research in the natural sciences. theorists of the social sciences and humanities also started responding to some of the critical findings, especially with their incorporation of some of the developments in the fields of chaos and algorithmic theory. there is no denying that complexity has opened up collaborative work by scientists in a variety of disciplines. moreover, it has contributed to opening up ways of potential interaction between the natural and social/human sciences. in his recent publication ton jörg, a theoretical social science thinker, who specialises in causality and complexity, puts his mind to work on the manner in which complexity can contribute towards transdisciplinary scientific work. new thinking in complexity for the social sciences and humanities: a generative, transdisciplinary approach, is aimed at promoting the idea of a ‘new science’ where the accent is on moving away from linear thinking. jörg argues that complex thinking is a new concept and tool for thinking in the social sciences and humanities (p. 2). apart from a wide array of seminal thinkers of science philosophy, such as edgar morin and thomas kuhn, jörg uses as a point of departure the fertile thinking of russian psychologist lev vygotsky (1896-1934) and the american social worker, mary parker lovett (1868-1933) to navigate a course in the direction of a ‘new science’. at the centre is the concept of complexity – a term etymologically derived from the latin word for ‘interweaving’ (p. 10). it is the source of inspiration for the new science of complexity (scoc), which seeks to locate a triangular interaction with the real world and real problems, with the objective of finding solutions (p. 11). he makes out a strong argument for the development of a new science. the way in which we have been doing science has been responsible for a distorted worldview. he argues that cp snow’s 1959 outline of the division of two types of culture, (science and the humanities) that prevented the problems of the world being solved, is of relevance. now the time has come to consider a ‘third culture’ that has benefits for the joint production of culture and society at large. this issue can only be addressed if and when we start contemplating the hidden complexity of reality. reality, in itself, presents the scientist with a vast array of problems and jörg tries to firstly address some of these through complexifying the social sciences and humanities with the ultimate objective of humanising them. secondly, he explains, it is necessary to reclaim reality by moving into a framework of an expanding understanding of what reality really implies (p. 38). he accentuates the fact that: reality is not given but, from an historical perspective, always an invented and constructed reality.1 1 . t jörg, new thinking in complexity for the social sciences and humanities: a generative, transdisciplinary approach, (springer, dordrecht, heidelberg, london and new york, 2011), p. 49. book review: complexity and transdisciplinarity td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 136-138. 137 the new reality is for him visually manifested in frank gehry’s design of the guggenheim museum in bilboa, spain. this structure represents something different, because: (o)ur new thinking in complexity about the complexity of the real is a reform of thought, that is reframing complexity of the real, which leads inevitable to a reform of reality.2 reality is not the only constituent part of complexity that needs to be incorporated into our thinking about a new science. there is, for example, also generativity – a state that represents the capability of human beings to transform them over time. generativity, jörg argues, could potentially bring human beings back into states and trajectories that involve concerns, projects and practices (p. 98). generativity seems to represent a type of energy that drives many of the processes within complexity. causality is by far the most detailed component of complexity that features in jörg’s theoretical framework. interestingly, he moves away from the conventional (and traditional) understanding of causality in historical thinking (the cause and consequence of events, or constructs of historical fact). he is more interested in locating a ‘new type of causality’ that is multilinear and even ‘nonlinear’, that can open up paths to spiral developments with sudden leaps and with a capacity to accommodate transformation and even metamorphosis (p. 61). the problem with time, he suggests, is that in the equation of causality, it traditionally tends to be event-sequenced. this type of sequencing is an unreliable guide to the future. it is then that he invokes transdisciplinarity by explaining: what we really need for opening a new mode of thinking about the new reality and for reflection on this reality is a new trans-disciplinary framework to open up a new, more complex reality: that is, the nonlinear complex nature of reality, with its hitherto unknown potential for opening a new horizon of unlimited possibility in practice.3 history’s disadvantage seems to be situated in the fact that it was partly responsible for framing the history of science that there came a crisis in western reason. specific modes of world disclosure were laid down. those modes are precisely what jörg is intent on breaking down (p. 100). in the place of an event-sequenced causality, he suggests, the focus should shift to the process. the new causal framework is continuous and non-gradual and there may even be some nonlinear effects over time (p. 144). ultimately this implies that the past (time) becomes part of our understanding of what interaction is all about. jörg embarks on a comprehensive exposition of causality, after explaining sewell wright’s contribution, in the early twentieth century to structural equation modelling (sem), and that of jöreskorg and sörbom in locating the latent variables in causal networks. ultimately, he argues in favour of reciprocal processes of mutual relations and circular chains with processes of causal influencing that take place over time (p. 162). he also refers to ‘bootstrapping’ (somewhat of a free agent) in the process of comprehending the high degree of variability of relevant role players in the process of causality. causality is a circular process. activities are on-going. instead of determinism, the focus should be on determining and accepting that causality in itself is a self-generating process, operating in networks (p. 164). although jörg’s thinking in this area could be of value to science practitioners who do not rely extensively on the dynamics of temporality, there is reason to believe that his exposition of 2 . t jörg, new thinking in complexity for the social sciences and humanities: a generative, transdisciplinary approach, (springer, dordrecht, heidelberg, london and new york, 2011), p. 98. 3 . t jörg, new thinking in complexity for the social sciences and humanities: a generative, transdisciplinary approach, (springer, dordrecht, heidelberg, london and new york, 2011), p. 98 tempelhoff 138 causality can lead to more fertile avenues in historical theory. his acknowledgement of karl jaspers’ statement that causality is part of a reciprocal process, forms an interesting point of departure. but then, there is the need to explore it further through the reflections on the matter by thinkers such as hans-georg gadamer and reinhardt koselleck, to mention only two. ultimately it could lead to some interesting debates – areas of reference that are absent in jörg’s theoretical framework. for the theorist of transdisciplinarity new thinking in complexity for the social sciences and humanities is a useful source. there is substantial evidence of creative pathways towards comprehending and applying transdisciplinary strategies in research. of interest could be his programme for thinking about a new complex way of looking at the social sciences and humanities. he suggests that one should: start to become reflective about the nature of things; escape old thinking about the complexity of reality; become aware of potentially new ways of knowing; think about interaction; think in a new way about causality; and think in a new way about the unit of study (p. 48). this approach could serve as a useful roadmap towards the implementation of transdisciplinarity. johann tempelhoff north-west university (vaal) vanderbijlpark, south africa abstract introduction literature review methodology findings discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) lebohang mahlo department of research and postgraduate studies, faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa zayd waghid department of senior phase and further education and training, faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation mahlo l, waghid z. examining information and communication technology use in public primary schools in south africa from the capability approach. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1201. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1201 original research examining information and communication technology use in public primary schools in south africa from the capability approach lebohang mahlo, zayd waghid received: 19 jan. 2022; accepted: 20 june 2022; published: 21 sept. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract in 2015 the western cape government (wcg) in south africa introduced the e-learning game changer initiative to offer teachers in public schools information and communications technology (ict) resources to improve their pedagogy. despite the efforts by the wcg to improve ict use for teaching in public schools, successful ict integration hardly takes place in several historically disadvantaged (albeit affluent) schools, which constitute a minority of schools in the western cape. the primary aim of this study was to investigate those conversion factors allowing or impeding teachers in two public primary schools in the western cape from attaining the potential capabilities required for successful ict integration. amartya sen’s capability approach was used as the study’s theoretical framework. the study employed a qualitative research method involving 10 educators observed during their lessons and interviewed. the findings confirmed that only a few conversion factors, such as the attainment of ict skills through a community of practice and university training by the teachers, provided them with capabilities to use ict to deliver curriculum content and perform basic ict skills effectively. several conversion factors, including teachers’ age, provincial and school policies, infrastructure and resources, prevented these teachers from realising their ict potential. this study contends that the white paper on e-education (2004) policy might benefit from the results, which could help to build or rethink programmes that encourage continual teacher training. transdisciplinarity contribution: this research shows that policymakers need to take into consideration the conversion factors that may impact teachers’ capabilities to deliver curriculum utilising icts. this study’s findings provide new light on how these conversion factors limit or expand teachers’ ict capabilities. keywords: capabilities; conversion factors; information and communications technology; communities of practice; primary schools; smart classroom. introduction whilst educational technology has been introduced and initiated in state schools in south africa over the last 27 years, several researchers have acknowledged specific factors as the primary sources causing what sen calls ‘unfreedoms’. these factors prevent teachers’ effective information and communications technology (ict) integration in public schools.1,2 these factors include poor planning and implementation of policies by both departments of education and schools, together with no or little technical provision in the use of icts, insufficient ict teaching by these institutions,3 poor attitudes and resistance by individual teachers to change,1 limited time available for teachers to implement and complete school curriculum1,2 and little or zero access to ict equipment in some public schools.4 sen5 referred to these factors as conversion factors. these factors are circumstances that impede (unfreedoms) individuals from or afford them the means to transform capabilities into functionings.6 the western cape government (wcg) has introduced various undertakings to promote ict use in the province’s state primary and secondary schools. the e-learning game changer initiative was officially launched on 08 september 2015 to substitute the khanya project, which had come to an end after being in existence for over 10 years. like the khanya project, this game changer initiative was intended to encourage ict integration in public schools in the western cape province to subsequently transform teaching and learning practices in schools, albeit mainly in mathematics and languages.7 also, the e-learning game changer initiative aimed to address the historical imbalances concerning digital access amidst affluent and historically underprivileged schools. more specifically, the initiative aimed at providing ict access for learners and teachers in underprivileged schools.8 in reaching its objectives, the wcg introduced the smart school project through the e-learning game changer initiative, which was intended to operate from 2015 to 2019.7 this project focused on renovating and modernising the remaining khanya computer laboratories by supplying schools in the western cape with smart classrooms to minimise education inequality between affluent and historically disadvantaged schools.7 smart classrooms are technologically resourced classrooms with icts, such as laptops, smart boards, internet, data projectors and other technological devices, intended to support teachers conducting and presenting lessons effectively, efficiently and creatively.8 in 2019, a total of 6422 smart classrooms were delivered to and installed in certain states’ primary and secondary schools in the western cape province. since 2015, about 2000 teachers in the western cape province have been trained to use new icts in their teaching.8 however, despite the considerable determinations and monetary investment by the local government to strengthen access to and use of icts by teachers and learners in public schools, it seems, according to some researchers, that the majority of teachers in these schools do not possess the essential capabilities to integrate icts successfully in their teaching.9 therefore, the purpose of this article is to answer the following research question: what factors enable or deprive public primary school teachers of realising the necessary capabilities for successful ict integration in their teaching? this study provides implications for government policies to focus on more than just technology when it comes to guaranteeing the successful use of ict. this study critically examines why, nearly 27 years into democracy, especially in south africa’s western cape province, where the provision of technology in schools is high,10 certain educators are still socially excluded from effectively participating in technologically equipped schools and reaping the anticipated benefits of such environments. according to waghid et al.,11 teaching and learning practices informed by democratic education cultivate the spaces for policies and practices requiring democratic and social change in south african education. thus, it is acknowledged in this article that more preference should be given to personal, social and environmental factors which will allow educators to engage more effectively in economic, social and political affairs. according to a capability approach, people’s capabilities should be the focus of education policy.12 literature review the importance of information and communications technology integration in teaching and learning information and communications technology integration may be characterised as the hardware and software tools that are often used to transmit information and knowledge in an interactive manner between teachers and learners, as well as between learners and their peers.13 the inadequate access to icts has resulted in a significant equity gap in schools.14 according to umugiraneza et al.,4 the use of icts in curriculum delivery in some south african primary schools was lower than it was in high schools because some teachers in some primary schools, particularly those in high poverty areas, do not integrate icts into their teaching. consequently, umugiraneza et al.4 suggest that teachers may be deprived of potential capabilities obtained from icts. mugani15 says that teachers in south african schools can use icts in smart classrooms to take advantage of certain capabilities, such as creating an environment where learners are eager to learn (attracting learners’ attention); assisting learners in finding it more conducive to learning to use visual and audio aids; improving and increasing student involvement in classroom instructional activities; saving teaching and learning time by placing e-textbooks and other resources into the smart board, making the task easier and requiring less time spent on lesson preparation; and covering a large amount of course content in a short period of time. capability deprivation (unfreedoms) the philosophy of capability deprivation has long helped to assess poverty.16 capability deprivation is referred to by sen17 as ‘unfreedoms’. he labelled an unfreedom a deprivation and recognised unfreedoms specifically to limited educational needs, social care and public services. according to waghid et al.,18 there are two kinds of unfreedoms which can be described as ‘external and internal unfreedoms’. whilst the concept, namely internal, relates to a person and is something or some quality found on the inner side of a person, in contrast, the concept ‘external’ refers to something found on the outer side of a person. according to these descriptions, internal unfreedoms pertain to internal factors or are inherent to teachers and are controlled by them, for this study’s purpose. external unfreedoms are factors beyond teachers’ control, and in the context of the current study, they forbid teachers from realising those capabilities which are desirable for successful ict use in teaching and learning. sen17 contends that it is vital to eventually remove those unfreedoms that work against people from doing or being what they value to improve individuals’ capabilities. external unfreedoms prohibiting effective information and communications technology integration in separate studies, chigona et al.19 and tiba2 believe that teachers evade icts because of the incessant inconvenience of technical faults that they cannot solve because of the limited immediate technical assistance at such schools. by implication, teachers’ and learners’ capabilities are influenced by the limited technical support in these schools. it would thus be reasonable to argue that teachers and learners may have unremarkable experiences with ict whenever such support is limited or is of undesirable quality. makwela20 discovered that teachers in gauteng province were criticising constant power outages in township schools. the ongoing electricity outages in south africa continue to forbid most schools from integrating icts successfully. however, this condition strongly indicates that electricity is vital for teachers and learners at these schools to transform the digital divide. some academics have maintained that whenever icts are made available at schools, they should also include suitable and broad ict training of both teachers and learners.3,4 de silva9 and tiba,2 on the other hand, saw little follow-up training at several western cape schools during their studies. it would thus appear that there is a considerable need to establish or redesign policies that support continuous training to strengthen teachers’ capacities beyond such once-off training programmes to achieve successful ict integration in teachers’ classrooms. buzuzi21 discovered that new graduates are more confident and eager to use icts for teaching and learning than experienced teachers. thus, as part of its effort to prepare teachers with vital ict skills, the department of education (doe)22 suggested that teachers in schools form a community of practice (cop) to cultivate and expand their own and their co-workers’ ict skills.22 a community of practice is defined as a group of people who share the same organisational goals and vision, and these people extend their capabilities with each other.23 internal unfreedoms prohibiting effective information and communications technology integration umugiraneza et al.4 explained that age and work experiences are unique features and life experiences that impact teachers’ readiness and eagerness to incorporate icts in their teaching. umugiraneza et al.,4 in their study conducted in kwazulu-natal province, contended that older teachers are typically more hesitant to incorporate icts in their teaching than their younger counterparts, who are more technologically skilled in using ict. unlike their older coworkers, younger freshly graduated teachers were allowed to receive training in applying these new icts in their teaching during their studies, according to umugiraneza et al.4 these conclusions were then corroborated by mukhari24 in another study. in her study, certain younger generation teachers believed that many older generation teachers are uninterested in exploring icts in their classrooms, as they are on the verge of retiring. theoretical framework the capability approach has primarily focused on human rights issues such as women’s rights and the rights of unemployed people and impaired people.25 sen26,27,28 interpreted the capability approach as interconnected with the human rights framework. in contributing to the capability approach, zheng et al.29 ratified the interpretation that poverty should be viewed in terms of scarce resources and that living in impoverished conditions is enforced on the destitute. hence, the capability approach focuses on basic needs and what people lack.29 in the last few years, the capability approach has further been used as a framework by some researchers and policymakers in identifying people’s access and ict usage in all government sectors, particularly in developing countries.30 functionings and capabilities are fundamental theories of the capability approach employed to frame and guide the current study. according to kuhumba et al.,31 ‘the term ‘functioning’ originates from the verb ‘to function’, which means to participate in an activity’. kuhumba et al.31 reiterated that functionings in this sense ‘are people’s achievements which result from their efforts to be or to do something’. sen27 interprets what people can achieve from using the available resources as functionings. on the other hand, capabilities are represented by different functionings.27 capabilities are the freedoms and opportunities presented to people to live the kinds of lives they desire.32 although the concepts of functionings and capabilities have diverse connotations, they are interrelated and mutually dependent. well-being and agency freedoms are two other theories that bring the capability approach into existence.27 sen26 viewed capabilities from these two perspectives. ‘well-being freedom is the freedom to have a good life, and agency freedom is the freedom to achieve what a person has reason to value’.33 figure 1 presents how commodities can be transformed into capabilities using personal, social and environmental conversion factors.33 figure 1: capability approach.29 as illustrated in figure 1, a range of conversion factors influence the capability of a person to make use of resources. the conversion factors influence people’s freedoms to transform the features of resources (opportunities) into functionings.6 these factors can encouragingly or adversely affect an individual’s freedom from achieving their capabilities through the existing resources. zheng and walsham29 describe these conversion factors as: personal (e.g. abilities or skills of an individual, training situations) social (e.g. policies concerning ict usage at a school) environmental (e.g. available infrastructure, other resources needed for practical ict usage). even though these conversion factors might be interconnected, their causes might differ. functionings would be attained through individual decision-making, such as individual choice for benefit. as this study is primarily concerned with capability deprivation in an educational context, the current study focuses only on the first half of the capability approach (figure 1), that is, conversion factors from commodities to capabilities, excluding the vector of achieved functionings. methodology this study was undertaken in two public primary schools which were purposefully chosen in the western cape province of south africa. these schools are referred to as school a and school b to guarantee anonymity. both schools are located in a historically ‘disadvantaged’ township known as khayelitsha, and both own smart classrooms, which were provided by the local government’s e-learning game changer initiative. these two schools belong to the quintile three school category. schools in quintiles 1–3 are non-fee-paying and receive funding from the south african government.34 school a has 32 teachers and slightly over 1300 learners, whereas school b has 38 teachers and roughly 1600 learners. both schools have attained a 90% passing percentage in the last two years. both schools were chosen because they have relatively good ict resources in the area. before visiting both schools, ethical clearance was acquired from the faculty of education’s ethics committee at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) and the western cape education department (wced). data were explicitly gathered from participants who signed and presented informed consent forms. a sample of 10 educators was purposefully selected from the population of 70 educators. in this study, the participants are referred to as teachers a, b, c, d, e, f, g and h, and the principals are referred to as principals a and b to ensure their anonymity. all 10 participants were cognisant of the planned interviews, whilst all teacher participants were notified of the arranged lesson observations. four teachers were voluntarily chosen from each school. all eight teachers were teaching between grades two and six, and specific subjects were recognised as the focus of the local government’s e-learning game changer initiative. these subjects included isixhosa as home language, english as first additional language (fal) and mathematics. a qualitative approach involving an interpretivist paradigm was used to collect the data, including nonparticipant observations for all eight teacher participants and semi-structured one-on-one interviews for all eight teacher participants and two principal participants. an observation protocol was used to record the data during lesson observations, ensuring that the field notes were efficiently organised. the semi-structured interview was a suitable data collection tool as it allowed greater adaptability with the allocated time and afforded the freedom to reorganise the order of the questions and add questions, depending on the participants’ responses.35 interviews were recorded using an audio recorder, which was later of assistance in accurately capturing interviews. an interview protocol was also used to record notes. all interview questions were guided by the capability approach, which is the theoretical foundation that underpins this study. observations and semi-structured interviews were employed by the researchers to acquire first-hand experiences of participants in their natural context and to get a thorough presentation of each participant’s perspectives. furthermore, data were analysed using atlas.ti, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software, according to the processes outlined by friese.36 firstly, data files were produced and researchers familiarised themselves with the data; the vocal data were also transcribed during this step. secondly, the data were coded by identifying elements or themes of the data that piqued the researchers’ curiosity. thirdly, the data were categorised and organised by looking for and examining themes. finally, by noting what is noteworthy about the data and why, patterns, processes and sequences were uncovered. findings this research aimed to identify and examine factors enabling or depriving public primary school teachers of realising the capabilities essential for effective ict use. the study’s theoretical framework used the capability approach to inform the findings and interpretation or analysis. as emphasised by chigona et al. and zheng et al.,19,29 the capability of an individual to make use of resources or goods (commodities), which in this case are icts, is influenced by three types of factors, namely personal, social and environmental (see table 1). table 1: factors influencing teachers’ capabilities. table 1 illustrates the findings obtained through one-on-one interviews with the participants. the character ‘x’ in the table represents whether these participants directly or indirectly cited in their interview answers that a specific factor influenced their or other teachers’ daily use of ict in the smart classrooms. personal factors and subsequent capabilities in the interviews, several participants confirmed the construct age (see table 1) as a significant factor around integrating ict in the smart classrooms. three teachers (a, b and g) stated that some of their co-workers are unenthusiastic and unwilling to use the available icts in their smart classrooms because of their advanced (unspecified) age (see table 1). on this point, teachers a, b and g corroborated this finding in their interviews: ‘… [t]hen the older teachers in the school, the less they use it [ict], and they have that belief that children need to write manually using pen [or] pencil and paper.’ (teacher a, school a, 40 years old) ‘teachers who have been teaching for quite many years do not see value on icts; thus, they need training, not two weeks’ training, not one week training, not one day training but a training longer than two weeks. older teachers are not comfortable using icts. i think once they get the necessary training, that might change.’ (teacher b, school a, 31 years old) ‘honestly, they are old and because they old … okay, not because they old, let me not say because they old, okay, because maybe they old. because back in the days, they didn’t really use computers. as the years went, they got workshops, and you do get some of the old people who are not good, but they are able to do on their own, but i think that’s why, and i think also not – narrow-minded sounds rude, but they’re not willing to learn, they telling themselves, ‘i won’t be able to do this.’ (teacher g, school b, 26 years old) principal a echoed this view when answering this question in the interview: ‘do you think your teachers are comfortable teaching with technology?’ ‘[laughs] they are not comfortable. some of them are, but only a few of them. but i know that the majority is not comfortable in using icts. especially the older teachers …’ (principal a, school a, 50 years old) findings from the lesson observations of teachers e and h, who were over the age of 50 years, were consistent with the above participant teachers’ responses, confirming these teachers’ lack of ict skills as they were incapable of operating icts in their smart classrooms. during one-on-one interviews, some teachers stressed limited ict literacy between themselves and teachers as a primary causal factor to their inefficient ict usage. in answering the interview question: ‘how did you obtain your ict skills?’, four teachers (b, d, f and g) reiterated that they possess some ict skills that they learnt from tertiary institutions (see table 1) whilst they were studying towards their teaching qualifications. two teachers (b and g), who had acquired their ict skills at tertiary institutions, explained: ‘i think i first got ict skills at varsity, that’s where i was exposed to icts, then i got the skills. whilst you are there, you are taught on how to operate computers. i did ict skills as one of the modules in varsity … and the fact that we were almost using computers every day in varsity helped me to have some of the computer skills.’ (teacher b, school a, 31 years old) ‘i recently graduated from my studies. at varsity, it’s important that you learn to use computers because everything is almost done on computers. from typing your assignment to searching information online. i am confidence [sic] to say that i do have those basic and necessary skills.’ (teacher g, school b, 26 years old) the findings indicated that novice teachers, despite having little prior teaching experience, had the necessary capabilities to effectively teach utilising icts in the classroom. this is despite the fact that novice teachers have less teaching experience. on the other hand, concerning the interview question, ‘how do you get support from your school in terms of your skills development?’, six participant teachers (a, b, c, g, h and e) were appreciative of the support they received from their coworkers concerning the use of icts for teaching and learning. teacher c commented: ‘i obtain my ict skills by being assisted by other teachers here at the schools, as well as other teachers from other school …’ (teacher c, school a, 32 years old) principal a also confirmed teacher c’s comments: ‘… like i said, we do have those teachers that are more skilled than others, so we would also ask them to assist those that are less skilled, so that helps a lot.’ (principal a, school a, 50 years) the teachers reported the kind of support they acquired through a cop to enhance their capability to use icts successfully in the smart classrooms. this finding is proof that a cop exists amongst teachers at some schools. more specifically, it operationalised how the two selected schools are situated. the existence of a cop in these schools is as per the recommendations of the department of education.22 in terms of the capability approach, these personal factors (ict skills obtained through university training and a cop) can afford teachers the well-being freedom, although to a limited extent, to deliver curriculum content using icts. six participant teachers (a, b, d, f, g and h) (see table 1) indicated limited technical skills amongst teachers in the two schools as another personal factor associated with ict literacy described to have played a significant role in their partial use of icts in these schools. this finding is strengthened by participants’ answers to the interview question: ‘can you solve any internet problems or technical problems?’: ‘most teachers don’t have technical skills to solve computer problems, and that causes them not to use technology. if certain teachers do not use ict, then that means teachers who use it will not have full support from the rest of the staff. if you cannot solve a technical problem, no one is available at the school to help you.’ (teacher b, school a, 31 years old) ‘since we have smart classrooms and a resource centre at the school, the only problem we have are technical problems. like, there is no internet, or struggling to login on laptops because in these laptops you need to connect to the internet for you to log in …’ (teacher d, school a, 56 years old) the teachers’ unwillingness to use the existing icts in their classrooms was because of an absence of knowledgeable and technically skilled teachers in these schools. in this regard, they could not teach without being overwhelmed by technical problems, and thus they could not teach without being adequately suited to resolve some of these technical issues during their lessons. in the observations, this was evident, particularly in the case of teachers a and c at school a, who appeared to grapple with resolving some technical glitches. for example, teacher a could not establish a wi-fi connection during the lesson that was witnessed by researchers. consequently, she could not use youtube and other online videos for her lesson as she had envisaged. therefore, the findings show that ict illiteracy concerning technical skills deprived these and other teachers of achieving their potential capabilities. social factors and subsequent capabilities following the provincial policy of the wced (see table 1), teachers at some schools and the participant teachers of this study were required to participate in the smart classroom training organised by the wced. in the interviews, seven participant teachers (a, b, c, d, e, f and h) indicated that they were trained to use the smart classroom icts. however, these teachers also underscored that the training was inadequate and insufficient, as a single training session was offered with no follow-up training. on this point, teachers c, d, e and f commented: ‘it is not enough, because you will find that other teachers, they never understood everything that was said. and so we needed another training so that we can polish our understanding. it was only a one day training, so that’s a little time …’ (teacher c, school a, 32 years old) ‘training of teachers that are raw is not enough, the time is not enough, the training is enough because it almost covers everything. the problem is learning a 2-year work in three days is not enough, so time versus the workload.’ (teacher d, school a, 56 years old) ‘the training only happened once; how can we use these things with that kind of training? i think a month would be enough to train teachers.’ (teacher e, school b, 51 years old) ‘… those workshops, they are being held at least once a year. i think they are not being held more often so that teachers can be used to them.’ (teacher f, school b, 38 years old) one principal also reiterated that the teacher developmental training (see table 1) provided and conducted by wced on smart classrooms was insufficient: ‘when we received these smart classrooms, we had a training, but to me it was not enough. it was just … one saturday morning from nine o’clock until one o’clock afternoon …’ (principal a, school a, 50 years old) some teachers, such as teacher e, believe this training should last a month. in other words, as a month contains around thirty days, the thirty days may be completed throughout the year, with teachers attending 2–3 training sessions every month. all four school b participant teachers (e, f, g and h) attribute their partial capabilities to respective policies at their schools (see table 1) concerning the right to use ict and length of ict use in the smart classroom. it was clear from these participants’ interviews at school b that not all icts were retained for ict use in the smart classrooms. following the school’s safety and security policy, some icts were stored in the deputy principal’s office for security. teachers g and h reported: ‘… if we want to use icts, we must ask for it in time; that is the rule. if you missed the morning, you might not get it for the rest of the day …’ (teacher g, school b, 26 years old) ‘challenges are that – like today, i wanted to use it, but when i go and ask for it at the office, i was told it’s too late. the rule is that i should ask for it before eight in the morning …’ (teacher h, school b, 56 years old) these findings confirm that many teachers, particularly those working in schools similar to those studied, are likely to be denied specific capabilities, such as being capable of using icts effectively; living in a setting where access to icts is not denied; teaching effectively with icts; participating in school management decision-making policies; and freely requesting access to icts when required during the school day. environmental factors and subsequent capabilities power outages because of load shedding were confirmed as an environmental concern connected with infrastructure (see table 1) by three teachers (b, g and h), as well as one principal (a), in the interviews. teachers b, g and h commented: ‘load shedding currently is one of the challenges because these resources cannot be used without electricity. sometimes there is also a problem with internet server.’ (teacher b, school a, 31 years old) ‘… and also we have load shedding, yeah! that’s the challenge, that’s also a challenge. because if you had planned a whole nice exercise activity using the smart board, then there is no electricity, it affects the whole lesson. so you always need a plan b.’ (teacher g, school b, 26 years old) ‘… you will be willing to use it [ict], but because of the load shedding, you end up on not using it, and once there’s a load shedding in the middle of the lesson, that turns me off from the lesson. you also end up losing your learners’ attention …’ (teacher h, school b, 56 years old) teachers in the current study could not use icts in a comfortable and favourable environment, as they were dissatisfied with power outages. by implication, teachers were deprived of their well-being freedom to work and live in an atmosphere free of adversities in using icts. the gathering of icts and installation of icts in the smart classrooms (see table 1) proved to be a further environmental problem that hampered the participant teachers (e, f, g and h) at school b from reaching their capabilities. in the interviews, teachers e, f and g expressed: ‘every time we want to use projectors, we have to walk a distance from office to class. i can’t put that thing up there on the celling because it’s heavy. i have to ask a male teacher to help me. that whole process wastes my teaching time.’ (teacher e, school b, 51 years old) ‘since i don’t use technology most of the time, i know that teachers that are using it are complaining because to use it requires a lot of time. the other day one of [my] colleagues from grade 4 was stressing out because every time when using the [smart boards], he first needs to attach the projector on the frame in ceiling. so teachers avoid using smart boards because they waste time.’ (teacher f, school b, 38 years old) ‘… sometimes i don’t use it [ict] because it takes time out of a lesson. already our lessons are short, especially for maths, because you have mental maths, which takes time. it needs a man because i’m short. i’m a woman, like i can’t adjust that thing. the projector because you need to install it up there on the ceiling. so it takes a lot of time, about 15 min – 20 min; even to get it in the morning, i first have to wait after briefings then get it. like today, my lesson didn’t start on time because i had to wait for computer [laptop]. i ended up not even using it anymore.’ (teacher g, school b, 26 years old) on this point, principal b confirmed these teachers’ comments: ‘burglary is a challenge, because every time, now and again, the ict resources are kept in the strong room. so it’s difficult for teachers to leave the technology in their classrooms because of high rate of burglary at the school. we had four burglary instances last year. even though teachers are complaining that their teaching time is spent on installing and connecting projectors, we have no other choice but to keep these resources in the office because our classes are not safe.’ (principal b, school b, 58 years old) based on the teachers’ comments, it is reasonable to conclude that the school b teachers’ habit of screwing projectors into the ceiling led to their reduced well-being and agency freedom in terms of having the capabilities necessary to incorporate icts in their smart classrooms. in addition, teachers, as teacher g said before, have a limited amount of time that is allotted for instructing. teachers would not enjoy capabilities such as living in an environment free of obstacles in using icts or presenting content without being confined by time. table 2 reviews the relevant factors linked to the teachers’ capabilities. table 2: conversion factors and capabilities. some conversion factors, namely ict skills acquired through a cop and university training, were confirmed to have supported teachers’ capabilities. however, most conversion factors, namely age, provincial and school policies, infrastructure and resources, emerged to have had restricted the teachers’ capabilities in the current study, preventing them from confidently, freely or fully utilising icts in their teaching. discussion in response to the research question, this study discovered significant conversion factors that either enabled or prevented participating individual teachers from efficiently employing icts in their smart classrooms. the study aimed to identify the particular conversion factors that enabled or prevented public primary school teachers from realising the capabilities necessary for practical ict usage in their classrooms. the findings of this study have several implications. in terms of the capability approach, the findings imply that a cop, commensurate with adequate university training, can provide teachers with the freedom to present course content using icts and to be able to perform basic ict skills effectively in the smart classroom. capabilities may be regarded from both an individual and a group perspective. as vaughan et al.12 describe, methods such as cops contribute to the collective capabilities. as a result, combining ict skills learned in a cop with university training can help teachers feel confident about incorporating icts into their smart classrooms. this allows teachers to use available icts during and after school hours if they desire or are not confined to differing degrees by the school or provincial laws. teachers in this context, for example, can act autonomously by determining which ict skills are useful to them to apply in their curriculum delivery. by implication, teachers become more satisfied with their jobs when they can put what they have learnt from their coworkers into practice. participating in a cop, in other words, offers teachers ongoing informal training that lasts throughout their careers. furthermore, new generation teachers at the chosen schools appear to have performed an essential role in improving the functioning of a school community by affording older-generation coworkers specialised ict assistance. hence, as reported in the study by umugiraneza et al.4 and in this current study, the possibility exists that as teachers age, they lose interest in using new technology in their classrooms. the data show that the needs of schools in terms of ict use by teachers and the training programmes supplied by the wced for their teachers are not synchronised. these findings are consistent with that of de silva9 and tiba.2 according to these researchers, teacher training programmes in some south african schools are insufficient because they are held once a year. also, because some of the participants had no prior experience with ict training, both wced and university programmes may be too complex for them in terms of ict skills training and take too much for granted in terms of teachers’ ict abilities and experience. because some of the younger-generation participants were required to take ict skills-related subjects as part of their university studies, they already had some basic ict abilities that they could utilise to deliver the curriculum in their smart classrooms effectively. furthermore, the findings report that teachers’ well-being and agency freedoms would be increased if they received sustainable training that lasted longer than one day and went beyond mere ict technical competence training to incorporate the pedagogical use of icts. according to the observation and interview data analysis, another reason for their capability deprivation, as evidenced by their inability to tackle technical difficulties in their smart classrooms, was an overall lack of technical skills amongst teachers at the two schools. these findings resonate with wenger’s findings.23 one strategy to cultivate a group of technical abilities for teachers is establishing a cop in these schools and with other schools in the area. this study’s findings demonstrated extrinsic variables outside the control of the participating teachers that a cop could not resolve. at the time of the current study, social factors such as rigid and dated school policies on ict use, as well as an environmental factors such as power outages, constantly obstruct successful teaching and learning in poorer public primary schools in the western cape, including the two schools chosen for the study. these findings are consistent with makwela,20 who discovered that gauteng teachers were dissatisfied with the regular power outages in their schools, which hampered their ict usage in the classroom. whilst it may be essential for teachers to avoid ict usage in the context of outdated ict policies and frequent and ongoing load shedding, this can considerably impact teaching and learning. more specifically, teachers are denied the opportunity to perform their ict teaching activities, and learners are subsequently dispossessed of their autonomy to encounter effective blended forms of learning. these motivations may lead teachers to cling to traditional ‘chalk and talk’ styles of teaching, which are seen as increasingly outdated in the 21st century. if teachers are denied access to existing icts in schools, learners have subsequently been deprived of the advantages provided by their teachers’ ict use in the classroom, according to the researchers’ own experience. conclusion this study shows that, for several reasons, the use of icts for teaching in a relatively small sample of individual public primary schools in the western cape province is significantly poor. the study revealed that certain conversion factors contributed to capability deprivation amongst public primary school teachers, including personal conversion factors such as teachers’ age and level of ict literacy; social conversion factors such as provincial e-learning policies and school ict policies; and environmental conversion factors such as school infrastructure and resources. these findings should provide more relevant information to researchers, policymakers, school principals and teachers on the individual factors driving teachers’ restricted use of icts for teaching and learning, especially in historically poor schools. it is envisaged that this study’s findings would contribute practically and theoretically to the development and improvement of the specific teachers’ capabilities that emerged during the research, qualities that are critical for effective ict integration in the classroom. given that the study was conducted amongst teachers in historically disadvantaged schools in south africa as a developing country, it is relevant to a global context, particularly in identifying the specific conversion factors that can support or prevent teachers from realising the capabilities required for successful ict integration in teaching and learning. given the short sample size of this study, an extensive empirical investigation with a larger sample size and conducted in a divergent environment that additionally analyses teachers’ capabilities regarding ict use may be required. various circumstances may provide different outcomes. further research should thus explore bigger sample sizes and possibly a secondary school context to see if the results are similar to or different from the current study. acknowledgements the authors express their sincere gratitude to rose jackson and barbara shaw for proofreading and language editing of this article. competing interest the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions z.w. served as the supervisor of l.m. in this regard, he was specifically responsible for assisting with conceptualising the study. ethical consideration ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology (ref. no. efec 2-10/2019) and from the western cape education department (ref. no. 20191009-130). funding information the faculty of education at the cape peninsula university of technology will fund the article in the event that it is accepted for publication. data availability data will be made available using the institution’s data management plan tool. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references gunzo ft. teachers’ perceptions, experiences and challenges related to using icts in teaching social sciences in marginalised classrooms in the eastern cape province, south africa [unpublished phd dissertation]. grahamstown: rhodes university; 2020. tiba ca. the ability of newly qualified teachers to integrate technology into their pedagogical practice [unpublished phd dissertation]. cape town: cape peninsula university of technology; 2018. johnston t. training teachers to bridge the digital divide. wmer [serial online]. 2015 [cited 2019 dec 06];3(2):4. available from: 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thousand oaks ca: sage; 2019. microsoft word 08 vyas doorgapersad.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. 235-250. paradigm shift from new public administration to new public management: theory and practice in africa s vyas-doorgapersad1 abstract the african continent is facing a number of administrative crises. the recent decline of public administration on the continent has forced some african countries to re-assess their governance systems. their public service reforms are evidence of the emergence of new public management (npm) for improved public sector administrative structures and operations. this article discusses the paradigm shifts from new public administration to new public management, as a means of meeting public administration challenges in africa. at a contextual level, the paper examines the practical implementation by some african countries of npm and the outcomes of npm-led reform in these countries. key words: public administration (pa); new public administration (npa); new public management (npm); public value management (pvm); paradigm; paradigm shift; public service reforms; governance. disciplines: public management, political science, sociology, economics. introduction the progression from new public administration to new public management has stimulated intellectual debate amongst scholars, raising certain probing questions. should new public management (npm) be regarded as a new paradigm? how does npm differ from public administration (pa)? do npm and pa offer different approaches or do they complement each other? it can further be argued that “the existence of competing paradigms in public administration strengthens, instead of erodes, the future of the field. theoretical breakthroughs (reconstruction of new theories) may come more readily when competitive approaches are allowed to coexist” (lan and anders 2000: 162). a paradigm is: a framework used in thinking about and organizing an understanding of natural or social phenomena. all societies, and the individuals within them, tend to have relatively 1 . prof. shikha vyas-doorgapersad is a member of the subject group public management and administration, school of basic sciences, vaal triangle campus, north-west university. email: shikha.vyasdoorgapersad@nwu.ac.za vyas doorgapersad 236 fixed assumptions about how to understand and interpret the world, but there is great variation in these assumptions from place to place and from time to time …[.] as sets of assumptions change over time this process can be referred to as a paradigmatic shift: there emerges a new way of looking at the world (online dictionary of the social sciences 2006: 1). the notion of a paradigm in the social sciences was introduced by thomas kuhn in his classic work entitled structure of scientific revolutions (1970) that raised scholarly debate in intellectual circles. the understanding of kuhn’s paradigms can assist scholars to discuss the paradigms of public administration. this article therefore builds on the theoretical/philosophical aspects of pa and npm, whereby it can be debated that it does not matter whether or not npm is a paradigm. for one thing, its use as a rhetorical device gives it stronger intellectual credentials … rather than being opposite paradigms, one of which must defeat the other, they appear to represent incommensurable ways of looking at their subject, each having its contribution to make (gow and dufour 2000: 590). through this theoretical understanding, the paper aims to explore the implementation and practise of npm as a new paradigm (hypothetical) and the outcomes of npm-led reforms introduced on the african continent. paradigms of public administration in his article on public administration, henry (1975) traced the evolution of the field by identifying a number of paradigms that he organized around three themes: focus, or what to study; locus, or where to find it; and the place of values. others thought that organisation theories lend themselves to analysis as paradigms, but rather in the incommensurable sense of burrell and morgan. for others still, paradigm and models are roughly equivalent (quoted by chevallier and loschak 1978: 90; frederickson 1980: 16; gow and dufour 2000: 577). debating on the existence of paradigms, starling (botes 1988: 121) stated that the problem with the view that public administration can and should have a paradigm and thus take its place among the other science is … two fold ..., first, it will direct the efforts of scholars away from the resolution of pressing administrative problems to the study of arcane theoretical puzzles. second, the paradigm dictates the connective taxonomies of important subjects of inquiry and forces the scholars, so to speak, to work and to think within the ambits of paradigms. various schools of thought have emerged to discuss the relevance of paradigms in public administration. according to the classical empiricist (objective/ positivist) school of thought, “to determine whether public administration does have paradigmatic status, it must be determined whether universally accepted theories about public administration exist” (freysen 1988: 162-163). in terms of the empiricist school of thought, it would appear that “public administration is not in a position to claim paradigmatic status in an objective sense” (freysen 1988: 163). regarding the existence of paradigms in public administration in a subjective sense, it can be commented that “the generic approach is universally accepted” (freysen 1988: 163). if the resemblance, correlation and relationship between paradigm shift to new public management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 223 250. 237 “posdcorb, polc, and pafhrier”2 (freysen 1988: 163) are emphasised and a synthesis is brought about, cloete’s generic view (freysen 1988: 163) or rational analytical model (freysen 1988: 163) can constitute a paradigm, because it is intuitively logical (freysen 1988: 163). cloete propagated that public administration comprises six generic administrative processes or functions, namely: policymaking, organising, financing, personnel provision and utilisation, determination of work procedures and control. these generic administrative processes or functions became the centrepiece of the subject matter and the focus of public administration education (maserumule and mashigo 2011: 6). if paradigmatic status in an objective, monistic sense is more than a philosophical ideology, it would seem to be unattainable in the social sciences and therefore in public administration. if, on the other hand, paradigmatic status is conceived of in a pluralistic, subjective sense and conforms to the basic characteristics of social science, ‘paradigmatic’ status seems to be attainable (freysen 1988: 164). either in support for or in opposition to this debate, scholars (kuhn 1970; henry 1975; chevallier and loschak 1978; frederickson 1980; minogue 1983; botes 1988; freysen 1988; wilding 1992; peters and savoie 1995; thomas 1996; charih and rouillard 1997; cheung 1997; massey 1997; kaboolian 1998; terry 1998) have profoundly studied and analysed the relevance of paradigms in public administration. in a book entitled action theory for pubic administration, michael m. harmons (1981: 1–194) stated: the propositions of public administration constitute an outline for an action theory paradigm for public administration. the integration of its assumptive, explanatory, and normative elements satisfies the criteria of paradigm status …[.] it provides a framework within which ‘applied’ theory and administrative practices may be developed and critically evaluated. vincent ostrom in his book entitled the intellectual crisis in american public administration (1973) moreover suggested a “democratic administration” (otenyo 2006: 2) paradigm urging the need for “diverse democratic decision-making structures, popular participation in administration and dispersed administrative authority based upon structures overlapping jurisdiction and fragmented organisation” (nasrullah 2005: 201). thus a paradigm is something the scientists of a discipline agree upon and that guides their research. a mature science is characterised by its paradigm and as long as the so called normal science continues, researchers work within their paradigm to solve the riddles of their discipline. according to kuhn when the researchers find facts that don’t fit into their paradigm and which cannot be explained by it he labels these facts ‘anomalies’; he explains that in such situations, researchers begin to search for solutions outside their paradigm until new laws, definitions, orientation hypotheses, values and exemplary solutions are found which can then be used to explain the anomaly and have the power to convince fellow scientists. if this happens and the scholars in that branch of science agree on the new disciplinary system, a new paradigm is installed to serve as a research guide. under such circumstances a paradigm change (or shift) has occurred (gruening 1998: 26). if a paradigm has been established within the social sciences and constant research proves that the results cannot be explained or 2 . the full form of the abbreviations used in the text are as follows: posdcorb: planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, budgeting. polc: planning, organising, leading, controlling. pafhrier: policy analysis, financial management, human resource management, information management, external relations. vyas doorgapersad 238 analysed in terms of the accepted paradigm, certain ‘anomalies’ arise. if the number of anomalies continues to increase and they remain unexplained, the old paradigm is replaced by a new one. usually when a new paradigm is discovered, all scientific efforts are directed towards the development of that paradigm (botes 1988: 121). new public management (npm) in africa npm represents a “paradigmatic break from the traditional model of public administration” (o’flynn 2007: 353). it is a reformed public sector transformation that breaks away from the repressive, autocratic and conservative paradigm of public administration that followed topdown hierarchies “underpinned by weber’s (1946) bureaucracy, wilson’s (1887) policyadministration divide, and taylor’s (1911) scientific management model of work organisation” (o’flynn 2007: 354). the components of the npm as a new paradigm include: break up of centralised bureaucracy; wide personnel management; shift to desegregations of units in the public sector, involving breaking up of former monolithic units; unbundling public sector into corporative units organised by products; with developed budgets and dealing with one another at ‘arms length’ basis; shift to greater competition in the public sector through term contracts and public tendering procedures; stress on private sector-styles of management practice – involving a move away military style public service ethic to more flexible hiring, rewards and more use of public relations (nasrullah 2005: 202–203). npm is thus seen as a body of managerial thought (ferlie et al 1996: 9; larbi 1999: 12) or as an ideological thought system based on ideas generated in the private sector and imported into the public sector (hood 1991: 3–19, hood 1995: 104–117; larbi 1999: 12; androniceanu 2007: 1). most african countries have experienced (some still do) the crisis of political turmoil, intolerance and harsh dictatorship; others have a military regime with highly centralised government processes. to name a few, sudan, zimbabwe, libya, ethiopia and uganda are in dire straits, resulting in a marked degree of social disintegration and economic stress throughout the continent. in this scenario of authoritarian ideology, public administration merely administers commandments and decrees. there is a need for african governments to transform these dictatorships, “to incorporate development administration, africanisation, nation building, and managing change” (otenyo 2006: 2). furthermore, economic crises often go hand in hand with political instability; in countries such as ghana, malawi, zambia and zimbabwe, “the orientation of the political leadership was not particularly pro-market or pro-private sector” (larbi 1999: 9). in such countries it was therefore necessary to introduce structural adjustment programmes to improve the economic situation prior to public sector management reform. the “structural adjustment reforms initiated in the mid-1980s with the support and leadership of the bretton woods institutions introduced a new public administration paradigm and macroeconomic policy framework” (economic commission for africa [eca] 2004: 4) to advance public sector reform. in other words, such public sector reforms were initiated against the background that governments required a departure from the traditional methods of administration and the urgent need for a renewed public sector to propel government in its quest for sustainable socio-economic, political and technological development. so, there was a need for structural re-engineering of the public sector with paradigm shift to new public management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 223 250. 239 the infusion of new values of professionalism, accountability, responsiveness and a focused sense of mission for maximum efficiency in the economy (omoyefa 2008: 18). the main objectives of public sector reform were therefore “to achieve better delivery of the basic public services that affect living standards of the poor” (omoyefa 2008: 18), and “to make the state or government institutional apparatus market friendly, lean, managerial, decentralized and ‘customer’ friendly…[.]” (omoyefa 2008: 18). these components of npm emerged because “many african countries such as ethiopia, ghana, mauritius, senegal and uganda, have embarked on comprehensive reforms aimed at improving the quality of life of their citizens, and creating new government machineries to establish efficient and effective management systems” (eca 2004:1). the npm approach is seen as a new paradigm to promote the principles of decentralised, democratic and free-market orientated government. this new paradigm implies that traditional public administration was not democratic and free-market orientated and failed to improve the institutional, administrative, organisational and structural contexts in africa. in order to address these challenges, some african countries have adopted the npm approach. the common elements of npm as practised in african countries include: • decentralisation or decentralising management involves disaggregating and downsizing of public services and are strands of npm derived from “managerialism” (mellon 1993: 25–31; hood 1991: 3–19; larbi 1999: 17). examples include ethiopia (see gudina 2007: 81–106; urban institute 2010: 1); mali (see togola & gerber 2007: 1–9; betke 2011: 1); and senegal (see rondinelli & minis 1990: 447–466). decentralisation also includes deconcentration, that is, “the passing down of selected administrative functions to lower levels or sub-national units within government agencies or departments” (hope 2001: 124). examples include district and town/city councils; land boards; and tribal administration and district administration bodies in gaborone botswana (see lekorwe 1998: 1–16). another form of decentralisation is delegation. through delegation, “central governments transfer responsibility for decision making and administration of public functions to semi-autonomous organizations not wholly controlled by the central government, but ultimately accountable to it” (word bank 2011: 01). examples include public corporations in kenya; parastatals in lesotho; autonomous hospitals in botswana and ghana. devolution is another type of decentralisation, whereby “the transfer of governance responsibility for specified functions to sub-national levels, either publicly or privately owned, are largely outside the direct control of the central government” (ferguson & chandrasekharan in yuliani 2004: 3). examples include the public financial management programme in ghana (see larbi 1999: 19). another emerging form of decentralisation is privatisation which implies the “transfer of operational control and responsibilities for state functions and service provision to appropriate private sector enterprises or voluntary organisations. from a wider perspective, privatisation encompasses a wide range of policies to encourage private sector participation in public service provision and eliminate or modify the monopoly status of public enterprises” (hope 2001: 125). examples here include togo (see world bank 2011: 1); new guinea (see curtin 2011:1–2); angola, botswana, ghana, kenya, mozambique, south africa, tanzania, uganda, zambia, camoroon, cote d’ivoire, gabon, senegal, guinea, mali, rwanda and sierra leone (see hope 2001: 126–127). parastatals in other african countries are also opting for privatisation programmes in sectors like telecommunication, water, and transport. vyas doorgapersad 240 • contracting out is an alternative term for ‘outsourcing’ which means “contracting, subcontracting, or ‘externalizing’ non-core activities to free up cash, personnel, time and facilities for activities” (businessdirectory.com 2010: 1) where the state holds economic benefits. examples include clinical services in zimbabwe (see mcpake & hongoro 1995:1), and health services in liberia (see gwenigale 2009: 9). the noncore state activities in uganda (see olum 2011: 1–20), and tanzania (see massi 2011: 1–7) are contracted out. • performance contracting: this is an instrument to reform state-owned enterprises. a performance contract is defined as a written or negotiated agreement between government or its representative agency and the management of public enterprises and other autonomous units directly delivering public services. it can also be a contract between government and private managers of state assets, wherein quantifiable targets are explicitly specified for a given period and performance is measured against targets at the end of the period (larbi 1999: 23). in kenya, for example, according to information in nairobi star of 2 march 2011, the government has embarked upon training 2 500 civil servants to work under performance contracts (see ndanyi 2011:1). performance-based contracting in uganda, democratic republic of congo and rwanda is an outcome-based approach to improving health service delivery (see johannes et al. 2011: 1). • corporatisation: is an emerging trend that involves “converting civil service departments into free-standing agencies or enterprises, either as part of the civil service or completely outside of it. this is perhaps the best known element of civil service reform in the uk and new zealand, two pioneers of the new public management” (polidano 1999: 6). many african countries (ghana, south africa and tanzania for example) are experimenting with the uk and new zealand models of agencies and enterprises. one particular example of a successful african trend is the combining of “customs and income tax departments into corporatised national revenue authorities. corporatisation has allowed these bodies to raise wages, shed poor performers while hiring better-qualified staff, offer bonuses in return for meeting revenue targets, and operate on a self-financing basis” (polidano 1999: 7). this is an african variant of npm which has been adopted in ghana, kenya, malawi, tanzania, uganda and rwanda (polidano 1999: 7), followed by zambia, south africa and zimbabwe “who are in a process of corporatising their health sectors” (russell et al. 1999: 767–75) with high scope of management autonomy, selfsufficiency and self-reliance. some of the new techniques under npm include performance management systems in botswana (see dzimbiri 2008: 43–58; bashi 2008: 1–240); south africa (see south african presidency 2007: 1–14); and uganda (see hotchkiss et al. 2010: 10-188; o’neil & paydos 2008: 6–11). in addition, npm reform is evident in pay and grading systems introduced in ghana, mozambique, guinea and tanzania (see clarke and wood 2001: 70–89; hope 2001: 129); operational and management control systems in south africa, ghana, nigeria, mauritius (see hope 2001: 131); total quality management in sub-saharan african countries (see mersha 2000: 119–124; beugré and offodile 2001: 535–550); and information and communication technologies in service delivery in many african countries (see miniwatts marketing group 2010: 1). public sector reform in africa “awakens the consciousness of people to how responsible governance can be achieved” (omoyefa 2008: 29). this realisation has enhanced public paradigm shift to new public management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 223 250. 241 participation with improved people/government communication for good governance. there is also a wider need on the continent to “exploit indigenous knowledge in carrying out any required reform in the public sector. it has always been a case of the donor agencies relying on their own foreign technical expertise and public management wizardry in implementing reform agenda in the african public sector” (omoyefa (2008: 28). analysis of the practical shift of pa to npm in africa has raised additional questions for further debate. is public sector reform the absolute answer to resolve challenges in africa? does the npm paradigm shift have any cultural foundation based on the beliefs and values of the african people per se? is npm in africa a pressure imposed by the developed countries who offer financial aid? does npm have the capacity to transform the authoritative administration imposed by african dictatorial headship into a democratised executive and management system that is a participatory and representative system? and one might also ask: is npm the only answer to improve and modernise public services in africa? the social, economic, political and technological challenges in african countries does not require the prohibition, exclusion or outlawing of public services. “re-engineering” (eca 2004: 9) of the public sector is required “with a variety of npm-inspired measures” (eca 2004: 9) to enhance the performance and standards of services delivered to the end-users. a literature review of african public administration shows clearly that most countries on the continent still need to “explore frameworks that might explain and sharpen understanding of efforts at reforming public bureaus. calls for npm and other reform movements aimed at changing administrative practices and thinking are evidence of the continuation of the search for working systems” (otenyo 2006: 11). various reforms have failed in africa and it is true to say that the current global economic crisis, which has considerably discredited the paradigm in which the reforms are predicted, calls for a new paradigm and a new approach to public sector reforms. the work of mhone laid an important foundation for a re-think of public sector reforms and a re-tooling of the state in africa … developmentalism has to be the grand normative of any public sector reform agenda in the continent, and it requires a developmental state, which has to promote both procedural and substantive democracy (edigheji 2008: 12–13). such an approach to public sector reform will reinforce the “paradigm shift in development thinking evidenced by the adoption of the millennium development goals (mdgs)” (edigheji 2008: 5). however, further research is required to analyse the role of the new partnership for africa’s development (nepad) and the african union (au) in order to address the developmental challenges that are outlined in the mdgs for the african continent. the way forward at a contextual level, the following paradigm shifts from npa to npm must be pursued to improve the public administration challenges on the african continent: a paradigmatic shift towards market-based reform the african continent is struggling with poverty, underdevelopment, and unemployment, all of which are complemented by economic meltdown. the continent is in dire need of regional integration and cooperation to bring market-based reforms. lack of financial and human vyas doorgapersad 242 resources have worsened the situation to the extent that local entrepreneurship and ownership are barely able to survive. to support “regional integration, the regional economic communities (recs) of africa – uemoa and economic community of west african states (ecowas), economic commission for africa (eca), southern africa development community (sadc), and the common market for eastern and southern africa (comesa), are working in partnership” (vyas-doorgapersad 2010: 42) to ensure economic strengthening of the continent. this economic development is possible through market-based reforms, and the establishment of micro, small and medium enterprises (both are npm approaches) that support a paradigm shift in african economic development. the countries with post-liberalisation problems (for example madagascar) need to introduce market-based reforms. there are a number of international agencies that are assisting madagascar to implement financial management for effective use of external aid. these include the public financial accountability programme (pfa) by the world bank’s development grant facilities (dgf); the european commission (ec); the uk’s department of international development (dfid); the swiss state secretariat for economic affairs (seco); the royal norwegian ministry of foreign affairs; the french ministry of foreign affairs; the international monetary fund (imf); and the strategic partnership for africa (spa). moreover the international development association-international finance corporation (ida-ifc) is assisting madagascar to design a micro, small and medium enterprise (msme) programme for effective utilisation of domestic resources (see world bank 2010: 1). a paradigmatic shift towards social reform many african states are ‘home’ to dictators governed by military regimes (ethiopia, uganda, sudan, libya, egypt and zimbabwe, to name but a few). social reforms are required to bring democracy so that the people can enjoy basic human rights. some african countries (for example libya and egypt) are suffering mass oppression and are struggling against dictatorships in the quest for freedom of information, speech and expression and improved governance. post-colonial social reform has resulted in a society that can make claim to basic human rights. examples of african documents stipulating that all are entitled to enjoy such rights include the charter of the organisation of african unity (1963); the (south african) freedom charter (1955); the south african constitution (1996); and the arusha declaration (1967), etc. there are also social factors that have given impetus to ground-breaking reform in public administration. these involve the relationship between the people and their governments; and those between delegated and elected officials and electors (tolofari 2005: 78). such interaction is evident in many african countries (south africa for example) whereby channels of communication between the government and the governed are open and transparent for improved accountability. this social factor is concisely expressed by aucoin and heintzman (2000: 46) who point out that: all governments must now govern in a context where there are greater demands for accountability for performance on the part of a better educated and less deferential citizenry, more assertive and well-organised interest groups and social movements, and more aggressive and intrusive mass media operating in a highly competitive information-seeking and processing environment. paradigm shift to new public management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 223 250. 243 the mass media and freedom of expression require communication development. telecommunications (an npm approach) is a new development paradigm in government communications. it should be noted that southern africa has the “largest number of cellular subscribers per 100 population, followed by north africa and west africa respectively” (un mdg report 2009: 55). in addition, use of the internet is on the increase in africa. telecommunication services are now offered in african countries to educate and create awareness of civic and social issues such as hiv/aids, public participation and related issues in order to promote social reforms for sustainable development. a paradigmatic shift towards digital governance digital governance is another new paradigm shift in the offing and getting slowly distinct from its amorphous shape in the horizon of public administration … the technological inventions in the ways and means of information and communication has dramatically revolutionized the structure, processes and operations of public administration which are almost ubiquitously adopted or tried to be adopted by the governments of both developed and developing countries. only a letter ‘e’ that means ‘electronic’ has brought about a glaring transformation in the horizon of public administration (islam and ahmed 2007: 29–30). the increasingly wide use of computers has stirred the development towards an npm approach for enhanced dissemination of information (cloete 2002: 8). the african continent is in dire need of this paradigm shift where traditional, tribal and rural communities are geographically scattered and do not have access to information. this situation can hamper the effective public participation required for good governance. african countries need changes in governance in the form of intergovernmental structures, “such as the ‘one-stop shops’ that seek to unite a range of local government service delivery functions. it also occurs across levels of government, such as linkages between the levels of local, regional and central government” (santos and heeks 2003: 1) through ict mechanisms. in the case of southern african countries, “mauritius, south africa, mozambique, botswana and namibia have started putting in place institutional and regulatory frameworks solely dedicated for the advancement of e-government adoption” (bwalya and healy 2010: 23), that will be further advanced at the regional level. there are paradigm shifts in african states to implement npm and improve bureaucratically stagnant, governmentally inoperative, politically paralysed, technologically immobile, economically frail and socially insentient situations. although this paper expresses concern that npm should not be seen as the absolute remedy to all the problems that exist, particularly those in crisis states, it is clear that africans must overhaul their administrative systems to make them competitive and democratic. the effort must be constructed by the africans themselves. the main focus of the government reform must be shifted from the hardware in the public services and the government operations. there is also need to evolve an african public service culture or tradition, which is value-based (fatile and adejuwon 2010: 154). the paper therefore suggests a shift in npm in the form of a public value management (pvm) paradigm suggested by moore in 1995, one that is already supported by practitioners and academics in the field of public administration/management (alford 2002; bovaird 2004; vyas doorgapersad 244 bozeman 2002; carmeli and kemmet 2006; hartley 2005; hefetz and warner 2004; horner and hazel 2005; kelly et al. 2002; moore 1995; pinnock 2006; smith et al. 2004; stoker 2006; o’flynn, 2007: 353). under the pvm paradigm there is a recognition that, in addition to well functioning markets, successful liberal democracies require strong and effective governments able to guarantee fair treatment, equal opportunities, access to a range of key services, and to act as a steward of a country’s interests within and across generations (ssewakiryanga 2008: 3). the pvm paradigm is described as being part of a wider networked governance argues that legitimate democracy and effective management are partners. politics and management go hand in hand. one must involve many stakeholders to make good decisions and to get a grip on delivery and implementation. the public value paradigm places its faith in a system of dialogue and exchange associated with networked governance. it is through the construction, modification, correction, and adaptability of that system that democracy and management are reconciled and delivered (stoker 2006: 56). examples of the pvm paradigm in africa include the national monitoring and evaluation strategy of uganda (see ssewakiryanga 2008: 2–7); and south africa’s government-wide monitoring and evaluation system (see south african presidency 2007). for the effective implementation of pvm paradigm in africa, negotiated dialogues with donors is crucial to achieving better outcomes, strengthening decentralization will help to improve service delivery and implementing policy actions will create trust. solving the three challenges above will ultimately achieve the three elements of public value – outcomes, services and trust (ssewakiryanga 2008: 6–7). conclusion during the late 1960s, intellectual voices were raised against the growing inability of the discipline to reorient itself to the needs of social change ... emphasised the need for bringing public administration closer to politics and political theory. the client oriented, normative and socially conscious public administration suggested by the scholars, is the new public administration. public choice theorists carried toward the trend emphasising de-bureaucratisation and democratic administration (nasrullah 2005: 203). the new public management in view of the recent worldwide disenchantment with the public sector is bound to influence public administration and governance in developing countries in the long run. the challenge for developing countries therefore is to integrate the new public management model of change with the indigenous-based measure of change in the public sector. what remains to be seen is how developing nations integrate the positive elements of npm into their own unique systems and bring about changes in their public sector (nasrullah 2005: 203). christensen and lagried (2002: 1–2) are of the opinion that “in some countries there might be a strong element of diffusion of npm ideas from outside, whereas in others the reform process might be more a national or local initiatives”. while the new public management approach may not be a panacea for the problems of public sector management in crisis states, a careful and selective adaptation of some elements to selected sectors may be beneficial. implementation needs to be sensitive to operational reality (larbi 1999: 36). paradigm shift to new public management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 223 250. 245 the debate raised in this paper may not be new, but does offer an analytical compilation of scholarly ideas, thoughts, and opinions. this intellectual debate may lead to paradigm shifts in the way of thinking, perceiving and implementing npm approaches in crisis countries to bring transformative reforms required for good governance and sustainable development. the article furthermore opens a debate on questions such as: are african leaders aware of the political values and social cultures that can bring positive transformation for normative governance? how can african countries sustain and maintain indigenous beliefs as a foundational base required for administrative values so as to avoid maladministration? what lessons have african countries learnt through the npm-led reforms for better future perspective? what levels of improvement can be expected with the introduction of pvm in african countries? can pvm bring political 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(http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/interlaken/compilation.pdf). accessed on 23 august 2011. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx the threat of mine effluent to the unesco status of the cradle of humankind world heritage site jf durand,* j meeuvis** and m fourie*** abstract there is a significant environmental risk posed to the region in which one of the most important and richest archaeological and palaeontological resources is located in south africa. this area, known as the cradle of humankind world heritage (cohwhs), is situated adjacent to one of the richest gold bearing geological sequence in the world. the mine pollution which is emanating from the mines in the form of acid mine drainage (amd) is threatening this remarkable resource which has yielded the biggest collection of hominin fossils in the world. the environmental degradation of the cohwhs will have a major impact on the archaeological and palaeontological heritage of not only south africa, but the world, as well as the tourism, hospitality and education sectors of south africa. if monitoring, mitigation and management measures are not implemented effectively with immediate effect to avoid or minimise the negative effects, the cohwhs may stand the risk of losing its status and be demoted to the unesco list of world heritage in danger. ultimately, if the site loses the characteristics that determined its inscription in the world heritage list, the world heritage committee may decide to delete the property from its list. keywords: cradle of humankind world heritage site, sterkfontein caves, acid mine drainage, archaeological and palaeontological resources, dolomite, karst system, risks and impacts disciplines: environmental management, palaeontology, archaeology 1. introduction the cradle of humankind to the north of krugersdorp on the west rand in gauteng was awarded world heritage site status by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural * department of zoology, university of johannesburg; (all correspondence should be sent to: fdurand@uj.ac.za). ** department of geography and environmental management and energy studies, university of johannesburg. *** phd candidate in the department of geography and environmental management and energy studies, university of johannesburg. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 73-92. durand,    meeuvis  and  fourie   74 organization (unesco) in 1999. its status is based on the unique cultural and natural heritage contained within this area. the cradle of humankind world heritage site is a remarkable south african tourist attraction and is also acknowledged as an important research resource. the sensitive karst system, in which the cradle of humankind world heritage is situated, is threatened by urban development and the unauthorized removal of dolomite, cave formations, fossils and archaeological artefacts by the public, as well as the over-use of natural resources and pollution in the area (durand, 2008). the acidic water decanting from the west rand pose the most severe immediate threat to the sensitive and soluble dolomite rock which contains most of the important palaeontological and archaeological sites of the cradle of humankind world heritage site however (van eeden et al., 2009). if these negative impacts are not mitigated in time or become more severe, the cradle of humankind world heritage site could be placed on the list of world heritage sites under threat or even may lose its unesco status. more importantly, this could lead to the loss of irreplaceable archaeological and palaeontological resources (durand, 2007; boyd, 2008). 2. legislative requirements national guidelines south africa possesses some of the world’s most comprehensive and progressive legislation for the protection and conservation of environmental, archaeological and palaeontological resources such as the national environmental management act (act no. 107 of 1998), the environmental conservation act (act no.73 of 1989), the national heritage resources act (act no. 25 of 1999) and the mineral and petroleum resources development act (act no. 28 of 2002). in terms of the world heritage convention act (act no.49 of 1999), the unnatural disturbance, pollution and degradation of the environment must be avoided, or where they cannot be avoided, mitigated. in theory, the abovementioned laws, regulations and guidelines provide comprehensive support for the conservation and sustainable development and use of archaeological and palaeontological resources of the cohwhs. in practice however it has been found that there is a lack of expertise and resolve regarding the effective assessment, management and implementation of legislature regarding archaeological and palaeontological resources. in addition, it seems that little progress has been made regarding the effective implementation of national environmental guidelines (deacon, 2007; fourie, 2007; van eeden et al., 2009). the inability of government agencies to implement the necessary legislative procedures and the absence of dynamic management networks within the national/provincial structure in south africa cause frustration and confusion amongst various stakeholders, including mining companies, heritage authorities, archaeological and palaeontological ngos, environmental consultants and public interest groups. this is an issue that should be analysed and urgently addressed in order to identify mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 75 potential measures to improve the efficacy of the management of the archaeological and palaeontological terrains on a national and a provincial level (deacon, 2007). environmental impact assessments (eias) and environmental management plans (emps) are often complicated by conflicting interpretations of legislation. the legislative requirements of archaeological and palaeontological specialist studies are often ranked lower in priority compared to other laws and regulations required for proposed mining development. the national heritage resources act (act no.25 of 1999) was only officially promulgated during the same year as the inscription of the cohwhs and the department of arts and the south african heritage resources agency (sahra) has since then been attempting to achieve effective and efficient implementation of these guidelines, which calls for a proactive, dynamic and integrated approach towards environmental management (fourie 2007). in addition to the aforementioned national legislative requirements, there are a number of international regulations aimed at the sustainable development and conservation of archaeological and palaeontological resources which can be used as guidelines for the development and implementation of heritage policies for south africa. international guidelines the world bank stipulates in the performance standard 8 of the international finance corporation (ifc) guidelines how cultural and natural heritage resources should be used sustainably and be conserved during projects, development and operations. in accordance with the convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage, performance standard 8 aims to protect irreplaceable cultural heritage and to guide clients on protecting cultural heritage in the course of business operations (ifc guidelines, 2006). the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) is dedicated to the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage sites which are considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. unesco world heritage sites include natural features, such as forests, mountains, or man-made structures that are recognised for their cultural or physical significance to the international community (unesco, 2008). several world heritage sites, both cultural and natural have been inscribed by unesco since 1999. unesco’s world heritage committee is responsible for the implementation of the world heritage convention, the management of the world heritage fund, the identification and inscription of wold heritage sites and also decides on the inscription or deletion of sites on the list of world heritage in danger. as defined in articles 1 and 2 of the convention, a world heritage site can be inscribed on the list of world heritage in danger by the committee when it finds that the condition of the site corresponds to one or more of the criteria outlined in section 177 of the convention which deals with the degradation of heritage sites. the potential dangers which pose a risk to a world heritage site are described in section 179 (b) of the convention and refers to those threats that would have deleterious effects on its inherent characteristics (unesco, 2008). the most serious threats to the geological and ecological integrity of the cohwhs are certain agricultural practices, urbanisation and mining (durand, 2007; 2008). durand,    meeuvis  and  fourie   76 3. area of investigation cradle of humankind world heritage site the cradle of humankind world heritage site is located approximately fifty kilometres northwest of johannesburg and lies across the border between gauteng and northwest provinces. this 47 000 hectare area is exceptionally rich in archaeological and palaeontological resources. the cohwhs extends from krugersdorp in the south to the hartebeespoort dam in the north. this region is not only important from a research and conservation perspective, but also has significant business and recreational value. the cohwhs contains more than two hundred caves and fossil localities situated in the malmani dolomite of the chuniespoort group which dominates the geology of the area. due to the soluble nature of dolomite, the region is pock-marked with solution cavities, caves, sinkholes, dolines and springs situated between gently undulating hills which is typical of a karst landscape. more than a century ago, there was a growing demand on the witwatersrand for lime which was used to neutralise the acid solution which remained after the extraction of gold from the crushed ore. limestone mines appeared in the krugersdorp district soon after the main reef was discovered along the length of the witwatersrand supergroup. several of the fossil sites in the cohwhs were initially utilised as limestone mines. palaeontology the plio-pleistocene palaeontological sites in south africa are situated within the malmani subgroup dolomites in the northern part of south africa. the abundance of the dolomitic caves in this region is the main reason for the concentration of heritage resources in the cohwhs. these dolomitic caves provided shelters for hominids and other predators from approximately 3 million years ago. the bony remains of their prey collected in the caves as part of the cave fill. the reason for the remarkable preservation of fossil bones in the cohwhs is due to the alkaline environment created by the dolomite and calcite formations which allows the bones to be preserved and be mineralised over time. there are approximately 40 known fossil-bearing sites within the cohwhs and many that fall outside the borders of the cohwhs. thirteen of the better known sites, which include sites that yielded hominid remains, were inscribed as part of the description and declaration of the cohwhs. these are: sterkfontein caves, bolt’s farm, cooper’s cave, kromdraai, swartkrans, plover’s lake cave, minnaar’s cave, gondolin cave, gladysvale cave, haasgat cave, drimolen, motsetsi, and wonder cave (see fig. 1). the first recorded discovery of fossils at the sterkfontein caves was made by a group of students from the marist brothers college in johannesburg in 1895. although a member of the south african geological society, david draper, advised that these caves were worthy of conservation due to their limestone formations and palaeontological value, mining continued in the vicinity (hilton-barber and berger, 2002). the discovery of the skull of a juvenile apeman at taung in the northwest province, in 1924, sensitised people to the importance of the fossils that were mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 77 associated with limestone deposits in south africa. this apeman was named australopithecus africanus, or southern ape of africa (dart, 1925). figure 1: the most important palaeontological sites in the cohwhs as inscribed by unesco robert broom of the transvaal museum discovered the first adult apeman skull, albeit very incomplete and fragmentary, at sterkfontein in 1936 (broom, 1936). broom originally named this apeman fossil australopithecus transvaalensis, but later changed it to plesianthropus transvaalensis. however, in the light of many subsequent discoveries a convincing argument could be made that these genera were actually the same. plesianthropus transvaalensis was finally renamed to australopithecus africanus (broom, 1950). in 1947 broom discovered a second adult australopithecus africanus skull, but this time it was undistorted and almost complete. the new skull was slightly smaller that the first adult apeman skull and it was therefore presumed to be that of a female. this, together with the original binomen plesianthropus transvaalensis, inspired the nickname mrs. ples by which this fossil became known (broom, 1950). many thousands of fossils have been excavated at sterkfontein since then; the majority of which are the remains of mammals which were the prey of carnivores that used the prehistoric caves as their lairs (brain, 1981). the sterkfontein fossil site, which has to date yielded more than half of all the hominid fossils on earth, may be considered to be the world’s richest hominid site. durand,    meeuvis  and  fourie   78 fossil excavations are still ongoing at sterkfontein, making it the hominid site with the longest record of uninterrupted excavations on earth (hilton-barber and berger, 2002). robert broom and his colleagues were responsible for the discovery and exploratory excavations of the palaeontological deposits at bolt’s farm, cooper’s cave, gladysvale, swartkrans and kromdraai where the remains of a second type of apeman, paranthropus robustus were discovered (broom, 1947). several other fossil-bearing sites were discovered after broom’s death in 1951, the most important being gondolin, minnaar’s cave, plover’s lake, haasgat, drimolen, motsetsi cave and wonder cave. archaeology thousands of stone tools have been discovered in the cohwhs. these tools include oldowan hand axes, acheulean points and microliths. in younger strata pot shards and other artefacts dating from the iron age have been unearthed. several dating techniques have been used to date the different palaeontological sites in the cohwhs, these include: palaeomagnetic surveys, electron spin resonance assessments, uranium decay series measurements and biochronological and archaeological comparisons. the palaeontological sites which yielded fossils and tools associated with paranthropus and early homo were dated by using these techniques at between 2 million and 800 000 years (herries et al., 2009). one of the most important discoveries of an archaeological nature in the cohwhs was the excavation of burnt bones at swartkrans. these bones were burnt in a fireplace inside the prehistoric cave at temperatures of up to 500˚c which is interpreted as the oldest proof for the controlled use of fire (brain, 1981). the age of this fireplace has been estimated to be between 1 million and 1.5 million years old (brain, 1983). 4. threats to the cohwhs 4.1 mining 4.1.1. gold mining in the vicinity of the cohwhs dates back to the early iron age period where the descendants of the sotho and tswana populations were respected for their metal work and were part of a dynamic trading community. other commodities that have been mined in the area include gold, dolomite and limestone. the blaaubankspruit gold mine was proclaimed in 1875 and the kromdraai gold mine (in the cohwhs) in 1885. george harrison discovered the main reef of the witwatersrand supergroup on the farm langlaagte in 1886. this reef turned out to be the richest and most extensive gold deposit in the world (mendelsohn & potgieter, 1986). during the subsequent year, the main reef was traced along the rest of the witwatersrand from the west rand to the east rand (viljoen & reimold, 2002). as the mining strategies changed from small scale open cast and shallow pit mining methods along the outcrop of the main reef to underground mining, new techniques had to be mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 79 developed to access the rich gold deposits which extended far underground. to extract the gold of the witwatersrand, a new mining technique namely deep mining was developed and perfected in south africa and has become the proven way to excavate gold in the world. deep mining involves the excavation of the gold-bearing reefs, leaving stopes which are connected via incline and vertical shafts while pillars of natural rock, wood or concrete support the hanging wall. the gold mines of south africa have been the foundation of the country’s economic growth for the past century, producing up to 35% of the world’s gold. gold mining in the west rand area remains one of the most prominent contemporary industries in south africa with approximately 45% of gold mining originating from the witwatersrand basin (boyd, 2008). mining companies with interest in this mineral rich area include anglo gold ashanti limited, durban roodepoort deep gold limited, ergo mining (pty), gold fields, harmony gold mining company limited (now part of rand uranium), mintails south africa, pamodzi gold (west rand mining operations), randgold and exploration company (ltd) and the witwatersrand consolidated gold resources (ltd), amongst others (chamber of mines, 2008). 4.1.2 uranium radioactive metals were first discovered in the witwatersrand supergroup in 1915. the first plant that produced uranium commercially was built at west rand consolidated mines in 1952 when the strategic importance of nuclear weapons became clear. waste material from the gold mines containing uranium and its radioactive daughter products is dumped in slimes dams, wash down rivers and drain into the groundwater (coetzee et al., 2006). although some uranium extraction takes place on the west rand (e.g. uranium one in carletonville), it is done on a small scale and is not economically viable. plans to open a more extensive uranium extraction plant are underway in the form of rand uranium on the old harmony gold property in randfontein. great quantities of uranium has been, and still is dumped in the slimes dams on the west rand (coetzee et al., 2006; winde, 2009) 4.1.3 dewatering the dolomites the dolomites of the malmani subgroup house an extensive karstic aquifer that supplies most of the groundwater in these provinces (hobbs and cobbing, 2007a). the dolomitic rocks which overlie the gold-bearing quartzite rocks of the witwatersrand supergroup along the southern part of gauteng and north west province had to be dewatered for deep mining to commence (warwick et al., 1987; dreybrodt, 1996). the dewatering of the mine disrupted the normal recharge and discharge rates of groundwater, it interfered with the natural flow of groundwater and surface water and it caused sinkholes to be formed in the region (enslin et al., 1976; kleywegt & pike, 1982; swart et al., 2003). 4.1.4 acid mine drainage (amd) the auriferous layers of the witwatersrand supergroup are characterised by their high gold, uranium and pyrite (fes2) content. when pyrite comes in contact with water and oxygen, sulphuric acid (h2so4) is produced. the sulphuric acid content in stagnant water in deep mines become concentrated enough to dissolve rock and set the metals it contains free. the most common metals released by sulphuric acid in gold mines on the witwatersrand include manganese, aluminium, iron, nickel, zinc, durand,    meeuvis  and  fourie   80 cobalt, copper, lead, radium, thorium and uranium (kleywegt, 1977; venter, 1995; coetzee et al., 2006). the high iron content of amd turns the water orange (see fig. 2). the gold mines of the witwatersrand have been dewatered up to a level of 3km underground for the best part of a century water. as the mines on the witwatersrand were abandoned one after the other after wwii, the mine void left by mining, slowly flooded again. the western basin mine void under krugersdorp and randfontein alone constitutes 45 million cubic meters. in 2002, the springs on the west rand started to flow again after a century, but this time with amd containing acid, sulphates and heavy metals. megaliters of amd are currently decanting into the tweelopiespruit and wonderfonteinspruit from the black reef incline shaft and the no.17 and 18 winze shafts as well as from several springs, boreholes and seepage points (coetzee and van tonder, 2008). the tweelopiespruit flows through the krugersdorp nature reserve and into the rietspruit which in turn flows into the bloubankspruit. the bloubankspruit, which is a tributary of the crocodile river, flows through the cohwhs. figure 2: amd from harmony gold mine in robinson lake in randfontein the impact of amd on the groundwater in the proximity of mines is even worse than that on surface water bodies. pollutants remain stagnant in groundwater for many years whereas pollutants may be flushed out from rivers during heavy rains. amd reaches the groundwater by permeating through the rock adjacent to the mine void, the recharge of aquifers and by leaching mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 81 from spoil heaps and mine dumps. it was discovered decades ago that slimes dumps that were built on the dolomites tended to be more stable and did not collapse as easily as those built on less permeable surfaces. this stability is caused by the permeable nature of the underlying dolomite into which the water of the slimes dumps drains. the structural stability of the dolomites in cohwhs is threatened by the influx of amd into the region. dolomites and limestone are highly soluble in acid which will lead to accelerated karstification of the affected area. the sulphuric acid in the amd will dissolve large volumes of rock as it passes over dolomite and through the dolomitic aquifer. fissures will widen and solution cavities will be created in the process. dolines and sinkholes will form when the surface collapses into the subterranean void below (swart et al., 2003; hodgson et al., 2001). a high level of sulphates occurs in the groundwater of the region between harmony gold mine and the cohwhs and in the cohwhs itself (krige, 2006). sulphates are formed as a byproduct of the chemical reaction between sulphuric acid and dolomite and can therefore be used as an indication of the presence of amd in a dolomitic region. 4.2 tourism and business development the area between the western part of the witwatersrand and magaliesberg mountains was used for farming from the late 19th century to the present. even today there are approximately 700 farms or smallholdings in the cohwhs, many of which are used to produce crops and have livestock (hamann, 2004). although gold mining became the primary foundation of the region’s, and indeed the country’s, economic prosperity after 1886, the focus more recently shifted to include tourism, manufacturing, agribusiness and recreational development (mogale city local municipality, 2008). owing to its geographical proximity to major cities and airports like o.r tambo and lanseria international airports, there has been an evident increase in residential and ,light industrial development on the west rand. the agricultural, horticultural and animal husbandry practices in this area tend to be more intensive than in neighbouring provinces, where it is more common to have free ranging cattle grazing on natural veld and low density farming. it is reported that the agricultural and farming activities of the western regions of gauteng can only sustain high density farming such as piggeries, chicken batteries and feedlots due to limited veld and available water resources (durand, 2007). overall, the gauteng province seems to be more focused on industrial development and mining. with reference to tourism development, the cradle of humankind world heritage site region currently consists of approximately 387 tourist attractions and more than 90 graded establishments. as part of the sustainable development and conservation of the cradle of humankind world heritage site area, the gauteng provincial government’s management authority invested an estimated amount of r189 million in roads and bulk infrastructure to develop the site and motivate private sector investment in tourism development. in october 2003, the gauteng provincial government entered into a contract valued at r163 million with maropeng a'afrika leisure (pty) ltd for the construction, design and operation of world class visitor exhibition and recreational facilities at the cradle of humankind world heritage site. this public private partnership is an unique concession agreement, requiring maropeng a'afrika leisure (pty) ltd to pay an annual concession fee that the government will invest in community durand,    meeuvis  and  fourie   82 benefit projects and in scientific research (gauteng provincial government, 2008). in addition to numerous tourist attractions and graded establishments, there are in excess of 175 accommodation establishments, 113 restaurants, 70 conference venues and 44 wedding venues in and around the cradle of humankind world heritage site. these tourism establishments directly employ an estimated 7 000 permanent employees and 2 200 casual employees. in february 2008, the cradle of humankind world heritage site and dinokeng blue-iq projects received the sustainable tourism investment of the year award at a gala ceremony at the hyatt regency hotel in johannesburg. these two blue-iq projects are an initiative of the gauteng provincial government to establish geo-spatial tourism destinations in the northwest and the northeast of the province (mogale city, 2008). it is evident that the economic prosperity of tourism is directly linked to the conservation of archaeological and palaeontological resources found in the cradle of humankind world heritage site area. as main tourist attraction in this area, the conservation of these resources and the limestone caves associated with the fossillferous deposits, is therefore of paramount importance for the sustainable development of the regional tourism industry. although it is essential that these irreplaceable archaeological, palaeontological and geological resources need to be conserved in order to protect the status of the cohwis, there is increasing evidence that the decant of mine effluent in the west rand area threatens the sensitive karst environment of the cohwhs (durand, 2007; durand, 2008; van eeden et al., 2009). 5. potential risks in south africa and specifically in the cohwhs, the karst system associated with dolomitic environments is threatened by various elements, including groundwater pollution, urban development, vandalism and unauthorized removal of fossils or cave formations by the public, as well as the over-use of natural resources in the area (durand, 2007). the most significant risk to the archaeological and palaeontological resources in the cradle of humankind world heritage site is associated with surfaceand groundwater pollution, more specifically acid mine drainage. amd decanting from the mine void into the karst system has penetrated the dolomitic zwartkrans compartment below the mine property, the krugersdorp nature reserve and the southern part of the cohwhs (krige, 2006; oelofse et al., 2007; hobbs and cobbing, 2007a; 2007b; coetzee et al., 2009.). mine effluent is now decanting from the zwartkrans compartment into the northern dolomitic compartment in the northern part of the cohwhs (krige, 2006). in addition to the amd, the cohwhs has also been affected by effluent discharge from municipal waste treatment works, and especially from the percy steward sewage works (hobbs and cobbing, 2007a; 2007b). the solubility and permeability of the sensitive karst system in the cradle of humankind world heritage area makes it especially susceptible to water pollution and environmental degradation. the effects of acid mine drainage on dolomitic environments and karst systems could cause sink holes, irreversible damage to the karst system and surrounding dolomitic environment and irreparable damage to archaeological and palaeontological resources contained in this area. acid mine drainage has the potential to dissolve any dolomitic geological structure on its dispersion mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 83 route, including the vulnerable dolomitic in the cradle of humankind world heritage site that accommodates various fossils and archaeological and palaeontological resources (durand, 2007). the legacy of environmental mismanagement of the water resources entering the cohwhs is evidently becoming an increasing concern for stakeholders and communities in this area who depend almost entirely on groundwater for drinking and irrigation purposes. due to the potential harmful effects of acid mine drainage in this area, negative impacts pose severe risks to the health and well-being of humans, animals and the environment, as well as the status of the cradle of humankind world heritage site (durand, 2007; van eeden et al., 2009; winde, 2009). in order to quantify and comprehend the significance of potential impacts on archaeological and palaeontological resources in the cradle of humankind world heritage site, an impact assessment is required. 6. impact assessment 6.1. impact assessment rating the impact rating process is designed to provide a numerical rating of the various environmental impacts identified by use of the “input-output” model. the purpose of the impacts assessment process is not to provide an incontrovertible rating of the significance of various aspects, but rather to provide a structured, traceable and defendable methodology of rating the relative significance of impacts in a specific context (dwa and pgs, 2009). the significance rating process follows the established impact/risk assessment formula: significance = consequence x probability; where: consequence” = severity + spatial scale + duration; and probability is determined with reference to industry knowledge and instances of impacts happening in similar instances. the significance rating of archaeological and palaeontological sites is generally also based on four main criteria: • site integrity (i.e. primary vs. secondary context), • amount of deposit, range of features (e.g. stone tools and enclosures), • uniqueness and • potential to answer present research questions. management actions and recommended mitigation are expressed as follows: a no further action necessary; b mapping of the site and controlled sampling required; c preserve site, or extensive data collection and mapping of the site; and d preserve site durand,    meeuvis  and  fourie   84 for the purpose of the impact and risk assessment of archaeological and palaeontological resources in the cohwhs, site significance classification standards prescribed by the south african heritage resources agency (sahra), approved by the association for southern african professional archaeologists (asapa) for the southern african development community (sadc), were utilised. the integrated impact assessment approach and associated ratings that were utilised in this assessment have been summarised in the following tables (national heritage resources act, 1999 and dwa and pgs, 2009): site significance (sahra and asapa) field rating grade significance recommended mitigation national significance (ns) grade 1 conservation; national site nomination provincial significance (ps) grade 2 conservation; provincial site nomination local significance (ls) grade 3a high significance conservation; mitigation not advised local significance (ls) grade 3b high significance mitigation (part of site should be retained) generally protected a (gp.a) high / medium significance mitigation before destruction generally protected b (gp.b) medium significance recording before destruction generally protected c (gp.c) low significance destruction mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 85 severity (positive and negative impacts) 5 very significant impact/total destruction of a highly valued species, habitat or ecosystem in the environment; or irreparable damage to/destruction of highly valued items of great cultural significance 4 serious impairment of ecosystem function or serious social issues/permanent damage to items of cultural significance 3 moderate negative alteration of ecosystem functioning or moderately important social issues and/or moderately significant damage to items of cultural significance 2 minor effects not affecting ecosystem functioning or minor impacts on the local population, repairable over time. temporary impairment of the availability of items of cultural significance 1 insignificant effects on the biophysical environment or insignificant social issues / low-level repairable damage to commonplace structures. spatial scale/extent 5 national/international (neighbouring countries or abroad) 4 provincial or regional (gauteng province) 3 regional (substantially beyond site boundary; more than 5 km) 2 local (beyond site boundary and affects neighbours; up to 5km from site) 1 site (does not extend beyond site boundary, cradle of humankind area) duration 5 permanent/irreversible (more than 50 years) 4 long term (26 to 50 years or beyond) 3 medium term (5-25 years) 2 medium-short term (1-4 years) 1 short term (less than a year) durand,    meeuvis  and  fourie   86 probability 5 certain/ normally happens in cases of this nature (81-100% chance) 4 will more than likely happen (61-80% chance) 3 could happen and has happened here or elsewhere (41-60% chance) 2 has not happened yet, but could (21-40% chance) 1 conceivable, only very specific circumstances, not likely (0-20% chance) 6.2. impact assessment and amd in the cohwhs the cohwhs is considered to be of national and international significance and consequently classified as a site of national significance (ns, grade 1) (national heritage resources act, 1999). as indicated in table 1, this world heritage site may be severely threatened by the potential impact of surfaceor groundwater pollution and the infiltration of acidic water with ph values between 2-4 into the sensitive dolomitic environment. the risks posed to the cradle of humankind world heritage site is due to the solubility and permeability of the sensitive karst system that could cause sinkholes, irreversible damage to the karst system and surrounding dolomitic environment and irreparable damage to archaeological and palaeontological resources contained in this area (durand, 2007). recent reports indicate that acidity levels of between ph2 and ph4 have already been recorded and documented, verifying the possibility of a medium to high significance impact assessment rating to the cohwhs (van eeden et al., 2009, hobbs and cobbing, 2007a and boyd 2008). in order to mitigate these impacts or risks, the decanting of acid mine drainage from mine workings on the west rand that causes these impacts and associated surfaceand groundwater pollution, must be ceased. alternatively, where the activities associated with the impacts cannot be ceased, it must be mitigated. as indicated in table 2, this implies that the mine effluent (acid mine drainage and polluted water) must be treated at a water treatment plant and a programme must be implemented to continuously monitor and manage water quality (hobbs and cobbing, 2007a; boyd, 2008; coetzee and van tonder, 2008). the effective implementation of these mitigation measures would require integrated cooperation between various stakeholders and assist to restore water quality to acceptable levels in the cradle of humankind world heritage area. ultimately, the mitigation and restoration of water quality in the region may decrease the risks and associated impacts significance rating from medium-high to medium-low. 7. conclusion environmental management is a multi-disciplinary concept that is especially important in large scale industrial developments such as gold mining, that have the potential to negatively affect the environment and its resources. although south africa possesses some of the world’s most progressive environmental guidelines and legislation, the practical implementation of these mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 87 guidelines and recommendations by specialists are often constrained by limitations such as a lack of authority, lack of funding, lack of human resources, a lack of proactive environmental management and pressing time constraints (deacon, 2007; fourie, 2007). the ineffective implementation of national guidelines and legislative requirements can subsequently lead to environmental disasters that are difficult to mange or control such as water pollution, health risks and environmental degradation (van eeden et al., 2009). gold mining and mineral extraction on the west rand has played an important role in the socio-economic development of south africa; however, the negative impacts and legacies of environmental mismanagement are becoming an increasing concern for the communities and environmental stakeholders, especially on the west rand, including the cohwhs (coetzee et al., 2006; boyd, 2008; van eeden et al., 2009). amd emanating from the mine void on the west rand poses a threat to the structural stability of the karst system of the region. acid containing mine effluent may lead to irreparable damage to the archaeological and palaeontological resources in the cohwhs (durand, 2007). in addition, it may pose health, safety and environmental risks to surrounding communities (van eeden et al., 2009). site significance ratings for the cradle of humankind world heritage site has been classified as being medium-high. in terms of unesco criteria, the site could risk losing its world heritage site status if these impacts and risks are not mitigated. where a property has deteriorated to the extent that it has lost those characteristics which determined its inclusion in the world heritage list, the unesco committee may consider the deletion of a property or site from the world heritage list (unesco, 2008). an integrated mitigation plan must be implemented by all the stakeholders concerned, including governmental authorities, mining companies and interest groups, followed by continuous water management and monitoring (hobbs and cobbing, 2007a; 2007b). ultimately, the integrated significance of environmental management as a multi-disciplinary concept must be understood before it can be effectively implemented. the medium-high significance ratings of irreplaceable heritage in the cohwhs may be reduced by prompt and decisive intervention. the poisoning of the water on which thousands of people rely for drinking and farming purposes, the loss of the unesco status and the resulting loss of potential income in the form of tourism may be considered to be a crime towards the people of south africa. the damage 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(2002) an introduction to south africa’s geological and mining heritage. geological society & mintek, johannesburg. mine  effluent  and  the  cradle  of  humankind  world  heritage  site   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 73 – 92. 91 warwick, d.w., brackley, i.j., connelly, r.j. and campbell, g. (1987) the dewatering of dolomite by deep mining in the west rand, south africa. in: barry, b., wilson, w.l. (eds.), karst hydrogeology: engineering and environmental applications, proceedings of the 2nd multidisciplinary conference on sinkholes and environmental impacts of karst, orlando, usa, pp. 349-358. winde, f. 2009. uranium pollution of water resources in mined-out and active goldfields of south africa – a case study in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment on extent and sources of u-contamination and associated health risks. proceedings of the international mine water conference 19th – 23rd october 2009, pretoria, south africa, pp. 772781. durand,  meeuvis  and  fourie   92 table 1: summary of potential impacts table 2: summary of recommended mitigation and management measures activity objectives mitigation/ management frequency applicable laws/ regs action plans responsible person significance after mitigation decanting of acid mine drainage from mine workings on the west rand causing surfaceand groundwater pollution to facilitate conservation and ensure the protection of geological, archaeological and palaeontological resources in the cradle of humankind world heritage area treatment of acidic water and acid mine drainage being decanted into the environment at water treatment plant continuous (long term) world heritage convention act (act no. 49 of 1999), national environmental management act (act no. 107 of 1998), environmental conservation act (act no. 73 of 1989), national heritage resources act (act no. 25 of 1999), and minerals & petroleum resources development act (act no.28 of 2002) effective treatment of mine effluent (acidic/polluted water), and continuous hydrological management and monitoring governmental departments (i.e. local and national departments of water and environmental affairs), mining companies and working groups medium-low significance site impact/ risk probability spatial scale / extent duration severity sahra & asapa site significnace significance before mitigation cradle of humankind world heritage site consisting of various caves and fossils in a sensitive karst system/ dolomitic environment on the west rand, gauteng province, south africa infiltration of surfaceor groundwater with ph values between 2 to 4 (or lower) 3 – could happen and has happened here or elsewhere (41-60% chance) 3 – regional (substantially beyond site boundary; more than 5 km) 5 – permanent/ irreversible (more than 50 years) 4 serious impairment of ecosystem function or serious social issues/ permanent damage to items of cultural significance national significance (ns) grade 1 medium to high significance (immediate mitigation required) microsoft word 04 diedericks & nealer.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(1) july 2015, pp. 64-81. a proposed water sector plan for the dr kenneth kaunda district municipality (dr kkdm) m. diedericks1 and ej nealer2 abstract the radical reform of potable water services provisioning by means of promulgation of the water services act 108 of 1997 and the national water act 36 of 1998 in south africa (sa) started a process of addressing the imbalance which existed in how the national resource was distributed. water is now recognised as a scarce resource that belongs to all the people of the country and consequently it should be managed in an integrated way for social and economic development including future growth (fuggle and rabie 2005:293; riemann, chimboza and fubesi 2012:446). the provision of potable water by water services authorities (wsas) is an important basic service that faces a number of challenges such as the use of out-dated infrastructure and a lack of skilled and knowledgeable people that place overt pressure on demand for service delivery. it is against this background that the researchers have undertaken to investigate how a municipality which is forced to obtain its potable water supply from nearby surfaceand groundwater catchments, can manage it in a more effective, efficient, equal, economic and sustainable manner by means of improved planning procedures to enhance co-operative governance and intergovernmental relations. a qualitative research design was used to conduct the study, which included a literature review, semi-structured interviews, non-probability data sampling and scientific analyses of responses. furthermore, a case-study approach was followed by the researchers, with dr kenneth kaunda district municipality (dr kkdm) as the unit of analysis (the locus). the major research finding of the study included that a water sector plan (wsp) was lacking and non-existent in the dr kenneth kaunda district municipality (dr kkdm) and therefore water services delivery could not be coordinated effectively. keywords: water, environment, water resource management, planning, coordination, public participation, integrated development plan, strategy, water services development plan, legislation, regulation. introduction the supply of potable water and basic sanitation services to all inhabitants of south africa (sa) has never been higher on the national, provincial – and especially on the local government spheres’ agendas – than at the end of april 1994. at that time thirty-five percent of south africans had no access to a basic water supply, and fifty-three percent lived without proper sanitation (funke, nortje, findlater, burns, turton, weaver and hattingh 2007:12). as a result of the change in government, all the executive public institutions on all three spheres had to revisit and transform their executive authorities, acts, regulations and work procedures, in such a manner, that a more equitable benefit for all the citizens of the country could be achieved (nealer and raga 2008:295). 1 dr m diedericks, school of social and government studies, public management and governance, 2 prof ej nealer, public administration and management, university of south africa, pretoria. a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 65 with reference to national water affairs, the water services act 108 of 1997 and the national water act 36 of 1998 were promulgated, in order to provide for the necessary reform (improved equity, sustainability, efficiency and integrated water resources management) of the law relating to water resources in sa. for the first time, potable water was now recognised as a scarce and unevenly distributed national resource that belongs to all the people of the country, and that the water collected in the various rainfall catchment areas (river basins and underground cavities, channels and fractures) and water resources be managed in a more integrated way (fuggle and rabie 2005:293). the key role-player in managing water resources in this sector is the current department of water affairs and sanitation (dws). this study was completed in 2012 when the dws still went by the name of the department of water affairs (dwa) and before the new national water resource strategy (nwrs) came into effect. reference is therefore still made in this article to the dwa and the nwrs 2004. the dwa is responsible for ensuring that water is protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled in a sustainable and equitable manner (nwp 2006:18). on the local government sphere of the developing sa, the effective, efficient, equal, economical and sustainable municipal management of potable water supply also entails the execution of highly complex hydrological, geo-hydrological and public management functions in a dynamic and highly regulated environment. it inter alia, entails the conservation of suitable water resources – by firstly: identifying, surveying, and the demarcation thereof, and then the development, transport, treatment, distribution, imposition of tariffs, municipal administration, re-collection of the used water, treatment and final release of the wastewater back into the water catchment for use by other downstream users (nealer and raga 2008:295). in addition, the nature and impacts of the physical environment are also difficult to manage. it now, therefore, requires the municipal managers and leading officials, as well as the committed political office-bearers – in addition to their normal municipal management knowledge and functions – to be equipped with some basic knowledge and information regarding the physical environment (the hydro-geological aspects of water resources), and to utilise the necessary geographical mapping tools, in order to improve their long-term planning and service delivery skills (nealer and raga 2008:295). locus and problem statement of research this research concentrated on the place and role of the dr kenneth kaunda district municipality (dr kkdm) with its incorporated four category b local municipalities, namely the maquassi hills local municipality (mhlm), the matlosana local municipality, (a.k.a. city of matlosana), the tlokwe local municipality (a.k.a. tlokwe city council) and the ventersdorp local municipality. (see lfigure 1 below for some topocadastral information on the locality of the municipalities). the strategic framework for water services of 2003 (dwaf 2003:42) outlines that if a district municipality is not a wsa, it is not required to develop a water services development plan (wsdp). the district municipality should, however, develop a “water sector plan” addressing the district-wide issues arising from the local wsdps, and include this in the district’s integrated development plan (idp). the current practices of potable water supply management by dr kkdm in its municipal area were investigated according to the availability or lack of a district water sector plan (dwsp). the key motivation was thus to develop a plan or functional flow chart that would outline the roles and responsibilities of diedericks & nealer 66 all role-players involved to manage water resources more effectively on strategic, tactical and operational levels within government structures and to assist in realising integrated water resources management (iwrm). f i g u r e 1 : l o c a l i t y m a p o f t h e d r k e n n e t h k a u n d a d i s t r i c t m u n i c i p a l a r e a source: demarcation board 2011. research objectives the primary objective of the study was to determine how a municipality which has to obtain its potable water supply from a nearby surface-and groundwater catchment(s) can manage it in a more effective, efficient, equitable, economic and sustainable manner by following a proposed district water sector plan, illustrated by means of a functional flow chart. to achieve the afore-mentioned primary objective, the following secondary research objectives were explored: • to investigate and analyse the nature and extent of potable water supply management and to apply criteria that could contribute in assessing and improving water-related planning by a district municipality in its municipal area of jurisdiction. a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 67 • to investigate and analyse compliance with the legislation, regulations and strategies of municipal water resources management, in order to identify strategically important aspects to be taken into consideration by municipalities (wsas), water services providers (wsps) and water user associations (wuas) which have to obtain their potable water from nearby surfaceand groundwater catchments. legal framework and policies as mentioned, the 1994 election of a new government in sa gave rise to a remarkable transformation process in the water services sector. section 27 of constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 addresses the right of access to sufficient water. the transformation of water services in sa has mainly been influenced by the implementation of new legislation and a regulatory framework, including water-related strategies. transformative water-related legislation includes the white paper on a national water policy, 1997, the water services act 108 of 1997 and the national water act 36 of 1998. the promulgation and implementation of these acts were to assist the processes of redressing the inequalities of racial and gender discrimination of the past; to link water management to economic development and poverty eradication; and to ensure the preservation of the ecological resource-base for future generations. the national water resource strategy 2004, which includes water catchment agencies (cmas) and water users’ associations (wuas) have contributed towards meeting the basic needs of present and future generations; to promoting equitable access to water, including the efficient, sustainable and beneficial use of water in the public interest. the aforementioned legislative framework and related water strategies lay the foundation for potable water supply management within sa, but more specifically on the local government sphere where potable water is regulated by the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998 and the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000. the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998 defines the different types of municipalities; it establishes the necessary criteria, and makes provision for the division of powers and functions between the different categories of municipalities. the act furthermore determines whether a municipality is a wsa or not that would be responsible for the provisioning of potable water supply. the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 distinguishes between the functions of a wsa and water services provider. according to the said act, services can either be provided by the municipality or appointment of external service providers (e.g. in the maquassi local municipality, also located in the dr kkdm, potable water services is provided by a water company namely sedibeng water). in the next section, arguments for more effective water services planning are subsequently discussed. planning for more effective potable water services delivery as secondary research objective of this study, it investigated and analysed the effective functioning of planning within south african governance structures as part of the interrelated system of intergovernmental relations and co-operative governance as tools to improve basic service delivery, such as potable water supply management – by involving all the relevant roleplayers and stakeholders in the public decision-making processes. in terms of planning for water each sphere of government fulfils an important role. national government’s role in managing, protecting and determining the use of scarce water resources diedericks & nealer 68 is contained in the principle of “public trust”. public trust relates to government not owning the water, but having the overall responsibility and authority to ensure that all the water in the country is managed for the benefit of all the citizens. this responsibility, in accordance with the nwrs (chapter 1.2) includes ensuring that water is allocated equitably and that environmental values are promoted. national government is committed to carrying out its public trust obligations, by being the custodian of the nation’s water resources through the department of water affairs (dwa). provincial legislatures are key agents in supporting municipalities in achieving their objectives, and in ensuring that local municipalities perform effectively. many municipalities need assistance and guidance to develop the capacity required to prioritise, plan and implement their programmes. the provinces can provide support to municipalities in a number of areas, including financial, human resources and technical skills. the aforementioned is also emphasised in the white paper on water supply and sanitation policy (rsa 1994:10-11). furthermore, in terms of section 114(2)(a) and (b) of the constitution, provinces must provide mechanisms to ensure that all provincial executive organs of state are accountable to it, and it should maintain oversight by exercising provincial executive authority in the province – including the implementation of legislation and ensuring oversight regarding any provincial organ of state. national and provincial government spheres thus facilitate important roles in the planning and management of water resources in sa. the most important functionary regarding planning for more effective water services is the local government sphere, which consists of municipalities. municipalities providing water services are entitled water services authorities (wsas). their responsibilities and duties according to thompson (2006:712), inter alia include: providing access to water services; developing and implementing water services development plans; monitoring the performance of water services providers; and making by-laws. the above duties and responsibilities are outlined in the water services act 108 of 1997. the planning process at local government sphere is spearheaded by the respective integrated development plan (idp) of each mjunicipality. it is therefore important that the wsdp, which is the planning instrument within a municipality’s water services sector, must be aligned with the targets of the idp in order to address, amongst others, the socio-economic, technical, financial, institutional and environmental issues pertaining to water services. research design a qualitative research design was used to conduct this study. it involved a thorough literature review, semi-structured interviews and the distribution of a 5-point likert-scale questionnaire with 29 statements and 4 open-ended questions, data sampling and scientific analysing of responses – including direct observations. the study made use of this qualitative method to determine the perceptions of individuals involved in the planning and management of water services within dr kkdm. furthermore, a case-study method/approach was utilised in this study, which involved an in-depth examination of potable water resource management by the dr kkdm (unit of analysis) as institution, including its four incorporated and subordinate local category b municipalities. the evaluation involved analysing the information gathered from different sources and analyses of official documentation (acts, water strategies, etc.), past records and audio-visual materials (such as photographs and digital voice recording of interviews). in this particular study, one of the researchers spent an extended period of time on-site to interact with the people who were being interviewed, and to determine how potable water is currently being managed. all the findings were recorded, including information on the physical environment, and a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 69 historical, economic, and social factors that could have an influence on the situation. triangulation was utilised as part of the case-study method which involved consulting existing legislation, guidelines and protocols regarding potable water management supply, and holding interviews with the identified role-players and stakeholders, in order to determine the current practices with regard to potable water management supply in and by municipalities of the dr kkdm. population and sample the total target population size (n) of this study amounted to forty-two (42) respondents while the sample size (n) was thirty-five (35) respondents. the total population size comprised of eight members each from the four local municipalities, four members from the district municipality, four members from two water companies, and two independent water consultants that were previously attached to local municipalities located within the dr kkdm’s municipal area. all the relevant municipal councillors (entrusted with water services delivery in their portfolio) and officials employed on senior-, middle-, supervisor and technical post levels involved in potable water management were targeted and selected as respondents to form the total target population. by using this method (purposive nonprobability sampling by utilising dr kkdm as the unit of analysis in a case-study approach), every possible person involved in managing the provision of potable water had an equal chance of being included in the sample. it is worth mentioning that the respondents involved in potable water within the dr kkdm represented a small group equipped with specialised expertise and experience; and therefore, all the relevant respondents were targeted for participation in the study. non-probability sampling, according to babbie and mouton (2002:166-168) and maree et al. (2012:176-178), does not make use of a random selection of population elements, but it has advantages if the population is difficult to find. non-probability sampling is also less complicated and more economical in terms of time and financial expenses than probability samples (welman, kruger and mitchell, 2011:68). all the relevant respondents were, therefore, targeted to participate in the study and eventually only 35 of the 42 respondents willingly participated. data analysis all information (the literature review) and data (observations, case-study method, questionnaire and semi-structured interviews) obtained were scientifically analysed. statistical analyses of results were described according to frequencies and non-parametric correlations between likert scale statements. qualitative data gathered were organised according to themes derived from questions in the interview schedule. consistencies and differences in responses received from respondents were identified and grouped together. furthermore, computer-generated graphs and tables were used to reflect the values/perceptions and technical input of the respondents. on the basis of the relevant information received, logical conclusions and recommendations were made, and a proposed water sector plan illustrated by means of a functional flow chart was developed. strengths and limitations of study the limitations of the study are that the proposed water sector plan developed by means of this study is only relevant for a specific area, namely the dr kkdm, within the local diedericks & nealer 70 government sphere. this is due to the fact that a case-study approach was followed. as outlined by babbie and mouton (2002:166), welman, kruger and mitchell (2011:193), and maree et al. (2012:76), a case-study approach provides an in-depth study of a singular case (limited number of units of analysis) and its scientific results cannot necessarily be generalised. the results of well-selected cases, however, constitute in the social sciences a dewdrop in which the world is reflected. this implies that the case could be used to learn from and to improve possible shortcomings, where necessary. in this regard, the significance of the water sector plan developed by means of this study has not been determined for the entire north west province, including the rest of the south african local government sphere. generalisations are, therefore, only limited to the locus of the study, namely, dr kkdm’s jurisdiction area. this might to a certain degree diminish the prospect of credibility of the study, although as mentioned in the previous sentence, it provides in its singularity a concentration of the global in the local. ethical considerations the researchers did not manipulate the respondents (no unethical tactics or techniques were used in the interviewing process) or any of the data. the respondents were assured of confidentiality; hence, the anonymous completion of the questionnaires and participation in the recorded semi-structured interviews (with consent acquired prior to the interview). the researchers did not divulge any confidential information, and has ensured the protection of the participants’ identities including the assurance not to harm the respondents in any way. the researchers also outlined to respondents the risk of participating in the study, and informed the respondents that the research was done based on generally accepted norms, standards and values of the north-west university. they were also informed that they could withdraw their participation at any point as the research unfolded. the next section discusses the analysis and interpretation of the data collected as part of the empirical study conducted – with the view to developing a proposed water sector plan/functional flow chart for water services delivery for the dr kkdm. major research findings and development of a water sector plan for dr kkdm as mentioned, this study made use of a qualitative research design and the case study approach. triangulation was utilised as part of the case-study method. the likert scale statements and open-ended questions were formulated to address the specific concerns regarding potable water supply by and within the dr kkdm’s municipal area. the major research findings from the research questionnaire are subsequently presented below. on a likert-scale of 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being fully agree, the 35 respondents agreed by 50% that the district municipality possessed specialised expertise to manage potable water. the 50% of respondents that have disagreed/strongly disagreed or were unsure about the statement are however reason enough to interpret that there are doubts as to whether the municipality indeed has adequate specialised expertise to manage its potable water supply. this statement investigated whether staff involved in the management of potable water supply had the necessary skills and specialised expertise, in order to fulfil tasks effectively. public officials should be able to analyse, interpret and execute public management functions successfully, in order to manage resources in an effective, efficient, equitable, economic and sustainable manner. the expectation of this statement was, therefore, met by receiving a favourable response. a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 71 the statement whether a wsp was in place for the dr kkdm was aimed at determining where a district municipality is not a wsa, such as dr kkdm, whether it should develop a “water sector plan” (wsp). only 47% of the respondents agreed/fully agreed that a wsp was in place for the dr kkdm. however, 53% were either unsure about the state of affairs or disagreed/strongly disagreed with the statement. the total number of responses that were unsure – including those that disagreed/strongly disagreed with the statement – outweighs the total number of responses that had agreed or fully agreed with the statement. this indicated to a great extent that a wsp was lacking in the dr kkdm. this statement, therefore, provides proof that a wsp was non-existent for dr kkdm – in order to effectively coordinate the management of potable water supply within the southern region of the north west province. respondents were asked to indicate whether a wsp was included in the idp of dr kkdm. municipalities now have developmental functions, which include service delivery to communities and the promotion of socio-economic development. this involves partnerships with communities and stakeholders and is a strategic process; which requires a great deal of planning and consultation. the majority of the respondents (59%) were unsure about the state of affairs regarding the statement. forty one percent of the respondents strongly disagreed with the statement. the results of this statement provide proof that the respondents were largely unsure as to whether a wsp is included in the idp of dr kkdm. the 59% of the respondents who were unsure was worrying. this percentage is very high; and if they had made a choice it could have swayed the results either way. however, the researchers could not ignore this important result, as it indicated that members were uninformed about important strategic and planning business instruments by the dr kkdm in its municipal area. the major research findings from the semi-structured interviews inter alia included that one of the researchers asked the respondents to comment on the relationship between local municipalities and the district office (intergovernmental relations and co-operative governance). with this particular question, the researcher wanted to ascertain whether there was adequate support from the district office in terms of the facilitation of potable water supply management. it should be noted that the district municipality is not a wsa, but has certain co-ordinating functions to fulfil, including the development, implementation and maintenance of a water sector plan. the results indicate that there was a general perception that the amount of support received from the district office was inadequate for the management and effective delivery of potable water supply services in the dr kkdm’s municipal area of responsibility. this indicates that intergovernmental relations and cooperation are not functioning at its optimal level within the dr kkdm. these issues would have to be addressed at district level. from the aforementioned major research findings, the authors concluded that a water sector plan (wsp) was lacking in the dr kkdm and that it was important and necessary to develop such a plan or a functional flow chart. the researchers developed the proposed wsp for the dr kkdm by utilising the existing knowledge and institutional memory, and by way of the research methodology and empirical findings, as described in the foregoing. the plan/functional flow chart was furthermore developed in order to address the primary and secondary objectives of this study by taking into account the theories of public planning, strategy development and integrated water resources management. figure 2 below depicts the proposed wsp for the dr kkdm. the plan contributes to an understanding of the management surrounding a basic service, such as potable water within a district municipality, diedericks & nealer 72 which is not a wsa, but still has to take charge of the overall high-level planning and effective co-ordination processes and responsibilities. the plan also maps the current water management processes and practices, and it provides relevant information for its successful implementation. the plan, furthermore, holds certain benefits for water services delivery in the dr kkdm region if the district municipality would be compliant. f i g u r e 2 : w a t e r s e c t o r p l a n / f u n c t i o n a l f l o w c h a r t f o r t h e d r k k d m source: researchers’ own drawing. a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 73 discussion of elements of the proposed water sector plan in this section, the processes and elements of the proposed water sector plan are succinctly clarified and explained. the plan specifies the logical sequence and linkages between activities: in other words, mapping the process. a numbering system used in the proposed wsp has been retained for ease of reference purposes. numbers 1-4 reflect the strategic level of the plan; 5 the tactical level and 6-7 the operational level. the proposed wsp is, firstly, influenced to a significant extent by (a) the legislative and regulatory framework for water resource management in sa. the legislative and regulatory framework is an indication of the extent of intervention engaged by government, in order to regulate the governance of water resources. the main objective of a legislative and regulatory framework, as an element of the district water sector plan, is thus to strengthen, regulate and provide guidance in the water resource management sector of sa. coupled with these legislative and regulatory requirements is the issue of public participation, discussed below as second element of the proposed dwsp for dr kkdm. the plan requires (b) public participation involving all the role-players and stakeholders. public participation at local government sphere is a very important tool and an integral part of public developmental processes and decision-making. this implies that citizens should be involved in public decision-making, in order to ensure local democracy. according to van der waldt et al. (2014:27), public participation is the organised effort to increase control of resources (water as the example in this case) and regulative institutions by groups and movements, especially those excluded from such control. this particular element/variable in the proposed wsp alerts the local and district municipalities that it is of vital importance to have mechanisms and structures in place – to ensure adequate public participation in the management of potable water as a natural resource. this would provide ordinary citizens with the satisfaction of knowing that they are involved in the process, and are updated regularly regarding any problems that could arise. communication is, consequently, a vital element in public participation processes. different mediums of communication can be utilised to inform or invite citizens to participate in the affairs of the local authority (the wsa in this case). south african citizens should be involved in the management of integrated water resources by means of community participation in water catchment areas/regions. forums such as the mooiriver catchment forum can be joined in this regard. furthermore, communities can also take part in for example the national water week programmes organised every year during march by dwa and local municipalities. according to lotz-sisitka and burt (2006:12), public participation has been identified as a key requirement for success in government programmes. government projects are dependent on the willingness of the respective communities to assist in project implementation. public participation has, therefore, been institutionally framed within government legislation relating to integrated water resources management (lotz-sisitka and burt 2006:12). public participation within government structures is, furthermore, made possible by “co-operative governance” (cog) and “intergovernmental relations” (igr) (mazibuko and pegram 2006:4-11). cog seeks to ensure the management of a more sustainable environment meaning that there is a shift away from the narrow focus of governance to a broader focus. in a broader focus, a wider range of governance mechanisms is used regarding growing positions and roles of water associations and partnerships that reflect the dynamic and interactive nature of co-ordination and integration. this should facilitate a more accommodating environment for trans-disciplinary research and synergised outcomes which would entail the diedericks & nealer 74 incorporation of the collective and integrated synergies between the embedded environmental, economic viability (including technology), and social equity (including culture and politics) systems which are underpinned by or grounded in the facilitating system of governance and cog in a holistic quest towards effective public decision-making and policy implementation (nealer and diedericks, 2012:9). however, some challenges remain when it comes to stakeholder participation. the main objective of public participation as an element of the proposed wsp is thus to involve all the role-players and stakeholders in the governance processes and management of integrated water resources. stakeholders and roleplayers’ needs for potable water vary widely; therefore, they cannot be engaged and informed in a uniform way. the proposed wsp is spearheaded at national government sphere by: (1) the department of water affairs (dwa). in this regard, thompson (2006:279) outlined that the national government’s role in managing, protecting and determining the use of scarce water resources is contained in the principle of “public trust” as discussed above. this responsibility is in accordance with the nwa 36 of 1998 and the nwrs of 2004 (chapter 1.2); and it includes ensuring that water is allocated equitably, and that environmental values are promoted. national government is committed to carrying out its public trust obligations by being the custodian of the nation’s water resources through the department of water affairs (dwa). in this regard, the dwa is primarily responsible for the formulation and the implementation of government policy in this sector. the dwa is, furthermore, responsible for strategic planning within the water services sector – by means of the drafting and implementing of the relevant policies. the dwa’s specific functions in this regard include sector leadership, the promotion of good practice, the development and revision of national policies, the oversight of all legislation impacting on the water sector (including the setting of national norms and standards), co-ordination with other national departments on policy, legislation and other sector issues, national communications, and the development of national strategies to achieve water sector goals. the dwa also has the responsibility to develop policy with regard to international water service issues (dwaf 2003:20). amongst others, one of the important roles of dwa is: (2) the independent regulation of the water services sector by means of monitoring sector performance, including conformity with the national norms and standards, through mechanisms such as the blue and green drop assessments, its water catchment regions, and making regulatory interventions to improve performance and/or to ensure compliance (dwaf 2003:20). considering elements 1 and 2 above of the proposed wsp, it can be unequivocally stated that the dwa is the leading functionary in the process representing national government, by being responsible for both the management of water resources and the provision of water services. the department is thus responsible for national strategic planning and oversight. the aforementioned thus implies that some sort of a strategy must be put in place. in this regard, (3) the national water resource strategy of 2004 (nwrs) is an important element/variable/activity of the proposed wsp, in the sense that it introduced a strategy on how the water resources of sa should be protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled, in accordance with the requirements of the national water policy (nwp) and the national water act, 1998. the nwrs thus provides a blueprint for the management of water resources for the first time in sa. the control over the use of water has, however, changed by promulgation of the nwrs. according to the nwrs, a single organisation or a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 75 institution cannot exercise complete authority over water. the responsibility for managing water resources has, therefore, been decentralised to include surface water catchment management agencies (cmas) and the water tribunal. at provincial government sphere, the north west province has, for example, certain responsibilities in the facilitation of a potable water supply. in general, the responsibilities of (4) provincial governments in terms of potable water supply management include the constitutional responsibility to support and strengthen the capacity of local government in the fulfilment of its functions, and to regulate local government to ensure the effective performance of its duties. provincial public works departments may undertake (or oversee) the construction of water and sanitation infrastructure on behalf of other departments in the province. typically, this would include setting design standards for water and sanitation facilities in schools, hospitals and clinics. nevertheless, client departments remain ultimately responsible for the water supply and sanitation services within their own facilities, including the associated costs of bulk water and sanitation infrastructure, where appropriate (dwaf 2003:21). the primary roles of the province regarding water services, furthermore, are the following: • monitor legislation through the national council of provinces. • ensure compliance with national policy and norms and standards. • develop enabling provincial legislation and norms and standards. • co-ordinate regional planning. • promote integrated development and inter-departmental co-ordination. • monitor progress (rsa 2001:21-22). the medium-term planning of government in sa is informed by the medium-term strategic framework (mtsf). the mtsf guides planning and resource allocation across all spheres of government. in this regard, national and provincial departments in particular, need to develop their five-year strategic plans and budget requirements, taking into account the medium-term imperatives. provinces should reflect the mtsf in their (4.1) provincial growth and development strategy (pgds). this is a collaborative framework to drive long-term development and implementation within the province as a whole (rsa 2005:2). the pgds consists of two parts: a long-term strategic view (10-20 years) of the province, and an action-oriented collaboration and implementation plan (rsa 2005:6). the implementation plan should be reviewed annually with a focus on “driving” key strategies for effective implementation. the implementation plan should also include a monitoring and evaluation framework, meaning a performance management system (rsa 2005:6) that measures whether the developmental goals identified in the pgds were achieved against the desired outcomes. the pgds is, furthermore, enhanced and promoted by making use of co-operative governance and intergovernmental relations structures, such as inter alia the minmec’s and provincial intergovernmental forums. flowing from the pgds is the development and implementation of (4.2) a provincial water sector plan. the purpose of the provincial water sector planning is an integral part of ensuring that provinces (which do not have water competence) and municipalities have the opportunity to participate in the development of national plans and strategies, and in diedericks & nealer 76 particular, making decisions regarding water development and management regarding their areas of jurisdiction (nwp 2006:7). this is in accordance with the following considerations: • national government, as discussed above, provides a framework for common policies, principles and priorities within which area (provincial and local) and sectoral planning can take place. • the pgds provides a more specific framework for the development of projects and programmes at a provincial programme level, as well as ensuring co-ordinated area and sectoral planning (rsa 2005:2). • municipalities should develop area-based idps to guide and inform all planning, implementation and management of service delivery in their areas. these plans must be compatible with national policy and legislation and be aligned with provincial strategies and plans. the area-based idp of a municipality should specifically be linked to water services development plans (wsdp). the wsdp is a planning instrument within the water services sector, and its purpose is to assist water services authorities to carry out their mandate effectively by taking into account the socioeconomic, technical, financial, institutional and environmental issues pertaining to water services (mazibuko & pegram, 2006:26). plans should be regularly updated and progress should be reported on an annual basis, in order to assess how well water services authorities are performing relative to their stated intentions and their capacity (sa, 1997). this information would assist local communities and the dwa to determine the access to basic potable water services. each sphere’s planning process takes into consideration the realities of other spheres and there is thus a mutual influence – not necessarily top-down or bottom-up only. the purpose of provincial water sector planning, as an element of the proposed wsp is thus to take note of the following: nationally • national water sector policies, legislation and strategies for both water resources and water services. o national policies and strategies related to local government. • provincially o provincial growth and development strategies. o provincial local government support plans and strategies. • locally o integrated development plans, including water services development plans (nwp 2006:7-8). at the third sphere of the south african government are: (5) district and local municipalities – where basic services are rendered, such as the provision of potable water supply. according to the proposed wsp, it is important to determine whether the district municipality is a wsa or not. this is determined by the different categories of municipalities in sa. dr kkdm is a category c1 municipality (5.1), a non-water services authority. according to the water services act 108 of 1997, thompson (2006:714), and verbal communication by means of a telephonic interview with marais (2011), and e-mail communication by ramaleba (2012), where a district municipality is not a wsa, such as dr kkdm, it should develop a “water sector plan” (wsp). such a plan should address the district-wide issues arising from the local wsdps, and it should be included in the district’s idp (dwaf 2003:42). dr a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 77 kkdm is thus a non-wsa, but is still responsible for the development of a water sector plan by means of high-level planning (strategic and tactical planning), including the organising and coordination of functions in the region (the responsibilities and duties of wsas, according to the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998). planning is thus instrumental for the effective management of potable water supply as a basic service. the organising and coordination of the processes to provide sustainable potable water supply services are important functions of the municipal district office. in this regard, riemann et al. (2012:445) refer to organising (implementation) as making optimum use of the resources required for enabling the plans to be carried out successfully. coordination and control refer to evaluating progress against plans, which may need modification, based on feedback (riemann et al. 2012:445). the co-ordination of potable water is concerned with aspects that ensure that planning implementation conforms to the planning requirements, and that proper inter-relationships are met or established. once the district municipal office has fulfilled its planning role, it should ensure that the plans are implemented according to the requirements, and that there are good relations among all the stakeholders involved for the effective service delivery of water as a basic service. planning and coordination are cyclical and continuous processes. they should have clear timeframes set for the achievement of objectives and relevant activities. the planning process within municipalities is based on the development of an integrated development plan (idp). planning around water-related issues should consequently be highly prioritised by district municipalities, although they may not be wsas, such as dr kkdm. it is, therefore, important to include all water-related planning in the municipality’s idp, as required by the water services act 108 of 1997, in order to prepare the municipal region for the necessary strategic growth and development. after the inclusion of all relevant water-related planning into the district municipality’s idp, it is necessary to draft a district water sector plan. such a plan should provide proof that all district-wide water-related issues, as addressed in the wsdps of the wsas and the idp of the district municipality, are addressed. such a plan should at least address issues on a strategic, tactical and operational level. this implies the following consequences for the proposed wsp: • the strategic planning of the water sector plan refers to the macro-planning for the region (entire dr kkdm’s municipal area), and should typically, include a holistic overview of the most important issues pertaining to effective potable water supply management. • tactical water-related planning refers to the shortor medium-term strategies of the municipal area, where it would be vital to outline how the objectives would be achieved. • operational planning refers to the day-to-day processes of managing potable water supply, where the focus would be on the quality and quantity of water to satisfy customer needs, and to bring about effective municipal service delivery. the above elements, as described, are to a significant extent influenced by operational planning directed by the local category b municipalities. local municipalities (6) are the most important elements/units in the proposed water sector plan because they render basic services to communities at large. there are four category b municipalities in the dr kkdm region. all four local municipalities are wsas. it is important that the four wsas fulfil their mandate, namely: the provision of quality potable water and excessive quantities of water. diedericks & nealer 78 this is achieved by means of drawing up water services development plans (wsdps), according to the requirements of the dwa and the relevant municipal regulations. all four of the local municipalities (wsas) in this study have a wsdp in place, although these have not been annually updated since 2010 by some. the annual review, implementation and maintenance or updating of the wsdps proved, however, to be cumbersome, and required capable and knowledgeable people to manage the processes. in this regard, the district office (dr kkdm) would have to play a much bigger role in getting its subservient municipalities capacitated to compile wsdps – and subsequently updating them every year. once the proposed wsp and wsdps have gone through the stages, as discussed above, it is necessary to (7) implement them effectively. implementation refers to the carrying out, the execution, or practice of a plan, a method, or any design for doing something. it is thus the action that must follow any preliminary thinking, in order for something to actually happen. the implementation process is dependent on a number of factors, such as having an appropriate infrastructure and relevant resources available. furthermore, for the implementation process to transpire without any stumbling blocks, accountable and responsible officials and stakeholders should be running the operational processes; and, where necessary, appropriate training should be provided, in order to bring about the necessary competence for the process to flourish. the implementation process, however, can only be successful if it is properly evaluated to determine whether the necessary standards and criteria of the plan were met. this will be discussed next. assessment of the effective functioning of the proposed wsp for dr kkdm is one of the most important elements/activities. this would transpire by (c) reviewing the process by means of continuous re-evaluation. assessment is the process of gathering, analysing, interpreting and using information about the plans’ progress and achievement to improve the quantity and quality of water as a basic service by dr kkdm in its municipal area. assessment of the plan in this regard would entail monitoring and measuring the progress. the success of the plan should be reported to the relevant programme administrators, public policy makers and government officials. reporting goes hand-in-hand with the idea of being formally held accountable and responsible in government, according to good governance requirements and characteristics. reporting in terms of water management, furthermore, indicates that all the stakeholders are responsible for ensuring the quality of drinking water to inhabitants within municipal boundaries, and also for ensuring that adequate quantities are available for the growth and development of the region. this would provide an indication of whether the organisational and specific planning requirements have been met. after having gone through the processes of monitoring, measuring and reporting on the success of the plan, it is important to evaluate the plan in its current format. evaluation, therefore, measures how well the plan activities have met the expected objectives, and/or the extent to which changes in outcomes could be attributed to the water sector plan. evaluation would help in making informed decisions regarding service delivery, the daily operations and activities of the plan, which are based on objective evidence learned from experience. evaluation, however, should happen throughout the life of the water sector plan, and it should not just be applied towards the end. the last step in the assessment process would be to make the necessary changes or improvements (modification), in order for the plan to function more effective and efficiently. the changes would significantly impact on the planning and coordination efforts of the district municipality in the supply of potable water in a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 79 the future. monitoring/measuring, reporting, evaluation and modification are important indicators of whether potable water supply is being managed effectively within municipal areas, according to the government requirements and regulations. conclusion and recommendations this research aimed to develop a proposed water sector plan/functional flow chart for the dr kkdm, taking into account municipal and water management aspects, such as the effective potable water supply, data monitoring and capturing, as well as the incorporation of a more holistic and integrated water resource management approach (iwrm), according to the dwa’s envisaged demarcated surface water catchment regions. application of the proposed water sector plan by municipalities situated within the dr kkdm area of jurisdiction by means of improved co-operative governance and intergovernmental relations could, therefore, contribute to more effective, efficient and economical service delivery in terms of the integrated management of water resources. the following recommendations for future research are made, based on the literature review and empirical findings of this study in order to improve water-related planning and management within south african government spheres: • the role and functions of district municipalities that are not wsas need further investigation. the role of such municipalities is currently outlined in the strategic framework for water services of 2003 (dwaf 2003:42), as only being responsible for the development of water sector plans. however, these plans are lacking throughout the sector. • the role and functions of provincial governments in the management of water resources need clearer description, especially the link between the pgds, the provincial water sector planning and district idps. the issue of co-operative governance and intergovernmental relations between districts and provinces in terms of water-related planning and management thus needs to be researched. • water-related challenges within local municipalities are worrying, such as the outdated infrastructure, the shortage of skilled personnel and the lack of succession planning to retain skills; failure by means of adhering to monitoring mechanisms, such as the blue and green drop status. the lack of skills currently seems to be the major constraint in facilitating effective service delivery by municipalities. references babbie, e. and mouton, j. 2002. the practice of social research. cape town: oxford university press southern africa ltd. department of water affairs and forrestry (dwaf). 2003. strategic framework for water services. pretoria: dwaf. demarcation board. 2011. maps of maquassi hills local municipality, dr kenneth kaunda district municipality, matlosana local municipality, tlokwe local municipality & ventersdorp local municipality. available at (http://www.demarcation.org.za/downloads/boundarydata/northwest, 2011). accessed 03 august 2011. diedericks & nealer 80 fuggle, r. f. and rabie, m. a. 2005. environmental management in south africa. landsdowne: juta & co ltd. funke, n., nortje, k., findlater, k., burns, m., turton, a., weaver, a. and hatting, h. 2007. redressing inequality: south africa’s new water policy. environment science and policy for sustainable development, 49(3), 21 april. lotz-sisitka, h. and burt, j. 2006. a critical review of participatory practice in integrated water resource management. grahamstown: water research commission. wrc report no: 1434/1/06. marais, s. 2011. telephonic interview with the author (director, dwaf: water services planning and implementation of strategies, pretoria offices). potchefstroom. 08 july. maree, k. (ed), creswell, j.w., ebersöhn, l., eloff, i., ferreira, r., ivankova, n.v., jansen, j.d., nieuwenhuis, j., pietersen, j., plano clark, v.l. and van der westhuizen, c. 2012. first steps in research: revised edition. pretoria: van schaik publishers. mazibuko, g. and pegram, g. 2006. evaluation of the opportunities for cooperative governance between catchment management agencies and local government. water research commission. wrc report no: 1433/1/06. nealer, e.j. and raga, k. 2008. knowledge about the origin of a municipality’s potable water: a prerequisite for consolidation of more effective local governance. journal of public administration, 43(3.1):294-307, october. nealer, e.j. and diedericks, m. 2012. public management and governance’s approach to transdisciplinary research in the far west rand area. paper presented at the 3rd ecohealth forum. vanderbijlpark: southern sun hotel. north west province (nwp). 2006. provincial water sector plan 2007/8 – 2011/12. mahikeng. north west water sector forum. riemann, k., chimboza, n. and fubesi, m. 2012. a proposed groundwater management framework for municipalities in south africa. water sa, 38(3):445-452. ramaleba, m. 2012. water services development plan and water sector plan enquiry. e-mail communication: 25 july 2012. [deputy director: water services planning, dwa, pretoria head offices]. republic of south africa (rsa). 1994. white paper on water supply and sanitation policy. pretoria: government printer. republic of south africa (rsa). 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa act, 1996. pretoria: government printer. republic of south africa (rsa). 1997. water services act 108 of 1997.pretoria: government printer. republic of south africa (rsa). 1998a. local government: municipal demarcation act 27 of 1998. pretoria: government printer. republic of south africa (rsa). 1998b. national water act 36 of 1998. pretoria: government printer. republic of south africa (rsa). 1998c. local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998. pretoria: government printer. a water sector plan for dr kkdm td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 64-81. 81 republic of south africa (rsa). 2000. local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000. pretoria: government printer. republic of south africa (rsa). 2001. regulations relating to compulsory national standards and measures to conserve water. pretoria: government gazette 22355 of 8 june 2001. republic of south africa (rsa). 2005. provincial growth and development strategy guidelines. pretoria: the presidency. thompson, h. 2006. water law: a practical approach to resource management & the provision of services. cape town: juta& co ltd. van der waldt, g. (ed), venter, a., van der walt, c., phutiagae, k., khalo, t., van niekerk, d. and nealer, e. 2014. municipal management: serving the people. 2nd ed. cape town: juta & company ltd. welman, c., kruger, f. and mitchell, b. 2011. research methodology. (3rded). cape town: oxford university press southern africa ltd. microsoft word 09 dewitt & lessing.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 461 477. the psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa: the perception of orphans and teachers mw de witt* and ac lessing** abstract the escalation in numbers of orphans in sub-saharan africa has become a human catastrophe. if governments do not deal with this phenomenon as a priority it might spiral beyond control. very few studies have been done to investigate the psychosocial impact of orphanhood on children and communities in developing countries. very little is known about the life world of orphans in developing countries and even less is known about factors in these children’s lives which can affect their mental health. the researchers decided to undertake research in three areas in southern africa to investigate the psychosocial well-being of orphans and to compare the findings with existing research findings. a survey was done in three rural areas to determine the perceptions of orphans regarding their own personal experiences and emotional feelings which may reflect on psychosocial well-being, as well as the perceptions of teachers working with these orphans. except for depression, the findings with regard to most of the psychosocial aspects were in accordance with the literature. the most important findings were that bereavement practices and approaches fit for developed communities might be of little value in developing settings. we are, however, more than aware that orphans from developed counties or even urban settings might differ from those of developing or deep rural areas. key words: orphans, psychosocial well-being, bereavement, poverty, stigmatisation. introduction the escalation in numbers of orphans in sub-saharan africa has become a matter of great concern. already in 2005, an estimated 13.7% of south african children were maternal or double orphans of whom both parents passed away (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 318). it is estimated that by 2010, in 11 countries in africa with a combined population of 109 million, 20-37% of children under 15 years of age will have lost one or both parents (foster, 2002, p. 502). it seems as if most research regarding this dilemma focuses on the physical and medical needs of the children left behind, and lesser studies have been done to investigate the psychosocial impact of orphanhood on children and communities in developing countries like southern africa (foster, 2002, p. 502; makame, ani & grantham-mcgregor, 2002, p. 460). makame et al. (2002, p. 459) found that many orphans did not function as well as could be * department of teacher education, unisa. pretoria, south africa dwittmw@unisa.ac.za ** department of educational studies, unisa. pretoria, south /africa lessiac@unisa.ac.za de witt & lessing 462 expected even when their material needs were adequately met and suggested that psychological problems may be responsible looking at psychosocial development implies looking at the relation of the individual’s emotional needs to the social environment. in his theory erikson provided “a framework for the understanding of the psychosocial needs of young people in relation to the society in which they grow up, learn and later make their contributions” (woolfolk, 2010, p. 83). the emergence of the self, the search for identity, the individual’s relationships with others and the role of culture throughout life are important aspects in psychosocial development. temane and wissing (2008, p. 106) indicate that various conditions in the environment within which a community exists play a role in the experience of well-being, “... well-being in rural communities is multidimensional arising from ecological, social, political, economic, and institutional factors.” “they interpret well-being as the interrelated and interdependent structural and functional conditions of a community, including individuals and their interactions within their environment”. social scientists predict that hiv/aids will not only restrict psychosocial development but also contributes to psychosocial distress like depression, anxiety and low self-esteem, due to the shock that results from the parent’s death (cluver, gardner & don operario, 2007, p. 757, 758; ebersöhn & eloff, 2002, p.77, 82; nyamukapa, gregson, lopman, saito, watts, monasch & jukes, 2008, p. 133-134). the changes due to a parent’s death may also be subtle and take place over time resulting in orphaned children developing “a sense of relative deprivation as their poorer circumstances coupled with stigma and discrimination result in their continually having reduced access to services and material resources” (nyamukapa, et al. 2008, p. 134). psychosocial distress may result in increased insecurity, with future generations being brought up with limited social attachment to significant others. these adolescents seem to be caught between their fear of being found out and their wish to feel connected and to feel a sense of ‘sameness’ with their peers. having to be protective of self and others may become barriers to constructing a healthy sense of intimacy (reyland, higgins-d’alessandro & mcmahon, 2002, p. 291). this may also contribute to major impairments to their cognitive, social behaviour and moral functioning (pharoah, 2004, p. 94). in their need for emotional security, the hiv/aids orphans may lack the ability to explore and make choices and may show signs of aggression, helplessness, sadness, depression and negative self-concepts. they may also present with disciplinary or behavioural problems (nyamukapa, et al., 2008, p. 134). it seems that although the occurrence of emotional and behavioural disturbances due to orphanhood have been tacitly acknowledged it have been ignored (foster, 2002, p. 503). the crisis of children left behind is a humanitarian, developmental and human rights challenge of unprecedented proportions (foster, 2005, p. 107). despite this looming crisis, the knowledge and skills related to child and adolescent mental health and their psychosocial needs have not been incorporated to the full in previous research on such orphans in developing countries. the potential value of such knowledge has largely been overlooked (earls, raviola & carlson, 2008, p. 296). very little is known about the lifeworld of orphans in developing countries and even less is known about factors in these children’s lives which can affect their mental health (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 318). whatever happens with orphans after the death of their parents, the new structure and quality of children’s living arrangements influences their future development (hynes & dunifon, psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 463 2007, p. 912). nyamukapa, et al. (2008, p. 134) hypothesise that the death of a parent may result in short-term consequences like chronic trauma, adjustment problems, low future expectations, poor health, reduced school attendance and performance, school dorp-out, and even living on the streets. the existing literature deals mainly with the psychosocial needs of orphans in developed countries which includes poverty, social skills, social cultural needs and psychosocial wellbeing, psychological problems and needs, self-esteem, emotional needs, loneliness, social withdrawal bereavement and stigmatisation (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 319; foster 2005, p. 72; karim & karim, 2005, p. 357; robson & sylvester, 2007, p. 266; waweru, reynolds & buckner, 2008, p. 119; zhao, li, fang, zhao, yang & stanton, 2007, p. 1075). adolescents who do not have the requisite contexts and experiences for healthy identity development or who, because of severe stress and burdens fail to take on this task, may experience self-doubt and engage in self-destructive behaviours to relieve the anxiety associated with confusion (reyland et al., 2002, p. 292). psychosocial development implies amongst other aspects, the following: preparation of children for their entry into society and their constructive participation in social life and adherence to the evaluative norms that apply within their society; support to make independent choices and decisions, dealing with stress and managing their fears; the development of healthy mutual relations and dealings characterised by intimacy, attachment, caring, warmth, understanding, good humour, happiness, security and satisfaction; the development of awareness of the larger world outside the home and the encouragement of children’s efforts to explore and control that world; assistance of children to develop self-discipline; assisting children to develop their own identity, which includes role models, gender role identity, group and cultural identity and career identity (gerdes, 1988. p. 68; louw & louw, 2007, p. 307; mwamwenda, 1995, p. 429; reyland et al., 2002, p. 286; robson & sylvester, 2007, p. 266; santrock, 2000, p. 345, 427; smith, bem & nolen-hoeksema, 2001, p. 365; wadeley, birch & malim, 1997, p. 44). since very little is known about the psychosocial domain of orphans in southern africa the researchers decided to undertake research in three rural areas to investigate the psychosocial well-being of these orphans, as perceived by themselves and by teachers. the question can be asked: what is the perception of orphans and teachers of the psychosocial well-being of orphans and how do the findings concur with the literature? research design and method a predominantly positivistic approach was followed to conduct a survey to determine the perceptions of teachers and orphans of the psychosocial well-being of orphans (dash, 2008). the conceptual framework that guided the critical and integrative aspects of this cross sectional research (earls et al., 2008, p. 296) was derived from research on orphans in developed countries as reflected in literature. although in-depth interviewing would probably have provided rich descriptions and explanations of situational influences regarding lived experience of orphanhood (mcmillan & schumacher, 2006, p. 197), the researchers decided to use questionnaires because of the large number of orphans in the target areas. in this way information about the perceptions of orphans as well as the perceptions of teachers working with these orphans could be obtained. the researchers administered two different questionnaires to gather data on the participants’ perception of their own feelings and situation with regard to psychosocial well-being as well as the perceptions of teachers regarding orphans’ well-being (cohen, manion & morrison, de witt & lessing 464 2000, p. 244; gay, mills & airasian, 2006, p. 163). this article reflects only on some of the responses because of the magnitude of the survey. following an in-depth literature study, the researchers compiled the questionnaires to seek answers from teachers and orphans on psychosocial-related questions. a thorough literature study was done to establish how the orphans experienced their world and perceived their psychosocial well-being. broad categories of factors contributing to psychosocial well-being were identified and included in the questionnaire. the results of the study will be discussed under these categories and compared with existing literature. the categories are poverty; social skills and socio-cultural needs and psychosocial well-being; self-esteem, emotional needs and psychosocial well-being; psychological problems and needs; bereavement. the nature of the questions was diverse, including biographical, physical, psychological and emotional issues. open-ended questions were added to both questionnaires not only to gain rich descriptions and explanations of specific perceptions but also to understand from an epistemological perspective how the orphans made meaning of their world (gall, gall & borg, 2005, p. 28; neuman, 2006, p. 110; scheurich, 1997, p. 61) and an explorative, interpretive approach was used for the open-ended part of the questionnaire. the researchers realised that their own perceptions of reality do not only vary, but also differ greatly from the perceptions of the participants. the one questionnaire investigated inter alia the perception of teachers of psychosocial aspects while the other questionnaire looked into the perception of the orphans. the questionnaire that addressed the orphans entailed three sections, namely a) biographical information, b) 24 questions on the psychosocial well-being with regard to psychosocial aspects, values and risk factors and c) three questions with regard to their future vision. the second questionnaire, aimed at the perception of the teachers and entailed four sections: a) biographical information, b) five questions to determine the physical needs of the orphans as well as seventeen questions to determine the psychosocial needs of the orphans, c) seven questions aimed at the role of the school to support the orphans and d) four open-ended questions with regard to the culture and norms of the specific community. this article does not reflect on all the information gathered by the questionnaires. thus, the researchers chose a mixed-method mode of inquiry, involving a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods (de vos, 2005, p. 346; neuman, 2006, p. 110). the nature of the questions was diverse, ranking from structured to open-ended questions. a fourpoint likert scale was used in the structured questions to determine the perceptions of the participants. our questionnaire was constructed as an exploratory instrument to establish trends and has not been designed for extensive numerical treatment of data (mouton, 2003, p.100). in order to identify potentially unclear instructions and items, the questionnaire was evaluated by an expert in research methods. items that were unclear because of formulation as well as technical implications regarding data capturing were identified, and the formulation of a number of items was amended. the fieldworkers piloted the questionnaires in their areas with teachers and orphans and unclear items that arose because of formulation or structure, as well as those with technical implications regarding data capturing, were amended. the necessary measures were taken to ensure validity and reliability of the questionnaires. two measures of validity were considered when compiling the questionnaire, namely content validity and face validity (delport, 2005, p. 161). the questionnaire measured what it was supposed to measure and the questions were adequate to be representative of the phenomenon. steps had been followed to ensure the content validity of the questionnaire and psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 465 included an extensive literature study and various experts checked the phrasing and assignments of items to fields. aim of the empirical investigation the survey was developed to improve understanding of and describe the perception of teachers and orphans of the psychosocial well-being of orphans. the aim of this article is, however, not to compare whether orphans in developing countries have the same responses regarding their psychosocial well-being than orphans in developed countries, but rather to describe how orphans in a rural setting in the different areas perceive themselves. to answer the research question on the psychosocial well-being of orphans the following sub questions were formulated and served as the basis of the investigation: do the orphans experience particular socio-cultural or psychological needs? do they lack in social skills? what does their self-esteem look like? do they have emotional needs because of their situation? do they experience stigmatisation because of the fact that they are orphans? do they experience physical or psychosocial needs? the answers to these questions were combined in the discussion to attend to: self-perception; risk factors; the children’s view of the future and their perception of adulthood. the answers by the teachers were interpreted to understand and facilitate the questions asked to the orphans. sample selection a convenient sampling was done, as the fieldworkers administered the questionnaires in the areas where they were working as the research was only done in certain areas in the limpopo province, north-west province and swaziland and thus the findings cannot be generalised. the group consisted of 637 orphans and 274 teachers. the researchers made use of three fieldworkers (one person with a doctorate in psychology of education and two doctoral students in psychology of education. all of them held senior official positions within the different departments of education in the three areas where the research took place. the fieldworkers did not know one another neither did they have any contact with one another while they were fieldworkers. two of the three areas, namely limpopo province and the north-west province, were in south africa. the third area was in swaziland. in collaboration with the officials of the departments of education, a number of schools were identified where the questionnaires could be distributed to all the orphans (mouton, 2003, p. 100; rossouw, 2003, p. 114). the following areas were included: swaziland: shiselweni, manzini, lobombo, hhohho which include the whole of swaziland; limpopo: mandlakazi and leneyney; rustenburg: the bojanala region. the fieldworkers informed the orphans as well as the teachers working with the orphans how to complete the questionnaires. they also trained the teachers on how to complete the questionnaires on behalf of the young learners who could not read or write yet, and for some respondents in that area who had only functional literacy or were not able to read or speak english. the fieldworkers also fulfilled the role as interpreters, where necessary. the number of schools involved, as well as the number of teachers and orphans, is presented in table 1. de witt & lessing 466 tables: orphans in developing countries: what do their responses indicate? table 1. number of schools, teachers and orphans involved limpopo north-west swaziland school teachers orphans school teachers orphans school teachers orphans 1 21 29 1 16 45 1 7 20 2 10 16 2 17 28 2 10 20 3 13 70 3 12 38 3. 16 42 4 14 28 4 10 33 4 12 30 5 18 27 5 13 22 5 8 30 6 16 27 6 8 35 7 19 31 7 13 25 8 17 26 8 6 15 9 7 0* total: 5 n76** n170** n120** n250** n78** n217** * although there were orphans in the preschool, they were not selected. ** the “n” totals for the different areas will be the same in all the tables to follow. regarding professional ethics, the researchers considered the following as important for this research (mouton, 2003, p. 238): objectivity and integrity regarding the research; the way the data was recorded; the ethical principles underlying publication of the findings; participants’ awareness of the purpose of the findings although the survey was anonymous. participants also had the choice to participate and could withdraw whenever they wanted to (gall et al., 2005, p. 136; pellegrini, symons, & hoch, 2004, p. 34). according to guba (in poggenpoel, 1998, p. 331) and mouton (2003, p. 107), the trustworthiness of the results of the qualitative section of the research can be increased by using appropriate fieldworkers. this was facilitated by using dependable and reliable qualified fieldworkers, specialising in psychology of education. the fieldworkers were familiar with the areas, cultural beliefs and languages (tsonga, pedi, tswana and swazi) used by the participants. the relationship of trust between the fieldworkers and the participants was a high priority set by the researchers. psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 467 discussion of the literature and findings of the research a thorough literature study was done to establish how the orphans experienced their world and perceived their psychosocial well-being. broad categories of factors contributing to psychosocial well-being were identified from the literature and included in the questionnaire. the results of the study will be discussed under these categories and compared with existing literature. the categories are poverty; social skills and socio-cultural needs and psychosocial well-being; self-esteem, emotional needs and psychosocial well-being; psychological problems and needs; bereavement. poverty literature on the physical state of orphans stresses the fact that poverty is a key cause of distress (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 219). the effect of parents’ death and the financial situation of the children left behind is one of the major risks associated with childhood bereavement. it includes witnessing not only the traumatic death of their parents but also the subsequent financial instability of the children (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 319). poverty as a risk for emotional and behavioural distress, lack of food and resultant starvation is a concern for those working with orphans (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 321; foster, 2002, p. 503). the lack of assets and material things make these children so obvious in the community and the school that they experience a sense of social exclusion and differentness (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 322). the fact that most orphans are not able to afford school fees, resources, uniforms and transport to school distresses them and makes them angry (cluver & gardner, 2007, p.322). it is, however, evident that relatives or the community go to considerable lengths to find money to keep orphans in school and to maintain the children’s socioeconomic status (foster, 2002, p. 503). the information presented in table 2 regarding children’s grants and foster care grants was part of the biographical information gathered during the survey. table 2. orphans who receive a grant area children’s grant r210.00 foster grant r550.00 total limpopo 40.6% 20.6% 71.2% northwest 48.8% 8.0% 56.8% swaziland* 1.8% 11.5% 13.3% * school fees are paid for all learners in swaziland by the premier though the children’s grant of r210.00 is available for all children in south africa, some orphans do not receive the grant because no adult (guardian) applies for it. discussions with community leaders revealed that in many cases these grants are used for the whole family in whose care the orphans are, and not solely for the orphans themselves. from this information it is clear that a large number of orphans do not have any income or do not contribute financially to the family where they live. access to the foster grant of r550.00 is often made de witt & lessing 468 difficult because the orphans do not have some family member (adult) who can or are willing to apply. the fact that some of the orphans do not have identity documents complicates matters. the responses from the survey indicated that an average of 81% of orphans had identity documents. however, it seems as if the lack of parents’ death certificates might be a problem, as only 61.1% of orphans were in a possession of death certificates of their deceased parents. these documents are prerequisites for applying for the foster grant. the teachers who worked with orphans gave the following responses regarding the orphans’ financial state (see table 3): table 3. teachers’ perception of orphans’ poverty expressed in lack of commodities area lack of food lack of clothing lack of personal hygiene lack of school funds lack of school material limpopo 82.1% 87.7 85.0% 83.6% 76.7% northwest 93.4% 85.0% 80.8% 89.1% 81.6% swaziland 92.0% 89.7% 66.6% 94.3% 75.9% average 89.1% 87.4% 77.4% 89.0% 71.4% the frequencies of responses of the teachers (n274) to all the different factors resulting from poverty were very high. the effect of poverty on the psychosocial well-being of orphans cannot be ignored. poverty surely contributes to low self-esteem and a feeling of being different from others who are better off. the relevant departments of social development will have to place some process of assuring that grants be distributed to orphans on their agenda. social skills and socio-cultural needs and psychosocial well-being a number of researchers voice the concern that orphanhood may result in antisocial behaviour because the absence of role models makes it impossible for orphans to be socialised appropriately. according to henderson (2006, p. 304), this is a debatable issue: because of the nature of family life and childcare in southern africa, children in this region have long been involved in fluid and extended family networks of care (henderson, 2006, p. 311). the loss of a parent will inevitably change the life of the child, and it will most likely bring about changes in roles and responsibilities (murthy & smith, 2005, p. 4). the child might become the replaced parent for a number of siblings in child-headed households. the theory of self-efficacy (bandura 2004, in earls et al., 2008, p. 299) allows for dynamic bidirectional interactions between the child and social actors, and spaces in the ecological surround. therefore the orphan can be integrated into a system of psychological and social factors that can be observed, and are amenable to remedial and beneficial interventions that psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 469 can address an orphan’s own sense of efficacy and achieved psychosocial well-being (earls et al., 2008, p. 299). in this sense the orphan can contribute to his/her own psychosocial wellbeing. though a lack of family contact is seen by many researchers as a risk factor, in the african context positive values are attached to the range of kin and even neighbours upon whom a child may call as role models and for support (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 321; henderson, 2006, p. 306). as africa places less emphasis on the individual and greater emphasis on extended families and communities, facilitators working in an african context will have to admit that western psychosocial treatment models used inappropriately in non-western settings do not necessarily work (foster, 2002, p. 504). one can assume that factors promoting psychosocial well-being would, as in developed countries, include universal safety and security: sympathetic caregivers; familiar routines and tasks and interaction with other children. however, foster (2002, p. 504) gives the following worthwhile advice: a community-based approach encourages self-help and builds on local resources, culture, realities and authentic perceptions of child development. psychological support in an african context should be strategically integrated into community-based programmes that provide support to children. table 4. responses on how orphans experience their own situation regarding the death of their parents area i feel lost because i do not have parents. i blame myself for my parents’ death. i feel afraid that i will be removed from my home. limpopo 57.6% 41.2% 41.8% north-west 42.8% 24.8% 41.6% swaziland 35.5% 20.8% 41.9% total 45.3% 28.9% 41.7% orphans in the limpopo province ranked the highest (57.6%) in feeling lost because they did not have parents, and 41.2% blamed themselves for their parents’ death. an average of 41.7% orphans felt afraid that they would be removed from their homes. these feelings may contribute to psychosocial distress and result in depression (nyamukapa, et al., 2008, p. 134). psychological problems and needs a study done by foster (2002, p. 503) found substantial evidence of reduced psychological well-being, with most orphans showing psychological impairment, especially internalised changes in behaviour, such as depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. makame et al. (in foster 2002, p. 503) goes even further by claiming that children living in child-headed households or with grandparents have the most serious psychological problems. cluver et al. (2007, p. 758) found that when controlling for age and female gender, orphanhood by aids de witt & lessing 470 was significantly related to higher depression scores while orphanhood due to other causes was not necessarily associated with depression. other researchers highlighted anger and grief for teenage heads of child-headed households (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 21). makame et al. (in foster 2002, p. 503) state that it is difficult to determine the severity of orphans’ psychological problems and that many orphans had not grieved or come to terms with the death of their parents. the presence of caring and supportive families support orphans and enable them to withstand severe psychological stress (foster 2002, p.503). table 5 depicts the perception of teachers regarding orphans’ feelings of stress and depression. table 5. teachers’ perception of orphans experiencing depression area feelings of sadness feelings of depression feelings of helplessness limpopo 80.8% 76.7% 80.9% north-west 9.2% 19.1% 9.2% swaziland 39.1% 40.2% 36.7% total 43.0% 45.3% 42.2% once again the variance between the three localities was very big. in the limpopo province teachers interpreted orphans’ feelings as experiencing excessive stress and depression because of their situation. it was the contrary in north-west province, where teachers were under the impression that orphans experience very little stress and depression because of their parents’ death. there is no logical clarification for this except that the communities in the limpopo area are desperately poor. furthermore, it is important to attend to orphans’ feelings of sadness, depression and helplessness even if only few learners are perceived as experiencing problems, as these feelings hamper the psychosocial well-being of the learners. table 6. teachers’ perception of orphans manifesting behaviour problems area experience behavioural problems experience aggression experience disciplinary problems limpopo 80.9% 61.6% 64.4% north-west 28.3% 24.1% 28.3% swaziland 40.2% 52.9% 45.9% total 49.8% 46.2% 46.2% psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 471 once again it is interesting that there is quite a variance in the perceptions of the teachers in the different localities regarding orphans’ behavioural problems and aggression. it seems as if teachers in swaziland and those in the north-west province experienced orphans as being far less aggressive and as demonstrating less problem behaviour than teachers in the limpopo province did. it is, however, important to note that stressors of utmost poverty in the limpopo area might have caused the difference. teachers need to attend to unacceptable behavioural patterns of the orphans as the behavioural problems may negatively influence the social relations and interaction of the learners. self-esteem, emotional needs and psychosocial well-being the lack of material possessions surely contribute to low self-esteem within orphans (foster, 2002, p. 503). the death of loved ones and the resulting grief amplifies and complicates the typical strains of a happy childhood and careless early adolescence (murthy & smith, 2005, p. ix). it is human for children to become depressed when their parents fall ill and all signs are there that they are going to die. the bleak future and the fear of not getting a job and living a normal life influence orphans’ outlook on the future (devane fair, 2006, p 357; foster, 2002, p. 503). like any other children, orphans value being loved, getting attention, commanding respect, being wanted, and having fun with caregivers who set boundaries for them (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 321). research has shown that orphans feel unhappy when they are treated differently from their siblings in the new family (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 321). tables 710 reflect the responses of orphans regarding their own happiness and interpretation of their future, which are important factors in reaching psychosocial well-being. table 7. orphans’ responses regarding their own future and feeling of happiness limpopo north-west swaziland average i want to become a grown-up. 92.4% 88.0% 96.3% 92.2% i cope with my present situation. 70.6% 62.8% 68.7% 67.3% i have hope for my future. 88.2% 82.0% 95.4% 88.5% i can influence my own future. 88.8% 70.0% 79.7% 79.5% i am happy about the future. 62.4% 74.8% 89.0% 75.4% i am experiencing an inner feeling of happiness. 71.8% 58.4% 71.9% 67.3% on questions related to the future as well as to personal happiness the responses of the orphans in the survey were quite positive. from this survey it is clear that most of the orphans are not necessarily negative about their future and do experience inner feelings of happiness. though there were orphans who indicated negative feelings the overwhelming responses were positive which is quite contrary to what is expressed in the literature. de witt & lessing 472 in the open-ended questions orphans indicated that most of them see themselves as having a profession, earning a decent salary, getting married and having their own family. occupations like policemen, nurses, social workers and teachers ranked high in the list of preferred occupations. in spite of their problematic situation orphans indicated a view for the future. bereavement bereavement in the african context might be totally different from what is experienced in developed countries. the taboo of discussing death has been noted by researchers working in developing countries and communities (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 319). this might result in a different approach for facilitators to build a culture of mutual aid or experience within the bereavement support group (murthy & smith, 2005, p. xi). the feeling of not being alone and knowing that others experience the same thoughts and feelings as they do, might help them to deal with the sorrow (murthy & smith, 2005, p. xi). however, henderson (2006, p. 306) finds it preferable in the african context for children and young people to choose at what point they deem it appropriate to speak of such things, if at all. although orphans’ anecdotes as quoted by cluver and gardner (2007, p. 320) reflect their sorrow and distress as a result of the death of both parents and other family members (cluver & gardner, 2007, p 319), as well as their guilt at feeling responsible for the death of their parents, they also felt that happiness would come from “having parents alive to take care of me” and “[i]f i see my dead parents again”. it would be of great importance to know if the stages of bereavement, namely, shock, grief, guilt and acceptance (kűbler-ross, (no date) would apply to orphans in developing countries. the following tables give the responses of the orphans regarding their experience of their situation and their own feelings. table 8. orphans’ responses on how they deal with their circumstances area i am afraid in unfamiliar situations. i am angry about my situation. other people understand my feelings. limpopo 55.9% 63.6% 76.5% north-west 61.3% 50.4% 60.8% swaziland 58.0% 50.3% 70.1% average 58.4% 54.7% 69.1% an average of 54.7% of orphans experienced a feeling of anger regarding their situation. it is not clear whether the feeling of anger can be seen within the theoretical framework of bereavement as postulated by kűbler-ross (no date). caregivers should attend to the grief of orphans as cluver et al. (2007, p. 761) suggest that “aids-related parental bereavement can contribute to heightened levels of internalizing and some externalising distress”. psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 473 table 9. orphans’ responses on how they deal with their circumstances (continued) area i talk about my grief and sorrow with other people. i share my feelings with others. i am still grieving about the death of my parents. limpopo 57.6% 88.2% 60.6% north-west 43.6% 53.6% 69.6% swaziland 66.3% 79.3% 54.8% average 55.8% 73.7% 61.6% there is quite a variance between the responses of orphans in the different areas. orphans in limpopo indicated that the majority (88.2%) could share their feelings with others while in the north-west province only 53.6% could do so. an average of 61.6% of orphans still grieved about the death of their parents during the research. stigmatisation campbell, foulis, maimane and sibiya (2005, p. 808) see stigmatisation as an effective form of "social psychological policing" by punishing those who have breached unequal power relations of gender, generation, and ethnicity. surely stigmatisation is one of the major problems for orphans nowadays. literature reflects a very negative experience by those affected by the death of relatives (brown, macintyre, & trujillo, 2003, p. 51). the sources of stigma may include factors like fear of illness or contagion as well as fear of death (brown et al., 2003, p. 51). orphans experience gossip and stigma as a great problem and talking about the death of parents and spreading rumours about the reasons for the death is a burden for those staying behind (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 323). children drop out of school not only because they do not have school fees, or money to buy books and uniforms, but very often because of stigma (ebersöhn & eloff, 2002, p.79; foster 2005, p. 72). to address the problem of stigmatisation, community networks will have to become part of the solution. this point of view is endorsed by campbell et al., (2005, p. 811) who indicate that much has been written about the roles of "civic engagement" and “local solidarity as key assets in poor communities" to find solutions to their own problems as united communities. questions to underpin the issue of stigmatisation were formulated and the responses of orphans are reflected in table 12. de witt & lessing 474 table 10. orphans’ responses on their experience of stigmatisation area people think i am different because i don’t have parents i prefer to keep it secret that i do not have parents limpopo 45.3% 43.6% north-west 46.0% 45.2% swaziland 40.6% 36.4% total 43.9% 41.7% the responses regarding stigmatisation were not alarmingly high. orphans in the north-west province were the highest, with 46.0% agreeing that they experience a feeling of differentness and 45.2% saying that they would like to keep it a secret that they do not have parents. silence is encouraged primarily because hiv infection has been socially constructed as a product of moral or character deficiency. especially adolescents may feel guilty as result of the disclosure of their mother’s hiv status, resulting in feelings of shame and anger (reyland et al., 2002, p. 286). conclusion caution reflected by different researchers that can be supported by us is that one needs to distinguish which factors are specific to orphanhood, or to poverty in general (cluver & gardner, 2007, p. 324; henderson, 2006, p. 305). the research was done in very deep rural areas in which poverty is rampant. the authorities will have to assist the communities in addressing this issue of poverty as a matter of urgency. as very little literature or research findings are available regarding orphans in developing countries, we did not have any statistical findings against which we could reflect our findings. we are, however, more than aware that circumstances as well as outlook on life of orphans from developed countries or even urban settings might differ from those of developing or deep rural areas. when working with these children, facilitators, caregivers and researchers should pay special attention to the context and cultural beliefs and practices of the communities in which they work. bereavement practices and approaches fit for developed communities might be of little value in developing settings. one of the assets of the african context is surely the role of the extended family and the community in supporting those who are left behind. even the way the dead are closely folded into the living world through their burial in homesteads, and through rituals that transform them into ancestral followers who, it is believed, continue to take a keen interest in the affairs of the living, cannot be denied (henderson, 2006, p. 322). it is interesting that within a southern african perspective an average of 41.7% orphans feel afraid that they would be removed from their homes. this once again emphasises the fact that institutional options for orphans are not necessarily the answer in this context. psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 475 the findings from this survey are a clear indication that findings from research done in rural areas should not necessarily be the same for orphans living in developed countries or urban areas. people working with orphans in these areas will have to do thorough, authentic research before they intervene in the lives of members of these communities. the strong presence of mutual and cultural support systems needs to be interrogated by those who want to help. bibliography brown, l., macintyre, k. & trujillo, l. 2003. interventions to reduce hiv/aids stigma: what have we learned. aids education and prevention, 15(1), 49-69. the guildford press. campbell, c., foulis, c.a., maimane, s. & sibiya, z. 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(2005). grieving, sharing, and healing. a guide for facilitating early adolescent bereavement groups. champaign: research press. neuman, w.l. (2006). social research methods. qualitative and quantitative approaches. (6th ed.). new york: pearson. nyamukapa, c.a., gregson, s., lopman, b., saito, s., watts, h.j., monasch, r. & jukes, m.c.h. (2008). hiv-associated orphanhood and children’s psychosocial distress: theoretical framework tested with data from zimbabwe. american journal of public health. 98(1), 133141. pellegrini, a.d., symons, f.j. & hoch, j. (2004). observing children in their natural worlds. a mythological primer. (2nd ed.). london: lawrence erlbaum associates. pharaoh, r. (2004). a generation at risk? hiv/aids, vulnerable children and security in southern africa. pretoria: institute for security studies. poggenpoel, m. (1998). data analysis in qualitative research. in a.s. de vos (ed.): research at grass roots. a primer for the caring professions. pretoria: van schaik: 331-336. reyland, s.a., higgins-d’alessandro, a. & mcmahon, t.j. (2002). tell them you love them because you never know when things could change: voices of adolescents living with hiv-positive mothers. aids care, 4(2), 285–294. psychosocial well-being of orphans in southern africa td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 461 477. 477 robson, s. & sylvester, k.b. (2007). orphaned and vulnerable children in zambia: the impact of the hiv/aids epidemic on basic education for children at risk. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 48:8, 755–763. rossouw, d. (ed.) (2003). intellectual tools: skills for the human sciences. (2nd ed.) cape town: creda communications. santrock, j. (2000). psychology. ( 6th ed.). mcgraw-hill: new york. scheurich, j.j. (1997). research method in the postmodern. london: falmer. smith, e.e., bem, d.j. & nolen-hoeksema, s. (2001). fundamentals of psychology. harcourt college: new york. temane, q.m. & wissing, m.p. 2008. the role of personality factors in the dynamics of context and psychological well-being. journal of psychology in africa. 18(1), 105114. wadeley, a., birch, a. & malim. t. (1997). perspectives in psychology. london: macmillan. waweru, s.m., reynolds, a. & buckner, e.b. (2008). perceptions of children with hiv/aids from the usa and kenya: self-concept and emotional indicators. pediatric nursing, 34(2), 119. woolfolk, a. (2010). educational psychology. (11th ed.). upper saddle river: pearson international. zhao, g., li, x., fang, x., zhao, j., yang, h. & stanton, b. (2007). care arrangements, grief and psychological problems among children orphaned by aids in china. aids care, 19(9), 1075-1082. abstract introduction the nature and importance of work technological proliferation and technology paradoxes technology and capitalism workplace implications concluding remarks acknowledgements references about the author(s) geoff goldman department of business management, college of business and economics, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa department of international management, faculty of economics and international relations, krakow university of economics, krakow, poland citation goldman g. ‘we are all just prisoners here of our own device’: the moral challenge of balancing technology, work and capitalistic pursuits. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a899. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.899 original research ‘we are all just prisoners here of our own device’: the moral challenge of balancing technology, work and capitalistic pursuits geoff goldman received: 16 june 2020; accepted: 12 oct. 2020; published: 21 jan. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract although technological proliferation is a reality in a 4ir world, and has immense potential to increase the efficiency and quality of work, it is accompanied by workplace practices that there is no benchmark for. these practices have the potential to unsettle traditional work routines, traditional work/non-work boundaries, and to disturb peoples’ work life balance irreparably. against this backdrop, this paper explores the parameters of morally acceptable organisational practices in terms of usage and expectations of ict’s. through adopting a critical scholarly stance, this paper dialectically investigates the nature of work and the importance people associate with it, the ways in which technology impacts work and peoples’ lives, and uncovers how technology enables control over labour in a capitalist society. the effect the current technological explosion has been far reaching and is effecting every sphere of life. as we try to make sense of 4ir, we are also redefining our different contexts and the role technology and ict play in each of these. we are noticing a definite blurring of spaces that, not too long ago, had distinct parameters. keywords: 4th industrial revolution; autonomy; capitalism; control; ‘goods of work’; morality; technology; technology paradox. introduction as we forge ahead into the 21st century, it is clear that the rate of technological proliferation is unrelenting and there are no indications that this proliferation is likely to slow down in the immediate future.1 the effect of this technology explosion has been far reaching and effects literally every sphere of life. the impact of technology, and especially information and communications technology (ict), has reached our workplaces, our places of relaxation and our homes.2,3 as we try to make sense of the fourth industrial revolution (4ir), we are also redefining our different contexts and the role of technology and ict in each of these contexts.1,4 as we explore the capabilities and possibilities presented by technology and ict in our workplaces and in our homes, we are noticing a definite blurring of spaces that, not too long ago, had distinct parameters.5 we take our work home, we take our entertainment to work, we are connected and within reach wherever we go. yet, just as we need to come to terms with the capabilities and possibilities that technology and ict offer, so too, we need to come to terms with some of the realities these technologies have brought with them. the reality of cyberbullying and the triple-a nature of technology (anywhere, anytime, at the press of a button) imply that privacy has assumed a whole new meaning in the modern age.6 we are exposed to the world, even within the confines of our homes. the new social (media) convention is that messages must be answered, immediately. if this is not done, it is frowned upon. if we switch our devices off, we get ridiculed or reprimanded when we switch them back on again. in much the same vein, vocational realities and expectations have also changed as technology and ict have filtered into every sphere of our lives.7 line managers feel it is acceptable to communicate with subordinates after hours, and to request tasks to be performed after hours. very often these requests are accompanied by deadlines such as ‘first thing in the morning’ or ‘by monday morning’. the question that inadvertently arises is, ‘are emergent organisational practices and expectations associated with modern technology morally acceptable?’ there can be no doubt that the technological proliferation has had definite advantages as far as workplace applications are concerned.8,9 the current coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic is a prime example. during the ‘lockdowns’ imposed in many countries around the word, people were able to still fulfil their work duties from home, thereby keeping the economy going. our technological advancements have enabled us to take the office with us. wherever we are, our offices and workplaces are there too. this is a definite advantage for humankind as a whole, and is beyond question. however, the question above delves into the issue of what is deemed acceptable within the parameters of this new technological reality.1,10 of course, this depends on which side of the coin you are looking at. from the organisational perspective, such actions are warranted and even necessary to ensure organisational efficiency at all times. yet, this organisational view forgoes any morally acceptable point of view, and it is purely an economically sensible point of view. it marginalises people’s right to privacy, does not respect working hours and assumes that people are at the behest of the organisation on terms that the organisation has discretion over. the objective of this article, therefore, is to ascertain where the parameters of morally acceptable organisational practices lie in our 4ir world. to this end, the article employs a critical dialectical approach to ultimately present an argument regarding people’s current reality in a technology dominated world. once these problematic areas are better understood, more amicable and pragmatic solutions to these issues could be sought. to present an argument of what is morally acceptable as far as the usage and application of technology for organisational purposes is concerned, this article starts off by delving into the aspect of ‘work’ per se, and what intrinsic value work brings to people’s lives. next, the discussion will turn to the rise of technology, but more specifically to the paradoxes associated with technological proliferation. then the discussion will premise that technology has become another capitalist mechanism to subjugate the working class and professional workers, and to exercise more control over them. the nature and importance of work performing work in exchange for payment has become one of the main forms of social cooperation in modern societies.11 the overwhelming majority of people need to work in order to make a living through the wage gained in exchange of work performed. yet, wages – or money – alone is not the only benefit people derive from performing work. apart from wages, people draw certain particular benefits or ‘goods’ from work, and this acts as a motivator to work.12 these ‘goods of work’ can also be seen as the ways in which work can be meaningful, both on a personal and at a societal level.12,13,14 the first of these ‘goods’ has to do with the idea that people strive to attain excellence, in one form or another, in their work. this is a regulative ideal which broadly translates to the accomplishment of certain things that are of importance to the individual. murphy15 argues that achieving excellence embodies the nexus of intellect and practice – two elements central to aristotle’s conception of work. thus, excellence can be seen as the culmination of conceptualisation and practice, which takes time to achieve.16 the individual therefore constantly focusses on what needs to be accomplished, and applies his or her intellect in novel ways over time through various iterations to not only accomplish what they have set their sights on, but also to accomplish it at or beyond a certain level of performance expectation. thus, it can be concluded that excellence involves more than merely accomplishment of certain things, but rather implies mastery of these things.17,18 this mastery also implies the opportunity for individuals to develop their abilities in order to achieve excellence, which is an intrinsic motivator in itself.12 a further ‘good’ of work is an individual’s need to contribute to society in some form or another. the context of paid work provides a natural setting for the pursuit of societal contribution, as individuals spend most of their time in this setting and because this context provides a platform for identifying what aspects of work can be transformed into social utility.12 finding a link between daily work and the contribution it makes to the greater society is an essential source of deriving meaning from work for many individuals, and impacts positively job satisfaction, job engagement and ultimately job retention.19 terkel20 sums up the need to make a positive societal contribution as: … the search for daily meaning as well as daily bread. (p. 11) another ‘good’ forthcoming from work is that work contributes to individuals’ sense of community.12 according to francis et al.21: … an individuals’ feeling of belonging and contributing to a group and the individuals within that group, functioning together in a common belief that everyone’s needs will be met through their commitment to the group and to one another. (p. 401) this sense of community is not only derived from work, and most probably plays an important role in why people join specific interest groups such as sports clubs, hobby clubs and civil agencies. however, the sense of community forthcoming from paid work represents a specific experience in itself, as individual effort contributes to the effort of the collective in a context where most individuals spend the majority of their time and effort outside the family context.22 gheaus and herzog12 caution that organisational structure can play a role in the sense of community experienced by individuals. in this regard, the basic unequal power relations prevalent in organisations structured hierarchically according to conventional, capitalist canon, forthcoming from the ‘legitimate’ forms of authority built into and associated with it,23 often lead to situations where these relations are governed by power alone. this is because an individual employee is more reliant on the organisation to make a livelihood than the latter being reliant on the individual to realise a profit. where these power imbalances become excessive, the feeling of community is diminished. the final ‘good’ forthcoming from work is the recognition individuals receive for work, not necessarily from the organisation that employs them, but rather from peer groups, family, immediate community and society at large. people, therefore, also perform paid work for the social recognition they receive. as is the case with people’s need to experience a sense of community, and most of the ‘goods’ of work introduced above, paid work is not the only source of social recognition, but as people spend a large amount of time in working, it provides the greatest amount of opportunity for gaining social recognition.12 social recognition – both inside and outside the organisation – is important to individuals as it serves as recognition for their achievements.24 furthermore, social recognition is not only sought by individuals for the type of work they do, but also for the position they occupy within the organisational hierarchy, which stems from the prominence of work in modern, capitalist-orientated societies. these ‘goods’ associated with work, as identified by gheaus and herzog,12 are neither mutually exclusive nor dependent on one another. for example, albert einstein worked in the bern patent office in bern whilst developing his theory of relativity, which he published in 1905.25 this was certainly not a job that provided him with a sense of community or social recognition. he aspired to a teaching post at a university and only took up the patent office job because he could not secure a teaching post. yet, he used the opportunity to focus on his research – thus aspiring to achieve excellence – which came with the publication of four groundbreaking papers in 1905, of which his paper on the theory of relativity was one.25 by 1909, einstein was recognised as a prominent physicist and occupied the position of associate professor at the university of zurich, thereby having achieved social recognition and a sense of community. however, as his work was mostly theoretical, he found an opportunity to contribute to society with his input on the manhattan project, which developed the first nuclear weapon and helped put an end to world war ii.26 although einstein was a pacifist, he realised the threat to humanity posed by the axis powers, and he was committed to doing his part in eliminating that threat. thus, his contribution to society was not in the development of nuclear weapons, but rather in seeking to strive for a world that would be free from the dehumanising scourges of the axis powers. furthermore, it needs to be emphasised that these ‘goods’ of work are also not absolutes, but rather are manifested in degrees. thus, these ‘goods’ need to be conceptualised as continuums, with individuals occupying positions that reflect varying degrees of each ‘good’.12 however, work is not always associated with good. the other side of the argument is also apparent, and paid work is also associated with many ills. apart from monetary and material ills, such as insufficient wage, or the lack of benefits such as, inter alia, medical aid, pension or an annual bonus, many of the main ills associated with work are associated with the absence of the non-monetary ‘goods’ introduced above. very seldom will people occupy a job which is totally devoid of the ‘goods’ associated with work for any discernible length of time. a job which is totally devoid of the ‘goods’ of work will soon feel arduous, compulsory, dull and repetitive. however, there are some ills of work that are not merely attributed to the absence of the ‘goods’ associated with work, but are rather forthcoming from the inability to ensure more common ‘goods’.12 these more common ‘goods’ include respecting freedom and self-determination of individuals, respect for individuals’ leisure time and free time, respect for the right of non-domination and ensuring the health of employees. to ascertain what is morally acceptable in terms of organisational practices in the modern, technology-dominated world, it is imperative to understand how technology impacts the ‘goods’ associated with work and also how it impacts the more common ‘goods’ that filter through into the workplace, as sketched above. our technological advancements certainly have the capability of positively contributing to the ‘goods’ associated with work. in terms of excellence, technology has a definite positive contribution to make. architects and other design professionals rely on technology to aspire to perfection of their craft. computerised software and rapid prototyping are indispensable tools of their professions, allowing far more detailed conceptualisation of their ideas. rapid prototyping, for example, allows industrial designers to create a three-dimensional rendition of their design ideas which can be refined into a final prototype. communication technologies and the information available on the internet have allowed academics, for example, to transform the way they teach and conduct research. in terms of teaching, academics can utilise blended learning, conduct on line assessments and be far more interactive with students than what was possible three decades ago. however, the mere presence of technology does not ensure excellence on the part of the individual. technology provides the possibility to achieve excellence, but the onus still rests upon the individual to take advantage of the possibilities offered by technology. furthermore, it is crucial that the organisation provides technology in order for individuals to achieve excellence. it is obvious that the achievement of excellence is not only an intrinsic motivator for individual employees, but also a contributing factor for achieving maximum efficiency of the labour force. technology is more than just a potential source of competitive advantage for an organisation, and it has also become an essential requirement. it is evident that technology has set certain minimum standards, and if organisations do not invest enough in technology to meet these minimum standards, they will not be able to compete on an equal footing with their competitors in the marketplace. in terms of technology, thus, it is definitely a contributing factor in individuals’ attainment of excellence and contributes to this ‘good’ if the organisation has invested sufficiently in it, and on the correct type of technology necessary. one can therefore safely deduce that insufficient investment in technology, or investment in the wrong type of technology, will detract from individuals’ ability to achieve excellence, turning this into an ill. technology also has a potential role to play in individuals’ sense of contributing to society. communication technology, social media and the internet have caused an information explosion, and people interact with and provide feedback to organisations much more readily via social media. thus, the organisation, and hence also those people that are employed by the organisation, come to hear about how their products and services have impacted people’s lives in the broader community. this feedback, however, can be both positive and negative, and although negative feedback can detract from a sense of contributing to society, it could, at the same time, act as an impetus for corrective action. furthermore, as new technologies lower production costs over time, social responsibility programmes become cheaper for the organisation, and more can be done for the upliftment of societies with available budgets. for example, think of solar powered geysers offered to low-cost housing projects. whilst solar power was only accessible to more affluent societies a few decades ago, the technology is more advanced and much cheaper today, and less privileged communities are able to take advantage of this. social media and the internet have a definite role to play in individuals’ sense of community and belonging, as well as people’s need for social recognition. social media platforms, such as facebook, twitter and whatsapp, are used by organisations to create formal communities that contribute to a sense of belonging amongst individuals. furthermore, informal groups aimed at more social endeavours are also formed on these platforms by employees that contribute to this sense even further. these platforms also create avenues for social recognition. this can be formal, for example, where employees’ achievements are posted on the organisation’s facebook page by the ceo, or informal, where individuals, for example, share a particular achievement or award with peers on a whatsapp group. however, the effects of technology on the more common ‘goods’ that filter into the organisational setting are more subtle. attainment of these more common ‘goods’ seems to conflict with some of the canons of capitalism, and unregulated capitalist systems are therefore frequently accused of undermining the basic standards of justice and acting in an immoral fashion.27 for example, whilst organisations uphold basic standards of physical safety (more often than not prescribed by law), very little regard exists for psychological well-being of employees. line managers seldom contemplate the effect that orders, requests, deadlines and messages will have on an individual’s mental state. the hierarchical position line managers occupy legitimises these actions and subordinates are expected to accept these and deal with it irrespective of their moral positioning. furthermore, the seniority prescribed by the organisational hierarchy is very often extended outside the organisational setting, which disregards the right to non-domination. for example, when a subordinate meets his or her line manager in the queue at a bank, she might still refer to him as ‘sir’, or a line manager seeing a group of subordinates after work at a café walks over and dominates the conversation, displaying the same domineering behaviour as at work. again, within the organisational setting these practices are justified as functions of seniority, which is questionable in itself, but outside the organisational setting this hierarchical relationship does not exist and should not be perpetuated. unfortunately, as much as it holds many benefits, as alluded to above, technology definitely has the propensity to compromise the basic conditions of a decent life. social media platforms make it easier to communicate with fellow employees, but the ‘faceless’ nature of social media makes it easier to say things that people might be cautious of saying face-to-face. thus, social media subjects subordinates not only to a barrage of communication, but very often this communication leads to unnecessary stress and psychological burden. furthermore, if subordinates ignore the communication or turn devices off, the consequences could be dire. the situation sketched above brings a couple of dilemmas to the fore. firstly, technology creates an environment where personal time can seriously be encroached upon, as communication can take place anywhere and at any time. secondly, technology enables misuse of the hierarchical power relations between line manager and subordinate in that requests to perform work outside of office hours are forthcoming. very often, requests to perform a task ‘by first thing in the morning’ are sent the previous evening, which is morally questionable. also, technology enables a situation where the hierarchical arrangement prevalent in the organisational setting transcends the boundaries of the organisation and finds its way into the personal and private lives of individuals. for example, an individual might occupy the position of a clerk in a financial institution performing many menial tasks at the request of his or her line manager, but in his or her private life he or she is a family person with two children. in his or her family capacity, he or she is the head of the household and the rock of the family. however, the advent of technology has seen requests for menial tasks and arduous errands continue after hours and over weekends. the final result is that the individual no longer feels like the head of his or her family. the organisational hierarchy has filtered into his or her private life, causing him or her to experience the same emotions that he or she associates with work at home. this is an unjust scenario, undermining that individual’s ability to lead a decent life. if one considers both the ‘goods’ associated with work and the common ‘goods’ that filter through into the workplace that have been expounded upon in this section, it becomes apparent that these factors provide individuals with a sense of finding meaningfulness in the work they do. this provides significance to the work people perform on a daily basis, which makes the mundane and routine ‘going through the motions’ of paid work all seem worthwhile, and provides the individual with a sense of being part of ‘something bigger’.11,28 meaningful work contributes positively to a meaningful life,29 which is an ideal every human being strives for.30,31 thus, factors that detract from or erode meaningful work have a negative impact on trying to attain a meaningful life.11 it stands to reason that these should be avoided or eliminated at all cost. it is the violation of especially the common ‘goods’ that filter into the workplace in the era of 4ir that is of special interest. it is not that technology itself is responsible for violating people’s right to private and free time, and violating people’s right to non-domination. people do that. but technology has provided people with the means to enact these moral injustices. technology, thus, is the enabler for these things to occur. to illuminate this issue even further, the discussion now turns to the proliferation of technology, and certain paradoxes that have been forthcoming from this proliferation. technological proliferation and technology paradoxes the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century have witnessed a spurt of unprecedented technological advancement that has filtered into every aspect of people’s lives. information and communications technologies especially have witnessed the birth of a ‘triple-a’ work culture, one where people are available ‘anytime, anywhere, and at the press of a button’,1,6 also referred to as an ‘always on’ culture.32 in 2019, cellular telephone networks were available to 97% of the world’s population, with more than 8 billion cellular phone subscriptions and more than 4 billion internet users.33 furthermore, the ict devices themselves have also increased vastly in versatility, allowing for a greater scope of tasks to be performed on them. this access to communication channels and unlimited connectivity at all times has witnessed work tasks being performed with greater efficiency and ease, thereby empowering individuals to perform daily work tasks with greater freedom and autonomy of movement.4 it is obvious that the technological proliferation we are experiencing in the 4ir has definite advantages, which cannot be denied. the advantages forthcoming from this era of increased technology availability and usage reported in the literature include increased access to information, which enables flexible work arrangements,1 and increased efficiency of communication,8 which contributes to a sense of professional competence and control,34 increased autonomy over the work performed2 and a heightened sense of satisfaction derived from work.35 some studies have also suggested that the availability and usage of ict lead to higher levels of work engagement and decreased levels of exhaustion.9,36 yet, for all the advantages associated with these technological advancements, literature abounds with disadvantages associated with technology explosion. these include working longer hours,37,38 blurring of the work and non-work boundaries,3,39 which affecting people’s work–life balance,1,40 frequent interruptions and an accumulation of unanticipated tasks,41 increased stress because of work overload and a fear of losing control,7 and burnout.10 all of these can negatively impact people’s health, both physiologically and psychologically.9,42 these advantages and disadvantages associated with technology contain certain contradictions. for example, on the one hand, it is purported that ict contributes to a sense of professional competence and control, thus enabling individuals to feel more autonomous in their work roles. however, frequent interruptions from emails and text messages, an accumulation of unforeseen tasks and the pressures associated with extending the working day can lead to a sense of losing control and feeling less in charge of one’s work environment. these contradictions have given rise to certain paradoxes associated with the use of technology in the organisational setting.1,2,3,4,5,43 a paradox implies that the pursuit of specific goals is associated with actions that negate the goal. it contains elements and actions that are productive and counterproductive at the same time. these elements and actions, although contradictory, are inter-related and exist alongside one another.3 the eight paradoxes identified by jarvenpaa and lang5 are seemingly the most widely cited. these paradoxes will be expounded upon in the following. the empowerment/enslavement paradox: information and communications technology has empowered users with new possibilities associated with the ‘always on’ nature thereof. people can access information and be in conversation with others irrespective of their location or time of day, and can therefore take charge and deal with situations in both professional and personal settings. information and communication technologies enable higher productivity, provide more flexibility in work and allow for more efficient ways of coordinating people and work activities. yet, the ‘always on’ nature of icts erases distance between people and diminishes certain freedoms that people hold dear. people fear that that they are being monitored more closely with icts and that there is no more separation of work and personal time. furthermore, people feel pressured to respond to work-related communication, irrespective of when it comes through, which creates feelings of entrapment. thus, for all the positives associated with the ‘always on’ nature of icts, people feel that it invades their privacy and erases the boundaries between work time and non-work time. the independence/dependence paradox: although technology allows for greater independence of the individual user to access information and communicate with others anytime and anywhere, the flipside is that users become dependent on the very idea of being connected, to the extent that being without a cellular phone, or even switching it off, is an unthinkable eventuality. people who are dependent on icts exhibit great discomfort with not being connected, as the anticipation of receiving an important message is overwhelming, and not answering a call or not immediately responding to a text message is seemingly a social taboo. the fulfilling vs. creating needs paradox: although icts have clearly fulfilled certain needs in society, they in turn give rise to a new set of demands, which in turn also creates new demands. it is thus a situation of ‘the new solutions create even newer problems’. for example, for all the benefits icts provide with mobile banking, it has created a situation where online security is a major concern. in turn, mobile banking, as well as other sites (especially those that make provision for financial transactions), is incorporating more biometric access control measures, which in turn places more pressure on hardware manufacturers and app developers to incorporate biometric features into devices. the competence/incompetence paradox: information and communications technology has opened up a whole new set of competencies for users, allowing them to do things that were not possible in the past. however, in an effort to perform new tasks, or to perform known tasks more efficiently, people are often confronted with situations where the technology does not live up to expectation or turns out to be far more difficult to use than anticipated. this leads to a newfound sense of incompetence by users. apart from these feelings of technological incompetence, jarvenpaa and lang5 also cite instances where icts diminished current competence. for example, users rely on electronic memory at the expense of their own memory (e.g. memorising telephone numbers), and predictive text diminishes people’s spelling competence. the planning/improvisation paradox: although icts enable users to better plan and coordinate work activities, their diaries and social activities, it seems as though people are more reliant on technology and thus actually spend less time on these planning activities, as technology allows people to make up for a lack of planning through continuous improvisation. for example, instead of briefing invitees to a meeting properly as to the purpose of a meeting, people all too often just attach a plethora of attachments, which does not allow for proper preparation for a meeting. also, being late for an appointment is far more acceptable, as a call or text message explaining the delay and rescheduling around this is deemed acceptable, often disguising basic bad planning. the engaging/disengaging paradox: although icts allow people to engage with anyone at any time and in any location, it also means that the engagement they are physically busy with needs to be broken off. thus, to engage with the mobile device means disengagement with the physical setting. this disengagement from the physical setting through heightened online engagement is seen as detrimental, as it diminishes people’s ability to interact face-to-face with other people. the public/private paradox: information and communications technology devices are seen as private tools enabling personal communication, and users are also able to set up their own private communication in the virtual realm which are free of physical or temporal constraints. yet, private conversations and actions increasingly cross over into the public domain, creating friction between people and infringes upon people’s privacy and basic freedom. in this regard, hearing only one side of a telephone call, or seeing a text message in isolation and out of context with accompanying messages by a spouse, for example, can create suspicion and confrontation, which could cause the person to take calls in private or delete text messages. furthermore, there is also a tendency that people assume different roles in the physical and virtual worlds, exhibiting behaviours in the virtual realm that seem out of place in the physical one. the illusion/disillusion paradox: this is closely associated with the competence/incompetence paradox and is associated with the promise presented by new hardware and apps. new technological offerings bring with them the allure of more capabilities. however, adoption of these new technologies often realises feelings of disappointment and disillusionment, as these new technologies do not live up to expectation. think, for example, of the promise presented by the ipad before its release as a device that embodies the capabilities of both a mobile phone and a personal computer. however, people were soon disappointed by the fact that ipads to not support data storage devices such as cd-rom or usb drives. although different researchers have presented a host of paradoxes, the work of jarvenpaa and lang5 seems the seminal point of departure from which other views on these paradoxes were borne. these paradoxes highlight some important contradictions regarding technology and ict consumption in the modern era, and one could use these paradoxes as a point of departure to ascertain how technology impacts the ‘goods’ associated with work, as well as the impact technology has on the more common ‘goods’ that filter through into the workplace. to help highlight this, the discussion now turns to the ways in which technology and icts help sustain and enable the ideology of capitalism as the pervasive ideology that governs the way most organisations are managed. technology and capitalism to fathom the moral nature of new workplace practices associated with technological proliferation and ict usage, it would be prudent to first understand the ways in which this technological proliferation supports the ideals of capitalism. capitalism, as we know it today, is the modern equivalent of the imperialist and colonialist projects that accompanied the enlightenment era in europe. in this era, certain institutions were created to oversee imperialist and colonial interests, such as the dutch east india company (voic – vereenigde oos indische companjie) and the british south africa company (bsca). the first and second industrial revolutions witnessed the rise of capitalism, and associated with it, the growth of ‘big business’ which we are familiar with today. to sustain themselves and to thrive, ideologies are dependent on artefacts and institutions that are created over time, and that entrench the ideology even further. extreme examples of this are secret police units created under authoritarian regimes to subdue any form of dissidence amongst the populace, of which the most widely known are the gestapo (geheime staatspolizei) in nazi germany and the stasi (staatssicherheitsdienst) in communist east germany. although these are extreme examples that enforced and perpetuated ideologies through fear rather than more subtle forms of compliance, the fact is that these institutions and artefacts are needed in order to ensure the longevity of the ideology. they serve to enshrine the ideology and canvas support for it by means of portrayal of the victory of the said ideology over competing ideologies. in terms of capitalism as an ideology, big corporations, business schools at universities, employer organisations and entrepreneurial success stories are the types of institutions and artefacts used to sustain and grow itself. both the ‘big-business’ corporation and the entrepreneur are revered under capitalism and are seen as a manifestation of the capitalist ideal. within the realm of the organisation, the managerial echelons have achieved a special status within capitalism as the professional ‘elite’. within capitalism, the basic factors of production (capital, natural resources, labour and management) have to work together in order for the business to be in a position to function properly and produce the products and services it has set out to produce, and to bring these products and services to market. this is associated with coordination of effort, a task ascribed to and overseen by management. it is also associated with cooperation between the factors, especially between the factors of capital, labour and management. this relation between management and labour within the capitalist project has been the subject of much scholarly endeavour, inciting interest from seminal scholars such as marx, foucault and weber.44 karl marx was of the opinion that this cooperation in a capitalist society is a forced relationship. he purports that the contract entered into between employee and employer is not a free contract, but driven by the canonisation of capital.45 he argues that the employee is compelled to work out of necessity and has the liberty to contract as an equal in the labour market. this, in turn, brings into question the notion of the ‘double interest of work’,44 which posits that people work to pursue self-interest and that, through this self-interest, they also engage in an endeavour to pursue the interests of the organisation. this ‘double interest’ is seen by some scholars to be simply untrue.44,46 instead, marx argues that this forced relationship sees employee and employer set against one another. this results in an incompatible, antagonistic hierarchical relationship between capital and labour, where capital deems it necessary to control labour in order to obtain value.44,45 this, in turn, becomes the defining characteristic of the employment relationship, and ‘management’ the tool to enforce such control.47 the employment relationship sketched above is not the only manifestation of this forced cooperation. this forced cooperation is also seen as a product of what hanlon44 refers to as the ‘disciplining necessity of the valorisation of capital’. this postulates that labour is brought together to produce something (i.e. products or services) that will lead to capital increasing itself. this is contrary to the notion that labour is congregated to produce something that satisfies a need in society, although this occurs as a consequence. hanlon44 thus posits that profit drives this cooperation. as profits are realised over time and capital increases, so too does the concentration of labour increase. in other words, as capital increases, the organisation increases the scope of its activities and more people are employed, thereby increasing the number of employees involved in this cooperation process. yet, as marx45 explains, this is also accompanied by labours’ resistance to capital, as this cooperation increasingly seems like exploitation of the workforce. it also becomes apparent to labour that the necessary cooperation is not something they have autonomy over, but rather it is controlled by the owners of capital through the actions of the management corps. management, then, becomes pivotal in transforming individual ability into a unified corps of labour power.48 along with this, management is also associated with integrating the efforts of labour power with the other forces of production to create surplus value for the owners of capital. what one is left with at the end of the day is a constant struggle between labour and capital, which is represented by management. labour constantly rebels against management, feeling ever more entrapped and enslaved by a relationship that is by its very nature disparate. management is continually focusing its efforts on controlling labour, stemming rebellion from the labour corps and maximising efficiency from labour.49 thus, it is the control of labour that lies at the heart of the capitalist ideology.50 this control enables optimal integration of all available factors of production to create surplus value for the owners of capital. with the argument highlighted above in mind, the attention shifts back to technology, and specifically icts, that has permeated our lives. to what extent does technology enable the capitalist control of labour? from the arguments presented so far in this article, the answer is a resounding: to a very large extent. yet, the controlling character of technology implies an indirect and more subtle form of control to be exerted over individuals. most prominent here is the empowerment/enslavement paradox as identified by jarvenpaa and lang.5 technology enables greater work efficiency, thereby creating the illusion of being empowered, but ultimately technology enables management to enforce greater control over labour. wearable and other self-tracking technologies (wstt) are increasingly making their way into the work realm, thereby exerting greater – and in many cases overt – control over the workforce.51,52 the pervasiveness of the control inherent in this empowerment/enslavement paradox does not necessarily deter from the ‘goods of work’,12 as presented earlier in this article. technology has a definite, positive contribution to make in terms of achieving excellence, contributing to society in general and the community in particular, thereby achieving recognition. for these ‘goods of work’, the lack of their presence is indicative of an ill of work, according to gheaus and herzog.12 however, when viewing the more common ‘goods’ that filter into the workplace, it is apparent that technology has the potential to enable capital, through management, to exert tremendous control over labour. the ‘always on’ culture that technology and ict have brought with them, coupled with the blurring of work life and non-work life, the adoption of wstts, has led to a situation where control over the labour force is tantamount to total control, thus bordering on a state of domination over labour. the irony of this whole situation is that, more often than not, labour has welcomed this technological domination. under the banner of advancement, increased efficiency and greater access to information, labour has adopted technology as the key to a better life. yet, the very freedoms and advancements that lured labour to adopt these technologies in the first place have turned out to be the very things that enslave them even further.53 as alluded to, technology has the propensity to exert a very subtle form of control, which, of course, would suite the owners of capital and their management corps perfectly. this is not a direct form of control where directives come from management and labour can identify the owners of capital, through management, as the focus of their dissatisfaction. technology does not create the heightened control: it enables it. yet, this only becomes apparent once the control has already been tightened.52 this makes technology a precarious tool. as a mechanism to tighten control over labour, it totally disrespects people’s free-time and leisure time, and shows little regard for people’s right to non-domination and self-determination. furthermore, it has also not been very respectful of people’s psychological health.49,52 in the hands of the owners of capital, technology can be seen as a dangerous tool. it enables subtle forms of control, manipulation and domination which violate people’s basic freedoms. however, many of these actions are totally acceptable from the perspective of the owners of capital, citing operational efficiencies, the importance of the work task, impending deadlines and other economic arguments as justification for these violations.54,55 this, in turn, leads to a very important question. aspects such as respect for people’s health (both physiological and psychological), the right to self-determination and non-domination, the respect for people’s free-time and leisure time are basic personal freedoms that ought to be respected. any violation of these basic freedoms could be viewed as something that is morally questionable. yet, the organisational justifications are argued to be acceptable where such infringements occur in the name of work. in the light of this, the question is, ‘does economic reasoning take precedence over moral reasoning’? in my view, even the mere postulation of this question is vulgar. economic reasoning should always be subservient to moral reasoning. any attempt to reason otherwise is simply not acceptable in my view. capitalism has always tried to frame itself as ‘something different’ by coining trite phases such as ‘business is business’, ‘when it comes to business, things are different’ or ‘business does not work like that’. to suggest that business and capitalism represent a different form of morality, and that business decisions or actions should be judged separately is arrogant beyond conception. workplace implications this argument thus far has exposed some pertinent issues associated with technological proliferation in times where we are trying to make sense of 4ir. most importantly, the argument has shown that the empowerment/enslavement paradox of jarvenpaa and lang5 is very real and, as technological proliferation continues, will become ever more pervasive. this paradox substantiates the marxist notion of control over the labour force, and has the propensity to take this control to the extreme, even to near slavery. however, this subjugation is so subtle that it is almost welcomed by individuals. the argument as presented in this article is a definite call for a heightened focus on work–life balance. all organisations seemingly hold their ‘human resources’ in high regard. the covid-19 pandemic has even seen organisations calling their employees ‘superheroes’. if this is indeed what the organisation believes – in contrast to merely paying lip service for the purpose of positive public sentiment to boost sales, or share prices – then they need to put their money where their mouths are, and do it sincerely. a good place to start would be organisational guidelines on how to govern communication and ict usage outside of working hours, and what type of communication is acceptable and permissible. however, it is imperative that workers have a voice in this process; otherwise, the potential for exploitation is blatantly apparent. companies like bmw and volkswagen have done exactly that, and have implemented policies limiting access to e-mail and discouraging texting on social media platforms outside of office hours to enhance employee well-being. these types of steps have also been encouraged on a broader, community level (e.g. in germany and france).56,57 as we forge ahead in the technological era, it is apparent that not only the 4ir discourse, but also organisations that operate within this space need to grapple increasingly with the effects of technological proliferation on people, how this impacts their basic freedoms and what steps role-players are going to take to ensure that work–life balance is maintained. all too often, we stare ourselves blind against technology when speaking about 4ir, but the emphasis needs to shift to people and the role they play in this era. concluding remarks as the 4ir surges ahead, it is imperative that the advantages that can be gained through technology proliferation will be offset by the disempowering effects of this very same technology. this is a much more subtle subjugation than the blatant workplace domination and exploitation witnessed during the first and second industrial revolutions. it is more subtle because the very allure thereof is what ultimately turns out to be the entrapment and ultimate control on the part of the owners of capital. much like the eagles lament in ‘hotel california’: ‘we are all just prisoners here of our own device.’58 yet, as we grapple with the reality of what the nature of society, business and the workplace will look like in a post covid-19 world, it has become all too apparent during the covid-19 pandemic just how undervalued labour is (and in the context of covid-19, especially labour providing essential services). what is essential is that the value of labour needs to be emphasised through activism, whatever form that might assume. capital needs to respond to such activism with a less repressive and a more cooperative stance. what is needed is for capital, labour, management and technology need to come together for heightened cooperation in the ‘new world’ we are in. egotistic self-interest, especially on the part of capital, does not seem to be a virtue that will be celebrated any longer. acknowledgements competing interests the author has declared that no competing interest exists. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research work. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for a research. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or 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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10276815/out-of-hours-working-banned-by-german-labour-ministry.html felder, d, frey, g and henley, d. 1976. hotel california. los angeles: asylum records. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 5772. observing representational practices in art and anthropology a transdisciplinary approach r preiser* abstract it has been suggested that anthropology operates in “liminal spaces” which can be defined as “spaces between disciplines”. this study will explore the space where the fields of art and anthropology meet in order to discover the epistemological and representational challenges that arise from this encounter. the common ground on which art and anthropology engage can be defined in terms of their observational and knowledge producing practices. both art and anthropology rely on observational skills and varying forms of visual literacy to collect and represent data. anthropologists represent their data mostly in written form by means of ethnographic accounts, and artists represent their findings by means of imaginative artistic mediums such as painting, sculpture, filmmaking and music. departing from a paradigm that acknowledges the importance of transdisciplinary enquiry, the paper proposes a position suggesting that by combining observational and knowledge producing practices, both anthropology and art can overcome the limits that are inherent in their representational practices. the paper will explore how insights from complexity theory offer the necessary conceptual tools with which anthropology and art can work together in offering solutions to problems of presentation that emerge when dealing with complex issues. keywords: transdisciplinarity, complexity, art, anthropology, knowledge producing practices disciplines: philosophy, art studies, anthropology introduction more recently, in contemporary cultural life, art has come to occupy a space long associated with anthropology, becoming one of the main sites for tracking, representing, and performing the effects of difference in contemporary life. from this perspective, the two arenas are in a more complex and overlapping relationship to one another than ever before. (marcus and myers 1995: 1) based on the common grounds shared by art and anthropology, the paper will explore how knowledge producing methods and representational practices of both fields can influence each other and be woven together in order to represent the contingencies of a complex world more * department of philosophy, university of stellenbosch, private bag x1, matieland, south africa, 7602. email: rika@sun.ac.za preiser   58 authentically. by examining the relationship between art and anthropology, the paper will aim to show that both anthropologists and artists need to be more aware of the possibilities there are to learn from each other in order to have a more effective impact when trying to make sense of the complex fields in which both operate. both art and anthropology rely on observational skills and varying forms of visual literacy to collect and represent data. anthropologists represent their data mostly in written form by means of ethnographic accounts, and artists represent their findings by means of imaginative artistic mediums such as painting, sculpture, filmmaking and music. following the so-called ‘ethnographic turn’, contemporary artists have adopted an ‘anthropological’ gaze, including methodologies, such as fieldwork, in their appropriation of other cultures. anthropologists, on the other hand, in the wake of the ‘writing culture’ critique of the 1980s, are starting to explore new forms of visual research and representational practices that go beyond written texts. the paper will take the form of a transdisciplinary theoretical exploration. the notion “transdisciplinarity” is situated within the larger paradigm of complexity theory as proposed by edgar morin1,2 and paul cilliers.3 following the “logic of complexity” (morin 2008: 20) the term “transdisciplinary” refers to a methodology which gives us a “conceptual tool to think together” (ibid.: 115) those fields of study that seem to be situated in opposing positions within the broader scientific context. the following areas are central and distinguish transdisciplinary inquiry from inter-disciplinary and disciplinary approaches. according to montuori (2005: 154), transdisciplinarity can be summarised as being a methodology that is: * “inquiry-driven rather than exclusively discipline-driven * meta-paradigmatic rather than exclusively intra-paradigmatic * informed by a kind of thinking that is creative, contextualising, and connective (morin’s ‘complex thought’) * (and views) inquiry as a creative process that combines rigor and imagination”. taking its point of departure from the understanding that there are different ways of gathering knowledge about the world, the paper will suggest that by combining different strategies and methods of collecting and interpreting knowledge, disciplines could be enriched by these differences in ways that could change and enrich the knowledge claims that they make. such a process would involve “the recognition of a plurality of epistemologies or positions, each expressing knowledge in different times and space, each in different ways” (montuori 1998: 22). the dialogue between art and anthropology could inform a kind of anthropology that is not hesitant to use visual strategies in the production of ethnographic records. text-based ethnographic models would benefit from “a critical engagement with a range of material and sensual practices in the contemporary arts” (schneider and wright 2006: 4). the paper will examine how representational practices are situated within the various fields of study of respectively anthropology and art. thereafter the paper will attempt to illustrate how the two fields of study 1 . see morin, e. 1992. method: a study of humankind, vol.1. translated by roland bélanger. new york: peter lang publishing. 2 . see morin, e. 2008. on complexity. cresskill: hampton press. 3 . see cilliers, p. 1998. complexity and postmodernism. london & new york: routledge. art  and  anthropology   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 57-72. 59 can combine their representational practices (based on the understanding that both art and anthropology operate in domains rich in complexity) in order to create a transdisciplinary space in which the commonalities and differences can be forged to operate interactively. it is argued that the ways in which anthropologists and artists produce knowledge about the world and how they represent the world, should be explored “for their productive possibilities in developing new strategies of representation” (schneider and wright 2006: 25). the paper therefore promotes an approach that is not wholly of art or anthropology but instead operates around the edges and borders. this study can thus be read as an endeavour to “destabilise from the margins by evoking and re-imagining social, cultural and aesthetic practices not through systematic, social-scientific fieldwork and research but through the capacity of art”, anthropology and our common corporeality to “reveal things in social life that would otherwise remain unseen”. (irving 2006: www.anthropologymatters.com). art’s place in anthropology anthropologists should not stop writing. but perhaps some problems we face when we write linear texts with words as our only tool can be resolved by thinking of anthropology and its representations as not solely verbal, but also visual and not simply linear but multilinear. (sarah pink, 2004) the anthropological study of art is in the process of moving from a place where it has been viewed as a “minority interest”, towards a more “central role in the discipline” (morphy and perkins 2006: 1). in explaining why art was situated at the margins of anthropological studies, morphy and perkins (2006: 1) suggest that “disengagement from art as a subject of study reflected attitudes of anthropologists to material culture”. difficulties in defining art also contributed to this dilemma. traditionally art was seen as something that could be defined in terms of western standards of aesthetic values. caught up in the process of classifying humanity into civilised european societies and exotic others, mid-nineteenth century anthropology included art “with other material cultural objects in the evolutionary schema developed by anthropologists such as pitt rivers (1906), tylor (1871, 1878) and frazer (1925)” (morphy and perkins 2006: 3). from rivers, tylor and frazer’s understanding of art, “art objects” were defined in terms of their similarity or difference vis à vis art forms as found in “contemporary western art practice” (morphy and perkins 2006: 3). this view of art objects has changed over the years and from the 1970s on “(a)rt, broadly defined, provided a major source of information” and offered “insights into systems of representation, the aesthetics of the body, value creating processes, social memory, the demarcation of space and so on” (morphy and perkins 2006: 10). the tendency of art to “move towards the centre” of the discipline can be ascribed to the fact that art has become “associated almost equally with the two senses of the word ‘culture’” (morphy and perkins 2006:1). the two understandings of culture are explained as “culture as a way of life or body of ideas and knowledge, and culture as the metaphysical essence of society, incorporating standards by which the finest products of society are judged” (morphy and perkins 2006:1). similarly, changes in the western art world also resulted in a more serious engagement with anthropology. the artefacts that they saw in museums inspired modernist artists’ work in preiser   60 the early 1900s. the encounter between modernist artists like pablo picasso and african sculpture in parisian museums and collectors’ houses “frequently figures as the prototypical encounter between art and anthropology” (schneider and wright 2006: 29). the encounter with the primitive was instrumental in bringing about changes in “our understanding of what art is and what it does; how it appeals to us, how it affects us, and what we expect from it (schneider and wright 2006: 33). morphy and perkins (2006: 11) agree with schneider and wright when they argue that the “rise of anthropology and the development of modernism in art were related, even though anthropologists neglected to study art either in their own society or in the noneuropean societies that were the primary focus of their research”. observing art’s representational practices starting to write about art’s place and role in society and more specifically its relation to anthropology is as hard as it is to talk about art. harrington (2004: 1) addresses the huge task that one sets up for oneself in venturing into this territory. questions such as the following need to be addressed in order to offer a comprehensive study of the role of art in society: “what is art? can art be defined? how do we know whether something is art or not? does art consist in universally recognisable qualities, or is art simply what different cultural institutions declare about art? can art bring about a better society?” (harrington 2004: 1). morphy and perkins (2006:11) suggest that in order to start the venture on examining what an anthropology of art could look like, two important issues are central to consider: “the definition of art and what characterises an anthropological approach to art. the two are related – an anthropological definition of art is going to be influenced by the nature of anthropology itself”. by tackling the first issue, the study will subscribe to the following working definition of art offered by degenaar (1993: 53): the term art refers both to the imaginative skill applied to design and to the object in which skill is exercised. art designates a range of aesthetic objects which have been given a special status according to certain criteria within a particular convention. an aesthetic object refers to material structured in such a way that it moved a human being by involving especially the imagination. the definition is not intended to be exclusive; rather, it indicates the kind of objects that anthropologists are usually referring to when they focus on “art objects”. components of the definition are likely to be found in most anthropologists’ writing about art. the second issue concerning what characterises an anthropological approach to art, will subscribe to the explanation of harrington (2004: 1), who suggests that “art must be interrogated in the context of the much wider social domain known as ‘culture’” (2004: 2). by situating art within culture, the focus of study shifts from analysing art’s form and contents or even notions of how to judge whether something is art or not, to “the lived experience of the individuals whose engagements with art are in question” (harrington 2004: 3). by placing art in its ethnographic context, the anthropological study of art is one that approaches art “in the context of its producing society” (morphy and perkins 2006: 15). by mentioning art in the same sentence as anthropology, or putting it in a title such as that of this paper, supports the idea that art and anthropology form “equal partners in a joint-venture of art  and  anthropology   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 57-72. 61 cognition of the world” (harrington 2004: 3). such a statement in turn suggests that art “represents a source of existential social knowledge that is of its own worth and is not inferior to the knowledge of social science” (harrington 2004:3). as part of a cultural system, art therefore can convey knowledge about certain things in life in a better way than for instance scientific methods of producing knowledge. this does not mean that art is better in producing knowledge, but that its knowledge claims are different and should be taken seriously as equally legitimate and as not being inferior to so-called scientifically generated methods. seeing as knowing an anthropology of art should not just deal with art as an object for observation or as material object, but it should rather be able to tell us more about the kind of knowledge art produces when people engage with art. the politics of knowing and seeing are important aspects of observation. an anthropology of art should show “how aesthetic frames of perception enter into textual aspects of metaphor, analogy and vignette, into sensuous media of data analysis such as visual images and life-story narratives; and into conceptions of theatrical qualities in social action” (harrington 2004: 6). knowing thus becomes conditional upon seeing (perception), which is conditional upon how an object is represented. what we know and how we interpret it, is influenced by how we see or perceive and vice versa, our observational practices are influenced by what we know. the connection between art and anthropology (whose main form of enquiry is the production of an ethnography by means of participant observation) is then established by the notion of seeing / perceiving / observing. the connection is furthermore strengthened by the shared notion of “representation”. schneider and wright (2006: 26) support these arguments by claiming that “(a)rtists and anthropologists are practitioners who appropriate form, and represent others. although their representational practices have been different, both books and artworks are creative additions to the world; both are complex translations of other realities”. at this point one could mention that one of the aspirations of especially visual art is to solve the puzzle of how to represent the world. kieran (2005: 99) suggests that “(l)ooking at art tests us, stretches us, deepens our inner lives and cultivates insight into both ourselves and the world”. the capacity that visual art has to convey knowledge about the world and how we make sense of the world, is explored in the novel by paul auster called moon palace (1989). one of the characters in the novel is a painter and whilst contemplating how he fits into the world, he stumbles onto the following insight concerning the role of art (auster 1989: 170): the true purpose of art was not to create beautiful objects, he discovered. it was a method of understanding, a way of penetrating the world and finding one’s place in it, and whatever aesthetic qualities an individual canvas might have were almost an accidental by-product of the effort to engage oneself in this struggle, to enter into the thick of things. auster’s description of the purpose of art as explored by the character in his novel is a very good description of how the act of engaging with art can produce knowledge about the world and how to understand ourselves. as kieran (2005: 100) explains, “art works can cultivate insight, understanding and ways of seeing the world”. the ways in which the artist expresses his or her imagination by means of the how the “physical materials, conventions, genres, styles and forms which vivify” are applied in the art work thus “guide and prescribe our responses” (kieran 2005: 102) to understanding the world. hence, the specific knowledge we gain by engaging with works preiser   62 of art contributes not only to an expansion of the “horizons of our minds” (kieran 2005: 102), but works of art also “challenge our pre-existing beliefs, attitudes and values” (kieran 2005: 108) that we have of the world. coinciding with kieran’s notion that art can influence a person’s understanding of reality is gadamer’s claim that “art and aesthetic experience are forms of knowledge” (warnke 1987: 59). such a cognitive understanding of art’s function suggests that the experience of looking at the work of art “can be one in which we recognise the truth of the representation, discard our previous understanding of the subject-matter and incorporate our new understanding into our lives” (warnke 1987: 60). at this stage it is important to qualify that “knowing by seeing” is not an argument for what is in philosophy known as the “metaphysics of presence”. this is a term used in post-structural theories of meaning and especially by jacques derrida, who criticised saussure’s description of the sign. saussure insisted, “the sign has two components, the signifier and the signified, of which one, the signified, is mental or psychological. this would imply that the meaning of a sign is present to the speaker when he uses it, in defiance of the fact that meaning is constituted by a system of differences” (cilliers 1998: 42). this notion assumes that one can determine the meaning of the sign (a visual sign for example) or have full knowledge of it, if the speaker or observer is present to the sign. saussure’s understanding of how meaning arises (and the rest of western philosophy and the tradition of structuralism) rests on the premise that meaning becomes fixed when it is written down (or captured in a picture for example). derrida, however, insists that meaning can never be fixed, seeing that “the meaning of the sign is always unanchored” (cilliers 1998: 42). from this point of view, meaning is never present on the basis that “what we see is what we get”. by just seeing (or hearing) a word (or for that matter a picture or a person) we can never assume that we know it. meaning is derived by actively looking for it in the sign’s relationship with other signs, how it has been framed, who is acting, in which context it appears. we thus cannot separate what we see (as scientists, artists, and people viewing art) “from the world it describes” (cilliers 1998: 43). the following quote serves to illustrate the argument that the politics of knowing, are strongly related to how the subject sees and is being seen in terms of a post-structuralist understanding of these terms: it is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. … the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. … yet this seeing which comes before words, and can never quite be covered by them, is not a question of mechanically reacting to stimuli. we only see what we look at. to look is an act of choice. as a result of this act, what we see is brought within our reach – though not necessarily in arm’s reach. … we never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves. our vision is continually active, continually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, constituting what is present to us as we are. soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen. the eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of this invisible world (berger 1972: 7-9). following berger’s quote, it is argued that the relation between knowing and seeing is a dialectical relation. “knowing” influences “seeing” and vice versa. the way in which knowledge is produced is thus relational and the meaning that emerges out of the relationship seeingknowing is not fixed, but always already inscribed and changing according to the context, art  and  anthropology   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 57-72. 63 according to who is looking, according to who is being looked at and according to what the effect of the action is. seeing and knowing is mediated by the artwork and by the process of the effects of the relationship between seeing and knowing. by establishing the relationship seeingknowing as dialectical, a possibility is opened for an argument that suggests that the relationship takes place in a complex and dynamic exchange of systems of meaning. berger’s assumptions also imply that our observational practices (the way we see) are constructed and complex. from this perspective, an anthropology of art should thus examine the relationship between observational practices and knowledge generating practices. such an examination “should go beyond the mantra of the social construction of facts and should start analysing in depth the ecological dynamics by which communities of practitioners come to share a perception of what they deem as reality” (pink et al 2004: 29). the politics of knowing and being known and the politics of seeing and being seen are thus central when looking at art’s role in a complex contemporary society. as morphy and perkins (2006: 22) argue, “art is an integral part of most, if not all, human societies and that by failing to study it anthropologists deny themselves access to a significant body of information. it can provide insights into human cognitive systems – how people conceptualise components of their everyday life and how they construct representations of their world”. an anthropology of art should thus include and elucidate how the practices of observation, representation and interpretation are derived from the dialectical relationship between seeing and knowing. the power of this dialectic is also apparent to artists who are open to how their work is seen and what influence the act of seeing their work would have on its audiences. the south african artist, william kentridge, is someone who uses this dialectic when producing his works of art, which usually challenge viewers to see in new ways. his extensive use of moving images, mirror stereoscopes, cylinder anamorphoses and multi-dimensional sketches are set up in such a way that they work as puzzles on the viewer. for kentridge (2007: 39) seeing “is always a process of meeting the world halfway, in which we counteract the reports of the world onto our eyes with the pressure of the existing knowledge, understandings, prejudices and fixed ideas streaming out of us.” the elucidating properties inherent to art, its power to propose a new vision of the world, and the way in which it teaches us to see and direct the gaze, are important contributions for any fieldworker who is aiming at translating the complex realities of her subjects of study. from the perspective that art is part of our cultural and social practices, an anthropology of art should include “studying how pictures are put together and make statements about this world” (pink et al 2004: 3). by understanding that the representational practices in art are not value-free, an anthropology of art should be able to offer an implicit critique of the approaches used when applying visual and representational methods. an anthropology of art should thus consider the “processes of research and representation” in order to “invite new ways of working with people, words and images” (pink et al 2004:3). the next section will explore how ethnographic methods have changed over the past years and how the awareness that visual information could be valuable in the process of generating anthropological knowledge, has been incorporated into ethnographic practices. preiser   64 observing the art of anthropology in social and cultural anthropology, a distinction is usually made between ’ethnography’ and ‘theory’. ethnography is literally the practice of writing about peoples. often it is understood to mean our way of making sense of other people’s modes of thought, since anthropologists usually study cultures other than their own. theory is also, in part anyway, our way of making sense of our own, anthropological mode of thought (barnard 2000: 4). one might be tempted to think that in a field like anthropology whose main method of inquiry is participant observation, there would be no need for theory. in his discussion about the relationship between theory and ethnography, barnard (2000: 4) mentions that “theory and ethnography inevitably merge into one”. this understanding of the relationship between theory and ethnography could serve as an analogy for the discussion relating to the relationship between seeing and knowing. here it becomes important to qualify, that by using the term “seeing”, its synonyms are also implied: the faculty of seeing, sight, vision as well as the act of acquiring insight, observing (whether by the act of seeing or by using all other senses). the following section will explore how the “politics of knowing and being known” (lather 2001: 483) is at work within the observational techniques and practices of the ethnographer who is concerned about the politics of seeing and being seen. when speaking of observing in anthropological terms, the main methodology of gaining knowledge is that of participant observation. it can be explained as a methodology that employs empirical resources (gained by means of active observation) to construct an ethnography of what was observed. on answering the question why participant observation is important, dewalt and dewalt (1998: 265) argue that “the apprenticeship experience results in ‘ways of knowing’ and ‘learning to see’ that are distinct from less participatory approaches”. the anecdote of anthropologist ivor kopytoff who met several suku intellectuals in belgium who were children forty years ago when he did fieldwork in their village in the republic of congo, helps to further establish the connection between ethnography and visual representation. for the modern suku, the importance of kopytoff’s work in their village lay in his preservation of “a picture of their society as it had been several decades ago ... in an way that rang true to them in terms of what they themselves knew” (kopytoff quoted in climo and cattell 2002: 10). in a sense it can be said that kopytoff’s ethnographic work constituted a mental “picture of their past” which contained important meaning for their lives. hence from the example one could derive that written down ethnographic accounts resemble pictures or visual images (bilder, in german, is a better word that also refers to mental images) of what has been observed. to linger a while longer on the idea of connecting anthropological practices and modes of representation with “ways of seeing” and the notion of “seeing as knowing” as mentioned earlier, a short excursion to the roots of anthropological knowledge production follows. considering that the observations (field notes) of the ethnographer become the raw empirical material and resources of the ethnography, one realises that the “birth” of anthropology correlates with the enlightenment project of modernity and its positivistic practices of measuring the world and putting things into nameable categories. “as a discipline, anthropology developed hand in hand with the cabinets of curiosity, with antiquarianism and with the widening of european horizons following the enlightenment” (morphy and perkins 2006: 3). art  and  anthropology   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 57-72. 65 in trying to render a “history of vision”, crary (1992) investigates the role of the observer as well as technological developments in optical devices (such as moving cameras, microscopes, stereoscopes etc.) that influenced the production of knowledge during the past two centuries. his very interesting study however also tries to relate how the study of the development of mechanical devices cannot only be reduced to studying the technical and mechanical practices. the role of the observer and how the notion of “subject vision”, which he explains as “the role played by the mind” (1992: 9), influences what we see, and should also be analysed. the notion that there is a dialectical relationship between seeing and knowing “pervaded not only areas of art and literature, but (is) present in philosophical, scientific, and technological discourses” (crary 1992: 9). the implication such developments have for knowledge production within the sciences and elsewhere is stressed when crary (1992: 9) remarks that “rather than stressing the separation between art and science … it is important to see how they were both part of a single interlocking field of knowledge and practice”. when looking back at the history of ideas that led to the enlightenment, crary (1992: 9) argues that “(t)he same knowledge that allowed the increasing rationalization and control of the human subject in terms of new institutional and economic requirements was also a condition for new experiments in visual representation”. the very important conclusion crary makes on this point (which is also of importance for establishing a relationship between artistic and anthropological representational practices), is the fact that he suggests that “an observing subject … was both a product of and at the same time constitutive of modernity in the nineteenth century” (crary 1992: 9). in its quest to generate order and categorise what humans know about nature, positivism created subjects that also wanted to categorise their own kind. crary remarks that “(v)ision, rather than a privileged form of knowing, becomes itself an object of knowledge, of observation. from the beginning of the nineteenth century a science of vision will tend to mean increasingly an interrogation of the physiological makeup of the human subject, rather than the mechanics of light transmission” (crary 1990: 70). the science of vision thus becomes anthropological – knowledge of humankind. more than what meets the eye as the eye, such the object (crary 1992: 70) the dialectical relationship between seeing and knowing can thus be traced back to the roots of anthropology. how humankind has observed (and developed techniques and devices to see better) and consequently asked different questions about what was seen, has had a direct influence on the generation of knowledge. anthropology has always been sensitive to developments and changes in terms of the status of knowledge, due to the fact that anthropology is based on a practice that has to stand its ground amidst the messiness of real life. anthropological theory underwent many chances since the “crisis of representation” in the 1980s as asserted by marcus and fischer (1986), which followed the “interpretative turn” introduced by geertz (1973). having survived the representative and interpretative “turns”, anthropology also had to withstand the onslaught of post-structuralist and postmodernist theory on anthropological thinking and practice. climo and cattell (2002: 10) discuss how “ethnography has endured these – and many other – transformations because ethnographers are open to ‘the surprise of fieldwork’, to the discovery of other cultural worlds and other perspectives that we can use in our preiser   66 comparative framework”. somehow, anthropology is “proof” of the fact that there is a dialectical power at work in the relationship “seeing-knowing”. whilst observing and interpreting, not only the knowledge about the subject changes in a dynamic way, but also the understanding of the self (as scientist and the science in which it operates) changes to become aware of the politics of seeing and knowing that influence the process of knowledge production (dewalt and dewalt 1998: 291). if the gaze is turned on anthropology, one recognises how changes in viewing the object of study, changed anthropology itself. by following the changes that the concept of culture underwent in the history of anthropology, one learns that “theoretical frameworks and research concerns have led to differing views on culture, research methods and ethnography” (climo and cattell 2002: 9). the new perceptions (here referring to the word in its etymological depth: knowledge that arises from seeing, observation, but also the state of being aware, understanding) that developed in literature and art were translated into anthropological practice and epistemology. climo and cattell (2002: 8-10) give an account of how anthropology operates in “liminal spaces” which can be defined as “spaces between disciplines, and is carried out in ‘liminal practices’ or ‘hybridized’ methods’”. the notion of liminality is also supported by victor turner who explains it as embracing “the idea that being in interstitial spaces, betwixt and between, promotes creativity” (climo and cattell 2002: 7). this analogy is used to describe the influence other theories from different disciplines had (and have) on anthropology. “the basic method of participant observation … has come to embrace a wide range of methods, many borrowed from other fields, especially history and sociology” (climo and cattell 2002: 7). complexity theory: weaving together ways of seeing the concrete question at this stage of the paper still remains, why art and anthropology? and why complexity theory? in the next section, the connection between these three terms will be established based on what morin (2007: 28) terms “complex thinking”. this type of thinking can be connected to what derrida calls a “double movement” (culler 1983: 150) which suggests that one thinks the concept and its counterpart (the yes and the no) simultaneously. morin (2007: 20) calls this the “logical core of complexity” which is dialogical of nature: “separabilityinseparability, whole-parts, effect-cause, product-producer, life-death, homo sapio-homo demens, etc”. however, the complexity lies not in thinking one in terms of the other in binary motion, but in terms of how the one is dependent and determined by the other. the art lies not in describing opposites when making knowledge claims, but in thinking both at the same time. it is in this way of thinking that “the dialogic is not the response to these paradoxes, but the means of facing them, by considering the complementarities of antagonisms and the productive play, sometimes of complementary antagonisms” (morin 2007: 20). it challenges a type of thinking and opens up space for transdisciplinary enquiry that does not disconnect opposites, but thinks of them as part of a unity. in order to be able to reach this style of thinking, morin calls for us to “deeply reform all our ways of knowing and thinking” (ibid.: 25). art  and  anthropology   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 57-72. 67 an example of what the notion of truth would mean, when explained dialogically, is what morin calls a “(d)ialogical truth: a truth continuously in transit that one reaches only in the sense of having to still look for it (maldonato 2007: 282)”. such an understanding of truth implies an understanding of knowledge as also being dialogical. by rejecting the totality of knowledge or truth or possibility to represent something fully, does not mean that one rejects knowledge or truth or the possibility to represent. it just means that even if we work as hard as we can to collect all there is to know about a system with the best possible models and methods that we have at our disposal; there will always be something that we cannot know. the dialogical nature of the complex thought allows us to have our truths, our knowledge, our way of seeing and the art of representation, but it challenges us to know the limits thereof and to re-evaluate it every time we use it and to re-invent it if necessary (cf. cilliers 2005). in the same spirit, transdisciplinary analysis creates a space in which knowledge is generated by means of “complex thought” which allows new ideas and strategies to arise “in association and interaction” with one another (morin 2008:115). thus, the challenge to reform our ways of thinking and knowing is a direct challenge to the process of engaging in transdisciplinary work. morin (2007: 29) suggests that “complexity does not put us only in the distress of the uncertain; it allows us to see besides the probable, the possibilities of the improbable, because of those which have been in the past and those that can be found again in the future”. lastly, “complex thought is a fundamental preparation for any truly transdisciplinary project” (rogerro 2007: 130). thinking art and anthropology simultaneously artists and anthropologists are practitioners who appropriate form, and represent others. although their representational practices have been different, both books and artworks are creative additions to the world; both are complex translations of other realities (schneider and wright 2006: 26). based on the connections that have been discovered up until now in the study, it can be argued that the relationship between art and anthropology should be reviewed in terms of what both fields of study can offer each other in terms of their representational and knowledge generating practices. having situated art and anthropology on the same level of enquiry, this paper argues that the “crossing of the borders” between the two would entail more than just artists engaging in fieldwork and anthropologists discussing aesthetic interpretations of art works as objects of study. as marcus and myers (1995: 35) state, “(i)n the past, the anthropological study of art has been essentially a marginal occupation. this should no longer be the case. in contemporary cultural life, art is becoming one of the main sites of cultural production for transforming difference into discourse, for making it meaningful for action and thought. especially because anthropology has also seen this as its role in the production of cultural knowledge, we argue that critical understanding and a new relationship between art and anthropology are required”. morphy and perkins (2006: 11) are also convinced about the possibilities of collaboration between the two fields of study and suggest that “(t)he future of anthropology of art must re-engage with those methods and problems that led a different generation of anthropologists to reject the study of art in the first place”. when looking at the development of anthropology and the role visual material played in it, preiser   68 schneider and wright (2006: 23) recall that during the early 1900s visual material used in ethnographic accounts was “cut short by anthropology’s attempts to establish itself as scientific discipline and the visual was largely abandoned because of its positivistic colonial associations”. it is only in the 1960s that the interest in using visual modes of representation got more attention. the influence that anthropologist-filmmaker jean rouch had on ethnographic filmmaking should not be underestimated when tracing the development of visual representations in anthropology. together with edgar morin, rouch produced the first “cinema vérité film combining the ideas of flaherty with those of soviet film theorist and practitioner dziga vertov” (ruby 2006: 395). in these films, the process of filmmaking was part of the film and the filmed subjects became collaborators in the process of deciding what will be represented and how it will be represented. “jean rouch wanted to produce a shared anthropology in which those in front of the camera shared power with the director” (ruby 2006: 396). not only had rouch inspired artists such as french new wave directors chris marker and jean-luc goddard, but his work also inspired collaborators, such as edgar morin to develop the notion of a complex anthropology suggesting that knowledge producing activities should not be reductive of nature, but it should expand the understanding of what it is to be human. thinking art and anthropology simultaneously proposes that artistic visual representations should not take the place of just having “auxiliary functions to the ethnographic monograph” (schneider and wright 2006: 23), but that through its own inherent properties, it should be used to create “a system of meaning parallel to, but different from that of written ethnographies” (schneider and wright 2006: 23). art offers anthropology its rich source of different representational practices, which means much more than just using films and photos as supportive material. mcdougall argues that the substantial challenge to “anthropological thought comes not simply from broadening its purview but from its entering into communicative systems different to the ‘anthropology of words’” (mcdougall quoted in schneider and wright 2006: 23). when anthropologists adopt practices that allow them to use more visual strategies in their work, the visual representations should be able to speak for themselves. this could encourage anthropologists to study “ways of seeing” more closely in order to offer material that could translate finer tones and nuances in visual representations. for anthropologists who are using ethnographic film as a medium of representation, the “objective capability of the camera” (harper 2006: 83) should be reconsidered. the use of single-device recording and projection could be supplemented by “the use of more than one camera, or multiple projection devices, such as artists use in installations” (schneider and wright 2006: 8). there are a number of studies where anthropologists give cameras to, for example, street children to take pictures of their environments4. a more inclusive research strategy is followed and ‘informants’ or ‘research participants’ become ‘research collaborators’ rather than ‘research subjects’ (becker 2006). the object of study then changes to how the children see and look at their environment. projects like these could also assist anthropologists to explore a wider range of “visual strategies in gathering, producing, and exhibiting work” (schneider and wright 2006: 23). 4 . for an example of such see: becker, heike. 2006. “how we see our culture”: photographic selfrepresentations from the cape flats, south africa. presented at negotiating culture in the context of globalisation. 3-7 april 2006, saly. art  and  anthropology   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 57-72. 69 artists on the other hand who dare to learn more from the anthropological methods of systematic fieldwork and participant observation could address the context of their subjects in ways that are more authentic. after the “reflexive turn” in the art world, artists became more aware that their work should be more self-conscious and should comment on what is happening in society. art as a form of resistance and space in which struggles could be voiced grew especially after the second world war. artists who are embedded in “real life” situations by means of participant observation could render stronger comment if they are more familiar with the particularities of the situation. the famous documentary photographer robert capa is well known for saying "if your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough”. the closeness that ethnographic fieldwork methods offer is ideal for producing material that captures the ambivalences and private struggles people go through. as example one could use the work of the south african photographer gideon mendel5 who is now famous for his photographic exhibitions of people who are living with hiv/aids. when he started this project, he was commissioned by his agency, network photographers, to photograph people living with hiv/aids in england. after the success of the exhibition in the united kingdom, the exhibition was moved to south africa with the condition that a section of photographs taken of the african hiv/aids epidemic should be added (godby 2003: 17). as he started spending more time with people, it became clear that he had to change the ways in which he would photograph his subjects. mendel became aware of the fact that he was a first world photographer “with the power to represent his third world subjects in any way that he chooses, and the subjects have little control over the creation of their images” (godby 2003: 17). in the exhibition that became known as a broken landscape: hiv and aids in africa (carballeira and mendel 2003), the relationship between photographer and the photographed is also presented. the images do not stand for themselves, but with text added next to them, the context was made explicit. even mendel’s relationship to the funding agencies was revealed in the exhibition. “true to this spirit, mendel’s photographs are arranged in short essays that represent the same people – the patient and his or her family – over a period of time, thereby showing the people involved in different situations and relationships that obviously suggest more complex identities that single photographs could ever show” (godby 2003: 18). the complexities of the lived experiences of the people involved are depicted in mendel’s work. the depth and sophistication with which he depicts the devastation of aids also contain activist impulses that call on the viewers to start acting and become involved in the struggle against hiv/aids. mendel’s closeness to his subjects is the ingredient for the success of his powerful and striking photos, of which one picture truly says more than the proverbial thousand words. mendel was criticised by art critics (godby 2003:20) for adding the context in which the subjects were photographed and by revealing his relationship to the subjects (as sponsored photographer). godby (2003: 20), however argues that the critics were short sighted “not to recognise, for example, that the images and the texts are in fact part of the same project, and that the photographer, in radically changing his methods of photography, is actively engaging with both his medium of representation and the institutional frameworks within which he is working: at the same time, he may be seen to be actually transforming the institutional space of the gallery or museum from a repository of ‘relics’ to an active political platform”. 5 . for more information on gideon mendel’s work see: http://www.gideonmendel.com/ preiser   70 conclusion: gazing into the future of art and anthropology this paper attempted to destabilise traditional notions of knowledge and representational practices as found in both fields of art and anthropology, and argued that by learning from each other, their own methodologies can be enriched and rethought in order to engage in representational practices that offer a more authentic picture of the world. by having explored the relationship between art and anthropology based on the perspective from complexity theory, the paper argues that there is a direct and dialectical relationship between knowledge generating practices and observational and representational practices. the dialectical relationship between seeing and knowing can be traced back to the roots of anthropology. how mankind observed and developed techniques and devices to see better and consequently asked different questions about what was seen, has had a direct influence on the generation of knowledge. artists and anthropologists who are entering into the space where their representational practices keep up with the complex world in which we live, are encouraged “to learn to go beyond disciplinary frameworks whenever necessary and to “re-link” different types of knowledge” (roggero 2007: 130). the artist and scientist should never lose sight of what it is to be human. the work we produce should reflect our humanity more than the politically correct ways of being self-reflexive about objects and subjects. our representational practices should expand the notion of what it is to be human and not reduce it. both anthropologists and artists have a shared task in re-thinking their representational practices. each are encouraged to delve deep into the resources that they have in order to achieve the task. by combining efforts and by exchanging knowledge producing practices, our lived experiences could stand a chance of being represented in ways that do not reduce our humanity to scientific formulas and mediocre documentaries. for anthropology this implies that anthropologists “need to develop an approach to images that is aware of what they want, that acknowledges and productively makes use of their affective powers, and develops new ways of using them” (schneider and wright 2006: 8). for artists this imply that they should be able to leave the safe space of their studios and to get closer to their objects of study so that the distance between them can be breached with intimacy – this intimacy which “is the currency of fieldwork” (schneider and wright 2006: 8). the weaving together of art and anthropology leads to the position where both art and anthropology can operate from a common ground. this common ground is found in the way in which human beings as complex systems in themselves operate and how their ways of making meaning will never be predictable and fully knowable for scientists or artists. the claim that our understanding of complex systems cannot be reduced to calculation means that there will always be some form of creativity involved when dealing with complexity. by thinking art and anthropology simultaneously, the “deep reform of our mental functioning, of our being” (morin 2007: 29) is put into action which offers both artists and anthropologists the potential to renew and revitalise petrified ways of knowing and representing the world. art  and  anthropology   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 57-72. 71 bibliography auster, p. 1989. moon palace. london: faber and faber. berger, j. 1972. ways of seeing. london: penguin. barnard, a. 2000. history and theory in anthropology. cambridge: cambridge university press. becker, heike. 2006. “how we see our culture”: photographic self-representations from the cape flats, south africa. presented at negotiating culture in the context of globalisation. 3-7 april 2006, saly. cilliers, p. 1998. complexity and postmodernism. london & new york: routledge. cilliers, p. 2005. complexity, deconstruction and relativism. theory culture &society, vol. 22 (5): 255–267. climo, j.j., cattell, m.g. (eds). 2002. social memory and history: anthropological perspectives. california: altamira press. crary, j. 1992. techniques of the observer: on vision and modernity in the nineteenth century. cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press. culler, j. 1983. on deconstruction: theory and criticism after structuralism. london: routledge. da silva, j. “(re)thinking life, (re)living thought”, in reynaga, r. 2007. edgar morin: homage to a friend, 85th birthday. sonora, mexico: multiversidad mundo real edgar morin. degenaar, j.j. 1993. art and culture in a changing south africa. south african journal of philosophy, vol. 12(3): 51 – 56. dewalt, k., dewalt, b. 1998. “participant observation”. in bernard, r. (ed.). handbook of methods in cultural anthropology. walnut creek: altamira press. carballeira, p., mendel, g. 2003. a broken landscape: hiv & aids in africa. barcelona: blume. godby, m. 2003. “aesthetics and activism: gideon mendel and the politics of photographing the hiv/aids pandemic in south africa” in biakolo, e., mathangwane, j., odallo, d. (eds.). the discourse of hiv/aids in africa. gabarone: university of botswana. harper, d. 2006. “the visual ethnographic narrative”, in hamilton, p. (ed.). visual research methods. london: sage publications. harrington, a. 2004. art and social theory: sociological arguments in aesthetics. polity press: cambridge. irving, a. 2006. book review of schneider and wright. montreal: concordia university. online at: http://www.anthropologymatters.com/reviews/irvine_2006_art.htm, [date of access: 2007-08-06] kentridge, w. 2007. what will come (has already come). frankfurt: stroemfeld verlag. kieran, m. 2005. revealing art. london: routledge. lather, p. 2001. “ethnography after postmodernism”, in atkinson, p. et al. 2007 edition. handbook of ethnography. london: sage. maldonato, m. 2007.” complexity and the education of edgar morin”, in reynaga, r. edgar morin: homage to a friend, 85th birthday. sonora, mexico: multiversidad mundo real preiser   72 edgar morin. marcus, g.e., myers, f. (eds.). 1995. the traffic in culture: refiguring art and anthropology. berkeley: university of california press montuori, a. 1998. “creative inquiry: from instrumental knowing to love of knowledge”. in j. petrankar, (ed.), light of knowledge. oakland: dharma publishing. montuori, a. 2005. gergory bateson and the promise of transdisciplinarity. cybernetics and human knowing, vol.12 (1-2): 147 – 158. morin, e. 1992. method: a study of humankind, vol.1. translated by roland bélanger. new york: peter lang publishing. morin, e. 2007. “restricted complexity, general complexity”. in gershenson, c., aerts, d., edmonds, b. (eds.). worldviews, sciences and us – philosophy and complexity. singapore: world scientific publishing co. morin, e. 2008. on complexity. cresskill: hampton press. morphy, h., perkins, m. (eds.). 2006. the anthropology of art – a reader. oxford: blackwell. pink, s., kürti, l., afonso, a. (eds.). 2004. working images: visual research and representation in ethnography. london: routledge. rogerro, p. “edgar morin or a thinker who gives meaning”, in reynaga, r. 2007. edgar morin: homage to a friend, 85th birthday. sonora, mexico: multiversidad mundo real edgar morin. ruby, j. 1996. “visual anthropology,” in hamilton, p. 2006. visual research methods. london: sage publications. schneider, a., wright, c. (eds.). 2006. contemporary art and anthropology. oxford: berg publishers. warnke, g. 1987. gadamer: hermeneutics, tradition and reason. cambridge: polity press. microsoft word 01 sewdass.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(4) december 2014, special edition: san dispute resolution, pp. 1-18. identifying knowledge management processes and practices used for decision-making and knowledge sharing in the modern san community n sewdass1 abstract first people, such as the san community of platfontein, are the holders of rich and complex knowledge systems that are very important for dispute resolution and decisionmaking. in order to ensure that these knowledge systems are maintained and sustained for future generations to benefit from, it is important to introduce and implement new approaches that can help to make intergenerational transmission of this valuable knowledge possible for the younger generation of san. while this community possesses a vast amount of unique knowledge, skills and competencies, these are at risk as the older generation of the san is ageing and passing on with very little of their knowledge and skills ever being transmitted to younger generations or documented and preserved for future generations to consult. furthermore, the new generation of the san, which is referred to the modern san, are becoming more westernised and are slowly losing their traditional culture and values. hence, this study focuses on knowledge management processes and practices that are used in the modern san community for decision-making and knowledge sharing. keywords: knowledge management, knowledge sharing, indigenous knowledge, decision-making, knowledge, san community, platfontein 1. background knowledge management (km) is a growing global concern and helps overturn other prejudices such as marginalisation and discrimination. indigenous knowledge systems are threatened by changes in the environment that hosts indigenous peoples’ livelihoods. it is through better ecological management, recognising and affirming indigenous peoples’ cultures, and active management of knowledge that these fragile and valuable systems of knowledge can continue to be transmitted (crawhall, 2007:25). any society or community has its own peculiar way of evolving and in these communities, traditional beliefs and practices are important not only to the people who own and understand them but also to those who subscribe to a common societal value system (kaniki & mphahlele, 2002:15). what is even more important is that these communities are presently facing rather complex human problems that were never experienced in the past, and 1 nisha sewdass is a professor in the department of management science: strategy and international management at the university of south africa (unisa). she is one of the academic researchers involved in the community-based participatory research project with the san community of platfonteinemail: sewdan@unisa.ac.za. sewdass 2 in order to solve these problems, more complex solutions are required. kaniki & mphahlele (2002:15) further state that “in order to deal with complex problems and facilitate development and manage change, the modern communities must borrow and adapt ideas and practices from other sources, including traditional (indigenous) and scientific communities”. indigenous knowledge (ik) is usually known by various names such as traditional ecological knowledge, folk knowledge, or traditional knowledge. it is tacit in nature and practical in its value; it is kept in the form of wisdom in the memory of individuals and is unique to the holder of this knowledge (ikoja-odongo, 2004:174). this author states that ik occupies a central space in the lives of rural communities of developing countries because of their reliance on natural resources; influence of the environment; existence of a diverse knowledge of plants used in herbal medicines; poor health care systems in these societies; challenges presented by diseases, such as, hiv/aids, malaria and tuberculosis; conservation of traditions; and the availability of life skills in the form of experience and wisdom. kaniki & mphahlele (2002:15) also note that that there is a growing recognition of ik in making decisions, solving problems and dealing with societal development issues. this notion is also supported by the statement in the editorial of the indigenous knowledge and development monitor (1993:1), which indicates that: knowledge produced by universities and research institutes around the world is gathered, documented and disseminated in a coherent manner. the same should be done with community-based, local or indigenous knowledge, most of which reinforces sustainable relationships between humans and their natural and social environments. this knowledge is passed down from generation to generation within communities. it should be included, alongside the more usual scientific knowledge, as part of national and international discussions on development and the strengthening of intellectual capacity. although knowledge is essential for decision-making, what is more important is that the specific knowledge of local or indigenous communities is also taken into consideration when decisions are made about issues that involve these communities. hence ik is vital and can be used for dispute resolution and decision-making. however, before this can happen, this knowledge must first be identified in these communities and it must be understood how it is applied and what challenges it poses for the community. this understanding will provide opportunities for interventions and innovative ways to solve problems and make decisions in these local communities. this study provides such an understanding and it is envisaged that innovative interventions will take place in the san community of platfontein. 2. knowledge management and the nature of knowledge within the context of km, the dynamic nature of knowledge is evident. it is therefore essential for individuals to have a good understanding of knowledge itself if km is to be successful. according to mcinerney (2002:1009), “knowledge is the awareness of what one knows through study, reasoning, experience or association, or even through various other types of learning”. merriam webster’s collegiate dictionary (2002) refers to “knowledge” as the acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art or technique. mcinerney (2002:1010) indicates that knowledge is carried, flows, transfers and is obtained by personal relationships over a period of time. furthermore, knowledge is always changing and is in a state of flux as a result of the experience and learning of the knowledge holder; it is used to overcome barriers, influence decision-making and assist individuals to accomplish their tasks knowledge management for decision-making in the san community td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 1-18. 3 and desired goals. it is acquired by individuals actively through sensory stimulation, listening to and observing others, reading, and being aware of feelings, life experiences and learning processes. this is what gives knowledge its dynamic nature, which has captured the attention of researchers and led to km. km may be seen as the application of the collective knowledge of the entire organisation’s workforce (or community) to achieve specific goals (de brun, 2005:3). furthermore, de brun indicates that the aim of km is not to manage all knowledge, but only that knowledge which is important to the organisation, and to ensure that people have access to this knowledge where and when they need it; that is, the right knowledge in the right place at the right time. km is based on the notion that the most valuable resource of an organisation (or community) is the knowledge of its people and how well people use this knowledge to achieve goals and share their knowledge with each other. mtega et al. (2014:192) indicate that km involves the creation, manipulation, storage and sharing of knowledge among people in a community of practice. a further way of looking at km is suggested by lwoga, ngulube and stilwell (2010:176) – as a system of actions upon knowledge, which includes the establishment of strategies and procedures with the use of appropriate technologies so that the acquisition, storage, conversion, sharing, application and generation of knowledge can be effectively performed. furthermore, the goals of these activities are to ensure that knowledge is effectively used for problem-solving and decisionmaking. km approaches, theories, practices and principles can also be effective mechanisms for managing ik (lwoga, ngulube & stilwell, 2010:175). ziemiańczyk, krakowiak-bal and mikuła (2014:48) regard km systems as sets of principles, methods, means, knowledge (including information), people, networks and their interrelations, which make it possible to adopt and realise strategies and tasks of km to reach the organisation’s goals. the authors further assume that one of the basic goals of km systems concerning rural or community development is obtaining the desired level of competitiveness through generating and applying knowledge resources that are characterised by rarity and innovativeness. 2. 1 types of knowledge knowledge is usually classified into two different types, namely, tacit and explicit knowledge. explicit knowledge is regarded as “knowledge that can be or has been explained, articulated, recorded or documented while tacit knowledge (sometimes also referred to as implicit knowledge) is usually unspoken and hidden and can be reflected in the skills and experiences that an individual displays over a period of time” (mcinerney, 2002:1012). de brun (2005:6) refers to tacit knowledge as knowledge that people carry in their heads; it is more an “unspoken understanding” about something. this knowledge is very difficult to write down in a document or to capture in a database. de brun also relates that in most instances, the individual is not aware of the knowledge that they themselves possess and the value that it may have for others. this is one of the reasons why tacit knowledge is viewed as more valuable than explicit knowledge: it can provide individuals with context, place, ideas and experiences and it also requires extensive personal contact among individuals and mutual trust before the knowledge can be shared. kingston (2013:3) categorises knowledge as follows: sewdass 4 • explicit knowledge: knowledge that has been written down, described verbally, or captured in diagrams or documents. • symbolic experiential knowledge: knowledge gained from experience that the knowledge holder knows that they possess. this knowledge can be in the form of words or concepts; hence it can be verbalised or recorded, but never has been. • non-symbolic experiential knowledge: this is knowledge that is gained from experience that is not in the form of symbols but in some other form such as numeric, geometric, perceptual or physiological. the owner of this knowledge knows that they have it but may find it very difficult to verbalise. • true tacit knowledge: this is knowledge that a person possesses but does not know that they have. true tacit knowledge is often also taken to include factors that affect decision-making, where the person is not necessarily conscious that they have the knowledge or that they are using it. it is evident from the above categorisation that tacit knowledge is of great value for decisionmaking and it can be seen as the most important aspect of km. de cagna (2000:24) regards the knowledge that exists in an organisation as “common knowledge” that everyone in the organisation has access to it. it is this knowledge that gives the organisation its competitive advantage against other organisations. this common knowledge is regarded as the most important knowledge and the knowledge asset that makes the organisation competitive in the marketplace. the common knowledge is created in the organisation from the experience of doing certain tasks, projects and activities and is unique to that specific organisation, whereas other knowledge can be easily obtained from books, journals etc. according to zack (1999:47), “potentially explicable knowledge that has not been articulated represents a lost opportunity to efficiently share and leverage that knowledge. if competitors have articulated and routinized the integration and application of similar knowledge, then they may obtain a competitive advantage”. to ensure that potentially explicable knowledge of the san community is articulated and represented for all to share and benefit from, the management of this knowledge is vital. 2.2. indigenous knowledge vs scientific knowledge according to the world bank (1998:i), ik is unique to a particular culture and society. it is also the basis for local decision-making in fields such as agriculture, health, natural resources management and other activities, and is embedded in community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals. ik can further be regarded as tacit knowledge that is not easily codifiable. mbatha (2013:173) suggests that ik may be seen as knowledge that an indigenous or local community accumulates over generations of living in a particular environment. various terms are used to describe this knowledge, such as, traditional knowledge, local knowledge, indigenous technical knowledge, community knowledge and rural knowledge. furthermore, ik has an association with local experiences and historical reality. this makes it unique to a specific community and it plays an important role in defining the identity of that community. mbatha (2013:173) also recognises that ik represents all the skills and innovations of the knowledge management for decision-making in the san community td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 1-18. 5 people of a community and embodies the collective wisdom and resourcefulness of the community as a whole. kaniki & mphahlele (2002:17) regard ik as a “cumulative body of knowledge that generated and evolved over time, representing creative thought and actions within individual societies in an ecosystem of continuous residence, in an effort to cope with an ever-changing agroecological and socioeconomic environment”. they further define ik as being the sum total of knowledge and skills that are possessed by people belonging to a particular geographic area. it is this knowledge that enables them to benefit from their natural environment. since this ik and skills and innovation are shared over generations, each new generation is constantly adding to this knowledge and adapting it to fit in with the changing situations within the community and the environment. hence, ik is fluid and may not necessarily be usable within a formal structure or organisation. ik differs from the more scientific knowledge that is generated in universities, research institutes and private companies and it is used mainly by communities on a more local level for decision-making. van wyk (2004:3) indicates that the fundamental difference between ik and scientific knowledge is that science is searching for information of universal significance which is not context-related, while ik is a social product that is closely linked with, or even restricted to, a specific culture and environmental context. ristroph (2012:40) suggests that some of the conflict between community and scientific knowledge lies in the struggle for power between communities and government agencies. furthermore, communities that have no control over decisions made regarding their environment and resources may naturally distrust those who are making the decisions (ristroph, 2013:90). the ik that exists in the san community at platfontein may be referred to as the tacit “common knowledge” of the community and the assets of the knowledge-holders, which is used for decision-making by the individuals who belong to this community. this is what makes this community unique. hence the management of this ik is essential for the sustained survival of the platfontein san community. in this study, ik is also referred to as endogenous knowledge, which means viewing the world from the vantage point of local people (the san community) who are independent of the more dominant eurocentric and westernised world views (velthuizen, 2014). 3. research methodology this study is part of a larger community-based participatory research project with the san community of platfontein that has been conducted by the institute of dispute resolution (idra) at unisa. the overall research question for the project can be stated as: “what are the dispute resolution practices of the san of platfontein that can contribute to alternative dispute theory and practice in africa?” since this study is participatory and involves community engagement, it is led by the san community and the academic researchers follow the lead of the community. the involvement of community members (or those who have assimilated into and learned from a community) in data collection can help overcome the tendency to distrust “outside” agencies or researchers (ristroph, 2012:176). also, community members may be more successful than outsiders at gathering tacit information that would otherwise be lost in the communication gap between sewdass 6 the community and those seeking the knowledge. this was therefore chosen as the most appropriate way to conduct the study in the san community. the project is divided into three phases: • phase 1: discovery phase – during this phase field researchers were trained to assist in conducting the interviews; initial interviews were conducted with the community; focus group meetings were held; and conflict mapping and interpretative workshops were held in order to test the methodology and to produce an initial conflict map. • phase 2: interpretation and design phase – this phase involves continuous data gathering through interviews, focus groups and integrated workshops to codify specific dispute resolution practices. community conversations that include several interest groups will confirm the design of the dispute resolution architecture. it is envisaged that these “conversation maps” will be developed into interventions in phase 3. • phase 3: delivery – a programme of action will be launched in the form of a series of capacity-building intervention projects to achieve adaptive change in the community. this article is based on phase two of the project, which involved integrated workshops in the form of a large group retreat that was attended by the san community and invited unisa scholars. during this retreat, a series of locally relevant “provocative propositions”, identifying statements that replace “what is” with “what might be”, were developed. since the san community is mainly an oral, indigenous community, with unique ik, the management of this knowledge is essential within the dispute-resolution and decision-making context. hence oral interviews with members of the san community were used to elicit the desired information for this study. the main research question for this paper is therefore: “what km processes and practices are used in the modern san community for decision-making and knowledge sharing? in order to fully address this main question, the study objectives were to: • determine who are the modern san of platfontein; • identify the nature of the knowledge that exists in the san community; • understand where the modern san obtain their information when they need to make decisions; and • identify what possible km processes/trends are being used in the san community without community members being aware of them. from the above methodology, the transdisciplinary nature of this study is clear. different groups of individuals are involved in the study including experts, knowledge workers, academics and the san leaders and community workers. these groups bring together their different experiences, insights, values, beliefs and innovative thinking and leadership styles and learn from each other. in this situation, the individuals form an intellectual capital pool of people with transdisciplinary insights, holistic knowledge, cultural awareness and innovative thinking (velthuizen, 2011:125). km processes, and especially ik within the san community, cannot be conducted via traditional methods of acquiring knowledge. furthermore, the san community have complex problems, leadership and culture; to deal with this complexity, a more innovative approach to determining how the san community make use of km processes to manage their knowledge for decision-making was essential. therefore a transdisciplinary approach was adopted to knowledge management for decision-making in the san community td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 1-18. 7 make sense of the various levels of reality that exist in the san community of platfontein. according to velthuizen (2012:55), “in order to discover reality, critical reflection is required of the unseen factors such as values, motives and influence that are hidden in a metaphysical dimension that the human senses are limited to observe and analyse and this is an important characteristic of transdisciplinarity”. 4. the san as indigenous community the san people are regarded as the oldest people of southern africa; they are hunter-gathers who have managed their scarce water, plant and animal resources within a shared economy and egalitarian society for centuries (broyhill, hitchcock and biesele, 2010:16). with the onset of colonisation, the san, like other minority groups, lost their traditional livelihoods and became a marginalised society. this is largely because their cultural differences and practices were misunderstood; they were not considered to have any conventional leadership or wealth and they did not produce any goods or services that contributed to the economy of the country. the loss of their land and resources has had an extensive negative impact on the san, especially in terms of limiting their prospects for living according to their age-old culture (kxao moses & thoma, 2006:3). these authors further allude to the fact that the san consider their cultural practices to be the backbone of a healthy and socially intact community. kxao moses and thoma (loc. cit.) further explain that the “disruptions to an indigenous culture caused by the injustice of land and resource dispossession has affected the community to such an extent that they are unable to uphold their traditional consensual decision-making where democracy was practised through the vehicle of community consensus”. this means that if decisions did not have the general approval and backing of the members of the community, they were never implemented. colonisation has devastated the social and political institutions that once existed within the san communities. sena (2010:4) identified certain characteristics of communities that claim to be indigenous in africa. these are: • political and economic marginalisation rooted in colonialism; • de facto discrimination, often based on the dominance of agricultural peoples in the state system (e.g. lack of access to education and health care for hunters and herders); • the particularities of culture, identity, economy and territory that link hunting and herding peoples to their home environments in deserts and forests; • the physical distinctiveness of some indigenous people such as the san, which makes them subject to specific forms of discrimination these characteristics are prevalent in the san of platfontein, thereby defining them as indigenous. they are the holders of vast amounts of unique knowledge that could be beneficial to western societies. 5. the modern san of platfontein from the study it became evident that the new generation of the san, which is referred to as the modern san, are becoming more westernised and are slowly losing their traditional sewdass 8 culture and values. the interviews with members of the san community (sewdass, 2014a) revealed the following: • the modern san are comfortable with moving out of the community and will easily do this, especially if they have job opportunities. these individuals do not have the experiences of the older generation, e.g. moving from angola to south africa. the changes taking place around them in south africa have a significant influence on the modern san. • they prefer to be in south africa where there are more opportunities for them and a better quality of life than in botswana or angola, and an opportunity to get an education. the modern san have access to educators and are able to speak and read english. • they have access to television and the freedom to choose their own destinies, even though these are still quite limited. they are no longer forced to follow the traditions and customs of the san. • the modern san can sometimes be overwhelmed, as they are expected to take on both modern and traditional roles. • however, since they do not carry the burdens of the past such as being displaced from their land, this does not impact them in the same way as it does the elders in the community. • the language they speak determines their socialisation. it is difficult for them to interact with non-san people because they are teased and mocked when they speak their own language, therefore most speak afrikaans and only use their mother tongue when speaking to other san. • the modern san are self-sustaining just as their traditional ancestors were, and they prefer to live on their own and take care of themselves. however, today they rely more on western culture than living off the land. • the legal system in south africa is very well known to the modern san and they do not use the traditional means of dispute resolution. the traditional courts do not work very well because of the leadership problems that exist in the san community. once a person has been tried in the traditional court, they have a tarnished reputation and their credibility is questionable; this deters others from doing the same thing. • the modern san are more sociable and they go out with friends and spend time with others. they are free to do as they please and go anywhere. • even if the modern san relocate from the community, they will return to visit their families. • modern san marriages are no longer arranged by the elders and family members. while most traditional san live together and trust each other, the modern san prefer to go to the department of home affairs to get married. they feel safer and more protected this way if anything happens and the marriage does not work out. • there are smaller groups among the san (based on where they lived in the past, e.g. buma khwe, mahiro khwe, garangi khwe, phuto khwe) that still want their own leader from their own village to be the leader of the community. mainly the leadership problems lie with the older generation and not the modern san. knowledge management for decision-making in the san community td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 1-18. 9 6. the use of knowledge for decision-making by the modern san community the study examined how and where the modern san community obtain information and use it to make decisions on things such as careers, personal development etc. according to interviewees kasivi and hanzie (sewdass, 2014a), the modern san usually consult their parents or very close relatives when making any decisions. this is because most of them have trust issues and therefore find it easier to go to their parents or close relatives as they trust them more than outsiders. most of the new-generation san make their own decisions as opposed to having decisions made for them by their parents or others in the community, as was done traditionally. these younger-generation san also use their mobile phones or school computers to access the internet; once they have the required information about study opportunities, careers or social aspects, they use this information to make decisions. they consult the department of arts and culture’s library and the museum in platfontein to get information about their own (san) culture. in this way they are able to still remain in touch with their traditions, although most of them do not practise these traditions and customs. they also indicated in interviews that they have very restricted career and job opportunities because of the language barriers that exist between them and the organisations and education institutions. most san speak afrikaans. the subjects that are taught in the schools also restrict their opportunities in certain career fields; for example, in order to become a doctor, one must do very well in maths and science and in most cases these subjects are not available at their schools. hence the modern san do not meet the requirements to study in these fields. most san people feel marginalised as a result of their language and culture, and because most are very poor, they do not feel as though they fit into the wider society. as a result most are very reserved and introverted and would rather mingle and interact with their own community. hence the knowledge they obtain is restricted to knowledge from the small group that the modern san is associated with and not necessarily from the larger community. for this reason they are probably missing out on the more useful and expert knowledge of community knowledge holders. the modern san go to further education and training (fet) colleges and learn how to use computers, as they believe that this will help them to get jobs. although there is very little support available for the san students when making decisions about careers and further education opportunities, some students do consult their teachers for advice about these matters. the modern san are more reliant on scientific knowledge for their development and to fit into their environment, as is reported by kasivi and hanzie (sewdass, 2014a). the traditional leaders are usually consulted to teach people how to do the trance dance, which is usually done by very well-trained and knowledgeable people. trusted elders and adults are usually consulted to assist in certain more traditional issues. someone who is trusted and has the knowledge in the community about certain issues is mainly consulted for oral information and knowhow. most youth have adopted christianity and go to church, so a great deal of advice and information is sought through the church. some youth forget about their traditional leaders and are keen to avoid them and go to the pastor. even some traditional elders are adopting christianity, but they still try to retain their traditional culture. the south african san institute (sasi) is a knowledge centre that used to record oral (audio) documents, music, videos and stories about the san, but this no longer happens due sewdass 10 to a lack of funding. as a result, there is a fear that much will be lost, since no one is recording the traditions and culture of the san. it is evident from this study that consensus decision-making at village or community level is no longer the norm, which was usually the case in the san community. 7. knowledge for conflict resolution in the san community leadership conflict is very common in the san community. in the past the community usually decided who the leader in the community was, but because the different san tribes (!xun and khwe) are forced to live together there are problems with the leadership. each tribe wants its own leader to be in charge and this causes a lot of friction in the community. the leaders are expected to represent a whole community in a new democratic system that has both old and new social values which clash with each other (broyhill, hitchcock and biesele, 2010:11). to complicate the situation, there are also the political leaders from south africa’s political parties, such as, the african national congress (anc), the congress of the people (cope) and the democratic alliance (da). since the anc is the majority party in the platfontein region, the san community are coerced into voting for them otherwise they do not get any jobs in the community, especially government posts. it is therefore very difficult for them to elect the political party that they really want. so there are two forms of leadership in the san community: the leader of the community and the political party leader. the leader that is elected in the community is elected once in five years and the vote is based on trust from having lived with this person; blood lines are also a factor in voting. people vote for their own tribe. the leader is then able to assist the san community with jobs, career opportunities and liaising with companies for jobs and other assistance for the community, such as negotiating reconstruction and development programme (rdp) houses. besides having a community leader, there are also traditional leaders from each individual clan who advise and assist in making decisions and conflict issues. decisions are made by first consulting the community leader, who then goes to the traditional leaders to decide what has to be done to resolve problems. a date is then set and the parties involved in the dispute are given the opportunity to tell their side of the story before a decision can be made. once the decision is made, it is accepted by both parties. modern south african law also applies. in most cases, depending on the severity of the problem, the people seek to apply south african law by approaching the police and the courts, e.g. in murder cases. the guilty individual must serve the sentence handed down by the court; once the sentence is completed, he must then return to the community and serve the sentence/punishment determined by the traditional leaders in conjunction with the families involved. in some cases the decision made is for the perpetrator to compensate the family of the aggrieved; these decisions are usually accepted and the parties cooperate to resolve the issues. rituals are then conducted to cleanse the individual, especially if a murder was committed, and he is then able to move on with his life. for example, if a murder was committed, after serving the sentence in prison, the guilty person returns to the community and a goat is slaughtered to cleanse and remove the curse, otherwise the individual will be haunted forever. this process of dispute resolution – first following modern south african law and thereafter knowledge management for decision-making in the san community td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 1-18. 11 the traditional processes – is very long and tedious for the parties involved, and it is anticipated that during this time the anger and confusion remains in the community and people find it difficult to carry on as normal. during this time very little knowledge is shared among the people in the community. crawhall (2007:21) suggests that: [the] problem comes when the economy or environment that supported the society is threatened and transformed. the society may adjust itself and move forward, but particularly where another society, with a different economic mode or technological capacity, occupies the territory and permanently disrupts the transmission of cultural resources, there is a risk of the intergenerational system collapsing. this collapse is manifested in ethnic bias and discrimination: one group absorbs an identity of inferiority, which can lead to language abandonment, loss of identity, and frequently a loss of self-esteem, expressed through substance abuse, anger, violence and depression. this is the situation with the san in platfontein, as was revealed in the data collected from the community (mkatshelwa, 2014b) which indicated that many modern san of platfontein feel discriminated against, experience loss of self-esteem and suffer from depression. this has resulted in them turning to drugs, alcohol and violence. hence most of these san are often in conflict with the law or the community elders due to their bad behaviour, and they also find it difficult to hold a permanent job. drugs, violence and alcohol are therefore the main causes of disputes in the community (mkatshelwa, 2014b). broyhill, hitchcock and biesele (2010:5) further state that the relocation of the san to government settlements in platfontein has separated families and placed the san next to different tribes and ethnic groups with whom they are not accustomed to live. they were relocated to a more urban setting and have to live alongside another society whose social status and economic standing are much higher. these communities have a more entrepreneurial mind-set; they are the ones running the shops and making money in the community and they have more political influence and more resources, thereby leaving the san feeling inferior and marginalised. most of the modern san are ashamed to follow tradition, although their families still do (sewdass, 2014a). they are sometimes afraid to speak their mother tongue for fear of being judged as useless, being abused or not taken seriously by companies and individuals outside the san community. hence many of the modern san of platfontein feel discriminated against and experience loss. 8. possible km processes and trends the san use without knowing it according to adam (2007:4), km tools, processes and platforms could also be adapted to capture and disseminate ik. however, it is important that before these processes and tools are used, a thorough understanding of the context of local innovators and those who benefit from ik is obtained. according to the world bank (1998:ii), learning from ik by first investigating what local communities know and have, can improve one’s understanding of local conditions and provide a better context for activities that are designed to help these communities. sewdass 12 km processes, as identified by de brun (2005:57), are regarded as those activities or initiatives that are put in place to enable and facilitate the creation, sharing and use of knowledge for the benefit of the entire organisation (or community). while these processes are traditionally used in organisations, the study found that they are also practised by the san community at platfontein, which does not even realise that they are using them. examples are: • conducting knowledge audits to identify knowledge needs, knowledge resources and knowledge flows. indigenous communities are usually close-knit units and their social, political and economic organisation revolves around the family, clan and/or the institution of the traditional leader (ikoja-odongo, 2004:173). hence the traditional leaders and the elders in the community knew the scope of the knowledge of their community. furthermore, these leaders and elders had a good idea of what opportunities were available in their own environment and what was good for the community and what posed a danger or harm to the community. ikoja-odongo (2004:173) further indicates that “through the process of discriminative selection, indigenous communities are able to audit what indigenous knowledge practices they need to retain and what to drop in every aspect that affected them”. the san community in platfontein already have structures in place that enable them to exchange knowledge. for this reason, they can audit what works and what does not work in specific instances, and they also know who the expert knowledge holders are in the community. according to interviewees kasivi and hanzie (sewdass, 2014a), trusted elders and adults are usually consulted to assist in certain more traditional issues within the community. depending on what information is needed, the modern san will consult the relevant knowledge holder: for example, if they require information to guide them in decisions regarding their careers, then their teachers are consulted for such advice. • creating knowledge strategies to guide the overall km approach. indigenous communities usually have unwritten strategies and procedures for the diffusion and transfer of knowledge and practices to the community. they also rely to a large extent on their environment for information to help them to make choices and decisions that affect the entire community: for example, they know how to cope when there is a drought and what foods they should rely on during this time. in the san community, the knowledge systems are located within cultural systems that exist in platfontein. the language spoken by each culture restricts the sharing and use of knowledge to people from a specific culture who speak and understand that language. knowledge that is required for decision-making is therefore mainly sought from people within that culture. according to crawhall (2006:21), “these cultural systems reproduce themselves without any conscious efforts by the people who live in them”. parents raise children with certain value systems and teach them how to do certain things. • connecting people with people to share tacit knowledge, using approaches such as communities of practice and learning events. according to kaniki and mphahlele (2002:28), in km, a community of practice can be seen as an interdependent group of people living in the same information space and interacting with each other through resources and other common relationships. this definition of a km community of practice ties in closely with the definition of indigenous communities or traditional local communities, where learning and sharing of knowledge and skills takes place by means of ik sharing among members of a community and is part of the daily life of knowledge management for decision-making in the san community td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 1-18. 13 the community. the knowledge is tacit in nature and it is embedded in the practice of certain activities and experiences of the knowledge holders; the knowledge is learned or exchanged through personal communication and demonstration such as from parent to child, neighbour to neighbour, religious leaders to the members of the congregation, or master to apprentice. • connecting people with information to share explicit knowledge using approaches such as best-practice databases, and using content management processes to ensure that explicit knowledge is current, relevant and easily accessible. the modern san, who would originally have learned through experiential hunting and gathering, “learning by doing”, are now learning through a mixed format of ik and modern scientific knowledge as they are introduced to the new educational systems that are available to them, go to school and have access to libraries, the internet and other technological systems. the study found that the modern san are aware of the people and places that can help them with current explicit knowledge that they require for decision-making and problem-solving. they also consult best-practice databases in order to familiarise themselves with what the practice in the modern world is, and want to learn and be competent in these activities. according to kasivi and hanzie (sewdass, 2014a), the younger-generation san use social media on their mobile phones and school computers to search the internet; once they have accessed the required information about study opportunities, careers or social issues, they use this information to make decisions. • creating opportunities for people to generate new knowledge through collaborative working and learning. the adults or elders in the san use ik a lot, while the younger generation use a combination of ik and modern knowledge when making decisions. the elders do not mind if the young, modern san follow modern practices but they would like to see a synergy of traditional methods with modern methods still being practised. they would like the younger generation to at least know and understand their own culture, practices and origin, even if they do not follow the same lifestyle. they must have a sense of belonging (sewdass, 2014b). the elders in the san community recognise the importance of creating new opportunities for the young san to generate new knowledge and are in the process of negotiating with unisa to provide training and learning interventions to the younger generation to assist them to develop new skills and competencies and then take these back to the community and share them with the other members in the community. one such skill is computer and ict usage. • introducing processes to help people seek and use the knowledge of others, such as peer assist. in the san community, the expert knowledge holders (elders) usually assist the others with knowledge that is required for decision-making. ristroph (2012:116) indicates that it is essential that knowledgeable people from the community be identified as community experts and that these experts are then regarded as the community’s knowledge sources for the project. these knowledge experts could then also serve as “peer reviewers” of the information that is collected in community workshops or forums; in this way, the possibility of the researchers only hearing what they want to hear is removed. in this project, the elders of the san community serve as peer reviewers of all the information that is documented before it is disseminated. in this way they make sure that the information is accurate and verify that a true account is provided of the practices of decision-making and dispute resolution among the san community. these individuals also ensure that they convey any new knowledge that sewdass 14 they acquire through their interaction with the modern world to the community members so that it can benefit them and keep them up to date with what is going on in their environment. • teaching people to share knowledge in inspirational ways by using storytelling techniques. in the san community, it was stated that the parents spend a lot of time with the children as there are not many places for the children to visit or outing opportunities for them. hence, the younger children learn from the adults (sewdass, 2014b). stories were also used as memory tools that have helped the san over the generations to remember things, and to guide them through daily activities and decision-making when they are faced with a difficult situation. while the use of stories and myths to pass on strategically important information from generation to generation has been an innovative way of knowledge sharing in the san community, the study found that there is very little, if any, traditional storytelling to assist the modern san to learn about their culture and traditions. they are more westernised and since they have access to television and other technology, they prefer watching television or playing computer games or spending time with friends rather than listening to the traditional stories. • encouraging people to prioritise learning as part of their day-to-day work by learning before, during and after the tasks that they have performed. the san community learns certain activities by means of doing. they have to practise an activity several times before it is perfected, and usually they are guided or supported through this learning process by the expert knowledge holders. the modern san who obtain knowledge and skills from outside the community, such as at university, college, school or from their work environment (those that are employed), are expected to bring this new knowledge and integrate it with the traditional knowledge so it can be used to improve the situation that the community finds itself in or to help to make better decisions that will improve the quality of life of the san community. this constant learning and adapting their own ik allows them to interact better with the environment and to make decisions that will benefit the community. 8 recommendations and conclusions this study investigated what km processes and practices are used for decision-making in the modern san community of platfontein. a discussion of km and the nature of knowledge was given to place the paper in context. since the san community was traditionally an oral-based indigenous community, the discussion of indigenous knowledge and how it compared to scientific knowledge was relevant. the indigenous knowledge that existed in the san community can also be referred to as community knowledge and is tacit in nature. this paper explored how this knowledge is used by the modern san for decision-making. knowledge is also used to make decisions for conflict resolution, and therefore a discussion of the main conflict situations that exist in the san community of platfontein was essential. the use of km processes and trends by the san community was also identified. the traditional km processes that are usually applied in organisations in a structured way to assist them to manage organisational knowledge in order to achieve organisational goals, are the same processes that are used by the san community to manage their knowledge so that it can be used for decision-making, even though the san community do not realise that they are using km processes. knowledge management for decision-making in the san community td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 1-18. 15 the following recommendations are made: • although ik or community knowledge may seem to be in conflict with scientific knowledge, it should not simply be disregarded as useless. instead it is suggested that ik should be looked at more closely to identify the root of a conflict, considering whether it results from different viewpoints or missing information, and to gather more information if possible to address the gap, as expressed by ristroph (2012:12). it is further suggested that decisions should be based on knowledge that is subject to demonstration or proof, as opposed to unsubstantiated belief, as is usually the case with ik since it is difficult to capture and store. • a record must be kept and maintained of all the knowledge that the platfontein community shares. community structures such as sasi need to continue with their work and can be an important platform for capturing, transferring, exchanging and maintaining the ik of the san community. • according to crawhall (2007:21), the challenge is to mobilise youth and elders to identify how their own culture is a resource for them. if they can analyse the process of disempowerment and loss, the next step is the conscious effort to manage their knowledge and cultural transmission systems. perhaps this study will be the first step in this process. • it seems that while the san are expected, as indigenous peoples, to become more integrated into western society and economic systems, their traditional knowledge and practices are being lost. furthermore, indigenous peoples’ languages are the primary vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. every attempt should be made to listen to the san and to respect their wishes. • the modern san must have a sense of belonging. hence, it is important that the teachers in the schools that the san children attend are sensitised to their culture, and perhaps more culturally appropriate curricula could be designed that can prevent the loss of cultural identity and self-esteem among the younger san community. howard (2010:7) suggests that most learning is embedded in an individual’s everyday life and cultural practices. therefore it is necessary for different communities to understand each other’s cultural contexts and to move away from using primary western models alone to solve problems and make decisions. it is also important to match educational programmes to the local community’s learning processes if learning is to be successful for the individuals within the community. • in order to allow the san community’s ik to be transferred from generation to generation and to preserve it and put it to effective use, new partnerships are required between respected bodies (such as idra) and the government that can demonstrate their conviction of, respect for and commitment to the san’s diversity and culture. this view is supported by crawhall (2007:14), who states that “creative approaches need to be found to help join up the intergenerational transmission of valuable knowledge and the capacity for literacy and numeracy which may be of use to the younger generations”. in the san community it was found that the knowledge, skills, wisdom and competencies still exist, but these are at risk if they are not shared, captured and transmitted to the younger generation. • in the search for african solutions to african problems, the san community is one community that modern society should be looking at to obtain these solutions and link this knowledge with scientific and technical knowledge. sewdass 16 • from this study, it is clear that the san people want more autonomy and involvement in matters that impact them. they are keen to manage their own affairs, to be part of decision-making that affects them and not have these decisions made for them by others. hence it is important to involve the san community in any decision-making process that affects them and to incorporate their ideas and views when decisions are made. • more learning and exchange networks such as the idra project should be encouraged that can facilitate the exchange of ideas, competencies and skills between the san community and other communities. • the use of it should be strengthened, as it was found that the modern san are very keen to use technology and, in the form of mobile phones, community radio stations and television, are already doing so. it can be used to give the san community a voice and allow them to express their ideas, values, language and culture, thereby ensuring that it is shared and preserved. this will enhance the modern san’s appreciation of their culture and identity. km tools and techniques such as content management systems, group collaboration tools, journals, blogging and social media platforms, can also be adapted to capture and disseminate the ik of the san community. however, it should be noted that before these tools and techniques can be applied, a thorough understanding must be obtained of the san community and their local context as well as those who will benefit from the use of their ik. this will prevent misuse of the ik. ristroph (2012:119) also indicates that the best way to use community knowledge or ik is not to simply put it in a document or a database, but to allow those with the knowledge to actually participate in decision-making. this allows community knowledge to be used at every step of the decision-making process, which can benefit the community as a whole. this project has been able to accomplish this by allowing the san community elders with ik to be part 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setting the scene. in r snyman (ed). scecsal 2002. from africa to the world – the globalization of indigenous knowledge systems. proceedings of the 15th standing conference of eastern, central and southern african library and information associations, 15–19 april. caesar’s gauteng conference centre, south africa: 1–12. about the author(s) douglas n. magagula department of public management, tshwane university of technology, mbombela, south africa ricky m. mukonza department of public management, tshwane university of technology, polokwane, south africa rasodi k. manyaka department of public management, tshwane university of technology, mbombela, south africa kabelo b. moeti department of public management, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa citation magagula, d.n., mukonza, r.m., manyaka, r.k. & moeti, k.b., 2020, ‘corrigendum: towards strengthening collaboration between district and local municipalities in south africa: insights from ehlanzeni district municipality’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a799. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.799 note: doi of original article: https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.673 correction corrigendum: towards strengthening collaboration between district and local municipalities in south africa: insights from ehlanzeni district municipality douglas n. magagula, ricky m. mukonza, rasodi k. manyaka, kabelo b. moeti published: 09 nov. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the version of this article initially published, magagula, d.n., mukonza, r.m., manyaka, r.k. & moeti, k.b., 2019, ‘towards strengthening collaboration between district and local municipalities in south africa: insights from ehlanzeni district municipality’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a673. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.673, the organisation name ‘ehlanzeni district municipality’ was incorrectly abbreviated as edmedm in some instances throughout the article. the correct abbreviation should be edm. this correction does not alter the study’s findings of significance or overall interpretation of the study’s results. the authors apologise for any inconvenience caused. references about the author(s) johann w.n. tempelhoff department of history, faculty of humanities, north-west university, vanderbijlpark, south africa citation tempelhoff jwn. a remarkable year with new opportunities fortransdisciplinarity. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2020;16(1), a994. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.994 editorial a remarkable year with new opportunities for transdisciplinarity johann w.n. tempelhoff copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the year 2020 will go down in history as a time when the covid19 pandemic did spread from the city of wuhan in china to most parts of the globe in the wink of an eye. it has had a profound impact on the way we humans, in an emerging global society, have started doing things. apart from online meetings, shopping and growing streams of social media information, there have also been many self-assessments on how we as individuals and communities engage with the rest of society. for humankind, it has been a time of growing self-awareness that is bound to have a profound effect on how we move into the future. the year 2020 also marked the 15th anniversary of the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa. in 2005, the field of transdisciplinary studies had only started flowering in parts of the world. in western europe, the concept was embraced in the early 1970s by a small group of influential thinkers, which included erich jantsch (1929-1980) and jean piaget (1896-1980). however, jantsch’s insights1,2 only gained traction some two decades later. by that time, a signal shift had taken place in global society. it was notable for the quest to seek new areas of knowledge, no longer confined exclusively to the academic ivory tower. since then, there have been major adjustments in the way we create knowledge in the field of academic transdisciplinary research. it has been all about collaborative work, mutual respect for disciplinary boundaries, and the need for foreground socioecological systems and their complexity by working with all role players towards the co-construction of meaningful science. in south africa, the field has flowered, especially in the fields of sustainability studies; health and medicine; environmental studies and in various branches of the humanities, social and natural sciences. leading south african researchers have found that in our country we may have to resort to adjustments to the way in which we conduct transdisciplinary research. it may quite well also be the case for the rest of africa and even the southern hemisphere countries of the globe. van breda and swilling,3 based on their research on urban informal settlement case studies in western cape recently came to the conclusion that under local south african conditions, there is a need for adjustments in the way we carry out transdisciplinary research. their novel approach, emergent transdisciplinary design research (etdr), implies that a research project’s execution is constantly subject to change, adaptation and co-design. in the execution of a project, there are constant dynamics at work in the interplay between theory and practice. we need more breakthroughs in knowledge generation of this kind when dealing with the unique challenges to local and continental research. since its transfer to aosis publishers in 2016, the journal has made a number of transitions. the major benefit was a smooth transition to a professional team of technical and editorial assistants, who are passionate and dedicated to good-quality, open access publishing. the transition was laden with uncertainties, but simultaneously also produced valuable fertile fields for garnering new types of knowledge – especially rooted in a southern african setting. there have also been a number of valued continental contributions. as part of the journal’s transition, it was necessary to extend our focus to materials of researchers who are also working in a multiand interdisciplinary mode. the provision was that we share information on methodologies and theories. it has proven to be a sensible shift. apart from more articles on information communication technology (ict), we have increasingly gained insights on indigenous knowledge, african culture and the way in which post-colonial ideas have been shaping the fields of education, governance, management, politics, sociology, economics and technology studies. an understanding of the way in which complexity unfolds and the transitions our society have made since the onset of the 20th century’s global great acceleration4 has been astounding. science, technology, artificial intelligence and the way we lead connected lives in the emergent era of the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) require us to explore how to gain more knowledge on the way of leading our lives. therefore, this year’s special edition of the journal is dedicated with pride to ict and the 4ir. we hope to have more innovative editions dedicated to similar fields of research endeavour. in the course of the year, a team of independent academics of the academy of science of south africa (assaf) peer reviewed the journal and made a number of constructive comments and recommendations. these have been noted, and much of the sound ideas will soon become part of the journal’s future development. we have also now been added to the scientific electronic library online (scielo at www.scielo.org.za). deliberations have started with the aosis management, members of the journal’s editorial board and a number of academics to effectively help promote our journal to a broader community of transdisciplinary practice. in particular, there is a need to seek greater participation from natural scientists working in a transdisciplinary mode. of paramount importance is the need to extend the capacity of today’s young academics to pursue transdisciplinary research in a greater diversity of disciplinary fields. key to the process is an opportunity for transdisciplinary learning to become an integral part of teaching curricula at more of the country’s universities. the reward will be graduates who are open and conversant with the need to literally translate real-world problems into viable research questions. as suggested by pearce, adler et al.,5 transdisciplinary research requires reflexivity of a special kind. researchers need ‘to understand with their whole being’. johann tempelhoff references jantsch e. interand transdisciplinary university: a systems approach to education and innovation. policy sci. 1970;1:403–428. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00145222 jantsch e. interand transdisciplinary university: a systems approach to education and innovation. high educ. 1972;1:7–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01956879 van breda j, swilling m. the guiding logics and principles for designing emergent transdisciplinary research processes: learning experiences and reflections from a transdisciplinary urban case study in enkanini informal settlement, south africa. sustain sci. 2019;14:823–841. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0606-x mcneill j, engelke p. the great acceleration: an environmental history of the anthropocene since 1945. cambridge, ma: belknap of harvard university press; 2014. pearce b, adler c, senn l, et al. making the link between transdisciplinary learning and research. in: fam d, neuhauser l, gibbs p, editors. transdisciplinary theory, practice and education: the art of collaborative research and collective learning. cham: sringer, 2018; p. 167–185. abstract introduction aid in the context of the geography-institutions debate: big push theory dominance of institutions in econometric analysis theoretical and empirical challenges to the big push agenda literature in support of big push interventions: roots a contesting argument hindsight: 2015 millennium development goals conclusions acknowledgements references about the author(s) chris w. callaghan division of management and human resources management, school of economic and business sciences, university of the witwatersrand, south africa citation callaghan, cw., 2017, ‘geography versus institutions and sub-saharan aid’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a355. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.355 original research geography versus institutions and sub-saharan aid chris w. callaghan received: 14 june 2016; accepted: 25 nov. 2016; published: 28 feb. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article sets out to review two opposing viewpoints in the literature, namely long-standing geographic versus institutionalist perspectives and their opposing predictions for development of poor countries, particularly those in sub-saharan africa. a special focus is on the differing predictions of the effectiveness of aid of these two perspectives. on the basis of a consideration of different literatures and final millenium development report, it is argued that ‘big push’ theory may still offer important theoretical and practical development contributions. arguably, these contributions echo keynes’s legacy in their consideration of the most vulnerable and marginalised. it is also argued that a global birth lottery allocates people to countries and regions with unequal opportunities and that a normative argument can be made to justify aid to mitigate birth lottery effects. introduction income and growth divergence between rich and poor countries is an important issue in development literature. average income levels in the world’s richest and poorest nations ‘differ by a factor of more than 100’; sierra leone’s per capita gdp of $490 contrasts starkly with luxembourg’s $50 061 shortly after the millennium (rodrik, subramanian & trebbi 2004:132). middle-income traps (luiz 2016) and low-income traps (sachs et al. 2004) persist in african economies, contesting certain predictions of growth theory. although growth theory offers ‘proximal’ theory premised on physical and human capital accumulation, and endogenous growth theory explores the role of technological change, three deeper determinants of economic growth are considered to have a dominant influence on development, namely geography, trade and institutions (governance) (rodrik et al. 2004). however, relative importance of these deep determinant factors for sub-saharan country development has been contested (rodrik et al. 2004; sachs et al. 2004), particularly relative contributions of geography versus institutions. knowledge of these relative contributions is especially important as they have different implications for development interventions, particularly for aid-based intervention. this tension is the knowledge problem this article seeks to address. this article, therefore, attempts to make a contribution to this debate in three ways. firstly, literature which advocates a big push approach to aid is considered. this perspective is shown to be related to the geographic-centric view that fundamental constraints to development can ensnare poor countries in a poverty trap, in which preconditions to growth cannot become established. an argument is offered that ‘geographic inequity’ may differentiate an individual’s life chances on the basis of a global geographical ‘birth lottery’. consequently, only an interventionist perspective (such as on the scale of keynes’s vision) may capture the vision required to rally people and resources around large-scale objectives associated with ‘big push’ logics. this ‘arbitrary’ allocation of individuals to different geographic regions or countries through birth is defined here as the birth lottery effect. it is argued that the analysis and work of sachs et al. (2004) offers a vision which, albeit normative, continues to be useful in contemporary african development, and which has perhaps been borne out by millennium goal achievements to date. secondly, literature arguing for the dominance of institutions versus geography in this debate is considered. econometric evidence offered by rodrik et al. (2004) and easterley (2006) is discussed together with arguments questioning the effectiveness of large aid-based interventions as well as the millennium development goals (mdg) process and its linkages with the big push agenda. this literature is juxtaposed with a discussion of geography and literature highlighting the importance of transport costs as a constraint to development and the way geography might rule out certain paths to development, such as assembly manufacturing. certain models are then considered, one of which predicts contemporary divergence on account of historical differences in transport costs and an argument is considered which presents geography as a causal force which can shape tax choices and governance quality. it is argued that evidence does not discount geographical inequity as a structural constraint to development, supporting sachs et al. (2004) arguments in favour of aid interventions, particularly on a scale sufficient to counteract geographical inequity and thereby to provide preconditions for development. thirdly, literature relating to aid flows is considered, in relation to the big push arguments. sachs et al. (2004) have advocated dramatically increased levels of aid. their logic is that a ‘big push’ approach might dislodge impoverished economies from poverty traps or set these economies on sustainable developmental paths. much of the literature concerns a critique of the mdg process which in some instances is inextricably linked to the big push arguments. the mdg process culminated in 2015, its target date. an overview of the successes of the mdg process, concluded in 2015, is then provided. in the light of substantive inroads made on account of very large increases in aid, as reported in the mdg report, it is argued that the work of sachs et al. (2004) offers a theoretical, as well as practical contribution, to the lives of those under conditions of extreme poverty and deprivation. these issues are considered especially important for southern african countries. these countries face the world’s highest disease burden associated with hiv, on top of other challenges shared with other sub-saharan countries. given constructive critiques of aid initiatives (anderson, brown & jean 2012), with reference to the literature, this article also seeks to offer specific examples of areas in which aid might be effectively used to enable growth. this article therefore seeks to build on previous research related to the southern african context and development aid assistance (see e.g. bezuidenhout 2009; de wall & whiteside 2003; fowler 1991; zerbe 2004) in order to give consideration to arguments that support increasing aid to vulnerable populations. the article proceeds according to the sequence described above. big push theory is now introduced and discussed as follows. aid in the context of the geography-institutions debate: big push theory there is a general agreement that sub-saharan african countries face an extraordinary crisis. sachs et al. (2004) argued that sub-saharan africa (termed ‘africa’ hereforth) faces a unique development crisis. this crisis is reflected in negative income per capita growth across the years 1980–2000 while at the same time having to deal with health challenges such as aids and resurgent malaria compounded by rising antimalarial drug resistance and ineffective health systems. sachs et al. (2004) offered an analysis of 23 sub-saharan african countries. these countries together in 2001 had a population of 617 million with a population-weighted average income of $271 per person (74 cents per day). further, these countries had an average life expectancy at birth lower than 60 and child mortality rates of more than 100 deaths before 5 years of age per 1000 live births. on the basis of their analysis, sachs et al. (2004:121) contested the ‘standard diagnosis’ that ‘bad government’ or weak institutions are the primary cause of sub-saharan developmental challenges. instead, they argued that african country governance is not on average worse than elsewhere when income levels are controlled. this argument stands in contrast to others who have stressed the primary role of institutions as the fundamental determinant of development (acemoglu, gallego & robinson 2014; acemoglu, johnson & robinson 2001; rodrik et al. 2004). furthermore, according to sachs et al. (2004:121), cross-country regressions controlling for initial income and quality of governance using different measures show sub-saharan african countries to grow more slowly than other developing countries (with an annual point difference). consequently, they argued that africa’s crisis requires a better explanation than governance alone. other explanations of differences between developed and developing country growth have been the subject of long-standing debates. these debates have largely pitted neoclassical school growth models building on solow’s (1956) seminal tradition (which some have come to term exogenous growth models according to parente 2001) against other schools of thought, such as those associated with endogenous growth theory (romer 1994). although the former largely focus on the different effects of capital, labour and technological change, the latter focus on investments in human capital, innovation and knowledge. what differentiates sachs et al.’s (2004) work from these is essentially the argument that many african economies are stuck in ‘poverty traps’ and are thus unable to take advantage of opportunities for growth suggested by exogenous or endogenous growth theories. on the basis of their findings, sachs et al. (2004) argued that tropical africa, including its well-governed economies, are stuck in a poverty trap and are therefore simply too poor to grow. this poverty trap mechanism works through the effect of extreme poverty levels which result in low national savings rates. these low national savings rates are not offset by private foreign capital inflows nor by foreign direct investment because poor infrastructure and human capital endowments disincentivise these flows. extremely low domestic savings and low market-based foreign capital inflows, therefore, make it difficult for africa to escape this poverty trap. a ‘big push’ is therefore needed to provide a fast ‘step’ increase in underlying rural and urban productivity, and foreign donor intervention is therefore key to this, according to sachs et al. (2004). at the heart of the rationale behind big push aid interventions, however, is the poverty trap conception. the notion of poverty traps is not new. sachs et al. (2004) acknowledged the poverty trap for underdeveloped countries first formally modelled by nelson (1956:894), who offered the following synopsis of the original concept: the malady of many underdeveloped economies can be diagnosed as a stable equilibrium level of per capita income at or close to subsistence requirements. only a small percentage, if any, of the economy’s income is directed toward net investment. if the capital stock is accumulating, population is rising at a rate equally fast; thus the amount of capital equipment per worker is not increasing. if economic growth is defined as rising per capital income, these economies are not growing. they are caught in a low-level equilibrium trap. sachs et al. (2004) developed on this to offer a theory of africa’s poverty trap using a standard neoclassical growth model. in this model, output per capital (q) is produced. the model also includes a production function (af(k)), with a, the total factor productivity, and k, the capital–labour ratio. further, s represents the national savings rate, d is the rate of capital depreciation and n is the rate of population growth. the rate of capital accumulation is therefore: change in the capital–labour ratio itself reflects capital deepening, and (n + d)k represents capital widening, or the amount of per capita savings needed to maintain the capital–labour ratio against rises in population and depreciation. this equation therefore posits capital deepening as a function of savings per capital less capital widening. in this model, per capital growth can only occur if saving per capital is greater than capital widening. therefore, if savings is less than capital widening, a decline in output per capita results. however, according to sachs et al. (2004), a shortcoming of this neoclassical model is its assumption that the economy will necessarily grow with very low levels of k. the assumption is that saf(k) is very steep at the origin and steeper than (n + d)k at the origin. furthermore, it is also assumed that dk/dt is equal to vertical difference between saf(k) and (n + d)k such that from a low capital–labour ratio, k and q rise asymptotically to a steady-state equilibrium. this is, however, a special case, as when k is extremely low, marginal productivity of capital is also low (not almost infinite, as in the classic model), as a minimum level, or threshold of capital is a necessary condition before modern production processes can begin. this is clear from the example of factory production, which requires basic infrastructure in the form of electricity, ports, as well as literate and numerate human capital endowments. without these infrastructure endowments, small increments of k may have very little influence. however, once these basic endowments are present, it is then entirely possible that marginal productivity of capital can rise steeply. a further effect is present when k is very low, as saving rates can be low or negative, and current income is all used to maintain basic needs, and a savings trap can result (sachs et al. 2004). under savings trap conditions, saf(k) can be less steep than (n + d)k at very low levels of k, but can become more steep at intermediate range. the implication of this is that in economies starting with extremely low capital, the capital–labour ratio and output per capital can tend to decline over time, as the poor get poorer absent of capital accumulation in the face of increasing population. hence, only (somehow) by raising the capital–labour ratio above a minimum threshold can economic growth be achieved and steady-state convergence be obtained. the argument that extremely impoverished countries cannot develop without the necessary infrastructure seems incontestable. deriving from sachs et al.’s (2004) analysis, it is argued in this article that aid to countries might be justified on normative grounds and that perhaps aid should reach those impoverished in the same way it would reach them if the global lottery of birth had placed them within the borders of a rich country. it is acknowledged that this perspective is purely normative, but is taken to perhaps be a logical extension of sachs et al.’s (2004) big push approach. this criteria, of equity in geographical allocation, is therefore a measure of unfairness in global resource allocation. empirical evidence in the literature suggests that savings rates are typically extremely low at low-income levels but can rise as levels of income increase. yet, a poverty trap can also be caused by very rapid population growth at low levels of k (sachs et al. 2004). poverty traps are therefore multidimensional and can include interactive effects which maintain a vicious circle of underdevelopment. it is argued here that these are systemic interactive effects which require an extraordinary intervention on a large enough scale to break through such constraints to development. capital thresholds, saving traps and demographic traps all interact, and although each can cause a trap, their combined influence can be debilitating. sub-saharan africa, and by extension, southern africa, is disproportionally exposed because of (1) high transport costs and small market size, (2) low agricultural productivity, (3) high disease burdens, (4) geopolitical challenges and (5) very low levels of technology diffusion from global sources (sachs et al. 2004). these conditions place geography at the heart of the problem of relative inequality and poverty of these economies. arguably, the importance of this argument is clear, and beyond methodological question in terms of empirical analysis because as an exogenous structural constraint to development, no amount of instrumentation in relative weights of regression analyses can contest its primary direct influence on other determinants of development. the logic sachs et al. (2004) espoused here suggests that aid could and should be used to balance the geographical constraints to development. these geographical constraints are considered substantively unfair, providing a normative rationale for intervention through aid inflows and inflows on the scale required to achieve geographical equity and thereby generate preconditions for development. despite a crisis in legitimacy in the 1990s, since 2000, united nations and world bank calls for doubling of aid to meet international development targets have resulted in increased aid flows to developing countries (loots 2006). net official development assistance (oda) flows to african countries have risen from a 1970s average of $4.9 billion to $12.45 billion in the 1980s, and then to a high of $25.2 billion for 1990. flows then decreased to $21.1 billion by 2002, comprising the largest capital flows to the continent, exceeding foreign direct investment as well as worker remittances (loots 2006). in calls for drastic increases in aid, sachs et al. (2004) followed a long-standing tradition of calls for dramatic increases in aid (see rosenstein-rodan 1961). the distribution of aid itself has perhaps not been independent of geography. africa has not had the geopolitical strategic status of other global regions which have received global aid (sachs et al. 2005), compounding this disadvantage. sachs et al. (2004:139) stressed that they ‘are not arguing for any geographic determinism’ and that their ‘whole point’ is the opposite: africa’s structural impediments can be overcome if they are compensated by an intensive investment program that directly confronts the continent’s high transport costs, low agricultural productivity, heavy disease burden, colonial legacy of poor educational attainment, and the like. we are arguing, however, that africa’s structural problems help to account for its current trap…. poor governance no doubt complicated the task many natural resource rents were squandered but the poor governance itself was as much symptom as cause. to break out of the poverty trap, africa needs help, and it has not yet gotten it in the form and to the extent that is necessary. in order to critically develop the central argument of this article that sachs et al. (2004) essentially provide a useful rationale for increasing the scope of aid (based on the geography equity notion) and that aid should be increased to mitigate the global birth lottery effect, it is first necessary to consider other perspectives and empirical analyses which contest the centrality of geography as the basis for aid provision. certain of these perspectives are now considered in the following sections. dominance of institutions in econometric analysis rodrik et al. (2004) acknowledged three ‘deep determinant’ theoretical arguments relating to global inequality development, which, importantly, have different implications for efforts to address it. according to these arguments, (1) geography is central to poverty and inequality of economies, (2) international trade (trade fundamentalist stance) is the primary cause of productivity change, a perspective termed the integration view (with market integration at the heart of potential convergence) and (3) institutions, and more specifically the maintenance of property rights and rule of law (institutionalist stance), are the most pervasive influence on growth. although growth theory offers ‘proximal’ theory premised on physical and human capital accumulation, and endogenous growth theory explores the role of technological change, the three dominant deeper determinants of economic growth are really ‘the factors that determine which societies will innovate and accumulate, and therefore develop, and which will not’ according to rodrik et al. (2004). figure 1 reflects rodrik et al.’s (2004) process of testing the relative contribution of geography, integration and institutions to income. they used instrumental variable regressions to test these relationships. geography may have a direct effect on incomes through agricultural productivity and morbidity (modelled as arrows (arrow 1) in figure 1). it might also have an indirect effect through distance from markets and integration (arrow 2) or impact on institutions (arrow 3), which can include the deleterious influence of resource endowments on incomes, the ‘resource curse’. however, the influence of geography is exogenous to the direct and indirect influences of integration, or trade effects, and institutions, the latter two contributing endogenous effects (rodrik et al. 2004). the centrality of geographic constraints to development (sachs et al. 2004) is clear from this analysis as the geographic effect is theoretically common to all three other components of the model. figure 1: potential relationships between the deep determinants of income. trade fundamentalists argue for the primacy of effect (arrow 4), or the direct effect of integration on incomes and (arrow 5) the direct effect on institutions which then transmits, via an indirect effect, to income level via this direct effect on institutions. in addition, they argue that reverse causality effects (arrow 6) and (arrow 7) are relatively non-significant. on the contrary, institutionalists typically argue for the primacy of effect (arrow 8) and that institutional quality is not simply the result of higher incomes themselves (arrow 9) or simply integration (arrow 5) (rodrik et al. 2004). in order to test these effects econometrically, rodrik et al. (2004) use trade or gdp shares derived from a gravity equation for bivariate trade flows as an instrument for actual trade or gdp ratios, and settler mortality rates as an instrument for institutional quality. they apply the instruments simultaneously to test the three categories of deep determinants of incomes and their independent contributions to cross-national variation in income levels (the relationships shown in figure 1). rodrik et al. (2004) therefore tested the following equation, with yi, the income per capita of country i; insi, the measure for institutions; inti, the measure of integration; geoi, the measure of geography; and εi, the random error term. interestingly, in the first-stage analysis, the constructed openness measure is found to predict institutions as well as integration, which does not seem to rule out the potential influence of trade on institutions. rodrik et al. (2004:151) concluded overall that ‘there seems to be some albeit modest, support for the direct impact of geography on income, although one that is not as robust as that of institutional quality’. overall, rodrik et al. (2004) found quality of institutions to be the dominant relationship with income levels; with institutions controlled for, geographic effects are found to have weak direct effects and strong indirect effects through their influence on institutions, and with institutions controlled, trade is not significant. these findings echo other research arguing for the importance of institutions (e.g. acemoglu et al. 2001, 2014). however, it is argued here that the centrality of institutions is an argument ‘downstream’ of the separate argument that aid needs to equalise disadvantages associated with geographical constraints to development. this is not to diminish the importance of institutions. there are certain aspects, however, of sachs et al.’s (2005) analysis which are also contested by easterley (2006), who offers a more detailed critique of the big push literature in general. this critique is now considered. theoretical and empirical challenges to the big push agenda contesting sachs et al.’s (2005) analysis of the causes of poverty traps, easterley (2006) stressed that poverty traps may fundamentally be caused by bad policies and institutions. he argued that the ‘classic aid narrative [has] paid little attention to this possibility’ and that the ‘revival of the narrative today also downplays the bad government explanation for poverty’ (easterley 2006:294). if poor government was the only cause of poor performance, and if it was independent of other influences such as geography, then aid would not only be ineffective but it would also not address the primary cause of poverty and underdevelopment. however, these two ‘ifs’ seem to be based on assumptions which are not uncontested, as discussed in preceding sections. easterley questioned a host of big push assumptions, taking issue with the millennium projects stance that even well-governed countries are simply too impoverished to grow as well as aid-centred approaches to development in general for failure to consider aid effectiveness in the light of potential effects of aid on fertility. easterley (2006:294) stressed that ‘aid that raises personal income may increase population growth by more than the necessary increase in saving, theoretically perpetuating the poverty trap’. he also argued that little empirical evidence supports the notion of high returns to human and physical capital from already-implemented big pushes. according to data for the period 1970–1994 for 22 african countries, big push public investments have not produced a rapid step increase in africa’s underlying rural or urban productivity as over this period. these countries were found to have spent $342 on public investment and donors $187 in aid, with a step increase in productivity (measured as per capital growth) of zero. using data on per capita income from 1950 to 2001 for 137 countries, easterley (2006) tested two criteria, namely whether poorest countries have significantly lower per capital growth and whether their growth is zero. he argued that if the first criterion holds but not the second, then a relative poverty trap exists. however, his findings suggested that the poorest fifth of countries in 1950 increased income over the following 50 years 2.25 times, and the others by 2.47 times, with no statistically significant difference in growth rates between these two groups. such tests, however, do not seem to take into account the fact that for poor countries this growth is off an extremely small base. central to the debate around the importance of institutions, easterley (2006) found that measures of government quality strongly predict growth across 1960–2002, with initial income negative. easterley (2006:307) therefore concluded that ‘recent stagnation of the poorest countries appears to have more to do with bad government than with a poverty trap, contrary to the “well-governed poverty trap” hypothesis’. however, easterley (2006:307) subsequently acknowledged that his conclusion ‘does not necessarily support an exclusive focus on good government as the key to growth and development’. this is taken to be an important acknowledgement, because it ‘opens the door’ to notions that aid intervention can play an important role in growth and that the story is not only about institutions, as rodrik et al. (2004) have tried to suggest. having considered arguments contesting the big push advocacy literature, literature supporting big push arguments is now considered. literature in support of big push interventions: roots the big push literature builds off a long tradition of work which has sought to justify interventions in support of poorer regions or economies. according to rosenstein-rodan (1943:203), the principle of international division of labour requires labour to move towards capital (emigration) or capital towards labour (industrialisation). in this way, a waste of labour is avoided, a process suited to an interventionist development path preferable to the autarkic route of non-intervention (rosenstein-rodan 1943). the take-off literature can be traced back to work by rostow (1960). rostow (1960) identified a state of societal development which achieves preconditions for take-off. on reaching this state, a country is able to capture benefits of modern scientific methods and overcome diminishing returns through attainment of new production functions in both agriculture and industry. the state also gains the social and political structures to support this (typically reached through interventions by other societies). what is clear from rostow’s (1960) analysis is the argument for strong intervention to ensure take-off occurs. for sachs (2005:3), aid is central to escaping the poverty trap, a vision he shares with that of another, of a different time (of keynes): eighty-five years ago the great british economist john maynard keynes pondered the dire circumstances of the great depression. from the depths of despair around him, he wrote in 1930 of the economic possibilities of our grandchildren. at a time of duress and suffering, he envisioned the end of poverty in great britain and other industrial countries in his grandchildren’s day, toward the end of the twentieth century …. keynes got it just right, of course: extreme poverty no longer exists in today’s rich countries, and is disappearing in most of the world’s middle-income countries. today we can invoke the same logic to declare that extreme poverty can be ended not in the time of our grandchildren, but in our time. the wealth of the rich world, the power of today’s vast storehouses of knowledge, and he declining fraction of the world that needs help to escape from poverty all make the end of poverty a realistic possibility by the year 2025. arguably, analysis of sachs’ (2005) and sachs et al.’s (2005) work is not complete without insight into their values, which motivate the big push agenda, and its underlying discourses. an understanding of the vision which underlies the big push agenda offers important insights into the normative dimension of the big push agenda. having offered an overview of certain seminal contributions to the big push advocacy literature, an analysis of geography as a ‘deep determinant’ constraint to development is now considered. geography at the heart of arguments for large-scale aid, or big push interventions, is a consideration of geographical disadvantage. only aid contributions on the same scale as the effects of geographic disadvantage (or on a sufficient ‘threshold’ scale) can provide the prerequisite conditions for growth or take-off (sachs 2005; sachs et al. 2005). in order to understand this argument, it is necessary to first understand the specifics of how geographic effects can constrain growth, and an overview of these is provided as follows. geographic modelling an introduction to arguments offered by gallup, sachs and mellinger (1999) is now offered. of central importance to the arguments offered in support of the centrality of geography as the primary force accounting for differences in development is the notion of gallup et al. (1999) offered a harrod-domar model with transport costs included. this model includes total factor productivity (a), which is taken to differ (1) geographically, for reasons related to temperate and tropical agriculture and endemic health conditions, (2) in terms of transport costs, related to distances and physical access to trade in terms of river navigability or distance from the coast, (3) according to national savings rates and (4) according to economic policies of governments. their logic is summarised as follows, starting with the aggregate production function below: the capital stock (k) is taken to change according to the following equation, in which i is the investment and δ is the rate of investment. assuming constant population which is normalised to 1, q would then reflect output as well as input per capita. if the national savings rate is fixed at s, the price of investment goods relative to final output is pi. therefore: the economy’s growth rate is therefore: according to this equation derived by gallup et al. (1999), economic growth is a function of the savings rate (s) and level of productivity (a), but negatively related to the relative price of capital goods pi as well as the rate of depreciation (δ). the relative prices of capital goods are, however, to some extent a function of transport costs because a large proportion of investment goods have to be imported. indeed, in developing countries, almost all are imported (gallup et al. 1999). to further analyse effects related to transport costs, gallup et al. (1999) developed another model. in this model, each country is considered to produce a distinct final good with investment, a composite of final goods produced in different countries, under the assumption that gains from trade exist and that transport costs and other barriers to trade reduce growth. according to this model, total investment depends on investment expenditure on domestic goods (id) as well as imported goods (im): to illustrate this further, gallup et al. (1999) considered i, a cobb-douglas function of underlying domestic and foreign investment goods. they then developed the model further, reaching the conclusion that the growth rate is inversely related to the cost of transport. the implication of this is that transport costs therefore reduce growth through the higher costs associated with imported capital goods. this implication echoes literature suggesting that rates of growth are decreasing functions of the relative costs of investment goods. gallup et al. (1999) extended their analysis further to include the influence of transport costs on intermediate goods (e.g. fabrics or electronic components). intermediate goods can also be a requirement for final production which uses low-cost assembly for re-export. therefore, on the basis of this further analysis, even relatively small transport costs are found to potentially have strong effects on output and growth when intermediate inputs are a large component of final demand. multistage processing of output can, therefore, use specialised inputs produced in different regions, and only coastal or coastal-linked areas can compete. an implication of these results is that the channel to development offered by assembly manufacturing may be inaccessible to hinterland regions. geography is, therefore, a dominant constraint to their development. the ak model, however, does not predict convergence (no diminishing returns to investment in production), so capital depending is not expected to be associated with slowing growth. accordingly, countries with advantages in savings rates, efficiency, transport costs or depreciation rates are predicted to potentially attain permanently higher growth rates and divergence can occur (gallup et al. 1999). an important implication of this model, therefore, relates to temporal effects. if transport costs allow early historical advantage, then even if growth rates converged, this initial advantage is expected to persist in terms of relative income levels. if increasing-returns-to-scale models are applied to the analysis, positive growth divergence could result as a result of their dependence on levels of capital (which are high because of historical transport advantage) (gallup et al. 1999). a large-scale influx of aid (as per sachs et al. 2004) would be needed in this instance if geographic equity were to be achieved. the extent to which geography might shape institutions is also an important issue, and this is now considered in terms of gallup et al.’s (1999) analysis. geography and economic policy choice gallup et al. (1999) stressed that geography not only influences growth through the channels of productivity and transport costs but also through its influence on policy choices. countries closer to markets, for example, may tend to choose more open trade policies. taxation levied might pit revenue collection against the policy environment, where governments maximise utility and can choose higher tax revenue at the cost of future growth (gallup et al. 1999). with low growth because of geographical influence and growth unresponsive to policy, revenue-maximising governments may tend to impose higher rates of taxation. such higher taxation can be associated with protectionist policies. on the contrary, with more productive economies and under conditions where growth is more responsive to policies, governments may be incentivised to tax less. these dynamics can amplify differences between these two types of countries (gallup et al. 1999). a methodological identification problem may also arise from tested associations between taxation and growth. a negative association can be interpreted as the importance of policy for growth, but according to the logic of amplification of differences it could be that growth has an important influence on policy (gallup et al. 1999). gallup et al. (1999) tested convergence versus divergence effects using cross-country growth equations incorporating catching-up effects, concluding that (1) both geography and policy matter, (2) tropics are not conducive to growth (primarily related to malaria as a variable), which might also proxy tropical maladies in general that are geographically associated with malaria, (3) coastal regions lower transport costs and create agglomeration economies, (4) high population growth seems to hinder growth inland but supports growth in coastal regions and (5) distance from core markets is not an important driver of economic growth. aid programmes which improve transport infrastructure for landlocked countries to access ports also require cooperation between different countries, which are typically difficult to coordinate and neglected by country-based donor projects. according to gallup et al. (1999:212), ‘the policy implications of these findings, if the findings are true, are staggering’ and aid programmes ‘should be rethought’. they argued that research agendas need to be reshaped in the light of the importance of geographical variables, as neglecting geography may overstate the role of policy variables in economic growth and neglect deeper constraints associated with geography. having considered different sides of the historical geography versus institutions debate in relation to sub-saharan countries, certain perspectives relating to the effectiveness of aid are now considered, prior to reporting on the progress of the mdg aid process in 2015. effectiveness of aid flows the tension in the literature between advocates of geographic and institutional effects is to some extent reflected, respectively, in tensions between advocates for big push, or pro-aid interventions and those who are not. anderson et al. (2012) provided a critique of the contemporary aid system, suggesting aid reform to change the system from one based on externally driven delivery to a more collaborative system. this critique, based on insights from those receiving aid, relates to processes and systems of the international aid system which undermines its effectiveness and the way assistance can become entrenched as an increasingly complicated system of reciprocal dependence. ‘smarter’ and more effective aid delivery is therefore needed, as much is wasted through misguided programmes or lack of provider engagement. to achieve its intent, fundamental reform in its processes are required if aid is to support positive economic, social and political change, which it can do if applied effectively (anderson et al. 2012). edwards and hulme (1998) suggested the possibility that dependence on official funding can compromise non-governmental organisations in key areas. this can distort accountability and weakening legitimacy. the arguments made in this article are made with full acknowledgement of such critiques of the global aid delivery system and the need to address these issues. however, such problems are not considered to lessen the needs of those most vulnerable and should arguably not stand in the way of increased assistance where warranted. if modern economic growth in geographically constrained africa will only occur when geographical constraints are overcome, then this is a process dependent on external funding, using the mdgs as initial targets (sachs et al. 2005). this argument is to some extent supported by other perspectives that geographically based increasing returns justify large-scale interventions to finance preconditions for growth (o’connell 2004). in fact, in terms of the effectiveness of aid, little evidence supports ‘new washington consensus’ that aid cannot function with weak institutions and that conditionality has not worked (kremer 2004). aid to states with bad governments can also be effective in reaching those most in need, as government spending may ignore social ends. private and non-profit organisations can be strengthened together with alternative power bases, although this does raise incentive issues (kremer 2004). the institutionist argument is, therefore, not incommensurate with the big push argument. this is also recognised by sachs et al. (2004). aid can be effective on account of its inherent characteristics. mdgs have intrinsic appeal as merit goods and are well defined and targeted at poverty reduction and human development, providing a useful framework for overcoming conflicts of interest and providing a uniting logic in objectives (o’connell 2004). further, aid can be better than commodity rents, as donors have an interest in what is being financed. aid typically does not lead to armed conflict in the same way as natural resource abundance can (o’connell 2004). poverty trap models assume microeconomic non-convexities (such as lumpy capital investments), but little evidence suggests that these exist at the macroeconomic level. if transport and communications infrastructure is needed, this can be provided in a single location and expanded outward, limiting macroeconomic non-convexities (kremer 2004). this supports the sachs et al. (2004) argument from an infrastructure big push perspective. the effectiveness of aid can also be increased by considering what it is channelled to. scaling up donor aid in science-intensive regional public goods, such as basic research in health and agriculture, is useful. precedent exists, such as eradicating polio and developing high-yield seed types in the asian green revolution (o’connell 2004). aid needs to be integrated with country priorities and toward ends which offer sensible paybacks. developing agriculture might be problematic if low transport costs make it possible only for countries with comparative advantage to sustain agriculture (glaeser 2004). aid in science-intensive regional public goods, however, is relatively more robust to time horizon constraints but large-scale aid, however, is not (o’connell 2004). at the microeconomic level, the case for aid should be based on serious human needs. even small amounts of aid can have an important impact on certain local problems, such as access to clean water, vaccinations and transport to support trade (kremer 2004). interventions should also be targeted which ‘work’. the workability of interventions should be researched. however, in contrast to those opposing increases in aid who argue capacity constraints are a dominant impediment, it is possible that expectations or requirements for ‘sustainability’ of aid create this problem. certain issues, such as vaccination and funding teachers’ salaries, need to be acknowledged as long-horizon issues in the first place (kremer 2004). overall, big push or poverty trap evidence is empirically just as consistent as conventional growth models which prioritise government quality and policies as determinants of steady-state income, according to kremer (2004). arguably, if aid was increased on normative grounds, it could mitigate the global birth lottery effect, and one ‘very big push’, if successful, could subsequently increase the societal and economic returns to investments. aid management practices are also improving. although outcomes-based assessments have improved aid delivery, mdg services remain transactions-intensive and discretionary. if overly discretionary, important actions can be unobservable. this ‘unobservability’ is perhaps reflected in problematic empirical linkages between spending on education and health and outcomes. intrinsic incentive problems therefore prevail, unlike the effects of macroeconomic policy (o’connell 2004). according to the institutionalist school, aid can be ineffective because of poor governance. if rule of law and institutions are indeed an insurmountable obstacle to investment and infrastructure development, and if these effects were robust to aid, other measures might be needed, such as un trusteeship backed with forces to support minimal law and order so aid can be used properly (cooper 2004). there also seem to be other options, according to this literature, which contest the more cynical aid effectiveness discourses associated with what sachs et al. (2004) termed the ‘standard diagnosis’ or ‘standard view’. the ‘standard view’ or ‘standard diagnosis’ the ‘standard view’ is taken to incorporate perspectives critical of the big push logic. according to cooper (2004), many successful countries (e.g. switzerland) are landlocked with low natural resources, and africa is not in a subsistence-level poverty trap as it has been growing. further, aid is wasted because of lack of elementary functions of law and order needed to deliver it effectively (cooper 2005), which is not adequately considered by big push model advocates (kremer 2004). according to o’connell (2004), aid to africa has been flowing for a long time, with much misdirected. he questioned what is really new about the big push narrative, and whether such a bold approach is not simplistic as it ignores uncertainties and other problems of delivery. further, o’connell (2004) argued big push ideas typically lack a sufficient consideration of ‘what next?’ we need to admit that we do not know much about how to enable growth in africa, or when it will happen, according to kremer (2004). kremer suggested a greater body of evidence that indicates government quality is more important for growth than the evidence which supports the poverty trap view. he argued that big push advocacy effectively reduces to vintage capital fundamentalism, which has been rejected in the literature as a viable interpretation of africa’s development path. poverty trap models predict large negative shocks cause stagnation. in contrast, however, economies experiencing these have subsequently been the fastest growing in africa (e.g. uganda and mozambique), although aid has played a major role (kremer 2004). another challenge in research is that traditional measures of governance do not pick up absence of government sufficiently (kremer 2004). what unites these perspectives is their challenge to the effectiveness of aid argument of poverty trap theory. these critiques are answered in the same way as they have been above, in different forms – that institutional quality does not make aid effectiveness impossible – it merely constrains it. and it might be that geographical constraints are at the heart of governance challenges too. governance does not need to be considered relative to income as this is not the critical indicator for successful aid. rather the question is whether governance is good enough in absolute terms to avoid sharply diminishing returns or institutional deterioration under increasing scale of public service provision (o’connell 2004). an excess focus on deep determinants might preclude a proper focus on absorptive capacity. if financial resources were the key constraint to africa’s development, persistent commodity booms would be expected to provide trap exit. instead, commodity rents may have been the centre of distributional contests undermining policy and institutional performance (o’connell 2004). big push narratives also typically dismiss dutch disease effects. furthermore, large and continual aid inflows can boost domestic spending on non-traded goods, hurting competitiveness, as real exchange rates cannot be fixed for more than a short interval. big push logics also assume sequencing whereby export diversification is secondary, but empirical evidence suggests the importance of trade for development (o’connell 2004). massive aid transfers could hurt africa if real appreciation of currencies result (gordon 2004). according to gordon, big push notions assume perfect delivery but advocate scaling up financing and the mandate of weak institutions. this can potentially exacerbate existing weaknesses and potentially enable dependency traps, as donor activities drive out institutional learning-by-doing. consequently, high-aid, low-institutional-capacity equilibria can develop, even in crises following four decades of relatively high aid (o’connell 2004). briefly, big push logics require improving effectiveness of aid, but deep associations between poverty and poor institutional capability require consideration of absorptive capacity, typically neglected in big push literature (o’connell 2004). it is argued that most of these issues can be incorporated into sachs et al.’s (2004) model and that its central thesis stands that if structural constraints (such as geographical inequity) can be removed via big push aid interventions, preconditions to improved growth can result. donor aid and mdgs given sachs (2005) and sachs et al. (2004) explicitly link advocacy of the big push approach to the mdg process, a review of criticisms of the donor and mdg process is also considered relevant. according to kremer (2004), tying aid to mdgs can distort how funds are spent. donors typically do not provide sufficient resources, and poor countries have other needs as well. mdg processes can lack local participatory input. this is particularly important as donor funding is typically a component of bilateral foreign policy. political changes can occur, and aid cannot have longer horizons than weak institutional uncertainties (o’connell 2004). resistance to donor efforts can also hinder aid effectiveness, as countries have priorities according to their needs, and large-scale big push approaches might conflict with these priorities (o’connell 2004). poverty trap models suggest high returns for private investments by locals, but this is less evident in empirical evidence. certain african economies have decreased in gnp per capita (kremer 2004). mdgs do not consider benefits after deadlines have expired, and national development plans built around mdgs will face problems if external funding does not materialise. important priorities like vaccinations can in time be crowded out by other objectives (kremer 2004). according to kremer (2004), it is not known whether fundraising benefits of mdgs will, on balance, be larger than potential distortions caused to development planning. he argued that a more modest and microeconomically sound approach to aid might be better than an approach based on big push logics. in the above sections, discussions provided the basis for an evaluation of arguments around the tension between geographic versus institutional perspectives and the implications for aid to sub-saharan countries. evidence offered by the 2015 review of the mdgs is considered in section ‘hindsight: 2015 millennium development goals’, in order to provide a perspective of the extent to which the big push approach has in fact delivered on its promises, given 2015 as the mdg target year. prior to this, however, a further (and hitherto unconsidered) contesting argument is discussed, which offers another perspective of what might constrain sub-saharan economic development, based on the notion that african economies face poverty traps more specifically associated with sectoral-level effects. a contesting argument in the sections above, debates between geographic-centric and institution-centric perspectives were considered in relation to the pro-aid debates associated with the former and anti-aid stance typically associated with the latter. at this nexus, however, a further argument is introduced which contests the geographic and institutional literatures in terms of its explanation of the dominant cause of underdevelopment. this contesting argument, however, is nonetheless also taken to support the need for dramatic interventions and increased development assistance for poor countries, as it argues african economies face a lack of development because of deindustrialisation (tregenna 2009, 2014). this condition is termed here a ‘deindustrialisation’ trap. palma (2008) differentiated between three bodies of theory differentiated by the way they model growth (and therefore development). this differentiation is framed in terms of their focus on activities (such as research and development [r&d] and education) versus sectors (e.g. the manufacturing sector). the first category, for palma, includes solow-type models as well as endogenous growth theory that focus on the production function at the expense of r&d or human capital activities. this category is associated with an ‘activity-indifferent’ and ‘sector-indifferent’ approach to growth. the second category relates to what palma described as activity-specific theory such as that of romer and neo-schumpeterian theorists who focus on activities such as r&d but who are sector-indifferent in their theory development. in contrast, the third category relates to theory which incorporates both activity and sectoral effects, such as post-keynesian, schumpeterian and structuralist theory building on the work of kaldor (1970). this work focuses on patterns and dynamics of growth driven by manufacturing because of technological change, externalities, synergies, balance-of-payment effects and learning-by-doing. according to this perspective, development catch-up is essentially a function of the size, strength and depth of manufacturing sectors. however, structural adjustment programmes and liberalisation reforms in african economies have typically not paid sufficient attention to erosion of important parts of the industrial base necessary for future growth (noorbakhsh & paloni 1999). given that historically no country has ever attained developed country status without it being on the back of industrialisation, and given the current global trend towards deindustrialisation (tregenna 2014), it is argued here that without dramatic increases in development aid, sub-saharan economies face conditions inimical to catch-up or economic convergence with developed economies. a visionary approach to these problems on the scale of sachs et al.’s (2004) big push logic is perhaps needed, with this justified on account of the birth lottery rationale, drawing from the principles of social justice. the feasibility of this suggestion, however, rests on the assumption of effectiveness of aid. the impact of aid can perhaps be reflected in the extent to which developmental goals have been met because of aid investments. attainment of the mdgs is now considered to this end. hindsight: 2015 millennium development goals kremer’s (2004:222) perspective summarised another implication of what sachs et al. (2005) might consider the standard critique of the big push approach, namely that: [i]nstead of setting macroeconomic goals, such as escaping from a poverty trap or achieving the mdgs, and then planning aid around them, it would be better to make decisions based on microeconomic evidence on the impact of particular programs and policies. arguably, these notions are not mutually exclusive; it goes without saying, perhaps, that implementation should not exclude microeconomic considerations. it is argued in this article, however, that only a large-scale aid intervention approach, or rationale, can capture the vision and provide a normative logic for large-scale intervention, as offered by sachs et al. (2005) which draws on the grand vision of keynes. to some extent, the relative success of the big push agenda, with its geographic-centric perspective, as conceptualised by sachs et al. (2005), is perhaps reflected in an assessment of the achievements of the mdgs. these are considered as follows. in terms of the first mdg goal, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, whereas in 1990 almost half the developing world population lived on less than $1.25 per day, this proportion has dropped to 14% in 2015. the proportion of those living in extreme poverty has fallen from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million, with most progress occurring since 2000 (united nations 2015). according to the second goal, to achieve universal primary education, the primary net enrolment rate climbed from 83% in 2000 to 91% in 2015. a 20% point increase in net enrolments was realised from 2000 to 2015 for sub-saharan africa. achievements against the third goal, to promote gender equality and empower woman, include an increase in female parliamentary representation (a doubling of average proportion) to 90% of the 174 countries with data. over the period 2000–2015, the target of eliminating gender disparity in primary, secondary and tertiary education has been achieved in developing regions on the whole. against the fourth goal, to reduce child mortality, the global under-five mortality rate has declined by more than half, from 90 to 43 deaths per 1000 live births over the years 1990–2015. despite population growth, in sub-saharan africa, the annual rate of reduction of under-five mortality rose fivefold for the period 2005–2013 over and above the period 1990–1995. a 67% decline in globally reported measles cases has occurred across the years 2000–2013, as measles vaccine coverage has risen from 73% in 2000 to 84% in 2013 (united nations 2015). in terms of the fifth goal, to improve maternal health, since 1990 the maternal mortality ratio has dropped by 45% worldwide, and by 49% in sub-saharan africa over the years 1990 to 2013. the sixth goal, to combat hiv/aids, malaria and other diseases, has also seen dramatic advances, such as a fall in new hiv infections by about 40% between 2000 and 2013. further, 13.6 million were receiving antiretroviral treatment globally by 2014, up from 800 000 in 2003. consequently, an estimated 7.6 million deaths have been averted between 1995 and 2013. these successes are also reflected in a drop in the global malaria incidence rate by 37% and in the malaria mortality rate by 58% for the period 2000–2015. similarly, a 45% fall in the tuberculosis mortality rate and a 41% fall in the prevalence rate has occurred over the period 1990–2013. these advances are particularly important for southern africa which as a region faces the highest hiv disease burden in the world. progress against the seventh goal, to ensure environmental sustainability, is evident in the elimination of ozone-depleting substances since 1990. at this rate, the ozone layer is expected to regain its coverage by about 2050. an increase from 76% to 91% of the global population now has access to an improved drinking water source. the proportion of urban populations living in slums in developing regions has reduced from about 39.4% to 29.7% across the years 2000–2014. finally, dramatic progress has also been made against the eighth goal, to develop a global partnership for development, as contributions by denmark, luxembourg, norway, sweden and the united kingdom have exceeded the un target of 0.7% of gross national income. further, by 2014, 79% of imports from developing countries were duty free. this is in contrast to 65% in 2000. furthermore, the ratio of external debt service to export revenue in developing countries dropped from 12% in 2000 to 3% in 2013. by 2015, 95% of populations across the world were covered by mobile-cellular signals. this increase has been matched by an increase in internet penetration from 6% to 43% over the years 2000–2015. a total of 3.2 billion people are now connected to global networks of content and applications. the big push advocates sought to dramatically increase donor aid support to achieve mdgs. to what extent did aid increase in response to these goals? oda from developed countries increased 66% (in real terms) between 2000 and 2014 to a high of $135.2 billion (united nations 2015). the general successes of the mdg programme is summarised by moon (2015:3) as follows: the global mobilization behind the millenium development goals has produced the most successful anti-poverty movement in history…. the mdgs helped to lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty … [and] generated new and innovative partnerships, galvanized public opinion and showed the immense value of setting ambitious goals. by putting people and their immediate needs at the forefront, the mdgs reshaped decision-making in developed and developing countries alike. however, despite dramatic successes, poorest populations most vulnerable to poverty and inequality are still being left behind, as progress has been uneven. sex, age, disability, ethnicity and geographic locations are persistent dimensions of disadvantage which in addition to climate change and global conflict present serious ongoing challenges (united nations 2015). despite these ongoing challenges, moon (2015:3) stressed ‘[e]xperiences and evidence from the efforts to achieve the mdgs demonstrate that we know what to do’ and further progress will require ‘an unswerving political will, and collective, long-term effort’. the emerging post-2015 development agenda includes the new set of sustainable development goals, which strive to ‘put all countries, together, firmly on track towards a more prosperous, sustainable and equitable world’ according to moon (2015:3), who concluded that: [r]eflecting on the mdgs and looking ahead to the next fifteen years, there is no question that we can deliver on our shared responsibility to put an end to poverty, leave no one behind and create a world of dignity for all. perhaps a ‘big push’, with a much bigger aid investment than the mdg process, can reach a tipping point for poverty eradication. given certain successes of the mdg project, it is argued that a normative rationale exists for radically increased aid, based on the principle of mitigation of the global birth lottery effect. perhaps, it is time to take recourse to certain normative approaches. in the light of human suffering and the plight of millions, perhaps it is a moral imperative to do so. conclusions the objective of this article was to interrogate certain arguments based on an analysis of contestation between different literatures seeking to prioritise either geography or institutions at the expense of the other. on the one hand, an institutionalist approach typically predicts that aid investments will be less effective in development and the primary constraint to development is poor governance. on the other hand, an approach grounded in geographical inequity suggests that geographic conditions pose a structural constraint to development. according to this approach, geographic conditions can shape institutional quality as well as trade development, and only very large external aid-based interventions might balance out these geographic inequalities. such interventions might be able to enable the development of basic or minimum threshold levels of infrastructure required for upliftment, termed ‘take-off’. it was argued that only a macroeconomic approach coupled with a grand vision on the scale of keynes’s might be able to make inroads into such serious conditions. the need for such an approach was considered particularly salient for most southern african economies, which face not only developmental challenges shared with other sub-saharan countries but in addition face the highest hiv disease burden in the world. it is concluded here that the work of sachs et al. 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policy recommendations acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) evelyn derera school of management, it and governance, college of law and management, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa francesca croce private, viterbo, italy maxwell phiri school of management, it and governance, college of law and management, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa charles o’neill school of management, it and governance, college of law and management, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa citation derera, e., croce, f., phiri, m. & o’neill, c., 2020, ‘entrepreneurship and economic empowerment in zimbabwe: research themes and future research perspectives’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a787. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.787 note: mobile technology within the 4ir era africa answering the call. review article entrepreneurship and women’s economic empowerment in zimbabwe: research themes and future research perspectives evelyn derera, francesca croce, maxwell phiri, charles o’neill received: 19 nov. 2019; accepted: 10 sept. 2020; published: 09 dec. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article explores women’s entrepreneurship research conducted in zimbabwe. for this purpose, a literature review approach was adopted where all journal articles published between 1990 and 2018 that addressed the issues of women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe were searched and analysed. the articles were searched on google scholar using the following keywords: women entrepreneurs, women small business owners, women in informal sector and zimbabwe. in total, 11 articles were retrieved, indicating a dearth of research studies on women entrepreneurship, particularly from the formal sector perspective, giving a glimpse of the entrepreneurship landscape in zimbabwe. the content analysis of the selected articles resulted in the identification of eight themes: (1) feminism perspective, (2) informal sector trading, (3) motivations for entrepreneurship, (4) entrepreneurship characteristics, (5) obstacles in entrepreneurship, (6) socio-cultural challenges, (7) cross-border trading and (8) coping strategies within the context of women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe. discussions on these themes were situated within the broader literature and trends on existing women entrepreneurship literature. the study has implications at a practical and theoretical level. supporting women entrepreneurship has positive effects on poverty reduction in agreement with the sustainable development goals, and this study suggests women’s empowerment to operate at higher echelons of the business sector with bespoke support mechanism that fosters sustainable development. also, the study proposed suggestions for future research on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe and other african countries. keywords: economic empowerment; informal sector; women entrepreneurship; zimbabwe; small businesses; cross boarder trade; micro enterprises; feminism; entrepreneurial motivation; socio-cultural challenges. introduction women entrepreneurship is one of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial populations, which contribute significantly towards innovation, employment and wealth creation worldwide (brush & cooper 2012). the development of women entrepreneurship is vital for any country’s advancement and is regarded as one of the solutions to achieving sustainable economic growth (mboko & smith-hunter 2009). this is necessary if a country is to operate effectively in the global marketplace. storey and greene (2010) concur that there is no greater initiative a country could take to accelerate the pace of entrepreneurial activity than to encourage more women to participate actively in entrepreneurship. by so doing, women’s civil standing in society and their contributions to communities and national development are enhanced (osirim 2001). literature reports that women produce most of the food that is consumed globally (davis 2012). women contribute approximately 80% of food production in sub-saharan africa (davis 2012). chirwa (2008) suggests that women contribute more than one-third of household income in africa. in malawi, women contribute more than 50% of household income from their micro-enterprises (chirwa 2008). despite their contributions in africa, the majority of women are operating in the informal sector (fapohunda 2012). zimbabwe is not an exception. zimbabwe is a country that has experienced significant economic, social and political crisis since the late 1990s (osirim 2001). this has adversely affected the financial well-being of all zimbabweans, including women. as a result, most women were forced to establish small businesses as a means of survival. unfortunately, these women are experiencing an assortment of challenges, which hampers the growth and development of their small businesses. despite this setback, women entrepreneurs are at the forefront of economic and social change in zimbabwe. davis (2012) concurs that the contribution of women to global prosperity and development should not be underestimated. therefore, the development of women entrepreneurship forms an integral part of women’s economic empowerment according to the fifth sustainable development goal, which underscores the importance of ‘promoting gender equality and women empowerment’ (united nations 2019:online). despite the significant role played by women entrepreneurs, there is a dearth of research on this subject globally. literature suggests that studies on women entrepreneurs comprise less than 10% of all research in the field (brush & cooper 2012). interestingly, a larger percentage of these studies explored women entrepreneurship in developed nations (cetindamar et al. 2012). little is known about women operating small businesses in developing countries such as zimbabwe, where the patriarchal society subjugates the role of women in a capitalist economy (moyo & kawewe 2002). furthermore, african women are often marginalised and are existing at the peripheries of the continent’s mainstream labour market where they are experiencing extreme poverty and are deprived of their rightful place as income earners in society (mboko & smith-hunter 2009). lewis (2004) concurs that women are poorer than men and are mostly responsible for family subsistence globally. although women entrepreneurship activities are increasing because of harsh economic conditions in zimbabwe (derera 2015), the majority of these women, like in most developing nations, are concentrated in the informal sector. ndiweni and verhoeven (2013) concur that the growth of the informal economy was aggravated by the deteriorating socio-economic and political landscape. moyo and kawewe (2002) argue that the informal sector activities often arise out of desperation, and these activities often subject women to unacceptable oppression and inhumane working conditions in zimbabwe. the fact that micro-enterprises are attached to human suffering and ignominy is a cause for concern. what is required is to find ways of empowering women to earn a good return from their investments and operate sustainable formal business ventures. the empowerment also should extend to ownership of factors of production. this study attempts to fill this research gap by exploring women entrepreneurship and its specificities on literature conducted in zimbabwe by taking stock of what has been written between 1990 and 2018, and provide direction for further research. directing research in this area is necessary for poverty alleviation as per the sustainable development goals of reducing the number of people surviving on less than us$1.25 per day by 2030 (united nations 2020). although the number of people living in extreme poverty declined globally from 36% in 1990 to 10% in 2015, in sub-saharan africa, the numbers are rising steadily and are expected to remain in the double digits by 2030 (united nations 2020).1 the united nations estimate that 42% of the population in sub-saharan africa survive below the poverty line of us$1.90 per day (united nations 2020). in zimbabwe, people surviving on less than us$1.90 a day rose from 29% in 2018 to 34% in 2019, equating to an increase from 4.7 to 5.7 million people (world bank 2019). as females constitute approximately 51% of the population of zimbabwe (world bank 2020), it is assumed that they constitute the majority of people living in poverty. therefore, mapping ways of unlocking the potential of women entrepreneurs is essential for economic growth and development in zimbabwe. the study contributes to the debate of women empowerment using the entrepreneurship lens in sub-saharan africa. the rest of the article is structured as follows. firstly, the article provides an overview of the zimbabwean economy. secondly, the theoretical approaches of the concept of entrepreneurship are discussed whilst situating the discussion within the parameters of women’s participation in the informal sector within the zimbabwean context. thereafter, the methodology is presented, followed by the discussion of results which is organised into eight themes. lastly, recommendations and suggestions for future research on women entrepreneurship are presented. context: a look to the zimbabwean economy developing countries struggle with challenges of political instability, high levels of unemployment, high inflation rates, poverty, droughts and food shortages, amongst other issues. zimbabwe attained its independence in 1980 but has undergone an era of economic and political disruptions with adverse consequences on the well-being of zimbabweans since then. the pinnacle of the country’s economic crisis was in 2008, where the country’s gross domestic product (gdp) reached its all-time lowest level of –17.7% (world bank 2012). the formation of the coalition government in february 2009 (which ended after the 2013 elections) led to improved economic prospects for the country. to this end, there has been a downturn in the zimbabwean economy. the gdp for 2018 and 2019 was estimated at 3.5% and –8.3%, respectively (world bank 2020). further, the meltdown resulted in high levels of unemployment. there are varying estimate figures for unemployment in zimbabwe. the 2019 unemployment rate was estimated at over 90% (ugaro 2019), almost 80% (lloyds bank 2020) and 4.9% (world bank 2020). according to lloyds bank (2020), only 5% of workers in zimbabwe have formal jobs (world bank 2020). the inflation rate tripled in 2019, with the food prices increasing by 725%, resulting in a severe loss of purchasing power. as of june 2020, the inflation rate (unblended) was estimated at 737.3% (world bank 2020). these challenges forced the majority of the unemployed labour force to venture into entrepreneurship. at the same time, a large population of skilled labour was forced to become economic migrants in neighbouring countries and other parts of the world. these socio-political and economic changes forced zimbabweans to find alternative means of survival. one sector of the economy that was assumed to have grown is the small business sector where women are actively participating in the informal sector. therefore, empowering women through entrepreneurship is a viable route for poverty reduction. in zimbabwe, women contribute significantly to economic growth and development (mauchi, mutengezanwa & damiyano 2014). the government of zimbabwe acknowledges the existence of challenges in the small business sector and has shown a commitment to developing a thriving business environment (mboko & smith-hunter 2009). moyo and kawewe (2002) state that the existence of these challenges cause women-owned enterprises to earn much lower returns compared to male-owned enterprises. to demonstrate its commitment, the government established the ministry of small and medium enterprises in 2002 (chirisa, dumba & mukura 2012). the government also created the small enterprises development corporation (sedco) to support and develop small and medium enterprises (smes) (mboko & smith-hunter 2009). in 2012, the government established the broad based women’s economic empowerment framework to address gender inequality in all sectors of the economy. in support of the framework, mauchi et al. (2014) state that it is critical to develop programmes that attract, retain and advance women in zimbabwe. one of the key objectives of the framework is the economic empowerment of women through business ownership and control (government of zimbabwe 2012). the framework is based on the premise that the existing incentive systems no longer meet the needs of the small business sector and the challenges posed by the prevailing economic conditions (government of zimbabwe 2012). therefore, new incentives and support programmes are required to equip women with the necessary capabilities so that they can compete in local and international markets (mauchi et al. 2014). whether women are fully benefiting from the framework is debatable. theoretical framework: concept of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is a multidimensional concept, with no generally agreed definition of the term (barringer & ireland 2012; ferreira et al. 2017; kuratko, morris & schindehutte 2015; ndiweni & verhoeven 2013; verheul et al. 2001; westhead, wright & mcelwee 2011). different theoretical approaches have explored entrepreneurship from the behaviour and contribution of entrepreneurs and their firms, from economics, personality traits, psychodynamic, social-psychological, cognitive and sociological perspective (ferreira et al. 2017; ndoro & van niekerk 2019; storey & greene 2010; westhead et al. 2011). the fact that different theories have been used to explain the concept emphasises the transdisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship (ripsas 1998). within the african context, which is also the context of the study, there is no direct translation of entrepreneurship in many african languages (ndiweni & verhoeven 2013). economic approaches the economic approach explores entrepreneurship as an input added to land, labour and capital to extend the theory of production, and to complete the explanation of four types of income, namely profit, rent, wages and interest (casson 1982; westhead et al. 2011). within this theoretical approach, entrepreneurial activities relates to the introduction of novelty and innovation to new work practices, new products and services and new venture creation (ferreira et al. 2017; schumpeter 1942; storey & greene 2010; venkataraman 1997; westhead et al. 2011). this approach also explores the entrepreneurial processes (1) to create opportunities based on imagination, creativity, radical or incremental innovation to achieve disequilibrium; (2) to identify opportunities (i.e. entrepreneurial alertness) and search relevant information to address disequilibrium; (3) to exploit the opportunity within a firm setting, drawing from the entrepreneur’s skill set, experience and knowledge to deal with uncertainty; (4) to assume the risk and to make calculated risk-taking judgements; and (5) to assemble and manage appropriate resources, whilst maximising profit (ferreira et al. 2017; storey & greene 2010; westhead et al. 2011). sociological approaches sociologists believe that entrepreneurship exists within a social context, which shapes an individual’s propensity to become an entrepreneur (reynolds 1991; storey & greene 2010; westhead et al. 2011). sociologists recognise the importance of both internal and external factors in shaping entrepreneurial behaviour, which influences the demand and supply of entrepreneurs (westhead et al. 2011). the literature of sociological approaches to understanding entrepreneurship suggests that an individual can be constrained in making career choices because of social contexts (westhead et al. 2011). similarly, options can be socialised to behave in ways that meet the approval of the role set in society (westhead et al. 2011). dominant values of close associates may translate into expectations, which shape individual behaviour to either obtain a job or create one (westhead et al. 2011). importantly, social context shapes access to resources which can either encourage or discourage entrepreneurial behaviour amongst individuals (westhead et al. 2011). other researchers (e.g. dana & åge riseth 2011) suggest that this type of entrepreneurship is often associated with people who occupy low status in society and exhibit poor standards of living conditions. psychological approaches the psychological approach explores issues relating to an entrepreneur as a person, the process of decision making towards entrepreneurship and the choices they make (ferreira et al. 2017; storey & greene 2010; westhead et al. 2011). researchers in this field have also explored personality traits of individuals who intend to become entrepreneurs and the behaviour of successful entrepreneurs (ferreira et al. 2017; ndoro & van niekerk 2019; storey & greene 2010; westhead et al. 2011). notable traits highlighted in literature are risk-taking propensity, a strong need for achievement, locus of control and need for autonomy, amongst others (kuratko et al. 2015; ndoro & van niekerk 2019; storey & greene 2010; westhead et al. 2011). other researchers explored the debate of whether entrepreneurs are born or made (ndoro & van niekerk 2019; westhead et al. 2011), a debate that is still inconclusive to date. psychodynamic approaches these approaches focus on the dark side of entrepreneurship and present an entrepreneur as a highly complex individual (de vries 1977; ndoro & van niekerk 2019; westhead et al. 2011). researchers in this field believe that entrepreneurial behaviour can be driven negatively by both internal and external forces (westhead et al. 2011). the literature further argues that entrepreneurial behaviour can emanate from marginalised groups exhibiting deviant traits (de vries 1977; ndoro & van niekerk 2019; westhead et al. 2011). the deviant behaviour emerges from attitudes shaped by a background of socio-economic or environmental deprivation (de vries 1977; ndoro & van niekerk 2019; westhead et al. 2011). the cultural background of a person may derive from authoritative figures early in life that is perceived as over-controlling and dominating (ndoro & van niekerk 2019). the resultant of such experiences can lead individuals to develop a suppressed dislike of authoritative figures and control, which are characteristics of aggressiveness and self-oriented approach to social behaviour in the form of entrepreneurship activities (ndoro & van niekerk 2019). in this regard, entrepreneurs tend to integrate their suppressed and unfulfilling personal needs with those of a venture which can be structured around their desires (ndoro & van niekerk 2019). psychodynamic approaches are not without criticism (westhead et al. 2011). critiques of these approaches, amongst others, raise issues of lack of empirical evidence to support this argument and that the view does not apply to all situations (westhead et al. 2011). social-psychological approaches the social-psychological approaches consider the context in which the entrepreneur is operating in, and their characteristics (bygrave & hofer 1992; westhead et al. 2011). the researchers argue that some social contexts are likely to promote entrepreneurial behaviour, whilst others do not (carsrud & johnson 1989; westhead et al. 2011). however, the methodologies exploited under this approach failed to explore the reality of entrepreneurial setting (westhead et al. 2011). again, this approach is without criticism. social cognitive approaches the social-cognitive perspective on entrepreneurship asserts that the personality and behaviour of an entrepreneur stem from both social interactions and personal characteristics (ndoro & van niekerk 2019; storey & greene 2010). the approach suggests that the behaviour of individuals change throughout their life, with their interactions with specific reference groups in different social contexts shaping their personalities (ndoro & van niekerk 2019). however, this approach acknowledges that personality traits may be difficult to change (kuratko et al. 2015; westhead et al. 2011). in order to increase the quality and quantity of entrepreneurs, intervention schemes should focus on improving the mental processing of individuals to enable them to identify and exploit opportunities (kuratko et al. 2015; westhead et al. 2011). entrepreneurial cognition approaches offer an understanding of how entrepreneurs think and why they behave in a certain way (kuratko et al. 2015; storey & greene 2010; westhead et al. 2011). this study draws from the aforementioned theoretical approaches of entrepreneurship to explore the nature and specificities of women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe. ultimately, the outcome of entrepreneurial activities depends on how women understand entrepreneurship (chitsike 2000). women’s participation in informal sector business opportunities is influenced by economics, personality traits, psychodynamic, social-psychological, cognitive and sociological views of entrepreneurship. the informal sector the informal sector, also referred to as the micro-enterprise sector (osirim 2003), encapsulates all economic activities conducted by firms that are not formally registered with the government (rothenberg et al. 2016). osirim (2003) defines micro-enterprises as firms that employ less than five workers. this sector is often associated with unofficial economic activities, which include tax evasion, black market activities, petty trading, commodity production and subsistence agriculture (rothenberg et al. 2016). informal firms are typically small, inefficient and run by poorly educated entrepreneurs (rothenberg et al. 2016). their productivity is generally too low for them to survive in the formal sector (rothenberg et al. 2016). research on the informal sector highlights both the positives and the negatives. from a positive side: (1) it is a lifeline of the poor; (2) it provides flexible employment, especially for women who want to work close to home (rothenberg et al. 2016); and (3) it supply products and services to the formal sector (peberdy 2000). in this view, informal firms are an untapped reservoir of entrepreneurial energy, which can be released by removing barriers to entry into the formal sector, cutting red tape and improving the legal environments (rothenberg et al. 2016). on the negative side, it is a drain on government revenues (schneider 2005; sookram, watson & schneider 2009) because they do not pay tax (rothenberg et al. 2016). informal firms are segregated mainly from the formal economy (rothenberg et al. 2016). in most cases, they are unable to obtain access to traditional financial sources, thereby undermining their ability to secure loans to expand their businesses on national and international markets (rothenberg et al. 2016). the size of the informal sector is inversely related to economic growth, gdp per capita, tax revenues and public goods provision (rothenberg et al. 2016). thus, a country becomes poorer as the size of the informal sector increases. ndiweni and verhoeven (2013:1) argue that ‘the contribution of informal traders cannot result in sustainable development nor can it significantly increase economic growth in developing nations’. they further mention that the: [r]ise of people participating in the informal sector is rather indicative of a lack of accountability for the plunder of resources and its intended consequences and failure of government economic policies. (p. 1) what is required by the government is to formulate appropriate policies to improve economic growth, gdp per capita, tax revenues and provision of public goods (sookram et al. 2009). one way of achieving this is to encourage informal businesses to register with the government, so that they can benefit from formalised support mechanisms such as business loans and skills and training development programmes.2 methodology a literature review approach was conducted where all journal articles that were published between 1990 and 2018 that addressed the issues of women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe were searched on google scholar (gs). gs is a web-based academic search engine that collates results from across the internet, and it is freely accessible to many researchers (haddaway et al. 2015). the following keywords were used to search the articles: ‘women entrepreneurs, women small business owners, women and informal sector, females, and zimbabwe’. the literature search excluded dissertations, theses and grey literature because the study focussed on journal articles published on the topic in order to take stock of what was written during the period so as to influence future research. in total, 23 articles were retrieved. following a review of the titles and abstracts of the retrieved articles, only 11 articles were found suitable for the study. the 11 articles were further analysed using content analysis to identify the themes on women entrepreneurship research that were conducted in zimbabwe. the details of the 11 articles are presented in table 1. table 1: list of research studies conducted on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe (1990–2018). a summary of the study focus areas of the retrieved articles is presented in table 2. this information was extracted from the abstracts. table 2: summary of study focus areas on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe. the results presented in table 2 revealed that 81.8% of the studies were conducted in urban areas, whilst 18.18% were conducted in rural areas. in addition, all the research studies were conducted in the informal sector, which is regarded as the lowest level of entrepreneurship. discussion: emerging themes on women entrepreneurship eight themes emerged from the analysis of the 11 articles (see table 3). the following themes were identified: feminism and entrepreneurship, informal sector trading, motivation for entrepreneurship, characteristics of the entrepreneurs, obstacles to women entrepreneurship, socio-cultural challenges, women cross-border trading and the strategies adopted by women. the themes were discussed within the context of the broader literature on women entrepreneurship in general and in zimbabwe. table 3: themes identified from literature review analysis. theme 1: feminism and women entrepreneurship this study is grounded in liberal and social feminism. the liberal feminist theory states that society has a false belief that women are by nature less intellectually and physically capable than men (tong 2013). liberal feminism also argues that ‘female subordination is rooted in customary and legal systems that block women’s entrance and/or success in the public world’ (tong 2013:2). as a result, this mentality excludes women from holding positions of influence in society (tong 2013). to achieve gender equality, society must not only give women the same education but also provide them with the same civil liberties and economic opportunities that men enjoy (tong 2013). similarly, women form part of social feminism (enns 2012). socialist feminism assumes that gender status is imposed and defined by social relationships and is embedded in historical systems that organise social production (enns 2012). in summarising this literature, enns (2012:115) state that ‘gender, class and ethnicity are enmeshed in such a way that we cannot see them as addictive or prioritise hypothetically any one of them’. further, the socialist feminist theory states that gender is experienced differently by various groups of women, with some women viewing gender oppression as less salient than issues of racism and classism (enns 2012). equally, gender differences in entrepreneurial performance and motivations may be because of either social feminism (i.e. socialisation experiences that limit and disadvantage women) and/or liberal feminism (i.e. overt discrimination against women, such as access to capital (demartino & barbato 2003). these feminist theories apply to women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe (see chamlee-wright 2002; chitsike 2000; mauchi et al. 2014; mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010; moyo & kawewe 2002; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015; nyamwanza et al. 2012; osirim 2003) because the country is highly patriarchal and perceives females as less capable than males (mboko & smith-hunter 2009). additionally, the gender status of women in zimbabwe is defined by social relationships, which are embedded in historical systems that influence women’s involvement in a capitalist economy. within the zimbabwean context, the socio-economic status of women has been the subject of considerable academic and political debate. feminist agendas have focused on improving women’s economic conditions in a capitalist system and making their contributions more visible in the economy by showing how patriarchy intersects with other societal institutions to subjugate women (moyo & kawewe 2002). theme 2: informal sector and women entrepreneurship many feminist scholars of african development have paid attention to the roles played by women in the informal sector and their contributions to the african continent and, in this case, the zimbabwean economy (e.g. mboko & smith-hunter 2009; moyo & kawewe 2002; osirim 2001, 2003; spring & rutashobya 2009). all the 11 articles highlight the contribution of women to the informal sector (chamlee-wright 2002; chitsike 2000; mauchi et al. 2014; mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010; moyo & kawewe 2002; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015; nyamwanza et al. 2012; osirim 2003). interestingly, some of the feminist researchers have substituted the term ‘informal sector’ with ‘micro-enterprises’ to remove the derogatory connotations associated with the former term (moyo & kawewe 2002). peberdy (2000) concurs that the term ‘informal sector’ shows marginality, yet these traders are involved in the development of entrepreneurship in zimbabwe. whilst micro-enterprise activities are unregulated and untaxed, feminist scholars have advocated for the abandonment of the ‘dual economy’ approach (osirim 2003) and consider women’s ventures as more than survival activities that contribute to the economy. interestingly, the outcome of the informal sector activities has a far-reaching impact on society and the economy. one of the major challenges facing people operating in the informal sector is the lack of skills and resources to grow their entities. the study by nyamwanza et al. (2012) reveals that most women-owned small businesses are not well managed financially, as evidenced by how the women manage the income generated from their businesses. although this might be the case, it could be argued that most of these women are at the bottom of the pyramid where they are experiencing high levels of poverty. as such, they engage in entrepreneurship as a means of survival, to provide for basic needs. these women tend to use income generated from the business for social needs rather than for business purposes (nyamwanza et al. 2012). moyo and kawewe (2002) concur that, in most cases, the earnings generated from women entrepreneurial activities are often characterised by low marginal returns, and this income often goes into household consumption. this harms business performance and the improvement of the status of women. contrary, osirim (2003) argues that women in the informal sector have an entrepreneurial mindset because they reinvest their business profits, diversify their product range, expand their market and also build their customer base. what is missing is the provision of adequate support and resources to enable these women to grow their business entities. the fact that most women are at the bottom of the pyramid implies that any assistance for women entrepreneurs should start from grassroots levels. this, therefore, calls for a careful, well-managed and well-thought-out policy formulation that emphasises on the provision of two broad inputs – the hard and soft support. the hard support emphasises the provision of resources such as finance whilst soft support highlights technical support given to entrepreneurs to enhance their skills such as training (westhead, ucbasaran & wright 2003). training programmes should be tailored to meet the needs of women (chitsike 2000). theme 3: motivations for women entrepreneurship there are two main reasons why people venture into entrepreneurship. expressions of being either pulled or pushed have been used to explain the motivation for starting business ventures (walker & webster 2004). similarly, pull and push factors are used to justify why women start small businesses (orhan & scott 2001). the pull or positive factors are related to aspects of choice and the desire for entrepreneurial aspirations (mcclelland et al. 2005). the pull factors are associated with the desire for independence, self-fulfilment, wealth creation, social status and power, desire for a flexible lifestyle and personal development using creative skills (mcclelland et al. 2005; walker & webster 2004). to the contrary, push factors are elements of necessity (orhan & scott 2001) and are related to strong desires that are based on external negative reasons (walker & webster 2004). examples of push factors are insufficient family income, dissatisfaction with a salaried job, difficulty in finding work, desire for flexible work schedules because of family responsibilities, frustration, lack of control and perceived lack of opportunity for career advancement (orhan & scott 2001; mcclelland et al. 2005; walker & webster 2004). whilst women in developed economies are most likely to be motivated to establish businesses by pull factors, those in developing economies are most likely to be inspired by push factors (brush & cooper 2012). for this reason, they establish business ventures out of necessity. similarly, women in zimbabwe are mostly driven into entrepreneurship because of harsh economic, political and social circumstances (wrigley-asante 2013). drawing from the literature on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe, it can be argued that the majority of people (including women) have suffered from the adverse effects of the economic and political crises that the country is experiencing (see chamlee-wright 2002; mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010; moyo & kawewe 2002; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015; nyamwanza et al. 2012; osirim 2003). to illustrate this, osirim’s (2003) study reveals that women with no academic qualification were forced to establish micro-enterprises because of limited employment opportunities. in another study, chamlee-wright (2002) observed that more than 25% of women were forced to develop income-generating projects as a means for survival because of some financially devastating events (e.g. death or illness of a spouse, divorce and other unforeseen personal circumstances). today, many women bear a disproportionate share of the burdens of economic and social deprivation both as breadwinners and as caretakers (moyo & kawewe 2002; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015; nyamwanza et al. 2012). the income generated by women from entrepreneurial activities not only contributes towards household resources but also raises their self-esteem (chamlee-wright 2002). theme 4: characteristics of women entrepreneurs studies have shown that both females and males possess the characteristics of successful entrepreneurship (sexton & bowman-upton 1990). yet, negative attitudes towards females still exist. demartino and barbato (2003) concur that there are more similarities than differences between females and males in terms of personality traits in entrepreneurship. although various personality traits have been attributed to successful entrepreneurs, the four main characteristics are a passion for the business, product and customer focus, tenacity despite failure and execution intelligence (barringer & ireland 2012). women in zimbabwe, like many across the globe, share similar characteristics (see chamlee-wright 2002; chitsike 2000; mauchi et al. 2014; mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010; muzvidziwa 2015; nyamwanza et al. 2012). in three studies that were conducted in zimbabwe, the researchers observed that women were entrepreneurially competent as reflected in their hard work, ability to spot viable business opportunities and their commitment to succeed (mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009; osirim 2003). to illustrate their level of perseverance and commitment to the business, most women fully participated in their businesses (chamlee-wright 2002). they worked every day except those observing a day of rest as a matter of religious principles (chamlee-wright 2002). women traders would typically arrive at the market between 4 am, and 6 am and knock off after 5 pm (chamlee-wright 2002). similarly, women cross border traders spend long periods travelling. drawing from the literature on women entrepreneurship from zimbabwe, it can be concluded that women share similar characteristics with other women across the globe. the fact that women are committed to successful business ventures implies that government policies should be inclusive and purposefully crafted to promote women. theme 5: obstacles hindering women entrepreneurship globally, women face many obstacles in entrepreneurship (derera, chitakunye & o’neill 2014; singh & belwal 2008). what differs is the intensity of the impact of these barriers amongst women. however, the challenges are more severe in developing economies such as zimbabwe. chitsike (2000) observes that the barriers influence the type of businesses that women operate. women-owned enterprises reflect their skills levels, availability of resources and cultural expectations (chitsike 2000). consequently, women face gender-related challenges (henry & treanor 2010) that are often underpinned by economic, social, cultural and religious factors (mordi et al. 2010). the challenges could be explained in terms of barriers into entrepreneurship and challenges experienced by women when operating their business enterprises (derera 2011). extant literature highlights some of the obstacles as access to capital, access to networks and market information, limited access to technology, low educational background, lack of business training, lack of affordable business premises, stringent regulatory framework, lack of industry and entrepreneurial experience, and challenges related to family responsibilities (derera et al. 2014; mordi et al. 2010). other challenges are political instability, poor infrastructure, high production costs, poor linkage to support services, gaps between policy and implementation and unfavourable business environments (singh & belwal 2008). the literature on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe has documented the adverse economic conditions as a major hindrance to the growth and development of women enterprises (see chamlee-wright 2002; chitsike 2000; mauchi et al. 2014; mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015). challenges related to adverse economic conditions include devaluation of the currency and rampant inflation, which negatively affects the cost of raw materials and business planning (e.g. mazonde & carmichael 2016; mutsagondo et al. 2016; osirim 2003). other challenges are cultural barriers, lack of education, access to capital, lack of business skills, inability to own land and other key assets, family responsibilities and cumbersome business licensing and registration procedures (e.g. chamlee-wright 2002; chitsike 2000). socio-cultural challenges are further explored below. theme 6: socio-cultural challenges the global entrepreneurship monitor (gem) mentions that the participation of women in entrepreneurship varies across the globe (kelley, singer & herrington 2012). for example, zimbabwe is a highly patriarchal society, which places less value on women’s activities outside the home (see chamlee-wright 2002; chitsike 2000; mauchi et al. 2014; mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010; moyo & kawewe 2002; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015; nyamwanza et al. 2012; osirim 2003). the culture in zimbabwe is resistant to entrepreneurial and capitalist ethics, with some religious and cultural beliefs fostering hand-to-mouth mentality amongst entrepreneurs (chamlee-wright 2002). the extent to which women are supported as entrepreneurs varies widely within different cultural contexts in zimbabwe, and generally, the culture does not support women wholeheartedly (chamlee-wright 2002). some researchers (e.g. chamlee-wright 2002; mazonde & carmichael 2016) highlight family work balance challenge for women entrepreneurs. a woman who participated in mazonde and carmichael’s (2016:7) study mentioned that ‘… you cannot tell the family that you are busy with work when your services or your presence is required …’. the quote emphasises the need for women to balance their entrepreneurial ventures and family commitments. in most cases, women are short-changed in business deals with men asking for a large share of the business proceeds (chitsike 2000). to illustrate this, chitsike (2000) mentions that women entrepreneurs sometimes receive comments like ‘munoidii mari imi mune murume anokuchengetai kumba’ translated as ‘why do you need money when you have a husband who looks after you?’ this quote reflects deeply rooted socio-cultural imbalances that women face in entrepreneurship. the society expects a woman to get married and be provided for by the husband. how this empowers women is questionable. in a similar context, women are scorned for running successful businesses because money is often an expression of power, which goes against culture. the society uses derogatory names to associate with successful women such as ‘anoda mari sehure’, translated as ‘she loves money like a prostitute’ (chitsike 2000), only because a woman is succeeding beyond societal norms and expectations. muzvidziwa’s (2015) study referred to women cross-boarders as ‘varume pachavo’, translated as ‘they are men in their own right’. the question which arises is: do women lose their femininity because of financial independence? the traditional leaders interviewed in mutsagondo et al.’s (2016) study were sceptical of the erosion of culture as a result of women’s participation in entrepreneurship, in particular cross-border trading. in most cases, women are accused of having extra-marital affairs when they are successful because the society does not believe in the capabilities of a woman. chamlee-wright (2002) observes that men find it easier to monopolise the resources generated by women. at times, these resources are squandered through disheartening means (e.g. men spending money partying and buying alcohol for friends or spending money supporting their ‘small houses’, literally translated as ‘extra-marital affairs’ at the expense of their families). as a result, some women remain trapped in small-scale, low-investment businesses, which do not provide liberating economic empowerment from men. whilst the zimbabwean government attempted to promote gender equality during its first 10 years of independence, and significantly improved the quality of life for women and children compared to the colonial era, the state seriously digressed from its earlier position after the year 2000 (osirim 2003). since then, the conditions of women deteriorated over the years. when studying gender relations in zimbabwe, it is important to acknowledge differences and diversity amongst women according to class, race and ethnicity as important factors influencing women circumstances (mboko & smith-hunter 2009). further, most women are still operating businesses confined to their domestic roles. some popular entrepreneurial activities amongst women are sewing, crocheting, knitting, street hawking, hairdressing, catering, livestock and poultry trading and cross border trading (mauchi et al. 2014; mboko & smith-hunter 2009). these businesses generate significant low levels of profits. few women are involved in the non-traditional business (e.g. manufacturing and engineering) (mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010). this situation calls for an urgent need to revisit the plight of women in zimbabwe and find ways of empowering them economically so that they establish sustainable small business ventures. more support is required for women to venture into non-traditional areas that are often dominated by men. theme 7: women cross-border trading the discussion of women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe is incomplete without mentioning cross-border trading. cross-border trade constitutes a significant part of the informal sector in the sadc region; and it contributes a substantial share towards regional trade development (peberdy 2000). chikanda and tawodzera (2017) concur that cross-border trading accounts for approximately 30%–40% of sadc inter-regional trade. similarly, in zimbabwe, cross-border trading is a significant part of the informal sector and is central to women entrepreneurship (see chamlee-wright 2002; mauchi et al. 2014; moyo & kawewe 2002; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015; osirim 2003). the topic has been extensively researched in zimbabwe (chiliya, masocha & zindiye 2012; muzvidziwa 2005, 2010; peberdy 2000; peberdy & rogerson 2000). cross-border activities provide women with opportunities to expand their microbusinesses to neighbouring countries, such as south africa, botswana, mozambique, tanzania and zambia (chitsike 2000; mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2015). soon after independence, cross-border trading emerged as a popular activity for women of all classes, ethnicity and ages (moyo & kawewe 2002). these activities increased significantly as the economic conditions continued to worsen in zimbabwe (mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2010, 2015). the volume of cross-border trading mainly between south africa and zimbabwe increased sharply from 377 415 in 1992 to more than 1 000 000 in 1993 (muzvidziwa 2010). according to peberdy and rogerson (2000), more than 66% of women are actively involved in cross-border trading. whilst cross-border trading brought many benefits for traders, it is not without challenges. some of the challenges include crime, xenophobia, extortion, bribery by police and unnecessary delays at border posts (chiliya et al. 2012). in zimbabwe, cross-border trading had an impact on people’s socio-culture. cross-border trade gave rise to the image of a strong and independent class of women who are determined to improve their standards of living (muzvidziwa 2015). instead of women waiting for their husbands to provide for them, some women engage in cross-border activities as a means of social and economic empowerment. cross-border trade challenged the traditional female role of subservience to men (muzvidziwa 2015). whilst other spouses were forced by financial hardships to support their wives’ cross-border entrepreneurial endeavours, some deeply entrenched traditional ndau men sanctioned their wives from participating in such activities (mutsagondo et al. 2016). some of the reasons include allegations of prostitution, over-staying in foreign countries, neglecting husband and children, and unfair allocation of business profits (mutsagondo et al. 2016). given a choice, some men were of the view that the government should ban women cross-border activities (mutsagondo et al. 2016), a clear sign of male desperation. this is illustrated by the following extract from some women who participated in a research study conducted by muzvidziwa (2005, 2015), ‘mukuwasha tikagara takatarisana pamba tinodyana here?’, translated as ‘if we stay at home and do nothing, will that bring us food?’. this portrays a new family set-up, which emerged because of economic hardships, and this defies the traditional family, which requires women to stay at home looking after children. as a result, nuclear family relations were negatively affected because of new patterns of long-distance marriage relationships where women are away from the family for extended periods (mutsagondo et al. 2016; muzvidziwa 2005, 2015). cases of stigmatisation are also associated with cross-border trading, whereby traders are referred to as ‘prostitutes’ or ‘smugglers’ (chiliya et al. 2012). these scenarios often surface when women engage in activities, which contradict societal norms by identifying and servicing a niche market beyond the reach of men (muzvidziwa 2010, 2015). drawing from the literature on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe, it can be argued that policy initiatives must pay attention to cross-border entrepreneurial activities because of their contribution to the economy. peberdy and rogerson (2000) state that cross-border traders supply significant volumes of goods and services to the formal sector. if this sector is managed correctly, it could be a source of revenue for the countries in the sadc region. for policy implications, governments need to develop a deeper understanding of cross-border trading and how states could benefit extensively from such activities. theme 8: strategies used by women entrepreneurs generally, people develop coping strategies for dealing with their unique challenges. their environment often shapes these strategies. developing survival tactics depend on one’s ability to build self-confidence. similarly, women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe have developed coping mechanisms over the years to survive in entrepreneurship (see chamlee-wright 2002; mazonde & carmichael 2016; mboko & smith-hunter 2009, 2010; moyo & kawewe 2002; muzvidziwa 2015; nyamwanza et al. 2012; osirim 2003). some of the most used strategies include lending each other capital, business diversification, maintaining full control of business operations and being members of saving clubs (known as ‘ma rounds’) (chamlee-wright 2002). ‘ma rounds’ are informal saving clubs where members are required to contribute a certain amount of money over a specific period (chamlee-wright 2002). the accumulated savings are either distributed to the member in turns or are shared equally at the end of the agreed financial period, which could be 6 months or 1 year (chamlee-wright 2002). these funds are typically used to purchase essential commodities or for diverse purposes (chamlee-wright 2002), depending on the needs of the family. savings clubs also demonstrate a type of social network (muzvidziwa 2005, 2015), which acts as a tool for economic empowerment. within the zimbabwean context, a husband often plays a vital role in a woman’s decision to start a business. husbands often assist their spouses with start-up capital (osirim 2003). this act ensures that the wife remains geographically closer to home and fulfils her domestic responsibilities (osirim 2003). the informal sector is segregated by gender and assisting a wife to start a small business is likely to limit her from interacting with other men (osirim 2003). as a coping strategy, some women would desist from using the husband’s resources. this limits or excludes the husband from interfering with the business dealings. another strategy is establishing a joint venture with husbands whilst maintaining an exact domain of autonomy (chamlee-wright 2002). maintaining control over business resources is another coping strategy used by some women to counter socio-cultural values that are enmeshed in society (moyo & kawewe 2002). zimbabwean culture portrays the man as the head of the family and all family assets are under his control and has absolute authority. even when a wife contributes towards household income, her contribution is usually under the husband’s control. during the pre-colonial era, women would only exercise control over the granary and other food supplies (chamlee-wright 2002). the security of the family, particularly the children, is often dependent on women controlling the distribution of the household resources, and usually, a husband represents a principal threat to control (horn 1986). in the business context, maintaining significant control over businesses resources would entail a woman making most business decisions. this empowers women to influence significant household decisions (osirim 2003). thus, a woman’s success in business could reduce financial dependency from her husband (osirim 2003). this level of empowerment is likely to influence patriarchal control (osirim 2003). horn (1986) also found out that unmarried women were more likely to run a profitable business than married women, as there are no husbands to pose as a threat of controlling business resources. remaining single or seeking divorce was one strategy that women use to maintain control over their resources, but this is by no means the most successful strategy as other factors play a significant role in single parenthood (horn 1986). sometimes women keep the financial status of the business confidential and at times misrepresenting the information to the spouse (moyo & kawewe 2002). muzvidziwa (2010, 2015) mentions that cross-border traders also developed coping strategies such as sharing of business operating costs. moyo and kawewe (2002) posit that central to developing strategies is an empowering prefix – ‘self’ (e.g. self-provision and self-employment). the moment women realise they are doing something for themselves, they are motivated to achieve more. whilst women acknowledge negative societal attitudes towards them, they do not allow these perceptions to negatively affect their businesses as they take it as an opportunity to prove their capabilities (mboko & smith-hunter 2009). overall, these strategies symbolise ‘ways in which so many women have “beaten the system” taken charge of their destinies and encourage each other to live, love, laugh and be happy as women’ (tong 2013:1/2). conclusions, areas for further research and policy recommendations the study highlighted a dearth of research on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe, as only 11 articles were identified. eight themes emerged from the analysis of these articles, which give a glimpse of what was researched during 1990 and 2018. this is a cause for concern as high impact research often lays the foundation for the development of entrepreneurship. the scarcity of studies on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe implies that this field of research is still in its infantry stage with vast research opportunities, which can be explored from diverse angles and disciplines of study. these studies can be investigated from the different levels of the small business sector (i.e. micro, small and medium). in developing the research niche, it is also useful to conduct research which compares female and male-owned small businesses to evaluate the extent of gender differences in the entrepreneurial landscape of the country. the findings also showed that research on women entrepreneurship in zimbabwe mainly focuses on the informal sector. this presents endless research opportunities for women entrepreneurs operating businesses in the formal sector. the results also revealed that most (81.82%) of the studies concentrated on urban women, whilst a few studies (18.18%) focused on rural women micro-enterprises. more research is required on women entrepreneurship, mainly, rural-owned businesses, as these women constitute the majority of the rural population in zimbabwe. according to the 2018 world bank data, females constitute 35.03% of the rural population of 67.79% (world bank 2020). the women residing in rural areas are critical for ensuring food security in zimbabwe. supporting women entrepreneurs in zimbabwe is not just a matter of gender but also a social and economic matter. in fact, women-owned businesses play a crucial role in society and the economic development of any nation. therefore, the government of zimbabwe, in consultation with the private sector and non-governmental organisations, should find ways of unlocking the potential of women entrepreneurs and develop policies that support sustainable business development. the study makes the following policy recommendations: policies promoting women’s roles in economic development need to be formulated with the understanding of what women do, what they are capable of doing and how they see themselves in their different social settings. thus, the development of these policies requires a feminist approach, which allows women to take part in developing solutions to their problems. as most of the women are operating in the informal sector, more support is required for women to venture into higher categories of small business development (e.g. smes). policymakers should not ignore this sector because with more support into the sector, more women are likely to develop and participate at higher levels of entrepreneurship, i.e. the formal sector. the government should develop a comprehensive database for women in both the informal and the mainstream sector so that targeted policy support mechanism can be developed to achieve impact in the sector. bespoke training programmes are necessary to equip women with business skills. the education system should develop and encourage a culture of entrepreneurship beyond the informal sector. as a point of departure and given the availability of resources, it is necessary to conduct a country-wide study to understand the nature of small business development in the country. as the savings clubs are a common activity for women, the government should consider the possibility of institutionalising this activity to enable women to access funding in a regulated environment. social entrepreneurial activities should be encouraged as a solution for dealing with social ills that are affecting women. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions this article is extracted from e.d.’s phd work. e.d. conceptualised the study design. f.c. assisted in reviewing the article. c.o. and m.p. supervised the study. ethical consideration the article is extracted from e.d.’s phd work from the university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. the overall ethical approval for the phd work was approved by the human and social sciences ethics committee, ethical clearance number: hss/1665/0140, 03 december 2015. funding information the research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not for profit sectors. data availability statement the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references barringer, b.r.i. & ireland, r.d., 2012, entrepreneurship: successfully launching new ventures, 4th edn., pearson education limited, upper saddle river, nj. brush, c.g. & cooper, s.y., 2012, ‘female entrepreneurship and economic development: an international perspective’, entrepreneurship and regional development 24(1–2), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2012.637340 bygrave, w.d. & hofer, c.w., 1992, ‘theorizing about entrepreneurship’, entrepreneurship theory and practice 16(2), 13–22. 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about the author(s) bunmi i. omodan school of social sciences and language education, faculty of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa olugbenga a. ige school of social sciences and language education, faculty of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa citation omodan bi, ige oa. managing diversity in schools: the place of democratic education and ubuntuism in south africa. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a854. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.854 original research managing diversity in schools: the place of democratic education and ubuntuism in south africa bunmi i. omodan, olugbenga a. ige received: 11 mar. 2020; accepted: 17 feb. 2021; published: 24 june 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract south african classrooms were highly diversified. the problem, however, was that although democracy has been a critical characteristic of south africa for over two decades, it is still a very vague concept to many. a teacher who truly understood democracy knew that it was not just about freedom of self, rather the freedom of all, treating others humanely and with kindness. making power a variable accessible by all was the only way to which diversities can be ameliorated. observation and personal experiences showed that there were discriminations of many kinds in some high schools. therefore, to address these maladies, the importance of democracy in diversity must not be jettisoned because they work hand-in-hand. ubuntu philosophy was used as a theoretical framework, whilst transformative paradigm piloted the study. participatory research (pr) was adopted as a research design to enable the people student-teachers to jointly participate in this research. observation and reflections were used to collect data within the high schools in the free state province of south africa. thomas and harden’s three steps of thematic analysis was used to analyse data and the result show that language, cultural and personal relativism, learning impairment and comprehensibility were the dominant challenges faced in diversity management in schools. on the other hand, inculcation of classroom relationships and a sense of belonging, training and retraining of teachers and students were found to be perfect solutions that can nip these problems in the bud. the present study, therefore, concluded that the value of teachers’ and students’ development towards diversity management must be addressed. keywords: diversity; diversity management; democratic education; ubuntu; secondary school. introduction we live in a world of apparent differences, contradictions, contrasts and separations, which are not limited to human existentialism but by extension comprising animals, plants and objects. within these categories of existence exists the unquestionable variance of differences. one could say this is what diversity entails. this is not in contradiction, however, with the merriam webster dictionary description of diversity as ‘the condition of having or being composed of differing elements’. in other words, diversity means varieties that must be addressed in equality. the spirit of equality here can only be addressed using democratic education, most notably in schools, which according to omodan1 is an educational ideal in which democracy forms both a goal and a method of instruction. one country that has suffered extensively because of intolerance to diversity is south africa and this has led to many discussions on democratic education to soothe and remedy past injustices and present errors.2,3 although democratic education as a response to the circumvention of diversity may have many unforeseen refutes, it is possible and can yield positive results if implemented correctly and is subsequently well-executed. this study empirically conceptualises the interconnectivity, connections and disconnections of democratic pedagogy in south africa as it correlates with diversity management in secondary schools. the south african constitution and various scholars have conceptualised diversity. in retrospect, the constitution in its quest for ‘unity in diversity’ is a pointer to the fact that diversity in the south african context involves the compulsory accommodation of people regardless of their differences.4 this is what the south african schools act5 conceptualised as a deliberate provision to enhance schools’ transformation, address the issues of past prejudices in the educational system and replace them with quality education. the same constitution placed more emphasis on protecting equality, freedom, non-sexism, non-racism and human dignity. this is a confirmation of the protection of right to life regardless of ethnicity, who and what you are. wilson and thompson6 also confirm that the republic of south africa (rsa) constitution, in its quest to address diversity issues, explains ‘who is who’ that is ‘entitled to what’ at any given time. in the same view, the department of education (doe)7 reiterates that the rsa constitution has expressly addressed the morality and ethical motivation behind the future of social justice, equality, equity, non-sexism and non-racism. this could further be linked to the expediency culminated in the foraging of diversities killer in south africa. as exemplified here, diversity means comprising different inseparable elements. that is, the compulsory amalgamation of people and/or elements that must under any circumstances work and do things together. for something to be diverse, the trajectory should be uniform, identical or the same. this means that the nature of diversity requires variations of differences. south africa, which is the scope of this study, is so diverse to the extent it has been nicknamed the ‘rainbow nation’. this means a country that derives pleasure in the beauty of diversities. like any other country, south africa is characterised by people of different races, religions, cultures, languages and even genders. although diversity can be found not just in humans but also in all aspects of existence, however, it is only in human conferment that it transcends more than just physical appearance. it encompasses thoughts, actions, personalities, values, beliefs, interests, upbringing and worldviews. these are essential factors that shape every child and adult and set them apart from others, which means it is crucial to cater to them from an early age and in the classroom. as good as diversity and its management sound, it does not exist in isolation. that is, it needs a workable education policy to ensure its practices. this is why the place of democratic education cannot be separated from diversity management.8 hobson9 defines democracy as government in which people are given fair power and are all liable to the law. democracy is to ensure that all people are free of oppression and that not one person has the sole power to control others. former american president abraham lincoln stated that democracy means government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’. thus, when we bring up the concept of democratic education, we are left to believe that it is a form of education that caters to all without some holding more advantages than others. this is what karlsson10 sees as an education that is tailored to meet the needs of those who require it with no form of discrimination. this suggests that where there is an unethical democratic education, such a society is unlikely to be liberated. to achieve this, mncube2 suggests that the school as a transformational process of society must be managed in line with democratic principles where all stakeholders are given the freedom to express and decide the knowledge that appeases them. the schools should be structured and tailored in a way that encourages a sense of justice and fairness towards one another. such an opportunity, according to starkey,11 improves the quality of school participation, cooperation and innovation amongst students and other members of the organisation. from the preceding discussion, one can say that in the educational sector, democracy is essential in the classroom to ensure proper management of diversities because it brings democratic values to people of distinct differences, which include self-determination within a community of equals and values such as justice, respect and trust. this, according to onder and mehmet,12 enables learners to navigate and integrate themselves into the wider world positively. therefore, the place of democracy in the management of diversity in schools cannot be underrated because it creates an awareness about indiscriminate togetherness. as children are indeed the future of any society, they must be taught about democracy and the value of democracy in a democratic environment so that they will live their adult lives carrying democratic values and principles. my argument further aligns with davies’13 conclusion that democratic education should be made in a way to encourage individuality and broaden students’ interest in the things and concepts that make up their world. the place of diversity and democracy as the problem of the study being a diverse country, it is understandable that south african classrooms will be highly diversified. the problem, however, is that although democracy has been a critical characteristic of south africa for over two decades, it is still a vague concept to many. several people whom i encounter associate democracy with freedom, without understanding that it goes farther than that. a teacher who truly understands democracy, understands that it is not just about freedom of self, rather it is the freedom of all, treating others humanely and with kindness. making power a variable that is accessible by all is the only response to diversities. this goes to say that only a democratic education can cater for diversity in the classroom although it may not be easy to bridge the gap between understanding and the actual doing. thus, it is safe to say it could be challenging for the teacher, but it is not an impossibility. observation and personal experiences during teaching practice show that there is discrimination in some high schools in south africa. this kind of discrimination is not limited to diversity in learners’ age. for example, there was a particular learner who was much older than his peers, – he ended up losing his self-confidence because of bullying and inability to make friends. this affected him academically because he absented himself from school and stayed at home to avoid being bullied by the other learners. another issue in my observation is language differences. there was a girl who comes from a different province and communicates in isizulu. she was admitted to a school where both learners and teachers speak sesotho; it was a great challenge for her because she pronounced words with difficulty and also struggled to learn. these do not only affect students, teachers also struggle with isizulu because they are sesotho-speaking people. this further confirms the notion that a culturally diverse society influences educational systems and educational institutions. the above observations are close to the findings of meier and hartell14 that teachers in classrooms are inclined to treat learners based on their belonging to a minority ‘white culture’ differently and that there are racial and cultural background discriminations in south african schools. to address these maladies, the importance of democracy and diversity must not be jettisoned because they work hand-in-hand. this understanding helps to promote the constitutional principles that south africa should avoid creating a single overriding culture through the uniform assimilation of cultures.15 that is, both teachers and students must be aware of how to avoid oppression by creating one classroom culture that will provide for the different needs of learners. teachers need to learn how to manage culturally diverse learners. it is also essential as learners learn about their own culture and how it may affect and or treat other learners. this may be why ingram-willis16 recommends that both teachers and learners must learn and understand people’s cultures and differences by using multicultural books and materials to foster cross-cultural understanding. this recommendation as a proposition to mend diversities in south african classrooms may not be achievable if there is no love, unity and oneness. that is why the place of ubuntu is sacrosanct in ameliorating the endemic of diversities. ubuntu as a theoretical approach to diversity management ubuntu as an approach is synonymous with humanness, humanity, harmony and togetherness. this concept emanated from the african way of life in the past and could be linked to the xhosa language, which means ‘being humane’.17 according to tworeck et al.,18 it is the quality of being human. this concept defines human beings with the connectivity that exists amongst people.19 that is to say individuals do not exist in isolation. this could mean the spirit of oneness that regards people to mean a people, work together as people and achieve as a people. in the general perspective, ubuntu also means ‘i am because we are’, that is, ‘a person is a person because of others’.20 simply put, human beings need one another to exist, no one exists in isolation, and the interconnectivity in the life of people becomes unquestionable. this is what etieyibo21 refers to as an interwoven humanity that is opening attention to africanism and holistic communitarianism. this ontological relation of ubuntu has been conceptualised by ijiomah22 to mean ‘harmonious monism’, which means the inevitability of unity in diversity, bondness and unavoidable interconnectivity of harmony. from these, one could say that ubuntu is the sermon that is preaching humanness, humanity and togetherness, amongst the people not minding their social class, position and status. as the foundation of ubuntu is based on the aphorism that people are interdependent,19 the place of ubuntu in the classroom then is significant for the navigation and management of diversity as well. this is why mwambazambi and banza23 recommended that teachers need to know what ubuntu is and how it becomes the instrument of classroom transformation. they argued that every educational classroom deserves to be at peace at all times, and the only way in which peace and harmony can co-exist is when students and other classroom stakeholders are treated with value and respect. also, when there is love and oneness, caring and respect for people within the school and classroom is called ubuntuism, which is tantamount to unity in diversity. this is so because this inclusive feeling from individuals will make them feel a sense of belonging and perform and achieve as members of society. the need for ubuntu becomes fundamental to the management of diversity in schools because it seems this spirit is fading away in our schools. this was my observation as a teaching practice assessor. this exists not only in my observation, but also mbhele24 confirms that no agency is tasked with ensuring that schools operate in the ubuntu spirit despite that teachers are expected to practise ubuntu by sharing, listening and respecting one another.25 managing students in the school community involves a strategy that could enhance unity and oneness amongst teachers, students and other stakeholders in order to uninterruptedly achieve school goals and objectives, amongst which is the management of diversity in the system. by doing so, classroom survival then depends on the smooth relationship between students and teachers. the only philosophy that is best to respond to this is the ubuntu practice of togetherness.26,27,28 simply put, when there are good relationships and communication, there will be understanding; when there is understanding, there will be recognition of people’s differences and respect for one another becomes a way of life. furthermore, the principles of compassion, love and respect for one another encompassed in ubuntu make this theory more disposed to rationalise diversities in the classroom. the importance of this characteristic has been tested and it perfectly responds and is significant to classroom unity and students’ performance.19,29 therefore, when ubuntu is unconditionally practised in south african schools, it will enhance the management of diversities, increase respect for human rights and also promote democratic education. in order to respond to the problem of the study, the following question is posed, ‘how can diversities in south african secondary schools be managed effectively?’ objectives of this study to provide an empirical answer to the above question, it is pertinent to state the piloting objectives that will guide the research process to the solution stage. this study, therefore: examines the challenges associated with the management of diversities in south african high schools investigates possible solutions to the challenges, using democratic and ubuntu principles. methodology this study falls under the transformative paradigm because of its quest to transform and change existing classroom phenomenon. transformative paradigm is a research framework that addresses social justice to change the status quo.30 this paradigm, according to romm,31 is emancipatory, participatory and all inclusive. this paradigm is relevant to the study as it aims to transform and emancipate the marginalised and the oppressed through indiscriminate participation and inclusive engagement. however, the participatory aspect and the link from the ubuntu philosophy as a transformational movement inform the choice of this research design. participatory research (pr) that is adopted as a research design for this study is considered appropriate to ensure that the researcher, the researched and their community are involved in the process of knowledge production.32 this design enables the participation of the people with the problem and the researchers to think, work and collaborate in order to provide a solution to a particular problem. in other words, the design shares the practices of collaboration, co-construction and inclusivity in the process of knowledge production.33 hence, implementing pr, according to this study, involved student-teachers of the university of the free state (ufs), qwaqwa campus, during their teaching practice. that is, the student-teachers who are the teachers in training forms the participants and they collaborate with the researcher to provide solution to the diversity problems observed in their place of teaching practices. the solutions, however, will assist teachers in the world of work. an assignment was given to 29 students to observe the diversities at their places of teaching practice, where they would also assume the position of teacher and at the same time are regarded as university students. this task was part of their official assessment as a prerequisite to passing the life orientation module. it mandated them to investigate the current level of diversity at their places of teaching practice, the challenges of managing diversities and possible ways of responding to it. this was not limited only to their encounter and experience but also involved them to observe and interview any issue related to the diversities and their management in their respective schools. a simple random sampling technique was used to select 10 students out of 29 students who did their teaching practice in the free state province to give their reflections on the task. this means that reflection was used to collect data for the study. reflection, according to this study, is where the participants are asked to share their experiences, opinions, suggestions and criticism on a particular subject or event. therefore, the participants were asked to reflect on the issues of diversities in their various teaching practices locations in the selected province. their reflections, opinions, experiences and suggestions were tape recorded and transcribed. the selected students were assured of anonymity in order to protect their identity and were promised that none of their statements and voices will be made in a way that could expose their identity in the research process and output. this was made to ensure that they were ethically protected.34 in response to the objectives of the study, for the sake of clarity, the collected data were analysed using the principles of thomas and harden35 three steps of thematic analysis. these steps in the analysis of mahoko, omodan and tsotetsi36 are coding the data and development of the themes, making meaning out of the themes. this is then relevant because it allows the researcher to ensure that meaning is made based on the highlighted objectives piloting the study without breaching or committing any research misappropriation. in the presentation data, the participants were coded using st1, st2, st3, etc. to represent them. in this study, st means student-teachers. results and presentation of data challenges associated with the management of diversities in south african high schools to respond to objective number one of the study accordingly, data related to the challenges that inhibit the implementation of diversity management in south african secondary schools were coded, thematised and analysed under the following sub-headings: language, cultural and personal relativism and learning impairment and comprehensibility. language, cultural and personal relativism as south africa has been described constitutionally as a diverse nation, the issue of language and cultural differences along with differences in personality and appearance is inevitable. however, this is not limited to the society alone, schools also battle with the trajectory of diversities and its management has been posing many challenges to the education system. this, according to mohanty,37 is because south african schools are embedded with various cultural groups with different languages where there is a need to learn from each other’s culture and language to work together. this challenge is not only available in literature and my observation, but my participants’ statements also justify the view that language and cultural differentials are challenging to diversity management in the classrooms. see the following responses: ‘one thing that i encountered was having learners from different backgrounds and cultures and the understanding that they are not taught the same way of doing things at their individual homes.’ (student-teacher, no. 3, ufs) ‘another thing is the differences in their languages, sometimes when a teacher explains something in english, some learners, most of whom are black, will not understand what the teacher was saying and that will lead to failure.’ (student-teacher, no. 2, ufs) participant st3 confirmed that the major encounter that caught attention was having learners from different cultural backgrounds as they are not exposed to the same way of doing things. this means that the classrooms or the school make up many diverse learners. this diversity, according to my understanding, is linked to culture. culture also at most times comes with a peculiar language. according to him, the classroom is multilingual. from the perspective of participant st2, the classroom is composed of learners with different languages, but the most significant issue here is that some of the learners cannot cope with the use of the english language only by the teacher. with this, some learners feel uninclusive in the teaching-learning process. this is also not unrelated to their socio-economic background because the participant noted that most learners are black people and probably not exposed to the use of the english language at home, thereby putting them at a disadvantage in the classroom. this challenge is not limited to language and culture; the culture of individual difference is also in light of classroom impediments towards the management of diversities. although this was made possible through the passing of the law that allowed homosexuality and thus created acceptance for people belonging within the lgbtqia spectrum: lesbians, gays, transsexuals, queer, intersex and asexual,38 intolerance is still the case in schools. see below: ‘two learners who are both females and identify themselves as males in the grade 10 class have received bullying and mistreatment from other learners in class because of their preferred gender, they are shunned from when they have to form groups in debates or when it comes to cleaning the classroom.’ (student-teacher, no. 5, ufs) ‘those who are gender estranged at some point also feel misplaced as to which group they ought to identify with.’ (student-teacher, no. 7, ufs) ‘some of my students don’t want to sit down close to a particular girl who loves to be called a boy.’ (student-teacher, no. 9, ufs) one could deduce from above statements that gay and lesbian learners are discriminated against by their fellow learners. this was made known by the amount of bullying they received as a result of their gender. according to the statement, it made it difficult for them to be accepted in the classroom especially when there are groups and other joint works are to be performed. not only did these sets of students also feel internally displaced as they are unable to identify which group they belong to and where to be identified with, but also the personal accommodation and non-accommodation amongst learners attest to the fact that the spirit of ubuntu does not exist because ubuntu is an advocate of peace, unity in diversity and oneness. the issue of language and cultural differentials also confirms that classroom democracy in schools is not effectively used to respond to the problem of diversity management. this is in line with the findings of meier and hartell14 that teachers tend to treat learners who belong to the white minority differently and that there are racial and cultural background discriminations in south african schools. therefore, language and cultural and personal relativism remain a challenge that is militating against the management of diversities in secondary schools. learning impairment and comprehensibility from the data collected, it was discovered that there are various learning disabilities in south african secondary schools. according to the data, such learning impairment involves, but is not limited to the hearing, listening and assimilation problem in many students. these issues seem not to have been properly managed by the teachers who have failed to accommodate the learners with such impairments. this at most time spoils the learning process, leading to poor results in the class. hence, learning differences may create stereotypical views in the minds of the teachers, which transform into prejudices over some time.39 the following statements from participants also confirm the above: ‘learners with hearing handicaps were not accommodated by the activities and provision of the necessary stationeries they need to use and how lessons are conducted in the classroom.’ (student-teacher, no. 7, ufs) ‘one of the learners who used to study at the school in 2018 relied on the interpretation they got from peers about the lesson presented by the teacher, which made things difficult for her, as she did not get the direct lesson from the professional teacher but peers.’ (student-teacher, no. 1, ufs) ‘in 2019, the school did not obtain a 100% pass rate as three learners failed, one of which was the girl with a hearing disability even though she displayed the capability of passing she could not because of a lack of support from the staff.’ (student-teacher, no. 2, ufs) ‘the learners had different levels of comprehension, meaning others were fast while others were slow.’ (student-teacher, no. 3, ufs) the above participants’ statements show that there is learning differentials amongst learners and the way and manner the schools or teachers addresses it seems uninclusive. this reflects in the comments of st7 that learners with learning impairments are not accommodated by providing the needed materials for them to learn concurrently with their counterparts. according to st1, this has become worse, to the extent that learners have to intervene to help other impaired learners because of the inability of those learners to comprehend lessons in the actual learning process. according to st2, this does not affect only the learners, but the productivity of the schools also suffer because schools lose their position of academic performance as it affects the pass rate of schools. these differentials in learning amongst learners according to st3 also involve levels of assimilation as some learners can assimilate faster than others. therefore, in order to manage diversities in schools, all these must be responded to holistically. this was supported by the suggestion of the participants as stated below: ‘it was also obvious that some students needed special attention as their style of learning was in contrast with the others, meaning they either learned better through hearing, sight, touch, etc.’ (student-teacher, no. 9, ufs) ‘several grade 10 students i worked with were very slow in learning and matters were not helped considering that some teachers lost their patience, most times screaming, “ha se nnaaitseng o kwalehe!” meaning “it’s not my fault you are stupid!”’ (student-teacher, 10, ufs) from the above reflections, it is obvious that learners in the schools are not given adequate attention by their teachers towards improving their learning styles so as to meet up with their counterparts. these are practical examples that the spirit of ubuntu is lacking in the operations of the schools’ system in south africa. st10’s statement also buttresses this by saying that the problem of those with low learning style was not responded to by the teachers and thereby left with their inabilities. this statement also gives room for objectivism in the sense that teachers are trying their best, but they also lose their temper at some point, which may leave an adverse effect on the learners. all these unequivocally show that learning impairment and learners’ comprehensibility are challenges to the full implementation of diversity management in schools. this also confirms that various education departments should make efforts to ensure that democratic education and ubuntu exist within schools. the following aligns with the fact that ubuntu characteristics, along with democratic education, will correctly respond to classroom unity and students’ performance.29 possible solutions to challenges using democratic and ubuntu principles in response to the second objective of this study, data related to the solutions that could enhance diversity management in south african secondary schools are coded, thematised and analysed under the following sub-themes: inculcation of classroom relationships and sense of belonging and training and retraining of teachers and students in diversity management. inculcation of classroom relationships and sense of belonging relationships and interactions amongst students and teachers have been found to be crucial to the success of classroom activities and have also been linked to the student and staff productivity.40 so the place of ubuntuism towards the management of diversities is as critical as the schooling itself. ubuntuism and democracy in the classroom according to the empirical data collected are sacrosanct and this is rooted on the prospect that when there are mutual and smooth relationships within and amongst the classroom stakeholders such as students and teachers, this will bring a sense of belonging where all learners and students will have no hidden feelings against one another or against teachers, as the case may be. this solution does not only exist in abstract thinking and literature but also supported by the participants’ statements. see below responses: ‘i refer to it as a good thing because we must foster a classroom that makes everyone feel like he or she belongs to it and feels respected.’ (student-teacher, 10, ufs) ‘everyone must be involved and given equal opportunity as every learner in the classroom.’ (student-teacher, 6, ufs) ‘since diversity is something that needs to be fostered in the classroom, a learner needs to first understand his classmates, cooperate with the different teaching styles, give learners equal opportunities, celebrate diversities, encourage different perspectives and involve diverse learning materials.’ (student-teacher, 4, ufs) ‘democratic education will also ensure that we treat homosexual learners with dignity as human beings.’ (student-teacher, 7, ufs) the above conversations reiterate the fact that classroom lessons must be conducted in such a way that every member feels included with a sense of belonging. according to st10, this could be achieved when there is respect in the conduct of individuals, groups of people and amongst the people (student and teachers). this agrees with the assumption of ubuntu that respect and reciprocity make people feel good about one another. no wonder the department of education recommends that teachers are expected to practise the principle of sharing, listening and respecting one another’s rights.25 in addition, onder and mehmet12 state that it enables learners to navigate and integrate themselves into the wider world positively and democratically. to foster effective diversity management in schools, the involvement of everyone according to st6 is not negotiable, which is supported by the statement of st4 that there is a need for cooperative classroom activities. ‘cooperate with the different teaching styles, give learners equal opportunities, celebrate diversities, encourage different perspectives and involve diverse learning materials’. this idea is in no doubt what st7 refers to as democratic education, which, according to him, could also help to respond to discrimination against homosexual learners and to make them think and look like human beings. this finding is in tandem with karlsson10 and mncube2 that education, most especially classroom activities, must be tailored to meet the needs of the learners and to be managed in line with democratic principles so as to transform the society. training and retraining of teachers and students in diversity management responding to the challenges of learning with regard to learning impairment, the place of training and retraining of both the learners and the teachers cannot be underrated. on-the-job training has been found by many researchers to be important to staff and students’ development. this is not to say that teachers are not professional or knowledgeable enough to teach in schools and manage their learners, but the vacuum is that no knowledge is a waste and the dynamics of the society warrants that every teaching and non-teaching staff must adapt to the changes in dynamism for development sake. no doubt chu et al.41 proposed the need for all-round professional development programmes to enable teachers to possess skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, communication and collaborative knowledge construction. they further argue that this will enable the teacher to lead students towards the fourth industrial revolution agenda. the importance of this solution was derived from the participants’ following statements: ‘as a teacher, it is best to learn more about your learners. learn their culture, values, and beliefs; this enables you to understand what could influence their worldviews.’ (student-teacher, 9, ufs) ‘learn about their homes and where they come from; you will be in a better position to understand if a child is lacking because of neglect or poverty, or if they are being abused.’ (student-teacher, 5, ufs) ‘learn the weaknesses of your learners, especially those that have impaired learning; once you know whether they have any impairments, then you can better respond to them well.’ (student-teacher, 9, ufs) ‘teaching your learners about diversity can help create a more harmonious classroom environment, as the learners will know how to cooperate without discrimination or prejudice.’ (student-teacher, 3, ufs) from the above submissions, one can see that the place of continuous learning needs to navigate the dynamic of diversities in schools. this means that on-the-job training is needed to be able to respond to the needs of learners, as indicated in their statements. it was reflected in the statement of st9 that teachers need to be adequately exposed to the culture, values and beliefs of their learners to be able to respond to their needs, thereby making it easy to manage diversities amongst them. in the opinion of st5, the teacher is also expected to know the background politics of their students, which, according to him, involves the identification of family economic status. in the same vein, the ability to learn and understand learners according to st9, most notably those with impairment, will enable the teachers to respond to this. this agrees with the postulation of ubuntu philosophy and democratic principles, where everyone obtains what belongs to them without discrimination. to make the solution encompassing, st3 also joins the solution with the need to teach learners on diversities and how it can help them live a harmonious life both in school and society. this, according to the participant, will enable them to know how to engage collaboratively and shun unfair discriminations in schools. it goes to say that all these propositions can only be navigated when both students and teachers are on a continuous learning space for personal development. this aligns with the findings of mugizi et al.42 that teachers’ development training has a significant influence on teachers’ performance. in the same perspective, pandita and ray43 report that when people are provided with consistent development programmes such as learning initiatives, mentoring and coaching strategies, they gain performance not only in the school but anywhere they find themselves. conclusion and recommendations from the above analysis, it is not out of place to conclude that despite various mechanisms introduced by the government of south africa to improve the problem of diversities in the education system, the potential of the practitioners, such as students and teachers, is still not enough to manage the diversities in the system. therefore, this study concludes that language and cultural and personal relativism along with learning impairment and comprehensibility are predominant challenges militating against proper management of diversities in schools. this study also concludes that we need the inculcation of classroom relationships and a sense of belonging and training and retraining of teachers and students to respond to these challenges. however, the value of teachers’ and students’ development to the success and development towards diversity management must, therefore, be addressed by the department of education. this speaks to the fact that when efforts are put in place by the school management team to ensure that teachers are equipped with the needed skill to discharge their duties effectively, this will positively enhance their managerial skills because they will learn and understand people’s cultures and differences by using multicultural materials that foster cross-cultural understanding.16 this, in no measure, will also contribute to national and societal development and ensure social and national unity in return. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions b.i.o. is a postdoctoral student of the o.a.i. the research was produced in the lab and under the supervision of the second author. b.i.o. was responsible for the identification of the problem, data analysis and the write up of the article. o.a.i. assessed the validity and credibility of the research, including the selection of appropriate methodology and a theoretical framework. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. 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on the need for co-operative societies (co-ops) in order to promote african development through facilitating the acquisition of production inputs and the marketing of agricultural products. in 1956, the first co-operative society was established, while the main focus of this paper’s interest, the gowe irrigation co-operative society of sanyati in the northwestern part of the country, was established in 1967. established by a government agency known as the tribal trust land development corporation (tilcor), now the agricultural and rural development authority (arda), the co-operative society flourished and became a model for the distribution of agricultural inputs and credit to african farmers. it collapsed in 1969 due to a number of factors, among them poor management and corruption. keywords agricultural so-operative societies in zimbabwe, rhodesia, sanyati, irrigation, zimbabwe (rhodesia), african farmers, trust lands. disciplines history, economic history, agricultural history. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 2, december 2007, pp. 319-350 * dr m (mark) nyandoro is an economic and socio-economic historian attached to the project south african history online. 320 introduction the co-operative system is the offshoot of british utopian socialism. its ideology was provided by robert owen. “out of owenism came the ideas, doctrines, myths and much of the inspiration which is associated with the co-operative movement.” 1 the essential characteristic of this ideology was the reaction to the excesses of competitive capitalism in the wake of industrial revolution. it was the revolt against the exploitation of workers by the early industrialists, the associated impoverishment of rural areas, the dire living conditions of the urban masses, unrestricted competition and greed. 2 specifically, competition was opposed by the ideal of co-operation; individualism by collectivism; private property by social ownership; profit by sharing of surplus; inequality by equality; and materialism by the development of moral character through co-operative education. 3 underlying these ideals were a distinct philosophy and ethics. against the philosophy of natural economic laws, the cooperative philosophy stressed group action and social reforms. 4 this paper is an examination of the operations of the co-operative system in an agricultural context. however, the co-operative movement needs to be put in its internationalist perspective since the origins of the movement are not typically zimbabwean. it is important to note that although the concept of co-operation is older than mankind, the idea of a co-operative system is the product of the nineteenth century. a co-operative is not merely an economic or social institution such as a corporation, family or partnership. it is part of a distinct socio-economic system.5 1 gregory grossman, “the second economy of the ussr,” problems of communism, 26(5), (september-october 1977), 25-40. see also arnold bonner, british co-operation, (manchester: cooperative union, 1961). 2 leonard pluta, “the cooperative system and central and eastern europe in the nineteenth century,” in aloysius balawyder (ed.), cooperative movements in eastern europe, (london: macmillan press ltd., 1980), 1. 3 ibid. , 3-4. 4 ibid. , 4. 5 ibid. , 3. nayandoro 321 apart from britain numerous formal co-operatives with varying degrees of success emerged in nineteenth-century germany, france, denmark, holland, luxembourg, ireland, belgium and italy to name a few. 6 in asia the indian societies act under which a number of groups were registered was passed in 1860, and the first indian cooperative act was passed in 1904. 7 co-operatives in india were formally recognised and promoted as it was increasingly felt that cooperation could benefit people in the colonies. co-operation and cooperative marketing in agriculture is, thus, not a novel phenomenon. the history of the co-operative movement goes back almost a hundred years. the following definitions of co-operative activity are very useful to an understanding of how the system operated. the international labour organisation (ilo) defines co-operative enterprise as … an association of persons, usually of limited means, who have voluntarily joined together to achieve a common economic end through the formation of a democratically controlled business organisation, making equitable contributions to the capital required and accepting a fair share of the risks and benefits of the undertaking. 8 the international co-operative alliance (ica), at its manchester congress in september 1995, adopted a statement on co-operative identity. this statement similarly defines a co-operative as: “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically controlled enterprise.” 9 6 for a comparative analysis of performance, the role played by agricultural cooperative organisations in the determination of marketing arrangements and the effects of organisation on the marketing strategies of selected european countries’ co-operative sectors see gordon r. foxall, co-operative marketing in european agriculture, (aldershot, hampshire, england: gower publishing company limited, 1982), 1-101. an examination of the co-operative system or movement in central and eastern european countries can be gleaned from balawyder (ed.), cooperative movements in eastern europe, 1-211. 7 malcolm harper and a. k. roy, co-operative success: what makes group enterprise succeed, (london: intermediate technology development group/ itdg publishing, 2000), 140. 8 ilo, co-operative management and administration, (geneva: international labour office, 1971). 9 ica, “agenda and reports,” review of international co-operatives, 8(3), manchester: ica congress, (1995). gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 322 on the whole, though, the concept of co-operative organisation is far from homogeneous. there are many forms of co-operative organisation, and there are decisive differences in how they are organised and how they work. co-operative organisation ranges from traditional co-operative models to socially involved and governmentsupported co-operation. the primary focus of this paper, the gowe 10 irrigation co-operative society in northwestern zimbabwe, was akin to the latter model. thus, agricultural co-operative enterprise in zimbabwe will be discussed in the context of these definitions, which bear close resemblance to the meaning of the same concept as it applied to the gowe-sanyati situation. just like other similar organisations elsewhere, the gowe co-op, as it became affectionately known, was informed by the need to maximise agricultural production on the basis of collectively harnessing resources for the benefit of all the irrigation plotholders 11 in the sanyati region. the paper primarily focuses on the origins and development of agricultural co-operative societies in zimbabwe with particular reference to the gowe-sanyati irrigation co-operative society, which emerged in 1967 (see map of location of co-op societies in zimbabwe). in the process, it evaluates these institutions’ role in facilitating the channelling of production inputs to farmers and the marketing of their produce. established by a government agency known as the tribal trust land development corporation (tilcor), now the agricultural and rural development authority (arda), the cooperative society at gowe flourished and became a model for the distribution of agricultural inputs and credit to african farmers. the study examines the criteria for eligibility to membership of such associations, namely who could belong and who could not, as well as their administrative structures and practices. in addition, the paper 10 gowe is a smallholder irrigation scheme administered by the agricultural and rural development authority (arda). it is situated in the sanyati communal lands in mashonaland west province. the scheme should not be confused with gokwe which is a vast district in the midlands province of zimbabwe. 1 1 in this paper the term plotholder is used to mean tenant, outgrower, settler or smallholder irrigation farmer. nayandoro 323 evaluates the societies’ impact on their members, on african development and on the national economy. it ends by analysing the factors, among them poor management and corruption, that led to the collapse of this society in 1969. it can be pointed out that in this paper, a number of non-african examples have been selected in order to indirectly provide some guidelines as to what can be done locally. the co-operative movement and rural development historically, the co-op movement in rhodesia (now zimbabwe) emerged in the 1950s. in 1954, the colonial government began investigations on the need for co-operative societies in order to promote african development through facilitating the acquisition of production inputs and the marketing of agricultural products. it was found that while urban societies would have little value, agricultural societies would provide a needed service in the channelling of both input items to african farmers and the produce of these farmers to marketing bodies. thus, co-operative societies would provide a mechanism by which credit for the purchase of input items could be made available to african farmers. it should be noted that early efforts to establish co-operatives were concentrated on the african purchase lands, formerly african purchase areas (apas) and now small-scale commercial farms, because of their more advanced farmers and greater output. following the formation of the first society in the apa (i.e. in chitomborwizi in 1956), the first in a tribal trust land (communal area) was set up in madziwa in 1960. in the 1963/64 season there was only one co-operative in the main cotton growing area of munyati. this was the umniati/munyati co-operative (in gokwe district), which was formed in 1961. by 1966, there were six such co-operatives in the cotton growing areas, and cotton accounted for 80% of their business. 12 co-operative societies have been the main vehicles of 1 2 murimi, december 1966, press statement, “gokwe farmers have record cotton crop,” ministry of information, 7 december 1966. see also p. s. nyambara, “a history of land acquisition in gokwe, north western zimbabwe, 1945-1997,” phd dissertation, north western university, evanston, illinois, june 1999, 245-246. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 324 rural development in zimbabwe and nearly everywhere. they were established and managed by individuals or groups of individuals mainly for their own benefit or profit. hence, there were too many examples of exploitation, where co-operative enterprises actively damaged the interests of others as will be demonstrated in this study. since the end of the colonial era, co-operation has been seen as a way of enabling indigenous people to take over the control of their own lives from alien business. it seemed to have the potential to release the poor from the domination of capitalism and of foreigners. as a consequence, co-operative enterprises were eagerly promoted by the governments of newly independent countries in many parts of the world. 13 foreign donors, both government and non-government, assisted enthusiastically. nonetheless, not all of them could point to a universally successful co-operative movement in their own countries, and none could claim that co-operation had been their major source of economic growth, but this did not necessarily mean that they had nothing to offer. there have been some successes and many failures. the recent history of the former soviet union and eastern europe, where government-sponsored co-operatives have been discredited along with state enterprises, has not only been replicated as far as the gowe irrigation co-operative society in sanyati was concerned but also contributed to a general climate of scepticism about any form of group enterprise. although this study recognises the successes, it also makes a veritable and modest attempt to identify the major factors, which were associated with failed group enterprise in gowe agriculture in the late 1960s. it is a fact that co-operatives have been widely discredited, in as much as it is true that their many failures have frequently been the result not of intrinsic faults with the concept of group ownership, nor of members’ own mistakes, but of overzealous and misdirected efforts 13 ica, “agenda and reports,” review of international co-operatives. nayandoro 325 by governments or other agencies which have tried to promote them. 14 as governments, at every level, were withdrawing from many fields, co-operatives and those who wished to promote them were faced with new freedom and challenges. they were vested with more power to make their own decisions, but they needed to learn as much as possible from the experience of the past. for instance, there is a great need for effective new co-operative enterprises, and a perhaps even greater need to rehabilitate or restore older ones to profitable operation. 15 the gowe one, for instance, was immediately subordinated to the main co-operative union based in que que (now kwekwe), which was known as sebungwe and ultimately to the state. because of this, its decisions were often externally influenced. such a situation, therefore, inevitably limited its autonomy and indeed reduced its chances of success. this is contrary to shah’s view that co-operatives can only be successful when they are evolved totally “naturally,” without any external assistance or inspiration. 16 the gowe co-op prioritised input distribution without changing the criteria for choosing members and without placing much emphasis on the tenets of equity. it was also hardly totally free of government interference. in zimbabwe, it was very difficult for any co-operative society to avoid state interference or even virtual state control. the state had penetrated the co-operative movement so thoroughly that many cooperatives were effectively little different from state-owned enterprises. 17 however, it was possible for co-operatives in sanyati where the hand of the state was as pervasive, and sometimes 1 4 harper and roy, co-operative success, 4. 1 5 ibid. 1 6 tushaar shah, catalysing co-operation, (new delhi: sage, 1996), 20-21. see also t. shah and d. mishra, “analysing under-performance in indian cooperatives,” small enterprise development, 3(1), (1993); h.o. srivastava and m. k. chaturvedi, rural middlemen, (new delhi: ashish, 1986); ilo, co-operative management and administration, (geneva: international labour office, 1971); g. hunter, modernising peasant societies, (oxford: oxford university press, 1969) and a. hanel, state-sponsored co-operatives and self-reliance, (marburg: institute for co-operation in developing countries, 1989. 1 7 naz (rc), arda, box 272099, location r19.3.12.1f, file: ada/mar/2 marketing – general, “confidential correspondence: agricultural development authority – co-operative societies in african areas,” 26th january 1973. see also harper and roy, co-operative success, 131. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 326 destructive, as almost anywhere in the country, to succeed in spite of this. for some time after 1967, it appeared the co-operative movement would succeed at gowe. subsequent events especially those linked to the collapse of this co-op in 1969, and indeed many others in the rural areas, seem to confirm the point observed in many circles that state control is damaging, in that most societies that failed in this period were among those which were effectively under the control of the state. 18 the national dairy development board (nddb), for example, represents perhaps the most enlightened and certainly the most successful group of co-operatives in india, and it is worth quoting their view of the roots of failure, and thus, by inference, of the nature of success, in full: without the critical links of responsibility and accountability between member and board as well as between board and professional management, a co-operative system functions more as a bureaucratic department and less as a member-owned enterprise. decisions are taken in the interests of others than the members and the co-operative structure, rather than serving its owners, tends to become a vehicle for government programmes and political agendas. this, in turn, erodes the quality of management and, ultimately, threatens the long-term viability of the co-operative system. 19 these reasons for failure were not very different from the factors that led to the collapse of the gowe co-op in zimbabwe. state involvement could hardly be dispensed with, as members never expressed their willingness to sacrifice the political connections, subsidies and other assistance that accompanied official co-operative status. any attempt to avoid association with government officials was seen as detrimental to their continued quest to get constant supplies of farm inputs. 18 ibid. , 132. 19 nddb, a note on co-operative development, (anand, india: national dairy development board, 1991). nayandoro 327 an apolitical stance would have helped enhance their autonomy and ultimately their performance. in fact, when the co-op was established some tenants were not against initial assistance coming from it, but with the passage of time, a rather larger rural constituency believed that continuing subsidy was not consistent with success. however, this view is somewhat paradoxical since it was virtually impossible for any officially recognised group enterprise in zimbabwe to escape subsidy, and groups often registered themselves solely in order to be eligible for assistance. in spite of this argument, however, there seemed to be unanimity among the smallholder irrigation farmers in sanyati that co-operative societies should not have had close political links. 20 the co-operative movement in the world in general and in zimbabwe in particular has suffered greatly because the concept has so often been “hijacked” by governments, and by foreign donors, as an instrument of political patronage, and of “top-down” development, with little reference to the traditions or the wishes of the membership. 21 whenever this happens inclinations towards exclusion become more entrenched as long as co-operative members are not given much say in the running of the institution that disburses vital inputs to them. they often find themselves at the mercy of inept and corrupt officials. it can further be pointed out that a successful co-operative is one that adheres to the standards of profitability and growth enunciated at inception, which was not the case at the gowe small-scale irrigation scheme. given the fact that the scheme was only 120 hectares in size,22 membership tended to be very stagnant, and static membership can be one of the flagships of failure. membership should be dynamic as well as goal and profit-oriented. best practice in performance can be represented by an evaluation of profitability. in the indian cooperative sector, “sound performance” is said to be: 20 t. nyamutova, vice chairman, gowe irrigation committee, personal interview, gowe, 14th may 2005. 2 1 naz (rc), arda, box 272099, location r19.3.12.1f, file: ada/mar/2 marketing – general, “confidential correspondence: agricultural development authority – co-operative societies in african areas,” 26th january 1973 and harper and roy, co-operative success, 139-140. 2 2 j. gwerengwe, “sanyati estate corporate plan,” ada, (1995), 1. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 328 characterised by financial viability, adherence to basic principles of co-operation, satisfaction of member objectives, centrality to members’ economies, growth in membership and business, and member involvement in the co-operative’s affairs. 23 this suggests that the country pursued a sustainable co-operative policy. 24 whilst the indian co-ops strove to achieve this, nonetheless, these very necessary conditions were hardly satisfied at gowe where farming on a co-operative basis was gradually subordinated to officials’ interests. 25 the local co-op, thus, became an instrument for the exclusion of members’ interests and not one that sought to promote the original principles governing co-operation. a detailed examination of farmers’ access to co-operative credit at gowe-sanyati demonstrates the extent to which the co-op advanced the interests of its members. co-operation in practice access to credit and the co-operative movement in sanyati in sanyati, with the introduction of both dryland and irrigated cotton, the local farmers had become almost totally involved in the cash crop economy, 26 with some individual households emerging as cash rich or cash poor. these differences, among other things, emerged against 2 3 t. shah and d. mishra, “analysing under-performance in indian cooperatives,” small enterprise development, 3(1), (1993). 2 4 for comparative tropical african examples of co-operative agricultural policies, see robert h. bates, markets and states in tropical africa: the political basis of agricultural policies, (berkeley: university of california press, 1981). 2 5 naz (rc), dc gatooma, ministry of internal affairs, box 158098, location c19.10.7r, dc’s file: gowe irrigation scheme: financial plans, water reports etc, 1967-1971, “sanyati irrigation plots,” 1-2. 2 6 mark nyandoro, “the gowe plotholders scheme: growth and development of an african irrigation enterprise in the sanyati communal lands (1960s1990s), ma thesis, harare: department of economic history, university of zimbabwe, june 1997. see also e. n. s. chicheko, “a history of cotton growing in sanyati (1968-1990),” ba honours dissertation, harare: economic history department, university of zimbabwe, 1992. nayandoro 329 the backdrop of peasant households’ differential access to some of the most critical productive resources for successful cotton production. 27 it is important to observe that growing a cash crop such as cotton not only generates cash, but it requires inputs such as capital, market access, labour and good quality land. 28 however, at the gowe smallholder pilot irrigation scheme 29 access to capital was a major constraint for most plotholder households. the prime source of finance to the peasant farmer in colonial zimbabwe was the agricultural loan fund (alf), established in 1958 and administered by the african development fund (adf). 30 it was through the promulgation of the co-operative societies act of 1956 that the supply and marketing co-operatives became the principal means for peasant farmers’ access to inputs and markets. in other words, co-operatives were the main channel through which members could sell their crops (cotton, wheat and maize), 31 and also obtain commoditised inputs (i.e. seed, fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides) on credit. this contributed to rapid growth in cotton production, which to some extent was associated with the gowe co-op and the major finance institutions of the time. 32 2 7 pius s. nyambara, “a history of land acquisition in gokwe, north western zimbabwe, 1945 – 1997,” ph. d dissertation, north western university, evanston, illinois, june 1999, 244-245. 2 8 ibid. , 245. 2 9 the scheme which was established in 1967 was administered jointly by the district commissioner (dc) for gatooma and tilcor. 3 0 nyambara, “a history of land acquisition in gokwe,” 245. 3 1 the regional co-operative officer, k. hahn, insisted that ideally, members were supposed to sell their maize through the co-op. see naz (rc), dc gatooma ministry of internal affairs, box 158098, location c19.10.7r, file: “gowe irrigation scheme: sanyati ttl (ex conex),” minutes of a meeting held at gowe irrigation scheme on 5th may, 1969, 1. 3 2 n.b. the phenomenal expansion of cotton during the late 1960s and early 1970s was largely associated with the activities of the co-operative societies. by 1969, there were 267 registered co-operative societies in the country, 190 of them operating in african areas and relying heavily on government support. see a. k. h. weinrich, african farmers in rhodesia, (london: oxford university press, 1975), 28-33. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 330 gowe: the role of the adf, alf and the co-operative society with the inception of the gowe irrigation scheme in 1967, the adf provided tractors for ploughing and recovered its costs from the plotholders as ox-drawn ploughs were not allowed. 33 norman savata gwacha, who cultivated a 1,4 hectare (4 acre) plot remembers that in that year the adf tractor service for ploughing was provided at the rate of £10 ($20) per plotholder. 34 primarily, the adf was involved in the financing of the smallholder scheme, the provision of farm equipment and the financing of the cropping activities. the prime source of credit to the gowe irrigators was the alf, and by the simple expedient of paying a nominal membership fee, these farmers had access to full seasonal credit through their co-operative society, the gowe co-operative society – a subsidiary of the sebungwe cooperative union. since 1967, the growth of the co-operative movement was steady. 35 from the 1960s, the societies were controlled by the co-operatives branch of the ministry of internal affairs, which administered both 3 3 livestock rearing was not permitted within the confines of the irrigation scheme because tractors and other agricultural equipment were provided by the adf. there was also no provision for grazing land within the scheme, but a livestock-fattening programme had been introduced by the livestock demonstrator for farmers to sell beasts and make a handsome profit. see a. masenga, gowe pump attendant, personal interview, gowe, 8th january 1997 and r. l. westcott, former dc gatooma, personal interview, ramsgate, south africa, 12 july 2005. 3 4 norman savata gwacha, communal farmer and former secretary of the gowe irrigation co-operative society, personal interview, kusi village, sanyati, 9th january 1997 and 15th may 2005. 3 5 at the end of 1972, three years after the collapse of the gowe co-op, there were 291 primary societies – marketing and agricultural supply societies – with 33 000 members. these primary societies were later amalgamated into 11 marketing unions (secondary societies) in order to consolidate the negotiating power of the primary societies. see naz (rc), arda, box 272099, location r19.3.12.1f, file: ada/mar/2 marketing – general, “confidential correspondence: agricultural development authority – co-operative societies in african areas,” 26th january 1973, 1. nayandoro 331 the co-operative companies act and the co-operative societies act. the co-operative societies act was an enabling act only, which provided the apparatus for the formation and registration of cooperatives. strong controlling and inspection powers were provided to the registrar by the act. by the end of 1967 the sebungwe cooperative union limited incorporated 27 co-operatives in the gokwe, gatooma and que que areas. 36 the union provided several functions. for instance, (a) it amalgamated member co-operatives into a single purchasing body; (b) acted as banker for the co-operatives; channelled all payments for crops through itself and made it feasible for primary co-operatives to operate retail stores. 37 the union, which was staffed and managed solely by africans, operated a central warehouse in que que, a pesticide packaging plant, three heavy trucks with trailers and a sizeable number of tractors for the provision of tillage services. 38 it was this warehouse that supplied the needs of smaller co-operatives such as gowe. the basic reason for the existence of the co-operatives was to meet the individual member’s problems in the financing of his crop (credit), the supply and transport of input items into the farming area, and the transport of produce out of it to the market. to obtain credit well in advance of the growing season, a member submitted to his local committee his list of requirements for seed, fertiliser and pesticides. 39 the committee, on advice from co-operative staff, ensured that the amounts requested were in balance with the intended acreage. a member was required to sign a stop order in favour of the co-operative for the cost of these items, plus handling and transport charges. the individual member’s loans were consolidated into a single cooperative loan and application made to the district commissioner 3 6 naz (rc), arda, box 272099, location r19.3.12.1f, file: ada/mar/2 marketing – general, “confidential correspondence: agricultural development authority – co-operative societies in african areas,” 26th january 1973, 1. 3 7 ibid. , 3. 3 8 nyambara, “a history of land acquisition in gokwe,” 246. 3 9 naz (rc), dc gatooma ministry of internal affairs, box 158098, location c19.10.7r, dc’s file: gowe irrigation scheme 1965-1971: plans etc., l. g. leach to the pc mashonaland south, 3rd april, 1968. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 332 (dc) by the co-operative for a communal loan. 40 provided that the previous year’s communal loan was completely liquidated, approval was granted and the co-operative became liable for repayment. as the individual delivered his crop, the stop order was paid off first in the normal way, and as soon as repayment was completed, the individual received full payment for his produce, less the usual transport and handling charges. the co-operative, however, remained responsible for the repayment of the communal debt to the alf. as far as agricultural inputs were concerned, orders for physical input items were consolidated and a single order placed through the union. delivery was made to a single collection depot, which was the secretary’s “hut,” an african development fund store, a trading store or simply a shelter under a tree. the secretary and his committee handled distribution and the individual farmers collected and transported their own requirements. delivery to the central depot (collection point) was by union transport or contract transport arranged by the union. during the marketing season, seed cotton was delivered to the same depot by individuals, with individual identification on each bale. on delivery, a produce receipt recording the weight of cotton was issued, but no grade (value) was attached and no payment was made at that stage. once a truckload had accumulated, transport was obtained from the union and the cotton was delivered as a single consignment to the ginnery. individual bales were recorded on the cotton marketing board paysheet under the “yield reference” heading, to enable the payment to be broken down to individuals by the union. a notification and cash analysis was provided to the bank for payment on its next visit to the area, and the secretary and committee drew the cash and made 4 0 naz (rc), arda, box 272099, location r19.3.12.1f, file: ada/mar/2 marketing – general, “confidential correspondence: agricultural development authority – co-operative societies in african areas,” 26th january 1973, 3. nayandoro 333 payment to individual growers. 41 standard bank gatooma operated a mobile bank unit that serviced gowe-sanyati. this procedure entailed some delays in the processing of payments to the farmers. the delay from delivery to payout was approximately two weeks in normal circumstances. in other circumstances it was quite extended (i.e. up to three months). from the grower’s point of view, the co-operative’s function of credit disbursement was not perceived in the same way. some farmers saw the co-operative as fulfilling its function satisfactorily but others felt swindled by it. from the administration side, the communal responsibility for the loan ensured that at least some degree of individual creditworthiness was established before the committee approved the loan. whilst problems occurred, the system nonetheless resulted in a debt recovery rate in excess of 95%, a considerably higher figure than where individual responsibility was the rule. 42 a number of co-operative officers only referred to by n. s. gwacha as shipley, charumbira, gorora and bhango served on the gowe co-op and dominated its affairs. among them was gwacha himself, whose main functions as secretary included, checking the records of produce, issuing pesticides and ensuring that plotholders got loans. he wrote and prepared co-operative loan forms before they were signed by the chairman. 43 gwacha was virtually the accounting officer of the co-op who used his position to influence loan disbursement to the plotholders. 4 1 norman savata gwacha, communal farmer and former secretary, gowe cooperative society, personal interview, kusi village, sanyati, 15th may 2005. see also naz (rc), arda, box 272099, location r19.3.12.1f, file: ada/ mar/2 marketing – general, “confidential correspondence: agricultural development authority – co-operative societies in african areas,” 26th january 1973, 5. 42 gowe like other co-operatives also needed input assistance or credit. the gowe co-operative society, whose first chairman was isaac mutengo, sourced agricultural loans from the alf through the union on behalf of the irrigation plotholders. the co-op operated under the sebungwe co-operative union, which had its headquarters in kwekwe and a sub-branch in kadoma. at the head of the co-op were many renowned master farmers. see job gwacha, former plotholder, personal interview, cottco depot, sanyati, 9th january 1997. 43 n. s. gwacha, personal interview, 8th january 1997. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 334 every plotholder provided he was not a bad debtor was entitled to a loan because the majority of them did not have ample capacity to self-finance their own operations. besides, cotton, which was the area’s major crop, was labour and capital intensive. without these loans, the idea of having this scheme in the first place would have been meaningless. however, although he does not openly admit it gwacha used his vast influence in the co-op to help his relatives, for example his own brother, job, and others obtain loans. at a local level he is the one who made the final recommendation on who should get a loan and who should not. invariably those who had kinship links with him did not only get favourable recommendations but practically were assured of receiving the loans which they used to purchase inputs and access technical advice. a great deal of them who were privileged to have kinship ties with gwacha took full advantage of this to accumulate more wealth than their counterparts. they owned large heads of cattle and exhibited wealth in a number of other ways. 44 clearly, the embezzlement of funds by co-op officials was quite rampant. the misappropriation of co-operative funds by secretaries for personal gain was a depressing and continuous problem. because they were not full-time employees and coming as they did from the community and controlling more cash than was commonly seen in the area, the social pressure on the secretaries to misappropriate resources on behalf of relations was extremely difficult to resist. although wary to talk about his brother, norman’s membership of the gowe co-op, in an interview job confessed that from the 1960s to the 1970s the major crop that gave farmers including his brother a lot of profit and untold riches was cotton. he pointed out that he grew the alba seed variety which gave farmers more yield than the other cotton varieties and that it gave more profit when compared to crops such as 44 for example, when the co-op was still functioning, job gwacha had a 60 strong head of cattle which, at the time of the interview, stood at 42 (a big number by many rural standards) because he sold some to pay school fees for his children and others had fallen prey to marauding cattle rustlers. he built a beautiful home for himself, owned many farming implements and his children attended some of the best boarding institutions in the area such as the sanyati baptist school. see job gwacha (cottco records clerk, former plotholder and kusi village communal farmer), personal interview, cottco, sanyati growth point, 17th may 2005. nayandoro 335 wheat and maize.45 illustrating his point further, he said: the price of cotton (i.e. 8 cents per kilogram) was very lucrative. the price of maize was very low. a full 90 kg bag of maize sold for only £1.6s. at that time, wheat prices were also low and the wheat variety they grew (i.e. the tall tokwe variety) did not give good yields. 46 the gwacha example can be used to show that norman’s position in the co-op gave him and his kinsmen access to credit and ultimately riches. as the loans were performance-related, every plotholder strove to do well but those with better access accumulated more than those with poor access to credit. in the 1967/68 season, n. s. gwacha produced 50 bags of maize and 8 bales of cotton. of his 1,4 hectares, 0,7 ha were planted to maize and the other half to cotton. his grade “a” maize and cotton were sold at the grain marketing board (gmb) and cotton marketing board (cmb) in kadoma at £1.2s.6p per bag and 8p per pound respectively. 47 locally, maize produced in 1967 was sold at $3,00 a bag and the gowe co-operative society provided a useful service to its members 4 5 job gwacha, cottco records clerk, former plotholder and kusi village communal farmer, personal interview, cottco, sanyati growth point, 17th may 2005. 46 j. gwacha, personal interview, 17th may 2005. 47 n. s. gwacha, personal interview, 8th january 1997. historically, the gmb began operations in 1931 as the maize control board (mcb). in 1951, the mcb was renamed the grain marketing board (gmb) and its mandate extended to several other products. jones calls it africa’s first statutory marketing board. see william o. jones, “food-crop marketing boards in tropical africa,” journal of modern african studies, 25(3), (1987), 375-402; william a. masters, government and agriculture in zimbabwe, (london: praeger publishers, 1994), 80-81 and c. f. keyter, maize control in southern rhodesia, 1931-1941: the african contribution to white survival, the central african historical association, local series, 34, (1978). gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 336 by marketing their produce. 48 the sebungwe union transport, carriers transport, swift, a. w. transporters, the fireson transport company (owned by a somali transport operator based in kadoma), and other private transport owners were often hired to ferry the farmers’ produce to its respective markets in kadoma. the local cmb and the gmb depots at sanyati had not yet been established. these were set up in 1976 and 1989 respectively. 49 since 1967, in order to market produce, a plotholder at gowe needed to be a registered member of the co-op (with a co-op number), and a holder of a master farmer certificate. 50 this was part of the requirements for inclusion, but the stringency with which this criterion was applied eventually led to the exclusion of so many irrigation plotholders who could not transform themselves into master farmers over night to ensure inclusion. in fact, nearly all of the government credit and agricultural advice available for african irrigation plotholders was directed, through the co-operative society, at this relatively small group of master farmers. it was believed that because they possessed vast farming skill their repayment capacity would also be high. nevertheless, whether one had master farmer certification or not it was imperative to be registered and have a number allocated by the society to facilitate marketing. 4 8 naz (rc), ministry of internal affairs, box 86732, location 8.17.5f, file: annual report 1967, “acc.8/160 report of the secretary for internal affairs for the year 1967,” 11. 4 9 n.b. it had been argued in the tilcor preliminary project report that the establishment of the scheme should be followed by the establishment of a local cotton ginnery for the processing of the cotton crop, but this did not materialise until much later. gatooma is where cotton was mainly marketed before the establishment of the cotton marketing board (cmb) depot at sanyati growth point in 1976. cmb is now the cotton company of zimbabwe limited (cottco). 5 0 j. gwacha, personal interview, 9th january 1997. nayandoro 337 the co-op number indicated the produce items a farmer was dispatching to the market. in turn, the co-op had a growers card or number on which it sold plotholders’ produce. j. gwacha vividly remembers that in the 1967/68 season his co-op number which it was compulsory to stick onto each bale of cotton as a label before dispatching a consignment of cotton to the market, was 229, and the co-op growers card number was 027206a. 51 it should be pointed out here that, before the cmb was formed as an arm of the agricultural marketing authority (ama), the gowe plotholders marketed their cotton through the cotton company committee (ccc), which was based in kadoma. 52 the cmb was only created in terms of the cotton marketing and control act chapter 106 in 1969, 53 which made the co-op’s marketing arrangements rather cumbersome since inception. after the plotholders had sent their produce to the market, the gowe co-operative society would receive cheques from the gmb and cmb, which in turn would be cashed by the co-op officers at the kadoma standard bank branch. 54 eventually, the farmers would be paid in cash by the co-op officers or the standard bank but on production of a “producer’s statement.” 55 this ensured that the money would not be paid out to unscrupulous claimants, but subordination of the co-op to sebungwe sometimes disadvantaged the growers. the latter were invariably forced to pay certain dues to keep the union afloat. 5 1 ibid. 5 2 j. gwacha, personal interview, 9th january 1997. 5 3 cotton marketing and control act, chapter 106, 1969, 39. the cmb (now cottco) operates in close co-operation with the gmb as the sole buyer of raw cotton and processor of lint and seed. see masters, government and agriculture in zimbabwe, 81 and cotton marketing board (cmb), (various years), annual reports, harare: cmb. 5 4 n. s. gwacha, personal interview, 8th january 1997. 5 5 ibid. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 338 as the main co-op was required to guarantee plotholder borrowings it, as a result, incurred crippling debts because some of them failed to meet their financial obligations to sebungwe. in fact, the previously close relationship between the co-operatives and the agricultural credit institutions became strained as the latter continually demanded guarantees before granting loans. this is linked to the many problems associated with financing co-operatives most of which were increasingly in debt. in this connection the former dc gatooma, r. l. westcott, lamented the fact that “sebungwe covered a larger area than gowe and consequently introduced costs which were not applicable and delays of up to three months in payments to the plotholders were quite commonplace.” 56 from an economic point of view, the gowe co-op also needed to survive by charging a “small” service fee. for instance, the co-op bought seed, pesticides, fertiliser and other essential inputs from the zimbabwe fertiliser company (zfc), windmill and agricura. 57 it then sold these to the plotholders at the co-op’s own mark up price. the co-op’s price took into account its handling charge or service fee. the money that accrued to the co-op as a result of services rendered to the plotholders was used by the former to repay its own debts/ loans to the zfc, windmill and agricura. 58 sometimes the dc marketed plotholders’ produce on their behalf. t. nyamutova, one of the well-to-do farmers at gowe remembers that all plotholders grew and sold their crops on one growers card on the advice of the dc. “we produced on one card and got our money from the dc after deducting the cost of inputs such as seed and fertiliser.” 5 6 r. l. westcott, former dc gatooma, personal interview, ramsgate, south africa, 12th july 2005. 5 7 j. gwacha, personal interview, 9th january 1997. 5 8 ibid. nayandoro 339 59 however, the dc was an employee of the ministry of internal affairs whose co-operatives branch administered the co-operative societies act. whilst there were problems associated with marketing produce through the gowe co-op, the co-operatives clearly represented a very convenient way for the plotholders to obtain their input items. the majority of co-operatives notwithstanding the hitches pointed out by gwacha processed their orders efficiently and the goods were supplied practically at the user’s doorstep. this compares favourably with the alternative of ordering personally from outlets in the main centres, then depending on unreliable local contractors for the transport of these goods. the control and organisation provided by the co-operatives was great. from the grower’s point of view, the convenience of marketing through the co-operative brought considerable relief especially to the resource-poor plotholders who could not afford to buy input requirements for cash. from the cotton marketing board point of view, the consolidation of gokwe district’s (which included sanyati) 1 935 individual growers into only 19 accounts reduced drastically the volume of administrative work involved. 60 nevertheless, not all producers save for the resource-rich and consistent performers qualified for these loans. the other category found it difficult to access credit and this impeded accumulation. thus, the gowe co-op’s activities became more characterised by tendencies towards exclusion than inclusion. this, therefore, confirms the general belief that for many farmers, cooperatives represented both “carrot and stick.” 61 for instance, while members were provided access to credit through the alf, it also meant that they had to market through official marketing boards, for example, the gmb and cmb. this had many drawbacks. one was that the 5 9 nyamutova, personal interview. 6 0 naz (rc), arda, box 272099, location r19.3.12.1f, file: ada/mar/2 marketing – general, “confidential correspondence: agricultural development authority – co-operative societies in african areas,” 26th january 1973, 2 and 6. 6 1 nyambara, “a history of land acquisition in gokwe,” 249. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 340 marketing boards provided stop-order arrangements to ensure loan repayments or recovery. 62 for poorer farmers this increased the sense of risk and insecurity associated with their vulnerability to drought and poor harvests. 63 the other was that it was not economically viable for farmers to wait for up to three months for cash payments after delivering their produce to the market. this was the period the farmer was often in dire need of cash to prepare for either the winter or summer crop. the farmers who failed to get their payment on time planted late and the late planted crops produced lower yields. low yields meant poor repayment capacity and a combination of the two was often used by the co-op to exclude a farmer from accessing inputs for the next cropping season. inclusion and exclusion gowe irrigation scheme social exclusion as already noted, the gowe co-operative society was construed with the object of uplifting the lives of the smallholder irrigators in sanyati. the co-op was to facilitate, inter alia, the procurement of inputs, credit or loans and arrange for the marketing of farmers’ produce. such services, often brought at the smallholder irrigator’s “doorstep,” meant 6 2 naz (rc), ministry of internal affairs, box 153673, location c36.18.2f, file: agr/16/a/15 vol. 1, gowe irrigation scheme (august 1965 december 1969), r. l. westcott to the pc mashonaland south, 10th december 1969. 6 3 william munro, “state, peasants and community development in zimbabwe, 1948-1988: control, consent and the limits of state power.” phd dissertation, yale university, 1991, 229 and whitsun foundation, agriculture in rhodesia, (salisbury: whitsun foundation, march 1977), 11. nayandoro 341 that the outgrower 64 would not travel long distances to secure these vital services from far away places such as hartley (now chegutu), gatooma, que que, gwelo (gweru) and sometimes salisbury (harare). the assumption was that this localised agency (the co-op) would allow the irrigators to concentrate on production and realise high yields. nevertheless, the criteria for eligibility to membership of such associations was iniquitous. members were required to be in possession of master farmer certification or a proven farming record. their loyalty to the scheme and the dc who initiated it had to be impeccably high. the strictness of membership eligibility conditions and the excessive demands for loyalty were constraining in their effect as this determined the benefits the tenants derived from cultivating their 3 to 4-hectare standardised plots allocated per holder. 65 clearly, the benefits the farmers enjoyed from being members of this institution were mixed. some small-scale irrigators particularly those who had bureaucratic connections within the coop movement became noticeably rich. they became some of society’s most eminent groups. others who had not forged this kind of link with either the state or the co-op officials invariably turned out to be poor. one of the gowe co-op’s major objectives was to assist the farmers achieve self-provisioning status which was central to the eradication of hunger and poverty in this frontier or backwater region of the country. in practice, though, poverty alleviation was not accorded much attention in spite of the fact that it should have been a paramount consideration if the co-op was to be continually perceived in good light by all the irrigation farmers who looked up to it for economic prosperity. furthermore, the co-op epitomised a local and decentralised branch of state administration and exclusion was 64 at arda estates the small-scale farmers who have been allocated some pieces of land adjacent to the main irrigation schemes are known as tenants, outgrowers, plotholders, smallholders, settlers or simply peasants. however, between 1967 and 1973 it is erroneous to call them outgrowers because the core estate had not yet been established. it was set up in 1974. thus, the gowe smallholder scheme pre-existed the main arda scheme. 6 5 smallholder irrigators at gowe were allocated plots of approximately the same size. these ranged between 3 and 4 hectares per holder. gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 342 fundamentally tied to the very nature of the colonial government, which was not as inclusive in its broader agricultural policies. in the words of rodgers and c. safiliou-rothschild, poverty is almost everywhere a manifestation of social exclusion. 66 whereas poverty describes a state of multidimensional deprivation, 67 the concept of social exclusion points to the process by which society systematically and structurally excludes particular groups, like poor people, from assets, goods and services, rewards of production, rights, and valued economic and social resources. the co-op, therefore, became synonymous with an institution that would include or exclude. the irrigators who were included (i.e. those who had easy access to the above-named assets) constituted a class of rural notables, but those who were excluded were deprived of these assets and hence denied the opportunity to ascend to a position of prominence. an examination of the operations of the co-op during its short-lived tenure (1967-1969) reveals that it’s distribution of input resources and credit (i.e. economic and social opportunities) or its monopolisation by certain groups or “the mainstream,” was deleterious to the interests of the other groups notably the poor groups. influential groups within the co-op restricted access to these resources by others, or enforced disadvantageous terms of inclusion. for example, no plotholder from gowe could access irrigation inputs and other requisite farming resources unless he/she met certain stringent criteria. his/her creditworthiness needed to be attested to by the co-op authorities. failure to repay loans advanced to an irrigator or a poor repayment record determined whether a farmer would be included in the list for the following season’s supply of farming requirements or not. continued indebtedness, thus, allowed the exclusion of certain groups in the gowe smallholder/tenant irrigation scheme to persist. 6 6 rodgers, 1994, and c. safiliou-rothschild, 1998 cited in barbara van koppen, more jobs per drop: targeting irrigation to poor women and men, (amsterdam, netherlands: royal tropical institute kit, 1998), 20. 6 7 mellor and desai, 1985; world bank, 1990; chambers et al, 1989; and jazairy et al, 1992 cited in van koppen, more jobs per drop, 20. nayandoro 343 quite significantly, the co-op was, on the one hand, an excluder primarily because it operated in the interests of the dominant groups. it promoted a lending policy which failed to integrate particular groups or integrated them against their will or disbursed inputs unequally on the pretext that those who were not given credit were owing or were in arrears. on the other, it was an all-embracing body, which acted as the main agent of the redistribution of seed, fertiliser and chemicals (pesticides and insecticides). this function was enhanced by its practice of reconciling every irrigator’s total budgetary requirements not least its role as guarantor of loans extended to the farmers by other lenders such as the dc (the state) and the agrochemical industry (windmill, agricura and shell chemical). in this sense, inclusion was not voluntary but compulsory, as non-members of the co-op were not entitled to co-op benefits. it (inclusion) was, thus, forced because the terms of inclusion were imposed from above and were frequently unacceptable to the plotholders. in fact, there was no mass participation or no popular involvement of the tenants in the decision that led either to the formation of the gowe co-op or who would be a member and who would not. pressure for a more people-oriented co-op, apart from the rampant managerial ineptitude, threatened the organisation with collapse. the ultimate collapse of the co-op in 1969 was accompanied by a sudden drying up of co-operative society loans. this threatened to exclude so many tenants from carrying out irrigation at gowe had it not been for the not so timely but frequent central intervention. above all the involvement, since the inception of the scheme, of other input/ credit providers such as the adf and the alf helped make this experiment work. traditionally, government intervention often promoted exclusion more than inclusion. in many such situations it is normal that the excluded develop coping strategies to advance their own inclusion and their participation on their own terms. however, this was said not to be the case at gowe-sanyati where the excluded instead of fighting for their inclusion actually assumed a bizarre passiveness and despair. such a mysteriously passive and despondent approach is believed to have accentuated their exclusion not only from social, but also from economic and to some extent political facets of life, thus, confirming the fact that exclusion in one domain can reinforce exclusion in other domains. this is clearly a misrepresentation of reality as evidence to the contrary is galore. the plotholders did not just resign themselves to fate in the face of disadvantageous terms of inclusion. they fought the negative effects of the co-op, which partly explains its demise in 1969. these gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 344 smallholders were not inevitably powerless and perpetually vulnerable to exploitation as seen in sanyati where they have acted effectively and have developed the political and economic voice necessary to influence the demise of the co-op. 68 therefore, the received wisdom that smallholders are incapable of counteracting the harmful agricultural policies of governments and related institutions should be discarded. despite peasants exhibiting such a strong voice, in the colonial period, it was however very difficult to force the government to recognise the importance of women in agriculture and land related issues. the disadvantages and exclusion faced by female plotholders or plotholder aspirants are least discussed but they were quite pronounced at gowe. in fact, exclusion was also gendered. gender, poverty and social exclusion core issues in rural poverty are exclusion from land and productive assets, from inputs and goods markets, or inclusion on unfavourable terms, and the absence of remunerative off-farm employment. 69 in all these respects, women often face a greater degree of exclusion. the need to include them in mainstream socio-economic development and on better terms was imperative. nevertheless, with the exception of one or two odd cases at gowe, the dc did not consider them for allocation of irrigation plots. 70 it was also not easy for them to access farm inputs, markets and other essentials. the gowe cooperative society only advanced input loans to incumbents of plots who were mainly male household heads. colonial policy in zimbabwe regarded women as minors who were not entitled to possession of land let alone credit. 71 such laws also implied that women’s control 6 8 for more detailed discussion of smallholder or peasant resistance to exploitationary tendencies in zimbabwe and tanzania see stephen f. burgess, smallholders and political voice in zimbabwe, university press of america, new york, 1997, 1 and goran hyden, beyond ujamaa in tanzania: underdevelopment and an uncaptured peasantry, (london: heinemann, 1980). 6 9 van koppen, more jobs per drop,21. 7 0 nyamutova, personal interview. 7 1 e. schmidt, peasants, traders and wives: shona women in the history of zimbabwe 1870-1939, (harare: baobab books, 1992). nayandoro 345 over co-operative society affairs in sanyati was proscribed by their very minimal if not non-recognition in land distribution processes and other governmental programmes both in the rural and urban areas. gowe records are also silent on why there was no female cooperative officer in the 1960s. the more women were sidelined the less benefits of access to inputs and other co-operative services accrued to them. equal access to inputs and other services provided by co-operative societies should lead to improved food or agricultural production. however, at gowe no equal access was guaranteed given the corrupt tendencies inherent in the co-op. the co-op tended to be a male dominated affair. even within the male domain some plotholders got more inputs and at more appropriate times in the growing season than others. the gwacha family and those with whom they had close kinship ties found themselves in a more favoured position. marketing crops through the co-op also meant that the terms of inclusion in the agricultural produce markets were also disadvantageous for many irrigation tenants. they were intrinsically “tied” to one buyer i.e. the co-op even if there were alternative markets elsewhere. for example, black-marketing of produce was more lucrative than selling produce through the official marketing channels. official and traditional marketing agencies like the gmb and the cmb offered very low prices to the farmers. distance to such markets situated in far away centres like gatooma and que que was another big impediment. in addition, the road infrastructure to the market was often inadequate. information on prices was also rarely available to the farmers before the planting season. they were merely told when to plough, what to grow and at what time (i.e. synchronisation of activities), but did not take part in price determination. this intensified their problems as the co-op hardly fought for price improvement because its interests lay with the state, which was pushing for low prices. although the core business of the gowe co-operative society was to facilitate development of smallholder irrigation through the undivided and timeous provision of the necessary inputs and related services to the plotholders, in practice, the co-op excluded some sanyati peasants in agricultural development. this was done through its activities, which were not always transparent and which vested benefits derived from the co-op in some of the farmers and not in others. given the multifarious problems faced by the co-op from the date of its inception such as lack of financial viability, violation of the basic principles of co-operation, lack of satisfaction of member objectives, lack of growth in membership and business, and insensitivity to gowe irrigation co-operative society td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 346 member involvement in the co-operative’s affairs, its survival could not be guaranteed. members’ economic well-being was largely ignored. all this, coupled with maladministration and corruption within the co-op made its collapse inevitable in 1969 when lines of credit were frozen. failure to service debt led to a further straining of relations between the gowe co-operative society and the agricultural credit institutions. with all sources of funding having dried up the co-op could hardly fill its traditional role of input supplier to the plotholders. this situation, therefore, forced the society that had served gowe for about three years to fold up. although the idea of cooperative enterprise in rural agriculture was resuscitated in the early 1970s, it had suffered a major setback towards the end of the previous decade. co-operative ventures in the post-1969 period are, however, beyond the scope of this study. conclusion it can therefore be concluded that instead of playing an all-inclusive role the gowe co-operative society in sanyati was a typical example of an institution that satisfied the needs of some people and not the needs of others. therefore, the co-op, which was supposed to act in the interests of the small-scale irrigation farmers, was eventually embroiled in a process that became highly exclusivist and one that also marginalised the very people it was designed to benefit. that the co-operative, between 1967 and 1969, was one of the major providers of inputs and credit to the irrigation plotholders became the means to coerce compliance to some of its unpalatable dictates. the collapse of the co-op was obviously a vote of no confidence for an institution that had clearly stood for exclusion and not wholesale inclusion of the plotholders in its developmental strategy. it was also necessitated by the withdrawal of support by the irrigation tenants themselves because the conditions that guaranteed inclusion of this largely poor group of plotholders remained unmet. the gowe co-operative’s corrupt tendencies and inept management compromised the principles of african economic empowerment and national development. it is also axiomatic that altruistic motives towards the irrigation plotholders were not high on the agenda both of the officials directing co-operative development in sanyati and the state which they represented. the poor management of the credit programme administered through the gowe co-op undoubtedly contributed to a serious weakening of agricultural productivity in the area. the availability of credit which was neither properly nayandoro 347 accounted for nor equitably disbursed by the co-op officials undoubtedly played a part in the decay and subsequent disintegration of the co-operative movement in sanyati irrigation. ideally, a co-operative society should be central to its members’ livelihoods. if it ceases to address the critical issues in the well being of its members then it faces opposition and neglect which are bound to lead to its eventual downfall. instead of being central to the needs of its members, the gowe co-op became peripheral to them. this is contrary to the advocacy by some studies that indicate that “a nation’s co-operative sector is a thriving, competitive system, harmoniously catering to the needs of farmer members and, indeed, to the entire agricultural sector in positive and profitable ways, under democratic control.” 72 in reality, however, this was not always the case. the gowe co-operative organisation, in many specific ways, often deviated from this ideal and its ultimate folding up did not come as a big surprise as its collapse was already a foregone conclusion given its inefficient manner of operation throughout its existence. gowe irrigation co-operative society 72 foxall, co-operative marketing in european agriculture, ix. td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 319-350. 348 references balawyder aloysius (ed.), cooperative movements in eastern europe, london: macmillan press ltd., 1980. bates robert h., markets and states in tropical africa: the political basis of agricultural policies, berkeley: university of california press, 1981. bonner arnold, british co-operation, manchester: cooperative union, 1961. burgess stephen f., smallholders and political voice in zimbabwe, new york: university press of america, 1997. chicheko e. n. s., “a history of cotton growing in sanyati 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gowe, sanyati, 14th may 2005. nyandoro mark, “the gowe plotholders scheme: growth and development of an african irrigation enterprise in the sanyati communal lands (1960s-1990s), ma thesis, harare: department of economic history, university of zimbabwe, june 1997. schmidt e., peasants, traders and wives: shona women in the history of zimbabwe 1870-1939, harare: baobab books, 1992. shah tushaar, catalysing co-operation, new delhi: sage, 1996. shah t. and mishra d., “analysing under-performance in indian cooperatives,” small enterprise development, 3(1), 1993. srivastava h. o. and chaturvedi m. k., rural middlemen, new delhi: ashish, 1986. van koppen barbara, more jobs per drop: targeting irrigation to poor women and men, amsterdam, netherlands: royal tropical institute kit, 1998. weinrich a. k. h., african farmers in rhodesia, london: oxford university press, 1975. westcott r. l., former dc gatooma, personal interview, ramsgate, south africa, 12th july 2005. whitsun foundation, agriculture in rhodesia, salisbury: whitsun foundation, march 1977. nayandoro td journal december 2007.p65 227 knowledge is everywhere: a philosophical exploration cs de beer * abstract in this article, i would like to argue that interdisciplinarity belongs to the very nature of knowledges in their diverse manifestations and any disregard for this idea would mean a distortion of knowledge while creating at the same time a situation that puts not only individuals but humanity in general in danger. the role of myths, paradigms, the position beyond-method, and the impact and interference of knowledges on each other, that illustrate the point of a universally distributed intelligence, is used as arguments in the development of this statement. the nature and scope of the danger is spelled out as well. ways and strategies are proposed that should be invented to avoid this danger for the well-being of all human beings in their societies. keywords transdisciplinarity, knowledge, myths paradigms, methodology, beyond-method, royal science, nomad science, ambulant science, creativity. disciplines philosophy and theories of science. * prof. cs ( fanie) de beer is attached to the division for information science, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 2, december 2007, pp. 227-237 228 universally distributed intelligence the guideline that will be followed in this argument is the assumption that the notion of “a universally distributed intelligence” is of central importance and highly significant. all human beings, wherever and whenever they are, are equipped with intelligence, in other words have the ability to know, the keenness to develop knowledge, and an urgency to use knowledge. (see pierre lévy in this regard). his formulation reads as follows: no one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity …. if you are tempted to judge someone as ignorant, look for the context in which his knowledge can be turned into gold” (lévy 1997:13-14). knowledge is simply everywhere. lévy discusses this idea under the important notion of “collective intelligence” and then he adds: the basis and goal of collective intelligence is the mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities. again the ideal of collective intelligence implies the technical, economic, legal and human enhancement of a universally distributed intelligence that will unleash a positive dynamic of recognition and skills mobilization (p. 15). science and its limitations: a position beyond and outside science knowledge is not limited to science and scientific disciplines as valuable forms of knowledge, and more specifically not to any particular scientific approach of which there are many. even scientific method is not adequate to exhaust all knowledge possibilities. there is knowledge outside science; there is also scientific knowledge outside certain definitions of what scientific knowledge entails.an approach that may be called “beyond-method” should complement the work done in terms of scientific method. edgar morin and michel de beer 229 serres made significant contributions in this regard. serres made the following remark on method: i do not seek, i find – and only write if i find. nothing in my books, in any place, is revived from elsewhere. what is livelier, at the first break of dawn, than the improbable unexpectedness, so alert to time, of finding? who is more profoundly boring than the repetitive reasoner who copies or seems to construct by constantly repositioning the same cube? ruminating on the past – what a system! repeating a method – what laziness! method seeks but does not find (1997:100). this approach leads to valid and highly significant knowledges that emerge in the spaces between disciplines, outside disciplinary boundaries, and independent of specific disciplines. it is of immense importance to attend to the ecology of knowledges and the role it plays in the construction of knowledge outside the scope of method.deleuze and guattari’s views on the nomad sciences, supports these views. cf the discussion of stengers (2000:150-166) on deleuze and guattari. royal and nomad sciences deleuze and guattari (1987) distinguishes between “royal” sciences and the “ambulant” or “nomad” sciences that preceded it. royal science is inseparable from a hylomorphic model implying both a form that organises matter and a matter prepared for a form (deleuze and guattari 1987:174). ‘royal science’ does not make the “ambulant” or “nomad” sciences that preceded it disappear. the latter do not link science and power together, they do not destine science to an autonomous development, because they were in solidarity with their terrain of exploration, because their practices were distributed according to the problems provoked by a singularized material, without having the power to assess the difference between what, from singularities, refers to “matter itself” and what refers to the convictions and ambitions of the practitioners (belonging henceforth to the second world). royal science “mobilizes” the ambulent process. knowledge is everywhere td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 227-237 230 in the field of interaction of the two sciences, the ambulant sciences confine themselves to inventing problems whose solution is tied to a whole set of collective, non-scientific practices but whose scientific solution depends, on the contrary, on royal science and the way it has transformed the problem by introducing it into its theorematic apparatus and its orhganization of work (ibid 374). compare further the discussion of this issue by stengers (2000:150166). what is implicitly suggested by these different views of science is the deeper origins of knowledge that takes to the complex notion of paradigm. the paradigmatic knot although we are all familiar with thomas kuhn and the importance of the notion of paradigm there exists some very naïve and strangely sedimented views on paradigm and its place and role in scientific work. here our attention is drawn to another emphasis put on the notion of paradigm that differs substantially from the views of kuhn and some reflections in the extension of kuhn’s work. for edgar morin paradigm, lies at the heart of knowledge, but then knowledge understood as more than merely scientific explorations. morin uses this notion to describe the deepest thinkable origins of knowledge before disciplinary boundaries and the demarcation of fields, very often artificially and politically inspired, were finalised or pursued. he writes that the notion is profoundly immersed in individual and collective unconscious and its recent emergence in conscious thought is still very hazy and foggy. it refers us to its multiple rootedness in the linguistic, logical, ideological, and even more profoundly in cerebro-psychic and sociocultural facets of human knowledge. for this reason the term “paradigm” is used not only for scientific knowledge, but for all knowledge, all thought, and every noological system. (morin 1991:213). he offers the following definition: a paradigm contains for all discourses that effectuates itself under its empire, the fundamental concepts or master categories of intelligibility at the same time as the type of logical relations of attraction/rejection (conjunction, disjunction, implication or others) between concepts and categories. thus, individuals know, think, and act according to the paradigms that are culturally inscribed in them. the systems of ideas are radically organised in virtue of paradigms (ibid). one significant implication of this definition is not only that valid de beer 231 and useful knowledge cannot be limited to scientific knowledge only, defined in a certain way, but also that knowledge is not limited to western culture. knowledge is everywhere. this definition takes morin to the idea of a gordian knot where everything is tied together [referring to the human and the natural sciences]’’. he then continues: [i]t may also be assumed that these determinations , which coagulate and agglomerate in any field of knowledge, thought, inquiry, that all these immediacies which interfere, are also, in a certain way, fundamentally related in deep structure, and that the gordian knot of these multiple interrelations between various insistencies which govern knowledge, also control an underlying nucleus where … strong forces are at work (morin 1983:12). in the widest possible sense, as morin (1991:222) puts it at a later stage, the universe of religion, of mysticism, of poetry, of literature, of ethics, of metaphysics, of private life, of exaltation, of sentiment, of love, of passion become the de facto complement, the necessary counter weight to the hyper-objective, pragmatic, empiric, prosaic, technical and bureaucratic universe. for more about this formidable paradigmatology his fine book on ideas should be studied.(see morin 1991: 211-238). equally relevant in this context is his differentiation between “the paradigm of simplicity” and “the paradigm of complexity” (morin 1990:304-305). science and myth the consideration of the ecology of the sciences and of paradigmatology emphasises the importance of taking a much wider discursive look at knowledge generation than what science in the classical sense allows. the following significant remark by michel serres, himself a philosopher of science, will be accepted as a kind of guideline and point of departure for these reflections: “there is more myth in science than we are inclined to accept and more knowledge in myth or fiction than we are ready to agree to.” this perspective is highly relevant for any thorough epistemo-critique as well as ontological exploration related to the crucial fields of knowledge creation, dissemination, usage and management. look for example at serres’ study of the work of emile zola (serres 1975). knowledge is clearly everywhere, immaterial of the type of discourse we are thinking of or are engaged in. theoretical and methodical imperialism is clearly the infantile sickness of knowledge in its first stages. (pp 13-14). totalities seem to us incomprehensible except when it can be controlled. university work is separated into sects, reproducing knowledge is everywhere td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 227-237 232 streets and quarters, divisions and parties,an impossible art of living, not to say anything about thinking. serres study of zola is a substantial effort in breaking down this divisionary culture and an excellent demonstration of how this can be done. interferences of knowledges philosophy, science and literature should be seen, in view of this, as standing and moving in an interactive and interreferential knowledge fellowship, and not in separate and independent ways, in order to ensure the maximum in knowledge quality and scope. interconcepts and vocabulary developments across disciplinary boundaries can assist immensely in this regard in an indispensable way. the interference of knowledges in each others domains can be of decisive importance. “some, doubtless specialists in their field, had even understood, on their own, that each portion of their knowledge … works at the intersection or the interference of many other disciplines and, sometimes, of almost all of them”. (serres 1997:xvii). interferences of this nature contribute to the enrichment of knowledges in all forms in a comprehensive sense. as serres states: interference should actually be read as interreference (serres 1972). the strong point or argument in this book is the emphasis and demonstration of the collapse of disciplinary and encyclopaedic boundaries in terms of which knowledges are locked up in closed cells. he develops what he calls ‘a philosophy of transport: intersection, intervention, interception’. (serres 1972:10). he should have added interference. this philosophy speaks of the sciences, but it is not silent about the world that it expresses or institutes, about the world of things and the world of humans. this philosophy takes cognisance of the always-present zones of shadow and margins of uncertainty that have a questioning impact on our knowledges, certainties, and dogmas. against bachelard’s “new scientific spirit”, michel serres baptised his approach as “the novel new scientific spirit”. hereby the focus is put on the multiple relations between domains and on the fact that so-called objective knowledge envelops implications that serres designates as non-knowledge, or the unknown of the sciences. every regional epistemology is prisoner of its region. it should be realised that every region is a complexion, and connects in itself a variety of links, coming from all over the encyclopaedia or going everywhere. each region is an intersection, a knot of interrelations, and contains interpretations of the totality of domains that it mobilises. de beer 233 what is experienced is an enlargement of traditional epistemology under the sign of multiplication. this offers the opportunity for surprising encounters that may lead to new and different knowledges. we encounter indeed a theory of information (op cit 12-13). account is given here not only of complexity, but also of intelligence. intelligence is challenged to respond, true to its nature, and to make this nature true. the excitement of inventiveness out of these fertile combinations highly necessary inventions are provoked that can change the world and that will open up possible futures. invention takes place everywhere, especially where one does not expect it. social, cultural, and electronic networks are immensely important in facilitating inventions of this nature. deliberate strategies are required of which bernard tschumi is an excellent example. “inventions tend to occur when unrelated areas, ideas, or forms come together in unexpected ways”. this entails the disjunction of conventions and the use of concepts from diverse fields that enables us to relate any specific field with its outside.the problem with many retrieval and management issues pertaining to knowledge is the assumption that we re working on “already given entities”. knowledge is there. but knowledge is such a dynamic phenomenon that it can never be sedimented and given in any final sense. the superb alternative roles of retrieval and managerial endeavours are to make new combinations for new inventions possible, initiating precisely that. the focus of michel serres’ philosophy of education can be summarised as follows: “the all-encompassing formation of human thought as invention, and vice versa, inventive creativity as the only creativity worthy of cognitive thought”. (assad 1999:128). the instructed third special educational requirements corresponding to the abovementioned focus should be pursued and will be recommended for individuals to achieve this kind of inventive orientation towards knowledge. michel serres (1997) refers to this kind of qualified person as “the instructed third”. “we must imagine a way in which to teach, with the same gesture, both the poem and the theorem, without wronging either and with mutual enrichment: experimentation and experience, the new world of scientists and the storytelling of time immemorial, the immortal world of scientific laws and the new age of the arts. those taught the third approach to knowledge, born from this mixed school, will have chucked the death wish that makes us cut ourselves off, that puts our world in danger.” knowledge is everywhere td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 227-237 234 the death wish: the real danger reluctance in pursuing interdisciplinarity and its implied inventions and hesitance in becoming adequately educated for this contains a danger, according to serres. it represents for him “a death wish that makes us cut ourselves off, that puts our world in danger”. look at what serres has in mind with this. he writes: invention is the only true intellectual act, the only act of intelligence. the rest? copying, cheating, reproduction, laziness, convention, battle, sleep. only discovery awakens. only invention proves that one truly thinks what one thinks, whatever that may be. i think therefore i invent, i invent therefore i think: the only proof that a scientist works or that a writer writes. why work, why write otherwise? in all other cases, they sleep or fight and prepare to die badly. they repeat. the inventive breath alone gives life, because life invents. the absence of invention proves, by counterexample, the absence of work and of thought. the one who does not invent works somewhere other than in intelligence. brutish. somewhere other than life. dead (serres 1997:92-93). compare this also with the strong sense in which george steiner (1999) speaks of “the barbarism of ignorance” and at an earlier stage his statement about freud’s death wish. note also the voice of edgar morin (1991) added to these explicit voices. the barbarism and the ignorance, and the barbarism of ignorance at issue here, are not negligible matters. they have everything to do with how we think about knowledge and kinds of knowledge, or denial of knowledges. there is a strong suggestion in steiner’s work that “a longing for violent dissolution” is “a constant in the history of social and intellectual forms” under certain circumstances. with reference to insights of freud and psychoanalysis, in general he emphasises the notion of a deathwish that is operative in both individual and collective consciousness as a philosophic trope and relate it to the tensions, which civilised manners impose on central, unfulfilled human instincts, that remains valid. “there is in human relations an inescapable drive towards war, towards a supreme assertion of identity at the cost of mutual destruction.” (steiner 1978:27). he refers to “this essential malaise”. intellect and feeling were fascinated by the prospect of a purging fire. what is experienced is the dissolution of civilized norms and of human hopes. edgar morin (1991:245-7) refers to a fundamental and multidimensional aspect related to the problem of general problem solving. de beer 235 the human mind can easily be distracted, degraded and deregulated and by that demonstrating its lack at the same time of interior regulation (tendency to self-deception, lying to one-self) and noological regulation (a civilised noosphere). he calls this a historical problem and a civilisational pain. “we are still in the prehistory of ideas. we are always in the barbaric era of religions and of myths, and we have not quitted the hurricane-like era of ideologies.” thorough noological investigations show us that our ideas are still barbaric, and that their relations with us are equally barbaric. we have believed that barbarism was to be found in the absurd myths of the past and the cruel religions from elsewhere. we have not understood that their barbarism have invaded our ideologies which have themselves engendered a specific, abstract, cold, anonymous barbarism. we have not understood that our reason, our science, our humanism, about which we believe that they are civilised and civilisers, were themselves overtaken by barbarism and that they suffocate the civilised/civilising source that was in them. barbaric is our idea that rationalism is rational, that science is only scientific, that humanism is humane. certainly, it is not a matter of simply, in a naïve manner, eliminating myths, rendering our ideas purely and simply instrumental, purifying reason in order to arrive at a cognitive bliss where we possess uncontaminated truth. such naïveté would itself be a sign of barbarism, testifying to the fact that we have not taken cognisance of the reality and complexity of the “anthropo-socio-noosphere”. as far as we have not made progress in these relations we will remain in the era of barbaric ideas (doctrines, ideologies, reductive and mutilating ideas). now, this danger, which is very real, poses a great threat. it is born from a deep-seated inspiration, namely the will to ignorance as almost a defining principle of humans (lacan and felman). the important thing here would be to work out ways in which these threats (there must be clarity on the nature and seriousness of the threats, especially in view of the strength of the impulses of the will to ignorance that can be observed amongst academics as well as their students) can be countered. however, let us first take a closer look at what is according to psychoanalysts at stake here. the discovery of the unconscious implies, according to jacques lacan, a specific way of understanding the cultural, pedagogical and epistemological revolution that is at issue here. “[t]he analytic learning process puts in question the traditional pedagogical belief in intellectual perfectibility, the progressivist view of learning as a simple one-way road from ignorance to knowledge.” (felman 1987:76). learning proceeds not through linear progression but through breakthroughs, leaps, discontinuities, knowledge is everywhere td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 227-237 236 regressions, and deferred action. in this way, psychoanalysis institutes a unique way of learning: it gives access to information unavailable through any other mode of learning. knowledge is everywhere, not only in the conscious awareness of the human subject. the hegelian concept of “absolute knowledge”, the culmination of the western approach to knowledge, has as its ideal the exhaustion, through methodical investigation, of all there is to know. complete and totally appropriated knowledge will become, in all senses of the word, mastery. but the unconscious, in lacan’s conception, is precisely the discovery that human discourse can by definition never be entirely in agreement with itself, entirely identical to its knowledge of itself, since as the vehicle of unconscious knowledge, it is constitutively the material locus of a signifying difference from itself. the unconscious itself is a kind of unmeant knowledge that escapes intentionality and meaning, a knowledge spoken by the language of the subject (eg slips or dreams), but that the subject cannot recognise, assume as his and appropriate. “the discovery of the unconscious …is that the implications of meaning infinitely exceed the signs manipulated by the individual.” (lacan 1978:150). against the dangers of ignorance, the death wish, and nihilism, the instructed third is called upon, to take care of us by continuously inventing and reinventing life. bibliography assad, ml. 1999. reading with michel serres: an encounter with time. albany” suny press. deleuze, g. & guattari, f. 1987. a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. felman, s. 1987. jacques lacan and the adventure of insight: psychoanalysis in contemporary culture. cambridge (mass.): harvard university press. lacan, j. 1978. le séminaire, livre ii: le moi dans la théorie de freud et dans la technique psychanalytique. paris: seuil. lévy, p. 1997. collective intelligence: mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace. new york: plenum trade. morin, e. 1983. social paradigms of scientific knowledge. substance, 39:3-20. de beer 237 morin, e. 1990. science avec conscience. paris: seuil morin, e. 1991. la méthode iv: les idées – leur habitat, leur vie, leurs moeurs, leur organisation. paris: seuil. serres, m. 1972. hermes ii: l’interférence. paris: minuit. serres, m. 1975. feux et signaux de brume: zola. paris: grasset. serres, m. 1997. the troubadour of knowledge. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. steiner, g. 1978. in bluebeard’s castle: some notes towards the redefinition of culture. london: faber & faber. steiner, g. 1999. barbarie de l’ignorance. la tour d’aigues: editions de l’aube. stengers, i. 2000. the invention of modern science. minneapolis: the university of minnesota press. td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 227-237 knowledge is everywhere microsoft word 05 wessels.docx td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider-afrika, 7(2) desember 2011, pp. 185-204. die anglo-boereoorlog (1899-1902) in die afrikaanse letterkunde: ’n geheelperspektief a wessels1 abstract: this study reviews afrikaans literary works (poems, plays, novels and short stories) dealing with the anglo-boer war (1899-1902). war poems written by wellknown afrikaans poets such as jan f.e. celliers, eugène marais, c. louis leipoldt, totius and d.j. opperman, as well as some of the few plays that have the war as background, receive attention. see in this regard, for example, n.p. van wyk louw’s die pluimsaad waai ver of bitter begin, which in its day elicited a substantial amount of controversy. in addition to the short stories that deal with the war, many novels on the war have also been published. attention is drawn to the fact that the upsurge in afrikaner nationalism in the 1930s (and later) went hand-in-hand with the publication of anglo-boer war novels. the youth was also not neglected, thanks to best-selling books on the war by mikro and others. etienne leroux’s controversial novel magersfontein, o magersfontein! (1976) paved the way for several other noteworthy war novels that demythologise the afrikaner’s so-called heroic role in the war. the article also identifies the most important topics that have thus far been explored in the afrikaans literature on the war, for example the role played by cape rebels; the consequences of the british scorched-earth policy and concomitant camps for white and black civilians; feminism, and the role and experiences of black and coloured people. in conclusion, the mutually enriching relationship between history and literature is investigated. keywords: afrikaans literature, anglo-boer war (1899-1902), cape rebels, black civilians, faminism, relations history and literarture. subjects: military history, literature studies, south african studies. executive summary the anglo-boer war (1899-1902) and afrikaans literature: a reappraisal many thousands of scholarly books and articles have been written on the history of the anglo-boer war of 1899 to 1902, but in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century this devastating war has also served as the creative stimulus for literary works in dutch, afrikaans, english and other languages. in this study, the focus falls on afrikaans poems, plays, novels and short stories dealing with the war. the article 1 prof. andré wessels is voorsitter van die departement geskiedenis, universiteit van die vrystaat, posbus 339, bloemfontein, 9300. telefoon: 051-4012488, faks: 051-4445803, epos-adres: wesselsa@ufs.ac.za). die hulp en advies van mev. leana lategan, eerste museumgeesteswetenskaplike van die nasionale afrikaanse letterkundemuseum en navorsingsentrum (naln) in bloemfontein, word met groot dank erken. wessels 186 contends that, on the one hand, a literary text can sometimes capture the spirit and atmosphere of an event or period far better than a history book or article. on the other hand, knowledge of certain historical events and processes can sometimes be of great assistance in understanding and evaluating a literary work, be it a novel, short story, poem or play. special attention is paid to how the anglo-boer war is reflected in afrikaans literature. even while the war was still in progress, poems were being written in internment camps (the preferred description instead of the emotionally charged concentration camps) and prisoner-of-war camps. the anglo-boer war poems written by well-known poets such as jan f.e. celliers, eugène marais, c. louis leipoldt, totius (j.d. du toit) and d.j. opperman deserve special mention. only a few afrikaans plays with the anglo-boer war as theme have been written. among those published are eugène marais’s nag: ’n drama in vier bedrywe (1937), bartho smit’s moeder hanna (c.1957), pieter fourie’s die joiner (c.1976) and reza de wet’s nag, generaal (1991). perhaps the most important (and in its time, most controversial) play in this regard is probably the well-known literary figure n.p. van wyk louw’s die pluimsaad waai ver of bitter begin (published in 1972), which dared to reconceptualise the anglo-boer war, broke with conventional stereotypes, and tackled sensitive issues head-on. as far as novels are concerned, d.f. malherbe’s vergeet nie: histories-romanties verhaal uit die anglo-boereoorlog (1913) is one of the earliest examples of a war novel in afrikaans, while gustav preller’s oorlogsoormag en ander sketse en verhale (1923) is an example of a short story on the war, dating from the early 1920s. the 1930s saw an upsurge in afrikaner nationalism, with a high point reached in 1938 with the great trek centenary. in light of the fact that the anglo-boer war is (together with the great trek) the most epoch-making event in the history of the afrikaner people, it is hardly surprising that many anglo-boer war stories appeared in the popular afrikaans magazine die huisgenoot during the 1930s and 1940s. several new novels on the war were also published during this period, for example ’n wiel binne-in ’n wiel by miemie louwtheron (1935), ’n merk vir die eeue by t.c. pienaar (1938) and helkampe by ewald steenkamp (1941). during the second world war, with its concomitant political tension in south africa, the latter novel was banned by the government of j.c. smuts (a famous former boer general). in due course, books on the anglo-boer war written for a younger generation also saw the light of day, for example die ruiter in die nag by mikro (c.h. kühn) (1936), boerseun, also by mikro (1944) and uit die puine by sita (s.s. de kock) (1952). in later years, books such as ria jordaan’s wynand se oorlog (1989) and heléne le roux’s eendag was daar ’n oorlog (1990) also appeared. etienne leroux’s magersfontein, o magersfontein! (1976) was an epoch-making new afrikaans novel on the war. in the book the conflict is demythologised and the afrikaner and his/her history satirised. it led to much controversy, but set the stage for a series of other novels that in due course also took an unabashedly critical look at the history of the war. in this regard, elsa joubert’s die reise van isobelle (1995), karel schoeman’s verliesfontein (1998) and christoffel coetzee’s op soek na generaal mannetjies mentz (1998) are particularly noteworthy. coetzee’s disconcerting novel shattered what was left of the erstwhile idealised image of the afrikaner’s role during the war. the cruelty of the war has probably never been portrayed so explicitly and with such honesty as is the case in this novel. the run-up to and centenary of the anglo-boer war also motivated several other authors to write novels and short stories based on events during the war. examples are: die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 187 boereoorlogstories: 34 verhale uit die oorlog van 1899 tot 1902 (1998) and charlotta (1999) by jeanette ferreira; brandoffer (1998), a collection of short stories by dolf van niekerk; groot duiwels dood (1998) by eleanor baker; and buller se plan (1999) and niggie (2002) by ingrid winterbach (who until c.1998 wrote under the pseudonym lettie viljoen). for niggie, winterbach was awarded the prestigious afrikaans hertzog prize for literature. p.g. du plessis’s magisterial fees van die ongenooides (2008) followed later. in the meantime, a.h.m. scholtz’s vatmaar (1995) and afdraai: ’n kroniek van seermaak en seerkry, van vrede en verandering (1998), for the first time in a novel, viewed the war from a “coloured” person’s perspective. in stark contrast to the literary works of the 1930s and 1940s, when the so-called heroic dimension of the anglo-boer war was emphasised, war (and the afrikaner’s role in it) is seldom if ever glorified in modern literary texts. as a matter of fact, there is a concerted effort to deconstruct afrikaner nationalism and everything with which it can be associated. some of the themes identified in the texts are the following: battles and other aspects of military conflict as, for example, portrayed in magersfontein, o magersfontein!; “heroes” as, for example, depicted in the afrikaans translations of the books by the dutchman louwrens penning (for example, die leeu van modderspruit (1966) and die held van spioenkop (1967)) and at van wyk’s kniel, krygsman (1968), that explores the role played by general christiaan de wet; cape colony rebels, for example in vuur op die horison by engela van rooyen (2000); and the role played by younger boys (“penkoppe”) in the war, for example in die penkopkommando by fritz steyn (1941), boeta gaan op kommando by h.s. van blerk (1977) and die kwêvoëlkommando: seuns wat manne was – ’n verhaal uit die tweede vryheidsoorlog by j.h. van dyk (1988). the consequences of the british scorched-earth policy is investigated in, inter alia, engela van rooyen’s vuur op die horison. women play a central role in afrikaans anglo-boer war fiction. j.r.l. van bruggen’s die gerig (1943) was one of the first-ever feminist novels written in afrikaans. other examples are: tuin van herinnering by h.s. van blerk (1982) and helena in die tyd van tente (1986). prisoner-of-war camps form the historical background in p.j. nienaber’s nag op st. helena (1944); the role and experiences of black and coloured people are dealt with in vatmaar and afdraai by a.h.m. scholtz; and relations between white, black and coloured are foregrounded in moeder poulin (1946) by g.h. franz. neglected themes include the following: hands-uppers, joiners and other traitors; “tragic figures” like general piet cronjé, who surrendered at paardeberg on 27 february 1900 and ended up as a “circus artist” re-enacting the events in the united states of america; and the suffering of black and coloured people. when a person decides to write a novel, short story, play or poem with the anglo-boer war as theme or background, certain historical facts must be kept in mind, for example: the david-goliath nature of the conflict; the role played by many foreigners; the fact that it was neither a white man’s war nor a gentleman’s war; the terrible destruction wrought by the british scorched-earth policy; the trauma caused by the internment camp system and its effects on both white and black civilians (some 28 000 white and at least 23 000 black people died in camps); the atrocities committed by the boers and the british; and the legacy of the war, which cast a shadow over the history of twentiethcentury south africa. in conclusion, the importance of historical knowledge for the analysis and interpretation of literary texts is emphasised. it is also postulated that novels and other literary works can play an important role in inculcating readers with a sense of history, thereby assisting wessels 188 them in giving account of their (controversial south african) past, including the history of the devastating and traumatic anglo-boer war of 1899 to 1902. 1. inleiding die anglo-boereoorlog van 1899 tot 1902 het deur die jare heen nie net tot die skryf van baie geskiedenisboeke (waarskynlik reeds meer as 2 700) en derduisende artikels in koerante en akademiese en ander tydskrifte aanleiding gegee nie, maar ook in die letterkundes van verskeie tale neerslag gevind. met verloop van tyd is talle nagraadse studies oor die oorlog en die afrikaanse letterkunde voltooi, asook ander verwante studies wat vanuit ’n literêre oogpunt aangepak is. kyk in hierdie verband byvoorbeeld na die volgende: n.c. lamprecht se die aard van afrikaanse outobiografiese geskrifte deur gevangenes en ballinge: die suidafrikaanse oorlog (1899-1902) (m.a., universiteit van natal, durban, 1993); j. malan se vroue-outobiografieë uit die anglo-boereoorlog-era: ’n literêrhistoriese ondersoek van enkele afrikaanse en nederlandstalige tekste (m.a., nelson mandela metropolitaanse universiteit, port elizabeth, 2005); en t.b. van der walt se die anglo-boereoorlog in afrikaanse kinderboeke (d.litt. et phil., rand afrikaanse universiteit, 2001). geskiedenis en die letterkunde gaan hand aan hand; trouens, kennis van en insig in die geskiedenis is soms ’n voorwaarde vir die behoorlike bestudering van letterkunde, net soos die bestudering van letterkunde soms van veel nut kan wees by die bestudering van geskiedenis. per slot van sake: deur middel van literêre werke word die leser in meer as een opsig “nader” aan die historiese gebeure gebring as deur bloot die kille feite te bestudeer; deur middel van letterkunde word die gees en atmosfeer van ’n bepaalde tydsgewrig beter vasgevang as in sommige (selfs baie?) geskiedenisboeke. aan die een kant is geskiedenis so ’n ernstige (belangrike) saak dat dit nie aan historici alleen oorgelaat kan word nie, en skrywers, digters en dramaturge het dus ook ’n rol te speel in die ontwikkeling van begrip vir ons verlede. aan die ander kant is die letterkunde so ’n ernstige (belangrike) saak dat dit nie aan literatore alleen oorgelaat kan word nie, en gevolglik het historici ook ’n rol te speel het in die kontekstualisering en verklaring van ’n bepaalde teks. die honderdjarige herdenking van die anglo-boereoorlog het tot ’n oplewing in die belangstelling in dié omstrede konflik gelei en boeke oor die oorlog (feite, fiksie en faksie) het vir ’n tyd lank soos soetkoek verkoop. vir meer as ’n eeu lank word die geskiedenis van die oorlog egter reeds as boustof of milieuskepper vir ’n verskeidenheid literêre tekste gebruik. talle redes kan vir hierdie toedrag van sake aangevoer word. “ellende, moord, oorlog – daarsonder sou die wêreldletterkunde maar ’n skraal bestaan gevoer het.” die honderdjarige herdenking van die anglo-boereoorlog het ook daartoe gelei dat, enersyds, ’n hele rits nuwe boeke (romans) en veral kortverhale oor dié stryd die lig gesien het en, andersyds, dat talle van die groot aantal literêre werke wat in die loop van die twintigste eeu reeds verskyn het, weer afgestof en gelees is. “en dieselfde lesers wat met die hand op die bybel (ewe vol bloedige verhale) hul teenkanting teen geweld sal verklaar, vind meestal niks lekkerder nie as om heerlik verskans in ’n gerieflike leunstoel self die vreeslikhede mee te maak.”2 2 w. van zyl, “klein kommando byeen vir bundel oorlogstories” (resensie oor j. ferreira (red.), boereoorlogstories: 34 verhale oor die oorlog van 1899-1902), rapport, 18.4.1999, p. 16. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 189 die doel van hierdie studie is om kortliks ’n oorsig te gee van die 20ste-eeuse literêre werke in afrikaans wat die anglo-boereoorlog as tema het, nadat, in onderafdeling 2, gelet is op die historiese feite ten opsigte van die oorlog wat in dié letterkunde neerslag gevind het, en ten slotte enkele gevolgtrekkings te maak. soos reeds hierbo aangedui, het die honderdjarige herdenking van die oorlog tot die publikasie van ’n hele aantal nuwe literêre tekste oor die oorlog gelei. daar sal dus ook aangedui word in welke mate die oplewing in belangstelling in die skep van nuwe tekste teen ongeveer 2002 geëindig het, en of dit in die eerste dekade van die derde millennium voortgeduur het. daar word egter deurgaans geensins op volledigheid aanspraak gemaak nie. 2. die geskiedenis wat die literêre tekste ten grondslag lê die meeste afrikaanse literêre werke wat oor die anglo-boereoorlog handel, getuig van goeie navorsing, maar weerspieël uiteraard nie noodwendig die volle historiese werklikheid nie. in die algemeen verwoord die fiksie wel die ryke verskeidenheid standpunte en benaderings ten opsigte van die geskiedenis van die oorlog.3 die gevaar bestaan egter uiteraard steeds dat oorlog op een of ander wyse geromantiseer kan word, of dat die verskrikking van oorlog nie altyd volledig oorgedra word nie (of andersins melodramaties of oordrewe gekommunikeer word). dit wil sê dat die leser deur fiksie oor die anglo-boereoorlog te lees, dus ook ’n geromantiseerde (of skeefgetrekte) beeld van dié oorlog kan bekom. dit is ongelukkig so dat daar altyd diegene is wat alles wil reg-skiet. ook sommige afrikaners het steeds ’n oorgeromantiseerde beeld van die anglo-boereoorlog en gryp in sogenaamde “moeilike tye” terug na die geskiedenis van dié oorlog vir inspirasie. (kyk byvoorbeeld na die “de la rey”fenomeen na aanleiding van die opneem van dié populêre lied in maart 2006.)4 onnodig om te sê, interpreteer diesulkes die anglo-boereoorlog, soos ook die res van die afrikaner se geskiedenis, soos dit hulle pas – gewoonlik deur ’n bril wat erg polities gekleurd en uit fokus is. daarenteen is daar ook dié literêre tekste wat effekberekend die geskiedenis skeeftrek, byvoorbeeld om te skok. daar moet natuurlik in gedagte gehou word dat die anglo-boereoorlog, saam met die groot trek van die 1830’s, as die mees epogmakende gebeurtenis in die geskiedenis van die afrikaner beskou kan word, en dus deur die jare heen ’n groot invloed op die psige van die afrikaner en die ontwikkeling van afrikanernasionalisme uitgeoefen het. die oorlog het die beste en die slegste in die afrikaner na vore gebring, want naas die selfopofferende en selfs heldhaftige optrede van sommiges, was daar ook die selfsugtige en lafhartige optrede van ander. die oorlog het duidelik aangetoon dat die afrikaner geen supermens of mitiese held was nie. veral gedurende die eerste helfte van die twintigste eeu is die boere in sommige geskiedenisboeke en literêre werke as onverskrokke volkshelde gekanoniseer. die eensydige beklemtoning van die heroïese minderheidsgroep in afrikanergeledere het deel van die afrikaner se nasionalistiese mitologie geword, in belang van die afrikaner se politieke aspirasies, iets wat met verloop van tyd die implementering van die beleid van apartheid 3 c. de wet, “’n verkennende studie van anglo-boereoorlog-fiksie”, acta academica, 32(2), augustus, 2000, p. 58. 4 kyk bv. http://www.bokvanblerk.co.za, geraadpleeg 29.11.2010; c. steyn, “songs about the angloboer war: past and present”, suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis 21(2), november 2007, pp. 1-27. wessels 190 ingesluit het. net soos daar veral vanaf die laat jare sestig van die vorige eeu op ’n meer kritiese wyse na die geskiedenis van die afrikaner gekyk is, het die sestigers ook op literêre gebied vernuwing gebring. geweld, van watter aard ook al, en dus ook in ’n sogenaamde “geregverdigde” oorlog, is altyd verskriklik. die “probleem” met die anglo-boereoorlog is natuurlik dat dit in ’n sekere sin nie erg genoeg was nie. miskien kon ’n gedig soos “dulce et decorum est” van wilfred owen5 slegs uit die modder en bloed van vlaandere en frankryk tydens die eerste wêreldoorlog gebore word. per slot van sake: tydens die eerste dag van die slag van die somme op 1 julie 1916 het ongeveer 19 000 britse soldate gesneuwel; dit wil sê sowat twee en ’n half keer meer as wat tydens die hele anglo-boereoorlog in die loop van 963 dae gesterf het. die uiteindelike “butcher’s bill”, oftewel die totale getal ongevalle van die eerste wêreldoorlog, was meer as agt miljoen soldate dood en ongeveer nege miljoen burgerlikes dood. na afloop van dié oorlog het nog ten minste twintig miljoen mense (en dalk soveel as 50 miljoen) wêreldwyd aan die sogenaamde spaanse griep gesterf (1918-1919).6 bogenoemde gegewens doen egter nie afbreuk aan die relatiewe verskrikking en ellende van die anglo-boereoorlog nie. dié oorlog was die 226ste van 230 koloniale oorloë (met inbegrip van strafekspedisies en ander kleiner veldtogte) waarin die britse ryk in die loop van koningin victoria se 64-jaar lange bewind vanaf 1837 tot 1901 betrokke was.7 die angloboereoorlog was inderdaad die grootste en omvangrykste stryd in sy soort wat tot nog toe in suidelike afrika gewoed het; dit was ’n regionale (bykans) algemene oorlog met kenmerke van ’n burgeroorlog en ’n totale oorlog. die harde feite waarvan die skrywers van romans, dramas en kortverhale – ook vir vrouetydskrifte – moet kennis neem, is onder meer die volgende: § die blanke bevolking van wat vandag suid-afrika is, het op die vooraand van die anglo-boereoorlog op ongeveer 830 000 te staan gekom het: 250 000 “afrikaanssprekendes” en 150 000 engelssprekendes in die kaapkolonie, en onderskeidelik 10 000 en 40 000 in natal, 148 000 en 152 000 in die transvaal, en 71 000 en 10 000 in die oranje-vrystaat. daar was ’n totaal van ongeveer 3,5 miljoen swart mense in die genoemde vier gebiede, asook ongeveer 300 000 bruin mense en 100 000 asiërs.8 § teenoor die totale “afrikaanssprekende” blanke bevolking van die twee boererepublieke van sowat 219 000 het daar in 1899 in die britse ryk sowat 44 miljoen blankes gebly.9 5 e. blunden (red.), the poems of wilfred owen (london, 1952), 1952), p. 66. die titel bevat die eerste gedeelte van die latynse uitdrukking “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, wat baie keer op oorlogsgedenktekens aangebring word, en beteken dat dit edel en paslik is om vir jou vaderland te sterf. 6 a.j.p. taylor (hoofred.) en s.l. mayer (samesteller), history of world war i (s.l., s.a.), p. 279; j.k. taubenberger en d.m. morens, “1918 influenza: the mother of all pandemics”, emerging infections diseases 12(1), januarie 2006, pp. 15-22. 7 b. farwell, queen victoria’s little wars (london, 1973), pp. 364-371. 8 kyk bv. staats-almanak voor de zuid-afrikaansche republiek (pretoria, 1899) en the natal almanac directory, and yearly register 1901 (pietermaritzburg, 1901). 9 a. wessels, die britse militêre strategie tydens die anglo-boereoorlog tot en met die buller-fase (d.phil., u.o.v.s., 1986), p. 370. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 191 § ongeveer 32 500 manlike persone tussen sestien en 60 jaar in die zuid-afrikaansche republiek (zar, soos transvaal destyds amptelik bekend gestaan het) en 22 500 in die oranje-vrystaat was dienspligtig.10 § uiteindelik het waarskynlik nie meer nie as ongeveer 79 000 transvalers, vrystaters en hul bondgenote te velde geveg, maar op een slag waarskynlik nooit meer as ongeveer 47 000 nie.11 § nie meer nie as ongeveer 15 500 kapenaars en ongeveer 500 natallers het as rebelle aan die kant van die republikeine geveg, en van die wat gevang is, is 435 – heeltemal tereg – op grond van hoogverraad ter dood veroordeel. in die praktyk is die meeste egter deur lord kitchener begenadig en dus is slegs 44 tereggestel.12 § onder die bykans 3 000 buitelanders wat aan boerekant diens gedoen het, was daar naas ’n relatief groot aantal nederlandssprekendes (naamlik 687, insluitende ten minste vyftien belge) ook franse (274), duitsers (884), iere (194; insluitende iere vanuit die verenigde state van amerika, ander amerikaners (64), nore (31), finne (25), swede (109), dene (39), oostenrykers (28), hongare (ses), russe (55), 42 russiese en ander jode, switsers (26), italianers (119), een spanjaard, een bosniër, vier portugese, twee bulgare, veertien grieke, een algeryn, ten minste een brasiliaan en een chileen.13 miskien kan die rol van buitelanders nog meer in die romanwêreld ontgin word. § teenoor die totale republikeinse leërs van ongeveer 78 000 man (insluitende die ongeveer 16 000 kaapse en natalse rebelle en 3 000 buitelanders), het die britse leër in 1899 oor meer as ’n miljoen soldate beskik.14 § die britte het in totaal 448 735 soldate in suid-afrika ontplooi15 – die meeste ooit in mei 1901, toe daar ongeveer 250 000 britse soldate in suid-afrika was.16 § sowel die britte as die boere het die stryd amptelik as ’n “witmansoorlog” beskou, maar in die praktyk het die britte ten minste 140 000 swart en bruin mense as bediendes, wa-drywers, touleiers, gewapende blokhuiswagte, gidse, spioene en ook as volwaardige soldate (as deel van kolonnes tydens die guerrilla-fase) aangewend, terwyl aan boerekant ten minste 10 000 swart mense as bediendes, wa-drywers, touleiers en 10 j.h. breytenbach, die geskiedenis van die tweede vryheidsoorlog in suid-afrika, 1899-1902 1 (pretoria, 1978), p. 36. 11 a. wessels, the anglo-boer war: white man’s war, black man’s war, traumatic war (bloemfontein, 2011), p. 24. 12 g. jordaan, hoe zij stierven: mededelingen aangaande het einde dergenen aan wien gedurende den laatsten oorlog, in den kaap-kolonie, het doodvonnis voltrokken is (burgersdorp, s.a.) en j.h. snyman, “rebelle-verhoor in kaapland gedurende die tweede vryheidsoorlog met spesiale verwysing na die militêre howe (1899-1902)”, argiefjaarboek vir suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis (pretoria, 1962). 13 kyk bv. e. wessels, they fought on foreign soil (bloemfontein, 2001). 14 report of his majesty’s commissioners appointed to inquire into the military preparations and other matters connected with the war in south africa (cd. 1789, london, 1903), pp. 33-34. 15 ibid., pp. 34-35. 16 l.s. amery (red.), the times history of the war in south africa 1899-1902 5 (london, 1907), p. 248 en army. return of military forces in south africa, 1899-1901 (cd. 578, london, 1901), p. 1. wessels 192 agterryers diens gedoen het – in enkele gevalle ook in ’n gewapende hoedanigheid.17 hierdie is ’n aspek van die oorlog wat (verkieslik swart en bruin) skrywers nog veel meer kan benut. § die britte het ongeveer 520 000 perde en 150 000 muile tydens die oorlog gebruik, waarvan ongeveer 350 000 perde en 50 000 muile gevrek het. ongeveer 100 000 van die boere se perde het ook gevrek.18 § die britse leër was aanvanklik nie gerat om die boere in ’n uitgerekte oorlog te verslaan nie en die feit dat die boere teen die einde van maart 1900 tot guerrillaoorlogvoering oorgegaan het, het die britte erge hoofbrekens besorg. met verloop van tyd het die britte ’n omvangryke teen-guerrillastrategie geïmplementeer wat onder meer die aanwending van al hoe meer swart en bruin mense ingesluit het, asook die oprigting van sowat 8 000 blokhuise oor die lengte en breedte van suid-afrika ten einde die boere se bewegingsvryheid aan bande te probeer lê, die gebruik van sogenaamde “flying columns” (dit wil sê vinnig-bewegende berede antikommandokolonnes), die gebruik van dryfjagte, die afbrand van boereplase en dorpe, en die oprigting van interneringskampe.19 § ongeveer 30 000 boere-plaashuise is opgeblaas of afgebrand, tesame met waarskynlik 100 000 of meer wonings van swart plaasarbeiders. talle landerye is verwoes, derduisende skape en beeste is doodgemaak of gebuit en meer as 40 dorpe is gedeeltelik of heeltemal verwoes. hawelose wit en swart burgerlikes is na interneringskampe weggevoer.20 die verwoesting van eiendom het beteken dat ’n groot volume erfstukke en ander kultuurgoedere, asook duisende boeke en dokumente, vernietig is. § in totaal was daar in enige stadium ten minste 145 000 blankes en 140 000 swart mense in die interneringskampe, van wie ten minste 28 000 blankes en ten minste 23 000 (dalk selfs méér as 28 000) swart mense in die kampe gesterf het. die meeste van die slagoffers was jonger as sestien jaar. § aan britse kant het ten minste 7 792 soldate gesneuwel of is aan hul wonde dood, 14 658 is weens siekte dood of het verongeluk, en ongeveer 75 000 is gewond of siek huis toe gestuur;21 terwyl 3 990 boere gesneuwel het, 924 weens siekte op kommando beswyk het, 157 in ongelukke omgekom het en 1 118 in krygsgevangenekampe oorlede is.22 daar bestaan geen volledige rekords oor hoeveel boere gewond is, hoeveel swart en bruin mense aan britse kant gesneuwel het of gewond is, of hoeveel swart persone op kommando gesterf het nie. 17 kyk bv. wessels, the anglo-boer war, pp. 97-134; p. warwick, black people and the south african war (cambridge, 1983), pp. 4-5 en p. labuschagne, ghostriders of the anglo-boer war: the role and contribution of agterryers (pretoria, 1999), passim. 18 amery (red.), 6 (london, 1909), p. 417; f.j. van der merwe, horses of the anglo-boer war/perde van die anglo-boereoorlog (kleinmond, [2000]), passim. 19 wat die britte se teen-guerrilla-operasies betref, kyk bv. m.h. grant, history of the war in south africa 4 (london, 1910) en amery (red.), 5. 20 s.b. spies, methods of barbarism? roberts and kitchener and civilians in the boer republics january 1900may 1902 (kaapstad, 1977) en f. pretorius (red.), verskroeide aarde (kaapstad, 2001). 21 amery (red.), 7 (london, 1909), p. 25. 22 f. pretorius, the a to z of the anglo-boer war (lanham, 2010), p. 80. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 193 § sowel die britse as boeremagte het hul aan gruweldade (oorlogsmisdade) skuldig gemaak. byvoorbeeld: die boere het soms gewapende swart en bruin mense in britse diens gevang en summier tereggestel.23 § die oorlog het die britse belastingbetaler meer as £200 000 000 uit die sak gejaag24 – sowat r75 000 000 000 in hedendaagse terme. dit is nie moontlik om te bepaal hoeveel die oorlog die boererepublieke gekos het nie. § die oorlog het groot dele van transvaal en die vrystaat leeg en verwoes gelaat. verder was daar ’n nalatenskap van haat en verbittering: tussen afrikaansen engelssprekendes; binne afrikanergeledere (veral tussen bittereinders en joiners);25 en tussen wit en swart. en dan was daar al die verwagtinge waaraan nie voldoen is nie. die britte het byvoorbeeld politieke regte aan swart mense belowe in ruil vir hulp teen die boere, maar daar het niks van gekom nie. dus kan die twintigste-eeuse geskiedenis van suid-afrika, in besonder die veelbewoë politieke geskiedenis van die land, nie begryp word sonder kennis en begrip van die anglo-boereoorlog nie. trouens, daar kan ’n lyn getrek word vanaf dié oorlog tot by die stigting van die south african native national congress (sannc) op 8 januarie 1912 (vanaf 1923 bekend as die african national congress, anc) en verder tot by die regeringsverandering van 1994, terwyl die ontwikkeling van regse politieke groeperinge ook na die oorlog teruggespeur kan word. § alles in ag genome was die anglo-boereoorlog nie maar net nóg een van brittanje se koloniale oorloë nie, maar die omvangrykste, duurste en veelseggendste oorlog waarby die britse ryk tussen die einde van die napoleontiese oorloë in 1815 en die uitbreek van die eerste wêreldoorlog in 1914 betrokke was. vir die afrikaner was dit ’n stryd met verreikende en traumatiese gevolge.26 jan f.e. celliers was die enigste vooraanstaande afrikaanse digter wat die grootste deel van die oorlog op kommando diens gedoen het.27 sy eenvoudige dog evokatiewe gedig “dis al” uit sy bundel die vlakte en ander gedigte (pretoria: volkstem, 1908) som waarskynlik die verskrikking en tragedie van oorlog (in die algemeen) beter op as talle ander tekste wat deur middel van eksplisiet-ontstellende beelde of beskrywings probeer om te skok. ook vanuit ’n historiese oogpunt is dit ’n aangrypende en veelseggende gedig. 23 kyk bv. wessels, the anglo-boer war, pp. 123-126. 24 t. pakenham, the boer war (london, 1979), p. 572. 25 kyk bv. a.m. grundlingh, die “hendsoppers” en “joiners”: die rasionaal en verskynsel van verraad (pretoria, 1999) en a. blake, boereverraaier: teregstellings tydens die anglo-boereoorlog (kaapstad, 2010). 26 kyk bv. a. wessels, “die traumatiese nalatenskap van die anglo-boereoorlog se konsentrasiekampe”, joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis 26(2), des. 2001, pp. 1-20. 27 kyk a.g. oberholster (red.), oorlogsdagboek van jan f.e. celliers 1899-1902 (pretoria, 1978). wessels 194 3. ’n oorsig van die afrikaanse letterkunde oor die anglo-boereoorlog28 wanneer daar gelet word op die invloed wat die anglo-boereoorlog op letterkunde gehad het, moet streng gesproke ook na die engelse,29 nederlandse30 en talle ander europese letterkundes31 gekyk word. al dié letterkundes val egter buite die bestek van hierdie studie en daar word dus hier slegs op die “suiwer” afrikaanse letterkunde gelet. hoewel die klem op die formele afrikaanse letterkunde val, sal daar soms ook na populêre romans verwys word. die oorsig wat nou volg, is alles behalwe volledig en wil bloot ’n voëlvlug verskaf oor ’n omvangryke tema. teen 1984 is immers reeds meer as 350 romans wat teen die agtergrond van die anglo-boereoorlog afspeel32 in talle tale gepubliseer, en in een jaar, 1998, het ’n enkele uitgewer meer as 60 manuskripte ontvang wat oor die oorlog handel.33 3.1 digkuns en dramas die afrikaanse poësie is deur die jare heen deur die anglo-boereoorlog beïnvloed; trouens, reeds tydens die oorlog is ’n groot aantal gedigte in internerings-34 en krygsgevangenekampe geskryf, waarin onder meer aan die smart en ellende van oorlog en die bittere vernedering 28 kyk in die algemeen bv. e. swanepoel, “waarheid en versoening: representasies van die suidafrikaanse oorlog (1899-1902) in afrikaanse, engelse en nederlandse fiksie”, stilet 10(2), 1998, pp. 63-75; k. du pisani, “fact and fiction: representations of the south african war in afrikaans history writing and literature”, new contree 44, sept. 1999, pp. 164-184; de wet, pp. 38-65; c.n. van der merwe, “presentations of war in afrikaans fiction”, stilet 13(2), junie 2001, pp. 65-78; h.p. van coller, “1998-2000: skrywers op die tweesprong – prosakroniek”, tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe 42(4), desember 2002, pp. 304-320. 29 kyk bv. m. van wyk smith, drummer hodge: the poetry of the anglo-boer war (1899-1902) (pretoria, 1999), passim; m. van wyk smith, “the poetry of the war” in p. warwick (red.), the south african war: the anglo-boer war 1899-1902 (harlow, 1980), pp. 292-314; b.f. gasser, a study of the response of english poets to the south african war of 1899-1902 (d.phil., university of oxford, 1979), passim; v.b. hein, british literary figures and the boer war (m.a., georgia state university, atlanta, 1971), passim; j. mcdonald, the boer war in english fiction (m.a., university of columbia, new york, 1940), passim; d.j. weinstock, the boer war in the novel in english, 1884-1966: a descriptive and critical biography (ph.d., university of california, los angeles, 1968). 30 kyk bv. j. van der elst, “die anglo-boereoorlog: ’n vertekende beeld vanuit die verlede”, literator 20(30), nov. 1999, pp. 147-160; w. jonckheere, nasie en mite: nederland en die anglo-boereoorlog (d.f. malherbe-gedenklesing 18, acta varia 1, 1999); h. ester, “met penning naar zuid-afrika”, zuid-afrika 76(8), aug. 1999, pp. 112-113. 31 kyk bv. g. teulié, la guerre des boers et let images de l’afrique du sud: iconographie, littérature et récits – analyse de l’origine des systèmes de représentation et des mentalités en présence (ph.d., universiteit van paul válery, montpellier iii, 1999). 32 s. gray, “introduction” in d. blackburn, a burgher quixote (kaapstad, 1984), p. xvii. blackburn se boek het oorspronklik in 1903 verskyn. 33 a.p. brink, “anglo-boer war spawns milestones in new fiction”, the sunday independent, 22.8.1998, p. 19. 34 die meer neutrale term interneringskamp word bo die emosioneel en histories gelaaide term konsentrasiekamp verkies ten einde ’n duidelike onderskeid tussen die britse kampe vir boere en swart burgerlikes in die anglo-boereoorlog en nazi-kampe vir jode en andere in die tweede wêreldoorlog te tref. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 195 uitdrukking gegee is. kyk in hierdie verband byvoorbeeld na f.w. reitz se oorlogs en ander gedigte (potchefstroom: het westen-drukkerij, 1910). die meeste van hierdie gedigte was weliswaar geen literêre meesterstukke nie, maar naas die terapeutiese waarde wat die skryf daarvan waarskynlik gehad het, het dit tog tegelyk ook die grondslag/vertrekpunt gevorm vir baie ander – en beter – pennevrugte. met verloop van tyd het die oorlogsen ander gedigte van jan f.e. celliers, eugène marais, c. louis leipoldt en totius (j.d. du toit) die afrikaanse poësie laat uitstyg bo blote rymelary en epiese ballades. kyk in hierdie verband byvoorbeeld na celliers se “die kampsuster” en “blomme”, marais se “winternag”, “die oorwinnaars” en “1902”, leipoldt se “vandag” en “aan ’n seepkissie”, en totius se “mei 1900”, “kindergraffies” en “vergewe en vergeet”35 – en in besonder dus ook laasgenoemde digter se bundel bij de monument (potchefstroom: koomans, 1917). leipoldt was tydens die oorlog die redakteur van die south african news in kaapstad en het rebelleverhore in ooskaapland bygewoon. in sy dramatiese monoloog “oom gert vertel” word die morele dilemma waarin baie kaapse afrikaners hul bevind het, uitgebeeld: die feitlik onmoontlike keuse tussen lojaliteit aan hul wettige regering of steun aan hul taalgenote en soms bloedverwante.36 nog later is ook die literêre reus d.j. opperman deur die angloboereoorlog geïnspireer. kyk byvoorbeeld na sy “gebed om die gebeente”, wat oor gideon scheepers handel.37 hy het egter krities gekyk na die rol van die afrikaner in die moderne wêreld.38 tot dusver is relatief min afrikaanse dramas geskryf wat teen die agtergrond van die angloboereoorlog afspeel. voorbeelde sluit die volgende in: horatius (vermoedelik die skuilnaam van i.g. horak) se mag is reg: treurspel vir die boere-oorlog in vier bedrijwe (kaapstad: nasionale pers boekhandel, 1917); d.c. postma se histories-simboliese drama oom paul: ’n simboliese drama in drie bedrywe (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1944); eugène marais se nag: ’n drama in vier bedrywe (pretoria: j.l. van schaik, 1937); bartho smit se moeder hanna (johannesburg: afrikaanse pers-boekhandel, ca. 1957); n.p. van wyk louw, die pluimsaad waai ver of bitter begin (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1972); pieter fourie se die joiner (kaapstad: tafelberg, ca. 1976); en reza de wet se nag, generaal (gepubliseer in vrystaattrilogie, pretoria: haum-literêr, 1991). louw se pluimsaad het tot heelwat omstredenheid aanleiding gegee en het ’n belangrike rol gespeel in die herkonseptualisering van die angloboereoorlog deurdat netelige kwessies soos tweedrag in afrikanergeledere (bittereinder vs joiner) en die morele regverdiging al dan nie van die oorlog aan die orde gestel is – iets wat tydens die hoogbloei van afrikanernasionalisme ondenkbaar was.39 let verder ook op chris 35 wat betref die tekste van die gedigte waarna verwys is, kyk bv. e. jansen en w. jonckheere (samestellers), boer en brit: afrikaanse en nederlandse tekste uit en om die anglo-boereoorlog (pretoria, 1999), pp. 87-88, 125, 175, 228-231, 239-240, 260, 302-303, 337-338. 36 vir die teks van “oom gert vertel”, kyk bv. leipoldt se versamelde gedigte (kaapstad, 1980), pp. 5-11 en jansen en jonckheere (samestellers), pp. 325-334. kyk ook h. viljoen, “what oom gert does not tell: silences and resonances of c. louis leipoldt’s ‘oom gert vertel’ ”, literator 20(3), nov. 1999, pp. 129-146. 37 jansen en jonckheere (samestellers), pp. 293-295. 38 e. jansen, “de oorlog en de afrikaanse literatuur”, zuid-afrika 76(8), aug. 1999, pp. 110-111. 39 kyk in die algemeen k. du pisani, “ ‘volkshelde’: die boerekrygerbeeld en die konstruksie van afrikaner-nasionalisme”, literator 20(3), nov. 1999, pp. 87-112; k. du pisani, “wat is ’n held?: herkonseptualisering van die boerekrygerbeeld na 1961”, joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis 25(1), junie 2000, pp. 42-55. wessels 196 vorster se kwaggapolitiek (onder meer in 2000 by die aardklop-kunstefees te potchefstroom en in 2001 by die klein-karoo nasionale kunstefees te oudtshoorn opgevoer), wat onder andere besin oor die vraag of dit enigsins sinvol is om ’n stuk óór die anglo-boereoorlog op te voer. 3.2 romans en kortverhale in die lig van die dramatiese aard van ’n stryd soos die anglo-boereoorlog is dit vanselfsprekend dat skrywers dié konflik as inspirasie sal gebruik om tekste te skep. skrywers kan uiteraard ryklik put uit die magdom egodokumente wat uit die oorlog voortgevloei het, met ander woorde die dagboeke en herinneringsgeskrifte wat nagelaat is deur mans op kommando of vrouens in die kampe. dié tipe tekste sluit in alles van genl. christiaan de wet se de strijd tusschen boer en brit (amsterdam: hiveker & wormser, 1902) en deneys reitz se commando: a boer journal of the boer war (london: faber & faber, 1929) tot minder bekende persone soos kmdt. japie neser se oorlogsherinneringe,40 en verder hendrina rabie-van der merwe se onthou! in die skaduwee van die galg (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1940) en a. badenhorst se tant alie van transvaal (afrikaanse vertaling, kaapstad: nasionale pers, 1939). nogtans was daar aanvanklik min romans met die oorlog as agtergrond, moontlik omdat baie mense gevoel het dat dit verdere verdeeldheid in afrikanergeledere kon veroorsaak. kyk in hierdie verband na die diskoers oor “onthou” en/of “vergewe en vergeet”; oftewel (in postapartheidterme) “waarheid” en/of “versoening”.41 sommige mense wou (en wil steeds) nou maar eerder die verlede vergeet – asof dit enigsins moontlik is. tekste van belang oor die bogenoemde diskoers is onder meer gustav preller se oorlogsoormag en ander sketse en verhale (kaapstad: nasionale pers, 1923) en d.f. malherbe se roman vergeet nie: histories-romanties verhaal uit die anglo-boereoorlog (potchefstroom: het westen-drukkerij, 1913). in laasgenoemde boek beklemtoon malherbe die afrikaners se gemeenskaplike verlede as bindende faktor en word alles in die werk gestel om die afrikaner se groepsidentiteit lewend te hou.42 in die dertigerjare van die vorige eeu was daar ’n oplewing in afrikaner-nasionalisme. geen wonder nie dat talle verhale oor die anglo-boereoorlog in die gesinstydskrif die huisgenoot gepubliseer is en dat talle oorlogsromans verskyn het, byvoorbeeld miemie-louw theron se ’n wiel binne-in ’n wiel (kaapstad: nasionale pers, 1935), n.j. van der merwe se die burgemeester van sannaspos (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1929), t.c. pienaar se ’n merk vir die eeue (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1938) en j.r.l. (“kleinjan”) van bruggen se bittereinders (potchefstroom: h.w. huyser, 1935). laasgenoemde is gebaseer op die herinneringe van sowat 40 vroue wat in die interneringskamp te mafeking aangehou is en kan as ’n vroeë voorbeeld van “faksie” (faction) in die afrikaanse letterkunde beskou word. in hierdie tipe oorlogsromans is die stereotipe beelde van die goeie, heldhaftige bittereinder en slegte, lafhartige joiner beklemtoon. ietwat later verskyn ewald steenkamp se helkampe 40 kyk a. wessels (red.), “die oorlogsherinneringe van kommandant jacob petrus neser”, christiaan de wet-annale 7, okt. 1987, pp. 1-134. 41 kyk bv. h.p. van coller, “die waarheidskommissie in die afrikaanse letterkunde: die afrikaanse prosa in die jare negentig”, stilet 9(2), 1997, pp. 9-21. 42 c.n. van der merwe, “verhale oor die anglo-boereoorlog”, literator 19(3), nov. 1997, pp. 87-88. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 197 (johannesburg: voortrekkerpers, 1941), wat deur die regering van j.c. smuts (die voormalige befaamde boeregeneraal) verbied is in die lig van die tweede wêreldoorlog wat toe gewoed het. gegewe die historiese feit dat die boere ’n klein minderheid teenoor die magtige britse ryk was, is die grondslag vir die mitologisering van die afrikaner se vryheidstryd gelê. let verder ook op ’n belangwekkende teks soos j.r.l. van bruggen se die gerig (pretoria: unieboekhandel, 1943).43 wat jeugverhale betref, is daar onder meer mikro (skuilnaam van c.h. kühn) se die bont takbok-reeks van drie boeke wat oorspronklik in die laat 1940’s verskyn het, naamlik die bont takbok (johannesburg: nasionale boekhandel, 1957), die bont takbok verken (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1971) en die bont takbok word bittereinder (johannesburg: nasionale boekhandel, 1958). in 1936 verskyn mikro se die ruiter in die nag (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1936). verder was daar ook nog mikro se ander jeugverhale soos burgers van die kleingeld-kommando (pretoria: j.l. van schaik, 1958), die jongste veldkornet (kaapstad: simondium-uitgewers, 1964), die jongste ruiter (kaapstad: nasionale boekhandel, s.a.), kaptein gereke (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1937) en boerseun (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1944). let verder ook op nicolaas hofmeyr se fanie: ’n storie van vriendskap en liefde en avonture met ’n stukkie gouddraad uit ons heldetyd saamgevleg (kaapstad: nasionale pers boekhandel, 1925), rudolf meiring (skuilnaam van s. ign. mocke) se groter liefde: ’n roman uit die driejarige oorlog (bloemfontein: nasionale pers boekhandel, 1945) en sita (skuilnaam van s.s. de kock) se uit die puine (johannesburg: dagbreek-boekhandel, 1952). in hierdie boeke, soos ook in h.s. van blerk se tuin van herinnering (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1982), word die oorlog “tradisioneel” benader. dit word met ander woorde hoofsaaklik vanuit afrikaneroogpunt geskryf: die afrikaner se lyding en ontbering word beklemtoon en ’n boodskap van nasietrots en behoudendheid word uitgedra. let verder ook op nan lubbe se jeugverhaal die jongste spioen (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1969), maretha maartens se gezina en die bruin wind, franci greyling se helena in die tyd van die tente en dirkie, drieka, frederika (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1988), ria jordaan se wynand se oorlog (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1989) en heléne le roux se eendag was daar ’n oorlog (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1990).44 met verloop van tyd het daar ook meer “volwasse” romans en ander tekste verskyn met die anglo-boereoorlog as tema, byvoorbeeld etienne leroux se omstrede dog bakenverskuiwende en konvensieverbrekende roman magersfontein, o magersfontein! (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1976), waarin daar by wyse van spreke deur die “derde oog” op ’n satiriese en ironiese wyse na die historiese gegewens gekyk word.45 die geskiedenis word gedemitologiseer en afrikanernasionalisme gesatiriseer. die anglo-boereoorlog hoef nie op ’n heroïese vlak aangepak te word nie, soos bewys is deur annico van vuuren se roman splinters van spieël en klip (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1993), “waarin 43 ibid., pp. 88-90. 44 kyk bv. t. van der walt en m. nieman, “vrouejeugboekskrywers oor die anglo-boereoorlog: realisme en versoening na dekades van avontuur en nasionalisme”, tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe 49(4), desember 2009, pp. 674-687. 45 kyk bv. m.j. prins, “postmodernistiese tendense in magersfontein, o magersfontein! deur etienne leroux”, literator 19(3), november 1998, pp. 99-117; t. de wilde, “etienne leroux se ontmitologisering van magersfontein”, stilet 1(2), julie 1989, pp. 57-65. kyk ook s.l. barnard, “die geskiedskrywer en die romanskrywer: ’n interpretasie van enkele ‘historiese’ feite in magersfontein, o magersfontein!”, acta academica 21(1), 1989, pp. 15-29. wessels 198 die temas van liefde, dood en verraad in ’n gewone man se lewe op eksistensiële vlak ondersoek word, en die oorlog ’n geluid van verre donder bly”.46 kyk in hierdie verband ook na karel schoeman se veldslag: twee novelles (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1971). in die loop van die 1990’s het ’n hele aantal ander indrukwekkende oorlogsromans verskyn, byvoorbeeld lettie viljoen (skuilnaam van ingrid winterbach) se belemmering (bramley: taurus, 1990), elsa joubert se magistrale werk die reise van isobelle (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1995) en marlise joubert se oranje meraai (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1996). en dan, uiteraard, is daar christoffel coetzee se op soek na generaal mannetjies mentz (kaapstad: queillerie, 1998). coetzee dwing die leser om na sy eie, en elke mens, se boosheid te kyk en van sy of haar gebrokenheid rekenskap te gee. mannetjies mentz (dit wil sê man, mens, everyman, elkerlijk) word immers ’n allegoriese persona vir afrikanermanlikheid en van menswees in die algemeen.47 saam met talle ander literêre werke van die 1990’s dra coetzee se roman by tot die vernietiging van die geïdealiseerde beeld van die afrikaner tydens die angloboereoorlog. op soek na generaal mannetjies mentz is natuurlik, soos talle ander fiksieverhale, ’n alternatiewe “geskiedenis” van die oorlog, ’n stuk gefabriseerde en ondermynende “geskiedenis”. dit is ’n skyngeskiedenis en ’n halwe waarheid (deels feite, deels fiksie); reguit gestel is dit ’n (moedswillig) “geliegde geskiedenis” en (histories gesproke) dus in ’n groot mate ’n bedrogspul. maar al is baie van die gegewens fiktief, en al ondergrawe coetzee die tradisionele historikus deur te twyfel of die geskiedenis die volle waarheid omtrent die verlede kan meedeel,48 is die wreedheid van oorlog waarskynlik nog nooit tevore só eksplisiet en eerlik in afrikaans verwoord as juis in coetzee se roman nie.49 coetzee se roman beklemtoon die waarde van sowel die letterkunde as die geskiedenis en dwing die leser om met nuwe oë na die geskiedenis van die anglo-boereoorlog te kyk. ander noemenswaardige prosawerke van die 1990’s is onder meer jeanette ferreira se populêre roman-drieluik oor die oorlog, naamlik babette (johannesburg: perskor, 1995), catharina (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1996) en charlotta (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1999), asook haar bundel boereoorlogstories: 34 verhale uit die oorlog van 1899-1902 (pretoria: van schaik, 1998).50 verder was daar ook die kortverhaalbundel van dolf van niekerk, brandoffer (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1998) en eleanor baker se groot duiwels dood (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1998), ’n middelmootteks wat vir ontspanning gelees wil word, maar nogtans die eietydse sosiopolitieke kwessies verreken. kyk verder ook na lindeque de beer (samesteller) se vuur! verhale oor die vryheidsoorlog 1899-1902 (pretoria: j.p. van der walt, 1999), en lettie viljoen (tot ongeveer 1998 die skuilnaam van ingrid 46 petra müller se resensie in die burger, 29.6.1993, p. 8. 47 kyk bv. l. renders, “tot in die hart van die boosheid: twee resente afrikaanse romans oor die angloboereoorlog”, literator 20(3), nov. 1999, pp. 113-121, 126-127. 48 a. nel, “kragtige debuutroman wat meesleurend lees”, beeld, 11.5.1998, p. 8. 49 kyk in die algemeen ook j. moon, die verhouding tussen geskiedenis en literatuur in post-apartheid suidafrika, met spesifieke verwysing na verliesfontein deur karel schoeman en op soek na generaal mannetjies mentz deur christoffel coetzee (m.a., stellenbosch universiteit, 2003). 50 vir ’n indringende bespreking van bg., kyk bv. h. du plooy, “die deurlopende koord”, literator 20(3), nov. 1999, pp. 201-212. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 199 winterbach) se karolina ferreira (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1993), buller se plan (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1999) en niggie (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 2002). verder verdien karel schoeman se verliesfontein (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1998) ook vermelding. dit is ’n merkwaardige boek waarin die grense van sowel die historiese roman as van die geskiedskrywing opgehef word en daar tot beter begrip van die verlede gekom word.51 die boodskap in schoeman se boek is duidelik: wie die verlede vergeet, is gedoem om dit te herlewe. en dan is daar die uitmuntende werke van klaas steytler, ons oorlog (kaapstad: tafelberg, 2001) en van p.g. du plessis, fees van die ongenooides (kaapstad: tafelberg, 2008). van besondere belang is ook die “bruin” skrywer a.h.m. scholtz se romans vatmaar (kaapstad: kwela, 1995) en afdraai: ’n kroniek van seermaak en seerkry, van vrede en verandering (kaapstad: kwela, 1998), waarin die oorlog vir die eerste keer (in die literatuur) vanuit ’n swart of bruin persoon se oogpunt in afrikaans belig word. die hoop word uitgespreek dat nog meer sulke tekste, soos ook kortverhale, gedigte en dramas, deur bruin – en hopelik selfs swart suid-afrikaners – in afrikaans sal verskyn.52 * * * tydens die anglo-boereoorlog het die afrikanervrou ’n tragies-heroïese rol gespeel. dít het daartoe gelei dat sy daarna op ’n meer respekvolle wyse in die afrikaanse letterkunde uitgebeeld sou word en dat die eerste afrikaanse vroueskrywers ook na vore sou tree. tot en met 1900 is vroue deur die genootskap van regte afrikaners verbied om aan die eerste taalbeweging deel te neem. na die oorlog het talle vroue egter hul kampervaringe te boek gestel. net so het talle vroulike joernaliste en skrywers hul stempel afgedruk.53 anders as in literêre werke van veral die 1930’s en 1940’s waarin die heroïese sy van die anglo-boereoorlog in die algemeen beklemtoon is en die tekste baie keer niks anders was nie as (suksesvolle) pogings om afrikanernasionalisme te bevorder, word die oorlog (en die afrikaner) selde in die moderne tekste verheerlik; trouens, ’n mens sou tot die gevolgtrekking kon kom dat daar doelbewus ’n poging is om afrikanernasionalisme af te wys.54 die vraag kan egter gevra word of daar nie sedert ongeveer 1998, wat betref effekberekende herdenkingsgerigte literêre werke oor die oorlog, sprake van ’n “handige omgaan met die laat 20ste eeuse kunsgrepe, die te bewuste geskryf aan kunsprosa” is nie. “by die oordra van die oorlogservaring bly die vroeëre pretensieloser werke deur mense wat wel deel was van die stryd”, waarskynlik veel meer effektiewer.55 51 g.j. schutte, “verliesfontein: lesvoorbeeld voor historici”, zuid-afrika 76(8), aug. 1999, p. 114. kyk ook renders, pp. 121-127. kyk ook die m.a.-verhandeling van j. moon waarna reeds in voetnoot 49 hierbo verwys is. 52 jansen, p. 111. 53 e. britz, “die afrikaanse vroue het eers begin skryf na loutering van konsentrasiekampe”, die burger, 4.2.1999, p. 11. 54 jansen, p. 110. 55 w. van zyl, “klein kommando byeen vir bundel oorlogstories” (resensie oor j. ferreira (red.), boereoorlog-stories: 34 verhale oor die oorlog van 1899-1902), rapport, 18.4.1999, p. 16. wessels 200 al die genoemde tekste soek egter op hul eie manier ’n bepaalde waarheid – ’n literêre waarheid, soms ook ’n historiese waarheid, maar altyd ’n waarheid oor die kern van menswees. tydens die betekenisvolle oorgangsfase wat om en by die millennium-wending in suid-afrika beleef is, was dit logies dat mense bestek sou opneem om sin te probeer maak van alles wat om hul gebeur het en wat hul ervaar het. dit het hulle gedoen deur terug te kyk op die verlede ten einde die toekoms met beter begrip en selfvertroue tegemoet te gaan. die bande met die verlede (’n verlede wat onder meer die anglo-boereoorlog, die eerste wêreldoorlog, kommunisme, naziïsme, die tweede wêreldoorlog, die oorlog in viëtnam, apartheid, die koue oorlog en die dramatiese beëindiging daarvan, die gebeure van 11 september 2001, die tegnologiese ontploffing en toenemende globalisering insluit) is tegelyk knellende bande en ankertoue. 3.3 temas wat aangesny word wanneer daar na die groeiende volume letterkunde oor die anglo-boereoorlog gekyk word, ontstaan die vraag: watter tipe sake leen hul tot die skryf van fiksie oor die oorlog? watter invalshoeke is daar? die volgende is van die temas wat onderskei kan word: § veldslae en ander aspekte rakende die militêre verloop van die oorlog, byvoorbeeld etienne leroux se magersfontein, o magersfontein! en karel schoeman se verliesfontein. § “helde”, byvoorbeeld christiaan de wet en danie theron. kyk byvoorbeeld na louwrens penning se oorlogsromans oorspronklik in nederlands geskryf, maar later deur chris barnard in afrikaans vertaal en gepubliseer, naamlik die leeu van modderspruit (pretoria: j.l. van schaik, 1966), die held van spioenkop (pretoria: j.l. van schaik, 1967), die verkenner van christiaan de wet (pretoria: j.l. van schaik, 1967), die oorwinnaar van nooitgedacht (pretoria: j.l. van schaik, 1967) en die kolonis van suid-wes afrika (pretoria: j.l. van schaik, 1967). kyk ook na at van wyk se kniel, krygsman (kaapstad: buren-uitgewers, 1968), ’n historiese roman oor de wet. verder is daar die tekste wat oor pres. paul kruger handel, byvoorbeeld d.c. postma se oom paul: ’n simboliese drama in drie bedrywe en anna m. louw se roman die groot gryse (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1968). in mikro se jeugverhaal vlam (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1970) is die perd met die titelnaam die held. minder waarskynlike helde kom voor in a.h.m. scholtz se vatmaar en afdraai, terwyl christoffel coetzee se mannetjies mentz-karakter ’n omstrede heldefiguur is. § “skurke”, byvoorbeeld joseph chamberlain en lord kitchener; en natuurlik die hendsoppers en veral die joiners. hierdie is ’n tema wat nog nie werklik na behore in die afrikaanse letterkunde ontgin is nie. § tragiese figure, byvoorbeeld genl. piet cronjé wat te paardeberg oorgegee het, daarna na st. helena as krygsgevangene weggevoer is, en na afloop van die oorlog as ’n tipe “sirkus-akteur” in anglo-boereoorlogvoorstellings in die verenigde state van amerika opgetree het.56 kyk in hierdie verband sonja loots se sirkusboere (kaapstad: tafelberg, 2011). § rebelle, byvoorbeeld in karel schoeman se verliesfontein, engela van rooyen se vuur op die horison (kaapstad: tafelberg, 2000) en adriaan roodt se die kaapse rebel: die 56 f.j.g. van der merwe, “die ‘boeresirkus’ van st. louis, v.s.a. (1904)”, suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis 12(2), november 1998, pp. 85-99. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 201 oorlogsavonture van kommandant edwin conroy tydens die tweede vryheidsoorlog (pretoria: j.p. van der walt, 1998). laasgenoemde is ’n roman wat op historiese feite gebaseer is. § penkoppe, byvoorbeeld in mikro se die jongste ruiter (kaapstad: nasionale boekhandel, 1954), fritz steyn se die penkopkommando (johannesburg: voortrekker pers, 1941), j.h. van dyk se die kwêvoëlkommando: seuns wat manne was – ’n verhaal uit die tweede vryheidsoorlog (morgenzon: oranjewerkers promosies, 1988) en h.s. van blerk se boeta gaan op kommando (pretoria: j.p. van der walt, 1977). § die verskroeide aarde-beleid, byvoorbeeld in engela van rooyen se vuur op die horison (kaapstad: tafelberg, 2000). § vrouens en kinders in interneringskampe – die vrou speel ’n deurslaggewende rol in fiksie oor die anglo-boereoorlog, met j.r.l. van bruggen se die gerig as een van die heel eerste feministiese verhale wat in afrikaans geskryf is.57 kyk verder ook na h.s. van blerk se tuin van herinnering (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1982), maretha maartens se gezina en die bruin wind (pretoria: haum-literêr, 1990) en franci greyling se helena in die tyd van tente (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1986). oor die algemeen idealiseer die skrywers die vrou tydens die oorlog. let egter ook op jeanette ferreira se charlotta en elsa joubert se die reise van isobelle. § vrouens en kinders wat vir die grootste deel van die duur van die guerrilla-fase te velde rondgetrek het en daarin geslaag het om uit die hande van die britse kolonnes te bly – byvoorbeeld in christoffel coetzee se op soek na generaal mannetjies mentz en lettie viljoen (ingrid winterbach) se niggie.58 § krygsgevangenekampe – die herinneringe van diegene wat as “bannelinge” oorsee gestuur is, is as boustof vir avontuuren kinderverhale gebruik. kyk byvoorbeeld na p.j. nienaber se nag op st. helena (bloemfontein: nasionale pers, 1944) en eleanor baker se groot duiwels dood. § die plek en rol van swart en bruin mense, en hul belewing van die oorlog – hul plek en rol word sedert 1903 deur fiksieskrywers erken, maar hulle bly newekarakters, behalwe in a.h.m. scholtz se vatmaar en afdraai. kyk ook na karel schoeman se verliesfontein, waar onder meer abraham esau se tragiese geskiedenis volledig beskryf word. namate daar in die geskiedenis meer navorsing oor swart en bruin mense se rol in die oorlog gedoen is, figureer hulle ook sterker in oorlogsfiksie.59 kyk ook weer na ingrid winterbach se niggie. 57 van der merwe, “verhale oor die anglo-boereoorlog”, p. 91. 58 hierdie hertzogprys-bekroonde werk het reeds besonder baie aandag geniet. kyk bv. m. botha en h. van vuuren, “ ’onze strijd, onze heldedood ...’: kreatiewe verwerking van patriotiese stof uit celliers se oorlogsdagboek in winterbach se ‘niggie’ ”, tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe 48(1), maart 2008, pp. 111-128; m. botha en h. van vuuren, “eksperiment en intertekstualiteit in ‘niggie’ ”, journal of literary studies 23(1), maart 2007, pp. 63-80; h. du plooy, “afstand en belewenis: liminale ruimtes en oorlewing in ‘niggie’ deur ingrid winterbach”, literator 27(1), april 2006, pp. 1-22; m. botha en h. van vuuren, “die enigmatiese aard van die trieksterfiguur in ingrid winterbach se ‘niggie’ ”, tydskrif vir letterkunde 45(2), november-desember 2008, pp. 48-71; m.e. botha, eksperiment en intertekstualiteit: ’n studie van ingrid winterbach se “niggie” (2002) en die “oorlogsdagboek van jan f.e. celliers 1899-1902” (1978), asook ander anglo-boereoorlog tekste (m.a., nelson mandela metropolitaanse universiteit, port elizabeth, 2006), passim. 59 de wet, pp. 45-48. wessels 202 § verhoudinge tussen wit en swart en bruin tydens die oorlog – kyk byvoorbeeld na g.h. franz se moeder poulin (kaapstad: nasionale pers, 1946), waarin ’n blanke oor die swart mense se ervaringe tydens die oorlog en die samewerking tussen wit en swart skryf en j.h. immink se die dasvelmasker (pretoria: j.p. van der walt, 1967), wat onder meer handel oor hoe ’n swart (bruin?) persoon ’n blanke motiveer om die stryd teen die britte aan te knoop. § mediese aspekte – kyk byvoorbeeld na wille martin se boeke die kolonel se dogter (pretoria: daan retief, ca. 1984) en lied van die balalaika (kaapstad: tafelberg, 1983), wat handel oor liefdesverhoudinge tussen buitelandse verpleegsters en boere. § verraad – byvoorbeeld die joiners, na wie reeds verwys is.60 § heropbou ná die oorlog – kyk byvoorbeeld na eleanor baker se groot duiwels dood. § liefdestemas – hoofsaaklik in populêre romans (ontspanningsliteratuur), byvoorbeeld schalkie van wyk se aan die einde van die reënboog (pretoria: retief, ca. 1981), fritz steyn se liefde en oorlog (kaapstad: human & rousseau, 1985), hennie human se die eerste winter (pretoria: van der walt, 1999) en peet venter se vlieg, duifie, vlieg! (pretoria: van der walt, 1999). die afrikaanse literêre werke wat die anglo-boereoorlog as agtergrond gebruik, is kaleidoskopies en multiperspektiwies van aard. karakters oor wie daar nog heelwat historiese navorsing gedoen kan word en wie se eskapades hul uitstekend leen tot die skep van romans (en die maak van vollengte-rolprente) is onder meer scotty smith en fritz duquesne. ander aspekte wat ook nog literêr ontgin kan word, is onder meer die stryd in kaapland (wat die vorm van ’n burgeroorlog aangeneem het) en die verhoudinge tussen boer en brit (blankes) enersyds en swart en bruin (“nie-blankes”) andersyds, die rol en belewing van swart en bruin mense tydens die oorlog, die boere se optrede teenoor (in sommige gevalle teregstelling van) verraaiers in eie geledere, godsdienstige aspekte, en die verhoudinge tussen die republikeinse burgers en die buitelanders. 4. slotperspektiewe feite (soos byvoorbeeld in onderafdeling 2 kortliks uiteengesit) mag nooit geïgnoreer word nie, maar historici moet bewus wees van die moontlikhede wat fiksie (soos byvoorbeeld in onderafdeling 3 uiteengesit) bied ten opsigte van ’n beter begrip van die verlede. geskiedenis word immers in en deur middel van taal bedryf. dit is seker ook nie toevallig dat in engels “history” en “story” so naby aan mekaar lê nie. of moet daar eerder ook verwys word na “herstory” en “our-story”? in die dialektiek tussen hede en verlede speel die verbeelding ’n belangrike rol. ’n mens sou ook kon beweer dat dit soms nodig mag wees om in literêre tekste die verlede diskreet te “verdraai” ten einde mense met wie ander maklik kan identifiseer, aan die woord te stel – en só ook historiese waarhede aan ’n wyer gehoor bekend te stel. die vooraanstaande nederlandse historikus jan huizinga het (in die eerste helfte van die twintigste eeu) geskiedenis omskryf as ’n geestelike vorm waarin diegene wat tot ’n bepaalde kultuurgroep behoort, rekenskap gee van hul verlede.61 dít word tradisioneel gedoen deur die 60 kyk ook c.n. van der merwe, “waarheid en versoening by van melle se drie joiners”, stilet 10(1), 1998, pp. 35-41. 61 j. huizinga, verzamelde werken 7: geschiedwetenschap; hedendaagsche cultuur (haarlem, 1950), p. 102. die anglo-boereoorlog in die afrikaanse letterkunde td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 185204. 203 verlede te bestudeer deur middel van veral boeke en/of, as jy ’n akademikus is of ’n baie besondere belangstelling in geskiedenis het, deur ook artikels te lees en/of oorspronklike dokumente te bestudeer. deur letterkunde te lees, kan egter ook van die verlede rekenskap gegee word. naas huizinga se omskrywing van geskiedenis is daar uiteraard ook nog talle ander definisies. in sy diepste wese is geskiedenis egter die verhaal van die verlede en moet die historikus dus ook ’n storie vertel, en dit goed vertel. die verhaal wat hy of sy vertel, is nie noodwendig “mooi” nie (want dit kan of mag die verhaal van byvoorbeeld die nazi-konsentrasiekampe nooit wees nie), maar dit móét waar wees. al is die karakters gewoonlik fiktief, kan goeie literêre werke ook ’n belangrike bydrae lewer tot die blootlegging van die waarheid omtrent die verlede.62 die goeie skrywer, wat ook ’n populêre skrywer kan wees, bereik immers baie méér mense as wat die historikus (hoe ’n knap wetenskaplike hy of sy ook al mag wees) ooit van kan droom om te bereik. skrywers in die algemeen speel dus ’n belangrike rol in die sogenaamde “gewone” of algemene lesers se beeldvorming omtrent die verlede en kan dus die algemene publiek help om rekenskap van hul verlede te gee. juis daarom rus daar egter ’n groot verantwoordelikheid op die skrywers van fiksie om versigtig met historiese feite om te gaan. hulle navorsing moet inderdaad van ’n hoë gehalte wees en op dieselfde vlak as wat van historici verwag word. indien dit nie die geval is nie, is hulle misleiers en valse profete. in die suid-afrikaanse konteks moet natuurlik deurgaans in gedagte gehou word dat naas die feit dat elk van die onderskeie kultuurgroepe (afrikaanses, engelssprekendes, zoeloes, sotho’s en dies meer) van hul eie (beperkte) kulturele verlede moet rekenskap gee, kombinasies van hierdie kultuurgroepe, maar uiteindelik ook alle suid-afrikaners sáám moet rekenskap gee van hul gedeelde verlede. ’n omvangryke stryd soos dié van die angloboereoorlog het immers alle suid-afrikaners op een of ander wyse geraak, en alle suidafrikaners deel ook ’n gemeenskaplike koloniale verlede. dit is opvallend, aldus cas van rensburg, “hoe verskriklik seer die neerslag van ’n eeu-oue ervaring nog in die bewussyn van ons hedendaagse skrywers lê. die gedagte kom by ’n mens op, half onwillekeurig en nié noodwendig welkom nie, dat in hierdie herbelewenis deur soveel stories en vertellinge dalk ’n ontlading en suiwering skuil waarop die afrikaanse kollektiewe onderroersels reeds geslagte wag”.63 of het dit eerder iets te make met die feit dat 1994 ’n onherroeplike waterskeidingsjaar in die geskiedenis van die afrikaner (en ander suidafrikaners) was toe bykans drie en ’n halwe eeue se blanke heerskappy finaal beëindig is en veral die blanke afrikaanssprekende ’n onsekere toekoms ingedwing is. ’n natuurlike reaksie is om laer te trek, ook kultureel gesproke, en histories, kultureel, literêr en andersins bestek op te neem en rekenskap te gee. deur die verlede te bestudeer en te beskryf – ook deur middel van historiese romans en kortverhale – word uiteraard ook rekenskap gegee en perspektief verkry. letterkunde kan inderdaad soms ook die funksie van ’n tipe waarheidsen versoeningskommissie vervul. dit is betekenisvol dat die oplewing en hernieude belangstelling in die anglo-boereoorlog, wat in die eerste plek saamgehang het met die honderdjarige herdenking van dié stryd, in ’n tydvak van politieke sturm und drang vir die 62 kyk bv. m. rossouw, “ ’n vernuwende blik op die verlede: afrikaanse oorlogsliteratuur as (alternatiewe) bron van geskiedskrywing oor die indiwidu” in m. hattingh en h. willemse (reds.), vernuwing in die afrikaanse letterkunde (bellville, 1994), pp. 253-264; w.a. de klerk, “letterkunde as geskiedenis: die oorvloediger geskiedenis”, tydskrif vir letterkunde 28(1), 1990, pp. 1-11. 63 insig 134, maart 1999, p. 2. wessels 204 afrikaanssprekende, maar ook vir die breër suid-afrikaanse gemeenskap, plaasgevind het (tydens en na afloop van die werksaamhede van die land se waarheidsen versoeningskommissie, wvk). sedert 2002 het daar egter nie veel nuwe literêre tekste oor die anglo-boereoorlog die lig gesien nie. die historiese en literêre waarheid hoef nie noodwendig teenoor mekaar te staan nie; trouens, hulle moet mekaar aanvul.64 in die huidige tydsgewrig worstel sommige afrikaanssprekendes om vrede te maak met die post-apartheid politieke bedeling. juis in dié tye is dit belangrik dat afrikaanssprekendes hul geskiedenis behoorlik sal bestudeer en sal besef dat die verlede (hul geskiedenis) nie noodwendig as knellende bande bejeën moet word nie, maar eerder as ankertoue. wie vrede gemaak het met sy of haar verlede het ’n beter kans op ’n rooskleurige toekoms. só iemand kan waarskynlik ook makliker vergewe, sonder om noodwendig te vergeet. die skrywers van literêre werke kan die leser help om op ’n ontspannende (dog soms ook ontstellende) wyse die waarheid van die verlede te ontdek op weg na ’n versoening met daardie verlede en met die ander inwoners van die land. deur verhale te lees wat in die verlede afspeel, word lesers sensitief gemaak vir hul geskiedenis en onthou hulle ook iets omtrent hul verlede en hopelik ook iets oor die sinloosheid van oorlog. naas die geskiedenis-as-wetenskap, kan ook die letterkunde dus ’n belangrike rol speel om die toekoms van ons verlede te verseker.65 64 wat betref bronne oor die metodologie van geskiedenis, waarin daar onder meer na die historiese roman as bron, en verwante sake, verwys word, kyk bv. r.c. williams, the historian’s toolbox: a student’s guide to the theory and craft of history (2de uitgawe, new york, 2007), pp. 138-141; r.h. canary en h. kozicki (reds.), the writing of history: literary form and historical understanding (madison, 1978), pp. 339; m. bentley (red.), companion to historiography (london, 1997), pp. 865-866. 65 kyk c. bundy, “the future of our past: understanding south african history” (lesing gelewer tydens die graham’s town kunsfees se winterskool, 2.7.1999) en a. wessels, “om die toekoms van ons verlede te verseker: fasette betreffende die aard en uitdagings vir die geskiedenis-as-wetenskap vandag in suid-afrika”, joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis 34(2), junie 2009, pp. 235-247. abstract introduction literature review methodology results discussion of findings conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) clement makholwa department of information systems, faculty of commerce, university of cape town, cape town, south africa adheesh budree department of information systems, faculty of commerce, university of cape town, cape town, south africa salah kabanda department of information systems, faculty of commerce, university of cape town, cape town, south africa citation makholwa, c., budree, a. & kabanda, s., 2020, ‘mobile financial services for bottom of pyramid users: reality or pipe dream?’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a809. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.809 note: special collection: mobile technology within the 4ir era africa answering the call. original research mobile financial services for bottom of pyramid users: reality or pipe dream? clement makholwa, adheesh budree, salah kabanda received: 13 jan. 2020; accepted: 14 aug. 2020; published: 26 nov. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract mobile financial services (mfss) are perceived to be a potential solution in addressing emerging economies’ challenges. through mfs, benefits associated with economic financial inclusion and economic growth and opportunities could be realised. yet, not all emerging economies fully experience these benefits, especially in sub-saharan africa and more specifically the bottom of the pyramid (bop) group of individuals who are characterised as the world’s poorest consumers, living primarily in the informal sector. this study sought to examine the factors contributing to the bop group’s behavioural intention to adopt mfs in south africa. the study was positivist in nature, using survey-based questionnaires to garner information from bop users on mfs adoption. data were tested for validity and analysed by using structured equation modelling to assess the hypotheses. the findings show that habit, performance expectancy and uncertainty avoidance are strong predictors of behavioural intent. these findings can have significant implications on how mfs service providers operate in the south african context and can be used by government to drive technology as a basis for financial inclusion. keywords: mobile financial services; bottom of the pyramid; emerging economies; financial inclusion; macro, medium and small enterprises (smmes). introduction mobile financial services (mfss) describe a set of mobile-based financial tasks consumers can execute or access by using devices such as cell phones or tablets (dass & pal 2011; shaikh & karjaluoto 2015). with the rapid evolution of technology development today, we see mfs applications or apps increasingly perceived to be a means through which financial inclusion of the unbanked or underbanked people in low-income countries can have access to and become part of greater financial systems (bourreau & valletti 2015). mobile financial services and related technologies are considered to be an easy, convenient and ideal choice for accessing financial services for those in remote rural areas at lower cost where formal banking is not feasible (shaikh & karjaluoto 2015). financial inclusion of the unbanked is generally a well-researched area, partly because of the significant uptake of mobile banking in developing countries. for example, it is estimated that the number of bank accounts is significantly lower than the instance of mobile money accounts across nine african countries thus offering otherwise underbanked or unbanked customers a payment solution (lowry 2016). the customers targeted by these services are usually the large group of low-income earners living at the bottom of the global economic or wealth pyramid. according to prahalad and hart (2002) this group is defined as the bottom of the pyramid (bop). the bop grouping is a socio-economic concept that groups the vast segment of the world’s poorest consumers, who live primarily in the informal sector (prahalad & hart 2002) and who live on less than $2.50/day (lappeman 2017). incidence of most of these groups tends to be situated in developing countries and also tends to be unbanked. prior studies, such as those of chigada and hirschfelder (2017), have recorded success stories in the areas of mfs adoption amongst the bop group in both kenya and zimbabwe. examples of mfs in these countries include m-pesa in kenya and ecocash in zimbabwe (mago & chitokwindo 2014; ouma, odongo & were 2017). whilst most studies focussed on the actual applications that facilitate mobile payments (m-payments) and mobile banking, some recent reports have paid more consideration to the impacts of new technological innovations such as near field communication (nfc) within the mfs arena (chigada & hirschfelder 2017; jenkins & ophoff 2016; richardson & callegari 2017; shaikh, karjaluoto & chinje 2015). although these studies explain some of the amalgamated factors associated with the adoption of mfs by the bop group, there have been limited studies within the south african context that explain and provide insights into specific factors that influence bop group adoption of mfs. the relevance of understanding these factors in the south african context is paramount as the south african bop market forms approximately 70% to 75% of the consumer population, with a high incidence of mobile cellular phone users (chipp, corder & kapelianis 2013). based on this gap, the objective of this study is to examine the factors contributing to the bop group’s behavioural intention (bi) to adopt mfs in south africa. the study uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut2) as the initial basis for explaining the intention to use an information system and their ensuing usage behaviour (venkatesh, thong & xu 2012). the theory is further adapted by including moderating variables of culture from hofstede’s cultural dimensions (hofstede 2010). the rest of the article is arranged as follows: the section ‘literature review’ provides related work on mfs and the model development. this is then followed by the section ‘methodology’ that details the research methods and techniques employed. the results section presents the findings of the study and the subsequent section discusses the findings. the final section concludes the study. literature review mobile financial services mobile financial services refer to mobile-based financial services provided through devices such as smartphones or tablets to the unbanked or underbanked to perform finance-related functions (bourreau & valletti 2015). mobile financial services are categorised into two groups, namely mobile banking (m-banking), a channel that enables a customer to interact with a bank through a mobile device, such as a mobile phone or tablet (barnes & corbitt 2003), and m-payments, conducting payment transactions by using mobile devices to relocate money or funds from a payer to a receiver through a mediating party such as the global system for mobile communications (gsm) network operated by a mobile network operator (dahlberg et al. 2006). mobile financial services are increasingly being perceived to be indispensable in emerging economies because of their ability to promote financial inclusion, stimulate economic growth and bring about significant economic opportunities (dziwornu, anagba & aniapam 2018). with mfss, users of mobile phones can perform several financial functions such as check account balances, review recent transactions, transfer funds, pay bills, locate atms, deposit cheques and manage investments conveniently, quickly and securely from their mobile (lowry 2016). rural users can now access low-cost financial services in remote areas where formal banking is deemed not to be feasible (shaikh & karjaluoto 2015). despite these benefits, and the fact that mfs is seen as a vehicle for achieving poverty reduction and more inclusive economic growth (demirgüç-kunt et al. 2015), the level of evolution and uptake has varied by country and this is a concern for countries in the sub-saharan africa, which tend to have some of the lowest rates of financial inclusion globally (34%; paelo 2017). previous studies in south africa have showed that mfs such as m-pesa have not been successful (mothobi & grzybowski 2017). this has been mainly attributed to, amongst other factors, different market preconditions, poor marketing and distribution (chigada & hirschfelder 2017). other researchers take the view that this is partly because the republic of south africa (rsa) has the most technologically advanced, financially liquid and accessible banking system on the african continent (rouse 2017), thereby negatively impacting any ideas to transform the traditional banking services into mobile money services that can include all, even the bop (chigada & hirschfelder 2017). given that in south africa alone, incidence of smartphones is now projected at 41% and is projected to grow by a further 3 million users by 2023 (statista 2020); it is imperative to understand how those in the bop perceive mfs and their intentions to adopt mfs. factors influencing adoption adoption of technology has traditionally been studied by using one or a combination of the innovation diffusion theory (rogers 2010), technology acceptance model (davis 1989; davis, bagozzi & warshaw 1989), theory of reasoned action (ajzen & fishbein 1980) and the utaut (venkatesh et al. 2012). in this study utaut2 is used as a starting point for theorising, mainly because of the nature of its inherent constructs that make it suitable for studying mfs (hew at al. 2015, musa, khan & alshare 2015). the constructs associated with utaut2 are effort expectancy (ee), facilitating conditions (fcs), habit, hedonic motivation (hm), performance expectancy (pe), price value (pv) and social influence (si). performance expectancy refers to one’s confidence in the technology’s capability to assist in task performance. when particularised to mfs, several studies have reported that pe has a significant direct and indirect effect over the adoption of m-payment (oliveira et al. 2016) and was perceived as a significant antecedent of usage intention towards m-payment financial services (lee et al. 2012). the implication is therefore that pe has a positive effect on bi of individuals at the bop to use m-payments (h1). effort expectancy is defined as ‘the degree of ease associated with consumers’ use of technology’ (venkatesh et al. 2012:159). nistor et al. (2014) found that ee has a significant effect on bi to use mobile internet services. similar results are reported by bankole, bankole and brown (2017). from this perspective, ee has the potential to positively affect the bi of individuals at the bop to use m-payments (h2). social influence refers to the social pressure to use a technology. given that si can be seen to be meaningfully and positively correlated with intention to use m-payments in south africa (killian & kabanda 2017), this study hypothesises that si factors have a positive effect on bi of individuals at the bops to use m-payments (h3). facilitating conditions refer to the existence of and the acknowledgement of resource and support available for the usage of the technology (mahfuz et al. 2016). using m-payments requires enabling resources and services connected to the internet such as using a mobile phone or a tablet, which give the ability to download applications, along with knowledge of mobile service networks and privacy and security. a favourable set of fcs will lead to greater intent to use m-payments (hew et al. 2015). it therefore follows that fcs would have a positive effect on bi of individuals at the bops to use m-payments (h4). hedonic motivation is a measure of the pleasure resulting from the use of technology (brown & venkatesh 2005) and has been determined to perform an important role in defining technology acceptance and usage (yang & kim 2012). a recent study in kenya found that aesthetic and self-gratification values are indicators of customer inclination to pre-adoption choice behaviour to make use of m-pesa financial offerings (omigie et al. 2017). on these grounds, this study hypothesises the hm factors that affect bi of individuals at the bop positively in using m-payments (h5). the pv construct is defined as ‘consumers cognitive trade-offs between the perceived benefits and cost of using various applications’ (venkatesh et al. 2012:161). in the case of m-payments, it may include the subscription fee, transactional fees and data fees together with additional package charges where valid. therefore, pv has been observed to positively influence usage behaviour when the technology usage benefits are perceived to outweigh the cost (yang et al. 2012; wang & yi 2012). prior studies have reported that perceived value influences bi towards m-payment and m-banking applications (oloko et al. 2014). on these grounds, it is hypothesised that pv has a positive effect on the bi of individuals at the bop to use m-payments (h6). habitual usage or habit reproduces the various outcomes of past experiences (venkatesh et al. 2012). the consistency of previous behaviour is considered a principal cause of current behaviour (joosten, bundy & einfeld 2009). prior studies have shown how habit influenced mobile banking (baptista & oliveira 2015) and bi to use mobile apps (hew et al. 2015). the study therefore hypothesises that habit has a positive effect on the bi of individuals at the bop to use m-payments (h7). behavioural intention has traditionally been seen as the ‘sole proximal determinant of it adoption and use’ (maruping et al. 2017:623). on this note, we hypothesise that bi has a positive effect on usage behaviour of individuals at the bop to use m-payments (h8). perceived risk (pr) is understood to be a consumer’s individual expectation of suffering a loss in pursuit of a desired outcome (lee, warkentin & johnston 2016). the role of risk as a stronger predictor of intention to adopt or use mobile transactions has been documented in the past (chemingui & ben lallouna 2013; di castri, grossman & sihin 2015; martins et al. 2014). in this study it is therefore hypothesised that pr has a negative influence on the bi of individuals at the bop to use m-payments and consequently also on the usage behaviour (h9). perceived risk has been found to be closely associated with trust, and several studies have established that trust and pr negatively influence each other (hong 2015; kim et al. 2009; liao, liu & chen 2011; pavlou 2003); whereas others have demonstrated a positive relationship between trust and the decision to use m-banking, m-payments and e-commerce (masinge 2010). based on the given discussion, the following hypothesis is deduced: trust has a positive influence on the bi individuals at the bop to use m-payments and consequently also on their usage behaviour (h10). khan, hameed and khan (2017) identified the cultural constructs of uncertainty avoidance (ua) and collectivism as key moderators in the explanation of online banking bi and usage behaviour through the examination of online banking technology in the asian context. according to hofstede (2010), individualism and/or collectivism (i/c) represents the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. south africa within this context is said to have a high score of 65 on individualism, and it is therefore expected that decisions will be taken by users around the technology, whilst in greater collectivist-influenced cultures individuals will base their technology usage decisions of others’ opinion (baptista & oliveira 2015). with this understanding, we hypothesise that i/c cultural factors moderate the link amongst usage behaviour and bi such that a stronger relationship will be found where collectivist values are present (h11). hofstede (2010) also posited that ua was a key factor to consider when assessing bi and usage behaviour. the realm of the avoidance of uncertainty describes the discomfort felt by members of society when faced with uncertainty and/or ambiguity (hofstede, 2010). the greater the level of ua, the lower the corresponding technology acceptance rate will be. south africa scores 49 on this dimension and thus has a low penchant for avoiding uncertainty. it is therefore hypothesised that ua can be used as a moderator for the link between usage behaviour and bis such that the relationship strength will be diminished in the presence of higher levels of ua (h12). based on this discussion, table 1 summarises the identified hypotheses, which influence bis and usage behaviour and will be used as the basis of investigation for this research. table 1: hypothesis development. methodology research approach this study was driven by a positivism stance and used the hypotheses constructed in table 1 in the development of a research instrument. the target population was the south african bop group (who are prone to financial exclusion) identified by residential location, mode of transport they use and job types (nattrass & seekings 2001). researchers in the developing fintech landscape have noted that customers who are most likely to download and use m-payments are millennials, macro, medium and small enterprises (smmes) and the bop group. these three segments are particularly sensitive to costs and to the improved consumer experience that the mfs delivery and distribution affords them (dietz, härle & khanna 2016). sample and questionnaire researchers in the developing financial technologies landscape have noted that the customers who are most likely to download and use m-payments are millennials, smmes and the underbanked. these three segments are particularly sensitive to costs and to the improved consumer experience that the mfs delivery and distribution afford them (dietz et al. 2016). to gain a statistical significant sample at a 95% confidence level, a target of 300 people equitably distributed across the 3 mentioned segments was set (wagner & shimshak 2007). as such, focus was placed on the bop group as well as millennials who are identified as individuals born from the early 1980s to early 2000s (howe & strauss 2009). the millennials identified were characterised through the presence of bop group characteristics, specifically the irregular usage of a bank account when monitored on an annual basis, implying a heavier reliance on other financial service providers (simpson & buckland 2009). the sample was from peri-urban dwelling residents in south african townships. these areas, contextually, make it difficult to control activities taking place such as exponential growth of informal settlements, unplanned road infrastructure and uncontrolled traffic circulation, badly located small enterprises and ad hoc distribution of services and infrastructure (macagnano 2002). alexandra, shonganguve, mamelodi, mabopane and middleburg were the townships used in this study. these townships have undergone major changes both in their physical structure and in their administrative reorganisation. sampling was conducted randomly, with the first question of the survey testing whether the participant has access to a smartphone device. this eliminated the need for a non-probability sampling approach as this will regulate eligible respondents and yield a stratified sample. the questionnaire that was applied for the survey questions was based on the hypothesis development of table 1 and was designed in microsoft excel. two field agents conducted face-to-face interviews with respondents. the data were collected, captured and prepared by using microsoft excel and the cleaned raw data were then imported into statistica and smart pls 3 for analysis. prior to data collection, permission to conduct the study was requested from the university’s ethics committee. once permission was granted, the objectives, purpose and motivation for this research were explained to all participants, as it was indicated on the cover letter and any questions that they had regarding confidentiality were addressed. participants were informed prior to commencing with the questionnaire that their participation was voluntary, and they can at any point decide to withdraw their participation for this research. the voluntary nature of the study was also explained to the participants. respondents were not obliged to complete the entire process if any level of uneasiness arose. respondents’ identities were strictly confidential and remained anonymous throughout the study. data collection the research instrument made use of a likert scale of 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree) linked to the identified hypotheses. demographic factors of age, race, gender, education and access to smartphones were included. data collection commenced in june 2018 and was completed in september 2018. all data were collected by using a hardcopy survey because of the consciousness that the respondents are from bop and are not able to easily access the internet. prior to the survey being conducted, respondents were given a short demonstration of the most popular mobile payments app in south africa. respondents were shown the mobile payments app’s ui (user interface) and a ux (use experience) demonstration of its functionality. the most inexpensive nfc-enabled smartphone currently found in the south african market was used for the demonstration. this demonstrated the minimum system requirements for downloading and using a mobile payments app. this system demonstration helped to inform the respondent of the usability and ease of use of the mobile payments app being used in the survey. two field agents who were former recruitment agents for wizzit online bank were contracted to perform the field work. a total of 316 respondents were approached, and the final valid set after exclusions was 311. the data gathered were analysed by using statistica for the descriptive statistics and to determine the skewness and kurtosis scores. factor and reliability analyses, as well as a correlation analysis, were conducted. smart pls 3 was used for structured equation modelling and factor analysis. statistical analysis validity testing discriminant validity and internal reliability were employed to verify the measurement model (chin 1998). internal reliability was evaluated by using cronbach’s alpha whilst the composite reliability which is required to have an acceptance level indicator of above 0.70 was calculated by assessing the variation in factor loadings (hair et al. 2006). uncertainty avoidance is the only variable that scored lower than the required 0.70 indicator with a value of 0.586. all other values met the required 0.70 as illustrated in table 2. in addition, convergent validity was tested by using average variance extracted (ave). convergent validity is suitable when constructs have an ave of at least 0.50 (hair et al. 2016). according to table 2, only 2 out of the 13 constructs presented in the study fell below this value. habit and ua scored 0.457 and 0.337, respectively, whilst the rest of the constructs’ ave values range from 0.665 to 0.895. table 2: internal and external consistency and validity testing. skewness and kurtosis analyses a key part of statistical analysis is to explain both the location and variability of a data set using normal distribution as a base. this explanation is best done by referring to the skewness and kurtosis of the data set. skewness measures the symmetry or lack thereof of the distribution of the data. kurtosis on the other hand measures whether the data are either heavy-tailed (having many outliers) or light-tailed (lacking outliers) relative to a normal distribution. a uniform distribution tends to be a rare occurrence (heckert et al. 2002). in this study, as shown in table 3, on an average, the data set had few outliers, with kurtosis values closely set around the mean and minimal skewness found. table 3: skewness and kurtosis analyses. structural equation modelling the structural equation model was developed to identify the associations between the constructs in the research model (hair et al. 2016). for this study, the relationship between dependent and independent variables was tested by path coefficients (β). according to hair et al. (2016) path coefficients above 0.20 are identified as significant whereas those with values below 0.10 are not usually considered to be significant, provided that values are standardised. the model was found to explain 70.7% of the variance in bi to use mobile payments (0.707) as shown in figure 1. the highest correlations can be seen between bi and ee, fcs, habit, pr, i/c, pe, si, trust and uncertainty avoidance, as depicted in table 4. figure 1: structural equation modelling. table 4: correlation analysis. ethical considerations all ethical conditions were met and approved by the commerce faculty ethics in research committee. this was cleared using 2018_ mkhcle003 as reference number for the study. the objectives, purpose and motivation for this research was explained to all participants as it was indicated on the cover letter and any questions that they had regarding confidentiality were addressed. they were informed prior to commencing with the questionnaire that their participation was voluntary, and they can at any point decide to withdraw their participation for this research. results descriptive statistics the survey was conducted in three south african townships over a period of 3 months between june 2018 and september 2018. the results show that 65% of the total sample identified themselves as male, whilst the remaining 35% identified themselves as female. four age brackets were used: 16–24 at 20%; 25–34 at 41%; 35–50 at 36%; and lastly 50 and over at 3%, in categorising the sample’s age distribution. more than half of the sample (56%) classified themselves as working and 48% earning r5000 or more. the majority of the study’s sample had some level of education, the largest group of which being ‘technical artisan’ at 43%, followed by ‘some high school or matriculated’ at 27%, ‘college, university or post matric’ at 23%, ‘no formal education’ at 4% and ‘primary school’ at 3%. south africa displays a relatively high percentage of households with bank accounts, estimated to be between 51% and 80% (chigada & hirschfelder 2017). it is therefore no surprise that this study’s sample had a 96% response rate for people with active bank accounts. most respondents in the sample displayed high willingness to use mobile payments (95%). empirical results the study tested the relationship between bi and cultural dimensions of ua and i/c, as well as pr and trust on the willingness to adopt and use mfs within the bop group. the bootstrap method was used to perform the t-statistics and p-values to normalise the data. table 5 highlights the path coefficients and hypothesis test results. the findings demonstrate that pe and ee influence an individual’s bi to adopt mfs, with values of β = 0.206 for pe on bi and β = 0.136 for ee on bi, respectively. these findings lead us to accept h1 and h2 and echo prior studies within the context of south africa (killian & kabanda 2017). the findings also show a moderate significant impact of hedonic motivation on bis to adopt mfs and thus h5 is accepted. respondents in this study perceived habit (β = 0.377) and trust (β = 0.176) as factors that impact their intentions to adopt mfs. hypothesis h7 and h10 are therefore accepted. finally, a very high significance can be observed between the cultural factor of ua (β = 0.252) and bis to adopt mfs. such a low score for ua implies that there is a higher propensity of technology adoption. hypothesis h12 is therefore accepted. table 5: hypothesis testing. despite the assumption from previous literature, this study found that si did not have a significant impact of intention to adopt mfs. the results show a slight significance with bi (β = 0.105). the same findings are reported regarding fcs – with low-income earners placing minimum emphasis on the significance of fcs on bi with β = 0.047. this leads to the rejection of hypothesis h4. other hypotheses not supported were pv (h6, with β = 0.033) and pr (h9 with β = 0.051). the implications of these findings are that both price and pr did not have any significant impact on bi. finally, the relationship between the cultural factor of i/c and bis to adopt mfs was inconclusive. hypothesis 11 is therefore neither rejected nor accepted. discussion of findings this study sought to examine the factors contributing to the bop group’s bi to adopt mfs in south africa. factors perceived to influence adoption of mfs amongst bop group include performance and ee, habitual usage, trust and ua. further, if bop consumers perceive enjoyment in using mfs they could potentially adopt mfs although this was not a significant factor. figure 2 shows the summary of the findings of factors perceived to influence adoption. figure 2: empirical findings of factors influencing bottom of the pyramid’s adoption of mobile financial services in south african townships. many individuals in south african bop tend to be dependents because of their low economic and literacy levels and other macroeconomic factors such as high rates of unemployment, male labour migration and premature death brought on by acquired immune deficiency syndrome (aids; schatz, madhavan & williams 2011). for example, in rural communities, people in their early 30s can become financially responsible for parents and siblings (bidwell et al. 2014). in most cases, these people work in urban areas, sending remittance to their dependents. in this situation, the use of mobile phones as a means of communication has become the norm with bop members developing a habit of using mobile phones, triggered by situational cues of receiving remittance from and communicating to the providers. this habitual usage of mobile phones impacts self-efficacy, which is highly associated with media consumption such as intention to use mobile phone or internet use (pourrazavi et al. 2014). this understanding explains why in this study, habitual usage was a significant factor towards mfs adoption. according to jai and tung (2015), those consumers who shop online and use mobile services habitually more frequently were more likely to form the habit of using mobile payments. because habitual usage influenced one’s perception of their self-efficacy, there was a strong perception that adoption of mfs would depend on the minimal effort required to use it, if it can be trusted and whether it fulfils the needs of the bop groups. mobile financial service was seen to address the needs of bop individuals because of the ubiquity of the mobile phone, which makes it easier to access finances, perform financial transactions and communicate to their significant others (waema & omwansa 2014). despite an uncertain future, and sub-saharan african culture being perceived to have ua characteristics (darley, luethge & blankson 2013), the respondents in this study did not perceive this as a threat towards their intention to adopt mfs. despite an uncertain future, and sub-saharan african culture being perceived to have ua characteristics (darley, luethge & blankson 2013), the respondents in this study did not perceive this as a threat towards their intention to adopt mfs. the implications of these findings show that south african bop consumers are not constrained by the need to have predictability and stability, but rather are ready to ‘accept uncertainty and have greater tolerance for unclear or indefinite situations’ (darley et al. 2013). these characteristics enable south african bop consumers to be flexible enough to adopt mfs if they perceive that mfs fulfils their needs and are easier to use. factors perceived not to impact adoption of mfs were si, fcs, hedonic value, pr and price value. the bop group did not perceive being pressured to adopt mfs by their peers or significant other, and the availability of fcs to adopt mfs does not seem to influence their decision to adopt mfs. these findings echo prior studies in similar contexts in south africa such as san martín and herrero (2012) who reported no significant impact of si and the fcs on online purchase intention. the findings also echo raleting and nel (2011) who showed that the availability of fcs significantly influenced ease of use. these findings also suggest that the bop group does not see high risk involved in the adoption of mfs as there is significant trust in the mobile system, which could be from previous experiences such as purchasing data. bottom of pyramid consumers in this context did not see pv as having an impact on their intentions to adopt mfs. this observation can be explained by the fact that ‘most mobile users in this country are on prepaid plans, and … users have developed various strategies to optimise data and data costs, including disconnecting themselves regularly from the mobile internet’ (mathur, schlotfeldt & chetty 2015) and using short message service (dalvit, kromberg & miya 2014). with regard to the cultural construct of i/c, the result on the intention to adopt mfs was inconclusive. we therefore cannot conclusively infer that i/c influences bops intention to adopt mfs. conclusion this study’s main aim was to understand the factors contributing to the bop group’s bi to adopt mfs in south africa. factors perceived to influence adoption of mfs amongst the bop group include performance and ee, habitual usage, trust, ua and perceived enjoyment. an interesting finding in this study is that the bop group is very optimistic with regard to how they respond to uncertainty. they have low ua implying that despite the lack of favourable conditions for mfs adoption, the bop group did not consider these as significant to influence their intention not to adopt mfs. this observation and the fact that most of these findings resonate with prior studies are an indication that despite the low socio-economic background of the bop group they are ready to partake in the adoption and use of mfss. mobile financial institutions as well as policy interventions from the public sector are therefore encouraged to expand their provision of services to include customers at the bop. limitations this study was focussed on the low-income earners’ perspective in the south african context. therefore, the inferences on culture could be different from other countries as well as the large population of immigrants and asylum seekers. in addition, the demographic sample was not fully inclusive in terms of people from other races and geographical locations in south africa who may be low-income earners, as the field work was conducted in historical black townships. suggestions for future research much research has been conducted in the m-payments and mobile banking space in the past decade. newer studies could focus on the adoption of mfss with the expressed intention of solving the issues around the financial inclusion of low-income individuals. a study on the technology readiness of low-income individuals for mobile-driven investments, innovations such as applying the power of the blockchain on traditional community savings schemes and studies on further financial products such as micro-insurance focussed on bop consumers would add value to the body of knowledge. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships, that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions c.m., a.b. and s.k. contributed equally to this research article. funding information this research received no special grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data available from the corresponding author, upon request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references ajzen, i. & fishbein, m., 1980, understanding attitudes and predicting social behaviour, prentice-hall, englewood cliffs, n.j. bankole, f.o., bankole, 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and sustainable natural resources management: learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh ranjay k. singh and amish k. sureja� abstract: community knowledge and local institutions play a significant role in sustainable comanagement, use and conservation of natural resources. looking to the importance of these resources, a project, funded by the national innovation foundation (nif), ahmedabad, india was implemented to document the community knowledge associated with agriculture and natural resources in few selected monpa tribe dominating villages of west kameng and tawang districts of arunachal pradesh, india. dynamics of various indigenous practices, gender role, culture and informal rural social institutions, cultural edges significantly contribute in managing and using the natural resources sustainably. experiential learning and location specific knowledge play a pivotal role in ecosystem sustainability. study also indicates the synergistic relation existing between local knowledge and ecological edges, thereby helping in sustaining livelihood in high altitude. indigenous resource management systems are not mere traditions but adaptive responses that have evolved over time. key words: monpa tribe, natural resources management, pastoralist, biodiversity, local institutions, community knowledge, sustainability. 1. introduction the indigenous knowledge systems (iks) to manage and enhance biodiversity and natural resources are generated through learning (pretty, 1998), saturated with spirit and culture (posey, 1999), became tuned to local needs over centuries and detailed knowledge � ranjay k. singh is assistant professor in the department of extension education and rural sociology and amish k. sureja is assistant professor in the department of vegetable science, college of horticulture and forestry, central agricultural university, pasighat-791 102, arunachal pradesh, india. e-mail:e-mail: ranjay_jbp@ rediffmail.com, ranjay_jbp@yahoo.com. part of this article was presented as a conference paper at a national conference on “arunachal pradesh: tradition in transition, linking ecology, economics and ethics” held at north eastern regional institute of science and technology, itanagar, arunachal pradesh, india from 1316 september, 2005. acknowledgement: the authors are grateful to the national innovation foundation, ahmedabad for funding the study. we would like to thank the wise men of selected villages, especially late mrs. pem dolma, mr. t. dondup and mr. tashi norbu, who have helped in the rapport-building and participatory analysis. they were an integral part of the study. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 73-102 singh and sureja 74 allowed people to adapt to social and ecological change (warren, 1992). human communities worldwide have played a central role in shaping nature’s diversity and its associated functions. both natural processes and human management have generated and sustained a vast array of genetic, species and ecological diversity. within agricultural systems the agricultural biodiversity fulfils a number of important roles, including food and livelihood security. dynamic and complex rural livelihoods usually rely on plant, animal and ecosystems’ diversity (thresher, 1992), both wild and in different stages of domestication. different types of biodiversity and natural resources conserved and used by different people at different times and in different places, contribute to the sustainable livelihood strategies in a complex fashion. in addition to contributing to environmental sustainability, agricultural biodiversity saved by local people helps to sustain many production functions both in low external input and high input-output agriculture (pimbert, 1999 and unep-cbd, 1999). however, many modernizing interventions and colonial administrations have ignored the importance of local knowledge and skills, resulting in erosion of knowledge and undermining of formal and informal institutions that were central for the sustainable management of biodiversity and natural resources (wilken, 1987 and pretty and chambers, 1993). these institutions include rules about the use of biological resources and distribution of benefits, tenure, conflict resolution mechanisms and methods of enforcing rules, cultural sanctions and beliefs (pimbert and pretty, 1995 and pimbert, 1997). while most communities want to preserve and develop their indigenous knowledge (ik) and continue to share it among community members, many have seen their knowledge begin to disappear (warren, 1990 and warren et al., 1993). lifestyle changes, in particular, have hampered the transmission of knowledge from elders to the younger generation (singh, 2004). communities may want to preserve their knowledge for a number of reasons. some communities have identified a range of economic benefits to be gained from sharing their ik with others. the local community does not want to have these economic benefits stripped from them (wavey, 1993). for example, some aspects of ik can contribute to industries such as eco-tourism (balaba, 1995), culture (posey, 1999), clothing, art, cosmetics, agriculture, etc. specific products and services, which have existing or potential markets outside the community, may be related to a community’s knowledge. the identification, preservation and use of a community’s ik can, therefore, help the community achieve its own economic development goals (balaba, 1995 and emerton, 1997a). preserving ik will also contribute to the cultural (posey, 1999) and political goals of self-identity, self-reliance and self-governance by creating a strong, ongoing appreciation within the community of its history and its roots (scott, 1994 and turiho-habwe, 1995). for many communities, these reasons will be the most important learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 75 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 ones for preserving and protecting their knowledge (emerton, 1997b). by preserving and protecting their ik and ensuring their ownership of it, local people can better enjoy and share the potentially wide range of benefits that stem from their knowledge (richards, 1993). in recent years, interest in this knowledge has greatly increased, often stimulated by the search for tribal peoples’ knowledge of medicines, sustainable use of the environment and their cultural practices and arts. looking to the importance of such treasure of community knowledge and sustainable natural resource management system, an effort has been made to learn with monpa tribe and explore their knowledge systems of natural resources use and conservation dynamics. the basic objective of this study was to examine and learn the facts that local people perceive, conserve and use towards managing natural resources for sustaining their livelihoods and ecosystem. 2. research methodology looking to the nature of study, a number of anthropological and ethnographical tools such as interviews, life histories and direct observations have been adopted to explore the data. these tools help to shape a consistent story about connections between culture in an ethnic group and its dynamics with natural resource use (jacobs-huey, 2002). consistency with collateral support and physical evidence help in controlling bias while maintaining the high quality and integrity of information gathered through ethnographical work. a survey questionnaire was applied to a conventional mixed sample and open ended questions were asked. this survey was the main source of quantitative information about the features and components of indigenous agro-biodiversity, natural resources and women’s role in its management. although the survey is an effective research tool, it only provides a static depiction of processes and for that reason we choose to back up survey results with data collected using other tools such as life histories, participant observations and field transects. for the sampling, 5 villages each from dirang and tawang were selected randomly based on the ethnicity, types of agriculture, remoteness, forest cover and dependency of monpa tribe on the use of natural resources. from each village, 12 farmers (thus total 120) having the age of more than 50 years and diverse knowledge of farming systems along with overall natural resources were selected randomly from the list provided by the village extension worker. focus group discussions were organized separately with men and women to learn about the dynamics of natural resources like use of paisang (oak tree, quercus griffithi l.) leaves, management of agricultural crops, use of aquatic and non-aquatic biodiversity and use of local animals’ products. singh and sureja 76 to have the comprehensive knowledge of natural resources and agricultural practices, the resource flow maps were developed in each village with the old age and knowledgeable farmers to know the resource use pattern at village level. to measure the cultural value of indigenous crops, the use of crop product on certain occasions like festivals, marriage and meeting the needs of ethnicity were used as the criteria and has been scored on three point continuum i.e. high (3), medium (2) and low cultural values (1). food value of local crops was also measured using the same scale adopting the nutritive value, extent of use, frequency of use and compatibility of foods with socio-cultural values as the criterions. similarly, the economic value of local crops was ascertained by using three point continuums as high, medium and low with the score of 3, 2 and 1, respectively, based on the local market, income efficiency, local availability, scope of using local crops byproducts and the extent of cost involved in the inputs used for cultivation. the inference has been drawn by calculating the mean score of each crop. these activities yielded in-depth information about issues, trends and concerns of biodiversity and natural resources. informants were chosen to include three different generations from the community (maundu, 1995). the purpose here was to build qualitative approximations to explain social and individual processes, phenomena and changes over the generation. this was done by focusing on the internal experience of those individuals who are active participants in the local scenario. the fieldwork was carried out with a multidisciplinary team consisting of experts from crop science, as well as the state department of agriculture, horticulture and forests. prior to leaving for the study area, the researchers have discussed about methodology and tools of study with village chief and few selected knowledgeable persons of local resources (wisemen) and modifications have been made accordingly. the field process involved daily rebriefing and crosschecking to identify gaps in data collection and to recognize emerging issues for further probing. informed consent has been obtained from the community for sharing and publishing their knowledge system. while seeking informed consent, the researchers explained the purpose of the research, sponsors of research, potential benefits and possible problems associated with the research for people and the environment. during ongoing communication of research, the objectives, methods, findings and interpretations from inception to the completion of the project was discussed with community members to validate the facts. at each stage, researchers have respected the privacy, dignity, cultures, traditions and rights of monpa community. they were given opportunity to read the summarized facts of research through their gaon burha. a gaon burha is the chief of a village. he is usually selected by the villagers, learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 77 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 as a result of his higher age and experience. an explanatory research design was adopted to draw inference from the study (singh, 2004). 3. results and discussion 3.1 sustainable natural resource management by brokpa (pastoralists) natural resources have for centuries been an integral part of peoples’ diet, economy and culture. for people living in or near forests, plants and animals provided foods, medicines, hides, building materials, income and were the source of inspiration. river provided fish, water and other food and construction materials and soil provide a source of sustenance (steiner, 2004). appreciation of participatory approaches and sociological aspects in these natural resource management, agricultural research, and extension science promote local knowledge as a key to sustainable development (brokensha et al., 1980; richards, 1985; chambers et al., 1989; warren et al.; 1989 and homann, 2004). many facets of local people’s knowledge are elaborated here. it is all based on empirical research. aspects of natural resources, soil and vegetation taxonomy, indigenous agrobiodiversity, water and forestry resources and tenure arrangement concepts are described to see the dynamics and rationale behind community based natural resource management (tamale, 1994 and homann, 2004). for a long time, local people and brokpa (pastoralists) have developed location specific holistic strategies of sustainable management of natural resources and improved livelihoods at the high altitudes of dirang and tawang. brokpa are semi-nomadic pastoralist people of the monpa tribe who live mostly in forest regions. they are experts in making yak ghee, milk cheese (cchurpi) and products from their animals’ skins. these are supplied to trading markets. pastoral communities have always played an important role in sustaining the rangeland ecosystem by means of traditional norms and access strategies. periodic migration by brokpa from one place to other ensures that natural resources are not used to the point of exhaustion and ultimate extinction. in addition, their herds browse the vegetation, stomp the soil, transport seeds of wild species and fertilize the land, all of which benefit the rangeland and the maintenance of its biological diversity. rangeland is conserved through sophisticated techniques embedded in complex social and cultural institutions. more than 80 percent of the surface area is situated in a rainfed ecosystem and a great extent of this consists of rangelands, largely inhabited, cared for and used by the brokpa pastoralists until recent government and other external influences began to upset their equilibrium with the traditional natural resources on which they depend and its management pattern. other studies also indicate singh and sureja 78 that this kind of rangeland ecosystems can effectively be managed and used in a sustainable manner by local pastoralists (finkel and darkoh, 1991 and kisamba-mugerwa, 1995). for three decades, there has been no policy aimed at the upliftment of pastoralist community. it left them in a state of despair. during the field trip, local communities overwhelmingly admitted that under present conditions they would eventually be forced to give up their traditions and livelihoods, much to their regret. it implied that they would be incurring enormous cultural and material loss to the state. the pastoral communities comprise 40-50 per cent of the total village population of the study area. over the years their number has been declining due to modernisation and cultural erosion. notwithstanding existing economic difficulties, pastoral communities produce about 8-10 livestock products and 25-30 per cent ethnic foods. modernity has not affected the life style of brokpa living in far-flung areas. however, some brokpa near to town of tawang have resorted to joining the army and starting their own enterprises. these activities have affected their traditional way of life. the brokpa, who have a nuclear family system, live in separate family units after getting married and have the social norm to divide their property equally among the children. the land selected for community grazing should be of slight slope to avoid soil erosion and sustain natural vegetation. dung and urine of sheep are utilized by local farmers to fertilise and enrich the soil. fertility of the land thus depends partially on the number of sheeps available. as a rule for resource management the brokpa uses some part of his earnings on making the soil fertile. for a desired piece of area, a temporary bamboo or wooden fencing is erected and during night, sheep herding (terske) is arranged. a hut called brokbrang, locally constructed of stones and wood, is used as the residence during grazing. for this practice, they get their remuneration in terms of local grains and indigenous fermented alcoholic beverage (lohpani and rakshi) made from local varieties of rice, barley, finger millet, maize and wheat. land where sheep herding has been arranged is utilized in different manners, depending on the types of soil and the nature of crops. the local agricultural land is categorized in three broad categories i.e. top hill agriculture, middle hill agriculture and foothill agriculture. accordingly, indigenous maize and paddy crops are grown in foothills, while finger millet is planted in the middle hills and wheat and barley are grown in top portions of the hill. preference is given for sheep herding in the top parts of the hills, because here barley, wheat and some temperate vegetables like mann (allium sp.), laipatta (brassica spp.), local potato, onion, etc. are grown, where carrying and transportation of organic manure is difficult. learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 79 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 3.2 rangeland utilization strategy: dynamics of livestock rearing and natural resource management the pastoralists move their herds throughout the year to optimise utilisation of rangeland resources for maximum meat and milk production. as a result of movement and grazing, the herds stay healthy and produce a reliable supply of milk and meat that meet the demands of brokpa households. the elder pastoralist sees and conducts ecological skirting, which includes identifying and classifying plants and precisely assessing the water-holding capacity of distant pastures. they then draw up plans for the movement of herds on the basis of this report. they conduct transhuman intra-annual and inter-annual livestock movements, not only in search of forage and water, but also to carry out the organized skirting of ecology of the area. for grazing of yak, dzomo (a female crossbred of yak), cows and sheep, there is a private and common system. every hamlet has its own communal grazing land. along with this, many clusters of hamlets also select one common grazing land, which is managed by community initiatives. the grazing lands are selected near the available local water resources (nala, small and large rivers, as well as ponds and fountains) where the soil is light black in color with high percentages of clay, full of vegetation for the grazing of sheep, goats, cows, horses and yak. every grazing land is named in local parlance based on the name of hills, rivers, lakes and forest. different rules and norms, formulated by elder community members and headed by gaon burha, are strictly followed in managing the common grazing lands. these arrangements have a bearing on issues, such as group grazing and avoiding over-grazing or non-seasonal access. if the animal of a particular person has grazed or entered into the grazing lands of a neighbouring hamlet, then there would be a conflict which is resolved by an indigenous institution called chhopa (governed by the elder members of community and headed by gaon burha). to settle the conflict, the suffering person consults elderly people and the gaon burha of the hamlet. the matter is placed before this indigenous institution with the required proof of evidence. after looking to the gravity of conflict, the goan burha passes a consensus judgement, taking into consideration the jury’s confidential opinion. the fine is then imposed on the person who is guilty. this fine may vary from rs 1000-5000 and sometimes even rs 10 000. earlier in the 1940s and 1950s, fines were determined in terms of the local grain crops (maize, barley, wheat and finger millet) and the local breed of sheep and yak. singh and sureja 80 3.3 grazing system, use of animal products and the management of natural resources for the grazing of yak, sheep, goats and other animals, a particular date is decided by the people of a hamlet to avoid conflict and instead try to sustain the available forage and grass. all pastoralists take part in moving their animals away for grazing. the total number of grazing days are decided in advance, beyond which if someone is accessing the grazing land more, then he is fined by the goan burha. this mechanism helps to sustain the rationale and equitable benefit share arising from grazing land throughout the year. at the onset of summer, the pastoralist climbs with the animals towards the up-hills for grazing, thus maintaining the whole year cycle. the local religion plays a spiritual role in the process of accepting the conservation and preservation of natural resources. the buddhist religion restricts the member of monpa tribe not to plug the bamboo shoot at an early stage for consumption. it is considered to be as bad as killing a baby. the dynamics of the ecosystem and food security has forced them to use bamboo leaves as the fodder for their yak and dzomo. therefore, the cutting of grass is restricted from yak grazing lands. however, under scarcity, bamboo leaves are cut and fed to the dzomo. when ice-freezes cover the grasses during winter season, local yaks are allowed to scratch the ice and graze. figure 1. model of pastoralists’ knowledge in opportunistic range management (adapted from sandford, 1983). learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 81 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 according to the customary law, the sheep and goats are moved towards lower area of hills (free from ice-cover) where grasses are easily available. up to that point in time, the local pastoralist could move up to the khalaktang hills (highest accessible point of local hill near tawang) to search for grasses during the summer season. in the winter, they will return to their original place in search of grazing for the sheep. the application of most aspects of pastoralists’ knowledge depends on the ability to pursue what is called the ‘opportunistic approach’ [(sandford, 1983 (figure 1)] in which the number of livestock grazing is continuously adjusted according to the available forage. an important issue is to determine to what extent the creation of such dynamic natural resource management areas at high altitude is possible. judgements of this nature are usually taken, based on prevailing social and cultural perspectives. research findings point to the fact that natural resources at high altitudes are owned by individuals and groups in terms of customary and legal rules (elmqvist et al., 2004). in tradition of the brokpa, only the male folk play a major role in moving the herds for the purposes of grazing. the females are responsible for the domestic work and making ethnic foods for the males. brokpas are responsible for supplying milk products and meat of yak to different villages after the months of summer grazing. yielding potentials of calf is given due recognition for their proper rearing. if the yak calf is not of a good breed and healthy, it is likely to be killed by brokpa and meat is kept inside the skin of the same calf which is later supplied to the livestock owner. the skin of calf and other adult animals are also used as container for preserving the cchurpi (milk based indigenous cheese) and ghee. dum (wool) is only made from local breed of sheep around tawang and dirang. ghee, wool and chhurpi are made around the borders of arunachal pradesh and tibet. dum, harvested from local sheep are not used for weaving sweaters, but instead for other cloths like trousers, shirts and caps. it is also the best source of income for empowering the monpa women. the dum is sold in a unit of hrang (7 hrang = 1 kg). now government has taken initiative and the department of veterinary services is making an effort to introduce improved breeds of sheep and yak in order to improve the milk yield and the accompanying income. however, local brokpas do not respond positively to these initiatives. they claim that these breeds do not match to their culture and ethnic identity. to cure diarrhoea, influenza and dysentery in sheep and yak, the tuber of a famous local plant called “tshando” [a small shrub found between cracks in the rocks, producing blue coloured flowers and germinate naturally in temperate zones] is used as an ethno-veterinary medicine. the tender shoots of this plant is given in a mild and moist form. very small quantity (sometimes measured in mg) is given to animals with local beer made from indigenous barley or maize. singh and sureja 82 yak live and grow well in the temperate climate at the elevation of more than 3000m above sea level where snowfall occurs and temperatures vary between 8-15oc. in such climates, yak produces good quality wool and meat. the wool harvested from the local yak is used for making various types of cloth and other items. for example, the monpa tribe residing around the areas of tawang bordering china, make bags from yak wool and use them for carrying food materials to agricultural fields. for rearing yak, grazing lands are kept separate, because these animals need more grazing on a single site. this is in stark contrast with sheep grazing. the sheeps need more frequent trampling and can be taken along roadsides for grazing. the yak and dzomo breeds are reared during the calving period under the prevailing local grazing and forest conditions. after calving, the yak is fed with a mixture of common salt and flour of finger millet, barley and maize. it helps in recovering the pain after calf delivery and increases the milk yield. in the 1950s, feeding common salt from tibet was a fixed custom and was very popular among the farmers with yak and dzomo. they obtained the product by means of the barter systems prevalent between the monpa tribes of tawang and tibet. the exchange was not only in salt, but also many types of crop seeds, such as local beans, pea, carrot, onion, garlic, ginger, milk products [cchurpi (cheese), ghee etc], wheat, barely, etc. after independence, local people increasingly resorted to feeding common salt to their yak. in beginning it was difficult to make the yak adapt to the indian salt. at a specified barter point in the hills, brokpa would exchange the yak and sheep milk products for grains such as maize, barley and wheat in dealings with local villagers. but now this system of barter has changed with the passage of time. one farmer, mr. t. dondup, explained: previously the brokpa were accustomed only to get the grains of indigenous crops during the exchange of milk products, but now they are taking cash and thereby the milk products which were our cultural identity are going to be eroded. at present, if anyone needs these products to eat, he/she will find it in a nearby market. this changed system has affected the food habit of brokpa and instead of eating maize, barley, wheat and fingermillet they are eating fine rice. the government policy of supplying rice from cooperatives has affected our cropping system and thus weakened the dynamics of exchange of grain and milk products and also led to the cultural erosion. 3.4 dynamics of indigenous agro-biodiversity, community knowledge and natural resource management observations revealed that local farmers are quite aware of the importance of indigenous agro-biodiversity and natural resource management. over the years they have learned from nature to determine locations specifically suited for cultivating the indigenous crops and forestry. maize is a staple food crop, managed, produced and conserved with the pine trees (pinus learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 83 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 roxburghi) and paisang tree (oak). dirang is situated at an altitude of about 6000 ft amsl and falls under a rainfed agro-ecosystem of the eastern himalayan region. accordingly, farmers grow and manage indigenous maize along with other local food crops giving more emphasis to pulses and millets. local maize is more preferred and can be used in a variety of ethnic foods, more compatible to the food habits and religious as well as the ethnicity of the monpa tribe (singh, 2003a). for instance, these foods are offered during the buddhist festival of lohsar. local varieties of maize are sown in the last week of april, to first week of may each year. the sowing of maize is subjected to observations on the biometeorology of the new leaves of two major indicator plants – solubalu (a small tree producing white flowers which indicates the onset of rain) and panchangmeto (a shrub with deep green and brown spot leaves, indicating increasing temperature). the priest (lama) of gompa (a buddhist temple) decides the time of agricultural practices based on moh (an ancient scripture, the interpretation of which is done only by selected lama’s). most of the agroecosystem is situated in undulating land with blackish to reddish brown soil of medium texture with attributes of moisture stress. to improve the productivity of maize and save energy, time, labour, money and ultimately conserve natural resources, farmers have developed location specific practices. the dry leaves of pine and paisang tree are collected, either from community forests or private lands, by women. they are kept, either in shade or behind foothills in the direction of winds to avoid direct sunlight and wind on the leaves. in the sloppy maize field, pine leaves are preferred while in plain field dry leaves of paisang are more preferred. it provides nutrients to soil and the oil content of leaves help to bind the soil particles. this is particularly the case in light textured soil and undulating land. interestingly, following these practices facilitates in weed suppression (due to allelopathic effect), leads to the improvement of soil fertility and total biomass in local varieties of maize, rajma bean (frenchbean/common bean), soybean and cucumber. the seeds of the local varieties of maize are spread in the fallow land and ploughed using a local plough drawn by a bull. then dry leaves of paisang and pine are spread uniformly over the soil, primarily by the women. there are three indigenous varieties of maize namely fenthina (dwarf variety, duration 3 months), thinasheru (tall variety, duration 5 months) and baklangboo [medium tall variety, sown for the festival of lohsar [january to february], duration 4 months]. these indigenous varieties are location specific and grown under varying micro-farming situations (singh, 2003b, singh, 2003c and singh, 2003d). fenthina is grown in the most fertile soil near kitchen gardens. thinasheru is grown in main agricultural land where the soil is black to brown and land is undulating, while baklangboo is cultivated in gentle slopes and shifting lands. on an average plant to plant spacing is 0.6m in tall varieties and 0.3-0.5m in dwarf varieties. with the exception of the fenthina maize, singh and sureja 84 the local leaves of paisang and pine tree are also equally popular in other crops. the most popular use for maize is in the preparation of local beer (cchang), which is used to cure many human and animal diseases. it is an integral ingredient in the feed for milking cows, pigs and poultry. the selection of crop species and types of cropping (mostly mixed) is decided by a whole community or village. the objective is to avoid crop loss from wild animals and insect pests and spread the risk among community members. if maize is grown after using the pine tree and paisang trees leaves as natural mulch, there is a better opportunity to diversify the cropping systems by incorporating indigenous varieties of rajma bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.), lab lab bean (lab lab purpureus), black gram (vigna mungo l.) and soybean (glycine max) as mixed crops. besides, it also minimises the inputs needed for sole cropping. to conserve these indigenous crops along with paisang and pine trees, a festival chheskaran is celebrated during march through which spirit is induced to protect crops from insect pests and evil spirits. for the outstanding efforts in in-situ and ex-situ indigenous agrobiodiversity conservation, the monpa women deserve praise. they resort to a variety of strategies that are primarily compatible with their customs, culture, socio-economic conditions, and biophysical parameters of locality, exchange systems of biodiversity, spirit, food habits and ethnic values (singh, 2003a). the women folk select the seeds from healthy plants. they then grade and store it with the seeds of timbur (xanthoxylum spp, a spice) to avoid insect pests during the time of storage. they decide in what kind of bin these crop seeds would be stored. they even know from experience the proper storage temperature. the women have a range of diversified gene banks of indigenous varieties of wheat, barley (bong, with or without awns), phaphda teeta (buckwheat), phaphda meetha (buckwheat), paddy (sungsungbara), finger millet (mandua), indian bean (lab-lab purpureus), rajmabean (phaseolus vulgaris), millet (bundagmo, panicum psilopodium var. psilopodium), coriander (ush), bottle gourd (lau), cucumber (manthong), soybean (lee), pumpkin (broomsa peela, broomsa saphed, cucurbita moschata), bitter gourd (kaibandu), spinach (taktak), field pea, mustard species (lai saag, varieties leme and penche, brassica spp), garlic (lamm), mann bada (allium spp.), mann chhota (allium spp.), onion (chong), millet (moo, panicum psilopodium var. coloradum) and chilli (solu) and varieties of maize (fenthina, thinasheru and baklangboo). many spices, like star anise (small and big varieties), timbur (prickly ash, zanthoxylum armatum) and corn pepper are commercially available from local markets and are sold by women. these are a rich source of income. two very famous local beers called rakshi and lohpani are beverages from indigenous varieties of maize, barley, finger millet and fox-tail millet which are culturally important for them. brokpas act as a bridge in the indigenous seed exchange chain in times of barter. they often touch the learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 85 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 boundary of tibet and bhutan and through this process their ancestors brought more popular local varieties of indian bean, millets, soybean and cucurbits. looking to the importance of these genetic materials for sustainable agriculture, these have already been pursued for its conservation at the national bureau of plant genetic resources (nbpgr), new delhi in the name of monpas as conservator. the farmers of tawang select most of their agricultural land at the foothill where the soil is black and permanent cultivation is possible (70-80 per cent, kshumleng), while jhum cultivation is done in about 10 per cent of the agricultural land in the studied areas. jhum cultivation takes place on the basis of forest cover density and is done for growing a number of local crops. but the same tribe around dirang does jhum cultivation popularly for raising finger millet nurseries, which later on will be transplanted in gently sloping land; and to grow some vegetables and plantation of fruit crops. the cultivation of indigenous crops like garlic, amaranths, mustard, barley, pea, wheat, fox-tail millet, pearl millet, finger millet, barnyard millet, beans, soybean, carrot, maize, jowar (sorghum bicolour), bajra (pennisetum glaucum) and sugarbeet are common in the ecology of tawang. it signifies the adaptive management of agrobiodiversity and ecosystem. horticultural crops like plum, peach, pear, and walnut, some of the exotic varieties, have been introduced in dirang valley. since the 1990s, a few improved varieties of tomato, chilli, cauliflower and cabbage have also been introduced and adopted by some rich farmers, who cultivate their crops for commercial purposes at varying elevations around tawang and dirang valley. fig 2 contribution of indigenous agrobiodiversity in sociocultural and economic life of the monpa tribe singh and sureja 86 the contribution analysis of the documented indigenous agro-biodiversity of tawang and dirang valley indicates that the monpa tribe plays an important role. culturally they contribute 32 per cent; their economic contribution could 35 per cent; and their integral contribution to local food supply is 32 per cent (figure 2). on account of this, it can be inferred that this type of dynamic and alternative type of traditional management practice helps to continue and conserve the indigenous agrobiodiversity and sustainable ecosystem management (elmqvist et al., 2004). gender specific learning of agro-biodiversity management indicates that most of the agricultural operations are performed by the women who are the real backbone of livelihood and local economy (figure 3). fig 3 a=land preparation, b=seed selection, c=seed sowing, d=weeding, e=irrigation, f=harvesting, g=threshing, h=winnowing, i=grading of seeds, j=preservation of seeds the harvesting of crops is done by a group of women called lakpa (indigenous institution). they share the workload and it reduces the time necessary for doing the agricultural operations. besides, it also creates a knowledge network for sharing common ideas related to agriculture management and exchanging seeds of local crops. according to the norm of this institution, no one will accept any wage. instead, each will be offered a variety of indigenous foods including a special offer of local beer (made of finger millet and barley) by the farmer who is the host. if groups learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 87 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 of women are harvesting the crops of a gaon burha, then according to his pride he will offer rakshi and lohpani (a good quality of local beer made of indigenous varieties of barley, finger millet and maize). along with this, they also get special food added with yak ghee to reduce the feeling of exhaustion. the ecological edges existing in the area play a pivotal role in sustaining the culture, food habits and flows of indigenous information for process of vertical learning. earlier, the monpa were more dependent on tibet for consumable products. they were, for example, accustomed to using dried fish, but this tradition has eroded gradually because of the influence of factors, such as changing food habits. customarily dried fish is mixed with local beer (chhang) made of indigenous rice to make its taste softer. dried fish is also added in the cchurpi, made from indigenous soybean and yer (local spice plant) and offered to the guests to show the honour and pride. 3.5 agricultural diversification and natural resources in response to the growing demand from urban areas for fruits and nuts such as apple, pear, peach, plum, apricot, persimmon, kiwifruit and walnut, some male farmers started diversifying the species of fruit trees planted in the upper ecosystem of valleys, especially in dirang. they have more than eight species of fruit trees in their fields – a radical change from the traditional apple, plum, peach and pear. it is not unusual to find several varieties of species (early maturing to late maturing varieties), chosen by farmers with a view to minimising risks. some farmers are skilled at grafting fruit trees, even grafting different species on one tree. for instance, combinations of apples and pears and of peaches and apple can be found. another interesting extension of traditional practice is the grinding of local cereals into flour with the aid of the indigenous grinding wheel that is powered by flowing water. the same water is redirected for the irrigation of vegetables and other cash crops. this is also used for the supplementary irrigation to grow a range of fruit trees and some vegetables on uneven land. ultimately this traditional way of designing, planning, patterning and using the local available resources leads to the diversification process which helps to reduce risks and assures sustainable livelihood. the tribal economy is basically subsistence in character and based on underdeveloped agriculture. consequently productivity is low. the local tribe attaches great importance to their traditional values, morals and institutions. most of them have an egalitarian ethos with a great concern for their community. resources are, to some extent, owned by the community as a whole. hence, the decision on the use of available local resources is made by the community and not by the individual. singh and sureja 88 skills developed over centuries by tribal are suited to the particular environment and ecosystem in which they live and operate the agricultural practices. given the traditional skill endowments, the tribal members are slow to accept new skills. successive governments in arunachal pradesh have initiated substantial development programmes. the traditions, ethics, community interests, and values related to jhum (some extent) were the prime concerns in all initiatives related to nrm during past. the practice of shifting cultivation was found to be ecologically stable and sustainable when the fallow period was about 15-20 years. recently deforestation, soil erosion and fertility decline problems have become severe as the fallow period is decreased upto 7-8 years. this is the result of pressures by ever mounting population on the land and the local fruit crops (apple, peach, plum, kiwi fruit, etc). there is insufficient time for the replacement of soil fertility through natural processes. due to frequent changing of site of whole ecosystem, shifting cultivation is largely responsible for deposition of silt in the rivers of adjoining areas and there is a continuous regression of valuable forest species. this kind of trend of using natural resources poses a serious threat to biodiversity and sustainability (nsolomo and chamshama, 1990). 3.6 indigenous gardens: sources of nutrition and food security home gardens found near the areas of habitation play an important role for the conservation of vegetables, medicinal plants, agro-forestry and fruit trees. in fact, they sustain the health and nutritional security of the monpa tribe. home gardens provide easy access (particularly during the rainy seasons) to a variety of resources the communities need regularly, such as food, fuel wood, fodder and medicines. in dirang, plum, apple and peach trees, grown in home gardens of poor people, were cited as major sources of income. radish and lai patta (brassica spp.) growing in home gardens add up to the stock relied on by communities for income and general livelihood security. livestock (poultry, ducks and pigs) are also reared near home gardens and are fed by local weeds, colocasia and byproducts of garden. timbur (xanthoxylum spp, a spice) is grown in small scale in home gardens. annual crops, for example like maize, beans, chillies and amaranths are grown as intercrop and mixed crop in the home gardens where there are perennial fruit trees. these fruit trees provide support to the vines of beans, cowpea and the like. the size and location of gardens are decided on the basis of family size, number of animals, food habit and local market where the surplus produce is sold. the size and number of home gardens in the area is declining. this is largely as a result of rapid immigration. consequently there is a marked shift in land-use patterns from gardening to house construction. learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 89 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 3.7 using microenvironments and sustaining local forest local farmers are experienced in sustainable planning of land (fao & unep, 1999) and using the microenvironment for crop production, agrobiodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihood (singh, 2003e). valley bottoms are used by the monpa as a microenvironment for the production of annual and perennial crops in hilly mountainous areas of dirang and tawang. maize, soybean, rice, beans and some vegetables are produced during the rainy season. however, using the new techniques of stream water for irrigation has made the bottom parts of the valley fields more useful for producing vegetables, maize and beans in dry season in patches where there are fertile soils. the growing importance of cash crop farming in both dirang and tawang, is dependent on nearby forest-soils and stream water. whereas intensive farming of fruit crops in hilly forest has a direct adverse impact on forest resources (deforestation). studies indicate that competition for expanding lands leads to reducing the forest cover (allaway and cox, 1989) while increasing the dependency on home gardens for vegetable production has also indirect impacts on forest resources. in both dirang and tawang hilly agricultural and horticultural fields have emerged from cleared forest land. the importance of hilly forest fields on cash and food crop production is not sustainable in the long run. it leads to the degradation of ecosystems at lower altitude. one such sign of stress on forest land is the declining yield of many local crops and frequent changes of cultivation sites. a study on natural resource use patterns also indicates the similar result (nuwamanya, 1994). 3.8 community knowledge, indigenous institution and sustaining natural resources diverse bamboo species viz. mai (most frequently used and available in plenty), maichu (thorny), maith and phakso (used as firewood) plays a pivotal role in income generation and subsistence economy of the monpa tribe. many local trees like shingchu and shingmai are used for cooking (because they burn for a long time) and are conserved by means of individual initiatives. pine trees are used to extract oil and manufacture incense sticks (dhup). looking to the importance and local value of pine species, the religious priest, lama (priest) plays an active role in domestication of pine species around gompa for use in various religious activities. earlier, aquatic biodiversity, such as blue green algae, fish, frog, snails, crab, prawn, etc. played a pivotal role in the food security of local people, but their population has gradually declined due to various anthropogenic factors. in the experience of a village wise man, the local supply of fish, particularly in small rivers, was abundant in the 1960s. however, over-exploitation due to increasing population has led to gradual extinction of some species. singh and sureja 90 local rivers are sources of food, medicines and materials for house construction. looking to this importance, community members have decided to impose rules through indigenous institution chhopa to limit the access. the violation of these rules is likely to invite the imposition of fines. when there is over-exploitation of fish, shrimp, crabs and frogs, lands around the hills, stones on the river banks, forest trees and wild animals, the gaon burha files a case before the chhopa. the accused is called up to give an explanation. if he is found guilty, a fine of rs. 2000 rs. 20 000 is imposed. if the guilty person is unable to pay the fine, it is passed on to his close relatives. the chhopa reserves the right to reduce the fine according to the capacity of the guilty person. it can also determine the amount of the fine in terms of varying degrees of guilt. for example, if a person is accused of cutting a private tree, then he/she is fined one cow. size and age of cow is decided according to the nature, productivity and age of a particular tree. the money from the fine is used by the community in the leadership of gaon burha in social welfare and managing natural resources like plantations on community land, hillsides and roadsides to avoid landslides, etc. this ethical instinct has forced the monpa tribe in preserving the biodiversity and natural resources. an indigenous institution called mila is formed with the homophilous resource-based monpa women for the collection of ethnic fruits, vegetables, timber and other products from forests. to sustain forest resources under the mila system, there are several rules which assure that access to the forest will be in the form of groups, instead of individuals. nobody is expected to pluck or harvest the forest products in surpluses. the harvest is determined by the women themselves and is based on family size. if someone is found guilty of transgression, the matter is again taken to the gaon burha where the guilty person is fined. in the regulatory process, on the main entrance gate of forests, one informal watchman is appointed occasionally by the community to regulate and monitor the access of forest based products. customary use and food habit does not ban the hunting of deer, pigs and wild boar from nearby forests. it is performed exclusively for personal consumption by the local people. the religious philosophy of local tribe does not permit them to sell the meat of hunted animals. however, sometimes greed is powerful in breaking the cohesive force of religious ethics. local norms of society regulate hunting by allowing these activities, only at times of culturally specified community festivals and other occasions. according to this norm there will be rotational hunting in different directions of the forest. after the agreed hours, the hunter has to return back and hunting is no longer allowed. any violation of this arrangement would invite a fine. an informal institution consisting of elder hunters monitor the activities of its members and enforce the social sanctions in case of no-use of rule. a strong sense of ethics in respect of learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 91 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 this norm thus helps to sustain wildlife. in this regard one gaon burha (75 years age) has shared his own ethics as follows: if the wild animals do not harm to any one then why they must be killed? is it necessary to play game with wildlife? are only the wild lives are the sources of non-vegetarian foods? without eating the wildlife and non-vegetarian food can’t a man survive? from this ethic, it may be learnt that the overexploitation of wildlife should be avoided and alternative management with judicious use of wildlife is required to meet the needs of a local tribe (norton-griffiths and southey, 1993, 1995 and norton-griffiths, 1995). it could be inferred that applying rotational use, social norms and monitoring through informal institutions are different kind of modes for conserving and sustaining the natural resources which are more sophisticated than any formal rules and policy (berkes, 1998; berkes, 1999 and elmqvist et al., 2004). 3.9 community knowledge and forest conservation the monpa tribe of tawang and dirang still follow an old tradition in which both community forests and private forests are conserved on community land as well as private land. from this forest, they collect the leaves of pine and paisang which are rich sources of organic manure in the indigenous agricultural system. the leaves are collected and kept at the bottom of a local hut. the hut is double-storied. the first story is used for habitation whereas a mixture of the leaves of pine and paisang and the excreta of human and pigs is allowed to decompose in the ground story of the hut. the manure, thus formed, is called permang. most of the monpas live in temperate zones where water scarcity is a problem. hence, instead of wasting more amount of water in toilet, they use the green leaves of paisang as tissue paper. it is agreed that monpa do not cut or pluck the leaves of paisang trees, being aware of its value for local use. only fallen leaves are collected and utilized as mulch. the dry wood is used as firewood and it burns for a longer time. during the 1930s and 1950s the problem of deforestation was not severe, but after the 1960s the new generation started with activities that led to deforestation in an effort to become rich instantly. this trend has created problems such as landslides and soil erosion. this has been responsible for the loss of some potentially fertile agricultural lands. as a rule, the village committee, headed by the gaon burha, is authorized to restrict the deforestation. they can use voluntary workers to control soil erosion and land slide by planting many local shrubs and trees, but with the passage of time, cultural erosion, population pressure and easy availability of transport, the rate of forest cutting has been increased significantly. after 1989, the marwari businessmen (natives of rajasthan state of india) have started business on the local spices, medicinal plants and timber singh and sureja 92 of some of the trees species which has led to overexploitation. looking to the changing scenario and rapid deforestation, most members of the village community, headed by gaon burha, have now designed new rules. now the villagers only enter the forest in groups to collect firewood. it is confined to a particular day of the month. even the quantity of firewood for each member of the group is prescribed under this rule. 3.10 informal social institutions and the conservation of natural resources many studies indicate that religion, belief and local communities’ spiritual values have a strong influence on the sustainable management of forests, lands, water and crop management (donnelly-roark, 1998; sibanda, 2004 and steiner, 2004). on the occasion of worship (related to the crop, animals and vegetation) the local lama carries the statue of the lord buddha and some religious books, which are read in favour of natural resources, crops and animals. this happens three times a year i.e. during winter, summer and the rainy season. the worship is called chhoskar and people believe that without these ceremonies they cannot do agricultural operations. the religious occasion is celebrated both at community and individual level for the welfare of the animals, availability of forest products and getting higher productivity from crops. performing the rituals, worship and customs of buddhist religion implies that the people have to conserve more than eight varieties (of three species) of local pine. for the domestication of local tree species, lamas (priests) issue a notice to collect the seedlings and cuttings from forests on a particular day and time. the buddhist religion plays a pivotal role, even during different agricultural operations. for instance, before harvesting the local maize, special religious permission need to be taken from the village lama. if this is not done the people believe that the subsequent crops will suffer from many diseases. only after the harvest, the members of the community drive the animals for grazing into the maize fields. this takes place on a common and pre-decided date. if someone violates this social norm then he/she will be fined by the agricultural priest called bonpu. even though a field is privately owned, grazing is not allowed before the kakun torban, a festival in which ethnic food made from local maize is worshipped. only after worshipping is done by the agricultural priest, the first harvest of maize is taken out to make kakun (an ethnic food made after crushing the boiled maize grains) and grazing is allowed thereafter. thus, these unconventional but promising sources of innovation for sustaining and managing natural resources with the help of communities and institutions contribute substantial portion (berkes and folke, 1998; olsson and folke, 2001). therefore, strengthening local social institutions would play an learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 93 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 important role to adopt these practices towards new purposes in dynamic and sustainable nrm (berkes et al., 2000). 3.11 indigenous biodiversity and livelihood: conservation perspective we do not have evidence of the amount of household income from timber forest resources. respondents have however indicated that buying wood for fuel and charcoal for energy and timber for house construction were the major forms of use. this clearly suggests that, there is a section of the local tribe whose major source of income is dependent on supplying [through selling] timber forest resources. there are variations between the manner in which men and women use these resources. they tend to rank preferred species, but there are similarities in terms of their dependence on these resources. livelihood dependence on forest resources in some of the areas is not sustainable. this is because of over-utilization of resources. this makes timber forest species more vulnerable, not only to excessive use, but also to extinction. in many communities, it is well reported that land is used for deriving socio-cultural and spiritual identity and local practices are based on a sense of harmony with the natural environment. this resulted in sustainable land use and management practices (elmqvist et al., 2004 and steiner, 2004). land in reserved forests and public forests constitute the most important support for land shortages experienced by many households. of late, land in the public forests has been cleared for farming. it is the only vacant land available in the area. the clearance of land in public forests has extended into the purposes of growing commercial fruit crops. the lack of formal land ownership (mainly clans residing on the land considered as public and private), complicates the problems of land management around the forest areas. interviews with some young persons and influential informants showed that these landlords are not aware of any village institutions neither do they think that the institutions are responsible for deciding on any issues concerning their land. among others, uncontrolled bushfires are associated with the tendency of absentee landowners to light fires when attending their farms and leaving the burning fires unsupervised. the forest land provides an alternative strategy to cope up with the evergrowing needs and insecure households. indigenous medicinal plants provide a major stay for ensuring health and security of households. the forest resources have been relied on to provide requisite medicines to the communities. access to forest medicinal plants is mainly by means of collection from nearby forests, and purchases from traditional healers and, at times, traditional birth attendants. most traditional healers were found to be the social workers in the community singh and sureja 94 and do not take any remuneration. they have a supernatural fear in the knowledge that the art of healing has been given to them by the god for welfare of the society – not as the source of income generation. if they are continuing this art and wisdom with remuneration, very soon the plants concerned for curing a particular disease and the art of curing will be eroded from certain localities. medicinal plants from the forest are not only important for direct consumption, but also provide income to sustain the livelihoods of some sections of the communities. non-woody forest resources are also identified as major sources of livelihood in the survey sites. while respondents in all the sites made efforts to conceal the importance of non-woody forest resources in supporting their livelihoods, there is ample evidence to suggest that in two rural based sites of dirang and tawang, specific categories of non-woody forest species constituted an important element to cope up with seasonal stress in livelihoods. uses of non-woody forest resources are mainly of two types; direct consumption and income generation. non-woody forest species commonly used for direct consumption and income generation include vegetables, mushroom, medicinal plants, roots and tubers. mushroom is the major source of protein for members of the monpa tribe in areas where there are no other types of protein available in the form of meat. respondents’ knowledge about prices of various mushroom species was clear evidence of the use of these plants. forest mushroom was not shown to be a major source of protein among some rich monpa tribe members on the pretext that instead yak meat and pork were considered an important source of meat protein in the area. there are variations between communities in respect of the importance attached to the types of uses of local products generated from ecosystem. among members of the monpa this might be due to ecological variations and edges. 3.12 alliances and natural resource conservation alliances are generated by the overlapping interests (glaser and oliveira, 2004). for dirang and tawang, overlapping conservators’ and users’ interests (and therefore the actual and potential alliances in the management of natural resources) focus in on some of the major themes. central and state government agencies, ngos, scientists and other donor agencies profess an interest in forests and rivers, common land and local agro-biodiversity conservation. this sometimes coincides with the requirements of commercial producers, businessmen and also subsistence needs of local communities. these interests are in conflict with strict conservation interests that distance themselves from primary needs and aim to protect the natural resources by prohibiting communities’ utilization of ecosystems. the non-effective enforcement of legislation, related to the management and conservation of natural resources of dirang and tawang, make allies among environmental agencies, learning from the monpa of arunachal pradesh 95 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 73-102 commercial producers and excessive exploiters of the environment. the illegal use of forests, rivers and the injudicious widespread jhuming (shifting cultivation) has raised local livelihood concerns and generated a demand for the rules that excluded non-tribals and over-exploiters. the local communities and their leaders are opposed to the centralistic and bureaucratic approach of state government. the demand for users’ rights and the management of natural resources form part of their quest for autonomous government at district and rural level, as they seek increased active participation and the sharing of funds for their location specific development. persons, more concerned with political spheres of influence, head the major stakeholder alliances related to the management and use of local resources. these stakeholder alliances also include local influential community members with their respective business agendas as client constituencies and close relatives of ruling politicians. this finding is in agreement with that of glaser and oliveira (2004). 4. conclusions and policy implications from the above discussion it can be concluded that community knowledge plays an important role in food security, resource management and environmental and biodiversity conservation. there is no doubt that the communities realise the importance of natural resources and its management. community initiatives are site specific in their approach, and varied in their origin. methods of access, regulations, monitoring and management of natural resources differ from site to site. conservation and sustainable use in community conserved areas is often for longerestablished than in government managed protected areas, yet they are often neglected or not recognised in official conservation system. community efforts are about not only conservation but also regulated access to the conserved resources. by taking a de facto control over natural resources where such control is largely not allowed and demonstrating effective management; the community conservation efforts meet the survival of poorest people. natural systems such as forests, woodlands, grasslands, rangelands and rain-fed zone resources, used directly to generate income, food and subsistence livelihoods. the timely contribution of villagers for the upkeep and maintenance of existing ecosystem and overall conservation of natural resources, including local breeds of livestock and agricultural crops (singh, 2003f), needs to be a part of an integrated research and development arena. in many areas, traditional ways of resources management have broken down in response to the process of acculturation, globalization, modern development, inappropriate policies and malpractices in government and non-government organizations, and a host of threats from wider singh and sureja 96 economic and political forces. the net result of this has been degradation of resources and collapse of ecosystem’s services. hence, for enhancing the sustainability of existing natural resources, a comprehensive participatory approach needs to be adopted using the local institutions, people’s experiential wisdom and their active participation (salam et al., 2005). policy makers and ngos as partners can help in making the community more self-reliant and responsible towards natural resources (figure 4). formation of cooperative societies and strong marketing network for local products generated from existing ecosystem and establishing a strong linkage within community are the major intervention points to maintain the equilibrium and dynamics of sustainability of natural resources and livelihoods. the knowledge holding community needs to ensure that their knowledge systems and practices are supported and recorded and that they are not locked out of the research agenda of the major institutions. in this regard agricultural extension services and the direction of research and development should take account of community knowledge. other social and economic policies should support to enable community knowledge and their technologies (practices) in continuing and sustaining natural resource management systems and livelihoods. natural resources management institutions has the capacity to cope up with changes through adaptive learning which in turn leads to the stability of management and an ability to cope up with surprise or sudden shocks which further increases the resilience of ecosystem. the task of agricultural development through community-based natural resource management is so complex and formidable that it needs imaginative and concerted effort and well designed thrust supplemented with anthropological and socio-physical approach. simultaneously, there has been a growing recognition that local economic concerns and local institutions play a central role in natural resource management; hence most strategies, policies and projects for nature’s 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(ed.) traditional ecological knowledge, concepts and cases. international program on traditional ecological knowledge and international development research centre, ottawa. wilken, g. c., 1987. good farmers: traditional agricultural resource management in mexico and central america. university of california press, berkeley. die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 � die stockholm konvensie: wisselwerking tussen wetenskap en beleid� henk bouwman sleutelwoorde: persisterende organiese besoedelstowwe, internasionale ooreenkomste oor die omgewing, stockholm konvensie, wetenskaplike kennis, ontwikkelende lande key concepts: persistent organic pollutants, international environmental agreements, stockholm convention, scientific knowledge, developing countries abstract the stockholm convention: interaction between science and policy the history of mankind shows an increasing trend towards organisation, partly due to the ever-increasing numbers of people on earth, and the reduced availability of natural resources. as one of the unwanted consequences of man’s activities on earth, pollutants are also increasingly being formed and released, and threatening the health of humans and the environment. one way of dealing with this problem is through the organisation of international environmental agreements (ieas). persistent organic pollutants (pops) has been recognised as one such problem, and has recently been � hersiene en opgedateerde weergawe van voordrag gelewer tydens intreerede “internasionale ooreenkomste oor die omgewing: implikasies vir suider-afrika en universiteite; potchefstroom, november 2000 bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 2 the subject of intense negotiations, which resulted in the conclusion and subsequent entry into force of the stockholm convention. the role of scientific knowledge has been quite substantial, as it was scientific investigation that first alerted the world to this problem. i maintain however, that the depth of knowledge about pops in developing countries was one of the major drawbacks experienced by these countries during the negotiation phase, and this will probably last even during implementation and further development of the convention. the case of ddt, where south africa did have adequate data and experience, showed that an advantageous position could be negotiated, but less so for compounds that we have little or no knowledge about, such as the chlorinated dioxins and furans. the stockholm convention does, however, provide the additional means for developing countries to address pops issues, including the issue of ddt for malaria control, and the reduction of emissions of the very toxic, unintentionally produced pops. it is however, also incumbent on the countries and their institutions to recognise the opportunities presented, both institutionally and academically, to train and equip students, scientists and government officials to better manage and investigate this dangerous group of chemicals. 1. inleiding die onlangse inwerkingtreding van die stockholm konvensie oor persisterende organiese besoedelstowwe (of persistent organic pollutants – pops, sien tabel �, en afdeling 5) het die aandag gevestig op die wisselwerking tussen wetenskaplik-gegenereerde kennis tydens onderhandeling en beleidsvorming. die ontstaan, struktuur, tersaaklike beginsels, en prosesse tydens onderhandelinge om internasionale ooreenkomste oor die omgewing (ioo’s) daar te stel en te laat werk, word in hierdie artikel uiteensit, om daarmee die interaksie tussen wetenskaplike kennis en internasionale beleid te analiseer. daarmee saam wil ek ook die rol van gedifferensieerde wetenskaplike kennis, wat ontwikkelende state van ontwikkelde state onderskei, uitlig, die beperkings die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 � wat tydens onderhandelings ondervind is a.g.v. gebrekkige kennis, ondersoek, en die uitdagings vir institusionele en akademiese instellings identifiseer. 1.1 historiese perspektief ioo’s (of international environmental agreements; ieas) is ‘n onderafdeling van internasionale verhoudinge (iv) wat sedert die laat �800s meer en meer na vore tree, as belangrike komponente van die wyse waarop state wedersyds aanvaarde omgewingsaspekte hanteer, wat nie in isolasie aangespreek kan word nie. alhoewel dit mag voorkom of ioo’s ‘n moderne ontwikkeling is, het die amphiktoniese bond, wat as ‘n voorloper van organisasie tussen state beskou kan word (gerbert, �98�), reeds stappe geneem om water as ‘n hulpbron te beskerm. hierdie oorwegend religieuse bond, bestaande uit verskeie griekse stadstate soos athene, beoetia, phosia en locris, het reeds teen sowat �000 vc, by wyse van onderlinge ooreenkomste, daarvoor voorsiening gemaak dat hulle nie waterbronne sal vernietig, of water na mekaar se stede sal afsny nie (burry, �9�7). tans bestaan daar meer as 700 ioo’s wat tussen drie of meer state gesluit is, en meer as ‘n �000 wat as bilaterale ooreenkomste oor die omgewing beskou kan word (mitchell, 2003). die ontstaan van ioo’s is die resultaat van verskeie faktore, maar die historiese konteks van die vorming van state om gemeenskaplike belange insluitend die omgewing te beskerm, is van groot belang (hall, �986), en moet daarom eers bespreek word. die druk van toenemende mensbevolkings op die omgewing het waarskynlik reeds vir duisende jare aanleiding gegee tot ‘n toenemende mate van kolonisering van voorheen onbesette gebiede (southwood, 2003). die verskeie en herhaalde migrasie van steeds meer gevorderde mensvorme vanuit bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 � afrika (homo habilis wat �60 000 jaar gelede verskyn het, asook h. erectus, en h. sapiens) wat mekaar verplaas het, die neiging van mense om hoër ouderdomme te bereik (boyd & silk, 200�), asook die vinnige toename in tegnologie soos werktuie, landbou en vervoer (diamond, 1998; boyd & silk, 200�; southwood, 200�), het gesorg vir ‘n vinnige kolonisering van alle vastelande (behalwe antarktika) en meeste groot eilande teen sowat 10 000 jaar gelede (diamond, 1998). die geleidelike oorgang van “jag-en-vergaar-gemeenskappe” in sekere streke in die wêreld, na meer gevestigde en hoër digtheid landbougemeenskappe (southwood, 200�), en vandaar na dorpe en stede, het die klem meer en meer op die noodsaak van onderlinge verhoudinge tussen groepe (onderskei deur gedeelde afstamming, dorpe, religie, taal, kultuur, tegnologie, handel, wedersydse oorloë, ens) geplaas, om eie sekuriteit te handhaaf. presies wanneer hierdie proses begin het, is nie seker nie, maar die fossielreste (veral tekens van beplanning vir jag, die versorging van siek individue, asook werktuie en die toenemende gebruik van simboliek) van die homo (gamble, �986; boyd & silk, 200�), en moontlik selfs die voorafgaande australopithecus spesies (boyd & silk, 200�), getuig van toenemende vlakke van organisasie. ‘n tweede gevolg van ‘n kombinasie van toenemende organisasie, ontwikkeling van tegnologie en ‘n toename in bevolking was dat dit die afstande tussen nedersettings verminder het, meer religieuseen handelskontak, maar ook meer konflik moontlik gemaak het (gerbert, 1981; crone, 1986). die korter afstande tussen nedersettings het al hoe meer mense van ‘n geleidelike verminderde natuurlike hulpbronbasis (soos landbougrond, water, woude, erts, ens) afhanklik gemaak, en bygedra tot konflik (southwood, 2003). alhoewel die neiging om eenhede met gemeenskaplike belange te vorm ‘n tendens van alle mensgemeenskappe is, is die steeds voortdurende konflik tussen groepe ‘n onteenseglike en veral onaangename herinnering dat menslike organdie stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 5 isasies meestal, en veral histories gesien, slegs kortstondig suksesvol in die handhawing van sekuriteit is. gedokumenteerde sosiale en politieke organisasie het reeds etlike eeue voor christus ontwikkel, o.a. in china, die midde ooste (sumerië), die middellandse see-gebied (kreta en egipte) en in suid amerika (olmek-indiane) (gerbert, �98�; crone, 1986; diamond, 1998). die gevolg van verstedeliking het aanvanklik die ontwikkeling van aristokratiese en middelklasse bevorder om hul eie belange teen die van heersers (soos monarge) te beskerm, wat weer gevolg is deur verskeie vorme van demokrasie (burry, �9�7). ‘n fase van religieuse dominansie het in europa in die middeleeue ontwikkel, waar die kerk in baie streke ‘n hoër gesag as dié van koninkryke, prinsdomme en ander vorme van landbesit gehad het. stede, veral gegrond op handelsbelange (burke, �986), het ook hul opgang gemaak, maar die klimaat vir samewerking was oorskadu deur die behoefte aan onafhanklikheid (gerbert, 1981). konflik en verdeeldheid het egter ‘n einde gebring aan die dominansie van die kerk, gevolg deur ‘n fase van afwisselende monargie en aristokrasie. verdere verstedeliking en die franse en industriële revolusies het weereens veroorsaak dat die algemene bevolking weer meer mag bekom het, en die moderne staat het begin ontwikkel, gegrond op nasionalisme, grondgebied, werksmag, kapitaal en tegnologie (strange, �986). die aard van die beëindiging van konflik tussen state het veral aan die begin van die �600s die vorm van onderhandelings aangeneem wat beslag gekry het in ooreenkomste, soos die verdrae van wesfale (�6�8) en utrecht (�7��-��) (abi-saab, 1981). die stelsel van multilaterale diplomatieke onderhandelings deur kongresse (alhoewel dit reeds deur die grieke in �8� vc gebruik is (burry, �9�7) het sy huidige beslag in die kongres van wene (�8��-�5) gekry, wat ten bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 6 dele die grondslag vir die moderne europese bestel gevorm het. multilaterale diplomatieke ooreenkste het ook die basis gevorm vir die ioo’s, maar ander entiteite het mettertyd ook ‘n al hoe groter wordende rol begin speel. 2 rolspelers anders as state ander rolspelers in ioo’s is multinasionale korporasies (mk’s), nie-regeringsorganisasies (nro’s), en inter-regeringsorganisasies (iro’s). die bekendste iro is sekerlik die volkebond (vn), wat na die eerste wêreldoorlog tot stand gebring is, en sy finale beslag gekry het na die tweede wêreldoorlog as die verenigde nasies (vn). die staat, gegrond op sy soewereiniteit oor ‘n geografies gespesifiseerde grondgebied en inwoners, bly egter die hoofrolspeler in ioo’s, alhoewel daar reeds aanduidings is dat state se soewereiniteit ten opsigte van internasionale probleme aan die taan is ten gunste van groter seggenskap deur die vn en ander internasionale rolspelers (strange, �986). dit was veral vanaf die laaste gedeelte van die 1800s, en meer gereeld tydens die laaste helfte van die �900s, waartydens honderde ioo’s gesluit is, teen die agtergrond van ‘n al hoe groter wordende wetenskaplike aktiwiteit en kennis. dit het algaande duidelik geword dat state nie meer alleen hulle omgewingsprobleme kon oplos nie, en dat ioo’s noodsaaklik is om probleme wat oor grense heen strek, tot voordeel van alle betrokkenes te hanteer. die kostes of beperkinge verbonde aan deelname aan ‘n ioo is egter nie noodwendig simmetries aan die voordele nie (swanson & johnston, �999; barret, 200�). gevolglik is daar reeds meer as 700 ioo’s tussen drie of meer state, en meer as ‘n �000 bilaterale omgewingsooreenkomste van krag, alhoewel nie almal ewe effektief is nie (mitchell, 200�). die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 7 toenemende regulering, lone, belasting en ander kostes in ontwikkelde state het veroorsaak dat heelwat mk’s hul produksie en bedrywighede na ontwikkelende state verskuif het, waar die kostestruktuur en regulasies meer voordelig is (swanson & johnston, �999), en waar die effektiewe gesag van die betrokke regering meer bewegingsruimte aan die betrokke mk bied. (dit is al gestel dat hierdie vorm van ‘n beperkte gesag, dieselfde vorm aanneem as die gesag van die kerk in die middeleeue in europa (strange, �986) wat minder deur grense en state gebonde was, en ‘n tot ‘n mate eie gesag of wettigheid begin ontwikkel het.) state, en veral ontwikkelende state, het tot ‘n mate meer afhanklik geraak van die invloed van besigheid, o.a. ook die van mk’s. boehmer-christiansen en kellow (2002) identifiseer drie redes hiervoor: • state is tot 'n mate outonoom van die privaatsektor, maar struktureel afhanklik van die privaatsektor se belasting vir inkomste. state het ondersteuning en legitimiteit van hul inwoners nodig, wat tot 'n mate weer afhanklik is van beskikbare werksgeleenthede in die privaatsektor en die gevolglike inkomstebelasting na die staat. state moet met mekaar meeding vir beleggings, en in dié verband tree hulle op in belang van die privaatsektor om kapitaal te verkry. • die privaatsektor het 'n verdere voordeel in die sin dat hulle die kennis en ervaring van beleidsimplementering het, wat deur state ontwikkel of aanvaar word. vanweë die aard van kompeterende besigheid is heelwat van die bedryfsinligting vertroulik en die direkte implikasies van nuwe beleid is dus tot 'n groot mate onbekend aan die beleidmakers. die privaatsektor, wat dus baie van die beleidsimplikasies moet uitvoer, het dus 'n groot rol by die suksesvolle implementering van nuwe beleidsbesluite. bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 8 • die privaatsektor is meestal ook beter in staat om hulpbronne te mobiliseer vergelyke met state, iro’s en nro’s. op internasionale vlak egter, is die gefragmenteerde en kompeterende aard van mk’s nie so effektief nie, en is die invloed wat hulle op beleidsvorming het, verdun. mk’s bedryf beide die ou en nuwe produksieprosesse en praktyke, wat mk’s in kompetisie met mekaar bring (goedkoper, maar vuiler ou, teenoor skoner maar duurder, nuwer prosesse en produkte). die gebrek aan effektiewe regulering asook laer lone in ontwikkelende state, gekoppel aan hoër lone en sterker regulering in ontwikkelde state, het daartoe bygedra dat mk’s prosesse wat besoedel na eersgenoemde state verskuiwe het (of verder uitgebrei het soos in china), aangesien besoedelingsbeheer van produksiemetodes, of skoner produksie, baie duur kan wees, veral as dit deur verskerpte regulasies in ontwikkelde state afgedwing word. 'n bykomende gevolg van die ontwikkeling van mk’s was dat die gebruik van natuurlike hulpbronne, soos hout, vis en erts, nou op 'n nog groter skaal ontgin kon word, a.g.v. globale integrasie (jeong, 200�; mitchell, 200�). aangesien mk’s nie direk aan 'n spesifieke staat gekoppel is nie, en omdat baie van die omgewingsprobleme internasionale omvang aangeneem het, het die rol van iro’s (en dan veral die vn en eu), wat struktureel heelwat minder as state van mk’s afhanklik is, groter begin word in die beskerming van die omgewing, as enigste effektiewe reguleerder van mk’s (boehmer-christiansen & kellow, 2002). nro’s is nog 'n soort rolspeler wat 'n sterk teenwoordigheid by beleidsformulering oor die omgewing het, en selfs as effektiewe teëwig teen mk’s dien. internasionale nro’s (soos wwf en greenpeace) het massiewe begrotings, geniet sterker legitimiteit as mk’s by die publiek (veral in ontwikkelde die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 9 state) en is meer samehangend in beleidsonderhandelings, as wat die kompeterende belange van mk’s toelaat (boehmer-christiansen & kellow, 2002). wanneer mk’s as ‘n groep onderhandel, doen hulle dit vele male op grond van die laagste gemene deler, maar hul deelname is hoofsaaklik sektoraal en kompeterend. nro’s soek en bevorder (advocacy) strenger internasionale regulering want hulle besef tot welke mate state afhanklik is van die kapitaal en invloed van die privaatsektor en mk’s. strenger regulering is net moontlik indien konsensus deur state bereik kan word, en dit is die rol waarin nro’s hul bevind. in vele gevalle verteenwoordig nro’s ook gemeenskalike openbare belange van meerdere lande sonder die gepaardgaande diplomatieke beslommernis, en ook selfs omgewingsbelange van nie-soewereine gebiede, soos oseane en poolgebiede, wat nie onder die direkte beskerming of verantwoordelikheid van indiviuele state val nie. die sterk bande wat nro’s met die media het, asook die legitimiteit wat hulle van die breë publiek ervaar, stel veral die internasionale nro’s in 'n sterk posisie om beleidsvorming te beïnvloed. die wisselwerking tussen nro’s en mk’s kom tot 'n mate bymekaar waar beide partye geharmoniseerde internasionale regulasies wil bewerkstellig (boehmer-christiansen & kellow, 2002). nro-deelname aan hierdie proses is vir hulle voordelig aangesien hul meer effektief hul posisies by meerdere state tegelyk kan beïnvloed. mk’s wil ook graag 'n gelyker speelveld vir kompetisie bewerkstellig, alhoewel die verdeelde belange van mk’s (en soms selfs die van nro’s) steeds 'n meulsteen bly. 3 wat is ‘n ioo? die weense konvensie oor die reg van ooreenkomste (treaties) van 1969 definieer ‘n internasionale ooreenkoms as “an bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 �0 international treaty concluded between states in a written form and governed by international law” (mitchell, 200�). die engelse terminologie in hierdie verband sluit die volgende terme in, wat almal as ooreenkomste beskou word: “treaties”, “conventions”, “covenants”, “compacts”, “charters”, “acts”, “instruments” en “accords” (mitchell, 200�; barret, 200�). wysigings soos amendemente of addisionele protokolle aan bestaande ioo’s word ook as wettig beskou, maar aksieplanne, reëlings, gedragskodes, verklarings (declarations), resolusies en beleide word in hierdie verband nie as bindend beskou nie, maar eerder as “soft law” (mitchell, 200�). alhoewel die definisie vir “omgewing” baie breed gestel kan word, sluit die algemene begrip van ioo meestal die ooreenkomste uit wat nie die vermindering van impakte op die omgewing as hoofof oorwegende doel het nie. menslike gesondheid, navigasie, handel en ekonomie, menseregte, weervoorspelling, oorlogstuig, kultuur, kommunikasie, buitenste ruimte en arbeidsverhoudinge (met enkele argumenteerbare uitsonderings) word dus nie hier ingereken nie, alhoewel sommiges wel sekondêre of implisiete omgewingsoorwegings mag insluit (mitchell, 200�). ioo’s sluit wel ‘n hele verskeidenheid ooreenkomste vir omgewingsbeskerming in, soos klimaat, osoon, verwoestyning, besoedeling, wateropvangsgebiede, plante en diere, handel in gevaarhoudende of afvalstowwe en selfs die toets van kernwapens, waar die beperking van besoedeling die hoofoogmerk is (mitchell, 2003; barret, 2003). die ioo’s kan regionaal of globaal wees, afhangende van die omstandighede, belange, geskiedenis en oorsake (mitchell, 2003). die vn organisasies, veral unep (united nations environment programme), is betrokke by heelwat van hierdie ioo’s, maar regionale organisasies, soos die europese kommissie, die benelux, en die assosiasie van suidoos-asiatiese state (asean) het self die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 �� ook ioo’s onderhandel. sommiges, soos die ramsar konvensie oor vleilande van internasionale belang, wat in �97� gestig is, het ontstaan deur die deelname van ‘n aantal besorgde state, en staan onafhanklik van ander konvensies (mitchell, 200�). (suid-afrika is ‘n stigterslid van hierdie konvensie.) teen die agtergrond van ‘n al hoe groter wordende kennis vannuit die natuurwetenskap, het die laaste paar dekades die totstandkoming van ‘n hele aantal ioos, wat globaal van aard is, gesien. dit sluit konvensies in soos cites, die montreal protokol, en die vn konvensie oor die bekamping van verwoestyning (unccd). ‘n reeks konvensies oor chemiese stowwe het ook begin ontwikkel, waarvan die rotterdam konvensie oor vooraf ingeligte instemming (rotterdam convention on prior informed consent wat die vervoer van gevaarlike chemiese produkte tussen state reguleer), en die basel konvensie (wat die vervoer van gevaarhoudende afval tussen state reguleer) van die meer bekendes is, en wat van toepassing op suid-afrika is. die rotterdam konvensie het pas (2� februarie 200�) van krag geword, terwyl die basel konvensie, wat sterk klem lê op hulp aan ontwikkelende state om nie deur afval van elders benadeel te word nie, reeds sedert 1992 van krag is (barret, 2003). die stockholm konvensie (sien afdeling 5 en verder), is een van die nuutste konvensies in dié verband. wat egter wel begin duidelik word, is dat hedendaagse ioo’s al hoe meeer gesluit word tussen state wat nie, soos voorheen, algemeen aanvaarde en ooglopend gedeelde probleme aanspreek nie. state word nou lid van konvensies, soos die rotterdam en basel konvensies, en selfs die stockholm konvensie (sien afdeling 5), selfs al het hulle geen direkte kennis (wetenskaplik of andersins) oor die omstandighede wat die betrokke ioo in hul eie state sou aanspreek nie. bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 �2 daar is m.a.w. ‘n aanvaarding van ‘n probleem wat met ander gedeel word (veelal gegrond op ekstrapolasie van wetenskaplike kennis van elders) en dat daar voordeel sal wees om lid te word hiervan, maar sonder ‘n eksplisiete kennis oor huidige en toekomstige implikasies. die groot getal ontwikkelende lidstate van verskeie ioo’s getuig hiervan. dit kan gesien word as ‘n aanvaarding van pro-aktiewe optrede, eerder as die meer reaktiewe benadering wat voorheen veral die geval was, soos wat in afdeling 1 beskryf is. die redes hiervoor is moontlik die algemene besef dat daar globaal verantwoordelik opgetree moet word, en dat gebrek aan kennis (en veral wetenskaplike kennis) nie inhiberend ten opsigte van optrede geag moet word nie. hierdie twee aspekte word verder in die volgende afdelings ontwikkel. 4 gedeelde maar gedifferensieerde verantwoordelikheid soos reeds genoem, neem die state gemeenskaplik verantwoordelikheid om ‘n spesifieke aspek aan te spreek, maar, a.g.v. van hul ontwikkelingstatus en ander omstandighede, is die bydraes wat sommige state kan maak, nie ekwivalent aan mekaar nie (desombre, 2001). hierdie asimmetriese verhouding, is dikwels een van die knelpunte tydens onderhandelings en die uitvoering van die onderskeie ioo’s. aangesien state die eenheid van onderhandeling is, moet maniere gevind word om veral die ontwikkelende state te oortuig om deel te word van ioo’s, iets wat hulle andersins nie noodwendig as noodsaaklik sou ag nie. sanksies, addisionele befondsing, bevoordeling en gedifferensieerde verantwoordelikheid kan as oorredingsmeganismes aangevoer word (desombre, 2001). die beginsel van gedeelde maar gedifferensieerde verantwoordelikheid (common but differentiated responsibility) word algemeen aanvaar, en kom op die volgende neer: die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 �� • state wat reeds 'n hoë ontwikkelingspeil bereik het, en wat reeds voordeel uit produksieprosesse en handel van sekere (goedkoop) goedere getrek het, het ander belange as daardie state wat nog weinig of geen voordeel van hierdie prosesse of produkte gehad het nie. • ontwikkelde state het ook meestal 'n meer omgewingsbewuste publiek wat, veral by demokratiese state, aanleiding gee tot druk op politici om skoner produksie en meer omgewingsvriendelike praktyke deur wette en regulasies in hul eie state te bewerkstellig. • ontwikkelde state het ook in meeste gevalle heelwat meer impakte, direk of indirek veroorsaak en ervaar, a.g.v. besoedelende produksie en nie-volhoubare praktyke. • ontwikkelende state het op grond van hul ontwikkelingspeil, nog nie die voordeel van soortgelyke prosesse en praktyke geniet nie, wat wel die ontwikkelde state in staat gestel het om hul eie peil relatief goedkoop te bereik. • ontwikkelde state het tans 'n peil bereik, waar duurder maar skoner en meer volhoubare prosesse en praktyke, geïmplementeer kan word, gedra deur die welvaart van die (minder volhoubare) ontwikkeling wat hulle tot op peil gebring het. soms is dit selfs bewerkstellig deur middel van subsidies en ander regeringshulp (soos belastingtoegewings) van die state. • vir ontwikkelende state bly dit egter steeds goedkoper om die ou prosesse en praktyke te volg, wat goedkoper en in baie gevalle vinniger voordeel sal bring. • meer moderne en omgewingsvriendelike prosesse en praktyke moet meestal teen groot kostes deur ontwikkelende state ingevoer word, tot voordeel van die ontwikkelde state wat veral die regte op dié prosesse besit. • eweneens is die eienaarskap van produksieprosesse van meer en beter omgewingsvriendelike produkte ook in die bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 �� besit van ontwikkelde state, en die infassering daarvan deur wetgewing en konvensie strek ook tot voordeel van die ontwikkelde state. • ontwikkelende state besef hul gesamentlike verantwoordelikheid jeens die omgewing, maar die effektiewe implementering van sodanige verantwoordelikheid kan nie ten koste van hul eie, en in meeste gevalle belangriker ontwikkellingsprioriteite, gedoen word nie. • ontwikkelde state besef dat die uitvoering van die mandaat deur hul kiesers om die omgewing te beskerm, nie sonder kostes in ontwikkelende state kan geskied nie, en is dus (in beginsel) bereid om tydige en effektiewe finansiële, tegniese en opleidingsbystand te verskaf. die verantwoordelikheid wat op die ontwikkelde state rus, is kontroversieel en word nie onbeperk aanvaar nie. 'n onbegrensde toepassing van die gedeelde maar gedifferensieerde verantwoordelikheidskonsep kan oneindige gevolge hê. die rio deklarasie oor die omgewing en ontwikkeling (united nations, 200�) het hierdie konsep as beginsel 7 soos volg verwoord: "states shall co-operate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the earth's ecosystem. in view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, states have common but differentiated responsibilities. the developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command." hierdie beginsel verwys slegs na die omgewing, en nie na ander aspekte soos kolonialisme en slawerny nie. die interpretering en implementering van hierdie beginsel is egter 'n netelige saak, aangesien die ontwikkelde state voorwaardes en uitkomste stel oor hoedanig enige tegniese en finansiële die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 �5 hulp, wat hulle mag aanbied, gebruik behoort te word. sommige ontwikkelde state, soos die vsa, het ook gestel dat hulle nie konvensies sal onderteken wat nie genoegsame verantwoordelikhede op ontwikkelende state plaas nie die kyoto protokol dien as voorbeeld hiervan (desombre, 2001). ander beginsels, soos die "voorsorgbeginsel" (precautionary principle), "volhoubaarheid" en "vrye handel" is ook van toepassing, maar word dalk by ‘n latere geleentheid bespreek. 5 die stockholm konvensie hierdie konvensie (anon, 200�b), wat op �7 mei 200� van krag geword het, het sy beslag gehad in hoofstuk �9 van agenda 2� (united nations conference on environment and development gehou in 1992 in rio de janeiro), wat handel oor die bestuur van en handel in toksiese chemikalieë. in opdrag van unep se bestuursraad in �995, het ‘n groep kenners in manilla in �996 byeengekom en aanbeveel dat, veral vanuit die natuurwetenskappe, daar genoeg stawende bewyse gegenereer is om aan te beveel dat internasionale intervensie nodig is om die risiko verbonde aan blootstelling aan 12 spesifieke pops (tabel 1) te verminder (karlaganis, marioni, sieber & weber, 2001). deel van die aanbeveling was dat ‘n wettige internasionale ooreenkoms ontwikkel moet word. die unep bestuursraad aanvaar die verslag, en beveel in �997 aan dat unep en ander tersaaklike igo’s voorbereidings moet tref om ‘n interregerings-onderhandelingskomitee (intergovernmental negotiating committee inc) byeen te roep, om ‘n tersaaklike ioo teen einde 2000 te ontwikkel en te loods. ‘n reeks van vyf inc-onderhandelings het plaasgevind, opeenvolgend in montreal (inc�, �998), nairobi (inc2, janubouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 �6 arie �999), genève (inc�, september �999), bonn (inc�, maart 2000) en johannesburg (inc5, desember 2000). tydens hierdie reeks van diplomatieke onderhandelings tussen state (met insette van nro’s en mk verteenwoordiging), is die teks van die konvensie ontwikkel en, tydens die laaste dag van die inc5 in johannesburg, na ‘n maratonsessie van 27 uur, uiteindelik aanvaar. ‘n reeks van twee kriteriaekspertgroepvergaderings (criteria expert group ceg) in bangkok (ceg�, oktober �998), en wenen (ceg2, junie �999), het van die tegniese en wetenskaplike aspekte onderhandel (karlaganis et al., 200�; anon, 200�b). na die suksesvolle onderhandelings in johannesburg (inc5), is die konvensie, tydens ‘n diplomatieke kongres in stockholm in mei, 200� deur die state teenwoordig aanvaar, en is die teks deur heelwat van hulle onderteken (maar nie geratifiseer nie). state het toenemend hul ratifikasies aan die vn begin stuur. die teks van die konvensie bepaal dat die konvensie van krag sal word, negentig dae nadat die 50ste staat die konvensie geratifiseer het (dit was frankryk). op die 17de mei 2004 het die konvensie van krag geword. die ledetal het sedertdien aangegroei tot 97 state, en die leser kan die huidige stand van sake monitor op die stockholm konvensie se webwerf (anon, 200�b). 5.� wat behels die stockholm konvensie? kortliks gestel, die konvensie beoog om deur aktiewe intervensies die vorming en vrystelling van die �2 pops te verminder of te staak, sodanig dat vrystellings na die omgewing verminder of gestaak word, en daardeur die blootstelling van mens en die natuur, aan hierdie gevaarhoudende stowwe te verminder. sodoende word ‘n meer gesonde omgewing vir mens en alle ander biota daargestel (karlaganis et al., 200�; ballschmiter, hackenberg, jarman & looser, 2002; die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 �7 buccini, 2003; o’driscoll, 2004). opsommende inligting oor die �2 pops word in tabel � gegee. hierdie persisterende stowwe word, óf opsetlik vervaardig (soos die pestisiede as produkte), óf word as nie-opsetlike byprodukte tydens ‘n hele reeks van hoë-temperatuur prosesse gevorm. pcbs (polychlorinated biphenyls) en hcb (hexachlorobenzene) is van die stowwe wat beide met en sonder intensie of opset gevorm word. natuurlike prosesse soos veldbrande en vulkaniese uitbarstings is ook nie-opsetlike bronne van van hierdie stowwe (soos gechloreerde dioksienes en furane), maar slegs antropogeniese bronne word deur die konvensie aangespreek. die rede vir die noodsaak vir internasionale aksie, is dat hierdie stowwe, nadat dit vrygestel is, nie by die bron van vorming gelokaliseer bly nie, maar kan versprei. aangesien die stowwe persisterend is (dit breek moeilik deur natuurlike prosesse af), bly dit lank in die omgewing. hierdie eienskappe maak dit ook moontlik dat hierdie stowwe ver kan versprei, deur lug, seestrome of selfs deur migrerende diere, na gebiede waar dit nie gebruik of gevorm word nie. die neiging is selfs dat hierdie stowwe in veral kouer gebiede, soos die poolstreke, waar die halfleeftyd van hierdie stowwe selfs nog langer is as in die gematigde gebiede, begin akkumuleer, en hoë en selfs gevaarlike vlakke in die diere (soos walvisse, ysbere en robbe), maar ook in mense (veral die inuit in kanada, alaska en siberië) begin akkumuleer het. die neiging van hierdie stowwe om, wyd te kan versprei, in vetweefsel van organismes (veral diere en mense) opgeneem en gestoor te kan word, asook die toksiese aard van die stowwe, vorm dus die basis van ‘n goed-gefundeerde besorgdheid, wat gelei het tot die stockholm konvensie (dewailly, ayotte, bruneau, laliberte, muir & norstrom, �99�; amap �998; bailey, barrie, halsall, fellin & muir, 2000; ballschmiter et al., 2002; porta & zumeta, 2002; godduhn bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 �8 & duffy, 2003; fiedler, 2003; bouwman, 2003; scheringer & wania, 200�). die stockholm konvensie het ‘n hele aantal artikels, wat oor ‘n verskeidenheid van aspekte van die implementering en uitvoering van die konvensie handel (anon, 2004b). daar is artikels oor: • spesifieke ingrepe oor die vermindering of eliminasie van opsetlik en nie-opsetlik geproduseerde stowwe • uitstelregisters vir state wat nog bewese noodsaak vir gebruik en of produksie van sekere stowwe het • hoe om opgehoopte produkte (soos ou voorraad van gifstowwe) en gekontamineerde stowwe te bestuur en uiteindelik mee weg te doen • die ontwikkeling van implementeringsplanne deur state (die sogenaamde nips national implementation plans) • die kategorisering van stowwe in verskeie annekse (tabel �) • uitruil van inligting • bewusmaking • navorsing en monitering • tegniese en finansiële bystand • verslagdoening • evaluering van die effektiwiteit van die konvensie • administratiewe reëlings • en die sekretariaat van die konvensie. aspekte soos nuwe pops en die stappe wat teen ledestate geneem kan word indien hulle nie hul verpligtinge nakom nie, moet nog deur die cop (conference of the parties, wat nou bestaan uit die ledestate onderhandel word. die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 �9 5.2 suid-afrika en die onderhandelings oor die stockholm konvensie suid-afrika het ‘n aktiewe en leidende rol gespeel tydens die onderhandelinge oor die stockholm konvensie, en het die konvensie geratifiseer op 4 september 2002. suid-afrika was van die begin af verteenwoordig, en het aan alle incs (behalwe een) en die twee cegs deelgeneem. lede van suidafrika se afvaardigings is geborg deur donorstate, asook deur die universiteit van pretoria en die noord-wes universiteit. beperkte fondse het egter genoodsaak dat toegewyde wetenskaplike verteenwoordiging net beskikbaar was tydens drie incs en een ceg. diplomatieke verteenwoordiging was hoofsaaklik gelei deur mnr. buthi mathebula van omgewingsake en toerisme (bouwman, 200�). groepe van state het ook deurgaans gesamentlik onderhandel. suid-afrika was veral aktief in die afrikaen in die g77-en-china-groepe. om tydens volle sittings, en selfs in kontakgroepe, as g-77-en-china te onderhandel, was ‘n kragtige teëwig teen die formidabele onderhandelingspanne van die eu, die vsa, japan, australië en kanada. die vsa het by tye meer as 50 lede in hul afvaardigings gehad, met spanne wat elke denkbare aspek vooraf bespreek, onderling met alle belanghebbendes in die vsa onderhandel het, en met velerlei onderhandlingstaktieke en terugvalposisies sterk kon onderhandel (die vsa het ten tye van hierdie skrywe nog nie die konvensie geratifiseer nie). in baie gevalle was dit duidelik dat die enkelpersoonafvaardigings van ontwikkelende state maar al te oorbluf was met die proses, en het nooit ‘n woord van kommentaar geopper nie. waarskynlik het diesulkes ook nie die mandaat gehad om een of ander posisie te ondersteun of af te wys nie, en is die gevoel gewek dat hulle maar net terugvoering aan hul onderskeie regerings gaan gee. dit het die onderhandelings as ‘n groep bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 20 egter belemmer, want soms kon daar nie eenparig as ‘n groep ‘n standpunt ingeneem word nie. 6 aspekte van die wetenskaplike onderhandelings in hierdie verband wil ek my toespits op die impak, of die gebrek daaraan, van gedifferensieerde natuurwetenskaplike kennis op die verloop en uitkoms van die onderhandelings. dit verwys nie na die normen waardegebaseerde ondersoeke in internasionale verhoudinge nie (neethling, 200�), wat op sigself ‘n heel ander, maar komplementerende veld van ondersoek is, en wat ‘n breë literatuur vanuit verskeie dissiplines, soos ekonomiese, politiekeen gedragswetenskappe, ontwikkel het. natuurwetenskaplike verteenwoordiging en insette in geheel vanuit die ontwikkelende state tydens die incs was maar karig, met enkeles uit suid-amerika, en ‘n paar van china wat kon meehelp. uit afrika was die deelname, behalwe vir suid-afrika, maar min. dit het egter wel beteken dat die suid-afrikaanse insette van belang was, en ons kon op sekere wetenskaplike gebiede ‘n leidende rol speel, beide in die incs en die cegs. dit was egter van die begin af duidelik dat wetenskaplike kennis i.v.m. sekere van die pops in suid-afrika, en in feitlik alle ander ontwikkelende state, minimaal is, en selfs feitlik ontbreek het. aangesien die konvensie beide opsetlike en nie-opsetlike pops -produksie en -gebruik aanspreek, het dit vele ontwikkelende state deurentyd, maar meestal onbewustelik, op die agtervoet gehad. alhoewel heelwat ontwikkelende state wel die incs bygewoon het (alle state is uitgenooi, met finansiële ondersteuning vir dié wat dit nie kon bekostig nie), het die afvaardigings meestal uit een persoon bestaan, wat dan ook net aan die diplomatieke en prosedurele onderhandelings kon deelgeneem. die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 2� suid-afrika, en tot ‘n mindere mate suider afrika, het verreweg die meeste kennis oor pops as produkte, en as omgewingsbesoedeling in afrika. tydens die regionally based assessment (rba) vir persisterende toksiese stowwe, wat al �2 pops ingesluit het, het die oorgrote meerderheid inligting vanuit suid-afrika en zimbabwe gekom. tot ‘n mindere mate was daar bydraes uit nigerië en soedan (osibanjo, bouwman, bashir, okond’ahoka, choong kwet yve, onyoyo, 2002). in zimbabwe was daar tot onlangs, ‘n baie aktiewe en produktiewe navorsingsaktiwiteit oor gifstofresidue in die omgewing. deels was dit histories dat daar navorsingsgroepe in zimbabwe ontwikkel het wat met baie goed opgeleide navorsers en laboratoriums sommige jare selfs suid-afrika oortref het in hul publikasie-uitsette in hierdie verband. later het die beskerming van die tabakuitvoer die staat genoop om die gifstofresidue in die uitvoerprodukte deeglik te toets, alvorens dit deur die vsa en eu-state aanvaar sal word. hierdie kapasiteit is egter tans besig om skade te ly maar dit kan van beide suid-afrika en zimbabwe gesê word. die gebrek aan kundigheid en kennis in ontwikkelende lande gaan veral ook ‘n rol speel wanneer nuwe middels vir insluiting oorweeg gaan word. weereens sal lande met ‘n agterstand in wetenskaplike kennis ook met ‘n agterstand onderhandel, selfs al word hul dalk negatief geraak. 6.� die pops gifstowwe die meeste van die beskikbare kennis het betrekking op die pops gifstowwe, veral ddt, dieldrien en hcb. aangesien net heptachloor en ddt ten tyde van die aanvang van die onderhandelings as pops gifstowwe in suid-afrika in gebruik was, het die ander (dieldrien, endrien, aldrien, heptachloor, mirex en toksafeen) nie op suid-afrika se agenda verskyn nie. die residue van meeste van hierdie gifstowwe bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 22 is egter nog wel in die omgewing teenwoordig, en daar is aanduidings dat van hierdie residue van elders afkomstig is (osibanjo et al., 2002). die bydrae van hierdie kennis was beduidend, aangesien dit wys dat selfs in tropiese en ariede gebiede, die residue van hierdie stowwe geruime tyd in die omgewing vertoef, en selfs in biota en mense akkumuleer. wat egter nie duidelik is nie, is die impakte wat hierdie residue op die mens of omgewing het. die meeste studies het net na die vlakke van besoedeling gekyk, en min of geen poging aangewend om die implikasies uiteen te sit nie, behalwe om te waarsku dat in baie gevalle die konsentrasies hoër of laer as sekere, voorafbepaalde, gevaarhoudende vlakke is. die vlakke of konsentrasies ter sprake, word meestal afgelei van eksperimente wat nie in afrika gedoen is nie, en het soms weinig bewese relevansie tot die situasies kenmerkend aan afrika. meer hieroor tydens die bespreking oor ddt. aangesien daar ‘n redelike mate van konsensus oor hierdie groep pops gifstowwe was, was daar, behalwe vir ddt, geen werklike konflik nie. van hierdie stowwe word nie meer vervaardig nie, en die beskikbare data is dus nie direk meer van toepassing nie. hierdie inligting mag dalk meer toepaslik in die toekoms word, indien ander gifstowwe, wat tans gebruik word, as addisionele pops voorgestel gaan word. die beskikbare data kan dan aanduidings gee van die omvang van die probleem, al is dit net by implikasie, of deur die gebruik van rekenaarmodelle. lindaan is ‘n potensiële pops-kandidaat, word nog steeds vervaardig, en het bewese vlakke in die omgewing. dit is een van die stowwe wat feitlik wêreldwyd in lug en water gemeet kan word, en begin meer en meer aandag trek. 6.2 pcbs een van die groot redes vir die ontwikkeling van die stockdie stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 2� holm konvensie was die skokbevinding dat pcbs in kommerwekkende vlakke in moedersmelk in die kanadese indiane teenwoordig was (dewailly et al., 1993). daar bestaan ‘n groot volume kennis oor pcbs in vele state, veral dié in die noordelike halfrond, maar die state suid hiervan, het op die beste maar ‘n karige poel van kennis. zimbabwe en suidafrika het weereens die botoon gevoer met die hoeveelheid inligting oor pcb-residue in die omgewing. in afrika is daar maar weinig bekend oor hierdie middel. die residuvlakke in die omgewing is grootliks onbekend, en daar is feitlik geen kennis oor hoeveel daar werklik van hierdie produk in kapasitors en transformators tans teenwoordig is nie. globaal gesien is pcb waarskynlik die grootste pops-probleem wat die stockholm konvensie sal moet hanteer. tussen twee en drie miljoen ton is reeds geproduseer, waarvan die grootste oorskot in rusland en geassosieerde republieke in dromme en tenks gestoor word. heelwat hiervan het reeds uitgelek, en in lugen waterstrome beland, waar dit feitlik onherroeplik vir baie lank sal bly. vir meer inligting oor pcbs, kan u die webwerf van die stockholm konvensie besoek (anon, 200�b). wat ons egter wel weet is dat feitlik orals in die omgewing waar daar vir pcbs getoets is, pcb residue gevind word (osibanjo et al., 2002). ’n onlangse projek, befonds deur die waternavorsingskommisie, het aan die lig gebring dat pcb residue selfs in afgeleë gebiede in suid-afrika teenwoordig is (vosloo, bouwman, 200�). hoe dit daar beland het, is nie duidelik nie, maar transport van elders (via lug of water) is nie uitgesluit nie. hierdie inligting was egter nie beskikbaar tydens die onderhandelinge oor die konvensie nie. 6.3 dioksiene en furane dit is veral oor hierdie twee stowwe dat daar in suid-afrika bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 2� baie min bekend is. tot en met inc5 in 2000, was daar net twee gepubliseerde studies in suider afrika oor omgewingsvlakke van hierdie stowwe (schecter, startin, rose, wright, parker, woods & hansen, �990; vetter, weichbrodt, scholz, luckas & oelschlager, �999). vergelykenderwys kan genoem word dat duitsland 10 000 datapunte beskikbaar het (persoonlike kommunikasie, h fiedler, 2002), maar vir suid-afrika en namibië gesamentlik minder as 20, en geen vir die res van afrika nie. die bronne van hierdie middels is egter wel teenwoordig (industrie, verbranding, veldbrande en ander), maar die mate van besoedeling en die impak daarvan was feitlik onbekend. suid-afrikaanse industrieë het ook hul eie analises laat doen, maar die data is nie beskikbaar nie. na die publisering van die wnk-studie (vosloo & bouwman, 200�), wat, net soos vir pcbs, aangetoon het dat hierdie stowwe alomteenwoordig is, en dat industriële gebiede hoër vlakke van besoedeling het, het die prentjie drasties verander. tydens die onderhandelings was dit nog onbekend, en die invloed hiervan op die onderhandelingsposisie van suid-afrika, sal later uitgelig word. dit moet beklemtoon word dat hierdie twee stowwe, saam met pcbs (en by implikasie ook hcb), die hoofonderwerp en -onderhandelingspunt van die hele proses was. aangesien die bronne van hierdie stowwe beide diffuus (bv. veldbrande) en gekonsentreerd (bv. verbrandingsoonde) is, en daar potensieel duisende groot en klein bronne bestaan (vanaf ‘n sigaret tot ‘n industriële kompleks) is die implikasies vir state geweldig groot, aangesien hulle onderneem om die bronne te beperk of aansienlik te verminder. dit was, (en bly) die mees komplekse aspek (afgesien van enkele diplomatieke en organisatoriese punte) van die konvensie. twee beginsels is hier ter sprake, nl. bat en bep: bat is best available techniques en bep is best environmental practices. beide, en selfs in kombinasie, moet die produksie en of vrystelling van die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 25 nie-opsetlik gevormde stowwe (effektief annex c) verminder of verhoed (richter & steinhauser, 2003; anon, 2004a). die riglyne vir bat en bep word nog ontwikkel, en moet deur die cop goedgekeur word. die implikasies vir beide ontwikkelde en ontwikkelende state is duidelik baie groot. 7 wetenskaplike kennis en onderhandelings dit was van die begin af duidelik dat state met minder wetenskaplike kennis, op die agtervoet was. die kostes vir omgewingsanalises en of opnames van bronne is baie hoog, en die noodsaak daarvoor is ook nie hoog op die agendas van die meeste ontwikkelende state nie, gegewe ander nasionale prioriteite soos armoede, behuising en gesondheid. dit was ook nie direk duidelik tot welke mate ontwikkelende state bydra tot die globale pops-produksie en vrystelling nie. wat wel duidelik was, was dat die oorgrote meerderheid van popsproduksie, beide opsetlik en nie-opsetlik, in die noordelike halfrond plaasvind. selfs die nie-opsetlike produksie van annex c-stowwe, is hoofsaaklik, a.g.v. die oorweldigende industriële aktiwiteit in die noordelike halfrond. die direkte relevansie van so ‘n konvensie vir die meeste ontwikkelende state suid van die vsa/kanada/europa/rusland/china en japan strook, kan dus as van geringer belang beskou word. hierdie state is egter wel betrokke by die invoer en gebruik van veral die annex a-produkte, asook annex-a produkte wat oorbodig is, of waarvan die bruikbaarheid reeds verval het, insluitend die groot pcb-probleem. dit is egter ook so dat, soos die ryker state mettertyd minder pops begin produseer, die armer state se globale proporsionele bydrae sal verhoog en dat hulle nog steeds, indien geen intervensie sou volg nie, aan die gevare van pops blootgestel sal wees – tipies ‘n situasie waar gedeelde maar gedifferensieerde verantwoordelikheid intree. bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 26 in ‘n situasie waar die ontwikkelende state ‘n gebrek aan kennis van hul eie pops-profiel het (invoer, gebruik, voorrade en produksie van alle pops), heers daar ‘n onsekerheid oor die implikasies indien dit in die toekoms sou bekend word. ‘n goeie voorbeeld van so ’n dilemma het hom afgespeel tydens die proses van onderhandeling en suid-afrika was die speelgrond waar die drama, aangaande ddt, ontwikkel het. ddt vir malariabeheer is in 1996 in suid-afrika vervang met alternatiewe middels (nie-pops gifstowwe, wat algemeen as minder gevaarlik vir die omgewing beskou word). die loodsprojekte het baie goeie beheer getoon, en aanvanklik was die eerste resultate op grootskaal belowend. spoedig egter, het ‘n malariamuskietspesie (anopheles funestus), wat a.g.v. ddt nie meer in suid-afrika voorgekom het nie, weer sy opwagting gemaak, aangesien die spesie intussen in ‘n buurland weerstandbiedend geword het teen die einste alternatiewe middels. die omvang van die gevolglike epidemie was sodanig dat malariagevale en -sterftes tot 50 keer toegeneem het. suid-afrika, wat aanvanklik as voorbeeld voorgehou was van ‘n staat wat suksesvol kon wegbeweeg van ddt, het nou ‘n voorbeeld geword van waar dinge tragies kan skeefloop. met die hergebruik van ddt, in kombinasie met alternatiewe middels, is die situasie gelukkig nou weer onder beheer. dit was ‘n duur les, en suid-afrika het dit terdeë tydens die onderhandelings gebruik om ‘n voordelige posisie te beding. geen staat of ander instansie wil deel wees van ‘n konvensie wat verantwoordelik vir leed en dood van mense gehou kan word nie, maar aan die ander kant is ddt ‘n baie bekende middel, wat nog steeds gevaarlik is (en hier is ‘n aansluiting by die ontwikkeling van normatiewe aspekte (neethling, 2004)). dit word ook in hoë vlakke in borsmelk van die inuit-indiane gevind, asook in ysbere en ander diere in en om die pole (amap�998; ballschmiter et al., 2002; zetterstrom, die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 27 2003; buccini, 2003). die inwoners van hierdie gebiede, en veral die moeders natuurlik, het ook regte tot ‘n skoon omgewing, veral indien hul nie self verantwoordelik is vir die gebruik van ddt, of enige voordeel daaruit kan trek nie. aan die anderkant is die impak van malaria geweldig groot. dit veroorsaak die dood van meer as ‘n miljoen afrikane elke jaar, meestal verwagtende vrouens en kinders (walker, ricciardone & jensen, 2003). die situasie in suid-afrika het groot belangstelling uitgelok, en met die data voorhande, insluitende die vlakke van ddt-kontaminasie van vrouens, babas en die omgewing (bouwman, reinecke, cooppan & becker, �990; bouwman, cooppan, reinecke & becker, �990; bouwman, cooppan, becker & ngxongo, �99�; bouwman, becker, cooppan & reinecke, �992; lotter & bouwman, 200�), en intense onderhandelings, is uiteindelik ‘n goeie teks ontwikkel, maar wat streng beperkings en verantwoordelikhede aan ledestate (en tot ‘n mate selfs aan nie-ledestate) opdra. ‘n voorbeeld hiervan is artikels � en 2 van deel ii, anneks b: the production and use of ddt shall be eliminated except for parties that have notified the secretariat of their intention to produce and/or use it. a ddt register is hereby established and shall be available to the public. the secretariat shall maintain the ddt register. each party that produces and/or uses ddt shall restrict such production and/or use for disease vector control in accordance with the world health organization recommendations and guidelines on the use of ddt and when locally safe, effective and affordable alternatives are not available to the party in question. in vergelyking met ddt, het die gebrek aan kennis oor die annex c-stowwe (en tot ‘n mindere mate ook vir pcbs), veroorsaak dat suid-afrika en soortgelyke state net met bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 28 spekulasie en scenario’s kon onderhandel. die konvensieteks reflekteer dus baie sterk die situasie en belange van die ontwikkelde state. die beste beskerming wat die ontwikkelende state kon beding, was op die vlak van befondsing (alhoewel daar ook elders voorsorg ingebou is). weereens het suid-afrika ‘n baie sterk rol hier gespeel, en is die volgende teks aanvaar (artikel ��.�): the extent to which the developing country parties will effectively implement their commitments under this convention will depend on the effective implementation by developed country parties of their commitments under this convention relating to financial resources, technical assistance and technology transfer. the fact that sustainable economic and social development and eradication of poverty are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country parties will be taken fully into account, giving due consideration to the need for the protection of human health and the environment. ontwikkelende state kan dus voortgaan om die prioriteite van armoede, behuising en gesondheid aan te spreek, maar addisionele middele van donorstate is nou beskikbaar om ook die pops-probleem die hoof te begin bied. sodanige middele moet egter voor beding word, aangesien dit nie onbeperk is nie. die tegniese bystand is die onderwerp van artikel �2, en word hier nie verder behandel nie. 8 gevolgtrekking die verloop van die ontwikkeling van die konvensie kan as ‘n algemene sukses beskou word, veral in die lig van die vinnige van-krag-wording van die konvensie, minder as drie jaar nadat dit vir ratifikasie oopgestel is. op hierdie stadium wil dit voorkom asof ontwikkelende state die meerderheid van die cop gaan uitmaak, wat interessante situasies die stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 29 tydens stemmings sal veroorsaak (by die cop word daar slegs deur ledestate gestem en nie meer op konsensusbasis onderhandel nie, behalwe moontlik met uitstaande teks). selfs die nro’s en igo’s het hul tevredenheid met die konvensie uitgespreek, terwyl die industrie, soos dalk verwag kon word, gemengde en gematigde reaksie getoon het. die uiteindelike sukses van die konvensie sal afhang van die erns en energie waarmee die ledestate hierdie groot taak gaan aanpak, en die mate van inskiklikheid wat dit sal verg. die groeiende besef en ontwikkeling van algemeen aanvaarde normatiewe waardes (neethling, 200�), soos wat gebeur het by die onderhandelings oor ddt, sal gekontrasteer word met meer selfsugtige belange, wat ledestate, nro’s, iro’s en mk’s waarskynlik toenemend kan laat polariseer. die belange van state sal normaalweg vooropgestel word deur die state self, voordat daar na gemeenskaplike belange omgesien gaan word. hierdie aspek van nasionale belange in ioo’s het ‘n hele literatuurbasis ontwikkel (kemfert, lise & tol, 200�; hoel & shapiro, 200�). die belange en insette van industriële lande en mk’s was deels verantwoordelik dat wetenskaplike fundering (“science-based”) as een van die norme van die onderhandelings gedien het. ooglopend was dit om as ‘n rasionele vertrekpunt te dien, maar onderliggend was die gevolg dat oorwegings soos vrees, morele waardes en onkunde wel simpatie, maar weinig effektiewe gewig gedra het. deur net te konsentreer op dit wat wetenskaplik gefundeer kan word, beteken net dat pops en omstandighede waaroor genoegsame kennis beskikbaar is, fundamenteel en daadwerklik aangespreek kan word. wetenskaplike onsekerheid word gelukkig wel ten dele verwoord in die voorsorgbeginsel, wat maar effens verswak in die doel van die konvensie verwoord is; “mindfull of the precautionary approach...” (artikel �). wetenskaplike onsekerheid (in die stockholm konvensie) is egter nie ‘n kribouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 �0 terium om nie ander stowwe as moontlike addisionele pops te ondersoek of in ‘n anneks op te neem nie, en erken die reg van state om selfs by gebrek aan genoegsame wetenskaplike kennis, moontlike addisionele pops te laat evalueer. die kern van hierdie artikel was die rol wat gedifferensieerde wetenskaplike kennis gedurende en na die bekragtiging van die konvensie gespeel het. die wetenskaplike gemeenskap was reeds dekades lank bewus van die toenemende gevaar van pops (al het dit toe nog nie die naam gehad nie), en het reeds lank beywer vir intervensie. nro’s as spreekbuis vir die omgewing het die saak verder aanhangig gemaak, en het later deel van die politieke landskap geword. die bewustheid onder die aarde se bewoners het gegroei, regionale ioo’s is gestig, en dit het uiteindelik gelei tot die stockholm konvensie. die rol van wetenskap is egter nog lank nie verby nie die gebrekkige wetenskaplike kennis in ontwikkelende state, deels veroorsaak deur gebrek aan infrastruktuur en opgeleide mense, moet aangespreek word, en die konvensie is ‘n moontlike kanaal hiervoor. die konvensie, alhoewel dit globaal van krag is, is gegrond op probleme wat hoofsaaklik in die noordelike halfrond, en meer spesifiek in antarktika na vore kom. pops-probleme, soos ddt en malariabeheer, is egter duidelik in die ontwikkelende state geleë, en sal dringend, o.a. deur nuwe tegnieke en strategieë aangespreek moet word. die konvensie maak ook hiervoor voorsiening, en sal dus navorsing in die verband stimuleer (soos wat reeds die geval is), en sal hopelik die differensiasie tot ‘n mate aanspreek. die bydrae van wetenskap moet egter ook nie oorskat word nie, want die verskil en verwantskap tussen wetenskaplike onsekerheid en die voorsorgbeginsel kan maklik verwar word (boehmer-christiansen, 1994). die spanning tussen wetenskaplik-gefundeerde bevindinge en aanbevelings, kry vele kere ‘n dowe oor, aangesien sekerheidsen politieke imperatiewe ook deur beleidsmakers oordie stockholm konvensie td, 1 (1), december 2005 �� weeg word (o’riordan, 200�). dit is egter so dat die meeste bestaande pops in tropiese en subtropiese gebiede minder pops-eienskappe het, aangesien dit normaalweg vinniger afbreek, en dus nie so ver kan versprei nie. daar is egter moontlike omstandighede waar ander middels wel pops-eienskappe in ons tipe klimaat kan openbaar, maar sonder verdere navorsing sal dit nie bekend word nie. die onus is dus op die ontwikkelende state om die geleenthede aan te gryp, en daarvoor te beding, want andersins sal die voordele wat die konvensie bied nie ontgin kan word nie. ook behoort skole en universiteite hiervan kennis neem, want ons moet die leerders al hoe meer internasionaal relevant oplei. konvensies soos dié, asook ander, en die groot igo’s, bied werksgeleentheid aan goed opgeleide studente, wat veral met korttermynaanstellings, baie ervaring kan opdoen, alhoewel nie noodwendig as navorsers nie. die besef het duidelik na vore gekom met die impak wat maar ‘n paar wetenskaplikes uit die g77-en-china groep (hoofsaaklik aangaande ddt) op internasionale beleid gehad het. ons kan en moet egter poog om beter te doen, nou en in die toekoms, en die geleenthede wat o.a. die voorsorgbeginsel bied, te benut. regerings uit ontwikkelende state moet ook die waarde van wetenskaplikes voor en tydens onderhandelinge in hierdie verband besef, juis om die impak van gedifferensieerde wetenskaplike kennis te verminder. die verband tussen molekuul en internasionale beleidsvorming is nie onmoontlik om te begryp nie. opleiding aan die noordwes-universiteit neem reeds hierdie verwikkelinge in ag, en word in die kurrikulums van veral die nagraadse studente ingesluit. hoewel ek dink dat ons goed gedoen het met die onderhandelings (die tyd sal egter leer), dink ek ook dat ons beter kon gedoen het en veral beter moet doen. met die nuwe geslag studente wat meer internasionaal ingestel behoort te wees, sal ons na my mening wel sterker en bouwman td, 1 (1), december 2005 �2 met meer gesag die behoeftes van ons suid-afrika en mense kan aanspreek, en terselfdertyd internasionaal regverdig en wetenskaplik verantwoordelike posisies kan inneem. bedankings: ek wil graag die mense geassosieer met die volgende instansies bedank vir hul ondersteuning wat dit vir my moontlik gemaak het om hierdie opwindende ontwikkeling te kon meemaak: nwu, lnr, mnr, wgo, unep chemicals, gef, nasionale departement van omgewingsake en toerisme, en die nrf. ek bedank ook prof. pd theron, prof. kenné de kock, prof. pieter potgieter en mej. cecile combrink vir kommentaar en korreksies. die opinies wat hier uitgespreek word is my eie, en reflekteer nie noodwendig die huidige of toekomstige onderhandlingsposisie van die regering van suid-afrika nie. literatuur abi-saab g, �98�. the concept of international organization: a synthesis. 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international consensus on ddt: a balance of environmental protection and disease control. international journal of hygiene and environmental health, 206(�-5):�2�-��5. zetterstrom, r. 200�. industrial and agricultural pollution: a threat to the health of children living in the arctic region. acta paediatrica, 92(��):�2�8-�2�0. tabel �: opsomming van vorming, gebruik en eienskappe van die �2 pops, tans in die stockholm konvensie. naam opsetlikvervaardig nie-opsetlik vervaardig bronne, gebruik en toksiese eienskappe anneks * aldrien pestisied geen of min produksie, verban in meeste lande, beperkte gebruik in sommige lande. a chlordaan pestisied word nog geproduseer, meestal gebruik teen termiete, verban in meeste lande, beperkte gebruik in sommige lande. kan moontlik kanker veroorsaak. a dieldrien pestisied geen produksie bekend, verban in meeste lande a endrien pestisied geen produksie bekend, verban in meeste lande. a heptachloor pestisied geen produksie bekend, meestal gebruik teen termiete, verban in meeste lande, beperkte gebruik in sommige lande. kan moontlik kanker veroorsaak. a heksachloro-benseen o p l o s middel neweproduk word nog geproduseer, maar tans min gebruik in gifstowwe, word wel in ander chemiese prosesse gebruik. ook gevorm tydens verbranding of hoë-temperatuurprosesse waar chloor teenwoordig is. veroorsaak kanker. a, c mireks pestisied geen produksie bekend, meestal gebruik teen termiete, verban in meeste lande, beperkte gebruik in sommige lande a toksafeen pestisied geen produksie bekend, verban in meeste lande. kan moontlik kanker veroorsaak. a pcb industrieel neweproduk geen huidige produksie bekend, miljoene tonne in gebruik in elektriese transformators en kapasitors. gebruik o.a. in verf en papier. ook gevorm as neweproduk by verbranding of hoë-temperatuurprosesse waar chloor teenwoordig is a, c ddt pestisied word nog geproduseer vir malariabeheer in verskeie lande, o.a. suid-afrika. kan moontlik kanker veroorsaak. b gechloreerde dioksiene neweproduk baie toksiese neweproduk, gevorm tydens verbranding of hoë-temperatuurprosesse waar chloor teenwoordig is. veroorsaak kanker. c g e c h l o r e e r d e furane neweproduk baie toksiese neweproduk, gevorm tydens verbranding of hoë-temperatuurprosesse waar chloor teenwoordig is. kan moontlik kanker veroorsaak. c * verwys na die anneks in die stockholm konvensie, waar die spesifieke verbinding geplaas is. a = eliminasie, b = beperkte gebruik, c = nie-opsetlike vorming microsoft word 04 tempelhoff.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(4) december 2014, special edition: san dispute resolution, pp. 52-83. a first generation african community grappling with urbanisation: the views of platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery jwn tempelhoff1 watching the cloud grow, we observe that nothing is quite the same from one moment to the next… tim ingold2 abstract since their relocation in 2004 to platfontein near kimberley in south africa’s northern cape province, members of the !xun and khwe san, originally from the northern parts of namibia and southern angola, became a first generation african community grappling with urbanisation in a rapidly modernising south africa. the platfontein area, a number of farms with a settlement housing complex accommodating about 7 000 people, is currently an emergent urban area in which residents have the opportunity to lead urban lives. however, the local water supply and sanitation infrastructure is in a bad state. people reside in early rdp houses, which since being handed over by the department of housing have not all been provided with proper water, sanitation and electricity. in the article attention is given to the perceptions of the san community of platfontein on their prospects for the future under current conditions. the focus is on local water and sanitation service delivery provided by the sol plaatje local municipality. in many respects their views reflect the complex cultural adjustments necessary to live in an urban environment. water supply and sanitation are services taken for granted in a modern urban setting. the fact that the san community is subject to considerable frustration about poor service delivery in these important services is a root cause of their discontent with the realities of life in an urban environment that does not live up to their expectations. keywords: water and sanitation, service delivery, northern cape, platfontein, san, !xun and khwe, kimberley. introduction the township of platfontein, situated about 15km southwest of kimberley in south africa’s northern cape province, is home to a san community currently grappling with the problem of adapting to urbanisation. what makes their situation exceptional is the fact that platfontein’s san residents are a first generation of africans who previously resided as highly mobile people in small communities in some of the most isolated areas of southern africa. urbanisation in itself is not new. people have been living in urban environments in many parts of the world for more than five millennia. however, since the twentieth century there have been significant demographic changes taking place, especially on the african continent. for example, in africa south of the sahara, the estimated 1.1 billion people who by 2011 had 1 research niche for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat), school of basic sciences, northwest university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark gauteng south africa. email: johann.tempelhoff@nwu.ac.za 2 evolution and social life, cambridge university press, cambridge, 1986, p. 134. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 53 moved to cities were expected to increase to 2.4 billion by 2050.3 of south africa’s more than 50 million residents, 59.3% were living in urban areas in 2005; this may rise to 70% of the total population of the country by 2050.4 many south africans who have moved to formal residential urban areas since 1994, take it for granted that urbanisation implies that they will have access to a potable water supply, sanitation and proper storm water drainage infrastructure. since the seventeenth century the country’s colonial history has linked urban south africa to a tradition of urban water governance dating back to classical times in western europe. after the british assumed control of the cape colony in 1806 a system of municipal governance was introduced that reflected certain prevalent modern trends. by the 1800s the industrial revolution had made britain’s political leaders and civil servants aware of the need for well-managed potable water purification plants and proper wastewater treatment works. in the first half of the century london, one of the largest cities in the world at the time, intermittently reeled under severe outbreaks of contagious waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhus and diarrhoea.5 consequently, the british made a significant breakthrough in what has been termed the “sanitation revolution” – ensuring that urban water and sanitation systems were well managed. the outcome was that mortality rates dropped significantly in urban areas.6 similar measures were soon introduced in western europe and north america, setting a global example.7 in south africa too, proper sanitation infrastructure became a hallmark of modern urban areas.8 by the twentieth century the country’s predominantly white minority inhabited urban areas that compared well with the best-managed water and sanitation urban systems in the world. after 1994, the new government of national unity committed itself to working in the interest of previously disadvantaged communities and providing sufficient urban housing in postapartheid south africa. in the process of embarking on a monumental urban development strategy, proper municipal water and sanitation service delivery frequently came under the public spotlight for all the wrong reasons. in the discussion to follow attention is given to the san people of platfontein who, since 2004 when they were relocated from schmidtsdrift, have been subject to an intense phase of 3 population reference bureau, (prb), world population data sheet 2013, accessed 31 july 2014, http://goo.gl/yjoon1. 4 department of economic and social affairs (desa): population division, world urbanization prospects: the 2011 revision, united nations, new york, 2012, p. 127. 5 s halliday, the great stink of london: sir joseph bazalgate and the cleansing of the victorian metropolis, the history press, brimscombe port, stroud, 2013. 6 d sedlack, water 4.0: the past, present and future of the world’s most vital resource, yale university press, new haven, 2014, pp. 25–40. 7 s solomon, water: the epic struggle for wealth, power and civilization, harper-collins ebooks, new york, 2009, pp. 75–6; c smith, city water, city life: water and the infrastructure of ideas in urbanising philadelphia, boston and chicago, university of chicago press, ltd., london, 2013, locations 110-133. 8 h mäki, water, sanitation and health: the development of the environmental services in sour south african cities, 1840-1920, kehrä media inc. tampere, 2008, pp. 15-29; gfj king, ‘skarreling’: a socio-environmental history of household waste in south africa (ma, stellenbosch university, 2014, pp. 14-19. tempelhoff 54 urbanisation. in particular, the focus is on their perceptions of water and sanitation service delivery. they live on the fringe of an urban society and are part of it, and yet they still feel marginalised. listening to what these people say about water and sanitation does drive home a message. there is an expectation that water and sanitation should be similar to that enjoyed by people in neighbouring suburban residential areas and yet they are deprived of these basic urban services. under these circumstances they experience problems forging a new cultural lifestyle. m a p 1 p l a t f o n t e i n i n 2 0 0 4 ( g o o g l e e a r t h ) m a p 2 p l a t f o n t e i n t e n y e a r s l a t e r , i n 2 0 1 4 . i n f o r m a l s t r u c t u r e s h a v e i n c r e a s e d o n t h e e d g e s o f w e s t e r n , s o u t h e r n a n d e a s t e r n p a r t o f t h e s e t t l e m e n t ( g o o g l e e a r t h ) a complex community the san community of platfontein forms part of a sub-continental regional society of former hunting, foraging, and pastoral africans who have been subjected to intense waves of platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 55 complex socio-economic and political change. residents are respectively members of the !xun and khwe ethnic communities. they formerly resided in the south and south-eastern parts of angola and northern namibia.9 their cultural dynamics since the 1960s have been shaped on the periphery of the african decolonisation process as it played itself out on the southern sub-continent. on numerous occasions they found themselves in the epicentre of liberation wars between colonial powers and african nationalists. first, they were used as flechas (auxiliaries) by the portuguese to prevent the nationalist união nacional para a indepêndencia total de angola (unita) from undermining the stability of colonial angola.10 then, in 1975, a socialist revolution in lisbon toppled the old regime in portugal and two of its colonies in southern africa, angola and mozambique, became independent states. hardly had the new government in angola taken control before the former south african defence force (sadf) in namibia recruited the san to help in the white south african government’s fight against the liberation forces of the south west african peoples’ organisation (swapo) and later their cuban allies who posed a threat to the former colony of german south-west africa, which had been a protectorate of south africa after world war i (1914– 1918).11 during this period of upheaval, today’s residents of platfontein lived on the fringes of mainstream black rural village communities in the caprivi, where they formed nuclear family groups. they led a highly mobile life. these once-isolated communities unwittingly became part of an on-going war that only drew to a conclusion in 1990 with the formation of an independent namibia. yet, even then there was little solace for them. if they remained in namibia the chances were good that they would be subjected to persecution by the new swapo government. consequently, a community of almost 4 000 people were resettled by the sadf at schmidtsdrift, near kimberley in the northern cape province, at the time when south africans started negotiating a new multiracial democracy in the early 1990s.12 the advent of the new south africa in 1994 was accompanied by a comprehensive political, social and economic transition. in the rural areas of the country communities that had earlier been forced off the land as a result of apartheid policies were allowed to reclaim the areas where they had previously lived. this was part of the new anc government’s comprehensive restitution programme. the land on which the san were living at schmidtsdrift formed part of the ancestral lands of ethnic tswana, bathlapin and a group of griqua people. the claim to the land by these groups was approved and the san of schmidtsdrift had to be relocated.13 they were scheduled for relocation to an area not far from the city of kimberley. the preliminary process of urbanisation of the san began in a dusty tented village at schmidtsdrift in 1990 and this re-location created a significant sense of uncertainty among them. the community had lost its right to live on the land. they now had to face ethnic 9 tn den hertog, “diversity behind constructed unity: the resettlement process of the !xun and the khwe communities in south africa”, journal of contemporary african studies, 31(3), 2013, p. 349. 10 ibid., p. 349. 11 ibid., pp. 349–350. 12 rk hitchcock, “refugees, resettlement, and land and resource conflicts: the politics of identity among !xun and khwe san in northeastern namibia”, african monographs, 33(2), june 2012, p. 86. 13 m smith, former san soldiers still waiting for houses, in iol, 2003.04.18, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/4lxzep tempelhoff 56 merging which they felt would soon lead to their people becoming extinct.14 according to major charles hallett, an expert on the community: the bushmen fear a swallowing up of their culture and their values when the 2 000 young people of the schmidtsdrift community reach kimberley in the next few months. they want somewhere they can belong.15 in 1999, president nelson mandela granted the san community of schmidtsdrift 13000ha of farming land near kimberley, which included the farm platfontein on which they were scheduled to reside.16 in addition, the community received 900 individual reconstruction and development (rdp) housing grants to the value of r15 000 each that enabled each family to purchase a home.17 in august 2000, the sabc radio station x-k fm started transmissions to the community at schmidtsdrift in their respective vernacular languages, as well as in afrikaans.18 this service followed them to platfontein. despite the gestures of acceptance by the south african government, the san continued to feel marginalised. it was as if they remained on the fringes of mainstream society – much the same as they had been in angola. in 2000, a community member commented to the media: it seems our nation is not the same as the blacks. they have their own government and they don’t care about us.19 this was despite the fact that the !xun and khwe were amongst the first communities in the country to receive land in terms of the new government’s land reform programme. their sense of marginalisation was not unfounded, because more than four years after the promise of land had been made, little had come of the plans to provide the community with proper housing.20 in april 2003, the media reported on the dire circumstances of the san who were still at schmidtsdrift, living in tattered tents under dismal circumstances. some were even living in makeshift shelters on the banks of the orange river, while others contemplated simply moving away.21 the then northern cape province premier, manny dipico, promised the community that they would be relocated.22 at the same time the northern cape provincial housing department announced that 500 houses had been budgeted for and these would be available 14 anon., san fear land reform spells extinction, iol, 8 july 1999, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/kw8tfk 15 ibid. 16 smith, former san soldiers still waiting for houses. 17 b weidlich, san face lifestyle threat, in iol, 15 october 2007, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/tvnpgl 18 anon., northern cape gets san language radio, in iol, 19 august 2000, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/x5e0fw 19 a seccombe, san trackers lay claim to drakensberg land, in iol 13 august 2000, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/rgskk9 20 smith, former san soldiers still waiting for houses. 21 ibid. 22 ibid. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 57 for occupation by the end of 2003.23 in the interim a group of about 400 community members moved to platfontein, where they lived in workers’ houses on what had formerly been white-owned farms. instead of becoming part of an existing urban community, they had to create urban spaces in what was scheduled to become a typical south african township. a few of the san put up shacks, but complained that they were not used to living in shanties.24 some community members had grave reservations about the empty promises made by the government. mr rennie mishe, a member of the community property association (cpa), told the media it seemed as if nothing was really happening at platfontein where the community was scheduled to be resettled. at the time not a single one of the promised 1 000 houses had been built.25 in january 2004, amid a hive of construction activities, the !xunkhwesa combined school opened its doors to 1 200 pupils and 33 teachers. up to that time the community’s children had attended school in a makeshift town of tents at the former schmidtsdrift.26 later the same year the remainder of the community had also been relocated to platfontein. m a p 3 w i t h t h e e x c e p t i o n o f t h e m i d d l e b l o c k t h e g r e a t e r p a r t o f p l a t f o n t e i n b y 2 0 1 4 a t l e a s t h a d s t a n d p i p e s f o r p o t a b l e w a t e r s u p p l i e s . ( d w s , k i m b e r l e y , 2 0 1 4 ) 23 ibid. 24 ibid. 25 ibid. 26 m smith, long wait for !xun and !khwe homecoming ends, in iol, 20 january 2004, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/no9gcs s ­ 36hh 1160m 11 80 m w a t e rw a t e r house connection yard connection communal standpipe communal>200m none unknown vacant stands vacant facilities h hospital ­ clinic s school water network bulk supply connector reticulation water accessories ¤¤! communal standpipe z{m bulk water meter zsc pump z{ reservoir z{ª ground z{y elevated ��y water purification water source 66 surface water z{b borehole 0 500 1,000250 meters ± sol plaatje platfontein tempelhoff 58 the housing project was executed in a short period of time. the structures were built on the pattern of the first rdp houses, notable for their spartan and rudimentary style. in terms of water supply and sanitation residents were provided with standpipes for potable water and ventilated improved pit (vip) toilets. in the northern cape, geographically the largest province of south africa with the lowest population (1.1 million in 2011), municipalities provided vip and urine diversion sanitation (uds) systems because of financial constraints and water scarcity in the province. in most communities the dry sanitation systems did not work well, partially because of inferior workmanship in their construction and residents who were not properly educated on the use of the facilities. 27 m a p 4 i n 2 0 0 4 h o u s e s w e r e f i t t e d w i t h v e n t i l a t e d i m p r o v e d p i t l a t r i n e s ( v i p s ) . t h e s o u t h e r n m o s t p a r t o f t h e m i d d l e b l o c k a n d t h e f a r e a s t e r n s e c t i o n o f t h e t o w n s h i p e i t h e r h a d u n i m p r o v e d p i t l a t r i n e s w i t h s o m e s t a n d s h a v i n g n o f a c i l i t i e s a t a l l ( d w s , k i m b e r l e y , 2 0 1 4 ) historical consciousness of their association with water the san people of southern africa traditionally have strong ties with water. the earliest foreign travellers in the sub-continent noted how skilful the san and khoi were at procuring water under adverse arid conditions.28 they astounded friend and foe alike with their ability 27 . department of human settlements, ministerial task team report. review, investigation and evaluation of the national sanitation programme – towards continuous improvement (july 2012), pp. 310-313. 28 cj andersson, lake ngami or explorations and discovery during four years of wandering in the wilds of south-western africa, facsimile edition by c struik, cape town, 1987, of the second edition, hurst s ­ �� �� �� �� 36hh 1160 m 11 80 m s a n i t a t i o ns a n i t a t i o n basic service flush to treatment conservancy tank septic tank uds vip inadequate facilities bucket unimproved pit none unknown vacant stands vacant facilities h hospital ­clinic s school infrastructure gravity line pumped line unknown ��sewer pump suy treatment plant 0 500 1,000 1,500250 meters ± sol plaatje platfontein platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 59 to thrive under adverse circumstances of persecution, drought and famine.29 up to the present, in the regions in which they reside, water typically remains at a premium. climatic conditions in the western parts of the sub-continent tend to vary between semiand extremely arid (less than 25mm per annum) and form part of the 65% of the country’s land surface that receives less than 500mm of rain every year.30 south africa’s average rainfall is a meagre 450mm per annum, which is well below the world annual average of 860mm.31 platfontein is also situated in a relatively arid part of the country. the communal land borders the wildebeestkuil rock art heritage site, which tells the story of the platfontein residents’ late stone age ancestors who were residents in the region, where a series of pans formed wetlands around an imposing koppie in the years of good rains. from the historical record we also know that traditionally the san, as was also the case with their related khoi neighbours, lived a mobile life closely associated with the seasonal availability of water supplies. the khoisan, as they have been described collectively, traditionally moved around in search of food. dwellings and sites of residence were thus always temporary.32 they tended to have different places of residence in the rainy and the dry seasons. in the case of the khoisan of the okavango-zambezi region, the tannekwe san lived in the marshlands of the okavango basin. here they had small villages with palisades, similar to those of the local bantu-speaking peoples.33 when the rains started in the area, living conditions were difficult and they moved away. village settlements were then relocated to the edge of the surrounding plains where their hunting grounds were situated.34 the hukwe people at lake ngami followed a similar lifestyle. in the rainy season they lived in a relatively compact village settlement. once the dry season set in they split up into smaller groups and spread further afield and survived by hunting and gathering.35 for the rest, according to schapera, the khoisan led a nomadic life. those who were accustomed to living in mountainous regions found caves and rock shelters in which to live in the southern and and blackett, london, 1856, pp. 319–20; t baines, journal of residence in africa 1842–1853, volume 1, 1842–1849, edited by rf kennedy, the van riebeeck society, cape town, 1961, pp. 188-189. (entry: 26 september 1849); cp thunberg, travels at the cape of good hope, 1772–1775, original c. 1795. edited by vs forbes. translation from the swedish revised by j. & i. rudner; contributions to the foreword by i. rudner & j. rourke, van riebeeck society cape town, 1986, pp. 57, 248, 251, 313. 29 hitchcock, “refugees, resettlement, and land and resource conflicts”, pp. 77–78. 30 a(d) van zyl, south african weather and atmospheric phenomena, briza publications, pretoria, 2003, p. 36. 31 department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), national water resource strategy (nwrs), 1st edition, dwaf, pretoria, 2004; k rowntree, “geography of drainage basins: hydrology, geomorphology, and ecosystems management”, in r fox, and e rowntree (eds.), the geography of south africa in a changing world, oxford university press, cape town, 2000, pp. 394. 32 i schapera, the khoisan people of south africa: bushmen and hottentots, routledge & kegan paul, london, 1960, p. 86. 33 ibid. 34 ibid. 35 ibid. tempelhoff 60 eastern parts of southern africa.36 as recently as the early twentieth century, in the latter part of the dry season, the namib san still sheltered in caves and overhanging rock shelters in the mountainous regions of great namaqualand.37 wherever they stayed for more than a few days, the san women would make crude bush huts, as a rule at sites relatively close to watering places.38 these would form part of their hunting areas. the descendants of these people are currently a first generation of urbanised san located at the township of platfontein. they have had to contend with the trials and tribulations of becoming part of a rapidly urbanising south african society. apart from an increasing shortfall in sufficient housing, the water-related infrastructure of the community is below standard. in the discussion that follows, attention is given to how this community experiences life at platfontein in terms of water supply, sanitation and storm-water facilities, and to the community’s perceptions of the problems experienced in this regard since 2004. historical recollections of water in discussions with members of the community at the time of a fieldwork visit to platfontein in august 2014, it was emphasised that for them as indigenous people water is an important resource. in essence, water represents life:39 the water they drank in former times gave them energy.40 they knew how to manage water when there was little available.41 they were innovative and able to store water and thrived under conditions where outsiders would succumb to thirst. they spoke of how members of the community, formerly resident in parts of namibia and angola, were able to secure water supplies from the bark of trees, rivers and natural and man-made lakes (shonas)42 and how they now (in 2014) find themselves in the unenviable position of having to rely on a municipal authority43 for a water supply that some community members consider to be of dubious quality. 44 at the time of the interviews the residents, part of the older generation coming from angola, had fond recollections of the water they drank that came from the wells they had dug personally.45 others who originally lived in namibia remembered how they drank water from dams. they also pointed out that when they were transferred to schmidtsdrift, at the time namibia became independent, they made the transition to drinking water from the river.46 river water, for many of the older people, was not foreign. they acknowledged drinking 36 ibid. 37 ibid., pp. 86–7. 38 ibid., p. 87. 39 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 40 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: rn. 41 w le roux and a white (eds), voices of the san: living in southern africa today, kwela books, cape town, 2004, pp. 90–92. 42 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: nk; fmm. 43 ibid. 44 toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: pc. 45 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ac. 46 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: km. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 61 from streams in former times, but their main drinking water source was from wells.47 there were also times when they had to drink muddy and dirty water in the bush, but that was only under exceptional circumstances.48 one resident recollected how in angola they had extracted good water from the river.49 women of the !xun frequently made reference to how they collected water in the areas where they came from. one explained: when we were in namibia we did not drink water that came from other people. we drank water from the dam. when we moved to schmidtsdrift we drank water that came from the river.50 the water of the (vaal) river at schmidtsdrift is fondly remembered.51 however, according to disclosures by people outside the community, the community experienced hard times.52 interestingly, they did not consider the sadf that cared for them and provided them with water at the time of the bush war (or border war, 1975–1990) as “outsiders”. instead, it seemed as if they considered themselves part of the defence force – an institution that seemed to care for its people and for everybody’s water supply. the leadership of the cpa lamented the fact that when the community took up residence at platfontein, it was the first time that the san had to rely on “people from outside” to supply the community with water.53 they felt as if they were now only “users of water” because they were no longer responsible for its procurement. what concerned them was the fact that they did not even know where the water in their taps came from.54 one female respondent explained that it would be good if they could once again start digging wells to find water, as they had done in the “old days”. however, the work, it was said, had to be done by the men in collaboration with the municipality.55 the water could then be stored in a dam.56 a community leader added a caveat, explaining that community members were unable to dig their own wells because they needed mechanical equipment such as that used by the municipality.57 it appeared as if the community as collective had already considered the problem and were of the opinion that a comprehensive water supply was necessary for platfontein. some people felt that when the time came for the local water infrastructure 47 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: rn. 48 toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: pc. 49 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ip. 50 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: km. 51 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: rn. 52 toa20140711; h smit, director of the southern african san institute (sisa), roodevallei, pretoria; a seccombe, san trackers lay claim to drakensberg land; d khecane, anthrax outbreak sends eight more to hospital, in iol, 7 january 2001, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/dcfnbh 53 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 54 ibid. 55 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: km. 56 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: rn. 57 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm tempelhoff 62 system to be upgraded, the community’s unemployed men deserved to get jobs; they should even be responsible for the construction of the dam.58 what people want the community of platfontein is unanimous in their dissatisfaction about the current water and sanitation services. a senior leader of the community articulated the community’s needs as follows: we request waterborne toilets. we would also like showers or baths. we live under very unhygienic conditions.59 descriptions of water and sewage overflows at platfontein at the time of discussions with individuals and groups there were complaints that the water flowing out of the tap in the morning was “dirty”; it had plant debris and a variety of solids.60 others said that the water, when it came from the tap, had a white colour before settling down. they did not consider this to be part of a chlorine cleansing process, but instead expressed the opinion that the water caused them to become ill.61 the leadership of the cpa also expressed concerns about the water quality, stating that it was not always clean.62 according to one female participant, the water turned black after it had been boiled. it also appeared that there were “black things” and even hair in the water.63 another said there were at times “small life forms” in the tap water, which made people fearful of drinking it.64 one leader explained that water users were uncertain whether the water was clean at all times. the colour of the water constantly changed. it was not always clear: sometimes impurities came out of the tap and at other times they would have the cleanest of crystal-clear drinking water. this leader frequently travelled to kimberley and was aware that the water in kimberley tasted different from the water at platfontein.65 naturally, rumour-mongering in the community was rife at the time of the research fieldwork conducted in mid-august 2014 because, as the community insisted, they were not fully aware of where their water came from. some firmly believed platfontein’s water came from what they called the gogga pump, “all the dirty water coming from kimberley”.66 this opinion seemed to be rife in the community. of great concern was the fact that large amounts of raw sewage flowed onto their property from the dysfunctional homevale wastewater treatment 58 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: km. 59 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. freely translated from the afrikaans. 60 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: jd. 61 informal discussion with social worker, social development office, platfontein, 15 august 2014; toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: m kapunda. 62 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: rm. 63 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: rn. 64 toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: pc. 65 toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: mj. 66 toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: pc. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 63 works serving neighbouring townships.67 in discussions with members of the platfontein community there were considerable complaints about the flooding of part of their property with sewage water emanating from the gogga pump (homevale).68 in 2012, the sol plaatjie local municipality’s main urban centre, kimberley, had an estimated and burgeoning population of about 250 000 residents. the city, one of the country’s oldest formal urban areas, has for some time grappled with ageing water and sanitation infrastructure and rapid population growth. following a pre-directive of the department of water affairs in 2008, the municipal management placed a moratorium on all developments that required municipal infrastructure. a study on the municipality’s infrastructure in 2009 suggested that it would cost at least r1.6 billion to eradicate the infrastructure backlog. the existing sources of municipal revenue were simply unable to carry these costs. in 2012, the government provided a municipal infrastructure grant (mig) to the local municipality to the tune of r34.5 million, which included an upgrade for the notorious gogga pump (homevale) wastewater plant.69 by 2014, the plant was still not able to cope with large volumes of sewage. moreover, the residents of platfontein had not been beneficiaries of the infrastructure upgrade. m a p 5 s a t e l l i t e i m a g e s h o w i n g t h e d a r k l i n e o f r a w s e w a g e e m a n a t i n g f r o m t h e g o g g a p u m p s t a t i o n – t h e l a r g e s t w a s t e w a t e r t r e a t m e n t w o r k s i n t h e k i m b e r l e y a r e a . t h e h i g h l y d a n g e r o u s s p i l l i s o n t h e c o m m u n a l p r o p e r t y o f t h e s a n a t p l a t f o n t e i n ( g o o g l e e a r t h ) on 12 august 2014, community leaders met with officials of the sol plaatje local municipality and the provincial office of the department of water and sanitation (dws) to 67 see discussion below. 68 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 69 . department of human settlements, ministerial task team report. review, investigation and evaluation of the national sanitation programme – towards continuous improvement (july 2012), pp. 329–333. tempelhoff 64 visit the area of platfontein where a significant amount of raw sewage flowed into an extensive wetland region and gravitated over a distance of several kilometres to the wildebeestkuil rock art heritage site. earlier in the day a meeting was held between officials of the dws with their counterparts from the sol plaatje local municipality. under discussion was homevale, the largest sewage pumping station in kimberley. officials of the dws were concerned about the treatment works that had been dysfunctional for a number of months and the fact that large amounts of raw sewage flowed onto the land where the platfontein community lived. the department’s enforcement officials had earlier pinpointed the serious leakages and were aware that the community’s children played in the area. there were also concerns about two local pans in the wetlands where the sewage spill accumulated in the winter months. the sites were the favourite grazing areas of local cattle and sheep. these conditions, according to them, posed a major threat to human health for the entire year.70 leaders of the san community indicated that they had reported the spill to the local authority on numerous occasions. nothing came of their requests for a positive response to the crisis.71 at the meeting officials of the local authority told the dws officials there had been an agreement with the previous owner of platfontein for the overflow from the wastewater treatment works to flow into the wetland. from the deliberations between the dws and municipal officials, it was evident that the provincial water authority was not satisfied and wanted the problem to be addressed in an appropriate manner.72 in a discussion with the author, two days after the meeting, a senior community leader said the san did not want to be confrontational in their dealings with the authorities. therefore the leadership had even discussed the option that the community should sell off part of the land in an effort to rid itself from the problem.73 it was apparent that this first generation of urban san people, in an effort to rid themselves of badly managed infrastructure, were even willing to compromise their right to own pristine land on the fringe of a high-density metropolitan area. awareness of waterborne disease and hygiene community members are acutely aware that water supplies are no longer as clean as they were in former times. surface and groundwater supplies in many parts of southern africa have been polluted.74 often local residents refer indirectly to water as the cause of diseases they contracted; in many cases they placed the blame directly on water. one said, for 70 department of water and sanitation, northern cape, minutes of meeting on the homevale wastewater treatment plant: technical interventions, dws, regional offices, kimberley, 12 august, pp. 2–3. 71 opinions expressed by community leaders who accompanied the researcher to the site of the sewage spill. 72 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 73 ibid. 74 toa20140713 fmm, roodevallei, gauteng; also see d robbins, on the bridge of goodbye: the story of south africa’s discarded san soldiers, jonathan ball publishers, johannesburg, 2007. see illustration and caption opposite p. 121. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 65 example, that people were getting sick because of the dirty water they were forced to drink.75 they described the water they consumed in former times as “pure”.76 an elderly lady who spoke with considerable insight as a person who had raised not only her own children, but was now also responsible for raising her grandchildren, said it was evident that the local water supply was the primary cause of diseases in new-born babies. she claimed that infants frequently suffer from stomach-related diseases.77 some community members said that the water they were exposed to caused high blood pressure.78 they were also of the opinion that the water was responsible for diabetes and tuberculosis.79 another respondent said it caused asthma.80 diarrhoea was also given as one of the consequences of the dirty water.81 leaders pinpointed the cause of disease as the sanitary conditions, explaining that the clinic staff would testify that many reports of sickness were directly related to sanitation and the state of the water in platfontein.82 they also suggested that the authorities should give residents hygiene education in respect of water use.83 awareness campaigns had been launched previously on water use but residents felt it was necessary to repeat this initiative. the local clinic did not always have sufficient and appropriate medicines for the treatment of people suffering from water-related diseases. according to a local community member the service was simply not up to standard.84 he recollected how, in former times, the red cross would come to the community and communicate with them on health matters. the local authority had also sent officials who explained to them how to open windows for proper ventilation and how to boil water they considered suspect.85 problems with standpipe taps, hygiene and the need for hot water people complained about standpipe taps. the taps are outside and they have to go outdoors whenever they need water.86 representatives of the cpa felt it would be better if the taps were located inside the dwellings. residents could then control their own domestic consumption.87 it was said the problem with outdoor standpipes was that other people could 75 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: km. 76 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ac. 77 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: rn. 78 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ac; toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 79 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ip. 80 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: rn. 81 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 82 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 83 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 84 toa20140712 01 zs, roodevallei, pretoria. 85 ibid. 86 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: gm. 87 toa20140815 !xun cpa, dsd platfontein: rm; toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: mj. tempelhoff 66 come during the night and take the residents’ water. this leads to disputes with their neighbours who did not have their own water supplies.88 those without tap water have to get supplies from close friends and well-disposed neighbours. it is evident that the san have become urbanites, living in the confines of their own homes and caring first and foremost for their own family members. a group of women interviewed complained that their houses were small and the water supplies were outdoors. they drew comparisons with facilities made available to residents in neighbouring communities; they also lived in small houses, but at least had water indoors.89 f i g u r e 1 a m a k e s h i f t k i t c h e n o u t s i d e a p l a t f o n t e i n d w e l l i n g . s o m e h o u s e s a r e h o m e t o a n u m b e r o f f a m i l i e s . t h e s t r u c t u r e i s a t y p i c a l s a n s k e r m ( c o v e r i n g ) m a d e f r o m o l d m i l i t a r y t e n t s t o s e c u r e m o r e d o m e s t i c s p a c e ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) in parts of the !xun residential area of platfontein some families make use of the traditional skerm (shelter) as an outside kitchen. most are constructed from old army tents. these rudimentary kitchen areas sometimes include a storage facility for wood, a small fireplace and cooking utensils. a small basin for dishes is usually found near the skerm, or near the food preparation space inside the dwelling. washing dishes is an important cultural tradition in the community. in former times housewives used sand to wash the dishes90 but these days they use commercial dishwashing detergents or resort to using laundry detergents.91 88 toa20140816 khwe (cpa), dsd: nk. 89 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: gm. 90 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: sc. 91 ibid. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 67 f i g u r e 2 s o m e h o u s e w i v e s u s e m a k e s h i f t k i t c h e n s w i t h o u t p r o p e r v e n t i l a t i o n a n d l i g h t ( p h o t o : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) f i g u r e 3 a s e n i o r m e m b e r o f t h e p l a t f o n t e i n c o m m u n i t y p r e p a r e s t o d o t h e l a u n d r y . ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) tempelhoff 68 it is difficult to perform all these tasks under crowded domestic conditions. a local leader explained that the children born between 1994 and 1998, many of them unemployed, are still living with their parents, placing severe strain on living space in the houses initially occupied in 2004.92 the author was told that as many as four families (12-16 people) have to live in one dwelling. residents complained that they have to go to great lengths before taking a bath.93 they are clearly aware of the facilities of other communities, and hinted that they also deserved proper water and sanitation services.94 in some households the bathtub was used for the family’s laundry.95 elderly people in particular experienced a dire need for hot water to at least have a daily wash.96 one explained that with a meagre supply of five litres he has to wash his whole body, shave and brush his teeth.97 this is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs for him in the large household of which he is the father. f i g u r e 4 a m a k e s h i f t c u b i c l e m a d e f r o m t h e r e m n a n t s o f a n o l d a r m y t e n t s e r v e s a s a n e n c l o s u r e f o r a r e s p e c t e d t r a d i t i o n a l l e a d e r a n d h i s f a m i l y t o d o t h e i r a b l u t i o n s . d u r i n g i n t e r v i e w s l o c a l r e s i d e n t s c o m p l a i n e d a b o u t t h e f a c t t h a t t h e y h a d i n s u f f i c i e n t s p a c e i n w h i c h t o p e r f o r m t h e i r d a i l y h y g i e n e r i t u a l s ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) 92 toa20140712 01 zs, roodevallei, pretoria. 93 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 94 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: gm. 95 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 96 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: mn. 97 toa20140712 01 zs, roodevallei, pretoria. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 69 the existing washing arrangements have a marked effect on the workload of females in the household. where there is no electricity the women are responsible for gathering firewood, which was not readily available in close proximity to the built-up township. everything in platfontein seems to demand significant human energy. there was a request for the municipality to install solar power to ensure that houses had the benefit of hot water.98 apparently they had been promised prior to the may 2014 election that solar panels would be installed. however, by august 2014, nothing had been done.99 water leaks, outages and politics in mid-august 2014 there were many broken taps and leaking pipelines in platfontein and local residents frequently complained to members of the cpa.100 at one time, a community leader recollected in an interview, that it was literally impossible to access the premises of the local school for three months because of a water leak at the front gate.101 f i g u r e 5 s o m e r e s i d e n t u s e p l a s t i c b a g s t o s t o p t a p l e a k s ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) in informal discussions and in formal interviews, residents expressed the opinion that it was the responsibility of the municipality to come and repair the taps and the pipelines.102 one resident said that because the taps are located outside they must surely be the responsibility of 98 . toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: gm. 99 ibid. 100 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: jd. 101 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 102 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: jd. tempelhoff 70 the municipality.103 other residents appear to be amenable to paying for repairs to the water supply on their properties, but do not always have sufficient money.104 in some cases community members resorted to self-help strategies. in the khwe community’s area in platfontein, there are rudimentary but innovative strategies for conserving water and looking after taps by sealing them with strips of plastic from shopping bags. residents in other parts of platfontein use containers to store water that gushes from leaking taps. f i g u r e 6 a t t h e i n t e r s e c t i o n o f k a n g u l u s t r e e t i n p l a t f o n t e i n ’ s x u n a r e a w a t e r i s s t i l l d a m m e d u p , d e s p i t e a r e c e n t w a t e r p i p e r e p a i r o p e r a t i o n . m o t o r i s t s a n d p e d e s t r i a n s a r e u n a b l e t o p a s s s a f e l y t h r o u g h t h e a r e a ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) most water supply outages occur in the summer months. at times the community is without water for two to three days. they do receive prior notification of outages, so that they are able to store up sufficient supplies.105 one cpa leader explained that in many cases people had learnt when to expect outages: when it is overcast there is water. however, when the sun shines we do not get water. in the summer we need water, but that is the time of year that they [the municipal officials] simply close down the water.106 103 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 104 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: dn. 105 toa20140816 khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: mj. 106 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein, platfontein: rm. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 71 the community felt there should be a standing arrangement with the municipality about water cut-offs. if there were outages, people had to be informed of the state of affairs.107 water leaks and outages in platfontein determine how local residents interact politically with the sol plaatje local municipality in kimberley. one leader explained that the strongest argument against taking personal responsibility for water leaks in the community is that the municipality had not completed the job properly. by august 2014, many of the houses did not have adequate water supplies and electricity connections.108 recently the community had pointed a finger at the municipality when a local resident allegedly drowned in a pool of shallow water caused by a leaking water pipe in the street. residents told the media how a weeping mrs marianna tjina (62) dragged the lifeless body of her husband, phemelo, from the water and covered him with a blanket. there was considerable anger in the community, because several weeks earlier they had informed the municipality of the leaking pipe in ove street. the pipeline was only repaired after mr tjina’s death.109 paying for services and relations with the municipality many residents of platfontein are opposed to paying for municipal services. some argue that it is unacceptable that people have to pay for water when in former times it was free.110 community leaders explained that platfontein residents do not in fact consume much water. besides, they do not have waterborne sanitation, which tends to consume a lot of water. they essentially use water for preparing food, washing dishes and personal hygiene.111 importantly, residents argued, they are not getting a fair deal from the local authority. they singled out a number of issues. the construction of their houses, a project started in 2003, had not been completed by august 2014.112 one of the three residential housing zones in the !xun part of platfontein had never been provided with electricity or proper water services.113 many residents had not yet received the title deeds to their homes. residents complained of the shoddy manner in which the houses were built. there are many examples of leaking roofs and deteriorating wall structures114 and the foundations of some of the houses have deteriorated. there is general discontent with water and sanitation service delivery. the services are irregular and are often haphazard. a notable feature of service delivery is its inconsistency. neighbouring townships had far better housing, toilet facilities and water supplies than the residents of platfontein. 107 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 108 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: dn. 109 m mokoena, “man drowns in burst pipe hole, in diamond fields advertiser, 7 august 2013, p. 3. 110 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 111 ibid. 112 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: dn. 113 ibid. 114 ibid. tempelhoff 72 the local municipality and its representatives seem to have an unsavoury reputation in the community. cpa leaders said there were concerns about inaccurate water bills not reflecting the real consumption of local residents.115 written submissions to the municipality were ineffective; it appeared that officials simply put the correspondence aside.116 the people were also upset that if and when bills went unpaid, the municipality would not cut off the water, but only the electricity.117 they considered this an injustice because residents were then “kept hostage” with regard to water and forced to engage with the municipality over their problems.118 some said they were hesitant to complain to the municipality about the state of affairs in the township. an elderly lady, who has the title deed to her property, said that she has not received fair and reasonable treatment from the municipality. when she complained to the authorities about the faulty electricity supply the municipality’s technicians merely dismantled the connection without restoring the power supply. officials failed to respond to her subsequent telephone calls.119 people also said that if residents called the municipality, their accounts would first be checked to see if their rates payments were in arrears. if they defaulted on payments, the supply of both water and electricity to their homes would be in jeopardy. the uncertainty about how the local authority’s officials would respond makes platfontein residents fearful of engaging with the municipality. the prevailing state of affairs appears to have far-reaching implications for platfontein’s residents: according to one community leader, local residents are not registered on the municipality’s indigent register. according to a khwe cpa member, provision has been made at roodepan, a former township for coloured people, for unemployed local residents to be listed as indigents. the amount of their contributions for municipal services was then negotiated as part of government’s support for the needy in local communities.120 people felt hurt when nothing worked; did the municipality not care about them?121 the women recollected how in former times the sadf would come in and do repairs to the infrastructure. if there was no water supply in the camp at schmidtsdrift, the sadf would truck water in.122 the general feeling was that the municipality should come to their assistance.123 the leadership expressed the opinion that their community had been marginalised in matters of municipal governance. none of platfontein’s residents were employed as officials at the municipality, and they believed that if local residents were employed as officials the community’s interests would be better served.124 housewives said 115 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: jk. 116 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: pv. 117 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 118 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 119 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ac. 120 toa20140816 khwe (cpa), dsd: pc. 121 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: jd. 122 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: gm. 123 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 124 toa20140816 khwe (cpa), dsd, platfontein: mj. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 73 that if community members were appointed they would transmit the proper message from the community to the municipal officials and political leaders on conditions at platfontein.125 sanitation many people in platfontein are reluctant to talk about the state of sanitation, because it is a constant refrain. the inferior sanitation infrastructure is allegedly a major cause of disease in the township.126 at the time of conducting fieldwork in august 2014 the author noticed that local people have to walk into the veld for the purposes of urinating and defecating. this is symptomatic of a special set of conditions. according to one resident, if the toilets are full (meaning the plastic toilet bags have not been removed from the pits by the local contractor) then people resorted to going into the veld.127 one community member asked: “why is it that other communities get waterborne toilets, while the people of platfontein are overlooked?”128 f i g u r e 7 m a n y r e s i d e n t s r e s o r t t o m a k i n g u s e o f o p e n s p a c e s i n t h e t o w n s h i p o r o n t h e p e r i p h e r y o f t h e t o w n s h i p t o r e l i e v e t h e m s e l v e s . r e s i d e n t s f i n d t h e s t e n c h f r o m l o c a l t o i l e t s u n b e a r a b l e ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) local discontent with the state of sanitation has a long history. the absence of proper waterborne sanitation was at the heart of a dispute between the san of platfontein and the government at the time of their relocation in 2004 from schmidtsdrift. within four months of their arrival community members were asked to participate in the national election. 125 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: pv. 126 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: rm. 127 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 128 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: rm. tempelhoff 74 however, 15 members of the community declined to do so, apparently at the behest of the reverend f mario mahongo, leader of the !xun, who told the people that he did not want them to vote. consequently, only 148 people of platfontein voted.129 the major complaint was having to make do with dry toilets. 130 local government mec pakes bikgetsi, who personally made enquiries to find out why so few residents had voted, was told that the people were unhappy about the way they had been treated by the sadf in angola and namibia and that the promises that had been made to them while they were in the employment of the sadf had not been fulfilled.131 there was little or no change by 2004. bikgetsi told the media he had informed the community that the government had kept its side of the deal that had been concluded with them. he claimed that there were still 350 families living at schmidtsdrift and once these people had joined the others at platfontein waterborne sanitation would be provided.132 at the time mahongo was still living at schmidtsdrift. he let it be known that he would be the last to move to platfontein, once all the people had received their houses.133 in august 2014, it was apparent that the government had not kept this promise. residents frequently mentioned that hardly any of government’s promises of proper sanitation had materialised.134 an irate resident said: “they promised us toilets. the government has not yet come to do what they had promised to do.”135 community members noted that they saw how flush toilets worked at the “one stop centre” (a shopping area in kimberley) and felt they had reason to be dissatisfied about the sanitary conditions under which they had to live.136 one said that despite being unemployed he preferred making use of pay-toilets whenever he visited kimberley.137 an angry resident said: “we did not leave namibia to remove our own stool from the toilet and put back an empty bucket.”138 another complained: it is when we have to clean the toilets that we become sick. when the bags are removed they are placed in front of the houses and then people become sick.139 129 sapa, northern cape mec to visit the san king, in iol, 12 april 2004, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/haoxv7 130 sapa, san people start voting, in iol, 14 april 2004,accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/zqcqch 131 ibid. 132 ibid. 133 sapa, northern cape mec to visit the san king 134 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: mn. 135 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ac. 136 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ac. 137 toa20140712 01 zs, roodevallei, pretoria. 138 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: ac. 139 ibid. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 75 f i g u r e 8 o u t o f s h e e r d e s p e r a t i o n t h i s t o i l e t h a s a p i p e e x t e n s i o n f o r r a w s e w a g e t o r u n d o w n i n a h o l e a d j a c e n t t o t h e t o i l e t b a g c o n t a i n e r . i n t h e f o r e g r o u n d a r e a n u m b e r o f p l a s t i c c o n t a i n e r s f o r f a e c e s t h a t a r e e m p t i e d i n t o t h e h o l e a t t h e b a c k ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) at houses where there are toilets, the pipes into the plastic bags are often broken. in some cases the steel parts of the toilet no longer work properly.140 one resident said that it was offensive for people to smell the toilets of their neighbours.141 others explained: “even when you sit outside in the sun you get the smell of the neighbour’s toilet,”142 and: “whenever you eat you get the whiff. this spoils the taste of the food people eat.”143 140 ibid. 141 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: sc. 142 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: rm. 143 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: sc. tempelhoff 76 the smell from the toilets should not be noticeable because they are not situated very close to the houses. the problem is that toilets are filled to capacity. the sanitation problem is not confined to the township’s housing. at the local school there are similar problems. one platfontein resident observed: “if you see the children at school not making use of the school’s toilets it is because they are dirty.”144 the irregularity of the sanitation services in platfontein is a major concern.145 people experience considerable problems when they personally have to fit the bags.146 dirty and dysfunctional toilets are reportedly the cause of people becoming sick.147 over the years there have been many meetings about experimental toilets but as yet there is no improvement. by august 2014, people were demanding that toilets be provided in their homes.148 one respondent said that toilet technologies that did not work in the western cape province were being exported to the northern cape province.149 people were tired of all the futile efforts to address the complex issue of sanitation. it was felt the unhygienic conditions under which members of the community lived also jeopardised their safety: people did not know what to expect outside their homes if they went outdoors at night.150 in a group interview community members nodded in the affirmative when one of the speakers mentioned the time when a female resident of platfontein had been raped when she went outdoors to use the toilet at night.151 a local leader explained that he felt embarrassed when people came to visit his home and he had inferior sanitary arrangements in the household. it felt to him as if people would think that all the residents of platfontein were living dirty lives.152 discussion it is apparent from the fieldwork visit and discussions with numerous people in platfontein that the community live under conditions that in some respects resemble typical life in south africa. at the same time – especially as far as water and sanitation services are concerned – some conditions resembled those of informal settlements where people had to secure their own water supplies and also make do with unhygienic sanitation conditions. the researcher visited the municipal offices and spoke to a senior official on 12 august 2014 to request a collaborative initiative to get to a better understanding of the water and sanitation problems of the platfontein community. the responsible engineer was a new appointment and still unfamiliar with all the local conditions. there was a verbal agreement that he would secure documentary information on the water and sanitation infrastructure in platfontein, but this has to date not materialised, despite a number of e-mails and telephone 144 ibid. 145 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: rm. 146 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 147 toa20140815 women, ngk, platfontein: sc. 148 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: rm. 149 toa20140815: !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 150 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: n. 151 ibid. 152 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 77 calls. an obliging official of the northern cape provincial division of the dws later provided information on platfontein. from the water and sanitation maps (see above), it is evident there is no proper water and sanitation. this has been the state of affairs since 2004 when the contractors responsible for building the houses left the site. there are many leaking pipelines in platfontein. in some parts pedestrians and even motorists refrain from passing through the settlement because of the dangers posed by the muddy areas. in other areas, people have laid out gardens that they irrigate from leaking pipelines and taps. it is also evident that the water supply does not have sufficient pressure, which means that some of the houses situated at higher elevations in town will not always receive a constant water supply. f i g u r e 9 a p i p e l e a k a t a t j u n c t i o n i n t o k a m a t o k a s t r e e t , t h e m a i n r o a d o f p l a t f o n t e i n . i n t h e r a i n y s e a s o n t h e n e a r b y h o u s e s a r e f r e q u e n t l y f l o o d e d c a u s i n g s i g n i f i c a n t d a m a g e t o r e s i d e n t s ’ d o m e s t i c b e l o n g i n g s ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) in respect of sanitation, it is evident that people live under difficult conditions. if it rains there is flooding because of a lack of proper stormwater drainage. moreover in wet weather the filthy toilet bags that are replaced irregularly by sanitation workers contaminate all the water around the dwellings. the san community is a transitional one faced with severe challenges to their resilience in living up to the expectation of a better life in a rapidly urbanising south africa. not only does having to make use of the veld for toilet purposes take away their dignity; it is in direct conflict with the basic human right to live in an environment that is not dangerous to health. tempelhoff 78 in 2007 an 84-year-old resident of platfontein told a journalist that he felt trapped in the community where he lives in his sparsely furnished home.153 he explained: my father taught me how to hunt with a bow and arrow. we slept in the veld – it was so free. but that has all been taken away, we can never go back.154 f i g u r e 1 0 m o t o r i s t s a r e u n a b l e t o u s e t h e c h e r e s t r e e t t j u n c t i o n r o a d f o r f e a r o f d a m a g i n g t h e i r v e h i c l e s i n t h e l e a k i n g w a t e r o n s i t e . ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) caught up in the social process of urbanisation at the time, both the !xun and khwe communities in the township felt they had been reduced to relying on government pensions and food handouts.155 in 2004, after arriving at platfontein, community leader mario mahongo expressed the community’s gratitude for the opportunity to acquire their own homes. the people were unemployed, he said, but they were grateful “to have something to start with”.156 this “start” has not progressed as far as access to basic services is concerned. the conditions under which the san community live at platfontein leaves much to be desired. the people are poor; most survive on the pension money the elders in the 153 weidlich, san face lifestyle threat. 154 ibid. 155 ibid. 156 m smith, long wait for !xun and !khwe homecoming ends, in iol, 20 january 2004, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/no9gcs platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 79 community receive. few were employed,157 including some of the former soldiers. there are rare exceptions, such as, 32-year-old dall paulus, who worked out a plan to sell sour marog,158 in the nearby townships of kimberley.159 f i g u r e 1 1 w h e n a l o c a l c o m m u n i t y l e a d e r p o i n t e d o u t t h i s p i t , p r e s u m a b l y f o r s e w a g e b a g s a n d / o r r e f u s e , s m a l l c h i l d r e n j u m p e d o u t o f t h e p i t . t h e y h a d b e e n p l a y i n g i n t h e p i t a n d a n o t h e r ( i n t h e b a c k g r o u n d ) i n w h i c h t h e r e w e r e t r a c e s o f f a e c e s ( p h o t o g r a p h : j w n t e m p e l h o f f ) in 2007, people were complaining that they did not have employment. there were still only a handful of people with jobs and transport to town was hard to come by.160 in 2013, it was estimated that about 90 per cent of the economically active people in the platfontein community (estimated to be at least 800 people) were unemployed,161 and by 2014 the situation had not changed much. no local residents work as officials at the municipality. they are thus far away from the centre of municipal authority and still on the fringe of an emergent urban social ecology. in discussions on the appalling conditions at platfontein, the idea was mooted that the municipality should appoint local residents. perhaps the time has 157 smith, long wait for !xun and !khwe homecoming ends. 158 . amaranthus hybridus, also known as marogo or tepe (sotho), umfino (zulu), misbredie (afrikaans) and pigweed (english) is a nutritious type of spinach, endemic in many parts of southern africa and eaten as a leaf vegetable by indigenous peoples. other varieties found on the subcontinent, include a. thunbergii, a. spinosus, a. deflexus. see b-e van wyk and n gericke, people’s plants: a guide to the useful plants of southern africa, briza publications, pretoria, 2007, pp. 64–65. 159 smith, long wait for !xun and !khwe homecoming ends . 160 weidlich, san face lifestyle threat. 161 n wildenboer, platfontein community sorry about abraham the camel, in iol, 29 august 2013, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/p7ovbj tempelhoff 80 come for the municipality to open up a local office in platfontein where residents are able to engage with municipal officials to pay their rates and also secure important social services from governance authorities. furthermore, the request by a local leader that a swimming pool be built for the children of the community came across in a group discussion as a good idea. currently, in the summer local children go down to the wetlands and play in the water, not knowing that a substantial amount comes from the raw sewage of the gogga pump station.162 the suggestion was also made that the local graveyard should be kept in a better condition and a proper urban park should be created. both these ideas found support in the group. prior to the community’s move in 2004, they were described as a community in transition.163 in 2004, there was a spark of hope for a better future. three years later there was talk about how the new generation of san, after attending the modern local school, would be able to seek out employment once they had completed their studies.164 however, the process of integration with the urban lifestyle has been difficult for many of the community. by 2004, platfontein residents felt that they were looked down upon by members of the community in kimberley. in meetings and deliberations they would be described as the tsqwitswi, meaning that they speak in clicking sounds. members of the san community are of the opinion that the name now has derogatory connotations.165 this despite the fact that the san had tried to integrate with other residents of the northern cape provincial capital. some platfontein residents have already moved to neighbouring galeshiwe. a local community leader summed up the situation: we were provided with houses, only to find out that when we returned from work the windows of our houses were broken and our belongings stolen. because we are a peaceloving community and do not want to live in conflict with our neighbours we decided to return to platfontein. we are not used to crime and find conditions in our community more amenable.166 one khwe member of the cpa, a traditional leader who is employed in the post-1994 sandf has moved to the roodepan township, where he and his family have been accepted by the local community of primarily namaqua and griqua residents. the arrangement is better for him and his family: he is closer to his place of employment and the housing conditions in roodepan are better than those at platfontein. he and his family nevertheless maintain close ties with their friends and relatives at platfontein.167 conclusion the anthropologist tim ingold, in one of his studies, draws a comparison between culture and cloud formation and notes that: 162 toa20140815 !xun and khwe cpa, dsd, platfontein: fmm. 163 smith, long wait for !xun and !khwe homecoming ends. 164 weidlich, san face lifestyle threat. 165 toa20140816 khwe (cpa), dsd, platfontein: mj. 166 ibid. 167 toa20140816 khwe, cpa, dsd, platfontein: pc. platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 81 cloud formation … results from the aggregate interaction of a ‘vast number of approximately equal particles’, often closely coupled, and undergoing more or less random motion. watching the cloud grow, we observe that nothing is quite the same from one moment to the next …168 there appears, he explains, to be a continued change in the direction of the absolutely new.169 if one were to contemplate cultural change from a sociobiological perspective, ingold suggests, it would typically (in meteorological terms) “bubble up” like a thundercloud and then again like a cloud with considerable fuzziness at the edges.170 currently (in 2014), the san community of platfontein is in the process of a comprehensive cultural transition to becoming part of an urban society in a semi-arid part of south africa. their condition is similar to the processes of cloud formation. it is clearly complex, difficult and somewhat messy for this community to negotiate a route towards a better life in a modern multiracial african democracy. in many respects, it seems as if the community deserves special attention in the formation of a unique cultural cloud that suits their selfdefined social ecological system. the general environment has been unnecessarily harsh on them. it is evident that by attending to the local water and sanitation infrastructure the authorities could make a significant contribution to the wellbeing of a marginalised community. acknowledgement: the national research foundation in pretoria, south africa funded this work. (grant no. 90310) any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and therefore the nrf does not accept any liability in regard thereto. references primary sources171 tempelhoff oral archive (toa) 20140711, interview: h smit, director of the southern african san institute (sisa), roodevallei, pretoria. toa20140712 01 zs, roodevallei, pretoria. toa20140713 fmm, roodevallei, gauteng. toa20140815 interview !xun and khwe community property association (cpa), department of social development offices, platfontein, 15 august 2014. toa20140815, group interview with women at the nederduitse gereformeerde kerk, (ngk), platfontein, 15 august 2014. toa20140816, interview with members of the khwe community property association (cpa), department of social development offices, platfontein, 16 august 2014. secondary sources 168 t ingold, evolution and social life, p. 134. 169 ibid. 170 ibid. 171 to protect the identity of respondents only 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http://goo.gl/dcfnbh king, gfj, ‘skarreling’: a socio-environmental history of household waste in south africa (ma, stellenbosch university, 2014, pp. 14-19. le roux, w and white a (eds), voices of the san: living in southern africa today, kwela books, cape town, 2004. mäki, h, water, sanitation and health: the development of the environmental services in sour south african cities, 1840-1920, kehrä media inc. tampere, 2008 mokoena, m, “man drowns in burst pipe hole”, diamond fields advertiser, 7 august 2013, p. 3. population reference bureau (prb), world population data sheet, accessed 31 july 2014, http://goo.gl/yjoon1 platfontein’s san on water and sanitation service delivery td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 52-83. 83 robbins, d, on the bridge of goodbye: the story of south africa’s discarded san soldiers (jonathan ball publishers, johannesburg, 2007). rowntree, k, “geography of drainage basins: hydrology, geomorphology, and ecosystems management”, in fox, r and rowntree, e (eds.), the geography of south africa in a changing world, oxford university press. cape town, 2000, pp.393–416. smith, m, former san soldiers still waiting for houses, in iol, 2003.04.18, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/4lxzep smith, c, city water, city life: water and the infrastructure of ideas in urbanising philadelphia, boston and chicago, university of chicago press, ltd., london, 2013. smith, m, long wait for !xun and !khwe homecoming ends, in iol, 20 january 2004, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/no9gcs sapa, hundreds wait to meet zuma, iol, 13 november 2008, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/1ek9nu sapa, northern cape mec to visit the san king, in iol, 12 april 2004, accessed 2014.09.07 at http://goo.gl/p4fbwp sapa, san people start voting, in iol, 14 april 2004, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/zqcqch schapera, i, the khoisan people of south africa: bushmen and hottentots, routledge & kegan paul, london, 1960. seccombe, a, san trackers lay claim to drakensberg land, in iol 13 august 2000, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/rgskk9 sedlack, d, water 4.0: the past, present and future of the world’s most vital resource, yale university press, new haven, 2014. smith, m, former san soldiers still waiting for houses, in iol, 2003.04.18, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/4lxzep smith, m, long wait for !xun and !khwe homecoming ends, in iol, 20 january 2004, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/no9gcs solomon, s, water: the epic struggle for wealth, power and civilization, harper-collins ebooks, new york, 2009. thunberg, cp, travels at the cape of good hope, 1772–1775, original c. 1795. edited by vs forbes. translation from the swedish revised by j. and i. rudner; contributions to the foreword by i. rudner and j. rourke, van riebeeck society, cape town, 1986. van wyk, b-e. and gericke, n. people’s plants: a guide to the useful plants of southern africa, briza publications, pretoria, 2007. van zyl, ad, south african weather and atmospheric phenomena, briza publications, pretoria, 2003. weidlich, b, san face lifestyle threat, in iol, 15 october 2007, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/tvnpgl wildenboer, n, platfontein community sorry about abraham the camel, in iol, 29 august 2013, accessed 7 september 2014, http://goo.gl/p7ovbj abstract introduction methods results and discussion significance of cultural meanings recommendations and conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) tribute j. mboweni department of nature conservation, tshwane university of technology, south africa engela p. de crom department of nature conservation, tshwane university of technology, south africa citation mboweni, t.j. & de crom, e.p., 2016, ‘a narrative interpretation of the cultural impressions on water of the communities along the vaal river, parys, free state’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a345. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.345 original research a narrative interpretation of the cultural impressions on water of the communities along the vaal river, parys, free state tribute j. mboweni, engela p. de crom received: 12 may 2016; accepted: 30 aug. 2016; published: 31 oct. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article is about the significance of the vaal river for the communities inhabiting the area. using the interpretation of narratives and rituals, the extent of the connection or disconnection between the communities and the aquatic environment is described. traditional rituals, religious practices and beliefs associated with the river form an important part of the lives of people living in the area. results show that industrial development and urbanisation have direct implications not only on the environment but also on the cultural lives and practices of the communities in the areas where these occur. because of its impact on the environment, development has a direct impact on the people who depend on the environment for both their physical and spiritual well-being. any form of sustainable development needs to put these factors into consideration for development to truly be sustainable. in addition to forming a part of environmental impact assessment prior to any development, the infringement of the cultural significance and the meanings that local communities have attached to aquatic landscapes should come with stringent legal consequences. significance of work: over the past years, the cultural connection between communities in parys and the vaal river area has been influenced by the effects of industrialisation, urbanisation and other anthropogenic factors that stem from these. this study found that there is a range of cultural rituals and beliefs that form part of the everyday lives of many residents of the communities in parys. the significance of this study lies in recognising the importance of aquatic environments for the cultural health of communities and that, prior to development, developers who aim for sustainable development need to adhere to the national heritage resources act, act no. 25 of 1999. the act includes the protection of sites of cultural significance to a community, and this involves the vaal river. in addition to forming a part of the environmental impact assessment prior to any development, infringement of the cultural significance and the meanings that local communities attach to aquatic landscapes should come with stringent legal consequences. the study also emphasises that it is important to realise that one cannot continue to isolate natural science from social science in debating what is sustainable. introduction the town of parys lies on the eastern outskirts of the vredefort dome world heritage site in the free state province of south africa (du pisani 2007). the area is essentially a farming community, but it has become a popular town for day visitors from gauteng particularly because of its proximity to johannesburg (potchefstroom attractions and activities 2013). this growth in popularity can be ascribed to second-home development associated with the growth of the tourism industry in parys and the surrounding environment, which mainly includes the vaal river and the vredefort dome through which the vaal river runs (hoogendoorn & visser 2004). the vaal river, therefore, plays a significant role in the lives of the communities living in this area. it has long been realised that a special bond existed between the ancient peoples of southern africa and water (tempelhoff 2008:28). it makes sense, therefore, that human settlements such as those in parys and its surroundings, develop in areas with dependable supplies of water (boyd 2000). however, over the past years, the water quality of the vaal river has been affected by mining, industrial and agricultural processes and more recently by urbanisation and subsequent anthropogenic influences (ochse 2007). extensive research has been conducted on the negative health and ecological implications of the pollution of the vaal river. for example, tempelhoff et al. (2008:30), found that water users may experience a range of impacts as a result of changes in water quality. the department of water affairs (dwaf) (2009) reported that the entire middle section of the vaal river is regarded as hypertrophic, with phosphate levels exceeding recommended standards. the subsequent corrupt ecological system will influence the cultural health of communities of people resident on the banks of the vaal river in a negative manner (tempelhoff et al. 2008:33). although research has placed emphasis on the health aspects of people and the ecosystem, little has been documented regarding what the river means in terms of spiritual or emotional well-being for the communities inhabiting the area. the problem, therefore, also outlined by wadham, willis and pearce (2009:1) is that the significance given to the commodification of water and to a lesser extent, the environmental uses of water or environmental flows, overshadow the social significance of water in establishing and maintaining communities. more specifically, the significance of water bodies such as rivers, for the maintenance of cultural practices, is often overlooked. using the interpretation of practices such as narratives and rituals, the study for this article was aimed at determining the cultural impressions on water of the communities along the vaal river. methods a narrative process was followed in this qualitative research. it allowed the researcher to concentrate on an individuals’ experiences, meanings, symbolism and feelings regarding specific events and the unique manner in which individuals express themselves in their own language (marshall & rossmann 1995:87).the target population consisted of inhabitants from the towns of parys, tumahole, schonkenville and the farming areas within the vredefort dome. these respondents formed part of the study mainly because they live close to the vaal river and, therefore, either have personal interactions with the river or know people who interact with the vaal river. data were collected between 2012 and 2013 by means of interviews and questionnaires which were recorded and transcribed. member checks were done to ensure the trustworthiness of the data (lincoln & guba 1985; roberts, priest & traynor 2006; shenton 2004). data reduction was done by means of content analysis (creswell 2009:183). the sample size was based on information need; hence, the guiding principle in sampling was data saturation (guest, bunce & johnson 2006), which was achieved after 11 interviews and 213 questionnaires. results and discussion a total of 224 respondents were recorded, with 56% being male and 44% female. the average age of the respondents was between 31 and 40 years (35%), and the majority of the respondents (55%) had lived in the study area for longer than 10 years. respondents were asked to relate their cultural ceremonies, rituals, beliefs and stories concerning the vaal river, which they had either experienced themselves or heard of through folklore or tradition. resulting themes from content analysis are discussed under the following headings: (1) ceremonies and rituals, (2) religious practices, (3) beliefs and (4) traditional healing. ceremonies and rituals for the purpose of this article, ceremonies and rituals are classified under one theme and are regarded as ‘a sequence of activities involving gestures, actions and objects, performed in a sequestered place (in this case, the vaal river), and performed according to set sequence’ (merriam-webster dictionary 2014).the ritual of collection of water from the vaal river, which is then used for different ceremonies in the home, is one of the most performed rituals as attested for by the majority of respondents (85%). the water is sprinkled around the house to dispel bad spirits. the following statements from respondents confirm this: ‘my experience of people along the vaal river is of a man who had two-litre bottles filled with water from the river, which he said would be used for a ritual of cleansing against a tokoloshe at home.’ ‘the water from the river can be used to bathe with or to sprinkle around the house, depending on what a person’s problem is. you sprinkle the river water around the house to chase off bad spirits.’ although water-related rituals are not confined to the river itself, as is evident from the quotes above, some are indeed performed at specific locations next to the river. these include lighting candles or throwing coins into the river to communicate with ancestors. although there are other cultural groups in parys, communities in the vicinity of the vaal river belong predominantly to the basotho cultural group. they view the river not only as a source of drinking water but also as a spiritual sanctuary where one goes to communicate with the ancestors. the following statements confirm this: ‘before you go into the river, you must throw silver coins into the river and pray. this is called ho kgantsha; translated, this means “shining a light”.’ ‘when you go to the river, you need to light up (ho kgantsha) by throwing in silver coins. … sometimes you light candles. this opens your path. you are basically praying to the water spirits. we call them our grandmothers and grandfathers.’ the concept of using water from rivers for cultural rituals is not unique to the communities near the vaal river and is certainly not unique to south african cultures. cultural rituals related to rivers and other bodies of water are practised in many parts of the world. glass-coffin (1998:22) observed how traditional healers in peru capture the evil spirit by sucking the disease from the victim’s body, putting it in a special mixture and then spitting this mixture into a flowing river. in the zionist practice, water plays a crucial role in the expulsion of evil and illness, that is, to remove isimnyama, the dark cloud that envelopes a person and attracts bad luck and attacks by witches (dwaf 2005:10). although there is considerable cultural variation within societies and it is difficult to generalise, many of these practices establish the meaning of water as a ‘life-giving’ substance that can purify and regenerate (verouden & meijman 2010:21). in support of these findings, the dwaf (2005:9) confirmed that there are a range of practices that are performed by cultural and religious communities, such as initiation and baptism ceremonies, that involve the use of water from sources such as rivers, streams, dams and springs. religious practices religious practices include any ritual, sermon, commemoration or worship (of a deity), sacrifices, festivals or other aspects of the cultures along the vaal river. in this regard, the majority of the respondents (54%) associate the river with the religious practice of prayer, followed by baptism (49%) with the added benefit of being healed of diseases or ill-health. the significance of water in religious uses is closely connected to beliefs and practices in which disease is conceptualised in holistic terms as an imbalance between the physical body and the social, cultural and natural universe (verouden & meijman 2010:22). the following statements from respondents serve as examples in this regard: ‘people from the apostolic faith church go to the river to pray and get baptised with the belief that the problems that they have will go away.’ ‘when you go to the river, you go in to baptise people. a person will come here when they are sick; you pray for that person to see [or be shown] if you should take them to the river. it is important that when the person returns from the river, by their faith not yours, they come out healed.’ this corresponds with holland’s (2005:xvi) view that far from being confined to a church or mosque once a week, the traditional african’s religion embraces his whole environment. considering rivers as sacred bodies is, however, not unique to african culture. for example, the river ganga (otherwise known as the ganges river) occupies a unique position in the cultural ethos of india. according to sharma (1997:1), from ancient times the ganga has been india’s river of faith, devotion and worship, and millions of hindus accept its water as sacred. even today, people carry treasured ganga water all over india and abroad because it is ‘holy’ water and known for its ‘curative’ properties (sharma 1997:1). the above demonstrates that communities in many parts of the world, including the vaal river, are connected with their aquatic environment through a variety of religious practices. these practices have a spiritual and an aesthetic significance in their lives. according to swarup (2011:25), the river narmada, one of the seven holiest rivers in india, is said to have originated from the tears of lord shiva, and it is believed that each stone embedded in the river is considered to be a shiva linga, a representation of lord shiva. the whole atmosphere along the banks of the narmada river is engrossed in shiva worship (swarup 2011:25). as in the case of the vaal river, the location of a river and its association with holy beings in certain cultures is principally what results in the worship practices that are carried out at rivers. beliefs in addition and closely related to religious practices, the respondents alluded to other cultural beliefs associated with the vaal river and more than a third indicated that what connect people to the river is the faith and belief that the river has properties which are beneficial to their general well-being. strang (2004:5) states that interactions with water take place within a cultural landscape which is the product of specific social, spatial, economic and political arrangements, cosmological and religious beliefs, knowledge and material culture, as well as ecological constraints and opportunities. respondents near the vaal river believe that there are living beings in the river. one popular belief is that of the ‘river snake’, mentioned by more than a third of all respondents. the following statement serves as an example reference to the river snake: ‘i have heard people say that in the vaal river there is a snake, especially since it is a river that does not dry up. if you have amadlozi [ancestral calling], if you go into the river for rafting or fishing, the snake might take you and if your family cries saying that you have drowned, the snake will not release you.’ according to another respondent, it is not often that people see the water snake: ‘there are certain people who can see it. you cannot just see it face-to-face. if you see it, that may be the end of you. the snake has specific places where it passes. it has its time to show and its place where it lives; the evidence is in how the water is. you can see that something was happening there because the water looks like it was stirred.’ in addition to the water snake, believed to be a living creature, a number of respondents also believe that the flow of the river itself is ‘alive’ and as such has healing properties. water animism is based on a belief that natural objects (such as river water, lakes and springs) are alive and possess souls (dwaf 2005:13). the following serve as example of what was mentioned: ‘even with the river water that [is flowing all the time], you make someone bathe in that water, which has been prayed for, and they will be healed.’ ‘the river being alive depends on people’s faith. culturally, we know and believe that there is life in the flowing river.’ ‘we have faith that when a person has been dipped in the water, the pain will leave them the life in the water will take it up.’ rinne (2001:52) confirms these findings and says that flowing water is regarded as the most pure water, and thus, flowing water is considered suitable for holy and healing practices, as indicated by respondents along the vaal river. traditional healing the practice of traditional healing was mentioned by the majority of respondents (84%) who indicated that they know the vaal river is used for the training of and practices by traditional healers. the following statements support the above: ‘in terms of traditional healing, sometimes a person can get a vision of the river, meaning that they need to be trained in the river for them to become a traditional healer.’ ‘when they are taken to the river by someone with the knowledge, they go into the portion of the river according to what they have been shown in the dream or vision. when you are a traditional healer trained in the river, you can go into the river with them and can even spend up to thirty minutes in the river, underwater.’ a farm worker whose aunt trained in the river to become a traditional healer, said: ‘she woke up 1 day and disappeared. after a few days, through dreams, we then knew that she was in the river. in those dreams, we were also informed about the kind of cow to bring in order for her to be released. you have to do what you are told so that the person does not remain in the river forever.’ the practice of traditional healing is not unique to south africa or the parys, vaal river area. it forms an important part of many african communities. the world health organization estimates that up to 80% of the population in africa makes use of traditional medicine (richter 2003:10). dwaf (2005) reported that during the initiation of traditional healers, apprentices are required to stay at the river for a number of days, during which time they constantly bathe in the stream of the river and are introduced to the river spirits. african traditional healers also collect the water from the rivers and streams because they are believed to possess healing powers from the spirits residing in them. traditional healers play an influential role in the lives of african people and have the potential to serve as crucial components of a comprehensive health care strategy (richter 2003:10). as indicated from respondents in this study, water is regarded as an essential element in traditional healing, both practically and symbolically, a finding supported by steinglass (2001:32). the meaning of cultural rituals, practices and beliefs in studies examining sources of meaning, experiences in nature have emerged as a significant category for adults (o’connor & chamberlain 1996; reker & woo 2011). possibly, those who are strongly nature-connected derive a sense of meaningful existence from their closeness with nature (in this case the vaal river) and this, in turn, boosts well-being (howell, passmore & buro 2012:3). thus, the meanings engendered by experience (in nature) are simultaneously part of the cultural landscape that every person enters and exits over their lifetime (strang 2004:67). in the case of the vaal river area, more than 50% of the respondents have lived for over 10 years in the area. as a result, they have had experiences that connect them to the river, experiences that form part of their everyday lives and ultimately, their culture and the meaning they assign to the river, aspects evident from the quotes provided. evidently, the river bears a meaning beyond the utilitarian use to the residents of this area. ultimately, the river bears the meaning of life itself, or maybe more accurately, the presence or absence thereof. for example, a muti-shop owner in parys attests to the notion of water as life: ‘water is life. we live through the water. life is there [in the river]. you can go anywhere … without water, you will not live.’ according to bouguerra (2006:14), there are innumerable symbolic meanings attached to water in the traditions and cultures of the african continent. the narratives outlined in this article not only reveal the people’s perspectives on certain aspects of their immediate environment, in this instance, their aquatic environment, but they also house within them the deep-rooted cultural meanings associated with this environment. although the different african communities tend to differ in language and ways of life, spiritual and cultural practices form an important part of these communities. it forms an important part of their belief system that often guides not only their way of life but also their moral standing, which often includes the way in which they interact with their environment (holland 2005). this is also true for the respondents in the study area. generally, those who conduct rituals at the river view it as a sacred place where their ancestors and the highly feared and respected water snake reside. as a result, the river is respected. for example, it is believed that showing disregard to the water snake and the environment in which it is found may result in unfortunate events. the following statement serves as example of this belief: ‘when a bridge was built across the vaal river, a lot of white people got injured. they wanted to direct the snake to the one side for it to pass at [the time they wanted to build the bridge]. they even used explosives to move it so they could build [the bridge]. it never happened in the way they wanted and many died …’ the following section examines the factors that threaten cultural rituals, beliefs and practices. threats to the water-related cultural rituals, practices and beliefs in any setting, a variety of factors can prevent people from using water bodies. in this case, respondents regarded pollution as the single most important threat to them being able to use the river and commented as follows: ‘the river has been badly tampered with and polluted, leading to infected fish and difficulty in use for rituals.’ ‘the one thing that affects people the most is the fact that when we go to the river, we find the water polluted. we cannot take the water home for anything. we cannot eat the fish. things cannot be right this way. in other places, the water is mixed with sewage. how can you use water which has been mixed with sewage?’ ‘the water is dirty. we cannot use it for anything. this affects us all. we get cholera from the dirty water.’ although the availability of water is important, the quality thereof is of even more importance to humans (clarke 2002). thus, it is unsurprising that water issues such as pollution create enormous anxiety. mining and other economic activities have led to the pollution of the vaal river with metals of mainly industrial origin (pheiffer et al. 2014:117), coupled with upstream faecal matter (khakibos 2013). according to taylor (2014) the gauteng department of agriculture and rural development launched a 5-year plan in 2012 to deal with the problem. moolman (2012) reported that government is implementing a short-term solution to acid mine drainage (amd) through neutralisation – a process of treating the amd with lime, neutralising its acidity – but that this process does not sufficiently remove sulphates, which means the water remains unfit for human consumption. comments from respondents with regards to unsuccessful intervening in the ongoing pollution issues include the following: ‘mostly, the one thing that makes the people angry is the fact that when we go to the river, we find the water always polluted. in other places, the water is mixed with sewage. companies dump their waste in the river, and the government is doing nothing to stop it.’ ‘the water in the river is not clean and this affects business. no one is doing anything to stop the illegal dumping of waste and sewage into the river. sometime during the year [2013], clients from johannesburg who had booked to raft said that they did not want to raft anymore because they had heard about the vaal river being polluted.’ from the abovementioned discussion, it is evident that the health of an aquatic environment has an impact on the practice of water-related cultural rituals as well as the general health of the communities living near it. throughout history, the use of water has reflected various experiences and their interpretations as well as values regarding health, illness and well-being (verouden & meijman 2010:19). the national water resource strategy, draft 1 (2002), states: resource-directed measures will look at the quality of water, quantity of water, the animals that live in the water resource, and the vegetation [plants] around the water resource. all these must be healthy for the water resource to function properly and to provide water. therefore, one can conclude that threats to water resources are threats to the well-being, both physical and spiritual, of those who depend on the water resource. this realisation could provide guidelines that will use culture as an ally to current and future development. however, it is important to outline the significance of these cultural meanings in development. significance of cultural meanings holland (2005:xv) states that the traditional belief system is ultimately a study of the people themselves in all the intricacies of traditional and modern life. as such, it ought to be factored into economics and education because ignorance of african beliefs perpetuates misunderstanding of african problems and responses. without the knowledge of water-related cultural practices and their contribution towards the well-being of communities, as well as knowledge of the environment itself, development will forever be misplaced because it will not be serving the very people that it aims to serve. over many years of human evolution, communities have developed local skills and often traditional or indigenous techniques for safeguarding aspects of their intangible cultural heritage (south african heritage resource agency 2006). respondents in this regard describe this viewpoint: ‘i think we must keep telling these cultural stories because through the years, they just get lost. we must keep on with that tradition. we need to talk to the old people and document these things.’ ‘in the olden days when cultural practices were mentioned, people knew and believed that there would be a change. right now, if you tell someone in their youth to go to the river, mostly, they do not believe in it so that aspect of culture is fading. the only people who still do practise these water rituals now are older people, traditional healers, prophets and church people.’ ndoro, mumma and abungu (2009:v) point out that african immovable cultural heritage is worthy of interest because it contributes to the understanding of the cultures of the world as proposed by unesco’s world heritage list. therefore, it should be fully represented there in the years to come. however, entire sections of this heritage are at risk, yet they often play a decisive role in the quality of life of the communities who use them or live near them. recognising the cultural and religious activities of communities can be a powerful driver for social or economic growth and engender a sense of cultural identity and self-confidence, all of which have a positive impact on the development and or well-being of a community (dwaf 2005). myths, faiths and symbols seem to serve another essential cause for the survival of communities, namely protection of the environment (bouguerra 2006:18). the traditional knowledge, stewardship and management systems, as well as technologies developed by different peoples, typically reflect the deep relationship between biological and cultural diversity (johnston 2012:xii). gouws (2013:vi) states that human’s fear associated with drought (too little water), floods (too much water), meteorology (the necessity of water), the role of the supernatural (divining water) and superstition (the water snake stories) is expressed in the interaction between people and this water environment. as a result of industrialisation, the fear stated above now includes fear for people’s physical and spiritual health, which is linked to polluted aquatic environments. a regular visitor to the parys area for recreational purposes said: ‘rivers are an indicator of how healthy our country is. the bottom line is our rivers are in jeopardy.’ industrial development has direct implications not only for the environment but also for the lives of the communities in the areas where it occurs. this is also supported by the following quote from a resident: ‘government and the municipality need to do more because the pollution from development … industry … affects tourists, locals and businesses in the area.’ intangible cultural heritage in the form of rituals, ceremonies, beliefs and symbols, is a very real and active part of people’s lives. intangible cultural heritage and the protection of the environment are mutually beneficial and should form an important part of impact assessments prior to any development. recommendations and conclusion there is a range of cultural rituals and beliefs that forms part of the everyday lives of many residents of the communities in parys. these were found to be well known to people of different cultures living in the area even if they did not practise them. these rituals and beliefs were found to have influence on how the communities in this area interact with the vaal river. for example, those who believe in the presence of the water snake do not like to engage in recreational water activities such as river rafting for fear of upsetting the snake. in fact, they believe that those who have drowned in the river have been taken by the snake. the river is seen as a source of life as well as a sacred place where ancestors not only reside but also train people for the important task of being a traditional healer. this has resulted in members of the communities in the area having great respect for the river and its role in their spiritual lives. however, the river is polluted, and this affects the people who use it for cultural rituals and their other needs. an adequate water supply is a key element in the good health and well-being of humans and ecosystems, as well as in social and economic development. however, this alone is not enough. interactions with members of the parys communities demonstrated that people need an appropriate level of water quality for their physical and spiritual well-being. religious practices such as baptism cannot be carried out in a polluted river because of serious health implications. people who depend on the river for household water or fishing cannot use either due to a declining fish population and toxins in the water render both water and fish unfit for human consumption.an effective solution to the pollution of the vaal river needs to be found and implemented. these tasks need to be implemented and led by government working closely with local community structures. this will ensure that water-related cultural practices continue to be practised and that the spiritual health of these communities is kept alive. this means that the intangible cultural heritage of these communities is preserved, and future generations will experience these practices and, in turn, pass them on to the next generation. the connection between people and the natural environment, especially the aquatic environment, is one that is very often taken for granted. however, this connection has for many years influenced human physical and spiritual health. the connection between people and their natural landscape has also had an influence on where people choose to live. people prefer to settle in areas where they can easily access water for their daily utilitarian use as well as for their spiritual and religious needs. these are basic human needs that should be included in sustainable development goals and be strictly protected by policies. in the past years, the cultural connection between communities in parys and the vaal river area has been influenced by the effects of industrialisation, urbanisation and other anthropogenic factors that stem from these. in recognising the importance of aquatic environments for the cultural health of communities prior to development, developers who aim for sustainable development need to adhere to the national heritage resources act, act no. 25 of 1999. the act includes the protection of sites of cultural significance to a community, and this involves the vaal river. in addition to forming a part of the environmental impact assessment prior to any development, infringement of the cultural significance and the meanings that local communities attach to aquatic landscapes should come with stringent legal consequences. it is important to realise that one cannot continue to isolate natural science from social science in debating what is sustainable and an expected logical outcome. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the faculty of science of tshwane university of technology for financial support to complete this study. they would also like to acknowledge the participants who willingly shared their time and knowledge during the interview process, as well as the assistance of the parys museum staff members and research assistants during data gathering sessions. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions e.p.d.c. was the supervisor for the study. t.j.m. was responsible for data collection. both authors were involved in the conceptualisation of the research and for data analysis. both authors provided equal inputs in the writing of the article. references bouguerra, m.l., 2006, water: symbolism and culture, productions 108, institut veolia environment, paris. boyd, c.f., 2000, water quality: an introduction, kluwer academic, boston, ma. clarke, j., 2002, coming back to earth, jacana, pretoria. creswell, j.w., 2009, ‘editorial: mapping the field of mixed methods research’, journal of mixed methods research 3(2), 95–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1558689808330883 dupisani, j.a., 2007, cultural heritage plan. report as part of the integrated management plan, 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muchapondwa.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 333 358. a cost-effectiveness analysis of options for reducing pollution in khayelitsha township, south africa e muchapondwa* abstract average levels of pm10 pollutants in khayelitsha, a poor informal settlement nears cape town, are unusually high. the contributory factors are the burning of household waste, wood and used tyres; vehicular emissions; and dust. this paper gives guidance towards selecting interventions for reducing these pollutants. the options include planting windbreak trees; paving roads and walkways; using cleaner sources of energy; and supplying additional refuse skips. based on cost data collected from relevant municipal departments and service providers, over a 20-year planning horizon, the following are cost equivalents: planting between 419 and 936 windbreak trees; paving 6 685m2 of exposed areas; replacing between 451 and 870 wood-fired meat traders’ braai (i.e. barbecue) sets with gas braais; and providing a 6m3 refuse skip. on the basis of cost-effectiveness in reducing pm10 pollutants, this paper ranks the interventions as follows: (1) providing gas braai sets; (2) planting windbreak trees; (3) paving exposed areas; and (4) providing the refuse skip. thus, providing gas braai sets to the meat traders in khayelitsha will significantly reduce pm10 levels, but will also contribute to the sustained livelihoods of some of the poor households. however, planting windbreak trees may nevertheless be undertaken because of this option’s linkage to climate change initiatives, which open up a wide range of potential funding opportunities. keywords: air pollution, cost-effectiveness, khayelitsha, pm10, pollution control disciplines: economics, environmental studies, energy studies. 1. introduction air pollution poses significant health-related challenges; particularly for poor people such as those living in south african informal settlements, whose health is already compromised by * school of economics, university of cape town, private bag x3, rondebosch 7701; telephone: 021 650 5242, fax: 021 650 2854; email: edwin.muchapondwa@uct.ac.za. this work was conducted as part of the khayelitsha air pollution strategy (kaps) project, a partnership between the city of cape town (coct), the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) and the university of cape town (uct), implemented by the palmer development group (pdg) on behalf of the national department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat). the author is grateful for guidance from ed filby (coct), tony leiman (uct), elias tukushe (coct), keith wiseman (coct) and the kaps steering committee. the views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the people and organisations mentioned above. financial support from the swedish international development cooperation agency (sida) and deat is gratefully acknowledged. muchapondwa   334 inadequate food, shelter1 and social services. the challenges emanate mainly from the high risk of contracting respiratory and cardiovascular illness, including chronic bronchitis and asthma. illness has two detrimental effects on the poor: (i) it reduces the productivity of poor people, which in turn compromises their ability to generate income; and (ii) it increases the pressure on the meagre income of the poor, as they must pay for medical care – or receive home-based care from family members who would otherwise have been trying to earn an income. thus, alongside other poverty-reduction initiatives that seek to increase the income levels of the poor, there is a need to prioritise initiatives that seek to reduce air pollution in areas where the poor people live; as such, the latter set of initiatives helps reduce the depth of poverty. this paper looks at a typical south african case study, in which the livelihoods of poor people can be enhanced through controlling air pollution – emanating partly from one of the limited livelihood options available to the poor. khayelitsha is a poor informal settlement, established near cape town in 1985 to cater for a growing black migrant population under apartheid. it currently has a population of about half a million and is among the largest townships of south africa (ndingaye 2005, maverick 358 cc 2006, médecins sans frontières 2010). the khayelitsha air pollution station monitors four major pollutants, namely pm10, sulphur dioxide (so2), ozone (o3) and nitrogen dioxide (no2). the pollutant which has raised much concern is pm10, also called ‘inhalable particulate matter’. the average pm10 levels (which have been monitored since 1999) are unusually high, at 48 µg/m3 for annual average concentrations, and are estimated to be 70% above those of cape town’s central business district (cbd), which is nearby (kaps 2008). furthermore, the khayelitsha pm10 levels frequently surpass the united kingdom (uk) safety threshold levels of 50 µg/m3 (for 24-hour concentrations) and 40 µg/m3 (for annual average concentrations) adopted by the city of cape town metropolitan municipality, under which khayelitsha falls. while there are no separate statistics for khayelitsha, it is believed that the problem is significant because of the health impacts for pm10 exposure in cape town in 2002: 234 cardiovascular hospital admissions, 28 806 incidences of chronic bronchitis and 217 563 incidences of restricted activity days (scorgie & watson 2004). the khayelitsha air pollution strategy (kaps) project was implemented to provide an understanding of the factors behind the high levels of pm10 observed. the project identified the factors that contribute to high pm10 levels in khayelitsha as household waste burning, informal meat traders who burn wood for cooking fuel, waste tyre burning, vehicular emissions, and dust blown by wind from the unpaved roads and surfaces (kaps 2008). the current study seeks to give guidance towards selecting the interventions for reducing pm10 levels in khayelitsha. the structure of the rest of the paper is as follows. section 2 gives a background to the air pollution problem in khayelitsha. section 3 outlines the theoretical framework on which this study is based. sections 4 and 5 determine the costs and effectiveness of a selection of the proposed interventions. in section 6, there is a presentation and discussion of the cost-effectiveness analysis results; after which, section 7 concludes. 1 in 2007, about 14.5% of south african households were estimated to be living in informal dwellings (statssa 2007). reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 335 2. background air pollution generally refers to suspended particulate matter (pm), gaseous pollutants and odours. the major pollutant, which has raised much concern, is suspended pm. types of suspended pm include diesel exhaust particles; coal fly ash; wood smoke; mineral dusts such as coal, asbestos, limestone and cement; metal dusts and fumes; acid mists (for example, sulphuric acid); and pesticide mists (kjellström et al. 2006). the suspended pm includes the classes of the finer fraction, with median aerodynamic diameter of less than 10 microns (pm10), and the most hazardous fraction, with median aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 microns (pm2.5). meteorological factors, such as wind speed and direction, are usually the strongest determinants of variations in suspended pm, along with topography and temperature inversions. in general, the effects of suspended pm can be divided into health, productivity and amenity categories (voorhees et al. 2001). long-term studies have documented increased cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity and mortality associated with exposure to pm10. ecological studies of small areas based on census data, air pollution information and health events data (with adjustments for potential confounding factors, including socioeconomic status) also indicate that mortality increases with exposure to pm10 (kjellström et al. 2006). the brown haze and inversions above khayelitsha have been points of concern and study for many years (for example, see wicking-baird et al. 1997 and scorgie & watson 2004). however, over time the annual average pm10 concentrations and the number of episode days (days on which the threshold has been exceeded) in khayelitsha have remained high, as shown in tables 1 and 2 below. table 1: annual average concentrations (µg/m3) of pm10 for khayelitsha (2000 to 2007) 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 no data 51.64 50.28 50.83 42 45 50 45 source: scorgie & watson (2004) and benson (2008) table 2: number of pm10 episode days recorded at khayelitsha station (2000 to 2007) 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 52 29 86 137 92 111 103 85 source: scorgie & watson (2004) and benson (2008) the extent of the health effects of pm10 depends on actual exposure. total daily exposure is determined by people’s time and activity patterns, and it combines indoor and outdoor exposures. young children and the elderly may travel less during the day than working adults, and their exposure may therefore correlate closely with air pollution levels in their homes. children are particularly vulnerable to environmental toxicants because of their greater relative exposure and the effects on their growth and physiological development. epidemiological analysis is needed to quantify the health impact in an exposed population (for examples, see schwartz (1994), wilson & suh (1997) and moolgavkar (2000)). high concentrations of muchapondwa   336 pm10 affect people with respiratory problems such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath, as these particles can penetrate the lungs (kaps 2008). respiratory symptoms have been found to be the most commonly occurring health concern in two informal settlements in the cape metropolitan area (mathee & von schirnding, 1996). in general, the major pollutants emitted by combustion have all been associated with increased respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality (kjellström et al. 2006). the variety of precursors to pm10 also leads to many different interventions. interventions are often more sustainable if they address the driving forces behind the pollution at the community level, rather than attempting to deal with specific exposures at the individual level. in addition, effective methods for preventing exposure to pm10 may not exist at the individual level, and the only feasible individual-level intervention may be treating cases of illness. examples of interventions to reduce pm10 include creating urban forests, covering unpaved roads and walkways, using alternative household burning energy sources, reducing garbage burning, lowering the sulphur content of diesel, and traffic demand management in urban areas (kjellström et al. 2006). for khayelitsha, an intervention scenario committee was set up by the kaps steering committee to investigate possible intervention strategies. the following interventions (aimed at reducing pm10 directly, or reducing its precursors) were suggested: planting of windbreak trees; covering of unpaved roads and walkways; promoting the use of alternative, cleaner-burning energy sources; providing additional refuse skips for household waste; establishing a tyre deposit-refund scheme; switching to euro 2 vehicle emission standards; promoting the use of public transport; and mounting pollution avoidance and awareness educational campaigns (kaps 2008). given that we do not know how much each of the emission sources contributes to the overall pm10 level, we assume that each emission source contributes emissions significant enough to be a target of clean-up. if some emission sources contribute insignificant amounts to the overall pm10 level then interventions should not target the clean-up of such emission sources, as the scale of feasible clean-up would not reduce the overall pm10 level significantly. ideally, one would want to implement all the independent feasible interventions, if that will result in lower pm10 levels and there are enough resources. however, implementation of each of the feasible interventions entails use of scarce resources; therefore, there is a need for triage. it should be noted that some of the proposed interventions cannot be successfully implemented in constrained jurisdictions such as khayelitsha, for several reasons. firstly, establishing a tyre deposit-refund scheme2 and switching to euro 2 standards3 can only be effective if implemented 2 for viability, the scheme would need to guard against the importation of tyres from other areas. in any case, there are already national efforts by industry and government to establish a national waste tyre collection scheme. so far, the tyre industry has formed a section 21 company called the south african tyre recycling process (satrp) company to manage the waste tyre collection process on its behalf, and the department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat) has published the ‘waste tyre regulation’ for public comment; and satrp aims to operate a sustainable south african waste tyre collection process and make it available to all users of waste tyres a year after promulgation of the waste tyre regulation by deat. more information is available at http://www.rubbersa.com/index.htm. 3 for viability, the switch would need to be implemented nationally; otherwise, vehicles from other jurisdictions without such standards cannot be stopped from entering khayelitsha. currently, all vehicles in south africa should comply with the euro 1 emissions standard; and it has already been estimated that a switch to euro 2, a stricter emission standard, would result in 5% to 10% improvement per annum in national air pollution from vehicular sources. reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 337 at national level. secondly, promoting the use of public transport in khayelitsha is not feasible given that there is no excess capacity on public transport in khayelitsha; and the city of cape town is not directly in charge of public transportation, as the railway service is under a national authority, the bus service is under a provincial authority, and the minibuses are privately owned. thirdly, a pollution avoidance and awareness educational campaign should not be seen as independent from the other interventions, as they all need to come co-packaged with educational campaigns. thus, the potentially feasible measures for reducing pm10 in khayelitsha include planting windbreak trees; covering unpaved roads and walkways; promoting the use of alternative, cleaner-burning energy sources; and providing additional refuse skips for waste material. 3. theoretical framework the most common method of evaluating air pollution control interventions in which costs and benefits can be valued in monetary terms is cost-benefit analysis (cba). for examples of costbenefit analysis, see krupnick & portney (1991), mcpherson et al. (1999), voorhees et al. (2001) and leiman et al (2007). on one hand, the costs associated with an intervention are usually easily discernible. costs associated with implementing an intervention may potentially be incurred by three economic sectors, namely the private sector; society at large; and the governmental regulatory authority (voorhees et al. 2001). these costs include direct and indirect costs, where direct costs comprise capital costs (expenditure for facilities, equipment, etc) and operating costs (implementation costs, maintenance costs, materials costs, equipment leasing, parts and supplies, direct labour, fuel and power, services provided by private contractors, and research and development). indirect costs include the macroeconomic impacts due to shifts in economic activity between industries, including changes in the distribution of labour, capital, and other production factors within the economy, and changes in the distribution of goods and services (voorhees et al. 2001). it is mostly because of the indirect costs that reliance on the engineering costs of an intervention has been criticised, because capital and operating expenses alone do not account for the dynamic and general equilibrium impacts of regulation. on the other hand, the benefits of an intervention are usually not that obvious, and in most cases are not readily perceptible in monetary terms. the basic components of benefits are the health, productive and amenity effects that will be avoided. in addition, it is worth noting that some interventions have a broader value; for example, tree planting has amenity values beyond its effect on air quality. the process of estimating the benefits of an air pollution control intervention has two steps: namely finding the physical impacts, and then monetising them. the physical impacts of air pollution control interventions are found by (1) estimating the dose-response function, (2) multiplying the slope of the dose-response function by the exposed population and (3) multiplying the product by the estimated change in air quality.4 three valuation approaches have 4 dose-response functions provide the link between exposures to ambient air pollutant concentrations and the resultant health outcomes. dose-response functions for pm10 exposures are typically expressed for respiratory muchapondwa   338 been used in the literature to monetize the benefits associated with interventions: (1) market valuation of physical effects, (2) stated preference methods, and (3) revealed preference methods. the effects of air pollution that are most amenable to market valuation include human health effects and productivity effects (for example, work output, crop yield, fishing yield, damage to industrial equipment and soiling). amenity effects – including visibility, odour and noise – are the most amenable to surrogate market valuation using either contingent valuation or hedonic pricing (and it is worth stressing that the feedback from the kaps survey indicated that amenity effects dominated perceptions of the problem). however, ecosystem health typically does not have market value. likewise, natural ecological impacts which may occur cannot be valued without relevant dose-response functions (voorhees et al. 2001). given the varied nature of the possible interventions, it may not always be possible to catalogue and monetise the returns associated with each intervention. furthermore, a full cost-benefit analysis may not be necessary; especially when the problem is to determine how best to comply with a requirement to reduce pm10. in such cases, one may only need to compare the interventions on the basis of the resources required to implement each intervention, up to the point yielding a unit reduction in pm10. such an analysis would essentially be a costeffectiveness analysis – a widely-used alternative to cost-benefit analysis, especially in areas such as health and defence policy. cost-effectiveness analysis is a systematic method for finding the lowest-cost means of accomplishing an objective. more broadly, cost-effectiveness analysis compares costs and the effects of an intervention to assess whether the intervention is worthwhile on economic grounds. in particular, it compares mutually exclusive alternatives in terms of their costs and a single, quantified (but not monetised) effectiveness measure (boardman et al. 2006). cost-effectiveness analysis is often used in cases for which a full cost-benefit analysis would be inappropriate; for example, where the problem is to determine how best to comply with a legal requirement. note that in general the cost-effectiveness analysis procedure does not produce an efficient allocation, because the predetermined objective may not be efficient; all efficient policies are cost-effective, but not all cost-effective policies are efficient (perman et al. 2003). nonetheless, a good costeffectiveness analysis can be more useful than cba. though cost-effectiveness analysis does not monetise benefits, it does measure two other metrics: costs in monetary terms; and effectiveness of an intervention, which may be measured in, say, kilograms of pm10 reduced. the ratio of the two measures is what is used as a basis for ranking alternative interventions. (of course, an appropriate basis from which to compute the effects and costs of alternatives must be chosen.) even though the ratio can be expressed in two ways, namely cost/effectiveness and effectiveness/cost, the most commonly-used approach is the cost-effectiveness ratio, computed by dividing the costs of an alternative by the measure of its effectiveness. thus, cost-effectiveness analysis involves computing cost-effectiveness ratios in order to choose policies or interventions that promote efficiency, especially where the chosen predetermined objective is itself efficient. costs and effectiveness are always measured incrementally. hospital admissions, cardiovascular hospital admissions, incidences of chronic bronchitis and incidences of asthma. reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 339 examples of cost-effectiveness analysis for assessing air-quality policy include studies carried out in jakarta, kathmandu, manila and mumbai, under the world bank’s urban air quality management strategy in asia (grønskei et al. 1996a, 1996b; larssen et al. 1996a, 1996b; shah et al. 1997 cited in kjellström et al. 2006). in each city, an emissions inventory was established and rudimentary dispersion modelling was carried out. various measures for reducing pm10 and mitigating health impacts were examined in terms of reductions in tons of pm10 emitted, cost of implementation, time frame for implementation, and health benefits and their associated cost savings. some of the abatement measures that have been implemented include introducing unleaded gasoline, tightening standards, introducing low-smoke lubricants for vehicles with twostroke engines, implementing inspections of vehicle exhaust emissions to address the problem of gross polluters, and reducing garbage burning (kjellström et al. 2006). for other examples of cost-effectiveness analyses, see o’ryan (1993), mcpherson et al. (1998), nowak et al. (1998), us epa (2006) and escobedo et al. (2008). our intention is to conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis of a selection of the proposed interventions for reducing pm10 in khayelitsha. in order to do this, we need to understand only the costs of implementing each intervention and the associated impact of the intervention. 4. ascertaining the costs of interventions in this section we ascertain the costs of each of the selected interventions. in general, the costs are direct and indirect, and include intangible costs. some costs will be immediate while others will be spread over time. immediate costs are usually associated with implementing or mounting the intervention, while future costs could be the necessary maintenance and operating costs to guarantee the standard of the intervention’s impact. 4.1 planting of hardy windbreak trees khayelitsha lies in the cape flats area. on the whole, the natural vegetation on the cape flats is slow-growing shrubs and bushes, sparse grasses or reeds and geophytes (bulbs) (burgess 2008). the prevalent use of firewood on the cape flats also contributes to the decrease in vegetation that previously helped in soil stabilisation. the geophysical characteristics of the cape flats predispose the area to air-quality problems. the area is windy, flat and sandy, meaning that dust is easily picked up by the wind. it was estimated that in 2006, roughly 70% of the khayelitsha area was not covered by vegetation and was therefore a source of dust. this estimate is derived from aerial photographs taken at the time; there has been development in the last four years, and the open area has expanded. windblown dust clogs drains, exacerbating flooding. this kind of flooding gives the dust cycle further impetus (schoeman 2008). it is believed that windblown dust contributes significantly to pm10 in khayelitsha. this is because khayelitsha is near the coast; the sand contains particles that are very fine and blown about easily; there are very few mature trees and large built structures to act as windbreaks; there are many exposed areas that are not stabilised by plant material, in areas that are undeveloped or have natural vegetation; and there are many un-surfaced informal footpaths in areas between residences and buildings and on undeveloped land. also, as the informal footpaths take higher pedestrian traffic, the exposed sandy area becomes larger and larger, leaving more surface area open for wind erosion. many areas that have been developed or surfaced are adjacent to undeveloped land and one often finds that the sand blows in from these adjacent sites, covering muchapondwa   340 the new surface. windblown sand is transported inland from areas closer to the sea (beyond lookout hill) (schoeman 2008). thus, the set of interventions requires integrated programmes for stabilising soil. the first proposed intervention would be planting hardy trees to serve as windbreaks and dustdeposition facilitators.5 in general there are no large indigenous trees found naturally on the cape flats, so planting trees suitable for the khayelitsha area and able to meet the needs of an urban environment is particularly challenging.6 in most urban environments trees are used to create windbreaks; delineate edges of spaces and places; provide shade to pedestrians; provide wind shelter for housing, play areas and sports fields; increase biodiversity; and generate oxygen to reduce carbon dioxide poisoning caused by carbon-based fuel systems and cars. it is very difficult to grow trees in khayelitsha and there are relatively few historical precedents to call upon, since khayelitsha has only existed for 22 years (burgess 2008). though there are shrubs and plants that are well adapted to these conditions, we assume that this intervention would use trees. trees planted in khayelitsha are very often stunted due to a number of factors such as: (i) insufficient wind protection by buildings and walls. if necessary, trees can be protected with shade netting or other material on the wind side; (ii) exposure to harsh conditions. nursery trees grown in protected environments take a sudden ‘knock’ when planted and exposed to harsh conditions; it is better to plant trees that have been ‘hardened off’; (iii) lack of regular maintenance. there is a need for ongoing maintenance every year, such as regular feeding of the tree with fertiliser and compost to ensure that the tree gets sufficient nutrients from the soil for good growth; and (iv) lack of adequate regular precipitation. there is a need for optimal, ongoing watering of the growing tree (schoeman 2008). for the tree-planting programme to be effective in reducing dust (and consequently pm10), there must be enough suitable land for an adequate number of trees to be planted. the location of planting also matters significantly if the trees are to be effective wind barriers (or dustpreventive agents). if there is inadequate public open space for use in the tree-planting programme, a possible alternative would be to plant the trees along the roads. (a problem in this regard is the situation of drainage and water pipes, which are usually laid alongside roads. also, one would be restricted to roads that are not earmarked for future expansion.) there are several tree species options suitable for khayelitsha, for example beefwood (casuarina), ficus rubiginosa, populous simonii and kareeboom (rhus spp.). although an alien species, casuarina is a favourite because of its quick maturation time. it is also not threatened by firewood users as it is not a good source of fuel. at the same time, it captures dust particles rather well. another more typical (though less robust) tree is the ficus rubiginosa, which could also cope well in khayelitsha but would need more help than casuarinas do. the planting costs of any tree variety chosen will largely be made up of costs for the tree, cage, water and maintenance.7 tables 3 and 5 certain types of grasses could be considered, as could other options such as road-tarring and laying hardtop on open spaces. for planting, one would have to look for plants that sustain themselves without excessive irrigation. 6 however, it should be noted that khayelitsha was covered by port jackson (acacia longifolia) and rooikrans (acacia cyclops) trees, both invasive australian acacias. planting of austrialian acacias is now illegal. 7 however, maximising the benefits requires that trees be deployed in tight plantings as windbreaks. dense treeplanting will assist in breaking down the force of the wind in the area on the sheltered side of such windbreaks. reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 341 4 below gives the approximate tree costs (excluding valued added tax) for casuarina and ficus rubiginosa.8 table 3: costs of a casuarina tree-planting intervention description amount (r) cost of a tree, cage, water and two years’ maintenance 2 000 total 2 000 source: city parks department table 4: costs of a ficus rubiginosa tree-planting intervention description amount (r) cost of a 100-litre tree 850 excavation of tree hole 350 compost and soil preparation per tree 1 260 cage to protect tree during growth 2 000 stone mulch around the base of the tree 50 geofabric around the base of the tree 50 drip irrigation fittings per tree 100 total 4 660 source: schoeman (2008) 4.2 covering of unpaved roads and walkways apart from planting exposed areas, some of the ways that can be used to reduce pm10 pollution include paving exposed walkways and roads, and adding windbreaks in the form of buildings, walls and other structures. it is important to note that the city of cape town has already embarked on a paving and tree-planting project along spine road in khayelitsha (see figure 1). the klipfontein non-motorised transport (nmt) route is a city of cape town initiative, and is intended eventually to provide a continuous link from khayelitsha to the cape town cbd. sections of the nmt route have been in development since 2007. the aim of the initial phase of without tight planting, effectiveness is lowered. but there is a negative aspect: the association of tightlyplanted trees with crime is a problem. 8 to completely ascertain the costs and effectiveness of the intervention of planting hardy windbreak trees, ideally one would need to know the   number   of   trees   that   constitute   an   effective   windbreak   in   khayelitsha,  the  associated  cost,  and  the  associated reduction in pm10. muchapondwa   342 the project is to service a three-kilometre stretch of spine road. so far only a kilometre straddling wards 94 and 97 has been serviced. the major concerns of the nmt project are safety, accessibility, and beautification. thus, the main stakeholders are envisaged to be pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchairs, etc (tukushe 2008). under the nmt project, adjacent roadways and informal walkways are paved. trees are planted about 5 metres apart and caged to guard against vandalism. each tree is fitted with a drip irrigation system. refuse bins, signage and public benches are also provided on these surfaces. the city parks department immediately takes over the planted trees for maintenance. ficus rubiginosa and populous simonii have been planted, but they may be adversely affected by the harsh climatic and sandy soil conditions (tukushe 2008). figure 1: nmt project combining paving and tree planting in khayelitsha source: edwin muchapondwa even though the primary goal of the nmt project is not air-quality management, it makes a contribution to pm10 reduction nevertheless. in percentage terms, only a small proportion of the exposed areas in khayelitsha have been covered by the nmt project. however, the nmt project will also assist with the adjacent roadways, where the road and stormwater catchpits should become less clogged with sand. the area that has been covered by the nmt project is approximately 14 330m2. the estimated paving cost based on final certificate costs is r280/m2 excluding vat (schoeman 2008). under the proposed kaps intervention there would be reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 343 surface covering of unpaved areas and walkways in the area surrounding the air quality monitoring site on lansdowne road in khayelitsha.9 table 5: costs of covering unpaved areas and walkways description amount (r) cost of paving 1m2 (includes site clearance, earthworks, surfacing, etc) 280 total 280 source: schoeman (2008) 4.3 promoting the use of alternative, cleaner-burning energy sources the kaps surveys captured heavy reliance on wood by informal meat traders. wood is used extensively by informal traders as the main fuel for grilling meat. the wood is burnt for about 12 hours every day. there is extensive use of green wood despite all involved knowing that it emits more smoke than seasoned wood. the reasons for its continued use are that green wood prolongs the life of a fire; other wood is scarce during winter; and there is a belief that burning green wood keeps flies at bay. in addition, the burning of animal fats associated with grilling meat makes the resulting pm10 pollution very serious. most of the meat traders buy from local wood traders, who collect from the bushes as far as 5km away. this intervention would involve replacing the wood used by the informal meat traders at the business centres with cleaner-burning energy sources.10 possible alternatives include charcoal and gas.11 for various practical reasons, gas is the option chosen for this intervention. the meat traders would need to acquire the gas braais and cylinders. the surface area of the wood braai used currently is about 0.54m2. the equivalent surface area can be obtained from a 4-burner gas braai. figures 2 and 3 show typical wood and gas braais, with equivalent surface areas. 9 it should be pointed out that the prime motivation for focusing on the area in the vicinity of the monitoring station should not be to achieve lower pollution readings by reducing dust only in the neighbourhood of the monitoring equipment. 10 a slight complication with this intervention is that it requires commitment by individuals to cooperate in reducing or eliminating wood usage. given that this intervention targets businesspeople, it must make business sense for the informal traders to switch to cleaner-burning energy sources willingly. it is possible that the costs for the alternative sources could be prohibitive. if this is the case, effective implementation of this intervention would require targeted subsidies. the intervention would also need to recognise the existence of a wellestablished wood-trading industry which supplies wood to meat traders. any switch to alternative energy sources may have a negative impact on the livelihood of the wood traders. 11 another alternative is improved wood-burning technology. an on-going initiative, the sadc programme for basic energy & conservation (probec), being implemented by the german agency for technical cooperation (gtz), promotes efficient biomass energy technologies through the use of a ‘rocket’ stove. however, as currently designed the ‘rocket’ stove is not suited to the ‘braai-ing’ application (mrubata et al. 2008). muchapondwa   344 figure 2: the base section of the type of wood braai currently being used by meat traders in khayelitsha source: edwin muchapondwa reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 345 figure 3: a 4-burner gas braai which could replace wood braais in khayelitsha source: http://www.cateringequipment4all.co.za/braai.html a 4-burner gas braai costs between r2 000 and r4 000, depending on quality. a gas cylinder of any size can be obtained for a deposit of r150. the traders would then need to refill the cylinders with a quantity of gas – 9kg, 14kg, 19kg or 48kg. it is estimated that using a 4-burner gas braai for 12 hours of a day would burn 3kg of gas, or 90kg per month. as can be calculated muchapondwa   346 from the table below, the lowest cost of gas is about r16.12 per kg (excluding vat). at that price, the cost of 90kg of gas (i.e. a month’s supply) would be about r1 450. table 6: price of gas (excluding value added tax) 9kg 14kg 19kg 48kg r147.69 r226.38 r307.23 r773.76 source: african oxygen limited (afrox) the switch from wood braais to gas braais would therefore cost between r2 150 and r4 150 (including a cylinder deposit of r150) initially and r1 450 every month, i.e. between r3 600 and r5 600 for the initial launch. the meat traders who switch would avoid the costs associated with wood procurement. kaps (2008) reports that they use an average of two-and-a-half trolleys of wood a day. with a trolley of wood costing about r40, each meat trader would avoid wood expenses of about r100 per day (or r3 000 per month). it therefore seems that besides factors such as easy access, safety and security, gas is a cheaper alternative in the long run, as the monthly operating costs of gas braais are lower than those of wood braais. the question is, why have they not changed so far? the inertia may be due to the setup costs, or the inconvenience of getting gas refills. also, the figures above tend towards the conservative, as there might be additional transport costs associated with securing the gas equipment and the monthly gas supplies. the traders might also incur costs associated with storage, given that – unlike wood braais, which are usually left lying outside – gas braai equipment will need special storage facilities for safety and security. if the meat traders can be motivated by the lower operating costs of gas braais, the advisable implementation for this intervention would be for the city to provide gas braais and cylinders for all traceable informal meat traders. the associated cost of the intervention would therefore only include the cost of the gas braai equipment as shown in table 7 below. table 7: costs of the capital equipment for switching from wood braais to gas braais description amount (r) 4-burner gas braai 2 000 to 4 000 gas cylinder deposit 150 total 2 150 to 4 150 source: quotations from suppliers 4.4 providing additional refuse skips for household waste reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 347 the city’s policy is to provide lockable shipping containers which are cleared twice a week. currently, the solid waste department supplies one 6m shipping container per 400 dwellings (horn 2008) (see figure 4). households in all the informal settlements are given free black bags in which they accumulate their waste before off-loading it at the container. figure 4: a lockable shipping container currently meant to be used by 400 dwellings source: edwin muchapondwa the data on waste management service delivery in table 8 below suggests that 89.97% of households had their waste removed by the local authority at least once a week in 2005/2006. the remaining households’ waste could fall into any of the other categories: removed less often than once a week, communal refuse dump, own refuse dump, or no rubbish removal. in some informal settlements, community servicing is arranged on a rotational basis as a way to involve communities and create incomes for them.12 due to a recent shortage of shipping containers a 12 the solid waste department strongly asserts that all households in khayelitsha are serviced at least once per week. the informal settlements unit carries out surveys once every two weeks. the solid waste department provides a service if they become aware of newcomers who would not be receiving a service. in cases where there are service delivery problems the councillor is supposed to bring this to the attention of the sub-council or the call centre. it is likely that at times some people simply miss the waste collection, since it is scheduled for once a week. sometimes mischievous action leads to the burning of waste, and this is likely to happen from muchapondwa   348 very limited number of skips – each with a carrying capacity of 6m3, or 72 black bags – were temporarily rolled out, and will be replaced when containers become available (horn 2008). table 8: proportion of refuse removed by local authority at least once a week: 2005/2006 khayelitsha wards in kaps survey area proportion of weekly refuse removed (%) ward 87 99.64 ward 88 77.03 ward 89 98.55 ward 90 88.15 ward 91 86.47 ward 92 not available simple average 89.97 source: coct (2005a, 2005b, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c, 2006d) the current proposed intervention targets pm10 from the burning of household waste. the contention is that refuse removal is inadequate, leading people to resort to burning waste. in this intervention the primary motive is to serve those who are currently not being served by the current refuse removal infrastructure.13 this intervention would entail the provision of additional refuse skips to be positioned at points where burning of waste has been identified, in order to eliminate the need to burn the levels of burnt waste observed currently.14, 15 the time to time; but not frequently. there is therefore a need for enhanced communication and education. there might be a need to find new ways of educating the communities, e.g. community theatres (coetzee 2008). 13 depending on the structuring of refuse removals, it might also be the case that some people merely miss the current refuse removal routines which are otherwise capable of accommodating them. the times, days and locations of refuse removals may simply be inconvenient for some households. the extent to which burning of waste is a problem should be identifiable from the data on its contribution to pm10 levels in khayelitsha. however, detailed current information regarding the exact extent of informal waste burning and the likely extent of emissions is not available. 14 this intervention would need to be implemented along with a targeted public awareness and educational campaign. furthermore, the onus would be on the city solid waste management department to ensure that the additional refuse skips are well managed, to avoid creating other environmental health problems – there is a risk that the additional skips will simply spill over and create additional environmental and health problems as animals scavenge on the waste. 15 even though the provision of additional refuse skips has been suggested as a possible intervention, the solid waste department does not recommend such an action as an effective way of curbing pm10 levels. given the high level of waste removals, it is not believed that additional refuse skips would add much to the aggregate amount of refuse collected. in the solid waste department’s view, the provision of additional refuse skips constitutes an unnecessary cost, given that one would need to either invest in the additional skips as well as additional vehicles to collect those skips, or contract private waste management service providers to do so. given that the city itself does not currently have the necessary equipment, especially the vehicles, this reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 349 solid waste department estimates that servicing a skip costs roughly r900 per lift, and normally two lifts are done per week. this is a cost of r93 600 per skip per year. table 9 summarises the costs of the current intervention and those of the other three interventions discussed earlier. table 9: costs of the pm10 reduction interventions intervention costs planting of windbreak trees r2 000 to r4 460/tree covering of unpaved roads and walkways r280/m2 paved promoting the use of cleaner-burning energy sources r2 150 to r4 150/gas braai providing additional refuse skips for household waste r900/skip lift; 2 lifts/week 5. ascertaining the effectiveness of interventions ascertaining the impact of an intervention is not a trivial task, as it does not only depend on emissions rates. exposure to the emissions is what may really matter. but exposure to emissions is also intricately influenced by other factors such as height of release of pollutants; proximity of source to areas with high human exposure potential; duration and frequency of emissions; and climatic variables such as inversions. for instance, scorgie & watson (2004) report that over the cape coast a persistent low-level subsidence inversion is evident, with its base at approximately 1 km; in addition, the height and persistence of elevated inversions vary with latitudinal and longitudinal position. khayelitsha is also known to experience low level inversions, a few metres above ground, which trap air pollution. furthermore, diurnal variations in the wind field and in atmospheric mixing depths – and hence in pollution accumulation and dispersion potentials – result in significant daily variations in air pollutant concentrations, even on days when there is little difference in emission rates (scorgie & watson 2004). to judge the impact of interventions, we start from the premise that pm10 has known impacts on health outcomes, productivity and amenity values. such information is readily available from the relevant dose-response functions. therefore, instead of focusing on the impact of interventions in terms of how the constituents of pm10 (i.e. dust, mist, smoke, etc) from the various interventions affect health outcomes, productivity and amenity values, we focus on the extent to which the interventions affect pm10 levels. it must be noted that we are focusing on intervention would also mean a heavy administrative burden, because implementing the intervention would require the tendering and contracting of private waste management service providers. therefore, the solid waste department is of the view that additional refuse skips should only be considered as an emergency service. in fact, the usual practice is to provide skips as an emergency until regular integrated service can be provided (coetzee 2008). this paper takes the view that the provision of additional refuse skips should not be dismissed independently of other interventions. the views of the solid waste department will be accounted for appropriately under costs and effectiveness of the additional refuse skips. muchapondwa   350 the primary pm10 emissions.16 with this information, it is then feasible to compare the impacts of the various interventions in terms of a plausible common denominator, i.e. their effect on pm10 levels (or pm10 emission rates). ordinarily, the effect of each intervention on pm10 levels could be obtained by using the relevant emissions factors for fuel usage changes and changes in direct pm10 emissions in each intervention. emission factors are given in kg of pm10 emitted as a result of a unit of fuel burned. using the united states environmental protection agency (us epa) database, scorgie and watson (2004) derived the following pm10 emission factors for fuel burning in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors. table 10: pm10 emission factors for industrial, commercial and institutional fuel combustion fuel units pm10 coal kg/tonne 6.60 coke kg/tonne 6.60 diesel kg/kilolitre 0.96 paraffin kg/kilolitre 0.24 wood kg/tonne 2.63 lpg kg/kilolitre 0.07 waste kg/tonne 6.30 natural gas kg/103 m3 0.03 source: adapted from scorgie & watson (2004) scorgie & watson (2004) also derived the following pm10 emission factors for household fuel combustion. table 11: pm10 emission factors for household fuel combustion 16 primary pollutants are those emitted directly into the atmosphere, and secondary pollutants are those formed in the atmosphere as a result of chemical reactions, such as hydrolysis, oxidation, or photochemical reactions (scorgie & watson 2004). reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 351 fuel units pm10 coal g/kg 4.10 paraffin g/l 0.20 lpg g/kg 0.07 wood g/kg 15.70 source: adapted from scorgie & watson (2004) on one hand, for interventions using the above fuels it is easy to compute their effectiveness in pm10 reduction by making use of the emission factors given in tables 10 and 11. first, consider the displacement of wood used by households. the effect of displacing wood should be a reduction in pm10. the kaps survey reported an average daily wood consumption by informal meat traders of 50kg (kaps 2008). using the emission factors in table 11, the differential impact of a switch from wood braais to gas braais is a reduction in pm10 of 15.63g for every 1kg reduction in wood used. on average each trader would contribute to a daily and weekly pm10 reduction of about 781.5g and 5.470kg respectively.17 second, consider the displacement of burnt waste. we estimate that one black bag full of waste has an average mass of about 25kg. therefore, a skip with a capacity of 72 black bags would have an estimated capacity of 1 800kg. providing an additional skip which is lifted twice a week means that at best, an estimated 3 600kg of household waste will be properly disposed of rather than burnt every week. the impact of the proper disposal is a reduction in pm10 of 6.30g for every 1kg reduction in burnt waste. thus, the expected pm10 reduction from burnt waste per week would be 22.68kg.18 on the other hand, for those interventions which bring about pm10 reduction through elimination of windblown dust, an intricate modelling of the dispersion mechanisms of pm10 emissions would be called for. for instance, the main factors influencing traffic-generated dust emissions alone on unpaved roads include vehicle velocity, number of wheels per vehicle, particle size distribution, road surface moisture, tyre width, length of unpaved road, and traffic volume. unfortunately, such modelling is beyond the scope of this study; in addition, dispersion modelling for the kaps project is still ongoing and the current study could not benefit from those results. table 12 shows the effectiveness measures for promoting the use of alternative, cleaner-burning energy sources (i.e. using gas braais) and providing additional refuse skips for household waste. the table also shows the lack of data on the effectiveness of planting windbreak trees and covering unpaved roads and walkways. 17 this is not a trivial reduction given that the airport and medical waste incineration were each estimated to emit about 3 tonnes of pm10 in 2004 (scorgie & watson 2004). the number of informal meat traders in khayelitsha is not known. nevertheless, it is not expected that all meat traders could adopt gas braais in place of wood braais, because of concerns related to affordability, access, safety and security. however, for every 20 informal meat traders to adopt the gas braais, annual pm10 emissions would decrease by over five tonnes. (the focus groups during the survey stages included 20 informal meat traders.) 18 the solid waste department asserts that there is a limit to the extent to which providing additional skips will reduce pm10 since there is not much additional household waste to collect, given the existing high wastemanagement service-delivery levels. muchapondwa   352 table 12: the effectiveness of the pm10 reduction interventions intervention effectiveness (pm10 reduction) planting of windbreak trees ? covering of unpaved roads and walkways ? promoting the use of alternative, cleaner-burning energy sources 5.470kg/braai/week providing additional refuse skips for household waste 22.68kg/skip/week thus, as was pointed out earlier, the proposed interventions for reducing pm10 in khayelitsha are not comparable, and evaluating their effectiveness is non-trivial. despite the difficulties caused by the lack of objective data on the effectiveness of the various interventions, this section tries to give a cost-effectiveness ranking on the basis of perceptions of effectiveness. it starts from the realisation that pollution control is a long-term activity. it is therefore assumed that the objective of the current analysis is to guide the selection and ranking of the proposed interventions over a 20-year time horizon. in order to do this, we pick the intervention that we think is the simplest in terms of implementation by the city and use it as the base category for comparison purposes. on this basis, we pick the provision of additional skips as the base category, as it entails contracting (or possibly extending the current contracts of existing) private waste management service providers to do so. the provision of an additional skip will cost r900 per lift and two lifts per week are expected, i.e. a cost of r1 800 per week. if a decision were made to provide and service an additional skip for 20 years, it would cost r1 872 000, assuming that the price remained constant. (the assumption of a fixed price is not unrealistic, as the contract and payment can be made immediately, with the service provider being cushioned by the interest he or she can earn from invested prepayments.) now, for comparison we assume that an initial capital outlay of r1 872 000 has been put forward for use by any of the other interventions. firstly, tree-planting: as the cost of planting and maintaining a tree is between r2 000 and r4 460, it is possible to plant between 419 and 936 trees immediately, from the given capital outlay. secondly, paving: as the cost of paving is r280/m2, it is possible to pave 6 685m2 immediately, from the same capital outlay. lastly, gas braais: as the gas braai equipment costs between r2 150 and r4 150 each, it is possible to supply between 451 and 870 gas braai sets from the given capital outlay. even though we do not have objective data on the effectiveness in pm10 reduction of all the proposed interventions, we use our perception of the effectiveness of the proposed interventions assuming a capital outlay of r1 872 000 for each. the provision of 451 to 870 gas braai sets to informal traders in khayelitsha is likely to have an immediate, significant impact on pm10 reduction. given that the wood pm10 emission factor is 15.7kg/tonne, displacing wood usage of 50kg per day per informal trader by switching to gas should contribute significantly to pm10 reduction in khayelitsha. the next most effective interventions are likely to be those which reduce dust. planting 419 to 936 trees in a strategic formation is likely to reduce more windblown dust than would paving 6 685m2 of exposed areas. lastly, provision of an additional reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 353 skip for the duration of the planning horizon is expected to be the least effective. (we have ranked the ‘gas braais’ intervention ahead of provision of additional refuse skips despite the latter having a lower cost-effectiveness ratio; because in this case, many gas braais have more effectiveness than one skip.) therefore, based on our perception of the effectiveness of the proposed interventions, we can create an ordinal effectiveness measure of the proposed interventions in table 13, where a higher value indicates greater effectiveness. it should be noted that with an ordinal measure, what matters are relative positions rather than actual magnitudes; therefore, the multiples of 1000 used here could have been any set of numbers, as long as the same ranking is applied to each line item. table 13: perceived ordinal effectiveness of specified pm10 reduction interventions intervention quantity (from budgeted r1 872 000) effectiveness planting of windbreak trees 419 to 936 trees 3 000 covering of unpaved roads and walkways 6 685 m2 paving 2 000 promoting the use of cleaner energy sources 451 to 870 gas braais 4 000 providing additional refuse skips for waste 1 skip 1 000 6. results and discussion cost-effectiveness analysis provides some guidelines for selecting and ranking proposed alternative interventions on the basis of their costs and impacts on pm10 reduction. given the above ordinal ranking of effectiveness and the fact that the cost of the above interventions is the same, it is possible to compute specific cost-effectiveness ratios. the cost-effectiveness ratios are computed by dividing the costs of each alternative by the measure of its effectiveness. costeffectiveness analysis in this case gives preference to those interventions with the lowest cost of achieving pm10 reductions. the cost-effectiveness ranking (in descending order) is as follows: (1) providing gas braai sets to meat traders; (2) planting windbreak trees; (3) paving exposed areas; and (4) providing extra refuse skips. this information is also provided in table 14. table 14: cost-effectiveness analysis of specified pm10 reduction interventions intervention cost effectiveness costeffectiveness ratio costeffectiveness ranking muchapondwa   354 planting of 419 to 936 windbreak trees r1 872 000 3 000 624 2 covering of 6 685 m2 unpaved roads and walkways r1 872 000 2 000 936 3 promoting the use of 451 to 870 gas braais r1 872 000 4 000 468 1 providing one additional refuse skip for waste r1 872 000 1 000 1872 4 as indicated earlier, cost-effectiveness analysis only provides some guidelines for selecting and ranking proposed alternative interventions on the basis of their costs and impacts. ultimately, the actual selection and ranking of alternatives would have to take into account many other factors such as socioeconomic, implementation and enforcement issues – for example, planting windbreak trees results in a reduction of carbon dioxide in addition to reducing pm10; this means that it may be possible to link this intervention to climate change initiatives, thus opening up a wide range of potential funding opportunities. 7. conclusion and recommendation the average pm10 levels in khayelitsha are unusually high and are estimated to be 70% above those of the cape town cbd nearby (kaps 2008). high pm10 levels are detrimental to people’s health, productivity and amenity values. the kaps project was implemented partly to provide an understanding of the factors behind the observed high levels of pm10 in khayelitsha. the current study aimed to give cost-effectiveness rankings of feasible interventions for reducing pm10 levels in khayelitsha. given the huge disparity in the scales of these interventions and the general lack of objective data on their effectiveness, the study used the scale for each intervention that was compatible with a capital outlay of r1 872 000 – the amount needed to provide one additional refuse skip over a 20-year planning horizon. in cash terms, the following are cost equivalents: planting between 419 and 936 trees in a strategic formation to reduce windblown dust; paving 6 685m2 of exposed areas; providing between 451 and 870 gas braai sets to informal meat traders to replace their wood-fired braais; and providing one additional refuse skip for a 20-year planning horizon. using our perception of the effectiveness of the above interventions in reducing pm10 pollution or its precursors, the interventions were ranked in descending order of effectiveness as follows: (1) providing gas braai sets to meat traders; (2) planting windbreak trees; (3) paving exposed areas; and (4) providing extra refuse skips. providing gas braai sets to the meat traders of khayelitsha will significantly reduce the pm10 levels, but also contribute to the sustained livelihoods of some of the poor households. thus, despite the difficulties caused by the lack of objective data on the effectiveness of the various interventions, this study has given some guidance on how to select and rank the proposed interventions, primarily making use of cost data and perceptions on effectiveness. it reducing  pollution  in  khayelitsha   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 333-358. 355 should be reiterated that cost-effectiveness analysis only provides guidelines for selecting and ranking proposed alternative interventions on the basis of their costs and impacts. in addition, other relevant constraints such as socioeconomic, implementation and enforcement issues must be taken into account when choosing between the alternatives. for example, planting windbreak trees may be chosen ahead of the other options because of its linkage to climate change initiatives, which could open up a wide range of potential funding opportunities. 8. references benson, sally (2008). 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(1997). ‘fine particles and coarse particles: concentration relationships relevant to epidemiologic studies’; j. air & waste manage. assoc., 47: 1238-49. td journal december 2007.p65 305 hiv/aids awareness among first year pharmacy students and the role of the university s bezuidenhout and rs summers abstract as hiv/aids continues to spread and affect the lives of millions of people, a sense of urgency has developed about the imperative need to stop the epidemic. education is the key to change knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. there is currently a gap in education programmes targeting youths of ages 18-24 years, for example, those enrolled in tertiary institutions. the aim of the study was therefore to establish the level of hiv/aids awareness among undergraduate pharmacy students at the university of limpopo (medunsa campus)/tshwane university of technology schools of pharmacy. a structured questionnaire was administered to pharmacy students on entry to the programme. although the students of 2003, 2004 and 2005 obtained mean percentage hiv/aids awareness scores in the range of 70%-80%, they had inadequate knowledge of some transmission routes, events that occur when hiv invades the body, the “window period” and some symptoms. these knowledge gaps should be addressed by universities by integrating hiv/aids policies and education fully into all aspects of their planning, operations and teaching. key words hiv/aids awareness; undergraduate students; institutions of higher education disciplines medical studies, sociology, tertiary education. * dr s (selente)bezuidenhout and prof. rs (rob) summers are attached to the school of pharmacy. university of limpopo (medunsa campus). td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 2, december 2007, pp. 305-318 306 introduction during 2006, almost five million people became newly infected with human immunodeficiency virus (hiv), the greatest number in any single year since the beginning of the epidemic (unaids/who, 2006). with no cure for hiv infection and a safe and effective vaccine several years away, the number of cases will increase well into the 21st century. young people continue to bear the brunt of the global hiv/aids epidemic. those under the age of 25 account for more than half of all new hiv infections each year (unaids, 2006). those between the ages of 15 and 24 are particularly hard hit, especially girls and young women, who comprise the majority of young people living with the disease. surveys indicate that although young people have heard about the hiv/aids epidemic, awareness is not universal. many of them are still unaware of how to protect themselves and/or they harbour misconceptions about hiv transmission (unaids, 2006; un, 2003). many sexually active young people at risk for hiv do not perceive themselves to be at risk. moreover, most young hiv positive people do not know that they are infected. in addition, the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections in general among the youth is high, which increases the likelihood of acquiring or transmitting hiv (un, 2003). according to a report released by the south african medical research council in november 2006 (dorrington, r. et al. 2006), about 5.4 million out of a possible total south african population of 48 million are hiv positive. the country has more people living with hiv than any others except india. it is estimated that the probability of south africa’s 15-year-olds dying before they turn 60 increased from 29% in 1996 to 56% in 2006 (dorrington, r. et al. 2006). despite the fact that hiv prevalence among young people is high and rapidly rising there are few reliable data on hiv prevalence among students in south africa’s tertiary educational institutions. a study at the university of durban westville (stremlau, j. and nkosi, n, 2001), revealed infection rates of 26% in women and 12% in men aged 20 to 24. there is no evidence, however, that these results were representative of all students at the university. in another institution, of the 1 217 students who participated in a study carried out at the former rand afrikaans university (rau) in 2001, 13 students tested hiv positive, a hiv prevalence rate of 1.1% (uys, t. et al, 2001). bezuidenhout en summers 307 this study also indicated that the students surveyed were generally knowledgeable about hiv and aids, although there were gaps in their knowledge relating to mother to child transmission (mtct) and transmission from oral sex and related sexually transmitted infections (stis). according to levine and ross (levine, s. and ross, f, 2002), from the university of cape town (uct), students’ general knowledge of hiv/ aids transmission was good, with the exception of knowledge about vertical transmission. the latter finding is interesting, given that most respondents reported that the media had been instrumental in their obtaining a knowledge of the disease (the south african media give considerable attention to the prevention of mother to child transmission). in an investigation of oral contraceptives and condom use among 400 undergraduate students at the university of limpopo (medunsa campus), 85% of the students stated that they had experienced sex previously. most of these (92%) stated that they were still sexually active (mokobe, r. et al, 2006). evidence shows that when serious and sustained prevention efforts are targeted towards youths, it is possible for hiv rates to decline, e.g. after effective education campaigns hiv prevalence rates among pregnant girls aged 15 to 19 fell from 22 to seven percent in uganda. in zambia, prevalence among 15 -19 year olds declined from 22 percent to 15 percent (www.unicef.org 05-11-2006). it is suggested that the high level of knowledge about hiv/aids among nigerian university students, as reported in a study by aluede and colleagues in 2005 (aluede, o, 2005), may be connected to the aggressive campaigns that have over the years been championed by relevant health and other institutions. a review of unaids publications not only showed that behaviour may be modified by hiv/aids and/or sex education, but that changes, when they do occur, are almost invariably in the desired direction (grunseit, a and aggleton, p, 1998). hence, hiv prevention directed at youth is a crucial and effective strategy to alter the future course of the epidemic. education is a key to change knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. in africa, hiv/aids is most prevalent within the 15-24 year old age group (santis, w. et al, 2003). this cohort is thus the focus of many hiv/aids programmes. the majority of these programmes are, however, based at secondary school level. although nearly all secondary schools in south africa had implemented some form of life skills education in accordance with national policy, such education is not standardised. td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 305-318 hiv/aids awareness 308 coverage of the key topics varied and continues to vary considerably. only motivated schools implemented the programme initially, while others elected to modify existing programmes. furthermore, not all students attended life skills courses. in short, the extent to which life skills education is effective will depend upon a student’s learning exposure, both in terms of duration and content (www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/horizons 15-05-2005). hence, there appears to be a gap in targeting youths of ages 18-24 years, including those enrolled in tertiary educational institutions. many arrive at the university already infected. others will become infected whilst at university. higher education south africa (hesa) acknowledges that 18-30 year olds are the age group with the highest risk of contracting the hi virus and therefore hiv/aids is of particular relevance in higher education (cornelissen, 2005). education should ensure that students acquire knowledge and skills in order that they may adopt and maintain behaviour that will protect them from hiv infection. van wyk (2006) points out that not much research has been done at tertiary educational institutions on the perceptions and awareness of undergraduate students about the epidemic. aim to establish the level of hiv and aids awareness/knowledge among first year pharmacy students at the medunsa campus school of pharmacy, university of limpopo. method target population the target population was all first year pharmacy students from the university of limpopo (medunsa campus)/tshwane university of technology schools of pharmacy in the years 2003, 2004 and 2005. the total population was included in the study to increase the reliability of the results. the students completed an hiv/aids awareness questionnaire when they entered the pharmacy programme for their first year of study in the respective years. bezuidenhout en summers 309 survey instrument a structured questionnaire (see appendix 1) was designed and administered specifically for this study to determine the basic level of hiv/aids awareness of the students. the questionnaire was designed in the multiple-choice format. it consisted of the following sets of questions: � three questions on demographic characteristics (age, gender and race), � eleven hiv/aids awareness questions/statements which comprised a total of 27 items, each of which could be ticked as either correct or incorrect, � two open ended questions dealing with the cause and prevention of hiv/aids. ethical approval ethical approval for the study was obtained from the medunsa research, ethics and publications committee. analysis students’ hiv/aids awareness scores were measured as the percentage of correct responses out of the total possible mark of 27. data from the completed hiv/aids awareness questionnaires were summarised by descriptive statistics. demographic characteristics were summarised by frequency counts and percentages. the hiv/ aids awareness scores were summarised by sample sizes, means, standard deviations and minimum and maximum values. results and discussions overall results a total of 129 students completed the hiv/aids awareness questionnaire. the mean percentage awareness score was calculated for each group, on the basis of which the three groups were compared. no significant difference was found among the three groups (p>0.05, anova) (see table 1). td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 305-318 hiv/aids awareness 310 table 1: awareness percentage scores of students in different years results by age the percentage hiv/aids awareness scores of all the students in the two age categories “younger than 20 years” and “20 years or older” were compared for least squares (ls) means (the expected value for a class or subclass mean that would be expected for a balanced design) to determine if there was a significant difference in their hiv/aids awareness scores. there was a statistically significant difference (p = 0.05) in hiv/aids awareness between students younger than 20 years and students 20 years of age or older (see table 2). table 2: awareness percentage scores by age: all students � statistically significant results by gender the percentage hiv/aids awareness scores of all the male and female students were compared for ls means. the slight difference in hiv/ aids awareness between male and female students was not significant (see table 3). bezuidenhout en summers 311 table 3: awareness percentage scores by gender: all students results by race white, asian and coloured students were grouped together as “other races”. data for this group and the group of black students (the majority) were compared for ls means. no significant difference in hiv/aids awareness was found between students from the different race group categories (see table 4). table 4: awareness percentage scores by race: all students table 5 reflects the percentage of students in each group (year) who responded with the correct answer to each of the 27 items in the hiv/aids awareness questionnaire. pharmacy students’ knowledge was considered adequate if 60% or more of the students provided the correct response. this percentage was chosen because it indicates that a definite majority of the students had provided the correct responses. percentages below 60% are highlighted in table 5. td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 305-318 hiv/aids awareness 312 table 5: percentage correct scores per question bezuidenhout en summers 313 table 5 illustrates that hiv/aids awareness was inadequate for questions 3.5, 4, 5.1, 8, 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4. marginal results were obtained for questions 3.5 and 9.2. however, the majority of students do not have sufficient knowledge regarding the pathology of hiv/aids (questions 4, 5.1 and 8). students do not know that hiv attacks white blood cells and as the cd4 cell count declines, the immune system weakens. the term “window period”, although often used, is also unfamiliar to them. in question 9.4, the students wrongly identified chronic nose bleeding as a symptom of hiv/aids. open-ended questions the questionnaire included two open-ended questions: · what do you think is the cause of aids? · how do you think hiv/aids can be prevented? responses from all the students are summarised in table 6. the importance of hiv/aids information/education indicated by students as both “cause” and “prevention” is highlighted in grey. table 6: responses to open-ended questions td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 305-318 hiv/aids awareness 314 * include no exercise (1), scientifically not known (1), sex with a monkey (1), insects (1), man-made disease (1), people living against the laws of nature (1), human blood infected by blood from a green monkey (1) and stis (1) . from the responses to the open-ended questions it is evident that many students are not familiar with the cause of aids. only 34.67% of them correctly indicated hiv as the cause of aids. less than 40% of them indicated that abstaining from sex and practising safe sex are the best methods of prevention. conclusion and reccommendations the significant findings of this study therefore include the following points: 1. older students know more about hiv/aids than younger ones. 2. poor awareness of the pathology of the condition exists. 3. some symptoms are not well known. 4. there is a link between “lack of education” as a stated cause of hiv and “more education” as a need to contribute to the prevention of hiv infection. the data obtained in this study correspond with those found in studies conducted where hiv/aids knowledge of university students was found to be high, although misconceptions occurred regarding transmission of the virus (friedland, r. et al, 1991; harding, a. et al, 1999; kelly, m. 2001). fifteen percent of our respondents incorrectly identified mosquito bites and double that percentage identified donating blood as methods of viral transmission. the fact that younger students know less about hiv/aids can possibly be attributed to the inadequacy of school programmes to educate learners, as mentioned previously. also, one of the main issues that have hindered the implementation of hiv/aids prevention programmes is the lack of teacher training. due to the lack of training, teachers are unable to master the basic information about hiv/aids, thus making it impossible to practise and become confident enough to educate their students effectively. hiv/aids needs to be bezuidenhout en summers 315 understood and taught in its entirety. if it is not possible to explain to children how hiv/aids is contracted and prevented it drastically reduces the effectiveness of hiv/aids education. another issue that teachers are faced with is the culture of silence surrounding the disease. the fact remains that teachers are still too afraid to address issues such as hiv/aids and sex education as they are unsure whether it is their responsibility or that of the parent (griffiths, 2005). the “s” factors – shame, silence and stigma – are among the basic reasons behind continued hiv/aids fears leading to denial, blame and discrimination, thereby delaying positive action. teachers must recognise these factors in their community in order to be able to address them in class. a third factor that plays a role is teacher absenteeism rates. up to 12 percent of teachers in south africa are hiv/aids positive. losing teachers in high numbers greatly reduces the capacity of the school system to provide education. therefore, without enough teachers to effectively implement hiv/aids programmes, programmes continue to struggle and children continue to suffer (griffiths, 2005). education is still a key to change knowledge and attitudes. universities must play a major role in this regard. according to the higher education hiv/aids programme all higher education institutions in south africa should incorporate hiv and aids content into their curricula with the necessary scope and depth. the programme envisions that graduates should be competent in hiv and aids issues (heaids programme report, 2005). however, not all universities are committed in the fight against hiv/aids. although university departments are carrying out research about the disease, they are also morally bound to produce graduates equipped to manage the pandemic, help prevent infection among students and staff and accommodate those who are infected. several universities have really good hiv/aids policies, but are, as yet, unable to back them up with any more than a few limited initiatives (macgregor, k, 2001). although different departments are carrying out research, projects are often unconnected with each other, due to the lack of coordination across faculty and departmental barriers. in our case, despite the existence of the centre for vaccine research and the offering of a post graduate diploma in hiv/aids management on the medunsa campus, there is an unofficial, personal and institutional silence about hiv/aids. for example, there is an unknown number of staff and students living with hiv/aids on campus. unknown, because there are no baseline scientific data available of the prevalence of hiv/aids, as no studies have been performed. hence, there is a need for information on the extent of the problem at the university. td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 305-318 hiv/aids awareness 316 condoms are only distributed occasionally, awareness campaigns are limited, there is no on campus vct service, and training for staff, especially non-academic, is not provided (higher education hiv/ aids programme, 2004). while students are at least cautioned regarding the risks of student life, no similar orientation is available to staff members, nor is there an ongoing programme that deals with aids-related issues for staff members. after two years the hiv/aids policy is still in draft form. universities must survive the epidemic in terms of enrolments, funding and economics. if members of the medunsa campus community share their expertise, resources and experiences with each other, and there is a commitment from the top to a comprehensive education campaign, it should be possible to develop a powerful, integrated university-wide contribution to combating the epidemic. these suggestions are in line with the critical areas identified for action by the higher education hiv/aids programme (heaids). they were: (1) effective policy, leadership and management; (2) appropriate research/knowledge production; (3) effective prevention; (4) effective treatment, care and support; (5) teaching appropriate within an hiv/ aids context and (6) community outreach (heaids-strategic framework 2006-2009). in view of the fact that not much research has been done in the area of hiv/aids knowledge in the tertiary sector of education it is important that future research must include hiv/aids awareness studies among all students and staff, determination of hiv/aids prevalence on campus, the development of hiv/aids workplace programmes and active awareness campaigns. heaids are currently advertising for project tenders for the design and implementation of comprehensive hiv/aids workplace programmes benefiting academic, administrative and support staff at all heis in south africa. however, responses to hiv/aids should not be driven by individuals and small groups only, or by external organisations, but by universities as a whole through the appointment of full-time campus hiv/aids co-ordinator/managers. effective responses can only be achieved in an environment that is characterised by visionary leadership and good governance. bezuidenhout en summers 317 references aluede, o; imhonde, h; maliki, a. & alutu,n. 2005. assessing nigerian university students’ knowledge about hiv/aids. j. soc. sci, 11(3): 207-213. cornelissen, m. 2005. hiv/aids knowledge, awareness and perception of undergraduate students at the university of stellenbosch. assignment presented in partial fulfilment for the degree of master of philosophy at stellenbosch university. dorrington, r; johnson, l; bradshaw, d. & daniel, t. 2006. the demographic impact of hiv/aids in south africa. national and provincial indicators for 2006. cape town: centre for actuarial research, south african medical research council and actuarial society of south africa. friedland, r; jankelowitz, s; de beer, m; de klerk, c; khoury, v; csizmadia, t; padayachee, g. & levy, s. 1991. perceptions and knowledge about the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among students in university residences. s afr med j, 79(3): 149-154. grunseit, a and aggleton, p. 1998. lessons learned: an update on the published literature concerning the impact of hiv and sexuality education for young people. health education. number 2, march: 45-54. harding, k; anadu, e; gray, l. & champeau, d. 1999. nigerian university students’ knowledge, perceptions and behaviours about hiv/aids: are these students at risk? journal of social health. 119(1):23-31. higher education hiv/aids programme. 2004. hiv and aids: interventions in south african higher education. higher education hiv/aids – strategic framework 2006-2009 and beyond. available from www.hesa.org.za kelly, m. 2001. challenging the challenger: understanding and expanding the response of universities in africa to hiv/aids. washington: adea working group on higher education, world bank. levine, s. & ross, f. 2002. perceptions of and attitudes to hiv/aids among young adults at the university of cape town. cssr working paper no 14. macgregor, k. 2001. universities fight south africa’s aids crisis. available from www.chet.org.za/issues/ td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 305-318 hiv/aids awareness 318 universitiesfightaids.doc mokobe, r; tsime, w., masinga, g. & meyer jc. an investigation of the use of oral contraceptives and condoms by undergraduate medunsa students. 20th annual conference of the sa association of hospital and institutional pharmacists, wilderness, 2006. santis, w; whitman, c; venkatapuram, s; rosenblum, m; rosati, m. & palakurti, p. 2003. hiv/aids and employment: protecting young people and involving them in work-related solutions. available from www.hhd.org/documents/hyderabad.pdf stremlau, j. & nkosi, n. 2001. the aids crisis at south african universities. available from www.idrc.ca/en/ev-5398-201-1do_topic.html transitions to adulthood in the context of aids in south africa: the impact of exposure to life skills education on adolescent , knowledge,skills and behaviour. available from www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/horizons/lfsklsfnl.pdf accessed 1506-2005 un. world youth report 2003. the global situation of young people unaids. 2006. report on the global aids epidemic. unaids/who. 2006. aids epidemic update. december 2006. unicef. hiv/aids and children: how does hiv affect young people? available from www.unicef.org/aids/index_youngpeople.html uys, t; ichharam, m; martin, l. & alexander, p. 2001. hiv/aids and students at rau. interim report. van wyk, c. 2006. hiv/aids perceptions, attitudes and awareness of undergraduate students. the journal of transdisciplinary research in south africa. 2(1): 165-180. bezuidenhout en summers abstract introduction conceptualising public accountability mechanisms of ensuring accountability reflection on current state of accountability in south africa conclusion and recommendations references about the author(s) pandelani h. munzhedzi department of public administration, university of limpopo, south africa citation munzhedzi, p.h., 2016, ‘fostering public accountability in south africa: a reflection on challenges and successes’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a339. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.339 original research fostering public accountability in south africa: a reflection on challenges and successes pandelani h. munzhedzi received: 20 apr. 2016; accepted: 26 aug. 2016; published: 24 oct. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract accountability and oversight are constitutional requirements in all the spheres of government in the republic of south africa and their foundation is in the constitution of the republic of south africa of 1996. all spheres of government are charged with the constitutional mandate of providing public services. the level of responsibility and public services provision also goes with the level of capacity of a particular sphere. however, most of the direct and visible services that the public receives are at the local sphere of government. as such, enormous resources are channelled towards this sphere of government so that the said public services could be provided. it is imperative that the three spheres of government account for the huge expenditures during the public service provision processes. the parliaments of national and provincial governments exercise oversight and accountability over their executives and administrations through the public accounts committees, while the local sphere of government relies on the municipal public accounts committees. this article is theoretical in nature, and it seeks to explore the current state of public accountability in south africa and to evaluate possible measures so as to enhance public accountability. the article argues that the current public accountability mechanisms are not efficient and effective. it is recommended that these mechanisms ought to be enhanced by inter alia capacitating the legislative bodies at national, provincial and local spheres of the government. introduction steadily, the south african government has devoted much attention and its limited resources to the local sphere of government so as to perform its constitutional obligations. mogale (2003:229) and mfene (2013:17) posit that to capacitate municipalities to meet developmental requirements and speed up service delivery, extensive human and financial resources acquisition is necessary. furthermore, the adoption of key and enabling legislative measures became essential to realise developmental local government objectives. such legislative measures include the local government: municipal systems act, 2000 (act 32 of 2000), local government: municipal finance management act, 2003 (act 56 of 2003) and local government: municipal property rates act, 2004 (act 6 of 2004). there is an increasing pressure on public officials to demonstrate a high level of accountability concerning the utilisation of public resources (van der nest, thornhill & de jager 2008:545). the accountability requirements and the necessity for sound financial management have brought public sector managers in close contact with accountability instruments including internal audit and the audit committee of particular institutions. accountability in south africa has its origin in the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996. cloete (1996:xi) and mbatha (2002:1) are in agreement that accountable government in the public sector is an essential prerequisite for a democratic dispensation. they also emphasise that public sector institutions are universally faced with the issues of ethical and transparent administration and implementing good corporate governance. public officials account to political executive office-bearers and political executive office-bearers account to parliament or municipal councils in the context of municipalities (minnaar 2010:17). parliament on the other hand is composed of elected office-bearers who account to the electorate. this theoretical article seeks to explore the current state of public accountability in south africa and also evaluates its effectiveness and efficiency in the public sector. possible improvement measures would be suggested including but not limited to enhancing accountability mechanisms of both administrative and political officials through performance management systems, punishing offenders who contravene legislative prescripts, and recruiting and retaining qualified and efficient administrative officials. conceptualising public accountability accountability refers to an obligation to expose, explain and justify actions (van der nest et al. 2008:546). it demands that the actions of public institutions be publicised to encourage public debate and criticism (kuye & mafunisa 2003:425; mafunisa 2003:18; vyas-doorgapersad & ababio 2006:393). on the other hand, moeti (2014) is of the opinion that public accountability is ‘an obligation to answer for the fulfilment of assigned and accepted duties within the framework of authority and resources provided’. basically, accountability involves answering to a higher authority in the bureaucratic system of oversight (kearns 1996:7). as posited by van der nest et al. (2008:545), financial accountability is not the only form of accountability, though it plays a substantial role in public accountability. however, the whole process of public accountability often has to do with issues concerning spending of public funds, exercise of public authorities, and the actual conduct of public institutions (scott 2000:41). this is applicable in national and provincial government departments, district and local municipalities, parastatals and government entities. van der nest et al. (2008) are of the opinion that a synonym for accountability is answerability. mfene (2013:7) also concurs that an organisation, or a government official, must be answerable to someone, or something, beyond itself. but of paramount importance is that accountability is not limited to public expenditure but includes reporting on the progress, performance, failures, successes, actual versus targeted performances, and on the general exercise of authority delegated by a superior authority (ababio 2007:5; munzhedzi 2014:703). it therefore means that public accountability has to do with ensuring that those who are vested with public mandate to control and run public offices are required by law to answer and justify their actions and conducts through a forum that is pre-determined (flinders 2001:19; ijeoma & sambumbu 2013:284). public accountability is often reciprocal in that it starts the moment one assumes powers or starts exercising vested authority to utilise public resources (minnaar 2010:17; mulgan 2003:1). the reason is that there ought to be checks and balances so that an abuse of power by authorities may be avoided or at least minimised. in this instance, there are two principal actors in the public accountability process; firstly, holders of public office and, secondly, the forum at which they report, which could either be the public accounts committees, municipal public accounts committees, accounting officers or immediate supervisors. if certain legal or operational provisions have not been adhered to then these forums may recommend punitive measures which may include dismissal from work or instituting criminal proceedings against an affected employee (raga & taylor 2006:16). it must also be noted that the entire process of accounting which includes all relevant meetings, dismissal process, and criminal proceedings must be done in a transparent manner. transparency is very paramount in the process of ensuring public accountability. however, pollitt (2005:207) is of the opinion that even though transparency is often regarded as a prerequisite for public accountability, transparency may not in any case be regarded as synonymous of it. in concurrence to pollitt’s view, this article believes that citizen participation and stakeholder’s engagement are also essential elements of public accountability, but they may not in any way substitute it because they are analogous. current mechanisms that are used to foster accountability in south africa are appraised below so as to comprehend their effectiveness and efficiency and also recommend improvement mechanisms. mechanisms of ensuring accountability the constitution of the republic of south africa of 1996 (hereafter referred to as the 1996 constitution) provides for various mechanisms of fostering public accountability. it is worth noting that some existing accountability mechanism sought to be evaluated so as to recommend effective and efficient approaches and enhance their functionalities. the said different mechanisms are discussed below. parliament members of both national and provincial parliament are elected by the electorate in south africa and they are in turn accountable to the electorate for the powers bestowed unto them (minnaar 2010:17). the national assembly, which is the main house of parliament in south africa, elects the president of the republic in its first sitting who in turn nominates his national ministers and their deputies from the same house. however, the relationship of the president of the country and the parliament is complicated in that the he is the president of the majority party. according to the 1996 constitution, the president and his cabinet account to parliament regularly in the execution of their responsibilities. section 55 of the 1996 constitution provides the following powers and functions to the national assembly: consider, pass, amend or reject any legislation. initiate or prepare legislation, except money bills. ensure that all executive organs of the state are accountable to it. ensure that legislation is implemented appropriately. maintain oversight on the conduct of the duty of the executive. ensure that persons, institutions and all organs of the state comply with the 1996 constitution (nsingo 2014:46; republic of south africa [rsa] 1996). the foregoing powers and functions also indicate that the national assembly shall hold the executive which includes the president, deputy president, ministers and deputy ministers, accountable for all their actions including public expenditure. the executive shall also account for implementing laws passed by the parliament. ultimately, the executive is to operationalise passed laws into measurable performance targets and actualise those targets so that the overall objectives of the passed laws are realised. however, nsingo (2014:47) posits that more power lies with the electorate. the reason being that the electorate may withdraw their mandate from the political office-bearers through general election, because all political, economic and social decisions should be based on public interest. in the same token, public officials may be called to account by their superiors for not achieving the set objectives (mfene 2013:18). it must be noted that parliament operates in a political environment which reflects the political system in that they are elected through a public vote and such a vote could be withdrawn at the next general election. jacobs and shapiro (2000:326) share this view and note that accountability requires that voters assign responsibility to those in power whom they consider to be responsible for faulty policy decisions. some of the crucial decisions taken by parliament relate to collection of financial resources, allocation of resources through budget approval and accounting to the original authority (electorate) (gildenhuys 1997:45). it can be deduced that accountability occurs when one is answerable and responsible for actions. the current state of affairs in south africa is indicative of a scenario where the answerability of the executive to parliament is proving to be a challenge. opposition parties have consistently raised the issue that the majority party shields members of the executive in answering questions in parliament. they argue that it is for this reason that all budget votes that are presented by ministers end up being adopted and approved with only little critique from the opposition benches and no critique from the ruling party at all. in order to sustain the notion of democracy in south africa, mfene (2013:8) posits that those elected to such positions need to be accountable for the management of goods and services to improve the lives of people. however, kuye and mafunisa (2003:422) postulate that the allocation of responsibility in government has been complicated even further by the interposition of political appointees or temporary officials between political executives and permanent public servants. the standing committee on public accounts (scopa) which focuses on public expenditure by the executive scrutinises the report of the auditor-general regarding the financial management of various public institutions. scopa then summons whoever it deems necessary to appear before it and answer questions regarding the expenditure of public monies. nsingo (2014:49) notes that most of the parliamentary work is done by committees of which scopa is one. scopa is different from other portfolio committees in that these committees cover a broad range of issues including considering bills, dealing with departmental budget votes, and overseeing the work of the department they are responsible for while scopa focuses on public expenditure by the executive. scopa may also summon administrative heads of departments as they play a pivotal role in these expenditures to account on the manner in which the public money was spent. this article argues that while a challenge may occur between the political executives and ordinary members of parliament, the same cannot be said about the accounting officers and different portfolio committees. the reason seems to be the fact that accounting officers do not enjoy the same powerful political status as ministers. as such, they do not receive the same ‘shielding’ by the ruling party as ministers who appear before the scopa and different portfolio committees. public protector as an accountability mechanism, the public protector has the power to investigate any conduct in state affairs, or in public administration in any sphere of government that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to result in any impropriety or prejudice. chapter 10 of the 1996 constitution states that the public protector shall, on his or her own initiative or on receipt of a complaint, investigate any alleged maladministration, abuse or unjustifiable exercise of power, improper or dishonest act, corruption, and unlawful enrichment. the public protector shall also investigate any receipt or any improper advantage, or promise of such enrichment or advantage, by a person as a result of an act or omission in the public administration of public institutions, or omission by a person in the employ of any sphere of the government, or a person performing a public function, which results in unlawful or improper prejudice to any person (mafunisa 2003:15). the legislative framework regulating the office of the public protector in south africa is the public protector act, 1994 (act 23 of 1994). the office measures its effectiveness in respect of whether recommendations in a particular case are followed. it has been found that while the government does act in most cases, it does not always follow the recommendations, particularly with respect to politicians (public service commission [psc] 2001:20). the case in point is the remedial actions involving the building of the presidential residence in nkandla. there have been enormous disagreements regarding the interpretation of the public protector’s findings and remedial actions between political parties in parliament. needless to say that ‘small cases’ are often implemented without much difficulty. mafunisa (2003:15–17) is of the opinion that those who are found to be corrupt or involved in conflict of interest must be punished to make the recommendations of the public protector effective in curbing conflict of interest, and also to promote public confidence in the functioning of the office. not implementing the remedial actions of the public protector may effectively weaken the office of the public protector. auditor-general the auditor-general is a chapter 9 institution established by the 1996 constitution as an oversight body responsible for overseeing the management of public finances on behalf of the parliament (nsingo 2014:50). the functions of the auditor-general are to ascertain, investigate and audit all the accounts and financial statements of: all departments of the national, provincial and local spheres of the government; and any statutory body or any other institution which is financed wholly or partly by public funds, including public corporations and parastatals. besides conducting performance audits, once public expenditure of departments has been audited, the auditor-general prepares and publishes a report for that particular public institution (nsingo 2014:50). the report is then submitted to parliament for discussion. however, it may be safe to note that the authority of the auditor-general ends with the submission of a report and recommendations to parliament. the auditor-general is basically the extension of parliamentary committees including scopa in that they use the very report of the auditor-general to summon whoever they wish to summon, particularly the accounting officers and political heads of departments. each public sector institution receives its own audit outcome which is then consolidated into the main report either of all municipalities or of all national government departments. du toit (1991:67) notes that through his or her responsibility for performance auditing, the auditor-general judges policies and transactions in terms of the ‘value for money’ principle. accounting officers refer to the highest ranking administrative officials who head a state department or municipality or any other public sector institution inclusive of parastatals and public co-operations. they are also known as the chief executive officers (mafunisa 2003:14). although these administrative officials often work under the direct supervision of government ministers, they are directly accountable to parliament in respect of their performance, particularly financial matters. all legislatures have got public accounts or finance committees (scopa) which summon accounting officers to give an account of financial transactions involving their specific institutions. amongst others, section 4(d) of the auditor-general act, 1995 (act 12 of 1995) provides that the auditor-general shall satisfy him/herself that: reasonable precautions have been taken to safeguard proper collection of money, receipt, property, equipment, stores, trust money, trust property and other assets. receipts, payments and other transactions are in accordance with the applicable laws and instructions; and satisfactory control measures have been taken to ensure that resources are economically and utilised efficiently and effectively (nsingo 2014:50). it must however be noted that an important relationship exists between parliament and the auditor-general in that the former approves the budget, while the later audits the expenditure of the approved budget. the auditor-general actually compares actual expenditure with targeted expenditure of a financial year in all public institutions including government departments, municipalities, parastatals and public co-operations. according to the auditor-general (2013:47), the lack of accountability and lack of consequences for poor performance and transgressions by the executive and administration are often the cause of poor audit outcome. this is in concurrence to munzhedzi’s (2013:282) view that inadequate financial skills, lack of commitment and inappropriate procurement practices are contributory factors to a poor state of financial affairs. auditor-general also posits that most government departments and entities often have findings on non-compliance with laws and regulations and 85% of these departments had one or more findings on transgression of supply chain management (scm) regulations in the 2012 and 2013 financial year. as long as there are no consequences for inappropriate behaviour, public institutions often continue to have findings on non-compliance with laws and regulations. this is evidenced by the poor audit outcomes and the fact that the total irregular expenditure incurred by the limpopo province in the 2012 and 2013 financial year remained stagnant. this poses a serious threat to the achievement of clean administration by the year 2014 and beyond (auditor-general 2013:47). the auditor-general further posits that key officials lacking appropriate competencies to be one of the root causes of poor audit outcomes which also makes it difficult for almost half of the departments and public entities to produce financial statements without any material misstatements. the audit had also identified this challenge as one of the root causes in 2011 and 20112, but there has been little or no improvement in this regard (munzhedzi 2014:701). auditor-general works with other stakeholders including parliament and different public institutions so as to assist in safeguarding public funds. the work of the auditor-general may not be effective, if parliament is failing to hold accounting officers and political heads accountable. furthermore, the public institutions ought to implement the advices and the recommendations advanced by the auditor-general so as to address some of the challenges identified by the auditor-general during the audit process. public service commission the psc main role as mandated by the 1996 constitution is that of playing an oversight and monitoring role of the entire public service (kuye & mafunisa 2003:434). it is responsible for investigating, monitoring and evaluating the organisation and practices of the south african public service. it derives its mandate from sections 195 and 196 of the 1996 constitution. section 195 of the constitution sets out the following values and principles of public administration that must be promoted by the psc: promoting and maintaining a high standard of professional ethics; providing services impartially, fairly, equitably and without bias; and ensuring accountability on the part of public administration (mafunisa 2003:16; rsa 1996). corruption is one of the enormous challenges confronting all spheres of government (balkaran 2013:129; psc 2001:24), and the psc has introduced financial disclosures by members of senior management services (sms), otherwise known as senior managers. this is specifically done to address conflict of interest issues that often arise when the government senior managers (or any other government official) want to do business with the government. the challenge is that these managers are responsible for taking most government decisions including awarding of government business contracts which may not pass the basic principle of natural justice which requires that one cannot be a judge in his and/or her own case. however, the compliance rate regarding these declarations has not been effective in curtailing corruption and enhancing accountability in that there’s still a huge number of government employees’ doing business with government without having declared (kuye & mafunisa 2003:434). the psc (2013:14) concurs that some of the mechanisms it employed to ensure accountability, professionalism, and impartiality have not been effective. national prosecuting authority section 179 of the 1996 constitution creates a single national prosecution authority (npa). the 1996 constitution, read with the national prosecuting authority act, 1998 (act 32 of 1998), grants the npa the power to institute criminal proceedings on behalf of the state and to ensure that perpetrators of crime are charged and held responsible for their criminal actions. it must be noted that npa as a huge and complex organisation consists of several business units including national prosecutions service (nps), asset forfeiture unit (afu), sexual offences and community affairs (soca), specialised commercial crime unit (sccu), witness protection unit (wpu), and priority crimes litigation unit (moeti 2014:123). the 1996 constitution provides that the npa should ensure justice for all victims of crime by prosecuting without fear, favour and prejudice. the national director who is the overall administrative head of the prosecuting authority may intervene in any process of prosecution and review the decision to prosecute or not prosecute when the policy directives are not being complied with. this review may only be considered after careful consultation with the director of public prosecutions, hearing representations from the accused, or any other relevant person that the national director may deem appropriate. of ultimate importance with regard to the npa is the fact that its independence should be preserved, and that it must implement the law and the constitution and also perform its functions without fear, favour and prejudice (republic of south africa [rsa] 1998). however, the office of the npa is often linked with controversies and cases of impartiality which often bring the credibility of the office into question. moeti (2014:124) uses the example of the disbandment of the scorpions which had a conviction rate of 80% in 2009 which was seen as a pursuance of political environment. it has since been replaced by the directorate for priority crime investigation (otherwise known as the hawks) which has been put under the authority of the south african police service (saps). very often, the npa is associated with lack of independence against connected political elite. one of the most important business units in the npa is the afu which was also established in 1999 in the office of the national director of public prosecutions to focus on the implementation of chapters 5 and 6 of the prevention of organised crime act, 1998 (act 121 of 1998). the afu’s principal mandate is to seize criminal assets. however, this unit has not been without its own accusations of impartiality and infighting from within. even though the npa plays a significant role in the criminal justice system by ensuring that perpetrators of crime account for their criminal action, it has not necessarily been effective, particularly regarding its continued allegation of biasness, impartiality and independence. special investigating unit the special investigating unit (siu) is a supposedly independent statutory body that is directly accountable to the parliament and the president of the republic of south africa. it was established by the president, to conduct investigations at his request and report to him on the outcomes. the request to conduct investigations by the president is done through the publication of a proclamation in the government gazette (moeti 2014:122). it receives its budget through the department of justice and correctional services. the siu has been created in terms of the sius and special tribunals act, 1996 (act 74 of 1996). the siu was initially headed by former judge willem heath who resigned in june 2001 after the constitutional court ruled that a judge could not head the siu. the primary mandate of the unit was to recover and prevent financial losses to the state caused by acts of corruption, fraud, maladministration, improper conduct by elected officials, unlawful expenditure of public funds, unapproved transaction, negligent loss of public money or damage to public property, and public sector corruption (moeti 2014:122–123; rsa 1996). siu works closely with the hawks, saps as well as the npa and afu in the npa to ensure that there is effective investigations and prosecutions of alleged corruption, fraud and maladministration. the afu comes in handy where its powers and expertise are more appropriate or effective in recovering the proceeds of crime. the afu applies a multidisciplinary approach to its investigations by combining both the expertise of forensic investigators, forensic lawyers, forensic accountants, cyber forensic specialists and data analysts supported by specific law enforcement powers as provided for by the sius and special tribunals act, 1996 (act 74 of 1996). all these siu investigators may, with the authorisation of the magistrate or judge, enter and search premises and remove documentation on the basis of reasonable suspicion that would assist the investigation (moeti 2014:123). the role performed by the siu is very significant in that its functions cannot be performed by any other constitutional body. judicial institutions the existence and proper functioning of judicial institutions including the courts of law are further deterrents against unethical behaviour in the public sector. rasheed and olowu (1993) argue that the judiciary contributes to scrutinising the abuse of administrative power and making political office-bearers and public officials account for their actions. legal disciplinary sanctions are instituted against the erring political office-bearers and public officials. maluleke (in mafunisa 2000:64) is of the opinion that imprisonment without the option of a fine should be the minimum sentence for those involved in corruption. even though maluleke’s assertion may assist, it may not necessarily be the only penalty. court cases often receive wide publicity in the press if it has to do with misappropriation of government resources and lack of accountability. to this end, the fear of being exposed in public by the press in itself is a factor which might discourage political office-bearers and public officials from acting in an irresponsible and unethical manner. cloete (1993:124–125) posits that for the courts of law to be effective in instilling a sense of accountability to political office-bearers and public officials, the independence and objectivity of these courts of law must be maintained. it must be argued that the south african courts have really played a pivotal role in ensuring accountability in the public sector. however, courts have got their own weaknesses with regard to issues of accessibility in that they are expensive (o’regan 2005:128; venter & landsberg 2011:70). furthermore, those who are accused of maladministration, fraud and corruption at times defend themselves at state expense. in other words, state often has to foot the bill for some of these cases. examples of such cases are former police commissioner jackie selebi’s corruption case and president jacob zuma’s corruption case regarding the arms deal. reflection on current state of accountability in south africa while the involvement of political executives (president, ministers, premiers, members of executive councils (mecs), councillors and mayors) in unlawful or questionable activities has drawn much public attention to the issue of political responsibility, the status of administrative responsibility has also become a matter of increasing anxiety (kuye & mafunisa 2003:422). while elected officials make the final decisions on major public policy issues, public servants have significant influence on these decisions and also have authority to make decisions on their own that affect the individual and collective rights of the citizenry. the 1996 constitution clearly provides that ‘members of the cabinet (president, deputy and ministers) are accountable collectively and individually to parliament for the exercise of their powers and the performance of their functions’ (minnaar 2010:17; rsa 1996). however, in practice this has proved to be a difficult phenomenon in that some ministers delay their appearance (if they appear at all) in the respective portfolio committees of parliament. in other instances, ministers send their deputies to ‘account on their behalf’ either in the national assembly or portfolio committees. the mechanisms discussed above as a means of ensuring public accountability in south africa have to an extent had a good impact, but a big hole still exists. a very good policy framework including the 1996 constitution, public finance management act, 1999 (act 1 of 1999), and the local government: municipal finance management act, 2003 (act 56 of 2003) exists. the challenge is the practice of what is in the legislations. even when the provision of legislation is very clear, the implementation seems to be difficult. lately, the powers of the public protector as an accountability mechanism have been in question, particularly the enforcement of the remedial actions. the auditor-general has also played a pivotal and effective role in producing audit outcomes for public institutions, and parliament often relies on those findings to hold the executive to account. however, the effectiveness of the auditor-general does not necessarily mean that parliament will use such reports efficiently if at all. the npa has been established to prosecute those who have committed crime like fraud and corruption; however, its success rate could be improved. several political and public-office bearers have contravened the provisions of the legal prescripts like the public finance management act, 1999 (act 1 of 1999), but they are yet to be punished years after such actions (munzhedzi 2013:283). it is concluded that there is lack of commitment to punish those who are wrong. conclusion and recommendations south africa is still confronted with many challenges in so far as lack of accountability is concerned. the unfortunate part is that there are no ready-made solutions to these challenges. however, some of the measures which could be applied to address the said challenges include the following: accounting officers together with all administrative staff must be held accountable through an effective employee performance management system where performance agreements stipulating clear performance targets are signed. in essence, regular monitoring of individual as well as organisational performance is necessary. the political leadership ought to augment their oversight responsibilities though forums such as public accounts committees and municipal public accounts committees at the local sphere of government ensure that action is taken against transgressors. the skills of these oversight committees also need to be enhanced by nominating parliamentarians with capacity to hold the executive accountable. internal control measures ought to be improved to ensure that weaknesses associated with internal controls are corrected. regular monitoring of the implementation of internal control measures is necessary so that weaknesses are identified and addressed timeously. the authority vested with governance and oversight in government should ensure that accountability is enforced and appropriate consequences are implemented when officials do not comply with the requirements of an applicable legislative framework including local government: municipal systems act, 2000 (act 32 of 2000), local government: municipal finance management act, 2003 (act 56 of 2003) and preferential procurement policy framework act, 2000 (act 5 of 2000). the minister and mecs responsible for national and provincial treasury, respectively, should develop and implement initiatives to enhance the skills of officials by introducing continuous development programmes. this enhancement of skills should be inclusive of those of procurement officials, bid committee members, service providers as well as internal directors and managers of other business units. government institutions through their accounting officers should implement effective and efficient recruitment measures to attract and retain skilled officials who will implement adequate accountability measures. rewards and remuneration must also be linked to performance of individuals. office of the public protector as an accountability mechanisms ought to be enhanced. government institutions also need to develop respect for the office of the public protector and implement its remedial actions or challenge the remedial action in the court of law. the preceding measures of addressing public accountability challenges are vital so as to curtail or reduce the extent of corruption, lack of accountability and improve commitment to improve the state of financial affairs in south africa. munzhedzi (2013:282) is of the opinion that lack of commitment and a disregard for financial management and scm legislative framework are major contributors to the poor state of public accountability. to this end, this article notes that most of the challenges associated with public accountability do not come about as a result of lack of appropriate policy frameworks, but because of the lack of appropriate implementation of existing policies fostering public accountability. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references ababio, e., 2007, ‘bloodhounds on municipal financial management: what goes awry?’, journal of public administration 42(5), 3–14. auditor general, 2013, limpopo’s general report on the audit outcomes of provincial government, auditor-general of south africa, pretoria. balkaran, s., 2013, ‘a captured mind is a captured state: the south african public service’, in international conference on development finance and transformation’s conference proceedings, polokwane, 27–29 october, pp. 129–145. cloete, j.j.n., 1993, democracy: prospects for south africa, van schaik, pretoria. cloete, j.j.n., 1996, accountable government and administration for the republic of south africa, van schaik, pretoria. du toit, a., 1991, towards democracy: building a culture of accountability in south africa, idasa, pretoria. flinders, m., 2001, the politics of accountability and the modern state, ashgate, london. gildenhuys, j.s.h., 1997, introduction to the management of public finance: a south african perspective, van schaik publishers, pretoria. ijeoma, e.o.c. & sambumbu, a.m., 2013, ‘a framework for improving public accountability in south africa’, journal of public administration 48(2), 282–298. jacobs, l.r. & shapiro, r., 2000, politicians don’t pander: political manipulation and the loss of democratic responsiveness, university of chicago press, chicago, il. kearns, k.p., 1996, managing for accountability: preserving the public trust in public and non-profit organisations, jossey publishers, san francisco, ca. kuye, k.o. & mafunisa, m.j., 2003, ‘responsibility, accountability and ethics: the case for public service leadership’, journal of public administration 38(4), 421–437. mafunisa, m.j., 2003, ‘conflict of interest: ethical dilemma in politics and administration’, south african journal of labour relations 27(2), 4–22. mafunisa, m.j. (ed.), 2000, public service ethics, juta, kenwyn. mbatha, j.s., 2002, ‘the ethical dimension of transparency in the public sector’, unpublished madmin thesis, university of south africa, pretoria. mfene, p.n., 2013, ‘public accountability: a professional basis for the south african public service’, administratio publica 21(1), 6–23. minnaar, f., 2010, strategic and performance management in the public sector, van schaik publishers, pretoria. moeti, k.b. (ed.), 2014, public finance fundamentals, 2nd edn., juta, cape town. mogale, t.m., 2003, ‘developmental local government and decentralised service delivery in the democratic south africa’, in g. mhone & o. edigheji (eds.), governance in the new south africa, pp. 215–243, uct press, lansdowne. mulgan, r., 2003, holding power to account, palgrave, new york. munzhedzi, p.h., 2013, ‘financial viability of the south african municipalities: some observations on legal compliance’, in international conference on development finance and transformation’s conference proceedings, polokwane, 27–29 october, pp. 281–292. munzhedzi, p.h., 2014, ‘the national government’s intervention in the provincial government: a case of limpopo’, mediterranean journal of social sciences 5(20), 699–704. nsingo, s., 2014, ‘role players in public financial management’, in k.b. moeti (ed.), public finance fundamentals, pp. 44–57, juta, pretoria. o’regan, k., 2005, ‘checks and balances reflection on the development of the doctrine of separation of powers under the south african constitution’, per 8(1), 120–150. pollitt, m., 2005, ‘learning from uk private finance initiative experience’, in g. hodge & c. greve (eds.), the challenge of public-private partnerships: learning from international experience, pp. 207–230. edward elgar publishing limited, cheltenham, uk. public service commission (psc), 2001, a review of south africa’s national anti-corruption agencies, psc, pretoria. public service commission (psc), 2013, public service commission annual report 2012/13, psc, pretoria. raga, k. & taylor, d., 2006, impact of accountability and ethics on public service delivery: a south african perspective, nelson mandela metropolitan university, port elizabeth, south africa. rasheed, s. & olowu, d. (eds.), 1993, ethics and accountability in african public services, aapam, addis ababa. republic of south africa (rsa), 1994, public protector act, 1994 (act 23 of 1994), government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa), 1995, auditor general act, 1995 (act 12 of 1995), government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa), 1996, constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa), 1998, national prosecuting authority act, 1998 (act 32 of 1998), government printers, pretoria. scott, c., 2000, ‘accountability in the regulatory state’, journal of law and society 27, 38–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00146 van der nest, d.p., thornhill, c. & de jager, j., 2008, ‘audit committees and accountability in the south african public sector’, journal of public administration 43(4), 545–557. venter, a. & landsberg, c., 2011, government and politics in south africa, van schaik, pretoria. vyas-doorgapersad, s. & ababio, e.p., 2006, ‘ethical dilemmas and democratic values: how to reposition institutions for good governance and increased service delivery’, journal of public administration 31(2.2), 385–396. microsoft word 08 tempelhoff.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: re-enchantment pp. 104-121. the ‘long now’ of southern african water: exploring aspects of enchantment and disenchantment in brandfort j tempelhoff1 abstract strategies aimed at understanding contemporary south african water supply and sanitation problems require a broad view of factors such as migration, urbanisation and climate change. working from a case study of the water supply of the town of brandfort in the free state province of south africa, attention is given to its contemporary water crisis; the origins of the town in the nineteenth century; a view of the deep time of the region; and suggestions for gaining understanding of the town’s contemporary social ecological history in terms of the dynamics of its local water supplies. keywords: brandfort; erfenis dam; municipal service delivery; water and sanitation; long-term thinking; social ecological systems, panarchy introduction: from municipal services to the ‘long now’ a notable feature of south africa’s water history since the transition to a multiracial democracy in 1994 has been the ever-increasing demand in the country’s urban areas for proper water supply and sanitation service delivery. since 2004 there has been a rising trend in civil protest, a trend that until 2011 became increasingly violent. audits of the national department of water and sanitation (dws) pointed to municipal under-performance in the process of rendering satisfactory services to consumers. this tendency was most notable in the rural areas of the country. government became aware that there had been a specific bias when it came to funding. most government funding for upgrades and the maintenance of infrastructure found its way to the country’s large cities and metropolitan areas. 2 the disenchantment with municipal service delivery was most pronounced in the field of water supply and sanitation. research in a rural setting in north west province in 2009 suggested that water-related issues were at the core of an estimated 60 per cent of the grievances residents had with municipal service delivery.3 however, water was seldom the strongest driver of protest action. local and regional politics, and often personal feuds, also played a significant role in sparking conflict. water-related issues were then added because water supply disruptions tend to create a volatile atmosphere of societal discontent – typically a sense of disenchantment with a local water supply authority. water as a secondary driver of 1 . prof johann tempelhoff is a water historian working in the field of transdisciplinarity. he is leader of the research niche for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat) in the school of basic sciences, north-west university (vaal triangle, south africa. email: johann.tempelhoff@nwu.ac.za 2 . african ministers council on water (amcow), water supply and sanitation in south africa: turning finance in services for 2015 and beyond (amcow water and sanitation program, 2011), p. 15. 3. c gouws, im moeketsi, s motloung, jwn tempelhoff, g van greuning and l van zyl, “sibu and the crisis of water service delivery in sannieshof, north west province” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 25-56. the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 105 conflict is well known. the ‘water wars’ theory in international politics4 suggests that water per se is seldom a primary cause of violence. instead, water plays a secondary role.5 an exogenous and seemingly unimportant factor, situated on the periphery of the socialecological system of, for example, a local community, typically sparks off violent conflict, often leading to a state of collapse of certain available resources, requiring a dedicated and resilient adaptive response at the social level. for the purposes of this discussion it is suggested that drivers of conflict are seated in deeper processes. for example, mobility and the tendency to live in communities has been a common feature of human society for thousands of years. in the case of water, changing conditions such as resource depletion, extended droughts, or floods, often lead to the decline and even collapse of a community’s resilience in a large settlement. the historical record shows that social-ecological circumstances tend to determine the demography of human settlement. in turn, these conditions are shaped by the dynamics of complex economic and political factors that come into play when processes of community formation begin against the backdrop of systemic growth of collective knowledge, eventually leading to the formation of complex cultural systems.6 a study of the history of human settlement shows that urbanisation, industry and human adaptation to ongoing processes of change may even terminate the continued existence of a local or regional society. examples of this abound in the historical narratives of early urban societies in the middle east, dating as far back as four millennia.7 water supply, energy resources, along with road networks, and operational service institutions of social, economic and political governance, are of vital importance.8 currently the population of sub-saharan africa (ssa) is increasing at a rapid rate. in 2013 it was estimated that the population of 1,1 billion would increase to 2,4 billion by 2050.9 clearly, this implies that urbanisation in ssa is set to increase, along with that of asia, at potentially the most rapid rate in the world. indications are that these growth patterns will persist, at least for the next three decades. the growth is set to take place in urban environments. according to the united nations’ department of economic and social affairs, 4. at wolf, “conflict and cooperation along international waterways” in water policy, 1, 1998, pp. 251265; at wolf, t. aaron, “the transboundary freshwater dispute database project” in water international 24(2), 1999, pp. 160-163; at wolf, ‘“water war’ and water reality: conflict and cooperation along international waterways” in sc lonergan (ed.), environmental change, adaptation and security (kluwer academic publishers, dordrecht, 1999), pp. 251-265. 5. at wolf, a kramer, a carius and gd dabelko, “managing water conflict and cooperation” in state of the world 2005: redefining global security (worldwatch institute, washington 2005), pp. 80-95 and 203-208. 6. d christian, maps of time: an introduction to big history (university of california press, berkeley, 2011), pp. 146-8, 253, 284, 290, 292-3. 7. d northrop (ed.), a companion to world history (wiley-blackwell, hoboken, 2012), p. 158; d christian, maps of time: an introduction to big history, pp. 269-275. 8 . b fagan, elixir: a human history of water (kindle edition, bloomsbury, london, c.2011) chapter 7. 9. population reference bureau, (prb), “world population data sheet” (2013) at http://goo.gl/yjoon1 (accessed 2014.07.31). tempelhoff 106 only 36,7% of sub-saharan africa’s population was urbanised in 2011/2,10 but by 2050 an estimated 56,5% could be resident in towns and cities.11 the chances are high that in southern africa, particularly south africa, with its urban population in 2005 of 59,3% of the total population of the region, may push this urban tally up to 70% by 2050.12 whilst there is consensus that urbanisation is a growing phenomenon in africa,13 there are also critics who point out that the process should not only be equated with wealth and progress, but instead also with increasing poverty and the concomitant processes of de-urbanisation.14 what is evident is that human livelihoods in urban environments are bound to be subject to change. although population growth could potentially lead to bustling metropolitan societies, it could also lead to decline. it depends on an intuitive ability of local communities to be responsive to the prevalent social ecological system and their ability to adapt in a resilient manner to on going processes of growth, collapse and recovery. there is a need to re-think the way communities accumulate and consume the available local resources. apart from land, water is probably the most ubiquitous. there is a constant material demand for reliable water supplies and a societal need for the effective disposal of used water. the ‘long now’ in her contemplation of writing history in the era of globalisation, lynne hunt suggests that since the nineteenth century there has been a notable growth in the variety of communications systems.15 more particularly, the introduction of personalised computing and internet connectivity has compounded the process of knowledge production as a result of access to more sources of information. what is clear is that our understanding of the present and conceptions of an anticipated future are ostensibly focused on the short term. the abundance of contemporary data tends to obliterate potentially relevant historical information and unwittingly leads to states of social amnesia in which there is a deterioration of a fundamental historical consciousness. rapid change and the apparent neglect of local and regional cultural dynamics is evident in matters of governance and socio-economic development in modernising states that are hard at work making headway in the era of globalisation. in twenty-first century southern africa, with its high growth potential, the focus of the region’s governments is on extractive economic development. in the process, sustainability and the intrinsic relevance of history and cultural traditions are neglected in favour of the 10. department of economic and social affairs (desa): population division, world urbanization prospects: the 2011 revision (united nations, new york, 2012), p. 121. 11. desa, world urbanization prospects, p. 127. 12. desa, world urbanization prospects, p. 127. 13. p kok and n collinson, migration and urbanisation in south africa, (report 03_04-02, statistics south africa, pretoria, 2006), p. 26. 14. d potts, “urban livelihoods and urbanization trends in africa: winners and losers?” in environment, politics and development working paper series, paper 57, (king’s college, london, 2013), pp. 1-30; d potts, whatever happened to africa’s rapid urbanization? (counterpoints, africa research institute, london, february 2012). 15 . l hunt, writing history in the global era (ww norton & company, new york, 2014), chapter 2. the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 107 quest for material gain.16 the safety and security of some resources, such as water, are easily compromised – often with negative consequences for local communities. how society needs to engage with these changes requires a memory of former times and cultural strategies of resilience, many of which have been lost in the era of modernisation. the question is: how do we deal with these complex issues and can we indeed learn from the past? as fields of academic research broaden the focus on science and its impact on society, there is a growing sense of urgency to transcend boundaries of communities of practice so as to create knowledge and open up new frontiers of collaboration to provide guidance and sound advice for the sensible integration of africa into global processes. archaeologists, historians and anthropologists of africa, working in comparative contexts, are now investigating the phenomenon of pre-colonial urban societies. they are focusing on the era before the onset of european colonisation, studying diverse localities on the subcontinent to reach a better understanding of local and coastal trade, and industrial activities related to mining and farming at the time. the objective is to determine how exogenous contact transformed social and economic livelihoods in pre-colonial times.17 for example, well-known heritage sites, such as mapungubwe and great zimbabwe are now contemplated from the perspective of evolutionary processes of adaptation of pre-colonial african urban settlements and the influence of trading ties with the indian ocean economy. at the same time there are concerted efforts to link the long history of agriculture in east and central east africa to similar activities in southern africa over the past two millennia.18 the enigmatic hidden histories of terraced farming and settlement patterns, at localities such as nyanga in zimbabwe, and bokoni in south africa’s mpumalanga region, suggest complex community formations; intensive agricultural and pastoral activities; as well as indications of specialised water management strategies. there is a growing awareness that we need to investigate these aspects of the history of southern africa from different perspectives to gain a better understanding of past and present forms of urbanisation.19 the reward could be a more responsible strategy for engaging with future development. historians are now re-interrogating the conventional south africanised interpretation of turner’s frontier theory20 by suggesting, for example, that a colonially-shaped idealisation of the cape’s eastern frontier should be re-focused further north to the limpopo-shashe basin.21 because we have the responsibility – in a post-colonial southern africa – to reconsider the realities of governance, there is also a need to take note of pre-colonial local and regional governance entities. moreover, in our understanding of early urban settlements 16 . d acemoglu and ja robinson, why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty (profile books, london, 2012), chapter 13. 17. p sinclair, “the archaeology of african urbanism” in p mitchell and p lane (eds) the oxford handbook of african archaeology (oxford university press, oxford, 2013), pp. 689-702. 18. ojj sinclair, g nordquist, f herschend and c isendahl (eds), the urban mind: cultural and environmental dynamics (uppsala university, uppsala, 2010). 19. d stump, “intensification in context: archaeological approaches to pre-colonial field systems in eastern and southern africa” in african studies, 69(2), august, 2010, pp. 255-278. 20. h giliomee and r elphick (eds), the shaping of south african society 1652-1840, second edition (maskew miller longman, cape town, 1989), pp. 3-108. 21. m mulaudzi, mh schoeman and s chirikure, “continuing conversations at the frontier” in south african historical journal, 62(2), 2010, pp. 219-228. tempelhoff 108 (not necessarily much different from their counterparts in other parts of the world) there is a need to understand historical consciousness cognitively, from the perspective of disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology and palaeontology. much of the emergent research activity in southern africa now focuses on the past half millennium from an archaeological perspective, with a strong accent on material remains.22 although the broadening multiand interdisciplinary field of investigation has a number of pitfalls,23 there are also opportunities. for example, there are good prospects for the historical appraisal of water and its place on a continent that relies heavily on precarious seasonal rainfall in the absence of sufficient natural surface storage facilities.24 moreover, it is apparent that our fractured conceptualisation of the past, in which historians and anthropologists are considered the ‘lumpers’ and archaeologists the ‘splitters’,25 calls for a renewed investigation of the way in which we conceive society. by understanding the historical dynamics over long and extended periods, it might be possible for us to tease out the social-ecological systems that have shaped our understanding of the present. taking a new perspective on the past may potentially stem the tide of disenchantment that is prevalent in a youthful and rapidly increasing population of ambitious and upwardly mobile africans on the subcontinent. for the purposes of this discussion i have singled out the concept of the ‘long now’, a term developed by the long now foundation of which the inveterate futurist and innovator, stewart brand, has been a leading figure. the foundation’s seminars on long-term thinking (salt) have attracted interest in numerous fields of research.26 underpinning the foundation’s thinking is the objective of providing a counterpoint to today’s accelerated thinking under circumstances of rapid technological innovation and change in an effort to promote a more common acceptance for longer-term thinking.27 although brand and members of the foundation focus firmly on the future, they do not hesitate to explore the past to enhance an understanding of the line of continuity between past, present and future. to gain insight into the interplay of societal development over time, encapsulated in the ‘long now’, the question that arises is: will it be productive over an extended period of time to explore problems related to water on a subcontinent where the annual rainfall is well below 22. n swanepoel, a esterhuysen and p bonner (eds), five hundred years rediscovered: southern african precedents and prospects (university of witwatersrand press, johannesburg 2009); p lane, “book review: conversations between archaeologists and historians on south africa” in the journal of african history, 51(2) july 2010, pp. 251-3. 23 . s marks, “new paradigms in history and archaeology in south africa” in african studies, 70(1), 2011, pp. 123-143. 24. j iliffe, africa: the history of a continent, second edition (cambridge university press, cambridge, 2009), pp. 6-7. 25. s dubow, scientific racism in modern south africa (cambridge university press, cambridge, 1995), pp. 26 and 65; c hamilton, bk mbenga and r ross, “the production of preindustrial south african history” in c hamilton, bk mbenga and r ross (eds), the cambridge history of south africa: volume 1, from early times to 1885 (cambridge university press, cambridge 2012), pp. 1-65. 26. s brand, k kelly, a rose and p saffo, the salt summaries: seminars about long-term thinking: october 02003-january 02003, kindle edition (the long now foundation, san francisco, 2014). 27. m chabon, “the omega glory” in the long now foundation at http://goo.gl/cyrkia (accessed 2014.09.08). the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 109 the world average? will it be possible for us to come to a better understanding of historical processes of climate change and how these influenced societies in terms of the availability of local water resources? as a knowledge consuming society, focused on short-term and swift digital micro-byte spurts of information, all too often we seem to be content with the ‘bigger picture’ of trends that play out in the present – without exploring the past. if we are able to map a contingent connection and interaction between humans and the aquatic environment in southern africa, in the distant past and in the present, we could potentially enhance our understanding of the future. reframing our understanding time to accommodate the ‘long now’ will inevitably inform the manner in which we comprehend space. outline for the purposes of this discussion the objective is to take a microhistorical snapshot of the town of brandfort (founded in 1866), situated in the masilonyana local municipality of south africa’s free state province, to form an understanding of local water-related problems residents have experienced in recent years. apart from the contemporary water crisis, attention will be given aspects of the town’s water history since the nineteenth century. by contemplating a larger regional history over an extended period of time, it should be possible to comprehend some of the present circumstances and anticipate aspects of the future of brandfort. brandfort’s contemporary water problem popular memory has it that brandfort’s critical problems with the town’s water supply began in the early years of the new millennium and culminated in 2012 with protest marches and intermittent violence in the local black township. in many respects the historical trajectory of local residents’ discontent with the state of affairs is similar to trends in other rural areas of south africa where residents of small towns have been grappling with local water shortages.28 underlying the public discontent there appears to be a sense of nostalgia for the days when local authorities were smaller and enjoyed greater local autonomy. the consolidation of small towns into larger municipal entities after 2000-2, are said to have been part of the problem. at the grassroots level residents are of the opinion that they would be far better off if their former local municipal status could be restored to stand-alone municipalities. they argue that this would at least give them greater autonomy over their own local matters.29 while governance experts are apt to discuss possible alternatives on an ongoing basis, it is people at grassroots level who have to bear the brunt of dysfunctional governance in rural local government. one consequence is a chronic lack of appropriate urban water supply services, in the rural parts of the country. brandfort is a good example. residents of the town’s former african township, majwemasweu and the adjacent local informal settlements, often have to manage for days at a time without proper water supplies. the situation has worsened in recent years because of local population growth and intermittent breakdowns in a pipeline that connects the distant 28. jwn tempelhoff, “local service delivery problems and trends in south africa’s water governance (1994-2010)” journal for contemporary history, 36(3), december 2011, pp. 81-100. 29. n steytler, “urbanisation: single tier local government for urban areas” in local government bulletin, 19(3), 2007, pp. 9-11. tempelhoff 110 water source to the town. residents in the informal settlements have to cross a busy provincial road and walk a distance of five kilometres to fetch meagre water supplies for the household in 25ℓ containers.30 people who live in homes built on higher ground often have to cope without water for days on end when the level of the water in the local reservoir provides insufficient pressure to convey water through local pipelines to their homes.31 and at local schools, children are either sent home if water supplies are unavailable, or, as is the case at the town’s high school with extensive boarding facilities, children have to resort to taking their bath soap and towels with them and taking a communal bath in the school’s swimming pool.32 the reasons for the water shortage in brandfort are complex. the town relies heavily for its bulk water supply on the erfenis dam, situated in the vet river catchment, south of brandfort’s neighbouring town of theunissen. the dam, the third largest in south africa at the time of its completion in 1960, forms part of the sand-vet irrigation scheme, a project started in 1947 with the allemanskraal dam, using water from the sand river, for irrigating dryland areas in the central free state.33 since its completion the erfenis dam has been responsible for supplying water to brandfort. the water is pumped along a pipeline of about 35km to brandfort’s reservoirs. since the 1990s, in response to the government’s reconstruction and development policy (rdp), there has been a significant inflow of new residents to brandfort. the promise of free housing saw many south africans, who were formerly employed on farms, moving into the country’s small towns in anticipation of a house of their own and a reasonably comfortable urban lifestyle. at the same time white farmers, in the face of the land redistribution legislation that came into effect after 1994, have subtly pushed labourers off their farms in an effort to prevent possible land claims and restitution issues on their property. in the free state, primarily a dryland farming area producing a third of the country’s wheat and maize,34 this population shift has had a marked effect on urbanisation trends, specifically in many of the province’s smaller towns.35 for obvious reasons the water supply to a town like brandfort proved insufficient after 1994. with the advent of multiracial democracy, government policy was to provide all south africans in urban areas with potable water and proper sanitation. the bill of rights, chapter 30. n seleka, "water worries put a daily strain on brandfort residents" in sowetan live, 2013.02.20 athttp://goo.gl/8vnkcv (accessed 2014.03.20); m ginster, jwn tempelhoff, l van der merwe, s berner, s motloung and u rabali, running on empty: investigating the 2013 brandfort water supply crisis (research niche for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat), north-west university (vaal), report 1/2013. finalised 2014.06.28), pp. 26-27. 31. ibid., pp. pp. 34-37. 32. ibid., pp. 38-41; anon., “swimming? no, we are bathing” in you magazine, 2013.03.28, pp. 124-125. 33. ar turton, r meissner, pm mampane and o seremo, a hydropolitical history of south africa’s international river basins (wrc report 1220/1/04, water research commission, pretoria, 2004), pp. 174-175. 34. m hensley, p le roux, c du preez, c van huyssteen, e kotzé and l van rensburg, “soils: the free state’s agricultural base” in south african geographical journal, 88(1), 2006, pp. 111-21. 35. l marais and a pelser, “voting with their feet: population trends and policy-making in the free state” in south african geographical journal, 88(1), 2006, pp. 22-31. the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 111 2, section 27, in the 1996 constitution of south africa, act 108 of 1996, the national water act, 36 of 1998, as well as the government’s commitment to the united nations’ millennium development goals (mdgs) have been the prime markers in the process of promoting equity in access to proper water and sanitation for all people resident in the country.36 the problem in brandfort, as has been the case in many rural south african towns, is that there was not enough water to ensure a consistent supply for all.37 the ageing infrastructure was unable to provide the increased demand for potable water supplies – an endemic problem in many of south africa’s urban areas for some time.38 furthermore, as of 2008, because of the increasing countrywide electricity load shedding, water pumping systems, as well as water purification and wastewater treatment plants intermittently came to a halt. in the case of brandfort, the electrically operated pumps at the erfenis dam were out of service for extended periods of time. this in turn meant that when the electricity was restored, the supply of water was prone to burst the pipelines because of inconsistent pressure levels.39 in 2012-3 there were several protest marches. the democratic alliance (da), the official opposition at the municipal and provincial level in the free state, maintained a high profile in residents’ protest actions against inferior water and sanitation service delivery.40 this political party has for several years taken the authorities to task for the dire condition of the province’s urban water and sanitation infrastructure.41 the da relied heavily on the human rights commission to report on lapses in the basic human right of access to proper drinking water.42 in the case of brandfort, a local resident who served as a ward representative on the municipal council, conducted a comprehensive investigation and subsequently wrote a report on brandfort’s water and sanitation problems. a copy of the report was later submitted to the provincial human rights commission in bloemfontein.43 until 2013 all attempts at making 36 . h thompson, water law: a practical approach to resource management and the provision of services (second impression, juta, cape town, 2006) pp. 197-8; republic of south africa (rsa), millennium development goal: country report 2013, at http://goo.gl/8clwtp (accessed 2015.08.16) pp. 18-19, 22, 93, 99-101. 37. m ginster, jwn tempelhoff, l van der merwe, s berner, s motloung and u rabali, running on empty: investigating the 2013 brandfort water supply crisis, p. 51. 38. a vermeulen and m lipholo, “preserving water resources” in imiesa, 35(7), july 2010, p. 41. 39. m ginster, jwn tempelhoff, l van der merwe, s berner, s motloung and u rabali, running on empty: investigating the 2013 brandfort water supply crisis, pp. 15-16, 65. 40. ibid., pp. 28-29. 41. r jankielsohn, “defining hydropolitics: the politics of water in south africa” in journal for contemporary history, 27(1), 2012, pp. 123-141. 42. jwn tempelhoff, as van zyl, ej nealer, m ginster, s berner, im moeketsi, m morotolo, a tsotetsi and p radebe, environmental health and the hydrosophere in moqhaka local municipality, free state south africa (cudywat report 2/2011, north-west university (vaal), vanderbijlpark, 2011); m ginster, jwn tempelhoff, l van der merwe, s berner, s motloung and u rabali, running on empty: investigating the 2013 brandfort water supply crisis, pp. 28-29; jwn tempelhoff “from makhaza to rammulotsi: reflections on south africa’s “toilet election” of 2011”historia57(1), may 2012, pp. 82-108. 43. f posthumus, brandfort water supply services. technical investigation report (report 08/2011). a report compiled for the minister of water and environmental affairs hon. e molewa and copy for public protector sun griessel. tempelhoff 112 local, provincial and national authorities aware of brandfort’s water plight appeared to be futile. brandfort’s water since the nineteenth century brandfort was founded in october 1866, a year after an army of about 2 500 basotho warriors of lesotho marched into what was then the afrikaner republic of the orange free state (1854–1902). at the instruction of their leaders, masupha and moperi, the basotho reportedly brutally massacred the white settlers in the region.44 the subsequent founding of brandfort suggests that the settlement formed a frontier outpost of the orange free state. similar towns, frankfort (1869)45 and vredefort (1876), were founded at more or less the same time.46 as their names suggest, these settlements were strategic local fortification points aimed at safeguarding frontier farming communities. water always plays an important role in the founding and development of urban settlements. in the case of brandfort, the keeromspruit was a decisive factor in determining where the new frontier town would be situated. in fact the local spruit provided water for all types of animals, and if we go by what palaeontologists tell us, also early humankind.47 legend has it that the voortrekkers, who first came across the site during one of their reconnaissance excursions from the cape into the trans-orange region, named the keeromspruit and the nearby keeromberg. it was here that they decided to turn around (omkeer) and go back home to their families.48 the keeromspruit is fed from a fountain system in the surrounding low mountain range. the water gravitates downstream and passes into the stream at the lower end of the town of brandfort. van zyl has queried the claim that water was a major factor in emergent human settlement patterns in the orange free state.49 his focus on central place theory for comprehending settlements patterns in the region (1840-1910) tends to downplay the importance of water. however, he does acknowledge that availability of water might well have been one of the causative factors in the founding and development of towns in the area. as an example, he mentioned that the rapid growth of kroonstad, which was quicker than that of winburg, was perhaps because of the copious supplies of water available at kroonstad’s vals river.50 44. gm theal, history of south africa since 1795 (cambridge university press reprint, new york, 2010), p. 169. 45. pe raper, new dictionary of south african place names (jonathan ball, johannesburg and cape town, 2004) p. 105. 46. ibid., p. 396. 47. er collins, “stone implements from south african gravels” in the journal of the anthropological institute of great britain and ireland, 45, january/june 1915, p. 82. 48. brandfort library, history clippings file (hereafter blhcf), herinneringe van j vd v dreyer oor brandfort in die vroeë jare, (april 1978), p. 2. 49. ja van zyl, “blanke vestigingspatrone in die oranje-vrystaat: vroeë blanke vestiging en stedelike groei tot 1910” in acta geographica, 1, 1967, p. 166. 50. ibid., p. 173; for more on the vaal river and its contemporary history, see jwn tempelhoff, as van zyl, ej nealer, m ginster, s berner, im moeketsi, m morotolo, a tsotetsi, p radebe, environmental health and the hydrosphere in moqhaka local municipality, free state, south africa the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 113 in the case of brandfort it is certain that the keeromspruit and its groundwater supply played an important role. between 1866 and 1904 the white population of brandfort increased on average by about 24 people per annum.51 up to the end of the nineteenth century, a local population of 200 residents would have made up a large country town. what is evident of brandfort is that local population increases tended to coincide with periods of social and political upheaval. it grew most rapidly in the period 1890 to 1904 – at the rate of 394 per cent.52 the south african war (1899-1902) significantly influenced this growth. brandfort has a special place in the history of the war.53 there were two civilian camps on the outskirts of the town – dwyersdorp for whites and nooitgedacht for africans. little information has survived on the black concentration camp, but we do know that in both camps water-related diseases such as typhoid and dysentery flourished and that measles was also prevalent, especially among children.54 mortality rates were high. according to reynolds, 1646 civilians died at brandfort between january 1901 and march 1903.55 van heyningen points out that the local camps also experienced the highest mortality rates of all camps in south africa in a single year, with 1166 per 1000 for the period october 1900-1, which in effect means that the camp’s residents could have been completely exterminated by disease had the local population remained static. 56 there was widespread poverty amongst the whites after the war. consequently, many families were slow to return to farms that had been destroyed. some chose to move to the urban areas of the witwatersrand where the men hoped to find employment on the mines or in industries. africans, who had been in the employment of white farmers before the war, were also in a precarious position.57 many civilians who had become refugees during the war stayed on in rural towns. therefore, it did not come as a surprise that brandfort, the former camp town of the war, became a political hotspot of civil protest in 1903 when local residents held the first meetings to demand compensation from the british authorities for the losses they had suffered during the war. in 1904, congresses in brandfort and the capital city of (research niche for the cultural dynamics of water, nwu report 2/2011. fezile dabi project (fdp). 51. ja van zyl, “blanke vestigingspatrone in die oranje-vrystaat: vroeë blanke vestiging en stedelike groei tot 1910” in acta geographica, 1, 1967, p. 187. 52. ibid., p. 186. 53. see anon., de camp courant at http://goo.gl/fgom9x, a website dedicated to highlight events in british concentration camps during the anglo boer war (accessed 2014.02.15); e van heyningen, “the concentration camps of the south african (anglo-boer) war, 1900–1902”, history compass, 7(1), january 2009, pp. 22–43. 54. anon., de camp courant athttp://goo.gl/fgom9x, a website dedicated to highlight events in british concentration camps during the anglo boer war (accessed 2014.02.15). 55 . cmm reynolds, die ontwikkeling en analise van ‘n elektroniese genealogiese databasis oor burgerlike sterftes tydens die anglo-boereoorlog (1899-1902), (ma, nwu, vaaldriehoek, 2007), p. 54. 56 . e van heyningen, “a tool for modernization? the boer concentration camps of the south african war, 1900-1902” in south african journal of science, 106(5/6), pp. 1-10. 57 . pah lanbuschagne and cj van vuuren, “the destiny of the human family and johannes seseane in the winburg district during the anglo boer war (1899-1902)” in south african jourbnal for cultural history, 24(1), june 2010, pp. 36-57. tempelhoff 114 bloemfontein culminated in the formation of the first post-war political party of the free state, the orangia unie, two years later.58 there are frequent references to water in the history of brandfort. in the top part of town there was a relatively weak fountain that provided water for the canal that ran alongside water street. the town’s other fountain was near the station. the water furrow on the main road joined the water from the top fountain at water street and was directed down the street in the direction of the keeromspruit.59 the symmetrical layout of the town favoured gravity for distributing the available water supplies in town. residents eagerly linked up to the water supply system and everyone had a turn to lead water into their gardens from the furrow. the first water-users were those who owned erven in marais street. these plots of land were by far the largest in town and were intended for extensive gardening. however, even in the early 1900s the water supply was apparently insufficient and later it completely dried up.60 the first modern interventions in the groundwater supply of brandfort appear to have started early in the twentieth century when a certain gustave d’assonville of the cape colony, moved to the town. he began drilling boreholes, powered by wind pumps, for resident farmers in the district.61 the townspeople were industrious. in addition to a mill used by the local blacksmith, there was a steam mill used for grinding maize and wheat,62 and a soft drink factory run by joe hoffman. the factory produced lemonade in glass bottles with marble stoppers and at the time the water was said to have been sparkling clean.63 according to an elderly resident of brandfort, after heavy rain the local children would catch small silver fish in the town’s water furrows.64 brandfort’s first power station came into operation in 1923. its turbines required steaming water from a boiler to generate electricity. the new plant replaced a gas lighting system introduced shortly after the south african war.65 a major intervention in the town’s water supplies dates back to the 1960s with the introduction of pumped water supplies from the erfenis dam, forming part of the sand-vet irrigation scheme. brandfort’s new water system, constructed at a cost of r240 000, was officially taken into use on 2 december 1963.66 the erfenis dam’s gross capacity at the time of its completion stood at 237 million cubic metres and at any one time it could release as much as 3170m3/s over the spillway.67 brandfort’s heydays were at the beginning of the 1960s, after one of its local residents, cr swart (1894–1982), became the first state president 58 . da van der bank, “die orangia unie as volksvereniging en politieke party, 1906-1912” in navorsinge van die nasionale museum, 10(9), 1994, pp. 355-361. 59. blhcf, herinneringe van jvdv dreyer oor brandfort in die vroeë jare, (april 1978), p. 5. 60. ibid., p. 5. 61. ibid., p. 2. 62. ibid., p. 3. 63. ibid., p. 3. 64. ibid., p. 5. 65. ibid., p. 8. 66. spesiale verteenwoordiger. “ons het net een land en hom moet ons bou” in die volksblad, 1963.12.03. 67. sancold, typical large dams in south africa (south african national committee on large dams, september 1978,) p. 36. the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 115 of the republic of south africa on 31 may 1961.68 the local history album in the town’s library reflects the long-lasting bond of friendship between the former state president and local townspeople.69 towards the end of the 1960s brandfort’s star began to wane. the significance of brandfort’s water supply for communication purposes underwent marked changes at the time. for many years the town was situated on one of the main communication routes in the free state and benefited economically from the trade and commerce that flourished with travellers passing through town. in the nineteenth century the town had been a major stopover point for east-west travellers between natal and kimberley’s diamond fields. until the second half of the twentieth century brandfort was situated on the main north-south railway line between cape town and the johannesburg. however, gradually the importance of rail transportation diminished. first diesel and then electric locomotives replaced steam trains and brandfort’s strategic importance declined as a stopover point for re-filling coal-fired locomotives’ water tanks. initially, the gains for the town were more significant than the losses. eskom serviced the local railway line and it meant that brandfort now secured a stable eskom energy supply as of 1976, replacing a service previously provided by bloemfontein.70 then too, for a while, road transport increased and the traffic between cape town and johannesburg called in on the main road passing through downtown brandfort. brandfort became a bustling town on one of the busiest main thoroughfares in south africa, popularly known as the great north road. however, this upsurge was again destined to wane. in the 1970s the main roads of south africa were overhauled and the new n1 highway by-passed brandfort.71 before long the settlement acquired the status of a less-than-prosperous town. what did remain was its architectural heritage making it one of the free state’s ‘stately small towns’ with picturesque victorian and edwardian architecture – a mere stone’s throw away from the thriving provincial capital of bloemfontein (mangaung). over the years brandfort remained the urban hub of a wealthy farming district and the local schools had a proud reputation for providing outstanding education. on fridays the district’s farming community used the town as a shopping destination when they collected their children from boarding school to spend the weekend at home. brandfort’s reputation as a sleepy hollow in the free state came to an abrupt end in the aftermath of the 1976 soweto student protests, when in may 1977 ms winnie madikizela mandela, who had earlier been restricted to her home in orlando west, soweto, was relocated to brandfort’s majwemasweu township. the government’s security police raided her soweto home early one morning and she and members of her family were taken from a comfortable three-bedroomed house to one in the free state with no water, sanitation or electricity. in the eight years (1977–1985) she spent in the town, the wife of nelson mandela (at the time still incarcerated on robben island) became an influential figure.72 at the time 68. anon., “republiekfees op brandfort” in die volksblad, 1961.05.11; spesiale verteenwoordiger, “mnr swart gehuldig: afrikanerhart is tot volk se beskikking” in die volksblad, 1961.05.11. 69. blhcf, d meyers, “’eie mense’ vereer oom blackie” (anonymous newspaper clipping) dated 1981.05.29. 70. anon., “brandfort baat baie” in volksblad, 1976.04.12. 71. anon., “dorp en land groei hand aan hand” in die volksblad, 1972.09.01. 72. w watson, brick by brick: an informal guide to the history of south africa, (new africa books, claremont, 2007), p. 93; c twala, “winnie mandela banishment house in brandfort (majwemasweu) tempelhoff 116 brandfort became a town of infamy in the discourse of the struggle against apartheid. contemporary news articles on her time in brandfort, speak of the stark contrasts and bitter exchanges of members of civil society in a community grappling with issues of race in apartheid south africa.73 within the next three decades problems related to municipal water supply created circumstances in which the town’s white and african population found common cause and sought solutions – sometimes by means of collectively protesting and collaborating – to secure a reasonable water supply to lead a dignified domestic life in brandfort.74 exploring deeper trajectories of time and space in the ‘long now’ since time immemorial, water has been a strategic natural resource in the brandfort area. this is a region that is currently classified as semi-arid and lies on the edge of the karoo and kalahari. over the centuries, water has been a crucial natural resource essential for fauna and flora on the plains and the low mountainous landscape surrounding brandfort. the town is situated in a transitional zone, i.e. it is representative of the transition from a highveld grassland region to a karoo steppe-type landscape with a lower rainfall. a notable feature of the landscape to the immediate northwest of brandfort is a number of saltpans extending over a significant area up to the edge of the kalahari. these pans tend to lie in the more arid parts of the region that have a 500mm mean annual isohyet and a 1000mm free surface evaporation loss line. they are found in a belt running southwards from kroonstad, through wesselsbron, boshoff and dealesville.75 the pans in the western parts of the free state tend to be situated in ecca series rocks. however, brandfort, as is also the case with bloemfontein and welkom, is situated in the neighbouring beaufort series,76 where the dispersion of endemic flora is different. at florisbad, a hot spring resort near the settlement of soutpan not far from brandfort, the palaeontologist tf dreyer discovered the florisbad skull in 1932.77 archaeological research has established that the hot spring at florisbad, the product of tectonic activity,78 started – its historical significance: 1977-1902” in south african journal of cultural history, 22(2), 2008, pp. 6685. 73. blhcf, l gomes, “groot name en oues” in volksblad, junie 1977 (no date disclosed in clipping); d levin, “fresh-air brandfort won’t set the tourists on fire” in sunday times, 1977.06.12. 74 . m ginster, jwn tempelhoff, l van der merwe, s berner, s motloung and u rabali, running on empty: investigating the 2013 brandfort water supply crisis (research niche for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat), north-west university (vaal), report 1/2013. finalised 2014.06.28). 75 . as goudie, and gl wells, “the nature, distribution and formation of pans in arid zones” in earth science reviews, 38(1), march 1995, p. 6. 76 . ibid., p. 29. 77 . p bonner, a esterhuysen and t jenkins, “voice of politics, voice of science: politics and science after 1945” in p bonner, a esterhuysen, and t jenkins, (eds.) a search for origins: science, history and south africa’s ‘cradle of humankind’ (wits university press, johannesburg, 2007), p. 276; k kuman, m inbar m and rj clark, “palaeoenvironments and cultural sequence of the florisbad middle stone age hominid site, south africa” in journal of archaeological science, 26(12), december 1999, p. 1409. 78 . gcp king, and gn bailey, “dynamic landscapes and human evolution” in geological society of america, special paper, 471, 2010, pp. 9-10. the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 117 gushing water from about 279 000 until ± 47 000 ybp.79 king and bailey argue that sites of tectonic activity in south africa created favourable conditions for early humankind to use local resources.80 some 20 000 years after the formation of the spring, a direct predecessor of modern homo sapiens, described as homo helmei,81 was present at florisbad.82 (s)he was not healthy, showing signs of anaemia and tooth decay – probably the result of living in changing climatic conditions.83 at the time, the florisbad landscape was frequently windswept and most of the vegetation growing at the brackish spring comprised salty marsh plants.84 heated and/or saline water supplies periodically attracted wild animals, especially in the drier times. in wet seasons there were pools and local springs were active, but in drier periods the area would have been swampy. there were numerous changes in local climatic conditions and at times the site was less accessible to hominins. when the region was swampy there was little evidence of pools.85 then too, the landscape could change to an extended shallow lake where large numbers of wildlife gathered for extended periods of time. middle stone age people visited the site and there are abundant indications of tool production. stone tools were even re-used by successive generations. so profuse are the traces of these people that archaeologists have labelled the site as representative of the ‘florisbad industry’ and explain that middle stone age people visited the site until as recently as 19 500 bp.86 some time in the early late stone age (after 25 000 ybp) glacial conditions temporarily prevented humans from frequenting the area.87 however, between 12 000 and 6000 ybp, there are indications that late stone age people were present.88 local conditions were ideal for hunting and there is evidence that hunters used bone and stone tools for butchering the flesh and extracting marrow from the bones of their prey.89 with the area’s wide range of natural vegetation, foraging probably supplemented their basic diet.90 late 79 . k kuman, m inbar and rj clark, “palaeoenvironments and cultural sequence of the florisbad middle stone age hominid site, south africa” in journal of archaeological science, 26(12), december 1999, p. 1419. 80 . gcp king, and gn bailey, “dynamic landscapes and human evolution”, pp. 9-10. 81 . k kuman, m inbar and rj clark, “palaeoenvironments and cultural sequence of the florisbad middle stone age hominid site, south africa”, p. 1411. 82 . gn bailey, sc reynolds, and gcp king, “landscapes of human evolution: models and methods of tectonic geomorphology and the reconstruction of homonin landscapes” in journal of human evolution, 60(3), march 2011, p. 269. 83 . d curnoe and js brink, “evidence of pathological conditions in the florisbad cranium” in journal of human evolution, 59(5), november 2010, pp. 504-513. 84 . jd clarke, “human ecology during the pleistocene and later times in africa south of the sahara”, in current anthropology, 1(4), july 1960, p. 318. 85 . k kuman, m inbar and rj clark, “palaeoenvironments and cultural sequence of the florisbad middle stone age hominid site, south africa” p. 1414. 86 . ibid., p. 1422. 87 . ibid., p. 1422. 88 . ibid., p. 1422. 89 . ibid., p. 1420. 90 . ibid., p. 1421. tempelhoff 118 stone age people tended to live at the edges of the springs but seldom remained in the same place for very long. the evidence points to their living for more lengthy periods in neighbouring coarse landscape areas where there were shelters such as caves, and on the nearby savannah plains. nineteenth-century observers tell us that wildlife was endemic in the region of the pans, especially those in the western free state and northern cape, and that the wildlife trampled the areas around the water when they came to drink, enlarging the surface area of the pans. according to one contemporary observer as many as 8000 blesbok were seen on one occasion at a pan in the region.91 in the context of a larger regional landscape, florisbad was a locality frequented by humans who probably resided at more favourable locations elsewhere. these would have been areas with undulating plains, low mountains and sufficient water supplies – such as those of brandfort. discussion and conclusion since the 1990s, gunderson and holling’s development of panarchy theory92 has potentially opened the way for historians to gain access to discourses related to resilience and the environment.93 panarchy downplays rigid cyclical theorisation, which is why many hermeneutic historians remain wary of its use. by accentuating infinity on scales that vary in magnitude and spatiotemporal contexts, panarchy accommodates the compartmentalisation of complex systems.94 the latter can then be associated with processes of change, which may occur in the thick of, or on the periphery of ongoing trends within the system. small-scale panarchical cycles tend to result in revolt, whereas a large-scale cycle notably accommodates the accumulation of codes of memory that support recovery and the productive use of resources.95 in essence, panarchy aims to provide insight into the way social ecological systems adapt to change. whilst there is acceptance that there are phases of collapse, these are alternatively interpreted as processes of ‘creative destruction’ that may lead to recovery and opportunities under circumstances where resource conservation and consumption remain in a state of non-equilibrium. maintaining sustainability in complex cycles of panarchy requires constant adaptation of the social ecological system. depending on the dynamics of the social ecological system there are, by implication, constant prospects for states of regime change.96 contemplating today’s brandfort from the perspective of panarchy, suggests that local natural water supplies, be they salty or fresh, have historically had a marked impact on the regional human footprint. the landscape would seldom have been densely populated because there 91 . as goudie and gl wells, “the nature, distribution and formation of pans in arid zones” in earth science reviews, 38(1), march 1995, p. 61. 92 . lh gunderson and cs holling, panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems (island press, washington dc, 2002). 93 . see for example an insightful reflection see m gotts, “resilience, panarchy and world systems analysis” in ecology and society, 12(1), 2007, pp. 1-14. 94 . gr allen, dg angerler, as garmestani, lh gunderson and cs holling, “panarchy: theory and application” in ecosystems, 17, 2014, p. 580. 95 . cs holling, “from complex regions to complex worlds” in minnesota journal of law, science and technology, 7(1), 2005-6, p. 1. 96 . b weeks, ma rodriguez, jh blakeslee, “panarchy: complexity and regime change in human societies” in proceedings: santa fe institute, 2004. the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 119 was not always an abundance of natural resources conducive to long phases of human residence. furthermore, the social ecology97 of the region suggests that human groups passing through the area formed part of flows of human migration. they left their imprint as lines on the landscape with points and counterpoints, as well as fluid spaces that featured prominently in the process of human mobility. like the web of a spider, there were diffuse and immediate responses throughout the system when lines randomly interlocked and criss-crossed in space.98 most common were the water points and human movements that were frequently interwoven. when human migration over time is contemplated as interactive webs in space, it is possible to identify layers of panarchy cycles. although they have never been identical, some elements of these cycles, such as the need for water supplies, have remained as a common feature. there are traces of middle stone age humans on the land in central south africa, suggesting that up to 19 000 years ago industrious communities formed part of the landscape in the proximity of water-rich ecosystems in central south africa. late stone age people prepared the way for what would later become the san and their descendants, the khoekhoe. the latter were small groups and communities who became familiar with the technologies of pastoral lifestyles introduced by iron age communities in southern africa in about 2000ybp. by the eighteenth century, population pressure and changing environmental conditions, to the east of the ukahlamba-drakensberg escarpment prepared the way for a substantial nguni presence in central south africa. these people resided alongside sotho and tswana communities who had been in in the region for several centuries. towards the end of the eighteenth century, adventurers, explorers and hunting pastoral farmers of european descent began to frequent the trans-orange river region. along with the first missionaries, they paved the way for the emigration from the cape colony (1835–1852) of large groups of dutch farmers. in fact, ever since the 1830s the brandfort region has become a region notable for criss-crossing routes for people travelling between the coast and the interior. what became the settlement of brandfort with its water resource, the keeromspruit, served for centuries as a watering point for various meandering migratory groups. the area held enchantment; it offered shelter and essential resources. the land was capable of carrying a finite sedentary human population. the first real thrust towards a substantive urban settlement followed in 1866 as part of a strategic measure by a republican-styled polity to maintain a presence on a frontier region where humans engaged in cultural exchanges. the keeromspruit became part of a transitional landscape, still constantly subject to conditions of periodic droughts and floods, but also war and peace. the remains of stone weirs and storage tanks in the upper reaches of the keeromspruit date back to the early days of the settlement. as the local community became more sophisticated they began to use innovative strategies to store water for communal use. 97. the contemporary understanding of social ecology essentially implies the understanding of bioecological and macro-economic concerns, with a greater focus on the social, psychological, institutional, and cultural contexts of people-environment relationships. these were previously overlooked. see d stokols, pr lejano and j hipp, “enhancing the resilience of human-environment systems: a social ecological perspective” in ecology and society, 18(1), 2013, at http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/es-05301-180107 (accessed 2013.10.25). 98 . t ingold, being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description (routledge, abingdon, 2011), chapters 5-7. tempelhoff 120 later the technology of steam-powered railways required more water supplies. the use of water for mechanical power generation implied management strategies that could have caused cycles of collapse and gradual recovery of the water supply. the finite local water supplies required careful management strategies. the large civilian population during the abnormal years of war (1899-1902) jeopardised local environmental health. deadly waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever and diarrhoea, posed a threat. as the incarcerated civilian population increased, the keeromspruit was unable to contend with the demand for potable water; there was not sufficient water to ensure a healthy local aquatic ecosystem. following the war, homeless farming families congregated in the town before dispersing either to their farms and homesteads (most of which had been destroyed) or moving on to the larger urban settlements. when the local water supplies were suitable for human consumption, there was social development and economic growth. over-consumption and the careless use of local water resources led to states of collapse and the need for interventions – more than often primarily engineering technologies, aimed at securing more water supplies. supplies of water were piped from distant man-made water storage facilities. in years of progress the modern system of water supply sustained development and growth. however, as human communications technologies and migration routes changed, the economic sustainability of the local social ecology was compromised. consequently, under circumstances of political regime change, it became difficult to maintain technologies for pumping water in a pipeline over an extended distance. a phase of intermittent change was partly due to serious lapses in the management of available water resources. importantly, excessive population pressure also compromised the local ecology. by 2013, the environmental health of the keeromspruit, which had meanwhile primarily become a conduit for wastewater, was overpopulated with exotic vegetation feeding on valuable groundwater. largely because of neglect, the local aquifer was unable to provide the needs of residents. downstream of the railway bridge, the wastewater treatment plant had become dysfunctional. the human neglect of the local natural water supply was symptomatic of a lack of concern for environmental health – an important strategic link between humankind and the natural environment in an urban environment. in 2012, when the local water crisis culminated in the community’s protest action, brandfort had insufficient drivers of development and the panarchy cycle moved into a phase of collapse. local water resources were no longer readily accessible for residents. significantly, neither was there a strong demand for goods and services and entrepreneurial skills that could otherwise have boosted industry, trade and commerce. the momentum of a surge for making headway under circumstances of creative destruction, was clearly absent. yet, the process of urbanisation persisted with the on going population growth in the local informal settlement. the expectations of farm workers who were moving into the town were not met. not having access to domestic water supplies contributed to the disenchantment among local residents. moreover, the large urban conurbation of bloemfontein, about 50km from brandfort, tended to attract brandfort residents who had the skills to promote rapid urban development; they became commuters between the city and the town. meanwhile, population pressure put the inconsistent local water supply to the test. the community did not have the necessary resources at their disposal to address the problem at grassroots level. this meant that residents became increasingly dissatisfied with the local authority responsible for infrastructure governance. the ‘long now’ of southern african water td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 104-121. 121 the ‘long now’ – if we slice the past up into infinite cycles of change in time and space – is able to shed light on a better understanding of how we form an intrinsic part of an ecological system that is constantly and spontaneously adapting to changing circumstances. ever since the beginning of the twentieth century there have been interventions in brandfort by means of engineering the environment. was this also the case in former times? how then should we contemplate the disciplines of palaeontology and archaeology from an ontological perspective to gain insight into the deep history of the region? one method is to pursue diltheyan hermeneutics. this requires an understanding of concepts, judgements and related purethought formations; an understanding of life manifestations; and the need to work towards the expression of lived experience.99 forming an impression of local residents in the middle stone age makes it possible reach an understanding of a time when water was key to the human presence on the land. only much later did humans resort to artificial strategies of manipulating water supplies. to date, the anthropogenic inclination to engineer the local aquatic environment has not always been successful. knowledge of the deep history of humankind and its interaction with nature suggests that over the ages, communities have introduced innovative changes and have managed to cultivate skills to flourish under adverse conditions. this has been the trend ever since the formation of communities with the onset of the holocene epoch more than 11 000 years ago.100 at a time when there are concerns about water security under circumstances of rapid urbanisation, population growth and the call for sustainable development, there is a need for a more circumspect and responsible adaptation to strategies of resilience. humans must learn to act and interact in concert with nature. we have the innate need for drinking water and therefore instinctively reach out to satisfy the demand for this fluid that constitutes at least 65% of our body mass. for humans to understand their own history, as well as that of nature, could create a consciousness of becoming more sensitive to the deeper origins of our emergence on this planet. after all, our emergence as the human race, what we have become and how we have learnt – with varying degrees of success – to co-exist in social groupings, is intricately interwoven with the natural world. our aim should be to understand the role water played in former times. it has to potential to inform our current understanding of issues of water security in times of scarcity in the present and in the future. water is representative of a unique compass enabling us to comprehend a social system in which we are unable to comprehend at all times the significance of a complex, inclusive ecology.101 99. ra makkreel, “hermeneutics” in a tucker (ed.), a companion to the philosophy of history and historiography (wiley blackwell, malden, 2009), pp. 532. 100. d christian, maps of time: an introduction to big history (university of california press, berkeley, 2011), pp. 207-237. 101. b castellani and fw hafferty, sociology and complexity science: a new field of inquiry (springer, heidelberg, 2009), pp. 175-7. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 25-56. sibu and the crisis of water service delivery in sannieshof, north west province c gouws, i moeketsi, s motloung, j tempelhoff, g van greuning and l van zyl* abstract in 2007 the residents of the town of sannieshof in north west province declared a dispute with the tswaing local municipality on the grounds that the state of local service delivery left much to be desired. the ratepayers then formed the sannieshof inwoners belastingbetalers unie (sibu) which literally took over the functions of local government of the town, functioning as a local government within a local government. this article provides a historical narrative of the conflict between sibu and tswaing local municipality, a dispute which was taken as far as the provincial high court. then follows an outline of conditions in sannieshof and the townships of agisanang and phelindaba. attention is given to the perceptions of local residents on the prevalent conditions, specifically in respect of water supply and sanitation service delivery. in the third section there are some theoretical perspectives on political culture, socialisation and happiness. a debate is provided on how these phenomena manifest under existing conditions in sannieshof, and more particularly, in its adjacent townships of agisanang and phelindaba. keywords: sannieshof inwoners belastingbetalers unie (sibu), north west province, service delivery, water supply, sanitation, tswaing local municipality. disciplines: history, political science, tourism studies and public management and administration, industrial psychology and wellness studies. introduction in november 2007, irate ratepayers of the towns sannieshof, ottosdal and delareyville in south africa’s north west province, declared a dispute with tswaing local municipality, the local authority responsible for their municipal services.1 using the municipal finance (management) act, 56 of 2003,2 the municipal structures act, 117 of 1998,3 and the municipal systems act, 32 * research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat). at the time when the report was compiled c gouws, i moeketsi, s motloung and g van greuning were postgraduate students in cudywat. llewellyn van zyl, an industrial psychologist, was a member of staff in the school for of behavioural sciences, nwu (vaal). johann tempelhoff is the leader of cudywat. the reading of this text can be enhanced when it coincides with listening to larry coryell’s recording of “redwing” on the cd i’ll be over you, (cti records, december 1994). 1 . c visser, “’n jaar in aksie” in sibu nuusblad, november 2008, p. 1. 2 . republic of south africa (rsa), municipal finance management act, 56 of 2003, in government gazette of the republic of south africa, vol. 464 no. 26019, 2004.02.13, pp. 1-18. 3 . rsa, local government: municipal structures act, no. 117 of 1998, in government gazette of the republic of south africa, vol. 42 no 19614, 1998.12.18, pp. 1-120. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   26 of 2000,4 they explained that they had collectively decided to no longer pay municipal rates and taxes. instead, it was their intention to deposit the monies they would have paid into a separate account. their motivation for this decision was simple: while residents had continued to pay their rates and taxes the local municipality (tswaing) did not respond appropriately by delivering adequate municipal services.5 at the time there were numerous similar initiatives by ratepayers in various parts of south africa. what made the ratepayers stand out, particularly those in the town of sannieshof, was the proactive manner in which they operated. working at first under the auspices of the sannieshof sakekamer, an affiliate of the afrikaanse handelsinstituut (ahi), they soon transformed themselves into the sannieshof inwoners belastingbetalers unie (sibu) under the leadership of ms carin visser. visser, a housewife and local entrepreneur, played a prominent role as an assertive leader who was able to motivate local residents to stand together to get things done. to strengthen its hand sibu also had strong links with the national taxpayers union (ntu), an organisation of ratepayers that has been active throughout south africa since the mid-1990s.6 when sibu was formed in april 2008, local farmers, business people and also some residents of agisanang, the former apartheid-era township of sannieshof, were firmly behind the new organisation. soon there were rumours about a ‘sannieshof raad’, working to improve the living conditions of all local residents.7 their intention was to form a local municipality within a municipality. sannieshof’s ratepayers had clearly suffered their share of poor municipal service delivery. indeed, in many parts of the country, especially in the rural areas, residents of small towns have experienced (and are still experiencing) constant frustration. municipal service delivery has been dismal; by 2009 there was growing consensus that municipal governance is the weakest tier of government in south africa.8 this dubious status came at a price. in 2009 there were a record number of municipal service delivery protests in all parts of the country.9 these outbursts appeared to be the culmination of a culture of protest by civil society; society was articulating its disapproval of a rapidly deteriorating system of local government that became apparent in 2004 – a full decade after the country had been transformed from an apartheid state into a multiracial democratic society. 4 . rsa, the municipal systems act, no. 32 of 2000, in government gazette of the republic of south africa, vol. 425, no. 21776, 2000.11.20, pp. 1-120. 5 . sibu electronic archive (sea), correspondence: taxpayers of sannieshof, delareyville and ottosdal: declaration of dispute. c visser, d mare, m van wyk (sannieshof), m van der merwe, n mengel (delareyville), m coetzee, m pretorius (ottosdal) – d legoete, delareyville, 2007.11.22. 6 . e-mail correspondence; j kelder, kempton park – jwn tempelhoff, 2009.09.13. attachment: anon., “kort oorsig van die organisasie”, dated january 2007. 7 . anon., “sannieshof stig ‘n inwonersvereniging” in noordwester, 2008.03.07, p. 4. 8 . associated press, “protests turn violent in south africa” in the new york times, 2009.10.15 (internet accessed 2009.10.15). 9 . municipal iq briefing #153, 2009.09.04, “service delivery update: what makes 2009 different?” sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 27 overseas media networks carried reports to the effect that the protests of 2009 were reminiscent of south africa’s anti-apartheid townships in the 1970s and 1980s.10 the major difference was that the protests of 2009 were inspired by bread-and-butter politics and perhaps more tellingly, a growing sense of class differentiation within the confines of south africa’s black population.11 working from the perspective of ockham’s razor, analysts ascribed the season of protest to: leadership re-configurations within the ruling african national congress (anc)-alliance12 following the takeover by president jacob zuma in may 2009;13 disillusionment with the government’s unfulfilled promises;14 congestion in the country’s towns and cities as a direct result of increased urbanisation from rural areas and neighbouring states and the inability to absorb these;15 and the effects of the global recession on the south african economy.16 the sannieshof action by sibu was different from mainstream service delivery protests in south africa. such protest action usually came from irate residents of former apartheid-era black townships and informal settlements. the sannieshof action was a boycott, driven primarily by members of the white community. their activities were consistently proactive in that as members of civil society they claimed that they were taking the measures to ‘stop the rot’. the central government, formed under the presidency of jacob zuma in may 2009, was more than aware of this state of affairs. it was also intent on setting things right.17 10 . b bearak, “south africa’s poor renew a tradition of protest” in the new york times, 2009.09.06 (internet accessed 2009.09.06 and 2009.10.13); d smith, “anger at anc record boils over in south african townships” in guardian.co.uk, 2009.07.22 (internet accessed 2009.10.13); ad smith, “zuma pleads as protests sweep the townships” in guardian.co.uk, 2009.07.26 (internet accessed 2009.10.13); j clayton, foreigners flee as violence reignites in south african townships” in timesonline.co.uk, 2009.07.25 (internet accessed 2009.10.14). 11 . m mbeki, “why are the people rebelling against the anc government?” in nedgroup securities: flash note politics, 2009.10.15, pp. 1-4. 12 . anon, “anc looks internally for service delivery protest plotters” in sabc news, 2009.09.06 at (internet accessed 2009.10.13); j dlamini, “protesting to join the queue for the gravy train” in business day, 2009.08.22 at (internet accessed 2009.10.13). 13 . w-m gumede, “anc at war with itself: zuma walks politically risky tightrope” in sowetan, 2009.09.23 (internet accessed 2009.10.13). 14 . anon., “machadodorp protest spills over to nearby town” in sabc news, 2009.10.13 (internet accessed 2009.10.13); n seleka, “vaal service delivery protest turns ugly” in sowetan, 2009.09.11 (internet accessed 2009.10.13); a hlongwane, m laganparsad and z george, “rash pledges foment unrest” in the times, 2009.07.27 (internet accessed 2009.10.14). 15 . c smith, “economy trumps politics: sexwale” in fin24, 2009.0923 at (internet accessed 2009.10.20); f smit, “arm ken nie ras of geslag” in beeld, 2009.10.16 (internet accessed 2009.10.16); k heese and k allen, “reading the figures in the flames to find the future of protest” in business day, 2009.08.24 (internet accessed 2009.10.20). 16 . b bearak, “south africa’s poor renew a tradition of protest” in the new york times, 2009.09.06 (internet accessed 2009.09.06); associated press, “s african police fire rubber bullets on protestors” in the new york times, 2009.10.13 (internet accessed 2009.10.13); afp, “angry sakhile residents demand zuma’s attention” in mail & guardian, 2009.10.16 (internet accessed 2009.10.16). 17 . anon., “the new cabinet’s to-do list” in cape argus, 2009.05.18 (internet accessed 2010.05.20). gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   28 outline in this discussion attention will be given to a historical overview of the conflict between sibu and tswaing local municipality up to september 2009. the focus is specifically on the discontent of local residents with water service delivery. attention will then focus in on the observations of a north-west university (nwu) research team that conducted fieldwork in sannieshof and surroundings to investigate the claims of local residents. the views of residents are articulated in terms of the quality of their potable water supplies and the condition of the local sanitation infrastructure. in the third section of the study there is a discussion on the dynamics of the local political culture and its potential to be transformed into a more cohesive civil action. attention is also given to observations on the theoretical construct of ‘happiness’ and whether local residents can be said to experience this quality of life. sibu garners support after they declared the dispute with tswaing local municipality in 2007, local support for the ratepayers’ initiative in sannieshof did not come overnight. although early indications were that more than 50 per cent of the town’s residents were in favour of the boycott action, active resident involvement was at first not forthcoming. it seems local people took a wait-and-see stance. at first, in november-december 2007, only 27 per cent of sannieshof’s residents joined. however, when it became evident how quickly and efficiently visser and her management team were able to make progress with the town’s water problems, there was a marked increase in support. by april 2008 an estimated 60 per cent of the town’s residents were paying their monthly municipal rates and taxes to the ratepayers’ initiative.18 furthermore, in the townships of agisanang and phelindaba mr danny boko, leader of a group of concerned residents of agisanang, openly came out supporting the initiative. boko told the media that human waste was lying in the streets of the township. at the local informal settlement there were no toilets – not even buckets. people had to walk several kilometres to reach a tap with drinking water.19 sibu’s name soon featured in the johannesburg daily newspaper beeld, in an article by the commentator willem landman; he referred to a ‘parallel municipality’ that had been created in sannieshof. it was clear that there were local moves afoot to take over the management tasks that tswaing local municipality was not performing. landman was of the opinion that: the lesson of sannieshof is that complaints and an attitude of standing with the hands on the hips lead you nowhere. conditions in many towns have deteriorated to the extent that taxpayers are forced to take up the cudgels themselves.20 18 . j eybers, “sannieshof staan op uit sak en as en stank: raad sê niks ná inwoners dorp regruk” in rapport, 2008.04.13, p. 10. 19 . l de beer, “belastingboikot: dorp wil nou sélf dienste koop” in beeld, 2007.12.15 (internet accessed 2009.07.15). 20 . the quote is translated from the afrikaans: die les van sannieshof is dat ’n gekla en hande-in-die-sy-staan nêrens heen lei nie. toestande in vele dorpe het sodanig versleg dat belastingbetalers self die hef in die hand sal moet neem. see willem landman, “onbevoegde munisipaliteite mag gesannieshof word” in beeld, 2008.04.03 (internet accessed 2009.07.15). sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 29 confident of their apparent support, sibu and the sakekamer collaboratively confronted the tswaing local municipality on the annual budget for 2008-9, which they rejected outright. residents of sannieshof, agisanang and phelindaba, they argued, had been totally excluded from the planning development process in the region.21 faced by a local municipality whose management stubbornly refused to heed the valid grievances of sannieshof’s residents, visser decided to pursue a new strategy. because municipal office-bearers blithely ignored sibu’s official correspondence,22 visser began writing open letters in the regional media to tswaing’s municipal manager, mr dakota legoete.23 this was a body blow to the provincial government. in august 2008 a senior anc provincial leader, lechesa tshenoli, said that the party was concerned about the growing ratepayers’ discontent with municipal service delivery.24 the provincial government singled out sannieshof’s sibu as symptomatic of growing discontent. consequently a team of provincial officials was sent in to help tswaing municipality with an action plan for improved local service delivery.25 problems were widespread.26 sibu’s management continued to apply pressure by repeatedly sending a litany of complaints and statements in official letters and e-mail correspondence to the offices of tswaing local municipality. water-related problems featured prominently in the list of grievances. documentation accessed by the research team brought to light that at least 60 per cent of ratepayers’ complaints revolved around water services.27 for example, there were concerns about: faulty accounts;28 independent laboratory tests reporting on sannieshof’s inferior water quality;29 the town’s fire brigade being used to transport water to the neighbouring town of ottosdal/letsopa;30 the non-removal of the town’s domestic sewage;31 the deteriorating state of 21 . sibu archive, correspondence: c visser, sannieshof – d legoete, delareyville, 2008.05.28. 22 . c visser, sannieshof – editor, “so pak sannieshof dienstekrisis” in beeld, 2008.07.01, p. 16. 23 . c visser, sannieshof – d legoete, delareyville, “open letter to the mayor and municipal manager, tswaing local municipality delareyville: external service provider sannieshof” in noordwester, 2008.06.27, p. 15; c visser, sannieshof – d legoete, delareyville, in noordwester, 2008.07.18, p. 8. 24 . a slabbert, “protes-weerhouding van munisipale dienstegelde kwel anc” in sakebeeld, 2008.08.20, p. 2d (clippings file, sannieshof public library). 25 . l de beer, “dispuut teen sannieshof-raad werp al vrugte af” in beeld, 2008.06.19 (internet accessed 2009.07.15). 26 . l de beer, “dispuut teen sannieshof-raad werp al vrugte af” in beeld, 2008.06.19 (internet accessed 2009.07.15). 27 . anon., “inwoners van drie dorpe op agtervoete: sannieshof, delareyville en ottosdal verklaar dispuut” in noordwester, 2007.11.30, p. 5. 28 . sea, correspondence: c visser – d morwe, sannieshof, 2008.03.13; c visser – d legoete, 2008.03.25; c visser – d morwe, 2008.06.17; c visser, sannieshof – w horn, 2009.09.12; e-mail: c visser – i o’neill, bcx data, pta, 2009.02.25; e-mail: c visser – d legoete, 2008.09.24; 29 . sea, e-mail and attachment: c visser – d legoete, 2009.05.14; test report, midvaal water company, scientific services, 2009.04.24. 30 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2009.11.20. 31 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.06.19; c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.10.22; c visser – h breytenbach, 2009.01.23; . gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   30 the town’s streets and the need to remove refuse;32 municipal officials not doing their work properly;33 breakdowns in the town’s water supply;34 municipal boreholes out of order;35 the contestation of a decision by tswaing’s management to address the water crisis in ottosdal and delareyville before giving attention to the problems in sannieshof;36 problems at the municipal refuse dumpsite;37 blocked municipal storm water drains;38 the town’s water plight;39 diverse water leaks;40 and the installation of pre-paid electricity meter boxes.41 in march 2009, when visser gave an overview of sibu and the sakekamer’s activities,42 she was convinced of the success of their 16-month-old initiative: we are fighting for the maintenance of quality of life. for that reason we are withholding our payments for property tax, refuse and sewage removal and water. we only pay for electricity.43 at the time the ratepayers’ boycott was supported by 70 per cent of sannieshof’s residents.44 the residents’ initiative had proved its resilience and ability to set things right. sibu’s workers had repaired broken water systems; cleaned up the town; and upgraded the town’s waste disposal site. in addition they had employed four workers and also paid some of tswaing local municiplality’s outstanding accounts. in total this had cost the ratepayers r163 000.45 the councillors and officials of tswaing local municipality were clearly dissatisfied with the state of affairs. by may 2009, when sannieshof’s rates and taxes were r21,7 million in arrears, the municipality appointed a potchefstroom attorney, mr eric louw, to take legal steps against 32 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.06.30; e-mail: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.08.03. 33 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.08.05. 34 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.09.15. 35 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.09.15; e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.09.21. 36 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.09.26. 37 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.09.28. 38 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.09.30; c visser – h breytenbach, 2009.02.24. 39 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.10.11; c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.10.17; c visser – h breytenbach, 2009,01.07; 40 . sea, e-mail correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2008.10.08. 41 . sea, correspondence: c visser – h breytenbach, 2009.02.16. 42 . see sibu archive, c visser, status quo report of conditions in sannieshof, 17 march 2009, as presented to the department of local government and housing. 43 . translated from the afrikaans: ons baklei vir die behoud van lewensgehalte. daarom hou ons ons geld vir eiendomsbelasting, vullis-, en rioolverwydering en water terug. ons betaal slegs vir elektrisiteit. in n van der walt, “bankvas agter dispuut” in beeld, 2009.03.13 internet accessed 2009.07.15). 44 . n van der walt, “bankvas agter dispuut” in beeld, 2009.03.13 (internet accessed 2009.07.15). 45 . n van der walt, “bankvas agter dispuut” in beeld, 2009.03.13 (internet accessed 2009.07.15). sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 31 about 500 ratepayers who were in arrears. not all were members of sibu which at the time had about 300 members. furthermore, the other formerly white towns that fell under the tswaing municipal area (delareyville and ottosdal), owed the local municipality r27,2 million and r46,7 million respectively.46 when tswaing municipality announced that it was suing the ratepayers, the battle lines were drawn over a much larger front. the national taxpayers union described sannieshof as ‘a showpiece of civil action’ and assured the media that the ntu stood firmly behind sibu. its national partner, the ntu, was confident that sannieshof’s residents had a strong case.47 the first salvo in the legal battle was symbolically fired on 18 may 2009 when at sannieshof’s sewerage works, a tswaing municipal official threatened sibu chairperson, visser, in the presence of the police, that she would be prosecuted for trespassing on municipal property.48 she explained that it was essential for her and members of her team to work on the wastewater treatment works to prevent raw sewage from flowing into the nearby harts river.49 nothing came of this first confrontation. visser and her management committee had done considerable homework beforehand to determine precisely what had to be done in an attempt to restore the local wastewater treatment works.50 the plant had not been properly maintained since being taken into use in 1999.51 sibu’s members were determined to carry out their plans. they had already spent r45 000 on purchasing a pump to extract sewage from clogged systems at the plant. a further r20 000 had been spent on servicing a broken sewage pump in agisanang township.52 meanwhile sewage was freely flowing into the nearby harts river. this state of affairs severely affected the environment of the internationally listed ramsar wetland site of barberspan wetlands and nature reserve.53 46 . l de beer, “weerhou van geld aan raad in hof getoets” in beeld, 2009.05.01 (internet accessed 2009.07.16). 47 . l de beer, “weerhou van geld aan raad in hof getoets” in beeld, 2009.05.01 (internet accessed 2009.07.16). 48 . a slabbert, “sannieshofse sannie dalk in hof oor riool” in sakebeeld, 2009.05.26 (sannieshof municipal library newspaper clippings file); verslaggewer, “sannieshof se inwoners geïntimideer” in praag.co.za, 2009.05.20 (internet accessed 2009.10.15). 49 . l de beer, “sannieshoffers help lid in hof wat eiendomsbelasting weerhou” in beeld, 2009.06.04, p. 6; anon., “aanklaer weier vervolging” in die noordwester, 2009.06.05, pp. 1 and 2. 50 . anon., “rehabilitasie by die rioolwerke” in die noordwester, 2009.05.22. (sannieshof municipal library newspaper clippings file). 51 . tjoa, interview: jc swanepoel, sannieshof hotel, 2009.09.01. 52 . l de beer, “sannieshoffers help lid in hof wat eiendomsbelasting weerhou” in beeld, 2009.06.04, p. 6; anon., “aanklaer weier vervolging” in die noordwester, 2009.06.05, pp. 1 and 2. 53 . see south african wetlands conservation programme: dr swart and gi cowan, barberspan: south africa information sheet for the site designated to the list of wetlands of international importance in terms of the convention on wetlands of international importance especially as waterfowl habitat, (1992 and 1994) (internet accessed 2009.10.15); l de beer, “inwoners pak rioolkrisis” in beeld, 2009.05.19 (internet accessed 2009.07.16) gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   32 sannieshof’s residents were particularly irate when raw sewage began to flood their properties and run into storm water drains in the town’s streets.54 on 23 may, when a sibu team resumed its repair work at the sewerage plant a senior official who had been studying the activities through binoculars, approached the team. policemen accompanied him. after a verbal confrontation visser was removed from the site and taken to the police station where a case of trespassing was opened against her and mr manie schutte, another member of the sibu committee.55 however, on 3 june 2009 when visser and schutte arrived at the delareyville magistrate’s court for a court appearance, they were informed that the public prosecutor had refused to begin the formal prosecution of sibu’s committee members. it seems he had thrown the case out.56 the conflict potential then intensified, with tswaing local municipality taking the matter to the high court. in the high court when the high court case began in mafikeng on 23 june 2009 about 100 residents of sannieshof, agisanang and phelindaba packed the courtroom over which judge adrian landman presided.57 sannieshof and sibu in particular, took centre stage in south africa’s news media; the court case was described as unique – the first of its kind.58 for all practical purposes sannieshof had become the benchmark for ratepayers in all parts of the country who had to contend with inferior service delivery.59 in the court documents visser asked that the management of tswaing local municipality be instructed to submit a sustainable development plan for service delivery in sannieshof. it had to be ready by february 2010 and be in compliance with the requirements of the provincial department of local government. in the meantime, sibu sought authorisation to continue with the management of local government matters in sannieshof.60 in response tswaing local municipality’s dakota legoete argued that sibu was by no means representative of all the residents of sannieshof. they were but a small group of privileged people trying to undermine the local municipality’s service plan. he also contested claims by sibu that the integrated 54 . anon., “rehabilitasie by die rioolwerke” in die noordwester, 2009.05.22. (sannieshof municipal library, newspaper clippings file). 55 . a slabbert, “sannieshofse sannie dalk in hof oor riool” in sakebeeld, 2009.05.26 (sannieshof municipal library newspaper clippings file); l de beer, “sannieshoffers help lid in hof wat eiendomsbelasting weerhou” in beeld, 2009.06.04, p. 6. 56 . l de beer, “sannieshoffers help lid in hof wat eiendomsbelasting weerhou” in beeld, 2009.06.04, p. 6.anon., “aanklaer weier vervolking” in noordwester, 2009.06.05, pp. 1 and 2. 57 . l de beer, “sannieshof-saak uitgestel weens regstegniese punt” in beeld, 2009.06.23 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). 58 . ibid. ; k foss, “sewage in the streets – residents up in arms” in the star, 2009.06.24, p. 2. 59 . w landman, “tswaing probeer bolle as vye aan sannieshof verkoop” in fin24.com, 2009.07.16 (internet accessed on 2009.10.14). 60 . a slabbert, “’bevoorregtes kelder tswaing se diensplan’” in rapport, 2009.06.21. (sannieshof municipal library: newspaper clippings file). a slabbert, “daar’s oorlog in sannieshof” in fin24.com, 2009.06.27 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 33 development plan (idp) of tswaing was in a state of chaos.61 then, in a technical move, tswaing’s lawyers asked the judge to call in other concerned parties, such as representatives of the district municipality of ngaka modiri molema; the mec of north west province responsible for local government; as well as the province’s premier.62 the mec did not appear in court, but the executive mayor of ngaka modiri molema district municipality, themba gwabeni, was there. in his statement he explained that the people who were opting to deposit their rates and taxes in a private account were in fact contributing to the problem: they come to court to complain that there are no services when actually they are accessories in making sure no services are delivered.63 outside the courtroom, people speculated that tswaing local municipality’s legal team had been using delaying tactics aimed at winning time. tswaing’s municipal manager, legoete, argued that making concessions for the ‘civil disobedience’ of the sannieshof ratepayers was a ‘recipe for anarchy’.64 shortly afterwards the case was postponed. when the case resumed, judge landman, in his judgement, pointed out that the residents of a municipality had been called upon to take an active interest in the matters of their council. however, in respect of matters where the council refuted their participation, they had to specify the foundation on which they demanded participation. they also had to support the precise nature of the rights they asked of the court.65 although the high court rejected sibu’s application,66 the ratepayers were not instructed to pay the legal fees. tswaing local municipality had to pay r300 000.67 ultimately the losers were the ratepayers of tswaing local municipality who, indirectly, had to foot the bill. sibu benefited from the state of affairs. the ratepayers’ organisation summarily carried on with its actions against poor service delivery. at the same time mr jaap kelder of the national taxpayers union ntu let it be known that the organisation was preparing itself to take the matter further. he said more than 200 towns in all parts of south africa were ready to join the protest against poor service delivery.68 tswaing local municipality’s technical director, mr hennie breytenbach, responded to some of the reports that had appeared on the website of praag, a rightwing-inspired non-governmental organisation. officials, management and some external observers had for long been of the 61 . sea, high court application, case 1498/09 in the north west high court, mafeking, 2009.06.23; a slabbert, “daar’s oorlog in sannieshof” in fin24.com, 2009.06.27 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). 62 . l de beer, “sannieshof-saak uitgestel weens regstegniese punt” in beeld, 2009.06.23 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). 63 . k foss, “sewage in the streets – residents up in arms” in the star, 2009.06.24, p. 2. 64 . l de beer, “sannieshof-saak uitgestel weens regstegniese punt” in beeld, 2009.06.24 (sannieshof library: newspaper clippings file). 65 . a slabbert, “wetlose sannieshof kannie hof oortuig” in sake 24, 2009.07.30 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). 66 . l de beer, “zuma’s office praised” in news24, 2009.06.30 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). 67 . a slabbert, “daar’s oorlog in sannieshof” in fin24.com, 2009.06.27 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). 68 . a slabbert, “daar’s oorlog in sannieshof” in fin24.com, 2009.06.27 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   34 opinion that the sannieshof boycott had strong rightwing leanings. this probably motivated breytenbach to give his interpretation of the sannieshof issue on the praag website. he explained that most of the problems with service delivery had arisen before he took over as technical director in may 2008. he also pointed to other issues that had caused the breach between the municipality and the ratepayers.69 his defence did not achieve its objective. sibu’s visser promptly responded to some of the more obvious gaps in his statements,70 undermining his attempts to convey a convincing argument. the most meaningful consequence of the court case was that sannieshof and its residents became celebrities of sorts. ordinary folk in south africa, including officials in several government departments, began to sit up and take note of sannieshof’s sibu. this was evident when carin visser communicated with the office of president zuma shortly after the court case. staff there requested that she submit documentation with information on the state of municipal service delivery in sannieshof, agisanang and phelindaba. visser later told the media she was pleasantly surprised by the immediate response she had received. it was the quickest response she as leader of sibu had ever had from any government department.71 it later transpired that visser’s call was one of the very early appeals on the presidential telephonic hotline. this had not only paved the way for more efficient channels of communication between the ratepayers of sannieshof and surroundings and the north west province’s department of traditional and municipal government, but also eased the path to the relevant national government departments. indeed, the government received praise in the public realm for its response to sibu.72 government takes action at the beginning of july 2009, the new north west province premier, maureen modiselle, placed the ngaka modiri molema district municipality (the municipality in which tswaing local municipality falls), under provisional administration. it became apparent that while service delivery in the central district of north west province was lagging behind, there was r83 million in the municipal coffers that had not been spent. cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister, sichelo sicheka, was angered by this state of affairs, announcing that in fact it would only require r63 million to remedy the situation and provide sufficient service delivery in the municipal district.73 by mid-august the district municipality’s officials and legal team were in a desperate battle to restore the legal status of the municipality.74 in the process, the provincial government dismissed the mayor, themba gwabeni.75 there were however other problems looming. 69 . h breytenbach, “sannieshof-amptenaar antwoord op kritiek” in praag.co.za, 2009.06.20 (internet accessed 2009.10.16). 70 . ibid. 71 . l de beer, “zuma’s office praised” in news24, 2009.06.30 (internet accessed 2009.09.06). 72 . editorial comment: “munisipale ingryping net betyds” in volksblad, 2009.0716 (internet accessed 2009.10.16). 73 . sapa, “r83m in municipality’s coffers” in news24, 2009.08.05 (internet accessed 2009.10.16). 74 . l de beer, “premier, minister, lur, vra nog tyd in saak oor munisipale magte” in beeld, 2009.08.13 (internet accessed 2009.10.16). 75 . l de beer, “anc onthef 1ste burger uit amp” in beeld, 2009.08.20 (internet accessed 2009.10.16). sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 35 in august 2009 a confidential anc report was leaked to the media. it suggested that all 25 municipalities in the north west province were literally teetering on the brink of collapse. anc leaders blamed infighting for this state of affairs. of significance in the media reports was the worrisome reference to dwindling finances: the financial status of many of the local and district municipalities is so serious that a number are on the verge of bankruptcy.76 the anc leadership told the media that steps would be taken against members in responsible positions who were guilty of nepotism and irregular staff appointments; inflating and awarding tenders to companies that funded political campaigns; accepting bribes and kickbacks from service providers; abusing council credit cards, vehicles and property; and selling council property.77 the report also suggested that such problems presented a mounting crisis in municipal service delivery in the entire province.78 on 3 september 2009, north west province’s local government and traditional affairs mec, mothibedi kegakilwe, held a meeting with officials of tswaing local municipality; ngaka modiri district municipality; and representatives of the ratepayers of sannieshof, ottosdal and delareyville. he told the meeting that president jacob zuma had asked provincial premier, maureen modiselle, to pay particular attention to the service delivery problems in tswaing local municipality. he wanted to see the problems in tswaing addressed as a priority; the provincial government was asked to render assistance.79 kegakilwe had clearly done his homework beforehand. officials of the district municipality told the meeting how r53 million of the district’s funds were earmarked for spending in the current book year to pay for critical interventions to improve the water infrastructure. at the end of the meeting the mec suggested to the ratepayers’ representatives that in view of the fact that matters were being set right, residents of sannieshof, delareyville and ottosdal should resume paying rates to the local municipality. sibu’s visser, as well as the representatives of the other towns, did not agree. they told kegakilwe there were still far too many issues that required attention; these would have to be addressed before they could end their collective dispute.80 in other words, the sibu boycott action remained in place. findings: conditions in sannieshof, agisanang and phelindaba in august-september 2009 a research team of north-west university’s cudywat conducted research fieldwork at sannieshof to make an assessment of local conditions and gather information on stakeholders’ perspectives. the group conducted oral interviews with local 76 . x mbanjwa, “anc infighting brings municipalities to their knees” in sunday independent, 2009.08.23, p. 1. 77 . x mbanjwa, “anc infighting brings municipalities to their knees” in sunday independent, 2009.08.23, p. 1. 78 . p du toit, “provinsie op sy knieë” in die burger, 2009.08.31 (archive sibu). 79 . tjoa, minutes of meeting, 2009.09.03, delareyville municipal offices; mioa, notes of meeting delareyville, 2009.09.03. 80 . tjoa, minutes of meeting, 2009.09.03, delareyville municipal offices; mioa, notes of meeting delareyville, 2009.09.03. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   36 residents and officials. a digital archive was compiled to record the findings, which comprised inter alia notes taken at interviews; photographic material, electronic and hard copies of documents made available by sibu and the tswaing local municipality; and relevant secondary source material. in order to protect the identity of respondents the researchers codified their names.81 the preliminary report was shared with all stakeholders in a transparent manner in november 2009 at a public meeting where all were asked to comment and advise the team on additions or changes that needed to be made to the report. these changes were duly made and in november 2009 the report was released to all parties concerned.82 d o m e s t i c w a t e r s u p p l y the investigation by the research team brought to light that the residents of sannieshof, as a result of sibu’s role, had managed to take control of the town’s water supply management. the organisation’s members identified leaks in the mains and then took steps to repair them. there also appeared to be other serious problems. residents told the researchers that the local reservoirs had not been cleaned or flushed in 20 years. this could well have been a factor contributing to the poor quality of the town’s drinking water in september 2009.83 there were significant water leaks, leading to excessive wastage, at some of the boreholes in the harts river wetland where the town’s water supply was pumped up to reservoirs.84 the telemetric system that controlled the pumps had been damaged by escom’s power outages in 2008 and had not yet been repaired by september 2009.85 of greater concern to the ratepayers was the condition of the local wetland. until the 1970s the wetland had boasted a profusion of reeds, birds and wildlife.86 by 2009 there were no reeds, no wildlife and hardly any birdlife. instead, sannieshof’s refuse dump had been relocated to the wetland area, on the agisanang side of the river. at the time of the fieldwork, residents were worried that the local water supply had been contaminated; they believed that the contamination was not in the groundwater per se.87 the summer rainy season usually allowed polluted storm and floodwater to flow into the wetlands.88 members of sibu had been on the alert for this. they frequently took samples of the town’s boreholes, especially when they became aware of the sewage leaks from the local wastewater treatment plant. sibu’s management had also on 81 . individual electronic research archives were compiled under the names of the researchers, as follows: claudia gouws (gcoa), isaac moektsi (mioa), sysman motloung (msoa), johann tempelhoff (tjoa), and gerhard van greuning (vgoa) 82 . c gouws, i moeketsi, s motloung, j tempelhoff, g van greuning and l van zyl, ‘i hate it when people don’t like me’: sibu and the crisis of water service delivery in sannieshof, north west province (nwu, cudywat, report 2/2009, version 2.8, vanderbijlpark november 2009). 83. msoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 7: 2009.09.01. 84 . site inspection of boreholes by members of the research team on 2009.09.02. 85. gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. 86. gcoa, interview 13: 2009.09.03. 87. gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. 88. gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02; gcoa, interview 15: 2009.09.03. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 37 numerous occasions stated that there were unacceptably high counts of escherichia coli (e. coli) at some of the boreholes.89 illustration 1 one of the borehole pumping stations in the wetlands of the harts river at sannieshof in september 2009. the site had lots of rubble. the fence was damaged and the pumping house’s walls badly cracked. (photograph jwn tempelhoff) some residents of sannieshof resorted to buying bottled water.90 in september 2009 it sold in town for r15 per 5ℓ at a local grocer and r1 per litre at a dedicated water retail outlet, fresh water, in the main street.91 some of the town’s residents installed filters to domestic taps used for human consumption.92 the borehole water of some residential properties in sannieshof was also contaminated. residents assumed it to be due to old leaking septic tanks.93 people living in the so-called ‘onder dorp’ (lower part) of town experienced problems with what was said to be diesel in their borehole water. they claimed that their borehole water was ‘useless’.94 while the residential area of sannieshof, on the whole, appeared to be fairly well-managed in terms of water services, the same could not be said of conditions in the former apartheid-era township of agisanang and its informal settlement, phelindaba. 89. gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02; gcoa, interview 15: 2009.09.03. 90. gcoa, interview 16: 2009.09.03. 91. tjoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 7: 2009.09.03. 92. tjoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01. 93. gcoa, interview 12: 2009.09.02. 94. tjoa, interview 6: 2009.09.03. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   38 illustration 2 a resident of phelindaba breastfeeds an infant and patiently waits for her turn to take water from the public tap at phelindaba. (photograph: c gouws) in september 2009 the water infrastructure was varied in agisanang, sections 1, 2 and 3 (phelindaba). agisanang extension 1, the old township, was established in the 1950s to accommodate local migrant workers from the nearby former homeland area of bophuthatswana. the houses were designed as temporary dwellings on the assumption that the workers would return to the homeland once their work contracts expired. in the old houses there were no running water taps or flushing toilets. after 1994, each residential stand of agisanang was provided with a tap and outside flush toilet. agisanang extension 2 was established after 1994 when in terms of the government’s reconstruction and development program (rdp), homes were built for township residents who did not have ready access to housing. when these were built they were provided with the basic infrastructure for water supply and sanitation. agisanang extension 3 (also known as phelindaba) is an informal settlement. literally hundreds of people streamed into the area since the 1990s, in response to the government’s promise of free housing.95 many of the new local residents were previously farm workers who had allegedly been forced off the land by farmers who either wanted to steer clear of land claims issues, or decided to reduce 95. gcoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 6: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 4: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 10: 2009.01.03; tjoa, interview 8: 2009.09.03; tjoa, interview 4: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 5: 2009.09.02; msoa, interview 8: 2009.09.02. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 39 the size of their labour contingent in the light of the government’s changing labour laws.96 some residents of phelindaba came from the former homeland of bophuthatswana. they relocated in an effort to be closer to a proper town with potential job opportunities and a commercial trading centre. they were also of the opinion that in agisanang their prospects of getting housing were far better than in the former homeland. another category of residents in phelindaba was a group of people who chose to move from one part of tswaing local municipality to another – as soon as they heard of local councillors promising houses in newly developed townships. since 1994 it frequently happened that there would literally overnight be a stampede of people and massive overcrowding in the urban areas of tswaing local municipality. more often than not the people’s expectations were not met and they would be subjected to living under conditions of dismal poverty in informal settlements. at the time of the fieldwork in september 2009, most of these people, resident in phelindaba were unemployed and extremely poor.97 the local water plight was worst in phelindaba. there were only three public taps in the informal settlement. indeed at the time of the research group’s visit the water supply of phelindaba had been reduced to a single tap; the others were out of order.98 local residents told the researchers that municipal officials frequently accused the residents of ‘wasting water’.99 a female resident of phelindaba, in sheer frustration and defiance, took the initiative to do repair work on one of the public taps and managed to get it working again. members of the settlement immediately began using it. the resident who had done the repair work was then taken to task by the local councillor. she was told in no uncertain terms that she had interfered with the work of the municipal officials.100 interviews conducted with phelindaba residents at the water tap brought to light that if the taps were out of order some residents resorted to going to nearby rdp houses in agisanang extension 2 to ask for water – at a cost. there were also rumours that local officials were in cahoots with residents of rdp houses who agreed to share the income from the provision of water to phelindaba residents. people paid as much as r5 for 25ℓ of water.101 a local businessman told the research team that the poorest of the poor were actually paying more for water than the ratepayers of sannieshof. phelindaba residents were well aware of this state of affairs. in interviews they argued that it was proof that the municipality did not care a ‘damn’ for them.102 96 . according to carin visser there were no proven instances of people being forced off the land by farmers in the vicinity of sannieshof and environs. she submitted information pointing to land that had been secured for previously disadvantaged people. in addition, there are indications that there may have been irregularities in the allocation of the land. see sea, email correspondence: c visser – jwn tempelhoff, 2009.11.10. 97. gcoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 6: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 4: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 10: 2009.01.03; tjoa, interview 8: 2009.09.03; tjoa, interview 4: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 5: 2009.09.02; msoa, interview 8: 2009.09.02. 98. at the time of our first visit, two of the three communal taps in this settlement were out of order. 99 . gcoa, interview 8: 2009.09.01. 100. msoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 7: 2009.09.03. 101. gcoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 9: 2009.09.02; mioa, interview 10: 2009.09.02. 102. mioa, interview 2: 2009.09.01. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   40 illustration 3 a youth with siblings and a water cart on the way to the public taps of phelindaba informal settlement. (photograph: jwn tempelhoff) in other parts of agisanang the provision of water was marginally better. however, there were still many problems. since 2000, when legislation was passed to this effect, all households in the country have enjoyed the basic right to 6 kℓ of free water. this is generally assumed to be an adequate monthly supply for a typical previously disadvantaged household in south africa. the understanding is that when households consume more, they have to pay for it. respondents told the researchers that the municipality charged them for water, yet there were no meters installed on their properties.103 the state of affairs in september 2009 was in effect administrative chaos at the municipal office; local residents simply did not pay for water.104 it seemed as if no one really cared about how much water was being consumed by households.105 one local resident said: we use water without taking count of volume; it is something we don’t consider in the township.106 at times the local tirisano high school acted as the only source of water for the residents at the nearby informal settlement.107 the school tried to open a water account at the municipality for 103. gcoa, interview 6: 2009.09.01. 104. gcoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 8: 2009.09.01; msoa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. 105. gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01. 106. mioa, interview 4: 2009-09-01. 107. gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 41 two years. nothing happened. when they communicated again with the municipality on the matter officials told them there was a ‘delay in the paper work’; they were told to wait for the bill.108 it had not yet reached the school by the end of 2009. ratepayers in sannieshof were concerned about this parlous state of affairs. it came to their attention at the time of the 2009 elections that candidates standing for political office told residents of agisanang that no one in the township would have to pay for water.109 the sannieshof residents, in turn argued that clean drinking water was locally in short supply. if residents simply received water free of charge they would not bother to use it sparingly. furthermore, if the municipality were to introduce water restrictions, these would obviously be a dismal failure in the township. residents of agisanang had other issues. they complained that their drinking water smelt like sewerage.110 sometimes supplies were cut off for up to five days.111 the municipality did not bother to notify local residents of the cut-off in advance.112 this had far-reaching implications for the daily activities of the community. children did not attend school.113 one teacher explained: we usually send learners back home because there will not be any water to drink, and the learners will not come to school if the water has not returned the next day, because they cannot wash or eat.114 there is no system to effectively close leaking public taps at night, so drinking water is wasted. residents do not use a great deal of water and yet they spend many hours each day collecting water at the taps,115 where they sometimes have to queue for up to four hours to fill their containers.116 members of the research team came to the conclusion that water taken from the public taps was almost certainly dirty before being used for drinking.117 conditions around the tap were seldom, if ever, hygienic. residents said they tried to boil the water they collected from the tap118 but 108. gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01. 109. tjoa, interview 1: 2009.09.02 and 2009.09.04. 110. gcoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01. 111. gcoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. 112. gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01. 113. gcoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. 114. gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01. 115. the aim of the white paper on water and sanitation, released in november 1994, was to supply clean drinking water and sanitation to all households in sa and to provide 20-30ℓ of water per capita per day within a radius of 200m of their homes. jwn tempelhoff, “service delivery conflict in south africa’s water sector: phiri, soweto’s pre-paid meter protest” in quarterly bulletin of third world studies, 49(1) 2009 no. 391, p. 33, and tjoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01. 116. gcoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01. 117. tjoa, interview 8: 2009.09.03. 118. gcoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 8: 2009.09.02. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   42 firewood was scarce and expensive.119 this being so, there was good reason to believe that the public taps, especially those in phelindaba, posed a potential health hazard to local residents. for example, according to a medical practitioner there was a possibility that mycobacterium avium complex (mac), an isolate in more than 95% of patients with aids, could be present in the stagnant water around the taps and in the plastic extension pipes. this bacterium multiplies in water with temperatures between 4° and 66° c.120 it was thought that this could well account for the high incidence of tuberculosis in agisanang.121 yet, local residents were not always aware of this health risk. some observed that solids tended to settle in their water containers after 30 minutes.122 there seemed to be uncertainty whether or not this posed a potential health hazard. s a n i t a t i o n in september 2009 residents of sannieshof explained to the researchers that they feared the town’s groundwater had become contaminated by sewage from the domestic septic tanks. they maintained that borehole water tended to smell of sewage. the current septic tank system was old and municipal officials did not readily call to clean the tanks.123 when they phoned the municipal offices to arrange for the service, officials took a long time to respond. consequently, there were frequent overflows of sewerage tanks – with a bad smell in the residential and commercial areas of town.124 some residents had resorted to paying a bribe of a r10 ‘tip’ to municipal workers. they would then respond more promptly to requests for service delivery. another alternative was to call and beg six or more times after which the municipality might perhaps respond.125 another major concern was raw sewage overflowing from sewer pits; it flooded into the streets of the residential parts of town. when it rained the storm water carried the sewage into the harts river.126 moreover, residents of both agisanang and sannieshof were highly perturbed by reports of the municipal sewerage truck emptying its contents directly into the harts river.127 in september 2009 the sannieshof wastewater treatment works was in a bad state of repair. raw sewage in the groundwater had allegedly contaminated the borehole water on a neighbouring farm. laboratory tests showed high levels of escherichia coli (e. coli) in the water. according to one respondent, the water smelt like sewerage; even the cattle were reluctant to drink it.128 sannieshof’s new wastewater treatment works was no longer working properly after 10 years of service. for a long time the plant had not been maintained correctly and because of rapid local population growth the plant was unable to process all the sewage. storage dams became blocked 119. gcoa, interview 19: 2009.09.03. 120. gcoa, interview: pp gouws (53), vereeniging, 2009.10.19. 121. msoa, interview 6: 2009.09.02; msoa, interview 8: 2009.09.02; tjoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01. 122. msoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01. 123. gcoa, interview 14: 2009.09.03; gcoa, interview 14: 2009.09.03; gcoa, interview 17: 2009.09.03. 124. gcoa, interview 7: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 13: 2009.09.03. 125. gcoa, interview 12: 2009.09.02; gcoa, interview 13: 2009.09.03. 126. gcoa, interview 7: 2009.09.01. 127. gcoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 15: 2009.09.03. 128. gcoa, interview 10: 2009.09.02. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 43 and frequently overflowed.129 since about 2009, because of maintenance problems raw sewage had been flowing into the harts river. the staff had failed to report the matter to the director of technical services.130 illustration 2 a hole dug in the ground that serves as toilet for residents of a dwelling in agisanang extension 3 (a.k.a. phelindaba informal settlement). (photograph: jwn tempelhoff) in response to the crisis the local municipality’s technical department subsequently drew up a plan to address the problem: • an emergency dam was built to prevent untreated sewage from flowing directly into the harts river; • two monitoring firms, chosen by the district council, were instructed to analyse the situation and give advice on how to resolve the matter; • the septic tank system (in sannieshof) needed to be replaced by a modern sewerage system. (in a previous budget funds were allocated for this project, but the money disappeared);131 and • the town’s informal settlements needed proper sewerage infrastructure.132 129. gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. 130. gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. 131. gcoa, interview 12: 2009.09.02; gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. 132. gcoa, interview 11: 2009.09.02. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   44 illustration 3 a dilapidated municipal tractor that apparently frequently broke down, was used to take raw sewage to sannieshof’s wastewater treatment works. (photograph c gouws) at the time of the research team’s fieldwork not all residents of sannieshof were convinced that the local municipality’s rescue operation of the plant was the correct strategy to pursue. the sanitary conditions as far as the town’s black residents were concerned, was horrendous. in agisanang extensions 1 and 2, where sewerage infrastructure had been installed in the 1990s, there were regular blockages and leakages by september 2009.133 this caused raw sewage to overflow into the streets.134 residents complained of disgusting smells prevailing throughout the township.135 some were convinced that the new pipes installed were of inferior quality. they said that the workmanship was decidedly shoddy. the community had raised the matter with the municipality on several occasions but there was simply no response. some residents argued that issues of water and sanitation were only raised at the funerals of prominent anc, sacp and cosatu leaders. there were no formal meetings held where members of the community and representatives of the municipality could discuss community concerns.136 one resident commented: 133. mioa, interview 4: 2009-09-01. 134. msoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 6: 2009.09.02. 135. gcoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01. 136. mioa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 45 my sanitation does not work at all, due to regular water shut-downs of up to five days. it affects the sanitation processes.137 youths interviewed, made the unfounded claim138 that small pipes are installed for black people who cannot afford toilet paper and instead use newspaper [this will obviously block the pipes].139 the township sewage system was virtually always blocked. residents told the researchers that when it rained raw sewage flowed into the river, causing pollution.140 according to a local medical practitioner familiar with conditions in the townships, children played in the streets where sewage spills were common. they tended to be particularly prone to contracting worms, parasitic infections141 and dermatitis.142 agisanang section 3 (phelindaba), at the time of the research fieldwork, did not have proper sanitation.143 the municipality allowed people to build dwellings on stands without any infrastructure or services.144 for want of a better system residents built their own long drops. these leaked raw sewage into the groundwater and the pits were usually full.145 some residents simply dug shallow holes in the ground. when they were full, the holes were covered with soil and new ones dug close by. others tended to use the open spaces outside their residential stands. alternatively they walked out into the open veld.146 dangerous sanitary conditions prevailed in areas where large groups of people congregated on a regular basis. at a local crèche the staff and children resorted to using buckets when the water was shut down, otherwise the toilets became blocked.147 the prevailing conditions were described as ‘terrible’. one local resident was of the opinion that the situation posed a serious health risk for the children.148 at the department of health’s youth centre in agisanang, the sewerage system was frequently blocked for a considerable period. youths frequenting the centre had to use nearby open ground instead of the toilets. the matter had been reported to the municipality but there was no response.149 local schools have water-borne sewerage systems but since installation the municipality has not serviced them. schools regularly experience blockages because of 137. mioa, interview 4: 2009.09.01; gcoa, interview 8: 2009.09.01. 138 . both council officials and members of sibu deny this claim categorically. personal disclosures were made to members of the research team to this effect on 2009.11.12. it was described as a ‘township myth’. 139. msoa, interview 10: 2009.09.02. 140. mioa, interview 2: 2009.09.01; mioa, interview 6: 2009.09.02. 141. gcoa, interview 13: 2009.09.03. 142. gcoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01. 143. gcoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01. 144. gcoa, interview 8: 2009.09.01. 145. gcoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01. 146. tjoa, interview 7: 2009.09.03. 147. msoa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. 148. msoa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. 149. mioa, interview 6: 2009.09.02. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   46 unexpected water shutdowns. they complained that when the water supply was restored, the pressure in the sewage pipes caused blockages.150 sanitary conditions in the residential area of sannieshof were reported to be better. this was a direct result of the residents’ initiative to take control and assert pressure on the municipality to attend to problems. if there were no prompt and satisfactory response, sibu’s members would take steps to personally address the situation. theoretical perspectives: political culture, socialisation and happiness in order to come to an understanding of the dynamics of the water situation in sannieshof and environs, the research team undertook an examination of the theoretical underpinnings of political culture, socialisation and happiness. each of these issues will be discussed from a theoretical perspective and then some of the information collected in the interviews will be integrated into the discussion. p o l i t i c a l c u l t u r e a n d s o c i a l i s a t i o n this refers to the cultural values that govern political behaviour, and entails the collective political attitudes of the population.151 political culture is an essential part of the process of nation building and democratisation that promotes an active citizenry in local governance.152 according to almond and verba, democracy requires the existence of a civic culture,153 the tenets of which are the product of political socialisation.154 furthermore, pye believes that socialisation determines culture within society and that culture shapes the personality of the society towards political institutions.155 sannieshof tends to have a fragmented political culture – a phenomenon that has been defined in theoretical context by kamrava.156 it is a situation in which residents typically embrace a subjective and participant political culture. however, in the case of sannieshof there is a clear divide – along racial lines. the black communities in the townships of agisanang and phelindaba have a culture of subjectivity; they exhibit a blind obedience to administrative output, directives and a one-way flow of information. these people, in terms of the theoretical arguments and the description of local conditions outlined thus far, have become discouraged; they feel powerless 150. mioa, interview 3: 2009.09.01. 151. m kamrava, politics and society in the developing world, (second edition, routledge, london, 2000), pp. 120, 121. 152. ibid., pp. 120-122. 153. lw pye, “political culture revisited”, international society of political psychology, 12(3) september 1991. p. 499. 154. m kamrava, politics and society in the developing world, pp. 120-121. 155. lw pye, “political culture revisited”, international society of political psychology, 12(3) september 1991. p. 494. 156 . m kamrava, politics and society in the developing world, pp. 120, 121, 125. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 47 and excluded from the political process. in contrast, the white population in the town of sannieshof is a participant culture where people play an essentially active role in the political process – either as supporters or opponents. the local black population responded differently. according to hanyeke ‘poor communication discourages public participation’.157 this was evident in the informal settlement area of phelindaba adjacent to agisanang, where the lack of communication gave rise to frustration amongst residents. in september 2009 they spoke of marginalisation. one respondent explained: these people [political candidates in the election of 2009] were able to visit us when campaigning for our votes. now that they are in power, they forget about us.158 another said: they hold meetings in the old township, nothing is said of us.159 members of the community of phelindaba felt distanced from the political processes in their environs. they saw themselves as a forgotten people. members of the research team came to the conclusion that the political leaders dismissed the support of the people in the informal settlement as dispensable. after all, mattes and christie argue: people concerned with meeting basic needs on a daily basis may be expected to have less time to devote to democratic participation, and less reason to care about the survival of democracy.160 the people who show an interest in politics, but are ignored, have the potential to become the nucleus of violent protests over service delivery. tadesse et al, suggest that resource and bureaucratic constraints lead to growing grassroots dissatisfaction with public service delivery. feelings of marginalization and frustration over unfulfilled service delivery promises force communities to resort to mass action, which often becomes violent, as a means of attracting the government’s attention and expressing deep-seated grievances.161 at the time of the research fieldwork in september 2009, the indications were that the local black population was fairly docile. chances of civil unrest, similar to that taking place elsewhere in the country appeared to be slim. however, the local demographics suggested that conditions could change in the near future. 157 . br hanyane, “the establishment, role and contribution of the south african national civics association (sanco) in soweto: a question of civic interest”, (m.a. unisa, 2002), p. 39. 158 . mioa, interview 2: 2009.09.01; interview 3: 2009.09.01; interview 1: 2009.09.01. 159 . mioa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. 160 . r mattes and j christie, “personal versus collective quality of life and south africans' evaluations of democratic government” in social indicators research, 41(1/3) july 1997, p. 208. 161 . e tadesse, et al. the people shall govern: a research report on public participation in policy processes. centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) and action for conflict transformation (action). february 2006, pp. 4, 9 at http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=document&id=2012 (internet accessed 2009.09.11). gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   48 youth groups and sports clubs in agisanang act as vital socialisation agents. given the fact that more than 72 per cent of tswaing’s population is below the age of 35 years,162 it is important to take note of the youth. the cultural institutions supported by the youth (such as sporting activities) suggest that they are apathetic towards local politics. it was significant that by september 2009, municipal sporting facilities – a strong cultural instrument for bringing people together – had fallen into a state of disrepair despite the presence of a very passionate and talented youth base, eager to be kept busy with constructive social sporting acivities. young people who were interviewed said that local municipal officials took no interest at all in their wellbeing.163 they felt that the municipality should invest in their potential and promote sports as an instrument to alleviate the negative orientation they have towards local government. this could encourage them to participate actively in matters of local governance. as a result of the ratepayers’ initiative to set things right, the residents of sannieshof took matters into their own hands and started maintaining the bowling green, tennis courts and the golf course.164 given the fact that their demographic profile tended to be representative of an ageing population they did not require of the municipality to create opportunities for youth activities. instead they formed themselves into a self-help institution to take care of the sporting commons. this is but one striking feature of the contrasting perspectives local residents have of appropriate cultural political responses to addressing the problems they face. another dimension also became apparent in respect of the environment. sannieshof’s residents took an environmental approach, one they perceived as a more constructive way of dealing with the local water problems. in contrast, in the informal settlement of phelindaba, residents had little concern for the environment. for them there were other more important issues. one explained: our people are not concerned with the condition of the river, the environment, and local democratic processes. they are hungry and trying to make ends meet. there is just too much poverty in our area. the fact that councillors make empty promises does not assist our people in any way.165 the research team saw such comments as significant – especially when public opinion is seen against the backdrop of the government’s discourse with its people. according to the draft document on public policy the government is committed to a form of consultation and participation, which is genuinely empowering. it should not merely be token consultation or manipulation. the government wants to improve the accountability of ward and municipal structures; they must be responsive to the communities they serve.166 however, this notion, in september 2009 seemed to have been disregarded by the municipality and the ward councillors 162 . tswaing local municipality, amended integrated development plan 2007-2011. resolution no. 028/03/2009/10, p. 11. 163 . msoa, interview 10: 2009.09.02. 164 . vgoa, interview 6: 2009.09.02. 165 . mioa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. 166 . dplg 2005: 1 draft national policy framework on public participation: rooting government amongst the people. public participation and empowerment chief directorate free basic services and infrastructure branch, at http://www.thedplg.gov.za/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=23 (internet accessed 2009.09.18). sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 49 of tswaing local municipality, responsible for sannieshof and its surroundings. there were no indications of community-based organisational activities. the local municipality did not effectively support even the municipal youth centre, representative of a meaningful sector of the local community.167 the state of affairs was that of a community which had lost trust in its ward councillors and the local municipality as a whole. giddens suggests that diminished trust in politicians and other figures of authority are indications of general social apathy.168 in september 2009 this type of situation was evident in both agisanang and phelindaba. township residents felt that most officials and politicians merely imposed decisions upon them.169 this, according to hanyane, is the result of a lack of consultation by government officials with community members. it typically encourages a lack of participation in ward committee meetings,and public meetings summoned by the local government.170 the apparent absence of potential benefits for attending meetings further contributed to a lack of participation by the public. the community of sannieshof and surroundings blamed public officials who frequently made promises that were never fulfilled.171 instead of a much talked about consultation process, public officials hijacked, for example, the funeral services of elite politicians. they used these events as a platform for discourses on community problems and how these could be resolved.172 in other instances a consultation/public meeting often coincided with a party (celebration) of sorts. the politician would then tell the public what was ‘already in the pipeline’. the public input at such meetings was seldom taken into consideration. one respondent used the example of the construction of a local community hall.173 in his opinion, if the people had been asked for their view the local municipality would have been told that the public needed water more urgently than a new hall. by september 2009 the hall was standing un-used. it had become the ‘mansion’ of a local hermit.174 no one in the township seemed to care about it. this case study is typical of what tadesse et al, are driving at when they write that: [i]n the absence of meaningful public participation, the effectiveness of governance to deliver the required public services and safeguard human security is severely limited.175 proper consultation procedures would probably go a long way towards restoring the trust and effective support of civil society in the local authority. a concerted initiative should be launched to encourage the youth to be aware of local government issues and become actively involved. 167 . msoa, interview 6: 2009.09.02. 168 . a giddens, the third way: the renewal of social democracy, (polity press, malden, mass, 1999), p. 80. 169. mioa, interview 1: 2009.09.01. 170 . br hanyane, “the establishment, role and contribution of the south african national civics association (sanco) in soweto: a question of civic interest”, p. 37. 171 . msoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01; interview 10: 2009.09.02. 172 . mioa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. 173 . mioa, interview 1: 2009.09.01. 174 . msoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01. 175 . e tadesse, et al. the people shall govern: a research report on public participation in policy processes. centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) and action for conflict transformation (action). february 2006, p. 8 at http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=document&id=2012 (internet accessed 2009.09.11). gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   50 they have to feel convinced that it is in their interest to be participants in the development of the local community. it is imperative that political office bearers educate the public on the significance of public participation.176 the political leaders must step up their public consultation. if they fail to do so the political culture in the sannieshof/tswaing community will not improve; people need to be involved, to regard themselves as primary role players. according to giddens, they have to be ‘working in partnership with government to foster community renewal and development’ on the local level.177 they must be able to influence public decisions. public participation is essential to equip citizens with the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and acting, to build on and to extend radically to young people the best in existing traditions of community involvement and public service, and to make them individually confident in finding new forms of involvement and action among themselves.178 such participation is an important move to avoid the continuation of the current epidemic of violent service delivery protests raging in many parts of south africa. an active citizenry, as seen through civic organisations such as sibu, is crucial for strengthening democracy.179 it contributes towards improving service delivery and environmental livelihoods within the sannieshof community.180 tadesse et al regard participation as proactive and critical – not merely reactively supportive of the status quo.181 sibu is proactive in the sense that members have taken it upon themselves as members of a concerned civil society, to remedy that which the local government (plagued by mismanagement and incapacity) has been unable to do. rather than burning the municipal buildings or reacting apathetically by withholding their rate payments, they have instead created a healthy environment by cleaning the streets.182 they have amassed resources to invest in something tangible for the benefit of all the residents. in so doing they have restored dignity and secured a sense of human rights by providing water to a community ‘forgotten/ignored’ by politicians. while there are frustrated communities throughout south africa that respond violently against poor service delivery, people in agisanang and phelindaba reacted otherwise; they fell into a state of apathy. this is a scary social condition considering ichilov’s assertion that a healthy democracy depends on an active citizenry. apathy is cause for concern, even alarm.183 it is of concern 176 . br hanyane, “the establishment, role, and contribution of the south african national civics association (sanco) in soweto: a question of civic interest”, p. 1. 177 . a giddens, the third way: the renewal of social democracy, (polity press, malden, mass, 1999), pp. 69, 79. 178 . bernard crick, as quoted in h haste, “constructing the citizen” in political psychology, 25(3), june 2004, p. 427 (413-439), 179 . br hanyane, “the establishment, role, and contribution of the south african national civics association”, p. 1. 180 . h haste, “constructing the citizen” in political psychology, 25(3), june 204, p. 427 181 . e tadesse, et al. the people shall govern: a research report on public participation in policy processes. centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) and action for conflict transformation (action). february 2006, p. 6 (internet accessed 2009.09.11). 182 . msoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01. 183 . h haste, “constructing the citizen” in political psychology, 25(3), june 204, p. 426. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 51 because one cannot really fathom the true psyche of such a community. should one expect agisanang and phelindaba to be the next site of violent service delivery protests in the immediate future? it is difficult to say. ‘we have been wounded in the mind’184 is a phrase used by both the youth and adults when describing the dire situation in which sannieshof’s black townships find themselves. they are unable to mobilise with a common purpose to pressurise the local government to address their concerns. they are dependent on the state to solve their local problems. they ascribe their ‘helpless’ position to their poor economic standing and low level of education. their [local] government has failed to ‘deliver material improvements which will improve a perceived quality of life’.185 there have been no daily conversations on the community’s affairs. instead, community members have literally been socialised, or conditioned, to regard themselves as ‘powerless’ and unable to change the dictates of those in ‘power’ i.e. local government officials. this is a misplaced conception because ‘no political agent is ever entirely powerful or powerless’.186 at the time of this study there was nobody of carin visser’s calibre in the black community who aspired to come to the fore to represent the sentiments of other folk in the area. those who tried to do so would typically be enticed away by existing political opportunities to position themselves for a lucrative political appointment.187 any action that aimed at challenging the existing local political status quo was simply ignored or suppressed. those in power encouraged passive adherence.188 this in turn increased the potential for totalitarian authority. sannieshof’s ratepayers responded differently. they were driven by what they perceived as incompetent local government. this threatened their business interests and the wellbeing of the community. consequently they made their voices heard. the researchers were convinced that sibu’s actions were in part due to their education and deep understanding of how the democratic system should operate. they were also able to establish an area of common interest to challenge or change existing conditions. their willingness to co-operate, despite their diverse political and religious affiliations, enabled them to work together. the only problem sibu faced was the racial composition of its membership. it was seen as a predominantly white movement. blacks were critical of its purpose. they claimed that it only represented the white community. they were also of the opinion that sibu used the poor black community to get sympathy from the media.189 the absence of a significant black membership in the organisation encouraged the local government to continue their criticism of sibu’s endeavour by projecting it as acting in open defiance of the rule of law. they even went so far as to suggest that sibu was a rightwing initiative pushing a political agenda to discredit the ruling party. following the tenets of ‘third 184 . mioa, interview 7: 2009.09.02. 185 . r mattes and j christie, “personal versus collective quality of life and south africans' evaluations of democratic government” in social indicators research, 41(1/3) july 1997, p. 206. 186 . p nesbitt-larking, “methodological notes on the study of political culture” in political psychology, 13(1) march 1992, p. 80. 187 . r mattes and j christie, “personal versus collective quality of life and south africans' evaluations of democratic government” in social indicators research, 41(1/3) july 1997, p. 206. 188 . a botha, “political dissent and terrorism in southern africa” in institute for security studies, paper 90 august 2004, p. 4 189 . mioa, interview 1: 2009.09.01. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   52 way’ politics advocated by giddens,190 the missing link in sannieshof is that residents of the area should transcend existing cultural and racial barriers. they need to move towards the common goal of protecting human rights and dignified living conditions. improving the natural environment in sannieshof and the greater tswaing municipal area for the benefit of all who live there may be one way of doing it. tadesse et al, maintain that (c)ontext specific participatory governance systems and public participation mechanisms will facilitate better informed policy decisions; increase the responsiveness and accountability of government departments; improve public service delivery and human security; and reduce the need for the public to resort to violence...191 working together, they can do more given that the greater proportion of the population the group represents, the greater its impact.192 however, this sense of collaborative effort and togetherness will require a concerted effort from all groupings in the community. they have to be inspired in their attempts to create a sense of local solidarity and civic commitment to promote a better livelihood for all the residents of sannieshof and its surroundings. h a p p i n e s s ? at the beginning of this article it was claimed that the wave of violent service delivery protests south africa experienced could be symptomatic of a society that was severely depressed and literally unhappy. consequently, with a view to finding solutions to the current predicament, the research team decided to find out how people in the vicinity of sannieshof and surroundings felt about happiness. but what is happiness? in modern day society, the concept of happiness is an indefinable, subjective notion,193 the experience of which is grounded in hedonism,194 desire theory195 and the objective list theory.196 the hedonistic approach focuses on attaining pleasure 190 . a giddens, the third way: the renewal of social democracy, (polity press, malden, mass, 1999), pp. 69-70. 191 . e tadesse, et al. the people shall govern: a research report on public participation in policy processes. centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) and action for conflict transformation (action). february 2006, p. 3. 192 . a botha, “political dissent and terrorism in southern africa” in institute for security studies, paper 90 august 2004, p. 4. 193 . m seligman, authentic happiness, (free press, new york, 2002). 194 . r nelson-jones, cognitive humanistic therapy: buddhism, christianity and being fully human, (sage publications, london 2004); rm ryan, and el deci, “on happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being” in annual review of psychology, 52, 2001, pp. 141-166; mj sirgy, and j wu, “the pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life: what about the balanced life?” in journal of happiness studies, 10, 2009, pp. 183-196. 195. j griffin, well-being: its meaning, measurement, and moral importance, (clarendon press, oxford, 1986); mep seligman, and e royzman, “happiness: the three traditional theories” 2003 at http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletter.aspx?id=49 (internet accessed 2009.04.04). 196 . m nussbaum, “human functioning and social justice: in defense of aristotelian essentialism” in political theory, 20, 1992, pp. 202-246. sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 53 and avoiding displeasure.197 desire theory is concerned with the process of gratification and the realisation of desires which then contributes to happiness regardless of the amount of pleasure or displeasure derived from it.198 on the other hand, objective list theory maintains that happiness is derived from achieving goals, which enables one to derive meaning from events.199 peterson, nansook and seligman proposed an integrated model for happiness flowing from these approaches.200 peterson et al suggest three routes to happiness namely pleasure, meaning and flow.201 the first route to happiness entails the never-ending pursuit of pleasure in one’s life. according to seligman, parks, and steen, focusing on increasing pleasure in order to enhance happiness will not have a lasting influence on happiness, because people have a genetically determined set-point for pleasure, and because they quickly adapt to pleasure.202 the second route to happiness is through pursuing gratification, which engages people fully in activities. flow requires that individuals apply their strengths, such as kindness and creativity. the third route to happiness is to use strengths to belong to and in service of something larger than the self, which give life meaning. it is evident that interventions that target engagement and meaning seem most fruitful when linked with the pleasure flowing from them. the experience of pleasure and flow are 197 . r nelson-jones, cognitive humanistic therapy: buddhism, christianity and being fully human, (sage publications, london 2004); rm ryan, and el deci, “on happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being” in annual review of psychology, 52, 2001, pp. 141-166; mj sirgy, and j wu, “the pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life: what about the balanced life?” in journal of happiness studies, 10, 2009, pp. 183-196. 198 . j griffin, well-being: its meaning, measurement, and moral importance, (clarendon press, oxford, 1986); mep seligman, and e royzman, “happiness: the three traditional theories” 2003 at http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletter.aspx?id=49 (internet accessed 2009.04.04). 199 . m nussbaum, “human functioning and social justice: in defense of aristotelian essentialism” in political theory, 20, 1992, pp. 202-246; mj sirgy, and j wu, “the pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life: what about the balanced life?” in journal of happiness studies, 10, 2009, pp. 183-196. 200 . c peterson, p nansook, and mep seligman, “orientations to happiness and life satisfaction: the full life versus the empty life” in journal of happiness studies, 6, 2005, pp. 25-41. 201 . c peterson, n park and mep seligman, “orientations to happiness and life satisfaction: the full life versus the empty life” in journal of happiness studies, 6, 2005, pp. 25-41. 202 . mep seligman, a parks, a. and t steen, “a balanced psychology and a full life” in the royal society, philosophical transactions: biological sciences, 359, 2004, pp. 1379-1381. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   54 subjective,203 whereas meaning is partly objective and rooted in a sense of purpose, which goes beyond life’s pleasures and desires.204 in the current study, researchers asked all respondents, as an aside, to state what would really make them happy. both white and black residents wanted access to proper water supply and sanitation services.205 the whites specifically singled out an orderly society with proper municipal services.206 both whites and blacks wanted families to live together/be united.207 blacks indicated that they would be very happy if they could have houses like the whites.208 running water and flushing toilets were seen as integral to the luxury that white residents of the town enjoyed. black people also said that finding relief from unemployment would make them happy. experiencing poverty and related suffering made them unhappy.209 a female respondent indicated that she would be happy if carin visser’s action against tswaing was successful.210 a male respondent explained that he would be happy if tourists visited the barberspan region.211 with the exception of one respondent, the environment did not feature very high at all on the list of priorities, when it came to locating a sense of happiness. therefore it could perhaps be argued that black respondents did not care much for the environmental discourse of sibu. they saw sibu’s awareness of the environment as a ‘cosmetic issue’ that was less significant, for example, than poverty and unemployment. seligman suggests that situational variables only contribute to 10% of an individual’s overall level of happiness. situational variables (10%) as well as a genetic set point (50%), account for 60% of a person’s total level of happiness.212 203 . r nelson-jones, cognitive humanistic therapy: buddhism, christianity and being fully human, (sage publications, london 2004); rm ryan, and el deci, “on happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being” in annual review of psychology, 52, 2001, pp. 141-166; mj sirgy, and j wu, “the pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life: what about the balanced life?” in journal of happiness studies, 10, 2009, pp. 183-196; mep seligman, and e royzman, “happiness: the three traditional theories” 2003 at http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletter.aspx?id=49 (internet accessed 2009.04.04); m nussbaum, “human functioning and social justice: in defense of aristotelian essentialism” in political theory, 20, 1992, pp. 202-246. 204 . d may, r gilson and l harter, “the psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work” in journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 77,2004, pp. 11-37; c peterson, n park and mep seligman, “orientations to happiness and life satisfaction: the full life versus the empty life” in journal of happiness studies, 6, 2005, pp. 25-41; m seligman, authentic happiness, (free press, new york, 2002); a wrzesniewski, c mccauley, p rozin and b schwartz, “jobs, careers and callings: people’s relations to their work” in journal of research in personality, 31, 1997, pp. 21-33. 205 . msoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 6: 2009.09.02; msoa, interview 3:2009.09.01 206 . vgoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 6: 2009.09.02; mioa, interview 1: 2009.09.01; vgoa, interviews 4 and 5: 2009.09.02. 207 . vgoa, interview 1: 2009.09.01; tjoa, interview 5: 2009.09.01; 208. gcoa, interview 2: 2009.09.01, gcoa, interview 3: 2009.09.01. 209 gcoa, interview 6: 2009.09.01. 210 . tjoa interview 1: 2009.09.01. 211 . tjoa, interview 10: 2009.09.04. 212 . m seligman, authentic happiness, (free press, new york, 2002). sibu  and  sannieshof’s  water  service  delivery  crisis     td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 2556 55 therefore, 40% of an individual’s total level of happiness is under his/her direct control.213 many of the respondents interviewed felt that there was a direct relationship between improvements in the environment and their overall level of happiness but research suggests that happiness derived from such changes is temporary in nature.214 the key to happiness lies not in changing our environment, but rather in changing our daily intentional activity.215 the focus should lie on facilitating the respondents through a process of individuation, whereby they are able to effectively utilise their limited resources. in order to re-establish a sense of sustainable happiness a sense of meaning has to be instilled in their lives.216 building on meaning should facilitate the development of flow,217 which in turn contributes to the sustainability of the emotion. it is evident that intervention is needed in order to enhance the quality of the respondents’ lives in sannieshof. this inherent need is not just confined to sannieshof, but also to the larger population. it is the opinion of the researchers that the basic need for happiness should be manifested in legislation, where happiness becomes a right rather than a luxury. perhaps the willingness to live without this basic right to experience a sense of happiness is symptomatic of present-day south african society. for so many years there was a struggle in the country aimed at contesting the racial bias of those in control of the country’s government. the trauma of the freedom struggle, which ended in 1994, has left many scars. it left little space for a sense of happiness. in no document of state is this more evident than in the constitution of the republic of south africa act, no 36 of 1996. in contrast with the constitution of the united states of america, which explicitly stipulates that government is for the benefit of the people and should promote the right for all to pursue happiness and a sense of safety,218 there is no reference in the south african constitution to happiness. the bill of rights, a centrepiece of the constitution, embraces the most worthy elements of what it means to be part of our society, but alas, happiness is not one of those rights. the closest that we in south africa, come to enjoy happiness as a constitutional right, is a sense of ‘well-being’. there are three references to ‘wellbeing’ in the constitution. section 24a stipulates that everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their well-being.219 section 28(f)1 addresses children’s rights. they should not perform work that is inappropriate to their age, or find themselves in circumstances that place their well-being at risk.220 the final reference to well-being is in schedule 2 where in the inaugural oath, the president gives the undertaking to devote himself to the well-being of the 213 . ibid. 214 . ibid.; mep seligman, a parks, a. and t steen, “a balanced psychology and a full life” in the royal society, philosophical transactions: biological sciences, 359, 2004, pp. 1379-1381. 215 . m seligman, authentic happiness, (free press, new york, 2002); mep seligman, “positive health” in applied psychology: an international review, 57, 2008, pp. 3-18. 216 . m seligman, authentic happiness, (free press, new york, 2002). 217 . d may, r gilson and l harter, “the psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work” in journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 77, 2004, pp. 11-37. 218 . dm mcmahon, happiness: a history, (grove press, new york, 2005), p. 318. 219 . section 24a in schedule 2: oaths and solemn affirmations constitution of the republic of south africa act, 108 of 1996, in p. 1251. 220 . section 28(f) ii in rsa, constitution of the republic of south africa act, 108 of 1996, in p. 1255. gouws,    moeketsi,    motloung,    tempelhoff,    van  greuning  and  van  zyl   56 country and all who live in it.221 perhaps the absence of a very basic sense of happiness is a significant shortcoming in the constitution of the country – and in the aspirations of its people. areas such as sannieshof, where rural south africans lead lives that stand out for their abject poverty, are a case in point. circumstances of unemployment, inferior water service delivery, and limited prospects of better conditions in the foreseeable future, clearly make for a sense of unhappiness. conclusion by the beginning of 2010, when the report of this investigation was in the final phase of completion, the steps taken by sibu had not yet led to major changes in the lives of local residents. the municipal authority had not taken appropriate steps to address residents’ grievances. there were some staff changes at tswaing local municipality. carin visser and the management committee of sibu continued to run a municipality within a municipality. the apparent dichotomy in support for sibu’s efforts suggested that local patriotism was still shaped by subjective forces reminiscent of the country’s racial past. the polarisation in the local community remained deep. it affected society in a variety of ways and made it difficult to come to a clear and uncomplicated understanding of what was right and what was wrong. for example, the fact that some people simply did not pay for water, despite the fact that they were supporters of the local government, remained incomprehensible to the residents who boycotted service delivery on principled grounds. it was as if the wrongs of some were considered miniscule; and the wrongs of others were pardonable. over the long term the ‘losers’ could be identified on a number of levels. firstly, those who were at the losing end were the poorest people in the community. others still had resources, such as an income, to secure their resilience to inferior conditions. secondly, the local authority had lost the support of local residents. local officials were subject to suspicion for allegedly not having done their work. this would surely have had an effect on their personal dignity and their status in society. thirdly, the hours spent by members of sibu affected them in the sense that they were losers in terms of productivity. for many of them the work they were doing absorbed all of their spare time – and some of their working time. already towards the end of 2009 the south african government took a number of steps to set things right. municipal government was one of the prime hotspots that received considerable government attention. furthermore, government toned down its pre-election promises. what was required was the necessary political will to step in and begin providing adequate services in sannieshof and its surroundings. the research team were of the opinion that it would make a substantial contribution to restoring local residents’ sense of dignity and basic happiness. 221 . schedule 2: oaths and solemn affirmations in rsa, constitution of the republic of south africa act, 108 of 1996, in p. 1332. abstract introduction theoretical framework research methods and design results and discussion of findings conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) aletta e. botha school of psycho-social education, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa julialet rens school of psycho-social education, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa sarina de jager department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation botha ae, rens j, de jager sd. the importance of life orientation in a time of covid-19: perceptions of preservice teachers. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1202. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1202 original research the importance of life orientation in a time of covid-19: perceptions of preservice teachers aletta e. botha, julialet rens, sarina de jager received: 25 jan. 2022; accepted: 04 apr. 2022; published: 30 may 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this research explored the challenges experienced by society during the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic and the role thereof in the validation of life orientation in south african schools. the importance of life orientation as a subject has been questioned since its implementation in 2006. during the first year of the covid-19 pandemic, it became clear that the skills and values taught in life orientation were actually needed to survive the mental and emotional impacts of the pandemic. the aim of this study was to explore the preservice teachers’ perceptions of life orientation, the importance of this subject and the knowledge, skills and values that are taught in life orientation and how these can equip society during the pandemic. the research followed a qualitative design in an interpretivist paradigm. data were collected through an online questionnaire that preservice teachers had to complete. a group of 102 first-year bachelor of education students, 18 fourth-year bachelor of education students and 20 students in the postgraduate certificate in education programme were involved in the study. preliminary data revealed that covid-19 challenges had a possible impact on the attitudes of 140 preservice teachers towards life orientation as a compulsory subject in south africa and further concluded that life orientation plays a significant role in preparing learners for various challenges faced by society, not least the covid-19 pandemic. keywords: validation; life orientation; covid-19 challenges; preservice teachers; south african schools. introduction the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic is a global crisis that has had a significant impact on people’s lives and has caused economic, political and social havoc. people are left feeling powerless and unsettled. when social isolation, financial stress and economic uncertainty are added, as well as disrupted work and family routines, it is understandable that people’s mental and psychological health is suffering.1 the aforementioned factors lead one to question whether life orientation (lo) as a compulsory subject in the curriculum with the aim of developing learners holistically might contribute to the way the pandemic could be handled. the south african curriculum defines lo as ‘a unique subject in that it applies a holistic approach to the personal, social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, motor and physical growth and development of learners’.2 the attributes of lo address (1) the development of the self (personal well-being), including knowledge, attitudes, values and skills; (2) social and environmental responsibility (citizenship education), including social engagement; (3) recreation and physical activity (physical education), such as health responsibility and healthy lifestyle; and (4) career choices, including entrepreneurship.2 it appears that the knowledge, skills and values that are taught in lo can possibly equip learners and society, in general, to cope better with some of the challenges posed by the pandemic. one of the biggest challenges faced during the pandemic is the impact on family life, specifically the changes in the well-being of parents and children (personal well-being being one of the topics in the lo curriculum). parents experience an increase of negative feelings (nervousness, depression, aggression, etc.), and as a result, children’s stress levels are influenced by parental over-reactivity.3 the effect of the pandemic on the emotional and psychological well-being of the youth (personal well-being) seems to have escalated. isolation, being unable to participate in physical sport activities (recreational and physical activities, another topic in the lo curriculum), minimal social interaction with peer groups and a repetitive daily routine (related to citizenship education, which is a topic in the lo curriculum) all have a negative impact on the emotional and mental well-being of the youth.4 not being able to participate in sport for development (recreational and physical activities) plays a significant role in adding to the challenges faced by the pandemic. sport is a major contributor to economic growth and social development. physical activity and well-being are intertwined.5 the covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on religious gatherings and practices. religious events such as church gatherings, assemblies and pilgrimages were cancelled, and this has had a significant impact on people’s emotional, mental and spiritual well-being. the sector suffering the most is healthcare (also a topic related to citizenship education in lo). globally, health systems were not prepared for the covid-19 pandemic.6 worldwide, the prohibition on personal gatherings (citizenship education, such as social responsibility as well as personal well-being) is still one of the most difficult challenges to overcome in the harsher lockdown periods. people feel alone and secluded, and they miss their loved ones. consequently, this has a large impact on their collective emotional and mental well-being. an increase in reports of domestic violence (citizenship education, such as social responsibility and personal well-being) and violence between intimate partners is experienced in many countries across the world during the lockdown amidst the covid-19 pandemic.7 factors such as financial stress, poverty, job losses (career choices and entrepreneurship will be of value) and uncertainty lead to amplified aggression at home. moreover, the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on education is evident, and educational systems worldwide have been affected significantly by the pandemic. the covid-19 pandemic has led to extensive closures of schools and tertiary institutions. according to data released by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) on 25 march 2021, the closure of schools, universities and other educational institutions because of covid-19 was implemented globally in 165 countries. terminology and ideas such as remote teaching, online learning, home schooling and distance learning became the ‘new normal’. according to aseey,8 in most developing countries, learners’ preparedness at all stages, infrastructure, quality, access, population, finances and teacher preparation have been some of the major bottlenecks, amongst other experiences. remote learning involves many challenges, including a lack of infrastructure, weak or no internet connectivity, the data cost of teaching or learning online, online assessment and no personal contact. as the lockdown in south africa and many countries worldwide had an impact on the educational system, as mentioned above, the question arises whether lo might be utilised to equip learners with the skills necessary to cope with the pandemic. the challenges that lo as a compulsory subject has experienced since its introduction include that the subject has a reputation for not being ‘important’, which has led to the stigmatisation of the subject as a ‘free period’.9 these perceptions, as well as the fact that lo is excluded from the calculation to determine the admission point score (aps) required for admission to tertiary institutions, contribute to the fact that the subject is not always taken seriously. fortunately, magano10 reported that many learners find lo meaningful, but teachers have a very important role to play in presenting the subject and in the way it is managed in the school. the attitude of teachers inadvertently impacts how the subject is received by learners and by schools. in this study, the questions that were asked to student teachers explored how they perceived lo, whether and how the pandemic changed their view of the importance of lo and whether it contributed to validating the subject. theoretical framework this study was framed within bronfenbrenner’s ecosystemic theory, as lo cannot be taught without taking the different systems (microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, chronosystems and macrosystems) into account. in combination with bronfenbrenner’s theory, we also focus on michael fullan’s11 change theory and the seven premises he describes. for the purpose of this article, the focus was on motivation as fullan’s first premise to achieve results from the challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic, as well as the change of the context as described by bronfenbrenner. the third premise of fullan’s theory, where learning in context is the focus, and the fourth premise, where the changing of contexts is described, also directed the theoretical framework. the context and the ability to learn in the specific changed context are now a reality for the teaching of lo. thus, the aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of preservice teachers regarding the role of covid-19 challenges experienced by society as a vehicle towards destigmatising lo. how can the knowledge, skills and values that are taught in lo equip society for the challenges presented in a time such as the pandemic? research methods and design for this study, an interpretivist research paradigm was used together with a qualitative research design. data were collected through an online questionnaire. a phenomenological approach was used for the purpose of this study. phenomenology focuses on people’s mindful experience of their environment, which includes their day-to-day lives and social interactions.12 a qualitative research design was the most appropriate method for this study to examine the complexities and various nuances of preservice teachers’ perceptions of lo and its importance as a school subject during the covid-19 pandemic. the participants were selected purposefully. a purposive or non-probability sampling was used when researchers deliberately selected their data sources.13 in this case, we used individuals that could provide the most information on the phenomenon under investigation. a group of 102 first-year bachelor of education (bed) students, 18 fourth-year bed students and 20 students in the postgraduate certificate in education programme (pgce) were involved in the study. the research was conducted through an online questionnaire made available to participants through the university’s online learning platform. ethical clearance was obtained, and the participants were informed that the questionnaire will be used for research purposes only. the questionnaire consisted of open-ended questions. the following three questions were posed. (1) how do preservice teachers perceive life orientation? (2) what role (if any) did the challenges experienced during covid-19 play in changing your attitude towards the importance of life orientation as a school subject? (3) in your opinion, did the covid-19 pandemic play a role in the possible destigmatising of life orientation? by using open-ended questions, the researchers did not offer the participants a predetermined set of answers but instead allowed the participants to provide responses in their own words. thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data for the study. the fundamental task during data analysis is to identify general themes in participants’ comments about the phenomenon.13 data segments were grouped, constructed by the analysis of the different groupings in terms of similarities and differences, and several themes emerging from the examination itself served as findings. in the study, data analysis was conducted in three phases, as proposed by wellington:14 data reduction, where data are collected, summarised and categorised; data presentation, where ordered data are illustrated and represented graphically or visually; and drawing conclusions, where data are interpreted and meaning is given to the data. we identified themes and came to certain conclusions. ethical considerations ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from north-west university ethics committee (clearance number: nwu-00479-17-a2) for a larger project with preservice teachers for which an application was submitted. the purpose of the research was explained to the participants, and those who wished to participate in the study completed an online questionnaire consisting of three reflective questions. results and discussion of findings we begin the discussion with the perceptions of the preservice teachers about lo, followed by the possible change of attitude towards lo during the covid-19 pandemic. we conclude the discussion with the role of the pandemic in destigmatising the subject. preservice teachers’ perceptions of life orientation as a compulsory subject the following themes were generated from the questionnaires of the different groups of preservice teachers when they were asked about the way they perceived lo. firstly, the theme the importance or value of life orientation emerged. a total of 102 first-year preservice teachers answered this question, and 88 of the participants agreed that they perceived lo as an important subject. this finding challenges the view prevalent in the literature that lo as a compulsory subject has the stigma of being an unnecessary subject. the fourth-year students and pgce students responded mostly positively in this regard. it was evident that the first-year and fourth-year bed preservice teachers and the pgce preservice teachers were convinced that the content of the lo curriculum was both necessary and a tool in making a difference in the lives of learners. it was also perceived as a means of preparation for the future, with most of the participants commenting on this aspect. it became clear that the preservice teachers have the motivation to work against the stigma that is experienced in the subject. they are aware of the perceptions that exist towards lo. this resonates with the premise of fullan’s change theory11 that these preservice teachers are instrumental in building capacity in the teaching of the subject, with a focus on positive motivation to work against the stigma. a large majority of the participants agreed that lo was important for learners’ holistic development, taking all systems in bronfenbrenner’s theory into account. other participants were positive about the role that the subject could play in the development of learners in general and the fact that the content can contribute to the restoration of our society during and after the pandemic: ‘life orientation is central to the holistic development of learners. lo leads and prepares learners for life and equips them to live meaningfully and successfully in society that is changing rapidly.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘life orientation teaches learners skills and knowledge that is applicable to real-life situations and how learners can respond and deal with everyday challenges in their lives. it gives one an opportunity to understand himself or herself and what they want to become.’ (bed fourth-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) lastly, the theme of the importance of physical and mental health emerged. a total of 75% of the first-year preservice teachers agreed on this theme, and the fourth-year and pgce students also commented on this issue. the following quotations give a summary of the participants’ views: ‘people suffered emotionally during the pandemic, and lo’s knowledge could teach people how to deal with that emotional stress by, e.g., to do exercises etc. even other teachers do not consider lo to be an important subject but during the pandemic they wanted to hear more information or new developments from the lo teacher because they are the people who stay informed about most things.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘lo is just not a subject that is just there and not important, but in fact it is very important because it is where learners are able to learn about practicing good hygiene and taking care of their well-being, both mentally, emotionally and physically. with so much stress that the pandemic brought, at least our learners are taught about how to manage stress and pressure and also how to overcome.’ (bed fourth-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘life orientation also plays an important role in addressing and emphasizing the importance of mental health. covid-19 changed the world and brought so many challenges. people lost their jobs while others suffered from mental breakdown. therefore, i believe life orientation is very important to equip learners from an early age to be resilient and strong, which is what we needed the most during this hard time.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the above-mentioned responses place emphasis on the attributes that are taught in lo that could be used to cope with the challenges of the pandemic. examples of these attributes are self-awareness (i.e. staying positive during covid-19); stress management (i.e. how to effectively deal with stress during covid-19); dealing with depression (i.e. seeking psychological help during covid-19); resilience; human rights (in case of abuse) as well as how to handle domestic violence or even creating positive relationships. all these attributes taught in lo helped individuals to deal with the challenges of covid-19 whilst displaying the importance of lo, or rather the knowledge acquired through these subjects was used during the pandemic for survival and sustainability. possible change of attitude towards life orientation during the covid-19 pandemic the first-year preservice teachers indicated that the pandemic played a role in changing their attitude towards lo as a compulsory school subject. the following themes emerged from the data: teaching of pandemics and diseases, health and environmental responsibility, social responsibility, physical and mental health, development of the self, development of learners and development through the pandemic. it became clear that the participants realise the importance for the youth to have the appropriate knowledge and skills that is currently addressed in the lo curriculum. firstly, the theme teaching of pandemics and diseases came to the fore. most of the participants agreed that lo is important because of the content on pandemics and diseases covered in the curriculum: ‘people were mentally unprepared and scared. my sister was in her matric year and the one thing she taught me during this pandemic was a small activity from her lo textbook that helped her stay calm and headstrong. lo taught by the right teacher can have a huge impact on their student’s life. therefore, during the covid-19 pandemic, i realized just how important lo is as a school subject.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the stigma attached to some diseases was also brought up by some of the participants. the fact that the participants commented on the stigma made it evident that it is an issue in the school setting. fortunately, the whole issue of stigmatisation and especially the stigma of hiv is taught in lo, and they linked that content to covid-19: ‘life skills teaches about the stigma attached to diseases and how being mean to sick people can harm them more than the virus ext. life skills also teaches where to go when sick and how to take care of yourself. people started being very judgmental and emotionally abusing to people with covid-19.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) one participant commented on the fact that lo gave teachers the opportunity to teach learners about covid-19: ‘when schools restarted, the first assignment that learners had to do was about covid. so it taught us about the whole pandemic, how it started, what it is, how it spreads, the do’s and the don’ts. so i think it also changed some of the learners’ attitudes about the subject and actually realised that it is an important subject.’ (bed fourth-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the covid-19 pandemic also challenged the way teachers have to think about their own teaching in general. new ways were explored to cope with the fact that south africa had a national lockdown and schools were closed for several weeks. the reality was that teachers still needed to teach their subjects to learners in innovative ways, even when learners only come to school on alternative days or weeks, depending on the school programme. this resonates with the notion in fullan’s change theory11 that in order to move forward and to change, reflective action is needed, and this was indeed what could be seen during the covid-19 pandemic: ‘covid came to rob the majority of our human lives. it is the lo teacher’s duty to educate the learners more with a psychological approach. in other words, learners may be emotionally and physically affected by the effect which caused the pandemic on our lives. because covid has become part of our daily life, we as teachers can educate the learner with the necessary knowledge. the pandemic did not take everything away from us, it just caused us not to do certain things as in the past. in the past we could all be together, but in this lockdown period, everything has changed so that social-economic issues have also diminished.’ (bed fourth-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the responses from the participants led to the theme health and environmental responsibility, which is also covered in the lo curriculum under this topic and focuses more specifically on personal hygiene.15 the preservice teachers seemed to realise the importance of these topics during the pandemic: ‘life orientation already had contents where learners are taught of health and safety measures; in this manner life orientation played a huge role in emphasizing the regulations of covid-19 that were implemented, such as washing hands with soap and using hygienic products.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the applicability of lo and the role it can play in the dismantling of negative perceptions about the subject is further discussed by the following participants: ‘challenges experienced during covid-19 played a huge role in changing of attitude towards the importance of life orientation; it made me to realise how life orientation is important in my life. in terms of being a responsible citizen, it showed that i was because i got used to wearing a mask and always washing my hands to avoid getting infected and infecting others. it helped in dealing with emotions and living a healthy life.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘… [w]hen this pandemic occurred, life orientation had to be applied into our everyday lives.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘i, for one, used to regard life orientation as unimportant during high school, but that perception completely changed during the covid-19 pandemic. i realized that most of the skills i used to survive during the pandemic, i adopted them in life orientation. these include the following: in the life orientation subject, we were taught about hygiene which included the washing of hands (a core skill needed during the pandemic); physical activities – in life orientation we have physical education which promotes the strengthening of the immune system (one’s immune system must be strong).’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the pandemic also made teachers more aware of the importance of the content of lo, for example, basic hygiene and looking after oneself: ‘life orientation as a subject is important because it is that subject in schools that educates learners about the importance of taking care of themselves, both mentally, emotionally and physically.’ (bed fourth-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the third theme that emerged was social responsibility, which also is a topic in the lo curriculum. the participants emphasised the importance of responsibility towards society. one participant indicated that the stereotyping of people with covid-19 was unacceptable: ‘stereotype is one concept of life orientation. people are stereotyping people with covid-19 without knowing how they look like when they are affected.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the participants also emphasised the importance of respect towards each other in society: ‘the covid-19 pandemic taught learners about morals and respecting each other and following the rules and regulations implemented.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘lo also teaches learners to exercise their rights and responsibilities and respect the rights of others. learners needed to know that they and the people around them have the right to health and a safe environment where they are safe from the covid-19 virus. during covid, learners should know that others have the right not to stand near them to protect themselves from the virus.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the next theme was physical and mental health, where the participants agreed that their attitudes had changed in this regard: ‘the challenges experienced during the covid-19 played an important role on my attitude towards life orientation, because i got a chance to use all the skills and knowledge i attained from lo when dealing with mental issues like how to deal with anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. mainly how to cope with the stress that covid-19 has brought. therefore, i think life orientation is an important school subject to help both learners and adults to develop skills to conduct positive interaction even at the worse times like covid-19.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the focus of the participants on all the topics in the subject, as described in the curriculum and assessment policy statement document, gave evidence of the importance of the content and the possibility that the stigma of lo as being useless and a waste of time is not fair at all. the following three themes that emerged were intertwined: development of the self, development of learners and development through the pandemic. it became evident during the pandemic that violence and abuse have increased. some of the participants mentioned how learners developed to be able to handle those situations better because of what they have learnt in lo: ‘… [d]uring confinement, families were forced to be together for a long time under one roof, which could lead to an increase in violence (‘abuse’), where a subject such as life orientation could contribute to a learner being able to evaluate the situation and even could control.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) it seems as if the preservice teachers were well aware of the input and influence of lo in learners’ lives to help them be more resilient and cope better during the pandemic: ‘the subject life skills is the centre of holistic learner development.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘the subject played a role by instilling the knowledge of evolving; this prepared me for the changes that came with covid-19. i was able to rethink the way i live my life, change my lifestyle, because self-isolation gave me time to focus on confidence building. as the subject addresses the evolving and the development of the society, during the pandemic, virtual system was introduced and it played a role in communicating across learning, working, transacting and consuming.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘challenges experienced during covid-19 period played a role in changing negative attitude towards the importance of life orientation, because not everyone was able to cope with challenges and stresses caused by covid pandemic. for example, unemployment challenge which caused stress led to [the] realization that stress management is essential and lo addresses effective ways of dealing with stress. during the pandemic period social order transformed. this leads to the realization that lo is important as it equips learners with the skills to use in order to function optimally in a changing environment.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the view of the participants was that lo plays an important role in the development of learners holistically because the content has the opportunity to equip learners for productive and effective functioning in a constantly changing world. the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic made everyone very aware of the fact that skills are needed to help one cope in this ever-changing world. it also shed light on the fact that the current situation will emphasise the fact that subjects like lo are really needed and that the stigma towards the subjects is unnecessary: ‘lo is a very insightful subject as it provides learners the basic principles in life needed to achieve self-actualisation, success and wise decision-making. these values are not embedded in most subjects, and in many households i have noted that these values and principles are not taught from parents to learners.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘therefore, it is crucial that today’s youth can enjoy a subject such as lo and acquire the right knowledge, receive guidance in dealing with life crises and situations correctly.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the role of the pandemic in destigmatising life orientation as a compulsory subject the last part of the study focuses on the role of the covid-19 pandemic in destigmatising lo. the preservice teachers taking part in the study were convinced that the pandemic played an important role in destigmatising these subjects. four themes came to the fore from the data analysis: skills and knowledge obtained through lo, the curriculum and its changes, the development of learners and the compulsory nature of lo. about 90% of the first-year preservice teachers agreed on the importance of skills and knowledge obtained through lo and felt that the pandemic highlighted the importance of these skills: ‘absolutely! after the covid-19 pandemic of last year, i think a lot of learners, parents and even teachers saw the importance of the skills and values studied in the subject of life orientation. life orientation holds great power in changing young lives, preparing learners for difficult times they might face and equipping them with skills and values needed to overcome challenges.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘yes, the pandemic played a huge part because a lot of skills and knowledge attained from lo were put to use. a lot of facts, opinion, strategies, theories, etc., about mental, emotional and environmental issues were addressed and emphasized to the people to be mentally fit and fight covid-19 challenges. so it has lowered the bad way people see life orientation as a school subject.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) curriculum and its changes emerged as the second theme. many of the participants stated that covid-19 as a pandemic and the handling thereof should be added to the curriculum, as they already have incorporated the content since the outbreak of the pandemic: ‘yes, because life orientation can now be used as a platform to teach learners more about the pandemic. even though life orientation was never considered as an important subject, this time it was used to spread an important message to learners.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘… [t]here was not many questions teachers could answer about the topic as it was new to everyone. and the fact that the curriculum was changed to covid-19 made the whole subject.’ (bed fourth-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘the stigma of lo as a compulsory subject can only be addressed if the curriculum in the high school as well as assessment in the high school are changed. i would rather try to change social issues of learners, or make learners more resilient to be able to enter a career after school. learn skills that the learners can do something with to make money.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the importance of the lo content was commented on by many of the participants. many of them opined that the importance of lo had come to the fore because important topics that form part of the curriculum were addressed during the pandemic, for instance, personal hygiene, personal relationships and important skills such as coping skills, especially with feelings of loss and stress: ‘life orientation has faced stigma for many years before corona, but knowing what we know now, there has never been a better subject to address covid-19, how to cope with it, increase knowledge of the disease and how to live a better mental, physical and social life with the knowledge presented by this subject.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘yes, covid-19 did change the stigma of lo. teachers and learners now realize the importance of lo more as an education subject. it was previously seen as an unimportant subject, but now because of covid-19, people are realizing the importance of discipline (wearing masks and regularly hand-sanitizing) as well as personal hygiene that is part of the lo content.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) the development of learners emerged as the third theme, with 75% of the participants stating that lo indeed contributes to the development of learners. according to the participants, it became evident since the breakout of the covid-19 pandemic that learners have become more aware of personal development. the following statements provide a summary of the responses: ‘the covid-19 pandemic also played a role in schools, as learners were able to acquire unique skills to solve problems themselves and ways to deal with depressive and frightening situations in an appropriate way. interpersonal conflict can now also be prevented because learners know what to do in certain situations where holistic skills are required.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) ‘the process of change happens systematically. supporting cognitive development is the most important, but aspects such as covid-19, cancer and hiv [and] aids accelerate the change. the positive outcome can be maintained if the teacher acts as a change agent. however, facts regarding values, attitudes and norms remain the same. the whole concept of presenting lo remains regulated by sources of knowledge and teacher skills.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) lastly, the compulsory nature and the importance of the subject emerged as the fourth theme. the following response serves as an example of the comments made by the participants: ‘yes, covid-19 definitely played a role in the possible destigmatizing of life orientation. i think it was an eye opener for some to see that so many people don’t have knowledge of basic skills like washing your hands regularly, respecting other’s health by not coughing without covering your mouth, etc. a subject like life orientation would play a very important role in teaching children, who in turn go home and teach their parents too.’ (bed first-year student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) according to the participants, the covid-19 pandemic has indeed contributed to the destigmatising of lo because of the content of the subject and the fact that learners are educated on how to deal with diseases such as covid-19: ‘yes, i think that once individuals realised that the subject highlights and touches on topics that are very real and applicable in everyday society, the stigmatisation and labels associated to the subject were relooked at. it is unfortunate, however, that a pandemic has played a role in a change of perception regarding the subject and not the recognition that it is indeed important to equip learners with life skills that some learners are only aware of because of the subject. it should be a constant that life orientation teachers continue to shed light on the importance of the subject, especially among south african youth, because of the many disparities encountered by students.’ (pgce student, undisclosed gender, date unknown) some comments focus on the fact that the subjects give learners the opportunity to develop on different levels to improve their well-being mentally, emotionally and physically. this resonates with the aim of lo to develop learners holistically. conclusion this research concluded that according to the perspectives of preservice teachers, lo plays a significant role in preparing learners for various challenges faced by society, not least the covid-19 pandemic. the importance of lo came to the fore in no uncertain terms. the participants’ perceptions of lo are that the content of the subject is needed to help with the development of learners in a holistic way and that it is also important for the physical and mental health of learners. the responses of the participants suggest that the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the fact that it is necessary for learners and society to have knowledge about pandemics and diseases. it also came to the fore that topics such as health and environmental responsibility, as well as social responsibility and the development of the self, can contribute to the knowledge, skills and values that contribute to mental and emotional resilience, which is critical during the pandemic. looking at the results and perspectives of the participants, the importance of lo is clear. the knowledge, skills and values that are taught in lo and how these can equip society in a time such as the covid-19 pandemic were emphasised. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions a.e.b., j.r. and s.d.j. all contributed equally to this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the data that support the findings of this study can by made available by the corresponding author, a.e.b., upon reasonable request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references muratori p, ciacchini r. children and the covid-19 transition: psychological reflections and suggestions on adapting to the emergency. clin neuropsychiatry. 2020;17(2):131–134. department of basic education (south africa). curriculum and assessment policy statements life orientation grade 10–12. pretoria: department of basic education; 2011. achterberg m, dobbelaar s, boer od, crone ea. perceived stress as mediator for longitudinal effects of the covid-19 lockdown on wellbeing of parents and children. sci rep. 2021;11:2971. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81720-8 zhang c, ye m, fu y, et al. the psychological impact of the covid-19 pandemic on teenagers in china. j adolesc health. 2020;37(6):747–755. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.08.026 mcguine ta, biese km, petrovska l, et al. mental health, physical activity, and quality of life of us adolescent athletes during covid-19-related school closures and sport cancellations: a study of 13 000 athletes. j athl train. 2021;56(1):11–19. https://doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-0478.20 mbunge e. effects of covid-19 in south african health system and society: an explanatory study. diab metab syndr: clin res rev. 2020;14(6):1809–1814. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsx.2020.09.016 usher k, bhullar n, durkin j, gyamfi n, jackson d. family violence and covid-19: increased vulnerability and reduced options for support. int j ment health nurs. 2020;29(4):549–552. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12735 aseey aa. the impact of covid-19 on the international education system: disruptions in low-income countries. london: proud pen; 2020. jacobs a. life orientation as experienced by learners: a qualitative study in north-west province. s afr j educ. 2011;31(2):212–223. https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v31n2a481 magano md. the new kind of a teacher, to handle the new subject – life orientation, in a township high school in south africa. j soc sci. 2011;28(2): 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2011.11892936 fullan m. change theory a force for school improvement. centre for strategic education, seminar series paper no 157. jolimont: centre for strategic education; 2006. schram th. conceptualizing qualitative inquiry. upper saddle river, nj: merrill prentice hall; 2003. leedy pd, ormrod je. practical research: planning and design. 9th ed. upper saddle river, nj: pearson; 2010. wellington j. educational research: contemporary issues and practical approaches. london: continuum; 2000. department of basic education (south africa). curriculum and assessment policy statements life skills intermediate phase gr 4–6. pretoria: department of basic education; 2011. td journal july 2007.p65 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 1-38. from hauntology to a new animism? nature and culture in heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy murray hofmeyr· abstract: derrida has proposed a new spectrology in an attempt to deal with the ghost of marx. kimmerle shows that marx has forgotten nature, and enquires about derrida’s forgetting marx’s forgetting. with specific reference to african culture he asks whether a new animism should not be explored within the framework of a new spectrology. derrida uses the concept animism, but not in terms of the being of things in and of themselves, which could positively be thought as animated. kimmerle proposes a way in which western philosophy could be opened to african philosophy in order to understand the problem of animated nature more adequately. african philosophy has a concept of the universe of spiritual forces, in which nature and its powers are completely integrated. this paper explores these issues in dialogue with a number of african philosophers, while linking them to certain contestations within environmental philosophy and ethics, especially murray bookchin’s critique of spirit-talk in deep ecology. kimmerle’s work on the relationship between africa and hegel sets the scene for an elaboration of his re-evaluation of animism which is compared to the groundbreaking hypothesis of bird-david. a relational epistemology is understood in ethical terms, and it is implied that such an epistemology would be more adequate for a new humanism that would be new in going beyond the western tradition, and in the process gain a more inclusive concept of “person” and “community”. keywords: animism, spectrology, hauntology, nature, culture, humanism, environment. subjects: philosophy, intercultural philosophy, ethnophilosophy, ecophilosophy and environmental ethics, development studies, cultural studies, deep ecology, social ecology, anthropology. 1. introduction heinz kimmerle’s approach to intercultural philosophy is characterised by his insistence on the equality of cultures, as a consequence of the � dr murray hofmeyr teaches religious studies and philosophy in the department of development studies at the university of venda. 2 hofmeyr concept of difference with which he operates. this leads him to propose that we drop the concept development and replace it with ‘dynamic equilibrium’. this proposal takes seriously the ecological insight that economic development as we know and practice it, is a pyramid scheme. in this article, which was conceived within the framework of the question regarding a new humanism,1 i first explore kimmerle’s struggle with the legacy of the exclusion of africans as belonging to nature from cultured european humanity. this exclusion is the consequence of the dominance of a particular rationality that has been found to be inadequate for solving the problems of our time. kimmerle proposes intercultural philosophical dialogues as a more appropriate approach to knowledge production in our time. he has published fine examples of such dialogues in practice. some of these have been brought together in a dutch language publication entitled mazungumzo: dialogen tussen afrikaanse en westerse filosofieën (kimmerle 1995).2 his intention is to break with the tradition of limiting oneself to the study of western philosophical traditions in searching for answers to the urgent questions of our time, and to take counsel from the philosophies of other cultures. although he does not expect problems that seem to have no solutions in the context of western thinking to be solved in dialogue with the philosophies of other cultures, he is convinced that the intercultural dimension of doing philosophy unlocks an enhanced problem-solving potential (kimmerle 1995:10-11). the problematical issues addressed in this book are truth, time, community, development, socialism and democracy, aesthetics and morality, spirits, and death. i will deal in more detail with one of these, entitled, in translation “the invisible world of spirits in derrida’s spectres de marx and in african thought”. this is the article in which kimmerle develops further derrida’s political interpretation of spirits. derrida calls for a new ‘spectrology’ (or ‘hauntology’) to address the political and social injustices in the world. kimmerle says the logical consequence is to also explore the possibilities of a new animism, to address humanity’s destructive relationship to nature, as a consequence of the dominant ontology in western philosophy, the ontology of presence. the issue of spirits poses a serious challenge to a new humanism that wants to be new in the sense of being inclusive, and still a humanism in the sense of being secular and rational. kimmerle’s subsequent contribution to this theme is an essay entitled entgeistert. ein essay über den verlust des geisterglaubens und den wirklichkeitsstatus der welt der geister (2001), in which the abovementioned article has been taken up as the last chapter. in this essay he re-appropriates the kantian insight that the fact that we cannot reasonably know anything about the reality of spirits does not imply that they do not exist (chapter 1). an alternative concept of rationality would judge differently (chapter 2). the present absence (or as mark taylor (1993:80) formulates, the non-absent absence) of spirits is attested in the western tradition particularly in works of fiction (‘poetic descriptions’), but also in some philosophical texts (chapter 3). the matter-of-fact way in which (some) african philosophers presuppose the reality of the world of spirits might be a fruitful starting point for the formulation of a new animism, one that does not restore a precritical ‘believe’ in spirits, nor an uncritical concept of reality (chapter 4). in the present essay i follow kimmerle’s argument, culminating in his suggestion regarding a new animism. in order to show the problems surrounding this way of thinking, i juxtapose the arguments of two african authors concerning belief in spirits. i subsequently trace the main objection to ‘spirit-talk’ to a debate in environmental ethics, the debate between deep ecology and social ecology. i do not intend to directly enter into that debate, but try to find a way to re-assess animism, avoiding the standard projections of tylor who made the term (in)famous. for this re-evaluation i rely on the pioneering paper “’animism’ revisited” by bird-david. in the process i try to establish how new animists might relate to the environment, and whether new animists could be new humanists, and vice versa. 2. hegel and africa 2.1 identity-thinking there is a particular concept of reason that has problems with conceptualising its other without replacing the other with itself. adorno’s (1980) description of this ‘identity-thinking’ remains potent: identity is the identity of that which is understood and the concept of this. but this is mere pretence of identity, as it is imposed by the subject. form is violently imposed on content. the particular has no place in the general. it is a matter of exercising power. the principle of identity is the principle of domination (adorno 1974). reason violates the object under the pretence of knowing it (adorno 1980). totalitarian rationality is historically dictated by the threat of nature. identifying reason, in subjecting nature by objectification, continues the principle of domination and as such remains a function of nature from which from hauntology to a new animism? 1 see h kimmerle, “the world of spirits and the respect for nature – some reflections on a complex relationship” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-264. 2. mazungumzo – swahili for dialogue dialogues between african and western philosophies td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. 4 hofmeyr reason was supposed to liberate itself. it becomes itself object, or as horkheimer and adorno (1947) famously wrote in dialektik der aufklärung: history (freedom!) returns to mythology. they added that mythology was already enlightenment. 2.2 deconstructing hegel heinz kimmerle (1994, 1995, 2000) has linked the philosophers of difference, especially derrida, to horkheimer and adorno’s pioneering insight into the importance of the other of reason. the expression ‘the other of reason’ refers to the forgotten and repressed side that reason had in the enlightenment, as has been revealed in a psycho-analytical study of the deep dimension of this thinking (kimmerle 2000:39). deconstruction, which for derrida is also the deconstruction of hegel, presupposes that in critique or destruction the new, something constructive, is already implied. derrida’s deconstructive reading of hegel has revealed the mechanisms of exclusion not only in hegel, but also in eurocentrism (kimmerle 1994:106-107). it is nature, myth, the other of reason that is excluded. hegel’s ‘treatment’ of women as analysed by derrida in glas shows that hegel could think of a woman only as the opposite of a man, for instance in hegel’s interpretation of the antigone tragedy in his phenomenology. as a sister, antigone moves on the borderline of reason, but as a woman she is excluded from it. her important role in the family, which indirectly contributes to the order of the state, notwithstanding, she is incapable of fulfilling a true moral task. the latter presupposes working within the spheres of civil society and the state that are the true moral spheres. unlike the son, the daughter does not leave the home to enter these spheres. she stays in the home of her parents until she transfers to being wife and mother in her own home, never leaving the sphere of the home. she is thus not truly human, in the sense of not being a citizen. 2.3 hegel and africa, africa and hegel we are reading hegel’s exclusion of africa as representative of how africa has been, and still is, excluded from history, particularly the history of the west. the same mechanism of exclusion that derrida has revealed in his deconstruction of hegel’s view of women is at work here. the colonies were open spaces into which civil society had to be extended, according to the dynamics of the historical process. but colonialism is not historical, as history is restricted to the history of states. this is one reason why africa, for hegel, has no history, and does not participate in world history. hegel was badly informed about pre-colonial africa and argued that africa had never been an agent of 5 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. the world spirit. the other reason is geographical: the spirit just cannot get the better of nature in africa south of the sahara – once again a notion stemming from faulty information. kimmerle (1994) summarises the issue well by saying that we learn from hegel much about the european view of the continent but nothing about africa itself. nature as the other of reason and the exclusion of the other is at work in hegel’s characterisation of african religion as being on the first level of natural religion (wizardry). this is not authentic religion, just as africans are not authentically human. kimmerle’s (1994, 1996) explanation for hegel’s justification of slavery is particularly relevant. for kant (the thinker of reason and freedom, the messenger of human rights, world citizenry and peace) africans make particularly good slaves, as they are physically strong, but lazy. they must be punished for this laziness (and for being the plastic expression of the evil of human nature) through slavery, which should be seen as a form of education. according to hegel (with his ‘philosophy of concrete freedom’) the fact that africans commonly consume human flesh (an assumption not supported by evidence) is indicative of the disregard for, and worthlessness of, human beings in africa. this, according to hegel, explains why in africa slavery is the basic form of the law. it is therefore justified for europeans to engage in slavery in the context of africa, although it is wrong in principle. according to kimmerle one can explain this view within the system of hegel’s thought only if one realises that africans, to hegel, are not fully human. they seem to have no religion and no state. yet, they are not animals, as they do have something that resembles a state and some religion. but they are not free human beings, and the real humans (who are european, male citizens of a constitutional state) are allowed to make slaves of them and sell them like goods. thus, africa is situated outside of history as it does not manifest spirit (for hegel, a decidedly european spirit), and africans are on the borderline of humanity, somewhere between animals (nature) and humans (reason). kimmerle (1994) remarks that hegel’s thesis concerning the end of history (that goes hand in hand with the erasure of time) seems to have been fulfilled after the realisation of the constitutional state, although not in the way foreseen by hegel. instead of deepening itself, the european spirit with its corresponding economic and political structures has spread all over africa and other parts of the world. it determines historical events in a universal planetary sense. note that it is still ‘spirit’ and thus the exclusionary mechanisms intrinsic to it that is spreading. this leads to the major contradiction of universality without self-realisation, which is the flipside of self-realisation at the expense of universality. this is why kimmerle opposes this kind of looking, by sending a reminder of the spirit of africa that was excluded and left behind by the self-realising world spirit. this reminder is not from hauntology to a new animism? 6 hofmeyr in the first place directed against hegel, but against europe, which is in the process of spreading all over the world, and against the manner of the spreading. in hegel the object of his thinking, europe with its view of history, its spirituality and its attitude towards politics and economics, is under critique. hegel defined philosophy, and thus also his system of thought, as the thought and feelings of an age made self-conscious, as the development of concepts that are adequate to grasp a particular historical period. according to kimmerle (1994), marx and adorno’s critique of hegel aims to keep hegel’s project going. hegel’s conceptualisation is modified and rescued in such a way that it proves itself to be adequate for understanding europe under the conditions of advanced industrial society. kimmerle (1996:102), in reference to the title of his favourite ‘book’ by derrida, glas, interprets this undertaking as producing a glass, like the lenses of spectacles or a pair of binoculars, through which the reality of a period can be seen for what it is from a philosophical point of view — more focussed, clearer than in ordinary perception. hegel’s lenses developed cracks in the next historical period, as it became inadequate as a means of revealing clearly what was happening — for instance the growing antagonism between rich and poor in capitalist society, a development that revealed the contradiction of civil society. in hegel’s philosophy civil society was supposed to be a form of the subjective realisation of universality. the crack in hegel’s glass caused by marx in his reversal of the priorities, turning philosophy from standing on its head to standing on its feet, in a paradoxical way enabled a sharper view. adorno’s take has been polished by marx’s analysis, and he looks through the cracks caused by the experience of national-socialist barbarity (kimmerle 1994:104-105). the negative, critical instruments of dialectical thinking are now more adequate – there is no reconciliation in sight, no identity to be had in a whole that is not the truth. it is not possible to see the whole through cracked lenses. but the cracks shift the focus to the particular, the non-identical. the cracks in the looking glass correspond to cracks in society. with derrida, however, the cracks become so many that the glass shatters. seeing through it therefore becomes impossible. paradoxically this is again adequate: the fact that we cannot see and understand our world any longer through the lens of hegel’s philosophy, representing western metaphysics, characterises the situation of western seeing and understanding. the new, constructive element in deconstruction is the acceptance and affirmation of the negative, of the necessity to destroy the tradition of exclusion. the negative provides orientation in this endeavor. 7 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. the negative is the excluded, as adorno has already shown. hegel’s exclusion of women from humanity is merely an instance of the exclusion of nature. nature is excluded from having a right of its own and an enduring meaning alongside the spirit that works through human history. in hegel’s system the last vestige of nature, time, is finally, in the ultimate movement of the dialectic, erased or deleted. for derrida the jew, this erasure of the ‘rest’ conjures up the terrifying vision of the holocaust, which, in spite of being the most negative consequence of western thinking, still contains positive knowledge (kimmerle 1994). this ‘positive’, in my interpretation, would be, apart from revealing the deadly nature of exclusion, something like ‘never again’. and yet, hegel has been proved right also in characterising history as cruelty and suffering. according to kimmerle (1994:112) with this insight philosophy, particularly also when it wants to be intercultural, constitutes itself as critical theory, and sides with those who work to diminish this cruelty and this suffering. hegel is therefore not yet played out. kimmerle formulates his continued relevance in a controversial thesis: hegel’s philosophy means everything for europe and nothing for africa (1994:111). it can thus be fruitfully used to understand the westernisation of africa. but it cannot contribute to understanding the africanisation of the west in africa and the significance of this process for world history. for this understanding new approaches to a dialogical intercultural philosophy are needed. one of the most controversial topics in this dialogue is the belief in spirits. 3. a new spectrology? kimmerle (1995:192) links enlightenment thinking with exorcising ghosts and spirits an exorcism that spans a whole historical period. but the so-called exorcised, and presumable rendered absent, seem always to be present, in language at least, even though in enlightenment language as negation: they are not, do not exist. they have a mere ‘metaphorical meaning’ represent something in our own subconsciouses. thus, we speak on the basis of an ontology of presence (an ontology that proceeds from the presence of being in entities) that tries to negate the absent, in stead of thinking it in its co-existence with the present. kimmerle traces derrida’s further development of heidegger’s insight into truth as an event of simultaneous opening and closure. the same goes for presence and absence. the other of reason is absent in what is rendered present in enlightenment discourse. notions of ghosts, from hauntology to a new animism? 8 hofmeyr spirits or phantoms serve the thinking of a radical form of absence in the present, something presumed by the dominant discourse as totally absent, unreal, hallucinated. kimmerle formulates the dilemma: how can the presences of the absent be thought, without restoring a ‘belief in spirits’, or re-introducing an uncritical concept of reality (critique here in the sense of kant’s critical philosophy)? derrida attempts to prepare the way for an answer to this question by looking for elements of a new spectrology, or hauntology, in texts of marx and shakespeare – in order to put an end to the exorcism project of enlightenment thinking. kimmerle (1995) sorts through and arranges these elements to give as much shape as possible to this new spectrology, this hauntology as non-ontology, with its own logic, the logic of the phantom. the key scene in derrida’s exposition is the appearance of the ghost to hamlet in shakespeare’s immortal work. the ghost informs hamlet that his father had been murdered and that he has to revenge him: ‘revenge his foul and most unnatural murder’ (1/5/25). this hangs together with hamlet’s observation: ‘the time is out of joint’ (1/5/ 188). and he must restore it, join it together again: ‘o curséd spite / that ever i was born to set it right!’ (1/5/188-189). this is then an element of the new hauntology: the interwovenness of a personal fate with a general situation and the appearance of a spirit confronting with a task from the invisible world of spirits (kimmerle 1995:154). in revenging the murder of his father, hamlet will simultaneously remove the concealed injustice upon which affairs in the state of denmark are based. denmark here represents the world. the world is out of joint, so fundamentally that time itself is out of joint, even if people do not yet see it. the sheer abundance of injustice creates a situation of fundamental out-of-jointness of the relationships between people, which translates into an out-of-jointness of time, of what kimmerle typifies as the relationship between being (what is) and time (how it is what it is). the out-of-jointness of time includes the way in which time is thought, and has to do with the inadequate way in which the relationship between the present and the absent is thought. thinking this relationship anew would at least be a first step on the way to thinking time differently, in such a way that the out-of-jointness is addressed and even remedied. the remedy would have been found if what is and how it is would be conceived in a way that what is would not be in such a way that it is not. i am referring specifically to the exclusion of africans as what is absent from discourses of what constitutes humanity, as described by ramose (1999). another element of hauntology: the out-of-jointness of time is a condition for contact with the invisible world of spirits (kimmerle 1995:155). the acknowledgement of the spirits could be a condition for an 9 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. alternative politics, of memory of generations of phantoms and their legacy, including marx and chris hani. this would happen in the name of righteousness. the greek word dikè also means to be correctly joined. to remember the phantoms, to revenge the injustice they were subjected to, contribute to bringing justice into being. the third element thus has to do with limits, the ultimate boundary between life and death. memory of ghosts renders porous this boundary. the dead who have suffered injustice return and ask for revenge, to be put in the right, contrary to an unrighteous time. to learn to deal with ghosts includes learning to speak about them, speak against them, and to let them speak – to learn to listen. derrida (quoted in kimmerle 1995:156), with characteristic flair, coins the word ‘’injonctions’ to refer to what ghosts say (command, claim) when the time is out of joint. the third element of hauntology: deal with spirits, stop ignoring/negating them. a fourth element, closely tied to the previous, is the terrifying aspect of the appearance of a ghost. our defence mechanism is to deny its reality. people experience ghosts as haunting them. they desperately try to get rid of them, or to stay out of their way. another defence is religion, in which ghosts are hunted, as happened when religion joined forces with all the other powers of old europe in a holy hunt on communism (kimmerle 1995:156). but, if ghosts appear when the time is out of joint, they will only disappear, and the haunting will cease when religion ceases, as well as all ideological veils and fogs that conceal reality. for marx history is not made by the spirit, but by human beings’ labour in and at history, led by the proletariat’s leaders, the communist party. leninism and stalinism can be traced back to some of these features in marx’s thinking. if the revolution becomes reality, is ceases to have a mere ghostlike existence, when its ghost disappears, so does its spirit. derrida thus thinks a revolution against the revolution, in which the spirit of revolution is preserved (kimmerle 1995:157-158). marx participated in the exorcist-like spirit of the enlightenment in his critique of the fetish character of commodities. money and exchange value have ghostlike existences, independent of the intention of the producers of commodities. marx opposes this by thinking the value of commodities without ghosts or spirits. and the question poses itself, also in reference to the use value of commodities: how to think a positive relation to the ‘invisible world of spirits’? marx wanted to overcome the ghostlike character of things with regard to their exchange value. derrida is en route to a way of thinking in which one can hold on to the spirit of things in the midst of their utility value. kimmerle (1995:159) asks: would the obvious thing to do in this situation not be to look at other cultures (e. g. african culture) when you ask what the things are in themselves, what their own spirit, phantom or ghost might be? from hauntology to a new animism? 10 hofmeyr within the western tradition of thinking the question concerning the being real of ghosts/spirits/phantoms must remain undecided. kant’s ‘cannot know’ with regard to the big metaphysical questions is valid here as well (kimmerle 2001). according to kimmerle (1995:158-159) this attitude can at least be nuanced when a text of ka appiah (1992), for instance, is brought to bear on it. appiah, born and bred in kumasi, ghana, educated in cambridge, retains an ‘invisible ontology’ alongside his critical scientific thinking. sb oluwole (lagos) (1992) is looking for a framework in which the seemingly opposite/antagonistic positions of western science and african spirituality can both be accommodated. the matter-of-fact way in which african thinking maintains the presence of spirits of ancestors in the world of the living might mean something for western thinking concerning ghosts/spirits/phantoms. 4. a new animism? kimmerle (1995:160-162) goes so far as to ask whether a new spectrology could be the framework within which a new animism can be thought. this question arises within an intercultural philosophical dialogue in which an aspect of ‘african culture’ has been considered as positively contributing to a viable form of life, and not as something backward from the point of view of a normative ‘rational’, “developed” or ‘progressive’ position. a new animism would entail reconsidering the question concerning ghosts/spirits/phantoms, in conjunction with the immense disturbance of western humanity’s relationship to nature. it would attempt to think the being of a thing, its ‘soul’, or spirit, in openness to african thinking concerning spirits. in this regard the radical immanence of transcendence must be emphasised (kimmerle 2001:74). in this point african thinking differs from the christian and islamic conceptualisation of spirits. for africans the invisible world of spirits belongs entirely to this earthly and human world. the supreme being is far away and difficult to approach. spirits and ‘gods’ have a mediating function. some persons are more sensitive to the world of spirits than others, and are required to mediate in the contact with this world. but this does not mean that this world is remote. it is an immanent transcendence. in this world different spirits and gods relate to each other as interacting forces. according to gyekye (quoted in kimmerle 2001:74) their relationship (at least in akan thought) should not be conceptualised in terms of a fixed pyramid-lik hierarchy, but as a dynamic whole in which the hierarchy is determined by the interaction of spiritual forces present (or rather active, i propose) at a given time. to this spiritual universe belong also natural things, saturated by life-force. there are forces behind storms, rain, rivers, seas, lakes, fountains, etc. nature is animated. kimmerle is adamant that this 11 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. kind of religiosity is absolutely equal in status to the so-called ‘great’ religious traditions, or ‘world religions’. this, of course is a fundamental revision of tylor’s animism theory. one can venture to say that kimmerle is engaging in language politics by provocatively retaining the thoroughly discredited (on the basis of its evolutionary trappings) term ‘animism’ to refer to african religion. he uses the term ‘tentativ, nicht ohne ironie, mit bewusster provokation’, says kimmerle (personal communication 14.10.2002). ‘animism’ is equal to christianity, islam, judaism, taoism and buddhism (kimmerle 2001:75). belief in spirits might be problematical in radically critical western thinking. but the idea of nature being animated is increasingly plausible on the basis of recent developments in physics and evolutionary biology. in western philosophy, too, there are important points of contact with this kind of animism. kimmerle (2001:75-76) identifies the thought of nietzsche as coming the closest to the conceptions of this kind of animism. for nietzsche ‘life’ is a fundamental category. he proceeds from the conceptualisation of a field of forces that is constituted by the ‘will to power’, and always in the process of being re-organised. however, even in nietzsche nature is not the foundation of the universal force-field in the same matter-of-fact way as in african thinking. but nietzsche might be a good starting point for a widening of the emerging new spectrology to include a new animism, as an attempt of addressing the out-of-jointness of our time, as caused by the destruction of our relationship to nature. this project, however, will also have to remember marx, especially the marx of the parisian manuscripts, written in 1844. in these marx describes the work through which we as humans produce and reproduce our material existence as natural force. work, as natural force, relates within nature to other natural forces. in capital nature becomes mere ‘thing’, to be utilised by human beings according to their own goals. the dormant potencies in nature, the interaction of natural forces, are subjected to human measures. this later view, says kimmerle (2001:76) makes impossible the idea of an animated nature in which humanity must find its proper place. and it is on this point that african thinking represents an alternative view. even if western thinking cannot follow this alternative view, to postulate the equality of this view is not foreign to western thinking. postulating the equality of animism, and african thinking generally, flows from the openness that belongs fundamentally to western thinking as a thinking of the radical question: wer fragt, hat ja nicht bereits die antwort. wer radikal fragt, vermeidet es, eine mögliche antwort zu präjudizieren. er wird für unerwartetes, gerade auch im gespräch mit andersdenkenden, offen sein” (kimmerle 2001:79). [the person who asks does not already have an answer. the person who asks in a radical way, avoids prejudging a possible answer. he will be open to the unexpected, specifically in conversations with different points of view.] from hauntology to a new animism? 12 hofmeyr in a personal discussion with me kimmerle has somewhat revised his call for a new animism, after becoming aware of the persistence of prejudice and conceptual mistakes surrounding the term. he said that he would not answer his own question (a new animism?) directly with a ‘yes’. what we need is not a new animism, but a new evaluation of animism. he continued: was wir im kontext einer ökologischen ethik wirklich brauchen, ist eine neue naturphilosophie. diese kann in interkultureller perspektive von einem dialog mit dem animismus wichtiges lernen: die ehrfurcht vor dem leben konkret und ernshaft aufzufassen (personal communication 14.10.2002). [what we need in the context of an ecological ethics is a new philosophy of nature. this can learn something important within an intercultural perspective from a dialogue with animism: to regard the respect for life seriously.] but first: the call for a new animism can indeed lead to serious misunderstanding. i now confront a ‘positive response’ with a ‘negative response’ by african scholars, and then show how this division is also to be found in environmental ethics. 5. contestations 5.1 the spectre of ‘philosophic racism’ in describing the relationship to spirits in ‘traditional africa’, kimmerle relies heavily on parrinder, who has done most of his research in west africa in the middle of the previous century. the problem here is whether kimmerle is guilty of ‘an uncritical repetition of the tradition of philosophic racism in western philosophy’. this is how ramose (1999:58) typifies de tejada’s characterisation, in an article published in 1960, of the fundamentals of bantu law. ramose agrees with de tejada’s ‘suggestion that the musical conception of the universe can result in two interpretations of the musical rhythm, namely the rational and the emotional’. he, however, ‘definitely disagree[s] with his ascription of the “emotional” as a distinctive feature of bantu law, and, by extension, african philosophy. … his not infrequent use and appropriation of ‘unsere logik’ [our logic], ‘unserer rationalen logik’ [our rational logic], coupled with his express ascription of bantu thought to the ‘magical’ and the emotional, speak to an exclusivism which is psychologically more revealing’. from kimmerle’s conceptualisation of intercultural philosophy it should be clear that nothing would be further from his intention than to describe other cultures in a way that would open him to the kind of charge made by ramose against de tejada. his own proposal shows similarities to systems thinking as employed by ramose: 13 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. understanding thought as a system means recognising it as a whole-ness which includes not only the indivisibility but also the mutual dependence of the ‘rational’ and the ‘emotional’ (ramose 1999:59). kimmerle criticises western thinking for repressing/ignoring/ absenting the ‘other of reason’ and is convinced that a remedy should be sought in opening western philosophy up to african philosophy in which this reduction has not occurred in equal measure. from his interpretation of derrida’s spectres of marx it would seem that his argument also implies an opening up to the result and consequences of the western reduction for other cultures, a result that is equally repressed. a consistent theme in kimmerle’s thinking is the attempt not to think in terms of development/progress. he does this on the basis of his conceptualisation of difference. kimmerle (1997:101) prefers to interpret various evaluations of other cultures (for instance) not in terms of development/progress, but as shifts in which emerges a more adequate evaluation of other cultures within the framework of the general world situation. this position relativises his own conceptualisation of intercultural philosophy: an evaluation of a culture “from an intercultural perspective” is in his view adequate/fitting with regard to the present world situation. this being adequate to the situation simultaneously implies a critical verdict over it. here, too, the equality principle is fundamental. philosophy and art, with regard to the core of their expressions, know no ‘development/progress’, only shifts, a becoming different/other, that is conditioned by their relation to the general world situation. this is a crucial point that cannot be emphasised enough, especially in view of the problematic nature of discourses on cultural difference with regard to the themes of rationality, science, ‘belief’ in spirits, etc. ramose argues that since aristotle reason has been recognised as ‘the distinctive and decisive criterion of the definition of a human being (1999:13). the colonial ‘quest for sameness’ meant indifference to cultural differences as if these were not obstacles to colonisation and christianisation, and concentration on those differences that were. ramose (1999:14) speaks of the ‘epistemological dominance’ assumed by colonisation and christianity, unilaterally conferring on themselves the right to ‘define the meaning of experience, knowledge and truth on behalf of the indigenous african’. the strategy here has been to deny ‘the other’ rationality, and hence to exclude him/her/them from being human. ramose refers to locke, hume, kant and especially hegel in delineating ‘the genealogy of racism as an aspect of the struggle for reason’, and concludes that ‘there is neither a moral basis nor pedagogical justification for the western epistemological paradigm to retain primacy and dominance in decolonised africa’. he says ‘[t]he independent review and construction of knowledge in the light of the unfolding african experience is not only a vital goal, but it is also an act of liberation’ (1999:35-36). from hauntology to a new animism? 14 hofmeyr i read kimmerle’s tentative exploration into an alternative ‘epistemological paradigm’ as congruent with ramose’s project of constructing knowledge in the light of the unfolding african experience. and yet, such is the quicksand of discourses on cultural difference that considerable differences of opinion exist on the usefulness or not of the characterisation of african culture in terms of a particular relationship with and view of the invisible world of spirits, as is evidenced in the following two views. 5.2 african spirituality affirmed pa kalilombe (1994:115), in his description of african spirituality, defines african religion as ‘a way of living in the visible sphere in relation with the invisible world’. this goes hand in hand with the basic holistic and integrating nature of african culture. kalilombe (1994:116-118) does address the question concerning the specifically african nature of african religion, and he acknowledges the profound effects of the revolutionary changes that african culture is currently undergoing. yet, he finds it possible ‘to isolate some basic trends and orientations that form the deeper underlying foundation against and over which the ongoing transformations are struggling’ (1994:118), because the past is the more determinant (1994:119). one such basic trend is the notion that (t)the world of realities consists of two interrelating spheres, the visible and the invisible, of which the visible is in some ways dependent on the invisible (1994:120). in spite of the controversy surrounding the force vitale theory of tempels, he finds that (t)he idea of interacting forces is an enlightening intuition for a proper understanding of this question of the invisible (1994:124). he thus holds that (t)here is a mystical interaction of forces and wills between the two spheres [visible and invisible] (1994:120). he defines the presence of god, which is of a special type, in terms of this interaction: god’s presence asserts itself through the interaction of … the visible and the invisible” (1994:121, italics his). he emphasises the absence of a radical dualism in the way of thinking. the interaction-of-forces ontology explains why the community as interdependence through relationships is the central concept of humanity (1994:122). the primacy of community and cooperation can also be explained in terms of this ontology: 15 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. (t)raditional african life was based in a simple technology with a minimum of ‘scientific’ knowledge of and mastery over the rest of the universe. we should perhaps state it more clearly. the relationship between the human community and the rest of the universe was not conceived of as a project of struggle where human beings would look at the world as an object or an adversary whose nature and working should be investigated and reduced to formulas so as to master and exploit it. rather the universe is seen as a common heritage, its diverse components as potential partners in the shared project of existence. there is, therefore, a feeling of mutual dependence among the different parts: human beings, the animal world, vegetation, the elements, the heavenly bodies, the departed as well as the diffuse forces, visible and invisible, that circulate all around. success in living depends very much on how well these different parts interact, negotiating carefully and ‘respectfully’ the common resources available to all. there is a certain awe, something like a religious attitude, in this interaction: it is as if the whole universe possessed personality, consciousness, sensitivity, and ‘soul’. (kalilombe 1994:123) the governing principle of this whole complex of thinking is the distinction between the visible and the invisible, the latter being that what is beyond the range of ordinary perception. kalilombe distinguishes this category of the ordinary from what he terms the western notion of the supernatural, as behaving contrary to the laws of the mechanical universe. the background notion of the african concept of the invisible is that the whole world of realities (spirits, persons, objects, words, gestures) are bearers of thought and efficacy at two levels: the ordinary, visible one that can be managed without access to special power; and the special mystical one that can be perceived and manipulated only with an enhanced perception and power – what he calls invisible. as forces from the invisible realm influence events in the visible, knowledge of the invisible and the power of dealing with it are of crucial importance for the community (kalilombe 1994:124-125). the spirits of the dead are the central area of the invisible, on account of their superior knowledge of the rules and art of successful living, and their identity formation role. they are also nearer to god, and to ‘the bush’, the realm of the forces of nature, and can thus influence both on behalf of their living relatives (kalilombe 1994:126). conversely, and importantly for ‘hauntology’, the spirits are dependent on the living. they are ‘fed’ through rituals of remembrance. once forgotten they are cut off from the living and linger around as frustrated beings prone to mischief and harm (kalilombe 1994:127). kalilombe identifies two characteristic elements of african spirituality: (f)irst, the consciousness that individuals and the community are committed to an ever-present struggle against menacing evil if life is to be worth living; and secondly, that in this struggle the decisive key is the availability of assistance from the invisible (1994:128). from hauntology to a new animism? 16 hofmeyr this is a good exposition of ‘the kind of spirituality that one can deduce from african traditional culture’ (kalilombe 1994:130) in its standard form. but to understand the present state of african spirituality, one has to take into account the radical culture change in the wake of colonialism and globalisation dominated by the west, a change that has seen the traditional culture practically discredited, or demonised. colonialism … inflicted a loss of independence on the native cultures. new norms and customs were imposed on the people in such a way that they had to live and act in conformity with a foreign worldview. it was continually impressed on them that their own culture was not valid: it was primitive, pagan, and retrograde. if they wanted to move forward, then they had to abandon it and adopt the civilized way of life of the west. clinging to their own traditional culture was going to keep them backward and incapable of functioning successfully in the modern world (kalilombe 1994:131) kimmerle’s concept of intercultural philosophy does not accept this discrediting and mobilise thinking against it, by thinking equality on the basis of a particular conceptualisation of difference. in kalilombe’s analysis the ability to ‘modernise’ (even though this was enforced on all) was not equally available to all. the large majority are ‘left behind, trying to cope with the new situation as best they can’ (kalilombe 1994:131). a measure of survival is a struggle, and whatever is available is used: some remnants of the traditional culture still familiar to them, and bits and pieces of the new system. the struggle is an unfair one, and people become increasingly powerless in the face of modern forces. the draw cards of modern life are too strong to resist, and those who are forced to fall back on traditional culture do so out of desperation. kalilombe makes a list of africa’s woes, and then asks: how does all this tally with traditional culture and spirituality? (1994:132). this question is asked within the context of neocolonialism, with its basic fact that the economy of the south is subsidiary to the north, the former being ‘in practice the dependent and servant member’. the increased poverty and powerlessness of the majority of africans does not mean that all groups/individuals are poor. pockets of power and privilege exist side by side with extreme poverty and disadvantage. traditional society certainly knew poverty, injustice, jealousy and suffering. then he goes on to point out: but there is a radical difference, nonetheless, a difference not simply of magnitude, but rather of basic structure and orientation – a difference in spirituality (kalilombe 1994:132). this different spirituality is based on a different worldview and governed by a different set of values and priorities: 17 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. central to this spirituality is the supremacy of the value of acquiring, possessing, multiplying, and enjoying material goods by individuals (kalilombe 1994:133). kalilombe implies that initiatives that promote human well-being and proclaim the sacred value of the human person should recognise african spirituality as a potential ally in the struggle against the colonial legacy: in our present world, cultures of greed and violence are creating death while people long for peace, security and joy. it may be that simple spiritualities, based on more human and humane values, like those coming from the weak and poor nations of the world, are the hopeful reserves for humanity’s future survival (1994:134-135). i take the following from kalilombe: ‘there is a mystical interaction of forces and wills’ between the spheres of the invisible and the invisible. the dominant rationality that willed the invalidation of africa is not neutral but driven by the will to possess. african spirituality, as it existed before colonialism, cannot be restored, but re-evaluated within the context of looking for alternatives to the dominant culture of greed and violence. 5.3 african spirituality as false consciousness jean-marie makang (1997:336) also produces a litany of africa’s woes: unproductivity and deficient management, the squandering of common patrimony and national resources, injustice, oppression, exploitation, irrational choices detrimental to the well-being and emancipation of african people, bad distribution of political power, including its personalisation and confiscation within a few hands. he also looks for an adequate response to this sorry state of affairs. he (1997:335) propagates as an alternative to the two extremes of either archaism or ‘capitulation to mass culture, secreted by western capitalism’, a view of tradition as ‘regulating utopia” (fabian eboussi), as an ideology of society, permeating all fields of knowledge and all institutions of society, yielding concrete effects in society (kwame nkrumah). this implies pointing out common references in particular contexts in which africans and african-descended peoples daily construct societies. he defines ‘common reference’ as ‘a system of ideas, ideals, thought, opinions, values, beliefs, representations, aspirations, or attitudes which bind members of a group together in a common praxis which is geared toward a common purpose (eboussi 1997:336). he also uses the terms ‘community of destiny’ (destiny is ‘the tension that allows a tradition to renew itself while it perpetuates itself’ (makang 1997:330)) and ‘living tradition’. the latter ‘is neither a repetition of practices and customs of the past, nor a dream of “the origin” or of a “lost paradise”, but is meant to provide a utopian model of action, a from hauntology to a new animism? 18 hofmeyr mobilizing ideal’. this last sentence is the culmination of an extremely sharp critique of the vital force ontology of placide tempels and his followers. makang concentrates on three problematical aspects of this ethnological approach, all three aspects of the mystification of tradition: the problem of historicity: the dynamic ontology, as expounded by tempels, is unhistorical in that it denies the evolution of the bantu world-view. the ‘bush-people’ are for tempels the only authentic bantu, on account of not having been spoiled by european modernity. this amounts to the praise of the past over and against the present, of archaism over and against progress, of the good soul over and against technical and material improvement, [tradition as nostalgia, dead tradition] (makang 1997:327). the universe on which this tradition rests is mythical, and thus does not affect the ordering of things in the present, and cannot empower contemporary africans to gain control over their own destiny. the ethnological discourse is characterised by emphasising the difference of the african people from the western world as essential to understanding african mentality. it consciously or unconsciously complies with the eurocentric discourse that denies any other place for africans in the history of humanity apart from the one assigned to them through inclusion into the destiny of europe – du bois’s appendix idea. apart from being mythical, the tradition has also been deadly compromised by the intrusion of the western world … defeated and marginalized by the present world order (makang 1997:328). it will only survive by adapting itself to new historical situations, by learning from other traditions, assimilating from them those elements that can contribute to its revitalisation. the problem of generalisation: the bantu dynamic ontology is construed from a particular behaviour, observed in a specific ethnic group, and then without further ado presumed valid for all africans. the reverse also happens. a general feature, applicable to most of humanity, is defined as specifically african. and what is ‘africa’ in any case but a common geographical entity? african tradition or identity is a construction undertaken according to the needs of people. the problem of presumed african particularity (culturalism): the ethnological discourse has reduced african traditions and identity to culture, whereby culture is synonymous with folklore. (folklore) designates only artistic productions and external manifestations of negro-africans’ emotional life, primarily in music, dances, and rituals (makang 1997:330). 19 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. in the process african traditions are rendered a marginalised domain of african life in the contemporary global society. paulin hountondji has coined the term ‘culturalism’ to describe this reduction. makang calls it an ideology in the marxian sense. it is used ‘to divert the attention of african people from the most crucial problems which confront them today, and which are political and economic in nature’ (1997:330). during colonial times culturalism gave priority to the demand for cultural recognition over national liberation. in postcolonial times it is misused to divert the african masses and revolutionary forces … from gaining true social consciousness and from organizing themselves for effective class struggle against their indigenous and foreign oppressors (makang 1997:331). cultural rehabilitation, or the rehabilitation of the humanity of african people, must be part and parcel of political liberation, as it is in the conceptualisation of ‘negritute’ by aimé césaire, as opposed to that of senghor. makang (1997:332) thus does employ a positive concept of cultural difference, one that proceeds from the fundamental assumption of equality. for the present context makang’s argument is especially relevant where he links the discourse on cultural difference with the strategy, in the interest of continued western control, to prevent africans from acquiring ‘what they lacked and needed most in order to become equal to the west’, namely political self-determination and technical efficiency. the latter, gaining control over natural forces, is the reason for the superiority of ‘the white man’ (makang 1997:332). tempels never questioned belgian colonial domination of africans, while acknowledging technological mastery as the reason for africans’ recognition of ‘the white man’ as a superior force, surpassing the vital force of africans. yet, when modern africans coveted this technique, they were reminded that it is not the technique or material success but the good soul that makes a great man (makang 1997:334). for tempels, says makang, (t)he contribution of the african people to civilization is conceived neither in terms of scientific and technical efficiency, nor in terms of industry building or state building, but in terms of preserving a mystical and a moral view of the world (1997:334). thus, he is more interested in learning from the west ‘the secret of their superiority over us in recent history’, of which key elements are ‘technical know-how, efficient organization, discipline, unity, and effective domination over one’s physical and social environment’ (1997:334). the problem with the dynamic ontology of vital force is that this force belongs to the realm of dreams and the imagination, and has no impact upon physical reality. as such it can be used as opium to perpetuate the domination of africans. from hauntology to a new animism? 20 hofmeyr makang (1997:335) does not argue merely for the acquisition by africans of technology, but for taking over the technological worldview, to give up viewing the world in terms of vital force. it would seem that he actually concurs with tempels’ analysis, while rejecting his advocacy for the retention of such an ontology, as this would impact negatively on ‘our quest for realization of a better humanity’. in this quest: african people need to acquire this fundamental disposition according to which it is their essential mission as human beings to dominate and transform nature in order to acquire a maximum freedom from necessity and want, instead of perceiving themselves as people meant to live in communion with nature (makang 1997:335). thus, argues makang, on the basis of his reading of marx: the primary quality of the human being, as marx shows, consists in transforming nature in order to impose one’s seal upon it (1997:335). this view determines his concept of culture, as opposed to that of culturalism: culture, understood as the construction of artefacts upon nature in order to create a human habitat, is an essential vocation of the human being (1997:335). is this the marx of capital or of the parisian manuscripts? there is some indication that makang would be open to further dialogue when he says his concept of culture is also critical: the domination of nature should at the same time avoid ‘the human tendency’, to seek infinity and to overcome or negate one’s contingence. however, a critique of the instrumental view of nature is lacking here. no new animism is to be conceptualised on the basis of this instrumental view of nature. the point that must be made from an intercultural philosophical point of view, in terms of the concept of difference presupposed, is that the appropriate philosophy for a particular situation is not necessarily fitting for another. it might well be that in one situation the call for domination of nature is appropriate while in another a shift has occurred where the domination itself must be brought under control. from the latter perspective the very fact that memories are still available of people who have interacted with nature in an alternative way could prove significant. to make such a point for a particular audience does not imply that one is prescriptive with regard to another audience. the question would then be whether a particular philosophical position is appropriate for its context. entering into philosophical dialogues would under the conditions of a global world seem an appropriate response. dialogue presupposes equality, mutual respect, but also openness for critique, provided it goes both ways. one will then have to ask what concept of utopia is appropriate for a particular african context. and concrete institutions will have to be interrogated with regard to their ability to act as revolutionary forces in conjunction 21 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. with ‘the african masses’. but the attempt to re-evaluate animism can learn much from makang. we will presently be reminded by bookchin, too, that ecological problems have their roots in social problems. 5.3 from epistemology to ethics can highly complex societies really learn anything from african cultures or are we exoticising? leonhard praeg (2000) has argued that the problems we experience with ethnophilosophy should not be allowed to kill ethnophilosophy. he specifically addresses the paradox that ubuntu, as something that characterises african philosophy, disqualifies the aim of a separate philosophy autonomy. he eventually proposes that ethnophilosophy shifts from epistemology to ethics. this shift will allow an overcoming of the solipsistic ego ergo sum, as well as of a romanticised nostalgic ‘i am because we are’. the proper expression according to praeg would be ‘we are as if we were’. applied to animism, as positively viewing everything as related and worthy of respect, which includes the possibility of a more comprehensive sense of community, this shift entails a moving away from the problematical ethnophilosophical nostalgia to an ethical view of the world, as it really is, and therefore should be. what does it still have to do with africa, and with the dialogue with african philosophers? extended ubuntu, is the ecological community, as injunction. the ethnophilosopher senghor had no doubt about africa’s essential contribution to the civilisation of the universal, which will be monstrous unless it is seasoned with the salt of negritude (quoted in praeg 2000:191). the cultivation of negritude is thus justified as a contribution to a universal civilisation. praeg identifies the contradiction incurred by senghor. the particular african contribution must be cultivated, and yet it is already known that this contribution will be worthwhile, will be vital. this is the same problem that charles taylor has identified with regard to the thesis concerning the equality of cultures. i have tried to address this problem in a previous paper by substituting the ‘equality of cultures’ with the ‘equal validity’ of cultures (hofmeyr 2004). praeg reaches a similar conclusion to kimmerle’s notion of the discursive non-availability of universals, a state of affairs that legitimises the particular as such, and articulates the relation between ethics and ethnicity, as described by miller: what is ethical would be a dialectical relationship between a transcendental truth and respect for the other, for difference. a self relating to itself has few ethical problems. in this sense, there is no real ethics without ethnicity (quoted in praeg 2000:132). from hauntology to a new animism? 22 hofmeyr the problem addressed by praeg (2000:134) is that: (a commitment to africa’s particularity and performative difference is) faced with the paradox or dilemma that short of circumventing the historical invention of africa with the aim of de-colonising and re-establishing its autonomy through a final act of liberation, [the] narratives that aim at reinventing africa only have recourse to the very discourses that invented it and made its oppression possible. and: the difference needed in order to sustain african philosophy is exactly the difference that needs to be undermined by it (praeg 2000:194). the particularity of african philosophy is ubuntu, but to maintain itself in the face of colonialism and oppression, it must assert western style autonomy (see makang’s argument above). praeg does both: he radicalises the critique of ethnophilosophy as exoticism, and he also recovers ethnophilosophy’s ‘dyadic logic as probably the first significant and positive contribution to/of african philosophy’ (2000:207). this implies ceasing to think of the autonomy of african philosophy in epistemological terms, but rather in ethical terms, transcending the epistemological through the fictional, the phenomenological dialectic between the essential and the imaginary through the ethical – affirming the as if that historically has and always will constitute the african self; africa is, means replacing both the solipsistic certitude of the cartesian ego and the nostalgia of the traditional i am because we are with a contemporary identity that is neither prior to nor postthe truth/fiction divide but irreverent of it; a celebration, instead, of the awareness that we are as if we were (praeg 2000:211). we are, as if we were human persons, who have the ability to relate in such a way to other persons, including non-human persons, that an in-between can emerge, in-between me and the tree, the hill, the river, the rock, the other human person. 6. new animism and environmental philosophy 6.1 deep ecology the issue i want to explicitly take up now is the implication of a reevaluated animism for ecophilosophy and environmental ethics. few have worked out the implications of one such a reformulation of ‘animism’ more profoundly than the environmental philosopher arne naess, the ‘father’ of deep ecology. he formulates as the first of eight points held in common by supporters of the deep ecology movement: 23 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. the well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherently worth). these values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes (naess 1993:412). according to naess, the ecosphere forms a whole and includes individuals, species, populations, habitat, as well as human and nonhuman cultures: given our current knowledge of all-pervasive intimate relationships, this implies a fundamental concern and respect. ‘life’ thus includes non-living entities, biologically speaking – rivers, landscapes, ecosystems. naess formulates the main principle of what he calls ‘ecosophy’: ’maximize (long-range, universal) self-realization!’: i do not use this expression in any narrow, individualistic sense. i want to give it an expanded meaning based on the distinction between a large comprehensive self and a narrow egoistic self as conceived of in certain eastern traditions of atman. this large comprehensive self … embraces all the life-forms on the planet (and elsewhere?) together with their individual selves (jivas) (naess 1993:418). the second term of ecosophy formulated by naess is’maximize (long range, universal) diversity!’: a corollary is that the higher the levels of self-realization attained by any person, the more any further increase depends upon the self-realization of others. increased self-identity involves increased identification with others. ‘altruism’ is a natural consequence of this identification (naess 1993:420). this leads to a hypothesis concerning an inescapable increase of identification with other beings when one’s own self-realization increases. as a result, we increasingly see ourselves in other beings, and others see themselves in us. in this way, the self is extended and deepened as a natural process of the realization of its potentialities in others. the resultant ‘joyful sharing and caring’ is linked by naess (1993:420) to kant’s concept of ‘beautiful actions’, actions in which duty and inclination coincide. this insight shows an affinity with kimmerle’s use of the concept ‘achtung’ (respect and reverence) in stead of ‘tolerance’ or ‘respect’. 6.2 social ecology amongst neass’ critics, the most vitriolic might be the social ecologist murray bookchin: from hauntology to a new animism? 24 hofmeyr ‘deep ecology’ was spawned among well-to-do people who have been raised on a spiritual diet of eastern cults mixed with hollywood and disneyland fantasies. the american mind is formless enough without burdening it with ‘biocentric’ myths of a buddhist and taoist belief in a universal “oneness” so cosmic that human beings with all their distinctiveness dissolve into an all-encompassing form of ‘biocentric equality’. reduced to merely one lifeform among many, the poor and the impoverished either become fair game for outright extermination if they are socially expendable, or they become objects of brutal exploitation if they can be used to aggrandize the corporate world. accordingly, terms like ‘oneness’ and ‘biocentric democracy’ go handin-hand with a pious formula for human oppression, misery, and even extermination … to declare, as arne naess, the pontiff of ‘deep ecology’, has done, that the ‘basic principles of the deep ecology movement lie in religion or philosophy’, is to make a conclusion notable for its absence of reference to social theory (bookchin 1995:229-230). and that, i submit, is the crux: is derrida ‘saint jacques’ for siding with saint max stirner? (see bedggood 1999). is heinz kimmerle’s notion of a new animism sufficiently protected from its degeneration into an atavistic, simple-minded form of nature religion peopled by gods, goddesses, and eventually a new hierarchy of priests and priestesses (bookchin 1995:230)? bookchin says: (t)he clear-sighted naturalism to which ecology so vividly lends itself is now in danger of being supplanted by a supernatural outlook that is inherently alien to nature’s own fecundity and self-creativity (bookchin1995:203). according to him natural evolution exhibits a wonderful power of its own to generate a rich variety of living beings. we need not people it with ‘earth gods and goddesses’. he asks whether it is not the crudest form of anthropocentrism (the projection of the human into the natural) ‘to introduce deified forms created by the human imagination into the natural world in the name of ecological ‘spirituality’…’, and continues: to worship or revere any being, natural or supernatural, will always be a form of self-subjugation and servitude that ultimately yields social domination, be it in the name of nature, society, gender, or religion. more than one civilization was riddled by ‘‘nature deities” that were cynically used by ruling elites to support the most rigid, oppressive, and dehumanizing of social hierarchies. the moment human beings fall to their knees before any thing that is “higher” than themselves, hierarchy will have made its first triumph over freedom, and human backs will be exposed to all the burdens that can be inflicted on them by social domination (bookchin 1995:203) kimmerle (1995:159) refers to schmidt’s work on the concept of nature in the work of marx. in this book the following quotation can be read, the words of the worker-philosopher joseph dietzgen addressed to marx: 25 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. you formulate for the first time in clear, forceful and scientific terms what will be from now on the conscious tendency of historical development, namely, to subject the natural power of the societal processes of production, until now conceived as blind, to human consciousness’ (quoted in schmidt 1974:136). schmidt (1974:210-211) agrees that the transition from the young marx to the critique of political economy has been an expensive affair. marx’s important contribution has been the reversal of the idea of the mediatedness of all unmediated against its idealistic form. but some idealistic hubris has to continue working in marx that an entity is nothing in itself, but mere material for praxis. this goes against the tendency of marx’s work, the ‘resurrection of nature’, ‘humanisation of nature’, or ‘naturalisation of humanity’. schmidt recommends as remedy a reconsideration of the emancipatory role of human nature and the liberating power of sensuality in the work of the young marx. what is needed, and will determine human survival, is the development of a concept of rationality that reconciles the total emancipation of the gattung with the vital interests of individuals. bookchin (1995) interprets marx in similar vein: nature must surrender to a conquering active-aggressive humanity. the natural world is a taskmaster that must be controlled. deep ecologists assume the reverse of exactly the same humanity is dominated by nature that must be obeyed. social ecology claims to escape from this trap by re-examining the concept of domination. bookchin holds that animals do not ‘dominate’ each other in the same way that a human elite dominates an oppressed social group. this shows that society, far from being the metaphysical opposition to nature, is one with nature in a graded evolutionary continuum on the basis of the extent to which human beings embody the creativity of nature. they do not merely adapt, but create, expressing nature’s own powers of creativity. natural history is a cumulative evolution toward ever more varied, differentiated, and complex forms and relationships.according to bookchin the question is not the opposition of natural and social evolution, but how social evolution can be situated in natural evolution and why it has been thrown against natural evolution – needlessly and to the detriment of life as a whole: if social evolution is seen as the potentiality for expanding the horizon of natural evolution along unprecedented creative lines, and human beings are seen as the potentiality for nature to become self-conscious and free, the issue we face is why these potentialities have been warped and how they can be realized. … whatever has turned human beings into ‘aliens’ in nature are social changes that have made many human beings ‘aliens’ in their own social world: the domination of the young by the old, or women by men, and of men by men. today, as for many centuries in the past, there are still oppressive human beings who literally own society and others who are owned by it. until society can be reclaimed by an undivided humanity … all ecological problems will have their roots in social problems (bookchin 1995:232). from hauntology to a new animism? 26 hofmeyr it is against the background of bookchin’s insistence on social theory, and his thinking of humanity as having a place in nature, of nature itself becoming self-consciousness in human consciousness, that i now turn to the originator of the animism-theory, eb tylor. 7. old animism it is significant that tylor ([1873] 1979) uses the term animism to refer to a spiritualistic philosophy that he opposes to a materialistic philosophy. he says: (t)he deepest of all religious schisms [is] that which divides animism from materialism (tylor 1979:19). he would have used the term ‘spiritualism’ if this term were not already associated with what he calls a particular modern sect. animism thus means the general belief in spiritual beings. tylor develops his theory of animism as a hypothesis concerning the origin of religion. one reason why the term carries such negative baggage is the evolutionary framework within which tylor situates it. a few quotations should reveal the general trend: ‘animism characterizes tribes very low in the scale of humanity’; ‘animism is … the groundwork of the philosophy of religion, from that of savages up to that of civilized men’; ‘one great element of religion, that moral element which among the higher nations forms its most vital part, is indeed little represented in the religion of the lower races’, and so on (tylor 1979:11). it should be clear that any talk of ‘a new animism’, or any re-evaluation of animism, will not take over any of the vulgar evolutionary view with which the original theory was joined at the hip. for tylor, animism entailed: the belief that human beings have souls that can have an existence independent of the human body; the belief that animals have souls that make it possible for humans to communicate with them, although, from the ‘evidence’ cited by tylor, it would seem that these souls are quite easy to cajole; the belief in a ‘theory of separable and surviving souls or spirits belonging to sticks and stones, weapons, boats, food, clothes, ornaments, and other objects which to us are not merely soulless but lifeless’ (tylor 1979:17). it must be noted that the assessment of animism as primitive, was, in accordance with the views of august comte, used by tylor to describe the 27 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. ‘primary mental condition of mankind’ as a state of ‘pure fetishism, constantly characterized by the free and direct exercise of our primitive tendency to conceive all external bodies soever, natural or artificial, as animated by a life essentially analogous to our own, with mere differences of intensity’ (comte, quoted in tylor 1979:18). a new animism differs with tylor at this point. the system of interrelated forces, the dynamic whole of spiritual forces, the spiritual universe, to which natural things belong, as participating in life-force (kimmerle 1995:162) must thus be conceived without the prejudices of a scientific modernism, or classical science. 8. animism revisited in 1999 current anthropology published a paper by nurit bird-david in which she argues that even so-called primitive animism was misunderstood by tylor and others and that it can be refigured as a relational epistimology. her approach shows an affinity with kimmerle’s criterion of adequacy: the perspective to be employed is presented not as more valid than any other but as one now needed in studies of the complex phenomena which tylor denoted as ‘animism’” (bird-david 1999:68). i follow bird-david’s argument in support of kimmerle’s clarification of his original call for a ‘new animism’. we do not need a new animism, but a re-evaluation of the phenomenon that has gone by the name animism, since at least tylor. in her review of the ‘textual conversation’ on animism to date (tylor, durkheim, lévi-strauss and guthrie) she shows how positivistic ideas about the meaning of ‘nature’, ‘life’ and ‘personhood’ made it impossible for these attempts to understand the local concepts. these theoreticians attributed their own modernist ideas of self to “primitive peoples” while asserting that the “primitive peoples” read their idea of self into others! (birddavid 1999:68). she points out that tylor, whose monograph primitive cultures (published in 1871) was rewarded with the first chair in anthropology at a british university, never did primary research in the localities that he theorised about. he relied on second-hand accounts of ‘primitive people’ and had his own direct experiences at spiritualist séances in london where he investigated what he called ‘modern spiritualism’. he read the literature on ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ people with his first-hand knowledge of séances and his supposition that the latter is a remnant of the former allowed him to use the terms “spirit” and ‘soul’ and ‘ghost’ in his conceptualisation of ‘primitive’ animism. from hauntology to a new animism? 28 hofmeyr as a rationalist tylor rejected the ‘appearance’ of spirits at séances as a delusion, and thus ‘primitive animism’ as delusionary. the concept of spirit/soul/ghost used by tylor was firstly dualistic – every person had a body and a ‘ghost-soul’ that was a ‘thin unsubstantial human image’, ‘the cause of life or thought in the individual it animates’ and ‘capable of leaving the body far behind’. it also continued to exist and appear after the death of the body (tylor, quoted in bird-david 1999:69). secondly, as indicated by durkheim, tylor identified the mind of a child with that of a ‘primitive’. thinking like a child the ‘primitive’ endows even inanimate things with a nature analogous to his own. bird-david makes the point that: tylor read into the primitive view the modernist spiritualist understanding of ‘one’s own nature,’ not the primitive’s or the child’s sense of ‘his own nature’ (1999:69). lévi-strauss criticised the theories of tylor and durkheim for placing indigenous peoples on the nature side of the dualistic split between nature and culture. but according to bird-david (1999:70), although he correctly put them on the culture side, he retained the split and located it inside the savage mind of indigenous peoples. this was not an explanation of animism but explaining it away. exploring an alternative interpretation along the lines of personhood concepts and ecological perception, bird-david (1999:70) starts with the work of irving hallowell. he has found that the ojibwa of northern canada have a different sense of personhood from the modernist one. the latter restricts the category ‘person’ to this side of the humannonhuman divide, whereas the former conceives of ‘person’ as an overarching category with subcategories including human person, animal person, wind person, etc. hallowell, says bird-david, not only frees the study of animism from modernist presuppositions, but also from the assessment that animistic notions and practices are erroneous. she pursues his insights further through ethnographic material that she has collected during fieldwork amongst the nayaka, a hunter-gatherer community of a forested part of south india. she wants to understand the senses of what the nayaka call devaru, a concept that remains enigmatic to positivistic thought. devaru are neither spirits, if spirits are part of the spirit-body dualism that characterises the modern person-concept, nor supernatural beings, if the ‘nature’ in ‘supernature’ is conceived along western lines. bird-david (1999:71) introduces the concept ‘superpersons’ to denote persons with extra powers, and then allows this concept to acquire meaning by describing devaru in local contexts. referring to a common practice in south asian scholarship, she uses the term ‘dividual’ as ‘a person constitutive of relationships’ in distinction to the western notion of an individual as ‘a single separate entity’. to dividuate would then mean to be 29 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. conscious of the relatedness with my interlocutor as i engage with her, attentive to what she does in relation to what i do, to how she talks and listens to me as i talk and listen to her, to what happens simultaneously and mutually to me, to her, to us (bird-david 1999:72). she argues that the nayaka do not individuate, but dividuate other beings in their environment: they are attentive to, and work towards making, relatedness. as they move and generally act in the environment, they are attentive to mutual behaviors and events. and: they make their personhood by producing and reproducing sharing relationships with surrounding beings, humans and others (bird-david 1999:73). they appreciate that they share the local environment with such beings, which, different as they are, constitute a we-ness together with the human members of this relationship. devaru are beings that are absorbed into this we-ness: by maintaining relationships with other local beings to reproduce their personhood, nayaka reproduce the devaru-ness of the other beings with whom they share. … these relationships constitute the particular beings as devaru” (bird-david 1999:73). bird-david summarises this part of her argument: (t)he devaru objectify sharing relationships between nayaka and other beings. a hill devaru, say, objectifies nyaka relationships with the hill; it makes known the relationships between nayaka and that hill. nayaka maintain social relationships with other beings not because, as tylor holds, they a priori consider them persons. as and when and because they engage in and maintain relationships with other beings, they constitute them as kinds of person: they make them “relatives” by sharing with them and thus make them persons. they do not regard them as persons and subsequently some of them as relatives, as durkheim maintains. in some basic sense of this complex notion, devaru are relatives in the literal sense of being “that or whom one interrelates with” (not in the reduced modern english sense of “humans connected with others by blood or affinity” [the shorter oxford english dictionary 1973]). they are superrelatives who both need and can help nayaka in extraordinary ways (bird-david 1999:73). gibson’s ecological approach to visual perception is used to describe the way in which devaru are known. according to this view meaning is not imposed on things (see the reference to adorno’s critique of epistemology above), but discovered in the course of action. information is picked up from the environment by means of attention. gibson has it that this attention is ‘a skill that can be educated’ (quoted in birddavid 1999:74), and knowing is developing this skill. stories and models of things, words and pictures are aids to perceiving and not themselves knowledge. they facilitate knowing, induce an awareness of being in the world, and never copy or represent reality. bird-david applies this approach to the nayaka: from hauntology to a new animism? 30 hofmeyr their attention is educated to dwell on events. they are attentive to the changes of things in the world in relation to changes in themselves (birddavid 1999:74). relative variances in the flux of interrelatedness of different kinds of persons are interpreted as manifestations of devaru in specific situations. at regular devaru performances (that involve what in modernist language would be termed ‘spirit-possession’) devaru are ‘made alive’, which means raising people’s awareness of their existence in-the-world and, dialectically, producing and being produced by this, socializing with them (bird-david 1999:77). bird-david’s (1999:77-78) argument culminates in a description of animism as a relational epistemology, a ‘talking with trees’ alternative to the modernist epistemology that would involve knowing a forest through ‘cutting trees into parts’. ‘talking with’ means a two-way responsive relatedness with a tree (for instance) with the possibility of the emergence of mutual responsiveness and even mutual responsibility. knowing in modernist epistemology is ‘having, acquiring, applying, and improving representations of things in-the-world’, while the animistic way of knowing entails ‘developing the skills of being inthe-world with other things’, ‘understanding relatedness from a related point of view within the shifting horizons of the related viewer’. both these ways of knowing are real and valid, and each has strengths and limits. in his ‘comment’ on bird-david’s paper tim ingold (1999:82) elaborates further on the concept of a two-way relatedness to components of the environment (e. g. trees) that results from a longstanding intimate engagement with them. talking with a tree does not constitute an erroneous attribution of an inner intelligence that exists prior to interaction. it rather means responsiveness as ‘a kind of sensory participation, a coupling of the movement of one’s attention to the movement of aspects of the world’. the intelligence at work here would not lie inside the head of the human actor, nor in the fabric of the tree. ‘rather it is immanent in the total system of perception and action constituted by the co-presence of the human and the tree within a wider environment’ (ingold 1999:82). in her ‘response’ to ingold and others, bird-david refers to martin buber’s i-thou concept that specifically also includes animals, trees, objects of nature and god. she quotes friedman’s formulation of the role of the in-between in buber’s i-thou: i-thou … cut[s] across the lines of our ordinary distinctions to focus our attention not upon individual objects and their casual connections but upon the relations between things, the dazwischen (there-in-between), (bird-david 1999:87) 31 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. the point bird-david (1999:87) makes is not that relational ways of knowing do not exist within the context of the modern state and its institutions, but that they are not given sufficient authority, as is the case in nayaka culture. it is thus a matter of giving authority, and a call for the giving of authority to relational epistemologies. what kind of epistemology is now needed becomes a matter of ethics. 9. bookchin revisited a few months after the death of the ‘founder’ of social ecology, the great murray bookchin,3 i want to honour his memory by further exploring his argument against spirits and the ‘supernatural’ in general. it is significant to note that social ecology as originally conceived by bookchin included the insights derived from an exploration of what he calls preliterate ‘organic societies’. these societies are called organic “because of their intense solidarity internally and with the natural world” (bookchin 1991:44). these societies existed before hierarchy and capitalism emerged and bookchin’s interest in them is informed by the conviction that contemporary radical ecological politics can learn from their ‘nonhierarchical sensibilities, practices, values and beliefs’. he positively took up into social ecology the principle of the irreducible minimum, by which organic society guaranteed to everyone the material means of life; its commitment to usufruct rather than the ownership of property; its ethics of complementarity, as distinguished from a morality of command and obedience (bookchin 1991:xiv). his approach to inbetweenity involves the integration of the principles and values of organic society with the rationality, science and large parts of the technology of the modern world. the latter, however, would be redesigned ‘to promote humanity’s integration with the nonhuman world’. he thus has a selective integration in mind that would form ‘the overarching practices of an entirely new society and sensibility (bookchin 1991:xiv). bookchin originally also examined organic society’s religions and cosmologies, including what he calls ‘its mythic personalizations of animals and animal spirits … and its overall animistic outlook’. but he 3 he died on 30 july 2006 of complications of a malfunctioning aortic valve in vermont, usa. he was 85 years old. from hauntology to a new animism? 32 hofmeyr never believed that we could or should introduce their naïve religious, mythic, or magical beliefs or their cosmologies into the present-day ecology movement (bookchin 1991:xv). and yet, according to his interpretation that is exactly what happened in new ecologies such as deep ecology and ecological animism that has emerged since the first publication of the ecology of freedom in 1982. he dismisses these approaches as ‘mystical ecology’ that threatens the integrity of the rational ecology movement. the latter tries to balance reason and technology with organic thinking and spirituality (bookchin 1991:xvi). bookchin’s concern is that ‘these practices’ (and the list is much longer as the instances mentioned here) are cop-outs because they do not deal with the authentic problems of our time, which, for social ecology, are social problems from which ecological problems spring. the main problem is that capitalism has become more than just an economy. it is a society (bookchin 1991:xviii). in capitalism as a society people have come to resemble the commodities that they produce and consume. fragmentation has become an ideology. capitalist society has nothing to fear from mystical ecologies: (i)t is profit, power, and economic expansion that primarily concerns the elites of the existing social order, not the antics or even the protests of dissenters who duel with ghosts instead of institutionalized centers of power, authority and wealth (bookchin 1991:xix). bookchin understand ‘nature’ as an evolutionary development that should be conceived as an aeons-long process of ever-greater differentiation, up to the emergence of organic and sentient beings. (it is) a cumulative evolutionary process from the inanimate to the animate and ultimately the social, however differentiated this process may be (bookchin 1991:xx). the principal distinction made by bookchin (1991:xxi) is between first nature (non-human) and second nature as the social nature created by human beings. he emphasises that this distinction is not a separation, but reflects two developments of ‘nature-as-a-whole’. the use of the terms first and second nature is also to be found in the negative dialectics of adorno who strongly influenced bookchin. adorno (1980) describes society as second nature, and one sense of this is negative, that society that is supposed to be the product of the history of freedom, becomes nature according to the dialectics of enlightenment. society is reified. in this context the negative implication of second nature is that the whole is the lie (against hegel). the problem is how to get out, because it is the whole. bookchin himself has suggested the exploration of ‘non-identical’ (adorno’s term, not bookchin’s) organic societies. heinz kimmerle works more with the simultaneousness of such 33 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. societies with westerners whose glasses have cracked to such an extent that they cannot see a thing. they must be told what it is that they cannot see, as a blind person would listen to a seeing person describing a landscape or a scene. if the non-identical interlocutors would now say ‘spirit’, imagine a blind person saying ‘you can’t be serious, it is impossible to see spirits, spirits do not exist’ and go on to rant about how ridiculous and harmful it is to believe in spirits, and that secularism is the only solution. kimmerle (1985:92) has dealt elsewhere with what would be happening here: the view that europe with its order is superior to wild and chaotic africa has its roots in europe’s own myths. remember tylor at the london séances, and then going home to write about animistic africans! kimmerle involves heidegger: onto-theology is a combination of the greek idea that the being of the cosmos finds its unity in the gods, and jewish monotheism with its idea of direction through a single history. to that was added the logic of aristotle with its metaphysical principle that everything must be subjected to an external order (see hofmeyr 2005:58). bookchin’s reaction to spirit-talk might be mistaken for the anxiety experienced by europeans when confronted with the threat of the regression into mythical times. the point is that he might be reading his own repressed ghosts into what is intended by ecological animists. back to the metaphor: hopefully the blind person will be sufficiently conscious of her helpnessness that she continues to listen, and that her non-identical interlocutor would be sufficiently patient to lead her to the tree so that she can feel the texture of the bark and experience the coolness of its shade and hear the wind rustling the leaves, knowing that it is the wind rustling the leaves and angles passing through. compare our poet breyten breytenbach’s (1977:206) poem: [‘n man] moet weet as die wind deur die olyfbome waai dat dit die wind is wat deur die olyfbome waai en engele op reis. the wind, invisible energy, is muya in venda and moya in zulu and spirits are muya as well. the blind person might hear why this particular tree differs from the others, that it is associated with the predecessors, and that rocks and lakes can also be sites of the nonabsent absence of the predecessors. an article by clark (2000) on social ecology is very interesting in this regard, especially as he refers specifically to the concept ‘spirit’. according to him the most radical dialectical and holistic thinking is repairing the ontological and political meaning of the concept ‘spirit’ (after all the exorcism of the young hegelians, including marx). concerning marx: he was right in identifying the fundamental from hauntology to a new animism? 34 hofmeyr irrationality of economic society as lying in its spirituality – the fetishism of commodities. clark obviously does not want to hark back to hegel’s idealistic concept of spirit, on account of it being one-sided and dogmatic. yet, the concept of spirit is an important means of expressing the human relationship to the becoming, developing, unfolding whole and its deeper ontological matrix. he quotes kovel: spirit is what happens to us when the limits of the self disappear. ‘self’ here is the narrow consumer’s ego of economical society. the negation of egoidentity happens when we discover our relationship with the primordial continuum and its expression in the striving for wholeness and the whole. note the importance of striving: the primordial continuum finds expression in processes of life, growth and development. clark says, and that is why i relate his argument here: a social ecology can give expression to an ecological spirituality that will embody the truth of religion, which is a liberating truth if set free from the mystifying and grotesque expressions that it has found in the service of domination and conformism. baird callicot (2001), writing about a multi-cultural approach to environmental ethics, has argued that diversity is good, but that there is also a need for a unifying process and discourse. three global discourses are presently available. global capitalism and geo-politics do not respect the other and are top-down. post-classical science, on the other hand, has integrated the undermining of the epistemological priority of western rationalism in its foundation. the scientific accounts are seen as narratives. and yet, against post-modernism’s critique, these narratives are grand. to be grand they have to satisfy certain criteria, e. g. imagination. the new grandness includes: embeddedness, not transcendence, cooperation, not conquest, wholeness, not fragmentation. the stories of post-classical science are more credible than any other available stories, and one ignores them at one’s peril. but to be grand they have to be integrated with local knowledge systems. reciprocal interaction between scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge, recognition of the organic relationship between the two kinds of knowledge, is called for, if an appeal to the human soul must be made by the post-classical scientific narratives. without an appeal to the human soul and the emotions, and without addressing the symbolic, no narrative can claim ‘grandness’. local knowledge, as also contained and expressed in religious ceremonies, does exactly this. this might be the adequate formulation of the problem that is addressed in hauntology: the failure of classical western science, and the logocentric philosophy based on it, to integrate local, indigenous knowledge into it. and here in africa local knowledge knows of spirits. kimmerle has 35 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. exposed himself to the foreign and in his latest book reports on his homecoming (rückkehr ins eigene). back home he attempts to find more words after kant stated our fundamental inability to know about the existence/non-existence of god/spirits, and after derrida left the question open as to whether god and spirits are real (kimmerle 2006:109). the direction into which kimmerle takes a groping step (“wir versuchen, uns einen schritt weiter vor zu tasten” – the appropriate attitude for someone who knows he cannot see through his cracked glasses) is away from the feuerbach-marx-bloch line where the mystery (radical questioning) is situated in the questioning philosopher. the reality of the human historical and social world is embedded in nature and in the cosmos in such a way that it cannot be fully explained in terms of itself. philosophers have no name for that which religions call spirits and god. but that which the spirits represent – the reality of the absent present – can today be explained in terms of virtual reality. the question that kimmerle (2006:111) poses is: what does it mean that god and spirits ‘represent’ something? projection theory, from feuerbach to bloch, cannot answer this question satisfactorily, as it proceeds from a concept of reality that only accepts the relations of the human-historical-societal world as basis of explanation. but this world is not everything. it is embedded in nature and the cosmos. we do not know, however, how the forces of nature and the cosmos affect human life and the human-historical-societal world. a religious explanation of this interaction cannot be dismissed. it must be left open. the relationship between human beings in history and society and the reality that encompasses this world is one of openness. kimmerle (2006:112) finds this openness an adequate expression philosophically of the ‘whole’ of human life and the world. a philosopher who thinks along these lines would then prefer the term ‘forces’ above ‘spirits’ – forces that have an effect on human life and the human-historical-societal world, and that cooperate with the known and explained forces active in the world (kimmerle 2006:112). this is how kimmerle reflects on what has happened to his own thinking as a result of his exposure to dialogues with african philosophies. from an african and an ecological perspective the question can be posed whether the term ‘force’ is appropriate if animism is about understanding the world as a community of living persons, only some of whom are human (harvey 2006). it makes more sense to respect and revere a person than a force, and to communicate with a person in showing respect. harvey (2006) poses entry into full relationality as an improved means of achieving understanding of the world we live in. the ethical implication of an animist way of looking at the world would from hauntology to a new animism? be that no environment is the exclusive domain of human persons, or any other persons. whatever we need we must seek in honest engagement with a diverse community of similarly needy and desiring persons. this personalist dimension is what might be lacking in kimmerle’s preference for the term ‘force’. 10. conclusion in conclusion, how does a new animism relate to a new humanism? the new humanism is new in that it goes beyond the western tradition. in africa it immediately encounters the invisible world of spirits. this presents it with an opportunity to incorporate local knowledge into its endeavours to together solve the problems of today. the problems are immense, specifically those that pertain to our relationship to nature. indigenous african knowledge suggests an opportunity to extend the community of persons, at least to include the predecessors and the places and sites of their invisible presence. bibliography adorno, thw 1974. drei studien zu hegel. frankfurt/m: suhrkamp. adorno, thw 1980. negative dialektik. 2. auflage. frankfurt/m: suhrkamp. appiah, ka 1992. in my father’s house. africa in the philosophy of culture. new york: oxford university press. bedggood, d 1999. saint jacques: derrida and the ghost of marxism. cultural logic 2:2. http://eserver.org/clogic/2-2bedggood.html (20.9.2002). bird-david, n 1999. “animism” revisited. personhood, environment, and relational epistemology. current anthropology 40, supplement, february, p. 67-91. bookchin, m 1987. social ecology versus deep ecology: a challenge for the ecology movement. green perspectives: newsletter of the green program project, nos. 4-5. bookchin, m 1991. the ecology of freedom. the emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. revised edition. montreal; new york: black rose books. bookchin, m 1995. remaking society: pathways to a green future. in: pierce, c & vandeveer, d (eds). people, penguins and plastic trees. basic issues in environmental ethics. second edition. hofmeyr td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 1-38. belmont: wadsworth, p. 227-233. breytenbach, b 1977. blomskryf (uit die gedigte van breyten breytenbach en jan blom). emmarentia: taurus. callicot, b 2001. multicultural environmental ethics. daedalus. fall. http://www.daedalus.amacad.org/issues/fall2001/callicot.htm (24.7.2003). clark, j 2000. a social ecology. http://library.nothingness.org/ articles/all/all/display/303, (2.5.2003) (originally published in zimmerman, m et al (eds) 1997. environmental philosophy. prentice hall). harvey, g 2006. the new animism. interview with rachael kohn broadcast on the abc radio national programme “the spirit of things” on 16.7.2006. transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ spiritofthings/stories/2006/1683888.htm# (1.9.2006). hofmeyr, hm 2004. the promise and problems of intercultural philosophy. phronimon 5:2, p. 51-76. hofmeyr, hm 2005. the community and the individual in western and african thought: implications for higher education. journal of educational studies 4:1&2, 53-67. horkheimer, m and adorno, thw 1947. dialektik der aufklärung. philosophische fragmente. amsterdam: querido. ingold, t 1999. comment. current anthropology 40, supplement, february, p. 81-82. kalilombe, pa 1994. spirituality in the african perspective. in: gibellini, r (ed). paths of african theology. london: scm, p. 115-135. kimmerle, h 1994. die dimension des interkulturellen. philosophie in afrika – afrikanische philosophie. zweiter teil: supplemente und verallgemeinerungsschritte. 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walter sisulu university, east london, south africa citation murire ot, flowerday s, strydom k, fourie cjs. narrative review: social media use by employees and the risk to institutional and personal information security compliance in south africa. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a909. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.909 original research narrative review: social media use by employees and the risk to institutional and personal information security compliance in south africa obrain t. murire, stephen flowerday, kariena strydom, christoffel j.s. fourie received: 04 july 2020; accepted: 14 nov. 2020; published: 18 feb. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract social media platforms have become essential to organisations in developing countries as they can offer a business advantage. this comes with security risks and privacy concerns as numerous scientific literatures have testified. although the majority of employees are using social media privately and at the workplace (using the same device such as a smartphone), some organisations have not effectively established information security awareness programmes to protect their electronic information backbone. it is a fact that professional hackers are prowling constantly to gain access to systems of organisations and sometimes employees make naïve mistakes that can open the door to cyberattacks, which exploit vulnerabilities in the organisation’s system. the current coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) crisis is a prime example where employees and students are encouraged to work from home. no organisation does have complete control over the security measures each employee has in place for his or her private connection. this study applied a desktop review to identify the cyber risks associated with social media use at the workplace. a scoping literature review gathered the data following a qualitative approach. the theories of reasoned action and deterrence were used as a theoretical foundation for the study. a model is proposed to enhance employee information security compliance when using social media at the workplace and demonstrates how awareness strategies can be employed to improve employee information security compliance. it is recommended that organisations implement methods to minimise social media risks to ensure that the integrity of information is preserved through these awareness programmes to employees. keywords: covid-19 pandemic; cyberattacks; information security awareness; internal control; punitive measures; risk; social media; social media policy. introduction the use of social media is soaring worldwide as employees seek to gain access to their organisation’s information through their mobile devices and laptops, especially during the current coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic.1 with the increased number of social media accessed through these digital devices, there is an amplified number of prospective cyberattacks to organisations, which includes network attacks, the spread of malicious code, as well as ransomware.1,2 information security breaches, leading to the disclosure of sensitive information, reputational damage and increased threats from cyberattacks on social networking tools has pointed to the need for information security management in organisations.2,3 for this reason, organisations should be actively involved in information security awareness programmes as social media risks are ever-increasing.4,5 according to frauenstein and flowerday6 technology controls alone cannot deal with social media risks; therefore, employees play a vital role in the defence. south african national standards (sans)7 states that whilst organisations already have management controls, technical controls and operational controls, a very important aspect is lacking, which is the human control of ‘a human firewall’. the human firewall, with proper training, will contribute to ensure that social media risks are dealt with and reduced to levels that are acceptable whilst enjoying benefits when using these platforms in question. furthermore, this may ensure that confidentiality, integrity, availability (cia) and privacy of information in organisations are preserved.6 working from home seems to be gaining ground across the world, which is receiving new interest now because of the covid-19 pandemic. this study of south africa focuses on and examines the cost-saving implications involved in companies if their employees would be able and allowed to work from home and the link between structural and relational factors married with virtual work. the results indicated that the relationship between structural factors and relational factors with perceived virtual work experience is said to be positive. professional isolation and job performance was found to be highly negatively correlated. aloul4 and ajzen and fishbein5 notice a rise in phishing attacks, for instance, malspam and ransomware attacks as covid-19 is used by attackers as bait to impersonate brands and mislead employees. this puts personal computers and phones on high risk and will likely result in more of these gadgets getting infected. therefore, both the general populace and businesses are targeted. this implies that even end-users who are bound to download covid-19-related applications are also being tricked into downloading ransomware as it appears as one of the modern legitimate applications. in addition, the functioning of many security teams at organisations is likely to be impaired because of the covid-19 pandemic, which impairs the detection abilities of malicious activities. in south africa, the enforcement of the ‘work from home’ policy by some companies has become popular. thus, it is plausible to learn that a stable power supply and a fast internet connection may be a luxury in some rural areas, and this may force employees and students to work from public spaces or internet café’s to utilise power and free internet facilities.8 notwithstanding a milestone achievement made by the south african government in making sure that affordable data are available to students to work online, this move would expose the computing facilities and confidential information of institutions to theft or damage. the problem is that employees lack the knowledge concerning the risk associated with social media platforms for the computing facilities and confidential information of their institution, especially when used at the workplace. some organisations have not effectively established information security awareness programmes for their employees, which can result in unintentional negative behaviour.9 unintentionally, uninformed employees make naïve mistakes that can open the door to cyberattacks that exploit vulnerabilities in the organisation’s system of controls. moreover, if employees are not well informed regarding the risks and privacy issues when accessing social media during working hours at the workplace, they could expose the organisation’s reputational damage and customer loss.4,5 furthermore, the emergence of covid-19 plague has forced businesses and governments to depend increasingly on technology to assist citizens, thus the use of digital systems have become popular and the only alternative to save people and businesses.8 new demands have been placed on networks and datacentre infrastructure as remote working and collaboration tools have become important systems, with a new wave of demands placed on networks and datacentre infrastructure.10 the emergence of malicious actors in a bid to exploit fears over the pandemic has placed many organisations to panic and they have extended networks beyond the firewall as security remains a pervasive concern.8 this study aims to propose a model to ensure employee information security compliance when using social media for work-related business. to achieve this objective, a desktop literature review was conducted to identify risks involved when using social media in the workplace and any work-related business. the structure of the study is outlined as follows: literature is discussed in the first section followed by a theoretical foundation applied in this research. other sections to follow are comprised of information security awareness, compliance strategies and thereafter, a proposed model for the study and the conclusion. literature review the literature review highlights relevant topics of the study. social media use and human firewall according to tarantino, mcdonough and hua,11 social media refers to websites and applications that enable organisations to create and share information. these include twitter, myspace, facebook, flickr, google plus and youtube.9 the use of social media and its adoption in organisations has increased as the benefits are substantial. various studies state that marketing is the biggest beneficiary of social networking tools.9,12 organisations encourage employees, especially in the sales and marketing department, to reach out to customers using social media as most customers use these platforms to search for goods and services.12,13 social media use has the potential to increase sales and market-share for organisations. in addition, social media use at the workplace can help organisations to maintain a competitive advantage, and some use it as a communication tool to spread messages faster amongst core workers and customers.13,14 schraner15 adds that interacting with customers on social media sites helps the organisation understand customer needs much better and improve service delivery. engaging with consumers helps to discover undelivered consumer demands and complaints. furthermore, allowing employees to make use of social media tools is considered helpful on strengthening customer relationships and penetrating new geographical areas, which makes social media tools a key mechanism for sparking innovation.15 another possible aspect is that forbidding social media tools in the workplace may harm employee morale and affordable communication.16 it is believed that there is no single technology solution that can assist in fighting today’s most urgent security problems.17 organisations should not just invest in security technology, but also activate a security-conscious workplace culture (human firewall). human firewall’s main objective is to stimulate the awareness of employees to such an extent that they act as a solid line of defence against external attacks that threatens security systems.4,5,17 a human firewall aims to equip employees and block weakest links in the organisational security by educating employees about the security of the organisation. there are three main components of human firewall: employee education, minimising human error and getting ahead of new threats. employee education security education should cover all levels within the organisation and should go beyond treating security training as compliance-based ‘check-box’ activity.1 information technology (it) departments are not spared. they need education on how to implement policies that are secure but not too restrictive that the flow of business is disrupted. administrators have become the de facto target for attacks, as they allow an easy pivot point to gain access inside the network. hence, it departments are more vulnerable because of elevated administrative privileges on the network, as well as weaker controls for email attachments and internet browsing. minimising human error hackers and spammers usually predict human nature to exploit human error-related opportunities. they do so by using social engineering to gain trust by manipulating vulnerable users into clicking on malicious links in emails that are thought to be from legitimate sources.18 this common trickery known as phishing requires the user to be complicit in by clicking the link. hence, the most reliable defence is educating employees about possible threats. to counter this popular attack, there is a range of new technologies helping organisations to deal with these threats. for instance, sophisticated email gateways are used through creation of unique safe links in every email hyperlink before it reaches the user’s inbox. to counter a situation where some employees invariably click bad links, there is a need for an added layer of protection which helps to protect users who either intentionally or accidentally fail to follow training and guidance.19 new threats there is a need for employees to be well informed and adapt to the latest security measures as new threats, like phishing and malware change constantly.20 in a recent report by panda security21 (february 2020), it is said that, in a total of about 30 million unique new threats recorded every day, an average of 82 000 are new malware strains.2 with such rapid increment of new attacks, smart security investments cannot rely on yesterday’s ‘tried and true’ methods to stay ahead of the game. traditional firewall a traditional firewall can be defined as a device that can control the traffic that is allowed to enter or exit a point within the network. it is comprised of both hardware and software meant to protect computers from hackers and other threats. it blocks dangerous software or data from reaching the system.5 hardware firewalls provide network-wide protection to fight online threats. software firewalls installed on individual computers are meant to inspect data more closely and blocks specific programmes from sending data to the internet. a combination of both kinds of firewalls is sometimes used to provide a more complete safety net for networks with high-security concerns.17 hardware firewalls a hardware firewall is installed between the internet and a local area network (lan) of computers.2 inspection of all the data received from the internet is done, passing along the safe data packets whilst blocking the potentially dangerous packets. hardware firewalls may require expert set up to properly protect a lan without affecting the performance and access to remote sites or web pages and this may not be a feasible solution in the absence of a dedicated it department. to simplify the job, for businesses with many computers, network security should be controlled from one single device.17 software firewall software firewall is usually installed on individual computers on a network.20 software firewalls are not similar to hardware firewalls, as the latter could easily distinguish between programs on a computer. it can allow or block the execution of various programs and allow data to one program whilst blocking another.1 software firewalls also filter outgoing data and remote responses to outgoing requests. however, it is also important to note that software firewalls require installation, updating and administration on each computer.22 theoretical foundation this study utilised a desktop literature review method. deterrence theory and the theory of reasoned action (tra) were employed as a theoretical foundation as they are widely used information systems theory. theory of reasoned action explores the relationship between behaviours and attitudes within human action. it is useful on predicting how individuals will behave by analysing their pre-existing attitudes and behavioural intentions. theory of reasoned action depicts a model containing benefits for forecasting the intention to perform a behaviour based on an individual’s attitude and normative beliefs.4,5 it evaluates two incentive components, the attitude and subjective norms. the theory proposes that an employee’s behaviour intention depends on both subjective norms and attitude. the theory explains that an employee’s attitude towards information security influences the individual’s behaviour. it is determined by intent, a basis to execute a certain behaviour.4,5,23 in addition, tra relies on the notion that employees make realistic decisions based on the information available to them. employees who make naïve mistakes and those with a negative attitude towards information security at organisations require motivation to comply for them to behave responsibly. an awareness programme is therefore needed to educate and train them to protect the organisation’s information assets.4,5 this study applied the deterrence theory (dt) to threaten or explain the consequences of failure to behave responsibly when using social media. deterrence is described as a threat of punishment to employees through some form of sanction.24 similarly, dt is the idea that a more severe punishment will more likely deter a rationally calculating human being from committing unjust acts. deterrence can be classified into two categories: specific and general. the difference between these two is that the latter refers to the actual punishment of an individual offender, whilst the former denotes the implications of the threat of punishment and that threat involves both the risk of the harshness of the sanction and detection. elliott25 adds that the dt can be applied as a preventive control and has various effects including intimidation, education and reinforcement. the intimidating effects of punishment are general and specific. furthermore, the dt can be used as a formal sanction to stimulate and reinforce employees to behave more responsibly when using social media at the workplace. if employees do not withdraw from illegal activities on social media out of fear of the negative costs, they are not deterred. however, there are some limitations to the dt. elliott25 points out that dt has less impact in controlling or getting read of habitual, unthinking behaviour from the employees because of heuristic information processing. research methodology the study employed a scoping literature review to gather data. literature analysis was carried out based on the information obtained from google scholar, science direct, as well as research gate and the association for computing machinery (acm). research was undertaken thoroughly from the chosen sources to confirm the authenticity of every article relevant to the study and meeting all the inclusion criteria.25 the search was done extensively to gather relevant data from every article that corresponded to the inclusion criteria irrespective of the kind of studies they were derived from. all available articles were included as long as they have touched the risks involved when using social media in the workplace. whilst incorporating relevant information within the parameters, articles that were published between 2010 and 2018 were consulted, respectively (table 1). the research has made use of a forward and backward search strategy to ensure inclusion of relevant references in the review (table 1). an extensive database was compiled of the keywords that were used in the search process. this included a full description of the keywords and the motives for inclusion of these various keywords. table 1 illustrate the format used to compile keywords used to download the article from the database. the complete articles were derived from the numerous databases and analysed individually by two academics. thereafter, the researchers reached agreement by coordinating their findings to identify the articles, which are relevant for the study. table 1: keywords used for the database extract after boell and cecez-kecmanovic.26 it was challenging to utilise any special tool in the data extraction process because the articles to be analysed were based on various types of studies. therefore, extraction and tabulation of data were done manually and separately before comparing and combining it.26 findings were synthesised into more relevant data after grouping the findings under each theme (figure 1). reciprocal translation analysis was used. after a comparison of findings of one study, similarities were drawn from there and the synthesised outcome was then compared with another study until all articles had been synthesised (figure 1). literature analysis results were grouped into the three categories of factors as outlined by the theoretical background. in figure 1, the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (prisma) model, employed in this study is shown in figure 1. figure 1: preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis model employed in the study, modified after boell and cecez-kecmanovic.26 the inclusion criteria contained within is that the study must address risks associated with social media use at the workplace. this was carried out to allow numerous studies to be involved and to take part in the review process. a total of 1135 studies of journal articles and conference articles from all the databases were obtained. these results have included both unsuitable and unfiltered data. to filter the results, search engine filtering, range and regional filtering were used and resulted in 435 studies remaining. in order to analyse suitability, these studies were again read and screened, based on the exclusion criteria as follows: published between 2010 and 2018 and whether the studies addressed risks associated with social media use at the workplace. after the first screening, 435 studies were obtained. the full text of these studies was reviewed by the authors and only 15 studies were retained. the reasons for the elimination of 420 studies were: a total of 395 studies were eliminated because of the title, year and context. the other 25 studies did not discuss the challenges associated with social media when used in the workplace. table 1-a1 lists the 15 studies that are included in the research and the identified topics from after the thematic analysis. results employees should be made aware of the risks of using social media and securing information assets, as well as the associated costs if this is not done correctly.18,20 many employees are vulnerable and are targeted by cybercriminals.5 whilst there are many reasons for employee vulnerability, the primary factor is that employees lack adequate knowledge on the risks involved when using social media and often find themselves wandering into cyberspace without any awareness preparation.23 sophos27 stated that malware and attack vectors are targeting social media users as they lack knowledge about them and securing information. some employees access links, adverts and pop-ups that infect their machines, which allows access to criminals who cause harm to organisations.28 van niekerk and maharaj16 provided an example of cyber-threats and malicious emails distributed through facebook by the pushdo botnet malware distributor. in another example, employees were tricked by malware named koobface into clicking on a link affected by trojans that hijacked their web browser. an organisation must have an awareness campaign about security controls such as firewalls and antiviruses that can be used to minimise threats from malicious software.16 social media can build or damage the reputation of an organisation. van niekerk and maharaj16 stated the challenge to contain the released information that can be harmful when it is on social media. an employee caused damage to the organisation using social media. a former worker of the good guys, posted aggressive, threatening material on his facebook page about the organisation as he was frustrated by not been paid his commission. a further case was decided in 2008 where some of the cabin crew members of virgin atlantic posted on facebook taunting remarks about virgin’s fleet and passengers. one post claimed that there were cockroaches in the planes and another labelled a traveller as ‘smelly and annoying’. this brought the company in disrespect and the crew members were sacked. the same holds true for twittertm. in 2015, an employee was dismissed from a communications director post of the new york-based internet empire interactive corp for having tweeted a puerile post that linked acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (aids) with race. this is an example of the ‘authority’ of twitter and how this platform can destroy individuals who offend or abuse the rights of others on social media. studies assert that social media can increase the prevalence of abuse and cyberbullying.16,29 li29 defined cyberbullying as: [a]n attack which may be verbal, physical, makes obscene gestures or intentionally isolates another person from a social group and it occurs on social networking sites where employees could be harassed with harmful text or images. (p. 371) thus, social media can be viewed as a source of malicious behaviour in the workplace. at fair work australia an employee posted on her account (myspace) threatening messages and described how she was sexually harassed by her employer and the employee refused to remove the post. another risk is when personal accounts are used to communicate work-related information, which may result to the unauthorised disclosure of confidential information. in a recent case, hillary clinton used her private email server for state communication, which resulted in leaking party secrets to the opposition parties.30 similarly, leaking trade secrets through emerging technologies has severe effects as an organisation can suffer financial loss and decreased market share.20,31 an employee such as these needs to be trained to enhance their knowledge concerning the use of information confidentiality. most organisations hold confidential and sensitive client information, which can be disclosed accidentally. hicks18 provided an example of a nurse who posted a medical record of a patient, including admission date and her full name on his facebook page. such an employee needs to be trained to enhance his or her knowledge concerning the use of information confidentiality. illegal access, as well as the use of confidential information found on an employee social media profile, may perhaps lead to numerous risks, for instance, identity theft, fraud, stalking and loss of employment.22,32 for example, an employer found an employee who was pregnant and her working hours were shortened. the employee realised that the employer found this information on her facebook page. there is a need to educate employees about privacy preservation online.32 furthermore, shullich3 added that there is an increasing number of dismissal cases as organisations punish offenders to serve as an example to other employees to behave responsibly. van niekerk and maharaj16 provided an example where a worker was dismissed because the company’s guidebook warned workers not to insult and threaten other employees on social media as it is grounds for dismissal. williams33 provided an example of eight workers who lost their jobs after an insane social media post. some organisations are prohibiting workers from using social media in the workplace as a measure to combat abuse of social media tools. bolotaeva and cata31 indicated that certain employees spend too many hours on social networks doing non-work related activities, which harms productivity, results in network utilisation issues and increased risk of exposure to malicious software. hence, there is a need for monitoring of employees’ actions and implementing policies that discourage the misuse of social media tools when employees are at the workplace.34 it is thus essential to increase the knowledge of employees regarding social media risks through awareness programmes. managerial implications the study suggests that employees need to be educated concerning human and traditional firewalls. this can be achieved through security awareness programmes. compliance strategies should be implemented to get rid of social media-related risks, whilst enjoying the benefits of using these powerful platforms. hence, integrity, confidentiality and availability of information in organisations are preserved and promoted. information security awareness programmes information security awareness programmes help to educate employees in the organisation concerning cyber-attacks. awareness is not the same as training: it is a method of stimulating, motivating and reminding employees what is expected of them.35 gundu et al.23 found that information security awareness aims at raising employee’s knowledge towards securing organisational assets. besides, information security awareness programmes explain what will happen to an organisation and employees if information security management fails to inspire a workforce to take security seriously.36 implementing successful security awareness programmes is an essential step in enhancing information security within organisations. aloul4 and ajzen and fishbein5 stated that security awareness provides the workforce with the knowledge that they need to behave responsibly and assists to reduce social networking risk in organisations. it is imperative to know that employees need access to training on information security awareness.5,20 programmes on information security awareness communicate security standard information to the workforce, which helps to change negative attitudes towards information security.34 however, steering security awareness programmes in organisations are fruitless if employees do not act on them or follow the information received during the awareness campaigns.6,37 various methods can be used to convey a security message to employees. these strategies include classroom-style training, security awareness websites, security posters, booklets and newsletters. the following section discusses components for mitigating social media risk. compliance strategies there are actions that organisations can use to reduce social media risk to acceptable levels. these elements include security policies, social media guidelines and punishment to educate employees on how to behave when using social media tools. security policies kentucky university38 mentioned that social media policy explains what the employees must not do on social media sites in the course of their employment. policies on social media determine the guidelines and clearly define the standards of satisfactory behaviour that organisations expect from the workers when using social media tools.35 social media policy provides relevant guidelines that limit the freedom of workers when interacting with customers online.5,20 a well-designed and thorough policy on social media use can minimise social networking risks.32 social media policy addresses various risks such as disclosure of organisation information, harassment and discrimination on social networks. in addition, when organisations take proper steps to address social media vulnerabilities, they can successfully safeguard valuable information and mitigate legal actions.38 organisations have social media usage policies but these guidelines are not implemented because they are not enforced by top management.3 there is a need for top management to administer social media and privacy policies to reduce the risk inherent to these technologies. these policies need to be in place and well explained to the employees who often make naïve mistakes. accordingly, employees need to be trained on safe social media practices in concert with a social media policy as it helps to mitigate social media risks.28 social media guidelines organisations’ use of social media policy will help to educate employees about opportunities and the risk social media present when accessed and used at the workplace.12 social media guidelines provide employees with relevant guidance for using social network tools to communicate work-related business. besides, they assist in clarifying business and personal use of social media.33 punishment punishment is explained by the dt and is another enforcement strategy that organisations can employ.24 this involves imparting fear to malicious employees such that others will be aware of the punishment. this enforcement strategy can be used in organisations and functions as an example for employees who have not yet participated in criminal events. the following section will introduce the proposed model of implementation. proposed model figure 2 depicts the proposed model, which aims at addressing risks, associated with social media. cyber breaches by employees expose the organisation’s ‘trade secrets’, which could lead to financial, customer loss and reputational damage. to address social media risk, an information security awareness strategy needs to be in place to educate employees about information security controls; how to behave when using social sites and the implications of not obeying the social media policy. figure 2: information security awareness model. the first subsystem of the model (figure 2) consists of education, training, cia and privacy. all four components are needed to make sure that social media risks are minimised to acceptable levels. if employees are well informed through awareness strategies (education and training) about the need to maintain cia and privacy of information as it assists in achieving employee information security compliance, which is cultivated through policies, procedures and best practices. the second subsystem (figure 2) is an enforcement approach and consists of a punishment component. if some components of the two subsystems are absent, then output (reducing social media risks) will not be cultivated. the proposed information security awareness model is presented here. the proposed model includes components from the reasoned action theory, the dt (punishment), the cia and privacy. theory of reasoned action describes the constructs that influence employee behaviour. theory of reasoned action relies on the belief that employees make realistic decisions based on the information available to them and awareness strategies, education and training could be used to provide information regarding social media risk. naïve employees could be able to behave responsibly if they are trained about social media risks.4,5 the dt defines the benefits derived from using punishment (e.g. dismissal) in the case that an employee has violated the social media policy. this will serve as an example and a warning to every employee. thereafter, an awareness will be present amongst employees of the consequences by not following security policies available in the organisations.24 the model demonstrates how awareness strategies (training and education), privacy and cia can be employed to guide employee information security compliance to ensure that social media risk is minimised.5,20 conclusion actions of employees could increase the prevalence of cyber risk in various organisations. it can be through careless handling of sensitive data, exposure to phishing attacks, weak passwords, or data breaches caused by user awareness issues. cyber breaches by employees can open the door to cyberattacks that exploit vulnerabilities in the organisation’s system of controls and expose the organisation to risks leading to reputational damage and customer loss. although these technologies such as social media have become essential to organisations, especially now during the covid-19 pandemic, it is essential to negate cyber breaches. organisations need to establish information security control awareness programmes to enhance the level of security and educating employees on how to behave when using social media tools both at work or at home. the study recommends that the implementation of the various aspects discussed in the proposed model of information security awareness will contribute towards minimising social media risks to acceptable levels, whilst enjoying the benefits of using these powerful platforms. moreover, this will ensure that cia and privacy of information in organisations are preserved. acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge rhodes university and walter sisulu university for their support. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions o.t.m. assisted in study design, acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data. o.t.m., s.f.d., k.s. and c.j.s.f. were involved in drafting of manuscript and critical revisions. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for research. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data 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principles of information security. 4th edn [homepage on the internet]. boston, ma: cengage learning; 2012 [cited may 2020]. available from: www.cengage.com kritzinger e, von solms sh. cyber security for home users: a new way of protection through awareness enforcement. comput secur. 2010;29:840–847. clark la, roberts sj. employer’s use of social networking sites: a socially irresponsible practice. j bus ethics 2010;95:507–525. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0436-y appendix 1: studies that are included in this research. table 1-a1: list of 15 studies that are included in the research and the identified topics after the thematic analysis. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 93-104. socio-economic rights and women in south africa: nothing but a handful of feathers? mk ingle1 abstract the bill of rights contained within south africa’s constitution features a number of ‘socioeconomic rights’. although these rights are justiciable they are subject to various limitations. they generally entail a positive onus on the part of the state to provide some good – not immediately, but ‘progressively’. women have a direct interest in the realization of these rights and, where given effect to, they should exert a positive developmental impact. some authorities are, however, of the opinion that socio-economic rights are not really enforceable. this article contends that the provision of social goods, by the state, should be the concomitant of the disciplined implementation of policy. delivery should not therefore be contingent upon the legalistic vagaries of the human rights environment. keywords: socio-economic rights; justiciability; bill of rights; development; south african constitution; women. disciplines: development studies; human rights; gender studies; political science. 1. introduction south africa possesses an extensive array of legislation designed, inter alia, to afford certain rights and protections to women and other groups deemed to be disadvantaged, or at least to have been so in the past. as booysen-wolthers, fourie and botes (2006:605) point out, gender imbalances have been an integral part of south africa’s history, with women being subjected to a variety of patriarchies dating back to the pre-colonial era. in recognition of this the african national congress (anc) in 1990 declared ‘women’s freedom from oppression’ as being ‘a central goal of the national liberation struggle’ (erlank, 2005:195-6). in keeping with this goal, equality before the law and unfair discrimination are catered for in south africa in sections 9(1) and 9(3) of the country’s constitution (act 108 of 1996). as per albertyn, goldblatt and roederer (2001:1), ‘[s]ection 9 of the [constitution’s] bill of rights is a detailed equality right’. section 7 of the constitution charges the state with the protection of these detailed rights as spelt out in chapter two’s bill of rights. section 35 guarantees a fair trial for everyone, section 39 deals with values such as equality and human dignity, and so forth. discrimination and equality are also focused on in the promotion of equality and prevention of unfair discrimination (pepuda) act no. 4 of 2000. this is by way of giving effect to section 9 of the constitution. the employment equity act (eea) no. 55 of 1998 deals with harassment (more especially sexual harassment in the workplace), as does pepuda to some extent. 1 . research associate, centre for development support (cds), university of the free state, bloemfontein, 9300, south africa. email = cdsfreestate@intekom.co.za ingle 94 against this backdrop of a heightened concern with womens’ status and well-being, this article examines the degree to which the socio-economic rights contained within the bill of rights might impact on the lives of women. why these rights should be of particular salience for this constituency is spelt out by seager (2003:86): the majority of the world’s population is poor. women are the majority of the world’s poor. the poorest of the poor are women. more so than men, women lack the resources either to stave off poverty in the first place, or to climb out of poverty – they have limited ownership of income, property and credit. women not only bear the brunt of poverty, they bear the brunt of ‘managing’ poverty: as providers and caretakers of their families, it is women’s labour and women’s personal austerity that typically compensate for diminished resources of the family or household. according to the south african human rights commission (sahrc), ‘the constitutional provisions pertaining to socio-economic rights require the state to “take reasonable legislative and other measures within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realization of [these rights]”’ (sahrc, 2004a:x). socio-economic rights are regarded as secondor third-generation rights in that they reflect a modern day preoccupation with the problems of poverty and deprivation. they are thus a product of their times and are in a somewhat different category to the classical, lockean natural rights that went to inform, inter alia, the usa’s constitution (de villiers, 1994:601-2). only four of the set of eight socio-economic rights, for which the relevant government departments are required by the constitution to submit ‘progress reports’ to the sahrc (gutto, 2001:244-5), will be discussed here in any detail. these are those rights relating to education; a healthy environment; food; and health care. these are taken as being sufficiently representative of the full set of rights in order to make the article’s point. the remaining rights dealing with access to adequate housing, land, water and social security will therefore only be referred to in passing. this article’s ‘gendered perspective’ is not intended to imply that women are necessarily any worse off than men when it comes to service delivery although many scholars (see for example booysen et al., 2006, 2011; meer, 2007) have persuasively argued that this is indeed the case. booysen et al. (2006, 2011) provide a wealth of statistical detail in support of their contention that south african women’s development status deteriorated between 1996 and 2001 and this is corroborated by seager (2003) who reports that south africa’s ranking on the united nations development programme’s (undp) gender-related development index (gdi) dropped sharply between 1995 and 2000 (from position 74 to 88). for the record, it should be noted that there are also a number of additional rights, some of them cross-cutting civil and political human rights, which have socio-economic dimensions. as detailed by gutto (2001:247-250) these include the rights to self-determination; to equality before the law and protection against unfair discrimination; labour rights; property rights; and the right to legal aid. de waal, currie and erasmus (2001:433) supplement this list with detainees’ rights to various social goods. gutto (2001:255) is no doubt correct in his assertion that ‘justiciability of socio-economic rights alone cannot eradicate poverty and glaring inequalities’ [own emphasis]. this discussion will, however, after a brief overview of socio-economic rights in general, begin with an assessment of what a selected range of socio-economic rights could achieve for women assuming they were given effect to. the article will then proceed to take an opposite view and sketch a scenario where it will be shown how justiciable socio-economic rights might be used to subvert development or any programme for the progressive realization of rights. it is, after all, something of a puzzle why, if a government is genuinely committed to social upliftment, it should see fit to promulgate socio-economic rights, and socio-economic rights and women in sa td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 93-104. 95 then on top of that to make them justiciable. why not consign the problem to the disciplined implementation of government policy and leave it at that? why should anything extra be needed? is one to believe that constitutional provisions will induce a reluctant government to do what it has already decided, for reasons best known to itself, it will not do? these are a few of the questions implicit in the latter half of this paper. 2. an overview of socio-economic rights rights are usually defined as being ‘positive’ (the bestower of the right is under an obligation actively to do something) or ‘negative’ (the bestower should maintain a ‘hands-off’ attitude and refrain from doing something) (de waal, currie and erasmus, 2001:433-436). some analysts would downplay this distinction (de waal et al., 2001:434) but in this writer’s opinion it is a critical one and attempts to run the two attributes together must be resisted. this is to forestall a situation whereby the state habitually invades the private sphere of the individual. the ‘horizontal’ enforcement of rights (where the state imposes upon the individual to act as its agent), as espoused by motala and ramaphosa (2002:408-9), arguably paves the way for this to occur. human rights discourse is something of a philosophical quagmire. atkinson (1994) has provided a revealing account of the complex horse-trading surrounding human rights that took place at the 1993 multi-party negotiating forum. what one must be very clear about is the qualifications with which rights are hedged about, the language in which they are couched, and by virtue of who or what they are supposed to be derived or conferred. pace gutto (2001:250), anybody who thinks they have a positive ‘right to health’ is labouring under a misapprehension (cf. fuchs quoted in cockerham 1989:283). one might just as legitimately claim a ‘right to genius’. there never was, nor ever can be, such a right as it cannot be made good by any human agency. a right to health care, however, can plausibly be demanded – assuming there is some competent authority structure to demand it of. similarly, a ‘right to housing’ is not the same thing as a ‘right to a house’ and neither of these is the same as the south african ‘right of access to adequate housing’ (mcanearney, 2007:50-52). that the concept ‘housing’ is very difficult to define with any degree of finality (csir, 2000:19) even ‘house’ is problematical only goes to add another layer of difficulty. in order not to get unduly side-tracked, this discussion will not explore the meanings of words like ‘adequate’, or quibble about who is best qualified to decide what is ‘adequate’, other than to note that the interpretation of such terms opens the way for such a plethora of loopholes as might render the right in question purely notional. south africa is one of only a handful of countries to have made its socio-economic rights justiciable, or enforceable by a court of law. the idea behind a justiciable bill of rights is that decisions affecting basic rights and liberties should be reviewed by an institution standing outside the political sphere, namely the judiciary (de waal et al., 2001:433 & 437n.20). whether this serves any useful purpose other than on occasion to remind the government of its duties is open to question. it need not betoken sincerity. as the economist (2007:12) has editorialized: ‘… the countries keenest to use the language of social and economic rights tend to be those that show least respect for rights of the traditional sort’. when one reads of south africa being branded as a ‘skunk’ and that unwatch ranked it ‘last, alongside china, russia, pakistan, algeria and saudi arabia, on a human rights list… [for] shielding sudan, zimbabwe, belarus, cuba, the democratic republic of congo and myanmar’ against censure (the times, 18 nov 2007) then one may be forgiven a measure of cynicism about the country’s bona fides with regard to rights of any stripe – justiciable or not (cf. butler, 2007). ingle 96 3. socio-economic rights as affecting women the questionable utility of socio-economic rights is well captured by taverne (2005:137) who observes that: [w]hat are frequently invoked as rights are really aspirations, like the right to work, the right to health, or the right to freedom from hunger… how can such rights be enforced? what happens if governments ignore them, or find that circumstances prevent these aspirations being realized? a right that, in practice, no one has to respect, is not a right, but an ideal. meaningful rights are those that can be enforced. ‘justiciability’ is unlikely to make any difference in the face of brute political intransigence or genuine resource scarcity. but assuming a state that bestows these quasi-rights to be in good faith, how might these impact upon women? 3.1 right to education section 29(1) of the constitution guarantees everyone the right to a basic education (including adult basic education) and to further education which ‘the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible’. it must be made clear that a right to education is not a right to a qualification, no matter how modest, and neither does having paid for a course of instruction entitle one to an automatic qualification. rights generally entail a measure of responsibility on the part of the rights bearer and in this instance the onus is on the bearer to work towards a qualification, using the education provided in terms of the right. the rights bearer is, however, reasonably entitled to insist that the education be at least adequate to acquire a credible qualification. when one encounters matriculated school-leavers who are unable to arrange a list of names in alphabetical order, for example, one is justified in suspecting that such peoples’ education has been purely nominal and that, to the degree they genuinely believe themselves to be qualified, they are the victims of an institutionalized fraud. a right, and most especially a right to education, should, at the minimum, equip the rights bearers with the ability to discern whether what they are being offered is sub-standard or not. that said, education is without doubt the most valuable and the most crucial of the socio-economic rights that women can avail themselves of (ingle, 2006). whereas certain of the other socio-economic rights (most especially that of ‘social security’) may have the effect of reducing women’s autonomy, and of reinforcing patterns of dependency, the effect of the right to education should be a liberating one. it should, ironically enough, also free women from any dependency on the rest of the socioeconomic rights to be detailed here. educated people can normally generate options for themselves so that even something like an unhealthy environment, which may be beyond any single person’s power to rectify, can be dealt with by the simple expedient of relocating within a country or by emigrating. educated women ought never to be geographically stuck in the way that uneducated women often are (bauman, 1998:88; undp, 2009:2). although mention is made in the constitution of adult and further education, the real emphasis in a developing country should be on early childhood development (ecd) and on a sound primary education (keeley, 2007; young & richardson, 2007; garcia, pence & evans, 2008). if a girl can emerge from such an education being at the very least literate, then she has a fair chance of making something of her life, on her own terms. to deny women an education in today’s world is simply unconscionable. socio-economic rights and women in sa td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 93-104. 97 3.2 right to a healthy environment section 24 of the constitution says that everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and well-being. ‘environment’ here is understood as being the natural environment although it ‘has also been given a relational character’ (sahrc, 2004b: 5) in that it links to rights such as those to clean water and health care. in the light of taverne’s comments above, and van wyk’s (1999:51) contention that third-generation (or ‘socio-economic’) rights ‘cannot really be enforced’, one must treat the justiciability claimed in the following formulation from olivier (quoted in gutto, 2001:246 n.52) with some circumspection: our constitution, by including environmental rights as fundamental, justiciable human rights, by necessary implication requires that environmental considerations be accorded appropriate recognition and respect in the administrative processes in our country. together with the change in the ideological climate must also come a change in our legal and administrative approach to environmental concerns. it should go without saying that, especially for the marooned women referred to in the previous section those who are without ‘escape options’ a disease-free, clean environment adds immeasurably to their quality of life. poor women often have a particularly intimate and close physical relationship with the natural environment (ingle, 2006:175) and, on grounds of health alone, one could detail literally hundreds of ways that an unacceptable environment will impinge upon women’s well-being. there have been many publications which focus specifically on women’s interdependence with the environment (dankelman & davidson, 1988; sontheimer, 1991; rodda, 1993). just one of the ways in which women’s health may be compromised by an unsatisfactory environment arises out of the fact that poverty-stricken women frequently have inadequate footwear. in situations where sanitation is primitive, or non-existent, this means that inevitably the soles of their feet come into contact with soil that is contaminated with human faeces. this puts them at very high risk of becoming infested with hookworm. the parasite load may run into thousands and causes anaemia, abdominal pain, diarrhoea and increasing lethargy (ransford, 1983:43-45). part of the problem is that, when an entire community comes to exhibit these symptoms almost all the time, the condition comes to be seen as normal. endemic diarrhoea, in a situation of minimal sanitation, results in precisely those unsanitary conditions the hookworm needs to continue to propagate itself throughout a community. if a whole family is infected, as is not unusual, one can only imagine the consequences for the mother in her caregiver role. this is just a single example. contaminated water presents another category with a list of potential disasters all of its own. this is of especial salience in south africa (van riet & tempelhoff, 2009). it was reported, for example, that in the emfuleni municipality people still ‘have to draw drinking water from the sewage-clogged vaal river’ to the evident indifference of the local authority responsible for the pollution (iol, 2008). this is therefore a most important socio-economic right but, as with any health hazard, it is generally the more literate, educated women who realize just how vital a right it is (world bank, 2006:100). the fact of the united nations’ wash campaign – water, sanitation and hygiene for all provides clear evidence for the importance of hygiene education and training. women, insofar as they are fulfilling traditional roles, also tend to suffer disproportionately from the impacts of a degraded environment, as it is they who tend to ‘engage very directly with the elements and lack the means to distance or insulate themselves from the effects of desertification or poisoned water’ (ingle, 2006:175). ingle 98 when land and water are depleted much more labour – usually women’s labour – is required to maintain the same output. the workload of children also rises for girls more than boys (undp, 1995:92-93). 3.3 right to food given their traditional role as caregivers within the family it follows that women have a direct interest in any food-related right (rodda, 1993). according to dankelman and davidson (1988:9), ‘women produce more than 80 per cent of the food for sub-saharan africa’. the sa human rights commission (2004c:1) states that: ‘the constitution makes specific reference to food in three sections, namely: section 27(1)(b) where it refers to the state’s obligation to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve progressive realization of everyone’s right to have access to sufficient food and water; section 28(1)(c) where every child has the right to basic nutrition…’ and section 35(2)(e) in respect of detained people. interestingly enough, according to the sahrc (2004c:6), this right ‘is a negative obligation, which requires the state to refrain from denying anyone their right of access to food or limiting equal access to the right to food. the equitable allocation of fishing quotas is one practical example of the state’s obligation to respect the right to food’ [emphasis added]. it is not altogether clear that this example is well chosen because someone in possession of a fishing quota is presumably more concerned with a right to a livelihood than a right to food per se. also it is not obvious quite how the right to food is supposed to apply negatively to detainees – one gets rather lost in all the rights jargon. what exactly is ‘limiting equal access to the right to food’ supposed to mean? surely the access is to ‘food’, period, – not ‘the right to food’? 3.4 right to health care complaints in the media about south africa’s public health sector are legion: ‘limited access to health care… [is] highlighted in a recent amnesty international report on human rights abuses in south africa. “one of the issues that bugs us is limited access to health care... government is dragging its feet over anti-retrovirals and we join other organisations in condemning this,”’ said amnesty international’s south africa chairperson in may 2005 (iol, 2005a). over two and a half years later an institute of security studies and transparency international report cited ‘aids denialism and deliberate mismanagement rather than incapacity to manage resources’ [own emphases] as responsible for the state’s ongoing tardiness in providing anti-retrovirals to aids sufferers (saturday star, 2007:2). the right of access to health care services is of major significance for women most especially given their nurturing role as mothers. as the sahrc (2004d:8) puts it, the right to health is a fundamental human right essential for the exercise of other human rights. it is guaranteed by various international and regional human rights instruments. the right of access to health care is enshrined in the constitution, which makes it obligatory on the state to provide equal and universal access to everyone. as already pointed out, the common conflation of a right to health (understood in the ‘positive’ sense), with a right to health care, is problematical and so it is perhaps not surprising that the field of health care provision is a pre-eminent ‘site of contestation’ in the south african socio-economic rights arena. the constitution chooses its words rather more circumspectly than does the sahrc. section 27(1)(a) says, ‘everyone has the right to have access to health care services, including reproductive health care…’. this latter is of course of pointed salience for women as child-bearers and as evidenced by the hugely liberating impact of the contraceptive pill, in the early 1960s, on the women’s movement (ingle, 2006). socio-economic rights and women in sa td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 93-104. 99 if education is the crucial variable for women’s well-being, then access to health care must be next in line. once again though it is the ostensibly innocuous ‘access’ that seems designed to insulate the actual good (health care) from the rights bearer should the state find it inconvenient to make good the right. indeed it is hard to see what real benefit mere ‘access’ confers. is a citizen not justified in taking a ‘right to have access’ so for granted that its value is little more than if one were to be told the state had given one a ‘right to breathe’? be that as it may, this particular right has resulted in two landmark judgements in both of which the putative rights-bearers got the proverbial ‘short end of the stick’. even though the treatment action campaign (tac), an advocacy group for people living with hiv, won the right to have antiretrovirals (arvs) supplied to hiv-sufferers, the state’s implementation of the court’s order to supply the medication was so begrudging, and so tardy, as almost to constitute a contempt of court (iol, 2005b). the second judgement is that of soobramony which is discussed in the following section. 4. the potential for the abuse of justiciability in introducing the need for socio-economic rights in south africa, gutto (2001:237) claims that, ‘[p]overty and inequalities are not natural. they have been historically constructed and sustained’. quite the reverse is true (landes 1998; taverne 2005:67). although no one would deny that poverty and inequality are sometimes manufactured and ‘sustained’, the fact is that poverty and inequality, considered purely as such, are all too ‘natural’. and while they may often have been sustained historically, they hardly required any wilful ‘construction’. poverty and inequality are two of the defining conditions of existence in a state of nature and their artificially realised antitheses, prosperity and equality, have to be striven towards and maintained. material wealth (capital accumulation) is the unnatural state of affairs, ‘poverty’ in the sense of want or deficiency, is the default, god-given, natural condition from which one may escape by ‘the sweat of one’s brow’ should one so wish. as for inequalities arising out of differences, they are integral to existence on any number of levels some are born strong, others weak, some with a genetic disposition towards disability, others not (pinker, 2002). as ackermann (2006:611) rightly contends, in a nuanced treatment of equality as an attribute, ‘the real debate should centre around the question “in what respects should all humans be treated equally”’. without the natural fact of inequality manifesting itself in a myriad differing respects, it would hardly be necessary to frame laws, not to mention socio-economic rights. the notion of equality, and of its being a desideratum, is a thoroughly modern, european idea (cooper, 1980:4) and is as ‘natural’ a construct as that other symbol of modernity, the eiffel tower. on the face of it, it almost seems self-evident that justiciable socio-economic rights should advance the cause of women in need of development. but there is a counter-argument which can be made to the effect that these rights could serve as the subtle instrument of women’s ongoing oppression. prior to the finalization of south africa’s constitution, the status that socio-economic rights should occupy in the envisaged bill of rights was the subject of considerable debate (de villiers, 1994). for example: • the south africa law commission maintained that socio-economic rights should not feature at all ‘because of their programmatic nature and the positive action that is required of the state in respect of them’ (de villiers, 1994:624). • davis warned of the threat to the separation of powers between the judiciary, and the legislative and executive functions of government, and advocated the inclusion of ‘a chapter on directive principles’ of state policy instead. davis wanted it to be made explicit that ‘secondand third-generation rights [could] only be protected by way of negative constitutional review’ (de villiers, 1994:626). ingle 100 • de villiers disputed the classical distinctions between firstand second-generation rights saying that they had become ‘blurred’ (1994:623) and he also claimed that the distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ state action was outdated (de villiers, 1994:624). de villiers also noted the ‘historical support that organizations such as the anc and pac [had] given to the recognition of social and economic rights’ (de villiers, 1994:627). in the event it was the position argued for by de villiers that carried the day. cyril ramaphosa was one of the chief anc negotiators at the time of the codesa discussions when south africa’s new dispensation was being debated and his views on what exactly is entailed by the justiciability of constitutionally guaranteed socio-economic rights are illuminating (motala & ramaphosa, 2002). firstly it is made clear that justiciable socio-economic rights (‘social welfare rights’) are part of a wider socialist redistribution programme. secondly these are to be thought of as ‘group rights’ (motala & ramaphosa, 2002:390) that will almost invariably trump individual ‘first generation’ rights where there is a clash (cf. van schalkwyk, 2007:6-7) – ‘individuals can be required to make sacrifices for the common good’ [own emphasis] (motala & ramaphosa, 2002:409). thirdly, the granting of these rights is clearly (if unintentionally) presented as being part of a political programme of clientelism. if the government fails to [implement the rights], it will suffer the political consequences [ie. loss of power] for failing to fulfil these obligations (motala & ramaphosa, 2002:413). if these are in fact the sentiments that informed the formulation of justiciable socio-economic rights then they are potentially rather disturbing as they imply a state doing ‘the right thing for the wrong reason’. while human rights classically have been considered to be absolute, universal, intrinsic and inalienable i.e. grounded in the fact of the bearer’s humanity (de villiers, 1994:601n.5), and not held at the pleasure or whim of the state, the foregoing rather suggests that they have now become relative, particularistic, instrumental, and contingent upon the continued beneficence of a political faction whose commitment to rights is somewhat suspect notwithstanding its high-flown rhetoric. human rights in south africa stand in danger of being subtly devalued to the point where they serve as a means with which votes are bought. the marginalization of the individual in this suspect rights environment is well illustrated in the celebrated case of soobramony vs minister of health (kwazulu-natal) (motala & ramaphosa 2002:404-8) where the state was relieved of the responsibility to supply soobramony with emergency dialysis treatment on the grounds of the limitation that says that the right to health care is ‘dependent upon the resources available for such purposes’ and that, in soobramony’s case, the state could not afford to treat the plaintiff. if one reads the notes of one of the presiding judges in this case (motala & ramaphosa 2002:404-8) one could be forgiven for thinking the odds stacked against individuals securing their socio-economic rights in south africa’s courts. surely the truth was not that the state could not afford to treat soobramony – it was that it chose not to afford to. that addington hospital just so happened to be under-resourced was irrelevant. if one is going to be serious about socio-economic rights then the onus clearly lies on the state to ensure that hospitals are adequately equipped to make good the state’s promises. the presiding judges might plausibly have said to the state, ‘you will afford what you are directed to afford. if you maintain you cannot afford to treat the plaintiff then readjust your spending priorities to the point where you can.’ instead what emerged was a capitulation in favour of the state. it strains socio-economic rights and women in sa td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 93-104. 101 credulity that the department of health could not have foregone all manner of frivolous discretionary expenditure so as to make good mr soobramony’s constitutional right. judge chaskalson apparently noted that, were the state to treat soobramony, it would have to treat all the other cases of chronic renal failure who could not afford private tariffs – in other words this would set a precedent (motala & ramaphosa, 2002:406). but if one is going to institute justiciable rights to health care then precedents are presumably what one must commit oneself to. the fact is that the right is supposed to be progressively realized so the state should not be allowed to maintain that because it cannot treat everyone it is going to treat no one. progressive realization starts with a first step, a single individual, and mr soobramony would have served as an ideal starting point. as liebenberg & goldblatt (2007:353) remark, a central requirement of a reasonable government programme is that it must cater for those whose needs are urgent and who are living in “intolerable conditions”. the dynamic typified by chaskalson’s reasoning seems to be one of shifting the goalposts whenever the making good of a socio-economic right gets too close for comfort. if an individual sufferer from chronic renal failure appeals to her right, she is put off with the argument that satisfying it would entail treating all chronic renal failure sufferers. if all the chronic renal sufferers were to bring a class action the response, consistent with chaskalson’s reasoning, would be, ‘but what about all the patients whose renal problems are not chronic – must we treat you at their expense?’. similarly, if a class action were brought by all patients with renal problems, chronic and not, the state’s next move might be to object, ‘but what about all those with diabetes, tuberculosis, hiv, and so on? treating you would entail a degraded service for them.’ pushed to its limit this progression would result in the absurdity of all the ill bringing a class action against the state which could then cast around in search of an even more expanded group’s welfare to appeal to (‘the national interest’ for example) by way of reneging on its commitments. this is a charade that challengers to the state can never win however. the limitations on the rights allow the state to quash any claim brought against it. the economist (2007:12) would seem to be justified in observing that: … few rights are truly universal, and letting them multiply weakens them. food, jobs and housing are certainly necessities. but no useful purpose is served by calling them “rights”… the most reliable method yet invented to ensure that governments provide people with social and economic necessities is called politics. 5. conclusion: rights as ‘birds in the bush’ it could be inferred, from the above arguments, that citizens have been duped into foregoing the provision of social goods in exchange for the specious right to access such goods if the state rearranges its priorities, and conducts its financial affairs so as to consider itself in a position to afford the goods in question. is it the case that, in south africa, justiciable socio-economic rights, far from conferring any value-added benefits, function as a sort of constitutional sop? that, if the justiciable element is resorted to, justiciability in practice affords the state an escape hatch as soon as ‘push comes to shove’, and it has to make good on its promises of socio-economic delivery? the odds seem to be so stacked against the individual’s finding relief in the courts (cf. gleason, 2007:2) that the rights environment in south africa is in danger of being rendered nugatory. argument about access to the ‘right to access rights’ is not an illogical outcome in such a kafka-esque environment whose hallmark is ‘the dissipation of huge energy by the disempowered in… litigation for no gain’ (davis, 2006:326). ingle 102 insofar as this state of affairs affects women, might it be that their socio-economic ‘rights’ function as no more than cosmetic window-dressing? if expedient, the possibility is stark that the state will take the easy way out and renege on its ‘aspirations’ (where the bill of rights is still naively being conceived of as an ‘aspirational document’). south africans run the risk of compromising their genuine rights for a clutch of empty socio-economic promises. this may seem a harsh judgement, but south africa’s perverse human rights record at the united nations (castaneda, 2008; fritz, 2010), and the arv debacle referred to above, arguably speaks louder than anything on the statute books. women, considered as a group, as an abstraction, might think themselves protected within the south african rights environment, until flesh-and-blood individual women put it to the test. then they may find that their rights as individuals evaporate in the presence of the amorphous requirements of ‘the masses of women’, or, ‘the community’, as determined by some dissembling bureaucrat, if not by the courts themselves. they may even find that their individual interests have to be ‘sacrificed’ (as per motala & ramaphosa, 2002:409) for the ‘common good’. as butler (2007) has acutely observed: the conflation of rights with socio-economic aspirations… leaves political rights dangerously vulnerable. politicians can always construe the suppression of civil and political liberties as a necessary consequence of the government’s supposed efforts to realize developmental and social rights... if every claim on the state continues to be advertised as a human right in principle, it may soon be that nothing is respected as a human right in practice. but perhaps the more immediate question is whether the socio-economic rights environment in south africa effectively functions as an insubstantial counterfeit for tangible deliverables. has that which should be the preserve of disciplined policy implementation, been superseded by a collection of empty promises and nebulous ‘rights’? in that case it is little wonder that protests triggered by poor service delivery are once again on the rise in south africa. references ackermann, lwh, 2006. equality and non-discrimination: some analytical thoughts. south african journal on human rights, 22(4). albertyn, c, goldblatt, e & roederer, c, 2001, introduction to the promotion of equality and prevention of unfair discrimination act 4 of 2000. johannesburg: witwatersrand university press. atkinson, d, 1994. insuring the future? – the bill of rights. in friedman, s & atkinson, d (eds.), the small miracle – south africa’s negotiated settlement. johannesburg: ravan press. bauman, z, 1998. globalisation – the human consequences. cambridge: polity press. booysen-wolthers, a, fourie, fcvn & botes, l, 2006, changes in the development status of women in south africa from 1996 to 2001: for the better or for the worse? development southern africa, 23(5). booysen, a, fourie, fcvn & botes, l, 2011, the development status of women in south africa: patterns and progress in the provinces. development southern africa, 28(1). butler, a, 2007, wrong way to think about rights, business day, december 3. available at http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/content.aspx?id=41083 castaneda, j, 2008, time for self-reflection as sa takes centre stage, business day, april 4. available at http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/content.aspx?id=46084 cockerham, wc, 1989. medical sociology 4th ed. new jersey: prentice hall. cooper, de, 1980. illusions of equality. london: rkp. socio-economic rights and women in sa td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 93-104. 103 council for scientific and industrial research (csir), 2000. housing is not about houses – the boutek story. pretoria: csir. dankelman, i & davidson, j, 1988, women and environment in the third world – alliance for the future. london: earthscan. davis, dm, 2006. adjudicating the socio-economic rights in the south african constitution: towards ‘deference lite’. south african journal on human rights, 22(2). de villiers, b, 1994. social and economic rights. in van wyk, d, dugard, j, de villiers, b & davis, d (eds), rights and constitutionalism: the new south african legal order. kenwyn: juta. de waal, j, currie, i & erasmus,g, 2001. the bill of rights handbook 4th ed. cape town: juta. economist, 2007, stand up for your rights, march 24. erlank, n, 2005, anc positions on gender, 1994-2004. politikon, 32(2). fritz, n, 2010, will sa use its second un term better? business day, october 13. available at http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/content.aspx?id=123591 garcia, m, pence, a & evans, jl (eds), 2008, africa’s future, africa’s challenge: early childhood care and development in sub-saharan africa. washington: world bank. gleason, d, 2007, from my window, without prejudice. april. gutto, sbo, 2001, equality and non-discrimination in south africa. cape town: new africa books. ingle, m, 2006, when nature needs nurture: the role of women in the environment. southern african journal of environmental education, 23. iol (2005a) amnesty concerned about human rights in sa, may 25. available at http://www.iol.co.za iol (2005b) arv shortage threatens aids patients – tac, june 9. available at http://www.iol.co.za iol (2008) world heritage site under pollution threat and sewerage shapes up as next crisis, march 18. available at http://www.iol.co.za keeley, b, 2007, human capital: how what you know shapes your life. paris: oecd. landes, d, 1998, the wealth and poverty of nations. london: abacus. liebenberg, s & goldblatt, b, 2007, the interrelationship between equality and socioeconomic rights under south africa’s transformative constitution. south african journal on human rights, 23(2). mcanearney, t, 2007, regeneration v. degeneration, without prejudice. may. meer, s, 2007, democracy in south africa. development, 50(1). motala, z & ramaphosa, c, 2002, constitutional law: analysis and cases. cape town: oup. pinker, s, 2002, the blank slate: the modern denial of human nature. new york: penguin. ransford, o, 1983, “bid the sickness cease”: disease in the history of black africa. london: john murray. rodda, a, 1993, women and the environment. london: zed books. rsa. constitution of the republic of south africa act no. 108 of 1996. ingle 104 saturday star, 2007, corruption and lethargy stymie aids fight, december 1. seager, j, 2003, the atlas of women in the world. london: earthscan. sontheimer, s (ed), 1991, women and the environment: a reader. new york: monthly review press south african human rights commission (sahrc), 2004a, the right to education. also available at http://www.sahrc.org.za south african human rights commission (sahrc) (2004b) the right to a healthy environment. also available at http://www.sahrc.org.za south african human rights commission (sahrc) (2004c) the right to food. also available at http://www.sahrc.org.za south african human rights commission (sahrc) (2004d) the right to health care. also available at http://www.sahrc.org.za taverne, d, 2005, the march of unreason. oxford: oxford university press. the times, 2007, sa now skunk of the world, november 18. united nations development programme (undp), 1995, human development report 1995. new york: oxford university press. united nations development programme (undp), 2009, human development report 2009. new york: palgrave macmillan. van riet, g & tempelhoff, jwn, 2009, slow-onset disaster and sustainable livelihoods: the vaal river in the vicinity of parys. the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(1). van schalkwyk, r, 2007, the price of freedom, without prejudice. april. van wyk, j, 1999, planning law. kenwyn: juta. world bank, 2006, disease and mortality in sub-saharan africa. washington dc: world bank. young, em & richardson, lm (eds), 2007, early child development: from measurement to action. washington: world bank. abstract introduction a methodological guide analytic and transformational framework entering the world of basotho indigenous education the case for peace-building through indigenous education lebollo schooling and peace-building education conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) rasebate i. mokotso department of religion studies, faculty of theology and religion, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa department of language and social education, faculty of education, national university of lesotho, roma, lesotho citation mokotso ri. considering the basotho indigenous education and school system as resources for peace-building education in lesotho. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1213. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1213 original research considering the basotho indigenous education and school system as resources for peace-building education in lesotho rasebate i. mokotso received: 12 mar. 2022; accepted: 09 june 2022; published: 31 aug. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract lesotho faces political, economic, social, cultural, religious, institutional and interpersonal violence, a situation that prompted the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) to introduce a peace-building education program. this indigenous auto-ethnography inquiry arose as the result of the investigator’s realisation that the unesco strategy to establish peace education in lesotho is an exclusive, narrow approach based on the formal western education system. while unesco’s initiative to instil a culture of peace via education is commendable considering the seriousness of the violence in lesotho, the article contends that the approach excludes many out-of-school youth from learning about developing a culture of peace. the article also reveals some characteristics associated with the western educational system that contribute to its inability to incorporate all eligible groups in peace-building education. guided by the theoretical framework of critical interculturality, this article highlighted the basotho lebollo education system as having the ability to extend peace-building education beyond the confines of western schooling and education to include out-of-school adolescents. the compatibility of the lebollo school system with peace-building education was proved by its indigenous epistemology and pedagogy. the article recommends a nonviolent strategy devoid of colonial violence and based on mutual respect that can bring lebollo on board for peace-building education, as has happened in response to the hiv and aids pandemic. transdisciplinarity contribution: this paper contributes to the broad debate that western formal education ensnared in colonial power structures, has difficulty meeting the educational needs of the african child, despite its noble intentions. using basotho indigenous education system as a framework for calling for recognition of indigenous education, the paper makes the case for peacebuilding education as a potential model for indigenous education. keywords: basotho; education; indigenous; interculturality; lebollo; peace. introduction currently, lesotho is afflicted with multiple forms of violence, including direct violence, structural violence and cultural violence. direct violence includes behaviour that undermines life itself and/or decreases one’s ability to meet basic human needs. examples of direct violence are killing, maiming, bullying, sexual assault and emotional manipulation. on the other hand, structural violence refers to the systematic denial of access to goods, services and opportunities for some groups of society. cultural violence represents the prevailing or prominent social norms that make direct and structural violence seem ‘normal’, ‘just’ or at least ‘acceptable’.1 the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) responded to this situation in the country by introducing a peace-building education program. the unesco educational program aims at fostering peace, resilience and the avoidance of violent extremism. the project’s main objective is to teach young people about peace, global citizenship, resilience and the avoidance of violent extremism through education. as one of the african union’s (au’s) established agenda items, the intended objective of the initiative is to eliminate all types of wars, civil disputes, gender-based violence and violent conflicts on the continent.2 in collaboration with the japanese government, unesco held seminars for teacher educators from universities and teacher training colleges, as well as secondary school teachers, as part of the project’s execution. the seminars were meant to increase teachers’ ability by informing and empowering them on why and how to educate for peace. peace education aims to examine ethical issues and transformative pedagogy and offer practical tools that encourage learners to alter the world around them. transformative pedagogy is optimised to empower both teachers and learners. it is intended to enable students to become introspective and critical thinkers who can make a positive contribution to their local and global societies.2 this article wholeheartedly supports unesco’s action, especially given the severity of the violence in lesotho. lesotho is currently beset with political, social, economic, cultural, religious, institutional and interpersonal violence.3,4 however, the article argues against the current approach on two grounds: firstly, the program is focused on the formal western schooling system. victims and perpetrators of domestic and cultural abuse are not recognised and targeted in this way. the formal western education system does not serve a sizable number of basotho youth. as a result, the scope is narrow, and the impact is likely to be limited. lesotho did, in fact, introduce free primary education in 2000 and made it mandatory with the passing of the education act of 2010.5 however, the united nations children’s fund (unicef)6 recorded a total of 3% out of school at the primary level, 14% at the lower secondary level and nearly 36% at the upper secondary level nationwide in 2021. also, the legal term ‘compulsory’ appears to be ineffective. according to lekhetho,4 the government of lesotho lacks the capacity to prosecute parents who do not send their children to school because of the complexities of the issue, which involves some cultural beliefs and practices. a sizable proportion of basotho youth are not served by the formal western education system. second, peace education promotes and supports a culture of peace by teaching children, youth and adults the skills of peaceful living. a culture of peace entails a set of values, attitudes, behaviours and common lifestyles characterised by respect for life and human rights, avoidance of all forms of violence and observance of the principles of peace, such as justice, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation and equality.7 peace-building education or education for building a culture of peace, according to navarro-castro and nario-galace,8 serves to cultivate knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in order to shape people’s mindsets towards living out peace. peace-building education, simply put, aims to create a culture that reflects human nature as peaceful people. however, western education has always been associated with preparing people for the labour market, rather than education for a life orientation. that is, the value of a child’s education is weighed against the potential for future employment. as western education was introduced to africa, africans have found it particularly appealing on account of its economic benefits and social prestige, according to ukpabi.9 western education is frequently viewed as a means to an end, with the end being the acquisition of white-collar jobs that require men and women with educational credentials. in a study of the meaning of schooling in lesotho, dungey and ansell10 discovered that, while formal education is thought to contribute to moral and physical well-being, the primary purpose of schooling is usually linked to economic survival. education is seen as a key to gaining access to formal sector jobs, which pay well and allow people to live comfortably. this means that education in western school systems is mainly seen as a commodity that can be purchased by consumers for the purpose of building ‘skill sets’ to be used in the marketplace, rather than as a set of skills, attitudes and values necessary for everyday life. the second point of the education–employment linkage adds to the first by increasing the number of dropouts and child labour. with unemployment reaching 24% in 2019,11 affecting individuals both with and without degrees, conventional schooling has gradually lost influence. young people are seeking alternative work and self-employment opportunities that do not require formal education. many young boys work as herders in order to become self-employed farmers in the future.10 according to recent media reports, a chief from the thaba-tseka district in lesotho, which has one of the highest out-of-school child rates at 29% as compared to the other nine districts, visited his villages to discover why eligible children are denied access to education. both the children and their parents expressed their dissatisfaction with the western schooling system. they stated that their focus is on the expanding wool and mohair farming industry, as well as the booming illegal mining industry in south africa.12 indeed, according to the central bank of lesotho,13 only half of college and university graduates are working, while the other half are job seekers. the majority of those employed are in the low-paying private sector, which does not recognise their college credentials. based on the importance of peace-building education and the above expressed doubts about western formal education, the author proposed expanding the scope of peace-building education by incorporating indigenous basotho educational approaches. the major goal is to use an intercultural approach in which global perspectives on a culture of peace are taught through indigenous education systems, with the goal of reaching out to out-of-school children and adults. navarro-castro and nario-galace8 argue that peace-building education is more successful and meaningful when it is tailored to the social and cultural context of the country in which it is conducted. indigenous education and pedagogy proposed in this article are strategies to tailor peace-building education congruent to the social and cultural context of basotho. a methodological guide in pursuant of the mentioned objectives, the author used indigenous auto-ethnography. auto-ethnography, according to grist,14 differs from standard ethnography on purpose. traditional ethnographers focused on recording the mysterious ‘other’ by participant observation, living in close proximity to indigenous peoples to observe and record that behaviour new to the ‘civilised’ world. in the majority of cases, ethnographers distorted the ‘other’ by failing to comprehend the indigenous culture and knowledge systems they documented. by contrast, auto-ethnography refers to a piece of research that looks at personal experience (auto) in order to understand cultural experience (graphy).15 in the auto-ethnographic method, the researcher retroactively and selectively writes about past experiences. the researcher does not live through these experiences solely for research purpose; instead they are assembled using hindsight. in this article, indigenous auto-ethnography plays a particularly important role, as it allows recreation of stories that reflect cultural differences caused by colonialism within a state or ethnicity. this indigenous auto-ethnography was written from the perspective of the ‘self’, that is, presenting personal experience while retaining indigenous identity. using anderson’s auto-ethnography techniques, the following five steps were followed: ‘(1) complete member researcher status (cmr), (2) analytic reflexivity, (3) narrative visibility of the researcher’s identity, (4) dialogue with informants beyond oneself and (5) commitment to theoretical analysis’ (p. 378).16 in the first instance, the author played the role of an opportunistic cmr, being indigenous to basotho culture. the views imparted are essentially through long-term cultural insider experiences, not necessarily recorded for this particular article. regarding the second aspect of analytic reflexivity, the researcher invested some meanings in basotho cultural practices. the author entered into the discussion as the ‘self’ within the community of ‘others’; that is, the author reflected on the meanings of cultural schooling and indigenous education as an insider cultural representative within the community of different cultures, the indigenous and western cultures. the author maintained the third element of the visibility of the researcher’s self in the text by organising the discussion through experience rather than imminent recorded information, as epiphanies in order to disqualify the ‘normal’. the author upheld the fourth item of dialogue with others beyond the ‘self’ through triangulating self-experiences with the literature relevant to issues of discussion. the last tenet of commitment to theoretical analysis was enhanced through the use of a critical interculturality analytic framework. analytic and transformational framework in this study, critical interculturality, which is compatible with the indigenous auto-ethnography, was applied to provide an analytical framework. walsh17 describes critical interculturality as a different perspective from relational interculturality that views cross-cultural contact as a natural process of syncretism and transculturation. critical interculturality also contrasts with functional interculturality in that the latter is based on the acceptance of cultural differences and their incorporation into social structures, and it attempts to encourage dialogue and tolerance without examining the origins of asymmetry and sociocultural unfairness. critical interculturality, according to fleuri and fleuri,18 concerns colonial constructs of cultural differences within a nation state or ethnicity. its focus is not necessarily on ethnic and cultural diversity but cultural differences created as the colonial power pattern infused virtually all layers of life. critical interculturality poses the question of why there is a cultural divide between modernity and traditional cultures within a single nation-state. according to critical interculturality, the answers to this question lie in the history of colonialism, where a colonial political system existed in which one country was conquered by a foreign power. according to santos,19 critical interculturality exposes the realities of colonialism, which include cultural estrangement, self-denial and the desire to become acquainted with the superior culture, while ignoring the valuable contribution that subaltern culture can make in addressing current national and global social, political and cultural formations. as an analytical instrument, critical interculturality enhances our awareness of the historical and structural nature of imperial, colonial injustices that shape modern cultural diversity. critical interculturality identifies collective actors that may transform asymmetrical relations by developing new channels of participation and recognition. it is an attempt to bring indigenous thinking into the space of social action. it is an ideological paradigm that guides indigenous social and political thinking and activity.20 as walsh20 indicates, it is a new critical thought for divergence from dominant culture and convergence with indigenous culture as one mode of decolonisation process. such divergence and convergence, according to walsh,21 entails not only relativising indigenous culture and ideas but also enacting their political and decolonial character, putting them in the proper place of their relevance with the supposed superior culture. it necessitates a radical change by engaging in a process of transforming, reconceptualising and refounding national structures and institutions in ways that put varied cultural logics, practices and ways of knowing, thinking, doing, being and living in an equitable (but still conflictive) relationship.17 critical interculturality served as a springboard for this study, which began by examining the current state of basotho indigenous schooling and education systems, specifically why they are at a nonexistent stage in preparing basotho for current global knowledge demands, particularly knowledge on how to build a culture of peace. the intention was to locate them and bring them forward with the ultimate goal of using them in unesco’s planned peace education program. the reasoning derives from worries about the extent and coverage of western education, as well as its transformational approach. the other reason was that basotho education was deemed to be better capable of attaining the required effects than western education. all of these doubts originate from knowledge politics or the struggle for a place and value for basotho indigenous knowledge systems, which are colonially subjugated. this article is an act of activism for the ‘other’ knowledge, that is, indigenous knowledge, within epistemic interculturality, with a firm trust in its ability to produce the intended outcome. entering the world of basotho indigenous education the world of basotho indigenous education is the world of subaltern education, the education that suffered marginalisation, exclusion and disqualification. however, it continued to survive and seek its place within the current colonial order as an alternative for most indigenous people. as early as the arrival of western missionaries in the 1830s, lesotho embraced a western schooling system that was consistent with western civilisation, culture, economics and political systems.22 the existing indigenous cultural outlets, organisations and educational institutions were suppressed. however, they continued existing at the margins, parallel to western formations. the basotho indigenous education system occurs in different settings and uses different procedures.23 however, the author proposed to enter into the basotho education system by aligning with unesco’s strategy of peace education through school system. the first topic to be addressed is whether an indigenous schooling system existed prior to the entrance of western prototype school. the answer is obviously yes, from the author’s perspective as a basotho cultural insider; there was, and still is, the existence of an indigenous basotho schooling system in the form of lebollo. however, the literature is inconsistent or does not provide a straightforward ‘yes’ to this problem. the misunderstanding may be exacerbated by the fact that, other than mophato, there is no actual institution in indigenous basotho society that is referred to as a ‘school’. lebollo is the term used to describe the activities at mophato. according to machobane,24 mophato is an initiation lodge, and lebollo is an initiation procedure. therefore, mophato is a location where candidates, often youngsters, are initiated into the mysteries of basotho culture and adult life. machobane’s approach is more ritualistic than educational, with an emphasis on initiation ceremonies. also, matobo, makatsa and obioha25 depicted lebollo as a rite of passage from adolescence to maturity. others, however, have categorised it as a school because of the fact that lebollo is active in educational activities and problems. ngale,26 for example, classified it as a traditional initiation school. because the term ‘initiation’ is usually associated with rites of passage rather than education,27 the author suggested referring to mophato and lebollo as the basotho indigenous schooling system where circumcision is taught as part of health and sex education rather than performed as a rite. the author’s proposal is in agreement with letseka28 which refers to lebollo as the schooling system with a systematic educational programme. two related characteristics are used to categorise lebollo as an indigenous schooling system. the first point to consider is how schooling is defined or characterised. secondly, what is the point of schooling? in different viewpoints, the schooling system is described differently. however, in this study, the author used goslin’s29 definition, which claims that schooling is an organised process of cultural transmission from one generation to the next. saldana30 adds that schooling is the official or formal method through which a society’s culture is handed on to its offspring. goslin29 defined culture as cognitive systems, skills, beliefs and values, whereas formal or organised refers to a condition in which an activity is no longer individualised or family based, but rather community or societally based. related to cultural transmission is the view that schooling is the process of socialising groups of children and young people on specific skills and values in a society. this socialising mechanism contributes immensely to social conformity and becomes essential glue that holds society together.30,31 lebollo possesses these features, and it might be said that it symbolises the indigenous basotho schooling system because it is institutionalised and includes a set of cultural curriculum content, cultural professional teachers and a specific period and location agreed upon. this, however, does not indicate that lebollo fits the standards of the western schooling system, contrary to matsela,23 who says that lebollo qualifies as formal schooling because of its qualifying traits. some people argue that african indigenous education should not be classified as formal and should instead be considered informal. osaat and asomeji,32 for example, suggested that african indigenous education is informal in character as learning experiences are conducted orally and knowledge is stored in the heads or minds of elders. it is primarily oral and does not exist in printed form. the author advocated engaging in formal–informal debate based on critical interculturality precepts. santos19 proposed the concept of the interepistemic interculturality that stems from the realisation that historical colonialism did not only include the wilful eradication of other civilisations in the process of indigenous cultural genocide. instead, there was also a deliberate destruction of indigenous knowledge systems, which santos19 referred to as ‘epistemicide’ or the destruction of colonised populations’ knowledge construction and deprivation of their modes of knowledge transmission. according to granados-beltrán,33 epistemic interculturality represents ‘an-other’ or ‘border thinking’, which refers to oppositional indigenous thinking that is seeking sociohistorical structural transformation rather than acceptance or inclusion. similarly, indigenous knowledge systems, according to granados-beltrán,33 do not seek to operate as a separate paradigm outside of modern dominant structures. rather, they enter those structures to suggest alternative thinking that affects and decolonises those hegemonic paradigms in order to shatter the cultural standardisation that underpins western universal knowledge structures but which fails to offer comprehensive solutions to problems affecting indigenous people. walsh20 pointed out that while interculturality has a different rationale from colonialism, it also works outside the ancestral limits that existed prior to colonisation. hence, one may say that basotho indigenous education is neither formal nor informal but rather a context-specific education rooted in ancestral knowledge but applied in a modern context. as a support for education, which is context specific, matambo34 asserted that theories of education must reflect the society in which it occurs. there are differing social, economic, cultural and religious circumstances that require different types of education. the concept of indigenous education takes into account the cultural and scientific background of the indigenous people in the present context. the case for peace-building through indigenous education as stated in the introduction, several issues support the argument for peace education through the lebollo education system. the first step is to target a large number of out-of-school adolescents who are excluded from conventional western education. according to makatjane, hlabana and letete,35 10 000 young men attended indigenous basotho schools every year. while this number may include candidates with basic and tertiary western education, integrated regional information networks news (irin)36 found that the bulk of trainees attending lebollo schools are primary and secondary school dropouts. as reported by liphoto,12 the ministry of education and training recorded that 825 primary school dropouts and 600 secondary school dropouts attended lebello schools in 2018. malefetsane liau, chairperson of the council of traditional healers and one of the country’s most well-known herbalists, noted that lebollo provided boys with an awareness and appreciation of their culture that the conventional schooling system could not deliver.36 incorporating peace education within the lebollo curriculum would be a responsive technique for out-of-school youngsters. the implication is that by including out-of-school youth, peace-building education would not just be an educational activity but an act of building peace by overcoming the divide between western schooling and the indigenous schooling system. the response would be in line with the critical interculturality proposition, as santos19 realised that it consists of developing (whenever appropriate) new forms of cultural understanding and intercommunication that may be useful in favouring interactions and strengthening alliances among oppositional social institutions of different cultural contexts. overcoming cultural divide through peace-building education would indeed be cherishing interculturality, which is explained by walsh17 to be a process of moving from an exclusionary state towards an inclusive pluricultural country that integrates different sectors of society in any social, political and cultural initiatives. culturally inclusive peace-building education, borrowing from walsh,17 serves as a transition from focusing on the dominant elitist group to focusing on all members of society, and it gradually heals the scars of inequality and cultural needs, guaranteeing collective responsibility in the efforts of peace-building. the most important point is that there are some lebollo elements that are compatible with peace-building education. in the first place, unesco37 and navarro-castro and nario-galace38 highlighted that building a culture of peace entails the promotion of intercultural understanding, tolerance and solidarity. although lebollo is entirely a cultural institution providing ancestral-oriented education, it is always open to tolerate and work in solidarity with modern demands for the betterment of basotho society. for example, in recognition that male circumcision reduces human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) infection by at least 60%, lesotho took a dialogical initiative to involve lebollo, as it already incorporated circumcision into its health and sex education programs.39 traditional leaders representing lebollo seem to be thankful for the recognition that they have received for their health education and practice; as one leader noted, ‘to make a new loin cloth, you use old pieces and add new ones’, which suggests a need to build on old knowledge when introducing new strategies.39 according to bulled,40 traditional leaders in lesotho viewed the government approach as more empowering as it recognises and values the role of lebollo health education in reducing hiv infections. therefore, lebollo values the interculturality of biomedical (objectivity) and indigenous circumcision (subjectivity) health practices in the fight against hiv transmission. the acceptance of coming into an agreement with the government indicates tolerance and solidarity in lebollo, despite the fact that, as bulled40 highlighted, western-educated elites are continually disgusted by lebollo. western-educated elites see themselves as part of a rapidly modernising society, and their education status distinguishes them from others who participate in cultural ceremonies and practices. although the lebollo schooling system welcomed the government’s invitation, this does not imply a willingness to submit indigenous practices to the regulating institutions of western culturally oriented elites. during conversations concerning the potential incorporation of biomedical information in lebollo, one traditional practitioner cautioned against ‘the incursion of governmental influence into a realm where some of society’s poorest and most marginalised attempt to keep a limited hold on power’ (p. 87).40 she indicated that lebollo graduates are those with few marketable talents and few opportunities to show power or position. as the region becomes more connected to global markets, these people will have limited access to any alternative currency that they can easily convert into coinage of the current liberal capitalist order. subsequently, ‘tradition’, which the state risks devaluing further, is perceived as a finite currency to exchange for power.40 guilherme’s41 concept of critical interculturality supports traditional leaders’ point that the existence of multiple cultures as autonomous entities, albeit heterogeneous in essence, should focus on the spaces in-between, that is, on their dialogical interaction, the elastic nature of cultural identities and the dynamics of intercultural encounters. as a result, reservations and expectations from the two dialoguing groups must be respected in this sensitive and delicate encounter. interculturality does not necessarily imply fading into hybridisation or transculturality; rather, it denotes the establishment of critical interepistemic and decolonial interactions while acknowledging on-going struggles for social and cognitive justice. it entails reintroducing indigenous knowledge and traditions that have been rendered invisible and unheard. it pertains to capturing and articulating the knowledge, behaviours and beliefs of the population that constitute the majority in terms of numbers despite being the minority in terms of power.41 therefore, the viability of lebollo for peace-building education does not necessarily entail its annihilation or consent to subjugation but rather a dialogic approach that acknowledges lebollo’s ongoing colonial cultural resistance. lebollo schooling and peace-building education it is advocated in this article that peace-building education be introduced using the lebollo pedagogy. lebollo pedagogy is an indigenous basotho pedagogy that, according to burney’s42 definition of indigenous pedagogy, refers to a broad-based education philosophy, practice and reflection of the other in society, life and all aspects of representation in socio-economic and political life. it is pedagogy which symbolises a program, a strategy and education that is interdependent and connected with the culture and history of the other and the indigenous. lebollo pedagogy is founded on basotho philosophy of education, teaching and learning practice and basotho cultural life. it reflects the planned educational activities that stem from ancestral knowledge and have the ability to meet the demands of basotho society in the past, present and future. lebollo pedagogy adheres to the epistemic principles of holism and communalism.43 holism refers to the different elements that comprise the self, which include intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical components. holism also refers to a method of teaching and learning that does not separate learning experiences into subject areas, as western education does.43 lebollo’s pedagogy allows students to reflect on the four dimensions of knowledge: (1) emotional, (2) spiritual, (3) cognitive and (4) physical learning experiences. according to maharasoa and maharaswa44 and letseka,28 instruction and learning activities at lebollo are aimed at developing holistic interrelated competencies such as bohloeki (purity), thuto-kelello (cognition), makhabane (virtues), borapedi (spirituality [national unity and respect for social structures]). of course, there are other competencies, but the ones described above are more relevant to peace-building education. purity or cleanliness (bohloeki) refers to the ability to maintain mental, emotional and spiritual purity, that is, to think carefully, to be pure in heart and spirit. these skills are created via the telling of folktales.44 critical thinking development promotes cognitive functionality by allowing students to debate history and poems connected to the socio-economic and political lives of the society. critical thinking is intended to improve reasoning skills for the khotla (a traditional judicial and parliamentary institution) deliberations. the technique is a problem-based education, in which students are required to solve problems that are representative of the community’s real life environment.44 hard effort, respect for all, humility, perseverance, tolerance, service to one’s homeland and patriotism are all emphasised in the lebollo curriculum. according to maharasoa and maharaswa,44 there are two instructional strategies for developing healthy moral behaviour. the first is role-modelling, in which instructors are selected based on their strong moral standing in the community, as well as their substantial political, economic and social status. students are influenced to want to be like them. emotional intelligence skills such as tenacity, tolerance and selflessness are instilled through the deprivation technique, in which students are sometimes left stranded without basic necessities such as shelter, water and food while being expected to be even more thoughtful and vigilant. borapedi (spirituality) is at the heart of lebollo education. students are taught the value of their indigenous belief systems and the necessity of religion in sustaining their identity and connecting them with all created beings. according to gill,22 the belief in the relationship between the living and the dead is important to basotho religion, which postulates the ancestors’ continuous engagement in the affairs of the living, whose physical, material and moral well-being is their concern. students are taught how to maintain good relations with their ancestors in order to gain ancestral support. to acquire ancestral protection and blessings, the living must follow certain moral standards and undertake particular social processes (including lebollo itself) that allow them to achieve botho (fuller humanity) and seriti (spiritual strength). according to maharasoa and maharaswa,44 safeguarding national secrets (makunutu a sechaba) referred to keeping lebollo activities secret as vital to moulding a people, distinguishing it from others through what is taught in lebollo. keeping lebollo secrets is regarded as the highest moral norm, as it preserves basotho identity. it protects the nation’s uniqueness and the importance of what makes basotho who they are against modern dilution and total mental colonisation. communalism is another epistemic assumption that underpins lebollo education. african communalist epistemology emphasises that people cannot achieve their human attributes on their own or by themselves. their accomplishments are not dependent on willpower, memory or intellect, but rather on relationships with other people. shutte45 explained that the concept of self is not anything inside a person or one’s mental characteristics or strength; it is something outside, derived from one’s relationships with others and the world order. the individual can only say, ‘i am, because we are, and since we are, therefore i am’ (p. 41),45 or ‘i am related, so i am, not i think, so i am’ (p. 54).46 this expression is found in the sesotho saying, ‘motho ke motho ka batho ba babang’, meaning a person is a person only through others. consequently, lebollo uses a variety of instructional strategies to instil communal values in the students. the seclusion approach, according to magesa,47 is itself a planned psychological procedure in which students are isolated from their community in order to withstand physical and psychological constraints meant to instil a sense of collective yearning. as a result of their disengagement, the students are trapped. their sense of belonging is snatched from them. in this approach, they are taught to desire connectedness to family and community while also being aware of the perils of individuality. communal competencies are also developed through the pedagogy of lebollo. according to maharasoa and maharaswa,44 there is continuous integrated learning and assessment meant to identify each person’s strengths and weaknesses. the term ‘assessment’ refers to the process of describing the areas in which students best display their abilities. the students are assigned names associated with their talents and skills (a form of specialisation), which they must demonstrate in the community after completion of training. examples are lenepa (the exact one), leteba (the one who goes in depth) and letsitsa (the stable one). lebollo graduates possess a clear sense of social responsibility aligned to their area of specialisation.44 in light of this basotho philosophy of education, it is clear that lebollo pedagogical approaches and international peace-building education are inextricably linked. starting with holistic pedagogy, it is clear that authors in peace-building education such as mondal and ghanta,48 singh49 and unesco50 appeared to follow the definition of peace education offered by schmidt and friedman51 that ‘peace education is holistic’. it emphasised the physical, emotional, intellectual and social development of children within a system of values based on the traditional human values. schmidt and friedman’s holistic approach to peace education leaves out the element of spirituality, but magro52 argued that for a comprehensive, transformative peace-building education, learning cannot be compartmentalised and viewed solely from a cognitive perspective but must include a spiritual dimension. learning, from a spiritual standpoint, does not merely concern the intellect, but all aspects of human existence, including the physical, emotional, aesthetic and spiritual. meyerhof53 defined spirituality as a dynamic process of consciousness and as a path of evolution which brings humans closer to themselves, the planet, their larger cosmos and the eternal source of all that is. according to meyerhof,53 tapping into the spiritual dimension through peace education allows people to feel connected, interconnected and aligned with all humanity, animals, nature, economy and cosmos, leading to ethical, holistic and responsible thinking and acting beyond all personal, national, ethical or religious boundaries. lebollo’s communalist approach to teaching and learning appears to be replicated in unesco’s conventional peace-building education. communalism is synonymous with botho in sesotho and ubuntu in nguni. swanson54 asserted that ubuntu is an expression of the philosophy that an individual’s strength comes from community support and that dignity is achieved as a result of openness, empathy, generosity and commitment, all of which foster a journey towards becoming human. according to swanson,54 ubuntu epistemology is a mode of knowing that encourages a path towards becoming human in a community of humans. it is an indigenous philosophy of ways of knowing (epistemology) and being (ontology). the african epistemology of ubuntu focuses on human relations by addressing people’s moral and spiritual conceptions of what it means to be human and to have a relationship with the other. the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization1 affirmed ubuntu pedagogy as a learning philosophy that may lead to the development of interconnectedness and interdependence among humans. the ubuntu educational approach, according to unesco, teaches peace values and virtues such as compassion, friendliness, humaneness, sharing, respect and caring, which lead to more descriptive terms of human action such as empathy, hospitality, dignity, harmony, humility, forgiveness, responsibility, order, understanding, helping and peace creation. although lebollo and conventional peace education have a meeting point, this does not mean that the two are identical or that one is submitting to another. as monyela55 pointed out, in the lebollo education system, peace competencies are cultivated through torture, corporal punishment and inflicted sacrifices. for example, trainees undergo physical training to overcome difficulties and pain in order to cultivate courage, endurance, perseverance and obedience. maharsoa and maharaswa44 further added that students at lebollo are often deprived of basic needs such as food, water, sleep and affection, while they have to stay focused on the cause and think strategically about what needs to be done. additionally, bullied39 concurred that students at the lebollo school are subjected to physical hardships, including nakedness in the winter, beatings, starvation, torture and harassment and suffering the pain and complications associated with circumcision surgery. in contrast, mainstream peace-building education is said to be supported by a peaceful, safe and welcoming learning environment. according to unesco,2 factors that threaten a safe learning environment include those related to physical safety, such as corporal punishment; those related to emotional safety, such as bullying and manipulation; those related to environmental safety, such as properly constructed schools, attacks, conflicts and natural disasters; cognitive safety threats, such as malnutrition and indoctrination; and spirituality safety threats, such as a lack of spaces for silence and reflection. these factors are present in lebollo, but unesco views them as incompatible with peace-building education. however, as previously indicated, the meeting point does not always refer to the sameness, but to the sameness in difference. drawing on interculturality theory, walsh20 warned that the goal of indigenous pedagogy is to strengthen and position the features of other epistemological logic, logic that is not always based on equality among education systems. it is not intended to bring indigenous education up to the level of popularity of westernised schooling or to open up westernised schooling to include indigenous education systems. dr letsie, a western-educated doctor and proponent of lebollo, underlined this argument at a consultation forum on male circumcision and hiv prevention hosted by the government of lesotho in 2006. letsie argued that, while traditionalists welcome the government’s acknowledgement of lebollo’s contribution to hiv prevention, lebollo should not be confused with mainstream hiv medical male circumcision (mmc). letsie remarked that, while they are willing to adopt the ministry of health’s proposed safe operation, lebollo activities remain secret, and that concealment has been and continues to be an important component of the liberation struggle against colonialism.39 indeed, as a school and cultural institution, lebollo serves as a base for colonial resistance. during colonialism, emile ronald, a colonial government official in lesotho, designated lebollo as a centre of colonial resistance in a report on the status of administration. according to rolland: [t]he rules and character of this institution, as well as its symbolic language understood only by the initiated, render it particularly fit to be the means of a secret and conspiracy, and as long as it exists it will form a dead barrier to all improvements, and form a dangerous engine capable of being set against the government … this institution should be at once put down by proclamation, as a custom tending to immorality and dangerous to good governance … this silly distinction conferred by [lebollo] will thereby disappear, and the ground taken away for jeer, for which the black man in his own estimation considers himself to be superior to white.56 (p. 135) identifying lebollo as a cultural entry point for mainstream peace-building education necessitates taking into account the reality that the two are distinct, one from hegemonic culture and the other from resistance culture. lebollo’s continued resistance is evidence that internal colonialism has made subservient the basotho and their indigenous school system within their own country. therefore, mainstreaming peace education into indigenous school systems requires a very conscious approach. based on their experience of australian schools, biemann and townsend-cross57 warned that indigenous systems of education are often used to achieve mainstream educational goals. they are often subsumed into the canon of established western parameters, which result in them being dismembered and reassembled to fit into the western paradigm. in the view of biermann and townsend-cross,57 this strategy is in fact structural violence, as it introduces indigenous education in a manner that caters to the interests of the western educational system while maintaining the methodological and conceptual parameters of the western educational system. in order to teach peace-building through lebollo, it is prudent to explore the opportunities offered by critical interculturality. as walsh17 argues, critical interculturality demands a dramatic shift in the prevailing order, which is the foundation of western modernity, as well as the continuation of colonial power. it develops a conceptual understanding of the lived legacies of colonisation, oppression, exclusion and colonial difference, as well as the manifestation of these legacies in social structures and institutions, including education. accordingly, it strives to reform, reconceptualise and reimagine systems and institutions in ways that bring contradictory, different cultural logics, practices and ways of thinking, acting and living into balance. interculturality, in this view, is an ongoing and active process of negotiation and interaction that does not eradicate difference. instead, it aims to foster new understandings, coexistences, solidarities and joint efforts between communities.17 while lebollo maintains its stance of colonial resistance, it also engages in the decolonisation process of creating new possibilities for new social orders founded on peaceful principles of life, fulfilling for all. as biermann and townsend-cross57 presupposes, decolonisation implies more than ‘making up’ or ‘getting along’ but a serious reconsideration of the totality of relationships to other. decolonisation involves profound transformations of self, community and social institutions. it means dismantling colonial constructions of differences while reimagining and rebuilding practices and institutions for the betterment of all. considering the need for lebollo to be transformed and become an urgent of transformation, at hiv and aids mmc consultation, dr letsie (a self-claimed custodian of lebollo) noted that lebollo was part of the liberation struggle against colonialism and that this struggle could be reoriented for liberation against the hiv scourge. dr letsie argued that if lebollo were to be incorporated into the mainstream hiv prevention, it would have to be purged of certain elements and be modified to conform to the 21st-century requirements.39 this means that the transformation of lebollo for peace education should come from within rather than being imposed from without in order to conform to western peace-building education, thus maintaining colonial policy. conclusion this article proposes expanding peace-building education beyond the formal schooling system to encompass indigenous education, primarily lebollo education. lebollo is identified as an ideal for expanding peace-building education in lesotho. those involved in peace-building education should seek ways to work with the administrative bodies that oversee the nation’s lebollo education system, such as the traditional leaders (marena), the high-ranking members of the national council of culture and heritage (lekhotla la mekhoa le meetlo, lmm), traditional healers (lingaka tsa sesotho) and the national initiation school committee. the government, as the principal stakeholder, should encourage dialogue in order to establish a peaceful framework for the teaching and learning of peace in the lebollo school system. three issues may hinder the government from leading the charge to introduce lebollo into the public space. in the first place, cooperation with lebollo instructors and traditional healers could indicate that the lesotho government supports lebollo. for years, the lesotho government has distanced itself from cultural rituals such as lebollo as a means of developing lesotho into a christian, democratic and modern nation. secondly, lebollo faces criticism from various social groups, particularly faith-based organisations such as world vision, which is vociferous in its opposition to lebollo, accusing it of increasing school dropouts and child marriage. thirdly, in 2004, the government attempted a top-down initiative through legislation to regulate and institutionalise lebollo. the motion was withdrawn even before it could be presented to parliament. members of parliament who attended lebollo feared that discussing delicate basotho culture with people who opposed it would betray it (in other words, to betray the resistance to colonialism). nonetheless, a nonviolent strategy devoid of colonial violence and based on mutual respect can bring lebollo on board for peace-building education, just as it happened in response to the hiv and aids pandemic. acknowledgements competing interests the author has declared that no competing interest exists. author’s contributions r.i.m. is the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the 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[cited 2022 jan 16]. available from: http://www.fowpal.org/peak-view/peace-education-education-spiritual-peace-building swanson dm. ubuntu: an african contribution to (re)search for/with a ‘humble togetherness’. j contem issues educ. 2007;2(2):53–67. https://doi.org/10.20355/c5pp4x monyela nc. the experiences of newly initiated basotho men in selected botshabelo high schools, free-state province [master’s degree dissertation]. university of the free state; 2017. rolland es. ‘notes on the political and social position of the basotho tribe’. lesotho natl arch. 1868;iv(1):125–151. biermann s, townsend-cross m. indigenous pedagogy as a force for change. aust j indig educ. 2008;37(s1):146–154. https://doi.org/10.1375/s132601110000048x abstract introduction methodology conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) chinyeaka j. igbokwe-ibeto school of public management, governance and public policy, college of business, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa department of public administration, faculty of management sciences, nnamdi azikwe university, awka, nigeria citation igbokwe-ibeto cj. examining the interface between bureaucratic conflict and public interest in africa. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a874. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.874 review article examining the interface between bureaucratic conflict and public interest in africa chinyeaka j. igbokwe-ibeto received: 04 may 2020; accepted: 04 mar. 2021; published: 30 june 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: in every human organisation, there is bound to be conflict of ideas because everyone wants his or her viewpoint to take precedent over others. there are those who want to be on top of every situation irrespective of those involved or the issue at stake. however, a proactive bureaucratic leadership should be able to find a way out of these quagmires. aim: within the framework of the strategic elite theory, this article examines the nexus between bureaucratic conflict and public interest in africa, as well as challenges confronting bureaucracy in the pursuit of public interest with specific reference to nigeria. method: this article adopts a qualitative approach and is descriptive in nature, with the researcher setting out to illustrate the association that exists between the dependent and independent variables. authoritative scholarly sources were reviewed during a desktop study. the purpose was to identify the relevant publications and apply them in the research. results: this article argues that whilst conflict generally is an inevitable outcome of human interactions. however, conflict is more common in a bureaucratic organisation where issues of power and influence are always a source of contention amongst the ministries, departments and agencies (mdas). therefore, resolving the basis for the existence of the mdas that will ultimately inculcate in the bureaucrats a new worldview. conclusion: it therefore, concludes that there should be countervailing forces to put the bureaucracy on check. this includes: strengthening interest groups, the pursuit of institutionalism, ethical reorientation in the public service, amongst other measures. however, to achieve this, requires a critical mass of men and women of integrity, doggedly and ruggedly committed to africa’s project and ready to subsume their personal interests under that of the national interests. keywords: efficiency; development; leadership; management; service delivery. introduction max weber’s1 conception of bureaucracy was an ideal type: the type of organisation set up by modern government to carry out various specialised functions embodied in an administrative system. max weber did not expect that the system of administration he outlined could or should be rigidly applied or that it would be uninfluenced by specific historical or cultural context.2,3 bureaucracy, much as modern (scholars) admirers of the system would want to conceive it, is not a perfect system. it has its challenges that need to be constantly put in check in order to ensure that they do not negate or make it antiquated. the human factor in all these such as interpersonal relationships is crucial. no matter how well an organisation is crafted, without the human factor to control its operations, it may grind to a halt. that is why, of all the factors of production, the human factor (labour) is fundamental. it brings other elements to play in the process of ensuring that the organisation meets with the exigencies of the time, especially in a global system characterised by stiff competition and complex situations. some of the challenges modern organisations face are man-made. the reason for this is partly because of the unstable nature of man. the unstable variable nature of man makes it difficult to predict human behaviour. whilst the behavouralists have done an extensive work on this, the outcome has not been incontrovertible. the verdict remains that man is an unstable variable that cannot be easily predicted. this quality in every man has been brought to bear on their relationship with others in the workplace. more often than not, man’s relationship with others is conflictual because of the pursuit of ends that are divergent and sometimes, irreconcilable. max weber was conscious of this fact, that is why in his articulation of the ideal type of bureaucracy, he notes that its central precepts such as specialisation of roles, rationality and money amongst others are subject to the vicissitude of time and space.2 therefore, in every human organisation, there is bound to be conflict of ideas, values and wants, because everyone involved in conflictual situations wants his or her viewpoint to take precedent over others. in addition, human beings have different drives. there are those who want to be on top of every situation irrespective of those involved or the issue at stake. but conflict between two and more persons in a workplace, if not properly handled, can cause damage of unfathomable proportion. moreover, in the public sector where the public interest is involved, such situation should be identified and addressed with dispatch. like other forms of organisation, bureaucracy also has its fair share of conflicts in different areas and aspects of the organisation. such conflict can be internal or external to it. from whatever angle it emanates, it should be dealt with as quickly as it rears its ugly head, for the public interest to be served. the debate on the question of what constitutes the public interest, remains the raison d’etre of government everywhere. the more government pursues this goal, the more the stability, peace and progress we have in human society. much of the conflict, crisis and violence in the world today are by-product of the failure of government to pursue the public interests doggedly. whilst conflict may be unavoidable in formal bureaucracy, accommodation, bargaining and consensus remain the most enduring and effective means for settling such disputes. there are a number of studies that focus on bureaucracy and service delivery; however, not much has been documented on the relationship between bureaucratic conflict and public interest in africa. this article, therefore, seeks to examine the interface between bureaucratic conflict and public interest in africa with specific reference to nigeria to fill the research gap. to address the issues raised, this article is divided into seven parts. aside from introduction, the first part explores the conceptual and theoretical framework. the second examines the nature of bureaucratic conflict. the third provides an overview of the methods of investigating bureaucratic conflict. the fourth discusses the significance of bureaucratic conflict. the fifth x-rayed the interface between bureaucratic conflict and public interest, whilst the sixth analyses challenges confronting formal bureaucracy in pursuit of public interest. the seventh part makes prescriptions for resolving the identified problems in the public interest. methodology this study, which is theoretical in nature, drew its arguments mostly from secondary data, which included, textbooks, journal publications and internet sources. subsequently, relevant sources of this research were fairly and professionally scrutinised, understood and tested with the available literature for the purpose of the research. it included scan-reading, comprehensive and critical reading and writing down ideas. authoritative scholarly sources were reviewed, during a desktop study. the purpose was to identify the relevant publications and apply them in the research. conceptual and theoretical considerations bureaucracy and its relevance in modern organisation, be it in the public and private sectors, have been a subject of intense academic debate. perhaps the concept is more popular in its negative connotations than the positive ones. more often than not, it is used in pejorative terms. yet, one cannot run away from its relevance in the management of modern organisation. this perhaps explains why there is definitional quagmire as to what the concept of bureaucracy actually represents. a representative sample of these views on the subject will illuminate the author’s position on this subject better. taking a holistic view of the concept ‘bureaucracy’, dimock2 posited that bureaucracy is the composite institution manifestations, which tend towards inflexibility and depersonalisation. the word composite is used by dimock in this definition to bring in variables such as the tradition of the organisation and the spirit of its employees that together create an atmosphere that makes bureaucracy an institution.2 the term ‘conflict’ has no single clear meaning. systematic reviews of the conflict literature by air,4 emiola5 and fulmer6 show a conceptual sympathy for, but little consensual endorsement of any generally accepted definition of conflict. fulmer6 in his classic review has illustrated tremendous variance in conflict definitions. he discovered a range of definitions for specific interests and a variety of general definitions that attempt to be all-inclusive. the concept of conflict can be viewed from many angles depending on the scholar’s view point or worldview. but from a general perspective, conflict can be regarded as disagreement between two equal and unequal parties over an issue on which they hold divergent positions. coser7 in argued that conflict is a: [s]truggle over values, claims to status, power and scarce resources which the aim of the opposing parties is not only to gain the desired value, but also to neutralise, injure or eliminate rivals. this perspective takes a radical view of the concept of conflict in which competitors use every weapon at their disposal to undo or gain advantage over their competitor. when situated within the context of formal bureaucracy, conflict is the struggle for pre-eminence, power and control over resources of government, which more often than not, take the form of subtle competition amongst ministries, departments and agencies (mdas). having noted in the course of this discourse that bureaucratic form of public organisation intends to move public administration from its traditional and charismatic models, which were characterised by systems where akhakpe points out: [p]olicies of government were administered on the basis of norms that injected personalistic, ascriptive and other irrational considerations into the processes of administration. government could not continue on this basis in the context of modernity.2 max weber sought to bring into public administration some of the key cannons of the enlightenment period and of the industrialising society such as specialisation, efficiency and effectiveness, rationality, impersonal, authority is exercised by administrators, only by reason of the office they occupy and not because of their age, family, wealth, wisdom or magical powers. the kind of administration system that max weber envisaged is already evolving, as bureaucratic organisation in its purest form is based on legal-rational system.1 two crucial points can be deduced from the submission made here. firstly, max weber wanted to move away from a system of administration in which powers to hire and fire are in the hands of certain demagogic leaders who do things based on their personal whims and caprices. secondly, unlike the previous models of administration, occupants of official positions, do not only have certain rights, they also have certain obligations. these obligations, as argued here is to pursue and serve the public interests. thus, the rights of bureaucratic leaders must of necessity coincide with the will or public interest of the citizens in the polity. unless this is done, we boldly argue here that public administration cannot be efficient and effective. this takes us to the issue of the public interest. jean jacques rousseau was interested in a social contract that will bring about equality, representativeness and the general good. if a distinction can be made between the state and the people, rousseau8 argued: there is between these two bodies, this essential alterative, that the state exists by itself, and the government only through the sovereign. this dominant will of the prince is or should be nothing but the general will or the law his force is only the public force concentrated in his hands, and as soon as he tries to base any absolute and independent action on his own authority, the tie that binds the whole together begin to be loosened. if finally, the princes should come to have particular will more active than the will of the sovereign and should employ the public force in his hands in obedience to this particular will, there will be so to speak, two sovereigns, one rightful and the other actual, the social union will evaporate instantly and the body politic would be dissolved. it follows from the foregoing discussion that the government at whatever level should not have wills that are diametrically opposed to that of the people, if not, it would alienate or isolate them from it and the state. if the government wants to remain in power, it would want to rely on force, which if not curtailed or prevented may end up in the dissolution of the body politic. this is why authoritarianism threatens the very existence of a state because the people want freedom and liberty but everywhere are in chains. mummer gadhafi of libya and robert mugabe of zimbabwe are a case in point. many years of strongman rule and authoritarianism ended up in violence and subsequent demise of their regimes. africa is in a cross-road today and public policies are ineffectual because there seems to be little convergences of interest between the governors and the governed because public interest means little to public officeholders. public interest could be defined as the common good that will benefit the whole community irrespective of status, sex, creed or ethnicity.2 policies of government should correspond with the public interest. whilst debate may be intense on the means of achieving certain goals such as: reduction of budget deficit, removal of subsides and taxes, seldom do we talk about the ends of these measures. yet, the behavioural aspect to all these is very crucial. unless it is factored into every process and made the key issue, we may compromise the very essence of policies and programmes of government. whilst legislators and administrators would agree that governments need economic growth and stability to remain legitimate, the rule of the game is not often followed. mclean and mcmillan9 provided two mutually exclusive and contradicting notions of the concept of public interest. the first conceives of it as ‘the common interest of persons in their capacity as members of the public’. here, it implied that there is an interest that all members of the society subscribe to or consider to be to their benefit. the second perspective, views public interest as ‘the aggregate of the individual interest of persons affected by a policy or action under consideration’.9 public interest viewed from this angle opines that the interest of the people can be summed up and put forward at any given point in time as the public interest. even where this is practicable, it will take tedious and long time to articulate and aggregate these interests of members of the body polity, which means that public policy will be continually delayed to the detriment of the public interest it intends to serve. bureaucratic conflicts hardly come to the public knowledge as they are covered in secrecy or officialdom. the members of the public only see these conflicts indirectly when policies and programmes of government are delayed or not implemented at all or turned out to be inefficient and ineffective. in either way, the public interest suffers as members of the public are left with poorly conceived and implemented public policies and development programmes. if not properly managed, bureaucratic conflict could lead to crisis, which can shut-down government. therefore, one can deduce that it requires more manifestation of conflict and violence to establish a state of crisis. conflict occurs mostly amongst the power elites be they in the bureaucracy, amongst the political executive or the legislators. therefore, bureaucratic conflict is an elite and institutional centred issue. the elite theory gives us an understanding of the nature and character of this group of people and how they influence the policy process either positively or negatively. in all political society or large scale organisations, the masses do not come together to decide or make decisions, only a few do. this designated few are called the strategic elite. the strategic elite theory states that society is governed not by voters or public opinion but by small group of wealthy persons. this view was ably marshaled by wright mill in the 1950s against the principle of political equity as proposed by the united states constitution. his study shows that rather than having government by the people, it is the power elite that actually govern.10 robert michael applied this theory to the study of modern bureaucratic organisations with specific reference to the german social democratic party. his findings showed that elite groups who derived their powers and authority from well-honed organisational skills ran the party.10 this led michael to advocate the now famous ‘iron law of oligarchy’. he observed that as organisations become oligarchic or bureaucratised because of the fact that those in the top echelon of every organisation that has gained control of information, better skills and knowledge, naturally assume position of making decisions for the rest who are politically unsophisticated and almost always preoccupied with their private affairs. therefore, those whose organisations are to survive abdicate powers to make decision to bureaucratic officials who govern in the name of the rest. empirical evidence tends to prove this theory right particularly in developing countries. but the theory has not gone unchallenged. the first major critique of the elitist theory comes from the pluralist. both the elite and pluralist theorists agree that elitism is a ubiquitous phenomenon observable everywhere, either in the dispersion of power or influence over particular policies. but they disagree on the nature of the political system that produces them. the pluralists argue that no one individual or group can exercise power over the whole process of public policy. for the pluralists, the political system or the bureaucracy is too wide open, freewheeling and institutionally fragmented to allow for any such accumulation of power.10 therefore, what is obtained, for example, in the united states is not concentration of power but its diffusion. as a perspective pluralist put it,10 the most important obstacle to social change in the united states is not the concentration of power but its diffusion if power was concentrated sufficiently, those who wish for change would merely have to negotiate with those who hold the power and if necessary put pressure on them. but power is so widely diffused that, in many instances, there is no one to negotiate with and no one on whom to put pressure. interest groups in africa for instance, play some roles in policymaking, especially where the interest of their members is of paramount importance. both political executives and bureaucrats, sometimes go out of their ways to negotiate with interest groups that are special in certain areas of policy. this is done to ensure the success of such policies once they are passed into law.2,11 no government wants to be caught in the web of policy failure, especially when huge financial involvement has been made into it. sartori12 argued that in practical terms there cannot be an iron law of oligarchy. what matters in contemporary times is not the form that organisations take but the interaction within them and how this can help achieve the goals of democracy.2 therefore, instead of looking inside an organisation, focus should be on the relations in the world of politics, between separate and competing organisations. it is this scenario that generates conflict and unless it is managed for the benefit of the majority, it may spell doom for the body politic. the nature of bureaucratic conflict conflict is a universal phenomenon as it is found everywhere: human beings interact to achieve certain goals. the formal bureaucracy is not an exception. in fact, given the enormity of its daily activities, it cannot but have some elements of conflicts either induced by deliberate actions or those that evolved in course of developing and implementing government policies and programmes.11 here, the article shall interrogate the why and how of this subject. formal bureaucracy is perhaps the most important institution of modern government. it is the engine room of the executive arm of government and over time has risen as the handmaid of the developmental aspirations of the modern state.2,11,13 it has risen in accordance with the expansion of the activities of the executive branch of government. in spite of the increase of its workload, it manages to remain closely knit and maintains a high level of secrecy. yet, it has had its own fair share of conflicts that occur frequently albeit, under official veil several of these conflict areas can be identified as follows. funding issues are as old as bureaucracy itself. bureaucracies, particularly the public ones, have always sought to increase their budgets. they press and lobby to get budget increased from the political executive and the legislators: mostly through the annual appropriation bills. in this quest for more money or funding, they tend to have some advantages vis-à-vis the political executive and legislators.2 these come from their possession of information and technical expertise. in some policy areas that are technical in nature, political institutions find it difficult to exert their influence and control because they do not have the time and energy to acquire the skills and knowledge required to deal with such technical matters, thereby allowing the heads of mdas to enjoy immense influence and autonomy in such policy areas.11 bureaucratic conflict may arise over the question of who controls the power of the purse. in order to survive, prosper and grow, within the bureaucracy, money is needed. each mda wants to be ahead of the other or at least not to be short-changed. once the money is gotten, they seek to shield this from preying eyes within and outside the bureaucracy. as guy2,14 put it: [t]he bureaucracy seeks money and the autonomy to spend it, while the political institutions seek control of their funds and to ensure accountability as to how it will be spent. formal bureaucracy is always on the look out to make sure political institutions such as the political executive and parliament do not get to control what is given. based on this discussion is the related question of autonomy over bureaucratic activities and actions particularly in the use of funds. agencies may seek latitude in the way funds are spent so that they are not put under public spotlight. it speaks volume of the level of public accountability in government institutions.15 such latitude or autonomy could be positively deplored in the final analysis to serve the public interest. another area that seeks autonomy is the area of policy. bureaucrats might seek autonomy to make policy in a particular area without interference from other political institutions. this situation has persisted for long because other political institutions lack the will to checkmate such intensions by virtue of their lack of requisite expertise and information.2 yet, political institutions should find a way of regulating the autonomy of the bureaucrats to act because political institutions have their constitutional role to regulate policy and the implementation of policy. moreover, they must be politically responsible for what happens to the country and they need to control policy if they are to be held responsible for it.14 but, do they have the expertise, information and political will to do this? the answer appears to be in the negative. another area of bureaucratic conflict is in the exchange system within and outside the bureaucracy. within the bureaucracy, information and communication flow may not be effective amongst the staff thereby creating feelings of alienation that may breed discontent. proper communication is the key to organisational effectiveness because it helps to prevent rumour mongering and distortions of facts. the exchange relationship between the bureaucracy and political institutions is often conflictual. whilst agencies could be said to have their own ideologies, which they hold tight to, political actors hardly have a policy-specific ideology.2 this is not unrelated to the deficit of ideology in most of the political parties of this dispensation in africa. many political leaders simply do not have the background in the policy area to contribute much in the way of policy direction and the demands of their jobs often prevent them from developing such direction.2 based on the widely acknowledged relative ignorance of political leaders in controlling or checkmating their administrative counterpart, has it come to a situation where the bureaucracy constitutes an alternative government? guy14 volunteered an answer when he opined that an impartial analysis of the situation would have to accept the argument that bureaucracies have by now acquired considerable political clout, even to the point of coming to dominate policy making in many modern political systems. according to akhakpe2 and igbokwe-ibeto,11 developing cutting edge technology and competitive edge vis-à-vis other actors in the political domain, may go a long way in determining who calls the shot in such relationship. insofar as political actors still remain provincial in their roles and thinking, so shall the bureaucracies continue to amass the political clout to dominate and determine who gets what, when, where and how much. where political actors cannot give policy direction, the public interests are at risk and bad governance pervades the entire political and socio-economic systems. also, bureaucratic conflict may emerge from personnel and welfare issues in the bureaucracy. issues of appointment, promotion, transfer, discipline and incentives to work may cause strives and bad blood amongst bureaucrats. whilst the bureaucracy would want to be as representative as possible to reflect plurality of the state, often, issues of quota system tend to put the educationally advanced regions against the educationally less advanced ones.16,17 in this circumstance, merit tends to be sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity. in the formal bureaucracy as in other type of bureaucracies, favoritism and nepotism are high. some people get promoted, given cars, better offices, sent to foreign trips for training, whilst others are kept in one position for years, even when they have all it takes to move to the next level, travel for foreign or domestic training programmes or enjoy the prerequisites of their office. therefore, who gets what, when and how is skewed in bureaucratic politics. also, cleavages and conflict could emerge from unsettled union matters. labour–employers’ relationship in africa have persistently and consistently being frosty. this is partly because of the insincerity of governments to honour agreements reached with representatives of labour that would help sustain an atmosphere of industrial peace and harmony. the constant academic staff union of universities (asuu) strike in nigeria that paralyses academic activities in the universities is as a result of failure to honour agreements. for example, university academics in nigeria who are supposed to be conducting research on finding cure for the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic have been on strike. the same applies to other unions. if government operates by lies, what then are children learning from the leaders of today? leaders should show good examples to children who in turn should learn good virtues from them. at the level of wage management government at different levels has not been able to determine what represent living wages for their workforce, yet they expect workers to demonstrate high moral rectitude in the discharge of their responsibilities. for example, in nigeria, the n30 000 per month minimum wage, which is less than $100 for public servants is ridiculous and the height of absurdity. governments know that this take-home pay cannot reasonably manage workers’ home for a month. yet, they stick to this amount. a fraudulent government can only have fraudulent workforce. according to akhakpe,2 structural and institutional incongruence are sources of cleavages and conflicts in the bureaucracy. the point has been argued that structures and institutions developed from different scenarios cannot be used to solve or find solution to problems of different societies. as a result of this, most migrated institutions and structures from western europe could not operate efficiently and effectively through the use of force. this method of administering society runs against the historically and culturally tested method that hinge on devolution of powers and authorities to local authorities. thus, if what was expected of the post-colonial state in africa was modernisation as the trend suggests, it would mean the wholesale import of non-african scenarios and solutions.18 in other words, it was believed that africa could prosper only upon rejection of itself.18 such organisational fixation has found resonance in the perennial feud between the generalist and specialist or professionals (staff-line) in the formal bureaucracy. this for a long time has been a subject of cleavage and conflict. for ugoo19 and smith,20 this conflict amongst the top echelon of the civil service came as a result of integration of the old secretariat of generalists’ political officers with professionals in the executive departments, to fall in line with what is going on in the national political scene. this brought about the super imposition of generalists’ administrators on the professionals in the executive departments of government. the professionals such as doctors, engineers, architects amongst others, argue that they are equally qualified as their generalists’ counterparts to rise to the position of permanent secretaries. but the generalists on their part posit that by virtue of their knowledge and training they are more qualified to head the ministries. if the culture in public organisation is virile and robust such separation would have been immaterial bearing in mind that there is a larger goal to pursue, which is the public interests. this brings the article to the clash between individual bureaucratic values and the public interests. although public servants are recruited to serve the public interests, values of bureaucrats that represent the interest of the bureaucracy tend to conflict with the common good.21 for example, formal bureaucracies are supposed to pursue distributive justice as a goal. if they do this in practice, it will connect almost automatically with the people. however, failure to do this over time has resulted in formal bureaucracies failing to meet up with their responsibilities to the vast majority.11 bureaucrats are influenced by organisational values, which they have come to imbibe over time. this is kept in view by several methods including rewards and sanctions to induce their members to accept and act in accordance with organisationally determined values.22 agency official’s decisions may be influenced by considerations to ensure agency survival, to increase its budget or to preserve its power and programmes against external control. these values may lead to conflict amongst agencies with overlapping functions.22 in all, there are however, personal values of bureaucrats over official ones. man, as a self-interested being will always seek after his own preservation before any other consideration except if curtailed. as anderson22 puts it: bureaucrats or more specifically, decision makers may also be guided by their personal values or by the urge to protect or promote their own physical or financial well-being, reputation or historical position. to some extent, the public choice theorists are correct in arguing that official behaviour is driven by self-interest.2 the point being made is that such interests are often put over and above bureaucracy and by implication the public interest thereby valuating or undermining the goals of the bureaucracy and the government it represents. bureaucratic goals are sometimes pursued but not realised because of personal values of bureaucrats. methods of investigating bureaucratic conflict it is difficult to get to the root of bureaucratic conflict through interview of officials of the bureaucracy and political institutions. this belongs to the category of investigation known as action research. this method of investigating social phenomena has the advantage of adapting itself to variations that take place in the subject matter of investigation.23 this approach to investigation belongs to the category of survey research where samples are taken on a case study, analysis made and findings are generalised.24,25 however, this approach may not reveal much about bureaucratic conflicts because respondents have a way of writing down what they do not really mean when asked certain questions through questionnaires. perhaps, the situation could be different in more literate societies. a researcher may also use content analysis of views on bureaucratic conflict to get at who did what, when and how. however, in africa, this is a veritable source of information on bureaucratic conflict as it presents the largely illiterate society with information to gauge actions of public officials. also, one may be interested in looking at past decisions taken on a subject matter to determine who makes decisions about what issue, to understand whether decisions are made by one person and office or several persons and offices. this is important because as we are reminded that there is in every organisation an iron law of oligarchy. yet, this approach is fraught with problem because there is the tradition of secrecy of views in the formal bureaucracy that may make it difficult to come out with something meaningful and tangible from this process. one thing is to agree to talk, the other is to be objective with the discussion. a similar method is the attribution method. it consists of simply asking members of an organisation and knowledgeable individuals outside the organisation, where the locus of power lies in the organisation, who has the power of decision-making and the limit of such powers.2 significance of bureaucratic conflict bureaucratic conflict is not without its positive and negative aspects. there is the tendency to see conflict in general from the negative perspective. but there are indeed, positivity’s that could be harvested from every conflict. in this section, the article dwells on some details on both sides of the divide. conflict and conflict resolution constitute an important activity in bureaucratic organisation as well as forming major part of bureaucratic practices. whilst conflict prevention may be a preoccupation of bureaucrats, it is not really a bad thing to have conflict in the bureaucracy or any organisation for that matter. at any rate, conflict in any human collectivity has come to stay. it cannot be completely avoided or resolved. conflict can be costly to the bureaucracy in terms of turnover, inability to carry out a programme or project, waste of (human and materials) resources. sometimes the effects of conflict are difficult to quantify at physical and social cost. one may argue that the slow pace of nation-building and national development can be attributed to such cleavages and conflicts. yet, certain benefits could be derived from bureaucratic conflicts. according to akhakpe,2 some of these benefits include: innovation in terms of new techniques and technologies, bottom-top communication, more accountability and proper use of funds. what this amounts to is that, a good fight must lead to a worthwhile or meaningful change. therefore, it can be said that whatever may be the tangible or intangible benefits of conflicts, organisations always attempt to resolve such conflicts. whatever may be the effect of bureaucratic conflicts, a good deal of conflict resolution requires negotiation, bargaining and compromise. all these are needed because the stake in bureaucratic conflict could be very high and its outcome may affect not only the life and careers of individuals but also the existence of agencies and substance of public policy. in bureaucratic conflict, the personality of bureaucrats is very paramount to the nature and character of formal bureaucracy. what then is the interface between bureaucratic conflicts and public interest? this question becomes germane taking into cognisance that formal bureaucracies ab initio are created to discharge certain functions and responsibilities on behalf of governments at different levels. the interface between bureaucratic conflict and public interest bureaucracies in developing countries in africa, asia and latin america are expected to play pivotal roles and responsibilities in fast-tracking or jump-starting the development of their countries. at independence, in most of these countries, the formal bureaucracy was expected to champion the overall goal of social change. these expectations were well intended and placed on the door steps of this special corps of servants of the state because of the training, experience and expertise they possessed. no other organisation and institution could rival this unique organisation in terms of its composition. the colonial administration in most of the former colonies suffered retardation in virtually all aspects of human lives. at independence, therefore, the burden fell almost automatically on this special corps of servants of the state whose fundamental basis of existence is to help realise the goals of national development and nation-building in their various ramifications.2,13 to this end, government’s foray into various aspects of human life in the wake of its statist policies and programmes have at the back of their mind the overall goal of achieving public interest at all times. it is, therefore, axiomatic that the public interest should be at the heart of every activity, actions and inactions, and programmes of the bureaucracies. it can be argued that the bureaucratic conflicts this article has elaborated on, should essentially aim at, or concern itself with how to further the common good or public interests. although, the subject of public interests remains one of the contested issues, with lack of agreement of what actually it is or should entail. in substantive terms, scholars such as akhakpe,2 lane,26 otite27 and rekosh28 are still divided over what constitutes the public interest. a conservative view posits that whatever comes out from political struggle or better still, bureaucratic conflict, be it policy or other related issues, is in the public interest. this argument states that if all groups and persons are able to take part in these struggles which in a practical world is not possible, then the public interest would be served. from another angle, public interest is seen as a myth by which many public policies, although selfish are regarded as being in the public interest in order to make them publicly acceptable.22 what then constitutes public interest? redford11 in volunteered three approaches to the question. the first is to concentrate on policy area that is replete with conflict amongst group interests. for the struggle amongst groups to get to certain position, it should not be who is pushing what but what matters is, whether or not what is finally achieved serves the common good or the general will. the public interests can be seen as those interests widely and continually shared, for this reason, they are said to be in the public interest. the campaign of many for world peace, clean air, drug control and fight against terrorism are in the public interest. the third perspective to the issue of public interests is to look at the need for organisation and its procedures in representing and balancing interests, bring about compromise and put whatever is reached in the process into effect.2,22 in this approach, emphasis is on the process of arriving at a goal or need, not really its content. people are likely to look at and judge the end product of a programme, law or policy on the basis of the path it followed rather than what it entails. the term public interest is something of a subterfuge used by those in official positions to perpetrate actions that are in their interest.11 this problem is thrown up by the unspecific nature of the term ‘public’. given the ambiguity that surrounds the term, alternative form of the relevant public is proposed. even where such term can be provided, it is impossible in practice to identify where the public interest lies.9 perhaps, the myth surrounding the concept ‘public interest’ makes it all the more iconic in government cycle. therefore, the question of whether an action or inaction, activity or even policy is in the public interest can be put to rest by assessing the potential gains and losses, which might follow from it.9 this point is further driven home by the view that when pressure groups lobby heavily on behalf of an issue for which there is little popular support and which bears little, if any, obvious relationship to the public interest, the policy process, programmes, actions, activities of bureaucrats is likely to be corrupted.10,11 perhaps, this is a mild way of articulating the relevance of public interest in the actions of bureaucrats. establishing a more comprehensive and causal connection between bureaucratic behaviour and public interest, almond29 argued that without such democratic aggregation, suppression of dissent leads to injustice and the frustration of the excluded, the corruption of the included and eventually to violence and greater instability. a cursory examination of extant literature on the issues under investigation suggests that much of the infraction between government and the civil society is often caused by failure of the government to put in the front burner, the public interest as the guiding principle of good governance. in a democracy, this imperative is constantly put in the public domain where decision makers are constantly reminded of the need to pursue the common good. the fact that this has not always been the case in africa takes the article straight to the impediments facing bureaucracy in pursuing the public interest in africa. challenges confronting bureaucracy in pursuit of public interest the pursuit of public interest, whether heuristically and normatively conceptualised, remains the fundamental basis of modern government. it was for this reason, max weber advocated for a system that is devoid of human manipulations and whose goals are devoid of uncertainty.21 the legal-rational prescriptions of bureaucracy, if followed will bring about faithful actualisation of bureaucratic goals, which represent the core values of the modern state: security, freedom, equality and liberty, provision of social welfare services, amongst others.13 these goals could be said to represent some of elements of the public interest.1 in practice, however, these aspirations, principles or philosophies of the state remain far-fetched. the african continent has for long been confronted with intractable crises and conflicts, failed expectations of the people for progressive improvement in their material well-being, to mention but a few of these assaults on the people they swore to serve. in this section, the article attempts to highlight some impediments to efforts by the bureaucracy to realise the public interest. in africa, public officials are mostly driven by materialism. the rat-race for wealth is so intense that those involved are willing to go to an absurd level, like swearing in a shrine publicly or going nicked before it, just to lay their hands on the prize called power. for this reason, elite competition is almost zero-sum except for the privatisation of bureaucrats’ heritage.2 the premium placed on power and status end up subjugating or subsuming bureaucratic goals under personal interest of bureaucrats.11 political institutions such as the executive and legislators cannot do much in terms of control because they are birds of the same feather. even when they are willing, they are again limited or constrained by access to information, technical abilities and expertise. the bureaucrats by reasons of their expert knowledge, access to information and experience are able to avoid control and influence from outside thereby sacrificing the sacred goals of the bureaucracy for personal aggrandisement – money, agency control and status symbol.2 all these compromise the public interest. it is little wonder that bureaucrats are defined in pejorative terms by members of the public. although the present administrative system in africa predated the modern western democracy, the political system has not been able to rise up to the challenge of bringing formal bureaucracy under its control and influence. several attempts at bureaucratic reforms in africa have failed to bring about modern democratic practices.2 it suffices to say that many years of military/authoritarian rule stunted the growth and development of democratic culture that would have put political institutions at par, if not above formal bureaucracies in africa. the calibre or quality of staff and training that bureaucrats received in recent times has become a subject of concern to all stakeholders. for a long time, the formal bureaucracy has not kept up with technological movement and innovation across the world. brain drain in africa has depleted the public sector of some of its best hands. primordial sentiments in africa has made it difficult to recruit the best hands in the society,21,30 even as the educational system continues to produce half-baked graduates from a demoralised tertiary educational system.31 matters are made worst by the disdain with which training is approached by public servants. many of them cannot see the essence of such exercise when it cannot elevate their material well-being. definitely a depleted, demoralised and ill-equipped formal bureaucracy cannot mid-wife policies and programme that will serve the public interest.21 surely, bureaucratic leadership is the key to the realisation of the public interest. no matter the unpredictability of the time and the uncertainty in public policy implementation, a proactive bureaucratic leadership should be able to find a way out of these quagmires to achieve the public interest. bureaucrats only need to show that they adhere to the rules and regulations of the game. they should not see themselves as ethnic, religious or sectional representatives but chief servant leaders who are ready to uphold the sanctity of the laws. but ethnicity, religious bigotry, sectional inclinations and clientelism have invaded the bureaucracy to the detriment of the public interest.2 having identified some of hiccups to bureaucracy’s pursuit of the public interest. in what follows, the article shall attempt some prescriptions or remedial steps to ameliorate the situation. bureaucratic conflict and public interest: the way forward it can be argued that without conflict, the elite itself will be superfluous. whilst the essence of elite interaction is conflictual, the question to be answered is how these interactions can be maintained without causing havoc to the public interest. firstly, the negative elite political culture in africa must change. negative vices such as: corruption, clientelism, ethnicism, religion and parochialism should give way for positive elite political culture. this provides the basis for understanding political allocation and change for predicting the degree of stability in the system.2 as lapalombara3 has argued: [t]he political sub cultures are important in part because they provide a particular kind of learning for elite and masses that belong to them and they reinforce this learning through a variety of on-going organisation and experience. it is crucially important that democracy that is just gaining ground in africa be consolidated. this is vitally important to allow for the learning process to be internalised and embedded in the elite and masses alike. the best way to perfect a system is to continually work on it. the advanced democracies did not get to where they are by chance. it took them years of falling and rising again to get to where they are today. the elite and populace need to be patient to arrive at that matured stage of democracy where relapse or breakdown is almost impossible. the sure way of getting there is to develop a democratic rule characterised by bargain and compromise, accommodation and tolerance. elite in general and bureaucratic elite in particular occupy a central position in the life of every regime in political power. they are to be seen as role models by the masses worthy of emulation. the nature of elite–mass relationship is critical for the development of africa. whilst the people always inclined to follow the bureaucrat’s judgement as to the inclined direction public policy and developmental programmes should take, bureaucrats on their part should carry them along by putting their interests in the back of their minds in all they do. as otite27 puts it: the elites in general ‘… are capable, if not also expected to create new values, new insights, new ideas and new orientations in the process of consolidating their influence on the masses’. but these innovative roles carved out for the elite can only rob positively on the masses if they are based on the yearnings and aspirations of the people. also, it is imperative to note that there are countervailing groups in civil society that are able to put public servants in constant watch, security and checks to prevent them from derailing from their motive for being an elite corps of public officials brought together to pursue the national interest or public good.11 these organisations in the public and private realm have grown exponentially. but they are yet to have that organisation and discipline to sustain them over time. but this can only get better by improving on what they do, particularly improving the relationship and interactions with pressure groups, particularly in the area of lobbyist’s activities and policy advocacy. at this critical juncture in the african evolution and developmental processes, africa requires a critical mass of men and women of integrity, doggedly and ruggedly committed to the african project. in this mission, they should be ready to subsume their personal interests under that of the national interests. what africa lacks are men who will elevate the national interest over and above that of the personal interest.2 it would be wrong to assume that this change of attitude by public officeholders could come with the wave of the hand or wishful thinking. to get to this state of being, other factors must come to play, such as: resolving the basis for the existence of the african states that will ultimately inculcate in the people a new worldview of africa and its organising philosophy. modern political systems are surely predicated on institutionalism as the formal channel for conducting government affairs. anderson22 saw institutions as partly, ‘a set of regularised patterns of human behaviour that persist over time and perform some significant social functions or activities’. their longevity and established rules and regulations give its operators values and belief in them that can help stabilise and give legitimacy to its operators and members of the society. the respect for institutional rules keeps their operators within check and provides a framework for assessing their performance. overtime, the study of institutions as basis for understanding the political system including, of course, the bureaucracy has undergone changes. from the study of its legal powers, formal structures, functions and activities, amongst others, emphasis is now on its pattern and processes concentrating on behaviours of its actors and how this helps to realise or negate their goals and mandate. therefore, respect for and value of institutions will go a long way in keeping bureaucrats on track and faithful to their calling as a group assembled by the state to bring about social change in the society. conclusion the article has examined extensively the issue of bureaucratic conflict and public interest in africa with an attempt at clarifying the intellectual cobweb surrounding bureaucratic conflict and public interest. in addition, searchlight was also beamed on the theoretical framework for a better understanding of the concepts under analysis. thus, the strategic elite theory has been examined as postulated by scholars. an attempt has also been made to establish a nexus between bureaucratic conflict and public interest in africa. the article concludes that whilst conflict generally is an inevitable outcome of human interactions. however, conflict is more prevalent in a formal bureaucracy where issues of power and influence are always in contention amongst the mdas. at the centre of bureaucratic cleavages and conflicts are the questions of money, more money, status, influence, labour relations and self-aggrandisement. although efforts are often made to investigate causes of these conflicts, secrecy embedded in bureaucratic activities makes it difficult for researchers or members of the public to lay their hands on what the issues really are, with a view to finding lasting solution to them. however, certain heuristic and normative investigations have revealed that bureaucrats wield enormous influence and power over other political institutions such as the political executive and legislature. this virtue of the bureaucrats is borne out of the superior information at their disposal in addition to their expert knowledge and experience. in all this, they must keep in view the public interest for which they are brought together and which they swore to serve, protect and defend at all times. but ‘if wishes were horses, beggars would ride’. therefore, there should be countervailing forces to put the bureaucracy in check. this will include: strengthening interest groups, the pursuit of institutionalism, ethical reorientation in the public service, amongst other measures. whilst the goals of governments and organisations maybe closely related, the pursuit of these goals must be done in such a way that public interests are built into the process. acknowledgements the author would like to acknowledge the almighty god for the knowledge and wisdom given to him. he cannot forget his immediate family members for their support and encouragement during the period of this study. he is also also grateful to his pdrf host prof. nel-sanders of the school public management, governance and public policy, university of johannesburg, south africa and his colleagues at the nnamdi azikiwe university, awka nigeria, and to all authors whose works were consulted, which have been duly referenced. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. author’s contributions c.j-i.i. is the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received funding from the university of johannesburg. data availability the author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency 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implications on employee performance. arabian j bus manag rev. 2015;5(3):34–48. https://doi.org/10.12816/0019014 osawe cy. representative bureaucracy and security service delivery in nigeria: a study of the nigerian police force 2009–2019 [unpublished phd dissertation]. ojo: department of public administration, faculty of management sciences, lagos state university; 2020. basil d. the black man’s burden: africa and the cause of the nigerian state. ibadan: spectrum books limited; 1994. ugoo ea. modern public administration: theories and practice. onitsha: abbot books ltd.; 2018. smith bc. bureaucracy and political power. sussex: wheatsheaf books; 1988. igbokwe-ibeto cj, agbodike fc, anazodo ro. the application of federal character principle and its implication on service delivery in nigerian federal civil service. int j hum resour stud. 2015;5(3):1–22. https://doi.org/10.5296/ijhrs.v5i3.7763 anderson j. public policy making. new york, ny: houghton mifflin company; 1984. osemovota o, okhakhu m, tonwe d. research and statistical methods. lagos: amfitop book company; 2007. babbie e, mouton j. the practice of social research. cape town: oxford university press; 2001. kothari cr. research methodology, methods and techniques. delhi: new age international; 2004. lane j, editor. bureaucracy and public choice. london: sage; 1987. otite o. the nigerian power elite and unity. in: osaghae e, onwudiwe e, editors. the management of the national question in nigeria. okada: igbinedion university press, 2007; p. 56–57. rekosh e, editor. the vicious circle: weak state institutions, unremedied abuse and distrust. budapest: open society institute; 2005. almond g. comparative politics today: a worldview. new delhi: pearson education inc.; 2007. briggs rb. problems of recruitment in civil service: case of the nigerian civil service. afr j bus manag. 2007;1(6):142–153. igbokwe-ibeto cj, chukwuemeka e, okechukwu l. enhancing human capital development and service delivery in nigerian tertiary institutions through effective academic staff recruitment. afr publ serv deliv perform rev. 2014;2(3):125–152. https://doi.org/10.4102/apsdpr.v2i3.62 abstract introduction literature review methodology results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) rajendran p. pillay department of nature conservation, faculty of natural sciences, mangosuthu university of technology, durban, south africa samantha govender department of curriculum and instructional studies, faculty of education, university of zululand, empangeni, south africa citation pillay rp, govender s. exploring the quality of pre-service teachers’ critical analysis of cartoons within environmental contexts in the life sciences. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a863. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.863 research project registration: project number: dept2016/104 original research exploring the quality of pre-service teachers’ critical analysis of cartoons within environmental contexts in the life sciences rajendran p. pillay, samantha govender received: 22 june 2020; accepted: 29 nov. 2020; published: 25 may 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the world is presently facing a myriad of environmental challenges. one way to address these challenges is through the development of cognitive abilities to analyse environmental issues and respond to them appropriately. there are a number of approaches used in education processes to develop the cognitive abilities of students; one of them is the use of conceptual or reasoning cartoons. this article reports on an exploratory study of the quality of pre-service teachers’ cognitive abilities in the analysis of three conceptual cartoons depicting real environmental challenges. the study was interpretivist in nature and followed a case study design. the participants were a convenient sample of students (n = 32) at year level three, at a southern african residential university, doing a life science’s teaching methods module. students were required to analyse three environmental cartoons which they had not previously seen or discussed. the responses were coded according to the basic analytical steps of critical thinking and analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. the results showed that most responses were framed as descriptions of the cartoon rather than higher order analytical thinking; most students were unable to follow a sequence of analytical thinking; presentation of cognition was textual; and most pre-service teachers’ responses were phrased in a way that made it seem as if they were not part of the environmental issue. it is recommended that life sciences’ methodology pre-service teachers be categorically developed in analytical thinking of environmental issues, as they have a crucial role to play as future citizens. keywords: cartoons; environmental dimensions; sustainability; constructive learning; cognitive quality. introduction humankind is faced with a number of environmental issues. these issues are complex and include climate change, vector borne diseases, floods and droughts that threaten potable water supplies.1,2 aside from natural causes, anthropogenic causes such as the disregard for environmental laws and unwise use of resources are contributing factors to the looming and existential situation faced by humankind. education has been recognised as one of the strategies to address the environmental crises.3,4 however, the kind of education that is needed is one which develops analytical thinking and a holistic understanding of environmental issues and the possible strategies to address these issues and implement them. in the life sciences and in the environmental education curricula, learners are expected to develop critical analytical skills. the aim of education in the rapidly developing fields of science and technology is to actively engage students in lessons and to create ways to think critically to solve problems using creative alternates.5 there are a number of approaches used in education processes to develop cognitive abilities of students; one of them is the use of conceptual cartoons. the use of cartoons is twofold but not disjointed: (1) to develop analytical skills in students and (2) to hopefully prompt deeper introspection with the potential to lead to transformative life styles. the main purpose of this research was to evaluate and explore the critical and analytical thinking abilities of pre-service student teachers in response to cartoons used in the life sciences within an environmental context. this study sought to explore the following question: what is the quality of pre-service teachers’ answers to a critical analysis task of cartoons within environmental contexts in life sciences? literature review it is critical that the younger generation be made aware of their environment as they will face the repercussions of present-day challenges in the future. thus, for them to actively participate in solving environmental problems in their daily lives, they would need to acquire adequate knowledge and a better understanding of environmental issues. this will thereby assist them to develop a positive attitude and acquire relevant skills enabling them to think scientifically and act purposely.6 much effort is placed on the integration of environmental education in primary, secondary and tertiary education and how best to address this need. however, teaching environmental education, more especially those highly technical and particularly controversial issues, may be rather challenging. it is suggested that cartoons (a term used to include stand-alone illustrations, captioned or non-captioned, and short comic strip formats)7 have a valuable contribution to make to learning. thus, they may be considered as a potential teaching approach for environmental learning. jamal, ibrahim and surif8 emphasised cartoons to be effective as they have the likelihood to increase creativity, innovativeness as well as student’s understanding of concepts. similarly, van wyk7 alluded to the point that the use of cartoons as a teaching strategy has significant benefits of promoting understanding, increasing attention towards learning, improving attitudes and developing divergent thinking. cartoonists attack, provoke thought or provide a mirror and/or create awareness of behaviour on represented phenomenon through the convention of satire, contrasts and expression.9 in the research literature concept cartoons are defined as visual tools in which cartoon characters declare views about issues from daily life.10,11,12,13 in addition, cartoon characters enhance substantive conversation during classroom discussion amongst students,14 and short texts are used as dialogues to assist them to solve critical issues,15,16 which is particularly pertinent to environmental education. notably, within this study, as the term ‘concept cartoon’ has been specifically copyrighted for commercial purposes.17 the general usage of concept cartoon is limited. however, the term ‘cartoon’ or ‘reasoning cartoon’ is used synonymously instead in this article to ‘concept cartoons’. kabapinar18 reported from numerous case studies conducted on the use of concept cartoons in fourthand fifth-grade primary school science learners in turkey that concept cartoon teaching was effective in creating focused discussions where reasoning behind students’ misconceptions could be uncovered, specifically through the use of teachers’ thought-provoking questions. in addition, the cartoons also served as a remediation for misconceptions. similarly, balim, nel and evrekli19 in their research in turkey used concept cartoons for seventh-grade science classes and revealed that concept cartoons impacted on students’ enquiry learning skill perceptions by helping them to relate new knowledge to their existing experiences. likewise, another turkish study20 revealed that in using concept cartoons inquiry learning skills were developed while students attempted to validate their mental constructs and newly-acquired information by creating a conducive environment for cognitive conflict and substantive debate. similar results were reported by demirtas, kiyici and yigit21 in eliciting student perspectives on concept cartoons. they concluded that concept cartoons encouraged reflective epistemic thinking and increased conceptual understanding. notably, several studies have examined the effects of cartoons from turkey. yet again, eker and karadeniz5 in turkey investigated the effects of teaching practices using concept cartoon on students’ achievement and knowledge retention. findings indicated that the teaching practices using concept cartoons provided significant differences in increasing students’ academic achievement and the level of knowledge retention in favour of the experimental group. therefore, research evidence reveals that the use of visual tools, specifically concept cartoons in this case, creates a positive impact on student learning and encourages them to engage in the learning process. however, much of these studies in recent years seem to focus specifically on science education in the primary schools. one of the key theoretical features of concept cartoons in science lessons is cognitive conflict and argumentation based on evidence.22,23 in other words, the actions of the characters or accompanying texts are in opposition promoting analysis, argumentation and decision-making. a study done by naylor, keogh and downing24 in the united kingdom provided evidence to support this theoretic feature of concept cartoons. their study revealed that primary school students could easily co-construct arguments without the teacher’s intervention or any prior training, particularly during science lessons. international research on concept cartoons support a key aspect of constructivist learning, that is, active learner involvement.25,26,27,28 cartoons have a visual and immediate impact on students, irrespective of age or background, and trigger some response to the educational point being made.7 the active cognition can be enhanced and further boosts students’ communication skills when they are working with their peers.29 a more recent study examined student’s critical thinking and performances after implementing peer learning with concept cartoons.30 their findings revealed significant results on students’ critical thinking and performance, simply the students who engaged in peer learning through concept cartoons improved their performance. however, much of these studies referred to seem to focus on the knowledge and the active learning dynamics using cartoons. what is missing is the succinct link to environmental responsibility. it is critical that environmental education and education for sustainable development strive beyond simply presenting learners with chunks of information about a given problem; instead, they must be taught the necessary skills that will equip them to apply the information in resolving the current environmental issues and to take responsible action.31 redondo and puelles32 have pointed out that environmental learning has not promoted pro-environmental behaviours as effectively as it has promoted pro-environmental knowledge and attitudes, noting that there is inconsistency in ‘environmental attitude–behaviour gap’. they add that education should be more than a myopic approach of focusing on immediate learning objectives of curriculum content knowledge and liking of the subject. the focus of environmental education is necessary for changing people’s opinions about the world and daily action through delivery of knowledge, providing a basis for attitude reflection and transformative action to fundamentally respond to environmental degradation.33 environmental responsibility is not only collective but personal. dreyer and loubser34 posited three principles that should underpin environmental learning, namely: (1) knowledge needed to address environmental problems and challenges; (2) the development of skills to study, solve and address environmental challenges; and (3) should include the affective domain, that is, the domains of attitudes, values and commitments to address environmental issues. in the context of this study, research evidence of principle (2) and (3) is the focus. the ability to analyse and creatively adapt to new situations is at the heart of critical thinking.35 toledo, yangco and espinosa36 conducted a study in the philippines with first year high school learners which focused on media cartoons as a teaching strategy specifically in environmental education. their findings revealed that exposure to cartoons results in critical thinking and significantly better issue resolution skills on environmental education topics than the conventional approach. their sample comprised of 6235 learners across 10 provinces in thailand, and they further observed that learners who actively engaged themselves in media cartoon activities enabled them to take responsible actions and readily provide solutions to local and global environmental problems. thus, the use of reasoning cartoons is an effective instructional tool that provides the necessary structure for learners to engage in high level inquiry and higher order thinking, and ultimately, it is hoped that responsible environmental action is the result. in addition, kabapinar18 cited in toledo et al.,36 the cartoon technique is said to be efficient in teaching environmental problems and improving the quality of learning about the environment using a constructive structural approach. the goal of analysis is to answer questions by interpreting the information at a deeper level and providing actionable recommendations. this is different from a description of the physical actions being performed by the cartoon characters (figure 1a and b) or by sentiments expressed (figure 1c). figure 1: (a) cartoon one, (b) cartoon two and (c) cartoon three. collectively much of the literature seems to focus on the potential benefits of reasoning cartoons within an international context, specifically in science education in the primary school classroom settings. this is mainly because of cartoon concepts in teaching and learning being used to attract the interest of primary school learners in science subjects. by simply acknowledging the efficacy, visual effectiveness and appeal of reasoning cartoons, it presents an opportunity for it to be used as a constructivist and powerful tool in enhancing environmental education more especially amongst students in institutions of higher learning. a constructivist theory underpins the study reported in this article. the basis of constructivism is that knowledge gained and understanding are broadened through active construction and reconstruction of mental frameworks and through making valid connections between new and existing knowledge.37 learning within the constructivist theoretical framework is characterised as an active and learner-centred process. dreyer and loubser34 stated that learners should be active participants in the learning context in environmental education. further, they pointed out that environmental learning should involve critical thinking skills which include content knowledge, procedural knowledge such as steps in analysis as well as doing analysis and commenting on different perspectives. critical thinking then encompasses employing knowledge leading to awareness and self-regulation in decision-making.38 however, casiraghi38 alluded to some logical flow in critical thinking, although this may not always be the case, that is, understanding the issue, seeking and knowing how to choose the most effective solution, showing motivation and displaying attitude of permanence in resolution of issues.38 the process of analysis consists of breaking knowledge down into its parts, thinking about how the parts relate to the overall picture through interpreting, comparing, contrasting, differentiating, organising, attributing, making inferences and synthesising.37,39 analysis involves higher order thinking moving beyond clinical descriptions. lutrin and pincus40 highlighted the basic sequential steps specifically regarding analytical skills related to cartoons (see figure 2). figure 2: sequential steps for critical analysis. these sequential steps were used by the researchers in this study to analyse student responses. the cartoons in this study were used as an intentional cognitive prompt to initiate critical analysis. methodology research paradigm and design this research is anchored within an interpretivist paradigm. an interpretivist paradigm is based on understanding the response of participants within a rich analytical context rather than using post-positivist objectivity.41 a case study research design was used because of its suitability for in-depth study through gathering data of the cognition of the participants,41 in response to the specific task. in this study, the aim was to elicit the responses of the participants to three reasoning cartoons within an environmental context and then analyse the responses using a tool for analytical skills. in this article, an analysis of cartoons one, two and three are presented (figure 1). qualitative and quantitative data were generated through coded categories and thick descriptions, and descriptive statistics, respectively. participants and settings in the south african context, environmental topics have been included in the life sciences/biology and natural sciences higher education curricula. the data were collected from year level three undergraduate students registered for a semester module in life sciences/natural sciences methodology at a south african university. the students were preparing for a teaching career focusing on life sciences/biology and natural sciences. convenience sampling was used as the research was part of the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the module was taught by one of the researchers. the students were given the cartoons at the beginning of the module without any deliberate teaching or recapitulation of critical analytical skills and without any discussions on the topical environmental issues depicted in the cartoons. the assumption was that at tertiary year level three, science students would have had acquired some level of critical analytical skills through their education. the students were given an hour to respond individually to the cartoons in a lecture venue, without any prior discussion with fellow students. anonymity was maintained, as personal details such as student name and number were not asked for. in total, 32 students (12 males and 20 females) participated in the study. data collection and analysis the participants were given an open-ended task to do on their own. the only given instruction was: kindly analyse cartoons one, two and three. the cartoons were original as they were designed by the researcher. the cartoons were not necessarily humorous but attempted to portray real-life contexts with an integrated environmental focus. dreyer and loubser34 pointed out that environmental learning should be authentic, that is, should be based on real-life contexts. a brief description of each cartoon (figure 1) is given below. cartoon one depicted the wastage of water during a period of water shortage. the cartoon brought out the message of the negation of moral conscience (who is watching?) by deliberate wastage of a character through a contrast of the newspaper headline: water shortage. cartoon two depicted the buying of plastic bags by a character based on the personal economic affordability. the cartoon contrasted the behaviour with a newspaper headline: plastics kill fish. cartoon three depicted the lack of concern for environmental messages such as ‘keep the city clean’. the contradictory behaviour is shown by littering close to a bin and with high levels of pollution in a populated neighbourhood expressed in a speech bubble. the analytical framework used for the study was that of lutrin and pincus40 as represented in figure 2. this framework encompasses the different tenets of critical thinking as expounded in the literature review and is pertinent to cartoon analysis. both a qualitative approach and a quantitative approach were used in the analysis. qualitative analysis involved content analysis using coding and identification according to the analytical framework (as presented in the results). the key elements for framing the analysis in the study were: cognition (higher order thinking versus description; presentation of analysis; logical steps of analysis) and environmental responsibility (first person [we/us] vs. third person [they/people]). the predetermined categories were identified within the coded data, and these are supported with verbatim responses from participants. quantitative analysis was done through numerical counts of the overall responses in the coded data categories, thus generating descriptive statistics. in interpreting the descriptive statistics, the authors raise awareness that in total, 96 responses were expected (32 participants responding to three cartoons). results the results are presented in two parts, namely cognition and environmental aspects. descriptive statistics of the analysis and quotations of students’ responses are presented in the analysis and results. cognition given the nature of critical analytical tasks, amongst others, three aspects of cognition can be identified. these are higher order thinking, presentation of the analysis and the logical steps used in analysis. the results of these three aspects of the analytical framework are presented in tables 1, 2 and 3 respectively. table 1: cognition: higher order thinking versus description. table 2: logical steps of analysis (issue, key subjects, the action, the contrasts, message(s) in context/broader message – destruction to planet earth). table 3: environmental responsibility: first person (we/us) versus third person (they/people). higher order thinking the results show that a far higher percentage (87.3%) of the students gave a description of the cartoons rather than showing higher order thinking in their analysis of the cartoons. the following quotations are examples of descriptions of the cartoons: ‘in this cartoon it shows that in the news plastic kill fish, so this lady wanted 6 plastics.’ (c2, female 13, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘cartoon shows pollution where people litter the environment. they throw rubbish outside the bin and that causes a smell …’ (c3, female 13, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘it is during the day, there is sunlight and the father is watering the grass, taking care of the grass or nature while not knowing that he’s wasting water because the little girl next to him is complaining about the day is hot …’ (c1, female 16, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘in this cartoon they are showing us that people are doing water pollution because today’s news is saying that plastics kill fish and fish are not found anywhere but they live only in water.’ (c2, male 5, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) although a comparison for each student across the three cartoons was not done, the examples quoted show that these students provided descriptions for the reasoning cartoons instead of analysing the cartoons. in other words, primarily there was a translation of the visual into a textual description. the quotations which follow show higher order thinking in the analysis of the reasoning cartoons. the comparison of the responses to cartoon one (c1) as shown in the quotations of females (2), (3) and (9) show higher order thinking. female (2) generalises the message to education, female (3) personalises the message to the individuals of the broader community and female (9) analyses the cartoon within a biological framework by suggesting a time when plants should be watered, thus suggesting a solution to wasting water. male (9) identifies the problem of water wastage and further broadens thinking by commenting on the selfish nature of the action and the implications for survival: ‘cartoon 1 tells us about the shortage of water in the world. it shows how people waste water. it also tells us how to conserve our nature by saving water. the man in the cartoon wastes more water and he doesn’t care for the future generation. this shows that people in the world are still not educated about the importance of saving water. people need to be educated about how to save water.’ (c1, female 2, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the message portrayed in this cartoon is that in our homes we know about the shortage of water but we still reluctant to act in a way that will save water, because we still have it in our communities or our tanks, we think that it is something that will affect some people not us, because we have not experienced it yet.’ (c1, female 3, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the guy that is watering is actually wrong because he thinks that no one is watching, while it is wrong to water plants in the midday when the sun is too hot. he is just wasting water … the correct time to water is in the morning before the sun comes out. doing so will make the plants absorb water.’ (c1, female 9, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the cartoon is showing that people do things that affect them just because there is no one who is seeing them. for instance, there is a shortage of water but the man is busy using the water for irrigation. the man is egocentric he only thinks about his garden not about the many lives that depends on the water that he is wasting.’ (c1, male 9, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) presentation of analysis all the responses of the students to the reasoning cartoons were presented in the text format. other tools for analysis, for example, mind maps or concept maps, were not used. the students were given space for their responses but without prescribing the form of the response. none of the responses showed physical evidence of student cognition processes, for example, making any notes, marks or shading on the cartoon itself, as evidence of some form of analysis or contrast of attitudes, actions or messages. this was not given as an instruction, that is, to shade or not shade. physical evidence would have provided greater insight to the quality of student cognition. applying analytical skills requires basic sequential steps as alluded to by lutrin and pincus40 (figure 2). these steps were not taught to the students by the lecturer prior to the task in this module. analytically, these logical steps emphasise the message or messages of the cartoon and enhance its argument or objective. overall, a high percentage (77.8%) of the students were random in the presentation of their analysis rather than following logical steps. in the quotations that follow, the numeric reference is used to show the logical steps in analysing the cartoon. the following are examples of students’ complete responses showing the logical steps of analysis: ‘this cartoon shows a woman (2) whose been doing some grocery shopping and requires 6 plastic bags for small items because she can afford them not that she wants to use them. and the headline emphasizes that plastics kill animals (3) because human beings don’t restore or recycle (4) but they dump them everywhere and cause damage to fish and other living things (5).’ (c2, female 14, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘cartoon is all about ignorance of the people (1)(2). the bin is well located and it is visible and written, but the citizens just dump (3) and pollute where ever they went (4) and now it is affecting the nearby residences with the smell (5).’ (c3, male 12, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘in this cartoon they are telling us that we must not pollute the environment (1), as you can see citizens (2) are complaining that they can’t stand the smell, it may be harmful to them. it may cause asthma. there is a board saying keep the city clean which emphasizes that citizens are not listening they fail to pick up their waste material (3). and throw it into the bin instead they throw it on the ground (4). so, this pollution of air causes the city to have a bad smell and it will be dangerous to people to get polluted air which will cause diseases (5), so keep your environment clean in to live a healthy life (5).’ (c3, male 5, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) the following are examples of students’ complete responses with steps omitted or with no sequence in the analysis or where students provided a general comment. the responses of females (15) and (16) are examples of where steps of cartoon analysis have been omitted. a case in point is that in both quotations no categorical reference is made to the contrast between environmental messages and behaviours. these contrasts were clearly evident in cartoon one (figure 1a). ‘shortage of water (1). irrigation, water from the taps/clean water, shouldn’t be used for irrigation, to save water for other uses (5). who is watching – it is not supposed to be done or practised.’ (c1, female 15, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘it is during the day, there is sunlight and the father (2) is watering the grass, taking care of the grass or nature while not knowing that he’s wasting water because the little girl (2) next to him is complaining about the day being hot.’ (c1, female 16, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘first person that says – who is watching (2), i think this person is watering his vegetable but i think the message that they are trying to show us is that we should not waste water by doing unnecessary thing or using a hose pipe (5). the person on the right-hand side reads the newspaper that warns about the shortage of water (5) and it is important to read the newspaper just to know what is happening around us.’ (c1, female 19, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘people can’t keep their place clean (2) and tend to complain about it; forgetting that it is their fault the place is not clean. because if we don’t take care of our environment, the environment will not take care of us back (6).’ (c3, male 11, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the cheapness or the affordability of the plastic bags is causing harm in the aquatic environment and the plastics are then dumped at the rivers and coastlines because of its abundance (5).’ (c2, male 12, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) comparing both set of responses, it is evident that some students used logical steps in their analysis (c3, female 14; c3, male 5; and c3, male 12), while other students (c2, male 12; c1, female 16) omitted some aspects or did not follow a logical sequence. environmental aspects responding to environmental issues require individual change and collective responsibility. however, a significant observation in this study is the way in which student responses were framed. there were responses which showed personal accountability by referring to we (including the self as part of the accountability and responsibility of action), while in other responses students seemingly excluded themselves from the issue by using the third person (they or people) in their descriptions – 22 per cent of the responses were framed using a first-person response. the quotations of females 1 and 3 and male 6 shows reference to inclusive responsibility and accountability. the following quotes are examples of the first person being used to analyse the cartoons: ‘[we] must be proud of the city and must keep the city clean.’ (c3, female 1, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the message portrayed in this cartoon is that in our homes we know about the shortage of water but we still reluctant to act in a way that will save water …’ (c1, female 3, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘we have to conserve our nature so that we maintain mutual relationship.’ (c2, male 4, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘sometime we fail to use our common sense about our earth we live in and it brings bad effects to us as well.’ (c3, male 6, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) seventy-seven per cent of the responses showed a third person response. the following quotes are examples of the third person use in the analysis of the reasoning cartoons. the quotations of male 9 show consistency in a third-person response for all three cartoons: ‘so, if you want to buy some items e.g. cooking oil, it is better to use bags not plastics.’ (c2, female 1, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘so the best thing the citizens or society can do is to reserve what they still have and not waste the remaining water instead use it wisely.’ (c1, female 9, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the cartoon is showing that people do things that affect them just because there is no one who is seeing them.’ (c1, male 9, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the cartoon is showing that people do unnecessary things just because they have money.’ (c2, male 9, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) ‘the cartoon shows that people are not aware of that everything they do has consequences.’ (c3, male 9, pre-service teacher participant, 2018) it can be inferred from the results that a far higher percentage of students consciously or unconsciously do not perceive that they are part of environmental issues. rather, they seem to perceive the responsibility and accountability of the environmental issues as related to others. discussion the purpose of this study was to explore the cognitive quality of student’s responses to a critical analysis task of reasoning cartoons within environmental contexts of real challenges in the life sciences. cartoons have the potential to trigger the neuro-cognitive framework of students.42 critical analysis according to bloom’ taxonomy is placed as a higher order cognitive skill which is more than providing a clinical description or statements of the context.37,39 in this study, it was found that more students provided descriptions of the cartoons instead of higher order analysis. in the real-world analysis of environmental issues, rather than descriptions of them, are required if strategies to address these issues are to be developed and implemented. the intention of using reasoning cartoons is to challenge students to think on a higher level.17 while analysis as a cognitive process can be interpreted as an abstract phenomenon, evidence of communication of this analysis can take many forms. in this study, students’ responses for all the concept cartoons took a textual form of representation. there were no responses which took other forms, for example, a mind map or a table using key headings for analysis. van wyk7 pointed out that cartoons usually exaggerate certain objects, characters or actions that focus on a learning point. the findings show that no student had made any marks on the cartoons to highlight key texts, actions or contrasts that were exaggerated. a limitation of this study was that there was no follow-up interview post the analysis to establish possible reasons why students did not do this. cartoons provide visual information in the form of caricatures, drawings and texts and use specific directives, such as shape, size, symbolism, and grammatical conventions, such as question marks, exclamation marks and contrasts in actions to emphasise messages.36,43 the literature suggests that analysis as a cognitive skill to analyse cartoons has definite and logical sequences to make sense of the meanings and to critically reflect on these meanings.40 all three cartoons had key messages that were emphasised. the findings show that most students did not use a sequential framework for their critical analysis; rather, there were various initiation points such as the key messages or the characters or the actions. while not forcing a dominant scientific approach over free thinking to cartoon analysis, it is likely that application of a more structured cognitive framework to their critical analysis would have enhanced the quality of the analysis rather than providing a clinical description of the visual representation, as most students in this study had provided. environmental responsibility and accountability have been accorded to all sectors of the community – industry, political constituencies and at all levels (local, national and international) as well as to individual citizens as actors. behavioural transformation does not preclude individuals. webb17 pointed out that reasoning cartoons may not be epigrammatic but can be a visual representation of identifiable real-life contexts. the cartoons in this study provided a medium for self-reflection and accountability. in this study, a significant finding was that a high percentage of students (77.9%) excluded their individual citizenship responsibility from the anthropological domain through references in the third person such as ‘they’ and ‘people’. a significantly lower percentage of students identified with their individual citizenship responsibility by referring to ‘we’ in their analysis. while the cartoons in this study provided recognisable real-life contexts, the responses show that the student analysis assumed an academic analysis underplaying personal accountability, responsibility and ownership of the anthropogenic impact on the environment. conclusion the research question in this study was: what is the cognitive quality of life sciences student’s critical analytical responses to an analysis task of cartoons within environmental contexts of real-life challenges? firstly, the results of the study show that the majority of the students in this study largely provided descriptions of the recognisable contexts of the cartoon rather than the application of higher order thinking. the instruction for the task categorically required students to analyse the cartoons. secondly, in attempting to identify aspects of logical analysis in all 96 responses (higher order thinking and in descriptions), most student responses were random than logical. thirdly, environmental responsibility and accountability is personal and collective. in this study, most students phrased their responses in the third person (they/people) giving a perception that environmental problems exist outside of their being. the task in this study was more than an academic exercise. the intention of real-life contexts in the cartoons was to elicit deeper understanding of environmental issues through the application of a higher order skill, namely analysis. the implication of the results in this study is that students’ analytical skills are inadequate to understand the complexity of environmental problems which require greater insight to appropriately respond to in action. in addition, distancing ownership of environmental problems is more likely to make the response to these environmental issues less urgent and non-meaningful. it is recommended that firstly, students’ analytical skills be deliberately focused on and be intentionally developed through opportunities for application within the context of real-life reasoning cartoons. it will also be useful if lecturers can reiterate sequential steps for analysis at the beginning of modules rather than taking it for granted as it may have implications for student performance in assessment. secondly, a conscious effort be made at higher education institutions to raise environmental issues in a relevant personalised way, as citizens of earth rather than as purely intellectual, theoretical and academic frameworks. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that 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department of foundation studies (music education), wits school of education, witwatersrand university, johannesburg, south africa lorayne excell department of foundation studies (music education), wits school of education, witwatersrand university, johannesburg, south africa naseema shaik faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation van as aj, excell l, shaik n. parent perceptions: how disparate early childhood care and education centres in south africa foster belongingness and well-being in children. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1225. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1225 original research parent perceptions: how disparate early childhood care and education centres in south africa foster belongingness and well-being in children aletta j. van as, lorayne excell, naseema shaik received: 13 apr. 2022; accepted: 23 june 2022; published: 17 may 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article explores parents’ perceptions of their children’s belongingness in early childhood care and education (ecce) centres. it stems from the unexpected findings of a transformative ecce pedagogy research project, which was characterised by multicultural, multiracial and varied economic conditions. as such, the authors expected controversial parental perceptions of the quality of the care and education their children experienced in these centres. however, this was not the case. drawing on the theory of salutogenesis and its key concept, namely a sense of coherence, parents’ responses about their children’s early learning and well-being across diverse ecce contexts were overwhelmingly positive. this prompted the question: what was it in these centres that allowed parents to experience a strong sense of belonging and such positive sentiments concerning their children’s sense of well-being? this phenomenological study was informed by the narratives of 19 parents, collected through the transformative pedagogy project, set in rural and urban situations, and at well-resourced and under-resourced centres. findings reflected four identifiable themes. firstly, parents favoured the diversity of influences at the centres, viewing these as rich opportunities for their children’s development and learning. secondly, parents felt a strong conviction that the ecce teachers were genuinely concerned about and sensitive towards their children. thirdly, parents believed that their children were learning playfully in safe, loving spaces, and fourthly, parents were confident that their children were happy in the centres. these findings are particularly welcomed in the ecce space, which is often demoralised and marginalised within the broader schooling system. transdisciplinarity contribution: the article shows that quality early childhood learning and teaching can take place across disparate contexts, be they urban or rural, well-resourced or under-resourced. this study identified factors that led to parents perceiving that their children experienced happiness and a sense of belonging in different centres. keywords: early childhood care and education (ecce); belonging and belongingness; salutogenesis; sense of coherence (soc); well-being. introduction this article emanates from an unexpected finding that emerged when reading data from the department of higher education and training (dhet) and european union-funded transformative pedagogy project in early childhood care and education (ecce). the aforementioned project investigated parents’ understandings of culture and their cultural aspirations for their young children who attended culturally diverse ecce centres.1 given that the ecce environments in south africa have long been problematic spaces,1 the authors were expecting parents’ opinions of diversity and equity in ecce centres to be controversial. yet the consistent thread from all parents was that they and their children were happy and felt welcomed in their educational environments, regardless of the racial and cultural contexts of teachers, children and parents. in fact, the parents expressed a strong feseling that their children experienced belongingness at their centres. the authors therefore wondered what the factors were that promoted such a sense of belonging and well-being, despite the diversity that existed among teachers, children and parents. the authors deemed such a surprisingly positive finding worth exploring. also contributing to the interest in this finding is the fact that historically and politically, service provisioning in the south african ecce sector has been deeply unequal,2 compounded by racial prejudices under apartheid. ‘[d]ifference’ was construed in ‘hierarchical terms and colour-coded within a carefully crafted, politically legitimated pigmentocracy’.3 despite a progressive constitution which foregrounds equity, equality and historical redress,4 as well as the south african schools act,5 which formalised the process of desegregation of schools in south africa, racial inequities continue to exist.4 this is also the case in ecce centres, where racial, cultural and socio-economic factors continue to negatively influence both access to centres and teaching and learning programmes offered at these centres.6 in addition to the above-mentioned historical and political factors influencing the overall quality of ecce service provisioning in the country, parental perception and participation have also contributed to the disparity in the quality of ecce offerings.7 parental participation can be hindered by racial, cultural and socio-economic factors,8 which may lead to parents feeling marginalised, disrespected and even unwelcomed in the centre. in these instances, they might not closely identify with or experience a sense of belongingness in the ecce centre their children attend. this can negatively influence their children’s learning outcomes and so negate the quality of ecce experiences. according to britto et al.,9 quality ecce has the potential to drive redress and equity in early learning spaces. quality ‘contours itself across cultures [and] settings’. this affirms the importance of implementing culturally responsive teaching in multicultural spaces. pahrek10 stated that multiculturalism is not simply about difference and identity, but it is about those differences ‘that are embedded in and sustained by culture [and therefore] … embedded in a shared and historically inherited system of meaning and significance’. in such a system, teachers should appropriately respond to the diverse ethnicities, home languages, religions, socio-economic status and cultural traditions11 represented in their multicultural classes. responding appropriately has become a significant challenge that teachers face.12 siraj-blatchford and woodhead13 maintain that in both developed and developing countries, it is difficult to meet multicultural goals when elements within the programme are uniformly interpreted, as if it were a monocultural learning space. this negates aspects related to cultural appropriateness in multicultural contexts. real quality improvement happens when all stakeholders feel included in the educational endeavour and have a shared understanding of the ecce centres’ goals.14,15 these goals include ensuring that (1) children are in a child-friendly environment which is healthy, safe, well-maintained and well-resourced, and (2) the teachers are receptive to both children and their families. sammons et al.16 maintain that sensitive and responsive teachers guide all children’s learning to ensure overall growth and development, irrespective of their cultural affiliations. the authors argue that meeting these conditions could facilitate a greater sense of belongingness in the centre for both parents and children. in psychology, belongingness2 is recognised as a deep emotional need in human beings.17,18,19,20 it is a dynamic, social process of daily life,19 attained through connectedness, and thus belonging is always relational.21 wright noted that belonging is produced through ‘the co-constitutive interaction of individuals with other people, things, institutions and specific socio-cultural contexts’. she concludes that this juncture between the self and the social enables individuals to ‘configure what it means to belong (and not belong)’.22 belongingness denotes being a member of a social group or community. this becomes a complicated process in educational environments characterised by racial, religious, ethnic, cultural and language diversity.22 it is fostered in caring school environments where learners feel accepted, valued, included and encouraged by members of the school community.23,24 in such environments, children feel ‘at home’, where home relates to a ‘safe space’.19 a sense of belongingness leads to positive emotions such as happiness, calmness and contentment.25 this, in turn, builds enduring resources, which include personal, physical, intellectual, social and psychological resources.26 between birth and age five, the child’s recognition of belonging to the family is increasingly broadened to include the early childhood centre.27 during these years, the impact of the home life and the early learning centre are intertwined.28 belongingness in the ecce centre is achieved when children feel that they are part of a loving group, that their teachers care about them, that they are helped by both teachers and friends.29 belongingness is reinforced when centres respect, welcome and positively respond to parents.28 the stronger that parents perceive their own belongingness, the more secure the children will be in their connectedness to the centre. children’s participation and commitment to their schooling depends on their belongingness in their educational space. this is an area of inquiry that is receiving increasing attention.24 halse23 noted that belongingness theories have failed to capture the lived experience of belonging – how people understand belongingness, how it is achieved, how it affects individuals and groups – but also how belongingness is damaged or undone. for this reason, yuval-davis19 stressed the imperative for case study–based research to help fill this gap in the literature. based on the lived experience of parents, this phenomenological case study investigated how they perceived their children’s belongingness, how they believed it was achieved and how it affected their children in multicultural ecce centres. theoretical framework perceptions are powerful and influential agents in determining how people live, experience their lives, define themselves and others and make meaning of life.30 the term salutogenesis was coined by antonovsky, a medical sociologist and the father of this theory. it was derived from the latin salūt or salūs (safety, well-being and health) and the greek genesis (beginning or creation) and focuses on factors that support human well-being.31 antonovsky32 claimed that the way people view their lives has a positive or negative influence on their physical and emotional well-being. salutogenesis thus explains the process of how individuals, groups or societies improve and increase control over their physical, social, mental and spiritual well-being.33,34 the salutogenic framework ‘supports descriptions of how people stay well when encountering periods of stress’.33 because parental perceptions are the focus of this article, the theory of salutogenesis that substantiates the significance of perceptions in the lives of people was chosen as framework for the study. the key concept of this theory is a sense of coherence (soc), a way to perceive the world. it is applicable across all cultures at individual and group level and describes the extent to which one has a ‘pervasive, enduring though dynamic, feeling of confidence that one’s environment is predictable and that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected’.33 sense of coherence comprises three main key factors, namely comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. comprehensibility refers to a person’s understanding of their world and the challenges it presents. it involves the ability to discern reality rather than merely focusing on emotions about the situation. manageability is an individual’s ability to identify resources (which can be one’s own or those of trustworthy others) at their disposal and the ability to use and reuse these resources to manage challenges. meaningfulness focuses on experiencing the world as meaningful, to see purpose in overcoming challenges and regard the time invested to do so as worthwhile. as cockrell aptly described, the soc is ‘in essence, a combination of optimism and control’, the capacity to ‘muster, believe in and value resources to support resilience’.35 resilience is associated with coping in the face of challenges. it is often related to well-being and also considered a set of qualities or processes that enable a person to make use of internal and external resources.36,37 in this study, the authors link resilience to the three salutary factors of soc. for example, comprehensibility refers to the parents’ perceptions of how they and their children make sense of life in the early childhood centre. manageability refers to recognising parents’ and children’s personal resources as well as resources available through the interpersonal relationships with other stakeholders in the centre. meaningfulness relates to perceptions of parents that challenges that may arise in the centre are worthy of their and their children’s time and effort. thus, the soc outlined in the theory of salutogenesis is an appropriate lens through which to view reasons why parents in this study expressed a strong sense of their children’s belongingness in the multicultural ecce centres. the aim of this article is to explore what factors were present in these disparate ecce contexts that led to parents’ positive perceptions about their child’s centre and why they experienced this strong sense of belongingness to the centre. the authors deemed this to be very important in the context of a marginalised, underfunded ecce sector in south africa. thus, the question to be answered was as follows: what was it in these centres that allowed parents to experience this strong sense of belongingness and to express positive sentiments in relation to their child’s sense of well-being? methodology this phenomenological case study formed part of a collaborative research project between nine south african universities, coordinated by the cape peninsula university of technology (cput). the cambridge dictionary defines research as ‘the detailed study of a subject (i.e. an individual, groups of individuals, societies, or objects) to discover information or to achieve a new understanding of the subject’. utilising a phenomenological case study approach in this investigation allowed the researchers to engage fully with the participating parents’ individual experiences.38 understanding these experiences enabled the authors to ‘glean new insights’ about the ‘particular phenomenon’,39 namely the parents’ perceptions of their children’s belongingness in disparate ecce centres. the sample was purposeful and parents from multiracial, multicultural, under-resourced and well-resourced ecce centres in both urban and rural settings were invited to participate. participants were drawn from four different provinces, namely the western cape, free state, gauteng and north west. an important criterion was the willingness and availability of parents of children in the age group of birth to 5 years who attended multicultural ecce centres to participate in the research project. creswell40 noted that a suitable sample size for a phenomenological study could range from 2 to 25 participants. this article was informed by the narratives of 19 parents: 18 mothers and one father. participants included all official racial groupings acknowledged in south africa today. research tools included individual and semistructured interviews. parents could choose to be interviewed in their mother tongue, and the languages chosen by parents for their interviews included english, isizulu, afrikaans and isixhosa. free state and north west participants chose to be interviewed in english, even though this was not necessarily their home language. interviews took place at the ecce centre that the parent’s child or children attended. the recorded interviews were transcribed. interviews conducted in isixhosa, isizulu and afrikaans were translated into english. to safeguard the interpretation and analysis of the data from bias, the researchers implemented bracketing – a process of setting aside (bracketing off) past understandings and assumptions of the phenomenon. this includes scientific theories and explanations, as well as the personal views and experiences of the researchers.40 through continuous engagement with the interview data, reading, rereading and using atlas.ti qualitative data analysis software, the authors became familiar with the data. initially, 11 codes to label units of meaning were identified. through further scrutinising – looking for patterns, themes, relationships and differences41 – four themes were identified to capture why parents perceived their children as experiencing belongingness in the centres they attended. these themes were as follows: (1) diversity: dilemma or opportunity; (2) happy children, proud children; (3) playing: learning in loving spaces and (4) teachers: a more sensitive approach. ethical considerations all accepted ethical guidelines were strictly followed, and priority was given to treating participants thoughtfully and respectfully. all relevant authorities and all participants understood that participation was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the research at any time. participants completed consent forms, confirming their willingness to be interviewed and audio-taped, as well as their right to confidentiality and anonymity. the ethical clearance for the national ‘transforming pedagogy in early childhood education, birth to four’ tpec research project was obtained by the the cape peninsula university of technology (cput). the certificate was granted by cput (reference number efec 4-6/2017) and was issued by the faculty of education and social sciences ethics committee on 21 june 2017. letters of approval were obtained from all provincial government authorities, early learning directors and governing body members of ecce centres in all the provinces represented in this article, as well as principals of the centres. parents were subsequently invited to participate. confidentiality and anonymity of participating parents, their children and the centres their children attended were safeguarded throughout the process. findings parents described facets of their children’s lives in the multicultural centres and shared their views on the nature and quality of the care their children received in the rural or urban, well-resourced or under-resourced centres they attended. the way teachers treated their children and their children’s responses to the centres formed an important part of parents’ views of the centre as learning spaces. they reminisced and shared stories about teachers’ interactions with their children and about the physical and organisational characteristics of their children’s centres as places wherein their young children experienced caring, as well as caring education. they pondered their children’s learning, the development of their children and the teachers’ roles therein. ultimately, they deliberated upon and gauged the significance (or insignificance) of all of the above on their young children’s emotional, social, physical, spiritual and cognitive well-being. these factors are what determined their sense of their children’s belongingness in the multicultural, multiracial ecce centres they attended. theme one – diversity: dilemma or opportunity? all participants expressed an appreciation for the diversity found within the ecce centre. in the words of parent 14, diversity was a prerequisite for placing their child in the centre. ‘this was … the kind of school that loves a child … that’s open to diversity and that she will be exposed to diverse, you know … different ethnic backgrounds, different economic backgrounds; that was important to me.’ according to parent 13: ‘absolutely, yes, yes, yes, this is why we are at this school where there is much difference, diversity …’ many parents found the diversity of the centre to be beneficial for both themselves and their children. a diverse environment presented opportunities for the family to interact and engage with people from all walks of life. parent 7 expressed this feeling as follows: ‘look, that’s part of what i enjoy about this school is because it is so multicultural, diverse; there’s almost no two family setups that are the same here, you know; you have gay parents, you have single parents, you have mixed-race parents, you have very diverse families in this school and i really actually enjoy that about this school.’ for some participants, exposure to diverse groups of people was an essential part of growing up in a south african context – it was, in fact, part of the child’s preparation for life: ‘i think it’s very good for my child getting to interact with kids from all kinds of, sorts of lives, and from all cultures and from all races … and i know that that the school accommodates everyone.’ (parent 17) parent 14 agreed. for her, the multicultural environment provided a way to fulfil her hopes for her child’s future. ‘i like that she is going to meet the kind of people that she’ll meet when she leaves here and goes to high school and varsity and the workplace … so she is already learning how to interact with people who believe very differently to her … we value difference.’ another worthwhile benefit was that children had the opportunity to play with children from many different contexts. according to parent 1, ‘here at the school currently, there are other culture children, so i said to him that he must play nicely with the children as they are all [including her son] people, and they are all children.’ this mother saw play as that ‘what children do’,42 and that the diverse context of the centre enabled her child to engage (play, doing what children do) with children from different cultural, religious and ethnic groups. children’s social engagement can foster friendships, which strengthens one’s sense of belonging.43 the playful engagements in the centres allowed children to build cross-cultural social connections, which allowed them to form social bonds. this strengthened the children’s sense of belonging: ‘they are all friends with everybody; everybody is friends with everybody. so they don’t clique according to race or religion or, “my parents are rich, and your parents are not.”’ (parent 4) some parents identified additional benefits of attending a diverse, multiracial, multilingual centre. parent 1 viewed this exposure as an opportunity for her child to learn another official south african language: ‘[and] so he can actually learn better from the children because he is small; he can learn the language quickly’. all parents believed that the staff had adopted an accepting attitude towards diversity and that everyone’s cultural heritage was valued and affirmed. parent 3 stated: ‘the school values our cultures and allow children from different cultures to wear cultural dress to school’. parent 5 noted that the centre valued their setswana culture: ‘yes, i don’t think there’s a problem here. i’m very happy. my child, my child and i we have no complaints, no, we’re like, ok’. parents were in agreement that these centres ‘accommodated everyone’ (parent 17) and that the centres valued their culture and cultural practices. ‘yes, yes, yes, it is cool – that is how we roll. this is how it should be, very diverse, and everyone must be inclusive’ (parent 13). there was unanimous agreement that no matter what culture the children came from, each culture was acknowledged and respected. parent 5, who regularly volunteered at her child’s centre, observed that no child was given special treatment at the centre: ‘i think they are all, they’re treating the children all equally’. theme two – proud children, happy children ‘i think pride comes from being happy in a space.’ (parent 8) parents reported how their children enthusiastically participated in and responded to the loving care and education in the multicultural ecce centres. according to krieger et al.,44 meaningful participation and involvement generally take place where elements of motivation, engagement and social connection are present in the environment. all the participating parents were confident that their children were happy in the centres they attended. their children’s eagerness to go to school in the mornings was a strong indicator of happiness in the centre: ‘she’s happy, because when i wake her up early in the morning, i give her food, then after that, she just say to me, “mama, wash me, i want to go to crèche,” you see?’ (parent 4) parent 8 confirmed: ‘he’s happy to come to school; he’s happy to be here; he’s very excited to go to school every day’. this mother related an incident that took place after her 2-year-old had been off sick for a week: ‘on the sunday, he saw his suitcase and he took his suitcase, went outside, was adamant about climbing in the car, and he sat in the car for at least 2 h wanting to go to school.’ in the same way, children’s reluctance to leave in the afternoons assured parents that their children were happy: ‘oh, yes, very happy! he cries when i take him home, [then] an hour later than they should have been leaving … i come back and then he is crying [again] – he wants to stay there. both my children, always.’ (parent 8) furthermore, the enthusiastic ways in which children shared what they had learned during the day assured parents that their children were receiving meaningful education. parents said learning activities included stories, songs and rhymes, theme discussions and exploring number sense. as parent 5 said: ‘[h]e sings, he talks … he do everything’. parent 15 reported about her daughter’s learning: ‘she’s learning about her surroundings; she’s learning about herself’. according to capps,45 one of the indicators of a child’s sense of belongingness is their pride as a member of that centre. this is illustrated by parent 3’s statement, ‘even on saturday when we pass by here: “mamma, here’s my school!” he’s proud’. the children’s happiness, the authors argue, reaffirmed for parents that they had made wise decisions in their choices of ecce centre for their children. this happiness was facilitated by teachers’ loving care and thoughtful, responsive approach to playful teaching and learning. in the words of parent 6, ‘when i see he is happy, so i think that his is the best place for him’. theme three – playing: learning in loving spaces parents acknowledged that in their respective ecce centres, their children were making good progress. this was evident in the child’s sense of well-being, as well as in their overall growth and development and learning. parent 9 was confident of her child’s learning ‘because my child is making progress and she tells what she did in class’. parent 11 concurred: ‘she will say mummy, daddy, i did this at school, so i will say that one [her daughter’s progress], i will give it [the centre] a 100%’. the centres’ focus on playful approaches to teaching and learning was appreciated by the parents. parent 8 commented: ‘look, i encourage all kinds of play because that is the best learning that he can get at this stage’. she particularly appreciated the value of outdoor play at the centre: ‘i think the jungle gym is key for them because it’s particularly for their age, it’s age-appropriate, so that is the big deal’. parents agreed on the value of outdoor play opportunities because they made their children happy: ‘he loves the jungles’ (parent 5), ‘she likes a lot of play, she likes to play’ (parent 4) and ‘she likes playing … her favourite thing i see is to play outside; she likes to play with her friends, but she loves to be outside, yes’ (parent 11). teachers were committed to children’s enjoyable and meaningful learning. parent 17 told how a teacher, when the children were learning about the ocean, brought ‘an actual fish, a dead fish, but an actual fish’ for the children to touch and smell the scales and different parts of the fish, ‘that is not something i would have necessarily done at home’. parent 14 reflected on how her child’s teacher convinced a local dentist to come to her class and examine each of the 3 to 4-year-old children’s teeth when they were learning about oral hygiene. the parents believed that teachers were sensitive to the multicultural nature of their children’s classes. they reported how the teachers would, as far as possible, make an effort to explain things to their children in their home language. the parents clearly appreciated that the importance of mother tongue education was recognised by the teachers. ‘the teachers teach them in their own language and the other people’s languages. they are multicultural’ (parent 6). children even seemed to model this behaviour. parent 13 said that her child would attempt to speak english to the english-speaking teachers, even though they (the teachers) were speaking to him in afrikaans. she admits that his english was really poor: ‘very broken, ja … but so cute, ja’. endeavours to increase happiness and well-being ‘have become increasingly more popular in educational settings’.46 parent 11 and parent 14 described how their children’s centres employed therapists to support to children who struggle. parent 14 observed: ‘i have never been in a school environment where we talk about not only what’s happening with the child’s academics … [but here they ask] what’s happening with them? is that person happy right now? what can we do to get the person happy? who must be involved? … it’s very, it’s very much interested in the, the well-being of each child, which is important.’ theme four – teachers: a more sensitive approach in their deliberations on their children’s lives in the centres, most parents referred in some way to their children’s sense of belonging in the centres they attended. the welcoming gestures from teachers observed by the parents when bringing their children to the centres convinced them that their children were valued. parents associated belongingness with the friendly, loving reception given to their children by their teachers. parent 1 expressed how she loved seeing how the teachers ‘receive one’s child’. parent 4 said, ‘[w]hen i come here … i don’t see a long faces; there are all so happy … we are welcome, we feel welcome’. parent 3 agreed that this was the norm: ‘every time you come here, you see them smiling; they just welcome you with warm hands’. the parents agreed that the centres provided a safe, happy and relaxed learning environment. parent 5 expressed that she was ‘very proud’ of this safety: ‘very clean, the teachers are on point, everything is on point, actually’. parent 14 agreed, particularly appreciating the importance that her child’s centre placed on the emotional well-being of the young children in their care. ‘i like what’s important to the school, i like that what’s important to the school is not the child’s performance. that it’s the child’s happiness’. she concluded: ‘so that’s what i, why i choose it’. parent 18 agreed, saying, ‘they are very safe … and we have very loving caregivers in the preprimary school. that is for definite sure’. the parents who participated in this study recognised and appreciated teachers’ ability to be there for their child – to interact empathetically, smiling and showing affection by hugging and cuddling – as expressions of love for the child. in the words of parent 10: ‘even the way they treat the kids, it is with so much love that the kids have a sense of belonging in the crèche. … the big part about, about why i like it here is because i like the kind of teachers that teach here … they are a caring bunch. … they really, really love children; it’s not just a job to them. like i am not sure that i love children as much as they love children.’ the parents appreciated how the centres unconditionally accepted their children, welcoming each child for exactly who they were. parent 12 noted that the teacher was very aware of her child’s specific interests and this, she said, made her feel that: ‘…my child has his place there and she acknowledge him for the person that he is. so i do believe in … that they make me and my child belong.’ parent 14 told how her 3-year-old daughter, who was blind in one eye, used to ‘go ballistic’ around any stranger before she came to the centre. she expressed emotively: ‘i think she learns here to trust her friends, to trust her teachers. it is almost like it is a safe haven’. love is the ‘essence and driving force of parental and child-raising relationships’.46 the importance parents ascribe to the teacher’s love for their children cannot be overstated. parent 14, a teacher and the only dad who agreed to be interviewed, articulated: ‘there’s a culture at this school, you can’t put your finger on it … but it’s – i would not say accepting, but it’s, it’s loving. so accepting would be the wrong word, but it’s, it’s loving, it’s a more careful approach … and that’s important in this school. i know that my child is, is loved.’ uusiautti and määttäsatu47 noted that love in early education acts as a ‘means to create a learning environment where children can … eventually reach the fullest expression of their abilities’. discussion of findings despite the different cultural, linguistic and racial mix of parents and children, all participants expressed a strong feeling that their children were loved and cared for in the centre and that they were also growing, developing and learning. parents perceived that their children had a strong soc, which enabled meaningful and happy lives in the multicultural ecce centres. parents seemed to have a strong and clear understanding of their children’s experiences in the centre. they were able to comprehend, appreciate and identify with the warm, accepting, responsive environments into which they had knowingly sent their children. they believed that regardless of their race, culture and socio-economic status their children all received equal, quality care. in fact, it seemed as if the parents viewed the centre as a ‘home away from home’, confirming the educational principle that the educational space serves as an extension of the home during the early years.28 this confirmed that for the parents, the diversity within the centres created opportunities for their children to develop and learn in culturally appropriate ways in a society characterised by rich diversity. parents were confident that their children were receiving appropriate and culturally responsive early learning experiences, and this in turn fostered within parents a sense that their children were part of and belonged to the centre. parents therefore were able to develop a relationship of trust with the teachers and centre. trusting relationships enabled parents to identify the many positive interactions between their children and their teachers, as illustrated in parent 14’s comment, ‘she learns here to trust her friends, to trust her teachers’. these kinds of interactions encouraged children to express their own voice and agency and to actively participate in the centre’s programme. parents affirmed that the centre’s programmes were, in their view, developmentally appropriate, and through this type of programme, children’s own inner resources were being developed. more importantly, parents recognised that the children were able to draw on these resources to successfully navigate their day at the centre. in this way, parents viewed the centre as giving children tools and resources to manage their individual needs and challenges, thus enabling their children to develop increasing confidence and independence in a happy environment. children’s expressions of joy and happiness enabled parents to identify with their children’s contentment. thus, they viewed challenges that might arise as manageable for themselves, as well as their children. parents had confidence in their children’s sense of belongingness in the centres. as such, they viewed the time their children spent in the centre as being meaningful and were sure that their children were engaging in worthwhile early learning experiences. however, parents were neither naïve nor gullible. they were able to discuss potential problematic or challenging issues with the teachers. however, based on trust, these were meaningful interactions where both parties were able to negotiate a way forward in a respectful manner. parents were also aware that their experiences of belongingness, of a warm, respectful, collaborative engagement between the teachers, the children and themselves were not necessarily the norm. parent 7 commented that as a teacher, he was aware that this loving approach was not the norm in all educational environments. he concluded: ‘i have worked at a few schools, and i have seen, i have heard stories’. given the fragmented and often chaotic contexts in which ecce centres operate,2 the authors would argue that what they found at these centres was indeed not the norm. much of the literature still attests to many ecce centres being no more than places of basic care, where often the essential elements of quality such as safety and adequate nutrition are barely met. in other centres little, if any, attention is given to issues such as cultural and linguistic differences and there is no clear sense of belonging by parents and their children. the teachers’ sensitivity and sincere care for the well-being as well as the learning of the children in this study also created a strong soc in the parents. conclusion this article was written in an attempt to negate the frequent reports of deficit that are received about ecce centres in south africa. it has shown that quality early childhood learning and teaching can take place across disparate contexts, be they urban or rural, well-resourced or under-resourced. this study identified factors that led to parents perceiving that their children experienced happiness and a sense of belonging in different centres. these determining factors were not socio-economic in nature. the acknowledgement that all racial groups were equally important and that different cultural practices were recognised was fundamental. furthermore, a child-centred programme that encourages interactive, playful learning was evident in all the participating centres. the authors propose that parents’ perceptions of their children’s satisfactory happiness, growth and development in their ecce centres call for stakeholders to re-emphasise the significance of affection, acceptance and respect in ecce contexts. the authors also call for a need to place greater significance on the immeasurable value of loving teachers who have the welfare of their children at heart and can facilitate child-friendly teaching and learning based on these qualities. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability this study formed part of a transformative pedagogy in early childhood care and education research project funded by the department of higher education and training (dhet) and the european union. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references cooper a. the inequality of access to early childhood development programmes in south africa. in: atmore e, ashley-cooper m, van niekerk l, editors. thought leaders on early childhood development in south africa: a collection of thought-provoking essays. cape town: center for early childhood development, 2017; p. 27–34. richter l, biersteke l, burns j, et al. the diagnostic report on early childhood development [homepage on the internet]. pretoria: hsrc; c2012 [cited 2022 may 02]. available from: 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the practice of positive psychology: from individuals to societies. in: joseph s, editor. positive psychology in practice: promoting human flourishing in work, health, education, and everyday life. hoboken, nj: john wiley & sons inc., 2015; p. 773–788. hickman r, kiss l. cross-curricular gallery learning: a phenomenological case study. ijade. 2010;29(1):27–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2010.01635.x neubauer b, witkop ct, varpio l. how phenomenology can help us learn from the experiences of others. perspect med educ. 2019;8:90–97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-0509-2 creswell jw. qualitative inquiry and research design choosing among five approaches. 3rd ed. thousand oaks, ca: sage; 2013. de hoyos m, barnes sa. analysing interview data [homepage on the internet]. warwick institute for employment research; c2012 [cited 2021 sep 13]. available from: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/esrcdtc/researchandtraining/ct201314/quals/analysing_interview_data_2014_wk3_for_web.pdf smidt s. playing to learn: the role of play in the early years. new york, ny: routledge; 2011. sanchiz ea, ibarra f, nikitina s. what makes people bond?: a study on social interactions and common life points on facebook [homepage on the internet]. c2016 [cited 2022 jan 2022]. international conference on collaboration technologies and systems. available from: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.05334.pdf krieger b, piškur b, schulze c, beurskens a, moser a. environmental pre-requisites and social interchange: the participation experience of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder in zurich. disabil rehabil. 2021;43(26):3789–3802. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2020.1753248 capps ma. characteristics of a sense of belonging and its relationship to academic achievement of students in selected middle schools in region iv and vi educational service centers, texas [homepage on the internet]. phd dissertation. texas a&m university; 2003. available from: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147123656.pdf aleksiejuk a. the significance of experiencing parental love for a child’s development and upbringing in nová sociálna edukácia človeka iv [homepage on the internet]. prešov: prešovská univerzita v prešove; c2016 [cited 2022 jan 03]. available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329416985_the_significance_of_experiencing_parental_love_for_a_child’s_development_and_upbringing uusiautti s, määttäsatu k. love-based leadership in early childhood education. jecs. 2013;4(1): 109–120. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs20131.109.120 footnotes 1. findings from this study were published in the tdj in 2020 in an article entitled ‘through the eyes of parents: culture of young children in diverse early learning spaces’. 2. the terms belonging, belongingness, sense of belonging, and to belong are used interchangeably in literature.22 abstract introduction research motivation adoption of smart card technology theoretical framework for smart card technology conceptual framework and research hypotheses methodology results and findings discussion limitations of the study future works conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) lario malungana school of computing, college of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa lovemore motsi school of computing, college of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation malungana l, motsi l. adoption for the implementation of smart card technology in public healthcare. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1261. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1261 research project registration: project number: rec-170616-051 original research adoption for the implementation of smart card technology in public healthcare lario malungana, lovemore motsi received: 23 june 2022; accepted: 12 aug. 2022; published: 07 dec. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this study enhances the critical factors for the implementation of smart card technology (sct) by proposing a conceptual framework based on the healthcare unified theory of acceptance of user technology model (2008), the delone and mclean information systems success model and the diffusion of innovation theory (2003) recommending the strategies to be used. the framework was tested using regression analysis on the collected data from 406 self-administered questionnaires from steve biko academic hospital, tshwane district hospital, kalafong hospital and pretoria west hospital. the structural equation modelling and principal component analysis methods in statistical package for social sciences were used to analyse the data. the findings of this study show that seven factors – behavioural intention, system use, information quality, service quality, communication, compatibility and trialability – were significantly accepted to ensure the adoption of sct in public healthcare. transdisciplinary contribution: the healthcare sector has not fully addressed the technology use for healthcare professionals. however, the sector exploited much for the patients’ needs to improve quality of healthcare. therefore, this study recommends that this framework will contribute towards the implementation smart card technology within the public healthcare. the study will contribute to the implementation of sct and ensure the quality of service delivery in public healthcare. keywords: smart card technology; implementation; healthcare; adoption; structural equation modelling. introduction smart card technology (sct) entails turning a little rectangular piece of card into a smart device. these cards are small enough to fit in your wallet or back pocket, which is the first benefit they provide. plastic smart cards may become obsolete in the health sector because of the current rise of mobile technology, which threatens to replace credit and debit smart cards in the business sector. as a result, the portable smart cards allow remote patient data collection, education and awareness, remote patient monitoring, disease epidemic outbreak surveillance and compliance with evidence-based therapy and healthcare that are all important in patients’ health needs.1 the benefits of sct are experienced in public healthcare as it has the potential to support integrated applications and data in areas such as patient diagnostic and treatment support. smart devices are eroding the traditional boundaries of patient records and technology allows hospitals to expand their reach and provide on-demand mobile access to medical multimedia data. these devices are superior to smart cards because of their interoperability and mobility. smart cards require the use of a terminal or computer system to retrieve data. in addition, technology has advanced from the first to the third generation of electronic health systems because of smartphones and tablets. however, to accelerate the adoption of smart personal health devices, ‘plug-and-play’ data ecosystems were developed.2 the electronic health card, for example, was adopted in germany as the foundation of its e-health infrastructure.3 some challenges are faced by human users and other systems.4 however, the lack of data support and confidentiality leads to authenticity control of devices on the network. in zimbabwe, e-health was implemented to demonstrate the use of technology.5 however, doctors were required to learn how to use e-health technologies in public hospitals, which require hardware and software that cannot be avoided during treatment. generally, technology adoption cannot be separated from implementation science, as the two aspects are closely related. technology adoption focuses on how end-users adopt technology, while implementation describes the interventions and variables that help promote evidence-based practice.6 the smart card requires each patient to authenticate themselves to receive better healthcare service.7 however, because of large populations in hospitals, healthcare professionals were encouraged to continue employing the paper-based method of healthcare delivery, which causes many challenges for the smart identification card.8 research motivation public healthcare faces numerous challenges because the use of various information systems (iss) within public healthcare has become a challenge that affects its efficiency and effectiveness. various factors need to be considered when implementing such technology systems. in this study, healthcare iss become more sophisticated; they must be built to support the demands of patients and healthcare professionals.9 also, the quality of services offered by healthcare professionals has an impact on the provision of basic healthcare.10 as a result, healthcare services continue to be harmed because of a lack of sufficient health skills and drugs, which could lead to a delay in the implementation of sct. some countries have very rudimentary approaches to data storage and retrieval.11 this is evidenced by the existence of various healthcare facilities that offer these services. also, while health information technology (hit) offers numerous benefits, it was found that there are some drawbacks, such as a lack of transparency in the management of prescription errors.12 medication documentation errors in patients can be a major source of adverse drug reactions. compared to traditional paper files, providing great healthcare and access to data through the sct is essential as it saves time.13 in most cases, when manual files become misplaced, lost or stolen, it becomes a major problem to replace them. patients’ safety was identified as one of the six fast-track goals for the clinical control of information and quality care of health services by the department of health in 2012.14 in addition, the national digital health strategy for south africa, 2019–2024, was developed in collaboration with other government departments. it aimed to strengthen digital health governance structures, create robust integrated platforms for the development of iss and establish the necessary broadband network infrastructure. the objective of this research, as previously stated, was to develop a theoretical framework for the implementation of sct in south african public healthcare. the study will shed light on further factors that influence healthcare professionals’ use of smart cards to improve the delivery of services in the public sector. adoption of smart card technology technology adoption cannot be separated from implementation science; as a result, technology adoption focuses on how end-users adopt technology, while implementation describes the interventions and variables that help promote evidence-based practice.6 the adoption of electronic health records (ehrs) is found to be more complicated and is influenced by a variety of internal factors. as a result, healthcare policymakers and managers can make well-informed decisions about whether or not to embrace and implement systems such as the ehr.15 the implementation of sct in healthcare, error, social influence (si) and disease orientation also has a significant impact on the likelihood of smart card use.16 the health authority of indonesia uses the badan penyelenggara jaminan sosial kesehatan (bpjs kesehatan) with smart card readers to provide universal healthcare to its population. health information technology variables such as the expectancy of achievement, the expectancy of exertion, si and behavioural intention (bi) to use the clinical decision support system were also used. the result of the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (dematel) analysis showed that performance expectations and effort expectations have a major impact on attitude; the magnitude of the impact is also higher in attitude than in behaviour.17 variables such as information quality in the health sector, on the other hand, remained insufficient, particularly at the periphery levels of districts and health institutions that have the primary operational management duties in ethiopia.18 in dataquest (march 2000), for example, it was predicted that there were 28 million smart card shipments (microprocessors and memory) in the united states of america.19 in the 1970s, the international air transportation association (iata) developed the first magnetic stripe cards.19 the proliferation of e-health can be seen in the dissemination of brochures and flyers that help people meet their basic health needs.20 the e-health card was launched in nigeria; the card receives input from an application and provides an output. however, because of large populations in hospitals, healthcare professionals continue to employ the paper-based method of healthcare delivery, which causes many challenges for the smart identification card (id).8 in particular, the smart card requires each patient to authenticate themselves to receive better healthcare service.7 the adoption of sct has many benefits which can help the government to establish strategies and policies. the key benefits include policymakers including technology and innovation to public health care. however, the development of technology acceptance model (tam) theories can be required, similar to the one used for single-platform e-payment technology.17 adoption of these models and theories was a motivating decision for the acceptance of technologies in healthcare. the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology was among the theories adopted as part of the e-zwich (an electronic payment used in ghana) experience for ghana’s journey to a cashless economy. performance efficiency, effort efficiency and social impact influenced people’s behavioral intentions to use the cashless system.21 theoretical framework for smart card technology this study employed three theoretical frameworks: the healthcare unified theory of acceptance of user technology (hutaut) model (2018), the delone and mclean is success model (2003) and the diffusion of innovation theory (doi) (2003) for the adoption of sct in public healthcare.22 these theories have been extensively used in the sct adoption research also, and they have produced significant outcomes. healthcare unified theory of acceptance of user technology model there are various models and theories of technology acceptance, some of which have found applications in healthcare.23 the hutaut model is discussed in this section, and it aims to understand why users accept or reject a technology, as well as how healthcare technology design can improve user adoption. this theory was developed by maeko and van der haar24 to influence user awareness and acceptance in healthcare. this theory becomes relevant in the field of iss because it states that four key constructs, namely performance expectancy (pe), effort expectancy (ee), facilitating conditions (fc) and si, are direct determinants of usage intention and behaviour.25 delone and mclean information system success model an assessment of is success is critical to an organisation’s understanding of the value and effectiveness of is investment and management. this model is widely accepted among is researchers.26 it was first presented in 1992 and updated in 2002 and 2003. the most recent iteration of the model consists of six dimensions: it information quality, system quality, service quality, use, user satisfaction and net benefits. delone and mclean suggest that system quality, information quality and service quality affect the use and user satisfaction. in turn, both use and user satisfaction are direct antecedents of net benefits, which can be evaluated from individual and organisational impact. the model was modified by delone and mclean in 2003 to include service efficiency and replace individual effect and organisational benefit with net benefit.27 also, the delone and mclean model presented various characteristics of is success, including information, system, service quality, (intend to) use, user satisfaction and net benefit. therefore, the delone and mclean model is effective for efficiency in sct, which can be easily assessed using more general metrics such as device response time and downtime. diffusion of innovation theory everett rogers (1962)28 established the doi, which is one of the oldest theories in the field of is. diffusion of innovation theory has been applied in numerous fields of study like communication, development studies, knowledge management and healthcare. the decision to implement the doi theory involves a variety of factors, including whether or not to use technology such as sct.29 based on this framework, implementation focuses on methods of variable interventions and promotes variables such as end-user acceptance.30 healthcare technology was used to facilitate early discharge, suggesting that healthcare facilities have purchased and implemented evidence-based technology. however, individuals and organisations confirmed that the doi theory is used in this study to attribute the reported implementation process to health technology.31 conceptual framework and research hypotheses healthcare unified theory of acceptance of user technology model constructs from the proposed conceptual framework illustrated in figure 1 of this study, five constructs were adopted from hutaut. these constructs are ee, pe, si, fc and bi, and they serve as independent variables. figure 1: final research model. effort expectancy effort expectation is the extent to which using a system is effortless. the ease of use is key to influencing perceptions of the utility of innovation and is important from both a mandatory and a voluntary point of view. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h1: effort expectancy is expected to have a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. performance expectancy performance expectancy refers to the extent to which an individual believes that the use of technology will benefit healthcare professionals to achieve improvements in job performance. so far, performance expectation has been used to describe the technical context, while subjective standard and funding conditions have been used to define the implementation context.32 performance expectancy within information systems is created as a mandatory setting for determining factor for technology deployment. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h2: performance expectancy is expected to have a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. social influence in the context of this study, si is defined as the extent to which a person believes that other important people should use a new system.33 social influence was a construct used for social media, with a framework for user awareness and acceptance of the smart card and fingerprint-based access control being developed before implementation was completed. si is accessed for healthcare professionals on bi as a mediating variable for implementation in healthcare. therefore, social pressure on healthcare professionals impacts intention to use. as a result, the si construct directly impacts the implementation of sct for healthcare professionals. this construct tends to make the organisation perceive that it is important to believe in the sct. social influence has a significant impact on technology implementation.34 therefore, the study hypothesises that: h3: social influence is expected to have a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. facilitating conditions facilitating conditions are assessed as the extent to which people can use the new technology without undue restrictions. the impact of these conditions on actual usage was greatest among older workers and those with more experience.35 the degree to which healthcare professionals contribute makes management to believe and support towards the implementation of technology. furthermore, people believe that sct adoption in public health is fully supported. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h4: facilitating conditions are expected to have a positive effect on the behavioural intention to implement sct in healthcare. behavioural intention in the context of this study, bi relates to a desire or purpose and is a direct determinant of actual usage.36 the hutaut model considers factors that influence bi and technology usage behaviour. performance expectancy, ee and si are all affected by the bi to the use of technology, whereas bi and supporting conditions determine the usage of technology. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h5: behavioural intention is expected to have a positive effect implementation of sct in healthcare. delone and mclean information system success model as independent variables in this study for the adoption of sct technology, three constructs from the delone and mclean model were adopted: service quality, system quality and information quality. user attitude the difference between customer expectations and the achieved reality is referred to as service quality.37 the ease of designing systems that can be adapted to external conditions is referred to as system quality and relevance. the difference between customer expectations and the reality encountered is believed to contribute to quality.37 therefore, the study hypothesises that: h6: user attitude has a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. user satisfaction in the context of this study, user satisfaction is referred to as the general use of technology which is reflected in contentment and enjoyment, software and decision satisfaction.38 as a result, user satisfaction is subjective as it depends on the respondents and the systems they use. consequently, user satisfaction is defined as the overall rating of the user’s experience in using the system and the potential impact of the system. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h7: user satisfaction has a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. system use any healthcare facility should be able to provide intelligent search capabilities, quick and multi-site access and the capacity to digitally merge data fragments housed in geographically distributed databases by implementing the system.39 healthcare organisations must strive to improve the quality of their care. technology features such as hardware, software and data are used to fulfil user obligations.40 smart card technologies entice healthcare professionals to use them for tasks such as recording, patient information, laboratory, radiology (x-ray), neonatal and pharmacy information. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h8: system use has a positive influence on sct implementation. information quality information quality is a measure of how well the information is presented to a healthcare professional. it also indicates how well the information is formatted and presented. it can be argued that sct should enable hospitals and clinics to seamlessly integrate business processes. in a proper health information system (his) implementation, information quality refers to the integration of several factors such as human, organisational and technical factors.41 therefore, the study hypothesises that: h9: information quality is expected to have a positive effect on user satisfaction to implement sct in healthcare. system quality system quality designates the component of an is dimension and thus summarises various measures of the system itself. as a result, system quality is thought to play a role in convenience, technological flexibility, system correctness, response time and usability.42 the functionality includes the type and level of existing sct functions, for example, order entry with decision support for reminders and alerts. system quality capacity is commonly viewed as the system’s security element, which protects the integrity of the information or data collected and ensures correct authorisation. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h10: system quality has a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. service quality in the context of this study, service quality is defined as the overall support provided to the service provider, whether the service is provided in-house or by a third party.43 smart card technology is used to assess service quality and identify inconsistent and problematic service processes.44 for this reason, service quality can be said to have a significant impact on user satisfaction. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h11: service quality is expected to have a positive effect on user satisfaction to implement sct in healthcare. diffusion of innovation theory the concept of innovation and diffusion is explained by the different independent variables identified in the model. these variables help explain the different stages of innovation and diffusion processes. in this study of implementing sct technology, three doi constructs were used: communication, compatibility and trialability. communication according to roger (2003)45, doi defines communication as an innovation that uses specific channels between members of social systems. communication channels play an important role in technology implementation in this context, and healthcare professionals are engaged in the implementation. communication is regarded as a scheme used by humans and technology to interact. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h12: communication is expected to have a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. compatibility in this study, rogers (2003)45 defines, a new system is compatible or incompatible with the beliefs and values of its users. the ability to innovate stems from people adopting technology. facebook is a social networking platform that allows users to connect with friends, coworkers and strangers online by creating free profiles. it is found that integrating facebook was simple and inexpensive. all nine public libraries examined, in fact, reported that implementing facebook was both inexpensive and simple. the data also revealed that there was a window of opportunity that could have greatly facilitated the decision-making process. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h13: compatibility is expected to have a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. trialability implementation in this study, trialability is viewed as the degree to which health professionals provide services to citizens from time to time. in the relationship between innovation acceptance and trialability, health professionals’ attitudes can play a mediating role.46 the implementation of technology in healthcare is for data storage and is a wearable device that keeps all personal data for smart health.47 furthermore, the success or failure of the innovation system is determined by factors such as software planning and support, as well as the relationship between innovation and policy implementation and administration. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h14: trialability is expected to have a positive effect on the implementation of sct in healthcare. implementation of smart card technology in the context of this study, implementation strategies have been varied, and challenges in integrating mobile devices include a lack of administrative support and a lack of time or funding for teacher and student training. overall, the use of mobile devices appears to bring benefits to nursing students; however, there is limited research.30 guidelines for theory selection can encourage implementation scientists to use theories and discourage underuse, use theories sensibly and discourage superficial use, and be aware of the strengths, weaknesses and appropriateness of the theories they select to prevent abuse. therefore, the study hypothesises that: h15: implementation of sct has a positive influence on healthcare. methodology this study adopted a quantitative approach where self-administered questionnaires were collected from healthcare professionals at tshwane district hospital, steve biko academic hospital, pretoria west district hospital and kalafong tertiary hospital in tshwane. the study design is a cross-sectional, face-to-face-based study distributed at these hospitals. the design of the structured questionnaire was done by professional academics who assisted at steve biko academic hospital. the questionnaire was distributed in physical form using a five-point likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (1), which was used to measure the respondents’ views on the adoption of the sct in public healthcare. also, in obtaining sampling elements for this study, a nonprobability sampling technique called purposive sampling was used. as a result, the sample size for this study included four hospitals. for this study, data was collected at four hospitals in gauteng to ensure reliability. in this study, participants were able to complete the survey and were allowed to be anonymous. the study protocol was approved by the ethical committee at the university of south africa and the national health research council. the statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 26 and amos 26 (both manufactured by ibm corporation, armonk, new york, united states) with the structural equation model were also used to evaluate the quantitative data. the cronbach’s alpha value was more than 0.7 after reliability and validity testing, indicating that all the data submitted and analysed were reliable. ethical considerations ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the health research ethics committee of the university of south africa (ref. no. 2020/caes_hrec/081). further permission was obtained from the national health research data (nhrd) to obtain data from steve biko academic hospital, kalafong tertiary hospital, tshwane district hospital and pretoria west district hospital. results and findings sample and data collection data were collected during the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic over a period of two months in april 2021. questionnaires were dropped at the different departments to allow the healthcare professionals opportunity to complete them. managers were explained to assist the healthcare professionals in completing the questionnaires. reliability analysis in the context of this study, reliability analysis was applied to allow consistency of the measured items by checking each construct. also, the reliability test was performed on healthcare professionals’ responses to the questionnaire to determine whether the data received are reliable or not. this was done using different data themes applied, such as expectancy level, usability, communication and trialability. the cut-off of 0.50 was corrected for the item-total correlation. the degree to which a test consistently measures whatever it measures is referred to as its reliability.48 reliability can also be defined as the degree to which a measuring instrument is accurate and stable in measuring what it is supposed to measure.49 based on the analyses in this study, each construct and the measurement items were examined as part of the reliability check. in this study, reliability or accuracy of the questionnaire was tested in spss using cronbach’s alpha, also known as the alpha coefficient. cronbach’s alpha is a number ranging from 0 to 1.48 acceptable cronbach’s alpha values range from 0.70 to 1.047; a low alpha value could be because of a low number of questions, poor interrelatedness between items or heterogeneous constructs. when the cronbach’s alpha value is greater than 0.7, it indicates that the research instrument or construct is reliable.48 table 1 summarises the reliability of the questionnaire survey instrument. table 1: reliability analysis. table 1 indicates that, based on 97 questionnaire items, the research instrument has a cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.927. the coefficient value is above the minimum threshold of 0.7; therefore, the research instrument was deemed reliable. to check if the results of the latent variables are valid and reliable, cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability and average variance extracted (ave) were calculated.50 descriptive statistics of constructs using descriptive statistics, the researcher investigated and analysed a summary of information on the distribution and central tendency of continuous variables. the adoption factors for sct influence usage used descriptive statistics which included the mean, minimum, maximum and skewness values used to analyse. in addition, it comprehends the distribution of the collected data. the mean value represents the midpoint of the available range. skewness is a measure of asymmetry in a set of statistical data from the normal distribution.48 skewness is classified into two types: negative and positive.48 table 2 summarises the results of the descriptive statistics extracted from spss. table 2: construct descriptive statistics. the results show that all factors except for system quality had a minimum value of 2, which represents ‘disagree’. this means that system quality was the only factor with at least one participant who strongly disagreed about its role towards the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions, and none of the respondents strongly disagreed with the questions asked about the role of the rest of the factors towards the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions. regarding the maximum value, all factors had a maximum value of 5, a value that represents ‘strongly agree’. this means that all factors had at least one participant who strongly agreed with the role that these factors play towards the implementation of sct. these minimum and maximum statistics suggest that the majority of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed with the questions asked about the role of each factor towards the implementation of sct; however, to be more confident with this conclusion, there is a need to interpret the mean and skewness statistics. table 2 shows that the mean value for all the factors is 4, a value that represents ‘agree’. this suggests that for an average of 4 to be obtained, the majority of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed with the questions asked about the role of each factor towards the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions. to further cement this conclusion, skewness statistics were analysed, and the results in table 4 indicate that all factors except for pe and communication have a negative skewness value, which means that the majority of their data points are aligned to the right side of the mean value (the side with ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’). this means that for these factors, the majority of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed with the questions asked about the role they play towards the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions. communication and service quality have low positive and negative skewness values of 0.001 and -0.003, respectively, which are nearly zero, suggesting that there is a balance between respondents who agreed or strongly agreed and those who disagreed or strongly disagreed. furthermore, there could be more respondents who were neutral to the questions asked about the role of communication and service quality towards the implementation of sct. performance expectancy had a high positive skewness value of 0.308, meaning that most of the respondents disagreed and strongly disagreed with the questions asked about its role in the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions. of all factors with a negative skewness, ee had the highest negative skewness of −0.54, followed by user attitude, si, information quality, bi and sct implementation, with skewness values of −0.477, −0.282, −0.250, −0.222 and −0.213, respectively. system quality and trialability have the least negative skewness value of −0.015 and −0.056, respectively. in summary, respondents generally agreed and strongly agreed with the role that the factors investigated by this study play towards the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions. kaiser–meyer–olkin and bartlett’s test the kaiser–meyer–olkin (kmo) and bartlett’s test was the second result of the principal component analysis (pca) factor analysis. the kmo statistic ranges from 0 to 1. for factor analysis to be effective, the value of kmo should be close to 1 rather than 0. a value close to 1 indicates that correlation patterns are relatively compact, implying that factor analysis should yield distinct and reliable factors. also, values between 0.5 and 0.7 are considered mediocre, values between 0.7 and 0.8 are considered very good, values between 0.8 and 0.9 are considered very good and values greater than 0.9 are considered superb.51 the kmo statistical value for the data used in this study was found to be 0.949, as shown in table 3; this value falls in the superb range, so one can be confident that factor analysis is appropriate for these data. table 3: kaiser‒meyer‒olkin and bartlett’s test. factor analysis factor analysis is a method of modelling the covariation among a set of observed variables as a function of one or more latent constructs.52 factor analysis is used for determining the nature of the latent constructs that underpin the variables of interest.52 this method seeks to identify underlying variables, or factors, that explain the pattern of correlations within a set of observed variables or construct items. one common goal of factor analysis is to produce a small number of factors that can be used to replace a much larger number of variables.53 factor analysis is a data reduction technique that attempts to identify a small number of factors that explain most of the variance observed in a much larger number of manifest variables.54 this means that at the end of factor analysis, the researcher will be left with variables that explain most of the variance, while those that explain the least variance are discarded. the study extracted factors using the pca method. the goal of pca is to find a sequence of orthogonal factors that represent the directions of the greatest variance.55 principal component analysis was used because it can form uncorrelated linear combinations of the observed variables. it is also used to obtain the initial factor solution and can be used when a correlation matrix is singular. as a factor rotation method, a direct oblimin method was used because the literature suggested some theoretical grounds that imply that the factors in this study are related or correlated during theory development. the study chose to display the coefficients in order of size and to suppress coefficients with absolute values less than 0.4. in this study, the following outputs were extracted and explained: correlation matrix, kmo and bartlett’s test, factor extraction and rotated pattern matrix. exploratory factor analysis (efa) was conducted using maximum likelihood with promax rotation to determine if the items loaded well onto the variables and correlated adequately. maximum likelihood estimation was chosen to determine the unique variance among items and the correlation between factors. according to pallant,48 maximum likelihood also provides a goodness-of-fit test for the factor solution. promax was chosen because of the large data set (n = 406) because promax can account for the correlated factors. the 14-factor pattern matrix (table 4) shows the outcome of the factor analysis. before the factor analysis, bartlett’s test of sphericity and kmo measure of sampling adequacy were assessed. the results revealed a kmo of 0.949 and bartlett’s test is significant at α = 0.000 with a chi-square value of 20225.791, indicating the suitability of conducting exploratory factor analysis (kaiser, 1974).56 items that did not show high loadings were removed (effort expectancy [ee4], information quality [iq6], system quality [syq4 and syq5]). table 4: the 14 factor pattern matrix. hypotheses testing seven of the 13 hypotheses (table 5) were supported by the model, as shown in figure 1 and table 4. the first hypothesis (h1) was not supported. this suggests that ee does not have a significant impact on the implementation of sct (β = −0.575, p = 0.862, r2 = 0.75). the second hypothesis (h2) was dropped because of low reliability. the third and fourth hypotheses (si and fc effect on implementation of sct) were not supported (β = −0.054, p = 0.882, r2 = 0.75 and β = −208, p =0.840, r2 = 0.75, respectively). table 5: hypothesis testing. hypothesis five, which states that bi has a significant impact on implementation of sct, was supported (β = −0.209, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), suggesting an inverse relationship between the two variables. hypotheses six and seven (user attitude and user satisfaction effect on implementation of sct) were not supported (β = 0.480, p = 0.741, r2 = 0.75 and β = −0.317, p = 937, r2 = 0.75), respectively. all of the hypotheses from 8 to 13 were supported. it was found that the system use (β = 0.209, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), information quality (β = 0.557, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), service quality (β = 0.562, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), communication (β = 0.211, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), compatibility (β = 0.419, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75) and trialability (β = −0.020, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75) variables had a significant impact on implementation of sct. however, it should be noted that trialability had a negative impact on sct implementation. discussion this study has identified variables that contribute to the critical factor analysis for the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions. furthermore, the study provides insights into the body of knowledge regarding the implementation of sct in healthcare institutions. the structural equation modelling (sem) was based on 15 relationships of the initial variables. information quality has a significant impact on the implementation of sct in public healthcare, with the significant value of p < 0.001, β = 0.557 and r2 = 0.75. also, service quality has a significant impact on the implementation of the sct in public healthcare, with the significant value of p < 0.001, β = 0.562 and r2 = 0.75. the researcher found that service quality and information quality have a significant relationship towards the implementation of sct in healthcare. the research confirms that enforcing service quality and information quality requires a stern policy to be able to implement a sound usage of the sct. mardani et al.41 affirmed that regardless of whether a service is supplied by internal agencies or outsourced to third parties, policies and procedures should direct the service provider. service quality allows for the evaluation of the quality of ict services supplied by healthcare professionals. although smart card technology has been implemented in the banking industry for a while for clients and bankers. such lessons can be applied to the healthcare sector for healthcare professionals and patients to deliver quality healthcare which benefit both parties. therefore, service quality becomes relevance for the implementation of sct in public healthcare. thus, proper policies are needed to guide the operational mandate and quality of services of healthcare providers that will enhance the effective usage of smart card technologies. the researcher performed an inferential statistic based on the structural equation model to test all the factors that support and have a significant effect on the implementation of sct in the public healthcare sector. it was discovered that bi, system usage, information quality, system quality, communication, compatibility and trialability are the critical factors and variables discovered in the study that support the implementation of smart card technologies in the public healthcare as equally discovered. the researcher strongly believes that the findings discovered in the studies solidly confirm the implementation of the hutaut model and the delone and mclean (2003) is success model on effective system use. notwithstanding the above researcher’s works, it was deduced that there exists conformance between their studies and the findings derived from these studies. the researcher equally believes that factors such as communication, compatibility and trialability support the doi. technology implementation with the focus on healthcare professionals to use in public healthcare. however, this study does not rule out the implementation in private healthcare, as the system of admission, for example, is more or less the same as public healthcare. therefore, lessons can be drawn in both institutions of healthcare to best implement healthcare technologies. another recommendation is that the study can be extended to include the comparison of healthcare professionals and patients by making a comparison in developed countries and less developed countries. although smart card itself is fairly old as it has been used in the banking environment, future studies should incorporate this portion as several healthcare workers experience difficulties in the implementation of technology. the study’s findings discovered that for a framework for the implementation of sct discovered seven out of the 13 hypotheses were supported. the first hypothesis was unsupported. this suggests that ee does not have a significant impact on the implementation of sct (β = −0.575, p = 0.862, r2 = 0.75). the second hypothesis was dropped because of low reliability. the third and fourth hypotheses (si and fc effect on implementation of sct) were no supported (β = −0.054, p = 0.882, r2 = 0.75 and β = −208, p = 0.840, r2 = 0.75, respectively). hypothesis 5 which states that bi has a significant impact on the implementation of sct was supported (β = −0.209, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), suggesting an inverse relationship between the two variables. hypotheses six and seven (user attitude and user satisfaction effect on the implementation of sct) were unsupported (β = 0.480, p = 0.741, r2 = 0.75 and β = −0.317, p = 937, r2 = 0.75, respectively). hypotheses 8 through 13 were all supported. it was found that system use (β = 0.209, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), information quality (β = 0.557, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), service quality (β = 0.562, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), communication (β = 0.211, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75), compatibility (β = 0.419, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75) and trialability (β = −0.020, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75) variables had a significant impact on the implementation of sct. in the end, the findings of this study noted that the effect of trialability on implementation is negative. the research did not compromise patients’ privacy, but a series of ethical considerations was considered, such as the handling of confidentiality of patient data that is necessary to collect. another area in the study was keeping confidential information about participants by keeping the questionnaire answers highly anonymous. the researchers must protect the respondents by paying attention to the rights, keeping ethical issues checked and protecting the integrity of the data collected.57 lastly, ethically related questions were credible to the research work at hand and authenticated, if need be. limitations of the study as this study was cross-sectional, it was unable to conclude causation. in addition, the covid-19 pandemic was very high during the collection of data, and not all healthcare professionals in the identified hospitals were able to complete the questionnaire survey. in conclusion, it is required for management to support the healthcare professionals at all costs to avoid workloads that will hamper the delivery of healthcare services. further studies need to evaluate the usability of technology in the tshwane hospitals. future works in this study, the use of the tam as a framework would be recommended to measure the level of adoption and the impact use of sct in public healthcare. conclusion this study investigated the adoption of sct in public healthcare and provided recommendations through its analysis performed. the study provides an insight for understanding the used models and theories selected, such as the modified hutaut model, the delone and mclean model and doi theory, which are all valid in this type of analysis. as previously stated, intriguing departures from the model were discovered and justified. using relevant literature, these was explained fully. in this study, descriptive statistics presented the mean, median, mode, standard deviation and variance of the data. furthermore, descriptive statistic shows the age of the respondents, and the graphs of gender distribution among the respondents were tested. finally, sem was applied to the data. the research found that seven hypotheses (bi, system use, system quality, information quality, communication, compatibility and trialability) were supported for the study. on the other hand, the pe hypothesis was not dropped because of low reliability, and five hypotheses (ee, si, fc, user satisfaction and user attitude) were therefore not supported for the study. therefore, this study will help to develop more relevant technology in public healthcare. acknowledgements this research was supported by the national health research council of south africa. the authors would like to acknowledge the university of health research ethics committee, steve biko academic hospital, tshwane district hospital, kalafong tertiary hospital as well as pretoria west district hospital for their support for helping us to collect data from healthcare professionals. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions l. malungana conceptualized the idea and wrote the first draft of the article. l. motsi reviewed the first and final drafts of 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çelik a, yaman h, turan s, et al. five ways of doing qualitative analysis. j mater process technol. 2018;1(1):1–8. kaiser hf. an index of factorial simplicity. psychometrika. 1974 mar;39(1):31–6. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02291575 john w, creswell jd. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, by john creswell and j. david creswell. thousand oaks, ca: sage publication, inc. 2018. archetyping in advertising � td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 archetyping race, gender and class: advertising in the bantu world and the world from the �930s to the �990s nhlanhla maake� if only we could find the right formula of selling to the bantu, all would be well. a. m. parker (1964) abstract: this article sets out to interrogate the ideological hegemony of the superstructuring narrative voice in advertisements by studying linguistic, structural devices and encoding that are employed, in order to expose its racial, class and gender undertones embedded in the authorial voice. the sample of advertisements discussed is derived from the bantu world and its two sequels, the world and the sowetan. the sample is thinly dispersed over a period of five decades. most of the advertisements selected were duplicated in the sister newspapers, mochochono (sesotho) and imvo (isixhosa), which were published under the auspices of the associated bantu press. in the latter case the advertisements in the different languages were directly translated from english. the thrust of our argument is that the narrative voice, together with the images, are loaded with a stereotyping preconceived notion of the “other”, which is either conscious or subconscious. we also suggest that the change of the newspaper’s name is accompanied by a perceptible evolution of ideological bias in both the images and the narrative voice. key words: bantu world, advertising, newspapers, stereotyping race, class, and gender introduction the proceedings of a marketing and advertising convention which was held in cape town in 1964 (parker, 1964:7-8) made it explicit that advertisers present viewed the south african market a black-andwhite dichotomy; by the hedge that jan van riebeeck planted at the cape when he arrived and settled in the middle of the seventeenth century, to separate the new settlers from the indigenous inhabitants. the convention looked back to trends in marketing and advertising strategies. one of the brief presentations sought in particular to address the question of the bantu (as africans were called at the time) � prof. �r. �hlanla maake is �irector in the office of the campus rector, �aal triangleprof. �r. �hlanla maake is �irector in the office of the campus rector, �aal triangle campus, �orth-west university. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, �ol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 1-22 maake 2 as a market distinct from the european (a nomenclature used for whites) market. the main presenter started and concluded by suggesting that the ‘bantu’ constituted a market different from ‘europeans’. he also drew a dichotomy between the urban and rural bantu. the latter difference was, as he saw it, based on income and spending capacity, that the urban bantu earned more than their rural counterpart. the bantu had potential to provide a market for goods other than necessities. the presenter sought authority from psychology and asserted that: it has been pointed out by psychologists that the changes taking place from the traditions and customs of tribal life to that of a higher civilised state bring about upheaval which is not easily overcome by the bantu because there is no adequate substitute for the psychological controls provided for his former existence. he is in a ‘no man’s land’ groping for anchor which will support him in his efforts to widen his horizon in a new society lacking a solid form (parker, 1964:7-8). he further observed and diagnosed that: (c)ommunication directed straight at the bantu is finding a reading audience. however, [the] bantu will still read newspapers and magazines bought by whites, but they will get more satisfaction from reading their own newspapers to understand the news and read their own gossip column” (parker, 1964:8). these observations were made thirty-two years after the establishment of a tabloid newspaper which was known as the bantu world. in announcing its third anniversary the paper referred to itself as “the interpreter of african aspiration … and a bright imitation of european journalism” (�3/04/�935:�), and, quoting from the pretoria news, the editor asserted that: (t)hrough the pages of the bantu world … we seek to mirror a life, a society, a drama endeavour, with which europeans, taken by the large, are curiously unacquainted with … we are able to catch a glimpse of the black races as they struggle from barbarism to civilisation, from ignorance to knowledge, from an africa that has been theirs from the dawn of history to an africa moulded by the alien hand that has reached down from western europe a hand of culture, but a hand that can chastise (�3/04/�935:�). the bantu world was founded in 1932. although in layout it was a quality paper, its content leaned more towards that of a tabloid, which it subsequently became in both form and content. the editorial stated that the growth of the paper “reflects the remarkable educational advance made by africans ... due to increasing literacy of the africans” (�3/04/�935:�). obviously the target audience of this paper was exclusively the african people who could read mainly english, and to a lesser extent afrikaans; then in the third place some bantu languages in which several articles per issue were published, namely “zulu (isizulu), sesuto (sesotho), xhosa (isixhosa) and sechuana (setswana)” (�3/04/�935:�). later on a sprinkling of articles in �enda (tshivenda) were published. archetyping in advertising 3 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 marketing through advertisements, like in any newspaper, was clearly one of its major concerns. in the idiom of the bantu world there is a discernible though unconscious stratification of the target audience into class (urban, educated and male, as opposed to rural, uneducated, and female respectively) stereotypes, underlying the racial superstructure of south african society and racial capitalism at the time. we also find in it the dominant voice that appropriates and ventriloquises the african voice, mainly because the white south african community was meant to overhear the discourse that was going on in the newspaper. in this regard the same editorial intimated that the paper “has revealed to european existence of a fertile but undeveloped market in their midst”. the mention of the role of the voice of racial capitalism in creating and directing the course of the discourse was of course vicarious, as in all other matters concerning africans in south africa. by this we are referring to the authority which white capitalist south africa usurped the authority and power to speak for and on behalf of africans in every matter which concerned their lives; determining through legislation and other ways where they should live and work, what wages and salaries they earned, where their children should be educated and the content of the curriculum, etc. the word ‘bantu’ fell out of favour and general use because of abuse by the 1948 �ationalist government. thus, in 1956 the newspaper dropped the qualifier in its name, and called itself the world. in explaining the rationale for the change of name the editorial of the paper traced the etymology of the word ‘bantu’ and observed correctly that it was first used by bleek in 1856 as a nomenclature referring to a group of languages that had certain common linguistic features. it went on to explain the reason for the change of name and reluctance to adopt the epithet ‘african’: it is a common error to use bantu as both singular and plural … the name ‘bantu’ has come as a new designation for what [sic] are sometimes called ‘�atives’, a name which became popular and as soon discarded its universal meaning, and became a discriminatory label for a particular group … the term ‘african’ has been described as hazy, general and geographical (the world: 07/01/56:1). in the late 1970s, under prime minister b. j. �orster’s regime, the tabloid was banned but expediently re-emerged with a new name, calling itself the sowetan. it was obvious that the producers of the paper were manoeuvring for political space. in keeping with this, the content of the paper manifested a certain political and ideological consciousness that seemed to evolve in keeping with the change of names. the purpose of this article is to study the ideological hegemony of the superstructuring voice in the newspaper through its advertisements, by studying linguistic and text structural devices that are employed to interrogate its racial, class and gender undertones. the sample of advertisements to be discussed is derived from the bantu world and its two sequels, the world and the sowetan, ranging from the �930s to maake 4 the 1990s. most of these advertisements were duplicated in the sister newspapers, mochochono (sesotho) and imvo (isixhosa), which were published under the auspices of the associated bantu press. in the latter case the advertisements in the different languages were directly translated from english the major thrust of africans’ migration from rural to urban south africa was precipitated by the native land act of �9�3, which spatially divided the country into white (85 per cent) and black (15 per cent). in the urban areas the african people, especially men, were to become sojourners and a labour reservoir for the fast growing industrial sector. this status was to be reinforced by the urban areas act and a plethora of other laws which controlled the influx of africans to the industrial cities. thus the african had to perpetually negotiate the tension between his or her rural origin and urban migrant status, culturally and politically. this writer finds these tensions reflected, if not reinforced, either consciously or subconsciously, in the advertising strategies of the bantu world. the third anniversary editorial of the bantu world stated: it may not be out of place to glance through the pages of “the bantu” world, which seeks to mirror a life, a society, a drama of endeavour, with which europeans, taken by the large, are curiously unacquainted. in the pages of “the bantu” we are able to catch a glimpse of the black races as they struggle from barbarism to civilisation, from ignorance to knowledge, from an africa that has been theirs from the dawn of history to an africa remoulded by the alien hand that has reached down from western civilisation – a hand of culture, but a hand that can chastise (�3/04/�935:�). with this editorial in mind, one discerns in the advertisements an authorial perspective anchored in the narrative voice and images that are pervaded by the ideological thrust of racial capitalism. the dialogue and narrative in the advertisements arguably contradict the self-confession and proclamation of interpreting the aspirations of the african people of south africa, at least from their own perspective. our interest is in the mediating nature of the voice, which, through juxtaposition of the third-person and first-person narrative purview, makes a bold claim to authenticity. this is, however, subverted by the unconscious use of the free indirect style, third person and director observer point of view, and use of racial labelling. we shall study a few samples of advertising texts to illustrate how they build on racial capitalism’s mainstream discourse and imagination of the ‘other’ through the use of epithets such as “africans” and “bantu leader”. the basis of our close reading of the images and written texts will be free indirect style. its classical definition refers to the use of the indirect speaker’s perspective being merged with or superimposed on that of the direct speaker. traugott and pratt suggest that it: archetyping in advertising 5 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 … involves a two-way pointing, in which pronouns and verbal inflections are anchored in the narrator and all other deictics in the fictional character. we as readers are placed in a particular vantage point in which we are distanced from the character and the narrator and bring us into the character’s immediate purview (1980:301). what we propose to do is to adopt this definition, but adapt it to include use of nomenclature such as racial and gender epithets, stereotyping imaging and pockets of silence. the implication here is that, for instance, certain contexts do not call for racial labelling, say from a direct speaker’s perspective, within and outside direct speech. an example of this is an advertisement where two african women are depicted watching children playing. one of them says to the other: “john is a healthy picanin.” (20/04/35). the last word in the utterance used to be a derogatory word referring to africa children, adopted and corrupted from the portuguese word for ‘child’. in south africa it was used by white people to refer to african children, and when africans use it they do so in satirically in mimic of the master’s racial attitude. these words are meant to be uttered by an african woman, referring to an african child. the voice of the creator of the pictorial and written texts mediates and intrudes through the racial label that the speaker of the group would not use. in another example two african women are engaged in a dialogue which reads: “you do look well lettie,” and the reply is: “of course i do jane i drink ovaltin every day” (08/05/37:18). in this dialogue the names used are reminiscent of the monosyllabic, at the most two syllabic names, that were often given to africans to replace their supposed tongue-twisting names. a similar advertisement marketing the same product appears where two men call each other “philip” and “john” (01/05/37:5). the names vary but are in most cases monosyllabic (see advertisement [�4] later). it is this unconscious subversion of the super-narrator’s view that diffuses through the “character’s immediate purview” which raises a point of interest. this is how our borrowing of the definition of free indirect style will be applied. in this discussion we will continuously bear in mind the impressions of the cape town convention’s wisdom as the mediating voice of free indirect style. establishing canonical paradigms: �930s-�950s the bantu world’s images of africans in urban areas are predominantly of a particular kind, and in terms of size and positioning within the frames in which they appear they seem to upstage the variety of products that they are intended to market, ranging from essentials such as food, clothes, soap, paraffin and medicine to luxury items such as hats and ties. we proceed to select a sample of these adverts for close reading. maake 6 [1] enjoy your work. this medicine keeps you fit and ... full of energy. life is good when you can enjoy your work. when you feel fit and do not tire easily, work becomes pleasure. but it is hard to stand the strain, day after day. you need something to keep your energy up. many africans have learnt to depend upon phosferine, the greatest of all tonics ... phosferine also relieves toothache, neuralgia and other nerve pains (13/02/1937:5). the picture accompanying this text portrays an african man wearing a postman’s uniform, holding letters in his left hand and balancing a bicycle with his right hand. in the distant background there are city buildings. the man is urban, but only as a worker who delivers mail for his employer – the post office. emphasis and lexical reiteration in the text is on physical performance, energy, work and strain, which are supposed to be a pleasure to him. the word “work” recurs in many advertisements, repetitively or in parallelism. reference to, “many africans” suggests a non-african voice with assuming sociological authority. [2] happy people get the best jobs. this wonderful medicine has helped many africans to keep fit and well! happy people can work hard and enjoy doing it. people who do not get tired easily are the ones who do not worry. they are happy people. they get the best jobs, because employers like their african workers to be cheerful and willing. it is hard if you do not feel well and strong. many leading africans who enjoy well-paid jobs, have found that phosferine is a wonderful medicine which keeps them fit and happy (27/03/1937:19). the second text [2], contrary to the first, gives the observer a close-up view of a man and a woman, both spruce and formerly clad, complete with hats. in the distant background, across a diving road, there are two african men wearing short pants, and short sleeved shirts. �uring the period of the �930s to the �960s these were uniform worm by male domestic workers. the men are watching the couple with apparent admiration if not envy. the contrast is drawn sharply by the foregrounding and backgrounding of the images. the couple is symbolic of the upwardly mobile africans who had acquired or were striving for middle class status. �espite their separation from the working class characters, they are levelled to the african stereotype by reference to their proverbial cheerfulness and willingness. they can never become employers, because “employers like their african workers”, and their middle class status is only an illusion, as they have to be “well and strong”, a reference to ability to do physical rather than white collar work. [3] become a leader of your people. the man who works with a pick and a shovel can never be a bantu leader. the man who is educated commands the respect of his people and becomes a leader. he earns more money and can dress better and have a comfortable home with a happy family. the u�io� college will show you the way to better education and all the advantages that come with it. simply fill in the coupon below – it will cost you nothing for the information (01/05/1937:14). the social class stratification in the above advertisement is further reinforced by the definition of two types of bantu, the working class and the middle class. in the image we see the contrast between a working class man wearing working clothes, with a shovel full of earth, and on archetyping in advertising 7 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 the opposite end there is a man standing next to a board which has arithmetic calculations written on it. he is wearing a suit and spectacles, and is pointing at the sums with the air of aplomb. the setting suggests that he is undoubtedly a teacher. the contrast between the two characters is underlined by the dialectical positioning of the two men in the picture – the working class man is in the upper left hand corner, while the teacher is in the lower right hand corner. the second person deictic in the opening of the written text, ‘your’, does more than act as speech directed at the addressee for immediacy, but also establishes the distance of identity between the implied speaker on the one hand and the receiver on the other. in the first two advertisements, [1] and [2], the distance is established more subtly by the nomenclature and qualifiers used, “many africans”. one would like to suggest that an insider would not have used the word as self-consciously as it sounds in the tone of the indirect speaker. the idea of the african as a worker or member of the proletarian class is further displayed in an advertisement about a window-cleaning product called bon ami, which this writer found only in isizulu: [4] windows that are cleaned with bon ami are wonderful. bon ami makes them shine and shine ... buy bon ami! (24/04/37:3) [my translation]. the visual text of this advertisement shows an african man in an ambiguous dress code. he is smiling and facing the camera (viewer). one cannot tell whether he is dressed casually or in working clothes. this creates some ambiguity, in that the house that he is cleaning might be his. this interpretation is, however, subverted by the classic gender and race division of labour in south africa, where african men never did any household work in their own homes, but were content to do it the homes of their domestic employers. in discursive analytical terms one would in this manner seek recourse cataphorically, that is, in reference to aspects which are outside the text. the question of racial stereotyping is usually tied up with that of class. an illustration can be drawn from an advertisement marketing a distant education college, amongst others. [5] today if you are working for a small company, follow the example of men who have doubled their income. learn to do your work better. study in your spare time. a union college correspondence course will give you good training (29/03/�954:3). in the written text of this advertisement there are no nuances of race positioning, but the accompanying image imposes it. in the foreground of this advertisement there is a white man, in close-up, wearing a hat, a shirt, tie and jacket, and is smiling. in the background we see three africans, wearing short trousers and working clothes, one in the forefront with a broom in hand. they are in a long shot. this creates an impression that the white man is a provider of education and work. the africans maake 8 aspire not to his status but to earning better wages. the idea of the white man as a provider not only of work and better wages but also as producer of commodities and paternal adviser is reinforced in the advertisement which we quote below. [6] “i didn’t know su�light had a new dress. when i went to buy my sunlight soap, the storekeeper gave me a bright yellow packet.” “�o”, i said, “i want sunlight”. the storekeeper laughed “this is sunlight wearing a new dress.” “when i got home and started washing i knew it really was sunlight. �o other soap makes such soapy water” (�5/05/�954:6). the images in this advertisement are presented in four still frames connected by a developing narrative thread. the first two lines comprise the caption of the narrative, with an establishing image of the i-narrator, who is an african woman wearing a head kerchief. the first dialogue between this anonymous narrator and the shopkeeper is in the second frame. the two characters are segregated by a counter. in the third we see the woman spreading her arms out in amusement, with a foamy bath in the forefront. in the final shot she is sitting at table, enjoying tea with two friends. the theme reinforces the same subtext as in the preceding advertisement. the shopkeeper is a white male, impeccably dressed with tie and jacket. this suggests that even when at work, he is still smartly dressed. he provides advice to an african woman who does not know the product that she is after, or the latest developments in its packaging. he is a producer of goods (owner of the means of production and member of the capitalist class) while the african woman is only an uninformed consumer of the commodity. a generous reading may suggest that at worst this relationship suggests paternalism or male condescending. the latter reading would be tenable in a society which is not as racially (racism almost always coincided with capitalism) polarized as south africa at the tie. even though the story is told from her point or view and perspective, it has marginalised her authority over the narrative by making her anonymous and reducing her status as the central character. actually the shopkeeper has been elevated to the status of protagonist, in that even in the last shot his witty reference to sunlight in a new package (“new dress”) echoes over the tone of the text as he is quoted. the mediating voice is also superimposed on the narrator’s voice in the pun “sunlight had a new dress”, which associates the woman with the product. here we find undertones of gendering, where certain products are associated with women. the advertisement also reinforces racial stereotypes, to which we shall refer later in this discussion. for the present we shall pursue gender stereotyping in a further sample of advertisements. most advertisements which portray african women do so in their stereotypical roles. we often see them carrying babies, doing domestic archetyping in advertising 9 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 chores, or as young women aspiring to be married by handsome young men: [7] teach your children the lifebuoy habits. washing with lifebuoy is a good habit! teach the children to rub lots of lifebuoy well into their skin, for lifebuoy kills those dangerous germs picked during their play. lifebuoy is not only for children, all grownups who want to keep healthy and strong should use lifebuoy (08/05/1937:4). [8] african mothers! the good �ews is spreading! babies sleep soundly with ashton & parsons’ infants’ powders. bantu women in the towns and locations first heard how white mothers keep babies healthy and happy so that they grow fat and strong. �ow the country women in the kraals are hearing it too. when [your] baby cries, he has a small pain somewhere. ashton & parsons’ infants’ powders stop the pain (10/05/1937:2). in the preceding advertisement [7] we see a kneeling woman washing a little boy in a tub. the narrative reveals a sharp class division between african women on the one hand and white women on the other. the latter are a class above, and therefore trend, standards and benchmark setters. if one were to drive this point home it might perhaps be helpful to study an advertisement meant for whites, and investigate whether white women were ever portrayed doing household work and babysitting, which was strictly reserved for african women within the white household. among the advertisements of the 1930s to 1950s this writer could find one advertisement in which a white woman appears in an advertisement with a child. the african woman is dressed in urban clothes, and there is no suggestion that she is in a rural setting, yet the written text seems to be informed by the idea that african women are basically rural. this adds another variable which creates a wider social gap between the two classes of women. in the second advertisement [8] we see a woman carrying a baby girl, and immediately below her, on the left (her right) is a man, carrying a baby covered in a blanket, probably a boy. the woman is not merely a mother but is ‘african’ and ‘bantu’. these epithets in the body of the imperative mood of the text repeating the lexical item “teach”, anchor the voice of the perspective of the implied speaker. the woman is the carer, while the man appears as the protector. there is a coincidence of dual social stereotyping in the narrating voice and the images, that of race and gender. in a number of advertisements this role gendering trend is followed religiously. a comparison of three advertisements advertising laurel paraffin reinforces gender roles without any subtlety. in one a woman is putting an iron on a primus (one-plate paraffin) stove, with the caption: “women! make your work easier” (17/04/1937:4), and in the next she is frozen in the act of pouring paraffin into a lamp (07/05/1937:6). in another we see a stark contradiction, where a man is sitting comfortably on a settee, holding a cigarette in his left hand. in the background there is a paraffin heater (01/05/1937:2). �oteworthy in these advertisements is that in the first two the paraffin stove and the lamp are in the foreground, maake �0 in contrast to the third one, where the woman is in the foreground. the point to note here is that when it comes to women, the product is put on a higher pedestal and the character serves as the background to the product, whereas in advertisements which feature men, the opposite is true, as mentioned earlier. women are always foreshadowed by their work and the service they provide. we find this is another advertisement marketing tea, where a smiling woman is holding a tea tray with cups, and the caption announces: “how to please your husband” and after some seventy words of advice it concludes, “husband, family and friends will say to you ‘this is the best tea we’ve ever had!’”(16/06/1956:7). the role of african women as child-bearers is reinforced in a number of advertisements in dramatic dialogue, creating an illusion that they are speaking for themselves: [9] this african mother has fat happy twin babies. she believes that all mothers should use ashto� & parso�s’ i�fa�t pow�ers. “i have seven children” writes mrs. m. rosie �ffikoe. “the first five were sick when their teeth came. they cried every night and they got very thin. �ow i have twins, and i use ashton & parsons’ infants powders. my twins are eight months old; one baby has three teeth and the other has two. they sleep all night and they are still fat...” from her own experience in bringing up children, mrs. �ffikoe has found the way in which white mothers for many, many years, have ensured the health and comfort of their babies ... (20/03/1937). [10] happy motherhood comes only to stro�g wome�. if all women, before and after married life, were to use feluna pills for females only, there would be more happy parents and fewer weakly children … “elsie, you are now leaving us to join your husband.” “goodbye, mother, i shall be a credit to our family.” “be a good wife and bear strong healthy children.” “i love babies mother and i hope to have some.” “i have had 8 as you know. all healthy and strong. you know why?’ “i think i do. since before your marriage you told me you used feluna pills.” “yes, my child. they have kept my blood strong and healthy. take them and be sure.” “i know i cannot be a successful wife and mother without good health. i shall certainly take feluna pills.” (14/04/37). we have already remarked about the role assigned to white women as trend and standard setters, thus we shall pass the penultimate line of the first advertisement without any comment. in the advertisement we hear mrs. �ffikoe describing her children as “fat”. this word lacks any affectionate and maternal feelings associated with the term “chubby”. the narrating voice mediates by making mrs. �ffikoe write about her children. who she is writing this to is a question that exposes this voice. in the second one the characters are supposed to be speaking in their own voices, but the mediating voice is superimposed. it is through it that we hear the stereotype of the african woman as a breeder of many archetyping in advertising �� td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 children. it is hardly plausible that mrs. �ffikoe would remind her own daughter about the number of her children. it is inconceivable that a member of the family would forget the number of her siblings. this is how it reads, despite the dramatic authenticity tag, “as you know”. once again the mediating voice breaks through the mask and unintentionally reveals itself. it is also noteworthy that the name “�ffikoe”, is orthographically and phonologically not permissible in the consonant structure of any southern bantu language. an alveolar nasal can never be followed immediately by a denti-labial fricative. the constraints in �guni or sotho languages would dictate that the nasal becomes a bilabial nasal, so that it is articulated as “mfikoe”. the orthography does not permit “ff”. this suggests that the authorial voice is not vested with the morphology of the language of the characters, from which their surnames are derived, and therefore reinforces our argument about a racial authorial voice. the african man, on the other hand, is given a share of patriarchy, as we see in the advertisement where one dressed in a white shirt, a checkered tie and a jacket, proudly displays a clean shirt to his audience and announces the product of his wife’s domestic labour. this remark is uttered with broad smile splashed across his face. [11] “i tell my wife she must always use ri�so for the washing ... my wife likes using rinso because she does not have to rub and scrub, and that saves my clothes from wearing out ...” (02/03/56:��). in the above advertisement there is no authorial commentary that labels the man in racial terms. but most noteworthy is the man’s concern for his clothes but not his wife – “that saves my clothes from wearing out.” the woman might as well be a machine meant to deliver service. this is demonstrated in the tendency of most advertisements, where in most if not all cases african women are not portrayed alone. they are always doing nothing else but some household chores or are placed in a family milieu. in an advertisement of a maize meal brand called impala we see a family seated at the table, ready to eat (�4.04.56:3). the husband is in the foreground, his back turned towards the viewer but his smile is clearly visible in profile. on his left sits his son, body in profile and face in three-quarter. the girl is seated opposite the father, facing the viewer. the woman is standing next to her husband, serving the son from a bowl. she seems to be going moving clock-wise in serving them, so that after serving the father, she attends to the son and to conclude with the daughter. the gender hierarchy (patriarchy) is well reinforced in this family setup, where the role of the female members of the family is to serve, and when they are served they come last. let us conclude this section with reference to an advertisement which shows three stereotypical images of the urban african woman and man. this is an advertisement of an antiseptic ointment called germolene, herewith translated from isizulu. maake �2 [12] �o matter how you got injured, whether you were fighting, kicked by a horse, cut yourself with a knife, use germolene for your wound immediately. keep this ointment in your home all the time and use it no matter how small your wound is (27/03/48:16). the above quote begins after about six lines of information on what the product can do. accompanying the above imperative text are three still frames. in the first one there is a man carrying a bucket, approaching a stabled horse from behind in a vertical sequence. the fourth shows a tin of germolene, without a frame. if one were to be open to what may be an alternative reading, namely that the suggestion that approaching the horse from behind does not necessarily suggest lack of knowledge as to how horses are handled, the written texts certainly subverts this reading, in that a person well acquainted with horses would not find himself in a situation where he is “kicked by a horse”, as the text says. in the second there are two men fighting with sticks, and in the third there is a woman wearing an apron. she has cut her hand with a knife and she is seen throwing it away. there are three stereotypes that are portrayed in these images. in the first frame the man is a servant, for he cannot own a horse, and his lack of knowledge about the animal is revealed by approaching it from a dangerous position, without knowing its temperament. the written text informs us of the consequences of his ignorance. in the frame the typical fighting african is presented in a manner reminiscent and echoing a �r. williams’ pink pills advertisement, in which we see three frames, in the first and third there are running men carrying spears and shields, and in the second there is a woman. the text suggests: be fit and strong like your forefathers. warriors of the past lived free lives in the country. they were strong, healthy men. to-day, even if you live in a big city, you can be just as strong and healthy if you know the right way (02/0�/43:6). in the last frame the woman is doing household chores, either in her house, or for that matter the ‘missies’. the first and the third frames, with the fighting scene in between, suggest a symmetry that informs the reader that the characters depicted in the two images are servants. the general trend of the advertisement goes in keeping with the grand plan of segregation, where african characters are separated from white characters. however, there are very few where the two racial groups are seen in the same advertisement. in such cases the overtones of master-servant relationship are consistently adhered to, accompanied by undertones of class consciousness. [13] “you can see bona ami never scratches yet it cleans very quickly.” [14] joseph gets the job! (the title of the narrative) “morning andrew! i hear you have been given a better job.” “yes, mr. scott; i think it’s because i took your advice about keeping smart from top to toe.” “i suggest we give andrew’s job to joseph. he is a neat lad!” “yes, i’ve noticed his shoes are always so well polished” archetyping in advertising �3 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 joseph thi�ks ‘that’s my shoes, tha�ks to �ugget” “we will make you lift boy, joseph. we’ve noticed you are a smart chap.” “goodbye andrew. thanks for everything, especially for telling me about �ugget, i use it everyday as you do!” (28/01/56). in the first advertisement [13] above the words are spoken by a man wearing a suit, with a tie. he is standing and talking to a white boy who is seated, facing him. connotations of racial superiority are very subtle, in that one reading may lead to the conclusion that the man is giving advice to the boy. the absurdity of this reading is belied by the assumption that the boy will never find himself in a situation where he will have to use a dish or glass cleaning liquid. the most plausible reading is that the man is working in the kitchen as the boy’s parents’ domestic servant, and that he is trying to amuse the boy. in the next advertisement there are five frames in which the dialogue is taking place. in the sixth and final frame a tin of the product being advertised occupies the whole frame. in the first two frames a white gentleman, formally dressed, with tie and hat, addresses an african man. the latter is also formally dressed but his status is lowered one rung by lack of a jacket, over and above the terms of address. he is simply “andrew”, and the white gentleman is given a title of “mr”. in the third frame two white gentlemen are seen talking to each other and in the third joseph is back, standing in front of mr. scott’s desk, with a radiant smile on his face. in the fifth frame joseph is bidding andrew good-bye. we notice that earlier he thanked mr. scott for giving him advice, while in the last frame we hear that it is actually andrew, whose job he has now taken, who gave him the advice. there seems to be two possible readings to this text. it is either meant to be humorous, with a twist of irony when we realise that joseph took andrew’s job by using his own advice. on the other hand it may be intended to show the supposed deceptive nature of the subservient african when dealing with his white superiors. he flatters his employer by attributing andrew’s advice to him. in the next advertisement we see the unequal relationship represented from a slightly different angle; reminiscent of the sunlight soap advertisement discussed earlier [6]. this is rendered in sesotho, but translates as follows: [�5] aspros are a medicine which is used by people all over the world. this is the way in which you can use aspro. when you have a headache, take two aspro tablets and your headache will disappear immediately. when you have a toothache ... back ache and body pains ... fever cold ... tonsillitis ... (27/03/54:6). in the image accompanying the text there is a white man in a medium shot, wearing spectacles and holding out a box of the product in his right hand, outstretched towards the reader. in the background there are six unframed images starting with a baby, followed by a woman, another woman, a boy, a girl, a man and a boy. these ailing characters are probably a family. their faces are grimaced and bodies contorted in pain, maake �4 in keeping with whatever ache among the above-mentioned is plaguing them. they are all african. the man seems to have lost his patriarchal status as the family protector, and he seems to be the sickest of them all. the family can only be redeemed by the white man, with a face smiling benevolently, the right hand holding out the solution to the african reader of the newspaper, and the left hand outstretched to the images behind him, demonstrating what the fruit of his knowledge is about to perform to rescue them from the natural aches that their bodies are heir to. the most striking feature of the advertisements that portray white characters on their own is brevity of narrative, absence of vigorous action and reference to physical strength, and avoidance of the imperative mood, such as “use “, “make your work …”, “teach your children ...” , “enjoy your work ...”, and “become ...”, as we have seen in some of the advertisements already discussed: [16] a word to those who are troubled by shins (08/05/37:6). [17] shins with a bright future (21/02/48:11). [18] the pause that refreshes. it’s the real thing, coca-cola (29/05/48:18). [19] the acme of perfectio� tux trousers (2 1/02/38:1 1). [20] scott superior men’s wear (29/05/48:18). in the above advertisements except for one [18] the character is a white man, standing alone. there is no impression of the background. the activities engaged in are simply reading [16] tying the tie knot [17], playing chess with a friend over a bottle of coca-cola [18], or frozen in a short step forward [�9] and [20]. where there is a lengthy narrative, as in the text of the second [17] advertisement, there is no reference to the character, let alone his name or for that matter his racial identity. there is no mediating voice. reference made is strictly about the product and nothing more: “you may buy shins on their looks, but you just judge them in their laundering. and that explains why tootal shining material looks well on shop counters, they equally look well after months of washdays. their colours are crisp and bright ...”. reference to how the products look as opposed to it being worn by the character in the picture is blatant avoidance of referring to his person. this silence confers deference to the white male. another conspicuous absence in the image is that of a domestic context. this may be significant of his position in the larger body politic and patriarchal system. he must not be seen in a setting that reduces him to an ordinary human being – a father, husband or brother, but expression of a public figure whose authority lies in the public arena rather than the domestic space. the ultimate height to which he can climb in this patriarchy is testified by a cigarette advertisement, showing a man wearing a cowboy hat, a jacket and a tie, holding out a packet to the reader: [ 21] tex ritter for presi�e�t (03/11/56:1) archetyping in advertising �5 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 american consumer imperialism, complete with its patriarchy, preliminarily rears its head only to be predominant in the sequel to the newspaper in the 1970s. tex is described as a man “who comes from way out where things are bigger and better”. the intended pun is on the surface, so that the man enjoys smoking president cigarettes, and also aspires to the highest position in the ladder of western patriarchy. the cowboy hat is a hermeneutic code that can only symbolize one culture, the bastion of western civilisation in the twentieth century, the united states. it is this cowboy culture which annihilated thousands of native americans from the landscape and annexed it, so that what remains are faint traces of their languages in place names such as oklahoma, �akota, idaho, to name but a few. its adoption by african men, especially in the sub-culture of the urban areas, is testimony of how south african insensitivity to destructive imperialism and patriarchy. there are one or two exceptions to the rule of no energetic physical action or display of physical prowess when it comes to portrayal of white characters, and that is in two advertisements. [22] only purito�e can do 10 things for you ... (08/12/56:7). [23] wilso�’s xxx mi�ts. good and strong. in the first advertisement [22] above the man portrayed is carrying a hammer, raised and poised to strike at something that is outside the frame. in the second advert [23] the man is a body-builder, carrying a giant sized packet of the product, almost one and half times the volume of his body. the similarity between the two characters is that their muscular bodies are displayed aesthetically. they are both smiling, so that it is obvious that they are actually not doing work, but engaged in what they enjoy and are doing as a pastime. in the first one there are hints of subversion, perhaps by default or inadvertent, in the arrows that are pointing at and labelling different physical parts that the tablets work on. among the �0 things that it can do is, “relieve constipation”, “relieve flatulence (wind)”, and “remove waste poison”. these phrases are written with arrows pointing at the relevant physiology where these ailments and waste material are lodged. �oteworthy in the xxx mints advertisement is that the word “strong”, so overused when characters portrayed are african, does not refer to the character in this case, but to the product. this is achieved by ellipsis of the subject in the second phrase of the advert. there is, however, a hint of ambiguity, where the subject may be “it” or “he”. explicit reference would have reduced the status of the model or demystified him, by implying that he has to be strong so that he can do manual work, at the time strictly reserved for african people, mainly men. on the whole the white male is portrayed in terms dialectic to the african male. the relaxed ambiance created around him reveals a highly sophisticated life. he does not engage in physically demanding sport maake �6 or work, as in most advertisements in which african men are depicted. he spends his leisure time playing chess [while they are shown playing football, rugby, cricket, or boxing]. the middle class sports which he is supposed to play are a blatant contrast to the amenities that are in reality available to him. this remains a dream of upward mobility, inspired by “marketing of wish-fulfilment within a societal system fundamentally antagonistic to their realization ... tap into a pool of unfulfilled desires and aspirations, channelling fulfilment through cultural commodities” (goldman, 1992:87). the white female is generally portrayed along the same lines as her male counterpart, but her image is restricted to a close-up or medium shot, and never a full length one, unless she is in the company of a white male. the brevity of narrative, absence of physical action and avoidance of direct reference to character do not deviate from the rules laid down for the portrayal of the male. [24] eczema, pimples, sore & rushes quickly soothed and healed (22/05/48:16). the image accompanying this text is of a female, in close-up and threequarter profile, scrutinizing her face in the mirror. there is no reference to the person, or any words spoken by her. first-person dialogue is reserved for royalty, real or fictional, as in the advertisements that follow. [25] “pond’s creams are ideal for my skin” says the �uchess of argyll (01/03/37:1). [26] “i always use pond’s creams” says her royal highness princess murat” (�5/05/54:�). in comparing the last two and the previous one there seems to be a hint of class distinction, where aristocracy is given a voice, and the middle class none. [27] keeps baby’s skin spotless. soothes soreness chafing and irritation (02/10/48:12). the woman is not doing anything consciously. she is simply holding the baby’s leg. perhaps this is in keeping with the idea that the person who looks after children in a white family is an african nanny. the white woman’s status should not be reduced to that level. the most peculiar advertisements are those marketing the pen and the automobile. those advertising the former are of two types. firstly there are those without any dramatis personae. all that the reader sees is a pen suspended en l’air. then there are very few with only the tips of the fingers holding the pen. [28] thousands have asked for this eye-catching, streamlined pen, with the finger-fitting barrel, nickel-silver push-on cap, built-in clip and the famous velvet smooth platinum �ib (18/10/48:3). archetyping in advertising 17 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 [29] conway stewart. the easy writing and perfect ink-flow are appreciated by every type of writer the quality of the pen at a reasonable price. the popular pe� with the mar�ellous �ib (16/10/48:10). the omission or substitution of the word “thousands” for “african” or “bantu” in the first [28] advertisement, and “every type of writer” in the second [29] is obvious when one draws a comparison with other texts. substitution and silence are the discursive devices used to deprive the african of a higher class status. it seems the suggestion is that africans and writing are not compatible. there is, however, an exception where a smartly dressed african man is sitting at a desk and writing a letter. although the pen features here, it is not, however, about pens, but about writing pads. the semblance of admission that an african man can engage in a learned activity such as writing is defeated by the caption of the advertisement, which reads: “when you write for a job ... be sure you write on croxley, ‘the path of a million pens’” (29/02/56:5). this suggests that the man writes as a matter of necessity, but not as part of his culture, to communicate with relatives or friends, or simply for the pleasure of it. the automobile, like the pen, has no manipulating subject. whenever a car is advertised there is no occupant in it. we see only the whole car or the deck. when the african man is portrayed in a scene where he is not performing manual work, the tendency is to make him look ‘civilised’, an extension of western civilisation. this tendency is manifested clearly in advertisements which pitch him against his rural counterpart. [30] “if i had not come along with my eveready torch that snake would have bitten you.” “you cannot see a snake in the dark ... if you see it, you hit it with a stick and the snake dies not you” (17/04/37). [3�] “i am not afraid of darkness, because i carry daylight with me.” (09/05/37:3). in the first advertisement [30] we see a boy, staring at a man who is dressed formally, hat and all, shining a ray of torch light onto a live snake. in the second one [3�] a boy is peeping through a door that is slightly ajar, and a man, dressed as in the previous advertisement, is shining torch light into his face. the boys in the two pictures are startled and frightened. the symbolism of light is not lost to the observer. the urban african has brought light, both literal and figurative, to the rural scene, where people live in fear of snakes. the theme of this advertisement recurs through a number of others that advertise “eveready electric torches”, and one cannot help but hear the ring of the �ictorian idea of the african as a “child of nature” and “the white man’s burden”. one has to consider that in the larger context of south african, or even european imperialism, light, virtual in the advertisement and figurative in other respects, was brought to the african by western civilisation. it therefore maake 18 stands to reasons that the connotation in this advertisement is that the urban african is literally a torch bearer. in search of new combination and selection: �960s -�990s the �960s seem to usher a new era in the advertisement of the world, and this is carried through to the �990s. the most striking features in the advertisements of this period are the change of products that are being advertised, and the pictorial and linguistic style in which they are presented to the reader. other emerging stylistic features in the text and layout are: relatively short narrative, introduction of african characters in advertisements that would in the past have portrayed white characters and change from line drawing to photographic images. characters are given personality by reference to names, real or fictitious, so that they are no longer part of the african mass without any individual identity. we also see africans in automobile advertisements. reference to character in racial terms also disappears and white characters are few and far between. the rural african is no longer there. one could suggest that the mediating voice’s perspective begins to disappear, together with the racial stereotype. this apparent paradigm shift seems to be in keeping with the changing status of the urban african in the eyes of white capitalism. �ew items begin to abound. the products include hair styling cream, automobiles, spirits, liquor, writing pads, germicide, furniture, perfumes, bank services, hire purchase offers, insurance, and so forth. there is a bias towards luxury items. [32] score a hit with all the guys with �ikki imported french perfume! (13/02/75:6). [33] brylcreem keeps you hair straight and black (26/03/65:2). [34] those who know, know to ask for white horse whisky (�9/02/65:��). [35] the successful man drinks castle stout for health and strength (�9/02/65:2). [36] hats off to a successful man. he’s smart enough to wear a good hat and clever enough not to spoil it with greasy hair dressing. he uses �italis (/ �0/02/65:4). [37] me� o�ly powa pills (11/01/65:7). the scenario presented in the above advertisements is relaxed, showing people enjoying themselves over one type of drink or another, not always working hard or relating obsequiously to their white superiors. the background setting is mainly indoors. men even smile and relate intimately with women. in the whiskey advertisement there are three men and a woman, all well dressed and enjoying glasses of the liquor. there is an impression of a picture frame on the background wall, suggesting that they are in a posh bar. in the brylcreem advertisement [33] a man archetyping in advertising �9 td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 and a woman are standing close together, admiring a trophy. the man is looking at the woman, with a romantic smile on his face. one cannot help but notice that gender role-modelling is still persistent. in the brylcreem advertisement the trophy seems to belong to the man, which obviously suggests that he has won it but not the woman. in the previous one, where men are drinking, there is only one woman, a minority among men. one, advertising beer, shows a man holding a glassful, with two women standing behind him and watching, with a twinkle of admiration in their eyes. the written text announces: “the successful man drinks castle stout” (�9/02/65:2). �ecessities that are taken for granted in developed countries such as life insurance, electricity, cars, houses and telephones begin to feature prominently in advertisements during this period. [38] most of the people we help don’t even know yet ... our electrification programme reaches out to improve the lives of thousands of people every day many of whom go on to create jobs in their communities (14/06/99:7). [39] to see how we’ve improved the dash on the new corolla, take a closer look at the gear stick (20/10/99:17). [40] start easy, travel easy. caltex gives your car extra power you need (�9/02/65:5). [41] serame motihabane writes home on croxtey. mr. serame motlhabane, a rising star of journalism and sotho language editor of “bona” writes this: “busy, you bet i am...” (12/02/65:2). [42] our pledge. as a life assurer, when dealing with w�, we will do our best to ensure equity ... (�5/�0/99). in the croxley advertisement [4�] there is a picture of a man sitting at a desk, writing. unlike in the croxley advertisements of the 1930s, the reader realises that the african character is a professional, and that his career prospects are wider than they would have been suggested in the early decades of the newspaper. it is also noteworthy that men outnumber women by far in advertisements, even though there is an apparent slow shift from portraying them in domestic settings. in most of them women still advertise products such as washing powder, rice, cleaning agents and other household wares. the bias towards american goods becomes a predominant feature in the 1980s. some american singers and boxers started visiting south africa in that period, and were followed closely on their heels by american capitalist imperialism. among the first were boxers bob foster and john tate. the harbinger of singers was percy sledge, followed by other fellow musicians like isaac hayes and the staple singers. some of them had their fair share of appearing in south african advertisements, marketing american products. local talent was also used. maake 20 [43] bob foster says: “mayfair apparel packs plenty of punch”. bob foster, light heavy-weight champion from america, says that it is great to see mayfair apparel available in south africa ... mayfair in the american mood (27/01/75:1). [44] get the million �ollar look of lybro american all-star slacks (27/01/75:3). [45] mrs connie �tsona well-known business-woman urban councillor of �ube [soweto] says: “every day in every way american rice is so good for you!” (22/01/75:3). [46] step forward in washington. a pair of washington ‘quality’ slacks, superbly tailored lets you step forward with a difference ... washington american styled slacks (10/01/75:19). [47] �oria� hats american style (26/03/75:8). [48] black and blue is beautiful, lee rider jeans and jackets (02/02/75:17). it seems that this period marks upward mobility and acquisition of middle class trappings, as access to luxury begins to open up new areas that were hitherto not accessible to africans, including housing, which was highly restricted under the urban areas act, and education, which was limited by different legislation that prohibited africans from getting education in certain institutions that were reserved for whites. [49] earn r200-r400 per month by taking a job like this one. bookkeeper �amelin institute of professional studies (13/02/75:4). [50] a �ew home for year 2000 (25/10/99:12). [51] international �iplomas (25/10/99:12). [52] look no further for the lowest prices on building materials! guaranteed! (25/�0/99:�3). [53] pick ‘n pay’s wisest investment is earning a lot of interest ... in under two years, some 1000 pick ‘n pay workers have graduated in courses ranging from adult basic education and training to internationally recognized mbas ... the company investment goes beyond its employees (26/�0/99:�3). in the last advertisement [53] there is a photo of six people wearing academic gowns with hoods. there is a gender and race mix: three african men, one white man and three african women. this is in line with many other advertisements that feature non-racial groups, in line with the unofficial national motto, “simunye” “we are one”. although one cannot say without contradiction that south african racial capitalism seems to be slowly becoming sensitive to race and gender issues, there is definitely an apparent shift in advertisements, which manifests this consciousness. however, the shift from racial stereotyping seems to be giving way to more pronounced class distinction. archetyping in advertising 2� td, 2 (�), july 2006, pp. �-22 conclusion in concluding this discussion i would like to indicate other ways in which this reading of advertising texts could have been executed. there are a number of extra-textual and sociological ways in which advertisement can be read, and various theoretical frameworks which can be applied. for instance, this discussion did not read them sociologically in terms of the development of mainstream ideological paradigms in the racial capitalist system and african liberation and black ideological evolution, over the decades of the existence of the newspaper. a socio-economic reading might also have shed light on the impact of globalisation, especially in the �990s, after south africa emerged from international isolation. this discussion also did not pay any attention to the packaging and designing of the product and its supposed aesthetic appeal to the intended addressee. all that it simply did was to choose a close reading strategy for analysing the texts in terms of their linguistic and visual encoding. perhaps a more eclectic reading would have benefited the article and the reader by engaging in discourse about the production of the texts of advertisement, and consumption in relation to living standard measurements and class taste, and also by studying advertisements which were directed at the white south africans for comparative purposes. another shortcoming of this discussion is that it paid attention to the advertisements that fall within a specific framework, for the purpose of narrowing my sample to fit the limits of a discussion of this length. i might perhaps have left out other variables that might skew my suppositions. i sacrificed minutiae for a wider temporal scope. �onetheless this does not invalidate the preliminary findings that i have discussed in this paper. the apparent shift in the racial capitalism that i mentioned may be accelerated, hopefully, by the trends that are taking shape in the conscientisation of the south african population since the advent of multiracial democracy in 1994. perhaps the twenty-first century will see the fruition of all the endeavours that have been engineered in order to address the imbalances of the past with regard to race, gender and class. one would like to hope that marketing through print media advertising, though driven by capital and the profit motive, should play some significant role in subverting stereotyping and mediation that is motivated by purely economic, political, and social power, but this would be undermining the power of capitalist interest over cultural imperatives. maake 22 references cook, g. (1992) the discourse of advertising, london, routledge. goldman, it (1992) reading ads socially, london, routledge parker, a. m. (1964) “marketing and the bantu market” 5th marketing/ advertising convention in south africa, cape town, statistics holding (pty.) ltd. sandage, c. h., fryburger, �. & rotzol k. (1983) advertsising theory and practice, illinois, richard �. irwing, inc. sinclair, it (1997) the south african advertising book make the other half work (4th ed.), johannesburg, international thompson publishing. traugott, f. c. and pratt, m. l (1980) linguistics for students of literature, harcourt brace jovanovich, san �iego. williamsone, j. (1988) �ecoding advertisements: ideology and meaning in advertising, london, marion boyers. microsoft word 06 pauw a fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: reenchantment pp. 73-84. the house of the lord ... the house of man1 j c pauw2 abstract the idea of cult centralisation in ancient israel is investigated as a form of disenchantment. the temple in jerusalem can now be styled the house of the lord and the countryside ought to be bereft of holy places and holy objects. however, the lord did not stay in his “house”. was this the start of a global process of disenchantment reaching its culmination in modernity? the question is posed whether the world could still be the enchanted house of man now that the lord is absent. the article suggests that science associated with the torah of nature can still discover an enchanted world. key words: max weber, disenchantment, secularisation, cult, centralisation, bronze, serpent, calvinism, re-enchantment, science max weber and disenchantment in november 1917 max weber presented a lecture at a meeting of the freistudentischen bund: landesverband bayern on science as a profession. the lecture was published in 1919. it is probably the main source today of the idea of the disenchantment (entzauberung/onttowering) of the world in modern times. weber maintained that, with sufficient effort, one can find out that ‘there are in principle no mysterious, incalculable powers at work, but rather that one could in principle master everything through calculation. but that means the disenchantment of the world’ (weber 2004: 274). (by “calculation” he does not mean mathematical calculations only, but rather a rational and intellectual working out of steps to reach a goal.) here is the original (weber 1919), to give some context: mächte gebe, die da hineinspielen, daß man vielmehr alle dinge – im prinzip – durch berechnen beherrshen könne. das aber bedeutet: die entzauberung der welt. nicht mehr, wie der wilde, für den es solche mächte gab, muß man zu magischen mitteln greifen, um die geister zu beherrschen oder zu erbitten. sondern technische mittel und berechnung leisten das. dies vor allem bedeutet die intellektualisierung als solche. it is very important for this piece that weber adds that the process of disenchantment has being playing out for thousands of years. it should also be noted that he puts quotation marks around the word “progress” in the sentence following the quotation cited above. he is at best ambivalent about disenchantment. however, in 2000 the sociologist richard jenkins wrote: 1 acknowledgement: sincere thanks to fanie de beer, who made the publication possible; to christiaan pauw, willem boshoff, danie goosen and johannes vorster for insightful discussions; and to martjie bosman, johannes heidema, kobus wolvaardt, chris swanepoel and danie schutte. 2 . prof. jc pauw is an extraordinary professor in the department of public administration and management, unisa. e-mail: pauwjc@unisa.ac.za and kerneels@intekom.co.za pauw 74 ‘for weber the disenchantment of the world lay right at the heart of modernity ... it is definitive of his concept of modernity, “the key concept within weber’s account of the distinctiveness and significance of western culture” (schroeder 1995: 228)’ (jenkins 2000: 12). disenchantment has two intertwined aspects according to jenkins. ‘on the one hand, there is secularization and the decline of magic; on the other hand, there is the increasing scale, scope, and power of the formal means–ends rationalities of science, bureaucracy, the law, and policy-making’ (ibid). weber’s views must be understood in their historical context. at the beginning of the 20th century physical nature was on her best behaviour. natural science was understood to be proof of a mechanical universe. einstein had only recently published his article on the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics were still to come. modernity was strong. in the context of means-ends rationality (if that is what berechnung indicates) it must be remarked that if you believe in magic, it is rational for you to apply it to reach an end. further, among believers in magic a coherent discussion on the optimal use of magic, for example on the right spell to use for a specific goal is conceivable. so what really is rational or irrational are the assumptions. ‘there is, for example, rationalization of mystical contemplation, that is of an attitude which, viewed from other departments of life, is specifically irrational’ (weber 1976: 26). the question is, of course, whether choosing science as the basis of life is rational. weber is very clear that science is a secularising force. in the quoted lecture he says: ‘nowadays nobody can doubt in his heart of hearts that science is irreligious ...’ (weber 2004: 277). in this article i am going to argue the opposite case, but in a meandering way. we first need to visit jerusalem in the eighth century bc. hezekiah and the snake around 700 bc king hezekiah of judah does a strange and radical thing – a very protestant, even calvinistic, thing ... a very disenchanting thing ... an impious deed. he destroys the bronze serpent that according to the story we have in numbers 21 moses had made centuries before. the historicity of the breaking of the snake is not the issue here (see edelman, 2008 for a sceptic), but the theology is. in the desert the israelite people grew impatient and spoke against god and against moses, and said, "why have you brought us up out of egypt to die in the desert? ... ". then the lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many israelites died. the people came to moses and said, "we sinned when we spoke against the lord and against you. pray that the lord will take the snakes away from us." so moses prayed for the people. the lord said to moses, "make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." so moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. (new international version: numbers 21.) hezekiah destroys a physical thing full of spirit. he desecrates an object commissioned by the lord connecting the people of his day with their history and their tradition. he defiles an embodiment of god’s direct and miraculous intervention in the lives of their forefathers, and, i suppose, in their own lives. for it is hard to believe that nehushtan, as it was called, did not exert healing powers in the time of hezekiah. (similar to the pool called bethesda as recounted in john 5, depicting – in my reading – an impatient jesus.) the house of the lord ... td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 73-84. 75 hezekiah destroys an “historical monument” in the quaint language of conservation legislation. from a modern vantage point, we could say he destroys a possible or even plausible physical proof of the existence of god. he destroys a magical object in a time where physical things could still be magical by nature. is this a turning-point in the history of civilisation? it certainly appears to lie at the cusp of a big turning-point in theology. keeping the serpent speaks of a theology. destroying the serpent speaks of a different theology. the spiritual nature of physical things in those days – a turn of phrase not at odds with the ontology of the time – is illustrated by the way the king’s great grandson, king josiah, dealt with bad ritual objects in the last great official purge of religious objects before the exile. one example: ‘he took the asherah pole from the temple of the lord to the kidron valley outside jerusalem and burned it there. he ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people’ (new international version: 2 kings 23). when you desecrate something, you must do it according to the nature of the thing. you must defile it permanently. the reader must please keep asherah in mind as this goddess and her figurines are of importance for our argument later. asherah was the senior goddess in the canaanite pantheon. hezekiah’s disenchanting action – which would be comparable to the pope burning the turin shroud or somebody closing down the sanctuary at lourdes – contains the seeds of secularism. i will say more about secularism and secularisation later. at this stage it must be noted that we extend the application of the concept, as it were, to much earlier times than is normal. the term was originally used for events in early modern times (berger 1969: 106) . the destruction of the snake could be explained in various cynical ways. the management of the snake cult may have been political opponents; perhaps they were in competition with the king’s aaronite priestly allies; perhaps he was just jealous of them because they made too much money; perhaps they had a sanctuary that was in competition with the temple and/or the ark of the covenant which was closer to one of the political epicentres; or perhaps it was a tactic in countering the assyrian threat as moshe weinfeld explained it (weinfeld 1964). the explanation provided by the author of the 2 kings 18 at this point is quite different. he or she sees it as obedience. the author links it to the grand programme of cult centralisation. hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the lord, just as his father david had done. he removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the asherah poles.’ – a whole lot of disenchantment going on – ‘he broke into pieces the bronze snake moses had made, for up to that time the israelites had been burning incense to it. (it was called nehushtan.) hezekiah trusted in the lord, the god of israel. there was no one like him among all the kings of judah, either before him or after him. he held fast to the lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the lord had given moses. and the lord was with him (new international version: 2 kings 18.) a few verses on, hezekiah’s historian insinuates a point of criticism that in all probability was levelled at the king at the time. he puts it in the mouth of the king of assyria’s field commander – a brilliant piece of writing! the assyrian says that when hezekiah destroyed sanctuaries, he destroyed sanctuaries that were used to worship the lord: ‘and if you say to me, "we are depending on the lord our god"--isn't he the one whose high places and altars hezekiah removed, saying to judah and jerusalem, "you must worship before this altar in jerusalem"?’ (see finkelstein and silberman 2006: 269.) some of the sanctuaries were pauw 76 sanctuaries of the lord; and some of them were sanctuaries where the lord was venerated in the company of other gods – as was the case in the temple in jerusalem. by the way, and to add my own insinuation – i think that the words “the lord was with him” in the above account of hezekiah’s life means that he was, among others, successful. the historian in the second book of kings ends the account of this king a few chapters later by referring to ‘all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city’ (2 kings 20). (max weber knew the type.) what i am interested in are the theological reasons that can be put forward to defend smashing the snake, irrespective of the king’s real reason. a quick overview: • there should be only one sanctuary (new international version leviticus 17 and new international version deuteronomy 12). • the burning of incense is very special to the lord and therefore strictly controlled (new international version: exodus 30: 37). • only the lord may be worshiped. he cannot be venerated through physical intermediaries such as the bronze serpent, because he is radically transcendent. he is, in the words of peter berger, ‘fundamentally immune to magical manipulation’ – also a point made by weber (berger 1969: 117). • religion should be pure: it should be reduced and disciplined. • the world does not contain real competition for the lord because it is his creation. spirits, demons and gods must be disregarded. • even if one assumes that magic is real, it is not of much theological importance – at least not for the calvinist (see the fascinating article by watt (2013)). a more interesting question is this: do the theological reasons that hezekiah might have accepted or used as an excuse still have some validity today, and do they offer any clues for reenchantment? cult centralisation hezekiah’s actions can be seen, as shown above, as part of cult centralisation: the ideal of ‘one centre, one altar, one tabernacle, one place of sacrifice’ (friedman 1989: 210). the centralisation of the cult in jerusalem probably was a long process peaking with the kings hezekiah and josiah. according to deuteronomy 12 the israelites in the time of moses are instructed as follows: destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. you must not worship the lord your god in their way. but you are to seek the place the lord your god will choose from among all your tribes to put his name there for his dwelling. to that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give, and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. there, in the presence of the lord your god, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the lord your god has blessed you (new international version: deuteronomy 12). the families and clans of course used to eat and rejoice where they lived ... and not irreligiously at that. it is reasonable to speculate that the clan leaders also had a religious the house of the lord ... td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 73-84. 77 function – whether levite or not. one can easily assume that these religious activities showed variation from place to place, whereas the religion of the central cult was very strictly regulated if one is to ascribe some historical reliability to the priestly writings in the old testament. so, the reforms had far-reaching consequences and could have aroused people against the royal house according to moshe weinfeld (1964: 202). he wrote: ‘a people who are heart and soul and in every aspect of their daily life bound to the sacral institutions around them (the high places and sanctuaries), are one day forcibly denied them ... [a] central sanctuary ... must by necessity deprive the worshiper of that direct and spontaneous religious experience to which he was accustomed in the local cult places spread throughout the country’ (ibid). moving religion to the city may perhaps be described in sociological terms as differentiated religious organisation. weinfeld’s words “spontaneous religious experience” had a good ring to them when they were written in the sixties. whether their author had good evidence for that generalisation is an open question. they do not necessarily sound good to that object of max weber’s attention, the calvinist. so, in the first place, we have a reduction of religious experience and a partial replacement of religious activities. we also have, in the second place, a serious reduction in job opportunities for religion workers in the countryside: among them levites and/or priests. (and if the phrase “religion workers” resonates with “sex workers”, it is intentional. there are translations of the old testament that explicitly link the asherah poles with sexual religiosity, or religious sexuality if you will. let’s politely call it fertility rites.) the numbers of religion workers were reduced by the sword, others (i imagine) just blended into the background, and those that were left were concentrated (that is the culinary sense of “reduce”) in jerusalem. part of the reforms was to give job opportunities at the cult in jerusalem to those levites that lost their jobs. the service of levites and priests in jerusalem was then thoroughly reorganised (new international version: 2 chronicles 32). also in the case of the great grandson, josiah, religious purification led to human resources reorganisation. ‘josiah brought all the priests from the towns of judah and desecrated the high places, from geba to beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. he broke down the shrines at the gates ... although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the lord in jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests’ (new international version: 2 kings 23). they were put out on pension. thirdly we have a reduction of religious places. it is a reduction of religious space. the temple in theory/theology becomes the only religious space/place. fourthly we have a reduction of holy objects. this unfortunately includes the reduction of big trees on hills in a dry landscape. the holy objects should all be in the sanctuary now. it is remarkable that the holy objects of the israelite cult, with the exception of the contents of the ark, are exceedingly holy but totally “unmysterious”. they are not enchanted in the magical sense of the word. their composition and construction are prescribed in explicit detail down to the materials, proportions and in the case of the incense, the recipe. they are described in exodus 25 to 28. what makes them holy is the author of their design and composition; and also the ceremony of their consecration for which direct instructions are given. (opposite examples are to be found in the acts of the apostles.) at the end of the article the reader will find a cosmological application of this idea. pauw 78 very interestingly, max weber suggests a connection between the monopolisation of the cult in jerusalem and secularisation in his book ancient judaism. he writes: ‘domestic slaughtering and meat dinners which hitherto .... had been considered as “sacrifices” and “sacrificial feasts” were secularized. ... the profanation of all private meals was, after the rejection of the cult of the dead, the last blow which yahwism dealt to a possible sacred significance of the sib [one’s kin]’ (1952: 186). clearly, the centralisation of the cult, the destruction of holy objects and secularisation involved giving up and losing much for those that were not of the urban elite. i will maintain the connection between cult centralisation and secularisation in what follows. now that we have quoted weber, who is best known for his the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (1976 (1905)), the following must be repeated in the light of my emphasis on reduction above. ‘if compared with the “fullness” of the catholic universe, protestantism appears as a radical truncation, a reduction to “essentials” at the expense of a vast wealth of religious contents. this is especially true of the calvinist version of protestantism ...’ (berger 1969: 111). did you notice the word “truncation”? hezekiah the proto-calvinist! i have now alluded to calvinism more than once. calvinism is known, not only through weber as a source of capitalism, but also as a source of modern science through the royal society of 17th century england. in calvinism there is an easy coming together of faith and science. johan heyns once made the remark that the belief that the moon is not a god allows americans to land a spacecraft on it. secularisation the word “secularisation” is used for events in early modernity but in this article the concept is extended to much earlier times. peter l berger, whom i have just quoted, follows weber quite closely in many respects. he recently called himself an unreconstructed weberian (berger 2011). he defines secularisation in the sacred canopy as ‘the process by which sectors of society are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols’ (1969: 107). in the context i would like to add: “and where people lose their ability to venerate sacred objects because these objects lose their powers due to their disenchantment”. the sectors of society in hezekiah’s time that were supposed to be removed from the domination of religious institutions were the people living in the countryside. countryside, according to late eighth century policy, is now bereft of religious symbols. as far as my addendum to the definition is concerned, i should add that secularisation must have an ontological aspect; otherwise it could not be linked to disenchantment. in discussing his definition berger thus indicates that secularisation affects the totality of cultural life and of ideation. this includes the rise of science as an autonomous and thoroughly secular perspective on the world. so secularisation has a subjective side as well. he says: ‘this means that the modern west has produced an increasing number of individuals who look at the world without the benefit of religious interpretations’ (1969: 107-108). berger maintains that the disenchantment of the world begins in the old testament. we have considered some of the illustrative events thereof. he adds that it is weber’s view as well (1969: 201). i would like to add a critical remark to berger’s elaboration on his definition of secularisation. although science may be an autonomous and apparently thoroughly secular perspective on the world, as soon as it takes on this role it becomes a religion as the sociologists (including berger) would describe it. thus, it becomes secular in an ambivalent way. we are told that a the house of the lord ... td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 73-84. 79 central function of religion is to protect the individual from anomy; religion makes reality ordered and understandable. i wonder how many practising scientists, for example agricultural researchers, geographers and those who model weather systems really believe that what they do every day can provide an overarching perspective on the world and protect them from normlessness. science is much more ad hoc than what metaphysicians would think. the branches of sciences do not know enough to provide the übervision required of it by the theoreticians of modernism. one could say that the scientist who believes in science as worldview thinks religiously and not scientifically. what about the obverse: is it possible to believe in god without being religious? we will come to that. before addressing the critique of and other problems with the secularisation idea, let us look at the history of the phenomenon according to berger of the sacred canopy and his sources. an audacious classification of themes in the history of religion in the west renders five strands that start out as stages: 1. the old religions of egypt and mesopotamia are cosmological. there is only one universe in which god and man co-exist and are linked as part of one system. it can be called “cosmological monism”. 2. the new departure in ancient israel in which transcendentalisation stands central. the old testament tells of a god that stands outside the cosmos which is his creation which he confronts but does not permeate. this idea evolved over time. cult centralisation is a station on the way. 3. early christianity involves the reintroduction of mystery, miracle and magic and the outrageous idea of the incarnated and crucified god. 4. the reformation and the renaissance revitalises the forces of secularisation previously constrained by catholicism. 5. modernity. it is the last few decades, however, that made the idea of secularisation untenable for many – including berger himself (swatos and christiano, 1999.) (also see pérez-agote, 2014.) except for europe, religious belief has not been in retreat. in 1996 berger published a piece called ‘secularism in retreat’ which he updated in 2011 as far as i can make out. the abstract starts as follows: ‘the “secularization theory” of the 1950s and the 1960s that was proposed by historians and social scientists, which held that modernization necessarily leads to a decline of religion in the society and in individuals, has been proven false. although modernization may have had some secularizing effects in some areas, it has also given rise to counter-secularization’. his argument partly rests on the observation that religious communities have survived and flourished to the degree that they have not tried to adapt themselves to the alleged requirements of a secularized world. as berger forcefully puts it in the same piece: ‘experiments with secularized religion have generally failed; religious movements with beliefs and practices dripping with "reactionary supernaturalism" (the kind utterly beyond the pale at self-respecting faculty parties) have widely succeeded’. in their aggregate they provide a massive falsification of the idea that modernisation and secularisation are cognate phenomena. minimally, one must note that counter-secularisation is at least as important a phenomenon in the contemporary world as secularisation. however, according to berger, contemporary elites are secularised. this brings up the question whose world it is that needs re-enchantment. one sometimes feels that certain parts of society still need disenchantment more than re-enchantment. pauw 80 i came across a book with an interesting aspect on the so-called weber thesis that capitalism (and science) facilitates disenchantment. the title of the book by adam mohr, based on meticulous empirical research, is enchanted calvinism: labor migration, afflicting sprits and christian therapy in the presbyterian church of ghana (mohr 2013). the central proposition of the book is that ghanaian presbyterian communities, both past and present, have become more enchanted – more attuned to spiritual explanations of and remedies for suffering – as they have become integrated into capitalist modes of production. many of them were immigrants to north america. again, the world (be it enchanted or disenchanted) is more complicated than we would have thought: people just carry on believing in god regardless. the temple we have investigated an elaborate mental structure providing ideas for interpreting the centralisation of the cult from a vantage point in the very distant future from the two royal religious reformers hezekiah and josiah. we must now come down from these dizzy heights of sociological speculation. it is necessary for our argument to go back to the times where our discussion started. a few words about the temple are necessary. according to tradition, the temple was built by king solomon between 1000 and 900 years bc. and destroyed by nebuchadnezzar in 587 bc. no strong archaeological evidence for its existence has been found. its main function could have been to house the ark of the covenant which was a wooden receptacle of the tables of the law. from a design point of view one should mention the holy of holies or inner sanctuary which was a windowless room that was entered only once a year by the high priest – a very austere frequency! it is described as the place where the name of the lord dwelled. solomon prepared that inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the lord there. the inner sanctuary was plus minus ten metres long, ten metres wide and ten metres high. he overlaid the inside with pure gold. (new international version: 1 kings 6.) all this is in great contrast to the academic picture we have of the variety of local sanctuaries and households where the contact with divinity was close and warm. the temple was variously called the house of the lord or the house of the name of the lord. we must face the question whether the lord actually lived there. for those of us standing in the tradition of radical monotheism that was developed over time in ancient israel, it is impossible. the vision of isaiah, who was a contemporary of and pastor to hezekiah, paints a striking intermediate view between a resident and a transcendent deity: i saw the lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. above him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. and they were calling to one another: "holy, holy, holy is the lord almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." at the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke’. (new international version: isaiah 6.) now in this ecstatic vision, which is imbued with enchantment to a very high degree, the central status of the temple is retained. note however, that god is not experienced as being contained by the temple. only his robe is inside the precincts. in addition to the metaphysical problems of saying that god lived in the temple, there is the problem of syncretism. unfortunately the central sanctuary mirrored the high places in the the house of the lord ... td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 73-84. 81 sense that it was the locus of other gods and even temple prostitution as is related in the history of josiah’s purification. the tragedy is that even if josiah prepared a place where the lord could live, it was laid to waste a few decades later by the babylonians. the elite of judah were carried off into exile. what hezekiah and josiah did to the high places, the babylonians did to the house of the lord. this is crucial to the argument of this article. the purification of religion programmes of the pious judean kings failed. religion organised around a cult, pure or not, is not the answer. religion is unbelief, wrote barth (1988: 299). in the original it reads, ‘religion ist unglaube’; and then he adds that it is not a value judgement on religions other than christion religion: ‘it formulates the judgement of divine revelation upon all religion’ (1988:30). (please allow me an auto-ethnographical footnote on calvinism here since we talked so much about weber. people that do not play the calvinist language game, rarely understand how deeply sceptical calvinists can be of religion and religion workers in general. calvinists reject religious intermediaries. they are not surprised at the failure of secularisation due to religiosity in our day. calvin said that man's nature is a perpetual factory of idols [(calvin 1960: 108]. man likes religion.) failure the centralisation of the cult failed. it failed in at least three aspects. firstly the failure in theology: the lord is not a resident in any building. (he is not even a resident in heaven.) secondly: the temple was destroyed, and the diaspora made the later temples of less significance. thirdly: it was impossible to root out folk religion as the archaeological evidence shows (boshoff 2015). although the asherahs are largely absent in the bible after the exile, they are very much in evidence in the current archaeology of palestine in the form of figurines (ibid). what is called “folk religion” is also associated with magic (trachtenberg 1982). people do not necessarily like secularisation. in our day, secularisation conceived as a process of the dying off of religion also failed. is this a good sign for re-enchantment? should we return to an enchanting religion that is built around several gods, holy places, cultic feasts such as mandela day, magic and miracles? we should not. religion is hardly a good thing as i have argued above, quoting barth. i don’t believe the picture of idyllic countryside pagan innocence sometimes painted in old testament studies. with you, dear reader, i don’t believe that the sun and the moon are gods. this fact helps us to understand the first priestly account of creation of genesis 1. the sun and the moon don’t have names. they are merely called “lights”. some of the gods that the israelites subjected themselves to were dreadful. moloch, a god of the canaanites and phoenicians, for example, required child sacrifices. hezekiah’s son manasseh obliged. if one is distrustful of religion you have some sympathy with the disciplinary and reductive measures of hezekiah and josiah; although, if you are distrustful of politicians, you are not sad that the centralisation of the cult failed. do we still have superstition and belief in magic in our day? do we still have immoral gods? do we still have syncretism between the service of the lord and other gods? are we still enchanted by spectacle? we do and we are. some believe that wearing famous brands can contribute to our happiness – even if they have pumpkins on the roof. some believe that members of the pantheon on top of hollywood hill are interesting and worth emulating. some christians believe the prosperity gospel and that global capitalism is the answer. we avidly watch the modern olympics and various world cups and feel that very much depend on pauw 82 their outcomes. reading chris hedges, for example his book empire of illusion: the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle of 2009 can be prophylactic in this context. the torah of nature superstition has not retreated. neither has science. the sociologist jenkins (2014: 17) writes: ‘the world may actually be becoming somewhat more mysterious rather than less. this should not necessarily be understood as an erosion of the authority of science, but rather as a potential shift in its centre of gravity towards greater epistemological pluralism’. i disagree. the world has become more mysterious because things never dreamed of are being discovered. as said before, physical nature is not as well behaved as in weber’s time. epigenetics in biology, outlandish forms of matter in physics and cosmic microwave background in cosmology are three of the latest examples. i was not aware that these discoveries were caused by alternative epistemologies. i would like to conclude with a link to a point made by moshe weinfeld (1964: 203). he writes: “following the centralization of the cult, the israelite religion ceased to be a religion of the cult, it had become a religion of the book. the exteriorized cultic ceremonies performed at the high place and local sanctuary were now substituted by readings of the book of the torah and prayers.” let me suggest the concept the torah of nature as one of the ways we can fight disenchantment. the centralisation of the cult and the other religious reforms of hezekiah and josiah were part of the movement from cosmological monism to transcendentalism referred to above. transcendentalism holds that god, who is not limited to the cosmos, is also its creator. it is exactly here where the ways of evaluating disenchantment part. weber does not accept this in his heart of hearts and that is why he maintains that science is irreligious. that is the reason why he disapprovingly quotes swammerdam’s saying ‘i bring you proof of divine providence in the anatomy of a louse’ in his lecture to the bavarian students (weber 2004: 276). and at the same place: in den exakten naturwissenschaften aber, wo man seine [gottes] werke physisch greifen konnte, da hoffte man, seinen absichten mit der welt auf die spur zu kommen. und heute? wer – außer einigen großen kindern, wie sie sich gerade in den naturwissenschaften finden – glaubt heute noch, daß erkenntnisse der astronomie oder der biologie oder der physik oder chemie uns etwas über den sinn der welt, ja auch nur etwas darüber lehren könnten: auf welchem weg man einem solchen »sinn« – wenn es ihn gibt – auf die spur kommen könnte? wenn irgend etwas, so sind sie geeignet, den glauben daran: daß es so etwas wie einen »sinn« der welt gebe, in der wurzel absterben zu lassen! on the contrary! the world has meaning precisely because it is created. by now we know that weber’s statement to the students, ‘ … but rather that one could in principle master everything through calculation’ was wildly optimistic at the time. i would retort “that one could in principle be enchanted by many things through calculation”. the laws of nature as explicated by natural science are wonderful. the same applies the socalled physical constants: g, c, h and the others. honest scientific investigation lays bare a universe that is both rational and enchanting at the same time. if you believe that the universe is a creation of the lord it gives special meaning to the discoveries of science. in his recent book no god, no science (theology, cosmology, biology) michael hanby (2013) works out the idea that science has a basis in metaphysics and theology. the cover of the book states that the house of the lord ... td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 73-84. 83 ‘the christian doctrine of creation is actually essential of the world and that the universe itself is a fundamentally metaphysical and theological concept’. the house of the lord built by a man called solomon in jerusalem did not work – that is if it ever existed. the house of man built by the lord is our glorious and enchanting universe. ‘god saw all that he had made, and it was very good.’ (new international version: genesis 1.) references barth, k. (1988) (1977) church dogmatics volume 1, part 2 (the doctrine of the word of god) edited by g.w. bromiley and t.f. torrance. edinburgh: t. & t. clark. berger, p.l. (1969) the sacred canopy. garden city, new york: doubleday & company. berger, p.l. (1996) "secularism in retreat." the national interest 46:3+. expanded academic asap. web. 27 sep. 2011. document url: http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/ps/i.do?&id=gale%7ca19130142&v =2.1&u=nd_ref&it=r&p=eaim&sw=w downloaded 31 july 2014. boshoff, w.s. (2015) personal communication, june 2015. calvin, j. (ca1960) (ca1559) institutes of the christian religion. book 1, chapter xi, section 8. translated by f.l. battles and edited by j.t. mcneill. philadelphia: westminster press. edelman, d. (2008) hezekiah's alleged cultic centralization. journal for the study of the old testament, 32 (4): 395-434. finkelstein, i and silberman n.a. (2006) temple and dynasty: hezekiah, the remaking of judah and the rise of the pan-israelite ideology. journal for the study of the old testament, 30(3): 259-285. friedman, r.e. 1989 (1987) who wrote the bible? san francisco: harper. hanby, m. (2013) no god, no science? theology, cosmology, biology. chichester: wileyblackwell. hedges, c. (2009) empire of illusion: the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle. new york, ny: nation books. jenkins, r. (2000) “disenchantment, enchantment and re-enchantment: max weber at the millennium” max weber studies 1.1, november: 11-32. mohr, a. (2013) enchanted calvinism: labor migration, afflicting spirits, and christian therapy in the presbyterian church of ghana. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. new international version: 2 kings 23. http://www.biblestudytools.com/2-kings/18.html downloaded 25 july 2014 new international version: 2 kings. http://www.biblestudytools.com/2-kings/23.html downloaded 30 july 2014 new international version: deuteronomy 12. http://www.biblestudytools.com/deuteronomy/12.html downloaded 26 july 2014 pauw 84 new international version: genesis 1. http://www.biblestudytools.com/genesis/1.html downloaded 29 july 2015 new international version: isiah 6. http://www.biblestudytools.com/isiah/6.html downloaded 30 july 2014 new international version: leviticus 17 http://www.biblestudytools.com/leviticus/17.html downloaded 25 july 2014 new international version: numbers 21. http://www.biblestudytools.com/numbers/21.html downloaded 25 july 2014 pérez-agote, a. (2014) “the notion of secularization: drawing the boundaries of its contemporary validity” current sociology, 62 (6): 886-904. schroeder, r. 1995 “disenchantment and its discontents: weberian perspectives on science and technology”. sociological review, 43: 227-250. swatos, w.h and christiano, k.j. (1999) “secularization theory: the course of a concept” sociology of religion, 60(3): 209—228. taylor, c. (2007) a secular age. cambridge, massachusetts, and london, england: the belknap press of harvard university press. trachtenberg, j. 1982 (1939) jewish magic and superstition – a study in folk religion. new york: athenum.. watt, j.r. (2013) “calvin’s geneva confronts magic and witchcraft: the evidence from the consistory” journal of early modern history, 17: 215-244. weber, m. (1952) ancient judaism (translation by h.h. gerth and d. martindale). glencoe, illinois: the free press. weber, m. (2002) (1919) “wissenschaft als beruf” max weber schriften 1894–1922 ausgewählt und herausgegeben von dirk kaesler stuttgart: kröner (kröners taschenbuchausgabe; band 233). http://www.wsp-kultur.uni-bremen.de/ downloaded 2015-04-12). weber, m. (2004) “the vocation of science” in the essential weber, edited by s. whimster london and new york: routledge: 270-287. weber, m. 1976 (1905) the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. translated by t. parsons; introduction by a. giddens. london: george allen & unwin. weinfeld, m. (1964) “cult centralization in israel in the light of a neo-babylonian analogy” journal of near eastern studies, 23(3): 202-212. abstract introduction evaluation of e-government readiness research methods discussion of results limitation of the study conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) seena joseph department of information technology, durban university of technology, south africa oludayo o. olugbara department of information technology, durban university of technology, south africa citation joseph, s. & olugbara, o.o., 2017, ‘evaluation of municipal e-government readiness using structural equation modelling technique’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a356. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.356 original research evaluation of municipal e-government readiness using structural equation modelling technique seena joseph, oludayo o. olugbara received: 08 july 2016; accepted: 10 nov. 2017; published: 26 feb. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the evaluation of municipal e-government readiness can provide a useful barometer to understand the critical needs of citizens. in addition, it can help to improve effectiveness of government services and provide a technology industry access to relevant information to create efficient e-services. this study develops and tests a framework to evaluate municipal e-government readiness based on building blocks of supporting e-services readiness, individual citizen readiness, municipal government readiness, technological infrastructure readiness and supporting industries readiness. the process of evaluating municipal e-government readiness utilises data obtained through a survey of 219 respondents from four municipalities in the eastern cape province of south africa. the partial least square structural equation modelling technique was used for data analysis. the study results show that the investigated building blocks are significant determinants of municipal e-government readiness with an overall 81% goodness-of-fit performance. the results provide foundational information for policymakers and practitioners who are interested in propagating e-government readiness. factors that determine municipal e-government readiness could provide new insights on future studies about e-municipality service improvement. introduction the assignment of reinventing government has been a primary theme since the 1990s, with governments all over the world trying to improve the system of public services delivery. the accelerated growth of information communication technology (ict) systems is revolutionising the way government services are delivered nowadays. the government services and processes can be better managed by using a variety of ict platforms, applications and services (gupta, shakya & marasini 2015:155). government agencies and industries can be empowered by the use of ict to provide efficient and transparent services to citizens (angeleski et al. 2014:1). this permits the government to implement new ways of delivering services to citizens, industries and government agencies. in other words, the information society has redefined the way governments operate to change the mechanisms of service delivery (máchová & lněnička 2015:384). the phenomenon of electronic government, which is henceforth called e-government, is derived from the desire for efficient service delivery. e-government is predicated on leveraging the potentials of ict to deliver improved government services to citizens, businesses, suppliers and public organisations (sayin & okursoy 2013:37). local governments are authorised to deliver services to the citizens with the power to raise revenue and receive transfers from provincial and national governments (twum-darko 2014:513). however, because of the intrinsic complexity of governance, whether at the municipal level or at the national level, e-government initiatives are often collaborative in nature. this collaborative effort brings together diverse units of governments, private sectors, non-governmental organisations, civic societies and citizens as the key stakeholders of e-government (potnis 2010:41). since the late 1990s, all levels of government around the world have been developing e-government systems. public service delivery occurs at all levels of government, but citizen-oriented services are mainly supplied by municipalities that are essential entities in the local government. municipalities are the closest form of governmental structure through which the citizens feel the direct impacts of government (mawela, ochara & twinomurinzi 2017:149). the majority of e-government services is progressively executed at the municipal level rather than at the national level. the introduction of electronic systems in the administrative and organisational aspects of municipal work is imperative for the effective and efficient delivery of public services (sayin & okursoy 2013:39). the knowledge about local context, the existing environment, opportunities and challenges for a given municipality can develop a realistic e-government (dzhusupova et al. 2010). a municipality is an important entity in the local government sphere that must carry out critical functions of efficient service delivery to all citizens in its area of jurisdiction. however, owing to the lack of qualified personnel and technical and organisational capacities, many municipalities have not made a full commitment to develop a comprehensive strategic e-government plan to achieve an advanced level of e-government (mawela et al. 2017; sarrayrih & sriram 2015; twum-darko 2014). municipalities will need to move towards a higher level of e-government development in order to enhance the effectiveness of e-government practices. this obviously requires an initial evaluation of the available resources to adequately address e-government readiness. the e-government readiness framework reported in this article has been tested on data elicited from four district municipalities in south africa. a district municipality (category c municipality) comprises several local municipalities (category b municipalities) and has the authority to execute certain operations of the local government. a local municipality serves as the third and the most local sphere of local government that includes rural areas and one or more towns or small cities. in larger urban areas where there are no district municipalities or local municipalities, a metropolitan municipality (category a municipality) is responsible for all municipal affairs. the municipalities would benefit from e-government to improve quality of service delivery as well as increase transparency and accessibility to public services. the overarching objective of this study is to integrate factors that have been identified in the literature to contribute to e-government readiness under a single framework for evaluating e-government readiness at the municipal level. different casual factors have been identified in the literature for evaluating e-government readiness of a country (ahmed & hussein 2006; alghamdi, goodwin & rampersad 2011; azab, kamel & dafoulas 2009; khalil 2011; yuan, xi & xiaoyi 2012; zheng & jiang 2011). however, the diverse research streams are isolated and factors identified have not been coherently integrated into an overall scheme for evaluating municipal e-government readiness. evaluation of e-government readiness e-government readiness is an important indicator of the quality of ict infrastructure. it is the ability of citizens to use ict and organisations to benefit from the modern technologies in a country (máchová & lněnička 2015:383). the evaluation of e-government readiness has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent times (ahmed & hussein 2006; alghamdi et al. 2011; azab, kamel & dafoulas 2009; khalil 2011; yuan et al. 2012; zheng and jiang 2011). ahmed and hussein (2006) proposed a conceptual framework with six significant factors for the success of e-government initiatives that consequently increase the e-government readiness level of a country, which are government organisational readiness, governance and leadership readiness, customer readiness, competency readiness, technology readiness and legal readiness. the study concludes that the implementation of the framework ensures that e-government initiatives would not face any major legal quagmire. moreover, it guarantees the success of e-government initiatives and increases the e-government readiness level of a country. azab et al. (2009) proposed an e-government readiness framework that adopts a four-phase model to categorise e-government into four internal factors, namely strategy, process, technology and people. the findings of the research were based on a case study strategy with qualitative and quantitative data collection. results indeed indicate that all proposed internal factors directly affect e-government readiness. the conceptual e-government readiness framework presented by alghamdi et al. (2011) contributes an organisational perspective to the measurement of ict readiness for e-government. the proposed framework contains seven dimensions of ict readiness of government organisations, including e-government strategies, user access, e-government programmes, ict architectures, business processes and information systems, ict infrastructures and human resources. the study is an essential conceptual step to discovering significant factors in an organisational perspective. khalil (2011) developed a readiness model that explores cultural values and practices to evaluate e-government readiness. these include power distance, future orientation, assertiveness, gender differentiation, performance orientation, human orientation, uncertainty avoidance, in-group collectivism and institutional collectivism. gross domestic product (gdp) is added as a control variable. the study utilised the reported survey from undesa (2008) for the findings and showed that cultural values have a significant effect on predicting e-government readiness than cultural practices and that gdp is an important determinant of e-government readiness. the readiness framework developed by zheng and jiang (2011) is based on a bottom-up approach to identify factors for evaluating e-government readiness. the framework includes two major building blocks, namely external environment e-readiness indicators and internal government e-readiness indicators. external environment readiness comprises social ict infrastructure as well as social and human environment. internal government readiness is composed of managerial framework, leadership, investment, workforce capability, internal it infrastructure, information safety as well as the legal and regulatory environment. the hybrid method of qualitative with quantitative techniques was used to analyse the empirical data. the study found that the indicators developed from a location-specific context may not be generalised to different conditions. yuan et al. (2012) developed a government portal performance architecture (gppa) based on the theory of web quality evaluation and contemporary public administration principles to evaluate e-government readiness in china. the measurement criteria focused on a government portal website in terms of its content, function and construction. the results of the empirical study revealed that the effectiveness of e-government readiness impacts the performance of government portals. it could be observed that while recognising the notable contributions of extant studies on e-government readiness evaluation, very little has been written on readiness grades of e-government at the municipal level of government. in addition, it would fill the gap in the literature by providing a general framework for evaluating municipal e-government readiness. consequently, the authors of this article have investigated five primary building blocks to evaluate e-government initiatives at the municipal level of government. these building blocks represent the basic components to be evaluated before launching the e-government agenda that can guarantee the right implementation in the right direction. figure 1 shows the five building blocks to be supporting e-services readiness, individual citizen readiness, municipal government readiness, technological infrastructure readiness and supporting industries readiness. the building blocks can comprehensively be evaluated in terms of 13 evaluation metrics and 96 conceptual measures as described in the section on research methods. in this study, building blocks are evaluation areas that were assembled from the literature to directly measure municipal e-government readiness. the concepts of an evaluation metric and a conceptual measure were borrowed from the literature (scholtz & consolvo 2004). accordingly, a conceptual measure is an observable value of a building block and an evaluation metric associates meaning to that value by applying human judgement, which in this study is done through a survey method. figure 1: municipal e-government readiness framework. the explanation of the building blocks of the municipal e-government readiness framework (figure 1) with the associated evaluation metrics follows in the subsequent sections. supporting e-services readiness supporting e-services are all the interactive services that are delivered on the internet using the advanced telecommunication technologies, information technologies, cloud technologies and multimedia technologies (joseph 2014; koh, prybutok & zhang 2008). the importance of this building block in the context of e-government has been noted by some researchers (angeleski et al. 2014; koh et al. 2008; shin-ping liu 2012; yuan et al. 2012; yunis & sun 2009). in this study, the supporting e-services are evaluated in terms of informational use, transactional use and operational use metrics as defined below. informational use – organisational dissemination of information to educate, entertain, influence or reach citizens. transactional use – a coordinated sequence of users and system activities to provide services and transfer values. operational use – a new mechanism for conducting business operations by integrating information systems, human intellect and other resources in a synergistic network. three evaluation metrics based on informational use, transactional use and operational use have been applied in this study to evaluate supporting e-services readiness in order to transform a municipality into a provider of fully integrated e-government services. next is the discussion of individual citizen readiness, which is considered an important building block of the municipal e-government readiness framework. individual citizen readiness various studies have emphasised individual citizen readiness as one of the factors that has significant impacts on e-government readiness (ahmed & hussein 2006; alghamdi et al. 2011; alghamdi, goodwin & rampersad 2014; angeleski et al. 2014; azab et al. 2009; rahman 2007; yunis & sun 2009; waheduzzaman & miah 2015; zheng and jiang 2011). the individual citizen readiness involves the evaluation of citizens who are the primary consumers of e-government services in terms of their competency on e-government processes, policies and relationships; awareness to participate in e-government services; and motivation for the willingness to adopt and promote e-government (joseph 2014; sarrayrih & sriram 2015). the willingness of citizens to make effective use of e-services has been considered as one of the most dominating factors to successfully embrace e-government (rehman, esichaikul & kamal 2012:259; sarrayrih & sriram 2015:234). in this study, competence, awareness and motivation are considered as important factors driving willingness to effectively use e-services and are used to evaluate individual citizen readiness as explained below. competency – ensures that citizen competencies in support of e-government initiatives are defined, acquired, developed and sustained for e-government design, delivery and operations. awareness – the extent to which the society understands e-government initiatives, e-government privacy and security management. motivation – the support provided for citizens to effectively participate in the e-government implementation activities. the measurement of individual citizen readiness along three evaluation metrics is proposed in this study in order to understand the extent to which citizens support e-government initiatives. the next discussion is on the evaluation of municipal readiness, which is considered important to the municipal e-government readiness framework of this study. municipal government readiness the municipal government readiness is the preparedness of government to integrate and coordinate data for the smooth interaction among the various e-services and e-applications (krauss 2009). the importance of government readiness as a critical aspect of e-government has already been stressed in many studies (ahmed & hussein 2006; alghamdi et al. 2011, 2014; azab et al. 2009; rahman 2007; koh et al. 2008; shin-ping liu 2012; zheng and jiang 2011). in this study, the readiness of municipal government is evaluated in terms of evaluation metrics that are related to strategy, system and data support as discussed below. strategy – the planning and alignment of internet activities with the business objectives for the preparedness for a large-scale systemic change. system – the coordination and integration of different internet applications across different functions and services. data support – the organisation of data in a unified and standardised form that best enables robust and diverse third-party use. this study has proposed three evaluation metrics based on strategy, system and data support through which e-government readiness at the municipal level should be addressed. the next important building block of the municipal e-government readiness framework is the technology infrastructure readiness. technology infrastructure readiness technology infrastructure readiness involves all the necessary technology resources such as hardware, software, communication platform, network infrastructure, network architecture, internet penetration and technology services to provide a foundation for e-government applications and services across municipalities (joseph 2014). experts have appreciated the inclusion of technology infrastructure as one of the dimensions that has significant importance in e-government readiness (ahmed & hussein 2006; alghamdi et al. 2011, 2014; azab et al. 2009; baeuo, rahim & alaraibi 2017; gupta et al. 2015; shin-ping liu 2012; yunis & sun 2009; zheng and jiang 2011). the technology infrastructure readiness is evaluated in this study in terms of three evaluation metrics of connectivity, flexibility and convenience as discussed below. connectivity – the ability of any technology component to attach to any other components inside and outside the organisational environment. flexibility – the ability to easily and readily support a wide variety of hardware, software, communication technologies, data and core applications in an e-government environment. convenience – the citizen insight of the time and endeavour that are essential to use an e-government. technology infrastructure readiness has an important role in the effective implementation of e-government services (singh & chauhan 2012:34). however, equally important for evaluating municipal e-government readiness is the building block of supporting industries readiness. supporting industries readiness the supporting industries readiness refers to the evaluation of the presence, development, service level and cost structure of supports that are given by institutions such as the telecommunications, financial and ict industry whose activities might affect the e-government services in a municipality (alghamdi et al. 2011). the importance of supporting industries readiness has been highlighted by several researchers (ahmed & hussein 2006; alghamdi et al. 2011, 2014; alghamdi, goodwin & rampersad 2016; azab et al. 2009; rahman 2007). in this study, the supporting industries readiness is evaluated in terms of services and transactions that involve the following: the availability of reliable internet technology infrastructure, reliable logistics services and universal communication standards that are sufficient to support the e-government services and transactions in a municipality. the validation of the municipal e-government readiness framework through the structural equation modelling (sem) technique (hair, ringle & sarstedt 2011) is discussed in the next section. research methods as mentioned earlier, the objective of this study is to integrate factors that have been identified in the literature to contribute to e-government readiness under a single framework to evaluate e-government readiness at the municipal level. to this end, the required data were collected through a survey on a sample representing government employees from four municipalities – amathole, buffalo city, king sabata dalindyebo (ksd) and or tambo (ort) of the eastern cape province in south africa. the first part of the survey sought information on the demographic profile of respondents. the second part focused on the conceptual measures of the five building blocks of supporting e-services readiness, individual citizen readiness, municipal government readiness, technology infrastructure readiness and supporting industries readiness. each conceptual measure in the second part reflects the scoring of an evaluation metric for a corresponding building block of the municipal e-government readiness framework. consequently, all conceptual measures were associated with a seven-point semantic differential scale ranging from 1 to 7 with anchors at each end of the scale. different response anchors (completely not provided 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 completely provided; very low 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 very high; very low awareness 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 very high awareness; lowly motivated 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 highly motivated; poorly connected 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 well connected; highly inconvenient 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 highly convenient; highly inflexible 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 highly flexible; strongly disagree 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 strongly agree) were used based on the type of conceptual measures provided. as discussed earlier, conceptual measures in the context of this study are questions asked in the survey. research sampling characteristics the analysis of demographic data reflects that many of the respondents were in the age group of 26–35 (44.7%) compared with other age groups: 16–25 (2.3%), 36–45 (26.9%), 46–55 (21.0%) and >55 (5.0%) as shown in table 1. the number of male respondents (56.6%) was higher than the number of female respondents (43.4%). the majority of respondents (40.6%) reside in a township which is an underdeveloped segregated urban residential area. of the respondents, 32.9% were from rural areas and 26.5% were from urban areas. a large number of respondents owned computers (61.6%), while 38.4% of respondents did not own computers. the majority of respondents had more than two years of experience using computers (73.5%). about 15.5% of respondents had more than one year of experience using computers, 9.6% of respondents had less than one year experience of using computers and only 1.4% of respondents stated that they never used computers. many of the respondents agreed that they had experience using e-government (66.7%), while 33.3% of them had no experience using e-government. among the experienced respondents using e-government, 23.3% had more than two years of experience, 17.4% had more than one year of experience and 26.0% had less than one year of experience. table 1: profile of respondents (n = 219). most of the respondents had access to the internet, whether through mobile phones or computers. about 66.7% of the respondents stated that they accessed the internet using a computer daily, 20.1% of respondents accessed weekly, 5% accessed monthly and 2.3% accessed yearly. only 5.9% of respondents had never accessed the internet using a computer. about 44.7% of respondents stated that they accessed the internet using mobile phones daily, 30.1% accessed weekly, 12.3% accessed monthly and 1.8% accessed yearly. only 11% of respondents had never accessed the internet using mobile phones. confirmatory factor analysis the sem technique was used to test the municipal e-government readiness framework discussed in the section on evaluation of e-government readiness by utilising the responses of 219 government employees. structural equation modelling is generally a multivariate approach that allows the simultaneous examination of the causal relationships that exist among the exogenous (independent) latent factors and endogenous (dependent) latent factors within a model (alavifar, karimimalayer & anuar 2012:326). the sem approach can be classified into covariance-based sem, which is implemented by the amos software (https://www.ibm.com/ms-en/marketplace/structural-equation-modeling-sem) and component-based sem, which is generally called the partial least square (pls) that is implemented by the smartpls software (https://www.pls-sem.net/news-1/new-smartpls-3-software-for-pls-sem/). the covariance-based sem requires the sample data under investigation to be of normal distribution, which may not always be the case. in sharp contrast, the pls makes no underlying assumption about data distribution, so it can effectively work with unobservable factors and it takes measurement errors into consideration (aibinu & al-lawati 2010:719). this study has applied the pls technique because of its ability to handle heterogeneous data with a small sample size and because of its popularity, superiority and generality when compared with the covariance-based sem (hair et al. 2011:144). the municipal e-government readiness framework was tested in terms of the statistical metrics of reliability and validity using the smartpls version 2.0 software (https://softadvice.informer.com/download_smartpls_version_2.0.html). the confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) of the smartpls software was used to establish whether the widely accepted criteria for reliability and validity were met. reliability is the extent to which item-level errors are consistent within a single factor, and it was tested by the estimate of internal consistency and composite reliability. the internal consistency was measured using the cronbach’s alpha statistic, which estimates how consistent an individual’s responses are to items within a scale and is one of the most widely-used methods for estimating the reliability of an instrument (tavakol & dennick 2011:53). the results showed that all alpha coefficients exceeded the 0.80 benchmark as shown in table 2, indicating a high level of internal consistency. the composite reliability offers a more retrospective approach to check for internal consistency of a factor itself, including stability and equivalence of the factor and it should be greater than the benchmark of 0.7 to be considered adequate (aibinu & al-lawati 2010:720). it is perceptible that composite reliabilities of all factors exceeded the required minimum of 0.70, with the lowest value being 0.92 for informational use of supporting e-services as shown in table 2. this result demonstrates the adequacy of the municipal e-government readiness framework of this study. table 2: scale properties with the following legend – awareness (1), citizen (2), competency (3), connectivity (4), convenience (5), data (6), flexibility(7), municipal government (8), industry( 9), information (10), motivation (11), operation (12), municipal e-government (13), service (14), strategy (15), system (16), technology (17), transaction (18), transaction and services (19), internal consistency (20), composite reliability (21), average variance extracted (22). the validity of a framework tells whether a measuring instrument measures what it was supposed to measure. the tests of discriminate validity and convergent validity are used to examine the extent to which measures of latent factors shared their variances and how they are different from others. discriminant validity tests whether measurements that are not supposed to be related are actually unrelated. the average variance extracted was used to test for discriminant validity, which should be above 0.5 to be acceptable. this constraint is satisfied for this study as shown in table 2 (aibinu & al-lawati 2010). convergent validity means that items within a single factor are highly correlated, which is evident by the standardised factor loading that should be above 0.5 (hair et al. 2011:146). tables 3–8 show that all items exhibited loadings higher than 0.5 on their respective factors and significant at p < 0.05, providing evidence of acceptable convergence validity (aibinu & al-lawati 2010:720). the descriptive statistics of conceptual measures are also provided to show how respondents respond to each measure as shown in tables 3–8 using means and standard deviation (sd) statistics. table 3: confirmatory factor analysis of supporting e-services. table 4: confirmatory factor analysis of individual citizen readiness. table 5: confirmatory factor analysis of municipal government readiness. table 6: confirmatory factor analysis of technology infrastructure readiness. table 7: confirmatory factor analysis of supporting industries readiness. table 8: confirmatory factor analysis of municipal e-government readiness. discussion of results the results of testing the municipal e-government readiness framework show good item reliability and convergent validity. the predictive power (r2) of the readiness framework was estimated after the determination of reliability and validity. the results showed that supporting e-services readiness, individual citizen readiness, municipal government readiness, technology infrastructure readiness, industry readiness and municipal e-government readiness have r2 values of 0.46, 0.79, 0.77, 0.73, 0.69 and 0.68, respectively. the r2 value of 0.68 indicates 68% of the municipal e-government readiness as a result of all the five building blocks of the framework. this result suggests that the fit of the readiness framework to the empirical data of this study is at an acceptable level for all the five building blocks. this further indicates that the municipal e-government readiness is satisfactory taken into cognisance the complexity of the framework in terms of the 13 evaluation metrics and 96 conceptual measures. the r2 values for the standardised building blocks may be decomposed in terms of the regression coefficients and correlations between the municipal e-government readiness and the five building blocks. the decomposition allows for the understanding of the contribution of each building block in predicting the municipal e-government readiness and shows that municipal government readiness is the most significant building block. it contributes to 37.62% of the r2 followed by supporting industries readiness (27.97%) and individual citizen readiness (17.34%). technology infrastructure readiness and supporting e-services readiness contribute 11.90% and 5.08% of r2, respectively. the goodness-of-fit (gof) index proposed by tenenhaus et al. (2005) is a global evaluation criterion that was used to judge the quality of the municipal e-government readiness framework. its intention is to account for the performance of the pls-based framework at both the measurement model and structural model, with a strong focus on the overall prediction power. the gof index was obtained as the geometric mean of the average communality index and average r² value (hair et al. 2012:426). the results showed that, overall, the 81% fit of the municipal e-government readiness framework to the empirical data is of higher level and confirm that all the investigated five building blocks and 13 evaluation metrics in this study are good predictors of municipal e-government readiness. the findings of this study generally reveal that the investigated building blocks are significant predictors of municipal e-government readiness. this ensures the importance of giving attention to these building blocks for the successful implementation of e-government at the municipal level. the effect of supporting e-services readiness ensures the necessity to extend features and online services to e-government websites. the progression from unsophisticated information services to fully electronic transaction services is key to achieving quality e-services. citizens are the major factors for the successful implementation of e-government projects; therefore, e-government must be citizen oriented. in general, lack of competence of government employees in using ict, low level of e-government awareness among the citizens and lack of motivation are the major stumbling blocks for the successful implementation of e-government at the municipal level. the high impact of the technology infrastructure readiness emphasises that technology is the main source of change and provides power for enabling the process of implementing e-government initiatives. e-government can never exist without an effective application of ict as a germane tool to advance the internal administrative processes of government. the technological infrastructure with reliable and accessible connectivity needs to be incorporated in municipalities for effective and efficient delivery of e-government services. there is the need for a comprehensive strategic plan and resources in terms of data and system for a successful e-government to take place at the municipal level. moreover, good investments in the infrastructure development by government and supporting industries should go pari passu with the scheme of service development and transaction improvement at the municipal level to ensure the successful implementation of e-government at the municipal level. limitation of the study the main shortcoming of this study is that only four municipalities of the eastern cape province of south africa were used to generate data for the evaluation of the municipal e-government readiness framework. to overcome this deficiency and strengthen the possibility of generalising the study findings, future research should test the readiness framework using a large data sample from different municipalities across other provinces. moreover, the data collected heavily depend on the perception of government employees, without considering the views of the other stakeholders such as citizens and business partners. although government employees are the core people participating in government operations and services, it would be prudent for further research to involve diversified user groups engaging with all the constituents of government at the municipal level. this effort would be definitely helpful for the generalisation of the study results to a wider community. conclusion e-government has become the key term that describes the modernisation of the processes and functions of government using the tools of ict to improve access to and delivery of government services to benefit society, business partners and employees. through new applications of technologies, e-government provides people with convenient access to government information and services. it improves the quality of services and creates greater opportunities to participate in democratic institutions and processes. specific e-government services are increasingly being implemented at the national level, followed by the provincial level before they cascade to the municipal level. previous studies have argued that local governments are closer to the citizens who have better access to the services provided by the municipalities rather than provincial or national governments (mawela, ochara & twinomurinzi 2016). consequently, the focus of this study has been on e-government readiness at the municipal level. the evaluation of municipal e-government readiness provides policy and decision makers with a detailed scorecard of the current status of their municipalities. this underlines the importance of conducting research to develop a framework for evaluating the readiness status of e-government at the municipal level. this study develops and tests an e-government readiness framework that can be used to evaluate e-government initiatives at the municipal level of government. the readiness framework presents five primary building blocks that represent the basic factors to be evaluated before launching an e-government agenda that can guarantee the right implementation of government projects in the right direction. these factors are useful inputs to the formulation of policies and strategies for effective implementation of e-government. the knowledge acquired from this study can potentially benefit policymakers, decision makers and all interested groups in preparing for an efficacious implementation of e-government projects. the information from this study may also help to recognise that effective implementation of e-government requires the use of technologies to achieve more efficiency in the proper functioning of government and to enhance the delivery of government services to industries and individual citizens. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the university’s financial support for the first author through the teaching and development grant, courtesy of the department of higher education and training in south africa. competing interest the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions o.o. was the project supervisor, o.o. initiated the project, designed the survey and edited the paper. s was responsible for the administration of the survey, executed the research, performed the statistical analysis and wrote the initial draft paper. references ahmed, a.o. & hussein, a.o., 2006, ‘e-government readiness assessment model’, journal of computer science 2(11), 841–845. aibinu, a.a. & al-lawati, a.m., 2010, ‘using pls-sem technique to model construction organizations’ willingness to participate in e-bidding’, automation in 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circumstance too early. the awareness of historical anachronism is omnipresent in times of a radical rewriting of history, in particular as a result of political transformation. history reflects the needs and ambitions of a political context, and the sense of what is deemed historically significant does not remain unattached hereby. chronology and anachronism are essential to particular conceptions of history, and if history is in a process of being rewritten, they are the first items to be addressed by the defenders of the old system and the advocates of a new discourse. in political debates on the use or abuse of history anachronism is often seen as ultimate proof of the (un-)reliability of new insights and conceptions. as anachronism is defined as a way of transferring contemporary sets of values, assumptions and interpretative categories, every political reorientation inevitably provokes a discussion on that level. if a ‘new nation’ is in search of a ‘new past’, a new reflection on the basic categories of historical thinking becomes necessary. the changing discourses in south african historiography since the end of apartheid serve here as an illuminative example. keywords: anachronism, historiography, afrikaner nationalism, south africa, philosophy of history, apartheid. anachronism the use and abuse of anachronism is often seen as the quintessence of the writing of history. historians tend to conceive it as the hardcore of their métier to avoid anachronism. it designates confusion in order of time, especially the mistake of placing an event, attitude, or circumstance too early.1 in the historical sciences the problem arises most significantly in the guise of so-called ‘presentism’ or ‘presentmindedness’, the impropriety of depicting past phenomena in terms of values, assumptions, or interpretative categories of today. avoiding anachronism is seen as a reflection of extended awareness that the * georgi verbeeck is an associate professor in history and currently associated researcher at the department of historical and heritage studies at the university of pretoria. address: georgi.verbeeck@history.unimaas.nl. 1 �or a concise introduction, see: h �itter, ‘anachronism’, in : d� �oolf (ed.),�or a concise introduction, see: h �itter, ‘anachronism’, in : d� �oolf (ed.), a global encyclopedia of historical writing, 1, (new york – london: garland publishing, 1998), pp. 30-31. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 181-200 verbeeck 182 past may differ fundamentally from the present – that the ‘past is a foreign country’.2 this awareness is considered a defining feature of advanced modern historical consciousness. the reflection on the use or abuse of anachronism in history is closely linked to the rise of the doctrine of historical ‘individuality’ since early nineteenth century scholarship, in particular the notion that historical phenomena are to be understood according to their unique, time-andplace-specific principles or origin and development.3 it became the central paradigm of the tradition of german historismus – better known as ‘historicism’ in the anglophone world – to avoid anachronism by establishing ‘empathy’ with the past through immersion in historical sources. historicism developed itself into a general science and method of analyzing all social and cultural phenomena. it starts from the assumption that an adequate understanding of the nature of any phenomenon and an adequate assessment of its value are to be gained through considering it in terms of the place which it occupied and the role it played within a process of development. according to the historicist doctrine, all phenomena are unfolding, developing processes whose ends are encoded in, and explained, by their origins. methodologically the doctrine of historicism is based on the notion that all phenomena, both contemporary and past, should be understood by means of interpretation from within (verstehen). historical facts, figures and developments should be analysed within the framework of their own values and intentions. on an epistemological level, much discussion of historicism is of its relativistic repercussions. if all knowledge and values are relative to their historical context, absolute and universal values tend to become untenable. this was what leading intellectuals perceived as an inevitable ‘crisis of historicism’, along with a deep crisis of modernity in european culture around the beginning of the twentieth century (ernst troeltsch).� the topic of anachronism was also discussed at length by historians of what came to be known as the �rench annales school to express philosophical doubts about the practice of history as an exact science. �econsiderations of the historian’s ‘sin of sins’, as lucien �ebvre referred to anachronism in 19�2, were initially framed by marc bloch and �ebvre, who worried about historians projecting their mental ‘equipment [outillage]’ onto other eras. the influential concepts of mentalité and longue durée emerged in response to the question of how, if ever, the past is objectively portrayed, 2 �they do things different there. isn’t that what they say��� see d lowenthal,�they do things different there. isn’t that what they say��� see d lowenthal, the past is a foreign country, (cambridge: university press, 1985). 3 �or a concise introduction, see a. tucker, ‘historicism’ in d� �oolf (ed.),�or a concise introduction, see a. tucker, ‘historicism’ in d� �oolf (ed.), a global encyclopedia of historical writing, 1, pp. �1�-�15. � still the best introduction to the subject is gg iggers,still the best introduction to the subject is gg iggers, the german conception of history: the national tradition of historical thought from herder to the present, (middletown: �esleyan university press, 1968.) anachronism and historical writing – south africa 183 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 given that historians necessarily approach the past from the present, anachronistically, ‘like a movie reel that is unwound in the opposite direction from which it is viewed.’ in other parts of europe, most famously in �rankfurt, where another ‘school’ was simultaneously forming, similar discussions of the contingency of historical truth developed on the same marxist foundation.5 the most sophisticated theoretical model of ‘anachronism’ conceived as a term operating in opposition to ‘chronism’ is undoubtedly �alter benjamin’s notion of the dialectical image’.6post-modernist thinking about the conception of time and anachronism is largely indebted to �alter benjamin’s famous philosophy of the arts. according to benjamin the mechanical reproduction of the work of art had created ‘alienation’ between the authenticity of an original piece of art and the reproduction of its copies. since the late 1970s the old tradition of historicism became revitalised by means of a radical redefinition of its basic premises. the new historicism arose as a by-product of post-modernism. discourses are no longer seen as expressions of unchanging, permanent and universal truths, but as parts of networks of intertwining literary and non-literary texts that constitute the outskirts of a particular culture.7 post-modernist theories have put the problem of anachronism on the agenda of a wide variety of cultural and social sciences, such as the arts and literature, science, medicine and technology. it is a current issue in the history of the fine arts and fiction. the public at large will generally tend to view anachronism as an offence or mistake. yet modern artistic productions will still rely on anachronism for special effects, such as disenchantment, irony or social critique. the issue of anachronism is also discussed in the realm of the hard sciences. even historians of science and technology argue that: anachronism is a useful heuristic tool. �ithout it, you cannot perceive, you don’t have the intellectual categories to understand people who lived in the past. you have to be anachronistic in order to avoid the fallacy that scientific facts take on the semblance of naturalness. �ithout it, the historian would be complicit in the social technologies of modernization.8 the tradition of historicism had undoubtedly led to a greater awareness of the limits and validity of historical consciousness. the ascription of contemporary categories and models of interpretation to earlier periods of time is now regularly regarded as a violation of the past’s alien integrity. the classical historicist position of ‘sympathy’ with the past – l’histoire pour l’histoire – is hardly tenable anymore, as historians are all too much 5 ja �inders,ja �inders, european culture since 1848: from modern to postmodern and beyond, (new york: palgrave, 2001), pp. 219-22�. 6 c �arago, ‘�esponse: time out of joint’ inc �arago, ‘�esponse: time out of joint’ in the art bulletin, 1 september 2005. 7 �or a concise overview see p budra, ‘new historicism’ in d� �oolf (ed.),�or a concise overview see p budra, ‘new historicism’ in d� �oolf (ed.), a global encyclopedia of historical writing, 2, pp. 656-657. 8 interview with german historian of the human body barbara duden by �rank huisman,interview with german historian of the human body barbara duden by �rank huisman, university of maastricht, 11 �ebruary 200�. verbeeck 18� aware of the present-centered starting point of their knowledge and investigation. historians are too much aware of the fact that they, while inevitably belonging to some present, in the mere act of conceiving and constituting their research, cannot avoid imposing present categories on the past in some degree.9 the various discussions on historicism and its implication teach us however that the problem of anachronism, whether perceived as a major error or as an unavoidable category, touches the essence of the writing and dealing with history. lorenz, a dutch historian and philosopher of history, argues that anachronism is closely connected to the emergence of historical consciousness in �estern history.10 the rise of historical consciousness – the growing awareness that the past can never be reduced to a reverse attachment of the present and is therefore essentially ‘alien’ – made an anachronistic approach to history possible.11 in pre-modern societies history was merely conceived as a step in a continuous chain linking the past, the present and the future to each other. the past is seen as ‘tradition’, where our forefathers act as contemporary companions. the past has a normative function, as far as it regulates the norms and values of the present. according to nietzsche, ‘the dead dictate the lives of contemporary people’. since the emergence of historical consciousness, the past is no longer seen a chronological chapter antedating the present, but as an imminent process of development and change. �hat belongs to the past is therefore essentially different from the here and now. the old adage historia magistra vitae became obsolete since then. history can never truly ‘teach lessons’ for the present. anachronism is not only a mere by-product of the new attitude towards the past; it becomes an inevitable consequence of the writing of history as such. since history is change per se, looking back to the past intrinsically occurs through the perspective of nowadays.12 to avoid further complication in the use of the concept, lorenz suggests that it is necessary to distinguish between three basic forms of anachronism: 1. ‘anachronism of facts’; 2. ‘anachronism of language’; 3. ‘anachronism of perspective’.13 �actual anachronism consists of facts, knowledge or ideas that are out of their natural time, or at least appear to be. this kind of anachronism is generally seen as a capital crime for the writing of history. anachronism of language occurs when historians 9 h �itter, ‘anachronism’, in : d� �oolf (ed.),h �itter, ‘anachronism’, in : d� �oolf (ed.), a global encyclopedia of historical writing, 1, p. 30. 10 c lorenz, de constructie van het verleden. een inleiding in de theorie van de geschiedenis, (amsterdam – meppel: boom, 1998), pp. 2�7-2�9. 11 see also : j ��sen,see also : j ��sen, historische vernunft. grundzüge einer historik. i: die grundlagen der geschichtswissenschaft, (göttingen: vandenhoeck & �uprecht, 1983), pp. 68-75. 12 i refer to the work of another dutch historian: p blaas,i refer to the work of another dutch historian: p blaas, anachronisme en historisch besef. momenten uit de ontwikkeling van het europees historisch bewustzijn, (den haag: nijgh & van ditmar, 1988), pp. 1-32. 13 c lorenz, de constructie van het verleden. een inleiding in de theorie van de geschiedenis, pp. 2�8-2�9. anachronism and historical writing – south africa 185 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 use contemporary vocabulary in order to describe and understand past phenomena. historians, notwithstanding their often articulated intention to avoid their personal and contemporary perspective, will find it hard, if not impossible, to avoid this kind of anachronism. the third variation implies a more fundamental problem. historians use interpretative frameworks that stem from their own contemporary position, and not from the past itself. the use of modern theories in order to understand the past serves as an example of this enterprise. historians are finally placed in an absolutely unique position that distinguishes them from the past as their study object. historians are the observers of processes and events that have come to an end. they have the privilege to better understand the past than the historic actors themselves. history, conceived as a process that has a starting point and an end, can only truly be understood by transcending history and therefore by looking at it anachronistically. �ewriting history the awareness of historical anachronism is omnipresent in times of a radical rewriting of history, in particular as a result of political transformation.1� history reflects the needs and ambitions of a political context, and the sense of what is deemed historically significant does not remain unattached hereby.15 chronology and anachronism are essential to particular conceptions of history, and if history is in a process of being rewritten, they are the first items to be addressed by the defenders of the old system and the advocates of a new discourse. in political debates on the use or abuse of history, anachronism is often seen as ultimate proof of the (un-)reliability of new insights and conceptions. as anachronism is defined as a way of transferring contemporary sets of values, assumptions and interpretative categories, every political reorientation inevitably provokes a discussion on that level. if a ‘new nation’ is in search of a ‘new past’, a new reflection on the basic categories of historical thinking becomes necessary. the changing discourses in south african historiography since the end of apartheid serve here as an illuminative example.16 the end of apartheid urged the need for a radical renewal of south african historiography.17 the central aim was the promotion of crossracial reconciliation by creating a new sense of national identity and 1� s berger,s berger, the search for normality. national identity and historical consciousness in germany since 1800, (new york – oxford: berghahn books, 2002) pp. 1-20. 15 e �oner,e �oner, who owns the past? rethinking the past in a changing world (new york: hill and �ang), 2002), p. ix. 16 g verbeeck, ‘een nieuw verleden voor en nieuwe natie. een duits model voor zuidafrika’ in j tollebeek, g verbeeck and t verschaffel (eds.), de lectuur van het verleden. opstellen over de geschiedenis van de geschiedschrijving aangeboden aan reginald de schryver (leuven: university press, 1998), pp. 535-563. 17 see for instance s jeppie (ed.),see for instance s jeppie (ed.), toward new histories for south africa. on the place of the past in our present, (lansdowne: juta gariep, 2005). verbeeck 186 consensus. the writing of history plays an important role herein. history should serve as a mirror for cooperation, interaction and peaceful coexistence of different social and cultural groups, not as an interpretative framework for racial essentialism and ‘differentialism’.18 according to the newly established dominant ideology, a common history should serve as a model for the common future. but this call was not entirely new in the history of south african historical writing. the changes in south african historiography do not quite coincide with the political caesura of 199�. the search for an image of history, better suited to the reality of a multi-racial democracy brought about by the regime change, could be linked without much effort to the process of renewal set in motion during the seventies and eighties. the historical myths on which the apartheid regime was founded may survive in vulgarised surveys, but the latter were shown up for what they were by new insights into the science of history long before 199�. gradually a ‘national image of history’ came into being which included different social and cultural population groups (blacks, coloureds, and other ethnic minorities, but also women, farm labourers, migrants, ordinary people in general), an image at variance with apartheid thought. since the dismantling of the apartheid regime, recommendations on how to develop an image of history better suited to the new social and political relations have been pouring in from all sides. the blueprints for a new curriculum contain two components: critical and alternative, in other words a demand to settle accounts with the old image of history and a call to formulate a new vision of history. �hat then are the ingredients for this ‘new history for a new south africa’�19 it will be argued here that a new history for a new sa will have to deal substantially with the problem of anachronism. deconstructing old narratives the central aim of a new conception of history that tries to fit into a new political and cultural discourse is the deconstruction of traditional images of history, of representations and interpretations which legitimized the former colonial community and the old white oligarchy.20 colonial and apartheid historiography was based on a strongly mythologized representation of the arrival of whites on the african continent and the conflict with the different population groups in the interior. within the contemporary political perspective it is no longer tenable to have 18 ae coombes,ae coombes, history after apartheid: visual culture and public memory in a democratic south africa (durham – london: duke university press, 2003.) 19 j bam and p visser,j bam and p visser, a new history for a new south africa (cape town: kagiso, 1996). 20 this section draws especially from: j bam and p visser,this section draws especially from: j bam and p visser, a new history for a new south africa, pp. 33-57. also refer to: m cornevin, apartheid. power and historical falsification (paris: unesco, 1980); j naidoo, tracking down historical myths (johannesburg: ad. donker, 1989). anachronism and historical writing – south africa 187 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 stereotypes up to the present which in some cases are maintained and propagated by the mass tourism business, such as: the view that europeans and bantu peoples arrived ‘simultaneously’ in southern africa, in order to make the viewpoint acceptable that both are involved in a more or less equal battle for survival; �ousseauistic representations of an ‘uncivilized’, but at the same time also a ‘pastoral, idyllic’, ‘authentic’ and ‘unspoiled’ africa, where indigenous peoples live happily and in harmony with nature; and especially the application of a particular type of ‘psychology of nations’ in order to promote stereotypical characteristics of ‘zulus’, ‘xhosas’, ‘tswanas’, ‘ndebeles’, ‘coloureds’, etc. in the new ideology of history, aimed at national reconciliation, there is no more room for similar myths from old textbooks, rather for faith in a better and brighter future. one can certainly not underestimate the gradual and profound change that even the academic afrikaner historiography had undergone since the seventies and eighties – long before the official end of apartheid.21 afrikaner historians themselves played a role in the gradual demythologizing of old nationalistic sagas. there have been substantial efforts to bring about new perspectives and methodologies in the writing of the history of the various peoples in south africa. particularly �. a. van jaarsveld has constantly addressed the issue of ‘responsibility’ and historical consciousness.22 interesting historical controversies were taking place in the eighties, a time during which south africa underwent dramatic political development, reflecting the precarious position of many afrikaner historians finding themselves at a major junction. nothing less than the long-term future of the white culture in south africa, and its growing isolation from other groups as well as from the international community was at stake. the process of historiographical differentiation, as well as a growing awareness of historical guilt and responsibility was the necessary by-product of a deeper crisis of afrikaner nationalism and its essential paradigms.23 central target of post-199� criticism was not so much academic afrikaner historical writing, but merely the underlying ideological assumptions as well as what has been labelled the ‘school 21 a recent (personal) reflection on the transformation process of contemporary historicala recent (personal) reflection on the transformation process of contemporary historical writing, including the theoretical reflection on history in the afrikaner academic community can be found in h van aswegen and p kapp, verandering en vernuwing in geskiedsbeskouing. ‘n gesprek oor die ervaringe van twee tydgenote (kleio : pretoria, stellenbosch, vanderbijlpark, 2006.) 22 seeinparticular�avanjaarsveld,see in particular �a van jaarsveld, omstrede suid-afrikaanse verlede. geskiedenisideologie en die historiese skuldvraagstuk (johannesburg – cape town: perskor, 198�). 23 k smith,k smith, the changing past. trends in south african historical writing (southern book publishers : johannesburg, 1988), pp. 89-102. 1. 2. 3. verbeeck 188 book version’ of south african history dominated by a white european perspective.24 it is an established fact that afrikaner nationalism is supported by a comprehensive, historical, heroic saga.25 especially the central tale of the great trek from the cape province around 1835 as foundation myth of an independent boer nation occupies such a prominent position. in the next political context this event is now seen as one of the numerous streams of migration within a whole made up of different transformation processes, from which the foundation date of one separate nation can only be deduced with difficulty. the trek to the north, itself being part of complex migration movements, cannot be placed at the ‘beginning’ of the afrikaner nation, as being accepted for a long time. the story of the great trek and the message of salvation of the chosen people became fashionable much later.26 nationalistic afrikaners construct their own historical, political sonderweg. inevitably, blacks disappear from the broader historical perspective dominated by whites, unless when portrayed as enemies and opponents on one of the countless battlefields. the south african example shows that the process of nation-building should rather be described as an element of political decision-making than in terms of evolutionary development.27 according to the new post-modernist paradigm, a nation does not ‘grow’ according to natural laws, but is rather the effect of an ideologically motivated ‘construction’. in the case of south africa this brings to the conclusion that deconstruction of the old national master narrative leads to the construction of a new one. both are constructions inspired by a political agenda, and therefore thoroughly ‘anachronistic’. in south africa the old concept of nation building under apartheid was essentially based on the principles of ethnic pluralism (or separatism). the new paradigm of nation building since 199�, however, is inspired by the idea of multiculturalism (or togetherness). the great trek as foundation myth of white south africa links up with the representation of an ‘empty interior’ as a result of bloody tribal disputes amongst black african communities. especially the zulu expansion under king shaka (mfecane or difaqane) belongs to one of the episodes of south african history which most captures the imagination. the rising of the zulu kingdom and its territorial expansion and the following forced removal of other groups is a strongly contested issue amongst historians. now it is no longer only the bellicose spirit and the expansionist urge of the martial 2� see also: c saunders,see also: c saunders, the making of the south african past. major historians on race and class (david philip: johannesburg – cape town, 1988), pp.186-191. 25 l thompson,l thompson, the political mythology of apartheid, (london – new haven: yale university press, 1985), pp. 25-68. 26 h giliomee, �constructing afrikaner nationalism��, inh giliomee, �constructing afrikaner nationalism��, in journal of asian and african studies, 18 (1983), pp. 83-98. 27 see the different contributions in: s marks and s trapido (eds.),see the different contributions in: s marks and s trapido (eds.), the politics of race, class and nationalism in twentieth century south africa (londonnew york : longman, 1987). anachronism and historical writing – south africa 189 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 zulu’s which is highlighted, but matters of a social and economic nature are also taken into account: drought, conflicts concerning the ownership of farm land, control over commercial routes. the view of a ‘depopulated interior’, used by european colonists to support their regional claims, is no longer accepted, in the light of the presence of indigenous population groups. an analogous debate can be held about the adventures of the legendary trek-leader piet �etief who, along with his companions, was murdered after negotiations with zulu chief dingane about property rights in natal, later to be avenged in the famous battle of blood �iver (1838). he can no longer be seen as a brave hero, killed in cowardly fashion, but as a representative of the white thirst for expansionism. does the ‘treaty’ between �etief and dingane, which would have supported the first territorial claims and white appropriation of natal exist, as was maintained for a long time by white south africa� once again efforts are being made to refute the arguments and the old historical claims of whites on black land. in south africa, as is the case almost everywhere else in the world, the remembrance of wars also offered many points of contact for national or group-bound identification. the ‘anglo-boer war’ is no different. through its main characters – british imperialists versus afrikaner nationalists – this war got the reputation of a ‘�hite man’s �ar’. once again black actors, whether active or passive participants, disappeared from the dominant perspective. it seems that the memory of that sharp conflict is not compatible with the new national consensus. according to a current tendency towards unity thinking there is no longer talk of ‘victors’ and ‘victims’. black auxiliary troops – on both sides of the front – must now get the deserved attention. prompted by last year’s centenary, the old ‘anglo boer �ar’ is being noiselessly rebaptised into a new ‘south african war’ – or into what is even more neutral: the ‘1899-1902 war’. as though within the new national community there is no longer room for a ‘separate’ commemoration of those who died, but only for a collective remembrance uniting the victims in a posthumous act of reconciliation. the collective commemoration of all the victims, irrespective of the racial or ethnic dividing line of old, must therefore serve the new national unity.28 political language language is never politically neutral. �ords have a political content. the cultural revolution which the new south africa has experienced since the end of the apartheid regime, inevitably involves a revolution on the level 28 g verbeeck, ‘de anglo-boerenoorlog in een veranderend perspectief. een comparatieve benadering’ in journal for contemporary history, 2000, 25(2), pp. 28�-310. verbeeck 190 of language use.29 �ords and ideas on which apartheid had conferred the semblance of something evident, implicitly accepted as such even outside the system, was now exposed as a cover for social and political power relations.30 sociolinguistics teaches us that words are never merely descriptive, only a portrayal of factual circumstances, but that they clarify the ideas and interest of the speaker. this is particularly true as far as the central vocabulary supporting the ideology of apartheid, inherited from a centuries-old practice of racial segregation, is concerned: ‘whites’, ‘coloreds’, ‘blacks’, ‘bantu’, ‘africans’, are all concepts which, according to the new norms of political correctness, may only still be used when combined with the necessary prefix ‘so-called’. �or the same reasons, traditional concepts such as ‘groups’, ‘ethnic groups’ and ‘population groups’ are avoided in the new political context; in other words, exactly that set of terminological instruments which had supported and made apartheid legislation possible. it is no coincidence that the concepts all express a static character. they are now replaced by references to cultural or social ‘traditions’ which are dynamic by definition and also leave open the possibility of personal choices.31 the intention is to avoid especially those concepts which suggest the ‘natural’ status and therefore the invariable group homogeneity. after all, population groups are thus represented as internally homogeneous and one another’s rivals. it is type of a language use which, through the use of different words, expresses the striving for ethnic separatism. at the same time, white monopoly of power is legalised: a common identity is ascribed to whites, irrespective of their origin, while blacks remain divided according to different ethnic groups. the old apartheid thought was completely ‘essentialist’ and ‘differentialist’ at the same time: it laid down the ‘invariable’ characteristics of population groups along with their respective differences, resulting in ‘natural’ rivalry.32 it goes without saying that a similar discourse can no longer be reconciled with the ideological paradigm upon which the new south africa rests. the new political vocabulary seeks to replace terms which originated in a colonial context with a more neutral description of concrete, linguistic or socio-economic realities: ‘bantu-speaking’ peoples (instead of ‘black africans’), ‘hunters-gatherers’ (instead of ‘bushmen’ or ‘san’) and ‘stock farmers’ (instead of ‘hottentots’ of ‘khoikhoi’) may serve as examples. �rom the same point of view, one no longer speaks about ‘tribes’ (with its accompanying social darwinist and colonial undertones), but rather, one searches for a more adequate expression to convey the models of socio29 j bam and p visser,j bam and p visser, a new history for a new south africa, pp.128-153. 30 see eg.: e boonzaaier and j sharp (eds.),see eg.: e boonzaaier and j sharp (eds.), south african keywords. the uses and abuses of political concepts (cape town: david phillips, 1988). 31 t�h davenport,t�h davenport, south africa. a modern history (london 199�), p. 5. 32 j degenaar, ‘de mythe van de zuidafrikaanse natie’, in: � detrez and j blommaert (eds.), nationalisme. kritische opstellenkritische opstellen (berchem: epo, 199�), p. 331. anachronism and historical writing – south africa 191 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 political organization (chiefdoms).33 added to that, it has become a rule to avoid especially concepts perceived as insulting by the parties concerned, such as ‘kaffirs’, ‘hottentots’, ‘bushmen’, ‘coolies’. even the term settler has become just as problematic for the new national ideology. although, it initially had a neutral meaning for the parties concerned (descendants of dutch and later british immigrants), radical pan-africanists conferred the meaning of ‘newcomer’ on this concept, thus of someone without any historic ‘rights’ on south african soil. �adical pan-africanism, which voiced itself in the bloodthirsty cry �one settler, one bullet�� is a product of the same ideology of ethnic homogeneity. and this is no solution for a new multicultural south africa either. in this way one prevents the white (afrikaansand english-speaking) communities from feeling themselves to be late arrival minorities because of the negative connotation of a settler, who is not permitted to participate fully in the national community.3� any purification of language, however well-meant and necessary, may easily lead to cultural witch-hunt and to new forms of political dogmatism. if all language use becomes politically conditioned, the new banner of multiculturalism, of course, also conceals a politicized ‘discourse’. a good example of this is found in the (in itself commendable) effort to avoid terms experienced by specific groups as insulting, and to give preference to descriptions used by the parties themselves. thus, one could argue, everyone has a better guarantee of the right to (historical) selfidentification. but what happens when it turns out that ‘san’ (‘bushmen’) is an expression borrowed from the language of the ‘koikhoi’ (‘hottentots’), who have nothing but contempt for their neighbours and rivals� the ‘koikhoi’ describe themselves in terms of universal humanity. as is the case with so many nations, they consider themselves to be ‘human beings’ in the first instance; their neighbouring communities could be no less than primitive barbarians. in other words, must the xenophobia and the greatly exaggerated exclusiveness of the ‘koikhoi’ become the norm for the new language use� �or these reasons some prefer to restore the old term ‘bushmen’. this case can serve as a manipulative form of multiculturalism which effectively led to ethnic pluralism, but not to a new synthesis.35 the limited scope of the old eurocentrism is criticized, but at the same time replaced by a new ethnocentrism; in this case, that of the victims of the past. the problem is more fundamental when the rejection of the languageuse that legitimizes ethnic ‘differentialism’ leads to the reflected social reality no longer being recognized as such. terms and concepts which mirror the power relations within a colonial or racist society may well be morally or politically reprehensible, but in themselves form part of the 33 see also: p maylam,see also: p maylam, a history of the african people of south africa: from the early iron age to the 1970s (london cape town johannesburg 1995) pp. 6�-68. 3� j bam and p visser,j bam and p visser, a new history for a new south africa, pp. 1�6-1�8. 35 ibid., pp. 131-13�. verbeeck 192 social reality. constructions about ‘race’, ‘nation’ or ‘population groups’ may not be a response to the ‘natural’ condition, but they nevertheless radically influenced the way people think, as well as their mutual relationships, and if only for that reason can therefore not be brushed aside as scientifically irrelevant. it is not because racist prejudices are no longer acceptable that their inner logic and especially their influence on social and cultural conceptions and conduct should no longer be suitable for further study. by merely replacing the old discourse with a new one, there is the danger of the disappearance of a large part of the historical and social world of experience.36 the same mechanism can be detected, for example, in the hesitation experienced by scholars of national socialism who wish to study this ideology its own framework, and within the margins of its own logic. because the (mostly veiled) nazi jargon as such generates such abhorrence with the present-day observer, one can easily escape into victim ‘insiderism’ – a group one can at least identify with. one adopts the point of view of what was experienced by the victims, as privileged spectators. but true insight into the mechanisms of power and suppression does not come that easily. the only way is to enter into the logic of power structures and of an ideology which, in the case of national socialism, reduced the lives of others to lebensunwertes leben. national socialism and apartheid thought had at least one thing in common: both were ideologies with a compelling effect on reality: points of departure for action.37 �the secret of evil is locked up within the dynamics of the political ideas of the twentieth century.�� (�rançois �uret)38 these examples clearly show that the political use of a new language is closely interrelated to the problem of anachronism. by introducing a new discourse which fits in a particular contemporary political context, the past’s alien integrity is distorted. motivations and dynamics of the past are exposed as an ideological façade. anachronistic use of language may lead to the assumption that past generations were the victims of false consciousness, incapable of grasping reality as it should be perceived. it is exactly this pretension which lies at the heart of the totalitarian temptation. 36 another example is the blotting out of ethnic differences through an exaggeratedanother example is the blotting out of ethnic differences through an exaggerated aversion to any kind of differentialism: the fusion of khoikhoi and san to ‘koisan’ or hunters-gatherers. 37 �a pois,�a pois, national socialism and the religion of nature (london – sydney: macmillan, 1986) p. 22. 38 � �uret, het verleden van een illusie. essay over het communistische gedachtegoed in de twintigste eeuw (translated from the �rench.) (amsterdam-antwerp : meulenhoff/ kritak, 1996) �7. anachronism and historical writing – south africa 193 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 multiculturalism in the new south africa, the paradigm of multiculturalism 39 is clearly being projected onto history. multiculturalism, taken as an alternative for the ethnic separatism of the apartheid system, is looking for a common image of history.�0 despite representing opposite poles, multiculturalism and ethnic pluralism are not always clearly distinguishable in practice and certainly not within the south african context. in its radical form of expression, the acknowledgement of cultural diversity may also lead to the slackening of universal moral values. born from an intention of moral compensation, ethnic minorities will now demand a type of preferential treatment for their ‘own’ history. as compensation for past discrimination and injustice, minorities go in search of strong points of contact for a group-bound identity, resulting in a highly moral relativism. thus ethnic pluralism becomes the precursor of ethnic separatism.�1 multiculturalism can only be a true alternative for ethnic separatism in so far as it places universal humane unity above the acknowledgement of cultural diversity.�2 multiculturalism and ethnic separatism differ when it comes to the question of what belongs to the essential characteristics of being human, and what is accessory. what the advocates of multiculturalism have in mind in the first place, is to awaken the ‘sense of a shared past’.�3 this means that the emphasis is no longer laid on conflicts and opposition, but on a common world of experience. this is of course no easy assignment, taken the concrete historical experiences in south africa, the endless series of bloody conflicts and wars in the past. the recent undertaking to shed new light on the ‘south african war of 1899-1902’ is such an example. but efforts are also being made to apply the same model of consensus on the countless clashes between the british and the xhosas in the eastern cape, the so-called �rontier �ars of the nineteenth century. this can be done by emphasizing the fact that both the british immigrants and the indigenous population are locked in the same material and economic battle for survival and are mostly pursuing the same goals, namely ensuring their living conditions. even the experiences and environment of population groups who live separately as far as language, culture and ethnicity are concerned, but who meet in a common social, economic work-place, can be placed in a new light: different groups of foreign contract labourers or ‘indentured 39 vele kulture. een nasie. inhuldiging van die president van suid-afrika 10 mei 199� (pretoria 199�) pp. 28-33. �0 j bam and p visser,j bam and p visser, a new history for a new south africa, pp. 1��. �1 borrowed from examples within the american context: � herzinger and h stein, endzeitpropheten oder die offensive der antiwestler. fundamentalismus, antiamerikanismusfundamentalismus, antiamerikanismus und neue rechte (hamburg: �owohlt, 1995) pp. 110-116. �2 �or this debate, consult: c taylor,�or this debate, consult: c taylor, multikulturalismus und die politik der anerkennung. mit kommentaren von amy gutman, steven c. rockefeller, michael walzer, susan. mit einem beitrag von jürgen habermas (�rankfurt a.m.: �ischer, 1993). �3 j bam and p visser,j bam and p visser, a new history for a new south africa, pp. �8-�9.�8-�9. verbeeck 19� labourers’ (irish, indians, chinese), ‘coloured’ domestic servants and black slaves, independent and unfree boers, and so forth. instead of conflict and segregation, unavoidable interaction has to be emphasized. certainly in the case of unfree labour and slavery – as in the american situation – a micro-approach can be the judge of the interwoven nature of relations between ‘master’ and ‘slave’ in a more nuanced way. mixed relations and marriages break the pattern of official race separation. is there a better way of showing up the inhuman aspects of racial segregation than the evocation of real lives of people from the past� ‘�estoring silenced voices’, bringing to life suppressed or silenced sounds from the past, is the aim of the new historiography in south africa. �irstly, there are the victims of apartheid, who are removed from their traditional role as the oppressed and who previously almost exercised some influence on important developments in their country. it can thus be expected that a new history of heroes has been reserved for the anc and for other resistance movements. as for other themes and ‘forgotten groups’, south african historiography finds its inspiration in the developments that have been part and parcel of �estern historiography for a long time. thus the history of women – more than the dismal destiny of the boer women in the british concentration camps – the history of the working classes and of ethnic minorities (jews, chinese, east-europeans, portuguese) will be given a chance. operation ‘�estoring silenced voices’ is the umpteenth instrument for constructing the experiences of people and groups now forming the network of the new south african identity. bam and visser argue: �e need a new historical synthesis now which seeks to represent the entirety of the south african historical experience.�� during the last few years, south african historiography has made a shift in emphasis which is also noticeable in other countries. �ith the rise of ‘micro-history’, interest for ‘great men’ is being transferred to the anonymous actors of history. a picture of the lives of ordinary people is being created – farm laborers, farmers, domestic servants. one example is charles van onselen’s biography of kas maine, a poor black sharecropper on the south african highveld in the twentieth century.�5 the tales of ordinary lives serve as a kaleidoscope through which the impact of social and political changes can be viewed. the full significance of poverty, apartheid and persecution in people’s lives can thus be measured in a more precise way. another possibility of creating more of an interest in history with the broad public is sought in the writing of family histories or the conducting of local and regional history. of course the danger lurking around the corner in such an enterprise is that of a new type of ethnic �� ibid., p. 36. �5 c van onselen,c van onselen, the seed is mine. the life of kas maine. a south african sharecropper 1894-1985 (new york: hill & �ang, 1996). anachronism and historical writing – south africa 195 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 provincialism, which may mean that the link with the wider national context gets lost. the new south african historiography wants to break with traditional eurocentrism and is looking for a new africanist orientation.�6 this means no longer being satisfied with textbooks limited to the history of �estern europe and north america, showing an interest in the rest of the world only in so far as it enters the western sphere of influence. the new, dominating anc ideology is seeking contact with historical examples of ‘national democratic revolutions’ elsewhere in the world: decolonization of countries in latin america, africa, asia and oceania, the chinese revolution and upheavals in eastern europe. the new antieurocentrism expresses itself in the interest in the early histories of noneuropean peoples who for too long have been eclipsed by the search for european civilization’s roots (the middle east, greece, �ome). the frame of reference for south african history is no longer european colonization, but the african continent. a curriculum on such a scale is not without risks, of course: first and foremost, it is not unthinkable that these great expectations may never be realized. in practice, the project of an allembracing �orld history where all civilizations have equal representation is barely feasible. and furthermore, it is doubtful whether one can escape from a eurocentric perspective. there is simply no way for the specified aims of the new national image of history to ignore the fact that the frame of reference, namely the south african nation, is the product of european intervention and not of african traditions. one does of course not change anything in the frame of reference by replacing the ‘culprits’ with the ‘victims’. can it be coincidence that one of the brochures on the history of the anc begins with the statement that, ‘in 1652, the dutch set foot on south african soil’��7 ‘the need to be �air, accurate and inclusive’, could be the creed of the new south african historiography. to summarize, it boils down to a global endeavour to create a national image of history which is as integrated and as ‘inclusive’ as possible.�8 the new government’s drive to ‘nationalize’ south africa’s past also explains why present-day history pedagogues are averse to any suggestion of introducing separate textbooks in the education departments of the different provinces. in that way all population groups will not always have an equally strong representation. government is particularly apprehensive that afrikaner nationalists will keep the old �6 a grundlingh, ‘some trends in south african academic history: changing contextsa grundlingh, ‘some trends in south african academic history: changing contexts and challenges’ in towards new histories for south africa, pp. 196-213. �7 mzabalazo.mzabalazo. a pictural history of the african national congress (belleville: the mayibuye centre, 199�) 1. �8 this can also be seen in institutionalized initiatives such as museums: jm gore, ‘newthis can also be seen in institutionalized initiatives such as museums: jm gore, ‘new histories in a post-colonial society. transformation in south african museums since 199�’ in historia, 2005, 50(1), pp. 75-102; s marschall, ‘making money with memories. the �usion of heritage, tourism and identity �ormation in south africa’’ in historia, 2005, 50(1), pp. 103-122. verbeeck 196 image of history alive. in education, the curriculum of history can be nothing other than national. an image of history encompassing the historical experiences of as many groups as possible thus needs to do more than reverse the old schoolbook version of the past – i.e. the roles of `whites’ and `blacks’.�9 in the new situation one would be wrong to create the impression that all afrikaans-speaking whites were racist oppressors or that all non-whites were heroic heroes of the resistance. one notes the tendency of some to diabolize the past and to identify only with positive aspects from the ̀ own’ history. the result is a moralizing attitude condemning the past or parts thereof. an image of history which remains dualistic in nature (`good’ versus ‘bad’, ‘white’ as opposed to ‘black’, ‘heroes’ or ‘villains’) threatens to lead to historical amnesia. in that respect it is noteworthy that the new south african image of history no longer wishes to see itself placed within the tradition of the previous ‘oppositional history’50 from the years of the anti-apartheid struggle. the latter is now seen as a necessary, onesided correction of the one-sided image of history of the apartheid regime. �hat is required for the 21st century is a synthesis including all historical narratives, a mirror of the ‘�ainbow nation’ in the past. conclusion anachronisms are mostly seen as major errors for the writing of history. ‘good’ historiography is supposed to avoid anachronism. in practice, however, the reality is far less uncomplicated. defenders of both the new and the old historical discourses will argue that both their adversaries commit the error of anachronism. anachronism is not a by-product of a particular bad form of historical writing. it is an inevitable phenomenon that accompanies any attempt to rethink old methods and old paths of historical representation. a reflection on anachronism – defined as any attempt to reconstruct the historical chain of events and meanings and to adopt a new interpretive model of knowledge – intrinsically linked to any operation of rewriting history. this is the case in the use of new historiographical concepts derived from the need to promote political and ideological goals, such as the creation of ‘nation building’ or the promotion of a multicultural idea. it moreover applies to a new use of language that reflects contemporary cultural and political assumptions, more than historical experiences. if we look at lorenz’ classification of anachronism, the south african case clearly fits into the second and the third category: ‘anachronism of language’ and ‘anachronism of perspective’.51 �e have argued that �9 j bam and p visser,j bam and p visser, a new history for a new south africa, pp. 3�-37; 136-138. 50 a typical anc interpretation of south african history can be found in: j pampallis,a typical anc interpretation of south african history can be found in: j pampallis, foundations of the new south africa (cape town: maskew miller longman, 1991). 51 c lorenz, 2�8-2�9.c lorenz, 2�8-2�9. anachronism and historical writing – south africa 197 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 linguistic anachronism is intrinsically linked to the political and cultural turn that has taken place in south africa due to the fall of apartheid and the introduction of plural democracy. the dominant non-racialist ideology has created a set of discourses through which new light is being shed on the past. language serves as the binocular through which historians can not do anything else but looking back at the past. but ‘anachronism of perspective’ is even more pervasive. historians nowadays will perceive the history of their nation – often pervaded by bloodshed, conflict, and racial segregation – in view of the end of this episode. the writing of history is always a retrospective entertainment, a reflection on the past through the mirror of today.52 the ‘new south africa’ is trying to project its political model of consensus onto the past. the harmony being pursued must be reflected in a common past.53 common memory becomes the matrix for a new south african national culture. �ehabilitation for the injustice done, still remains historical rehabilitation. �or the damages they suffered, people are also demanding a rightful place in history.5� thus, historiography is more than contemplation without engagement, but always has something to do with a ‘right’ that may be asserted. historiography that pursues similarly external aims, is pursuing anachronism pur sang. it should moreover be aware of the temptations of harmony, of a world without conflict. after all, it is not up to national consensus planners, pressure groups or national minorities to complete the image of history. that is up to scholarly work done by historians. the pursued broadening of the image of history is an ever recurring theme in all historiography-indevelopment. the historian will have difficulty shirking from the moral duty to constantly legitimize his scholarly activity. each new phase in the development of historiography is legitimized as a necessary ‘supplement’ of the ‘shortcomings’ and ‘gaps’ of older historiography. it testifies to a finalistic approach to the practice of science, starting from the point that new insights always mean improvement when compared to what preceded. the popularization of the micro-perspective has strengthened the trend even more: now at last, ‘forgotten’ and ‘neglected’ groups get the attention they ‘deserve’. it is also questionable whether the ‘use of the past’ will lead to better present-day conditions as well. history serves as a model of explanation to understand the present – which is anachronistic in the reverse way. historical analogies, however, rapidly give the false 52 c conrad and s conrad, ‘�ie vergleicht man historiographien�, c conrad and sc conrad and s conrad, ‘�ie vergleicht man historiographien�, c conrad and s conrad (eds.), die nation schreiben. geschichtswissenschaft im internationalen vergleich (göttingen: vandenhoeck & �uprecht, 2002), p. 13. 53 s jeppie, ‘introduction: new history�’ ins jeppie, ‘introduction: new history�’ in toward new histories for south africa, pp. 118. 5� g verbeeck, ‘pumla gobodo-madkizela’s ‘veroverde vergeving’, in nieuwste tijd. kwartaalschrift voor eigentijdse geschiedenis, 13, 2005, pp. 71-79. verbeeck 198 impression of getting a grip on a new situation. it is all too easy to believe that `lessons can be learnt’ from the past to solve today’s problems.55 the german example shows that some sort of holistic unitary thinking and the projection of national consensus on the past are undesirable as far as at least one point is concerned. if that should be the case, it would (amongst other things) lead to those responsible for and the victims of national socialism being grouped together. in the past, great difficulties arose every time efforts were made to ‘normalize’ german history and calls were made for reconciliation with the national past, for example at a common commemoration of ‘all victims of the second �orld �ar’.56 since the historikerstreit, efforts have repeatedly been made to remove the partitions separating the ‘perpetrators’ and the ‘victims’, an operation stemmed every time by strong resistance.57 in germany as well as in south africa or any other country, it is recommended to remain wary of the temptations of a certain kind of consensus thought.58 it is desirable to keep into account the fact that the danger of such an institution is that of a new dogmatism and a new intolerance.59 as far as the south african situation is concerned, kader asmal, louise asmal and �onald suresh roberts rightly affirm: this talk of shared memory must not be understood or mystified. it is not the creation of a post-apartheid volk or a stifling homogeneous nationhood; nor a new �atherland. nor is it merely a nationwide equivalent of every individual’s mental ability to retain facts and arguments at the front of her consciousness. such analogies between individual and collective memory are unhelpful. �ather, shared memory, in the intended sense, is a process of historical accountability.60 south africa, in much respect, seems to follow the example of post-nazi and reunified germany. in both cases, historical thought fits into a framework of vergangenheitsbewältigung. this means that dealing with the past is not an isolated matter, but is linked to the establishment of a democratic political culture. this leads to poetic exaggeration, as exemplified by the caribbean poet and nobel prize-winner derek �alcott: 55 see my contribution to the debate on the fight against the extreme right: g verbeeck,see my contribution to the debate on the fight against the extreme right: g verbeeck, �lessen uit het verleden. historische analogie als een antifascistisch wapen�’, in h de �itte (ed.), bestrijding van racisme en rechts-extremisme. wetenschapelijke bijdragen aan het maatschappelijk debat (leuven amersfoort : acco, 1997) pp. 133-15�. see also: g verbeeck, ‘spoken uit het verleden. de strijd tegen het ‘nieuwe fascisme’’’ in krisis. tijdschrift voor empirische filosofie, 2, 2003, pp. 60-75. 56 cs maier, the unmasterable past. history, holocaust and german national identity (cambridge – london: harvard university press, 1988) pp. 9-16.d university press, 1988) pp. 9-16. 57 kh jarausch and m geyerkh jarausch and m geyer, shattered past. reconstructing german histories (princeton – oxford: princeton university press, 2003) pp. 1�9-172. 58 see also : g verbeeck, ‘apartheid staat in het museum’ in nieuwste tijd. kwartaalschrift voor eigentijdse geschiedenis, 2, 2003, pp. 5�-60. 59 h adam, � van zyl slabbert and k moodley,h adam, � van zyl slabbert and k moodley, comrades in business. post-liberation politics in south africa (utrecht: international books, 1998) pp. 102-103. 60 k asmal, l asmal and �s �oberts,k asmal, l asmal and �s �oberts, reconciliation through truth. a reckoning of apartheid’s criminal governance (cape town: david phillips, 19972) pp. 9-10. anachronism and historical writing – south africa 199 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 181-200 history is fiction, subject to a fitful muse, memory.61 the writing of history has therefore more to do with imagination than with the establishment of hard facts. history is the inevitable product of historical writing. the historian’s imagination – and the reader’s also – is the necessary condition for the historian’s work. in this sense anachronism, and the freedom to use categories, discourses, models of interpretation to model the past according to the individual wish, is inevitable. it may lead to post-modernist exaggerations, flirting with the fashionable vogue of de-constructivism. but one can agree that nations imagine being able to choose their past and therefore giving shape to their memories.62 despite factual differences, the situation in germany and in south africa shows a striking resemblance here. in both countries people have an idealistic view of history, according to which knowledge of history has a purifying function. it is most entrenched in the old gd�slogan: �aus der geschichte lernen, heisst siegen lernen!�� but a more or less comparable historical and philosophical optimism is characteristic of historical culture in the �ederal �epublic. here, a dominant elite still swears by a permanent commemoration of ‘auschwitz’ as a condition for democratic stability (j�rgen habermas). national ideology in the new south africa starts from the same axiom: ��econciliation through truth��.63 the possibility of building a better future derives from dealing with the past. history is thus seen as a lever to greater justice.6� one can applaud this for political reasons, but at the same time one cannot but conclude that the expectations of history are particularly great. if the writing of history is intrinsically linked with a moral or political message as mentioned above, it is essentially anachronistic. 61 �uoted with consent in�uoted with consent in ibi., p. 9. 62 a gr�nenberg ed.,a gr�nenberg ed., welche geschichte wählen wir? (hamburg: �owohlt 1992), especially(hamburg: �owohlt 1992), especially pp. 7-22. 63 �ecent literature: jl gibson,�ecent literature: jl gibson, overcoming apartheid. can truth reconcile a divided nation? (cape town: hs�c press, 200�); ls graybill, truth and reconciliation in south africa. miracle or model? (boulder – london: lienne �yner publishers, 2002). 6� g verbeeck, ‘verzoening door herinnering� historische cultuur in zuid-afrika’, in : nieuwste tijd. kwartaalschrift voor eigentijdse geschiedenis, 3, 2001, pp. 62-76. abstract introduction hypotheses literature review research approach ethical consideration research sites and participants findings and discussions conclusion acknowledgements references appendix 1 appendix 2 about the author(s) solomon t. macucwa department of applied languages, faculty of humanities, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa thabo ditsele department of applied languages, faculty of humanities, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa mary m. makgato department of applied languages, faculty of humanities, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa citation macucwa, s.t., ditsele, t. & makgato, m.m., 2020, ‘using setswana in business transactions in the clothing industry at the west rand district municipality in gauteng’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a856. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.856 original research using setswana in business transactions in the clothing industry at the west rand district municipality in gauteng solomon t. macucwa, thabo ditsele, mary m. makgato received: 22 mar. 2020; accepted: 06 aug. 2020; published: 24 nov. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract according to census 2011, the three languages with the highest number of first language (l1) speakers in the west rand district municipality in gauteng are setswana (27.3%), afrikaans (16.9%) and isixhosa (14.9%). this district municipality comprises the following three local municipalities: mogale city (including krugersdorp); rand west city (including randfontein) and merafong city (including carletonville). setswana has more l1 speakers in two out of the three local municipalities, namely mogale city (31.7%) and rand west city (24.3%). in merafong city, setswana has the second highest percentage of l1 speakers at 21.4%, the highest being isixhosa at 24.9%. while this district municipality does not have a majority language, setswana is the most spoken among its black residents. the objective of this article was to analyse how setswana is used in business interactions at clothing stores in the west rand district municipality. a qualitative approach (through interviews and participant observation) was used to gather data at clothing stores in krugersdorp, randfontein and carletonville. customers preferred to be addressed in setswana by salespersons at clothing stores, but they conceded that the language lacks adequate terminologies to be used effectively in this industry. keywords: setswana; business language; communication patterns; district municipality; gauteng; south africa. introduction language has an important connection to an individual’s cultural heritage and society (macmillan 1998:17). in order for a language to survive or not become extinct, the key solution lies in its usage. the use of black south african languages (bsals), such as setswana, in the socio-economic sector is of great significance in areas where such languages have a majority or a significant number of l1 speakers. anecdotal evidence suggests that in south africa, business transactions are conducted in english, even when customers and salespersons speak a common bsal. one such case study is in gauteng’s west rand district municipality where setswana has more l1 speakers than other languages, including english, where business transactions are not conducted in setswana, but in english. phaahla (2006a) asserts that: since the democratic elections of 1994 in south africa, people have been grappling with the issue among others, of the financial costs of using more than one official language in commerce and industry, but without giving due weight to the fact that south africa is a multilingual country expect to say that using several official languages in parallel would be contingent on practicality and expense. (p. 142) regarding the use of bsals, ditsele (2016:1, 2017:15) contends that when it comes to formal domains (e.g. education, media, government and business), they are not as developed as english and afrikaans. de klerk (1999:312) remarks that many l1 speakers of bsals regard them as worthless, because of their functional limitations, with regard to access to participation and mobility in wider society. alexander (2000:10) maintains that except if the authorisation of language rights include the use of bsals in all informal and formal functions, the empowerment of black south africans will remain ineffective. phaahla (2006a) posits that: in view of the unprecedented globalisation wave sweeping the world today, the sophistication of black languages should be significantly stepped up from their normal range of mundane discourse to an economic discourse so that mother-tongue speakers can take charge of their languages and compete locally in terms of being generally innovative and competent in the domain of business, assuming that a new-found confidence will expand their language use and make knowledge readily accessible for trade and business purposes. (p. 145) hypotheses this article sought to prove or disprove the following three hypotheses regarding communication patterns and interactions between setswana-speaking consumers and salespersons at clothing stores in the west rand district municipality: the choice to speak (or not to speak) setswana during business transactions is determined by clothing stores (salespersons) and not by their customers (i.e. consumers of goods). the choice to speak (or not to speak) setswana by clothing stores (salespersons) during business transactions does not influence customers’ decision to return to such clothing stores. setswana is moderately used in the clothing industry and is inadequately developed for business transactions in this industry. literature review setswana setswana, also known as ‘tswana’ or more archaically ‘chuana’ or ‘sechuana’, is a bantu language spoken by an estimated 4 million people in south africa (bennett et al. 2016:235). ditsele (2016:2) posits that setswana is one of the 11 official languages of south africa and one of the two official languages spoken in botswana. according to section 6 of the new and/or amended constitution of zimbabwe (act 20 of 2013), setswana is now also one of the official languages in zimbabwe. cole (1992:xv) states that setswana is the most widely spread bantu language in southern africa. he furthermore highlights that it is spoken by the predominant tribes of the bechuanaland protectorate (now known as botswana), north-eastern cape (now the northern cape province of south africa), central and western free state, and western transvaal (now part of the south african provinces of north west and gauteng). ranamane (2012:27) concurs with cole’s views that setswana is mainly spoken in the north west province of south africa, in the northern region of the northern cape province, as well as the central and southern parts of the free state province, particularly in thaba nchu. ditsele (2016:2) notes that in gauteng province, setswana is more concentrated in the western and north-western areas of the province. he elaborates further that setswana has more speakers than other languages in the two local municipalities of the west rand district municipality, namely mogale city and rand west city, and it is a significant language in the city of tshwane metropolitan municipality (álvarez-mosquera, bornman & ditsele 2018:442; wagner, ditsele & makgato 2020:2), where it has the third highest percentage of speakers after afrikaans and northern sotho. according to census 2011, the west rand district municipality is multilingual and does not have a l1 that is in the majority. setswana has the highest percentage of l1 speakers (27.3%) and is the most spoken language in this municipality. setswana has a majority of l1 speakers in black townships, for example, munsieville has 67.2% in mogale city, and mohlakeng has 55% in randfontein. the language has more l1 speakers than other languages in kagiso (47.6%) in mogale city and khutsong (34.8%) in merafong city. communication in order for business interactions to occur, there has to be human communication involved. magocha (2010:1) asserts that good communication is extremely important and necessary for business as is the need for organisations to increase their profits. grin (1994:34) admits that people who want to do business with one another need to be able to communicate on an appropriate level of competence in the same language. cleary (2014:1) defines ‘communication as the process of creating meaning between two or more people through the expression and interpretation of messages’. erasmus-kritzinger, bowler and goliath (2009:3) concur with cleary (2014) that: [c]ommunication can be defined as a two-way process whereby information (the message) is sent from one person (the sender) through a channel to another (the receiver) who in turn reacts by providing feedback. (p. 1) neuliep (2006:9) submits that communication has enormous effect on human beings. people conduct their lives through communication. communication is the method by which people initiate, maintain and terminate their relationships with others. human beings influence and persuade each other through the use of communication. neuliep (2006:29) asserts that ‘successfully interacting with someone from a different culture requires a degree of communication competence’. language practice and economics the people of south africa show interest and commitment towards the use of their languages in contrast to major institutional structures and processes, for example, there is a significant number of listeners of radio stations broadcasting in bsals, compared to the use of bsals by politicians, at schools or in the print media (phaahla 2015:181). alexander (2000:10) notes the extent to which the usage of ‘language rights’ of bsals should be applied in all language domains. south african language practices promote monolingualism in english compared to its language policy which promotes multilingualism, which is what linguists refer to as the ‘diffusion-of-english paradigm’ (phaahla 2015). she furthermore posits that: with regards to the language practices in business, education, the media and other domains of higher functions, it remains true that in south africa the ‘diffusion-of-english paradigm’ is gaining momentum in virtually all the country’s institutions. (p. 181) phaahla (2015:181) posits that there is a marked contrast between south africa’s multilingual language policy and its language practices and behaviour. phaahla (2006a) contends that: [w]hat really happened after 1994 is that most higher education institutions, parastatals, statutory bodies and some industries, irrespective of what their language policies prescribe, have shifted from bilingualism towards monolingualism. (p. 142) furthermore, phaahla (2015:182) postulates that the significance of assessing the implications of implementing new language policy options for business in south africa lies in observing ‘international trends’ in language policy and their relation to political ideology and free-enterprise economics. according to phaahla (2006b:57), black south africans assume that it is impossible to do business in other languages besides english. phaahla (2006b) submits that: south africans knowledge of english, especially in the lower socio-economic strata, does not equip them adequately to function and perform optimally in commerce and industry, or to participate effectively in economic activity. (p. 195) various sectors maintain the status quo of using english, whereas their growth depends on the speakers of bsals (e.g. financial institutions). black south african languages are neglected, given the reason that they lack terminology and funding (phaahla, 2006a:147). phaahla (2010:56) posits that ‘it would seem economically sensible for banks and other financial institutions to implement multilingualism in their everyday activities and accommodate regional languages’. according to heugh (2000:467), bsals can be useful if the stigma of colonised consciousness does not exist and until their potential in economic activities is revealed. pansalb (2000:73) commissioned markdata which found that the extent to which the languages are accommodated in the bureaucracy, civil society and the economy has only an approximate relationship to the degree of concern about language policy. to promote multilingualism in south africa, the use of official languages act (no. 12 of 2012) was introduced to promote the use of bsals at national government level and parastatals (republic of south africa 2012). this act makes provision for a minimum of three languages to be used in domains of higher functions. phaahla (2015:182) refers to this occurrence as a bold stance taken by the south african government, but it remains to be seen if the government’s intention will change the attitudes, language practice and behaviour of bureaucrats and l1 speakers of bsals. mohlahlo (2019) found that bureaucrats at national departments, many of them being speakers of bsals, were reluctant to implement this act and viewed multilingualism as a problem and not a strength. they held a view that the status quo of english dominance should be maintained. these negative attitudes held towards the use of bsals at national government effectively sabotage the act in particular and the constitution of south africa (republic of south africa 1996) in general. research approach this study adopted a qualitative research approach which creswell (2014:5) conceptualises as an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribed to a social or human problem. creswell (2014) further notes that the process of research involves emerging questions and procedures, data typically collected in the participant’s setting, data analysis inductively building from particulars to general themes and the researcher making interpretations of the meaning of the data. primarily, this is an exploratory study which allowed researchers to acquire an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions and motivations as it envisages to provide insights and uncover trends in thoughts and opinions while diving deeper into the problem. data were gathered using semi-structured interview questions. semi-structured interviews rely on the interviewer following up with probes to get in-depth information on topics of interest. more data were gathered through participant observation, which is a qualitative method with roots in traditional ethnographic research, whose objective is to help researchers learn the perspectives held by the study populations. as qualitative researchers, people presume that there will be multiple perspectives within any given community. they are interested both in knowing what those diverse perspectives are and in understanding the interplay among them (mack et al. 2005:13). ethical consideration before the commencement of data collection, ethical clearance was obtained from tshwane university of technology, faculty committee for research ethics – humanities [fcre-hum] on 13 june 2017, with ethical clearance number fcre/apl/std/2017/0. permission to conduct research at research sites (i.e. clothing stores) was granted by each research sites’ management. research sites and participants data were gathered at nine clothing stores in krugersdorp, randfontein and carletonville (all in the west rand district municipality), that is, three clothing stores from each town. the three clothing stores were selected because each of them had price ranges which targeted and/or appealed low-, middleand high-income earners. for the purposes of this study, these clothing stores’ price ranges were used to categorise customers for convenience, and thus, the social class categories were perceived, that is, they were not scientific. participants were residents of the west rand district municipality who ordinarily communicated in setswana (viz. l1 and l2 speakers). the sample population consisted of 36 participants, that is, 18 customers (two from each of the nine clothing stores) and 18 salespersons (two from each of the nine clothing stores). for customers, the following five variables were used: (1) sex, (2) age group, (3) competence in setswana, (4) level of education and (5) residence. for salespersons, the following five variables were used: (1) sex, (2) age group, (3) competence in setswana, (4) duration at the workplace and (5) location of the clothing store. as shown in appendix 1 (customers’ biographic profiles) and appendix 2 (salespersons’ biographic profiles), codes were generated to protect the identities of all 36 participants. the first author placed himself in the ‘enquiries section’ of the clothing stores; this is a section where customers make enquiries about their accounts and return and/or exchange items they bought. this section was ideal for the first author to observe conversations between customers and salespersons. before customers interacted with salespersons (clothing store staff members), the first author established the language repertoire of the salespersons, so as to identify those who ordinarily speak setswana (i.e. l1 or l2 speakers); these were salespersons that he paid attention to when they assisted customers. in an event, a conversation took place in setswana, however minimal that was, the first author approached the customer after the conclusion of the business transaction (conversation with the seller) to request permission to interview them at a discreet location pre-authorised by management at each clothing store. after interviewing the adequate number of customers, the first author then interviewed salespersons. the reason for interviewing salespersons at the end of the process was to ensure that they did not change their linguistic behaviour while interacting with customers, as that would have defeated the purpose of this study. findings and discussions analysis of customers’ data the following questions were posed to the 18 customers through face-to-face interviews. question 1: when you approach a black staff member at this clothing store and suspect that s/he could speak setswana, do you start the conversation in setswana? all the customers stated that they started conversations in setswana. the most common reason they gave was that there was an assumption that most black people in the west rand district municipality speak setswana, as it is the most dominant language. cm3-cs1 noted that while he started conversations in setswana, he usually carried on with the language a staff member would respond in. question 2: if a staff member at this clothing store responds to you in setswana, but then switches to another language which you understand, do you change as well or do you continue to speak to him/her in setswana? many customers said that they switched to another language to accommodate a staff member in the conversation and establish rapport with them. six customers (viz. cm1-cs2, cf4-cs3, cm5-cs3, cf7-cs3, cf10-cs3 and cf11-cs3) admitted that they were comfortable speaking setswana, thus did not switch to another language because by initially speaking setswana, a staff member would have indicated that they understood the language. question 3: if you overhear a staff member at this clothing store speak setswana to his/her colleague, but starts a conversation with you in another language, do you continue to speak setswana to him/her or do you speak the language that s/he speaks if you understand it? some customers reported that they preferred to communicate in setswana than in another language. one such customer was cf11-cs3, who pointed out that some staff members had a bad attitude and treated customers badly compared to their colleagues, hence their negative attitudes towards communicating with customers in setswana. other customers said that they would switch to the language preferred by the staff member, only if they could communicate in that language. cf8-cs1 and cf9-cs2 said that switching to a language to a language a staff member approached them in has the potential to build some rapport between them and staff members. question 4: how do you feel about a staff member whom you just overheard speaking setswana to his/her colleagues, but refuses to speak to you in this language? many customers said that such behaviour would make them feel unwelcomed as it would be a display of a bad attitude. cf7-cs3 went further by saying that refusing to communicate in setswana would send a message that a staff member did not appreciate bsals, while cm7-cs2 and cf11-cs3 said that when a staff member refused to speak setswana with them, they would not take that they would feel discriminated against. a few customers said that it would not matter to them if a staff member refused to speak to them in setswana. cf3-cs2 and cm2-cs3, cf8-cs1 and cf10-cs3 said that what was important to them was being on the same page with a staff member, while cm3-cs1 responded that if such a staff member communicated with him in english, he would understand that a staff member would be trying to be professional. question 5: if you hear from people that workers of other clothing stores selling similar items as this store in this town prefer to speak to customers in setswana, does this influence you to visit that clothing store and possibly buy from it? many customers stated that it would influence them to visit and buy at other clothing stores because such an attitude would give them an impression that such stores would be interested in ensuring that customers fully understood transactions and that they would be promoting the use of bsals. a few customers said that the choice of language would not influence them to visit other clothing stores. cf1-cs1 and cm2-cs3 stated that they would only visit other clothing stores for price comparison, while cm3-cs1 said that he would visit other clothing stores should he hear that they had reduces their prices. cf9-cs2 and cf11-cs3 said they would be influenced by better treatment of customers rather than the choice of a language, even if it was setswana. the latter pointed out that a staff member could still display a bad attitude towards customers while communicating with them in setswana. question 6: based on your observation while you are in this clothing store and listening to interactions between customers and staff members who are both black, how would you rate the frequency of setswana spoken by them – very little, enough or most of the time? many customers suggested that very little setswana was spoken, and cm1-cs2, cm2-cs3 and cf4-cs3 added that english was spoken more frequently. two customers (viz. cm3-cs1 and cf6-cs2) said that enough setswana was spoken, while another two (viz. cf1-cs1 and cf2-cs1) stated that setswana was spoken most of the time during interactions between staff members and customers. cf3-cs2 said that she had not made any observations because she did not eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. question 7: do you think that setswana is developed enough to allow you to speak it at all times when buying items from this clothing store? many customers stated that setswana was developed enough because they could use the language to purchase items at the clothing stores. a few of them disagreed that setswana was developed enough; cf9-cs2 said that the language was developed enough for other communication purposes, but not in the business domain because it fell short on business jargon. cf7-cs3 agreed with this view about setswana’s lack of terminology and relied on borrowing words, for example: hempe (afrikaans: ‘hemp’), dibutshu (english: ‘boots’), diteki (afrikaans: ‘tekkies’) or dipump (english: ‘pumps’). cf2-cs1 and cf6-cs2 suggested that setswana was not developed enough because its l1 speakers communicated in english when buying items in the clothing stores. question 8: when you bought items at this clothing store – be it today or in the past – and spoke setswana, have you ever switched to another language because you struggled with setswana words that would have allowed you to explain yourself clearly? many customers said that they had switched to another language, one of them being cm1-cs2, who said that he did so when he inquired about sizes, such as that of a pair of trousers. cf5-cs1 responded that she switched to another language when she had to use words which she did not readily know their setswana equivalents, such as ‘sale’, ‘promotion’, ‘eyeliner’ or ‘eyebrow pencil’, and cf8-cs1 said that she did not know setswana’s equivalence of ‘hairpiece’, so she switched. a few customers said that they did not switch, one of them being cf3-cs2, who said that she had not switched because she did not struggle with setswana words and could explain herself well in the language. analysis of salespersons’ data the following questions were posed to the 18 salespersons through face-to-face interviews. question 1: when you are approached by a black customer and suspect that s/he could speak setswana, do you start the conversation in setswana? a majority of salespersons said that they started conversations in english because it was a business language. sf1-cs1, sm2-cs2, sf8-cs2 and sf11-cs3 submitted that management required them to address customers in english and only switch to another language, if customers were comfortable speaking an alternative language to english. sf2-cs2 and sm5-cs2 said that they started conversations in english because they could not tell upfront whether customers were setswana speakers. a few salespersons (viz. sm1-cs1, sm4-cs3 and sf3-cs1) stated that they started conversations in setswana because a majority of black customers in their towns spoke setswana. question 2: if a customer responds to you in setswana, but then switches to another language which you understand, do you change as well or do you continue to speak to him/her in setswana? all salespersons said that they changed in order to accommodate customers and to develop rapport with them through allowing conversations to flow. sf8-cs2 mentioned that the cell phones department did not allow for purchased items to be returned; hence, she changed the language in order for her and the customers to understand each other very well. sf3-cs1 said that she continued to speak setswana because she was more comfortable speaking the language. question 3: if you hear a customer speak setswana to his/her companion, but starts a conversation with you in another language, do you continue to speak setswana to him/her or do you speak the language that s/he speaks if you understand it? the majority of the salespersons stated that they spoke a language that a customer approached them in because it gave the impression that a customer was comfortable engaging with, in that language, and it demonstrated the customer’s language preference. a few of them (viz. sf5-cs3 and sf10-cs3) said that they continued to speak setswana; sm3-cs3 said that he did so setswana to avoid communication barriers. question 4: if you hear from customers that staff members at other clothing stores which compete with yours in this town prefer to speak to customers in setswana, does this influence you to speak to your customers in setswana in order not to lose them to your competition? many salespersons stated that hearing from customers that staff members at clothing stores in competition with theirs preferred to speak to customers in setswana would influence them to speak setswana to their customers because of the fact that it was their priority to cater for their customers’ needs, and it would be an act of offering a good customer service. a few of them said that it would not influence them to speak setswana to their customers, but would stick to english as it was a business language. sm1-cs1 mentioned that it did not matter which language a salesperson spoke, what was important was that the communication should be successful. sf4-cs1 said ‘no, i do not believe that we can lose customers due to not speaking setswana. customers know that our store serves customers who speak different languages’. sf5-cs3 answered that customers who came to their store were interested in the style and quality of items available, not the choice of language used. question 5: based on your observation of conversations between your black colleagues and black customers, how would you rate the frequency of setswana spoken by them – very little, enough or most of the time? some salespersons (viz. sm3-cs3 and sm4-cs3) reported that very little setswana was spoken because many black customers were not comfortable with speaking bsals and instead preferred to communicate in english more often. sf9-cs2 answered that very little setswana was spoken because english was the language used in business transactions. other salespersons (viz. sm1-cs1 and sf1-cs1) stated that there was enough setswana spoken between salespersons and customers. others (sf2-cs2 and sm2-cs2) suggested that setswana was spoken most of the time. question 6: do you think that setswana is developed enough to allow you to speak it at all times when interacting with black customers? some salespersons (e.g. sf4-cs1) thought that setswana was developed enough to speak it all the time; sf3-cs1 said that even white people in randfontein could speak it during interactions in the store. others felt that the language was not developed enough to speak it all the time and that english was better suited to conduct business transactions at clothing stores; sm4-cs3 were of the view that setswana lacked business jargon, for example, he did not know the language’s equivalent of ‘merchandise’. question 7: when you interact with customers – be it today or in the past – and spoke setswana with them, have you ever switched to another language because you struggled with setswana words that would have allowed you to explain yourself clearly? the majority of the salespersons said that they switched to english because they were used to communicating in setswana at their workplaces. sm5-cs2 said that he struggled to sustain lengthy conversations in setswana because it was his l2. sf5-cs3 indicated that she switched because of a lack of setswana terminology for words such as ‘account’ and ‘insurance’, a view which was also expressed by sf8-cs2, who pointed out that she did not know setswana equivalents for words like ‘memory’, ‘mega bytes’ and ‘data’. a few salespersons (e.g. sm1-cs1 and sf1-cs1) that they had had not switched to another language because they were comfortable with expressing themselves well in setswana. question 8: do you think that setswana and other bsals should be spoken at all when engaging in a conversation with customers? all the salespersons agreed that bsals should be spoken with customers because they had official status in south africa and that stores would be accommodating different customers by allowing these languages to be spoken. in addition, speaking them at all times would also contribute to their further development. the influence of variables on customers as indicated earlier, data were gathered using the following five variables: (1) sex, (2) age group, (3) competence in setswana, (4) level of education and (5) residence. the analysis below incorporates the authors’ notes from interactions with all participants. a variable ‘sex’ was not a factor in influencing the opinions of customers with regard to communicating in setswana in business interactions because both female and male customers offered similar answers. the youngest ‘age group’ (i.e. 18–29 years) did not hold strong feelings towards the use of setswana in clothing stores; in other words, it was not an issue for them whether setswana was spoken and would not insist on the language being spoken to them. the ‘age group’ in the middle (i.e. 30–49 years) did not think that setswana was adequately developed for communication in business transactions. be that as it may, they stated that if staff members at clothing stores spoke setswana more often, that would influence them to visit such stores and buy from them. the oldest ‘age group’ (i.e. 50–59 years) held strong feelings towards salespersons who did not want to interact in setswana with customers. they also noted that it would influence them to visit and possibly buy from stores whose staff members communicated more often in setswana with customers. a finding is thus made that the older the participants were, the more they felt attached to setswana and supported the idea of the language being used between customers and clothing stores’ staff members. variables ‘competence in setswana’ and ‘residence’ were intertwined because eight participants who were setswana l1 speakers resided in krugersdorp and randfontein (and none in carletonville), while 10 of those who were setswana l2 speakers resided mainly in carletonville (6), and a few in krugersdorp (2) and randfontein (2). on the one hand, the eight setswana l1 speakers stated that they would be influenced to visit clothing stores whose staff members preferred to interact with customers more often in setswana. they also would not feel welcomed in clothing stores whose staff members refused to communicate with customers in setswana. on the other hand, the 10 setswana l2 speakers said that they were not influenced by the use of setswana (or lack thereof) at clothing stores; instead, what would influence them in visiting other clothing stores would be the price of items, customer service and fashion style offered there. also, they were not bothered by staff members’ attitudes of refusing to communicate with customers in setswana during business interactions. setswana l1 speakers and residents of krugersdorp and randfontein showed emotional attachment to the language, compared to l2 speakers and residents of carletonville. a conclusion is thus made that ‘competence in setswana’ and ‘residence’ were factors in influencing customers on the use of setswana in business transactions in the clothing industry. when it comes to ‘level of education’, participants who did not hold a grade 12 certificate felt strongly that setswana should be used for communication between customers and clothing stores’ staff members. they preferred that communication be held in setswana if given the chance and space by staff members, but usually did not initiate conversations in setswana. participants who held a grade 12 and national diploma certificates, were more interested in the success of their business interactions, irrespective of the language choice. they also spoke little or no setswana when involved in business interactions and had no issue with communicating wholly or partly in english. according to peters and brijal (2011:272), education is a prerequisite for having a skill of communicating effectively. a conclusion is thus reached that the lower the participants’ level of education, the more they wanted to communicate in setswana, and by default, not in english. the language of teaching and learning which many black south africans access education through is english. this means that one’s level of education translates into more access to english. this possibly explains why participants who held a grade 12 certificate and above were more open to communicating in english, as opposed to setswana. the influence of variables on salespersons as indicated earlier, data were gathered using the following five variables: (1) sex, (2) age group, (3) competence in setswana, (4) duration at the workplace and (5) location of the clothing store. the analysis below incorporates the authors’ notes from interactions with all participants. variables ‘sex’, ‘age group’ and ‘duration at the workplace’ were not factors in influencing the opinions of salespersons when it came to communicating in setswana in business interactions in the clothing industry, as those who belonged to the same categories in these variables offered similar answers. compared to salespersons who were setswana l2 speakers, those who were l1 speakers indicated that they spoke setswana a lot more with customers who were comfortable in communication in the language during business interactions. as such, ‘competence in setswana’ was a factor in influencing salespersons’ views on the use of setswana in the clothing industry. with regard to ‘location of the clothing store’, this did not entirely determine which language salespersons chose to communicate with customers, rather it influenced which language salespersons spoke to customers in addition to setswana. for instance, in carletonville and randfontein, they spoke isixhosa, while in krugersdorp they spoke isizulu. that was because of the fact that isixhosa was a significant language at merafong local municipality (which includes carletonville) and at rand west city local municipality (which includes randfontein), while isizulu was a significant language at mogale city local municipality (which includes krugersdorp). this means that ‘location of the clothing store’ was a factor in influencing alternative bsals which salespersons opted for. participant observation before engaging with customers and salespersons, the first author visited the clothing stores and observed (from a reasonable distance) interactions between the two stakeholders so that by the time he interviewed them, he would have a better understanding of how they interact. these are some of his observations: customers used words that products were advertised in when they struggled with setswana equivalents. customers in krugersdorp and randfontein approached salespersons in setswana a lot more than those in carletonville. english was the default language which salespersons used to attend to customers standing in queues, such as ‘next customer please’. it was used even when all were black customers. at a ‘new accounts department’, a black customer who struggled in english left the store without opening a new account because assistance was only offered in that language and not in setswana. in a majority of cases, salespersons determined the choice of language used between themselves and customers. english was the most preferred language by customers and salespersons at cs3 (viz. clothing stores catering for high-income earners). customers who shopped at cs3 stores valued good service regardless of the choice of language it was delivered in. in most cases, elderly customers whose l1 was setswana demanded to be assisted in the language only when they experienced difficultly in communicating in other languages. conclusion at the beginning of this article, the authors stated that they sought to prove or disprove three hypotheses regarding communication patterns and interactions between setswana-speaking consumers and salespersons at clothing stores in the west rand district municipality. with reference to the first hypothesis, the choice to speak (or not to speak) setswana during business transactions was determined by both customers and salespersons. the decision to choose a particular language or shift to another was determined by either party (i.e. customers or salespersons), and it was largely informed by ensuring that there was no misunderstanding between the two parties. therefore, it is concluded that the hypothesis has been proven to be false. in terms of the second hypothesis, customers indicated that their choices to return to clothing stores were influenced by factors such as the quality of customer service, competitive prices and fashion sense, and not by the choice of language initiated by them or salespersons. therefore, it is concluded that the hypothesis has been proven to be true. looking at the third hypothesis, customers and salespersons said that they communicated in setswana to build rapport between themselves, although they switched to english where setswana lacked terminologies. further evidence suggested that they used setswana moderately and they believed that the language was inadequately developed for use in conducting business transactions in the clothing industry. therefore, it is concluded that the hypothesis has been proven to be true. in his comprehensive study on ‘attitudes towards setswana by its l1 speakers’, ditsele (2014:268) argues that society would develop positive attitudes towards the use of setswana beyond informal settings only if certified knowledge of it is translated into economic benefits. in line with ditsele’s argument, this article revealed that customers, particularly setswana l1 speakers, found it valuable to communicate in their l1 when engaging in business interactions at clothing stores, which are formal settings. tapping into the relationship between ‘language’ and ‘economics’ which phaahla (2015:181) alludes to, this study has added new knowledge to this area of research in south africa. acknowledgements we wish to express our sincere appreciation to the customers and salespersons at clothing stores in krugersdorp, randfontein and carletonville. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions s.t.m. was a master’s student and developed the article from his dissertation. t.d. was s.t.m.’s main supervisor, and he re-worked the first draft. m.m.m. was s.t.m.’s co-supervisor and reviewed the re-worked draft, which was finalised by t.d. the contribution to the article is as follows: s.t.m. (30%), t.d. (60%) and m.m.m. (10%). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in the study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency or the authors. references alexander, n., 2000, language policy and planning in south africa: some insights, buchu books, cape town. álvarez-mosquera, p., bornman, e. & ditsele, t., 2018, ‘residents’ perceptions on sepitori, a mixed language spoken in greater pretoria, tshwane’, sociolinguistic studies 12(3–4), 439–459. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.33643 bennett, g., diemer, m., kerford, j., probert, t. & wesi, t., 2016, ‘setswana (south african)’, journal of the international phonetic association 46(2), 235–246. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025100316000050 census, 2011, statistics south africa, pretoria, viewed 18 june 2019, from http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=3839. cleary, s., 2014, communication: a hands-on approach, 2nd edn., juta, cape town. cole, d.t., 1992, an introduction to tswana grammar, 7th impression, longman, london. creswell, j.w., 2014, research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 4th edn., sage, london. de klerk, v., 1999, ‘black south african english: where to from here?’, world englishes 18(3), 311–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-971x.00146 ditsele, t., 2014, ‘perceptions of black south african languages: a survey of the attitudes of setswana-speaking university students toward the first language’, doctoral thesis, tshwane university of technology, pretoria. ditsele, t., 2016, ‘attitudes held by setswana l1-speaking university students toward their l1: new variables’, south african journal of african languages 36(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02572117.2016.1186887 ditsele, t., 2017, ‘testing the impact of known variables on the attitudes held by setswana l1-speaking university students toward their l1’, literator 38(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v38i1.1301 erasmus-kritzinger, l.e., bowler, a. & goliath, d., 2009, effective communication: getting the message across in business, 12th impression, van schaik, pretoria. grin, f., 1994, ‘the economics of language: match or mismatch?’, international political science review 15(1), 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/019251219401500103 heugh, k., 2000, the case against bilingual and multilingual education in south africa, viewed 21 march 2020, from http://www.praesa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/paper6.pdf. mack, n., woodsong, c., macqueen, k.m., guest, g. & namey, e., 2005, qualitative research methods: a data collector’s field guide, family health international, durham. macmillan, c.m., 1998, the practice of language rights in canada, university of toronto press, toronto. magocha, k.k., 2010, ‘evaluation in business discourse’, doctoral thesis, north-west university, mafikeng. mohlahlo, a.l., 2019, ‘implementing the official language act: a comparative study of selected national departments in south africa’, master’s dissertation, tshwane university of technology, pretoria. neuliep, j.w., 2006, intercultural communication: a contextual approach, 3rd edn., sage, thousand oaks, ca. pansalb, 2000, language use and language interaction in south africa: summary report of the national sociolinguistic survey conducted by markdata on behalf of pansalb, pansalb, pretoria. peters, r.m. & brijal, p., 2011, ‘the relationship between levels of education of entrepreneurs and their business success: a study of the province of kwazulu-natal, south africa’, industry and higher education 25(4), 265–275. https://doi.org/10.5367/ihe.2011.0048 phaahla, p., 2006a, ‘knowledge production in what language? the hegemonic use of english as a language of commerce and industry from a south african perspective’, in o.f. arasanyin & m. pemberton (eds.), selected proceedings of the 36th annual conference on african linguistics, cascadilla proceedings project, pp. 142–154, somerville, ma. phaahla, p., 2006b, ‘the feasibility of northern sotho as a language of commerce and industry in the limpopo and gauteng province’, doctoral thesis, university of johannesburg, johannesburg. phaahla, p., 2010, ‘multilingualism in a global village: what is the future of local language (e.g. northern sotho) in an increasingly globalised world?’, south african journal of african languages 30(1), 52–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/02572117.2010.10587335 phaahla, p., 2015, ‘economics of languages: the interplay between language planning and policy, and language practice in south africa’, south african journal of african languages 35(2), 181–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/02572117.2015.1113003 ranamane, t.d., 2012, ‘the contribution of the missionaries to the development of setswana as a written language’, south african journal of african languages 32(1), 27–33. https://doi.org/10.2989/sajal.2012.32.1.5.1128 republic of south africa, 1996, the constitution of the republic of south africa (act 108 of 1996), government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa, 2012, use of official languages act (no. 12 of 2012), government printers, pretoria. republic of zimbabwe, 2013, the constitution of the republic of zimbabwe (act 20 of 2013), harare. wagner, v.k., ditsele, t. & makgato, m.m., 2020, ‘influence of sepitori on standard setswana of its home language learners at three tshwane townships’, literator 41(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v41i1.1653 appendix 1 table 1-a1: customers’ biographic details. appendix 2 table 1-a2: salespersons’ biographic details. microsoft word 01 de beer.docx   td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider-afrika 6(2) desember 2010, pp. 291306. meervoudige denke: versmoor/vermoor instellings denke? cs de beer* opsomming: denke is die mees uitsonderlike vermoë van mense. vir mense om volwaardige mense te wees, is die volle ontwikkeling van hierdie vermoë noodsaaklik. wanneer dit afgeskeep word, word mense tot minder as mense en alle verhoudinge waarby mense betrokke is ly op een of ander wyse skade. hierdie skade kan mettertyd katastrofiese afmetings aanneem. dit kan samelewings in duie laat stort; dit kan selfs die ondergang van beskawings beteken. hierdie artikel besin oor die belangrikheid van meervoudige of komposisionele denke, as die ideale denkvorm, oor die wesenlike probleem dat denkontwikkeling verhinder word omdat daar eerder op enkelvoudige denke, as maklik aanleerbare denkvorm, klem gelê word en oor die moontlike armoedige gevolge hiervan vir indiwidue en samelewings van sodanige strategieë, soos dit veral in institusionele verbande tot uitdrukking kom, verwesenlik word, selfs afgedwing word: onderwys, politiek, kultuur. die versmoring/vermoording van denke word ‘n werklikheid. uiteindelik word enkelvoudige denke die houding van die hele samelewing. die ernstige afmetinge wat die verlies aan deeglike denke reeds aangeneem het, is van groot omvang. dit raak skole, universiteite, wetenskapwerk, politieke instellings, administratiewe aktiwiteite oor ‘n breë spektrum – eintlik alreeds die hele samelewing. hiermee word ons voor groot uitdaginge gestel. indien hierdie oorwoë argumente geldig is, soos baie inderdaad beweer, moet die situasie ten alle koste omgekeer word. voorstelle word in hierdie verband gemaak. dit is allereers nodig om die gebrekkigheid van gebrekkige denke en die gevolge daarvan te bedink. verder moet besef word dat gesindheid en ingesteldheid ten opsigte van armoedige denke moet verander, die armoede daarvan moet aanvaar word en ook dat ander denkweë moontlik is. terselfdertyd behoort ‘n besef lewendig gehou te word dat die kompleksiteit van die werklikheid, mensewerklikheid en natuurwerklikheid, groot en meervoudig in omvang is. geen enkelvoudige, lineêre en dus reduktiewe denke, sou afdoende antwoorde op hierdie uitdagings van so ‘n werklikheid kon verskaf nie. slegs denke wat bereid is om die volle rykdom van die werklike te aanvaar en dienooreenkomstig aan die dink te raak, kan hoop op sinverwesenliking en mens-en werklikheidsverryking bewerkstellig. trefwoorde: lineêre denke; protesterende denke; meervoudige denke; komposisionele denke; meervoudige werklikheid. dissipline: interdissipline * dept inligtingkunde, universiteit van pretoria.e-pos: fanie.debeer@up.ac.za de  beer   292 abstract multiple thinking: do institutions smother/kill thought? thought is the most distinct ability of humans. for humans to be fully developed beings the full development of this ability is required. when this is neglected humans become less human and all relationships humans are involved with will be damaged. this damage can with time assume catastrophic proportions. it can cause the collapse of societies and even the downfall of civilisations. this article reflects on the importance of multiple or compositional thinking as the ideal mode of thinking, on the essential problem that thought development is hindered by the preferable emphasis on simplified thinking, as the easily adoptable mode of thinking, and on the possible impoverishing consequences for individuals and societies of such strategies as it finds expression, comes to fruition and are enforced in institutional contexts: education, politics, culture. the smothering/killing of multiple thinking takes effect. eventually simplified thinking becomes the general attitude in society as a whole. the alarming proportions already assumed due to the loss of thorough thinking are immense. it affects schools, universities, scientific work, political institutions, and administrative activities over a broad spectrum – as a matter of fact already the whole of society. we are confronted hereby with enormous challenges. in case these considered arguments are valid, as many would suggest, the situation has urgently to be reversed. some proposals in this regard are made. it is first of all required to ponder the limitations of limited thought and its consequences. additional to this it is necessary to realise that attitudes regarding poor thinking should be changed, that the poverty thereof be accepted, and that alternative thought routes are available. at the same time an awareness of the complexity of reality, human reality as well as natural reality, in its multiplicity and scope, should be kept vividly alive. no simplified, linear, and hence reductive thinking can offer adequate answers to the challenges of such a reality. only a thought, willing to accept this and to think accordingly, will have a hope of the fulfilment of meaning and the enrichment of humans and reality. keywords: linear thinking; protest thinking; multiple thinking; compositional thinking; multiple reality. discipline: interdiscipline inleiding die leser behoort uit die tema af te lei dat menslike denke baie belangrik is. dit mag klink na ‘n vanselfsprekendheid. alle mense dink immers. daarteen stry niemand en ‘n mens sal selfs verbaas wees oor hoeveel mense, selfs diegene van wie dit nie verwag word nie, wel dink. in hierdie artikel word die feit egter beklemtoon dat mense tot die maksimum behoort te dink, heelhartig moet dink, so goed as moontlik behoort te dink (pascal). enersyds het dit met selfverwesenliking te doen, met die volle ontplooiing van die self, met die omvattendste en indringendste moontlike ingebedheid in die werklikheid, midde in dit wat is. dit is die enigste manier hoe mense by ‘n eie plek in hierdie geheel kan uitkom en sin daarvan kan maak. dit gaan egter ook om die samelewing en wat van ‘n samelewing sonder oortuigde denkers word – en onthou: hier word nie in die eerste plek, of selfs slegs van filosowe gepraat nie. samelewings kan sonder professionele filosowe wees, maar gewis nie sonder denkende mense nie. daarsonder gaan hulle onder, verloor hulle die sin van die lewe, want hulle verloor alle perspektief en veral ‘n uitsig op die toekoms. versmoor/vermoor  instellinge  denke?   td, 6(2), desember 2010, pp. 291-306 293 daarom: om so goed moontlik te dink, is ‘n soort roeping wat met menswees gegee is, in ons menswees ingebou is. hoe meer en beter daar gedink word, hoe meer en beter is die soort mense wat ons word. die strewe moet altyd bly: die ontwikkeling van volle humaniteit; dit beteken ook vervulde humaniteit. dit is geen vanselfsprekende saak nie. denke het baie vyande, dikwels selfs uit onverwagse oorde. deur die eeue het baie al gewaarsku teen die fataliteit van denk-afwesigheid. socrates se besoeke aan die markplein in athene, griekeland, was om die volk aan die dink te kry, mense vrae te laat vra oor hulle doel in die lewe. pascal (1963:116) maak die punt: heel onze waardigheid is dus in het denken gelegen. … laten wij dus ons bes doen goed te denken; dat is het beginsel der moraal. nietzsche spreek sy beswaardheid uit oor die feit dat skole nalaat om kinders te leer dink! heidegger, die filosoof oor wie die meeste in die wêreld geskrywe is, merk met weemoed op dat sy pragtige boek was heisst denken (wat beteken dit om te dink?) (1971) een van sy mins gelese boeke is. jacques lacan maak ‘n groot saak uit oor “die wil tot onkunde”, wat direk te doen het met ‘n doelbewuste onwilligheid om te dink, wat byna wesenlik tot menswees behoort, ongeag die vermoë daartoe waaroor mense beskik. on-kundigheid en denk-loosheid, is onlosmaaklik verbind, is karperde wat ons – indiwidue, groepe, samelewings, kulture, beskawings -oor die afgronde voer. enige studie van enige sulke entiteite bring ons telkens by hierdie gedagte uit. dit lei mense tot domheid, onnoselheid en afstomping. daar is in die jongste tyd nogal heelwat hieroor geskrywe: george steiner (1999) met sy barbarisme van onkunde, avital ronel (2003) met haar stupidity en die bekende le magazine littéraire (2007) met ‘n spesiale uitgawe oor la bêtise (domheid) is maar drie voorbeelde. die grootste onguns, of selfs minagting, wat aan mense bewys kan word, is om hulle die reg tot optimale denke te ontsê. dit maak van mense minder mense, gebrekkige mense; dit is soos iemand wat sonder ‘n ledemaat oor die weg moet kom. die verskil is egter: in hierdie geval is die ledemaat wel daar maar doelbewus onderontwikkel en as gevolg van die onderbenutting gaan dit natuurlik agteruit en verloor uiteindelik sy funksie. dit maak van mense wesens wat op twee in plaas van vier silinders loop. vitaliteit en energie is weg. die ergste is dat hierdie aftakeling van menswees dikwels onder die voorwendsel van goeie of selfs die beste bedoelinge geskied in die naam van vaardigheidsontwikkeling en die daarmee gepaardgaande berekende bevordering van resepmatigheid. die versmoring/vermoording van denke die mate waartoe ons tot volle, denkende, reflekterende mense ontwikkel hang baie van onsself af, maar het ook baie te doen met die omgewings, samelewings, kulture waarin ons ons bevind, die kwaliteite, inspirasies en geestelike gehalte daarvan en ook van die instellings wat binne hierdie kontekste beslag kry en invloed uitoefen. veral vier groepe instellings is hier van belang: die onderwys, navorsing, korporatiewe en politieke instellings. die kernvraag hier is of instellings meervoudige denke versmoor/vermoor? die hoofklem, vir ons doeleindes, sal op die onderwys as instelling val, veral hoër onderwys en veral ook die mate waartoe dit met navorsing en wetenskap verband hou. wat my aan die dink gesit het oor hierdie spesifieke tema is veral die onlangse boek van mary evans: killing thinking: the death of the universities (2004) en saam hiermee behoort die boek van frank furedi: where have all the intellectuals gone? (2006) ook aandag te geniet. de  beer   294 haar gedagtes het op vrugbare grond geval, want as ‘n mense vir jare aan universiteite en navorsingsinstellings betrokke was en dit enigsins op ‘n deurdagte wyse probeer doen het, ontdek jy gou hoe ‘n groot vyand van volle denke hierdie sogenaamde “denk”-instellings eintlik is. hulle werk almal onder die voorwendsel van denkbevordering in die oortreffende trap sonder dat daar besef word dat dit eintlik maar herhalende, lineêre en reproduktiewe denke is wat hulle strewe om te bevorder. michel serres (1997:93) skrywe byvoorbeeld: all my life i marvelled at the hatred of intelligence that makes up the tacit social contract of so-called intellectual establishments. dit laat my dink aan ‘n ervaring van ‘n aantal jaar gelede toe ek vir ‘n navorsingsprogram van die destydse wetenskaplike adviesraad, wat oor die implementering en benutting van navorsingsbevindinge gehandel het, verantwoordelik was en ek voorgestel het dat ‘n bepaalde filosoof (radnitzky), wat geheel en al in die kraal van hierdie mense en hulle program gepraat en geskrywe het, uitgenooi word om insette tot die program te maak. die aansoek was onsuksesvol. op ‘n dag ontvang ek ‘n lêer van die president van een navorsingsraad wat dokumentasie oor vergaderings wat gehou is, bevat het en ontdek toe in die lêer ‘n nota (wat tydens een van die vergaderings gestuur was) van die president van ‘n ander navorsingsraad met die woorde: kan ons dit werklik bekostig om mense van dié aard by ons program betrokke te kry? die verklaring vir die mislukte aansoek lê voor die hand. “mense van dié aard” (maw. professionele denkers, dws mense wat denke in ‘n omvattende sin wil bevorder) is nie bekostigbaar vir navorsingsrade nie, selfs al praat hulle in dieselfde idioom en bevorder hulle wêreldwyd dieselfde saak. “the hatred of intelligence” waaroor serres skrywe, oorheers dikwels die besluite wat in institusies geneem word. ons moet ook onthou dat instellings woeker met mag en dus heul met maghebbers om hulle aan hulle kant te kry, want daar kry hulle hulle geld vandaan, behalwe die wat hulle self moet genereer, maar meesal onnadenkend doen. maghebbers floreer natuurlik op hierdie impak wat hulle weet hulle mag het. niemand in die magstrukture mag ooit in die verleentheid gestel word nie. om denkende mense verleë te maak, is natuurlik eerder ‘n deug en selfs ‘n stokperdjie, maar nooit ‘n skande nie. die onlangse “waterreferaat-episode” (2008) is een baie ontstellende voorbeeld hiervan. instellings kan eerder ‘n hele bevolking se besmetting bevorder, of onge-erg daaroor wees, as om toe te laat dat een denkende navorser ‘n patetiese regering, wat die minimum aan dienste verskaf, deur dringende en tydige waarskuwings in die verleentheid plaas. die ergste van alles, so word deur die betrokke direkteur-generaal berig, is dat min of meer dieselfde referaat juis ‘n maand of wat tevore by die departement waterwese gelewer is met omvattende debatvoering daaroor en sonder probleme. mag het nog altyd en sal ook altyd ware denke kortwiek, aan bande lê, versmoor en selfs vermoor. natuurlik sal almal beweer dat denke bevorder word, maar dan ‘n baie duidelik verskraalde en presies gedefinieerde denke. in hierdie nuwe wêreld van geleerdheid het ons ‘n nagmerrie van ‘n ander aard, skrywe evans (2004:52): “the horrors of force, violence, physical coercion and hardship are replaced by the slow suffocation of the spirit, the intellect and the capacity to resist.” soos in die engeland waaroor sy skrywe, het ons in suid-afrika ook hewige porsies van alles hiervan. mense word fisies vermoor en geestelik versmoor en vermoor. versmoor/vermoor  instellinge  denke?   td, 6(2), desember 2010, pp. 291-306 295 om verder terug te keer na evans. intellektuele vitaliteit en kreatiwiteit moet plek maak vir ouditering, assessering, meting en regulering. die verskuiwing wat hier ter sprake is, word so deur haar verwoord: [it] is a shift from a collective world in which independent and critical thought was valued, to a collective world in which universities are expected to fulfil not these values but those of the marketplace and the economy. this discussion is not derived from a nostalgia for the past, but a fear for the future. in particular the concern which inspires these pages is that of the evolution of the universities into institutions which only serve a very smallminded master: the rational bureaucratic state of the twenty-first century. (evans 2004:3). in hierdie instellings is denke ‘n hoogs-toevallige en oorbodige verskynsel en besmet met ideëblindheid. in sulke situasies gee die berekenbare, voorspelbare en beheerbare – en veral ook die voorstelbare die toon aan. standaardisering in lyn met die laagste gemene deler is die doelwit al word dit internasionaal genoem. die ‘slaap van die rede’ (evans 2004:128) het finaal ingetree. ons het ons eie katastrofiese benghu/asmal episodes waarvan suid-afrikaanse universiteite waarskynlik nooit sal herstel nie. dit is ewe moeilik om te sien hoe die skole gaan herstel. die gereelde reaksie oor eksamenuitslae by skole en die retoriek daaromheen bevestig weer duidelik hoe min daar werklik omgegee word vir dit waarom dit eintlik in ons samelewing behoort te gaan. hierdie verskuiwing geskied boonop onder die vaandel van die hoog-edele demokratiese ideaal en die nog edeler transformasieproses. sosiale geregtigheid, volgens ‘n bepaalde definisie en ekonomiese noodsaaklikheid, ook volgens ‘n sekere begrip daarvan, is twee van die belangrikste pilare wat nuwe mense moet voortbring uit die nuwe doelgerigte, uitkomsgerigte, saqagesertifiseerde, leerplanne. wat die verwikkelinge werklik meebring is ‘n kwasie-demokratiese ethos van instemming met die waardes van die mark-ekonomie waarbinne denke onbekostigbaar geword het. under the umbrella of the principle that recipients of public money should be accountable to public scrutiny was included an explicit commitment to a particular form of public – a public which wholeheartedly endorsed the market (evans 2004:23). vir hierdie enggeestige meester, die rasioneel-burokratiese staat “only battery farming for the mind promises that reason will never escape to serve anything except the most avaricious and limited keeper”. (evans 2004:27). sy gaan egter nog verder en baie meer op die punt af wanneer sy die fokus van navorsingsinstellings ook binne universiteite karakteriseer. sy skrywe: but the skills necessary for technical competence are not the same as those necessary, indeed essential, for intellectual creativity or understanding. moreover, it is a basic misunderstanding of science and technology to assume that learning in these subjects necessarily follows a mechanistic pattern. the sad truth is that the authors of assessment want the world, and indeed everything we might possibly know about it, to be organized into the bite size portions of mass catering. the standard potato chip becomes the standard idea, it has measurements and it has contours and nobody will be given one that is a peculiar shape or made of different materials. given that mass catering also depends upon ‘portion control’ we can also expect that no one will receive more (or less) ‘knowledge’ than anyone else. (evans 2004:71-72). de  beer   296 mag en die haat vir intelligensie seëvier hier. terwyl die devaluasie van die sosiale en intellektuele waarde van ‘n graad een van die belangrike prestasies van hierdie verskuiwing is, is ‘die vermorsing van menselewens’ waarvan eliot in middelmarch skrywe (evans 2004:40), waarskynlik die grootste, maar ook hartseerste uitkoms van uitkomsgerigte onderwys en portuurge-evalueerde navorsing. aangesien die hele aangeleentheid van hierdie betoog handel oor die impak van instellings op indiwidue en gemeenskappe se denke en lewens, moet enige alternatief, maar veral die komposisionele denke, intens met mense en hulle maksimale vermoëns rekening hou en ook met die werklike ontmenslikende aspekte van die impak. soos geargumenteer is: die lineêre, enkelvoudige, representatiewe denke maak van ons minder volwaardige mense wat ook afskuur op menseverhoudinge en institusionele opsette. die mensvervullende, meervoudige of komposisionele denke moet sterk inspeel op die verwesenkliking hiervan in alle kontekste anders raak die lewens vermors. hiervoor is die etiek van levinas besonder waardevol en veral ook in die lig van judith butler se interpretasie daarvan vir institusionele opsette, veral opsette waarbinne fel aanslae teen die menswetenskappe en veral die humaniora (deesdae so algemeen) geloods word. individuele kwaliteite, institusionele foki, samelewingsgehalte verrys uit ‘n etiese ingesteldheid en keer telkens daarheen terug. (kyk butler, 2006: 128-151). hierby kan pascal weer in herinnering geroep word: om goed te dink is die beginsel van die moraal. michèle lamont (2009) bevestig in haar onlangse studie, wat onder die titel how professors think: inside the curious world of academic judgment gepubliseer is, tot watter mate die algemeen aanvaarde navorsingsprosesse akademici dwing om in die rigting van eenduidige, lineêre denke te dink teenoor en ten koste van meervoudige denke. die hele oefening van portuurevaluasie is, al is dit onbedoeld, gemik op die versmoring van denke. dit is ‘n samevoeging van navorsingsmatige, bestuursmatige en ekonomiese magte om navorsers te manipuleer en veral om navorsers deur ander misbruikte navorsers gemanipuleer te kry om op sekere maniere te dink. die oefening is verder grootliks gebaseer op empiristiese en positivistiese strategieë van meting, berekening en kontrole. die bibliometriese meting van aangehaalde werke, as een voorbeeld van baie, gee ‘n indruk of skep ‘n vermoede van impak en kwaliteit, maar laat net te veel buite rekening om hoegenaamd werklike geldigheid te geniet. studente het wel die aandag daarop gevestig dat daar gelukkig enkele dosente, navorsingsbestuurders en redakteurs is wat wel deur hul gewetes en met geïnspireerde geestelike verantwoordelikheid, dikwels onder moeilike omstandighede van institusionele beperkinge, wonderlike werk verrig in terme van meervoudige denke. dit is teen hierdie agtergrond dat die pas vrygesteld boek van gumede en dikeni (2009) oor ‘die armoede aan idees’ in die kol is en die outeurs deelnemers is aan die oproep tot protesdenke. die politieke implikasies van verskraalde denke het verreikende gevolge wat moeilik in situasies van denkloosheid raakgesien word. die armoede aan idees het alles te doen met hoe daar gedink word of nie gedink word nie. die grootste enkele oorsaak van ideë-armoede is denkarmoede. tensy daar dringend op ‘n omvattende en indringende skaal werk gemaak word van meervoudige denke, soos wat hier voorgestel word, kan ons in ons land slegs afwaarts en agteruit beweeg soos wat tans al sterker die geval is en duidelik in hierdie publikasie aangetoon word. die huidige situasie vra vir protes. protesterende denke hierteenoor behoort ons baie sterker stelling in te neem as om in teekamergesprekke ons onvergenoegdheid uit te spreek. ons is meesal so verward en verdwaasd oor die taktieke, versmoor/vermoor  instellinge  denke?   td, 6(2), desember 2010, pp. 291-306 297 strategieë en politiekerye waartoe instellings in staat is dat ons nie eintlik weet wat om te sê nie. boonop is dit nie politiek korrek om iets te sê nie. mag, politiek en strategie neutraliseer ons. tog moet ons weet dat ons ‘n saak het. die kosbaarste en mees unieke van ons menswees, waarsonder ons nie in die volwaardige sin mense is, of kan wees nie, is op die spel: ons denkvernuf. op grond van ‘n oortuigde entoesiasme moet daar luid aangekondig en geprotesteer word oor ‘n paar kernsake. in haar skerp ontleding van die gees van ons tyd as “‘n tyd van katastrofes” beklemtoon isabelle stengers (2009) die belangrikheid daarvan om weerstand te bied “teen die barbaarsheid wat aan die kom is”. die protes teen enkelvoudige denke van hierdie artikel geskied in volle vereenselwiging met stengers se oproep. 1 die grense van die akademie strek veel wyer en verder as die ekonomie en die mark en is dus werd om verdedig te word, veral in die lig van die neweverskynsels van so ‘n eenvoudige fokus soos tot hiertoe beklemtoon is. wat kan verdedig word van die akademiese instellings? [t]hey constitute a set of standards and aspirations that are democratically available and can generally inform the social world about the possibilities of the intellect. going to university to learn how to process received, bowdlerized knowledge … is not about learning to think or consider. it is about learning how to organize pre-packaged information. (evans 2004:44). dit is en bly volledig onvoldoende. 2 verder, idees moet oorweeg word, nie alleen vir sover hulle veranderinge in die wêreld bewerkstellig nie, maar veral in terme van die verskil wat idees aan ander idees maak. die verhouding tussen idees, die waardering en evaluasie van idees, die woeker daarmee, die besef waartoe edgar morin (1991) ons bring met sy ontwikkeling van gedagtes oor ‘n ideësfeer of noösfeer en dat daar ‘n noölogie nodig is vir die hantering, waardering, ontginning, en invensie van idees, is aangeleenthede waarsonder samelewings en individue in doodloopstrate beland. met sy aksent op die nous (gees) bring morin die lewe van die gees na vore, teenoor die meganisering, industrialisering en instrumentalisering wat ons lewens en instellinge oorgeneem het. pierre lévy (1994:231-240) skaar hom heelhartig en welgeartikuleerd met sy klem op die noëtiese by hierdie gedagtes van morin. 3 die herontdekking van taal, teenoor die erodering daarvan, moet geproklameer word. kyk maar na die gereelde berigte oor nie soseer eksamenflaters nie, maar oor die flaters in en met eksamenvraestelle om te verstaan hoe taal geminag word. ons het traak-my-nie-agtig geraak oor taal. met verwysing na orwell se 1984 wys evans (2004:50) daarop that to lose the meaning of language we also lose our personal and social history; those living in a world without history have no mechanisms for the evaluation of truth and certainty. en later above all else, this world depends upon literacy and an ability to use and understand language (op.cit. 107). nog meer: die nie-materiële van ons menswees, die geestelike krag van sinvolle lewens hou direkte verband met taal. taalverlies is sinverlies is lewensverlies is toekomsloos. steiner (2001:5) is eksplisiet hieroor: de  beer   298 the future tense … looks to be specific to homo sapiens. as does the use of subjunctive and of counter-factual modes which are themselves kindred, as it were, to future tenses. … it seems to me that this fantastic, formally incommensurable ‘grammatology’ of verb futures, of subjunctives and optatives, proved indispensable to the survival, to the evolution of the ‘language animal’ …. nóg die mark, nóg ekonomiese groei, nóg tegno-wetenskaplike ambisies en prestasies is bevoeg om alleen en op sigself die sin van ons lewens en die toekoms te beredder. 4 in plaas daarvan om toe te laat dat graadsertifikate bloot bewyse van bywoning is, moet betrokkenheid by kennisinhoude in die breedste en volste moontlike sin en by alle verwante literatuur dringend by studente in ere herstel word. uit hierdie betrokkenheid kan probleemoplossings van ‘n algehele nuwe aard van stapel gestuur word, soos later na aanleiding van deleuze en guattari se werk aangetoon sal word wat ons weglei van al die skynoplossings verduister deur die aktiwiteite om die skyn te verwesenlik. die dimensie van eenduidige denke (en die gevolglike miskyk van meervoudige denke), wat meesal oorheers in die wetenskapen professionele werkgebied van die inligtingkundige en wat ook weerklank vind in informatiseringsprosesse, in die aktiwiteite van kennisen inligtingbestuur, in kennisorganisasie en in die normale inligtingaktiwiteite, bring ook ‘n verskraling in kwaliteit oor ‘n wye linie van wetenskap-, navorsingen onderrigwerk in die algemeen mee. wat hier gebeur, naamlik die vereenvoudiging van die denke, herinner ‘n mens aan die waarskuwing van heidegger (1971:19) in sy opmerking: “wat beteken denke? bewaar ons van die blinde drif wat op hierdie vraag ‘n honende antwoord in die vorm van ‘n formule gee.” (my vertaling). die kompleksiteit van denke word deur ‘n spottende blindheid afgetakel tot die enkelvoudigheid van maklik begrypbare en selfs grypbare formules. heidegger se protesterende versugting is dat ons hiervan (die verlies van ‘n goeie begrip van denke!) bewaar moet word. dit vergelyk goed met avital ronel (1989: 2627, 419-420, vn25) se waardevolle bespreking van heidegger al doen sy dit met ‘n ander aksent. sy parafraseer hierdie sin soos volg: ..the question of what is called thinking or what does call for thinking must renounce access to an urge, an urge for blindness. this form of blindness would permit us to ‘snatch at a quick answer in the form of a formula’ – a quick answer that would be graspable by the right kind of dialing system. all of this must be given up if we are to stay with the question that asks, ‘was heisst denken?’ (ronel 1989:26-27). 5 fundamentele kennisontginning en goed opgevoede studente, opgevoed tot volle denkontplooiing, eerder as die fokus op blote funksionele fragmente van kennis en op halfopgeleide studente, is wat ons land en die wêreld dringend nodig het om vrede, voorspoed en geluk te verwesenlik en katastrofes en barbaarsheid te vermy. die universiteit bly in hierdie verband ‘n sentrale instelling. oudmodies en uitgedien, middeleeus, sal baie wel sê, want binne ‘n sogenaamde “kennisekonomie” behoort universiteite die mark en slegs die mark te help verheerlik. hierdie eensydigheid kan nie sonder protes gelaat word nie, want dit sal nie straffeloos tot in ewigheid kan voortwoeker nie. ons almal sal uiteindelik die slagoffers wees. om hierdie protesgedagtes saam te vat, maar ook verder te voer, vereis ‘n veskuiwing in ons opvatting oor denke. vir hierdie doel word hier voorgestel dat die term meervoudige denke of ook komposisionele denke gebruik word. versmoor/vermoor  instellinge  denke?   td, 6(2), desember 2010, pp. 291-306 299 meervoudige of komposisionele denke die betekenis van beide hierdie denkmodi behoort gaandeweg duideliker te word. die werklike voldoening hieraan kan die bogenoemde probleme van die vermoording en versmoring van denke deur allerlei instellings die hoof bied en ons selfs sinvol die toekoms inneem. denke in sy veelvoud hou verband met veel meer as ratio en die rasionele, soos dit byvoorbeeld geïllustreer word met die gedagte van refleksie of besinning van heidegger (1983), met verbeelding wat deur soveel denkers beklemtoon word, onder andere bachelard (1968), met fantasie van deleuze en foucault (1980:169) saam met hom en ook gadamer (1977:12) en dit hou veral weer verband met idees. hierdie terme kan almal saamgevoeg word in die een term nous (of gees). edgar morin (1991) se noösfeer en noölogie skets die ruimte hiervoor. om uitdrukking aan hierdie meervoudigheid te gee, gebruik edgar morin ‘komplekse denke’, badiou ‘oneindige denke’, nancy ‘eindige denke’ en serres die term ‘verbandleggende intellectio’, maar om wat dan met die verskillende benoemings te sê? miskien juis om die soeke na meervoudigheid te beklemtoon, om presies uit te kom by die filosofiese vermoë om verbande te soek en te lê, oorskrydings van grense te pleeg, en iets nuuts te inventeer. let ook op deleuze (1988:83-84) se gedagte van “die denke van die buitekant” in sy boekie oor foucault waarin hy die meervoudigheid sterk beklemtoon, veral waar hy na foucault se filosofie as ‘n “pragmatiek van die meervoudigheid” verwys. waar kom ‘n mens uit met die gepraat oor meervoudige denke? dit is allereers ‘n denke wat in voeling is met die syn of die werklikheid in die meervoudigheid daarvan, met dit wat is in die volheid daarvan, om daarop te antwoord deur ons wyse van dink, ons lewenswyse, ons wyse van verhoudinge te voer en ons wyse van kennis te beoefen. synsongevoeligheid, of on-syn-igheid, ongevoeligheid vir alles wat is, onvergenoegdheid met dit wat is, afsydigheid van dit wat is, die toppunt van on-sin-nigheid of nihilisme (die verabsolutering van óf sinloosheid óf letterlik niksheid), is ons voorland in die afwesigheid van meervoudige denke. stiegler (2001) verwys hierna as “die siekte van ons tyd”. in sy syn as gebeurtenis het badiou (2007) mooi geskets hoe onmoontlik dit is om die syn in enkelvoudige terme en in ‘n eenduidige sin te bedink. kyk veral na die eerste deel van hierdie boek (badiou 2007:23-120): “being: multiple and void” vir sy bespreking oor meervoudigheid en hoe denke daarop moet respondeer, alhoewel die res van die boek deurspek is met besinninge oor die meervoudige, byvoorbeeld ‘natuurlike meervoudighede’ in hoofstuk 12 en 14; ‘die vormmeervoudige van intervensie’ in hoofstuk 22; ‘die natuurlike kwantitatiewe korrelaat van ‘n meervoudige’ in hoofstuk 26, om slegs enkele spesifieke voorbeelde te noem. hy het die gedagte van meervoudigheid in ‘n onlangse publikasie weer opnuut treffend uiteengesit (badiou 2009:5375). synsbetrokkenheid is ‘n meervoudige betrokkenheid wat op ‘n veelvoud van vlakke manifesteer en ontmoet word. deleuze en guattari (1987) se duisend plateaus en michel serres (1982) se genesis (wording of aanvange), wat aan meervoudigheid gewy is, ondersteun hierdie gedagte heelhartig. om net vir ‘n oomblik by serres stil te staan. aandag aan almal sou baie tyd vra. ‘n nuwe tema of objek word deur serres vir die filosofie voorgestel: meervoudigheid. hierdie “nuwe objek” vir die filsofie is isomorf aan die nuwe geometrie van die wiskundige benoit de  beer   300 mandelbrot. fraktale geometrie konstrueer modelle wat vorme wat in die natuur voorkom simuleer, maar vorme wat so kompleks is dat die euklidiese geometrie dit nie toereikend kan voorstel (representeer) nie. meervoudigheid is die metaforiese voertuig wat serres kies om hierdie fraktale, ook die chaotiese en die stochastiese, of onvoorspelbare, voor te stel. die objek van die boek is nuut maar ook bekend. oral ken ons dit; oral wil die rede dit ignoreer (serres 1982:20)… om meervoudigheid vir enkelvoudigheid te verlaat, verlaat die rede ‘n prooi vir ‘n skaduwee. (op. cit. :17). ons is so min verseker van die meervoudige as van die een. ons veronderstel altyd dat ons nie weet nie of dat ons alles weet, ja of nee. nou, ons weet gemeenskaplik ‘n bietjie, middelmatiglik, genoeg, baie, dit fluktueer op verskeidenheid maniere, selfs in die duursaamste en mees gevorderde wetenskappe. ons bevind ons voor of binne die meervoudigheid, vir meer as driekwart van ons kennis en ons handelinge. … meervoudigheid as sodanig, rof gelaat, op skaars maniere verenig, is nie ‘n epistemologiese monster nie, maar dit is inteendeel die gewone van situasies, verstaan as situasies van die gewone wetenskaplike, die gebruiklike kennis, die alledaagse werk, kortliks, ons gemeenskaplike objek. (serres 1982:19-20)… meervoudigheid word gedink, miskien, maar nooit werklik verstaan nie.”(op. cit. :23). (die aanhalings uit serres is my vertalings). die meervoudigheid wat so voorgestel word as ‘n diskursiewe model moet bevry word van die fenomenologiese, positivistiese, empiristiese bande indien ons by ‘n nuwe epistemologie wil uitkom wat nie langer deel vorm van gewelddadige uitsluitinge nie. ons moet sover moontlik alles in ag neem. serres stel voor dat die tradisioneel aanvaarde metodologieë afgewys moet word indien ons by hierdie “nuwe objek” wil uitkom waarmee ‘n nuwe filosofie [van meervoudigheid] haar wil bemoei. die nuwe metode, teenoor die rasionele, binêr-logiese denke, is die meervoudige denke wat spelend binne die meervoudige geheel van dit wat is heen en weer beweeg. dit is presies ook die boodskap van mandelbrot (1983:19): some quantity that is commonly expected to be positive and finite turns out to be infinite or to vanish … such misbehaviour looks most bizarre and even terrifying [to a scientist] but a careful re-examination shows it to be quite acceptable … as long as one is willing to use new methods of thought. ons sien in ons politiek van die dag, die ekonomie van die dag, die opvoedkunde van die dag, die wetenskap van die dag, selfs die regspleging van die dag, ondanks al die vrugtelose gehamer op inheemse kennis, steeds die gevangenskap binne hierdie lineêre, representerende denke wat altyd direk of by implikasie moet uitloop op geweld en die regverdiging van geweld ook institusionele geweld – sensuur, skorsings, insluiting en uitsluiting, ensovoorts. in die lig van hierdie nuwe metode, die meervoudige denke, komposisionele, a-kritiese denke, lyk die hele veld van probleemdenke aansienlik anders. enkele opmerkinge van deleuze en guattari, as van die belangrikste eksponente van meervoudigheid, sal hier gepas wees en miskien ook aandui waarom daar so min ‘sukses’ op hierdie terrein te bespeur is. ‘n besonder gepaste vertrekpunt vir ‘n begrip van hulle siening kan verwys word na die inleiding tot die boek duisend plateaus (1987) onder die titel “risoom”. vir hulle is dit nie moontlik om die meervoudige werklikheid in enkelvoudige terme te bedink nie. die denke moet ook meervoudig wees en so ook taal as die belangrike voertuig van denke. taal is heterogeen en sodra dit ingeperk word (en ‘n mens kan byvoeg: vir doeleindes van inperking en uitsluiting gebruik (misbruik) word), word taal gesteriliseer en raak dit impotent, dus geheel en al onbevoeg om uitdrukking aan hierdie versmoor/vermoor  instellinge  denke?   td, 6(2), desember 2010, pp. 291-306 301 werklikheid te gee. om soepel en meervoudig te wees en ooreenkomstig die heterogeniteit van taal te dink moet die denke nie inspirasie vind in waarheid en dogma nie, maar in waardes en lewe. volgens die dogmatiese beeld van die denke vind die denke ankers in die simboliek van die boom – ‘n arboretiese werklikheid. hiervolgens verloop die denke lineêr en ordelik. hierteenoor, ten einde getrou te wees aan die meervoudigheid, kies deleuze en guattari die beeld van die risoom. hiervolgens maak die denke nimmereindigende en altyd nuwe konneksies of verbindinge en ook verbintenisse. dit kom veel nader aan chaos as aan orde. alle werklikheidsaspekte word deurentyd oor en weer aan mekaar verbind: materieel, sosiaal, kultureel, intellektueel. dit skep nuwe perspektiewe op die sosio-politiek (die polis en die socius) en op die toekoms. probleme is nie doodgewone entiteite nie, maar meervoudighede of komplekse van verhoudinge en oorenstemmende singulariteite. daarom moet die ondersoek na probleme altyd binne ‘n gemeenskap geskied. elke oplossing moet gegrond wees in die omstandighede van die probleem. daarom is dit nodig om ‘die gekleurde digtheid van die probleem’ binne te dring. probleme en hulle simboliese velde staan in ‘n verhouding tot tekens en die meervoudige denke is al benadering wat hier regtig kan geld. in die meeste gevalle van probleemoplossing bly mense egter gevange in die dogmatiese beeld van die denke wat die waarheid van probleme verwys na die moontlikheid van oplossings. rasionalistiese, soos empiristiese en positivistiese metodes vir oplossings vir veronderstelde probleme berus op die berekening van probleme, vrae en oplossings en nie op metodes van invensie wat gepas is vir gekonstitueerde probleme en werklike begrype van vrae nie, soos dit ingebed is in die komplekse netwerke van sake en verhoudinge. groot denkopofferinge is gemaak en denkers wat ingesien het hoe belangrik hierdie gedagtes vir ons verstaan van en omgang met die werklikheid is, is aan baie verguising blootgestel. en tog het hulle werk deurbrake op alle vakgebiede meegebring. die hartseerste saak is om te aanskou hoe meer en meer mense, denkers, hulle rug op hierdie “bevryding tot meervoudige denke” draai en terugkeer tot die armoede van lineêre, eenduidige denke. hierteen moet hewig wal gegooi word. stengers (2009) is een voorbeeld van iemand wat met mening en met sterk argumente walgooi. so ook salomon (2006) met sy studie oor wat hy “die hoë-risiko beskawing” noem. representasie is die sleutelwoord, maar is ook in meer as een geval die gevaarlike woord. michel serres is eksplisiet wanneer hy praat van “die vloek van representasie”. alles word hierdeur en hiermee ingeperk, vasgevang en opgesluit. representasie beklemtoon dit wat teenwoordig is, hier voor my is, direk gekonfronteer kan word. sake wat so by my uitkom kan maklik die besef laat ontstaan dat dit al is wat daar is. buite hierdie sake wat so by my uitkom, lê nog baie ander dinge, selfs belangriker dinge, dinge wat veel meer bepalend van menslike lewe en sin is. om hierdie rede het ‘n groot groep belangrike denkers duidelik onderskei tussen hierdie twee werklikheidsaspekte: dit wat direk toeganklik is en maklik meetbaar en dit wat moeilik toeganklik is en haas onmeetbaar bly. menslike kennis van die werklikheid en denke oor die werklikheid moet dus hiermee rekening hou. meesal gebeur dit nie en daarom kry ons met soveel distorsies te doen in sowel teorie as praktyk. die grootste rede hiervoor is dat ‘n enkele denkmodus wat heeltemal ontoereikend is hiervoor gebruik word. dit versteur die werklikheid en uiteindelik ook ons lewens. in menslike praktyke word daar dikwels gewerk asof die aarde eintlik maar plat is terwyl ons tog al so lank weet dat dit rond is. dit maak al die verskil. om hierdie twee dimensies te aanvaar en daarmee te werk sonder om die een tot die ander te herlei of veral te reduseer, is noodsaaklik. hierdie meerdimensionele opvatting van die de  beer   302 werklikheid vra terselfdertyd ook ‘n meerdimensionele denkbenadering. wie dit weier, dink op ‘n ontoereikende wyse. gelukkig word ons hierin baie gehelp deur verskeie denkers/wetenskaplikes wat duidelik tussen die twee werklikheidsdimensies onderskei en ander wat ewe duidelik tussen die twee verskillende denkmodi onderskei. elk van hierdie onderskeidinge word boonop meesal op verskillende maniere benoem. daar bestaan dus ‘n ryk verskeidenheid terme vir beide die dimensies en die modi. so word daar tussen die meetbare en die onmeetlike onderskei wat albei natuurlik ewe werklik is (bernardis & hagene), tussen die berekenbare en die onvoorsienbare (ekeland), kristal en rook (atlan), noodsaaklikheid en toeval (monod), determinisme en indeterminisme (prigogine en stengers), reël en paradoks (lyotard), die reëlmatige en die tabulêre (serres), boom en risoom (deleuze en guattari). vanselfsprekend behoort die denke hiermee in pas te wees anders sal verskraling en verarming (sommige gebruik sterker terme soos katastrofe en barbaarsheid) ons voorland wees, wat tans die geval is soos reeds aangetoon is. voorbeelde van toereikende denke is byvoorbeeld die onderskeid wat die filosoof heidegger gemaak het tussen voorstellende denke en mediterende denke. blaise pascal het al enkele eeue gelede onderskei tussen l’esprit de géométrie en l’esprit de finesse. ander gebruik terme soos calculus en aesthesis (wersig), aggressiewe en spekulatiewe intellek (hans jonas), grammatika en retoriek (jacques lacan) om dieselfde onderskeid te beklemtoon. michel serres gebruik slegs een term verbandleggende intellectio om hierdie omvangryke menslike denkvernuftigheid te versinnebeeld wat noodwendige tot invensies moet lei en wat terselfdertyd die impotensie (vermoording en versmoring) van denke en taal waartoe alle eensydighede en reduksies onvermydelik lei, moet en kan troef. die standaard of selfs gestandaardiseerde, of ‘natuurlike’ antwoord (omdat almal dink dit is die voordiehandliggende en vanselfsprekende) van die lineêre, representatiewe denke is die toepassing van ‘n binêre logika waardeur die begrippepare teen mekaar afgespeel word ten gunste van een van die twee, gewoonlik die eerste. die res van die terme sowel as die dimensie van die werkliheid waarna dit verwys gaan gewoonweg verlore of is nie relevant nie, of, selfs nie bekostigbaar nie. hiermee word die pad na die afgronde voorberei. hierteenoor is die rykdom van die twee stelle begrippe veral geleë in die oneindige aantal moontlike kombinasies van terme waardeur daar elke keer iets anders en nuuts aan werklikheid verskyn. hiervoor word ‘n ander soort logika as die rigiede binêre logika benodig – ‘n soort donserige of pluiserige logika (‘n soort vloeibare, beweeglike logika volgens die bioloog, atlan (1979), wat ‘n mens miskien selfs ‘n vlugvoetige logika kan noem, wat daartoe in staat is om die lewende (anders as minerale) te artikuleer. in die lig van die werk van deleuze en guattari sou ‘n mens van ‘n “risomatiese logika” kon praat. guattari (1989) stel wat hy noem ‘n “ekosofiese logika” voor deur middel waarvan die drie heterogene ekologiese domeine wat hy onderskei: die omgewing, die sosiale en menslike subjektiwiteit, op komposisionele wyse en in wysheid met mekaar verbind en selfs geïntegreer kan word. in sy poging om “die eer van die denke te red” wys gasché (2007:296), ter bevestiging van die voorafgaande, op die volgende: what is required of any thinking that tries to save the honor of thinking … is not the theoretical elaboration of rules … but a praxis. … rather than proceeding according to established rules, thinking is properly thinking only in the absence of preestablished rules. its fate, therefore, is necessarily linked to … the task of phrasing what cannot be said. aangesien elk van die genoemde verskillende terme iets spesiaal en eiesoortig beklemtoon, moet behoorlike erkenning aan elk verleen word eerder as dat ons gedwing word om tussen sekeres ten versmoor/vermoor  instellinge  denke?   td, 6(2), desember 2010, pp. 291-306 303 koste van die ander te kies. daar kan selfs heelwat meer terme wees, of daar is inderdaad heelwat meer, as wat hier gelys is. hierdie terme spel allereers die ryk meervoudigheid van die werklikheid uit. terselfdertyd gee dit uitdrukking aan die noëties-poëtiese genialiteit van menslike denkvernuf wanneer hierdie vernuf na behore gekultiveer is. die twee denkterme wat iets van hierdie meervoudigheid beklemtoon, is meervoudige denke en/of komposisionele denke. die spel van netwerkskepping en verbandlegging tussen die verskillende terme wat telkens in nuwe kombinasies “gekomponeer” word en dus nuwe werklikheidsfasette en –nuanses blootlê, kan ‘n noemenswaardige bydrae lewer tot sosiale, politieke en kulturele bankrotskappe van allerlei aard, om nie eers van die uitwissing van indiwiduele ellendes te praat nie. wat nuut raakgesien word, is dit wat gewoonlik hoop bring en toekomsmoontlikhede ontsluit en sigbaar maak. hiervoor is ‘n goedontwikkelde komposisionele denke nodig. instellings moet eerder hierop fokus. wanneer die denke egter versmoor en vermoor word – impotent raak – bly daar min hoopvol oor om raak te sien en voor te lewe. bibliografie atlan, h. 1979. entre le crystal et la fumée: essai sur l’organisation du vivant. paris: seuil. bachelard, g. 1968. the poetics of reverie: childhood, language and the cosmos. boston: beacon press. badiou, a. 2007. being as event. new york: continuum. 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organisation. paris: seuil. nancy, j.l.2003. a finite thinking. stanford: stanford university press. pascal, b. 1963. gedachten. utrecht: erven j. bijleveld prigogine, i. & stengers, i. 1989. tussen tijd en eeuwigheid: de nieuwe plaats van de mens in de natuurwetenschap. amsterdam: uigeverij bert bakker. ronel, a. 1989. the telephone book: technology, schizophrenia, electric speech. lincoln: university of nebraska press. ronel, a. 2003. stupidity. urbana: university of illinois press. salomon, j.j. 2006. une civilisation à hauts risques. paris: éditions charles léopold mayer. serres, m. 1995. genesis. ann arbor: michigan university press. serres, m. 1997. the troubadour of knowledge. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. steiner, g. 1999. barbarie de l’ignorance. la tour de l’aigues: éditions de l’aube. stengers, i. 2009. au temps des catastrophes: résister à la barbarie qui vient. paris: la découverte. stiegler, b. 2001. la technique et le temps 3. le temps du cinéma et la question du mal-être. paris: galilée. english summary: multiple thinking: do institutions smother/kill thought? thought is the most distinct ability of humans. for humans to be fully developed beings the full development of this ability is required. if this ability is neglected humans become less human and their relationships are damaged. this damage can, with time, reach alarming proportions. it can cause the collapse of societies and even the downfall of civilisations. no wonder many thinkers through the ages have warned against the fatal consequences of the absence of thought in the full sense of the word. for this reason, the aim should always be the development of our humanity to its fullest and that includes the ability to think. the self-evident implication of this is a fulfilled humanity. this is unfortunately not at all self-evident. the fact that all humans think, does not mean that this capacity has been fully and comprehensively developed in every human being. this article reflects on the importance of multiple or compositional thinking as the ideal mode of thinking that calls for attention and devotion. it also reflects on the essential problem that versmoor/vermoor  instellinge  denke?   td, 6(2), desember 2010, pp. 291-306 305 thought development is very often hindered in individuals and in institutional contexts because of the chosen emphasis on and promotion of thinking in a simplified form. furthermore, it is a reflection on the possible impoverishing consequences for individuals and societies of such simplifying strategies as it finds expression and comes to fruition in institutional contexts: education, politics, culture, and even religion. eventually it becomes the general attitude ruling in society as a whole. the alarming proportions already assumed due to the loss of thorough thinking are immense. it affects schools, universities, scientific work, political institutions, individual life, and administrative activities over a broad spectrum – as a matter of fact, it already affects the whole of society: acts of reading become stereotyped, writing endeavours are limiting rather than enriching factors, cultural contents and dispositions become lean, scientific explorations are often impoverished and fragmented, knowledge becomes a commodity and therefore empty. these are some of the crucial issues affected negatively to the extreme. efforts to remedy the problems related to these negative effects are cosmetic most of the time. this poses enormous challenges. in case this consideration is valid, as many would suggest, it needs urgent reversal. some proposals to this effect are made. the smothering/killing of thinking firstly, we need to reflect on the limitations of limited thought and its consequences. a core question is whether institutions smother and kill multiple thinking in line with the thoughts developed by mary evans (2004) in her book: killing thinking: the death of the universities, and frank furedi (2008) in his book: where have all the intellectuals gone? intellectual vitality and creativity are to be replaced by, or at least dictated and directed by auditing, assessing, measuring and regulating activities and strategies. universities are no longer places where the values of independent thought and scholarly and critical activities are highly regarded but have become places where the values of the market place and the economy (of a certain kind) are cultivated and embraced. in this context the skills required for technical and economic competence are not the same as those required for intellectual understanding and an inventive spirit. the ‘waste of human lives’, implied by this new institutional dispensation, is certainly the most painful experience of all. protest thinking if this is the case it becomes an urgent matter that the attitudes towards poor thinking should be changed; that the poverty this causes be accepted; and that alternative routes be explored and made available. what is needed is a concerted effort to protest against these mutilating developments. isabelle stengers alerts us to the fearful possibility of the time of catastrophes in which we find ourselves and that, in its turn, predicts the advent of a threatening barbarism. it should be realised that the boundaries of academic institutions stretch much further than economic and marketing matters. universities are there to expand the possibilities of the intellect and this is also highly relevant for any other institution. in addition ideas, and not only practices, that can change and transform the world, should be pursued. furthermore, the dimensions of language should again be realised and rediscovered. the loss of language means the loss of life which means the loss of a future. it is important to realise that one-sidedness is futile. as heidegger puts it: beware of the blind urge that would permit us to snatch at a quick answer in the form of a formula. in the last analysis, what the country needs are students educated towards the full unfolding of thought that will take us away from one-sidedness, from the quick answers caught up in a formula, and its huge potential for grave mistakes, and that will take us forward into a grand future. de  beer   306 multiple or compositional thinking at the same time an awareness of the complexity of reality, human reality as well as natural reality, in its multiplicity and scope, should be kept vividly alive. insensitivity to the multiple and the complex nature of being and the real will lead nowhere. no simplified, linear, and hence reductionist, thinking can possibly offer adequate answers to the challenges of such a reality. only a thought and an institution, willing to accept this and to think accordingly, will have a hope of the fulfilment of meaning and the enrichment of humans and reality. it will open new avenues for thinking about problems. no problem ever exists in isolation. it always emerges in a context with many connections to other situations and problems. a sound understanding of a problem presupposes a sound understanding of contexts and connections within which a problem appears. this requires a different kind, mode, or style of thinking. we are confronted by two different, but closely interconnected aspects of reality; the one aspect is directly accessible and easily measurable; the other is less accessible and hardly measurable. the acceptance of these two aspects of reality and working with them without reducing the one to the other, while accepting their integration, poses the main challenge. many thinkers and scientists are aware of this and guide us in this. they are all using their own terminology to articulate the problem. a few examples may help us: the biologist, henri atlan, distinguishes between crystal and smoke (or smokiness); the mathematician, ekeland, distinguishes between the calculable and the unforeseen; wersig, the information scientist, uses calculable and aesthesis to differentiate the two dimensions; and monod, another biologist, differentiates between necessity and chance. our thinking should be in step with these two dimensions to avoid impoverishment and superficial solutions. there are numerous examples of modes of thinking complying with exactly this. let us start with pascal who distinguishes between l’esprit de géométrie and l’esprit de finesse; in the work of the philosopher, heidegger, we encounter representative and meditative thinking; the social scientist, hans jonas, distinguishes between the aggressive intellect and the speculative intellect; lacan between grammar and rhetoric and lyotard between rule and paradox. these two modes are not in opposition but complementary and are required as such in order to deal adequately with the corresponding dimensions of the real – the measurable and the immeasurable. when this does not happen we encounter distortions and mutilations in the expressions of knowledge. at the same time one discovers that the diverse concepts used to articulate the same reality and problem area, together with reflecting on these by various modes of thought, help us towards an infinitely richer and more rewarding way of encountering and giving account of our experiences of the real. and it must be kept in mind that every single term, and there are many more than the examples given here, articulates in a specific, very unique and irreplaceable way aspects of the real. the possibilities of new and different combinations of these conceptual pairs through connective, multiple intellection, are multiple, almost inexhaustible. two terms articulate to a great extent precisely this response to the richness of the real, namely the notions multiple or compositional thinking. the game of network creation and the establishment of connectivity that enable the composition of new combinations imply the possibility of engaging in new visions for the future and new hopes to live for. well developed compositional thinking, instead of impoverished and lean linear thinking, offers almost a guarantee for envisioning new possibilities for the future and significant alternatives to the unworkable and undoable in which societies and individuals are often trapped. microsoft word 07 de klerk_fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: reenchantment pp. 85-103. an exploration of place: towards an understanding of spatial character s de klerk1 abstract architecture and its influences on our daily life form the premise of the study. every space has a character which is defined by the type of human engagement it solicits. spaces have varying characters and the suitability of their use depends on whether they are experienced as enchanting or disenchanting. hermeneutic phenomenology, which emphasise the importance of context when the experience of a phenomenon is considered, guides the investigation. since the 1970’s various architects have absorbed the hermeneutic phenomenology into their writings and work. those referred to during the course of this paper include christian norberg-schultz, steven holl, peter zumthor, ziona strelitz, nabeel hamdi and juhani pallasmaa. christian norberg-schultz translated hermeneutic phenomenology into architecture in his theory defining the sense of place. this theory delineates that there are two spatial qualities influencing the experience of an environment, namely, ‘space’ and ‘character’. these qualities are interdependent and are therefore explored independently prior to their exploration as a singular whole. an interdependent eco-system defining the relationship between the context, user and built fabric is proposed within this paper. observation and in-depth knowledge in all three areas is required for the creation of enchanted environments. if this system falls out of equilibrium, disenchanted environments develop. enchanting environments engage their users and benefit the community and individuals alike. disenchanted environments do not support their users, rendering their experience of architecture sombre and austere. the necessity of experiencing the world as a place, and not as a space, is a central theme throughout the paper. keywords: hermeneutic phenomenology, understanding, architecture, place, spatiality, sense of place, context, user, built-fabric. introduction2 architecture moulds spaces and thresholds to support activities, define movement and establish varying levels of intimacy and privacy for the user. the spaces we use daily have a significant impact on the way we experience life. these spatial experiences can either be enchanting or disenchanting, depending on the character of the environment. various viewpoints will be layered in order to effectively illustrate the necessity and methodology for the creation of enchanted spaces. several architectural theorists, social anthropologists, philosophers and researchers will be referred to in the development of the argument to ensure that there is an informed reflection on the phenomenon. 1 . sunica de klerk is a guest researcher for the department of architecture, university of pretoria. she is currently employed as an interior architect at boogertman + partners architects, pretoria. e-mail: sunica@boogertmanpta.co.za. 2 . this paper was informed by the master’s thesis: an exploration of office design: understanding the character of our workplaces, by sunica de klerk and co-authors: catherine karusseit and elana van der wath, completed at the university of pretoria in 2013. de klerk 86 this paper aims to determine the qualities which define both enchanting and disenchanting environments. furthermore, the possible solutions of translating the character of an environment from disenchanted to enchanted, will be investigated. subsequently, a means towards the understanding and design of the character will be proposed. a theoretical framework is developed which will be referenced as a benchmark for the investigation that follows (figure 1). the paper follows a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, which was originally developed by heidegger and was later translated into architecture by christian norberg-schultz. this approach offers an interpretive theoretical exploration of the character of spaces within their context, offering the reader an understanding of architectural concepts. the subject offers inter-disciplinary opportunities and so the aim is to investigate its validity in everyday life. the importance of the character of ‘place,’ specifically the relationship between the spatial character and the user interface, and how these are influenced by the building’s context, will be investigated. the discipline of architecture has the opportunity to greatly enhance or significantly constrain our daily movements, activities, gatherings and sensations. this paper will explore these parameters through cross-disciplinary theories and case studies that illustrate the distinctions between an enchanted and disenchanted world where the tangible and intangible qualities are equally important. theoretical framework: the phenomenological perspective phenomenological interpretations in architecture have expounded primarily since the 1970’s when the two main approaches, as developed by classical phenomenologists, were absorbed into international architectural thinking. hermeneutic phenomenology was chiefly developed by edmund husserl (1859-1938) and maurice merleau-ponty (1908-1961). husserl (2012) believed that an object needed to be bracketed before the experience relating to the object could be observed. this view was developed in his epoch theory and mainly revolved around the importance of the experience of the object in isolation. architectural theory employs this branch of phenomenology within its research and design approaches (merleau-ponty, 1996) and is based on the removal of a phenomenon from its context for the purpose of considering its character. in juxtaposition, martin heidegger (1889-1976) introduced the relevance of context within the realm of hermeneutic phenomenology. this theory considers the interpretation, rather than the description of objects, as the most faithful representation of the true experience (heidegger, 2008). heidegger argues that the context of an object significantly contributes to the way the object is experienced. heidegger believed that objects should not be isolated (bracketed) from their surroundings. he argued that we experience phenomenon in-theworld, and that the descriptive philosophy of hermeneutic phenomenology was inadequate for a homogeneous interpretation of the comprehensive experience. this secondary branch of classical phenomenology is generally absorbed within the linguistic, social and architectural realms and will henceforth guide this paper in its exploration of enchanted and disenchanted environments. the value of context in the experience of space is illustrated by various architects, theorists and researchers who absorbed the approach into their writings and work. this paper will refer to their reflections during the articulation of the investigation, namely, christian norberg-schultz, steven holl, peter zumthor, ziona strelitz, nabeel hamdi and juhani pallasmaa. an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 87 figure 1. diagrammatic exploration of the theoretical framework guiding the investigation (author, 2015). de klerk 88 christian norberg-schultz, a norwegian architectural theorist, translated hermeneutic phenomenology into architecture by establishing the profession as being more than merely the composition of space, but also as the arrangement’s relationship to the surrounding context (norberg-schultz, 1996). this theory titled ‘sense of place’ (1996: 412) elaborates on heidegger’s writings on the relevancy of context. it stipulates that the spirit of a place is rooted in its context and that two defining categories can be denoted, namely ‘space’ and ‘character’. space is delineated as the “three-dimensional organisation of the elements which make up a place”, while character is articulated as the “atmosphere which is the most comprehensive property of any place” (norberg-schultz, 1996: 418). he further emphasizes that since similar spatial configurations can have different characters, these qualities should be deemed interdependent. they should however be investigated separately prior to the exploration of their combined qualities in a singular whole. this concept is called “lived space” (norberg-schultz, 1996: 418) and specifically explores the spatial character by which spaces can be differentiated from places. peter zumthor develops a vocabulary which investigates the factors that influence the experience of a place. zumthor deems these factors as important architectural qualities as they determine how users interact with architecture’s objects and spaces (zumthor, 2006:17). phenomenology is established as the best means for the analysis of the above-mentioned interaction between users and the built fabric by juhani pallasmaa (pallasmaa, 1996: 450). pallasmaa develops this argument by indicating that the multi-sensory experience of spaces impact upon us in both a physical and psychological manner. pallasmaa makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the character of space by noting that, although the structure of feeling in a place may be diversified across cultures and individuals, the senses have the ability to awaken any human being’s imagination and enrich our experience of an environment (pallasmaa, 1996: 447-453). peter zumthor’s vocabulary explores the way the built environment entices our senses, thereby activating our awareness of our environment and their impact on our experience within them. when a user experiences an environment which is successfully connected to a multidimensioned context of social, physical and psychological spheres, the environment can be defined as being enchanted. architecture is therefore required as mediator between spatial form and its experience. the theoretical investigation exploring the enigma mentioned above will now follow. theoretical investigations in this article the difference between an enchanted and a disenchanted environment is defined by the spatial experience of the user. enchanted environments are comfortable, animated, inspiring and relate specifically to the requirements of the user, while disenchanted environments fail to provide the desired support users need, are uncomfortable and are unable to keep users interested in the activities at hand (kemp & baker, 2006: xx). the defining characteristics, ‘space’ and ‘place,’ which form the parameters constituting the formation of an enchanted environment, will now be explored. an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 89 towards an understanding of “space” in terms of spatial configurations, an environment can be experienced as either a space or a place. the concepts of space and place are markedly different. a ‘space’ is in essence a nonplace. non-places are explained by the french anthropologist mark augé as spaces which are, in their very nature, generic and offer no opportunity for individualisation (augé 1995: 112). a place, in juxtaposition, is typically developed with a particular reference to specific users and their needs as well as the contextual fabric of the world around it. the characteristics of a space and place are directly linked to the structure of the experience of the user. this experience can either be enchanting or disenchanting. therefore, architecture is not only a reflection of the thoughts and fashions of the time (the zeitgeist), but also of the life and the dynamics of the use of the environment over time (zumthor, 2010: 24). an environment’s functionality, user interface, movement, scale, proportion, thresholds and response to context all influence the design’s spatial configuration. the architect’s apt interpretation of spatial requirements differentiates whether users experience it as a space or fig. 2 fig. 3 figure 2. hong kong polytechnic university’s “innovation tower” (unknown, 2011). from: http://goo.gl/oxswql. figure 3. mori x hako by uid architects (ueda, 2012). from: https://goo.gl/hkosws. de klerk 90 place. zaha hadid’s design for the faculty of design at the hong kong polytechnic university is illustrated (figure 2). it was completed in 2013 to house the school of design. the courses offered include environmental design, industrial and product design, visual communication, advertising and digital design. the executed design offers no opportunity for any ‘sense of place’ to develop or any relationship with the human being moving through the space, other than to intimidate or awe. the architecture acts as sculptural object an artwork and offers or encourages little interaction with its users. although this is an inspiring architectural work, its sculptural, impersonal quality renders its character disenchanting. in contrast, the environment of the mori x hako workplace is demonstrated (figure 3). this environment was designed by uid architects in 2009 in hiroshima, japan. this multitenant building has a unique approach. the tenants were involved in the decision-making process, resulting in a successful installation which accommodated their unique spatial requirements. the site is only ten meters wide at its connection to the street, while being fifty meters deep. typically such a site tends to lead to a situation where the tenant space at the public interface has more favourable conditions compared to those located further back. this design challenged the norm by layering the building, allowing the inner spaces to have additional advantages that equal or surpass the condition of the front space. the ‘forest’ that was created between the tenant areas produces a physical and psychological separation, aiding in creating various levels of privacy while offering an invigorating, visual incentive. towards an understanding of “character” the way spaces and places are inhabited varies considerably. the theory of defensible space (newman, 1996) denotes this difference well as it considers the change in the behaviour of users before and after ownership is taken of a space, which effectively translates an environment into a place. the theory indicates the value of a place as an enchanted environment, since unwanted activities such as vandalism, crime and misconduct are warded off by the elimination of anonymous space. however, it is important to note that postoccupancy studies indicate that an environment designed as a place (intimate and appropriate for a specific set of people), can be experienced as a space (distant and inept) for another set for whose needs the environment was not designed (strelitz’s, 2008). these findings highlight the necessity of intense research and user observation prior to the process of conceptual design. this paper asserts that a design solution can only be successful when all factors influencing the possible use of an environment are considered. the relevance of the social, contextual and corporal context in design is consequently iterated. hamdi (2010) explores an anonymous community’s vulnerability in his book, ‘the placemaker’s guide to building community,’ to illustrate the troublesome outcome when a project is designed which ill-suits the users’ needs. the social housing project was developed according to a standard, modernist (european) solution without researching the local community, resources and culture. a textbook solution was applied to the project whilst completely disregarding the mannerisms and customs of the intended users (hamdi, 2010: 26). upon inspection a number of ill-advised decisions in the design proved remarkably problematic: the sit-down watercloset had been broken as the inhabitants are accustomed to an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 91 squat and had climbed on top. the seat was cracked and the pan dislocated. the shower remained unused since the bucket and bowl tradition was favoured, resulting in the hallway regularly flooding. the gas cooker had not been used since residents could not afford the gas; this resulted in a number of families building a makeshift kitchen close to the communal area on the ground floor to cook on open fires (hamdi, 2010: 25). in juxtaposition, the quinta monroy community housing project in iquique, chile, is deemed a very good example of where the architect allowed users the opportunity to take ownership of their environment (figures 4 7). since the budget for the project was extremely low, the architects rethought the brief and came up with a solution in which the structural elements, that the residents would be unable to do themselves, were all that was provided (jalocha, 2008). the floor slabs, structural walls and services were thus built, but inhabitants could modify their homes by extending, adapting and finishing at their own discretion. this figures 4-7. photographs before and after residents moved into the quinta monroy social housing complex (kim, 2009). from: http://goo.gl/no1v8w. fig. 4 fig. 5 fig. 7 fig. 6 de klerk 92 approach showcases every family’s home as their own; celebrating each unit as unique. the enigma architecture can only be deemed successful when it fulfils its purpose of providing apt spaces for its users in a context-conscious manner. this context refers not only to locality and geographical parameters, but also to its relationship with materials, textures, its users, cultural references, spatial requirements and the ability to support the liminality during the development of its users’ sense of ownership. the experiences one has of one’s surroundings illustrate that architecture in many instances, has become the fabric of the individual or communities’ dream, the escape or the ideal of everyday life and circumstances (de botton, 2006). in-depth analysis, observation and research are therefore extremely important to enable dwelling and not only building (refer to figure 8), as defined by heidegger (heidegger 1971). this paper states that there is no better way to inform a design process than by observation. observation is how we learn from history and how we evolve towards tailor-made solutions. therefore, the design process can be understood as an ecosystem. only when all components are in equilibrium can the designer start exploring between the tangible and intangible qualities of architecture. the process then concludes in the physical construction phase where the action of building takes place. heidegger’s understanding of building incorporates all three these aspects into one, which then leads to one’s ability to dwell within the built structure. figure 8. diagrammatic exploration of building as opposed to dwelling (author, 2014). an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 93 therefore, for any designed space or product to be deemed successful, the mediation between what the architect creates and what the user requires need to be completely aligned (hamdi, 2004: 95). the singular whole of lived space buildings... are one of the keys to our cultural awareness and practices. done right, spaces can expand our ability to think and process. designed poorly, buildings and spaces take from our heart; they literally bleed our energy (kemp & baker, 2006: x). now that the qualities of space and character have been explored independently, the qualities of the singular whole can be investigated. this paper acknowledges the importance of thoroughly observing and researching the contextual fabric before the act of building. an understanding into the liminal space of a design, where one allows for the community or individuals to take ownership, must be stressed. this sense of ownership (de botton, 2006:166) is essential for users to experience an environment as a place and not a space. a place is, by extension of the above investigation, any environment that is experienced as enchanted, while a space is experienced as disenchanting. the design process we need to recognize the interdependent relationship that exists between the user, the building and the world surrounding it (figure 9). there is abundant potential in multidisciplinary interaction and collaboration within the architect’s design process and this aspect needs to be stressed in order to ensure the creation of enchanted places within the built fabric. heidegger’s statement (1971: 160) that ‘only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build’, rings true when we realise that only by understanding how people dwell, can successful architecture be created. this paper proposes that the relationship between the user, the architectural structures and the contextual fabric should be considered as an interdependent ecosystem. the moment the system falls out of equilibrium, design will result in a composition of spaces, rather than places. it is therefore clear that only when there is harmony between these three components, can successful architecture be created which enable the opportunity for dwelling (heidegger, 1971). de klerk 94 choreographing experience the interactions between the user and the environment are found to have a poetic quality when the atmosphere created supports its use. peter zumthor developed a vocabulary in his book, thinking architecture, where he focuses on the intangible qualities which translates a space into a place. these intangible qualities are just as important as the form-giving tangible qualities. the theory is called “the magic of the real” and consist of nine factors which refer directly to a specific ‘sense of place’, which in turn speaks of the spatial character as first introduced into architectural theory by norberg-schultz. the nine factors are explored as follows: • the body of architecture which is elaborated on as the frame or body of a space. this factor refers to the skin of space and adds to the sensual experience of the enveloped place; • material compatibility which greatly influences the sense of place. materials react differently in different combinations, at different times of the day and when used in different amounts. the arrangement of materials greatly exposes the character of a place to our senses; • the sound of a space is explained as a peculiar influence on character. zumthor stresses that interiors are in essence large instruments as they resonate, collect or absorb sound made within and without. the shape and materials of surfaces all contribute to the sound of a place – it can make you feel at home or it can make you feel abandoned and lonely; • the temperature of a space is understood as both a physical and psychological factor. steel is cold to the touch, while timber is warm. each material has an influence on what is seen, felt and touched; figure 9. interdependent ecosystem influencing the design process. (author, 2015). an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 95 • surrounding objects discusses the things that surround us. the objects within spaces and the way in which they can come together to form a welcoming whole. the details of the things surrounding us greatly influence our senses and how we experience a place; • between composure and seduction is discussed as the sixth element and elaborates on how people’s movement should influence architecture. people move in and through buildings and one’s experience is altered in various sequences. buildings should allow for these movements to be stimulating and relaxing. movement through a building should appeal to the user and support the uses of the building; • tension between interior and exterior relates to the threshold of the environments which have the most direct impact on a sense of place. there’s a concentration in feeling when one is suddenly being enclosed. the façade acts as a subjective element framing views both to the outside and inside. the way people use the building, the way these views are altered or utilised at different times of the day or year, all influence the atmosphere; • levels of intimacy not only refers to the scale of a space, but also the proximity, distance, detail and mass. it signifies the way space relates to our bodies and how human scale alters the way we experience a space. it is this relationship that ultimately translates a space into a place; • the light on things denotes the way light falls into and within a space. this factor greatly influences an environment’s atmosphere. the way materials and surfaces interplay with light by reflecting and absorbing various quantities of light, greatly affects our experience of an environment (zumthor 2006: 21-57). these aspects demonstrate the contribution that atmosphere afford to achieve a world with a ‘sense of place’. zumthor’s vocabulary will now be investigated in a number of case studies. each is explored and exploited from within the hermeneutic phenomenological realm of a multi-dimensional context-conscious approach. villa savoye by le corbusier the villa savoye on the outskirts of paris, france, is one of le corbusier’s most famous works (figures 10 13). the villa was designed as an exploration of le corbusier’s five points for modern architecture and is regarded architecturally as one of the most important buildings of the twentieth century. it is interesting to note, however, that villa savoye is also an example of architecture where no liminality between the architect and the user was acknowledged. true to the modern movement’s philosophy that the architect was responsible for the complete building and all of its pertaining elements (berman, 1988: 290-310), the villa was designed as a machine for living. this is a key example where the relationship and end-result between architect and user is out of balance. to ensure the creation of enchanted environments, this relationship should be in equilibrium; with the one unable to be content if the other is not. an example of this phenomenon is stipulated when le corbusier is mentioned in de botton (2006: 58-59) to have reacted with alarm when madame savoye wanted to fit additional furniture in the living room of the villa. le corbusier is said to have merely recommended his clients to keep their belongings to a minimum; stating that furniture was a deplorable notion and that it was to be de klerk 96 replaced by equipment. although the villa is rendered as a significant architectural structure, it is evident that the savoye family experienced it as a space and not a place for living. other aspects of the building rendering it unfavourable for living was the leaking roof, the lack of thermal insulation, especially the discomfort of the winter months, and finally, the skylights that were so noisy that the sound prevented the family from sleeping at night. therefore, although the villa is one of the most influential architectural buildings of the last century, it is rendered as a disenchanted environment from the vantage point of the user’s experience. the villa was saved from demolition when it was declared a historic monument in 1965. figure 10. living room 2011. photograph by author. [transcript]. 4 april 2011. paris. figure 11. facade 2011. photograph by author. [transcript]. 4 april 2011. paris. figure 12. seamless threshold between interior and exterior. photograph by author. [transcript]. 4 april 2011. paris. figure 13. patio to living room. photograph by author. [transcript]. 4 april 2011. paris. an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 97 fig. 11 fig. 10 fig. 12 fig. 13 de klerk 98 therme vals by peter zumthor peter zumthor’s therme vals is a hotel and spa in switzerland. this bathing complex, completed in 1996, was constructed over the thermal springs of the graubunden canton. the building respects the previously existing hotel complex, while acknowledging the unique emotional and physical conditions required of contemporary bathing rituals. this phenomenon is referred to as the ‘art of bathing’ and influenced the ebb and flow of the building’s spatial character (figures 14 -18), not only internally and externally, but also its identity within the spatial matrix of the village. the community of vals were consulted during the design process and included in major decisions during the design’s development (hauser & zumthor, 2007). the result is an architecture that not only speaks to the social and geographical fabric in which it is placed, but also to its users and the experience they desire when within its boundary walls. the informed design approach is reflected in the materiality (locally quarried valser quarzite slabs), intimacy of the various spaces, the sounds and the overall tension between interior and exterior. visitors are encouraged to meander through the various areas, creating their own journey towards tranquillity and restoration. the various thresholds between areas are composed with light and darkness, sounds and varying levels of intimacy. the therme vals is considered a particularly well designed model for enchanted space. the arrangement and configuration of the different environments, as well as their varying characters, all contribute to the bathing complex being experienced as enchanting. figure 14. exterior view (unknown, 1996). from: ttp://goo.gl/fuvumygoo.gl/n9uhlm. fig. 14 an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 99 kiasma museum of contemporary art by steven holl the kiasma museum of contemporary art by steven holl in helsinki, finland, is another example where the intangible and tangible qualities of the architectural environment fuse into a singular opus of enchanted space. holl utilised light as the most significant element of the architectural palette (figures 19 22). the amalgamation and arrangement of the blend between natural and artificial light entering the spaces were used as architectural medium for fig. 14 fig. 15 fig. 16 fig. 17 fig. 18 figure 15. interior detail (unknown, 1996). from: https://goo.gl/ymmuaf. figure 16. tension between interior and exterior (unknown, 1996). from: http://goo.gl/5y0nts. figure 17. interior character of bathing area (unknown, 1996). from: http://goo.gl/p7xani. figure 18. exterior character of bathing area (unknown, 1996). from: http://ideasgn.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/04/therme-vals-switzerland-by-peter-zumthor-003.jpg. de klerk 100 the composition of various types of spatial characters within the museum. the spatial configuration, which can be related to zumthor’s concepts of intimacy, movement, composure and seduction, are all arranged into a collective, harmonious whole. the journey through the museum was designed to be interactive and without hierarchy. the thresholds between the various exhibition rooms offer visitors a moment of repose, with a variation in scale and proportion. the museum is experienced as a matrix of places, as the composition and transitions allow for various degrees of intimacy and enchantment. finally, it is rendered as a successful endeavour for the exhibition of modern art as the pieces appear uniquely posed within the fascinating variety of spatial and lighting compositions. figure 19. atrium 2011. photograph by author. [transcript]. 28 june 2011. helsinki. figure 20. modern art exhibited in natural light 2011. photograph by author. [transcript]. 28 june 2011. helsinki. figure 21. atrium ramp 2011. photograph by author. [transcript]. 28 june. helsinki. figure 22. exhibition area 2011. photograph by author. [transcript]. 28 june 2011. helsinki. an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 101 fig. 19 fig. 21 fig. 20 fig. 22 de klerk 102 conclusion the pursuance of building an enchanted world was captured in the statement by heidegger (1971:160) as ‘only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build’. the interdependence that exists between the user, the building and the world surrounding it was delineated and explored. only when places, and not spaces are designed, can we develop a built fabric which can be deemed enchanting. the spatial quality of an environment and its two defining parameters, namely space and character, was explored individually, where after the interdependence between these qualities was investigated. the theoretical argument was developed with the importance of context at its core, whereafter hermeneutic phenomenology’s relevance and influence on contemporary architectural thinking was indicated. the importance of research and observation prior to design was delineated, ensuring an informed and apt solution. the distinctions between an enchanted and disenchanted world was illustrated through an analyses of the spatial character’s tangible and intangible qualities. finally, the juxtaposition between enchanted and disenchanted environments was illustrated in the sense of intimacy or sense of distance created for the user. references augé, m. 1995. non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. trans. howe, j. verso: london. bachelard, g., 1969. the poetics of space. beacon press: boston. berman, m., 1988. all that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity. penguin books: new york. bermudez, j. 2015. transcending architecture. the catholic university of america press: washington, d.c. de klerk, s, 2013. an exploration of office design : understanding the character of our workplaces. mint(prof) dissertation, university of pretoria, pretoria. [online.] available from: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/32806 [accessed 1 august 2014]. de botton, a. d., 2006. the architecture of happiness. vintage books: new york. hamdi, h. 2004. small change: about the art of practice and the limits of planning in cities. earthscan: london. hamdi, n., 2010. the placemaker's guide to building community. earthscan: london. hauser, s., & zumthor, p., 2007. therme vals. 3 (expanded) ed. verlag scheidegger and spiess: basel. heidegger, m. 1971. building dwelling thinking. trans. a, hofstadter. harper colophon books: new york. heidegger, m. 2008. being and time. trans. j, macquarrie and e, robinson. harper and row publishers: new york. holl, s. 1991. anchoring. princeton architectural press: new york. an exploration of place td, 11(2), october 2015, special edition, pp. 85-103. 103 holl, s., pallasmaa, j. & perez-gomez, a., 2007. questions of perception: phenomenology of architecture. 2 ed. william stout publishers: san francisco. husserl, e. 2012. ideas: general introduction to pure phenomenology. trans. w.r.b. gibson. routledge: new york. jalocha, 2008. quinta monroy. [online.] available from: <http://www.archdaily. com/?p=10775> [accessed 14 june 2013]. kemp, j.m., & baker, k. 2007. building community in buildings: the design and culture of dynamic workplaces.praeger: london. merleau-ponty, m., 1996, phenomenology of perception. trans. c, smith. routledge: new york. newman, o. 1996. creating defensible space. diane publishing company: collingdale. norberg-schultz, c. 1996.the phenomenon of place. in nesbitt, k. ed. theorizing a new agenda for architecture. princeton architectural press: new york, 412-428. norberg-schultz, c. 1984.genius loci – towards a phenomenology of architecture. new york: rizzoli. pallasmaa, c. 1996. the geometry of feeling. in nesbitt, k. ed. theorizing a new agenda for architecture. princeton architectural press: new york, 447-453. pallasmaa, j. 2015. light, silence, and spirituality in architecture and art. in bermudez, j. ed. transcending architecture. the catholic university of america press: washington, d.c., 29-32. sharr, a, 2010. heidegger for architects. routledge: new york. strelitz, z. 2008. buildings that feel good. riba publishing: london. zumthor, p. 2006. atmospheres: architectural environments and surrounding objects. birkhäuser architecture: basel. zumthor, p. 2010 .thinking architecture. 3 (expanded) ed. birkhäuser architecture: basel. microsoft word 05 elliott and silverman.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 57-72. music, personhood, and eudaimonia: implications for educative and ethical music education d j elliott1and m silverman2 abstract. this paper proposes that educative and ethical music making and teaching, which is based on a praxial philosophy of music education (elliott and silverman, 2014), can be carried out in a variety of ways that create places and spaces, in schools and community settings, for a variety of human values or “goods” that include, but go beyond, making and listening to classical instrumental music, or any other kind of music, for “the music itself.” one premise of this philosophical discussion is that music does not have one value; music has numerous values, depending on the ways in which it is conceived, used, and taught by people who engage in specific musical styles. for example, when music education is ethically guided—when we teach people not only in and about music, but also through music—we achieve what aristotle and many other philosophers consider the highest human value—eudaimonia—which is a multidimensional term we explain the body of this paper. following an examination of three community music settings that exemplify educative and ethical musical interactions, the paper provides a brief explanation of the nature of personhood that draws from embodied, enactive, empathetic, and ecological concepts put forth by several contemporary cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind nature. this sections leads to an examination to main constituents of eudaimonia: happiness and wellbeing as conceived by various scholars during the last 2500 years. the discussion ends by integrated the above themes with a discussion of a praxial philosophy of music education and its implications for school and community music education. keywords. school music, community music, ethics, praxis, personhood, well-being what does it take to educate the students we serve? pedro noguera (2009), a renowned new york university educational scholar, argues that, “if you cannot answer that question, you shouldn’t be doing this work. but it’s not a simple question. because to answer the question, you have to know and understand the children [all students] you serve.” 1 david elliott is a professor of music and music education at the steinhardt school of culture, education, and human development, new york university. davidelliott1@gmail.com 2 marissa silverman is associate professor and coordinator of undergraduate music education at john j. cali school of music, montclair state university. silvermanm@mail.montclair.edu elliott and silverman 58 what does it mean to know and understand our students? and why should music educators, university music professors, private studio teachers, community music facilitators care about the meanings and implications of personhood and eudaimonia? regardless of students’ ages, or the fields of music we are preparing them for, “doing this work” effectively, educatively, and ethically means that our aims and teaching strategies should include enabling our students to achieve musical and personal abilities and dispositions that will increase the likelihood that they will experience deeper and broader eudaimonic values now and in the future. in other words, music education of whatever kind—in the contexts of schools and/or community music settings of all kinds—is not only about improving people’s technical musical skills, artistry, creativity, and verbal musical knowledge to whatever level they choose to achieve. it is also about being continuously mindful that one’s school or university students, and/or the children, youth, and adults one is teaching in various kinds of community music settings, are as important as the musical abilities they are working to acquire. music students and amateur musicians who become miserable, unhealthy, discouraged, anxious (and so on) during their music learning and music making experiences will not achieve their musical potential, and they will certainly not experience the joys and other values of music making. in some instances, they may grow to hate music altogether. educative and ethical music teaching and music making balances the care, growth, and positive transformation of students as persons with teaching strategies and conditions that foster artistry. music education can humanize, but it can also dehumanize. it depends. it depends on whether music educators are educative, or not. again, we are not saying that musicianship and musicality—including musical-artisticcreative skills and understandings—are secondary. what we are suggesting is that when music teaching and learning are exclusively concerned with “the music,” then it is less likely that students’ experiences will not be as effective, intrinsically joyful, and artistically motivating as they could be. thus, in addition to being informed about students’ musical and educational needs and desires, music educators at all levels of instruction (elementary, secondary, tertiary) should be mindful of each student’s multidimensional personhood— artistic, emotional, cognitive, social, cultural, and personal. to take an extreme but useful example, while the great german conductor herbert von karajan was an astonishing artist—due to his profound talent and training—he made the deliberate decision to continue conducting and recording in germany throughout the period of the third reich, thereby supporting hitler’s dictatorship and feeding his own appetite for musical recognition and promotion. he was “taught and trained” well, in the sense that he received superb instruction. but he was not given a fully educative and ethical musical education, which may have motivated and guided him to make the crucial moral decision to leave the third reich and continue his musical career in a democratic nation, which many other superb german musicians did. this paper proposes that educative and ethical music making and teaching, which is based on a praxial philosophy of music education (elliott and silverman, 2014), can be carried out in a variety of ways that create places and spaces (in schools and community settings) for a variety of human values or “goods” that include, but go beyond, making and listening to classical instrumental music for “the music itself.” indeed, music does not have one value; music has numerous values, depending on the ways in music, personhood, and eudaimonia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 57-72. 59 which it is conceived, used, and taught by people who engage in specific musical styles. for example, when music education is ethically guided—when we teach people not only in and about music, but also through music—we achieve what aristotle and many other philosophers consider the highest human value—eudaimonia—which is a multidimensional term that means full human flourishing: a “good life” of significant, enjoyable, and meaningful work and leisure; personal and community health and well-being; virtue; and fellowship, selfworth, and happiness for the benefit of oneself and others. any reader who may find these values academically “soft,” extramusical, or irrelevant to music education and community music may want to consider this: what these values have in common is the fact that people seldom ask, “why do you want . . . happiness, health and well-being, enjoyment, self-worth, fellowship, and similar values?” (beck, 1974, p. 21). thus, in our praxial philosophy of music and music education, both musical artistry and eudaimonia are among the ultimate aims of music making and music teaching and learning. the following discussion proceeds in four sections. first, we discuss three contrasting, reallife examples of music and community music being “put to work” for social justice, positive identity formation, health and well-being, and the enhancement of personal and community happiness and transformation. next, we provide a very brief introduction to the nature of personhood, which we explain in detail elsewhere (elliott and silverman, 2014). in the third section, we focus on the nature of happiness—a central constituent of full human flourishing—which is frequently misunderstood, despite the fact that happiness has a central place in everyone’s life, that people frequently find great happiness in making and listening to music, and that happiness has been at the center of centuries of philosophical, psychological, sociological and, recently, neuroscientific research. we conclude with several implications for music teaching and learning. community music narratives: three examples of educative music engagement the city of limerick, ireland is situated along the banks of the river shannon. picturesque and culturally rich, it is the fourth most populated city in all of ireland. as such, its population has become much more diverse in recent decades due to the advent of the eu and its erasure of traditional border restrictions. in 2001, helen phelan, professor and director of the masters program in ritual chant and song, sought to meet the needs of newly migrant communities in ireland. she has achieved many of her aims by establishing “sanctuary,” an open-access community music program that acts as a support group for new migrants in limerick. the program, funded by the higher education authority of ireland, is an outreach project of the irish world academy of music and dance at the university of limerick. sanctuary works in partnership with doras luimní, the support group for refugees, asylum seekers, and new immigrants. one of the first community-based initiatives of “sanctuary” was the creation of a women’s choir called comhcheol (the gaelic word for “harmony”) that brought together women from ireland’s traveller community and from immigrant communities in ireland. the choir met once per week at the university of limerick, and the women’s travel expenses were paid by sanctuary. additionally, all children were welcome. repertoire consisted of song exchanges, supported by a number of musical facilitators including phelan and members of the irish chamber orchestra, another dimension of the irish world academy of music and dance. elliott and silverman 60 phelan became increasingly aware of the particular obstacles women encountered in ireland as they en yde yavoured to gain access to higher education. one major obstacle was the absence of child care facilities, which affected many women, “particularly those in the asylum process, [who] were single parents, having come to ireland alone or in advance of a spouse” (2012, p. 172). elsewhere, phelan (2008) writes: the goals of the choir, from the outset, were explicit. these involved exposure to university life through participation in a cultural activity, embodied in the cultural exchange of repertoire from the travelling community and the cultures represented within the asylum seeking community, as well as the provision of a creative space for women to explore music-making. (p. 151) issues surrounding discrimination and integration emerged quickly within the group. in a film documentary of the project, one of the women from the traveller community reflected on her experiences of discrimination, shared by women from the traveller community and other migrant backgrounds: there’s a lot of discrimination against travellers, and there’s a lot of discrimination against the refugee people, like, which it’s wrong, between the both sides, it’s wrong (comhcheol documentary, quoted in phelan, 2012, p. 173). phelan continued her efforts to alleviate the women’s feelings of alienation by inviting the women to bring, introduce, and teach the songs that pertained to their respective identities. the women and children sang igbo, yoruba and romanian songs, as well as songs in cant, the traditional language of the travellers. they also sang songs from “sister act” and irish ballads. phelan (2012) states: “repertoire provided the currency of exchange, with culture bearers from diverse communities offering their expertise and knowledge to the group” (p. 173). doing so proved to be highly effective for these women. phelan (2008) noticed that the women began to open themselves up to the musically embodied identities: “instead of singing songs which might be viewed as embodying their own identities, they choose instead to select repertoires which reflected their sense of the other community” (p. 151). joe mcglynn, a founding member of doras luimní, observed how performing in this choir helped bridge the social, political, ethnic, and emotional hardships the women were facing, especially those who were experiencing isolation. in what follows we summarize and paraphrase mcglynn’s observations, as originally documented in a documentary (comhcheol documentary, 2001, cited in phelan, 2012, p. 173): through choral singing, i think there will be a lot more musical healing and positive communal transformation that will help to ease immigrants’ feelings of alienation in these minority groups in limerick. moving now to a completely different context: in new york city, the hip-hop project—a community music project that focuses on new york city youth and hip-hop composition and recording—is related to a broader initiative called art start. this program began when a group of new york artists decided to reach out to homeless and “at-risk” youth in the city by teaching them to use creative outlets to work through problematic issues. art start gives these youth the opportunity to belong to an artistic community and, thereby, to make their voices heard. through this process, the young people have a chance to heal themselves and their own communities. unfortunately, according to scott rosenberg, the founder of art start, the program only reaches a limited number of youth. indeed, tens of thousands of children live in new york city homeless shelters on any given night (bernstein, 2001). rosenberg points out that music, personhood, and eudaimonia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 57-72. 61 because these youth “have had to survive and not crumble,” they have “developed so much strength, and as a result, they have a lot to offer.” since its inception, art start has introduced 1700 children to more than 200 artists and educators through arts in shelters and media works, which are aimed at teens in “lastchance schools.” as rosenberg states: as exhilarating as it is to work with the kids and see them blossom, it’s also very draining and tough – to me, that’s where the artists are heroic. no one in art start has gotten a penny for what they do, and it’s rare that we have money to reimburse anyone for resources. (connect america, 1997) still, the directors of art start are hopeful that they will eventually build a fully functioning center with music, art, and media studios, as well as performance and gallery spaces. in addition, they envision a student-run store where the proceeds will go towards scholarship enterprise funds. chris “kazi” rolle founded the hip-hop project. born in nassau, bahamas, rolle was abandoned by his mother as a young child. when he was 14 (after living in foster care and orphanages), rolle decided to come to new york city to reconnect with his biological mother. sadly, the reunion failed, and rolle became homeless in brooklyn. at 18, and after years living on the streets, rolle found the courage to work toward putting his life back in order (talcott, 2007). he enrolled in the public school repertory company, a “last chance” performing arts high school, where he discovered his passion for music and theater. while there, rolle joined art start. after experiencing the “healing power of the arts,” rolle (2007) created the hip-hop project, a community music program that “connects underserved new york city teens to music industry professionals, who help them write, produce, and market their own compilation albums on youth issues.” due to rolle’s musical skills and creativity, his praxial-ethical mindset, and his empathetic disposition, teens involved in the hip-hop project began to create hip-hop pieces that expressed their deeply personal narratives. rolle enabled and empowered the young people to rap about issues they felt uncomfortable discussing and to express their feelings creatively, in order to work through their pain. as rolle stated in an interview with kam williams (2007): for folks living in tough situations, like foster care, or the homeless, i’d say to them, “try to surround yourself with people who care. there are people out there. sometimes, it won’t be blood relatives, but you’ve got to surround yourself with people who tell you that you can be somebody, and that, whatever you need, they will support you.” and for folks who want to break into the music industry, i’d say, “just be honest in your music. write music that comes from your heart ... that represents you. don’t let the radio dictate to you who you should be. use the internet as a way to find your fan base. use places like myspace and facebook to promote your stuff right there online. that’s the future of music.” (p. 4) through their increasing musical-narrative abilities, the teens became more and more adept at expressing their pain, biases, negative assumptions about others, and so forth. in doing so, many navigated and gradually abandoned the misogynistic, racist, and violent attitudes that commercial rap and hip-hop often espouse toward musical-narrative expressions of serious personal and community issues they were dealing with on a daily basis in their own lives, such as abortion, violence, drugs, death, and absent fathers. elliott and silverman 62 moving now to a third and totally different context, gregory barz (2006) writes: today in uganda, only 10 percent of the population has access to medical facilities; there is only one doctor for every twenty thousand people…while infection rates have fallen in uganda, down from 30 percent to 5 percent in the past ten years, two million orphans and one million persons living with aids represent a need for care that cannot be met by currently available medical resources. (p. 4) barz continues: “at the time of this writing, 38 million people are infected with the hiv virus worldwide. over two-thirds, nearly 67 percent—or roughly 25.3 million children and adults—live in sub-saharan africa” (p. 9). what could music possibly do to help alleviate the suffering attached to this horrendous epidemic? barz explains that the power of song is used “to educate ugandans about the disease, to inform non-governmental organizations about the power of music in the lives of those living with and dying of hiv/aids, and to make known to the world the contours of uganda’s tales of life, death, and disease” (muller, 2008, p. 113). because cultural memory in uganda is frequently maintained within music and musical responses, barz engaged one community in creating, performing, and listening to their own songs about hiv/aids and the efforts of traditional healers and medical doctors in their midst. gradually, the community became more hopeful as their songs moved from musical expressions of profound grief, stress, and despair to expressions of hope for a more positive life. as barz (2008) says, music was able to “re-memory” the community—to “change the memory of aids among listeners and thus shift the attitude that accompanies disease toward one of positive living” (p. 165). it was the people’s embodied musical-emotional engagements, expressions, and experiences of with and of music that empowered them to positively shift their community’s identity and associations with aids and to reframe their autobiographical selves. having sketched several practical examples of ethical musicing and praxial music education for well-being, let us examine briefly the nature of personhood, and follow this with reflections on well-being and happiness. doing so is intended to further support our argument that music making provides a vital and widely shared way for people of all ages to work toward and achieve major “goods” that eudaimonia includes. personhood: a very brief introduction music is made by and for persons. all forms of music, education, and community music pivot on personal-social endeavours and encounters. music making and listening involve personal and social-sonic (corporeal, visual, tactile, etc.) actions and events, interpersonal engagements, personal and collective emotions, and the relationships of all of these to the individual circumstances and needs of persons living with and for other persons. more precisely, learners of all ages are unique, social, cultural, emotional, corporeal, cognitive, intersubjective, empathetic, and gendered human agents. in other words, our intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences of music making, listening, feeling, knowing, teaching, learning—everything we can possibly do, desire, feel, think, etc.—trace back to the fundamental issue of what it means to be the kind of being that possesses, undergoes, enacts, and “performs” his or her personhood. music, personhood, and eudaimonia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 57-72. 63 if so, then any effort to develop a basis for understanding links between music, music education, community music and eudaimonia should attempt to develop basic perspectives on what it means to be a person living in his or her social-cultural world(s). as we proposed at the outset, educative musicians and teachers have an ethical responsibility and a practical need to understand the people (infants, children, adolescents, adults, and/or seniors) we serve. so, how can we provide in this short article a basic sense of what personhood seems to involve? let us suggest, in brief, that personhood includes, but is not limited to, conscious self-awareness, self-identity, spirituality, and our powers of attention, perception, cognition, emotion, memory, and volition that emerge from, express, and develop because all dimensions of our personhood are unified and engage continuously with our socially situated communities, norms, and values. in addition, and more fundamentally, all these attributes of personhood are anchored in and emerge from an underlying set of “personhood processes” that are unified, dynamic, and responsive to our individual environments. these processes include: the body-brain-mind (each is a process, not a “thing”; and each depends on all the others); our conscious and nonconscious processes that arise in virtue of our unified bodybrain-mind. as philosopher and cognitive scientist mark johnson (2007) explains, personhood includes a brain operating in and for “a living, purposive body, in continual engagement with complex environments that are not just physical, but social and cultural as well” (p. 175). notably and emphatically, then, the brain is only one part of personhood. personhood includes and combines “a functioning human brain, in a living human body, interacting with complex physical, social, and cultural environments, in an on-going flow of experiences” (johnson, 2006, p. 47). mind and body are not two things. a human being is not two ontologically different kinds of thing joined together. mind is not a mysterious metaphysical guest that just happens to drop in for a temporary visit at the home of the body. the human mind is not contained in the body, but emerges from and co-evolves with the body. (johnson, 2007, p. 279) all dimensions of personhood make all others possible. take one part away and personhood will be seriously impaired to some degree or another. your unified nature is what enables and powers the you-ness of you as an extraordinarily complex human being, who experiences everyday life as a seamless flow of conscious and nonconscious experiences of all kinds (thoughts, intuitions, emotions, sensations, memories, etc.). another key aspect of personhood is captured in philosopher evan thompson’s (2007) statement that “self and other enact each other reciprocally through empathy … human subjectivity is from the outset intersubjectivity, and no mind is an island” (p. 383). in short, personhood is a co-construction between self and others; it’s not an isolated, internal thing. it follows that human consciousness is in and of the world, not just “inside your head,” and empathy is a cornerstone of human consciousness. note that empathy is not the same as sympathy, or pity, or feeling sorry for another person, or agreeing with someone to make them feel good. empathy means that we adopt (consciously and/or non-consciously) the perspective or affective disposition of another person in an effort to understand that person and respond appropriately to him or her and (depending on circumstances) respond compassionately, responsibly, and ethically. without empathy, people would be strongly inclined to act selfishly, group cohesion and collaborations would be unlikely (if not impossible) and, at worst, psychopathologies would elliott and silverman 64 be common. developmental affective neuroscience (e.g., decety, 2010) is still a young discipline, but there is increasing evidence that human infants are born with unified bodybrain-mind systems that underpin and propel our ability to develop naturally, informally, and formally the dispositions and abilities to respond empathically to and for the benefit of others. in short, empathy seems to be an innate human propensity. why else would most parents automatically love and care for their babies, or bond together in families and groups. we will utilize a musical analogy to summarize several major themes above. the integrated, multidimensional, ever changing processes of personhood, which enable your first-person “i” awareness of your self and your world, are analogous to a huge, multilevel jazz ensemble whose many millions of players (your “personhood processes”) are so expert at improvising naturally and collaboratively with your ecological circumstances that the “beautiful music” of you—meaning your unique experience of reality—flows continuously. the players in the ensemble create your experience of you as the arranger and performer of your life’s music “in all its complexity, emotional nuance, crescendo and diminuendo—the ballad that is the you-ness of you” (blakeslee & blakeslee, 2007, pp. 207-208). this analogy helps to summarize the embodied, enactive, empathetic, and ecological concept of personhood and consciousness we have just sketched, which is original to several contemporary cognitive scientist and philosophers of mind (e.g, noë, 2004, 2009, 2012; thompson, 2007; johnson, 2007). to say that persons are embodied beings is to say that all fundamental processes of personhood, and our other capacities (e.g., emotion, cognition, emotion, memory, etc.) are completely unified. the human brain-mind is in our entire organism and, also, continuously interacting with our multidimensional environments. to say that we are enactive beings emphasizes that each individual actively generates, maintains, brings forth, and actively creates his or her total personhood and personal identities by interacting with other persons and all aspects (social, cultural, political, gendered) of his or her environments. well-being, happiness, and human flourishing for more than 2500 years, thinkers in the domain of western philosophy have pondered the natures and values of wellbeing and happiness, which are fundamental dimensions of full personhood. greek philosophers sought to conceptualize well-being and happiness as processes that were independent of health, wealth, and the ordinary occurrences of daily life. according to the greeks, “human flourishing” (or eudaimonia) and intellectual happiness were the rewards for a life of virtue. as part of developing his concept of education, aristotle studied the governing principles of more than two hundred and fifty different greek states. (beginning in 750 bc, greece experienced 250 years of expansion during which hundreds of individual states and colonies developed in all directions; and the combined population grew from approximately 800,000 to 13 million.) based on his political investigations and his philosophical principles, aristotle concluded that the state is the core social entity and that its prime concern should be to educate intelligent, civically engaged, ethical, and happy citizens (robb, 1943, p. 206). at the core of aristotle’s concept of the good life is his belief that: “every community shall have as its ultimate goal the attainment of happiness; and that city is best governed which provides the greatest opportunity for its attainment” (robb, p. 207). however, an important music, personhood, and eudaimonia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 57-72. 65 distinction must be made between two interlocking meanings of happiness: (a) happiness as a person’s subjective experiences of pleasure and positive affect and (b) happiness in the fuller aristotelian eudaimonic sense of striving to live a productive, meaningful, ethical, and community-oriented way of life that benefits oneself and others. aristotle followed plato in the belief that children should be educated for their productive responsibilities in community life. at the same time, he believed children should engage in guided activities that would develop the “proper virtues” in the processes of learning specific skills and understandings (noddings, 2012). he insisted that educators and society at large should continually revisit the meaning of human flourishing and the best ways for helping young people achieve eudaimonic ways of life. to him, this meant providing a balanced curriculum for the whole child. play, debate, music, physical activities, and the study of science and philosophy were necessary for the proper formation of the body, mind, and soul. aristotle also emphasized the need to balance theoretical and practical reasoning. like plato, aristotle believed that learning should continue throughout life-long study, critically reflective actions, interpersonal relationships, and civic engagement, but with different emphases at different ages (smith, 2012). the concepts of well-being, happiness, and selffulfilment have been considered and reconsidered from greek times to the present day. let us examine some historical aspects of these concepts. st. augustine and st. thomas aquinas proposed that “loving one’s neighbour” is the path to happiness and self-fulfilment. the 19th-century poet, cultural critic, and inspector of schools, matthew arnold, argued that happiness is both the proof and the reward of righteousness. david hume held that the pursuit of happiness was the basis of individual motivation and social well-being. kant construed happiness in terms of moral duty and good will. to john stuart mill, happiness includes pleasure and well-being; and in addition, “individuality, freedom, [and] autonomy,” all of which have “a constitutive – not just an instrumental – relation to it” (appiah, p. 21). nietzsche equated happiness with “a feeling of power” that increases and overcomes resistance. george santayana (1967) wrote that: “happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment” (p. 440). carl jung (1962) offered a variation on santayana’s view: “even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. it is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity” (p. 79). anne frank (1967) opined that “whoever is happy will make others happy, too” (p. 184). cicero, bertrand russell, and ibsen located happiness in the mind’s harmony. montesquieu, george hebert, george bernard shaw, and victor hugo held that genuine happiness was something that involved human sharing or connectedness. in his book, better living: in pursuit of happiness from plato to prozac, the contemporary canadian philosopher mark kingwell (2000) writes: “happiness is not about feeling good all the time (p. 307)…getting everything you want is not the source of happiness but of unhappiness, for when striving ceases so does life” (p. 358). of course, it is also possible to create a temporary sense of what seems like well-being or happiness. every culture has created drugs to alter human experiences; for example, marijuana, heroin, and alcohol, and modern treatments for manic-depression such as lamictal and depakote. however, as the eminent psychologist mihalyi csikszentmihalyi (1999) points out, “chemically induced well-being lacks a vital ingredient of happiness: the elliott and silverman 66 knowledge that one is responsible for having achieved it. happiness is not something that happens to people but something that they make happen” (p. 824). csikszentmihalyi’s research on happiness deserves special mention. after thirty years of research and 18 books, csikszentmihalyi argues that happiness depends on whether a person is able to derive “flow” from whatever he or she does. “flow” describes a particular kind of experience that is so absorbing and enjoyable that it is worth doing for the doing itself. the arts and sports are typical sources of flow. of course, what sets music apart from all other sources of flow is its unique materials and requirements, namely sonic-musical events created and shared by means of socially situated forms of musical understanding and appreciation. one of the most essential ingredients of flow is concentration, and the essential requirement for concentration is a challenge that matches one’s abilities. a piece of music is a multidimensional challenge. a person can achieve flow in the processes of performing, improvising, arranging, composing, conducting, and listening to a piece of music if and only if his or her musical skills and understandings match the demands of a piece of music. we do not mean to suggest that flow is the exclusive domain of elite performers. not at all. achieving flow through meeting musical “challenges” (e.g., a piece of music to perform, improvise, compose, arrange) is inclusive of amateur school and community music makers at novice, competent, and proficient levels and, also, professional musicians who have developed expert level of musical abilities. so, in educative, ethical, and praxial music teaching circumstances, a novice can achieve flow in learning to meet the early music making “challenge” of learning and performing twinkle, twinkle. it’s worth noting that learning a piece of music that’s too far above a person’s current level of musical abilities causes frustration; learning a piece that is below a person’s ability leads to boredom. in professional contexts, an extraordinary artist can only achieve flow by constantly developing new interpretations of familiar works, seeking out new works, and “pushing” his or her musical abilities to maximum levels. viewed broadly, then, achieving life-long flow and happiness in music requires that school and community music makers of all kinds become continuously involved in finding progressively more challenging pieces, interpretations, styles of music, and/or participatory music making contexts (turino, 2008) that stretch their current levels of abilities (to the extent they desire) and give them constant feedback about how they are progressing in meeting new challenges. however, if experiences of flow are few and far between during students’ musical education, and if students have not had sufficient opportunities to be in control of their own learning, then they will not have the intrinsic motivation and musical independence they need to carry on making and listening to music after they leave school. csikszentmihalyi argues that self-esteem and happiness are among the most significant outcomes of musical flow experiences. that is, happiness is usually a consequence of flow, because while we are deeply involved in the processes of meeting an appropriate level of challenge, we do not have time to reflect on our subjective state until of being after a flow experience is over. being happy would be a distraction, an interruption of the flow. but afterward, when the experience is over, people report having been in as positive a state as it is possible to feel. autotelic persons, those who are often in flow, tend also to report more positive states music, personhood, and eudaimonia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 57-72. 67 overall and to feel that their lives are more purposeful and meaningful. (p. 825) moreover, as common sense would suggest, although it is possible to make everyday experiences into flow experiences, complex fields of ethical action like music, which are rich in dynamic and divergent challenges and positive social circumstances allow for and provide support for the continuing emergence of new opportunities for flow development and, therefore, happiness, self-worth, fellowship, and more. in his book, the childhood roots of adult happiness, harvard psychiatrist edward hallowell (2002) conceives happiness as an ability that involves five major dimensions, which parents and teachers can help children to develop. these five dimensions are connectedness, play, achievement, practice, and recognition. the most important, says hallowell, is connectedness, which refers to feeling secure and cared for by others. this is the basis for developing personal optimism, a willingness to take risks, and a “can-do, want-to-do” attitude. nel noddings (2003) agrees: “the best schools should resemble the best homes…[they should] provide continuity in caring relations, [and] attend to and continuously evaluate both inferred and expressed needs” (p. 260). the second dimension is play. students need opportunities to experiment, problem solve, and act creatively on their own. hallowell’s research argues that experimentation teaches children the ability to tolerate frustration and to fail and try again as they work toward their goals. from a foundation of connectedness, and a disposition to problem solve and keep trying, comes absorption in what one is doing and, next, an appreciation for the importance of practice. hallowell puts it this way: a child who plays will soon learn the power of practice. rare is the child who can ride a bike on the first try without falling off. but such is the allure of being able to ride [or being able to sing or play an instrument well] that practice becomes tolerable…(p. 64) through practice comes achievement and with achievement comes the profound feeling of “i can do this. now i get it!” the roots of self-esteem lie not in praise, but in achievement and the flow experiences that accompany it: “when a child masters something she couldn’t do before—from walking to riding a bike to playing the piano to speaking spanish—her self-esteem naturally rises, whether she receives any praise or not” (pp. 64-65). if we want our students to develop and sustain happiness, well-being, and self-worth, says hallowell, we should not go out of our way to praise them; we should make sure that they experience personal achievements in many different ways and in situations of connectedness, security, experimentation, and productive practice. in doing, students will also develop confidence, discipline, initiative, and an enduring desire to work hard. the fifth dimension is recognition. achievement leads naturally to recognition by a wider circle of people—parents, extended family, classmates, members of the group (the school band, choir, and so forth), audiences, and so on. a key point here is that “it is important not only that others value and recognize the child but that the child feel valued and recognized for who he or she actually is” (p. 65). hallowell elaborates this point: when who the child truly is coincides with what the larger group values, this not only reinforces her desire to do well – to gain approval from others – but it reinforces her own sense that she matters, that she belongs, that she contributes. if you feel recognized and valued by a larger group, you will feel connected to that larger group. when you feel connected to a larger group, you will want to do right by that group, be it your family, elliott and silverman 68 your team, your class, your neighbourhood, your company…whatever. this feeling of genuine connectedness to a larger group is the root of moral behaviour (pp. 65-66). praxial music education what is praxial music education, and how does the foundation of this philosophy relate to well-being and happiness? we answer these questions in detail elsewhere (elliott and silverman, 2014). for now, let us say explain briefly that the concept of praxis originated with aristotle, many other philosophers—e.g., martin heidegger, william james, john dewey, hannah arendt, shirley grundy, joseph dunne, richard bernstein, and paulo freire—have contributed to refining the meaning and practical implications of aristotle’s concept during the last 2,400 years. from our perspective, praxis is a multidimensional concept. praxis involves active reflection and critically reflective action for the development of (a) personal and community flourishing and wellbeing, (b) the ethical care of others and (c) the positive transformation of people and their everyday lives. central to the concept of praxis is careful and caring thinking-and-doing for people’s fulfillment and flourishing—musical, cognitive-emotional-bodily, social, cultural, ethical, and educational fulfillment and flourishing. what does praxis mean for music education? very briefly, praxial music education conceives musical actions in three related ways: (a) as critically reflective and informed actions that are (b) embedded in and creatively responsive to both traditional and everchanging musical/cultural/social values and (c) understood, taught, guided, and applied ethically and democratically for the positive improvement of students’ personal and musical-socialcommunity lives. when we educate people to make music expressively and listen deeply, we may consider four basic senses of music education: we educate people in music, about music, for music, and through music. notice the differences (elliott, 1995; elliott and silverman, 2014): education in music involves the teaching and learning3 of music making and musiclistening. education about music involves teaching and learning formal knowledge (or verbal information) about music making, music listening, music history, music theory and so on. education for music may be taken in two ways: either teaching and learning as preparation for beginning to do music, or teaching and learning as preparation for a career as a performer, composer, historian, critic, researcher, teacher, or cm practitioner. 3 chapters 10, 11, and 12 of music matters: a philosophy of music education, 2nd ed., makes distinctions among the terms education, schooling, teaching, and learning. music, personhood, and eudaimonia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 57-72. 69 education through music overlaps with the first three senses since each can be carried out in direct or indirect relation to such goals as improving people’s health, wellbeing, and happiness. a fifth meaning of “music education” arises by construing “education” as a professional endeavour. a person earns credentials as a music educator and may thereby earn a reputation as well as a living. in this sense, “music education” indicates the professional practice of imparting knowledge in, about, for, or through music, depending on one’s beliefs about whether one, or some, or all these senses are important. so, from a praxial perspective, music making and listening have a very wide range of values (e.g., elliott and silverman, 2014, pp. 361-388). praxial music education and community music have the potential to enable people to develop the abilities and dispositions they require to pursue many of the most important human “life goals” and “life values” for themselves and others: a meaningful life; a life well lived; a life of personal and community well-being (cognitive, emotional, cultural, etc.); personal fulfillment; a life of felt significance; and happiness for oneself and others—in short, a life of fuller human flourishing. summing up, praxial music education argues that music educators should be guided by a musically and educationally informed, ethical, and caring disposition. music educators should act and teach artistically, creatively, democratically, and educatively, with a continuous concern for improving people’s well-being in as many ways as possible including (but not limited to) people’s personal, musical, emotional, cognitive, bodily, social, cultural, creative, political, ethical, and democratic well-being. implications for music education music is “good for” many things. because of the positive musical-emotional experiences music listening and music making can arouse and express, music—taught educatively—can make major artistic, social, cultural, ethical, economic, and political differences in peoples’ lives. music does not have one value; music has many values. for example, when music education is ethically guided—when we teach people not only in and about music but also through music, we have greater opportunities to strive for and achieve many dimensions of eudaimonia, which are the ultimate aim of praxis and a central aim of our praxial philosophy of music education. is it possible to witness well-being or happiness in others? yes. in fact, we are constantly engaged in assessing people’s publically expressed emotional states. doing so is a necessary part of getting around in our social worlds and communicating with others. we can and do notice when people are angry, sad, cheerful, frustrated, and so forth, especially when we know people well. but let us add more weight to this claim. antonio damasio and joseph ledoux, two of today’s most respected neuroscientists and emotion researchers, make a crucial distinction between emotions and feelings. based on decades of research, they both argue that emotions are unconscious processes that arise from our perception of endless details of our situations such as threats, temptations, personal inclinations and attachments, cultural artefacts, and so forth. feelings occur when we become consciously aware of changes in our unconscious emotional states (ledoux, 2002, p. 225). two things follow from the research of damasio (2003), ledoux (1996, 2002), and many elliott and silverman 70 other scholars. first, emotions precede feelings. second, emotions display themselves outwardly. we notice changes in people’s facial expressions, movements, posture, and voices that communicate their emotions. noticing these changes is absolutely crucial to understanding each other, including our school students and community music participants. if someone looks or sounds frightened, angry, or joyful, we assume from these outward physical changes that he or she is feeling fear, anger, or joy and, if necessary, we can change our actions and dispositions. of course, it is never possible to experience what another person is actually feeling. unlike emotions, feelings are always private and internal. so you might ask, are our judgments of other’s emotions and feelings reliable? yes, in many cases, most of us are good judges of the emotions of others, especially people we know ell. also, considerable research (e.g., juslin et al., 2011; huron, 2006) supports suggests that music listeners’ can hear and, in any cases, feel the emotions they believe particular pieces and performers express or communicate. we suggest, therefore, that in a music classroom, and elsewhere, we can observe indications of music makers’ emotions of enjoyment, flow, and happiness (or the opposite) as they make music and as they communicate with each other and their teachers nonverbally and verbally. bringing this discussion to a close, we propose that several interrelated and co-dependent ingredients are both descriptive and predictive of happiness: a sense of connectedness, security, and personal autonomy; a disposition to play, experiment, strive, and practice toward increasing levels of achievement and repeated flow experiences; a desire to do things for their own sake; and a feeling of being recognized and valued for oneself and one’s contribution to a group. it seems fair to suggest that many music classrooms, community music settings, and private studios have been and continue to be—or have the potential to be—situations and sites of musical and intersubjective interaction where students can experience happiness, flow, fellowship, care for others, well-being, and many other attributes of eudaimonia. this is so because many school and community musicians deliberately and/or intuitively teach toward these ends and know how to create educational conditions that will make it more likely that people will attain some of these musical-personal values, or human “goods.” the challenge, then, is to make musicians of all kinds, including music educators, more aware of all the values that eudaimonia involves and that are available and achievable through educative and ethical music teaching and learning. in so doing, we will be more likely to improve students’ musical abilities and enjoyment of music making because the foundations of optimal musical accomplishment and the values of eudaimonia are, in fact, the same: namely, confidence, self-esteem, accumulating pride and happiness in and through one’s accomplishments, resilience and flexibility in dealing with temporary frustration and failure, a disposition to search for creative solutions to musical problems, an appreciation for the values of sustained practice, and a personal desire to contribute musically and socially to the positive transformation of oneself, others, and one’s community at large. references appiah, k.a. 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(2007, 10 may). kazi’s hip-hop project. black star news. retrieved 7 march 2008, from http://blackstarnews.com/?c=135&a=3297 microsoft word 02 de klerk.docx td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider-afrika, 7(1) julie 2011, pp. 139 158. afrikanerliberalisme in die tydperk 1775 1975 – die interpretasies van gd scholtz en h giliomee p de klerk1 abstract two historians, gd scholtz and h giliomee, have written extensively about liberal political thought among afrikaners during the period 1775-1975. their interpretations of the influence of liberalism on afrikaner political thought differ from one another in some respects. scholtz acknowledges the influence of the political ideas of the enlightenment on the cape patriot movement of the late eighteenth century, but does not regard these ideas as a form of liberalism. he views liberalism as a political ideology alien to the afrikaners, that was introduced to south africa in the early 1800s by british officials and missionaries. since the middle of the nineteenth century the main exponents of liberal political thought in south africa were british colonists and their descendants. there were always a few afrikaners with liberal political ideas, but they were strongly influenced by british culture or by english-speaking south africans. giliomee, however, is of the opinion that there were already afrikaners with liberal ideas at the beginning of the nineteenth century. it appears from his study that, although none of the major afrikaner political leaders from the eighteenth century until the present can be described as a liberal, in the course of two centuries a number of politicians and intellectuals with an afrikaans background played an important role in various liberal political movements and had a significant influence on the development of afrikaner political thought. although scholtz and giliomee have both made an important contribution to research on afrikaner liberal political thought, it is clear that more research should lead to a better understanding of this phenomenon. keywords: south african historiography; afrikaner political thought; gd scholtz; h giliomee; liberalism; democracy; cape patriot movement; cape franchise; segregation; apartheid. disciplines: political history, intellectual history, political philosophy. executive summary afrikaner liberalism in the period 1775 1975 – the interpretations of gd scholtz en h giliomee the european enlightenment had a significant influence on the dutch or afrikaner settlers of the cape colony, who already agitated for political rights during the late eighteenth century. in the course of the next two centuries there were a number of afrikaner politicians and intellectuals with liberal political views. only a few historians have made significant contributions to the study of political liberalism among the afrikaners. they include gd scholtz (1905-1983) and h giliomee (born 1938), who are regarded by authoritative scholars of south african historiography as prominent afrikaner historians. both have written comprehensively on the political history of the afrikaners, and especially on the development of their political ideas. although scholtz 1 vakgroep geskiedenis, noordwes-universiteit (vaaldriehoekkampus). de klerk 140 and giliomee’s publications are only partly based on a study of original documents, a comparative review of these texts makes it possible to obtain reliable information on the general development and characteristics of political liberalism among afrikaners. both historians were influenced by afrikaner nationalism, but scholtz belongs to an older generation of afrikaner historians, while giliomee has been influenced by historians with various philosophical and ideological backgrounds. a comparitative examination of their studies, as attempted in this article, reveals some important differences between their interpretations and provides guidelines about issues on which more research should be done. scholtz and giliomee both discuss the political ideas underlying the cape patriot movement of 1775-1795, but giliomee emphasizes that the patriots were primarily concerned with local issues and only used the ideas of the enlightenment to further their aims. they agree that the ideas propagated by the leaders of the french revolution had only a limited influence on the farmers in the eastern districts of the colony. in 1795 these farmers proclaimed their independence from the dutch india company, which controlled the colony during this period. scholtz and giliomee both argue that the cape liberal tradition of the nineteenth century had a significant influence on the afrikaners. scholtz regards this as the result of british influence on the dutch(or afrikaans-) speaking colonists, but giliomee points out that already at the beginning of the nineteenth century, before english-speaking liberals such as john philip and john fairbairn propagated liberal views, prominent colonial officials of dutch extraction, inter alia ja truter and andries stockenström, were in favour of a more liberal policy towards the slaves and the indigenous inhabitants of the colony. scholtz and giliomee both state that, with the introduction of a representative parliamentary body in the cape colony in 1853, the afrikaans-speakers of the western districts were in favour of low franchise qualifications, which would give the vote to a substantial number of coloured and black inhabitants, while the englishspeaking settlers of the eastern districts wanted higher qualifications, which would exclude almost all colonial subjects who were not of european descent. during the late nineteenth century jh hofmeyr (also known as onze jan) was the leader of the afrikerbond and a very powerful political figure in the cape colony. scholtz and giliomee both discuss his political ideas, but while scholtz is of the opinion that his views were influenced by liberalism, giliomee concludes that he should not be regarded as a liberal politician. scholtz and giliomee agree that, although the constitutions of the two boer republics (the orange free state and transvaal) were based on liberal ideas, none of the boer leaders display the essential characteristics of political liberalism. scholtz regards jh hofmeyr (junior) as the most important liberal political leader in the union of south africa before 1948. he writes that hofmeyr’s views influenced the socalled “verligte” (enlightened) politicians of the national party of the 1960s and 1970s. according to giliomee hofmeyr was an influential political liberal, but he points out that his fellow-afrikaner fs malan was also an important liberal politician during the period before 1948. he does not regard the “verligte” members of the national party as liberals, because they were only in favour of limited political reforms that would not endanger the dominant position of the white population. intellectuals and writers such as ben marais, johannes degenaar, jan rabie and andré brink were the major afrikaansspeaking proponents of political liberalism during the period of national party rule. although scholtz acknowledges the influence of the political ideas of the enlightenment on the cape patriot movement of the late eighteenth century, he views liberalism as a political ideology alien to the afrikaners, that was introduced to south africa in the afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 141 early 1800s by british officials and missionaries. according to scholtz the main exponents of liberal political thought in south africa were british colonists and their descendants. there were always a few afrikaners with liberal political ideas, but they were strongly influenced by british culture or by english-speaking south africans. scholtz’s interpretation is strongly influenced by afrikaner nationalism, but his view that liberalism should be associated with british influence is shared by some prominent english-speaking scholars of the liberal school of historical writing, who blame race discrimination and denial of political rights to black people on the nationalist and conservative political views of the afrikaners as the dominant group in south africa for most of the twentieth century. however, recent historians have pointed out that british colonial policy in south africa was in many respects not a liberal policy. furthermore, giliomee’s study shows that, although the major poltical leaders of the afrikaners since 1775 did not have liberal views, there was always a small group of afrikaners who propagated and tried to implement liberal political ideas. inleiding in 1977 het ‘n publikasie verskyn met die titel afrikaner-liberalisme. daarin spreek ‘n aantal akademici hul kommer daaroor uit dat al meer afrikaners hulle met liberale politieke beskouinge vereenselwig.2 een van die akademici, die historikus gd scholtz, is ook die outeur van ‘n uitgebreide werk oor die ontwikkeling van die afrikaanse politieke denke, waarin hy onder meer die rol wat die liberalisme as ideologie of denkstroming daarin gespeel het, behandel.3 in ‘n latere publikasie het ‘n ander historikus, hermann giliomee, ook ruim aandag gegee aan liberale politieke denke onder afrikaners.4 albei skrywers het oorspronklike bronnestudie gedoen maar ook gebruik gemaak van die interpretasies van ander historici. daar het egter baie min studies verskyn oor besondere bewegings of persone wat ‘n belangrike rol gespeel het in die ontwikkeling van liberale politieke denke onder afrikaners.5 om ‘n geheelbeeld van die ontwikkeling van afrikaanse liberale politieke denke te verkry, is die werke van scholtz en giliomee,6 insluitende ander geskrifte waarin hulle oor hierdie onderwerp handel, dus veral van belang. 2 ps dreyer, “inleiding: die liberalisme”, ps dreyer (red.), afrikaner-liberalisme (arcadia, boekenhoutuitgewers, 1977), p. 28. 3 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling van die politieke denke van die afrikaner (johannesburg, voortrekkerpers en perskor, 1967-1984). die werk bestaan uit 8 bande en beslaan altesaam ongeveer 4600 bladsye. 4 h giliomee, the afrikaners; biography of a people (cape town, tafelberg, 2003). die boek het ongeveer 700 bladsye. 5 die vernaamstes is: ea walker, lord de villiers and his times; south africa, 1842-1914 (london, constable, 1925); a paton, hofmeyr (cape town, oxford university press, 1964); c beyers, die kaapse patriotte gedurende die laaste kwart van die agtiende eeu en die voortlewing van hul denkbeelde (pretoria, van schaik, 1967; hersiene uitgawe); a du toit, “the cape afrikaners’ failed liberal movement, 1850-1870”, j butler, r elphick & d welsh (eds), democratic liberalism in south africa; its history and prospect (middletown, conn., wesleyan university press, 1987), pp. 35-63; fa mouton, prophet without honour fs malan: afrikaner, south african and cape liberal (pretoria, protea boekhuis, 2011). 6 giliomee se the afrikaners het, in ietwat verkorte en gewysigde vorm, ook in afrikaans verskyn: h giliomee, die afrikaners;‘n biografie (kaapstad, tafelberg, 2004). hoewel daar in die afrikaanse de klerk 142 die oogmerk van die artikel is in die eerste plek om op grond van die geskrifte van scholtz en giliomee ’n beeld van die ontwikkeling van afrikaanse politieke denke oor ‘n tydperk van twee eeue te verkry. ‘n vergelyking van hul interpretasies behoort verder na vore te bring oor watter aspekte daar verskille verstaan en oor watter sake meer navorsing nodig is. daar word nie beoog om hul interpretasies aan deeglike kritiek te onderwerp nie, aangesien dit groter kennis sou vereis as wat in die beperkte aantal relevante geskiedwerke beskikbaar is. die vernaamste eienskappe van scholtz en giliomee as historici, en hul plek binne die ontwikkeling van die afrikaanse geskiedskrywing, moet egter wel in ag geneem word wanneer hul interpretasies vergelyk en beoordeel word, en daarom word in die volgende afdeling, hieronder, kortliks nagegaan hoe medehistorici hul bydrae en plek binne die suidafrikaanse afrikaanse geskiedskrywing aandui. die ontwikkeling en kenmerke van liberale politieke denke onder afrikaners staan nie los van die geskiedenis van liberale politieke denke in suid-afrika as geheel nie, maar hieroor het reeds verskeie wetenskaplike studies verskyn. scholtz en giliomee het van dié geskrifte gebruik gemaak. waar dit ter sake is, word na enkele publikasies verwys wat handel oor aspekte van die breër onderwerp van liberale politieke denke in suid-afrika. aangesien scholtz nie oor die tydperk na 1975 geskryf het nie, word die resente verlede buite beskouing gelaat. scholtz en giliomee as geskiedskrywers slegs twee wetenskaplikes, fa van jaarsveld en k smith, het oorsigwerke oor die ontwikkeling van die afrikaanse historiografie tot in die laat twintigste eeu gelewer. albei beskou gd scholtz (1905-1983) as ‘n belangrike afrikaanse geskiedskrywer.7 hoewel scholtz ‘n akademies geskoolde historikus was, het hy ’n joernalistieke loopbaan gevolg en was hy van 1960 tot 1970 redakteur van die transvaler, mondstuk van die regerende nasionale party. hy het, hoofsaaklik in sy vrye tyd, uitgebreide historiese navorsing gedoen en ‘n groot aantal geskiedwerke die lig laat sien. smith en van jaarsveld dui albei as een van scholtz se vernaamste prestasies aan dat hy die afrikaner bewus probeer maak het van sy plek binne die groter wêreld en dat hy die afrikaanse geskiedenis in ‘n breër konteks geplaas het.8 hulle wys ook daarop dat sy werke, soos dié van die meeste afrikaanse historici van daardie tyd, sterk beïnvloed is deur die afrikanernasionalisme, wat sy bloeityd in die periode van ongeveer 1900 tot 1970 beleef het.9 h giliomee (gebore 1938) behoort tot ‘n jonger geslag afrikaanse historici, wat sy vernaamste werke in die periode na 1975 gelewer het. giliomee, is soos scholtz, ‘n baie produktiewe skrywer, en het ‘n hele aantal wetenskaplike geskrifte op die terrein van die weergawe enkele byvoegings voorkom wat verband hou met die onderwerp van die artikel, raak dit nie die essensie van giliomee se interpretasie nie en daarom word in die voetnote net na die engelse weergawe verwys. 7 fa van jaarsveld, geskiedkundige verkenninge (pretoria, van schaik, 1974), pp. 84-85; k smith, the changing past; trends in south african historical writing (johannesburg, southern, 1988), p. 80. 8 fa van jaarsveld, geskiedkundige verkenninge, p. 84; k smith, the changing past…, pp. 80-81. 9 k smith, the changing past…, pp. 80-83; fa van jaarsveld, die evolusie van apartheid en ander geskiedkundige opstelle (kaapstad, tafelberg, 1979), pp. 90-121. in hierdie werk word scholtz se bydrae tot die geskiedskrywing uitgebreid bespreek. afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 143 geskiedkunde en die politieke wetenskap gepubliseer. die oorsigte van smith en van jaarsveld bevat slegs kort verwysings na sy vroeë wetenskaplike bydraes. giliomee het reeds vroeg in sy loopbaan saam met verskeie engelstalige suid-afrikaanse en buitelandse historici ‘n belangrike sintesewerk oor die geskiedenis van suid-afrika voor 1820 gepubliseer.10 volgens van jaarsveld het giliomee hierin nie net die tradisionele afrikaanse vertolking van die kompanjiestydperk probeer aftakel nie, maar is hy ook krities oor interpretasies deur historici van die liberale skool. hy meen dat giliomee hom by die radikale (of marxistiese) geskiedskrywers skaar.11 smith skryf dat giliomee in hierdie werk ‘n kompromis tussen die interpretasie van liberale skrywers soos id maccrone en die klasse-analise van die radikale historici probeer vind.12 giliomee was aanvanklik as historikus verbonde aan die universiteit van stellenbosch en van 1983 tot 1998 professor in politieke studies aan die universiteit van kaapstad. sy werk the afrikaners, wat in 2003 gelyktydig in suid-afrika en in die verenigde state van amerika (vsa) verskyn het, is deur binnelandse en buitelandse resensente, insluitende afrikaanse historici, hoog aangeslaan.13 giliomee het hom in sy vroeë jare in stellenbosch nie as deel van die “afrikaner nasionalistiese establishment” aan daardie universiteit beskou nie en het later sy kollegas aan die universiteit van kaapstad as “net te gerieflik links, liberaal en tevrede met hulself” ervaar.14 hoewel hy, anders as scholtz, min invloed toon van die afrikanernasionalisme, kan hy ook nie sonder meer as lid van óf die liberale óf die radikale skool van historici beskou word nie. sy plek in die suid-afrikaanse geskiedskrywing sal eers deur toekomstige wetenskaplikes na waarde geskat kan word.. liberalisme: enkele algemene opmerkings daar bestaan heelwat verskille onder historici, filosowe en politieke wetenskaplikes oor wat presies onder liberalisme verstaan moet word, maar tog ook ‘n groot mate van konsensus ten opsigte van die inhoud en betekenis van hierdie term. enkele algemene opmerkings, gegrond op resente oorsigwerke, is nodig as agtergrond by die bespreking van scholtz en giliomee se interpretasies. hoewel terme soos ekonomiese liberalisme en godsdienstige liberalisme dikwels gebruik word, word die begrip liberalisme primêr met ‘n politieke denkrigting of ideologie verbind. historici en politieke wetenskaplikes beskou dit oor die algemeen as ‘n baie belangrike politieke denkrigting in die moderne westerse geskiedenis en verwys soms selfs daarna as die dominante ideologie in die huidige westerse wêreld.15 die term liberalisme is vir die eerste keer vroeg in die negentiende eeu gebruik, en in grootbrittanje het die whigparty in die loop van hierdie eeu bekend geword as die liberale 10 r elphick & h giliomee (eds), the shaping of south african society, 1652-1820 (cape town, longman, 1979). 11 fa van jaarsveld, omstrede suid-afrikaanse verlede; geskiedenisideologie en die skuldvraagstuk (johannesburg, perskor, 1984), pp. 66-67. 12 k smith, the changing past…, pp. 204-205. 13 j tempelhoff, “historia in gesprek met hermann giliomee” , historia, 48, 1, 2003, p. 6. in hierdie artikel word ook verdere biografiese besonderhede oor giliomee verskaf. 14 h giliomee, soos aangehaal in j tempelhoff, “historia in gesprek met hermann giliomee”, historia, 48, 1, 2003, p. 10. 15 byvoorbeeld a heywood, political ideologies; an introduction (basingstoke, palgrave macmillan, 2007, fourth edition), p. 25. de klerk 144 party.16 in resente wetenskaplike werke word egter aanvaar dat die wortels van liberalisme as politieke ideologie veel verder terug in die geskiedenis lê. liberalisme word gewoonlik verbind met die opkoms van die middelklas of burgery vanaf die laat middeleeue. veral in engeland het die middelklas hom in die sewentiende eeu verset teen die mag van die koning. na die roemryke rewolusie van 1688 het engeland en skotland konstitusionele monargieë geword waarin die mag van die koning beperk is en die parlement, wat gedomineer is deur die verteenwoordigers van die burgery, belangrike politieke regte verwerf het, veral die reg om wette vir die land te maak. john locke (1632-1704), na wie dikwels as die vader van die liberalisme verwys word, het in sy geskrifte hierdie politieke bedeling teoreties probeer verantwoord. hy het verklaar dat alle mense sekere natuurregte het, wat insluit die reg op lewe, op vryheid en op die besit van eiendom. om hierdie regte te beskerm, het gemeenskappe regerings daargestel. ‘n sosiale kontrak is tussen heersers en onderdane gesluit, waarin die magte en regte van beide vasgelê is. die staat moet so min mag as moontlik hê sodat dit so min as moontlik inbreuk maak op die fundamentele regte van die individu.17 locke word meesal gereken as ‘n vroeë denker van die intellektuele beweging wat bekend staan as die verligting. verligtingsdenkers soos die baron van montesquieu en jean-jacques rousseau se beskouinge oor die verhouding tussen owerhede en onderdane het ‘n groot invloed gehad op diegene wat in die amerikaanse vryheidsoorlog (1775-1783) en die franse rewolusie van 1789 teen hul regeerders in opstand gekom het. hierdie beskouinge het dan ook ‘n neerslag gevind in die grondwet van die vsa en in die franse verklaring van die regte van die mens en die burger (1789).18 in die loop van die negentiende eeu het die ideologie van liberalisme versprei oor europa, waar die industriële omwenteling gelei het tot ‘n aansienlike vergroting van die middelklas. in baie lande het liberale politieke idees en strewes tot die totstandkoming van parlementêre regerings gelei.19 in die negentiende eeu het politieke en intellektuele leiers dikwels liberale én nasionale strewes gehad. hulle wou individuele sowel as nasionale vryheid hê. ook in lande waar liberale politici reeds in beheer van sake was, was hul soms tegelyk ook nasionaliste. liberale politieke figure het byvoorbeeld ‘n leidende rol gespeel in die nederlandse nasionalisme van die laat negentiende eeu, wat homself onder meer gemanifesteer het in sterk simpatie met die boererepublieke in hul stryd teen die britse ryk.20 in die vroeë twintigste eeu het radikale vorme van nasionalisme, soos die fascisme en nasionaal-sosialisme, egter gelei tot die 16 vergelyk wp esterhuyse, pvdp du toit & aa van niekerk (reds.), moderne politieke ideologieë (johannesburg, southern, 1987), p. 39; a heywood, political ideologies…, p. 24. 17 vergelyk ph kapp et alia, geskiedenis van die westerse beskawing, band 1 (pretoria, haum, 1982), p. 394; lp baradat, political ideologies; their origins and impact (englewood cliffs, nj, prentice-hall, 2009, tenth edition), pp. 70-77; a heywood, political ideologies…, pp. 37-38. 18 in l marquard, liberalism in south africa (johannesburg, south african institute of race relations, 1965), pp. 2-4, word hierdie verklaring gebruik om die basiese kenmerke van die liberalisme te verduidelik. 19 vergelyk ph kapp et alia, geskiedenis van die westerse beskawing, band 2 (pretoria, haum, 1984), pp. 197-217; wp esterhuyse, pvdp du toit & aa van niekerk (reds.), moderne politieke ideologieë, p. 96. 20 vergelyk h te velde, gemeenschapszin en plichtsbesef; liberalisme en nationalisme in nederland, 18701918 (‘s-gravenhage, sdu, 1992). afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 145 totstandkoming van totalitêre stelsels waar daar byna geen individuele vryhede bestaan het nie en wat dus feitlik die teenoorgestelde van liberale politieke stelsels was.21 al het die hoofelemente van die liberalisme in belangrike mate konstant gebly, het liberale politieke denke tog in die loop van die tyd veranderinge ondergaan. liberalisme kan beskou word as die vader van die demokrasie, maar algemene volwasse stemreg, soos dit in huidige demokratiese regeringstelsels voorkom, is nie deur die vernaamste liberale denkers van die agtiende en vroeë negentiende eeue voorgestaan nie. hulle het geglo dat stemreg vir die massa juis liberale waardes sal bedreig.22 veral vanaf die middel van die negentiende eeu is stemreg in die meeste parlementêre state na groter dele van die bevolking uitgebrei. in brittanje is algemene stemreg vir mans en vroue eers in 1928 ingestel.23 die liberalisme van die agtiende en negentiende eeue, wat meesal klassieke liberalisme genoem word, is onlosmaaklik verbind met die beperking van staatsgesag en minimum inmenging van die staat in die ekonomie. in die twintigste eeu het baie liberale denkers ‘n sosiale liberalisme voorgestaan. dit het gelei het tot die totstandkoming van welsynstate in wes-europa, waar daar ‘n groot mate van herverdeling van rykdom en staatsinmenging in die ekonomie is, hoewel die ekonomiese stelsels van hierdie lande tog nog as hoofsaaklik vrye markstelsels getipeer kan word.24 die kaapkolonie in die periode voor 1806 in die eerste band van scholtz se studie oor die ontwikkeling van die politieke denke van die afrikaner, wat handel oor die tydperk voor 1806, word die woord liberalisme feitlik nie gebruik nie. soos hierbo genoem, het die term eers in die negentiende eeu ontstaan. scholtz wys daarop dat die naam liberalisme gegee is aan die strewe vanaf die vroeë negentiende eeu om stemreg vir die britse parlement na groter dele van die bevolking uit te brei.25 hy erken wel dat die agtiende-eeuse verligting, soos veral beliggaam in die beskouinge van rousseau, die politieke denke in brittanje beïnvloed het.26 volgens scholtz het liberalisme ook eers vroeg in die negentiende eeu “sy verskyning op suid-afrikaanse bodem” gemaak en was dit van suiwer britse oorsprong.27 scholtz toon aan dat daar in die nederlandse republiek van die sewentiende eeu ‘n aristokratiese bestuursvorm gegeld het wat seggenskap in die bestuur van die staat in die hande van meer as ‘n handjievol persone geplaas het.28 daar was in nederland meer vryheid 21 vergelyk wp esterhuyse, pvdp du toit & aa van niekerk (reds.), moderne politieke ideologieë, pp. 263-308; lp baradat, political ideologies…, pp. 223-258; a heywood, political ideologies…, pp. 203229. 22 vergelyk ph kapp et alia, geskiedenis van die westerse beskawing, band 2, p.. 197; lp baradat, political ideologies…, p. 116; a heywood, political ideologies…,p. 41. 23 ph kapp et alia, geskiedenis van die westerse beskawing, band 2, p. 204. 24 vergelyk wp esterhuyse, pvdp du toit & aa van niekerk (reds.), moderne politieke ideologieë , pp. 96-101; lp baradat, political ideologies…, pp. 103-107; a heywood, political ideologies…,pp. 56-58. 25 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 167. 26 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 166. 27 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 165. 28 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, pp. 32-33, 249-250. de klerk 146 vir die individu en groter vryheid van spraak en godsdiens as in ander europese lande. die eerste kaapse koloniste het aanspraak gemaak op dieselfde burgerlike vryhede as die nederlanders, soos blyk uit die stryd teen goewerneur wa van der stel in die vroeë agtiende eeu.29 na die roemryke rewolusie van 1688 het groot-brittanje die leiding by nederland oorgeneem ten opsigte van die strewe na vryheid vir die individu en die beperking van die mag van die staat.30 locke en montesquieu kan, volgens scholtz, as die geestelike vaders van die amerikaanse vryheidsoorlog beskou word. 31 die amerikaanse vryheidstryd het ‘n groot invloed in nederland gehad, waar die patriottebeweging in die laat agtiende eeu ontstaan het. hierdie beweging het na die kaapkolonie versprei, waar in 1778 twee geskrifte die lig gesien het, waaruit blyk dat ook die afrikaner “geestelike erfgenaam” geword het van die “idee van vryheid wat in europa en amerika verkondig is”.32 scholtz gee ‘n uitgebreide bespreking van die kaapse patriottebeweging en konkludeer onder meer uit die versoek vir vrye verkiesings vir “burgerlijke collegien” dat die beginsels van die demokrasie onder die kaapse burgers wortel geskiet het.33 hy is verder van mening dat die politieke idees wat met die franse rewolusie wye bekendheid verkry het ‘n beperkte invloed gehad op die leiers van die opstande wat teen die einde van die agtiende eeu in graaaff-reinet en swellendam uitgebreek het, maar dat hulle ook beïnvloed is deur hul kennis van die stryd wat hul nederlandse voorouers in die sestiende en vroeë sewentiende eeue teen die oorheersing van spanje gevoer het.34 volgens scholtz het baie mense in wes-europa, onder die invloed van die franse rewolusie en die beskouinge van rousseau oor die “edele barbaar”, die inheemse bewoners van afrika en ander wêrelddele in ‘n nuwe lig gesien, en dit het bygedra tot ‘n strewe om sendingwerk onder hulle te doen. dit het ook die britse owerheid, wat van 1795 tot 1803 die kaapkolonie bestuur het, se beleid en optrede teenoor die swart mense op die oosgrens van die kolonie beïnvloed. die veranderde beskouinge oor swart mense het egter nie die afrikaners se sieninge in dié verband geraak nie. onder invloed van sewentiende-eeuse en vroeg agtiendeeeuse nederlandse opvattings het hulle swart mense beskou as afstammelinge van gam wat diensbaar moet wees aan die blankes. dit is ‘n opvatting wat volgens scholtz baie nadelige gevolge vir die afrikaners gehad het.35 hierdie verskille in beskouinge het ook bygedra tot die konflik tussen die inwoners van graaff-reinet en die britse owerheid gedurende die laat agtiende eeu.36 29 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, p. 235. 30 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, p. 251. 31 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, p. 252. 32 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, p. 261. 33 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, p. 267. 34 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, pp. 313-314. 35 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, p. 217. 36 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 1, p. 379. scholtz verwerp dus die beskouing dat die swart mense diensbaar moet wees aan die blankes, maar, soos in latere bande van sy studie blyk, byvoorbeeld gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…, band 8, p. 356, staan hy positief teenoor die beleid van die latere nasionale party, wat inhou dat daar “geen gelykstelling tusssen die rasse” en geen bloedvermenging tussen rasse moet plaasvind nie. afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 147 giliomee skryf, soos scholtz, dat ‘n groot mate van burgerlike vryheid gedurende die sewentiende eeu in nederland geheers het en dat die kaapse koloniste op dieselfde vryhede aanspraak gemaak het.37 hulle het wel ‘n oorwinning behaal in hul stryd teen wa van der stel, maar hulle het, as onderdane van die nederlands-oos-indiese kompanjie, in werklikheid nie dieselfde regte as die burgers van die moederland gehad nie.38 die kaapse patriotte van die laat agtiende eeu het verkeerdelik geglo dat die koloniste in die sewentiende eeu groter vryhede as hulle geniet het.39 hoewel die patriotte bekend was met die geskrifte van die verligtingsdenkers, het hulle eintlik net van hulle uitsprake gebruik gemaak om besondere oogmerke van lokale belang te bereik.40 die opstandelinge van graaff-reinet, wat feitlik ongeletterd was, het maar min verstaan van die politieke retoriek, geskoei op die idees van die verligting, wat hul leiers gebruik het.41 anders as scholtz meen giliomee dus dat die invloed van die verligtingsdenkers en van die amerikaanse en franse rewolusies op die beskouinge van die kaapse koloniste maar baie beperk was.42 die kaapkolonie, 1806-1910 volgens scholtz het liberalisme in die negentiende-eeuse kaapkolonie veral op twee gebiede na vore gekom: in beleidsmaatreëls rakende die verhoudinge tussen die verskillende bevolkingsgroepe, en in die strewe na selfbestuur onder die koloniste. in die eerste geval het liberalisme ‘n hoofsaaklik negatiewe invloed op die afrikaner gehad en in die tweede geval ‘n oorwegend positiewe invloed.43 scholtz toon aan dat die invloed van filantropiese aktiviste in brittanje en in die kolonie gelei het tot die afskaffing van slawerny en tot maatreëls waarin vrygestelde slawe en inboorlinge gelyke regte met die koloniste verkry het. wat die afskaffing van slawerny betref, wys hy daarop dat die nederlandstalige koerant de zuid-afrikaan in 1832 geskryf het dat daar geen skepsel is “met reden begaafd en die een menselijk hart in zijnen boezem draagt, indien hij ten minste den invloed dezer eeuw van verlichting gevoelt, of hij zal erkennen dat vrije arbeid veel wenselijker en op verre na verkieselijker is dan slaven arbeid”.44 scholtz erken dan ook dat die vrystelling van slawe ‘n “wenslike en noodsaaklike stap” was.45 hy sien egter die opheffing van beperkings op die persoonlike vryheid van die khoikhoi, soos veral beliggaam in die bekende ordonnansie 50 van 1828, as ‘n hoofsaaklik negatiewe ontwikkeling.46 hy staan ook negatief teenoor die beleid van “konsiliasie” wat in die eerste dekades van die britse bewind ten opsigte van die swart stamme aan die oosgrens 37 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 5-6. 38 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 26. 39 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 54. 40 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 54. 41 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 74. 42 vergelyk a du toit & h giliomee, afrikaner political thought, 1780-1850; analysis and documents (cape town, david philip, 1983), pp. 231-234, 238-242. 43 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 165. 44 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, pp. 223-224. 45 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 225. 46 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 242-243. de klerk 148 gevoer is en die integrasiebeleid van sir george grey, goewerneur van die kaapkolonie van 1854 tot 1861.47 hierdie beleidsmaatreëls het volgens scholtz die nederlandse (of afrikaanse) koloniste baie nadelig geraak. hy is krities oor die rol van andries stockenström (1792-1864) wat, hoewel gedeeltelik van sweedse afkoms, homself as deel van die afrikaanse bevolkingsgroep beskou het. stockenström het aanvanklik, as landdros van die distrik graaffreinet, beleidsmaatreëls wat die veiligheid van die boere in die oos-kaap bedreig het, veroordeel, maar in 1835 voor ‘n kommissie van die britse parlement verklaar dat die grensboere self gedeeltelik vir die probleme aan die oosgrens verantwoordelik was. dit toon, volgens scholtz, dat stockenström in daardie jare weinig begrip vir die moeilikhede van die grensboere getoon het.48 scholtz is verder van mening dat die verengelsingsproses in die kaapkolonie daartoe gelei het dat sommige afrikaners liberale denkbeelde oor verhoudinge tussen die bevolkingsgroepe gehuldig het en dat ‘n koerant soos het volksblad hom uitgespreek het ten gunste van sosiale verhoudinge en huweliksvermenging tussen lede van die verskillende groepe as hulle op dieselfde beskawingsvlak is.49 giliomee gaan veel dieper in op die hervormingsmaatreëls wat die britse bewindhebbers in die jare na 1806 ten opsigte van die slawe en die inboorlinge ingestel het en ook op die rol van leiers onder die afrikaanse gemeenskap in dié verband. stockenström, ws van rijneveld (1765-1812) en ja truter (1763-1845), al drie nederlandstalige koloniste wat amptenare in die britse koloniale stelsel geword het, het geglo dat die khoikhoi as vrye mense beskou moes word en dat ‘n stelsel waarin hulle persoonlike vryheid en reg op eiendom verseker is tot hul opheffing sou lei. truter, wat gedurende sy loopbaan onder meer hoofregter en president van die raad van justisie was, het hom daarvoor beywer dat arbeidsverhoudinge in kontrakte vasgelê word.50 van rijneveld, truter en stockenström het ook hul medekoloniste probeer oortuig dat die maatskaplike stelsel hervorm moet word.51 veral stockenström het ‘n belangrike rol gespeel in die hervorminge wat in die tydperk 1823 tot 1834 plaasgevind het en wat onder meer gelei het tot die afskaffing van slawerny.52 stockenström, wat deur giliomee beskryf word as die mees liberale afrikaner van sy tyd, het geglo dat onderdrukking van inboorlinge eerder ‘n negatiewe as ‘n positiewe uitwerking op die koloniste se veiligheid gehad het.53 giliomee toon aan dat stockenström gekant was teen die kulturele assimilasie van die inboorlinge wat deur sommige liberale beleidsmakers voorgestaan is en later deur die maatreëls van grey bevorder is. stockenström het geglo dat daar nie gepoog moet word om die leefwyse van die xhosagroepe te verander nie en dat verhoudinge met hierdie groepe deur verdrae met stamhoofde gereël moet word.54 47 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, pp. 249-250, band 3, p. 218. 48 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, pp. 250, 277. 49 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 3, pp. 214-216. 50 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 96. 51 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 95-96. 52 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 102. 53 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 104. 54 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 157-158; vergelyk a du toit & h giliomee, afrikaner political thought…, pp. 134-140. die meeste liberale politieke denkers, vanaf john philip in die vroeë negentiende eeu tot edgar brookes in die vroeë twintigste eeu, het gemeen dat ‘n beleid van segregasie in die beste belang van die swart mense was. vergelyk j robertson, liberalism in south africa, 1948afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 149 hoewel scholtz die verlening van verteenwoordigende en later verantwoordelike bestuur aan die kaapkolonie as ‘n positiewe ontwikkeling sien, staan hy tog krities teenoor william porter, prokureur-generaal van die kaapkolonie, wat ‘n kardinale rol gespeel het in die totstandkoming van die stelsel van verteenwoordigende bestuur in die kaapkolonie. hy haal ‘n uitspraak van porter aan dat selfbestuur tot ‘n samesmelting van ras, kleur en taal sal lei en dat daarmee vrede en voorspoed in die kolonie bereik sal word.55 hy bespreek kortliks die rol van afrikaanse koloniste soos christoffel brand, andries stockenström en fw reitz (senior) in die stryd om die verkryging van selfbestuur. scholtz beskou die feit dat engelstalige setlaars in die oos-kaap, dus “die brit wat liberaalgesind was,” hoë stemregkwalifikasies wou hê, wat baie afrikaners en bruin mense sou uitsluit, terwyl afrikaanse koloniste in die westelike distrikte, dit wil sê “die afrikaner wat konserwatief gesind was”, ten gunste was van laer kwalifikasies en geen “beginselbesware teen die kiesreg van die nie-blankes” gehad het nie, as “’n paradoksale toestand wat nouliks sy weerga in die geskiedenis van suid-afrika het”.56 giliomee sien hierdie toestand nie as paradoksaal nie, maar noem die britse setlaars van die oos-kaap wat hoë kwalifikasies wou hê die konserwatiewe groep teenoor die populêre party van die wes-kaap wat bestaan het uit afrikaanse boere asook engelse sakemanne en professionele mense.57 hy haal uitsprake aan van brand, reitz en stockenström waarin hulle hul ten gunste van stemreg vir bruin mense uitspreek. daaruit blyk dit, volgens giliomee, dat, ten minste, die elite onder die kaapse afrikaners teen 1850 die liberale vooruitgangsidee aanvaar het. terwyl die politieke filosoof andré du toit argumenteer dat liberale politieke idees onder afrikaners na 1853 gekwyn het, meen giliomee dat hierdie idees tog voortbestaan het.58 hy wys daarop dat die afrikaner jh de villiers (1842-1914), wat jare lank hoofregter van die kaapkolonie (en later van die unie van suid-afrika) was, ‘n kardinale bydrae gelewer het om die idee dat elke mens, ongeag die kleur van sy vel, fundamente regte het in die kaapse regstelsel te vestig.59 jw sauer (1850-1913) was ‘n belangrike kaapse afrikaanse politikus en minister in verskeie koloniale kabinette gedurende die jare 1881 tot 1910. sauer, wat nooit lid was van die afrikanerbond nie, word meesal, naas jx merriman, wp schreiner en andere, in geskiedwerke as een van die vernaamste verteenwoordigers van die sogenaamde kaapse liberale tradisie bestempel.60 scholtz verwys net kortliks na hom. hy meld dat sauer ‘n “klap van die liberalisme weg gehad het”61 en dat hy ten gunste was van stemreg wat gebaseer is op 1963 (oxford, clarendon, 1971), p. 30; s dubow, racial segregation and the origins of apartheid in south africa, 1919-1936 (oxford, macmillan, 1989), pp. 21-47. 55 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, pp. 191-192. 56 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 198. 57 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 119. 58 a du toit, “the cape afrikaners’ failed liberal movement, 1850-1870”, j butler, r elphick & d welsh (eds), democratic liberalism in south africa…, pp. 35-63; h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 121. 59 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 121. 60 vergelyk trh davenport, the afrikaner bond; the history of a south african political party, 1880-1911 (cape town, oxford university press, 1966), pp. 153, 185; p lewsen, “the cape liberal tradition: myth or reality?”, race, 13, 1, 1971, pp. 71-72. 61 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 4, p. 168. de klerk 150 beskaafdheid en nie velkleur nie.62 volgens giliomee het sauer sowel die potensiaal as die beperkinge van kaapse liberalisme beliggaam. hy het goeie verhoudinge met die swart mense van die oos-kaap gehandhaaf en kon hom nie vereenselwig nie met die beskouinge van sommige kaapse politici dat, op grond van die feit dat reservate vir hulle opsy gesit is, daar in die ander dele van die kolonie teenoor hulle gediskrimineer mag word nie. hy was tog nie ten gunste van integrasie tussen blank en swart nie en het die aparte ontwikkeling van swart mense voorgestaan. hy het ook geglo dat as blankes hulle in die transkei sou vestig, dit daartoe sou lei dat hulle tot ‘n staat van barbarisme verval. politieke regte, maar nie sosiale regte nie, moet tussen blank en swart gedeel word.63 scholtz is van mening dat die leier van die afrikanerbond, jh hofmeyr (1845-1909), ook bekend as onze jan, soos sauer “’n klap van die liberalisme weg gehad” het.64 hy toon aan dat hofmeyr politieke samewerking tussen blankes en bruin mense voorgestaan het. hofmeyr het in koerantartikels daarop gewys dat bruin mense dieselfde taal as die afrikaners praat en dat dit in albei groepe se belang is dat nederlands op skool en in die geregshowe gelyke behandeling met engels geniet. as die afrikaners nie die bruin mense hul bondgenote maak nie, word hulle, so meen hofmeyr, in die hande van die engelssprekende koloniste gedryf.65 hoewel hofmeyr, volgens scholtz, ook toelating van bruin mense tot die afrikanerbond voorgestaan het, het dit nooit gebeur nie.66 scholtz meen dat, omdat die afrikanerbond nie gelykheid op sosiale vlak met die bruin mense bevorder het nie, terwyl “aanhangers van die liberalisme” bereid was om wel sosiaal met hulle om te gaan, min bruin mense vir afrikaanse kandidate in verkiesings gestem het.67 giliomee sien net sekere elemente van ‘n liberale politieke uitkyk by hofmeyr en die afrikanerbond. die afrikanerbond het bepaalde liberale waardes gehuldig, soos skeiding tussen kerk en staat, persvryheid en ‘n onafhanklike regbank, maar hulle was gekant teen groter politieke regte vir swart mense, veral omdat hulle gemeen het dat dit ekonomiese stabiliteit en ontwikkeling sou bedreig. die afrikanerbond het kultuur en beskawing eerder as ras as kriterium vir stemreg voorgestaan, maar uit hofmeyr se uitsprake blyk dit dat hy soms beskawing en ras met mekaar gelykgestel het.68 die boererepublieke volgens scholtz toon die demokratiese bestuurstelsel wat die voortrekkers in 1836 in die lewe geroep het die invloed van die beskouinge van die kaapse patriotte.69 verder was die grondwet van die vrystaatse republiek geskoei op die konstitusie van die vsa en dié van die 62 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 5, p. 376. 63 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 285, 287, 302-303. 64 gd scholtz. “liberalisme in die perswese”, ps dreyer (red.), afrikaner-liberalisme, p. 54. 65 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 4, pp 171-172. 66 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 4, pp. 300-301; vergelyk trh davenport, the afrikaner bond…, p. 119. 67 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 4, p. 172. 68 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 289-290. 69 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 2, p. 591. afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 151 zuid-afrikaansche republiek (zar) op die grondwet van die bataafse republiek, wat van 1795 tot 1806 in nederland bestaan het.70 in die boerepublieke het daarom ‘n ander vorm van demokrasie gegeld as in die kaapkolonie en natal, waar dit, volgens scholtz, ‘n tipies britse inslag gehad het.71 soos in die vorige afdeling aangedui, meen giliomee dat die politieke idees wat deur die amerikaanse en franse rewolusies uitgedra is maar ‘n baie oppervlakkige invloed in die kaapkolonie, en veral in die oos-kaap, gehad het. tog skryf hy dat kernidees van die amerikaanse en franse republieke, waaronder ‘n vry, onafhanklike klas van burgers wat eiendom besit en bepaalde regte, pligte en voorregte het, by die voortrekkers ingang gevind het.72 hy wys daarop dat ras in die vrystaatse grondwet nie so eksplisiet as ‘n uitsluitingsmeganisme vir stemreg as in die transvaalse konsitusie gebruik is nie73 en dat in beide republieke regeringsleiers en burgers respek vir demokratiese beginsels soos ‘n onafhanklike regbank gehad het.74 scholtz en giliomee meen dus albei dat liberale politieke beskouinge van die verligtingstydperk ‘n invloed op die regeringstelsel en regeringspraktyke van die voortrekkers en republikeinse boere gehad het. van die regeringshoofde in die twee republieke het slegs tf burgers volgens scholtz liberale beskouinge gehad, wat veral uit sy teologiese liberalisme voortgespruit het. dit het daartoe gelei dat hy gekant was teen godsdiensonderrig op skole en van nederlandse amptenare met liberale of “vrysinnnige” beskouinge gebruik gemaak het.75 hy gee toe dat paul kruger, toe hy later president van die zar geword het, ook nederlanders met “vrysinnige” godsdienstige oortuigings, by name wj leyds, aangestel het.76 daar was in die tyd van kruger ‘n “progressiewe” groep in die volksraad met generaal piet joubert as leier, teenoor die “konserwatiewe” groep wat kruger se beleid gesteun het, maar in werklikheid was daar volgens scholtz weinig sprake van beginselverskille tussen die twee leiers.77 hy meen dan ook dat die liberalisme nooit werklik ingang in die boererepublieke gevind het nie.78 giliomee bestempel burgers as ‘n idealis wat uit voeling was met die konserwatiewe sentimente van die transvaalse burgers.79 hy verwys net kortliks na die “progressiewe” groep onder die transvalers in die laaste twee dekades van die zar se bestaan, wat, volgens hom, vinniger modernisering van die republek voorgestaan het as wat onder kruger se regering plaasgevind het.80 hy sien, net so min as scholtz, belangrike ontwikkelinge op die gebied van liberale politieke denke in die boererepublieke. 70 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 3, pp. 171, 187. 71 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 3, p. 197. 72 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 167. 73 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 176. 74 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 235, 244. 75 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 3, pp. 499, 501. 76 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 4, p. 342. 77 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 4, pp. 338-339. 78 gd scholtz. “liberalisme in die perswese”, ps dreyer (red.), afrikaner-liberalisme, p. 54. 79 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 187-188. 80 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 238. de klerk 152 die tydperk 1910-1948 scholtz toon aan dat die afrikanerbond, onder leiding van fs malan (1871-1941), en die suid-afrikaanse party, waarin die afrikanerbond opgegaan het, ten gunste van gelyke politieke regte vir blankes, bruin en swart mense was.81 by die nasionale konvensie wat uniewording in 1910 voorafgegaan het, het malan dan ook gepleit vir uitbreiding van swart stemreg oor die hele suid-afrika.82 nogtans meen scholtz dat die kompromis oor stemreg (naamlik behoud van gekwalifiseerde stemreg in die kaapkolonie en van uitsluitlik blanke stemreg in die oranje-vrystaat en transvaal), wat in die grondwet van 1910 opgeneem is, gesien moet word as ‘n kompromis tussen “die afrikaanse lewensbeskouing en die britse liberalisme”.83 oor malan maak hy verder net enkele opmerkings. daarenteen skenk scholtz, veral in die laaste twee bande van sy werk, baie aandag aan die politieke denke van jh hofmeyr (1894-1948), wie se vader ‘n neef was van onze jan. scholtz meen dat hofmeyr, al was hy “een van die begaafdste manne wat die afrikaanse volk nog voortgebring het”,84 na sy studiejare aan ‘n britse universiteit, net soos jc smuts, geestelik nie meer ‘n afrikaner was nie.85 hofmeyr se toetrede tot die partypolitiek in 1929 het ‘n “verlewendiging” van die liberalisme gebring.86 scholtz maak gebruik van koerantartikels en ook van paton se biografie87 om hofmeyr se uitsprake oor sowat twee dekades onder die loep te neem. hy dui onder andere aan dat hofmeyr, soos ander liberale denkers in daardie jare, wegbeweeg het van die idee van segregasie en aparte ontwikkeling en eerder ‘n gemeenskaplike samelewing van blankes en swart mense vir suid-afrika voorgestaan het.88 scholtz meen dat in die verslag van die fagankommissie van 1948 oor die posisie van die swart mense in die land hofmeyr sowel as smuts se standpunte na vore kom.89 hy sien hofmeyr as die siel van die liberale beweging van die 1930’s en 1940’s. sy oorlye in 1948 het die liberalisme ‘n slag toegedien waarvan “dit nooit weer kon herstel nie”.90 scholtz beskou smuts nie as ‘n liberale politikus nie en tipeer sy politieke filosofie eerder as “holistiese imperialisme”.91 hy haal verskeie van smuts se uitsprake aan waaruit blyk dat hy, wat betref die beleid oor die verhouding tussen die bevolkingsgroepe, eerder as ‘n pragmatis gesien moet word.92 smuts het byvoorbeeld in 1936 verklaar dat hy nie ten alle koste die behoud van gekwalifiseerde stemreg in die kaapprovinsie steun nie. as dit van die swart mense weggeneem word, moet dit wees vir baie ernstige redes en daar moet dan iets in die 81 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 5, p. 454, band 6, p. 463. 82 fa mouton, prophet without honour…, p. 89. 83 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 5, p. 557. 84 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 7, p. 112. 85 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 7, p. 105. 86 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 7, p. 114. 87 a paton, hofmeyr. 88 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 7, p. 490. 89 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 8, p. 495. 90 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 8, p. 348. 91 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 7, p. 105. 92 vergelyk s dubow, racial segregation…, pp. 141-142. afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 153 plek daarvan gestel word. daarom kon hy hom (anders as hofmeyr) met die plasing van swart mense op ‘n aparte kieserslys versoen.93 giliomee beskryf fs malan as ‘n leidende kaapse liberaal in die eerste smutskabinet wat maatreëls deurgevoer het om die posisie van swart werkers te verbeter en wat nog in 1936, anders as die leiers van die verenigde party, waarvan hy toe lid was, die uitbreiding van die kaapse gekwalifiseerde stemreg na die ander provinsies bepleit het.94 giliomee sien, soos scholtz, hofmeyr (junior) as die vernaamste liberale leier in die parlement gedurende die dertigeren veertigerjare,95 maar gee veel minder aandag aan sy beskouinge. dit blyk dat hy hom, anders as scholtz, nie as dié sentrale figuur in die ontwikkeling van liberale politieke denke beskou nie. giliomee bestempel smuts as die verpersoonliking van blanke suidafrikaanse dubbelsinnigheid oor die rassevraagstuk.96 in 1928 was hy ten gunste van uitbreiding van gekwalifiseerde stemreg, soos in die kaapprovinsie, na die res van die land, maar in 1936 het hy die segregasiewetgewing van die destydse eerste minister, jbm hertzog, al is dit teensinnig, aanvaar.97 die periode 1948-1975 in sy biografie van hendrik verwoerd98 en in ander geskrifte waarin hy oor die periode na 1948 handel,99 verwys scholtz hoofsaaklik na die liberalisme as ‘n ideologie wat die afrikaner van buite bedreig. die aanhangers daarvan in suid-afrika was veral die liberale party, met alan paton as belangrikste leiersfiguur, en die progressiewe party, met helen suzman as vernaamste spreekbuis,100 asook enkele prominente rooms-katolieke en anglikaanse geestelikes en “ontstamde bantoeleiers”.101 engelstalige universiteite sien hy as belangrike sentra van liberale politieke denke.102 hy haal met instemming verwoerd se afwysende uitsprake aan oor afrikaanse skrywers, koerantredakteurs en teoloë wat gepleit het vir die opheffing van sommige apartheidsmaatreëls.103 in 1977 verklaar scholtz dat sekere afrikaanse koerante “gedagtes uitspreek wat duidelik aan die arsenaal van die liberalisme ontleen is”.104 hierdie koerante (waarvan hy net die transvaler by name noem) gebruik die term verligtheid 93 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…,band 7, p. 523. 94 giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp.243, 313, 414. 95 giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 413, 447. 96 giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 304 97 giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 339, 413. 98 gd scholtz, dr hendrik frensch verwoerd, 1901-1966 (johannesburg, perskor, 1974, 2 bande). 99 veral van belang is: gd scholtz, die bedreiging van die liberalisme (johannesburg, voortrekkerpers, 1965); gd scholtz, “liberalisme in die perswese”, ps dreyer (red.), afrikaner-liberalisme, pp 53-70. 100 gd scholtz, die bedreiging van die liberalisme, pp. 60-68. 101 gd scholtz, die bedreiging van die liberalisme, p. 66; gd scholtz, dr hendrik frensch verwoerd, 19011966, band 1, p. 295, band 2, p. 136. 102 gd scholtz, dr hendrik frensch verwoerd, 1901-1966, band 2, p. 141. 103 gd scholtz, dr hendrik frensch verwoerd, 1901-1966, band 2, pp. 168-170. 104 gd scholtz, “liberalisme in die perswese”, ps dreyer (red.), afrikaner-liberalisme, p.53. de klerk 154 eerder as liberalisme, maar het, volgens scholtz, die pad van df malan en hf verwoerd verlaat en volg nou die pad van hofmeyr. hofmeyr het onder meer verklaar dat die aanwesigheid van swart mense in “blanke gebiede” as permanent aanvaar moet word en was gekant teen wetgewing om “gemengde” huwelike te verbied, en hierdie beskouinge word nou deur sommige afrikaanse koerantredakteurs en teoloë gehuldig.105 scholtz verwyt dit die verligte redakteurs en teoloë dat hulle nog steeds voorgee om afrikanernasionaliste te wees. hy vra hulle om “die vlag van die afrikaanse nasionalisme” te laat sak en onder die vlag van “die liberalisme van die hofmeyrskool” te vaar.106 giliomee skryf dat phil weber, redakteur van die burger, in 1953 leiers van die nasionale party probeer oorreed het om bruin mense nie van die gemeenskaplike kieserslys te verwyder nie en eerder hoë stemregvereistes vir nuwe bruin kiesers in te stel. onder leiding van die transvaler jg strijdom was die party egter nie daarvoor te vinde nie en is voortgegaan om bruin mense van die gemeenskaplike lys verwyder te kry.107 schalk pienaar, redakteur van die beeld, het reeds in die sestigerjare verklaar dat die permanentheid van swart mense in die gebiede buite die tuislande aanvaar moet word.108 pienaar en ander verligtes het slegs geleidelike hervorming bepleit en wou blanke beheer in suid-afrika behou. hulle kan daarom moeilik as liberale denkers bestempel word.109 giliomee se beskouing oor die verligtes in die nasionale party verskil dus sterk van dié van scholtz. giliomee toon verder aan dat ha fagan (1889-1963) een van slegs enkele afrikaanse politici was wat in die vyftigerjare ‘n alternatief vir die apartheidsbeleid aangedui het. fagan, wat ‘n minister in die laaste hertzogkabinet was en later hoofregter geword het, het geglo dat gemeenskaplike waardes en ‘n gevoel van eenheid tussen blankes en swart mense noodsaaklik is vir die uitbreiding van stemreg na swart mense. aanvanklik sou dus slegs die swart middelklas stemreg kan verkry.110 liberale beskouinge het volgens giliomee in die jare na 1948 verder veral by afrikaanse skrywers en akademici na vore gekom. np van wyk louw (1906-1970), een van die belangrikste digters wat suid-afrika opgelewer het, het hom uitgespreek ten gunste van liberale nasionalisme, waarmee hy bedoel het dat ‘n vorm van apartheid wat nie in botsing was nie met die liberale nasionalisme wat in westerse lande voorgekom het gevind moes word. louw het hofmeyr se beskouinge oor die uitbreiding van stemreg verwerp en liberale politieke denkers gevra om ‘n beleid voor te stel wat vryheid en gelyke geleenthede vir almal verseker sonder dat die afrikaners ‘n magtelose minderheid in die land word.111 hy het geglo dat die bruin mense “ons mense” is, wat dus as afrikaners beskou moet word,112 en ook afrikaners daarteen gewaarsku dat hulle op ‘n krisis afstuur as 105 gd scholtz, “liberalisme in die perswese”, ps dreyer (red.), afrikaner-liberalisme, pp. 57, 62, 67, 68. 106 gd scholtz, “liberalisme in die perswese”, ps dreyer (red.), afrikaner-liberalisme, p. 70. 107 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 501. 108 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 535. 109 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 549; vergelyk h giliomee, “apartheid, verligtheid and liberalism”, j butler, r elphick & d welsh (eds), democratic liberalism.., p. 369. 110 h giliomee, “ ‘survival in justice’: an afrikaner debate over apartheid”, comparative studies in society and history, 36, 1994, p. 534; h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 498. 111 h giliomee, “apartheid, verligtheid and liberalism”, j butler, r elphick & d welsh (eds), democratic liberalism…, pp. 367-368; h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 472. 112 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 526. afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 155 dit vir hulle gaan om voortbestaan ten alle koste eerder as om voortbestaan in geregtigheid.113 ander skrywers, onder meer dirk opperman, jan rabie en andré brink, het in hul werke en in openbare uitsprake die apartheidsbeleid gekritiseer. nie een van hulle het, soos louw, hul politieke beskouinge sistematies uiteengesit nie, maar tog ‘n belangrike bydrae gelewer om die politieke uitkyk van die afrikaners te verander.114 hierbenewens het akademici soos ben marais, bennie keet, lj du plessis, nic olivier en johannes degenaar skerp kritiek op die apartheidsbeleid uitgespreek.115 giliomee verwys na frederik van zyl slabbert as een van die belangrikste liberale politieke denkers wat in die sewentigerjare uit afrikanergeledere voortgekom het. hy het egter eers in 1979, toe hy as leier van die progressiewe federale party aangewys is, ‘n invloedryke figuur in die suid-afrikaanse politiek geword.116 slotbeskouing dit blyk uit scholtz en giliomee se studies dat nog baie meer navorsing oor afrikaanse liberale politieke denke vanaf die agtiende eeu en die invloed daarvan gedoen kan word en dat daar ruimte is vir nuwe interpretasies ten opsigte van belangrike aspekte van die ontwikkeling van die afrikaanse politieke denke. beyers se studie van die kaapse patriottebeweging is byvoorbeeld reeds meer as tagtig jaar gelede onderneem117 en ‘n nuwe omvattende geskiedwerk oor hierdie beweging mag groter duidelikheid gee oor die aard en omvang van die invloed wat die politieke idees van die verligting op die kaapse koloniste gehad het. daar is nog geen uitgebreide biografiese studies van figure soos truter, stockenström en sauer gedoen nie, en meer navorsing oor afrikaanse politieke leiers van die negentiende behoort tot groter insig oor hul plek binne die kaapse liberale tradisie te lei. dit lyk waarskynlik dat daar onder toekomstige historici heelwat belangstelling sal wees in die rol en invloed van liberale afrikaanse politici en politieke denkers in die twintigste eeu, in besonder gedurende die apartheidsperiode. giliomee het baanbrekerswerk in hierdie verband gelewer, maar daar is ruimte vir heelwat meer navorsing oor hierdie onderwerp. scholtz het die omvattendste studie wat tans bestaan oor die ontwikkeling van die afrikaanse politieke denke geskryf, maar sy beskouing dat liberalisme vreemd is aan die afrikaner lei ongelukkig tot ‘n eensydige en selfs verdraaide interpretasie van liberale denke onder afrikaners. dit doen afbreuk aan die waarde van sy werk. die siening dat afrikaners wat liberale beskouinge huldig dit doen as gevolg van die invloed van engelssprekende suidafrikaners of van ‘n verblyf in brittanje, is egter nie net eie aan sy interpretasie nie, maar kom ook onder verskeie afrikaanse én engelstalige wetenskaplikes van sy generasie voor. in die 1930’s en1940’s het sommige afrikaanse denkers en politici die “liberale demokrasie”, soos 113 h giliomee, “ ‘survival in justice’…”, comparative studies in society and history, 36, 1994, p 532; h giliomee, the afrikaners, p. 473. 114 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 524, 554. 115 h giliomee, the afrikaners…, pp. 484, 485, 523, 529, 555; vergelyk h giliomee, “ ‘survival in justice’…”, comparative studies in society and history, 36, 1994, pp 527-548; h giliomee, “critical afrikaner intellectuals and apartheid, 1943-1958”, south african journal of philosophy, 19, 4, 2000, pp. 321-339. 116 vergelyk h giliomee, the afrikaners…, p. 610. 117 ‘n hersiene uitgawe, c beyers, die kaapse patriotte, het in 1967 verskyn, maar bevat min veranderings aan die oorspronklike teks, wat in 1929 gepubliseer is. de klerk 156 dit toe in suid-afrika bestaan het, as van britse oorsprong beskou en het geglo dat ‘n outoritêre politieke stelsel, soos in nazi-duitsland en fascistiese italië, meer geskik sou wees om afrikaners se politieke strewe uit te te leef.118 die feit dat scholtz hom tog uitspreek teen ‘n outoritêre politieke stelsel en ten gunste van die demokrasie119 hang daarmee saam dat hy liberalisme en demokrasie van mekaar probeer losmaak, soos hierbo aangetoon is. verskeie engelstalige akademici het eweneens liberalisme beskou as iets wat spesifiek met britse politieke idees verbind moet word. wm macmillan en ea walker, wat gewoonlik as behorende tot die liberale skool van historici beskou word,120 skryf byvoorbeeld dat die voortrekkers gevlug het van die beskawing en vooruitgang wat die britse bestuur vanaf 1806 na die kaap gebring het.121 met uniewording in 1910 is die konserwatiewe afrikaanse politieke beskouinge in die grondwet opgeneem en dit het uiteindelik tot die beleid van apartheid gelei.122 hierdie siening is tans grotendeels gediskrediteer deur historici soos timothy keegan en paul maylam, wat daarop wys dat die britse koloniale beleid beslis nie sonder meer as liberaal getipeer kan word nie en dat sowel afrikaanse as britse koloniste verdrukkende rassepraktyke voorgestaan het.123 soos scholtz en giliomee albei aantoon, was dit juis die engelstalige koloniste van die oos-kaap wat in die middel van die negentiende eeu hoë stemregkwalifikasies, wat feitlik alle bruin en swart mense sou uitsluit, voorgestaan het. verder het, soos algemeen bekend, politieke partye met ‘n liberale politieke program voor 1975 maar min steun onder afrikaanse én engelstalige kiesers ontvang. dit blyk uit die werk van giliomee dat dit onjuis is om liberale politieke beskouinge direk met groot-brittanje en engelstalige blankes en konserwatiewe politieke beskouinge met die afrikaners te verbind. soos hierbo aangetoon, kan groot-brittanje wel as die bakermat van liberale idees beskou word, maar hierdie idees het vanaf die agtiende eeu oor baie dele van die westerse wêreld versprei en reeds ‘n invloed op die kaapse koloniste gehad in die nederlandse bestuurstydperk. soos verskeie skrywers aandui, was brittanje die vernaamste bron van negentiende-eeuse liberale beskouinge aan die kaap en hierdie beskouinge is aanvanklik veral deur britse sendelinge in die kaapkolonie verkondig.124 die afrikaners is deur die opvattinge van sendelinge soos john philip en koloniste soos john fairbairn beïnvloed, maar liberale beskouinge onder afrikaners kan nie sonder meer as ‘n gevolg van die verengelsingsproses in die kaapkolonie gesien word nie. reeds in die laaste jare van die 118 vergelyk td moodie, the rise of afrikanerdom; power, apartheid and the afrikaner civil religion (berkeley, university of california press, 1975), pp. 208-233. 119 gd scholtz, die ontwikkeling…band 8, pp. 105-112. 120 fa van jaarsveld, omstrede suid-afrikaanse verlede… , pp. 33-52; k smith, the changing past…, pp. 103-131. 121 wm macmillan, bantu, boer and briton; the making of the south african native problem (oxford, clarendon, 1963, revised edition), p. 195; ea walker, the great trek (london, adam & charles black, 1985, revised edition), p. 374. 122 vergelyk fa van jaarsveld, omstrede suid-afrikaanse verlede…, p. 56. 123 t keegan, colonial south africa and the origins of the racial order (cape town, david philip, 1996), pp. 7-8; p maylam, south africa’s racial past; the history and historiography of racism, segregation and apartheid (aldershot, ashgate, 2001), pp. 93-99. 124 p lewsen, “the cape liberal tradition…” race, 13, 1, 1971, p. 70; r davenport, “the cape liberal tradition to 1910”, j butler, r elphick & d welsh (eds), democratic liberalism…, p. 30; fa mouton, prophet without honour…, p. 88. afrikaner liberalisme td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 139-158. 157 kompanjiesbewind en ook in die tydperk 1803-1806, toe die kaapkolonie onder beheer was van die bataafse republiek, het denkbeelde van die verligting by ten minste ‘n deel van die koloniste ingang gevind. giliomee toon aan dat nederlandstalige koloniste soos van rijneveld en truter reeds vroeg in die negentiende eeu, dus nog voor philip en fairbairn invloedryk geword het, groter persoonlike vryhede vir die khoikhoi voorgestaan het. dit blyk uit bostaande afdeling oor die boererepublieke dat daar in hierdie state, anders as in die kaapkolonie, weinig sprake was van liberale denke onder politieke leiersfigure. dit kan moeilik slegs aan ‘n gebrek aan britse of engelse invloed toegeskryf word, veral aangesien daar ook in koloniale natal geen belangrike liberale politieke denkers was nie.125 soos vroeër aangedui, het aanhangers van die liberalisme, vanaf die sewentiende eeu tot tans, hoofsaaklik onder die stedelike middelklas voorgekom. in die kaapkolonie was daar veel meer geskoolde mense wat die professies beoefen het of sake-ondernemings bedryf het as in die boererepublieke of natal. stanley trapido, wat gereken kan word tot die radikale of materialistiese skool van geskiedskrywers oor suid-afrika,126 skryf dat die liberalisme, soos dit in die negentiende eeu in brittanje en in die kaapkolonie toegepas is ‘n ideologie van beheer was, wat beteken dat diegene wat in beheer van die staat is geleidelik meer mense by die politieke stelsel betrek veral om hul eie ekonomiese belange te beskerm.127 sonder twyfel wou liberale politieke leiers in die suid-afrikaanse verlede, soos enige ander politieke leiers, hul eie belange bevorder. dit beteken egter nie dat persone soos andries stockenström, saul solomon en jh de villiers nie sterk oortuiginge ten opsigte van basiese menseregte en vryhede gehad het nie.128 trapido se stelling maak dit verder duidelik dat dit in die twintigste eeu moeiliker geword het om liberale beskouinge te huldig omdat die moontlikheid groter geword het dat swart mense die meerderheid van die kiesers sou vorm en ‘n einde maak aan beheer deur blankes, of in elk geval deur mense wat in alle opsigte die westerse kultuur, en veral die westerse politieke kultuur, hul eie gemaak het. ook blyk hieruit dat geskiedskrywers wat die apartheidsbeleid uit inherent konserwatiewe (of onliberale) beskouinge van afrikaners probeer verklaar, die besondere omstandighede waarin hulle as minderheidsgroep in suid-afrika verkeer het as kernfaktor uit die oog verloor. ‘n groot deel van die liberale politieke leiersfigure in die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis kan as deel van die engelssprekende blanke gemeenskap geklassifiseer word. daar was onder meer john philip, john fairbairn, william porter, saul solomon, jx merriman, wp schreiner, olive schreiner, james rose innes, alan paton en helen suzman. daar was egter ook belangrike figure met ‘n afrikaanse agtergrond: ja truter, andries stockenström, jh de 125 in natal is verantwoordelike bestuur eers in 1893 ingestel. die vernaamste politieke leiers in hierdie tydperk, h escombe en j robinson, het wel in bepaalde opsigte liberale beskouinge gehuldig, maar was, soos die meeste blanke koloniste, gekant teen politieke regte vir die indiërbevolking van die kolonie. vergelyk eh brookes & c de b webb, a history of natal (pietermaritzburg, university of natal press, 1987, revised edition), veral pp. 172-173. 126 vergelyk k smith, the changing past…,p. 164.. 127 s trapido, “ ‘the friends of the natives’: merchants,peasants and the political and ideological structure of liberalism at the cape, 1854-1910”, s marks & a atmore, economy and society in pre-industrial south africa (london, longman, 1980), pp. 248-249. 128 vergelyk r davenport, “the cape liberal tradition to 1910”, j butler, r elphick & d welsh (eds), democratic liberalism…, veral p. 34. de klerk 158 villiers, jw sauer, fs malan en jh hofmeyr (junior). hierdie persone kan nie net as enkele geïsoleerde gevalle beskou word nie. daar is ‘n belangrike mate van kontinuïteit te vinde in die ontwikkeling van liberale politieke denke onder afrikaners: van die kaapse patriotte tot by vroeg negentiende-eeuse koloniste soos truter en stockenström; daarvandaan na de villiers en sauer in die tweede helfte van die eeu; dan na malan en hofmeyr in die periode voor 1948; en uiteindelik na liberale denkers in die apartheidstyd. hoewel nie een van hierdie figure as ‘n belangrike politieke leier onder die afrikaners beskou kan word nie, vorm hulle beskouinge en optrede tog, soos giliomee aantoon, onlosmaaklik deel van die politieke en intellektuele geskiedenis van die afrikaners. soos dit veral uit die loopbaan van malan blyk,129 was dit moontlik om liberale opvattinge te huldig en ook ‘n kampvegter vir die afrikaanse taal en kultuur te wees. eers in die jare na 1948 het liberale politieke idees en nasionalistiese afrikaanse strewes direk met mekaar in botsing gekom. ten einde beheer oor die land te behou, wat vir die meeste afrikaners onlosmaaklik verbind was met die voortbestaan van die volk, is ‘n stelsel tot stand gebring wat feitlik die teenoorgestelde van ‘n liberale politieke bedeling was. in die apartheidsperiode het dit moeilik geword om ‘n lojale afrikaner te bly en ook liberale idees te aanvaar, soos onder andere blyk uit die pogings van van wyk louw om nasionalisme met liberale waardes te versoen.130 dit is eintlik eers in die tydperk na 1975 dat dit vir baie afrikaanse politici en intellektuele duidelik geword het dat blanke oppergesag in suid-afrika nie meer lank sou kon voortduur nie en dat die beste waarborg vir hul politieke regte in ‘n grondwet lê waarin liberale waardes verskans is. fw de klerk, die laaste persoon wat aan die hoof gestaan het van ‘n regering wat gedomineer is deur die nasionale party, het daarom in die jare na 1990 as die belangrikste afrikaanse kampvegter vir liberale politieke beginsels na vore getree. vandag is die meeste afrikaners ondersteuners van die demokratiese alliansie, wat homself verbind het tot die handhawing en versterking van liberale waardes en wat as die opvolger van die progressiewe party van helen suzman en van zyl slabbert beskou kan word. hierdie steun spruit ongetwyfeld uit eie belang, maar dit neem nie die feit weg nie dat verskeie afrikaners wat tans ‘n prominente rol speel op politieke gebied, en op terreine soos die regspleging, die akademie, die lettere en die godsdiens, liberale politieke opvattinge huldig. afrikanerliberalisme is tans moontlik ‘n belangriker verskynsel as in die verlede, maar daar is tog ‘n ontwikkelingslyn van liberale politieke denke onder afrikaners, al was dit meesal tot ‘n klein minderheid beperk, wat terug strek tot die agtiende eeu. 129 vergelyk fa mouton, prophet without honour…. 130 vergelyk g olivier, np van wyk louw; literatuur, filosofie, politiek (kaapstad, human & rousseau, 1992), pp. 219-263. microsoft word 04 klopper & grosser.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 359 – 378. exploring the impact of feuerstein’s instrumental enrichment programme on the cognitive development of prospective mathematics educators mm kloppers* and mm grosser** abstract in this article the researchers report on the findings obtained from a sequential explanatory mixed method study through testing and narratives in order to determine the extent to which 24 prospective mathematics educators at a south african university enrolled for a bed-degree possess cognitive skills, and to establish the potential of the feuerstein instrumental enrichment programme (fie) to develop and improve the cognitive skills of the said prospective educators. results indicated that there is a need for improving the cognitive skills of the prospective mathematics educators and that the fie programme possesses the latent potential to improve and develop cognitive skills. the significance of this research lies in the contribution it makes in particular to equip lecturers involved in educator training with knowledge regarding the merits of the feuerstein fie programme for improving cognitive performance. keywords: cognitive skills, cognitive development, intervention, mediation, cognitive development, instrumental enrichment. disciplines: mathematics teaching, cognitive development, teacher education. 1. introduction and problem statement the critical outcomes, as formulated in the national curriculum statement of south africa, envisages learners who are, among others, competent in the solving of problems, effective in the collection, organizing and managing of activities and successful in evaluating and applying information critically (department of education, 2003a, p. 2). in achieving these critical outcomes, the government wishes to turn schools into “thriving centers of excellence” (zuma, quoted by davis, 2009). this corresponds with an aim of the constitution of the republic of south africa, namely to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person” (department of education, 2003a, p. 1), to enable learners to think “smarter” than was the case in the past (pithers & soden, 2000, p. 237) and to equip learners with skills to enable them to decipher, question, validate and reason through the substantiality or validity of information (barnes, 2005, p.12). * ms mm (magda) kloppers is a lecturer in teaching and learning, school of educational sciences, north-west university: vaal triangle campus, e-mail: magda.kloppers@nwu.ac.za. ** prof mm (mary) grosser is associate professor in teaching and learning, school of educational sciences, north-west university: vaal triangle campus, tel: +27 16 910 3063; e-mail: mary.grosser@nwu.ac.za kloppers  &  grosser   360 however, the poor performance of learners in south africa is highlighted by the third international mathematics and science study (timss) and the third international mathematics and science study-repeat (timss-r) which both report deficiencies with regard to higher-order skills, inter alia including the ability to think critically. maree, molepo, owen and ehlers (2005, p. 124), howie (2007) and van der walt and maree (2007, p. 223) indicate that the aforementioned ideals have not yet become reality. the timss studies revealed that the south african grade 8 learners had the lowest scores in science and mathematics, two subjects which require well developed cognitive skills such as application and reasoning. the strong cognitive focus required for performance in mathematics is clear, according to the national curriculum statement for mathematics. learners should demonstrate the ability to think logically, analytically, holistically and laterally and be capable of applying knowledge from familiar to unfamiliar situations (department of education, 2003a, p. 5). in support of the argument of feuerstein, (2007, p.5), the researchers agree that the inability of learners to deal with the cognitive demands placed on them can inter alia be attributed to poorly developed cognitive skills and that educators themselves need to possess cognitive skills before they can nurture these skills among their learners (lombard & grosser, 2004, p. 213 ). as the classroom is the most obvious place to deal with the development of cognitive skills, the poor timss results could indicate that educators are not succeeding in equipping learners with cognitive skills (lombard & grosser, 2008, p. 572). prospective educators therefore need to be equipped with the necessary cognitive skills to enable them to develop these skills in their learners. the researchers’ own observations as ex-teachers and presently as lecturers revealed that most of the learners and students do not possess adequate cognitive skills which attribute to learners being unmotivated, negative and passive (peretti & austin, 1980, p. 225; feuerstein, 1982, p. 37). our observations informed our conclusion that purposeful efforts should be undertaken to establish the cognitive skills of prospective educators and to recommend ways in which cognitive skills could be enhanced. haywood, burns, arbitman-smith and delclos (1984, p. 22), thornton (2002, p. 7-41), bjorklund (2005, p. 58) and bauer (2006: p. 128-131) are of the opinion that cognitive skills can be acquired systematically over time even if these skills were not developed during the pre-school years. this research set out to determine whether this statement holds true. 2. cognitive development and the feuerstein instrumental enrichment programme the aim of the teaching of thinking should be to teach learners to think independently and effectively on their own (beyer, 1991, p. 8; engelbrecht, 1995, p.11-12; schraw & olafson, 2003, p.196; feuerstein, 2008). it is therefore important that educators themselves should function on an abstract level of thinking in order to create classroom climates conducive to the development of cognitive skills (wragg & brown, 2001, p. 1). learning should include mediation and negotiations, and the educators should act as facilitators of learning to encourage learners to become self-regulated and to construct knowledge with understanding independently (gouws, 1998, p. 72, 73; doolittle, 2000; eggen & kauchak, 2004, p. 28; woolfolk, 2004, p. 323; bjorklund, 2005, p. 81; langford, 2005, p. 234, 235; kok, 2007, p. 64-44; ormrod, 2008, p. 29, 196). cognitive development focuses among others, on the nurturing of skills to compare, classify, categorize, analyse, synthesize, evaluate, solve problems, make decisions and reason (sigel, 1991, p. 43; eggen & kauchak, 2004, p. 335). the mentioned skills can be divided into two feuerstein’s  instrumental  enrichment  programme   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 359 – 378. 361 important components, namely cognitive and meta-cognitive thinking skills and strategies (beyer, 1987, p. 17; monteith, 2002, p. 97; halpern, 2007, p. 10). cognitive thinking skills are used to create meaning and involve complex strategies such as decision-making, problemsolving and conceptualization, as well as more discrete, less complex skills like analysis or synthesis, reasoning skills and more advanced critical thinking skills which are used to distinguish between relevant and non-relevant information (beyer, 1987, p. 17; monteith, 2002, p. 97; halpern, 2007, p. 10). meta-cognitive thinking skills are used to direct and control cognitive skills (ormrod, 2008, p. 266-277) and are linked to the reflective skills of planning, monitoring and evaluating the learning progress (thornton, 2002, p. 102; grabe & grabe, 2004, p. 47-49; van den berg, 2004, p. 279-280; gelter, 2005, p. 337; bereiter, 2006, p. 14; kok, 2007, p. 28-30). rudd (2007, p. 46) claims that thinking should be taught directly in order for learners to reach their full potential, and therefore educators should be familiar with different approaches to the development of thinking skills. with regard to the cognitive development of learners, the role of the educator receives prominent attention. educators should create safe environments, assist learners to discover their own thinking abilities and reflect on them, teach mutual relationships and create opportunities for learners to act on their own thinking (wragg & brown, 2001, p. 1; singh, granville & dika, 2002, p. 328, le roux, olivier & murray, 2004, p. 89; winstead, 2004, p. 43). many learners struggle to think independently of the teacher and to apply knowledge outside the content of their text books (engelbrecht, 1995, p. 11-12; sonn, 2000, p. 259; schraw & olafson, 2003, p. 178-293; elder & paul, 2004, p. 36). more complex and sophisticated ways of reasoning and problem-solving should therefore be developed (pratt, 2005) and learners should be granted the opportunity to explain their thinking and be active participants who take responsibility for their own learning (vakalisa, 2007, p. 5). educators can no longer be only the conveyers of knowledge, but should be aware of the way their learners think and be able to build bridges from the way learners think to more complex and sophisticated ways of thinking (pratt, 2005). haywood et al. (1984, p. 20) and lombard and grosser (2004, p. 572) are of the opinion that educators do not possess the ability to utilize the process of formal organized thinking and are therefore not capable of conveying it to their learners. furthermore, educators should purposefully create learning environments which cherish in-depth learning and higher-order thinking (sing & khine, 2008, p. 288, 289). in addition to this, fisher (1990. p. 4), vygotsky (in ormrod, 1995, p. 58-62), schayer (2000, p. 36-59), eggen and kauchak (2004, p. 55-57), donald et al. (2004, p. 69), woolfolk (2004, p. 46-52), langford (2005, p. 46-52), ormrod (2008, p. 39-43) and feuerstein (in wittrock, 1991, p. 82) argue that cognitive structures can inter alia be changed through a meditated learning approach to teaching. feuerstein, miller, hoffman, rand, mintzker and jensen (1981, p. 272) define mediated learning experiences as the conveyance of general cognitive structures from the experienced to the inexperienced, less capable person. if learners are exposed to mediated learning experience from a young age, they will have cognitive structures at their disposal which will enable them to organize, join, connect and relate stimulus information (feuerstein et al., 1981, p. 272; feuerstein, hoffman, jensen & rand, 1985, p. 47; fraser, 2006, p. 9). a mediated learning approach expects of learners to think actively and independently (cole, hung, mccaslin & hickley, quoted by schraw & olafson, 2003, p. 181). in essence, mediation implies that teaching and learning should clarify the intent and meaning of what is to be learned and enable learners to apply what they have learned. in addition to this, teaching and learning should create individualized and challenging opportunities for learners to become competent, self-regulated learners who can share information with others (falik, 2001). kloppers  &  grosser   362 studies done at school level and higher education level in, inter alia, israel (feuerstein et al., 1981, p. 282; savell, twohig & rachford, 1986, p. 390; kozulin, 2008), the united states of america (toomey, smyth, warner & fraser, 2000), new zealand (sharron, 1987, p. 236), venezuela (sharron, 1987, p. 15), cleveland and bahia (kozulin, 2008) and in south africa (feuerstein et al., 1981, p. 282; savell et al., 1986, p. 390; kozulin, 2008) have shown that the mediated learning approach of reuven feuerstein possesses the latent potential to develop and improve thinking skills. reuven feuerstein holds the belief that intelligence is not a fixed entity and can be nurtured (in matthews, 2001, p. 150). in addition to this, feuerstein (2008) argues that a mediated learning approach can equip learners of any age with concepts, strategies and skills to repair cognitive deficiencies and to think independently (feuerstein, 2008). furthermore, the relevance of the fie programme for south african pre-service teachers is documented in a study conducted by skuy, lomofsky, fridjhon and green (1993, p. 92-108). this particular study reports on the merits of the fie programme for educationally disadvantaged students from a “coloured” community studying towards a teaching qualification at a former teacher training college in south africa (skuy et al., 1993, p.95). however, no studies documenting the success of feuerstein’s mediated learning approach with pre-service teachers studying towards a teaching qualification at university level could be located. therefore this research makes an important contribution by highlighting the merits that the fie programme hold for the training of educators studying towards a bed-degree at a university. reuven feuerstein structured his mediated learning approach to cognitive development in an intervention programme, the fie programme which consists of fourteen content-free instruments that each comprise a number of pencil and paper exercises. the fie programme is not culturally biased, and no prior knowledge or subject knowledge is required for participating in the programme. the programme creates a safe environment where intrinsic motivation is developed and enhanced through reflective thinking (egozi, 1994, p. 361). the posing of questions during mediation plays an important role in the development of thinking (rotterdam, 2000, p.6) and this technique is used in all the fie lessons. the main purpose of the instruments is to improve the cognitive functioning of the learner irrespective of age, culture and socio-economic environment by increasing intrinsic motivation and promoting reflective thinking through which autonomous cognitive behaviour is learned (wittrock, 1991, p. 83). the programme exercises address cognitive skills such as classification, spatial relationship, planning, organizing, inductive and deductive reasoning (link, 1991, p. 11; feuerstein, rand, hoffman & miller, 1983, p.1 26). in particular, the programme focuses on the factors leading to poor cognitive development and attempts to change the passive dependent cognitive style of the learner into an active independent cognitive style (feuerstein et al., 1983, p. 1). learners demonstrate cognitive deficiencies when they find it problematic to gather, organize and use information, are impulsive and do not possess strategies or structures for thinking (fisher, 1990, p. 132; feuerstein, 2007, p. 5). these deficiencies can impact on the input, elaboration or output level of the learning process (nickerson, perkins & smith, 1985, p. 152). cognitive deficiencies in the input phase imply blurred and sweeping perceptions that lead to unplanned, impulsive, inaccurate and unsystematic learning. furthermore, learners cannot work with two or more sources of information at a time (feuerstein et al., 1983, p. 73; feuerstein et al., 1985, p. 52-53; feuerstein, 2007, p. 5). if learners lack cognitive functions in the elaboration phase they experience difficulties in planning their actions, defining problems and distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant cues for solving a problem (feuerstein et al., 1983, p. 73-74; feuerstein 2007, p. 5). impaired cognitive functions in the output phase are recognized by trial and error responses and the inability to communicate responses accurately (feuerstein et al., 1983, p. 74; feuerstein, 2007, p. 5). feuerstein’s  instrumental  enrichment  programme   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 359 – 378. 363 in the context of this study the researchers focused on two instruments in the fie programme, namely organization of dots and analytic perceptions. organization of dots aims at empowering learners to organize, plan, categorize, analyse and summarize spontaneously, restrict impulsive behaviour, improve problem-solving techniques and social interaction, and develop reflexive processes. cognitive functions which are developed by analytic perception are spontaneous comparison, identifying relationships and categorizing (feuerstein, 1996). 3. research framework and design framed within a pragmatic paradigm, this pilot study was explanatory in nature. sequential explanatory mixed-method research involving a quantitative and qualitative method of data collection was utilized (ivankova, creswell & plano-clark, 2007, p. 254-265). quantitative data collection by means of testing and qualitative data collection through participant narratives characterized the research process. in the context of this study, the test results were obtained and analysed where after the participants were requested to write down their personal experiences with the fie programme in the form of a narrative. the narratives were analysed and used to gain a deeper understanding of the test results. primarily, the focus was on the quantitative data while the qualitative data was used in a secondary role to explain and better understand the test results obtained (mcmillan & schumacher, 2006, p.28). as part of the quantitative component, a pre-experimental pre-test post-test research design was used with two groups of randomly assigned participants, namely group 1 and group 2. the verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests of the dat-l test battery were used to determine the extent to which cognitive skills were developed among the participants. the pre-test was done with the entire group of participants before the commencement of the study to determine the cognitive skills of the group before the application of the fie intervention programme. the researchers personally exposed both groups to intervention with the fie programme on rotational basis for a period of twelve hours over six weeks in an attempt to develop and/or improve thinking skills. after the implementation of the intervention, each of the groups was tested again with the same verbal and nonverbal reasoning dat-l tests to determine whether the intervention programme had developed and/or improved thinking skills. furthermore, after the six week intervention implementation period with group 2, group 1 received a retention test, to establish what happened to the thinking skills of group 1 during the period in which they were not exposed to the intervention. to explain the data gained through the test results, participants were requested to record their perceptions of and experiences related to the fie programme in a narrative. this was used to determine more specifically which aspects of the programme the participants regarded as important and valuable, as well as to support the quantitative data obtained through the dat-l tests. the intervention period was geographically bound and kept short because mouton (2009) suggests that a shorter, bounded implementation timeframe for an intervention decreases the influence of other factors on the research and enables one to make more reliable deductions regarding the impact on the intervention before it is implemented with larger groups. the elements of a plan as formulated by feuerstein (1996, p. 33) were used as a basic point of departure for all the lessons. learners had to define goals, look at available information, decide on the best strategy to be used, determine where to start, know the rules and check their work (feuerstein, 1996). manuals supplied with the instruments were used to guide the implementation of the programme activities meticulously according to a fixed procedure to make sure that both groups received the intervention in similar ways. throughout, the principles of kloppers  &  grosser   364 mediation were applied and learners were able to monitor, test and correct themselves. unknown vocabulary, concepts and instructions were clarified and learners had the opportunity to work independently on the exercises. learners had the opportunity to discuss problems in order to improve problem-solving behaviour and more importantly to become aware of their own cognitive behaviour during problem-solving (savell et al., 1986, p. 386; grosser, 1996, p. 77). learners were encouraged to apply the knowledge gained from the instrument to real life situations. 3.1 population and sample the research was conducted at a south african university with a purposefully and conveniently selected sample consisting of all the second year education students with mathematics as major (n = 24). these students were chosen due to the fact that one of the researchers lectured mathematics to the students which made easy access to the students possible. although students with mathematics as major subject were used, the focus of this research was on the general development of cognitive skills irrespective of subject context. the students were randomly grouped into two groups, group 1 and group 2, comprising eleven and thirteen participants respectively. the participants were heterogeneous regarding the biographical variables gender, language and culture. as these groups were too small, the impact of these variables on the results was not determined. only the impact of the independent variable, the fie programme, with respect to the dependent variable, cognitive development, was established. 3.2 hypotheses as the study was pre-experimental in nature, only the following tentative null and directional and non-directional alternative hypotheses could be formulated. (h ): the fie programme of reuven feuerstein will have no statistical significant impact on the cognitive skills of prospective mathematics educators. (ha1): the fie programme of reuven feuerstein will have a statistical significant impact on the cognitive skills of prospective mathematics educators. (ha2): there is a relationship between the fie programme of reuven feuerstein and the cognitive skills of prospective educators. 3.3 data collection instruments 3.3.1 dat-l test with the assistance of the human sciences research council, the dat-l test was identified as a suitable test to determine the cognitive development level of the participants (owen & vosloo, 2008). the dat-l test makes use of static assessment procedures, and supported the focus of the study, namely to determine cognitive development as product after the implementation of the intervention, in contrast to dynamic assessment procedures that rather aim to determine the potential for cognitive development (colman, 2001; tzuriel, 2009). feuerstein’s  instrumental  enrichment  programme   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 359 – 378. 365 the dat-l is a set of six differential aptitude tests which focus on the following facets of cognitive functioning: vocabulary, verbal and non-verbal reasoning, computations, comprehension, comparison, spatial visualization, memory and mechanical insight (owen & vosloo, 2008). for this research, the tests for verbal (test 2) and non-verbal reasoning (test 3) were used as they are related well to the skills used in the two instruments of the intervention programme, namely organization of dots and analytic perception. the rationale for using test 2 rests upon the assumption that certain skills are required to determine relationships and to solve problems which require logical thinking, and are required for successful general reasoning (owen & vosloo, 2000: p.4). the test comprised twenty five questions and required the participants to understand, logically process and solve verbal problems. feuerstein’s instrument organization of dots, although non-verbal in nature, aims at helping learners to improve their skills to solve problems, organize information spontaneously, understand relationships, think logically, plan, categorize, analyse and summarize all of which can be applied across a variety of learning contexts (feuerstein et al., 1983, p.140-141). test 3 aims to realize relationships between figures, to identify a missing figure and to follow changes that a figure can undergo in a pattern of figures (owen & vosloo, 2000, p.5). this test consists of twenty five questions divided into two sections, a and b. in section a, learners have to match figures and in section b, they are expected to identify a missing figure when there is a change in figures. this test measures the skill to solve problems of a logical nature when no words or numbers are given. the improvement of non-verbal reasoning skills is addressed in the feuerstein instrument analytic perceptions (feuerstein, 1996). 3.3.2 narrative analysis on completion of the research, all the participants wrote narratives that documented their perceptions and experiences with the fie programme. the narratives focused on obtaining information regarding the four elements suggested by mcmillan and schumacher (2006, p. 62), namely detail about personal experiences during the intervention, particular incidents or experiences of importance during the intervention, the use of expressive language to describe what the intervention achieved and how meaningful the intervention appeared to be. by means of inductive analysis the researchers independently worked through the narratives and identified codes related to the aforementioned elements after which codes were compared and common themes identified (cohen, manion & morrison, 2007, p. 476). reliability and validity of the dat-l test the reliability of the test instrument for south african learners varies between cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.55 0.67 for verbal reasoning and 0.67 0.71 for non-verbal reasoning and are regarded as satisfactory by the authors of the test (owen, 2000, p. 43). for the actual study cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.59 and 0.24 were calculated for test 2 and test 3 respectively. the reliability for test 3 is quite low, which could possibly be attributed to the fact that very few of the participants completed the test in the set time frame. if the last five test items of the test are not considered when calculating the cronbach alpha coefficient, the reliability coefficient that is reflected is 0.70. in most of the social sciences, a cronbach alpha between 0.7 and 0.8 is regarded as acceptable. some researchers, however, argue that 0.75 and kloppers  &  grosser   366 0.80 are acceptable, and in some instances 0.60 is regarded as in order for an initial exploratory study, as was the case with this research (garson, 2008; simon, 2008). in addition to the cronbach alpha coefficients, reliability was also guaranteed by administering and marking the tests meticulously according to the instructions in the test manual. all the marks were checked twice to ensure reliability. there was only one correct answer and no marks were deducted for wrong answers. tests were taken in classroom environments familiar to the learners to avoid the interference of unfamiliar circumstances (cohen et al., 2007, p. 156160). the following important aspects were considered to ensure reliability and validity for the testretest situation: o the time interval between the two tests was short enough to prevent the possible influence of external factors and long enough so as to prevent the learners from remembering the questions from the first test. o tests were collected after administration and no answers were made available to the participants. the test questions were in no way related to the subject content whatsoever which could have benefitted the participants (cohen et al., 2007, p. 146; pietersen & maree, 2007a, p. 215; mcmillan & schumacher, 2006, p. 140). trustworthiness of the narratives to ensure the trustworthiness of the narratives, the completion of which was a subjective process, the following guidelines as indicated by nieuwenhuis (2007, p. 113-115) were followed: the coded data was verified by an independent coder to eliminate researcher bias. in addition to this, the findings were not used to generalize to other populations. the researchers merely wanted to determine the effect of the intervention and the experiences that the participants had with the intervention in the bounded geographical context of a specific south african university. an inductive process of data analysis was followed to ensure that meaning and understanding were derived from the exact words of the participants. 3.4 ethical considerations the participants were informed about the nature of the study and what their involvement would entail in order firstly to obtain their assent as to whether they would like to take part or not. the participants were also assured that their responses would remain confidential and anonymous and that they would be informed about the outcome of the study. after obtaining assent, written consent was obtained from all the participants involved in the research. 4. data analysis and discussion 4.1 data analysis and interpretation of the dat-l pre-test and post-test results data analysis was conducted through standardized descriptive and inferential statistical procedures by an independent statistician. non-parametric statistical procedures were used due to the small sample (n < 30) and due to the fact that it could not be presumed that the study variables were normally distributed (mcmillan & schumacher, 2006, p. 308; pietersen & maree, 2007b, p. 233). the mann-whitney test which is a non-parametric equivalent of the parametric t-test was used to compare the pre-test and post-test results of the two independent groups, group 1 and group 2 (pietersen & maree, 2007b, p. 233). the mann-whitney test feuerstein’s  instrumental  enrichment  programme   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 359 – 378. 367 uses ranks rather than real values. this implies that extreme values will have a lesser impact on results than the parametric t-test (pietersen & maree, 2007b, p. 233). the wilcoxon signedrank test, a non-parametric test similar to the parametric t-test, was used to compare the differences between the pre-test and post-test results within the groups. table 1 reports on the preand post-test results of group 1 and group 2. group 1 n mean (25) standard deviation pre-test test 2 11 14.0 4.754 pre-test test 3 11 9.6 3.613 post-test test 2 11 15.8 4.792 post-test test 3 11 11.2 3.894 retention test test 2* 11 15.8 5.016 retention test test3* 11 15.0 4.195 group 2 n mean (25) standard deviation pre-test test 2 13 12.9 2.929 pre-test test 3 13 10.3 3.966 post-test test 2 13 15.4 2.434 post-test test 3 13 13.5 4.594 table 1: preand post-test results of participants * retention test only applicable to group 1 the standard deviation is an indication of the variance of scores around the mean (coolidge, 2006, p. 76). the larger the standard deviations, the further the values lie from the arithmetic mean (steyn, smit, du toit & strasheim, 2004, p.137). the standard deviations revealed that there was not a large variance in the preand post-test results for both groups, which indicated that the participants were more or less on the same cognitive developmental level and thus comparable. although the researchers did not focus on mathematics as a subject in particular, the low mean scores obtained in the pre-tests by the participants is distressing when taking into consideration that these were second-year education students with mathematics as major, a subject that, as prerequisite for effective learning, expects learners to have a variety of well developed cognitive skills (winicki-landman, 2001, p. 30; sing et al., 2002, p. 324; winstead, 2004, p. 44, department of education, 2007, p. 4; sezer, 2008, p. 351). the mean of the-pre test for group 1 (14.0) is higher than the mean of the pre-test of group 2 (12.9) for test 2. although the results for group 1 were better than those of group 2, it appeared as if participants in both groups could improve regarding cognitive skills such as logical thinking and general reasoning which were tested with test 2. the mean of the post-test of group 1 for test 2 (15.8) was higher than that of group 2 (15.4), and when comparing this with the pre-test results, it seemed as if there was an improvement in the application of cognitive skills. the mean of the post-test of both groups was greater than the mean of the pre-test, which might point out that the intervention programme possibly, has the potential to improve the cognitive skills. this augurs well for findings in the literature that highlight the merits of the fie kloppers  &  grosser   368 programme for improving cognitive development (feuerstein et al., 1981, p. 282; savell et al., 1986, p. 390; toomey et al., 2000; kozulin, 2008). regarding the preand post-test results of both groups for test 3, it is important to mention that the means of the post-test were very low at 9.6 and 10.3 respectively. it seems as if the nonverbal skills were more problematic than the verbal skills. an improvement was, however, noted for both groups in the post-tests with means of 11.2 and 13.5 respectively. the improvement of the means of group 1 regarding test 3, from the post-test (11.2) to the retention test (15.0), as well as the fact that the post-test mean for test 2, remained the same during the retention test. this result could point in the direction that feuerstein’s intervention programme possibly has the potential to improve the application of cognitive skills, but also that these skills, when established, could be retained in the absence of direct mediation and result in autonomous cognitive behaviour (feuerstein et al., 1983, p. 115-118). inferential statistics assisted the researchers to provide deeper dimensions to the results and to ultimately accept or reject the hypotheses. the mann whitney test, a non-parametric t-test for independent groups was used (pietersen & maree, 2007b:, p. 233) to indicate significant differences between groups 1 and 2. table 2 reports the results for the differences between the different test occasions for group 1 and group 2. n median rank mannwhitney u z (mannwhitney statistics) statistical significance (p) pre-test test 2 group 1 11 12.68 pre-test test 2: group 2 13 12.35 69.500 -.117 .910 pre-test test 3: group 1 11 11.77 pre-test test 3: group 2 13 13.121 63.500 -.468 .649 post-test test 2 group 1 11 12.50 post-test test 2: group 2 13 12.50 71.500 .000 1.000 post-test test 3: group 1 11 10.73 post-test test 3: group 2 13 14.00 52.000 -1.142 .277 table 2: significance of differences between the preand post-test means when using the mann-whitney test statistical significance: * p < 0.05 the data tabled above, indicate that there was no statistical significance between groups 1 and 2, as p > 0.05 for all the different test occasions. this implies that not one of the groups benefitted more than the other from the intervention programme. feuerstein’s  instrumental  enrichment  programme   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 359 – 378. 369 the non-parametric wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to compare the improvement of cognitive skills within the groups. the results are reported in table 3. mean rank group 1 n negative positive z statistical significance pre-test test 2 11 retention test test 2 11 2.83 6.64 -1.946 .052 pre-test test 3 11 retention test test 3 11 .00 5.50 -2.810 .005* post-test test 2 11 retention test test 2 11 6.75 4.67 -.052 .959 post-test test 3 11 retention test test 3 11 2.00 6.89 -2.585 .010* pre-test test 2 11 post-test test 2 11 2.00 6.38 -2.414 .016* pre-test test 3 11 post-test test 3 11 2.00 6.38 -2.434 .015* mean rank group 2 n negative positive z statistical significance pre-test test 2 13 post-test test 2 13 .00 7.00 -3.198 .001* pre-test test 3 13 post-test test 3 13 2.00 7.91 -2.909 .004* table 3: significance of differences between preand post-test means within groups as measured by the wilcoxon signed ranks test statistical significance: * p < 0.05 from the results reported in tables 2 and 3 it is clear that the statistical significant differences in test results did not occur between the two groups, but mainly within the two groups. regarding group 1, the post-test results of test 2 were statistically significantly better than the pre-test results for test 2 of group 1, as p = 0.016. the same applied for test 3, where a statistical significant improvement was noted for the post-test results, as p = 0.015. no statistical significant difference was noted between the retention test and the post-test results for test 2 and the retention and pre-test results of test 2. the cognitive skills did not weaken or improve further during the retention period. a statistically significant difference is again noted between the retention test and the pre-test results of test 3 (p = 0.005), as well as between the retention test and the post-test of test 3 (p =0.010), in favour of the retention test results. this implies that once the cognitive skills were established, they were retained and improved, possibly through continuous use. kloppers  &  grosser   370 a similar trend was noted for group 2. there was a statistically significant difference between the preand post-test results of group 2 for test 2, p = 0.001, as well as between the preand post-tests of test 3, p = 0.004. the statistically significant differences confirm that the fie programme possesses the latent potential to improve cognitive ability (toomey et al., 2000; kozulin, 2008). the test results of group 1 and group 2 indicate that cognitive development does not happen at once. cognitive development takes time and requires purposeful efforts for extensive practice in applying acquired cognitive skills (van den berg, 2004, p. 280; rudd, 2007, p. 46). it is disturbing that the test results for the pre-test indicated that the participants lacked verbal and non-verbal cognitive and meta-cognitive skills and strategies (beyer, 1987, p. 17; monteith, 2002: p. 97; thornton, 2002, p.102; grabe & grabe, 2004, p. 47-49; van den berg, 2004, p. 279-280; gelter, 2003, p. 337; bereiter, 2006, p. 14; halpern, 2007, p. 10; kok, 2007, p. 28-30). without well developed cognitive and meta-cognitive skills and strategies, the participants would not be able to function as self-regulated learners who can independently construct knowledge with understanding (gouws, 1998, p. 72, 73; doolittle, 2000; eggen & kauchak, 2004, p. 28; woolfolk, 2004, p. 323; bjorklund, 2005, p. 81; langford, 2005, p. 234, 235; kok, 2007, p. 64-44; ormrod, 2008, p. 29, 196). in support of lombard and grosser (2004, p.213), the researchers argue that, if the participants are not equipped with these skills, they will not be able to nurture these skills among their learners one day, and the critical outcomes of the national curriculum statement, which envisage all learners as competent in the solving of problems, effective in the collection, organizing and managing of activities and successful in evaluating and applying information critically (department of education, 2003a, p. 2), will not become a reality. the improvement in the post-test results supports the view of feuerstein et al. (1983, p. 59) who argue that the cognitive potential of learners is not static and fixed, but dynamic in nature. 4.2 data analysis and interpretation of the narratives after the intervention period, the participants were asked to write down their perceptions of and experiences with the fie programme. the aim was to determine whether the narratives confirmed the quantitative test results before final conclusions could be made. an inductive analysis procedure was used to analyse information obtained from the participant’s experiences of the intervention. main ideas or codes from each participant’s narrative were identified and themes were developed regarding person, incidents, language and experiences from the intervention. the participants indicated inter alia that they could manage themselves better, that their self-confidence increased and that their problem-solving and decision-making skills improved. in addition to this, their speed in the execution of tasks improved, they considered more than one solution to a problem, could change their strategies, did not give up in difficult situations, thought about the steps involved in problem-solving, could apply the cognitive skills addressed in the instruments to real life situations, worked less impulsively, thought a problem through, avoided mistakes, paid attention to detail, checked their work, considered what was given before starting with their tasks, thought critically about information, defined a goal and admitted that planning plays an important role in success. participants were positive about the programme and commented that it also helped them to reflect on their own lives because they would now be able to identify mistakes they have made in their own lives and think about their mistakes differently. they also mentioned that the programme helped them with intrinsic motivation and persistence on tasks. feuerstein’s  instrumental  enrichment  programme   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 359 – 378. 371 the participants’ personal experiences indicate changes and improvement with regard to the cognitive functions that are required in the input, elaboration and output phases of the learning process, as highlighted by feuerstein et al. (1983, p. 73); feuerstein et al. (1985, p. 52-53) and feuerstein (2007, p. 5). furthermore, the researchers argue that the improved cognitive functions as documented by the participants in their narratives could have attributed to the improvement noted in the post-test results of the participants. the researchers link their argument to the views of fisher (1990, p. 132) and feuerstein (2007, p. 5) who indicate that cognitive development and improvement occur when cognitive deficiencies linked to the input, elaboration and output phases of the learning process are ameliorated. the researchers cautiously assumed that the participants lacked exposure to mediated learning experiences. they base their argument on the fact that the narratives indicated that the participants acquired important cognitive and meta-cognitive skills and strategies that are necessary for cognitive development through the mediated learning approach on which the intervention was based. participants mentioned in their narratives that they now realise the importance of planning their work, using different strategies to solve problems, reflecting on their work and linking what they have learned to real life situations, which links well with what fraser (2006, p.9) indicates as some of the merits of mediated learning. 4.3 accepting/rejecting hypotheses at the onset of the study tentative null and alternative hypotheses were formulated. based on the statistically significant results that were obtained, and acknowledging the fact that other biographical variables could have impacted on the results, the researchers cautiously reject the null and nondirectional alternative hypothesis. they accept the directional alternative hypothesis as statistically significant improvement after the implementation of the intervention was noted between group 1 and group 2 for all the test occasions, with the exception of pretest 2 and the retention test 2, as well as post-test 2 and the retention test 2 results for group 1. 5. findings although this research was an exploratory pilot study with a number of limitations linked to the sampling procedure and the type of experimental design used, a number of important conclusions can be derived from this research that should be followed up in more comprehensive studies. the researchers argue that, in a competitive society, intelligence on its own is not sufficient and learners need to purposely develop cognitive skills in order to solve problems and reason in a rapidly changing world. educators need to support learners in the development of these skills and they should therefore acquire skills like analysis, synthesis, reasoning and problem-solving themselves before conveying these skills to their learners. our aim was to establish whether prospective educators possess cognitive skills as well as the potential of the fie programme to develop and improve cognitive skills. the pre-test results revealed that the prospective mathematics educators who took part in the study, did not possess adequate cognitive and meta-cognitive skills and strategies. these results create reason for concern as it appears that the educators who taught these learners at school, as well as the lecturing they received during their first year at university, did not purposefully create kloppers  &  grosser   372 opportunities to enhance their cognitive development. based on the results of this research, it is clear that educator training should devote much more attention to the cognitive development of prospective educators. this research revealed that low cognitive performance is reversible through mediation. this implies that instead of labelling the cognitive skills of prospective educators as inadequate, emergent or latent, a pro-active mediated learning approach during the training of these educators should be adopted to improve their cognitive skills. prospective educators who experience problems in executing cognitive skills for the completion of academic tasks, should be exposed to mediated learning on a more frequent basis, as well developed cognitive skills are regarded as pivotal to educators’ teaching effectiveness (birjandi & bagherkazemi, 2010, pp. 135-145; elizabeth, may & chee, 2008, pp. 43-57; hashemi, 2008; korthagen, 2004, pp. 7779; tamblyn, 2000, pp. 16-19). in addition to this, well developed cognitive skills are needed to avoid student educators falling into working ways which are disorganized, overly simplistic, spotty about getting facts, apt to apply unreasonable criteria and then becoming easily distracted, ready to give up at the least hint of difficulty and being intent on a solution that is more detailed than possible or being satisfied with an overly generalized and uselessly vague response (facione, 2009, p. 10). according to a mediated learning approach the purpose of teaching and learning should focus on teaching prospective educators how to think and not what to think. it is imperative that skills such as analysis, reflection, evaluation, making valid conclusions and problem-solving need to be nurtured among prospective educators. in addition to this, prospective educators need to be made aware of the fact that deficient cognitive skills can contribute to poor academic performance. these deficient cognitive skills refer inter alia to impulsive ways of working, inaccuracy, the inability to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant facts, and a lack of selfregulation during learning (feuerstein, 2007, p. 5). in essence, when complying with the aforementioned important challenges, educator training will equip teachers to lay the foundation for enhancing cognitive development among learners at school. 6. conclusion in order to provide quality education at school level and to develop learners to become competent thinkers and problem solvers, a qualitative improvement in the training of educators will have to take place. teacher education institutions are therefore faced with a two folded challenge, namely (a) to motivate student educators that the teaching of thinking skills is important and that it can be done, and (b) to equip student educators with skills so that they become effective thinkers themselves. it could be argued that educators should become effective thinkers themselves before they can teach learners how to become effective thinkers. the researchers are convinced that the fie programme has the potential to enhance cognitive development, and should therefore be utilized during the training of educators. references barnes, c.a. 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(2001). questioning in the secondary school. london: routledge/falmer. 70 p. exposé or misconstrual? 43 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 exposé or misconstrual? unresolved issues of authorship and the authenticity of gw stow’s ‘forgery’ of a rock art painting marguerite prins� abstract. george william stow (1822-1882) is today considered to have been one of the founding fathers of rock art research and conservation in southern africa. he arrived from england in 1843 and settled on the frontier of the eastern cape where he gradually started specializing in geological exploration, the ethnological history of the early peoples of the subcontinent and the rock art of the region. by the 1870s he was responsible for the discovery of the coalfields in the vaal triangle of south africa. in recent years stow’s legacy has been the subject of academic suspicion. some rock art experts claim that he made himself guilty of ‘forgery’. in the article the authors argues in favour of restoring the status of stow by pointing to the fact that two mutually exclusive interpretational approaches of rock art, than it is about an alleged forgery, are at the heart of the attempts at discrediting his work. in the process, irreparable and undeserving harm has been done to the name of george william stow and his contribution to rock art research and conservation in south africa. key words. gw stow, rock art, shamanistic approach, geology, archaeology, heritage conservation. introduction for the researcher engaged in a study of the rock engravings of redan near vereeniging, it is usually inevitable to come across the name of george william stow (1822-1882). stow discovered the rich coal fields in the vaal area that would lead to the formation of a vast coal empire and the establishment of the industrial city of vereeniging.2 stow also laid the foundation for rock art research and conservation in south africa. twenty-three years after his death his treatise the native races 1 dr marguerite prins, completed a phd in history at north-west university in 2005. it was titled the primordial circle: the prehistoric rock engravings of redan, vereeniging. an earlier draft of this article was presented at a conference of the south african association of art historians, at the university of stellenbosch in september 2003. 2 r mendelsohn, sammy marks: ‘the uncrowned king of the transvaal’ (david philip, cape town, 1991), pp. 11-15. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 1 no. 1, december 2005 pp. 43-58 prins 44 of south africa was published posthumously.3 the publication was illustrated with four copies of rock art including a copy entitled ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’. recently stow’s name was resurrected, not to honour his many achievements, but to ‘expose’ him as a liar and a cheat and to accuse him of deliberately forging the ostrich copy for his own gain. a close scrutiny of stow’s voluminous correspondence, both published and unpublished and of his copies, reveals a number of inconsistencies that seriously weaken, if not refute, the claim that he perpetrated an intentional hoax. a more serious repercussion of this allegation is that it has impacted directly on how stow’s contribution, both his copies and his written treatise, are perceived and utilised by researchers. the man and his times stow emigrated from england and settled on the turbulent eastern cape border in 1843, where he rapidly became known as a skilled amateur geologist. in the course of his geological explorations he developed an interest in the bantu-speaking and khoisan peoples, and began documenting their histories and customs, and making copies of their rock paintings. stow started copying rock art in 1867. he wanted to use it as a visual clue to their customs and manners.4 in 1879, 36 years after settling in south africa,5 he started writing what was to become one of the earliest contributions on the history of the khoisan peoples of southern africa. stow was the quintessential autodidact, completely self-taught in the three fields that would bring him fame, geology, ethnology and the study of rock art. he pursued these disciplines simultaneously. he travelled in an ox-wagon, covered thousands of kilometres, frequently into unexplored terrain, worked for long periods without remuneration and suffered extreme physical deprivation.6 he conducted interviews with the bushmen he encountered, and became an indefatigable recorder of their art, and a passionate spokesman for the preservation of bushman art and culture. on occasion he explained: one thing is certain, if i am spared i shall use every effort to secure all the paintings in the state that i possibly can, that some record may be kept (imperfect as it must necessarily be …). i have never lost an opportunity during that time of rescuing from total obliteration the memory of their wonderful 3 gw stow, the native races of south africa: a history of the intrusion of the hottentots and bantu into the hunting grounds of the bushmen, the aborigines of the country (edited by g. mccall theal. swann sonnenschein & co. ltd, london, [1905], [reprinted 1906], 1910). 4 d lewis-williams, stories that float from afar: ancestral folklore of the san of southern africa, (second printing, (first 2000), david philip, cape town, 2002), p. 21; rb young, the life and work of george william stow, (longmans, green, london, 1908), p. 18. 5 gw stow, the native races of south africa: a history of the intrusion of the hottentots and bantu into the hunting grounds of the bushmen, the aborigines of the country, (edited by g. mccall theal, swann sonnenschein & co. ltd, london, 1910), p. 2. 6 rb young, the life and work of george william stow. (longmans, green, london, 1908), pp. 7-11. exposé or misconstrual? 45 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 artistic labours, at the same time buoying myself up with the hope that by so doing a foundation might be laid to a work that might ultimately prove to be of considerable importance and value to the student of the earlier races of mankind.7 illustration 1: gw stow. source: young 7 gw stow – lucy lloyd, 4 june 1877, in k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, (cape town: south african library, cape town, 1997), p. 73. prins 46 judged by today’s exacting standards, stow’s copy method appears somewhat unorthodox. it consisted of two distinct stages. on site he took a few basic measurements, transferred these to rough paper, drew in the images free-hand, made pencil annotations of the colours and collected pigment samples in situ. the final copy was made by tracing and scoring through the images, transferring these to cartridge paper and adding colour washes. it is also widely known that many of his copies are in fact compilations consisting of the selection and omission of images from different parts of the rock face, to form a single composition.8 this practice was not considered unusual or fraudulent. it was dictated by stow’s extreme sense of urgency to record as much of the art as possible in order to preserve it for posterity. as a result of the acute shortage of paper he invariably experienced in the veld9 he was also anxious to make each copy as ‘representative’ as possible. in 1874, while engaged in geological reconnaissance for the legislature of griqualand west (north west province), stow began corresponding with the philologist, w.h.i. bleek, curator of the grey collection in cape town and renowned scholar of the bushman language and culture. as a result of bleek’s interest in the bushman culture, a number of interested individuals had been sending him copies of the rock art.10 stow subsequently sent him a portfolio containing 72 of his copies of rock paintings and engravings. in a letter to bleek he expounded his narrative view of the art: some may have a mythological character but others are certainly historical paintings … these are frequently representations of battles – huntings and dances in which the bushmen are represented wearing the different disguises they are known to adopt on such occasions – but which european eyes when they see representations of men enveloped in skins with beaks or birds’ heads or with tails of iguanas and other animals fastened around their wrists, make them believe they must have a mythological or fabulous meaning, instead of representing the manners and customs of the bushmen as they really were.11 bleek did not dispute this interpretation, and in his second official report, published the following year, he acknowledged these copies as a ‘magnificent collection’ and added that their publication cannot but effect a radical change in the ideas generally entertained with regard to the bushmen and their mental condition. an inspection of these pictures and their explanation by bushmen has only commenced; but it promises some valuable results and throws light upon many things hitherto unintelligible.12 8 gw stow and d.f. bleek, rock paintings in south africa from parts of the eastern province and orange free state, (methuen, london, 1930), p. xxvi. 9 ibid., p. xxvii. 10 k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 42. 11 mcgreggor museum depot mmkd 2650/1. correspondence: gw stow – l. lloyd, 14 december 1874. 12 k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 42. exposé or misconstrual? 47 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 this promising correspondence was cut short by bleek’s sudden death on 17 august 1875,13 but was continued by his sister-in-law and collaborator lucy lloyd.14 lloyd was responsible for much of the interviews, transcripts and translations of the verbatim accounts delivered by a number of bushmen, residing with bleek in his home.15 isolated in the field, lucy lloyd became stow’s confidante and mentor, and he kept her informed of every step of the progress he was making both with his written treatise, and his copies of the rock art. in the course of his travels the idea came to him to use his copies to illustrate his written treatise. stow did not live to see his text or his copies published. while in the field he heard the heartbreaking news that due to its great length, the publisher john murray of london was unable to publish his treatise.16 he died 18 months later (presumably of a heart attack). in spite of her own precarious financial situation, lucy lloyd purchased the remaining copies that were in the possession of stow’s widow. furthermore, regardless of ill health, lucy lloyd persevered for many years in trying to find a publisher. she eventually enlisted the help of the historian g. mccall theal, and the native races of south africa was finally published in 1905, illustrated with a copy of ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’.17 the case against stow in 1994, more than 100 years after stow’s death, an article ‘the mystery of the blue ostriches’ appeared in the prestigious publication african studies.18 it was co-authored by three prominent academics, thomas a. dowson, phillip v. tobias and j. david lewis-williams. this article was preceded by a provisional exposé earlier.19 in the 1994 article, it is alleged that stow perpetrated an intentional hoax, in order to support his ‘firm belief that the rock paintings faithfully chronicled the customs and hunting activities of the bushmen’.20 the authors argue that the blue os13 d lewis-williams, stories that float from afar: ancestral folklore of the san of southern africa, (second printing, (first 2000),david philip, cape town, 2002), p. 22. 14 d lewis-williams, stories that float from afar: ancestral folklore of the san of southern africa, (second printing, (first 2000),david philip, cape town, 2002), p. 24. 15 e. eberhard, “wilhelm bleek and the founding of khoisan research”, in j. deacon & ta dowson (eds), voices from the past: ixam bushmen and the bleek and lloyd collection, (witwatersrand university press, johannesburg, 1996), p. 54. 16 ibid., p. 54. 17 gw stow, the native races of south africa, (swan & sonnenschein, london, (1905) 1964), p. 82. 18 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, pp. 3-38. 19 ta dowson, “the making of the ‘blue ostriches’: further light on a scientific fraud” in south african journal of science, 89, 1993, pp. 360-361. 20 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 4. prins 48 triches (as the copy ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’ became known) is not copied from an original rock painting, but is derived from an illustration in robert moffat’s missionary labours and scenes in south africa.21 this is substantiated with an illustration.22 the authors believe that stow reversed the illustration left to right and that he deliberately omitted some of the images to make it appear more like a genuine rock painting. apart from a superficial resemblance between the composition of the blue ostriches and moffat’s illustration, these allegations remain unproven and speculative. as further evidence the authors argue that no field copy has ever been located, but that an indian ink copy in possession of the rock art research unit of the university of the witwatersrand,23 shows that the deeply curved neck of one of the ostriches, is a deliberate falsification. moreover, that the blue colour of the ostriches is unusual (hence the name ‘blue ostriches’), and that the composition suggests ‘a sense of european perspective’.24 the authors assert that the original rock painting has never been located, in spite of stow’s daughter testifying in the 1930s to dorothea bleek that she recalled visiting such a cave with her father. miss stow’s testimony is questioned and rejected, implicating her together with her father.25 stow (and a number of early travellers) are brought into further discredit by questioning the validity of the ostrich hunting strategy of the bushmen. in the article the authors argues that there have been frequent borrowings amongst early writers,26 and conclude that: as further evidence the authors argue that no field copy has ever been located, but that an indian ink copy in possession of the rock art research unit of the university of the witwatersrand,27 shows that the deeply curved neck of one of the ostriches, is a deliberate falsification. moreover, that the blue colour of the ostriches is unusual (hence the name ‘blue ostriches’), and that the composition suggests ‘a sense of european perspective’.28 the authors assert that the original rock painting has never been located, in spite of stow’s daughter testifying in the 21 r moffat, missionary labours and scenes in southern africa: twenty-three years an agent of the london missionary society in that continent, (john snow, paternoster-row, london, 1842). 22 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, fig. 5. 23 now known as the rock art research institute. 24 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 9. 25 ibid., pp. 9, 23. 26 ibid., p. 11. 27 now known as the rock art research institute. 28 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 9. exposé or misconstrual? 49 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 1930s to dorothea bleek that she recalled visiting such a cave with her father. miss stow’s testimony is questioned and rejected, implicating her together with her father.29 illustration 2: ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’ now called ‘the blue ostriches’. source: gw stow (1905), opposite p. 82. stow (and a number of early travellers) are brought into further discredit by questioning the validity of the ostrich hunting strategy of the bushmen. in the article the authors argues that there have been frequent borrowings amongst early writers,30 and conclude that: the supposed employment by bushmen of ostrich disguises, and their depiction of some other types of hunting disguises have been seriously questioned. they believe that the therianthropes (half-men/half-beasts) frequently depicted in rock paintings do not portray hunting and dancing disguises, but the trance experience of the shaman: the art is now believed to have been principally, though not necessarily exclusively, associated with the activities of shamans who entered trance to cure the sick, change the weather, go on out-of-body travel, control the movements of animals, and transform themselves into animals.31 29 ibid., pp. 9, 23. 30 ibid., p. 11. 31 ibid., p. 8. prins 50 this overt reference to the trance hypothesis / shamanistic approach32 is a clear indication of the theoretical stance of the authors. in their zeal to convince the reader of the validity of the trance hypothesis as opposed to the speciousness of stow’s narrative approach, parallels are drawn with the infamous piltdown hoax: acceptance of false evidence can have the unfortunate consequence that genuine advances are thereby marginalised and their acceptance delayed, as were raymond dart’s claims for the taung skull ....33 the authors are at pains to point out that: once a culprit has been identified, the rest of his or her work must be subjected to more critical scrutiny.34 researchers are cautioned to practice extreme caution when interpreting rock art: the uncritical citing of stow’s writings to interpret rock paintings would therefore run the risk of circularity.35 in order to unravel the mystery of the blue ostriches, a close reading of all available correspondence was undertaken. this included the extensive correspondence that passed between stow and lucy lloyd over a period of five years, introduced and edited by karel schoeman (1997), and a number of unpublished letters obtained from the archives of the mcgregor museum. the latter includes a brief but significant correspondence between stow and w.h.i. bleek, and more recent correspondence dating from the 1940s between dorothea bleek and maria wilman. this correspondence was augmented by studying stow’s copies, and by comparing the two printed versions of the blue ostriches. the latter led to a startling discovery. the correspondence in his correspondence stow frequently expressed concern regarding fraudulent copies. even at this early date and given the low esteem that bushmen were generally held in by the majority of colonists and travellers, there was nevertheless a demand for copies of their art, and copies were being duplicated and even fabricated, and sent back to england.36 after entrusting his portfolio of copies to bleek in 1875, stow sought some reassurance from him regarding their safety and confidentiality. 32 see also jd lewis-williams, believing and seeing: symbolic meanings in southern san rock paintings, (academic press, london, 1981); jd lewis-williams, and ta dowson, images of power: understanding bushman rock art, (johannesburg: southern books, johannesburg, 1989). 33 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 7. 34 ibid., p. 23) 35 ibid., p. 32. 36 referred to as ‘home’ in the correspondence. exposé or misconstrual? 51 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 i sent away from here, sometime back my large portfolio of bushman drawings … but since then i have not heard a word upon the subject and i have been nervous in consequence ever since, as the work of years might be destroyed in two or three hours by a thunder storm … i trust they were not disturbed before they reached you. my dear sir, i trust implicitly to the strong pledge you gave me that they should only be seen by a few trustworthy gentlemen; and no one was to be allowed to make any notes or copies, on any context whatever.37 stow’s concern was shared by sir bartle frere, governor of the cape colony, who was allowed to inspect stow’s copies in lucy lloyd’s possession including copies sent by other copyists: (i)t appeared from what mr trimen told me that h.e. had thought that there might be pictures not belonging to your collection (but equally good) of which one or two specimens might have been sent home in mr trimen’s care, to give the publishers an idea of the kind of work which would be needed when the time for reproduction came ....38 stow responded by sending a detailed list of the specimen copies that he wished to be presented to the publisher: from what i remember, no. 8 from the mountains n.w. of komani would be a good representative one, ‘advance of women in masquerading dresses’; also no. 16, ‘bushman tribes in wild boar hunting’, from dordrecht, stormberg; no. 23 from lower imvani, ‘lions attacking elands’, and no. 40 from madura’s cave in the banks of the ‘ca-’ca-du, ‘group of bucks (antelope trekking)’. these with the chippings, no. 4, the one partially shaded, will, i think, form specimen cartoons enough. i will however, leave it to your judgement….39 it is significant that stow did not include ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’ in this list; his suggested list included only one hunting/dancing disguise, ‘advance of women in masquerading dresses’.40 in the same letter stow requested lucy lloyd to write descriptive notes of the ‘drawings’ that would be dispatched to england, (s)o that i can embody it into the work among the others if they do not return, in time.41 this is a reference both to stow’s unorthodox modus operandi of incorporating ‘representative’ images freely into his copies, and to the unfinished, field copies that had been included in the portfolio of copies he had sent to bleek in 1875: he pointed out to her: (t)he difficulty now is how to get it from here to cape town safely ... as to save time i shall have to send a number in an unfinished state and i would 37 mcgregor museum depot mmkd 2656/3. correspondence: gw stow to bleek, 18 may 1875. emphasis added). 38 correspondence: l lloyd to stow, 15 august 1878 in k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 79. emphasis added. 39 gw stow lucy lloyd, 21 october 1878 in k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 90. emphasis added. 40 gw stow, and df bleek, rock paintings in south africa from parts of the eastern province and orange free state, (methuen, london, 1930), plate 13. 41 correspondence: gw stow to lucy lloyd, 21 october 1878, k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 91. prins 52 therefore refine these again after you have studied them.42 negotiations with the publisher john murray of london commenced in 1880, and stow reiterated that due to circumstances, he was sending unfinished field copies: i have been engaged for the last six or seven weeks along the banks of the vaal inspecting the free state coal deposits. the same cause has obliged me to send you my original sketches for the illustration of this portion. my intention was to have reduced them to the size of a page, and to have shaded and tinted them in their proper colours, but as a travelling wagon is my only residence while engaged in field work, and a series of sandstorms intermitting with rain and snow having continued for fourteen or sixteen days and still showing no signs of abating, i have found it impossible to carry out.43 murray was unable to publish stow’s manuscript, and stow died 18 months later. the unfinished field copies were not returned to lucy lloyd immediately: i have already been endeavouring for some time to ascertain their whereabouts from miss frere (who kindly took them home for mr stow), but hitherto unsuccessful.44 after stow’s death, lucy lloyd immediately made arrangements to purchase all of stow’s copies for future publication: (a)nd then they might be published (always, of course, as mr stow’s work) with the mass of material with regard to the bushmen which has been accumulated by the late dr. bleek and myself.45 dowson et al. state that the numbering of the second part of the collection suggests that the blue ostrich copy was already in sequence before the copies reached cape town....46 they maintain that stow deliberately held the ‘forged’ copy back as part of a numbered sequence, in order to include it in a future publication.47 the unpublished correspondence has now revealed that the numbering of this second batch of copies was in fact not done by stow. after his sudden death, his affairs were understandably in complete disarray, and his personal effects, including his copies, were scattered in various places. before dispatching the second batch of copies to lucy lloyd, fanny stow 42 correspondence: gw stow bleek, 23 january 1875, mcgregor museum depot mmkd 2650/2, emphasis added) 43 correspondence: gw stow john murray, 6 september 1880 in k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 106. 44 correspondence: l lloyd fanny stow, 24 july 1882 in k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 114. 45 correspondence: l lloyd to fanny stow, 24 july 1882, k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 110. 46 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 25. 47 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 35. exposé or misconstrual? 53 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 numbered them herself, later to be re-numbered by dorothea bleek: there are two sets of numbers on the copies. the larger ones in brackets are old ones. i fancy mrs stow must have put them on haphazard for they jump about from one locality to another. the smaller ones without brackets are mine, which i put on when i had ordered the copies according to localities.48 this letter also reveals that a number of copies that had been left in the care of stow’s friend, c.s. orpen, were not recovered. dorothea bleek noted: as to stow’s tracings my aunt bought all the paintings and tracings from mrs stow after stow’s death ... she said there were some missing ... she never did find them, because they evidently did not know of the box or boxes in the free state.49 after 1882 lucy lloyd was the sole owner and custodian of stow’s copies. they were housed in the bleek home in cape town, together with the collection of copies received from other copyists from time to time. the number of publishers approached after 1882 is not known, but in 1905, swan and sonnenschein of london finally published the native races of south africa. it was illustrated with a number of stow’s copies, including the now infamous copy, ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’.50 clues lucy lloyd died in 1914 and the copies were inherited by her niece dorothea bleek, then 14 years old, and also destined to become a respected authority on the bushman language and culture.51 the bulk of the copies remained unpublished until 1930 when she arranged to have 72 of them published in rock paintings in south africa. the copy first printed in 1905 as ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’, was also included, this time as ‘ostrich hunt’.52 some of the plates were accompanied by explanations: in the letterpress accompanying the reproductions all the bushman explanations given are taken from the notes of dr bleek and miss lloyd.53 the following explanation appeared next to ‘ostrich hunt’: explanation a bushman said of the picture, ‘ostriches, three black males, two blue females. the ‘nusa bushmen, not the ‘kham bushmen, are 48 mcgregor museum depot mmkd 2648/2. correspondence: dorothea bleek to maria wilman, 19 october 1944. 49 mcgregor museum depot mmkd 2648/2. correspondence: dorothea bleek to maria wilman, 19 october 1944. 50 gw stow, the native races of south africa, (swan & sonnenschein, london, (1905) 1964), p. 82. 51 e eberhard, “wilhelm bleek and the founding of khoisan research”, in j deacon and ta dowson (eds.), voices from the past: ixam bushmen and the bleek and lloyd collection, pp. 61-62. 52 gw stow, and df bleek, rock paintings in south africa from parts of the eastern province and orange free state, plate 21. 53 ibid., p. xvii. prins 54 said to hunt in ostrich skins’.54 apart from the fact that this ‘explanation’ by a bushman, supports stow’s belief in hunting disguises, it also implies that in bleek’s lifetime, he had inspected and studied an unidentified ostrich copy. illustration 3. ostrich hunt. source: stow and bleek (1930), plate 21. at the time of the 1930 publication, half a century had elapsed since stow’s death, and his copies were no longer regarded as sacrosanct. interested persons were given access to them, and dorothea bleek also arranged that duplicates be made: (i)f i ever wished to part with the duplicates i have made of stow’s copies of bushman paintings, the mcgregor museum might like to buy them .... most of the duplicates were made by miss (name illegible), a few by miss gill. of those made by miss (name illegible), i have a number of the tracings she made as preliminaries .... i should also add some of stow’s preliminary tracings, or sketches ....55 this large-scale duplication of stow’s copies was no doubt motivated by a sincere desire on dorothea bleek’s part to keep a record of the copies, and to safeguard them from possible loss at sea or elsewhere, en route to the publisher methuen and co. in london. included in this letter was a list of the duplicates; she noted that a number of the ‘copies’ were missing but that she had the ‘tracings’, and that ‘21 (is) missing altogether’ 54 ibid., op. plate 21. 55 mcgregor museum depot mmkd 2648/1. correspondence: dorothea bleek -maria wilman, 18 september 1944. exposé or misconstrual? 55 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 (the blue ostriches). this puzzling remark suggests that at the time of the 1930 publication, there was neither a field copy nor a finished copy of the blue ostriches; yet a copy was included in the subsequent publication? it has always been assumed that ‘bushman disguised as ostrich’ (1905), and ‘ostrich hunt’ (1930) are identical. however a close scrutiny and comparison of the two versions, reveals some unexpected differences. stylistic disparities: bushman disguised as ostrich (1905); ostrich hunt (1930) in the 1905 version of the blue ostriches, the background consists of faint, horizontal charcoal or pencil lines, and the colour application of the ostriches is flat and smooth. the most pronounced difference lies in the addition of delicate pencil shading applied over the painted areas, in order to emphasise the form of the blue female ostriches; this pencil shading is applied in a distinctly western mode. the copy is not inscribed.56 in the 1930 version the background is washed in,57 the colour application of the ostriches is uneven, and the wings of two of the black male ostriches are clearly demarcated. the under belly of one of the blue female ostriches has a pronounced curve. the copy is not dated or signed but the location of the site is indicated in faintly visible script. dowson et al. argue that this script appears to be that of stow.58 this stylistic disparity of the two versions points to at least two different persons involved in their execution. the possibility that stow himself executed the 1905 version is remote. in his personal correspondence he repeatedly stated that he was submitting only ‘original sketches’ i.e. unfinished field copies; his detailed list to lucy lloyd did not include an ostrich copy. he died before these unfinished copies could be returned to him to finish. lucy lloyd may have presented an unfinished field copy of ostriches to the publisher after stow’s death. if this is indeed true, an unknown person completed it in colour and added the pencil shading, no doubt thinking to enhance it. additional pencil shading of this nature does not occur in any of stow’s copies. seemingly unaware of the fact that two separate versions of the blue ostriches were executed, dowson et al. refer only to the 1930 version.59 if this 1930 version is indeed the original ‘fake’, executed by stow, it must be assumed that the 1905 version is a fake of stow’s ‘fake’, because clearly, the two versions were not executed by the same person. the question must also be asked why it was necessary to make a fake if a perfectly 56 gw stow, the native races of south africa, op. p. 82. 57 gw stow, and df bleek, rock paintings in south africa from parts of the eastern province and orange free state, plate 21. 58 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, pp. 29-30. 59 housed in the sa museum, cape town. prins 56 acceptable copy – the 1930 version – was available? endless speculation is possible, but all allegations remain conjectural and unproven. in the intervening years from stow’s death (1882) to the publication of his manuscript (1905), and finally to the stow & bleek publication (1930), his copies were freely inspected and copied, passed hands several times, were perused by at least three different publishers, and were transported, to and fro, between two continents.60 under these adverse circumstances, the possibility of the original collection remaining intact is highly unlikely, and extraneous intervention after his death cannot be excluded. however, there is no evidence that points to stow (or any other party) committing deliberate fraud. unfounded accusations not only is stow accused of committing deliberate fraud, he is also described as a weak character with many undesirable qualities. he is slated for the many occupations he followed and the fact that none of his undertakings prospered.61 in a perceptive paragraph describing the circumstances in the eastern cape during this period of stow’s life schoeman writes that (t)his was not untypical of the career of a young english-speaking immigrant in the eastern cape during that period, a history of attempts and failures, financial difficulties and general improvisation.62 schoeman refers to the many professions the historian g.m. theal and many of their contemporaries followed: (l)ife in the cape colony was as yet not particularly stable, economically or otherwise, and improvisation was the order of the day ....63 the authors of the article argue that this ‘life of frustration’ manifested itself in some unattractive ways and that he was regarded as ‘self-centred and vain of his achievements’ and that he was vain, insensitive and secretive.64 the authors argue: (t)he biography (presumably of young) and stow’s letters reveal him as boastful, ambitious and resentful and that he had not received sufficient recognition.65 this final accusation is difficult to understand as stow’s letters reveal 60 k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, pp. 109; 112; 114; 115; 116; 118; 119; 122. 61 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 34. 62 k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 43. 63 ibid., p. 44. 64 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 34. emphasis added. 65 ibid., p. 35. emphasis added. exposé or misconstrual? 57 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 43-58 him as a typical victorian ‘gentleman’, cultured, courteous and modest, always deeply grateful for any interest shown in his work. although his treatise was not accepted for publication in his lifetime, the value of his work was widely recognised and acknowledged by many of the most prominent citizens of the day including r. trimen, curator of the s.a. museum,66 sir john stone, (astronomer royal),67 william littleton (private secretary of sir bartle frere);68 sir bartle frere himself,69 bishop merriman,70 and j.s.b. todd (acting executive commissioner for the cape colony at the paris exhibition of 1878),71 and numerous others.72 conclusion in their final ‘indictment’ dowson et al. repeat their allegations and reiterate what they believe to be the motive for the forgery. they argue: very possibly he forged it to support his narrative view of the art....73 this allegation is difficult to understand as stow had a substantial number of copies depicting what he believed to be the customs and beliefs of the bushman, including hunting disguises; there simply was no need to ‘fake’ such a copy. stow’s efforts to secure a publisher for his treatise (which embraced his narrative view of the art), were fully supported by w.h.i. bleek, by lucy lloyd and by a small but extremely influential group that included sir bartle frere, governor of the cape colony.74 stow was recognised by his contemporaries as an authority, and while conflicting opinions may have been expressed in private, there was no question of animosity or public dissension. theoretical issues and academic debate regarding the meaning and motivation of rock art would only become a burning issue, and be hotly contested, many years later with the introduction of the trance hypotheses/shamanistic approach in the 1980s. in the final analysis the defamatory article is more about two mutually exclusive interpretational approaches of rock art, than it is about an alleged forgery. in the process, irreparable harm has been done to the name of george william stow and his contribution to rock art research and conservation. while his pioneering contribution was acknowl66 k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, p. 63. 67 ibid., p.70. 68 ibid., p. 74. 69 ibid., p. 86; 88; 91; 104. 70 ibid., p. 69. 71 ibid., p. 78. 72 ibid., p. 65, 66, 69, 70, 76, 93, 94, 100. 73 ta dowson, pv tobias and jd lewis-williams, “the mystery of the blue ostriches: clues to the origin and authorship of a supposed rock painting” in african studies, 53(1), 1994, p. 35. 74 k schoeman, a debt of gratitude: lucy lloyd and the ‘bushman work’ of gw stow, pp. 70, 79, 90, 93-94, 98, 100. prins 58 edged by earlier researchers,75 after 1994 his entire contribution became suspect. this includes not only his copies of rock art (many of which have since become obliterated), but also the valuable information he obtained from bushman informants regarding their art and culture. 75 e.g. i schapera, the khoisan peoples of south africa: bushmen and hottentots, (routledge and kegan paul, london, [1930], [1963]); ar willcox, the rock art of africa, (croom helm, london 1984); b woodhouse, the rain and its creatures as the bushmen painted them, (william waterman, johannesburg, 1992). microsoft word 05 de boer fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: reenchantment pp. 55-72. activating whole brain® innovation: a means of nourishing multiple intelligence in higher education a-l de boer, ph du toit and t bothma1 abstract the interconnectedness of the constructs ‘whole brain® thinking’ and ‘multiple intelligence’ forms the epicentre of this article. we depart from the premise that when whole brain® thinking is activated multiple intelligence can be nourished. when this becomes evident in a higher education practice it can be claimed that such a practice is innovative. whole brain® thinking that informs intelligence and vice versa is inevitable when it comes to facilitating learning with a view to promoting quality learning in the context of higher education. if higher education is concerned about the expectations of industry and the world of work there is no other option as to prepare students in such a way that they develo as holistic – whole brained and intelligent – employers, employees and entrepreneurs who take responsibility for maximising their full potential. becoming a self-regulated professional and being reflexive are some of the attributes of the 21st century which should be cultivated in all students. research on whole brain® thinking and multiple intelligence shows that these human attributes form an integral part of one’s interaction with life – one’s environment and especially people as integral part of the environment. this focus on people highlights the need for developing soft skills within every curriculum. the epistemological underpinning of our reporting of experience in practice and research of the application of the principals of the constructs is metareflective in nature. instead of a typical traditional stance to research we do not report on the numerous sets of data obtained over a period of more than 15 years. our approach is that of a meta-reflective narrative as most of the studies we were involved in and still are, are reflective as it is most often than not action research-driven. and action research is a reflective process. we report on evidence-based practice that includes fields of specialisation such as health sciences, engineering, academic staff development, financial sciences, teacher education and higher education. important aspects of any higher education practice, such as curriculum development, facilitating of learning and assessment are addressed. practice-based evidence of each, where applicable, is offered as claims of innovation. keywords: action research, higher education, meta-reflection, multiple intelligence, whole brain® thinking 1 introduction nothing is quite as practical as a good theory (van de ven 1989:486) the quotation from van de ven is relevant in terms of the research we undertake on a continual basis. we are of the opinion that what we do in our higher education practice informs theory. as new bodies of knowledge, based on our respective practices are constructed, and by engaging applicable literature and other scholars in the field, the current 1 ann-louise de boer, university of pretoria, e mail: ann-louise.deboer@up.ac.za (corresponding author). pieter h du toit, university of pretoria, e mail: pieter.dutoit@up.ac.za. theo bothma, university of pretoria, email: theo.bothma@up.ac.za. de boer, du toit & bothma 56 body of knowledge on innovation in higher education is expanded and enriched. in this regard kumar (2014) mentions the importance of increasing understanding of one’s own profession and advancing the professional knowledge base. therefore we apply the principles of a ‘good theory’, namely whole brain® thinking (herrmann 1995; 1996) in practice. this application has been well researched and documented and the outcome informs the theory in a reciprocal manner. our constructivist approach includes scholarly reflection (fringe 2012). this article is written in the form of a meta-reflective narrative as we reflect on our reflection (wolvaardt & du toit 2015). the narrative is also auto-ethnographic (o’leary 2014; du toit 2013; du toit 2014a/b) in nature as we as researchers are the primary and active participants and we are not passive in making meaning. this level of our reflection includes the contribution to our scholarly understanding of the link between multiple intelligences (gardner 1993) and whole brain® (herrmann 1995; 1996) innovation in teaching practice – the two main theories that inform our research and practice. however, since higher education is multifaceted, we acknowledge the fact that other learning theories are to be integrated in order to form a holistic view of practice. such theories include self-regulated learning (hugo, slabbert, louw, marcus, bac, du toit & sandars 2012), cooperative learning (hugo et al. 2012) and blended learning (herrmann-nehdi 2012). however, we do not discuss each as part of a theoretical framework but address them throughout our reflection where appropriate – it is rather used as a golden conceptual thread that is woven throughout our reflection. as in traditional research we do not report extensively on the numerous sets of quantitative and qualitative data that have been gathered over more than a decade of our research on innovation in higher education – therefore the narrative approach. our investigation of the application of the principles of whole brain® thinking in higher education (de boer, du toit, scheepers & bothma 2013) specifically concerning teaching practice, forms the ontological premise from which we depart. every individual has his or her own thinking preferences in approaching and executing tasks. this is true for students as well as lecturers. in this article we report evidence of whole brain® innovation in higher education practice. the rationale for innovation is to be found, inter alia, in the expectations of the world of work – real life. academic attributes of the student of the 21st century are to be kept in mind. these include innovative thinking, problem-solving skills, teamwork, communication skills, critical reflection, and entrepreneurial and leadership skills. our conceptual framework informs the philosophy that enriched our work in the past and still does. the principal construct is whole brain® thinking (herrmann 1995; 1996) that forms the epicentre of our respective teaching practices and the research we do. the construct is advocated in our scholarly encounters with our peers. we use it to activate whole brain® innovation and consider it an educational value – a value that has an impact on our work and the work of our peers. as the title of this article suggests, it is this activation of innovation that nourishes intelligence in higher education. throughout our research journeys in the context of higher education we have gathered numerous examples of where whole brain® innovation was activated and where our peers embarked on innovative ways to enhance intelligence of all sorts in their students (du toit 2012) with a view to enhancing the quality of learning. the whole brain® model (herrmann 1995) encompasses of all human behaviour. any task to be executed can be linked to any of the dimensions of the model as it is a metaphorical representation of the brain – and the brain monitors the entire human capacity. activating whole brain® innovation td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition pp. 55-72. 57 maximising the full potential (slabbert, de kock & hattingh 2009) of our peers, their students and ourselves forms part of our value-driven engagement of our daily encounters with scholars and students. our scholarly engagement with life in general and research in particular is constructivist in nature. therefore we would like to contribute to our understanding of intelligence as a holistic entity and would suggest the constructing of ‘whole brain intelligence’ as an umbrella term for all theories of intelligence, from emotional intelligence (bradberry & greeves 2009), transcendental intelligence (slabbert et al. 2009) to multiple intelligence (gardner 1993). we return to this claim in the concluding section of this article. herrmann, acknowledged in literature as the father of brain dominance technology (morris 2006), focused his initial research on understanding how the creativity of the human brain is unleashed. his valuable contribution involves his documentation of the fact that the human brain comprises four distinct learning modes and not only two hemispheres, where each of the modes has its own ways of processing information and functioning (herrmann 1995). herrmann’s research led to the development of a scientifically validated instrument that can quantify the degree of thinking preferences for specific modes within the whole brain® model. the herrmann brain dominance instrument (hbdi®) is a questionnaire consisting of 120 items that quantify thinking preferences. the results of the questionnaire are a visual plot of the thinking preferences of the individual. a hbdi® profile provides scientifically validated information to understand one’s own learning strengths and learning avoidances (herrmann 1995). however, it should be mentioned that the instrument does not measure competencies but thinking preferences. in order to understand the profile, it is important to explain the quadrants and modes of thinking briefly (see figure 1). based on our research and by extending the herrmann (1995) model, a comprehensive whole brain model was designed (de boer et al. 2013). this metaphorical model represents the four different quadrants (a, b, c and d) herrmann (1995) identified. the focus of the a quadrant is on logical, rational, quantitative and theoretical thinking (what?). b quadrant thinking entails organising, and sequential and methodological approaches to execute tasks (how?). the focus of the c quadrant is on emotional, expressive, interpersonal and kinaesthetic aspects of emotive thinking (who?). d quadrant thinking is about visual, experimental, simultaneous and conceptual ways of thinking (why?). each quadrant represents specific thinking preferences. the a quadrant focuses, inter alia, on analysing, theorising, logical processing and quantifying. preferences of the b quadrant include organising, sequencing and practising. the c quadrant includes sharing, internalising, moving, feeling and involving. exploring, discovering, conceptualising and synthesising are typical of the d quadrant. when an individual displays a preference for a specific quadrant(s), an avoidance of another might be displayed. such avoidances usually become present in tasks that one struggles with when not using part of one’s preferred mode of thinking. individuals – in our context lecturers and students – with a preference for a quadrant thinking struggle with vagueness, expressing emotions, imprecise concepts and ideas and a lack of logic. lecturers and students who prefer b quadrant thinking typically struggle with taking risks, unclear concepts and instructions, and ambiguity. c quadrant thinkers struggle with too much data and analysis, lack of interaction and time for relationships while an individual with a preference for d de boer, du toit & bothma 58 quadrant thinking struggles with autocratic excessive strictness, time management, lack of flexibility and too much detail. the figure below is a visual representation of the above. f i g u r e 1 : c o m p r e h e n s i v e w h o l e b r a i n ® m o d e l ( d e b o e r e t a l . 2 0 1 3 ) it is clear from the model that for each of the modes of thinking there are expectations and ways of facilitating learning from and for a specific quadrant. as no single learning theory can be implemented successfully in isolation, we integrate the multiple intelligences theory of gardner (1993) into the different quadrants of the whole brain® model. the lecturer should realise that he or she also has to take part in the renaissance in higher education. it is the individual, and not the education institution that should initiate, implement and nurture the new paradigm. activating whole brain® innovation td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition pp. 55-72. 59 every student and every lecturer is created with unique, unlimited potential. all lecturers should create opportunities by which a student's potential can be rediscovered and developed to the full through a quest for lifelong learning. learning brings about change. change means growth, and growth is a continuous process – for as long as we live. sometimes learning is intentional, sometimes incidental. characteristics of deep learning are exploring, discovering and experimenting. in order to construct meaning, productive learning should be promoted. the unknown, typical of the current world of work, urges us to focus on productive and creative thinking instead of reproducing learned knowledge. the unknown brings about uncertainties and therefore asks for creativity in all aspects of life – including education and learning. part of rediscovering creativity in humans means, inter alia, that both the lecturer and student need to become versatile and whole brain® partners. in this respect gardner’s (1993) studies refer to the eight different types of intelligence that should be developed. we acknowledge that quite a number of other scholars have published on intelligence and identified an array of intelligences. however, we list the following as core intelligences: • logical-mathematic intelligence: the familiar kind of intelligence associated with problem-solving – as the non-verbal ability to make (logical) causal conclusions that may involve mathematical calculations. • linguistic intelligence: it constitutes the ability to perceive, interpret and produce language as verbal functions. traditionally only these two intelligences were selected and used to describe an individual’s iq. this practice completely neglected the functions of the right hemisphere of the brain, consisting of the following intelligences: • musical intelligence: the ability to perceive, appreciate and produce music. • bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence: the ability to control body movement to solve problems or to create a product using the whole body, or parts of it. • spatial intelligence: perceiving or constructing a mental model of a spatial world and to manoeuvre and apply the model. • interpersonal intelligence: the ability to relate to others and cooperate in social interaction. • intrapersonal intelligence: the function here is the control of the perception, interpretation and production of intra-subjective relationship (with and regarding the self). • naturalistic intelligence: this entails all activities related to positive interactions with nature. multiple intelligence should become an integral part of any learning opportunity – both in the case of an individual learner and a group. in a group each member will contribute in terms of latent potential and intelligence and in complementing others’ intelligences. 2 evidence of innovation the exemplars that we report on cover a wide range of fields of specialisation, such as health sciences, engineering, information management, higher education and financial science. these exemplars are mainly from the university of pretoria. however, based on our de boer, du toit & bothma 60 experience in practice, application and research beyond the borders of south africa, we refer to research studies from a european context and another from an african context. it should be noted that different fields of specialisation do attempt to develop curricula that would prepare students for the unknown future (slabbert et al. 2009). consequently the practical application of the principles of whole brain® thinking in different fields of specialisation is indicated. the applications include facilitating of learning, assessment and curriculum development. 2.1 health sciences lumsdaine and lumsdaine (1995) report the following: it is becoming clear that creativity and teamwork act synergistically – both have to be developed systematically and simultaneously for students to achieve improved learning and problem-solving outcomes. in the school of dentistry a lecturer embarked on a whole brain® learning journey with his students. the aim on the one hand was to stimulate innovative ideas and on the other to enhance cooperative learning while mastering the factual and detailed information that constitutes the subject content. this was achieved by introducing group work activities for the first time (promoting c quadrant thinking and stimulating interpersonal intelligence). it not only resulted in better dialogue between the lecturer and the students, but also among the students themselves. interactive discussions were now taking place throughout the sessions. the implications of whole brain® thinking on practice are evident in the change in the lecturer’s style of facilitating learning. the application of the principles of whole brain® thinking informed the lecturer’s assessment practice. the lecturer incorporated whole brain assessment opportunities in support of the whole brain® approach to teaching practice. during the formative assessments facts and detail of the module content is normally assessed, requiring mainly a and b quadrant thinking, thus stimulating logical intelligence. in order to stimulate c and d quadrant thinking he included selfand peer assessments during learning opportunities (c quadrant thinking; respectively intraand interpersonal intelligence). finally he expected students to be able to synthesise relevant subject knowledge within a clinical setting when answering questions – requiring d quadrant thinking (oosthuizen 2001) and incorporating spatial intelligence. the final changes incorporated into the assessments were whole brain® summative evaluation. this was achieved by including a project and a final test at the end of the series of learning opportunities. the students were required to produce, manufacture or create the entire module content of tooth morphology as a visual presentation and present it to the rest of the class. the facts needed to be accurate (a quadrant thinking), the details needed to be evident (b quadrant thinking), the freedom to choose either to work as an individual or as a member of a group was given (c quadrant thinking; respectively intraand interpersonal intelligence), while the final criteria for the project focused on integrating the entire curriculum in a visual format (d quadrant thinking). all the outcomes of the project would promote whole brain® thinking and embrace multiple intelligence. while the students were completing their projects they became highly motivated and it was interesting to note that some preferred starting with the big picture first, and then breaking it down to detail. others started with the detail and then constructed the big picture. the different products designed provided even more evidence of the diversity of the students’ activating whole brain® innovation td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition pp. 55-72. 61 thinking, their commitment and willingness to embrace the difference. similar findings from student projects are reported on by lumsdaine and lumsdaine (1995). the results indicated that the students unleashed their creativity, and artefacts ranging from games, an in-flight magazine and a painted clinical jacket to a family album to name but a few, illustrated not only their mastery of the subject content but also the ability to construct new knowledge in a meaningful way (oosthuizen 2001). when the final marks for the module were compiled, the students on average performed 30 percent better than in previous years. the improvement was remarkable. the average grade improved from 62 percent to 92 percent. their experience of the whole brain® nature of the curriculum, the conducive learning environment the lecturer created, the creative whole brain® assessment opportunities were all features that not only motivated the students but led to exceptional academic achievements. only recently an action research project was commenced by the department of family medicine. several workshops on whole brain® learning have been conducted for lecturers and students. the workshops for lecturers form part of a series of workshops focusing on educational professional development. the workshop on whole brain® learning is offered to first-year students annually. it is done with the aim to introduce whole brain® learning and to prepare them for the programme as the programme includes whole brain® learning, among other learning theories, such as self-regulated and constructivist learning. the learning setting is authentic and patient-centred as real-life problems need to be solved in clinical situations. the practical application of the principles of whole brain® thinking informed the entire curriculum – from the design and implementation phase, facilitating of learning and the assessment of learning. regarding the educational professional development of staff involved in the offering of the programme the principles were applied during professional development sessions with staff. the composite brain profile of the lecturers involved in offering the programme, represents thinking preferences in all four quadrants and a balanced distribution within the four quadrants. however, the preference map reveals the least preferred thinking preference to be for a quadrant thinking. some of the individuals had a very strong preference for d quadrant thinking. this may be one of the reasons for the group being innovative in what they do when it comes to designing and implementing the curriculum. this innovation was documented by hugo et al. (2012). 2.2 engineering the practical application of the principles of whole brain® thinking informed curriculum design and development activities in different fields of engineering. next it is outlined how this practical application is linked to curriculum development in engineering. herrmann (1996) points out that innovative thinking (d quadrant) can and has been achieved through curriculum changes. research spanning more than thirty years indicates that thinking preferences of individuals are distributed across all four quadrants, provided the group is large enough (herrmann 1996). the department of civil engineering was the first department to act on the much needed lack of innovative thinking and soft skills in the curriculum that was evident from widely published research articles (horak, steyn & de boer 2001; liebenberg & matthews 2012; lumsdaine, lumsdaine & shellnut 1999). de boer, du toit & bothma 62 lecturers of the department designed a module for all first-year students, namely innovation 101. the purpose of the module was to create a platform for incorporating the much needed soft and innovative skills. they started by assessing not only the thinking preferences of the students but also those of the lecturers to determine to what extent there was an alignment. the results showed dominance in both students and lecturers for a stronger preference for a and b quadrant thinking relating to logic-mathematical intelligence. similar findings were documented by lumsdaine et al. (1999). however, should both groups evaluated be large enough, they concluded that the current curricula would not adequately cater for all students’ needs, especially students who have a preference for d and c quadrant thinking – those more inclined to favouring intraand interpersonal intelligence. the lecturers admitted that they needed to make the first shift in thinking by embracing the notion of multiple intelligence and whole brain® thinking, and then master these softer skills as an ongoing process within the curriculum. the module on innovation designed afforded them the opportunity to do so. the first step was to work in diverse groups. selection of diversity was done on the basis of their individual hbdi® results. students were given a group assignment and the necessary tools for creative problem-solving and were asked to execute the task by using the different mind-sets (whole brain® thinking) promulgated by lumsdaine and binks (2005) and (herrmann 1995). . the process they had to follow was to identify the problem, to generate possible solutions, to ensure they get buy-in from all the participants and to monitor and evaluate the project. they then had to present their project to the entire group. the project afforded them the opportunity of developing whole brain® strategies in all four of the quadrants and activating multiple intelligence. they reported that the project initially was a challenge as everybody pulled in different directions – wanted to have it their individual way. however, once they understood and valued the group dynamics and the different ways of thinking individuals had brought to the project, the end result was much better than what they originally anticipated. they reported that for them it was what the world of work requires of you – not only to have specialist knowledge but be competent to work in groups and teams and display proficiency in all of the aspects of whole brain® thinking. no engineer, or any professional for that matter, can afford to work on his or her own – they need to work in teams and groups, displaying interpersonal intelligence associated with c quadrant thinking. the department of mining engineering also decided to address the gap between the objective technical nature of the existing curriculum and the demands of industry by incorporating more soft skills within the curriculum. those responsible for curriculum planning created the innovation in mining design module within the final year curriculum to address the ideas proposed and supported by pulko and parikh (2003), namely to be able to work effectively within teams (interpersonal intelligence supported by c quadrant thinking). in the past the emphasis was on mainly understanding concepts (translated into engineering terms as hard skills) associated with a and b quadrant thinking, thereby stimulating logical and mathematical intelligences. they realised that introducing an innovation design module would afford them the opportunity to address the softer skills required by c and d quadrant thinking. lumsdaine et al. (1999) and lumsdaine and lumsdaine (1995) advocate creative problem-solving in engineering design as a soft skill that needs greater emphasis in the curriculum. the innovation in mining design module was developed to enhance collaborative learning and to promote working effectively in teams. activating whole brain® innovation td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition pp. 55-72. 63 for the past few years all final year mining students have been profiled by means of the hbdi® and learning tasks are designed to enhance teamwork. they are also afforded the opportunity to discuss up front possible implications for their projects and overall performance of the group during allocated time (knobbs 2011) (a and c quadrant thinking). the department adopted the model and facilitate learning in such a way that students learn how to participate in diverse teams to develop the different mind-sets required to solve problems creatively. as lumsdaine and binks (2005) propose, this requires the thinking skills associated with all four quadrants of the whole brain® model (herrmann 1995; 1996). lumsdaine and binks (2005) promulgate different mind-sets for different phases in creative problem-solving. students need to learn that the first step in creative problem-solving is ‘problem identification’. in this phase the mind-set of the ‘detector’ (a and b quadrant thinking) – looking for clues, asking questions – is important. nothing can be overlooked or not be analysed. the skills of the detector are to analyse everything and to look at the whole (d quadrant thinking). opportunities need to be discovered that will enable students to find the root cause to define the problem. the shift now is to look through the lens of the ‘explorer’ (d quadrant thinking). in generating possible solutions, the thinking requirements are for the c and d quadrants. generating is associated with the imagination, intuitive ideas and concepts, long-term solutions and futuristic thinking – or as lumsdaine and binks (2005) metaphorically illustrate – the mind-set of the ‘artist’. students then need to learn how to brainstorm, they are encouraged to think outside the box and paint the canvas as required by the artist. they need to synthesise all their ideas that they have generated and to do this they need to switch to the mind-set of the ‘engineer’. this typically requires a and b quadrant thinking. in evaluating the best idea they need to adopt the mind-set of the ‘judge’ and this requires the application of a and b quadrant thinking. the last mind-set they need to adopt is that of the ‘producer’ – the one pulling everything together, primarily focusing on c and b quadrant thinking to complete the project successfully. there is no single intelligence or thinking preference that can be operationalised in isolation; neither is the one better than the other. in order to solve problems creatively, communicate effectively, work in teams, we need all four modes and apply multiple intelligence to work together in synergy with a view to finding the best solution. encouraging collaborative learning and opening up to other students on a personal level were of the biggest challenges the lecturers had to overcome. moving the focus away from individual learning to group learning was difficult at first and met with resistance. however, through engagement and building trust relationships with the lecturer, students actually expressed their appreciation for the new way of facilitating learning. it is of significance to mention that the lecturer responsible for the module is a senior lecturer with vast industry experience, holding not only an engineering degree, but also degrees in commerce, leadership and psychology – most probably a typical academic make-up of a whole brain® facilitator of learning. he became more of a mentor empowering students to find alternative solutions to problems that turned up during contact sessions. to continue on the journey of innovation, the department appointed a part-time instructional designer to start changing the existing learning material, which reflected a preference for stimulating a quadrant thinking. the change was brought about in support of a more blended (whole brain®) approach. quality visual material, real-time video-clips and de boer, du toit & bothma 64 animations are continually designed or acquired by the lecturing team to facilitate students’ understanding of difficult concepts. the mind shift that students had to make was achieved through activating innovative thinking with a view to nourishing interpersonal intelligence. 2.3 information management initiatives of the department of information science were built on the experiences of colleagues in the application of whole brain® facilitating of learning as reported in numerous research publications of the past 14 years. the research publications gave impetus to ensuring that the curriculum offered to students remains relevant and aligned with what is needed in the industry, especially when it comes to competence in information management. insights that lecturers gained from understanding their own thinking preferences allowed them to embrace facilitating learning in a whole brain® fashion. they realised the need for a blended learning approach as students are knowledgeable in using technology such as kindle, google, upls, twitter and other social media platforms to search for relevant information. not only did they support blended learning but they also revised the prescribed textbook to include all quadrants with a view to promoting whole brain® learning. the innovation is all the more visible when it comes to assessment practice. a collective effort to look at assessing students in a way that supports whole brain® thinking is essential because each class represents a whole brain® (herrmann 1996). formative assessment opportunities that promote whole brain® thinking that contribute to the final assessment mark of students enhance student motivation. regular feedback on students’ progress motivates them to engage in quality learning. keller’s (1987) motivational model suggests that students’ motivation can be enhanced by means of modules that capture their interest. a youtube video to illustrate the information explosion and the importance of being competent in finding one’s own way through the overload of information available was selected to capture their interest. the video illustrates the uncertainty of the environment in which they had to find their way; it contained precise facts and statistics on information growth (a quadrant thinking). the youtube video specifically provided the overview (big picture) why students should acquire information management skills (d quadrant thinking) and highlighted the importance of knowing where to search for relevant information (b quadrant thinking); the music used in the video stimulated c quadrant thinking. to enhance group work and understand the rationale for attending the compulsory module, students were given a group task instructing them to search for an article. they were given the freedom of selecting the search engine or database of their choice. the article was purposefully selected so that it could not be found with their current information management skills like google scholar. as a result they realised that the module was a necessity if they wanted to succeed in executing tasks for which they needed to search for information. in order to activate interpersonal and spatial intelligence in a technological field, games were designed, stimulating a, b, c and d quadrant thinking at the same time. the purpose was to create an environment that stimulates interaction and creativity as well as to provide the essential facts the students had to learn. student confidence can be enhanced on a regular basis through a sense of achievement. games were introduced with a view to mastering the necessary vocabulary of the subject (a quadrant) while the students worked interactively also activating whole brain® innovation td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition pp. 55-72. 65 in groups (c quadrant). the games included interactive cross-word puzzles, flash cards and hangman exercises, pick the correct letter, fill in the blank spaces or word, or matching the word and cartoon stories demonstrating real-life situations. the games gave immediate feedback to students regarding their progress. the games were subsequently uploaded onto the learning management system of the university in order to offer students the opportunity to access them should they wanted to revisit them. although games are typical of the d quadrant the purpose was to enhance vocabulary by means of blended learning. challenging concepts that are difficult to understand were identified and used to inform the games and selection of other media. because concepts commonly fall within the a quadrant and are often displayed as bulleted lists visuals and animations were included to facilitate students’ grasping of concepts. from the above the practical application of the principles of whole brain® thinking is evident in curriculum development, facilitating of learning and assessment of learning. 2.4 educational professional development of lecturers 2.4.1 university of pretoria educational professional development at the university of pretoria entails obtaining a formal qualification and attending a series of informal workshops. in the faculty of education an initiative to change the formal education qualification curriculum in higher education for lecturers significantly, the postgraduate certificate in higher education (pgche) introduced bold innovations. the initiative came from the programme coordinator whose whole brain® profile indicated an extreme preference for c and d quadrant thinking, a low preference for the b quadrant and almost an aversion to the a quadrant. while this was his preferred style of executing tasks, competence associated with all the quadrants is evident in his numerous publications that reflect a whole brain® approach to scholarship – one of the essential roles of lecturers to be enacted. an action research process was followed, ensuring continuous change – resembling the notion of living theory (mcniff & whitehead 2006). the programme modules are now integrated in order to reflect the multidimensional and integrated nature of any higher education practice. this multidimensionality necessitates multiple scholarship such as scholarship of teaching and learning, research scholarship and scholarship of engagement. the core of the modules revolves around the activation of innovation and nourishing of all of the intelligences – in essence creative thinking in terms of all aspects and theories pertaining to teaching practice. in the context of the pgche programme constructivist thinking is considered a whole brain® approach to creative thinking and problem-solving. lecturers and students form communities of practice – with c quadrant preferences and interpersonal intelligence as dominant aspects – that share the important responsibility they have in terms of scholarship of innovative higher education practice and the whole brain® constructivist epistemology (du toit 2012) in their respective practices. students are expected to become innovative and visionary practitioners – scholars who would introduce competencies relevant to the world of work in their respective modules; scholars who would apply the principles of whole brain® learning, constructivist learning, self-regulated learning and multiple intelligence among others (du toit 2015). since the students are expected to provide evidence of claims of innovation in their respective practices based on the principles of living theory, innovation is continually activated in a selfregulated fashion. in this regard it can be said that intrapersonal intelligence is the key – de boer, du toit & bothma 66 notwithstanding the fact that self-regulated learning is a whole brain® act and involves all intelligences. we agree with proctor (2010:33) regarding creative problem-solving: if there is a tendency for someone to argue that they have always done something in one particular way and that has always worked, it suggests that they are not open to new ideas that their own particular values dominate the way in which they tackle problems. this supports our plea for becoming a whole brain® problem-solver who is willing not only to approach a problem from his or her preferred thinking preferences but to activate other modes of thinking and develop dexterity in all quadrants. as communities of practice are activated, peer mentoring (de jager 2011) becomes an integral part of the professional development of all involved. an innovative approach is followed when it comes to peer mentoring. it becomes an enriching reciprocal learning experience for everyone participating since the different thinking styles of the individuals concerned are involved and utilised. the importance of selfand peer assessment in team work – or cooperative learning – becomes evident. in the context of the programme team work is seen as participative action research (zuber-skerritt 2000). see figure 2 in this regard. as action research promotes reflection and is considered practitioner-research (mcniff & whitehead 2006) intrapersonal intelligence and the intrapersonal aspect of c quadrant thinking preferences are essential ingredients of the reflection process. we would like to iterate that action research does not apply to practitioners in the field of education only but to all professionals. action research can, for example, be executed by the engineering or medical fraternity or practitioners in financial contexts. this is evident in the department of taxation and department of family medicine reported on in this article as they embarked on smallscale action research projects to monitor innovation initiatives in their respective contexts. apart from having other attributes, action research is creative. when a creative learning approach is employed it is likely that innovative thinking will be promoted and intelligence be nourished. the approach enhances the quality of facilitating learning and learning per se. slabbert et al. (2009) appeal for the enhancing of quality learning – ensuring that learning is authentic and would meet the demands of real-life situations. the claim made, namely that the pgche promotes innovative thinking, can be justified by looking into the many examples of qualitative data obtained. a number of data sets of this kind are to be found in the outputs students generate, such as portfolios, draft articles and conference papers that serve as options for the final examination assignment. these outputs contain the documenting of the outcome of their respective action research projects they had to execute in the course of the year. as this examination assignment serves as a final summative assessment opportunity, it is authentic and reflects whole brain® scholarly thinking in all its dimensions. in his final conclusion du toit (2012) confirms the claims that he makes about the value of the programme. firstly, his students actually apply in their respective practices the principles of the theories they engaged with during the pgche. secondly, his students manage to sustain the construction of new meaning in higher education theory more often than not, through a collaborative effort. this is evident from the large number of conference papers presented in most cases as co-authors. the visionary action research model executed by scholarly communities of practice represented in figure 2 is applicable in this context. activating whole brain® innovation td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition pp. 55-72. 67 informal educational professional development opportunities at the university also exist. they come in the form of tailor-made workshops and education innovation sessions. the latter are to be attended as a compulsory event within one’s probation period when newly appointed. they are offered by the department for education innovation. an array of topics such as assessment, blended learning and whole brain® facilitating of learning is addressed. the education innovation workshop that was offered for the duration of a week in the past and recently shortened to a two-day session is followed up by different educational consultants who each takes responsibility for the educational professional development within a faculty. the follow-up sessions include feedback sessions during which lecturers who attended the workshop report on their implementation of the learning theories that had been addressed. more often than not they offer feedback on how they have implemented whole brain® learning. evidence of innovation of practice is rewarded by the department. annually an education innovation award ‘competition’ is organised. the most recent recipient of the laureate award is a lecturer from the department of taxation who was mentored by the coordinator of the pgche. she reported her innovative ideas in a scholarly way (van oordt, van oordt & du toit 2014) and that is exactly what we work towards – bridging the gap between scholarship of teaching and scholarship of research. the significance of the role of peer mentoring in the informal educational professional development of academic staff has been highlighted. with a view to promoting innovative facilitating of learning at the university a priority programme organised by the department of teaching and learning, which resides under the auspices of the directorate human resources is offered by the coordinator of the pgche. the programme revolves around the contribution whole brain® thinking brings to any teaching practice. 2.4.2 university of eduardo mondlane we would like to reflect on the innovation at the eduardo mondlane university as it is an example of approaching academic staff development beyond the confines of traditional workshop formats. the core of the conceptual framework was an integration between whole brain® learning, self-regulated learning, peer mentoring and action research. the constructivist epistemology followed led to new meaning making of these constructs, such as ‘whole brain® peer mentoring’, ‘whole brain® action research’ and ‘whole brain® self-regulated learning’ (du toit 2012). academic staff members were offered the opportunity to engage in action research-driven peer mentoring initiatives. the principal mentor is one of the members of the academic staff and was intrigued to such an extent by whole brain® learning and action research that he designed his workshops around these constructs. for him it was imperative to involve his colleagues in such a way that they bought into the whole idea of applying the principles of whole brain® learning in their respective practices and to monitor the application by means of action research. the whole brain® profile of the principal mentor who facilitated the project was determined as well as those of all participating peers. it is of interest to note that the profile of the facilitator showed an inclination towards the a and b quadrant. however, during the execution of the project he showed willingness to act as a role model to his colleagues and implemented an array of means for professional learning. they, for example, had to present their proposed action research projects and had to draw visuals of what they intended to do while he gathered qualitative feedback, which included photo evidence. the visuals, photographs and willingness to work with others as a team relate to respectively the d and c quadrant, and spatial and interpersonal intelligence. in this way he was open to de boer, du toit & bothma 68 developing modes of thinking in the c and d quadrant for which he initially displayed an avoidance. the initiative established a scholarly community of practice as the group of peers adopted a scholarly approach to teaching practice. their unit of analysis (mouton 2001) became whole brain® learning. innovation in terms of contributing to the scholarship of action research is evident in the whole brain® action research model that was developed and implemented. it reflects the community of scholars that was formed and shows the multidimensional nature of participatory action research. in addition they created own living theory as mcniff and whitehead (2006) proposes. the figure below is a visual representation of the action research project. f i g u r e 2 : v i s i o n a r y a c t i o n r e s e a r c h m o d e l e x e c u t e d b y a s c h o l a r l y c o m m u n i t y o f p r a c t i c e ( f r i n g e 2 0 1 2 ) the nature of the action research model executed by the visionary scholarly community of practice in question is a multidimensional cyclical process consisting of several spirals, each consisting of different cycles. each cycle in turn has its own steps to be taken. these are executed in the context of a specific teaching practice. the following steps give direction to the implementation of a novel idea such as whole brain® learning: plan for whole brain® innovation; act by implementing the plan; observe by obtaining feedback from students and peers and using the principles of selfand peer assessment; reflect on the feedback, assessment and implementation and evaluate the process in order to re-plan and start a new cycle. evidence of the scholarly output of this project includes a completed phd study and numerous conference papers. activating whole brain® innovation td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition pp. 55-72. 69 2.4.3 initiative at the university of antwerp at the university of antwerp in belgium a module of the teacher education programme was enriched, using the principles of whole brain® facilitating of learning. this was necessitated as innovation became a focal point in the module – embracing the new paradigm in education (slabbert et al. 2009).the module was aligned with the much needed competencies any lecturer or prospective student should master as value-adding attributes of professionals in any education setting. these include learning how to think (meta-cognition) creatively and critically, visionary thinking, lifelong learning and gaining insight into the entire work context. while these attributes were expected to be displayed by the students enrolled for the module, the lecturers had to act as role models in this regard. it was a small-scale intervention as it involved only 32 students, three permanent members of staff and a guest lecturer. as learning and thinking styles of different scholars formed part of the module it was decided to demonstrate the need for applying the principles of learning styles in practice actively. in this way learning opportunities promoted authentic learning. the innovation was met with much enthusiasm and appreciation as students realised that what they had experienced in class was exactly what they had to do in their practice once they were appointed as teachers. 2.5 taxation as with the engineering programmes, programmes in taxation also focus on applicable soft skills. soft skills are to be found as pervasive competencies as outlined by the south african institute of chartered accountants (saica 2010). these pervasive skills include taking a leadership position, becoming a reflective practitioner and a lifelong learner. through curriculum development initiatives these pervasive skills are included in modules offered by the department of taxation. although we have not yet conducted a conclusive study on curriculum change in this field, and thus do not report on it, innovation in facilitating and assessing learning is reflected on. the head of the department of taxation took the initiative to have her academic members of staff introduced to the construct of whole brain® learning and related learning theories. informal workshops that focused on whole brain® learning and action research were conducted. one of the innovative ideas implemented was by a group of lecturers who challenged their students to design and print a booklet on taxation, and to design posters or games on taxation to explain basic taxation concepts to novices in laymen’s terms. a small-scale study on the application of the principles of whole brain® learning in taxation was executed by two lecturers. their profiles reflected that they are opposites regarding thinking preferences. the profile of one lecturer shows that he has a preference for a and b quadrant thinking; the other lecturer’s profile shows that she has a preference for the c and d quadrant. the innovative idea that emanated from their understanding of the profiles is that they decided to present a module on taxation as a pair for first-year students. the outcome of the study was initially reported at a conference (hills & van oordt 2012) and later reported under the title “are two teachers better than one?” in an accredited journal on accounting research (van oordt, van oordt & du toit 2014). de boer, du toit & bothma 70 5 conclusion in conclusion we would like the father of whole brain® thinking to have the last word (herrmann 1998): experiences affirm that once the whole brain® concept is understood, whole brain® thinking becomes irresistible. in terms of expanding the comprehensive model referred to in the introduction to this article, we realise that the focus must fall on intelligence per se. in addition to the construct ‘whole brain®’ that is branded by herrmann international, we will in addition refer to intelligent curriculum development, intelligent facilitating of learning, intelligent assessment, intelligent leadership and intelligent research. ultimately we claim that activating whole brain® innovation to nourish multiple intelligence is only a particle of the higher education cosmos. what we know at this point in time, what we consider now, what we engage in, what we apply and what we construct as new knowledge is only one of the small ripples on the water since we first engaged the whole brain® pebble and tossed it into the ocean of our own scholarship of teaching practice and research. our research over many years that is reported to 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mookgophong. zuber-skerritt, o. 2000. action learning, action research and process management: theory, practice, praxis. brisbane: action research unit, faculty of education, griffith university. poverty and phenomenology 131 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 131-144 the phenomenology of experiencing poverty – an exploration karen van der merwe� abstract. there is a plethora of research on poverty. definitions of poverty are provided from various perspectives, reasons and causes for poverty are analysed, and descriptions are provided of the impact of poverty on adults and children. this article, however, tries to provide a unique view on the phenomenon of poverty: the focus is on a specific class of poor people, namely newly-impoverished people. it also provides a description and analysis of the very personal, subjective experience of poverty by this group of afrikaans-speaking people. various character strengths that may provide a sound foundation for psychosocial intervention programmes to re-launch newly impoverished people into economic independence are identified. keywords: poverty, phenomenological research, character strengths 1. introduction and problem statement poverty is a well-researched phenomenon and various perspectives on poverty are documented, for example economic, sociological, religious, and educational perspectives. in economic terms poverty is frequently described in terms of a poverty gap (klasen 1997, van zyl 1997, aliber, 2002). sociological perspectives on poverty highlight deprivation such as no or limited access to education, employment, services, and health (klasen 1997, van zyl, 1997), whilst social-psychological studies reveal societal stereotypes of poverty, the propensity of society to blame the victim (chaftel 1997), and attributions for poverty (cozzarelli, abouchedid & nasser 2001; bullock 1999). poverty has also been studied from a developmental perspective (harper, marcus & moore 2003, luthar, 1999, garrett, ng’andu & ferron, 1994), highlighting the effects of poverty on human development. in the quest to understand poverty, various hypotheses regarding the causes of this phenomenon have been researched. genetic and � ms karen van der merwe is lecturer, in the school for behavioural sciences in the vaal triangle faculty of north-west university. she is currently researching the impact of god image and god concept on psychological wellbeing and gender role awareness. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 131-144 van der merwe 132 psychological causes (nature as opposed to nurture) include the cycle of deprivation (inadequate parenting, disadvantaged environment in which people are not equipped with adequate life-skills) and structural causes (the dynamic of social forces, which include policy making, and implementation as well as national and international economic forces) (alcock 1997, luthar, 1999). various consequences of poverty have also been highlighted (luthar 1999, moore, 2003, brusdal, 1990, garrett, ng’andu & ferron 1994). hills, bradshaw, lister, and lewis, remark that research about poverty is generally done on poor people from a perspective in which they are seen as passive victims, lacking agency, without views of their own and able only to testify to the impact of poverty in their lives (2000, 295). this limitation was overcome in a comprehensive qualitative research project that focussed on poverty in seven provinces of south africa. gauteng and the free state were excluded (may & norton, 1997). the project was aimed at providing a picture of the experience of poverty as analysed by the poor themselves. the participants in the study represented a sizable portion of south african society who had been disadvantaged by the apartheid ideology, policies and legislation that produced poverty and compressed social and economic class. since the advent of the new democracy, in 1994, comprehensive changes have occurred in south africa. legislation was adopted to eradicate the discrimination and inequalities of former times. this included changed labour legislation that resulted in new recruitment and appointment patterns. many whites who were previously advantaged by a sympathetic system had to compete in a changed labour environment, aimed at uplifting previously disadvantaged groups. some whites were illequipped and could not compete or cope in this new, for them, rather hostile environment. a specific group of poor people was identified as relatively unique regarding their situation and possibly their experience of poverty. these were people who became impoverished after having been economically active and relatively independent. their new impoverished status resulted from various interconnected factors, which include the changed socio-political environment, personal crises, marital strife and family disintegration. 2. purpose statement this project aimed at listening to people living in poverty by acknowledging their expert insider views of the phenomenon and analysing their actual experience of poverty. the purpose of this study was to understand and systematically describe the essence of the experience of poverty of a group of afrikaans-speaking destitute people in the vaal triangle, a region in poverty and phenomenology 133 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 131-144 southern gauteng, who have had to adjust to absolute poverty, no home, no food, and no job. 3. research approach it was decided to do a qualitative study in order to investigate the texture of people’s very intimate experience of poverty. the researcher also believed that involving participants in the process of research as co-researchers would be empowering to the participants and the researcher and would contribute to the self-insight, personal growth and psychological wellbeing of all persons involved. 3.1 research design and methodology the decision to do a phenomenological psychological study was informed by the need for an alternative but complementary point of view (giorgi, 1985), attempting to understand individuals living in poverty by entering into their field of perception in order to see life as they do. the focus was thus on the meaning of experiencing poverty for individuals (creswell, 1997). in accordance with the leitmotif of phenomenology “to the things themselves” (spiegelberg, 1984, 680) the study attempted to understand the subjective experiences of four people living in poverty. the aim was to obtain comprehensive data that would provide the basis for reflective structural analysis that portrays the essence of the experience of poverty (moustakas, 1994). phenomenological research requires the researcher to bracket her own preconceived ideas about the phenomenon in order to understand it through the voices of the informants (creswell, 1998, giorgi, 1985). the foundation of understanding is that all behaviour is intentional, directed as something beyond itself. understanding that the reality of an object is inextricably linked to a person’s consciousness of that object, thus the reality of the object can only be perceived within the meaning of the experience of the individual (creswell, 1998, giorgi 1985). principles outlined in giorgi (1985), creswell (1998) and moustakas (1994) regarding conducting phenomenological psychological research were followed. these are: description. the descriptions of naïve others were used. these original protocols were divided into statements, discriminated meaning units, or horizonalisation (creswell, 1989). reduction. the descriptive units were transformed into clusters of meanings expressed in psychological concepts. search for essences. the above-mentioned transformations were finally interwoven to construct a general description of the phenomenon van der merwe 134 (creswell, 1998). the level of analysis sought was general (giorgi, 1985). thus essences (structures) that are context-related were sought. these essences are not universal but relevant for a typical situation. although essences are limited to the context, they still transcend the facts upon which they are based. steps listed in the methodology section were followed scrupulously in order to achieve good craftsmanship and precision which henning et al. (2004) name as criteria for rating qualitative research as good scholarship. henning et al. (2004) refer to kvale when stating that validation depends on good craftsmanship in an investigation, which includes continually checking and questioning. the process of continually questioning and checking proceeded on two levels: first, an independent coder (a fellow psychologist), as well as the researcher analysed the transcribed data to identify main categories and themes. differences between the categories and themes identified by the researcher and independent coder were negligible, being rather differences in wording than in content. thus inter-subjective validity (giorgi, 1985) was achieved. on the second level, participants were individually asked what they saw as the ‘the main themes’ of their own descriptions, dialoguing with the researcher about their understanding, experience and emotional reactions (henning et al., 2004). these two levels of dialogue (with an independent coder and with the participants) contributed to triangulation. 3.2 research context a shelter for destitute individuals and families was identified. a welfare organisation (the suid-afrikaanse vrouefederasie: savf) runs the shelter. residence is not permanent. the shelter is conceptualised as a place of safety where people can stay until they are able to secure a job and move on. residents were previously independent and self-sufficient but recently became destitute due to various life events. they assist in the day-to-day running of the facility. cooking, cleaning and other maintenance activities are performed by them. individuals, industries or other organisations sometimes employ mostly men for day labour. some of the residents have low-paying outside jobs (e.g. car guards) and are required to contribute part of their earnings to the running of the shelter. various courses and programmes (material painting, sewing, leadership skills and religious meetings) are presented by the resident social worker and other community volunteers. other needs provided for are education for the children and medical care of all the residents. the research site was chosen amongst various options because it is run by a reputable non-governmental organisation (ngo) and managed by a qualified social worker. this facilitated easy access. the residents were people who had to make major adjustments, from being independent to being fully dependent on welfare. they had a unique experience of poverty and phenomenology 135 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 131-144 poverty, not previously having been so destitute. all except one of the residents were afrikaans –speaking, which is the mother tongue of the researcher. as language and the finer nuances of the spoken word is the fundamental instrument for data gathering in this research this factor also influenced the choice of location. contact was made with the social worker of the shelter explaining the purpose of the research. it was agreed that access to the residents would be achieved by the researcher who would present a programme on parenting skills over a period of eight weeks. the social worker predicted that not all parents would attend due to the apathy many residents generally displayed. only between eight and twelve people attended the parenting skills programme. non-participating individuals therefore excluded themselves as possible participants in the research. through workshop activities rapport was achieved and the research project was explained. after thorough discussion of the aims of the research with the workshop participants, an open invitation to participate was made. four of the workshop participants volunteered to take part in the research. interview times were scheduled to suit the programmes of the participants. these interviews were conducted during the last two weeks of the parenting skills programme. 3.3 sampling the criteria for sampling were that the individuals experienced the phenomenon of poverty (creswell 1998) and were willing to participate in the research. the four people who responded (three women and one man) were participants in the workshop. this in itself attested to their involvement in life and their need to improve themselves as opposed to the apathy of some of the other residents. each participant gave consent that the interviews could be recorded and the research results be made available in the public domain. individual interviews were subsequently conducted: whose purpose was to obtain descriptions of the life world of the interviewee with respect to interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena (kvale, 1996:5, 6). 3.4 data collection and research question individual unstructured interviews with participants were the instrument of research. the aim was to collect data to answer the following research question: from the perspective of the poor what is the essential structure of experiencing poverty? the question thus posed to each of the participants was: “how do you experience poverty? what does it mean to you to be poor?” van der merwe 136 participants were allowed to express their experiences, thoughts and emotions. the researcher did not need to ask other questions but did on occasion provide minimal encouraging remarks. the duration of the interviews was between sixty and ninety minutes. the interviews were terminated when the data became saturated. in total six hours of interview data was collected, which is an acceptable amount of data for an interpretative phenomenological analysis (madill, gough, lawton & stratton, 2005). the audio-taped interviews were transcribed and the process of analysis as explained in the methodology section followed. 3.5 data analysis data analysis was conducted following the example of giorgi (1985). the transcriptions of the interviews were a true reflection of each word used in the naïve description of the participants. these written accounts were subsequently divided in discriminated meaning units expressed in the participant’s language. the next step was to express these meaning units more directly in psychological language and with respect to relevancy for the phenomenon of experiencing poverty. the researcher and the coder produced their descriptions independently. these descriptions were the basis for the formulation of specific descriptions of each participant’s experience of poverty. thereafter participants were individually consulted and dialogued with concerning the truth (validity) of these descriptions. as a result of this intensive interaction, questioning and clarifications, adjustments were made to accommodate new insights. the final step was to compare the different specific descriptions that reflected the actual experience of each participant in order to look for common themes, shared experiences and emotions and to identify a general structure of experiencing poverty. 4. results all participants had been recently impoverished to the point of destitution. none of the participants had a steady income for at least the previous six months. they had no sense or pre-knowledge of psychological or any other research on poverty. their descriptions express their experienced meanings, which revealed the following dimensions: loss of control in each respondent’s life there was a series of events that led to destitution. each one had the experience of things spiralling out of control. tanya describes her ordeal as ‘first i lost all my furniture, then all the small items were stolen and my daughter was raped and later in another • poverty and phenomenology 137 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 131-144 shelter everything else was stolen, even my mother’s ring’. karl could always provide for his family but he too lost control over circumstances: ‘poverty is a reality. it happens so quickly. if things go wrong it is a question of two or three months and then there is nothing (left)’. each participant identified external factors as causes for their situation robbery, uncaring, irresponsible husbands, and becoming unemployed due to factors beyond their control. conscious choice to live the desperation of absolute poverty brought the option to escape through suicide and/or family murder. each participant had at some stage or another to make the choice to live. lena states ‘it has brought me very near to suicide. i have many times thought about committing suicide and killing my children or just committing suicide and having them put in foster care where they at least will be fed.’ they chose to regain control by choosing life. karl stated, ‘it will not help you to shoot or hang yourself. that is no solution. you have to get your life in order and find a job to get out of here.’ loss of sense of self and new self-definition loss of material possessions, life roles and a way of life result in a loss of sense of self. not being able to provide in their needs and the needs of their children is devastating. lena frequently begged for food. it implied loss of pride and dignity. according to tanya, ‘poverty breaks you. you have to work very hard to regain your self-concept and sense of worth.’ not being able to provide a normal stable environment and having to explain their situation to their children proved extremely difficult. ‘it is christmas now. it is family time. there are organisations that give presents for all the children, but it is not the same. i always wore a father christmas suit and woke them up. now this has been taken away from us.’ seeing their children suffer and being unable to change the situation were other concerns. ‘sometimes she (daughter) thinks because she suffers i don’t feel anything. but as she feels hurt, i am hurt ten thousand times more.’ (lena) a redefinition of self became necessary and was achieved in terms of values chosen. values such as respect for others, equality, diligence and sympathy are held and these are the terms of their self-descriptions. ‘i try to show everyone that i can work hard, that i can plan and make a success’ (karl) ‘poverty has taught me very good values. it has taught me to respect and appreciate things…and i sympathise with other people.’ (lena). however, staying true to these values and the core self thus represented did seem challenging at times, especially when they experience being looked down upon ‘sometimes you realise you have • • van der merwe 138 slipped and you think why should i care? the people who come here don’t really see me, they don’t really care.’ (wiida). abandonment by family participants could not rely on their families to help them, neither materially nor emotionally. ‘the moment when you are in this situation your family don’t want anything to do with you. i think they are scared they must provide for you.’(wiida) ‘my brother promised to give me money for my birthday but i don’t bargain on getting it. my sister gives me nothing. i let it roll off me. it’s neither here nor there’ (lena). comparing self to others the participants felt that being poor places you in a special category. poverty becomes a label that obscures the individual. ‘people look down on you. look at what you are wearing. look at your hair. why don’t you work and look after your children. all those type of things’ (lena). tanya sensed that affluent people expect to be treated with special respect: ‘sometimes people are haughty. you can feel and see if someone does not want to greet you.’ people who are involved in welfare work were frequently experienced by them as having an attitude of superiority that compounded their sense of being faceless. wiida expresses it as follows: ‘the people who come here don’t really see you; who and what you are. it does not matter to them where you are from and where you are going. you are just another hungry stomach that needs to be fed. that to me is very difficult.’ on the other hand the participants also compared themselves favourably to other residents in the shelter mostly in terms of their attitude towards life – grabbing every opportunity they were presented as opposed to others who had lost their self-confidence and sense of self-direction. ‘some of the women here are nervous wrecks. they don’t do anything to fill their days. i am not such a sorry bundle of a person.’ (wiida) finally there was a comparison with people who have even less materially, which inspired them to gratitude. ’we think we suffer. there are others worse off. they don’t even have a roof over their heads. we have been given a second chance.’ (karl) reflection and search for meaning each participant reflected on the reasons for being in their current predicament. this prompted questions regarding where he/she went wrong and a search for meaning in his/her ordeal. what lessons were • • • poverty and phenomenology 139 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 131-144 they supposed to learn? ‘i let people walk over me. i did not speak my mind … i have perhaps become hard. i don’t easily believe people any more. i have become critical and i’ve learned to assess people’ (wiida). all formulated some religious insights: god being the provider, protector, source of strength, and the teacher. tanya expressed her hopeful search for meaning in the following terms: ‘there must be some reason why we are here. perhaps god has a special plan for each one’. some even saw their situation as a punishment for being self-centred. ‘i believe god has shown me that i have only thought of myself. i think he wants me to work for him’ (karl). linked to a finding of meaning is a positive, hopeful construction of the future. each participant believed the future would be better than the present. ‘it does not look so dark any more. i have a temporary job that might become permanent’ (wiida) ‘whether i am poor or not, i will not die…because i want to go on and secure a better future for me and my children. i will not sit still and expect others to find me a job or home.’ (lena) 5. discussion of phenomenological psychological findings alcock (1997, 85) argues that simplified definitions and statistical measures necessarily overlook the complexities of the ‘fine grains of the experiences of deprivation’. these findings shed light on these fine grains of the experience of poverty with regard to a specific group of newly impoverished people. society’s stereotypical view of the poor as being deficient in some or other respect (chafel, 1997) was experienced as depersonalising and demoralising by participants even to the point of them losing the will to strive to overcome their limiting situation. however, the study has identified various dimensions of experiencing of poverty that reflect personal strengths empowering the participants to try to rise above their circumstances. these personal strengths include: constructive cognition. there is evidence of constructive cognition. constructive cognition includes self-serving attributions and downward social comparison (cantor, 2003). in as much as the participants compared themselves favourably to the other residents of the shelter who had given up, they were making self-serving attributions and downward social comparison. reminding themselves of others worse off than themselves is another example of downward social comparison. cantor (2003) describes constructive cognition as adaptive because it serves to mobilise a person’s energy to try to do what they can in that circumstance. participants were van der merwe 140 not giving up they were motivated to take each opportunity presented for personal growth and development. optimistic explanatory style. participants’ beliefs that their circumstances were caused by external factors and that their futures would be better could be described as a more optimistic explanatory style. this is a cognitive personality variable that reflects how a person habitually explains bad events in terms of external (it’s not only my fault, i lost my job, my husband left me), unstable (it’s not going to last forever, the future is going to be better), and specific causes (it’s because i made one bad decision) (peterson and seligman, 1984). explanatory style presumably affects outcomes through its effects on one’s expectations about the future controllability of events (peterson & de vila, 1995). each participant expected things to improve in future, not only due to their belief in god but also because they had grown as individuals and were willing to work hard and benefit from each opportunity given to them. self-reflection. each participant’s unique journey of self-discovery and search for meaning bears witness to their self-reflective capabilities. caprara and cervone (2003) describe this ability to reflect on own experiences, thoughts and emotions as the core of human strengths. such consciousness enables people to contemplate and predict their own behaviour and that of others. each participant grew in self-knowledge and developed a better understanding of others. 6. limitations of this study the context of the study may limit the applicability of the findings. as stated, the participants had become destitute recently. they are afrikaans speaking and represent a specific culture. thus, certain cultural values (western individualistic), religious values (a certain image of god) and a protestant work ethic (characteristic of many afrikaans-speaking people) colour their experience of poverty. the study also describes the experiences of people who are willing to help themselves, people who have not succumbed to the despair and helplessness that characterise many people living in poverty. these findings will not necessarily be applicable to all other poverty-stricken people. 7. conclusion and recommendations for future research the data point to the possibility of there being a window period of opportunity to re-launch newly impoverished people into economic independence. participants still mostly had positive beliefs about themselves. this seems indispensable for recovery and regeneration (saleebey, 2002). stokols cautions that poverty and phenomenology 141 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 131-144 (c)onfinement to degraded and impoverished environments for extended periods of time may overwhelm individuals’ best efforts to rise above these constraints, thereby fostering dispositions towards helplessness and despair (2003, 337). given this, it seems crucial that services at the shelter are aimed at facilitating the cultivation of human strengths and focused on throughput to avoid the ‘satisfied poor phenomenon’ which olsen & schober (1992, 173) ascribe to resignation as coping strategy. psychosocial and community interventions at the level of preventing people who experience financially devastating life events need to be developed. these programmes need to capitalise on existing strengths and cultivate new personal strengths such as self-confidence, creativity, and capacity for hard work, self-determination, optimism and faith. residents in such an environment would need to follow the programmes as soon as they arrive before satisfaction and a new sense of comfort sets 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(2003). a psychology of human strengths. fundamental questions and future directions for a positive psychology (pp. 331-344). washington: american psychological association. van zyl, r. (1997). armoede in suid-afrika. aambeeld, 25, 7-9. advance conference information: 5th iwha conference, “pasts and futures of water”, 13 to 17 june, 2007 the international water history association (iwha) will hold its 5th biennial conference from 13 to 17 june, 2007 in tampere, finland with the general theme “pasts and futures of water”. the event is co-organized and hosted by university of tampere (dept. of history) and tampere university of technology, tut (institute of environmental engineering and biotechnology, ieeb). the major themes of the conference are: (i) water and the city (ii) water, health and sanitation (iii) water, food and economy (iv) water history and the future of humanity. first announcement will be published in june 2006 and can be viewed at: www. envhist.org. proposals are to be sent by 15 oct 06. for possible enquiries: victor.pal@uta.fi, eija.vinnari@tut.fi. the international water history association (iwha) is the leading global organization on water history. previous biennial iwha conferences were held in bergen, norway, at the bibliotheca alexandrina, egypt, and at unesco headquarters, paris, france. the association deals with water history in all its aspects bringing together historians, geographers, engineers, archaeologists, anthropologists, and water managers. iwha is committed to bridge the gap between academics and policy makers, and strives to ensure representation from all world regions. to become a member and enjoy the benefits of iwha membership visit www.iwha.net abstract introduction financial management, investment decisions and qualitative assumptions qualitative assumptions, subjectivity and phenomenology principles for philosophical analysis: the case of gourmet burger kitchen conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) mark rathbone department of business management, faculty of economic and management sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa surika van rooyen department of accounting sciences, faculty of economic and management sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation rathbone m, van rooyen s. financial management and phenomenology: the role of dialogue, accountability and context in investment decisions. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a894. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.894 original research financial management and phenomenology: the role of dialogue, accountability and context in investment decisions mark rathbone, surika van rooyen received: 11 june 2020; accepted: 04 dec. 2020; published: 23 mar. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract in this article, it will be argued that subjective assumptions play a prominent part in the way valuations are conducted and investment decisions are made by financial managers (fms) from the perspective of agency theory. the problem is that there is a general absence of rules of compliance for financial management. quantitative calculations are based on theories, models and accepted practices that guide fms in their decision-making process. the selection criteria that inform these theories, models and practices rely on qualitative assumptions, which are informed by the presuppositions of the fm. the problem is that this understanding framework has traditionally not been assessed because of the assumption that the theories, models and practices are value neutral. value neutrality generally implies that calculations, processes and projections are based on factual information and rational procedures that are objective. the scrutiny of the assumptions involved in financial management assumes that the individual has philosophical sensitivity. however, this is not traditionally part of the expected competencies of finance professionals. philosophical competency means that the fm is capable of evaluating decision-making processes in order not to fall into the trap of circular logic or solipsism as highlighted by gadamer. maurice merleau-ponty identified that the limitations of such an understanding of reality result in a failure of responsibility and accountability. from the philosophy of merleau-ponty, there are three principles for philosophical analysis, namely, dialogue, accountability and context. these principles are applied to the purchase of gourmet burger kitchen by famous brands in 2016. keywords: valuations; phenomenology; famous brands; financial management; investment decisions. introduction this research article focusses on philosophical analysis of the practice of financial management and the role that qualitative assumptions play in decision-making processes with special reference to valuations. qualitative assumptions incorporate the presuppositions involved in the practice of financial management, such as experience, intuition and selection of appropriate models. these qualitative assumptions are in many cases unavoidable because of the uncertainty surrounding future predictions, such as cash flows, profit, growth and discount rates. the contribution of this theoretical evaluation is the introduction of philosophy as a possible resource for the financial manager (fm) to develop a critical and embedded ethical framework. in this regard, assumptions are not viewed as a problem to be avoided but they are part of the interpretative process as will be highlighted by phenomenology. in order to avoid ethical problems associated with egoism and solipsism in expressions of greed and narcissism that could jeopardise the decision-making processes of fms, the field of phenomenology will be explored. the work of maurice merleau-ponty will be explored in light of his more integrative view of perception as both cognitive and physical. this integrative perspective is crucial for decision-making that is more socio-ethically aware of evaluating the impact of decisions on the society. in this article, three principles that are embedded in interpretation that could form the basis of responsible decision-making are identified, namely, dialogue, accountability and context. these principles reveal the limits of business theories like agency theory, and introduce a more holistic and ethical perspective that goes beyond business decision-making that focuses on value creation for shareholders (as principals) and their agents.1 in general, the agency theory attempts to explain the relationship between the owners of a company and the agents that they employ to manage the company on their behalf.2 the relationship between a principal and an agent may become problematic because shareholder’s interest may not always be aligned with the interests of agents, for example, sustainability of business versus shareholder’s self-interest. in this regard, the principles that will be highlighted in this article can offer a more encompassing perspective to address these kinds of problems. in the first part of the article, the investment decision-making role and function of fms are discussed with a focus on valuations. the study highlighted that subjective assumptions play a prominent part in the way valuations are conducted and investment decisions are made. in the second part , the role of subjective assumptions will be explored philosophically. the work of merleau-ponty on embodied perception is discussed as a possible view that moves beyond the ethical problems associated with subjectivity and more encompassing perspectives on perception. next, three principles for an embedded ethical framework for fms will be identified and discussed based on the work of merleau-ponty, namely, dialogue, accountability and contextual awareness. finally, the purchase of gourmet burger kitchen (gbk) by famous brands in 2016 was used as the case study to highlight the dangers of subjectivity and how an embedded ethical framework could have avoided subsequent problems with this purchase. financial management, investment decisions and qualitative assumptions the role of the fm in organisations from the perspective of agency theory is to make decisions that will facilitate the organisation in achieving its goals of satisfying shareholders’ interest as mediated by their agents. financial managers make crucial decisions that have an influence on the future performance, as well as on the long-term sustainability and value of the organisation. these decisions involve seeking finance (financing decision) and deciding on the appropriate opportunities for these funds to be invested (investment decisions) in order to increase the value of the organisation. it is expected that the fm would opt to make the best decisions for the best possible outcome3 and maximise the value of the organisation’s shares.4 the problem is that the decisions of fms may be influenced by the short-term interests of principals as communicated by their agents rather than the sustainability of the business. this situation is perpetuated by the fact that unlike financial reporting where there are rules or standards, issued by international accounting bodies, that guide the accountant in reporting financial results, the fm does not have a set of fixed rules or standards to abide by. instead of fixed rules and standards, the discipline of financial management uses various models and techniques for making investment and financing decisions. in theory, these models are considered to be rigorous models that can be used for the decision-making process.5,6 the net present value (npv) model and the discounted cash flow (dcf) model are examples of these models, which are commonly used in investment decisions, for example, in deciding whether to invest in another company or a project. these models are but two of the models used in making investment decisions. in determining the value of a company, the three main approaches that are most commonly used in south africa include the income approach, market approach and asset value approach. the income approach or dcf approach uses the estimated future cash flows expected to be generated by the business in the future. the market approach or market multiple approach determines the value of a business by comparing the company with other similar listed companies in the industry and transactions in its industry. previous transactions in the ordinary shares of the company are also evaluated using an appropriate valuation multiple. the net assets approach determines the value of a company by determining the difference between the market value equivalents of the assets and the market value of the liabilities.7 in a research report published by pricewaterhousecoopers (pwc) on valuation methodologies used in south africa, west africa and east africa, it was found that the dcf approach is the most commonly used valuation method. the findings of this report are consistent with those of the previous years. the reason cited for the dcf approach being preferred above the market approach is that the number of comparable companies in the south african market is limited.7 it is for this reason that this study focusses on the dcf model as the preferred method of valuation. both the dcf and npv models involve estimating the future cash flows of a project or company and discounting these cash flows at a required rate of return, which is usually the cost of capital of the organisation, in order to derive the present value of the future cash flows.8 these models are reliable and are helpful in making investment decisions.5 graham and harvey9 showed that most companies in fact use the npv model to evaluate investment opportunities. however, those who use this model do not always ‘rigorously adhere to it’.5 the reliability of the npv and dcf methods depend on the inputs used by the hornung10 agreed that the reliability of the outcome of the decision based on the npv calculation is dependent on the reliability of the projection of the future cash flows that will be generated by the project, as well as on the determination of a suitable discount rate. the assumption is that the data used in these models are objectively sourced, and that the outcome is not informed by the assumptions of the fm. a number of researchers11,12,13,14,15 have shown that there is a direct link between maximising npv and maximising shareholder’s wealth. in order for this to hold true, the cost of capital rate that is used as the discount rate has to be theoretically correct, calculated using a market model, such as the capital asset pricing model, arbitrage theory and multifactor models. these calculations must be appropriately, and often subjectively, adjusted for the relevant risk. the rate is derived using the required return on a similar traded asset with a similar risk profile than the project that is being evaluated.6 decision makers use the npv model to discount cash flows,9 but the discount rate used is often a subjective hurdle rate that is used as a cutoff for acceptability and the discount rate is not appropriately adjusted for risk.5,6,16,17 this is usually the case in smaller firms where the hurdle rate is often prescribed by the investors and a single hurdle rate is used for all projects in a company even if they have different risk characteristics.9 empirical evidence shows that subjective discount rates are used by decision makers instead of a rational cost of capital calculated using a market model, and ‘as a result, they employ a criterion generated in the realm of unbounded rationality but give it a distinctive bounded-rationality flavor’.6 another uncertainty involved in applying financial decision-making models is that the fm has to choose the most appropriate model for the decision at hand,18 for example, choosing between the dcf model and market approach when performing valuation. luft and shields19 pointed out that research and practice have shown that although models and quantitative techniques are available to assist managers in their decision-making, many managers opt for subjective decisions rather than relying on the quantitative techniques available. the point is that qualitative, often subjective, assumptions of the fm are part of the decision-making process and can, therefore, not be viewed as value neutral. daily et al.20 stated that management is likely to act in their own interest. the reward for the shareholders of an organisation is a combination of dividends and capital growth on their share investment. management will, however, attempt to increase their performance in order to earn a higher salary or bonus or even to find another job with higher compensation by showing their managerial skills. as a result, managers could be focused on short-term profits instead of long-term goals. adler21 warned that investment decisions are often ‘viewed through an exceedingly narrow decision-making lens’ that it could have a short-term focus, and that possible incentives offered could result in possible partisan thinking by the fm. management and shareholders will also probably have different views on risks and based on these different views make different decisions. decision-making models rely on inputs that are often subjective or complicated estimations, and these estimations could be influenced by managers being either too conservative or too optimistic.3 ‘the behavior of the npv-minded decision makers are often biased, self-inconsistent, frame-dependent, and lead to nonsensical and whimsical consequences’.5 luft and shields19 stated that: [s]ubjective phenomena play an important role in management accounting because subjective decision-making is widely prevalent in organizations, in spite of the array of sophisticated quantitative techniques available to support managerial decisions. (p. 2) given the subjective nature of the decision-making process that the fm is often faced with, it seems important that the fm should be equipped with not only technical skills but also philosophical competency that is not currently part of the curriculum of fm courses. an important mechanism that is in place is the code of ethics of professional accounting bodies, such as the code of professional conduct of the south african institute of chartered accountants (saica). unfortunately, the problem remains that partisan influences can be technically justified and circumvented because a code of ethics is limited by the fact that it assumes individual’s responsibility to the fm to comply. although the general accepted accounting principles (gaaps) and international financial reporting standards (ifrs) provide guidelines for ethical and professional conduct for reporting financial results the need for philosophical competency goes much further and highlights the importance of critical and self-reflective skills for decision-making process. this is crucial when dealing with complex and sometimes conflicting principal or agent relations that may influence the decision of the fm. although philosophical skills and ethics have been given attention in accounting curricula, accounting education and training have been seen as mostly concerned with technical issues. the scope and depth of material on ethical issues and other soft skills are limited as evidenced by the lack of coverage in financial management and management accounting textbooks22 which has not improved much recently. in a study in the united kingdom, it was found that lecturers in management accounting mostly addressed ethics in an implicit manner without equipping students with formal theoretical tools for solving ethical problems. management accounting lecturers responded that they believed the theoretical and practical knowledge of management accounting was more important than interest in business ethics or even knowledge of moral philosophy.22 the models highlighted in this section can only guide decision-making in terms of a better understanding of the problem and assisting in making informed decisions. they do not guarantee accurate results and require effort, creativity, experience, knowledge and critical thinking on the part of the fm.3 financial models for decision-making rely on the presuppositions of the fm and may, therefore, consist of subjective assumptions, subjective processes in the selection of methods and/or partial forecasting and estimations.3 even where there are quantitative techniques available for decision-making, most of these techniques still require subjective inputs and judgement.18 these subjective aspects are generally seen as an important part of the methods of the fm. the experience and discernment of the fm are underpinned by the quantitative techniques. consequently, the myth that the process of decision-making is objective and value-neutral is inaccurate. the problem is that because qualitative assumptions play a role in decision-making process the philosophical tools are crucial for one to not fall into the trap of relativism and solipsism as reflected in the danger of short-term profiteering. it is at this point that philosophy and specifically phenomenology that attempts to move beyond subjectivism by developing a scientific study of perception and the presuppositions involved in interpretation and decision-making can contribute to the task of fms. qualitative assumptions, subjectivity and phenomenology the field of study in philosophy that deals with perceptions, subjectivity and qualitative assumptions in decision-making is phenomenology – a philosophical field of study that highlights that perception is the main source of knowledge of reality. the implication is that understanding is from a particular subjective point of view and based on presuppositions. the founding father of this field is husserl23 who attempted to develop phenomenology as a science in order to address the limitations of subjectivism in the interpretation process. the notion of phenomenology can be traced back to kant24 who made a distinction between noumenonand phenomenon. the former refers to an object or event that exists independent from the perceiving subject that is accessible through our senses as argued by empiricists. the latter is anything that can be observed by the senses as an image-object. kant24 understood noumenon as ‘things-in-themselves’ that are not directly known. what is known to the perceiving subject are phenomenaor mental images that are cognitively constructed. the rational capability of the subject is used to grasp the form and order amongst phenomena. this reflects the cognitive ability of the mind in constructing categories to access the structure of reality. in other words, phenomena provide the individual the possibility to understand reality although ‘things-in-themselves’ are not accessible. the access is always inferred through rational categories transcendental analytic. transcendental refers to the possibility to move beyond immanent or meaning that is bound to particular circumstances. this development made by kant was an attempt to move beyond the impasse between empiricism and rationalism. empiricism associated with hume was critical of the presuppositions that influenced cognition and based truth on the ability of the senses to acquire sense data as the basis for decision-making. contrarily, rationalists and idealists like kant were equally sceptical of the ability of the mind to order and understand sense data. therefore, rationalism assumes that logic is the basis of truth as a means to order sense data and the perceived structure of reality. kant24 attempted to bridge this tension between empiricism and rationalism through his transcendental idealism. transcendental idealism emphasises that the human self creates knowledge from sense impressions and universal concepts or categories. the problem with kant’s philosophy is that the noumenon or phenomenon dualism remains in an incompatible tension. the work of kant,24 specifically the method of perception of reality, provides an important perspective for fm and the use of qualitative assumptions. qualitative assumptions such as experience, intuition and discernment are all part of the presuppositions used by fm when deciding what models or theories must be used to calculate a valuation of a business. the phenomenon of a valuation is a construction built from these presuppositions of the individual preparing a valuation. therefore, the subjectivity of these presuppositions is not a problem to overcome. phenomenology can assist fm to analyse the complex nature of how perception functions in decision-making. awareness of the important role of qualitative assumptions highlights that it is crucial to reflect and evaluate the presuppositions that inform our perception of reality that can be traced back to husserl23 as discussed above. husserl23 expanded on the work of brentano on intentionality by arguing that distinction must be made between phenomena and the act of consciousness. phenomenology developed as a study of the structure of consciousness. this study requires that all assumptions about the existence of the physical world must be bracketed to acquire the knowledge of essences. he referred to this process as epoche. to arrive at the essence of things the obscurities and variances of reality that may cause distortions must be excluded from the reflective process. following brentano, husserl agreed that all mental phenomena are directed at an object. meaning is, therefore, not embedded in the object but rather develops as an intentional act based on an intentional object. the intentional object is the content of the mental phenomenon. it is what the mental phenomenon is all about. for example, any desire has a corresponding thing that is envisioned or the intentional desired object. the problem associated with husserl23 and his brand of transcendental idealism is that the question of life, reality and meaning was not addressed. this gap was addressed by husserl’s student heidegger25 in his work being and time (first published in 1927) that was influenced by existentialism. the point of interpretation for heidegger was that it is part of life that must be bestowed with meaning within the reality (ontology) of a particular time and space. heidegger’s refinement of phenomenology in terms of the individual’s existential presence in the world is a helpful delineation for fm because it focusses on meaning creation as a personal experience in which history is important. the experience of meaning creation is directly linked to the knowledge acquired over time of events and other valuations, which will have a direct impact on current and future valuations that inform the qualitative assumptions of the individual. the ontological sensitivity introduced by heidegger is a crucial aspect for fms to consider, specifically in a situation where no prior experience exists or conflicting positions have to be resolved. later, gadamer26 accentuated the historical aspect of heidegger’s phenomenology and argued that historical consciousness was not fixed or exists independently of our being. intruth and method,26 he developed phenomenological hermeneutics that was underpinned by the assumption that consciousness was embedded in the historical flow (or, horizon), and that understanding was a conscious fusion of horizons. therefore, our presuppositions are the necessary ingredients for understanding. the assumption that value neutrality and objectivity are the basis of truth is misleading. truth is part of a hermeneutical circle that is the basis of our understanding of reality. phenomenological hermeneutics is premised on the notion that understanding a text, art, perceptions, and so on requires knowledge of the process of the fusion of horizons. it is not a normative process but rather descriptive. the illusions of truth as noumena or ‘things-in-themselves’, something kant attempted to attain, were simply an illusion. understanding takes place within the hermeneutical circle, beyond which we cannot exist. from this, it is clear that qualitative assumptions in valuations are implicated by the work of gadamer,26 specifically in relations to the theories and models used in valuations. although the calculations that follow from these models may create the perception of value neutrality they are directly linked to subjective presuppositions, as gamader pointed out. the problem of the hermeneutical circle is evident from the fact that it may result in solipsism (exclusive and self-centred) or self-referential truth that may negatively impede on others as if interpretation occurs in a sanitised world away from the realities of life. in other words, there is a possible ethical dilemma embedded in understanding. this problem, amongst others, was explored by maurice merleau-ponty27 whose work may assist fms with a philosophical understanding of their practices that is in the world and connected to other human beings and the environment.28 consequently, this implies that conscious processes of meaning creation is collective rather than individual. in the discussion section, the principles for philosophical analysis from the perspective of merleau-ponty will be explored. merleau-ponty27,29,30 noted that the perceiving subject is not isolated from the world. perception rather takes place in the world, and as the subject perceives the world, the subject is also perceived by others. this assumes that perception is embodied. this means that perception is interactive and our physical presence influences the world we live in and how we perceive reality. we perceive reality with others who have an influence in the way we understand life and who we are. this assumes firstly that engagement is a function of understanding, and further that we can be held accountable for our actions because of the direct impact it has on others in a particular context. meaning creation is a collective activity and at the same time the whole has an impact on the parts of the interpretative system. therefore, two important principles include dialogue or communication as a function of interpretation and being held accountable for the impact we have on each other. all of this happens in the physical world, in time and space, represented by a particular context. merleau-ponty27 highlighted the fact that perception is not an individual activity and cannot be studied in isolation from other people. the communal nature of perception and the fact that physical attributes influence this process are instructive. he also highlighted the underlying ethical aspect of interpretation in which accountability is personal because there is an interface between the subject, others and the world. the face of the other is important and not an abstract unidentified person or persons. accountability is based on relationship and recognition that we understand in dialogue with other people. the act of perception, therefore, takes place with a pervasive sense of personal responsibility that goes beyond self-interest. it rather incorporates awareness of the potential damage that our perceptions, cognition and actions may potentially have on other people and the world. the implication is that avoidance of responsibility on the basis of objectivity and value-neutral assumptions can no longer be used as an excuse for decisions that harmed others. any decision must be taken with the realisation that we will be held accountable. this is an important shift in phenomenology that provides important principles for science. merleau-ponty29 highlighted that science and ethics cannot exist in separate realms as if good science that follows the positivistic procedure is beyond accountability. rather the opposite is true. good science is good ethics from the perspective of embodied phenomenology and vice versa. it is, therefore, clear that phenomenology as a field of study can provide the accounting profession and specifically financial management with valuable principles. the word principle is used because the problem with methodologies is that they imply the possibility of a detached practice. this is precisely the problem. financial manager decision-making from the perspective of embodied perception cannot take place without the engagement of the subject and all the presuppositions involved in the process. the implication is that decision-making based on business theories, such as agency theory, that are guided by the agendas of shareholders is challenged by the principles embedded in merleau-ponty’s phenomenology. it is also highlighted that businesses decision-making takes place within the society, and that the impact of these decision should be evaluated in terms of the impact they might have on people and the environment. these principles also differ from stakeholder theory because they are underpinned by a holistic perspective that goes beyond the engagement of individual stakeholders that may result in the silencing or prioritising of some stakeholders. from the above discussion, the principles that are highlighted in the work of merleau-ponty30 are the following: dialogue (communal engagement), accountability (accounting for the impact of and individuals meaning creation) and context (in the world – time and space). it is important to note that although three different principles are discussed, these principles are all inter-related and overlap. the implication is that they do not function in isolation and must not be viewed as separate concepts. the principles are dynamic and embedded in the phenomenological process of understanding. the principles can also be refined further and developed in much more complexity. these principles are deeply embedded in often overlooked aspects of classical economics associated with adam smith, and therefore, of critical importance for economics and the accounting profession.28,31,32 these three principles will be discussed in the next section with specific reference to the case of famous brands and their purchase of gbk. principles for philosophical analysis: the case of gourmet burger kitchen as mentioned earlier, investment decisions in many cases involve the ability to make future projections that are based on existing financial information and estimates. these estimates are based on historical information and expectations. in order to determine the present value of a given investment, the required inputs are the expected future cash flows and the required rate of return. both of these inputs are, however, uncertain, subjective and could potentially have an influence on the decision, which, in turn, may have a negative impact on various stakeholders. it is, therefore, crucial that the presuppositions of the fm are highlighted and the impact on stakeholders is determined. the three principles identified earlier, namely, dialogue, accountability, and context, are, therefore, crucial in the practice of determining value through dcfs. this could be a departure of the current financial management practice in which calculations and decision-making might happen in isolation and with limited engagement because it is not necessarily seen as the responsibility of the manager. the case study of gbk highlighted how the incorporation of dialogue, accountability and contextual awareness might improve valuation decisions. case study: gourmet burger kitchen the case of famous brands could be used as an example to illustrate the above-mentioned principles. famous brands limited (fb) is a holding company listed in south africa on the johannesburg stock exchange limited (jse) and is africa’s largest branded food service franchisor. gourmet burger kitchen was launched in 2001 in battersea, south london by three new zealanders and supported by the father of fusion, peter gordon. gourmet burger kitchen has been viewed as a renowned leader in the premium burger category (fb website). in 2016, fb bought 100% of the equity of gbk for £120 million (r2.3b) from yellowwoods, an investment firm controlled by the south african enthoven family (yellowwoods, who owns nando’s, spier and hollard insurance company ltd, bought gbk for £30m in 2010). at the time of the purchase, it was estimated that fb saved approximately £36m. kevin hedderwick, an executive at fb, commented that the saving was because of the devaluation of the great britain pound (gbp) after the european union referendum in june 2016 and stated that brexit was beneficial to the company.33 the value of this investment, however, subsequently, has been reduced by more than half. this was because of lower consumer confidence, online food deliveries and competition in the industry. the jse sens announcement as released on 16 august 2018 revealed that gbk operation underperformed the board and management’s expectations. the contribution of gbk to group profitability has taken longer than initially anticipated hampered by the adverse trading environment. this was followed by more bad news on the jse sens announcement of 15 october 2018, stating that gbk has recorded an operating loss of £2.6m. in light of the continued adverse trading conditions and sustained underperformance of gbk, an impairment of r874m pre-tax (r760m post tax) was made. the basic loss per share for the group was 566 cents. finally, on 24 october 2018, a decision was taken by the board to commence with a company voluntary arrangement process with the assistance of grant thornton. dialogue the embodied perception of the individual implies a multilateral communication process between subjects in the world. therefore, interaction between people is an important principle of economics. the notion of self-interest is embedded in a socio-ethical system that functions on the basis of the natural instinct that smith referred to as sympathy.28,31,32 the implication is that an agency perspective that only highlights self-interest and individualism does not follow the foundations of classic economics with its very important social dimension. the social dimension is inclusive and geared toward not only the short-term self-interest of a business and principals but also the long-term sustainability of the business in society. this is crucially important for the fm because instead of the individual proceeding in isolation it is important that dialogue takes place with stakeholders. the importance of dialogue is critical because it highlights our presuppositions. in this process, difference and overlap are crucial for constructive dialogue. difference highlights the presuppositions of the subjects and the possibility of creative problem-solving. dialogue also emphasises the possible overlap that can be the basis for consensus. the difference and overlap together are essential to move beyond the limits of solipsism by revealing an alternative perspective that will make decision-making more inclusive and nuanced. in their 2017 financial statements, fb determined the fair value of the investment in gbk by applying the dcf method. as mentioned, the key assumptions included the probability that gbk would reach the set targets and the appropriateness of the discount rate. at this stage, the discount rate was set at 9.33%. assumptions regarding the anticipated profit were based on historical performance adjusted for expected growth. in estimating the future profits, they applied a declining growth rate averaging 23% over a 5-year period. the growth rate was estimated to be 1% per annum after the initial 5-year period. it was stated that a change of 1% in the future profits would result in a difference in value of r9.1m. a change of 1% in the discount rate could result in a movement of r7.5m in the value. the situation changed as was reported in the 2018 financial statements of fb. the recoverable amount dropped to r1.9 billion. the profits were now forecast over a 10-year period, with an initial growth rate of 0% growing to 3% in this period. the growth rate thereafter was estimated at 2.2% per annum. the discount rate used was 8%. according to fb, the valuation was performed by valuation experts according to market data that was adjusted based on the experience of management and their knowledge of the market. however again, the valuation was based on the same assumptions as in 2017. the financial statements reflect that the discount rate used was determined based on market rates and adjusted for risk. this highlights the problem associated with calculations and qualitative aspects like experience in determining the value. could dialogue with more stakeholders have contributed to a more reasonable assessment? this dialogue can also be extended to include valuations from various valuators that follow different strategies and philosophies to produce counter-arguments to the exorbitant valuation that was eventually accepted by the board. accountability the fact that the presence of the subject in the world has an impact on the environment and other people reveals that accountability and, therefore, a responsible interpretative practice are paramount. the reason for this is that meaning creation is an inclusive activity that is based on the fact that interpretation is an engaged activity. this implies that every act of interpretation has to be performed in a transparent manner that follows the procedures and methods of the profession, which is also inclusive of all relevant stakeholders pertaining to a particular calculation. accountability assumes that the embodied perception of the subject comes into play, and the biases of the subject require recognition and giving account of decisions to stakeholders. practically, it requires transparency through reporting. accountability means that it is not only a culture of individualism and self-interest that should drive the accounting profession as is reflected in the different codes of ethics. rather, the embedded nature of the profession in society must also be reflected in the way decisions are made that is not limited to the perspectives of agency theory but includes the well-being of others. accountability is part of smith’s34,35 understanding of economics as a socio-ethical system in which the impartial spectator is an important mechanism to determine responsible behaviour. the impartial spectator is a mental construction created by a subject of the engagement between people and events based on the experience to determine a response that will result in the approbation of others.36 in this process, the perceptions of others are paramount, and influence the subject’s perceptions and actions. behaviour that is offensive or harmful to others has a direct impact on the subject. the subject will in such a situation not receive approbation from others that may have direct consequences.28 hence, the agency perspective that mainly considers the principal and possible conflict of interests with agents must be expanded to incorporate a holistic perspective that respects the interconnected nature of business as a social phenomenon, amongst others. therefore, recognition of others beyond the parameters that agency theory and the individualism of stakeholder theory is required.37 this failure can be seen in the way fm decisions are sometimes informed by the calculation of discount rates and cash flow projections without transparency beyond what is required from management by agency theory. these are crucial processes that may have a negative impact on stakeholders. for example, if cash flows are estimated too conservatively, the implication will be that a company might be undervalued or that a project might seem to yield a negative npv and may not be undertaken. if a project is rejected on the basis of this negative npv, it has a direct impact on the value of the company and the wealth of the shareholders as the project could have added value to the company. however, the danger of being too optimistic may result in accepting a project that may not yield the value expected or could even destroy the value. or, if the value of a company in which a company wishes to invest is overestimated, the company could pay too much for the equity of the other company. this will have impact on the company and shareholder value, job security of employees, loss of income to suppliers, the community and so on. for this reason, it is crucial that for the practice of determining value and ultimately making investment decisions, a more inclusive process is followed by sharing information with stakeholders so that a more realistic and sustainable decision can be made. in the end, this will create the buy-in of the stakeholders and positive sentiment towards a possible project that is imperative for its success and reaching the financial goal that informed the decision in the first place. if a community boycotts a company and does not support the business because of legacy issues or other reasons, this could be detrimental to the sustainability of the business. in the case study, the investment decision to purchase gbk was based on uninformed and too optimistic estimates of potential cash flows and discount rates. the share price of fb dropped by 46%, and the debt burden of the loss-making business resulted in the cancellation of dividends. the job security of gbk staff is compromised, as well as the other franchises owned by fb. these and other implications of the decision to invest in gbk highlight the failure of responsible decision-making and accountability to stakeholders because of the overvaluation of the cash flow estimates and possibly inaccurate discount rates. contextual awareness the contextual nature of interpretation accentuates the fact that embodied perception takes place in the world. this brings the physical and geographical space of interpretation and time into focus. the calculation and decision-making are always contextually based on a particular historical and physical situation. context also plays an important role in classic economics for smith’s concept of sympathy.32 this had direct bearing on the situation and the circumstances surrounding an event in which the impartial spectator judged a situation and amended perception and action to attain approbation. physical context is directly linked to the resources, scarcity and variables associated with space. history assumes that any decision must take legacy issues into consideration, and possible adjustments should be made. therefore, the reference to context is generally ontological in terms of the reference to the awareness of the influence of circumstances that are historically embedded. in the context of this article, it denotes society, in general, in terms of the operations of a business and the larger macro-economic influences. furthermore, context is not neutral or value free, and socio-political and other aspects are important to consider. context can, therefore, be viewed as a leap beyond stakeholder theory by scrutinising the power dynamics of the complex network of stakeholders. the integrated report of fb of 2018 states that economic and socio-political factors that contributed to the loss of value included brexit that resulted in a weaker economy and lower consumer confidence. for this reason, consumers became price sensitive, which posed a problem as gbk’s products are seen as expensive. furthermore, there was a decline of sales in malls and eat-in restaurants and an increase in online and delivery sales. an increase of competition in the premium burger sector where the number of restaurants has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 23% further had a negative impact on gbk’s results. sales declined by 6.8% for the 2018 financial year. ironically, damon buss, an equity analyst at electus fund managers, raised the question of why the enthoven family would sell gbk if it had such a great potential. context played a crucial role in this decision. brexit and the possibility of the uk losing its role as a financial hub of europe, trade restrictions and other negative economic aspects directly influenced the growth of the british economy. according to buss, the first sign the gbk acquisition was ill-conceived was the revelation that the enthoven family were the sellers. ‘why would the owners of nando’s sell a business if it had such great potential?’.38 context not only relates to britain, it also reflects the south african context and the capital flight of companies (e.g. woolworths and brait) who overpaid for businesses to secure currency hedge opportunities in gbp, us$ and others. issues in south africa which may have triggered a far more optimistic valuation of gbk include political instability, corruption, low economic growth and downgrades by stanley and poor. a more inclusive dialogue and greater drive to be accountable may have had a great impact on this business decision. it is clear from this study that contextual awareness broadened the qualitative assessment by not basing the valuation on similar companies in the same geographical location and economy; rather the comparison could have been more accurate if a country that experienced a financial shock or risk was chosen. this comparison could have provided a clearer risk profile. conclusion in this article, the phenomenology of merleau-ponty was explored as the basis of an embodied interpretative process for fms, which goes beyond agency theory. this interpretative process consists of three principles, namely, dialogue, accountability and context. the contribution of this philosophical perspective on financial management is that qualitative assumptions are used as a tool for critical and engaged decision-making with specific reference to valuations. however, these principles can also be used for decision-making by fms, in general. dialogue with stakeholders and a sense of accountability enable a fm to identify key stakeholders in investment decision-making in order to scrutinise the individual’s presuppositions. this is important because aspects that may be crucial to decision-making could be revealed. the principle of context is a further aspect that should be evaluated and in the case of the purchase of gbk by fb exposed the possible danger of simplistic use of currency hedging as a reason for exorbitant valuations. therefore, it is clear that dialogue, accountability and context are significant principles for responsible investment decision-making. acknowledgements competing interest the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions m.r. and s.v.r. contributed equally to this research article. ethical considerations the ems-rec of the north-west university reviewed the research and concluded that this is a no-risk study. nwu-00665-20-a4. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this research article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references van rooyen s. business theories. in: rathbone m, editor. understanding business and ethics in the south african context. pretoria: van schaik, 2020; p. 182–197. eisenhardt km. agency theory: an assessment and review. acad manag rev. 1989;14(1):57–74. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1989.4279003 lander dm, pinches ge. challenges to the practical implementation of modeling and valuing real options. q rev econ finance. 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https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/retail-and-consumer/2018-10-16-how-famous-brands-uk-burger-business-went-from-bad-to-worse/ td journal december 2007.p65 279 unskilled blue collar workers: bourgeois and/or authoritarian? results from a small scale survey in belgium h de witte* abstract in this article, two contrasting theories on the attitudes of unskilled blue collar workers are confronted: the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis and the hypothesis of the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’. the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis states that blue collar workers adopted the attitudes (and life style) of white collar workers, from whom they can no longer be distinguished. lipset’s hypothesis of the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’, on the other hand, states that blue collar workers more strongly endorse a conservative attitude on socio-cultural matters and a progressive stand concerning socio-economic issues. both hypotheses are tested using data from a small scale survey (n = 135) among unskilled blue collar workers and lowerand mid-level white collar workers from different large companies in the region of leuven, belgium. the results indicate that the interviewed unskilled blue collar workers still hold a set of attitudes that distinguishes them from the interviewed white collar workers. so, the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis was refuted. instead, the unskilled blue collar workers were more conservative on a socio-cultural level, and more progressive concerning socio-economic issues. these results are in line with lipset’s ‘authoritarianism of the working class’ hypothesis. keywords embourgeoisement thesis, blue collar workers, white collar workers, working class in belgium, authoritarianism of the working class, socio-cultural attitudes of occupational groupings. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 2, december 2007, pp. 279-303 * prof. dr. h (hans) de witte is full professor at the department of psychology of the katholieke universiteit leuven, belgium. he teaches work (and organisational) psychology and is member of the research center work-, organisational-, and personnel psychology (wopp) of his department. his research includes the study of the psychological consequences of job insecurity, unemployment, temporary employment and downsizing, as well as mobbing and stress versus engagement at work, and the impact of work onsocial attitudes. 280 disciplines psychology, sociology, personnel psychology belgian studies. 1. introduction in this article, two contrasting theories on the attitudes of (unskilled) blue collar workers are confronted: the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis and the hypothesis of the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’. although both theories lead to opposing hypotheses, research thus far has focused on just one of them, without confronting it to its counterpart. research concerning the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis mostly focuses on the economic attitudes of workers, whereas the hypothesis of the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’ refers to economic as well as non-economic attitudes. so, the confrontation of both theories has the additional advantage of elaborating and testing hypotheses concerning the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis using a larger set of attitudes than commonly used. 1.1 embourgeoisement of the working class? a number of developments since the second world war have radically changed most west european societies, such as belgium (for a summary see middendorp, 1979, 27-33 and 83-87; van deth, 1984, 26-33). on a socio-economic level, for example, there has been a clear increase in prosperity, while the development of an extensive social security system has improved economic security for the lower social classes. the structure of the working population changed (with a decrease of blue collar workers and an increase of white collar employees) and became more complex and heterogeneous (bundervoet, 1992, 78; pasture, 1991, 314-315). there has also been a great deal of change on the socio-cultural front. the populations level of education rose considerably after the second world war, in addition to which the shortening of the working week and the increase in mass communication increased active leisure pursuits and new opportunities for cultural knowledge. growing internationalisation led to shrinking communications distances, bringing large parts of the world ‘within reach’, while advancing urbanisation blurred the boundaries between town and country. all these developments might have effected the attitudes and life styles of the population. some authors advocated that the increase in living standards and the rising socio-economic complexity of society have led to a weakening of the conflict between the different social classes (e.g. middendorp, 1979, 29-31). this, in turn, is said to have reduced de witte 281 the militancy and class-consciousness of the working class. others have argued that socio-cultural developments have given rise to the creation of homogeneous life styles, in which cultural differences between different sections of the working population have levelled out (see for example, laermans, 1990, 143-144; pasture, 1991, 319-321). these assumptions are generally referred to as the ‘embourgeoisement thesis’. this supports the idea that the economic and cultural developments outlined above have led to the working classes adopting middle class life style, attitudes, behaviour patterns and appearance, from whom they can now barley be distinguished (for a summary, see goldthorpe et al., 1969, 1-29; kluegel & smith, 1981, 45-48). this ‘embourgeoisement thesis’ may well have been formulated for the first time at the end of 1800 (goldthorpe et al., 1969: 3), but became increasingly popular during the fifties. in 1956, schelsky supported the view that contemporary west german society had evolved into a uniform middle-class society, in which class differences had disappeared (schelsky, 1956). in belgium, too, van mechelen claimed as early as 1954 that “an embourgeoisement of the working class is gradually taking place, as a result of which they are adopting the prevailing attitudes in society and coming to accept and profess the same values” (van mechelen, 1954, 66). kerr stated in 1969 that “the working class not only tends to disappear as a class-conscious and recognisable element in society: it needs to disappear if modern society is to operate with full effectiveness (...). class consciousness leads to attitudes of class conflict which are incompatible with modern industrialism.” (kerr, 1969, in: steijn, 1997, 133). sometimes, special attention was given to the position of unskilled blue collar workers (van doorn, 1953). van doorn (1953, 78-87) supposed that this specific segment of the working class would resist longer to ‘embourgeoisement’, even though also a vast majority of this category would become ‘bourgeois’ on the long run. van doorn supposed that this process was already “active or even accomplished” in 1953. research on the embourgeoisement thesis did not get under way until the start of the 1960s (see e.g. zweig, 1961). in their influential study of this thesis, goldthorpe et. al. (1969) subtly refuted this hypothesis. although the lifestyle and attitudes of the working classes were subject to change, there proved to be no evidence of complete ‘absorption’ into the middle class. later research on this thesis resulted in similar conclusions (e.g. dalia & guest, 1975, 291-294; marshall et al., 1988). in a recent qualitative re-evaluation of the td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. unskilled blue coller workers 282 study of goldthorpe et al., devine (1992, 208-210) concluded that her working class interviewees still held a collective class identity, which distinguished them from the middle classes. however, as hill notes, these findings did not prevent the revival of the embourgeoisement thesis during the 1980s and early 1990s (hill, 1990). 1.2 an elaboration of ‘bourgeois’ attitudes it is, however, not always clear how ‘embourgeoisement’ should be investigated. sometimes aspects of lifestyle (such as leisure activities or social networks) are analysed, while others focus on attitudes. in this article we focus on one aspect of the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis: the degree to which members of the working class (still) hold attitudes different from the middle classes. the key focus, then, is not on ‘lifestyle’, but rather on ‘culture’ in a sociological sense (van doorn & lammers, 1984, 108). this limitation to attitudes, however, requires some explanation: first, which attitudes should be analysed when comparing blue and white collar workers and, second, what set of attitudes can be considered ‘bourgeois’? in their study of vauxhall workers in the area of luton (uk), goldthorpe, lockwood, bechhofer and platt (goldthorpe et al., 1969) mostly focused on the economic attitudes of workers (e.g. ‘class images’, ‘aspirations’ and ‘social perspectives’), and on the political implications of these attitudes (e.g. voting intentions). in defining ‘bourgeois’ attitudes, they offer us an ideal-typical description of ‘traditional working class’ and ‘traditional middle class’ social perspectives (goldthorpe et al., 1969, 118-121)1 . according to these authors, a traditional working class perspective is characterised by a dichotomous conception of the social order: the division between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (those in authority) is unbridgeable. therefore, emphasis is placed on collective action aimed at the protection of collective interests, with trade unionism as most 1 goldthorpe et al. also describe two additional characteristics (goldthorpe et al., 1969, 118-121). characteristic for the working class is the wish to maintain their standard of living, and the wish to live in and for the future. the corresponding middle class features are the wish to keep up a progressive improvement in consumption standards and an orientation towards the future. these aspects, however, are less relevant for the purpose of this article. de witte 283 developed form. prime value is set on group solidarity. in the corresponding ideal-type for the middle class, the basic conception of the social order is hierarchical and open: given e.g. ability and determination, individuals can move upwards. the middle class social ethic is an essentially individualistic one: the prime value is that set on individual achievement. the contrast between an individual orientation (typical for the middle class) and a group orientation (typical for the working class) thus seems crucial for these authors in describing the (economic) attitudes of blue and white collar workers. this description of the core aspects of ‘bourgeois’ (contrasting with working class) attitudes, offers a good starting point for the elaboration of a broader test of the embourgeoisement thesis, encompassing more than just economic attitudes. in his thorough (both theoretical and empirical) analysis of conservatism, middendorp (1978 & 1991) distinguishes two dimensions within conservatism (a socio-economic and a socio-cultural one), and reveals their underlying values: ‘freedom’ versus ‘equality’. the opposition between progressive and conservative attitudes in the socio-economic domain points to the socio-economic cleavage: the conflicts between ‘labour’ and ‘capital’. goldthorpe et al. were mostly dealing with this attitudinal dimension. middendorp’s research in the netherlands shows that the economic opposition between liberalism and socialism lies at the basis of this dimension: those who express progressive attitudes emphasise the unfairness of social inequality and argue for government intervention in the economy and for a more militant trade union policy in order to counter such inequality. conservatives express opposition to government interference in the economy and against more militant trade unions. they reject the claim that social differences arise as the result of inequality of opportunity, and stress private initiative and competition between individuals as essential for proper economic functioning. in other words, in the economic domain, progressive individuals are group oriented and stress the value of equality, while conservatives are oriented towards the individual and stress the value of (individual) freedom. we can thus reformulate the ideal-typical description of social perspectives offered by goldthorpe et al., by stating that in the economic domain, blue collar workers are supposed to express progressive attitudes, while white collar workers are supposed to express conservative attitudes. embourgeoisement would mean that blue collar workers would stress conservative attitudes in the economic domain. unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 284 next to this economic attitudinal dimension, middendorp also distinguishes a socio-cultural one. the opposition between conservative and progressive on a socio-cultural level relates to the norms and traditions which exist in society with respect to individual private milieu and family life. ethical themes (such as sexuality and bio-ethics) and more social themes (such as free speech and tolerance towards minorities) are part of this domain. in a conservative sociocultural view, traditional norms in society are emphasised. thus, for example, there is a preference for the traditional role-division between men and women and support for a stern regime for bringing up children, in which strictness and obedience are key concepts. those expressing this attitude also support the traditional work ethic in which the duty to work is emphasised. those who take a progressive stand in the socio-cultural field generally hold opposite attitudes. traditional norms and attitudes are relativised for example, they stress the emancipation of women, the independence of children and support the liberalisation of abortion or euthanasia. middendorp argues that socio-cultural conservatism is opposed to the basic value of freedom in the cultural domain, since (individual) freedom would affect and damage traditional institutions and traditional norms. conservatives instead emphasise equality: everyone should adhere to (instead of deviate from) traditions. individuals with a progressive attitude concerning socio-cultural matters stress (individual) freedom, since they believe that people should choose their own life style, regardless prevailing traditions. middendorp’s attempt to define socio-cultural conservatism thus can help us to expand the ideal-typical description of ‘social perspectives’ of goldthorpe et al. to the socio-cultural sphere. since, according to goldthorpe et al., blue collar workers are group-oriented, we can expect them to hold conservative attitudes in the socio-cultural domain, because conformity to the group (and thus the emphasis on equality) is crucial in socio-cultural conservatism. since the middle class is (supposed to be) oriented towards individual freedom, a progressive socio-cultural stand seems obvious. embourgeoisement, then, would mean that blue collar workers would stress progressive attitudes in the cultural domain. 1.3 or authoritarianism of the working class? the introduction of a distinction between economic and cultural conservatism enables us to test, as a second hypothesis, (an aspect of) another classic sociological hypothesis: lipset’s hypothesis on the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’ (lipset, 1959 & 1981). lipset starts his analysis with an inventory of characteristics of the working de witte 285 class. according to this author, blue collar workers are characterised by a low level of education, isolated occupations, low participation in political and voluntary organisations, little reading, economic insecurity and authoritarian family patterns. he considers these characteristics as indicative of a certain isolation from the dominant cultural and political values in society. he therefore assumes that blue collar workers develop a preference for simplistic solutions to more complex social problems. he refers to this ‘unsophisticated view of the world’ as ‘authoritarianism’, inspired by the influential work of adorno et al. (1950). next, lipset makes a distinction between economic and non-economic liberalism. ‘economic liberalism’ refers to a redistribution of income, status and power among the classes, and to support of trade unions. this dimension is identical to middendorp’s ‘economic progressiveness’ discussed above. blue collar workers, according to lipset, hold progressive attitudes in the economic domain, since it best serves their economic interests. ‘noneconomic liberalism’ refers to (among others) support for civil liberties for political dissidents and civil rights for ethnic and racial minorities. this dimension resembles middendorp’s dimension of ‘socio-cultural progressiveness’2 . according to lipset, blue collar workers reject non-economic liberalism, which means that they favour socio-cultural conservatism. finally, lipset combines the different concepts of his theory. he proposes authoritarianism as an explanation and as an intermediating link between the social situation of blue collar workers on the one hand, and economic liberalism and non-economic conservatism on the other. so, according to this author, both the more conservative attitude of the working class to socio-cultural matters and their more progressive attitude on the socio-economic front derives from their authoritarianism. albeit this theory is controversial (see e.g. ray, 1982), lipset’s core hypotheses were not refuted for many years and in many studies (see e.g. lipsitz, 1965; grabb, 1979; felling & peters, 1986; middendorp & meloen, 1990; molnar et al., 1994). in a meticulous reconstruction and test of lipset’s theory in the netherlands (scheepers et al., 1992), 2 middendorp’s concept, however, is slightly broader (and therefore more ‘rich’), than lipset’s, since it also refers to a larger amount of social traditions and norms (e.g. role-divisions between men and women, and child rearing practices). unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 286 the authors criticise previous research on several grounds. many studies restrict their test to the analysis of economic attitudes, and ignore cultural aspects. only few studies analyse the supposed relationships between authoritarianism and both sets of conservatism. none of the reviewed studies examined whether all of the characteristics lipset assumed to be typical of blue collar workers indeed contribute to the explanation of authoritarianism. scheepers et al. then tested lipset’s hypothesis in an integral manner. blue collar workers proved progressive on economic issues and conservative on cultural ones. the latter finding, however, was only due to their lower level of education, and not to belonging to the working class as such. authoritarianism did influence cultural conservatism, but did not have a positive effect on economic progressiveness. lipset’s hypothesis concerning the effects of authoritarianism as such thus were partly refuted and partly corroborated. because research fails to show that authoritarianism mediates the social situation of workers and their attitudes, only the two ‘derived’ claims of lipset’s hypothesis on the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’ will be tested in this article: we shall examine whether members of the working class adopt a more conservative attitude on the sociocultural front than the middle classes, while being more progressive on a socio-economic level. an additional reason for not adding the concept of ‘authoritarianism’ to our design relates to our test of the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis, since we did not develop an hypothesis concerning authoritarianism in our test of this thesis. in this contribution, we do not aim to explain the attitudinal differences of blue collar workers in terms of aspects of their social situation (e.g. educational level or feelings of insecurity)3 . we instead wish to confront lipset’s hypothesis on the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’ with the embourgeoisement thesis. 3 the finding that variables related to social class, such the level of education, are more important in explaining the attitudes under scrutiny, therefore is not relevant for the purpose of our research. de witte 287 2. method 2.1 sample our hypotheses will be tested on the basis of data collected in 1988, in interviews for a study of the ‘working class culture’ (de witte, 1990). since address lists of workers are not available for research purposes, a two stage sampling design was used. first, companies were selected in order to get access to the addresses of their employees. in order to achieve a more homogeneous sample of employees, the selection of companies was limited to large companies (of at least 100 employees), in one of the major sectors (machining and processing industry and metal sector) of the region around leuven (belgium). in doing so, we tried to increase the mutual comparability of the blue and white collar workers, since they all worked in similar companies. only eight companies did meet our criteria. six of them agreed to participate. second, a random sample of 211 employees was taken from the list of the personnel of these companies. only unskilled blue collar workers and white collar workers below management level were included in the study. in order to increase the homogeneity of our sample, only employees with belgian nationality, who were married (with children), aged between 30 and 45 years old were included in the sample. a total of 135 workers could be interviewed. this represents a response of 64%, which is acceptable, compared to the response to similar surveys (e.g. felling et al., 1987: 5). the non-response was not selective: no differences were found between the response and the non-response group with regard to their occupational group, gender or the company they worked for. the sample consisted of 71 men (52.6%) and 64 women (47.4%). the interviewees were divided into three occupational groups: unskilled blue collar workers (n=48; 35.6%), lower-level white collar workers (n=47; 34.8%) and mid-level white collar workers (n=40; 29.6%). the distribution of these occupational groups according to sex corresponds well with the actual ratios among the population (see de witte, 1990, 153-154). the sample was representative of the envisaged population: unskilled blue collar and white collar workers below management level, working in large companies in one of the major sectors of the region around leuven (belgium). no difference was found between this population and the sample with regard to aspects such as occupational group, gender or the company they worked for. unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 288 2.2 questionnaire in addition to background characteristics (such as gender and age), the questionnaire contained a great many questions about the socioeconomic and socio-cultural attitudes of the interviewees. on the basis of five or six items in each case, some twenty concepts were operationalised. each item could be rated on a 3-point scale, ranging from ‘agree’ to ‘disagree’. items which, after factor analysis, pointed to a single concept, were combined into a scale, ranging from 0 (maximum rejection of the concept) to 10 (maximum agreement with the concept). for each scale, a reliability analysis was carried out to test the additivity of the items (cronbach’s alpha)4 . in this article we limit ourselves to ten concepts (or scales), each of which is representative of a particular attitudinal dimension. a factor analysis on these ten scales showed that they could be placed in the two expected attitudinal dimensions, as was also the case in similar studies carried out in the netherlands (see e.g. middendorp, 1991; felling & peters, 1986; scheepers et al., 1994)5 . five attitude scales pointed to socio-cultural conservatism. in order of importance, these were: a traditional work ethic, in which the duty to work is emphasised (7 items, cronbach’s alpha: .72; typical item: “people who do not want to work are idle layabouts”), a strict style of upbringing (6 items, cronbach’s alpha: .62; typical item: “it is better for the children themselves if they are brought up strictly”), emphasis of the obligation of upward mobility (2 items, cronbach’s alpha: .64; typical item: “you should always try to work your way up”), an instrumental work orientation (4 items, cronbach’s alpha: .60; typical item: “you only work to earn money”), and conformist values relating 4 since the level of education of most respondents is rather low, these reliability coefficients are rather low too, ranging from .60 to .75. this is not surprising, since the level of education influences the consistency of the attitudes of an individual (bishop, 1976). research on conservatism therefore consistently reports lower alpha’s among low skilled respondents (see e.g. vollebergh & raaijmakers, 1991). 5 factor analysis requires variables to be measured at an interval level. a principal component analysis developed for ordinal variables (principals, see gifi, 1991) however revealed similar results. de witte 289 to upbringing (3 items, cronbach’s alpha: .75; examples: children must “learn to be polite” and “learn to obey”). the five other scales pointed to a progressive socio-economic attitude. in order of importance, these were: emphasis on the problematic and unjust position of employees in society (‘employee consciousness’; 8 items, cronbach’s alpha: .70; typical item: “most companies treat employees too lightly”), the importance of the trade union movement in defending the position of employees (‘trade union consciousness’; 4 items, cronbach’s alpha: .66; typical item: “the trade unions should have a bigger say in running companies”), defence of government intervention in the economy (3 items, cronbach’s alpha: .62; typical item: “the government must take steps to reduce differences in incomes”), complaints about the lack of opportunities for social mobility (5 items, cronbach’s alpha: .60, typical item: “people like me don’t really have much chance of getting on in society”), and emphasis on a conflict of interest between employers and employees (‘conflict consciousness’; 4 items, cronbach’s alpha: .60; typical item: “in our society, the employers still get rich off the backs of the workers”). 2.3 hypotheses the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis can be tested in two ways. on the one hand an evolution over time is assumed, whereby members of the working class gradually adopt the culture of the middle classes. the consequence or result of this development is that, if it were true, there would remain no attitudinal differences between the two classes. the test of the hypothesis that a process of embourgeoisement has taken place implies a longitudinal design, in which one analyses to which degree the two groups of workers converged over time in terms of attitudes. since the data reported in this article were collected at only one single moment of measurement (cross-sectional design), we can only test the second way of analysing the embourgeoisement thesis. this hypothesis relates to the (end) result of the (possible) embourgeoisement phenomenon: the working classes have become bourgeois if they exhibit the same socio-economic and socio-cultural attitudes as the middle classes. as elaborated earlier, embourgeoisement would mean that blue collar workers exhibit the same attitudes as blue collar workers: economic conservatism and cultural progressiveness. this is our first hypothesis. lipset’s hypothesis on the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’ is our second hypothesis. we will test whether blue collar workers are more conservative with regard to socio-cultural matters and more progressive on the socioeconomic front compared to white collar workers. unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 290 2.4 method for each of the ten attitude scales, the scores of the blue collar workers will be compared with the scores of the white collar workers. the hypotheses will be tested in three ways. first, the number of respondents scoring more than 5 (the neutral score) on each 10-point scale will be calculated. this gives us an insight into the percentage of interviewees who (to a greater or lesser degree) agree with the content of each scale. the differences between the three occupational groups with regard to these dichotomised scales will be tested using a chi-square test. next, a (pearson) correlation will be calculated between the occupational groups and their scores on the various 10point scales. this gives us an insight into the strength of the association between attitudes and occupational groups6 . these analyses will be carried out for each scale separately. finally, in order to be able to test our hypotheses in a more global way as well, a total score will be calculated for the two attitudinal dimensions. in the original research report, the influence of the variable ‘gender’ was examined using analysis of variance and was eliminated from the scale scores of the three occupational groups using multiple classification analysis (de witte, 1990, 159 ff.). multiple classification analysis recalculates the scale scores of the different occupational groups after adjusting for variation accounted for by other (nonmetric) variables, such as gender (nie et. al., 1975: 409-418). after control for the occupational group, the gender of the interviewees showed no correlation with the two conservatism dimensions. this corresponds with the research literature (for a summary, see de witte, 1990, 141142). therefore, the variable ‘gender’ will be excluded from the following analysis, since this variable causes no differences in the attitudes analysed in this article7 . 6 in calculating these coefficients, the full range of the scales was used (ranging from 0 tot 10). the variable ‘occupational group’ is measured at an ordinal level. therefore, the calculation of eta-coefficients might seem more appropriate. these coefficients were calculated and compared to the reported correlations. both coefficients, however, were almost identical (the difference never exceeded .01). the pearson correlations were reported here, since they also give information on the direction of the association. 7 the comparison of the scale scores of the three occupational groups adjusted for variation accounted for by the variable ‘gender’, are almost identical to the unadjusted scale scores. de witte 291 3. results 3.1 comparison of the socio-cultural attitudes of the three occupational groups figure 1 shows the percentage of interviewees in each occupational group who score above the neutral midpoint of each of the five sociocultural attitude scales described above. in addition to the line representing these percentages, the correlation between each scale and the occupational groups is also shown in figure 1. figure 1 difference between the three occupational groups on the sociocultural scales, in % figure 1 shows that the three occupational groups differ from each other in a statistically significant way with regard to the five sociocultural attitude scales (all differences are at least significant at the .05 level). the same pattern emerges in each case, with unskilled unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 292 blue collar workers scoring more conservative than both groups of white collar workers. as the occupational level increases, the percentage of respondents with conservative attitudes declines. thus, for example, all unskilled blue collar workers stress that children should learn conformist values during their upbringing, compared to ‘only’ 89% of lower-level white collar workers and 77% of midlevel white collar workers. a similar picture is found with regard to the style of upbringing, where 74% of the unskilled blue collar workers stress that children should be brought up strictly, compared to only 56% of lower-level white collar workers. among the mid-level white collar workers, a majority of 61% actually reject this attitude. the unskilled blue collar workers also score higher than the interviewed white collar workers on the obligatory nature of social mobility and the work ethic. the greatest difference between the three occupational groups, however, occurs with regard to their orientation towards work. the work orientation of the unskilled blue collar workers is more clearly instrumental than that of the white collar workers, although it is striking that a majority of all occupational groups rejects a purely instrumental attitude of work. the fall in conservatism as the occupational level rises is evidenced by the significant negative correlations between the scales and the occupational level (correlations between -.24 and -.43; p always < .01). as can also be seen from figure 1, the strongest associations occur with the scales ‘instrumental work orientation’, ‘conformist upbringing values’ and ‘strict style of upbringing’. we can conclude that lipset’s first sub-hypothesis is confirmed: the working class interviewees do indeed adopt a more conservative socio-cultural attitude than the white collar workers. on a sociocultural level, then, these differences mean that the interviewed unskilled manual workers did not become ‘bourgeois’. this becomes even more clearly apparent when we perform a pairwise test of the attitudes of the three occupational groups (testing via a priori contrasts following analysis of variance; see also de witte, 1990, 219 and 243). the unskilled blue collar workers score significantly more conservative on the five scales selected than the lower-level white collar workers (p always < .05), and than the mid-level white collar workers (p almost always < .01). the difference between the two groups of white collar workers is only significant in one case (the scale ‘instrumental work orientation’). concerning socio-cultural attitudes, the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis thus is refuted: the working class interviewees exhibit different attitudes from the white collar workers and cannot be considered to be ‘bourgeois’. de witte 293 3.2 comparison of the socio-economic attitudes of the three occupational groups figure 2 shows the results of the comparison of the three occupational groups regarding the five socio-economic attitude scales. the correlations between these scales and the occupational groups are also shown in figure 2. figure 2 difference between the three occupational groups on the socioeconomic scales, in % figure 2 reveals a somewhat different pattern from that in figure 1. once again, there is a significant difference between the three occupational groups with regard to most of the socio-economic attitude scales, with the percentage of respondents with a progressive attitude falling as the occupational level rises (cf. the significant negative correlations regarding four of the five attitude scales). however, these differences are less pronounced than in figure 1, as unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 294 is also apparent from the lower correlation coefficients (between -.26 and -.05). most striking is the difference in the assessment of the opportunity for social mobility. where almost half (48%) of the unskilled blue collar workers consider social mobility to be difficult to achieve, this percentage falls to only 18% of the mid-level white collar workers. the belief in the importance of the trade union movement in defending the interests of workers (‘trade union consciousness’) also shows variation from one occupational group to another. although a majority of all occupational groups express this belief, a greater percentage of unskilled blue collar workers (75%) emphasise it than do lower-level white collar workers (64%) and middle-level white collar workers (59%). a majority of both the unskilled blue collar workers and the lowerlevel white collar workers stress the need for government intervention in the economy; the percentage of mid-level white collar workers with this attitude is lower, however. a similar pattern is observed with regard to the attitude that the interests of employers and employees are not easily reconcilable (‘conflict consciousness’): a majority of both the unskilled blue collar workers and the lower-level white collar workers showed agreement with this attitude (65% and 62% respectively), while 54% of the mid-level white collar workers reject it. as regards employee consciousness, there is no significant difference between the three occupational groups. a small majority of the interviewees from all occupational groups sees the position of employees in belgian society as being (somewhat) problematic.we can conclude that the second sub-hypothesis of lipset is also confirmed, though only to a weak degree: the unskilled blue collar workers were indeed more progressive on the socio-economic front, but the differences between the various occupational groups (and the strength of these correlations) are weaker than on the sociocultural level. this is also apparent from the results of a pairwise comparison of the three occupational groups (tested via a priori contrasts following analysis of variance; see also de witte, 1990, 243). the unskilled blue collar workers do not differ significantly from the lower-level white collar workers on the five socio-economic scales analysed. there is equally no difference in the socio-economic attitudes of the latter from those of the mid-level white collar workers. the differences between the unskilled blue collar workers and the mid-level white collar workers are, however, significant (p always < .05), with the exception of the employee consciousness scale. we can conclude that on the socio-economic level as well, there is a sufficiently large difference between the various occupational groups to reject the embourgeoisement thesis. de witte 295 3.3 synthetic picture of the attitudes of the three occupational groups we limited the above analysis to a separate analysis of five attitude scales for each attitudinal dimension. by calculating overall scores, our hypotheses can be tested in a more synthetic way. to this end, factor scores were calculated, which gave a total score for each dimension. the scores on the socio-economic dimension were recoded, so that the highest score became the lowest, and the lowest score became the highest. since research shows that this dimension ranges from ‘progressive’ to ‘conservative’ (middendorp, 1991), we can consider this recoded score as a measure of socio-economic conservatism. the average total factor scores of the three occupational groups on the two dimensions are shown in figure 3, which also shows the correlations between the variable ‘occupational group’ and the two attitudinal dimensions. figure 3 factor scores of the three occupational groups for socio-cultural and socio-economic conservatism unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 296 figure 3 confirms lipset’s hypotheses. as the level of the occupational group increases, their socio-economic attitudes become increasingly conservative, while becoming more progressive on the socio-cultural front (test of the factor scores via analysis of variance; p<.01 in both cases). the working class interviewees, then, hold more conservative attitudes in the socio-cultural domain, but are more progressive with respect to socio-economic issues. their ‘culture’ in terms of attitudes therefore differs from that of the interviewed white collar workers, so that we can conclude that the embourgeoisement thesis is not confirmed. this is also apparent from the results of a pairwise test of the factor scores of the three occupational groups (testing of a priori contrasts following analysis of variance). the socio-cultural attitudes of the unskilled blue collar workers differ significantly both from those of the lower-level white collar workers (p<.01) and those of the midlevel white collar workers (p<.001). the scores of the two groups of white collar workers do not differ significantly from each other. on a socio-economic level, the only significant difference is between the unskilled blue collar workers and the mid-level white collar workers. the score of the lower-level white collar workers does not differ significantly from that of the unskilled blue collar workers or that of the mid-level white collar workers. this is in line with the observations reported above. the observation that the differences in socio-economic attitudes between the three occupational groups are slightly smaller than the differences in socio-cultural attitudes is also shown by the slightly higher correlation between the occupational group and the degree of sociocultural conservatism. 4. summary, discussion and conclusions 4.1 summary of research findings the interviewed unskilled blue collar workers in this study still had a ‘culture’ of their own, that distinguished them from the interviewed white collar workers. generally speaking, they were more conservative on a socio-cultural level, supporting to a greater degree than the middle class the traditional norms and values with regard to matters such as the family, bringing up children and work. on a socio-economic level, however, the interviewed blue collar workers were more progressive, more frequently displaying dissatisfaction with their position in society (cf. the emphasis on the impossibility of social mobility), and wishing powerful organisations such as the government and the trade unions to bring about change. these observations are in line with our second hypothesis: (the two ‘devired’ de witte 297 subhypotheses of) lipset’s ‘working class authoritarianism’ hypothesis. that part of the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis, that claims that the working class at present holds the same attitudes as the middle class, could not be confirmed. 4.2 discussion however, the empirical data on which this article is based are obviously limited in several respects. this is, after all, a small-scale study which was geographically restricted to just one region in belgium (leuven and its environs). only a limited range of occupational groups was included in the study (e.g. professionals were excluded), and the spread according to size of company and employment sector was also restricted. the sample of blue collar workers was equally limited: unskilled blue collar workers were taken as the main comparison group, rather than skilled or affluent manual workers, as in goldthorpe et al.’s famous study. the degree to which skilled manual workers became ‘bourgeois’ (or ‘authoritarian’) was therefore left out of consideration in this study. these limitations stress the importance of future research, in which the attitudes of larger and more heterogeneous samples of blue and white collar workers should be analysed (see e.g. de witte, 1994a). future research is also needed to test and integrate more fully the theoretical notions that were elaborated in confronting the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis with lipset’s account. this confrontation seems fruitful and deserves more research in the future, since it enables to test a broader conception of the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis than commonly used. 4.3 conclusions to conclude this article, some larger comments will be made concerning our findings. first of all, we observed that the largest differences in attitudes between the interviewed blue and white collar workers referred to socio-cultural issues. the differences between the occupational groups were less important regarding socio-economic issues. if this finding can be generalised to the belgian population, then it may be that the two groups have grown closer together in their socioeconomic attitudes over recent decades. however, the necessary comparison data to test this hypothesis are not available in belgium. unskilled blue coller workers td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. 298 the observation that unskilled blue collar workers still exhibit a different attitudinal pattern than that of white collar workers is also supported by further analyses of the data collected. thus the occupational group to which a person belongs can be predicted fairly accurately on the basis of the attitudes of the interviewees (de witte, 1994b, 87-90). it has also been demonstrated elsewhere that the working class interviewees identify with a different social class than the white collar workers (de witte, 1992). this suggests that their feeling of class awareness is still intact. van doorns’ claim in 1953 that even unskilled blue collar workers were in the process of becoming ‘bourgeois’ (van doorn, 1953, 78-87), thus seems unwarranted and premature. this is quite a surprising finding, since van doorn made his claim almost half a century ago. the finding that the interviewed blue collar workers still hold a typical set of attitudes (a ‘working class culture’) of their own does not, however, imply that this is the same ‘culture’ as in the past: the working class culture probably has also undergone a certain transformation since the second world war. middendorp, for example, shows on the basis of a trend analysis between 1970 and 1992 that the differences in socio-cultural attitudes between blueand white collar workers exhibit ‘trendless fluctuation’: sometimes the working class evolves towards the position of the middle class, while on other occasions the scores of both groups tend to diverge (middendorp, 1994). a similar fluctuation can be noted regarding socio-economic attitudes. it is, therefore, not self-evident to assume that the working class and the middle class have grown closer ‘by definition’ when comparing their attitudes. after all, many social phenomena, such as the government policy pursued and the general socio-economic situation of the country, can influence the transformation of the working class culture. too little is yet known about (and too few studies have been carried out into) what these factors are and in what way they influence this transformation. the precise way in which working class culture has evolved as a result of these changing social conditions is largely unknown. it deserves more attention in future research. in this short article there was only room for a description of the attitudinal differences between blue and white collar workers, since the sole aim of this article was to confront two ‘classical’ theses in sociology. no attempt was made to explain these attitudinal differences. as shown elsewhere, the level of education, the degree to which a person is able to work autonomously and the degree to which a person feels that he has control over his own life (‘feelings of personal control’) are key factors here (see de witte, 1993 & 1999). de witte 299 only attitudes have been analysed in this article, when comparing blue and white collar workers. middendorp’s analysis of the core values underlying both attitudinal dimensions, can help us to enlarge our conclusions to values (middendorp, 1991). his account also enables us to interpret lipset’s paradoxical finding that members of the working class combine conservatism on one level with a progressive attitude on a different level. it finally also enables us to bridge the research findings of lipset and those of goldthorpe et al. the combination of economic progressiveness and cultural conservatism is logically consistent when the fundamental values which lie at the basis of the two attitudinal dimensions are made explicit (de witte, 1990, 12-13). members of the working class opt in both attitudinal dimensions for the basic value of ‘equality’. at the socio-economic level, this means that they reject inequality and that they favour a redistribution of income, status and power among the different social classes, since a progressive attitude in the economic domain best serves their (economic) interests. concerning socio-cultural issues, they tend to be conservative, stressing the need to adhere to social traditions. in doing so, they again emphasise equality, since they feel that no one should deviate from the traditions in society. this value orientation is in line with goldthorpe et al.’s assumption that the orientation towards the group, or the ‘collectivity’, represents the core element of the working class culture (goldthorpe et al., 1969, 119). members of the middle class, by contrast, stress the basic value of (individual) ‘freedom’ in both attitudinal dimensions. at the socioeconomic level, they stress private initiative and individual competition as essential for proper economic functioning (conservative position). concerning socio-cultural issues, a similar position is emphasised: individuals should be able to choose to live their life the way they want, regardless prevailing traditions and norms (progressive position). so, in both domains, the individual and individual development are 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periode 1970 tot en met 1982. amsterdam: ct-press. van doorn, j. 1954. de proletarische achterhoede. een sociologische critiek. meppel: boom & zoon. 303 unskilled blue coller workers van doorn, j. & c. lammers 1984. moderne sociologie. een systematische inleiding. utrecht-antwerpen: uitgeverij het spectrum. van mechelen, f. 1954. de psychologie van de arbeidersgroep. brussel: de standaard boekhandel. vollebergh, w. & q. raaijmakers 1991. intergenerationele overdracht van autoritarisme. in: p. scheepers & r. eisinga (eds.), onderdanig en intolerant. lacunes en controverses in autoritarisme-studies, 61-77. nijmegen: its. zweig, f. 1961. the worker in an affluent society. london: heinemann. td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 279-303. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. some patterns of internal migration in north west province, south africa, 1996-2001 me palamuleni* abstract migration is an important component of population change in north west province of south africa. unfortunately, reliable data on migration is difficult to collect. the aim of this study is to provide estimates of net internal migration for north west province using indirect estimation procedure based on survival ratios. this method has been under-utilised in demographic research in the country. the results indicate that during the intercensal period 1996-2001 north west province experienced net out-migration. there are migration differentials by region, municipalities and gender. bojanala and southern regions experienced net in-migration whereas central and bophirima regions experienced net out-migration. the above migration patterns resemble the nature of social and economic development in the province. one policy implication of the study is that efforts should continue being made to make the sending municipalities more attractive so as to reduce the inflow of people to the crowded and more affluent municipalities. key words: migration, survival ratio, population growth rate, in-migration, out-migration, south africa disciplines: geography, regional studies, demography. introduction there are two major components of population growth, namely, natural increase and migration. natural increase is the difference between births and deaths. migration is defined as the movement of persons that leads to a change in place of usual residence. this definition entails that such movements as shopping and commuting that do not involve change of usual place of residence are not considered as migration. movements across internal administrative boundaries are called internal migration while movements across national boundaries are referred to as international migration. both types of migration have been substantial in south africa and as such they have generated some interesting research discussions (kok et. al, 2003; mears, 2004; kalule-sabiti and kahimbaara, 1996; kalule-sabiti, kahimbaara and chimere-dan, 2001; roux, 2001). however, * dr martin enock palamuleni is attached to the population training and research unit, north west university, mmabatho. email: martin.palamuleni@nwu.ac.za palamuleni   226 this paper examines the nature and patterns of internal migration in north west province of south africa. the study of internal migration in north west province is important for several reasons. first, migration can either depopulate or overpopulate an area depending upon the level of economic activities. in addition, migration is an important process of urbanization. second, knowledge of nature and patterns of migration is necessary before one prepares national and sub national population projections. with the requirement that municipalities should prepare an integrated development plan (idp) there is a growing demand to prepare population projections at municipality levels. third, migration is a process of cultural evolution and social change. migrants bring new ideas, skills and a host of cultural practices related to food, dance, music and other life styles as well. sometimes, migrants are easily absorbed into the host culture. however, on several occasions migrants are thought to be a source of conflict and the cultural differences are exploited to increase the tension between the migrant and host communities (naicker and nair, 2000). however, the conflicts between the migrant and host communities are rooted in the competition for jobs by these two groups of people. a good example of the tension between migrant and host communities is the spate of xenophobic attacks that took place in south africa sometimes in mid 2008 (sigsworth, ngwane, and pino, 2008). a study published by the southern african migration project (samp) noted: the ... government – in its attempts to overcome the divides of the past and build new forms of social cohesion... embarked on an aggressive and inclusive nation-building project. one unanticipated by-product of this project has been a growth in intolerance towards outsiders... violence against foreign citizens and african refugees has become increasingly common and communities are divided by hostility and suspicion. crush and pendleton (2004) as the importance of migration affecting the socio-economic and political life is pervasive, no government can ignore this phenomenon. a good statistical system on migration would be helpful in socio-economic planning and allocation of resources. since late 1980s, hiv/aids has emerged as a major threat to public health in south africa. single migrants living in urban areas, agricultural estates or hostels are exposed to the risk of hiv/aids in view of the fact that they are likely to visit sex-workers among whom the hiv infection is found to be very high (unaids and iom, 2003). as such, migrants constitute a risky group and also have the potential to spread the infection in their place of origin. this dimension of the linkage of migration with public health has created renewed interest in the study of the trend, pattern and various characteristics of internal and international migrants in and outside of a country. as a means of monitoring the emerging social and health issues and problems, the existing statistical system may not be adequate. as such, the need for the migration data at the district and regional levels is well understood for various purposes. unfortunately, the numbers of in-migrants and out-migrants during the intercensal period 19962001 at the district and regional levels are not readily available from the recent population census in south africa. moreover, in the absence of reliable registration of births, deaths and migration in the country, population censuses and surveys remain the only sources that provide data for the study of migration. in this paper, the 1996 and 2001 south african population census data are used to study the magnitude and pattern of net internal migration in north west province of south africa. internal  migration  north  west  province   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. 227 background information the north west province of south africa is bordered by the provinces of gauteng, limpopo, the northern cape and the free state and the republic of botswana (map 1). it is the sixth largest of the nine provinces in south africa covering a total area of 116,320 square kilometre (approximately 9.5% of south africa). map 1: location of south africa and north west province the total population in the province increased from 3.3 million in 1996 to 3.6 million in 2001 and it is currently estimated at 3.7 million. the provincial population represents 8% of the national total. about 65% of the population in the province live in rural areas. the province is divided into four district municipalities as follows: bophirima, bojanala, southern and central; and 21 local municipalities. both the 1996 and 2001 population censuses indicate that the largest proportion (36%) of the population in nw lived in bojanala followed by central (23%), southern (18%) and bophirima (13%). the most industrialised and densely populated centres include rustenburg, brits and ga-rankuwa in the eastern region of the province. mafikeng is the provincial capital and was the administrative centre of the bophuthatswana homeland (from 1978 to 1994). it was also the governing centre of the british bechuanaland protectorate prior to 1960. other major towns in the province include potchefstroom, klerksdorp, lichtenburg, ventersdorp and vryburg. the provincial gross geographic product (ggp) is r 3 964 per person against the national average of r 6 498. mining forms the backbone of the provincial economy, contributing 42% to the ggp and 39% to the employment. the mining sector is dominated by large platinum mines and smelters in the rustenburg area, as well as gold mines of the orkney and klerksdorp areas. palamuleni   228 agriculture is the second-most important sector, with 13% of the ggp and 18% of employment. maize and sunflowers are the most important crops grown, while cattle and game farming are also well established. tourism is widely considered to have a major growth potential as the province is located adjacent to areas of gauteng and botswana. data sources and methods the study will make use of the 1996 and 2001 south african population censuses (statistics south africa, 1998, 2003). the 1996 census was the first census to be conducted in democratic south africa and for the first time in the country’s history enumerated people of all population groups. in all previous censuses the majority africans who constitute nearly 75% of the national population were only estimated. in addition, the 1996 census provided the benchmark data for future development programmes of the first post apartheid government. the 2001 population census was the second census to be conducted in democratic south africa. this provided benchmark data to confirm levels, trends and differentials in demographic parameters. quality of the data the methods used in this study are sensitive to age reporting and its results may be biased if there is serious age misreporting in the data. thus, it is important to assess the quality of age distribution before analysing the results of the estimating procedures. evaluation of age-sex data done elsewhere showed that the data in five year age groups are fairly acceptable (palamuleni, 2003; simelane, 2002). thus, no attempt has been made in this study to correct the reported ages. it suffices to note that the quality of reported age-sex distributions, though inaccurate, are acceptable and comparable with data from other sub-saharan countries. evaluation of age and sex distributions has been done elsewhere (palamuleni, 2003; simelane, 2002). thus, no attempt has been made in this study to correct the reported ages. it suffices to mention here that, generally speaking, the south african age-sex data are of good quality as compared to most countries in sub-saharan africa (palamuleni, 2003). method of estimating net migration the survival ratio method is used to estimate net migration in north west province. a description of the method is given by (shryock and siegel, 1976; hamilton and henderson 1944). the continued applicability and relevance of the method has been explained by different authors (sivamurthy, 1969; sly, 1972, bhagat, 2005; bilsborrow, 2005; bogue, hinze and white, 1993). several researchers have used the method to obtain plausible estimates of net migration in different countries (potgieter and calitz, 1999). in this study an attempt is made to apply the method at provincial level using data from the 1996 and 2001 south african population censuses. the basic formulae for estimating net-migration is given by mx+t = nptx nsx. np0x ……………………………………………….. (1) where x is the age or age group, t is the interval between censuses, p°x is the population aged x at the first census and ptx is the population aged x+t at the second census and nsx is the survival ratio. the indirect measures of migration, derived by comparing the hypothetical survivors in 2001 of the cohorts of people who were enumerated in the 1996 census, gives much more detailed information than the direct method, but poses certain problems of its own. its detailed portrayal of migrants by sex and five-year age groups is extremely valuable for other demographic analyses including internal  migration  north  west  province   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. 229 population projections. however, its assumptions are difficult to satisfy. first, the method requires that in calculating the census survival ratios for the period 1996-2001, the population of south africa should be closed, that is not subject to international migration. second, the assumption, which stipulates that the age-sex specific survival ratios for each district are the same as those for the whole country is also difficult to satisfy. obviously, districts which contain major urban areas such as rustenburg, klerksdorp and potchefstroom, have lower mortality rates than the other districts. the effect of the violation of this assumption is to bias upward the net migration estimates of the districts whose mortality is higher than the national average and bias it downward in those districts whose mortality is lower. third, the assumption that requires that the relative underor overenumeration of population in any age and sex group in each district is the same as that of the country as a whole in both censuses and for each cohort is the most difficult to satisfy and its biases, which could take different forms are most problematic to assess. furthermore, apart from the difficulties arising from the assumptions, the census survival ratio method reveals only net migrants who were alive in both 1996 and 2001 censuses. it does not account for those who migrated but subsequently returned to their original place of residence during the intercensal period (also known as return migration), those who were born during that period, and those who died during it after migrating. multiple migrations by the same individual are also not counted. while the exclusion of multiple migrants, returnees or dying migrants can be tolerated; omission of child migrants born during the intercensal period cannot be tolerated, as their numbers could be substantial in a 5-year period. estimates of migration among children born during the intercensal period (aged 0-10 years) can be approximated by assuming that young children migrate with their mothers. using child women ratios and net migrant women shryock and siegel (1976) suggested that net migration of children can be estimated as follows: 5mi,0 = (1/4) . cwr0-4. 30mfi,15 ……………………………………………………...(2) where 5mi,0 is the net migration for the population aged between 0 and 5, cwr0-4 is the child woman ratio calculated based on children aged 0-4 and women aged 15-49 and 30mfi,15 is the net migration for women aged 15-49. 5mi,5 = (3/4) . cwr5-9. 30mfi,20 …………………………………………………….. (3) where 5mi,5 is the net migration for the population aged between 5 and 10, cwr5-9 is the child woman ratio calculated based on children aged 5-9 and women aged 20-54 and 30mfi,20 is the net migration for women aged 20-54. 5mi,0 and 5mi,5 were split into male and female components as follows: 5mfi,5 = 5mi,5 x proportion female ………………………………………………………… (4) 5mmi,5 = 5mi,5 x proportion male ………………………………………………………….. (5) another problem encountered in the process of applying the method to south african data includes the changing boundaries of provinces and municipalities especially following the redemarcation of palamuleni   230 the cross-boarder municipalities (republic of south africa, 2005). during both the 1996 and 2001 censuses, north west province had five cross-boarder municipalities namely, kgalagali, ga-segonyana, moshaweng, west rand district and merafong city. however following the enactment of act number 23 of 2005, the cross-boarder municipalities of kgalagali, ga-segonyana and moswaweng were transferred to northern cape and west rand to gauteng. merafong city became part of north west province. results table 1 presents figures of the 1996 and 2001 population of south africa by age and sex along with the census survival ratios (csr) calculated from the two populations. csr is the ratio of population aged x+n at time t+n divided by population aged x at time t, where n is the intercensal period. for example, population in age group 5-9 in 2001 was in age group 0-4 in 1996. therefore the survival ratios for age groups 0-4 and 5-9 is calculated as population in age group 5-9 in 2001 divided by population in age group 0-4 in 1996. according to table 1 survival ratios for age groups 0-4/5-9, 5-9/10-14, 10-14/15-19 and 15-19/20-24 for males and groups 0-4/5-9, 5-9/10-14, 10-14/15-19, 15-19/20-24, 30-34/35-39, 35-39/40-44, 40-44/4549, 45-49/50-54 and 55-59/60-64 for females are above one. table 1: population of south africa by age and sex and csr 1996 2001 csr age groups male female male female male female 0-4 2216761 2226657 2223730 2226085 5-9 2333562 2335160 2425803 2427748 1.0943 1.0903 10-14 2308759 2345341 2518957 2542961 1.0794 1.0890 15-19 2050213 2130502 2453079 2528643 1.0625 1.0782 20-24 1917917 2064434 2099293 2195230 1.0239 1.0304 25-29 1663064 1792663 1899124 2035812 0.9902 0.9861 30-34 1463499 1610702 1594488 1746413 0.9588 0.9742 35-39 1284956 1368801 1441506 1630263 0.9850 1.0121 40-44 1030599 1108028 1233633 1385833 0.9601 1.0124 45-49 813814 863709 967604 1119777 0.9389 1.0106 50-54 600477 668418 769498 868520 0.9455 1.0056 55-59 483676 586258 552323 652943 0.9198 0.9768 60-64 352054 538483 444508 620783 0.9190 1.0589 65-69 304015 454874 304764 483163 0.8657 0.8973 70-74 195119 287046 232547 398922 0.7649 0.8770 75-79 141848 235584 136435 231101 0.6992 0.8051 80-84 62072 116830 90835 180110 0.6404 0.7645 85+ 43232 93998 45908 111425 0.4360 0.5285 tables 2 and 3 show the steps involved in calculating net migration for the province and municipalities using the csr method. the first column indicates the five-year age group. the second column is the 1996 population as reported in the census. the third column is the national csr calculated in table 1. the fourth column is the 2001 expected population by age group obtained by internal  migration  north  west  province   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. 231 multiplying the 1996 population by the corresponding survival ratios. the fifth column is the population enumerated in the 2001 census. comparing the expected population (column 4) with the enumerated population in 2001 (column 5), one gets the net migration by age and sex as given in column 6 of table 3. the sum of column 6 gives us the estimate of net migration during the intercensal period. net migration for age groups 0-4 and 5-9 were obtained using equations (4) and (5). table 2: estimating net migration for north west province using census survival ratio method, male age groups 1996 csr estimated population in 2001 2001 migration estimates (1) (2) (3) (4)=(2)x(3) (5) (6)=(5)-(4) 0-4 188154 1.0800 180292 -1592 5-9 193574 1.0653 203205 191555 -11650 10-14 187861 1.0486 206221 200303 -5918 15-19 173171 1.0106 196994 192949 -4045 20-24 159702 0.9773 174998 171743 -3255 25-29 141771 0.9462 156070 156640 570 30-34 132484 0.9721 134148 143723 9575 35-39 119345 0.9475 128787 138112 9325 40-44 93473 0.9266 113080 123574 10494 45-49 70448 0.9332 86612 91261 4649 50-54 54192 0.9078 65740 68101 2361 55-59 41423 0.9070 49194 51897 2703 60-64 30327 0.8544 37571 39047 1476 65-69 24984 0.7549 25910 27293 1383 70-74 17205 0.6901 18861 20339 1478 75-79 11889 0.6320 11873 12607 734 80-84 5518 0.4303 7514 7784 270 85+ 4313 4230 4328 98 1649835 1821548 18656 palamuleni   232 table 3: estimating net migration for north west province using census survival ratio method, female age groups 1996 csr estimated population in 2001 2001 migration estimates (1) (2) (3) (4)=(2)x(3) (5) (6)=(5)-(4) 0-4 190475.4 1.0781 181392 -1546 5-9 194640.9 1.0768 205361 191157 -14204 10-14 191265.2 1.0661 209597 203504 -6093 15-19 179665 1.0189 203913 196282 -7631 20-24 174033.6 0.9751 183059 170503 -12556 25-29 149863.2 0.9633 169706 161026 -8680 30-34 130614.9 1.0009 144368 139933 -4435 35-39 108893.4 1.0011 130726 128963 -1763 40-44 87714.95 0.9993 109019 108802 -217 45-49 66017.66 0.9944 87656 88447 791 50-54 55670.7 0.9660 65645 65682 37 55-59 44523.87 1.0471 53775 54006 231 60-64 39071.84 0.8873 46620 47082 462 65-69 31688.64 0.8672 34667 37448 2781 70-74 24032.43 0.7961 27481 28901 1420 75-79 18152.26 0.7560 19133 20375 1242 80-84 9822.108 0.5226 13723 14153 430 85+ 8845.941 9756 10143 387 1704992 1847799 -49344 estimates of net migration obtained in this way allow us to study the nature and patterns of migration in the province. table 4 below and figures 1, 2 and 3 presents estimates of net migration for the province and all its municipalities. based on this method, north west province overall experienced net out migration. the female population in north west experienced net out migration whereas the male population witnessed net in migration. the net out migration of females could in part be attributed to the fact that females are leaving the province in search of better employment opportunities in other provinces especially neighbouring gauteng which is the economic powerhouse of south africa. this phenomenon is probably fuelled by the fact that more females than males in the province acquire higher education. according to the 2001 census “there were 66870 women and 57980 men with higher education qualifications in the province”1. regional differentials at regional level, table 4 indicates that bojanala and southern regions experienced a net gain of people whereas central and bophirima experienced a net loss of people. bojanala and southern 1 see the mail 29 june 2007, “nw leads in women empowerment”, page 5. internal  migration  north  west  province   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. 233 gained about 34,000 people and 6400 respectively. on the other hand, bophirima lost about 35,000 people and central lost 7400 persons. as expect, internal migration differs greatly between regions and districts in north west province. one way to measure the impact of internal migration at region and district levels is through the net gain or loss of population due to internal migration. however, it should be noted that comparisons of flows between administrative units is sensitive to the size of administrative units being used in defining migration. the net migration figures do not take into account the size of the population in the area of origin or destination, a significant factor that accounts for the net flow observed. the last three columns of the table 4 present the net migration rate per 1000 persons. there are migration differentials by sex. the number of in migrants is higher for males than females in bojanala region. in the southern region, the number of in migrants is higher for females than males. the number of out migrants is higher for females than males in bophirima. central district is losing females and gaining males at the same time. -40000 -20000 0 20000 40000 bophirima central southern bojanala net migration r eg io n figure 1 net migration by regions, north west, 1996-2001 female male palamuleni   234 district differentials nature and patterns of internal migration also varies by district. table 4 and figure 3 presents net migration estimates by sex for all district municipalities in north west province. all the districts in the bojanala region with the exception of moretele and moses kotane experienced net in migration. both moretele and moses kotane experienced net out migration and it appears that both districts lost more females than males. rustenburg lost females and gained males. in the central district, setla-kgobi, mafikeng and zeerust experienced net out migration whereas tswaing and ditsobotla experienced net in migration. the districts that experienced net migration indicate that they lost more females than males. the opposite is true with the districts that experienced net in migration. all the districts in the southern region with the exception of potchefstroom experienced net in migration. potchefstroom experienced net out migration. furthermore, table 4 indicates that potchefstroom lost more females than males. klerksdorp lost males and gained females. maquassi hills gained more males than females. all the districts in bophirima with the exception of mamusa and lekwa-teemane witnessed net out migration. at district municipality level the following districts experienced a net loss ga-segonyana, greater taung, kgalagadi, moses kotane, kagisano, mafikeng, moretele, setla-kgobi, molopo, potchefstroom, naledi and zeerust. district municipalities that experienced a net gain of people include: klerksdorp, mamusa, kgetlengrivier, moshaweng, maquassi hills, rustenburg, lekwa-teemane, ditsobotla, ventersdorp, tswaing, west rand district, madibeng -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 bophirima central southern bojanala net migration r eg io n figure 2 net migration rates by regions, north west, 1996-2001 female male internal  migration  north  west  province   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. 235 -40000 -20000 0 20000 40000 ga-segonyana greater taung kgalagadi moses kotane kagisano mafikeng moretele setla-kgobi molopo potchefstroom naledi zeerust klerksdorp mamusa kgetlengrivier moshaweng maquassi hills rustenburg lekwa-teemane ditsobotla ventersdorp tswaing west rand district madibeng net migration r eg io n figure 3 net migration by district manicipality, north west, 1996-2001 female male palamuleni   236 map 2 map of north west showing net migration by local municipalities, 1996-2001 internal  migration  north  west  province   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. 237 table 4: estimates of net migration by regions and district, north west, 1996-2001 net migration (absolute) net migration rate (per 1000) male female both male female both north west bojanala 32559 897 33455 57 2 30 moretele -1438 -6183 -7621 -17 -69 -44 madibeng 32123 17487 49610 212 118 165 rustenburg 2712 -674 2038 13 -4 5 kgetlengrivier 344 386 730 20 23 21 moses kotane -1403 -10346 -11749 -13 -86 -51 pilansberg national park central 6523 -11233 -4711 19 -30 -7 setla-kgobi -1926 -4336 -6262 -41 -81 -62 tswaing 5715 4649 10364 116 88 102 mafikeng -349 -8745 -9094 -3 -67 -36 ditsobotla 4028 1484 5512 60 21 40 zeerust 596 -2752 -2156 10 -39 -16 bophirima -13741 -21268 -35009 -67 -94 -81 kagisano -4197 -5490 -9687 -95 -109 -102 naledi -1157 -1393 -2550 -42 -48 -45 mamusa 221 206 427 10 9 9 greater taung -9025 -13889 -22914 -105 -143 -125 molopo -1717 -1663 -3380 -271 -270 -270 lekwa-teemane 2081 923 3005 106 46 76 southern 425 6035 6460 1 21 11 ventersdorp 3963 3747 7710 216 197 207 potchefstroom -309 -2936 -3245 -5 -46 -26 klerksdorp -4680 4683 3 -26 28 0 maquassi hills 1464 564 2028 46 17 31 kgalagadi -9708 -12269 -21977 -149 -161 -155 ga-segonyana -10435 -12499 -22934 -253 -260 -257 moshaweng 671 165 836 28 6 16 west rand district 10775 4026 14801 389 171 289 it should also be pointed out that the time location of the intercensal estimates is unknown for it can occur in any year between 1996 and 2001. this limitation is serious for the practical point palamuleni   238 of view because it is impossible to calculate annual migration estimates based on this data. the results of the overall migration are useful for comparative purposes, and for examining changes overtime. comparison with estimates based on other techniques the migration estimates based on census survival ratio method (csrm) for district municipalities in nw province presented in this paper were compared with estimates based on other estimation procedures. other researchers have used responses to the questions on “place of residence” and “place of previous residence” to study migration patterns in the province (jansen van rensburg, 2004). these questions have been extensively used to study migration patterns in south africa (kok et al, 2003). however these questions have not been used to study migration at municipality level, as they often require complex cross tabulations that are not easily available. as such the use of these questions has mostly been limited to migration studies up to provincial level. given the importance of migration at all levels (national, provincial, region and district, etc) there is need to employ other procedures that can give plausible estimates of migration at all these levels. the desire to study migration levels at levels lower than the province compelled us to explore the applicability of csrm. first, it was observed that estimates based on csrm are higher than those based on residence in the last five years. in part, this could be explained in terms of the incidence of international migration. second, with the exception of five district municipalities (kgetlengrivier, maquassi hills, molopo, potchefstroom and tswaing), the estimates based on csrm and polr give the same direction of net migration. this is encouraging. in the case of kgetlengrivier csrm suggests that the municipality experienced a net gain whereas the estimate based on “place of residence” and “place of previous residence” suggests that the municipality lost some people. for maquassi hills csrm indicates that the municipality was a net receiver of people whereas the estimate based on “place of residence” and “place of previous residence” suggest that the municipality is a net sender. the same can be said of tswaing. as for molopo and potchefstroom local municipalities the opposite is true in that the net migration estimate based on csrm indicates that the municipalities experienced net out migration (net sender) whereas the estimate based on “place of residence” and “place of previous residence” suggest that the municipalities are net receivers. conclusion in this study, the pattern and extent of migration by district municipalities in north west province are studied using the 1996 and 2001 south african population censuses. the numbers of net migrants by district municipalities, during the intercensal periods 1996-2001 are estimated using the census survival ratio method, an indirect method that relies on the reported age-sex population distribution. this method was chosen in this study, purely based on the availability of published data by districts municipalities at both censuses. it has been found that there were substantial population movements during the 1996-2001 intercensal periods. the results indicate that during the period under review north west province experienced net out-migration. at regional level the overall pattern has been such that bojanala and southern regions have has been gaining people whereas central district and bophirima have been losing people. migration patterns also vary by district municipalities. the district municipalities that experienced a net loss include ga-segonyana, greater taung, kgalagadi, internal  migration  north  west  province   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 225 – 240. 239 moses kotane, kagisano, mafikeng, moretele, setla-kgobi, molopo, potchefstroom, naledi and zeerust whereas the following district municipalities experienced a net gain of people: klerksdorp, mamusa, kgetlengrivier, moshaweng, maquassi hills, rustenburg, lekwateemane, ditsobotla, ventersdorp, tswaing, west rand district and madibeng. the nature and patterns of internal migration presented in this study compare favourably with those produced by other methods. lastly, the findings of this study are beneficial to both researchers and policy makers. first, one task that is usually performed by demographers is to prepare population projections. in order to accomplish these task demographic analysts need to have adequate information on past trends in number of births, deaths and migration. this study provides estimates of migration for regions and districts in north west province. second, policy makers need to know whether or not areas under their jurisdiction are gaining or losing people. such information will assist development planners to determine the nature and type of services (such as housing, recreation, security, transport, communication, safety and security and social development) to make available to the public. for instance anticipating future growth in the inflow of people will help estimate the increasing demand for facilities and services. references arriaga, e.e. et. al. (1994) population analysis with microcomputers: presentation of techniques, volume one, bureau of the census, washington. bhagat, r.b. (2005) “conceptual issues in the measurement of internal migration in india” paper presented at the xxv international population conference, tours, july 2005. bilsborrow, r. (2005) “the use of census data in studies of migration and environment” paper presented during the meeting “censuses in the 21st century: imporving data utilisation and dissemination” xxv international population conference, tours, july 2005. bogue, d.j., hinze, k., and white, m.j. (1993) “the methodology for measuring net migration” bogue, d.j. et. al. (ed) readings in population research methodology volume 4, social development center, chicago. crush, j and pendleton, w. (2004) "south african migration project 30: regionalizing xenophobia? citizen attitudes to immigration and refugee policy in southern africa" institute for democracy in south africa. http://www.idasa.org.za/gboutputfiles.asp?writecontent=y&rid=2108. retrieved on 5 september 2008. hamilton, c.h. and henderson, f.m. (1944) “use of the survival rate method in measuring net migration” journal of the american statistical association 39(226):197-206. jansen van rensburg, r. (2004) nature and patterns of internal migration in north west province, south africa, 1996-2001, unpublished honours mini dissertation, population unit, north west university. kalule-sabiti, i. and kahimbaara, j.a (1996) “analysis of life-time migration in the former transkei, eastern cape” south african journal of sociology, 27, 81-89. kalule-sabiti, i, kahimbaara, j.a. and chimere-dan, o. (2001) youth migration and poverty in the north west province. the population training and research unit, university of north west. a poverty alleviation programm research report. jointly commissioned palamuleni   240 by the north west provincial department of social services & the national department of social development. kok, p., o’donovan, m., bouare, o., and van zyl, j., (2003) post-apartheid patterns of internal migration in south africa, human science research council, pretoria. kpedekpo, g.m.k. (1976) essentials for demographic analysis in africa, longman, london. mears, r. (2004) economic factors affecting migration in south africa, department of economics, rand afrikaans university (rau), research paper no. 0401. naicker, p. and nair, r. (2000) “to be a refugee in south africa” track two vol.9 no. 3 http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/archive/two/9_3/p12_refugee_in_sa.html national population unit (2000) the state of south africa’s population report, department of social development, pretoria. potgieter, m.a. and calitz (1999) “direct and indirect methods of measuring internal migration in south africa” presented at the workshop on phase 2 of census 1996 review held on 3 and 4 december 1999 at the wanderers club in johannesburg. roux, n. (2001) “patterns of migration in the north west province” paper delivered at the migration and development summit, mmabatho, 2001. roux, d.j. (2001) “why is migration important to the north west province?”, centre for population studies, university of pretoria. pretoria. republic of south africa (2005) cross-boundary municipalities laws repeal and related matters act, act no. 23 of 2005, g 28363, cape town. sigsworth, r., ngwane, c. and pino, a. (2008) the gendered nature of xenophobia in south africa, centre for the study of violence and reconciliation, johannesburg. shryock, h.s. and siegel, j.s. (1976) methods and materials in demography (condensed edition), academic press, new york. simelane, s.e. (2002) “an overall and demographic description of the south african population based on the census 1996”, occasional paper series, 2002/1, statistics south africa, pretoria. sivamurthy, m. (1969) “errors in the estimation of net migration rate in the studies of internal migration” journal of the american statistical association 64(328):1434-1428. sly, d.f. (1972) “evaluating estimates of net migration and net migration rates based on survival ratios corrected in varying degrees” journal of the american statistical association 67(338):313-318. statistics south africa (1998) “the population of south africa, population census 1996: age tables of south africa and its provinces, report no. 1, pretoria. statistics south africa (1998) living in north west: selected findings of the 1995 october household survey, pretoria. statistics south africa (2003) census in brief, pretoria. statistics south africa. td journal july 2007.p65 transdisciplinary research in the cooperation between intercultural philosophy and empirical sciences heinz kimmerle· abstract: this article will examine how philosophy and empirical sciences can cooperate in research. it is presupposed that in philosophy and in the empirical sciences different types of discourses are used. this difference causes a large gap between them, which has to be bridged. intercultural philosophy is understood as a specific approach to philosophy as a whole. it is necessary to make philosophy fit into a world in which exchanges are happening on a global level in many fields. in the dialogues between the philosophies of different cultures, support is needed from certain empirical sciences for the understanding of the philosophy, which is based on the the participation of philosophers in everyday life and everyday language. therefore, in addition to the the support by empirical sciences, living in a foreign culture, participating in its life, is necessary for intercultural philosophers. keywords: philosophy as a specific discourse, empirical sciences, intercultural philosophy, dialogues between the philosophies of different cultures, relations between empirical sciences. disciplines: trasdisciplinary studies, philosophy, intercultural philosophy. introduction the question whether transdisciplinary research is possible between philosophy and empirical sciences needs special attention. the cooperation between philosophy and empirical sciences is principally � professor heinz kimmerle is an emeritius professor of the university of rotterdam in the netherlands. he is an international specialist in intercultural philosophy and has extensive experience in the field of philosophy as discipline in africa. he is is actively involved in research with colleagues at the university of venda in south africa’s limpopo province. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 95-103. 96 different from transdisciplinary research, as it is conducted between two or more empirical sciences. philosophy and empirical sciences are different types of theoretical discourses. the conditions of the possibility of their cooperation and the way in which it can be done have to be examined. this applies to philosophy in general and also to its relation to empirical sciences. this will be discussed in the second paragraph. the problem is more specific where intercultural philosophy is concerned. it is a question within philosophy to determine what is meant by intercultural philosophy. philosophy has to reflect on the conditions of its work in a time of worldwide exchanges between all cultures and in all the different spheres of life. paragraph 1 will explain the significance this has for philosophy. whatever can be said about this question, intercultural philosophy is philosophy in the strict sennse of the word. therefore, the general determination of the relation between p\hilosophy and empirical sciences, as formulated in paragraph 2, is applicable to intercultural philosophy. however, this specific way of practising philosophy brings about a specific necessity of cooperation with certain empirical sciences, which goes further than in philosophy in general. cultural studies, as a whole, are not the only necessary partner to cooperate with. in addition, the sciences of language, history, society, economics and politics deserve consideration. what they have to say is necessary to understand other cultures and the conditions of exchanges between them. in paragraph 3 it is the subject of discussion. 1. what is meant by ‘intercultural philosophy’? intercultural philosophy is not a special discipline within philosophy. such disciplines are ontology, logic, ethics, theory of knowledge, philosophical anthropology, social philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of history, philosophy of culture and philosophy of religion. intercultural philosophy is a dimension of philosophy in all the different disciplines within philosophy. it departs from the conviction that philosophy – in its different disciplines – is not practiced in one culture only (the european-western culture) or in a restricted number of cultures (western and eastern cultures or those who know the art of writing), but in all types of human cultures. all cultures have a certain type of philosophy. together they form world-philosophy, which has its unity in its different voices. these differences are in style and accentuation of the relevance of certain disciplines. in the west e.g., logic and theory of knowledge, ontology and philosophical anthropology, whilst in sub-saharan africa ethics, and philosophy of religion are valued most highly. the most far-reaching difference is whether its practices and its traditions are, primarily based on writing, or on oral communication. intercultural philosophy enhances exchanges between kimmerle td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 95-103. the different types of philosophy in the different cultures. it would be very strange if philosophy stood apart from a world in which exchanges take place between different spheres of life, for example in economy, politics, sciences, art, sport and entertainment. moreover, exchanges between the philosophies of different cultures are advantageous for all parts. they can learn from each other, enrich each other and broaden their means of solving problems. the most appropriate form of practicing intercultural philosophy is to organise and lead dialogues on philosophical issues. dialogues presuppose equality in rank and differences in style and/or in content. intercultural dialogues are possible in philosophy because there is no hierarchy between the philosophies of different cultures. all of them are on the same level, although, as stated above, they differ in style and content. compared to the form of intercultural philosophy, in other fields, for instance economy, politics or sciences, the intercultural exchanges are of a different kind. in these fields, one culture can claim a superior status, or prove to be more powerful. between philosophy and art, however, we find an important similarity. exchanges in the field of art presuppose the same equality in rank between all cultures as philosophy does. so, real dialogues between philosophies and art-productions of different cultures are possible. they can set an example on how to make exchanges in other fields, where hierarchical relations prevail more dialogical ones. needless to say, interculturality in philosophy is intertwined with the problems of multiculturalism. these problems arise from the presence of groups of people from different cultures on the territory of one state or group of states. thus, intercultural philosophical dialogues are already part of the philosophical practice in one state or one group of states of a certain culture. a clear example of this is african american philosophy in the usa. there are many other endeavours of this kind, for instance the efforts to come to westernised types of buddhist or moslem philosophies in europe. the most important characteristics of intercultural philosophy – especially when its relation to other sciences or types of theory is under discussion – are the fact that it is philosophy in the strict sense of the word. it is not an empirically underpinned science. it has only thinking as a basis of its theoretical discourse, which means firstly logical thinking, but secondly also using language in a general way, which has the evidence of being true in itself. in western philosophy, it uses concepts and a relation between them, which is also conceptually conceived. concepts are carefully and rationally defendable generalisations of words, taken from everyday language, or some professional or scientific language. a discourse, which is built up by concepts and conceptually structured relations between them, can be characterised as argumentation. philosophies of non-western transdisciplinary research and the cooperation 98 cultures sometimes use language in a less conceptual, more narrative way. nevertheless, they come to the same kind of generalisation as a conceptual language and they build up argumentations in the full sense of the word. for every type of philosophy, it is decisive that it does not seek or obtain any help or support for its truth claim from outside, especially not from any type of authority. hegel has argued that the beginning of philosophy cannot be marked clearly. the first sentence of a philosophical discourse is already philosophy. the last sentence of a discourse, which is meant to introduce philosophy, is as such not yet philosophy. therefore, a philosophical introduction to philosophy is not possible.1 this situation turns out to be paradoxical when hegel himself writes introductions to his philosophical works. derrida has pleaded for an acceptance of this paradoxical situation. he tries to support this acceptability by analysing what a hors d’oeuvre is. preceding the meal, it is outside the meal. at the same time, as the first part of the meal, it is part of the meal. the same relation can be stated between hors livre and the philosophical book. this leads to the conclusion that the impossible task of introducing philosophy simply needs to be done.2 2. how can philosophy relate to empirical sciences? philosophy begins with itself. to make its start possible, it presupposes, as we have seen, everyday language, professional language and/or scientific languages. it needs these languages and it uses them in a specific way. however, they are not a constitutive part of philosophy itself. they are, and they remain, outside of what philosophy is. hegel formulates it as follows: when a philosophy is created, it needs and uses building material. its task is to grasp its time in concepts. the building material is the language and the representations of the time. what makes a discourse philosophical is not the building material, 1 gwf hegel, womit muß der anfang der wissenschaft gemacht werden? in g lasson (ed.), wissenschaft der logik, (meiner, hamburg, 1963), pp. 51-64. here, hegel is using a different set of terminology. in this terminology, philosophy, if it strictly proceeds according to its principles, is science. as science of science, it is science in a different and more emphatic sense than empirical science. 2 j derrida, „hors livre“ in la dissemination, (minuit, paris, 1972), pp. 7-67. kimmerle td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 95-103. but the way in which it is used.3 we can find a description of how the words of everyday language are generalised and transformed into concepts in aristotle’s writings. he often departs from ‘what is said’ and then clarifies what exactly somebody means when something is said. thus, he comes to the general meaning of certain words of everyday language. he transforms words of everyday language into concepts. in a similar way, we can see in the practices of non-western philosophies how words of everyday language, religious language or scientific languages, are used in this general sense. this statement remains valid when the practices of non-western philosophies are embedded in other discourses, for instance in religious, moral or poetical discourses. for intercultural philosophy, it is important that the process of generalisation, as it is brought about in western philosophy by forming concepts, has a full equivalent in the practices of coming to a general use of words and connections between words in non-western philosophies. the process of coming from a not (yet) philosophical discourse to a philosophical one, to the typical way of generalisation as we have described it, does not happen only once. it needs repetition. the hermeneutic circle is an apt model to illustrate how this repetition works. those who think in a philosophical manner are confronted with non-philosophical languages, for instance languages of empirical sciences, and transform parts of it into concepts or corresponding forms of generalised speaking. after having absorbed or processed these language parts, they need more of it and subsequently transform other parts of the language into its philosophical use.. the process of conceptualisation or generalisation is now easier because the competence in using this type of language has increased. this usually happens many times. the process comes to a provisional end when a portion of a non-philosophical language, for example a language of an empirical science, which forms a meaningful entity, has been absorbed. i will give concrete examples in the next paragraph, when the relationship between intercultural philosophy and certain sciences is examined. it is clear, at this stage, that the relationship between philosophy and the language of an empirical science cannot be merely described as interdisciplinary research. the philosophical discourse and the prephilosophical discourse of an empirical science cannot be mixed. every time non-philosophical parts of the language of an empirical science are incorporated into a philosophical discourse, an infinite gap has 3 gwf hegel, differenz des fichte’schen und schelling’schen systems der philosophie, in gesammelte werke, vol 4: jenaer kritische schriften, (ed. h. buchner/o. pöggeler, meiner, hamburg, 1968), pp. 9-12. transdisciplinary research and the cooperation 100 been bridged. the process of translation from one natural language to another is already characterised by derrida as bridging this kind of gap. referring to benjamin and schelling, he claims that god is in play for this process. therefore, he calls his article ‘théologie de la traduction’.4 he takes the translation from the language of one science to that of another, as it is described by schelling, as a model for the problem of translation in general. in his vorlesungen über die methode des akademischen studiums from 1803, schelling says that the translation from the language of one science to that of another, is impossible in principle, but that it needs to be done nonetheless because all the sciences belong together within the whole of the academy. for schelling the higher unity of the academy is a symbol for the highest unity of nature and intelligence, which can be experienced as ‘community with god’. schelling does not depart from a principle difference between philosophy and empirical sciences. what he says about the impossible task of translation between sciences, including philosophy as a science, that has to be done nonetheless, is applied here to the exchange between the specific type of philosophical language and nonphilosophical languages of everyday life and of empirical sciences. by making this difference we follow hegel’s, rather than schelling’s conception of philosophy, which is regarded as a discourse that is principally different from empirical sciences. let us work out how this difference is to be understood in more detail. the truth of what is said is usually judged by measuring it through empirical data, particularly in empirical sciences. this is no longer the case in philosophy. a completely different way of defending a truth claim is at stake, which does not go outside the philosophical discourse. of course, philosophy does, or must, correspond to the facts. but it corresponds to them in its own way. facts in, and for, philosophy are not facta bruta – facts independent from their general meaning and the general interconnectedness of their meanings. for hegel, therefore, only what is ‘rational’ or part of the explanation of this kind of general meaning is ‘real’, so that also the reverse can be stated: ‘what is real is rational’.5 thus, the stepping over from a pre-philosophical to a philosophical type of discourse cannot be justified from outside, but has its justification in itself. a transcendere in the literal sense of the word takes place when parts of a pre-philosophical language, for instance 4 j derrida, théologie de la traduction, in du droit à la philosophie, (galilée, paris, 1990), p. 371-394. 5 gwf hegel, grundlinien der philosophie des rechts (ed. j. hoffmeister, meiner, hamburg 1967), p. 14. kimmerle td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 95-103. the language of an empirical science, are taken over in philosophy. therefore, the cooperation between empirical sciences and philosophy has to move its practise of transcendere from disciplines outside of philosophy, to disciplines inside of it. this is, strictly speaking, transdisciplinary research. let us see how this works concretely by examining the relation of intercultural philosophy to certain empirical sciences. 3. how intercultural philosophy relates to certain empirical sciences? intercultural philosophy deals with the possibilities and the practices of exchanges between philosophies of different cultures. when it takes its own claims seriously, it deals with the possibilities and practices between the philosophies of all the different cultures. a philosophy uses the language and representations of the specific culture in which it is worked out. to understand the philosophy of a different culture presupposes the necessity to study and come to know the specific conditions of this culture. usually, understanding comes first, before exchanges can take place. in a more sophisticated hermeneutical sense, however, one can say that understanding the philosophy of a different culture and having exchanges with it are bound together by dialogues, which are practised between the philosophies of different cultures. actually, the first step of understanding turns out to be dialogical already. when one approaches the philosophy of a different culture, one has already some pre-understanding of that culture. the next step and all the steps thereafter that bring one closer to an understanding of the philosophy of a foreign culture are at the same time an adjustment of this pre-understanding. the farther away the foreign culture is from the own starting position (not necessarily in the sense of distance in space), the more one has to be cautious in assuming that one has understood something in that culture. this is why i have suggested a ‘methodology of listening’ for intercultural philosophy. this methodology implies a repeated listening and a provisional state of what one thinks to have understood.6 nevertheless, these are stepping-stones in a dialogue. this dialogue has to be supported by learning about other non-philosophical aspects of the respective culture. here empirical sciences come in, which provide the intercultural philosophical dialogue with information. the 6 h kimmerle, philosophie in afrika – afrikanische philosophie. annäherungen an einen interkulturellen philosophiebegriff, (campus, frankfurt/m., 1991), p. 8 and die dimension des interkulturellen, (rodopi, amsterdam/atlanta, ga 1994), pp. 126128. transdisciplinary research and the cooperation 102 relation between the intercultural philosophical dialogues and the support of them by empirical sciences now deserves examination at closer quarters. the first obstacle in understanding with such intercultural philosophical dialogues is the foreign language. one has to learn the language of a foreign culture. the result of knowing the language is twofold. it gives access to the ways of living and acting in this culture. this knowledge supports the understanding of the philosophy of the particular culture. there is more, however. the language, the structure of it and the semantic contents of the words, contain information about the philosophical thought of this culture. the sciences of language are helpful for intercultural philosophy because they provide knowledge about the pre-philosophical building material of the philosophy of particular cultures. they are also a direct source for understanding the philosophical thought of foreign cultures. secondly, intercultural philosophy has to cooperate with cultural anthropology or ethnology. this science contains information about all fields of life of a foreign culture: customs, rituals, religion and social, economic and political systems, etc. an equivalent of the methodology of listening in intercultural philosophy is the practice of ‘participating observation’ and the restriction to ethnography, to simply recording the observations. thus, intercultural philosophy learns a lot about the cultural background of the philosophical thought of that culture. moreover, cultural anthropology often investigates ‘belief systems’, which contain philosophy in a direct sense. here this empirical science, like the languages, supplies information about philosophical thought. thirdly, i want to mention historical sciences. it is only possible to understand the present situation of a foreign culture by knowing how the culture has developed. people in any culture refer to their traditions to explain, stabilise, and, if necessary, justify their behaviour. what the ancestors have done and the way in which they have done it is not always correct, but at least it serves as a guideline on how to behave in present times. history can help to understand trends, which will go on in the future. as a part of the different fields of life, which all have their own history, there is also philosophy. and the history of philosophical thought of that culture can be particularly helpful for intercultural philosophy, trying to understand its philosophy and being engaged in dialogues with it. an extraordinary problem arises when communication and tradition are predominantly practised orally in the particular culture. the history of the philosophies of cultures of this kind can be reconstructed by learning from oral history in general and from the history of oral literature. however, the history of philosophical thought has its own rules, which have to be sorted out and obeyed. kimmerle td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 95-103. finally, it has to be said that aspects of cultural anthropology are examined more closely by sciences that deal with them: sciences of religions, of social relations, of economic structures and of political life. philosophical thought rather often is embedded in other types of discourse, as for instance in religious discourse. then it is available in the practice and in the scientific explanations of the religion of a certain culture. it has to be made explicit and clarified in its philosophical character. as far as social relations are concerned, the structure of the communities is important, and the meaning which the community has for living and thinking. from the research of social sciences in this field, the self-understanding of people in a certain culture can be reconstructed, which is philosophically directly relevant. the information about the organisation of work contains valuable knowledge of the stratification of the society. there is no doubt that philosophical thought is influenced heavily by the information about these conditions of social relations and economic structures. intercultural philosophy has to take note of that. the research on political life in a certain culture is similarly important for intercultural philosophy. the system of government, the participation of the population in political processes and the ways of decision-making reveal much about the mutual dependencies between people. these factual relations give insight into the background of the political philosophy of that culture. we can conclude that the cooperation between empirical sciences, which deal with foreign cultures and intercultural philosophy, is manifold. intercultural philosophical dialogues need support from the empirical sciences for the understanding of the philosophical work, which is based on the own culture. the language and the everyday knowledge of the own culture is primarily familiar to the philosopher and need not be provided by certain sciences. in the end, intercultural philosophy is dependent on this kind of familiarity with the cultures, which are partners in its dialogues. to live in and experience the lifestyle of a culture where philosophical dialogues should take place, or are already taking place, is particularly important. transdisciplinary research in the cooperation between empirical sciences and intercultural philosophy cannot fully replace the own intercultural experience and the intercultural competence, which flows from it. transdisciplinary research and the cooperation microsoft word 06 visser et al.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. 205-223. change, organisational culture and the development of the south african military academy to 2009 ge visser and gaj van dyk ∗ abstract this article investigates the impact of change and organisational culture on the growth and development of the south african military academy. it explores the impact of nationalist party rule since 1948 and black majority rule since 1994 on the institutional culture of the south african military and how that influenced the development of the military academy. this is intertwined with an investigation of the nature and impact of the diverging military and academic subcultures at the academy. the article contends that, together with the historical exclusion of blacks and women from the military, the marginalisation of white english-speaking citizens by nationalist party rule denied the academy the exploitation of a significant portion of the country’s human resource potential in the interest of institutional development. the same happened with the introduction of racial quotas and the marginalisation of whites since 1994. the military academy has, furthermore, historically been too reflective of the organisational culture of the south african national defence force and its predecessors instead of informing that culture to meet the challenges of military professionalism. the academy has a potentially vital educational role to play in the south african and sub-saharan african militaries, but requires some changes in its organisational culture to fulfil that mission. keywords: south african military academy, organisational culture, military culture, military education, stellenbosch university. disciplines: military history, industrial psychology. introduction the south african military academy was born and bred in or between diverging organisational cultures and subcultures. in the political sphere, it was conceived in a nationalist party culture but created in a union defence force (udf) where elements of the former united party culture and south africa’s colonial past were still lingering on. it was, in fact, inserted on the fault line between afrikaans and english-speaking white subcultures. with south africa’s transition to democracy in 1994, the academy had to transform itself ∗ lieutenant colonel ge (deon) visser is an associate professor of military history at the faculty of military science, stellenbosch university (south african military academy). lieutenant colonel gaj (gielie) van dyk is an associate professor of industrial psychology (mil) at the same institution. (corresponding author: visser@ma2.sun.ac.za.) this paper is based upon work supported by the national research foundation (nrf) of south africa. any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and therefore the nrf does not accept any liability in regard thereto. the authors are also indebted to colleagues prof theo neethling and mr fankie monama for their comments. visser & van dyk 206 out of a white, male, eurocentric organisational culture into to a more collectivistic culture to face the new socio-political landscape. the academy has, furthermore, historically been caught up between the rigid military subculture on the one hand and the liberal, intellectual university subculture on the other, which created friction in the domain of both the staff and student subcultures. the aim of this article is to determine the impact of change and organisational culture on the growth and development of the south african military academy to 2009. it provides, firstly, a brief theoretical introduction to organisational culture as background. thereafter it explores the impact of organisational culture and change on the development of the south african military academy since its inception in 1950. this includes an investigation of the nature and impact of the diverging military, academic and student subcultures at the academy. the article concludes with a brief reflection upon the future role perception of the military academy and consequent changes required in its organisational culture. given the paralysing bureaucratic processes in getting access to restricted official sources and to obtain security clearance for the publication of the research results, the authors have relied almost exclusively on media reports for information on the most recent events. these media reports are mostly from the afrikaans press, since these events enjoyed hardly any coverage in the english press. the nature and functions of organisational culture organisational culture can be described as a set of assumptions, beliefs, norms and values that guide the conduct of the members of an institution.1 how the members of the institution perceive the organisational culture and how their perception creates or shapes the pattern of assumptions, beliefs, norms, values and expectations is also part of this concept.2 more specifically, organisational culture includes:3 • routine behaviours when people interact; • the norms shared by work groups throughout the organisation; • dominant values, such as ‘product quality’ or ‘type of leadership’; • the philosophy guiding an organisation’s policies toward its employees and customers; • ‘the rules of the game’ for getting along in the organisation or the ‘ropes’ that newcomers must learn; and • the atmosphere emitted by an organisation through its facilities and the way in which members of the organisation interact with clients and one another. various subcultures may exist within any given organisational culture. the dominant culture expresses the core values shared by the majority of the organisation’s members, while 1. j.r. gordon, organisational behaviour: a diagnostic approach (upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall, 2002), 374; p.h. wilson, ‘defining military culture’, the journal of military history, 72, 1 (2008), 14. 2. j.r. gibson, j.m. ivancevich and j.h. donnelly, organisations behaviour, structure, processes (london: irvin, 1997), 30. 3. d. hellriegel, j.w. slocum and r.w. woodman, organisational behaviour (ohio: south western college publishing, 1998), 546. development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 207 subcultures develop to reflect the collective values and perceptions of specific subgroups within the organisation.4 organisational culture provides consistency in an institution by integrating diverse elements into a coherent set of assumptions, beliefs, norms, values and consequent behaviours. in fact, the consistency, adaptability, and member involvement in an organisation’s culture, and the clarity of its mission can predict organisational effectiveness. managers therefore use organisational culture to support the organisation’s strategy, prescribe acceptable ways to interact with external consistencies, guide staffing decisions, set performance criteria, select appropriate management styles and enhance the performance and success of the organisation.5 wilson emphasises that ‘institutions do not develop in a vacuum’.6 every institution originates and develops within a particular socio-political and economic context which legitimates its existence, defines its mission and shapes its development and organisational culture. the availability of ample resources, including proper budgetary provision, plays a key role in the sustained development of all institutions. the mission of an institution and the importance that the founding authority attaches to that mission determines its budget and resource allocation.7 military institutions, like all institutions, wilson continues, ‘depend on the interaction of their members who are guided by informal customs and procedures, as well as explicit written norms’.8 individuals may, furthermore, be members of more than one institution at the same time, creating possible conflicts of loyalty, as well as transmitting culture from one to the other.9 military academies are a case in point here, since academic staff members operate within both the military and the academic domain and may even hold appointments within the military and at a civilian university at the same time. cadets or junior officers at such institutions have to cope with the military culture as well as the university and student subcultures. wilson asserts that the ‘substitutability’ of an institution’s members is vital to its survival: the institution must be able to replace its members continually through external recruitment. he argues that ‘substitutability is a cultural construct since it derives from what those selecting new members perceive as desirable or essential qualities in new recruits.’10 wilson also emphasises that the interaction between the members of an institution 4. s.p. robbins, organisational behavior: concepts, controversies, applications, 10th ed (new jersey: prentice hall, 2003), 596. 5. gordon, organisational behavior, 377-8. 6. wilson, ‘defining military culture’, 16. 7. ibid, 16-18, 35-6. 8. ibid, 15. 9. ibid, 16. 10. ibid, 28. visser & van dyk 208 can change over time, creating discrepancy between underlying assumptions and formal rules… [which] has been viewed in negative terms as “inefficiency” or “corruption”, yet is an integral part of institutional development.11 challenges of a changing organisational culture organisational culture can function as a safety network to protect and guide an organisation. it can bring workers and managers from diverse backgrounds together in a cohesive team to focus on the same goals. a changing organisational culture can, however, also create challenges in an organisation: • the philosophy guiding change requires integration of and commitment to the multiple goals of the organisation, from which comes the willingness to change when necessary.12 if change is forced on an institution by a national political wave or driven by a sub-culture (e.g., military or academic in the case of a military academy) it destroys an integrated approach and creates resistance in members who cannot see the advantages of such change. • product quality, e.g. the end product of an education process or the quality of the students, can be compromised if organisational change destroys the level of expertise required to educate, empower and train the students.13 • the organisational atmosphere needs to be safe, constructive and well-managed to facilitate successful organisational change. an atmosphere where experts are threatened by transformation will contribute to work insecurity, lack of commitment and disloyalty. ideally, the organisational atmosphere should be characterised by caution, optimism and a shared sense of purpose.14 • organisational culture should provide consistency so that members may feel safe, supported and free to perform their duties, e.g. to educate students, conduct research and to make a contribution to the broader community.15 • since institutions, including military institutions, do not develop in a vacuum, their leadership may represent the political wave of the day. a change in leadership may therefore create uncertainty and force changes insensitive to existing institutional norms and values.16 • individual orientation creates the possibility for continuously redesigning the focus of an institution such as a military academy (at one point more military orientated, and at another more academic freedom orientated) and the format of its academic offer (from a degree to a programme or a certificate).17 11. ibid, 15-16. 12. e.h. schein, organizational psychology (englewood cliffs: prentice-hall, 1988), 249. 13. robbins, organisational behavior, 635. 14. hellriegel, slocum and woodman, organisational behaviour, 589. 15. schein, organizational psychology, 187. 16. wilson, ‘defining military culture’, 15. 17. schein, organizational psychology, 79. development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 209 • in a military academic institution power struggles may develop between the military and academic ethos, between subcultures (e.g., army and air force), between leaders (e.g., the military commander and the academic head), between political waves (e.g., white culture and african culture) with the result that more energy is spent on infighting rather than positioning the institution to achieve its vision and mission.18 • forces for change, forces against change or forces that represent the political wave of the day can destroy the focus, culture, success and expertise of an institution. this could become a cyclical process which paralyses institutional development with every change of leadership. institutions and their proprietors should consider these challenges to organisational culture persistently and manage them with vision and dedication from top to bottom and from bottom to top to ensure sustained institutional growth and development. the historical challenges of organisational culture at the military academy disparaging external and internal organisational cultures and subcultures hampered the development of the south african military academy from its inception in 1950. the first impediment was the circumstantial inability of the military academy to develop a significant own organisational culture to establish itself as a credible military-academic institution. the first obstacle was financial starvation, which ruled out a prestigious, independent institution after the example of the royal military academy, sandhurst or the united states military academy, west point. the academy consequently opened its doors as a subservient arm of the south african military college under the academic supervision of the university of pretoria. the military college dominated the fledgling academy completely, which produced a paralysing conflict between the military and academic subcultures. the college staff and the rest of the largely academically uneducated udf officer’s corps resented the academy’s perceived lack of military culture and marginalised it to the extent that it was threatened with disestablishment even before a single graduate had emerged from it. defence minister f.c. erasmus saved it from ruin by relocating it to saldanha bay, 1 500 km from the antagonists at the military college and defence headquarters (dhq), as an independent military unit under the academic auspices of stellenbosch university.19 the second impediment stemmed from what could be loosely termed ‘political culture’. south africa’s culture of gender and racial discrimination excluded women and black (nonwhite) south africans from the udf20 and hence from the military academy. change in the union’s political culture shrunk the recruitment pool further. prior to 1948 the perceived britishness of the udf marginalised the afrikaner in the south african military to some degree. after 1948 the ‘afrikanerisation’ of the udf under national party rule in turn marginalised english-speaking citizens in the military and inhibited their enrolment at the military academy. the alignment of the academy with an afrikaans university (initially the university of pretoria and subsequently stellenbosch university) obviously contributed to this 18. ibid, 250. 19. see g.e. visser, ‘neither sandhurst, nor west point: the south african military academy and its foreign role models’, historia 46, 2 (2001), pp. 387 404. 20. see union of south africa, south africa defence act, act no. 13 of 1912, art 7. visser & van dyk 210 process.21 the exclusion of women and blacks, together with the alienation of english speakers, shrunk the recruitment pool of the academy significantly and arguably robbed the udf and the academy of some potentially good officer’s material, which by extension possibly impacted negatively on the development of both institutions. the marriage of the student and military subcultures resulting from the military academy’s affiliation with a civilian university did not create significant challenges. minor friction reportedly occurred on the odd occasion between the military students and their male counterparts on the campus of the university of pretoria, but no conflict was ever officially reported. while the academy was temporarily (1956-57) housed on the campus of stellenbosch university to await the construction of its facilities at saldanha bay, minor clashes did occur between the military and student subcultures. this friction disappeared when the academy relocated to saldanha. sound social relations developed with the main campus in time and the academy students participated enthusiastically in the annual student carnival and other social events at stellenbosch. this was inspired particularly by the severe short supply of female company at far-off saldanha. the afrikaner cultures of the two institutions obviously rendered such interaction natural and easy.22 although the academy acquired its own premises and independent status at saldanha, it failed to cultivate an organisational culture to lend it the image and standing of a sandhurst or west point. persistent financial constraints produced an unimpressive building complex in the mid-1950s and has restricted its facilities to the bare minimum ever since. the academy’s mission has, furthermore, historically been too narrow to make it a mainstream institution of the defence force: a degree has never been a prerequisite for a commission. there have always been alternative, easier routes to officership. hence, dhq never accepted full ownership of the academy, which facilitated its development into a military university rather than a true military academy.23 under these circumstances the old friction between the military and academic subcultures re-surfaced from time to time. many senior officers regarded the academy lecturers, appointed mostly from the civilian sector, and the dean and commanding officer of the military academy, who held the rank of colonel, as ‘civilians in uniform’ and hence as a thorn in the flesh of the organisational culture. in 1967 dhq took steps to right-dress the organisational culture of the military academy. it split the command post and inserted a line officer with the rank of brigadier (currently brigadier-general) as commanding officer at the top. over the next few years dhq stepped up military discipline and regimental routine and took to task every factor perceived to work against the military culture. in april 1970 it ruled that lecturers would in future still be appointed as officers to enjoy the service benefits of the permanent force, but would perform their task in civilian dress. serving lecturers were given a once-off choice to 21. see g.e. visser, ‘image and identity in military education: a perspective on the south african military academy’, society in transition: journal of the south african sociological association, 33, 1 (2002), 176-7. 22. see g.e. visser, civilian-military interaction on the matie campus: the ‘battle of wilgenhof’, 1957’, scientia militaria, 37, 2 (2009), 82-106. 23. visser, ‘image and identity in military education’, 175; sandfa, cg c43 d81, cgs/gpt/1/3/1/1 vol 2, preliminary report of board of officers w.r.t. cadet training, n.d.; sandfa, cg c43 d81, cgs/gpt/1/3/1/1 vol 3, qmg – cgs, 27 april 1954; a. esterhuyse, ‘educating for professionalism: a new military for a new south africa’, scientia militaria, 34, 2 (2006), 36; d. christian, interview with g.e. visser, saldanha, 19 january 2009. development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 211 serve in uniform or not. the commanding officer of the academy could even force lecturers who, in his estimation, did not comply with military standards, to wear civilian dress.24 the ‘demilitarisation’ of the academic staff achieved the opposite of what dhq intended: the students regarded the lecturers in civilian dress as second-rate officers, which undermined their authority, and hence the maintenance of discipline. this fuelled the conflict between the sword and the pen which had already been aggravated by the splitting of the command between the dean and the commanding officer, and the elevation of the military training branch to the same hierarchical level as the faculty. by mid-1970 two strongly polarised subcultures emerged in an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ relationship between the faculty and the military training branch. the two subsystems operated in ‘watertight’ compartments and the students were caught somewhere between them, which had a negative influence on their motivation and performance. this unhealthy organisational culture prevented the military academy from achieving its overarching, holistic aims with regard to junior officer development and sabotaged the sustained development of the institution.25 to resolve this dilemma, the lecturers were put back into uniform in 1977.26 predictably, the perceived lack of a military culture remained, however, and continued to undermine the credibility of the academy as a military institution. this perpetuated dhq’s historical de facto refusal of complete ownership of the military academy and prevented them from taking its sustained development seriously. in fact, the institution remained under constant threat of disbandment right up to the advent of the ‘new’ south africa in 1994.27 democracy and transformation the socio-political and economic context within which military and other institutions function changes over time, which often redefines the organisational culture of such institutions. in 1990, with the new, democratic south africa almost a reality, dhq made an attempt to make the student body more representative of the south african population in terms of race and gender. having been an exclusively white, male institution since its establishment, the academy admitted women (three) and so-called ‘coloured’ (one) students for the first time in 1978 and 1979 respectively. dhq, however, suspended the admittance of women the very next year, inter alia due to lack of suitable accommodation in a male dominated environment, while very few candidates from the ‘other population groups’ 24. sandfa, minister of defence (botha) (hereafter mvb) 164, ‘verslag oor die militêre akademie deel i’ [report on the military academy part i] (hereafter: malan report), 28 february 1969, 64-5; sandfa, cg c55 d129, kg/reg/6/4/9/6, chief of personnel (hereafter c pers) – chief of staff (hereafter cos), 1 december 1969; see also sandfa, cg c55 d129, kg/reg/6/4/9/6, c pers – officer commanding (hereafter oc) mil acad, etc, 27 april 1970; sandfa, mil acad (gp 3) 61, g/plans/3/6 vol 1, minutes of mil acad planning conference, 30 april 1970. 25. sandfa, cg c55 d129, kg/reg/6/4/9/6, oc mil acad – cos, 26 april 1973; mil acad archives, report on mil acad by lt. l.j. du toit, march 1974, 148-50, 179; sandfa, mil acad (gp 3) 158, g/trg/6/2/0 (confidential) vol 4, oc mil acad –csp, 29 july 1974. 26. sandfa, mil acad (gp 3) 74, g/trg/6/15 vol 1, second-in-command (hereafter 2ic) mil acad – l.j. erasmus, etc., 23 march 1977. 27. visser, ‘marrying sparta and athens: the south african military academy and task-orientated junior officer development in peace and war’, journal for contemporary history, 27, 3 (2002), 195. visser & van dyk 212 enrolled at the academy. women were re-admitted in 1991, and the first significant effort was made to recruit more students from the ‘non-white’ communities. the first-ever african students enrolled at the academy in 1991. dhq also endeavoured to diversify the staff component of the academy.28 these actions meant that for the first time since its inception, the process of membership substitution was altered to the extent that the academy would be unable to perpetuate its long-standing white, male, afrikaans/afrikaner, culture and eurocentric tradition. as in 1950, politico-ideological change was once more the driver of organisational culture in the south african national defence force (sandf) and at the military academy. the political views of the afrikaans and english sectors of white society had moved closer together by the eve of the twenty-first century29 and the underlying tensions were now between black and white. after south africa’s transition to democracy in 1994 the newly constituted sandf obviously wanted to change the organisational culture of the military academy to break with its apartheid past and to ‘represent the new democratic ethos’ as soon as possible.30 this meant, firstly, reshaping its dominant white, afrikaans-speaking staff and student bodies to meet the department of defence’s (dod) racial quotas of 64,68% blacks, 24,35% whites, 10,22% coloureds and 0,75% asians.31 gender representivity was also a priority, but the dod set no quota for women. by 2009 the undergraduate residential student body of 314 was still 30% below the target of 450 set in 1990. despite transformation pressure from above, reshaping the staff and student components at the military academy took comparatively long. given south africa’s historical educational injustices, it was much easier to diversify the wider sandf than the military academy because of the academic requirements involved regarding both faculty staff and the student body. better career opportunities for historically-disadvantaged groups opened up by the new political dispensation certainly also contributed to the shortage of suitable candidates.32 28. g.e. visser and i. van der waag, ‘military academy – 50 years of officer education in sa’, salut, 7, 4 (2000), 54. 29. giliomee, the afrikaners: biography of a people (cape town: tafelberg, 2003), 661. 30. n.c. madlala-routledge, address at faculty of military science awards ceremony, saldanha, 9 december 2003 (http://www.polity.org.za/article/madlalaroutledge-faculty-of-military-scienceawards-ceremony-09122003-2003-12-09, accessed 25 february 2009). 31. department of defence, defence in democracy: south african white paper on defence as approved by parliament, may 1996 [and] south african defence review as approved by parliament, april 1998. (pretoria: department of defence, 1998), 80. 32. mil acad archives, mil acad annual reports; k.i. theletsane, ‘developing a conceptual model for transformation at the south african military academy: the ubuntu approach’ (ma thesis, stellenbosch university, 2007), 100-109. development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 213 figure 133 illustrates, the transformation of the student body was very slow from 1994 to 1999, but picked up significantly from 2000. by 2009 the asian component (1% vs target of 0.75%) was in line with the dod quota, while whites (11% vs target of 24,35%) were significantly under-represented. blacks (73% vs target of 64,68%) and coloureds (15% vs target of 10.22%) were both significantly over-represented. about 35% of the student body were women, predominantly black. the reason for white under-representation is the same as for the under-representation of english-speakers during the previous dispensation: the cultural dominance of the black majority makes whites feel uncomfortable in the sandf, while the racial quotas make them see no future for themselves in the military.34 once again organisational culture is robbing the academy and the sandf from much-needed human potential that could make a valuable contribution to the development of both institutions. 33. mil acad archives, mil acad annual reports; k.i. theletsane, ‘developing a conceptual model for transformation at the south african military academy’, 105. 34. see for example p. groenewald, ‘lekota reason for few whites in sandf’, media release by freedom front plus, 7 february 2007 (http://www.vf.co.za/english/media.asp?language=e&offset=1140&id=690, accessed 2 march 2009). 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% figure 1: racial composition of military academy student body 1994 2009 asian coloured white black visser & van dyk 214 as can be seen in figure 2,35 the racial transformation of the faculty staff has progressed much slower than that of the student body since 1994. the racial transformation of the overall staff component of the academy has naturally also progressed much slower than that of the student body, but a little faster than that of the faculty. 35. mil acad archives, mil acad annual reports; k.i. theletsane, ‘developing a conceptual model for transformation at the south african military academy’, 107. 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% figure 2: racial composition of faculty of military science, 1994 2009 white black development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 215 as figure 336 shows, both the overall staff component (186 members) and faculty (49 lecturers) still lagged significantly behind in 2009 in terms of the racial quotas, because the natural turnover of staff (resignations, retirement, etc.) is obviously very slow compared to the three-yearly substitution of the student body. the slower transformation of the faculty staff arises from the academic profiles involved, better job opportunities elsewhere and a paralysing appointment procedure. about 35% of the academic staff were still white, afrikaansspeaking males in 2009, while 25% were women (predominantly white). the transformation profile could, however, improve significantly if the existing vacancies (20 of the 68 lecturing posts = almost 30%) could be filled with suitable candidates from the designated groups. however slowly the change in the organisational culture of the academy had occurred in accordance with membership profiles, that change had been fundamental. the first such change was the disappearance of the afrikaans language when english became the official lingua franca37 of the sandf in 2000. another important change in the organisational culture of the academy, specifically the faculty, is its partial ‘civilianisation’. provision was made in 1985 for lecturers to join either in uniform (permanent force), or as civilians.38 the first civilian lecturer (computer information systems), appointed in 1986, was also the first 36. mil acad archives, mil acad name lists. 37. anon., ‘ngubane questions sandf language policy’, cape times, 30 april 2000 (http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fsectionid=3531&farticleid=qw957109261445b245#, accessed 12 march 2009). 38. sandfa, mil acad (gp 4) 12, ma/103/1/8/2/3 vol 12, chief of the south african defence force (hereafter c sadf) policy directive 1/69/84, 1 june 1985. 0,00 10,00 20,00 30,00 40,00 50,00 60,00 70,00 80,00 90,00 100,00 target students staff faculty 0. 75 % 1. 00 % 0. 20 % 0. 00 % 10 .2 2% 15 .0 0% 31 .0 0% 8. 00 % 24 .3 5% 11 .0 0% 34 .3 0% 5 5. 00 % 64 .6 8% 73 .0 0% 34 .5 0% 37 .0 0% figure 3: overall racial transformation profile of military academy, 2009 asian coloured white black visser & van dyk 216 female lecturer at the academy.39 subsequently women also joined in uniform. in 2009 62% of the faculty was in uniform. only 6,25% of the uniformed members (i.e., less than 4% of the faculty) were women. a more fundamental change regarding civilianisation concerns the dean. holding the parallel appointment of second-in-command of the military academy from the early 1980s,40 the dean had always been in uniform, holding the rank of colonel, but in 1995 that position was opened to civilians as well in an effort to strengthen the academic ethos of the faculty.41 a (white) civilian, female academic, dr m.e. kotze, served as acting dean in 1999,42 before the first (male) civilian dean, prof d.j. malan, was appointed in september 1999. prof malan indeed strengthened the academic ethos of the faculty and it saw a marked increase in its research output and general scholarly activities.43 this, together with the infusion of civilian academics, strengthened the university culture of the academy vis-à-vis its military culture significantly. the transformation of the organisational culture of stellenbosch university has progressed much slower. whereas blacks (mainly africans) had already dominated the academy’s student body since 2002,44 the student body at stellenbosch was still 73% white, 13% coloured, 12% black and 2% indian by 2006.45 afrikaans also remained the dominant language on campus.46 the difference in student culture based on race made social interaction with the main campus, inter alia during the annual carnival, less spontaneous and enthusiastic than before.47 however, the rather exclusive white, afrikaans character of stellenbosch is changing irreversibly. stellenbosch university elected its first black (or socalled coloured) rector, prof. russel botman, in december 2006.48 by 2008 almost 69% of the student body was still white, but only 55% (all races) was afrikaans-speaking.49 39. military academy, military academy annual 1986, 35, group photograph of lecturing and other staff members. 40. sandfa, mil acad (gp 4) 10, ma/103/1/8/2/3 vol 7, oc mil acad – csp, 9 march 1982. 41. g.e. visser, p.h. kapp en j.s. kotze, ‘die dekaan van die militêre akademie in historiese perspektief’, historia, 44, 2 (1999)’, 324-5. 42. in 2002 she became the first female to be promoted to professor at the fms. (m. van rooyen, ‘ruimte vir vroue’, weslander, 22 november 2002, 12.) 43. n.c. madlala-routledge, address at faculty of military science awards ceremony, 9 december 2003. 44. see k.i. theletsane, ‘developing a conceptual model for transformation at the south african military academy’, 105. 45. m.-m. gwatyu, ‘militêre akademie sal taalbeleid moet hersien’, die burger, 2 february 2005, 2; anon., ‘dit is die feite’, 2; g. coetzee, ‘meer as helfte swart studente by drie hau’s [histories afrikaanse universiteite]’, die burger, 18 august 2006, 6. 46. anon., ‘dit is die feite’, die burger, 5 february 2005, 2. 47. elements of this lack of enthusiasm seem to be illustrated by p-f. theron, ‘referendum oor milak val plat’, die matie, 30 july 2008, 1. 48. m. o’connor, ‘botman maak geskiedenis‘, die burger, 9 december 2006, 1. 49. j.p. landman, ‘demografie sal us se lotsbestemming bepaal’, die burger, 12 march 2009, 14; stellenbosch university, ‘statistical profile’ (http://www.sun.ac.za/university/statistieke/statseng.html, accessed 12 march 2009). development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 217 management ‘purge’ to mend organisational culture similar to the nationalist party government’s quest to rid the udf of its colonial past when it came to power in 1948, the anc government pursued its mission to rid the sandf of its apartheid past aggressively when it took over in 1994. given the hierarchical nature of the military, its organisational culture is enforced from the top down. in the fledgling sandf where the former sadf culture prevailed, this certainly created potential for conflict. however, the organisational culture at the military academy changed comparatively slowly after 1994, inter alia because a black commandant (commanding officer) was not appointed until 2001 and the dean remained white until 2006. during his tenure (january 2001 january 2004), the first black commandant, brig. gen. l.s. mollo, pushed race and gender transformation as hard as he could in staff appointments, but generally followed a pragmatic approach in the face of a scarcity of black applicants and found a good modus vivendi50 with the predominant white faculty. the emerging new organisational culture met with little if any opposition and facilitated the sustained development of the military academy to meet the multicultural educational needs of the transforming sandf.51 the organisational culture at the military academy changed drastically when the second black commandant, brig. gen. t.z. manyama, arrived in 2004. his perceived abrasive management style and controversial measures to rid the faculty of white dominance and eurocentric sentiments evoked much tension, which soon erupted in the afrikaans media.52 the spirit of collegiality and cooperation that had existed under brig. gen. mollo was reportedly replaced by suspicion and mistrust under his successor. whereas the former originated from the ‘more moderate’53 african national congress (anc)/umkhonto we sizwe (mk) camp, brig. gen. manyama came from the more radical pan africanist congress (pac)/azanian people’s liberation army (apla) camp. he was perceived as having no regard for white people and allegedly treated white faculty members and guest lecturers brusquely, subjecting them to embarrassing, humiliating situations. with the assistance of a few black confidants brig. gen. manyama, according to media reports, carried on an autocratic management system fraught with nepotism and maladministration in which suspicion and paranoia ruled supreme. he accused white faculty members of employing underhand methods to marginalise black people, to deny them the opportunity to study at the academy and to perpetuate the imbalances of the past in a cunning way.54 he, furthermore, seemed to insinuate that white lecturers failed black students deliberately and unfairly, stating bluntly: the defence force spends time, money and effort to recruit the best cream of performers in the country for tertiary education at the academy, and god in heaven above, the best become the worst failures at the military academy. the question is why?55 50. anon., ‘miltêre akademie’, die burger, 22 november 2007, 22. 51. z. ekron, ‘saldanha “in twee oor ras” ’, die burger, 25 august 2004, 2; h. uys, ‘storm oor hoof’, weslander, 26 august 2004, 1; t. neethling, et al, ‘us-fakulteit nie betrokke’, die burger, 27 november 2007, 16. 52. anon., ‘ “rasse-kookpot” broei’, die burger, 24 august 2004, 1. 53. uys, ‘storm oor hoof’, 1; ekron, ‘saldanha “in twee oor ras” ’, 2. 54. z. ekron, ‘minister “moet ingryp by akademie” ‘, die burger, 2 september 2004, 2. visser & van dyk 218 the fact of the matter is that the academy had, due to weaknesses in the recruitment and selection processes, indeed not been receiving the ‘cream of the crop’,56 as will be indicated below. against this background brig. gen. manyama pursued affirmative action relentlessly to achieve the racial quotas set for the sandf, with no regard for academic considerations. this was to some extent facilitated by the inevitable dominance of the military culture in decision-making at management level ever since the allotment of the top post at the academy to a line officer in 1967. if black candidates could not be found to fill vacancies in the faculty, such posts remained unoccupied. pleas from the predominantly white faculty board to fill vacancies in the interest of individual workloads, teaching excellence and research outputs were simply dismissed as resistance to transformation.57 stellenbosch university was powerless in this regard, since it could only make recommendations with regard to the academic suitability of candidates, while the final decision to appoint or not rested with the sandf. these factors contaminated the organisational culture to the extent that a number of white lecturers left the academy in utter frustration. some black faculty members allegedly also resigned because they found the prevailing organisational culture and threat to the academic ethos unacceptable. a total of six lecturers left the academy in the course of 2004, bringing the number of faculty vacancies to 13 (12 of them lecturers) by the end of that year.58 good career opportunities for black academically qualified personnel admittedly abound in the transforming south african society and black faculty members often move simply for financial gain. even if brig. gen. manyama pursued a personal ideological agenda as alleged, there was also mounting pressure from the dod and dhq to push transformation at the academy harder, particularly with regard to the staff component. deputy minister of defence, mluleki george, was ‘alarmed at the slow pace of transformation at the military academy’.59 amidst the allegations of resistance to transformation at the academy, defence minister mosiuoa lekota allegedly gave specific instructions that the transformation plans of the dod had to be strictly adhered to.60 lekota, furthermore, apparently taking the commandant’s allegations at face value, claimed that there were white lecturers who overlooked black 55. c. schumann, ‘us rector receives coveted honorary title’, weslander, 30 september 2004, 16. see also j.g. greeff, ‘minister should investigate complaints at academy’, weslander, 14 october 2004, 4. 56. g.a.j. van dyk, ‘cream of the crop: a profile analysis of students at the south african military academy’ in g.a.j van dyk, ed, strategic challenges for african armed forces for the next decade (stellenbosch: sun press, 2008), 313-32. 57. e. gibson, ‘r1 miljoen lê ongebruik in militêre akademie se geldlaai’, die burger, 26 january 2005, 1. 58. anon., ‘ “rasse-kookpot” broei’, 1; uys, ‘storm oor hoof’, 1; ekron, ‘saldanha “in twee oor ras” ’, 2; z. ekron, ‘minister “moet ingryp by akademie” ‘, die burger, 2 september 2004, 2; e. gibson, ‘akademie-lede gedreig’, die burger, 19 november 2004, 1; m.-m. gwatyu, ‘militêre akademie moet gerehabiliteer word asmal‘, die burger, 17 february 2005, 8.; anon., ‘militêre akademie’, die burger, 13 april 2005, 14. 59. anon., ‘transformation too slow’, weslander, 9 september 2004; ekron, ‘saldanha “in twee oor ras” ’, 2. 60. m.-m. gwatyu, ‘berigte oor rassespanning by akademie halfgebak, sê lekota‘, die burger, 9 september 2004, 2. development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 219 students possessing the potential to teach at the academy (upon completion of their studies) on purpose.61 the fact is that nobody at the academy seems to have disputed the urgent need for transformation, but the plea was, as landman62 has recently argued with regard to transformation in the agricultural sector, that equity must be carefully and responsibly balanced against efficiency to take the academy forward. however, the perceived radical, anti-white organisational culture pushed down from the top allegedly divided and polarised the academy along racial lines which even manifested in limited violence amongst the student body.63 all these events created an unhealthy organisational culture at the academy that hampered its functioning, tainted its image and undermined its credibility as an institution of higher education.64 the parliamentary portfolio committee on defence, chaired by prof kader asmal, intervened in january 2005 to resolve matters at the military academy. the committee found that it appeared as if several senior officers at the academy, presumably some of brig. gen. manyama’s confidants, were not properly qualified for the functions entrusted to them. it concluded, furthermore, that there was confusion regarding the military and academic functions of the academy. this, on occasion, led to a verbal confrontation between the rector of stellenbosch university, prof brink, and brig. gen. manyama, because the latter used his military authority to sweep academic decisions [i.e., regarding the appointment of lecturers] from the table.65 the committee concluded that the academy students were negatively affected by the fact that vacancies remained unfilled in the name of affirmative action. by april 2005 there were reportedly already 21 vacancies in the faculty, mostly lecturers.66 asmal observed that qualified black people do not drop from the sky; you must train them.67 hence perpetuating vacancies in the name of affirmative action was not acceptable. the committee concluded that the situation at the academy 61. j-j. joubert, ‘lekota vat die burger weer oor rasstorie’, die burger, 15 september 2004, 2. 62. j.p. landman, ‘sa benodig meer as een landboubeleid’, die burger, 26 februarie 2009, 18. 63. several incidents were reported to the police and the sa national defence union (sandu) where white students were threatened (sometimes with death), intimidated or even attacked by black students. in one such incident a white student was assaulted by three masked black students on the premises of the military academy. brig. gen. manyama and his confidants allegedly covered up the seriousness of the racial tensions at the academy. however, in a letter to the afrikaans newspaper, die burger, an anonymous military academy student claimed that there was no ‘boiling over’ of racial tensions at the academy and that the majority of students got along well. (anon., ‘ “rasse-kookpot” broei’, 1; ekron, ‘saldanha “in twee oor ras” ’, 2; uys, ‘storm oor hoof’, 1; anon. (‘militêre akademie-student’), ‘g’n kookpot by akademie-studente’, die burger, 26 august 2004, 17. 64. see esterhuyse, ‘educating for professionalism, 23. 65. m.-m. gwatyu, ‘komitee vind militêre akademie meestal “skoon” ‘, die burger, 20 january 2005, 2; e. gibson, ‘asmal kwaai in verslag oor militêre akademie‘, die burger, 12 april 2005, 1 (author’s translation from the original afrikaans). 66. gibson, ‘asmal kwaai in verslag oor militêre akademie’, 1. 67. gwatyu, ‘militêre akademie moet gerehabiliteer word’ (author’s translation from the original afrikaans). see also t. mtshali, ‘military academy under fire for failing to produce report’, cape times, 17 february 2005, 5. visser & van dyk 220 had reached a turning point and a process of rehabilitation must be started between the academy, the dod and stellenbosch university… to investigate leadership qualifications.68 amongst the wide-ranging recommendations tabled by the committee was, furthermore, the implementation of a personnel development plan to address the racial quotas and achieve a ‘cultural transformation’ of the military academy’.69 a year later, in april 2006, dhq and stellenbosch university issued a joint statement that brig. gen. manyama had been recalled to pretoria with immediate effect, while the dean, prof malan, had been seconded to the main campus of stellenbosch university.70 there was no controversy around the widely respected and very capable dean,71 but it became imperative, in the words of chief human resources support of the sandf, maj. gen. l.s. mollo, that the culture at the academy be transformed to enhance both the military and the academic ethos of the institution in the face of the tense relationship... between the leadership of the academy… that ultimately would have been to the detriment of the military scholars. he stressed that the sandf and stellenbosch university were unanimous in their decision to introduce fresh leadership on both sides in order to move the academy forward as renowned institution of military training in africa.72 the sandf appointed a white naval officer, r. adm. (jg) d. christian, as the new commandant on 12 april 2006,73 while stellenbosch university seconded dr e.l. van harte, a so-called ‘coloured’ woman, to the faculty of military science as interim dean with effect from the same date.74 the faculty board subsequently duly elected dr (later prof) van harte as dean. this intervention calmed the waters significantly and created an 68. gibson, ‘asmal kwaai in verslag oor militêre akademie‘, 1 (author’s translation from the original afrikaans). see also m.-m. gwatyu, ‘militêre akademie “het keerpunt bereik” ’, die burger, 17 june 2005, 9. 69. gwatyu, ‘militêre akademie “het keerpunt bereik” ’, 9. 70. marketing and communication section stellenbosch university, ‘change of leadership at military academy saldanha, press release issued 4 april 2006 (http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/marketing_communication/media/tab214548/media%20r elease%20-%20military%20academy.doc, accessed 25 february 2009). 71. see for example letter of former dean j.c. kotzé, ‘fouteer met dekaan’, die burger, 13 april 2006, 18. 72. marketing and communication section stellenbosch university, ‘change of leadership at military academy saldanha, press release issued 5 april 2006 (http://www.sun.ac.za/news/newsitem_eng.asp?lang=2&itemid=9895&zone=aex, accessed 06 april 2006). 73. m. o’connor, ‘vlootkaptein lei nou akademie‘, die burger, 13 april 2006, 8. 74. marketing and communication section stellenbosch university, ‘change of leadership at military academy saldanha, press release issued 5 april 2006 (http://www.sun.ac.za/news/newsitem_eng.asp?lang=2&itemid=9895&zone=aex, accessed 06 april 2006). development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 221 organisational culture more conducive to institutional development, particularly the enhancement of the academic culture and ethos.75 the appointment of a female dean at the same time promoted gender sensitivity in a historically male dominated organisational culture. in 2009 brig. gen. l. yam succeeded r. adm. (jg) christian, which meant that for the first time ever the entire top structure of the academy (commandant, chief of staff, chief military instructor, dean and secundus dean) was black, which promoted the topdown transformation of the organisational culture. these changes do not mean that all problems disappeared. vacancies in faculty have risen rather than declined76 and remain a serious challenge to service delivery and institutional integrity. in 2007/2008 negative media coverage emanating from the alleged involvement of a senior officer at the academy (not a faculty member) in culpable homicide (on a charge of which he was arrested in his office at the academy), sexual harassment and other forms of conduct unbecoming, rocked the academy once more. perceived reluctance from the sandf to act against the individual in question impacted negatively on the organisational culture in that the impression was created that the sandf is soft on crime and discipline.77 such incidents, amidst incessant media reports of incompetence, crime and corruption at the highest levels of government and domestic politics,78 create confusion amongst young officers regarding professional and institutional norms and values, which impairs their socialisation in their professional milieu. the academy’s organisational culture and its future role perception the primary element of the military academy’s role perception for the future is its responsibility to suitably train and educate young officers to institutionalise military professionalism in the sandf. as a university degree might well become a prerequisite for all sandf officers in, hopefully, the not too distant future,79 the organisational culture of the sandf could be expected to become more conducive to accepting full ownership of the military academy and supporting its future development. the upward progression of post1994 academy graduates in the structures of the sandf should also support this process by gradually dispelling the prevalent anti-intellectual institutional culture80 in the sandf. the 75. see for example letter neethling, et al, ‘us-fakulteit nie betrokke’, 16 and c. nelson, ‘fakulteit lewer puik werk’, die burger, 28 november 2007, 16. 76. vacancies are a serious challenge in all government departments. according to the democratic alliance there were some 36 000 vacancies in government departments by december 2009 – 8,9% of the total. ironically, in terms of the situation at the military academy, the picture looks even worse when the security departments (police, correctional services and defence) are taken out of the equation. (c. claassen, ‘derduisende poste oop in staatsdiens‘, die burger, 9 december 2009, 2.) 77. e. gibson, ‘seks-bom ruk mag‘, die burger, 21 november 2007, 1; e. gibson, ‘akademie weer in kollig‘, die burger, 5 march 2008, 10; d. liebenberg, ‘hoë by militêre akademie wéér in sop na hy nie hof toe kom’, die burger, 1 april 2008, 2. 78. see inter alia c. nelson, ‘die stand van demokrasie in suid-afrika: ‘n kritiese perspektief’, litnet akademies, 7, 1 (2010), 61-98. 79. esterhuyse, ‘educating for professionalism, 26, 31. 80. see esterhuyse, ‘educating for professionalism, 39. visser & van dyk 222 academy should continue to shape its organisational culture, militarily and academically, to meet the demands of professional excellence and become indispensable to the sandf. the current student selection process at the military academy presents a challenge to its organisational culture and its future role perception. the academy is not in a position to market itself at schools and other institutions for recruitment purposes. instead, it has to select its students from candidates already enrolled in the sandf. a recent empirical study exposed vulnerabilities in the leadership profile of the students, as well as in their psychological profile to be academically successful and become competent military leaders.81 this will undermine the institutionalisation of academic excellence in the organisational culture of the military academy and the eradication of anti-intellectualism in the sandf. achievement of these aims obviously also requires proper staff selection – lecturers, military instructors and support staff. africa has an acute shortage of institutions for higher military education. in mediterranean africa, the only such institutions are found in egypt and tunisia.82 in sub-saharan africa the south african military academy is the only institution of its kind. hence, there are strong expectations for the academy to play a leading role on the african continent. former deputy defence minister, ms n.c. madlala-routledge, asserted in 2003 that the dod’s approach to peacekeeping on the continent ‘recognises the causes of conflict in africa to be developmental in nature’ and hence embraces the concept of ‘developmental peacekeeping’ in which education, including military education, is of the utmost importance, and for which the military academy is our best resource… to help us rebuild our country and our continent.83 hence, the faculty’s current mission statement reads ‘to empower members of the dod and the african security community through professional military education to manage current and future security challenges effectively’.84 this requires the military academy to dedicate itself to the internalisation of military ethics and the highest standard of military professionalism. the dod and stellenbosch university should streamline the functioning of the military academy between them to create a vibrant organisational culture to optimise military education. this includes the dod providing adequate financial resources to empower the military academy for its envisioned continental mission. conclusion the military academy was born in an era of political change, affirmative action and transformation in 1950 and is reliving a similar process since 1994. political priorities, conflicting organisational cultures and subcultures, together with a narrow mission and an 81. see van dyk, ‘cream of the crop’, 313-32. 82. g.e. visser and a.j. esterhuyse, ‘africa and the internationalisation of military education: a role for the south african military academy?’, unpublished paper presented at the first international conference of the school for human resource development, faculty of military science (south african military academy), stellenbosch university on ‘strategic challenges for african armed forces for the next decade’, saldanha, 16–18 september 2008. 83. n.c. madlala-routledge, address at faculty of military science awards ceremony, saldanha, 9 december 2003 (http://www.polity.org.za/article/madlalaroutledge-faculty-of-military-scienceawards-ceremony-09122003-2003-12-09, accessed 25 february 2009). 84. stellenbosch university: quality development plan, december 2007, appendix 7. development of the south african military academy to 2009 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 205 223. 223 insufficient budget, have historically undermined its progressive development into an institution of national admiration and international standing. the academy’s narrow mission and perceived lack of military culture have prevented the defence force from accepting full ownership of the institution and fund and resource it accordingly. the historical exclusion of blacks and women and the marginalisation of white english-speaking citizens denied the academy the exploitation of a significant portion of the country’s human resource potential in the interest of sustained development and institutional excellence. the same happened with the introduction of racial quotas and the marginalisation of whites since 1994. however urgent and indisputable the need for transformation is, it should be responsibly balanced against efficiency to take the academy forward in the twenty-first century. the military academy has historically been too reflective of the organisational culture of the sandf and its predecessors, instead of informing that culture to meet the challenges of military professionalism. there are excellent opportunities for the military academy in the twenty-first century to become a coveted national and continental educational asset to address developmental needs in the rebuilding of the country and the african continent in the aftermath of apartheid and colonialism. this requires dhq to, finally, accept full ownership of the academy, fund and staff it properly, manage it soundly and groom its organisational culture to make it a vibrant, continuously self-renewing instrument of superb higher military education and training that informs professionalism in the sandf and other african defence forces. abstract introduction international service learning educators’ voices students’ voices host organisations’ voices methodology findings and discussion perspectives about purpose and student motives experiences of students’ sadness challenges recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) natalie mansvelt department of social development professions, faculty of health sciences, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa citation mansvelt n. international service learning: insights from the voices of host organisations. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1208. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1208 original research international service learning: insights from the voices of host organisations natalie mansvelt received: 17 feb. 2022; accepted: 24 may 2022; published: 30 nov. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract service learning is promoted by higher education institutions as a pedagogy that contributes to social justice ideals by providing opportunities for students and community members to engage and cooperate with one another in ways that are mutually beneficial. in international service learning programmes, the interaction typically takes place between students from developed countries who visit and provide assistance to communities in developing countries and in so doing contribute to social justice ideals. whilst students’ reflections have been documented expansively, the views and experiences of community members have received less attention, casting a shadow over the claim to social justice. this article explores the perceptions and experiences of staff from organisations who have hosted international students over a number of years. adopting a qualitative approach and an exploratory design, independent field workers interviewed staff from host organisations. the participants shared uncertainty about students’ motives, observations of students’ emotional responses, interpretations related to race and views about the perceived benefits and challenges of service learning. the findings indicate the value of community voices and reflection opportunities and ways in which the feedback could enhance programme processes, practices and outcomes. recommendations in relation to the practice of international service learning and further research are included. transdisciplinary contribution: this article contributes to the body of emerging literature that captures the perspective of host organisations. keywords: international service learning; host organisations; reflection; higher education; south africa. introduction higher education institutions promote service learning as a pedagogy that contributes to social justice ideals by providing opportunities for students and community members to engage and cooperate with one another in ways that are mutually beneficial.1 in international service learning programmes, the interaction typically takes place between students from developed countries who visit and provide assistance to communities in developing countries and in so doing contribute to social justice ideals. to ensure that learning takes place, students are guided to reflect on their experiences of working with community members.2 such experiences have been documented expansively.2,3,4,5,6,7 however, the views and experiences of community members have received less attention, casting a shadow over the claim to social justice. a study conducted at a south african university aimed to answer the question: how do organisations that host international service learning students perceive and experience the presence of international students and their contributions to their organisations? understanding the perceptions and experiences of organisations that host international students enhances our understanding of the value of community voices and ways in which the feedback could enhance programme processes, practices and outcomes. in this article, literature on international service learning is reviewed, followed by an overview of the implemented qualitative approach and a thematic report of host organisations’ reflections. international service learning the practice of people from developed countries visiting developing countries to provide assistance to impoverished communities has been called by different terms: international service learning, volunteer tourism or aid work.8,9 unique to international service learning is that higher education institutions offer the programmes, the assistance is underpinned by academic learning objectives and reflection is embedded in the process.10,11 higher education institutions offer service learning programmes as an expression of their commitment to the community engagement goals of higher education.12,13 whilst students are learning how to put knowledge into practice, communities receive services that are meant to contribute to local community development and social change.14,15,16 service learning is thus intended to be mutually beneficial.17 scholars are not in agreement about the merits of international service learning. on the one hand, concerns have been raised that range from the phenomenon contributing to exploitation of communities by the businesses and organisations sending inexperienced young westerners to work in orphanages, schools and community organisations,18 to elitism, paternalism and a different form of colonisation.19,20,21 on the other hand, it has been found that cultural competence and cultural humility can be enhanced.6,22 in attempts to gain more clarity about the value of international service learning, research has been conducted with the three stakeholders that are involved in the programmes – educators (as the ones who organise and design the programmes), students (as the ones who come from academic settings) and host organisations (as the ones who represent local communities). educators’ voices several researchers have explored the perspectives and experiences of the higher education staff members who teach service learning programmes.11,23,24,25,26 these educators organise service learning components and design the curriculum. apart from personal progression aspirations, educators are motivated to organise international service learning opportunities for students because they believe in the ideals of community development and active citizenship and in the transformative potential of community engagement.23,24,25 amidst these strivings, a study by o’meara and niehaus11 revealed that educators are more focused on student learning than on community outcomes. furthermore, educators consider the voices of students when they redesign and improve programmes, not the voices of communities.13 studies about the needs and challenges of educators in relation to service learning have confirmed that educators struggle to incorporate community voices into their programmes and to build reciprocal relationships with communities.23,26 this might explain the strong emphasis on students in practice and research with a weaker emphasis on communities. students’ voices the voices of students who have participated in international service learning are well documented in the literature. by means of interviews, focus group discussions and blogs, it has been found that students’ motives for participating in service learning include seeking learning opportunities and doing good by helping others.4,12,27 in addition to sharing their experiences and personal feelings,6,28,29 students have also reflected on the perceived positive impact they have made on the communities in which they worked.12,27,30 from the author’s experiences and observation in the context of international service learning, students reflect on their experiences not only when formal research is conducted but also through opportunities for reflection included in the design of many service learning programmes. in fact, reflection is so embedded in service learning that various authors refer to it in their definition of the concept.2,13 furthermore, to improve the quality and depth of reflections in service learning, several tools and assessment guidelines have been developed and published.31,32,33 the relevance of reflection can be understood in relation to the emphasis on learning as an essential component of the pedagogy of international service learning. students are expected to learn whilst providing a service. reflection is utilised as the vehicle through which learning from experience is encouraged. students are provided with opportunities to think about their experiences in the community context to gain insight and determine implications on a personal and professional level.34,35,36 however, the development and elevation of students’ voices through reflection in international service learning are not complemented with equal opportunities for reflection provided to host organisations.37 host organisations’ voices compared with the amount of literature that explores the perceptions and experiences of students regarding international service learning, a dearth of literature focuses on the perspectives of host organisations. whilst the reasons for the imbalance need further investigation, guttentag3 highlighted two challenges to obtain authentic feedback from host organisations. firstly, he explained that host organisations may be reluctant to ‘criticise a project to foreign researchers who resemble the volunteers’.3 secondly, host organisations may fear that their negative feedback may lead to the withdrawal of service learning programmes in their communities. yet there is agreement from several authors that the voices of host organisations are important and necessary.3,12,13 the organisations’ perspectives could improve service learning processes, practices and outcomes.12,13 a closer look at the available literature where the perceptions and experiences of host communities have been explored indicates that the perspectives differ significantly from those of students. whereas students are motivated to participate in service learning programmes based on the desire to learn and help, strohmeier27 determined that host organisations are motivated to participate owing to the donations they receive and awareness raised about their organisations. another aspect observed in a programme in kenya was a perceived lack of sincerity from students. dickey et al.21 found that whilst students verbalised noble intentions, host organisations observed notions of superiority and disrespect. perspectives from host organisations in cambodia revealed that the generosity of students encourages dependency in communities.38 based on the reflections of host organisations, luh sin38 concluded that international service learning does not always or automatically lead to positive impact. methodology the context of the study is a south african city where an international service-learning programme has been offered by the local university for 15 years. the programme is a partnership between host organisations (consisting of nongovernmental and community-based organisations and a government school), the international office of the university (responsible for recruiting, placing and monitoring international students in the programme) and the social work department (as the facilitator of the academic component). students who participate in the programmes choose an organisation where they volunteer once a week over a period of one semester. they attend biweekly workshops and reflection sessions on campus and are expected to write regular journal entries to increase their understanding of their experiences. meetings between the international office, the social work department and the managers of participating organisations take place twice a year to conduct evaluations. an exploratory descriptive qualitative study was conceptualised to gain understanding of the perceptions and experiences of the staff from host organisations. semistructured individual interviews were conducted with staff of purposefully selected organisations that had been hosting students from the service learning programme for at least 2 years. staff who had been engaging directly with international students were invited to participate. twenty-one staff members volunteered to participate in the study. eleven of the 21 participants have professional qualifications – 10 as teachers and one as a social worker – whilst the other 10 participants have secondary education and had received in-service training to work as caregivers or volunteers who received stipends. one of the participants is employed in a management position and the rest as direct service delivery staff. after giving informed consent, the participants were interviewed either at their workplaces or via an online platform (depending on the preference of the participant and considering coronavirus disease 2019 [covid-19] protocols). data were collected by fieldworkers who have no interest in the service-learning programme, because the existing relationships between the stakeholders might inhibit honest and critical reflections when interviews were conducted between people who were known to one another. the field workers underwent extensive training, preparation and practise of the interviewing process, and a pilot study confirmed the appropriateness of the interview schedule (please see the schedule in table 1). each interview took between 30 min and 60 min to complete. afterwards, the fieldworkers reflected that the interviews that had been conducted with care workers and volunteers via an online platform generally had yielded less rich data than face-to-face interviews, possibly because the care workers and volunteers as participants were unfamiliar with online interviews. table 1: semistructured interview schedule. a systematic data analysis process was undertaken to code and categorise the data to identify key issues and arguments raised by the participants. thematic analysis according to the six steps proposed by braun and clarke39 was applied. although the use of fieldworkers enhanced the credibility of the data-collection process, it brought limitations to the data-analysis process. because the author – who analysed the data – did not conduct the interviews (and thus did not have access to the participants), the author was unable to conduct member checking to explore the interpretations and emerging themes with the participants. ethical considerations an application for full ethical approval was made to the university’s research ethics committee (human) and consent was received on 26 august 2021. the ethics approval number is h21-hea-sdp-005. to protect anonymity and confidentiality, the names of organisations are withheld and pseudonyms are used to refer to the participants. findings and discussion the findings of the study that are discussed in this section are derived from semistructured interviews with the staff from different host organisations (see types of organisations in table 2). table 2: types of organisations where participants work. apart from the community outreach centre, all the organisations whose staff participated in the study, are providing services to children. the community outreach centre provides a range of services to different population groups, which include (but are not limited to) children. as the study intended to explore the voices of host organisations, a considerable number of extracts from the interviews (in the form of quotations) are included. perspectives about purpose and student motives when the participants were asked about their understanding of the reasons why students visited their organisations, varying views were shared. most of the participants believed that the students were choosing to volunteer to gain experience and develop skills, because they wanted to help others and they had the desire to learn about different contexts and cultures. some participants believed that students spent time at organisations because of the requirements of their studies. all these reasons are in line with those cited in literature as indeed the reasons why students would choose to participate in international service learning.4,12,27 another finding that emerged from the reflections on the reasons why students participate in service learning was participants’ uncertainty about students’ motives. this is evident from the first words in the comments of participants indicating a lack of certainty in their understanding: ‘i think it’s kind of a skills development programme.’ (nomsa, female, home for abandoned babies) ‘maybe to give their assistance.’ (unathi, female, school) ‘i guess they are in different areas of the work they learn or programmes and then they want to come here and then they want to see how we do it.’ (zandi, female, community outreach centre) furthermore, some participants suggested that the question rather be posed to the management structures of their organisations, because ‘management knows why and how this whole volunteering system works’ (khululwa, female, youth organisation) and ‘the long-term process of these students is known between the principal, hods [heads of departments] and the smts [school management teams]’ (tembisa, female, school). this indicates that within host organisations, there is a differentiation between those who have knowledge and understanding of the purposes, intended outcomes and processes of service learning (the management structures) and those who do not (direct service delivery staff). the group that has been engaging directly with international students is the second group – direct service delivery staff. this finding highlights that host organisations are not homogenous entities and suggests that internal hierarchical structures may affect service-learning contexts. the question thus arises: does it matter that the staff of host organisations who engage with international students are not clear on the purpose and motives of students who participate in international service learning? according to yarbrough et al.,40 a lack of knowledge about motivations can lead to a lack of understanding, frustration and outcomes not being met. furthermore, doughty37 argued that a lack of clarity on purpose points to low consideration for and minimalist engagement with communities. therefore, it is suggested that opportunities for reflection and dialogue regarding the purpose of service learning programmes and students’ motives be created within programme processes. such opportunities should include all staff who engage with the students. experiences of students’ sadness in describing their experiences of having international students present as volunteers at their organisations, participants referred to situations where emotions of sadness had been displayed. this was mainly when students were exposed to community conditions of extreme poverty: ‘we go out with them to home visits and then when we are there in the home visit and they see the situation of the client, they become very emotional. worse when they see even the environment, the lifestyle of the patient, sometimes they see a lot of shortage in food … you can see from their eyes they feel emotion.’ (phumi, female, community outreach centre) another participant’s description suggests that host organisational staff believed that students were overwhelmed by the poor conditions in which people lived: ‘when you are being exposed to something that you have never seen before, you become emotional. or maybe you feel like, no, you don’t want to participate, because of that’s not what you are used to. … so they want, like, to give their all to help, but the thing is, they get too emotional because of the difference. so at times we feel like no, this is too much for them to handle.’ (tara, female, community outreach centre) emotions of sadness were also observed when students left organisations at the end of the service learning programme. upon asking a participant from a school how the children adjusted to the students leaving at the end: ‘you know, when international students leave, they become so … they cried … it’ll be a sad moment.’ (thandi, female, school) previous research confirms that emotional experiences are common for students participating in international service learning.16,41,42 yet no research capturing the emotional experiences of host organisations’ staff in relation to working with international volunteers could be found. whilst the processing of and learning from such emotional incidents are taking place through the use of reflections for the students, no evidence was found in this study of formal reflection opportunities created for host organisations. as the staff are present when students experience emotions of sadness, it may affect them as well. in addition, they may feel obligated to provide support to students. however, as a number of the staff members may be volunteers themselves (like the participants in this study), they may not be prepared or equipped adequately to provide support. from these findings, it is clear that host organisations are aware of and witness the emotional responses of students. they may also have to deal with their own and children’s emotional responses associated with the relations with students. yet the participants do not have the opportunities that students have to reflect on the experiences. thus, there is an imbalance in opportunities that could be viewed as ignorance of the effect of emotional experiences on the staff of host organisations, and a higher value is placed on the experiences of international students. interpretations related to race the majority of students who participated in the programme where the research was conducted were white people from the united states of america or europe. in contrast, most of the staff of the host organisations were black south africans. although no questions in the interview schedule were focused on race, a number of participants referred to it during the course of the interviews. it was viewed as either a source of energy for children or as a positive factor that contributed to nonracialism. in the classroom setting, participants reported that racial differences led to disruptions. because of preconceived notions and unfamiliarity with white people, children were said to be distracted from their schoolwork and compete for the attention of the different-looking students: ‘i think it’s because of the colour. they know that white people have money. they have that mentality that white people have money; i’m not sure, but they become crazy when they see the students. … there will be a lot of noise outside. everyone is following the students. and the school is becoming disruptive.’ (zodwa, female, school) ‘children will be excited to see all these white people.’ (tara, female, community outreach centre) thandi also observed that the children had a higher regard for the (white) students than for their (black) teachers: ‘you know, our children they have that tradition of – i don’t know … it’s because of … when they see white people they expect a good thing, but when they see us, they are just listening, you know.’ (thandi, female, school) for the staff themselves, the encounters with white students had brought insight about the potential for inter-racial cooperation: ‘we were afraid of them because they are white people, but nothing disturbed that in our school.’ (nandipha, female, school) ‘if we can have people like them irrespective of colour and our schools can mix even with other races, that will be a rainbow race that we can see. because the way when they are here when we interact with them, we are … in the same tune, there’s no race … i wish that we can get the teachers that are different in race like them on a class so that we can interact, because everyone learns from another.’ (thandi, female, school) whereas the influence of colonialism is still evident from the participant quotations, it is significant to observe that host organisations are critically aware of the influence of racial dynamics on service learning relationships. on the one hand, the ways in which children (as the beneficiaries of the services of organisations) respond to international students indicate a higher regard for white volunteers than for black teachers. this is not because of any specific reported behaviour of the students but (according to the participants) as a result of the children’s preconceived notions of race. interestingly, green43 reflects that white service learning students are unaware of racial dynamics within service learning relationships. the organisational staff’s awareness provides support for green’s43 stance that students need to be sensitised to be conscious of racial and associated power differences. such consciousness would not remove the differences but could increase sensitivity, minimise harm and promote ‘decolonising relating’.44 participants’ experiences of interracial cooperation in the classroom indicate that international service-learning programmes can contribute positively to environments where equality and human dignity prevail. in contrast to the findings of dickey et al.21 that international students act with superiority and disrespect in service-learning contexts, the findings of this study reveal that there are possibly instances where the social justice ideals of international service learning are fulfilled. perceived benefits when asked about the contribution of service learning, the most prevalent response from participants was about the different forms of donations that come from students – from buying physical items: ‘… donate yogurts for the children and maybe nappies’ (sindiswa, female, home for abandoned babies) – to contributions to large resources: ‘… they even built us a school library and furnish the school library with books’ (vivian, female, school). apart from donations, the participants identified benefits to themselves as organisational staff and benefits to the children that organisations served. for the organisational staff, the students provide assistance with daily activities, which eases the workload of the staff. the students’ presence and positive attitude also affect the energy and attitude of the staff positively: ‘we are working seven to seven. by the time they arrive here in the afternoon, we are tired. so having them kind of takes the weight off, knowing that you have someone that will help you.’ (nomsa, female, home for abandoned babies) ‘they are eager. a person like that makes you eager as well.’ (avela, female, home for abandoned babies) ‘you can see from us also, maybe sometimes our spirits come down, but by coming, them also coming, then we at least, you get also power to empower also yourself.’ (babalwa, female, community outreach centre) regarding benefits for the children, the participants reported that they saw improved language skills owing to the time that students spend with children (students converse in english whilst the children’s mother tongue is isixhosa): ‘[a]t the first time, they were very difficult to communicate, because of the language. but as the time goes, the children know how to – even if they use sign language.’ (lumka, female, school) another observed advanced reading skills as well: ‘also, their speaking skills in english improved during their presence. also, the learners’ reading skills were improved because of them.’ (nandi, female, school) linked to the finding in the previous section about race and power, caution needs to be exercised when a language other than that of the local community is elevated by the international students.45 similar to green’s43 arguments about raising consciousness of the dynamics of race, students could also be made aware of and encouraged to reflect on the dynamics of language. khululwa deduced that students contributed to the academic development of children by comparing the children’s progress during the time of the covid-19 pandemic (when international students were unable to visit south africa because of strict lockdown regulations) with their progress when the international students were assisting with homework: ‘i worked with those learners who used to be assisted by international students and can see that … some of them, they dropped their academics and so forth. and the thing is that the international students … they help them every day and they were up to date with their homework and so forth. and now we get students that did not submit their work, and i think that is one of the things … that i’ve noticed personally about having the international students not coming anymore to assist them. and so, yeah, they’ve left a hole … in general, their presence was felt.’ (khululwa, female, youth organisation) in contrast to the findings by strohmeier27 that host organisations mainly benefit from the donations they receive from students, a significant finding in this study was that the benefits of international service learning extend beyond donations to host organisations. the benefits that have been identified are similar to what maakrun46 found in her study of a service learning programme at a school in kenya, namely that both children and staff were affected positively through the engagements with international students. these benefits occur during the encounter between students and staff or students and children – which sharpe and dear20 advocate for as the true end-goal of service learning. benefits such as improved language skills could be viewed as long-term contributions but – as gibson et al.17 recommended – more focused research is required to confirm this. in the meantime, the feedback from host organisations could be helpful for students to be aware of their influence and to consider ways to expand on the recognised benefits. challenges when participants were asked about the challenges they had experienced with international service learning, more than a third declared that there were no challenges. this could be understood as an indication of host organisations’ satisfaction with the programme. however, one must also be mindful of guttentag’s3 warning that staff could be hesitant to give negative feedback out of fear that they might lose the partnership or donations. in addition, against the broader context of students from developed countries visiting communities in developing countries, paolo freire’s conceptualisation of a ‘culture of silence’ suggests that a sense of powerlessness may have suppressed critical awareness.47,48 three participants reflected on situations where students’ behaviour had to be addressed by host organisations, because it was not in line with organisational expectations or inappropriate. one referred to idle students: ‘well, i don’t think i have too much negative except for those who are lazy. maybe if there are two of them, there will be one who is working more than the other and so you have to now go back to them and ask that one do this and this … when you have to ask someone to do something, it’s not good, it’s not nice.’ (nomsa, female, home for abandoned babies) challenges that came with the positive relationship between students and children at their school were described as follows: ‘it’s only the children who always follow the students during break time. only that is the negative, because they like kids too much … it also happens in my classroom … i always talked to them that these are teachers. i told them that these students are teachers, they must respect them.’ (zodwa, female, school) andrew referred to situations where students would allow children access to their (the students’) mobile phones and cameras. on the one hand, this creates a culture where the children think it is acceptable to request people’s phones for their own convenience. on the other hand, he observed that the time spent on technological devices replaced interaction between students and children. consequently, the staff of their organisation had to break down this culture: ‘if you allow that things, you encourage negative behaviour in our children, which is the idea that we are trying very hard to teach them not to do … then we have to try actually reteach that it is wrong to do … it’s those things that i think are problematic, that people have an idea that in order to please the children, they have to hand over their valuables.’ (andrew, male, youth organisation) from the given quotations, two challenges to international service learning emerge: concerns about the commitment of some students and reluctance from staff to communicate such concerns to students. similar findings were accentuated in blouin and perry’s49 study about community-based organisations’ perspectives on service learning, and these authors attribute the challenges to a lack of clarity on expectations of the different stakeholders’ roles and functions. students may not be clear on the tasks they are expected to complete, and host staff may not be clear on their obligation in terms of addressing concerning behaviour. as a consequence of the possible lack of clarity on expectations, staff of host organisations may be left with the perception that student behaviour leaves them with additional work to do. this could work against the benefit that was identified earlier, whereby staff reported that the students provided extra hands to make their workload lighter. if this feedback were known whilst students were engaging with organisations, the students could be guided to adjust their perceived negative behaviour, instead of the staff having to address it afterwards. furthermore, educators (as the organisers of service learning programmes) could facilitate communication before, during and after service learning programmes to clarify mutual expectations, roles and functions.49,50 recommendations from the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made in relation to the practice of international service learning: opportunities for dialogue about purpose and motives should be created at the beginning of service learning programmes. students could share their intentions and host organisations (including the staff who will be engaging directly with students) could also clarify their own reasons for inviting students to their placements. staff of host organisations could be capacitated to provide practical and emotional support to students when emotional incidents occur. opportunities for the processing of emotions could also be considered for host organisations. students should be conscientised regarding the dynamics of race and language and also be encouraged to reflect on it throughout their encounters with communities. regular feedback on the benefits host organisations observe should be sought from them. future programmes could then be designed to focus students’ efforts to expand on the benefits intentionally. opportunities for swift reporting of challenges need to be created to ensure that it can be addressed timeously. this could prevent the burdening of host organisations with additional work to minimise the negative effect of student behaviour. the exploratory descriptive design utilised in this study served to enable a basic understanding of the perceptions and experiences of host organisations of international service learning – a topic that has been underexplored. further studies that explore the identified themes regarding motives, emotional responses, race, benefits and challenges in more depth are recommended. as literature and the findings of this study concur that host organisations are not familiar with the practice of giving feedback and reflection, it is recommended that several or regular research studies be conducted to gradually break the culture of silence. with regard to further research, it is recommended that: the motives and expectations of host organisations be explored the long-term benefits and effect of international service learning on host organisations and communities be studied the extent to which community service learning contributes to social justice ideals be investigated a model for service learning that is socially just and underpinned by equal opportunities for all stakeholders involved should be codeveloped by host organisations, students and higher education institutions. conclusion this exploratory study contributes to the body of emerging literature that captures the voices of host organisations. it has been revealed that host organisations observe benefits to receiving international students – not only donations but also contributions to the academic development of children and experiences of interracial cooperation. by listening to host organisations, components of service learning programmes that require attention have also been identified. staff who engage directly with students are not clearly informed of the motives of students for visiting their organisations. the effects of hierarchical structures within host organisations and racial and language dynamics on service learning contexts have come to the fore, and discomfort regarding the emotional responses of students was discovered. highlighted challenges indicate how host organisations often have to take additional steps to deal with perceived negative behaviour of students and a lack of clarity on expectations. the reflections from host organisations have brought to the fore a range of valuable insights and issues, confirming that reflection opportunities for both students and host organisations must be created. if stakeholders in international service learning are serious about upholding the social justice ideals that higher education is promoting, the feedback from reflections should not merely satisfy curiosity but should be consciously applied to influence and improve service learning processes, practices and outcomes. acknowledgements the author would like to acknowledge the field workers for conducting the interviews and the participants for sharing their views and experiences. the author further acknowledges the valuable input of prof. ruth albertyn as critical reader. competing interest the author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contribution n.m. is the sole author of this article. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the data 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teach sociol. 2009;37:120–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055x0903700201 martin a, seblonka k, tryon e. the challenge of short-term service learning. in: stoecker r, tryon ea, editors. the unheard voices: community organizations and service learning. philadephia, pa: temple university press, 2009; p. 57–72. td journal july 2007.p65 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 39-52. from apathy to oblivion? the shameful history of heritage resource management in the vaal triangle marguerite prins· abstract: the vaal triangle is richly endowed with a prehistory that commenced c. 1.5 million years ago, when a succession of stone age cultures flourished in the fertile vaal-klip valley in the environs of the modern industrial city of vereeniging. the numerous stone artefacts scattered throughout the area, attest to these ancient settlements. during the iron age, the sandstone outcrops in the valley provided a durable surface for engraving – a manifestation of the burgeoning ability of humankind to give pictorial form to experiences and ideas. due to the efforts of a few concerned individuals, the prehistoric sites in the vaal-klip valley received international acclaim and recognition. in 1943 and 1944, the two most important stone age archaeological reserves were officially declared national monuments, followed by the redan rock engraving site in 1971. over an extended period of time the two bodies responsible for their maintenance, the local government and the official heritage body of the day, conducted extensive negotiations, but failed to save these sites. with the exception of redan, all the previously listed rock engraving sites, and the two stone age archaeological reserves, have been completely obliterated. redan has become progressively neglected and abandoned. this paper examines the impasse presently surrounding redan, and the failure of the relevant bodies, to conserve and sustain the non-renewable prehistoric culture remains of the vaal triangle. keywords: stone age, iron age, prehistoric culture remains, rock engravings, heritage resource management, south african heritage resources agency (sahra), intellectual property. disciplines: archaeology, history of art, anthropology, heritage studies, history and tourism studies the prehistoric roots of vereeniging rock, the most enduring element in the landscape, has been used since remotest times by humankind to create material culture, ranging from stone artefacts used for hunting and protection, to the enigmatic images engraved on the face of the rock. no doubt, attracted to the � marguerite prins, freelancer, previously senior chief education specialist (arts and culture), gauteng department of education, completed a phd in history at northwest university in 2005. an earlier draft of this article was presented at a conference of the south african visual arts historians (savah), at the vaal university of technology in september 2006. 40 waters of the vaal and the abundant supply of smoothly polished pebbles, successive stone age communities settled in the vaal-klip valley on the outskirts of modern vereeniging. the numerous stone artefacts scattered throughout this area, attest to these ancient settlements. the great antiquity of tool-making in the vaal area is confirmed by deacon and deacon (1999:82) ‘… most of the acheulean sites in the vaal basin probably date between 1 million and 500 000 years ago…’ the acheulean handaxes and cleavers of the earlier stone age, recovered at klipplaatdrift and duncanville, appear to have been made according to a preconceived design. they range in length from 100-200 cms, are frequently bifacial (shaped by flaking on both sides) and present a symmetrical appearance, suggesting that even during this early period, humankind was already endowed with a creative urge, the striving to go beyond the primary level of function. approximately 25 000 years ago these large bifaces were replaced throughout south africa by the flake industries of the middle stone age (msa). msa artefacts are characterised by a decrease in size, the removal of more flakes, deliberately faceted platforms, secondary preparation technique, and improved symmetry (see mitchell 2002:63). these finely crafted msa tools are scattered throughout the southern highveld, including the vereeniging area. the msa artefacts of the vaal-klip valley are aptly described by mason in precise geometrical terms as e.g. pyramidal, cuboid, circular and triangular (1962:253-262). mason (ibid: 283-279) further suggests that earlier generations of stone age peoples transmitted their methods to later generations who made small improvements in the original design, and that this creative process originated in the vaal-klip valley, before spreading to other areas in south africa. the art historian and philosopher, herbert read (1965:66), reflects on this progressive refinement of form in prehistoric stone industries: why out of the shapeless chaos of sticks and stones, or out of the handy and useful objects which were the first tools of primitive man, did form progressively emerge until it surpassed the utilitarian purpose of the shaped object and become form for the sake of form, that is to say the work of art? this ability to transform immutable stone into objects of astonishing beauty, would culminate about 20 000 years ago in the microlithic artefacts of the later stone age. stone tools were reduced to c. 15 mm in length (mason 1962:328), showing that the progressive miniaturisation had reached its logical end. the discovery of the grinding technique facilitated the shaping of stone into spheroids, the manufacture of ostrich eggshell beads and minute bone artefacts, and the manufacture of pigments from ochre and haematite. mitchell (2002:17) concisely describes this period as the ‘replacement of middle stone age working traditions by later stone age (lsa) microlithic technologies and the first unambiguous widespread signs of symbolic activity in the form of art and jewellery’. prins td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 39-52. the discovery of pictorial form at olieboompoort, some distance away from the vaal area, and dated to c. 870 ± 150 bp, mason recovered an abundance of minute stone artefacts, and fragments of bone incised with simple geometric patterns (1962:310). mason (ibid: 321) suggests that these ‘engraved designs provide a tenuous link with painting and engraving on rock’. in spite of many missing parts, it can be assumed that imperceptibly, and over a vast period of time, pictorial form was discovered – the ability to make meaningful marks on a hard surface, leaving a permanent record of beliefs, ideas and experiences. this unique human ability also manifested in the vaal-klip valley. according to the survey, that van riet lowe conducted of all known rock art sites in south africa, there were seven rock-engraving sites in the vereeniging area (van riet lowe 1952:12). a few engravings can still be located on a portion of the farm leeukuil, presently a small island in the vaal river near vanderbijlpark. however, the majority of these engravings are already submerged beneath the waters of the vaal. these isolated examples, plus the rock engravings of redan in the vaal-klip valley, are the only prehistoric culture remains of the once rich prehistoric legacy of the vaal triangle. the redan rock engraving site the engravings of redan occur on an isolated sandstone outcrop on the farm kookfontein, in what was formerly a coal-mining area. a distant mine dump and a number of graves dating from the 1960s (presumably of black miners), are all that remain of earlier, more prosperous times. the outcrop consists of 33 separate rock surfaces of varying heights and slopes down to a muddy stream that previously flowed freely into the klip river. the proximity of the engraving site to a stream is significant. a statistical analysis by fock and fock (1989:154) of the distribution of the rock engravings of the vaal-orange basin, shows that the greatest concentration of ‘geometrics … occurs on higher surfaces or uplands, but adjacent to small streams, springs … where water is a prime criterion …’. engravings occur on only 18 of these rock surfaces at redan. of the total number of 273 engraved images, 10 can be identified as animals; the remaining 263 images are geometrically constructed and totally non-representational (see prins 2005). the most outstanding feature of these ‘geometric’ images is the predominance of the circle; each of these circular images is unique. the elevated outcrop is a powerful presence in the flat highveld landscape; from this secure base, the ancient engravers could contemplate the wide expanse of veld, watch approaching game, and mark the rock face with countless circular images. the question heritage resource management in the vaal triangle 42 invariably asked is, how old are the engravings and who made them? modern khoisan do not engrave or paint on rock, and have no recollection of an ancestral rock art tradition. in spite of recent advances in radiocarbon dating, and the introduction of the new accelerator radiocarbon techniques, the dating of rock art, particularly rock engravings, remains problematic (see deacon & deacon 1999:1113; hall 1996:121-126). unresolved issues of age and authorship conclusive dating has only been possible in those rare instances where the art occurs on portable stones. dating is made possible by analysing the residues of organic material found in the occupation levels of excavated sites. the most spectacular example of this nature was found in 2002 in the blombos cave near stilbaai (see henshilwood 2002). the small piece of red ochre with its carefully incised pattern of regularly spaced chevrons, and dated 77 000 bp, effectively pushes back the period in which rock art is believed to have originated. it pre-dates the small mobiliary slab that was retrieved from wonderwerk cave near kuruman, and dated 10 000 bp (deacon & deacon 1999:164). in spite of these spectacular finds, there is consensus that the vast majority of rock art was produced within the past 2 000 years (mitchell 2002:194). no scientific dating has ever been done at redan. considering the absence of an established chronology, and based on the calibrated dates obtained at driekopseiland and klipfontein in the northern cape (whitley & annegarn 1994:194-196), and given the similarity between the engravings at these sites and at redan, it can be surmised that the rock engravings of redan span a period of a few hundred to possibly several thousand years. approximately 2 000 years ago, the relatively peaceful lives of the later stone age hunter-gatherers would be changed under the impact of two major events – the appearance of the khoekhoen (khoi) herders and their livestock, and the arrival of the bantu-speaking agropastoralists from the north (hall 1987:13; deacon & deacon 1999:195). traditionally, the vast majority of both rock paintings and rock engravings were ascribed to the san (lewis-williams 1989:8; hall 1987:215). however, recent research points increasingly to a khoekhoe or khoisan authorship for the majority of rock engravings. in a groundbreaking paper, smith and ouzman (2004) argue for a khoekhoe origin for the rock engravings of southern africa. referring to aspects such as site preference along water courses, geographic distribution, iconography and associated contents, the authors conclude that the rough-pecked, non-representational and geometric rock engravings of southern africa (and by implication also the rock engravings of prins td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 39-52. redan), were executed by khoekhoen herders (smith & ouzman 2004:515). a table is included, illustrating the range of geometric imagery in southern african herder rock art (ibid:505, fig. 5). although redan is not mentioned in the text, at least eight of the images are from redan – a further indication of a khoekhoe origin for the engravings. the historic record also confirms a strong khoekhoe presence on the southern highveld during the early 1800s. this area across the vaal, the trans-vaal, was penetrated by white people for the first time when the missionaries hodgson and broadbent established a mission station at matlwase (maquassi) near modern klerksdorp. the journals of the rev. t.l. hodgson, published for the first time in 1977 (cope (ed.) 1977), provide a detailed account of events on the southern-western highveld between 1823 and 1825. it also records the complexity of human interaction of the different ethnic and cultural groups during the difaqane. in the course of his evangelical work on the highveld, hodgson encountered no less than 10 different migratory groups, including the two nomadic groups that had lived in the area for thousands of years, the khoekhoen, and the san (khoisan). the group most frequently encountered were the korana branch of the khoekhoen. after the difaqane, the entire highveld was depleted of its once thriving communities and only small pockets of survivors remained. the first white trekboers moved into the area from 1836, bringing indentured khoisan with them, and influxes of nguni and sotho people also gradually returned (wilson & thompson (eds.) 1969:409-411). however, the cultural composition and group identities of pre-difaqane years was irrevocably and permanently destroyed (see also maggs 1976:310; 322). an industrial giant is born one of the first trekboers to settle in the vaal-klip valley was a c.a. pistorius, who gave his farm the appropriate name of klipplaatdrift to describe the huge quantities of stones along the banks of the klip river (leigh 1968:17). pistorius had chosen to settle on the same stretch of land where early man had created his first stone artefacts and taken the first tentative steps towards industrialisation. coal occurred on many of these early farms, and g.w. stow was instructed to buy a large number of these coal-bearing farms (mendelsohn 1991:11). the farm leeukuil was bought in 1880, and one year later, after much negotiation, the neighbouring farm of klipplaatdrift was also acquired (leigh 1968:17). the first mining operations commenced at bedworth colliery (later known as central mine) on a portion of leeukuil (willemse 1999:24-28). the rapidly growing population of heritage resource management in the vaal triangle 44 miners and shopkeepers were soon in urgent need of residential land, and in 1889, the first town plans were drawn up by j. rissik, and pegged out by e. jorissen (leigh 1968:21). portions of both leeukuil and klipplaatdrift were included in the town plans and on 29 july 1892, the village of vereeniging was officially proclaimed. the fact that ancient rock engravings occurred on both these farms (van riet lowe 1952:12), and the possibility of conserving them as valuable prehistoric culture remains of the past, did not occur to the government officials who drew up the plans. in the ensuing years, the many collieries and related steel industries would shape the cultural landscape, and in the process erase all signs of the area’s prehistoric past. all traces of these rock-engraving sites have since vanished. restitution and official recognition the rock engravings of redan on the farm kookfontein, were more fortunate. the rock engravings were probably saved from annihilation because they occurred directly next to springfield colliery, and the land was therefore not considered suitable for residential development. at the turn of the previous century and through the efforts of the vereeniging pioneer t.n. leslie, the rock engravings of redan were brought to the attention of the authorities in the cape (vaal teknorama archives depot 03/13558). in spite of the fact that no heritage legislation was yet in place in south africa, the engravings were visited and described by a number of eminent international visitors (see pöch 1908; johnson 1910). this publicity was instrumental in the promulgation of the first heritage legislation ever in south africa, the bushman relics protection act no. 22 of 1911. in the ensuing years this act would be revised and replaced several times (see rudner 1989). in 1934 the natural and historical monuments, relics and antiques act, no. 4, made it possible for the first time to declare particular sites national monuments (deacon 1991:230). this coincided with the appointment in 1935 of van riet lowe as the secretary of the historic monuments commission (hmc). prior to his appointment, van riet lowe had displayed considerable interest in the prehistory of the vaal area, and had accompanied a number of international delegates to the prehistoric sites in vereeniging (mason 1989:59). van riet lowe soon became a major force in the investigation, excavation and conservation of the prehistoric sites in the vereeniging area. due to his efforts, the kliprivier archaeological reserve in the klipplaatdrift area was proclaimed a national monument in 1943 (sahra file no. 9/2/277/9; 3/1/8/ver/5). one year later, in 1944, a second earlier stone age site in the same vicinity, the van riet lowe prins td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 39-52. archaeological reserve, was proclaimed. research undertaken in the 1960s by revil mason, confirmed the archaeological significance of both sites (see mason 1962). the plaque erected at the van riet lowe archaeological reserve included the following wording: millions of years ago, when the level of the vaal river was 320 metres higher, it flowed across the area and deposited gravels, which later became sources of material for tool-making for stone age people. the site yielded large quantities of stone implements which suggest that the people who made them were related to the early stone age occupants of the sterkfontein caves … (sahra file no. 9/2/277/5 (6/7 ver/2 or 3/1/3/ver/4). the plaque disappeared in the 1990s, and was probably stolen. it was never replaced. these two sites received international recognition and were frequently visited by delegates who removed large numbers of acheulean artefacts to museums in france and england (mason 1989:24). the relentless cycle of neglect, reparation and obliteration having put the tool-making ability of early man on the international map, van riet lowe turned his attention to the other great legacy of early humankind in the vereeniging area, the art-making ability. of the seven rock engraving sites in the area, redan was the most significant. after world war i (1914-1918), the need for agricultural land increased dramatically and the farm kookfontein, on which the engravings occur, was acquired by the vereeniging town council (vtc) and made available to a succession of small farmers, with no interest in the prehistoric site or obligation to maintain it. in future, the vtc and the official heritage body would be jointly responsible for the maintenance of the prehistoric sites of vereeniging. the site deteriorated rapidly and there was no effort to maintain it. the 1950s heralded a period of endless negotiations and wrangling between the two official bodies concerned, the hmc and the vtc. the former did not have the human resources or funds to intervene, the latter was unwilling to take responsibility for the site, or cover any costs involved. desperate to save redan from further neglect, van riet lowe made the fatal error of commissioning the removal from redan, of its largest and arguably most spectacular engraving. presently it is housed at the rock art research institute (rari) of the university of the witwatersrand. van riet lowe died in 1956 and was succeeded by b.d. (berry) malan. malan would continue the work that his predecessor had initiated in the vereeniging area. the fence around redan was repaired, and a small investigative committee was appointed by the council for scientific and industrial research (csir) to research the in situ preservation of the engravings. heritage resource management in the vaal triangle 46 unfortunately, none of the recommendations were implemented. in 1967, a grant was obtained from the csir, and the entire site was recorded for the first time (see willcox & pager 1967). malan worked tirelessly to improve heritage legislation and in 1969 the hmc was replaced by the national monuments council (nmc). staff was expanded, more funds were made available, and district representatives were appointed (rudner 1989:3). alerted by the willcox/pager report, malan sent prof. j.f. eloff to inspect redan. eloff was horrified at the appalling conditions at the site and expressed his shock in graphic terms: ‘… the rock surface on which the engravings occur is covered with the excrement of people, pigs and cattle … in some areas fires were lit … rocks are blackened and the surface has cracked…’ (vaal teknorama archives depot 122/2. correspondence 22 may 1970). this damning report had the desired effect. a strong, protective fence was erected around the site by the vtc and in 1971 redan was officially declared a national monument (sa parliament 1971). these favourable conditions declined sharply after malan’s death. within a few years the cycle of neglect and deterioration had set in once more – it would continue ad nauseum. in spite of redan’s new status as an officially proclaimed national monument, the site rapidly became neglected and abandoned. in the past, a few concerned individuals had always intervened on behalf of the prehistoric sites of vereeniging. this concern lasted as long as these individuals were alive, but declined sharply after their deaths. in 1978 the role of unofficial custodian of redan was taken over by baby deyzel, curator of the museum section of the public library and later director of the vaal teknorama museum. she became a passionate spokesperson for the preservation and maintenance of the three prehistoric sites in vereeniging and acted as mediator between the two official bodies concerned, the vtc and the nmc. at her insistence, a small delegation of nmc officials visited the three prehistoric sites in 1984, in order to evaluate their potential. the two stone age sites were found to have ‘very low potentials for development as site museums’ … and that ‘the public should be discouraged from visiting …’. (vaal teknorama archives depot 122/2. correspondence 2 aug. 1984). these findings sounded the death knell for both the kliprivier and van riet lowe archaeological reserves, and marked the onset of their total demise. although both sites are still indicated on the most recent maps of vereeniging, all traces of their former existence have vanished. at the kliprivier site, the ground has reverted to scrub, the crumbling stone monument has been stripped of its commemorative plaque, and the base is littered with broken bottles and rubbish. the van riet lowe site has been converted into an enclosed pen and pond for small animals. sheep graze and pigs wallow in mud, where the earliest known inhabitants of the area established prins td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 39-52. their stone industry, and where international delegates collected these artefacts for european museums in the 1940s. redan was more fortunate. the official delegation of 1984 found the site in ‘good condition’ and they recommended that protective roofing and a catwalk be installed across the engraved surface of the outcrop. these ambitious plans did not materialise, but deyzel continued exercising control over visits to the site, and ensured that regular payments towards its maintenance, were received from the nmc. sahra and the failure of heritage resource management in the vaal triangle in 1994 the democratically elected lekoa vaal metropolitan replaced the vtc, automatically inheriting the responsibility of redan. due to illness deyzel retired in 1997 and her post remained vacant. on 28 may 1999, the farm kookfontein that had been owned and managed by the vtc for almost 100 years, was sold to a private individual, k. badenhorst. the kopanong metropolitan substructure drew up the contract but failed to inform badenhorst of the significance of redan, or include a clause in the contract and title deeds of the conditions applying to heritage sites (badenhorst 2003). a month prior to this event, new heritage legislation was introduced and the south african heritage resources agency (sahra), replaced the previously designated nmc. a significant change in the act was the establishment of a system for grading sites as either national, provincial or local, and their assessment and management by sahra representatives (sa parliament 1999). no provincial heritage authority had been appointed, and badenhorst was effectively barred from taking any action. within months the site was severely vandalised, the gate and official plaque disappeared, and the protective fence was systematically removed. a cause for further concern was the extreme exfoliation of the rock surface and the possibility that some of the engravings had already disintegrated. many of the engravings are currently (2007) so severely weathered that it is difficult to distinguish them from the rock surface. appalled at these conditions, prof. johann tempelhoff of the north-west university (formerly pu for che) and a few concerned individuals including myself, formed a small informal committee in order to address the deplorable conditions at redan, and formulate a plan of action. alerted by these developments, members from sahra visited redan in may 2000, and informed badenhorst of the new legislation regarding heritage sites and his obligations as landowner (sahra file no. 9/2/ 277/17f, 3 aug. 2000). this was followed by a second visit in which the acting director of the local museum, the vaal teknorama and heritage resource management in the vaal triangle 48 members of rari also participated. the van riet lowe and kliprivier archaeological reserves were also visited, and found to be almost completely obliterated, and were deemed ‘to be of no interest for the general public …’. redan was found to have ‘a profusion of good quality engravings …’ (sahra file no. 9/2/277/17f, 21 sept. 2000). a feasible business plan for the management of redan was drawn up by rari (see sahra file no. 9/2/277/17f, 3 aug. 2001), and given to badenhorst. however, this did not solve his predicament as a provincial heritage resources authority had yet to be appointed to approve and monitor any practical activity at the site. in the ensuing months, correspondence passed between the authorities concerned and various plans of action were suggested and considered. nothing came of these plans and correspondence finally ceased. the status quo of redan remained unchanged. rapid changes in local government in the vaal triangle added further instability to the unsatisfactory conditions prevailing at redan. the sedibeng district council replaced the lekoa vaal metropolitan council. in his inaugural speech, peter skosana, the executive mayor, emphasised that the council was committed to regenerating the economy, and that cultural tourism was a potential source of income for both the white and black sectors of the community. a number of resources were mentioned, including the dutch reformed church (ngk) klipkerk, the place where the anglo boer war peace treaty was negotiated, and the sharpeville monument. no mention was made of redan, and the contribution of the khoisan peoples and the potential of this prehistoric site as an important cultural tourism destination was overlooked (vaal teknorama archives depot. sedibeng district council documents file. 16 feb. 2001). this omission was probably because no single ethnic or cultural group in the vaal triangle had sought ownership and claimed intellectual property rights of redan. between 2000 and 2005 all communication ceased between the parties concerned and the site rapidly reverted to its former state of neglect. in the past, the two main role players, the national monuments commission and the vereeniging town council, had been engaged in endless negotiations, and had displayed an inability to conceptualise a practical plan of action. in spite of a democratically elected new local government and encompassing heritage legislation, history was repeating itself. the demise of redan? in october 2005 the farm kookfontein changed hands once more and was sold to purple rain properties and their subsidiary ocon bricks, prins td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 39-52. with the intention of mining clay for the manufacture of bricks. fully aware of their obligations as landowners of a property on which a heritage site occurs, and eager to comply with heritage legislation, jan viljoen of ocon bricks arranged a meeting between all interested parties. the meeting took place in december 2005 and included an official from the vaal teknorama, prof. tempelhoff of north-west university, and myself. sahra was not represented. as an interim measure, and in order to protect the site from further vandalism, viljoen undertook to execute and finance the following: erect a steel palisade fence around the engraving site; clean the site of weeds and debris; and provide a proper public entrance (at present, access to the site is through the grounds of the adjacent springfield school). a proposal to this effect was submitted to sahra on 25 january 2006, and further instructions and guidance were awaited (viljoen, april 2006). sahra failed to respond. during the 2006 biennial meeting of asapa (association of southern african professional archaeologists), 9-13 april 2006, i attempted to discuss the urgency of the matter with a representative of sahra (kitto 2006). the response was negative and non-committal. after numerous telephonic conversations sahra finally responded in september 2006 (viljoen, sept. 2006). viljoen’s offer of an interim fence was rejected and he was instructed to comply in all respects with the regulations and requirements as set out in section 35(4) of the new heritage act (sa parliament 1999). in effect, a special permit was required before any material at the site (e.g. debris and weeds) could be disturbed or altered in any way whatsoever. upon acceptance of such a permit, the landowner is then required to follow a number of prescribed procedures – and cover all costs involved. these procedures include the following: appointing an approved heritage practitioner to conduct a comprehensive heritage impact assessment; drawing up a heritage management plan; and providing detailed specifications and architectural drawings of the proposed alterations. according to ocon bricks (viljoen, sept. 2006), this entire operation will cost approximately r100 000 – an exorbitant figure as compared to the cost of erecting a simple palisade fence around the site. due to what is perceived as the unreasonable and unrealistic demands of sahra, ocon bricks are no longer prepared to participate in the conservation of redan and have withdrawn their support. consequently, all communication between ocon bricks and sahra has abruptly come to a standstill. the battle that has raged since the 1940s between local and governmental institutions, regarding the conservation of redan, has finally ceased. heritage resource management in the vaal triangle 50 conclusion in order to address this impasse, existing institutions and persons that have in the past, displayed an interest in redan, such as the vaal teknorama and the vaal triangle campus of north-west university, should continue in their efforts to create and foster public awareness. the guidance and active participation of sahra and of the local government should be pursued. finally, the constructing and reinforcing of group identity – especially a khoisan interest group in the vaal area, should be explored. visits to redan continue to take place on an ad hoc basis, loosely supervised by the interested parties themselves. however, the relentless cycle of neglect continues unabated. the site is overgrown with weeds and the engravings are littered with debris. tall grass is rampant between the rocks, obscuring many of the engravings. an ominous silence hangs over the site; the only sound is that of water pouring into a huge sinkhole that caved in recently, immediately next to the engraving site. this poses a further threat to the conservation of these valuable non-renewable prehistoric culture remains. like the wild animals that once roamed freely in the area, and have since disappeared, the demise of redan is imminent. references badenhorst, k. 2003. personal interview. 17 april, vereeniging. cope, r.l. 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(eds.) contested images: diversity in southern african rock research : 189-197. johannesburg : witwatersrand university press. willcox, a.r. & pager, h.l. 1967. the petroglyphs of redan, transvaal. south african journal of science. nov., 492-498. willemse, m. 1999. die vestiging en uitbouing van munisipale bestuur en voorstedelike ontwikkeling in vereeniging tot 1992. unpublished ma thesis : potchefstroom university for christian higher education. wilson, m. & thomson, l. (eds.) 1969. the oxford history of south africa. volume 1. south africa to 1870. london : fisher unwin. wells and wcs – sa and finland 103 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 a short comparative history of wells and toilets in south africa and finland johannes haarhoff, petri juuti and harri mäki* abstract: this paper describes the technological development of wells and toilets and the cultural practices related to them in two countries, south africa and finland, from the middle ages to modern times. wells and toilets have always been linked to the well-being of humans and they still are the most common technical systems in the service of mankind. they are simple to build, but if they are constructed improperly or stop functioning properly, they may endanger the health of both humans and the environment. the solutions used for getting clean water or for disposal of excrement have always been a matter of life and death for human settlements. located on opposite sides of the world, the climate and natural resources of south africa and finland are very different. however, surprisingly similar solutions, for example wind turbines to pump water, have been used in rural areas. furthermore, urbanization and industrialization occurred in both countries at approximately the same time in the 19th century, which caused increasing environmental problems in finnish and south african urban areas. the transition to modern water supply and waste disposal systems was a very demanding process for municipal administrations in both countries. key words: urban environment, wells, toilets, environmental history, south africa, finland although south africa and finland, as a result of their respective geographic localities, appear to share little in common, there are, surprisingly enough, some interesting similarities. both are countries with climatic extremes; south africa with its aridity and heat; and finland with its extreme arctic conditions. in a way, these extremes are comparable in terms of human sustenance. the most arid province in south africa (the northern cape) and the northernmost province of finland (lapland) both cover 30 per cent of the surface area of their respective countries and both have an extremely low population density of 2 persons per square kilometre (table 1). however, there td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 103-130 *�� johannes haarhoff is �rofessor of civil engineering at the university of johannesburg; johannes haarhoff is �rofessor of civil engineering at the university of johannesburg; johannes haarhoff is �rofessor of civil engineering at the university of johannesburg;university of johannesburg; south africa. �etri juuti is adjunct �rofessor of history at the university of tampere, finland. harri m�ki is a doctoral student at the university of tampere, finland.harri m�ki is a doctoral student at the university of tampere, finland. doctoral student at the university of tampere, finland. haarhoff, juuti and mäki 104 are significant differences between the water resources of the two countries (table 2). �rovince �opulation (million) area (km2) density (#/km2) northern cape free state north-west western cape eastern cape mpumalanga limpopo kwazulu-natal gauteng south africa 0.823 2.707 3.669 4.524 6.437 3.123 5.274 9.426 8.837 44.820 361830 129480 116320 129370 169580 79490 123910 92100 17010 1219090 2 21 32 35 38 39 43 102 520 37 lapland oulu eastern finland western finland southern finland finland 0.199 0.453 0.604 1.829 2.037 5.122 98946 61572 60720 80975 34378 336591 2 7 10 23 59 15 table 1 comparative population density for south african and finnish provinces1 a comparison of rainfall indicates how much water resources diverge. finland has a fairly uniform annual rainfall distribution (450 mm to 650 mm) whereas the annual rainfall in south africa varies between less than 100 mm to more than 2000 mm. a large part of south africa is considered to be arid (21 per cent has less than 200 mm annual rainfall) or semi-arid (44 per cent receives between 200 and 500 mm/year). therefore some 65 per cent of the country does not receive enough rainfall for successful dryland farming. in finland a much higher percentage of rainfall (55 per cent as opposed to 7 per cent) appears as surface runoff after evaporation and infiltration, consequently leaving finland richly endowed with natural lakes and streams. there are approximately 56 000 lakes larger than 1 km2 and the total number of all water bodies, such as rivers and lakes, is approximately 188 000 (honkavirta 1998, 62; myllyntaus 2004, 11-12; �ajula & triipponen 2003, 9-10; haarhoff & tempelhoff 2004). in terms of renewable water resources, south africa has only 45 per cent of the water of finland, despite being four times larger. when factoring in the respective populations, finland has 18 times more water available per capita than south africa. 1 fromfrom www.statoids.com, accessed on may 1, 2005. note that there are small differences in population numbers and land areas when compared to table 1, which do not impact on the general trends demonstrated. wells and wcs – sa and finland 105 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 it is hardly surprising that south africa is already exploiting a significant part of its total water resources. in the important vaal river catchment area, which supplies the heartland of south africa’s manufacturing, mining and power industries, the critical limits of the natural run-off had been reached already in the 1980s and thus massive interbasin transfer schemes from other regions in south africa, as well as from the neighbouring country of lesotho, had to be implemented (haarhoff & tempelhoff 2004). while south africa is already exploiting a massive 32 per cent of the theoretical maximum of its water resources, finland uses only of 2.1 per cent of its theoretical maximum. sa finland sa / fin �o�ulation density a surface area (km2) a �opulation (million) a �opulation density (#/km2) 1 221 040 43.309 35 304 590 5.172 17 4.01 8.37 2.09 water resources h rainfall, including snow (mm) b runoff (mm) b �ercentage runoff a total water availability (km3/a) 475 35 7% 45 575 318 55% 107 0.83 0.10 0.45 �er ca�ita water availability h groundwater availability (m3/a) b surface water availability (m3/a) a total water availability (m3/a) 112 1042 1154 366 20902 21268 0.31 0.05 0.05 �er ca�ita water use h groundwater use (m3/a) b surface water use (m3/a) c total water use (m3/a) (2000) 67 299 366 (1995) 39 400 439 1.72 0.75 0.83 resource ex�loitation b groundwater exploitation b surface water exploitation b total water exploitation (2000) 59.8% 28.7% 31.7% (1995) 10.7% 1.9% 2.1% water use �ercentage domestic use �ercentage industrial use �ercentage agricultural use d (2000) e 14% f 21% g 65% c (1991) 12% 85% 3% table 2 statistical comparison between south africa and finland. haarhoff, juuti and mäki 106 a from table 4.2 in water for people – water for life2 b calculated c from the earthtrends environmental database3 d from table 2.3 in national water resourcde strategy� e arbitrarily taken as 50% of urban/rural consumption f taken as consumption for mining, power generation and 50% of urban/rural g includes forestry h from the global groundwater information system5 in the context of this study, it is more instructive to view groundwater resources separately from surface water resources. in both countries, the renewal rate for groundwater is much lower than for surface water, but the relative exploitation of groundwater resources is higher. in south africa, the exploitation rates for groundwater and surface water are 60 per cent and 29 per cent of the sustainable maximum respectively, while the same rates for finland are 11 per cent and 2 per cent. in south africa, about 20 per cent of all water is derived from groundwater. in finland, about 60 per cent of the potable water supplied is derived from groundwater. wells and boreholes form the backbone of rural water supply in both countries; there are about 600 000 wells in finland serving single households or holiday homes (salonen 2002) and more than 225 000 boreholes in the national south african groundwater database, which only reflects a part of the total. two-thirds of south africa’s surface area is depends primarily on groundwater due to the lack of perennial streams. (http://www. dwaf.gov.za/geohydrology/databases/databases. htm) groundwater is therefore of indisputable importance to both countries. the efficiency of national water management practices is measured by the water poverty index (w�i). the w�i incorporates the following aspects: water resources available to the population access of the population to water supply and sanitation capacity (in terms on income and development) of the population to exploit the available water resources efficiency of water use environmental aspects such as water quality, pollution and biodiversity (lawrence & co. 2003). the w�i evaluated 147 countries, and the relative position of south africa and finland in the different categories is shown in table 3. finland was ranked highest in w�i, while south africa is in the bottom third of the countries included. a closer look at the w�i components, however, 2 �ublished by unesco (march 2003). accessed on may 1, 2005 at�ublished by unesco (march 2003). accessed on may 1, 2005 at http://www.unesco. org/water/wwap/wwdr/table_contents.shtml 3 �ublished by the world resources institute. accessed on may 1, 2005 at�ublished by the world resources institute. accessed on may 1, 2005 at http:// earthtrends.wri.org/country_profiles/index.cfm?theme=2 4 �ublished by department of water affairs (september 2004). accessed on may 2, 2005�ublished by department of water affairs (september 2004). accessed on may 2, 2005 at http://www.dwaf.gov.za/documents/�olicies/nwrs/sep2004/pdf/ chapter2.pdf 5 �ublished by the international groundwater assessment centre. accessed at http://�ublished by the international groundwater assessment centre. accessed at http:// igrac.nitg.tno.nl/system.html • • • • • wells and wcs – sa and finland 107 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 reveals that in terms of their natural water availability (which they really cannot do anything about) neither score that well, but their best ranking is in the environmental category, with south africa at position 36 and finland in position 1. all in all, the index reveals that the level of water management in finland is excellent and fairly good in south africa, given geographical and developmental constraints. south africa finland resources access capacity use environment 126 86 95 72 36 34 6 13 57 1 overall w�i 103 1 table 3 the water poverty index, as calculated for south africa and finland. all the values reported are the ranking of the 147 countries included in the survey, with 1 being the country with the highest score and 147 the country with the lowest score. this article focuses in particular on two aspects of water management, wells and toilets, comparing the early experiences of both countries. wells in the countryside the earliest sites where a safe supply of water was found were springs and freshwater streams such as small creeks. not just humans, but also other mammals prefer flowing water and some even dig their own water holes – for example, elephants dig quite deep well-like holes in dry areas. on average an elephant needs to drink approximately 160 litres per day (ℓp/d); therefore the need for an adequate water source is obvious. the pit well, a simple deep water hole without any fortified walls, is the forerunner of the dug well. water was taken from this sort of well by whatever means were available, usually just using simple vessels. one possibility was to form a chain of water carriers – this enabled the drawing of water from deep underground without advanced technology. in this way it was possible to reach water lying tens of metres deep, but then it was also necessary to get air down to those who were at the lowest level lifting the water. water has been lifted from the dug well using the means available at the time, first with a bucket or a similar vessel, or possibly with the help of a rope or other tools. different types of wells are described in table �. haarhoff, juuti and mäki 108 type of well techincal realization i natural spring & bottomless barrel in spring no construction or very simple construction ii pit well pit in the ground, no construction or very simple construction iii dug well place and construction planned, built shaft, place carefully chosen by observing terrain iv tube well pipe is pushed into the ground, place and construction planned, requires precise knowledge of ground water location v drill well pipe is drilled on rock foundation, place and construction planned, requires precise knowledge of ground water location table 4 wells by their technical realization (categorization p. juuti). by approximately 3000 bc, the draw well with a counterpoise lift was invented in babylonia and it was for over 2000 years the common and effective means to draw water. in egypt it was called a shaduf and was used to lift water from rivers. traditionally a draw well was built from wood, but some iron fortification might also have been used. however, the column, the counterpoise lift, the bucket pole and the bucket were wooden. if there was a need for a counterweight for the bucket, it was usually made of a heavier material. a windlass or winch was used when the well was very deep whereas the counterpoise lift was mainly used for shallower draw wells. they were followed by wind turbines, crank reels and hand pumps. the first tube wells in finland were built at the end of the 19th century. gradually the counterpoise lift and wind turbines were replaced by the electric pump or the drilled well. (juuti & wallenius 2005, 19) (see also table 5) type of well method of lifting chronological order i natural spring & bottomless barrel in spring hand, scoop, bucket ii pit well hand, scoop, bucket iii dug well couwell & rope, bucket pole, hand pump vi draw well counterpoise lift counterweight v windlass well whinch or reel vi tube & drill well pressure of the groundwater formation or pump vii wells with wind engine wind power, rotor viii wells operated with engine combustion engine, electricity table 5 wells by method of lifting water (categorization p. juuti). wells and wcs – sa and finland 109 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 in the countryside, watering livestock formed the major part of the water consumption. thus, if possible, the well was placed closer to the cowshed than the house itself – humans need only a few litres of water to drink per day. according to estimates made by the finnish committee for household efficiency, the distance between the cowshed and the well was nevertheless approximately 50m in the 1930s. likewise the sauna (the finnish washing place), was often placed close to the well to ease the burden of carrying water. a study by the finnish ministry of agriculture shows that wells were the most common source of water in the countryside in the early 1950s and that only seven per cent of the households were connected to a water supply pipe. the most commonly used methods to draw water were a bucket, a hand pump and a winch (katko 1988, 8–11; �aulaharju 1958, 32–33; �aulaharju 1906, 7). the early indigenous nomads of south africa had no need to construct elaborate water supply systems. when the very dry areas of the northern cape �rovince had good rains and vegetation the nomads moved in, and left when the drier seasons arrived. from the eighteenth century, white colonist farmers copied this practice, with a large-scale “trek” every year with their cattle and sheep to follow the available water and vegetation. water was taken from surface depressions and streams immediately following the rains and from shallow dug wells in river-beds for the weeks following. as communities settled, the need for permanent water supplies became essential. for the very dry regions, however, the digging of a permanent well represented a large investment in time and effort, which would require land tenure and secure ownership. where farmers could get their title to the farmland, the water supply systems were developed from the eighteenth century. in some of the very dry regions, the land stayed under government control as the so-called “crown lands” and here the water supplies were not developed until as late as the early twentieth century, when the farms were eventually sold to individual owners (van der merwe, 1945a, 209). the digging of wells required much effort to get through the hard banks of stone and rock. besides shovels, picks and chisels, heating the rock with fire and quenching with water was an early method of getting through (van der waal-braaksma & ferreira, 1986, 63). later, some fairly ineffective home-made explosives were tried, but things only got better in the 1880s when the newly established south african mining industry, as a side effect, made it possible to procure dynamite. digging the wells was slow, typically requiring about three months for well with a depth of 45m – equivalent to 0.5m p/d. getting water and other supplies from far away to the well-diggers during the many months when the wells were being dug, presented a major logistical problem. moreover, only 20-25 per cent of the attempted wells struck water and the others had to be aborted (van der merwe, 1945b, 44). haarhoff, juuti and mäki 110 illustration 1. a typical shallow pit well in south africa, showing the platform from which the water was drawn. where the water was close to the surface, a typical well was a dug well, 23m deep and about 5-6m in diameter, encircled by a low wall to keep the animals from the water. inside the well, a flat stone just above the water level would serve as a small platform from where a person would scoop the water with a bucket and empty it directly into a small channel leading to a drinking-trough outside the wall, where the animals would drink (see illustrations 1 and 2). when the well was deeper, up to about 5-10m, a lever was used, similar to the ancient babylonian design, or a series of steps would be carved to allow the “human chain” to lift the water by progressively passing on the bucket. deeper than this, the buckets had to be winched out with a primitive reel (see illustration 3). an interesting variation on this method was to use two to four donkeys on the surface to hoist the bucket by pulling the rope over the reel. by leading the donkeys away from the well, the bucket would be lifted. after the bucket had been emptied and dropped back into the well, the donkeys were brought closer to the well and the cycle was repeated. this use of animal-power allowed the use of much larger buckets of between 45 and 90ℓ (van der merwe, 1945a, 257). wells and wcs – sa and finland 111 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 illustration 2. water being hand drawn from a shallow pit well inwater being hand drawn from a shallow pit well in south africa, and transferred to a livestock watering trough. typical of south african wells in the remote rural areas, was the reliance on hand-made equipment using local materials. home-made explosives were packed in a bottle, provided with a fuse and sealed with beeswax. buckets were made of canvas and water-proofed with animal fat. a circular ring was fixed to the top of the bag to keep the bucket ‘open’, with a second ring sometimes at the bottom. to simplify the emptying of the large buckets when the donkeys were used, a canvas spout was fixed to the bottom of the bucket, long enough to be tied to the handle haarhoff, juuti and mäki 112 of the bucket while it was being filled and lifted – a very simple valve! buckets were sometime made of more durable leather and stored in the cool, moist area immediately above the water in the well to extend their lives, but only lasted eight months at the most (van der merwe, 1945a, 258). illustration 3. a deeper well (in south africa) with a reel, datinga deeper well (in south africa) with a reel, dating back to 1880. when a well with good water was found, special measures had to be taken to ensure that different herds of sheep could be adequately watered without getting mixed up. a simple method to extend the watering capacity was to have two or more watering-troughs extending from the same well, to allow more than one herd at the well at a time. a more elaborate arrangement was to dig more than one well close to each other, thus increasing the water production rate. the importance of such wateringpoints are reflected in the indigenous languages of south africa – a strong water source was known as ‘the womb’ and an area which allowed more than one well at the same point was known as a ‘stomach’ (van der merwe, 1945b, 105, 259). in south africa wells with wind turbines replaced all the other types of wells outside of urban areas at the beginning of the 1870s. the first wind turbines were imported from england, america and australia (walton, 1954, 155). the drawn-out war between the boer republics and britain, known as the anglo boer war (1899 and 1902) brought agricultural development to a practical standstill. in 1903, soon after the war and in the time of rebuilding the country’s agricultural production capacity, a devastating drought struck south africa. this accelerated the introduction of the wind turbine and accounted for the fact that wind turbines were recorded for the first time in 1904 by the cape census, which reported wells and wcs – sa and finland 113 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 that in the cape colony there were 1275 wind turbines and 364 water wheels in use. by 1914 there was, for example, one wind turbine for every 4000 ha in the reddersburg district in the free state �rovince. in the drier parts such as bushmanland in the northern �rovince, the development was slower and by 1945 a farmer with one wind turbine for every 5000 ha was considered to be fortunate. according to the south african agricultural census in 1926, the number of wind turbines on the country’s farms was 44 000, in 1946 101 000 and in 1955 151 000. in 1942 the first wind turbines were locally manufactured and the climax company alone (there were others as well) had manufactured 150000 units by 1974. (archer, 2000, 682; walton, 1954, 155; van der merwe, 1945b, 51). in recent times, technology has evolved further and the use of submersible pumps in boreholes and solar power spread into the karoo (a dry area in central south africa) during the 1980s and 1990s. a wind turbine (illustrations �a and �b) is very reliable and usually requires very little maintenance. wind power is still used on a large scale in south africa. in 2003 there were about 300 000 wind turbines on farms across south africa, second in number only to australia. nowadays even in the most desolate wastelands of the karoo, it is hard to find a place where a wind turbine cannot be seen. these turbines make many of the most arid parts of south africa habitable. they are primarily used for watering livestock and supplying communities with water. (http:// www.africaguide.com/facts.htm, 12.5.2005; south africa yearbook 2003/2004, 481). illustration 4a wing of wind turbine (length more than 1m), at wing of wind turbine (length more than 1m), at lihasula estate, near tampere. haarhoff, juuti and mäki 114 illustration 4b a typical wind turbine in the northwestern cape, south africa, on the farm nanibees, brandvlei district. the wind turbine, also known as a windpump in south africa, was manufactured in the industrial city of vereeniging in the mid-twentieth. after having fallen into disuse it was recently restored, with good effect by the owner of the farm, mr. francis visagie. (photograph: magda morrison (2003) with additional information by theo venter), editor. first urban wells and toilets compared to the rural areas with scattered settlements, castles and cities were more densely populated – the same space was sometimes shared even with a large number of livestock. securing the water supply was of utmost importance when the layout of a castle or fortress was planned. a location near water provided a good means of transportation and on the other hand also protection against enemies. it was necessary to get water from the surroundings or preferably even inside the walls, otherwise the general safety would have been endangered significantly under siege conditions. to have a well was important also in case of fire, for it was a constant threat even in times of peace (juuti & wallenius 2005, 69; about sieges: see syv�nne 2004, 295-303). the first toilets did not require much technical construction; they were just holes in the ground. in the world today, sadly, the most common type in use is still the most primitive – a hole dug in the ground. an wells and wcs – sa and finland 115 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 evolved, finnish version of this latrine hole is riuku – with supporting, vertical logs on both sides of the hole and horizontal log(s) attached to them. it’s been used widely by the finnish army, especially during world war ii, and the riuku was also introduced to later generations of young finns doing their military service (juuti & wallenius 2005, 29; katko 1996, 96). riuku was designed so that even several people could sit on it. a popular story from wartime finland tells how the soviet red army troops were sometimes beaten just because of the lack of good sanitation. finns always had their riuku further away from their camps and sources of water. the red army was not as careful and at times the fighting condition of the troops was quite poor. there is a grain of truth in this story, for during military campaigns diseases spread among the troops with devastating results. a good example of successful maintenance is the army of the roman empire, which took good care to provide vital water supply and sanitation (syv�nne 2004, 104). upgrading doesn’t always mean improving, for the most dangerous type of toilet is the “modern” water closet, which is connected to a sewer without wastewater treatment facilities. this kind of system had caused fatal epidemics and the pollution of small lakes on many occasions. an englishman, joseph bramah, is usually named as the developer of the first actual water closet, in the year 1786 (juuti 2001, 38; wijmer 1992, 60-62). the compost toilet is the most environmentally friendly, especially the dry compost model in which urine is collected separately. urine diluted with water can be used as fertiliser and composted solid waste can be used for soil improvement. the amount of urine produced by one individual in a year could be used to produce 200kg of grain. this method not only recycles the nutrients in the urine but it also prevents them from getting into the groundwater and watercourses. other advantages worth mentioning are that the whole process is quite easily managed by the users themselves and the separation of urine and faeces also reduces the offensive smell. the compost toilet can thus offer a possible solution to the problem of famine often coupled with poor hygiene. it’s notable that in the nineteenth century there were already dry compost and compost toilets in cities joined with different transportation systems. choosing the water closet for the primary system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century effectively stalled the product development of dry compost and compost toilets for over a hundred years (mattila 2005, 41; juuti & wallenius 2005, 29). (see table 6) haarhoff, juuti and mäki 116 toilet method consequences / results i �it none or covered with soil waste won’t compost ii outhouse & wc, no waste treatment none leakage in ground or into body of water, environmental hazard, wells and watercourses endangered iii transportation of waste within organization centralized collection of waste depends on further treatment iv wc, flush water led into watercourse waste flushed and led into watercourse catasrophal, watercourse and in wost case drinking water contaminated and polluted v wc with precipitation tank heavier matter sinks to the bottom of the precipitation tank (one or multiplepiece) refinement only partial vi wc with closed wastewater tank waste flushed into tank, then collected and transported to the network of sewer works good vii wc with filtering on the ground often with the precipitation tank result varies viii wc and treatment plant small local waste treatment plant result varies ix wc, connected to the sewer network wastewater treatment plant advantages of bigger units: better treatment result x compost toilet composting controlled recycling of units table 6 toilets – method and consequences of treating the waste. (categorization p. juuti). the oldest remaining wells and toilets are usually found in castles – both in finland and south africa. the castle of good hope in cape town in south africa provided shelter and protection to soldiers and administrative staff, but it also provided good water from its wells. cape town was established by the dutch in the seventeenth century and is the oldest european-style city in south africa. it is situated by the sea and is the centre of the second largest metropolitan complex in south africa. in the castle there is one big dug well, the so-called kat well and a couple of smaller ones. the kat well is, according to werz, the oldest still remaining well in south africa and dates back to the year 1682 (werz 2002, 97). the kat well had a reel and its walls were made of stone, which was a quite typical method of construction. building this type of well requires quite good planning, expert builders and resources such as money or manpower (juuti & wallenius 2005, 12-15). originally the kat well was built in the centre of the castle and it was about 10m deep and 2m in diameter. in 1691, a long building was constructed across the castle courtyard and the well was left inside, but it was still accessible to the inhabitants (werz 2002, 95-96). later, in the early 1700s, the kat well wells and wcs – sa and finland 117 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 was operated by hand pumps. water was lifted by the pumps to an iron water tank with a capacity of about three cubic metres and from there it was distributed through pipes around the castle. another important well was in the kitchen, equipped with a water tank and also a heating place and tap for hot water. in cape town fountains (illustration 5) were erected in different parts of the town already in 1699, for slaves to draw water for their masters (report on cape town water supply by chas. r barlow, october 1914, 3/ct, 4/1/1/90, ref f134/4, in cape town archives depot). illustration 5 fountain from cape town (source: p. juuti).source: p. juuti). haarhoff, juuti and mäki 118 in finland, turku castle was founded at the mouth of the aurajoki river in the 1280s. finland was a part of sweden from early 1200s to 1809 and castles built in that era served the administrative purposes of the swedish crown. turku castle was originally built in an open form of a fortified camp and the first well dates back to this era too. when the castle was extended, the kitchen was built around the well and it was kept in use. up to this day its water is clear and of good quality and this well is considered to be the oldest remaining in finland. in the early fpirteenth century, the fortified camp was built into a closed castle and then it was divided into a main castle and a bailey. (http://www.tkukoulu.fi/ tiimalasi/tl-rakennushist.html; gardberg 1959, 7-8) in the mid-sixteenth century turku castle was found to be old-fashioned, deteriorated and an inconvenient place in which to live. the castle was renovated into a handsome renaissance-style dwelling in 1556–1563 and extended to its current size. water pipes made of lead and copper were installed from kakolanm�ki hill to the castle and this project took 4000 man-hours in 1561–63. several more wells were also built to satisfy the increasing need for water. one of them, with timber frame and stone-lined walls is still to be seen in the courtyard (stenroos & al 1989, 60; gardberg 1959, 309-310; http://www.nba.fi/fi/turun_linna; �uhakka & grönros 1995, 28-29; gardberg 1961, 7–10). (illustration 6) illustration 6. well from turku castle. (source: p. juuti) (source: p. juuti) water also has a protective purpose in the castles in south africa and finland. the castle of the cape of good hope has a moat that was finished wells and wcs – sa and finland 119 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 shortly after 1720 and in finland, for example, the safety of the h�me castle was increased in the 1770–80s by digging massive moats around the castle. there were several toilets in turku castle. from the fifteenth century onwards there were three: the privy in the gatekeeper’s chamber (located in the corner of the gate tower), one in the prison and the third was located in the north wing. these three were connected to the same toilet drainage system and formed an independent system. the king, other noble residents and high officials had their own privies and one is still left in the medieval great hall. these privies were usually constructed on top of the corbels or supportive beams, a sort of a bay toilet, being located partially outside the wall. however, in the turku castle, most of these privies in the quarters of the aristocracy were built completely inside the walls. the chamber of the young noblemen from the 1540s is located near the king’s hall and it had access to the bay toilet (built on beams). similar privies were attached to the castellan’s chamber and the queen’s hall (�uhakka & grönros 1995, 40, 48, 57, 59, 63, 75). none of these types of privies have survived to the present day; fires and time have taken their toll, but they can be seen in the scale model of the castle. however, other types of privies have been preserved quite well in this castle. ordinary soldiers did not have decent outhouses – in finland, lakes and moats were used for this purpose as was the sea in south africa, but at least later the commandant of the castle of good hope had a private toilet. elsewhere in the old city of cape town wealthy people relied on water carriers and slaves to empty chamber pots. lots of complaints were made that slaves did not do their job well in this regard. they should have emptied the buckets in the sea but instead they emptied them even in front of doors and into streets. viktor de klock describes this practice: one of the most maddening habits of the slaves was that of emptying sanitary tubs into the canals, and frequently even before other people’s doors, instead of into the sea” (cited in fehr 1955, 13). the fiscal and two burgher councillors acted twice a year as sanitary inspectors, but these inspections were only partly effective, since they were usually announced in advance and since the householder’s responsibility was limited to seeing that the area immediately in front of his door was clean. (shorten 1963, 54). it is easy to criticise such habits, but the task was not a pleasant one. it is likely that the adoption of new, improved techniques was slowed down by the fact that the owners did not have to do this duty themselves (juuti & wallenius 2005, 136). wells and toilets in the 1800s the construction of a dug well requires planning and to some extent expertise in building. walls are usually made of stone or wood. wells with haarhoff, juuti and mäki 120 stone walls are typically round. wooden walls for wells were traditionally built in a rectangular form (similar to the timber block construction for houses) and their shape was typically square. dug wells are suitable in sand, gravel and moraine areas, where groundwater is closer to surface. the dug well is still the most common type used in the world. its diameter varies usually between 1-5m and the depth varies from a few metres to more than 20m. the best location for a dug well is on the lower slope of a ridge somewhat higher than the base (juuti & wallenius 2005, 15). at the end of 1800s the water closet (wc) was considered an improvement that saved people from unpleasant tasks – such as emptying a chamber pot in the morning. but not everybody rushed to exploit this new invention. the wealthy burghers of turku could hire people cheaply from the countryside and when there was a servant to empty the pots in the morning, there was no hurry to get a water closet, m. brunow-ruola explains. in these circles the wc and other facilities that eased everyday life were not acquired until the lady of the house was alone taking care of the household or had perhaps only one servant (brunow-ruola 2001, 234). the most commonly used sources of water available to the inhabitants of cape town, prior to 1811, were springs on the slopes of table mountain or a fountain on the northern side of the grand �arade. another fountain was at the lower end of caledon square and was mainly for military use. in 1811 the governor ordered iron pipes to be laid along the principal streets (shorten 1963, 96-97). in 1834 there were 36 public fountains in the town area and it was reported that so much water was wasted from them that it would be advisable to erect public pumps (report on cape town water supply by chas. r barlow, october 1914, 3/ct, 4/1/1/90, ref f134/4, in cape town archives depot). durban was established in 1835 by mostly british settlers in the middle of nguni territory on the eastern coast of south africa. later on, indian immigrants formed an important part of the town’s population. there was plenty of water, but its quality was questionable. in 1854 bishop colenso complained that the water was the greater devil in durban, because wells were not dug deep enough to keep organic material from polluting them. the only solution was to drink rainwater or the excellent water from the umgeni river aboput 7km away (hattersley 1956, 96-97). in 1856, the construction of an embankment at the head of the water above the umgeni brickfields improved the sanitary condition of the town. (ellis 2002, 38) the first wells in durban were probably private; the earliest public well possibly dates from the year 1864. (illustration 7) its walls were made of alternate double rows of brick and single rows of slate. it was situated in berea road near the intersection with old dutch road. the well was rediscovered in 1968 during excavations (bjorvig 1994, 321-322). wells and wcs – sa and finland 121 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 illustration 7 berea road well from durban. source: b�orvig.berea road well from durban. source: b�orvig. johannesburg was a sudden birth in the primarily rural south african republic in 1886, after gold was discovered in the area. its increasing cosmopolitan population and location of 70km from the nearest major river created water supply problems from the start. gold diggers used shallow wells, but the quality of their water was poor. already in 1887, the state commissioned the johannesburg waterworks, estates and exploration company to ease the problems (hattersley 1973, 238). sanitation needed to be organised as well. at first ‘sanitary gangs’ were formed from convicts to empty cesspits. in 1888 the sanitary board imposed charges for the nightly collection of sanitary pails and for the daily collection of rubbish and slop-water. it was not allowed to run dish or bath water into the streets. every house had a cistern in the back yard to collect such slop-water. a large wagon with several tanks came twice a week to empty these cisterns. use of this service was compulsory and if left unpaid, it was punished by imprisonment (hattersley 1973, 238; leyds 1964, 32). a british engineer, robert boyle, visited johannesburg in 1890 and commented on the conditions there. he explained: the sanitary condition of johannesburg, though not yet all that could be desired, has been greatly improved within the last year or so […] the pailcloset system is used. there is a splendid opening here for an improved dry-earth closet, as the system at present employed is very unsatisfactory (sanitary crusade, 20-21). haarhoff, juuti and mäki 122 at the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s the refuse problem of johannesburg was worsening. in the transvaal law reports several supreme court cases can be found dealing with these problems. for example, in 1907 in the case of tobiansky vs. johannesburg town council, it is apparent that there really was a serious problem with refuse and overall sanitary conditions in the town and especially in the township of sophiatown. a portion of waterval farm was used wrongfully […] as a depositing site for night-soil, slop water and carcases of animals, and . . . consequently offensive, poisonous and unwholesome vapours and noxious matters issued and proceeded from the site and spread and were diffused […] to properties, rendering them unwholesome, dirty and uncomfortable to live in […] and seriously endangering […] health (transvaal law reports 1907, tobiansky v. johannesburg town council, p. 134-156). the waterval area was situated near a major public road, old krugersdorp main road. it was used for this purpose obviously since 1894 and became a serious health risk by 1907. these practices and problems were common in the growing cities of the south africa. (transvaal law reports 1907…) even on the other side of the world – in tampere, finland – similar cases were reported. (juuti 2001, 66-87). city fires were also a big problem. before the time of waterworks, finnish cities burned down frequently due to an insufficient amount of water and because of the dominant use of wood as a building material. in south africa this problem was not as comprehensive as in finland. there are however indications that cape town experienced numerous fires since the seventeenth century (nikula 1972, 40-41; worden et al 1998, 112). first wcs in south africa and finland the first reference to wcs in cape town is from the year 1814, when lord charles somerset ordered four patented water closets for government house at a cost of £230. they, however, did not become general, even in the larger residences, until the second half of the century (hattersley 1973, 147). in 1887, in grahamstown, the old cesspool system was replaced by the pail system; at nights the sewage was emptied and removed to outside of the city, where it was covered up with soil (souvenir of grahamstown, 35, 39). a few years later, in 1891, robert boyle mentioned the use of pail-closet systems in kimberley, johannesburg, �retoria and durban. there were also plans for switching to water-borne sewerage system in kimberley and durban (sanitary crusade, 12, 20, 23 and 26). some progress was made in durban in 1896, when an effective sewerage system became operational. lavatories were provided throughout the town. there was also an outfall for waterborne household sewage, which was discharged during the first few years into the sea at the ebb tide (bjorvig 1994, 327-328). in january 1906 there were problems with european-style water closets in durban harbour. one of the disposal wells and wcs – sa and finland 123 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 pipes was blocked and the plumber found two bottles, one shirt and two pair of socks inside. this led to investigations that involved the fort captain, harbour engineer, wharf master and even the water police. it is not known whether the offenders were found (�ietermaritzburg archives repository, nhd ii/1/96 106/1906). a month later the same closet was under discussion again when the mechanical engineer proposed on 5 february that the iron seats should be replaced by wooden ones (�ietermaritzburg archives repository, nhd ii/1/95 28/1906). in finland, sanitation problems were solved along with the water question. water closets were seen as a solution to sanitation at the end of the nineteenth century. the first legally built water closet was completed in 1883 in the house of the bank of finland. stockholm, in sweden, got its very first water toilet the same year. in finland a few ‘illegal water closets’ had been constructed even before that date. there was a heated discussion concerning the necessity of water toilets in tampere and other cities in the late nineteenth century. at the time, a wc was built in most blocks of flats in helsinki, but still in 1906 there were instances when outhouses were preferred (katko 1996, 57-58; nygård 2004, 224-225). the health board of tampere demanded in 1890 that a wc, built in one of the downtown houses, should be dismantled, since it was illegal. the owner and builder of the toilet, f. w. gustafsson, explained: closets […] are equipped so that nothing but water can go through them to the city ditches, because there’s a cesspool under the closet and there’s a 4-inch (10mm) diameter pipe with a filter (tka, thl bi:1, gustafsson 10.6.1890). a similar incident occurred in helsinki a decade earlier, when in 1882 a businessman, f. w. grönqvist, had water closets put into his house. two years later he lost a dispute with city officials, when the senate confirmed the decision of the provincial governor, which forbade the running of any impurities from closets to the sewer network (laakkonen 2001, 48-50). discussion and conclusions today, there are several pressing environmental issues in south africa and finland in respect of water issues. there is a lack of natural water resources. this requires extensive water conservation and control measures. growth in water use is much faster than the available, and also the anticipated future supply. there is the severe pollution of rivers as a result of agricultural, industrial and domestic discharges. air pollution is resulting in acid rain. there are many examples of soil erosion and desertification is still the order of the day. both south africa and finland have to cope with these problems simultaneously. the greatest challenge now in finland is to find a solution for complying with new wastewater treatment regulations in areas of scattered haarhoff, juuti and mäki 124 settlements. the best choice might be the complete recycling of nutrients, which requires replacing the water toilet by the compost toilet with urine separation and a significant change of attitude. the second-best solution would be leading the wastewater to the sewerage works, but long distances make this almost impossible. finland has plenty of water, so there’s no need for two-pipe systems, where for example the flushing water is of lower quality. rural areas without sewer networks should seriously consider abandoning the flushing toilet altogether. in urban areas, with established networks, it is not reasonable to replace the existing infrastructure with a new system. in general, the large wastewater treatment plants work well. but for new areas the system based on composting toilets should be studied and developed further. in 2004, transparency international (2001: www.gwdg.de/~uwvw/icr. htm) ranked finland – again, the fifth time in a row – as having the lowest perception of corruption in the world. also south africa made out very well in this evaluation, it was second in africa. it’s not co-incidental that the most corrupt countries – without pointing a finger directly at them – are also the countries with the worst water governance. outhouses and wells remained in use in cities for some time after the establishment of central water supply systems. water and sanitation services reached the suburban areas slowly and in some areas of scattered settlements they still are not available. so in 2004, 650 000 private wells (500 000 simple dug wells and 100 000 artesian wells) remain in finland and the majority – probably two-thirds – require immediate maintenance to improve the quality of the water. these figures include both the main households and the holiday homes. but a little over 90 per cent of all finns get water of good quality from local waterworks distributed to their permanent address. in south africa, the backlog in supplying people with access to safe drinking water is a national priority and scheduled to be eliminated in 2008 (http://www.info.gov. za/speeches/2004/04051015151001.ht). the conditions have not always been as good and surprises may occur. but all in all, the situation is quite good in both countries. in finland in the early 2000s the waterworks provided 250ℓ p/d per capita for private use. for industrial purposes, the figure is 20 000ℓ, but industry gets only a small amount of its water from public waterworks. the total consumption of communities and industry is 7,5 per cent of the renewable water resources. there are even in suburban areas 40 000 people and in sparsely populated areas more than half a million people who remain outside the water supply network. approximately 300 000 people have some impurities in their domestic water and one million people living in houses have their own sewer systems, without a connection to a municipal sewer system. wells and wcs – sa and finland 125 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 103-130 the reason for this favourable situation in both countries is that the right choices were made in the past. the nineteenth century was a time of increasing environmental problems in finnish and south african cities. old water supply systems became inadequate when the population increased. the contemporary term for the situation was the ‘water question’ – nowadays it is called the ‘water issue’ – and the answer to the issue was sought for decades. developing countries of our time confront this same acute problem. water management, i.e. water supply and sewerage and waste management, are essential elements of the development of communities. together they are called environmental services. the environmental services are justified in themselves and by expecting direct and indirect benefits. the concrete infrastructure is the basis for economic and social systems, which can be vulnerable to environmental changes. the success of urbanization and the modernization of the rural areas are closely connected to finding solutions for environmental services. a well and an eco-toilet in areas with scattered settlements will provide in future ecological solutions. investing in water supply and sewers is always worthwhile. water supply and sewerage are vital, although mainly invisible, parts of the economic-technical infrastructure of a community. environmental services are essential for public health, hygiene, the protection of the environment and industry. water supply and sanitation, sewerage and waste management are the basic issues of environmental history and studying them can give new ideas for surviving the problems caused by increasing standards of living and populations. the solution for environmental services is simultaneously a solution to the problem of how to live and settle successfully, as well as how to create better surroundings. wells and toilets are an essential part of durable solutions for the future. haarhoff, juuti and mäki 126 references archival sources south african national archives cape town archives depot town clerk, cape town (3/ct) 4/1/1/90 �ietermaritzburg archives depot natal harbour department (nhd) ii/1/95 ii/1/96 tampere city archives (tka): health board (thl), bi:1 literature anon, a sanitary crusade through south africa. reprinted from “the building news,” june 26th and july 3rd, 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82-97. digital storytelling as a tool for teaching: perceptions of pre-service teachers1 c tiba,2 j condy,3 a chigona,4and n tunjera5 abstract it has been shown that teachers are reluctant to use technology despite the south african (sa) government’s huge expenditure on technological equipment. this might be the result of teachers being unable to select appropriate technology that will yield positive learning outcomes as well as being ill-equipped to integrate technology into their pedagogy. to this end, pre-service teachers at a university were trained on how to integrate digital storytelling (dst) effectively into their teaching. the aim of this study is to gain insight into the potential benefits of dst for teaching and learning and to determine factors that may prevent pre-service teachers’ uptake of dst during in-service practice. this is a qualitative study in which fifty pre-service teachers were divided into five groups for focus group interviews. data were analysed, and the results show that preservice teachers perceived dst to be beneficial in the classroom as it has the potential to (i) motivate and engage learners, (ii) promote voice/self-expression, and (iii) promote collaborative learning and acquisition of multiple skills. pre-service teachers are of the opinion that a lack of resources, self-confidence and time owing to restrictive curricula may prevent uptake of dst during in-service teaching. it was recommended that school stakeholders create a balance between intrinsic and extrinsic factors that will promote the adoption and integration of dst into teaching. also, the education institution concerned strives to balance all three strands of knowledge: technology, pedagogy and content. keywords: technology, digital storytelling, technology integration, multimedia, pedagogy, digital native, pre-service teachers introduction digital technology has become commonplace as many children are using technology on a daily basis. these children spend most of their time with technological tools such as computers, videogames, digital music players, cell phones and other tools of the digital age (prensky, 2001: 1). the growth in the use of technology by children has forced school 1 . acknowledgement: the authors are grateful to the intermediate senior phase students of 2013 for their insightful comments and to the staff at cput who facilitated the focus group 2 . chantyclaire a. tiba (corresponding author: 3063369@gmail.com) is a doctoral student at cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. 3 . prof. janet condy is an associate professor at cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. 4 . dr agnes chigona is a research fellow in the faculty of education at cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. 5 . nyarai tunjera is doctoral student at the cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. digital storytelling as a tool for teaching td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 82-97. 83 stakeholders in south africa to deploy technological equipment in classrooms such as tablet phones and smart boards (guest, 2014). anecdotal evidence, however, shows that the field of education has seen a slow growth in the use of technology for teaching and learning. one of the reasons may be that teachers seem unable to select appropriate technology that will yield positive learning outcomes and are also illequipped to integrate technology effectively during teaching. chigona, condy, gachago and ivala (2012:1627) warn that unless pre-service teachers are given clear direction on how to integrate technology into their pedagogy, they will not adopt technology for curriculum delivery. this resulted in a department of education in a university of technology teaching final-year intermediate senior phase (isp) pre-service teachers of 2013 on how to integrate dst effectively into teaching, as part of the professional development course. the professional development course aims to equip pre-service teachers with skills that they will require to teach effectively and efficiently during in-service practice. the aim of this article is to gain insight into the potential benefits of dst in the classroom and to determine factors that may prevent the uptake of dst by pre-service teachers during in-service practice. considering that digital storytelling is cutting-edge and many studies on the subject have been conducted internationally, in south africa (condy, chigona, gachago & ivala, 2012; chigona, 2013) it is still gaining ground. it is hoped that an article on the potential benefits of dst in the classroom and challenges that may prevent uptake and how these challenges can be addressed, may encourage more teachers to use dst. also, school stakeholders may gain a better understanding of the benefits of this technological tool in teaching south african learners. these learners come from diverse language backgrounds and they prefer the english language as their language of teaching and learning. therefore, digital technology may be an appropriate tool as it has the potential to motivate and engage learners, promote self-expression and collaboration as well as to allow learners to acquire multiple skills. according to dogan (2012), the more school stakeholders know about dst, the more they will tap into its benefits and use it in the classroom. research questions • what are the perceptions of pre-service teachers of the potential benefits of digital storytelling (dst) as a pedagogical tool? • what are the perceived barriers by pre-service teachers to up taking digital storytelling (dst) during in-service practice? to answer the research questions, students who were part of the professional development course at a university of technology were approached to participate in this study. of the 75 students, 50 voluntarily accepted being part of this study. the 50 pre-service teachers were divided amongst five lecturers for focus group interviews and the questions asked were semistructured. data was analysed and emerging themes were related to the research questions (merriam, 1998:45). the theoretical framework that underpins this study is mishra and koehler’s (2005) technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpck), a vigorous theoretical framework to understand the knowledge needed for effective integration of technology into teaching. many educational institutions separate technological knowledge (tk) from content knowledge (ck) and pedagogical knowledge (pk). mishra and koehler (2005) argue that good teaching must be interplayed between seven constructs: “ck is knowledge about the actual subject matter that is to be learned or taught”; “pk is deep knowledge about the processes and tiba, condy, chigona and tunjera 84 practices or methods of teaching and learning; pedagogical content knowledge (pck) is knowing which teaching approaches fit the content, and likewise knowing how elements of the content can be arranged for better teaching”; “tk is knowledge about standard technologies such as internet and digital video”; “technological content knowledge (tck) is knowledge about the manner in which technology and content are jointly related”; “technological pedagogical knowledge (tpk) is knowledge of the existence, components, and capabilities of various technologies as they are used in teaching and learning settings, and conversely, knowing how teaching might change as a result of a particular technology”; “tpck is the basis of good teaching with technology and requires an understanding of the representation of concepts using technology, pedagogical techniques that use technology in constructive ways to teach content, knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face, knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge and to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones” (mishra & koehler, 2005:1026-1031). the tpck framework guided the process of collecting data. the above-mentioned seven elements guided the researcher to initiate discourses around technological pedagogical content knowledge benefits and challenges of dst to learners and teachers. literature review three areas influence the literature review. these areas are (1) an overview of dst which gives a general understanding of dst, (2) benefits of dst in the classroom, and (3) factors that may prevent the uptake of technology. (1) overview of digital storytelling stories have been an element of the human tradition since the beginning of time (hastings, 2009). before the advent of written language, wisdom, knowledge and information were communicated orally through stories (czarnecki, 2009). according to maddin (2011:2-3), storytelling is intertwined into our everyday life as people use stories for communication and to share information. maddin (2011) explains further “that it is through stories that humans understand history, themselves and the world”. today the way we tell stories has changed as stories are integrated, for example, with technology, and this is known as dst. digital stories are a blend of image and text that focus on tales ‘from the heart’ (hayes, 2011:291). similarly, stenhouse, tait, hardy and sumner (2013:134) concur that digital stories provide a creative way for people to tell their stories using a mixture of voice, image and music. in addition, the digital storytelling association (2002) describes dst as “the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling”. yuksel, robin and mcneil (2011) reiterate that dst derives its “power through weaving images, music, narrative and voice together”. there are different kinds of dst which have been categorised into three types. these are: personal narratives, in which authors tell personal stories which revolve around significant events in their life; stories that inform and instruct, are used primarily to convey instructional material in many different content areas (teachers use it to teach the curriculum); and stories that examine historical events: this type of dst is used to recount historical events (cited in robin, 2008:224-225). digital storytelling as a tool for teaching td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 82-97. 85 in order to produce an effective digital story that instructs, informs or recounts historical events and personal tales, lambert (cited in dreon, kerper & landis, 2011:5) identifies seven elements that must be taking into consideration. these elements include: • a point of view which outlines the perspective from which the story is told; • a dramatic question that sets the tension of the story by identifying issues to be resolved; • emotional content which engages the audience through common emotions and themes; • the gift of using the producer’s voice during production: helps the audience to make meaning of images; • the ‘power’ of the soundtrack which sets the mood of the story; • economical balance of the auditory and visual tracks of meaning; and • pacing which sustains the attention of the audience by establishing and modifying the rhythm of the story. (2) benefits of digital storytelling dst has drawn attention as an appropriate pedagogical tool which can be used in today’s classroom. hastings (2009) is of the opinion that the importance of integrating dst in education is that learners are having fun while learning. when such indirect learning takes place, learners may reach their full potential. therefore, the benefits of dst have been categorised into themes. these themes are that dst: (i) has the potential to support learnercentred activities, (ii) promotes the acquisition of multiple skills in learners, (iii) encourages voice/self-expression, (iv) motivates and engages learners, (v) encourages deep reflection, and (vi) encourages collaboration. in the next section, literature is provided/an explanation is provided/a brief description is provided on the six benefits of dst when learners are involved in its production. i. dst supports learner-centred activities dst is a technological tool that has the potential to engage students in learner-centred activities (barrett, 2005; hayes, 2011:291) since learners are challenged in creating their own stories. in a study, learners were given an opportunity to take pictures with digital cameras, develop their story based on the pictures taken, produce a film based on the pictures by adding subtitles and a background, and present their stories (hung, hwang & huang, 2012:371). this means that learners take active responsibility for their learning (menezes, 2012) which has been proven to improve academic performance (hayes, 2011:291; sadik, 2008:487). ii. dst promotes multiple skills in learners dst has the potential to engage learners in both conventional and innovative ways of teaching (gregori-signes, 2008). being literate in the 21st century no longer involves only being able to read and write: learners must be able to download, upload, rip, burn, chat, save, blog, skype and share information (mullen & wedwick, 2008:66). according to robin (2008: 224), sylvester and greenidge (2009: 287), dst can promote multiple skills. these skills include the ability to: • communicate with an ever-expanding community, to discuss issues, gather information, and seek help (digital literacy); tiba, condy, chigona and tunjera 86 • read, interpret, respond, and contextualise messages from a global perspective (global literacy); • use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity and performance (technological literacy); • understand, produce and communicate through visual images (visual literacy); and • find, evaluate, and synthesise information (information literacy). studies such as those of chigona (2013: 25) have shown that learners gained technological skills during the production of dst. she revealed that during production, there were learners who had adequate technological skills and those who felt inadequate. those with expertise in using technological tools helped peers who had difficulties (chigona, 2013:25). hence, learners with difficulties improved their technological know-how through assistance from knowledgeable peers. the campbell study (2012: 390), during the two years of a dst project, showed that learners became comfortable and skilled in the use of technological programs offered by macbook. learners continued to use technological programmes for writing homework and for projects. digital technologies have the potential to improve learners’ writing. according to hayes (2011: 297), and hicks, turner and stratton (2013), writing is no longer an act of putting words on paper, but writers must use technological tools to communicate their message. the use of technological tools such as dst has been shown to improve writing (figg & mccartney, 2010: 1; michalski, hodges & banister, 2005). in a scenario where learners faced difficulties with constructing phrases, using correct grammar and spelling or vocabulary to crafting sentences effectively, they showed an improvement in their writing when they participated in the production of digital stories (michalski, hodges & banister, 2005). dst has been found to have a positive effect on taiwanese english first language sixth graders’ vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing skills (chuang, kuo, chiang, su & chang, 2013). it has been shown that during dst production, learners re-write their stories many times (rance-roney, 2008:29). learners’ writing may be improved in the process of rewriting and re-forming their scripts. iii. dst has the potential to encourage voice/self-expression self-expression or voice has been used interchangeably by the researchers to mean ‘giving learners a say in how they want to tell their stories’. dst has the potential to encourage students’ voice (alexandra, 2008:101) as learners’ views are valued from selecting of a topic, deciding on the use of images to tell their stories and background sound to enhance their narratives (hayes, 2011:292). self-expression also occurs when learners present their stories to a global audience (botturi, bramani & corbino, 2012:11; reinders, 2011:3), for example, through youtube, facebook or via presentations to a community. dst can give voice to struggling learners who find it difficult to communicate in a classroom setting (botturi, bramani & corbino, 2012:10). this is because learners learn to tell their stories, which may enhance their communication skills. iv. dst has the potential to motivate and engage learners studies such as that by figg and mccartney (2010:54) have shown that dst has the potential to motivate learners. their findings revealed that using dst as a technological tool motivated learners to construct their digital stories with enthusiasm. it was noted that learners wrote on a daily basis without noticing it. michalski, hodges and banister (2005) revealed that learners spend more time on tasks required to produce their digital stories because they were motivated to learn new software. digital storytelling as a tool for teaching td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 82-97. 87 dst has the potential to engage learners. a study by campbell (2012:392), in which the learners’ level of engagement was measured by time spent on task completion and positive writer self-perception revealed that learners spent more time on the dst project compared to time spent on non-digital writing tasks. another study by ivala, gachago, condy and chigona (2013:82) which investigated the potential of dst in enhancing student engagement. focus group interviews were conducted with 29 pre-service teachers and their facilitators. the result revealed that the production of dst enhanced students’ level of engagement with their studies. pre-service teachers reported that the production of dst extended opportunities for students to study beyond classroom time since they were engaged with the subject matter, both at school and at home. v. dst encourages deep reflection dst has been identified as a tool that can encourage deep reflection. in the sandars and murray study (2009:442), 12 undergraduate medical students volunteered to use dst as a reflective exercise. the aim was to encourage students to reflect on their experience of first meeting a patient. the students indicated that the process of producing their dst required them to think critically about each image. one participant remarked that when i was putting mine together [dst], i took photographs from around the area. rather than just writing a quick essay i actually thought about what i wanted the picture to say. similarly, when learners align each paragraph in the storyboard to an image (sylvester & greenidge, 2009:287), they are engaged in deep reflection. in addition, learners have to reflect on how to present the dst so that the potential audience will find it interesting, compelling and engaging (boase, 2008). vi. dst encourages collaboration during dst production, learners are divided into groups which have been proven to be beneficial to learning. this is evident in chigona’s (2013:22) study, which showed that learners gained technological skills because they had to learn from peers who are more skilled (chigona, 2013:22). the learners learnt how to trust each other enough to ask for assistance. on this point, chigona concluded that learning was taking place as learners’ technological skills were enhanced. in another situation, learners’ finished or draft digital stories can be posted on the internet perhaps facebook, blog or youtube for comments and suggestions (reinders, 2011:3). students may use the comments to gain different perspectives on their stories and to shape their draft stories. the benefits of dst in the educational setting are vast, as is evidenced from the discourses mentioned. it may be an appropriate pedagogical tool to be used in the classroom. though the literature has focused on the benefits of dst to learners, it is important to mention that dst may be a valuable tool for teachers. for example, dst can help teachers gain insights into issues of diversity from learners’ stories if they are given a task on social issues, thus enabling teachers to gain a better understanding of their learners (condy, chigona, gachago & ivala, 2013:281). (3) factors that will prevent the uptake of technology there have been considerable studies on factors that may prevent the uptake of technology by teachers into teaching (hutchison & reinking, 2011: 324; obiri-yeboah, kwarteng & kyere-djan, 2013: 13). for example, hutchison and reinking (2011:324) listed barriers that tiba, condy, chigona and tunjera 88 may prevent teachers from using technology. they include: a lack of understanding of how to integrate technology into instruction, professional development related to integrating technology into instruction, understanding of how to evaluate students’ ability to use icts (information communication and technology), and insufficient time due to high-stakes testing. cassim and obono (2011) found that the attitudes of teachers, their perception on the usefulness and ease of use of ict, their ict awareness and school location all affect adoption of ict in the classroom. it is argued by chigona and chigona (2010) that other significant factors that hinder integration are personal factors such as insufficient ict training, social factors as a result of rules that prescribe who can use technology and what it can be used for at schools, and environmental factors such as teachers lacking technical support regarding integrating technology into teaching. similarly, ahadiat (2005:228) ranked factors that will prevent teachers from using technology. these factors are: a lack of time, required software, technological support, relevance to course material, latest hardware, administrative support, contribution to professional advancement and interest in technology. methodology this is a qualitative study that explores pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the potential benefits of dst and perceived barriers to dst uptake during in-service practice. qualitative study gave depth to the research questions. as part of the professional development course in 2013, 75 intermediate senior phase (isp) students had eight-week workshops on how to integrate dst during in-service practice. at the end of the project, each student made their own digital story. all 75 students were invited verbally to take part in a focus group interview. of the 75, 50 voluntarily accepted. all 50 pre-service teachers who agreed to be part of this study were divided into five groups among five researchers facilitating the discussion. semi-structured questions, which were informed by the literature, were used during interviews. furthermore, classrooms were used as venues for the interviews and each interview was scheduled for an hour. the selection of a university venue was preferred because the teachers participating in the study were registered students at the university. therefore, organizing a focus group interview at the university was convenient. data from the five focus group interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. the transcribed data were analysed: themes were generated to answer the research questions. ethics the study followed a rigorous code of ethics to protect the researcher as well as the participants (denscombe, 2007:141). permission was requested from the university of technology ethics committee to collect data. participants of the research were asked to sign informed consent forms to indicate their participation is voluntary (glesne, 2011:166). permission was sought from participants to use an audio recorder during interviews to capture data accurately (bogdan & biklen, 1998:7). aims and outcomes were continuously discussed verbally with participants to ensure that they understood their role in the research. result and discussion according to the pre-service teachers, the dst project was enriching. as a result, they believed dst might be an appropriate pedagogic tool which could be used in the classroom as it has the potential to motivate and engage learners, promote voice/self-expression, and collaborative learning or acquire multiple skills. however, the pre-service teachers indicated digital storytelling as a tool for teaching td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 82-97. 89 that a lack of resources, self-confidence and time due to restrictive curricula might prevent uptake of dst during in-service teaching. the results of the data collected are discussed under the themes that follow. digital story has the potential to motivate and engage learners one factor noted by pre-service teachers that would influence them to use dst during inservice practice is that dst has the potential to motivate and engage learners. this is because learners are fascinated by technology because they use it daily. therefore, teachers integrating technology into their curriculum delivery would motivate these learners. with regard to motivation, one pre-service teacher indicated that: i think digital storytelling will develop their [the learners’] interest … keeps them focused in class for a longer period and this is because they use technology every day … walk around with cell phones in their pockets. they grew up with technology … so it will motivate them to come to class and study … yeah. another pre-service teacher added that they would use dst during in-service practice because the visual aspect of dst may motivate learners. the pre-service teacher indicated that “today’s learners are visual … they [learners] like visual stuff … they like to see things … like the images … this [dst] might just motivate them to come to class”. this discussion shows that today’s learners have grown up using technology: integrating it into the classroom may attract their attention. the figg and mccartney findings (2010:12) showed that using dst as a technological tool attracted learners’ attention as they spent more time on tasks. the visual component of dst might captivate learners’ interest, thus increasing their motivation. dst has the potential to engage learners, as they can be given tasks to do on a subject both at home and at school. on this point, a pre-service teacher reported, you can give learners tasks on a topic, get them to go to the library to do research, search the internet for music and images … this [the digital story] will get them engaged both at school and at home as it did to us when we were creating our own digital story. this finding is in line with the ivala, gachago, condy and chigona study (2013:85) in which pre-service teachers reported that the production of dst extended opportunities for students to study beyond the classroom time, since they were engaged with the subject matter both at school and at home. a student in the ivala et al. (2013: 85) study supported this discussion by stating, i also did most of my work at home, like writing out the story and asking when i came to campus, asking the lecturers maybe to edit and just to check if my story is according to how it’s supposed to be … and i will do the typing on campus. digital storytelling has the potential to give learners voice/self-expression dst has the potential to give learners voice in the classroom. according to pre-service teachers, a good teacher must be able to give learners opportunities in the classroom for their voices or opinions to be heard. the pre-service teachers believed that dst may give learners voice when teachers involved them in the production. this is evident in one of the participants’ responses: tiba, condy, chigona and tunjera 90 … i was thinking we most of the times … we don’t give learners in our classes voice … as schools, as teachers, as parents we don’t really know what our children [learners] are thinking or feeling … so am thinking we can use digital story as platform where children [learners] have their voices heard because now they are for instance in a classroom – you could have a class do a digital story on any social issue … they present it in class you know… so it could be a way for learners to voice their views, their feelings and thoughts about social issues or what not, yeah. another pre-service teacher added: you can give them [learners] task on digital story to do, the final product can be presented in class, put on youtube or facebook and even show to a church community. these are some of the platforms for their opinions on certain issues to be heard. the result indicated that giving voice to learners is beneficial to teaching and learning. hence, dst can be used as a platform to give learners voice. consistent with the above findings, robin (2007) and porter (2006: 28) echoed that voice is given to learners when they publish their stories online to be available to a global audience. digital storytelling has the potential to promote collaborative learning according to pre-service teachers, dst projects may increase collaboration between learners. during dst projects, learners may be divided into groups to help each other to complete their stories. as a result, learners may learn skills such as sharing diverse views on a subject matter and supporting each other to solve complex tasks. hence, they learn to trust each other during the process. on this point, the pre-service teacher indicated: learners can be divided into groups … they would help each other to complete a task and learn how to respect each other’s point of view on a subject matter. helping each other may build trust between learners. and when learners trust each other, they will interact easily in the classroom. since today’s classrooms are so diverse, another participant said they were going to use dst to create interactions in the classroom. the pre-service teachers intend to create interactions by doing group or peer work with technology. the pre-service teacher revealed that: there may be black, white, coloured and indians mixed in one classroom … i will put them [different races] in one group for them to brainstorm on a topic and to do the river of life and other related aspects of digital story … by doing that i want them to learn to tolerate each other … this skill [working in group] they will need with them for life. the above findings reveal that putting learners into groups to do digital story tasks may be beneficial to teaching and learning. studies such as ivala et al. (2013) have shown that learners benefit from group work as they learn from each other during the production of dst. digital storytelling has the potential to promote the acquisition of multiple skills according to robin (2008:224), sylvester and greenidge (2009:287), dst has the potential to promote the acquisition of multiple skills in learners. the pre-service teachers indicated that they will use dst in their classrooms because several skills are involved during the production of a single digital story. on this point, a pre-service teacher revealed that: digital storytelling as a tool for teaching td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 82-97. 91 i will use digital story because there are many skills involved when learners are given the opportunity to produce it [digital story] … these skills are reading, writing, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills and technological skills…technological skills because learners will be working with technological hardware and software another pre-service teacher added: …through the process of making a digital storytelling, learners will learn copyright stuff. i will explain to them why they cannot just take images or photos from the internet. they have to reference everything at the end of the story…so yeah they learn these skills. in addition, pre-service teachers may use dst because learners may develop critical thinking skills. a pre-service teacher reported: …i will integrate digital storytelling into my teaching because learners will gain critical thinking skills. learners have to make decisions as to what images will be suitable for their story and also deciding on the genre of music to put in their digital story. for other participants, dst has the potential to enhance communication skills. a participant indicated: …to me i will use it to enhance students’ communication skills … there will be learners in our classrooms who don’t like talking in class. so with digital storytelling you can put them into groups and assign them different roles … so with their peers, they may be comfortable to discuss issues. pre-service teachers were overwhelmed by the dst project since they acquired many skills. as a result they were certain that with resources at the schools, they might integrate dst into their teaching. in addition, pre-service teachers reported that they will use dst in their classrooms because it has the potential to develop learners’ writing. learners are given a platform to think about what they will write and how they will write their stories during production. during dst production, learners write many drafts (rance-roney, 2008:29) which may improve their writing. a pre-service teacher commented: during any digital storytelling project, learners will be given an opportunity to write their stories … they can write on their laptops, computers or using a paper and a pen. in the process of learners writing their stories, they may write so many drafts which may possibly improve their writing. i remember i wrote how many times? three/four times … four times … i got it right the last time. it’s never easy and most especially when you’re writing in a second language, yeah. another pre-service teacher added: i will use it because it may improve learners’ writing. this is because learners tend to write beyond what they are supposed to write and this [digital storytelling] will help in condensing their writing and then keep it to the fact since learners are required to write between 300-500 words. i will definitely use it in the classroom. according to the pre-service teachers, writing is the most important aspect of dst. learners learn how to summarise and review their work for consistency. these skills, according to preservice teachers, are needed in the learners’ future workplace. ohler (2006:44) emphasises the importance of writing by indicating that teachers should focus on learners writing their story tiba, condy, chigona and tunjera 92 first and then using the story to enhance learners’ skills in critical thinking and media literacy when they produce their story. although all pre-service teachers perceived dst to be beneficial in the classroom, some might refrain from using it due to a lack of resources, self-confidence or time because of restrictive curricula. below is a discussion on barriers to the uptake of dst. lack of resources firstly, with regard to lack of resources, the pre-service teachers acknowledged that they have acquired the skills required for effective integration of dst during teaching. lack of technological resources at the schools where they will be teaching would, however, make it difficult for them to integrate dst into their teaching. one pre-service teacher remarked: … how i wish i was going to use it but unfortunately i wouldn’t be able to use it because i will be going to transkei and rural areas, so there is no technology there even tv … there is only one tv in the area so i would definitely not be going to using it. some teachers, with their positive experience during the production of dst, claimed that, even if they were to teach in under-resourced schools, they would manage to use some sort of technology. a participant indicated: i will carry my radio…laptop to school just for them to be exposed to some sort of technology, yeah. in line with the above argument, ahadiat’s (2005) findings showed that one barrier to integration of technology might be lack of resources such as technological software and hardware. lack of self-confidence secondly, the analysis shows that lack of self-confidence may prevent pre-service teachers from using dst. few teachers felt that the project did not prepare them sufficiently to teach with dst since they had only eight weeks to complete the project. they were worried that during in-service teaching, they may not be able to apply it in classroom. a pre-service teacher said: … the digital story thing was new to us … we never really got the opportunity to be familiar with all the technological tools. the facilitators showed us yeah to get our stories done but we never had time to practise. so i might face challenges implementing it at school because i am not sure i have the confidence yet, yeah. another pre-service teacher added: … and i find that sometimes people are so computer literate or skilled that when they have to show or teach someone something they are so into it that they don’t keep track with the fact that you are but slower than what they are, so they just go on. so in the process you don’t learn anything. it was argued by another pre-service teacher that they feel comfortable using other approaches in the classroom than dst. this is because the dst project did not give the preservice teachers enough time to be competent users of the technological tools. the pre-service teacher noted: digital storytelling as a tool for teaching td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 82-97. 93 there are many [kinds of] equipment [hardware and software] that i don’t know how to use like the photo story because the project was too fast … i wouldn’t even try to integrate it in the classroom … i will use textbook because i am more comfortable with textbook, yeah. pre-service teachers believed that if they had had more time to practise with dst, it would have increased their self-efficacy. thus, the pre-service teachers recommended that coordinators for the dst project should consider starting the project from the first year. this might give ample time for pre-service teachers to gain skills which may boost their selfconfidence to use dst. pre-service teachers recommended that the education institution where this study was conducted should strive to balance all three strands of knowledge: technology, pedagogy and content. this is because students lacked basic technological knowhow during the dst project which caused delays in the project. teachers spend time showing learners how to use basic technological hardware and software. lack of time thirdly, the greatest proportion of research has shown time to be a major issue in dst projects (sadik, 2008:502; bromberg, techatassanasoontorn & andrade, 2013:10). this is because teachers need time to teach learners the many skills already mentioned that are needed to produce a dst. some students faced difficulties operating technological tools and, as a result, they would needed more time for the teacher to assist them during production (sadik, 2008: 501). pre-service teachers complained that the dst project was timeconsuming; they had to work both on campus and at home. therefore, using dst during inservice practice might require additional time and the pre-service teachers were not sure if they would have enough time to integrate it in the classroom. a pre-service teacher explained their concern: there were people who struggled to get music during the digital storytelling project … oh yes, there were people who couldn’t ok going back to the basics … there were people who couldn’t even go to the internet and find pictures they didn’t know how to go to the … to the internet search engine and then and there were people who couldn’t save pictures so and there were people who struggled with say it with finding music [laughing] … yeah, so basically they were those types of things … imagine you have such learners in your class when you start teaching … it means introducing digital stories will be timeconsuming and difficult. these discussions reveal that some pre-service teachers lack basic technological knowledge during the dst project. introducing dst during in-service practice to similar kinds of learners who may lack basic skills is time consuming. this is because learners need extra time to become familiar with the technological hardware and software. a student added that …there may be cases were learners are from disadvantage home…they may not know basic things about a computer, so introducing digital storytelling will require a lot of time. on this point, bromberg et al., (2013:17) suggest that the teacher can set aside some class time to teach learners how to use the technological equipment required to produce a dst before embarking on a project. tiba, condy, chigona and tunjera 94 conclusions pre-service teachers of this study had first-hand experience of making their own digital storytelling (dst). as a result, they were motivated to use dst during in-service practice. the use of digital stories in a classroom can be an effective tool for teaching and learning as it involves many skills. however, according to the teachers, the deeper impact of digital storytelling is when learners think critically about how to integrate their story with audio and visual components. despite the many benefits of dst which may influence teachers’ uptake of dst during inservice training, some pre-service teachers believe that a lack of resources, self-confidence and time due to restrictive curricula may prevent their uptake of dst during in-service practice. pre-service teachers indicated that they might not use technology in the lower grades because learners may not be able to deal with certain social issues and technological equipment. it was argued by the majority of pre-service teachers that teachers could still use dst with lower grades but the theme or topic should be age-appropriate. in addition, some teachers indicated that they lacked technological knowledge of how to teach with dst although they valued the importance of dst in today’s classroom. as a result these teachers plan to undergo further training to augment their skills. it is recommended that teacher education programmes strive to balance all three knowledge streams: content, pedagogy and technology. this is because the pre-service teachers lacked technological compared to content and pedagogical knowledge. furthermore, to school stakeholders, it was pointed out that they should not only deploy technological equipment in school but they must create balance between extrinsic and intrinsic factors that may encourage teachers to use dst. in schools with technological resources, teachers may still resist integrating dst into their curriculum delivery due to their beliefs, attitude and selfefficacy towards technology. limitations of this research/study: the findings cannot be generalised, since the focus is on pre-service isp teachers of 2013. the result might be different given a different set of students with different experiences of producing dst. as a recommendation for further study, pre-service teachers could be tracked in their classrooms during in-service practice to ascertain the benefits of dst in a classroom setting. this is important as there is a great gap between pre-service and in-service training as teachers perceptions may change based on the school they find themselves. references ahadiat, n. 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(2013). dangling conversations: reflections on the process of creating digital stories during a workshop with people with earlystage dementia. journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing, 20, 134-141. sylvester, r. & greenidge, w. (2009). digital storytelling: extending the potential for struggling writers. the reading teacher, 63(4), 284-295. yuksel, p., robin, b. r. & mcneil, s. (2011). educational uses of digital storytelling around the world. in m. koehler & p. mishra (eds.), proceedings of society for information technology and teacher education international conference 2011 (1264-1271). chesapeake, va: aace. retrieved from http://www.warehouse.olc.edu/khecrow/webfolder/site_digitalstorytelling abstract introduction literature review welfare and e-payments characteristics of e-payment instruments research design and methods data analysis results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) munacinga simatele department of economics, faculty of management and commerce, university of fort hare, east london, south africa citation simatele m. e-payment instruments and welfare: the case of zimbabwe. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a823. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.823 original research e-payment instruments and welfare: the case of zimbabwe munacinga simatele received: 30 jan. 2020; accepted: 01 sept. 2020; published: 20 jan 2021 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the literature shows that electronic payments are key to improving financial inclusion and achieving global development goals such as the united nation’s (uns) sustainable development goals. the benefits are premised on the welfare-enhancing effects of digital payments, which reduce costs, the probability of loss and risk for low-income consumers, as well as improve access to formal financial services. this study thus investigates the conditions under which these welfare-enhancing gains can be obtained. it considers the conditions under which e-payments can be welfare enhancing by using qualitative data from zimbabwe. the severe liquidity constraints in zimbabwe provide a good case for evaluating how well e-payments work, as the relative absence of cash has made the use of mobile money inevitable. focus group data are analysed to understand participants’ everyday experiences with the e-payment system in zimbabwe. the results indicate that the key challenges with payment systems faced by households include high costs, malfunctions of the system at the point of sale, lengthy refund processes and limited acceptance. participants indicate a strong preference for foreign exchange cash as a mode of payment. high levels of concentration in the mobile money market, lack of transparency by financial service providers and a strong preference for cash by retailers are the main drivers of system failure. therefore, this study identifies the need for the government to address the lack of competition in the market, as well as address macroeconomic liquidity constraints. keywords: e-payments; welfare; financial inclusion; digital finance; zimbabwe. introduction the development of e-payment systems has spurred the debate on the future of cash. however, for the average person, this is a moot point owing to the variety of available payment options. for lowand middle-income households, this remains a pertinent question, as most are dependent on cash, even in more advanced economies. as such, the rapid development of mobile money in developing countries is providing the poor with an important payment option. namely, the difficulties associated with the absence of modern bank infrastructure are being overcome by increased access to mobile financial services and, in particular, the ability to pay for goods and services via mobile phones.1 in addition, as technological advances have significantly improved the affordability of mobile phones on top of improving access, mobile payments can reduce the cost of providing financial services by up to 90%.2 the literature suggests three building blocks of digital finance and related e-payments that are welfare enhancing. firstly, efficient digital finance requires a robust and broad digital infrastructure, which includes widespread mobile connectivity and ownership, a national payment structure and a well-disseminated personal identification (id) system. many households in developing countries have a mobile subscription, itu3 showing there are 103 mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 people in developing countries. moreover, 78% of the population in sub-saharan africa is estimated to have at least 3g mobile network coverage. from a macro-perspective, the requisite infrastructure exists. further, national payment and id systems are largely well established in most sub-saharan african countries.4 secondly, a dynamic and sustainable financial service includes efficient and relevant financial services regulation. adequate regulation protects investors, consumers and governments, but must also ensure the existence of competition for the development of efficient, quality and diverse financial products.5 finally, there is a need to provide an array of financial products relevant to consumers. whilst a wide range of services have been developed, most of these are in the formal sector. as a result, many people in less developed economies are unserved. the prevalence of informal services is an indicator that the available services are not relevant to some population segments, especially in sub-saharan africa. this study thus uses qualitative data to understand the effects of e-payments and to evaluate the conditions under which e-payments can be welfare enhancing. the empirical evidence on whether the conditions discussed above are sufficient for households to fully benefit from e-payments is limited, as the literature on digital payments largely focusses on remittances and the macro-benefits of digital finance as a whole. further, a significant amount of research is based on developed countries and investigates the future of cash as a payment instrument,6,7,8,9 whilst the bulk of research on digital payment in africa focusses on east africa and m-pesa in kenya. these studies concentrate on the broad effects of m-pesa livelihood and welfare.10,11,12,13,i moreover, these studies tend to focus on evaluating the effects of remittances. however, the literature is largely silent on the conditions under which e-payments can be welfare enhancing. substantially, for the poor, the benefits associated with digital payments are linked to their ability to make e-payments. in other words, the associated reductions in costs and risk can significantly enhance welfare and improve their link to formal financial services. for example, the use of digital payments can create a digital footprint for users, which can increase transparency and the consequent access to credit. understanding the conditions for welfare-enhancing payment systems is thus important from both an academic and policy perspective. additionally, the failure of m-pesa in south africa exemplifies the importance of understanding the workings of mobile money and e-payments, particularly in settings different from kenya. this study considers the conditions under which e-payments can be welfare enhancing by using qualitative data from zimbabwe. the severe liquidity constraints in zimbabwe provide a good case for evaluating how well e-payments can work, as the relative absence of cash has made the use of mobile money inevitable. specifically, the reserve bank of zimbabwe indicated that 96% of all official transactions were conducted electronically in 2017.14 this study thus focusses on the actual use of mobile money rather than whether it will be used, as is the case for most studies on e-payments. literature review e-payments are generally defined as any payments undertaken by using electronic means. they can also be defined as any payment alternatives to cash.15 a more technical definition suggests that e-payments can be defined as the transfer of payment value from the payer to the recipient through an electronic means.16 electronic means can be broadly divided into business-to-consumer e-payments (b2c), e-payments between consumers or private-to-private payments (p2p), and electronic variations of traditional banking services.17 in practice, these payment types can overlap. for example, electronic banking services can be used between consumers and businesses, as well as between private individuals. accordingly, for the purpose of this study, e-payments are broadly defined as18: [p]ayments made using prepaid cards, debit and credit cards, loyalty cards, automated teller machine (atm) cards, gift cards and store cards, as well as mobile phones and near-field communication (nfc) – enabled cards. (p. 2) welfare and e-payments the literature on the welfare-enhancing effects of e-payments in africa focusses almost exclusively on mobile money. this literature stream can be divided into two sub-streams: one focussing on money agents and the other on welfare impacts of remittances. in the first case, the results indicate that mobile money generally enhances welfare. money agents benefit from increased income by engaging in money trade and can thus increase their consumption of basic goods and services such as food, clothes and education.19,20 however, the benefits from mobile money are negatively affected by fraud, poor information and network congestion.19 the second literature stream focusses on the welfare effects on households, measured almost exclusively through remittances.13,21 these studies show that the advent of mobile money has reduced the cost of remittances. consequently, the level and frequency of remittances received by poor households have increased, which has enabled them to increase their consumption of both consumer and capital goods. for example, kikulwe et al.22 show that the farmers who received remittances and used mobile money utilised more market inputs, such as fertilisers and labour, which resulted in increased production. peprah et al.21 find similar results by using an adoption framework, whilst lesley et al. show that increased remittances could widen occupational choices and improve informal risk sharing. there are two points of departure for this study. firstly, whilst the above studies shed light on whether e-payments have a welfare-enhancing effect, they do not evaluate the conditions under which this could take place. the benefits of e-payments or mobile money in the dominant literature are premised on, for instance, a well-functioning mobile money infrastructure. what happens when this infrastructure is weak, fragmented or inefficient? can these benefits still accrue? francis wambalaba et al.19 attempt to determine these issues by identifying the challenges faced by money agents within m-pesa. they find that a slow network, congestion and fraud reduce the benefits to money agents. secondly, this study considers all e-payment instruments, whilst the literature stream that details the benefits of mobile payments focusses almost exclusively on remittances. further, these studies are largely quantitative and provide a good measure of the impact of remittances on consumption and incomes, but they do not evaluate the challenges associated with using the various instruments, especially in an environment where systems and infrastructure may be imperfect. the next section reviews the literature on e-payments to identify relevant measures and provide a context for the empirical analysis. characteristics of e-payment instruments e-payments are primarily designed to benefit consumers by improving convenience and lowering transaction costs.2,23 because e-payment instruments do not have the same type of guarantee as cash, they have emerged as prepaid instruments rather than money. the implication is that e-payment instruments are a form of social relations, thus relying on the acceptance of both consumers and retailers. for this reason, unlike cash, the use of e-payment instruments relies on networked two-sided markets, which include the payment service provider as well as the merchant.24,25 therefore, for consumers to increase the use of digital payments, the utilised instrument must be widely accepted. by design, networked goods are affected by complementarities, externalities, switching costs and economies of scale. as a result, e-payments have little value in isolation, as the utility derived from any e-payment system will largely depend on other users also using the system. as more consumers use these instruments, the resulting network effects and externalities attract a critical mass on both sides of the market. arango, huynh, and sabetti26 find that the probability of paying by cash is significantly lower when card payments are perceived as widely accepted. although consumers benefit from an increase in the number of users of the same or complementary goods or services, this can lead to market concentration, and in turn result in a poor infrastructural set-up that limits consumer choice and the quality of services that consumers get.5,18 related access channels critically affect competition and thus the quality and diversification of products received by consumers.5 e-payments in the context of a developing country are, to a large extent, in the form of mobile payments rather than card payments. for example, in 2018 only 22% of the adults in developing countries made credit and debit card payments compared with 80% of the adults in developed countries.1 by contrast, mobile payments are significantly higher in developing countries. for instance, sub-saharan africa has the largest number of mobile accounts but only 10% of adults have a bank account. kenya has the highest number of active mobile accounts in africa, whose transaction value accounted for 3.3% of the gross domestic product (gdp) in 2009.27 at the same time, japan has the highest number of mobile accounts amongst the developed countries, but their transaction value was only 0.05% of the gdp in 2017. this is because the presence of established e-payment systems such as card payments in more advanced economies limits the penetration of mobile money.28 for this reason, the discussion on e-payments in this article largely refers to mobile money. the world bank group29 argues that, in developing countries, the cornerstone of each payment is the transaction account, which can be hosted by a bank or independent payment service provider. this is the account from which and to which payments are made. by design, these accounts require sufficient funds for payments to be made, essentially providing a value store. on the one hand, this benefits consumers, as it inadvertently ‘forces’ low-income households to save. on the other hand, these mobile accounts need to be efficient so as not to lead to restricted access for low-income households such as in the case of banks. unstructured supplementary service data (ussd) is the cheapest and most convenient mobile money service interface available for low-income consumers and thus the most commonly used in africa. for it to work, mobile money providers need to collaborate with mobile network operators (mnos). this can result in network congestion and a lower quality of voice and short message service (sms) services.30,31 additionally, mnos may restrict ussd access to their partner microfinance providers. for example, despite its dominance in the mobile network operating market, in zimbabwe, econet only provides ussd services for ecocash. in cases where an mno allows access to other providers, interconnection fees are usually very high.5,32 this dominance generates significant market power and is reinforced by the network effects of two-sided markets. therefore, consumers have no alternative providers to turn to in the face of inefficiencies and service failure. the infrastructural needs for card payments are different, but nevertheless significant. as with mobile money, several players within the supply chain are involved in ensuring that the infrastructure for card payments works. for example, a basic payment at the point of sale requires the merchant to have a point-of-sale (pos) machine. the machine in turn requires access to an efficient network, which creates a supply chain within the payment system. the failure or malfunction at any one of these points can affect the finality of a card payment. van laere et al.33 show that, when the critical infrastructure for card payments breaks down or malfunctions, there are negative welfare effects, as consumers fail to pay for basic items such as food, housing and medicine. this is exacerbated in a market where the main payment instrument for basic commodities is digital, such as in zimbabwe. they also show that these failures affect vulnerable groups most and reduce trust in the overall payment system. e-payments are perceived to have lower costs of transmission and management,2,34 which reduces the overall cost of providing electronic financial services for payment service providers, who can then pass these benefits to consumers.2,35 moreover, because consumers can access mobile financial services remotely, it reduces the need to travel to banks, which are often very far for most low-income households. further, the digital storage of mobile money entails that the poor can reduce the risk of loss and theft.36 therefore, e-payments are particularly beneficial for rural and remote areas, which is why they have generated significant interest as a vehicle for the expansion of financial inclusion in developing countries.37,38 klapper and singer15 emphasise the importance of digital payments in increasing financial inclusion and for the achievement of several sustainable development goals. an efficient e-payments system must thus reduce costs for consumers. the literature also argues the importance of security. although e-money reduces the risk of theft and loss, e-payments are not immune to fraud and personal information theft. in 2019, symantec39 showed that the financial sector was the most targeted by spear phishing attacks. therefore, an e-payment system must have an increased security level. accordingly, to a large extent, the level of security concerns can be linked to the level of transaction finality. for example, fraudsters prefer to attack payment instruments that have a rapid final settlement because this limits the possibility of countermanding stolen funds.40 correspondingly, consumers and retailers prefer payment instruments with immediacy to meet retailer needs.41 whilst e-payments have a high level of finality and immediacy which benefit the customer, they also increase the potential risks associated with it. based on this review, the welfare effect of e-payments can be evaluated based on how well an e-payment system satisfies the basic characteristics of a payment instrument. these characteristics are summarised in table 1. table 1: welfare effects of payment instruments. research design and methods research approach and questions this study used a qualitative method to explore the conditions under which e-payments can be welfare enhancing by probing participants’ experiences with various payment methods in a liquidity-constrained economy – zimbabwe. the purpose was to understand participants’ experiences with different payment instruments and with e-payments. because of the exploratory nature of the study, the research questions are broad and open-ended, focussing on three aspects. firstly, what is the general experience of participants with various payment instruments? secondly, what are the perceptions about the benefits and constraints associated with different payment systems? thirdly, what are the perceived effects of the various payment instruments on livelihood? participants and data collection the data were collected through focus group discussions in april 2019. three separate group discussions were held for groups with different demographics. the first group comprised university employees and students. the second group were factory employees, which included two managers. the third group was a group of casual workers and shop floor employees in a peri-urban location. despite the different demographics of these groups, the discussion soon reached saturation, as all three groups were bringing up almost the same information. participants shared various experiences at the pos with services such as transport or transferring money to relatives in villages in remote areas. these experiences were recorded and transcribed. emerging themes were very similar across the narratives. data trustworthiness to start with, the nature of the study needed a neutral moderator. this is because the enquiry is driven by a nationwide phenomenon. therefore, the focus groups were facilitated by two moderators: one from zimbabwe and one from outside zimbabwe. further, the discussion audio was recorded and transcribed verbatim in the language in which the discussion took place. all three discussions used a mixture of ndebele, shona and english. the transcripts were then translated into english. to ensure consistency and accuracy, different individuals were used to transcribe and translate. moreover, as korstjens and moser42 outline, credibility is required to ensure the confidence of the research findings in that the inferences drawn are an accurate representation of participants’ original meaning or views. member validation was used by sharing the facilitator’s understanding and interpretations with the participants. additionally, triangulation was used by consulting secondary sources especially cases reported in the media. a brief on the payment systems in zimbabwe in zimbabwe, the national payment system has been in place since 2001 and is monitored by the reserve bank of zimbabwe. in 2009, a period of record hyperinflation led the country to abandon the local currency in favour of five foreign currencies as legal tender. of these, the united states (us) dollar was chosen as the official currency. this was followed by a period of worsening cash shortages. in 2016, the reserve bank started to push for an electronic-based payment system.14,43,44 the result was a large shift of official transactions to digital payments. the reserve bank declared that 96% of the official payments in 2017 were made electronically. additionally, retail e-payment transactions increased, with transaction values and volumes rising by 216% and 343%, respectively.14,43 in 2019, the reserve bank of zimbabwe announced that, in volume terms, more than 99% of transactions were made through online and mobile banking platforms.45 this would make zimbabwe the world’s first cashless society. the basic requisite infrastructure for digital payments in zimbabwe already exists, as 88.2% of the population has mobile cellular subscriptions and an internet penetration rate of 59.8%.46 further, the national payment system has been established and run by the reserve bank of zimbabwe. one of the infrastructural disadvantages in zimbabwe is the limited competition in the mobile payment market. although three mobile payment companies exist, econet’s ecocash dominates the market, having over 90% of the market share of active mobile money subscriptions.46 its dominance is so apparent that mobile money in zimbabwe is generally referred to as ecocash. digital payments are important in zimbabwe, as the reserve bank of zimbabwe14 indicated that 96% of all official payments in 2017 were made electronically. yet, consumers complain about the high charges they face, as well as the system and infrastructural failures associated with e-payments in the country. in 2018, the government of zimbabwe introduced a 2% tax on all e-payments.ii the country thus provides a good environment to investigate the extent to which the relevance of the building blocks of digital payments cascades to the everyday experiences of consumers and how this affects their welfare. data analysis the focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim. the transcripts were then used to identify the themes related to the experiences of the participants and how they in turn underscore the nature of requisite infrastructure required for a welfare-enhancing e-payment system. the discussion questions were deliberately designed to allow the participants to explore all avenues in their experiences. the identification of themes was therefore inductive, relying on participants’ narratives. the data from each focus group were categorised by using key phrases. these categories were then organised into themes. table 1-a1 shows a sample of relevant phrases and how they were categorised. the emergent themes are used to structure the discussion around the experiences of the participants with e-payments. these experiences were then evaluated considering the prerequisites discussed earlier to determine how they played out in the zimbabwean context and impacted consumer welfare. results and discussion the payment system in zimbabwe centres around four modes of payment. these include cards (mainly debit cards), mobile money, internet-based bank payments and multiple-currency cash. despite the official data showing a high usage of e-payment instruments, the participants indicated that their preferred method of payment is cash. the us dollar and south african rand are the preferred currencies. the low levels of local production, which failed to meet consumer demand, have resulted in import dependency and an increased demand for and the resultant shortage of foreign exchange. the government introduced measures to curb the impact of us dollar shortages and promote the widespread use of other currencies in the currency basket. these measures were introduced in 2016 and required 40% of all new us dollar foreign exchange receipts from exports to be converted to rands and euros at the official rate. this led to an increased preference for payments in us dollars and south african rands by retailers to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the reserve bank. next to cash, real time gross settlement (rtgs) bonds circulate in the country as a surrogate currency since 2016 and are preferred above e-payments. the preference for cash is driven by several intertwined factors, including the high costs associated with e-payments, poor infrastructure, eroded productivity within the country and the lack of acceptance by some retailers. these form the basis for participants’ evaluation of the conditions under which e-payments impact their welfare. costs associated with e-payments the costs cited by participants included premiums charged by retailers and e-payments, the 2% tax by the government, the payment of charges by payment system providers and opportunity costs associated with a poor infrastructure. the larger and more established supermarkets accept all forms of payment, and their pricing is uniform across these various modes of payment, whilst informal retailers and small shops prefer cash and use a multi-tier pricing system. larger shops are considered expensive for many of the goods purchased by middleand low-income households. most consumers thus prefer to purchase their goods from informal retailers and corner shops, which are perceived to be cheaper and more conveniently located. a survey of prices showed that the cost differences could be significant, as shown in table 2. table 2: cost differential in cash united states dollar prices.† one participant indicated that: ‘it’s cheaper to buy from the market the same things you buy from the supermarket. it’s cheaper on the street except that you need cash to buy from the street. besides, you know if you buy a bag of potatoes it is sold at 14 zimbabwean dollars in the supermarket. if you go to the market, it’s 9 zimbabwean dollars. so i will be trying to save money to make it stretch. so, we prefer cash to buy from the market.’ (p1, female, seamstress) the preference for cash is also driven by the costs associated with alternative payment instruments. contrary to the general indications in the literature, the perception in zimbabwe is that e-payments are costly. consumers face three points of charges when making payments as follows. firstly, the government introduced a 2% tax on mobile e-payments in 2017. secondly, the payment service providers charge a cost of between 1% and 3% per transaction. participants indicated that they pay an average charge of 6% per transaction in costs. these rates are much higher in rural areas, where transaction costs can be as high as 10%, in addition to the 2% government tax. ‘it’s not easy, it’s just not easy, as for eco-cash they top another amount. if i have 10 zimbabwean dollars, i need to top another 2 zimbabwean dollars and my salary doesn’t allow for that. so, we prefer to get united states dollars, since the whole country is running after united states dollars.’ (p2, female, factory manager) the high demand for cash, which is constrained in terms of supply, has led to the development of a parallel market for cash, where both foreign and local currencies are sold in exchange for electronic money. many consumers use their wages and salaries on this market to buy cash at a premium of between 15% and 20%. many of the participants indicated that this accounts for the high level of e-payments reflected in official government documents. one of the participants explained: ‘i never got my salary from the bank this month and already have now spent from my account. i used everything but never got cash from the bank.’ (p3, male, shopkeeper) another narrated: ‘some of these transactions are done by us to get cash. we will be transacting using these methods to get cash at a premium, so that we can pay cash in the informal market. so the government can’t really track these transactions. we use e-payments as a means to get cash, then we use cash in the market.’ (p4, male, university lecturer) the cash shortage affects rural areas comparatively more. whilst remittances such as ecocash are quite efficient, the use of mobile money for payments is negatively affected by the constraints above. the recipients of remittances choose to buy cash at a premium than pay for goods and services using ecocash. the premium on cash in rural areas can be up to 20%, in addition to the payment service provider charges paid for the transfer. the main reason cited is the tax and base charges levied by the payment service providers. the money agents in rural areas are often shop owners. therefore, the recipients of mobile money are forced to make a minimum purchase in the shop before they can withdraw their money. a participant gave an example: ‘when she goes for collection, they can’t give her 10 zimbabwean dollars, they say we will give you 5 zimbabwean dollars and then you have to buy abc from his shop for the other 5 zimbabwean dollars.’ (p5, female, casual worker) to curb liquidity constraints, the reserve bank of zimbabwe has introduced various currencies at different points in time to address liquidity problems with little success. a surrogate currency in the form of bond notes was introduced in 2016. this was followed by the rtgs virtual dollar in february 2019. by november 2019, the government had introduced another currency, the zimbabwean dollar. this was the first time that the government printed notes since 2009. as a further measure to curb liquidity problems, the reserve bank also placed a ban on mobile money for cash transactions. this resulted in a pushback, with the reversal of the ban 3 days later. instead, a limit of $100 per transaction was imposed.45 despite these efforts, the cash shortage and the ensuing mobile money to cash premium costs have continued. acceptance smaller shops do not generally have the facilities to allow consumers to pay for their goods using cards. card payments are typically used in larger shops. however, most small shops accept mobile payments. no formal registration is required for receiving such payments, as opposed to card payments, which require retailers to be registered for a pos machine. consequently, mobile payments are widely accepted in comparison with card payments. nevertheless, cash is the only accepted mode of payment by street vendors, who are the main source of goods for low-income households. one participant explained why cash is important: ‘besides swiping, there are some things where i need to use cash for. for example if i get cash, i need transport and i need to buy tomatoes. where am i going to get the cash for that?’ (p2, female, factory manager) convenience despite the general acceptance of mobile payments, their usage is hampered by infrastructural capacity. all participants lamented the frequent network failures associated with both mobile and card payments. on the one hand, mobile payments rely on the efficiency of mnos, which is not always the case. this problem is pronounced in rural areas, being exacerbated by their geographical remoteness. on the other hand, card payments rely on internet efficiency, which is frequently lacking. as a result, whilst all e-payments are hampered by the frequent network failures, the mobile network outages are less frequent than the internet network ones. the main effect of network inefficiency is that transactions are often incomplete. whilst retailer points indicate that payments have been declined, payment service providers often show that money has been deducted from the consumer’s account. the refund processes are lengthy and cumbersome and can take up to 4 weeks. one participant narrated: ‘i went to the petrol station and then swiped 50 zimbabwean dollars for fuel but it failed and the machine showed that the money came out of my account. i tried for the second time, it failed. so what they require now is that look, you go to get your refund, the garage has to write a letter. you go to the bank for them to give you the bank statement, then you know it’s time consuming and takes about 4 weeks for your money to be refunded from the suspense account. they call it the suspense account; i don’t know what that means.’ (p4, male, university lecturer) another problem associated with e-payments is the lack of pricing transparency. participants indicated that mobile money charges are not clear within and across networks. this lack of transparency also affects card payments, whilst information about the functionality of debit and credit cards is not available. participants indicated they had to hold multiple cards to conduct different transactions: ‘i am still trying to establish because these two banks are local banks. i bank with cbz [commercial bank of zimbabwe] and i opened an fca [foreign currency account] account and to do international transactions i was supposed to use a tt [telegraphic transfer], which is a change of my account to do foreign transactions, but unfortunately the process takes a long time. naturally, i was supposed to use my visa card. when i asked my bank if i could use my visa card and i was told that i can’t. i had to use someone’s card from fbc. fbc is also a local bank, but it’s giving me the option to do international transactions. i am still trying to figure out what’s happening’. (p6, female, university lecturer) security and trust despite the high costs and network problems associated with mobile money, many participants indicated that mobile money is more secure than both cash and bank deposits: ‘the advantage we have with ecocash is that it protects our money. it is safe because you don’t have to go around carrying cash. you can lose your phone but because your cash is recorded somewhere i was to be able to access your cash by using another phone. moreover, it is safer and quicker to send money to the village.’ (p3, male, shopkeeper) many participants remit money to relatives in rural areas and find that, despite the associated costs, it is the most convenient way to remit. they added that owing to the poor infrastructure in rural areas, the only alternative to mobile money is to send money through bus drivers, who charge 10% to take the cash. when added to the cost of obtaining the cash, it makes this alternative too expensive. further, bus drivers have been known to abscond with the money. the real-time nature of ecocash for remittances also makes it preferable to cash. when physical cash is handed over to drivers, it can take up to 3 days for the recipients to get it. however, the lengthy and cumbersome refund processes have eroded faith in the e-payment system. several participants indicated they felt that the suspense accounts used to hold money when a transaction is declined were used illegally by banks and payment service providers to defraud consumers: ‘i believe that the money then forms a suspense account, which is then used illegally by these service providers.’ (p7, male, university student) these problems have also eroded trust in the banking system. one participant said: ‘it is no longer safe to keep your money in the bank in zimbabwe because you will go through countless bank charges. there is no interest. they even charge you for checking your bank balance on your mobile phone. they charge you about 39 cents.’ (p8, female, factory worker) livelihoods participants also indicated that the inefficient payment system has negative effects on their livelihoods. the dependence on imports and the preference for payments in us dollars means that prices are constantly increasing owing to the changes in the exchange rate. although prices are also indicated in bonds, these are directly linked to the exchange rate. further, many small shops vary their prices depending on the instrument used by the consumer. the prominence of a parallel market for cash has inevitably led to frequent increases in basic commodity prices. by august 2019, the inflation rate reached 300%, returning the country to the pre-dollarisation levels and making zimbabwe the world’s most inflationary economy. the effects on livelihoods can be significant for low-income households. participants complained that their salaries are very low and, if the transaction ‘hangs’, they must find alternative sources of money to pay for groceries whilst they wait for the lengthy resolution process to be completed. the reversal times are much longer for bankcards than for ecocash. whilst mobile payment reversals take between 48 and 72 h to reverse, bankcard and bank mobile payment reversals can take up to 4 weeks. once the consumer has submitted a letter to the bank, the bank will issue the statement upon payment, which adds to the costs incurred by the consumers. one of the participants indicated the need to use smaller shops that do not accept e-payment instruments: ‘bigger shops tend to be more stable when it comes to pricing, and they seem to conform to official rates, as required by the central bank. small shops are highly sensitive to events in the money market and, therefore, change their prices and payment terms frequently. but sometimes you find that things that are not in bigger shops are there in the smaller shops.’ (p4, male, university lecturer) another further explained why this was so important: ‘also, you must remember that most of them get their goods from outside the country. so they need the foreign exchange to pay for their stock. so, they sell their goods in cash and foreign exchange. for example, a bag of potatoes at the supermarket can be 14 zimbabwean dollars and 9 zimbabwean dollars at the vendors.’ (p9, male, factory worker) e-payments and welfare the experiences of participants have indicated that e-payments in zimbabwe have had both welfare-enhancing and welfare-reducing effects. the framework shown in table 3 is used to summarise the findings. however, in line with the literature, the largest benefit from e-payments is from remittances.13,21 e-payment instruments, especially mobile money, enable consumers to send money cheaply and securely to relatives. this indirectly affects the welfare of consumers through their extended family welfare. moreover, mobile money is cited as being very secure relative to other forms of payment. table 3: welfare effects of e-payments. these positive effects are countered by the high transaction costs. the lack of alternatives places a burden especially on low-income consumers. as previously indicated, both remittances and purchases can attract up to 20% in implicit and explicit surcharges on a single transaction. chiroga et al.48 and world bank findex49 indicate that the greatest benefit of mobile money to the poor is the reduction of payment costs. however, the consumers in zimbabwe are not benefitting from these reduced costs, even for remittances. in an efficient system, the immediacy and finality of e-payments provide significant benefit to consumers. in this case, we find that the infrastructure is also highly congested and transactions frequently fail at the pos. this poor quality of infrastructure and services can also be attributed to the lack of competition within the market, which leads to congestion. the zimbabwean financial sector and mobile network show significant concentration. for example, econet’s ecocash held about 95% of the mobile payment market in october 2019 and processed 99.7% of all mobile transaction in the last quarter of 2019.50,51 its dominance is reflected by the fact that mobile money is generally referred to as ecocash, despite the presence of two other mobile money providers. the networked nature of mobile money implies that switching costs are high, especially given the very few alternatives. the quality of service has further been eroded by electricity shortages. mobile money is generally accepted, but not as widely by street vendors. for instance, tacoli,52 skinner and haysom53 and patel et al.54 highlight the importance of street vending as a source of food security and livelihood for the poor. therefore, any payment instrument that fails to be generally accepted amongst street vendors is likely to disadvantage the poor. conclusion the study investigates whether the use of e-payments in zimbabwe is welfare enhancing. whilst the government highlighted the successful mass transition to e-payments to circumvent the persistent cash shortage, anecdotal evidence suggests that this shift may be out of obligation and may not be fully benefiting consumers. consumer perspectives were evaluated by using a focus group setting, which showed that despite the infrastructure, national payment and id systems being in place, the malfunctions of these systems often lead to high transactions costs for consumers. moreover, the poor infrastructure also limited their acceptance of e-payment instruments and eroded the faith of consumers in the national payment system. this resulted in a strong preference for foreign currencies, particularly the us dollar and the south african rand. we conclude that e-payments are welfare enhancing through remittances, but largely welfare reducing owing to the persistent infrastructure and system failures. it is therefore not sufficient to have the prerequisites of digital finance in place, as the quality of these prerequisites matters as well. in zimbabwe, the access to the network was overridden by its poor quality, resulting in negative welfare effects. despite the presence of the well-established national payment system, the lack of competition in the e-payment market has resulted in poor quality services and limited options for consumers. econet’s ecocash holds more than 90% of the mobile network market, which means it has significant market power. moreover, the dominance of econet on both the mobile network and mobile money markets has led to significant congestion, eroding consumer experience with both services. the experiences of consumers suggest that the regulatory framework in the country has not sufficiently addressed the need for increased competition. moreover, the participants complained significantly about the lack of transparency in terms of pricing and product options. this resulted in increased search costs for consumers, who often opted to stay with the same provider, further consolidating market concentration. finally, the lack of faith in the national payment system has broader macroeconomic implications. the preference for foreign currencies as a mode of payment has continued to fuel inflation. merchants link their local prices to the exchange rate in real time. the continued increase in demand for foreign exchange vis-à-vis the supply is likely to maintain the high inflation rate. the government thus needs to put measures in place to restore faith in the payment system and curb inflationary expectations. acknowledgements dr edson mbedzi provided very valuable research assistance. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this research article. author’s contribution m.s. is the sole author of this research article. ethical consideration ethics clearance was obtained through the university of fort hare (clearance number: sim003). ethical approval was sought and granted, and the purpose of the study was clearly explained to the participants. each participant gave individual consent for participating in the focus groups. no names were recorded and participants were informed of their right to leave the focus groups at any time if they so wished. funding information the data collection for this article was in part funded by the nedbank chair in economics as well as the seed fund from the university of fort hare’s govan mbeki research and development centre. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references demirguc-kunt a, klapper l, singer d, ansar s, hess j. the global findex database 2017: measuring financial inclusion and the fintech revolution [homepage on the internet]. world bank; 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2015 [cited 2020 jan 29]. available from: https://www.cgap.org/sites/default/files/researches/documents/brief-the-role-of-ussd-feb-2015.pdf robb g, vilakazi t. mobile payments markets in kenya, tanzania and zimbabwe: a comparative study of competitive dynamics and outcomes. afr j inform comm. 2016;2016(17):9–37. https://doi.org/10.23962/10539/21630 van laere j, berggren p, ibrahim o, et al. challenges for critical infrastructure resilience: cascading effects of payment system disruptions. core paper – monitoring and resilience of critical infrastructure in the hyper-connected society. proceedings of the international conference on information systems for crisis response and management, 2017; p. 2411–3387. dos santos pl, kvangraven ih. better than cash, but beware the costs: e-payments systems and financial inclusion in developing economics. dev change. 2017;48(2):205–227. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12296 kendall j, schiff r, smadja e. primed for mobile payments [homepage on the internet]. 2013 [cited 2019 apr 12]. available from: http://www.aida.co.bw/report/mckinsey/mop18_sub-saharan_africa_a_major_potential_revenue_opportunity_for_digital_payments.pdf aker jc, boumnijel r, mcclelland a, tierney n. payment mechanisms and antipoverty programs: evidence from a mobile money cash transfer experiment in niger. econ dev cult change. 2016;65(1):1–37. https://doi.org/10.1086/687578 donovan k. mobile money for inclusion [homepage on the internet]. washingtin, dc: world bank; 2012 [cited 2019 feb 21]. available from: https://doi.org/10.1596/9780821389911_ch04 zins a, weill l. the determinants of financial inclusion in africa. rev dev financ. 2016;6(1):46–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rdf.2016.05.001 symantec. istr internet security threat report, volume 24 [homepage on the internet]. 2019 [cited 2019 feb 22]. available from: https://img03.en25.com/web/symantec/%7b1a7cfc98-319b-4b97-88a7-1306a3539445%7d_istr_24_2019_en.pdf?aid=elq_19296 anderson r. risk and privacy implications of consumer payment innovation in the connected age. j bank financ. 2012;14(6):99–120. kuttner kn, mcandrews jj. personal on-line payments [homepage on the internet]. economic policy review, 2001 [cited 2020 aug 18]; p. 35–50. available from: http://www.angelfire.com/indie/sharmapranav/forthesis/1201kutt.pdf korstjens i, moser a. series: practical guidance to qualitative research. part 4: trustworthiness and publishing. eur j gen pract. 2018;24(1):120–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/13814788.2017.1375092 reserve bank of zimbabwe. 2017 mid-term monetary policy statement. harare: reserve bank of zimbabwe; 2017. reserve bank of zimbabwe. 2016 mid-term monetary policy statement. harare: reserve bank of zimbabwe; 2016. reserve bank of zimbabwe. 2019 first quater monetary policy statement. harare: reserve bank of zimbabwe; 2019. potraz. postal and telecommunications regulatory authority of zimbabwe: abridged postal and telecommunications sector performance report. harare: postal and telecommunications regulatory authority of zimbabwe; 2019. simatele m, mbedzi e. payment choices, costs and risks: the case of zimbabwe. cogent econ financ. forthcoming. chiroga m, de grandis h, zouaoui y. mobile financial services in africa: winning the battle for the customer [homepage on the internet]. 2017 [cited 2019 jan 24]. available from: https://www.mckinsey.de/~/media/mckinsey/industries/financialservices/ourinsights/mobilefinancialservicesinafricawinningthebattleforthecustomer/mobile-financial-services-in-africa-winning-the-battle-for-the-customer.pdf world bank findex. the little data book on financial inclusion. washington dc: world bank policy research work paper series, 2018; p. 1–176. karombo t. mobile money agents cash in on zimbabwe’s cash crunch – itweb africa [homepage on the internet]. 2019 [cited 2020 jan 14]. available from: https://itweb.africa/content/gxwqdq1zryrvlpvo. matiashe fs. zimbabwe lifts ban on mobile money to cash transactions – quartz africa [homepage on the internet]. quartz africa weekly brief; 2019 [cited 2020 jan 10]. available from: https://qz.com/africa/1721402/zimbabwe-lifts-ban-on-mobile-money-to-cash-transactions/ tacoli c. food (in) security in rapidly urbanising, low-income contexts. int j environ res public health. 2017;14(12):1554. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121554 skinner c, haysom g. working paper 44: the informal sector’s role in food security: a missing link in policy debates? [homepage on the internet]. african centre for cities, institute for poverty, land and agrarian studies, dst-nrf centre of excellence in food security, plaas; 2016 [cited 2020 aug 18]. available from: http://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10566/4527/wp_44_informal_sector’s_role_food_security_2016.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y patel k, guenther d, wiebe k, seburn r-a. promoting food security and livelihoods for urban poor through the informal sector: a case study of street food vendors in madurai, tamil nadu, india. food secur. 2014;6:861–878. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-014-0391-z table 1-a1: sample coding. footnotes fn0001. m-pesa is a mobile-phone based financial service platform for money transfer, financing and microfinancing services. it was launched in 2007 in kenya and has since spread to various african countries. see baer, bounfour, and housel (2018) for a discussion of why m-pesa did not work in the south african context. fn0002. the previous charge was 5 cents per transaction. abstract introduction health care information systems implementation aim and objectives literature review method discussion implications and recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) oluwamayowa o. ogundaini digital transformation and innovation, school of business leadership (sbl), university of south africa (unisa), midrand, south africa mourine s. achieng digital transformation and innovation, school of business leadership (sbl), university of south africa (unisa), midrand, south africa citation ogundaini oo, achieng ms. systematic review: decentralised health information systems implementation in sub-saharan africa. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1216. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1216 review article systematic review: decentralised health information systems implementation in sub-saharan africa oluwamayowa o. ogundaini, mourine s. achieng received: 25 mar. 2022; accepted: 09 june 2022; published: 30 aug. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract globally the health space is being revolutionised by rapid digital transformation to support care activities, promote healthier lifestyles and ensure informed decision making to improve service delivery. however, many health systems in sub-saharan africa are yet to realise the full potential of health information systems (his) as a digital transformation initiative. the objective of this article is to establish how the sociotechnical challenges in africa’s health systems can be addressed by recommending a fitting approach to implement his relevant to the context of the continent. the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) technique was applied to search, identify and filter articles over a 10-year period by applying inclusion and exclusion criteria accordingly. only 42 articles satisfied the objective of this article. the emergent themes include contextual factors, coordination and collaboration, data complexity, organisation structure, accountability and stakeholders’ perspectives. the results indicated that less attention has been given to how the implementation approach could impact the output of health systems. in conclusion, the authors argue that a decentralised approach to the implementation of his is more appropriate for africa’s health systems. the premise of the authors’ argument is informed by the tiered structure of health systems, varying levels of infrastructural development and use of large volumes of health-related data for resources allocation at the national level. future studies should investigate the processes for formulation and evaluation of health policies to actively redress the administrative issues associated with the current functional his in each african country. transdisciplinarity contribution: the paper contributes to the practical implications of implementing his in sub-saharan african health systems by highlighting the contextual realities and data governance complexities that support a decentralised approach towards ensuring resilience and health security. keywords: health information systems; decentralised approach; it implementation; centralised approach; sub-saharan africa; health systems. introduction the world health organization (who) describes a health care system as encompassing all the activities that promote and maintain a wholesome state of well-being by preventing and treating disease outbreaks.1 also, a health care system may reflect a country’s economic, cultural and political situation.2 in other words, health care systems consist of stakeholders with specific roles, characteristics, needs and other variables that may exist in an overlapping, multilayered and organised administrative structures.3,4 the primary stakeholders of health care systems include the population, the government and private individuals or organisations. the organised structure could be regional, local, national or international, with variables that include health indicators, financial expenditure, skilled workforce, enabling infrastructure and technological innovations.5 the complexities and dynamics of health care systems suggest the impracticability of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ implementation approach of health initiatives, especially in the african context. this article discusses about opportunities for success and challenges that pose a threat to the implementation of health care information systems (hiss). in africa, health care systems are usually subdivided into private and public sectors, which are regulated by the government.2,6 while the private health care system is funded by individuals and insurance companies, the public health care system is primarily government funded. services in the public health care systems are offered in three tiers: primary health care includes community clinic and home-based care, secondary and tertiary level hospitals.7 the goal of a stratified public health care system is to subsidise the cost of health care access for the general populace and simplify the administrative process and governance complexities.8 with health care sectors that operate two parallel health care systems that differ in terms of resources and funding, this is further exacerbated by a rise in population growth that depends on public health care services, disease prevalence and shortage in skilled human capital.1,9 in addition, issues of inadequate data management and communication at different levels of health care systems result in delays and uninformed decision making. to redress the impact of resource constraints, especially in managing health-related information, hiss have been adopted in most health care systems.6,10 it is argued that hiss present an opportunity that can automate the coordination and delivery of quality care and administrative services. health care information uses technology to support the work activities of doctors, nurses and hospital managers by enabling collection, retrieval, exchange and use of large volumes of health-related information for decision making.11 for instance, technology application in health systems may include hospital information systems such as electronic health records (ehrs) to facilitate localised care within hospitals and mobile health to facilitate remote care. the benefits of his have simplified the nature of clinical work activities and referrals, reduced human errors and created an avenue for adequate resource allocation and public health monitoring. yet hiss remain inhibited by critical challenges of its implementation approach. health care information systems implementation one of the lessons learnt from the emergence of and experiences from the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid–19) pandemic is that the health care systems in africa need to be revamped. public health systems in africa are already plagued by multiple recurring challenges, and as a result of this, the potential benefits that his present have not been fully realised.6 existing literature shows that majority of the hiss developed in africa are either hospital or clinic-based and implemented independently at a certain tier of the public health system without being in line with a specific architecture approach: centralised or decentralised. for example, in most african health care systems, ehrs are developed to manage context-specific health-related information.12 while some of the hiss are developed for use in specific hospitals or clinics, patients’ records can still be tracked at the national level of the public health system.13 the unsuccessful implementation of ehrs is usually associated with infrastructural, social and regulatory factors.14 achieng and ruhode15 suggested that besides understanding and addressing these factors, identification and characterisation of the underlying generative mechanisms with causal effects that produce current implementation outcomes is crucial. in terms of infrastructure, erratic electricity supply means that the technology can go offline at any time, which may eventually lead to damage. initial costs of hardware and software serve as deterrents to the implementation of hiss. in addition, internet connectivity plays a major role in the implementation of his. as of 2021, the internet connectivity among african countries is estimated at 79% because of the penetration of mobile telecommunication.16 however, sub-saharan africa’s digital divide is estimated to be over 40% in terms of areas with less than adequate internet connectivity to enable and guarantee the use of information and communication technologies (icts). taken these dynamics into consideration, a decentralised his might be ideal to avoid single-point failures and their unintended consequences.17,18 there are existing peer-reviewed studies that have discussed centralised and decentralised approaches to his implementation.19,20,21 however, there is a limited body of literature that emphasises the opportunities of a decentralised his architecture, especially in africa.22 this article provides a perspective on the merits and demerits of decentralised and centralised hiss and takes a position on the suitable approach for the african context. aim and objectives this article seeks to explore the impact of the current status of hiss in africa’s health care systems in terms of the availability, accessibility and use of health-related information to support quality and safe service delivery in african health care systems. this study seeks to contribute a proposed conceptual framework for decentralised his implementation in the african context. literature review the primary goal of a health care system is to improve health outcomes through the provision of quality health care services. globally, health care systems usually have distributed structures consisting of health care facilities such as hospitals, clinics and community health centres that provide different types of care services to the populace.3 within these health care facilities, hiss have been implemented to facilitate the management of health-related data and information. however, there is a persistent challenge of lack of interoperability between implemented health care technologies that impede the sharing and exchange of health-related data.23 given the peculiarities of the african context in terms of infrastructural development and internet connectivity, it becomes imperative to consider the adoption of a his implementation approach that would enable the realisation of quality service delivery in its health systems. interoperability issues with implementation of health care information systems in sub-saharan africa the lack of interoperability can be attributed to the use of different software vendors to develop and implement the his in individual health care facilities.24 the authors argued that lack of interoperability often creates another challenge of lack of uniformity in the health records generated and stored by the individual health care facilities. for example, records (digital and paper) generated by health care facilities might not be accessible or comprehensible to other stakeholders such as patients, other health care practitioners and medical insurers. the implication is that the generated health data may diminish in value when it comes to informed decision and policymaking. besides the lack of interoperability between existing his, there is also the constant threat of privacy and security issues in health-related information management and sharing.25 the suggestion for an adequate approach to implementing hiss in africa is closely associated with understanding and addressing the recurrent issues that result from lack of interoperability. this could be in the forms of accessing, monitoring or analysing of health data23 for decision or policymaking purposes. de la cruz et al.26 suggested that the development and implementation of hiss should begin with analysing the context, designing a detailed structure and behaviour of the system to meet its intended purpose. the authors refer to this as a ‘system architecture’ that is characterised by the system’s functionality, components, attributes and its interrelations.26 the system architecture of his is usually informed by e-health strategies, normative standard frameworks and related health policies.27,28 in the health care systems of many african countries, e-health architecture has been adopted to facilitate the management and sharing of health-related data generated from health icts. for example, the health care systems in ethiopia, south africa, ghana and kenya have incorporated his enterprise architecture into their national e-health strategy, as reported by ministries and departments of health, respectively. subsequently, this informs the implementation of health technology initiatives in the countries’ health systems and the quality of health care services delivery. to realise standardisation and interoperability of health data, an issue most health care systems in africa struggle with, higman et al.29 argued that an appropriate e-health architecture must be adopted to achieve interoperability in hiss. the architecture and approach to his development and implementation are largely influenced by the structure and nature of a country’s health care system,30 which is tiered in the african context. literature further shows that health care systems that have a top-down approach to management and governance are more likely to implement centralised hiss. in contrast, health care systems that adopt the bottom-up approach are more likely to adopt a decentralised architecture for the implementation of hiss.30,31,32 centralised versus decentralised approaches to health care information system implementation in the centralised ‘top-down’ architecture approach, a primary his is implemented and used in the information management of health-related data nationally.33 the approach has an advantage of central availability and management of health-related data to generate reports for national health-related data analysis in the event of disease surveillance. however, there are problems associated with this approach that cannot be simply ignored, because of the sensitivity of health data and monitoring of allocated resources. firstly, the inability of a central his to support the peculiar needs and requirements of local health care facilities.30 furthermore, zaied et al.33 argued that access and use of health data from a central repository system that contains data from multiple health care facilities across a health care system can be challenging in terms of data context, data volume, data accuracy and data codification. the implications are that large data become complex to manage, causing delays because of a lack of uniformity in infrastructure and cost overruns because of high costs required to maintain and scale a centralised his to sustain uninterrupted service delivery. a bigger challenge associated with a centralised his is security and privacy of health-related data.24,25,34 patil and seshadri34 argued that centralised hiss that are nationally accessible are more likely vulnerable to security breaches. this is exacerbated by inadequate security measures in health care systems where nationally accessible health care data can be viewed and retrieved by several stakeholders.24 security breaches and misuse of health-related data are associated with heavy medicolegal consequences for the health care practitioners, institutions and even the government, where health records are leaked and used without unequivocal consents from the patients or owners of health information. in the decentralised ‘bottom-up’ approach, his are often implemented at regional levels or in individual health care facilities. transfer of authority to individual health care facilities or regional government health organisation means that all health-related information would be stored and maintained locally.33 hence, it becomes easier to monitor allocated resources for accountability purposes and manage the complexities that may result from managing large volumes of health-related data to aid decision making. in addition, a decentralised his affords the opportunities for customisation to fit the dynamic health-related and information needs and the infrastructure requirements for each individual health care facility providing different types of care services. dwivedi et al.35 argued that the decentralised approach of his implementation militates against bottlenecks in the flow of health information and ensures robustness and scalability of the systems. mudaly et al.30 claimed that without the element of central coordination, the decentralised approach of his allows for uniformity in standards. as such, the decentralised architecture approach has the advantage of decreased duplication and increased consistency of health-related data. also, the decentralised approach militates against security risks associated with a centralised architecture approach, because health-related information remains at the source rather than being duplicated in a centralised repository.33 enabling technologies to establish decentralised health care information systems in sub-saharan africa enabling technologies ensure that any security risks or breach to a decentralised his are localised and can be addressed without disruption to the continuous transmission, sharing and storage of health-related information. examples of enabling technologies that can be used to implement a decentralised his in the health systems of sub-saharan africa include blockchain technologies, satellite technologies, cloud computing and the internet of things (iot). for instance, blockchain technologies have demonstrated the value and benefits obtainable in securing the transmission of health-related data in decentralised information systems. cloud computing systems enable secured remote access to health-related information, reduce the costs to establish multiple infrastructures across several health institutions and mitigate any forms of implementation incompatibilities in hiss.36 furthermore, iot can be used to monitor and collect health care indicators at different levels of a health system and automate the transmission of health-related data within an internetworked system to a cloud database.37,38 in essence, the decentralised architecture approach to implementing hiss gives consideration to the disparities in infrastructural development, prevents the disarray associated with single-point failures and enables hospital management and regional health bodies to be accountable to the localities they serve. the two prominent approaches of his implementation have been discussed to highlight their advantages and disadvantages, particularly how they support health care systems to manage and analyse data for decision making. subsequently, the authors attempt to establish which of the architectures between centralised and decentralised approach to his implementation is suitable for the african contexts and its peculiarities by conducting a systematic literature review (slr) of existing studies on african health systems and their efforts to implement hiss. method to ensure that the search and retrieval process was unbiased and accurate, this article used a slr. systematic literature review as an approach and procedure for undertaking literature reviews was proposed in the information systems field. a systematic literature review’s most noticeable distinct feature is a protocol that prescribes how researchers should identify, select, assess and synthesise evidence from literature sources.39 okoli and schabram40 established that adhering to prescribed protocols provides a ‘standardised method’ for literature reviews that are transparent, objective, unbiased, replicable and rigorous. therefore, slrs as an approach aim to advance policy formation and practice by providing the best evidence available from literature. boell and cecez-kecmanovic39 posited that slrs are adopted to provide answers to specific questions. for example, the question that guided this study is, ‘what approach is best suited for the implementation of his in the health care systems of sub-saharan africa?’ the findings extracted from the existing studies identified through slr would help the authors to recommend and argue for a best-suited choice between a centralised or decentralised architecture to the implementation of hiss in africa. search criteria and identification of sources to source documents for this article, the authors queried google scholar and scopus databases, which offer an extensive array of relevant peer-reviewed journal articles and other documents covering his adoption, implementation and use. the authors conducted multiple iterations of searches to identify the relevant publications within a time frame of 10 years (2012–2021). the time frame for the search was between july and september 2021. the authors applied the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma)41 in establishing the search procedure in figure 1. figure 1: the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses steps applied to identify included articles. using prisma approach, a combination of keywords was used to query the two scholarly databases: (1) healthcare or his implementation and africa, (2) decentralised healthcare or his. a supplementary search was performed using a combination of search keywords: (1) centralised and (2) decentralised his architecture. to delineate the search, articles cited in the retrieved articles were also considered but limited by relevance and timeline, dated from 2012 to 2021. these search results yielded 886 peer-reviewed academic journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and books. exclusion and inclusion criteria the results generated from the two database queries were screened and filtered by thoroughly reading through the titles and abstracts. the filtering involved screening of document abstracts to identify relevant articles based on the following inclusion criteria: (1) all publications were written in english; (2) studies addressed his implementation in africa; (3) studies focused on decentralisation of hiss in africa; (4) studies that had empirical design (qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods); and (5) studies that highlighted the advantages and disadvantages of centralised and decentralised approaches of his implementation. on applying the exclusion criteria, the authors discarded: (1) articles written in other languages; (2) articles that do not focus on his adoption, implementation and use with particular focus on africa; and (3) books or book chapters that were not openly accessible. subsequently, the included 42 documents were imported into mendeley, a reference software programme designed to easily extract search results and manage reference citations. figure 1 presents the article selection process. the final articles were consolidated and analysed to identify findings that illustrate the merits and demerits of decentralised implementation of hiss given the contextual peculiarities of the african context and the health care systems within the continent. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards of research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. results and analysis a total of 886 articles were identified in the review based on the keywords used in the search. a total of 531 articles were identified from google scholar, while 355 were retrieved from scopus. after removing 450 duplicates, 236 unique titles and abstracts remained. using the exclusion criteria, 198 articles were excluded after screening their titles and abstracts. the authors read through the remaining 236 articles, and in the end, 42 publications were included in the synthesis. given the aim and objectives of the article and based on the summary of the studies (n = 42) included in the analysis, three interest areas were formed and categorised as follows: (1) overview of health systems (n = 18),1,2 (2) challenges with the current his implementation approaches in africa (n = 10)6,14,30 and (3) centralised and decentralised approach to his implementation (n = 14).22,29 in analysing the purposes for which hiss are implemented, the researchers first determined the status quo of public health care systems in africa.4,9 one of the objectives of the article was to highlight the characteristics of health care systems in africa and their challenges. by identifying the challenges, the authors were able to associate the results of the study with the need or opportunity for the intentional adoption of a decentralised approach to his implementation. health care systems are described in terms of their structure and purpose, based on public and private services. public health care systems are characterised by great disparities in funding provision, understaffing and maldistribution of resources, and as such they are viewed as operating under resource constraints.2,4,42 as a result of these inadequacies, a majority of the population who rely on public health care systems have access to relatively poor-quality health care services. subsequently, hiss have been implemented by virtue of their ability to enhance the management and coordination of health-related data and information and increase health care workers’ productivity3,24 furthermore, the pursuit of integrated health care services has also led to an increase in implementation of hiss for an improved patient experience. integrated health care services are viewed as a useful approach to achieving a more patient-centred health care service delivery. however, the challenges and limitations of public health care systems in africa mean that the implementation of hiss are littered with several problems. the review identified 12 articles that discuss challenges with the current implementation of hiss.15,43 the challenges include lack of standardisation, poor interoperability, inadequate coordination and fragmentation of data. in addition, socio-economic and technical factors shaped by broader organisational factors further exacerbate these challenges. considering the nature and scope of hiss, their implementations are considered within the context of e-health architectures embedded in most e-health strategies. the review identified 19 articles that fit the criteria of ‘centralised and decentralised’ and ‘hiss’ with a central focus on sub-saharan africa.22,44 the e-health architecture is essential, as it not only informs the activities during implementation but also how health-related data would be collected, processed and stored. table 1 gives a summary of african countries such as ghana, kenya and south africa that have implemented hiss adopting either a centralised or decentralised approach (or both) and the resulting outcomes. table 1: a sample of health care information systems implementation approach in different regional blocs of sub-saharan africa. the methodological limitation of this article is that articles that were not openly accessible could not be included. hence, this review might not highlight the holistic picture of his implementation approaches. in the next section, the authors synthesise the findings extracted from the resulting articles particularly on decentralised his implementation in health systems in the african context. discussion this section centres on the concepts of a decentralised his and their impact on public health care service delivery. these concepts are used to propose a conceptual framework that could be associated with an adequately functioning decentralised his in an african context. the concepts identified are contextual considerations, organisation culture, stakeholders’ perspectives, accountability, accessibility, data complexity, coordination and collaboration. the outcomes of the interplay between these concepts can be used to inform the implementation of a decentralised his that would meet the dynamic needs and infrastructure requirements for health care systems in africa especially at the community level. a review of literature has revealed that a decentralised approach to the implementation of hiss in sub-saharan africa’s health systems is more viable and would result in more robustness and scalability, interoperability and standardisation of data. all these attributes are more appropriate in the african context, as systems are customised to fit the local needs and requirements of country-specific health systems and to ensure democratic accountability for the delivery of quality and safe delivery of services.45 figure 2 illustrates that in a health system, stakeholders’ perspectives, organisational structure, coordination and collaboration informs the attributes and functionality of a decentralised his such as data complexity and accountability to influence efficient health care service delivery. figure 2: a proposed conceptual framework for a decentralised health information systems relevant to african healthcare systems. contextual considerations the review of literature shows that emphasis has been put on his implementation failures attributed to technical factors such as software and hardware issues, as opposed to complex and dynamic contextual factors. in the african context, the outcomes of the current implementation approaches attributed to technical factors are well documented across literature. for example, outcomes such as lack of information system customisation to fit local needs and requirements is attributed to varying levels of infrastructure development, disparity in funding opportunities, over-reliance on external vendors and choice of software.44 there are broader contextual factors and specific institutional (health care facilities) factors that influence the choice of an his implementation. for example, government-mandated e-health initiatives, change driven by a dynamic technology environment and technology initiatives sponsored by external donors may cause contradictions in centralised his implementation. considering the peculiarity of challenges that are associated with health systems in africa and their negative effects on data quality and health information flow, the use of decentralised hiss is advocated to enable uniformity in standards of capturing and storage of health data.30 a decentralised his ensures robustness and scalability of information systems to fit the needs of the local health care facilities.35 yet another contextual factor to consider is the lack of national health information management strategy, which is attributed to inadequate performance of his in many health care systems in africa.6 this impedes on the realisation of improved quality health outcomes. contextual complexities such as industrial strike actions by health care practitioners that plague public health care systems in africa further emphasise the need for decentralised hiss.22 such actions not only have negative implications for the delivery of quality health care services4 but also on reliable and timely generation, storage and distribution of health-related data across a health system. a decentralised his ensures that management of health-related information remains at individual facilities, and challenges can be locally addressed without disruption of information management at other health care facilities. organisational structure organisational structure in health care differs from other sectors because of the scope, dynamics and complexities of clinical and administrative activity coordination. the organisational structure defines the functions carried out across a health care system to achieve its objectives, including decisions relating to the acquisition and implementation of health technologies.48 thus, an organisational structure and its respective stakeholders play a vital role in influencing the implementation structure of his. it is through these structures that decisions such as planning, budgeting, recruitment of health care practitioners and distribution of infrastructure resources are managed in the tiered health systems.8,49 as such, hiss are implemented nationally or provincially or at community health care centres. the implementation of hiss in the different tier structures very much depends on the scope of the implementation initiative and the purpose of systems.6,8 at the highest level of the implementation structure is the ministry of health, which is the central source of e-health policies, standard setting and infrastructure resource distribution. health information systems implemented at this level are generally used for analysis and reporting of health care-related information. the implementation structure of hiss at provincial and community tiers is mainly focused on clinical care and administrative duties for managing patient records at individual health care facilities. in addition, his at the community level focuses on subject and task-based systems such as electronic medical records. the misalignment between planning, budgeting and maldistribution of resources, persistent in many african public health systems, could potentially be addressed by adopting a decentralised approach to his implementation that is fitting for the tiered structures. considering the purpose of hiss and organisational structures, a decentralised his could promote accountability, standardisation of data and accessibility of quality health information. stakeholders’ involvement diversity of stakeholders within a health system adds to the complexities of his implementation and use.50 as indicated in the previous section, the implementation structure of his reflects that of the health system. as such, stakeholders that partake in e-health initiatives come from the tiers and are typically made up of internal and external individuals or groups. considerations should therefore be given to all types of individuals or groups by characterising the stakeholders, their roles, interests, expectations, perceptions and relations within the health care system and implementation process.45 consequently, individuals or groups in each health care setting where the implementation of his occurs can identify the value of making use of a system. it is important to understand the dynamics of different stakeholders involved in the different stages of his, from acceptance to infusion, by identifying their needs within health care settings. these needs should be tailored to fit not only the purpose and objectives for a decentralised his but also the peculiar needs of stakeholders. this would result in equitable infrastructure resource allocation and reskilling of health care practitioners.8 a fair representation of stakeholders in the implementation of a decentralised his is crucial to ensure all interests at local, regional and national levels of health systems are acknowledged. addressing the needs and dynamics of diverse stakeholder groups in a health care system is complex and challenging in a centralised his.22 accountability accountability is a major issue in many sub-saharan africa health care systems and involves the obligation of all stakeholders to accept responsibility. democratic accountability ensures that data use and resource allocation are transparent.45 hence, it is critical to identify and assess the responsibilities of the stakeholders in the health care systems if accountability is to be adequately addressed. the flexibility of decentralised hiss promotes improved accountability in the functions of health care services since autonomy, authority and responsibilities of planning administrative activities are managed by local or regional health care facilities.22 in addition, a decentralised his accounts for financial expenditure and efficiency in health care service delivery of a particular region to improve local communities’ health outcomes. as such, a decentralised his can enhance accountability, which in turn promotes transparency.46 care coordination and collaboration to realise the full benefits of decentralised his, collaboration and coordination between the health care organisational structures is essential. coordination and collaboration are products and necessities of tiered health care systems where different specialities are involved in the care delivery process and information sharing is indispensable. the application of iots and cloud computing can be used to facilitate remote access, monitoring, sharing and storage of health records during care coordination and collaboration. for example, in the tiered levels of africa’s health systems, a referral system is used to transfer trauma cases between hospitals, depending on the severity and clinical care service required. the enabling technologies guarantee time-efficiency of service delivery in a decentralised his. manya et al.22 indicated that without a common interest to adequately coordinate and collaborate between the national and regional governments, a decentralised his may result in imminent tensions and inadequate processes to cater for community and universal healthcare. data complexity the goal of health-related data and information is to inform decision making either at a macro or micro level. in a decentralised his, health data is generated, stored and maintained locally.33 the availability of and accessibility to updated health data assists health care professionals, hospital managers, national decision-makers and sometimes patients to plan and act accordingly.6 manya et al.22 argued that when hiss are decentralised, variations in health-related data such as duplications or discrepancies in health indicators can speedily be identified due to relatively lower volumes of information being managed locally or regionally. a decentralised his can ensure data quality, security and enhance a culture of effective health information use. several authors have investigated the possible use of blockchain technologies to design and develop decentralised hiss because of its security measures, distributed network of data sources and capability to operate without a central authority of management.23,24,35 implications and recommendations the review of literature reveals that many health systems in africa adopt a mix of decentralised and centralised approaches to his implementation. the authors argue that while a centralised approach to his implementation may ensure that the health system of a country is coordinated and monitored from a national level, a decentralised his is more appropriate for a tiered health system. within african countries, there is disparate infrastructural development and internet connectivity; thus, a decentralised approach is more appropriate to avoid the resulting delays of a single point failure in a continent already characterised by many socio-economic challenges. the devolution of administrative duties associated with a decentralised his will guarantee the effective budgeting and management of health-related data such that resource allocation, detection and prevention of public health crises can quickly be managed. therefore, the authors argue that a decentralised approach to his implementation adds more relevance and value to the african context. conclusion this study contributes to the conceptualisation of decentralised hiss as an approach suitable to strengthen health systems in africa, because of the continent’s peculiar characteristics and tiered health care services. a decentralised his is ideal for africa’s health care sector because it enables localised management of health indicators, autonomy of administrative roles and duties and government-led decisions that involve resource allocation. a decentralised approach would ensure that the his serves local, regional and national health care service needs in a well-coordinated and collaborative manner. otherwise, the health systems in african countries might not be resilient during a public health crisis such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic. it is recommended that a decentralised approach be adopted as a standard to implement hiss. a decentralised his would provide a measure for the realisation of accountability at the different tiers in the public health care systems of sub-saharan african countries and can be useful to manage expectations required to fund accessibility and availability of health care services from a national perspective. with regard to security measures, adopting a decentralised approach to implementing hiss would mitigate the effects of breaches to patient records and prevent the resulting legal implications. challenges of data quality and data reporting could be addressed in hiss with a decentralised approach, as live up-to-date information can be exchanged through a bottom-up strategy that caters for the inclusion of all relevant stakeholders. based on reflections from this literature study, future studies in the aspects of decentralised his can investigate the processes for formulation and evaluation of health policies adopted or developed by the governments of african countries. in practice, the policies would serve as a blueprint for direct stakeholders, including hospital managers, industry vendors and software application developers. in this way, government can regulate technology applications and optimally leverage the benefits of a fully automated and digitised health care system to promote, prevent and manage the persistent burden of diseases in africa. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exist. authors’ contributions o.o.o. and m.s.a. contributed equally to the conceptualisation and writing of the manuscript. the introduction section was written by o.o.o. while m.s.a wrote the background and methods section. the results section was jointly written by m.s.a. and o.o.o. the discussion section was written by o.o.o. and the conceptual framework was developed by o.o.o. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article, as no new primary data were created or analysed in this study. the study is a review of openly accessible articles in online journal databases. disclaimer the views expressed in the submitted article are solely of the authors and not an official position of the affiliated institution. references durrani h. healthcare and healthcare systems: 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van greunen d. method for selecting e-health standards to support. ist-africa conference proceedings of the interoperability of healthcare information systems; 2014 may 06; mauritius: ieee. abstract abstrak introduction method and data discussion conclusion inleiding en agtergrond kapelaansvroue en oorlogsomstandighede slotgedagtes erkenning literatuurverwysings footnotes about the author(s) izette bredenkamp faculty of humanities, university of the free state, south africa andre wessels faculty of humanities, university of the free state, south africa citation bredenkamp, i. & wessels, a., 2016, ‘suid-afrikaanse kapelaansvroue en die grensoorlog (1966–1989): ’n gevallestudie van denominale pastorale versorging’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a346. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.346 original research suid-afrikaanse kapelaansvroue en die grensoorlog (1966–1989): ’n gevallestudie van denominale pastorale versorging izette bredenkamp, andre wessels received: 19 may 2016; accepted: 14 sept. 2016; published: 03 dec. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract south african chaplains’ spouses and the border war (1966–1989): a case study of denominational pastoral care. pastoral care of soldiers during times of war and armed conflict has been part and parcel of the christian religion since the council of ratisbon officially authorised chaplains for armies in 742. however, studies in south africa revealed that government institutions and especially the dutch-afrikaans denominations did not wholeheartedly adhere to this tradition during the two world wars of the twentieth century. the task of pastoral care to those affected by the war circumstances was left to civilian organisations and women. socio-political changes invalidated this accussation during the border war (1966–1989). this article gives a historical perspective on the pastoral care endeavours of the spouses of military chaplains as a case study of denominational support to those affected by armed conflict. women’s experiences during war circumstances have long been neglected in academic circles. during times of war, they are often the victims of human rights’ abuses, but they also become beacons of hope and consolation, as is illustrated in this article. this exposition contributes to a historical understanding of the way women experience war and the support they provide during times of armed conflict. it also illustrates the value of women during times of war trauma, and provides a different perspective on the military context, which is usually mostly defined in masculine terms. abstrak in die christelike tradisie is die pastorale versorging van soldate tydens oorlogsomstandighede en gewapende konflik ’n gegewe sedert die konsilie van ratisbon in 742, toe gelas is dat kapelane die leërs moet vergesel. studie in suid-afrika het egter ’n versuim van owerheidsweë, en veral van die kant van die hollands-afrikaanse kerke in suid-afrika aangetoon om oorloggeaffekteerdes en oorlogbetrokkenes tydens die twee wêreldoorloë van die twintigste eeu pastoraal te versorg. hierdie taak is in suid-afrika aan burgerlike organisasies en vroue oorgelaat. tydens die grensoorlog (1966–1989) het die prentjie egter verander. hierdie artikel wil ’n historiese perspektief verskaf op die uitreike van die eggenotes van militêre kapelane, as ’n gevallestudie van geloofsgemeenskappe se pastorale versorging van diegene wie se lewens deur gewapende konflik geraak word. vroue se ervarings gedurende tye van oorlog en gewapende konflik is vir ’n geruime tyd in akademiese geskiedskrywing genegeer. vroue is dikwels gedurende oorlogsomstandighede slagoffers van menseregtevergrype, maar hulle kan ook as bakens van hoop, vertroosting en heropbou na vore tree soos hierdie artikel probeer aantoon. hierdeur word ’n bydrae tot ’n historiese begrip van die belewenis van vroue tydens oorlogsomstandighede gemaak, asook die wyse waarop vroue ondersteuningsnetwerke kan skep in gemeenskappe wat deur gewapende konflik geraak word. dit illustreer verder die waarde van vroue ten tye van oorlogstrauma, en dit gee ’n ander perspektief op die militêre konteks wat gewoonlik in manlike terme gedefinieer word. introduction this article forms part of a project on the history of military chaplains in the cluster: social transformation in diverse societies: focus area: identities and histories at the university of the free state. military chaplaincy in south africa was initiated during the first world war (1914–1918), but it only received official recognition as an integral part of the structures of the former south african defence force (sadf) in 1973. this implies that the south african military chaplaincy service (sachs) did not receive the support it was entitled to during the two world wars of the twentieth century. the situation was aggravated by the fact that, because of socio-political reasons, the afrikaans-dutch denominations left the task of pastoral care of those affected by the war circumstances to civil organisations and the endeavours of women. however, changes in the socio-political situation of south africa in the post-war period invalidated the accusation of neglect during the border war (1966–1989) – south africa’s longest war and for many the only contemporary experience of war circumstances. one of the neglected aspects of military chaplaincy is the role and influence of the spouses of military chaplains. this article reflects on the pastoral outreaches of the spouses of south african military chaplains during the border war, as a case study of denominational pastoral care during times of armed conflict. studies revealed that women experience armed conflict differently from their male counterparts. in modern warfare, women are often active combatants, but traditionally they experienced war circumstances as part of the civilian population. for quite some time academic writing neglected the experiences of women during times of armed conflict. it was only during the 1970s that the feminist movement placed women and war circumstances central to the academic debate and on the agendas of many international organisations. although women are often the victims of human rights’ abuses during times of armed conflict, they can also become beacons of hope and consolation, as is illustrated in this article. method and data the focal area of this article is history. the historical narrative was used to make an incision in the socio-cultural design of south african femininity, focusing on the spouses of south african military chaplains who, as the wives of clergy through their endeavours to address the trauma of the border war, became a case study of the pastoral care of denominations during times of armed conflict. data were collected from interviews with the spouses of chaplains, news reports and reports from the official military publications, paratus and in hoc signo, and documentation from the private collection of ms ria van rensburg, wife of the late maj. gen. (rev.) c.p. naudé, chaplain-general for the period 1983–1990. in the wake of the formation of the new south african national defence force (sandf) in 1994, other documents regarding the spouses of chaplains seem to have been discarded during clean up processes. at present, the military archives in pretoria does not possess any unpublished documents regarding the spouses of south african military chaplains. discussion the focal point of this article involves the pastoral care administered by spouses of south african military chaplains to the military community of the sadf during the time of the border war (1966–1989). this is used as a case study of denominational outreaches in the south african community during times of armed conflict and war circumstances. the spouses of south african military chaplains were involved in many spiritual matters regarding the military community especially four of these were specifically directed towards the alleviation of war trauma during the timeframe of the border war. although the war commenced in 1966, the endeavours of chaplains’ spouses gained momentum only in the late 1970s after the sachs was acknowledged as an integral part of the sadf, and the timeframe of this discussion is therefore mostly from 1975 onwards. the endeavours of chaplains’ spouses include pastoral care towards permanent force soldiers’ families during long periods of absence because of border duty; christmas parcels were sent to women and children of permanent force members who resided in the operational area in northern namibia for longer periods than the usual three months of border duty; melita served as a guest house for the family members of wounded and injured soldiers in 1 military hospital at voortrekkerhoogte (at present thaba tshwane), pretoria; and they ran the coffee bar project, which was embedded in the need for leisure facilities in the operational area. although the civilian population also experienced the upheaval in family relations caused by the call to arms to serve in the operational area in the north of namibia, it was the families of permanent force members who experienced the brunt of these orders for periods of up to six months. the duties and liabilities at home increased tremendously for spouses of permanent force soldiers and it was coupled with uncertainty and anxiety for the safety of their husbands. in the light of this trauma, the spouses of chaplains embarked on a project aiming to alleviate the trauma through bible studies, visits, invitations to functions, telephone calls, flowers and spiritual reading material. on the return of permanent force soldiers, they supported families in reintegrating again, and accepting the father figure as the head of the household. they also published the booklet, net maar ’n woord/just a word, which consisted of short, spiritually encouraging pieces, written by chaplains’ spouses. since 1978 chaplains’ spouses sent christmas parcels to the wives and children of permanent force soldiers stationed in the operational area of northern namibia. because of the costs of this project, it was decided to send only christmas cards from 1986 to 1989. since 1984 christmas cards were also sent to family members of chaplains connected to the south african diplomatic missions. the project was under the supervision of the chaplains’ wives committee for the first two years, but since 1980 a rotation system with regard to the military districts and divisions was used. one of the most challenging projects of the spouses of chaplains was the renovation and enlargement of the red cross hut at the then called voortrekkerhoogte. it was furnished to serve as an overnight facility for family members of wounded or injured soldiers in 1 military hospital. melita, as it was called, not only provided lodging for those traumatised by the injuries of their loved ones but also provided support and pastoral care. small wonder, it was called, ‘a deed of love’. chaplains’ wives not only carried the costs of the project but also made sure that monthly needs with regard to refreshments, cleaning agents and flowers were provided. shortly after the transfer of the protection duty of the northern border of namibia from the south african police to the sadf, chaplains noticed the lack of recreational facilities in the operational area. to this end, the coffee bar project was initiated by the chaplains’ wives committee. it provided a recreational space different from the canteens where soldiers could relax in a homely atmosphere. music, reading material, games and biscuits were provided on a regular basis. over time the coffee bars became spiritual spaces for those in the operational area. in 1981 there were four coffee bars in the operational area and by 1985 the number had risen to 48. conclusion the spouses of south african military chaplains were able to enrich the ministry of chaplains and to expand the boundaries of pastoral care during the war circumstances of the border war, not only in the military context but also with regard to the wider south african community. in doing so they not only became an example of denominational pastoral care during times of war and armed conflict, but also illustrated the worth of women in addressing trauma in society. this article not only provides a different perspective on the military context, which is usually defined in masculine terms, but the history of the ministry of churches and chaplains during the border war will be incomplete without taking into account the endeavours of the spouses of military chaplains. inleiding en agtergrond hierdie artikel vorm deel van ’n projek rondom die geskiedenis van die suid-afrikaanse militêre kapelaansbediening. dit het as gevolg van die behoeftes van oorlogbetrokkenes tydens die eerste wêreldoorlog (1914–1918) beslag gekry, maar is eers in 1973 as ’n volwaardige ondersteuningsdiens van die destydse suid-afrikaanse weermag (saw) erken (bredenkamp & wessels 2012:244–245). in die christelike tradisie is die pastorale versorging van soldate tydens oorlogsomstandighede en gewapende konflik sedert die konsilie van ratisbon in 742 ’n gegewe (potgieter 1971:68). in 742 is gelas dat kapelane die leërs moes vergesel. traagheid vanaf suid-afrikaanse owerheidsweë om die kapelaansbediening as ’n volwaardige ondersteuningsdiens van die saw te erken, het daartoe gelei dat die suid-afrikaanse kapelaansdiens (sakd) in die tydperk voor 1973 nie die ondersteuning tydens oorlogsomstandighede ontvang het waarop dit geregtig was nie. hierdie aspek is deur j.m. van tonder (2014:123, 130–140) in sy studie oor die pastorale rol van hollands-afrikaanse kerke gedurende die tweede wêreldoorlog (1939–1945) onderstreep, toe hy tot die gevolgtrekking gekom het dat hierdie kerke nie hulle versorgingsverantwoordelikheid teenoor oorloggeaffekteerdes en -betrokkenes nagekom het nie. die aanklag van van tonder teen die hollands-afrikaanse kerke en die traagheid van owerheidsweë impliseer nie ’n doelbewuste versuim om hulle pastorale verpligtinge na te kom nie, maar verwys na ’n fenomeen waarvan die historiese wortels in die suid-afrikaanse sosiaal-politieke bedeling lê. trouens, dieselfde situasie het ook tydens die eerste wêreldoorlog voorgekom en het in ’n tekort aan afrikaanssprekende kapelane tydens beide oorloë (vgl. bredenkamp & wessels 2014b:71, 76) gemanifesteer. oorlogsomstandighede is in wese abnormaal en oorloggeaffekteerdes en -betrokkenes word aan trauma en emosionele spanning in verskillende grade van intensiteit blootgestel (oasssa 1988:13; van tonder 2014:120–122). pastorale versorging veronderstel dus nie alleen besondere geestelike versorging nie, maar ook dat die maatskaplike nood wat in hierdie abnormale omstandighede ontstaan, hanteer moet word. van tonder (2014:122) haal heitink aan wanneer hy die kerk se pastorale verantwoordelikheid tydens oorlogsomstandighede omskryf as die aanknoop van ’n verhouding met iemand in nood wat tot gevolg het dat so ’n persoon ondersteuning en troos op sy moeilike weg ervaar. hierdie ondersteuning lê nie alleen in ’n geestelike boodskap van bemoediging nie, maar ook in ’n planmatige versorging en voorsiening in die nood van die dag. ook hendriks (1999:189) koppel pastorale versorging aan dienslewering: ‘bij het pastorale […] staat het belang van de bezochte centraal en gaat het om dienstverlening’. geloofsgemeenskappe se versorgingsverantwoordelikheid vloei dus uit hulle barmhartigheidsdiens en in die christelike geloof is dit in die liefdesgebod van die bybel gegrondves (vgl. du toit 1955:9–10). van tonder (2014:120) gaan van die standpunt uit dat pastorale bedienaars deur die voorbeeld van jesus christus geïnspireer word: ‘met versorging word bedoel barmhartigheid as christelike liefdadigheid en hulpbetoon aan almal wat in nood en ellende is’. heyns (1977) beskryf dit soos volg: die diens van die kerk word bepaal deur die diens van christus […] dit sal met ander woorde nie ’n diens wees bloot om medemenslikheidsoorweginge nie, maar moet voortspruit uit ’n eerlike deelname aan en persoonlike betrokkenheid by die nood en lyding van mense om christus ontwil […] deur hierdie daad-getuienis bewys die kerk dat jesus gesterwe en opgestaan het […]. (p. 122) dit is opmerklik dat ’n verandering in die sosiaal-politieke bedeling gedurende die na-oorlogse jare daartoe gelei het dat die aanklag van versuim teen die hollands-afrikaanse kerke nie ook tydens die grensoorlog (1966–1989)1 geldig was nie – suid-afrika se langste oorlog was ook vir baie suid-afrikaners die enigste eietydse ervaring van oorlogsomstandighede. trouens, die meerderheid kapelane tydens die grensoorlog het uit die hollands-afrikaanse denominasies gekom (vgl. bredenkamp & wessels 2012:249). studies soos dié van s.g. van niekerk (2002:253–316) en die mondelinge getuienis van kapelane (vgl. wessels & bredenkamp 2009b:339–360) dui daarop dat kapelane die pastorale versorging van soldate tydens die grensoorlog as hulle hoogste roeping gesien het. in hierdie taak het hulle die heelhartige ondersteuning van hulle eggenotes en die kapelaansvrouebediening ervaar (van rensburg 2012).2 ook van owerheidsweë het die grensoorlog bygedra om erkenning aan die sakd as ’n volwaardige ondersteuningsdiens in die saw te gee (vgl. wessels & bredenkamp 2009a:319–320). omdat vroue oorlogsomstandighede tradisioneel as deel van ’n burgerlike samelewing ervaar het, is min van hulle belewenisse tydens konfliktye gedokumenteer. dit kan aan twee faktore toegeskryf word: die oorlogsveld is tot diep in die twintigste eeu as ’n manlike terrein geïnterpreteer, en die sosiale wetenskappe het vir baie jare ’n neutrale navorsingsbenadering in die studie van oorlog en konflik gevolg. dit het inderwaarheid die manlike siening vir alle groepe geldend gemaak (skjelsbæk & smith 2001:1–2). eers gedurende die sewentigerjare van die vorige eeu het die feministiese beweging die fenomeen van vroue en oorlogsomstandighede sentraal in akademiese debatvoering en op die agenda van talle internasionale konferensies geplaas.3 klem is veral op vroue se ervarings as slagoffers van menseregtevergrype geplaas, maar navorsing het ook getoon dat hulle dikwels as bakens van hoop en heropbou na vore tree (lindsey 2001:14–15; skjelsbæk & smith 2001:vii–viii, 1, 5; treacher et al. 2008:1). in sy studie wys van tonder (2014:139–140) daarop dat vroue en buitekerklike instansies tot ’n groot mate die pastorale taak van die hollands-afrikaanse kerke tydens die tweede wêreldoorlog oorgeneem het en ’n belangrike rol in die bemoediging en versorging van oorloggeaffekteerdes en -betrokkenes gespeel het. annette strauss (2006:371) het ook bevind dat talle vroue vrywillig ’n bydrae tot die ondersteuning en versorging van soldate tydens die grensoorlog gelewer het deur die sogenaamde ‘dankie tannie’-projekte. hierdie artikel wil vanuit ’n historiese perspektief en deur middel van die narratiewe metode ’n snit in die sosiaal-kulturele opset van suid-afrikaanse vroue maak. die klem gaan op kapelaansvroue val wat as predikantsvroue4 deur hulle uitreike tydens die grensoorlog ’n gevallestudie geword het – ’n gevallestudie van geloofsgemeenskappe se pastorale antwoord op die eise van oorlogsomstandighede. hieronder tel die pastorale uitreik na die alleenvrou wie se man grensdiens verrig het; die kerspakkies vir gesinne van staandemagsoldate wat op ’n meer permanente basis in die operasionele gebied gestasioneer was; melita, wat huisvesting en ondersteuning aan die naasbestaandes van gewonde en beseerde soldate gegee het; asook die koffiekamerprojek wat sy ontstaan in die ontspanningsgeriewe van die operasionele gebied gehad het. daar moet gewaak word teen ’n oorvereenvoudigde prentjie van vroue as vredesgesind en as bakens van hoop en heropbou (vgl. cohn 2013:1–2; skjelsbæk 2001:64). dit moet ook in gedagte gehou word dat die militêre konteks en gender tans baie meer kompleks is as gedurende 1966 tot 1989. tog het kapelaansvroue daarin geslaag om die geestelike bediening van die sakd gedurende die grensoorlog te verruim, en terselfdertyd die grense van denominale pastorale diensbaarheid in die suid-afrikaanse gemeenskap te verskuif. hierdeur het hulle ’n voorbeeld van geloofsgemeenskappe se pastorale versorging van oorloggeaffekteerdes en betrokkenes geword. uiteraard kan die geskiedenis van kerke en kapelane se betrokkenheid by die grensoorlog nooit volledig wees indien die pastorale uitreike van kapelaansvroue tydens hierdie oorlog nie ook in aanmerking geneem word nie. daar moet ook daarop gelet word dat, hoewel die grensoorlog vanaf 1966 tot 1989 strek, kapelaansvroue se pastorale uitreike eers gedurende die tweede helfte van die sewentiger jare momentum gekry het. hierdie artikel fokus dus wat tydsafbakening betref, merendeels op 1975 tot 1989. hierdie artikel is op die mondelinge getuienis van kapelaansvroue, koerantberigte en berigte uit die amptelike militêre publikasies, paratus en in hoc signo gebaseer, asook op dokumentasie wat deur me ria van rensburg bewaar is. sy was die eggenote van wyle genl.-maj. (ds.) c.p. naudé, kapelaan-generaal vanaf 1983 tot 1990. ander dokumente, onder andere vergaderingsnotules, is ongelukkig tydens opruimingsprosesse vernietig. tans beskik die militêre argief, pretoria, oor geen ander ongepubliseerde dokumente van die kapelaansvrouediens nie. kapelaansvroue en oorlogsomstandighede die alleenvrou as gevolg van die eskalering van konflik, het die saw die verdediging van die noordelike grens van suidwes-afrika (swa, tans namibië) in 1973 by die suid-afrikaanse polisie (sap) oorgeneem. die grensoorlog was nie ’n konvensionele oorlog nie. militêre optrede het enersyds uit lae intensiteitsinsypeling deur die south west africa people’s organisation (swapo) en sy militêre vleuel, die people’s liberation army of namibia (plan), in die noordelike grensgebied van swa bestaan, om met terreurdade die suid-afrikaanse administrasie van swa te ontwrig. aan die ander kant het hakkejagen voorkomingsoperasies deur die saw tot invalle in die suidelike dele van angola gelei. baie hiervan was klandestiene operasies waarvan die publiek min of hoegenaamd niks geweet het nie.5 in wese was dit ’n oorlog van ideologieë, verstrengel in die koue oorlog-sentimente van kommunisme en ’n westerse demokratiese bestel (scholtz 2013:3–5; steenkamp 1989:15). navorsing oor vroue en oorlogsomstandighede wys daarop dat biologiese verskille en die invloed van gemeenskapsrolparadigmas tot gevolg het dat mans en vroue militêre konflik uiteenlopend ervaar (cohn 2013:22–23). oorlogvoering het sedert die laaste dekades van die twintigste eeu radikaal verander met die toenemende deelname van vroue in aktiewe oorlogvoering (vgl. die transvaler 1993:12). omdat vroue tradisioneel militêre konflik as deel van ’n burgerlike gemeenskap beleef het, was oorlogstrauma vir hulle egter dikwels aan die lotgevalle van hulle eggenote of seun(s) gekoppel. gewapende konflik het skeiding, onsekerheid, bekommernis oor die veiligheid en die moontlike verlies van dierbares beteken. al hierdie faktore het bepaalde aanpassings in die gesinsopset, familiebande en die gemeenskapsnetwerk meebring (boshoff 1982:13; cohn 2013:2; lindsey 2001:216–217). veral ten opsigte van die versorging van hulle families word vroue deur oorlogsomstandighede dikwels in ’n nuwe sosiale orde geforseer, waar hulle die tradisionele rol van die man as broodwinner en besluitnemer moet oorneem. met die terugkeer van hulle eggenote moet hulle weer ’n ‘normale’ bestaan volg (cohn 2013:29–32, 140; kumar 2001:7–25, 54; peterson 2008:15). ’n uiterste vorm van oorlogstrauma is in woordewisselings en verhoudingspannning geleë, waar die blootstel aan konfliksituasies ’n subkultuur van gesinsgeweld kan skep (boshoff 1982:13; lindsey 2001:45). marwick (1977:163) wys daarop dat trauma vir vroue tydens oorlogsomstandighede in die hand gewerk word deur ’n gebrek aan konstantes, want verandering gedurende gewapende konflik is altyd wisselend en onvoorspelbaar. sommige veranderings kan positief as bemagtigingselemente dien (vgl. lindsey 2001:30–31; samuel 2001:201–202), maar die spanning wat beleef word tydens die druk om by onbekende situasies aan te pas, kan ook sy tol eis. waar swangerskappe en klein kindertjies betrokke is, kan aanvaar word dat vroue meer kwesbaar is. dit is daarom nie vreemd dat in gevalle van gewapende konflik, dit dikwels die vrou is wat ekstra ondersteuning nodig het nie. vroue begryp die behoeftes van ander vroue in moeilike situasies beter en een van die bevindings van die international committee of the red cross (icrc) is dat vroue in oorlogsomstandighede hulle tot ondersteuningsgroepe of netwerke van hulle eie geslag wend vir die skep van ’n nuwe huishoudelike en sosiale ondersteuningsbasis (kumar 2001:98; lindsey 2001:32, 40, 145). een van die aspekte wat in die militêre omgewing van 1973 tot 1989 uitgestaan het, was die oproepinstruksies vir grensdiens. hoewel gesinne in die burgerlike lewe ook geraak is, was dit veral staandemagsoldate wat vir lang periodes met grensdiens van die huis afwesig was en wie se huwelike en gesinslewe aan hoë eise onderwerp is (barnard 2002:6–7; rrp/g). soms is ’n hele eenheid opgeroep en het die vroue en kinders vir tussen drie en ses maande alleen agtergebly. hierdie omstandighede het, in ooreenstemming met navorsing rondom vroue en oorlogsomstandighede, ’n ommeswaai in die daaglikse lewenspatroon en pligte van die betrokke gesinne beteken. as betreklik jong vroue van ongeveer 30 jaar het weermagvroue se verantwoordelikhede tuis en met betrekking tot die versorging en opvoeding van die kinders vermeerder. hulle moes by nuwes situasies en onbekende rolparadigmas aanpas, terwyl onsekerheid en spanning oor die veiligheid van hulle eggenote altyd aanwesig was. hiertoe het die internasionale sekerheidsgebruik van stilswye oor militêre operasies bygedra. daar is dikwels gesê: ‘the only thing harder than being a soldier, is loving one’ (de vos 1990:42; meiring 2012; rrp/g; van rensburg 2012). ria van rensburg (2012; rrp/g) vertel dat kinders ook die vertrek van hulle vaders as ontwrigtend ervaar het. hulle was bewus van die gevare verbonde aan grensdiens en ’n kindergebed wat dikwels gehoor is, was: ‘liewe jesus, help tog asseblief dat hulle nie in hul wagposisies aan die slaap sal raak nie.’ as onderwyseres kon sy baie keer vir soldate se kinders by die skool in die bres tree omdat grensdiens ook hulle gedrag en skoolwerk beïnvloed het; prestasies en punte het gedaal en ’n mens kon die verandering in huislike omstandighede selfs aan hulle skrif agterkom. veral seuns het dikwels op ’n jong ouderdom gepoog om die verantwoordelikhede van die vaderfiguur in en om die huis oor te neem. me van rensburg verwys ook na emily hobhouse se oordeel dat oorlog vir vroue ’n bitter tyd is wat mank gaan aan die opwinding en glorie wat mans so aantreklik vind, en dat dit die swaarste op die kinders val (rrp/g). in hierdie omstandighede het die kapelaansvrouekomitee6 dit ’n projek van kapelaansvroue: gemaak om vir die alleenvrou ’n ondersteuningsnetwerk daar te stel en om haar pastoraal deur persoonlike kontak, uitnodigings na die pastorie, en ondersteuning en bemoediging deur telefoonoproepe en tuisbesoeke by te staan, asook die neem van blomme en geestelike leesstof. kapelaansvroue het ook ’n leidende rol gespeel om funksies te reël om die gedempte atmosfeer in ’n eenheid op te helder. bybelstudie het ’n belangrike rol gespeel om vroue in hierdie vreemde, veeleisende omstandighede te leer om die situasie te aanvaar en die here werklik te vertrou (de vos 1990:42; die kapelaansvroue saw 1982:12–13; rrp/g). wanneer die mans vir maande weg was, is ’n boekie oor gebeure in die eenheid saamgestel, gekopieer en as ’n nuusbrief aan die soldate in die operasionele gebied gestuur. vroue is aangemoedig om foto’s oral in die huis te plaas sodat veral babas en kleuters nie die vader met sy terugkeer as vreemd sou ervaar nie. (de vos 1990:42; rrp/g; van rensburg 2012) as ondersteuningsgroep het kapelaansvroue ook met die aanpassings ingetree wat gemaak moes word met die terugkeer van staandemagsoldate. hulle het positiewe leiding geneem om die vaderfiguur weer sy regmatige plek in die huis te laat inneem. vroue is aangemoedig om doelbewus sekere take wat hulle tydens hulle eggenote se afwesigheid verrig het, weer aan hulle mans op te dra, en om die kinders in die alledaagse gang van sake na hulle pa’s te verwys (die kapelaansvroue saw 1982:43–45, 50–53; van rensburg 2012). daarbenewens het kapelaansvroue die alleenvrou ook aangemoedig om in te skakel en by die sosiale vrouegroeperings en aksies in die eenheid betrokke te raak (die kapelaansvroue saw 1982:43; rrp/c:6; van rensburg 2012). op hierdie wyse is onderlinge vriendskapbande gesmee wat as ondersteuningsbasis onvervangbaar was. talle respondente het getuig dat die vroue in die eenheid soos een groot familie was. hulle het mekaar onderling gehelp en sou byvoorbeeld motorbande help omruil en na mekaar se kinders omsien ten einde geleenthede te skep om probleme op te los. hierdie vriendskapsbande het gegeld selfs nadat daar nie meer bande met die weermag bestaan het nie (cornelissen 2013; paratus 1982b:111; van rensburg 2012). die kapelaansvrouekomitee het besef dat die alleenvrou ’n behoefte aan geestelike versorging het en daarom het hulle in 1980 ’n publikasie, net maar ’n woord/just a word, die lig laat sien. dit het uit kort, geestelike boodskappies bestaan wat deur kapelaansvroue geskryf is – boodskappe deur vroue vir vroue. dit is gratis aan staandemag-, kommmandoen burgermagsoldate se eggenotes beskikbaar gestel. omdat oproepinstruksies ook lede van die burgerlike samelewing geraak het, kon kerke buite die saw dit teen ’n vrywillige donasie aanvra. die komitee wat verantwoordelik was vir die saamstel van die bundel, het uit die volgende kapelaansvroue bestaan, mee a. pretorius, d. kemp, r. cilliers, j. daines en z. potgieter. die eerste oplaag het uit 15 000 eksemplare bestaan, terwyl die tweede druk in 1981 uit 30 000 kopieë bestaan het. die kapelaansfonds het die koste van r16 000 gedra. hoewel beskeie, het hierdie publikasie in die abnormale omstandighede van oorlogstoestande en die onsekerheid en bekommernis wat daarmee gepaard gegaan het, vir menige vroue baie beteken. met die beëindiging van die grensoorlog in 1989 was die oplaag uitgeput (die kapelaansvroue saw, 1982:128; kadw 1982a:6; rrp/a:3; rrp/b:22–23). kerspakkies sedert 1975 ná die eerste saw-oorgrensoperasie in angola wat as operasie savannah7 bekend geword het, het die sakd ’n beleid gevolg dat die kerk daar moet wees waar dit die nodigste is – op die voorpunt van die gevegslinies. sedertdien het kapelane as deel van die bemannings van infanteriegevegsvoertuie en ander militêre voertuie, dieselfde gevare as die troepe getrotseer (van niekerk 2002:279–280). kapelaansvroue was gevolglik intens van die eise van grensdiens bewus. onder leiding van me elsa van zyl, eggenote van die eerste kapelaan-generaal, genl.-maj. (ds.) j.a. van zyl (1973–1983), het die kapelaansvrouekomitee die behoefte uitgespreek om ’n grensprojek aan te pak. daar was reeds verskeie uitreike na die soldate op die grens (vgl. botha 1978:13; the friend 1979:4), maar die kapelaansvrouekomitee het gevoel dat die vroue en kinders van staandemaglede wat meer permanent in die operasionele gebied in swa gestasioneer was, oor die hoof gesien word. kapelaansvroue het daarom met ’n kersaksie begin wat spesifiek op die vroue en kinders in die operasionele gebied gerig was. op hierdie wyse wou hulle hulle dank en erkentlikheid aan hierdie families betoon vir die opofferings wat hulle in die vreemde maak, en hulle ook verseker dat hulle nie deur die mense van suid-afrika vergeet word nie (die kapelaansvroue saw 1982:127–128; kadw 1981:4–5; 1982b:7–8; rrp/a:2–3). hierdie projek is in 1978 die eerste keer onderneem en het daarna ’n jaarlikse instelling geword. gedurende die eerste twee jaar het die kapelaansvrouekomitee die verantwoordelikheid vir die versending van die kerspakkies op hulle geneem, maar vanaf 1980 tot 1985 het die hantering van die projek tussen die verskillende kommandemente se kapelaansvroue geroteer. die projek het elke jaar groter afmetings aangeneem en is deels deur die kapelaansvrouefonds gefinansier. fondse was egter beperk en daar is sterk op kapelaansvroue se kreatiwiteit gesteun. die koste het egter in die laat-tagtigerjare so ’n omvang aangeneem dat daar besluit is om vorentoe slegs kerskaarte te stuur. dit was die tendens van 1986 tot 1989 (kadw 1983b:6; paratus 1982a:75; rrp/a:2–3). die verantwoordelike kommandement se kapelaansvroue het self op die aard van die geskenke besluit en dit was ook hulle verantwoordelikheid om vooraf die geslag, name, ouderdomme en taalvoorkeure van die betrokke gesinne te bekom. die pakkies is persoonlik aan elke vrou en kind gerig en geskenke is gekies om by die ouderdomme van die kinders te pas. dit het sagte speelgoed, karretjies, popklere, storieboeke, sleutelhouers of toiletsakkies ingesluit. die besendings is aan elke betrokke sektor se kapelaan oorhandig wat dit dan uitgedeel het (kadw 1981:5; 1982b:7–8; 1983b:7; rrp/a:2–3). kapelaansvroue van die kommandement ovs het in 1980 aangebied om die projek te hanteer. hulle het navraag gedoen hoe die projek deur die kapelaansvrouekomitee bedryf is en daarop voortgebou. kapelaansvroue van kroonstad en bethlehem het ruim donasies gestuur, maar dit was die bloemfonteinse kapelaansvroue wat die projek prakties moes uitvoer. hulle het met oorleg die geskenke aangekoop, toegedraai en van name voorsien. ’n eksemplaar van die kapelaansvrouepublikasie, net maar ’n woord/just a word, is aan elke vrou in die operasionele gebied gestuur, terwyl alle geskenke ook ’n kaartjie met ’n geestelike strekking ingesluit het (kadw 1981:4–5; van niekerk 2002:224). in 1981 is die projek deur die kapelaansvroue van die kommandement noord-transvaal hanteer. onder leiding van me grietjie jordaan — wie se man as kapelaan-generaal vanaf 1990 tot 1994 gedien het — is 743 pakkies na die operasionele gebied gestuur. die kapelaansvroue het vier dae onverpoos gewerk om hierdie reuse taak af te handel, aangesien elke geestelike boodskappie met die hand geskryf is (kadw 1982b:7–8). die daaropvolgende jaar het die kommandament westelike provinsie die projek hanteer en gedurende 1984 het die lugmag en die suid-afrikaanse geneeskundige dienste onder leiding van me anita wessels geestelike boeke en groetekaartjies wat met droë blomme versier was, uitgestuur. gedurende 1984 is kerskaarte ook vir die eerste keer na die kapelaanspersoneel wat by buitelandse missies gestasioneer was, gestuur en dit het daarna ’n vaste instelling geword. in 1989 is hierdie gebruik ook na diegene wat by walvisbaai8 gestasioneer was, uitgebrei (kadw 1983b:6–7; 1985a:6; rrp/a:2–3; rrp/d:afd. b). gedurende 1985 het die kommandament suid-kaapland verantwoordelikheid vir die projek geneem. daar is besluit om die ouerhandleiding van arnold mol, ouerskap is nie kinderspeletjies nie, aan die vroue in die operasionele gebied te stuur en r4 440 is hiervoor ingesamel van kerke, vroue-aksies, besighede, leëreenhede, vriende en familie. die kapelaansvroue het kerskaartjies gemaak om voor in elke boek te plak, maar die teleurstelling was groot toe die boeke nie betyds opgedaag het nie. ’n kapelaanskonferensie in pretoria het die saak beredder en die kapelane het, onder streng opdragte en voorskrifte van hulle vroue, die geskenke opgemaak en versend (kadw 1986a:7; rrp/a:3). die kapelaansvroue verklaar dat hulle in die kleinheid van die geskenke en kaartjies, die groot waarde van die heilsboodskap wou vasvang (kadw 1982b:8). die talle briewe van waardering wat van sowel die grens as die buitelandse missies ontvang is, getuig daarvan dat hierdie gebaar aan sy doel beantwoord het. veral in die operasionele gebied het dit daartoe bygedra om die moreel tydens kerstyd te versterk (kadw 1981:5; van niekerk 2002:224). vir die kapelaansvroue self het dit ’n hegte onderlinge band van vriendskap help smee (kadw 1983b:7). melita een van die besonder uitdagende projekte wat die kapelaansvrouekomitee aangepak het, was die opknapping, verbouing en bestuur van die rooikruishut te voortrekkerhoogte (vandag thaba tshwane) in pretoria. dit het sedert die tweede wêreldoorlog as verblyfplek vir besoekende naasbestaandes van siek en gewonde soldate in 1 militêre hospitaal gedien (die kapelaansvroue saw 1982:128; kadw 1980a:3; rrp/a:11). reeds in 1971 het die weermagdamesvereniging9 die hospitaalhut met bydraes toegerus wat vanaf die verskillende weermagafdelings se damesverenigings ontvang is. die beheer van die hospitaalhut is aanvanklik aan die kommandement noord-transvaal oorhandig (kadw 1980a:3; rrp/b:9), maar die kapelaansvrouekomitee het uiteindelik die verantwoordelikheid vir die huisvesting en geestelike versorging van inwoners van die rooikruishut aanvaar. in 1976 het die kapelaansvrouekomitee onderneem om gereeld bybels en geestelike lektuur vir besoekers aan die rooikruishut beskikbaar te stel (rrp/a:11). ’n kapelaansvrou wat in 1978 daar tuisgegaan het, het die depressiewe toestande onder die kapelaansvrouekomitee se aandag gebring. ondersoek is ingestel en na onderhandelings met verskeie saw-instansies, is die beheer van die rooikruishut na die kapelaansvrouekomitee oorgeplaas. hulle het onderneem om die rooikruishut op te knap en het ook die finansiële verantwoordelikheid daarvoor aanvaar (kadw 1980a:3; rrp/a:11; van niekerk 2002:224–225). planne vir die veranderings en aanbouings is opgestel en op 5 mei 1980 is met die bouwerk begin. kapelaansvroue oor die hele land het meegewerk om die verblyfoord, wat as melita bekend sou staan, toe te rus. die naam beteken ‘toevlugsoord’ en verwys na die eiland malta in die middellandse see wat skuilplek aan feniciese seevaarders in tye van gevaar en storms gebied het (kadw 1980b:3; rrp/a:11; van niekerk 2002:223). die doel was nie slegs om die naasbestaandes van siek, beseerde of gewonde soldate van huisvesting te voorsien nie, maar ook om aan hulle die nodige geestelik bystand te verleen (kadw 1980a:3; rrp/a:11; rrp/b:23). op hierdie wyse het kapelaansvroue nie alleen in ’n behoefte by die militêre gemeenskap voorsien nie, maar hulle pastorale versorging ook uitgebrei om die burgerlike gemeenskap in te sluit en die trauma van diegene wie se geliefdes in militêre operasies gewond of beseer is, te verlig. met die opening van die oord het me margot malan, eggenote van die destydse hoof van die saw, daarop gewys dat diegene wat hulle geliefdes by 1 militêre hospitaal kom besoek het dikwels geskok en getraumatiseer was, en dikwels onbekend was met die omgewingsroetes en die verblyfmoontlikhede in pretoria. daarom beskryf sy melita as: ‘[…] a deed of mercy’ (kadw 1980b:1). melita is amptelik op 27 augustus 1980 deur me malan in gebuik geneem (kadw 1980b:1; rrp/b:23). fondse vir die projek is van die suiderkruisfonds verkry,10 asook skenkings deur individue en besighede. hoewel die koste van die projek etlike duisende rande beloop het, het die goedgesindheid van die weermag en die publiek daartoe gelei dat die kapelaansvrouekomitee die sleutel aan die saw se geneeskundige dienste kon oorhandig sonder enige skuld kon oorhandig (die kapelaansvroue saw 1982:128; kadw 1980b:3; rrp/a:11). die kapelaansvrouekomitee het ’n voltydse bestuurder aangestel wat saam met ’n komitee na die funksionering, instandhouding en benodigdhede by melita moes omsien. me stassen11 het as bestuurder gedurende 1980 waargeneem, waarna me a. bredenkamp vanaf 1981 tot 1988 diens gedoen het. in november 1988 het me e. smith by haar oorgeneem (kadw 1980b:3; rrp/a:12–13; rrp/c:2 melitaverslag). vanaf 28 augustus 1980 tot 30 junie 1983 het ten minste 1524 volwassenes en 114 kinders in melita oorgebly. die aanvraag na akkommodasie het egter die beskikbare ruimte oorskrei en op 30 junie 1983 is ’n mobiele huiseenheid aangeskaf wat die akkommodasiegeriewe van 14 tot 22 beddens verhoog het. ’n bussie wat deur die memorable order of tin hats (moths) geskenk is, het inwoners gratis tussen melita en 1 militêre hospitaal vervoer (kadw 1983a:6; rrp/a:14–16; van niekerk 2002:223–224). die verskillende gemeentes van voortrekkerhoogte het saam met die kapelaansvrouekomitee, maandbeurte geneem om koffie, tee, suiker, skoonmaakmiddels en blomme aan melita te voorsien. hierdie gemeentes het verskillende denominasies verteenwoordig en het die nederduitse gereformeerde kerk (ng kerk), die volle evangelie kerk, die anglikaanse kerk, die gereformeerde kerk, die nederduitse hervormde kerk, die rooms-katolieke kerk, die apostoliese geloofsending (ags) en die vrye kerke (’n samevoeging van die congregational church, presbiteriaanse kerk, baptiste kerk en die metodiste kerk) ingesluit. kapelane in die pretoria-omgewing het saans tydens aandgodsdiensgeleenthede by die verblyfoord vir die inwoners gebid (die kapelaansvroue saw 1982:128; kadw 1988:8; rrp/a:11–12; van niekerk 2002:223–224). buiten die inwydingsfunksie op 27 augustus 1980, het die kapelaansvrouekomitee verskeie ander funksies met melita as middelpunt gereël. op 3 september 1980 is ’n bekendstellingsfunksie vir die weermagdamesvereniging gehou. ten einde die publiek aan die projek bekend te stel en om finansiële ondersteuning vir die projek te verkry, het die kapelaansvrouekomitee op 27 mei 1982 ’n oggendtee te voortrekkerhoogte gereël waar die eggenotes van die saw se offisierskorps en sleutelfigure in vroueorganisasies, klubs, universiteite, kolleges en ander openbare belange oor die aard en behoeftes van melita ingelig is. op 24 augustus 1990 is melita se tiende verjaarsdag gevier. talle vroue-organisasies het melita ook by geleentheid besoek om eerstehands met die kapelaansvroue se pastorale uitreikaksie kennis te maak (kadw 1982d:8; 1986b:10; rrp/a:16–17; rrp/c:afd. b; rrp/f). uit die talle dankbetuigingsbriewe blyk dit duidelik dat melita in ’n wesenlike behoefte voorsien het en gehelp het om die trauma rondom oorlogsbeserings te verlig, veral vir diegene wat van ver gekom het en pretoria nie geken het nie. sommige van die briewe sluit frases in soos: ‘we enjoyed the relaxed, homely atmosphere’, ‘melita is ’n godgegewe oase’ en ‘ons besef nou wat god met naasteliefde bedoel het’ (kadw 1982c:8; paratus 1982c:93; rrp/a:16; rrp/c:2 melitaverslag). koffiekamers kort nadat die sap die verantwoordelikheid vir swapo insurgensie-aanvalle in 1973 aan die saw oorgedra het, het kapelane wat die operasionele gebied besoek het, terugvoer gegee oor die gebrek aan behoorlike ontspanningsfasiliteite vir diegene wat grensdiens verrig het. dit het tot die konsep van koffiekamers aanleiding gegee, en dit het ook as alternatief vir die kantien gedien (rrp/a:20; rrp/b:10, 22). genl.-maj. (ds.) c.p. naudé is in 1976 as gebiedskapelaan van die operasionele gebied in die noorde van swa aangestel en sy eggenote, ria naudé, het tydens hierdie tydperk eerstehands met die eise van grensdiens kennis gemaak. grensdiens het haar van die kosbaarheid, maar ook die kwesbaarheid van die gesin bewus gemaak. sy het besef hoe belangrik ’n stukkie ‘normaliteit’, soos tee en gebak, vir die grenssoldaat was (de vos 1990:43; van rensburg 2012). met haar man se diensaanvaarding as kapelaan-generaal in 1983, het sy die dryfkrag agter ’n uiters suksesvolle koffiekamerprojek geword; tot so ’n mate dat ’n amerikaanse viëtnam-veteraan by geleentheid opgemerk het: […] if only we had something like that in viëtnam [sic], if only our folks at home were so concerned about us, it could have changed the outcome of the war […]. (de vos 1990:43; vgl. ook rrp/e) die doel van die koffiekamers was om ruimtes te skep waar die troepe in ’n huislike atmosfeer kon ontspan, na musiek luister, speletjies speel, lees, briewe skryf en bybelstudie doen. dit is dus van gepaste meubelment, matte, gordyne, geestelike lektuur, skryftafels, snoekertafels, vingerborde, ’n musieksentrum en ’n koffiemasjien voorsien. in 1981 is vier soortgelyke fasiliteite binne die operasionele gebied geskep en teen 1985 was daar reeds 48 koffiekamers in bedryf (die volksblad 1979:7; in hoc signo 1982:11; kadw 1985b:6; paratus 1981:45). die koffiekamers het gou in ’n sentrale bedieningspunt vir kapelane ontwikkel, en hoewel die sosiale verkeer gewoonlik informeel was, is daar op woensdagen sondagaande bybelstudiegeleenthede in die koffiekamers aangebied. sommige koffiekamers soos die een by 52 sai bataljon te ondangwa, het ook ’n aparte vertrek gehad waar die kapelaan persoonlike gesprekke kon voer. die koffiekamerkonsep is ook na al die weermagbasisse in die republiek uitgebrei (in hoc signo 1981:11; 1984a:11; kadw 1987:8; rrp/b:28). omdat kapelane weens hulle werklas nie self die projek kon bedryf nie en dit hoofsaaklik kerklike vroue-organisasies was wat die meubelment, toerusting en eetgoed aan die koffiekamers voorsien het, het die kapelaansvrouekomitee verantwoordelikheid vir die skakeling en koördinering van die projek aanvaar. lede van die kapelaansvrouekomitee het die operasionele gebied gedurende 1984 besoek om ’n behoeftebepaling te doen. op 3 augustus dieselfde jaar het die kapelaansvrouekomitee saam met lede van die kapelaanshoofkwartier en ander belanghebbendes vergader om ’n werkswyse vir die projek vas te stel (rrp/a:20). onder leiding van me ria naudé is reeds in 1983 besluit om die verskillende denominasies wat staandemagverteenwoordiging in die saw het, te nader ten einde groter betrokkenheid van hulle vroueorganisasies by die koffiekamerprojek te verkry. ’n beroep op wyer kerklike betrokkenheid het daaroe gelei dat vroue-organisasies van verskillende afrikaanse denominasies, waaronder die ng kerk, die nederduitse hervormde kerk, die gereformeerde kerk, die ags, die pinksterkerke en die sewendedag adventiste, verantwoordelikheid vir spesifieke koffiekamers aanvaar het en dit met meubels en huislike geriewe toegerus het. hierdie gemeentes het ook vier keer per jaar gebak gelewer en fondse vir die instandhouding van die koffiekamers voorsien. behalwe die kerspakkies en die briefies en kaartjies wat onder andere deur skoolkinders aan die soldate gerig is, is beskuit en koekies in groot volumes na die koffiekamers gestuur. daar is bereken dat ongeveer 5 000 kg gebak jaarliks tot en met die saw-onttrekking op 01 november 1989 aan die operasionele gebied gelewer is. die engelse denominasies het nie by die projek ingeskakel nie12 (de vos 1990:43; kadw 1985b:6; rrp/a:20–21; rrp/b:28). groepe dames het reeds sedert die laat-sewentigerjare van die vorige eeu die operasionele gebied as deel van ’n paraatheidsideaal besoek. die eerste groep het uit lugmagdames bestaan (rrp/b:13). kapelaansvroue het vanaf 19 tot 21 september 1979 onder leiding van me. elsa van zyl hulle eerste besoek aan die operasionele gebied gebring en windhoek, rundu en omega besoek (rrp/b:21; rrp/e:4). na haar aanvaarding as kapelaangeneraalsvrou en voorsitter van die kapelaansvrouekomitee, het me ria naudé hierdie besoeke na die kerklike vroueorganisasies wat by die koffiekamerprojek betrokke was, uitgebrei. die doel was nie alleen om hulle van die algemene toestande in die operasionele gebied bewus te maak nie, maar veral ook om hulle eerstehands aan die besondere behoeftes rondom die koffiekamerprojek bloot te stel (kadw 1985b:6; 1987:8; rrp/a:3, 21; rrp/b:28). in 1985 het 36 vroue van verskillende denominasies die operasionele gebied besoek en soortgelyke toere is tot 1988 onderneem. veertig dames het die toer in april 1986 meegemaak en 37 dames die daaropvolgende jaar se toer. op hierdie wyse is ook waardevolle interkerklike skakeling bewerkstellig (kadw 1985b:6; 1986c:10–11; 1987:8). met die beëindiging van die grensoorlog in 1989 is die toerusting en meubelment van die operasionele koffiekamers wat nie by die suid-afrikaanse binnelandse koffiekamers of die walvisbaaise koffiekamers gebruik kon word nie, verkoop en die fondse is in trust geplaas vir toekomstige gebruik deur binnelandse koffiekamers wat bly voortbestaan het. gemeentes wat betrokke wou bly, is by die binnelandse koffiekamers heringedeel en daar is voortgegaan om gebak aan die eenhede in die binneland en by walvisbaai te lewer (de vos 1990:43; rrp/a:21; rrp/d:afd. c). talle berigte rondom die koffiekamerprojek en aanhalings van dankbetuigings deur soldate in in hoc signo getuig van die sukses van hierdie bediening. vir baie was dit ’n stukkie ‘huis’ en ’n ‘geestelike verrykingsplek’, ‘’n diensplek met ewigheidswaarde’ (vgl. in hoc signo 1984a:11; 1984b:7; van rensburg 2012). slotgedagtes regdeur die geskiedenis van die mensdom het oorlogsomstandighede en konfliksituasies gemeenskappe aan trauma en ’n behoefte aan pastorale versorging blootgestel. tradisioneel is hierdie versorging deur die religieuse samelewingsverband in ’n gemeenskap hanteer en het kapelane, as verteenwoordigers van die kerk, die soldate na die oorlogsfront vergesel. navorsing het egter aangetoon dat vroue dikwels meer sensitief vir die behoeftes in ’n gemeenskap as hulle manlike eweknieë is. kapelaansvroue is predikantsvroue in die volste sin van die woord, en as sodanig het hulle ’n geloofsboodskap om uit te dra. daarom het suid-afrikaanse kapelaansvroue tydens die grensoorlog van die standpunt uitgegaan dat hulle ’n eiesoortige bydrae kon lewer om die trauma van die destydse oorlogsomstandighede pastoraal te verlig. onder leiding van die kapelaansvrouekomitee en deur die netwerke wat hulle georganiseer het, het hulle doelmatig in die behoeftes van die militêre gemeenskap voorsien. op geestelike en fisiese vlak het hulle ondersteuning gebied en hulle uitreike het ook na die breër suid-afrikaanse gemeenskap uitgekring. ouers kon in die koffiekamers geestelike bedieningsruimtes vir hulle seuns vind, en melita het die trauma van oorlogsbeserings help verlig. kapelaansvroue se diensbaarheid het tot ’n verruiming van die kapelaansbediening van die sakd bygedra en ’n onskatbare waardevolle diens aan die militêre gemeenskap van suid-afrika gelewer. erkenning van die pastorale uitreike van kapelaansvroue tydens die grensoorlog verbreed die eendimensionele manlike interpretasie van die oorlog en werp lig op die algemene ondersteuningsrol van vroue in oorlogsomstandighede. dit toon aan dat gelowige vroue deur hulle vindingrykheid en die vermoë om situasies te hanteer, daartoe kan bydra om die kontoere van ’n gemeenskap onder abnormale omstandighede en trauma bymekaar te hou. navorsing het aangetoon dat vroue dikwels tydens oorlogen konflikomstandighede ’n uitsonderlike sterkte kan toon en soos die kapelaansvroue, as bakens van hoop en heropbou in ’n gemeenskap na vore kan tree. daarmee word die grense van kulturele en sosiale tradisies met betrekking tot vrouwees verskuif en word die waarde van gelowige vroue in maatskaplike samelewings bevestig. werke deur gender-historici verwys dikwels na die afwesigheid van vroue in die hoofstroomgeskiedskrywing en die leemtes wat daardeur veroorsaak word (vgl. scott 1996:2–5). omdat uiteindelik slegs die geskiedenis wat verwoord is van belang is en saak maak (ntwape 2016:1), volg dit uiteraard dat die geskiedenis van die sakd se betrokkenheid by die grensoorlog altyd onvolledig sal wees indien die pastorale teenweer van kapelaansvroue teen oorlogstrauma nie ook in aanmerking geneem word nie. erkenning medeingende belange die outeurs verklaar dat hulle geen finansiële of persoonlike verbintenis het met enige party wat hulle nadelig kon beïnvloed het in die skryf van hierdie artikel nie. outeurs bydrae as eerste outeur het i.b. die basiese 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joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis (2006; 2009); scholtz (2013). 2. in die feministiese teorie word dienslewering deur vroue binne die werkskring van hulle eggenote dikwels binne die ‘domesticʼof ‘motherismʼ-raamwerk geplaas. jacklyn cock argumenteer dat eggenotes van lede van die saw, onder druk van die weermagdamesvereniging se verwagtings van lojaliteit en ondersteuning aan hulle mans, tot ʼn groot mate hulle eie identiteit prysgegee het om by hulle soldaat-eggenoot se wêreld in te skakel. die saw as instelling het hierdie definisies van gender-onderdanigheid versterk. cock bevind ook dat vroue hierdeur nie alleen bygedra het om die suid-afrikaanse samelewing te militariseer nie, maar ook om die ideologie van gender-rolle te versterk (sien cock 1991:51, 120–124, 234; cock & nathan 1989:56–58). hoewel hierdie aspek wel ʼn rol by dienslewering deur vroue gedurende die sestigertot tagtigerjare van die vorige eeu gespeel het – ook buite die saw – kan dit egter nie as die enigste of selfs belangrikste motivering tot dienslewering by vroue gesien word nie. in die onderhawige geval sou godsdienstige oorwegings as christene waarskynlik ’n ewe belangrike dryfveer gewees het. dat hierdie debatvoering oor gender-rolle gekompliseerd is, spreek duidelik uit die feit dat kamila klingorová en tomáš havlíč (2015:2–3) godsdiens juis as die hoofrede vir maatskaplike gender-ongelykhede sien. 3. vrouehistoriografie het as gevolg van die feministiese beweging, internasionaal reeds gedurende die sestigerjare van die vorige eeu beslag gekry en gedurende die sewentigerjare in ’n studieveld met ’n eie momentum ontwikkel. gedurende die tagtigerjare het dit van die polities-radikale feministiese inslag wegbeweeg en as genderhistoriografie ’n neutrale akademiese dissiplinevorm aangeneem (blignaut 2012:12–13, 17). ten spyte daarvan dat genderstudies by verskeie suid-afrikaanse universiteite gevestig is en nie-regeringsorganisasie-werkswinkels en seminare oor die onderwerp aangebied is (bonnin 1996:380–382), wys belinda bozzoli en peter dalius in 1990 daarop dat vrouehistoriografie in suid-afrika nog in sy kinderskoene is. skrywers wat binne die raamwerk van genderhistoriografie ’n belangrike bydrae gelewer het, sluit onder meer die volgende persone in: belinda bozzoli, claire robertson, debora gaitskell, shula marks, jacklyn cock, julia wells, sheila meintjes, cheryl walker en elsabe brink. ’n belangrike werk in hierdie verband is die publikasie onder redaksie van nombonisa gasa, women in south africa, wat in 2007 verskyn het (ntwape 2016:1, 19, 22–24, 26, 28, 41, 51, 60). 4. vir ’n vollediger uiiteenseting van die rol van kapelaansvroue as predikanten offisiersvroue in die militêre milieu, sien bredenkamp en wessels (2014a:120–140). 5. vir meer besonderhede omtrent omstrede klandestiene operasies, sien onder andere steyn en söderlund (2014). 6. hoewel kapelaansvroue lidmaatskap van die onderskeie weermagafdelings (leër, lugmag, vloot en geneeskundige dienste) se damesverenigings gehad het, het hulle hul taak in die suid-afrikaanse weermag as eiesoortig gedefinieer en in 1976 die kapelaansvrouekomitee gestig. hierdie vereniging het uit die eggenotes van die kapelaanshoofkwartier bestaan en het tot die vroeë negentigerjare van die vorige eeu die werksaamhede van die verskillende weermagafdelings se kapelaansvroue gekoördineer en leiding geneem in uitreike deur kapelaansvroue. vir meer inligting oor die kapelaansvrouekomitee, sien bredenkamp en wessels (2015:77–101). 7. vir meer besonderhede omtrent die inval in angola, sien onder andere spies (1989) en scholtz (2013:7–34). 8. die walvisbaai-enklawe was tot maart 1994 nog deel van suid-afrika, waarna die suid-afrikaanse regering die gebied formeel aan namibië oorgedra het. 9. die suid-afrikaanse weermagdamesvereniging is in 1970 onder voorsitterskap van me gertie hiemstra, eggenote van die destydse kommandant-generaal van die suid-afrikaanse weermag, gestig. dit het as ’n sambreelorganisasie vir die verskillende weermagafdelings (leër, lugmag, vloot en geneeskundige dienste) se damesverenigings gedien (rrp/b:1, 8). 10. vir meer inligting oor die suiderkruisfonds en die grensoorlog, sien onder andere van heerden (2014). 11. me stassen se voorletters kon nie in die geraadpleegde bronne opgespoor word nie. 12. vir meer inligting oor die redes waarom engelse denominasies nie by die projek ingeskakel het nie, sien bredenkamp en wessels (2010:50–53; 2011:8–10). td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 105-118. integrated co-operative governance in the context of sustainable development e j nealer1 and m naudé2 abstract the rapid global development is mostly economically driven and made up of complex country-specific problems. although sustainable development (sd) is a well established concept and an urgent global challenge, differing levels of progress had been made in organisations, communities and countries. to facilitate consistency of understanding, the authors accept the definition of ‘sustainable development’ as including the economic, social and environmental dimensions. furthermore, they argue that these dimensions are not functioning as separate silos but are interdependent and grounded in legislated governance frameworks from where co-operative governance (cog) realizes as an option to facilitate an integrated approach. the article discusses the challenges in the facilitation of cog and suggests practical guidelines for implementation to facilitate improved integration. keywords: sustainable development, governance, co-operative governance, integrated, organising, and communication. disciplines: public administration, public management, social welfare, environmental management, municipal public service delivery, social development, organisational behaviour, co-operative governance, communication, sustainable development, sustainable organisational development. introduction the current rapid world-wide development is mostly driven by economic development and made up of a range of complex problems unique to each country. one such a problem is overpopulation which leads to disastrous effects on a planet already exploited. as a result, earthly resources will become extinct if there is no firm and definite ongoing commitment to sustainability. along the same line of 1 . school for social & government studies, north-west university, private bag x6001, potchefstroom, south africa, 2520, tel: (018) 299 4332, e-mail: eric.nealer@nwu.ac.za 2 . curtin graduate school of business (cgsb), curtin university, gpo box u1987, perth, western australia, 6845, tel: +61 8 9266 7615, email: marita.naude@gsb.curtin.edu.au nealer and naudé 106 thinking, there had been a number of environmental catastrophes in latter years of the 20th century. consequently, there is an urgent need to move towards an integrated, implementable and realistic approach to sustainable development (patra, 2008; cho & roberts, 2010). world-wide there has been a notable shift in the public concern regarding environmental issues and the related corporate performance (cho & roberts, 2010). furthermore, society’s expectations of business are changing and companies are now expected to act responsibly towards both society and their shareholders (baden, harwood & woodward, 2009). at a first glance, enhancing effective sustainable development seems to be a manageable task as sustainable development is not a new concept (baumgartner & korhonen, 2010) and it is one of the most widely used words today (patra, 2008). although sustainable development is an urgent, global and long-term challenge, different levels of practical and realistic progress have been made and effective long-term outcomes have been attained regarding sustainable development in the day-to-day functioning of various organisations and communities. varying levels of effective progress have been made regarding development and effective implementation of national, regional and international policies (baumgartner & korhonen, 2010). it is a well-known fact that the manifestation of economic growth, social welfare improvement and more effective and sustainable management of the environment in especially developing countries is of an uneven nature (lieferink, 2010). based on the shift in thinking and assigned responsibility, both managers and public policy-makers are trying to manage sustainability more effectively but face a complex range of difficult challenges. these challenges include the more than 90 definitions of sustainable development (becker, 2010), concepts which are very broad and there seems to be a lack of applicable, tested and validated comprehensive frameworks and/or models, with applicable and effective guidelines for implementation (jabbour & santos 2008). moreover, sustainable development and the success of sustainability is a value judgment; some areas could only be assessed by inference from what is observable and not always through quantifiable measurement (becker, 2010; wallis, kelly & graymore, 2010). globally, both managers and public policy-makers are researching approaches and/or frameworks to assist them (wallis, kelly & graymore, 2010; morrow & rondinelli, 2002). in attempting to address these approaches and/or frameworks more effectively, the place and role of co-operative governance (cog) has been identified as a ‘new vehicle’ towards more effective sustainable development (sd). the authors of this article are of the opinion that effective cog could facilitate and enhance improved sd and acknowledge that cog is regarded as a new approach to governance (department of environmental affairs, online, 2003). in this new approach, there is a shift away from the narrow focus of governance to a broader focus. this includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound public policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. in a broader focus, a wider range of governance mechanisms are used which are concerned with the growing positions and roles of associations and partnerships that reflect the dynamic and interactive nature of co-ordination and integration (department of environmental affairs, 2006:16-18). the concept of ‘co-operative governance’ (cog) has also been termed as ‘multilevel governance’ (benz & eberlein in bulkeley et al, 2003) and ‘co-operative development planning’ (nelana, 2005). for the purpose of this article, cog implies both the narrower concept of governance and mechanisms shared between different government departments and a broader concept of governance, which includes external groups and influential individuals such as the public / stakeholders and the industrial sector (forsyth in boer et al., 2003). along this line of reasoning, the following four questions arose: • what key dimensions should be contained within a sustainable development context? integrated cog and sustainable development td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 105-118. 107 • what key dimensions should be contained within a cog context to facilitate sustainable development? • what are the challenges managers might face in an attempt to implement both sustainable development strategies and activities through effective cog? • what practical guidelines could managers use to guide them to implement both sustainable development strategies and activities through effective cog? in an effort to address these four questions, the overall aim of this article is two-fold. firstly, to analyse sustainable development and cog dimensions and to identify potential challenges for managers in implementing effective sustainable development strategies and activities within a cog context. secondly, to provide practical guidelines for the implementation of effective cog to facilitate sustainable development. consequently, this article adds value from both a theoretical and practical perspective. from a theoretical perspective, it provides an analysis of sustainable and cog dimensions. furthermore, it analyses the challenges related to effective cog strategies to enhance sustainable development. from a practical perspective, it can potentially raise renewed awareness among managers and public policymakers regarding the importance of implementing cog to facilitate sustainable development. the remainder of this article is structured in three sections. firstly, various literature sources which the authors used as a basis for their arguments, are identified. secondly, the challenges managers might face trying to implement sustainable development strategies and activities are discussed. lastly, practical guidelines for the implementation of more effective cog to facilitate sustainable development, are proposed. literature review sustainable development (sd) sd originated in relation to explicitly green issues, but has evolved to reflect a process that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. often called intergenerational equality, the idea is that natural resources should be shared, not just with people who are alive on the planet today but also with future generations of earth’s inhabitants. whilst a certain amount of the planet’s resources can be used, the earthlings should never entirely deplete a natural resource (brundtlandt in hoverstadt & bowling, 2005). economic development, especially in india and china, could have a drastic and devastating effect on the already exploited resources on the planet. furthermore, india and china contain two thirds of the total world population which adds increasing pressure. there is an urgent need to turn around from the destructive path of inevitable self-destruction towards an integrated, practical, realistic approach to sustainable development (patra, 2008). sustainable development strategies (including economic, social and environmental dimensions) date back to the united nations conference on environment and development (unced) of 1992 with the aim to address urgent problems of environmental protection and socio-economic development. agenda 21 (‘rio declaration’), chapter 8 (8.7), which was produced at the 1992 conference, proposed that a national strategy for sustainable development (sd) should harmonize as well as build upon various economic, social, and environmental policies and plans operating in countries. the commission on sustainable development was created to monitor and report on the implementation of agreements (un, 1992; un 1997). furthermore, it was clear that sd strategies needed to focus on three areas, namely: economic, social and environmental. these sd areas are consistent with the 1987 nealer and naudé 108 brundtland commission report’s classic description of sd suggesting that equity, growth and environmental maintenance are simultaneously possible (brundtland, 1987). five years later at the rio +5 summit it was agreed that the formulation of sd strategies ought to be completed in all countries by the year 2002 (un, 1997). in 2002, at the world summit on sustainable development (wssd) in johannesburg, south africa, the aim was to measure progress on agenda 21 principles and to encourage new commitments and actions to achieve sustainable development (wssd, 2002). the latter years of the 20th century saw a number of environmental catastrophes (for example, chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986, three mile island nuclear power plant accident in 1979 and exxon valdez oil spill in 1989) triggering a notable shift in the public concern regarding environmental issues and corporate performance (cho & roberts, 2010). society’s expectations of business are changing and companies are now expected to be responsible and accountable to both their shareholders and society. this lead to an increasing emphasis on and commitment to sustainable development (baden, harwood & woodward, 2009). within this context, there is an increased call for companies to act and conduct their business in a sustainable manner. previously, organizations doubted their ability to successfully compete if costs were increased as a result of sustainability strategies. that opinion has changed and currently organisations are proud to announce environmental protection, strategies and activities (szwajkowski, 2000). across the world, managers and public policy-makers are trying to determine success and effectiveness of both sustainability strategies and outcomes. to complicate this task, more than 90 definitions for sustainable development exist (becker, 2010) although it is one of the most widely used words today (patra, 2008). furthermore, sustainability is a value judgment and means different things to different people, organisations and institutions, and some aspects can only be assessed by inference from what is observable. therefore, there are many attempts to measure progress towards sustainability (becker, 2010; wallis, kelly & graymore, 2010). over time, numerous tools were developed at global (e.g. united nations commission on sustainable development), regional (e.g. eco-management and audit scheme, emas, in europe) and local (sustainable seattle) levels. however, tools deliver varying outcomes and levels of assessment which could be frustrating and even misleading, prompting managers and public policy-makers to seek guidance and formulate frameworks towards developing strategies to facilitate sustainability (wallis, kelly& graymore, 2010; morrow & rondinelli, 2002). frameworks assist to organise the disparate aspects of sustainability to create particular indicators to measure the achievement of these indicators. however, the mere existence of a framework does not necessarily guarantee the desired outcomes but assists managers and public policy-makers to develop more effective structured systems and, furthermore, guides regulatory compliance performance and provides a system for continuous quality monitoring and improvement (becker, 2010; wallis, kelly & graymore, 2010). for the purpose of this article the authors accept the sd definition that clearly includes the economic, social and environmental dimensions (un, 1992; un 1997) and which is consistent with the 1987 brundtland commission report’s classic description of sd suggesting that equity, growth and environmental maintenance are simultaneously possible (brundtland, 1987). the authors also acknowledge and propose that the connections between the sustainable development dimensions (economic, social and environmental) are inescapable as they are inextricably interrelated and interconnected. this entails the incorporation of the collective and integrated synergies between the embedded environmental, economic viability (including technology), and social equity (including culture and politics) systems which are underpinned by or grounded in the facilitating system of governance and cog in a holistic quest towards effective public decision-making and policy implementation (glasson & wood, 2009). figure 1 below depicts an exposition of a three-legged stool, with each leg representing one of the three dimensions of sustainable development, and the links between sd and cog: integrated cog and sustainable development td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 105-118. 109 figure 1: depiction of links between sd and cog. (source: author’s [nealer] own work) the various environmental, social and economical dimensions do not function in separate silos but are dependent on each other via another dimension, namely: the grounding and legislated governance framework. these four dimensions which are dynamic and constant within a sd context, include the following: • environmental dimensions such as the surroundings within which humans exist and are made up of: o the land, water and atmosphere of the earth; o micro-organisms, plant and animal life; o any part or combination of the aforementioned two aspects and the interrelationships among and between them; and o the physical, chemical, aesthetic and cultural properties and conditions of the foregoing that influence human health and well-being (rsa, 1998:section1.1[xi]). • social dimensions such as meeting the diverse needs of all people in existing and future communities, promoting personal well-being, social cohesion and equal opportunity for all (torbay council, online). islam et al. (2003) are of the opinion that the social dimension emphasises the enrichment of human relationships and achievement of individual and group aspirations. • economical dimensions such as economic growth, exports, foreign exchange reserves, foreign direct investment, official exchange rate, and public sector deficits come to the fore (james, 2003). in this sphere, challenges to countries’ economies include the constraints on rising fiscal expenditures caused by capacity limitations, attempts to keep inflation down when oil and energy costs are rising, and the selection, funding and management of second economy interventions that expand employment, create assets, build the skills base and contribute to solving social problems. nealer and naudé 110 • governance as the facilitative grounding dimension of the aforementioned three major loci of sd brings about the essential integration needed for effective growth (development) which is determined by communication, cooperation, collaboration (together seen as cog) towards realising a synergised group quest of sd through a continuous process. the aforementioned four dimensions, with particular reference to an analysis of the governance dimension, suggest that sectoral governance is coherent and capacity-building strategies are increasingly in place. however, particular challenges relate to capacity and resource constraints, for example, at local government level. the council for scientific and industrial research (csir) is of the opinion that ‘... the quality of the basic service delivery by municipalities in their respective municipal areas is deteriorating because of over-utilisation of water resources, uncontrolled urbanisation, and inadequate budget control, technical skills, planning and maintenance by municipalities in their respective municipal areas’ (csir, 2007:10). the capacity for trans-disciplinary thinking, cross-sectoral communication, co-ordination and collaboration (cog) needs to be further strengthened by, for example, active representation and participation on public forums such as the mooi river forum in potchefstroom, south africa. integrating environmental considerations into sectoral policy and activities remains a key challenge for effective cog for sd. civil society enterprises and public sector institutions need to be identified, strengthened and linked in synergetic partnerships to enhance their ability to, inter alia, monitor governments and to interact on a more equal footing with role-players such as the private sector and representative stakeholders from affected communities. all three sectors, however, require considerable education and awareness-raising with respect to an understanding of sd and the implications for public policy making. if a country’s natural resource base is under stress, it automatically creates imbalances between all the remaining pillars and sub-systems of sd, for example, the quest for shared growth in a national drive to address poverty in a positive manner. in other words, socio-economic goals cannot be attained if the underlying ecosystems are depleted or the facilitation of the sd process is typified by, inter alia, absent or ineffective cog. most developing countries are confronted by the need to factor the following into their economic policy making: actual fundamental threats such as the negative impact of inherited and persistent poverty and the effect that inequality and deteriorating infrastructure will have on a national quest towards improved development. secondly, a limited extent of and underlying depletion of natural resources (i.e. inadequate energy, potable water shortages, and rising waste levels) will undermine a national drive to try and meet a country’s fundamental human needs to build an advanced and sustainable economy. the major role-players in this dimension of the sd process are primarily the private sector, civil society, influential individuals and government institutions. due to the rising levels of diversity, complexity and the more sophisticated needs of citizens, the leading role-players are unable to achieve effective sd themselves. it is crucial for them to be visible, show interest, communicate with each other and getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, determine the ‘rules of the game’, identify each other’s place and roles and co-operate and work together in a synergised manner towards achieving common goals. with the aforementioned in mind, the nature and extent of co-operative governance (cog) will now be highlighted. integrated cog and sustainable development td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 105-118. 111 co-operative governance (cog) a determining factor in the quest for better understanding of cog is a clarification of the concept ‘corporate governance’. evan (1993:24) defines it as ‘…the structure of authority and decision-making at the apex of an organisation’. rossouw et al. (in boer et al, 2003) point out that internationally it is agreed that good corporate governance hinges on four fundamental principles, namely: fairness, accountability, responsibility and transparency and that it also applies to cog among all stakeholders. a prerequisite for effective cog is communicative rationality which entails a non-coercive, unifying, consensus building force of a discourse in which participants overcome their initial subjective views in favour of a rational agreement (nelana, 2005). effective implementation of any cross-sectoral policy requires that cog processes have to be established on the ground and not just considered as some form of laudable principle. one of the most important steps in moving towards operational cog is the identification ofand agreement on generic objectives by all the relevant, involved and affected sectors. this must be followed by the correct identification and development of organisational and coordinating arrangements and programmes that can effectively achieve these objectives (mackay & ashton, 2004). nelana (2005) also highlights feedback, information sharing and co-ordination between government and civil society as crucial elements of cog. in this process, civil society participates in agenda setting and public policy formulation and implementation to address social exclusion arising from corporate globalisation. cog also enhances openness and transparency in the formulation and implementation of social-economic policy. co-ordination also implies that civil society groups will not only initiate their own development planning processes but, will also co-ordinate these processes with government. edigheji (in nelana, 2005) identifies differentiated participation, resulting from ‘competition’ in formulation and implementation of planning that entrenches what cog seeks to resolve, namely: equalizing the voices of various stakeholders. national stakeholders have more power than the local. among the national stakeholders, different stakeholders have different power. this dynamic interaction between political and economical sectors occurs as vertical cog as well as an interaction occurring at (for example, within the same sphere in and between departments and the private sector) the horizontal cog. of significance to the aforementioned objectives of cog is the existence of effective organisational arrangements (internal and external) of which two-way communication is first and foremost. this should lead to higher levels of visibility, transparency, accessibility and willingness of all committed actors to become involved and participate in a more active manner towards holistic and synergised group attempts of service delivery and sd per se. this might entail marketing the actors’ strengths and/or the exposure of their weaknesses so that any new collaborative venture can be progressive. cog, effectively facilitated can, inter alia, bring about the following: • a structured framework for encouraging pluralist inputs, for example, to environmental policy making. • a mechanism for building consensus. • higher flexibility to different circumstances. • application across international borders. • generation of more stable and legitimate public policy outcomes. • provision of context in which expert advice can be introduced in a fruitful manner. • provision of a framework which encourages environmental learning. (meadowcroft, 1999). nealer and naudé 112 unfortunately it has been proven that it is difficult to work in a collaborative manner and that the effort needed to implement co-operative governance, is problematic. the following reasons have been identified in this regard: • an improved level of internal and external organisational arrangements are required to bring about more effective, efficient and economic communication, co-ordination and collaboration. • there is growing competition for scarce natural resources, and it is likely that more conflicts will arise world-wide over water, especially in the face of climate change and desertification processes (mackay & ashton, 2004). based on the four questions posed at the start of this article, the following information was analysed and synthesised through website and document analyses: • basic public information on various institutions’, leading private sector enterprises’ and civil society individuals’ sd information and strategies made available on their individual websites on the internet. organisational aspects taken into account were overall visibility, access, transparency, willingness to share knowledge, track record of completed projects and institutional willingness to participate in collaborative research and development ventures. • leading actors’ standing and roles in the respective development strategies. • additional information of importance regarding organising aspects such as communication, networking, integration, collaboration, co-ordination and cog. in addition, a literature review of applicable resources was conducted. challenges identified with reference to the aforementioned research review, the following challenges in a quest to facilitate improved co-operative governance can be identified: • multiple definitions and interpretations: sustainable development is not a new concept (baumgartner & korhonen, 2010) and it is one of the most widely used words today (patra, 2008). however, this creates one of the first challenges for both managers and policy-makers as there are more than 90 definitions of sustainable development (becker, 2010). added to this challenge, sustainable development and the success of sustainability is a value judgment and it means different things to different people and organisations (becker, 2010; wallis, kelly & graymore, 2010). there seems to be confusion about the actual definition of ‘bigpicture thinking principles’ such as environment, sustainable development, sub-systems of the aforementioned, organisational arrangements and cog (mackay & ashton, 2004). • lack of an integrated approach: the order of co-operative and optimally co-ordinated deliberations and subsequent governance unfortunately is still such that ‘the left hands do not know what the right hands are trying to do’, ‘no effective synergy between all actors involved with supposedly single-purpose driven goals’ and ‘domination and manipulation by government or big private sector institutions’ (lieferink, interview). often the responsibility for sd manifests on different government spheres with numerous role-players trying to establish sense in a co-operative form of federalism usually resulting in an un-co-ordinated quest towards un-aligned and poorly integrated goals. some institutions fail to take the lead in the overall planning, capacitating, facilitating an effective cross-sectoral and multistakeholders co-ordination based on ongoing communication and consultation, and steering and controlling of a holistic and fully integrated sd. confusion arises where, in some instances, matters relating to a single public activity may be governed by more than one integrated cog and sustainable development td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 105-118. 113 institution (bosman et al., 2004) and may still be fragmented. this fragmentation is exacerbated by disjointed and separate, autonomous line functioning organs of state which often operate independently from each other at different levels of governance (nel & du plessis, 2004). • lack of community involvement: how does one ensure optimal community involvement and ‘buy-in’? regarding representativity, a representative of a civil society said that: ‘we go there, we eat, we drink, we sleep and then we go home empty headed’ (giese & sanders, 2008). considering that currently there are more than 63300 development institutions and agencies formally listed on world registers (uphoff, 2010), it adds to the confusion and ‘needle in a hay stack’ attempts when effective groupings of collaborative entities have to be established. in addition, it seems that the websites and documents of companies are visible, informative, detailed and excellent publicity and marketing tools. they unfortunately, do not reflect a clear willingness to interact, collaborate, co-ordinate or work together in partnerships through improved co-operative governance. furthermore, they are not transparent regarding knowledge sharing or keeping a track-record of successful collaborative projects. • lack of effective monitoring and evaluation: lack of appropriate monitoring, evaluation and reporting systems on performance and progress with sd initiatives has been reported. • cog unsupportive of effective sd: hall and symes (2005) warn about cog (as a set of political principles) offering no obvious defence to the state asserting its right to be regarded as the primary and determining stakeholder... in a collaborative venture. • unsustainable rising levels of natural resource abuse: rising levels of natural resource use and misuse. the natural resource bases are under pressure and the ecosystems face degradation; especially the supply of potable water and effective sanitation systems. practical guidelines for the implementation of cog the following guidelines for both managers and public policy-makers, regarding the effective implementation of cog, are presented: • identify and define the locus and focus: first and foremost an accurate identification of the locus (context) and focus of the development challenge(s) at hand through a systematic approach to public problem-solving should take place. development from a ‘command and control’ type of state towards an ‘enabling’ state, a model in which the state is not proactively governing society but is more concerned with defining objectives and mustering resources from a wide variety of sources to pursue those goals, has been witnessed (peters & pierre, 2001). • define sustainable development for the specific organisation: it is crucial that organisations and institutions define sustainable development within their organisation and community to ensure consistency of understanding and implementation. a recommended definition of sd clearly includes the economic, social and environmental dimensions (un, 1992; un 1997) with a focus on equity, growth and environmental maintenance (brundtland, 1987). • develop and maintain effective partnerships: establish partnerships and mechanisms where all the participants agree on how to co-operate, work together and add value to each other’s contributions, rather than duplicate or compete with one another. governments now realise that they can no longer manage on their own. they now have to try to facilitate and combine different groups of actors and arrange the integrated quests to public problem-solving. the nature and extent of this collaboration will be the key to successful achievement of common public goals (salamon, 2002:8). with a shared understanding by all the attending entities of all the problems confronting them, some needs and solutions can be prioritised and the priorities can be assigned so that efforts for dealing with them, are focused. once priority problems have been agreed upon, strategies for dealing with them need to be planned and worked out during discussions that include all the stakeholders. equal and optimum nealer and naudé 114 representativity with designated suitable alternates and buy-in from all actors involved, must be realised. • adopt an approach of integration: fox and meyer (1995:65) regard integration as ‘…the condition in which all the parts of the total organisation are held together in a state of dynamic equilibrium; concerned with the means organisations use to co-ordinate the work between differentiated task groups.’ this organisational arrangement(s) becomes important in, for example, the facilitation of integrated water resources management between organisational units within an institution like the department of water affairs as well as between the institution and other stakeholders with similar goals. • utilise effective communication strategies: it is crucial to start by talking to people in households, small groups of concerned and involved stakeholders and to facilitate the establishment of focus groups. clarity on theoretical aspects such as two-way communication, integration, the embedded nature of collaborative service delivery and cog must be confirmed by all participants. at the first bigger gatherings of interested parties it might be desirable to use specially trained persons as facilitators and catalysts to lead the proceedings. at these meetings a clear terms of reference and ‘rules of the game’ must be established. optimum attendance ofand active participation in meetings and ventures should be acknowledged as key performance areas and not merely as add-on functions. improved two-direction horizontal communication needed for better co-ordination as well as two-direction vertical communication should be facilitated to produce a higher level of reporting and control in the final instance. better use of modern communication media and technology to facilitate meetings of a higher standard must be facilitated. • develop and maintain effective leadership: strong leadership (donors) is needed to direct and steer cog in the sd progress. there is a range of definitions for leadership and each person and organisation will have a unique definition of a leader. many of the more popular definitions state that a leader is future oriented, initiates and facilitates change, initiates both goals and strategies, creates a culture based on shared values, influences the behaviours of both individual followers and groups, creates cohesiveness between the followers, and assists individual followers to achieve their personal goals while the whole team accomplishes the organisational goals (nahavandi 2009; tubbs, husby & jensen 2009; robbins, judge, millet & waters-marsh 2008; wells & hejna 2009:67). • develop and maintain effective systems: as some areas of sustainable development could only be assessed by inference from what is observable and not always through quantifiable measurement (becker, 2010; wallis, kelly & graymore, 2010), continuous monitoring, reporting and evaluation systems are needed in place for more effective cog (burger, 2009). • implement best practice approaches: it is fruitful to utilise best practices, lessons learnt, and to expand capacity throughout the participating community. identify these as continuous and keep the process simple, clearly defined, well structured, properly communicated, coordinated and managed to ensure effective roll-out of sd programmes. • allocate and effectively manage needed resources: adequate resources and capacity to deal with the task at hand (i.e. strengthening civil societies to act on equal footing, awareness-raising, skills development, and modern technology) are prerequisites. • implement a public engagement approach: public involvement in decision-making must make provision for, inter alia, the opportunity to develop the understanding, skills and capacity necessary for achieving equal and effective participation. community well-being and empowerment must also be promoted through environmental education, raising environmental awareness, sharing knowledge and experience and other appropriate means. all public decisions affecting the citizenry must be taken in an open and transparent manner and optimal access to public information be provided in accordance with the law. • manage diversity effectively: the vital role of women and youth in environmental management and development must also be recognized and their full participation therein must be integrated cog and sustainable development td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 105-118. 115 promoted. a sincere attempt must also be made to incorporate different cultural beliefs and traditional knowledge. the aforementioned guidelines might seem ‘a bridge too far’, but through an approach of one step at a time in the effective pursue of it, a positive difference in the nature and extent of co-operative governance as foundation for sustainable development, should be realised. conclusion the complex integrative nature of sd makes it clear that cog, effective communication and optimum collaboration between all involved actors are essential tools for more effective sd. the interrelationships between the involved actors will inevitably reflect on the state of the environment. it is this interdependence that links them all in the first place. it is within this facilitated and established framework of cog that they must all be identified correctly and valued to their fullest. list of references baden, d.a., harwood, i.a. & woodward, d.g. 2009. the effect of buyer pressure on suppliers in smes to demonstrate csr practices: an added incentive or counter productive? european management journal, 27 (6): 429-441. doi: 0.1016/j.emj.2008.10.004. baumgartner, r.j. & korhonen, j. 2010. strategic thinking for sustainable development. sustainable development, 18: 71-75. doi: 10.1002/sd.450. becker, j. 2010. use of back-casting to integrate indicators with principles of sustainability. international journal of sustainable development & world ecology, 17 (3): 198-197. doi: 10.1080/13504501003726974. boer, a., o’beirne, s. & greyling, t. 2003. the quest for co-operative environmental governance – do stakeholders have a consistent map and directions? iaiasa2003 annual national conference. bosman, c., kotzé, l. & du plessis, w. 2004. the failure of the constitution to ensure integrated environmental management from a co-operative governance perspective. 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international journal of sustainable development & world ecology, 17 (1): 67-75. doi: 10.1080/13504500903491812. wells, w. & hejna, w. 2009. developing leadership talent in healthcare organizations. healthcare financial management, 63 (1): 66-69. wssd 2002. world summit on sustainable development, johannesburg, 26 august4 september. johannesburg: wssd. microsoft word 05 gebregeorgis.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(4) december 2014, special edition: san dispute resolution, pp. 84-98. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san people at platfontein my gebregeorgis1 abstract the objective of this study was to explore the endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms and practices of the san people at platfontein, south africa. to this end, data were collected from 304 interviews and 26 focus group discussions. the collected data were analysed through inductive thematic analysis. the findings show that the san people have endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms which basically aim at restoring peace and harmony within the community. the endogenous mechanisms were found to be fairly participatory and supplementary to the state machineries that work for justice, peace and harmony. however, the conflict resolution mechanisms of the san people are currently weakening due to the impact of modernisation and the leadership dispute among the sub-groups of the community. key words: conflict, dispute, endogenous, platfontein, san introduction the literature on the san people of southern africa seems to lack consistency in naming the people, their languages and their numbers. “categories used by various ethnologists and linguists are not consistent. names of people and languages are further confused by the different local and popular names and varieties of spelling.”2 some of the resources barely specify the scope of their claim, regardless of the presence of diverse groups of san in the region. different groups of people name the san people differently. “the european settlers called these people: bosjesman, soaqua, bushmen, and other names. the black bantu-speaking people referred to them as basarwa, abathwa, baroa, etc. depending on the language of the 1 post-doctoral fellow, institute for dispute resolution in africa, university of south africa. email: gebremy@unisa.ac.za. 2 o jenkins, the !kung bushmen, 2006, http://orvillejenkins.com/profiles/kung.html p.1. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 84-98. 85 black people.”3 according to the same institute, the community currently prefers their name to be “san” and their gene and language stock to be identified as “khoe-san.”4 the term “san” encompasses a diverse group of hunter-gatherers in southern africa who have genealogical, historical and linguistic connections. though sources agree that the term originates in khoekhoe, they offer different interpretations of its meaning. for example, sasi says it “probably refers to people without cattle or people who forage for their food”.5 according to kwekudee, however, the meaning of “san” in the nama language of the khoikhoi is “outsider”. they were so labelled to isolate them from the khoikhoi, who claim to be the first people of the region.6 while jenkins estimates the san population to be around 50 000,7 desert of the skeletons raises the figure to 100 000.8 the san people “are the best model we have for the huntergatherer lifestyle that saw so many generations through the stone age, and it is tempting to say that the history of the later stone age is the history of the san”.9 genetic and archaeological evidence also tends to favour this assumption. the gene pattern of the khoesan, which dates back 80 000 years, is believed to be the oldest in the world. cultural practices such as ostrich eggshell beads, shell ornaments, the bow and arrow and rock art, which still exist among the san people, were being practised some 25 000 years ago by the ancestors of these same people.10 the san are known for their deep knowledge of flora and fauna. they can identify and use 55 species of animal and 100 edible plant species. they used to live by hunting these animals and gathering the plants. they invented their own special bow and arrow which allows them to hunt successfully. these days, a few members of the community in the most remote areas of the kalahari desert still follow their traditional lifestyle.11 otherwise, “for various reasons, but notably as a result of the creation of the kalahari gemsbok national park in 1931, the majority of san people were forced to give up their hunting and gathering lifestyle.”12 some of them rely on benefits they receive from their respective governments. though the people do not easily adopt the practice, governments are also encouraging them to be engaged in agricultural activities. as hunter-gatherers, the san lead their lives in small mobile communities that encompass four or five hunting men along with their wives, children and other close relatives. however, groups can meet at certain periods in the year for social events such as marriage arrangements, 3 south african san institute (sasi), history, 2009, http://www.san.org.za/history.php p.1. 4 sasi, op.cit., p.1. 5 sasi, op.cit., p.1. 6 kwekudee, trip down memory lane, 2013, http://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/ 7 jenkins,op. cit. 8 desert of the skeletons, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2uxx9yaqgy 9 south african history online (saho), san hunter-gatherer society in the later stone age, 2000, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people-south-africa/san p.1. 10 saho, op. cit. 11 desert of the skeletons. 12 sasi, op. cit., p.1. gebregeorgis 86 exchange of gifts and news. wives build temporary huts from long grass and branches they find nearby. “hunting is a team effort and the man whose arrow killed the animal has the right to distribute the meat to the tribe members and visitors.”13 the community gives due respect to the elderly. after a killing, the oldest man in the community that shares the food has to test it first.14 one of the group of hunters can be an expert on certain parts of their socioeconomic activities such as spiritual healing, shooting and tracking. otherwise, no one is given special importance in terms of leadership status. “their social structure is not tribal because they have no paramount leader and their ties of kinship are fairly relaxed.”15 thus it can be surmised that the appointment of traditional leaders in most san communities began after their contact with other communities. the san believe that there is one great god, with less mighty gods that have wives and children. gaoxa, the great god, is creator of many things and is also in many things.16 the san people believe that gaoxa himself lives on the tsodilo hills with all his cattle, sheep, goats and many other different animals. the san’s story in this regard says: … a man had two wives, but he loved one wife more than the other, and this caused a big quarrel. the one he didn’t love hit him on the head, causing a deep wound. then she ran off into the desert. but the great god, gaoxa, decided that because there was no peace among them, he must turn them all into stone. the man became the largest of the hills; the unloved wife became the smallest hill that stands alone; and the loved wife, with her children, became the cluster of hills in the middle.17 this legend indicates how the san people love peace and harmony. the san, like other precolonial africans, used to resolve their disputes through discussion and group consensus.18 the san and their relations with other people the san people are naturally peaceful and friendly. they “call themselves zhu twa si, ‘the harmless people,’ in contrast to non-san, whom they call zosi, ‘animals without hooves,’ meaning they are as dangerous as predator animals.”19 “before the advent of trade with bantu or white settlers, all tools, construction materials, weapons or clothes were made of plants or 13 kwekudee, op. cit, p.6. 14 desert of the skeletons. 15 kwekudee, op. cit., p.4. 16 saho, op. cit. 17 jenkins, op. cit., p.1. 18 k. broyhill, r. hitchcock & m. biesele, current situations facing the san peoples of southern africa, 2010, http://www.kalaharipeoples.org/resources.htm; economic commission for africa (eca), relevance of african traditional institutions of governance, 2007, http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publications/relevance_africantradinstgov.pdf 19 jenkins, op. cit., p.1. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 84-98. 87 animal products.”20 when they hunt, the san people take care not to attack the females and young of their prey.21 however, as hunter-gatherers, they could not settle permanently in one area. this way of life brought them into conflict with the bantu settlers and european colonisers. at different times, they fought against the domination of the settlers and the colonisation of the conquerors; nevertheless, due to their small population and lack of weapons, they could not resist the attacks of the colonisers. following the attacks, those wo survived the mass extinctions were forced to stop roaming freely from place to place and had to live in a restricted area of dry land in southern africa. some of them were either enslaved to work on the farms of the black and white farmers, or were made to adopt their neighbouring black farming communities’ lifestyles and intermarry with them.22 south africa is one of the homes of the san people. of the members of the san community in southern africa, the !xun and khwe at platfontein are “the two largest san groups in south africa.”23 these groups are part of the san community that was an ally of the portuguese and the south african defence force (sadf), who opposed black people who were fighting for the independence of angola and namibia respectively. the san were made to resettle in south africa in 1990 for fear of retaliation from the ex-freedom fighters, who had become members of the governments of their respective countries. the objective of this study was to explore the conflict resolution mechanisms and practices of this community. methodology in order to access and assess the community’s conflict resolution mechanisms and practices, a qualitative research approach was used. data were collected through two methods: interviews and focus group discussions. the data were collected by trained field researchers recruited from the community and the author’s in-depth interviews with selected members of the community: 304 community members were interviewed and 26 focus group discussions were conducted. the interviewees and discussants were systematically selected in such a way that both sexes, all blocks of the settlement and all sub-groups of the community were represented. the focus groups, which comprised five to seven discussants, were heterogeneous. the research participants were people from the community who know and live in the culture. the data were first recorded in the mother tongue of the research participants and subsequently translated into english by hired professionals who know the community’s culture. inductive thematic analysis was used to determine the target community’s endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms from the discourse of the research participants on the topic. this method of analysis was specifically chosen to find, code and sort evolving themes from the data. an iterative procedure of data analysis was employed 20 kwekudee, op. cit., p.1. 21 desert of the skeletons. 22 jenkins,op. cit.; sasi, op. cit., p.1. 23 roger chennells & aymone du toit, the rights of indigenous peoples in south africa, in r hitchcock & d vinding (eds), indigenous peoples’ rights in southern africa, 2004, www.iwgia.org/iwgia_files.../0119_southernafricadoc110complete.pdf p.98. gebregeorgis 88 until the steps and procedures of the intra-community endogenous conflict resolution institutions were fully explored. conflict within the san community while they were hunter-gatherers, the san had no serious reason to engage in inter-group conflicts. being small groups, they lived in patches of trees and bushes. the zone in which they did not live was a hunting area that was open to any group of hunters. no group had exclusive rights to particular hunting areas. as a result, no group was compelled to defend its hunting territory.24 they used to live “on their own. there was nobody who told them what to do and what not to do. if a person was willing to go and hunt, he just … went to the bush and hunted whatever animal he wanted to.”25 these days, however, the san people who have ceased hunting and gathering are experiencing conflicts that emanate from their lifestyle change and subsequent poverty. the income sources of the community are disability grants and child support and unemployment in platfontein is high. most of the matriculated youth cannot proceed to the next academic level or an occupation because they lack the required skills.26 as a result, hopelessness and depression is widespread in the community in general and among the youth of the community in particular. most of the youth are addicted to local beer and they do not respect their elders and parents. empirical data show that some youngsters even go to the extent of beating their parents and stealing their pension money. along with these problems, the community also experiences murder, rape, adultery and theft.27 the other source of conflict among the san people in platfontein is a deep-rooted leadership problem. the problem between the !xu and the khwe is really a leadership problem … the khwe were in the majority by far when they were in the sadf, so they were the powerful people. there was apparently quite a bit of status involved with being khwe. now, the !xu are the majority. that shift is uncomfortable for the khwe.28 though this information was given 13 years ago, unfortunately the problem has not yet been addressed. the san people who lived in different parts of southern africa were made to settle in one area as a community. the !xun from southern angola and the khwe from northern botswana and southern angola were brought together in the 1970s by the european colonisers because of the wars against those fighting for the independence of angola and namibia. however, none of the groups are happy about their relationship with one another: 24 desert of the skeletons. 25 goa, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042. 26 open society initiative for southern africa (osisa), fighting for survival, 2014, http://www.osisa.org/indigenous-peoples/regional/fighting-survival 27 maoa, focus group discussion, platfontein, (june 2014). 28 chennells, in steven robins, elias madzudzo & matthias brenzinger, an assessment of the status of the san in south africa, angola, zambia and zimbabwe, 2001, www.lac.org.na/projects/lead/pdf/sansazz.pdf p.21. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 84-98. 89 “incidents of violence between the !xun and khwe increased in intensity and cruelty.”29 the san people themselves say that “in the beginning, when we merged with this community, there was no understanding of each other, and this situation has continued to this day.”30 another respondent also contends that “we have different backgrounds and we come from different places. the problems of the past still exist.”31 there is no mutual respect, trust and understanding within the community, and the community does not trust the existing leadership. they believe that “currently the leaders in platfontein take their own benefit instead of uplifting the community and improve the future of the youth and the community.”32 the leadership is blamed for being partial; hence, some members of the community do not give it due recognition. claiming that it had its own traditional leader in its old settlement, every sub-clan within the !xun and khwe wants to appoint a community leader from their group so that the sub-clan members’ socioeconomic benefit will be adequately ensured. in the words of one of the interviewees: “in the past, we only know few leaders. now, when we resettle in south africa, they are forming themselves leaders … when we come to a real leader, they fail to recognise changing oneself into a leader. that causes an irresolvable conflict.”33 conflict resolution mechanisms and practices of the san any conflict that cannot be settled by the disputants themselves or through the support of their close relatives or friends is referred to the clan’s traditional leader. however, before the case is referred, the applicant needs to have sufficient evidence to prove that his claim is valid. for this reason, adequate time is given to collect reliable evidence which proves the applicant is indeed the victim of the accused. in this regard, their motto seems to be that a “slow and steady” approach will eventually be successful. due to their inherent harmlessness and the respect they have for human beings, murder among the san people is rare. they are scared to see a person dying. one of the research participants says that they are “afraid of killing people and seeing people dying.”34 regardless of this, when murder happens, the victim’s family does not directly rush to revenge. revenge becomes an option when the killer and his family refuse to come to the endogenous court hearing. in that case, any family member of the deceased can avenge the murder. following the funeral ceremony, the family of the deceased person do their best to access and assess all evidence of who did the murder; why he did it; and how, where and when he did it. then they go back and investigate the historical relationships they have had with the family 29 david robbins, on the bridge of goodbye :the story of south africa’s discarded san soldiers, jonathan ball, johannesburg and cape town, 2007, p.37. 30 moa, focus group discussion, platfontein, (25 march 2014). 31 daoa, interview with f m, platfontein, (21 may 2014). 32 soa, interview with m s. block: morosani street, platfontein, (23 march 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14060. 33 goa, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042. 34 goa, interview with z s. block: platfontein knowledge centre, (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14045. gebregeorgis 90 of the slayer. having all the necessary evidence, the family of the deceased person present their appeal to their traditional leader indirectly, through his spokesperson, by saying: “we want to hear what the actual problem was; why our family member was killed. so, we want the traditional leader to question the accused so that all could hear because we have lost a body.” 35 then the spokesperson in turn delivers the appeal to the traditional leader. as soon as the traditional leader receives the appeal, he orders his spokesperson to proclaim the court hearing date that the traditional leader has arranged to the disputants, the tribal police and the community at large. tribal policemen are called to bring the accused murderer to the court in case he refuses to come. after the arrival of the families of disputants and the community members under a big tree which serves as the venue, the endogenous court hearing begins.36 through his spokesperson, the traditional leader orders the victim’s family to present their case to the public attending the court hearing. accordingly, the family of the deceased ask the family of the slayer why they killed a member of their family. next, the traditional leader, through his spokesperson, questions the slayer’s family by asking “is it true that you have killed the person?” the traditional leader urges the slayer and his family to confess their wrongdoing and to narrate the story of the event. for the san people, if the reconciliation process is to be successful, telling the truth is one of the moral values expected of the public in general and the slayer’s family in particular. the accused family, with humility, either accepts or denies the charge. if they deny it, the victim’s family is urged to present its witnesses. if the family of the slayer takes responsibility for the murder, the slayer is ordered to tell the full story of the incident.37 if the case is too difficult to address by hearing witnesses for both the victim and the offender, the traditional leader can postpone his verdict until he receives reliable evidence about the incident from independent sources. the traditional leader can assign his assistants to use all appropriate means to obtain crucial evidence for his final decision. for this reason, the conflict resolution process can take weeks or months.38 in the past, the truth-seeking process was very harsh. the alleged offender was immersed up to his neck in a pond dug for the purpose, and sometimes accused persons were made to stand barefoot on the hot sand for a long period of time so that they would tell the truth.39 after the family of the murderer accept their wrongdoing, the traditional leader tries to show how murder causes pain by saying: “tell me how these people [the victim’s family] feel now”. the murderer’s family respond: “they feel very bad”. the traditional leader also publicly 35 goa, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042. 36 soa, interview with j j. platfontein, (22 may 2014) & soa, interview with m d. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (21 january 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14053. 37 soa, interview with m s. block: morosani street, platfontein, (23 march 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14060. 38 daoa, interview with h c, platfontein, (22 may 2014). 39 soa, interview with d f. block: morosani street, platfontein, (28 march 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14055. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 84-98. 91 affirms that the murderer’s family have taken responsibility for the murder by further asking: “now, do you all accept that you are guilty?” the murderer’s family reply “yes”. in this way, the family accepts the consequences as well. then the traditional leader comes back to the victim’s family and says: “as you have heard, they have accepted their wrongdoing. now, i want to know your suggestion about what should be done”. the victim’s family usually respond: “our traditional leader, we brought the case to you so that you would give us your judgment. we have nothing to suggest. let you give your own decision”. sometimes, the victim’s family may propose what should be done as requested by the traditional leader. with this, the hearing proceeds to its verdict. though the ultimate decision is that of the traditional leader, the public in general and the leaders under supervision of the traditional leader in particular are allowed to make suggestions about the case they have attended. their suggestions serve as immediate input for the traditional leader when he decides on his final verdict.40 verdicts for murder cases in the old days were very serious. in some cases, a murderer would be sentenced to death.41 there was also an occasion when an offender was sold by the traditional leader so that the victim’s family could be compensated.42 these days, however, the endogenous court hearing de jure makes a murderer a lifelong servant of the victim’s family. the intention behind this verdict is to make the murderer take the place of the deceased by offering all the services to the victim’s family that the deceased would have offered. de facto, however, the murderer gives some compensation both in kind and/or in cash till the victim’s family says “that is enough”. bows and arrows, beads, cattle and processed animal skins are some of the items given as compensation in kind. the compensation is usually paid in instalments within a certain period of time through an agent assigned by the traditional leader. the agent receives the compensation from the murderer and gives it to the victim’s family. interrupting payment in the middle of the process has very serious consequences. it may be interpreted to mean “you do not deserve respect and compensation for you cannot defend yourself”. as a result, conflict may erupt once again among the disputants.43 the murderer’s change of behaviour is another pre-condition for successful reconciliation. he has to show genuine regret for his wrongdoing to the victim’s family. the murderer is therefore watched for a certain period of time to judge whether he has a positive or negative attitude to the victim’s family. after the victim’s family have decided that the compensation they received is adequate and the behaviour being demonstrated by the murderer is appropriate, they request their traditional leader to summon the public so that they can declare that they are happy with the compensation and behaviour of the murderer. the 40 goa, interview with j m m. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (15 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14041 & goa, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042. 41 daoa, interview with h c, platfontein, (22 may 2014). 42 goa, interview with r d. pretoria, block: roode valley, (11 july 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14044. 43 soa, interview with j m. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (21 january 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14051; goa, interview with r d. pretoria, block: roode valley, (11 july 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14044 & desert of the skeletons. gebregeorgis 92 traditional leader does this through his spokesperson, and the victim’s family publicly declare that they are happy with the reconciliation process as it has fulfilled the decisions of their traditional leader and has met their interests.44 following this, a short ceremony called “dahakonkn” is staged. it is a final oath by which the disputants declare the reconciliation to be completed successfully. on this occasion, representatives from the murderer’s and the victim’s sides hold a piece of grass at opposite ends, break it together and throw it away. they also drink water from the same cup. by doing so, both sides proclaim that “from now onwards, the enmity is over.” the victim’s family says: “bygones are bygones, we are now happy that the murderer has regretted his wrongdoing; he has also offered compensation, which made us all happy”. by staging this ceremony, the disputants also indicate: “i am out of you and you are out of me. i cannot come back to you and say you killed my brother. you cannot come to me and say your brother provoked me and i killed him.”45 on this occasion, the last payment can be collected in public. from this payment, a small amount of money is kept back to supply drink to the traditional leader and his assistants. this process is called “katuru”.though optional, there could be a feast which marks peaceful settlement of the dispute. the party is prepared by both sides; a goat or cow may be slaughtered and there could be handshaking and dancing.46 for the san people, every murder has a similar treatment. no matter what the situation, it passes through the same reconciliation procedures. there is no different treatment for accidental and pre-planned murders; compensation for a murdered man and a murdered woman is equal. “everything counts the same. death is death.”47 currently, murder cases are taken to the modern justice system of the republic of south africa and the verdict is given under the laws of the country. this is mainly done for two reasons: on one hand, the community should be governed by the laws of the country; on the other hand, the endogenous court hearing is not as strong as it used to be. however, after the murderer has completed his legal punishment, he has to go back to the endogenous reconciliation process according to the appeal of the victim’s family. in this reconciliation process, the murderer is obliged to pay modest compensation in order to dry the tears of the victim’s family.48 the san’s endogenous conflict resolution mechanism follows more or less the same procedures for all types of conflict at all levels. for example, the procedure for investigating the source and nature of a fight between individuals within a clan is same as the court hearing procedure for murder discussed above. however, there is a tradition of diagnosing the nature and depth of the victim’s wounds resulting from the combat. based on the diagnosis, the offender could be forced to slaughter a goat or a hen for the victim so that he will be healed 44 goa, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042. 45 goa, interview with j m m. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (15 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14041. 46 ibid. 47 goa, interview with z s. block: platfontein knowledge centre, (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14045. 48 goa, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 84-98. 93 and his lost blood will be replaced. this step is usually a pre-condition for the main process of solving the matter peacefully through the endogenous court hearing. offering a goat to the victim obviously declares that the offender regrets his wrongdoing and is ready to resolve the matter through reconciliation.49 when the endogenous court hearing reaches the stage of determining the compensation for the victim, the traditional leader first requests a proposal from the victim’s side. if they make a proposal, the traditional leader may approve it provided that he is convinced of the fairness of the amount proposed. otherwise, the traditional leader can allow the offender’s family to negotiate the amount of the compensation.50 in fact, compensation-related decisions are made based on the nature of the case and the level of damage of the conflict. compensation for different organs of a body differs: for example, compensation for loss of an eye is higher than that for a tooth, for the service of an eye is greater than the service of a tooth.51 for instance, one of the research participants narrates the verdict given in one case in which he participated as a spokesperson of his clan’s traditional leader: there was a case of one lady whose son had a fight with an individual from another clan. they broke his teeth. they brought it to me and i took it to our traditional leader komamo. then, komamo decided that he could handle the case. then he took it to the traditional leader of the other clan. they sat and discussed the matter. the parents of the offender accepted the problem but they had no money because of the poverty. their son will go to farm to work there then they are going to collect the money from him. then they will pay them back.52 the traditional leader decided that the victim who lost three teeth in the fight was to be compensated r10 000. sometimes corporal punishment is also applied if the offender cannot pay and has no one to help him pay the compensation. under-age offenders can be forced to drink a bucket of water as punishment.53 there is also a cleansing ceremony in which a goat is slaughtered, and then the offender and the wound of the victim are smeared with the blood.54 if a family’s case is beyond the capacity of husband and wife, the case is taken to the clan’s traditional leader. with this it becomes an intra-clan level conflict (provided that the people involved are from the same clan). subsequently, the matter is investigated by the traditional leader along with his assistants both informally and formally. the informal investigation of 49 goa, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042 & goa, interview with z s. block: platfontein knowledge centre, (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14045. 50 moa, interview with m p. sula street, platfontein, (20 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13918. 51 goa, interview with r d. pretoria, block: roode valley, (11 july 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14044. 52 goa, interview with z s. block: platfontein knowledge centre, (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14045. 53 shoa, interview with s t. block: morosani street, platfontein (n.d) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13948. 54 goa, interview with j m m. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (15 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa).http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14041. gebregeorgis 94 the accused individual is made by the agent of the traditional leader without the accused having knowledge of being observed. if the observer thinks that he can solve the problem he tries to settle the dispute, usually by giving advice to both parties based on his observations. otherwise, he reports the result of his observations to the traditional leader, and with this input the formal endogenous court process ensues. normally, in the process of investigation, the offender is expected to confess. confessing is usually seen as a way of expressing the offender’s willingness to settle the matter through the endogenous court. therefore it makes its own positive contribution to the verdict that will eventually be given by the traditional leader. as soon as the investigation is over and the guilty party revealed, in a case of adultery, the traditional leader requests a statement by the victim on the relationship she or he will have with the offender in future. the victim declares whether he or she wants to stay with his or her partner regardless of her or his wrongdoing for he or she still loves the partner. after the interest is revealed, the compensation for the victim is proclaimed by the traditional leader through his spokesperson. if the offender is the husband, he is urged to give cattle to the wife’s family. if the offender is the wife, her family will be forced to return all the cattle and services offered to them by the husband by virtue of their being parents of the wife. the compensation which is paid to the victim’s husband may also come from the man who committed adultery with the woman.55 the dispute resolution practices of the san at inter-clan stage basically follow the same procedures as the intra-clan level conflict resolution processes discussed above. what makes them a bit different from the intra-clan level proceedings is the identity of the traditional leader who gives the judgment. in an inter-clan conflict, the victim’s family reports the case to the clan’s traditional leader and the traditional leader takes the case to the traditional leader of the offender. they discuss the matter and then the judgement is given by the offender’s traditional leader, following the endogenous conflict resolution procedures narrated above. in fact, the offender’s traditional leader gives his judgement under close scrutiny of the victim’s traditional leader. if the traditional leader of the offender is not strong, he may pass the case to the leader of the victim. the venue is usually in the offender’s vicinity unless the offender’s traditional leader has a bad track record in his judgments. the victim’s family may also say “let the offender’s family come here; we do not go there.”56 current status of the conflict resolution institution regardless of its ability to resolve disputes in a short period of time and its being culturally appropriate, “the endogenous court is not active like it was in the past”57 . the !xun and khwe joint council which was established at schmidtsdrift is no longer functional due to lack of mutual trust, cooperation and understanding between the communities. similarly, the majority of the population from both clans does not trust the existing traditional leadership, for the community believes that every small group is claiming leadership to maintain family 55 goa, interview with z s. block: platfontein knowledge centre, (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14045. 56 goa, interview with j m m. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (15 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14041. 57 soa, interview with t m. block: morosani street, platfontein, (22 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14079. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 84-98. 95 and small-group interests instead of working for the community as the whole. the community seems confused about where to refer dispute cases to. they don’t “know who is in charge of the traditional court because the leaders are many.”58 another reason for showing less interest in their endogenous conflict resolution mechanism is the influence of other neighbouring communities’ culture. the majority of the community members, especially the young generation, follow western culture. hence, they prefer the modern justice system to endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms.59 this being so, however, currently the !xun san have their own council which is led by their traditional leader. they use the endogenous court hearing to resolve intra-clan level minor disputes. on the other hand, the khwe san prefer to take their intra-clan disputes to their respective churches.60 “the church people are now the people who encourage others to fix relationships by giving the parties involved the word of god.”61 gender issues in the endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms historically, the hunter-gatherer san communities in southern africa were known for their egalitarian social structures. taking into account the economic inequality between men and women; the use of physical violence to resolve conflict; male authority and control of decision-making in the house; and restrictions on women’s access to divorce, levinson has ranked the san one of six non-western societies in the world that had little family violence.62 the main duty of a man was hunting and making fire, but a woman was responsible for gathering food, taking care of children and building shelters. while this is so, a woman could help in hunting and a man could be involved in gathering plants for food, so there were no strictly observed gender roles in the community. the absence of a strict gender-based division of tasks could help women participate equally in decision-making processes. women were as active participants as men in the communitylevel court hearings. they could present their case to the court and they could also make suggestions in public. “these societies were relatively gender-egalitarian in the economic sphere and with respect to community decision-making, and they generally had sophisticated means of peaceful conflict resolution.”63 however, these egalitarian social structures are gradually being eroded. the change is mainly attributed to the recent socioeconomic dynamics within the community. as women’s role in socioeconomic activities decreases, the 58 doa, interview with k m. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (21 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13949. 59 doa, interview with l s. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (22 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13954. 60 goa, interview with h s. pretoria, block: roode valley, (12 july 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14040. 61 shoa, interview with r k. block: tseringu street, platfontein (n.d) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13946. 62 levinson, family violence in cross-cultural perspective: frontiers of anthropology, vol. 1, sage publications, newbury park, ca, 1989, pp.102–103. 63 silke felton & heike becker, a gender perspective on the status of the san in southern africa, 2001, www.lac.org.na/projects/lead/pdf/sangend.pdf p.56. gebregeorgis 96 likelihood of their being dependent on their men increases. unlike in the past, women are becoming dependent on men due to sedentarisation, pastoralism, wage labour, maledominated neighbouring communities and the militarisation of san life.64 as to the social organisation of the san community at platfontein, it “clearly matches levinson’s four predictors for a society prone to family violence, namely: gross economic inequality between men and women; male authority in domestic decision-making; women’s difficulties in obtaining divorce (because of their dependency); and a pervasive culture of violent conflict resolution.”65 conclusion the focus of the san people’s conflict resolution practice is on restoring the community’s peace and security. to this end, the community uses both modern and endogenous conflict resolution practices in such a way that one complements the other. for example, a murder case usually goes through both the state’s justice system and the endogenous conflict resolution institution of the community. this practice is vital for lasting peace and harmony in the community at large and for the families of the disputants in particular. as a culture, following damage caused by a conflict, the san people do not rush to revenge. instead, they take due time to investigate the case deeply. after collecting all the necessary evidence, they take their case to their traditional leader. revenge is taken as a last option if the offender’s family refuses to come to the endogenous court hearing. the san’s endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms are fairly participatory; they allow leaders under the traditional leader, men and women to attend the court hearing and make suggestions during the proceedings. currently, however, the community’s affinity for this endogenous conflict resolution mechanism is decreasing. this problem is mainly attributed to the impact of modernisation and the community’s leadership problems. so, if the community is to continue using its endogenous conflict resolution institution in harmony with the state’s justice system, the institution has to be made more participatory and gender-sensitive. in particular, the youth should be encouraged to participate in endogenous court hearings. women’s involvement in the conflict resolution mechanisms should also be strengthened. more importantly, the community’s confidence in the endogenous conflict resolution institution and its traditional leadership should be enhanced. this could be done through arranging consultative meetings and workshops which bring representatives of all clans and sub-clans together. in the meetings, discussants should be encouraged to talk about the root causes of their misunderstandings among themselves and to put forward possible solutions for their problems. re-establishing a council of the san community that represents all sub-groups democratically could be one possible solution to the traditional leadership problem. the council members and the community’s traditional leader, who will be elected from the council, should hold their positions for a certain period of time, which is decided by the assembly of the community. 64 felton & becker, op.cit., p.57. 65 felton & becker, op.cit., p.59. endogenous conflict resolution mechanisms of the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 84-98. 97 references primary sources dakane oral archive (daoa), interview with f m. platfontein, (21 may 2014). ________________, interview with h c, platfontein, (22 may 2014). dixon oral archive (doa), interview with k m. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (21 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13949. _______________, interview with l s. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (22 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13954. gebregeorgis oral archive (goa), interview with h s. pretoria, block: roode valley, (12 july 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14040. ______, interview with j m m. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (15 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14041. ______, interview with m j. platfontein, block: platfontein knowledge centre (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14042. ______, interview with r d. pretoria, block: roode valley, (11 july 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14044. ______, interview with z s. block: platfontein knowledge centre, (14 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14045. mahongo oral archive (moa), interview with m p. sula street, platfontein, (20 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13918. ______, focus group discussion, platfontein, (25 march 2014). mangumbu oral archive (maoa), focus group discussion, platfontein, (june 2014). shiwarra oral archive (shoa) interview with s t. block: morosani street, platfontein (n.d) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13948. ______, interview with r k. block: tseringu street, platfontein (n.d) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13946. sibongo oral archive (soa), interview with d f. block: morosani street, platfontein, (28 march 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa) http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14055. ______, interview with j j. platfontein, (22 may 2014). gebregeorgis 98 ______, interview with j m. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (21 january 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14051. ______, interview with m d. block: kamatoka, platfontein, (21 january 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14053. ______, interview with m s. block: morosani street, platfontein, (23 march 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14060. ______, interview with t m. block: morosani street, platfontein, (22 may 2014) san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa), http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14079. secondary sources broyhill, k, hitchcock, r & biesele, m., current situations facing the san peoples of southern africa, (2010) http://www.kalaharipeoples.org/resources.htm. chennells, r & du toit, a., “the rights of indigenous peoples in south africa”, in r hitchcock & d vinding (eds), indigenous peoples’ rights in southern africa, iwgia. (2004) www.iwgia.org/iwgia_files.../0119_southernafricadoc110complete.pdf. “desert of the skeletons”, (2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2uxx9yaqgy. economic commission for africa (eca), relevance of african traditional institutions of governance, (2007) http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publications/ relevance_africantradinstgov.pdf. felton, s & becker, h., a gender perspective on the status of the san in southern africa, (2001) www.lac.org.na/projects/lead/pdf/sangend.pdf. jenkins, o., the !kung bushmen, (2006) http://orvillejenkins.com/profiles/kung.html. kwekudee, trip down memory lane, (2013) http://kwekudeetripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com. levinson, d., family violence in cross-cultural perspective, frontiers of anthropology, vol. 1 (newbury park, ca: sage publications, 1989). open society initiative for southern africa (osisa), fighting for survival, (2014) http://www.osisa.org/indigenous-peoples/regional/fighting-survival. robbins, d., on the bridge of goodbye: the story of south africa’s discarded san soldiers, (johannesburg and cape town: jonathan ball, 2007). robins, s, madzudzo, e & brenzinger, m., an assessment of the status of the san in south africa, angola, zambia and zimbabwe, (2001) www.lac.org.na/projects/lead/pdf/sansazz.pdf. south african history online (saho), san hunter-gatherer society in the later stone age, (2000) http://www.sahistory.org.za/people-south-africa/san. south african san institute (sasi), background, (2009) http://www.san.org.za/background.php. ______, history, (2009) http://www.san.org.za/history.php. td journal december 2007.p65 351 the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa: the case of frequency allocations to cellular operators a mellet* abstract economists associate long-term economic growth with technological progress. earlier growth literature, as well as modern literature, states to sustain a positive growth rate of output per capita in the long run, there must be continual advances in technological knowledge. this fact is embedded in one of the main growth models, namely the solow growth model. this article firstly discusses the connection between technology and growth in the various models. any country needs a positive real growth to develop. to create a better scenario for all its inhabitants, it is therefore important that technological development must be employed in the system. secondly the focus is on analyzing the role of technology and mobile phones from a growth perspective in developing countries. various studies by independent annalists are referred to regarding studies about the impact of mobile phones in africa. various african countries experienced development by using more mobile phones. finally, attention is given to frequency allocation to provide voice or data access services for mobile phone users by icasa, as the controlling body in south africa. this scarce resource is not effectively allocated for the following reasons: � the allocation between government institutions and private sector companies is not economically equitable; and � the allocation amongst private sector companies is also not economically equitable. ineffective frequency allocation is then considered to be a waste of a scarce resource. this wastage, against the background of studies in africa regarding mobile phones and gdp, will accordingly reduce the potential development of all the inhabitants of south africa. keywords economics, cellular technology, frequency allocations, production factors, growth theories, technology and growth, mobile phones, developing countries, africa, competitiveness, asgisa, td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 2, december 2007, pp. 351-394 * andré mellet is a lecturer in economics at the school of economic sciences, vaal triangle campus of north-west university. he was media24's economist of the year for 2006. 352 disciplines economics, communications studies, information technology studies, cellular technology studies. 1. introduction economists associate long-term economic growth with technological progress because it is embedded in one of the main growth models, namely the solow growth model (solow, 1956). technological change is treated as exogenous in this model, but technology is also treated as endogenous in other growth models. in earlier growth literature, technology is treated as the process that somehow made productivity to grow a little each year (smith, 1904). the modern literature views technology as being produced within the economic system by the rational and purposeful application of research and development as well as the growth of complementary human and physical capital.one of the opening lines of a standard textbook regarding growth states that the most basic proposition of growth theory is that in order to sustain a positive growth rate of output per capita in the long run, there must be continual advances in technological knowledge (aghion and howitt, 1997:11). this survey discusses the connection between technology and growth. any country needs a positive real growth to develop and to create a better scenario for all its inhabitants. the economic principles, for example scarcity and opportunity cost will be briefly analyzed. the different growth theories that explain why and how a country can increase its real growth rate will be analyzed and compared. the important links between technology and growth in this process will be highlighted. the next step of this survey is to analyze the role of technology and mobile phones from a growth perspective in developing countries. the survey concludes with an analysis of frequency allocations in south africa that can be used to provide voice or data access services.the current ineffective frequency allocation is a waste of a scarce resource and will accordingly reduce the potential real growth rate of south africa. 2. what is economics all about? according to (smit et al, 1997:5) economics is the social science studying the principles of the effective employment of limited means with several alternative uses to satisfy multiple needs. according to (mohr et al, 2004:5) economics is about scarcity and the management mellet 353 of limited sources relative to unlimited needs and the ongoing choices, which must be made. the available means in economics are limited because natural resources such as gold, diamonds and oil are not available in unlimited quantities. capital is another example, because capital is available but at a price and must be affordable. frequency allocation as far as technology is concerned, is another example. if it is allocated and used, this scarce available means cannot be exploited by other users and their use of this means is restricted. in society, unlimited needs exist. needs are the extent in which people satisfy all their different wants, for example clothing, transport, housing, holidays and pension provision. needs in business are the extent in which management satisfy their strategic plan objectives, for example to make a profit, to expand, to create work and to participate in the increase of living standards in society (obedient to their social responsibility). economics is thus the management of scarcity. the word economics is derived from the greek words oikos, which means house and nemein which means management (mohr et al, 2004:4). this management of the household regarding scarcity is applicable for the household of consumers, business and government. consumers must make choices regarding buying groceries and going to the movies, business must make choices regarding profits to pay dividends or to finance expansion. the minister of finance, as another example, must make a choice between building a hospital and increasing grants to the poor. choices in economics imply opportunity costs. it means that when choices are made between different production techniques in business, the cost regarding the choice of one alternative can be measured in terms of the alternative which is sacrificed. every time a choice is made, opportunity cost is raised. opportunity cost is the value or cost of the alternative, which the decision maker could choose, but which he or she did not decide to apply. this concept of opportunity cost is one of the most important concepts in economics, because choices are made on a regular basis by consumers and business regarding scarce resources of which some resources continually decline. the concept of opportunity cost can be found in the works of many early economists for example j.s. mill, 1848 and l. walras, 1874. the biggest contribution regarding the opportunity cost theory was introduced as a theory of cost in a seminar paper by friedrich von wieser (1876). in summary of these economists’ contributions, output prices must equal opportunity costs. thus, it seems as if prices are governed by the phenomena of opportunity cost. the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 354 a more careful look however indicates that it is demand, with its influence on output prices that determines which opportunity costs prevails. prices and outputs are according to this theory subjectively determined. opportunity cost theory is, according to von wieser, an objective theory of value, which is subjective. he explains: the phenomena of [alternative] costs are, therefore, a new proof of how greatly the objective conditions of the existence of goods influence the value of goods. how far the value of goods, in its final form of “cost value”, is from being the mirror of that subjective fact from which it is derived the value of wants! the circumstance that cognate products are produced by different quantities of the same productive elements, brings their subjective valuations into a ratio, the terms of which are derived entirely from the objective conditions of production; while the impulses which call for their emergence...remain subjective, and thus prove the subjectivity of the source and nature of value (von wieser, 1889:185). in the graphical scenario a typical production possibility curve is illustrated. in this example, it is assumed the company is producing at point i, which means that quantity oc is produced of product x and quantity oe is produced of product y. if management decides to produce at point k, it means that they want to produce more of product y and therefore the quantity og of product y or in other words an increase in production from oe to og. to be able to produce more of product y, they have to produce less of product x with their available resources. the decline in production from oc to oa, therefore the quantity ac is what is sacrificed and thus the opportunity cost of producing more of product y. mellet 355 figure1. a production possibility frontier source: smit et al (1997:396) when choices are made, opportunity cost is incurred. if more is produced of one product relative to another product or if more technology is used by one market player relative to another market player, opportunity cost is incurred. the question is quite clear. if a choice is made by any management regarding scarce resources, is the cost of the sacrifice lower or higher? if the sacrifice is lower, it is a good choice of scarce resources, but if the cost is higher, it is an inefficient choice of scare resources. 3. production factors in economics according to (mohr, 2004:27) there are five production factors: � natural resources natural resources are all the gifts of nature, for example minerals, water, land and air. these gifts however decline as consumers and business and government exploit it and pollute it. this factor of the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 356 production is scarce, because if a mineral is mined, it is used in industry and the available quantity of the mineral in the mine declined accordingly. � labour labour can be the physical and or mental effort of the human being in the production process. a distinction is made between the quality and quantity of labour because skills are necessary in various production processes. labour as production factor is scarce, because qualified workers must be trained on the job or at a tertiary institution, which cost money. � capital capital in economics is all the tools, machinery, equipment and buildings that are used to produce. it is thus all tangibles that are used to produce. the reason why it is scarce is that it is available only at a cost, namely the interest of the bank facility or the dividends not paid out but used to facilitate company growth. � entrepreneurship it does not help if there are labourers, capital and resources available, but no one to manage the production process. an entrepreneur is the person that takes the initiative and the risk to use the other production factors to make a profit. if he or she is successful, the business will grow and more people will be employed which creates a positive multiplier effect in economics. the reason why this factor is scarce, is because an entrepreneur must have the flair and guts and training to enter into the risk scenario. life experience tells us that there are many workers, but there are not many opportunists willing to take risk. � technology knowledge is important to produce products and services. at any given time, a certain quantity of knowledge is known and used by society. if new knowledge is discovered, it is referred to as an invention. if this invention is used in the production process, it is known as innovation. the production factors capital and entrepreneurship are used in combination in this process because people invent the new machines or techniques and capital is necessary to employ it in the production processes. if technology is employed in the production processes, products can either be produced faster or at a better quality or at a cheaper unit price. mellet 357 although technology was added later as a production factor, it is generally accepted as a necessity in the growth processes of any country. it is clear from the discussion above that various production factors are necessary to create growth. economics is about the management of scarce resources and all of these five production factors must be employed in coordination with each other by any enterprise to gain the most. 4. growth theories 4.1 classical growth theories adam smith wrote his famous book, namely an inquiry into nature and causes of the wealth of nations in 1776. smith moved away from the physiocratic system which concentrated on natural equilibrium of circular flows. smith described a supply-side model of growth. growth via the simple production function (smith, 1904) can be written as follows: y = f(l, k, t) where y is output, l is labor, k is capital and t is land. according to adam smith output is therefore, related to labor and capital and land inputs. furthermore, output growth was driven by population growth, investment growth and land growth as well as increases in overall productivity. population growth was according to smith endogenous because it depended how the increasing workforce was accommodated. investment was also endogenous because it was determined by the rate of savings as well as land growth, which was dependent on the colonization of new lands or technological improvements of fertility of old lands. technological progress could therefore increase growth. smith also saw improvements in machinery and international trade as engines of growth as they facilitated further specialization. adam smith’s fundamental argument was that the division of labor or specialization improves growth. smith also argued that growth was self-reinforcing as it creates increasing returns to scale. the growth model of adam smith remained the predominant model of classical growth. in the other classical work of david ricardo (ricardo, 1817) he modified smith’s growth model by including diminishing returns to land. according to him, output growth requires growth of factors of production, but unlike labor, land cannot be increased because it is variable in quality and fixed in supply. his the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 358 argument was that as growth increases, more land must be taken into cultivation, but land cannot be created. two important effects for growth were highlighted by him. firstly, increasing landowner’s rents over time due to the limited supply of land should cut into the profits of capitalists and secondly, wage goods from agriculture will cause a rise in price over time which will then reduce the profits of companies as workers require higher wages. this development according to him will reduce the growth as explained by adam smith. ricardo however claimed that this decline in growth could be checked by technological improvements in machinery and the specialization brought by trade. these two classical economists, ricardo and smith as the first writers explaining the role of economics, stated from the early years that technology plays an important role in an enterprise. this was the foundation for later economists to developed further arguments about the important role of technology. 4.2 keynesian growth theory jm keynes explained his keynesian growth theory in his famous book the general theory of employment, interest and money (1936). investment, in the keynesian system, is an independent factor contingent upon the finance of entrepreneurs. it is however important to note that keynes did not extend his theory of demand determined equilibrium into a theory of growth. the cambridge keynesians explored this scenario. this extension was developed by sir roy f. harrod who together with evsey domar introduced the “harroddomar” model of growth between 1939 and 1946 ( domar, 1946). keynes’s argument was that investment is one of the determinants of aggregate demand and that aggregate demand is linked to aggregate supply via the multiplier. in a goods market equilibrium the following equation can be written: y = (1/s)i where y is income, i investment and s the marginal propensity to save, or 1/s is the multiplier. the difference about investment according to harrod and domar is that it increases the productive capacity of an economy and that investment should therefore change the goods market equilibrium (domar, 1946). for “steady state” growth, in the language of harrod-domar, aggregate demand must grow at the same rate as the economy’s output capacity grows. the investment-output ratio, i/y, can also be expressed as (i/k)(k/ y). i/k is the rate of capital accumulation which is thus the rate of mellet 359 capacity growth (call it “g”) and k/y is the capital-output ratio (call it “v”). thus, for a steady state growth i/k = (dy/dt)/y = g (i.e. the rate of capital accumulation or capacity growth and the real rate of output growth (dy/dt)/y, must be at the same rate, g). thus, the equation can now be written as: i/y = (i/k)(k/y) = gv according to the goods market equilibrium and from the multiplier, i.e. y = (1/s)i which can be rewritten i/y = s, the condition for full employment steady-state growth is gv = s, or simply: g = s/v thus, s/v is the “warranted growth rate” of output. if actual growth is faster than the warranted growth rate, then demand growth is outstripping the economy’s productive capacity. insufficient capacity implies that entrepreneurs will increase their production capacity through investment. with demand always one step ahead of supply, the harrod-domar model guarantees that unless we have demand growth and output growth at exactly the same rate, i.e. demand is growing at the warranted rate, then the economy will either grow or collapse indefinitely. if the goods market equilibrium is analyzed, investment have to be equal to savings, i = s. if we follow the keynesian axiom that investment is independent, then investment determines savings (or alternatively, aggregate demand determines aggregate supply). however, profits are positively related to savings. therefore, the following equation: i = sp + s’(y p) which rearranging yields: p/y = [1/(s-s’)](i/y) s’/s-s’ in other words, given the marginal propensities to save of all the population classes, the relative size of profits in income is dependent only on the investment decision, i/y. it is thus clear from this keynesian literature that more investment plays an important role in any economy. this investment can therefore also be in technology. joan robinson (1962), one of the keynesian followers, recommended a modification to understand the properties of this model better. the full employment relationship, i.e. i/y = gv, or the steady state growth must be qualified regarding what determines investment. in a keynesian world, an independent investment function should the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 360 remain independent. therefore, robinson posited a relationship i/y = f(p/y) or g = f(r), where investment decisions by firms were functions of (expected) profit. robinson therefore tried to answer the question of stability, namely what guarantees that the profits generated by the above relationship will themselves generate the amount of investment needed to sustain them? 4.3 neoclassical growth theories in the harrod-domar growth model, steady-state neoclassical growth theories was however unstable. it was a “knife-edge” scenario. any deviation from the path would result in a further move away from that path. however, robert m. solow (1956), trevor swan (1956) and later, james e. meade (1962) contested this conclusion. they claimed that the capital-output ratio of the harrod-domar model should not be regarded as exogenous. they developed a new growth model where the capital-output ratio, v, was the adjusting variable that would lead a system back to its steady-state growth path. this means that v would move to bring s/v into equality with the natural rate of growth (n). their resulting model became famously known as the “solow-swan” or simply the “neoclassical” growth model (dornbusch et al, 2004:61). the neoclassical growth theory focuses on capital accumulation and links to aspects for example saving and technology. this theory begins at a point where the economy reaches a long-run level of output and capital, which is called the steady state equilibrium. the next figure presents the production function in terms of gdp per capita relative to the capital-labour ratio. it is important to notice that the capitaloutput ratio, v = k/y = k/y, is captured as the slope of a ray from the origin to production function. thus, changing k will change the ray and thus v. unlike the harrod-domar model, v is not exogenously fixed. the shape of this function can also be explained because of the existence of diminishing marginal product of capital. it means that as capital rises, output rises as new machines are employed, but each additional machine adds less than the previous machine. the equation for the production function is written as y = f(k) an economy is in this steady state equilibrium where per capita income and capital are constant, which is denoted as y* and k* (dornbusch et al, 2004:63). these two values indicate the position where the investment required to provide capital for new workers and to replace old machines is equal to the saving that is generated mellet 361 in the economy. if saving is bigger than the investment requirement, then the capital per worker will rise over time and the output will rise accordingly. figure 2. per capita production function source: dornbusch et al (2004:62) the investment required to maintain a given level of k, depends on the population growth and the depreciation rate of the capital employed in the production process. if it is assumed that the economy grows at a constant rate n, the economy therefore needs investment nk to provide the necessary capital for any new workers. if a constant depreciation is assumed, dk can be written as the requirement for new machinery and equipment. the equation for the investment that is required to maintain a constant level of capital the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 362 per capita can thus be written as (n + d)k the next step is to incorporate saving. if it is assumed that no government sector and no foreign sector exist and that saving is a constant fraction of income, then per capita saving can be expressed as sy. since income equals production, the following function can be written sy = sf(k) the steady state of growth is defined where the change in capital is zero and it occurs at the values of y* and k*. the steady state equation is therefore sy* = sf(k*) = (n + d)k* we can depict the steady-state k* in the following graph by superimposing the required investment function on top of our old diagram. at point c saving and the required investment balance with the steady state k*. the steady state income is read on the vertical axis according to the production function at point d. the important point of understanding the neoclassical growth model is when saving sy exceeds the required investment, then k should increase. this occurs in the graph at the capital output ratio k 0 or at point a where the saving exceeds the investment needed to hold k constant at the actual investment point b. if the initial stage of the economy is k 0 then the adjustment process will take place and the economy will move to k* or point c. the exact matching of actual and required investment is the steady state and the capital labour ratio neither rises nor declines. mellet 363 figure 3. steady state output source: dornbusch et al (2004:66) the neoclassical growth model as illustrated in the next graph shows how an increase in the saving rate raises the growth rate of output in the short run. it does not affect the long run growth rate of output, but it raises the long run level of capital and output per head. if the inhabitants of a country save a larger portion of their income, s1 rather than s, the initial saving schedule will move upward to s1y. this higher saving is more than required to maintain capital per head. the economy will move to a new steady state position where k* moves to k** and therefore c to c1. at this higher point, saving is again enough to maintain the higher stock of capital. the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 364 figure 4. increase in saving source: dornbusch et al (2004:67) according to dornbusch et al (2004) various empirical studies proved that the higher the rate of investment, either in physical or human capital, the higher the gdp of a country. the production function illustrated in the first graph can be thought of as a snapshot of a typical economy at a specific point in time. if we allow technology to be incorporated in the model then y will move from y 0 to y 1 to y 2 over time as is indicated in the next graph. an exogenous increase in technology thus causes the production function to rise as illustrated in the next graph. as the economy moves to a higher steady state the saving curve also rises. the result of this new higher steady state is a higher per capita output and a higher capital labour ratio. this is an important conclusion of this wellmellet 365 known growth theory, namely that increases in technology result in growth of output over time. figure 5. exogenous technological change source: dornbusch et al (2004:69) 4.4 endogenous growth theory the neoclassical growth theory dominated economic thought for three decades because it explained much of what was observed in the world. neoclassical growth theory attributes the long-term growth to technology but do not explain the economic determinants of the technological progress. the solution to the problems experienced with the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 366 the neoclassical theory was to modify the production function to allow for self-sustaining endogenous growth. the endogenous growth theory therefore studies the determinants of the technological progress (dornbusch et al, 2004:79). if we recall from figure 3 that c is the steady state, it means that saving and investment is in balance. any point where the saving line is above the investment requirement line, the economy is growing because of the capital invested in the economy. the question can be asked how this process will eventually comes to a steady state position of no change. the answer is three fold, namely because of the diminishing marginal product characteristics of capital, the characteristics of the production function and the parallel savings curve that eventually flattens out. the investment requirement line has a constant positive slope, therefore the investment requirement line and the savings curve has to cross eventually. the following graph explains the endogenous growth scenario. the shape of the production has changed and it now shows a constant marginal product of capital. the production function is now a straight line, like the parallel savings curve. the savings curve no longer flattens out; therefore saving is continuously greater than required investment. the graphical illustration clearly shows that the higher the saving grows, the bigger the gap of saving above the required investment and the faster the growth should be. the following equations summarize this theory: y = ak where the marginal product of capital is the constant a which means that output is proportional to the capital stock. if we assume that the saving rate is constant at s and there is no population growth and no depreciation of capital, we can write ?k = sy = sak or ?k/k = sa this means that the growth rate of capital is proportional to the savings rate and since output is proportional to capital, the growth rate of output is therefore ?y/y = sa which means the higher the saving rate, the higher the growth rate of output. mellet 367 figure 6. endogenous growth source: dornbusch et al (2004:80) if we summarize the endogenous theory we come to two important conclusions: � it relies on constant returns to scale to accumulate factors of production to generate ongoing growth. this means that a company with twice as much machinery and equipment will produce twice as much output. if the production factor capital is doubled, it means that output will also double, but if all the factors of production double, it means that a bigger output will be doubled. if there are constant returns to scale to capital alone, there will be increasing returns to scale to all factors taken together. this suggests that larger companies are more efficient, so that a single company can eventually dominate the economy in a specific sector (dornbush et al, 2004:81). the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 368 � furthermore, the microeconomics that supports this theory emphasizes the difference between social and private returns when companies are unable to capture some of the benefits of investment. investment produces not only new machines, but also new methods of doing the same thing. it may happen because of investment in research and sometimes because of spin-offs. if a company invests in a new machine or technique, management will capture the benefits of the machines or techniques, but it is in general harder to capture the benefits of new ideas and methods because it is easy to copy. this theory therefore also considers the role of human capital. economists therefore think that investment in human capital in general and research and development are the keys to long run growth (dornbush et al, 2004:81) 4.5 multi-sector growth theory other economists tried to improve on the two important growth theories as explained in the previous section. two-sector extensions of the solow growth model were introduced by hirofumi uzawa (1961, 1963), james e. meade (1962) and mordecai kurz (1963). this line of research however evaporated in the 1970s as suddenly as it had appeared. hirofumi uzawa’s (1961, 1963) two-sector growth model considered a solow growth model with two produced commodities, a consumer good and an investment good. 4.6 optimal growth theory another theory to consider in this regard is the optimal growth argument. as far back as eugen von bohm-bawerk (1889), economists discussed the idea that people tend to underestimate their future needs and desires and therefore “discount” their future utilities. these studies confirm the important role of planning in today’s world and the important role of expenditure on capital goods and technology. the cambridge economist arthur c. pigou (1920) posed an interesting conundrum: he argued that if people tend to underestimate their future utility, they will probably not make proper provision for their future wants and thus personally save less than they would have wished had they made the calculation correctly. pigou therefore argued that because of this lack of provision for future needs, it means that savings, as a whole, are less than what is optimal. he explains: mellet 369 generally speaking, everybody prefers present pleasures or satisfactions of given magnitude to future pleasures or satisfactions of equal magnitude, even when the latter are perfectly certain to occur. but this preference for present pleasures does not imply that a present pleasure of given magnitude is any greater than a future pleasure of the same magnitude. it implies only that we, therefore, see future pleasures, as it were, on a diminished scale....this reveals a far-reaching economic disharmony. for it implies that people distribute their resources between the present, the near future and the remote future on the basis of a wholly irrational preference. (pigou, 1920:24). numerous researchers independently examined the question of optimal savings for the neoclassical model. the cambridge philosopher frank p. ramsey (1928) proposed an intertemporal social welfare function and then tried to obtain the “optimal” rate of savings as the rate, which maximized “social utility” subject to some underlying economic constraints. this “golden rule” for efficient growth, as it has been called, was analyzed by among others edmund s. phelps (1961), joan robinson (1962) and trevor swan (1963). the answer was quiet simple: the optimal rate of savings will be that which makes the rate of return on capital equal to the natural rate of population growth. 5 a revision of technology and growth 5.1 leontief’s technology theory leontief had a unique focus and believed that economic analysis is worthless unless the variables can be measured. he simply described the interdependence of sectors in quantitative terms and explored the nature and the consequences of that interdependence. he developed an input-output model (for which he received a nobel price) which constituted a recipe for each sector’s output. according to (leontief, 1941) this matrix of proportions (or inputoutput coefficients) for all sectors therefore serve as a map of the economy’s structure. neoclassical economists saw input-output ratios as the outcome of market processes, where prices mediate choice among a series of “given” technological options, sometimes represented by isoquants. leontief recognized that economists had little or no systematic information on those “given” technological options, which limited their discipline to theoretical speculation. the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 370 if we consider a technology in which there are only two possible techniques, we can use isoquants to describe the scenario. according to (leontief, 1941:38) in each technique there is no possibility of substituting one input for another, but various mixes of the two techniques that can be used by the firm. this is explained with two machines that can be operated at two possible speeds, fast and slow. if they run fast, then a relatively small amount of labor is used together with a relatively large amount of raw material because there can be waste of materials. if they run slowly, then a relatively large amount of labor is used together with a relatively small amount of raw material. the firm can run some of its machines fast, and some slowly. an isoquant for such a technology has the form as described in the following figure if we consider only raw material and labor as inputs. figure 7. isoquant technology source: h t t p : / / w w w . e c o n o m i c s . a b o u t . c o m / o d / famouseconomists date of access: 14 july 2007. mellet 371 the corner a of the isoquant corresponds to the case in which all the machines in the factory run fast and corner b correspond to the case in which they all run slow. the points in between, on the downward sloping section, correspond to cases in which the firm runs some of its machines fast and some slowly. the concept of marginal productivity from micro economics relies upon the idea that a particular factor can be added to a production process while all the other factors remain constant. in the production function, y = f (k, l), the technique of production at any particular point is merely the capital-labor ratio, k/l. if we refer to technology as the set of feasible techniques available to the producer, we can use the isoquant analysis to describe this process. if the producer wishes to produce a particular desired level of output, y*, then the technology the producer must have available are all the capital-labor ratios matching the points on the relevant isoquant. the implied l-shaped isoquants of such a production function is illustrated in the graph above. such a technology is referred to as “fixed proportions” or “input-ouput” technology according to leontief.’s contribution. at any particular output level y*, there is a necessary level of k* and l* which cannot be substituted. to increase only labor inputs will not result in any higher output. the extra labor, without the extra capital to work in combination, will be entirely wasted. this analysis of leontief allows companies to choose among different production processes and factors (technology as one of five factors) to create optimum growth. a more flexible version of this type of economy developed, namely the activity analysis production technology. this version was introduced by various economists, for example p.a. samuelson and r. m. solow (1958). in this activity analysis, producers can choose among a small, finite number of distinct production processes or activities. the advantage of activity analysis models over earlier leontief models is that we are not constrained to using only one activity. analysis of isoquants allows companies not only to choose among several different production processes, but thus also any combination of production processes. 5.2 a last thought about steady state growth to conclude an interesting comparison is done between a world with no growth and one with high growth. it is therefore a combination of elements of the neoclassical and endogenous growth theories. we therefore have two kinds of investment opportunities illustrated in the graph. one with diminishing marginal product as in the neoclassical growth model at low income levels and one with a constant marginal product as in the endogenous growth model at the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 372 higher income levels (dornbush et al, 2004:84). neoclassical growth equilibrium is illustrated at point a and endogenous growth equilibrium is illustrated at point b. at low income and capital, the capital requirement line strikes the saving line in the neoclassical no growth steady state. at high income and capital the saving line is above the capital requirement line, leading to ongoing growth. this comparison highlights a very important point. as societies invest, they can choose between two kinds of investments. societies that direct their investment towards research and development will have ongoing growth. societies however, directing their investment towards physical capital may have higher output in the short run at the cost of lower long run growth. figure 8. steady state versus growth source: dornbush et al (2004:84) mellet 373 5.3 a last thought about growth theories the relationship between technology and economic growth were captured in a vast number of formal models over a long time in the previous century. early neoclassical models like solow (1956) treated technical change as an exogenous variable, illustrating how longrun economic growth only depended on (exogenous) technical change. arrow (1962), who endogenized technology by assuming learning by doing, stated that it grew at a constant rate, and found that long-run economic growth crucially depends on population growth. other important contributions in the 1960s were made by uzawa (1965) and phelps (1966) among others, who all related technology growth to some specification based on labour resources devoted to the development of new technologies and ideas. on the other hand, the more recent type of models of the endogenous growth literature by for example romer (1990) and aghion and howitt (1992) all share the characteristic that a continued increase in the level of resources spent on the creation of new technologies leads to a continued increase in economic growth. a group of models that emerged in the course of the 1980s explains long-term economic growth endogenously, by relaxing the assumption of diminishing returns to capital and by rendering technological progress endogenous to the model. according to these studies output and productivity growth do not rely on exogenous technical progress. in a pioneering paper, romer (1986) analyzed that research and development (r&d) activities are associated with externalities, which affect the stock of knowledge available to all firms. in vodafone’s third policy paper and its publication on the “impact of mobile phones in the developing world”, there are referrals to several studies done on south africa and other countries in africa that are using mobile phones. the facts explained in the previous paragraphs are confirmed by this vodafone study in africa. the following paragraph is an extract from this third policy paper. it reads: the developing world does have huge capacity for natural growth in basic services but is severely constrained in terms of economies and infrastructural digital constraints. some governments in developing regions have ambitious expectations of socio-economic transformation through ict but they may not fully perceive the commitment required to methodical long-term strategies for synergising its establishment and proliferation. this is a challenge because the ict industry alone cannot effect socio-economic the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 374 transformation. network operators can and do contribute much through ict both directly through the services they provide and indirectly through taxes and corporate social responsibility programmes, but their focus has to be business viability (vodafone future vision 2007, vol.2, chapter 3: the emerging world, south africa and africa in the global context). 6. technology and mobile phones in developing countries 6.1 introduction economists have become accustomed to associate long-term economic growth with technological progress as it is embedded in the solow growth model and in the endogenous growth model. the more modern literature views technology as being produced within the system by the rational and purposeful application of research and development and the growth of complementary human and physical capital. it does not matter which theory is used as a basis of reasoning, technology is central to the dynamics of any economy. people are inherently innovative and if the circumstances are right, technological progress is guaranteed. the essence of technology in modern times is that it is not stationary. technological change has become self-propelled and autocatalytic, in which change feeds on change. the period that followed the industrial revolution was one in which innovation intensified. there were ebbs and flows, in which major breakthroughs occurred and macro inventions were followed by waves of micro inventions with secondary applications (mokyr, 2005). the dynamics of technology are that the present and the future are nothing like the past. 6.2 economical growth in the current information age technology is one of the drivers of growth. the pace of invention and innovation increases the speed of economic progress. several factors contribute to this process (federal bank of dallas, policy backgrounder no 147, 1993 p3): � the breadth and depth of a society’s existing endowment of technology, � new discoveries or inventions with wide-ranging uses, � the integration of various technologies to create new products, mellet 375 � the time it takes for products to spread throughout society and � the overall market size to assess future possibilities, it is useful to look at the different factors that accelerate technological changes. firstly, the inventory of technology is large and growing. the number of scientists and engineers working in research and development has increased and therefore companies are likely to offer innovative goods and services at a continuous pace. secondly, all inventions are an effort to raise the living standards of a country’s inhabitants, but some inventions are clearly more important than others are. from time to time, an invention comes along that really rocks the world because it has farreaching applications. thirdly, each invention makes the next one easier because of the spillover effect because one technology fueling the development of another. a perfect example is the inventions that were necessary for the development of the personal computer. the invention of the microchip is another example that already enabled the invention of thousands of other consumer products. fourthly, new products are spreading faster. in the information age lightning-fast communications spread information faster and consumers grow more sophisticated and new products are emerging more quickly than in the past. new products follow a certain pattern. at first, the latest innovations are expensive and perhaps tricky to use, but over time, the products become cheaper and more consumer-friendly through mass production and improved design. lastly, as markets are getting larger, it increases the incentive to introduce new technology. various factors influence the size of the market. population growth is only one way markets grow. rising incomes add to the number of people who can afford certain products, for example the new middle class or “black diamonds” in south africa. faster information flows can also enlarge markets and the dismantling of trade barriers can open new markets for a country. the nepad project is a perfect example. 6.3 need for technology in africa information technology does not only determine the market share and profitability of individual companies in tomorrow’s global economy, but it has a huge impact on future generations of workers the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 376 and on a country’s economic prospects. the obvious question is then what are the implications of information technology for the relative fortunes of african nations? the answer is that countries that invest in and adopt information technology will move ahead and those that fail to rapidly adopt information technology will be left behind (african development bank, research paper, s.a.). despite the recent efforts to liberalize and improve telecommunication services, access to the global information infrastructure by african countries is still far from adequate. african governments and companies need to invest in telecommunications, as a priority sector, if it is to stand a chance in the emerging global competitive environment. this is particularly the case as africa is classified, based on telecommunication revenues and investment, to be among the least possible regions to achieve convergence to the standard of services in developed countries in the future. to exploit these opportunities, african countries need, as a matter of priority, to upgrade their capabilities through the improvement of their telecommunication infrastructures (african development bank, research paper, s.a.). governments have to facilitate information transmission by passing the necessary laws and regulations. it is essential to reduce or abolish import taxes on information technology hardware such as computers, printers, satellites, televisions and radios. according to this study of african development bank, in some african countries technology equipment are treated as luxury items and hence, heavily taxed. these desired improvements need to be pursued within the framework of comprehensive national or subregional plans to link african countries to each other and to the global information technology infrastructure. 6.4 studies in africa theory explains that technology plays an important role in economic growth. in this section various studies regarding the role of mobile phones in the oecd countries and africa are referred to. these studies explain the positive impact of mobile phones on economic growth, as well as the benefits to communities and small businesses of certain african countries. 6.4.1 in research done by vodafone{waverman, l. et al: vodafone policy paper series, 2005 (3)} regarding the use of mobile phones in developing countries it was found that the own– price and income elasticities of mobile phone demand was significantly above one. in microeconomics a value less than one means that the response is small and thus inelastic. a value of more than one means that the response is big and thus elastic. the value above one therefore means mellet 377 that demand increases were much more than in proportion to either increases in income or reductions in price. this research also proved that in developing countries mobile phones are good substitutes for fixed-line phones. in earlier history telecommunications networks helped to generate economic growth by enabling firms and individuals to decrease transaction costs and firms to widen their markets mokyr (2005). in more recent times, roeller and waverman (2001) analyzed the impact on gdp of investment in telecommunications infrastructure in the oecd between 1970 and 1990. they showed that it significantly enhanced output, allowing for the fact that the demand for telecoms is itself positively related to gdp. according to this study, it is important to consider that the telecoms penetration in 1970 was quite low in a number of oecd countries. france had 8 phones per 100 inhabitants, portugal 6 and italy 12. the study proved that the spread of modern telecommunications infrastructure between 1970 and 1990 generated economic growth over and above the investment in the telecoms networks itself. in 1995, just under half of the membership of the international telecommunications union (itu), an international organization comprising 214 countries, had telecoms penetration rates below 8 phones per 100 inhabitants, the level attained by france in 1970. much of the world still lacked a major component like the telephone as a modern, efficient economic system in 1995. in the 1970 to 1990 period analyzed by roeller and waverman, mobile phones were not important: telecoms networks were fixed-line systems. today, however when telephone networks are considered, the importance of mobiles stands out, especially if examined for the 102 members of the itu that had low phone penetration rates in 1995. according to this research, it is clear that telecommunication systems are largely mobile systems and not fixed lines in developing countries. the reason for this fact is the lower cost that is associated with mobile systems as compared to higher cost of fixed lines. according to thi s research, it is estimated that a mobile network costs approximately 50 percent less per connection than fixed lines and also that it can be rolled out faster. further cost advantages of mobile phones as a development tool consist not only of the lower costs per subscriber but the greater modularity of mobile systems also influences the potential buyers. 6.4.2 in another research project done by vodafone {coyle, d: vodafone policy paper series, 2005 (3)} the universally rapid spread of mobile phones in the developing world was analyzed. the following the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 378 contributing factors were identified: � the shorter payback period on investment compared to a fixed line system and lower installation costs than fixed lines, for example in india up to six times lower than the estimated $1000 variable cost per additional fixed line –complementary with lower levels of skills than what is needed for computers or the internet. especially important for providing technological access to the poorest people, who are much more likely to be illiterate and speakers of minority languages � potentially lower social/income entry barriers than the internet, due to lower up-front expenditure. compared to fixed lines because of greater ease of sharing mobile handsets � business model innovations, i.e. pre-pay which helps overcome credit barriers and the use of mobile phones as public telephones � network effects which generate rapid momentum once critical mass is reached � greater ability to overcome geographic hurdles eg mountains and deserts. bhutan is an extreme example where the mountains were unsuitable for the installation of fixed line telephony at all. mobile phones are also less vulnerable to natural disasters than fixed telecoms � competition with fixed incumbents, stimulating the growth of the telecommunica-tions market. the poorest developing countries are still substantially less likely to have reformed their telecoms markets � roll-out requirements in licenses. specific requirements for rollout in rural and low-income areas were found in ghana, south africa and uganda. according to this report the growth impact of mobiles is large in both developed and developing countries, but around twice as important in the latter group. this has a major policy implication for developing countries. the cost of wireless technologies are much lower to implement over large areas than fixed line systems, therefore mobile phones can potentially play an important role in economic development. it should therefore be worth investing large amounts in telecommunications in developing countries. 6.4.3 in another research project done by vodafone three mellet 379 countries were surveyed to establish the impact of mobile phones on the community and on small businesses. table 1. fixed lines and mobile lines per 1000 people for egypt, south africa tanzania source: {samuel, j.et al: vodafone policy paper series, 2005 (3)} according to this survey, it was established that the perception of ownership of mobile phones in tanzania is different to that in south africa. when the respondents stated that they owned a mobile phone, they often considered it as a household asset rather than a personal or individual one. this was particularly the case for female respondents. however, cultural norms in rural tanzania dictate that ownership of such items lies with male members or heads of the households. nearly 57 percent of the respondents who owned a mobile phone in south africa were female. similarly, 60 percent of respondents who were users but not owners were also female. another aspect established in the survey and not surprisingly, almost half of the respondents who were users in the south african communities came from the 25-45 age groups. the respondents in this age group are economically active and therefore may be more likely to own a phone. however, respondents in age groups of 46-55 and over 55 were still well represented in the group of owners and the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 380 users. in tanzania however, the patterns of age distribution in the group of owners and users was similar to the pattern of south africa, but was more concentrated in the age group of 26-45. in the next table, the results of these surveys are displayed. table 2. impact of mobile phones of respondents source: {samuel, j. et al: vodafone policy paper series, 2005 (3)} mellet 381 * these impacts were identified through specific questions, while the rest of the impacts identified were offered by the respondents without a specific question being asked. in addition to the community surveys, these researchers also explored the use of mobile phones by small businesses. urban and rural businesses were surveyed in south africa, but in egypt only in cairo. in the next table, the results of these surveys are displayed. the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 382 table 3. impact of mobile phones on small businesses source: {samuel, j. et al: vodafone policy paper series, 2005 (3)} south africa (%) mellet 383 the results of these vodafone surveys suggest that mobiles brought considerable benefits to communities and small businesses of certain african countries. the surveys indicated that people at all income levels are able to access mobile services, either through owning or sharing a phone and that gender, age and education do not seem to constitute barriers to access. a very interesting observation was that income explains the level of usage but the lack of income does not prevent the use of mobile phones. the absence of electricity does not present a barrier, thanks to the sharing of mobiles and recharging batteries in the nearest town. other methods are also used, for example the recharging locally by a generator or car battery. mobile phones brought for the residents of the rural communities positive economic and social impacts. typical examples are that mobile phones reduced travel needs, assisted job hunting and provided better access to business information. greater ease of contact with family and friends also brought improved relationships. these benefits were reported even though the communities surveyed were amongst the poorest in their countries. mobile phones have also become an essential tool for small businesses. a substantial proportion of small businesses have no alternative method of communication. this fact is applicable for black-owned businesses in south africa and informal sector businesses in egypt. this observation suggests that mobile phones are an important tool for disadvantaged groups. a large majority of small businesses, which were surveyed, said mobiles brought higher profits, turnover and increased efficiency, although they are paying higher call charges. 6.5 international competitiveness for south africa the national research foundation (nrf) published a policy document regarding economic growth and international competitiveness. the following paragraph is an extract of this document south africa must develop a competitive, sustainable, fast-growing economy that creates national prosperity. the extent to which this challenge is addressed will depend on a dynamic and multidisciplinary knowledge base capable of integrating technology, management and labour. the keys to building a competitive industrial base are knowledge, innovation and productivity. (www.nrf.ac.za date of access: 9 july 2007). the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 384 according to this policy document, technological change is an important source of development in our economy. our economy remains largely dependent on natural resources, processing, manufacturing and on imported technologies. south africa has to improve its international competitiveness. economic growth and international competitiveness can improve if the transfer of knowledge and technology is properly managed. technological innovations and applications is of utmost importance in a competitive international environment. it is clear from this policy document that the south african government has a specific plan regarding economic growth, international competitiveness and the role of technology in this process of development. however, two questions originate, namely if the government has the infrastructure and manpower to effectively address all these issues. secondly, if government will allow private institutions to effectively develop technology and other means for the improvement of south africa and all its inhabitants. 6.6 asgisa the anc made a commitment in its 2004 election manifesto to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014. to accomplish this asgisa’s objective for 2004 – 2009, it is necessary to create an average growth rate of 4,5% per year. to accomplish the objective by 2014 a real growth rate of 6% must be achieved and sustained from 2010 (www.info.gov.za/documents/index date of access: 9 july 2007). the asgisa team identified six binding constraints that mitigate against the achievement of these growth rates. it is necessary to refer to these constraints in this document regarding technology and growth, because if these issues are not addressed and solved by government, the required growth rate and poverty levels will not improve. it is clear that one of the constraints is a lack of capacity of logistics in sa, which is crucial for the smooth development and growth of sa (www.info.gov.za/documents/index date of access: 9 july 2007). two questions originate, namely if the government has the infrastructure and manpower to effectively address all these issues and secondly if government are serious to tackle all these obstacles to allow development in south africa. the constraints highlighted in the first annual report of asgisa are as follows: � the relative volatility of the currency mellet 385 � the cost, efficiency and capacity of the national logistics system 7. comparison of frequency allocations policy in usa and south africa 7.1 summary of usa policy various technology studies by vodafone were referred to regarding africa. in this section the policy regarding frequency allocations of a developed country is referred to. their policy can be used as a guideline by south africa and other african countries. in march 2004, the president of the united states of america announced that all americans should have universal, affordable access to broadband technology by 2007. some of the new broadband technology is wireless. the goal of this study was to promote the development and implementation of a u.s.a. spectrum policy for the 21st century to foster economic growth, ensure their national and homeland security, maintain u.s.a. global leadership in communications technology. it also had to satisfy other u.s.a. needs such as public safety, scientific research, federal transportation infrastructure and law enforcement. (www.ntia.doc.gox/osmhome/frequencyallocations date of access: 27 july 2007). the recommendations proposed in this study build upon the experiences of the federal spectrum management community in its efforts to implement policies for three new technologies — third generation (3g) wireless, wireless fidelity (wifi) and ultrawideband (uwb). this policy summary in a developed country can be used as a guideline of what should happen regarding frequency planning and management in an emerging country like south africa. fifteen recommendations were proposed to their existing spectrum management policy to meet their future spectrum needs effectively. the following six recommendations can be highlighted for the south african scenario. firstly, advanced information technology capabilities should be used to modernize the existing paper-based processes and procedures associated with coordination of operations, assignment of frequencies and certification of new systems. secondly, to ensure that the federal government procures only the most effective and efficient technologies and systems, each federal agency should implement a formal process to evaluate their proposed needs for use of the spectrum before seeking spectrum certification. thirdly, to ensure that the current uses of radio communication the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 386 systems are as efficient as possible and to develop new policies for improvement as needed, the governing body should evaluate all spectrum use by the federal government over a five-year period to determine spectrum efficiency. fourthly, the governing body should initiate a plan to identify and implement incentives that promote more efficient and effective use of the spectrum. this plan should also include the development of models to determine spectrum value. fifthly, the governing body should develop a plan to increase sharing of spectrum between federal government and non-federal government users. lastly, the governing body should work cooperatively to review existing analytical and measurement processes used to determine the impact of new technologies and expanded services on incumbents to reduce the time it takes to assess new uses of the spectrum. the six summarized points is a clear guideline for our policy makers to address our technology development effectively to increase our real growth rate and for the benefit of all the inhabitants of south africa. 7.2 summary of policy and spectrum allocation in sa icasa does not provide information about their policy regarding frequency allocation and specific frequencies that are assigned or allocated to operators. various telephone calls were unanswered after messages were left to reply. various emails were sent which were also unanswered. after continuous telephone calls the only response from icasa was to supply a draft terrestrial broadcast frequency plan for 2007 by email which was not requested. table 4. size of different operators source: sa telecommunications report q3, 2007 vodacom 57,9 million subscribers or 24,6% mtn 31,5 million subscribers or 13,4% cell c 8,0 million subscribers or 3,4% virgin mobile 2,6 million subscribers or 1,1% mellet 387 the above table illustrates the subscription between small and big operators in the private sector. in the table below is a summary of the frequency allocations as obtained from the market place as at end of 2007. icasa could not or did not want to supply this information as indicated above. this information was eventually obtained from various market operators. two important points are very clear from the size table and the frequency allocations table: � the allocation between small and big operators in the private sector is the same. the available scarce frequency bands are according to this information not optimally allocated and go against all economic principles as discussed in the earlier theoretical section. � the government institutions are favoured at the expense of the private sector operators. this information also goes against economic principles, for example the opportunity cost principle and illustrates the fact even more that frequencies are not optimally allocated to enhance economic growth. if these allocations are indeed a true reflection of the current scenario it should definitely handicap economic growth and development in south africa to the detriment of all of south africa’s inhabitants. table 5. frequency allocations allocated for different operators source: various ,market operators the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 388 mellet 389 a comprehensive spectrum strategy should be developed to reconcile the interests of all the different categories of spectrum users. this strategy should balance commercial and public policy objectives without inefficient allocation of the available scarce spectrum. it is desirable that the allocation of the spectrum should be done in a transparent way to allow all the players and users in industry with the necessary information and planned allocations of icasa. an appeal process should also be established by icasa for all players in the industry against decisions that were taken to enable them to plan and adjust their business plans and strategies to foster growth optimally in south africa. 7.3 relation to gross domestic product the idea that mobile phones bring economic growth is further supported according to an article in the economist of 17 november 2007. leonard waverman of the london business school has calculated that an extra ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country leads to an extra half a percentage point of growth in gdp per person. the benefits of mobile phones are very promising. according to waferman places with bad roads, few trains and insufficient landlines, mobile phones are a good substitute for travel. it also allows price data to be distributed more quickly and enable traders to reach wider markets. it also eases the process of doing business. he has however a condition for this to materialize. for governments in such countries to realize the economic benefits of mobile phones, they need to do away with state monopolies, allow the issue of new licenses to new operators to enter the market and they must slash taxes on handsets. the positive relation between gross domestic product and mobile phones was confirmed at a telecoms technology selection for african implementation of social responsibility conference held during november 2007 in cape town. it was stated at the conference that there are currently 167 million mobile subscribers in the 38 countries of sub sahara africa. projections are that this figure can increase to 300 million in 2011. research revealed at this conference stated that for each 1% increase in mobile penetration, gdp per capita goes up by us$240. another fact revealed was for each 1% increase in internet penetration, gdp per capita goes up by us$493. these facts clearly confirms that technology implementation in a developing country creates growth opportunities for the inhabitants of a country. the efficient allocation of the available scarce frequencies is therefore even more a non-negotiable argument to foster development and growth in south africa. the role of technology in the economic growth of south africa td, 3(2), december 2007, pp. 351-394 390 8. conclusion the available frequency spectrum is a very scarce resource of any country. it is therefore important that the regulatory body of frequencies, namely icasa, should maximize the spectrum utilization effectively. various options exist to allocate the available scarce spectrum. one option is the decisions of government, which will allocate the available spectrum. the easy process is to allocate the same amount of spectrum to all the registered competitors in the field. the doubt in all the players’ mind with this option is on what basis the authorities will make these allocations, because there are other important factors that must also be considered than just the number of players. the second option is spectrum auctions which occur in some developed economies where the operator must maximize spectrum utilization in order to recoup their investment costs. the downside of this tactic is that the money spent to buy the service, could be better spent in delivering services in africa and south africa rather than recouping the increased cost of operation of the players in the market with higher prices. there are also other methods that can be considered to allocate the available scare spectrum. firstly, to normalise the spectrum holding based on the market penetration (proportion of subscribers within the population) for each operator. this method of allocation should remove the influence of the size of the customer base. secondly, to divide the aggregated revenue per unit spectrum by the total population base of a country. this method of allocation compares the value created per unit spectrum per capita of a country. the playing fields are complex due to convergence and proliferation of new technologies. new access to technologies tends to maximise spectrum efficiency in the international environment. two principles emanate from this observation, namely regulators should not be prescriptive about what technologies may be selected by operators to serve their specific markets effectively. to restrict access to wimax spectrum to pre-selected operators only is the wrong avenue to take. secondly, any grossly inefficient use of spectrum must be identified and processes must be initiated by icasa in conjunction with market players to clear as much of the unused or “wasted” spectrum as possible for more efficient users and therefore the potential growth of south africa. much spectrum assigned to the military and to analogue broadcast sector perhaps can be freed up for the telecommunications sector to facilitate growth. icasa should manage the use of the spectrum and regularly audit the use of the spectrum in terms of the use by the different operators and the size of the market that they serve. this management and mellet 391 audit is necessary to ensure that the amount of spectrum allocated is always justified. it is unfair that any successful operator could be penalized for being successful because of bad management by the authority responsible for network allocation. network planning and implementation for any operator becomes very expensive if the available spectrum to an operator is too restricted for the market it has to serve. the responsible authority should also harmonize the country’s spectrum usage and allocation with global standards. 9. references 9.1 hard copy texts anon. 2007. impact of mobile phones in the developing world: the emerging world, south africa and africa in the global context. vodafone future vision, 2(3). anon. 2007. a bank in every pocket? the 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usa. 2007. us department of commerce. www.ntia.doc.gov/ osmhome/frequencyallocations date of access: 27 july 2007. microsoft word 09 de beer fin.docx t td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: re-enchantment pp. 122-140. multiple, connective intellection: the condition for invention c s de beer1 i prefer invention accompanied by the danger of error to rigorous verification, which is paralleled by the risk of immobility – in philosophy as in life, in life as in the sciences. michel serres abstract since this article involves invention, the conditions for inventiveness become the issue: assuming multiple reality; thinking in a special way; transgressing boundaries; acknowledging networks (in the terms of michel serres: communication, transduction, interference, distribution, passages between the sciences. there are, however, misplaced expectations: technology should work wonders in this regard while forgetting that humans, redefined though, remain the key to establish connections and networks between people, paradigms, disciplines, sciences and technologies. against this background, michel serres’s emphasis on invention and “thinking as invention” and his a-critical anti-method – ‘connective, multiple intellection’ which is a special kind of thought – are desperately needed. guattari’s articulation of the three ecologies and the ecosophic views he developed in this regard provides a significant amplification of the approach of ‘multiple connective intellection’. these insights can be enlightened and strongly driven home through the views of latour with an anthropological and socio-dynamic perspective on the scientific endeavour with the articulation of the actor-network theory inherited from serres. the thoughtful beyond-methodology of edgar morin with his strong noological position as the ultimate condition for inventiveness, and gregory ulmer with his special emphasis on invention and inventiveness, especially with the help and assistance of electronic means (video and internet), and with his work with the architect bernard tschumi on invention and inventiveness, are of special significance in the sphere of inventiveness, the real and final guarantee for a spirited re-enchantment of the world as well as the final demonstration that the battle for intelligence as opposed to ignorance, stupidity and barbarism can be fought with great hope to succeed. keywords: a-critical approach, actor-network theory, beyond-metod, complexity, ecosophy, euretic conditions, invention, inventiveness, multiple connective intellection, routes to invention, sets of conditions for invention, 1 introduction invention is what is at issue here. we encounter very complex situations, problematic and challenging to the extreme: the political, the social, the natural, the moral, the individual and their intimate interconnectedness. we do not have models or examples of situations like this 1 . prof. c s (fanie) de beer, department of information science, university of pretoria. e-mail: fanie.debeer@up.ac.za multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 123 to follow. we have to find something new; we have to think new, fresh, differently, which means … we have to invent. 1.1. the problem is vast with our focus on the re-enchantment of the world we need to realise that re-enchantment presupposes disenchantment. this is a problem, a serious problem that implies crises and catastrophes. briefly, our time is characterised by disenchanting situations … the scope is comprehensive, deep-seated and vast. the disenchantment affects almost all facets of our lives in one way or another. valéry (1978, 2009) described the situation caused by the two world wars as diabolic and as symptomatic of the debasement, or the devaluation of spirit and spirituality with the ultimate consequence of disenchantment of the world – as a matter of fact as an insult to what it means to be human. this diabolic situation of spiritual debasement is still with us and manifests itself around us in many human facial expressions and in a diversity of situations. stiegler uses valéry’s diagnosis but takes it much further, right to the heart of individual and social situations of the contemporary zeitgeist. according to him and the group of researchers associated with him, the implications (perhaps also the symptoms) of disenchantment is symbolic misery, ontological misery, individual misery, intellectual misery (stupidity, ignorance), societal misery, economic misery, environmental misery and institutional misery. this is a grim picture – too pessimistic, we may feel, until we attend to the news (local and international) week after week only to realise that matters may still be euphemistically articulated. felix guattari (2012:19) is very explicit about this, but in a different way. he describes the situation as follows: “the earth is undergoing a period of intense techno-scientific transformations. if no remedy is found [in other words, the implications and impact of the transformations are by no means innocent – they require remedy], the ecological equilibrium this has generated will ultimately threaten the continuation of life on the planet’s surface. alongside these upheavals, human modes of life, both individual and collective [kinship networks, domestic life, family and married life, neighbourhood relations], are progressively deteriorating … it is the relationship between subjectivity and its exteriority … that is compromised in this way, in a sort of general movement of implosion and regressive infantalization”. to this guattari adds: “the increasing deterioration of human relations with the socius, the psyche and the ‘nature’ is due not only to environmental and objective pollution but is also a result of a certain incomprehension and fatalistic passivity towards these issues as a whole, among both individuals and governments. catastrophic or negative developments are simply accepted without question. we are accustomed to a vision of the world drained of the significance of human interventions. … this decline appears to be the result of the failure of social and psychological praxes to adapt, as well as a certain blindness to the erroneousness of dividing the real into a number of discrete domains [digital, virtual, alternate, cyber, etc]”. (op.cit.: 28). and then he continues: “chernobyl and aids [and we may add fukushima and the much earlier atomic bomb], have dramatically revealed to us the limits of humanity’s techno-scientific power and the ‘backlash’ that ‘nature’ has in store for us (ibid.). (cf laszlo 1989 on ‘the inner limits of mankind’). in order to emphasise the fatal importance of these events one may add the comments of michel serres (1984) in an interview on the atomic bomb and its decisive impact on the de beer 124 relationship between science and society, and on the explosion of the spaceship challenger with its serious implications for our scientific endeavours and its societal consequences. his answer to the question, “why are you a philosopher?” was unambiguously explicit: “because of hiroshima.” (serres 1984:186). and then he continues: “knowlegde was in such a way glued to power and violence that the end of this history was hiroshima. … this decisive event of hiroshima that is our history. … hiroshima is behind us and in front of us. … my call for the obligation to retreat aims at rethinking the conditions of knowledge, of power, and of science in order to go beyond this stupid history. all philosophical undertakings of other times come up against this point. why am i a philosopher? because of hiroshima, there is no doubt. hiroshima is the first act which has organised my life [when he was 15] and have made me say: i always withdraw myself in front of violence in order to try to know [understand] and to act differently/otherwise” (1984:202-3). nancy’s discussion of fukushima in terms of ‘the equality of catastrophes’ (2012) and dupuy’s studies on both chernobyl and fukushima and the nuclear menace (2005, 2006, 2013) should be a timely warning to all those so eagerly and uncritically willing to embrace nuclear power developments as the only solution to energy problems. too many people prefer to remain ignorant and turn a blind eye to the consequences spelled out in these studies – a deliberate strategy of disenchantment and a demonstration of the reign of stupidity and a complete lack of responsible intelligence. many others join them, for example stengers (catastrophe and the barbarism to come), steiner (on the barbarism of ignorance) and michel henry (barbarism). guattari (2012:45) sees these problems, seated in an extremely complicated reality, as “the major crises of our era”, especially with a view to its implications for the articulation between the three ecological registers (the environment, social relations and human subjectivity). they call for a clear understanding of the complex nature of the real. 1.2 reality in its full complexity given our current general scientific and disciplinary situation we have to consider the following emphases on science by some formidable thinkers and scientists on the rich domain of scientific work as the most general condition for invention. michel serres emphasises the following distinction: “one can say that knowledge has two modes: the concern with verification and the burdens it requires, but also risk taking, the production of newness, the multiplicity of found objects – in short, inventiveness.” (serres/latour, 1995:126). deleuze and guattari distinguish between arboreal and rhizomic cultural forms with drastic implications for methodological approaches. “the former is stable, centered, hierarchical; the latter is nomadic, multiple, decentered.” (poster 2001:27). henri atlan (1986), in his ‘essay on the organisation of the living’ distinguishes two dimensions of the real on both of which science should constantly focus: “the rigidity of minerals (crystal) and the decomposition of smoke” and then he continues: “what do the attributes ‘organise’ and ‘complex’ mean when one applies them to natural systems [to the real], not totally mastered by humans because not constructed by them? it is here that the two opposed notions of repetition, regularity and redundance on the one side, and variety, improbability and complexity on the other side, have been able to be disengaged and recognised as co-existing ingredients in dynamic organisations. these organisations appeared to compromisebetween two extremes: a perfectly repetitive symmetric order of which crystals are the most classical physical models, and an infinitely complex variety, unforseeable in its details, as the order of evanescent forms of smoke.” (atlan 1986:3) (my translation). emphasis on only the first item in these two multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 125 distinctions is an immense impoverishment of the scientific endeavour and closes the road to invention, while emphasis on both, and especially on the second aspect or mode, opens up wide possibilities for inventions. if we get stuck on the first, as generally happens in our research endeavours, we close ourselves off from inventive initiatives and possibilities with severe limitations on possibilities of the solution to problems that harass humankind and its future to catastrophic dimensions. the scope of what is threatening is vast! dealing with it poses a severe challenge! given this complexity of the real it should be realised that no superficial solutions should even be contemplated. as a matter of fact, an alternative to the current foci of scientific or research approaches generally pursued ought to be intelligently explored. and when we read stengers (2013) such an endeavour should not be impossible. 1.3 existing responses do not satisfy therefore, considering the scope and depth of the crises and the vast scope of the real something special, something out of the ordinary, is required. it is, however, fully uncertain whether we are geared for it, whether the capacity exists to confront the challenge of the crises. what is ‘of the ordinary’ in terms of our dealings with problems, deepens the problems rather than solving them. it is of the utmost importance to get clarity about the situation discussed here and to be willing to face it with honesty and sincerity. there are examples of individuals who are taking these steps in a confident way: the views of ivan illich (1973:8-9) in his tools for conviviality are not only clear, but also very disturbing. he writes “while evidence shows that more of the same leads to utter defeat, nothing less than more and more seems worthwhile in a society infected by the growth mania. … it has become fashionable to say that where science and technology have created problems, it is only more scientific understanding and better technology that can carry us past them. the cure for bad management is more management. the cure for specialized research is more costly interdisciplinary research, just as the cure for polluted rivers is more costly non-polluting detergents. the pooling of stores of information, the building up of a knowledge stock, the attempt to overwhelm present problems by the production of more science is the ultimate attempt to solve a crisis by escalation”. felix guattari is explicit about the close link between the lack of success in solving problems and mere symptomatic treatment thereof. he writes: “political groupings and executive authorities appear to be totally incapable of understanding the full implications of these [critical] issues. despite having recently initiated a partial realization of the most obvious dangers that threaten the natural environment of our societies, they are generally content to simply tackle industrial pollution and then from a purely technocratic perspective, whereas only an ethico-political articulation – which i call ecosophy – between the three ecological registers (the environment, social relation and human subjectivity) would be likely to clarify these questions.” (guattari 2012:19-20). gregory ulmer is equally explicit in his acceptance of the presupposition regarding the almost guaranteed lack of success with problem solving when he states ”that every manner of problem-solving now at work – every mode of application of knowledge to living – is inadequate, insufficient, requiring supplementation …” (ulmer 1990:160). the date of some of these sources does not nullify their pertinent significance and importance. on the contrary, in many respects their crises have been aggravated on a global and even lethal scale. de beer 126 in order to achieve the “supplementation” ulmer writes about, the ecosophic pole of guattari and the tools for conviviality of illich, we have to look for something new and unique – some call it innovation and some invention. it is important to distinguish between innovate and invent. etymologically speaking they are totally different; they are not interchangeable despite the fact that this occurs quite regularly. innovate means to renew, refresh, rethink and re-do; improve the existing and build on it; it remains a linear approach in the extension of the techno-scientific approach. the assumption on which it is based is a fixed and objectifiable reality. the problem posed is the continuation of the existing that may lead to impressive changes but without any significant solutions. invent (heuresis) on the other hand refers to something drastically and radically new, different – beyond the ordinary. the assumption here is that it is based on the wealth, inexhaustibility of complex and dynamic reality. something totally new is in principle always possible. invention makes real and significant transformations of the world and life conditions possible. the critical circumstances and conditions we face are of such a nature that they require more than mere innovation. an inventive spirit is required. central to solutions are inventions. there are no standard and ready-made answers available. what we have available are our own abilities, which are enormous and underestimated, and which must be identified, cultivated and utilised at all cost. when invention is central to solutions the very first step required is the reinvention of spirit and spirituality, and intelligence, of course. (both terms are translations of the greek term nous! ([stiegler (2015:196vn50; 266] & gadamer [1994]; cf also stiegler and ars industrialis, 2014). the spiritual as characterised by valéry and stiegler is, however, of vital and decisive importance in all of these to inspire and invigorate all of them. 2. routes to and conditions for invention as focus of this article i have decided to briefly discuss five routes that will take us beyond, to the other side of, the known, the existing, the settled, the accepted, the stereotyped, the fixed and the linear and towards the inventive, or into the domain of invention. we can also, alternatively, consider articulating this inventive initiative as the creation of different sets of conditions appropriate for facilitating acts of invention. these routes or sets are not only complementary but refer to each other (interreferential), have an impact on each other and reinforce each other. they offer excellent illustrations of scientists who take the full scope of science and reality as suggested earlier in the introduction seriously. these five sets of conditions or routes are: 1. multiple, connective intellection, or, a set of intellectual conditions (serres) 2. three ecologies, or, a set of ecosophic conditions (guattari) 3. actor-network theory, or, a set of socio-dynamic conditions (latour) 4. a position beyond-method, or, a set of paradigmatic conditions (morin) 5. heuretics, or, a set of euretic conditions (ulmer/tschumi) multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 127 2.1 the route of multiple connective intellection, or, a set of multiple intellectual conditions (serres) an exploration of “intellection” is of the utmost importance here as the key term for serres. intellection as used by serres can be interpreted as an excellent translation of the greek nous which can be translated as spirit and/or intelligence. the understanding of spirit in the sense made explicit above brings us in direct contact with the adjectives serres uses to qualify intellection, namely multiple and connective. reality as multiple and as an interconnected manifestation of all its facets and aspects calls for a singularly unique human capacity that can be called intellection, or spirit, a capacity enabling humans to fathom the depths and wealth of the real, of that which is. it is the intellection that has an awareness and sensitivity for the multiple and the capacity to establish connections and that enables humans to act compositionally, in other words to compose a world where humans are at home. it is not and has never been the case that humans had to wait for technology in order to connect. since human intellection is central as the connecting principle of the multiple real, and merely developing and using technical aids to amplify and strengthen this intellectual capacity, the phrase of serres ‘multiple connective intellection’ has been chosen as the theme of the article. ‘this phrase says it all, all about the real and all about thought, and is the only human intellectual capacity that enables humans to re-enchant the world intelligently, and as a necessary consequence also meaningfully. given our traditional and generally accepted scientific and disciplinary situation we have to consider the following: “one can say that knowledge has two modes: the concern with verification and the burdens it requires, but also risk taking, the production of newness, the multiplicity of found objects – in short, inventiveness.” (serres/latour, 1995:126). michel serres is adamant about the shortcomings of the traditional methodological approaches. he writes: "we have at our disposal tools, notions, and efficacy, in great number; we lack on the other hand, an intellectual sphere free of all relations of dominance. many truths, very little goodness. a thousand certainties, rare moments of invention". (serres/latour 1995:136). also compare his remarks on method when he states that repeating a method is profoundly boring and nothing but a kind of laziness (op. cit.:100). his views on method are summarised aptly by harari and bell (1983: xxxvi): “the term method itself is problematic because it suggests the notion of repetition and predictability – a method that anyone can apply. method implies also mastery and closure both of which are detrimental to invention. on the contrary serres’s method invents: it is thus an anti-method.” method means literally to be on the road, a made road, with the implication that we can see only what is visible from the road and nothing else. in order to see more we have to leave the road and move away, “off the beaten track”. the real exciting places are often to be found there. serres’s a-critical approach of “multiple connective intellection” is developed in a rich oeuvre of more than 40 books dealing with themes such as science, knowledge, humans, information, ecology and foundations. my focus here is briefly on his five books on the philosophy of information organised around the theme of the wing-footed messenger-god of the greeks, hermes. this should be more than adequate for our purposes. these publications have specific relevance for information and our thinking about information and knowledge, information messages and communication and information work with strong suggestions about the research endeavours related to these themes and sub-themes. let us never forget that methodology, despite the fact that it relates to the work of research, is always, without any exception, a work of thought in a special sense, that is in the sense of intellection as qualified here. that is why “intellection” is such a central theme. it helps us to de beer 128 move beyond and away from the exclusivity and rigidities of method and the blind spots created by it. a new space of understanding opens up here. this means the end of a philosophy of interpretation and the beginning of ‘a pluralist logic’. we are forced to rethink the human cogito, the thinking capacity of humans, as a mutation of the cogito, in other words (cf crahay 1988). the thinking capacity of humans, understood in this ‘mutated’ way, enables us to apply compositional thinking as suggested already. serres teaches us a thought of multiple entries so that we can explore other roads, other spaces. it is a thought of forms that exchanges representation for interference (a title of one of his five books), or of interreference as he suggested in this book, and that brings us back to “connective intelligence”. with this kind of thought the possibility of the re-enchantment of the world opens up widely. this thinking is a model for inventiveness that serres regards predominantly important. he writes: “invention is the only true intellectual act, the only act of intelligence. the rest? copying, cheating, reproduction, laziness, convention, battle, sleep. only discovery awakens. only invention proves that one truly thinks, whatever that may be. i think therefore i invent, i invent therefore i think …. the inventive breath alone gives life, because life invents” (serres 1997:92–93). with a view to re-enchantment our desperate need is a need for invention. why? serres’s reply: “i prefer invention accompanied by the danger of error to rigorous verification [innovation], which is paralleled by the risk of immobility – in philosophy as in life, in life as in the sciences.” (serres/latour 1995:131). the views of serres’s immensely interesting philosophy of information and knowledge have been made explicit in a much more extensive way in another article (see de beer 2014b). 2.2 the route of the three ecologies in terms of an ecosophy, or, a set of ecosophic conditions (felix guattari) guattari is explicit: the three ecologies (the environment, social relations and subjectivity in its singularity) must be articulated properly for crises and catastrophes to be avoided. we are accustomed to a vision of the world drained of the significance of human interventions of care and wisdom – the vision of a disenchanted world. the problem is: “the increasing deterioration of humanity’s relations with the socius, the mental, and ‘nature’ is due not only to environmental and objective pollution but is also the result of a certain incomprehension and fatalistic passivity towards these issues as a whole, among both individuals and governments. catastrophic or not, negative developments are simply accepted without question” (guattari 2012:28). it will be necessary to deal with these problems in order to rescue the relations. how to rectify? the emphasis will be on the three ecologies and their interconnectedness. alternatives along these lines should be invented (cf guattari 2012:36-38). they are, although complex and difficult, non-negotiable prerequisites. this dealing implies a recomposition of the objectives and the methods of the totality of the social movement under the conditions of today. this calls for a different way of thinking (thinking transversally) and a different kind of logic, a logic of intensities or eco-logic. (see guattari 2012:29-30). what guattari is called for is an ethico-aesthetic articulation of the three ecologies which he calls an ‘ecosophy’. etymologically ecosophy means the wisdom of the household. the most central principle of this wisdom is care, to take care and to give care. it is the ways of living on this planet that are at issue here and to what extent these ways of living are threatened from various angles and perspectives. the ecosophic focus is that of “the production of human existence itself in new historical contexts”. (op. cit.:24). this mental ecosophy, that can be translated as an ecosophic intellection (cf. previous section on serres), an intellection multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 129 in charge of the wisdom of the household, “will lead us to reinvent the relation of the subject to the body, to phantasm, to the passage of time, to the mysteries of life and death.” it operates more like an artist than in terms of “an outmoded model of scientificity” (ibid). and then he continues: “i have stressed these aesthetic paradigms because i want to emphasise that everything, …has to be continually reinvented, started again from scratch, otherwise the processes become trapped in a cycle of deathly repetition. the precondition [for any reinvention] …. consists in accepting that as a general rule, …individual and collective subjective assemblages are capable, potentially, of developing and proliferating well beyond their ordinary equilibrium.” (op. cit.:27). “every care organization or aid agency, every educational institution, and any individual course of treatment ought to have as its primary concern the continuous development of its practices as much as its theoretical scaffolding” (ibid.). complementary to this he emphasises then the importance of ‘a narrative element’ which is indispensable for inventive theorization. “all theoretical bodies of the type [that are deployed on a truly industrial scale, particularly by the media and public institutions] share the shortcoming of being closed to the possibility of creative proliferation.” (guattari 2012:36-37). (cf stengers & schlanger 1991). this ethico-political articulation, called ecosophy (the wisdom of the household), between the three ecological registers, the one of the environment, nature, world, the one of the socius, social relations, the us, human togetherness, and the one of the mental, the subjectivity, the psychic, the noological should be inclined to clarify all questions related to these emerging issues. (see guattari 2012:19-20). his tri-ecological vision is articulated by guattari as follows: “to bring into being other worlds beyond those of purely abstract information, to engender universes of reference and existential territories where singularity and finitude are taken into consideration by the multivalent logic of mental ecologies and by the group eros of social ecology; to dare to confront the vertiginous cosmos so as to make it inhabitable.” (guattari 2012:44). this seems to be a superb articulation of the reenchantment of the world and according to him “the only escape from the major crises of our era”. highly significant to constantly keep in mind: no problem is ever a problem in isolation but always in context (and here i am not thinking of the material, physical context which of course exists!)– all three of the ecological domains are at issue here. if we encounter a problem or cluster of problems regarding water (as one example of many other critical issues) and all possible dimensions thereof, it is never only a problem of nature, the environment or the worldly. the problem also relates very intensely and strongly to the mental (how people think about water, what they know about water, how they relate to water ethics) and also to the social (my family, my friends are affected by polluted water; political leaders are involved or perhaps not involved with the problem – ethics as well). in his reflections on the nature of problems deleuze (1994:57-64) is of specific importance here with a clear confirmation of the previous remarks. he writes: “we are led to believe that problems are ready-made, and that they disappear in the response or the solution. … we are led to believe that the activity of thinking … begins only with the search for solutions…this belief has its origin in the dogmatic [image of thought]: puerile examples taken out of context and arbitrarily erected into models. according to this infantile prejudice, the master sets a problem, our task is to solve it, and the result is accredited true or false by a powerful authority.” (deleuze 1994:158). the dogmatic image of thought supports “the postulate of responses and solutions according to which truth and falsehood only begin with solutions or only qualify responses. when, however, a false problem is ‘set’ … this propitious scandal serves only to remind us de beer 130 that problems are not ready-made but must be constituted and invested in their proper symbolic fields. …[p]roblems must be considered not as ‘givens’ (data) but as ideal ‘objecticities’ possessing their own sufficiency and implying acts of constitution and investment in their respective symbolic fields” (deleuze 1994:158-159). such an understanding of problems opens up a door for inventions, not necessarily of solutions, but of truth and falsehood about situations in the symbolic fields. 2.3 the route of the actor-network theory, or a set of socio-dynamic conditions (bruno latour) the core meaning of the actor-network theory entails the following: “an actor-network is what is made to act by a large star-shaped web of mediators flowing in and out of it. it is made to exist by its many ties: attachments are first, actors are second.” (latour 2005:217). it is clear that the issue of connectivity in the widest possible sense is emphasised here and will be well illustrated in the discussion that follows. these seem to be very obvious conditions for invention. michel serres should be credited with the honour of initiating this theoretical approach. for invention to happen, new and multiple connections are imperative, implied by the notion of network. but invention is an act, of course, and more specifically an intellectual activity, and self-evidently the kind of activity assumed in this theory. the five horizons of latour (1995) is an effort to do exactly that. scientific thought and work are embedded in networks of societal institutions and discourses in its widest sense which unavoidably determines to a great extent the direction scientific work will take. it is important to acknowledge these ‘forces’ and influences in order for inventive possibilities to take shape. latour (1995:27) excellently sketches the tension between scientist and science administrator, “it is impossible to give account of scientific ideas in a correct way if one separates it from the network of relations within which it gains significance” (latour 1995:27). latour emphasises the networks within which science development occurs which is common knowledge but the way in which he tries to articulate their interconnectedness and its implications for invention are quite impressive. “the solidity of a discipline does not depend on its isolation but on its relationships and its implications.” (latour 1995:28). this means that the impact of a discipline on its environment and the changes in life situations it manages to bring about is decisive for its acknowledgement, its power and its status. this holds true for philosophy and for information science. all disciplines should attend to the influence and significance of the implications of what they articulate in order to secure their future but also to serve science in general. the following five horizons of researchers sketched by latour must be related to the social intelligence of all disciplines and researchers in such a way that the solidity of scientific truth is not going to get lost but rather confirmed and expanded in the direction of invention: i) mobilisation of the world; ii) autonomisation of researchers; iii) alliances; iv) public relations; v) famous concepts, ideas, theories (latour 1995:22 – 28) – vocabulary building – or the ‘theoretical scaffolding’ of guattari. the first category of tasks scientists must set to work should aim to obtain a “mobilisation of the world” that traverses all the disciplines. each discipline should mobilise the world in a certain way through the instruments used: laboratory equipment, instruments of observation, opinion surveys, questionnaires, diagrams, texts, interpretative strategies, an so forth. this multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 131 enterprise of mobilising the world constitutes a solid part of scientific activity and firmly situates scientists regarding their function and role in society. the second horizon or part of activities is totally different and is about the “creation of colleagues” or the “autonomisation of research”, which means the mobilisation of people who are capable of understanding what one is doing and saying. those who are able to understand are also those who are able to attack, to criticise and to engage in sensible debate. these colleagues are those who are able to detest but also able to read and to evaluate. this kind of community is indispensable for the best possible science. creating an autonomous world of science and research demands much work such as identifying suitable and interested colleagues and organising them in new professions, establishing institutions, and creating journals. different capacities are required than are required for the first horizon. one is not born a scientist but one becomes one. the third horizon requires a third type of capacity: “strategic [inventive] intelligence”. it concerns the alliances with people that one can use to realise the preceding operations, namely the mobilisation of the world and autonomisation of colleagues and institutional activities. this is a category of activities clearly distinct from the previous two, and includes the justification of autonomous institutions and professions, promising and motivating the significance and the usefulness of one’s endeavours in order to obtain the necessary means and mobilising important resources and gathering financial support for the scientific enterprise among those who may not be easily persuaded like government officials, military figures, medical representatives, educational leaders, environmental activists, and business and other interest groups. the fourth horizon is about the activities that are applicable to public relations in general, of the product of scientific activity in general and the solution to problems that can sometimes be extremely delicate and which are born from the contradictions between the other three horizons and this one. it relates to public relations, ideological convictions, personal convictions, and matters of impact. confidence in scientific work must be constructed. all great disciplines are familiar with these problems: evolutionism, pasteurisation, genetics are examples of enormous but also highly problematic and even questionable impact. these four horizons are mostly studied separately which does not facilitate the development of a global understanding of problems and even less to the invention of solutions to these problems. for this reason a fifth horizon is required that can establish links and connections. latour is explicit: are ideas towards changing and inventing of a scientific, administrative, technological or industrial nature? not any one of them but all of them at the same time. “it is impossible to give correct account of scientific ideas if one detaches them from the network of relations in which they take up meaning in order to give account of themselves. therefore the importance of giving full credit (light) to concepts. far from developing a disinterest in concept let us learn to consider the concept for what it is: a strategic [inventive] entity. this is what allows to remain interested in and keep a hold on one’s world” (latour 1995:27-28). this absolutely crucial matter is often forgotten: it is about the contents of scientific activity, these famous contexts and these famous ideas … these contents play an essential role of linking and connecting the previous four horizons. these ideas and these concepts are strong enough to link even more horizons and as such are opening the way to inventions. they are not isolated in their knot but remain linked to what they connect. these ideas and concepts enable all mobilised actors to be held together and to act together. this emphasises the importance of vocabulary building but also the idea of guattari of ‘theoretical scaffolding’. do de beer 132 not forget the deeply significant insights of stengers and schlanger (1991) and schlanger (1983) into concepts and invention. language is of fundamental importance to excel in scientific work and inventive activities. poverty of language guarantees scientific impoverishment. 2.4 the route of a position beyond-method, or, a set of paradigmatic conditions (edgar morin) it is of vital importance to keep morin in mind when invention is at stake. his six major books on the method deal with the following themes: the nature of nature, the life of life, the knowledge of knowledge, the ideas: their habitat, life, morals and organisation (noology and noosphere), humans (the humanity of humanity), and ethics are integrated and not separated and isolated items – they are interweaved! that links up with his pertinent views on paradigm from which authentic knowledge can emerge. what is this view? it remains important to realise that the inclination to ignore or to deny complexity of the real will cut us off from any real possibility of invention. simplified reality offers extremely limited scope for invention, for the new … anything new. re-enchantment is for all practical purposes ruled out of the equation. edgar morin’s guidance in this respect of a beyond-method, as worked out in the six volumes, is crucial. all these exciting themes mentioned above are interconnected in various ways and are organised around the central notion of method and that makes them even more exciting and inspiring. he stated firmly: “we are in need of a method of knowledge that translates the complexity of the real, recognises the existence of beings, and approaches the mystery of things. … the method of complexity demands the conceptualisation of the relationship between order/disorder/organisation; the refusal to reduce phenomena to their constitutive elements, nor to isolate them from their environments; the rejection of the dissociation of the problem of the knowledge of nature from the nature of knowledge.” (morin 1977: 3–4, own translation). this, he says, is “the voyage to the search for a mode of thought that would respect the multi-dimensionality, the richness, the mystery of the real and that would know that the cerebral, cultural, social and historical determinations that subject all thought co-determine the objects of knowledge. this is what i call complex thinking.” (morin 1980:10, own translation). according to him it is self-evident that a rejection of these “a-methodical” or “beyond-methodical” approaches would lead to “a pathology of knowledge” that materialises in the increase of ignorance and in the mutilation of knowledge." (morin 1986:13–14, own translation). equally crucial is his work on paradigm (already explicitly emphasised in the previous chapter), especially his focus on "the science of the knowing mind, or noology" that is capable of dealing with what he calls the “paradigmatic knot” as the space or place where “the multi-determined character of knowledge finds expression which has its determinations in the individual, anthropological, noological, socio-cultural and psychoanalytical structures of the knowing mind” (morin 1983:11–12: see also morin 2008:236). morin’s views on paradigm should be kept in mind. it is not in line with the generally accepted superficial understanding of paradigm as merely referring to the different approaches of method such as empiricism and constructivism. his idea of paradigm is the following: “all knowledge operates through the selection of meaningful data and the rejection of data that are not meaningful. … these operations, which use logic, are in reality driven by “supralogical” principles of organization of thought, or paradigms: the hidden multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 133 principles that govern our perception of things and of the world, without our being conscious of them.” (morin 2008:2) what exactly is this noology to which paradigm is linked? it is a play with ideas, a play of ideas; it is a matter of linking and connecting ideas and of allowing ideas to emerge, to appear, to become active. according to morin, it is a move into the sphere of ideas – the noosphere (cf morin 1991). what needs to be mentioned is that this noosphere is not an abstract, totally inaccessible domain. no, it is close by; it is here, precisely here where we, all of us – in our sciences and in our practices – are working and thinking. it links and connects science and services in order to become a forceful energy in the transformation and informatisation of society! without this strong connection both science and service come to nothing. we cannot avoid it; we cannot escape from it. it is explored by morin (1990) under ‘the methodology of complexity’ where he describes a noological situation beyond-method. noology is the human thought capacity to come to terms with the two essential and very complex dimensions of the knowable, namely the measurable and the immeasurable (or even the measureless) (bernardis & hagene 1995). these two dimensions (or two worlds), and the necessity to keep them linked in an intricate way, are well articulated by a number of scientists from a diversity of so-called scientific disciplines: monod (1979) (biologist), weizenbaum (1984) (computer scientist), atlan (1986) (biologist), ekeland (1988) (mathematician), wersig (1990) (information scientist) and serres (1995) (philosopher). many more can be added to this list. this new reform also represents a new vision. it opens up new epistemological perspectives. two worlds, or rather, two visions of the world, confront each other: the one inherited from modernity and of a classical vision of science; the other, a rupture from modernity and inseparable from new developments in science (thermodynamics, microphysics, astrophysics) (morin 1977:95). here follows a brief summary of fortin’s fine overview of morin’s work (2008:54) in terms of these two visions of the world. the first is founded on the ideas of order, determinism, necessity, clarity, certainty and measurement; the second is founded on the unity of order and disorder, on the impossibility of eliminating uncertainty, ambiguity, chance and risk. two related and interdependent visions of the world, united by a common trunk (the progress of science and the progress of thought), but incapable of letting dialogue and communication emerge between them. the six volumes of “the method” is not an indictment against science, but is an effort on behalf of science, as an open, non-reductive, reflexive and self-critical, and even a-critical science. it is a road, a voyage which is the search for a way of thinking capable to confront the complexity of the real, able to recognize the wealth and the mystery of the real, and to respect the multidimensionality of physical, biological, social, cultural, cerebral determinations that all knowledge and all thought undergo. of this we find ample demonstrations in library material and collections. the method is a kind of spiral movement which crosses and explores different territories in crossing and exploring different knowledges in order to make communicate which does not communicate, but must communicate: phusis, bios and anthropos. they are, all of them, connected. this calls for a re-organization in the chain of knowledge, which calls for a constant combat and a struggle against all modes of disjunctive, reductive, and simplifying thought. the first enemy of complexity is simplification: reductive, idealist, atomizing, totalizing, systemic and cybernetic. it is this enemy that morin, through the whole of the method, tries to track down in assuring the betting for the “transformation of his conviction about complexity into a method of complexity” (morin 1980:457). and this method, if it can formulate itself, can only formulate itself at the end, because method is road, a road not de beer 134 traced in advance, as we do as a matter of habit, but a road which makes itself or is made, in the process of marching or walking (fortin 2008:88–89). this approach is morin’s way of avoiding the abstract, one-dimensional view, the principles of disjunction, reduction and abstraction that constitutes the “paradigm of simplification”. “this paradigm has dominated the adventure of western thought since the seventeenth century. it has without doubt made great progress in scientific knowledge and in philosophic reflection possible. its ultimate noxious consequences did not begin to become clear until the twentieth century.”(morin 2008:3). the problem is that the principle of disjunction isolates the three main branches of scientific knowledge, namely physics, biology and the human sciences in such a radical way in terms of disciplinary arrangements of specialisation that it ultimately deprives science of knowing itself and reflecting on itself. this simplification automatically leads to another simplification, namely simplifying reality by tearing up and fragmenting the complex fabric of reality to such an extent that scientific knowledge necessarily built its rigour on measurement and calculation. the ultimate consequence is the destruction of unities, totalities and complexities, or, what morin calls “blind intelligence”. blind intelligence misses the necessary connection of objects to their environments, of problems to other problems, of observers to what they observe, of humans to human sciences and of spirit to the sciences of spirit. the consequence for morin is that “we are approaching an unprecedented mutation of knowledge. knowledge is less and less made to be reflected upon and discussed by human minds or intelligences, and it is more and more made to be imprinted in memory banks and manipulated by anonymous powers, particularly by nation states, and economists of knowledge. it blocks all possible roads to invention. “this new, massive and prodigious ignorance is itself ignored by scientists.” (op. cit.:4) and the consequence: “whereas the media produces mass ignorance, the university produces high ignorance.”(ibid.). but moreover: “unfortunately, this mutilating, one-dimensional vision is taking a cruel toll on human phenomena. the mutilation wounds flesh, spills blood, spreads suffering. … the inability to conceive of the complexity of anthroposocial reality [that certainly includes noology and the noosphere] … has led us to infinite tragedies and is leading us to supreme tragedy.” (op. cit.:5). to avoid catastrophes, the final dis-enchantment of the world, and the ultimate fatal consequences of stupidity and ignorance “it is essential to first become aware of the nature and the consequences of paradigms that mutilate knowledge and disfigure reality” (op.cit:3), and embrace paradigms that honours knowledge, reality, human spirituality and the spirit of invention. 2.5 heuretics the solid focus on invention, or, a set of euretic conditions (ulmer/tschumi) the core here is that language of reason and language of madness (unreason) when combined in unexpected ways may create something new. this complementary view, that relates unrelated, and according to many unrelatable areas, ideas, and forms, is well-developed by gregory ulmer in a number of publications, the latest of which is his internet invention (2003). apart from his very illuminating exploration of the value of beuys and kandinsky for the learning of inventiveness (see ulmer 1985 and de beer 2008 in this regard), he devotes much attention, perhaps not adequately acknowledged, to the role of the electronic media in cultivating inventiveness. as a matter of fact the very idea of a knowledge society is in a direct sense linked to the impact of electronic media developments on the creation, dissemination and utilization of knowledge. his development of what he calls a ‘teletheory’ with the emphasis on theoretical developments for the age of the video is extremely relevant here. (ulmer 1989). in line with multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 135 this he also proposes ‘heuretics’ as “the use of theory to invent forms and practices, as distinct from ‘hermeneutics’ which uses theory to interpret existing work” (ulmer 2003:4-5). internet invention concerns how the new technologies might affect our working conditions and teaching practices [and certainly also learning experiences], and what we might do to reduce the negative aspects and enhance the positive. according to his understanding “the one negentropic force in the world is human intelligence (creativity): we should consider this moment as a time for invention.” (ibid.) we encounter problems, crises, catastrophes. how to deal with them in the context of these views is the significant question that must be attended to. “in conventional consulting, the founding assumption is that problems, or the people who are in a position to do something about problems, are tractable by means of reason, rational argument and authenticated evidence. there is, of course, overwhelming evidence to the contrary … having to do with the political dimension of social reality [but also with the inexhaustible nature of reality as such] but consulting persists just the same way because there seems to be no other way, no alternative for the delivery of knowledge to problems. given this presupposition, that every manner of problem-solving at work – every mode of application of knowledge to living – is inadequate, insufficient, requiring supplementation, how should we then work ourselves? it relates to the question: how to deliver disciplinary knowledge to the public at the site of the greatest need, at the site of confrontations, catastrophes, problems in the life world. the task is: to find a means to utter more than we know, to reflect on what emerges out of the accidents and on the margins of our arguments, to see if we can learn how to make sense [ and to do it collectively].(ulmer 1990:161). tschumi shows us the design of a possible alternative, however, and he calls it ‘madness’ (folie). his madness is an alternative procedure for bringing materials into relation with one another, which is to say it is an alternative logic. we aim, he writes, to consider the architect first as a formulator, an inventor of relations. (see ulmer 1990: 167)…. tschumi’s plans ‘to encourage cultural invention’ show the structure of relations that produce invention. invention tends to occur when unrelated areas, ideas, or forms come together in unexpected ways. it implies the dismantling of institutional conventions. the example of psychoanalysis/delirium can certainly be complemented with examples from prophesy and poetry where phantasm, imagination and reverie plays a major role in envisioning and inventing the new, new ways of thinking about the world, the real, socius and society, and about being human and possible human futures. in view of the problem with problem-solving as sketched above and complementary to tschumi’s way of approaching this dilemma ulmer (2003) also articulates in a special way an additional approach: “an [inventional consultant] egent treats a public issue not as “problem” but as “aporia”. the difference is that conventional consultants look for that aspect of social difficulties that lend itself to pragmatic solutions, while inventional consultants (for the newcoined french word ‘egents’) might look at the same difficulties but call attention to that in them which is impossible. most of the theorists in our repertoire, as summed up by heidegger, consider the human condition itself to be aporetic, irreparable. the “impossible” dimension refers to this limit-condition…” (ulmer 2003:299). the socio-material reality of the total environment in which we live is so complex and comprehensive that it resists our projects of problem-solving and the limited knowledge and means that these efforts are based on with disastrous consequences. ulmer (2003:300) makes it explicit: “the collective disaster helps reveal the individual “foolishness” (or vice versa). the theory is that any practical de beer 136 solution to the breakdown or disasters in the civic realm is limited finally by two other dimensions of disaster that calculative thinking neglects: the ultimate limitation of human capacity at the macro level of cosmology; and the fundamental incompleteness – the wound – of individual identity. the goal of this exercise is to test the affective capacity of the wide image precisely in its nature as “wide” – its ability to mediate your relation to world situations outside your biography.” this certainly reminds us of the explicit views expressed by laszlo (1989) on ‘the inner limits of humankind’ and the vital importance of coming to terms with this phenomenon as a severely limiting factor in the invention of solutions to human problems. we have to move beyond calculative thinking and its disastrous limitations and beyond personal biographies and its fatal consequences in order to reach the real core of the issues involved like the full scope of ‘the total environment’ in which we live, the depth of the reality of ‘world situations’ that go far beyond our personal and even collective boundaries. the logic of the problem and problem-solving as a possibility should be put in tension with the essential presence of aporia and its impossibilities, ‘the impossibilities that refers to the limit-condition which is a condition of ‘there is no way out’ (ausweglos of heidegger). where we encounter aporia, defined as “the point at which the problematic task becomes impossible and where we are exposed to, absolutely without protection, without problem, and without prosthesis, without possible substitution…in this place of aporia, there is no longer any problem … only ‘barred paths’, ‘i am stuck’, ‘i am helpless’ (as synonyms for aporia) (derrida 1993:12, 13). the aporia is a promise for an alternative logic (that reminds of the alternative logic of guattari with the emphasis on the fact that we cannot afford to stick to one kind of logic given the scope and complexity and disappearance of the real). derrida (1986:134) writes: “i believe that we would misunderstand [aporia] if we tried to hold it to its most literal meaning: an absence of path, a paralysis before road-blocks, the immobilization of thinking, the impossibility of advancing, a barrier blocking the future. on the contrary it seems to me that the experience of the aporia, … gives or promises the thinking of the path, provokes the thinking of the very possibility of what still remains unthinkable or unthought, indeed, impossible. the figures of rationality are profiled and outlined in the madness of the aporetic” (derrida 1986:134). the ‘madness of the aporetic’ reminds of tschumi’s fascination with the language of the mad in order to create a gap for invention. in a recent publication badiou (2015) in a book ‘on the search for lost reality’ emphasises that the ‘impossibility of the real’ is not at all hopeless, but it needs a different kind of approach, perhaps an inventive approach in the sense invention is used here: “today we must be convinced that in spite of the disasters and the deaths that thought imposes on us, the search for this that is real in the real can be, and is, a joyful passion” (badiou 2015:60). with regard to the inventive or euretic classroom: it does something other than convey and receive precise messages – the ‘normal’ processes of communication. it is concerned with inference rather than communication. a course is designed to create gaps in texts – in the totality of information – and to provide the means, designs and rhetoric to fill these gaps. that is the function of composition. as bernard stiegler (2009:72) emphasises, we are in a natural sense inclined to oppose things instead of composing them. the result of such a decomposition is diabolic and as such a very dangerous strategy of disturbance and disintegration in the context of learning as well as teaching in the knowledge society. compositional thinking is in line with the new image of thought explored and promoted by gilles deleuze and offers as such an absolute condition for inventiveness. multiple, connective intellection and invention td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 122-140. 137 the inventive or euretic assignment derives a basic principle of composition from alice in wonderland: the appropriation of alice (or some other now mythical figure) as an organisational principle, as though alice were a kind of index or mnemonic system. these figures are neither symbol nor allegory: they are inventio and memoria. (cf deleuze 1990 on sense and non-sense, in a book devoted to or at least inspired by alice in wonderland). with regard to the student of euretics, the student who really wants to invent: how can students use this formula for encounters in wonderland in order to liberate, organise and mobilise any amount of information, any terrain of knowledge? the point at issue is not the specific content of a package; the point is that the holders or possessors of the information are the ones who unpack it. the student as reader is confronted with the totality of information or with a specific amount of it; this happens in the euretic classroom, which provides the area or space for inventive encounters. students compose a scene out of the items – a mnemonic scene – or they dramatize an event, depict a place, bearing in mind throughout that the procedure is also a method of inventiveness, a manner of writing, a theoretical experiment. what this article therefore proposes is that the euretic classroom should trade reproduction for inventiveness, strict methodology (dogmatic thinking) for a theoretical indulgence in hobbies (anti-method), sterile memorisation for playful writing, and stark and dull research for the entrance into the gardens of wonderland. (ulmer 1991, de beer 2008). all this calls for intellectual exercise according to the new perception of thinking, also called intellection; in other words, mobility between a thousand plateaus and through multiples of multiplicity. but … “learning to think: our schools no longer have any idea what this means” (nietzsche). this stratum of meaning simply has to be restored to our students (schools). our competence to do so depends on the extent to which we are still victims of the dogmatic perception of thought or intellect (for a comprehensive exposition of the dogmatic image of thought see deleuze 1994:129-167). we conclude with deleuze’s sketch of an alternative new image of thought, into which students need to be inducted or introduced: “empedocles and his volcano – this is an anecdote of a thinker. the height of summits and caves, the labyrinths; mid-day – mid-night; the halcyon aerial element and also the element of the subterranean. it is up to us to go to extreme places, to extreme times, where the highest and the deepest truths live and rise up. the places of thought are the tropical zones frequented by the tropical man, not temperate zones or the moral, methodical or moderate man” (deleuze, 1983:110). that is the domain or space of the inventive or of the euretic experience, the space in which new knowledge emerge on a regular scale! 3 conclusion from these five theoretico-practical explorations, with a view to their significance for the invention of solutions to vital life-important solutions to threatening problems we derive the following suggestions: they are interconnected and complementary and active and relevant far beyond disciplinary boundaries and should be reflected upon as such. three crucial terms should be embraced wholeheartedly, do we really wish to be inventive in the context of the threats, catastrophes, disenchantment, and stupidity regarding environmental, socio-cultural and spiritually individual settings of a disenchanted world: multiple/multiplicity; connectivity/compositionality; intelligence/spirituality. they are essential to all five routes towards or sets of conditions necessary for inventive endeavours, each time in a unique and singularly different way. de beer 138 and these three terms tie the five routes or sets of conditions (acritical, ecosophic, noological, irreductionistic, euretic) together into a strong unique comprehensive scope that include the multiple richness of the real in all its facets and dimensions and the wealthy capacity of human inventive capabilities. the challenge of complying with these sets of conditions requires a strong focus on and willingness towards wholeheartedly embracing human spirituality and a complementary keenness for the learning to invent. 4 bibliography atlan, h. 1986. entre le cristal et la fumée : essai sur l’organisation du vivant. paris: seuil. badiou, a. 2015. à la recherche du réel perdu. paris: fayard. bernardis, m-a. & hagene, b. 1995. mesures et 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conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) nicholas pinfold department of town and regional planning, faculty of informatics and design, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa masilonyane mokhele department of town and regional planning, faculty of informatics and design, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation pinfold, n. & mokhele, m., 2020, ‘bridging the gap between technical and social competencies of urban and regional planning through mobile technology: the case of cape peninsula university of technology’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a811. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.811 note: special collection: mobile technology within the 4ir era africa answering the call. original research bridging the gap between technical and social competencies of urban and regional planning through mobile technology: the case of cape peninsula university of technology nicholas pinfold, masilonyane mokhele received: 13 jan. 2020; accepted: 09 june 2020; published: 06 aug. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract higher education institutions are entrusted with the responsibility of training future workforces that are well equipped to function in the age of the 4th industrial revolution (4ir). this role is pertinent in light of growing concerns that with the advent of 4ir, mobile technology and robotics would take over certain roles that are currently performed by humans. using the case of goedverwacht community service-learning project in the western cape province of south africa, this paper demonstrates ways in which mobile technology is embraced and applied in urban and regional planning education at cape peninsula university of technology (cput). the purpose of the service-learning collaboration between the goedverwacht community and cput was to produce a spatial map depicting property boundaries so that the community could, amongst others, be ready for the imminent land tenure reform processes. with the input and guidance of community members, the map was compiled through the use of mobile and allied technology, including global positioning system-enabled smartphones, drones and mobile geographic information system. keywords: community mapping; mobile technology; community service-learning; fourth industrial revolution; cape peninsula university of technology. introduction there are concerns around the world that with the advent of the much-vaunted fourth industrial revolution (4ir), certain roles that are performed by humans would diminish and ultimately cease to exist in the economic system (schwab 2017). the basis of the fear is that, on the horizon, some duties would be fulfilled efficiently with the application of mobile technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and/or associated technologies. in light of the high unemployment rate in south africa,1 this concern brings to the fore the role of higher education institutions, which are entrusted with the responsibility of equipping the future workforce with skills that are relevant in the era of 4ir. despite the unquestionable importance of education in instilling the requisite knowledge, there is a lack of literature that discusses ways in which south african higher education institutions embrace and incorporate mobile technology in teaching and learning activities. towards at least in part filling this gap, the aim of this article is to present elementary ways in which mobile technology is embraced in urbanand regional planning education at cape peninsula university of technology (cput). reflecting the importance of urban and regional planning amidst high level of unemployment in south africa, town planning technicians represent one of the scarce skills of highest demand in the country (republic of south africa 2018). this implies that in the age of rapid technological changes, planners have to be innovative, adaptive and agile towards meeting the developmental needs of the country. in relation to 4ir, urban and regional planning represent a particularly relevant discussion platform given that it is an interdisciplinary profession that incorporates technical and soft or social competencies. it is widely argued that one of the key steps towards improved planning processes is the generation and the use of accurate data (bracken 2014; duminy, odendaal & watson 2014; hao, zhu & zhong 2015), which the paper argues can be enhanced through the application of mobile technology. the social competencies revolve around the ability of planners to communicate and collaborate with various stakeholders involved in development processes, especially the communities (see duminy et al. 2014) for whom planning is carried out. it is in this context that this article argues that a fusion of technical and social facets of urban and regional planning is essential. the nexus between technical and social competencies of urban and regional planning presented in this article is at least in part influenced by communicative theory of planning, which is also known as collaborative planning. this theory is based on an understanding that urban and regional planning is not merely a technical exercise but a process that should be cognisant of particular context and circumstances (social, political, economic, environmental, etc.) of the communities. in this way, planning is understood to be driven by processes of communication and collaboration wherein planners are mediators and not the so-called experts in development processes (for instance, see healey 1997; innes & booher 2010). in order to realise the aim of the paper stated above, the discussion explores interconnections between community service-learning and community mapping – specifically revolving around the application of geographic information system (gis), global positioning system (gps), remote sensing, drone technology and smartphone data-capturing techniques. as a form of community–university partnership, community service-learning grants students an opportunity to work closely with communities on projects that would benefit the communities, whilst students simultaneously learn in the process. it is widely acknowledged that community service-learning contextualises knowledge acquisition by giving students an opportunity to become well versed in society’s problems (conner & erikson 2017; hall 2010; petersen & osman 2017; thomson et al. 2011). service-learning exposes students to community issues first hand, instead of only being informed about them within the confines of a classroom. this article argues that this form of teaching and learning is crucial for developing the social competencies that are central in urban and regional planning. synonymous with community-based planning, community mapping encourages synergism between communities, government and other stakeholders towards understanding the status quo (e.g. social, spatial and environmental) and aspirations of communities. the process lends itself towards the concept of subsidiarity wherein community members are directly responsible for managing their needs (carra 2018). community mapping offers activism platform where citizens are mobilised to lobby for better services (kalandides 2018) and give their view on developmental issues. an important aspect of community mapping is risk analysis, which in the context of this article requires up-to-date socio-spatial data to aid the land tenure reform processes. it is well known that formal land administration system in south africa does not accommodate non-formal land rights arrangements employed in communal areas and informal settlements (hornby et al. 2017). this gap results in a lack of reliable, land-related information, which adversely affects planning in such areas. accordingly, residents in communal areas of south africa do not know the legal and institutional arrangements that inform land tenure reform in their communities and have no platform to enquire or voice their concerns. often, locals are adversely affected when development decisions are taken on their behalf, causing uncertainty and tension amongst community members (cousins & pollard 2017; hornby et al. 2017). communication that is part of grassroots community mapping is thus meant to ensure that people are informed about policies and various processes that may have an impact on their livelihoods. against this backdrop, this article uses the case study of goedverwacht mission station (community-based mapping and service-learning) initiative to demonstrate how mobile technology was used as a foundation for equipping students with the elementary skills needed in the 4ir era. following this introductory note, the next section provides a brief overview of the fundamentals of the technology that this article is based upon, followed by the declaration of ethics-related matters. the penultimate section presents the goedverwacht mission station community-based mapping project, followed by concluding remarks. mobile and allied technology as a preamble to the initiative that is the subject of this article, this section overviews the underlying technology, namely, gis, gps and remote sensing. geographic information system technology geographic information system software consists of a broad range of applications but essentially entails a combination of two environments, namely, geo-referenced data and digital maps. geographic information system data sets can be compiled in accordance with the user’s desired outcome through analysing, managing, visualising and creating data. in this way, gis serves as the collective point for data manipulation according to the user’s desired outcome (gimond 2019). the power of gis lies in its ability to perform spatial analysis, which is a process that deals with the quantification of patterns observed in a gis environment. the main purpose of spatial analysis is to understand the relationship, trends and patterns between geographic features (erica, nelson & greenough 2016). knowing the location and bearing of things, the proximity of objects or things, and the relationships between these allows for better-informed planning and decision-making. this allows for quicker responses to network changes, better prediction of events that can change the interconnected network parts, the ability to identify problems along the network, the identification of the location and number of ‘things’ (e.g. houses) impacted by an event, and, in essence, allows power to be re-instituted back into a community (hecht 2014). mobile gis is a tool specifically meant for spatial mapping and analysis using global navigation satellite system (gnss) (location and attributes). handheld gis computers (trimble nomad) are used to build geo-referenced gis databases of features in the field. this instrument has a differential gnss receiver with an accuracy of 1 m – 3 m in the horizontal (yx coordinates) and generally half or one-third of the yx accuracy in elevation (z), which is sufficient for mapping and spatial analysis but not for detailed design. mobile gis are designed for work in informal settlements and many other aspects where infrastructure planning needs geographic referencing with the use of gnss. such data are convertible to computer-aided design (cad) and gis formats for enabling spatial analysis and the compilation of cad or gis drawings or maps. global positioning system technology global positioning system technology is a satellite-based navigation system made up of 24 satellites situated 20 000 km above the earth’s surface. this gps technology is freely available to anyone who has a gps or gnss receiver. the gps receiver uses a radio signal broadcast from gps satellites to determine its position. global positioning system is the most widely used mobile technology for determining locations (zandbergen & barbeau 2011). generally, there are three types of gps receivers: recreational, mapping and surveying. recreational gps receivers use course acquisition (ca) to determine its position with a horizontal accuracy of 5 m – 10 m. mapping receivers use ca code and differential pseudo-range correction to achieve a horizontal positional accuracy of 0.5 m – 1 m. surveying receivers are able to achieve a sub-centimetre horizontal positional accuracy because they use carrier phases of multiple frequencies to model atmospheric error (parker 2015). both mapping and surveying gps receivers rely on differential correction to achieve the suggested horizontal positional accuracies. differential correction utilises two or more gps receivers. one receiver is stationary at a known position (referred to as the base), and the other mobile (referred to as the rover). the base receiver calculates the difference between the calculated location and its actual location to define the error at that specific time (dibiase 2014). the correction is applied to the roving receiver’s position on the instant, either in real time or by post-processing. the south african government has invested a great deal in the establishment of permanent gnss base stations in the country known as trignet. trignet post-processed data are freely available for downloading on the internet (combrinck, merry & wonnacott 2003). a limitation in using gps is that gps signal cannot penetrate where a solid object obstructs the view of the sky and therefore can only provide limited location information inside a building. mobile phones and tablets are now able to use gps for location-based services (lbs). assisted gps (a-gps) utilises information provided by the cellular network to aid the gps receiver to calculate an accurate position more quickly (zandbergen & barbeau 2011). global positioning system using a mapping receiver is needed for establishing ground control points (gcps) when using remote sensing unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) imagery for data collection. remote sensing unmanned aerial vehicle imagery a uav mounted with a professional-level camera and gimbal mounting is becoming a popular option for low-cost remote sensing. uav provides a way to map features that are inaccessible by conventional mapping methods. the concern lies in producing a true digital orthophoto map using uav images, especially when mapping undulating terrain. it is important that sufficient ground control points (gcps) be established throughout the mapping area to correct geometric distortions that occur as a result of tilt in the camera angles. ground control points are beacons or targets on the surface of the earth that are coordinated using instrumentation such as gps. coordinates are required at the centre of each gcp to improve the global accuracy of the map. ethical matters the initiative that this article is based upon was not designed as a research project but was purely conceived as a community service-learning effort. as per the requirements of cput, the initiative was registered by the university as a service-learning project, although research ethics clearance was not applied for. the reason for not applying for ethics clearance was that, as noted above, the initiative was not conceived as a research project that would be reported on. therefore, to overcome potential ethical concerns, certain information pertaining to the project is not disclosed herein, such as the names and the photographs of community members and students, and images of the project’s output. this article merely reports on the utilisation of mobile technology as part of teaching and learning methods intended to at least in part acquaint and prepare students for the era of 4ir. goedverwacht mission station project as alluded to in the introduction, this article is based on the goedverwacht moravian mission station community service-learning project, which was spearheaded by cput’s department of town and regional planning and the community of goedverwacht. consisting of approximately 500 families, goedverwacht is a communal settlement located in the western cape province of south africa, about 150 km north of cape town. the area is under the trusteeship of the minister of land affairs in terms of the rural areas act of 1987. this arrangement implies that the community does not fall under the jurisdiction of bergrivier local municipality, and the municipality is therefore not responsible for planning, development and provision of services in goedverwacht. although the residents of goedverwacht do not have secure legal tenure (i.e. individual title deeds) for the properties they occupy, they have long-term guarantee of rights, administered by the moravian church. to date, the south african legal system does not provide for the registration of individual rights to land that is predominantly based on shared use. records of land rights in communal areas are usually kept by the community leadership and they are not necessarily recorded in a formal manner or in black and white. thus, close consultation with community members is essential for establishing the nature and extent of the rights of individuals in communal areas. in some instances, one person does not have sole rights to a piece of land but shares it with other people who claim different rights at different times. only once the nuances of multiple land rights are uncovered can an accurate assessment be made and a way forward on sustainable land tenure reform be established. goedverwacht project thus attempted a form of community-led land rights enquiry (through a mapping process) before the imminent formal processes. as discussed hereunder, the enormity of mapping community assets was greatly reduced with the use of mobile technology. at least 166 third-year students (completing a 3-year national diploma in town and regional planning) participated in the project over a 5-year period (i.e. between 2014 and 2018). with the initiative largely related to mapping, the project activities were logically linked to a technology-related subject named ‘geographic information systems’. the subject deals with the fundamentals of geospatial information, including the application of spatial concepts and spatial analysis. in the subject, students are exposed to hands-on application of commercial gis software in order to be able to operate in various environments after graduating. practical exercises in this regard require a significant commitment of time and attention in managing geospatial projects. to encourage the spirit and culture of collaboration, students are in some instances expected to complete the projects in groups. all in all, the subject is intended to prepare students as, amongst others, the so-called planning technicians (working in government and non-governmental sectors) because it is considered as a scarce skill of highest demand in south africa (refer to the introduction). as a transdisciplinary initiative, goedverwacht service-learning project involved students and academic staff from other departments of cput, namely, the department of construction management and quantity surveying and the department of management and project management. the transdisciplinary aspects of the project are discussed in detail elsewhere (mokhele & pinfold 2020), and, thus not covered herein given that the focus of the research is specifically on the use of mobile technology by urban and regional planning students. nonetheless, students from different departments worked on the project in groups varying from 12 to 24 members wherein one group per week visited the community. the project intended to bridge the gap between technical and social competencies of students using mobile technology to combine communication with cadastral mapping at an accuracy fit for purpose. as noted earlier, the process was intended to prepare the community for the imminent, government-driven land reform process, which would aid the community to transition from customary land administration to a formal one. given that the goedverwacht community did not have a basic map that showed, amongst others, an existing layout of the settlement, it was expected that the project would produce a status quo map that depicted land-use patterns, general property boundaries and other community assets. the main focus of the mapping was to establish a sense of place rather than the precision of cadastral boundaries. during the mapping process, reciprocal learning was encouraged between students and community members regarding information on land policy, policymaking and the availability and location of community assets. bridging the gap between the elementary technical knowledge and social competencies enabled the students to reach members of the community without excluding anyone. using mobile technology to gather qualitative and quantitative spatial data at an accuracy fit for purpose provided a quick response to community needs. the mobile technology component of the goedverwacht project had three closely inter-related objectives: to implement a service-learning project that incorporates teaching methods to prepare urban and regional planning students to function in the age of 4ir. the service-learning project involved determination of property boundaries and attribute data captured in a gis. to build a gis database that emulates a land information system incorporating both technical knowledge and social competencies. to communicate with residents using mobile technology to identify community assets. these objectives are elaborated next. teaching and learning (community service-learning) methods integrating service-learning into the giss subject involved a three-pronged approach encompassing planning, operation and evaluation phases. the planning phase included obtaining consent from the community, followed by requisite approvals from the university. once approvals had been obtained, the student timetable was adjusted to ensure that the proposed service-learning activities would not overburden the students. the operational phase focused on student learning and reflection. reflection involved self-evaluation including the involvement of peers, academic staff and the community. during reflective sessions, students got extended feedback and were able to deliberate on their experiences and develop an understanding of new and challenging situations. by engaging in this questioning process, students were able to recognise and articulate their learning. the service-learning element ensured a clear and constructive alignment between the outcomes of the subject (i.e. developing and improving the application of technology) with its implementation (practising technology through teaching and collaborating in a community setting). the evaluation phase involved discussions with community partners, students and university structures to determine the extent the community, students and academic staff benefited from the project. the operational phase of the service-learning project entailed defining property boundaries from topographical features such as (wire) fences, boundary walls and hedges. these features were pointed out and clarified by community members during the students’ visit to the settlement. the students would immediately mark the features on a hard copy aerial photograph. where boundaries were not well defined and/or unmarked, and thus unobservable, residents assisted the students by verbally describing and sketching the approximate boundaries. students walked around the settlement and enquired with community members they came across. a hard copy aerial photograph of the settlement was used to kick-start the mapping process and collaboration with the residents. the aerial photograph was obtained from the national geo-spatial information in electronic format and printed on an a3 size to facilitate the discussion with community members. the initial process discussed above was followed by the application of ‘mobile gis’, which consisted of a mobile device, gis software and a gps receiver. before the project could commence, the mobile gis database required structuring in accordance with the project objectives. the students were tasked with setting up a gis data dictionary to guide data collection (see table 1). a data dictionary categorises data sets in the gis database. in doing so, both quantitative and qualitative data collection categories were planned so that the numerical aspects of space as well as the social significance of space could be captured. although the gis technology was traditionally used to collect and analyse objective data, it is increasingly being used to collect and analyse subjective data. the challenge for the students was to link geospatial data with local knowledge, which included human experiences, perceptions and emotions of space. mobile gis was used to document the information captured from the observation and discussions with community members, namely, boundary fences, buildings, roads, tracks, parks (and their amenities) and other types of assets. information relating to each asset was stored and included both quantitative and qualitative data. table 1: data dictionary for data collection. high-resolution satellite imagery was useful for settlement classification, but was not sufficiently accurate (clear) to identify general cadastral boundaries, such as fences, hedges and walls, so as to complement the community’s input above. to achieve the required accuracy, large-scale aerial photography was obtained using a quad-copter drone flown 100 m above ground level. the lecturer provided a demonstration to students on how to operate a drone. in their respective weekly groups, the students subsequently took turns to fly the drone under the supervision of the lecturer. the drone was wi-fi enabled, which means that it could broadcast the information captured directly to a smartphone of the lecturer. the device of the lecturer was used because of the cumbersome process for installing the application on a mobile phone. most students found the flight controller and smartphone applications easy to use. once the area had been flown, the imagery was downloaded by the lecturer onto the university gis workstations on campus. students were then required to perform an affine transformation using pre-marked control points to correct the geometric distortions of the image that occurred because of non-ideal camera angles and conflicting scale. the transformation error residuals obtained indicated the accuracy of the image and the quality of students’ work. the large-scale aerial photography required pre-marked gcps co-ordinated to sub-metre accuracy. the pre-marked gcps were used to minimise the scale distortion of the imagery when incorporated in gis. a gps receiver with differential correction capability was used to coordinate gcps at a sub-metre accuracy. mobile gis and gps were used for geo-referencing features and recording attribute data. the students used their smartphones to take geo-referenced terrestrial photographs, which were then added to the geo-database along with the spatial information and attributes (pinfold 2018). land information system students were required to use gis to build a land information system to document the cadastral data gathered. it was important that the land information system is easily accessible and up-to-date. three thematic maps were produced using gis: (1) a cadastral land-use map, (2) a building construction (top structure) map and (3) a ‘sense of place’ map. the work was completed in groups and submitted to the lecturer for formal assessment. the cadastral land-use map was colour coded to visualise settlement patterns. buildings on each property were then graded according to their completeness, exterior state and floor area, reflecting the character of top structures in goedverwacht. student emotions conjured up during community engagement were also documented, coded and spatially analysed to visualise a ‘sense of place’ from an outsider’s point of view. the purpose of this exercise was to teach students the value of technology in expressing the social sentiments of a community. communication with residents cadastral mapping involved communicating with goedverwacht residents regardless of their gender, status or class. students were asked to explore three mapping techniques: (1) participatory mapping, (2) cognitive mapping and (3) community mapping. participatory mapping involved obtaining the community’s information without the person (i.e. community member) being involved in the mapping process. cognitive mapping is a perception of space rather than a spatial map. this gives an understanding of the community’s views of space. cognitive mapping allows people to express their feelings about local conditions. finally, community mapping involved the community drawing sketches and diagrams of their settlement, which were subsequently converted (and refined) by students into a more legible format in gis. during the mapping process, students were able to communicate, describe and explain matters regarding land policy and land reform to the residents. the mapping enabled students to reach out to a wide range of households whilst making use of technology to document community assets. project output the output of the goedverwacht project was an interim cadastral plan that depicted land-use patterns, property boundaries and community assets such as community facilities. it is expected that the map can be used by the community to negotiate with government (and other stakeholders) in a bid for a community-driven solution to land tenure reform. notably, the accuracy of the demarcated boundaries (and the overall map) did not necessarily comply with the technical mapping guidelines, thus reducing unnecessary time and cost associated with the accuracy required for formal registration of properties. the property boundaries (and other elements of the map) were based on arrangements that have worked in the community for decades, instead of imposing what would be deemed technically logical or correct. because the map was derived at a grassroots level, all residents were given a chance to participate in the process despite their status, class, position, etc., in the community. the mapping process was particularly simplified so that the technical aspects of mapping did not restrict the participation of community members. during the mapping exercise, students were able to learn from the residents who in turn gained knowledge about land rights and security of tenure. the students were accordingly introduced to various aspects of mobile technology as a means of collecting and assembling data in the era of 4ir. conclusion through the case of goedverwacht community service-learning project, this article presented basic ways in which mobile technology is embraced and employed in urban and regional planning education at cput so as to prepare students for the age of 4ir. linking people to land and collecting multi-layered geospatial data were done using techniques and tools such as gps-enabled smartphones, drones, satellite imagery and mobile gis or gps (see also kakembo & van niekerk 2014). the use of application software designed to run on a mobile device and gis software configured for all users enabled non-technical (lay) community members to participate in the process. notably, community mapping allowed knowledge and information to be provided by non-specialists who were better able to express their challenges, needs, goals, aspirations and priorities. a community-driven participatory gis was used to manage data and provide residents with an opportunity to participate in development processes. with the input of community members, the project facilitated the gathering of geospatial information into a simple database and map, which can be updated regularly and be used by the community and other stakeholders for development planning purposes. the ultimate purpose of the mapping exercise was to establish cadastral boundaries at an accuracy that was not necessarily constrained by technical and legal requirements for formal land registration. an interim general plan (compiled with the community) would become the basis for facilitating planning that is flexible, dynamic and locally desirable. the geographic data were stored in arcgis computer program’s geo-database where it could be readily accessed and updated by the students and/or staff. the intention is to ultimately equip and empower community representatives with elementary gis and mobile technology skills so that they could view and update the database themselves as well as pass the knowledge to the fellow community members. the authors are optimistic that the foregoing elementary efforts will be built upon and embedded in urban and regional planning curricula so as to improve the intricate nexus between the social and technical aspects of the discipline in the age of 4ir and beyond. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the constructive comments of the reviewers and editorial team. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grants from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this 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19-35. on truth-telling and storytelling: truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture and a history of violent conflict ag velthuizen1 abstract the aim of this article is to propose some principles and practices for truth-seeking during research into violent conflict. to achieve this aim, an argument is deployed by analysing the theoretical concepts “truth”, “myth” and “oral culture” as sources of knowledge. this conceptual analysis precedes a discussion on community-based participatory research (cbpr) as a research methodology to access the knowledge of lived experiences embedded in the oral culture of the san community of platfontein, near kimberley, south africa. it was found that cbpr contains good practices to use in research to judge the probable truth about disputes. the cbpr process is ideal for determining the accuracy of data in the context of a specific culture, considering the norms, spiritual influences and personal considerations of knowledge-holders that accompany a unique cosmology. a variety and equity of worldviews and perspectives of what happened during violent conflict successfully challenges hegemonic power relationships, paradigms and narratives, ultimately leading to informed judgements of what is probably true about a conflict. cbpr with the san of platfontein revealed principles that can be used as guidelines for researching disputes where oral culture is involved. keywords: truth, myth, oral culture, cbpr, san, conflict, dispute introduction this article is not about “the truth shall set you free” and other clichés, but more about what tolstoy affirms: “there is only one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life, all else being beyond your power: that is to recognise and profess the truth.”2 the article is therefore inspired by the quest to find the truth about events of the past that informs the present and opens the mind to new possibilities and a better way of living. we should not hesitate to use “truth” to find and implement solutions leading to a better world. however, finding the truth is the challenge. the question that always remains is whether the truth we perceive is always “true” in all circumstances. finding the truth is even more of a 1 senior researcher in the institute for dispute resolution in africa, college of law, 2 tolstoy, l. 2008. the kingdom of god is within you. radford: wilder publications, p. 240. velthuizen 20 challenge if it is intentionally hidden or forgotten or manipulated. in the case of dramatic events, such as violent conflict, one may instinctively change the facts to make the experience acceptable to the listener which is always a challenge for research into violent conflict. in this regard, the san people of platfontein have much knowledge, gained over a long period, to share about the avoidance of conflict and dealing with violence.3 the journey with the san is part of a never-ending quest for knowledge that can bring about human development and understanding of the world in which we live. against this background the research problem arises: how do researchers process narratives from an oral culture such as that of the san to establish the truth about the causes, dynamics and consequences of violent conflict? to solve this problem, the article proposes some principles and practices for truth-seeking during research into violent conflict. in pursuit of this aim, it is argued that there are many perspectives on what happened during violent conflict. therefore a methodology is required that merges all valid perspectives into a body of knowledge that can be regarded as sufficiently truthful to be used for policy-making and the implementation of interventions. this argument is deployed by analysing the concepts “truth”, “myth” and “oral culture” as sources of knowledge. the conceptual analysis opens the way for a discussion on communitybased participatory research as a research methodology to access the knowledge of lived experiences embedded in an oral culture, in this case the san community of platfontein near kimberley in south africa. conceptual framework what is “the truth”? although there are many theories of truth, for the purpose of this article they can roughly be divided into correspondence theory, coherence theory and pragmatic theory. correspondence theory of truth correspondence theory has its foundation in the work of greek philosophers, mainly socrates, plato and aristotle. the basic argument is that the truth is an accurate description of things.4 plato claims that human intelligence is capable of reaching the spiritual, moral and educational essence of existence in the context of other elements.5 according to aristotle, underlying things (“pragmata”) render statements as fact or situations if they are logically structured.6 thomas aquinas emphasised conforming to reality as the foundation of truth; he 3 see the san dispute resolution oral archive http://uir.unisa.ac.za (restricted access) for research reports on the dispute resolution knowledge of the san. 4 prior, a.n. 1969.‘correspondence theory of truth’. in encyclopaedia of philosophy (2). london: macmillan, pp. 223–224. 5 ibid, 223. 6 david, m. 2005. ‘correspondence theory of truth’. in stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/ (accessed 25 september 2014). truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 21 claimed that truth is the application of the intellect to things. being or reality is the foundation of truth, which is found in the human mind, acquired through human senses, understanding, reason and judgement.7 in the context of this paper, these affirmations mean that truth-seeking after violent conflict requires complete accuracy of description in the context in which the conflict takes place. furthermore, if these suggestions are accepted, the truth is not only empirical, but subject to reflection and taking a certain position on what can be regarded as true. coherence theory of truth according to coherence theory8, truth requires a proper fit of elements into the whole. coherence implies more than logical consistency: it requires that propositions in a coherent system imply mutual support of each other. the completeness of a set of concepts is critical to validating the usefulness of a whole system. coherence may entail many true systems or one absolute system. one such coherent system was developed by the rationalist philosophers such as kant, spinoza and leibnitz. coherence systems are challenged because they cannot be justified by practicality. heidegger9 emphasised conforming to reality. however he was seeking to expand the notion of “correspondence truth”, pointing out that it is rooted in a more original or “primordial” truth, called aletheia, which is disclosure, unveiling and uncovering as condition for true correspondence and the ontological condition for assertions to be true or false. if the above propositions are analysed, they imply that empirical investigation is required at the place where the specific violent event took place. the “truth” can then be claimed when it is disclosed by participants in the event, or deliberately found through methods of investigation. if these discoveries are then placed in the context of a coherent system, they can be validated as truth. if read together with the requirement of correspondence (as suggested by the greek philosophers), to be valid truth requires not only coherence, but also accuracy and critical reflection of where the facts fit into the whole. pragmatic theory of truth pragmatists reject the notion of absolute truth and do not make metaphysical claims about the world, seeking to bridge the gap between correspondence theory and coherence theory. truth comes from experience and can only be verified by results if put into practice. charles pierce10, for instance, asserts that truth starts with an abstract concept that is then subjected to endless investigation, leading towards “scientific belief”. confession of inaccuracy or onesidedness is an essential ingredient of finding the truth. according to dewey,11 scientific, 7 prior, ibid, 224. 8 white, a.r. 1969. ‘coherence theory of truth’. in encyclopedia of philosophy. london: macmillan, p.130. 9 heidegger, m. 1972. on time and being. new york: harper & row, p.70. 10 pierce, c.s. 1901. ‘truth and falsity and error’. in j.m. baldwin (ed.), dictionary of philosophy and psychology (2, pp. 718–720. 11 bernstein, r.j. 1969. ‘dewey, john’. in encyclopedia of philosophy (2). london: macmillan, p.383. velthuizen 22 technical, sociological, philosophical and cultural inquiry is self-corrective if openly submitted for testing by a community of inquirers, during which clarification, justification, refinement or refutation take place. foucault12 is concerned with the way in which power positions affect views of realities. he asserts that power is a relationship between individuals and that relationships play a role in what is believed to be true. every human relationship is to some degree a power relationship or a perpetual strategic relationship.13 because of this relationship, there are multiple histories of the same events, but from different perspectives within different power relationships. foucault encourages people to reject dogmatic worldviews, and suggests that various forms of rationality are desirable to unsettle certitudes.14 however, a plethora of accounts of the same events poses the challenge of reflecting on everything.15 these assertions imply that to discover the truth after violent conflict requires extensive research covering a relatively long time, in order to gather all the perceptions of what happened and to validate data without rejecting any perspectives as “incorrect” because they do not fit into any dominant narrative or belief system. seeking the truth about violent conflict also requires sufficient time to allow for the discovery of accurate explanations in the space where it happened, to evaluate, analyse and reflect on all the perspectives and to judge where power relationships and continued strategic contests distort perspectives. myth myths are popularly defined as tales believed to be true, usually sacred, set in the distant past or other worlds or parts of the world, and with extra-human, non-human or heroic characters.16 however, myths can also be functional, as narratives that are formative or reflective of a social order or values within a culture. paul radin17 describes myth as a distinctive function and implication determined by individual members of society, calling them “the myth-makers”, who explain symbolically how people live. the explanatory theme may be so dominant that everything else becomes subordinated to it. myths can also be representative of a particular epistemology, coherent in terms of myth and history (structuralist). claude levi-strauss18 explains that sometimes anthropologists collect myths in “shreds” and “patches” as disconnected stories without relationships to each other. 12 foucault, m. 1998. politics, philosophy, culture: interviews and other writings 1977–1984. in l.d. kritzman (ed)., politics, philosophy, culture: interviews and other writings, new york: routledge, p.83. 13 ibid, 168. 14 ibid, 883. 15 ibid, 327. 16 bascom, w. 1965. the forms of folklore: prose narratives. journal of american folklore (78), pp. 3–20. 17 radin, p. 1950. ‘the basic myth of the north american indians’. in eranos-jahrbuch: der mensch und die mythische welt. zurich: rhein-verlag, pp. 359–419. 18 levi-strauss, c. 1978. myth and meaning. new york: routledge, pp. 29–37. truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 23 this disconnected state may be an anarchic one where “native wise men” and “philosophers” put together the myths to be collected by anthropologists from outside the society. the question is: where does mythology end and where does history begin in a society without archives and only a verbal tradition? levi-strauss continues to answer this question, explaining that the basic structures of the story may be the same, but the content may differ. therefore, one property of a myth is that it can be observed under different transformations, with the transformation of one element requiring other elements to be rearranged. the same mythical elements may be combined repeatedly in a closed system. history, being an open system, allows explanations to be arranged and then rearranged, using the same material, building up an original account. two different accounts can be accepted as true even when one account is better or more accurate than the other or at least equally valid. to avoid these accounts being imaginary, a better understanding of history can be obtained by salvage archaeology, by establishing correspondence (what corresponds and what does not), bridging the gap in our minds between mythology and history. cillian mcgrattan explains that social groups construct their own historical narratives, but questions if entire societies can “work through” the past. many “truths” emerge in postconflict situations, but those “truths” should be tested against evidence by working through other archival evidence and oral history. historians have to point out the moral and political assumptions as well as compromises that often “lie at the heart” of narratives, to allow for more rational debate over responsibility for actions in the past. furthermore, creating greater space for marginalised voices, such as those of victims, the elderly, or women, helps to broaden the concept of peace from being merely about expediency to being about justice, discussion and consensus.19 an analysis of these propositions about myth sensitises the researcher who investigates the history of violent conflict to the probability that stories created by prominent people may become a dominant narrative and framework for analysis for everything that happened in the past. to overcome this trap it is important for the researcher to find the pattern of relationships between variables in content of as many narratives as possible, including those by voices that have been deliberately marginalised and silenced in the past. the findings of this research should be verified using other ways of investigating historical truths, such as finding physical evidence of what happened (for example artefacts), and acknowledging that all knowledge claims are subject to interpretation. oral culture according to ong,20 in an oral culture the theory “you know what you can recall” is relevant. how do people in an oral culture recall what happened? an oral culture has no texts. an 19 mcgrattan, c. 2011. ‘historians in post-conflict societies: northern ireland after the troubles’. available at http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/historians-inpost-conflict-societies-northern-ireland-after-the-troubles (accessed 23 september 2014). 20 ong, w.j. 2005. orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word. taylor and francis elibrary, pp. 36–145. available at http://occupytampa.org/files/wcom/ong%20walter%20orality%20and%20literacy.pdf (accessed 23 september 2014). velthuizen 24 interlocutor is essential. sustained thought in an oral culture is therefore tied to communication. experience can be put into any words, transforming it a little without falsifying it, to recall the experience. orality is more elaborate than individual words with a mnemonic base of thought (a pattern of ideas or associations that help one to remember something). furthermore, orality is additive (the use of “and”); aggregative (oral cultures prefer the “brave soldier” to just “the soldier”); fluent; excessive; voluble; and conservative (repeating what is known). moreover, orality is close to the “human life world” in the sense that oral cultures must conceptualise and verbalise all their knowledge with reference to familiar interactions of human beings. orality is also empathetic and participatory, using concepts in realistic frames of reference, identifying with the known. oral narrative in primary oral cultures is agonistic in tone, using proverbs and riddles to engage in verbal and intellectual contests with passionate descriptions of physical violence, which can be explained in terms of persistent physical hardships and violence in many societies. oral societies are homeostatic (they tend to maintain internal stability) by living in the present, maintaining stability by getting rid of memories which no longer have present relevance. oral memorisation is subject to direct social pressures and changes the narrator’s judgement of what audiences need or tolerate. for oral cultures, the cosmos is perpetual with man at its centre, with the audience becoming one with the speaker. an oral culture cannot deliver a lengthy, sizeable, climactic linear plot, cannot organise even shorter narrative in an intellectual, relentless climactic way and is not much concerned with exact sequence or extranarrative references. therefore, the examination of phenomena or truth claims is impossible without writing and reading. some people in primary oral cultures may not have been exposed to writing in any form, but can produce powerful and valuable verbal “performance of high artistic and human worth”. this may no longer have been possible once writing took over the mind. however, without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its full potential. orality is destined to and needs to produce written knowledge.21 vansina22 defined oral traditions as documents of the present inheriting a message from the past, encompassing all verbal testimonies concerning the past. oral materials can be of value to historians, whether in the form of proverbs, poetry, songs or epics. these oral materials should be regarded in the same way as written documents to avoid exploitation by deliberately being fed historical information. most ethnographers accept oral tradition as sources of history. however, ethnologists who have attempted to study the history of people without writing have faced challenges, causing them to believe that oral traditions are not reliable even if they contain some truth, because it is impossible to assess the amount of truth contained in orality. oral narratives should be methodically examined for validity and reliability, as is done for written text, to see what distortions are most likely and to assess the value of narratives as historical evidence. from these statements it can be inferred that narratives from people who belong to an oral culture are essential to uncover the truth about what happened before, during and after violent conflict if the people were participants, victims or observers in a conflict. in an oral culture, important information about how the teller personally experienced the past is 21 ibid, pp. 8–14. 22 vansina, j. 1965. oral tradition: a study in historical methodology. translated by h.m. wright. harmondsworth: penguin, synopsis. truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 25 conveyed to the researcher as interlocutor. it is for the researcher as receiver of these messages to determine the pattern of associations that is made during the narrative, accepting that there may be much “noise” because of the sometimes-colourful use of language or the narrator subscribing to a popular dominant narrative or myth. it is for the researcher to acknowledge the limitations that come with the use of language: sometimes peers want the story to be told in a certain way, or important facts are omitted because the storyteller considers them irrelevant, shameful or hurtful. furthermore, it is important for the researcher to interpret the message in terms of the cosmology of the specific culture: many oral cultures sees personhood and the universe as one, expecting the listener to understand where the narrative fits in a broader scheme (for instance spirituality), without necessarily referring to it specifically. it is therefore important that as many narratives as possible are captured, so that they can be subjected to validation, evaluation, analysis and interpretation to allow for judging what the truth about what happened is – in other words a thorough research process. seeking the truth in the narratives of post-conflict society braithwaite23 found that there are many sequences of truth, justice and reconciliation. one sequence takes place in a “top-down truth zone” where reconciliation can take place on a foundation of only partial truths, where partial truth and reconciliation are mutually supportive. an alternative sequence takes place in the “expanding zone” that enables high integrity top-down truth-telling to call on bottom-up truth telling for reconciliation. a third sequence takes place in a “networked zone”, where peace-builders network across organisations to respond to local voices and build on the virtues of a network towards reconciliation. lundy and mcgovern24 remind us that only people who are inside a community can gain access to key individuals, groups and sensitive information that is often off-limits to “outside” researchers. because they are trusted, “insiders” may be able to penetrate some of the most unconquerable silences. when researching violently divided societies, providing an opportunity for excluded and alienated voices to be heard is important for post-conflict transformation. in this case, the value of truth lies largely in the way it validates popular knowledge, which can be a psychologically and socially desirable end of research in a society emerging from conflict. testimonial truth claims give important recognition to marginalised historical experiences in sites of conflict, where there are few other evidential traces than the words of a witness. victims, relatives and others maintain a shadowy understanding of the meaning of truth and the purpose of telling it, with a strong sense that speaking “truth” matters to refute certain things that did not happen, or to assert things that definitely did happen. therefore, research should place the “subject” of the research at the centre of the process: for instance, victim-centred truth-telling should focus on the bearer of testimony as 23 braithwaite, j. 2013. ‘truth, reconciliation and peacebuilding’. in v. king, r. macgill & r.wescombe (eds), peace in action: practices, perspectives and policies that make a difference. wagga wagga: king macgill wescombe publications, p. 30. 24 lundy, p. & mcgovern, m. 2006. participation, truth and partiality: participatory action research, community-based truth-telling and post-conflict transition in northern ireland. sociology 40(1), pp. 84. velthuizen 26 the narrator of past experiences and active participant in truth-telling. participation is a key principle in reaching the desired end-state of truth-telling. nabudere25 asserts that understanding people’s views requires adopting an epistemology that recognises orality as a valid source of knowledge. orality can only be interpreted with multi and interdisciplinary approaches to unravel the complexity of revelations, which is not possible within a single discipline. to see the world as systemic and more holistically, transdisciplinarity is also required.26 nissani27explains that all research takes place along a continuum ranging from two imaginary poles, starting from disciplinary work to a grand synthesis of all human knowledge, achieved through disciplinary knowledge, with disciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research as “four arrows shot from a single bow of knowledge” towards a target. velthuizen28 professes that transdisciplinary research is necessary to determine the causes of violent conflict. the researcher needs to break out of the stifling constraints of systems thinking and the linear processes of western hermeneutics created by disciplinarity. therefore, the researcher should recognise that people in conflict might have varied experiences of reality. these realities need to be accessed, collated, integrated and synthesised for new knowledge to emerge, recognising the normative-spiritual realm that informs the epistemology and cosmology of africa. it is in the village community that knowledge can be discovered and used to find lasting solutions to conflict, using various methods from all disciplines without being over-concerned about disciplinarity. community-based participatory research (cbpr) as avenue for truth finding community-based participatory research (cbpr) is an approach to research that equitably involves community members, organisational representatives and researchers in all aspects of the research process as partners who all contribute expertise, sharing decision-making and ownership. the aim of cbpr is to augment knowledge and understanding of a given experience, and to integrate that knowledge with interventions related to policies and social change, improving the quality of life of community members.29 ideally the participatory approach to research is a democratic negotiated process between academic and community 25 nabudere, d.w. 2006. investment choices for education in africa. paper for dbsa/hsrc/wits nepad conference 19–21 september 2006, johannesburg. available at http://www.rrojasdatabank.info/devstate/nabudere.doc (accessed 6 october 2014). 26 max-neef, m.a. 2005. foundations of transdisciplinarity. ecological economics, (533). available at http://www.sciencedirect.com (accessed 14 october 2011). 27 nissani, m. 1995. fruit salads and smoothies: a working definition on interdisciplinarity. journal of educational thought (29). 28 velthuizen, a.g. 2012. the transdisciplinary approach to understanding the causes of wicked problems such as the violent conflict in rwanda. the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(1), pp. 51–62. 29 israel, b.a., schulz, a.j., parker, e.a., becker, a.b., allen, a. & guzman, j.r. 2008. ‘critical issues in developing and following cbpr principles’. in m. minkler & n. wallerstein (eds), community-based participatory research for health: from process to outcomes (2nd ed.). san francisco: jossey-bass, pp. 47–66. truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 27 partners to ensure that the research process maintains social and cultural relevance, while at the same time scientific rigour is maintained. cbpr requires empowerment of people, ownership by the community and capacity-building while translating scientific knowledge into action.30 the cbpr approach is aligned with the modern view of anthropology – that research is not a study of people, but a study with people. the community is involved in the research planning, implementation and evaluation and dissemination of results to ensure diverse perspectives and capacity-building in the community. the research implies work and study with people, immersed with the people in an environment of joint activity, experience and educating perceptions of the world to “open our eyes and minds” to other possibilities of being.31 for research to be useful for policy change and to build healthy communities, practitioners of cbpr must take seriously notions of research rigour, validity and reliability. practitioners of cbpr need to “broaden the bandwidth of validity” by ensuring that the research question is valid or relevant to the community and that different “ways of knowing,” including community knowledge, are valued alongside scientific sources of knowledge.32 when these assertions concerning cbpr are evaluated and analysed, it is found that cbpr contains all the elements that are required for research where truth-seeking is a vital point of departure to finding solutions for challenges that emanate from violent conflict in the past, including the risk of sporadic violence re-emerging. cbpr is an ideal instrument for empirical investigation by seeking voluntary disclosure or deliberately uncovering facts by accessing the varied lived experiences of participants. in this regard, cbpr presents many opportunities to mitigate or overcome the barriers of language and personality in accessing data by allowing for a flexible application of research methods and approaches that works well in a specific environment. furthermore, cbpr calls for a lengthy process to enable capturing and sifting of “noise” contained in narratives, and for an extensive process of evaluation, validation, moderation, storing, retrieval, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, learning and dissemination. the above analysis reveals that the cbpr process is ideal for determining the accuracy of data by placing it into the context of the cosmology of a specific culture, considering the norms, spiritual influences and personal considerations of knowledge-holders. access to many different worldviews and perspectives of what happened during conflict ensures triangulation of views and identification of recursive themes. ensuring equity of perspectives makes it possible to break away from hegemonic power relationships that enforce specific paradigms and dominant narratives, so often the symptoms of persistent contest for power in a community. moreover, cbpr creates the opportunity for researchers to collectively analyse 30 cargo, m., delormier, t., lévesque, l., horn-miller, k., mccomber, a. & macaulay, a.c. 2008. can the democratic ideal of participatory research be achieved? an inside look at an academic-indigenous community partnership. health education research, (235, pp. 904–914). 31 ingold, t. 2011. being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. new york:   routledge, p. 238. 32 minkler, m., garcia, a.p., rubin,v. & wallerstein, n. 2008. community-based participatory research: a strategy for building healthy communities and promoting health through policy change. available at http://www.policylink.org p.12 (accessed 1 october 2014). velthuizen 28 and interpret captured narratives through joint critical reflection to find a pattern of associations among variables and to judge what is probably true. community-based participatory research with the san of platfontein the san are the first people of southern africa, traced back to the last glacial maximum (about 20 000 years ago) and still further back to “mitochondrial eve” 190 000 years ago, the origin of all africans.33 the modern history of the san is characterised by enslavement and the loss or limited use of ancestral land. during this time the san had to cope with conflict by withdrawing to remote areas. some clans and individuals joined broader society to profit from interaction with traders, hunters and missionaries.34 traditionally, the san developed an indigenous dispute resolution system suited to the needs of a collective hunter-gatherer society.35 today san clans can be differentiated by the mutually unintelligible dialects they speak. for instance, kwhedam is spoken by the san of the okwa valley of botswana, the central kalahari desert, north-east botswana, south-east zambia and western zimbabwe, while !xun is spoken by the san living in the tsumkwe area of namibia, north-western botswana, southern angola and south africa. 36 the two groups of san living at platfontein (figure 1), the !xun and the khwe, are originally from northern namibia and south-east angola. . traditionally, san clans never lived together in one village and preferred to stick to their own small groups or extended family units, away from other people. 37the khwe were cultivators and cattle-herders who lived for centuries along the kavango and kwando rivers in close contact with the bantu groups of the kavango region of namibia and the cuando-cubango province of angola the !xun were mostly hunter-gatherers who lived in remote savannah areas. when the portuguese ruled angola, from 1966 the !xun and the khwe became trackers (called “flechas”) serving the portuguese military in southern angola until 1975.38 in 1976, after angola became independent from portugal, the !xun and khwe were formed into a military unit (31 battalion of the south african defence force) to participate in counter-insurgency operations in angola. in march 1990, after namibia became independent, the san were resettled at schmidtsdrift on the vaal river in the northern cape province of south africa.39 in june 1996, the !xun and khwe became the owners of platfontein, wildebeeskuil and 33 oppenheimer, s. 2004.out of africa’s eden. the peopling of the world. johannesburg: jonathan ball. 34 hohmann, t. (ed. 2003. ‘contesting land, development, identity and representation’. in the san and the state. köln: rüdiger köppe verlag. 35 boulle, l. 2013. a history of alternative dispute resolution. adr bulletin 7(7), p.130. available at http://epublications.bond.edu.au/adr/vol7/iss7/3 (accessed 17 july 2013). 36 bleek, w. h. i. & lloyd, l. c. 1911. specimens of bushman folklore. london: george allen & company. 37 correspondence with mario mahongo, traditional leader of the !xun, 27 november 2014. 38 cann, j.p. 2013. the flechas. insurgent hunting in eastern angola, 1965–1974. 30 south publishers: africa@war series (11). 39 robbins, d. 2007. the story of south africa’s discarded san soldiers. johannesburg: jonathan ball. truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 29 droogfontein near kimberley, the capital of the northern cape, and settled in platfontein where they today live “in spatially segregated settlements”. 40 f i g u r e 1 : l o c a t i o n o f t h e p l a t f o n t e i n s a n ( ! x u n a n d k h w e ) i n s o u t h a f r i c a 41 internal disputes are persistent, with sporadic violence exacerbated by social ills such as alcoholism and drugs and frustrations over appalling living conditions. furthermore, relationships between the community and governance authorities can at best be described as “uncertain”, calling for dispute resolution capacity-building together with the community and research-driven interventions to break the cycle of poverty and violence that prevents the community taking its rightful place in south african society.42 40 robins, s., madzudzo, e. & brenzinger, m. 2006. ‘assessment of the status of the san in south africa, angola, zambia and zimbabwe’. in regional assessment of the status of the san in southern africa report series (2). windhoek: legal assistance centre. 41 robins, s., madzudzo, e. & brenzinger, m. 2006. ‘assessment of the status of the san in south africa, angola, zambia and zimbabwe’. in regional assessment of the status of the san in southern africa report series (2). windhoek: legal assistance centre. 42 recurrent themes in the analysis of collated research reports found in the san dispute resolution oral archive. http://uir.unisa.ac.za (restricted access. velthuizen 30 data-gathering through voluntary disclosure during cbpr with the san of platfontein based on the assumption that truth-seeking is a vital element in finding solutions to dysfunctions that emanate from violent conflict, the institute for dispute resolution in africa (idra) launched a cbpr research project with the san of platfontein under the auspices of the college of law at unisa. the community was selected for research because of their unique lived experiences and oral culture, enabling them to articulate what happened in their history, which was marked by violent conflict. subsequently, research began in september 2013 with the informed consent of the san community. the research is conducted in three phases, namely a discovery phase that was concluded in september 2014, on ongoing design phase that will end in march 2015, to be followed by an implementation phase in 2015 when the designed solutions will be implemented. the discovery phase resulted in 250 research reports43 based on semi-structured interviews, focus group meetings and interpretation discussions. approximately 1 000 adults in platfontein, including men and women of all ages, participated as knowledge-holders, adhering to the principle of equity in participation. appreciative inquiry was used, meaning that questions focused on dispute resolution practices that had worked well in the past. despite the positive intentions of appreciative inquiry, it was inevitable that knowledge was volunteered that reflected negative aspects that are associated with conflict. no voices were silenced and all who provided informed and voluntary consent, participated. in platfontein, there is always the risk of sporadic violence because of social ills such as drug abuse and alcoholism. however, determining how a history of violent conflict influences current violent behaviour is a complex process.44 therefore, data-gathering had to access as many narratives as possible about the causes, dynamics and consequences of the conflict over a timeline of 60 years (starting with the origins of the community in angola) and over a geographical area that covers the resettlements from angola to namibia to schmidtsdrift to platfontein. furthermore, various actors and their past and present roles in conflict had to be analysed. a general spirit of cooperation from most community members enabled thorough empirical investigation. data was obtained mostly through voluntary disclosure to young fieldworkers who were trained by unisa to gather data. deliberate uncovering of facts was restricted to the chief investigator from unisa, who engaged in informal discussions with specific individuals to clarify certain facts. however, it was found that a trade-off was needed between maintaining the trust of these individuals and the obligation to report. eventually the chief investigator decided that no clarification discussions warranted a breach of trust. the methods of data-gathering consisted of a triangulation of semi-structured interviews, focus group meetings and interpretative discussions. these methods ensured access to a variety of the lived experiences of participants, who in many cases confirmed the way in which different people experienced the same event, but also enabled the researchers to discover contradictions in the narratives. 43 the reports can be found on the san dispute resolution oral archive. http://uir.unisa.ac.za (restricted access). 44 velthuizen, a. interview with angela kedisaletse-louw, platfontein social worker, 10 september 2014. truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 31 the research team found it exceptionally challenging to mitigate or overcome the barriers that language and personality placed on accessing data. all narratives had to be captured from !xun and khwe into afrikaans or english (depending on what the fieldworker felt comfortable with) and then translated into english for processing. sound recordings and selective video clips were made of all interviews and focus groups for verification purposes to mitigate the probable loss of important data, sift out unimportant noise and to allow for verification by the chief investigator, if necessary. in the end, the research team was confident that the flexible application of research methods and approaches worked well in that specific environment, which is characterised by an embedded oral culture and limited writing skills, especially among older participants. furthermore, the combination of methods allowed various kinds of personality to participate and tell their story in a community where excluding people is regarded with suspicion. before the research commenced it was acknowledged by researchers, sponsors and the community leadership that it would be a lengthy process. therefore, sufficient time was planned to capture narrative data, write and transmit field research reports after sifting out the “noise” contained in narratives. however, the time required for the extensive process of evaluation, validation, moderation, storing, retrieval, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, learning and dissemination was underestimated, mainly because there were not enough sufficiently trained people to perform all these tasks while managing a project in the procrastinating bureaucracy that is associated with a big institution such as unisa. determining the accuracy of data during cbpr as discussed, determining the accuracy of data is an exceptional challenge when working with narratives in an oral culture. however, the many different worldviews and perspectives of what happened during conflicts enabled thematic analysis. first researchers and writers had to familiarise themselves with all the research reports in the san dispute resolution oral archives (data corpus analysis). the next step was to conduct data item analysis (analysing all the reports looking for recursive keywords) and data extract analysis, (collating data into tables according to question/indicator numbers for coding). the data corpus analysis and data item analysis was applied by writers from several disciplines (who were invited to a writers’ retreat in august 2014) to collated data in the san dispute resolution oral archives. it was found that even experienced scholars did not have the skills to analyse collated data. a further attempt to do narrative analysis (analysis of selected narratives from specific data items and extracts) failed because the primary data contained in the narratives could only be accessed by a researcher who could understand and speak !xun or khwe, and such a person was not available. using transcripts for analysis was not possible because these languages can only be written in the simplest form. these limitations were found to be a major constraint when academics trained in western traditions try to analyse data from communities that do not speak english. these limitations were overcome by allowing writers to apply their own knowledge of analysing data within their own disciplines. key knowledge holders and field researchers from the san community participated in the writers’ retreat together with the writers, assisting them with analysis, critical reflection and interpretation of the data. velthuizen 32 a strong point of the research was its success in maintaining equity of perspectives. the research avoided hegemonic control and manipulation, in the sense that no authority intervened in the research process. the research team was supported and allowed to follow the process that was agreed upon before the start of the research. at community level, great care was taken that power relationships in the community were not able to enforce specific paradigms. dominant narratives were identified at a very early stage and avoided or moderated by deliberately allowing other voices to be heard, especially after persistent contests for power in a community were discovered. judging the truth during cbpr cbpr creates the opportunity for researchers to collectively analyse and critically reflect on captured narratives. a series of conversations proved to be essential in verifying the accuracy of thematic analysis findings. a concentric circle approach was followed for interpretative conversations. in the centre of this circle were the elders of the community, who listened to presentations from the research team and corrected some inaccuracies. the next circle involved conversations between senior researchers from unisa (including two post-doctoral fellows from ethiopia) and the leaders of the community, in which valuable knowledge was exchanged to fill some gaps in the research. a further circle consisted of researchers, fieldworkers and practitioners who gathered in a major writers’ retreat; during this session, the knowledge of the village community was effectively fused with that of other knowledgeholders. the writers’ retreat, and analyses by the scholars in preparation for articles aimed at publication, revealed a pattern of associations among variables. it furthermore created the opportunity for the 12 scholars who participated to judge probabilities in the data presented. the conversation circle was then expanded as a first effort at triangulating the findings of the research with other san communities. during a visit to the community of the ‡khomani san of andriesvale (also in the northern cape province, 230km north of the town of upington, about 600km from platfontein), the results of the research were brainstormed with the leaders of andriesvale and platfontein, facilitated by unisa researchers. another visit to communities in botswana is planned for early 2015 to complete the triangulation of the research findings. a challenge that remains is for scholars from outside the community to determine the truth. the san of platfontein live in the context of a cosmology that contains aspects of western culture such as hierarchical thinking and disciplined behaviour, inherited from a history of militarisation and subservience. however, in general customary practices are maintained in the form of compassion, sharing, reciprocity, dignity of personhood, responsibility to others and interdependence, which underlie the humanistic principles of africa. scholars need to understand this context before judging the truth about knowledge claims. together with spiritual influences such as the belief in witchcraft and the strong influence of 15 churches in platfontein, the context of knowledge claims may be difficult to judge without insight into the cosmology and normative foundation of the san of platfontein. these may overlap with those of other people but are probably different, taking into account the san’s unique history of subservience, genocide, exploitation and militarisation as well as the current government neglect of the people of platfontein. truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 33 truth as premise for conciliation and development a rigorous research process ensured that the body of knowledge that was accumulated could be described as “probably true”. such a body of knowledge is a vital driver of the current design phase and the implementation of intervention phase that is envisaged for 2015. ludema et al45 describe the design stage as systematic exploration by community members of what kinds of social architecture would translate their visions of best experiences from the past and hopes for the future into reality. during this phase the community, as a networked organisation, will merge with other organisations, donors, government officials and other communities as they interact. participants in current disputes should admit their needs and contract to help one another grow, deliberately seeking and relying on mutual inputs and support. to achieve successful design, further conversations with community knowledge-holders will take place, talking to different interest groups and mapping solutions to current conflicts. during the first week of november 2014, a large-scale conference was held with the community and invited scholars, during which participants developed a series of propositions to replace “what is” with “what might be”. the conference provided a forum in which the researchers can share their findings and articulate their vision of and approach to build capacity for community dispute resolution. the aim of the design phase is to generate energy for action and a sense of hope, excitement and cooperation as well as ownership of the future, leading to authentic positive change and innovation. the “socially constructive potential” of the community must be unlocked to replace existing “deficit constructions”. a space should be created for new voices to emerge, expanding the circles of dialogue to build a “supportive relational context that allows for the positive construction of a new social reality”.46 the implementation phase involves emphatic learning, focusing on the bilateral and inter-generational transfer of knowledge, recognising the different roles people play in a community. learning will be in the form of a series of capacity-building workshops where joint experimentation will be guided by research results as a set of parallel, complementary processes of experimentation and dialogue. the workshops will be platforms for change, guided by the preservation of local culture to redistribute power by creating opportunities for self-empowerment through learning towards a new disputeresolution capacity.47 to achieve this vision, the aim is to launch joint initiatives. two parallel activities are envisaged. the first set of interventions is a series of capacity-building seminars in the 45 ludema, j.d., cooperider, d.l. & barret, f.j. 2012. appreciative inquiry: the power of the unconditional positive question. available at http://www.2012waic.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/05/ludema-cooperrider-barrett-goed.pdf pp.7–9 (accessed 10 july 2013). 46 ibid, pp.10–11. 47 hagos, a. 1996. ‘indigenous channels of communication, development and governance in africa’. in m. dia (ed), africa’s management in the 1990s and beyond: reconciling indigenous and transplanted institutions. washington, d.c.: world bank. velthuizen 34 community to transfer knowledge to community members in a structured way. a second set of interventions will involve other role players from outside the community who did not participate in the research but committed themselves to use the research results to deliver tangible change, transformation and innovation to intervene in the state of poverty in the community, the core cause of violent conflict. conclusions this paper began with the aim of proposing some principles and practices for truth-seeking during research into violent conflict. to achieve this aim, an argument was deployed by analysing the concepts “truth”, “myth” and “oral culture” as sources of knowledge. this conceptual analysis preceded a discussion of cbpr as a research methodology to access the knowledge of lived experiences embedded in the oral culture of the san community of platfontein. concerning good practice, it was found that cbpr contains all the requirements for research in which empirical investigation, mitigation of language and personality barriers, flexible application of research methods and a thorough processing of knowledge claims to find probable truth are required. furthermore, the integrative and intense intra-active character of the cbpr process is ideal for determining the accuracy of data in the context of a specific culture, considering the norms, spiritual influences and personal considerations of knowledge-holders that come with a unique cosmology. moreover, many different worldviews and perspectives of what happened during the conflict ensuring equity of perspectives, as well as challenging hegemonic power relationships, paradigms, and narratives; ultimately informed judgement of what is probably true about a conflict. cbpr with the san of platfontein, involving an interconnected web of stakeholders and knowledge-holders, revealed the following principles that should inform cbpr involving communities with an oral culture and a history of violent conflict: • recognition of the community as a site of knowledge: knowledge is the most important asset of a community that is in conflict or recovering from conflict. the community is the holder of this knowledge. the challenge facing researchers is to access this knowledge using methods that are acceptable to the community. • collaborative equitable partnerships: equity in terms of gender, age and ethnicity is maintained through all phases of the research, including data discovery, information processing, dissemination of results, solution design and intervention. • emphatic learning and capacity-building: from the inception of the cbpr project all participants should learn from the activities until formal capacity-building embeds good practices. • holistic perspectives of conflict and disputes: a holistic perspective of the probable truth about causes, dynamics, actors and consequences is maintained in geographical/ecological, cultural and historic contexts. • integration of research with broader social innovation: cbpr is consequential, meaning that knowledge activates a series of interventions and events that lead to new ways of thinking and doing. • openly challenging divisionary thinking: hegemonic, subservient relationships and manipulation of research are challenged through activities such as deliberately truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 19-35. 35 promoting equitable participation in truth-seeking, collaborative learning and joint solution design and implementation. • academic rigour complemented by social responsibility: the scientific quality of the research and research outputs is not negotiable. cbpr provides for rigorous maintenance of academic standards while opening the way for the social responsibility all scholars should actively pursue. microsoft word 03 kapp.docx td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider-afrika, 7(1) julie 2011, pp. 159-166. die nalatenskap van ‘n besondere driemanskap p kapp1 marie koopmans-de wet, fs malan en frans engelenburg het na 1895 ’n besondere driemanskap ontwikkel wat na marie koopmans-de wet se dood op 2 augustus 1906 tussen die ander twee bly voortbestaan het tot met engelenburg se dood op 21 augustus 1938. as bevestiging hiervan dien die artikel wat fs malan nog in 1937 in die huisgenoot oor marie koopmans-de wet geskryf het.2 die drie se besondere nalatenskap leef vandag voort in die pragtige kaapse herehuis in strandstraat 353 na haar vernoem. studies is aan aspekte van al drie van hulle se lewens gewy maar die besondere vriendskap en verhouding tussen hulle blyk nou eers uit die engelenburg-dokumente in die argief van die suid-afrikaanse akademie vir wetenskap en kuns. die nuutste studie is prof. fa mouton se biografie van fs malan.4 malan self het in 1924 in nederlands ’n huldigingsbiografie oor marie koopmans-de wet geskryf.5 in werklikheid is die manuskrip gebaseer op die versameling dokumente van marie koopmans-de wet wat engelenburg oor die jare byeengebring het en was hy die man wat by malan daarop aangedring het dat hy die werk moet voltooi. die oorspronklike bedoeling was dat die boek reeds in 1912 moes verskyn het, maar malan, wat as kabinetsminister uitgebreide openbare verpligtinge gehad het, het eers in 1924 die werk afgehandel. die boek bied sporadiese blikke op die bestaan van ’n driemanskap maar die werklike aard van die driemanskap moet uit die ander bronne bestudeer word. linda brink het reeds die eerste deel van ’n biografie van engelenburg vir haar meestersgraad voltooi en tans behandel sy die res van sy lewensverhaal vir ’n doktorale proefskrif.6 1. drie vriende 1 . prof. pieter kapp is besoekende navorsingsgenoot, departement geskiedenis universiteit van die vrystaat. 2 fs malan: mev koopmans-de wet, die huisgenoot, 28.5.1937. 3 die huis se nommer was oorpronklik strandstraat 23 maar is vandag 35. 4 fa mouton: prophet without honour. fs malan: afrikaner, south african and cape liberal. (protea book house, pretoria, 2011). 5 fs malan: marie koopmans de wet. (nasionale boekhandel, kaapstad, 1924). 6 linda brink: ’n biografie van die taalstryder fv engelenburg tot met die stigting van die suidafrikaanse akademie vir wetenskap en kuns. (ongepubliseerde ma-verhandeling, noordwesuniversiteit, potchefstroom, 2010). kapp 160 al drie was vir die tyd waarin hulle geleef het hoogs begaafde geleerde en gekultiveerde mense wat groot aansien en ’n uitgebreide netwerk van vriende en kennisse gehad het. al drie was vurige ondersteuners van hollands-afrikaans en as sodanig stryders vir afrikaans. al drie was sterk patrioties gesind, het die britse optrede met die jameson-inval en die anglo-boere-oorlog skerp veroordeel en al drie het sleutelrolle in die heropbou van die afrikaner na 1902 gespeel al was marie koopmans-de wet se rol van veel korter duur as die ander twee. al drie het ’n sterk kuns en historiese aanvoeling gehad en baie van hulle gesprekke en samewerking het oor die behoud van historiese en kunsskatte gegaan. tog was hulle al drie uiteenlopende persoonlikhede. marie koopmans de wet was ’n verfynde en ontwikkelde vrou wat vir die tyd ’n besondere opvoeding geniet het. sy was een van die twee dogters van die vooraanstaande kaapse regsgeleerde johannes de wet (1794-1875) en adriana dorothea horak (1787-1868). johannes de wet was ’n geleerde, gekultiveerde man, ’n groot boekliefhebber, ondersteuner van hollandse onderwys en later lid, en self vir ’n kort ruk president, van die eerste kaapse wetgewende vergadering. marie en haar suster margaretha het in strandstraat 23 grootgeword waar hulle met al die vooraanstaande persone in kaapstad kennis gemaak het en ’n besondere opvoeding in die kunste en tale geniet het. sy is in 1864 getroud met johan christoffel koopmans, ’n nederlander wat hom aan die kaap kom vestig het aanvanklik as offisier in die brits-duitse legioen op die oosgrens, later as buitelandse korrespondent van die poskantoor en uiteindelik as ampswag van die wetgewende vergadering. hy was ses tale magtig en met marie se vloeiende gebruik van frans, duits en engels was hulle huis ’n welkome besoekpunt van mense uit verskillende wêrelddele en agtergronde. met die dood van haar ouers en haar man kom haar suster by haar woon in die kaaps-hollandse herehuis strandstraat 23. in 1881 onderneem sy vir die eerste keer ’n reis na europa waar sy deur haar koopmans-familie hartlik ontvang word. hier ontmoet sy vir die eerste keer die agtienjarige frans vredenrijk engelenburg. hy is dadelik met sy tante beïndruk en met haar tweede besoek vergesel hy haar op ’n meer uitgebreide europese reis as in 1881 waartydens hulle belangrike kunsmuseums besoek en oor vele sake van openbare belang indringende gesprek voer. hulle raak besonder aangetrokke tot mekaar. frans vredenrijk engelenburg stam ook uit ’n gesiene nederlandse familie vir wie geleerdheid belangrik was. sy vader was advokaat frans thomas vredenrijk engelenburg en sy moeder anna maria koopmans in arnhem. marie koopmans de wet se man johan christoffel koopmans was haar broer. engelenburg begin ’n gereelde korrespondensie met haar en maak so kennis met die gebeure en toestande in suid-afrika. as student aan leiden is hy aktief en toon reeds die wye belangstellings wat later sy lewe sou kenmerk. die ongelukkige egskeiding van sy ouers en die feit dat hy toenemend in die joernalistiek eerder as die regte betrokke raak, sou ’n belangrike invloed op sy lewe uitoefen. sedert 1889 het hy as den haagse korrespondent van de volkstem opgetree. klaarblyklik onder die invloed van sy tante neem hy in 1889 die besluit om na suid-afrika te kom en werk as joernalis in pretoria te probeer vind. so begin ’n merkwaardige loopbaan wat sou meebring dat hy eienaar van de volkstem en ’n persoon van buitengewone invloed nie net in kruger se zuidafrikaansche republiek nie maar ook in suid-afrika sou word. soos marie koopmans-de wet het hy die besondere vermoë gehad om diverse mense aan te trek, ’n wye netwerk van persoonlike kennisse en kontakte oor die hele wêreld op te bou en menige jongmense en kunstenaars onder sy vleuels te neem. hy is ’n gereelde besoeker aan strandstraat 23 waar hy met al die politieke leiers van suid-afrika en brittanje kennis maak en is hy in persoonlike korrespondensie met politieke en kuns persoon;likhede in bykans elke betekenisvolle land in ‘n besondere driemanskap td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 159166. 161 europa. hy skaar hom onomwonde aan kruger en die boererepublieke se kant, word ’n kampvegter vir afrikaans en ’n stigterslid van die suid-afrikaanse akademie vir wetenskap en kuns. die invloedryke engelenburg wat ewe tuis in die hollandse as die engelse klub in pretoria was, wat persoonlike kennis met o.a rhodes, smuts, botha, hertzog en fs malan opgebou het, was ’n unieke figuur in die konserwatiewe gemeenskap van pretoria. hy is eers op een-en-sestigjarige leeftyd getroud, was ’n wynen koskenner, kunsversamelaar, sigaarkenner, altyd deftig geklee, onberispelik gemanierd, onafhanklik en selfstandig, pionier van die radiowese en van vliegtuie in suid-afrika. sy lewenstyl het nie werklik ingepas by die patroon van pretoria se leiersfigure nie, maar daar was nooit groot konflik tussen hulle nie. hulle het hom met die hoogste agting en waardering behandel. hy was die ruggraat van die akademie.7 hoewel hy by die opstel van die manifes van die het volk-party in 1906 betrokke was en sy lewe lank ’n ondersteuner van die suid-afrikaanse party was, was hy nooit ’n sigbare politieke figuur nie. hy was nie werklik ’n politieke mens nie. daar kon byvoorbeeld geen bewyse gevind word dat hy ooit met fs malan oor laasgenoemde se standpunt ten gunste van die uitbreiding van die kaapse stemreg na die res van die land in korrespondensie was nie of dat hy ooit daaroor standpunt ingeneem het. francois stephanus malan was ’n bolandse plaasseun. gebore op bovlei naby wellington (12 maart 1871) groei hy in ’n vooraanstaande en sterk christelike huis op as die sesde geslag van hugenote afkoms. vier broers uit die gesin van veertien kinders bereik belangrike mylpale. fs studeer natuurwetenskappe aan die victoria kollege waar hy die tydgenoot is van o.a. cj langenhoven, jan smuts en barry hertzog. hy het dit ernstig oorweeg om predikant te word, maar in 1893 vertrek hy na cambridge waar hy aan die christ college regte studeer. die vier broers broers sou betekenisvolle rolle in suid-afrika speel. fs word ’n kabinetsminister in die regering van die suid-afrikaanse party, charl wynand een in die nasionale party-regering, daniël gerhardus professor in teologie aan die teologiese kweekskool op stellenbosch en david johannes predikant op swellendam. in 1895 keer fs na die kaap terug waar hy spoedig ingeskakel word in die vriendekring van marie koopmans-de wet en waar hy nie net al die politieke leiers van die tyd ontmoet nie maar ook die redakteur van de volkstem fv engelenburg. net soos engelenburg word hy as advokaat toegelaat maar kort daarna bied jan hendrik hofmeyr hom die redakteurskap van ons land, die orgaan van die afrikanerbond, aan. die gevestigde hollandse koerant de zuid-afrikaan is pas die vorige jaar by ons land ingelyf. malan en engelenburg het dus al twee invloedryke mondstukke tot hulle beskikking en dit is begryplik dat daar heelwat gemeenskaplike belange was wat hulle by elke ontmoeting kon bespreek. malan erken dat hy dikwels van sy artikels in die koerant eers aan marie koopmans-de wet vir goedkeuring en advies voorgelê het terwyl sy ook engelenburg per korrespondensie oor veral kaapse toestande ingelig het. na die jameson-inval, wat tot die breuk tussen hofmeyr en rhodes lei, beweeg sowel hofmeyr as malan na ’n sterker simpatieke houding teenoor paul kruger en die boererepublieke wat dus nog ’n band tussen hom en engelenburg skep. tydens die oorlog word engelenburg na die kaap gedeporteer maar kry hy toestemming om na portugal te gaan waar hy vir die res van die oorlog vertoef. tydens die oorlog malan beland in die tronk vanweë ’n berig wat hy oor die engelse troepe onder leiding van lt. genl sir john dp french gepubliseer het. marie koopmans-de wet se huis word die sentrum waarvandaan 7 vgl. ph kapp: draer van ’n droom. die geskiedenis van die suid-afrikaanse akademie vir wetenskap en kuns 1909-2009, wat op talle plekke na engelenburg se rol verwys. (hemel en see boeke, hermanus, 2009). kapp 162 uitgebreide insamelings gehou word en goedere uit europa na die vrouens en kinders in konsentrasiekampe gestuur word. sy help vroue optogte van protes teen die oorlog organiseer. hierin geniet sy die volle ondersteuning en hulp van malan en engelenburg. nog ’n saak wat al drie na aan die hart gelê het, was die onderwys, veral die bevordering van onderrig in hollands. in haar testament het marie koopmans-de wet geld bemaak om dié onderwys te bevorder. in 1908 het malan kabinetsminister in die kaapse wetgewende vergadering geword. daar was algemene verwagting dat hy die opvolger van jan hendrik hofmeyr as leier van die afrikanerbond sou word – iets wat nie gebeur het nie omdat die partypolitiek na 1912 ’n ander wending geneem het. malan was aangedaan toe die nasionale konvensie artikel 137 oor die gelykheid van engels en hollands as ampstale aanvaar het.8 op die stigtingsvergadering van die akademie het hy hom onomwonde ten gunste van taalgelykheid in die praktyk uitgespreek. op hierdie gebied sou hy en engelenburg gereeld saamwerk. dit was engelenburg wat byvoorbeeld in 1913 die leiding geneem het in die akademie se inisiatief om aan die crewe-kommissie, wat aangewys is om die praktiese toepassing van artikel 137 in veral die onderwys te ondersoek, ’n memorandum oor moedertaalonderwys voorgelê het. engelenburg het geweet dat die memorandum gunstige ontvangs by fs malan as minister van onderwys sou ontvang. dit was een van die spoorslae tot die besluit van 1914 om die gelykheid van die twee tale tot op standerd 4 vlak te erken en af te dwing. hoe goed die samewerking tussen malan en engelenburg was, word ook duidelik as in aanmerking geneem word dat hulle soms saam op die raad van die akademie gedien het, waar engelenburg voorsitter was van 1925-1927 en weer van 19301932 en fs malan van 1927-1929 en weer van 1934-1937. hulle twee was ook stigterslede van die suid-afrikaanse nasionale vereniging wat in 1905 in die kaapkolonie gestig is die voorsitter was regter henry de villiers en die doel was om by die publiek ’n liefde en waardering vir die bewaring van ou historiese geboue, plekke en kunsskatte te ontwikkel. die nasionale monumentekommissie het in 1923 uit hierdie inisiatief ontwikkel.9 albei was ook lede van die eerste suid-afrikaanse argiefkommissie waarvan malan later die voorsitter was. die mooiste voorbeeld van die onbekende driemanskap se kulturele nalatenskap aan suid-afrika is die marie koopmans-de wet huis in strandstraat 23.10 nuwe bronne wat in die argief van die suid-afrikaanse akademie vir wetenskap en kuns11 aan die lig gekom het, toon die groot invloed wat engelenburg in hierdie verband op malan, 8 fs malan: die konvensiedagboek van fs malan, pp 18-24 (van riebeeck-vereniging nommer 32, kaapstad, 1951). 9 ph kapp: draer van ’n droom, p 241. 10 die presiese verhaal van hoe die marie koopmans-de wet huis vir bewaring behou is, is relatief onbekend. in brosjures van die museum soos byvoorbeeld jr finch: illustrated guide to the koopmansde wet house, in 1949 deur die suid-afrikaanse museum uitgegee, sowel as in die brosjure die koopmans-de wet huis wat later deur die museum uitgegee is en wat deur mary cooke geskryf is hoewel dit nie vermeld word nie, word hoofsaaklik oor die huis se interieur en die versameling oudhede geskryf. mary cooke gee wel die geskiedenis van die grondbesitters van die erf, maar nie een vertel die verhaal van hoe die huis vir bewaring behou is nie. jj oberholster die historiese monumente van suid-afrika (uitgegee deur die rembrandt van rijn stigting in 1972) meld net dat die huis in 1913 “danksy openbare bydraes en met regeringsteun” (bladsy 28) bewaar is. daar word geen melding gemaak van engelenburg en malan se rolle nie. 11 vervolgens word net elke keer na die akademie se argief by ineg in bloemfontein verwys. die presiese reeks waarin die dokumente voorkom is reeks 33 algemeen, lêer 10: die engelenburg-marie koopmans-de wetversameling. ‘n besondere driemanskap td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 159166. 163 wat in die openbaar die meeste eer vir die verklaring van die huis tot nasionale gedenkwaardigheid kry, uitgeoefen het. engelenburg was die eintlike dryfkrag agter die aankoop en bewaring van die marie koopmansde wet huis. die versameling bestaan uit altesame 97 dokumente, foto’s en koerantknipsels. 2. ’n besondere vrou uit die engelenburg-dokumente kry ’n mens ook bevestiging van die besondere vrou wat marie koopmans-de wet was. daar is briewe wat handel oor haar insamelings ten bate van die vroue en kinders in die konsentrasiekampe, hoe sy dit versprei het, watter hulp sy van engelenburg ontvang en haar korrespondensie met emily hobhouse. met paul kruger se dood in 1904 stuur sy ’n brief aan mijnen broeders en zusters in de transvaal. oor paul kruger skryf sy: paul kruger lewend was een kracht. paul kruger gestorven in den vreemde is een begeesterd kracht. onze heengegane broeder zal thans men hoor ons allen zijn, zijn voorbeeld as christen, als held, als martelaar. haar begrafnis in kaapstad was ’n besondere gebeurtenis. oud-president mt steyn het die huldigingsrede gelewer by die begrafnisdiens gelei deur prof. adriaan moorrees van die kweekskool op stellenbosch terwyl die rede by die graf deur prof. ij marais gelewer is. fs malan het in sy koerant na haar verwys as vorstin haar volks.12 op 13 november 1905, toe sy alreeds besef het dat die dood naby is, het sy versoek dat daar geen huldebetuigings by haar graf gelewer word nie en geen blomme of kranse op haar graf moes wees nie. god alleen weet hoe gering mijn beste pogingen waren....mijn volk heb ik lief gehad en getracht voor te leven. sy was een van die stigters van die tydskrif de goede hoop, ’n groot ondersteuner van onze taal en het frans, duits, italiaans en engels vlot gepraat. jan hendrik hofmeyr het haar beskryf as ’n vrouw soos zuid-afrika geen tweede heeft geleverd...aan zeldzame fierheid, moed en vasberadenheid (hoedanigheden die uit haar heel imposante houding en fonkelende ogen spraken) vooral waar dit gold een in bresse treden voor de rechten en vrijheden van haar verongelijkt volk. olive schreiner het haar beskryf as ’n vrou van besondere intellektuele vermoëns, een wat geen vrees of benoudheid geken het nie selfs nie tydens die smartlike onderdrukking van die oorlog nie. sy sal nou en in die toekoms deur alle politieke groepe en alle rasse gedenk word om haar onverskrokke persoonlikheid. louis botha het haar geëer om hare daden, waaruit menslievendheid en patriotisme warm en diep spreken en genl. smuts het haar bestempel as een inspirerend figuur op afrikaans gebied in de kaapkolonie.13 in ’n telegram aan engelenburg het jan smuts soos volg oor haar getuig: wie die haar gekent heeft,kan haar nooit vergeten! – de tedere sympathie in alle leed, dit milde hand in alle nooddrift, zo wel bekend aan transvaalsche weduween en wezen, dat warme hart voor al wat schoon en edel was, die hartstochtelijke liefde het afrikaansche volk, die heldenmoed, welke in dagen van storm en gevaar – toe zelfs rotzen wankelden – de afrikaanssche vlag omhoog hielt aan tafelbergs voet.14 12 de zuid-afrikaan verenigd met ons land, 4.8.1906. 13 hierdie eerbetuigings kom uit bogenoemde artikel. 14 saawek-argief: item 83: telegram van jan smuts by nuus van afsterwe van marie koopmans-de wet. kapp 164 3. twee vriende en bewonderaars malan en engelenburg was gereelde besoekers by die bedlêende marie gedurende 1906. op 25 junie 1906 het sy die behartiging van al haar persoonlike sake aan die twee opgedra. hulle twee is heelwat later as die eksekuteurs van haar boedel aangestel. sy en haar suster se gesamentlike testament, gedateer 24 desember 1902, het bepaal dat die langslewende die vruggebruik van alles sou besit maar dat die eksekuteurskamer as eksekuteur aangestel word. margaretha het later ’n kodisil toegevoeg wat bepaalde afwykings van die oorspronklike testament was en dit het tot ’n uitgerekte hofsaak ontwikkel oor wat geldig en wat nie geldig is nie.15 onder andere is naas die twee ook dr. f purcell en joseph bridger tot eksekuteurs benoem. die eksekuteurskamer het die saak na die hooggeregshof geneem wat beslis het dat die kodisil ultra vires is en dat die aanstelling van die ander eksekuteurs gekanselleer word. die eksekuteurskamer het te kenne gegee dat hulle die huis gaan opveil asook die bates waarna nie spesifiek in die testament verwys word nie.16 engelenburg het nog gepoog dat hy en malan wel as eksekuteurs van margaret se boedel aanbly maar die ekseketeurskamer sou die boedel as ’n eenheid hanteer.17 volgens die first liquidation and distribution account het die twee susters se boedel gesamentlike kontant van £12 623-2-10 verteenwoordig.18 van die kontantbemakings is uiteindelik net 11 sjielings in die pond uitbetaal.19 engelenburg was nog hoopvol dat die grafsteen wat hulle op die familie se graf laat aanbring het, uit die boedel betaal sou kon word maar uiteindelik moes hy en malan elkeen £50 bydra om die grafsteen moontlik te maak. 20 hulle het ook die grafskrif van die gesamentlike familiegraf laat aanbring: volbragte is hunne reizen. hier rust johannes de wet ll.d. 1794-1875, waarnemende president van die wetgewende raad kaapkolonie; adriana dorotheas de wet17961868 geb. horak, zijn echtgenote; johannes christoffel koopmans 1830-1879; maria magdalena koopmans, 1834-1906 geb. de wet, zijn echtgenote; margaretha jacoba de wet, 1838-1909.21 marie koopmans de wet het in haar testament sekere voorkeur bemakings gedoen. sy het die wens uitgespreek dat die huis na haar suster se dood vir drie maande leeg moes staan waarna dit aan iemand tydelik verhuur kon word. maar uiteindelik moet die huis en die oorblywende meubels per openbare veiling verkoop word. van hierdie spesifieke bemakings is insiggewend. haar boeke en ’n aantal meubels word aan die teologiese kweekskool op stellenbosch bemaak asook ’n beursfonds vir die opleiding van predikante op voorwaarde dat die meubels in een vertrek bymekaar gehou word. ander meubels en skilderye word aan die stad kaapstad bemaak op voorwaarde dat dit an ’n eenheid in die de wet-kamer bewaar 15 saawek-argief: item 66: regsmening van adv scheepers, ongedateer; item 67: knipsel uit ons land; item 68: enkel bladsy dokument oor die testament; item 69: nog ’n regsmening van adv scheepers gedateer 27.5.1912; item 75: die gedrukte testament; item 76 : die kodisil van margaretha gedateer 8.2.1911. 16 saawek-argief: item 49: eksekuteurskamer – meester van die hooggeregshof, 2.12.1912. 17 saawek-argief: item 50: engelenburg – eksekuteurskamer 18.12.1912; item 51: eksekuteurskamer – engelenburg 30.12.1912. 18 saawek-argief: item 53: eksekuteurskamer – engelenburg 4.6.1913. 19 saawek-argief: item 58: eksekuteurskamer – engelenburg 27.2..1914. 20 saawek-argief: item 59: eksekuteurskamer – engelenburg 5.3.1914. 21 saawek-argief: item 62. ‘n besondere driemanskap td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. 159166. 165 word; engelenburg ontvang haar silwer eetgerei en haar bed word bemaak aan fs malan se seun jacques.22 malan het veral die onderhandelinge met die kweekskool hanteer en spoedig tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat dié bepaling nie uitgevoer sal kan word nie omdat die professore nie hulle weg oopgesien het om ’n de wet-kamer in te rig nie. malan en engelenburg was op hierdie vroeë stadium reeds oortuig daarvan dat die huis vir die nageslag bewaar moes word en het reeds in hierdie rigting begin werk.23 engelenburg het die oplossing aan die hand gedoen wat deur prof. ij marais namens die kweekskool aanvaar is, nl dat die kweekskool nie ’n de wet-kamer kan inrig nie en dat dit daarom beter sal wees om die huis as ’n eenheid te bewaar.24 4. die bewaring van marie koopmans-de wet huis malan en engelenburg het begin met ’n openbare veldtog om die gebou deur die stad kaapstad of die staat aangekoop te kry. malan se groot kaapse invloed was belangrik terwyl engelenburg weer op sy beurt in pretoria sy invloed by louis botha sou gebruik om hom by die saak betrek te kry. op hulle aandrang het die burgemeester van kaapstad aan die eerste minister geskryf om die stad kaapstad en die vereniging van munisipale korporasies se steun toe te sê aan die bewaringspoging.25 engelenburg het ook herbert baker en arthur reid, president van die kaapse instituut van argitekte, se steun gewerf.26 sir henry de villiers het as voorsitter ook die raad van die kaapse national society of south africa sy gewig ingegooi.27 selfs uit rhodesië het die argitek francis massey, wat ’n goeie vriend van marie koopmans-de wet was, vertel hoe sy gehelp keer het dat cecil rhodes ’n deel van die kasteel afbreek om die pad reguit te maak, watter rol sy gespeel het om die portico van die ou town house te herbou is en hoe sy gehelp keer het dat dat die ou binnehof van groot constantia nie gevandaliseer word om die wynkelder te vergroot nie.28 dit is op malan se aandrang dat massey die saak in ’n brief in die cape times gepropageer het.29 die regering was aanvanklik nie gewillig om die huis aan te koop nie omdat hulle voorkeur gegee het aan die spoedige oorname van die goede hoop casteel. dit was vir malan ’n groot teleurstelling en hy het hom na engelenburg gewend vir advies.30 intussen is die 22 saawek-argief: item 7: persoonlike notas van fv engelenburg op instruksie van mev de wet, 25.6.1906, 27.6.1906 en 28.6.1906. 23 saawek-argief: item 10: malan-engelenburg, 13.6.1909. 24 saawek –argief: item12: ij marais-engelenburg en malan, 11.11.1911. 25 saawek-argief: item 13: burgemeester – botha 14.11.1911. 26 saawek-argief: items 16 baker-engelenburg, 18.11.1911; 16 20.11.1911; 29 26.4.1912; 30 maart 1912. 27 saawek-argief: item 14: de villiersmalan, 29.10.1912. 28 saawek-argief: items 20 malan – massey 28.11.1911 en 21: massey – malan 14.11.1911. 29 saawek-argief: item 26 afskrif van massey se brief aan the cape times. 30 saawek-argief: item 27: malan-engelenburg, 5.2.1912. kapp 166 waarde van die skenking van meubels aan die kweekskool op £7614-13-6 en aan privaat persone op £6182-3-3 vasgestel. die waardeerders het die waarde van die huis op £7500 geskat.31 die kweekskool het hierin ’n geleentheid gesien om te vra dat as die huis as ’n nasionale gedenkwaardigheid aangekoop word, die kweekskool vir die waarde van die meubels vergoed moes word. dit het engelenburg ontstig en hy het beklemtoon dat hulle wens dat die staat die huis moet aankoop niks te doen het met hulle eksekuteurs aanstelling nie. hulle pleit vir die aankoop en bewaring van die huis as “warme belangstellendes in ‘s lands maatschappelijke en artistieke historie”.32 engelenburg het hom hierna na die burgemeester van kaapstad gewend en ’n volledige memorandum oor die historiese en artistieke waarde van die huis aan hom voorgelê. hy het beklemtoon dat die huis in die agtiende eeu deur louis michel thibault ontwerp is en dat dit die huis is waarin die beweging vir selfregering aan die kaapkolonie deur leidende kapenaars onder leiding van johannes de wet begin is.33 lede van die stadsraad het daarop die huis besoek. engelenburg moes klaarblyklik ook die saak met genl. louis botha opgeneem het want botha het op 17 januarie 1913 ’n openbare vergadering van alle belangstellendes byeen geroep waar ’n groot komitee aangewys is om die saak van die aankoop en bewaring van die huis en inhoud verder te voer. botha sou self die president van die komitee wees en malan en engelenburg is ingesluit in die lys van vooraanstaande kapenaars wat die saak verder sou voer.34 in ’n ontmoeting met botha op 10 februarie 1913 het die regering ingestem om £3000 tot die komitee se beskikking te stel om die aankoop te bevorder. ’n bydraelys is geopen wat ’n bedrag van £2366-13-10 opgelewer het. die huis is op 8 april 1913 op ’n openbare veiling vir ’n bedrag van £2800 aangekoop. die eiendom is aan die suid-afrikaanse museum oorgedra wat dit moes bestuur en beheer. ’n komitee is aangewys om uit die 2089 items in die boedel dit uit te soek wat van werklike historiese en kuns waarde was. uit hierdie groep is 356 items uitgesoek en later nog 18 bygevoeg wat nie op die veilingslys voorgekom het nie. die getal het 188 stukke pottebakkery, 69 meubelstukke en 5 plaaslik vervaardigde klerekaste van verskillende style en uit verskillende suid-afrikaanse houtsoorte vervaardig ingesluit. daarbenewens is ook 13 dak en muur kandelabers van koper en 26 ander glas en koper items asook 28 sheffield borde, 41 stukke silwerware, 110 items van glas en 147 chinese en japanese porseleinstukke by die versameling ingesluit.35 die marie koopmansde wethuis is op 10 maart 1914 geopen as ’n national collection of domestic & local antiquities.36 die nasionale monumentekommissie het die huis in 1940 tot nasionale gedenkwaardigheid geproklameer. vandag staan dit daar sonder die erkenning van die rol van die vriendskap van drie mense. 31 saawek-argief: item 31: eksekuteurskamer-engelenburg, 13.2.1912. 32 saawek-argief: item 25: engelenburg – ds ds botha, 1.1.21911. 33 saawek-argief: item 32: memorandum deur engelenburg aan die burgemeester van kaapstad, maart 1912. 34 saawek-argief: item 65: notule van die vergadering van 27.1.1913 met die name van al die lede van die komitee. 35 saawek-argief: item 65: aanhangsel by bogenoemde notule. 36 saawek-argief: item 60: uitnodiging van die suid-afrikaanse museum aan fv engelenburg. abstract introduction background theoretical and operational contexts research problem and research purpose methodology document analysis for understanding the committee as context potential conflict of interest: perceptions, lived experiences and expectations of committee members discussion of results conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) jacobus s. wessels department of public administration and management, college of economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa elmarie sadler department of financial governance, college of accounting sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation wessels js, sadler e. conflict of interest: the case of a non-decision-making committee at a south african public higher education institution. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a878. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.878 original research conflict of interest: the case of a non-decision-making committee at a south african public higher education institution jacobus s. wessels, elmarie sadler received: 14 may 2020; accepted: 10 mar. 2021; published: 28 june 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the avoidance of a conflict of interest within private and public institutions is closely associated with good corporate governance. this study departed from the question of whether a conflict of interest is possible within a non-decision-making institutional committee. for this purpose, a high-level non-decision-making committee within a south african public higher education institution was selected as a case study. this article reports on an exploratory qualitative study consisting of qualitative content analysis of the constituting and operational documents of this committee, as well as on a study of the perceptions and lived experiences of the selected committee. it was found that the selected committee was established to be a high-level consultative body for the executive management committee of the university on decisions of strategic operational nature. this committee does not have any decision-making duties. conflict of interest is perceived by committee members in terms of either the explicit or the hidden agenda metaphor. according to the explicit agenda metaphor, a conflict of interest within a non-decision-making committee is not possible, whilst the hidden agenda metaphor holds that a conflict of interest is the reality of members’ lived experiences. this article provides a comparison of the two perspectives according to three defining attributes of the concept and shows a need for a logical and principled definition of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ within the context of higher education and the public sector at large. keywords: conflict of interest; higher education management; corporate decision-making; consultative forum; internal competition; hidden agenda; explicit agenda; governance; higher education institutions; public higher education institutions. introduction it is commonly accepted within soundly governed corporations as well as public sector institutions that the only value driver for members of boards and committees is to execute their duties, as articulated by the king iv report, ‘in the best interest of the organisation over time’.1 consequently, it is expected that members of these bodies will always ‘avoid using their position and title to perpetuate sole self-interest or mere private gain’.2 the expectation of avoidance of conflicting interests in corporate decision-making is embedded in a rich literature on business ethics, corporate governance and public sector integrity.3,4 conflict of interest, irrespective of the context, has shown to refer to an individual’s private or personal interests, which may have an improper influence on the performance of his or her ‘official duties and responsibilities’.5 these duties or responsibilities have shown to be predominantly that of judgement and decision-making.6,7,8 a crucial question, however, is whether conflict of interest is possible within a committee with no decision-making powers and, if so, what the nature of that conflict may be. this question is especially relevant considering that a self-assessment study amongst the members of a non-decision-making university committee has shown that the confidence level of committee members to ‘properly manage potential conflict of interest’ within the committee is at an ‘extremely low level’.9 this particular committee is mainly a consultative forum for the executive management of the university. the vexing question is thus as follows: how is it possible for conflict of interest to exist within such a committee? the subsequent purpose of this article is to report on a study of the possibility of conflict of interest experienced by members of a non-decision-making committee of a selected public higher education institution (hei). the hei, with which the two researchers are affiliated, has been selected as a typical case of the phenomenon. an exploratory qualitative study amongst members of a non-decision-making committee in this institution was conducted to describe and understand their perceptions of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ within the context of this committee. the article reports on their lived experiences of potential conflict of interest within the committee, as well as their understanding of what proper management of this phenomenon entails. a brief background to the research and a justification of the theoretical perspective on the research problem and the research purpose are firstly provided. secondly, the methodological and research ethics considerations for the research, specifically with the contentious topic in mind, are also discussed. thirdly, an integrated and interpretive account of the research findings is discussed. the conclusions are then embedded in the relevant theoretical frameworks selected for this research as well as those that evolved through the research process for an improved understanding of the phenomenon. the background of this study, embedded in the south african higher education context, as well as the theoretical frameworks underpinning corporate governance, is provided in the next section. background this research project originated against the backdrop of the realisation of the imperative of good corporate governance within south africa as a country, but also within the sphere of public higher education. the imperative of sound governance structures within heis is confirmed by: the higher education act, 101 of 199710 the regulations for reporting by higher education institutions11 the standard institutional statute12 an institution-specific statute for each university13,14 the legislature’s consideration of the annual vote to fund the south african education sector.15 these regulations have shown to be closely aligned with the principles embedded in the king iv report on corporate governance.1 with regard to the promotion of ethical conduct, the report advises that members of governing bodies ‘should avoid conflicts of interest’.1 considering that public heis are also classified as part of the broad public sector, it is noteworthy that the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) also advises against a conflict of interest resulting in an improper influence on ‘the performance of their [public officials] official duties and responsibilities’.5 the south african public hei, which served as a case for this study, has shown to be fully aligned with the above-mentioned regulatory framework and with the imperative of sound corporate governance.16 as part of the university’s continuous efforts to improve governance structures and practices, the bureau of market research (bmr) was commissioned by the executive management of the university to conduct ‘self-assessment’ studies to gauge the efficiency of the functioning of the various structures and committees within the university. one of these committees is the extended management committee (emc) – a high-level consultative committee for the executive management of the university. the self-assessment study performed on this committee investigated, inter alia, the confidence and perceptions of individual committee members regarding 23 survey items.9 the report states, ‘confidence in the emc and its members is at an extremely low level … and has remained low and even deteriorated since 2014’.9 one of the low-confidence items was identified as ‘[committee members] properly manages [sic] potential conflict of interest’.9 the bmr study revealed that the confidence level index for managing committee members’ conflict of interest was below 50% for three consecutive years (2013–2015): 48.81% in 2013, 45.59% in 2014 and 47.37% in 2015. an analysis of the raw data also showed a strong correlation between this item and three other items, namely, ‘transparent in exchanging information openly’ (correlation: 0.748), ‘mutual respect for responsibilities and views of other members’ (correlation: 0.707) and ‘receive feedback on how issues are resolved’ (correlation: 0.677). it thus seems that the concepts ‘transparency’, ‘mutual respect’ and ‘feedback’ may be key concepts within a broader theoretical context of understanding the phenomenon ‘conflict of interest’ and its management within this committee. theoretical and operational contexts the current study was performed within the theoretical context of corporate governance and the operational context of higher education management. it set out to obtain a deepened understanding of the overlapping theoretical concepts ‘corporate governance’17 and ‘conflict of interest’18 within the context of heis.6,19 for the purpose of this study, the theoretical and operational contexts were directly interrelated and fully integrated. the operational context of this study consisted of the broad higher education environment as well as a specific institutional context of a selected university. the transformation of south african universities has shown to be closely aligned with a worldwide trend of universities transformed from: [s]mall, elite institutions, managed by academic peers in a collegial way, into large multi-task organisations. this requires new governance structures to manage all the tasks and roles of today’s institutions.20 this transformation of especially south african universities has been justified as an attempt to strengthen governance through ‘an integrated, unified higher education system based on the principles of equity, democratisation, quality, academic freedom, institutional autonomy, effectiveness and efficiency’.21 the efforts to strengthen governance in south african universities are informed by, inter alia, the work and influence of the various king reports on corporate governance in south africa. the king iv definition of corporate governance is widely used as a foundational guideline, namely ‘the exercise of ethical and effective leadership by the governing body towards the achievement of the … governance outcomes’ of ethical culture, good performance, effective control and legitimacy.1 this definition was used as a primary assumption for this article. furthermore, the legal foundation for governance of south african public heis is provided in chapter 4 of the higher education act, 101 of 1997.10 this foundation, specifically with regard to the governance structures and offices in heis, is supplemented by the standard institutional statute12 and, for each university, an institution-specific statute.13,14 in terms of the king iv definition of corporate governance, a university council is the governing body of a university and thus primarily responsible for efficient governance within the university.10,12 the higher education act of 1997 provides for institutional governance structures, such as a council, a senate, a principal, a vice-principal, a students’ representative council (src), an institutional forum and ‘such other structures and offices as may be determined by the institutional statute’.10 with these governance structures in mind, the standard institutional statute refers to council committees, joint committees of the council and the senate, senate committees, subcommittees of the senate, an executive committee of the senate, student committees and src committees.10,12 the statute of the selected institution provides, in addition to the aforementioned structures, also for college boards, an inter-college board, a management committee and an emc.13,14 whilst the aforementioned structures and committees are all constituted in terms of the higher education act of 1997 and related statutes and regulations, these committees all seem to be included in the corporate governance responsibility of a university council. the higher education system in south africa is thus characterised by its dense corporate governance systems through which university councils and senates have the obligation to ensure an ‘ethical culture, good performance, effective control and legitimacy’.1 the emc, which constituted the narrow context of this study, is thus included in the above-mentioned system, which comprises the governance responsibility of the university council. it was within these overlapping contexts of corporate governance and higher education that this study searched for an in-depth understanding of the concept ‘conflict of interest’. the king iv report advises that conflict of interest of members of a governing body should be avoided in the pursuit of integrity and ethical leadership.1 to this end, the concept ‘conflict of interest’ is used to describe a situation of ‘direct or indirect conflict, in fact or in appearance, between the interests of such member and that of the organisation’.1 the primary assumption of this definition is that the interest of the organisation is paramount. the implication is thus that any relationship of a member of such a body or committee ‘that is or appears to be not in the best interest of the organization’ constitutes conflict with the interest of the organisation, which would subsequently ‘prejudice an individual’s ability to perform his or her duties and responsibilities objectively’.22 the literature reveals that these duties predominantly relate to members’ roles in the decision-making process of such a board or committee.18,23 whilst the emphasis on improved corporate governance might have originated in the business sector, there is a worldwide trend towards improved governance requirements for what is known as non-profit organisations, with specific emphasis on conflict of interest.4 in a legal study on the limits of conflict regulations within the context of private life, guzzetta24 identified three basic elements that constitute a situation of conflict of interest, namely: a legally qualified position (social, economic, institutional), two different interests in actual or potential contrast and what i call a ‘power-duty’ (stemming from a private or public office) to discharge. reporting on a study on conflict of interest in canadian universities, williams-jones and macdonald8 report that the primary concern in the university context is that conflict of interest: [t]hreatens the objectivity, impartiality and credibility of judgments, whether in academic research or professional decision-making, and leads to a subsequent loss of trust by staff, students and the broader public. within the context of the south african higher education sector, research revealed ‘a renewed focus on the declaration of conflicts of interest’, resulting in a number of universities adopting policies and procedures to mitigate the risk of conflicts of interest.25 within the context of this specific case, the ‘code of ethics’ of the university under study refers to a possible conflict of employees’ ‘private interests and their obligations to [the university]’,26 whilst the ‘terms of reference’ of this specific committee do not contain any reference to the possibility of a conflict of interest.27 where ‘conflict of interest’ is used in the literature, it is done with reference to the possible impairment of the duties of committee or board members to make a decision on an item on the agenda of a meeting. the following assumptions applicable to corporate governance and the avoidance of conflict of interest in a public university can be extracted from the preceding discussion: assumption 1: the university council is the governing body of a university and has the entitlement, power and obligation24 to make decisions regarding efficient governance of that university through its duly constituted office bearers and structures. assumption 2: efficient corporate governance by the council and its subordinate office-bearers and structures implies the entitlement, power and obligation to exercise ethical and effective leadership towards the achievement of the governance outcomes of the university. assumption 3: ethical and effective leadership by office-bearers and members of council or its subordinate structures implies that entitlements, powers and obligations in conflict with the interests of the institution should be avoided. the above assumptions were used as theoretical points of departure for this study. research problem and research purpose a common attribute to the preceding three theoretical assumptions deduced from the literature is the presence of an active actor who is making decisions or who exercises leadership. the ethical dilemma of a conflict of interest experienced by an active actor is thus a direct result of the actor’s decision to act in a specific way in response to an agenda item. this dilemma leads to the vexing question, which drove this study, namely, ‘how is it possible that a conflict of interest can be experienced within a committee that does not make any decision on any agenda item?’ the subsequent purpose of this article is to report on a study that set out to understand the possibility of conflict of interest within a non-decision-making committee in a selected hei. the aforementioned non-decision-making committee was thus the unit of analysis of this study, whilst the possible existence of a conflict of interest within the committee served as the specific point of focus. consequently, this study set out to understand the possibility of a conflict of interest within this committee through its key constituting documents as well as the perceptions and experiences of the members of the committee. the research design and methodology necessary to conduct this study are summarised next. methodology as a preliminary review of the literature revealed the absence of an existing theoretical body of knowledge regarding the existence of conflict of interest within non-decision-making committees, the researchers decided to embark on an exploratory qualitative research design to obtain a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon.28 two methods were applied, namely, content analysis of selected documents and face-to-face individual interviews with members of the committee. this project thus relied on two categories of sources: documents and individuals who were members of the committee. although members of the committee served as the primary unit of observation for this study, the researchers firstly performed a qualitative content analysis of several key documents, which included the 2015 self-assessment report,9 the ‘terms of reference’ of the committee,27 the university’s ‘code of ethics’26 and a selection of recent agendas and minutes of the committee. the aims of the summative qualitative content analysis29 were to gain a complete understanding of the context of the individual participants by comprehending the composition, purpose and functions of the committee, the various interests at stake, as well as the meaning of the concept ‘conflict of interest’, within both the broader hei context and the context of this committee. secondly, face-to-face interviews were conducted with members of the committee. an interpretive phenomenological approach was used to generate rich and detailed descriptions30 of how the members of the committee perceived and experienced the possibility of a conflict of interest within the committee. with the selection of this approach, the researchers assumed that the perceptions and experiences of the participating committee members were real and worthy and that exploring such perceptions and experiences and taking them into account were pivotal for obtaining an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon.31,32 the interviews were directed by the following three broad and open-ended questions with no right or wrong answers33: how do you perceive the concept ‘potential conflict of interest’ within the context of the emc? reflecting on your role as a member of the emc, can you share your experiences of what you regard as potential conflict of interest within the emc? reflecting on your experiences, what does it mean to you to ‘properly manage’ potential conflict of interest within the context of the committee? the empirical nature and the possible sensitive topic of this study had specific ethical implications, which are discussed in the next section. the results of the first part of this research project, namely, the document analysis, are discussed in the next section. ethical considerations because of the potential sensitive nature of the project as well as the direct involvement of human participants, the researchers regarded the potential risk of harming human participants39 as moderate to high. they therefore applied for research ethics clearance at the research ethics review committee of the faculty of education, as this committee and its members were not directly related to the researchers’ immediate sphere of influence. research ethics clearance was granted on 11 february 2016 (reference number: 2016/02/11/1959611/49/mc). subsequently, the researchers applied at the selected institution’s research permission sub-committee for permission to involve staff members in the research project and to gain access to official documents related to this project. permission was granted on 03 march 2016 (reference number: 2016_rpsc_011). in order to avoid a possible conflict of interest, with one of the researchers being a member of the committee, the researchers decided that the non-member researcher would conduct, record and transcribe the interviews with the selected members of the committee, whilst both researchers would analyse the anonymised interview records (numbered p01 to p10) and interpret the findings. all the members of the committee were invited by way of an e-mail to be available for a non-structured individual interview and to indicate their availability in a return e-mail. as only two members responded, additional members were consequently invited to make themselves available for an interview. appointments were secured with 10 members of the committee, representing members from the executive management of the university, the academic sector as well as the support sector within the university. all members willing to participate received an informed consent letter and subsequently signed an informed consent form before the interviews commenced. document analysis for understanding the committee as context to understand the perceptions and lived experiences of the members of the committee in terms of conflict of interest, it was necessary to understand the committee as context – the reason for existence of the committee, its composition and actual activities. for this purpose, an analysis was done of the documents providing that information, namely: terms of reference: emc (as revised and approved by the management committee on 12 october 2015) a selection of recent agendas and minutes of the committee the particular university’s ‘code of ethics’.26 reason for existence of the committee the reason for existence of the committee is stipulated as ‘functions of committee’ in section 4 of the ‘terms of reference’.27 three themes could be identified from the analysis of this document to understand the reason for the existence of the committee, namely, the characteristics of the committee, the scope of its focus and the nature of its actions. the characteristics focus and actions of this committee relate directly to the interest of the committee as an institution. this is evident from key concepts, such as ‘represented by senior management’, ‘management committee’, ‘the university’, ‘integrated and coordinated’ and ‘combined assurance’.27 as indicated earlier in this article, this committee forms part of the governance structure of the university council.10,12,34 this reason for the existence of the committee primarily involves supporting the council’s governance structure within the university. the supporting role comprises being a consultative body assisting the management committee of the university to make informed (coordinating, integrating, monitoring, evaluating, performing and ensuring) decisions of a strategic operational nature in the interest of the institution as a unit. hence, it was clear that this committee, although not a decision-making committee, is a formal part of the governance structure of the university. it is within these overlapping contexts of corporate governance and higher education that the current study searched for a thorough understanding of the concept ‘conflict of interest’. composition of the committee the composition of this non-decision-making committee reflects its important nature. this is described in section 1 of the committee’s ‘terms of reference’.27 all staff members appointed in management positions – from the level of deputy executive dean and deputy executive director to the principal and vice-chancellor (section 1) – are members of this committee. this implies that the committee can be regarded as representative of the university as an institution, as it consists of executive management (nine members), as well as the executive deans and deputy executive deans of the eight faculties (16 members), and the executive directors and deputy executive directors (18 members) of the support departments. these three groups constitute the distinct interest groups within the broader context of the university. actual activities of the committee the committee was constituted to serve as a consultative body, consisting of senior managers representing all spheres within the university, assisting the executive management of the institution to make informed (coordinating, integrating, monitoring, evaluating, performing and ensuring) decisions of a strategic operational nature in the interest of the institution as a unit. the nature of the institutional interests (themes and topics of the agenda items) on which the non-decision-making committee has been consulted was identified, as well as the specific constituting sector (interest group) responsible for the themes or topics included in the agendas of the committee meetings for one academic year. content analysis of the minutes of the non-decision-making committee meetings was done to describe and understand the agenda items and the distinct role-player category (executive management together with the academic and support sectors) that presented these items and the activities of the committee. this analysis also revealed that no member of the committee declared a conflict of interest in the applicable column on the attendance registers for the respective meetings. the analysis furthermore revealed that, of the 32 agenda items (excluding the approval of minutes) considered at the selected meetings of the committee, 17 items were of a purely operational nature focusing on portfolio or support department-specific operational matters. the focus of discussions by the committee was predominantly determined by the support sector of the university, as no fewer than 24 of the 32 agenda items were presented by a member from the support sector. members of the executive management were responsible for four agenda items, whilst the executive management together with the academic and support sectors were shown to be jointly responsible for four agenda items. not one agenda item was presented by the academic sector alone, a confirmation that this committee forms part of the governance structure of the university council, and not of the senate. it was evident from the analysis that the agendas of the committee meetings were predominantly structured around taking notice of operational issues and presentations related to the various support departments, and that no member of the committee ever declared a conflict of interest. considering that: this committee is supposed to be a consultative body assisting the management committee of the university to make informed (coordinating, integrating, monitoring, evaluating, performing and ensuring) decisions of a strategic operational nature in the interest of the institution as a unit the committee meetings were predominantly structured around the notification of operational issues and presentations related to the various support departments no declaration of conflict of interest by a member of the committee was recorded in the minutes, this study set out to answer the following question: how can the relative lack of confidence amongst committee members to properly manage a possible conflict of their private interests with their obligations to the university be understood? key to finding an answer to this question was an understanding of the perceptions of the committee members of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ within the context of this committee, their lived experiences of the potential conflict of interest within the committee, as well as their understanding of what the proper management of this phenomenon entails. for this purpose, exploratory qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 members of the committee. the next section reports on the results of those interviews. potential conflict of interest: perceptions, lived experiences and expectations of committee members the purpose of these interviews was to grasp how the members of the non-decision-making committee understood the proper management of potential conflict of interest within the context of the committee. consequently, the researchers sought to determine how members perceived the concept ‘conflict of interest’ within the context of this committee, how they experienced the phenomenon within this committee and how they expected this phenomenon to be managed. this section reports on the analysis of the interview records of 10 members of the committee structured around three questions. the three main questions for the interviews as set earlier in this article serve as subheadings for this section. in the process of studying the interview records, two distinct themes evolved, namely, that of the explicit agendas and that of the hidden agendas of the meeting. these themes were especially helpful in identifying two distinct understandings of the concept ‘conflict of interest’, namely: an explicit, legal concept referring to a prima facie possibility that judgement related to a decision to be taken might be impaired by other interests than those stated in the explicit agenda for the decision a non-legal concept referring to the exploitation of the explicit agenda to influence the judgement and subsequent decisions in other spheres of the institution to the advancement of individual or sectoral interest. these themes have shown to become powerful metaphors in structuring and interpreting the results obtained from the interviews, as presented next. question 1: how do you perceive the concept ‘potential conflict of interest’ within the context of this committee? this question was formulated by taking into consideration the interviewees’ considered opinions on the meaning of a specific concept (potential conflict of interest) within a particular context, namely, this non-decision-making committee, the university and the broader higher education landscape. the analysis of the interview records revealed that the non-decision-making committee members’ understanding of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ was closely related to the agenda of the committee meetings. explicit agenda the interviewees who answered this question from the explicit agenda perspective argued that, at the time, it was expected from the committee members to declare on the attendance register any conflict of interest upfront (p04; p07). should a member make such a declaration, that member should be asked ‘when that item is discussed, to leave the room, and wait for the item to be discussed’ (p07, face-to-face interviews, emc). however, an analysis of the attendance registers of the committee meetings for an entire year confirmed that nobody had ever declared a conflict of interest when they signed the registers. the question subsequently arose why no member of this committee had ever declared a conflict of interest. the reason provided was that the committee ‘does not actually take decisions’ as it ‘is a talk shop’ (p01). in terms of the legal meaning of the concept, conflict of interest can only occur if the members take decisions on which this committee is supposed to ‘advise’ and which they have to ‘consider’ (p01, face-to-face interviews, emc). there seems to be an acknowledgement that ‘we all go in with interests’ (p03, face-to-face interviews, emc) and that these interests may even be a ‘strong personal interest in a matter under discussion’ (p04, face-to-face interviews, emc). this view has been illustrated as follows by one interviewee: ‘i have a serious interest in the student system because, at the moment, the way the student system does not work, affects my life’ (p03, face-to-face interviews, emc). the legal interpretation of the concept entails that ‘the mere fact that you have competing interests does not mean that there is a conflict’, as the ‘only time where a conflict arises and is significant is when it impairs your judgement on a specific decision’ (p01, face-to-face interviews, emc). at the time, the agendas for meetings of this committee were structured in a fixed manner (p06) with items even perceived by some members as of a confidential nature (p08), which are included ‘most of the time for noting’ only (p06, face-to-face interviews, emc). in terms of the legal understanding of the concept ‘conflict of interest’, at the time, the explicit agenda of this committee implied that a conflict of interest was not possible at its meetings. the fact that the attendance registers of the selected meetings did not reveal any declaration of conflict of interest probably proves that when members were signing that register, they applied the legal meaning of the concept. hidden agenda as in the case of the explicit agenda discussed previously, the hidden agenda approach accepts that individual members enter meetings with interests (p01–p07; p09 and p10). however, it differs from the explicit agenda approach on whether that interest constitutes a conflict with the interest of the institution. the hidden agenda approach argues that whilst these personal or portfolio-specific interests may be driven in order to unduly influence decisions in other spaces, these interests indeed constitute a conflict with the common interest of the institution. irrespective of the application of the legal meaning of the concept when signing the applicable register, the bmr9 report reveals low confidence in managing conflict of interest amongst the members of this committee. this might be a confirmation of a tacit conflict of interest determined by another agenda: the hidden agenda. conflict of interest in terms of the hidden agenda is perceived as the exploitation of a vague and undefined explicit agenda of the committee by strong personalities driving personal and portfolio-specific interests to influence decisions at other levels (p02; p03; p04; p09 and p10). conflict of interest within this committee is perceived by the participants as a reflection of the ‘organisational model of the university [which] is very hierarchical, in fact, very industrial’ (p02, face-to-face interviews, emc), leading to an agenda that is ‘almost competitive rather than collaborative’ (p02, face-to-face interviews, emc). the hierarchical model of the institution ‘creates unnecessary conflict around power and who makes decisions’ (p02, face-to-face interviews, emc), probably as it does not manifest ‘the academic project as being central’ (p02, face-to-face interviews, emc). these structural and personal hidden agendas ‘may be demonstrated by members following a defence mode on a particular matter’ (p04, face-to-face interviews, emc), instead of having ‘an open discussion’ (p06, face-to-face interviews, emc) on the ‘common interest and your role to achieve it together with others’ (p04, face-to-face interviews, emc). irrespective of the fact that the attendance registers of the selected meetings did not reveal any declaration of conflict of interest, the analysis of the interview records from a hidden agenda perspective revealed the existence of various and powerful hidden but conflicting agendas, which might have influenced the behaviour of committee members to the possible detrimental interest of the institution. whilst the purpose of the first question was to obtain the committee members’ perceptions or understanding of the concept within the context of this committee, the next question aimed to obtain their lived experiences of conflict of interest within the committee. question 2: reflecting on your role as a member of the committee, can you share your experiences of what you regard as potential conflict of interest within the committee? the second question was asked to obtain an understanding of the committee members’ lived experiences of conflict of interest within the committee. their experiences indicated that this was determined by their perceptions of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ within the context of the committee, as discussed in the previous section. within the context of the committee, conflict of interest was experienced differently by members in terms of the two agenda metaphors. explicit agenda those members whose experiences were determined by their views of committee deliberations in terms of the explicit agenda of the committee and the concept ‘conflict of interest’ in its legal sense could not recall any instance that could be regarded as a conflict of interest. they substantiated their answers by referring to the absence of conflict between a member’s private interest and the interest of the institution (p01; p04; p07). the experiences from a hidden agenda perspective were however different. hidden agenda conflict of interest was experienced by members of the committee as conflict between the interests of the particular (sector within the university) and the common (the university as a unity). the hidden agenda enhances conflicts of interests through its lack of focus on the strategic objectives of the university and attention to individual portfolios and their performances. the culture of a silent majority (p09) and reluctance to share information (p06) were ascribed to ‘[f]ear for the pack of wolves’ (p07, face-to-face interviews, emc), or ‘the punishment by the court’ (p02, face-to-face interviews, emc) and a fear of being exposed as making mistakes, as ‘there is no room for making mistakes’ (p06, face-to-face interviews, emc). this seems to make it difficult for some members to express their views on particular matters. as one interviewee explained: ‘sometimes the difficulty arises in that you know the committee so well, you know then when it is time to keep your mouth shut … as it [expressing your opinion freely] could be actually career-limiting.’ (p06, face-to-face interviews, emc) the reality of a conflict of interest in the committee is therefore experienced notwithstanding the absence of decision-making powers of the committee. the influence of deliberations in the committee is, on the one hand, on the decisions taken by the management committee and, on the other hand, on the final decision-making structures (p05). thus, although issues would be raised in the committee, ‘the actual change, the approval for the change, would take place in another place’ (p01, face-to-face interviews, emc). conflict of interest within the committee was accordingly described as ‘determining the mood for decisions taken by other bodies’ (p04, face-to-face interviews, emc). at the time of this study, conflict of interest in the committee was experienced in terms of the functionality of the committee, the composition of the hidden agendas for the meetings, the culture within the committee, and the extended influence of the activities of the committee. within the committee, conflict of interest is perceived as directly related to the functionality of the committee. one of the major concerns regarding the functionality of the committee is that its explicit functions seem to be underutilised. question 3: reflecting on your experience, what does the expectation to ‘properly manage’ potential conflict of interest mean within the context of the committee? the purpose of the third question was to obtain the participants’ views about the proper management of potential conflict of interests as informed by their lived experiences as members of the committee. this was done in an attempt to make sense of the concept ‘[t]o properly manage’ potential conflict of interest within the committee by exploring the various possibilities to handle, control or cope with conflict of interest. whilst the agenda metaphor was highly applicable in making sense of the perceptions of the interviewees, the perceptions and lived experiences of the participants revealed that the agenda itself might be a powerful vehicle to ‘manage’ conflict of interest in this committee. the latter argument was shown to be a common theme raised by nearly all the interviewees. their views are presented in the following paragraphs as their reflections and understanding of both the explicit and the hidden agendas of the committee. explicit agenda from the explicit agenda perspective, this question was perceived as irrelevant, whilst the self-assessment report and the subsequent investigations by the various working groups were perceived as an effort ‘trying to massage this committee into something’ (p01, face-to-face interviews, emc). entering a committee meeting with a specific sectoral interest was not perceived as having a ‘conflict of interest’ in the legal sense of the concept (p03). however, to ‘properly manage’ the diversity of especially sectoral interests in the committee was perceived as a rational activity by ‘listening to other viewpoints and interrogating that’ (p03, face-to-face interviews, emc). hidden agenda from the hidden agenda perspective, there was a firm acknowledgement of the presence of a structural conflict of interest within the committee (p02). consequently, to properly manage a conflict of interest within the committee was perceived as to change the focus and functioning of the committee as well as the culture within the committee through a fundamental restructuring of the agenda. one interviewee formulated this proposed change as, ‘i think integration is the name of the game’ (p02, face-to-face interviews, emc), referring to restructuring the explicit agenda to focus on the strategic matters and an all-inclusive scope for the committee. it was therefore suggested that each meeting should have a ‘strong strategic focus’ (p02, face-to-face interviews, emc). other interviewees emphasised the need for the agenda to focus on institutional goals and strategy (p05; p07). a change of scope and focus of the committee was regarded as pivotal for limiting the possibility for a conflict of interest within this committee. the focus of meetings should be on the achievement of institutional goals and strategy through an integrated involvement of all role-players in the institution (p02; p04; p06). there seemed to be general agreement that the functioning of this committee needed to be changed to become a forum to deal with these strategic issues in an open and transparent way, and to deal with operational issues of a strategic nature (p06; p08–p09). the role of the chair of the committee, namely, to change the functioning of this committee, was perceived as vital for redirecting the functioning of the committee to strategic issues. the ‘chair should take control and run this committee’ (p10, face-to-face interviews, emc). the analysis of the interview records also revealed a consequential relationship between the focus and functioning of the committee and its culture. for the purpose of this study, we understood the concept ‘culture’ as referring to the ‘assumptions, values and artefacts’35 within the committee. the most dominant culture experienced within the committee seemed to be the silo or sectoral culture, and a culture of fear for making mistakes and being blamed (p02; p06–p07; p10). there was also a strong view that conflict of interest within the committee would be limited if the culture was to be changed from a silo or sectoral interest to a shared institutional interest, and from a blame and shame culture to one of openly and honestly acknowledging mistakes, with a subsequent shared search for solutions to the benefit of the institutional interest. from the hidden agenda perspective, there was thus a firm acknowledgement of the presence of a structural conflict of interest within the emc (p02). there was also a clear expectation amongst the interviewees of this conflict of interest being properly managed through a change in the focus, functioning and culture of the committee by a fundamental restructuring of the explicit agenda. discussion of results this study set out to make sense of the possibility that members of a non-decision-making committee within a public hei may experience a conflict of interest. this issue is important, as the avoidance of conflict of interest is generally regarded as one of the foundational principles of good corporate governance. subsequently, this study departed from three theoretical assumptions, which linked the avoidance of a conflict of interest within an institution, such as a public university, to the soundness and efficiency of the corporate governance by the duly entitled, authorised and duty-bound university council and its office-bearers and structures. this study also showed that the committee that was selected as a case for this study formed an integral part of the governance structures established by the university council. this implied that the members of this committee also had to avoid entitlements, powers and obligations that were in conflict with the interests of the institution. in an attempt to make sense of this specific case, this study commenced by obtaining a theoretical perspective on the avoidance of conflict of interest within the context of efficient and sound corporate governance. in the process of exploring the literature on the concept ‘conflict of interest’, it became evident that this concept is used within different contexts, with relatively similar defining attributes, antecedents and consequences. however, there seemed to be contextual differences in the criteria for identifying and describing those defining attributes of the concept and the real-life phenomenon to which it refers. the theoretical analysis of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ in this study revealed the following defining attributes within the broader context of governance and the specific context of higher education governance: an individual with a legally established position, holding two different interests, with a power-duty to discharge.24 there seemed to exist general agreement about these defining attributes as the structure of the concept and the practical phenomenon. the difference in the understanding and meaning of the concept seemed to be caused by the interpretation of the second and third attributes, namely, the holding of two different interests and the nature of the so-called ‘power-duty’. the bulk of the literature clarifies the attribute related to the two different interests as referring to private or outside interests versus institutional interests.5,8,24,36 furthermore, the exercise of the power-duty, which may make the potential conflict of interest a reality, is described by most authors as a decision-making obligation.6,7,8,18,23 it is thus argued that conflict of interest within a committee or board occurs when a member of that body experiences an interest from outside the body, which may influence his or her power-duty to make a decision. this understanding of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ thus served as a theoretical point of departure for this study. as indicated earlier, the committee that served as a case for this study evidently had no decision-making powers and thus no power-duty. the question was therefore how a conflict of interest was possible if one of the defining attributes was missing. the first part of this empirical study set out to verify the assumption about the lack of decision-making powers of the committee under study by performing a qualitative content analysis of all documents relevant to this committee. this analysis confirmed that the membership of the committee was connected to the members’ legitimate positions within the institution, but that they did not have any decision-making powers. the ‘terms of reference’ of the committee revealed that the committee was established by a consultative body assisting the management committee of the university to make informed decisions of a strategic operational nature in the interest of the university as an institution. the analysis of the relevant constituting and operational documents of the committee confirmed that this committee did not have any decision-making powers and thus did not have any power-duties either. an analysis of the agendas of the committee revealed that meetings were structured around taking note of operational issues and presentations related to the various support departments. no evidence could be found from the minutes that any member ever declared any conflict of interest. considering that an earlier survey amongst members of this committee indicated low confidence to manage a potential conflict of interest,9 the next step in the study was to engage with these members through face-to-face open-ended interview questions. this study found that members of this committee approached the question of conflict of interest within this committee from two metaphorical perspectives, namely, from an explicit or a hidden agenda (see table 1). the perspective of the explicit agenda was shown to be closely aligned with the widely accepted interpretation of the concept ‘conflict of interest’, namely, that it is only possible if the power-duty of the committee member is to participate in the decision-making process of the committee. subsequently, the members had no lived experience of conflict of interest within the committee. table 1: an agenda perspective on conflict of interest within the selected committee. the view from the hidden agenda perspective highlighted two of the three attributes of the concept, namely, the location of the conflicting interest and how committee members may discharge their power-duty. the hidden agenda perspective revealed a different perspective on the location of conflicting interests. whilst the explicit agenda perspective describes the conflicting interest as of a private or personal nature located outside the institution, the hidden agenda perspective identifies real conflicting interests, which may not be private, but sectoral and personal. the emc was a case of a committee with a sectoral composition. whilst the committee consisted of specific administrative or academic office-bearers within the university at the time, the majority of the members represented specific sectoral interests (e.g. faculties or support departments) within the university. even the members of the executive management of the university (e.g. the vice-principals and the registrar) serving in this committee represented portfolio or sector-specific interests in the committee. it was only the vice-chancellor and chairperson of the committee that could be seen as having the university as only interest. it was thus evident that it was possible for committee members to experience conflict between their institutional interests and their sectoral and personal interests within the institution. the location of their conflicting interests was thus not outside the institution, but inside. these institutional sectoral interests might thus not have been private, but were still personal. interests were personal as the member had, through the integrated performance review system, a personal interest in the well-being of the particular sector he or she represented. this was a crucial new perspective on the second defining attribute of the concept ‘conflict of interest’. what are the possible reasons for these conflicting interests within the committee? the current research provided support for the argument that the lack of a strategic focus in the explicit agendas for the committee meetings fosters the hidden agendas of sectoral interests within the institution. this entails the emphasis on the day-to-day operational challenges of the competing, vertical sectoral structures of the institution and the committee’s neglect of issues of a critical and strategic nature pertaining to the university as an institution. the conflicting sectoral interests within the committee have been found to serve as a proxy for personal interests. deangelis36 refers to this instance of interest as an indirect benefit to the individual. at the time, the culture within the committee, which was perceived to enhance conflict of interest to the detriment of the institution, was characterised by, inter alia, the uneven distribution of power, for example, the power and influence related to the institutional knowledge of a particular individual as opposed to the lack of institutional knowledge of other individuals. furthermore, the culture was characterised by fear of being labelled as and exposed as making mistakes, resulting in playing blaming and defending games. in this regard, dietz et al.37 argue that culture does not only determine how ‘we think and what we do …’, but also determines ‘what we understand as foundational to trust and what we consider as trustworthy’. the power-duty of members of this committee is thus located outside of this committee but within the same institution. the subsequent influence of the deliberations within the committee on decisions outside the committee is experienced as a reality. this reality broadens the understanding of conflict of interest to those attributes articulated by the oecd as the improper influence of official duties and responsibilities.38 this reality is furthermore confirmed by williams-jones and macdonald8 as instances of threatened objectivity, impartiality and credibility of judgements (thus not necessarily decisions), which may lead to ‘a subsequent loss of trust by staff, students and the broader public’. this possible influence on decisions outside the committee is also described by van ees et al.7 when they specifically include interactions and processes ‘outside the boardroom’ and the reality of coalitions of actors and objectives resulting from political bargaining. thus, the behaviour of individuals with a conflict of interest or a vested hidden agenda in the committee may have an influence outside this committee, as the deliberations in the committee may determine the mood for decisions taken by other bodies. conclusion the question this article set out to answer was whether a conflict of interest is possible within a committee with no decision-making powers, and if so, what the nature of such conflict may be. a review of the literature showed that this question is important within the context of corporate governance in general and sound corporate governance of heis in particular. a non-decision-making committee within the formal governance structures of a public university was selected as a typical case of a non-decision-making committee. the researchers subsequently embarked on an exploratory qualitative study comprising qualitative content analysis of the constituting and operational documents of this committee, as well as on a study of the perceptions and lived experiences of the members of this committee. from the findings, it was evident that the committee was established to be a high-level consultative body assisting the executive management of the university to make informed (coordinating, integrating, monitoring, evaluating, performing and ensuring) decisions of a strategic operational nature in the interest of the hei under study. however, at the time, this committee did not have any decision-making duties. although members of this committee were expected to declare any possible conflict of interest when signing the attendance register, none of them had ever declared a conflict of interest. furthermore, it emerged from the perceptions and lived experiences of the committee members that two perspectives about the possibility of a conflict of interest within the committee existed. both perspectives related to the agenda as metaphor. one group of committee members perceived conflict of interest from the perspective of an explicit agenda. according to them, a conflict of interest within a non-decision-making committee was not possible. the other group approached the question from the hidden agenda perspective. according to them, they had lived experiences of the reality of a conflict of interest. this study contributes to the existing literature on conflict of interest with a principled definition of the concept. this definition is informed by the definitions provided by guzzetta24 and deangelis,36 who identified three defining attributes of the concept ‘conflict of interest’, namely, a person with a legally established position, two different locations of interest and members discharging their power-duties. the implication of these principled attributes is that it enables a comparison of the two agenda perspectives with each other (see table 1). the two agenda perspectives seem to agree on the first attribute, namely, the legally established position of the members of the particular committee. they differ with respect to the interpretation of the second and third attributes. with regard to the two different interest locations, the explicit agenda perspective views the conflicting interest as one of a private or personal interest outside the institution. in terms of the hidden agenda perspective, the conflicting interest does not need to be private or outside the institution, but can be a sector-specific interest within the institution. this sector-specific interest may become personal for the committee member, which may impair decisions on other platforms within the same institution. these decisions refer to the third attribute, namely, members’ discharge of their power-duties. the explicit agenda perspective holds that the power-duty is discharged through decisions within the committee. as this specific committee does not have any decision-making duties, it is argued that conflict of interest is per definition not possible. this study found that there is a need for a logical and principled definition of the concept ‘conflict of interest’ within the context of higher education and the public sector at large. definitions referring specifically to conflicting interests as private and outside the institution, and also specifying the context to impairing decisions of the relevant committee, provide ethical escape routes to committee members. applying the hidden agenda perspective, namely, that a conflict of interest refers to any conflicting interest (within and outside the institution), may impair a committee member’s rights to exercise his or her power-duties inside or outside that committee. as this study revealed the reality of sectoral conflict of interest within a single institution and institutional committee, there is a need for further research on, inter alia, strategies to mitigate this governance risk. acknowledgements the authors wish to thank the university of south africa for providing the opportunity and permission to conduct this study. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions j.s.w. and e.s. contributed equally to the design and implementation of the research, to the analysis of the results and to the writing of the manuscript. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the data for this study consist of interview transcriptions. de-anonymised copies are available from the corresponding author, j.w., on reasonable and written request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references institute of directors of southern africa (iodsa). king iv report on corporate governance for south africa 2016 [homepage on the internet]. 2016 [cited 2020 apr 21]. available from: www.iodsa.co.za cavico fj, mujtaba bg. the state of business schools, business education, and business ethics. j acad bus ethics. 2009;2(1):1–7. de cremer d, van dick r, tenbrunsel a, pillutla m, murnighan jk. understanding ethical behavior and decision making in management: a behavioural business ethics approach. br j manag. 2011;22:s1–s4. 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technology and mathematics programs at tertiary institutions is possible with object-oriented programming techniques and multi-dimensional graphic design. the definition of fundamental problem-solving skills includes cognitive functional skills such as logical thinking, conceptualism with prior knowledge, relationship forming and objective analysis. experiments done for this research indicate that given the right educational tools, cognitive functional skills of learners can be stimulated, developed and enhanced. this, in turn, may lead to an increase in the graduation rates of learners enrolled for the computer science, information technology and mathematics program and ultimately contribute to the reshaping of the educational experience. keywords. education, interactive learning, problem solving, object-ori-education, interactive learning, problem solving, object-oriented techniques 1. introduction: low graduation rates in a report titled towards a new higher education landscape: meeting the equity, quality and social development imperatives of south africa in the 21st century, south africa, the government of south africa stated that unacceptably large numbers and proportions of students drop out of the tertiary education system. the higher education system’s intake of first-time entering undergraduates has averaged about 120 000 for the past few years. at least 30 000 (25%) of these new under1 annelie jordaan: faculty of applied and computer sciences, vaal university of technology. prof. dawid jordaan: school of modelling sciences, north-west university. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 1 no. 1, december 2005 pp. 59-76 jordaan & jordaan 60 graduate students drop out of universities or technikons at the end of their first year of study. the total number of students that drop out of south african universities and technikons (technikons are renamed as technical universities) is at least 100 000 students per year, out of an enrolment total of about 600 000 students. another major aspect of inefficiency in the system is the retention of failing students in the system. a number of institutions report poor success rates by course (averages of 70% and below), and low graduation rates (often 15% or below). according to the 1996-2001 research report on retention and graduation rates at the university of kentucky [1], usa, the term graduation rates reflects the percentage of full-time learners in the cohort who earned a bachelor’s degree (or higher level degree) within a specified number of years. cohorts refer to classes of first-time, full-time degree-seeking learners. this report indicates that the average 6-year graduation rate (earning a bachelor’s or higher degree within 6 years) for first-time, fulltime and first-year degree-seeking learners is 57.7%. in a report by the association for institutional research forum [2], usa, the results of the 5-year graduation rates of first-time, full-time freshmen at 53 public universities are shown. the graduation rates vary from 25.7% to 77.1%. the average 5-year graduation rate is 54.8%. significant to this report is the student migration patterns across programs. of the 112,000 graduates in the database, only 9.3% graduated in the sciences and mathematics program compared to social sciences with 22.5% and business, management & public administration with 26%. at brock university [3], canada, a report on the graduation rates for programs during the period 1993-1999 was compiled and published by the ministry of training, colleges and universities. the 7-year graduation rate for the computer science program is 61.8%. in contrast with this is the 7-year graduation rate of 97.6% for the education program, 80.5% for the applied health sciences and 79.1% for the social sciences program. at the mcmaster university [4], canada, not even one learner in the computer science program graduated within the first 5 years after enrollment in 1992. the south african department of education [5] stated that south africa is not excluded from the international trend of a significantly low graduation rate for learners enrolled in the fields of applied technology, engineering and computer science. one of the contributing factors to this troublesome situation is the lack of adequate fundamental problemsolving skills of learners enrolled for these programs [7]. 2. purpose of this study the purpose of this paper is to propose an object-oriented, multi-dimena logical and structural thinking development tool 61 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 sional software tool with the aim of testing, developing and enhancing fundamental problem-solving skills of learners enrolled for the computer science, information technology and mathematics program. experimental results show a significant improvement in the cognitive functional skills such as logical and structural thinking of learners who used this software tool in a pilot study over a period of two months or longer. 3. fundamental problem solving skills in south africa the pass rates (percentage of learners passing a specific course/module/subject for the first time enrolled) for programming courses at tertiary institutions are problematically low, and the situation is deteriorating. results from a preliminary study conducted in south africa at two universities to evaluate the fundamental problem-solving skills of learners enrolled for programming courses, clearly indicate the need for educational tools to enhance their logical, structural and critical thinking [7]. to be logical involves three simple steps: 1) be observant (notice things, data and events), 2) identify a pattern, and 3) reasoning (give a cause for a phenomenon) [9]. computer science, information technology and mathematics are three subjects that require an in-depth knowledge of fundamental problem-solving concepts. these concepts include cognitive functional skills such as logical thinking, conceptualism with prior knowledge, relationship forming and objective analysis [8]. given the right educational tools, fundamental problem-solving skills of learners can be stimulated, developed and enhanced. this, in turn, may lead to a significant increase in the pass rates of learners. 4. object-oriented programming objects are the central idea behind object-oriented programming, and the basic idea behind an object is that of simulation. most programs are written with very little reference to real-world objects. in object-oriented methodology, a program should be written to simulate the states and activities of real world objects. when modeling an object, the methods associated with that object must also be taken in consideration. a method is an operation that can modify an objects’ behavior. in other words, it is something that will change an object by manipulating its variables [11]. one of the principal advantages of object-oriented programming techniques over conventional programming techniques is that it enables programmers to create modules that do not need to be changed when a new type of object is added. a programmer can simply create a new object that inherits many of its features from existing objects. in addition, projordaan & jordaan 62 grammers can create relationships between one object and another. this makes object oriented programs easier to modify [12]. 5. logical and structural thinking development tool (lst) modern technology provides us with the tools we need to create a more dynamic, interactive environment for learners [10]. object-oriented programming techniques and multidimensional graphic design have unlocked the opportunity of developing an interactive software system (lst – logical and structural thinking development tool) to enhance fundamental problem-solving skills of learners enrolled for programmes in computer science, information technology and mathematics. techniques and object-oriented concepts used in developing the lst development tool include twoand three-dimensional graphics, simulation, dynamic linking (making code re-usable to avoid re-implementation), encapsulation (information hiding), artificial intelligence (complex decision making and intelligent reasoning) and file encryption and decryption. 5.1. lst design structure the lst development tool consists of two separate modules: the question developer and the question viewer. the facilitator uses the developer to design and develop any number of logical and structural thinking questions within specified boundaries. these questions are saved to a file structure. the learner does not have any access to the developer module. the viewer is used to display the questions and potential answers to the learner. each question has one or more hints to guide the learner towards the correct answer. the learner has the choice of completing an electronic test without the aid of hints, or simply working through one or more of the question categories using the available hints. in either case the score of the learner is written to a database to enable the facilitator to keep track of the learner’s progress. lst can function on both a standalone personal computer and a local area network. assessments can be completed electronically or in printed format. the layout and design structure of the lst development tool consist of the following components. 1. 3d rendering engine [non-visual]: manages the scaling, rotating, sorting, aligning and drawing of all 3d objects. 2. 3d object designer [visual]: provides a visual link with the non-visual 3d rendering engine. contains all the necessary tools to change colors, positioning 3d cubes, show wire frames and add labels in an easy to use format. provides the user with total 3d development of a a logical and structural thinking development tool 63 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 square grid, circle, cube, pyramid and diamond. 3. 3d rotating engine [non-visual]: provides the user with the tools to rotate the created 3d model in all three dimensions (x, y, zaxis). 4. 2d drawing editor [visual]: provides a linkage between the local file system and the editor itself. provides a linkage to the 3d object designer for the retrieving of 3d images. provides basic drawing tools. has built-in image scaling features. 5. i/o system [non-visual]: this non-visual class provides an interface with the local file system to store all question-related information in encrypted format. 6. tangrams engine [non-visual]: this engine enforces the rules defined by the tangrams concept. 7. tangrams display [visual]: does all the drawing and editing options of the tangrams engine. 8. question, answer and hint interface [visual]: question interface, answer interface, and hint interface. all three interfaces provide a format and layout for the respective areas, thus, how the questions, answers and hints will be displayed. 9. summary display [visual]: provides easy access to the questions and displays all the information of the question list. 10. test compiler interface [visual]: provides the user with a compiler to assemble a list of questions. used to test the progress of the student. 11. development and design interface [visual]: provides a controlled environment to display all information. 5.2. lst question categories the questions built into the lst development tool can be divided into four main categories. each main category can contain any number of subcategories. the degree of difficulty for each sub-category can be set to easy, medium or difficult. 5.2.1 logic and mathematics this main category allows the facilitator to develop questions in plain text format. images and 3d objects may be included in the questions, and the answer format may consist of five short-answers, five images or five 3d jordaan & jordaan 64 objects. the hint and answer formats are the same. although the system allows for any number of subcategories to be defined, the current question file system consists of the following three sub-categories. • mathematics – text example. a factory manufactures kitchenware. 6 electric knives are manufactured for every 3 electric kettles. in a month the factory produces a total of 684 electric knives and kettles. how many of these are kettles? a) 114 b) 456 c) 570 d) 228 e) none of the above • mathematics – sequence: example. determine the next number in the series and select the correct answer: 4, 12, 16, 26, 28, 40... a) 40 b) 38 c) 54 d) 28 e) 0 • logic – sequence: example. what comes in the place of the question mark in the following sequence? ooooo+oooo-ooo++oo--o? a) o+++ b) o--c) +++ d) --e) o 5.2.2 2d area and logic a logical and structural thinking development tool 65 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 this category’s aim is to test, develop and enhance the two-dimensional thinking of the learner. most of the questions will be compiled using plain text and a bitmap image, although an image and text or 3d objects with short text are also allowed. the answer and hint formats are the same for all categories. the current question file system consists of the following three subcategories. • spatial example. the question consists of a number of figures the given figure and five possible answers. if one of the five possible answers is kept flat and turned to the left or right side only, it will be exactly similar to the given figure. find the answer. a) b) c) d) jordaan & jordaan 66 e) • sequence example. what would the next picture in this series be? a) b) c) d) e) a logical and structural thinking development tool 67 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 • general example. how many triangles are formed in this figure? a) 4 b) 5 c) 6 d) 7 e) 8 5.2.3 3d volume and logic the aim of the 3d volume and logic category is to test, develop and enhance the three-dimensional thinking of the learner. a various number of questions, answer and hint formats are possible. it can be summarized as follows (any permutation of these formats may be combined into a single question.). jordaan & jordaan 68 question format answer format: full text five short answers image and text five images 3d object and short text five 3d objects hint format degree of difficulty: full text easy image medium 3d object difficult none the current question file system consists of the following two sub-categories. • views example. given a pyramid as seen from the front right corner. find the top view. a) b) a logical and structural thinking development tool 69 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 c) d) e) • spatial example. how many white blocks are in the pile below? a) 115 b) 85 c) 45 d) 135 e) none of the above jordaan & jordaan 70 5.3.4 tangrams a tangram is an ancient chinese moving piece puzzle, consisting of 7 geometric shapes. the tangram is a square that is cut in such a way that it gives you two big triangles, one medium triangle, two small triangles, one square, and one parallelogram. they can be arranged to make interesting shapes [13]. the lst development tool uses the basic idea behind tangrams, but any number and combination of the given geometric shapes may be used to build a puzzle. also, it is not compulsory for a puzzle to contain each of the 7 shapes. the outline of the puzzle is displayed to the learner, with each of the geometric shapes required to fill the puzzle neatly arranged next to the outline. the learner has to drag, and rotate if necessary, each shape into its correct position. where more than one solution is possible for the same puzzle, lst is intelligent enough to recognize and acknowledge these solutions. hints are available to the learner. each time the learner requests a hint, one piece of the puzzle is randomly selected and displayed. an intelligent randomizer is used to avoid the display of the same puzzle piece twice. figure 2: tangram outline – spaceship a logical and structural thinking development tool 71 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 figure 3: solved tangram spaceship 6. experimental results the objective of the pilot study was to determine whether the lst development tool could successfully be used to develop and enhance fundamental problem-solving skills of learners. all first, second and third level information technology learners at the vaal university of technology were involved in pre-post tests from august – october 2003. these learners completed a printed lst test during the last week of august. afterwards the learners of each level were randomly subdivided into a control group and an experimental group. learners in the three control groups completed another printed lst test during the last week of october. the two tests contained similar questions, four from each of the subcategories, a total of 32 questions. learners in the three experimental groups also completed the second printed test, but in addition they used the online lst viewer to do exercises in all question categories on a weekly basis, 90 minutes per week for eight weeks. the third level experimental group used lst for ten weeks. the viewer was used in the period between the writing of the two tests. the results are shown in the following graphs. jordaan & jordaan 72 graph 1: pre-post test for level 1 learners level 1 (180 learners) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 pre-test post-test control post-test experimental % logic & maths 2d 3d pre-test 50.51 44.91 57.35 post-test control 46.83 43.43 50.53 post-test exp 64.38 62.92 63.44 stdev 9.25 10.85 6.46 0 20 40 60 80 % logic & maths 2d 3d le v e l 1: m ain cate gorie s pre-test post-test control post-test exp a logical and structural thinking development tool 73 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 graph 2: pre-post test for level 2 learners level 2 (120 learners) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 pre-test post-test control post-test experimental % logic & maths 2d 3d pre-test 52.66 43.72 51.99 post-test control 55.3 52.78 61.74 post-test exp 72.32 60.71 70.54 stdev 10.67 8.50 9.28 0 20 40 60 80 % logic & maths 2d 3d level 2: main categories pre-test post-test control post-test exp jordaan & jordaan 74 graph 3: pre-post test for level 3 learners level 3 (50 learners) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 pre-test post-test control post-test experimental % logic & maths 2d 3d pre-test 52.56 45.73 62.5 post-test control 49.48 34.9 44.54 post-test exp 72.83 73.55 77.18 stdev 12.69 19.94 16.35 0 20 40 60 80 % logic & maths 2d 3d level 3: main categories pre-test post-test control post-test exp a logical and structural thinking development tool 75 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 59-76 7. conclusion the graphs clearly indicate that the results of the learners in the experimental groups improved significantly from test 1 to test 2 on all three levels. the experimental group on the third level showed the highest increase: from 54% for test 1 to 75% for test 2. it is also this group of learners who used lst for two weeks longer than the other two experimental groups. the results of the control groups show a decrease on level 1 and 3, and an increase on level 2. variables to be considered might be a slightly more difficult second test, an above-average intelligent second level group and the random assignment of groups. we conclude that, with the frequent use of the lst viewer, fundamental problem-solving skills of learners may be stimulated, developed and enhanced. this, in turn, may lead to an increase in pass rates of learners enrolled for the computer science and information technology program at academic institutions. references [1] university of kentucky, retention and graduation rates entering classes of 1986 to 2001, usa, 2001, 1-2. 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[on-line]. available: http://dal.lowell.smartedu.net/projects/tangrams/tangrams.html [14] p jen-hwa hu, t.h.k. clark, w.w. ma, examining technology acceptance by school teachers: a longitudinal study, information & management, 41 (2003) 227-241. http://www1.sim.edu.sg/sim/pub/mag/sim_pub_mag_list.cfm?id=862&sterms=logical|thinking http://www1.sim.edu.sg/sim/pub/mag/sim_pub_mag_list.cfm?id=862&sterms=logical|thinking http://as1.ipfw.edu/99tohe/presentations/howell1.htm http://www.quiver.freeserve.co.uk/oop3.htm http://www.webopedia.com/term/o/object_oriented_programming_oop.html http://www.webopedia.com/term/o/object_oriented_programming_oop.html http://dal.lowell.smartedu.net/projects/tangrams/tangrams.html http://dal.lowell.smartedu.net/projects/tangrams/tangrams.html microsoft word 00 a contents.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 175 – 190. political opposition in patriarchal east london, 1950-1960: dilemmas of paternalism d atkinson* abstract this paper describes the growing level of politicization in east london in the 1950s, and the way this affected the patriarchal normative system, which prevailed in urban administration. patriarchalism, as a system, was susceptible of different interpretations by white municipal officials, and their response to black political opposition ranged from liberal forbearance to rigid and uncompromising intolerance. black leaders’ attitudes to the patriarchal order were similarly nuanced. the location native advisory boards vacillated between opposition to the white patriarchal order and compliance with it. towards the late 1950s, the political climate became ever more polarized. the paper draws on archival sources from east london to show that patriarchalism, as a moral system, was sufficiently robust to accommodate a variety of viewpoints, within the white and black communities. but as violent resistance took its toll during the 1950s, more coercive forms of paternalism came increasingly to the fore. keywords: east london; duncan village; paternalism; patriarchalism; native advisory boards; african national congress (anc); verwoerdianism. disciplines: political science; public administration; south african history introduction: patriarchalism in urban administration in every society, a normative system creates a prevailing backdrop for individual moral action. ‘ethical life’ (sittlichkeit) is an hegelian concept referring to individuals’ normative definitions of their identity, subjectivity, reciprocal rights and obligations.1 an ‘ethical life’ therefore consists of the inter-personal ways in which individuals recognise and constitute one another as social actors. patriarchalism is one such system.2 the paper continues the arguments made elsewhere about the complexity of social and political dynamics in a modernising society facing rapid political change.3 it reflects on the nature of * prof. doreen atkinson is attached to the centre for development support, university of the free state, po box 339, bloemfontein 9300, mobile 083 274 5461, karoo@intekom.co.za 1 d atkinson, “cities and citizenship: towards a normative analysis of the urban order in south africa, with special reference to east london, 1950-1986.” phd thesis, university of natal, 1991, pp 16-17; d. atkinson, “patriarchalism and paternalism in south african ‘native administration’ in the 1950s”, historia, 54(1), 2009, pp. 262-280. 2 d vandeveer, paternalistic intervention: the moral bounds on benevolence (princeton, princeton university press, 1986), p. 23. 3 d atkinson, “native advisory boards in patriarchal east london, 1950-1970”, new contree, no. 52, 2006; d. atkinson, “complex negotiations in governance: the municipal beer hall debate in east london, 19561962”, new contree, 55, 2008, pp. 93-114’; and d. atkinson, “contradictions of community within local government in the 1950s, with reference to municipal beer trading”, new contree, 57, 2009, pp.149-168. atkinson 176 populist resistance to the white city fathers – a phenomenon which was by no means a simple rejection of white supremacy. part of the focus is also on analyses of the ways in which paternalism, patriarchalism and liberalism, as three different types of ‘ethical life’, weaved through political life in east london in the 1950s. the article then centres on the experiences in duncan village, an old township which was established in the 19th century. by the 1950s, duncan village had became an overpopulated, congested and poverty-ridden slum4 – a situation which prevailed long after the creation of the modern apartheid township of mdantsane in the 1960s. patriarchalism is a rational moral order, in which normative concepts (for example ‘the person’, or ‘authority’) operate within the parameters of a stable hierarchy of status and responsibility. patriarchalism is at odds with the civil society ethos where the formal equality of persons is recognised, and social interaction is regulated by fixed and impartial rules. in modern, individualistic civil society, individuals are constituted through their mutual recognition of each other as holders of abstract, uniform, individual rights. patriarchalism, by way of contrast, exhibits little overt regard for abstract rights. within a system of patriarchy, the patriarch is “a more developed and more responsible moral agent” than his subordinates. the patriarch is “constituted as such by the recognition accorded him” by his charges who he regards as “persons with fewer rights but more needs than himself”. 5 patriarchalism (a system of social hierarchy) is often associated with paternalistic conduct (a type of moral conduct), which can be defined as an agent doing an action with regard to another person, often against the latter’s wishes, but with the express intent of promoting the interests of that person.6 patriarchal relationships were strongly evident in the way white municipalities related to the black urban representatives who constituted the location native advisory boards. the first attempt to introduce a systematic form of black african administration was with the natives (urban areas) act of 1923. this act empowered local authorities to set land aside for african occupations in defined “locations”. in terms of this act, ‘native advisory boards’ were introduced in each township, to serve as a form of black representation in municipal affairs. advisory boards had to have a white chairperson.7 the advisory boards constituted an uneasy compromise between a belief in ongoing subordination, and ostensible political equality between black and white people in urban areas (albeit on a segregated basis). the advisory boards reflected a society in profound political and normative transition. in effect, the advisory boards were a double compromise: on the part of white officials, the compromise was between the more ‘liberal’ and the more authoritarian paternalists; on the part of the black board members, the compromise was between conciliatory and radical black leaders. to some extent, everyone subscribed to a patriarchal order, but they defined the meaning of this very differently, and had different ideas on the future development of south african society. however, during the 1950s, the political context was undergoing profound changes. in the black community, there was a growing radicalization of opinion, with occasional outbursts of outright resistance. black 4 e nel, ‘the spatial planning of racial residential segregation in east london’, (ma thesis, rhodes university, 1990) p. 51. 5 w v doniela, “hegel and the organic state”, d muschamp (ed.), political thinkers (london, macmillan, 1986), p. 166. 6 d vandeveer, paternalistic intervention …, p. 24. 7 r davenport, “historical background of the apartheid city to 1948”, m. swilling, r. humphries & k. shubane, the apartheid city in transition (oxford university press), 1991, p. 7. patriarchal east london td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 175-190. 177 mobilization and resistance increasingly met with white officials’ intransigence, which undermined the vestiges of benevolent paternalism. in the white community, the national party government was consolidating a more bureaucratic-authoritarian vision of race relations. on the eve of full-blown verwoerdianism, the patriarchal order was coming under siege from both sides, as the east london experience so poignantly illustrates. the character of black opposition during the 1950s until the 1940s, and even into the 1950s, the educated black leadership was in a contradictory position. class distinctions in the black community were largely based on the degree of westernisation achieved by individuals, and the urge to adopt western lifestyles was strong.8 values such as diligence, perseverance (especially in education), charity, abstemiousness, and a rejection of tribalism and ethnocentrism were cultivated by the modern black elite. even the anc youth league operated almost entirely within the christian, literate, school-going world, and its members derived self-esteem from material possessions, modern occupational skills, and western etiquette and leisure activities. success depended on becoming ‘like whites’.9 feit poignantly describes the frustrating position of the black bourgeoisie. on the one hand, they could not return to traditional society; on the other, the new technological society, which they now wished to enter and whose values they had begun to embrace, denied them a place. this ‘denial of place’ is an important aspect to the fundamental lack of clarity regarding the boundaries of communities in mid-century south africa: in his own community, [the westernised african] enjoys an exaggerated prestige because of his achievement and the resulting income he receives. but with respect to civil rights or personal liberty in the white world, he is reduced to the same level as the impoverished and illiterate african. the sense of deprivation is enhanced because the meanest white man can enjoy the rights of which the african intellectual is deprived.10 patriarchal city fathers felt that racial equality would threaten the basis of their moral order. consequently, they acted in a somewhat contradictory fashion: they encouraged blacks to appreciate western values, but felt unable to include blacks in their own social circle.despite these difficulties, the black bourgeoisie retained a strong conservative streak during the 1950s, illustrated by their strong desire to make their movements ‘respectable’. “whatever his sincerity or his capacity for leadership, [a leader] is separated from the african masses by the very achievements that give him elite status”.11 this produced a reluctance to think in anti-white terms and maintained a commitment to non-violent political methods. consequently, strong moral bonds were forged between concerned white people and the emerging black elite. the patriarchal ethos promoted these bonds, and produced a bedrock of shared normative assumptions between the two groupings. 8 e feit, african opposition in south africa (stanford, hoover institution, 1967), p. 22. 9 gm gerhart, black politics in south africa (berkeley, university of california press, 1978), p. 11; see also c glaser, “students, tsotsis and the congress youth league: youth organisation on the rand in the 1940s and 1950s” (university of the witwatersrand history workshop, february 1987), p. 3. 10 e feit, african opposition…, pp. 27-28. 11 e feit, african opposition…, p. 26. atkinson 178 until the 1950s, the situation offered certain important compensations for the many forms of discrimination and administrative regulations that so irked the educated black minority. compared to the verwoerdian excesses that would follow, the relatively benign patriarchal structures of the 1950s allowed westernised blacks (most notably, those with ‘section 10 rights’ of permanent residence in the cities) some degree of liberty, dignity, protection, and social stability. this created an inherent dilemma for educated black people, as they had certain values in common with the very group that subordinated them. generally, a subordinated group may, for a long time, vacillate between anger at the power of its superiors, and trust that its own interests will be sympathetically considered by those superiors. shared experiences in all kinds of social institutions, such as churches and municipal government, produced amorphous feelings of affinity that obstructed the development of a militant consciousness. blacks resented the way in which they were denied treatment in accord with certain values; they did not necessarily object to the values themselves. the black advisory boards juggled the demands of township and those of white officials12 , resorting to an array of moral and practical arguments. the result was a constant tactical struggle with the white city fathers, paying lip-service to white values, where necessary resorting to arguments for african traditional culture, pointing out the moral contradictions in white officials’ arguments, and endlessly jockeying for influence over practical decisions such as municipal beer production.13 these dilemmas confronted the members of the advisory boards and the leaders of the anc alike. the former chose to promote their values and interests through government-created institutions; the latter chose an independent and more critical forum. however, both groups were the products of patriarchalism, and hence their style of politics was often similar. in many communities, such as east london and brakpan, black communists were responsible for a rejuvenation of advisory board politics during the 1940s.14 the communist party won all six seats of the east london advisory board in 1942.15 as late as 1959, the anc’s anti-pass planning council emphasised “education” of whites about the “evils of the pass laws”.16 it was difficult to radically oppose an order which represented many of the western values which one admired. in this context, local black politics in east london had a somewhat genteel character. for example, a mass demonstration was held in april 1951. township residents protested against an increase in rentals. the demonstration was approved by the police and the city council, and was held in the city centre. four thousand protestors marched in orderly procession, and sang nkosi sikeleli afrika outside the city hall. youth league marshals “walked on either side of the column, preventing it from straggling, bunching or spreading”, and motorists courteously gave way. the mayor met a delegation of the protesters but their demands were turned down.17 at 12 d atkinson, “native advisory boards in patriarchal east london, 1950-1970”, new contree, no. 52, 2006. 13 d. atkinson, “complex negotiations in local governance”; and d. atkinson, “contradictions of community within local government ..” 14 t lodge, “political mobilisation during the 1950s: an east london case study”, s marks & s trapido, the politics of race, class and nationalism in twentieth century south africa (london, longman, 1987), p. 321. 15 d everatt, “the origins of multiracialism”, (african studies institute seminar, university of the witwatersrand, 1990), p. 3. 16 t lodge, “political mobilization…”, s marks & s trapido, the politics of race…, p. 317. 17 daily dispatch, 16 april 1951. patriarchal east london td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 175-190. 179 the annual meetings of the institute of administrators of non-european affairs (iana), a variety of strands of highly ambiguous segregationist and paternalist arguments were repeatedly invoked to make sense of increasingly complex black urban areas.18 government’s appropriate response to black protests was often discussed. many municipal officials felt that such orderly protests should be allowed. mr. bourquin of durban, for example, expressed his reservations about the prohibition of meetings: it is far safer to allow people to express themselves and ‘to blow off steam’ than to muzzle them and to drive them underground. unless there is actual incitement to break the law or to create violence and disorder, and there are laws in existence to deal with such a situation, people must be permitted to assemble and to express their views, even if such views are of a critical or even challenging nature.19 mr. bourquin’s attitude was that of an intuitive compromise between patriarchalism and liberal rights. he felt that blacks’ political meetings were relatively harmless (“blowing off steam”), and possibly reflected the normal frustrations experienced by children under the yoke of their parents’ authority. yet he concluded his address to iana by quoting voltaire: “i may violently disagree with what you say, but i shall defend to my last breath your right to say it”. his patriarchalism and his liberalism were tempered by a healthy awareness that patriarchs are not always right, and that they can, intentionally or unintentionally, abuse their powers. it was therefore in everybody’s interests that their wards had the right to express their frustrations or grievances. this, of course, did not imply that the city fathers should satisfy all of their demands; it simply affirmed their right to express their wishes. in contrast, mr roux of klerksdorp advocated taking a tough line on political ‘agitation’: these days, there are many irresponsible bantu who … whip up local residents and preach untruths to them. they usually exploit the opportunity to prepare residents for the agents which organize strikes, demonstrations, etc., behind the scene.20 the issue was never satisfactory resolved at iana, and each locality was left to figure out an appropriate response to black mobilization. radical resistance in east london, 1952 simultaneously, however, government policy forced the black elite to remain in the black urban ghettoes. there was a considerable area of shared experience between middle-class political notables and their proletarian neighbours. notwithstanding the growing class polarisation in the townships, the black elite still felt responsible for improving the lot of their community as a whole. this produced a rather tentative kind of radicalism: the african bourgeois is by force of circumstances rather than through personal choice a radical. his entry into the political arena is perhaps less due to his own wish to participate in radical politics than to the feeling that, being forced to the same level as the masses by 18 d atkinson, “patriarchalism and paternalism …”, pp. 262-280, 19 institute of administrators of non-european affairs (iana) (annual conference proceedings, bloemfontein, 1956), p. 46. 20 iana annual conference proceedings (1956), p. 40. atkinson 180 external constraints, he must break the system in order to establish his supremacy over them.21 because the black educated elite was forced to live cheek by jowl with the black underclass, it inevitably felt that it had an especial competence in defining the real interests of that underclass. yet the curious mixture of strict supervision and benign tolerance which characterised patriarchalism was difficult to challenge. the black elite had to contend with white officials, who, in the spirit of a benevolent paternalism, also claimed the right, and competence, to define the real interests of black residents. the upshot was a low-key tug-of-war, in which moral argumentation, political pressure, and threats of coercion or resistance, were employed to determine the definition of blacks’ ‘real interests’. this happened on an ad hoc, particularistic, case by case basis. the result was often frustrating, but seldom sufficiently threatening to challenge the fundamentals of patriarchal paternalism. there was always the chance to live to fight another day. the strange combination of tolerance, benevolence and coercion which constituted the delicate fabric of patriarchalism came to be truly appreciated only with the onset of the verwoerdians’ moral extremism and totalitarianism. increasingly, the afrikaner nationalists: ... disturbed the perfect tranquility of the african middle class, mingled them with the commonality; the old guard [the black elite], the masters of consultations and concessions and compromises, found themselves without a protector, commingled with the common dust; then out of expedience, rather than loyalty, they looked for recognition in that instrument of rebellion, the african national congress.22 it was only during the 1950s that the anc youth league (ancyl) persuaded the organisation that the time for confrontation through passive resistance had arrived. the new militancy was a reaction to increasingly strident national party policies, which caused a variety of non-white groups, as well as the south african communist party, to resort to violent protests and ruthless repression, between 1949 and 1952. elsewhere in the country, mass protests reached a peak in april 1952. the defiance campaign was planned to coincide with the tercentenary of jan van riebeeck’s arrival at the cape. civil protesters in many cities, including east london, entered black locations without permits, broke curfew laws, and defied “europeans only” notices in public places, thus inviting arrest.23 in the light of this heightened political temperature, black political opinion in east london also underwent a sea-change. the anc was split between a conservative, older, cautious wing (‘congress a’), and the ancyl, which formed a branch in east london in 1949. the latter was led by three young men, cj fazzie, as gwentshe and j lengisi. this group was more militant than its elders, and emphasised the values of racial dichotomy, cultural self-sufficiency and a heroic past. the youth league frequently opposed participation in advisory board politics, to the annoyance of congress a.24 this phase of militancy in east london was very intense, but did not last long. during the nation-wide defiance campaign of 1952, the militant youth in east london also planned protests against government legislation. the anc’s argument that black 21 e feit, african opposition…, p. 29. 22 b modisane, blame me on history (london, thames & hudson,1963), p. 46 quoted in e feit, african opposition…, p. 29. 23 trh davenport, south africa: a modern history, (london, 1991), p. 335. 24 t lodge, “political mobilization…”, s marks & s trapido, the politics of race…, p. 322. patriarchal east london td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 175-190. 181 people were entitled to rights in the land of their birth found enthusiastic support amongst the residents. under the leadership of the anc, black residents challenged the laws which imposed the curfew, service contracts, and permits to seek work. hundreds of volunteers entered the streets at night, without night passes or service contracts. all were arrested. by the end of the campaign, about 1500 persons had been convicted.25 as the year drew on, the black residents of duncan village became increasingly militant. disaffected youths, imbued with a pride derived from africanism, yearned for action.26 in november 1952, the government decided to prohibit all public meetings of black residents, in terms of the riotous assemblies act, no. 22 of 1930. in spite of the ban on public meetings, a crowd gathered at the bantu square on the afternoon of 9 november 1952, ostensibly to hold a religious service. a detachment of armed police dispersed the crowd by force, and several demonstrators were killed and wounded. the police had just withdrawn to the police station, when news reached them of the murder of a dominican medical nun, and an insurance salesman. the crowd had reached a pitch of frenzy. the badly mutilated body of dr. elsie quinlan had been partly cannibalised with a view to ingesting the victim’s magical powers as a doctor. the crowd subsequently vented its pent-up rage by burning the roman catholic mission building, the teacher-training school, and the commonage ranger’s house. thousands of residents fled the township and sought refuge in rural homesteads. the defiance campaign had been overtaken by unforeseen social realities. the riot had been touched off in the shack area. while the more respectable residents of the municipal housing area stayed behind closed doors, the tsotsi youths went on the rampage. dh reader explains the social dysfunction that gave rise to the tsotsi phenomenon: offspring of temporary and shiftless liaisons, involuntary by-products of one of the few leisure-time activities available to the shack-dweller, they had come into the world unwelcomed and unloved, an additional burden on already overtaxed resources, born into disease, squalor and inadequate homes. often, by a hideous process of natural selection, these gangs were the more alert, the more crafty, the more vicious of an unorientated and dispossessed class... generations of regimentation and neglect had produced from the slums the fury which erupted through their offspring. the tsotsis, unlike the majority of adults present at the time, were able to strike in an ecstasy of abandon, with no property, no future, no employment, nothing to lose save their seemingly worthless lives.27 the defiance campaign in east london was quickly brought to a halt. the older and more respectable residents were appalled at the excesses of the younger element, especially at the gruesome murder of an innocent woman many of them had known and respected. the anc lost several key leaders through imprisonment or banishment.28 lengisi, fazzie and gwentshe were arrested and tried for incitement. lengisi and gwentshe were banished from the eastern 25 see dh reader, the black man’s portion (cape town, oxford university press, 1961) for a graphic account of the 1952 disturbances. 26 a mager & g minkley, “reaping the whirlwind: the east london riots of 1952”, p. bonner, p. delius and d. posel (eds), apartheid’s genesis: 1935-1962 (johannesburg: ravan, 1993), 229-251. 27 dh reader, the black man’s portion, p. 28. 28 east london municipal archives, manager’s report to native affairs committee (nac), 12 february 1954, referring to the sentences on mr. gwentshe and mr. lengisi passed on 26 march 1953. atkinson 182 cape and removed to a remote village in the transvaal. in east london, the events of 1952 were a political disaster for the anc, as many of its followers were alienated by the violence. according to lodge, the residents of duncan village immediately associated the riot with the anc, and were no longer willing to identify themselves publicly with it. the defiance campaign of 1952 therefore marked both the zenith and the nadir of the youth league in east london. for some years after the riot of 1952, there ensued a political vacuum in duncan village.29 in this situation, the advisory board regained some significance. various factors led to an increased acceptance of the boards in township life. in the face of fear of the police, many blacks were not prepared to resort to more radical forms of political action.30 furthermore, for many politicised people, ‘non-violence’ was a matter of principle as much as tactics, and educated blacks were still deeply influenced by liberal values.31 but political life was never the same again. the old liberal demands took on a more collectivist colour with the freedom charter of 1955. the claim by anc leaders to comprehend the ‘true interests’ of black people became ever more compelling. the growing assertiveness of the location advisory boards in 1955 in east london, the anc once again contested the advisory board elections.32 politicised advisory board members saw themselves as a beleaguered group, under increasing pressure from the central government to refrain from holding critical political views. the anc members of the board soon became disillusioned with the sluggish implementation of township improvements. this disenchantment gradually developed into strident criticism of administrative policies. the role of the advisory board was strengthened by the distinctly localistic colour of black populism during the 1950s. during this period, the anc’s role as a community organisation responding to local sources of discontent was of greater significance to the people than its national programme of action. the energies of both local and national anc politicians were often expended on trying to bring localized, ‘subsistence orientated’ popular movements within the anc’s sphere of influence.33 the anc was organisationally unable to exert much control over its branches, with the result that local issues tended to preponderate in the branches’ deliberations.34 this had two important consequences. on the one hand, the emphasis on local grievances and goals suited the political style of the advisory boards, and strengthened their links with the anc; on the other hand, however, this very localism had the unintended consequence of sustaining the patriarchal ethos in the cities, as local black leaders’ energies were taken up in piecemeal tussles with white municipal officials. the native advisory boards did more than merely convey township residents’ desires and grievances to the council. they had a nascent political consciousness of their own. the duncan village advisory board also participated in the location advisory boards’ congress, which 29 t lodge, “political mobilization…”, s marks & s trapido, the politics of race…, p. 324. 30 e feit, african opposition…, p. 89. 31 t lodge, “political mobilization…”, s marks & s trapido, the politics of race…, p. 317. 32 east london municipal archives, manager’s report to nac, january 1957. 33 t lodge, “political mobilization…”, s marks & s trapido, the politics of race…, p. 314. 34 e feit, african opposition, p. 68. patriarchal east london td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 175-190. 183 brought together advisory boards throughout the country. this congress concerned itself with urban blacks’ practical grievances.35 the east london advisory board was well represented amongst the congress leadership.36 the advisory boards’ congress issued political statements and also criticised national policy. for example, it urged the government to repeal the bantu education act.37 the advisory boards’ venture into national political questions, as opposed to matters pertaining only to their urban localities, caused real alarm amongst white officials. on this score, municipal and departmental officials were in agreement: the boards were overstepping the mark. at stake was the unresolved definition of blacks’ ‘interests’. for the advisory boards, national issues affected the interests of their constituents, and hence ought to be discussed. significantly, this position found some support amongst those white officials who subscribed to a more liberal type of paternalism. even during the radical protests in duncan village township in 1952, some white united party councillors still explicitly defended the residents’ right to protest.38 they wanted to meet with “responsible native elements”, including the anc, on condition that “the natives in their turn would give assurance that they would bring the situation back to normal”. these councillors clearly believed that some credence had to be given to black leadership, and that whites’ interpretations of black residents’ problems were deficient. once again, it was a liberal form of paternalism that was being enunciated. in the words of mr. ford, the superintendent of duncan village: i wish to differ from the contentions of my predecessors. although the context of many of the discussions may be negative, it must be borne in mind that the advisory board is the only government recognised mouthpiece the native has, and with a little guidance and assistance, may be moulded into a useful body insofar as urban native administration is concerned ... i am sure that at congresses and the like, good, constructive criticisms will be advanced and better understanding between black and white will exist.39 mr. ford’s statement aptly identified a major source of the problem, viz. the lack of clarity regarding the appropriate mouthpiece for blacks’ opinions. the steady growth of the african national congress (anc) pushed this question to the fore. however, many white officials, and more especially those with verwoerdian inclinations, believed that white authorities were the appropriate agencies to determine what measures were in the interests of black people at national level. they believed that advisory boards were only competent to pronounce on blacks’ local interests. east london’s township manager, who also attended the 1954 advisory board congress meeting, criticised the performance of his advisory board in this regard. his view was crucially based on the distinction between national (‘political’) issues and local (‘welfare’) matters: the secretary for native affairs addressed the congress and ... outlined the policy which it is intended should lead to self-help, self-government, improved living conditions and 35 p rich, “managing black leadership…”, p bonner et.al., (eds.), holding their ground, pp. 182 and 186. 36 for a fuller account of native advisory boards in east london see d atkinson, “native advisory boards in patriarchal east london, 1950-1970”, new contree, 52, 2006, pp. 49-63. 37 east london municipal archives, report by superintendent of locations to nac, 14 january 1954. 38 east london municipal archives, report by superintendent of locations to nac, 11 november l952. 39 east london municipal archives, report by superintendent of locations to nac, 16 march 1956. atkinson 184 employment, etc. he invited questions and suggestions from congress. he received [nothing but] political criticism.40 the township manager continued that he believed that the advisory boards’ congress was irresponsible and prejudiced: i cannot describe the congress proceedings better than by saying that they were absolutely negative. there was no constructive criticism or suggestions. everything explained was turned down. the hostility of the national department of native affairs (dna) to these events was even more pronounced. the minister, dr. h.f. verwoerd, was unsympathetic and uncompromising. his view was based on the same distinction between local/practical matters, and national/political matters. he claimed that the former represented the real interests of black people, while the latter was no more than a distraction from the boards’ proper role. in a letter to the advisory board congress, the departmental secretary stated that the function of the congress is to deal with matters of urban native administration and ... discussions of national policy do not fall within its scope of activities.41 the dna also announced that, in future, municipalities would not be allowed to finance their advisory board members’ travel costs to the congress venues.42 east london’s town clerk felt that the department’s attitude was fully justified, “and it has now become abundantly clear that the department’s efforts to steer the congress back to a course which would redound to the benefit of the local interests of the natives concerned, have failed.”43 however, the advisory board subscribed to a different conception of ‘interests’. it therefore refused to give up its right to discuss national issues. the congress leadership wrote to all local authorities44 , defending the view that advisory boards were competent to judge the true interests of their constituents. they based their argument on the native (urban areas) act of 1945, which required the boards to “report upon any matter specially affecting the interests of natives in the urban area, or upon which the board may consider it useful or desirable to report”. in terms of this provision, congress considered certain legislation, such as the bantu education act, to qualify as affecting their constituents’ interests. the congress also felt that the resolutions taken on the issues of passes for women, revision of rentals, and housing, fell within its legitimate purview. the uneasy status quo in township political dynamics was not overly comprehensible to white officials and councillors in south african towns. it was one thing to be confronted with requests for township improvements; it was quite another to deal with the demand for the right to have a 40 east london municipal archives, report by superintendent of locations to nac, 22 january 1953. 41 east london municipal archives, letter from secretary of dna to advisory board congress, forwarded to town clerk by dna on 19 december 1955. 42 east london municipal archives, town clerk’s report to nac, 4 october 1956, quoting dna circular dated 6 september 1956. 43 east london municipal archives, town clerk’s report to nac, 4 october 1956. emphasis added. 44 east london municipal archives, undated letter to local authorities, recorded in town clerk’s report to nac, 4 july 1957. patriarchal east london td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 175-190. 185 say in the broader issues affecting black residents. local white officials had very little insight into the complex political strands in the black community, and in particular, the ways in which local problems were influenced by national policies. furthermore, an unarticulated question of objective versus subjective interests was absolutely fundamental. the problem of distinguishing between the ‘real’(objective) interests of urban residents and their expressed (subjective) wishes, bedevilled every aspect of the officials’ handling of the political undercurrents. on top of this lack of comprehension, the policies of the central government became ever more strident and uncompromising, thereby propelling officialdom in the direction of ever more coercive forms of paternalism. one factor in accounting for the restiveness of the advisory boards was the perceived presence of ‘agitators’. this perception was repeatedly discussed at institute of administrators of non-european affairs (iana) conferences, without achieving much clarity on the matter. the question of political grievances was another matter which received attention. while the white city fathers could admit that the underclass had vague rights to decent treatment (generally at the discretion of the white officials), the question of political rights (such as rights of expression, assembly, and franchise) seemed to threaten the existing ethical order. as whites perceived it, patriarchalism had hitherto been the most benign and viable kind of relationship infinitely preferable to slavery, subjugation or overt hostility. the political currents in the locations led to a crucial question. in terms of the analogy of the family, should political ‘adolescents’ have political rights? could their judgment be trusted, or did their elders ultimately have better insight into what was good for them? the differentiation of subjective and objective interests is a tricky undertaking at the best of times. many doctrines, including fascism, socialism, communism and paternalism, have claimed that people have ‘real interests’ of which they may be unaware. this has, on many occasions, led to the suppression of people’s ‘mere wants’ in favour of their putative ‘real interests’. (it is only liberalism that has stood strongly for the political recognition of subjectively defined interests, i.e. wishes). it is not surprising, therefore, that white officials, when confronted with political opposition, and faced with the problem of creating and defining the urban community, should have been tempted to take political short-cuts, and define for themselves what the ‘real interests’ of the black residents were. from within the patriarchal order, it was very difficult for white officials to conceive of blacks as being the bearers of rights equal to those of whites. the notion of individual political rights is a sophisticated formulation, based on a highly developed notion of individualism. the moulding of modern subjectivity is the sine qua non of individualistic democratic rights. also presupposed is a very durable and solidly woven social fabric, based on foucauldian ‘disciplinary’ social institutions (schools, armies, factories, hospitals). these recast the pre-modern person as an orderly, predictable, self-restrained individual. modernity also implies a certain minimum of social coherence, and shared definitions about the limits and organisation of the community. in europe, the development of rights and democracy was accompanied by the development of deeply entrenched "social discipline". in south africa during the 1950s, the quest for individual rights by the black disenfranchised was a normal part of the process of growing individuation produced by a modernising society. however, the social context was ambiguous and unresolved. black political grievances were expressed within a turbulent and unstable urbanising society, with major demographic shifts, and an unresolved definition of the urban community. the exercise of authority, and voting patterns, in the townships certainly did not exhibit much in the way of individualism or modernity. whatever control was exerted in these squalid areas was done through a combination of benign paternalism and crude, violent (often relatively ineffective) bureaucratic repression. municipal officials countrywide were alarmed at the growing social distress, crime, violence, and decline in moral standards which characterised the urban locations. the assertion of individual political atkinson 186 rights would, so it was believed, strike at the heart of both patriarchalism and coercion, without the bedrock of social discipline to prevent the entire society from flying apart. the officials’ forebodings of chaos and instability translated into a feeling that political rights for the masses of blacks were simply inappropriate. given the violent events of the 1952 defiance campaign, these fears were not entirely without foundation. furthermore, tom lodge’s study of east london describes radical black politics in east london as “socially inchoate” during the 1950s, due to the recent rural origins of many of the residents and the impoverished living conditions in the township. rurally derived culture remained influential, and adherents of ‘red’ (traditional) ideology roughly matched the so-called ‘school’ converts to christianity.45 the memory of the fateful events of 1952 lingered on in the consciousness of the east london city fathers. fifteen months later, the duncan village township manager presented his council with apparent evidence of anc attempts at subversion. a chain letter had been found, which advocated violent revolution. the letter contained the following text: the black man is being prosecuted, jailed, fined, assaulted, murdered and denied education. god will help us if we try to help ourselves... every non-european must burn the white man’s property. you are ordered to set a light to the veld and also post offices and dutch churches in town. use paraffin and dry wood... travel in motor cars to distant towns to burn european schools... when travelling pull down telephone lines and road signs. burn farmers tractors, cars, barns, veld, haystacks and stores, especially nat. afrikaners enemies [sic]. post this to all friends black and white, or be cursed, unlucky and damned to hell for ever and ever – amen.46 in the light of the officials’ impressionistic understanding of black politics, it is little wonder that black demands for individual political rights caused such unease on the part of white local officials and city councillors in south african towns. it was one thing to respect the judgment of acknowledged black leaders; it was quite another to visualise shiftless tsotsi’s having equal political rights. officials’ sense of social fragility was severe enough already. they had neither the habits of mind, nor the social institutions, to understand or accommodate the emerging style of black politics. but the officials’ commonly held anxieties did not translate into consensus on how to deal with the problem of black political opposition. what was to be done about the grievances of people most of whom were entering the cities for the first time, and who shared few of the cultural traits of the white sectors of the cities? should blacks be forcefully kept within their subordinate role, or were they entitled to have an opinion of their own? did they have rights or not? did their expression of their wishes reflect their own ‘real interests’? did the socalled ‘agitators’ propagate false conceptions of blacks’ needs, or should their claims be taken seriously? towards coercive paternalism it can be generalised that, the stronger officials’ belief in the need for an initiating, pioneering approach to ‘native development’, the more they adopted a messianic role, and the more coercive their paternalism became. paternalism may be represented as lying on a continuum. at one extreme were officials satisfied to allow urban blacks to ‘progress’ pragmatically with a loose 45 t lodge, “political mobilization…”, s marks & s trapido, the politics of race…, p. 320. 46 east london municipal archives, quoted in manager’s report to nac, 12 february 1954 patriarchal east london td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 175-190. 187 and liberal combination of rights and controls. at the other extreme were more nationalistorientated officials who felt a need to reconstruct black urban community life on a traditional ethnic basis. the former often took blacks’ articulated wishes into consideration; the latter tended to emphasise attributed (‘ethnic’) needs and interests. another dynamic was also taking place, in a minor key. the more the local officials attempted to block local blacks’ political aspirations, the more those officials had to rely on the material resources and the moral rationales offered by the central government. in effect, such municipal officials abdicated their local authorities’ inherited right to deal with local conflict in a manner they thought fit. they were steadily becoming locked into a dependency relationship with the department and other coercive central government agencies. this relationship can be characterised as a displaced patriarchalism: local officials looked to central government officials for paternalistic guidance. ultimately it was coercive patriarchalism that prevailed over the proto-liberal discourse of officials like mr. bourquin. these ambiguities in applying paternalism opened the way for the totalitarian intervention of the verwoerdians, with their clear vision of the kind of citizenship for which blacks should be prepared. for dr. w. m. eiselen, secretary of the department of native affairs, the goal of ethnically-defined polities was such an intrinsically reasonable one, that the government was justified in employing strict measures to bring it about: can the department of native affairs be accused of being frivolous and of drafting its laws in so unreasonable a manner that a well intentioned native finds it difficult or unduly irksome to comply? i have no hesitation in denying this most emphatically ... there are natives who consider that they have risen above and no longer belong to their community and therefore desire to be exempted ... socially such relaxation would have the detrimental effect ... [of] encouraging such persons to turn their back on their own society.47 dr. eiselen's views would prove highly persuasive, because he articulated an anxiety shared by local officials, viz. the sense of impending chaos: we are dealing with a mixed bantu population ... which lives cheek by jowl with the european community and is during the working day subject to all sorts of influences, completely divorced from bantu custom and bantu interests ... the urban bantu population is exposed to the deliberate, near subversive propaganda of a number of selfseeking agencies .... 48 the agitators threatened the entire legal system, dr. eiselen continued: the natives’ laws are discriminatory, the native is told; they are unjust, outrageous, vicious and so forth. why then should he obey them? and if he is morally justified in evading or breaking some particular law, why not another, why not any law? ... what is remarkable is that the vast majority still remain law-abiding .... 47 iana (annual conference proceedings, bloemfontein, 1957), p. 15. 48 iana (annual conference proceedings, bloemfontein, 1957), p. 16. atkinson 188 faced with the spectre of total lawlessness amongst black urban residents, the verwoerdian officials felt their task to be an extremely urgent and important one. traditional communities had to be resuscitated precisely to retain and recreate a respect for the law. it was the only way to preserve any form of social organisation whatever, and almost any means could be employed to reach this goal. whereas mr. bourquin’s solution had entailed the recognition of rights, wishes and subjective interests, the verwoerdian approach was based on the notion of ‘real interests’, based on traditional community identities. for the verwoerdians, the notion of rights for blacks became superfluous; indeed it was an obstacle to recognizing their true interests. the verwoerdians’ remarkable sense of conviction seduced many local officials. in the words of councillor tredoux of boksburg, “we must be steadfast, we must choose a direction and that direction is now being indicated to us, not by ourselves, but by the authorities, and we should follow it”.49 the next section examines the way in which east london officials also began to resort to coercive methods in dealing with black opposition. east london’s response to political opposition during the 1950s patriarchalism did not hold out clear guidance on how to deal with political opposition. in east london, officials and councillors held different opinions on the matter. a key question was the relationship between the anc and the advisory board. should a cordial working relationship between the two organisations be maintained, or not? the township officials, and most notably the township manager, directed their efforts at trying to drive a wedge between the anc and the advisory board. the general political atmosphere no doubt shaped their perspective. security issues were prominent in the central government’s priorities during the 1950s, and the suppression of communism act was passed in 1950. in 1953, the government introduced the public safety act, enabling it to declare a state of emergency in the country; the criminal law amendment act of 1953 increased the maximum penalties for persons convicted of offences committed by way of protest against any law.50 the township manager, mr. venter, accused the anc leaders, mr. lengisi and mr. gwentshe, of intimidating the black populace. he claimed that headmen were being attacked, municipal employees intimidated, and public meetings of the advisory boards obstructed by the anc youth league. on one occasion, the manager reported that, on an inspection tour of the location, he and the mayor “were lucky to come out alive.”51 there were two courses of action open to the council, and mr. venter firmly pursued both. first, he felt that it had become necessary to refuse the anc the use of the municipal hall in the location. “when they use it, it is picketed and collections made for the adverse activities of the movements.” the township manager believed that the ‘responsible’ black residents did not approve of the activities of the anc. “the position is so bad that residents at the risk of being arrested will leave their homes in the vicinity of the [peacock] hall if there is a meeting of the anc.”52 the council accordingly informed the anc that it was not allowed to use the peacock 49 iana (annual conference proceedings, bloemfontein,1957), p. 83. 50 m horrell, action, reaction and counteraction (johannesburg, sairr, 1963), p. 12. 51 east london municipal archives, township manager’s report to the public health and non-european affairs committee, 12 february 1954. 52 east london municipal archives, township manager’s report to nac, 27 april 1954. patriarchal east london td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 175-190. 189 hall for any purpose whatsoever.53 however, the local anc committee still managed to find ways to continue with its activities, and an irate township manager reported in august that the national war memorial health foundation’s community hall had been used for an anc meeting.54 the other course of action open to mr. venter was the deportation of leaders. regulations regarding deportations were steadily becoming more severe. in september 1956, the secretary of native affairs notified local authorities that, in terms of the natives (urban areas) amendment act of 1956, municipalities could deal more effectively with any persons deemed “detrimental to the maintenance of peace and order”. any ‘agitators’, including those with section 10 rights, could be ordered to leave the urban area. departmental approval for such action was no longer necessary.55 the department advised local authorities that the rationale behind deportations was that “the native concerned should be given every possible opportunity to mend his ways”.56 it remained the task of the city councils to determine whether an offender had indeed ‘mended his ways’. in april 1954, the township manager suggested that the department of native affairs be asked to remove the anc leaders, mr. lengisi and mr. gwentshe, from the location. the city council approved this suggestion.57 the township manager was sceptical about the likelihood of lengisi and gwentshe ever changing their spots. in 1956, the native commissioner informed the town clerk that mr. gwentshe had “acknowledged the error of his former ways and that he is prepared to co-operate with the authorities in future.”58 the manager remained unconvinced. he maintained that gwentshe had been in correspondence with the local anc, and that he had been elected president in absentia. the manager’s response was indicative of the persuasiveness of coercive paternalism, especially when it is based on a familiarity born of firsthand local contact: the return of gwentshe to east london... leaves nothing to imagination. we in east london have known gwentshe somewhat longer than the department of native affairs and it will take something more than just a mere acknowledgement from gwentshe to convince this office that he has seen the error of his ways. in fact, he has ‘seen the error of his ways’ on many an occasion before today and whilst there is comparative calm in the location it is felt that gwentshe’s return should be very strongly opposed.59 a similar correspondence took place about the future of joel lengisi. in 1958, lengisi appealed to the secretary of native affairs for permission to return to east london. the pathos of his request was unmistakable: 53 east london municipal archives, minutes of nac meeting, 21 may 1954. 54 east london municipal archives, township manager’s report to town clerk, 5 august 1954. 55 east london municipal archives, department of native affairs (dna) circular to local authorities, 15 september 1956. 56 re pretorius, “banishment: germiston’s answer to opposition in natalspruit location, 1955-1957” (university of the witwatersrand history workshop, 1987), p. 3. 57 east london municipal archives, township manager’s report to nac, 27 april 1954. 58 east london municipal archives, letter from native commissioner to town clerk, 28 september 1956, quoted in town clerk’s report to nac, 6 november 1956. 59 east london municipal archives , town clerk’s report to nac, 6 november 1956. atkinson 190 sir, you will recall that since i was banished from east london in july 1954 i have never earned a living ... i have suffered irreparable and untold harm ... during sir, my period of banishment, i was very loyal to the authorities and i promise to do so even in future. sir, i wish to inform you that my belongings and financial matters have been ruined in east london, and i earnestly appeal to you, sir, to allow me to join my former employment. i am fully prepared, sir, to abide by any undertaking ... .60 once again, the manager remained unmoved. he claimed that lengisi was still in contact with the anc. the township manager was supported by the native commissioner, mr. pike: “personally, i am opposed to lengisi returning to east london as his mere presence here will strengthen the african national congress.”61 it must be appreciated that the officials’ attitude towards political opposition was not solely shaped by the anc but was influenced by many other day-to-day events and relationships in the townships. the leadership of the industrial and commercial workers’ union (icu) in east london had, for instance, a close patriarchal relationship with the officials. as the secretary of the icu wrote to the township manager: the late mr. clements kadalie taught the members to fight for the rights of the members but at all times to respect and obey the laws of the country and the government in power. we do not wish to go off from this clear path ... you are the local father of peace. we, as law-abiding citizens under you are, we think, entitled to your protection....62 given the subservient, respectful tone of this letter, how could the anc’s assertiveness have appeared to be anything other than subversive and unreasonable to officialdom? conclusion the patriarchal normative system might have lasted indefinitely, had it not been for the pressures of modernisation building up in the urban townships and the resulting wave of violent opposition to the white government. the black bourgeois elite subscribed to a notion of equal political rights, which encouraged them to become politically articulate. this threw the patriarchal system into disarray, for many of the city fathers were unable to cope with this development. a latent defect in patriarchalism, viz. the confusion between needs and wishes, became an overt and chronic moral problem. some officials tried to deal with this state of affairs via recourse to liberal or ‘permissive’ forms of paternalism, whereas others increasingly preferred to resort to coercion. the east london locations advisory board became radicalized, and developed its own reference group at national level. the patriarchal normative ideal became ever more tenuous and contested, and prepared the ground for the full onslaught of verwoerdian controls. 60 east london municipal archives , letter from j lengisi to secretary of dna, 4 december 1957, quoted in township manager’s report to nac, april 1958. 61 east london municipal archives, letter to town clerk, 7 march 1958, quoted in township manager’s report to nac, april 1958. 62 east london municipal archives, letter to superintendent, 1 may 1957, quoted in township manager’s report to nac, march 1958. abstract introduction theory and principles of organisation theory and principles of management principles of strategic management principles of project management integrated framework for strategy–project alignment analysis of findings strategy-project alignment challenges recommendations to address strategy-project alignment challenges conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) gerrit van der waldt department of public governance, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, south africa citation van der waldt, g., 2016, ‘probing strategy-project alignment: the case of the south african social security agency’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a358. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.358 original research probing strategy-project alignment: the case of the south african social security agency gerrit van der waldt received: 11 july 2016; accepted: 14 sept. 2016; published: 03 dec. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract public institutions, such as the south african social security agency (sassa) increasingly function in multi-project environments to translate strategies successfully into service-delivery initiatives. however, this ‘projectification’ often causes projects to be designed and executed haphazardly. this can lead to budget and schedule overruns, and the general wastage of an organisation’s resources. project failures often occur where organisations do not ensure that specific projects are aligned with their core strategies. the purpose of this article is to combine the theories and principles of organisation, management, strategic management, and project management in an effort to pinpoint core determinants that can help establish the extent to which an organisation manages the alignment of its strategic projects. in the present study, the author applied the principles of interdisciplinarity, systems thinking, and organisational integration. the combined core determinants that were uncovered were then used in an empirical investigation of sassa. the purpose of this investigation is to identify particular challenges the organisation faces in aligning their strategies and projects successfully. thereafter, a number of recommendations follow to address these challenges. introduction during the first three decades of the 20th century, diverse conceptions developed about organisations as well as the principles and practices of its management. these concepts have been modified significantly to comply with advances in scientific inquiry regarding people (i.e. behavioural theory) and organisations (i.e. systems theory), which led to further postmodern paradigms and notions of management. organisation and management theories flowing from new empirical investigations can be regarded as eclectic bodies of knowledge, which reflect the diversity of particular settings and the multitude of variables involved. traditional wisdom holds that an organisation’s strategy is meant to be realised through ongoing activities or functional operations. a modern trend, however, views the proliferation of projects as the main form of temporary organisation intended to execute strategies. increasingly projects are used as vehicles to implement strategies and have become a topical area of empirical investigation (cf. hauc & kovac 2000). in this regard shenhar et al. (2001) refer to projects as ‘powerful strategic weapons’. however, this ‘projectification’, if not managed properly, may lead to ‘project overload’, wastage of organisational resources and, ultimately, distraction from the organisation’s strategic goals (dyreyes 2008:2). a global survey in 2004 by the accountancy firm pricewaterhouse coopers found that only a handful of projects did achieve project success (stanleigh 2016). the survey established further that only 2.5% of global public and private sector organisations attain complete project success. a major reason for project failure is that most organisations do not ensure that the projects they implement are aligned with their core strategies. based on the principles of interdisciplinarity, systems thinking and organisational integration, the purpose of this article was to combine the principles of organisation, management, strategic management and project management to help identify core determinants that indicate the extent to which an organisation (i.e. case study) manages the alignment of its strategy projects. these mentioned determinants will then be used to engage participants (i.e. senior managers as units of analysis) in the case study (i.e. the south african social security agency [sassa]). the aim was to uncover particular challenges that the mentioned organisation (as case study) faces when planning to align its strategies and projects efficiently. recommendations will then be made to address these challenges. schematically, the design of the article as well as the methodological phases that were followed is illustrated in figure 1. figure 1: design and phases of the article. the arrows shown in figure 1 represent the reciprocal relationship between the key constructs of this article. the effective functioning of organisations depends on sound management, while managers can only perform their functions within in an organisational setup (hence the two-way direction of the vertical arrows for phase 1). strategic management and project management can be regarded as specific disciplines or domains within the field of management. projects are utilised to execute organisational strategies (hence the one-way direction of the vertical arrows to illustrate the hierarchical nature of this relationship). interdisciplinarity in this context means expanding the boundaries of conventional knowledge domains of individual disciplines (i.e. organisation and management) for the scientific inquiry into a specific topic. this is done by adopting and building on knowledge or methodologies from other disciplines (cf. kleinberg 2008:11; van der waldt 2014:173). theory and principles of organisation according to kast and rosenzweig (1974:6) organisations are goal-directed psychological and technological systems, which function as an integrated whole. robbins (1990:39) and luhmann (2013:44) elaborate on this dimension of integration by characterising organisations as ‘co-operative systems’ that require vertical and horizontal integration and alignment of activities and processes. systems theory basically allowed organisational theorists over time to redefine the organisation and the relationship between organisations and the environment in terms of an increasingly complex formula (fauconnier 1987:100; luhmann 2013:44). the systems approach to managing organisations emerged in the 1950s as a counterpoint to existing practices that focused on selected aspects and functions of an organisation in isolation (roth 1992:1). the approach became popular in the 1980s, based on the principle that ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’ (churchman 1968:29; mintzberg 1989:223). the systems view approaches the organisation as an integrated system consisting of related subsystems (mcnamara 2008; morgan 1989:48) and functioning within macro-systems (baker & branch 2002:2). to understand the system, one has to determine what an ‘organisation does using what inputs, with what resources to achieve what results’ (glans et al. 1968:12). sylvie and witherspoon (2002:15) argue that organisations are ‘pyramidal, hierarchical systems with different functional units, vertical (mostly downward) communication, and management that is predominantly task-focused than employee-centred’. the components within a system are interdependent. johnson and schiller (1991:63) and robbins and coulter (2005:35) emphasise the fact that this level of interdependence makes coordination and cooperation within an organisation crucial for optimal performance. according to churchman (1968:30), an organisation is linked closely to its strategic goals and objectives. senior management sets these goals, generates strategic plans for the system, allocates resources and controls the system’s performance (churchman 1968:44; dawson 1993:10–11). glans et al. (1968:18–20) and gitlow et al. (2005:3) argue that each step in an organisation can be regarded as a process. a process, in turn, is a collection of interactive systems or components that transform organisational inputs (i.e. resources) into outputs (i.e. services and products) towards a specific aim (gitlow et al. 2005:3). a process-based approach to the management of an organisation as a system focuses on a multiplicity of micro-subprocesses that fit into a macro-process, working in alignment and synergy (baker & branch 2002:22; gitlow et al. 2005:3). several authors indicate that an organisation consists of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors, and they emphasise the importance of both aspects for the effective performance of organisations (cf. mobley, wang & fang 2005:12; westcott 2006:14). summarising the literature on organisational dynamics, abel (1999:34) characterises organisations as socio-technological systems influenced by both these so-called ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors. ‘hard’ factors include technology, work processes, accounting systems and formal structure, while ‘soft’ factors entail aspects such as social dynamics and organisational culture (i.e. the beliefs, values and attitudes applicable to an organisation) as well as leadership capabilities. lenka and suar (2008:60) argue that a ‘soft’ management approach is more applicable to service organisations (i.e. public service). this comprises the ‘soft’ elements of leadership, human resources, customer focus, management commitment, empowerment, communication and culture (robbins 2001:510; sylvie & witherspoon 2002:25). a literature survey revealed the ‘soft’ core determinants shown in table 1. table 1: soft’ organisational determinants. various situational factors or ‘hard’ determinants have a further impact on organisations’ performance and the level of integration or alignment and cooperation. robbins (1990:457), johnson and schiller (1991:56) and jones and george (2003:92) highlight the following determinants in this regard: organisational structure and design. policies, rules and regulations. strategies. systems. processes, methods and procedures. resources (quantity and utilisation). technology. infrastructure and assets. instruments, tools and applications. organisational size. this concludes a brief orientation of the so-called ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ organisational determinants that may impact organisational performance in general and influence the successful alignment of strategies with projects in particular. the following is an overview of management as theory. theory and principles of management mary parker follet presents the classical definition of management as ‘the art of getting things done through people’. this calls attention to the fact that managers achieve organisational goals by arranging for others to perform whatever tasks may be necessary (stoner 1982:8). it involves a process of planning, organising, leading and controlling the functions of organisations. in this sense management can be regarded as a process because all managers concerned engage in certain interrelated activities. this includes the optimal utilisation of resources for an organisation’s effectiveness, efficiency and productivity, and encouraging the cooperation of employees (bolden et al. 2003:45). management is an extremely broad study field and involves a wide variety of applicable subdomains or branches. these include the management of human resources, change, finances, strategic issues and projects. managers have to be particularly skilled to manage such specialised functional domains in an organisation (cf. ahmad & ud din 2014:34). according to harrison and st john (1998:171) as well as wheelen and hunger (1992:172–174), vertical organisational arrangements generally constitute three managerial levels: corporate or strategic level – senior or top management responsible for strategic planning and portfolios; tactical level – middle management, typically responsible for organisational programmes; functional or operational level – first-line or supervisory management, typically responsible for project execution. kotze (2001:56) and van der waldt (2001:230) argue that effective cooperation and coordination should facilitate this vertical structuring in order to execute strategies successfully. a literature survey reveals that the effectiveness of management (i.e. successfully coordinating functional processes to align strategies with projects) is influenced by a multitude of determinants. table 2 briefly identifies these determinants. table 2: managerial determinants. the determinants shown in table 2 are a brief exposition of the core managerial determinants that may influence the successful translation of organisational strategies into service delivery projects. subsequently, the various principles of strategic management will be examined closer. principles of strategic management mintzberg (1994:10–13) regards a ‘strategy’ as plan, ploy, pattern, position or perspective to give an organisation a competitive advantage over its competitors to achieve its main objectives. kaplan and norton (2000:1) add that a strategy is a unique and sustainable instrument through which organisations create value. strategy is a fluid process according to which managers learn from the environment and thereby develop a plan responsive to the needs of its customers (lewis 2004:2). mintzberg (1994:3) further points out that organisational policies, resources and actions should be aligned with its strategies to enhance its performance and outcomes. strategic management, according to pearce and robinson (1999:3), sempe (1999:4), as well as rossouw, le roux and groenewald (2003:2), is the process through which an organisation’s decisions and actions are derived from environmental scanning with a view to formulate, implement and evaluate its strategies. thomson and strickland (1998:24), fogg (1999:4), van der spuy (2008:13) and kinicki and williams (2008:178) concur that the benefits of strategic management could be summed up as ‘to provide better direction, momentum and guidance to the entire organisation on the crucial point of what it is trying to do and achieve’. according to byars (1992:5) and sempe (1999:89), strategic management constitutes generic processes that include planning, implementation and evaluation and control of strategies. in the case of the south african public service, the south african treasury regulations (2000, part 3, chapter 5) outline comprehensive steps that public institutions should take to design a strategic plan. these steps are commitment analysis, stakeholder analysis, vision formulation, mission statement, functional analysis, environmental/situational analysis, strategies formulation, action plans, compiling the strategic plan, consultation and agreement, implementation and revision. its premise is that the performance of public institutions will be enhanced by following these steps. cilliers (2000:24) and david (2001:14), as well as rossouw et al. (2003:1–4), point to the fact that strategic management should be an inclusive process in which senior management, as the custodians of strategic direction, should engage lower-level managers constructively in order to align strategies, programmes and projects. this participative engagement of the various management levels generally facilitates commitment, a sense of ownership and joint responsibility for the effective operationalisation of strategies (kotze 2001:3–4). by cooperation and coordination between the different levels of management an operational framework should be developed to implement the strategies. this framework should consider the allocation of resources, delegation of authority to lower managerial levels (i.e. project managers). it should also focus on establishing proper monitoring, control and evaluation mechanisms to oversee projects as vehicles to implement strategies (pearce & robinson 1999:7). in addition, kotze (2001:13) and mosia (2003:13) point out that an organisation’s culture should be adjusted to help apply this operational framework. these scholars point to the need for a culture-strategy ‘fit’ in the organisation. a central point is that various authors conceptualise strategic management as an instrument of organisational convergence, i.e. alignment between the various functional activities (cf. kaplan & norton 2000:1; lewis 2004:2; mintzberg 1994:10–13). managers have the responsibility to ensure that the different functional processes are aligned from strategic to operational levels (i.e. projects) in order to obtain a coherent sense of direction. alignment directs the employees in the organisation to work together and achieve similar objectives. the level of synergy and alignment between the goal and objectives of the organisation, teams and the individuals ultimately determines the success or failure of this organisation. byars (1992:5–7) and wheelen and hunger (1992:17) suggest that once the strategy has been established, attention should shift to the so-called ‘7s’ model of mckenzie for effective implementation. these ‘7s’ entail: shared values, skills, style, staff, strategy, structure and systems. according to dutta and manzoni (199:307) the mentioned seven domains, if not appropriately improved or developed, will have far-reaching implications for an organisation’s strategy. the successful alignment between strategies (i.e. portfolios, programmes) and projects depends on a wide variety of determinants. table 3 presents a number of the most prominent determinants in this regard. table 3: strategic management determinants. organisational strategy is usually a long-term endeavour and can be difficult to implement in the shorter term. using a project management approach can help address this paradox. a project-based approach allows an organisation to have clear implementable subobjectives aimed at addressing the overall strategic objectives. after focusing on the principles of strategic management, project management will be examined more closely. principles of project management the project management institute’s (pmi 2016) project management body of knowledge guide (pmbok®) defines a project as ‘a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result’. a project has a defined beginning and end in time, and, therefore, defined scope and resources. projects are unique because they are not part of routine functional operations in an organisation, but rather designed specifically to accomplish a singular goal. a project can also be defined by focusing on its managerial dimensions. these dimensions mainly describe the optimal usage of resources to ensure that the project is completed in time, within budget parameters and according to quality metrics (clements & gido 2009:18; van der waldt & fox 2015:8). in the same vein, kerzner (1998:9) defines management of projects as ‘any series of activities and tasks that have a specific objective to be completed within specifications; have defined start and end dates; have funding limits; consume human and other resources and are multi-functional’. burke (2010:8) elaborates on this theme by indicating that this includes planning, organising, directing and controlling activities. dmytrenko (1996:74) argues that projects are a ‘strategic competency’ for organisations, which enable them to link project results to business goals (i.e. private sector) and constitutional mandates (i.e. public sector). in the same vein graham and englund (2004:12), clements and gido (2009:115, 184) and hauc and kovac (2000:64) illustrate the significance of aligning project objectives with broader strategic objectives of the organisation. meredith and mantel (2000:44) and van der waldt (2009:38) emphasise that strategy alignment is the key determinant when selecting projects. meredith and mantel (2000:192) accentuate the need to include system integration as part of integration management for the knowledge domain within the pmbok. they refer to a ‘mixed organisation system’ (p. 152) whereby a project is integrated with the organisation’s existing functional hierarchical structure. senior managers need to cooperate in developing a unified strategic emphasis for projects. a structured approach is needed to translate an organisation’s strategy into a project management strategy (cf. burke 2010:138; van der waldt 2007:18). in this regard englund and graham (1999:56) and graham and englund (2004:52) suggest that ‘selecting project for their strategic emphasis … is a corner anchor in putting together the pieces of a puzzle that create an environment for successful projects’. according to dyreyes (2008:53) organisations should adopt ‘strategic project management’ to facilitate the alignment between strategic objectives and individual projects. project management emerged as a management field of study in the early 1960s. since then various systematic frameworks were designed to depict and execute projects (i.e. life cycle methodologies) and facilitate the integration of projects with existing organisational systems, structures and processes (i.e. maturity models). these methodologies and models are useful instruments to guide the alignment of strategies and projects. maturity models for organisational project management aim to enhance project value through strategic alignment and by outlining the principles of project-based management (cf. van der waldt & fox 2015:89–96). some of the most common and widely used methodologies for project maturity (i.e. project readiness; cf. anderseen & jessen 2003:4570) include the following: pmbok® (project management body of knowledge outlining 10 generic knowledge domains); prince2 (projects in controlled environments, version 2), a process-based method for effective project management throughout the public and private sectors; opm3 (organisational project management maturity model) the ‘3’ indicating portfolio, programme and project levels; epm (enterprise project management) accentuates the alignment between projects, programmes, portfolios and strategies; iso 21500 (2012), an international standard on project management in public, private or community organisations, and for any type of project, irrespective of complexity, size or duration; and iappm (international association of project & program management) that publishes the certified project and program manager (cppm) guide. based on a thorough literature survey, the most significant determinants that influence the successful design and execution of projects as strategic instruments are identified in table 4. table 4: project management determinants. integrated framework for strategy–project alignment table 5 reflects a combined list of determinants – organisational, managerial, strategic management and project management – as listed in tables 1–5. this comprehensive list is clustered further based on commonalities between the determinants (i.e. table content). this concludes phase 2 of the investigation (see figure 1): applying the principles of interdisciplinarity to obtain an integrated perspective. table 5: combined determinants influencing strategy-project alignment. based on these determinant clusters, an empirical investigation was undertaken in sassa as a case study (i.e. phase 3). this was carried out, firstly, to determine how these determinants currently influence the organisation; secondly, to establish to what extent sassa’s strategies are aligned with its projects and, thirdly, to pinpoint particular challenges in this regard (i.e. phase 4). these clusters were integrated in the form of questions as part of an interview schedule that was used as the instrument to collect data. the research methodology employed in the present investigation as well as its core findings are outlined in the following section. research methodology remenyi (1996:24) maintains that research can be defined as ‘a voyage of discovery’. if researchers claim that their research does add valuable information to the existing body of knowledge, they must comply with the ‘scientific method’. welman, kruger and mitchell (2005:2) define this scientific method as a process of generating scientific knowledge by objective methods and procedures in a particular field of study. the author of this article followed a qualitative research design. struwig and stead (2001:25) and maree et al. (2007:51) describe the qualitative approach as research concerned with understanding the social and cultural dimensions of phenomena. the strength of qualitative research is its ability to provide complex textual descriptions of how people experience a given issue. because the perceptions and opinions of senior managers as participants from sassa are significant for purposes of the present investigation, the qualitative research design was found particularly suitable. case-study instrumentation yin (2012:23) defines the case-study research method as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context. a case study typically involves a number of units of analysis that should be representative of the population under investigation. schurink (2010:437–438) is of the opinion that a case study is an exploration or in-depth analysis of a ‘bounded system’ linked to time and/or place, or it can entail a multiple or single case over a period of time. the scholar further argues that in qualitative research, case studies emphasise the detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions and their relationship. for the purposes of this research the case-study method was, therefore, followed to investigate sassa’s functionality and processes in terms of strategy and project alignment. units of analysis and sampling a unit of analysis, as defined by bless and higson-smith (2000:72), refers to a person, object or event to be studied and from which data are to be collected and conclusions drawn. sassa’s head office in pretoria oversees nine regional offices. the unit of analysis are the gauteng regional office comprising five districts and several service points (shown in table 6). from these districts, five district managers and 18 local offices managers were purposively sampled as participants in the research due to their direct involvement in the translation of organisational strategies into operational projects. table 6: sassa gauteng regional office. data collection: interviews the instrument for data collection in the present investigation was semi-structured interviews. an interview schedule was designed based on the theory, principles and key determinants of organisation, management, strategic management and project management as reflected in tables 1–4. this instrument was pre-tested (piloted) with three participants to confirm that the questions were clear and that the participants fully understood its nature. the schedule consisted of closed as well as open-ended questions. the latter allowed the author to probe the responses further and to clarify answers. questions were constructed to assess the extent to which strategies and projects were aligned and to identify the particular challenges that senior management experienced in this regard. in adherence to the guidelines for ethical research, the author obtained permission from the office of the ceo of sassa to conduct the interviews. in total, 28 of the selected (n = 38) participants participated, a response rate thus of 73.6%. this response rate was fully adequate for purposes of obtaining valid and reliable data for the nature of this investigation. analysis of findings the data are presented in two sections, namely section a, which provides the biographical details of participants, and section b, capturing the responses to the questions. section a: biographical information the biographical data of the participants selected from sassa’s gauteng regional managers, as well as for district and local office managers, are reflected in table 7. this indicates the managerial level of participants in the sassa regional and local offices. biographical information of participants was needed to enable an analysis of potential divergent responses by participants based on their experience (i.e. years of service in sassa), seniority and involvement in strategy–project alignment. table 7: participants’ management levels. section b: sassa as case sassa is a national agency created in april 2005, with the aim to administer the application, approval and payment of social grants in south africa. sassa is a section 3a public entity (sassa, strategic plan 2013/14–2015/16) and was established in terms of the social assistance act 13 of 2004 and the south african social security agency act 9 of 2004. the presentation of the findings focuses on the current status of sassa based on the responses of participants. the data are categorised below into organisational, management, strategy and project dimensions. status of organisation sassa operates through nine regional offices, one each in the nine provinces, and the head office is situated in pretoria, gauteng. the regional, district, local and satellite offices are thus located throughout the country. the agency is structured into six portfolios to deliver on its strategic objectives. these portfolios are: grant administration, strategy and business development, information and communication technology, internal audit and risk management and corporate services (sassa annual performance plan 2015/16:41–44). two directors (2/6), 2 senior managers (2/4) and 10 local office managers (10/18) confirmed that sassa currently operates with no uniform organisational structure. furthermore, based on the comments by the participants, it seems that new positions are created without adequate work study or requirements to develop the organisation. certain provinces, such as the western cape, function without district offices, which makes national coordination problematic. status of management participants confirmed that a total of 188 (60%) of the 331 local offices are operating on a standardised business model. business processes have been mapped and frontline employees are trained regularly on the effective functioning of these processes. the aim is to eliminate duplication in functions while at the same time delivering quality, by adding a function for quality assurance to the value chain for grants. the majority of the participants (64.2%) concurred that the bureaucratic and hierarchical nature of management planning and decision-making is hampering coordination and cooperation in the agency. authority, resources and planning are centralised at higher levels of management, while implementation, responsibility and accountability are decentralised to lower levels. for instance, although the need for resources may be determined at district or local offices, only the regional or head office may approve the allocation and distribution of resources. managers are expected to deliver on their performance contracts, irrespective of whether or not they have the required resources at their disposal. the lack of clarification on roles and responsibilities among managers in the regional, district office and local offices was further singled out by participants (57.1%) as a factor causing strenuous relationships between managers at all levels. the alignment of functions and delegation of powers from the regional offices to the local offices varies from one province to another. some regional offices decentralise functions and resources to the lower level and some centralise certain functions to the regional office. furthermore, an audit finding in the past years pointed out the lack of alignment and integration among systems from various managerial levels and processes of sassa. the social grants payment and administration system (scopen), for example, is not aligned fully with the accounting systems (i.e. oracle and the basic accounting system [bas]). communication and information technology are found to be designed inadequately to comply with the requirements of the grants administration system (i.e. novel software applications and mtn short messages system). status of strategy all the participants indicated that sassa has developed vision and mission statements, as well as strategies to fulfil its statutory and constitutional mandates. the vision of the agency is to be a leader in delivery of social security services and its mission is to administer quality customer-centric social services. the strategic objective of sassa is to ‘create a high performing institution to improve administration of social security in a manner that meets stakeholder expectation’ (cf. sassa strategic plan 2013/14–2015/16). key strategic portfolios are beneficiary maintenance and customer care. key strategic programmes support these portfolios, namely: service-delivery improvement programme; automation of business processes; and mass beneficiary enrolment. status of projects participants in the research generally concurred that projects are identified somewhat haphazardly according to business units (i.e. district office), mainly when crisis situations emerge. sassa’s success is determined largely by its ability to execute projects that are aligned to the vision, mission and strategic objectives, as provided for in the annual performance plan (app). its strategic plan sets out six organisational branches to operate the agency’s programmes within the scope of available resources. these branches’ function is to ensure that the relevant programmes are aligned to the objective statements of the organisation and are converted into various projects. however, participants indicated that, during its strategic planning phase, the agency does not adequately involve functional managers and operational staff who execute projects. as one participant noted, ‘this creates a strategic challenge for sassa; not to align the projects with what senior management wishes to achieve’. furthermore, participants reflected that functional managers have full control over their business units for personnel and budgets. each unit designs and executes projects without effective coordination between units and offices. in addition, support units (i.e. administration and human resources) are not involved adequately in the initiation phases of projects, and this generally leads to problems with projects’ feasibility. strategy-project alignment challenges in their responses, participants identified the strategy–project alignment challenges as listed below in the order of number of responses received. the number of (related) responses appears as a percentage of the total (n = 28) in brackets after each challenge. because the purpose of this phase was merely to identify challenges, there was no need to differentiate between the sampled cohorts (i.e. managers of regional, district and local offices): centralised planning: the national department of social development (dsd) as the ‘mother body’ unilaterally makes decisions to set up certain projects without consulting sassa as its ‘delivery wing’. this often leads to the duplication of projects. for example, sassa executes a number of short-term ad hoc projects spearheaded by the dsd, which are not aligned fully with sassa’s strategic objectives or with existing strategic programmes. these projects are based more on ‘political motives’ and have serious implications for the agency’s available resources. furthermore, conceptualisation of projects usually occurs at a centralised level, most often at head office. however, the monitoring and accountability for implementing these projects is decentralised to managers at district and local offices. this often leads to ‘fiscal dumping’ and project ‘mushrooming’ in these offices due to savings realised in departmental budget votes. failure to comply with expectations from higher authority in the organisation is viewed as poor performance or under-performance. this results in low morale, lack of commitment and absenteeism of staff in the district and local offices (67.8% of participants). project governance: sassa does not have an official coordinating mechanism or governance structure in place, for example, a project management office (pmo) to facilitate the strategic alignment of projects. such a structure could ensure the optimal usage of scarce departmental resources and help provide organisational, technical and interpersonal interfaces. the annual financial performance report (2012–2013) of sassa indicated that the absence of a programme and pmo needs to be addressed because this condition generally leads to fruitless and wasteful expenditure. the agency has since then employed a project manager for this purpose, but no support staff are in place. sassa also does not utilise steering committees fully for its larger projects. in the absence of such committees, it is extremely difficult for the agency to ensure that the project scope aligns with objectives for programmes and strategies (57.1% of participants). technological support: participants generally agreed that sassa does not have an adequate ict support system to execute the planned strategies and projects effectively. the main reason is the limited support staff. as one participant from the ict unit explained: ‘in deploying the ict equipment to the local offices, the same person from the local office is expected to assist all ict unit managers as and when the need arises and be committed to the respective units’ projects and also to their own work they have been appointed to do … within the entire gauteng region there are only two permanent ict technician posts. gauteng has 1105 staff members. these two technicians are expected to roll out ict equipment in 44 offices! they should also monitor performance of it equipment. based on the number of cross-functional projects that are being implemented, the day-to-day ict functional priorities are often neglected.’ another participant explained the lack of adequate service follow-ups: ‘the monitoring of tools that were provided as solutions is not done and with the ict unit having limited human resources, analysing if the end product meets the business objectives, identified at the beginning of the project, does not happen. the lack of such monitoring activities limits the unit’s opportunity to improve on ict offering and measuring if the customer is satisfied with what we provided as a solution.’ organisational arrangements and authority: from participants’ input, it seems that the working environment is not fully conducive to project-based operations. as one participant stated, ‘the organisation is not flexible to accommodate ad hoc projects and does not easily allow for change’. participants also mentioned that officials generally find themselves embroiled in ‘authority conflicts’ between functional and project managers over project’s priorities, administrative tasks, allocation of staff and performance standards. there is also ‘fragmented reporting’ with multiple reporting lines and templates. furthermore, most employees are ‘rank conscious’, which causes problems for adequate delegation of authority to project managers of lower ranks (42.8% of participants). project feasibility: it is evident that currently projects are executed without conducting proper feasibility studies. one participant explained: ‘projects are not properly planned, and not strategically prioritised … this causes that they are not properly funded or resourced’. furthermore, important projects such as grant re-registrations, standardisation of local offices and eradication of fraud and corruption were not successful. this was mainly due to unclear or ambiguous objectives, insufficient planning, poor communication, lack of resources and unrealistic timescales. as a participant explains: ‘the implementation of these projects was received with resistance. staff members felt that projects are just dumped on them one project after the other’ (35.7% of participants). quality control: a point of significant concern within the entire organisation was pointed out as implementation of effective standards and controls for the design, development, implementation, maintenance, use, acquisition and management of project deliverables. the absence of standardised project standards and quality metrics does not necessarily align with crucial aspects such as core business strategies, legislated workflow standards and operational procedures (21.4% of participants). budgeting: participants explained that the agency receives two types of budget transfers from the dsd, for grant payments and to cover the administrative costs of the branches. the budget is available and approved, but is informed by the previous year’s expenses. the fact that the budget is not informed by projects’ work breakdown structures (wbss) usually leads to overor underspending. in this regard one participant also alluded to the fact that the budgeting process ‘… opens the organisation to fraud and corruption because employees may collude with the providers of tenders’. there is also no standardised methodology for project budgeting in place to calculate in detail the direct and indirect costs of project tasks and other required resources. furthermore, a number of interviewees stated that the meeting schedule of the regional acquisition committee (rac) does not necessarily align with the deadlines of the fiscal year. as one participant explained: ‘when the rac finally gives approval, there are only about four few weeks left for the supplier to deliver equipment. payment of suppliers must be done within 30 days as stipulated by the public finance management act 1 of 1999. then there is also the challenge that the oracle system used to pay suppliers also closes by the first week of march. due to the uncoordinated manner in which projects are implemented you will find a situation where a laptop is deployed without a 3g card, yet the project aim is to have a mobile service point.’ recommendations to address strategy-project alignment challenges based on the literature review and the input obtained from participants, this section briefly posits recommendations that sassa, and similar public sector institutions, should consider in improving the alignment of their strategies and projects. the recommendations are arranged according to the challenges highlighted in the previous section: project planning: centralised strategic planning is necessary to provide visionary leadership and give direction to the entire organisation nationwide. however, it is imperative to follow an all-inclusive and participatory approach to foster commitment and responsibility among the relevant role-players for the institution’s goals. when developing departmental strategies, input from all the relevant key stakeholders, including lower-level staff and prospective project managers, should be prioritised to encourage joint ownership, buy-in and support. project governance: to obtain an integrated view of the projects undertaken by different branches, regions and districts in the organisation, it is recommended that a pmo be established. such a pmo can fulfil the following functions: encourage a project management culture, ensure that strategies and projects are aligned, facilitate the allocation of resources, provide a consolidated perspective of progress on the projects and ensure good governance of the programmes and projects. technological support: it is recommended strongly that sassa extends its ict capacity by deploying more support staff to the district and local offices (i.e. project implementation sites). the design of a comprehensive project management information system (pmis) could help provide a perspective of integrated enterprises to track and manage projects. it could also ensure that the various projects of the district and local offices remain aligned to strategic objectives. organisational arrangements and authority: public institutions such as sassa generally operate in multi-project environments. therefore, they should increasingly use project methodology to operationalise strategic programmes and implement initiatives for service delivery. project management should be the focal point for senior managers in the formulation of strategies. the different organisational units should work in an integrated and coordinated manner and provide the necessary support to each other. the organisations should furthermore become more flexible, agile and project-based. sassa could start the process by implementing the principles of a matrix organisation and, as it matures, gradually move towards a project-based structure. it is further recommended that adequate authority should be delegated to project managers, enabling them to manage projects properly. head office should also devolve and delegate decision-making powers to district and local offices. project feasibility: scientific feasibility studies should precede the approval of all projects. such studies should include environmental impact assessments, risk analyses, organisational capacity and capability assessments, as well as cost–benefit analyses. data from feasibility studies should also provide both qualitative and quantitative metrics for the prioritisation of projects. quality control: it is necessary to further adequate performance monitoring, evaluation, assessment and oversight of all projects. therefore, it is recommended that sassa design appropriate quality standards and metrics for the typical projects executed in their strategic portfolios. such a quality framework should map the contribution of each project to the strategic business decisions and empower managers to determine whether projects are meeting or exceeding the set targets and standards. budgeting: budgets should be informed adequately by detailed project and district planning. in addition, local offices should be afforded sufficient powers to form their own bid committees to help fast-track the procurement of resources. general recommendations: other recommendations, to facilitate the alignment of strategy projects, include the following: apply internationally accepted strategies and best practice for projects and benchmark these practices with similar organisations. introduce a uniform project management methodology such as pmbok or prince2 across the organisation and gain the commitment and active support of senior managers to help establish conducive structures, systems and methodology to support programmes and projects. improve general strategic management and project management skills, which include a mind-set change by senior officials to follow a project-based approach in improving service delivery. ensure optimal utilisation of scarce departmental resources by facilitating alignment through formal and informal reporting relationships among the following entities: different organisational units or directorates (organisational interfaces); different technical disciplines and functional areas (technical interfaces); and different individuals working on the programme and projects (interpersonal interfaces). managing projects by strategic usage of these resources: a steering committee could, for example, ensure that a particular project obtains relevant resources from various functional directorates (i.e. organisational interfaces); secure assistance from ict (i.e. technical interfaces); and frequently bring the relevant role-players (i.e. heads of the directorates) to the table. this would help establish work practices and foster sound working relationships (i.e. interpersonal interfaces) for improved cooperation and coordination. conclusion the principles of interdisciplinarity, systems thinking and organisational integration accentuate the need to view organisations as integrated systems. organisational effectiveness depends not only on the formulation of strategies to direct the processes and operations towards a desired future (i.e. vision), but also on the successful conversion of strategies into operational action. increasingly, public institutions such as sassa operate in multi-project environments in which projects are used as instruments to implement strategies. however, a major reason for project failure is that most organisations do not ensure that all their projects are aligned with core strategies. the purpose of this article was to combine the principles of organisation, management, strategic management and project management and thereby identify core determinants that could determine how and to what extent sassa, as a case study, manages its alignment of strategy projects. the identified determinants were utilised to uncover particular challenges for the organisation to align their strategies and projects successfully. based on the responses of participants it is evident that sassa has adequate strategic processes, resources, systems, structures and processes in place to comply with its constitutional mandate. however, the alignment between strategies and projects, especially between head office, regional, district and local offices, requires serious attention. a detailed framework for strategy–project alignment could go a long way in ensuring that public institutions, 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addison-wesley, new york. yin, r.k., 2012, applications of case study research, 3rd edn., sage, san francisco, ca. zhang, l., 2010, ‘quality management in the small business environment of south africa’, in cput theses & dissertations, paper 304, viewed 10 january 2016, from http://dk.cput.ac.za/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1313&context=td_cput abstract introduction literature review methodology interviews results discussion of research results conclusion implications for the use of fennema–sherman mathematics mother’s, father’s and teacher’s attitude to mathematics scales in south africa acknowledgements references about the author(s) msizi v. mkhize school of accounting, economics and finance, college of law and management studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation mkhize, v.m., 2020, ‘pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their parents’ and teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a802. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.802 research project registration: project number: 203514960 original research pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their parents’ and teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics msizi v. mkhize received: 02 jan. 2020; accepted: 28 may 2020; published: 30 july 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract mathematics is integral to the successful study of accounting. the purpose of the study was to determine accounting students’ perceptions of attitudes towards mathematics among their parents and teachers. the setting for this study is a higher education institution (hei) in kwazulu-natal, south africa. this study included a convenience sample (quantitative) of 255 pre-service accounting teachers from an hei in south africa, and a purposive sample (qualitative) of 18 students. data collection was through the fennema–sherman mathematics mother’s, father’s and teacher’s attitude scales, and an interview schedule designed by the researcher. a sequential explanatory design and sampling were employed. data were analysed using spss for quantitative data, transcribed and analysed qualitatively for interviews. the study revealed that the fennema–sherman mathematics mother’s, father’s and teacher’s attitude scales scores are strongly positive towards mathematics. the out-of-home influences, namely, teachers and friends, were ranked higher than home influences, for example, mother, father and siblings. there are different degrees of support from the home. more students ‘strongly agreed’ that the support came from school, specifically from teachers and peers and friends. teachers and friends as a result occupy a key role in developing positive attitudes towards mathematics. in the south african context, teachers and friends and peers occupy a more significant role in developing positive attitudes towards mathematics than do parents and siblings. should the instrument be used again, it would be appropriate for the south african environment to deliberate on support from family members, rather than simply from mother and father. keywords: mathematics; parents’ attitude to mathematics; teacher’s attitude to mathematics; pre-service teachers; attitudes towards mathematics. introduction mathematics is integral to the successful study of accounting. pre-service teachers perform a variety of calculations in an accounting course, including general education and training (get) mathematics (grades r-9), such as place–value numerical system, basic arithmetic operations and integers, fractions, percentages, decimals, ratios, rates, proportions, formulas, linear algebraic equations, mathematical modelling and further education and training (fet) mathematics (grade 10–12), such as data handling and probability, for example, average and weighted average price, forecasting and projections in cash budgets, and projected income statements (babalola & abiola 2013; mkhize 2019; mostyn 2008a, 2008b). pre-service teachers are awarded for showing detailed workings and cross-referencing it to the amount recorded in subsidiary journals/ledgers and financial statements as well as written in theory or application answers. in the accounting class, pre-service teachers are expected to have mathematical knowledge and problem-solving abilities. the american accounting association (scott 1941) defined accounting as a ‘process of identifying, measuring, analysing and communicating economic information to permit informed judgements and decision-making by users of the information’ (maheshwari, maheshwari & maheshwari 2013), and the american accounting association (1966) defined accounting as (banerjee 2008): [t]he art of recording, classifying, and summarizing in a significant manner and in terms of money, transaction and events which are, in part at least of financial character, and interpreting the results thereof (p. 1). mathematics is defined as an ‘area of investigation which logically analyses ordering, operational, and structural relationships’ (gilfeather & delregato 1999:2). the majority of accounting definitions assert that accounting requires numerical and analytical skills, which are also integral elements of mathematics (shaftel & shaftel 2005). a major factor that might impact on a student’s attitude towards accounting is his or her attitude towards mathematics (joyce & hassall 2006). attitude is defined as a learnt predisposition or tendency on the part of an individual to respond positively/favourably or negatively/unfavourably to a certain object, person or idea/situation (aiken 1970; ajzen & fishbein 2000; haladyna, shaughnessy, & shaughnessy 1983; mcleod 1992). the term ‘attitude’ is borrowed from social psychology and has the colloquial connotations from everyday speech expressive of feelings, emotions, behaviour, etc. (abbas 2011). the attitudes are influenced by parents, friends, teachers and other models (fennema & sherman 1976; jazdzewski 2011:7). the purpose of the study was to determine accounting students’ perceptions of their parents’ and teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics. the research questions in the study were formulated as follows: what are students’ perceptions of their parents’ and teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics? what is the relationship between parents’ and teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics and students’ demographic variables? literature review attitudes towards mathematics neale (1969) defined attitude as: [a] liking or disliking of mathematics, a tendency to engage in or avoid mathematical activities, a belief that one is good or bad at mathematics, and a belief that mathematics is useful or useless. (p. 632) teacher’s attitude and beliefs, teaching style and behaviour, parents’ attitudes and beliefs affect the student’s attitude towards mathematics. the attitudes of parents and children towards mathematics play an important role in children’s achievement in mathematics (soni & kumari 2015). the widely used fennema–sherman mathematics attitude scale (fennema & sherman 1976) that focusses on student perception of mother’s, father’s and teacher’s interest in mathematics was used because attitudes are influenced by parents, friends, teachers and other role models. the attitude of parents towards mathematics parental encouragement has been found to strongly influence children’s attitudes towards mathematics (köğce et al. 2009; scarpello 2005). hurst (2012:98) explored the effect of student attitudes and beliefs on mathematics education and found that the majority of students mentioned the teacher and almost half of the students mentioned family members as having greatly influenced their interest in mathematics. fathers were mentioned much more often than any other family members. dweck and leggett (1988) discovered that parents play a significant role in shaping the way students view their mathematical ability and their related performance. for example, if parents believe that mathematics ability is genetic and success reflects genetic predisposition, then students who receive such messages encounter difficulty, viewing those challenges as proof of the fact that they lack natural mathematics ability. in addition, scarpello (2005) stated that parental support in mathematics significantly influences students’ learning experiences and attitude towards mathematics. students with higher grades in mathematics perceived that their parents were affirming their effort in mathematics. students’ belief in their ability to succeed in a career may also be improved through strong parental encouragement, support and affirmation of the student’s career selection. supporting this view, a study by aruwa (2011), which investigated some of the influences that impinge on students’ attitudes towards mathematics, found that the exposure of participants to mathematical experiences at a young age by parents appeared to have assisted them in mathematics during the last years of primary school and through to secondary school. the value parents attached on mathematics, continued support for their children’s achievement and having realistic expectations of their children contributed a great deal in assisting participants to strive for mathematical excellence. according to naidoo (2011) and stuart (2000), peers and friends influence adolescent career choice and may have a positive or negative influence on students’ attitudes towards mathematics. falbo, lein and amador (2001) suggested that the influence of peers and friends is more significant than the influence of parents. in ontario, canada, a family mathematics programme has helped to promote a positive attitude towards mathematics in both parents and their children. the aim of this programme was to encourage parental involvement in their children’s mathematics education. parents worked with their children doing mathematics, and observations of the family mathematics programme evenings indicated that (onslow 1992): [t]he parents and their children were less anxious as they become comfortable experimenting with ideas and as they realised that they did not have to know the current answer or rule immediately, that guessing and checking was a legitimate aspect of mathematics. (p. 29) a majority of parents’ comments reported that understanding ‘why’ had made the learning more meaningful and enjoyable for them. family positivity towards mathematics would narrow the gap between learners who are able to understand mathematics and those who struggle with new concepts. family attitude towards mathematics might widen the gap as parents of disadvantaged children tended to stay away. lastly, a study by frazier-kouassi (1999) found a significant difference between urban students (m = 29.19) and rural students (m = 34.14) on the mother’s mathematics attitude subscale. rural students, on average, agreed more strongly with the statement that mothers support and affirm their efforts in mathematics than urban students (t = −2.39; p = 0.018). rural mothers perceived the value of education as more important than urban mothers; hence, the former were more likely to encourage, support and affirm their children’s efforts in mathematics. teacher’s attitude towards mathematics jadwiga (2009), who examined 11 autobiographies of pre-service teachers and seven records of college algebra students to determine mathematics teachers’ influence on students’ attitudes, found that teachers’ behaviour patterns in mathematics classrooms had a significant impact on students’ attitudes towards mathematics. the author identified two types of mathematics teachers: (1) mathematics teachers who have students who understand and like mathematics, have fun and interesting lessons, have students actively engaged in the lesson and explain to the students the importance of learning mathematics and how it is related to their lives. these successful mathematics teachers are enthusiastic about teaching mathematics and genuinely care about their students and learning of mathematics and (2) mathematics teachers who influence students’ attitude towards mathematics in a negative way, have boring and monotonous mathematics lessons in which students are not actively involved; teachers who do not communicate the importance and relevance of mathematics to students lives. these teachers do not go out of their way to assist their students with mathematics. they teach at a rapid pace, do not encourage questions and are unavailable to provide help outside the classroom. mensah, okyere and kuranchie (2013), investigating the influence of teacher attitude on student attitude, found a significant relationship between teacher attitude and student attitude towards mathematics, and that a positive attitude on the part of the teachers generated confidence in students. consequently, students developed a positive attitude towards the learning of mathematics. the teacher’s attitude was mirrored in the attitude of his or her students towards the subject. when teachers created an interesting and non-threatening environment in their mathematics classrooms, and modelled enthusiasm for the teaching and learning of mathematics, the students imitated the teachers’ behaviour and developed a positive attitude towards mathematics and learnt it without inhibition. similarly, daniels and arapostathis (2005) suggested that the positive teacher–student relationship positively affects student motivation and work ethic, enhances students’ interest in mathematics learning and engenders student engagement in mathematics. similarly, a study by odiri (2011), on the influence of teachers’ attitude on students’ learning of mathematics in nigerian secondary schools, confirmed that students draw from their teachers’ disposition to form their own attitudes, which eventually influence their learning outcomes. the attitude of teachers towards their students must be positive so as to carry them along. the study suggested that seminars and workshops for teachers on having a positive disposition when teaching should be given serious consideration by education stakeholders. choudhury and das (2012) found a significant connection between attitude towards mathematics and achievement. whereas vandecandelaere et al. (2012) found no direct link between learning environment and student attitudes towards mathematics, fast et al. (2010) found that students who perceived their learning environments as more caring, challenging and mastery-oriented had significantly higher levels of mathematics self-efficacy than those in less caring, less challenging and less mastery-oriented learning environments. fast et al. also found that higher levels of mathematics efficacy positively affected students’ mathematics performance, and they suggested that while student perceptions of the classroom environment do not directly impact mathematics performance on standardised tests, they do impact mathematics performance indirectly via the mediating, albeit small, effect of mathematics efficacy. aruwa (2011) claimed that teachers’ personal characteristics and the way they related to their students appeared to have influenced the way participants related to mathematics. both teachers’ pedagogical practices and the expectations they had of students regarding their achievement appeared to have influenced students’ achievement orientations. goldhaber (2002) found similarly that students’ performance depended on teacher characteristics, such as inspiring students, being approachable and showing enthusiasm. among the findings in a study by naidoo (2011) of mathematical attitudes and achievement strategies of successful mathematics learners were that teachers occupy an important role in shaping learners’ attitudes towards mathematics, that learners are anxious when asked to solve mathematical problems, that parents are encouraging of their children learning mathematics, that the importance of mathematics for future careers exerted a significant effect on mathematical achievement and that strategies employed by learners, which impact positively on their achievement in mathematics, include mastery experience, motivation, private tuition and peer group teaching–learning. ashton and webb (1986) distinguished between low self-efficacy teachers and high self-efficacy teachers: a teacher with a low self-efficacy, who relies on authority that comes by virtue of his or her position as the leader of the class, tends to be distrustful of students and feels threatened when the roles of teacher and student are blurred, whereas a teacher with a high self-efficacy, who relies on an earned sense of authority, will make the students the centre of the learning environment, will treat them with respect and will provide appropriate tasks that will enhance their learning. social cognitive and self-efficacy theories social cognitive theory highlights the idea that much human learning occurs in a social environment through observing others, whereby people acquire knowledge of rules, skills, strategies, beliefs and attitudes (bandura 1986). environmental factors also affect students’ behaviour: for example, modelling and persuasion by family members, friends and teachers. self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviours necessary to produce specific performance attainments. social cognitive theory outlines four sources of information from which efficacy expectations are learnt and which individuals use to judge their efficacy (bandura 1977, 1986, 1997). the bandura’s sources of efficacy beliefs are as follows: outcome/mastery experiences – student’s own past experiences influence the ability to perform a task vicarious experiences/modelling – students observe the performances of others. prior successes can elevate efficacy and poor failures can lower efficacy verbal persuasion – positive persuasions encourage and empower. negative persuasion weakens self-efficacy emotional arousal/physiological states – having strong emotions like anger and fear. repeated practice reduces emotional arousal. methodology the following methods were adopted in conducting this study. research design and sampling a pragmatic, sequential, explanatory mixed-methods research design and sampling were adopted for this study, and it included a sequential collection of both quantitative and qualitative data to provide answers to the research questions. quantitative research attempts the precise measurement of behaviour, knowledge, opinions or attitudes (cooper & schindler 2008), while qualitative research methods produce a wealth of detailed information, thereby increasing the depth of understanding and reducing generalisability (patton 2002). for the first phase quantitative, the researcher used convenience sampling. the pre-service accounting teachers are easy to reach and contact as they are based at a higher education institution (hei). the quantitative sample size consisted of 255 pre-service accounting teachers (143 first-, 77 secondand 35 third-year of study). for the second phase, a purposeful choice sample for interviews was selected from the quantitative sample. purposive sampling is a type of non-probability sampling, which is based on the knowledge a researcher has of the population and its elements (babbie & mouton 2007). this sampling method was relevant for the study as the researcher wanted pre-service accounting teachers to elaborate on their quantitative responses. the sample size consisted of 18 pre-service accounting teachers (six each from first-, secondand third-year of study). attitudes of parents and teachers towards the mathematics scales the fennema–sherman mother’s, father’s and teachers’ attitude to mathematics scales, with established reliability and validity, were used with minor changes to suite the south african context. the mother/father scales attempt to measure students’ perception of their mother’s and father’s interest, encouragement and confidence in the student’s ability. the teacher scale attempts to measure students’ perceptions of their teachers’ attitudes to them as learners of mathematics. each scale consisted of 12 statements, which attempted to measure students’ perceptions of their parents’ and teachers’ attitude towards mathematics (fennema & sherman 1976). the first six statements measure positive attitudes, and the next six measure negative attitudes, with the following possible responses: strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree and strongly disagree. each of the likert responses was given a value of 5 to 1, respectively, for the positively stated questions, and 1 to 5, respectively, for the negatively stated questions. a minimum possible score was 12, average possible score was 36 and the maximum possible score was 60. a higher score indicates my father or mother or teacher support(s) or affirm(s) my efforts in mathematics. a lower score indicates my father or mother or teacher does/do not support or affirm my efforts in mathematics. being an insider at the hei gave me the opportunity of gathering data from participants in a natural setting. the questionnaire was distributed in the accounting period during the second week of the first semester, under the supervision of the researcher. the respondents were told that their responses would be confidential and anonymous. all questionnaires distributed were received on the same day, although some pre-service teachers did not want to be part of the study. where a questionnaire was not answered in full, the questionnaire was excluded from the analysis to avoid bias. the scales relating to father’s and mother’s attitudes towards mathematics are both the same and are combined (table 1): composite statement: my mother/father supports and affirms my efforts in mathematics. table 1: mother’s/father’s encouragement and support subscales. the scale relating to teacher’s attitude towards mathematics (table 2): composite statement: my teacher supported and affirmed my efforts in mathematics. table 2: teacher’s encouragement and support subscale. interviews attitudes of parents and teachers towards mathematics the researcher personally conducted individual, face-to-face, open-ended interviews with 18 pre-service accounting teachers. maree (2007) described open-ended interviews take the form of a conversation where the researcher’s intention is to explore participant views, ideas, beliefs and attitudes about certain events or phenomena. participants may propose solutions or provide insights into events, but the focus is mainly on their own perceptions of the event or phenomenon being studied. creswell (2009) suggested that even if the interview is taped, researchers must take notes, in the event that the recording equipment fails. permission must be obtained from the participants before beginning to record. the interviews in this study were used to elaborate or explain in more detail the data collected in the questionnaires. the interviews provided the researcher with in-depth answers because the participants had been given questions a day before the interview for them to prepare themselves. probing questions were asked. the time for each interview varied; on average, each interview lasted for about 45 min. the researcher can influence the data in terms of leading on or influencing the respondent’s responses (pillay 2008). if the researcher and the subject know each other, as is the case in my situation as lecturer, there might be a tendency for the respondent to give information that he or she knows that the interviewer would want to hear. as the insider (lecturer) and outsider (researcher), i tried not to influence the interviews. the interview schedule was constructed from fennema–sherman mathematics attitude scale and from literature identified and developed in the literature review. creswell (2008:161) advised that researchers should use attitudinal measures when they measure feelings towards educational topics, such as in assessing positive or negative attitudes towards mathematics. in constructing the interview schedule, the researcher took note of various factors indicated by cooper and schindler (2008:303–309) that influence the reliability, validity and practicality of a measurement scale. rating scale: participants score an object or indicant without making a direct comparison to another object or attitude (e.g. a 5-point rating scale). cohen, manion and marrison (2007) noted that rating scales are useful for tapping attitudes, perceptions and opinions of responses (figure 1). figure 1: example of a likert-scale question used in a survey via interview. the responses required participants to explain or give reasons for their choices while answering the semi-structured questions. according to ivankova, creswell and plano (2007), interview participants shared their views about experiences with the phenomenon. multiple-response (checklist) question and ranking scale: this is a form of multiple-choice question in which respondents are instructed to check all response options that apply. multiple-response question is also called checklist questions, because a list of all relevant items is provided for the respondent to check off. the n column indicates how many respondents (counts) mentioned each location, and these counts are put in rank order (table 3). table 3: example of (multiple-choice and ranking-scale) question used in a survey via interview. sorting: participants sort cards (representing concepts or constructs). cards might contain photos, images or verbal statements. in the study, participants were given cards with words. choose words that are applicable to you when you are performing mathematical accounting calculations (figure 2). figure 2: choose words that are applicable to you when you are performing mathematical accounting calculations and arrange in rank order. who were the influential people in your mathematics study or life? choose from cards and arrange in rank order. accounting scenario: describe the class environment when the teacher performed mathematical accounting calculations. the qualitative data gathering phase began with a pilot study, the purpose of which was to clarify the wording of questions and check the suitability of the survey via interviews to best obtain accurate information. the pre-test of the survey via interview was conducted by asking colleagues and supervisors at the university to read and respond to the questions regarding clarity and wording of questions. the interviewer piloted the survey to two pre-service accounting teachers to check if interviewees understood the questions. data analysis according to sekaran and bougie (2009), inferential statistics allow the researcher to draw inferences about the population from the sample. for the results of the study, spss version 21.0 (spss inc., chicago, illinois, usa) was used to analyse the data; p < 0.05 and p < 0.01 were considered as statistically significant. analysis of variance was used to compare the mean scores across biographical variables using the parametric analysis of variance (anova). the results were confirmed using the non-parametric kruskal–wallis anova. the t-test was used to compare the mean scores between males and females, using the parametric independent samples t-test. the results were confirmed using the non-parametric mann–whitney test. the interviews were taped and the researcher took notes. permission was obtained from participants before beginning to record. the interview responses of the 18 pre-service teachers were transcribed to produce a written document. the interview responses coded and the salient points that emerged were categorised into themes. the analysed transcripts were presented to academic workshop, panel of supervisors and postgraduate seminar for critical review. reliability, validity and trustworthiness cronbach’s coefficient alpha is a popular reliability test used for the purposes of establishing the internal consistency of a multi-item measurement (sekaran 2003). a reliability coefficient less than 0.50 is unacceptable, between 0.5 and 0.60 is regarded as significant and above 0.70 is regarded as good. the reliability coefficient cannot be less than 0 or more than 1. for this study, the cronbach’s alpha was computed to determine reliability, and factor analysis was computed to test validity. the cronbach’s alpha computations for the fennema-sherman scales are shown in table 4. table 4: reliability statistics for the variables. a summary of the strategies and the criteria used to establish trustworthiness are as follows: credibility (interview technique) – voice recordings of interviews; transferability (dense description) – verbatim quotes from interviews; dependability (dependability audit) – interviews transcripts; and confirmability (confirmability audit) – transcripts checked and participants’ written responses checked. member checks and peer confirmation of interpretations were done. the school of education cluster seminar space was used to enable peers, phd students, phd staff and professors to confirm data analysis. to ensure reliability, transcribed version of data from interviews was e-mailed to participants for verification. triangulation methodological triangulation was used to verify information collected from various data collection sources (questionnaires and interviews), which increased validity and reliability of the research. data triangulation was used to combine quantitative data obtained from questionnaires completed with qualitative data obtained from interviews and with previously completed research found in the literature study. ethical consideration the study targeted all pre-service accounting teachers at the hei who were requested to participate in the study and were informed verbally and in writing that their participation in this study was voluntary. the respondents were told that no identifying information was to be disclosed on the questionnaire, and for this reason the interview was conducted anonymously. participants were told that fictitious names would be used. participants were also assured that their participation or non-participation would not affect their marks or disadvantage them in any way. this gave respondents the assurance of confidentiality and anonymity. the research complied with ethical considerations for dealing with human subjects. ethical clearance (hss/0117/013d) was obtained from the human research ethics committee of the hei. results two sources of data were obtained from the f-smas survey and the interview instruments. pre-service teachers’ perception of support of mother and/or father overall, the mean score for all 255 respondents was 46.85 (standard deviation [sd] = 8.56), which represents slightly moderate agreement with the composite statement, ‘my mother supports and affirms my efforts in mathematics’. this result is similar to the overall mean of 46.15 (sd = 10.25) for the agreement with the composite statement, ‘my father supports and affirms my efforts in mathematics’. a summary of the responses is presented in table 5 for mother support and affirmation subscale. the 12 items in combination tested agreement on the construct of mother support and affirmation. table 5: number of pre-service teachers selecting each level of agreement on mother support and affirmation scale. tables 6 shows perceived support of mother with variables using means, t-test and anova. table 6: comparison: perceived support of mother with variables using means, t-test and anova. table 7 shows perceived support of father with variables using means, t-test & anova. table 7: comparison: perceived support of father with variables using means, t-test and anova. pre-service teachers’ perception of support of teachers and peers at school overall, the mean score for all 255 respondents was 47.31 (sd = 7.82), which represents moderate agreement with the composite statement, ‘my teacher supported and affirmed my efforts in mathematics’. teacher support and affirmation subscale, a summary of the responses is presented in table 8. the 12 items in combination tested agreement on the construct of teacher support and affirmation. table 8: number of pre-service teachers selecting each level of agreement on teacher’s support and affirmation domain. table 9 shows perceived support of mother with variables using means, t-test & anova. table 9: comparison: perceived support of teacher with demographic variables using means, t-test and anova. interviews on student perceptions of support of family member. influential people in mathematics the interviewees were given cards with out-of-home factors and in-home-factors to arrange in rank order, and the interviewer recorded the final decision (table 10). table 10: influential people in mathematics (multiple response and rank order). the results indicate that the out-of-home influences, that is, teacher and friends, were ranked higher than home influences, that is, mother, father and siblings. all (18) participants chose their teachers as their most important influence, 12 participants chose their friends as their second most important influence, eight participants chose their mothers as their third most important influence, seven participants chose their siblings as their fourth most important influence, six participants chose their fathers as their fifth most important influence and two participants chose their coaches as their sixth most important influence in mathematics. mother’s influence ‘mother – she always encouraged me to do my best and try harder no matter what. she told me never to give up and always try harder. she was persistent in motivating and encouraging me.’ (bima, 01, 25 march 2014) the response indicates that the parent is supportive, she is a non-judgemental parent who is not putting undue stress on the student by saying, ‘do your best based on your effort’. non-judgemental support by parents and not putting undue stress on the child are likely to create positive attitudes towards mathematics even if the student is not a high-flyer in mathematics. parents who encourage their children to be persistent, to develop endurance and to stick to the task, even if initial stages are difficult, can help them develop positive attitudes towards mathematics. encouraging, motivating, supporting students and developing positive attitudes towards mathematics must be ongoing, not just once-off, as there needs to be a continuous feeling of positive energy towards the discipline. when children have this kind of support, they are likely to benefit from it: ‘mother – told me to do mathematics because required for b com degree. to get a good job and earn well in future i must do mathematics.’ (mara, 02, 25 march 2014) the parent is informed and is linking mathematics to a vocation. mara is indicating that her parent recognises the importance of mathematics for getting employment and earning a good salary. the mother is linking mathematics competence with good occupation and good remuneration. these are motivating factors in developing positive attitudes towards mathematics: ‘mother – sent me for extra mathematics tuition and ensured that i studied at home.’ (vender, 03, 24 march 2014) vender’s parent is prepared to spend further financial resources to provide additional mathematics support if she thinks that her child is not getting enough. this is a parent who has taken extra steps to help develop vender’s mathematics. the mother is a highly vigilant parent who drives the child’s success in mathematics. highly vigilant parents are likely to generate positive attitudes towards mathematics and its study. father’s influence ‘my dad always motivated me to work hard in mathematics and he was really proud when i obtained good results. his career is in mathematics and he wanted me to pursue that as well.’ (narri, 04, 25 march 2014) narri wants to be affirmed and recognised by her father. she wants to please her parent. in order to please her father, she is likely to work hard. parents, who set high expectations and motivate their children, encourage the children to follow their own example and to meet the expectations. parents who are knowledgeable in mathematics set the bar high and encourage students, and the students in turn wish to please their parents. sibling influences family members other than mother or father may also be involved in the education of students: ‘my brother, although he did not do mathematics at school but at university he experienced that mathematics is important. he encouraged me to take maths because it is required at university.’ (sibo, 05, 25 march 2014) sibo’s brother has knowledge of university expectations: ‘my uncle on the other hand motivated me and i used to consult him as well if i have challenges in mathematics.’ (wandi, 06, 26 march 2014) in this case, someone outside of the immediate family has been a resource or a role model. if there is no resource, students are likely to develop negative attitudes towards mathematics. if there is a resource outside of family, for example, an uncle, students are likely to develop positive attitudes towards mathematics. interviews on student perceptions of teachers and peers mathematics attitude at school teachers’ and friends’ roles in influencing participants are most important, as they were ranked higher than the role of parents and siblings. all the participants reported that teachers greatly influenced their thinking and understanding of mathematics. however, two-thirds of participants also indicated that friends influenced their study of mathematics. the participants valued the role played by teachers and friends. participants’ perceptions of teacher and friend support are directly linked to out-of-home drivers, such as interest, encouragement, confidence, behaviour, support, advice, motivation and teaching methods, which influence participants to like mathematics. this is reflected in what students said. teacher influences ‘teacher – always motivated us to work hard and did her best to teach us. organised extra lessons and checked sections we need help on.’ (vender, 03, 25 march 2014) a committed teacher, who shows interest in her students, is likely to instil a positive attitude in learners. the response indicates that the mathematics teacher motivated learners and influenced them to like mathematics. the learners felt more valued in the learning process because the teacher showed an interest and increased engagement in mathematics teaching and learning. the teacher went an extra mile by organising academic support that enhanced the learners’ motivation level. the teacher also supported learners with problematic mathematics topics: ‘first, my mathematics teacher, he was so good in teaching mathematics such that he became my role model. he was enthusiastic and energetic in all he does. he explained and taught thoroughly, made everything simple.’ (wandi, 06, 26 march 2014) competent mathematics teachers are more likely to be good role models and an influencing factor than teachers with shaky knowledge who are likely to demotivate their students. a good mathematics teacher shows some confidence and can also instil confidence. the teacher described in the response is meticulous, pays attention to detail, and has passion and energy, attributes which are likely to instil positive feelings. teachers who make complex tasks accessible and reduce complexity in ways that allow understanding are likely to engender positive attitude in learners, because they are then less likely to see mathematics as a complex or difficult subject. a good teacher is someone who wants to instil positive attitude, is not a strict disciplinarian and will look for interesting ways to present complex material by proceeding from the known to the unknown, in contrast to a demotivating teacher who walks in and says that, ‘this subject is not for you, it is tough and hard, you can’t make it’. a teacher who presents mathematics in a negative manner discourages the student, whereas an inspiring teacher will create expectations and present mathematics in a way that enhances students’ understanding of difficult concepts. creative teaching can change attitudes: ‘my teacher played the greatest influence. when i was in high school i did not enjoy mathematics, but, when i was in grade 11 and 12 my mathematics teacher had a great influence on my mathematics life. his teaching methods created an interest in me to like mathematics and he was always willing to help when i found certain areas in mathematics difficult.’ (narri, 04, 25 march 2014) good teachers can change attitudes. once students develop negative attitudes, those attitudes remain. the above response shows that teachers who use creative methods in teaching can change attitudes. ‘he was always willing to help’ shows that teachers who make it clear that their job is to help and support children can change the attitude of learners towards the subject. there are teachers who are reluctant to do a little bit more, and this can come across through words, dispositions and tones. a teacher may say, ‘do not ask me anything else because i taught you’. however, teachers whose disposition is welcoming and open, who invite students to ask for assistance and show willingness to respond to them, are the ones who are likely to change students’ attitudes: ‘my teacher used to ask me to teach the whole class, so i was supposed to make sure that i go to class knowing everything with the particular topic. even my mother wanted me to teach her mathematics as if she still studying, so i had to ensure that i know everything.’ (wise, 07, 26 march 2014) ‘my teacher always inspired me in an amazing way. she would ask me to teach my fellow learners in class if i have aced a test or examination, sometimes she granted me opportunities, which exposed me to mathematical literacy. for example, attending workshops programme with other learners from other schools in my region.’ (kazi, 08, 26 march 2014) one way a teacher can show that she has confidence in a learner is to invite the learner to take on a higher level of responsibility in mathematics, such as teaching fellow learners. the learner undertaking this task then feels a sense of responsibility to satisfy the teacher and do a good job. this kind of added responsibility results in students wanting to deepen their own understanding, so that they are ready to accept the additional responsibility bestowed on them by the teacher. the teachers described in these responses showed confidence in learners and trusted them to be peer teachers – a role in which the learner needs to be strong in knowledge. in the first response, a wise mother recognises that her son has mathematical ability, which means that two key adults are affirming this student, the teacher in one way and the parent in another way. in a parent–child relationship, the parent is powerful and the child is subordinate, but here the parent has inverted this relationship by saying ‘teach me mathematics’. it is self-affirming and self-fulfilling that the child can teach the mother mathematics. friend influences ‘friend – studied mathematics together and helped me understand things i don’t know.’ (vender, 03, 25 march 2014) vender indicates that friends have been an important positive influence in her attitudes towards mathematics, and that they can be a valuable resource for learning mathematics. she recognises that mathematics is not an individual pursuit and can be learnt with others, which she found beneficial in that it led her to attach meaning to unfamiliar concepts. when students develop trusting relationships that become friendship, they see friends as resources that could assist them in advancing their understanding of mathematics: ‘a friend advised me to study mathematics because it will help me when i choose the university courses because many accounting causes require mathematics.’ (phindi, 09, 26 march 2014) knowledgeable friends who understand university expectations and prerequisites for certain courses, accounting in particular, are well placed to advise students about taking mathematics as a subject. in a context where students do not have role models or friends with some university experience, lack of key information about career and course choices at university could lead to wrong choices. having friends who can give this information is a powerful resource: ‘well, in grade 11 my friends wanted us to change from pure mathematics to mathematical literacy because they were struggling. so because i wanted to be in the same class with my friends i also changed but my siblings did not take this quite well.’ (khoba, 10, 26 march 2014) friends’ influence could however be negative. if individuals in a group of young learners (such as grade 11 learners) develop negative attitudes towards mathematics as a result of their own personal difficulties or struggles with mathematics, they are likely to influence their peers negatively as well. when a group with an ‘us’ mentality and attitudes towards mathematics gains momentum, it is likely to swing those who are undecided in a negative direction. this kind of momentum can be even more powerful than family motivation. at this young age, students are unable to self-diagnose their ability to do pure mathematics and may be easily susceptible to group pressure. without a good teacher who can diagnose a student’s capacity at grade 10 or 11 and say to the student, ‘i have seen your work and abilities in mathematics. you could do pure mathematics’, negative peer pressure can easily be damaging. discussion of research results pre-service teachers’ perception of support of family members in the home there are different degrees of support. most students agreed on the significance of support from the home, whether from mother or father or from siblings or other relatives. should the instrument be used again, it would be appropriate for the south african environment to talk about support from family members, rather than simply from mother and father. this claim is discussed below, drawing on the results of f-smas, the student interviews and the literature. the results of the study showed that mothers were mentioned more often than any other family member. nevertheless, mothers were ranked lower. this finding is not consistent with hurst’s (2012) finding that fathers were mentioned much more often than any other family member. only a minority (28) of the respondents were in agreement with the statement, ‘my mother/father hates to do maths’. however, a majority of the respondents (184) were in agreement that, ‘my mother thinks maths is one of the most important subjects to study’. it emerged from the interviews that highly vigilant parents are likely to encourage positive attitudes towards mathematics and the study of it, and that such parents are prepared to spend additional financial resources to provide extra mathematics support. an overwhelming majority (205) of the respondents were in agreement that, ‘my mother thinks i can be good in maths’, with a minority (30) who believed that their mothers did not think that they could do mathematics. participants stressed that non-judgemental support from parents and not putting stress on the child are likely to create a positive attitude towards mathematics, even if the student is not a high-flyer in mathematics. this kind of support or encouragement must be ongoing. the majority of the respondents (180) were in disagreement with the statement that, ‘my mother would not encourage me to plan a career in maths’. interview participants pointed out that parents who link mathematics competence with motivation factors, such as good occupation and good remuneration, are likely to encourage positive attitudes towards mathematics. a significant number of the respondents (189) agreed that, ‘my father has encouraged me to do well in maths’, and 173 of them agreed that, ‘my father has always been interested in progress in mathematics’. from the interviews, it transpired that if parents who are knowledgeable in mathematics set high expectations and motivate their children, students will want to please their parents by getting good results. studies by scarpello (2005) and köğce et al. (2009) supported the views expressed above. the ranking order for influential people in mathematics showed that parents were ranked lower by participants, as the majority indicated parents were not educated. in addition, in the south african context, it does not serve to say ‘my father’ or ‘my mother’ because there are many single-headed families where, for example, a grandmother or uncle or sibling is the caregiver in the household. students may select ‘strongly disagree’ because the parent is not there. finally, the results showed that another relative (e.g. an uncle, brother, sister, etc.) who is knowledgeable in mathematics could be a resource or role model for students. hence, students are likely to develop positive attitudes towards mathematics. if i were to redo the questionnaire, instead of ‘mother’ and ‘father’, i could use ‘my family’. to promote parental and sibling involvement in mathematics, south africa should copy the family mathematics programme in canada that has assisted in promoting a positive attitude towards mathematics in both parents and their children. the main aim of the programme was to encourage parental involvement in their children’s mathematics education. the majority of parents’ comments reported that understanding ‘why’ had made the learning more meaningful and enjoyable for them. involving parents and siblings (in case parents are not educated) could, in the family mathematics programme, be a very positive contributor in improving attitudes towards mathematics (onslow 1992). pre-service teachers’ perception of support of teachers and peers at school more students ‘strongly agreed’ that the support came from school. support came from teachers and peers and friends. teachers and friends therefore play an important role in developing positive attitudes towards mathematics. this claim is discussed below, drawing on the results of f-smas, the student interviews and the literature. from interviews, participants saw teachers and friends and peers as more significant contributors to their mathematics learning than parents and siblings. the participants’ perceptions of support and affirmation by teachers and friends of their efforts in mathematics were directly linked to the out-of-home drivers, such as interest, encouragement, confidence, behaviour, support, advice, motivation and teaching methods, because they influence participants to like mathematics. in a south african context, teachers and friends and peers play a more important role in developing positive attitudes towards mathematics than do parents and siblings. this places a huge responsibility on the south african government and citizens at large to signal their commitment to improving the quality of mathematics in south africa. the drive to instil a love of mathematics is not coming from home because it appears that there is no culture of strongly positive attitudes towards mathematics among the south african population. a majority of the respondents (224) agreed that their teachers encouraged them to study more mathematics. this is reflected in participants’ responses that teachers who show interest in their students (motivating, supporting, empowering and going an extra mile by organising academic support) are likely to instil a positive attitude in students. the results also showed that competent mathematics teachers are likely to be good role models – motivating students, instilling confidence and positive attitudes towards mathematics. teachers with passion and energy are likely to instil positive attitudes towards mathematics. a good teacher will not present mathematics as tough, and will look for interesting and fascinating ways to present complex material for a new topic. teachers who use creative methods in teaching can change attitudes. teachers who project a disposition of welcoming or openness, who encourage requests for assistance and show willingness to respond to them are likely to change students’ attitudes. these results are consistent with findings in previous research (bandura 1986; daniels & arapostathis 2005; fast et al. 2010; jadwiga 2009; mensah et al. 2013; okafor & anaduaka 2013; vandecandelaere et al. 2012). when a teacher shows that he or she has confidence in a learner and invites learners to take on a high level of responsibilities in mathematics like teaching fellow learners (peer teaching), the added responsibility results in students wanting to deepen their own understanding, so that they are better prepared for the additional responsibility bestowed on them by the teacher. this finding is consistent with earlier studies (daniels & arapostathis 2005; mensah et al. 2013; odiri 2011). a majority of the respondents (202) agreed that their maths teachers have made them feel that they have the ability to do a lot of maths, while only a minority (30) disagreed with the statement. the majority of participants reported that they were positively influenced by their teachers to work hard in mathematics, although 59 (23.1%) were in agreement that, ‘i have found it hard to win the respect of maths teachers’. some participants pointed out that they were negatively influenced by teachers and that this contributed to failure and dislike of mathematics, which resulted in poor performance. in the south african context, participants indicated that friends and peers play an important part in their attitudes towards mathematics, although the nature of influence can be positive or negative. this finding is supported by naidoo (2011) and stuart (2000), and in terms of positive influence by friends and peers, one participant indicated that friendship is a valuable resource for learning mathematics and could positively influence attitudes towards mathematics. the participant also recognised that mathematics is not an individual pursuit and could be learnt with friends or peers. this finding is supported by noble (2011), who found that vicarious experience was more influential than enactive attainment and mastery experiences for the students, but contradicts bandura (1986, 1997) who claimed that enactive attainment has the most significant impact on self-efficacy. where trust exists among friends or peers, the benefits for learning mathematics may be greater than for students working in isolation; friends and peers are intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to enhance their confidence and attitudes towards mathematics (deacon & edwards 2012). another participant indicated that having knowledgeable friends who understand university expectations and prerequisites for courses such as accounting are well-placed to advise students about taking mathematics as a subject. this information is a powerful resource because without it a student can make wrong career and course choices. therefore, information dissemination by friends on issues such as career choices and course selection at the tertiary level are important in getting to spaces where information is not available. this finding is consistent with findings by stuart (2000) and naidoo (2011) that peers and friends influence adolescents’ career choices. negative influences by friends are also possible, such as a situation where a group of young learners in grade 11 develop negative attitudes towards mathematics and pass on that negativity to friends and peers. negative peer influence can often be more powerful than family motivation to take mathematics, and teachers must be able to diagnose students as early as grade 10 or grade 11 who are likely to fall prey to negative peer pressure and negative attitudes towards mathematics. peers and friends were ranked higher than parents, meaning that peers’ and friends’ influence towards mathematics is more than parents’ influence. falbo et al. (2001) concurred with this finding and suggested a family mathematics programme that assists in promoting a positive attitude towards mathematics in both parents and their children. conclusion parents and siblings were ranked lower by students in relation to giving them assistance with mathematics, but their role must not be ignored, as it is mandatory in developing students’ positive attitudes towards mathematics. the mother may not be knowledgeable in mathematics but is responsible for nurturing the emotional well-being of the student and monitoring the homework of students. some of the parents are housewives and part of their job is to take care of student’s education. the indian, english and suburban students perceived their mothers as more encouraging, supporting and affirming their efforts in mathematics, while female, indian, english, mathematics and suburban students perceived their fathers as more encouraging, supporting and affirming their efforts in mathematics. siblings in south africa play an important role in developing positive attitudes towards mathematics as, in some homes, there are no parents. teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics have a significant impact in shaping students’ attitudes towards mathematics in learning accounting. therefore, a positive attitude on the part of the teacher can enhance the student’s attitudes towards mathematics by motivating, supporting, empowering, instilling confidence, employing unique teaching methods, showing willingness and interest, showing openness, having excellent subject knowledge, etc. teachers and peers and friends were highly ranked by students, and they play an important role in developing positive attitudes towards mathematics. female, indian, english, mathematics and suburban students perceived their teachers as more encouraging, supporting and affirming their efforts in mathematics. this is relevant in light of the finding that 224 of the students strongly agreed that their teachers encouraged them to study more mathematics, and 202 of the students were in agreement with the fact that mathematics teachers had made them feel that they have ability to do a lot of mathematics. the results also indicate that peers are a valuable resource for learning mathematics. the benefits for learning mathematics with friends or peers may be greater than when a student is working in isolation. it was found that peers’ or friends’ influence in mathematics is greater than that of parents. when students develop trusting relationships, they see friends as resources that could assist them in advancing their understanding of mathematics and improving their attitudes towards mathematics. family mathematics programmes, seminars or workshops to promote or enhance positive attitudes towards mathematics in parents and other family members should be organised in schools or at tertiary levels. the main aim of such a programme would be to encourage parental involvement in their children’s mathematics education, as the study found that participants gave a lower ranking for parents’ and sibling’s mathematics influence. perhaps, this initiative could improve the world economic forum’s last position ranking of south africa. implications for the use of fennema–sherman mathematics mother’s, father’s and teacher’s attitude to mathematics scales in south africa for the south african context, it is not acceptable to talk about parents (father and mother) only, as they may no longer be there. it would be more appropriate to refer to ‘families’, with so many households in south africa being single-headed by a grandmother or uncle or aunt or brother or sister or other siblings. for the south african context, it was found that peer or friendship teaching/mentoring could be used as a substitute for teachers. positive peer or friendship influence has been found to contribute positively on attitudes towards mathematics. teachers should encourage and support positive friends and peers teaching or mentoring in mathematics and accounting, as the benefits of learning mathematics and accounting calculations with peers and friends are greater than working in isolation, and they positively influence attitudes towards mathematics. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research article. funding information this work was supported by the university of kwazulu-natal. data availability statement the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. raw data were generated at the university of kwazulu-natal. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references abbas, p.n., 2011, ‘towards a model of mathematics 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complexity theory was examined. a qualitative research approach and purposive sampling were employed. interviews were first conducted with diverse stakeholders in the western cape fisheries of south africa to determine the issues. a simulation was thereafter designed. the main findings from this study indicate that simulation use illustrates how the various stakeholders in a system interact, and how their actions and decisions influence each other. the simulation may be used in other areas of natural resource management, as well as in other kinds of multistakeholder scenarios. keywords: simulation and gaming, change management, fisheries, multi-stakeholder scenarios, systems thinking, complexity theory disciplines: conflict resolution, leadership studies, management studies, natural resource management 1. introduction the western cape fisheries of south africa is challenged by immense complexity and change arising from the interactions which occur between the multiple stakeholders. the aim of this paper is thus to investigate how interactive simulations can assist in navigating the changes confronting the fishing industry. thiagarajan (2003, pp. 235) presents a useful definition of a simulation as “the representation of the objects, characteristics, behaviours, and relationships of one system through the use of another system”, which contains play objects, goals, rules, and roles. simulations are a useful way for people to stand outside a system but yet gain a holistic perspective. klabbers (1989) indicates the use of simulations in effectively dealing with complex issues and situations involving many stakeholders with their own unique viewpoints. simulations allow for double 1 . cecile n. gerwel proches and shamim bodhanya are attached to the graduate school of business and leadership, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, 4000, south africa. contact details: gerwel@ukzn.ac.za; and bodhanyas1@ukzn.ac.za. acknowledgements: this paper is based on sections of work from the mcom dissertation of cecile gerwel. all those who participated in the study are thanked for their involvement. serban proches and yvonne gerwel are acknowledged for assistance with fieldwork. the anonymous reviewers are thanked for useful feedback. promoting transdisciplinary understanding td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 17-29. 17 loop learning, which refers to a fundamental change in underlying behaviours, due to the various roles, rules and behaviour that participants display. simulations are powerful in that they unearth how people naturally deal with problems and relate to others in the real world. simulations must be based on a sound, methodologically and empirically tested conceptual model, and relevant literature must be consulted (chua, 2005). leigh (2004) advises that the problem be identified and that its causes and characteristics be determined. it is important that the designer acquire input both from former studies and from real world participants. simulations cannot however incorporate all issues. critical elements need to be simplified and effectively represented (leigh, 2004). it is important to not get completely caught up around realism but the focus should instead be on verisimilitude (borodzicz, 2004). verisimilitude refers to the activities in the simulation being similar to those in the real world, with the aim of having participants carry over experiential lessons to the real world (lane, 1995). borodzicz (2004) argues that it is critical that simulations have outward simplicity, yet inner complexity, but also warns that complex games may fail, and encourages the use of simple, yet powerful games where participants better understand issues by focusing on the achievement of a few goals. simulations consist of three set sequences: briefing, the action and debriefing, as well as further interrelated elements composed of rules which govern actions, specific roles and the relevant situations, and any physical records (leigh, 2004). the debriefing phase is the final stage in the simulation which provides participants with an opportunity to make connections between learning and the game. this paper is structured as follows. a brief description of the contextual background follows, and the methodology is thereafter outlined. the results which focus on findings from the interviews, and the consequent design of the simulation, and the findings thereof are then presented. reflections on the use of the simulation and recommendations are highlighted, followed by the conclusion. 1.1 contextual background the context of the study was the western cape fisheries of south africa. there are multiple users in this industry, comprising small-scale fishers, commercial and recreational fishers. however, this range and intensity of stakeholder activity is taking place within a limited supply of marine resources. an authorising institution is tasked with the conservation, management and sustainable use of the marine resources. the western cape fisheries have been affected by various changes, most notably, government policies that have resulted in adjustments to the allocations of the various groups. in addition, there has been conflict between the various stakeholders, specifically around the demand and supply of the marine resources, and in response to the multitude of changes that have affected the system. the industry has been significantly impacted by amongst others, the apartheid past of south africa, government policies such as the reconstruction and development programme (rdp) and growth, employment and redistribution programme (gear), and the introduction of the marine living resources act (mlra) (no. 18, 1998). gerwel & bodhanya 18 2. methodology a qualitative research approach was employed. fifteen interviews were conducted between july-august 2009 with the various stakeholders in the western cape fisheries to enable an understanding into the critical issues within the fisheries industry, and to consequently construct a simulation, which was essentially a simplified model of the real world. the simulation was first piloted with students at the university of kwazulu-natal in durban in september 2009, and adjustments were consequently made. the simulation was thereafter conducted with fishers on the west coast, and finally with the authorising institution at their offices in cape town in october 2009. participants had roles in the interactive simulation, as the emphasis was on collective learning. there was a strong focus on communication and interaction between those involved. the simulation commenced with an initial briefing to prepare participants. there were rules or protocols regarding what was acceptable and what not, as well as materials or equipment that were used. each player had specific roles, and there were also boundaries, certain goals and objectives, props and other pertinent information (for example documents and memos). the simulation involved three rounds, signifying time periods. the simulation concluded with a debriefing session to reflect on lessons that were learnt, and specifically linked lessons from the simulation to the real world fisheries system. this critical phase allowed for evaluation of the simulation and for ways of thinking about improving the fisheries system. the conclusion of the simulation runs signified the end of the fieldwork component of the study. 3. results the key findings based on the analysis of the interviews are first presented. this will be followed by a description of how the simulation was designed, and the key elements that form part thereof. descriptions of the trial and actual runs of the simulation will be provided, and the findings which are based on data analysis will be presented thereafter. figure 1 illustrates the approach undertaken in the study. empirical work in fisheries: interviews data analysis to determine pertinent issues trial and actual simulation runs findings from the study design of simulation using key issues from empirical work and utilising insights from literature on simulation construction data analysis from observation of simulation runs, feedback in debriefing and evaluation forms figure 1: flow diagram of approach undertaken in study promoting transdisciplinary understanding td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 17-29. 19 3.1 findings from the interviews the results of the interviews were carefully studied in order to decide how to structure the simulation. as it was not possible to focus on all the issues in the simulation, attention was directed at the major issues considered to be of importance. the issues that were selected were also deemed to be feasible to replicate, considering the constraints of designing an interactive simulation given the available time and resources. the main issues that were selected are listed below. 3.1.1   decision-­‐making  in  a  multi-­‐stakeholder  context   there was a complex situation involving multiple stakeholders, comprising the government, authorising institution, commercial, recreational and small-scale sectors. the contention was mainly about the demand for a limited supply of marine resources. respondents had a tendency to highlight the differences and faults between the respective stakeholder groups. 3.1.2   equity   the role of government and the authorising institution was an important issue that came to the fore. the ability to allocate resources fairly, while balancing the needs of all stakeholders was crucial. stakeholders had the inclination to consider how they were treated by other stakeholders and by the authorising institution, as well as how other stakeholders were treated by the authorising institution. a contributing factor to the many problems was the perception that there were some stakeholders that had easier access to the marine resources than others. the perception that government was seen to be taking away allocations from certain stakeholders to give to others, thus leaving some adversely affected was of concern to many respondents. the pressure on government from the various stakeholders was thus noted. it is necessary, as highlighted by wilson (2006) to view and treat the world’s oceans as a complex adaptive system and consequently deal with human activity differently. government decision-making and protocol, as well as the need for government to take accountability for decisions that were made, were deemed critical. concerns around authority, timeous decision-making, staff changes and the fact that everything began and ended with government were highlighted. there was a strong desire for government to work with and be accessible to everyone, including those on the ground. townsley (2010) found it critical to adopt a people-centered approach in marine policy formation. glavovic and boonzaier (2007) highlighted the need for enhanced state capacity and increased partnerships between government and civil society. 3.1.3   monopoly  of  powerful  interests   the assignment of rights to the commercial sector, particularly on the basis of job creation, was a particularly controversial issue that came to the fore. there was much dissatisfaction with job losses as a result of the closure of factories. there was a sense amongst some that the commercial companies should have taken more responsibility, and that government should have intervened. 3.1.4   sustainable  livelihoods   the dependency of the small-scale fishing communities on the marine resources for their livelihoods featured strongly, as well as the lack of alternative employment. townsley (2010) gerwel & bodhanya 20 notes the importance of reducing dependency on marine resources as a way of preserving such ecosystems. the added complication of job loss and being unable to earn an income due to a lack of abilities was highlighted. the need for education and training programmes was mentioned by glavovic and bonzaier (2007) as a means of addressing coastal poverty. feelings of frustration at not being able to take care of families, non-recognition and powerlessness, and loss of human dignity were described, as well as the inability to obtain credit and equipment, and being dependent on others. the use of protest actions and media were cited as some of the measures taken to resolve the problems. the media in particular came through strongly as an advantage for some but not for others. the involvement of nongovernmental organisations was deemed critical. 3.1.5   platform  for  constructive  dialogue   proper communication between all stakeholders and participation by all in decision-making during change was regarded as critical. responsible leadership, coupled with the importance of reporting back to people on the ground and having accountability, as well as the management and distribution of resources and finances were considered essential. 3.2 simulation design the issues that emanated from the interviews were accordingly examined along with the change management and simulation literature, to find ways to effectively represent and simplify them. further information regarding the findings pertaining to the fisheries is available in gerwel (2009) and the final version of the simulation is presented in gerwel and bodhanya (2012). the real world stakeholders of the fisheries were not included in directly making contributions to the design of the simulation. this was mainly due to the belief that a thorough understanding of the context had been gained from the interviews, observations and secondary data, as well as time constraints. 3.2.1   scenario   it was critical that the simulation not make any direct reference to fisheries, so that any conflict between the various stakeholders be avoided. potential ideas for the scenario included sustainable agriculture, water, dams, wetlands and invasive species. it was finally decided that the simulation would focus on the construction of simulated rabbit cages, which are essentially cardboard boxes. this was distant enough to avoid any negativity but still close enough to have participants relate to the complexity. the simulation was also considered appropriate for use with a diverse audience. 3.2.2   purpose  and  learning  objectives   the simulation was designed to immerse the learners in a multi-stakeholder scenario aimed at allowing participants to gain an understanding into the various stakeholder perspectives. participants thus had to have an opportunity to reflect on their current mental models (senge, 1994). the simulation furthermore had to portray shared mental models so that participants could view the whole, and see the different viewpoints. it was critical to challenge common misperceptions that participants may have initially arrived with. promoting transdisciplinary understanding td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 17-29. 21 the simulation objectives were to provide an experience where participants could see how their interactions and decisions unfolded, sometimes at alarming rates, and how changes infiltrated into other areas (bamford & forrester, 2003). it was critical for the participants to experience that they were all part of a larger system, and that they see how their decisions and actions, and likewise those of others, impact the system (montouri, 2000; styhre, 2002). participants had to experience how unintended consequences arise. the simulation also had to result in participants questioning their usual way of doing things. they had to realise their contribution towards the problems and take accountability for their actions (senge, 1994). it was necessary to incorporate failure, to intensify the learning experiences, and to engage all in a better understanding of leadership (grint, 2007). learning from practical experience was thus of the utmost importance to allow all participants to develop the collective ability to perform more effectively (hayes, 2002). double-loop learning was however desired so that participants would challenge their current thinking and basic beliefs and assumptions, particularly in complex situations. participants had to comprehend how attitudes toward communication and participation shaped matters. participants had to see the importance of involving all stakeholders from the pre-implementation stage, and also how critical it was to acknowledge the emotions of all (van tonder, 2004). this was also so that participants could see that those in charge did not have all the answers, but that it may have been better to have everybody work together towards shaping the future (ferdig, 2007). as important was the need for participants to understand how to respond to ambiguity and unanticipated events and in so doing, become adaptable. they also had to grasp the limits of conveying and delegating plans, and learn to expect the unexpected (callan, latemore & paulsen, 2004). moreover, they had to realise the importance of not holding on to the past and using things that worked back then. the simulation was therefore centred on getting participants to work with difficulties, engage in collective sense-making, collaboration and interpretation, and look for opportunities for growth (ashmos, duchon & mcdaniel, 2000). related to this was the necessity of having participants gain change management skills. 3.3.3   roles   the simulation portrayed three major groups, based on the real world context. this was therefore a multi-stakeholder scenario aimed at allowing the participants to comprehend each other’s perspectives and mental models. there was a government group, based on the government and authorising institution as is in reality. there was a company which comprised of executives and workers, responsible for the production of the simulated cages. the groups in the simulation would essentially represent different stakeholder groups with conflicting interests. there were roles for media and civil rights representatives. 3.3.4   the  problem   participants had to work through a complex problem involving various interconnected processes, so that they would gain a holistic view of the problem presented by multiple stakeholders. the task was to have workers produce simulated rabbit cages using various materials, including cardboard paper and scissors, under the guidance of the executives, with government overseeing the project. it was important that the activities be challenging enough for all to stay focused, yet not too overpowering for some. the simulation was also constructed to deal with the various issues but in a manner that allowed participants to gerwel & bodhanya 22 choose what to investigate, how choices would be made, and who would be included. furthermore, the problem was seen to be a way of facilitating joint dialogue and a community of learning. the simulation attempted to portray elements of realism and user-friendliness, but more importantly verisimilitude, to ensure that lessons learnt from the simulation could be transferred to the real world (lane, 1995). 3.3.5   limited  information  and  time   participants had to be overwhelmed by a tremendous amount of ambiguity and uncertainty, but also an array of demands which had to be fulfilled in a limited time. the simulation was thus structured around three stages, the first of which was deliberately limited in time, so that participants could experience the pressure. stages were considered appropriate rather than 10 rounds for example, as the plan was to have minimal disturbance to allow the participants to engage in the flow of the simulation. the stages specifically would create pressure for participants to make choices whether to cooperate or compete with others. it was considered appropriate to have participants experience consequences of their decisions in minimal time, through the stages. decisions that were made in the first stage could for example result in outcomes fairly quickly. it was important to have the outcomes of ordinarily slow processes in reality accelerated and vice versa, such as the result of dismissing workers. participants could therefore see how decisions and actions unfold at alarming rates, and would in the process experience unintended consequences. this was also a way of facilitating double-loop learning, and for people to take accountability. another important consideration in selecting the time structure of the simulation was to ensure that participants would be under such pressure that they would almost forget they were in a simulation, and would in the process bring out their true personalities. 3.3.6   resources  and  information   the various groups had to commence the activities with unequal resources and information. the workers in particular had to experience what it was like to be dependent on others. the allocation of the resources was also planned to encourage communication and participation between the participants. the results of the choices that they made could then be illustrated in the simulation. the limited information and uncertainty could then assist participants in becoming adaptable and to expect the unexpected. it was also decided to have the various groups in different rooms to further allow them to comprehend things on their own. the intention was to leave the workers deliberately ignored, so that they could experience feelings of powerlessness and having to wait on those who had the information and resources. the aim was to initially empower the executives and government by having them be in charge of the resources, power and information. as the simulation proceeds, it however becomes clear that the leaders do not necessarily have all the answers and that they are also faced with uncertainty. 3.3.7   pertinent  information  and  rules   the briefing document spelt out information but was however not intended to provide participants with too much. the rules of the simulation were constructed to indicate acceptable behaviour and boundaries. promoting transdisciplinary understanding td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 17-29. 23 3.3.8   unanticipated  events   a number of unanticipated events were added, mainly to keep the simulation lively but also to have respondents become more adaptable and open to learning (borodzicz, 2004). the simulation was planned to have participants think that there would be three stages; there would however only be two. the second stage therefore incorporated the unanticipated events, and was primarily aimed at introducing pressure but to also allow participants to adapt to an ever-changing environment. 3.3.9   debriefing   it was critical to draw out strong emotions that participants may have experienced in the simulation and to discuss key learning lessons that could be used for the real world. it was also considered appropriate to address the learning objectives during the debriefing phase. the debriefing was essentially focused on the decisions that participants made, specifically regarding communication, participation, strategy, and how they responded to the complexities. 3.4 findings from the simulation run the simulation was first piloted with post-graduate students at the university of kwazulunatal in durban. invitations were sent out to students from various disciplines to participate in the simulation. the suggestions for improvement by the participants were carefully studied to improve the simulation. certain aspects of the simulation were thus changed after the trial run. 3.4.1   simulation  run  with  the  fishing  community   the simulation was run in a fishing town on the west coast of south africa. approximately 25 people, 22 of whom were fishermen and a few community leaders attended. figure 2 provides an idea of the interaction and illustrates the “rabbit cages”, which are in essence cardboard boxes. the simulation started about 15 minutes late, and was conducted in afrikaans to accommodate the participants. it was challenging to deal with the participants’ initial confusion. the participants became comfortable fairly quickly but the observation role was challenging due to the multi-faceted nature of the simulation. the debriefing went well and it was satisfactory to hear the participants relate their experiences. some participants did not share and not all aspects of the real world could be discussed. an attempt was made at bringing in the roles of the commercial and recreational sectors and the authorising institution, but the majority of the fishers were unable to relate. the leaders understood and made comments, but also explained that the fishers were not that involved in those aspects. the group was compliant, yet extremely practical. perhaps this had to do with the nature of their work. they were for example in the simulation, extremely quick with the production and really seemed to be immersed in the simulation. the evaluation forms were perceived to be challenging. three of the fishermen could not read or write, and therefore required assistance. others completed the forms but not thoroughly. this had to do with the fact that gerwel & bodhanya 24 many of them did not complete their schooling. the leaders however seemed to do quite well with the forms, probably due to the training that they had received and also as a result of their knowledge. the simulation with the fishing community figure 2: the simulation with the fishing community feedback from the leaders regarding their experience of the simulation indicated that they saw hidden talent in the fishers. they also added that they would like to use role-play exercises in future with the fishers. mention was also made that something new had happened in that all the fishers had come together. the simulation may have been an important boost of confidence for the fishermen and may also have demonstrated to them that they have underutilised capabilities. the emphasis on communication and participation was particularly important. 3.4.2   simulation  run  with  the  authorising  institution   this simulation was run in cape town. the invitation was sent out to many people but only 10 arrived. the participants comprised mostly of young, junior scientific staff. the simulation started late. the participants also appeared quite overwhelmed initially by the documentation. the participants assigned to the decision-making roles were fairly softspoken but managed in the end. after the assignment to the groups, one of the participants in the government role remarked how ‘this government thing is quite good’. the same person however later was exasperated and cited miscommunication as a huge problem. promoting transdisciplinary understanding td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 17-29. 25 3.4.3   reflections  on  the  use  of  the  simulation     it took courage to face the blank stares during the briefing phase of the simulation. it was also a challenge to avoid divulging too much in order to cope with the participants’ uncertainties. it would have been better had there been more participants and especially more of the stakeholders together. this would not only have facilitated interaction but would also have been a true test as to the success of the simulation. a way to deal with the initial fears when looking at the blank faces was to remember that there was order in disorder (leigh, 2004). things fell into place, and no one simulation was identical to another because the people were different. the role of the facilitator changed as well. it was a journey of sense-making for both facilitator and participant alike. this was illustrated by the many people, who expressed how nervous they were in the beginning, but that things made sense later and that they soon fell into role. it is thus critical that the facilitator be prepared, yet flexible (le roux & steyn, 2007; leigh, 2004). it was difficult dealing with low numbers; this necessitates more intervention from the facilitator, which could affect emergence. another challenge was waiting for people to arrive, and consequently not have enough time for the simulation, and the debriefing phase. preparation, adaptability and quick thinking from a facilitator are critical. the debriefing phase is critical and is really the chance to make a difference, but it does vary tremendously depending on the audience. this was illustrated by the fact that not all of the participants could understand what was happening in other areas, and also that some participants, e.g. the community leaders had more exposure to the different areas, whereas the fishers mostly had to do with fishing. it was rewarding and a relief when people started to make connections during the debriefing phase. the facilitator must have enough practice to become skilled at facilitating this phase, and must be flexible and know when to make judgment calls. long after the simulation was over, questions still arose about how the debriefing went and what else could have been added. it was reassuring to see a fairly academnically and intellectually orientated group with hardoy any education, work through the simulation. this means that the simulation may have had the desired outward simplicity, yet inner complexity, considered critical by borodozicz (2004). the simulation also became more user-friendly after incorporations from the trial run, and this was demonstrated by the fact that no-one mentioned experiencing any difficulties in such regard. this was particularly the case with the briefing phase, which leigh (2004) points out is critical to captivating the interest of participants. the simulation was a start to dealing with the complex issues involving the many stakeholders in the fisheries system in the western cape. the phases in the simulation were critical in illustrating the consequences of decisions made in minimal time (jackson, 2004). the emergence of a union in the one simulation, as a result of not communicating with workers is an example. a potential weakness could be that of researcher bias, where certain issues were selected for inclusion in the simulation design. the simplification and representation of the issues from the interviews was more challenging than portrayed by most literature. it is critical to not have exact duplication, as was found by feinstein, mann and corsun (2002) but the reality is that there was a tendency to be quite literal in the conceptualisation of the simulation. gerwel & bodhanya 26 another challenge was to have activities that were engaging for all participants, considering their diverse backgrounds. an attempt was made for the participants to view the whole system. this unfortunately was not realised fully due to the background of the participants, as well as the roles that participants had in the simulation. only certain participants therefore had an opportunity to view the whole system, and this is in contradiction to many studies (le roux & steyn, 2007; geurts, duke & vermeulen, 2007). some participants could therefore not take action as they were not enabled to do so in the real world. participants had a chance to participate in an interactive environment whereby they engaged with ideas and principles, as highlighted by jackson (2004). the use of various roles may have facilitated double-loop learning for the participants, and this was further induced by having participants experience the consequences of their actions. the simulations may have been a beginning in facilitating a move towards continuous learning and improvement. there is, however, no way of knowing whether this was definitely the case and could not be assessed within the confines of this study. the simulation did however highlight to participants the importance of not being overly-dependent on plans. the concept of problem-solving within simulations was interesting to note. although the simulation made no direct reference to the fisheries system, participants did seem to draw key learning lessons for their contexts. it cannot be stated with certainty however that they discovered new features to the problem or generated new ideas, as found by geurts et al. (2007). most participants in the system may have been aware of their problems, but not on a deeper level. the simulation allowed participants to further develop critical skills, such as communication and decision-making, and provided an opportunity for critical reflection, as found by other authors (le roux & steyn, 2007). the results of the involvement of both the leaders and fishers in the simulation can be correlated to findings from a few studies. firstly, the simulation permitted for involvement from participants from different levels. this led to key learning lessons for the leaders as to how to involve the fishers in future. the simulation was successful in bringing the fishers together, and was a step towards strengthening ties. it also allowed the fishers to see their part in the big picture (geurts et al., 2007). the facilitation of a simulation, and the qualities of the facilitator were undoubtedly critical to the success of the simulation, as found by other authors (keys & wolfe, 1990; borodzicz, 2004; leigh, 2004). it was critical to have adequate knowledge of the workings of the simulation, but also to strike a good balance between being prepared, yet flexible. what was also required was a thorough knowledge of the context, so as to be able to relate to participants during the debriefing phase. most participants highlighted that the simulation made them think differently about the real world, whereas a few indicated that the simulation had not made them think differently because the simulation showed how the real world was. the question then is whether those who found the activities in the simulation similar to the real world took away any learning to the real world. thus, findings from this study cannot fully support claims by other studies around verisimilitude (borodzicz, 2004; keys & wolfe, 1990; lane, 1995). the study was significant in demonstrating that simulation use can assist stakeholders to gain better insight into critical issues around participation and communication in the western cape fisheries. the involvement of people from different levels in the simulation promoting transdisciplinary understanding td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 17-29. 27 strengthened ties, and people could thus see their part in the bigger picture. the importance of being adaptable and possessing the necessary capabilities, rather than being overly-reliant on plans, was illustrated to participants through the various occurrences in the simulations. furthermore, the simulation drew attention to the interactions between the various parts in the system and how unintended consequences occur. 3.4.4   recommendations   the use of simulations for various disciplines, specifically in management, is highlighted in many studies, and is a useful way for conducting research. more academics and researchers can thus do research using simulations to not only teach students critical concepts, but it can also involve people from actual organisational settings, who may in turn benefit. simulation literature often does not highlight the difficulties of attracting people to a simulation. research must be done into looking at how to facilitate this, and studies can also compare how people felt before and after the simulations. in a similar vein, the long-term effects of a simulation need to be assessed. there is no doubt that simulations are powerful learning tools, but they may be more effective in the beginning as a way to unleash learning opportunities. designing a simulation for a specific setting is challenging and current research does not adequately highlight this. furthermore, designing a tailor-made simulation for a multiple stakeholder setting is a demanding task. multiple considerations include being fair and ensuring that the simulation does not favour or negatively portray any stakeholder group, and finding activities to hold the interests of all. these areas around simulation design need further exploration. despite the knowledge that the simulation must have adequate goals and challenge level, more work needs to be done around incorporating activities applicable to all. the use of interactive simulations also holds much promise. this is an approach that works with people who are on different levels, some of whom may be technology-averse, which is often the case in a developing country. practical areas of running simulations deserve more attention in the literature. these include highlighting the journey from stress to enlightenment, which the facilitator and participants experience. the influence of factors such as low numbers, late starts, disruptions, language, and group dynamics must be further investigated as to how they impact on the flow of the simulation. more studies must highlight the multiple abilities required from facilitators. 4. conclusion based on the overall results, it can be asserted that the study highlighted the potential contribution that simulation use can play in assisting stakeholders in a natural resources management setting characterised by complexity due to multiple-stakeholder interactions. the research thus contributed to research collaboration between the natural and social sciences. the innate complexity within the specific real world setting was utilised, and the unique needs of learners were taken into account. the role of stakeholder demands, interactions, and perspectives in change were effectively illustrated. a variety of complex issues involving multiple-stakeholders were thus addressed. the simulation provided valuable input into a variety of issues around change, rather than in one area only. this allowed for a fairly accurate portrayal of reality. other issues around the role of leadership, protocol, gerwel & bodhanya 28 procedures, limited resources and information, uncertainty and lack of information, all of which characterise change processes, were also effectively highlighted in the simulation. references ashmos, d.p., duchon, d. and mcdaniel, r.r. 2000. organizational responses to complexity: the effect on organizational performance. journal of organizational change management, 13 (6), p. 577-594. bamford, d.r. and forrester, p.l. 2003. managing planned and emergent change within an operations management environment. international journal of operations & production management, 23 (5), p. 546-564. borodzicz, e.p. 2004. the missing ingredient is the value of flexibility. simulation & gaming, 35 (3), p. 414-426. callan, v.j., latemore, g. and paulsen, n. 2004. the best-laid plans: uncertainty, complexity and large-scale organisational change. mt eliza business review, 7 (1), p. 10-17. chua, a.y.k. 2005. the design and implementation of a simulation game for teaching knowledge management. journal of the american society for information science and technology, 56 (11), p. 1207-1216. feinstein, a.h., mann, s. and corsun, d.l. 2002. charting the experiential territory. journal of management development, 21 (10), p. 732-744. ferdig, m.a. 2007. sustainability leadership: co-creating a sustainable future. journal of change management, 7 (1), p. 25-35. gerwel, c. 2009. exploring the use of simulation as a tool of change management. mcom dissertation. faculty of management studies, ukzn. gerwel, c. & bodhanya, s. 2012. rabbit-venture. simulation & gaming, [online]. available at http://sag.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/02/28/1046878111436168.full.pdf [accessed 2 may 2012]. geurts, j.l.a., duke, r.d. and vermeulen, p.a.m. 2007. policy gaming for strategy and change. long range planning, 40 (6), p. 535-558. glavovic, b.c. and boonzaier, s. 2007. confronting coastal poverty: building sustainable coastal livelihoods in south africa. ocean & coastal management, 50, p. 1-23. grint, k. 2007. learning to lead: can aristotle help us to find the road to wisdom? leadership, 3 (2), p. 231-246. hayes, j. 2002. the theory and practice of change management. new york: palgrave. jackson, m. 2004. making visible: using simulation and game environments across disciplines. on the horizon, 12 (1), p. 22-25. keys, b. and wolfe, j. 1990. the role of management games and simulations in education and research. journal of management, 16 (2), p. 307-336. promoting transdisciplinary understanding td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 17-29. 29 klabbers, j.h.g. 1989. on the improvement of competence. in: j.h.g. klabbers, w.j. scheper, c.a.th. takkenberg and d. crookall, eds. simulation-gaming: on the improvement of competence in dealing with complexity, uncertainty and value conflicts. great britain: pergamon. lane, d.c. 1995. on a resurgence of management simulations and games. the journal of the operational research society, 46, p. 604-625. leigh, e. 2004. making learning a game. public management electronic journal, [online]. available at http://e-journal.spa.msu.ru/images/file/2004/leigh.pdf [accessed 2 february 2009]. le roux, i. and steyn, b. 2007. experiential learning and critical reflection as a tool for transfer of business knowledge: an empirical case study of a start-up simulation intervention for nascent entrepreneurs. south african journal of economic and management sciences, 10 (3), p. 330-347. montouri, l.a. 2000. organizational longevity: integrating systems thinking, learning and conceptual complexity. journal of organizational change management, 13 (1), p. 6173. senge, p.m. 1994. the fifth discipline: the art & practice of the learning organisation. new york: currency. styhre, a. 2002. non-linear change in organizations: organization change management informed by complexity theory. leadership & organization development, 23 (6), p. 343-351. thiagarajan, s. 2003. design your own games and activities: thiagi’s templates for performance improvement. san francisco: john wiley & sons. townsley, p. 2010. review of coastal and marine livelihoods and food security in the bay of bengal large marine ecosystem region. uk: the innovation centre, university of exeter. van tonder, c.l. 2004. organisational change: theory and practice. pretoria: van schaik. wilson, j.a. 2006. matching social and ecological systems in complex ocean fisheries. ecology and society, 11 (1), p. 9. available at http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/ vol11/iss1/art9 [accessed 21 april 2009]. abstract introduction cybersafety risks in learning methodology results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) baldreck chipangura department of information systems, faculty of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, johannesburg, south africa gustave dtendjo-ndjindja department of information systems, faculty of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, johannesburg, south africa citation chipangura b, gustave d-n. securing the cybersafety of south african online high school learners beyond covid-19. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1256. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1256 original research securing the cybersafety of south african online high school learners beyond covid-19 baldreck chipangura, gustave dtendjo-ndjindja received: 15 june 2022; accepted: 31 aug. 2022; published: 19 dec. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the unprecedented online learning that took place at several schools during the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic is predicted to continue on the same trajectory when learners return to classroom learning. continuing with online learning implies that learners will spend most of their time learning and socialising online, which exposes them to cybersecurity risks. hence, this study investigated strategies for securing the cybersafety of online learners at south african high schools. the study adopted an interpretivist approach, and qualitative data were collected from school teachers. fifteen school teachers from five private high schools in centurion, pretoria, were interviewed, and the data were thematically analysed. all the schools were multiracial and english-medium schools. the teachers from the schools were selected to participate in the study because they had experienced online learning during the times of covid-19. the study proposed cybersafety strategies that are centred around providing cybersafety policies, conscientising learners about cybersecurity risks (awareness), preventing cyberbullying, discouraging the consumption or production of inappropriate content and protecting learners from internet addiction. transdisciplinarity contribution: the proposed practical strategies for securing the cybersafety of online learners are valuable for promoting safe and responsible use of internet-connected devices in online learning. the strategies encourage schools to integrate internet-connected technologies and overcome cybersecurity risks in online learning. keywords: online learning; covid-19; cyberbullying; cybersafety; cybersecurity. introduction the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic is a health predicament that became an educational crisis the world over. to curb the spread of covid-19, one of the implemented strategies was to impose curfews and lockdowns, which disrupted teaching and learning in many countries. in south africa, schools responded to the covid-19 crisis in varied ways, especially during the peak days of the pandemic between 2020 and 2021. there were schools that completely closed their doors from providing any form of learning. an estimated 147 million children missed half of their in-person schooling between 2020 and 2022, which negatively affected the foundational learning skills of children in low-income countries.1 on the other hand, there were schools that implemented online learning as an alternative strategy to save learning from total shutdown. the implementation of online learning was almost 100% during peak periods of covid-19, imposing an unprecedented remote learning experience on some of the schools. migration to online learning was abrupt, and the move was challenged by curriculum readjustments that were not made to facilitate online learning. curriculum readjustment relates to the alignment of syllabuses to cater for technological support, teaching, assessment and learner-centeredness.2 therefore, the migration happened without paying attention to the technological needs, appropriateness of home learning, psychological support and cybersafety of learners. despite the challenges encountered in moving to online learning, it was predicted that online learning will continue on the same trajectory beyond the covid-19 pandemic.3,4 this is aligned with the unparalleled investment on online learning infrastructure at many schools during the covid-19 pandemic.4 investments were made in developing online learning content, establishing teaching channels and developing administrative strategies to manage online learning.3 moreover, parents invested in online technologies for their children, who in turn gained a good deal of online learning experience. the benefits of online learning included constructivist teaching approaches and improved access to online resources, for example, open educational resources.5 in contrast, challenges experienced were the exclusion of marginalised learners because of limited network connection in remote areas and the cybersecurity risks.6 important in this research is the cybersafety of learners because of the possible exposure to cybersecurity risks when using internet-connected devices.7 as evidence, a study undertaken in australia8 found high instances of cyberbullying (78%) and exposure to adult content (74%) amongst school learners. learners expose themselves to cyber-risks because they lack an understanding of what constitutes acceptable, ethical and responsible use of technology.9 the blame can be equally put on parents and guardians, as evidenced in a south african study which found that 34% of cell phone internet activities of children were not monitored and 39% of parents never discussed cybersecurity risks with their children.10 furthermore, south african schools were found not ready to protect learners from cybersecurity risks, as 50% of the schools did not have cybersecurity policies,10 and educators were found ignorant of cybersafety strategies.11,12 south african schools’ curriculum was criticised for not providing cybersafety education and teaching learners about cybersecurity risks.13 therefore, as south african learners spend a great deal of time learning and socialising online, there is a high likelihood that their cybersafety will be compromised. compromised cybersecurity of learners is of concern to schools in general and teachers more so, because they are the custodians of learning. this study therefore investigated the perceptions of high school teachers on how south african schools can secure the cybersafety of online learners. the aim of this study translates to the following research question that led the investigation: ‘how can schools secure the cybersafety of online learners?’ the study was carried out as a qualitative study, and 15 high school teachers were interviewed from five selected private schools in the centurion suburb of pretoria, south africa. the following section focuses on literature analysis of cyber-risks in learning. cybersafety risks in learning this section discusses cybersafety risks that can harm online learners. the risks discussed in this section were themes that came from literature analysis in this study. the identified risks were cyberbullying, online fraud, content risks and addiction. cyberbullying cyberbullying is defined as ‘an aggressive, intentional act carried out by an individual or a group using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly over time, against a target who cannot easily defend him or herself’.13 as learners spend much of their time socialising and learning online, school bullying is no longer bounded to school premises but pursues learners to their homes. research conducted in the united states of america found that 37% of surveyed school learners had experienced cyberbullying.14 globally, research conducted in 28 countries found that 51% of cyberbullying happened amongst classmates, with most incidents recorded in the united kingdom (74%), canada (68%) and south africa (67%).15 in south africa,15 it was reported that 54% of the parents knew at least one child who had been cyberbullied. reasons for cyberbullying were found to be due to power domination over other learners, jealousy, peer pressure or revenge.16 instances of cyberbullying included hurtful comments, offensive name calling, or spreading of false rumours through platforms such as phone calls, e-mails, texting or social media.17 consequently, victims of cyberbullying suffer from mental health–related conditions and show symptoms associated with depression, anxiety, isolation, lower self-esteem and suicide.16 in worst cases of bullying, effects of cyberbullying were found to be harmful to perpetrators, victims and bystanders.18 therefore, the question that arose was: ‘how do schools prevent cyberbullying from happening?’ online fraud over the years, online fraud has been used to deceive internet users, and academics have called for measures to protect the users.19,20,21 recently, several online deceptions were reported, and google blocked 126 million fraud scams related to covid-19 in one week.22 online fraud mostly targets adolescents because they are stimulated by short-term rewards.20 moreover, adolescents are targeted because they are influenced by online purchases. if adolescents are attracted to online products, they convince their parents to make a purchase; otherwise, if they have some money, they often spend recklessly.21 to defraud adolescents, scammers use several gimmicks to fish for personal details; these include gaming, online dating, bitcoins or gambling.19 adolescents sometimes establish relationships with strangers they have never met in person, a predicament known as stranger danger.21 stranger danger occurs when a perpetrator employs acts such as catfishing or cyberstalking to identify, entice, brainwash and attack. perpetrators build an emotional and trusting connection with victims before they attack.23 online attacks can result in victims losing money, identity theft or sexual harassment. bacıoǧlu24 described a case where a perpetrator arranged and met a victim physically and committed sexual harassment. similar reports have been reported in the south african media where online dating has turned into a crime scene. evidence presented here alerts us to the dangers of online fraud. it is a challenge that alarms schools, and the question that arose was: ‘how do schools protect learners from online fraud?’ content-related risks the internet is an open repository of information where anyone can create or access content, irrespective of their age group. some content is harmful, offensive or inappropriate to adolescents.13 adolescents may be influenced to produce or distribute harmful content on social media or the internet, which they later regret due to digital ignorance.25 to minimise the risk of accessing or producing harmful content, adolescents should be digitally literate. digital literacy comprises skills, knowledge and understanding that enable safe practices with digital technologies.26 this can be interpreted to mean that adolescents should be ethical and know whether information accessed from the internet is valuable or harmful. protecting adolescents is the responsibility of school teachers, parents or guardians, who should teach them digital literacy and monitor the content that they access, because they can use digital devices with little thought.27 the analysis presented here revealed that children can consume or produce inappropriate content. hence, the question that arose was: ‘how do schools protect learners from accessing or producing inappropriate content?’ internet addiction internet addiction is not a cybersecurity risk; however, it has adverse health behavioural risks to adolescents.28 research has claimed that internet addiction depends on the frequency at which people engage in certain online activities or applications.29,30 internet addiction is biased towards excessive use of social media platforms, trading, gambling and gaming amongst young people more than old people. online trading and gambling were found to have high likelihood of addiction and adverse effects amongst adolescents.30 chou and chou30 explained that addiction to gambling and online trading are associated with the pleasure of making good deals and quick returns amongst the adolescents. even though internet addiction was found prevalent in young people, excessive use of internet on school-related work was found not to be related to addiction.31 nevertheless, excessive use requires parental monitoring to ensure that adolescents do not stray from schoolwork to social media.32 therefore, the question that arose was: ‘how do schools protect online learners from internet addiction?’ methodology an interpretivist approach was adopted, and qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews from school teachers. school teachers were targeted because they are the custodians of learning and understand cybersafety of learners. the sampled school teachers were from five private high schools that serve middle-income families in the centurion suburb of pretoria, south africa. the schools are multiracial in terms of student population and the teachers. the schools are english medium; however, other south african languages are taught at the schools. the schools were conveniently selected from 10 private schools invited to participate through e-mails sent to the principals. five schools were selected on the criteria that they had used online teaching when schools were closed due to covid-19 between april 2020 and august 2021. the principals of the schools recommended three school teachers per school to participate in the interviews. fifteen teachers were selected based on their knowledge of information and communications technology (ict) integration in teaching and learning. there were 11 female and 4 male school teachers. the interview protocol was developed from the questions that arose from the literature analysis. the protocol had four open-ended questions: how does your school prevent cyberbullying from happening? how does your school protect learners from online fraud? how does your school protect learners from accessing or producing inappropriate content? how does your school protect learners from internet addiction? the interviews were conducted face to face between august 2021 and november 2021, at a time when schools in south africa had resumed classroom teaching. each interview lasted between 45 min and 60 min. interviews were recorded with the permission of participants, transcribed verbatim and cleaned in preparation for analysis. data analysis was completed by the author with the help of a research assistant. the identities of the schools and participants were anonymised during data transcription. the five schools were given pseudonyms: a, b, c, d and e. the participants were given pseudonyms that reflected their school; for example, participants from school a were named participant a1 and participant a2; for school b, participant b1 and participant b2. a deductive thematic analysis was employed in the data analysis phase.33 themes from literature analysis helped structure the deductive coding and served as priori themes; however, new themes that were observed were also recorded. data familiarisation started during the transcription phase, and interesting ideas were captured. coding and generation of themes was carried out independently between the two researchers and was recursive. the analysis involved three cycles of coding, generating and reviewing themes. this was followed by debriefing meetings between researchers to discuss and agree on the emanating themes from the analysis of the transcripts. this study was limited by the fact that only private schools that implemented online learning during covid-19 participated in the study. the perspectives of school teachers from schools that implemented online learning during covid-19 could be different from those of teachers from schools that did not implement it. schools that might not have implemented online learning during covid-19 include rural and township schools in south africa. however, the views of the participants are admissible because cyber-risks equally affect all learners who use online learning tools, irrespective of geographical location, race, culture, or economic status. cyberattacks happen in virtual space, and anyone who is connected to the internet is equally vulnerable to cybercriminals. ethical considerations ethical approval to conduct this study was obtained from the university of south africa (unisa) college of science, engineering and technology’s (cset) research and ethics committee (ref. no. 009/dng/2019/cset_soc). results this section presents the results from the analysed interview data. the results are presented under the following themes: (1) cyberbullying, (2) content risks, (3) online fraud, (4) awareness and (5) addiction. cyberbullying the sampled school teachers acknowledged that cyberbullying was happening at their schools. to protect the learners from cyberbullying and put a stop to it, the schools have policies to guard against this. the teachers perceived their schools as having policies that safeguard learners when using internet-connected devices. policies at the schools compelled learners to only use internet-connected devices under the supervision of school teachers. participants from schools b and d indicated that at enrolment, each learner is given the policy, which their parents sign. in this: ‘cyberbullying is rife amongst teenagers and that is just not acceptable, and we have zero tolerance of that. our safe technology use policy keeps the learners safe. learners are not given carte blanche to be on their devices all the time.’ (participant b5) ‘the policy restricts bad things than the good things. it is a way to prevent all the bad things from happening, like cyberbullying, playing games and not doing schoolwork.’ (participant e13) school d discouraged cyberbullying by persuading learners to speak out about any instances of bullying. any learner at the school who has been bullied or witnessed anyone being bullied was to report to teachers. reporting minimises bullying, and learners develop confidence to defend themselves: ‘… yes. issues of gender discrimination and bullying are things of the past and common in older age groups. my kids [learners] will quickly tell you, “sir, you are being unfair.” they speak out; that is a good thing.’ (participant d12) public display of penitence was used as a strategy for stopping cyberbullying at school e. it is a psychological strategy that converts perpetrators into advocates against bullying. the schools found the strategy more effective in stopping bullying than any other form of punishment: ‘there is a lot of cyberbullying happening on social media groups, and that’s a huge concern. what we did in the past when we picked up that there was cyberbullying, we took the girls who were involved, and they had to make a speech on cyberbullying in front of the whole school during assembly.’ (participant e15) to make sure that cyberbullying does not happen at all, the learners were banned from using technological devices within the school premises at school c. similarly, at other schools, learners were not given access to wi-fi, and learners could only use devices under the supervision of teachers: ‘even at school grounds, learners are not allowed to use their devices. the reason for that is the protection of the children and because we do not want cyberbullying to be taking place or them taking pictures and distributing them on social media when it’s not moderated.’ (participant c8) content risks all schools had restrictive policies that ensured that learners do not access or create harmful and inappropriate online content. the policies stop learners from taking pictures or videos and uploading them on social media or internet in general. in that respect, one of the participants emphasised: ‘i said, learners are not allowed to access wi-fi connection. this is to prevent them from using their tablets, laptops or cell phones from inappropriate use such as video recordings or taking pictures and uploading it on social media.’ (participant b6) the teachers were aware that the internet is an open repository of content where anyone can access anything, irrespective of age. to ensure that learners are protected from harmful or inappropriate online content, the schools restricted learners from having unsupervised access to internet: ‘… learners are not allowed to access wi-fi connection or internet. this is to prevent them from googling noneducational content. learners are not allowed to use their tablet or a laptop or a cell phone unless they are supervised by a teacher.’ (participant c9) ‘due to typing in one wrong word and you end up in a bad site. you don’t want to expose children to bad content; for example, you cannot give children a laptop connected to internet and not supervise them. what are our children exposed to?’ (participant c7) the strictness of the schools in protecting learners from inappropriate online content was stressed by a participant from school a, who underscored that the school operated under christian ideology and had no room for misdemeanours: ‘yes, because we are a christian school, we don’t just allow free internet access by students, so obviously it’s under supervision … we cannot allow our kids to access content that can be harmful to them.’ (participant a3) school e was concerned about protecting learners from the misconduct of plagiarism. learners are prone to copying and pasting content from the internet and using it in their assignments without referencing. the teachers were aware that plagiarism discourages learners from achieving learning outcomes: ‘… for example, plagiarism is a big issue and is something that we picked up and we are strict on that. plagiarism, copying and pasting have negative effects on the cognitive growth of kids.’ (participant e15) online fraud schools used software applications such as firewalls and antivirus software to protect learners from cyber-attacks. firewalls and antivirus software are essential for protecting learners from malware and hackers. hackers are a threat to learning material, data and personal information. firewalls are employed as filters to block websites considered undesirable for learners to visit, for example, social media sites that include facebook, whatsapp and instagram: ‘our ict policy gives clear guidelines to the learners as to which sort of websites should be avoided, and there are firewalls and antivirus technologies installed on all the computers to prohibit unsafe internet usage.’ (participant a2) ‘not all the kids with smartphones have antivirus software. whenever students share files, there is a risk.’ (participant e13) teachers from school d were concerned that learners would sometimes stray away from lessons to internet browsing, gaming, or online chatting. teachers get irritated by learners who do this as they end up getting lost during class. as a solution, participant d11 suggested that schools should implement a classroom management system that can help with monitoring and controlling learners during classes: ‘we need to implement a proper classroom management software to be able to monitor to see that everybody is where i want them to be … sometimes i will be busy explaining and demonstrating, but someone at the back there is doing something else.’ (participant d11) awareness the teachers were cognisant that ignorance of cybercrime would not spare learners from cyberattacks. to teach learners about cybersafety, schools b and d integrated cyberawareness in their curriculums. the schools have a subject that is focused on teaching cybersafety: ‘we have a subject for this at grade 8 and 9, where learners attend once a week and learn about various mobile technologies, social media platforms and safety rules relating to that.’ (participant b5) all the schools have cybersafety policies, and teachers are responsible for distributing and interpreting the policies to the learners. to make sure that the parents are aware of the policies, learners received the policies, which their parents signed. when new learners join a school, the teachers are responsible for explaining the policy to learners and their parents: ‘remember, if you come to school as a new kid, you are given the policies. it’s something that we really discuss with the kid and the parent, to say, “the policy say[s] this and that, and it should be followed this way.’”(participant d11) school d appointed cybersafety advocacy champions to teach about cybersafety to learners and teachers. the champions are tech-savvy teachers who committed themselves to teach about the dangers of cyberspace. they organise and drive seminars at the schools and are available to help learners with issues that pertain to cybersafety: ‘… because we have a policy, we had to appoint what we call a champion. a champion that drives the aspect of cybersafety at the school. champion reports on the progress made at regular intervals.’ (participant d12) addiction learners need to be protected from excessive use of mobile devices, because that negatively affects learning. teachers at school b disclosed that learners at most schools were struggling with handwriting because of excessive use of devices in learning. to improve the writing skills of learners, the schools were prohibiting the use of tablets: ‘what is trending on social media now is that schools are ditching ipads [and] tablets, going back to pen and paper, because we are creating a generation which cannot write and read. (participant b5) the teachers revealed that when tablets were introduced at school c, some parents were against it, because they wanted their children to learn the basics of reading and writing. they did not want their children to learn by viewing videos or pictures. more so, the teachers indicated that parents were worried that their children will develop compulsive dependence on mobile devices. the teachers identified causes of mobile device obsession due to gaming, social media or texting: ‘on one hand, technology is very good, and on the other hand, our children can’t read anymore; they don’t know how to read from books anymore because they just want to see the movies, pictures or play games. they can’t read anymore.’ (participant c7) in summary, most schools use different methods to ensure the safety of learners online. however, only two school policies seemed to provide guidance on how to ensure the online safety of learners. it is therefore important that school policies include all methods that should be used to protect learners online, provide direction and enforce compliance at the school. discussion this section discusses the question, ‘how can schools secure the cybersafety of online learners?’ through interviewing school teachers, data analysis revealed strategies that help with securing the cybersafety of online learners at south african high schools. strategies for mitigating cybersecurity risks include enacting cybersafety policies at schools, stopping cyberbullying, stopping access to inappropriate content, cyber awareness and alleviating internet addiction. enacting cybersafety policy the first line of defence in securing the cybersafety of learners is to enact a policy. the enacted policy should identify cybersafety risks that learners will be exposed to and articulate prevention strategies and retributions. for example, this study identified cybersafety risks at schools as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, online fraud and internet addiction. prevention strategies against the risks were supervised access to devices, no access to wi-fi, no access to social media and confiscation of devices. robertson and corrigan34 highlighted that learner supervision was fundamental to ensure safe, responsible and healthy use of technology in learning. however, the prevention strategies at the schools were strict, which indicate that schools are fearful of unethical cyberbehaviour of learners. it is advised that the design of cybersafety policies should support the use of technology in teaching and learning.35 on the other hand, the policies should allow learners to grow naturally in the cyberenvironment that they live in and to develop resilience mechanisms to cyber-risks. to ensure that the enacted policies are implemented and followed, schools should run awareness campaigns to teach learners and their parents about cybersafety. awareness is a strategy that has been used in technology adoption and has proved to work.36 moreover, the parents of learners should accept and sign the policy. stopping cyberbullying to stop cyberbullying at the schools, it was established that the schools were employing strategies that included policies, speaking out (reporting), public penitence and banning of mobile devices. all the schools were strict on cyberbullying and made parents and their children sign the cyberbullying policy. the policies emphasised that learners can only use mobile devices under supervision and must not access the internet when at school. blocking internet access ensures that learners do not access social media, platforms where most bullying happens. prior research37,38 found that effective cyberbullying prevention methods should include the creation of anticyberbullying policies and regulations that learners must comply with. låftman et al. contended that good school leadership in containing cyberbullying is seen through good policies.38 cyberbullying can be contained by encouraging learners to report on incidents that happen at schools. reporting must be made by the victims who have been harassed or any learners who have witnessed the harassment. witnesses of cyberbullying are encouraged to reprimand the perpetrator to stop harassing other learners, and they must report to the school. data analysis established that the teachers perceived this strategy as effective in stopping cyberbullying. this finding supports a study20 that found that cyberbullying can be controlled if bystanders and victims are encouraged to report bullying. public penitence by learners who are caught or reported for cyberbullying was found effective as a strategy. students who are guilty of harassing other learners are made to make a public apology before the whole school, and the apology must be remorseful. moreover, the guilty learner must be assigned an activist role, responsible for advocating for the cessation of cyberbullying at the school. blocking access to risk content learners must be protected from producing and accessing inappropriate content online. this study identified sources of harmful online content to be search engines, social media, blogs and websites in general. harmful content that affects learners included hate speech, pornography and violent games. data analysis revealed that learners can intentionally or accidentally access harmful content on the internet or on social media. learners can be protected from harmful content if they are digitally literate. a digitally literate learner has the knowledge and skills to critically analyse and evaluate content from the internet.26,39 digital literacy of learners is determined by their cultural and academic background;39 therefore, parents and teachers have a role to play in enhancing the digital literacy of learners. even though generating content for online sharing has been commended as an act of civic engagement and knowledge making,40 the results of this study found that production of harmful content tarnishes the image of learners. if private content is shared, learners risk giving away personal information that can be misused by criminals. sharing of private pictures or videos can go viral, which may destroy the reputation of the learner and can have negative psychological effects. apart from producing personal content, learners can generate content in the form of violent games or suicidal content and share this on social media. adolescents who consume and produce harmful content online and on social media have a high risk of engaging in the exact same behaviour in real life.41 to protect learners from accessing and producing harmful content, data analysis found that the schools used firewalls and antivirus software strategies, allowing learners to only access the internet under teacher supervision, and banned learners from accessing social media. the strategies are restrictive mechanisms and protect the learners from cyber-risks. however, enforcing stringent cybersafety rules on children does not correct or prevent misbehaviour.27 to encourage good cyberbehaviour, cybersafety strategies should be negotiated between the parents, children and the school.21 moreover, the protection strategies found in this study are school-bound and do not protect learners when they are at home. in this respect, learner supervision should go beyond the school premises and include parental supervision.42 therefore, inclusive strategies that protect learners are required at schools. cybersafety awareness learners are protected from cyber-risks if they are aware of threats, content and activities that compromise their safety. the results of data analysis revealed that learners can be conscientised about their cybersafety through training. training raises awareness around good and bad digital etiquette and for learners to understand cybersafety policies. cyberpolicies give guidance on what is ethical to do and help with reducing inappropriate cyber behaviour. the findings of this study are consistent with research that calls for the integration of cybersafety awareness within the school curriculum.11 the cybersafety curriculum should be designed to change the behaviour of learners rather than just passing on cyberknowledge.43 learners are expected to gain practical knowledge that enables them to understand, analyse and manoeuvre within cyberspace. this is possible if the learners know the severity of cyber-risks that they can get exposed to. cyber-risks identified in this study were consuming or producing inappropriate content, associating with strangers, sharing personal information online, cyberbullying and cyberaddiction. to defend learners from these risks, the curriculum should teach learners how to overcome the risks. firstly, learners should be conscientised to know that they are the first line of defence in protecting themselves. secondly, learners should know how to use technical cybersolutions for protecting themselves, for example, antiviruses, firewalls and software updates, just to mention the important ones. the findings of this study build on the study that found that if users have a greater cybersecurity awareness, they will have greater cybersecurity behaviours.44 the awareness interventions discussed are school-bound and did not extend out of school boundaries. some research suggests that the best practice would be that cyberawareness be extended to parents, because they have the responsibility of protecting their children.20 hence, adolescents are best protected from cyberthreats if their knowledge is synchronised with that of their parents. if adolescents dominate cyberknowledge, it would be difficult for the parents to protect them. the cybersafety of learners can be improved if the above-discussed interventions are implemented. preventing addiction to internet learners become addicted to internet-connected devices, and they need to be protected from excessive use. two symptoms of excessive device use were observed in this study. the, excessive use of tablets was observed to adversely affect the development of handwriting skills of learners. secondly, overdependence on internet-connected devices results in learners consulting the devices for anything, including googling to find basic facts. these are cognitive-threating behaviours that need to be controlled in learning. this is in line with research that found that excessive use of online devices may result in reduced grades of learners.45 some research17 found that cyberaddiction of children can be controlled if restrictive mediation strategies are employed, which is applicable to the cases observed in this study. to protect learners and to improve their writing skills, schools should limit the use of tablets at schools. apart from restriction, vondráčková and gabrhelík46 argued that learners can be protected from excessive use of connected devices by making learners aware of the negative consequences of addiction. future work future work on this study area should focus on two things: firstly, the construction of a cybersafety awareness model for teaching digital literacy and how to become a responsible digital citizen in online learning; secondly, providing strategies for securing remote access to learning content through student devices. students use personal devices to access online study material, and some of the devices may be insecure. conclusion this study identified cybersecurity risks and mitigating strategies for protecting learners when learning online. cybersecurity risks identified were cyberbullying, online fraud, internet addiction and inappropriate content. the mitigating strategies for these risks are centred around providing cybersafety policies at schools, conscientising learners about cybersecurity risks (awareness), stopping cyberbullying, discouraging the consumption or production of inappropriate content and protecting learners from internet addiction. the first line of defence against these risks is for schools to implement cybersecurity policies. the policies should identify each of the potential risks and the mitigating strategies for overcoming the risks. after policies are approved, schools should run awareness campaigns to conscientise teachers, learners and parents about the contents of the policies. the cybersafety policies and the mitigating strategies should be cognisant of online learning advantages. that is, the policies and strategies should not block online learning at schools because of the fear of cybersecurity risks. applying the mitigating strategies would secure the cybersafety of online learners, while at the same time promoting safe and responsible use of internet-connected devices at schools. the authors trust that these strategies will help schools and learners overcome cybersecurity risks. the strategies are applicable to all online learners, irrespective of geographical location, economic status, race, or culture, because information technologies create a global village that exposes online learners to the same cybersecurity risks. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the schools and teachers who participated in this research. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions b.c. conceptualised the study and carried out the literature analysis, data analysis and writing of the paper. g.d-n. managed the project, collected and analysed the data. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available, upon reasonable request from the corresponding author, b.c. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. 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[cited 2022 june 14]. available from https://doi.org/10.1080/08874417.2022.2031347 caldwell c, cunningham t. internet addiction and students: implications for school counsellors [homepage on the internet]. 2022 [updated 2022 feb; cited 2022 may 14]. available from: https://www.counseling.org/docs/default--ource/vistas/vistas_2010_article_61.pdf?sfvrsn=9f4a95cc_11 vondráčková p, gabrhelík r. prevention of internet addiction: a systematic review. j behav addict. 2016;5(4):568–579. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.5.2016.085 abstract introduction literature review research methods and design results conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) nkhensani s. thuketana department of early childhood education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa mmamoyahabo c. makgabo department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation thuketana ns, makgabo mc. the use of english to offer learner support and enhance perceptual skills development in south african township schools. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1209. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1209 original research the use of english to offer learner support and enhance perceptual skills development in south african township schools nkhensani s. thuketana, mmamoyahabo c. makgabo received: 18 feb. 2022; accepted: 11 may 2022; published: 27 june 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract research has identified the underdevelopment of perceptual skills as a cause of lifelong learning struggles and the restriction of developmental progress in learners. the literature also indicates that early intervention is one strategy that effectively mitigates the long-term effects thereof through learner support. however, the inadequacy of in-service teachers’ skills to assess perceptual skills development, coupled with the implementation of the teaching and learning language policy, are issues for concern, particularly in south african schools. this article reports on a module-aligned community engagement project conducted with 87 pre-service teachers to assess the perceptual skills development of foundation phase learners as part of their work-integrated learning (wil). the two selected schools used english as their language of teaching and learning. two lecturers and eight grade 2 and grade 3 in-service teachers from pretoria east schools participated in the project. play-based pedagogy was used as a resource for assessment as a qualitative approach, thus inspiring in-service teachers’ and learners’ creativity and enjoyment at the schools. kolb’s cyclic theoretical framework consisting of four cycles underpinned the project. firstly, the project confirmed literature findings of teachers’ lack of skills to assess perceptual skills development using english in foundation phase learners. secondly, the use of non-mother tongue language as a medium of instruction in early learning centres affected learners’ knowledge acquisition. thirdly, the use of the foreign medium of instruction affected the learners’ speaking and listening skills, thus impacting language and cognitive development essential for learning. keywords: foundation phase; language of teaching and learning; medium of instruction; play-based pedagogy; perceptual skills development; pre-service teachers; in-service teachers. introduction whilst the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996) has granted learners the right to receive education in the language of their choice,1 the progress in international reading literacy study report states that 78% of south african grade 4 children cannot read for meaning in any language. the latest research suggests that learners entering school can learn best through their mother tongue and that a second language is more easily acquired if the learner already has a firm grasp of their home language. full acquisition of a mother tongue language enables the learner to learn a second and even third language without difficulty.2,3 however, some schools deviate from this policy and use english as a medium of instruction at the foundation phase. this deviation perpetuates the underdevelopment of perceptual skills in schools where teachers lack appropriate skills to assist the learners accordingly. perceptual skills development is the brain’s capability to process and act on what the eye has seen.4 the department of education in south africa, in compliance with the constitution, developed the languages in education policy,5 which states that foundation phase learners should be taught in their mother tongue. the government gazette6 also states that the first additional language should be introduced in grade 1 as a subject, but not as a medium of instruction. mother tongue is the most unique and direct means by which individuals think, formulate ideas and give meaning to emotions.7 it is the language with which one identifies oneself as a native speaker and by which one is identified by others. it is the language that the child uses from birth for important and impactful times in the child’s life.2 the home language, which is the language that learners know best when they first enter school, is recommended as the medium of instruction.8 the school governing body plays a role in deciding on the language to be used as the medium of instruction and determining the school’s language policy. this is because the parents have the right to choose the medium of instruction through which they want their children to be taught. it appears that some foundation phase schools in the semi-urban areas and township schools do not implement the language in education policy5 as expected. in addition, the progression policy states that learners should be progressed to the next phase if they have acquired the skills necessary to be promoted.9 should the satisfactory skills not be acquired, the learner can only be retained once in a phase. however, this has implications for learners with learning difficulties, including those with underdevelopment of their perceptual skills. this article outlines the pre-service and in-service teachers’ experiences during a work-integrated learning (wil) intervention programme, which was conducted to offer learner support using english as a medium of instruction, to enhance their perceptual skills development. literature review mother tongue language wardhaugh10 defined language as a knowledge of rules and principles and the ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words and sentences, rather than just knowledge thereof without understanding. most current research suggests that learners entering school are able to learn best through their mother tongue and that a second language (such as english) is more easily acquired if the learner already has a firm grasp of their home language.3 mother tongue always references the language that the child has used from birth for important and impactful times in the child’s life.2 for a child, their mother tongue is more than simply a language, because it encompasses the child’s personal, social and cultural identity. language is the most effective way of keeping and growing our tangible and intangible heritage. mother tongue as the medium of instruction medium of instruction is a controversial issue in south africa as it is a multilingual country with a rich traditional history. there are 11 official languages with 9 being african languages. english is the language of the colonisers and home language to the minority group of people. however, it is also spoken by many people as a common language. the most important point to remember when deciding on the medium of instruction is that it should enhance the understanding of the learners. language is at the centre of all teaching and learning activities because it is the main source of information and knowledge transmission.11 furthermore, language is used to teach and impart instructions in any discipline, subject and at any level of learning; it is the medium of instruction. yet the medium of instruction is a controversial issue at all levels of the education system, especially in the foundation phase. language as the medium of instruction plays a crucial role in learning as it is through language that learners develop ideas or concepts of the world around them. in addition, through language children make sense of the input they receive in the classroom from the teacher. furthermore, it is through language that learners express their understanding of what they have learnt from the classroom input.12,13,14,15 the selected medium of instruction should help in raising the cognitive abilities of the learners and the development of their individuality. it should not create a sense of superiority or inferiority amongst the learners. it should help them in conceptual formation instead of forcing them merely to memorise the written text. according to desai,2 if a foreign language is used as a medium of instruction, such as english, the learners’ comprehension of the subject knowledge and conceptual development turns out to be inadequate. furthermore, when the language used for learning is not familiar to the recipients, in this case the learners, it becomes a barrier to learning.16 this barrier becomes more impenetrable when the teacher is not adequately proficient in the language of instruction, thus making the teacher’s input even more incomprehensible. the language factor in participation and exclusion language is a powerful instrument of identification and classification, but it can be manipulated for participation or exclusion.17 if the foreign language is used as a medium of instruction in schools, learners who are secondor third-language speakers can experience exclusion through illiteracy and exclusion arising from lack of familiarity with that language. the excluded speakers are unable to participate in most of the classroom activities, because they can only do so through intermediaries.17 learners are also unable to fulfil language requirements because they are subjected to instructions and procedures in a language which is completely foreign to them. language and cognitive development as expressed by cummins,12 the promotion of mother tongue in schools not only helps to develop the home language but also assists in the development of the learners’ cognitive abilities. when children develop proficiency in their mother tongue, they are simultaneously fostering a whole host of other essential skills, such as critical thinking and literacy skills. it is these skills and concepts that they take with them into formal education, and the concepts gained in the learner’s home language do not have to be retaught when they transfer to a second language. in addition, desai2 alludes to the poor throughput rates in south african schools because of an inadequate grasp of the learning content by learners. desai says that barely a quarter of african language learners who enter the schooling system reach grade 12 because many drop out along the way. this seems to indicate that the current practice of using english as the initial language of learning and teaching might be a contributing factor to this problem. in agreement, cenoz18 stated that there is a close relationship between the language that the speaker knows and the second or third language that is to be learnt. some authors attest that, at least in the early stages of third language acquisition, it is the first and second languages that exert a stronger influence on the pronunciation of the target language.19,20,21,22 according to clark,23 children first set up conceptual then linguistic representations for talking about experiences. learners get their language vocabulary from their parents, caretakers and the adults around them. the effect that previously learnt languages can have on the learning of a new language is commonly referred to as cross-linguistic influence. cross-linguistic influence is viewed by gass and selinker,24 odlin25 and selinker26 as one of the central processes in second language acquisition. the cross-linguistic influence can also determine what factors trigger which areas of language when it comes to how and to what extent the other language should be acquired. clark23 continues that learners in their early stages understand that language reflects the speaker’s intentions about how to learn another language. this is because words direct young children’s attention and can influence how they organise and consolidate what they know about certain relationships. language can also positively affect the learners’ cognitive improvement. this can happen when children are able to draw attention to similarities between different categories across domains because of the existence of words or phrases that they already know. in addition, languages can give learners specific and unique views of similar and equal events. that way they can use the previously acquired language to grasp second, third and even fourth languages. where a foreign language such as english dominates the indigenous african languages, the benefits attached to mother tongue teaching in the early years are compromised.7 it appears in the literature that teaching in the medium of instruction of an african language is not an easy practice, yet it has cognitive benefits for learners. language and culture using language is the most effective way to keep and grow a tangible and intangible heritage. mother tongue is not only an effective means for communication but it also represents the valuable cultural heritage of the country in a person. jiang27 says that language is part of culture and plays an important role in it. therefore, language simultaneously reflects culture and is influenced and shaped by it. it is the symbolic representation of a people because it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds, as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. therefore, language and culture are interdependent. in addition, brown28,29,30 attests that language and culture are inseparable and are intricately interwoven so one cannot separate them without losing the significance of either language or culture. for those learners who are proficient in their mother tongue, an added benefit is that they will gain more knowledge and be grounded in their culture. wardhaugh and fuller10 report that the structure of a language determines the way in which speakers of that language view the world. however, the structure does not determine the worldview but is still extremely influential in leading the speakers of a language towards adopting their worldview. perceptual skills development and learning implications a sizable body of evidence in the literature suggests that a growing number of learners in the early childhood development phase present learning delays associated with perceptual skills development.31 klein and hoffman32 conceptualise perceptual skills development as the ability to plan, implement movements and functions, discern and follow instructions in learning environments, amongst others. perceptual-motor development also involves neuro-executive processes mediated by the prefrontal cortical functions necessary to create simple to more compound activities. the underdevelopment of these skills impairs coordination, listening, speaking and movement, to name a few.33 greenstone4,34 suggests that executive function training sessions adapt cognitive behaviour in response to changes in the environment. therefore, teachers must understand perceptual skills development in teaching and learning to enhance verbal perceptual stimuli that could mitigate recognition impairment during learner support. building teachers’ expertise ensures that learners practise their spatial awareness, motor and auditory perceptual abilities and speaking skills. in addition, the skills mentioned here heighten curriculum access, learner development and learner progression in school phases. it is crucial to observe that the skills are interdependent and that infantile skills affect learning.33,35,36 speech and speaking repercussions on learner support sessions the ability to produce and perceive sounds is the foundation for language development.37 a language delay constitutes a communication disorder affecting both verbal and nonverbal communication. to perform well on tasks, learners must understand and produce various sound patterns during learning and guided play activities. weisberg, hirsh-pasek and golinkoff38 consider guided play activities necessary in accelerating the development of language and the perceptual skills of those with learning difficulties. sala, tatlidil and gobet39 agree and consider teachers’ acquisition of their assessment skills to be key in selecting effective games that enhance cognitive growth and prepare learners to produce sounds in various words and sentences during daily conversations. furthermore, during learner support sessions, teachers can teach speech and comprehension skills positively to benefit learners’ cognitive development.32 cognitive skills are not context-specific but can transfer to other learning activities to ensure learners’ holistic development. the theoretical and practical goal of understanding the circumstances of cognitive skills transfer is that they cannot occur in vacuity.33 before understanding what to transfer, it is vital to understand children’s sequential developmental processes from thinking, reading, learning, remembering, reasoning and paying attention to identifying learner support intervention levels. similarly, their interests, needs, learning styles and cultural backgrounds are considerations that warrant intervention effectiveness in learners with diverse abilities at school.40 listening comprehension and learner’s support the literature confirms that listening is the foundation for language comprehension in early childhood learning. rudner, lyberg-åhlander, brännström, nirme, pichora-fuller and sahlén41,42 indicate that mastering a second language starts with developing listening and speaking skills. young learners need to establish figure-ground discrimination, memory, closure, form constancy and spatial relations skills to comprehend instructions. one consideration when assessing listening and speaking is determining learners’ chronological and developmental ages against school grade expectations. snelling, dawes, biersteker, girdwood and tredoux43 argue that there is a scarcity of indigenous assessment tools that are informed by empirical evidence. the scarcity of african language assessment instruments also perpetuates delays in providing early interventions in learning difficulties. this results in learners progressing to subsequent grades without the required skills for learning, thus extending learning difficulties and repeating school grades. south african progression policy expects learners in the foundation phase to progress through school following the ages specified, and they are only allowed to repeat a grade once in a phase.9 policy implementation is a global challenge, but it is worse in developing countries with low socio-economic factors, teachers’ lack of skills and the nonexistent political will to monitor progress. literature also specifies peculiarly atypical learner development, necessitating support to enhance learner progression. learner support sessions are impossible without teacher expertise to conduct them. teachers must ensure that learners in the foundation phase develop the hearing and speaking skills to ensure successful teaching and learning whilst improving the acquired standard knowledge base. kolb’s cyclic experiential learning theory this study used kolb’s theoretical framework44 to investigate teachers’ abilities in assessing learners’ perceptual skills development in the experiential learning project conducted at the two identified schools. kolb views learning as an integrated process with mutually supportive stages and with one feeding into the next.44 as a result, effective learning only occurs when the learners can execute all the practical stages of the learning process. this means that no learning stage is effective as a learning process on its own. kolb’s theory presents four cyclic stages of learning, namely concrete experience, reflective observation of the new experience, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation. the concrete experience is a stage that takes place through doing, whilst the reflective observation of the new experience occurs through reflecting or reviewing of the experience. during the abstract conceptualisation stage, learning occurs from the experience gained. finally, during active experimentation, the new skills are applied. research methods and design this study used a qualitative, multiple-case approach to investigate and describe teachers’ complexities and realities when using a foreign language and providing learner support in the foundation phase. this study was conducted using participants from two township schools in the eastern part of pretoria in south africa. the selection criteria for the participating schools were that they used english as a medium of instruction in the area where the majority of learners spoke sepedi and setswana, and english was their second or third language. the data collection methods used were interviews with the in-service teachers, classroom observations and document analysis. these policy documents were analysed.5,9,45,46 the main researchers for this project were two university lecturers. the participants were six in-service teachers from two foundation phase schools (three teachers from each school) with 35 learners in each class and 87 pre-service teachers. the study used purposive sampling and the selection criteria for inclusion was that the schools in the township used english as the medium of instruction. data collection the data collection process was spread over 14 weeks, during which time pre-service teachers visited the schools once a week. to ensure the study’s reliability, the primary researchers (lecturers) interviewed the in-service teachers to establish their knowledge of the perceptual skills concepts and whether they had the skills to assess the development thereof. this study used interpretivism as the method embedded in the notion that every historical and cultural situation is unique.47 data analysis the project used interpretive data analysis to extract thematic and systematic meaning from the teachers’ responses, observations of children playing and document analysis.48 to assess the learners’ listening and speaking skills, the pre-service teachers designed lesson activities using the resources that they made for learners to play with. the pre-service teachers gave learners instructions on how to play with the tools and they also asked them questions in order to find out whether the learners heard, verbally responded and acted on the instructions. the data sets were compared and analysed by hand, and the emerging themes were categorised to apportion meaning. as elucidated by nowell, norris, white and moules,49 data were descriptively presented in this article systematically and sequentially. ethical considerations permission to conduct the study was obtained from the ethics committee of the university of pretoria (reference number: edu081/19). the department of basic education authorised the researchers to access the two identified schools. the schools used the proxy from parents to allow the researchers and pre-service teachers to investigate the perceptual skills development of learners and the teachers gave their consent to participate. the researchers promised the participants anonymity and confidentiality, to which they adhered and the participants were not coerced in any way. results the next section presents the data collected through the interviews with the teachers, classroom observations and analysis of the policy documents. the data were triangulated and presented verbatim to enhance the results’ reliability.50 the results confirmed the suggestions in the literature: firstly, it was found that some learners’ speaking skills were not well developed because they were not able to express themselves on how they experienced playing with the resources, and as a result their learning was negatively affected. secondly, using english as a medium of instruction affected some learners’ self-confidence to participate in a language they were not competent in. thirdly, using english before developing the competency skills in home languages to transfer to other languages impaired the learners’ language development and contributed to speaking challenges. the well-developed speaking skills encouraged language development and enhanced learning. interviews the following section presents the themes that emerged from the interviews. for the sake of anonymity, the in-service teachers from school (ts) 1 will be referred to as ts1, ts2 and ts3, whilst teachers from school 2 will be called ts4, ts5 and ts6. poor conceptualisation of perceptual skills development the project found the in-service teachers’ conceptualisation of perceptual skills development to be generally limited. they also did not know how listening and speaking difficulties presented in a learning environment. on being asked what they understood the perceptual skills development concept meant and how learners with speaking and hearing issues presented in class, ts1 (female, 47 years old, teacher) and ts5 (female, 49 years old, teacher) responded as follows: ‘teachers did not know how listening and speaking difficulties presented in a learning environment. all the in-service teachers understood neuropsychology and its contribution to perceptual skills development and learners’ challenges in class.’ ts1 (female, 47 years old, teacher) and ts5 (female, 49 years old, teacher) acknowledged that perceptual skills enhanced the learners’ ability to learn. a follow-up question was asked to ascertain whether the in-service teachers understood neuropsychology and its contribution to perceptual skills development and learners’ challenges in class. all the participating in-service teachers were not able to respond to the question. teachers’ mixed emotions about learners’ reports the researchers asked the in-service teachers if the schools conducted learners’ hearing or auditory perception and speaking abilities tests. most of the in-service teachers mentioned that the department of basic education’s health professionals conducted screening tests and compiled reports when the learners started school in grade 1. the researchers followed up the question and asked what the teachers did with the reports. they responded that they did not have access to the screening reports’ results as the principals and heads of departments managed those: ‘i think we would not have used the reports even if we had access. we are overwhelmed with paperwork to report to the department of basic education, which compromises quality teaching time.’ (ts2, female, 50 years old, teacher) ‘now that you are talking about the reports, i think they could have helped us understand the learners better. many learners come to mind, and i suspect they may be having perceptual skills development challenges that i was not aware of.’ (ts3, female, 46 years old, teacher) another participant mentioned: ‘i wish the heads of departments responsible for subjects and curriculum delivery at school would discuss the reports with us to understand learners’ difficulties, so that we could know how to support them and refer them when necessary. i thought the learners were struggling with language comprehension as they are in the foundation phase and come from poor backgrounds with illiterate parents. however, i am beginning to understand the possible presence of other issues associated with perceptual skills development.’ (ts4, female, 35 years old, teacher) the teacher’s mixed emotions emanated from the lack of collaboration between them and the school’s heads of departments. if the heads of departments in the two schools shared the reports, the teachers would have known about the learners presenting with delayed perceptual skills development. the teachers would have been able to provide appropriate support and early intervention. the early intervention could have alleviated the pessimism that was portrayed by ts2 (female, 50 years old, teacher). behavioural problems one participant said: ‘i agree that perceptual skills development might be the issue. i also think using english as the medium of instruction contributes to learners’ behavioural problems and learning difficulties.’ (ts6, female, 44 years old, teacher) this teacher further elaborated on a specific learner in her class who presented with behavioural problems, linking it to the literature’s assertion that learners with well-developed perceptual skills can transfer those to other associated life skills. language barrier it was found that most of the learners struggled to comprehend learning because of the fact the school used english as the medium of instruction in an environment where english was not spoken and was foreign to them. a participant confirmed this by saying: ‘i also think using english as the medium of instruction contributes to learners’ learning difficulties.’ (ts3, female, 46 years old, teacher) it was difficult for them to understand the learning with their limited or almost nonexistent english vocabulary. furthermore, another participant alluded to the fact that their parents would not be able to assist the learners with schoolwork because they are illiterate by saying: ‘the learners were struggling with language comprehension as they are in the foundation phase and coming from poor backgrounds with illiterate parents.’ (ts4, female, 35 years old, teacher) the given results indicate a disjuncture between the teachers and heads of departments in the two schools and the departmental health officials. collaboration could help the education stakeholders create perceptual skills awareness and provide schools with a referral trail for learners in need of support. if the schools’ authorities had made the reports available to the in-service teachers, the reports could have assisted them in identifying specific challenges associated with the perceptual skills development of each learner. the in-service teachers’ responses confirmed what the literature said about the use of foreign language as a medium of instruction that poses an exclusion in learning. some learners from both schools presented with learning difficulties and behavioural problems; as a result, they could not understand instructions given in a foreign language. the learners presenting with the given challenges also struggled with speaking and hearing. classroom observation the project used the four stages of kolb’s theory to collect the classroom observation data, which were conducted once a week for 14 weeks. the in-service teachers distributed three to four learners to each pre-service teacher who used play-based pedagogy and the resources they made as part of their module requirements to assess the perceptual skills development of learners. the play-based procedure encouraged the learners to participate, as they thought they were playing and attached no formality to the assessment process. the discussion meeting was held before the sessions to provide the in-service teachers with clear guidelines on how the assessment would be conducted and also what the expected outcomes were likely to be. during the first stage, the concrete experience, the in-service teachers watched the pre-service teachers assess the learners. the pre-service teachers used their resources to tell stories to the learners. the learners were expected to listen and retell the stories in class. all the teachers used journals to capture the assessment outcome and presented it before the next session. the first stage – to develop the learners’ holistic intervention programme and improve learners’ cognitive ability – took four weeks to complete until data saturation. during the second stage, the reflective observation of the new experience, the in-service teachers went back to class to analyse the first stage’s findings with regard to learners’ difficulties in class. the analysis was based on the records captured in their journals during the listening and retelling of stories by the learners. the in-service teachers began to link the assessment results to the learning challenges experienced by some learners, particularly those associated with language delays, speaking and hearing. this process took four weeks to complete. during the abstract conceptualisation stage, the in-service teachers began to understand the contribution of the underdeveloped perceptual skills to learning difficulties. during the abstract conceptualisation stage, in-service teachers were given a task to go and observe how learners with perceptual skills challenges presented in class during the teaching and learning. thereafter, the in-service teachers acknowledged that they understood the contribution of the underdeveloped perceptual skills to learning difficulties. they did this by linking the findings from the training programme to how these learners presented in class. this stage took four weeks to complete. during the active experimentation stage, which was the last stage, the in-service teachers were given an opportunity to use the resources that the pre-service teachers had developed. this was performed to determine if the in-service teachers had acquired the competency to assess perceptual skills development in the learners, and they proved to be competent. the pre-service teachers also achieved their module requirements and got first-hand experience in applying the theoretical knowledge learned in class on listening and speaking as part of the perceptual skills development. the last stage, which took two weeks to complete, exposed the following challenges faced by the in-service teachers in providing support to learners who experienced learning difficulties whilst using english as a medium of instruction in both schools: the in-service teachers did not know what perceptual skills development was and how these skills affected learning in class. the in-service teachers did not know that they could make and use resources to assess skills development in learners. the in-service teachers did not know the effect of listening and speaking on learning, which was aggravated by the use of english as a medium of instruction. at the end of the project, the in-service teachers proved to be knowledgeable and competent in dealing with the challenges mentioned here. also, the pre-service teachers achieved their module requirements and got first-hand experience in applying the theoretical knowledge on listening and speaking as part of the perceptual skills development in class. document analysis the study found that the identified schools did not adhere to the language policies but partially complied with the progression policy. the language policies advocated the use of a convenient language or mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the foundation phase. however, the identified schools chose english as a medium of instruction, which was a third language to most learners at both schools. the repercussions thereof were the delay in the language acquisition related to speaking and hearing, and these repercussions are assumed to have contributed to learning difficulties. regarding the progression policy, the schools promoted learners to the next grade without the required promotional skills. the policy allows schools to retain learners once in a phase, and teachers were too overwhelmed to do the paperwork required to justify learner retention. these learners were moved to the intermediate phase and subsequently moved to the senior, further education and training phases without acquiring the necessary perceptual skills related to listening and speaking. these are the learners contributing to the high dropout rates in the south african schooling system. conclusion in this study, the pre-service teachers established the complexities and realities that existed whilst they were assessing perceptual skills development in learners from the two south african township schools that used english as the medium of instruction. the study found that there was no coordination between the school management teams and the in-service teachers to alert the educators of the learners’ difficulties. the absence of transparency by the school management teams led to the in-service teachers not being able to assist the learners accordingly. also, both schools did not comply with the policies. unless the department of basic education equips the in-service teachers with the skills to support learners in their classes, those with learning difficulties will continue to have challenges in accessing the curriculum. this might alleviate learning and behavioural problems, reduce dropout rates and improve the south african education system. recommendations the prerequisites for learners with learning difficulties needing support and the fundamental individual differences must be appreciated and considered if schools aim to achieve progress and quality education. a rigid ‘one-size-fits-all’ method only propagates exclusive practices against these learners. therefore, the study recommends the following to enhance curriculum access and grade progression for learners: the department of basic education should consider equipping in-service teachers with the necessary skills to identify learning difficulties in learners and provide early childhood education intervention to those who need it. the teachers and the district officials could collaborate in transferring learners to the relevant transdisciplinary teams. the schools should be encouraged to implement policies to enhance teaching and learning, which will benefit the learners accordingly. the schools in townships must be intentional in choosing the medium of instruction other than english to avoid learning barriers for learners who are non-mother tongue speakers of the language. the heads of the departments should be transparent with the in-service teachers and discuss learners’ screening results to alert them of possible learning difficulties. they should also make a follow-up to ensure that learners’ concerns have been attended to and where possible, referrals and concessions aligned to specific learning difficulties are granted. the health officials, the heads of departments and in-service teachers should work together in striving to create learning difficulty awareness and develop appropriate child-specific intervention strategies. creating awareness could enhance the stakeholders’ collaborative effort, strengthen teachers’ skills to identify learning difficulties and seek early intervention services from other relevant professionals. acknowledgements the authors of this article were the only researchers. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions n.s.t. and m.c.m. both contributed equally towards the research, data collection, data interpretation, the writing up and editing of this article. funding information the authors acknowledge the funding from the university of pretoria which assisted them 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2018;9:1193. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01193 xolmurodova o. increasing basic language skills of young learners in english lessons. журнал иностранных языков и лингвистики. 2021;2(3). snelling m, dawes a, biersteker l, girdwood e, tredoux c. the development of a south african early learning outcomes measure: a south african instrument for measuring early learning program outcomes. child care, health dev. 2019;45(2):257–270. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.12641 kolb da. experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. upper saddle river, nj: ft press; 2014. republic of south africa. constitution of the republic of south africa 1996, pretoria: government printer; 1996. department of education. south african schools act. pretoria: department of education; 1996. potrac p, jones rl, nelson l. interpretivism. in: nelson l, groom r, potrac p, editors. research methods in sports coaching. london: routledge, 2014; p. 31–41. ponelis sr. using interpretive qualitative case studies for exploratory research in doctoral studies: a case of information systems research in small and medium enterprises. int j dr stud. 2015;10(1):535–550. https://doi.org/10.28945/2339 nowell ls, norris jm, white de, moules nj. thematic analysis: striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. int j qual methods. 2017;16(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847 jentoft n, olsen ts. against the flow in data collection: how data triangulation combined with a ‘slow’ interview technique enriches data. qual soc work. 2019;18(2):179–193. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325017712581 microsoft word 07 van deventer.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. 224 234. 224 the function of daniel 1 in a second century bce historical context hjm van deventer1 abstract in the first chapter, the book of daniel begins with an introduction of the main characters, and a short story about refraining from defilement by eating foreign food. from a literary perspective that focuses on form and content it is clear that this chapter was written as an introduction. this contribution reconsiders what earlier form of the book (daniel 2-7 or daniel 2-12) it was meant to introduce. in an attempt to alter scholarly opinion as regards the redaction history of the book of daniel, the function of this chapter is determined against a second century bce context. keywords: old testament, daniel, historical context. disciplines: history, biblical studies, literary studies. introduction the book of daniel in the old testament has been described as “a battlefield between faith and unbelief” (pusey, 1886:175). this sharp dichotomy has a direct bearing on developments in biblical studies that gained huge momentum, especially in academic circles, during the second half of the nineteenth century. these developments were mainly historical in nature. however, such developments did not occur overnight. hayes (2008:998) traces these developments further back when he states: “the first half of the eighteenth century witnessed for the first time the full integration of history and historical perspectives into the mainstream of hermeneutical work.” the full fruition of this historical approach resulted in studying the bible by means of methods that were developed and used for the study of all textual artefacts from antiquity. in this way the bible was seen losing its unique character as the infallible “word of god”. how did this come about? in his essay, the rise of historical criticism (1913) oscar wilde, a contemporary of pusey, indirectly provides an answer to this question. however, he follows a different trajectory to 1 . prof. hjm (hans) van deventer is professor of biblical studies in the subject group theology, school of basic sciences, north-west university (vaal). the function of daniel 1 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 224 234. 225 lay bare how the first seeds of a “rationalistic” approach2 to understanding the past were sown by the ancient greeks. he explicitly refers to herodotus’ contribution in this regard by noting that herodotus like “[n]o writer of any age has more vividly recognised the fact that history is a matter of evidence” (wilde, 1913:20). finding such evidence to support what many in the late nineteenth century held to be biblical history, became increasingly difficult as archaeological discoveries, at first hailed to “prove” the bible, suggested that the ancient israelites shared many customs with other peoples from the ancient near east. comparative studies of among others literary artefacts furthermore suggested a close relation to and even dependence of biblical material on mythical texts from the same cultural milieu (e.g. enuma elish). wilde, though, does not refer to these developments in more contemporary thought. he stays in the classical period and notes how the development of a more “rational” approach to the past as reflected in the work of herodotus also caused this historian and philosopher to seek divine pardon for such thinking. in question was herodotus’ rejection of the mythical account of the foundation of dodona in which mention is made of a talking dove (wilde, 1913:19). in an article focusing on the problem statement as an important starting point for historical research, de klerk3 (2001:434) notes how droysen, also in the nineteenth century, indicated the importance of historical questions to the historical research process. as is clear from the remark by pusey noted above, this type of questions was not traditionally asked when studying the bible. when it comes to a text proclaiming to precisely prophesy events at least 370 years into the future (dan. 2, 7-12); and claiming that through divine intervention people can withstand fierce fire and hungry lions (dan. 3, 6); and suggesting a babylonian king named nebuchadnezzar went insane (dan. 4) and had a son named belshazzar (dan. 5)4 historical questions in the often cited von ranke fashion (wie es eigentlich gewesen) seem out of place. when reasoning from a “traditional” stance that the truth in the bible should be 2 wilde (1913:15) speaks of a “historic sense, which is the rational antecedent of the science of historical criticism” (emphasis original). 3 it is indeed a privilege to present this article to prof. pieter de klerk on the eve of his retirement. for 17 years he has constantly astonished me with the width and depth of his knowledge spanning many a field. first among these is of course his field of expertise, namely history. although more interested in contemporary south african history, he could speak with authority on topics ranging from ancient civilizations to contemporary developments around the globe. his philosophical inclination meant that he often commented on the story behind the history. furthermore, he is a keen reader of contemporary afrikaans and english literature and a film connoisseur. it is impossible to write an article to complement all his diverse interests. hence, i present this piece related to his primary field of study, wishing him a long and well-deserved period of slowing down somewhat. 4 the very first verse in the book of daniel contains a statement regarding an event for which no historical evidence exists. reference is made to a capture of jerusalem and looting of the temple by king nebuchadnezzar of babylon in the third year of king jehoiakim of judah, i.e. 606/7 bce. this date is problematic since nebuchadnezzar succeeded his father, nabopolasser, only in 605 bce. also, the babylonian chronicles is silent on any campaign against jerusalem before 597bce (cf. collins [1993:130-133] for an extensive discussion). king nebuchadnezzar did not have a son named belshazzar, but a later usurper king, nabonidus, was succeeded by a son named belshazzar, who also acted as co-regent during his father’s long period of absence from babylon. a text from qumran (4qprnab) refers to an evil decease that struck nabonidus, but the intervention of a jewish diviner led to his cure. many scholars maintain that dan. 4, in which nebuchadnezzar goes mad, is based on 4qprnab or a similar textual tradition. van deventer 226 reduced to what is historically true, questions that seek evidence for such phenomena are frowned upon and easily dismissed as originating in the realm of unbelief. nevertheless, in the study of the old testament the historical approach towards understanding the text held sway for at least the past 200 years. this modern historical approach seeks to reach behind the text in order to locate a specific context that gave rise to the text and its further developments. in nearly all of the books in the old testament such a process of growth can be seen (collins, 2004:16). this contribution seeks to understand the introductory chapter of the book of daniel against the historical context of the second century bce. after a brief overview of modern developments in the understanding of the old testament, problems related to the book of daniel are noted and discussed from both historical and literary perspectives. finally, the introductory chapter of this book is discussed on basis of these perspectives. reading the old testament: a concise overview in various ways the historical approach to the biblical text tries to shed light on the process of its development. in what was initially known as literary criticism,5 an effort was made to discover possible sources that lay behind the present text. this effort was focused especially on the pentateuch, the first 5 books in the old testament. in a subsequent development, and one that had a huge impact on the study of the book of psalms, the emphasis fell on reconstructing a possible real-life situation (sitz im leben) in which the text functioned in a pre-written (oral) form. this type of historical approach was called form criticism. it went out from the premises that the type of text (genre) opened a door to the real-life situation (mostly viewed as a cultic context) in which the text functioned in pre-written form. another historical approach, referred to as redaction criticism, sought to find evidence of a particular theological (or ideological) slant added in the redaction process by those responsible for the final form of the text. in the old testament, the story of the nation of israel as found in the books joshua – 2 kings, was viewed as exhibiting at least one (and possibly more) redactional level(s) in which, among others, the idea of retribution was used as guiding principle in organizing the story related to this period. the story ends (2 kings 25) with the exile of a portion of the israelite community from the land they received from their god at the outset of the story (joshua 1 – 12). lastly, tradition criticism as yet another historical approach was interested not so much in the written sources behind the present form of the text, but wanted to lay bare the blocks of oral or written traditions that constitute the final text. all these historical orientated methods and subsequent developments based on them were grouped together by biblical scholars under the heading historical criticism. any study of the old testament that claims to be historical in nature will take as point of departure a methodology based on these classic approaches. 5 since the middle of the 20th century when literary criticism in the context of literary studies rather meant a focus on distinct literary features in the final text, in biblical studies literary criticism was renamed “source criticism” (see barton, 1996:21). the function of daniel 1 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 224 234. 227 as noted above, the middle of the twentieth century saw the introduction of an alternative to a historical understanding of the bible. this change to a literary approach was informed by developments in the field of general literary theory that made its way into the field of biblical studies. according to this view, the meaning of a text cannot be found by means of constructing a historical context from which a text supposedly stems. all aspects related to meaning were to be found in the text itself. hence, the text is bracketed from any historical context and literary features found in the text itself (e.g. stylistic features, structure, plot, character development etc.) were studied for the meanings they convey. although the present contribution focuses more on a historical understanding of the text, certain literary features that contribute to meaning will be noted below.6 next, though, a few scholarly problems related to the book need to be highlighted. the book of daniel in a problematic context a person reading the book of daniel finds herself faced with a number of interesting issues pertaining to this collection. if this person is reading, like most readers of the book, from a modern translation she notes that chapters 1 – 6 present a different type of literature compared to the last six chapters of the book. whereas the first six represent the same number of upbeat stories about the successes of jewish courtiers doing duty for foreign rulers (such as nebuchadnezzar, belshazzar, and darius), the last six chapters are totally different. here strange symbolic language is used to communicate four visionary experiences. the tenor in this section is markedly more subdued and perplexing. modern scholars choose to indicate this change in literary type between the first and the second part of the book by means of the epithets “court tales” (dan 1 – 6) and “apocalyptic visions” (dan 7 – 12) (seow, 2003:9-11). in the latter section the typical figure of an angelus interpres comes to the aid of a visionary (daniel) who stands confused at what he has seen or read. in the first section of the book the very same daniel came to the aid of authorities seeking understanding for what they had dreamt (dan 2, 4) or seen (dan 5). in two other stories the lives of daniel (dan 6) and his three comrades (dan 3) are threatened by persecution due to their faithful religious conduct. a scholarly reading of the book in its ancient languages finds even more intriguing problems to deal with. first, there is the issue of language: chapter 1, an introductory story, and chapters 8 – 12, three visionary experiences, are written like nearly all of the old testament, in hebrew. however, the five remaining stories in the first part of the book (chapters 2 – 6), as well as the first of the visions in the second part (chapter 7), are written in aramaic. the fact that the difference in language does not square up with the different literary types makes the issue even more complex. adding the ancient greek versions to the list of ancient sources of the book of daniel also adds another complexity. in this instance the versions referred to as respectively the old greek (lxx) and theodotion differ not only from the hebrew/aramaic book, but also from each other. the greek versions, for example, include a few further stories about the main characters, daniel and his friends. in the first of these, usually inserted in daniel 3 between v. 23 and v. 24, we find a prayer of deliverance by one of the three friends thrown into a fiery furnace. this is followed by the three men’s song of 6 see hayes and holladay (2007) for a more elaborate overview of developments in the field of biblical interpretation. van deventer 228 praise for the saving act of god that they witnessed. the second addition to the greek versions is the story of susanna. since it also introduces the reader to the character of daniel, it is placed before daniel 1 in the theodotion edition. however, in the old greek version it is found only after the visions. the last addition, commonly known as bel and the serpent (or dragon) weaves together two tales about daniel illustrating the folly of idolatry. for his trouble daniel is thrown into a lion’s pit where he receives a visit from the prophet habakkuk and, finally, is vindicated by the king. when comparing the two greek versions with each other one finds further discrepancies, such as: dan. 4 – 6 in the old greek differs quite a lot when compared to theodotion (and the aramaic text). also considerable differences are noted between the two greek versions regarding the story of susanna. it is clear, then, that the book of daniel poses some quite unique challenges to the reader – scholarly or otherwise. needless to say that no consensus exists regarding a “theory of everything” that may solve all of these perplexing problems. in order to perhaps move us in that direction, we now turn to an investigation of the book in a specific historical context. the book of daniel in a historical context one of the results of modern historical research carried out on the book of daniel was to distinguish between the time when the book was written and the time referred to in the book itself. as mentioned, the book of daniel pertains to date to the sixth century bce describing episodes from the lives of jewish courtiers at foreign courts (mainly in third person narration)7, as well as a series of four visions seen by daniel (mainly in first person narration).8 in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century the opinion was still held, by among others spinoza and isaac newton, that daniel himself wrote the visionary sections (in the first person), while the preceding narratives in the book were written by other authors and then added to the visions. in some evangelical circles it is still upheld that the book should be dated in the sixth century bce. however, issues such as the authenticity of the predictions, literary critical considerations, and problems related to historical references in the book led to modern scholars to adopt the view that the book is a product of the second century bce. this line of thought links up to some extent with an ancient voice, namely that of porphyry, dating from the late third century ce. this neo-platonist philosopher believed that the author of the book lived in palestine in the second century bce and that he was not predicting the future, but rather describing the past up to the time of the seleucid emperor, antiochus epiphanes. these ideas of porphyry are only available to us through the work of jerome in his commentary on daniel. needless to say, jerome did not agree with porphyry on the issue of dating.9 modern scholarship, then, tells a different story about the history of the book of daniel. in essence it goes like this: stories about a legendary character (who is known from earlier 7 dan. 4 purposing to be an encyclical from the hand of nebuchadnezzar, is the exception. 8 dan. 7:1-2a is exceptional in that it is written in the third person. 9 collins (1993:25) notes that porphyry also differs from modern scholarship as regards a few issues related to the second century dating of the book, e.g. taking daniel’s prediction of antiochus death as correct and viewing 11:45 as the place where daniel switches from ex eventu to real prophecy (modern scholars place this break at 11:40). the function of daniel 1 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 224 234. 229 sources such as ezekiel 14:14) were in circulation during the persian period. the discovery of a number of daniel texts at qumran confirms the “popularity” of these stories (flint, 1997:41-60). the difference between the two greek version’s renderings of daniel 4 – 6 suggests that these three aramaic stories (i.e. nebuchadnezzar’s dream about a huge tree; belshazzar’s seeing a writing on the wall; and darius’s impulsive edict that led to daniel being thrown to lions) may be the oldest part of the book. this nucleus gradually grew during the persian period by the addition of related tales, such as daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace (dan. 3) and daniel’s interpretation of nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the huge statue composed of diverse metals (dan. 2). these previously independent tales, according to one influential theory, originally served the purpose of outlining a lifestyle for the diaspora (humphreys, 1973). in the early hellenistic period were added to these tales an introduction (dan. 1 – on which i shall focus in more detail below) and the first vision (dan. 7 – written in aramaic). this introductory chapter, so the theory goes, was also written in aramaic, but after the addition of the last three visions (written in hebrew), the introduction was translated into hebrew (collins, 1993:35). the crisis in jerusalem that followed on antiochus iv’s persecution of the jews and more specifically the desecration of the altar and temple (dan. 8:11-13; 9:27; 11:31) led to the composition of three visions that closes the book when the deutero-canonical material is not included. these visions are concerned with the period of time that will lapse before this dreadful experience will finally end. since most modern scholars do not find any reference to the rededication of the temple (in 164 bce) in the book of daniel, it is presumed that the book reached its final (and apparently unchangeable) form before this decisive event. with this scholarly tale about the literary origin of the book of daniel told, let us briefly consider the historical context in jerusalem in the second century bce in a little more detail. as could be gathered from what preceded, the main protagonist is the seleucid king, antiochus epiphanes. he starts off as a political hostage in the roman republic in order for the roman authorities to keep the reigning greek family in palestine in check. when his father, antiochus iii, died he was succeeded by his son and brother of antiochus iv, seleucus iv. this meant that antiochus iv could be replaced as hostage by his nephew and son of seleucus iv, namely demetrius i. however, when seleucus iv is murdered by a usurper, antiochus reclaims the throne for the family. with the rightful heir still in rome, antiochus declares himself co-regent along with an infant brother of demetrius i, whom he has murdered after a few months. now, as sole regent he sets his eyes on the ptolemaic empire in the southwest (egypt). after limited success during a first invasion, antiochus launches another onslaught in 168 bce, only to be stopped by the roman ambassador drawing what became the proverbial “line in the sand”. during this second campaign in 168 bce a rumor reached jerusalem that antiochus iv had lost his life. this set in motion a chain of events in jerusalem that were in the making for some time. we should briefly consider these. when antiochus iv came to power in 175 bce, onias iii held the highest religious office in jerusalem. however, his brother jason offered antiochus a sum of money as bribe to be named high priest in onias’ stead. the emperor accepted the offer, but 3 years later menelaus persuaded antiochus with the promise of an even higher bid to obtain this influential office. this caused jason to flee from jerusalem, only to return on hearing the false rumor of antiochus’ death and in order to claim back the office he had to vacate. the subsequent unrest in jerusalem caused antiochus to crack down on the jewish population; van deventer 230 killing thousands and committing sacrilege in the temple in 167 bce. only 3 years later, after a maccabean uprising, the temple was rededicated. as mentioned above, since the book of daniel seemingly does not refer to this important event, but instead contains an erroneous prophecy about antiochus’ further exploits and ultimate end (11:40-45) it is assumed that the book was concluded, never to be updated, before the time of the rededication of the temple. after establishing the historical context that most scholars agree on for the writing of the book of daniel we briefly address the literary context of the book. the book of daniel in a literary context returning to the book of daniel in its final literary form (again, not taking into account the deutero-canonical additions) we should focus our attention to two aspects: 1) the structure of the book; and 2) the different genres reflected in the final form. as regards the structure, lenglet (1972) persuasively argued that the aramaic section of the book (dan. 2 – 7) is carefully arranged in the form of a concentric pattern. accordingly, there are similarities between chapter 2 (the statue constituted of different metals symbolizing four major empires that were brought to an end through divine intervention) and chapter 7 (four animals symbolizing four empires that also come to an end by means of divine intervention). chapter 3 (a persecution story about daniel’s three friends who miraculously escape a fiery furnace in the wake of their disregard for king nebuchadnezzar’s decree to worship a huge statue) and chapter 6 (a persecution story where daniel miraculously escape being devoured by hungry lions due to his disregard for king darius’ proclamation to worship him) also show distinct thematic and literary agreement. in the center of this ring composition we find chapters 4 and 5. the similarities between these two chapters are likewise quite obvious. daniel 4 is story about daniel’s interpretation of a dream of king nebuchadnezzar in which his kingdom is represented by a huge tree that is felled due to the king’s hubris. daniel 5 narrates how the “son” of nebuchadnezzar, in the narrative world called belshazzar, gets a similar warning by means of a hand writing a message on a wall and daniel is called in to interpret this fateful omen. turning our attention to the introductory chapter of the book, written in hebrew, goldingay (1989) made us aware of the fact that this chapter mirrors this concentric pattern found in the aramaic section of the book. according to goldingay (1989:8): dan 1 forms a chiastically-shaped short story composed of three double panels, the central panels being themselves subdivided chiastically. this means that vv. 1-2, which set the context of the beginning of the exile, is similar to v. 21 that refers to cyrus and the end of the exile. furthermore, vv. 3-7 notes how “young men are taken for training” at the babylonian court, while its chiastic counterpart, vv. 17-20, narrates, “the young men are triumphant in the training.” the middle section and center of the narrative (vv. 8-16) tells how daniel avoids defilement by means of instigating an experiment in healthy eating and obtaining positive results. gabrielle boccacini (2002) noted a similar pattern in the last, hebrew, part of the book (dan. 8 – 12). he explicitly refers to the important place of daniel 9 in the second part of the book and states (2002:181): the function of daniel 1 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 224 234. 231 dan 9 is the nucleus of the second part of the book (dan 8-12) and at the center of ch. 9 is daniel’s prayer to god (9:4-19). he goes on to add: structurally and theologically, dan 9 plays a central role in the book of daniel (boccacini, 2002:188). summarising these literary notes, it can be concluded that: • the different sections of the book, denoted by their differences in language, are each structured in a chiastic pattern; • this chiastic pattern is most obvious for the aramaic section, whereas in the case of the last hebrew section it is less clear, although certainly still present; • daniel 1, as introductory chapter, mirrors this chiastic pattern. we are now in a position to consider the focus of this study, namely the place of daniel 1 in a second century context. daniel 1 in a second century bce context this section focuses on the following question: what exactly is the first chapter of this book introducing? in addressing this question i suggest that we reconsider the developmental history of the book as outlined above and seek to establish a place for daniel 1 in the proposed alternative redaction history of the book. first, i need to outline my thoughts in this regard.10 i question the widely hold assumption that the stories we find in the first part of the book necessarily forms a first collection of what later became the book of daniel. according to the standard theory the final book was formed after the addition of at first one (aramaic) vision (dan. 7) and subsequently a further three (hebrew) visions (dan. 8-12) to the original tales. based on the similarities between the heading to the visionary section beginning in daniel 8:1 and the headings of other postexilic prophecies such as haggai (1:1) and zechariah (1:1),11 i suggest that what is referred to as the three hebrew visions in the book of daniel at first could have been the complete book of the prophet written in the wake of the desecration of the temple and the persecution by antiochus iv. this prophetic book sought to find reasons for the second century bce calamity, as well as an answer to the question of how long this period of predicament will continue. 10 a detailed discussion of my position will be published in due course and is not elaborated on here (cf. van deventer, 2012). 11 dan 8:1 – “in the third year of the reign of king belshazzar a vision appeared to me, daniel, after the one that had appeared to me at first”; zech 1:1 – “in the eighth month, in the second year of darius, the word of the lord came to the prophet zechariah son of berechiah son of iddo, saying …” ; hag. 1:1 – “in the second year of king darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the lord came by the prophet haggai to zerubbabel son of shealtiel, governor of judah, and to joshua son of jehozadak, the high priest.” van deventer 232 unlike the maccabees, the group that was responsible for these visions is viewed as quietists (albertz, 2001:171). this group rejected militancy or force to overturn what was happening in jerusalem under antiochus iv. in the only reference in the book of daniel to the maccabees (11:34), they are viewed as “a little help” in the ongoing crisis (collins, 1993:386). in contrast to the maccabees, the wise maśkilim in die book of daniel “pursue a non-violent course.” (collins, 1993:385). this group expressed their hope in an altogether different time frame and attitude. their ultimate answer was an unheard of theological leap, namely that those who were persecuted will rise from the dead (12:2-3). human activity and initiative had to take a backseat and wait for divine action. however, the maccabean resistance proved successful in the end when due to their militant actions the temple in jerusalem was rededicated to yhwh. how did the quietist group responsible for the visions in the hebrew part of the book of daniel react to this unforeseen outcome? well, first of all, they made sure not to make any explicit mention of this success in their writings. the rededication of the temple was brought about by means they did not endorse. but, in order to retain group cohesion and have their standpoint and the prophecy of resurrection remembered, they added three popular aramaic tales about the prophet daniel to their visions. at this stage what later became the book of daniel consisted of three visions to which three tales were added. these three tales were introduced by superscriptions similar to those of the three visions. in each case three successive foreign rulers are listed in the headings. in the original visions these were: belshazzar (8:1), darius (9:1) and cyrus (10:1). the added tales were already in circulation as independent stories about an ancient hero. in the context of their new function to help keep the visionary hope of the authors of the prophetic book alive, the kings mentioned in the headings had to be altered. since cyrus was the liberator of the jews, he is only mentioned at the end of the persecution story in chapter 6. in the headings to these stories now appears nebuchadnezzar at the beginning of the sequence of foreign rulers in 4:1, followed by belshazzar (5:1) and darius (6:1). the three popular stories added to the visions were carefully selected from a larger number in circulation. they did not only form a numerical balance to the three hebrew visions, but also mirrored the content of these visions. hence, we encounter the receiver of a dream vision and its interpretation in chapter 8 as an interpreter of a dream vision in in chapter 4. the person who seeks an interpretation of a writing of jeremiah in chapter 9, is himself an interpreter of a writing on the wall in chapter 5. lastly, the climax of the book that proclaims the resurrection in chapter 12 (as part of the third vision), finds a counterpart in the third story in chapter 6 where a martyr survives a certain death among hungry lions. what bearing does this have on daniel 1 as introduction to the present book of daniel? well, after joining the three stories to the original three visions, an introduction was not needed, since in daniel 4 the prophet is introduced by nebuchadnezzar. another introduction became necessary only after a fourth popular story was added. this is the story of the three friends thrown into a fiery furnace in dan. 3. why was this added to the wellbalanced three stories and three visions? well, in the aftermath of the maccabean uprising, there was another problem to address, namely that of group martyrdom. from the maccabean point of view, “[m]artyrdom may be a forcible option and a last resort for the individual, but it becomes an irresponsible act when it jeopardizes the very existence of the jewish people” (boccaccini, 2002:164). in the stories added to the prophetic visions, the issue of individual martyrdom is raised in dan. 6. to emphasise their anti-maccabean point that group martyrdom remains an option for devoted jews, the story of the three friends in the fiery furnace was added (dan 3). the function of daniel 1 td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 224 234. 233 this addition necessitated a new introduction. the new introduction did not only introduce the main characters and allude to issues that were taken up in both the stories and visions. its composition in hebrew12 also meant that this chapter could bind together the four stories and three visions into a single unit. daniel 1 thus functioned to: 1. introduce by name the four jewish individuals (1:6) that appear in the subsequent stories and visions. the character of daniel is foregrounded in the introduction since the bulk of what is to follow involves him directly; 2. introduce the issue of sacrilege with reference to temple goods that were given to nebuchadnezzar by god (1:2) to be taken away to the temple of a foreign god. the issue of the desecration of the holy surfaces in die story in chapter 5, but is prominent in each of the hebrew visions (8:11-13; 9:27; 11:31); 3. the ability of daniel to interpret dreams and have insight into writings is noted in the introduction (1:17) since it is put into practice in dan. 4 and 5. the fact that in the visions he is no longer able to do so heightens the tension and underscores the need for divine intervention in those circumstances; 4. the first chapter also functions as statement of the theological (ideological) point of view of the authors: they are not totally opposed to a process of introducing new cultural goods (e.g. change of names and foreign learning – a situation mirrored in the second century context and the struggle over the high priesthood in jerusalem). however, this group also wanted to stress that they are not part of the transgressors of the “zadokite covenant” and indicated this through the story of defilement with food in dan. 1. 5. lastly, and perhaps most important, the new opening chapter refers to this group as “maśkilim” (1:4) – the same epithet used in the last vision (11:33, 11:35, 12:3) for “the heroes of the maccabean crisis” as collins (1993:137) refers to this group. conclusion today, the historical questions posed by biblical scholars in their encounter with the biblical text are in very few academic circles viewed as constituting a test of true belief. however, in scholarship some theories related to answering these historical questions have become so entrenched that to venture outside these known confines may be viewed as a form of academic heresy. in this article a new angle was suggested from which to view the redaction history of the book of daniel. the introductory chapter to this book was investigated from this new angle and suggestions as to its function were made. although this reading of daniel 1 does not proof the suggested theory regarding the growth of the book it surely does not rule it out either. 12 see the suggestion in this regard made by van deventer (2005) from the perspective of corpus linguistics. van deventer 234 bibliography albertz, r. 2001. the social setting of the aramaic and hebrew book of daniel. (in collins, j.j. & flint, p.w. eds. the book of daniel. composition and reception, vol. i. leiden: brill. pp. .) barton, j. 1996. reading the old testament. method in biblical study. revised and enlarged edition. louisville: westminster/john knox. boccaccini, g. 2002. roots of rabbinic judaism. an intellectual history from ezekiel to daniel. grand rapids: eerdmans. collins, j.j. 1993. daniel (hermeneia). minneapolis: fortress. collins, j.j. 2004. introduction to the hebrew bible. minneapolis: fortress. de klerk, p. 2001. die probleemstelling: noodsaaklike beginpunt van historiese navorsing? historia, 46(2):404-25. flint, p.w. 1997. the daniel tradition at qumran. (in evans, c.a. & flint, p.w. eds. eschatology, messianism, and the dead sea scrolls. grand rapids: eerdmans, pp. 41-60.) goldingay j. 1989. daniel (wbc). dallas: word. hayes, j.h. 2008. historical criticism of the old testament canon. (in saebo, m ed. hebrew bible old testament. a history of its interpretation vol. ii. from the renaissance to the enlightenment. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. pp. 9851005.) hayes, j.h. & holladay, c.r. 2007. biblical exegesis. a beginner’s handbook. third edition. louisville: westminster / john knox. humphreys, w.l. 1973. a life-style for diaspora: a study of the tales of ester and daniel. journal of biblical literature, 92: 211-223. lenglet, a. 1972. la structure litteraire de daniel 2-7. biblica, 53: 170-89. pusey, e.b. 1886. daniel the prophet. new york: funk and wagnalls. seow, c.l. 2003. daniel (wbc). louisville: westminster john knox. van deventer, h.j.m. 2005. testing-testing. do we have a translated text in daniel 1 and daniel 7? journal of northwest semitic languages, 31(2):91-106. van deventer, h.j.m. 2012. another look at the redaction history of the book of daniel, or, reading daniel from left to right. journal for the study of the old testament, (forthcoming). wilde, o. 1913 [1879]. the rise of historical criticism. (in essays and lectures. london: methuen. pp. 1-108). microsoft word 01 rutherford smith kasandra.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 1-18. twelve monkeys, the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion: transdisciplinary lessons for animal and environmental activism sarah rutherford smith∗ abstract animal activists and environmental activists believe that the world and its inhabitants face devastating consequences in the future if behaviour towards and the treatment of animals and the environment do not change. however, despite their predictions many people are not swayed to change their behaviour. this article suggests that these activists experience what is known as kassandra’s dilemma; the conundrum of knowing what the future holds but being unable to prevent events from happening. drawing on the film, twelve monkeys and greek mythology this article explores this mythological dilemma and explains how this dilemma is a lived experience for activists. the article suggests that activists can resolve kassandra’s dilemma by taking a transdisciplinary approach towards animal and environmental activism. thus, in order to escape kassandra’s dilemma the article suggests that animal and environmental activists require transdisciplinary knowledge; knowledge of the actual and potential harm done to animals and the environment and how this can be prevented as well as knowledge on how to successfully convey this knowledge to others. the article highlights innovation diffusion theory as an example of the type of transdisciplinary knowledge that could assist in escaping from kassandra’s dilemma and in order to better advocate on behalf of animals and the environment. 5 billion people will die from a deadly virus in 1997. . . . the survivors will abandon the face of the planet. once again the animals will rule the world. twelve monkeys1 1 introduction many animal and environmental activists face what is known as kassandra’s dilemma.2 these activists feel that the current treatment of animals and the environment by human beings ∗ sarah rutherford smith, llb (wits) llm (unisa), is a senior lecturer department of jurisprudence, college of law, unisa. 1 twelve monkeys (1995) (directed by terry gilliam © universal pictures), inspired by la jetee. 2 kassandra’s dilemma, also called the kassandra complex, is found in the greek tragedy agamemnon and will be discussed in more detail at 2 2. ӕschylus agamemnon (translated from the greek by t medwin) (william pickering london 1832). in many modern texts kassandra is called cassandra, but for the sake of authenticity the classical spelling, kassandra will be used in this text except when cassandra has been used in a direct quote. rutherford smith 2 could have devastating consequences for our planet and its inhabitants.3 however, despite predictions of global warming, rising ocean levels, permanent environmental damage, extinction of numerous species, new mutating viruses (whether caused by the close proximity of humans to animals, eating infected animal flesh or intensive livestock farming practices among many other causes of virus transmission between species)4 few people are swayed by the concerns of activists to change their behaviour.5 drawing on the story of kassandra from the film, twelve monkeys and from the original source in greek mythology, kassandra’s dilemma is the mythological condition where a person is armed with foreknowledge but is unable to convince others to act on that knowledge. this article proposes that both animal activists and environmental activists are 3 consequences such as human-caused global warming or virus transmission between species. there is much debate about whether these are real threats to human survival. however, for the purposes of this article it is assumed that climate change, global warming or virus transmission between species (amongst numerous other animal and environmental concerns) are genuine threats to human beings’ survival and / or way of life. however, for a different view on these types of threats see lomborg b “the truth about the environment” http://www.economist.com/node/718860 (date of use 25 june 2013); mcintyre s and mckitrick r “corrections to the mann et al (1998) proxy data base and northern hemisphere average temperature series” 2003 (14) 6 energy and environment 751-772; william h “the truth about greenhouse gases” the global warming policy foundation briefing paper no 3 2011 http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/happerthe_truth_about_greenhouse_gases.pdf (date of use: 12 june 2013); ridely m “scientific heresy” angus millar lecture of the royal society of the arts edinburgh, 31 october 2011 http://au.agwscam.com/pdf/scientific%20heresy%20-%20matt%20ridley.pdf (date of use: 12 june 2013) and for a general overview see montford aw the hockey stick illusion (stacey international london 2010) and mcintyre s and mckitrick r the ipcc, the "hockey stick" curve, and the illusion of experience (george c marshall institute washington 2003). for sources disputing global warming sceptics see union of concerned scientists “global warming contrarians” http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/ (date of use: 17 july 2012) and the sources therein. 4 the animal origins of human viruses are discussed in multiple sources, for instance ter meulen j et al “hunting of peridomestic rodents and consumption of their meat as possible risk factors for rodent-to-human transmission of lassa virus in the republic of guinea” american journal of tropical medicine and hygiene december 1996 (55) 661-666 discuss the transmission of the lassa virus from rodents to human through consumption; webster rg “influenza virus: transmission between species and relevance to emergence of the next human pandemic” 1997 viral zoonoses and food of animal origin 105-113 discuss the transmission of the influenza a virus from wild aquatic birds to domestic poultry and to mammals (including humans); garten rj et al “antigenic and genetic characteristics of swine-origin 2009 a(h1n1) influenza viruses circulating in humans” 2009 (325) 5937 science 197-201 discuss the transmission of the h1n1 virus from swines to humans; and tei s et al “zoonotic transmission of hepatitis e virus from deer to human beings” the lancet 2003 (362) 9381 371–373 discuss the transfer of the hepatitis e virus from deer to humans. see also grace d “zoonoses: the lethal gifts of livestock” http://www.ilri.org/ilrinews/index.php/archives/9929 (date of use: 14 june 2013). 5 atkisson a believing cassandra: how to be an optimist in a pessimist's world (earthscan 2010) 19. alaimo s “endangered humans?: wired bodies and the human wilds in carnosaur, carnosaur 2, and 12 monkeys” 1997 (14) 1-2 camera obscura 226 – 242 227. the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 3 confronted with this dilemma in their quest to improve the treatment of and, in the worst case scenario, save animals and the environment. this article does not set out to confirm the beliefs of animal and environmental activists; many of the concerns they raise are debatable.6 instead this article is an effort to understand why activists are not succeeding in conveying their beliefs or in converting people to their beliefs. the article suggests that activists could expand their knowledge areas beyond the usual disciplines of philosophy and the natural sciences to borrow from other disciplines such as communication and marketing in order to successfully convey their beliefs. thus the article recommends a transdisciplinary approach to animal and environmental activism. indeed, transdisciplinary research promotes addressing problems between disciplines, across disciplines and beyond disciplines and thus ensures a fuller understanding of the world and its problems.7 transdisciplinary research is intended to, ‘solve problems that are complex and multi-dimensional, particularly problems … that involve an interface of human and natural systems. the founding idea here is that society is facing problems manifest in the real world that are complex, multi-dimensional and not confined by the boundaries of a single disciplinary framework.’8 consequently, the article suggests that the problems that animal and environmental activists face in conveying their beliefs can be solved through transdisciplinary research and knowledge. the article does not wish to conflate the concerns of animal activists with environmental activists and vice versa. however, when contemplating the future existence of the human race, animal activism and environmental activism often share the same interests. for instance, many animal activists and some environmental activists promote a vegan lifestyle because the vegan lifestyle is beneficial to animals as well as the environment.9 consequently, in some instances to advocate on behalf of animals often amounts to advocating on behalf of the 6 as discussed in fn 3 see lomborg http://www.economist.com/node/718860 (date of use 25 june 2013); mcintyre and mckitrick 2003 energy and environment 751-772; mcintyre and mckitrick 2003 the ipcc, the "hockey stick" curve, and the illusion of experience; montford 2010; william 2011 http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/happerthe_truth_about_greenhouse_gases.pdf (date of use 12 june 2013); ridely 2011 http://au.agwscam.com/pdf/scientific%20heresy%20-%20matt%20ridley.pdf (date of use 12 june 2013). 7 polimeni jm “transdisciplinary research: moving forward” 2006 (1) 1 international journal of transdisciplinary research 2. 8 wickson f, carew al and russell aw “transdisciplinary research: characteristics, quandaries and quality” 2006 (38) futures 1048. 9 the vegan lifestyle is one area where animal and environmental activist’s interests overlap; both types of activists have an interest in promoting a vegan lifestyle. environmental activists may promote a vegan lifestyle because of the environmental benefits of following a vegan diet. steinfeld h et al livestock’s long shadow. environmental issues and options (food and agricultural organization of the united nations rome 2009) 46; 79 – 114, 125 – 169; 181 215. because veganism is an area where animal and environmental activism collaborate it will be used as an example throughout the article. another example of overlap is poaching where the animal activist is concerned about the animal itself, whereas an environmental activist may be concerned about survival of the species and biodiversity. see brodie jf et al “bushmeat poaching reduces the seed dispersal and population growth rate of a mammaldispersed tree” 2009 (19) 4 ecological applications 854 – 863 for an example of how poaching can effect biodiversity. rutherford smith 4 environment and the two forms of activism become interrelated.10 thus, for the purpose of this article, the concerns of animal activists and environmental activists will be considered together. this article will utilize the film, twelve monkeys as a platform from which to introduce kassandra’s dilemma and to discuss the link between the dilemma and animal and environmental activism.11 thus, the article begins with a summary of the film, followed by a more detailed examination of the (film) themes of animal and environmental activism and thereafter the kassandra dilemma. then the article will highlight how the kassandra dilemma is a real consequence for animal and environmental activists. finally, the article will draw on the concept of innovation diffusion (from communication studies) to suggest one transdisciplinary method for escaping kassandra’s dilemma.12 2 twelve monkeys the film twelve monkeys revolves around a virus which has destroyed ninety nine percent of the human population. the surviving one percent escapes the virus by beginning a colony beneath the earth’s surface. astrophysicists living in this underground colony begin to experiment with time travel and send the protagonist james cole (played by bruce willis) back in time to before the release of the virus. cole is sent to find an animal rights group called the army of the twelve monkeys who are believed to have released the virus.13 he is tasked with finding out more information about the army of the twelve monkeys and the virus as well as to try and stop them from releasing the virus. but in this time (the past) cole’s predictions of the future are viewed as a sign of mental illness. he is institutionalised under the treatment of psychiatrist dr railly (played by madeleine stowe).14 dr railly proposes that cole suffers from a mental illness known as the kassandra complex.15 she suggests that cole suffers from the delusional belief that he knows what is going to happen in the future. whilst dr railly does not believe cole’s predictions of the future she accepts that he believes them and that for him the delusions are real. 10 regan t “the philosophy of animal rights” http://www. cultureandanimals.org/pop1.html#a9 (date of use: 17 july 2013). for more on the intersection between animal activism and environmental activism see shapiro k “the caring sleuth: portrait of an animal rights activist” 1994 (2) 2 society and animals 145 – 165 150 151; herzog ha “the movement is my life: the psychology of animal rights activism” 1993 (49) 1 journal of social issues 103 -119 111; lawrence ea “conflicting ideologies: views of animal rights advocates and their opponents” 1994 (2) 2 society and animals 175 – 190 175. 11 twelve monkeys 1995. 12 this article is not intended to be a study of diffusion innovation theory; rather it is intended to highlight the potential benefits of transdisciplinary research and applications. 13 ruben 1998 rethinking marxism: a journal of economics, culture and society 106 -123 107. see also cohen ajj “12 monkeys, vertigo and la jetée. postmodern mythologies and cult films” 2003 (1) 1 new review of film and television studies149-164. 14 anon “synopsis for twelve monkeys” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/synopsis (date of use: 13 may 2013). 15 powell l “science fiction or reality” 2009 (21) 3 international review of psychiatry 273–275 273. the kassandra complex is not a real world mental illness and, as a mental illness, only exists for the purposes of the movie. the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 5 during his time in the psychiatric hospital cole has a conversation with fellow patient, jeffery goines (played by brad pitt) who the audience later finds out is the leader of the army of the twelve monkeys. during this conversation between cole and goines, goines draws attention to images of animal vivisection which are being shown on the hospital’s television and says, “torture! experiments! we're all monkeys.”16 and cole exclaims, “they hurt you!” thinking that goines was being used as a test subject by the hospital’s medical staff.17 goines responds pointing to the vivisection images, “not as bad as what they're doing to the easter bunny.”18 cole looks at the television which shows a scientist performing a draize test19 on a rabbit and, thinking about the coming biological genocide, says, “look at them. they're just askin' for it. maybe the human race deserves to be wiped out.”20 famously, brad pitt’s character responds, “wiping out the human race? it's a great idea. it's great. but more of a long-term thing.”21 the film continues with cole traveling backwards and forwards in time gathering and reporting information to the astrophysicists of the future. on cole’s final trip(s) to the past dr railly becomes convinced that there is truth in his predictions and together they set out to find the army of the twelve monkeys. they discover that it is not the army of the twelve monkeys who is going to be responsible for releasing the virus. instead, it is a renowned virologist (and vivisectionist) dr peters (played by david morse) who intends to release the virus. cole attempts to prevent dr peters from releasing the virus but he is shot and the film ends leaving the question of whether the world will be saved unanswered.22 16 peoples d and peoples j “twelve monkeys: an original screen play” http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 17 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 18 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 19 the draize test requires a substance to be applied to either the skin or the eye of a restrained animal, the substance is then left for a set period before it is washed off. the test is performed to record the effects of exposure to the substance. carbone l what animals want: expertise and advocacy in laboratory animal welfare policy (oxford university press oxford 2004) 24, 63. 20 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 21 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 22 anon “http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/synopsis (date of use: 13 may 2013). cleverly the movie does not suffer from the grandfather paradox i.e. if cole is killed how is still alive in the future to be sent back in time? in the past cole is alive as both the time traveller and as a young child who will survive the biological genocide and grow up to be the time travelling cole. for more on the grandfather paradox see riggs pj “the principal paradox of time travel”1997 (10) 1 ratio 48 64; smith njj “the problems of backwards time travel” 1998 (22) 4 endeavour 156 – 158. rutherford smith 6 2 1 animal and environmental activism within twelve monkeys many themes are presented in the film, but only the themes of animal and environmental activism and the kassandra complex will be explored in this article. it will be considered how these themes interact in the film and how they are relevant for activists today. 2 1 1 animal activism animal activism and, to a lesser extent, environmental activism are constant themes of the film. in regard to animal activism, along with the images of vivisection shown on the hospital television (discussed above) the audience witnesses numerous visuals. towards the end of the film the army of the twelve monkeys kidnaps a nobel prize winning virologist and releases zoo animals in a protest against laboratories (owned by the virologist) which test on animals. moreover, dr peters, who releases the virus, works in these vivisection laboratories and viewers see him working alongside monkeys in cages and hear animal calls in the background noise of the laboratory. further, it is implicitly suggested that participation in and exposure to vivisection may be one of the reasons why dr peters has become disillusioned with the world. viewers also see the inside of the army’s headquarters which is pasted top to bottom with animal rights images and literature. added to these more prominent images viewers are consistently exposed to animal images in the background of the film, for instance cartoon animals such as woody woodpecker appear on television, images of animals are shown on clothing, stuffed toy animals, a scene from the marx brothers’ film, monkey business is shown,23 advertisements using animals are shown, animal rights bumper stickers, animal activist protests, animal statues, stuffed animals, newspaper articles concerning animals and animal rights issues, service animals, animal carvings, bed linen with animal pictures on it, paintings of animals and a scene from alfred hitchcock’s film, the birds is shown.24 and, once the virus is released and the human race is erased from the earth’s surface the viewers see nature reclaiming the urbanised areas of the earth; where there had been a stuffed bear there is a live bear, where there was a statue there is a lion and so on. whether prominent or in the background of the film the audience is consistently exposed to animals and animal activism issues, and viewers are constantly reminded of how animals have been constructed or employed for human use.25 2 1 2 environmental activism environmental activism is a far less prominent theme of the film but nevertheless a constant theme. dr peters voices concern about atomic weaponry, over population, pollution and 23 monkey business (1931) (directed by norman z mcleod ©paramount studios). it is only the title of this film that highlights animals, unlike the other references to alfred hitchcock’s vertigo and the birds (to be discussed below) monkey business does not share thematic elements with twelve monkeys. vertigo (1958) (directed by alfred hitchcock © paramount pictures); the birds (1963) (directed by alfred hitchcock © universal pictures). 24 the birds 196. the birds revolves around a town which is attacked by flocks of birds. in one scene the lead character comments in regard to the bird attacks, ‘[m]aybe they're all protecting the species. maybe they're tired of being shot at and roasted in ovens’. hunter e “the birds” http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/birds,-the.html (date of use: 8 july 2013). 25 alaimo 1997 camera obscura 237. the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 7 general environmental degradation.26 furthermore, numerous times throughout the film cole comments on the natural environment – the light, the air, the water; and to an extent the film is a commentary on urbanization and development.27 once the virus is released the audience is witness to nature claiming back urbanised and built-up areas; for instance, the film shows cole and railly shopping in philadelphia and then in the future the audience sees the same shop falling into ruins, the roof is decayed, the shop floor is exposed to the elements and a flock of pigeons are roosting in the ruins. the film causes its audience to question human treatment of animals and the environment; and whether current human behaviour might lead to the destruction of the world as we know it. ultimately the viewer must contemplate the future of the human race and ponder whether the future for humans will amount to survival or extinction, as a character in the film suggests, ‘[y]ou might say…we’re the next endangered species…human beings!’28 2 2 kassandra’s dilemma or the kassandra complex as previously stated, the kassandra complex (as proposed by dr railly) is a mental illness invented for the purpose of the film. the idea for the kassandra complex can be found in greek mythology. 2 2 1 greek mythology in greek mythology kassandra is the daughter of king priam and queen hekaba of troy.29 kassandra was so beautiful that the god apollo (who among other things is the god of prophecy) granted kassandra the gift of prophecy.30 but when apollo made sexual advances towards kassandra she spurned him.31 to revenge this rejection apollo cursed kassandra by ordaining that her prophecies would never be believed.32 thus kassandra is able to predict the future but she is unable to convince anyone to act on her warnings, she suffers ‘the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it.’33 for instance, kassandra prophesised the fall of troy but nobody believed her and shortly after troy fell to the greek king agamemnon.34 following the fall of troy kassandra is taken as a concubine by the conquering king agamemnon. and she travels with agamemnon to his home in 26 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 27 ruben 1998 rethinking marxism: a journal of economics, culture and society 106 -123 115. 28 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 29 anon "cassandra" encyclopædia britannica. encyclopædia britannica online academic edition http://www.britannica.com/ebchecked/topic/98088/cassandra (date of use 25 june 2013). 30 graf f apollo (routledge, taylor and francis group new york 2009) 52. 31 graf apollo 76; hard r the routledge handbook of greek mythology (routledge, taylor and francis group new york 2004) 154. 32 graf apollo 76. 33 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 34 hard the routledge handbook of greek mythology 154; anon http://www.britannica.com/ebchecked/topic/98088/cassandra (date of use 25 june 2013). rutherford smith 8 mycenae.35 upon reaching mycenae, kassandra warns agamemnon against his adulterous wife and her lover who intend to murder agamemnon and kassandra.36 but her curse endures and agamemnon does not believe her warnings, consequently both he and kassandra are killed by the queen’s paramour. kassandra’s life appears tragic, she is cursed with visions of death, which are terrifying for her, and she beseeches her audience to see what she sees, to believe what she believes, to act on her prophecy.37 she suffers for her visions but, despite her sacrifice, her words fall on deaf ears.38 instead of being respected by her people for her abilities she is derided. this lack of recognition and affirmation erodes her confidence in her visions and she becomes insecure and anxious.39 she feels responsible for what has happened because she knew it would happen but was unable to persuade people to believe her and so could not prevent it; she predicted the sacking of troy but couldn’t prevent it and so she experiences feelings of responsibility and guilt for the destruction of her father’s kingdom.40 ultimately kassandra foresees her own demise and is either too exhausted to try harder to prevent it or has accepted a fate that she is powerless to prevent; she realises that her life has been wasted, that it has been pointless, “thus must end my days [.] what have been, few and evil, yet too many.”41 2 2 2 kassandra’s dilemma in twelve monkeys   in twelve monkeys kassandra’s tragedy is cole’s tragedy. cole knows what the future holds but cannot convince anyone (except, eventually, dr railly) to act on what he is telling them and ultimately he is killed trying to prevent what he knows is going to happen from happening.42 like kassandra cole becomes confused, anxious and insecure from living in two different realities; as cole says, “i want to become…become a whole person again. … i want the future to be unknown.”43 however, cole is not the only character in the film caught up in kassandra’s tragedy; instead the themes of prophecy and the inability to change the future are relevant throughout the film. like the themes of animal and environmental activism, references to the kassandra complex are infused throughout the film. for instance, reference is made to dr ignaz phillip semmelweis, a hungarian doctor who proposed hand washing as a way of combatting 35 hard the routledge handbook of greek mythology 479. 36 ӕschylus 1832 agamemnon 49 50. 37 ӕschylus 1832 agamemnon 58 –59. 38 ӕschylus 1832 agamemnon 55. 39 shamas la “understanding the myth: why cassandra must not be silenced” http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/cafe2/article/163 (date of use: 13 may 2013). 40 hard the routledge handbook of greek mythology 154. 41 ӕschylus 1832agamemnon) 61. 42 throughout the movie cole is traumatised by dreams (or rather memories) of himself dying and by the time the movie reaches its climax cole knows that he will be killed trying to prevent the virus from being released. thus, like kassandra, cole has accepted his fate that he will die and that there is nothing he can do to prevent it. 43 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 9 puerperal fever.44 dr semmelweis’ idea was not recognised by the medical community and he was ridiculed for suggesting that a lack of hand washing caused the transmission of the virus. dr semmelweis died (from septicaemia) in a mental institution, a martyr for his beliefs.45 reference is also made to the children’s nursery rhyme character chicken little who believes the sky is falling and dies because he acts on his prediction.46 viewers are shown images from alfred hitchcock’s film vertigo, a film which revolves around the theme of being unable to prevent a foreseen event.47 further, dr peters, the virologist who releases the virus is involved in his own kassandra complex. towards the middle of the film dr peters says, there is very real and very convincing data that the planet cannot survive the excesses of the human race: proliferation of atomic devices, uncontrolled breeding habits, the rape of the environment, the pollution of land, sea, and air. in this context, isn't it obvious that "chicken little" represents the sane vision and that homo sapiens' motto, "let's go shopping!" is the cry of the true lunatic?48 for dr peters his belief that the human race is doomed becomes so essential to his person that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; he believes the human race is doomed and therefore creates the virus and dooms the human race. 3 lessons from kassandra’s dilemma kassandra’s tragedy is a lived dilemma for animal and environmental activists in both her visions of the future and her half-life. like kassandra seeing the fall of troy in her vision, activists witness, report and attempt to address the harm being done to the animals and the environment.49 indeed, [t]he core of cassandra’s dilemma is the awareness of our global predicament … population growth, resource consumption, biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change…50 44 wyklicky h and skopec m “ignaz philipp semmelweis, the prophet of bacteriology” 1983 (4) 5 infection control 367 – 370; best m and neuhauser d “ignaz semmelweis and the birth of infection control” 2004 (13) quality and safety in health care 233–234; nuland sb the doctors' plague: germs, childbed fever, and the strange story of ignac semmelweis (ww norton 2004); codell carter k childbed fever: a scientific biography of ignaz semmelweis (transaction publishers new jersey 2009). 45 wyklicky and skopec 1983 infection control 367 – 370. 46 halliwell-phillipps jo popular rhymes and nursery tales: a sequel to the nursery rhymes of england (jr smith london 1849) 29 -31. admittedly in this instance chicken little is able to convince others of his belief and it is not just his death that results. 47 vertigo 1958. 48 peoples and peoples http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/12-monkeys.html (date of use: 4 july 2013). 49 bryant tl “trauma, law and advocacy for animals” 2006 (1) 63 journal of animal law and ethics 63 – 138 67, 95 -96; shapiro 1994 society and animals 152, 153 – 155. 50 atkisson 2011 believing cassandra. how to be an optimist in a pessimist’s world 39. atkisson makes note of some activists he considers to be kassandra’s; activists who struggled with or are still struggling with kassandra’s dilemma such as rachel carson author of silent spring or activist, politician and oscar award winning al gore. atkisson 2011 believing cassandra. how to be an optimist in a pessimist’s world 28 -29, 33 – 39. see also carson r silent spring rutherford smith 10 ‘we have become witnesses to the inflammation of this long-smouldering pathology...’51 and just as foreknowledge is draining for kassandra so many activists find that awareness, this foreknowledge, to be emotionally burdensome.52 added to this, just as kassandra experienced derision and distrust, activists also experience dismissive social reactions.53 in the agamemnon kassandra is called a mad woman, a sorceress and treated as a beggar and this form of stereotyping and marginalisation is common for activists.54 activists are seen as, dreadlocked, stinky hippies endlessly fascinated with hemp… too busy chewing on granola and hanging out with the rainbow family in some national forest to really wrap [their] heads around how the world works …skinny and malnourished … judgmental, moralising nut jobs who drive hybrid cars, endlessly lecture people on sustainability and “carbon footprints” buy shoes made out of recycled tyres and refuse to eat anything that casts a shadow.55 activists are stereotyped as being, ‘dour, strict and humourless … judgemental…find little joy in being human.’56 to reiterate animal and environmental activists experience the kassandra complex because they are witnesses to the harm done to animals and the environment (whether directly or indirectly) and they believe that if human behaviour does not change the consequences could be catastrophic. however, like the trojans no-one wants to hear that the world, as they know it, is going to end, no-one wants to hear that they are vulnerable, mortal; human beings tend to ignore that which we find disagreeable or inconvenient.57 yet, the predictions of global 40th anniversary ed (a mariner book houghton mifflin company boston 2002); gore a earth in balance: ecology and the human spirit (houghton mifflin harcourt publishing company 1992). 51 kovel j the enemy of nature (fernwood publishing ltd nova scotia 2002) 15. 52 atkisson 2011 believing cassandra. how to be an optimist in a pessimist’s world 51, 92. 53 shapiro society and animals 161; bryant 2006 journal of animal law and ethics 63 – 138 115. 54 ӕschylus 1832 agamemnon 58 –59. 55 torres b and torres j vegan freak: being vegan in a non-vegan world 2nd ed (pm press oakland 2010) 6. this quote is referring to vegans. kroeze ij “how to eat: vegetarianism, religion and law” 2012 (8) 1 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 1 – 16 10, 11 14. in regard to stereotypes surrounding environmental activists see hutchings k “don’t call me a treehugger!: sticks, stones and stereotypes in ecocriticism” 2005 (7) 1 interdisciplinary literary studies 526. bashir ny “green” doesn’t always make good impressions: evaluations of different types of environmentalists (master of arts thesis university of toronto 2010) 9 – 15. see also cole m and morgan k “vegaphobia: derogatory discourses of veganism and the reproduction of speciesism in the uk national newspapers” 2011 (62) 1 british journal of sociology 134 – 153 138 -139 for a discussion of negative stereotypes of vegans portrayed in the media; jo “stereotypical vegans” http://www.thisveganlife.org/stereotypical-vegans/ (date of use: 25 june 2013); rowley j “vegan equality in law” 2011 (7) critical society 4 – 7 5. 56 welch b “the problem with environmentalists” http://www.motherearthnews.com/natureand-environment/problem-with-environmentalists.aspx#axzz2xehik2sr (date of use: 25 june 2013). 57 atkisson 2011 believing cassandra. how to be an optimist in a pessimist’s world vii, 79. the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 11 warming and other potential environmental and human threats require that human behaviour towards animals and the environment must change. thus activists need to escape kassandra’s dilemma and convince others to consider these threats to be real and to act accordingly; and as activists are not cursed by apollo escaping kassandra’s dilemma must be possible. however, solving kassandra’s dilemma for animal and environmental activists is no easy feat. activists have been trying for decades to convince people, governments and countries to act on their beliefs. mostly this has been unsuccessful.58 there have been some successes, such as the measures taken by the dutch government to reduce industrial pollution or the banning of fur farming in the united kingdom.59 however, if the predictions of activists are right then their message and the information they hold needs to be communicated far more effectively. merely having knowledge of the threats and how these threats can be prevented is not sufficient for animal and environmental activists. activists should also know how to communicate this information effectively. it is here that activists can benefit from a transdisciplinary approach towards animal and environmental issues. after all, an essential aspect of mastering any discipline is knowing how to present your conclusions.60 and if a certain discipline does not offer a method through which this can be done effectively (and on a mass scale) then activists must turn to other disciplines which may offer more effective means or may provide insights into how to better present or communicate information. the disciplines of marketing and communication offer constructive insights for effective activism.61 for instance effective branding knowledge and use of this knowledge could benefit activist organisations.62 this article will consider the communication theory of innovation 58 the failure of the kyoto protocol is just one example. newell p “who ‘coped’ out in kyoto? an assessment of the third conference of the parties to the framework convention on climate change” 1998 (7) 2 environmental politics 153 – 159; prins g and rayner s “time to ditch kyoto” 2007 (449) nature 973 – 975. 59 atkisson 2011 believing cassandra. how to be an optimist in a pessimist’s world 143 – 162; fur farming (prohibition) act 2000. the banning of fur farming is seen as both an animal and environmental activism success. see people for the ethical treatment of animals (peta) “wool, fur, and leather: hazardous to the environment” http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/wool-fur-and-leather-hazardous-tothe-environment.aspx (date of use: 12 august 2013); the humane society of the united states “toxic fur: the impacts of fur production on the environment and the risks to human health” http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/fur/toxic-fur-january-22-2009.pdf (date of use: 12 august 2012). 60 kroeze ij “legal research methodology and the dream of interdisciplinarity” 2013 (16) 3 potchefstroom electronic law journal 46. 61 it is not only the disciplines of marketing and communication that offer insights. animal and environmental activists can benefit from transdisciplinary research in many other disciplines for instance understanding how people convert religions and belief systems could also be beneficial. see sachs norris r “converting to what? embodied culture and the adoption of new beliefs” in buckser a and glazier sd (eds) the anthropology of religious conversion 171 – 182. 62 stride h andand lee s “no logo? no way. branding in the non-profit sector” 2007 (23) 1 -2 journal of marketing management 107 122; voeth m and herbst u “the concept of brand personality as an instrument for advanced non-profit branding – an empirical analysis” 2008 (19) 1 journal of nonprofit and public sector marketing 71 – 97. rutherford smith 12 diffusion how studying the manner in which an innovation gets adopted into a population group; what makes adoption more attractive, what assists quicker adoption and what ensures the adoption is sustained – and how this concept can assist animal and environmental activists in promoting their beliefs.63 innovation diffusion specifically studies how an innovation gets adopted into a culture and considers the qualities of an innovation that ensure successful diffusion.64 thus, in trying to convince people to act on their beliefs innovation diffusion offers animal activists and environmental activists lessons for how to better promote the diffusion of their beliefs. 3 1 innovation diffusion innovation diffusion looks at the methods by which an innovation is communicated to members of a social group over a period of time.65 diffusion refers to, ‘the social process of people talking about the new idea, giving it meaning for themselves, and then adopting’.66 thus innovation diffusion attempts to clarify why, how and at what rate new concepts or technologies spread through social groups. various studies of innovations and how and why certain innovations have been successful have been performed and resulting from those studies four main elements of innovation diffusion have been identified; namely the innovation, the communication channels used, the time the process takes and the social system or group to which the innovation is being promoted.67 3 1 1 the innovation regarding the innovation itself, certain characteristics determine whether or not the innovation will be adopted and how quickly it may be adopted. the first characteristic concerns the relative advantage of the innovation. an innovation which is advantageous because it is of economic benefit, and / or is socially prestigious, and / or is convenient is more likely to be adopted and at a considerably faster rate than a less advantageous innovation.68 despite this, the innovation need not be massively advantageous; there are no set rules for what amounts to a relative advantage, merely the fact that the audience needs to view it as advantageous to them.69 the second characteristic concerns compatibility. if an 63 the idea for applying innovation diffusion to activism is not the authors idea, the idea is borrowed (but expanded upon) from the work of alain atkisson. see atkisson 2011 believing cassandra. how to be an optimist in a pessimist’s world 163 – 184. 64 robinson l “a summary of diffusion innovations” http://www.enablingchange.com.au /summary_diffusion_theory.pdf (date of use: 12 august 2013). 65 rogers em diffusion of innovations 4th ed (the free press new york 1995) 5; rogers em “the diffusion of innovations perspective” in weinstein nd (ed.) taking care (cambridge university press cambridge 1987) 70 – 94 79. rogers work is the original and definitive work on the diffusion of innovations; consequently it has been relied on substantially. rice re “diffusion of innovations: theoretical extensions” in nabi rl and oliver mb (eds) the sage handbook of media processes and effects (sage los angeles 2009) 489 – 503 489. 66 rogers em “diffusion of preventive innovations” 2002 (27) 6 addictive behaviours 989 – 993 992. 67 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 10; rogers 1987 taking care 80; rice 2009 the sage handbook of media processes and effects 496. 68 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 15. 69 rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 990. the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 13 innovation is consistent with the existing values, experience and needs of a consumer then it is likely to be adopted and adopted quickly.70 third, the complexity of the innovation will affect the speed at which it is adopted; if the innovation is easy to use and / or understand then it is likely that the innovation will be adopted quickly.71 forth, an innovation that can be experimented with before adoption is more likely to result in adoption over innovations that are not testable.72 when an innovation can be sampled or tested it presents less uncertainty to the consumer and thus is more likely to be adopted after the trial period; to illustrate this characteristic, a consumer is more likely to purchase a vehicle if they are able to test drive it.73 fifth, an innovation that has observable results is more likely to be adopted and adopted quicker than an innovation with uncertain results or with results that take time to evolve.74 normally innovation diffusion is applied to new ideas, practices, technologies, services or products, however, the theory can also be applied to innovations that are preventive.75 preventive innovations are innovations which are adopted in order to prevent some future event from happening.76 because preventive innovations are intended to prevent a future event from happening the results are not immediate (they happen in the future), sometimes the results are intangible and sometimes the innovation is unnecessary (the future event does not happen).77 for example, vaccines are given in order to make a person immune to a virus that they may or may not catch in the future. further, even if a person is vaccinated against a virus they may never know that the vaccine prevented them from becoming infected; the results of this type of preventive innovation are not personally observable.78 thus, unlike nonpreventive innovations the characteristic of observable results is difficult to distinguish with preventive innovations. in general, preventive innovations are slower to be embraced than non-preventive innovations because usually they do not share the characteristics discussed above that promote fast adoption.79 realising that preventive innovations often do not share these characteristics is important for animal and environmental activists because (without going into depth into the desires of animal and environmental activists) it is probable that the majority of their ideas and practices (and potential products / technologies) fall into the preventive innovation category. for example, taking steps to prevent global warming requires people to adopt preventive ideas and practices (and products) such as going vegan or organic farming or even cycling to work. and as innovation diffusion suggests the benefit of preventive innovations is 70 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 15 – 16. 71 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 16. 72 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 16. 73 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 16. 74 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 16. 75 rogers 1987 taking care 79-80; rice 2009 the sage handbook of media processes and effects 489. 76 rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 991. 77 rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 991. 78 although the effect of vaccinations can be monitored through infection rates / morbidity studies etcetera. for instance see chang y et al "evaluating the impact of human papillomavirus vaccines" 2009 (27) 32 vaccine 4355 – 4362. 79 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 217. rutherford smith 14 not immediate and is difficult to assess.80 a person cannot see the reduction in carbon emissions that results from adopting a vegan diet or cycling to work instead of driving to work; overall we may only see the benefit of taking steps to prevent global warming in many decades time. animal and environmental activists need to take cognisance of the characteristics of successful innovations in regard to their ‘preventive’ ideas, practices – their innovations. activists need to consider whether they are highlighting the advantages of their innovations, whether their innovation is compatible with the market, how easily understandable the innovation is, whether it is testable and whether the market can see the results. and if the innovation does not meet these characteristics activists need to consider how this can be remedied. considering the vegan lifestyle as an example of an animal activist or environmental activist innovation it is easy to see that the lifestyle does not share many of the characteristics of successful innovations.81 the vegan lifestyle is not obviously advantageous to the consumer and rarely is it compatible with a consumer’s values and experiences.82 further following a vegan lifestyle is complex; a consumer should understand the philosophical / ethical / moral / practical / environmental reasons for it and the consumer has to understand nutritional requirements for a healthy vegan diet.83 moreover, whilst it is easy to try out or experiment with a vegan lifestyle it is incredibly difficult to see the results of the lifestyle whether the results are beneficial to animals, the environment or even to the individual’s health.84 thus expecting a vegan lifestyle to be adopted en masse and to be adopted quickly is unreasonable. knowing this, people who promote a vegan diet should be aware of these issues and adjust their promotion to account for such. for instance, instead of promoting veganism on moral or ethical grounds an activist may wish to focus on the health advantages of veganism (ensuring that there is adequate information on how to ensure a healthy vegan diet). thus instead of suggesting that animals are sentient creatures with rights which may not meld with a potential adopter’s values and beliefs, an animal activist may wish to highlight how the 80 rogers 1987 taking care 80. 81 for the environmental damage caused by eating meat see steinfeld et al livestock’s long shadow 46; 79 – 114, 125 – 169; 181 215. 82 for compatibility issues see kroeze 2012 td 1 – 16; berry w “the pleasures of eating” in curtin dw and heldke lm (eds) cooking, eating, thinking: transformative philosophies of food (indiana university press 1992) 374-379. it should be noted that there is a significant difference between a vegan lifestyle and a vegan diet. “a vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals, for the benefit of animals, people and the planet. vegans eat a plant-based diet, with nothing coming from animalsno meat, eggs, milk or honey, for example. a vegan lifestyle also avoids leather, wool, silk and other animal products for clothing or any other purpose.” the vegan society “why vegan?” http://www.vegansociety.com/become-a-vegan/why.aspx (date of use: 14 august 2013). 83 see walsh s plant-based nutrition and health (vegan society limited 2007) for a source on how to eat a healthy, balanced vegan diet. 84 craig wj “health effects of vegan diets” 2009 (89) 5 american journal of clinical nutrition 1627s – 1633s; key tj, davey gk and appelby pn “health benefits of a vegetarian diet” 1999 (58) 2 proceedings of the nutrition society 271 – 275; sabaté j “the contribution of vegetarian diets to health and disease: a paradigm shift” 2003 (78) 3 american journal of clinical nutrition 502s – 507s. the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 15 vegan diet contributes to good heath which may be conducive to the potential adopter’s health concerns. or, instead of merely focussing on the vegan diet, animal activists could promote other aspects of the vegan lifestyle such as wearing leather substitutes, or using household products and beauty products that do not contain animal ingredients and which were not tested on animals. sometimes changing the context of a preventative innovation can encourage its adoption.85 3 1 2 communication innovation diffusion requires effective communication, and this is incredibly important for animal and environmental activists. in order to escape kassandra’s dilemma activists need to communicate with their audience effectively. communication of an innovation happens through two mediums; the mass media and interpersonal communications and social networks.86 mass media plays an important role in conveying information and creating awareness about an innovation. however studies of preventive innovations have shown that mass media does not convince people to adopt a preventive innovation; it merely conveys knowledge and creates awareness.87 an innovation is more likely to be adopted if the innovation is communicated to the potential adoptee through a peer or near-peer connection and if the communicator has successfully adopted the innovation themselves.88 thus preventive innovations are better communicated through interpersonal communication and social networks; especially when the communicator and the audience are homophilous.89 individuals are more likely to communicate better and more frequently if they share similar attributes such as beliefs and education.90 further a communicators standing within a social network will greatly influence the speed and extent of adoption of the innovation.91 having said that a person will not adopt a preventive innovation merely because someone with power has told them to do so, the person conveying the information must be credible.92 thus a person is more likely to adopt a vegan lifestyle when they hear about it from a high standing member of their community / organisation such as a church official or teacher provided that person also follows a vegan lifestyle. thus animal and environmental activists need to be careful about who they choose to represent their cause and to which audience. ‘the fate of innovation, its content but also its chances of success, rest entirely on the choice of the representatives or spokespersons who will 85 rogers 1987 taking care 93. 86 rice 2009 the sage handbook of media processes and effects 492. 87 rogers 1987 taking care 93; rice 2009 the sage handbook of media processes and effects 492. 88 rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 993, 990; robinson http://www.enablingchange.com.au/summary_diffusion_theory.pdf (date of use: 12 august 2013). 89 individuals are homophilous when they share attributes such as beliefs, education or social status. lazerfeld pf and merton rk “friendship as social process: a substantive and methodological analysis” in berger m, abel t and page ch (eds) freedom and control in modern society (octagon new york 1964) 18 -66; rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 18 – 19. 90 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 286. 91 rice 2009 the sage handbook of media processes and effects 493. 92 rogers 1987 taking care 93. rutherford smith 16 interact, negotiate to give shape to the project and to transform it until a market is built’.93 the spokesperson must be credible to the audience otherwise the innovation / organisation is deemed unreliable.94 activists even need to consider factors such as the ethnicity of the spokesperson in relation to the audience and even the accent of the speaker.95 further, activist organisations need to ensure that the people representing their organisation (and consequently their beliefs) are adequately trained and adequately prepared to meet nonconverts.96 3 1 3 time time is also an important element of the innovation diffusion process. time applies to the innovation decision process (this is the period it takes from an individual becoming aware of the innovation to deciding whether to adopt or reject the innovation), as to whether an individual adopts the innovation quickly or slowly (as compared to others) and to the rate of adoption (how many people in a social group adopt the innovation within a specific time period).97 the time factor is highly dependent on each situation and will be affected by who is doing the communication, of what and to whom (individual or group).98 an individual will typically go through a five stage process in deciding whether or not to adopt the innovation; namely knowledge of the innovation (becoming aware of the innovation, first exposure to the innovation), persuasion (gaining knowledge / opinion), deciding whether or not to adopt (the individual will weigh up the advantages and the disadvantages), implementing the innovation (trial stage; individual tests out the innovation, gains more knowledge regarding innovation) and confirming their decision (individual will either stick with their decision to implement it or reject the innovation).99 having said this it is essential for animal and environmental activists to remember that preventive innovations are generally adopted slowly and that the results are not readily or easily observable. thus activists should not become despondent or think they have failed when they do not see immediate results. 3 1 4 the social system or group ‘diffusion occurs within a social system.’100 various factors effect diffusion within a specific social system. first the structure of the social system can greatly influence whether or not an 93 akrich m, callon m and latour b “the key to success in innovation part ii: the art of choosing good spokespersons” 2002 (6) 2 international journal of innovation management 207 – 225 217. 94 arpan lm “when in rome? the effects of spokesperson ethnicity on audience evaluation of crisis communication” 2002 (39) journal of business communication 314 – 339 315. 95 arpan 2002 journal of business communication 316-318, 319. 96 kaner efs et al “a rct of three training and support strategies to encourage implementation of screening and brief alcohol intervention by general practitioners” 1999 (49) british journal of general practice 699 – 703 701. 97 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 20. 98 rice 2009 the sage handbook of media processes and effects 498. 99 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 162. 100 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 24. the kassandra dilemma and innovation diffusion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 118. 17 innovation is adopted and how quickly it is adopted.101 some social structures work as a collective unit and others do not thus an innovation may be adopted by an individual member within a social system or by the entire system (through a collective decision or by an authoritarian decision).102 further the social system is affected by, ‘economics, network cooperation, power relations, governmental policies, competition / cooperation, and standardization…’103 diffusion is particularly affected by the communication within a specific social system or group and the behaviour patterns within the group.104 as previously stated innovation diffusion is more likely to occur when parties are homophilous however homophily requirements limit the social network in which an innovation can diffuse.105 thus the structure of a social system can aid diffusion because people within the system or within a clique of the system are likely homophilous.106 however, as is apparent from the words, homophilous communication only allows for communication among people who share similar beliefs and values. thus homophilous communication promotes horizontal diffusion; it does not support vertical diffusion to audiences that do not share similar values and beliefs. thus in order to promote greater diffusion (to reach social networks that do not share the same values and beliefs as the innovator) some herterophilous communication is required and in this regard the structure of the social system may be limiting.107 often, the promotional campaigns used by the people for the ethical treatment of animals do not consider the heterophilousness of their audience, and result in antagonising and alienating certain population segments.108 thus considering the social structure of the network and the degree of homophilousness or heterophilousness within the organisation should be considered. generally heterophilous networks are more inclined towards communicators who are of a higher socioeconomic status; who are more formally educated than the network; who have mass media exposure; who are worldlier; who are well connected and who are adopters of the innovation.109 3 2 recommendations as previously stated, the majority of animal and environmental activist innovations are preventive; they exist in order to prevent a future event from happening. and, as also previously stated, preventive innovations are more difficult to promote and if they are adopted 101 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 24. 102 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 28. 103 rice 2009 the sage handbook of media processes and effects 493. 104 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 25 – 26. see kroeze 2012 td 1 – 16 in regard to reasons why a specific group may choose not to follow a vegan lifestyle. 105 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 288. 106 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 24 – 25. 107 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 24 – 25; 288. 108 for an argument suggesting the peta campaigns exclude overweight people and people of colour see kociẹda a “the peta complex: on post-feminist activism, gender, and veganism” http://feministcurrent.com/7375/the-peta-complex-on-post-feminist-activismgender-and-veganism/ (date of use: 2 august 2013). 109 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 289. rutherford smith 18 they are adopted at a slower rate than non-preventive innovations. however, some strategies are suggested for promoting the adoption and to speed up the adoption of preventive innovations. to begin with, it is important for the relative advantages of the preventive innovation to be stressed and if necessary the attributes should be changed or relabelled.110 by doing this you can change an individual’s perception of the innovation that is promoting veganism for health reasons or promoting it because it is inevitable. next, preventive innovations should be championed by carefully selected spokespeople.111 further, people who have standing within a social system or organization should be targeted as they have access to social networks and can act as change agents within those networks.112 and finally use peer networks to diffuse the innovation because once a critical mass (a certain number of people) adopts an innovation it becomes self-sustaining, in other words individuals adopt the innovation without the need of promoting it.113 4 conclusions assuming that the predictions of animal and environmental activists are correct, for instance if global warming and climate change are real threats to human existence or if the transmission of a virus from animals to humans could result in a biological genocide then everyone needs to act on those predictions and take preventive steps, such as going vegan, to prevent them from happening. consequently, it is essential that animal and environmental ‘kassandras’ escape her dilemma and convince people to believe and act on their prophecies. whether or not using lessons learnt from innovation diffusion will result in activists breaking free of kassandra’s dilemma is open to discussion. however, what is essential is that the key to escaping kassandra’s curse will not be found in repeating tried and tested methods. instead animal activists and environmental activists need to explore disciplines beyond their traditional knowledge areas. the answer for activists may lie in transdisciplinary research and in applying the lessons learnt from such research. thus activists need to expand their boundaries, expand their expertise to better advocate for their beliefs. 110 rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 993, 992. some scientists suggest that the majority of the world’s population will adopt a vegetarian diet by 2050. see vidal j “food shortages could force world into vegetarianism, warn scientists” http://www.theguardian.com/globaldevelopment/2012/aug/26/food-shortages-world-vegetarianism (date of use: 13 august 2013). 111 rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 992. 112 rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 326. for more recommendations see rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 992. 113 rogers 2002 addictive behaviours 992; rogers 1995 diffusion of innovations 313. abstract introduction: digital media and agency background narrative inquiry research methods, participant and data (narrative accounts) analysis and findings concerning the relationship with digital media: gesture, gaze and audition, and instrumentalisation analysis and findings concerning agency discussion and conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) william kelleher unit for academic literacy, faculty of humanities, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation kelleher, w., 2020, digital media, the body and agency in a south african education institution from the perspective of narrative research, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a859. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.859 project research number: uid 112028 original research digital media, the body and agency in a south african education institution from the perspective of narrative research william kelleher received: 31 mar. 2020; accepted: 09 june 2020; published: 26 aug. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract in developing countries, digital media have created uneven nexuses of literacy, power and societal adjustment. whilst literacy and power have been the subject of much research in south africa, often supporting a conception of digital media as a resource (the access to and advantages of specific devices or applications), this study also sought to reflect on personal and societal change as bodily and ontological experience. the aim was to contribute to redefining what the digital media represents in education, and to do so through an exploration of the journey of a tertiary education student who used digital media to negotiate his academic and interpersonal environment. this constituted a local, ethnographic investigation into digital media through the narrative analysis of a series of accounts told by the participant over 2 years. the accounts were firstly examined in terms of the three axes of gesture, gaze and audition, and instrumentalisation. these three axes had resulting implications for conceptions of digital media as resource or as bodily and ontological experience. the agentive implications of the accounts were then discussed in terms of the same three axes in order to question orality and community, gestural experimentation, embedding and the co-constitution of the human and the technical. the findings were that digital media engage the body and that aspects of one’s being in the world, such as culture, community and disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd), can fundamentally inform and transform what digital media mean and how we interact with them. keywords: digital media; embodiment; narrative research; agency; africanism; orality; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd). introduction: digital media and agency this study explores the use of digital media from the perspective of gesture and agency. it does so through narrative research that takes as its subject narrative accounts told over 2 years by a participant at a tertiary education institution. the focus of the article is on how digital media engage the body and how aspects of one’s being, such as culture, community and disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd), can fundamentally inform and transform what digital media mean and how one interacts with them. this is to say that the embodied and the gestural (noland 2009) prompt a reframing of questions of agency. whilst typically agency, or ‘the socio-culturally mediated capacity to act’ (ahearn 2001:112), is couched in terms of structure and identity, new media are in the process of changing our bodily dispositions. in doing so, they are also changing the conditions of possibility of our being in the world and in the institution. in order to better understand what digital media represent to students, and to better inform their adoption, the assertion of this article is that these conditions can best be understood locally, transformationally and interdisciplinarily, by using narrative research to bring the focus in tightly on the particular and the individual. this is therefore an academic literacy investigation in the sense of coffin and donohue (2012). the sections that follow briefly recap the field of research into digital media and distinguish between digital media as resource and digital media as bodily and ontological experience. thereafter, some of the basic tenets of narrative research and its benefits for an interdisciplinary inquiry are outlined. following this, the research project and the participant narrative accounts are introduced. the accounts are then analysed in terms of three axes: gesture, gaze and audition, and instrumentalisation. these axes shed light on the place digital media have in the participant’s negotiation of his personal and academic environment and are discussed in relation to digital media as resource or as bodily and ontological experience. following this, the analysis moves to the agentive implications of these accounts and examines orality and community, gestural experimentation, embedding and the co-constitution of the human and the technical. background in south africa, in africa and in the broader, global academic community, there is a strong questioning of the institution and an expressed desire to work towards pedagogies that are more inclusive, more responsive to local conditions of knowledge production and that take into account difference and diversity. sefa dei (2007) frames this as a fundamental task and as a responsibility of all educators. mamdani (2018) recognises the role that the institution has to play in efforts to move away from a strictly western or eurocentric paradigm. he examines the transformational work that needs to be accomplished in three ways: in defining an african mode of reasoning and in promoting african languages, in reducing the cost of education, and in promoting a local theorisation within and across disciplines. whereas previous southern african studies have often looked at the second axis, which is to say the intersection of literacy and inequality (brown & czerniewicz 2010; kajee & balfour 2011; lemphane & prinsloo 2014; prinsloo & walton 2008), this article contributes to mamdani’s first and last axes through ontological rather than literacy inquiry. such an inquiry concerns agency, because agency, framed broadly, is the question of what students do with digital media, what it means for them and their being in the world. the question of agency is dependent on how one conceives of digital media. we can frame the discussion at this point in terms of two divergent conceptions: (1) digital media as resource and (2) digital media as bodily and ontological experience. digital media as resource if one conceives of digital media as a resource – an acquisition, an offer or a service to which one can subscribe – then agency becomes framed in terms of demand, access and affordance. it is on this basis that centres such as educause (grajek 2016) analyse institutional response in order to better typify the field, noting, for instance, the importance of the cloud, architecture and mobile devices. university studies reproduce this approach wherever use, item accesses and type of module presence on online institutional learning platforms is part of the process of judging system value (jordaan & kilfoil 2017; ed. kilfoil 2017; scheepers et al. 2018). it is an approach that is also at the heart of the south african department of education policy statement (doe white paper 2004), which sets out achievables in terms of device availability and use. studies that refer to practice are also studies of resource. this is because either, as in dezuanni (2015) and brown, czerniewicz and noakes (2016), the emphasis is on what can be produced with the media, or because, as in burn and parker (2001), digital inscription and tool use is related to new semiotic modes. digital media as resource is intimately concerned with the question of operationalisation in pedagogic activities. often, the discussion over pedagogic use concerns a perceived need for innovation, an innovation that is understood as adaptation to an immanent future (see hill 2007; hillman 2014). this is a line of analysis consistently emphasised by many thought leaders in digital media, like prensky (2001) or oblinger and tapscott (see bennett, maton & kervin 2008; koutropoulous 2011). fundamentally, it is an argument about resistance (see haynes 2017) and change, with many contributions on how to navigate competing demands. bates (2016), for instance, outlines the kinds of materials (webinars, class notes, learning management systems) that one can prepare for teaching. selwyn, the editor of learning, media and technology, typifies this as ‘endless variations on describing the potential of “gadget x + classroom y”’ (selwyn 2014:2). this conception gives sense to monikers such as ‘new’ media, web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and so on and is in keeping with the generational manufacture of the big information technology (it) firms such as apple and microsoft. it must be noted, however, that any adoption or transformation linked to digital media will be differential and will set up new axes of power, access and exclusion (kajee & balfour 2011). the notion of agency that these visions of digital media prompt is, in some senses, a zero-sum affair. more applications equal more agency. this is because, essentially, what is at issue is a textand language-based conception of digital media with links to multimodality (kress 2010). digital media and technology are conceived of as promoting a literate society. the agency that is discussed and promoted is a discursive (ahearn 2001; fairclough 2013 [1995]) and structural (bourdieu 1989) one that seeks to empower students within a hierarchically organised society by giving them critical and productive capacities (see, for instance, gillespie 2010). participation in civil society, employment and education are held to be dependent on this vision of agency. digital media as bodily and ontological experience digital media enter into specific relationships with the bodies that hold, touch, manipulate or read them. gesture is a key aspect of any digital mediation. scrolling, swiping, selecting, expanding and changing between applications and tools within applications are all accomplished through bodily gesture. noland (2009) explores agency in terms of embodiment and notes how the concept becomes concerned with imitation, repetition and the manner in which the body exceeds its unity and containment in gesture and interaction. the prosthetic is at once an extension of the body and also of the body’s senses and orientation to the world. in a parallel fashion, memory and personality are rendered through the instigation and repetition of gesture. studies that refer to this aspect of digital media often repose on phenomenology (merleau-ponty 2012 [1945]) to unpick the links between the body, perception and cognition. hansen (2006) looks at the introjection of technology into human life and how one can see through the hand, or how digital media change our body image. like hansen, peterson (2008) and sinclair and de freitas (2014) examine how the sense of immersion that one feels with digital media is generated by one’s own body’s movements, and by one’s own proprioception. the interrelationship between the motor and the digital has been exploited in responsive media (xin wei 2002), where what is raised is the iterative progression of media that respond to gesture. similarly, the issue of transmediatic space and perceptual dispersion is particularly germane to portable devices, with their always-on, or ‘tethered’ nature (richardson 2007; turkle 2008). the ways in which digital media serve as an embodiment of practices that rely on memory, and both invest and alter that memory, are examined with respect to inscriptive techniques such as writing (gibbs & angel 2013). studies like these contribute to a wider conception of what we mean when we talk about ‘digital humanities’ (finnemann 2014). such studies also raise questions of gender and race, not only because these categories can be effaced or transformed through digital mediation but also because their agentive performance changes. hansen refers to this as ‘digital performativity’ (2006:142). digital performativity raises the question of embodied disciplinary practices and one’s agency within the ties of the institution (foucault 1977). this can refer, for instance, to different ways of disposing the body (dixon 2004). noland (2009:102) notes the role of mimicry, rather than innovation, in both acculturation and exercise of choice. with respect to the fictional worlds of game play, wardrip-fruin et al. (2009) note that even the experience of agency itself can be shaped through interaction with an underlying computational model. what is central to bodily and gestural agency is a move away from a vision of society as structured and hierarchic and towards studies of specific, embodied links between people, artefacts and media. embodied links generate networks, and these networks involve translations between functions and roles (latour 2007). embodied agency involves a questioning of western values such as the textand ocular-centrism referred to above. it can give rise to a re-emphasis on the rhythms of oral communication in addition to casting agency in terms of community, shared cultural memory and practice. narrative inquiry narrative inquiry has been chosen as the means of pursuing this research because of its dual nature. narratives are not only texts that can be analysed but also instantiations of a mode, an epistemology. narrative is a means of apprehending the world and engaging in meaning making (de fina & georgakopoulou 2008). the longer and more sustained turns at talk that narrative activity supposes allow both participant and researcher to co-construct a story through their mutual involvement (tannen 2007). a story supposes a certain degree of management, both through omission (prince 1988) and through selection (mishler 2004). as a story progresses, a teller can indicate the meaning that it has through evaluation of the events told and couch this evaluation within the story world, in the mouths of the characters, as it were, or in direct statements to the listener (labov & waltezky 1997 [1967]:34). the story world itself, its spatial and temporal coordinates, and the superposition of these coordinates on the situation of interaction are also meaningful (de fina 2003). through narrative, a participant aligns or disaligns with their interlocutors and with dominant social processes and discourses. stories, finally, serve important biographical purposes (westlund 2011). from story world to discourse, narrative inquiry can concern: (1) the events of the story worlds and the embedding or nesting of one story world within another, (2) the characterisations and descriptions pertinent to story worlds, (3) the modes used to represent these events and descriptions, which can be oral, written or multimodal, (4) the type of interaction or mediation and its affordances, constraints, roles and positionings and (5) the mesoand macro-social processes and discourses that inform telling. there are thus several possible levels of analysis in narrative inquiry, which in turn emphasise the embedded spaces and events of the story worlds, the characterisation and speech (either reported or direct) of figures involved in those events, and the assessments of the tellers and listeners. the aim of this research is to employ narrative as a means of engaging with participant data. this is a transformative aim that uncovers local and particular aspects of what these media mean in south africa’s tertiary educational institutions. narrative inquiry will first be harnessed to understand participant relationships to digital media, as resource, or as bodily and ontological experience, and then to understand agentive orientations. research methods, participant and data (narrative accounts) the data presented here are a series of transcribed narrative accounts collected with a participant, who chose to be named goitse. in some of the accounts, he is joined by two female students, who chose the pseudonyms sunflower and smiley. the accounts issue from a broader national research foundation-financed project into the digital humanities. the project involves a small cohort of participants who themselves wish to research how digital media form part of their experience of tertiary education. concerns of power, reliability and bias are addressed by a longitudinal ethnographic approach. goitse participated for the full 2 years of the project. his interview data issues from both institutional and extra-institutional settings. through a closer mutual trust and respect, the methodology aims to afford a participant confidence to share counternarratives (eds. bamberg & andrews 2004), which is to say narratives that challenge orthodoxies or institutional discourse. goitse’s accounts are necessarily partial (bucholtz & hall 2005), but they may be appreciated as being, nevertheless, illustratory of themes and experiences that are often not touched upon in research into digital media. this goes to the heart of what narrative, as epistemology, involves. the interview recordings were annotated and edited using audacity (https://www.audacityteam.org). the narrative accounts have been isolated, selected and cut from the longer interview data. transcripts of the accounts have been uploaded into a data set (kelleher 2020). this allows the reader to appreciate the conversational setting and to apprehend the timeline of the accounts. all extracts in this article therefore indicate the data set transcript number in addition to the number of the extract. selection is by genre. as a genre, accounts (de fina 2009) are stories that participants provide in response to requests for information or because there is a need to rectify, clarify, furnish details or accord to the background expectations that characterise an exchange. a focus on accounts prompts a qualitative interview format that leaves participant response open and that lies between doxastic and epistemic approaches (berner-rodoreda et al. 2020). goitse, the participant whose accounts will be discussed, has graduated over the 2 years of the project from being a third-year business student to honours. goitse can study thanks to the student grants he has managed to obtain from private sources and from the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas). goitse is a male l1 sesotho speaker. he has studied and interacted in english since primary school. goitse has adhd, and his learning routine is adapted to his disorder. from monday to thursday, he attends lectures and then spends up to 8 h each day in the study section of the library, where there are freely available computers and a constant wi-fi connection. for goitse, the ability to succeed academically conditions his possibilities for entering a professional firm in the city. south africa has a high-competition economy. official unemployment figures for the country are 40%, rising to 70% in those aged 15–34 years (statistics south africa [statssa] 2016:27). analysis and findings concerning the relationship with digital media: gesture, gaze and audition, and instrumentalisation goitse’s accounts cover typing, voice-to-text software, viewing of platforms like youtube, mediated interaction through social media like whatsapp, use of concerta medication and africanism. these accounts can be discussed under three axes: gesture, gaze and audition, and instrumentalisation. in this section, goitse’s accounts will be explored in terms of the relationships to digital media that they suppose. digital media and gesture goitse’s accounts, when arranged in thematic order, rather than the chronological order of the data set, allow one to understand a progression in writing and studying from handwritten notes in first year, to typing in second year, to use of voice-to-text software in third year. some extracts from stories accounting for these three phases are given below. all the extracts have been transcribed with a simple notation where ‘:’ and ‘-’ indicate vowel extension or truncation, ‘(.) (..) (…)’ indicate the relative length of pauses, ‘h’ indicates aspirational sounds such as breathiness, ‘@’ indicates laughter, ‘bold’, ‘><’, ‘<>’ and ‘↑↓’ indicate increased or decreased loudness, speed and intonative shifts, and ‘=’ and ‘[’ indicate latching and overlap (see eds. de fina & georgakopoulou 2015:7). extract 1: data set transcript 6: account of progression from handwritten notes to typed notes 1. goitse: like ouhm (..) let’s say fofor instance the (example) of the >the the the the< like the typing of the notes ·hh so::: (.) i want to so like i would always wonder why certain friends of mine always have time on their hands ·hh 2. researcher: [mmhhmm 3. goitse: like they’re allike they’re they’re wawalking their dogs they’re doing this they’re doing they’re doing that and i’m like where do you get the time we’re doing the same degree but you’re doing this and i’m here 4. researcher: yeah 5. goitse: uhm always in the library trying my best to finish my work what is it 6. researcher: yeah 7. goitse: a:::nd you know sometimes you’d ask them uhm can you please send me your notes and they would always be on like ·hh uhm they’d always be on like uhm they’d always like send their notes through and they’d always be on digital like they have digital notes so i was like let me just try it so like like for instance that night uhm the night i was uhm under pressure with alli was writing business law so business law uhm the slides were very descriptive but you had to add more stuff and i did that i and i studied more and i was very shocked at the mark that i got i think i got like 63 aftthat was the first time i got @@ 63 for business law ·hh entrance exam i mean uhm entrance mark i think i got like 42 ·hh i always i never used to do good in it never and that was because i could not finish the work it was just a lot of work for me 8. researcher: oh right okay cool 9. goitse: so:: (..) and also time management as well like you know i’d wanna like like i’d wanna maybe like watch sewatch series and stuff and not give that much time towards the school work so that time i was just like let me try it out hh once i’ve tried it out revised and i passed and i was very i was very impressed with the fact that let me do that uhm i can do that ·hh so then from there uhm i’d work i’d uhm start typing you know the more you work on something the more efficient you become because you start adapting to where everything is and that’s how everything goes so uhm basically it’s if there’s a problem i try to find uhm well i try to mimic someone that that’s like that dothat’s better than you that doesn’t have the same problem and then from there u:hm i just start and then like i just find myself like i just find myself becoming more efficient in that process especially with the typing yeah extract 2a: data set transcript 4: account of progression from typed notes to voice-to-text 1. goitse: yeah on my laptop (…) so:: now uhm::: (..) there were days where i’d become ththen second semester of last year there were days where i’d like (…)·hhh uhm have to go to jo’burg there’s somlike i need and there’s a party to go to:: (…)·hhh so:: i’m under pressure and i started figuring out that if i tyif i if i if i (..) uhm use the (…) uhm voice to text (…)·hhh like i would take instead of taki:ng six hours of typing a chapter 2. researcher: yeah 3. goitse: uh::m i’d literally compress it down to two hours 4. researcher: °that’s a lot of time saved° 5. goitse: so::: two hours:: and then i would like thathose are my notes and that’s there and then a::nd all i have to do after typing my notes is once i’ve got my notes on my: (.) laptop (..)·hhh i make sure first that i (.) put them on the cloud so: uhm (..) you know that microsoft one drive 6. researcher: uh ha 7. goitse: so i use the […] one (..) the microsoft one drive (.) a:nd (..) all my notes are there so:: wherever i go i remember (…)·hhh like that day i was typing no:tes i put them on the drive and on the way to the gautrain i started like (.) you know editing my notes on the gautrain with my ipad 8. researcher: ah […] (..) awesome 9. goitse: so:: @@ so:: uhm (..) so:: like (..) i found that like very effective i found that very very very efficient and (…) i mean (.) it didn’t compromise my marks (…) like because i i’ve (..) then i figured (.) that (..) uhm (…) it’s not the whole typing that makes me pass (…)·hhh it’s actually revising my notes (..) like (…) thoroughly and continuously (…)·hhh that actually makes me like (.) lilikethat that helps me perform at my (.) at my best a narrative analysis of extracts 1 and 2a can examine events characterisation and interactional achievement. if one takes the progression of events to be the overt content of a story, its text – what, following the russian structural tradition, is often referred to as the ‘fabula’ (see genette 1966) – then one can say that both account extracts have a similar and fairly conventional structure (see norrick 2000:37–43). in extract 1, goitse notices a disparity in work commitment (the orientation or frame), imitates how other students take their notes (main action) and this leads to time savings and good marks on an important test (resolution). in extract 2a, goitse is under pressure to complete his notes (orientation), and this leads him to adopt voice-to-text as a new note-taking strategy (action) that also leads to time savings and enhanced performance (resolution). both these stories align with a conception of digital media as resource. better use of digital media results in time saving and an evolution in study strategies. subjacent to questions of resource are questions of social inequality and differential access (kajee & balfour 2011). these can be seen in goitse’s narrative accounts when one introduces other levels of narrative analysis such as characterisation. in extract 1, characterisation is in terms of self and other. goitse sees peers who have a very different experience of tertiary studies to his. whilst goitse himself must spend up to 8 h in the library per day, studying and preparing notes, other students are outside, in the open air, walking their dogs (turn 3). in terms of social processes and discourses (see de fina 2013), this characterisation of goitse’s advantaged peers as walking their dogs indicates a racialised and class-based analysis. in south african tertiary institutions, ownership of a dog is generally reserved to white students who live in houses near campus. interactionally, in this extract, goitse takes long, reflexive turns at talk that are interspersed with markers useful to turn continuation (‘uhm’, inbreaths, etc.). in extract 2a, set in his third year of studies, there is a change in goitse’s characterisation and depiction of his social standing. what is emphasised is competition and performance rather than disadvantage. examples of this change are that he is enjoying his own leisure time and going to a party in joburg, he is taking notes on an apple product, and he is travelling on the gautrain, which is the more exclusive means of transport to johannesburg. in this second account, he is more assertive and involved in his friendship circle, and, similarly, the interactional accomplishment of the account is more immersive, with shorter turns at talk and more involvement with the researcher, as indicated by laughter and accommodation of back channelling. linguistically, in this extract, the progressive aspect is employed to depict actions in the course of accomplishment and thus emphasise the agency of the narrator. these two stories with their differences in terms of event, characterisation and interactional achievement reflect important developments in bodily and ontological experience. in extract 1, typing is opposed to handwriting. handwriting is both individual and cultural, a product of inculcation and of volition with a corresponding difference between mechanical reproduction and calligraphic design (chandler 1992). goitse juxtaposes writing and typing as different ways of studying. he emphasises the craft of typing, noting how (in turn 9) he is honing his typing skills. in extract 2a, however, gesture is disinvested of the creative and mnemonic function and becomes a mere tool. goitse states: i’ve (..) then i figured (.) that (..) uhm (…) it’s not the whole typing that makes me pass (…)·hhh it’s actually revising my notes (..) like (…) thoroughly and continuously (…). [goitse, extract 2a, turn 9] this disinvestment and substitution of gesture has two repercussions. in the first place, digital mediation loses differentiation. although this account is about voice-to-text, at turns 5 and 7, goitse refers to ‘typing’ his notes. secondly, in a parallel with modified rhythms of the hand, paper or keyboard (gibbs & angel 2013) that have occurred as goitse has taught himself to type (extract 1), goitse is now growing used to modified oral patterning. this can be seen in extract 2b, which gives the occasioning for the account. this occasioning is multimodal and makes use of goitse’s ipad. extract 2b: data set transcript 4: dictating to voice-to-text software 1. goitse: okay so let me just like do this (beep of ipad) uhm <(.) top management’s view of (.) uh (.) and conclusions (.) about the company’s (…) long-term direction (..) and what (…) products (..) market customer business mix seems to (.) opt(…) seems optimal (.) for the road ahead (.) constitute a strategic vision (..) for the company> as goitse starts dictating to the machine, his debit slows (as shown in the transcript by ‘<’), his pronunciation becomes less inflected, and he must make long and frequent pauses [marked ‘(…)’]. the role of the digital interface is more pronounced, because now the computer must interpret and propose text for oral segments, to which goitse must try to give stable shadings, textures and conditions of production. as sinclair and de freitas (2014:356) state so succinctly, ‘our understanding of gesture depends on our bodily configurations’. goitse, as a character in extract 2a and b, is portrayed within what turkle would term an ‘always on’ environment (turkle 2008). he dictates the notes, uploads them onto cloud storage and then accesses, edits and memorises them whilst on the way to johannesburg with the gautrain. the act of studying becomes (at turn 9 in extract 2a) a continuous activity, in the same way as carrying and using devices is now continuous in this second extract. there is, in this continuity, also an implied affective link to both the activity and the device, which are bound up with goitse’s friendship group (the party to go to) and his more assertive and confident identity as student. in this first look at goitse’ accounts, consideration of digital media as resource has been completed by a discussion of goitse’s bodily and ontological experience. whereas the former emphasised themes of changing access and affordance, the latter allows insight into goitse’s bodily adaptation to the interface. narrative progression evinces evolving gestures, oral versus textual mediation, an increased tethering to mobile devices and the existence of an affective dimension to digital media. digital media, gaze and audition extract 3 presents goitse’s account of the first time he had recourse to youtube tutorials. this extract illustrates embedded story worlds. the basic narrative structure of this account is very similar to that of extracts 1 and 2a. it consists of a pressing need to do things better and faster (the orientation or frame), followed by a new method involving digital media (main action) and a subsequent sense of achievement at his studies (resolution). the embedding used in this account juxtaposes a virtual lecture theatre in an american university (turn 1) with the space of the library (turn 7). extract 3: data set transcript 5: account of goitse’s use of youtube tutorials 1. goitse: […] and that’s what they do in american universiticause we we we go to ulike we go to school (.) on campus (.) watch youtube watch american uhm watch american teachers lecture their class and this is us understanding […] ·hh let me just revise it let me get it again and again and again and again i mean in 2016 i was doing economics and yoh economics was hard ·hh but ·hh uhm after discovering tha:t after discovering youtube and youtube channels that have uhm uhm 2. researcher: [yeah (inaudible) 3. goitse: yeah yeah like it was amazing it was amazit was much more easier 4. researcher: oh really= 5. goitse: =yeah i remember there was a time i was panicking ·hh·hh @@ uhm i think 6. researcher: ·hh·hh@ 7. goitse: this is our final exam i was panicking and i was in the library and i’m like cause i didn’t i didn’t i didn’t finish my scope again 8. researcher: oh […] whwhawhen you say you’re finishing your scope what does that mean 9. goitse: like i don’t finish the chapters that are required so like if there’re twelve chapters i’m pretty sure like i’ll only end up until ten chapters and then the the uh two other chapters i’ll just wing (.) you know 10. researcher: [oh right i get you okay yeah 11. goitse: so:: once i figured uhm once i discovered like there’s channels on youtube that actually also discuss (..) the the topics ·hh·hh uhm i remember watching them watching them i was so scared that i’m not grasping anything a:nd wrote the exam i was so confident after writing the exam and i think that i got 87% for the exam ·hh and 12. researcher: coo::l 13. goitse: i can’t really i can’t really say that if >what i’m saying< if it was not for youtube ·hh uh i was not going to get that mark i know that i do know that from the perspective of digital media as resource, what goitse’s account again emphasises is that a diverse and varied offer of pedagogic materials allows more confidence and comprehension. in this case, the fact that these materials come from north america has value and is thematised in turn 1. as with extracts 1 and 2a and b, a further element of what is important for goitse, who suffers from adhd, is the repetition that is allowed by a varied offer, ‘let me just revise it let me get it again and again and again and again’ (turn 1). from this perspective, youtube is a tool that can be compared to voice notes, webinars, uploaded presentation slides or quizzes, which enlarge the pedagogic offering. a narrative approach, however, in emphasising the two different and embedded story worlds (the north american lecture theatre and the south african library) allows a deeper understanding of the functioning of digital materials in terms of bodily and ontological experience. in telling this account, goitse is providing a multimodal representation of the story, using his phone to show the researcher the youtube channels that he continues to consult. this establishes a juxtaposition of spaces – the embedding space of the telling as against the embedded space of the youtube tutorial – that is very similar to the juxtaposition of the north american lecture theatre and the storied world of the library. the effect is to transform the embedding space. in this case, it becomes a pedagogic one. its field and function change through the introjection of the digital media, what hansen (2006:144), it can be recalled, refers to as ‘digital performativity’. as jones (2010) further notes: spaces are constructed not just through the objects and boundaries that surround us and the habitual ways we conceive of them, but also through interaction with others who are operating in the ‘same’ space. (p. 153) the embedding of the virtual in the real sets up a distinction in bodily engagement. in the space of the library, goitse characterises himself as panicking and as having failed to complete the list of prescribed outcomes for the course: ‘i didn’t i didn’t i didn’t finish my scope again’ (turn 7). in the youtube space, goitse repeatedly participates in a north american lecture theatre, which, as noted, holds prestige value for him. participation is enhanced and demarcated from his ordinary day-to-day surroundings. he describes the tutorials as ‘it was amazing it was amazit was much more easier’ (turn 3). this space is, perhaps, more adapted to goitse’s needs. he is one on one with a lecturer. he is directly solicited. his gaze and his audition are unobstructed. the flow of the lecture in this virtual space, one imagines, is imperturbable and seamless. more to the point, his participation is, in fact, disembodied. he sees but is not seen. he leaves his body behind, or, rather, leaves a certain part of his body, that ‘residue’ (hansen 2006:146) that does not fit institutional needs because of his disorder. in narrative inquiry, particularly strong moments of assessment can occur at story start, in the preface, where the teller must make a case for taking the floor, and at exit, when the point of the story is made. in this extract 3, one can note goitse’s emphatic, ‘this is us understanding’ at turn 1, and similarly, at turn 13, ‘if it was not for youtube ·hh uh i was not going to get that mark i know that i do know that’. in data set transcript 1, some 7 months before the account of extract 3, goitse refers to youtube as, ‘yeah that’s the new form of education like youtube and stuff yeah’. this comment is made in talk leading up to a description of a youtube channel, colors (n.d.), which smiley describes in extract 4. extract 4: data set transcript 1: smiley describes the youtube channel colors 1. smiley: so it’s like (.) music (.) it’s people (.) different artists coming and then hh ·hh the theme (.) you have to dress according to the theme like you have to blend in to the they they give you a background like let’s say your background is like purple hh ·hh and then you’ll you have to dress according to the background you have to blend into the background and then yah […] 2. goitse: [yeah yeah 3. sunflower: [and they’ve got very great music [yeah colors has nearly 4.5 million subscribers. it explicitly caters to the visual and the auditory. youtube can certainly be understood from the perspective of digital media as resource, in which case it would be an example of multimodal meaning making (kress 2010). however, in goitse and smiley’s accounts, the authentication (bucholtz & hall 2005:601) that they seem to attach to these channels prompts an interpretation that emphasises the affiliation and projection of the self – an ontology rather than a semiosis. digital media and instrumentalisation digital media are not value neutral (see prinsloo & walton 2008), nor are they neutral in terms of bodily engagement. extract 5 is an account that allows insight into goitse’s efforts to adjust his body to the demands of the institution. as such, the account represents an interiorisation of the series need plus digital solution which was relevant to the action of previous extracts. rather than a need requiring a prosthetic resource, it is the body itself that provides resolution, through its instrumentalisation. analysis of this extract concerns internal and external evaluation. extract 5: data set transcript 7: account about taking concerta to study all night 1. goitse: so yeah uhm i used to get a prescription every single every single month for f 2. researcher: ↑and did it work ↑did it help 3. goitse: yeah no like eh 4. researcher: is it hey 5. goitse: without concerta i don’t think that i was going to get into honours because 6. researcher: [[…] no really hey 7. goitse: because yeah no because concerta helps me focus like (.) i’ve always desired that focus i’ve always desired i’ve always asked myself why can i not 8. researcher: @@@ 9. goitse: @ so:: once @ i had concerta i like that was the cthat was the focus that i wanted because i used to be so like you know like you know you go:: uhm ·hh like people would go home and they’d come back with like this amount of work and i’d come back with this amount of work [signalling different sizes of work] ·hh and i’d always ask how do you do it like how do you get so much work done a::nd once i was on concerta i got it like it’s it’s the pure focus it’s the pure no distraction no nothing focus 10. researcher: (inaudible) 11. goitse: so::: like i’d cross night and also like it helps me it helps me to stay up till late if i take concerta (.) normally when i have to cross night i would take concerta around 12 o’clock ·hh a narrative allows a teller to assess the subject of a story through direct statements to the listener or through the framing of events and persons in the story world. labov and waletzky (1997 [1967]:34) refer to these two types of evaluation as external and internal. internal evaluation in the account of extract 5 relies on the depiction of characters. as in extract 1, there is a distinction between self and other. at turn 9, other students have small piles of work while goitse has huge piles. goitse sees this difference as depending on his capacities and employs direct speech to question the situation. at turn 7, the question is reflexive: ‘why can i not?’; at turn 9, the question is addressed to other students: ‘how do you do it like how do you get so much work done?’. as in extract 1, the response to these questions, which constitutes the resolution of the account, profoundly changes how goitse studies. goitse’s response is framed in terms of desire, ‘i’ve always desired that focus i’ve always desired’ (turn 7). goitse desires concentration in the same way that someone else could desire an object of consumption, or an additional resource. the resolution of the account recapitulates a first time. extract 5 contains a temporal rupture in turn 9 that is introduced by the adverb ‘once’. the first time taking concerta is qualified in terms of purity and efficacity: ‘it’s the pure focus it’s the pure no distraction no nothing focus’. it is on this basis that cross nighting, where goitse stays awake to study all night in the library, has become a regular activity. extract 5 can be compared with data set transcript 2, which recounts smiley’s first time smoking marijuana. in that account, both goitse and smiley adopt the role of experienced users, who are aware of the dangers and the advantages. they are initiates in an activity that is not only both intimate and bodily, but also shared and discussed. the intimacy of this account, its proximity to the body and bodily functioning, can be felt in the interactions between researcher and participant. there is more laughter, more hedging such as the ‘yeah no like eh-’ (turn 3). with regard to wider social processes and discourses, this account speaks back to the pressure under which students such as goitse find themselves, in terms of peer group and academic achievement, to adopt behaviours that can be harmful and counterproductive. this account also speaks back to a logic that underlies the conception of digital media as resource. in the same way that resources can be purchased or made obtainable, goitse, in obtaining concentration, or a high, is treating the attributes of the body as a resource and in so doing espousing a particular ontology. one can compare goitse’s external assessment at turn 5 (‘without concerta i don’t think that i was going to get into honours’) with his assessment of youtube in turn 13, extract 3, of the previous section. analysis and findings concerning agency a discussion of bodily and ontological experience has added depth to a consideration of digital media as resource. this section draws out implications for agency, and does so with a similar focus on goitse’s narrative accounts. in parallel with the progression of the previous section, heads are: gesture (language and text), gesture (tâtonnement), gaze and audition, and instrumentalisation. the question of agency is one of consequentiality. it looks at how digital media give substance to goitse’s being in the world and in the institution. agency and gesture (language and text) in the previous section, in extracts 1 and 2a and b, goitse’s relationship to digital media as resource consisted in the successive adoption of typing and voice-to-text technologies. from a standpoint of bodily and ontological experience, these extracts were discussed with respect to what typing and dictating imply as gestures. a first question with respect to agency is how such gestures meld with language and identity, which is to say, how gesture connects with goitse’s own ontology. goitse explicitly places language use within a nexus of africanism and black excellence. africanism is not incompatible with the modernism that is implied in digital media. on the contrary, it can lead to a transformative approach that values the culture and heritage that students bring to their learning. goitse sees africanism as carried through language, and in particular his ‘home’ (or l1) language, which is sesotho. for him, the use of his language, and the indexicality of the terms it employs, allows him to take pride in a black identity and aspire to excellence. extract 6 gives his account of meeting a student on campus allied with the economic freedom fighters (eff) party in south africa. extract 6: data set transcript 3: account about an economic freedom fighters spokesperson and africanism 1. goitse: yeah (.) so he was just pumping all this information about like you know black excellence where like the black society’s going and whatnot and ·hhh ever since that day uhm i have to like look back within and like i have to reflect like (.) >dude< you were at the brink of losing your identity as an african person ·hhh maybe because the like because even when we speak we’re speaking englike uhm 2. smiley: english 3. goitse: yeah like we’re speaking also the type like most almost all my conversations are in english (.) so:: like ever since then (.) and ever since i’ve realised that i’ve just tried to like (.) like bring back you know like (.) vernac and i’ve tried to bring back my african language and you know like 4. researcher: which is what which is:: 5. goitse: uhm sesotho […] 6. goitse: so it’s the best way to like uhm 7. smiley: communicate 8. goitse: to articulate (.) like whlike my ideas and my expressions and whatnot so right now (.) all i’m trying to do right now >is just like< bring that like africanism thatry to bring back like my home language and you know try to retain my african identity as like an african person ·hhh 9. smiley: mmmhm in this account, one can note the complicity and co-construction between smiley and goitse. smiley completes goitse’s turns at 2 and 7 and offers strong signs of affirmation. the eff student is known to smiley. shared knowledge is often the basis of narrational co-construction. africanism, not only as a theme but also as a practice, is clearly important to both these participants. an emphasis on africanism allows a reinterpretation of goitse’s bodily relationship to digital media. if africanism is understood as valuing community memory and face-to-face, oral community practice, as defended by eskia mphahlele (1972, 1993, 2007 [1987]), who grew up in gauteng, not far from where goitse studies, then his progression towards voice-to-text can be reinterpreted in this light. through voice-to-text technology, goitse is effectively replacing the rhythms and mediation of the keyboard and of the touch screen (gibbs & angel 2013; sinclair & de freitas 2014) with mediated oral rhythms that build on his verbal memory as valued through his renewed emphasis on his african language and oral tradition. the same could be said of cloud memory, which in being accessible across devices and through different places; it is in fact a more communicable memory than that of an isolated device’s hardware. agency and gesture (tâtonnement) through extracts 1, 2a and b and 3, goitse’s relationship to digital media from the perspective of resource demonstrated a progressive increase in uptake of the digital offering. following the example of others, he adopted typing, voice-to-text and cloud storage, favoured more continuous use of his ipad device and incorporated youtube tutorials as part of his learning strategies. from a standpoint of bodily and ontological experience, these extracts raise the question of how adaptation to practices observed in other students and to behaviours tailored to the needs of the machine can be thought of as agentive. in extract 1, goitse uses digital media in ways that he has learnt from observing the behaviours of others. the formula that is repeated in extract 1 is ‘let me just try it’. later in the same extract (turn 9), he refers explicitly to mimicry. in extracts 2a and 3, the complication and resolution of the stories are provided by the lexemes ‘figure’ and ‘discover’. this discovery through imitation and experimentation is summarised in his exit from the account of extract 1, which is given in extract 7. goitse explains a little more what he means by becoming efficient in the process of typing. extract 7: data set transcript 6: exit from account in extract 1 1. researcher: so how do you get used to the app then 2. goitse: uh logic like should be told i use my logic like i would know that certain icons are like digital icons are very similar to each other so if i we were to take an example of the like maps ·hh i know that that means that we’re going to recentre yeah that’s going to recentre the plus is a zoom and the minus is a zoom out so because apps have like similar icons you just click and go back click and go back until you get it [using gestures on his phone] in reference to the work of leroi-gourhan, the paleoanthropologist noland (2009) recalls: [t]he power of gestures [is] both to generate (as opposed to reflect) actions and to shape the muscular structure of bodies modelled over time to execute these actions. the retentive and protentive duality of [chains of gestures] should be recalled at all times. resulting from the nervous system’s confrontation with ‘internal and external solicitations’, programs are an effect, not merely a generator, of performance. (p. 102) in these terms, goitse is engaging in a groping or a tâtonnement that can include mime, mimicry, verbal instruction and experiment. agency, from this perspective, is not just an explicit, conscious orientation to an application, a device or media, but also something that arises from within, from the body, through the accomplishment of different gestures. one is learning with the device, through one’s interaction with the interface. the context is given, assumed, but the bodily accomplishment is active and inventive. agency, gaze and audition extracts 3 and 4 were discussed with respect to the juxtaposition of story worlds in the account and the digital performativity that allowed, on the one hand, transformation of the embedding space, and, on the other, an ontological projection into these spaces through, primarily, gaze and audition. these extracts add to an understanding of the increasingly always-on, tethered, and continuous use of digital media that is reflected in goitse’s accounts. a more continuous use of digital media assumes a more continuous reliance on devices. in his accounts, goitse’s evaluations are very positive generally and rely on stance markers such as ‘very very efficient’ (turn 9, extract 2a) or ‘so confident’ (turn 11, extract 3). it is interesting to note that, with the exception of youtube, these evaluations are rarely linked to a specific application or software per se. in his account about his use of voice-to-text, his demonstration (extract 2b) uses the basic pre-install on his ipad. what seems to count for goitse is the solution, and to a certain extent the device, but not how that solution is obtained. his accounts revolve around expedience, and previous studies (see prinsloo & walton 2008:107) have highlighted the advantage that big internet firms can draw from that. an example is given in extract 2a. at turns 5 and 7, goitse mentions onedrive cloud storage without any explicit evaluation. he confirms that the researcher is aware of the cloud storage option, states that he uses it and continues the account. it is this naturalised absence of stance that should be remarked upon at this point. goitse, therefore, adopts digital media and so places himself within institutional networks. in one respect, he is losing agency. however, through these devices he is also more firmly inserted into his friendship group, as shown by extract 2, where his possibility of working on the train is what allows him to go to a party. devices and applications are mediators in complex relationships (latour 2007). friendship groups, from this perspective, become networks of actors whose relationships and contacts are mediated. additionally, digital media have a strong link to face-to-face communication because they include metapragmatic markers that function in the same ways as kinaesthetic cues (schandorf 2012). smileys and other gestural transliterations are the most obvious illustration of this. as frequently noted in explorations of the digital, the virtual is augmented and informed by the physical and the real. the friendship group can thus, on some levels, through digital media, be more strongly social and communicable, endowing goitse with agency through device availability and its tethering on the body (see also chayko 2008). this would be interpretable in light of goitse’s affirmations of africanism and the sense of community that was discussed above. however, although dependant on device ubiquity, the subject of gaze and audition was properly associated with goitse’s watching of, and identification with, alternate spaces embedded into current situations of interaction. in narrative research, this phenomenon is discussed under nesting (de fina & toscano gore 2017). storylines, events and characters accrue in an exponential way as series of occurrences are imbricated and commented upon, both in the mediated setting (the youtube platform) and also in other platforms and in face-to-face interaction. gesturally, the embedded space perturbs the body schema and spatiality of perception (merleau-ponty 2012 [1945]:103) by offering other theatres perceived against the experience of other bodies. these other spaces offer the opportunity for an identification, and identity construction, that exceeds the immediate confines of one’s physical environment. thus goitse watches colors, which is a german channel. he participates in tutorials broadcast from north american universities. in this very simple act of the gaze and audition, and without the need for membership in online communities endowed with avatars and second lives, agency is the licence, through digital media: [t]o try on other and multiple representational selves [which] is at the same time a call into being of that heretofore invisible domain of our existence: the life of the body. (hansen 2006:147) agency and instrumentalisation extract 5 dealt with taking concerta. the account was analysed from the perspective of internal and external evaluation and with respect to the temporal rupture that counterposes the first time taking these substances with the position of initiate from which the account is told. interpretation concerned the interiorisation of the logic of need versus resource that underlies much of the writing on digital media. any question of agency here must look at the functioning of the body and how it is co-constituted by manipulation of artefacts (eds. kroes & verbeek 2014). goitse augments his ability to act within a system by potentialising his cognitive capacities and in turn increases the intensity and longevity of his interaction with digital media. this alters the prosthetic relation between device and user. there is a paradox here in that the desired body is also a mechanistic one. agency becomes the mutually informing and constitutive relationship of the human and the technical. discussion and conclusion narratives are a productive means of accessing practices and processes. particularly in the data analysed here, one imagines that other collection tools such as questionnaires or online surveys would not have revealed the identity work that this student is accomplishing through his interaction with digital media, nor how essentially this work engages with the body. goitse’s accounts have been examined in terms of gesture, gaze and audition, and instrumentalisation. this investigation has also been an opportunity to discover narrative inquiry. analysis sections have looked at event, characterisation and interactional achievement (extracts 1 and 2a and b), embedded story worlds (extract 3), internal and external evaluation (extract 5) and co-construction (extract 6). the agentive implications of goitse’s bodily and ontological relationship with digital media add depth and complexity to a more conventional analysis of his stories in terms of digital media as resource. as concerns gesture, whilst goitse initially relied on manual processes in which the digital echoed analogic behaviours, he now relies on documents that he uploads to the cloud and that he produces using voice-to-text applications. although goitse places himself in the network of device, application and communication flow in an expeditive way, he is also highly aware of his ontological status and is explicit in defence of an africanism that he formulates in linguistic terms. this allows a reading of the gestures he adopts with respect to digital media, and their increasing tethering, as acquiring meaning with respect to other cultural values such as orality and community. goitse’s experimentation with digital media, and what he describes as ‘let me just try it’ is an agentive process in which gesture shapes interaction with digital media inasmuch as it is shaped by the media. this process can be referred to as ‘tâtonnement’ and reflects other reciprocal systems such as the co-constituting one between the human and the technical. as an actor in a reticular distribution of media and device, goitse has agency through the embedded spaces offered by platforms such as youtube. these spaces redefine the situation of their embedding; they also offer the possibility of a disembodied projection and identification. goitse repetitively emphasises his need for time and concentration because of his adhd. this disorder leads him to instrumentalise his body in search of what he refers to as focus, and the patterns of immersive use of digital media that he employs to study are one aspect of how he copes with the demands of the institution. narrative research has been one lens through which to analyse goitse’s relationship to digital media, one that has tried to take into account the qualitative, local and individual meanings that we carry in us through our gestures, our gaze and our audition, our linguistic heritage and our bodies themselves. embodiment, which is to say the gestures, dispositions and inscriptions that are a conduit for our relation of self to the human and technical other, reveals how digital media give rise to complex agentive processes. acknowledgements the author thanks the participants linda ngele, venetia beytell, farihah jaffer, chrismari d’alton, boikhutso somo, prof. wendy kilfoil, prof. dolf jordaan, tintswalo nghondzweni, njabulo dlamini, rethabile chomane, gomolemo sibeko, tatenda garwi, a.o. duma, yamkela mhlauli and megan pringle for their participation in this study. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research article. ethical consideration ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the faculty of humanities, research ethics committee at the university of pretoria, (ethical clearance number: gw20180305hs, 26/03/2018). funding information this article was made possible by funding for postdoctoral research project uid 112028 received from the south african national research foundation (nrf). data availability statement the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, w.k., upon reasonable request. disclaimer all the views and analyses presented in this article are those of the author and do not in any way reflect the position of the host university, nor that of the nrf. references ahearn, l.m., 2001, ‘language and agency’, annual review of anthropology 30, 109–137. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.30.1.109 bamberg, m. & andrews, m. 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and environmental sciences, university of south africa, south africa citation harris, e., de crom, e.p. & wilson, a., 2017, ‘staff perceptions on pigeon control strategies on the university of south africa’s muckleneuk campus’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a399. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.399 original research staff perceptions on pigeon control strategies on the university of south africa’s muckleneuk campus emma harris, engela p. de crom, ann wilson received: 09 dec. 2016; accepted: 28 feb. 2017; published: 26 apr. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract pigeons are often considered a nuisance in urban environments, leading to the attempted control or eradication of their populations. this study explored the perceptions of 246 staff members employed on the university of south africa’s muckleneuk campus to ascertain the extent and nature of the perceived pigeon problem, suggested control methodologies and their anticipated results. the study found that the majority of staff do not consider the pigeons to pose a problem on the campus and that, should control be imposed, humane, non-lethal measures were preferred over eradication. the isolated pigeon-related complaints revealed that the management’s negative perceptions of the pigeons were not representative of staff members in general. the study concludes that a comprehensive public participation process is a necessary and integral part of the development and implementation of a sustainable and efficient pigeon control plan. introduction university campuses can be regarded as ‘small cities’ as a result of their large human populations and the various complex activities taking place on them, which have both direct and indirect impacts on the environment (alshuwaikhat & abubakar 2008). with urban development comes the environmental displacement of certain species, which are forced to perish, flee or adapt to their new living environments in order to survive. particular species are accomplished at adjusting, such as the feral pigeon (columba livia) and the indigenous speckled pigeon (columba guinea) (hereafter referred to collectively as pigeons). separated only by genetic variation, feral pigeons are descendants of domesticated breeds of wild speckled pigeons (johnston & janiga 1995; stringham et al. 2012) which have adapted their original diets of grain to include anthropogenic sources of food. considered to be one of the most successful colonisers of urban environments, pigeons have managed to successfully utilise urban resources for feeding, breeding and roosting purposes (haag-wackernagel, heeb & leiss 2006) their demographic success and ability to adapt are also the reason why humans consider pigeons to be pests that have a negative impact on peoples’ social, economic and cultural lifestyles. these pest-like attributes are fundamentally grounded in their ‘natural’ characteristics, such as group foraging, association and habituation towards people, high reproductive rate, diet variation and alimentary storage canal (johnston & janiga 1995). fitzwater (1988) states that pigeons are often regarded as a widespread aerial nuisance. they can represent a problem in high densities where there is ample food, spatial resources and a lack or absence of natural selection factors creating a sense of anxiety among people, suggesting a lack of population control (dobeic et al. 2011; jerolmack 2008). bacterial, fungal and ectoparasitic health hazards relating directly to the pigeons and indirectly to their droppings (giunchi et al. 2012) have been known to cause alarm (hutton & rostron 2005) even though the risk of infection is relatively low (hadidian 2007; hutton & rostron 2005; phillips, snell & vargas 2003). nesting material and droppings which accumulate in and below nesting or roosting sites are considered to be unhygienic (giunchi et al. 2012), cause structural and aesthetic degradation (giunchi et al. 2012; hutton & rostron 2005) and result in ongoing maintenance costs (pimentel et al. 2000). disturbances from nesting activities and squabs (hutton & rostron 2005), and the vocalisations from large populations, have been known to cause hysteria and insomnia in humans (carle 1959). nevertheless, as angier (1991) explains, the interaction between humans and pigeons is a love–hate relationship. literature indicates that people living in urban areas will retain positive attitudes towards species perceived to be pests (krimowa 2012). jerolmack (2008) states that pigeons have many friends among the public, people who believe that pigeons provide a natural balance to the man-made development of cities (krimowa 2012). those who are ‘pro-pigeons’ encourage the presence of these birds as a means to connect to nature, to fill a void of loneliness or to simply enjoy their presence (weber, haag-wackernagel & durrer 1994). furthermore, ryan (2011) concludes that where there is positive interaction with wildlife, the potential for considerate and conservation-orientated actions in public increases. nonetheless, due to pigeon biology and behaviour, they often come in conflict with peoples’ interests, consequently sparking a demand for population control and spatial placement in human environments. the need for effective and comprehensive public participation through the provision of resources, humans fundamentally contribute to, if not create, potential problem pigeon populations in urban environments. consequentially, negative views and perceptions of these birds and their associated impacts are often heard first, resulting in the pigeons being considered as a pest about which action should be taken (jerolmack 2008). nevertheless traditional control practices and regulations to address problematic wildlife and environmental issues tend be reactive and ad hoc (alshuwaikhat & abubakar 2008), and have become highly inefficient without guaranteed sustainability because of the lack of social consideration of all interested and affected parties. regardless of the perception relating to pigeons, people are not formally consulted during the design or implementation of pest control and management plans, which not only creates a sense of isolation from the problem but also creates misconceptions relating to the impact of pigeon population on people and the affected space. it can be considered that meaningful, comprehensive and effective public participation and engagement processes can provide remedial and long-term action towards reducing and managing urban pigeon populations as well as being an important source of ideas, leading to new avenues for theoretical and empirical investigations (shea, thrall & burdon 2000). failure to establish these processes may cause people to harbour resentment towards authorities and result in rebellion against pest management decisions. as the presence of pigeons and humans are interrelated, pigeon populations identified to be problematic within urban settings should therefore require interdisciplinary approaches, inclusive of those who hold neutral or positive opinions of the birds, to be sustainably effective (alshuwaikhat & abubakar 2008; hutton & rostron 2005; krimowa 2012). this study will investigate if these concerns do in fact reflect the opinions of staff members on the university’s campus relating to the pigeon population and the potential management thereof, which were not addressed in the paper by harris, de crom and wilson (2016). furthermore, this article will explore the need for formal integrated social platforms to achieve sustainable pigeon management, through the inclusion of engagement processes which can provide a comprehensive impression of public perception relating to the birds and the control thereof. in the light of the above, the perceptions and opinions of the staff members of the university of south africa’s (unisa) muckleneuk campus relating to the pigeon population on the muckleneuk campus and the management thereof were investigated by addressing the following objectives: to investigate the range of staff members’ perceptions with regard to pigeons posing a problem on campus to ascertain if staff members have formally complained about pigeons on campus to determine staff members’ choice of their preferred type of broad pigeon control, namely management, eradication or to be left alone, and the necessity thereof to determine staff members’ preference with regard to different pigeon control strategies. methods qualitative research focused on the social aspect of the research through questionnaires and interviews relating to pigeons, broad pigeon control, desired necessity of such control and potential pigeon control options as perceived by staff members based on the muckleneuk campus. this qualitative study made use of cross-sectional data gathering consisting of two parts. an online questionnaire, which was electronically accessible to all staff members, irrespective of position held and demographics, between september 2013 and september 2014, was developed on surveymonkey, an online survey development cloud-based company. information about the online survey encouraging participation was communicated to all muckleneuk campus staff members throughout the year in the form of ‘e-notices’ on the official unisa online notification system. data were gathered from consenting staff members with access to email notification (irrespective of positions held) on the unisa muckleneuk campus. primary data were collected from the direct input of participants into the online survey. participants provided their personal opinions and perceptions relating to pigeons and their activities, the potential impact the pigeons have on the staff members, various pigeon control options and the perceived problem on the unisa muckleneuk campus. content analysis (braun & clarke 2006) was used to analyse the data. in addition to the online survey, semi-structured interviews were conducted with consenting participants through convenience sampling methods to corroborate, clarify and qualitatively supplement the questionnaire data. the interviews were specifically conducted to add depth and richness to data gathered through the questionnaire; thus, participant recruitment was determined by conceptual saturation. data were recorded and transcribed and thematic content analysis (braun & clarke 2006) was used to analyse the data. institutional ethical permission was received for the research (ethics reference number: 2013/caes/017). ethical issues were considered in order to ensure that the rights of participants were observed, namely anonymity, respect for the dignity of persons, nonmaleficence and confidentiality (terre blanche, durrheim & painter 2006). participation was voluntary and participants had to give informed, voluntary consent to participate in the research. results and discussion a total of 246 participants contributed to this study, of which 226 were online surveys (n1 = 226; 92%) and 20 were interviews (n2 = 20; 8%), after which saturation was obtained. demographics of participants included gender, race, job position and age group. because of the nature of the surveymonkey questionnaire, participants were not obligated to disclose their demographic detail. the interview demographics were however recorded as male (50%), female (50%), african (35%), white (60%), other (5%), academic (25%), administrative (75%), 20to 30-year olds (20%), 31to 40-year olds (5%), 41to 50-year olds (30%), 51to 60-year-olds (35%) and 61to 70-year-olds (20%). the results are discussed as per the following main themes obtained from the questionnaires and interviews: pigeons posing a problem pigeon-related complaints pigeon population control pigeon control measures. pigeons posing a problem as urban environments are conducive to pigeon populations, the unisa muckleneuk campus in pretoria is host to a number of pigeons, both indigenous and feral. they have been reported to cause aesthetic degradation of the campus buildings as a result of faeces build up, and they are perceived as a health risk to the staff who are employed on site (l. ntshoe [university of south africa], pers. comm., 23 january 2013). cleaning and nest removal has thus far been reactive and ad hoc, resulting in limited impact on reducing the resident pigeon population inhabiting the campus buildings. university estates, the department responsible for the upkeep of the campus, intend to limit the number of pigeon-related complaints through a long-term, cost-efficient and sustainable pigeon control programme specific to the muckleneuk campus (l. ntshoe [university of south africa], pers. comm., 23 january 2013). complaints relating to pigeons and their associated activities are often the catalyst for action to be taken against the birds irrespective of whether these complaints may be representative of the affected human population as a whole or not. the study found this to be true as the majority of participants (68%) did not consider the pigeons to pose a problem on campus regardless of management’s opinion. the participants noted that ‘they are not bothering me’ (participant 12, male, 47 years old) and ‘they are a part of nature; they improve peoples’ understanding of animals. it [forms] a part of learning about animals’ (participant 14, male, 25 years old), negating the existence of any pest-like qualities in pigeons and accepting them as a natural part of the working environment. conversely, 32% of the participants supported management’s opinion and considered the pigeons and their related activities to pose a problem on campus. this, they felt, was because the birds were a nuisance, a source of lice infestations in the offices and posed health risks to staff. while 60% of the participants who identified the birds as a problem did not provide potential solutions, those who did considered the humane discouragement of pigeons from buildings (13%), non-lethal control (12%), removal of pigeons and nests without squabs from buildings (7%), leaving the pigeons alone (4%) and lethal methods of control (4%) as viable and desired options to the perceived problem on campus. pigeon-related complaints awareness and concern regarding the presence of pigeons in an urban environment are often brought about by people who complain about the birds and their related activities to various authorities. these complaints often initiate the desire to control pigeon populations. twelve per cent of the participants had complained about the pigeons and their related activities on campus over a six-year period (2009–2014) (l. ntshoe [university of south africa], pers. comm., 23 january 2013). these were reported to university estates and mostly referred to the request for the removal of droppings and the fumigation of offices owing to lice infestations assumed to arise from nearby pigeons, as stated by a participant: ‘i reported about lice, buildhelp came and fumigated (my office)’ (participant 10, male, 43 years old), indicating that the perceived problem may be related to isolated incidents rather than regular incidents throughout the campus. furthermore, the request for action to be taken against the birds from the staff on campus may be related to who complains rather than being based on the actual number of complaints received by university estates. of the complaints and concerns raised by staff, many were in top management positions whose complaints held substantial weight and elicited a serious response. as they were in positions of authority with the influence to make decisions against the birds, the request to control the pigeon population was therefore escalated within management. the pigeon population on campus was deemed to be problematic by management based on the concerns and complaints of staff, an opinion which is neither representative of nor justified by the majority of participants. the current reactive system wherein complaints are heard louder than praise for the pigeons has created an unrepresentative view on the issue. in order to achieve a more comprehensive impression of public perception, management should consider all interested and affected parties prior to pest-related conclusions and population control decisions. pigeon population control pigeon population management, eradication or reduction can be used to achieve control. dobeic et al. (2011) explain that the general intent of any population control is to achieve and maintain a manageable and suitable population size through various structures and strategies. pigeon control ranges from non-existent to aggressive. public and private authorities choose the course of action, if any, against the birds in an effort to remedy the perceived problem. non-lethal management, lethal eradication or simply leaving the birds alone are broad control options, each achieving a different outcome. participants view pigeon population control on the muckleneuk campus as follows: broad pigeon population control in an effort to ease potential conflict between people and pigeons (krimowa 2012), management responsible for pest control and hygiene in the university estates department has proposed that control measures should be taken against the pigeons based on complaints received. figure 1 illustrates staff perceptions of the broad pigeon control options in response to the proposed actions to be taken. figure 1: staff perceptions of broad pigeon control options proposed to be applied to the pigeon population on the university of south africa’s muckleneuk campus. in response to the proposed action, 76% of participants felt that the pigeon population should rather be managed as an alternative to eradication and as a means to learn from and monitor the current population on campus as they did not feel that the birds required control. pigeon management would provide an opportunity to monitor the population fluctuation and be informed of potential pigeon behaviour and activities that could potentially affect staff on campus. pigeon control and monitoring are directly related, as estimates of pigeon abundance are not only essential for the assessment of population size in order to justify control but also for the choice of appropriate control methods, with a plausible estimate of their costs and effectiveness (giunchi et al. 2012). participants stated that ‘i think people should be managed more than the pigeons’ (participant 3, female, 61 years old) and ‘it (management) would be in favour of pigeons and people’ (participant 4, female, 25 years old) as it would allow for the continuation of pigeon activity and enjoyment of their presence by people on campus. as the majority of participants did not feel that the pigeon population posed a problem on campus, nor required control, alternatives to conventional control measures were instead suggested, namely a designated pigeon area and discouragement from buildings. twenty eight per cent of participants (figure 1) suggested that a designated area away from campus buildings would allow the birds to continue their activities as ‘normally’ as possible without the concern of it impacting on staff or buildings. realising that control or management of the pigeon population would be inevitable, participants instead provided an alternative to removal which would allow the birds to continue living on campus thus benefitting both the animals and the people who positively observe them. the following quotes are examples of what participants had to say: ‘we should make their own area that i can go and see them. if people have a problem with the pigeons they won’t be around them.’ (participant 5, female, 27 years old) and: ‘there should be a place or a (piece of) land where all the pigeons can gather so we can learn about what they desire and to learn about them.’ (participant 14, male, 25 years old) furthermore, participants felt that discouraging pigeons from utilising the buildings for roosting and breeding activities would force them to make use of the natural habitat on campus. this too would favour both the birds and the people. if control of the pigeons were to be imposed, participants indicated that the measures and strategies should be non-lethal and humane. this is indicative of the fact that had effective public forums requesting the input from all staff members been considered prior to intended population control, management would have been provided with these possible solutions to mitigate conflict. nevertheless, participants also stated that should the pigeons be proven to pose a problem on campus, population management would be a suitable option; however, if the contrary were to be true, the pigeons should rather be left alone. this viewpoint was supported by 15% of the participants (figure 1). these participants felt that the pigeons did not require management or control as they were part of the environment and did not pose a problem to staff members, nor affect the structural elements of the university. the following quotes are examples of participants’ responses: ‘they are not a problem, wondered why people would want to keep the pigeons away’ (participant 17, female, 35 years old) and ‘they are not doing anything wrong’ (participant 11, female, 61 years old). these participants fall within a group of people considered to be pro-pigeon. brunet and houbaert (2007) explain that these stakeholders are far less evident during periods of normality (i.e. non-control); instead, they emerge mainly once pigeon control is proposed or implemented. likewise, within the traditional reactive pest-control process laid out by the university management, the opinions held by this group of people are indirectly excluded and hold no voice or influence over pigeon control decisions. interestingly, the majority of the interviewed participants who stated that the pigeon population should be managed were male, while those who believed the birds should be left alone were female. this finding is supported by bremner and park (2007) who found that men were more supportive of wildlife control and eradication as opposed to women. less than 10% of all participants stated that the pigeon population on campus should be eradicated for health-related concerns and the nuisance they pose in the workplace (figure 1). during interviews, it became clear that this view was shared by participants who had negatively experienced the birds’ activities on campus, resulting in a negative impression and desire for eradication as stated by one participant: ‘irritating especially in a work context. [i] would rather shoot them’ (participant 8, male, 57 years old). pigeon management pigeon management should be a specific control programme which meets the identified requirements of the particular management unit while considering pigeon biological behaviour, abundance and presence; environmental factors; financial constraints; and the human association. it will ultimately provide a more integrated pigeon control strategy which may be positively received by interested and affected parties if peoples’ opinions and the consideration of animal welfare are taken into account (krimowa 2012). participants’ opinions and preference relating to their desired necessity of pigeon control were therefore investigated and outcomes are illustrated in figure 2. figure 2: staff perceptions of the desired necessity of pigeon control proposed to be applied to the pigeon population on the university of south africa’s muckleneuk campus. from figure 2, it is clear that 35% of participants considered management of the pigeons on campus to be a necessity as it was proposed that this would prevent the current pigeon population from becoming a problem in the future as noted by a participant: ‘(management is a necessity because) otherwise if they become a problem in the future, they will get rid of them and then something of nature will go missing’ (participant 18, female, 46 years old). this finding suggests that active control of the birds is not presently required on campus as the majority of participants did not feel that the pigeons currently posed a problem. participants felt that if university estates intend on implementing pigeon population control, managing the birds would instead be preferred. one participant felt that the management was a necessity as it would resolve and prevent further health risks to staff relating to the pigeons and their activities. the remaining participants justified their views in favour of the birds, as management would be the most favourable option as opposed to lethal measures. it would also provide an opportunity to learn about the pigeons as stated by a participant: ‘to learn more about pigeons – what they do, how they think’ (participant 14, male, 25 years old). similarly, 35% of participants indicated that pigeon management would be a solution as an alternative to eradication and as a precautionary measure to prevent the current population from potentially becoming a pest (figure 2). again, only one of these participants made a direct reference to the perceived pigeon problem as it was stated that ‘(the) mite problem affects people’ (participant 9, male, 60 years old) thus reasoning that pigeon management would be a solution to address the perceived ectoparasite infestations in offices presumably related to pigeon roosting and nesting activities. a relatively low number (13%) of all participants considered management of the pigeon population to be a waste of time and resources (figure 2). this was attributed to either the birds not being perceived as a problem and therefore not requiring any management intervention or because they believed that pigeon management would be a financial waste of the university’s resources. the following quote is an example of a participant’s response: ‘they are part of nature, so spending the money (on controlling the pigeons) is a waste when it could be used for better purposes’ (participant 16, male, 50 years old). less than 10% of all participants (figure 2) indicated that they were not interested in the prospective pigeon management programme as they were of the opinion that the birds were not a pest on campus, as stated by a participant: ‘…they are not bothering me’ (participant 12, male, 47 years old). gilsdorf (2003) claims that public are more likely to support control measures when the pigeons pose a health hazard or there is economic loss experienced associated with the birds’ presence and related activities. however, as neither has been investigated nor proven on campus, despite concerns, management’s proposed pigeon control programme is not supported as a means to address the perceived problem highlighted by an influential minority. pigeon control measures pigeon control strategies are aimed at increasing mortality, decreasing natality, resource management or a combination thereof (haag-wackernagel 2008). although a wide range of control options exist (haag-wackernagel & geigenfeind 2008), integrative measures are more likely to ensure a sustainable solution specific to the pigeon problem (haag-wackernagel & bircher 2010). the pest management industry has a variety of lethal and non-lethal control options available to the public to control pigeon populations perceived to be problematic in urban environments. haag-wackernagel (2008) summarises a number of techniques that have been applied to urban environments in an attempt to achieve control or eradication of perceived problematic pigeon populations. generally, the techniques are classified under certain pigeon management strategies which include increasing mortality, reducing natality and resource management. the perceived viability and sustainable impact of a number of pigeon control strategies by participants were investigated and are shown in figure 3. figure 3: staff perceptions on the viability and sustainable impact of pigeon control strategies on the pigeon population on the university of south africa’s muckleneuk campus. a majority of participants indicated that pigeon control was not necessary; however, if management were to impose pigeon control on the campus, bird spikes and scare devices were indicated to be the preferred options (figure 3). physical structures, such as bird spikes and netting, which hinder or limit the prevalence of pigeons on buildings, may be implemented with varying degrees of success (magnino et al. 2009). bird spikes prevent pigeons from perching or roosting on the structure on which they have been installed. thirty per cent of participants considered spikes to have the most impact on controlling the pigeon population for a sustainable period of time. however, those who disagreed believed that ‘they won’t help, the bird will always find a way around them; it just prevents them from sitting at that exact spot’ (participant 13, male, 44 years old). netting which completely excludes pigeons from entire buildings, or parts of buildings, is an effective and economical way of preventing pigeon damage to buildings (hutton & rostron 2005). in this regard, 19% of the participants agreed that it would have a sustainable impact on the pigeon population on campus (figure 3). other physical structures which aid in the control of pigeons are scare devices. hutton and rostron (2005) explain that they produce a stimulus that is perceived to be frightening to the birds. more than 30% of all participants considered scare devices to be effective and sustainable at controlling the pigeons on campus. a humane and environmentally friendly option which reduces the prevalence of pigeons in urban environments is the presence of falcons. trained falcons disperse pigeons, and their frequent flights ensure that pigeons associate the site with danger (ryzhov & mursejev 2010). the use of falcons to sustainably impact the pigeon population on campus was considered by 27% of the participants (figure 3). participants who disagreed felt that there was no guarantee that the falcon would remain as a resident on campus and that it was unnatural to introduce an unfamiliar predator into the ecosystem. rutz (2012) describes how falcons (peregrine falcon and lanner falcon) and hawks (goshawks and sparrowhawks) are in fact the main predators of pigeons. both species have been identified on campus (e. harris [university of south africa], pers. observ., 2014). resource management, which refers to the reduction or elimination of resources, such as space which is required by pigeons for roosting and breeding activities, is another strategy for control. clearing away of nests, when chicks are not present (for ethical and humane reasons), can deter pigeons from making use of particular areas for breeding purposes as it conveys a sense of instability. this is regarded to be a viable and sustainable option by 21% of participants (figure 3) who indicated nominal support of control strategies such as the management of reproduction through nest removal as opposed to habitat modification through physical deterrents. a participants who disagreed with this method of control was ‘concerned about the eggs and chicks’ (participant 2, female, 63 years old). alternative pigeon control methods and strategies were provided by 24% of all participants (figure 3). these included strategies ranging from the use of elastic bands as a frightening device, to be shot at perching pigeons from open office windows, to increasing the feral cat population on campus. the latter suggests potentially encouraging predation of the birds which could negatively impact dispersal and recruitment of pigeons (shochat, lerman & fernández-juricic 2010). however, previous research suggests that the behaviour and population size of urban birds do not appear to correspond with the proposed effect of frequent cat predation, resulting in the selection of a small group of cat-resistant species such as the feral pigeon (shochat et al. 2006, 2010). the use of pigeon houses was also suggested by a number of participants during interviews. pigeon houses would enable egg removal and the placing of dummy eggs in an effort to limit the hatching rate of the birds (jacquin et al. 2010). natality of pigeon populations can be further controlled through hormones and sterilants. the birth rate is limited through the application of chemosterilants to baited food (dobeic et al. 2011). contraception was suggested as a sustainable solution to the pigeon population on campus by 15% of the participants (figure 3) as they considered it to be a humane and non-lethal option which did not adversely affect adult pigeons’ physical conditions, thus considering the pigeons’ welfare. the least viable and sustainable pigeon control option considered by participants was the increase of pigeon mortality through killing by shooting, poisoning and trapping. in this regard, 16% of participants indicated that trapping and removal of pigeons would have a sustainable impact on the pigeon population on campus. killing by poisoned baits and shooting was considered to be sustainably effective by only 7% of the participants. conversely, killing was considered to be unsustainable, as well as unacceptable, by the remaining 93% of participants (figure 3). conflict therefore does not exclusively exist between staff members and the perceived problematic pigeon population but also between people and potential pigeon control measures. this is an aspect which should be considered during public engagement programmes prior to pigeon control implementation by university estates management. conclusion the perception that pigeons are a problem on the muckleneuk campus is neither representative of the whole staff community nor justified in the number of complaints received. instead, the idea of pigeons being pests and the subsequent request for pigeon control has originated from a vocal, influential minority which has created a distorted impression of the current situation. regardless of the potential negative implications of having pigeon populations in close proximity to the work space, the majority of participants continued to perceive the presence of the birds as positive and did not consider the birds to be problematic in the work environment regardless of university estates’ negative perception. in a study conducted by krimowa (2012), it was found that actions taken against pigeon populations in an effort to control them are often opposed by people who positively perceive the birds’ presence. this was found to be true of unisa staff members; but as with many proposed pest-control programmes, action will eventually occur. staff therefore felt that by contributing their opinion, they could try to influence the decision that would ultimately affect them. thus, it was suggested that management of the pigeons, rather than eradication, would be a more acceptable and preferable choice. pigeon population management would act as a precautionary measure, therefore implying that the pigeon population does not currently pose a problem to the university staff or infrastructure. in an effort to benefit both the birds and the staff who enjoy their presence on campus, alternative, less invasive pigeon managerial measures were suggested to minimise the birds’ potential to become a pest while simultaneously reducing the pigeon population to a healthy manageable size. literature and the pest-control industry mention a variety of lethal and non-lethal pigeon control measures aimed at deterring or removing the birds from identified areas. participants in this study identified the use of scare devices and falcons as the preferred humane control strategies that would have a sustainable impact on the pigeon population on campus, relative to the other suggested control options. the erection of pigeon houses or dovecotes away from the buildings on campus was also suggested as a sustainable solution. they would serve a dual purpose by providing a welcoming environment for the pigeons to continue living on campus without negatively impacting staff or infrastructure, as well as the means to limit the hatching rate of eggs to create a small and healthy pigeon population. staff complaints about the presence and activities of pigeons were relatively minimal over a six-year period, implying that the pigeons were presently neither negatively impacting on the majority of staff members on campus nor displaying pest-like qualities on a large scale. the results of this study determined that stakeholders who were previously quiet prior to the proposed control of the pigeons were now the complainants against the implementation of control and management measures, as well as the lack of comprehensive engagement that allowed for multiple voices to be heard on a formal public platform. by providing staff members with the opportunity to influence and participate in the proposed pigeon control on campus, the likelihood of the plan’s effectiveness and sustainability will improve. staff perceptions will be incorporated into an interdisciplinary management plan for the future humane and non-lethal pigeon control of the muckleneuk campus of unisa. recommendations for future research there is limited reference to the involvement of a variety of public opinions and attitudes in the development and implementation of proposed control programmes directed at wildlife in urban environments. research has indicated that the concerns of the public over pigeons need to be addressed as people’s associations with wildlife may have important consequences for their willingness to participate in wildlife management and conservation (dunn et al. 2006; krimowa 2012). ryan (2011) explains that stakeholders may indicate contrasting views and attitudes which make it difficult to find management solutions that are acceptable to all. it is therefore imperative that the attitudes and opinions of the different stakeholders relating to the perceived problem and control options are identified and considered to ensure the sustainability and success of any control or management programme (krimowa 2012). acknowledgements acknowledgement and thanks to the applied behavioural ecological & ecosystem research unit (abeeru), university of south africa’s university estates department and the national research foundation (nrf) for funding. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions e.h. is 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https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1461-0248.2000.00124.x shochat, e., lerman, s., & fernández-juricic, e., 2010, ‘birds in urban ecosystems: population dynamics, community structure, biodiversity, and conservation’ in: urban ecosystem ecology, agronmy monograph, 55, asa, cssa, sssa, madison, wi, p. 75–86. https://doi.org/10.2134/agronmonogr55.c4 shochat, e., warren, p.s., faeth, s.h., mcintyre, n.e. & hope, d., 2006, ‘from patterns to emerging processes in urban evolutionary ecology’, trends in ecology & evolution 21, 186–191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2005.11.019 stringham, s.a., mulroy, e.e., xing, j., record, d., guernsey, m.w., aldenhoven, j.t. et al., 2012, ‘divergence, convergence, and the ancestry of feral populations in the domestic rock pigeon’, current biology 22, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.12.045 terre blanche, m., durrheim, k. & painter, d., 2006, research in practice: applied methods for the social sciences, 2nd edn., university of cape town press, cape town. weber, j., haag-wackernagel, d. & durrer, h., 1994, ‘interaction between humans and pigeons’, anthrozoos 7, 55–59. https://doi.org/10.2752/089279394787002023 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 119-128. municipal engineers and local government in the transvaal before 1910 harri mäki* abstract: this paper examines the history of the first town engineers in the transvaal before the union. it will briefly examine the changes in local government in the transvaal, focusing on municipal engineers. examination is made of the selection processes applied in their appointments and the circumstances at the end of their tenures. it explores what was expected of municipal engineers during this period; shows what their position within the municipal structure was; and explains how vague their job description was in relation to their wide field of operation. the development of the engineer’s position in the municipal management hierarchy is interesting. he was an important figure in local government, had specific responsibilities and enjoyed specific powers. it emerges that most early town engineers had training via apprenticeship for the positions they held and that there was added pressure from elected councillors in municipalities who were prone to assiduously monitor how officials were spending public money. keywords: municipal history, civil engineering, water supply, sanitation, transvaal, benoni, boksburg, germiston, heidelberg, johannesburg, klerksdorp, krugersdorp, pietersburg, potchefstroom, pretoria, standerton, volksrust disciplines: history, engineering, public management introduction the development of municipal engineering in south africa started slowly in the late 19th century. the first municipal engineers were appointed in the 1850s in cape town, grahamstown and port elizabeth in the cape colony, and in pietermaritzburg in natal. however, all the initial municipal engineers, with the exception of that of cape town, were temporary appointments. only after diamond mining operations started at kimberley in the 1870s and gold mining on the witwatersrand in the 1880s, did the situation change. the formation of large human settlements in the new industrial centres of southern africa forced the colonial governments of the cape and natal to contemplate creating permanent posts for engineers in the local government sector. in the 1880s durban, kimberley and johannesburg appointed their first permanent municipal engineers. • dr harri mäki of finland is an associate researcher of the cudywat research group in the school of basic sciences at the vaal triangle faculty of the north-west university. e-mail: harri66maki@gmail.com. mäki 120 our present knowledge on these early municipal engineers is limited. hardly any detailed work has been done on their activities in the formative years of south africa’s urban areas. what is evident is that the early engineers often had to bear the brunt of public frustration – frequently for urban problems not necessarily related to the provision of proper municipal services. it also seems as if these early municipal engineers hardly ever reaped the benefits of the experience of their counterparts in britain, even if the obstacles were similar. rapid urbanisation called for strong local measures to ensure a safe and comfortable urban environment, but the people moving in from the rural areas hardly attached much importance to the need for proper sanitary measures. it was the municipal engineer who had to quietly cope with public objections to the improvements necessary to create a sound, well-organised and healthy urban community. the engineer could seldom rely on support or protection from elected councils. councillors were almost obsessive about saving the ratepayers from ‘unnecessary expenses’ on basic municipal infrastructure. local government, in itself a veritable minefield of local, colonial and republican political sentiments, was often beset with difficulties, rapid development in africa, far away from the commercial and manufacturing centres of europe and north america. finding qualified engineers was initially far from easy; there were few resident in south africa. this situation changed rapidly after the discovery of diamonds at kimberley. engineers from all over the world were lured to south africa and later their numbers increased even more when extensive gold deposits were found on the witwatersrand in 1886. few of them were keen to settle in as municipal engineers as long as the mining industry, as the major private sector operation in the region, required innovative engineers. locally the prospects for training engineers were slim. the training of the first mining engineers in south africa started modestly in 1894 in cape town and kimberley, but the first degrees in engineering in south africa were only conferred in 1918. most of the engineering needs had to be met by engineers from europe, especially the united kingdom. most of the early engineers from the united kingdom were trained via the apprenticeship system, because there was no formal training as such in municipal engineering. even if an engineer held a university degree it was usually in mathematics or another related field.1 in this article the focus will be on the first town engineers in the former transvaal colony before the establishment of the union of south africa in 1910. under consideration are all the municipalities having a town engineer before 1910.2 what were the criteria when the municipalities appointed new town engineers? how did the level of previous work experience (in the fields of water supply and sanitation, for instance) influence the selection of a town engineer? an investigation will also be made into how and why these municipal officials ended their tenures. the twelve case municipalities can be divided in two groups, namely mining towns connected to the rand water board, and others. the first group comprises johannesburg, germiston, boksburg, benoni and krugersdorp. the other seven municipalities (pretoria, klerksdorp, potchefstroom, heidelberg, standerton, pietersburg and volksrust) form the second group. examination will also be made of any significant differences between these two groups. 1 the field of municipal engineering only gained public recognition after breakthroughs in the understanding of disease transmission and improved public health measures during the second half of the 19th century. the first formal professional institution for municipal engineers in england was established in 1873 and the first professional examinations for municipal engineers were offered in 1877. 2 for a more detailed examination of johannesburg and pretoria, see h. mäki and j. haarhoff, ‘municipal engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before 1910’. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5, 2, 2009, 230−247. municipal engineers in transvaal before 1910 td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 119-128. 121 municipal developments in the transvaal before the anglo-boer war (1899-1902), there were experimental attempts to establish municipal government in the zuid-afrikaanse republiek in the urban centres of potchefstroom, pretoria, lichtenburg, lydenburg, rustenburg, zeerust and johannesburg. of these only johannesburg was successful. it seems that in all the other cases the municipalities failed due to a lack of financial viability. municipal government was introduced permanently in this area only under british control after the anglo-boer war.3 the municipalities of boksburg, heidelberg, klerksdorp, krugersdorp, middelburg, pietersburg, standerton, potchefstroom and germiston were formally established in 1903. the municipality of barberton was created in january 1904. a number of urban district boards were also created in 1903. they were granted municipal status later in 1904, but were called minor municipalities, whereas the aforementioned ten plus johannesburg and pretoria were called major municipalities. roodepoort-maraisburg became a major municipality in 1905 and benoni was separated from boksburg and proclaimed a major municipality in 1907. of the major municipalities middelburg, barberton and roodepoort-maraisburg did not appoint a municipal engineer before 1910; among the minor municipalities the only appointment of a municipal engineer before 1910 was at volksrust.4 contemplated from the perspective of demography it becomes evident that the 11 municipalities appointing municipal engineers before 1905 were among the 13 largest municipalities. (see table 1.) the population of the whole transvaal in 1904 was almost 1,3 million people. an estimated 83% of the transvaal’s urban residents had the benefit of a municipal engineer. by 1910 this percentage had increased to 89%. table 1. most populous municipalities in the transvaal in 1904 and 1910 population in 19045 population in 19106 johannesburg 160,000 210,000 pretoria 35,000 41,600 germiston 29,127 54,000 krugersdorp7 19,483 44,500 boksburg 14,650 40,000 benoni (part of boksburg) 21,000 potchefstroom 9,086 14,037 springs 6,500 4,900 standerton 5,208 3,000 roodepoort 4,0008 35,000 3 l.p. green, history of local government in south africa: an introduction (cape town: juta & co., 1957), 44−76. 4 h.t.m. bell and c.a. lane (eds.), a guide to the transvaal (johannesburg, 1905), 97; w.p.m. henderson and f.g. pay (eds.), official south african municipal year book, 1911 (pretoria: south african association of municipal employees, 1911), 184−185. 5 figures for 1904 are from bell & lane, except krugersdorp and roodepoort. 6 figures for 1910 are from south african municipal year book, 1911, except pietersburg, which is from the 1913 edition, and krugersdorp. 7 municipality of krugersdorp, mayor’s minute, for the year ending 25th october, 1904 (krugersdorp: standard printing works, 1904), 3; municipality of krugersdorp, mayor’s minute for the year ending 31 october, 1910 (krugersdorp: standard printing works, 1910), 3. mäki 122 klerksdorp 3,733 4,040 heidelberg 3,219 2,700 pietersburg 3,200 4,547 (1912) volksrust 2,382 2,300 barberton 2,379 2,800 christiana 2,082 1,500 lydenburg 1,523 1,523 ermelo 1,451 1,600 lichtenburg 1,350 not given piet retief 1,028 900 vereeniging 911 1,050 wakkerstroom 800 (whites) 1,331 zeerust 800 (without natives) 800 wolmaransstad 470 1,000 middelburg not given 1,300 rustenburg not given 1,400 venterstad not given 1,100 the size of the permanent local population was a definitive factor. for example, middelburg did not have a municipal engineer, although it was a major municipality – presumably primarily as a result of its linkage to the transvaal rail network. on the other hand, some larger urban centres like barberton, roodepoort and springs only appointed town engineers in 1912 and in 1904 both roodepoort and springs were already bigger than some major municipalities that did make the appointment. an interesting, possibly related development in springs was that the population actually decreased from 1904 to 1910. what actually happened in barberton and roodepoort was that barberton had a water bailiff and roodepoort a foreman of works and in both cases their titles were changed to that of a “town engineer”. in the early 1920s the south african district of the british institution of municipal engineers was still considering how to stop unqualified individuals calling themselves “town engineers”. barberton and roodepoort were not alone in following this practice. of the twelve municipalities in the transvaal only nine had a municipal engineer in 1910. in standerton, pietersburg and heidelberg the municipal engineer’s departments were closed during the recession of 1907-1908.9 retrenchment was the order of the day in many municipalities.10 for instance, in pretoria the whole engineering department was reorganised, with some officials dismissed and the salaries reduced of others.11 8 . w.m.c. scholtz, ‘die geskiedenis van roodepoort–maraisburg tot 1952’. (m.a. thesis, rand afrikaans university, 1979), 41. 9 national archives of south africa (hereafter nasa), transvaal archives (hereafter tab), tpb, 341, ta1011, pietersburg municipality, minute of his worship the mayor for the year ending october 1908, 16. 10 this retrenchment policy was the result of a considerable drop in the value of land in 1907. this was partly due to the general feeling of uncertainty of the replacement of the crown colony by responsible government in the transvaal. the financial crisis of 1907 in europe and the united states was also an important cause. 11 mäki and haarhoff, ‘municipal engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before 1910’, 244. municipal engineers in transvaal before 1910 td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 119-128. 123 engineers training from the second half of the 1880s up to 1910, there were 27 municipal engineers in the twelve municipalities in the transvaal. three of them, d.c. leitch, august karlson and hugh daniel badcock were university-trained engineers, ernst lutz had a diploma from zurich polytechnic, f.w. jameson and t.a.j. forrester had taken university studies and alfred pike had studied in technical school. (see table 2.) fourteen of the engineers had been trained through apprenticeship. the educational background of the remaining nine is unclear, but it is highly probable that they also had at least some form of training. table 2. municipal engineers in the transvaal 1889-1910 tenure nationality training reason for exit johannesburg william henry miles12 1889–1892 english apprenticeship dismissed george r. grey13 1892–1893 english, born in india apprenticeship forced to resign charles aburrow14 1893–1901 english apprenticeship dismissed donald calder leitch15 1902–1904 english apprenticeship, studied engineering at edinburgh university other job g.s. burt andrews16 1905–1927 english apprenticeship retired pretoria ernst lutz17 1896–1897 german from hungary diploma in engineering from the zurich polytechnic resigned august karlson18 1899–1902 swedish diploma in engineering from the university of contract terminated 12 institution of mechanical engineers (hereafter ime), membership proposal, william henry miles, 6 may, 1889; nasa, tab, mhg, 0/7865, sterfkennis, william henry miles, 21 march, 1893. 13 men of the times: pioneers of the transvaal and glimpses of south africa. transvaal publishing company, 1905, 155; nasa, tab, mhg, 66658, death notice, george robert grey, 2 august, 1928. 14 . institution of civil engineers (hereafter ice), candidate circulars, charles aburrow, 1 may, 1883 and 18 february, 1898; l. jackson and w. martinson, aburrow & treeby. the architects of parktown 8. (johannesburg: parktown & westcliff heritage trust, 1989). 15 ice, candidate circular, donald calder leitch, 23 august, 1898. 16 ice, candidate circulars, george samuel burt andrews, 23 october, 1894 and 1 december, 1905; nasa, tab, mhg, 99795, death notice, george samuel burt andrews, 23 november, 1937. 17 . nasa, tab, mhg, 62448, death notice, ludvig ernst lutz, 19 march, 1927; j. ploeger, ‘e.l. lutz’. newsletter, old pretoria society, 45, 1980, 2. 18 report of the witwatersrand water supply commission, 1901-1902. (pretoria: government printing and stationery works, 1902), 123; ice, candidate circular, august wilhelm karlson, 20 january, 1905. mäki 124 stockholm hugh daniel badcock19 1902–1909 english ma in mathematics, university of oxford resigned f. walton jameson20 1909–1920 south african apprenticeship; course at the technical university of nottingham other job pietersburg ? 1903–june 1904 unknown unknown unknown r.w.b. somerville july−september 1904 australian unknown unknown william norman ashplant21 october−november 1904 english unknown other job john anderson november−december 1904 australian unknown dismissed james younger22 1905−1907 scottish unknown other job john gillespie23 1907−1908 scottish apprenticeship forced to resign standerton w.h. dobson24 1903−1905 english apprenticeship forced to resign j. edward fitt25 1906−1907 english apprenticeship dismissed boksburg harry good26 1904−1913 english apprenticeship resigned germiston t.a.j. forrester 27 1904−1905 scottish apprenticeship; studies in edinburgh university forced to resign john riley28 1906−1907 english apprenticeship other job james bright29 1908–1932 (acting irish unknown retired 19 . ice, candidate circular, hugh daniel badcock, 30 july, 1897; h.st.g. gray, ‘hugh daniel badcock’. somersetshire archaeological and natural history society: proceedings, 85, 1939, 243-244. 20 ice, candidate circular, frank walton jameson, 20 november, 1923. 21 canadian great war project, william norman ashplant, http://www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/searches/soldierdetail.asp?id=44360. 22 nasa, tab, mhg, 6348/58, death notice, james younger, 15 august, 1958. 23 ice, candidate circular, john gillespie, 28 september, 1886. 24 simon’s town museum, person register, william henry dobson. 25 ice, candidate circular, john edward fitt, 21 january, 1890; nasa, tab, mhg, 5853/45, death notice, john edward fitt, 19 october, 1945. 26 ice, candidate circulars, harry good, 1 december, 1898 and 15 april, 1910; ‘mr. harry good, a.m.i.c.e., f.r.g.s.’. the east rand express, 9 april, 1904; nasa, tab, mhg, 82025, death notice, harry good, 11 july, 1933. 27 ime, membership proposal, thomas adam jardine forrester, 22 august, 1905; ‘germiston’s town engineer’. the east rand express, 12 march, 1904. 28 ‘the new town engineer’. the east rand express, 17 march, 1906; south african who’s who 1909. (ken donaldson: johannesburg and durban, 1909), 337. municipal engineers in transvaal before 1910 td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 119-128. 125 1905-1906 and 1907−1908) heidelberg f.a. ter horst30 1904−1908 dutch unknown dismissed klerksdorp harry hancock31 1904−1917 english apprenticeship retired krugersdorp richard a. webster32 1904−1914 english apprenticeship resigned potchefstroom j.a.g. harrisson33 1904−1912 english unknown retired volksrust alfred pike34 1904−1921 english technical school other job benoni william mcgeorge mason 1909−1911 unknown unknown unknown the appointment process applications were invited when 22 of the engineers were appointed. ernst lutz was a member of pretoria’s temporary town council and possibly the only qualified engineer on the council when he became the first town engineer.35 w.h. dobson and the first town engineer of pietersburg, whose name could not be ascertained, had been working for the local board of health prior to their appointments as engineers by the new town councils.36 james bright was an assistant town engineer of germiston, when he was at first named as an acting town engineer and later confirmed as a town engineer.37 it is uncertain what transpired at volksrust. 29 nasa, tab, mhg, 6086/44, death notice, james bright, 27 november, 1944; ‘town engineer retires’. the east rand express, 6 may, 1932. 30 nasa, tab, mhg, 4370/52, sterfkennis, william antoon ter horst, 1 august, 1952. 31 ice, candidate circular, harry hancock, 26 september 1893; nasa, tab, mhg, 47176, death notice, harry hancock, 6 october, 1921. 32 ime, membership proposal, richard arthur webster, 21 march, 1917. 33 south african who’s who 1915. (ken donaldson: johannesburg and durban, 1915), 157. 34 south african who’s who 1909. (ken donaldson: johannesburg and durban, 1909), 372. 35 the city of pretoria and districts. an official handbook describing the social, official, farming, mining, and general progress and possibilities of the administrative capital and surrounding districts (johannesburg: publicity department, south african railways, 1913), 70–1; j.j.n. cloete, ‘die ontstaan en ontwikkeling van die munisipale bestuur en administrasie van pretoria tot 1910’, archives year book for south african history, 1960, part 1 (pretoria: government printer, 1960), 133. 36 nasa, tab, mst, 1/1/1, minutes of the standerton municipal council, 5 december, 1903; a.j.j. du preez, standerton 100 (johannesburg: caxton, 2000), [no page numbers]; nasa, tab, mpb, 1/2/1, minutes of the general purposes committee, 13 january, 1904; l. changuion, pietersburg: die eerste eeu, 1886–1986 (pretoria: stadsraad pietersburg, 1986), 89. 37 nasa, tab, mgt, 1/1/1/4, minutes of the meeting of the germiston town council, 28 february, 1907; nasa, tab, mgt, 1/1/1/4, minutes of the meeting of the germiston town council, 16 august, 1907; ‘germiston municipality’. the east rand express, 13 july, 1907; ‘germiston town council’. the east rand express, 14 september, 1907. mäki 126 in germiston, heidelberg, krugersdorp, klerksdorp and boksburg the first town engineers were appointed between the last week of january and first week of march 1904, shortly after the formal establishment of municipalities.38 in volksrust, alfred pike was appointed as a town engineer already under the urban district board in january 1904.39 in potchefstroom, preparation for a town engineer started immediately after the creation of the municipality. however, the appointment was only made in october 1904.40 benoni’s first town engineer was the only one to be appointed more than one year after the creation of the municipality.41 the outstanding exception of all the municipalities was johannesburg, where the first town engineer was appointed in 1889, eight years before the formal establishment of the municipality.42 in 10 of the 12 appointments (83%) of the first town engineers there is a link to the establishment of the local government. earlier work experience in all known cases, previous experience played a significant role in the selection process. most of the engineers already had working experience from the united kingdom and other parts of south africa; ten of them had been working in the other parts of the world.43 in all cases where background is known (25 out of 27) the engineer was at the time of appointment either already working in south africa or, as in the cases of w.h. miles and d.c. leitch, had previous experience from south africa.44 only t.a.j. forrester and f. walton jameson had earlier experience of a similar position in some other municipality.45 termination of the tenure if we look at the termination of the tenures of the town engineers, it seems that their task was far from easy. three of the engineers, w.h. miles, aburrow and john anderson were dismissed. four, george r. grey, ernst lutz, w.h. dobson and t.a.j. forrester, resigned because of alleged 38 nasa, tab, mgt, 1/1/1/1, minutes of the meeting of the germiston town council, 28 january, 1903; ‘germiston town council’. the east rand express, 30 january, 1903; nasa, tab, mkr, 1/1/1/1, minutes of the krugersdorp town council, 9 february, 1904; nasa, tab, mkd, 1/1/1/2, minutes of the special meeting of klerksdorp town council, 23 february, 1904; nasa, tab, mbo, 1/1/1/1, minutes of the boksburg municipal council, 2 march, 1904; ‘boksburg town council’. the east rand express, 5 march, 1904. 39 d.n. miller, short history of volksrust (johannesburg: hortors, 1933), 9. 40 nasa, tab, mpo, 1/1/1/3, minutes of the potchefstroom town council, 23 june, 1904; nasa, tab, mpo, 1/1/1/3, minutes of the potchefstroom town council, 18 august, 1904. 41 nasa, tab, mb, 1/1/3, minutes of the benoni town council, 18 november, 1909; ‘benoni town council’. the east rand express, 20 november, 1909. 42 mäki and haarhoff, ‘municipal engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before 1910’, 231−232. 43 before coming to south africa grey had been working in the usa and some south american countries, lutz in switzerland, karlson in france and on both the suez and panama canals, somerville and anderson presumably in australia, fitt in argentina, ter horst in netherlands, hancock in philippines, webster in india and pike in russia, france and italy. 44 miles had been working in port elizabeth before returning to england and leitch had been the civil engineer in responsible charge of the admiralty works at the cape of good hope in early 1890s. 45 forrester was assistant town engineer of east london and had been acting town engineer there before coming to germiston. jameson was borough engineer of pietermaritzburg before his appointment to pretoria. municipal engineers in transvaal before 1910 td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 119-128. 127 misconduct. two municipal engineers, john gillespie and harry good, resigned as a result of differences with the local politicians.46 with the benefit of hindsight, at least in the case of aburrow, there was no misconduct.47 of the other six, grey’s and dobson’s actions appear to come under the definition of corruption.48 such allegations, in the case of miles, lutz and forrester, are rather less clear. lutz was exonerated of any misconduct and miles had defenders who claimed that the sanitary board had been too eager to see misconduct were there was none.49 forrester was apparently a victim of germiston’s work committee’s frugality.50 anderson was dismissed for drunkenness.51 r.a. webster probably resigned due to new office arrangements. j. edward fitt and f.a. ter horst were dismissed because of the retrenchment policy and the resignation of h.d. badcock was also directly connected to this.52 august karlson was not allowed to remain in his position.53 six of the engineers, d.c. leitch, f. walton jameson, w.n. ashplant, james younger, john riley and alfred pike, resigned and moved on to greener pastures.54 only g.s. burt andrews, james bright, harry hancock and j.a.g. harrisson went voluntarily into retirement. for three of the engineers, the unknown first engineer of pietersburg, r.w.b. somerville and w.m. mason, we have no clear reasons for their departure. conclusion looking at the development in these twelve municipalities and thinking about the two groups mentioned in the introduction, we can see that there are really no differences in timing for the appointment of the first town engineer. nearly all these municipalities appointed the first engineer within a few months of their establishment. the position of engineer in relation to the municipal 46 nasa, tab, mpb, 1/2/4, minutes of the general purposes committee, 18 february, 1908; nasa, tab, mpb, 1/2/1, minutes of the general purposes committee, 17 march, 1908; ‘boksburg town council’. the east rand express, 15 february, 1913; ‘municipal re-organization’. the east rand express, 22 february, 1913; ‘the boksburg municipal muddle’. the east rand express, 12 april, 1913; a.w. heinemann, ‘the boksburg municipal muddle’. the east rand express, 19 april, 1913; ‘boksburg municipal staff’. the east rand express, 3 may, 1913. 47 mäki and haarhoff, ‘municipal engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before 1910’, 238−240. 48 mäki and haarhoff, ‘municipal engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before 1910’, 234; nasa, tab, mst, 1/1/2, minutes of the special meeting of the standerton municipal council, 26 november, 1905. dobson was later town engineer in grahamstown 1912−1919, in vereeniging 1919−1921 and in krugersdorp from 1921. the incident at standerton apparently did not have any damaging repercussions for his career. 49 mäki and haarhoff, ‘municipal engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before 1910’, 233, 236−237. 50 nasa, tab, mgt, 1/1/1/2, minutes of the meeting of the germiston town council, 14 december, 1905; ratepayer, ‘municipal officials’. the east rand express, 30 december, 1905; ‘the recent disturbance’. the east rand express, 13 january, 1905; l. de kock, ‘geskiedenis van germiston 1886-1986’. unpublished manuscript in germiston public library, africana collection, 89; ‘the new town engineer’. the east rand express, 17 march, 1906. 51 nasa, tab, mpb, 1/2/1, minutes of the general purposes committee, 13 december, 1904. 52 nasa, tab, mst, 1/1/3, town council meeting, 26 july, 1908; nasa, tab, mhb, 1/1/1/3, town council meeting, 25 november, 1907; nasa, tab, mpa, 1/1/1/15, town council meeting, 27 august, 1908. 53 mäki and haarhoff, ‘municipal engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before 1910’, 240−241. 54 leitch became a chief engineer of rand water board, jameson went to kimberley as a town engineer, ashplant went to nigeria, younger became an engineer to the general council of tanskei in umtata, riley was appointed as sewerage engineer of johannesburg, and pike went to rhodesia to be a town engineer in umtali. mäki 128 council was also very similar; for instance, dismissals occurred in both groups. however, a difference is apparent in the financial situations of the municipalities. all those instances where there were considerable cuts in engineering departments or even closures of whole departments during the depression of the late 1900s happened in municipalities outside the mining area. relations between town engineers and municipal politicians seem to be very similar in all twelve municipalities. the town councils and council committees carefully scrutinised engineering departments’ activities. they also kept an eye on town engineers. if there were differences of opinion, the town engineers were always on the losing side. the available evidence suggests that there were many uncertainties in the job description and powers of the municipal engineer. for instance, it seems that it was unclear to many municipal decisionmakers what personal qualities were necessary for a successful municipal engineer. this state of affairs created serious problems. a town council could still dismiss a town engineer or force his resignation at very short notice. town councillors clearly took their supervisory duties seriously. expenditure, often a major category on the balance sheet of engineering departments, tended to be substantial under circumstances of local urban development. consequently, the cheapest tenders would generally be accepted in an effort to prevent the ‘waste’ of money. all allegations of misconduct and corruption were taken seriously – perhaps far more so than is the case today. furthermore, it appears as if the engineers themselves were unsure of what was expected of them, or what kind of working environments awaited them in south african towns. and even if the engineers had experience from the towns in the cape colony, the working environment in the transvaal, especially in mining towns, was quite different. most historians are not comfortable with giving lessons from the past, and i am one such. be that as it may, in light of this research it is clear that the tasks of the municipal official like the town engineer have to be clearly defined. the working experience, qualifications and the ability of the person appointed should also have an impact on this. if there are any grey areas in the responsibilities of the position difficulties will inevitably ensue. indonesia and africa 23 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 indonesia and africa: questioning the origins of some of africa’s most famous icons robert dick-read* abstract: in the author’s opinion there have been three far-reaching gaps in the study of africa’s history: 1) indonesian involvement in east and central africa; 2) links between madagascar and eastern and south/central africa; and 3) extension of indonesian interest to west africa, particularly nigeria. he contends that indonesians (the term applies to ‘insular southeast asians’) may have begun regular trading to africa when greek and roman demand for oriental spices developed several centuries bce. the east african ‘zanj’ were, in his view, an afro/ indonesian race linked with the people of ‘zabag’ sumatra and java – later with srivijaya in particular, whose interest in the gold, copper, iron and other products of africa were extensive. madagascar was only ever of secondary importance to indonesians compared with mineral-rich africa. but for centuries the austronesian-speaking, afro-indonesian people of madagascar maintained regular contact with the mainland giving rise to mixed societies, particularly in the mozambique-zimbabwe region. he believes the ancient zimbabwe culture was in several ways linked with that of madagascar, and that the vast ruin area of nyanga was also connected. these cross-channel associations were gradually eclipsed by the domination of arab-shirazi colonisation down the east african coast. there is a wealth of evidence that indonesians rounded the cape and sailed to west africa. several elements of nigerian culture generally attributed to east-west overland movements or trans-saharan arab traders, are more likely to have reached the lower niger regions by sea from indonesia. among these was the technology enabling the iconic ‘bronze’ artwork for which nigeria is famous. key words: indonesia. madagascar. zimbabwe. nigeria. srivijaya. zanj. zabag. outriggers. goldmines. plantains. xylophones. bronze. igbo-ukwu. the romance of the dhow clings to east africa’s coast, encompassing its history with rich odours of the sea, born inexorably ashore by the gentle kaskasi. billowing settee sails spread their wings on the horizon, heading for land. rounding the point into mombasa harbour, echoing to the sound of drums and pipes and urgent shouts, a dhow drops its canvas and comes to rest in a coterie of bums, baghlas, sambuks and kotirs swinging close to one another in the placid creek. a nakhoda, henna-dyed and eagle-eyed, is rowed ashore to do his business. jetblack glistening bodies brush by, heaving boriti poles to the water’s edge. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 23-45 * robert dick-read is author of the phantom �oyagers: e�idence of indonesianhe phantom �oyagers: e�idence of indonesian settlement in africa in ancient times, (thurlton publishing) winchester, 2005).winchester, 2005).. thurlton.publishing@ntlworld.com. dick-read 24 long carts with creeking wheels trundle noisily through the streets, piled high with boxes and furnishings of many sorts. boys in white gelabias and colourful kofias play mischievous games. young ladies in black, with delicate ankles and pretty dark eyes, glance enquiringly from the folds of their bui-buis. there is a heavy sensuality in the heat and din and sweatfilled atmosphere of the ancient harbour. the nakhoda is soon lost in the bustling humanity of the narrow alleyways and clamouring warehouses. this was the mombasa i knew over fifty years ago when i used to spend hours buying carpets from the likes of sharif shatry and sheikh mohammed. it is easy to see why the most pungent images of the indian ocean are those brought about by the dhows – among the most evocative and romantic vessels ever built. in their hey-day there were at least thirty varieties regularly plying the waters from kilwa to kuwait, mombasa to mangalore, bombay to the bajun islands … balams, batels, zaimas, and zarooks pattamars and padaos, dhangis and ganjas – and many more besides. but one must not let the dhows in all their glory obscure the importance of generations of ships from other parts of the ocean that came before them – that came, and in some cases slid into the past unnoticed, like the dinosaurs of the jurassic who once ruled unopposed in their watery world. who knows what the first indian ocean ships were? we have some evidence, and can make some guesses. hide or bundle boats have been used in mesopotamia since at least the fifth millennium before the common era (bce), though whether these put to sea or not we have no idea.1 centuries later, the egyptians must have been among the earliest seafarers in the region. the brilliant construction of cheops’ river-boat buried near his pyramid four and a half thousand years ago testifies to their ingenuity and craftsmanship;2 as do queen hatshepsut’s manyoared, rectangular-sailed ships despatched to the illusive land of punt a thousand years later. the rivers of mesopotamia, the indus, and others in northern india teemed with vessels of one sort of another in the second millennium bce; but so far as we know these ventured only a few hundred miles down the indian coast, as far as the ancient harappan ports of lothal and bhagatrav.3 or did they go further? were ships already criss-crossing to the far side of the indian ocean when the great civilisations of mesopotamia thrived? cloves from the moluccas have been found at terqa on the middle euphrates, dated to about 1700 bce.4 conversely, remains of sheep or 1 s mcgrail,s mcgrail, boats of the world. (oup, oxford and new york, 2001) p. 56. 2 n jenkins,n jenkins, the boat beneath the pyramid: king cheops’ royal ship, (thames and hudson/holt rinehart and winston, london and new york, 1980). 3 m wheeler,m wheeler, the indus ci�ilisation 1979 (cambridge university press, cambridge, 1979), p. 65 4 g buccellati, correspondence. 11th april 2002; also see mw chavalas,g buccellati, correspondence. 11th april 2002; also see mw chavalas, terqa and haradam: a comparati�e analysis of old babylonian period houses along the euphrates (university of wisconsin press, wisconsin, 2003). p. 2. indonesia and africa 25 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 goats middle eastern animals – have been found on timor, dated to c. 1,500 bce.5 even if cloves came via the ‘silk route’ and the sheep were driven to southeast asia overland, which is very unlikely, lengthy seatrips between the mainland and the islands would have been essential; so it is possible that long voyages across the indian ocean were being undertaken far earlier that is generally recognised.6 according to the biblical book of kings, in about 1000 bc: hiram sent in the navy his servants … and they came to ophir, and fetched from thence gold, … and brought it to king solomon (and) …once every three years, the ships of tarshish came bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes and peacocks....7 talk of peacocks, in particular, suggests that some of the goods must have come originally from india; and the linguistic evidence points specifically to southern india. the names adopted in the middle east for apes (kapim), and peacocks (tukim), and later the words for rice (oryza), and ginger (zingiber) were all adaptations – not of the sanskrit or pali languages of aryan india – but of dra�idian words from the tamil south.8 herodotus related how, in the reign of pharaoh necho, c. 600 bce, a fleet of phoenician ships (built in the mediterranean, sent through necho’s canal from the nile to the red sea were the first to circumnavigate africa. before the turn of the first millennium, greek and roman ships – built on egypt’s red sea coast – traded regularly with southern india. lists of goods for the mediterranean trade included food and drink, textiles and clothing, household items, tools, pepper and other spices, aromatics, drugs and dyes, slaves; and ornaments such as a sensuously exquisite ivory figurine from india found buried in the ashes of pompeii. huge demand arose among wealthy romans for fine indian and chinese cloth, unguents, perfumes, pearls, and precious stones. muslins and cottons and silks were sold at fabulous prices; the last of them silk being literally worth its weight in gold during the reign of the third century caesar aurelian.9 5 j reade, introduction toj reade, introduction to indian ocean in antiquity (kegan paul, london, 1996), p. 19; ic glover, recent archaeological evidence for early maritime contacts between india and southeast asia, (1993) p. 138: ic glover, “aksumite overseas interests” in j reade, the indian ocean in antiquity p. 77; also conversation with dr kinkel at british museum. 6 w mahdi, “linguistic and philological date towards a chronology of austronesianw mahdi, “linguistic and philological date towards a chronology of austronesian activity in india and sri lanka” in r blench and m spriggs (eds.), archaeology and language (routledge, london and new york, 1997 and 1999), p. 213 and ff. for a similar view. 7 kings 1: 9, verses 27-28; and kings 1:10, verse 22.kings 1: 9, verses 27-28; and kings 1:10, verse 22. 8 v kanakasabhai,v kanakasabhai, the tamils eighteen hundred years ago. (higgenbotham, madras, 1904), p. 31 see also: note 25 below. (mahdi,) dravidian words for ‘boats’. 9 kr hall,kr hall, maritime and state de�elopment in early southeast asia, (university of hawaii press, honolulu, 1985), pp. 27-36, 59. dick-read 26 gold and specie flowed from rome to asia. in ad 77, lamenting the extravagance and reckless spending of rome’s rich and famous, pliny wrote despairingly that there was “no year in which india did not drain the roman empire of a hundred million sesterces … so dearly do we pay for our luxury and our women.” tiberius grumbled that “the ladies and their baubles are transferring our money to foreigners.” and even during christ’s lifetime, the emperor augustus, shamed by the widespread lowering of standards, passed a law forbidding the wearing of transparent indian silks on the grounds of indecency. one scholar has argued that the period “when the classical civilisations of the mediterranean encountered buddhist india and han china” should be looked upon as the beginning of the world system!10 there were two spices sent to rome from the orient whose southeast asian origins were disputed as far back as the third century bce. these were cinnamon and cassia.11 herodotus thought they came from arabia, and so did the famous author of the history of plants, theophrastus. agatharchides said sabaea; philostratus, india; strabo simply said the ‘cinnamon-country’, probably meaning india. an anonymous papyrus said from ‘trogodytica’ (meaning north-east africa somewhere). but in his natural history pliny the elder (ce 24 – 79) explained: in fact cinnamomum, which is the same thing as cinnamum, grows in ‘ethiopia’, which is linked by intermarriage with the cave dwellers. these buy it from their neighbours and bring it over vast seas on rafts which have no rudders to steer them, no oars to push them, no sails to propel them, indeed no motive power at all but man alone and his courage … they say that their traders take almost five years there and back, and that many die. on the return journey they take glassware and bronzeware, clothing, brooches, bracelets and necklaces so here is one more trade route that exists chiefly because women follow fashion. following delivery to opone and other ports in the horn of africa, these goods were shipped to the mediterranean in arab vessels. for many centuries bce arab fleets flourished in the red sea; but as the mediterranean trade with india and the far east grew, the sturdily built vessels of rome and greece proved to be better equipped to handle the boisterous direct crossings to india than the sewn ships of arabia, a factor that led to a decline in arabian shipping in the centuries prior to islam…. a decline, however, that was not matched by sassanian fleets in the persian gulf for whom the coastal journeys around india became frequent, even 10 ic glover, recent archaeological evidence for early maritime contacts between indiaic glover, recent archaeological evidence for early maritime contacts between india and southeast asia. p. 131. 11 l casson. trans.l casson. trans. the periplus maris erythraei: text with introduction, translation, and commentary, (princeton university press, princeton, n j. 1989), p. 123. the best general account of the spice trade in this period is still ji miller, the spice trade of the roman empire, (oxford, clarendon press. 1969): also see eh warmington, commerce between the roman empire and india. (1928, revised in 1974 and republished in 1995) l casson, “ancient naval technology and the route to india” in v begley and rd de puma (eds.) rome and india – the ancient sea trade, oxford university press, new delhi reprint, 1991). indonesia and africa 27 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 commonplace, by the middle of the first millennium of the common era (ce). the first arab seaborne mission to china was in 724ce.12 but what were pliny’s strange raft-like vessels that brought the cinnamomum? were they indian? little is known of indian ships of the era. the greek ‘master’ who wrote the periplus of the erythraean sea in the mid-first-century ce mentioned four specific types of ‘indian’ ships. two of them, the trappaga and the kotymba were most likely inshore pilot boats. but he wrote also of two larger ships in southern india:“… sangara, that are very big dugout canoes held together by a yoke, as well as for the very big kolandiaphonta that sail across to chryse and the ganges region.”13 lionel casson, in his translation of the periplus maris erythræi, pointed out that in tamil-form, sangara equals shangadam, which the portuguese borrowed as jangar or jangada meaning a ‘raft’, or more specifically, a “double platform canoe made by placing a floor of boards across the two boats.”this substantially agreed with warmington’s view that a sangara was apparently “… very large, made of single logs bound together, apparently double canoes either malay in origin or corresponding to the jangar of malabar today.” most experts seem to agree that the sangara is likely to have been derived from an indonesian twin-hulled design similar to some of the multi-hulled vessels in which mariners explored much of the pacific. so, were cinnamomum cassia blume and cinnamomum zeylanicum nees carried to the horn of africa directly by indonesian sailors on these perilous rafts? it is very possible that such journeys provided indonesians with a raison d’être first for visiting, and subsequently settling in east africa, from where they later set out to people madagascar. what of the kolandiaphonta mentioned in the periplus? linguists find a connection between this word and the name by which indonesian ships were known to the chinese kun-lun-po meaning ‘ships of kunlun’, the chinese name for sumatra or java. both anthony christie14 and james hornell, thought they “probably had a close kinship with the 12 m laffan, “finding java: muslim nomenclature of insular southeast asia fromm laffan, “finding java: muslim nomenclature of insular southeast asia from srivijaya to snouk hurgronje”, (asia research institute paper no 52. 2005). laffan is quoting wolters. 13 the best general accounts of boats and shipping in this period can be found amongthe best general accounts of boats and shipping in this period can be found among the following sources: l casson. the periplus maris erythraei…, pp. 128, 203 – 230; l casson, “ancient naval technology and the route to india” (u. of wisc. edition 1991; j hornell, water transport: origin and early de�elopment, (cambridge university press, camrbidge, 1946); gf hourani, arab seafaring (revision: john carswell. princeton university press, princeton nj, 1995; rk mookerji, indian shipping: a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the indians from the earliest times, (longmans. 1912): see other sources in the appendix. 14 a christie, in minutes of the african history seminar s.o.a.s. 11.4.1959a christie, in minutes of the african history seminar s.o.a.s. 11.4.1959 (unpublished). dick-read 28 two-masted javanese outrigger ships of the (eighth century) boro-budur sculptures, seeing that the periplus distinctly states that the kolandia traded to chryse”. it is now generally accepted that rather than being an indian name for an indian vessel kolandiaphonta was a straightforward transcription of the chinese term ‘kun-lun-po’.15 as a maritime nation this lea�es india out on a limb, and one wonders whether, in the millennia following the decline of the indus ci�ilization, indians were e�er great off-shore sailors.16 the indian maritime historian, radha kumud mookerji, writing in the early 1900s, was confident that they were.17 “i have already said,” he wrote, “that though indian literature furnishes rather meagre evidence directly bearing on indian shipping and shipbuilding, it abounds with innumerable references to sea voyages and sea-borne trade and the constant use of the ocean as the great highway of international intercourse and commerce….” but what sort of references was he alluding to? mookerji delved deeply into the jatarkas, and the mahabharata, and a treatise on astronomy/astrology the binhat samhita all of which were written or up-dated as recently as the fifth and sixth century a.d.. he came up with many obscure poetical myths and legends of great maritime feats, including one from the digha nikaya which stands out for the fact that it “distinctly mentions sea voyages out of sight of land” – seemingly a rare and special occurrence. his stories are shot through with countless references to shipwrecks and other dramatic disasters such as; “his ship, however, sprang a leak in mid-ocean, but he is miraculously saved by a kind fairy in a magic ship filled with the seven treasures….” and on the evidence of just one sanskrit work, the yukti kalpataru, moorkerji made a case for there having been huge ocean-going ships built in ancient india, carrying seven and eight hundred, even a thousand, people. but surely these were ships of fable? collectively the references to early ocean-going shipping leave frustrating question-marks, and suggest that even if the ships of aryan india did venture out to sea, they were poorly built, and their sailors were inadequate for the task. mookerji, in his book, depicts one of the large ships painted on the walls of the sixth or seventh century a.d. caves at ajanta in northwest india. the ajanta boats tell nothing about truly ‘ancient’ shipping. several features on the boats that are shown – for instance the artemon foresails – suggest that they could have been strongly influenced by greek or roman ships, and offer less than no proof that they were ‘indian’. the highpoint of mookerji’s work, to his way of thinking ‘proving’ india’s maritime proficiency, is his description and portrayal of the magnificent ‘indian’ 15 j hornell, memoirs of the asiatic society of bengal vol 7 1920. part iv p 215 – 224.j hornell, memoirs of the asiatic society of bengal vol 7 1920. part iv p 215 – 224. the classes of vessels employed by indians in ancient days prior to portuguese maritime dominance. 16 for instance, see eh warmington, the commerce between the roman empire and india, (london revised 1974) p. 65. 17 rk mookerji, indian shipping: a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activityrk mookerji, indian shipping: a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the indians from the earliest times. (longmans, 1912). indonesia and africa 29 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 ships carved on the famous ‘indian’ temple at borobudur in central java. but though indians may have played an important part in designing and building the famous buddhist temple, it has subsequently been shown, beyond any doubt, that the seven beautiful outrigger ships depicted on the walls were not indian – but indonesian. in china, mariners took to the open oceans surprisingly late in history. though a huge variety of vessels of all sizes had undoubtedly been plying china’s rivers and coasts for centuries, they did not apparently go far out into the oceans until the third quarter of the first millennium ce. until that time the chinese ‘farmed out’ their international traffic to indonesians.18 in the seventh century the famous chinese pilgrim, i tsing went, with others, to india on vessels provided by an indonesian ruler. the same i tsing referred to visitors to tongking as people from the kun-lun countries, meaning ‘indonesians’.19 but by then kun-lun merchants were sailing annually to canton. by the middle of the eighth century china was building merchant ships of nearly 600 tons – rather larger than the average spanish ship of the armada 800 years later. sailors lived on them with their wives and families; there were ‘gardens’ on board, as well as the owner’s slave-girls, and musicians. but it seems from documents compiled in the thang dynasty by wang tang that these ships were owned by merchants plying for trade up the coast and on the rivers, rather than across the oceans.20 endorsing the view that these large chinese ships did not venture far from the coast, wang tang specifically said that “the sea-going junks (hai po) are foreign ships.”21 there is at least one chinese record relating that foreign ships (indonesian) were sometimes chartered to merchants from other parts of asia.22 this situation may have gone on for centuries. in their introduction to the story of chau ju-kua, rockhill and hirth concluded that cantonese junks did not visit southern india until the twelfth century ce.23 but this did not stop chinese missionaries and merchants travelling far and wide on ‘foreign’ ships throughout the first millennium, and jo needham was able to write: 18 for information on anything to do with china, see j needham,for information on anything to do with china, see j needham, science and ci�ilisation in china, (cambridge university press, cambridge, 1954) is essential reading. 19 ow wolters,ow wolters, early indian commerce, p. 199. chinese writers in the 8th/9th century described the kun-lun people as being very black, curly headed, and eaters of human flesh. 20 j needham, science and civilisation in china – nautical technology cambridge, p.j needham, science and civilisation in china – nautical technology cambridge, p. 452 note b. 21 ibid., pp. 451-453 22 ow wolters,ow wolters, early indian commerce, pp. 151-157; 169; 222-225 this book is a fund of important information on s.e. asia; see also kr hall, maritime and state de�elopment in early southeast asia, (university of hawaii press, honolulu, 1985). 23 j chauj chau on the chinese and arab trade in the 12th and 13th centuries, (translated by friedrich hirth and w.w. rockhill, literature house ltd, taipei, taiwan, 1964). dick-read 30 it is arresting to think that chinese merchant-officials walked with roman citizens from greece, syria and egypt on the quays of arikamedu (in southern india).24 the nautical history of the southeast asian islanders is probably the oldest in the world; they had, after all, been crossing deep water for 60 000 years, since the earliest migrants had managed to migrate from sundaland to sahulland to reach australia.25 much later, about 5000 years ago, when ‘austronesian’ speaking seamen migrated from formosa and began to explore the islands of the pacific, many of them also spread their language westward to the islands bordering on the indian ocean, and even further. james hornell, one of the twentieth century’s most respected marine ethnographers, wrote an article asserting that polynesians, i.e. austronesian–speakers, became established in southern india in pre-dravidian times. his opinion was based on the geographical distribution of outrigger canoes: (a) point of the highest importance in this connection is the fact that in common with polynesians, they employ a single outrigger on their canoes, in striking contrast to the double form so characteristic of malaysian small craft … it is not surprising that there we find the polynesian boat forms in great variety … in common with peculiar polynesian fishing devices, in continued high esteem by the local fishermen and divers. after detailed discussion he concluded: i incline to think that these parawas (of southern india) represent a part of that fierce naga race described by ancient tamil writers as in possession of the coast districts and with negapatam as their chief town when the tamils first arrived in the south”. i would then identify the nagas with an ancient coastal people of polynesian affinity. 26 this is a view supported by the fact that tamil words such as pada�u, padangu, or hadagu for ‘ship’ or ‘boat’ are derived from austronesian padaw or perahu.27 if hornell was correct, austronesian speaking mariners – let us call them ‘indonesians’ – were moving freely in the indian ocean centuries before the mediterranean trade of which we have written above, making the archaeological evidence of ‘cloves from the moluccas’ and ‘sheep to timor’ a less fantastic possibility. 24 j needham, science and civilisation in china volume 4, p. 443.j needham, science and civilisation in china volume 4, p. 443. 25 p bellwood,p bellwood, prehistory of the indo-malaysian archipelago. (university of hawaii press, honolulu, revised edition 1997). for a general background of the region’s history, and much detail, this is essential reading. p bellwood, the peopling of the pacific. in scientific american’ (date and issue unknown). 26 j hornell,j hornell, memoirs of the asiatic society of bengal, vol. 7, 1920 – part v. pp. 225 235 the light shed upon eastern ethnological problems by indian boat designs. 27 w mahdi, “the dispersal of austronesian boat forms in the indian ocean inw mahdi, “the dispersal of austronesian boat forms in the indian ocean in archaeology and language” in r blench and m spriggs (eds.), archaeology and language (routledge, london and new york, 1997 and 1999), p.172. indonesia and africa 31 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 hornell’s polynesian hypothesis is not given much help by archaeology in india, where ancient ship-remains are virtually non-existent. but in indonesia there is substantial archaeological evidence dating back at least to the early part of the first millennium ce. the oldest known indonesian ship remnants, recorded by pierre-yves manguin, are pieces of a plankbuilt boat at pontian, on the south-west corner of the malay peninsular carbon-dated to the third – fifth century a.d.28 parts of a similar boat of about the same period have been found in southern thailand. and in southern sumatra, near palembang, strakes clearly belonging to a large and sturdy hull, dated to between the fifth and the seventh century, have been unearthed. a remarkable aspect of all of these ancient relics is that the standard stitched-plank, lashed-lug and dowel construction technology appears to have been used by indonesian boat-builders more or less unchanged for the next fifteen hundred years. also in southern sumatra archaeologists have found two quarter-rudders measuring 9 m and just under 7 m long respectively – much the same as those still in use on large boats today and probably dating from the first half of the first millennium ce. contemporary timber sections, reconstructed, have produced a single strake over 47ft (15,23 m) long from which it has been estimated that the vessel was 21-23 m long, and narrow – possibly similar to the elegant fighting-ships called kora kora, paddled by as many as 300 men ranged in double banks on the outriggers,29 that still prowled the indonesian islands long after the arrival of the portuguese and dutch. earlier we mentioned that hornell and christie believed the large ships depicted on the walls of borobudur traced their ancestry back to the kolandiaphonta of the periplus, alias the k’un-lun-po of the chinese which, so far as we know, did not have outriggers. whether that was the case or not, adrian horridge thinks the borobudur ships were ancestral to the swift kora kora:30 and if he is right, these large outrigger vessels would have been the macro jet aircraft of their age that carried indonesian influences far and wide across the indian ocean over a period of hundreds of years. this interpretation gained support from the successful voyage of philip beale’s traditionally built, iron-free and engineless, samudra raksa, a 28 pierre-yves manguin’s work on the maritime archaeology of southeast asia is essentialpierre-yves manguin’s work on the maritime archaeology of southeast asia is essential reading – starting with the three articles listed below: p-y manguin, pre-modern southeast asian shipping in the indian ocean: the maldi�e connection. ‘new directions in maritime history conference’ fremantle. december 1993; p-y manguin, “southeast asian shipping in the indian ocean during the first millennium a.d.” in tradition and archaeology. ed. hamanshu ray and jean-francois salles. see:‘ proceedings of the international seminar – seafaring in the indian ocean’. new delhi. 1994; p-y manguin, “the southeast asian ship: an historical approach” in journal of southeast asian studies, 11(2), 1980, pp. 266-276. 29 a horridge,a horridge, the prahu (oxford university press, oxford, 1981), p. 4. 30 ibid., p. 1. dick-read 32 ‘replica’ of one of the borobudur ships, which safely completed a voyage of 17 600 km from java to madagascar and on to ghana in 2003.31 we know that indonesians have been familiar with the western indian ocean since sometime in the early part of the first millennium ce, if not before. the fact that austronesian speakers peopled madagascar is not disputed. but questions remain: when did indonesians first cross the indian ocean? what route did they take? did they settle on mainland africa before going on to madagascar? where in indonesia did they come from? who were they? what motivated them? some of the answers are bound to remain conjectural. we have suggested they may have been pliny’s ‘raft’-men bearing spices from southeast asia; and we have even suggested that the spice trade might date back to the second millennium bce (viz. cloves to terqa). as for their route, one possibility is that indonesians came directly across the indian ocean from java to madagascar. but as they apparently never discovered the seychelles or any of the other mascarene islands, it is more likely they went further north, passing through the maldives where evidence of old indonesian boat design and fishing technology lingers even now.32 though we cannot be sure that madagascar was not ‘discovered’ at an earlier date, the consensus seems to be that the main settlement was not until the fifth to seventh century ce, and only after the new inhabitants had spent a prolonged period in africa where there developed some sort of ‘afro-indonesian’ or ‘afro-malagasy’ race.33 if we stop to ask who these mixed indonesian/african people might have been, we have to give serious consideration to the possibility that they were none other than the famous ‘zanj’, after whom the western indian ocean (the bahr ez-zanj) and most of the east african coast (the ard az zanj, and the sufala of the zanj) was named by islamic arab writers – and there are a number of factors to support such a contention. the old arab name for sumatra and/or java was ‘zabag’, ‘zabaj’ or ‘zanaj’. on what may be an eleventh century copy of a map commissioned in the early ninth century by abbasid caliph al-ma’mun, ‘the lands of zabaj’ are placed on the african coast below the orthographically similar ‘lands of zanj’.34 then there is idrisi’s famous passage (trans. trimmingham): 31 details of this journey can be found on the internet. google samudra raksa. the borobudur ship 32 p-y manguin,p-y manguin, pre-modern southeast asian shipping in the indian ocean: the maldi�e connection. ‘new directions in maritime history conference’ fremantle. december 1993. 33 ka adelaar, “malagasy culture-history: some linguistic evidence” in j reade (ed.)ka adelaar, “malagasy culture-history: some linguistic evidence” in j reade (ed.) the indian ocean in antiquity, p. 489. h deschamps, histoire de madagascar. (4th ed. éditions berger-levraut, paris, 1972), p.25 34 m laffan, “finding java: muslim nomenclature of insular southeast asia fromm laffan, “finding java: muslim nomenclature of insular southeast asia from srivijaya to snouk hurgronje”, (asia research institute paper no 52. 2005), p. 22.p. 22. indonesia and africa 33 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 the people of the zabaj islands [also] travel to the zanj in both small and large ships and engage in trafficking in their goods because they understand each other’s language….35 the british orientalist, anthony christie, went further, saying that: the arab word zang or zenj used for ‘negro’ may not be arabic … an apparent chinese form occurs as early as 607 ad. there is no doubt that this seng-ch’i was typically s.e. asian.36 [zanj] could possibly be a s.e. asian word.37 the names ‘zangenae’, zingis’, ‘azania’, ‘zanj’, ‘zand’, and ‘seng-ch’i’, frequently cropped up in writings of the greeks, romans, arabs, persians, and chinese since the early part of the first millennium ce, paralleling indonesian interest in africa and the settlement of madagascar. there are other reasons for thinking the zanj were at least part-indonesian. when arabs first encountered them, the zanj were occupying the offshore islands of pemba and zanzibar, demonstrating that they must have been competent sailors – a feature not normally associated with east africa’s hamitic, cushitic, bantu or san tribes.38 and there is no reason to think that they did not already use boats with outriggers such as the traditional ngalaua of indonesian design. these vessels are still found from the bajun islands to the comoros and madagascar. the zanj did not speak arabic; and though there may possibly have been a few bantu words, their language (from what little is known of it) was apparently not of bantu origin.39 they used strange fishing techniques similar to some used in indonesia. masudi wrote that the zanj were skilled iron workers and hunters, and that they traded ivory to the far east.40 as late as the sixteenth century.41 35 js trimmingham, “the arab geographers and the east african coast” in. hn chittickjs trimmingham, “the arab geographers and the east african coast” in. hn chittick and ri rotberg. east africa and the orient: cultural synthesis in pre-colonial times, (africana publishing company 1975), p. 126. 36 m laffan, princeton university, in correspondence, writes: “i don’t think this is beyondm laffan, princeton university, in correspondence, writes: “i don’t think this is beyond doubt at all. zenjis/jenggis are mentioned in javanese inscriptions of the 9th and 10th centuries and seem to refer to foreign african visitors.” 37 a christie, in minutes of the african history seminar s.o.a.s. 11.4.1959 (unpublished).a christie, in minutes of the african history seminar s.o.a.s. 11.4.1959 (unpublished). 38 some commentators point out that we do not know if this was the case 1000 yearssome commentators point out that we do not know if this was the case 1000 years ago. but if the indigenous people were ever fine seamen it is likely that they would have been aware of the comoro islands – probably from the occasional eruption of mount karthala – and would have peopled madagascar before the arrival of austronesian speaking people from the east. but the evidence does not point to this. 39 m tolmacheva, ‘the zanj language’,m tolmacheva, ‘the zanj language’, ktswahtlt, 45(1), 1975. 40 m tolmacheva, “they came from damascus in syria” inm tolmacheva, “they came from damascus in syria” in the international journal of historical studies, 12(2), 1979, p 263; m tolmacheva, dictionary of the middle ages v12 (1989), p. 739. 41 for general reading on the zanj the following are among the most useful: mfor general reading on the zanj the following are among the most useful: m tolmacheva, “the african waq waq: some questions regarding the evidence” in bulletin d’information fontes historical africanae, no. 11/12 1997/8, p. 9; m tolmacheva, “toward a definition of the term ‘zanj’” in azania, xx1, 1986; m tolmacheva, “the origin of the name ‘swahili’” in tanzania notes and records 77/78, 1976; js trimmingham, “the arab geographers and the east african coast” in. hn chittick and ri rotberg. east africa and the orient: cultural synthesis in pre-colonial times, pp. 131-132; j knapper “the trade language of the indian ocean 1979” (?). this ‘pull’ was sent to me by jan knappert. it has neither date, nor page numbers. the article deals in general with trade as title suggests. dick-read 34 from what part of indonesia would these migrants have come? austronesian language experts such as sander adelaar42stand by otto chr. dahl’s research indicating that the language of madagascar is derived from maanjan, the language of riverine people in the barito valley of south east borneo.43 the introductory lines of seventh century inscriptions found on bangka island (opposite the musi river on the banks of which lay the capital of srivijaya, palembang) are in a barito-like language that seems also to be a form of pre-malagasy.44 but a cursory glance at the modern culture and history of the maanjan (riverine dyaks, canoe builders of note, but so far as anyone knows, never mariners who might have ventured far) must throw doubts on whether they themselves were the emigrants.45 although otto chr. dahl was the first to propose the hypothesis that the malagasy language was rooted in maanyan, he was equally convinced that it was bajau mariners – probably those who had settled on bangka island – who carried indonesians to africa and madagascar.46 it is well recognised, however, that the hugely scattered diaspora of bajau seanomads lives in a sprawling linguistic hotchpotch, the dialects of nomadic groups often differing radically from those of sedentary groups; and the latter frequently acquiring the languages of their ‘hosts’.47 thus it is quite conceivable that if bajau once settled in the barito estuary, (here one is reminded of dahl’s comment:“il y a dans le malgache des éléments qui semblent nous orienter �ers célèbes”48) they may well ha�e acquired maanyan as their primary language, thus allowing us to reject the �iew that ri�erine dyaks were the (unlikely) settlers of madagascar. to resol�e this dilemma it might ha�e been hoped that genetic studies carried out in 2005 would ha�e pro�ided a clear-cut answer. but no such luck. dna samples were taken in banjarmasin on the barito ri�er; others 1600 km north in kota kinabalu; and although the authors state boldly: “the closest single island southeast asian or oceanic population to the malagasy is that from banjarmasin.” a few lines further on they say (referring to banjarmasin and kota kinabalu): “… it was obser�ed that there 42 ka adelaar, in correspondence, may 2006: “dahl was basically right in tracing theka adelaar, in correspondence, may 2006: “dahl was basically right in tracing the origins of ther malagasy language to the southeast barito language group in borneo, to which maanyan belongs.” 43 oc dahl,oc dahl, malgache et maanjan: une comparaison linguistique, (egede institutttet, oslo, 1951). 44 ka adelaar, “malagasy culture-history: some linguistic evidence” in j reade, (ed.)ka adelaar, “malagasy culture-history: some linguistic evidence” in j reade, (ed.) the proceedings of the conference on the indian ocean in antiquity, (kegan paul london, 1996), p. 492. 45 ab hudson,ab hudson, padju epat – the ma’anyan of indonesian borneo. michigan state u. 1972. ab hudson and m judith, the ma’anyan of paju epat in essays on borneo societies. hull monograms on s.e. asia 7, 1978. 46 oc dahl,oc dahl, migration from kalimantan to madagascar, (norwegian university press, oslo, 1991). pp. 98, 100, 120, etc 47 d sopher.d sopher.sopher. op cit pp. 179-183. 48 oc dahl,oc dahl, op cit. p. 372. indonesia and africa 35 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 is no significant difference between the two borneo populations.”49 while a borneo link with madagascar is acceptable, the probability of the maanyan of the borito ri�er ha�ing migrated to and mingled with the people of kota kinabalu at any time is �ery unlikely. this adds credibility to dahl’s �iew that the borneo/malagasy link was effected by bajau mariners – in this case bajau who had acquired the maanyan dialect. analysis of the �arious ‘sea people’ of indonesia adds further support to this hypothesis. whereas most of the smaller ‘orang laut’ sukus might not have made the best material for the srivijayan navy, nor to undertake long distant voyages across the indian ocean, those of south sulawesi,50 present a different picture, particularly the forebears of the bajau, (or bajō, with the accent heavily on the ‘o’) bugis, mandar and makassar who have dominated the indonesian maritime scene for centuries.51 in fact one of the very few linguistic links between africa and indonesia seems to confirm this: in makassarese, buginese and mandar a canoe’s outrigger pole is baratang, or buratang. in makassarese the connecting piece between the outrigger pole and the float is tenko.52 in north eastern australia (one of the regions from which bugis, bajau and makassarese fishermen used to gather trepang for the chinese market) a doubleoutrigger canoe is tango.53 while on the other side of the indian ocean, in kiswahili and shingazija (comoros), an ‘outrigger’ is tengo or mtengo. these names are too similar to be explained merely by ‘coincidence’.54 if there is a valid link with east africa, between the bajau and their closely associated suku the bugis, mandar and makassarese, one is tempted to speculate on the origin of some of the names one finds on the african coast. look, for instance, at the bajun islands. vinigi grottanelli devoted seven pages in his ‘pescatori dell’oceano indiano’ trying to fathom the origin of the name ‘bajun’; but still left the question open.55 he pointed out that ‘bajun’ does not follow the normal bantu rules: the people are never known as the wa-bajuni or m’bajuni. they are the ‘bajun’ or ‘bajuni’ 49 m hurles, b sykes, m jobling, p foster, the dual origin of the malagasy in islandm hurles, b sykes, m jobling, p foster, the dual origin of the malagasy in island southeast asia and east africa: evidence from maternal and paternal lineages. american journal of human genetics, 76, 2005, pp. 895, 899-900. 50 oc dahl, in the penultimate paragraph of his bookoc dahl, in the penultimate paragraph of his bookdahl, in the penultimate paragraph of his book malgache et maanjan hinted at a possible connection between malagasy and southwest sulawezi. “il y a dans le“il y a dans le malgache des éléments qui semblent nous orienter vers célèbes” (p.372)(p.372) 51 de sopher, the sea nomads – a study of the maritime boat people of southeast asiade sopher, the sea nomads – a study of the maritime boat people of southeast asia ([1965], national museum of singapore, reprint 1977). 52 a horridge,a horridge, the prahu, bottom of table 1 page 88 (no’s 47-48) for sulawezi. 53 dictionary of the world’s watercraft. the mariner’s museum 2000. p. 572dictionary of the world’s watercraft. the mariner’s museum 2000. p. 572 54 ka adelaar, “malagasy culture-history: some linguistic evidence” in j reade, (ed.)ka adelaar, “malagasy culture-history: some linguistic evidence” in j reade, (ed.) the proceedings of the conference on the indian ocean in antiquity, shows a compass point shows a compass point system (page 491) that he believes may have been developed in palembang, ‘north’ being towards the sea; ‘south’ towards the interior, etc. ‘south-east’ is termed tengara which, he says: “must be a loanword (although we do not know its history …)”. is it possible that it points towards the locality from which came the ‘outrigger’ ships that were the mainstay of srivijaya’s vitally important navy? 55 vl grottanelli,vl grottanelli, pescatori dell ‘oceano indiano. (rome, 1955) p. 8 ff. dick-read 36 pure and simple. the bajun are fishermen, and amongst other things they fish for ‘sea-cucumbers’, or trepang, an item for which the bajo of indonesia used to travel thousands of miles to satisfy the pallets of chinese gourmets. the bajun of africa have an unusual way of catching turtles using a remora sucker-fish, similar to methods in parts of melanesia, japan, and northern australia. james hornell relates how the bajun came to be the builders of the famous east african mtepe which possibly has indonesian ancestry.56 throughout indonesia there are numerous bajau toponyms where these itinerant mariners once settled.57 one has to ask: is the name ‘bajun’ just another of these toponyms? next, in the standard english/swahili dictionary one finds the translation for madagascar:“madagascar, n. buki, bukini.” vinigi grottanelli, as bewildered by ‘buki’ as he was by ‘bajun’, said of the term ‘buki’: “as far as i know this remarkable name has never been explained”; and gabriel ferrand wrote:“the origins of this denomination remain obscure: the phoneme does not resemble bantu”.58 is the swahili ‘buki’ derived from the presence of the ‘bugi’ or ‘bugis’ of sulawesi? similar arguments can be made for the island of manda which seems to have been settled since the early seventh century by non-islamic seagoing people who used sassanian glass, indian pottery, and chinese porcelain.59 is its name derived from the mandar of sulawesi? and finally, where did the name ‘madagascar’ come from? marco polo is generally credited with naming the island at the end of the thirteenth century, when he referred to it in his writing as magastar,60 said to be (without any evidence) a corruption of magadoxo, or mogadishu. he visited neither madagascar nor mogadishu personally. his frequently inaccurate descriptions were based on hearsay gathered from arab merchants. he correctly described madagascar as one of the largest and most fertile islands in the world; so how did he confuse it with one of the driest, drabbest, towns in the horn of africa? is it not more likely that magastar or madagascar is derived from makassar – a name most probably as old as the tenth or eleventh century bugis epic myths,61 and possible even older? 56 j hornell, “the sea-going mtepe and dau of the lamu archipelago” inj hornell, “the sea-going mtepe and dau of the lamu archipelago” in mariners mirror, vol. 27, 1941. 57 d sopher,d sopher,sopher, op cit, p. 162. 58 v grottanelli,v grottanelli, op cit., p. 15. 59 m horton and j middleton,m horton and j middleton, the swahili: the landscape of a mercantile society, (blackwell, oxford, 2000). 60 m polo,m polo, tra�els. (ed. w. marsden 1946). p. 391 ff 61 anthony reid, author of:anthony reid, author of: charting the shape of early modern southeast asia (1999), in an email 28th feb 2006. reid was writing from memory, and did not give a precise reference. reid, anthony. the rise of makassar. review of also: indonesian and malaysian affairs, winter/summer 1983, pp. 117-160. indonesia and africa 37 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 what might have triggered off the movement from indonesia to africa? we have mentioned one possible inducement – the cinnamum trade about two thousand years ago. another may have been linked to the emergence of powerful states in southeast asia which had been spurred on by the growth of trade between the mediterranean, india and china. one of the earliest states was funan (first century ce) on the southeast asian mainland, which grew rich from traffic crossing the isthmus of kra. funan was followed by numerous smaller polities in sumatra and java, all paying allegiance to china. most notably among these was kan-to-li in sumatra, which declined in the 6th century but was followed, in the midseventh century, by its more important successor, srivijaya.62 srivijaya was for centuries the most powerful of all the island states in the region. it was differentiated from the others by several major factors. to establish an empire that had absolute control over the east/ west sea-routes, srivijaya – from its capital at palembang in southern sumatra – had of necessity, to control the sunda strait in the south and the isthmus of kra in the north. in addition to protecting its flanks by forming strong alliances with neighbours, srivijaya built an efficient army of foot soldiers, and a more powerful navy than its neighbours – the latter very probably being made up of ubiquitous bajo, and ancestral bugis mariners in addition to the local orang laut. in time, according to a chinese writer, “…srivijaya had fourteen cities” based on alliances with maritime societies stretching from java to kra.63 it was said that its prestige among both indian and chinese merchants was such that they looked for any excuse they could find to trade in the name of the srivijayan ruler. sumatra was once known as su�arnabhumi or su�arnad�ipa, ‘the island of gold’. not only was it almost the only place in indonesia where gold was produced in quantity,64 but according to the persian chronicler ibn khurdadhbih, writing in the nintgh century, gold had a symbolically important role in the running of the srivijayan state. in order to demonstrate his debt to tandru n luah ‘the god of the waters of the sea’, the maharaja would daily throw a bar of gold into palembang harbour, chanting “look, there lies my treasure”.65 when a raja died, the harbour was dredged, and the gold bars were distributed among the royal family, military commanders, and – if there was any left – the king’s other subjects. 62 g coedès,g coedès, the indianised states of southeast asia. (3rd ed. university press of hawaii, honolulu, 1963); ow wolters, early indian commerce, (cornell univ. press, new york, 1967). 63 ow wolters,ow wolters, early indian commerce, p. 239. 64 rw van bemmelen,rw van bemmelen, the geology of indonesia vol. 1, (gov. printing office, the hague, 1949). 65 kr hall, kenneth r. maritime and state development in early southeast asia u. ofkr hall, kenneth r. maritime and state development in early southeast asia u. of hawaii. 1985, pp. 80-81. dick-read 38 such a powerful demand for gold in srivijaya may well have been the driving force behind the search for minerals in africa, and the development of gold mines in zimbabwe (sufalah of the zanj) which were probably opened up by experienced indian miners who were almost certainly the power behind sumatra’s own ancient mines.66 zimbabwe’s gold mining, in the view of roger summers, started soon after 600 ce – i.e. at about the time as srivijaya’s rise to power.67 though we have no proof that the gold went to sumatra or java, we have evidence that zimbabwe’s gold was shipped abroad from chibuene,68 and other nearby ports within the ‘region of sufalah’, in pre-islamic times. we know, as already mentioned, that merchants from zanaj/zabaj (as sumatra was known at the time of srivijaya) came to sayuna in the mouth of the zambezi ‘in both small and large ships…to exchange … their goods for those of the zanj… trafficking in their goods because they understood each other’s language.’ perhaps of even greater importance is al-masudi’s passage (ce 956): “…the extremes of the sea of zanj and the land of sofala and the extremes of the country of waq-waq … and this is a land abounding in gold, abounding in miracles, and the zanj have made it [i.e. the land of sofala] the seat of their kingdom.”69 the linkage of the zanj with the waq-waq whom ferrand, faublée and others connect with ‘indonesians’ gives extra weight to the argument that there was also an indonesian element in the zanj.70 bringing the evidence together, the most likely scenario is that in the latter part of the first millennium ce zimbabwe’s gold was shipped from sufalah of the zanj, by indonesian merchants, to the powerful rulers of srivijaya. in the exciting early days of islam, gold may have been the single most important factor providing the wake-up call for arab and shirazi adventurers to establish their own powerful city-states on africa’s coast which eventually put a strangle-hold on the old-established trading links between africa and indonesia. following the cola raids on srivijaya early in the eleventh century, and gradual changes in political orientation towards china, indonesian commerce must have been suffering increasing strains. until finally, did not al-mujawir (early thirteenth century) say of the mariners who sailed from madagascar to africa and aden in their vessels 66 g coedès,g coedès, op cit., p. 20. quoting sylvain levi: “it was gold that attracted india to the eldorado of the east” also… ow wolters, op. cit. p. 63 “a search for gold has been regarded by a number of scholars as an important motive for the original interest in southeast asia, operating in the last centuries before the christian era when the movement of barbarians across central asia deprived the indians of siberian gold and in the second half of the first century a.d. when vespasian cut off supplies of roman bullion to india.” 67 r summers,r summers, ancient mining in rhodesia, (museum memoir 3. salisbury 1969). 68 p sinclair, space, time and social formation:etc. (uppsala 1987). referred to also inp sinclair, space, time and social formation:etc. (uppsala 1987). referred to also in m horton and j middleton, the swahili: the landscape of a mercantile society, p. 79. 69 m tolmacheva, “the african waq waq: some questions regarding the evidencem tolmacheva, “the african waq waq: some questions regarding the evidence” in bulletin d’information fontes historical africanae, no. 11/12 1987/88, p. 12 70 ibid.,pp.10, 14. indonesia and africa 39 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 with outriggers, that ‘…(they) have now disappeared since their power came to an end and since the route of their travel has been closed.’? so let’s re-cap. long before the bums, baghlas, and sambuks of arabia dominated the horizons, and elegant kotirs plied across to africa from india, the indian ocean’s shipping lanes were busy with vessels of many other nations: egyptian ‘bottoms’ bound for punt and ophir; mesopotamian and harappan traders clinging to the coast between the euphrates and the indus; and greeks and romans venturing for the first time far from land as they were carried on the trade winds to southern india and back. in those early days the ships of india stayed mainly inshore, just as sassanian traders from persia probably did in the dying days of roman dominance.71 in china, merchant ships, though ubiquitous and often huge, did not sail into the indian ocean until the latter part of the first millennium ce. in fact, the only people who seemed to have roamed the ocean relatively freely throughout that period seem to have been the austronesianspeaking people of southeast asia whose experience as mariners in their island-studded world dates back centuries if not millennia before that of any other people on earth. so if our interpretation of the evidence is correct, and indonesians were not only familiar with, but settled on the african coast in pre-islamic – and probably also pre-bantu – days, how might this effect currently ‘established’ versions of african history? there are some things we know; and some things we can only guess at. we know that at some stage austronesian-speakers discovered and occupied madagascar, the structure of whose language is closer to that of easter island 22 500 km away, than it is to any of the languages of african just 400 km beyond the mozambique channel. we are now fairly certain that those who peopled madagascar were previously well established on the african coast, accounting for the rich, deeply entrenched mix of african vocabulary, customs and genes in madagascar. if that was the case, the odds strongly support the conclusion that the afro-indonesian society on the mainland was both older, larger, and more racially varied than is generally acknowledged (if their presence is acknowledged by modern historians at all!); and that the polygenetic society in question was none other than the various tribes of ‘zanj’. such a scenario also lends credence to the hypothesis proposed by m. horton72 and others that the rapid southward spread of early iron age (?100 to c.500ce) pottery, almost as far as durban in south africa, was due to it being carried by sea, rather than by migrating tribesmen moving slowly overland … and likewise, many years later, the spread of ‘tana71 d whitehouse, “sasanian maritime activity”d whitehouse, “sasanian maritime activity”whitehouse, “sasanian maritime activity” in ‘the indian ocean in antiquity’ ed. j. reade. 1988. whitehouse points out that from ce 226 – 651 the sasanians who ruled iran and, eventually, adjacent countries from the red sea to the indus, played a major role in the trade to asia. sasanian dominance may have contributed to the decline in arab shipping in the years leading up to the end of the sixth century. 72 m horton and j middleton, the swahili: the landscape of a mercantile society, p.38.m horton and j middleton, the swahili: the landscape of a mercantile society, p.38. dick-read 40 ware’ (?500–1000ce … which must have been carried by sea to reach the comoros and madagascar). the rapid movement of people and ideas down the coast would have radically effected inland locations in southern africa such as broederstroom, which we know, from cowrie shell evidence,73 must have been in contact with the coast. are we right in assuming that these early southern sites ‘belong’ solely to anomalous advance parties of migrating bantu? or might some more mobile elements of a mixed mariner race have been primarily responsible? once madagascar was populated there is no reason to think it was then isolated from the rest of the world. indeed, there must have been constant activity in the bahr az zanj between madagascar and the mainland. not only is this evident from the range of african influences found in madagascar; but – more interestingly – when one looks at the reverse flow, the many cultural elements in africa that seem to have their roots in the ‘great isle’. raymond kent wrote much about this two-way traffic in his early kingdoms in madagascar74 with particular reference to the shona, venda and other central african people radiating around zimbabwe (which is, incidentally, the �ery region considered by al-masudi to ha�e been the ‘the seat of the kingdom’ of the zanj): and i ha�e expanded on this in my phantom voyagers. strong though the evidence is, it is seldom, if ever, taken into account in studies of central african cultures, particularly those of zimbabwe, nyanga, the upemba depression, etc. but it should be. without it we are left with distorted history. music and musical instruments provide interesting and important links, particularly noticeable in central africa, between indonesia and africa. for instance, in the lower zambezi region, are heard the haunting sounds of the nyungwe panpipes75 – instruments identical in form to those of vanuatu and the solomon islands,76 but which were also once played in java, flores, timor and new guinea.77 but the best known ‘african’ instrument played across a great swathe of africa from mozambique to senegal (but which seems to have made it to madagascar only in a primitive form) is the xylophone, which most musicologists now accept as 73 r mason, background to the transvaal iron age – new discoveries at oliphantspoortr mason, background to the transvaal iron age – new discoveries at oliphantspoort and broederstrom. j. of the inst. of mining and metallurgy. jan 1974 p. 212. the evidence is minimal; but the cowrie found was of a type that came from the maldives. 74 r kent,r kent, early kingdoms in madagascar 1500 – 1700 (holt, rinehart and winston, new york, 1970). 75 a tracey, “the nyanga panpipe dance”a tracey, “the nyanga panpipe dance” in african music, vol. 5 1971. 76 h fischer, “sound producing instruments in oceania”h fischer, “sound producing instruments in oceania” inst. of png studies, nos. 384 and 389, 1983 p. 207. 77 j kunst,j kunst, music in ja�a. (the hague, 1970) pp. 30, 366, 376; am jones, “panpipes and the equipentatonic pitch” in african music, vol. 1, 1980. indonesia and africa 41 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 having originated in indonesia.78 it is particularly noteworthy that about 500 years ago africa’s pre-eminent xylophonists, the chopi, who now live near the mouth of the limpopo, broke away from the karanga, the shona clan considered to have been the ancient custodians of the great zimbabwe.79 such links between the great zimbabwe, madagascar and indonesia are of prime historical importance, and should not be left mouldering in the shadows. at some point indonesians must have sailed round the cape and up to west africa. those who doubt whether this was possible should take note of the voyage of philip beale’s samudra raksa, already mentioned.80 though al-biruni asserted that the indian ocean stretched “… from aden to sufalah of the zanj, beyond which no ship �entures because of the great risks in�ol�ed… [for] beyond this point it joins the western ocean”, he may ha�e been referring only arab or persian ships. although there is not room here to expand at length on probable indonesian influences beyond the cape it is important to make some mention of the many hints of southeast asian acti�ity that are apparent in west africa – particularly nigeria. we ha�e already mentioned the xylophone; and there is no need to elaborate on father jones’ famous story of his friend in sierra leone who was able to play a cambodian box-xylophone and his own mandinka (sierra leone) instrument as though they were one.81 the similarities, and his subsequent musical e�idence, were compelling. other musical analogies can be made; e.g. between the igbo ekere-mba (drum xylophone) and the thai kong tock;82 between the eclectic designs of message gongs;83 between virtually identical bar-zithers in the congo, mozambique, madagascar and sulawesi;84 and possibly also the development of tuned double iron gongs used in west africa, and ancient zimbabwe.85 78 am jones, “the influence of indonesia: the musicological evidence reconsidered”am jones, “the influence of indonesia: the musicological evidence reconsidered” in azania, 4, 1967; am jones, africa and indonesia (2nd edition, ej brill, leyden, 1971) j kunst, “a musicological argument for cultural relationship between indonesia –probably the isle of java – and central africa” in proceedings of the musical association. session lx11 1935/36. 79 h tracey,h tracey, the chopi, (oxford university press, oxford, 1948) p. 123, also ref: pp. 9, 107, and 137. 80 google borobudur ship for full information on the expedition 81 am jones,am jones, africa and indonesia, p. 1. 82 jn lo-bamijoko, “classification of igbo musical instruments, nigeria” injn lo-bamijoko, “classification of igbo musical instruments, nigeria” in african music, vol. v1, 1987: illustration of s.e. instruments can be found on the internet. 83 jf carrington, “a comparative study of some central african gong-languagesjf carrington, “a comparative study of some central african gong-languages”in memoires – collection in-8 tome xv111 fasc 3 institut royal colonial belge. section des sciences morales et politiques, (brussels 1949) p. 119 and illustrations. 84 r dick-read, the phantom voyagers: evidence of indonesian settlement in africa inr dick-read, the phantom voyagers: evidence of indonesian settlement in africa in ancient times. p. 133. 85 ibid., p. 135; r dick-read, sanamu: ad�entures in search of african art. (rupert hartdavis, london 1964) pp. 148-150. dick-read 42 elephantiasis (wuchereria bancroftii) is a disease portrayed in early nok sculptures,86 and, very poignantly, in a famous twelfth or thirteenth century ife terracotta.87 tropical medicine experts say that elephantiasis originated in the coastal swamps of southeast asia; but more than that – they say it is unlikely, owing to the nature of its transmission, to have spread across africa from person to person overland; but more likely to have been carried to west africa directly by infected people.88 plantains, yams and cocoyams that have been grown in west africa for centuries, since before european contact, are southeast asian varieties.89 musa aab and southeast asian varieties of yams which came to dominate the subsistence of most sub-saharan west africans may have made possible a huge surge in the population – some say, even, making the bantu migrations through the forest regions possible. it is still debated whether they were introduced in east africa from where they spread to the west; but there are many good reasons for thinking that these plants were introduced independently in west africa.90 likewise maize. twelfth-century floor tiles found in yorubaland buried 4 m beneath the surface were decorated with impressions of ‘corn-cobs’.91 maize is a hybridised mexican plant that was most likely carried from the americas to southeast asia by polynesians along with other plants (sword-bean; sweet potato; gourds).92 was it carried to yorubaland by the same people who introduced plantains and yams? we can only guess. among africa’s best known icons are its ‘bronzes’; but where did the complex technologies by which they were made originate? most experts believe the processes of finding, smelting, and blending disparate metals to make bronze and casting by the intricate lost-wax process to have 86 b fagg,b fagg, nok terracottas (national museum, lagos, 1977), plate 121 87 f willett,f willett, ife in the history of west african sculpture, (thames and hudson, london, 1967), p. 95, plate 39. 88 br laurence, “elephantiasis and polynesian origins” inbr laurence, “elephantiasis and polynesian origins” in nature. 219 aug. 1968. 89 gp murdock,gp murdock, africa: its people and their culture history, (mcgraw-hill book company inc. new york 1959). 90 nw simmonds, and rh stovernw simmonds, and rh stover bananas 1987; j vansina, paths in the rainforest. (university of wisconsin press, wisconsin, 1990); l vrydaghs, e de langhe and others: “phytoliths: an opportunity to rewrite history” (european meeting on phytolith research madrid, 1996). none of these specifically state that these plants were introduced on the west coast, but in correspondence with a third party, simmonds is said to have favoured that view. there are many arguments against murdoch’s (and oliver’s) view that they were carried overland from the east. 91 f willett, ife in the history of west african sculpture, p.108.f willett, ife in the history of west african sculpture, p.108. 92 cr stonor and e anderson, “maize among the hill people of assamcr stonor and e anderson, “maize among the hill people of assam”in annals of the missouri botanical gardens, vol. 36, 1949: gf carter, “plant evidence for early contacts with america” in southwestern j. of anth. vol. 6. 1950: gf carter, “movements of people and plants across the pacific ocean in ancient days” in proc. of the pacif. sc: cong. 1962. gf carter, maize into africa. anthro. jour. of canada, 1(2), 1963, pp. 3-8 1963; gf carter, “archaeological maize in west africa” in man. no. 95, may/june 1964. indonesia and africa 43 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 been introduced from outside.93 igbo ukwu, where sub-saharan africa’s earliest (ninth century) and most accomplished bronze castings were found, lies a thousand kilometres from the main trans-saharan trade routes,94 but within a few kilometres of the navigable channels of the niger and cross rivers. taken as an isolated instance it might be questionable whether people from indonesia (where cire perdue casting was much in evidence at that time) would have introduced such technology so far from home.95 but in conjunction with other factors, and srivijaya’s known interest in prospecting for metals elsewhere in africa, it would actually have been easier for expert metallurgists to have reached the igbo region by sea, rather than across deserts and through hostile forests from the middle east or the mediterranean. now consider ifa divination that is deeply engrained in yoruba culture and central to its religion.96 how is it that ifa’s 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 structure, with its 256 named variations, is so similar in all its essentials to bwe divination in several micronesian islands on the other side of the world?97 although the ultimate origins of both systems almost certainly lie in china,98 ‘experts’ airily declare that the african system must have been introduced across the sahara by arabs who practice the roughly similar al-raml. although the simpler, more recent, yoruba atimi divination unquestionably had its origins in al-raml, william bascom, the leading writer on the subject, had no firm thoughts about such a provenance for ifa.99 for one thing it would seem that ifa predates, perhaps by a long way, the penetration of yorubaland by arabs; and secondly it is much more complex and involved than al-raml as practiced in the sahara. the yoruba were not land-locked: they numbered among them fine seamen who travelled long distances in their open canoes – sometimes down the coast as far as the congo, so it is said. contact with ‘god-like’ mariners looming over the southern horizon in sturdy ships with billowing sails was an altogether more likely channel for important new ideas with deeply religious significance, than arab traders (who were generally terrified of being eaten by ‘black cannibals’) arriving from the saharan wastes. (of the 52 arab chroniclers who wrote about west africa from mid-ninth to 93 f willett, ife in the history of west african sculpture, pp. 126 -127f willett, ife in the history of west african sculpture, pp. 126 -127 94 n levtzion and jfp hopkins,n levtzion and jfp hopkins, corpus of early arabic sources for west african history. cambridge university press, cambridge,1981). 95 t shaw,t shaw, unearthing igbo-ukwu, (oxfoprd university press, ibadan, 1977). 96 w bascom, ifa divination: communication between gods and man in west africaw bascom, ifa divination: communication between gods and man in west africa (indiana university press, indiana, 1969). 97 w lessa, “divining from knots in the carolinesw lessa, “divining from knots in the carolines” in j. of the polynesian soc. 1959, pp. 188-203. 98 h wilhelm, correspondence 24/4/75 re: ifa and ch. ‘book of fate’. this is a fairlyh wilhelm, correspondence 24/4/75 re: ifa and ch. ‘book of fate’. this is a fairly widely held belief, confirmed to me in correspondence by the sinologist, the late hellmut wilhelm. conversely the arabist, the late afl beeston,. confirmed to me in correspondence (25/3/60) that the 4 x 4 x 16 structure of ifa and itimi, or any of the other systems supposedly based on al-raml (malagasy sikidy, or others in central africa) was based on any known arabic mathematical system. 99 william bascom – personal correspondence. dick-read 44 the late-fourteenth century, only one is known to have set eyes on, let alone travelled down, the niger river – ibn battuta, who canoed down a short stretch of the middle-niger in about 1350 by which time yoruba society had long since reached highly sophisticated levels).100 followed to its logical conclusion, if plantains, yams, bronze-making, lost-wax casting, xylophones, other musical instruments, elephantiasis, and an important divination system were introduced by southeast asians, which seems not only possible but probable, we should at least accept the possibility that the same might have applied to other aspects of their culture. these would include glass-making;101 various bead making techniques (drawn tubes, for instance);102some games (‘mancala’, ‘wari’);103 cowrie shells both as decoration and as money (cowries later became a profitable item of arab trade from the maldive islands); and the forty-odd culture traits proposed by professor j. hutton – ranging from the underlying philosophies behind head-hunting, through cannibalism, to burial customs and promotion of fertility.104 lastly, it is quite possible that iron-smelting technology came to africa from indonesia; though this would need much more research. madagascar never had a stone age, or even a bronze age. since the earliest inhabitants arrived it has had an iron-age culture. piston-bellows of an indonesian variety used to be common in madagascar, and although bellows in africa are usually bagor bowl-bellows, piston-bellows were apparently once used in west africa.105 africa’s inter-lacustrine region, where some of the earliest iron-smelting sites are to be found, could as easily have been reached from the east coast as by migration up the nile through the sudd; and the location of many of the most ancient sites in western africa (c.450 bce) would have been more accessible up rivers from the sea than they would have been overland106 (even taruga, one of the earliest sites, though far inland, is approachable from tributaries of the benue and niger rivers).107 we are making a massive mistake in assuming that all those elements of african culture that came from foreign fields came either from the mediterranean or the middle east. we tend to forget the 100 n levtzion and jfp hopkins, n levtzion and jfp hopkins, corpus of early arabic sources for west african history. (cambridge u.p. 1981). 101 has johnston, has johnston, the fulani empire of sokoto. (oxford university press, oxford, 1967) p. 312; (bida) kurinsky, samuel. the glassmakers. hippocrene books, kegan paul 1991 (bida) nadel, s.f. the field diaries of an anthropologist in nigeria 1935 – 36 ed. roger blench (available on the i’net) p. 55. 102 jamey allen, correspondence on beads. jamey allen, correspondence on beads. 103 c schuster and e carpenter, c schuster and e carpenter,schuster and e carpenter, patterns that connect (h.n. abrams, new york) p.281 – and other references available on the internet; e.g. congklak:traditional game of indonesia: see also:e torday, on the trail of the bushongo. 1925.torday, on the trail of the bushongo. 1925. 104 jh hutton, jh hutton, “west africa and indonesia: a problem in distribution”. the everard im thurn memorial lecture. scottish anth. and folklore soc. 1947. 105 am jones, am jones,jones, africa and indonesia, pp.201-203. 106 j vansina, j vansina, paths in the rainforest. (u. of wisconsin. wisconsin, 1990), map. p. 59 107 b fagg, b fagg, op.cit. see map of jos plateau at very end of the book. indonesia and africa 45 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 23-45 advanced state of culture in maritime southeast asia, particularly during the srivijayan era, and the age-old brilliance of indonesian seamen. africa’s historians should stand back, and take a fresh look at these problems with this in mind. abstract introduction background to the study aim and objectives of the study the research problem significance of the study theoretical framework conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) blessing magocha department of development studies, faculty of humanities, north-west university, mafikeng, south africa edmore mutekwe school of professional studies in education, faculty of education, north-west university, mafikeng, south africa citation magocha b, mutekwe e. narratives and interpretations of the political economy of zimbabwe’s development aid trajectory, 1980–2013. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a896. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.896 original research narratives and interpretations of the political economy of zimbabwe’s development aid trajectory, 1980–2013 blessing magocha, edmore mutekwe received: 11 june 2020; accepted: 12 nov. 2020; published: 04 feb. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the purpose of this conceptual study is to analyse the political economy of zimbabwe’s development aid trajectory from 1980 to 2013. the discussion unfolds around four historical epochs: colonial legacy, land and independence from 1980 to 1990; the economic structural adjustment programme (esap) 1991–2000; the multi-party democracy period 2001–2008 and the government of national unity (gnu) 2008–2013. in doing so, the discourse offers a critical discussion of the factors that have characterised the flow of aid to zimbabwe. it also explores the historical, socio-economic and political events that shaped development policies and outcomes in zimbabwe from 1980 to 2013. the study also explores the scale, interaction and impact of aid flow to zimbabwe. this study is purely qualitative and uses documentary reviews as part of the literature review to extrapolate the relevant data. in this study, we argue that the flow of aid is politically motivated. the study recommends that the zimbabwean government should come up with a robust aid coordination policy in order to fully guide the inflow of donor aid. keywords: aid; development; political economy; aid policy; zimbabwe. introduction the conceptual study seeks to analyse the development aid trajectory in zimbabwe from 1980 to 2013 within the context of the political economy approach. the study thus analyses the status of development aid mainly from the point of view of factors that have characterised the flow of aid in zimbabwe in terms of both explicit and implicit policies, legal frameworks, structures and decisions taken1 by both the zimbabwean government and donors. the study also seeks to analyse the scale, impact and interaction of aid flows to zimbabwe. it also seeks to establish events that shaped development aid policies and outcomes, with a special interest in policy commission and/or omission by political institutions.2,3 it unpacks the various historical, socio-economic and political events which we considered very critical in shaping zimbabwe’s development aid trajectory: land, colonial legacy and independence; the economic structural adjustment programme (esap) of the years 1991–2000; the multi-party democracy period, 2001–2008 and lastly, the government of national unity (gnu) of 2009–2013. these epochs are very critical because of the major socio-economic and political events that occurred which had a bearing on the inand out-flow of development aid to zimbabwe. each of these events is explored to develop an understanding of the development aid trajectory from the early independence years, 1980–2013 in zimbabwe. the issue of how aid has affected the socio-economic and political well-being of the people of zimbabwe is also brought under the spotlight. background to the study aid is very significant and has remained a key source of external finance in least developed states, ahead of diaspora remittances.4 the developing countries, most of them found in africa, heavily depend on aid because they suffer from significant resource constraints and it is very difficult for them to access other external resources such as foreign direct investment.5 it is for this reason that aid remains a vital source for development. zimbabwe is amongst the recipients of foreign aid from many countries and international monetary agencies. in fact, chung6 asserts that zimbabwe was a favoured destination for aid until the political turmoil of the early 2000s in the country, which led to donors withholding aid culminating in less aid being disbursed to harare. as one of the darling of the developed world’s donors, who were prepared to pour in about usd300 million into the country each year,6 zimbabwe recorded many of the celebrated cases of health and education delivery in the first decade of her independence.7,8 however, it is important to note that during the 1990s relations between the government and donors became sour because of alleged human and property rights violations, coupled with mistrust and the political turmoil of the early 2000s.7 nyazema8 and bonarjee9 note that despite the tenuous donor-government relations, aid remained a vital component to socio-economic development in zimbabwe. several aid-funded programmes and projects to improve maternal and child health, access to and quality of water supply and sanitation were implemented.10,11,12,13 for instance, donor receipt of aid to health increased from 32% in 1998–2000 to 49% in 2004, with the ministry of health confirming that donors were a significant source of funding for health.3 in spite of the much publicised human and property rights violations in 2000, donor organisations such as danish international development agency (danida), norwegian agency for development cooperation (norad) and the european union (eu) disbursed funds to zimbabwe to sustain the health budget through the health services fund.8 the health sector in zimbabwe relies heavily on donor aid as most drugs come as donations and are thus procured externally.14 the health transition fund pays for the purchase of 98% of the drugs, whilst the remaining 2% is paid for by the aids levy managed by the national aids council (nac).13 donor-driven projects have aided vulnerable groups in zimbabwe, especially orphans who were affected by the hyper-endemic hiv.11,15 further to this, zimbabwe has benefited immensely from technical and capacity-building projects funded by different donors,10 and this has seen many projects undertaken in areas such as agriculture, power stations and railway services.16 often, the government of zimbabwe (goz) has had no capacity to run complex sets of programmes, but the donors on many occasions have turned providers.15 for instance, donor-funding has improved availability of medicines and medical staff in healthcare facilities across zimbabwe.13 the goz puts structures in place to ensure that aid is effectively and efficiently managed.17 the main structures put in order of their occurrences are the zimbabwe conference on reconstruction and development (zimcord), which was put in place to provide a coordinated response to rebuilding processes and aid.18 the nac and the national aids trust fund, popularly known as the aids levy are responsible for the coordination and implementation of programmes and measures to combat hiv and aids. whilst the aids levy is there to provide financial support to key hiv and aids interventions in zimbabwe as well as complementing the external funding of hiv and aids activities in zimbabwe,19 there is the aid coordination policy (acp), which was enacted in may 2009 to provide a framework for enhanced aid effectiveness and accountability.14 it was designed in line with the principles of the paris declaration on aid effectiveness (pdae) and the accra agenda for action.14 it was also created to minimise duplication and aligning aid with national development plans and priorities by building institutional frameworks to improve the effectiveness of aid in zimbabwe.14,20 the other equally important objective was to re-orient aid from humanitarian to development assistance.20 the government development forum (gdf) was also created as a platform for promoting dialogue between governments and donor partners.14,20 however, the acp suffered major setbacks such as lack of capacity, fights for control by multi-parties and line ministries during the gnu as well as reluctance by some donor countries to engage directly with the government and hence, it was rendered ineffective.15 the goz has continued to be vulnerable with no balance of payment support from major multilateral and bilateral institutions or donors as a result of huge debt arrears of over $7 billion and an almost $2b domestic debt.21 other sectors have been severely affected too, especially the health sector that has been in decline, resulting in a decrease in coverage of most basic services and a rising maternal and child mortality rate.3 aim and objectives of the study the aim of this study was to explore the political economy of zimbabwe’s development aid trajectory for the period 1980–2013. pursuant to this broad aim, the following objectives were set: to examine the factors that have characterised the flow of aid to zimbabwe in the period 1980–2013. to identify the historical, socio-economic and political events that characterised development aid policies and outcomes in zimbabwe in the period 1980–2013. to establish the scale and impact of aid flow to zimbabwe between 1980 and 2013. to determine how the strings attached to the donor aid flow to zimbabwe created tensions between the zimbabwe government and the donor community when the former engaged in human and property rights violations. the research problem in spite of all the efforts in terms of the zimcord, the draft acp and the gdf put in place by the goz, there is a growing convergence of opinion by academics and development experts that aid has grossly failed to achieve its intended outcomes.8,11,15,22,23,24 the goz has received aid from various donors to address various humanitarian and development issues. however, there is very little empirical evidence showing the effectiveness of the aid. in addition, donor-funding posed a challenge to government institutions in coordinating multiple stakeholders and balancing various external interest groups to achieve a common goal.15 for example, donor participation in the health sector in zimbabwe has been composed of different individual organisations, each with differing objectives and operational methods, and in general are known not to cooperate with each other in a way that would allow coherent policymaking.8 the weak aid coordination mechanisms give rise to the continued reluctance of some donors to engage directly with government.15 many bilateral donors have opted to channel their aid through un and non-state organisations, rather than through the goz for fear of misappropriation, corruption and politicisation of funds by the government.11 significance of the study the studies that have been done in zimbabwe on aid include; a study by chikowore,24 who did an examination of macroeconomic indicators of zimbabwe in relation to aid, including its debt situation and implementation of the millennium development goals (mdgs) in order to analyse the effectiveness of development aid, muchadenyika25 focused on assessing aid effectiveness of the zimbabwe multi-donor trust fund and lastly, moyo and mafuso26 also on the effectiveness of foreign aid in zimbabwe between 1965 and 2008, concluding that foreign aid immensely contributed to the zimbabwean economy. the present study is unique because it focuses on the effects of politics on the flow of aid and how the flow affects the political and socio-economic environment of zimbabwe. consequently, the findings of this study are envisaged to practically contribute to a better understanding of the operation of development aid in zimbabwe. it is expected to enable the government to be able to effectively coordinate donor funding. it also hoped that the study would help contribute theoretically to academic literature on aid management in zimbabwe so as to empower policymakers and donors, through the recommendations made in appreciation of the challenges involved in the implementation of development aid. theoretical framework the study adopted the modernisation theory as the framework underpinning the discussion. according to giddens27 the modernisation theory is a set of concepts that seek to explain how development is considered a product of following trends the developed nations of the west followed. according to this perspective, developments in the west and america, hereinafter called the centre, should be used as the yardstick for ensuring that nations in the south of the global village, hereinafter called peripheral nations, are uplifted.28,29 gunder-frank30 further asserts that it is upon this notion that the concepts of developed and developing nations were coined. the implications for this are that donor organisations such as the bretton woods institutions (international monetary fund [imf] and world bank), need to keep pouring donations to the peripheral nations for them (peripheral nations) to develop to the levels attained by the developed global north or centre of the global village.31 such a mind-set has engendered a dependency syndrome in many peripheral nations, especially in africa, and zimbabwe is one such country.26,29 the ensuing discussion thus unpacks the political economy of development aid in zimbabwe by focusing on the colonial legacy of aid in zimbabwe from 1980 to 1990. colonial legacy and aid in zimbabwe 1980–1990 the flow of aid during this period was largely influenced by the need to reconstruct a nation that had been politically, socially and economically affected by the war of liberation which ended in 1980.32 amongst other issues that affected the inflow of aid to zimbabwe were the bipolar nature of global politics nuanced in the cold war discourses on the one hand and, bilateral and colonial ties with hegemonic britain on the other.33 land was the central theme of contention when the black african majority of zimbabwe waged the war of liberation against the white minority that had the privilege of owning a major portion of the land through a system of patronage that perpetuated racial segregation enshrined in acts such as the 1930 land apportionment act,9 the maize control act of 1931, the cattle levy act of 1931 and the native registration act of 1936.34,35 the colonial rule underdeveloped and forced black people to occupy overcrowded and infertile lands located mainly in agro-ecological regions iv and v which made agriculturally based livelihood system unviable.36 the agro-ecological zones were divided according to the amount of rainfall they received with those that received high rainfall mainly found in the northern provinces and low and uncertain rainfall in the southern provinces.34 whites occupied the highest rainfall areas and fertile lands, commonly found in regions i, ii and iii. african peasant families were forced into the labour market, usually at lower rates of wages.9,18,32 in fact, the black africans were relegated to less productive areas called the african purchase areas and tribal trust land.33 because of the policy imbalances which guaranteed whites the accepted privilege to exploit the blacks, only 4000 large-scale white commercial farmers occupied 11.2 million hectares of land, whilst more than 1 million rural families occupied 16.3 million hectares of dry, less fertile and less productive lands, and 10 000 small-scale farmers occupied 1.2 million hectares.36,37 to address the land issue, zimbabwe pursued and received both bilateral and multilateral aid from various sources38 and it became a donor favourite. donors were prepared to pour in about usd$300m dollars into the country each year.6 generous donors soon after independence included swedish international development aid (sida), the danish world university services, the humanist institution for cooperation with developing countries (hivos); bread for the world, swiss christian aid, save the children – united kingdom (uk) and united states of america (usa), and the united nations children’s education fund (unicef).6 as a way of addressing the land issue, over 62 000 families were resettled between 1981 and 1987 on 2 million hectares of land that had been purchased by the government under the ‘willing seller-willing buyer’ system; partially funded by the conservative british government under margaret thatcher.9,39 this was in direct response to the bill of rights incorporated in the lancaster house agreement which committed the government to paying compensation for underutilised land owned by the white commercial farmers, if it is compulsorily acquired.32 in fact, at the 1979 lancaster house conference, the nationalists pledged to introduce major land redistribution. in return, developed nations, particularly britain, promised substantial funding to ensure a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis for the new government’s acquisition of land.6,39,40 the thatcher government provided a total of 44 million pounds for the resettlement projects. unfortunately, the blair labour government through minister clare short refused to take the responsibility for funding land reform in zimbabwe in 1997.39 the labour government alleged that there was corruption and patronage in the land resettlement processes.6,40,41 the british government, which had granted 40m british pounds (£40m) for land redistribution since independence stopped the grant alleging corruption. for example, 98 farms acquired by compulsory purchase grant were given to powerful party members.39 as a result, the amount of aid drastically reduced as shown in figure 1. figure 1: net official development assistance and official aid for zimbabwe from 1980 to 2015. reconstruction and development aid 1981–1984 in order to have a coordinated response to the rebuilding process and attract the much-needed development aid, the government convened the zimcord in march 1981.18,43 according to the zimcord agenda, zimbabwe needed aid to the tune of $1.2b zimbabwean dollars which was for public sector programme replenishment over a 4 year period, 1981–1984.38,43 the estimated total financial requirements for the private and public sectors over the same period was estimated at $4b zimbabwe dollars.38 the reconstruction and development aid that was required from external sources was $2.3b zimbabwe dollars, broken down as follows: completion of refugee programme $36m; completion of reconstruction programme $98m; land settlement and rural agriculture development $786m; capital investment in training institutions $234m; technical assistance $100m.32 the conference presented zimbabwe as a favoured destination of development aid. huge amount of money in aid was pledged; in fact, almost $1.3b was pledged, which rose to $1.8b with post zimcord pledges.38 in summary, pre-zimcord commitments accounted for $365m of the initial sum, 53% came in soft loan form and 47% as grants. some 94% came from developed nations; $177m from the united kingdom and $172.6m from united states of america.38 table 1 shows the details of development aid pledges made at the zimcord conference. the name of the donor is identified, including the source of development aid and the amount that was pledged. table 1: zimbabwe conference on reconstruction and development pledges 1981–1984 in zimbabwean dollars. colonial ties are one of the particular influential criteria in aid decisions.6,44,45 according to the core-periphery model, development aid flows are usually unidirectional; from former colonial power(s) (hegemonic state or core) to former colonised state(s) (hinterland or periphery). as shown in table 1, united kingdom pledged more than any other donor except world bank. in order to show its commitment, on 15 april, lord carrington announced that the british government intended to commit over 3 years of aid totalling 75m pounds to zimbabwe.33 this sum was going to be disbursed as follows: a 7-m pound grant for urgent post-war reconstruction, 500 000 pounds for joint funding with voluntary agencies in zimbabwe, and contribution to the uk share of expenditure resulting from the extension of the lome convention to zimbabwe as well as the uk contribution to the special appeal by the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) in respect of zimbabwe. in the process, britain unveiled freebies in areas of education and health to those who were earning less than z$150 a month. the reconstruction programme inspired rehabilitation of rural clinics, which were either closed or destroyed during the war. zimbabwe had the opportunity to get aid in the form of grants and technical cooperation which was being provided together with grant money. it got capital aid which was provided as loans at 2% interest, with 25 years maturity and 7 years grace period on amortisation.33 war friends, china and union of the soviet socialist republics (ussr), governments and agencies which had acted in solidarity with liberation forces maintained their ties with the new government through aid commitments. amongst them were sida, and usaid who contributed immensely to the reconstruction of the country through building of schools and training of teachers. as shown on table 1, the largest multilateral donor at zimcord was the world bank. between 1980 and 1989, the goz signed 15 loan agreements with the world bank amounting to the usd541m in direct assistance and most of the loans attracted co-financing grants from bilateral donors.38 the fall and break-up of the union of the soviet socialist republics the historical developments that took place in the 1990s, including the fall of the soviet union and of communism as a dependable global political and economic ideology shaped the future of development aid in zimbabwe. when the ussr broke-up, the largesse towards africa in general, and zimbabwe in particular, ceased.6 the collapse of the soviet union made developed countries, especially the united states of america and the united kingdom to lose interest in providing aid to zimbabwe because of changes in perceptions on the benefits of aid provisioning. prior to the breakup of the soviet union, zimbabwe had received substantial amount of aid, as a way of promoting the capitalist ideology and swaying zimbabwe african national union patriotic front (zanu pf). from a radical heritage of marxist ideology, which advocated a form of socialist rural economy with yugoslavia, romania, bulgaria and china as contemporary models.32 according to chung,6 one effect of the loss of donor funding in zimbabwe was the weakening of the non-governmental organisation (ngo) sector which had enjoyed generous donor funding. this sector had largely depended on outside funding and was not able to adjust quickly to local sources of funding. most of the ngos provided services to the poorest sectors of society.6 the economic structural adjustment programme in zimbabwe 1991–2000 the esap were funded by the bretton woods institutions, the world bank and imf and they affected both the inflow and outflow of aid to zimbabwe.36 economic structural adjustment programmes were formally introduced in zimbabwe in october 1990, but started in earnest in march 1991 after a meeting with foreign aid agencies and the world bank in paris.46 the government, donor community and imf/world bank was of the belief that public expenditure reforms would lead to price stability and an improvement in the cost-effectiveness of the provision of social services.47 riddell48 points out those recipients were encouraged to open their markets, privatise state assets, adopt a more export-oriented, less protective trade regime as a quid pro quo for receiving aid, and reduce direct government expenditures. as a result, the government received aid from world bank, imf and other donors, and as shown in figure 1 aid inflow rose sharply during the inception years of esap. the aid was premised on the condition that the government would implement the structural reforms. the international financial institutions (ifis) and the bilateral donor community also assumed that esap would promote good governance and democracy in the country, which were considered vital conditions for tackling corruption.49 the key policy elements incorporated in esap were: fiscal and monetary policy reforms, including budgetary and monetary stabilisation measures, and the liberalisation and deregulation of banking and finance. trade liberalisation included the abolition of quantitative controls and the reduction and harmonisation of tariffs and duties. deregulation of prices, wages, interest rates and exchange rates; public sector restructuring entailing the downsizing of the civil services, and the reorganisation and commercialisation of parastatals; a social-safety net in the form of social development fund (sdf) for those vulnerable to the adverse effects of structural adjustment.50,51 economic structural adjustment programmes’ specific targets included achieving an annual gross domestic product (gdp) growth rate of 5% during the period 1991–1995; raising savings to 25% of gdp; raising investment to 25% of gdp; achieving export growth rate of 9% per annum during the period 1991–1998; reducing budget deficit from 10% of gdp 5% by 1995 and reducing inflation from over 17% to 10% by 1995.36 economic structural adjustment programmes affected the flow of aid to zimbabwe negatively, and as zhou and zvoushe36 described it as the ‘proverbial medicine that kills the patient’. as a result, the social indicators which were impressive in the 1980s plummeted to very low levels.52 the economy stagnated to an average growth of 1% in real terms during the esap period (1991–1995) compared to 4% during the pre-esap period (1985–1990).48 the situation was exacerbated by the change in zanu pf’s ideology from nominal socialism in 1992 to structural adjustment’s version of liberal capitalism.6 the decision to espouse structural adjustment in 1992 was interpreted as an open door for the entry of neo-liberal capitalism. structural adjustment did not give a boost to new industrialisation. instead, it led to rapid de-industrialisation, as locally manufactured products were replaced by cheaper imports from east asia.6 higher levels of consumerism than ever before were achieved by the small black elite, whilst tens of thousands of black workers lost their jobs in the old industries. employment which had grown at a rate of 2.4% decelerated to an annual average of 0.8%.18 at the same time, fees were introduced for hospital and clinic services which resulted in increased numbers of children out of school, people dying of curable diseases in their homes and women giving birth at home or in scotch carts on their way to health centres.48 furthermore, this period witnessed a deterioration in health indicators as hospitals were severely affected by equipment and drug shortages.47,53 the health sector was also affected by a great exodus of qualified staff, nutritional deficiencies and congestion at casualty and mortuaries which was in stark contrast to the health gains made in the 1980s.3,48 the hiv and aids pandemic worsened the crisis, hiv prevalence rates reached close to 30%, hospitals were overwhelmed and many people died, with some scholars estimating the death at 3000 every week.48 more so, structural adjustment ushered in a period of increased corruption by the political class, which saw the opportunity to secure a larger share of the economy through the political support they were able to give to private sector ventures from outside.6 the government’s failure to control public spending and corruption was held responsible for the missing of economic reform targets under esap. consequently, the disbursement of funds under the enhanced structural adjustment facility was suspended in september 1995 and funding was eventually withdrawn in 199918: the inflow of aid to zimbabwe drastically fell (see figure 1). the esap’s social dimensions of adjustment (sda) component that was meant to cushion the impact of structural changes on vulnerable groups in society, amongst them retrenched workers, failed to reduce poverty as many of those who were retrenched did not get assistance to start income-generating projects.18 the international aid organisations were unable to adequately protect the poor from the adverse effects of economic decline47 despite the fact that they were the ones who prescribed the structural adjustments. the adverse effects of esap caused tension between the state and the umbrella labour body, the zimbabwe congress of trade union (zctu).18 clashes and running battles between workers and state police occurred with frequent regularity, much to the chagrin of the state.54 university students joined the fray as living conditions plummeted. it was against this background, the labour body, in consultation with civil society launched a new political party in august 1999 – movement for democratic change (mdc) led by the then zctu’s secretary general, morgan tsvangirai.18,41,54 with the support from labour and a multitude of civic organisations, the mdc provided the first real challenge to the zanu pf party.9 it organised successful mass stay-aways which at times turned into violent demonstrations and the charged political environment eventually led donors to withhold aid and impose targeted sanctions on top government officials and other institutions.39 the issue of targeted sanctions is further elucidated in the subsequent section. zimbabwe’s programme of economic and social transformation the zimbabwe programme of economic and social transformation (zimprest) was belatedly introduced in 199818 with the major aim of correcting the wrongs of the donor-funded esap. it was mainly hinged on the social development and welfare of the people. zimbabwe programme of economic and social transformation envisaged a comprehensive restructuring of government which could achieve an efficient system of service delivery of basic facilities, economic empowerment, private sector development and job creation.18 the policy pillars of the zimprest were constructed to directly tackle poverty which emanated as a result of the introduction of esap. several strategies were put in place, amongst them land reform, indigenisation, small scale enterprises and national aids strategy. unfortunately, zimprest failed to address the effects of structural reforms and arresting the free fall of the zimbabwean economy: in fact, it failed to meet its targets and the economy further deteriorated and poverty increased.18 during the same year of 1997, the zimbabwean dollar tumbled to its lowest level against the us dollar in the entire history of the country; in absolute figures, the zimbabwean dollar depreciated in its exchange rate from 12 zimbabwean dollars per us dollar in october 1997 to 38 zimbabwe dollars per us dollar.51 the government went on a panic mode and their strategy response was to tighten the monetary and fiscal policy as well as wholesome introduction of tariffs on imports and regulation of foreign exchange trading.50,51 during this period, aid inflow further deteriorated because of lack of trust between the donor community and the government18 as shown in figure 1. although there were several strategies put in place to address the adverse effects of esap, the outstanding issue that needed immediate solutions was land. therefore, in september 1998, a large donor conference was convened at the sheraton hotel in harare, facilitated by the undp to solicit for aid for the land reform and resettlement programme.9,36,41 the conference aimed to raise $40b zimbabwean dollars (us$2.2b) in order to resettle 150 000 families over 5 years. the meeting ended with agreement on principles for effective land reform and an agreement to begin with a 2-year donor-funded inception phase. unfortunately, donors were not prepared to fund the inception phase and the only tangible result that emerged from the donor conference was a world bank assisted project ($5m) aimed at testing the feasibility of two models for land reform that were designed to be an integral part of the inception phase. by the end of the conference about $19m had been pledged by china and some local companies. the majority of foreign donors withheld their pledges pending the results of the pilot study. in addition, the donors also agreed that an inception phase to land reform should develop models like land policy and accompanying mechanisms for transparency and accountability. however, the government objected and the programme was never implemented.36 the other reason why the donor support of land reform plan of 1998 failed was that some businesses and farming communities openly funded a new political party to oppose land reform.9 this issue of a new political party and how it affected donor funding is critically discussed in the following section. the multi-party democracy period in zimbabwe 2001–2008 this period 2001–2008 was deliberately titled multi-party democracy period because this study argues that it marked the first ever seriously-existing opposition after the unity accord of 1987. upon attainment of independence in 1980, zimbabwe held elections under the new constitution, which was crafted at the lancaster house conference. amongst the tenets of the new constitution was democratic participation in elections by multi-party, hence the participation by zanu pf, pf, uanc and ian smiths’ rhodesian front in the subsequent elections of 1980.55 the issue of democratic participation by many political parties seemed to exist only on paper: in practice, it was a different issue altogether as the then president of zanu wanted the state to be a one-party state.54 the ruling party then worked tirelessly to achieve their objective of creating a one-party state, and in the process they forced other parties to join them or face extinction. joshua nkomo’s pf was the first casualty: in 1987 it joined zanu and they formed zanu pf. from this period up to 1999, zimbabwe was technically a one-party state because the opposition that existed were just paper tigers.41,54 in other words, the country operated under a defacto one-party rule. the birth of mdc in 1999 ushered in more competitive party politics and for the first time since independence in 1980, the then ruling party zanu pf’s political feathers were ruffled and they felt threatened.36 the goz, which predominantly constituted members of zanu pf proposed a constitutional reform and set 12 february 2000 as the date for voting. amendment 17 to the constitution of zimbabwe was agreed upon by the parliamentarians in majority with the view of nationalising all white-owned commercial farmland. the then newly formed mdc vigorously campaigned against the constitutional reforms, and it is alleged that some of the white farmers were sponsoring the campaigns, which angered zanu pf when people voted against the constitutional referendum that they were promoting. this prompted zanu pf to adopt the most brutal methods of land redistribution and election campaigns, never before witnessed in the history of post-colonial zimbabwe and probably africa at large.56 all those who were perceived to have supported or voted for the ‘no’ vote became prime targets of violence. following the people’s ‘no’ vote against the constitution, the war veterans with the support of the government engaged in farm invasions. land became a rallying point, as war veterans, war collaborators and supporters of the ruling party sporadically invaded white people owned farms in retaliation for their support to the mdc on the ‘no’ vote.40 after a majority of the people had voted ‘no’ in the constitutional referendum in 2000, the nation was once again engaged in general elections later the same year. the general elections of 2000 were held under a cloud of violence.40 the irony of it was that the mdc won 57 seats. the eu, the usa, britain and the nordic states declared the elections were not free and fair. these events were to and have shaped the flow of aid to zimbabwe in many ways as it is explained in the subsequent sub-sections. the flow of aid in zimbabwe during the period 2001–2008 was characterised by mistrust and frustrations perpetrated by both the goz and the donor community. this period saw the flow of aid dwindling to its lowest level as compared to other periods before 2001–2008 and after (see figure 1). official development assistance (oda) to zimbabwe in million us dollars, at 2012 prices and exchange rates shows that the period 2000–2009 received the least amount (396m) as compared to other periods for example, 1980–1989 received (544m) and 2010–2013 received (818m).42 the decline could be attributed to a lot of changes which were taking place in both the economic and political arenas of the zimbabwean country. major milestones were the formation of mdc in 1999 and its participation in the referendum of 2000.9,41 other historic events were the land invasions in 2000; parliamentary elections of 2000; targeted sanctions in 2001; presidential elections in 2002; the fall of the zimbabwe dollar; illegal diamond panning which commenced in 2006; murambatsvina 2005; the high hiv and aids prevalence and mass migration of people to other countries.36,40,56,57 targeted sanctions for zimbabwe the years 2001–2008 were gloomy years for zimbabwe in terms of development in general. in fact, the country suffered isolation from participating in global politics and economics because zanu pf, the ruling party was accused of property and human rights violations.15,39 the lengthy isolation from the international community restricted the quantum of aid and resulted in a build-up of arrears to the majority of its multilateral and bilateral partners.58 in addition, a multiplicity of sanctions and punitive measures were imposed on zimbabwe, amongst them were the zimbabwe democracy and economic recovery act (zidera) of 2001 enacted by the united states congress; the suspension of the budgetary support previously provided to the government by the eu; the imposition of visa bans and asset freezes by the us, eu, canada, australia, and new zealand on influential individuals associated with government and the ruling zanu pf and the prohibition of military support and technical assistance which was perceived to be enhancing the government’s repressive capacity.24 of significance to flow of aid in zimbabwe is the fact that zidera empowered the us to veto zimbabwe’s application to multilateral agencies for finances, credit facilities, loan rescheduling and international debt cancellation. the humanitarian agencies’ funding shortfall at the end of 2003 was us$110m, 57% of the amount sought, mainly due to lack of cooperation between the government and the international community which had a negative bearing on resource mobilisation.59 the impact of the foreign aid freeze coupled with declining exports caused a drastic foreign currency shortage that in turn had a negative impact on imports.59 this could be the reason why zimbabwe got the least aid in years, as shown in figure 1. in terms of net order receipts, the period 2000–2009 registered the least oda (us$400m) as compared to 1980–1989 (us$557m), 1990–1999 (us$639m) and 2010–2014 (us$810m).42 policy disagreements between the zimbabwean government and the western donors the events of the years between 2001 and 2008 led to aid ‘mood-swings’ where zimbabwe from a yester-years’ darling of the donors became an enemy, resulting in a dramatic drop in donor-support.44 the mood-swings happened because of real and substantive policy differences between the goz and the international community. often cited was the goz’s widely publicised failure to curb rural violence related to the seizures of white-owned farms by blacks, and to hold free and fair elections.44 in 2001 war veterans threatened violence and land-grab from white owners, resulting in an immediate freeze on all development aid co-operation with the zimbabwean government by other organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) countries such as denmark.60 international community and donors were angered by what they perceived to be human and property rights violations; amongst them land seizure, beating and forcing people to support certain political parties. hence some countries such as the usa and her allies vowed that they would not give aid to zimbabwe until the government started observing the rule of law and human rights.59 the ruling party zanu pf accused the donor community of meddling in the country’s political affairs and funding the opposition with the agenda of effecting a regime change.11,61 following the land invasions, zimbabwe was suspended from the commonwealth which was one of its major donors since pre-independence in 1965.62 the reasons for its suspension were mainly centred on human and property rights violations. the most cited one was the seizure of white owned land and ill-treatment of political opponents by the ruling party zanu pf.59 subsequently, the goz voluntarily withdrew from the commonwealth in 2003 and consequentially aid stopped.63 international monetary fund suspended technical assistance in june 2002 because of arrears aggregating more than us$132m and in november 2003 began compulsory withdrawal procedures for zimbabwe59: policies that influenced the aid donors to withdraw aid. after the donors withdrew their aid the zanu pf government introduced draconian policies to punish individuals and organisations they alleged to be imperialist agencies. to this end they introduced a number of bills and policies in order to punish what they perceived to be political enemies of zanu pf such as: the access to information and protection of privacy act (aippa) and public order and security act (posa); and ngo bill, the aippa.40,62 this brought an end to the democratic space and extinguished human freedoms as enshrined in the constitution. the ngo bill, although it was never formulated into an act, was very effective because it required all ngos to register with the government in order to continue with their activities. this created a precarious condition for the ngos to operate: if the government perceived any wrong doing, it would result in the withdrawal of the operating licence. zanu pf sought to halt all donor activities in the country40,62 and the first victim was care international, an aid agency which was prohibited from distributing food aid in masvingo province. care was accused of using food to support the mdc. the zanu pf government also issued another directive which placed all food distribution in rural areas under the command of local government ministry. on 04 june 2004, the government suspended all local and international aid and banned the activities of humanitarian agencies entirely.40 against the backdrop of gross violation of law and human rights, external relations with the west deteriorated.41 some donors like the uk ended direct support to the goz in 2002, whilst donor aid in general decreased, humanitarian aid increased, health sector aid in particular increased to 49% over the period 2002–2004.3 impact of the political and socio-economic situation in zimbabwe the deteriorating political and economic situation had a negative impact on the country. it led to economic meltdown which led to mass migration of people into the neighbouring countries, especially the republic of south africa. in fact, there was a massive flight of qualified manpower such as engineers, doctors, nurses and teachers. it is estimated that up to a third of the population crossed international borders during that period for various reasons, ranging from political violence to job seeking and perhaps, as well as operation murambatsvina, which destroyed people’s homes.40 there was extensive deterioration of infrastructure and shortages of medicines in hospitals and clinics.40,59 the health sector was severely hit by the economic meltdown. in particular, many hospitals and other programmes were shut down in 2003 because of lack of funding.59 according to,4 fragile states with poor resources to carry out basic governance functions have to rely on budget support from donors. in a desperate attempt to retain some of the skilled workers, especially in the health sector, donors introduced the health worker retention scheme in 2007.64,65,66 the objective was to retain public health workers by supplementing their meagre salaries.67 the scheme was funded by eu and the global fund for aids, tb and malaria, as well as other donors such as dfid, unicef, australia and denmark.67 the period 2001–2008 was also characterised by high prevalence of hiv and aids which resulted in many deaths.68 for example, in 2003 zimbabwe had one of the highest rates of hiv infections in the world with an average antenatal hiv prevalence of 24.6%.68 according to the 2005–2006 zimbabwe demographic and health survey (zdhs), the hiv prevalence rate for adults aged 15–49 was 18%.69 life expectancy dropped from 61 in 1990 to 43 years in 2003.52 corruption thrived, perpetrated by a few powerful individuals who were in the government or those directly connected to people who held powerful offices.54 following a massive deterioration in the quality of policies and institutions, many donors were quick to come and help on humanitarian grounds, putting aside their frosty relations with the goz.67 many donor funded programmes were introduced during this period, amongst them the medecins sans frontieres antiretroviral therapy (msf art) programme, expanded support programme (esp) for hiv and aids.67 the esp for hiv and aids was introduced in 2007 and jointly funded by five bilateral donors: uk (35m), canada (2.5m), ireland (5m), norway (2m) and sweden (7.5m) – all paid in pounds.67 the programme focused on hiv prevention through behaviour change promotion, treatment and care through procurement and distribution of antiretroviral drugs, and management and coordination of the provision of hiv and aids treatment.67 the period of the government of national unity in zimbabwe 2008–2013 in september 2008, zanu pf and the two mdcs signed a global political agreement (gpa) which culminated in the formation of the gnu in march 2009.18 the gnu ushered in a new donor aid dispensation regime. in other words, zimbabwe became a donor darling again as was the case in 1980s.6 refreshed engagements started between the government and donors, such as african development bank (afdb), eu, canada, denmark, norway, sweden, united kingdom, united states, australia, germany, netherlands, united nations (un) related agencies (undp, fao, unicef, unhcr, wfp, and the global fund).10 donors committed substantial amounts of aid, returning to a level last seen in the early 1990s but this time through ‘off budget’ grants which accounted for nearly 9% of the gdp.15,16 this could be attributed to the signing of the gpa in 200815, which was sponsored and supported by the southern african development community (sadc) to address the deleterious effect of political instability on the national economy.70 the same period manifested the first significant effort by the government to have meaningful institutional structures and systems to govern donor aid. the gnu put structures in place to ensure that aid was effectively and efficiently managed; amongst them the acp, a fallout of the gdf in may 2009, was created as a platform for promoting dialogue between governments and donor partners.14 the acp was established to provide a framework for enhanced aid effectiveness and accountability. the acp was designed in a manner that would allow proper planning, aligning aid with national development plans prioritised in line with the paris declaration.20 the following are the policy objectives and policy targets as they were outlined in the medium-term plan of zimbabwe in 2011: to align aid with the national development programmes and priorities; re-orient aid from humanitarian to development assistance and increase the amount being channelled by development partners through the national budgets.20 the policy targets were as follows: to align humanitarian assistance to national priorities by 2012; align 50% of development aid to national priorities by 2015 and have 80% of aid channelled through the national budget by 2015. however, these aid coordination systems were not fully effective because of a number of reasons: amongst them, fights for control by different political parties and line ministries during gnu and most importantly, the reluctance of some oecd governments to engage directly with the goz.15 the gnu also formed the zimbabwe accelerated debt and development strategy (zaads), which was implemented through re-engagements with creditors, including the imf, world bank and the afdb.71,72 the notable milestone made by zaads is the re-engagement agreement between the government and the imf in may 2013 for staff monitored programme (smp).72 the gnu also embarked on zimbabwe accelerated re-engagement programme (zarep) which was a product of consultations with key stakeholders such as government representatives, financial institutions, international organisations and others, and was meant to fast-track engagement with donor and other development partners on policy issues.14 it was also envisaged as a gateway to new financing from the ifis and the much-needed debt relief. in addition, the gnu also established the zimbabwe aid and debt management office within the ministry of finance in december 2010 to manage debt.71 zimbabwe received a lot of aid during the gnu mainly in the form of technical assistance and institutional capacity building which was funded with grant resources from pillar 111 of the fragile states facilities (fsf).10 absolute figures supplied by the afdb indicate that the total allocation to zimbabwe from fsf pillar iii was ua 4 005 795.73 according to afdb,10 the assistance was largely aimed at improving economic governance and restoring vital public services. disbursement of development aid by donors during the government of national unity in zimbabwe according to oecd, aid flows remarkably improved during the gnu as shown in table 2 and table 3 as well as figure 2. the tables show the oecd flows of oda and other resources to zimbabwe. for example, net oda (usd million) fluctuated between 2010 and 2012, but remained very high. the gross national income per capita increased steadily for the same period (table 2). the united states of america and the united kingdom provided the bulk of the aid, each donated us$177m and us$149m, respectively. ironically, these were the two countries which were at the centre of the targeted sanctions against zimbabwe. their support could be as a result of the commitment which was shown by the zimbabwean government to consolidate peace and security, which culminated in the signing of the gpa in 2008 and the creation of the inclusive government.10 figure 2: resource flow to zimbabwe 2010–2012. table 2: the oecd flow of official development assistance to zimbabwe from 2010 to 2012. table 3: top 10 donors of gross official development assistance to zimbabwe, (2011–2012 average). as shown in the diagrammatic representation in figure 2.2, zimbabwe received aid in various forms. since the formation of the gnu in 2009, there has been a recovery: economic growth reached 10.6% in 2011.21 inflation stabilised, revenues and bank deposits recovered sharply.16 this growth cannot be wholly attributed to the flow of development aid but also to a resurgence of both public and donor spending, which played a part in the recovery of social services.58 international relations began to normalise, although some sanctions are still in place and the situation remains fragile.67 figure 3 shows the gdp growth rates of zimbabwe from 2004 to 2015. it shows the marked difference between gdp growth rate which were all negative from 2004 to 2008, before the gnu’s re-engagement with the international community and donors. from the year 2009 to 2013 the gdp growth rates were all positive, boosted by international aid which was estimated to be 30% of all government spending in 2011 and 8.6% of gdp.16 but, as it has been noted above, the gdp growth cannot be wholly attributed to development aid; although it played a big role in the recovery of social services. figure 3: zimbabwe annual gross domestic product growth rates. conclusion zimbabwe got a lot of aid and was a donor darling from 1980 to 1990 because the donors wanted to rebuild a nation which was destroyed by war. the global politics which pitted the socialists and capitalists into an ideological war was another key to african countries’ bid to lure aid. not all aid is effective; the 1990s sponsored structural adjustments negatively impacted the socio-economic well-being of the country. the flow of aid is politically motivated as seen by the dwindling of aid during the period 2000–2008 when the zimbabwean government’s relationship with the west was at its worst in its history. lastly, the conclusion that aid is politically engrained during the gnu period when the zimbabwean government frantically sought to re-engage with the west and aid started to flow abundantly to harare. acknowledgements none other than the two authors recorded as the main authors of the manuscript. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions b.m. and e.d. contributed equally to this research article. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information the research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable 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many countries during the past three decades there has been increasing alignment of public administration with neoliberal modes of governance driven by processes of globalization and privatization. key is new public management (npm) as an instrument for applying private sector or market-based techniques to public services. the paper concerns the implications and impact of these developments as they relate to the university sector where we are seeing an influx of bibliometrics to assess performativity with measures that are frequently far from adequate. these changes are related to the broader context of a globalized privatization doctrine of science policy that has gained currency in many countries. the analysis presented here probes and discusses a nexus between npm, bibliometric performance audits, and a new paradigm in science policy. as such the paper seeks to fill an important gap in science policy studies and the literature on new public management more generally. it summarizes various characteristics associated with npm, and explicates the connection with methods of research evaluation now being introduced in academic institutions. it also takes up varying responses evoked within academe by the use of bibliometrics and current methods of ranking of tertiary educational institutions. apart from gaining a better understanding of significant changes in the higher educational and research landscapes or disciplines and the interplay of these with broader economic and political trends in society at large, the aim of the paper is also to stimulate discussion and debate on current priorities, perceptions and policies governing knowledge production. keywords: new public management, research policy, transdisciplinarity, postnormal science, audit society agencification, accountingization, peer review evaluation. disciplines: public management and governance, management studies and research management. science policy, science studies, political science, introduction in many countries during the past three decades there has been increasing alignment of public administration with neoliberal modes of governance driven by processes of globalization and privatization. in the uk new labour social democrats and conservatives urged this trend on, equally. stephen cope and others (1997), analyzing the connection between globalization and new public management (npm), state that, * prof. aant elzinga, university of gothenburg , sweden. aant.elzinga@theorysc.gu.se elzinga   308 (i)t is no accident that the wave of npm crashing through governments worldwide corresponds with increasing globalization … states have restructured as a result of globalization. npm has been a very prominent form of restructuring in most western governments, though its spread has been uneven. npm rests on the twin doctrines of removing differences between public and private sectors, and shifting ‘methods of doing business in public organizations’, away from complying with procedural rules /and towards ‘getting results’ (hood, 1994. p. 129). npm is shorthand for applying private sector or market-based techniques to public services, an approach that rapidly spread through the anglophone world in particular. as a politicoadministrative regime it has been successively introduced into one sector after another, hastening, systematizing and legitimating these developments, making it appear that it is only a technical-administrative question mainly of cost reduction, increasing flexibility, and greater accountability and efficiency of performance on the part of public service agencies and their various practitioners (lane 1994, 1995 & 2000). the process began to take form in the uk during margaret thatcher’s government (1977-1990). the label npm is usually attributed to the renowned oxford professor of government christopher hood (1991; 1995). problem and purpose the problem addressed by the paper concerns the implications and impact of the aforementioned developments as they relate to the university sector. although academic institutions and working conditions are being transformed with an influx of bibliometrics to assess performance with measures that are frequently far from adequate, few analysts have explicitly related these changes to the broader context of a globalized privatization doctrine of science policy that has gained currency in many countries. this is ironic since social scientists themselves have analyzed the impact of globalization and privatization via npm methods in many other sectors of society, from health care to transport systems, and other essential public services and infrastructures where privatization and “marketization” with subsequent erosion of “the commons” has been identified, analyzed and debated. but, when it comes to our own workplace – academe – a nexus between npm, bibliometric performance audits, and a new paradigm in science policy is mostly discussed only in anecdotal terms. the purpose of the present paper is therefore to fill an important gap in science policy studies and the literature on new public management more generally. in particular the present analysis develops a novel angle in science policy analysis. additionally, on the basis of a review of the more general literature, a second purpose is to summarize at length various characteristics associated with npm, one might say its “anatomy” and dynamics, in order to more precisely delineate and explicate the connection with methods of research evaluation now being introduced in academic institutions. a third aim of course is to stimulate discussion and debate. structure and argument to set the stage the paper characterizes several features of npm and the concomitant shift in focus from “administration” to “management”. since the changes in terminologies that attend this shift are significant they are also dealt with from a metatheoretical point of view. at a more general level the shift identified by the paper reflects the change from “government” to “governance”, terms that will be explained below. other changes of meaning associated with further concepts are also touched upon. new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 309 finally it is demonstrated how the tertiary educational sector is made a regular part of what has been called contemporary audit society and that this in its current form impacts academe negatively in as far as short term interests override the strategic need for basic research and knowledge production for the long term future. even though some readers may find it somewhat tedious, in order to substantiate the paper’s claim that we are witnessing a global trend, reference has to be made to developments, experiences and responses in several countries, in the usa some scholars have come to refer to the present situation as one of “academic capitalism” (slaughter and leslie 1997). the suggestion is not that most entrepreneurial individuals in research and teaching have become small capitalists. rather the point is that a capitalist-like behaviour and (contractual) relationships have become rather prominent within the moral economy (norms or ethos) of academe. this has on the other hand also evoked calls to a return to the traditional values and collegial norms associated with the ideal of the humboldt-university of the 19th century that gave primacy to a wide-ranging freedom of research and a symbiotic interplay between research and teaching. the introduction of university ranking lists has, symptomatically, also led to protests from scientific communities (butler 2007) that need to be understood in the context of broader trends. in the concluding section there is a summary of some findings based on the review of relevant literature covering experience with npm and new forms of research evaluation as well as discussion of the claim that, ultimately, audit society engenders a paradox that undermines its efficacy and hence renders it counter-functional. characteristics of new public management and audit society it should be noted that npm is an international trend, but that is has not been adopted wholesale as a package in all countries. one finds different versions in different countries. these differences have been explained by differences that exist between countries with regard to legal and administrative traditions, political style and cultural determinants (christensen and laegeid 2005). this means that it is wrong to assume that the increasing adoption of npm methods brings with it a general global homogenization in methods of policy development and implementation. what we see rather is a common fundamental rationale or logic combined with variety in implementations in different countries. one of the main arguments for the shift to business-mindedness in public utilities or services has been to introduce greater cost consciousness, flexibility and efficiency, to make do with less in order to produce more (barzalay 2001). this is attended by a shift from administration to management in the public domain. units responsible for delivering products or services are impelled to cover their own costs as far as possible, and to encourage this quasi-markets are set up in relation to which various units delivering similar kinds of products or services are induced to compete with each other. another factor is to diminish traditional bureaucratic forms of administration with the intention of opening for greater sensitivity to public needs and by extension the possibility of more “user” participation in decisionand policy-making processes. in market economic terms the user of services and products supplied by public institutions is framed as customer or client and “the customer is always right”. what this means in practice is however a contentious issue. elzinga   310 manifestations of npm differ across policy areas in any given country and between countries. this also goes for the domain of science policy, which as already noted is, moreover, a relative latecomer when it comes to the entry of npm. particularly interesting in the case of science policy is the issue of accountability. a feature in this connection that is common to most countries is the use of bibliometrics, that is publication counts and citations to measure research performance, and how results of such exercises are then related to economic cost-benefit assessments (econometrics). since accountability and “accountingization” using numbers takes on a particular form in the research and tertiary educational sector it is dealt with at some length below. science policy as a policy domain also has specific characteristics that must be briefly outlined to contextualize the issue further. suffice it at this point to underline more generally the occurrence of a shift from accountancy of resource inputs to evaluation and assessment of outcomes or outputs. this is a necessary corollary to the fundamental change in doctrine relating to accountability for public sector institutions. former trust in the wisdom and behaviour of traditional civil servants and professions as non-opportunistic is replaced by mistrust. this follows logically from the premises of a regime in which the supplier of utilities, services and other goods has to mantle the role of a rational calculator of opportunity costs without concern for the impact cutbacks and speedups might ultimately have on externalities. by the same token it is therefore logical also to find an increasing demand for control by means of externally initiated evaluations and assessment or auditing procedures as well as design of internal control systems to harmonize and comply with the new external conditions or demands. michael power and richard laughlin (1992) have called this “accountingization” (also see almqvist 2006:24). they also argue that a significant consequence for public organizations is the emergence of new types of cultures of compliance. three main ingredients of the npm narrative are: • competition; • agencification, i.e., introducing contractual relationships; and • accountingization. service deliverers in public agencies in a given sector, like health care or transport, are brought into competition with each other through competitive tendering. contractual arrangements between a principal and an agent are articulated to specify goals and expectations (agencification and contractualization). together with outsourcing to supplier firms and consultancies this fragments government in client/contractor and purchaser/provider splits (cope and others 1997:449), whence a balkanization of the public sector and emergence of public-private partnerships may occur. agencification, also called “corporatization”, converts departments into free standing units with downward delegation of responsibilities for tasks to lower managers while strategic choices are centralized. decentralization-centralization goes hand in hand. in terms of human resources a corresponding feature is a move from a weberian styled civil service career system to a contract system with short-term appointments in the lower ranks of employees as well as the emergence of an array of private-public partnerships. this is meant to increase flexibility but in practice it also introduces lack of continuity and lapses in institutional memory that ultimately can have a negative effect on the delivery of utilities, products and services in the public sector. new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 311 degrees of goal fulfilment are determined by introducing performance assessment schemes (accountingization) to measure the same (more on this below). a more complex schematism based on a review of pertinent literature will include further catchwords. some of these are summarized in table 1. it lists both descriptors and a few normative characterizations. table 1: some basic npm notions * more for less1 * marketization (including creation of quasi-markets in administrative organizations) * commoditization of health care services, welfare benefits, teaching packages and research results (also those generated by publicly funded institutions) * inducing competition between task performers * turning citizens into consumers and clients (this goes for students too) * agencification (contractification) * from administration to management (fostering the entrepreneurial bureaucrat) * from input to output/outcome control * performance-based management (and funding), performativity metrics (accountingization) * reputation and image management (pr & branding) * entrepreneurialism * partnering statements regarding impacts in three different policy sectors in the literature one can find many case studies on the impact of npm. some of the consequences are particularly evident in the case of development policy in third world countries. one author who sees npm as a gain since it introduces flexibility and provides for cost recovery in waste management systems in big cities, for example, nevertheless observes how deregulation has led to a proliferation of private entrepreneurs in the waste collection business, many of whom do not uphold the standards called for by policies meant to promote sustainable development (van dijk 2008). another author notes how in development policy under npm regimes: result-based management approaches that have entered the field have the paradoxical effect of disempowering those it meant to empower (kilby 2004:207). a case study on a public-private planning initiative in a city in the usa that used consensusbased collaborative meetings involving citizens in “visioning” to shape the future cityscape ended up with elites capturing the mechanics of the process. this led to a situation where dissent is difficult and the outcome tends to be a vision of the future that replicates the standard economic development models of powerful stakeholders (mccann 2001). the process becomes a kind of “therapy” similar to what we observed in the case of gothenburg, sweden, a city where, by the 1 for some of the characteristics see dreschler (2005). elzinga   312 way, npm has produced a system where garbage collection has become the monopoly of a couple of large entrepreneurs that cut costs by employing fewer (overstressed) truck drivers and reducing the frequency of garbage runs so that at many recycling stations heaps of waste regularly accumulates between the various bins for separating two sorts of bottles, various cans, plastic containers, bulky package wrapping and cartons, newspapers, etc. in denmark susan wright a social anthropologist who is now at the danish school of education has turned her attention to the bibliometric auditing system of performance indicators in place in danish universities and what impact that is having. in her anthropological perspective as outlined in an earlier study together with cris shore regarding the influx of audit practices in british higher education the new audit system and management technique are seen to function as “political technologies” for introducing neo-liberal systems of power (shore and wright 1999; also 1997). now that globalization has incrementally reduced the power of government issuing from one centre and supplanted it by an orchestration of a multiple stakeholders with particularist interests “audit embodies a whole new rationality of governance”. since the language of governance replaces that of government, our sensitive anthropologists discover a kind of doublespeak. one of the main claims made by the architects and advocates of auditing is that it ‘enables’ individuals and institutions to ’monitor’ and ’enhance’ their own performance and quality, and to be judged by targets and standards that they set for themselves’, shore and wright argue, and go on: this language of quality enhancement suggests that audit is an open, democratic, participatory and ‘enabling’ process; a process so uncontentious and self-evidently positive that there is no logical reason for objection. the new ‘habitual grouping’ of audit with words like ‘efficiency’, ‘effectiveness’, ‘best practice’ and ‘value for money’ disguises its hierarchical and paternalistic roots and plays down its coercive and punitive implications. (shore and wright 1999). the number of examples of case studies of the influence of npm in urban planning and other areas may be multiplied and of course one will find instances of gains in efficiency and flexibility of planning as well as some success stories. the major gist however seems to be one that confirms a shift from politics to economics and with it a systemic deficit in citizen empowerment, in as far as citizens are construed (or “reconstructed”) as consumers and public consultation exercises turn into opinion polling and market research (ryan 2001). this is not the same as participation in decision-making. two key terms: accounting and governance “accountingization” and auditing practices to satisfy it is the feature that is particularly interesting, both generally and in current discourses on science policy. it refers to an objective to make visible, break down and categorize costs in areas and endeavours where such costs earlier or traditionally were aggregated or more or less undefined. under the auspices of npm steering, follow up and evaluation or auditing are thus emphasized, predicated on a buyer-seller or principal-agent contractual and cost-cutting nexus that replaces former trust in providers and administrators of welfare tasks to serve citizens or provide public goods. citizens are no longer, they are now clients and consumers and we get privatization and commoditization of former public goods including portions of scientific knowledge (qua intellectual property). functions new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 313 and mechanisms for dividing public resources are thereby supposed to move from the realm of politics to that of the marketplace. paradoxically though, the quasi-markets are still created by political decisions. but now it is no longer called government but governance, i.e., a multi-level chain of delegations and decentralization in the process of orchestration and steering in tune with signals form the market. government thus becomes negotiated or orchestrated “governance” and administration becomes business “management”. government entails formal institutions of state and legal frameworks involving old style civil servants. governance involves government plus looser processes of influencing and negotiating with a range of private corporate actors and public sector agencies as stakeholders where the stronger ones tend to set agendas. one gets what i want to refer to as “orchestration policy”, where “good governance” tends to get equated with “sound economic development” and in practice when applied is routinely taken to mean investment liberalization, services commercialization, generalized privatization and other “market” policies. even if npm is now retreating at the theoretical level and making room for new weberian public management thinking that once more begins to emphasize the necessity of a “commons” in order to counteract partitioning and fragmentation, it is safe to say that npm still reigns in a lot of thinking and action in policy-making. at the same time it is meeting resistance and vocal opposition from the side of critical scholars and practitioners who demand reflexivity and attention to human rights and justice when it comes to basic needs like health and water. npm has fostered a predominant mode of accountability that requires reliable and hopefully fine-grained metrics of performance measures in terms of various quantitative indicators. rewarding actors on the basis of measures of performance, some studies on health care have shown, however, may not lead to lower costs because the generation of some forms of health care that is not really necessary gets prioritized since profit-driven health care makes it competitively advantageous to encourage fairly healthy individuals to make quick extra visits to the doctor. this proves to be more profitable for the health care provider than does involvement with elderly patients with chronic illnesses, for example. the quest for profit gains thus appears to introduce a skew that is for the most part not taken into account in economic cost benefit measures. mainstream econometrics when applied to the deliverer of services lacks the necessary categories that would be needed to consider broader social costs. in the case of policies relating to environmental protection and future climate change the precautionary principle has been introduced together with environmental economics to try and deal with such broader issues by putting a price on loss of further qualities that are seen to be essential for desirable life conditions. research as a domain for public policy in the sector of tertiary education and research npm has already had a lasting influence. this is manifested in the attention and energy that have been expended by universities to fine-tune mission statements and visions, making visible profiles and articulating various strategy documents. some of these activities come under the heading of what is nowadays called “branding”. public relations and alumni fundraising are also part of the picture. some of the changes are far-reaching, while others are cosmetic. a common denominator here too is the new and fashionable notion called “governance”. elzinga   314 before going into further detail concerning the use of bibliometric measurements of academic performance in various disciplines to satisfy accountability criteria rooted in npm practices it is necessary to briefly characterize science policy as a specific public policy domain. additionally it is useful to consider the paradigm shift in science policy doctrine that has occurred more or less contemporaneously with the end of the cold war. science policy as a separate policy domain emerged after the second world war and it became institutionalized under the influence of oecd (godin 2003, 2005 & 2006:654-655; elzinga 2005). important distinctions like the one entailed in the acronym r&d (research and development) adopted in the early 1960s for comparative statistical purposes are still with us today, although now intermediate categories like mission oriented (basic) research, strategic research, frontier research (term used in europe) and transformational research (term appearing in the usa) get considerable attention. unless one subscribes to some species of idealism or essentialism, strictly speaking the term basic or fundamental research has no meaning outside its use as a statistical household word: in other words it is historically and socially contingent and sometimes regarded as a contested term (stokes 1997; godin 2007:28-43). nevertheless, rhetorically the term remains very important in science policy when it comes to identifying longer-term priorities and counteracting the strong pull toward applied science associated with innovation policy (gulbrandsen and kyvik 2010). innovation policy, when it collapses science and technology under a single (fashionable) heading called “technoscience”, gets in the way of cultivating a broader knowledge base that may be important in the longer term. consequently it is not unimportant what kind of sociopolitics drives the construction of indicators to measure “development” of science and technology (s&t). this measurement within nation states occurs in accordance with particular conventions together with rules of standardization codified within the intergovernmental frameworks of either the oecd (for the rich world) or unesco (for the so-called developing nations). another important distinction introduced in the early years was the one between policy for science and science for policy (elzinga and jamison 1995). the former has to do with the stimulation of research to develop an advanced knowledge base while the latter is what we now associate with sectoral research policies (elzinga 1980). under the head of science for policy one can also include various functions and mechanisms for science advice to government (pielke 2007). disciplines and transdisciplinarity – from normal to postnormal science early on science advisors were often physicists. today the accent has shifted towards personalities with backgrounds in biomedical and biotechnological fields and more recently also the environmental sciences. in some cases systematic methods of reviewing the literature have been developed to provide decision-makers and international organizations with a sciencebase for important policy decisions. the most visible example today is the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) and its periodical reviews with lead authors and teams producing chapters in comprehensive reports regarding trends in global climate change (elzinga 1996). when the ipcc was first instituted it represented a novel mode of mediating between state of the art science, and political action. bert bolin, the first chairman of this important intergovernmental forum emphasized the importance of integration of findings from many different disciplines (multidisciplinarity) on the one hand and a bridging of science and policynew  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 315 making on the other (transdisciplinarity). initially great care was taken to maintain a strict boundary between science and politics, but as time went on the urgency of the message of global climate change led to an emphasis on powerful visual and graphical imagery to gain the attention of policy makers and the public in an effort to press for political action. when finally in some instances (in working group 2 – assessing intertwining scientific, technical, environmental, economic and social aspects of climate change) dramaturgy led to insufficient attention to empirical data (e.g, the case of glacier retreat in the himalayas), we got a situation that in turn played into the hands of longstanding lobbies of so-called contrarians or climate change sceptics whose minority voices oftentimes are amplified beyond proportion in controversy-hungry media. recently therefore efforts are afoot within ipcc to re-organize the transdisciplinary interplay between science and political action in order to strengthen the integrity of the evidential base and hence the credibility of the advice scientists can provide for decisionmaking in an area of strong and conflicting extramural stakeholder pressures, some of which are intimately linked to the pressures of economic globalization. climatology is only one area of science that is in strong interaction with external stakeholder interests, and therefore it is sometimes referred to as an example of what is called “postnormal” or “postacademic” science (ravetz 1999). the term “postnormal science” refers to areas where stakes are high while epistemic certainty is low and the (sometimes contested) precautionary principle is invoked to guide policy. in climatology and other areas of environmental science friction may also arise from the internal dynamics of multidisciplinary research as for example in the interplay between glaciologists (or for that matter forest ecologists) out in the field concerned with empirical work “on the ground” and (the relatively more “visible”) general circulation modellers in central laboratories. this occurs when the latter “dictate” what parameters and data formats the former should prioritize for incorporation into complex simulation models. in such cases gaps between “ground truth” in the field and proxies in the models as well as the existence of different research cultures (and epistemologies) at work in the field and in the lab, respectively, may also lead to misunderstanding and conflict. paradigm shift in science policy regimes a recent periodisation of science policy “regimes” proposed by philip morowski and esthermirjam sent (2008) places successive policy doctrines in the broad context of geopolitics. the authors argue that traditional analysis has tended to focus mainly on features that are characterized in terms of national innovation systems and policy advisory arrangements, how these are funded and comparisons of different priorities over time but with little reference to driving forces in broader economic and political terms. they exemplify by pointing to the distinction that became so popular during the 1990s (cf. gibbons and others 1994) between academic disciplinary research (so-called mode 1 scientific knowledge production) as different from research in the context of application (called mode 2), where the latter was mainly characterized as interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary (i.e., including interaction with users of scientific knowledge in society at large, particularly industry and government sponsored agencies – cf. elzinga 2008). elzinga   316 parallel to this there was the notion of a triple helix of an intensified interlacing of academic, industrial and governmental relations to promote innovation (etzkowitz and leydesdorff 2000). in both cases, the two authors say, one gets an apparent ideal typical picture of two phases in the development of science in society in historical time, first one centred on academic institutions and thereafter a second one when applied research and stronger links with socially relevant objectives dominate. it is as if academic research in an earlier period, for example in the 1920s and ‘30s lacked external institutional motives of societal relevance. they go on to show how the concept of mode 2 and with it the idea that the late 1980s marked a break in the traditional “social contract of science” and the advent of a new social contract in the 1990s in fact constitutes a misrepresentation of the longer-term historical record for contemporary tacit political purposes. the term “social contract” applied to science policy did not exist before. it has only entered the science policy discourse in connection with npm thinking and its language that now in retrospect has “discovered” past contractual relationships between science and the state where in comparison to the situation today – these were never really articulated as such before. the overriding interest in the new policy discourse has been to legitimate a major economic and political turn that was taking place around in the 1980s, whence principal agency and contract-theory rhetoric comes in handy – thus the claim that a “new science-society contract” had emerged and stabilized. it was not a matter of conscious conspiracy but rather a rethinking in science policy circles that reflected broader realignments and stakeholder interests in society (elzinga 2002). hyping descriptions of research in the context of application without looking for causal factors that go beyond references to the internal dynamics of innovation systems, in other words, with mirowsky and sent’s critically reflexive lens, can be seen to play into a broader political agenda. from the vantage point of their meta-theoretical approach these two authors therefore insist that one also has to consider the globalizing political economy. to counteract the narrow myopic perspective they identify global events like the advent of the cold war and later its termination with the collapse of the soviet union as important factors to take into consideration. consequently they identify, apart from an older regime beginning in the late 19th century, two newer ones, namely: first “wwii to 1980” as the cold war regime, followed by the “1980-? //and onward//” the globalized privatization regime” of science organization. it is in the latter context that we find the increasing use of market mechanisms as instruments to hitch academic institutions more systematically to the carriage of a policy for innovation, thereby depleting policies for science. “the academic profession is the loser” the german sociologist, uwe schimank recalls how burton clark once described the “traditional” german university as a combination of political regulation by the state and professional self-control by an “academic oligarchy” (schimank 2005: 363). he then goes on to make an interesting point. analyzing the entry of npm, schimank finds that a reduction in academic self-governance is one of its goals. npm strengthens hierarchical management by rectors and deans, as well as by state authorities and external stakeholders – including industry – while implying deregulation in budgeting and personnel management, and the approval of programmes. this is what government usually means when it promises greater /institutional – not professional/ autonomy to universities (ibid., 365). new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 317 it is to open universities up for external stakeholder influence. deeply mistrustful, policy makers dismiss as ivory tower intellects those who give vent to nostalgic fear of a loss of professional autonomy. these policy makers read professional “autonomy” as “irresponsibility” and therefore substitute local institutional autonomy to reduce old style professional autonomy. schimank argues that we have to be alert when the word autonomy is uttered and ask ourselves what kind of autonomy, for whom and why. seen in this light the audits that are becoming part of daily life in academe are disempowering academic professionals. schimank goes on to say, in this game, the academic profession is the loser. external interests, university leaders, and especially the government seem to be the winners … to achieve competitiveness, universities deregulate, create new leadership, and accept a greater measure of public intervention. spelled out in this way, it becomes clear that npm is not just a bundle of loosely coupled changes, but rather an integrated approach, seeking an overall redirection of the entire system. its message: replace the old regime, dominated by a state regulated profession, with a new regime, dominated by a marketand state-driven organization” (ibid.). this is what mirowki and sent also have in mind when referring to the new situation in science policy as a privatized globalization regime. regarding the distinction already alluded to, between science for policy and policy for science (elzinga and jamison 1995) it is nowadays sometimes misleadingly suggested that the former is largely evidence based whereas the latter domain of policy is anecdotal. the so-called evidential base in the case of science for policy is actually still heavily reliant on stories and metaphors as instanced by the schematic a-historical stories advanced by the advocates of mode 2 and triple helix narratives (for a critical review see elzinga 2004). also there has been a tendency where science policy analysts lose their arms length analytical distance when they enter into very strong symbiotic relationships with science-policy makers. in the case of european countries this has been seen to occur when leading science policy analysts with an academic base simultaneously serve as consultants in the corridors of the european commissioners in brussels (elzinga 2002 and 2004). this has led to a co-production of some key notions that are then provided with an academic stamp of legitimacy and authority by university-based researchers and then circulate (recycle) throughout the worlds of research policy makers, administrators and university leaders in various countries. entry of new public management (npm) into science policy it is here in the wake of neo-liberalism and in the context of the globalization regime that npm comes in as a handmaiden. the shift to the new regime of knowledge production characterized by mirowski and sent is administratively helped by it. npm as shorthand for applying private sector or market-based techniques to public services is played out in a specific way in the new globalized privatization regime in the realm of science policy. as already noted npm does not necessarily imply a kind of global homogenization process. there is considerable variation in the way countries adopt its logic. further, one finds variations between policy domains. in the realm of science policy bibliometric methods are increasingly used to measure performance in the research and higher educational landscape, therewith elzinga   318 influencing and changing academic cultures of accountability. the kinds of bibliometric measurements (metrics) that are developed nevertheless can vary considerably from one country to another. at the same time there is considerable cross-fertilization between evaluation units, a process that together with the advent of the first european graduate school in the field of scientometrics will probably contribute to further standardization (gorraiz and others 2010). to a certain extent the actual approach opted for by policy-makers at the national level is influenced by the topography of the research landscape and the power and coherence of various scientific lobbies within it. thus a country with a strong tradition of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences but less developed areas in the engineering and natural sciences or medicine will probably shy away from strict bibliometric approaches that only rely on international databases whereas the reverse may be the case when humanities and social sciences are weaker and overshadowed by the dominant “hard” sciences. goals, priority setting and incentive systems – from ideology to scoreboards research policy in its classical sense has to do with setting goals and priorities for research and development (r&d) (ziman 1994). the question of allocating resources to r&d activities is one of science policy’s most classical components. for the most part it is a matter of allocating resources out of the public purse at the national level, but it can also concern investments on regional or local municipal levels decided by actors at these levels to stimulate new and emerging technologies (high tech) with an eye to the region’s and the nation’s future competitive advantage in a global marketplace. it appears then that much of the current discussion about suitable models for resource allocation to research has to do with a demand of accountability in terms that are quantitative and measurable. helga nowotny, whom i shall cite more below, has noted that even if the word “evidence” is seldom used in science policy the philosophy nevertheless lies behind the attempts to construct metrics for fine-grained evidence regarding performance as a basis for decisions on continued financing in a part of the public sector. although the use of quantitative measures to evaluate research performance has increased enormously there is a dearth of literature with a reflexive take on the subject. to begin with it is useful to make a distinction between two kinds of data or evidence used as a basis for policy-decisions. let us call them a first and a second order of evidencing. the first order of evidence concerns situation-descriptors that are needed if one wants to tighten policy audits and facilitate future comparisons between conditions before and after the implementation of a policy or package of affiliated instruments. a second order of evidence concerns evaluation of science policy and its instruments. it calls for reflexivity of a kind one does not often find in planning and funding agencies. this imbalance perhaps explains why so much of the energy of planners today seems to be directed towards constructing and experimenting with fine-grained metrics that may be incorporated into decision-making related to annual budgetary allocations of resources to publicly funded r&d at universities and other institutions. this is evident in several countries where performance indicators are used as a basis for changing funding flows between universities as well as between faculties and research units within them. the policy discussion on accountability as influenced by npm has to do with evidence of the first order, i.e., benchmarking and descriptions of states of affairs within publicly funded units with the help of numbers as well as qualitative assessments (e.g., using review panels) in a new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 319 landscape that is subject to policy orchestration by incorporating cultures of compliance. evidence-basing of policy in the sense one finds in medical clinical work or units responsible for social work would require a second step. such a second step would entail systematic evaluations of the efficacy of actual policy measures and instruments in order to determine to what degree intended aims or goals are achieved, for example that the prioritized profiled areas of r&d progress in a suitable manner when seen from the combined point of view of quality enhancement and relevance. another example would be assessing the actual impact of policies aimed at increasing a country’s international economic competitiveness, or intensification of collaboration between industry and universities in priority areas. in my reading of science policy documents i have not been able to find many credible examples of evidence-basing in such a (second order) meaning. in order to be able to compare the result of an implementation of specific policy instruments and established goals one needs to start with a much more precise description of the existing situation that is the baseline from which one has to start. this is probably the reason why much of the talk about “best practices” is still rather loose while a lot of emphasis is given to introducing “benchmarking” that will give clearer points of reference to compare initial conditions before and final conditions after the implementation of a policy package. the presidential election campaign in the u.s. a couple of years ago, generated some signals in the academic world suggesting that barack obama was a strong advocate of evidence-based science policy (bhattacharjee 2008), meaning better “science for policy”. some of his statements, made even long before the campaign were contrasted to the practice of the bush administration that by comparison was seen to be ideological, particularly with regard to u.s. climate policy, but also in the field of health care (oberlin blogspot 2008). the obama administration’s appointment of john holdren as science adviser has confirmed the ambition of basing research policy more systematically on the accumulation of a viable knowledge base. both the national science foundation (nsf) and the national institutes of health (nih) have been given clear mandates to intensify efforts to develop relevant performance indicators that can be used in decision-making relating to both science for policy (innovation and health care, respectively) and policy for science (high quality curiosity oriented or fundamental research). a new acronym for science based policy (scisip) some of the current efforts afoot in order to develop a robust indicator-based knowledge base for decision-making in science policy now fall under the heading of a new acronym, “scisip” (nsf 2007) which rejuvenates the crystallographer and marxist john desmond bernal’s old dream of a science of science to steer the growth of science (bernal 1939; elzinga 1988). john marburger iii, science adviser to president bush, expressed the initial rationale for such efforts some years ago. marburger tied it back to strong demands of public accountability regarding tax dollars and the generally diffuse policy of enhancing economic competitiveness of the nation in a global market. in the wake of the launching of the president’s american competitive initiative (aci) marburger (2006) proposed an agenda for a science of science and innovation policy, a characterization that become a new phrase in policy documents. he argued as follows: elzinga   320 science policy makers tend to rely on economic models and data when they exist, but also employ ad hoc surveys and opinions offered by panels of experts. science policy implementers are usually government employees and elected officials whose information comes from a variety of sources of varying degrees of visibility, with advocacy groups on the high end and science policy technocrats somewhere near the bottom. i would like to change this. i would like to have science policy tools that are so credible that their products are embraced by the advocates as well as the technocrats. i do not expect tools that approach the credibility of newton’s laws or quantum mechanics, but i believe we can move the standards of science policy making and implementation closer to what already exists in the world of economic policy. and further: i am emphasizing models because they are essential for understanding correlations among different measurable quantities, or metrics. (cf. also oecd 2006 and marburger 2007). under the obama administration the task of presidential science adviser has been mantled by a major league scientist, john holdren, previously a harvard professor of environmental policy and director of the woods hole research center. however this has not changed the basic rationale; if anything, it may has gained greater credibility, being tied in part to a different philosophy in the whitehouse regarding the role of science in society. emphasis is still on measuring outcomes and impacts. the intention is also to link micro and macro data sets and make indicators more directly science policy relevant. this is also the ambition that originally prompted the nsf science metrics initiative. the eventual aim is to create a cadre of scholars who can provide science policy makers with the kinds of data, analyses and advice that economists now provide to various government institutions. (mervis 2006: 347 cited in nowotny 2007:482). on the basis of a wide call for proposals a variety of scholars two years ago were granted funding for projects under a program within the directorate for social, behavioural & economic sciences (sbe). the three areas targeted are: analytical tools, model building, and data development & augmentation (nsf 2008, and 2007). by 2010 fifty projects located at various universities across the usa had been awarded grants in these areas and a new call for proposals was issued october 1, 2010. the director of the scisip program, julia lane, in her statement before congress in washington september 23, 2010 summarized the rationale and approach further: the program has three major aims: advancing evidence-based science and innovation policy decision making; developing and building a scientific community to study science and innovation policy; and developing new and improved datasets. the overarching goal in this effort, however, is to conduct basic research that creates new objective models, analytic tools, and datasets to inform our nation's public and private sectors about the processes through which investments in science and engineering research may be transformed into scientific, social and economic outcomes. (lane 2010b; see also lane 2010a). star metrics (science and technology in america's reinvestment — measuring the effects of research on innovation, competitiveness and science) is the name of a broad program that is new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 321 already operational and gathering data. it represents a major step in the direction of generating indicators for a second order of evidence in policy-making, i.e., one that relates to societal impacts. too much “trust in numbers”? the focus on bibliometric methods and other performance indicators of quality and relevance is also apparent in other countries. as so often is the case in science policy it is through the channels of the oecd that new approaches started in the usa are mimicked in other countries. still, the approaches developed are different in different countries, again owing to differences in some of the legal, political and cultural factors mentioned before. there are also mixed approaches that combine traditional peer review panels with so-called “objective” methods of bibliometrics and other science indicators (scientometrics). in the uk a system of review panels was for a long time used to evaluate and rank performance of universities and departments within them every five years. in december 2006 the government announced that a new system for the assessment and funding of research to replace that framework after the research assessment exercise (rae) of 2008 (on the principles underpinning the raes see wright and williams ørberg 1997). the new framework as part of its approach was mandated to produce robust uk-wide indicators of research excellence for all disciplines. to some extent this is now in place. it represents a move away from the old “subjective” review panel approach to raes towards more “objective” methods based on publication counts and citation measures to gauge quality and impact, plus statistical counts of external research income and postgraduate student activity at universities. the new framework operates with fewer and broader subject divisions than the raes. the full set of indicators for the science-based disciplines was produced for the first time during 2009 and has begun to influence funding allocations from 2010-11. the indicators are based on data averaged across several years. for the arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and statistics the operation is being phased in more gradually, initially complemented by information from peer review panels. this is because publication patterns in these areas do not match those of the science-based disciplines, as the relevant international databases on publications and citation frequencies do not give a representative picture. additionally there has been quite a lot of critique from scholars in the humanities and social sciences as well as mathematics. the idea nevertheless seems to be that reviews and summations of relevant performance indicators will fully inform funding from 2014 onward (hefce 2007). the aim is to try and enhance the overall relative international level of performance (in comparison with other countries) represented by the country’s research base. as helga nowotny has pointed out concerning the report that pushes in this direction, although the report does not carry the word ‘evidence’ in its title, it is yet another example of evidence-based policy intended to replace the rae… by devising systems to compare ‘best practices’ at national, european and international levels, self-generating, performanceenhancing mechanisms are created. their function is to orient towards goals and objectives that readily can generate ever new performance targets and changing objectives by absorbing existing performances… (nowotny 2007:482). nowotny who has first hand experience of policy making and science advice at the highest level within the eu and is currently president of the european research council (established only a elzinga   322 few years ago to try and counterbalance the pull of applied research funding programs in the eu), for her own part, expresses scepticism and is critical of the science metrics approach. she warns against fastening in a reification of numbers and the associated myth of a “trust in numbers” on which it rests; therefore she calls for other, competing constructions of “policy rooms” distributed throughout the science and innovation systems. perceptive users of bibliometrics and research performance indicators have also warned of inadvertent consequences inherent in too much trust in numbers (weingart 2005). generating quantitative data: peer review based evaluations and foresight a leading centre in europe where bibliometric methods have been developed is the centre for science and technology studies (cwts) at leiden university, led by anthony van raan who is currently also the editor of the journal research evaluation. another is the so-called leuvengroup, the steunpunt o&o statistieken (abbreviated soos), a flemish inter-university consortium located at the university of leuven and directed by wolfgang glänzel who also has longstanding affiliations with the information science and scientometric research unit (issru) at the library of the hungarian academy of sciences which is the co-publisher (with springer verlag) of the journal scientometrics. bibliometrics has been found to be a useful tool for generating a quantitative core of data for peer review based evaluations and foresight exercises (van raan 1996). in other words the methodology is held to provide useful starting point if complemented by the activities of traditional peer review panels, hearings, on site visits and the like. additionally, informed discussion (reflexivity) regarding measurement technologies and their use in science policy will benefit the process (woolgar 1991). it must be remembered that bibliometric methods and citation analysis convey pictures of how visible various authors and their associated institutions are in the literature. strictly speaking visibility is not the same as quality even though citation counts in journals with high impact factors are sometimes used as proxies (cozzens 1989). fields that are inherently transdisciplinary are often difficult to fit into the predominant categories that are used and therefore have a systemic disadvantage (bondjersand others 2008). the services of the cwts unit at leiden have frequently been used in bibliometric studies at swedish universities. medical faculties have also engaged grant lewison who has developed bibliometric competence at the welcome institute in the uk. in sweden olle persson and his information research group (started in 1975) at the sociology department of umeå university has been working with bibliometric methods since 1985, publishing empirical and theoretical papers and engaged operationally in various commissioned evaluation exercises. more recently ulf sandström who is affiliated with linköping university has over the years developed various bibliometric skills in connection with research evaluations and policy, among other at the policy unit of the swedish research council (vr), and as expert consultant to the resources inquiry that was led by dan brändström. the resources inquiry in its report resurser för kvalitet (sou 2007:81) proposed a new model for the allocation of funding through direct appropriations to swedish universities. in january 2009 the swedish research council (vetenskapsrådet, vr) was given the mandate to begin this process of introducing a system for correlating allocation of funds to universities with their outputs measured in numbers of publications and amounts of external funding they attracted. measurement of related citation frequencies is taken as a proxy for scientific quality, an assumption that has however been severely criticized by researchers in a number of different fields who point out that what one gets is only estimates of the “visibility” of various universities and departments within them. new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 323 even before it was endorsed by a parliamentary decision the new approach already prompted a flurry of activities at universities to speed up work in developing their own capacities to do computer-aided evaluations of research performance. these activities continue now to satisfy national policy demands and they mostly engage bibliometricians connected to the university libraries. leading universities like uppsala and lund have also implemented their own comprehensive evaluations and other universities are still in the process of doing so, oftentimes using the database of performance indicators that is generated also as an “evidential” base for controversial decisions regarding some major organizational changes that bring with them more power on the part of management and less in terms of traditional collegial patterns of decisionmaking. strict bibliometrics contested in scandinavia there has been discussion regarding what is called the “norwegian model” for linking state decisions regarding budgetary allocations to university research to systematic reviews of performance. one of the architects behind the norwegian model is gunnar siverstsen (nifu/step in oslo)2 who has helped devise a system whereby researchers at universities and colleges report relevant information about their publishing activities into what has become a national database managed by bibliometricians employed at university libraries. the model is quantitative and bibliometric. an advantage is that since researchers report in their own data to the data base they develop a sense of “ownership” regarding the system and therefore may find it more palatable than the so-called “objective” system of relying only on international citation databases. a scientific publication is defined by four criteria each of which has to be satisfied: 1) presentation of a new insight; 2) presented in a form that makes the results testable and possible to use in new research; 3) expressed in a language and via a channel of distribution that makes it accessible for most researchers who might take an interest in it; and 4) the publication channel (scientific journal, report series, book, etc,) that it appears in must incorporate peer review procedures (sivertsen 2008). publications distributed through local channels (if more than 2/3 of publications in a publication series coming from the same institution) or non-scientific channels (lacking peer review) are excluded. publication channels are divided into two levels: level 1: a category that covers “normal” quality, where one usually finds 80% of publications in a discipline; level 2: a category that covers the other 20% where one finds the most significant or highest quality publications, e.g., high impact international scientific journals. in case of a multi-author article the publication is 2 the acronym is norwegian; the english name of the center is norwegian institute for studies in innovation, research and education <http://www.nifustep.no/english/pages/default.aspx>. elzinga   324 divided into corresponding fractional parts attributed to the respective authors’ home institutions. a point system is used to give weights to different kinds of publications, and publication points are calculated annually by multiplying the author-fraction affiliated with an institution times the appropriate vectors for publication form (species & levels). in addition to publication points three other indicators are combined in the result-based decisions for redistributing funds amongst universities and colleges with an eye to their final quality measure expressed on a national scoreboard. the other three indicators are first the number of doctoral degrees, secondly eu-funding attracted, and thirdly norwegian research council funding attracted over the same period. the evaluation/measurement exercise was incorporated into the state budget for universities 2005 and has since then been extended to include the national research institutes sector and health-related enterprises. swedish experience and the proposal of a more “objective” model interested parties in denmark, finland and sweden have studied the norwegian model as an alternative to “strict” reliance only on international science citation index data when incorporating quantitative and bibliometric information as a basis for state budgetary allocations of funds to university and other forms of research in the public sector. as already indicated several swedish universities have been developing bibliometric functions to provide university boards with instruments to monitor quantity and quality of publications. the most comprehensive report until recently has been one from the university of uppsala where consultants from the cwts/leiden were employed to do an extensive evaluation, quality and renewal. kof07 report (see uppsala university home page). at the national level the white paper called the resource inquiry (or brändströmska utredning) on financing forms for universities’ activities (sou 2007:81) reflects a certain enchantment with the british experiences with the rae-system and the discussions regarding its replacement, at least in part, by “robust” indicators. this swedish white paper criticizes the norwegian model for being too costly and cumbersome because it involves local university based staff to manage researchers self-reporting of publications into a national database that needs to be continually upgraded and validated. to circumvent this “subjective” element the “swedish model” therefore uses a quasi-objective mode of measuring performance at an aggregate level for comparison of individual universities in this country. the idea is to only make use of existing information regarding publication counts, relative performance levels above or below a world norm calculated for a large number of different classes of journals registered and indexed in the thomsen/isi database web of science (wos). the characteristics of the model are: 1. the numerical value the model pins on a university is obtained by focusing on publications in given disciplinary areas; 2. calculating productivity by translating the actual number of publications to a virtual number of middling level of averagely productive researchers that for each disciplinaryspecific area would be required to produce the same number of publications; 3. calculating the citation-value by looking at the average number of citations received by the publications in question and dividing this by the expected compiled value (number of citations one would expect the corresponding number of middle-level averagely productive researchers to receive (field normalization)); new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 325 4. multiplying the productivity value with the citation-value for each disciplinary area for the various universities reviewed. a matter of cutting costs it has been argued (sandström & sandström 2007b) that the advantage with the “strict” model is that one does not need to collect raw data from the universities. one gets the raw data directly from the database of the isi/wos. this procedure, it is argued, is much less costly than having to rely on universities’ databases that require competent staff to provide and manage local inputs that are constantly upgraded and validated. the other advantage emphasized is that application of techniques to achieve field-normalized indicators allows comparisons to be made across different disciplinary areas like technological science, medicine, natural sciences, social sciences & humanities as well as between sub-classes within these broad areas, something the norwegian model is purported unable to do. the foregoing line of argument also appears in some work of the aforementioned bibliometrics group at the australian national university (arc linkage project 2005). in 2007 two of this team revisited and evaluated the political science portion of the 2001 uk/rae. the outcome of the original review panel assessment (rae 2001) was compared with the results of a new evaluation for the year 2001 carried out by the australian bibliometricians using only quantitative indicators accessible in international databases. the authors of the australian report (butler & mcallister 2007: 14-15) write: our findings presented here suggest, unequivocally, that a metrics-based model, using objective, transparent indicators drawn from a range of readily-available measures, will yield results which are very close to those of a peer-based evaluation model /using review panels/. such a stronger reliance on quantitative indicators, of which bibliometrics is a central measure, will, most importantly, obviate the need for a large peer review committee and the consequent indirect biases that it introduces into the system. and not least, such an approach would help to reduce one of the most oft-quoted criticisms of the rae, namely the cost in university resources and academic staff time. in the swedish case, in practice for policy purposes the “objective” model (above) is not employed to the full and some adjustments were arbitrarily introduced before it was put in place to govern the budgetary allocations for the period 2009-2012. one such adjustment in order to compensate for a systematic bias against humanities disciplines is that the number of publications in this area is multiplied by a factor of two. also, for this period as a start only 10% of the block grants flowing from the ministry of education for research at individual universities is allocated on the basis of competition. the 10% incentive key furthermore is broken down into two parts, where one half (5% of the total allocation) goes up or down depending on a given university’s relative ability (vis-à-vis that of the country’s other universities) to attract research funding from external sources and the other half varies on the basis of the outcome of the bibliometric measure of publications counts (again relative to the performance of other universities on the same measure). those that do well in the performativity assessments get more resources, those that do not do so well get less. at the next level, within each university the leadership of that university can decide how to further decide about the distribution of its budget using a more radical distribution key for funding flows down to the level of the faculties where further performativity measures may be elzinga   326 employed before the funds actually reach individual institutions. since the whole process is quite new it is too early yet to see the consequences of the new national policy. concluding remarks the purpose of the present paper is to fill an important gap in science policy studies and the literature on the problem of the impact of new public management. as such the paper elaborates an important and novel angle in science policy analysis. furthermore it summarizes at some length various characteristics associated with npm, one might say its “anatomy” and dynamics, and explicates its nexus with methods of research evaluation now being introduced in academic institutions. arguments for and against the application of “strict” bibliometric performativity assessments as a policy tool are reviewed. in line with the foregoing, and based on the paper’s comprehensive review of relevant literature, a number of significant policy conclusions may now be stated. first of all we should not lose sight of significant differences between disciplines as well as differences between major areas of knowledge. while humanities, social sciences and some applied as well as interdisciplinary and clearly transdisciplinary areas (bondjers and others 2008) are having difficulties to adjust, robust research institutions in most natural sciences and mainstream medical areas probably will have no difficulty under stricter accountingization regimes to turn new number-grinding exercises to their own advantage (herbert and müller-hill 1997). it will become a natural ingredient in reputation management. still, even in such instances diversity in academic science landscapes may turn out to be the loser. secondly, there is a paradox that emerges both in natural and social sciences. “control of control” as michael power calls it tends to become a ritual when where trust gets lost. institutions contracted by a principal to perform services go up a learning curve and develop skills in formatting reports on outcomes in terms meant to satisfy the principal. these function as signals to assure the principal that objectives and rules are being followed to such and such a degree. the suspicious principal may mistrust the reports and require further evidence to be reassured that controls are in place. this leads to the introduction of a second order control, one wherewith the task becomes one of verifying if a system of control is in place (supposedly internalized in the working environment of the agent). at this stage one is no longer concerned with the actual detail or content of the performance per se, but rather in the existence of second order routines as a proxy (see table 2). table 2. the ritual of audit society (according to michael power) control of control management organizes ….>> internal audit in order to satisfy ….>> external audit incorporated in…..>> state inspection response = symbols of compliance (assurances)….>> sent back to state authority = system of <<……………. internalizing delegated control that is then subjected to topdown control by the external controller (as proxy to make sure) new  public  management  and  science  policy   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 307-332. 327 thirdly npm as an instrument of audit society introduces changes in the social relations and cultures of major societal institutions that are evaluated. academic institutions are no exception. overtly there is a move toward a culture of compliance while underneath it all researchers still seek to maintain agendas of their own. the cynical view is the one expressed by daniel greenberg (2007a, also cf. 2007b) in his article in the journal science where he suggests that the ultimate name for a typical university running with the trend of the times ought to be “the university of avarice” (the article is illustrated with a nice cartoon). it is a question of “campus capitalism” as a handmaiden of industrial and financial capitalist agendas in society at large. external relevance pressures, marketization, commoditization of public goods and subsequent accountingization bring with them cultural changes in the hallowed halls of academe, to be sure. in sum: • a culture of compliance • a culture of profiling, corporate branding, trademarking and conscious reputational management and identity management a fourth point is that apart from orchestrated self-regulation via the inducement of a compliance culture one also by extension gets practices of reputation management whereby institutions try to enhance their image. to do well in the universe of citation indicators, publication behaviour in research communities, it has been speculated, may also undergo change to adapt to new computer-aided models for redistributing funds between competing universities and departments within them (debackere & glänzel 2004: 273-274). weingart (2005) speaks of “inadvertent consequences”. bornmann (2010) has coined the phrase “mimicry in science” to draw attention to a significant factor that is already changing publication patterns. for some universities image may become more important than content. reputation in other words becomes a key asset on which providers trade. in our universities we see manifestations of reputation management in the practice of trade-marking and cultivating brand names (branding), and even in disputes and endless discussions about such a simply matter as to how the university’s traditional logotype should be modified to bring it in tune with the times. according to identity consultants even a logotype is much more than a pattern on a paper or letterhead, it is a symbol that embodies a metaphysical means to unify actors around a mission as well as attract customers. a fifth conclusion, more generally, is that the new initiatives to develop performativity metrics in the spirit of npm in the higher educational and research sector are indicative of changes wrought in science policy during the past couple of decades as we have moved out of cold war regime to the new policy paradigm of privatized globalization. the new initiatives have undoubtedly been important for improving the evidence-base for policy-making but they should not simply be adopted uncritically and taken at face value. further conclusions that can be drawn from the foregoing review of the entry of npm in discourses of governance or orchestration of academic research is that academic research tends to be the loser. bibliometric methods on their own are not trustworthy and may induce unwanted skews into research landscapes; therefore they need to be combined with self-reporting academic databases, traditional peer review panels, on site visits and case studies that are undertaken independently and at arms-length from policyand decision-making. short term interests related elzinga   328 to tangible utility is furthermore detrimental to strategic needs of diversity in basic research and scientific knowledge production for the long-term future. for this and other reasons it is evident that a greater amount of reflexivity needs to be brought into discussions about accountability and the role of npm, i.e., there is a need for critical metatheoretical reflection on both npm and the various metrics that have been and are still being constructed. this is particularly relevant 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(1994), prometheus bound: science in a dynamic steady state. cambridge: univ. press. abstract introduction methodology results conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) teresa connor fort hare institute of social & economic research, faculty of social sciences, university of fort hare, east london, south africa citation connor, t., 2020, ‘rural transformation, network society and the information age: the case of nkonkobe district municipality in the eastern cape’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a825. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.825 note: special collection: mobile technology within the 4ir era africa answering the call. original research rural transformation, network society and the information age: the case of nkonkobe district municipality in the eastern cape teresa connor received: 31 jan. 2020; accepted: 18 june 2020; published: 04 sept. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the aim of this article is exploratory: to illustrate the main trends in communication and amongst data users in the nkonkobe municipal area, a municipal zone in the eastern cape province of south africa, now known as chris hani. based on information collected in 2016 and 2017, the research project locates the use of both cellular phones and smartphones within a broader menu of communication devices and information retrieval in rural areas, including televisions, radios, newspapers and conventional interaction. it focuses particularly on the conditions and circumstances under which cellular phones and smartphones were used and the type of residents who were most likely to use them. many analysts are of the opinion that cellular devices can increase communication in economically disadvantaged zones through the creation of a shared ‘virtual social network’ that ‘levels’ society, creating equal access to information. the results of this study reveal that although smartphones are widespread, these types of devices have not replaced communication via cellular phones or physical interaction. realistically, smartphone usage is limited by cost and network coverage. for the majority of smartphone owners, connectivity is not always easy and compels movement towards regional urban centres, where data is cheaper and can be accessed. keywords: communication; smartphones; networks; rural areas; eastern cape. introduction since the end of apartheid, there has been little focus on the connections between rural residents within the former homelands. moreover, there has been little written on the changing nature of small rural towns and the role that they may play in rural development. after the marikana massacre, as bank (2015:1068) points out, it became clear that many migrants were still investing in rural areas. the formations of these rural investments, however, have changed. firstly, widespread deagrarianisation and climate change in the eastern cape have increased circular migration to small towns, particularly by the youth and within the informal sector (connor & mtwana 2018). secondly, many investments made in rural areas are sometimes undetected because they are based on smaller financial packages – such as pensions and social grants (mishi et al. 2020). rural areas have therefore seen increased investment into cultures of mobility and largely unseen networks that do not always require long-distance migration or actual physical movement. as klaufus (2012:691) argued, the connections between global flows of people and goods demonstrate that ‘agency can be activated through both geographical movement and through imagined connections … across space, even when they are relatively immobile’. in rural areas symbolic mobility and investment have occurred around the home space, where construction of houses, the purchase of domestic appliances and the reliance on cellular phones have influenced levels of access to information and resources (ruiters 2011). the national census of 2011 (statistics south africa [stats sa] 2011) shows that rural areas in south africa have had a 50% increase in the use of cellular devices from 2001. this includes a rapid expansion of cellular 3g networks and the use of internet smartphones. the transformational capabilities of the mobile phone are therefore very important for rural residents because, according to van dijk (2005) and castells (1996), these devices not only enable access to previously untapped resources but may serve as virtual social connections – the ‘glue’ that holds society together. however, it is matter of debate whether these virtual device connections take place at a supra-societal level, independent of real-time connections, or whether cybernetic conversations replace standard interactions between people (de bruijn 2008:5). although it cannot be disputed that handheld communication devices have proved powerful in the creation of a ‘virtual social network’ that connects previously disparate people and places to share information and opportunities, it still has to be determined whether smartphones have the ability to ‘level’ society (castells 1996). can virtual handheld devices reduce differences of income, gender and age? in order to assess these issues, this article illustrates the main trends in communication and amongst data users in the nkonkobe municipal area. as illustrated in map 1, this is a rural municipal zone in the eastern cape province of south africa, now known as chris hani. based on information collected in 2016 and 2017 (fhiser 2017), this article locates the use of mobile phones within a broader menu of communication devices and information retrieval in rural areas. the question is whether these devices have replaced the use of televisions, radios, newspapers and conventional interaction and whether all residents use devices in the same manner. ultimately, the article aims to assess how and whether these devices have improved service delivery and whether the internet has indeed resulted in poverty alleviation. the article has four sections: the first is largely theoretical and evaluates the idea of the ‘network society’, comparing it to what is known as the ‘information age’. the second section discusses methodology, whilst the third provides a regional background to the study. the results are discussed in three portions: the basic profile of respondents in nkonkobe and use of devices and means of communication the use of cellular devices in nkonkobe, including smartphones communication with government and stakeholders in nkonkobe. map 1: nkonkobe local municipality with ward boundaries. theoretical background: social networks social networks have traditionally been treated as the linkages that keep people, social institutions and groups ‘bound together’. as mitchell (1974:283) originally argued, social networks are regarded as complex and multistranded relationships within which various bonds of exchange and obligation are at play. within the context of exchange, social networks rely on a mutual exchange of information, a reciprocal give and take, that enables people to engage in financial, social and cultural transactions. these exchanges promote the longevity and vitality of society because they are based on mutual forms of communication and information sharing. this means that the use of electronic devices is not simply about managing information, nor is it solely linked to the amount of information that can be retrieved from outside sources. social networks, more than information, influence how people respond politically and culturally, based on the extent to which they connect to one another (mitchell 1974:280). it is this ‘network society’, as castells has coined it (1996), rather than an ‘information society’, that functions as the ‘nerve centre’ of virtual social and media networks that shape organisational structures and processes. although mobile devices can change the form of standardised local information by providing access to global issues, only social networks can create greater access to locally valued and contextualised information. the debate, therefore, is whether content provided by information and communications technology services in poorer communities enables people to speak for themselves (cecchini & scott 2003) or whether information is simply presented for consumption. as castells (1996) points out, real power is to be found more within these networks than within regional urban spaces. there are clearly some pertinent questions that must be asked about the impact of mobile technologies on rural populations. one of the first issues that must be addressed, as de bruijn and van dijk (2012) suggest, is differences in the quality and speed of the internet, as well as dissimilarities in the gender, age and income of the user. these differences may prevent people from accessing information and opportunities and reduce the ability of policymakers and municipal officials to communicate effectively. in south africa, where racial and class divisions persist, there are clear differences between resource allocation in rural and urban areas. there are also relatively new divisions that have emerged between unemployed youth and their relatively well-off pensioned elders, as well as between established rural residents and immigrants to small towns. thirdly, there are also disparities between virtual mobile networks and more traditional physical forms of networking that influence information consumption, communication and access to global information. the question is how do these levels of inequality affect the use of the internet and of smartphones? what forms of information and communication do people use in order to gain the most visibility? methodology grounded on these primary research questions, the approach of the project team was exploratory: to determine the various types (or channels) of communication in nkonkobe municipality, how they were used and whether they were effective in increasing communication between residents and with policymakers. in order to understand this, the first step was to analyse secondary information regarding the development of rural areas in the eastern cape, paying particular attention to the development of small towns and urban hubs. secondly, a survey was designed based on the basic profile information of the region and the municipality, which provided a baseline for the research in nkonkobe. regional information garnered from census 2011 (stats sa 2011) reflects that the population in the eastern cape is around 6.8 million, an increase of 5 million since 2001.1 approximately 850 000 households live in rural areas, and within these, another 700 000 are found within urban or peri-urban areas. the general household survey in 2016 established that 51.60% of inhabitants in the eastern cape lived in rural areas. given that nkonkobe has been dissolved, at the time of data collection in 2016, nkonkobe had a population of 27 716 households, or 135 660 individuals (nkonkobe idp 2011). as map 1 illustrates, the district was divided into 21 wards and 5 small towns, these being (in order of size) fort beaufort (7379 households), the university town of alice (3716), seymour (864), middledrift (453) and the mountain village of hogsback (344). according to census 2011, 39.9% of households in nkonkobe were urban, whilst 60.1% were rural and farm based. five of these wards were classified by stats sa (in census 2011) as being predominantly urban, whilst another two wards were classified as being partially urban. approximately 74% of households were classified as indigent, and the dominant age bracket in the municipal areas was between 25 and 35. the largest wards in nkonkobe are 9, 6, 15, 13, 14 and 2. as map 1 indicates, urban wards are predominantly clustered around the towns of alice and fort beaufort. as a baseline, the survey sample had to include at least 10% of the total population – this being 127 people – of which we managed to interview 121. we also captured information from 13 wards in nkonkobe, not 21. this can be attributed to the fact that wards in nkonkobe overlap considerably. the area around and within the town of alice, for example, consists of four overlapping wards – this being the city centre (ward 6), the university of fort hare campus (ward 11) and two other predominantly rural wards (2 and 15). the fieldworkers concentrated on the campus area (ward 11) and ward 2, which all contain residents and people who live and work in the alice area. moreover, in our sample, around 56% of respondents were from urban zones and 44% from rural areas, which disagrees with the overall classification of nkonkobe as 60.1% rural. this is largely because many wards are classified as mixed urban and rural zones, with a dominance of one, and are therefore more peri-urban or semi-rural than strictly one or the other. moreover, although the fieldworkers did survey rural areas, some rural residents were interviewed in an urban zone and were therefore classified as being ‘urban’. the proportion of rural to urban residents is therefore approximate. the methodology used was a mixture of qualitative and quantitative techniques, as well as the principles and selected methods derived from participatory rural appraisal (pra). developed by chambers (1994), pra uses a multidisciplinary approach for applied research and is particularly effective for learning about local-level conditions and perspectives in a relatively short period of time. a portion of the pra approach is about ensuring local buy-in and endorsement of a research project. consequently, the research team spent eight months during early 2016 negotiating access to local communities via local government representatives and counsellors in nkonkobe. during this period permission from the town council was obtained, and we attended two local council meetings in order to introduce the project to local officials. this was followed by three community forum meetings in rural areas, and another two in the town of alice. these meetings also enabled the selection and training of eight local unemployed youth from a local non-governmental organisation (ngo) as fieldworkers, in order to administer questionnaires and collect information. this initial phase of data collection provided the comparative underpinnings of the project as a whole, particularly the differences between peri-urban and rural zones in nkonkobe, as well as the influence of both ngos and state-driven structures. this was the basis for our focus on qualitative information for the project, which also used observations and interviews in rural villages, as well as three group sessions held with stakeholders in alice during february 2016. these included various ngos, community-based organisations (cbos) and other affected groups (including residents’ associations), as well as municipal and provincial role players.2 regional background: profile of the eastern cape and nkonkobe analysis of the literature and secondary data reveals that the province of the eastern cape is one of the most severely deagrarianised ones in southern africa. self-sufficient peasant farming has largely disappeared, and commercial production of crops is subsidised heavily by the state (connor & mtwana 2018). after decades of large-scale migration, fuelled by the labour needs of mines and industry, income in the province has shrunk. the general household survey in 2016 points out that 55.92% of households in the eastern cape earn money from transfer or non-earned income – pensions, state grants and remittances – whilst very few (0.17%) are engaged in farming as a main activity. services such as roads, electricity and water in many areas are absent or hampered by ineffectual policies and corruption (ruiters 2011), whilst a crippling drought during the last three years has sapped the resources of rural households. compared to urban areas such as buffalo city (east london) and nelson mandela (port elizabeth), rural households have only half the amount of basic services available to them (rogan 2018). moreover, cellular 4g network coverage is limited to urban zones and the roads linking them, whilst 3g coverage is almost 99%. however, not all of the changes in the eastern cape have been negative. as bank’s work has indicated (2015), migration in the eastern cape has shifted away from distant labour migration opportunities in mines and large urban zones towards expansion of the small housing market and small businesses in rural towns. this has transformed many rural towns into business and residential hubs because of expansion of the informal sector, where people are able to access livelihood resources fairly easily, and where smaller state grants and pensions can be spent. moreover, the fact that almost 40% of nkonkobe is classified as being urban works in the favour of people and businesses who seek new ways of communicating and connecting with the public. this is in comparison to some overtly rural areas in the province, such as the intsika yethu local municipality in cofimvaba, where a ward-based resource audit was conducted in 2013 (connor 2013). here it was found that only 3% of people live in urban areas and that rural areas are severely isolated and underdeveloped. in fact, scholars have noted a decline in the classification and treatment of rural and urban areas (donaldson & marais 2012; eds. marais, nel & donaldson 2016) and have noted that the differences between them might not be as disparate as originally thought. in many respects, rural and urban zones are similar, not only because of the social and economic ties with large cities but because of changes within rural hinterlands themselves. in censuses, rural and urban areas are usually defined by size – a population density of 500 people or more per square kilometre, parallel or grid-like street patterns, and the presence of public buildings such as parks, cemeteries or libraries are indications of urbanity. agriculture is generally assumed to be the principal activity of rural dwellers, whilst urbanites are thought to engage in industrial activities. however, in reality things are much more complex. rural residents in nkonkobe do not primarily engage in agricultural activities, but use a cash income as their livelihood basis. towns such as alice and fort beaufort also do possess a relatively high population density and other urban indicators such as libraries and parks. conversely, it is also true that urban areas in nkonkobe are also partially rural because many people still own and use rural resources (such as stock) and invest in rural homes. moreover, population movement and migration, particularly from rural areas to towns such as alice and fort beaufort, are usually not reflected in census data, which makes the idea of ‘discrete units’ of rural and urban residents unreliable. analysts have pointed out that many larger, centrally placed small towns in south africa have grown economically, supplying the retail and servicing needs of a larger hinterland in an era of improved transportation and the economic decline of smaller settlements in their hinterlands. these spaces are closer to urban centres, suggesting improved spatial access. harrison and todes (2015:153, 155) argue that individuals and households in south africa are ‘voting with their feet’ by moving into places that are better able to provide livelihoods. nkonkobe is a particularly good example of this because of the growth experienced by educational centres such as alice, where accommodation for students is in great demand (fhiser 2011) and where civil service employment and infrastructure in towns such as middledrift and fort beaufort has expanded. the reclassification of communal land surrounding alice to urban status cannot take place fast enough, and housing and basic services are under pressure. in fact, alice has more potential for a niche housing market than any other small towns in the province because it has a secure employment base of educators, civil servants and student population, as well as a fair amount of tourist thoroughfare. thus, whilst it may still be true that economic migration to distant urban centres such as johannesburg and cape town have and will continue to occur, the eastern cape tends to support circular migration more than permanent migration to urban areas. circular migration involves temporary relocations to nearby urban zones and a periodic return to a rural home base. for some individuals this trek may be only a few kilometres, whilst for others it may be long term and require more distant mobility. rural households in nkonkobe are thus well connected to urban zones, and whilst they are not always well resourced, they are considerably better off than many other predominantly rural districts in the province. nkonkobe is therefore in a better position to receive and handle virtual information and support smart social networks. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. results the use of information and communication devices nkonkobe has a demographic profile that is dominated by young, single and educated individuals, with a high proportion of students and professional employees. the town of alice serves as a hub for students attending the university of fort hare and lovedale college. thus, around 43% (52 respondents) were from rural areas. age-wise, 63% of the respondents in this study were between the ages of 20 and 40 – a relatively higher proportion than is generally found in the province. just over 4% of our respondents were over the age of 61 years, with another 25% between 41 and 60 years of age. with regard to education, most respondents had matriculated or had a higher qualification – 29% possessed a university or college education, whilst 32% had actually matriculated. almost 35% of respondents said that they were unemployed, whilst 17% (32 individuals) indicated that they were civil servants working for the local municipality. the degree to which technology and consumer goods inform the development of households is a trend that is reflected positively in census 2011. households in eastern cape are becoming more modernised through the possession of electronic items such as televisions and phones, supported by the rapid expansion of the electricity grid in rural areas of south africa. power provision in nkonkobe in 2017 was around 76%, as reflected in the integrated development plan ([idp] 2012-2017), this being 21 159 out of 27 716 households. as seen in figure 1, televisions were the most commonly owned communication devices found in nkonkobe, almost 87%. this is followed by radios, which 76% of people owned, followed closely by smartphones (75%). almost 48% of households had access to or read a newspaper on a regular basis, whilst 44% had satellite television installed and thus have access to satellite television. magazines are last on the priority of most household items; they were only read by 34% of the sample. only 18% people had access to a personal computer at home. when compared to the census 2011 results, the ownership of personal computers (pcs) in nkonkobe was very much the same – just over 16% of households had access to a computer (stats sa 2011). figure 1: household access to information and communication devices. a comparison of radio and television listenership with factors such as age, gender and education is not very useful because both devices are very popular across all categories. however, unlike cell phones, radios, televisions and newspapers do not enable two-way communication and are mostly used for entertainment purposes by our respondents. cellular phones are the only devices that work on communication between two different individuals, and for this reason they are invaluable. as census 2011 indicates in table 1, the proportion of households using cell phones in the eastern cape has increased exponentially in the decade since 2001, by almost 60%. this is immensely important for rural areas such as nkonkobe because in principle cell phone data are relatively cheap and can be purchased in smaller amounts in order to create a fast and effective means of communicating between individuals. as our initial data illustrate in nkonkobe, the ownership of smartphones (that are able to access the internet) is high, almost 75%. table 1: access to the internet in nkonkobe (census 2011). as figure 2 depicts, the majority of respondents in the sample (75%) possessed a smartphone (a device that can access the internet), whilst 32% used basic cell phones that had text (sms) and phone call function. it seems that the majority (60%) of those who owned basic cell phones were elderly, over the age of 60 years. comparably, just over 88% of people who owned smartphones were from a younger age group, between the ages of 20 and 30. it must be said that basic cell phones were not very popular, and smartphones were distributed relatively well over all the age groups in our sample, with the possible exception of those over 60. figure 2: access to cars, radios, televisions and phones. when smartphone ownership is compared to occupation, it seems that housewives and unemployed individuals had the least access to smartphones, whilst civil servants had the most access, followed by students and business employees. when compared to individual information, the number of those who had access to any cellular device in a household was even higher, over 98%. another 73 people indicated that there were between one and three people who owned a phone in their household. there were only two households that did not have access to any type of cell phone at all. despite the high number of internet-capable cell phones, the data from census 2011 do not make a distinction between smartphones and regular cellular devices. as indicated in table 1, census information just states that 81% of people in nkonkobe do not have access to the internet and that of the total population, 12% used cell phones to access the internet. the figures collected from the respondents in nkonkobe for this survey were much higher – amongst the 113 responses received, 84% used their phones to access the internet, whilst 10% used pcs. it is interesting that the respondents did not always associate internet access with smartphones but with the installation of a fixed line or broadband connection via a telephone line or fibre. only 27 people indicated that they did have such a connection; the vast majority (79%) did not. moreover, internet access also seems to be age related. those who used the internet the most were aged between 20 and 30 years of age, this being 40% of our sample, followed by 31–40 year olds (28%) and 41–50 year olds (15.7%). it thus seems (predictably) that access to the internet declines with age. thus, the majority of individuals who have access to the internet are located in towns and are students, educators or civil servants. in fact, many individuals from outlying rural areas travel to towns like alice precisely because they can purchase data packages or use free wi-fi at work on campus. the use of cellular devices and access to the internet in nkonkobe the use of the internet in south africa is influenced by various factors. the first is network capability – and here, it seems that the two main cell phone network providers in south africa deliver excellent 3g coverage of the nkonkobe region, between 95% and 98%. this type of connection supports calls, texts, web browsing, email, apps, video streaming and file downloads. lte, a super high-speed connection, is only available around the main towns and highways in the region. fibre and fixed-line access to the internet is relatively rare in nkonkobe, being limited to those businesses and individuals who can afford this expense, and is widely used in central areas such as alice, fort beaufort and hogsback. the extent of cellular coverage in nkonkobe was corroborated by the respondents, who indicated that they could and did access the internet, with the exception of wards 2, 3, 9, 4 and 11. in these wards, approximately 20% of people could not access the internet because they were located in remote and mountainous terrain, with patchy cell phone coverage. however, internet access is also influenced by the price of data and airtime for cell phone users, as indicated in table 2. in nkonkobe, it is clear that users who have a cell phone contract, and do not have to buy airtime, are more likely to download and use data than those who are on a prepaid plan. the majority of our respondents (104 people, or 86%) used prepaid data, whilst only 15 individuals were on contract. prepaid costs are thought to be relatively high in south africa, which makes it difficult to perform tasks such as transferring files or watch youtube without being tethered to a wi-fi connection. moreover, access to broadband is a luxury in nkonkobe that is not always possible, making data packages the only option, which can be far more expensive on a per-gigabyte basis than on contract. the price of one gigabyte of data in south africa was estimated in june 2019 to be r106.20, just one place higher than germany and in 10th place after india (r3.84) and russia (r13.44).3 table 2: money spent per week by percentage of population on internet bundles and airtime. the amount spent by our respondents on data bundles in nkonkobe was relatively high. around 40% of our respondents spent r50 per week or more on connectivity, whilst 17% spent below r20 per week. the majority of people – this being 49% – spent between r21 and r50 per week on the internet. this is fairly high compared to low income levels amongst households in the province; westaway (2012:116) estimated that rural households earned far less than urban households (r1276 compared to r2357) and that 73% of rural people in the eastern cape were living on less than r300 per month in 2005–2006. with regard to the amount of money spent on airtime and data, the amount of money spent by individuals on airtime does outstrip the purchase of internet data by about 20%. however, it is notable that most people spent over r20 per week on both airtime and internet, and this indicates the willingness of people to invest into their social network and ability to communicate with their devices. the use of airtime means that people are more likely to prefer speaking directly to one another than simply using short message service (sms) or whatsapp messages. one of the consequences of the high cost of connectivity in the rural areas of nkonkobe is that it reduces the efficacy of cell phone use and good network coverage in the region and compels people to move towards urban centres in order to purchase data and access free broadband. ramburn and van belle (2011) confirm this and cite the impact of cost as both a determinant and inhibitor of mobile data services, which is not often given prominence in research within developed countries. the high cost of prepaid cellular data, as well as lack of coverage in rural areas, thus prevent residents in nkonkobe from using the internet as effectively as their urban counterparts in regional cities, such as port elizabeth and east london. instead, people mainly use cellular devices to make phone calls and send sms messages. when respondents were asked which applications they preferred to use on their cell phones, the most preferred application was sms or text messages, followed by facebook and whatsapp. most respondents (32%) indicated that they ‘never used’ whatsapp, and only two people said that they used this application ‘often’. another two people used twitter, and the same amount used tango. facebook was used ‘often’ by 21 people in our sample. this was a surprising find, especially because whatsapp, twitter and mxit have very low data costs and are widely used by urban youth in south africa. whatsapp in particular is the most widely used app in africa, and in zimbabwe it was responsible for about half of all internet data in 2018.4 the discrepancy between smartphone ownership and internet usage emerged most clearly during this survey and was supported by the low numbers of people in rural wards who used free data based applications such as whatsapp. whatsapp is widely known to offer benefits such as cost, a sense of community and immediacy, whilst sms is generally more expensive – although it is regarded as a more reliable and privacy preserving (church & de oliveira 2013:352). this was also the finding of ramburn and van belle (2011), who mention that users in their case study in mauritius were slow to adopt 3g data services and that people were reluctant to engage in other mobile data services, such as web browsing and the use of free apps. users cited increased costs, possible leakage of personal information and spamming as the most prominent factors that inhibited their use of data. this was a pattern echoed in nkonkobe and is driven by the high costs of connectivity in the region. one respondent noted that sms and phone calls were more likely to be used: ‘they are the most direct and can get us where we want to go. if we have to go to a meeting, my friends don’t always have whatsapp, but they all have sms’.5 the use of whatsapp amongst rural populations and amongst the rural poor is less known than text-based applications, which have generally been used to improve the provision of health and agricultural extension services in isolated areas. mobile health applications have assisted disease prevention and surveillance, self-management and compliance (déglise, suggs & odermatt 2012). text apps have also assisted in expanding agricultural markets and mapping climate change, and they enable policymakers to communicate more effectively with citizens and improve service delivery. mobile phones are also responsible for high rates of financial transfers by migrants from one country to another, particularly in economically unstable zones such as somalia and zimbabwe (siegel & fransen 2013). there are some groups that have managed to overcome the digital divide through increased use of broadband, but only through purchasing power. this includes the village of hogsback, located in the amathole mountains. many residents of hogsback depend on tourism for their livelihoods, in the form of guesthouses, hotels and lodges, whilst labour for these initiatives is drawn from the residents of surrounding villages. the village therefore has a labour pool of temporary residents, largely indigent and dependent on work at guesthouses, as well as a relatively well-off group of residents and business owners. the hogsback community attracted a fair amount of attention in 1997–1998, when a series of attacks on residents exposed critical differences between the local civic association, to which many black residents belong, and the hogsback local council (now the hogsback ratepayers association). a bitter relationship developed between these two groups during 1998.6 both the hogsback ratepayers association and the community policing forum (cpf) communicate with each other through email and whatsapp. they found that the municipal website was generally unavailable and faulty and that the only form of communication with the municipality was through physical attendance of meetings. the cpf indicated that phone calls and smss ‘do not always work’ in hogsback since ‘we don’t have a reliable signal’. moreover, in alice itself, the two largest ngos in the region – world vision and african footprints of hope – use their own wi-fi and broadband to communicate, and this enables them to be relatively independent from the problems associated with cellular networks. the problems associated with internet coverage and cellular networks in nkonkobe have certainly prevented open access to the municipal webpage – a site that is supposed to post relevant events and council meetings, engage with citizens about service delivery and offer residents a free app to check service bills and water usage. many respondents who had access to broadband complained that this site was hardly functional and that it mostly did not work. the problems associated with cellular networks and access to broadband can only address poverty alleviation once the problems of poor connectivity and high data charges are solved. furthermore, there is no guarantee that people will access smartphone communication, particularly because this technology may end up favouring middleand upper-class individuals. rural women tend to be excluded because of their restricted mobility and lack of education, even with a regular income, and in some cases, because of male control over information and media. as this research has shown, older women tend to own regular cell phones that do not have prime internet connectivity, and therefore they rely more on word of mouth and standard phone calls or sms to communicate. communication with local government stakeholders it is clear from the information about mobile communication in nkonkobe thus far that there is a divide between users, based on income, gender, age and overall connectivity. good connectivity is achieved through broadband and wi-fi, and it is generally available to all middle-income end users, which in nkonkobe unfortunately excludes the majority of residents. although cellular networks are well established in the eastern cape, these are not reliable, and airtime is expensive. in general, despite the widespread use and acceptance of cellular phones and smartphones in nkonkobe, rural residents have still not completely overcome their differences with urban centres and middle-income earners, although connectivity with regional towns has definitely increased. however, this does not mean that rural residents in nkonkobe are isolated. on the contrary, they are well connected and informed and certainly not disengaged from national affairs and international news. although smartphones are important, rural residents prefer to communicate through more conventional means. from the responses to questions about which devices they most used to access information, we isolated six different types, including tvs, radios, cell phones, newspapers, computers or physical (face-to-face) meetings. the inclusion of the latter was necessary because (as suggested by group information), it seems that a primary source of municipal or council information for some individuals in rural areas are ward councillors and associated groups such as cpfs and community development forums. all of these are supposed to meet on a regular basis in each ward. figure 3 summarises information on local government and service delivery. with regard to local government (council matters such as meetings or presentations), the use of newspapers and ward meetings featured prominently as the primary means of accessing council information. a total of 36% of people used ward meetings, and another 46.7% used newspapers. in connection to actual service delivery issues (e.g. monthly rates or upgrades), ward meetings were still by far the most popular means of accessing this type of information. almost 57% of people preferred going to ward meetings. this outstripped devices such as radio (25.8%) and newspapers (17.5%). figure 3: devices used to access information on international news, jobs and land. as indicated by figure 3, if respondents wanted to access international news items, the most popular device used was television – 63% indicated their use of tv. this outnumbered newspapers (25.2%) and cell phones (23.7%). with regard to jobs, 48.7% of our respondents used newspapers to peruse local opportunities. this was by far the most used medium for jobs, but it was followed closely by the use of cell phones (35.3%) and radio (23.5%). issues relating to land – including cattle sales or agriculture – were marked by the relatively equal use of newspapers (32.8%) and radio (35.3%) to access information. in order of popularity, ward meetings feature prominently in the search for information related to service delivery (57%), local council matters (39%) and education (24%). the use of pcs is very low; they really cannot be recommended as a source of information, except for a very few. newspapers are most popularly used to extract information relating to jobs (49%), local council matters (47%) and land (or agricultural issues, 33%). cell phones are used mostly for information relating to education (37%), jobs (35%) and international news (24%), although the latter is on an equal par in relation to local council matters and crime. radios feature primarily in the access to information relating to crime (40%), land (35%) and education (33%). televisions are mostly used for watching international news (63%), and this far outstrips information relating to crime or education. within certain age brackets, information from the survey confirmed that the need for communication and the use of technology for communication peaks amongst people aged between 20 and 40 years. older people as well as very young individuals do not seem to have as much need for information consumption. television is the most popular medium for accessing information related to all the above categories. the use of cell phones for communication and information is particularly popular for those between the ages of 20 and 30, and in fact outstrips other age groups in the use of cell phones. the use of cell phones for other age categories is placed third after the use and access of written media – newspapers – which is an extremely important medium for all age groups. the same applies to radio, which often is used on a similar par with newspapers. notably, it seems that ward meetings are popular as a form of oral and physical communication amongst people around the 30–40 age group, as well as for those above 60. in this regard, community development workers (cdws) in nkonkobe have been appointed by the provincial government to communicate and liaise with residents concerning service delivery issues. these include road maintenance and access, job creation, health and community projects. the primary means of communication between cdws and local residents takes place through phone calls, sms and newspapers adverts. the cdw worker in alice explained that the role of ward communication was immensely positive: ‘people in rural villages depended on these committees and meetings to share information with the ward councillor about service delivery’.7 the functions of a cdw are as follows: to be participatory change agents who work in the communities where they live to help people in communities improve their own lives and change their circumstances to help community members to understand how they can participate in development plans, facilitate community participation in policymaking, implementation, and service delivery to give community members information and help to empower individuals and communities to support community-based projects such as small business development projects. in summary, it is clear that people in nkonkobe still predominantly use physical meetings and face-to-face communication with political agents in rural areas in order to communicate about service delivery issues. those people who do not have access to ward meetings seem to struggle to communicate with the municipality, as the example of hogsback indicates. in fact, de bruijn (2008) and castells (1996) are correct in saying that social network supports communication – without the use of cell phones and smartphones, the work of cdws would be almost impossible, and ward meetings would not occur. conclusion despite the evolving literature on the role and relevance of mobile phone technologies in developing countries, we still know very little regarding the effects of mobile technologies on rural populations in africa. theoretically, improved cellular smartphone networks could substantially reduce the reliance on physical transportation and provide a way out of poverty. however, the possibility of free and easy communication is made very difficult by high cellular costs and the slow expansion of fibre and broadband in rural areas. the downside to the use of smartphones and other mechanisms of applied information technology in isolated rural areas is that this comes at a cost – although not very high, users still have to purchase data or have access to data packages, which may be difficult in deep rural areas. for the vast majority of smartphone users, connectivity compels a movement towards regional urban centres, where data are cheaper. this study confirms that apart from regular interaction and the consumption of information on devices such as television and radio, users of smartphones are relatively young, have proper knowledge of how to operate a smartphone and a higher level of education and employment. people who do not use smartphones are more likely to be older, use an sms-based application for information sharing and may have less income and fewer economic opportunities than smartphone users. it is also more likely that cell phone users will spend more time following up real-time conversations, meetings and interactions. however, it is true that both smartphone and regular cell phone users still rely on old-fashioned conversation and contact and that this is particularly relevant within the political realm. the local municipality and cdws still use physical meetings to communicate with residents, and this is definitely the preferred means of communication. second to this, residents in nkonkobe use newspapers and radio broadcasts to remain in contact with political role-players in the region and prefer to watch television as a form of entertainment. smartphones are therefore only part of a much broader array of communicative devices, although users are only able to access true networks and mutual reciprocity through their devices. based on these findings it is doubtful that smartphone and internet usage has contributed to the development of a true network society, as castells (1996) originally coined. smartphones and virtual communication do not form the ‘nerve centre’ of social interaction in nkonkobe. instead, old-fashioned ways of communication, including meetings and face-to-face interaction, are more appropriate to the needs of rural society in nkonkobe. those who do have access to internet networks are more economically privileged and are able to use reliable internet connections. the economic and social divides between these types of residents in nkonkobe seem to be virtually unchanged. the future of mobile and smartphone communication in nkonkobe thus relies on the expansion of cheap and accessible internet data, particularly in deep rural areas. this type of technology is already supported by the widespread use of smartphones as well as the consumption of global information via television and radio. however, content provided through internet access should not be limited to knowledge of and from outside sources but extended to ensure that rural inhabitants have the means to speak for themselves (cecchini & scott 2003:76). locally contextualised information is more relevant to improving local services than existing consumption of information provided by an external agent. services that can combine real-life interaction with smartphone networking are clearly best suited to rural residents, as many have a preference for communication services that are personal and direct. cellular devices (of any kind) are clearly key to these type of interactions, as they not only encourage consumption of information but enable users to send and receive messages and thereby increase their social circle and support network. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this research article. author’s contributions t.c. is the sole author of this research article. funding information this research received no specific grants from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references bank, l., 2015, 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https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2012.645646 footnotes 1. statistics southern africa indicates that because of a lack of capacity, south africa can only conduct a census once every 10 years, not once every 5 years, as is typically expected. a community survey was conducted in place of the 2006 census. 2. the author thanks world vision in middledrift for use of their premises and for sourcing local fieldworkers, as well as the deutsche gesellschaft für internationale zusammenarbeit (german development corporation or gtz) for providing introductions to local councilors and policymakers in nkonkobe. 3. https://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/309693-mobile-data-prices-south-africa-vs-the-world.html (accessed 28 january 2020). 4. see https://qz.com/africa/1206935 (accessed 28 january 2020). 5. respondent 4, alice, 03 may 2016. 6. interview with mike coleman, alice, march 2016. 7. interview with mr nyamezeke, alice, february 2016. tempelhoff k en v the vaal river barrage, south africa’s hardest working water way: an historical contemplation· johann tempelhoff,1 victor munnik2 and morné viljoen3 abstract: south africa’s vaal river is the country’s hardest working rivers. it has been instrumental in securing valuable water supplies in the development of the country’s economic hub – the gauteng province. since the mid-twentieth century there have been increasing indications of water pollution threatening the storage facility of the vaal river barrage, built by the water utility, rand water, at the start of the twentieth century. currently, as a result of a variety of factors, untreated wastewater is posing a severe environmental threat in the vaal river barrage catchment area. in the article attention is given to the origins of pollution and recent events that had the effect of mobilising grassroots anger in civil society with the state of affairs. the article forms part of a transdisciplinary research project that is currently conducted at north-west university’s vaal triangle campus in vanderbijlpark. keywords: vaal river barrage, rand water, water pollution, wastewater treatment, river catchment forums, industrial development, water infrastructure, water management. disciplines: history, geography, public management and governance, environmental studies, legal studies. as an interpretive practice, contemplation resists stupefaction in the face of the ‘big’ past and the obscure future; we contemplate a ‘living present’ through its signs, what stands out, even in obscurity, subject to our estimations and evaluations, our constructions, especially of socially sanctioned passive syntheses or habits – sande cohen.4 south africa’s vaal river has played a crucial role in the development of the country. in size, this river that extends over a distance of little more than 1300km, would be considered, by international standards, paper presented at a symposium, “’streams ran uncontrolled’ history, water and engineering” presented at the delft university of technology (tudelft), presented by tudelft and the international water history association (iwha) on 9 november 2006. the paper is a preliminary report and is representative of some views in civil society. in the next phases of the project, the views of government and the business sector will be incorporated. 1. water research group, school of basic sciences, vaal triangle faculty, northwest university, vanderbijlpark, south africa. 2. victor munnik is an independent researcher who actively works with nongovernmental organizations. 3. morné viljoen is an attorney, specialising in environmental and water law. he is also a corporate legal advisor for mittal steel, south africa. 4. s cohen, history out of joint: essays on the use and abuse of history, (the johns hopkins university press, baltimore, 2006), pp. 105-105. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 107-133. 108 to be a medium-sized water way. however, in southern africa, a region that is water-stressed, the vaal river is a major role player and has been labelled, with good reason, as one of the hardest working rivers in the country.5 the vaal is a tributary of the orange river and, unlike most rivers in the country, both rivers flow from the water-rich drakensberg in the eastern interior to the atlantic ocean, on the border between south africa and namibia in the west. outline and objective for the purposes of this discussion we have chosen to take a historical contemplative perspective on the history of the vaal river. in an attempt to do justice to an extensive field of study, it was considered feasible to concentrate on only one section of the vaal river – the vaal river barrage. a transdisciplinary team of researchers at north-west university, in conjunction with a number of governmental departments, 6 non-governmental organisations (ngos)7 and representatives of the industrial sector,8 are currently busy with a hot spot research project9 on the barrage. it is estimated that the project should be completed by august 2007.10 5 this discussion is a continuation of jwn tempelhoff, “the nature of water and the human culture of territorial appropriation: the vaal river up to 1956.” paper present at an international conference “humankind and nature and the intersection of culture” presented at bergendal, kruger national park, south africa, 2006.09.0406. see jwn tempelhoff, “water and the human culture of appropriation: the vaal river up to 1956” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 6 participating in the project are: the south african department of water affairs and forestry dwaf), northern free state provincial department of nature conservation, and rand water. 7 ecocare, groundwork, earthlife africa and save (save our vaal environment). the latter ngo was started in the mid-1990s in an effort to fight developments along the vaal river barrage, considered to be detrimental to property values, quality of living and sound principles of conservation. see f van wyk, an integrated manual for the management, control and protection of the vaal river barrage reservoir, ( m.sc., rand afrikaans university [currently university of johannesburg], 2001), p. 109. 8 sasol fuels, sasolburg. 9 in the unit for the cultural dynamics of water in southern africa, situated at northwest university’s vaal triangle campus, two hotspot projects have been undertaken since 2005. 10 funding by the office of the dean, vaal triangle faculty of north-west university, is gratefully acknowledged. independent funding was also generated within the water research group at nwu. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 109 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. the objective is to get the relevant stakeholders to take responsibility in addressing what can be considered as a crisis situation prevailing in the vaal river barrage catchment area. in the past year there were two events of pollution11 in the vaal river barrage. it caused significant fish deaths.12 more recently another incident was reported upstream, near standerton in mpumalanga. apart from seriously affecting the quality of life of people in close proximity of the river, it also poses a significant health hazard. there have been warnings that the pollution in the vaal river barrage could lead to the outbreak of a water-related epidemic, similar to the typhus outbreak at delmas in mpumalanga in 2005.13 origins of the barrage the vaal river barrage – essentially a massive reservoir – derives its name from a significant weir in the vaal river, about 50km downstream from vereeniging.14 the barrage was built in 1916-1923 after rand water, a bulk water supply utility, founded in 1903, as a result of a partnership alliance between the mining industry and government to provide water to the witwatersrand where south africa’s gold mining industry was evolving at a rapid rate. the water supply of johannesburg (founded in 1886) had diminished and pollution posed a health threat. consequently, rand water (previously known as the rand water board) had the responsibility of locating a consistent 11 there are some experts who are of the opinion that the fish kills (particularly the second one) was primarily due to a “natural” process. sediment churning due to the opening of sluice gates resulting in anoxic conditions is likely to be one of the causes for fish kills the other being the discharge of untreated waste water. 12 in 2006 there were two reports of fish deaths in the vaal river barrage, and one in the vaal river near standerton where the sterkfontein dam is situated. anon., “vaal dam ‘safe’ despite fish deaths” in business day, 2006.01.18 at http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a140169; e tempelhoff, “vrektes nóg ‘n terugslag vir vaal” in beeld, 2006.07.26 at http://152.111.1.251/ argief/berigte/beeld/2006/07/26/b1/5/etvaal.html; 13 comment by the consulting engineer, mr f kolbe at meeting of the metsi-a-lekoa steering committee meeting, vanderbijlpark, 2006.08.28. 14. for a more comprehensive background on this, see jwn tempelhoff, “water and the human culture of appropriation: the vaal river up to 1956” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(2), december 2006, pp.431452. vaal river barrage 110 supply of water for what was becoming south africa’s major industrial and financial centre. illustration (map) 1: the vaal river barrage catchment.15 today the vaal river barrage catchment covers a surface area of about 900km2. it is a mere 4,5 per cent of the total vaal river catchment surface area. what makes this catchment different but is the fact that it is part and parcel of the gauteng province, the most densely populated area in south africa. an estimated population of about 10 million people are resident in the catchment in which there are 13 600 wet industries, more than 20 wastewater treatment plants and a number of mines that invariably tend to contribute to pollution of fresh water supplies.16 15 map in f van wyk, an integrated manual for the management, control and protection of the vaal river barrage reservoir, p. 16. note: although most readers will understand what is meant, it is technically incorrect to call this catchment the “vaal river barrage catchment”. the entire vaal dam catchment also forms part of the barrage catchment. for the purposes of this discussion, we mean the vaal river barrage catchment, excluding upstream vaal dam. 16 f van wyk, an integrated manual for the management, control and protection of the vaal river barrage reservoir, pp. 5, 16. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 111 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. illustration 2: the barrage in the vaal river at the time of its inauguration in 1923.17 providing water to the witwatersrand at the time of its completion in 1922 the barrage was able to provide in the essential demand for water on the witwatersrand. however, indications were that also this source of supply would soon be insufficient. the mining industry had underestimated the potential life of the gold mines of the witwatersrand. consequently, the development phase in which the barrage had been built, made provision for a slightly larger than average urban environment on the witwatersrand. the purification plant of the barrage was situated at vereeniging, a coal mining town, founded in 1892. from there the water was pumped against a head of some 200m over a distance of 70km to the witwatersrand.18 17 source: rand water archives, rietvlei 18 jwn tempelhoff, “time and the river: observations on the vaal river as source of water to the witwatersrand 1903-24” historia 46(1), may 2001, pp. 247-70. vaal river barrage then, in 1932 the government, in an effort to boost the agricultural sector of the country initiated the vaal dam project, about 40km upstream from vereeniging in the vaal river. at the time of its completion in 1938 the vaal dam provided water to the vaalharts irrigation scheme, near warrenton in the northern cape province. this was at the time of its completion the largest irrigation scheme in the southern hemisphere. a substantial portion of the storage capacity of the dam was allocated to rand water for distribution to the urban settlements and industrial sector on the witwatersrand.19 illustration 3: the vaal dam at the time of its completion in 1938.20 19 jwn tempelhoff, “omgewingslagoffers of armblankes? water en welvaartskepping in die era van hertzog (1924-1939),”, genl. j.b.m. hertzoggedenklesing, xxxv, pretoria, 21 september 2006 (suid-afrikaanse akademie vir wetenskap en kuns, pretoria) pp. 26-28. 20 source: rand water archives, rietvlei. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. illustration 4: the vaal dam at the time of the floods of 2006.21 the zuikerbosch water treatment works in the 1950s, as a result of an increasing threat of pollution in the barrage and a greater demand for water,22 rand water built the zuikerbosch purification plant just above the blesbokspruit in the barrage area. this massive plant, with substantial capacity for expansion, enabled rand water to provide in the ever-increasing demand for water to the witwatersrand, but also to vanderbijlpark and sasolburg, two urban settlements that had been founded on the banks of the vaal river in the barrage area. vanderbijlpark, proclaimed in 1949,23 was to be the home of a massive flat steel producing plant of the parastatal iron and steel corporation 21 photograph johann wn tempelhoff. 22 rj laburn, “problems resulting from the discharge of sewage effluents and industrial effluents from the witwatersrand into the vaal river barrage” (printed copy of a paper presented at a symposium of the institute of water pollution control held in east london, may 12968), p. 2. 23 for details on the works of iscor and the implication for the water supply, see rand water archives (rietvlei), rwa file 985, f. kanthack, johannesburg – chief engineer rand water board, johannesburg, 1942.11.04. vaal river barrage 114 of south africa (iscor), founded in 1925.24 sasolburg, founded in 1950 on the orange free state side of the vaal river barrage, was home to the pioneering industry responsible for manufacturing synthetic fuel from coal. sasol was also initiated by the government.25 in line with the policies of segregation (1905-1948) and apartheid (19481990) african townships such as sharpeville (1942),26 bophelong (1955), boipatong (1955), sebokeng (1965) and zamdela (1976), had been established.27 by mid-century the vaal triangle, in which the vaal river barrage was situated, had become an important industrial centre of south africa. coal mining activities and the availability of water, had made the region a major supplier of electricity and strategic industrial production. it was in this period that the problem of water pollution started featuring prominently in engineering strategies to solve waterrelated problems. 28 in the 1960s, as a result of south africa’s economic growth, more pressure was brought to bear on the vaal river barrage.29 at the time, one of the most severe droughts of the century prevailed in the country. rand water, in an attempt to deal with the greater demand for water supplies, was prominent, in conjunction with local authorities, for promoting strategies of water restrictions in its service supply area. this proved to be successful over the short term. however, water engineers and managers were more than aware that the demand for water would increase in the near future. 24 iron and steel industry act, no. 11 of 1928 in j.m. murray et. al., the union statutes 1910-1947: classified and annotated reprint, vol. 12, (government printer, pretoria, 1952), pp. 127-48. 25 j. meintjes, sasol 1950-1975, (tafelberg, cape town, 1975), chapters 2, 4, 5 and 6; for more information on the history of sasol, see p wessels, crescendo tot sukses: sasol 1975-1987, (human & rousseau, kaapstad en johannesburg, 1990); j collings, mind over matter: the sasol story: a half century of technological innovation, (sasol, johannesburg, 2002). 26 m willemse, die vestiging en uitbouing van munisipale bestuur en voorstedelike ontwikkeling in vereeniging tot 1992, (ma, pucho, (currently nwu), 1999), pp. 141-145. 27 h mashabbela, townships of the pwv, (south african institute of race relations, johannesburg, 1988), pp. 37-40; 41-44; 127-134, 178-181; 28 rj laburn, “problems resulting from the discharge of sewage effluents and industrial effluents from the witwatersrand into the vaal river barrage” (printed copy of a paper presented at a symposium of the institute of water pollution control held in east london, may 1968), pp. 1-3. 29 rj laburn, “problems resulting from the discharge of sewage effluents and industrial effluents from the witwatersrand into the vaal river barrage” (printed copy of a paper presented at a symposium of the institute of water pollution control held in east london, may 12968), pp. 2-8. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 115 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. the fuel crisis and the tukhela scheme whilst it was possible to curb domestic consumption, the need for water in the industrial sector was at a premium. the year 1973 saw the era of the first fuel crisis. this sparked off an initiative by government to launch the tukhela transfer scheme. this, one of the major south african civil engineering projects of the decade, was instrumental in supplying water to the eastern transvaal (currently mpumalanga province) where the second synthetic fuel project of sasol was started at secunda. part of the project was the construction of the sterkfontein dam near phuthaditjaba that served as an additional storage facility to the vaal dam. both these facilities were situated upstream of the vaal river barrage.30 illustration 5: the tukhela water transfer scheme under construction in the 1970s.31 30 anon., “the role of the rand water board in the tukhela vaal government water project” in water, 1974, p. 6; oral information from the late mr robert james (bob) laburn, rand water headquarters, 2002.10.07; rand water archives, rietvlei, africana collection: j.l. gardiner, “some historical aspects of the water supply to the pwvs complex”, (undated manuscript); rsa, department of water affairs and forestry, vaal river: life-blood of a nation, (ctp, cape town, 1993). 31 source: rand water archives, rietvlei. vaal river barrage 116 in the 1980s the increasing demand for water, saw the longest drought period in the gauteng region, since the beginning of the twentieth century. comprehensive measures were introduced to find additional sources of water. limited attention was given to recycling water and integrating it extensively with the standard potable supply of water, as was the case of windhoek in namibia, where some groundbreaking work had been made in the field by the early 1970s. windhoek was the first urban centre in southern africa to rely primarily on recycled water.32 in south africa planners reckoned a similar strategy would be a too costly operation. instead, the south african government in 1986 concluded an agreement with the government of lesotho for the development of the lesotho highlands water project (lhwp) – a mega water scheme that had already been outlined in the 1950s, but was unfeasible as a result of the high costs. by the 1980s this project was considered essential for the sustained growth of the gauteng region.33 it was a time when the country saw the gradual de facto decline of the apartheid policies of the government, and attempts at the creation of local government structures for african townships. the local governance project was not very successful, but the idea of regional development, formed the basis for development plans that would get under way in the next decade. the lhwp was an important element in regional planning. modernising the urban environment and its infrastructure for all the country’s people implied that substantial water supplies had to be readily available. pollution threat by the mid-1980s there was increasing evidence of waste water pollution in the vaal river barrage.34 the ‘bush war’ of the south african government against the south west african peoples’ organisation (swapo) in namibia and the african national congres’ (anc) freedom fighters, on the country’s borders, was reaching a peak. internationally, south africa had been effectively isolated from the outside world and was increasingly dependent on its own industries for armaments. industries in the vaal triangle now formed an 32 jwn tempelhoff, the substance of ubiquity: rand water 1903-2003, (kleio publishers, vanderbilpark, 2003), pp. 307-308. 33 ibid., pp. 393-397. 34 d hallowes and v munnik, the groundwork report 2006: poisoned spaces manufacturing wealth, producing poverty, (groundwork, pietermaritzburg, 2006), pp. 101-102. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 117 important part of the government’s attempts to provide in the need for arms and ammunition.35 production demands placed extreme pressure on local industries. in the process environmental concerns were placed on the backburner, in the interest of what was popularly communicated in the media as the fight against communism. the international collapse of the east-west divide in 1989 and the subsequent relinquishment in south africa of power by the national party-controlled government, in favour of a multi-racial democratic dispensation in 1994, saw industries in the vaal triangle region collapse into a phase of post-industrial lethargy. major industrial concerns, such as the union steel corporation (usco), started transforming by selling off its plants in vereeniging to the parastatal south african iron and steel corporation (iscor). iscor itself, at the time, started with a major privatision programme. conditions of unemployment, especially in the unskilled labour sector, affected more than 50 per cent of the vaal triangle’s economically active population by the late 1990s. in 2004 a comprehensive analysis of growth in the regional economy suggested that by 2015 as much as 60 per cent of the region’s economically active population could be unemployed.36 one outcome of the post-industrial phase in which the vaal triangle economy found itself was that industrial activities now came under the looking glass. civil society, in conjunction with government, started asserting pressure on industry to reduce air and water pollution. the water pollution crisis that had been lurking since the 1960s was addressed after a concerned environmental scientist, turned whistleblower and made disclosures of how the industry had polluted the ground water supplies in parts of the vaal triangle.37 moreover, this pollution, which had been at the order of the day for years, had severely affected the vaal river barrage. 35 sm fourie, die impak van militêre aktiwiteite op die vaaldriehoekse samelewing 1974-1994, (unpublished phd, pucho (currently nwu), 2002), pp. 333-354. 36 tjc slabbert, an investigation into the state of affairs and sustainability of the emfuleni economy (d. comm. university of pretoria, 2004). the economic growth of south africa has, in recent months exceeded all expectations, but the indications are that the problem of unemployment in the vaal triangle has not been reduced by any measure comparable with employment trends in the more densely populated elizabeth-uitenhage, durban-pinetown and johannesburg-midrand-pretoria. 37 je and jwn tempelhoff, “the community, industry and the quest for a clean vaal river 1997 in s hood-washington, p rosier and h goodall (eds.), the poisoned well: global memories of environmental injustice , (lexington publishers usa, 2006), pp. 378-407. vaal river barrage td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. 118 at the same time there were numerous collapses of sanitary services in parts of gauteng. in the late 1980s the government had informally lifted urban influx control. many thousands of people from the rural areas of south africa and the neighbouring states started drifting to the witwatersrand where they first sought accommodation in existing african townships. when these were too crowded, they resorted to illegally squatting on open lands near urban centres, establishing a vast array of informal housing settlements. this state of affairs caused a housing crisis. it also contributed to a major sanitary crisis. many of the informal settlements were situated in the catchment areas of the klip38 and the suikerbosrand rivers – both tributaries of the vaal river in the barrage catchment. in an effort to address the crisis a number of local authorities joined forces, and along with government departments and private sector support, established the east rand water care company (erwat) in 1992, with the responsibility of treating waste-water of a population of more than 3,5 million people in the eastern parts of gauteng’s ekhuruleni metropolitan council area. 39 at the time of its establishment there were annually as many as 6105 sewer blockages in parts of the vaal river barrage catchment area.40 a major setback for the sanitary services of the local authorities in the vaal river barrage catchment area was the fact that, in the transition to a new democratic dispensation, there was a rapid changeover in the structure of municipal services. white officials sought employment in the private sector, or they went on early retirement. in the process valuable human resources, with lots of experience, was lost. they were mostly technical experts responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of old sewerage works that were prone to collapse in the face of an extraordinary increase in the population of the witwatersrand.41 38 the klip river is responsible for 90 per cent of the flow of the vaal river barrage. see f van wyk, an integrated manual for the management, control and protection of the vaal river barrage reservoir, p. 6. 39 at present the company is responsible for treating 550ml of water daily. anon., “company profile – about erwat” in east rand water care company at http:// www.erwat.co.za/general/general.asp?id=9 (accessed on 2006.10.29). 40 f van wyk, an integrated manual for the management, control and protection of the vaal river barrage reservoir, pp. 5-6. 41 p de bruin, “sa se ‘vuil en vieslike water’ kan glo verder versleg” in beeld, 2003.01.23, p. 4; e tempelhoff, “riool kos raad glo r500 000: pomp breek 3de keer” in beeld, 1999.07.21, p. 14; e tempelhoff, “inwoners ‘op tydbom’ oor riool in rivier” in beeld, 1999.07.22, p. 6. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 119 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. changed role of rand water the ongoing environmental crisis of the vaal river barrage was monitored by rand water which had, up to the passing of the new national water act, no 36 of 1998,42 been responsible for managing the vaal river barrage. rand water’s power to intervene depended on two sources: its legal prerogative (via the rand water statutes and its status as riparian owner) as well as its extensive water quality monitoring network and database. it had the legal power to cut off water supply to industries on suspicion of pollution, and to take polluters to court. this power was used more as a threat than an actual intervention, because rand water preferred to explain the consequences of pollution to offenders, and encourage them to clean up their act. threats of exposing polluters in the media often had the desired effect. at the time pollution was not treated as an issue that required public awareness and participation. rand water was also literally the owner of the water between the lethabo weir and the vaal barrage. this was because the owner of the riparian land owned the water in the river, and rand water had purchased continuous strips of land all along the river. this situation changed with the new national water act, which returned ownership of water to the south african people, held in custodianship by the state in the form of the department of water affairs and forestry. consequently rand water had to reposition its water protection programme.43 it found the space to do so in a new system of catchment management forums, to which rand water has lent considerable support. the philosophy of catchment based management had been developed as part of a water policy process since 1994. but it was a water crisis in 1996 that led, quite independently, to the establishment of the first catchment management forum in the upper vaal – the blesbokspruit. the blesbokspruit is home to a ramsar wetland, as well as the grootvlei goldmine with acid drainage. grootvlei was the last gold mine in the region. its neighbours had all closed operations earlier. when they closed down, they also stopped pumping (acid) mine water out of their shafts. this water then started draining into grootvlei’s water. the volumes were overwhelming and the mine simply let it run into the river untreated. this caused a public outcry. then dwaf’s minister, 42 republic of south africa, national water act, no. 36 of 1998 at http://www.elaw.org/ assets/pdf/south.africa.water.act.1998.pdf. signed by the president on 1998.08.20. 43 this section is based on: an interview, by victor munnik, with pieter van eeden, chairperson of the klip catchment forum, francois van wyk of rand water, 1 nov 2006; direct observations of the upper vaal forum meetings; and browsing the website www.reservoir.co.za. vaal river barrage 120 prof. kader asmal, revoked the mine’s permit to operate. at the time the mine’s management pointed out that it would have to retrench its 3000 workers, with dire effects on the local economy. asmal reissued its permit, but with strict conditions and the requirement that a forum of all stakeholders be formed for the blesbokspruit catchment. this forum was the model for subsequent forums in the industrialised upper vaal: the klip (home of many witwatersrand gold mines and urban johannesburg), the rietspruit (where iscor/mittal are the major industries) and the leeu-taai (location of the sasol petrochemical complex and other industrial facilities). together these four catchments determine the water quality of the barrage. the vaal river barrage’s water quality is finally determined by the release from the vaal dam. rand water still had its other very important source of power – monitoring. it soon noticed that its monitoring was by far the most complete – and had historical depth going back 50 years or more. its monitoring carries authority in the forums, and is the main instrument to encourage dwaf officials to take action against polluters. dwaf does monitoring, so do the larger municipalities, and some mines and industries do self-monitoring. the forums have established guidelines for water quality, clustered into four groups: the first – phosphates, ammonia, nitrates and faecal coliforms – indicate pollution from sewage. the second – sulphates, chlorides and heavy metals – indicate pollution from mines (the acidity is also an indicator of acid mine drainage). the third – fluorides, chemical oxygen demand and other indicators – shows industrial pollution. the overall toxicity of the water – the fourth group – is tested on waterfleas and guppies (fish). but the monitoring is complex and there are many loopholes. polluters can, for example, flush pollutants into the river in between testing times (that are regular and known), and escape detection. and turning monitoring data into forensic (criminal) evidence requires exacting protocols (e.g. the presence of a certifying policeman when samples are taken and sealed). identifying causal mechanisms for longer trends requires extra analytical work, for which resources are only intermittently available. how well do the forums function? dr pieter van eeden, the former iscor whistleblower, referred to above, and chairperson of the klip river forum, sees the forums as places of accountability. they are open to the public and public groups, industries and regulators raise and discuss issues. but it only works as an accountability mechanism when the polluters are willing to attend the forum. because the forum is voluntary, they have the option of saying “we only have to comply with the conditions of our water use licences and we don’t have to care about your water fleas dying”, says van eeden with some exasperation. the reward for a company that does attend the forum tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 121 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. and improve its water quality care, is a reputation for environmental responsibility. that can be worth a lot, says van eeden. “many industries do see the point and understand that proper environmental care can save them money,” says van wyk. dwaf has been criticised for playing a minimal role in providing resources. also the department’s apparent lethargy in responding rapidly to crises in the catchment has been criticised.44 this makes the operations of the forums vulnerable, because the quarterly forums are hosted by participants, often industries. if they withdraw from the forum, the meeting place can fall away too. in a recent instance, a big player withdrew because information it had tabled at the forum, was used in a court case against it. it is noticeable that a number of committed water professionals attend the forums which range from 10 to 40 people per meeting. but public participation could be more extensive, says van eeden. municipal councillors soon become bored with attending. some industries attend only when they need to push through a license application and vanish when they have achieved it. some community groups – usually from the better off communities – attend and comment regularly. poorer communities are badly represented. participation requires organisation, financial resources (e.g. for transport) and access to information. for communities in informal settlements (who are paradoxically most directly affected by water quality issues, these conditions remain unmet. and should they make it to a meeting, the chances of effective and informed participation, seem remote. despite efforts to provide information, mostly on a dedicated website, the information is not easy to understand at first sight, because a familiarity with the guidelines and function of the indicators is required. improving information provision, for example through newsletters, once again raises budget obstacles. the reality of the catchment forums reflects the reality of water quality regulation in south africa. the “polluter pays” principle does not apply. the current or potential victims of pollution are expected to carry the costs of regulating pollution on a voluntary basis. if they cannot afford it, they remain excluded. self-regulation remains the norm in practice. polluters, or potential polluters, can choose whether they attend the forums or not. they have to be “kept on board”. this opens the option for polluters to withdraw from forums, or to threaten to withdraw, and enables them to avoid censure or robust discussion of their 44 in respect of a recent spate of fish deaths in the vaal river barrage, see the email correspondence between dwaf officials and concerned parties m viljoen – m lintnaar-strauss (dwaf), 2006.10.02; m fourie (dwaf) – b fourie, 2006.10. 04; m viljoen – m fourie (dwaf), 2006.10.04. vaal river barrage 122 pollution. placing the burden on the polluted to keep the forums going, compromises their ability to protect themselves against pollution. despite their problems, the forum meetings provide fascinating insights into the realities of water quality challenges in the upper vaal. they also provide unique opportunities for information exchange, networking and building personal understanding between individuals who would otherwise remain opponents with little sympathy or understanding for each other’s concerns and constraints. rand water’s van wyk expects the forums to remain permanent features of water regulation, because of their local character and participation. it is also clear that organised civil society will have to play a strong role to ensure that reasonable health standards are maintained. this role is increasingly taken up but, at the same time, it is the wellresourced who can do it, and those who with the least resources (and the most at risk) who are, for all practical purposes, excluded. it is really up to the dwaf to change this and provide a sustainable resource base for the forums. recent responses to crisis conditions in recent years the residents of valuable properties along the klip river and vaal river barrage have played an important role. it is they who have complained of the deteriorating state of affairs of the water realm. for property owners who had been resident on the banks of the water ways for many years, there was personal trauma as their quality of life deteriorated.45 there were increasing threats of legal steps against local authorities that did not meet their responsibilities and in some areas some concerned resident groups started resorting to activist measures.46 45 for a detailed investigation of the manner in which the pollution of the klip river affected residents of houses see ep de crom, die impak van ekologiese versteurings op die welstand van die individu: ‘n narratiewe ondersoek (ma, puche (currently north-west university), 2000). 46 a dreyer, “cholera-gevaarligte in gauteng”in beeld, 2000.10.13, p. 5. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 123 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. illustration 6: example of waste water flowing down the klip river into the vaal river barrage.47 the pressure on local authorities and industry increased shortly after the turn of the new millennium when property prices in south africa shot up. the banks of the vaal river barrage and loch vaal became desirable localities for people who wanted weekend houses in golf estate developments or large housing complexes on the river front.48 developers and residents had significant muscle. they had been able to prevent coal mining activities from taking place on the free state 47 illustration provided by an ngo that preferred to remain anonymous. 48 d fielding, “living by the water’s edge” in business day, 2004.02.20. at http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/tarkarticle.aspx?id=953048; business day reporter, “new golf estate tees off on the vaal” in business day, 2004/05/05 at http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/tarkarticle.aspx? id=1029792; n wilson, “new r4bn vaal project a golfing, skiing paradise” in business day, 2005/04/20 at http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/tark article.aspx?id=1430317; vaal river barrage 124 side of the vaal river barrage.49 they were consistent in their vociferous criticism of the way in which local authorities and governmental departments were seeing to the health of the river. illustration 7: thousands of fish died in january 2006 as a result of sewage effluent flowing into the vaal river barrage.50 increasingly there has been a demand for the restoration of the environment of the vaal river barrage to the extent that it would be conducive to leisure activities generally associated with riverscapes in a water-stressed country. the ire of civil society was consistently raised by the pococurante attitude of the local authorities responsible for water and sanitation services. at the time of the first spate of fish deaths in mid-january 2006 the blame was squarely placed on the shoulders of untreated sewage flowing into the vaal river. it was surmised that, as a result of the heavy rains sewage had flowed down the klip river and into the vaal river barrage. further downstream, in the middle vaal, there had 49 editorial comment, “rand water concerned about mining plans” in business day, 1998.01.06.; e tempelhoff, “sasol gaan nie meer voort met steenkoolmyn aan vaalrivier” in beeld, 1999.01.22 at http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld/ 1999/10/22/1/10.html. 50 photograph: johann wn tempelhoff 2006. tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 125 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. also been a spate of fish deaths, but this was caused by untreated sewage that entered the vaal via the schoonspruit in north west province. it was at the end of the festive period and anglers were upset by the large number of deaths of indigenous and endangered yellow fish (labeobarbus kimberleyensis and labeobarbus aeneus).51 the event came at a time when there was considerable introspection in local government circles about the treatment of waste water in the vaal river barrage. in an effort to cope with the crisis the emfuleni local municipality in 2005, with the assistance of the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), appointed a retired engineer as consultant to do a survey on its waste water treatment system. mr fred kolbe’s report was completed in december 2005. over the past half century some 50 sewage pump stations were built for pumping treated waste water into the vaal river barrage. amongst the major problems identified by kolbe were: it was problematical to manage the three water treatment plants in the municipal area as a result of management constraints. municipal budget allocations were inadequate for the maintenance of the two (rietspruit and leeuwkuil) of the three (third sebokeng) treatment plants. this resulted in equipment failing and producing inferior effluent. there were also problems in respect of the work ethic amongst people employed by emfuleni for the maintenance of the treatment plants.52 in an effort to deal with the problem the local authority created metsia-lekoa, an independent water business and consolidated the operations of the local authority’s wastewater treatment system. it was estimated that a total of r26,46 million was necessary for improving the existing infrastructure. it was recommended that over the long-term an amount of r345 million be made available to comprehensively address the existing problem.53 for the interim, emergency measures were implemented to get pump stations and treatment plants in the municipal area into a working condition. officials of dwaf, in conjunction with the local authority, and a 51 e tempelhoff, “ekologiese ramp tref vaalrivier: generasies geelvisse uitgewis” in beeld, 2006.01.17, p. 1; media release by k wallington, “fish kills on the vaal river, what are the facts? the yellow fish working grolup seeks to bring some clarity (2006.01.21) at www.yellowsonfly.com/uploads/ywg_release_vaalpollution_250106.pdf-. 52 f kolbe, discharges to the vaal river. report on mitigating measures: ts21: emfuleni restructuring grant (department of water affairs and forestry, pretoria, 2005), p. 14. 53 f kolbe, discharges to the vaal river. report on mitigating measures: ts21: emfuleni restructuring grant (department of water affairs and forestry, pretoria, 2005), p. 6. vaal river barrage 126 number of stakeholders started attending regular meetings to discuss progress. also in the industrial sector of the vaal river catchment area steps were taken to make a contribution towards maintaining health standards in the vaal river barrage. at sasol researchers and environmental workers introduced comprehensive integrated water management strategies to maintain a high level of dedicated care.54 it is believed that these measures, over the long term, would not only reduce surface pollution, but also work towards minimising the threat of toxic substances in the water flowing into the vaal river. recently, local industries have become more active participants in catchment forums in the vaal river barrage.55 they have also linked up with international initiatives aimed at promoting the sustainable use of water as resource.56 the reality of everyday operations in a highly productive industrial sector is however seldom part of an ideal world. in july 2006 there was once again a spate of fish deaths in the vaal river barrage. informed rumours had it that it had been caused by run-off water from the chemical industries, on the free state side of the vaal river barrage.57 claims of this nature have been contested,58 but toxic industrial effluent in the sewage water that flowed into the vaal river was said to have been responsible for the death of large numbers of indigenous mudand yellow fish that had been mixed with sewage.59 moreover, because some of the sewerage outlets in the vaal river barrage catchment flow into the vaal below the barrage, pollution of this nature had the effect that fish 150km further downstream were also severely affected.60 54 information martin ginster, sasol, 2006.11.06; the launch of the 2nd annual bio2biz conference. keynote address by the honourable minister of science and technology, mr mosibudi mangena, 2005.10.18, sandton convention centre at http://www.dst.gov.za/media/speeches.php?id=59&print=1. 55 see leeu taaibaschspruit forum newsletter, issue 1, october 2006, pp. 1-2. 56 companies in the vaal triangle have committed themselves to the recommendations outlined in the world business council for sustainable development (wbcsd), business in the world of water: wbcsd water scenarios to 2025, (atar roto presse sa, switzerland, august 2006). 57 e tempelhoff, “vrektes nóg ‘n terugslag vir vaal” in beeld, 2006.07.26 at http:// 152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld/2006/07/26/b1/5/etvaal.html 58 comment martin ginster, sasol, 2006.11.06; the research team was given access to a confidential circular of a catchment management group (october 2006). it summarised the findings of an internal investigation into the spillage events by stakeholders in the industrial sector. the information was placed at our disposal after the investigation had been completed. 59 e tempelhoff, “vrektes nóg ‘n terugslag vir vaal” in beeld, 2006.07.26 at http:// 152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld/2006/07/26/b1/5/etvaal.html 60 e tempelhoff, “vrektes nóg ‘n terugslag vir vaal” in beeld, 2006.07.26 at http:// 152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld/2006/07/26/b1/5/etvaal.html tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 127 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. in search of solutions the problems experienced with the pollution of the vaal river barrage are by no means an isolated crisis. worldwide there have been indications of an inability to contend with the demands on the water supply and sanitation systems of urban areas.61 in south africa a number of independent researchers in 2005 embarked on a threeyear regional study of the water resources of south africa, lesotho and swaziland.62 the first findings have now emerged in the project, under the auspices of the water research commission of south africa (wrc), dwaf, in conjunction with academic specialists, consulting engineering firms and the south africa’s council for scientific and industrial research (csir).63 in one report dealing with a survey of some 50 wastewater treatment plants in south africa, it was pointed out: (t)he majority of micro, small and medium size wastewater treatment plants … are in trouble and do not comply with the regulatory standards. the key aspects to resolve this situation relates to the availability of trained and competent process controllers and skilled mechanical/electrical maintenance crews.64 increasingly there are indications of a shift towards franchising water service operations.65 to what extent this strategy is feasible at this point in time, is open to debate. the world bank has, in recent months become critical of the privatisation of basic services and suggests that these only be considered when there are appropriate forces of competition in the private sector.66 in gauteng there is strong opposition to privatisation. the anti-privatisation forum (apf) was 61 j rees, “urban water and sanitation services: an iwrm approach” in tec background papers, 11, (technical committee (tec) of the global water partnership, elanders ab, sweden, 2006); m verringer (reuters), “2.6 billion people lack access to sanitation – un” in plant ark, 2006.09.29, at http://www.planetark.org/ dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=38306&newsdate=29-sep-2006. 62 anon., “three-year water resources study underway” in the water wheel, may/ june 2005, p. 5. 63 anon., “media release: prioritising water resource management” (released: 2006.10.09. csir web pages at http://www.csir.co.za/plsql/ptl0002/ ptl0002_pge013_media_rel?media_release_no=7427052 64 hg snyman, am van niekerk and n rajasakran, report summary: sustainable wastewater treatment – what has gone wrong and how do we get back on track? (received from the csir, october 2006). 65 k wall, technical note: “an investigation of the franchising option for water services operation in south africa” in water sa, 32(2), april 2006, pp. 265-268; also see the more comprehensive k wall, developing a framework for franchising in the water services sector in south africa, wrc report no. kv161/05 (water research commission, pretoria, 2005). 66 editorial comment, “pivatisering” in beeld, 2005.11.17, p. 18. vaal river barrage 128 created in 2000 to contest the privatisation of certain sectors of municipal services rendered in johannesburg.67 specifically johannesburg water,68 a privatised sector of the local authority, which has been responsible for the installation of pre-paid water meters in all parts of the city, has been a prime target of activists.69 there have been considerable protests and legal actions. there are some interest groups who are of the opinion that the commodification and/or commercialisation of water services could be linked to capitalist strategies aimed at making profits from a resource that should be made available, literally free of charge to society at large.70 of particular concern is the fact that since 2001 a number of initiatives have been introduced by the government to provide free basic services, particularly to the poor in the country. for example, all households are entitled to 6kl of water monthly, a limited power supply and in some areas of the country, sanitary services. as recently as october 2006 there were reports of incidents of violence and protest at orange farm a large informal settlement, situated in the vaal river barrage catchment area. the residents, marching under the banner of the ‘orange farm water crisis committee (owcc)’ have been frustrated by the inability of local political representatives and local government in addressing their essential development requirements.71 at the time it was considered to be unlikely that the government would 67 the organisation has subsequently extended its activities to many parts of the country. see “mosca in townshipland”, (2005.11.22) at http://townshipsland.blogspot.com/2005/11/anti-privatisation-forumapfwas.html (accessed 2006.10.20) 68 johannesburg water was established in 2001 as an independent company. in an effgort to get funding for its operations and development a five-year management contract was signed with the johannesburg water management company (jowam). it formed a joint venture with suez lyonnaise des eaux (france), northumbrian water (uk) and water and sanitation services (rsa). see anon., “our history” onm the website johannesburg water: we put the water in your tap, at http:// www.johannesburgwater.co.za/ (accessed 2006.10.31). 69 sapa, “sowetans protest against water meters” in sunday times, 2004.09.16 at http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesnew/newsst/ newsst1095309778.aspx; anti-privatisation form, “johannesburg water has declared war on the poor!” on the website independent media centre: south africa, 2003.09.07 at http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/4496.php (accessed 2006.10.21). 70 jwn tempelhoff, “the commodification of water in the arid and semi-arid parts of south africa: a preliminary historical exploration” in historia, 50(1), may 2005, pp. 123-146. 71 anon., “’no peace without development’” on the website independent media centre: south africa, 2006.10.03 at http://southafrica.indymedia.org/ (accessed 2006.10.21) tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 129 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. summarily make available funding for costly long-term improvements to the wastewater and treatment infrastructure in the vaal river barrage.72 plans were then made to get government support for improving the infrastructure,73 under the auspices of the policy for the accelerated and shared growth in south africa (asgisa).74 international experience informs us that it is possible to develop sanitation infrastructure in such a manner that impoverished communities can enter into partnerships with local and central governments (and perhaps even private enterprise). by claiming up co-responsibility and co-ownership of valuable infrastructural facilities, communities can form an active part of measures aimed at improving life under conditions of abject poverty.75 at this point in time one of the more feasible areas that is pursued is to explore the potential of tourism and also conservation strategies aimed at safeguarding the water environment against unsustainable human activities. the vaal river barrage is a popular leisure-time area and holds a lot of promise for development. however, there is a distinct need for closer collaboration between stakeholders to get to a better understanding of the manner in which the potential of the water front can be developed to the maximum.76 the legal route? the research team contemplated the issue of legal steps. for a number of years the civil society stakeholders in the vaal river barrage have made threats of taking legal steps. as part of the research, one member of the team took the initiative to outline a potential legal strategy. 72 observation by the consulting engineer, mr f kolbe, at meeting of the vergadering metsia-lekoa steering committee meeting, 29006.08.28. 73 deliberations that followed proved to be successful. it forms part of a new report currently being completed by the water research group at north-west university. 74 media briefing document by deputy president phumzile mlambo-ngcuka, 2006.02.06, “background document: a catalyst for accelerated and shared growth – south africa”. although no specific reference was made in the initial documentation of the government on support for the vaal river barrage, there have been indications from a representative of the gauteng provincial government, that funds could be generated from this source. notes taken by author at meeting of the metsi-a-lekoa steering committee meeting, vanderbijlpark, 2006.08.28. 75 un-wwap, un world water development report 2: water, a shared responsibility, (unesco and berghahn books, paris, new york and oxford 2006), pp. 94-108. 76 postgraduate research in this field is currently being conducted at north-west university’s vaal triangle campus, by mr y chamda, a former executive mayor of vereeniging, and currently advisor to the mayor’s office in the sedibeng district. vaal river barrage 130 what follows below, is a summary of a more comprehensive internal report. sufficient legislation exists in south africa to protect the vaal river barrage and its biodiversity.77 the ideal would be to have the legislation implemented and policed by the relevant spheres of government. at present this is not the case. water pollution is more than often caused by local authorities. no steps are then taken by the provincial or national spheres of government. the question is: what should be done? an ideal answer is difficult. while a wide array of legal remedies exists, it entails legal action, which is inevitably costly. therefore concerned citizens and organisations usually shy away from court action and rather use the media to vent their anger and frustration. in terms of the legislation it is possible to lay criminal charges against polluters. this, however, is also not occurring on a regular basis, basically because of the perception that exists that a criminal charge should be laid at a police station, and the police are, in addition to being ill equipped in terms of human resources, not trained in environmental law. a non-confrontational approach which might be used successfully is to use the tools provided in the national environmental management biodiversity act, no. 10 of 2004 (nemba). it is my suggestion that, with regard to the vaal river barrage and its whole catchment area, the following should be done in terms of the nemba: list wastewater pollution as a threatening process in terms of section 53; list the whole area as an eco-system which is threatened or in need of protection in terms of section 52(1); and draft a biodiversity management plan for this area as an ecosystem. in addition, or as an the alternative, the largemouth yellow fish (labeobarbus kimberleyensis) which is listed as a vulnerable species by the iucn and which only occurs in the vaal and orange rivers, should be listed as threatened species and a biodiversity management plan must be drafted for this species. 77 a comprehensive exposition of the potential legislation that can be used to combat the issue of pollution in the vaal river barrage, is outlined in a sub-report of the vaal river barrage hot spot project (2006-2007). see m viljoen “water pollution in the vaal river barrage: a legal perspective” (2006.11.02). tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen 131 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. illustration 8: fly fisherman, keith wallington, with a yellow fish he caught in the middle vaal (below the vaal river barrage) in the winter season. once these fish are caught, they are released in the water.78 the advantages of this strategy can be summarised as follows: • it is non-confrontational and would more likely lead to the cooperation of all stakeholders, especially the relevant spheres of government; • the uncertainty of court cases will be taken out of the equation; • by proclaiming a species or eco-system as threatened, as well as the publishing of the biodiversity management plan in the government gazette, will give such a plan the power of law, in terms of civil enforceability. in addition, the responsible minister can be asked to publish regulations to make the plan enforceable on a criminal basis as well; • it is holistic and inclusive – all aspects that are a threat to the species or eco-system will be addressed and managed in terms of the management plan, including waste water pollution; • the associated environment and biodiversity will be vaal river barrage 78 k wallington, vaal river – middle vaal: middle vaal a world class fishery (c. 2004) at www.yellowsonfly.com/uploads/middle_vaal_a_worldclass_fishery_rev_2_ 010404.pdf, p. 3. 132 automatically protected; • such a plan may be expensive to draft and implement, but one is more likely to obtain funding for the implementation of such a plan, than to obtain funding for litigation; • a biodiversity management plan must preferably not be implemented by a state organisation, but by an organisation from civil society. this will mean that the management of the ecosystem or species will be taken out of the hands of the government and, in fact, they will have to report to the implementing organisation. thus, a huge load will be relieved from a government under pressure; and • the whole catchment of the vaal river barrage area should be included, thus encompassing all the sources of pollution. conclusion considered from a historical contemplative perspective we have in the vaal river barrage a large reservoir that had been built at the beginning of the twentieth century in a river that had been shaped more than 160 million years ago. the human footprint on the banks of the river has left a deep imprint. it is firstly the product of the ever-increasing human demand for water; secondly, the need to dispose of consumed water; thirdly, an awareness that it is essential to have sound measures aimed at conserving the natural environment; and fourthly the need to use the available resources in a sustainable manner. history also informs us that, as a result of a number of external events – in the form of development over the shortor long-term – the ecology of the barrage as a man-made storage facility came under threat from time to time. there have always been responses to what was considered to be a threat to the environment. it posed a challenge to the innovative abilities of humans operating in the hydrological sphere, to restore the condition of the water to what was considered to be an appropriate level of health. in recent times a number of deep structural changes have taken place in the realm of the intellectual culture of south african society. these have had a marked influence on the way in which we currently contemplate the crises facing the vaal river barrage. firstly, the transition to a democratic dispensation in the country brought about significant shifts in terms of the manner in which industrial technology and facilities were used in the region. for a start, the complex web of cultural infrastructure and activities that had tempelhoff, munnik & viljoen been developed for the production of goods and services was subject to revision. what had ostensibly been developed for the benefit of a small portion of the region’s population was now stretched to the limit. provision had to be made for the accommodation of the regional population as a whole. this caused a state of paralysis in the spheres of human cultural production and maintenance. secondly, there has been a growing awareness in society, globally and locally, that it is essential to be more sensitive to the natural environment. this has had the effect that civil society has become more overt in its response to threats to the environment. the constitution of south africa, perhaps one of the most progressive in the world at present, underscores the need to be considerate. the necessary legislation has been approved to take strong measures to maintain law and order in the aquatic realm of the vaal river barrage. thirdly, there clearly is a need for a commitment on the side of government, the business sector and civil society to seek solutions to effectively address crises. in this respect it appears as if skills of organisational and management dynamics need to be honed. apart from a new work-ethic, there is also a need for the inculcation of the sense of will – wanting to do something. this is subject to the cultivation of a sense of meaning. if and when the thin membrane between culture and nature is scrutinised more closely, it becomes apparent that there is lots of room for improvement. attention needs to be given to: • applying an array of cultural devices to promote an appreciation for the aesthetics of natural beauty; and • nurturing a sense of altruism when it comes to the realisation that we use our natural resources and we consequently need to invest in their protection; • realising that if human culture works towards the restoration of the dignity of nature, the end-result would be the restoration of a human dignity, beyond the ideological and biological constraints of race and creed; and • being aware that the condition of the water in the vaal river barrage at any given time is a litmus test. it shows to what extent humans are prepared to attach a value to life in the present, with an eye on the future. td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-133. td journal july 2007.p65 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 53-78. continuous performance improvement in the south african national defence force jan i. c. vermaak 1 & leon de w. fourie 2 abstract: this article concentrates on the south african national defence force (sandf), as a south african public sector department, its acceptance of the batho pele principles and the implementation of various organisational performance improvement programmes. however, despite accepting the principles and the programmes, it is uncertain whether the sandf institutionalised them in order to effect continuous performance improvement. keywords: south african national defence force (sandf), public service delivery, organisational change, performance improvement. disciplines: management studies, public management and governance, military sciences, introduction in 1998 south african national defence force (sandf) implemented a process to effect continuous improvement programs in the sandf. this process followed in response to the instruction promulgated in the government gazette (october 1997) by minister zola skweyiya � jan vermaak is a researcher affiliated to the south african national war college in pretoria. � professor leon de w. fourie is the head of department of public management at the tshwane university of technology. 54 (minister for public service and administration [mpsa]) to improve public sector service delivery (government gazette, 1997: 5). the principles stipulated in the occupational health and safety act no. 85 of 1993), as well as the requirements in the white paper on transforming public sector service delivery (government gazette – notice 1459 of 1997), the public service act, no. 103 of 1994, the public finance management act, no. 1 of 1999, and the treasury regulations (march 2005), demanded improved performance and improved quality of service delivery (department of defence instruction (dodi) 24/2000: vi). these government policies formed the baseline from which the sandf adopted the south african excellence foundation’s (saef) model to measure organisational effectiveness (south african air force instruction (mri:007775): 1 – 2). in the sandf, the emphasis was initially on implementing the european foundation for quality management (efqm) measuring model to measure total quality management (tqm) and the effectiveness in the sandf (brigadier general eksteen (former inspector general for the sa air force (igaf), 2004: interview). in 2000 the efqm was substituted by the south african excellence foundation’s model that was developed on the basis of the efqm model but supplemented with additional criteria to establish a south african unique model (saef y2001/1, 2001: 1). the sandf, with the south african air force (saaf) as the leader in the implementation process, launched the implementation of the saef model in 2000, as the official measurement model for the defence force (brigadier general carlos gagiano, former inspector general for the sa air force, 2001: presentation). research conducted by the authors, to determine the possible reasons why the sandf did not excel in continuous performance improvement, provided alarming evidence that the majority of senior management (majors to colonels in the sandf): 1. did not understand the process, and 2. are not actively involved in processes to improve organisational performance. the aim of this article is to provide the reader with an insight regarding the reason(s) why continuous performance improvement in the sandf is not delivering better results. effectiveness in the south african national defence force in 2000/2001 the south african air force participated in the national saef awards competition. as a result the security squadron at air vermaak & fourie natural law td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. force base langebaanweg obtained second place in the competition (eksteen, 2004: interview). however, in 2002/2003, this unit only managed to form part of the finalists and in 2004 was not placed at all (weldon bond (ceo ideas management sa, 2004: interview). the probable answer to this state of affairs might be attributed to a failure to effectively react on ‘areas for improvement’ (eksteen, 2004: interview). this situation can be related to mears (1995: 1) who linked improvement to ‘…telling a continuous quality improvement (cqi) story’ and that a submission of underperformance, must convey the story ‘…in a simple, objective manner so that others can understand the problem and take action to improve the situation’. according to mears (1995: 1), conveying the story to others relies on data and statistics; therefore, the real use of statistics is based on the notion that ‘’(d)ata tends to be more objective than general statements’. in a subsequent argument mears (1995: 2 – 3) used the florida power and light (fpl) company as an example regarding the objective use of data. the vice-president of fpl noticed an increase in the number of complaints received. the numbers represented a significant increase based on the average number of complaints received from 1988 to 1993. the vice-president of fpl was able to determine the problem and attempted to institute corrective procedures to reduce the number of complaints. according to viljoen (2001: presentation), an organisation must nurture their successes but observe their areas for improvement and react in time to prevent disaster. successes in continuous performance improvement are not always instantaneous, but rather as part of a long-term strategy that takes years to achieve what the organisation sets out in the strategic vision and missionstatement (viljoen, 2001: presentation). statistics, obtained as part of an organisation’s performance monitoring process, must be analysed in order to provide management with sufficient information to manage the organisation with success (mears, 1995: 12). therefore, objective data and the correct interpretation of the data could probably determine the problem and guide management to the corrective measures required to rectify the problem, which may reduce the prevalence of the problem in future. schwella, stated: (a) scientific approach to the study of the future is of interest and importance to public managers. public management functions such as policy-making and planning involve, by definition, analysis and assumptions about the future. such assumptions are used as the basis for policy and planning decisions (in fox, wissink & schwella 1991: 312). the problem at the security squadron could probably be linked to the failure of management to utilise historic evidence (areas for improvement) to improve future performance, which can be viewed as the primary reason why the security squadron did not feature in subsequent competitions. the solution is therefore embedded in the perfomance improvement in the sandf 56 requirement for an integrated organisation development model. the department of defence instruction: policy & planning no 24/ 2000 (the continuous performance improvement programme for the department of defence [dod]) was drafted as a dod instruction to institutionalise the south african excellence model within the sandf. presumably, this was intended as a holistic approach to the implementation of the south african excellence model (saem); however, scrutinising the policy revealed an in-depth reference to the sandf suggestion scheme and a trivial reference to the actual implementation (dodi 24/2000). the assumption can be made that, although it is expected of senior management to have a basic understanding about developing and measuring effectiveness in an organisation, some managers may not have the required skills to effectively implement measuring tools such as the efqm and the saef models. with reference to the dod strategic direction process a shortcoming in the ‘performance improvement implementation process’ could be seen as the principal factor that prevents organisations continuously improving. this argument highlights the supposition that the saef model should not be viewed as the tool to improve organisational effectiveness, but as a method to measure to what extent the organisation has improved. in addition, an integrated development model should utilise a measurement tool, such as the saem, to obtain information regarding the performance of an organisation, and then proceed through various phases or stages of the integrated model to change deficiencies in the organisation. palmer & hardy (2000: 170 – 174) referred to various contemporary change models and pointed to the similarity between the basic variations of these models, having either a linear (kurt lewin) approach or a cyclical (marshak) approach to change. these variations are all advocating different stages or phases with various steps within the stages. in an attempt to highlight the underlying problem of organisational change, burke (1995: 159) argued that organisational change is, ‘…messy and never as clear as we have written in our books and articles’. this argument illustrates the difficulty in marrying the theoretical principles presented in academic literature to the problem of implementing these principles in practice. charlton (2000: 141) lists various aspects including: …not having clearly defined, relevant, measurable performance standards and criteria expectations…,…a general culture of resistance to change…, and …not knowing how to perform and/or not wanting to perform as the most elementary performance inhibitors. the authors are of the opinion that a lack of knowledge by sandf managers on how to integrate the organisational development (od) models with a strategic development programme for the organisation could be considered as vermaak & fourie natural law td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. the cause of failure of the langebaanweg security squadron to continue to perform. to support this argument, kotter argued that, successful organisations do not succeed only by gathering data, analysis, report writing, and presentations; they succeed because (t)hey compellingly show people what the problems are and how to resolve the problems (2002: 8). the security squadron at air force base langebaanweg can be regarded as the flagship unit of excellence in the sandf after being selected in 2000/2001 as the runner-up (previously mentioned as third place) in the national excellence awards competition. however, subsequent failure to maintain or improve performance questions the manner in which excellence was institutionalised at the south african air force squadron. this state of affairs, as well as the arguments debated in the previous paragraphs, supports the notion that only by implementing the selected models without first following a process of organisational development might not result in the required outcome. management in the sandf can therefore, be classified in accordance with charlton’s (2000: 142) observation of ‘not knowing how to perform’ resulting in certain bases/units within the sandf failing to develop the base or units based on the results obtained from a selected model. as a result, these units or bases may show little, or any, significant improvement in organisational effectiveness. the author is of the opinion that by continuing to conduct organisation functions in archaic ways, the organisation will continue to perform sub-optimal. improving public service delivery in february 2005, the minister for public service and administration (mpsa), ms geraldine frazer-moleketi, expressed her concern about the fact that the south african public sector showed no significant improvement in effectiveness since 1994 (frazer-moleketi, 2005: sabc news). this concern was again voiced during a work session conducted, in may 2005, to formulate a strategy for the next five years. the minister expressed concern regarding the increase in the number of complaints received regarding the effectiveness of service delivery in the south african central public sector. bond (2004: interview) argued that although the south african excellence foundation (saef) does not publicly announce results of organisations, a problem regarding the effectiveness of public sector service delivery was already observed during 2003, when the saef participated in ‘site visits’ to various public sector organisations. according to bond (2004), the principal question was whether the ineffectiveness could be linked to the saef model or to the public perfomance improvement in the sandf 58 sector’s inability to enhance its effectiveness as a result of evidence obtained from the saef model. the observation made by bond (2004: interview) accentuate the requirements stipulated in the government gazette (october 1997) by minister zola skweyiya (minister for the public service) to improve public sector service delivery (government gazette, 1997: 5). the detrimental factor in public sector effectiveness could arguably, be attributed to the probable misconception that the existence of excellence principles (the batho pele principles) represents a guaranteed improvement in organisational performance. this assumption appears to be in direct contrast with arguments of various academics attempting to promote organisation development as part of a continuous improvement strategy. according to kotter & cohen: (f)our sets of behaviors commonly stop the launch of needed change. the first is complacency, driven by false pride or arrogance. a second is immobilization, self-protection, a sort of hiding in the closet, driven by fear or panic. another is you-can’t-make-me-move deviance, driven by anger. the last is a very pessimistic attitude that leads to constant hesitation. whatever the reason, the consequences are similar. people do not look carefully at the evidence, get on their toes, and start moving. instead, they hold back or complain if others initiate new action, with the result that a needed change doesn’t start or doesn’t start well (2002: 17). this argument highlights that, effective organisational development with continuous improvement as the focus requires the organisation to improve; furthermore, the behaviour of the people must be altered and the measuring of the organisation’s outcomes must be adapted to ascertain whether the improvement was successful. this process corresponds with the suggested method of mears (1995: 2) i.e. to identify the reason for improvement, determine the current situation, analyse the problem, create and implement an action plan, and measure results. any deviation from the predicted or required outcome, should act as a catalyst for management to realise that the organisation requires investigating the reason for the deviation, developing measures to remedy the problem, implement a change process and then measure the resultant outcome. the inability of the sandf to continue to improve could therefore be attributed to the absence of such a total process. this fact, accentuated by charlton’s (2000: 142) argument of management not knowing how to perform, resulted in the motivation to conduct the research. the research represents a challenge to develop a program to incorporate various sub-processes and to assist sandf managers by providing them with a detailed integrated program for organisational improvement. the integrated program comprises a detailed process explaining various components of sub-processes, as well as various vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. software packages to enable managers to develop and implement a total program. the intention to create a detailed guide implies that an integrated organisation development model is lacking in the sandf and probably the wider central public sector. the real problem exists within the available literature where an integrated model is either omitted, not explicitly detailing integrated development processes, or does not exist. the majority of public sector managers have undergone management training in various areas of the public management field; and although, literature explains what should be implemented, it fails to explain the methodology to implement programs successfully. theoretical overview palmer & hardy argue that (o)rganizational change has attracted considerable attention by both academics and practitioners. the result is a bewildering array of change models. they can select from a 29-step model, a 15-point ‘manifesto’, a 13point plan, and a number of 6-step approaches (2000: 170). the majority of the academic literature values organisational development (od) and emphasises the importance of developing the organisation in accordance with the specific requirements. academics such as gibson, ivancevich & donnelly (1991: xii) converse od in the last chapter of the literature, smit & cronje (1999: 259) address organisation change in chapter eleven; while, palmer & hardy (2000: 169) addresses managing change in chapter seven of the research. this method of addressing organisation change in a latter part of the literature creates the impression that authors writing about management, view organisation development as a reactive change mechanism, rather than a proactive process. smit, et. al. (1999: 260) debate organisational change in terms of ‘planned versus reactive change approach’. this type of approach, for example, will determine at what stage during the organisational management process, organisational development will appear. the positioning of organisation development as a process could be either during the initial or the latter stages of the academic literature. the best practice could perhaps be to emphasise the importance of organisation development during the initial stages of the literature, and then support the arguments by founding the knowledge of other management principles as the prerequisites for effective organisation development practices. gibson et. al. (1991: 40) indicates management’s contribution to effectiveness as a process diagrammatically presented in figure 1.1, where the specific functions are conducted through a coordination process to attain a specific outcome. perfomance improvement in the sandf 60 figure 1.1: management’s contribution to effectiveness in organisations (source: gibson et. al. 1991: 40) according to smit et. al. (1999: 260), organisational development serves as the tool to management, whereby deviations from the desired outcomes or objectives can be adapted to ensure the harmonious functioning of the organisational components within the organisation. the focus of organisational development is dependent on the evaluation of the entire organisation, thereby determining the specific elements that may cause the ineffectiveness. gibson et. al. (1991: 11) graphically illustrate the study of organisations and indicates the placement of organisation development. the graphical representation (figure 1.1) provides an indication that organisation development has links to the study of the individual, groups, the design of the organisation as well as to the processes available within the organisation, despite being discussed during the latter stages of the literature. the former efficiency manager at the council for scientific and industrial research [csir], (basson, 2004: interview) indicated that areas where the organisation requires intervention are identified through a process of measuring. the analyses of internal and external questionnaires could enable management to correctly identify problem areas (bond, 2004: interview). results can be obtained through the utilisation of measurement tools such as the european foundation for quality management (efqm) measurement model, the baldridge quality measuring model, or the south african excellence foundation (saef) model of excellence (viljoen, 2001: interview). mears advocates that: vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 5-78. (t)he problem with improving quality is that quality of many products and most services is a subjective attribute….(d)ata tends to be more objective than general statements (1995: 1). this implies that modern managers can no longer rely solely on their intuition to determine where organisational problem areas exist, but managers require scientific tools to correctly identify problem indicators for early warning. the monitoring of problem indicators such as declining profits, declining quantity and quality of work, absenteeism or low employee morale, can arguably be indicative of an underlying problem or problem initiator. however, palmer & hardy warn that (m)anagers rarely process information rationally; organizational systems are unpredictable; managers favour previous practices even in the face of evidence to the contrary (2000: 194). this argument probably explains why mears argued that negative findings are often opposed to by the recipient and when confronted with a quality problem: (the) …typical reaction is to defend oneself against a personal attack. the problem in need of improvement becomes secondary (1995: 1). problem indicators, adequately supplemented by supporting data, may therefore focus the attention of management on specific areas that require change or development. this method however, could be seen as a reactive approach to organisational change. colonel brand, senior staff officer policy and planning at defence headquarters (2006: interview), is of the opinion that the sandf has an effective organisation monitoring system, which is incorporated in the department of defence’s strategic direction process. in support to this notion, colonel huysamen, acting director strategy at defence headquarters (2006: interview), argued that although the processes are considered to be very effective, the concern is that results obtained through the monitoring process, are not adequately addressed to ensure continuous performance improvement. the existing development intervention strategy inherent to the dod strategic direction process can therefore be adapted to address specific problems as part of the management contingency process. adjusting the emphasis on the placement of the organisational development process, either during the initial stages or during the latter stages of the process, could ensure that it forms an integral part of a planned approach to the organisational change strategy. by so doing, management could change their approach from being reactive to being proactive by repositioning the development process. siegal (1996: 54) argues that managers are encouraged to change the organisation’s structures in response to the hyper competitive business perfomance improvement in the sandf 62 environment, and to alter organisation culture in order to enhance performance. according to brigadier general mann, commandant of the defence college (2006: presentation), changes to the dod structures is difficult but not impossible, but changing the organisational performance culture of the sandf might be a more effective approach to affect organisation performance. this statement is consistent with the view of siegal (1996: 54) who indicates that the emphasis on change has led to suggestions that ‘…organizations today are immersed in a virtual cyclone of change’. the sandf is, according to brigadier general luck, deputy director manpower utilisation for the department of defence (luck, 2006: presentation), currently involved in a changing process where the training of personnel is aligned with the south african qualifications authority (saqa) requirements. according to colonel janssen, senior staff officer military strategy at defence headquarters (2006: presentation) the sandf is obliged to conform to the stipulations of the government by complying with the objectives stipulated in the national security strategy, as well as conforming to other influences such as the saqa stipulations. the dominant factor in the modern military environment, as well as in the military strategy, will be the organisation’s ability to balance huge profits or successes with low levels of dissatisfaction or labour related litigations (huysamen, 2006: presentation). the sandf is compelled to perform within the constraints of the allocated defence budget, and as such should perform more efficiently and ‘smarter’ rather than insisting or overtly blaming poor effectiveness and non-continuous performance improvement on the declining budget (brand, 2006: interview). in response to this notion, gibson, et. al. (1991: 33) debates that, criteria of effectiveness should emphasise two important considerations i.e. 1. the survival of the organisation depends on its ability to adapt to the demands of the environment; and 2. in satisfying these demands, managers must focus on the entire cycle of ‘input-process-output’. the authors are of the opinion that a higher employee input is not necessarily directly proportionate to the output, and performance will therefore be affected by other elements of the systems approach. furthermore, the increase in employee inputs might in the short-term prove to be sufficient; however, in the medium to long-term a decline to below the expected or required output levels is anticipated. managers can therefore no longer rely on unscientific measures as an input for affecting change in the organisation (bond, 2004: interview). kanter (in chawla & renesch, 1995: 77) argues the concept of speed vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. to be the fundamental measure of organisational efficiency. according to kanter (in chawla & renesch, 1995: 77) modern organisations require a process of constantly innovating and experimenting with new features that allow the customer to satisfy his/her requirements by referring to three types of speed i.e.: innovative speed includes the timely placement of goods or services required by the customers in the marketplace; processing speed that includes shorter cycle times, or implementing new products or services; and recovery speed that includes the time it takes to respond to and fix problems. these aspects can be readily related to service delivery and the achievement of objectives in the sandf. the control process that represents a sub-process of the dod strategic direction process addresses these three types of speed resulting in the early identification of deviations and subsequent corrective measures to ensure the achievement of the military strategic end-state (brand, 2006: interview). according to baker (2000: 3), the key to success and efficiency is the organisation’s ability to be flexible. cook and hunsaker (2001: 15) argue that managers will endeavour to align the organisation with the requirements of the changing environment, and will allocate resources and alter personnel behaviour to fit the alignment. managers however, should inspire values, attitudes and behaviour from all the stakeholders in an attempt to guide the collective efforts of the stakeholders towards the desired end-result (landsberg, 2000: 28). baker (2000: 3) continues to argue that a flexible organisation is more reluctant to focus on narrow job definitions and is more receptive to innovations and a wider definition of jobs. the flexibility of an organisation also depends on its ability to out-perform its competitor and to obtain a competitive advantage and (t)he organisation needs to create a culture that reinforces both effectiveness and efficiency. effectiveness relates to the ability to satisfy customer needs while efficiency implies doing it in the most cost and time efficient way (schultz, bagraim, potgieter, viedge, & werner, 2003: 12). belbin (1997: 3) views these types of organisation as reliant on crossfunctional team structures, and that they tend to avoid a more traditional hierarchical structure, i.e. a flat structure. these arguments appears to promote a flexible cross-functional organisation structure with empowered individuals in terms of innovative reasoning and a wider job definition, which allows for more creative responses from individuals. thompson pointed out that perfomance improvement in the sandf 64 (t)he purpose of organizational learning and the acquisition of organizational knowledge is to provide the foundation for rapid, dramatic change; increasingly the fundamental requirement for organizational success (in baker 2000: 2). this approach coincides with the ‘ideas-management’ approach linked to the saef model where employees are encouraged to be creative (bond, 2004: interview). this approach also emphasises the need to determine key success factors that will enable the organisation to respond to the environmental changes, and could also address the essential element in the response of the organisation to the requirements of the customers and the external environment; thereby, having a direct impact on how financially and competitively successful the organisation is functioning (thompson & strickland, 2001: 106). although ulrich (2000: 17 18) indicates six key success factors that might impact on the manner in which future organisations will operate and individuals will behave, these factors are generic and could vary from organisation to organisation. in the south african public sector, the batho pele or “putting people first”-principles were introduced as the baseline for improving service delivery in public sector organisations (government gazette, 1997: 5). the batho pele principles can be crosslinked to the key factors identified by ulrich (2000: 17 18): � the organisation’s ability to adapt products to local conditions and cultures; � technology that will affect where and how people work and the type of work people do; � speed of conducting services or delivering products; � consumer customisation that focuses on individual elements rather than on consumer segments; � intellectual capital and knowledge of employees; and � profitable growth that continually balances the short and longterm requirements of employees, customers and investors. management should shape the organisational requirements with the various individual requirements and manage the interrelationship between the conflicting needs, interests and feelings of the worker and the organisation (thompson & strickland, 2001: 346). noer (1997: 214) identified five aspects of mutual dependency i.e. flexible employment, customer focus, focus on performance, project based work and the connection of human spirit and work. these aspects correlate with the enabling criteria of the south african excellence model. although the south african excellence model is not the only scientific measurement tool to measure organisational performance, vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. it is currently accepted in the sandf as the official measurement instrument and for this reason it will be used in this research as representing the scientific measurement tool. the difference between the key aspects listed by ulrich (2000: 17 18) and noer (1997: 214 217), as well as the ‘enabling’ criteria of the saef model, indicates the interrelationship between the elements. the views by ulrich (2000) and noer (1997) and the various models i.e. the malcolm baldridge model, the efqm model, as well as the saef model, emphasise the cross-linkages that exist between the various elements or criteria. bond (2004: interview) and viljoen (2005: interview) however, caution to the impact of fixating only on specific elements without monitoring the cross-impact that the respective elements may incur. therefore, by utilising the various measurement models to obtain results on the organisational effectiveness, but failing to integrate the results with possible solutions, and neglecting to analyse the cross-impact of the various criteria, the potential effectiveness of such a measurement tool could be annulled, which may probably represent the modern organisation change phenomenon. contemporary organisational change phenomenon according to schultz et. al. (2003: 249): (c)hange is real, it is radical and it faces us everyday. palmer & hardy (2000: 169 – 178) argue that organisational change is inevitable and there is a need for change in one form or another. siegal (1996: 54) emphasises the fact that organisations today are immersed in a virtual cyclone of change. schultz et. al. (2003: 249) is however, of the opinion that winning organisations are those that anticipate change and react continuously and timeously. to substantiate this argument, french & bell (1999: 24 – 30) refer to a variety of change models that have been developed in an effort to improve organisational effectiveness. palmer & hardy state that: (a)nnouncements of change often merely formalize activities that have already been in train for some time, rather than indicate fundamentally new actions (2000: 171). these arguments tend to suggest that organisations should accept that the environment within which the organisation functions is continuously changing, which requires continuous changes within the organisation, and that changes should be anticipated and planned for in the organisation’s strategic planning process. the collated analyses of various change models by palmer & hardy perfomance improvement in the sandf 66 (2000: 172), strikingly omitted the inclusion or mention of any scientific measurement tool. this omission indicates that academics either generally accepted the inclusion of such a tool in the development process, or they are intentionally not including it because they regard the measurement function as a separate entity. in the ‘ten commandments’ advocated by kanter (in chawla & renesch, 1995: 383), the reference to enabling structures could be viewed as a possible measurement tool, whilst in the blueprint for corporate renewal advocated by ghoshal & bartlett (1996: 23) the reference to ensuring continuous learning could point to organisation measurement. the ‘large-scale change’ model advocated by morris & raben (1995: 64) included reference to built-in feedback mechanisms and the reference to consolidate gains and producing more change in kotter’s model (kotter, 1996: 21) are the only observable links to a measurement tool. these observations create the perception that the majority of academics failed to integrate the organisation development process with a scientific measurement tool that can be used to objectively align interventions with the problems identified or results obtained. this could perhaps be the main reason why managers do not have the knowledge on how to effectively implement the development process with the measurement tools, such as the saef model. in conclusion, it can be argued that it appears as though there is a distinctive difference between the discussions on the organisation development process and implementation of scientific measurement tools. the suggested remedy to this problem is to inform managers on how to integrate organisation development and organisation performance measurement, into a single integrated organisation development process. in the section above, on improving public sector service delivery, it was indicated that the south african public sector accepted the batho pele or “putting people first”-principles as one of the key success factors. there is however, no conclusive evidence that all personnel in the public sector have accepted these principles, as service delivery in the south african public sector is prone to be poor (bond, 2004: interview). the argument can be made that if the entire public sector accepted and implemented a system of performance measurement as integral part of an organisation development strategy, poor service delivery would have been identified and addressed as an area for improvement, and corrective measures could have been implemented. in addition, it is also unclear whether the failure of some organisations to respond effectively to poor performance indicators are directly related to the missing link between development process and measurement results. the conclusions made on these debated issues are whether: � organisation development processes can effectively change vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. problems in an organisation without reference to results obtained from scientific measurement tools; � the utilisation of a scientific measurement tool should form part of the organisation development model to ensure that results or measured outputs obtained from the measurement serve as inputs to the initial phase of the model; and � the implementation of a scientific measurement tool can improve organisational effectiveness without being supported by an organisation development strategy. since 1996 when the efqm and the saef models were implemented in south africa, many organisations in both the private and public sector experienced no or insignificant improvement in their performance (bond, 2004: interview). in some organisations it was found that there was no real improvement in organisational effectiveness with the result that the models were characterized as being ineffective (van den heever, 2001: 2). in the south african air force some units experienced a marked improvement in organisational effectiveness, but with the departure of individuals responsible to administratively manage the saem, the units experienced a decline in performance (eksteen, 2004: interview). for this reason, it may be argued that public sector service delivery, as well as continuous performance improvement in the sandf, requires an interrupted process not dependent on individual members who are passionate about excellence. public service delivery the requirement to improve service delivery in the south african public sector implies that service delivery within the sandf, as a department within the south african public sector, should also improve. in 1998 the south african air force initiated the excellence process through the implementation of the efqm model for excellence (afi 007775: 1 –2). the south african air force (saaf) altered their approach in 2001 when the saem was elected as the excellence model (gagiano, 2001: presentation). personnel in the saaf approached the process with scepticism as no significant changes occurred after the implementation of the efqm model (gagiano, 2001: inspector general report). the majority of the managers underwent training on the model, but the training concentrated on explaining the various elements of the model, conducting self-assessment, compiling reports on the current management processes, and the general functioning or structure of the model (eksteen, 2004: interview). the problem was therefore not ‘what’ to implement, but “how” to implement the model. perfomance improvement in the sandf 68 the south african navy (san) and south african military health services (samhs) initiated the implementation of the saem in 2001 to monitor effectiveness, and during 2002 the south african army (saa) initiated the implementation of the saef model (prinsloo, 2004: interview). the gap in the training was found to be in the implementation of the model and the ability of managers to adapt the existing management system to address or coincide with the various criteria of the model (prinsloo, 2004: interview). the model did not represent a new management process, but rather a measurement tool to objectively and scientifically obtain results on the effectiveness of the organisation (eksteen, 2004: interview). the inherent capability promoted by the saef model is the afforded opportunity to evaluate or benchmark on the organisation’s own effectiveness against other organisations, competitors or best-in-class organisations (bond, 2004: interview). the implementation of the efqm and the saef models in the sandf was based on the theoretical knowledge of the various models and how to conduct self-assessment within the organisation (bond, 2004: interview). trained saef executive facilitators that provided the theoretical training to future assessors, failed to provide the trainees with a strategy to implement the saef model within the organisation (prinsloo, 2004: interview). during self-assessment evaluations various problem areas (known as areas for improvement) were identified and indicated. the subsequent failure to rectify the problems, led to some bases not altering their internal practices. as a result these bases remained at an embryonic level (eksteen, 2004: interview). the solution to this problem is probably that training in the model should include the emphasis on creating a link between the theory of the models and the actual implementation of a continuous improvement programme within the organisation. organisational learning easterby-smith (1997: 1085 1113) indicated that one of the reasons behind the lack of consensus regarding organisational learning can be related to the fact that organisational learning has been studied from a number of different disciplinary perspectives. according to argyris & schon (1978: 19) organisational learning occurs when individuals identify problems and take action to rectify the problems. palmer & hardy argue that (o)rganizational learning involves systematic problem-solving, experimentation with new approaches, learning from experience and best practice, and transforming knowledge quickly and efficiently through the organization in ways that manifest themselves in measurable output (2000: 210). these statements imply that organisational effectiveness depends on vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. the effective integration of theory with the activities of an organisation. it can be deduced that the development of a commonly accepted model for organisational change could be almost impossible and that organisation development models should be designed according to the organisation’s requirements. organisation development is, according to beckhard: …an effort planned, organization-wide, and managed from the top to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization’s processes with behavioural knowledge (1969: 19). according to cummings & worley organisation development is …a system-wide application of behavioural science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organizational strategies, structures, and processes for improving and organization’s effectiveness (1993: 2). palmer & hardy (2000: 170 – 171) argue that organisation development has attracted considerable attention by authors and practitioners, but further argues that many change models continue to adhere to the classic three-phase model advocated by lewin (1947: 5-41), i.e. unfreezing, changing and refreezing. these arguments suggest generic steps or phases need to be used in the development of an organisation’s unique improvement model and that the process requires being formalised, and planned. gibson et. al. define organisation development as …a planned, managed, systematic process to change the culture, systems and behavior of an organization, in order to improve the organization’s effectiveness in solving its problems and achieving its objectives (1991: 638641). according to schultz et. al. the challenge for managers and leaders is … to determine where they want to take the organisation to, develop a strategy to reach that destination, get buy-in from all stakeholders, give momentum to the process and measure progress and success on a continuous basis (2003: 249). gibson et. al. (1991: 640) point out that organisation development is a planned process that takes place over a period of time and that must be justified in terms of organisational effectiveness. this argument is supported by harvey & brown (1996: 4), who also emphasise that the od process aims at addressing the organisation’s processes, structures and systems in anticipation of changes in the environment. the implementation of an integrated organisation development programme should form part of the sandf strategy and should use results obtained from the saef model, as the primary measuring tool for the south african national defence force. the ensued benefit is that it could contribute to affect the required changes within the boundaries of the dod strategic direction process, to ensure continuous performance improvement in the sandf. perfomance improvement in the sandf 70 according to dunbar, garud & raghuram organisations need to ‘deframe’ in the approach to change and further argues that …this does not imply that we must obliterate all previous ways of thinking….what it does imply is the need for an ability to step back from a reliance on the particular frames we currently rely on (1996a: 26). the underlying themes of organisation development is therefore based on planned change, enhanced by self-renewal or organisational learning, focussed on changing the organisations’ culture, processes and structure by means of a system of action research (palmer & hardy, 2000: 173 174). the implementation of change activities within the sandf cannot be based on a theoretical measurement model only without integrating the model into the organisation’s strategic management process. in conclusion, it can be argued that no single organisational change model can therefore be used as the sole means to change the organisation, and change should be based on a combination of models and processes to attain the desired affect. furthermore, the effective use of data may contribute to management being able to make informed decisions to improve organisational performance. data analysis in performance improvement the rationale of data analysis is to capture both the strengths and the areas for improvement of the organisations involved in the implementation of excellence models. by analysing the areas for improvement, it may be possible to identify potential inhibiting practices that are commonly experienced within organisations. these inhibiting practices can be addressed in the intended model to minimise the effect of the inhibiting factors. reducing or minimising the impact of inhibiting factors an improvement in the organisation’s effectiveness could therefore be expected. this argument is based on the assumption that, contributing factors negatively impacting on processes are identified and eliminated through the implementation of a pro-active organisation development strategy. contributing factors are according to saef (saef book y2001/1, 2001: 3-4) obtained through a process of self-assessment (also referred to as ‘organisation assessment’, ‘quality fitness review’, ‘business management assessment’, and ‘quality value’). the factors contributing to ensure continuous performance improvement may furthermore, be defined as either strengths or positive factors, or negative factors, which are called ‘areas for improvement’ (saef y2001/1, 2001: 5 – 6). the south african excellence foundation refers to strengths within the enabler criteria as being a ‘systematic and prevention based approach’, with regular ‘reviews’ to be able to vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. implement ‘improvements’ into the ‘normal operations’ (saef y2001/ 1, 2001: 5-17). strengths within the results criteria may include concepts such as ‘positive trends’, ‘continuous good performance’, ‘understanding negative trends and taking appropriate action’, and the ‘ability to sustain its performance’ (saef y2001/1, 2001: 5-17). the term ‘areas for improvement’ is according to saef, activities that are not in place that are expected to be in place (bond, 2004: interview). areas for improvement also include phrases such as ‘not involved’, ‘not in place’, ‘no evidence’, and ‘not available’ (saef y2001/1, 2001: 6-17). bond (2004: interview) indicated that the process of identified ‘strengths’ and ‘areas for improvement’ are the critical areas to affect organisational effectiveness. according to bond (2004), the neglect of ‘strengths’ results in an ‘area for improvement’ and therefore negatively influences the organisation’s results. attending to, and rectification of ‘areas for improvement’ will conversely result in the increase of organisational effectiveness, better results and higher scores during evaluation. obtaining the results of the strengths in successful organisations will result in the identification of generic factors, linked to the specific criteria that could probably contribute, if implemented by other organisations, to continuous improvement strategy. strengths can also be utilised as benchmarking factors, against which other less successful organisations can measure themselves in order to implement them as part of their organisation development process. however, benchmarking and the identification of ‘areas for improvement’ could result in measures instituted by the observing organisations, to prevent ineffectiveness and processes that prevent ‘continues performance improvement’. the value of benchmarking is to maximise best practices, but also to reveal the factors that prevent the organisation from being even more effective (basson, 2004: interview). the dilemma of benchmarking is that some organisations tend to present or produce only the information that will improve their perceived image (eksteen, 2004: interview). this is normally done by means of favourable feedback from customers or suppliers, presented on public display areas such as general notice boards (brand, 2006: interview). the principal problems are seldom displayed, resulting in the presentation of a distorted view of the organisation to external observers (eksteen, 2004: interview). the most probable solution to address continues performance improvement in the sandf, is to establish a centralised directorate to monitor the performance in the department of defence. this directorate could function to augment the inspection function conducted by the inspector generals. the purpose will be to identify trends in the performance of the respective sandf services and to provide advice on how to address the deviations from the planned objectives. the benefit of establishing such a directorate is to overcome the tendency perfomance improvement in the sandf 72 to rely entirely on individuals residing on units to ‘drive’ performance and effectiveness. the transfer of individuals from these units will not result in the collapse of the performance ‘drive’ but will ensure that continuity will be retained. the basis of this directorate is to place motivated performance oriented personnel, passionate about excellence in this directorate and to transfer individuals who are passionate about performance improvement to the directorate. performance excellence is an essential element of a long-term organisation strategy and should not be based on the premise that ‘principles” of excellence will ensure excellent performance. the neglect of ‘strengths’ could result in these strengths reverting to ‘areas for improvement’. the sandf have excellent processes in place to ensure continues performance improvement; however, failing to effectively manage these processes, will result in a failure to improve and perform. excellence should not be managed as an ‘over-and-above’ task, but should form an intrinsic part of the management task and processes. conclusion since 1997, when the south african central public sector identified the value of improving service delivery to the south african public by introducing the batho pele principles, no visible and lasting improvement in excellence was observed. the saaf and later the remainder of the sandf initially implemented the efqm model and later the saef model, to manage and improve organisation effectiveness; however, similar to the central public sector, no visible or continued performance improvement is observed. the failure of the majority of sandf departments, bases and units, to persevere with continuous performance improvement, could be attributed to a ‘missing link’ within the overall organisation improvement process. this was probably due to the absence of an integrated process to complete organisation measurement and the ensuing results with a process to address and improve the areas identified for improvement. the missing link was not the direct result of ignorance by management, but may be attributed to the fact that the majority of the literature does not clearly address the complete process of measure, analyse, change, implement and measure. the missing link in the process could be ascribed to the failure to include the respective business and management processes as part of an integrated organisation development process. research in continuous performance improvement in the sandf focussed on obtaining information from various private and public sector organisations with regard to their successes and/or failures vermaak & fourie td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. during the implementation of the saef model. the analyses of the information attempted to observe specific generic issues/ problems/ elements that can be used as the basis to develop an integrated process to ensure continuous improvement in the sandf. essentially the integrated model, suggested for use in the sandf, will embed specific intervention processes that can be utilised to minimise potential pitfalls during the public sector implementation process. important issues to understand include: the reasons for success and/or failure; the organisation development process; and the functioning of the saef model and knowledge regarding these elements, could probably contribute to the development of an integrated organisation development model for the sandf. the integrated model could then be implemented to support continuous performance improvement and excellent service delivery to the south african public. however, the fundamentals of sandf excellence highlight a concern regarding the reliance on individual members to drive excellence. excellence in the sandf should be based in a central directorate, manned by sandf personnel who are passionate about excellence. the principle of this concept will allow the free rotation of individuals through this directorate, but without causing the central theme – excellence – being omitted or depleted. furthermore, this approach will not replace the inspectorate function, but simply augment it to ensure continuous performance improvement in the sandf. list of references literature argyris, c. & schon, d. 1978. organizational 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t., viedge, c. & werner, a. 2003. organisational behaviour: a contemporary south african perspective. pretoria: van schaik publishers. siegal, w.e.a. 1996. understanding the management of change: an overview of managers’ perspectives and assumptions in the 1990’s. journal of organizational change management, 9 (6): 54 – 80. smit, p.j. & cronje, g.j. de j. 1999. management principles – a contemporary edition for africa (2nd edition). kenwyn: juta & co, ltd. thompson, a.a. & strickland, a.j. 2001. strategic management – concepts and cases (12th edition). singapore: mcgraw-hill. interviews basson, j. 2004. interview conducted with mr johan basson in his capacity of the chairman of the south african excellence foundation on the establishment and practices of the foundation. pretoria: csir. bond, w.e. 2004. an interview with mr weldon bond of the ideas management group to determine the views of the south african excellence foundation on the south african public sector effectiveness as a result of the implementation of the saef model for excellence. pretoria. brand, r.c. 2006. interview following a presentation by colonel brand to the joint senior command and staff programme 2006 on his views regarding the effectiveness and successes of the dod strategic direction process. pretoria: sanwc. eksteen, c.d. 2004. an interview with brigadier general eksteen in his capacity as the saaf inspector general regarding the continuous performance improvement in the south african air force. pretoria: saaf hq. hartogh, w.j. 2004. interview with brigadier general hartogh in his capacity as the former officer commanding of air force base louis trichardt (makhado) regarding the implementation and successes of the base after implementing the saem on the unit. pretoria: saaf hq. huysamen, j.j. 2006. information obtained from a presentation by colonel kobus huysamen in his capacity as the acting director strategy for the dod regarding the link between strategy, planning, controlling and measurement of performance in the department of defence. pretoria: dhq. janssen, b.r. 2006. interview with colonel bob janssen in his capacity as the sso military strategy for the sandf on strategy improvement in the sandf based on results obtained from services as a result of the implementation of the saem in the respective sandf services. pretoria: sanwc. luck, a.d. 2006. information obtained during a presentation by brigadier general luck in his capacity as the deputy director manpower utilisation for the department of defence, to the learners of the joint senior command and staff programme at the south african national war college, on training and development in the south african national defence force. pretoria: sanwc. mann, e. 2006. presentation by brigadier general mann in his capacity as the former director planning and strategy at defence headquarters on the effect of the dod strategic direction process and the benefits associated with performance improvement in the south african national defence force. pretoria: sa defence college. oschmann, k. 2001. presentation by colonel kosie oschmann during the launching of saem in the saaf on improving performance in the south african air force. pretoria: saaf hq. norris, g. 2001. presentation to the south african air force by mr geoff norris uk director of public sector services bqc performance management ltd. pretoria: saaf hq. prinsloo, s.l. 2004. interview with brigadier general prinsloo (retired) in his capacity as advisor to the director integrated military management services at dhq on excellence and continuous td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 53-78. performance improvement in the south african national defence force. pretoria: dhq. viljoen, h. 2001. an interview with ms hettie viljoen after her presentation to the saaf during the launch of the saem in the saaf in may 2001 regarding the benefits encountered in continuous improvement after implementation of the saem at the company. pretoria: saaf hq. reports argyris, c. and schon, d. 1978. organizational learning: a theory of action perspective. addison-wesley: reading, ma. baker, t. b. 2000. the new employment co-dependency. management today, october 2000. department of defence annual report – 2003/2004. formeset printers cape. easterby-smith, m. 1997. disciplines of organizational learning: contributions and critique. human relations 50 (9). gagiano, c. 2001. views and implementation methodology expressed by brigadier general gagiano in his capacity of the inspector general for the saaf regarding the implementation of the saem in the south african air force. pretoria: saaf hq. harvard business review on leadership at the top. harvard business school press, 2003. harvard business school publishing press. ulrich, d. 2000. creating the future, executive excellence. provo, july 2000. volcker, p.a. 2003. urgent business for america: revitalizing the federal government for the 21st century: report of the national commission on the public service, washington, dc: brookings institution, january 2003. van den heever, e. 2000. award recognises performance in all facets of a business. saef business excellence report, first quarter 2001. training manuals book y2001, 2001. excellence model application training guide for performance excellence & self-assessment – book number 1. south african excellence foundation. book y2001/1, 2001. general guidelines for public sector performance excellence self-assessment book number 2. south african excellence foundation. saaf book 1, 2003. excellence and self-assessment course training guide for the south african air force. pretoria: copyright saef paper printers. government acts and policiesm republic of south africa. 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa act, 108 of 1996. jutastat, electronic publications: south african statutes – issn no: 1017 1185. republic of south africa. 2002. defence act, 42 of 2002. jutastat, electronic publications: south african statutes – issn no: 1017 1185. republic of south africa. 2002. public service act, 103 of 1994). jutastat, electronic publications: south african statutes – issn no: 1017 1185. republic of south africa. 2002. public finance management act, 1 of 1999. jutastat, electronic publications: south african statutes – issn no: 1017 1185. republic of south africa. 2005. treasury regulations (march 2005). republic of south africa. government gazette (notice 1459 of 1997). department of defence instruction: policy and planning no 24/2000. the continuous performance improvement programme of the department of defence. pretoria: apsc. south african air force instruction (mri:007775), 2000. total quality management. pretoria: apsc. department of defence instruction: chief of corporate staff: number 1/2001 department of defence joint general publication: jgp 201 (edition 2). pretoria: apsc. frazer-moleketi, g. 2005. news report on sabc news in february 2005 on the problems associated with the performance levels of public service personnel specifically referring to the noncompliance with the batho pele principles. sabc news – february 2005. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 145 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 145-164 dr. albert hertzog se bemoeienis met die mynwerkersunie wessel visser* opsomming: in 1975 het dan o’meara die boek van l naudé, dr a. hertzog, die nasionale party en die mynwerkers, vir die south african labour bulletin geresenseer. daarin bespreek o’meara die stryd en motiewe van die afrikaner politieke en kulturele elite om ‘n afrikaner-nasionalisties-georiënteerde leierskap teen 1948 in beheer van die mynwerkersunie (mwu) te stel. resente navorsing, gebaseer op ‘n in diepte studie van die hertzog-versameling by die instituut vir eietydse geskiedenis in bloemfontein, asook ander dokumente, het hertzog se verdere intieme betrokkenheid by hierdie vakbond in die post1948 periode aan die lig gebring. aantygings van korrupsie teen die mwu se hoofsekretaris, daan ellis, het tot smeerveldtogte, mosies van wantroue en kommissies van ondersoek na korrupsieklagtes en wanbestuur aanleiding gegee. dit het ‘n onverkwiklike magstryd tussen pj visser, die president van die mwu, en ellis tot gevolg gehad. hertzog was ten nouste daarby betrokke. hertzog en lede van die afrikaner politiekeen kulturele-elíte was besorg dat die twis en onmin binne die vakbond uiteindelik die beeld van die mwu by blanke mynwerkers, en afrikanermynwerkers in die besonder, kon benadeel wat op sý beurt weer polities ‘n negatiewe gevolge vir die np by die stembus kon inhou. daarom sou hertzog probeer om met die bestuur van die vakbond in te meng en selfs lede van die afrikaner broederbond het gepoog om die magstryd binne die mwu te ontlont. hierdie artikel poog om ‘n aspek van die politieke lewe van dr. albert hertzog te belig, aangesien daar nog geen deurtastende wetenskaplike historiese ondersoek na die politieke lewe van hierdie omstrede figuur in die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis gedoen is nie. trefwoorde: albert hertzog, mywerkersunie, vakbondwese in suidafrika, nasionale party, afrikanernasionalisme, arbeid 1. inleiding in 1975 het die revisionistiese historikus, dan o’meara, die boek van louis naudé, dr. a. hertzog, die nasionale party en die mynwerkers� vir die south african labour bulletin geresenseer. in breë trekke handel die boek oor hertzog se betrokkenheid by die intense stryd om die * dr wessel visser is verbonde aan die departement geskiedenis aan die universiteit van stellenbosch. die artikel is gebaseer op ‘n navorsingsprojek deur die skrywer oor die geskiedenis van die mynwerkersunie wat eersdaags in boekvorm verskyn. 1 pretoria: nasionale raad van trustees, 1969. “louis naudé” is die pseudoniem vir beaumont schoeman, wat aanvanklik die assistent-redakteur van die konserwatiewe, nasionaalgesinde perskor-koerant hoofstad was en wat later die redakteur van die afrikaner, die lyfblad van dr. hertzog se herstigte nasionale party, geword het. visser 146 politieke beheer van die mynwerkersunie (mwu) gedurende die dertiger en veertigerjare van die twintigste eeu. dit speel af teen die agtergrond van die opwelling van afrikanernasionalisme, korrupsie en wanadministrasie in die vakbondbestuur, pogings van die afrikaner-elite om die afrikanermynwerkers polities te betrek ten einde ‘n verkiesingsoorwinning vir die nasionale party (np) in 1948 te realiseer en om uiteindelik ook ‘n pro-np-beheer van die mwu te bewerkstellig. volgens o’meara is die boek die verhaal van ‘n blatante poging deur afrikanerorganisasies soos die np, die afrikaner broederbond (ab) en hertzog se nasionale raad van trustees (nrt) om die afrikanerwerkers van hulle werkersklassolidariteit met werkersorganisasies soos die suid-afrikaanse arbeidersparty en die south african trades and labour council te “speen” en hulle dan tot die ekonomiese voordeel van afrikanerelíte-belange in ‘n monolitiese afrikanernasionalisme te mobiliseer. o’meara staan krities teenoor die feit dat die boek baie subjektief en eensydig geskryf is as ‘n rasionaal vir hertzog se bemoeienis by die mwu ter wille van die toendertydse afrikanerpolitiek.2 ook linda de kock, in haar die ma-verhandeling, “die stryd van die afrikaner in die suid-afrikaanse mynwerkersunie aan die witwatersrand, 1936-1948”3 ondersoek onder andere hertzog se aandeel aan die mwu se betrokkenheid by afrikanernasionalisme in die genoemde periode. hierdie werke skep die indruk dat hertzog se bemoeienis met die vakbond eindig met ‘n np-gesinde bewindsoorname van die mwu se uitvoerende bestuur teen die einde van 1948. nuwe navorsing vanuit die jam hertzogversameling by die instituut vir eietydse geskiedenis (ineg) aan die universiteit van die vrystaat dui egter daarop dat hertzog tot ongeveer 1951 aktief by die vakbond betrokke sou bly en ook daarna sporadies met die vakbondbestuur en die mynwerkers kontak behou het. hertzog se aktiewe betrokkenheid by die mwu tussen 1948 en 1950, die redes vir sy amptelike onttrekking daaraan, asook sy verdere bemoeienis met die vakbond word in hierdie artikel bespreek. 2. albert hertzog en die hoek-kommissie van ondersoek reeds met die bewindsaanvaarding van die nuwe np-gesinde mwuuitvoerende bestuur het hertzog, wat nooit self ‘n mynwerker was nie, ‘n besondere prominente leiersposisie in die strukture van die vakbond beklee. so het hy in 1949 die voorsitter van die werkerspers uitgewers maatskappy (edms.) bpk. geword – die nuwe maatskappy wat gestig is om onder andere die mynwerker, die lyfblad van die mwu, uit te � dan o’meara: “white trade unionism, political power and afrikaner nationalism” (south african labour bulletin, 1/10, 1975, pp. 31-51). 3 rau, 1991. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 147 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 gee.4 in dieselfde jaar het die vakbond se eie groeplewensskema en lewensversekeringsmaatskappy, die monument assuransie korporasie, beperk, tot stand gebring. hertzog was ook ‘n direksielid daarvan.5 kort nadat die nuwe uitvoerende bestuur die beheer van die mwu oorgeneem het, was daar, volgens koerantberigte, sprake dat ‘n nuwe werkersparty, die sogenaamde “nasionale werkersparty”, met die oog op “doelbewuste politieke aksie in belang van die werkers” in die plek van die kwynende suid-afrikaanse arbeidersparty (saap) gestig sou word.6 in wat as ‘n vernuftige stukkie politieke voetwerk beskou kan word, het die nasionaalgesinde mwu-bestuur vir albert hertzog, die nuwe np-lv vir ermelo, as gasspreker genooi om die 1949-jaarvergadering van die vakbond se algemene raad toe te spreek. alreeds in januarie daardie jaar is sy nooienstoespraak in die parlement, waarin hy die hervormingsgesinde mynwerkers se stryd om van die ou korrupte verenigde party en saapgesteunde vakbondbestuur ontslae te raak uiteengesit het, volledig in die mynwerker gepubliseer. tydens sy toespraak voor die mwu-algemene raad het hertzog, onder andere, voorgestel dat suid-afrika se minerale rykdom tot voordeel van sy (blanke) werkers ontgin moes word en dat die gouden steenkoolmyne tot voordeel van die staat genasionaliseer behoort te word.7 alhoewel hertzog se nasionaliseringsvoorstel ‘n verleentheid vir die npregering was en dit deur dr. d.f. malan, die eerste minister, en eric louw, die minister van mynwese, gerepudieer is dat sy standpunt nie die amptelike partybeleid verteenwoordig het nie,8 het dit die gewenste uitwerking gehad. nie net is enige sprake van die stigting van ‘n nuwe politieke werkersparty die nek ingeslaan nie, maar die algemene raad, wat hertzog as ‘n kampvegter vir die saak van die mynwerker beskou het, het hom ‘n ere-lid van die mwu gemaak. voorts het die algemene raad ‘n parlementêre groep, of sogenaamde “waaksaamheidskomitee” van nasionale lv’s, waarvan hertzog eweneens ‘n lid was, in die lewe geroep “om met die hoofbestuur van die nasionale party in verbinding te bly … vir die bevordering van die mynwerkers se belange”.9 4 ivan walker and ben weinbren: �000 casualties. a history of the trade unions and the labour movement in the union of south africa. johannesburg: satuc, 1961, p. ��1; e.s. sachs: the choice before south africa. london: turnstile press, 195�, p.186; alex hepple: trade unions in travail. johannesburg: prompt printing, 1953 [?], pp. 42-43. 5 “the monument insurance corpn. ltd” (die mynwerker, 29.11.1949, p. 9). 6 “hoofartikel” (die mynwerker, ��.4.1949, p. 7); “mineworkers’ union may form new political party (rand daily mail, �5.4.1949); “mineworkers and nats.” (the cape times, �1.6.1949); “mynwerkers net ontevrede met die regering” (die vaderland, 26.4.1949). 7 “…die volk wat sy werkers misken moet onder gaan…” (die mynwerker, 28.1.1949, pp. 7,10); “nasionalisering van myne” (die mynwerker, 22.4.1949, p. 9). 8 walker and weinbren: 2000 casualties, pp.��0-��1; hepple: trade unions in travail, p. 40; sachs: the choice before south africa, p. 92. 9 “nuwe groep in volksraad” (die mynwerker, ��.3.1949, p. 1); “nasionalisering van myne”, “m.w.u. en politiek” en “verslag aan algemene raad” (die mynwerker, 6.5.1949, pp.7-8,10); “parlementêre groep vir die mynwerkers” (die transvaler, 26.4.1949). visser 148 hoewel die bewindsoorname van die nuwe bestuur op politieke terrein ‘n tydperk van kalmte en stabiliteit in die vakbond sou inlui, het spoke van korrupsie, onreëlmatighede en twis tussen persoonlikhede, egter spoedig weer in mwu-geledere begin opdoem. ‘n nuwe uitgerekte twis en onverkwiklikheid het tussen jan gleisner, die redakteur van die mynwerker, paul visser, die mwu-president en albert hertzog aan die een kant, en daan ellis, die nuwe np-gesinde hoofsekretaris en sy uitvoerende bestuur aan die ander kant, uitgebreek. die oorsprong daarvan was beweringe van korrupsie en wanadministrasie teen ellis, ‘n feit wat verswyg word in naudé se werk oor die mwu.10 die goeie verhouding tussen hertzog en visser aan die een kant, en ellis aan die ander kant gedurende die twaalf jaar lange “hervormerstryd” om die beheer van die mwu, sou om ‘n aantal redes versuur. in die persoonlike dagboeke van hertzog aangaande sy verbintenis met die mynwerkers ontvou ‘n verhaal van die geleidelike verbrokkeling van die verhouding tussen hom en ellis wat aan verskeie faktore toe te skryf was. onderliggend daaraan was die konteks waarbinne hertzog sy posisie in en verhouding met die mwu beskou het. in die eerste plek het beide hertzog en ellis oor sterk persoonlikhede beskik wat maklik tot konfrontasie kon lei.11 ‘n sentrale faktor in die bepaling van die verhouding tussen hertzog en ellis was die feit dat eersgenoemde homself as die intellektuele en politieke voog en mentor van die (minder geletterde) afrikanermynwerker beskou het. baie van die mynwerkers het dit inderdaad self so ingesien. die afrikaner intellektuele en kulturele elite, soos verteenwoordig deur hertzog en die nrt, het spesifieke doelwitte aangaande die afrikanerwerker nagestreef. wat die mynwerkers betref, was dit hertzog se strewe om hulle “’n magtige faktor [te maak] wat leiding sal gee en wat ‘n bolwerk sal vorm teen die groot kapitalisme wat besig is om ons volk te oorrompel”. ten einde te verseker dat die “nasionale afrikanerdom” vir ‘n aansienlike tyd aan bewind sou bly, het die rol van afrikanerwerkers en die vakbonde vir hertzog van kardinale belang geraak. hy was van mening dat tensy “hierdie groot massa van werkers grootliks vir ons saak gewen word…die toekoms vir die afrikanervolk…vir goed verlore” was. volgens hom het die mwu, wat na ‘n verbete stryd uiteindelik vir die afrikanersaak “gewen” is en wat sonder sy toedoen nie moontlik sou wees nie, ‘n morele plig gehad om veral ‘n materiële bydrae te lewer ten einde ander vakbonde, soos dié vir klereen bouwerkers, te help “red” van die “verderflike” invloed van kommunisme en die daarmee gepaardgaande rasse-integrasie. sodoende 10 o’meara: “white trade unionism”, p. 33. 11 hepple: trade unions in travail, p. 41. die sogenaamde “hervormerstryd” verwys na die twaalfjaarlange stryd wat vanaf 1936 tot 1948 in die mwu geduur het om van die korrupte pro-verenigde party en pro-saap vakbondbesture van charles harris en bertie brodrick ontslae te raak. in die proses is as teenvoeter eers die afrikanerbond van mynwerkers (abm) en in 1938 die hervormingsorganisasie (kortweg die hervormers genoem) onder leiding van nrt gestig. sien in die verband naudé: dr. a. hertzog en de kock: “die stryd van die afrikaner”. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 149 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 sou daardie vakbonde ook vir die afrikanersaak en die np “oorwin” kon word. aangesien die hoofsekretaris so ‘n magtige en onaantasbare posisie in die mwu beklee het, het hertzog om bogenoemde redes gevoel dat die nrt “’n mate van beheer” oor die vakbond (en ook oor ander vakbonde) moes verkry aangesien sy bestaande “houvas” daaroor “kwesbaar” en “broos” was. vir hertzog was sodanige strategie “nooit ‘n sogenaamde magstrewe nie”, maar “’n noodsaaklikheid”. ‘n hoofsekretaris (soos ellis) het die vakbond se organisatoriese struktuur beheer en kon betaalde amptenare aanstel of ontslaan sodat hulle “feitlik instrumente in sy hand” was. deurdat hulle bang sou wees om die hoofsekretaris teë te gaan en dus maklik deur hom beïnvloed is om slegs sy bevele uit te voer, het hy so ook beheer oor die uitvoerende bestuur kon uitoefen om volgens sy wil op te tree. op sý beurt kon dit weer tot “magsmisbruik, finansiële wanbestuur en korrupsie” lei. ‘n “onafhanklike” hoofsekretaris was derhalwe vir hertzog se strategiese visie met die mwu ‘n probleem. daarom was dit vir hom belangrik om die mag van die hoofsekretaris “aan perke te lê” en sy eie magsinvloed in die vakbondbestuur te hê “om ‘n sekretaris te kan ontslaan of te kan skors” indien nodig. hertzog het, na aanleiding van die ondervinding met die korrupte harris-brodrick-besture gedurende die hervormerstryd, die mynwerkers klaarblyklik nie vertrou om hulleself te bestuur nie. dit blyk dat hy op verskeie wyses sy beheerstrategie oor die mwu-bestuur wou vestig deur middel van ‘n “klein adviserende komitee”, bestaande uit nrt-lede “wat feitlik alle besluite van belang sou neem”, en ‘n “besigheidsbestuurder” wat ellis moes “bystaan” en “leiding” aan hom moes verskaf, maar wat as die eintlike mag agter die troon moes optree. as “besigheidsbestuurder“ vir die mwu het hertzog schalk botha, ‘n lid van die nrt, in die oog gehad. daar hy alreeds met die oorwinning van die hervormingsgesindes in 1948 in die bestuur van die mwu as koningmaker opgetree het deur daan ellis tot hoofsekretaris verkies te kry, sou hertzog dit ook oorweeg om botha as nrt-lid en “hertzogman” as alternatief op die vakbondbestuur aangestel te kry. sodoende sou botha namens hertzog “beheer” oor ellis kon uitoefen toe die gerugte van onreëlmatighede in laasgenoemde se administrasie al hoe sterker begin raak het.12 12 instituut vir eietydse geskiedenis (hierna ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, februarie 1950, p.2693, mei 1950, p.2807, julie 1950, p.�901, augustus 1950, p.�99�; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, pp. 30�8-3030, 3036-3040, september 1950, pp. 3058, 3079, 308�-3083, oktober 1950, p. 3107, desember 1950, pp. 3�04-3�05; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/182: dagboek, maart 1951, pp. 3677-3678, mei 1951, p.3751, oktober 1951, pp. 3957-3959, 3961, 4061, 40664067; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/184, januarie-desember 195�, pp. 4367-4370, 4648; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/�09: dagboek, julie 1948, p. 490; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/210: dagboek, april 1949, p.571, november 1949, p. 705; transvaalse argiefbewaarplek (hierna tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.8: getuienis, vrae gestel aan mnr. gleisner, 4.8.1950, pp. 8-9. visser 150 ellis, daarenteen, wou al hoe meer onafhanklik in die mwu optree sonder inmenging deur politieke persoonlikhede soos hertzog, terwyl hertzog verwag het dat ellis sy “leiding” moes aanvaar en dit sou op sigself toenemend op ‘n botsing van standpunte neerkom. in sy dagboeke het hertzog verklaar dat “nadat die unie [deur hervormingsgesindes] ingeneem was, was ellis nie meer ons [nrt] amptenaar nie” en dat “ons…nie meer dieselfde mag oor ellis gehad [het] nie”. na sy bewindsaanvaarding het ellis byvoorbeeld nie meer die nrt uit eie inisiatief oor belangrike vakbondaangeleenthede geraadpleeg nie.13 ellis was klaarblyklik ook nie gediend met die baie publisiteit wat hertzog in verband met die mwu geniet het nie daar dit die indruk kon skep dat hy in terme van vakbondaangeleenthede deur hertzog in die skadu gestel is.14 ‘n verdere faktor wat tot ‘n versuring in die verhouding tussen hertzog en ellis bygedra het, was die toenemende wrywing wat algaande tussen ellis en jan gleisner oor die bestuur van die werkerspers en die mynwerker opgebou het. aangesien die werkerspers-maatskappy deur hertzog se inisiatief tot stand gekom het, het gleisner dit onder sy voogdyskap bestuur. gevolglik het ook die redaksionele beheer van die mynwerker by gleisner, en nie by ellis as uitvoerende hoof van die mwu nie, berus. dit het egter ‘n taktiese flater geblyk te wees. aangesien die vakbond elke maand sy aantal eksemplare van die mynwerker by die werkerspers-maatskappy gekoop het, het ellis gleisner se redaksionele onafhanklikheid oor mwubeleid probeer kniehalter deur die mwu-rekening maandeliks te laat te betaal of slegs ‘n gedeelte daarvan te vereffen. ten einde vas te stel of enige finansiële verliese ten opsigte van die uitgee van die mynwerker bewys kon word, het ellis op eie houtjie en sonder om vir gleisner te raadpleeg ouditeure aangestel om die werkerspers se state te ouditeer. bydraend tot die gespanne verhouding tussen gleisner en ellis was die feit dat eersgenoemde deur hertzog se toedoen as bestuurder van die werkerspers en redakteur van die mynwerker aangestel is en deur hom as onmisbaar beskou is in die konsolidering van die posisie van die mwu as ‘n nasionaal-georiënteerde vakbond en in die voortgesette stryd om ook die klereen bouwerkersvakbond te oorwin. onafhanklik van ellis en eerder lojaal aan hertzog, het gleisner boonop homself as ellis se intellektuele meerdere beskou. gleisner se inmenging in mwuadministratiewe aangeleenthede, wat buite sy jurisdiksie geval het, het ellis mateloos geïrriteer. daarom het ellis hom as ‘n bedreiging gesien en hom waarskynlik met professionele jaloesie en argwaan bejeën. ellis het die situasie dus algaande onhoudbaar vir gleisner gemaak wat ook tot frustrasie by hertzog gelei het, aangesien die oneffektiewe funksionering 13 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, desember 1950, pp. 3188-3189; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/18�: dagboek, mei 1951, pp. 3744,3746; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/184: dagboek, januarie-desember 195�, p. 4370; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/209: dagboek, julie 1948, p. 489; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/210, mei 1949, p. 600, augustus 1949, pp. 636-637. 14 ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, julie 1950, p. 2853. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 151 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 van die werkerspers ook sý ideaal van die verowering en beheer van die totale blanke vakbondwese in suid-afrika verydel het. in hierdie onverkwiklike atmosfeer van wedersydse afkeer het die verhouding tussen gleisner en ellis stapsgewys onherstelbaar verbrokkel.15 hertzog beweer ook in sy dagboeke dat dit eintlik ellis was wat agter die voorgenome poging gesit het om die sogenaamde “nasionale werkersparty” te stig.16 teen hierdie agtergrond het hertzog al hoe meer in ellis se motiewe, lojaliteit en opregtheid begin twyfel. ’n verdere faktor wat tot verwydering tussen die twee aanleiding sou gee, was die feit dat hertzog van mening was dat die mwu, as ’n vakbond wat reeds vir die saak van die afrikanerwerker “gered” was, ’n finansiële bydrae moes maak waarmee solly sachs, die vermaarde algemene sekretaris van die garment workers’ union en geswore vyand van die nrt, in die “klerewerkerstryd” beveg kon word. in hierdie verband het hertzog gedurig druk op ellis uitgeoefen om ’n ooreengekome bedrag van £10 000 te skenk waarvan ’n gedeelte aangewend sou word om die werkerspers in die vakbondstryd teen lasteraksies te dek. hertzog was aanvanklik onder die indruk dat die mwu hierdie bedrag jaarliks beskikbaar sou stel. hy was teleurgesteld toe ellis egter verklaar het dat dit slegs ‘n eenmalige skenking sou wees. voorts beweer hertzog in sy dagboeke dat ellis nooit entoesiasties oor hierdie stryd was nie. teen 1951 het die fondse vir die klereen bouwerkerstryd opgedroog. hierdie nrt-offensief moes dus gestaak word, waarvoor hertzog vir ellis kwalik geneem het.17 daarby het ellis onderneem dat die mwu £20 000 se aandele in monument 15 ibid., februarie 1950, pp.2694-2698, maart 1950, pp. 2701-2703, april 1950, pp.27312732, mei 1950, pp. 2774, 2778-2780, 2787, 2790-2791, 2797, 2808, junie 1950, pp. 2809-2810, julie 1950, pp. 2836, 2842-2844, 2853-2854, 2856, 2858, 2860-2862, �903, �905, �907-�908; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, pp. 2922�9�3, 3033, desember 1950, pp. 3191, 3193-3195; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, pp. 4074-4075, 4087-4089; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/208: dagboek, oktober 1947, pp. �34-�35; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/�10, april 1949, pp. 573, 580, 584-585; julie 1949, pp. 607-609, 636; augustus 1949, p. 640, oktober 1949, pp. 696-699, 701702. 16 ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, september 1950, p.3067, desember 1950, 3189; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, p. 4097; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/184: dagboek, januarie-desember 195�, p. 4370; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/210: dagboek, april 1949, pp.571-572. hertzog beweer in sy dagboeke dat hy ellis beweeg het om van die plan af te sien en dit toe stil gehou het van die np en die mynwerkers. geen ander inligting wat hierdie stelling bevestig of weerlê, kon opgespoor word nie. 17 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, januarie 1950, p.2662, februarie 1950, pp. 2663-2664, 2692, 2697, maart 1950, pp. 2704, 2707, april 1950, p. �739, mei 1950, pp. �777-�778, �780; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, desember 1951, pp. 4771-4173; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/184: dagboek, januarie-desember 195�, pp. 4370-4371; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/�09: dagboek, julie 1948, p. 490; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/�10: dagboek, april 1949, p.568. sien ook (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.6: aksiekomitee vakbondnotules 1950-1953, notule van ’n samespreking van belangstellendes, 4.4.1950, p.2 en notule van ’n vergadering van die uitvoerende komitee van die aksiekomitee i.v.m. die vakbondstryd, 17.11.1951, p.2. visser 152 assuransie sou opneem, maar volgens hertzog, het eersgenoemde slegs £5 000 as ’n lening aan die maatskappy beskikbaar gestel.18 klaarblyklik was ellis se sedelike gedrag ook nie altyd ewe onberispelik nie. dit het vir hertzog ’n ernstige morele dilemma geskep. laasgenoemde se dagboeke getuig van vele gerugte en beweringe oor ellis se voorliefde vir perdewedrenne (wat hom by implikasie in die skuld kon dompel en sodoende makliker vatbaar vir omkopery kon maak) en gevalle van oormatige drankgebruik deur hom word ook genoem. van ’n nog ernstiger aard was ’n aantal gerugte van sogenaamde “immoraliteit” wat waarskynlik op seksuele teistering van sekere van die damespersoneel in die mwu-hoofkantoor neergekom het.19 die stap wat egter as ’n snelleraksie tot die verbrokkeling van die verhouding tussen hertzog, visser en gleisner enersyds, en ellis en sommige lede van sy uitvoerende bestuur andersyds, sou lei en uiteindelik op openlike vyandskap tussen die partye sou afstuur, was ‘n brief wat gleisner in junie 1949 aan ellis gerig het. daarin het gleisner, wat homself as ‘n morele en toesighoudende gewete van die mwu beskou het, ‘n aantal beskuldigings teen ellis gerig. gleisner was onder andere uiters besorg oor die langtermyn beleggingstrategie wat ellis met die mwu se fondse gevolg het. ellis het byvoorbeeld groot bedrae geld uitgeleen aan kliënte vir die aankoop van onontwikkelde grond waarvan die waarde spekulatief was. sou die mwu deur een of ander finansiële krisis getref word, sou dit nie moontlik wees om hierdie bates onmiddellik likied te maak nie wat dit dus ’n uiters riskante belegging gemaak het. een van hierdie kliënte was glo dr. fj kritzinger, ’n omstrede witwatersrandse eiendomsagent.20 in ’n brief aan albert hertzog in desember 1949 het gleisner ernstiger aantygings gemaak as sou ellis hom aan omkopery tydens die aankoop van ’n gebou as nuwe hoofkwartier vir die mwu skuldig gemaak het 18 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, november 1950, p.3139. 19 ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, april 1950, p.2744, mei 1950, pp.2771-2772,2774�775,�778, julie 1950, pp.�873-�874; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, julie 1950, p.�915, desember 1950, p.3193; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/182: dagboek, maart 1951, p.3684, april 1951, p.3707, mei 1951, p.3750; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, p.4�0�; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/184: dagboek, desember 195�, pp.46�6-46�7; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/186: dagboek, november 1953, p.5354. 20 (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.8: getuienis, korrespondensiestukke, j gleisner – de ellis, �5.6.1949; ibid., vol.8: getuienis, verdere verklaring van mnr. d ellis, 16.8.1950, vrae gestel aan mnr. gleisner, 4.8.1950, pp.3-8,10-12,25,29-33,5165 en extract from letter to dr. a hertzog, 13.7.1949; (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzogversameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, april 1950, pp.2743,2747-2748, mei 1950, p.�80�; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/18�: dagboek, maart 1951, pp.3687-3688; ibid., 4/1/210: dagboek, mei 1949, pp.595,600,606,717. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 153 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 en waardeur dr. kritzinger ’n buitensporige kommissie verdien het.21 gerugte oor onreëlmatighede in die aankoopproses van ’n eie gebou vir die mwu het ook in mynwerkersgeledere versprei. vir hertzog, wat soos reeds genoem gaandeweg al hoe meer aan ellis se integriteit begin twyfel het, het hierdie gerugte eweneens ‘n ernstige morele dilemma en politieke implikasies ingehou. ten eerste sou dieselfde beskuldigings van korrupsie en wanbesteding van fondse, wat die hervormers in hulle stryd teen die verenigde partyen saap-gesinde mwu-besture tydens die harrisbrodrick-era as aanvalswapen gebruik het, nou teen ‘n nasionaalgesinde mwu-bestuur gebruik kon word. dit was juis die nasionaliste wat, toe hulle nog gepoog het om die beheer van die vakbond oor te neem, deugde soos eerlike bestuurspraktyke en skoon administrasie so hoog opgegee het. hertzog was bevrees dat enige sprake van (hernude) korrupsie in die vakbond “waarskynlik die end van ons [die nrt se] seggenskap” in die mwu sou beteken en dat “daar miskien weer ’n nuwe groep en vyande van die afrikaner aan bewind van sake [kon] kom”.22 ten einde skadebeheer te probeer toepas en die “posisie te red” alvorens die vp-opposisie tot nadeel van die reputasie van die np daaruit munt sou kon slaan, was dit hertzog se voorneme om die omkoopbeweringe deur ’n interne kommissie van die mwu te laat ondersoek – ’n strategie wat ook die goedkeuring van paul visser, die mwu-president, weggedra het. om so ’n ondersoekkommissie te loods en bestuur, sou hertzog egter op die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur gekoöpteer moes word en het hy gevolglik aanhoudend druk op ellis begin plaas om die vakbond se grondwet dienooreenkomstig te wysig. alhoewel ellis by verskeie geleenthede te kenne gegee het dat hy ’n openbare ondersoek na die omkoopbeweringe sou verwelkom, het hy deur vertragingstaktiek dit so ver as moontlik probeer verhinder dat hertzog op die bestuur beland. ellis het ook geen 21 (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.8: getuienis, korrespondensiestukke, j gleisner – a hertzog, 10.1�.1949; ibid., vol.8: getuienis, verdere verklaring van mnr. d ellis, 16.8.1950 en vrae gestel aan mnr. gleisner, 4.8.1950, pp.13-�6; (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, februarie 1950, p.�694; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, oktober 1950, p.3100, desember 1950, p.3191; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/210: dagboek, desember 1949, p.712. 22 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, januarie 1950, pp.2655-2657, februarie 1950, p. 2670, maart 1950, p.2699, april 1950, p.2743, mei 1950, p.�780, julie 1950, pp.�858,�869,�87�,�883,�901; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, pp.300�-3003, 3007-3008, september 1950, p.3045, desember 1950, p. 3191; ibid., 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, p.407, desember 1951, pp. 4171, 4173; ibid., lêer nr. 1/�66/7/�9: j gleisner, accusation against de ellis, �9.8.1950, p.�; (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.8, getuienis: verdere verklaring van mnr. ellis, 16.8.1950 en vrae gestel aan mnr. gleisner, 4.8.1950, pp. 24-27. visser 154 poging uit eie inisiatief aangewend om die departement van arbeid vir ’n amptelike ondersoek te nader nie.23 alhoewel daar teenstrydige verklarings bestaan oor die omstandighede waaronder dit plaasgevind het, blyk dit dat hertzog, na volgehoue druk, uiteindelik daarin geslaag het om die mwu-grondwet te laat wysig en deur die nywerheidsregistrateur goedgekeur te kry sodat hy op die vakbond se uitvoerende bestuur gekoöpteer kon word. vanuit sy dagboekinskrywings blyk dit dat, ten einde beheer oor die ondersoekproses te kon uitoefen, dit sy strategie was om ’n mwu-komitee, bestaande uit uitvoerende bestuurslede, maar sonder betaalde amptenare soos ellis en sy organiserende sekretaris er van rensburg, aan te stel. hierdie komitee sou lede vir ’n privaat kommissie van ondersoek selekteer en daardie kommissie sou sy verslag aan die “hertzog-komitee” lewer wat op sý beurt weer op die mees geskikte optrede sou besluit. sodoende het hertzog gepoog om skade aan die mwu se beeld na buite tot die minimum te beperk. hertzog verklaar dat daar met ellis gereël is dat ’n uitvoerende bestuursvergadering vir saterdag �� julie 1950 belê sou word waartydens eersgenoemde op die mwu-bestuur gekoöpteer moes word. hertzog het ook in ’n voorbedagte strategie met paul visser ooreengekom om in die omgewing van die vakbond se hoofkwartier te wag totdat sy nominasie aan die bestuursvergadering voorgelê is. daarna sou visser hom laat haal. tydens die besondere vergadering was ellis egter op besoek aan buitemyne by sabie, pelgrimsrus en gravelotte en het agterna verklaar dat die afstand dit vir hom onmoontlik gemaak het om die byeenkoms betyds by te woon. hoe dit ook al sy, nadat hertzog op die bestuur gekoöpteer is, is daar met die klaarblyklike goedkeuring van al die lede teenwoordig voortgegaan om die korrupsiebewerings in ellis se afwesigheid te bespreek.24 tydens die genoemde bestuursvergadering is ’n sogenaamde “dagbestuur” of “hoofkomitee”, bestaande uit die alomteenwoordige dr. albert hertzog, paul visser, pj calitz en hh de villiers, aangestel wat die ondersoekproses sou inisieer en bestuur. ten einde te verhoed dat ellis of van rensburg 23 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, januarie 1950, pp. 2656, 2662, februarie 1950, pp. 2666-2667, 2696, maart 1950, p. 2700, mei 1950, pp. 2793-2794, 2798, 2803-2806, 2808, julie 1950, pp. 2833, 2849-2852, 2857, �859-�860, �868-�869, �884-�886, �89�-�893, �895,�900, augustus 1950, p. �995; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, p. 3006, september 1950, pp.30593060,3067, desember 1950, pp. 3191, 3193, 3196-3197; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, pp. 4071-407�; (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.7, lêer iii: getuienis, mynwerkersunie besprekings en ondervragings op �5 julie 1950; ibid., vol.8: getuienis: getuienis afgelê deur mnr. de ellis, p.22, verdere verklaring van mnr. d ellis, 16.8.1950 en vrae gestel aan mnr. gleisner, 4.8.1950, p. 24. 24 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, julie 1950, pp. �866, �870, �873, �884-�885, �89�-�895, �898; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, pp.3007-3008, oktober 1950, p. 3114; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, p. 407�; (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.8: getuienis, verdere verklaring van mnr. d ellis; sheila patterson: the last trek. a study of the boer people and the afrikaner nation. london: routledge & kegan paul ltd., 1957, p. 157. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 155 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 die werksaamhede van die kommissie aan bande lê of verydel, is onder hertzog se aanbeveling onafhanklike mag aan die dagbestuur verleen om op eie inisiatief te vergader en te verdaag, terwyl alle vergaderings van die uitvoerende bestuur tydelik opgeskort is. daar is ook genotuleer dat die dagbestuur aangestel is “om toesig oor die [hoof]sekretaris en sake van die unie te hou … terwyl die ondersoek hangende is”. die voorsitter van die kommissie wat aangestel is om die omkoopaantygings binne die mwu te ondersoek, die sogenaamde hoek-kommissie van ondersoek, was prof. pw hoek van die ouditeursfirma hoek, wiehahn en vennote – dieselfde firma wat die vakbond se state geoudit het. die ander lede van die kommissie was schalk botha, ’n hertzog-vertroueling en nrt-lid, en wf van der merwe, ’n regsgeleerde van pretoria. beide hoek en botha was nes hertzog ook lede van die ab.25 die doel met die aanstelling van die hoek-kommissie was om die aankoopprosedure van die transafrika-gebou in johannesburg as nuwe hoofkantoor van die mwu te ondersoek en die bevindings van die ondersoek aan die uitvoerende komitee van die vakbond te rapporteer. ondersoek moes ingestel word na gerugte dat die hoofsekretaris van die mwu deur dr. fj kritzinger omgekoop is om die spesifieke gebou aan te koop, asook na beweringe dat die transafrika-gebou teen ’n té hoë prys aangekoop is.26 in die uitgawe van die mynwerker waarin die aanstelling van die hoek-kommissie bekend gemaak is, is onder die opskrif “m.w.u. turns to dr. hertzog for leadership” verklaar: the executive’s decision to elect dr hertzog as a member, was prompted by the realization that the presence of the leader at the time when the most far-reaching decisions have to be made, is indispensable…a firm hand and leadership are the demands of the hour.27 waar die verhouding tussen die hertzogen ellis-groeperinge alreeds vooraf gespanne was, het hierdie taktlose en gewraakte uiting deur gleisner in die mwu-mondstuk, tesame met die besluit om die hoek-kommissie en die toesighoudende “hertzog-dagbestuur” in ellis se afwesigheid aan te stel, ook ’n taktiese flater geblyk te wees en was die vet tussen die twee partye daarna behoorlik in die vuur. daardeur het hertzog klaarblyklik sy hand oorspeel. dit is duidelik dat ellis dit as ’n poging tot usurpasie van sy mag in die mwu beskou het en verklaar het dat hy “on the war path” was. hy het nie genoeë geneem “met die polisie wat aangestel was om hom op te pas nie”. van toe af het hy in toenemende mate vir hertzog, 25 mwu-argief, notule van ’n spesiale uitvoerende bestuursvergadering, ��.7.1950, pp.1-�; (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, julie 1950, pp. �895-�899; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, pp. 4072-4073, november 1951, p.4117; “e.c. appoints commission to investigate purchase of m.w.u. building” (die mynwerker, 18.8.1950, p.1). 26 (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.7, lêer i: verslag van die kommissie van ondersoek aangestel deur die mynwerkersunie by ’n spesiale vergadering op �� julie 1950 om ondersoek te doen aangaande die aankoop van transafrika-gebou, pp. 1-2,4. 27 “m.w.u turns to dr. hertzog for leadership” (die mynwerker, 18.8.1950, p.1). visser 156 visser en gleisner daarvan beskuldig dat hulle met die kommissie van ondersoek ’n sameswering teen hom beplan het.28 ellis se eerste vergeldingstap, om sy gesag in die mwu te herwin, word weerspieël in die agenda vir die mwu-bestuursvergadering van 22 augustus 1950. onder andere sou die volgende punte behandel word, naamlik dat: die dagbestuur afgeskaf word; die hoofsekretaris gemagtig word om ’n uitgawe van die mynwerker in samewerking met die perskomitee uit te bring waarin die beleid van die uitvoerende bestuur baie duidelik gestel word in verband met die artikel aangaande dr. hertzog se leierskap wat in die blad se vorige uitgawe verskyn het; die hoofsekretaris die uitgee van die mynwerker en die funksies van die dagbestuur oorneem; en die uitvoerende bestuur die direksie van die werkerspers versoek om die dienste van jan gleisner onmiddellik te beëindig.29 tydens die betrokke bestuursvergadering is die daad by die woord gevoeg. gleisner is summier as bestuurder van die werkerspers en redakteur van die mynwerker afgedank en die dagbestuur is ontbind.30 die uitgawe van die mynwerker van 25 augustus 1950 het in wese dan ook op ’n repudiëring van die uitgawe van 18 augustus neergekom. daarin is verklaar dat dr. albert hertzog nie verkies is om die leierskap van die mwu oor te neem nie, dat die “gewraakte” berig in die vorige uitgawe van alle waarheid ontbloot was, nie die ware toedrag van sake getrou weerspieël het nie en nie vooraf onder oë van die redaksionele komitee gekom het nie. die uitvoerende bestuur het die strekking van die berig, dat die mwu hom tot hertzog gewend het om die leierskap van die vakbond oor te neem, as ’n klap in die gesig van die mynwerkersgemeenskap beskou omdat dit sou impliseer dat in die mynwerkersgeledere niemand was wat daartoe in staat was om die leiding te neem nie. verder is verklaar dat hertzog se verkiesing tot die uitvoerende bestuur, in die lig waarin dit in die betrokke berig gestel is, geïnterpreteer sou kon word “as sou die unie besluit het om toe te tree tot die politieke arena”.31 in die komende maande het ellis en die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur, wat hulle geledere agter hom gesluit het, die posisies van hertzog en 28 (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.7, lêer iii: getuienis, mynwerkersunie besprekings en ondervragings op �5 julie 1950; ibid., vol.8: getuienis, verdere verklaring van mnr. d ellis, 16.8.1950; mwu-argief, notule van buitengewone vergadering, ��.8.1950, pp. 1-�; (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, julie 1950, p. �900; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, julie 1950, p.2915, augustus 1950, pp. 2923-2924, 2926-2927, 2997-2999, 3006-3007, 3010, 3015, 3018-3019, oktober 1950, pp. 3100-3101, november 1950, p.3151, desember 1950, p. 3197. 29 mwu-argief, agenda vir ’n buitengewone bestuursvergadering, ��.8.1950; “belangrike besluite van die uitvoerende bestuur” (die mynwerker, 1.9.1950, p. 1). 30 mwu-argief, notule van buitengewone vergadering, ��.8.1950, p. �; “daar word tans ondersoek ingestel” (die mynwerker, �5.8.1950, p. 1); “werkerspers se bestuurder kry ontslag” (die mynwerker, 1.9.1950, p. 1). 31 “dr. hertzog se posisie in u.b” en “berig in vorige uitgawe mag wanindruk skep meen uitvoerende bestuur!” (die mynwerker, 25.8.1950, p. 1). albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 157 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 visser op die bestuur stelselmatig onverdraagsaam begin maak. die taktiek van sekere lede van die uitvoerende bestuur was om tydens bestuursvergaderings ’n mosie van wantroue in visser te stel en sodoende te eis dat hy as mwu-president bedank. hy is deur middel van ’n wysiging van die mwu-grondwet stelselmatig uitgeskuif en oningelig gehou van alle belangrike mwu-komitees en onderhandelings wat die vakbond aangegaan het. ’n mosie van wantroue is aanvanklik ook in hertzog se posisie op die uitvoerende bestuur gestel, maar dit is weer teruggetrek. daarby het verskeie berigte in die pers verskyn oor mosies van wantroue in hertzog en visser wat vanuit distriksbesture van die mwu op sommige myne gestel is. ellis het ook beweer dat hy op aandrang van hertzog vir dr. malan moes oorreed om hertzog minister van arbeid te maak, dat hertzog ongewild en “uitgebak” in np-kringe was, dat hy homself wou red deur ’n magsoorname in die vakbonde te verkry om sy politieke doelwitte te bereik, en dat ellis namens hertzog die witwatersrandse afdelingsbestuur van die np moes “rysmier” deur mwuskagverteenwoordigers daarop aangestel te kry sodat hertzog beheer van die party op die rand kon oorneem. hertzog wou glo beheer oor die mwu kry sodat hy “druk op die mynwerkers kon uitoefen”.32 hertzog se vroeë profetiese waarskuwing, dat die intimidasie van gleisner met sy onstuimige persoonlikheid deur ellis daartoe sou lei dat hy “gaan terugslaan”, “met modder gaan gooi” en “gaan beswadder waar hy kan” sodat die skade “geweldig” gaan wees,33 is inderdaad bewaarheid. gleisner het geensins sy afdanking as bestuurder van die werkerspers en redakteur van die mynwerker gedweë aanvaar nie en het ’n eis van £1200 teen die werkerspers en £10 000 teen die mwu as skadevergoeding vir die voortydige beëindiging van sy kontrak en vir kwaadwillige naamskending ingestel.34 aangesien hy bang was dat die hoek-kommissie van ondersoek 32 sien bv. mwu-argief, notules van die maandelikse vergadering van die uitvoerende bestuur, 30.8.1950 tot 30.7.1951; (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, julie 1950, p. �906; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, pp. �977-�979, �98�, �996-�997, 3000, 3003-3005, 3009, 30�7, 3036, september 1950, pp.3058-3059,3078,3082, oktober 1950, pp. 3101, 3116, november 1950, pp. 3150-315�, desember 1950, pp. 3198-3�0�; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/182: dagboek, mei 1951, pp. 3746-3748, 3750, oktober 1951, pp. 4054-4055, 4057-4060, 4074, 40764077; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, p. 4073, 4085-4086; patterson: the last trek, p. 157; “o.f.s. miners say hertzog election will split ranks” (rand daily mail, �4.8.1950); “ellis asked malan to make a. hertzog minister of mines (rand daily mail, 19.3.1953); “free state miners hold meeting of protest” (the star, 9.8.1950); “information withheld on union president” (the argus, �7.4.1951); “visser’s evidence kept him in witness box for three days” (die mynwerker, 20.3.1953, p. 3). 33 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, p. 2927. 34 sentrale argief bewaarplek (hierna sab), archives of the supreme court of south africa, witwatersrand local division, file no. 974/56, illiquid case: jan gleisner versus mineworkers’ union, 195�-1953; “mnr. j. gleisner stel eis in teen werkerspers” (die mynwerker, 15.9.1950, p. 5). teen 1954 het die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur besluit om ingevolge ’n skikkingseis £750 aan gleisner te betaal. sien mwu-argief, notule van die uitvoerende bestuursrvergadering, 20.5.1954, p. 8. visser 158 dalk nie vir ellis aan korrupsie sou skuldig bevind nie, het gleisner die kommissielede per brief versoek om hulle ondersoek te staak, onder andere omdat hulle as private ondersoekkommissie geen geregtelike status gehad het nie.35 toe die hoek-kommissie nie aan gleisner se versoek om hulle ondersoek te staak gehoor gegee het nie, het hy hulle bevindinge vooruitgeloop deur ’n pamflet op die rand te versprei. daarin het hy die hele proses van die aankoop van ’n nuwe gebou vir die mwu, in wat hy as ’n korrupsieskandaal en “leuens” deur ellis beskou het, uiteengesit. ten einde ’n hofsaak te vermy wat die bevindinge van die hoek-kommissie voortydig tot skade van die mwu vooruit sou loop, het hoek, hertzog en ellis egter besluit om nie met regstappe daarop te reageer nie.36 maar ook albert hertzog se posisie op die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur het weens sy verslegtende verhouding met ellis onuithoudbaar geword. eers het faas de wet, die mwu-welvaartsbeampte en lojale ondersteuner van hertzog sedert die stryddae in die abm en die hervormingsorganisasie, hom versoek om dit ernstig te oorweeg om uit die bestuur te bedank. verder blyk dit dat die uitvoerende raad van die ab ook ongemaklik daarmee was dat hertzog as politikus hom met die bestuur van die mwu bemoei het. waar die hervormingsgesinde afrikaners voor die ellis-bestuur juis partypolitieke inmenging in die mwu beveg het, het dit met hertzog se intieme betrokkenheid daarby gelyk of hulle dit nou voorgestaan het. daarom was sommige lede van die uitvoerende raad van mening dat hertzog eerder moes bedank. teen hierdie agtergrond, en in die atmosfeer van vyandelikheid wat die ellis-kamp teen hom uitgestraal het, het hertzog gevolglik in september 1950 sy bedankingsbrief aan ellis oorhandig wat deur die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur aanvaar is.37 hertzog was egter steeds ’n erelid van die mwu en sou in daardie hoedanigheid voorlopig nog amptelik by die vakbond betrokke bly.38 te midde van die voortgesette twis tussen ellis en die “groot drie”, soos hy na hertzog, paul visser en jan gleisner verwys het,39 is die verslag van die hoek-kommissie van ondersoek uiteindelik teen die einde van november 1950 aan die mwu oorhandig. daarvolgens was die oorspronklike 35 (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.7, lêer iii: getuienis, j gleisner – p hoek, 29.8.1950, pp.1-2. 36 ibid., vol.7, lêer i: getuienis, gleisner-pamflet; (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, september 1950, pp.304�,3055,3069, desember 1950, pp. 3�0�-3�03; ibid., lêer nr. 1/�66/7/�9: j gleisner, accusation against de ellis, 29.8.1950, p. 4. 37 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, september 1950, pp. 3060, 3066, 3070-3078, 3081, oktober 1950, p. 3107, desember 1950, p.3�0�; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, p. 4073; mwu-argief, notule van die maandelikse vergadering van die uitvoerende bestuur, �6.9.1950, p. 5; patterson: the last trek, p. 157; “hertzog uit mynbondbestuur” (dagbreek en sondagnuus, 1.10.1950). 38 patterson: the last trek, p. 157. 39 “bly kalm” (die mynwerker, 13.4.1951, p. 3). albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 159 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 eienaars van die transafrika-gebou, dr. en mev. hg luttig, selfs bereid om die gebou teen £140 000 te verkoop, maar dit is uiteindelik deur die inisiatief van ellis vir £176 000 aan die mwu verkoop. kritzinger het as verkoopsagent ’n wins van £23 000 uit die transaksie gemaak. ellis, wat klaarblyklik van kritzinger se opsie om die transafrika-gebou vir die luttigs te verkoop, bewus was, asook die feit dat laasgenoemde die eintlike eienaars van die gebou was, het geen poging aangewend om dit teen ’n laer prys aan te koop nie, en het geen onafhanklike geswore waardasie laat doen om vas te stel of die koopprys ’n redelike prys in vergelyking met soortgelyke eiendomme in die omgewing was nie. die kommissie was van mening dat daar tekens van gebrek aan ’n gesonde finansiële beleid in die mwu te bespeur was “wat moontlik tot geldelike wanbestuur gelei het of mag lei”, maar kon nie tot ’n duidelike gevolgtrekking kom dat korrupsie bo alle twyfel gepleeg is nie. gevolglik het die hoek-kommissie van ondersoek aanbeveel dat die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur of die algemene raad dit sterk oorweeg om die minister van arbeid te versoek om ’n geregtelike kommissie van ondersoek na die transafrika-aankoop aan te stel.40 3. die geregtelike kommissie van ondersoek, 1951 waar albert hertzog nog gehoop het dat gleisner se pamflet aangaande die transafrika-korrupsie-aantygings en die status van die hoekkommissie weens laasgenoemde se ontoeganklikheid vir die media nie ’n groot trefwydte sou hê nie en derhalwe nie te veel skade aan die reputasie van die mwu sou aanrig nie,41 is sy grootste vrese egter bewaarheid toe die bom in maart 1951 in die openbaar gebars het. george sutter, die vp-lv vir springs, het die gleisner-pamflet, waarvan �000 eksemplare op die witwatersrand versprei is, in die parlement onthul en verklaar dat ellis nieteenstaande gleisner se krasse aantygings geen geregtelike stappe teen laasgenoemde vir laster gedoen het nie. gevolglik het hy die regering versoek om ’n kommissie van ondersoek na die hele transafrikaaangeleentheid in te stel. sutter het ook vir hertzog daarvan beskuldig dat hy met die aanstelling van die nie-amptelike hoek-kommissie van ondersoek die kwessie probeer toesmeer het.42 40 sien (ug) 5� – 1951 unie van suid-afrika: verslag van ondersoek insake die mynwerkersunie, pp. 3-7; (tab) a 1731 sj botha-versameling, vol.7, lêer i: verslag van die kommissie van ondersoek aangestel deur die mynwerkersunie by ’n spesiale vergadering op 22 julie 1950 om ondersoek te doen aangaande die aankoop van transafrika-gebou, pp. 4-52. 41 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, september 1950, pp. 3054, 3070. 42 ernst stals (red.): afrikaners in die goudstad. deel ii �924-�96�. pretoria: haum, 1986, p. 78; “geen bewyse van onwettige optrede” (die transvaler, 13.3.1951); “gleisnerpamflet in volksraad te berde” (die vaderland, 13.3.1951); “rand m.p. alleges mine union scandal” (rand daily mail, 13.3.1951); “more about affairs of miners’ union” (the cape times, 13.3.1951). visser 160 hertzog, wat heimlik met sutter saamgestem het in die sin dat hy ook van mening was dat ellis aan korrupsie skuldig was en dat daar teen hom opgetree behoort te word, het homself in die onbenydenswaardige posisie bevind om ellis en die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur in die parlement te verdedig ten einde sy eie reputasie, sowel as dié van die np en die hoekkommissie, te beskerm. hertzog het die hoek-kommissie verdedig deur te verklaar dat sou ’n lastersaak teen gleisner ingestel word dit slegs ’n aanvalsplatform aan die johannesburgse engelstalige pers sou bied om “gif” teen die mynwerkers en die afrikaners te versprei.43 sake het uiteindelik ’n wending geneem toe die verre-oos-randse distrikskomitee van die mwu, wat 2500 mynwerkers verteenwoordig het en waar paul visser se sterkste steunbasis gesetel was, die minister van arbeid versoek het om ’n geregtelike kommissie van ondersoek met ’n regter as lid na die transafrika-aankoop in te stel – dit nadat visser sodanige ondersoek tydens die maandelikse vergadering van die mwu-uitvoerende bestuur in maart 1951 voorgestel het, maar dit met ’n oorgrote meerderheid van stemme verslaan is. gevolglik het ben schoeman, die minister van arbeid, in april 1951 ’n geregtelike kommissie van ondersoek na die mwu-eiendomstransaksie in die parlement aangekondig. ’n driemankommissie sou onder voorsitterskap van regter quartus de wet fungeer.44 dit blyk dat ook in hierdie geval daar sovêr moontlik gepoog is om skadebeheer vir die np-regering en die nasionaalgesinde mwu toe te pas. volgens hertzog sou schoeman glo aan hom gesê het dat regter de wet die enigste nasionalis was wat vir die kommissie beskikbaar was en dat hy nie iemand op die kommissie van ondersoek wou aanstel “wat op ’n ketterjag sal uitgaan nie”.45 met die versoek aan die regering vanuit mwu-geledere self om ’n geregtelike kommissie van ondersoek na die transafrika-aangeleentheid in te stel, is die handskoen finaal die ellis-kamp toegewerp. ellis en sy ondersteuners op die uitvoerende bestuur, het na hierdie versoek, soos dit ook tydens die hoek-kommissie van ondersoek die geval met hertzog, gleisner en paul visser was, die posisie van laasgenoemde, as mwu-president en enigste oorblywende “ellis-teenstander” van die oorspronklike drietal, deur middel van mosies van wantroue absoluut onhoudbaar begin 43 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, september 1950, p.304�; “government accused of being afraid to ventilate case” (rand daily mail, 15.3.1951); “hertzog daag sutter uit oor gleisner-pamflet” (die vaderland, 15.3.1951). 44 (sab), archives of the treasury, vol. 5740, file no. 33/611, commissions & committees: commission of enquiry (1951) mine workers’ union, secretary for labour – secretary to the treasury, 17.4.1951; mwu-argief, notule van die maandelikse uitvoerende bestuursvergadering, �7.3.1951, p. 3; stals: afrikaners in die goudstad. deel ii, p.78; walker and weinbren: 2000 casualties, p. ��3; “regering gelas ’n ondersoek” (die transvaler, 6.4.1951); “schoeman appoints judicial inquiry” (die mynwerker, 6.4.1951, p.1). 45 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/182: dagboek, april 1951, p. 3696. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 161 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 maak.46 visser is uiteindelik tydens die driejaarlikse verkiesing van lede vir die algemene raad in november 1951 as mwu-president uitgewerk toe rassie erasmus as enigste nominasie tot die amp verkies is.47 wat die aankoopproses van die transafrika-gebou betref, het die de wetkommissie in wese tot dieselfde bevindinge as die hoek-kommissie van ondersoek gekom en gewag gemaak van die buitensporige aankoopprys vir die gebou, asook van die groot kommissie wat kritzinger vir sý aandeel aan die kooptransaksie verdien het. ’n ernstige aspek wat die bevindinge van die de wet-kommissie in ’n ietwat ander lig as dié van die hoek-kommissie geplaas het, was getuienis aangaande sogenaamde “vergoeding” wat ellis van kritzinger sou verkry. daarvolgens is ellis ’n derde aandeel aan ’n drankwinkel in johannesburg aangebied. en tog het die de wet-kommissie van ondersoek aangaande die korrupsieaantygings teen ellis tot dieselfde onbesliste gevolgtrekking as dié van die hoek-kommissie gekom deur te verklaar dat hulle nie van plan was om aanbevelings in daardie verband te doen nie.48 na die verskyning van die de wet-kommissie se verslag was albert hertzog meer as ooit daarvan oortuig dat daan ellis skuldig aan die “smet” van korrupsie was. as gevolg sy korrupsie het die kommuniste toe glo oral die leiers van die afrikanerwerkers “beklad”. volgens hertzog het die feit dat ellis hom volgens eie erkenning met “klakkelose napraters” en “stommerike” soos rassie erasmus, en met organiseerders “van ’n uiters swak kaliber” as sy “handlangers en inkruipers” omring het, veroorsaak dat hy al hoe meer diktatoriaal begin optree het sonder dat enigeen op die bestuur sy “korrupte” optrede aan bande kon lê. ellis het dus ’n “tweede brodrick” geword wat die uitvoerende bestuur geïntimideer het en daarom moes daar van hom ontslae geraak word. soos ander ellisteenstanders het hertzog gevoel dat die minister van arbeid moes ingryp om die “pynlike situasie” in die mwu op te los.49 hertzog wou verder gaan om deur middel van die nrt te poog om ellis as hoofsekretaris “verwyder” te kry. volgens sy dagboekinskrywings was daar selfs sprake dat vooraanstaande pretoriase lede van die ab, soos victor hiemstra, dirk hertzog, pw hoek, schalk botha en gert beetge, 46 sien bv. mwu-argief, notules van die maandelikse uitvoerende bestuursvergadering, �7.3.1951 tot �9.10.1951; (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/18�: dagboek, maart 1951, pp.3676,3679-3680,3685, april 1951, pp. 3711-3712, julie 1951, p. 3819; stals: afrikaners in die goudstad. deel ii, p. 78. 47 mwu-argief, notule van die algemene raadsvergadering, �1.11.1951, p.1; “new executive elected” (die mynwerker, 23.11.1951, p. 1). 48 (ug) 5� – 1951 unie van suid-afrika: verslag van die kommissie van ondersoek insake die mynwerkersunie, pp. 3-11. 49 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/179: dagboek, mei 1950, p. �797; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, augustus 1950, p. 30�5, oktober 1950, p.3104; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, oktober 1951, pp. 4083-4086, 4097; “minister should now intervene, suggests dr. albert hertzog” (rand daily mail, 9.10.1951). visser 162 as ’n deputasie na die organisasie se uitvoerende raad sou gaan om hulle te versoek “om stappe te neem” om ellis as mwu-hoofsekretaris te “verwyder”. ellis sou eers deur die ab oorreed kon word om te bedank en as hy sou weier, sou die minister van arbeid versoek word om wetgewing in te dien wat persone met korrupsie-aanklagte teen hulle sou belet om in vakbondbesture te dien. die plan het egter deur die mat geval toe die genoemde persone kop uitgetrek het. dit wil voorkom of die ab geensins daarmee gelukkig was dat ’n “stryd tussen sekere medelede” (hertzog en ellis) gewoed het nie. volgens avril malan, ’n ab-lid, kon die twis binne die mwu ’n “swaar verlies” vir die np in die volgende verkiesing beteken. daarom moes hertzog hom aan die stryd teen ellis onttrek, selfs al sou hy “miskien korrup” wees. hertzog het klaarblyklik uiters teensinnig daartoe ingestem op voorwaarde dat ellis ook aanvalle op hom sou staak. vir hertzog was dit ’n bitter pil om te sluk aangesien sy “vroeëre (vriende)” van hom vereis het dat sy “lewenstaak”, om die blanke werkers van suid-afrika agter die np en die afrikanervolk te kry, so “vernietig” moes word. dit het waarskynlik ook daartoe bygedra dat hy al hoe meer ontnugter met die ab geraak het aangesien politieke inmenging die organisasie volgens hom “stadigaan al hoe lammer gemaak” het sodat ’n “gees van verval daaroor gehang het”.50 4. ’n ontleding van die redes vir hertzog se betrokkenheid by die twis in mwu-geledere as politikus is dr. albert hertzog se betrokkenheid by die twis in mwugeledere tydens die ellis-bewind sekerlik die prominentste. verskeie bronne maak melding van hertzog se groot ambisie om na die np se bewindsoorname in 1948 as minister van arbeid aangestel te word.51 hierdie siening moet egter genuanseerd teen die agtergrond van sy filosofie en strategie vir die verowering van blanke vakbonde vir die afrikanersaak vertolk word. ten eerste is ben schoeman deur dr. malan met ’n ministerskap beloon omdat hy instrumenteel daartoe was om die afrikanerparty van klasie havenga in ’n koalisie aan die np te verbind wat die verkiesingsoorwinning in 1948 verseker het. daarby was schoeman, in teenstelling met hertzog, in daardie stadium alreeds ’n senior lid van die party. albert hertzog was ook nie ’n politieke “spanspeler” ten opsigte van partypolitieke gedienstigheid nie, aangesien hy en enkele 50 (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/183: dagboek, november 1951, pp.4117-4119, desember 1951, pp. 4173-4176, 4196; ibid., 4/1/184: dagboek, maart 195�, pp. 4371-437�, 4376, 4409-4410, september 195�, pp. 4596-4597. 51 sien bv. ferdinand postma-biblioteek, noordwes-universiteit, ossewa brandwagargief, band nrs. 81-8�: herinneringe van mnr. gm van der walt (17 januarie 1975); ben schoeman: my lewe in die politiek. johannesburg: perskor-uitgewery, 1978, pp. 149-150, 341; beaumont schoeman: die broederbond in die afrikaner-politiek. pretoria: aktuele publikasies, 1982, pp. 32-33. albert hertzog en die mynwerkersunie 163 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 145-164 vriende ’n soort onafhanklike indiwidualisme en afsydigheid binne die np gehandhaaf en dikwels kritiek jeens partybeleid uitgespreek het. volgens beamont schoeman het indiwidue in die np soos hertzog aanvanklik meer toegeneentheid teenoor die afrikanerparty, die nuwe orde en die ossewa brandwag geopenbaar. omdat hertzog invloed op kulturele en politieke terrein deur middel van indiwidue, klein selgroeperings en frontorganisasies buiteom partyverband probeer bewerkstellig het, is hy deur sommige np-politici gewantrou en van die breë koukus in die party geïsoleer. hy is met agterdog bejeën as sou hy ’n persoonlike magsposisie in vakbonde soos die mwu ten koste van sy politieke kollegas wou opbou en is daarom as ’n “gevaar” vir die party beskou. np-leiers soos strijdom, verwoerd en vorster het glad nie van hertzog gehou nie en van sý kant af was die gevoel wedersyds. dit is waarskynlik ook teen hierdie agtergrond dat sommige persone in die ab gevoel het dat hertzog sy stryd om ellis uit die mwu te verwyder moes laat vaar. dit sou glo daartoe lei dat hy te veel invloed in die vakbond verkry wat weer ’n te sterk “drukgroep” teen die np sou kon vorm. volgens hertzog, wat onthutsend eerlik in sy dagboekinskrywings blyk te wees, wou hy minister van arbeid word, nie om sy ambisie te bevredig nie, maar om die ideaal van die verowering van die blanke vakbonde te laat seëvier om sodoende die lojaliteit van die afrikanerwerker vir die np en die afrikanersaak te verseker. hertzog was van mening dat die bereiking van hierdie ideaal ten beste vanuit ’n ministeriële magsposisie bewerkstellig kon word en weens sy jarelange betrokkenheid by die stryd om die verowering van die mwu het hy geglo dat hý die afrikanerpolitikus was wat deur sy ondervinding die beste daartoe in staat was. so gesien, sou die vergelyking gemaak kon word dat hertzog, soos ’n feodale leenheer van ouds, die mwu as sy persoonlike (politieke) “leengoed” beskou het. sy eiesoortige siening van die verowering van die vakbonde het beslis nie in alle opsigte met die np se beleidsriglyne en ’n gedurig veranderende politieke dinamika ooreengestem nie. die wantroue van sy kollegas, sowel as sy afsydigheid en politieke eiegeregtigheid ten opsigte van partybeleid, het ’n groot bydrae gelewer tot hertzog se uiteindelike afdanking uit die kabinet deur premier john vorster in 1968 en die totstandkoming van sy herstigte nasionale party (hnp) in 1969.52 52 sien (ineg) pv 451, jam hertzog-versameling, lêer nr. 4/1/180: dagboek, september 1950, pp.3061-3065; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/18�: dagboek, junie 1951, pp.379�-3793,380�; ibid., lêer nr. 4/1/184: dagboek, januarie-desember 195�, pp. 4369-4370, 437�-4373; dan o’meara: forty lost years. the apartheid state and the politics of the national party, �948-�994. randburg: ravan press, 1996, pp. 118-119, 165; schoeman: my lewe in die politiek, pp. 134-136, 334-335, 341-34�, 364-367; schoeman: die broederbond in die afrikaner-politiek, pp. 11, 17-33; privaatonderhoud met mnr. sp botha, �7.5.�00�. visser 164 5. gevolgtrekking dat albert hertzog ’n omstrede figuur in die suid-afrikaanse politiek gedurende die apartheidsera was, lei geen twyfel nie. enersyds kan die moontlikheid dat hy ’n persoonlike politieke ambisie en later ’n eie politieke agenda ten opsigte van sy betrokkenheid by en bemoeienis met die afrikanerwerker in die geheel en die mwu in die besonder gekoester het, nie buite rekening gelaat word nie. andersins het hertzog, as die eerste nasionaalgesinde afrikaner politieke leier wat hom daadwerklik en ten nouste met die sosio-politieke lotgevalle van die afrikanerwerkersklas bemoei het, homself ook die posisie van ’n politieke vaderfiguur oor hulle toegeëien. soos reeds genoem, was hertzog daarvan oortuig dat, van al die afrikaner politieke leiers, hý oor die meeste kennis en ervaring beskik het om die belange van hierdie komponent van die afrikanerdom te beskerm en hulle politieke lojaliteit vir die np van ’n df malan, ’n jg strijdom en ’n hf verwoerd te konsolideer. dit is opvallend dat daar klaarblyklik nog geen deurtastende biografiese studie oor dr. albert hertzog en sy politieke motiewe gedoen is nie. oor die redes daarvoor kan net bespiegel word. voorheen beperkte toegang tot die jam hertzog-versameling, waarvoor goedkeuring verkry moes word, sou moontlik ’n faktor kon wees. die demoniseringsrol wat nasionaalgesinde koerante uit die naspersstal gedurende die felle verligteverkrampte-stryd van die jare sestig en sewentig gespeel het om hertzog tot paria-figuur in afrikaner politieke geledere verklaar te kry, moet egter ook nie uit die oog verloor word nie. vrae wat ten opsigte van daardie aspek van die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis nog onbeantwoord is, is byvoorbeeld die volgende: in watter mate en hoekom het hertzog se siening verskil van dié van die np ten opsigte van die politieke koers wat aangaande afrikanernasionalisme, die afrikaners en hulle republiek ingeslaan moes word? en was die wegbreek van die hertzog-groepering uit die np in 1969 inderdaad die afgooi van ’n konserwatiewe meulsteen om die nek van laasgenoemde waardeur die weg vir hervormingsgesindes in die party gebaan is om uiteindelik ook met apartheid teen die einde van die twintigste eeu te breek? ’n wetenskaplike historiese studie, wat ook grondige navorsing in die hertzog-versameling by ineg behels, sal groter lig kan werp op hierdie vrae en op hertzog self as politieke persoonlikheid in die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis. abstract introduction historical traces of xenophobia in south africa xenophobia: a new form of racism xenophobic language in the south african print media symbolic xenophobic violence in south african universities theoretical underpinnings research methods and design findings discussion of findings conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) quatro mgogo school of communication, faculty of humanities, north-west university, mafikeng, south africa oluyinka osunkunle department of communication, faculty of social sciences and humanities, university of fort hare, alice, south africa citation mgogo q, osunkunle o. students’ perceptions of the influence of media on perpetuating xenophobia in south african universities. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1218. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1218 research project registration: project number: osu421smgo01 original research students’ perceptions of the influence of media on perpetuating xenophobia in south african universities quatro mgogo, oluyinka osunkunle received: 06 apr. 2022; accepted: 30 aug. 2022; published: 22 feb. 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract immigration and emigration are inevitable however, some south africans have shown a strong dislike of those coming from other countries, in the form of xenophobia. several studies have attributed the prevalence of xenophobia in south african communities to socio-economic, sociopolitical and scapegoating issues, with some researchers highlighting the role of the media in perpetuating xenophobia-related violence. on the other hand, xenophobia in institutions of higher learning in south africa, which are a microcosm of society, has been under-prioritised in exploring the prevalence of xenophobia. this article aims to explore students’ perceptions on the influence of media stereotypes of foreign nationals on xenophobia-related behaviours in selected higher education institutions. in part, it aims to explore students’ perceptions on the influence of media-perpetuated stereotypes that may be attributed to possible symbolic xenophobia among university students. therefore, this article looked at three south african universities, namely the university of fort hare, alice campus in the eastern cape province; the university of kwazulu-natal, howard campus in kwazulu-natal province; and the university of johannesburg, soweto campus in gauteng province. to achieve the aims of this study, a qualitative case study approach, based on the interpretivist design, was adopted. a nonprobability sampling method, based on purposive sampling and the snowball sampling technique, was used to select participants in this study. data were generated through focus group discussions and analysed through thematic analysis. the findings of this article revealed that xenophobic attitudes, behaviour and perceptions were prevalent among university students. the south african print media’s perpetuated negative stereotypes and its adoption of derogatory names – amakwerekwere, amagrigamba, aliens, illegal immigrants, ‘my friend’ – to represent immigrants (especially from other african countries) were highlighted as some of the contributing factors toward ongoing xenophobic violence. as part of the recommendations of this study, the student representative council (src) and other student communities, together with students in general, have a role to play in promoting xenophobia-free university campuses through antixenophobia campaigns. transdisciplinarity contribution: most xenophobic-related studies show that media reportage has an influence on xenophobic violence in south africa. this study therefore shifts its focus toward south african universities to investigate the prevalence of xenophobia among students and explores students’ perceptions of the influence of media in perpetuating xenophobic-related violence keywords: frustration aggression theory; xenophobia; south african universities; media; negative stereotypes. introduction due to globalisation, the emigration and immigration of people are inevitable. as noted by umukoro et al.,1 people immigrate for several reasons, including socio-economic, health, education and so on. this has been the case in the context of south africa. since the country was declared a democratic nation, it has been a host to an inflow of immigrants ‘as refugees and economic migrants’2 escaping their economically disadvantaged and conflicted countries of origin, especially from other african countries and asian countries like india and pakistan. moreover, the immigrants, in the context of south africa, borrowing from ngcamu and mantzaris,3 have been categorised as illegal or legal immigrants and documented or undocumented immigrants. however, since 2008, some south africans have displayed an extreme hatred of immigrants, particularly those from other african countries. for instance, solomon and kosaka4 note that, based on the south african migration project (samp) survey conducted in 2001, 21% of south african residents wanted a complete ban on the entry of foreigners, while more than 64% of the south african residents were advocating for a strict limit on the entry of immigrants. statistics have also shown that people from kwazulu-natal were less welcoming towards immigrants, compared to people from other provinces.2 perhaps, this can be attributed to the 2015 xenophobic attacks that occurred after king zwelithini’s speech in kwazulu-natal, durban and then spread to parts of johannesburg and the rest of the country. a total of eight people were killed and over 2000 were displaced.3,4 therefore, this has been a problem which led to south africans witnessing multiple waves of brutal xenophobia-related violence in some parts of the country. amid xenophobic violence, many people have lost their lives; some were displaced as refugees and some lost their homes. in the process, basic human rights (e.g. the right to life) are hampered, ‘social cohesion and good governance’4 and the african value of ubuntu are undermined. in light of the above view, many scholars have attributed xenophobia to socio-economic, sociopolitical and scapegoating issues2,3,5 and the biocultural hypothesis.6 while all these studies have done a great deal of research in pondering and providing solutions to the growing pandemic of xenophobia, their emphasis is on south african society in general and not on some of the significant social institutions like universities. while social institutions are under-prioritised by researchers, it is the authors’ view that xenophobia-related violence, especially nonphysical forms (e.g. symbolic), might be prevalent in social institutions like universities, because they are a microcosm of the society where actual xenophobic violence is evident. thus, this article aims to explore students’ perceptions on the experiences of symbolic xenophobic violence in selected higher education institutions in south africa. on the other hand, many media critics and scholars have emphasised that how foreign nationals are represented in the south african media landscape contributes to the spread of both nonphysical and actual xenophobic violence outbreaks in the country.7,8,9 this might be as the result of media representation which perpetuates power differences between south africans and foreign nationals through normalisation of derogatory reportage. therefore, symbolic xenophobic violence is perpetuated and could contribute to actual xenophobic violence in south african institutions of higher learning. accordingly, this article also aims to explore students’ perceptions on the influence of media-perpetuated stereotypes which may be attributed to symbolic xenophobic violence among university students. historical traces of xenophobia in south africa prior to 1994, immigrants faced discrimination as well as violence in south africa, which stemmed from the institutionalised racism and apartheid of that time. after democracy in 1994, contrary to what was expected, the incidence of xenophobia increased. between 2000 and 2008: [a]bout 67 people died in what were identified as xenophobic attacks. in may 2008 particularly, a series of riots left 62 people dead, although 21 of those killed were south african citizens. the attacks were apparently motivated by xenophobia.10 according to qukula11 (p. 1): ‘in may of 2008, violence began in alexandra township, when locals attacked immigrants from other african countries. in weeks following this, the violence spread across the country to other settlements in gauteng, durban and cape town. amid mass looting and destruction of foreign-owned homes, property, and businesses, at least 62 people were killed and 100 000 displaced.’ former president thabo mbeki intervened in these tragic incidents and events to apologise to the victims: ‘we have gathered here today to convey to all africans everywhere, to all african nations, severally and collectively, to our own people, and to the families of people who were murdered, our sincere condolences, and our heartfelt apologies that africans in our country committed unpardonable crimes against other africans.’11 (p. 1) in april 2015, another wave of xenophobic attacks took place in durban, kwazulu-natal. evans12 reviewed an online article on radio 702 website and documented that: in april 2015, foreign nationals were targeted in durban. two ethiopians were petrol bombed in umlazi, which ignited violence in kwamashu, pinetown, and a dalton hostel. the violence spread to parts of johannesburg and a total of eight people were killed and over 2000 have been displaced. four refugee camps were set up by the provincial government in kzn to house the displaced foreigners, including at a local chatsworth soccer stadium set up by the ethekwini municipality. some non-nationals still remain in the camps, whilst hundreds have been voluntarily repatriated.12 (p.1) regarding the above reports, the (then) president jacob zuma called for peace and calm amid the xenophobic attacks, and he mentioned that, ‘we cannot accept that when there are challenges, we use violence, particularly to our brothers and sisters from the continent’.12 however, these incidents occurred at a time when south africa was still combatting the issue of racism and discrimination among the different races in the country. given this view, this article defines the term xenophobia by distinguishing it from racism, as some people tend to confuse the two. xenophobia: a new form of racism xenophobia and racism are two words that are intricately interwoven. xenophobia is often misinterpreted as racism. muchiri13 cautions not to confuse xenophobia with racism. he described racism as ‘the belief that one race is superior to another, while xenophobia is the hatred of foreigners based on fear’. he further notes that xenophobia is broader than racism. yakushko14 states that communities across the globe may define racism and xenophobia differently because of specific historical factors. in the south african context, one might differentiate the two words by associating the term xenophobia with prejudice between the ‘in’ group (local) and the ‘out’ group (foreigners), while on the other hand, racism is usually referred to as prejudice between black and white people in south africa. yakushko14 notes the differences between these words and suggests that ‘racism has been typically associated with prejudices against individuals founded on a socially constructed notion of groups’ differentiating visible phenotypical markers, such as skin colour’. for yakushko,14 xenophobia, in most cases, specifically targets individuals who are foreign nationals in a certain community, irrespective of their physical appearance. this is similar in the context of south africa in explaining and applying these terms. for instance, the term racism is strongly influenced by colonialism and apartheid, whereas xenophobia is influenced by the immigration of foreigners. the two words are similar in that discrimination lies at the heart of both the racist and xenophobe. for instance, with racism, the idea is to discriminate against or prejudge a particular individual based on their race and colour, which can also extend to physical fighting because some individuals may not be able to tolerate it. similarly, xenophobia involves discrimination based on the fear of some foreign nationalities. black people in south africa display high rates of xenophobia and racial prejudice against foreign nationals residing in south africa. however, that is not the case when it comes to white foreign nationals residing in south africa. it is this article’s observation that black south africans display little xenophobia toward white foreign nationals compared to their black counterparts. this was also evident in a 2006 samp national xenophobia survey conducted in south africa, which established that ‘foreign nationals from europe and north america, the majority of whom are white by race, are generally regarded more favourable in south africa, than the black african migrants’.13 in the authors’ view, although xenophobia, as defined earlier, refers to the fear of strangers by the in-group, in the south african context, because white settlement dates back to the 16th century, south africans no longer regarded white people as foreigners. interestingly, south african black people share more similarities with black foreign nationals than with white south africans and white foreign nationals. in light of this view, black foreign nationals are not strangers to south africa because of their many similarities: skin colour, cultural practices and rituals, languages and so on. therefore, black south africans do not fear their fellow black sisters and brothers from other african countries because they do not look dissimilar. thus, this article argues that the term xenophobia has been wrongly adopted in south africa as it is borrowed from greek. consequently, below is a discussion on the impact of xenophobia in south africa. xenophobic language in the south african print media due to increasing competition among media houses, print media has been accused of using provocative language when reporting on xenophobia-related violence. in some cases, extreme headlines with manipulative language are used by some newspapers to achieve more readership.15 even though not many studies have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that print media’s language has led to xenophobic violence, some researchers and media critics hold that print media’s adoption of generalised stereotypes of people from other african countries and the labelling and use of derogative names foster xenophobic discourse.15,16,17,18 furthermore, it has been argued that in south africa, newspapers are passively consumed and help shape reality for readers.17 thus, many people in south africa have relied heavily on print media as a source of news. with the growing concern about print media’s biased coverage of xenophobic violence and its misrepresentation of foreign nationals, some researchers have dubbed south african print media as xenophobic.17 in many cases, the media, print media in particular, has relied on generalised stereotypes to classify foreign nationals when reporting on crime and violence. for instance, in many cases, nigerian migrants have been classified as drug dealers and smugglers, zimbabweans as predominantly illegal immigrants and somalis and ethiopians as sellers of expired food and products.15,18 other derogatory names have been used by print media to frame foreign nationals, besides ‘aliens’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ including amakwerekwere, amagrigamba, ‘my friend’ and so on. to supplement this view, the article borrows from mgogo and osunkunle,15 where some of the newspaper headlines with these derogative names are evident: pretoria mayor singles out nigerians as drug dealers and pimps19 (p. 1) alex aliens want to go home20 (p. 1) war declared against ‘my friend’ spaza shops selling expired products21 (p. 59) based on the authors’ previous research on the challenges of intercultural communication among university students, some respondents have pointed out that such derogatory names and stereotypes have been used by some local students to refer to them. for instance, some students who are of nigerian origin have been told that they are the sons or daughters of drug dealers or smugglers and that their education fees are funded with that money. this points to negative reportage of xenophobia-related violence by the south african print media while compromising the print media’s potential for impartial reportage of xenophobia through constructive news coverage.18 furthermore, the authors note that it is this representation in media that perpetuates power differences between south african residents and foreign nationals through normalising derogatory reporting. thus, symbolic xenophobic violence is perpetuated, which could potentially lead to actual violence. therefore, these views sparked the authors’ interest in exploring the perceptions of university students on the experience of symbolic xenophobic violence and the influence of media-perpetuated stereotypes. symbolic xenophobic violence in south african universities south africa, as a country, is in the southern region of the african continent. its historical connections with the other african countries can be traced back before and after the colonial borders. for instance, the hegemony of the nguni tribe from the southern african region which spread across the southern african development community (sadc) countries like zimbabwe, malawi, mozambique and zambia is phenomenal. some researchers argue that this phenomenon was influenced by the rise of zulu kingdom under king shaka zulu.22 furthermore, these historical connections can also be seen within the sociopolitical frame. for instance, when south africa was under the apartheid government, most african countries displayed strong rhetorical condemnation of the apartheid system. countries like botswana, democratic republic of congo, kenya and zambia, just to mention a few, were contentious in providing safe camps for african national congress (anc) military (e.g. umkhonto we sizwe [mk]) to fight the atrocities of apartheid system.23 thus, in the postapartheid era these countries were also looking to benefit from south africa’s democracy, rainbowism, diversity and particularly its education system. in light of this view, most institutions of higher learning in south africa are now host to international students, mostly from other african countries. rumbaut24 notes that more than 70 000 international students, mostly from within the african continent, are studying at south african universities. this is without the number of university staff members, academics in particular, who work in south african universities. where there are two or more different cultures, there is a probability of cultural shock and cultural conflict, which eventually lead to xenophobic-related behaviours.15 this was evident in the authors’ (mgogo and osunkunle25) previous study titled ‘intercultural communication challenges and its effect on students’ interpersonal relationships at a south african university’. for instance, some of the students from other african countries were constantly being told to ‘go back’ to their home countries by some of the local students at university residences. in the same study, findings revealed that the competition for university resources (e.g. bursaries, residence, residence tv room and cooking turns) between national and non-national students has led to symbolic violence. in a study by mafukata26 on ethnicity, tribalism and xenophobia in a south african rural-based university, findings revealed that there was evidence of not only acts of ethnocentrism and tribalism but also of xenophobic incitement that cut across the university deanery and departments. in maseko’s27 study on exploring the nature and prevalence of xenophobia in south african institutions of learning at the university of kwazulu-natal, findings revealed that there was evidence of staff members and students perpetuating verbal xenophobic attacks on immigrants. it was also found that reporting these incidents to management seems to be a cumbersome task. although these incidents are hardly ever reported by the victims, the media has reported some similar incidents. for instance, in august 2018, the daily dispatch28 reported an outburst of xenophobia being incited among local and zimbabwean students – cascading from social media posts. it is alleged that there were whatsapp conversations among the group of zimbabwean students citing that the south african students are lazy and not so bright, and as a result, they (zimbabwean students) will remain in south africa and occupy their spaces in academia. theoretical underpinnings different researchers have used similar theories to explain xenophobia within the south african context. for instance, in tella’s6 study on understanding xenophobia in south africa, xenophobia is attributed to biocultural issues, isolation and scapegoating hypotheses. in their study on dynamics informing xenophobia and south african leadership response, masikane et al.2 attribute xenophobia to socio-economic, sociopolitical and scapegoating issues. the scapegoating hypothesis on xenophobic violence and criminality in a kwazulu-natal township3 has also been used to inform the general scope of the study. therefore, the frustration-aggression theory is used as a theoretical foundation for this study. this theory attempts to explain how xenophobic behaviour manifests in individuals. in this case, xenophobic behaviour is attributed to frustrations experienced in attaining a goal by a local group, for which another vulnerable group of people is held responsible.29,30 thus, it is the authors’ view that this has been the case with university students. for instance, there have been complaints from local students that international students, especially those from other african countries, are being prioritised in securing accommodation in student residences while local students struggle to do so. local students have raised their frustrations on the issues of limited bursaries or funding and have compared themselves to the international students who mostly come from their countries, funded by their governments. furthermore, in the authors’ previous research (e.g. 22), some local students complained that international students from other african countries, in particular, overstay their welcome in south africa to secure academic jobs, which locally based students feel they should be attaining. these have been the ideal circumstances for xenophobic behaviours and attitudes among students to have prevailed. thus, some students have mentioned that they have been called derogatory and stereotypical names (i.e. amakwerekwere, amagweja, sons or daughters of drug dealers or smugglers) and have been told by some local students to go back to their countries. in speaking about stereotypic and derogative names for referring to immigrants, the media has been criticised and labelled as promoters of hatred and symbolic and actual xenophobic violence. according to gomo,31 the media’s ability to aggravate hatred and promote violence is well documented from early studies such as those on the role of radio in nazi propaganda campaigns and the cases of rwanda, the former yugoslavia and the recent xenophobic violence in south africa. in south africa, the press has not only been accused of publishing unbalanced, biased or inconsistent xenophobia stories,15 but has also been accused of misrepresentation and adopting and perpetuating stereotypes of immigrants, and it has been dubbed ‘xenophobic’.16 it is on these bases that framing theory is also included in this study to explain print media language and its representation of african immigrants. this print media framing can also be attributed to the use of learnt xenophobic language by local students, where media shapes their ideas about people coming from other african countries. consequently, it became the authors’ interest to explore students’ perceptions on the symbolic experiences of xenophobic violence in south african universities and the influence of print media on perpetuating stereotypes. below are the methods adopted to conduct this study. research methods and design this article has adopted qualitative methods based on the case study approach, as these methods are usually employed when dealing with several types of inquiry to help in understanding and explaining the meaning of social phenomena like xenophobia.32 hence, the study is rooted in an interpretivist school of thought, which is predicated on the study’s need to explore multiple constructions of reality. in exploring students’ perceptions on the experiences of symbolic xenophobic violence in south african universities and the influence of media-perpetuated stereotypes, this article adopted focus group interviews as the data-gathering method. therefore, two focus group interviews were conducted in each of the three selected universities, and they comprised local students and other african students. thus, the three universities were the university of fort hare, alice campus in the eastern cape province; the university of kwazulu-natal, howard campus in kwazulu-natal province; and the university of johannesburg, soweto campus in gauteng province. at the university of fort hare’s alice campus, the first focus group consisted of eight participants and the second focus group had seven participants. the first focus group discussion conducted at the university of kwazulu-natal’s howard campus had six multinational participants while the second focus group was composed of eight local participants. lastly, at the university of johannesburg’s soweto campus, the first focus group was composed of five multinational participants while the second focus group consisted of six local participants, making a total of 40 participants when combing all participants in this study. it was noted that it would have been desirable to conduct more focus groups; however, there was a feeling that there could be a repetition of views from the participants. thus, data saturation was reached with the number of focus group discussions conducted in this study. regarding the sampling methods, this article employed a nonprobability sampling method. the snowballing sampling technique was used to mobilise students for focus group discussions in library discussion rooms, residence tv rooms and student centres. a snowball sampling method, as argued by leighton et al.33 is a variable method for mobilising study participants who cannot be accessed easily or known to the research. furthermore, the data were analysed qualitatively using themes that emerged during the focus group discussions. research questions what are the students’ views on the prevalence of xenophobia-related violence in institutions of higher learning? what are the students’ views on the influence of media-perpetuated stereotypes which may be attributed to possible xenophobia-related behaviour among university students? what is the role of students in promoting antixenophobia behaviour? ethical consideration ethical clearance for the phd project that this study is based on was obtained from the university of fort hare research ethics committee and research higher degrees committee, with registration number rec-270710-028-ra level 1 and certificate reference number osu421smgo01. in addition, letters of consent for data generation from the university of kwazulu-natal and the university of johannesburg were granted. findings participants’ demographical information before proceeding to present the data analysis, it is necessary to provide an overview of the demographics of the participants who participated in the focus group discussions. obtaining the accurate ages of participants can be a challenge, especially when conducting focus groups. this is because most people are not comfortable with disclosing their ages. in this study, the ages of participants were obtained using age brackets. participants were grouped into five age brackets (18–20, 21–25, 25–30, 31–35 and 35–40). this enabled the authors to categorise the experiences of the different age groups. both female and male participants were represented in this study. the researcher purposefully selected more female participants than male participants, because female participants are more open in discussion than male participants. to accommodate the different levels of study, both undergraduate and postgraduate students were represented in this study. the participants in this study comprised students who speak indigenous and colonial languages. the participants’ languages include isixhosa (south africa), shona (zimbabwe), isizulu (south africa), sesotho (lesotho), yoruba (nigeria), swahili (kenya, tanzania and somalia), french (democratic republic of congo), portuguese (mozambique), setswana (south africa) and venda (south africa). the details of the participants are further illustrated in table 1. table 1: participants’ details. four themes emerged from the focus group discussions: local students’ perceptions of other african students students’ views on the prevalence of xenophobic behaviour in south african universities print media’s influence on students’ xenophobia-related behaviour promoting antixenophobia behaviour: the role of the students. below is the analysis of data and themes that emerged from the focus group discussions. local students’ perceptions of other african students to assess their attitudes (both positive and negative), local students were asked to describe their feelings and views about other african students. positively, some students emphasised the diversity and the significant economic role played by the intake of other african students into south african universities. for instance, participant 7 in focus group 2 from the university of fort hare, alice campus, pointed out that, ‘economically, they really boost the country.’ furthermore, a participant from the university of johannesburg, soweto campus, mentioned that: ‘surely, if the country does not receive and welcome visitors from abroad, it means there is something wrong about that country. therefore, they bring diversity to our country, as it is called a rainbow nation.’ (participant 2, focus group 1, 18–20 age group) based on the above views of the participants, it was at the beginning of the post-apartheid era when archbishop desmond tutu coined the concept of the ‘rainbow nation’. in its essence, it refers to the multiracialism and multiculturalism of south africa as a country.34 however, there have been criticisms that the current generation has not been embracing the value of ‘rainbowism’. on this view, bisschoff et al.34 emphasise that ‘the continuing rise of violent xenophobic attacks in the country, mostly against labour migrants from other african countries is one example of the failure of rainbowism’. some participants also had negative views. another issue that emerged strongly from focus group analysis, particularly from the local students, was the argument that the university management gives priority to other african students in terms of residence allocation, scholarships or bursaries and fair treatment, somewhat leading to a dislike and hatred of other african students by their local counterparts. for instance, from the university of kwazulu-natal, howard campus: ‘students from other african countries usually get preference more than we get as local students, more especially when it comes to students’ primary needs like residence and scholarships. therefore, we are not treated the same.’ (participant 6, focus group 2, 31–25 age group) on this point, a participant from the university of johannesburg, soweto campus, further mentioned: ‘international students, especially within african continent, get so much preference from our institution, which makes them more comfortable to stay even longer in south africa and end up taking our jobs and women.’ (participant 5, focus group 1, 25–30 age group) therefore, on this point, the prioritisation of residence allocation and scholarship issues were highlighted as some of the contentious issues, including the competition for women within the university community. this is mainly an issue of competition for resources, which is also contributing to the resurgence of xenophobic attitudes and behaviour among university students. this is consistent with frustration-aggression theory, which attributes xenophobia to the frustrations experienced or imagined by one group (which is the competition for resources) for which another group is held responsible (other african students). furthermore, this is happening as local students experience problems like being under-prioritised during residence allocation; therefore, they resort to taking out their frustrations on the other african students and using them as scapegoats.2,3,5 students’ views on the experiences of xenophobic behaviour in south african universities despite the common view that african students share almost similar cultural values like ubuntu,35 the majority of the participants (other african students) confirmed that they had witnessed and experienced xenophobic behaviours by other, local students on their respective university campuses. moreover, participants from the focus groups confirmed that they had witnessed such behaviours among local students, noting that although it is very rare to witness xenophobic behaviour in lecture rooms, such behaviours prevail more often in the residences, in assembling areas like television [tv] rooms and so forth. on this point, participants from the university of fort hare, alice campus, pointed out that: ‘there was a day when we [other african students] were watching soccer [english premiership league] in the residence tv rooms; local students got in, fiercely demanding to watch rugby. they called us names, and some comments like “you should go back to your country”… and we were so scared of them and even resorted to moving out of the tv room.’ (participant 4, focus group 1, 21–25 age group) ‘yes, i fear that we might be attacked anytime. for instance, in [the] residence cooking area, i was told that my food stinks and i should not cook that food again. i was cooking sadza [stiff pap] with dovi [a stew of peanut butter].’ (participant 3, focus group 1, 25–30 age group) in light of the above views, the issue of competition for limited resources, as suggested by jackson36 and neocosmos,37 again becomes evident as a contributory factor towards xenophobic-related behaviours among university students. it was also noted by the participants that even among local students, such behaviour is witnessed. this view was highlighted by one of the participants from the university of johannesburg, soweto campus, who pointed out that: ‘some of the students coming from the limpopo province who speak tshivenda are still experiencing some of these behaviours and attitudes from their fellow students from gauteng, who mostly speak sesotho, even though both venda and sesotho are official languages of the same country, south africa.’ (participant 1, focus group 2, 19–20 age group) this is regrettable, as also echoed by ngcamu and mantzaris,3 because it devalues the essence of the most respected african value of ubuntu, ‘social cohesion and good governance’4 in university communities. participants from the university of kwazulu-natal, howard campus, were asked to comment on whether there were any xenophobic behaviour witnessed at their campus. although some participants mentioned that they had never witnessed xenophobic behaviour or attitudes, some of the participants shared that symbolic xenophobic behaviours and attitudes are evident and are probably suppressed. for instance, the following are some of their views. ‘although i have a feeling that these behaviours might exist, they are still suppressed; i haven’t witnessed them so far.’ (participant 10, focus group 2, 30–35 age group) ‘i think they are there, just that we don’t want to mention people.’ (participant 9, focus group 2, 30–35 age group) ‘i have not yet seen these behaviours.’ (participant 8, focus group 2, 30–35 age group) the researcher gathered that most respondents believed that there was no xenophobic behaviour shown. however, after the researcher probed more on this question, one of the participants hinted that this behaviour may be there even though it is suppressed by the students. this is synonymous with the findings by akande et al.18 from their study conducted on students’ attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia at a university in durban, kwazulu-natal, because they found that despite the majority of students showing nonxenophobic perceptions, traces of xenophobic attitudes and perceptions were observed from some of the students. moreover, similar findings emerged from a similar study27 at the university of kwazulu-natal, where findings showed evidence of students perpetrating verbal xenophobic attacks on other african students. based on the above views, including the participants’ views, it can be argued that xenophobic behaviour is prevalent among students. print media’s influence on students’ xenophobia-related behaviour it was confirmed by the majority of the participants that media reporting influences xenophobic behaviour by students. the participants believed, as also suggested by38,39 that because of the misrepresentation of foreigners with the adoption of derogatory words like amakwerekwere (and others) and misquoting people, the media have often promoted xenophobic behaviour among the youth, including students. on this point, below are some of the views that emerged from the focus group discussion at the university of fort hare, alice campus. ‘the way south african media represent foreigners; it injects the idea that they are so much different from us south african students. for instance, every time when i read on newspapers or online about foreign national caught drug dealing, i will see a nigerian in that headline, but we also have south african drug dealers. that stereotype has penetrated even in our institution. we give other african students so much negative attitude because of these generalised stereotypes by media. for example, in classrooms, i have noted that a local student cannot tolerate sitting next to a foreign student, and i think that happens because the media teach us to focus on the negative side of them.’ (participant 5, focus group 2, 35–40 age group) ‘i think the media has an influence by reporting on stories that are not fully researched. for instance, the story of the leaked whatsapp messages from the whatsapp group of zimbabwean students that were offensive to the south african students was reported on the daily dispatch on the 27th of november before the university management even intervened on the matter. therefore, some students saw read the news and started hating.’ (participant 2, focus group 2, 25–30 age group) ‘and i think it’s the way media, mostly print, forms their headlines that evoke emotions to some people. the same newspapers in their headlines with the word “war” made other people think there is physical fight among zimbabwean and south african students.’ (participant 2, focus group 2, 18–20 age group) ‘the media has influence because they have injected negative stereotypes and information about us foreign nationals. for example, if you are from zimbabwe like me, south africans will assume that you are coming from a poor household with starvation; that is the information that the media has generalised on.’ (participant 3, focus group 1, 25–30 age group) ‘many scholars have argued that the media have done so much in the development of societies in developing countries like south africa; however, i also think it has also done so much to promote differences among africans, which also contributes to these attacks. for instance, we are all blacks but when media reports about us they use our countries to name us; i have seen headlines like “a nigerian that …” “a zimbabwean that …” and the focus is all about bad things done. as for me, i have been called by so many names on campus and in town, including a “zim” [short for a zimbabwean], “igrigamba”, “refugee”, “ikwerekwere”.’ (participant 6, focus group 1, 25–30 age) from the combined views of participants from the two focus group discussions conducted at the university of kwazulu natal, howard college, these are some of the views that emerged: ‘note the use of the names of our countries by media to report on a crime committed by foreign nationals is adding more on the hatred of foreigners. i’ve seen newspapers writing “the zimbabwean killed, the zambian caught on drug burst”. such kind of language influence more xenophobic behaviours from the south africans.’ (participant 4, focus group 2, 25–30 age group) ‘sometimes the media sensationalise the attacks and make them as if every foreign national is being attacked, while it is sometimes just an occurrence in one province.’ (participant 1, focus group 1, 20–25 age group) in the university of johannesburg, soweto campus, here are some of the views from the participants: ‘media always reports on negative things done by foreign nationals, and they do not focus on the good things we are doing for south africans, like the scarce skills that they source to our countries. i am very disappointed that they do not focus on such positives.’ (participant 4, focus group 1, 25–30 age group) ‘i think it’s the south africans who hate us more than media does, because they just hate us and we can’t fully blame the media. i mean, some of them, we have stayed with them for more than a year. they must have realised that we are not the same; it’s just the media that generalises the information.’ (participant 5, focus group 2, 30–35 age group) in light of the above views, since 2008, the media has been reporting strongly about xenophobic attacks. however, it has not changed the way it represents foreign nationals and its reliance on the generalised stereotypes in reporting14,27,37 and that the media shapes reality for the community.17 the issue of the learnt stereotypes is also evident in.2 examples are nigerians’ association with drug dealers, somalis as spaza shop owners, zimbabweans as poverty-stricken people and illegal immigrants. here, the issue of media framing is also observed, where immigrants are portrayed as illegal immigrants and criminals. therefore, the hatred of foreign african nationals can also be traced from the media representation. this has resulted into affecting the appearance of other african students in academic institutions. thus, learnt negative stereotypes are perpetuated toward other african university students. it is also noted that stereotypical and ethnocentric sentiments, as suggested by37 and taras40 can lead to intolerance, which could lead to xenophobic behaviour by university students. therefore, this suggests that some of the local students build their knowledge of other african students from the generalised media stereotypes. thus, it can be also argued that stereotyping breeds prejudice and intolerance, which often underlie xenophobic behaviour.33 promoting antixenophobic behaviour: the role of the students the battle against xenophobic behaviour on university campuses involves not only management but also university students. therefore, participants were asked to suggest what role they think students can play in promoting antixenophobic behaviour. these are some of the views that emerged from the two focus group discussions conducted at the university of fort hare, alice campus: ‘amongst campaigns that src organise, they must also reinforce the one for xenophobia.’ (participant 6, focus group 2, 35–40 age group) ‘if the src can make use of the debate society or open up a general debate about xenophobia each year, i think it can help to deal with xenophobic behaviours among students.’ (participant 1, focus group 2, 25–30 age group) ‘i think students, more especially us south africans, need to be active in these antixenophobia campaigns. we should not rely on the management to give us a signal.’ (participant 9, focus group 1, 18–20 age group) ‘yes, that includes the cultural day thing. if we don’t actively participate in these activities, it would seem like we still want to carry on with this hate amongst ourselves.’ (participant 10, focus group 1, 18–20 age group) from the combined views of participants from the two focus group discussions conducted at the university of kwazulu natal, howard college, these are some of the views that emerged: ‘students must engage themselves in the discussion about xenophobia and address the reason for these attitudes and behaviours to prevail and be willing to bring resolutions afore.’ (participant 1, focus group 1, 20–25 age group) ‘students, especially local students, must not rely on the media to know about other cultures beyond the borders of south africa; they must research more to eliminate generalised stereotypes and develop well-researched information, maybe on the books.’ (participant 9, focus group 2, 30–35 age group) ‘as local students, we should be at the forefront, leading antixenophobic campaigns.’ (participant 7, focus group 1, 20–25 age group) similar opinions were expressed by participants at the university of johannesburg, soweto campus. here are some of the excerpts from the participants: ‘students have to accept that south africa is a diverse country and so many unfamiliar cultures are yet still to come to this country.’ (participant 4, focus group 1, 25–30 age group) ‘students need to adapt to the fact that no man is an island. therefore, we will always rely on one another as unique and different in terms of cultures as we are.’ (participant 5, focus group 2, 30–35 age group) ‘students need to develop an interest to adapt and be willing to learn more on our differences, for instance, willingness to learn other languages from other countries.’ (participant 2, focus group 1, 18–20 age group) as can be deduced from the above views, participants believed that students should take the lead by actively participating in antixenophobic campaigns and intercultural events like university cultural day campaigns. it was also pointed out that the student representative council (src) can play a big role in this regard by also facilitating students’ campaigns around issues of xenophobia. moreover, it was also pointed out that students’ interest in learning about the cultures of their fellow african students could assist in accumulating much-needed knowledge and interest in other cultures and perhaps discard the generalised, learnt media negative stereotypes of immigrants. furthermore, participants highlighted that learning about other african students’ cultures could help build mutual respect, love and harmony. based on this view, it can be noted that these could also promote social cohesion, ubuntu and human rights, as noted by solomon and kosaka,4 within the university community. discussion of findings the findings from this study show that although xenophobic attacks have not been witnessed within the south african universities investigated, there is evidence of the prevalence of xenophobic perceptions, attitudes and behaviour among university students, with some of these attitudes being suppressed. for instance, participants in this study highlighted evidence of xenophobic behaviour in university students’ residences and tv rooms where other students, especially those from other african countries, are discriminated against based on their countries of origin. furthermore, some of these students are told to ‘go back to their home countries’. the study found that some of these attitudes and behaviours are motivated by frustration emanating from the competition for university resources like students’ residences, funding and so forth. as a result, the hatred for students from other african countries is due to a lack of these resources. then, frustrations from the local students are directed towards students from other african countries because they (local students) argue that foreign students are being prioritised in the allocation of these resources. thus, the study has attributed this phenomenon to dollard’s frustration aggression theory. interestingly, some similar behaviours are prevalent among local students in a form of ‘ethnic-tribalism’,26 which can be viewed as a form of xenophobia. other researchers like15,18and mcdonald and jacobs16 have researched the print media’s contribution to xenophobic violence in south africa. therefore, it was of interest in this article to also examine students’ views on the influence of the media on xenophobic behaviour. thus, some of the participants in this study (students) confirmed that the media plays a role in xenophobia in south africa. its contribution was noted in line with the adoption and perpetuation of negative stereotypes in representing immigrants. therefore, some of those stereotypes and derogative names adopted by the media (e.g. amakwerekwere, aliens, ‘my friend’, illegal immigrants, etc.) were used by some of the local students when referring to international students. the authors were also interested in finding out from the participants what the role of students was in promoting antixenophobic behaviour in institutions of higher learning in south africa. the majority of participants highlighted the role that could be played by the student governing body, also known as the src, in leading antixenophobic campaigns on university campuses. participants also emphasised the role to be played by students themselves in developing an interest in learning about other african students’ cultures to discard the reality shaped by the media in its representation of african immigrants. in addition, the participation of students in university intercultural events like cultural days sparks interest in learning more about other cultures, especially from other african countries. conclusion based on the results presented in this article, the reviewed literature and newspaper articles, it can be concluded that symbolic xenophobia, including the related perceptions, attitudes and behaviours are experienced among university students in institutions of higher learning in south africa. for instance, the competition for resources like bursaries and student residences, where international students are prioritised in attaining these resources, frustrates local students and leads to the incitement of xenophobia. the study also concludes that symbolic xenophobic traits among students at south african institutions of higher learning include negative stereotypes and the use of derogatory names for international students, especially those from other african countries. moreover, it has emerged in this article that the media’s representation, especially print media, perpetuates power differences among south africans and immigrants and foreign nationals through its adoption of derogatory names in its reportage. the study also notes that this derogatory reportage fosters xenophobic discourse towards media content consumers in south africa. thus, this points to negative reportage of xenophobia-related violence by the south african print media, which may have resulted in symbolic xenophobic violence experienced by university students. in the process, print media compromises its potential for impartial reportage of xenophobia through constructive news coverage. therefore, this marks the contribution of the media to xenophobia, not only in south african communities but also in university students from the same communities where physical xenophobic attacks have been witnessed. as part of the recommendations from this study, the src and other student communities have a role to play in promoting xenophobia-free university campuses through antixenophobia campaigns. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the national institute for humanities and social sciences for the funding of the phd project on which the article is based. competing interests the authors of this article declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions q.m. conceived the presentation of the idea, developed the theoretical and conceptual framework, generated data, conceptualised the method and presented the findings of this work. o.o. provided guidance and supervision of this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding body. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references umukoro gm, odey ve, ndifon mm. immigration, otherness, economic mobility and social inclusion in the homeland. j soc culture. 2021;1(2). https://doi.org/10.26858/prd.v1i2.18002 masikane cm, hewitt ml, toendepi j. dynamics informing xenophobia and leadership response in south africa. acta commercii. 2020;20(1):a704. https://doi.org/10.4102/ac.v20i1.704 ngcamu bs, mantzaris e. xenophobic violence and criminality in the kwazulu-natal townships. j transdiscipl res s afr. 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investigation into the textual representation of black ‘foreigns’ in the daily sun, a south african tabloid (february 2008–december 2008) [unpublished masters thesis]. cape town: university of the western cape; 2014. touwen cj. reporting on xenophobia in south africa: ernesto burning: an analyses of dutch print media coverage on the 2008 xenophobic violence in south africa [homepage on the internet]. 2008 [cited 2019 jul 17]. available from: https://carienjtouwen.wordpress.com/essays/reporting-on-xenophobia-in-south-africa/ taras r. xenophobia and islamophobia in europe. edinburgh: edinburgh university press; 2012. towards transdisciplinary education � td, 1 (1), december 200�, pp.�-16 towards transdisciplinary education basarab nicolescu� abstract. the methodology of transdisciplinarity is founded on three postulates: there are, in nature and in our knowledge of nature, different levels of reality and, correspondingly, different levels of perception; the passage from one level of reality to another is insured by the logic of the included middle; and the structure of the totality of levels of reality or perception is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time. after giving an exposition of these postulates the author contends that transdisciplinarity does not rest on a transfer from modern science. instead, modern science, via its most general aspects, makes it possible to identify the postulates of transdisciplinarity. however, once they are formulated they have a much wider validity then in modern science itself, namely they could be applied in the field of education and culture. it is argued that transdisciplinary education, founded on the transdisciplinary methodology, will allow scientists to establish links between persons, facts, images, representations, fields of knowledge and action. keywords. transdisciplinarity, in vitro and in vivo knowledge, axiom of the included middle, transdisciplinary education. 1. multi, inter and transdisciplinarity the process of the decline of civilizations is one of enormous complexity and its roots lie deep in obscurity. of course, one can find multiple after-the-fact explanations and rationalisations without ever successfully dissipating the feeling that there is an irrational element at work at the heart of the process. neither the masses nor great decision makers, as actors in a well-defined civilisation, seem able to stop the decline of their civilization, even if they become more or less aware of the processes at work. one thing is certain: this fall is always accompanied by a great unbalance between the mentalities of the actors and the inner developmental needs of a particular type of society. although a civilization never stops proliferating new knowledge, it is as if these can never be fully 1 theoretical physicist at cnrs, university paris vi. member of the romanian academy. president of the international center for transdisciplinary research and studies (ciret). td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 1 nr. 1, december 200� pp. �-16 nicolescu 6 integrated within those who belong to this civilization. and it is the human being who must be placed at the centre of any civilization worthy of the name. the unprecedented increase of knowledge in our era raises the challenging question of how to adapt our mentality to being. mondialisation is today a potential source of a new decline. the two extreme dangers of mondialisation are, on one side, the cultural and spiritual homogenisation and, on another side, the paroxysm of ethnical and religious conflicts, as a self-defence reaction of different cultures and civilisations. harmony between inner being and outer knowledge presupposes that these known facts would be intelligible, comprehensible. but can such comprehension exist in the era of the disciplinary big bang and relentless specialization? the indispensable need for bridges between the different disciplines is attested to by the emergence of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity around the middle of the twentieth century. multidisciplinarity concerns studying a research topic not in just one discipline but in several at the same time. for example, a painting by giotto can be studied not only within the context of art history, but also within the contexts of the history of religions, european history, or geometry. the topic in question will ultimately be enriched by incorporating the perspectives of several disciplines. moreover, our understanding of the topic in terms of its own discipline is deepened by a fertile multidisciplinary approach. multidisciplinarity brings a plus to the discipline in question (the history of art in our example), but we must remember that this “plus” is always in the exclusive service of the home discipline. in other words, the multidisciplinary approach overflows disciplinary boundaries while its goal remains limited to the framework of disciplinary research. interdisciplinarity has a different goal than multidisciplinarity. it concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another. one can distinguish three degrees of interdisciplinarity: (a) degree of application (for example, when the methods of nuclear physics are transferred to medicine, which leads to the appearance of new treatments for cancer); (b) epistemological degree (such as, transferring methods of formal logic to the area of general law, which generates some interesting analyses of the epistemology of law); (c) degree of the generation of new disciplines (when methods from mathematics are transferred to physics, generating mathematical physics, or when mathematical methods are transferred to meteorological phenomena or stock market processes, generating chaos theory; transferring methods from particle physics to astrophysics produces quantum cosmology. like multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity overflows the disciplines, but its goal still remains within the framework of disciplinary research. towards transdisciplinary education � td, 1 (1), december 200�, pp.�-16 as the prefix “trans” indicates, transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines.2 its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge. the word itself is quite recent: it was first introduced by jean piaget in 1970.� is there something between and across the disciplines and beyond all disciplines? from the point of view of classical thought there is absolutely nothing. the space in question is empty, completely void, like the vacuum of classical physics. in the presence of several levels of reality, the space between disciplines and beyond disciplines is full, just as the quantum void is full of all potentialities: from the quantum particle to the galaxies, from the quark to the heavy elements that condition the appearance of life in the universe. transdisciplinary research is clearly distinct from disciplinary research, even while being entirely complementary. disciplinary research concerns, at most, one and the same level of reality; moreover, in most cases, it only concerns fragments of one level of reality. in contrast, transdisciplinarity concerns the dynamics engendered by the action of several levels of reality at once. the discovery of these dynamics necessarily passes through disciplinary knowledge. disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity are like four arrows shot from but a single bow: knowledge. the transdisciplinary knowledge tk, corresponds to a new type of knowledge in vivo knowledge. this new knowledge is concerned with the correspondence between the external world of the object and the internal world of the subject. by definition, the tk knowledge includes a system of values (see table i). it is important to realize that the disciplinary knowledge and the transdisciplinary knowledge are not antagonist but complementary. both their methodologies are founded on scientific attitude. the new, transdisciplinary knowledge engenders a new, transdisciplinary education. in order to explore what this means, we have to understand what could be the transdisciplinary methodology. 2 b nicolescu, la transdisciplinarité, manifeste, (le rocher, monaco, collection “transdisciplinarité”, 1996); english translation: manifesto of transdisciplinarity, (translated from the french by karen-claire voss, suny press, new york, 2002). � j piaget, l’épistémologie des relations interdisciplinaires, in l’interdisciplinarité problèmes d’enseignement et de recherche dans les universités, (ocde, paris, 1972, proceedings of a workshop held in nice in 1970). nicolescu � knowledge dk in vitro knowledge tk in vivo external world object correspondence between external world (object) and internal world (subject) knowledge understanding analytic intelligence new type of intelligence harmony between mind, feelings and body oriented towards power and possession oriented towards astonishment and sharing binary logic included middle logic exclusion of values inclusion of values table 1. comparison between disciplinary knowledge dk and transdisciplinary knowledge tk. 2. the transdisciplinary approach of nature and knowledge the transdisciplinary approach of nature and knowledge can be described through the diagram shown in fig. 1. in the left part are symbolically drawn the levels of reality { nrn, ... , nr2, nr1, nr0, nr-1, nr-2, ... , nr-n } the index n can be finite or infinite. here the meaning we give to the word “reality” is pragmatic and ontological at the same time. by “reality” (with a capital “r”) we intend first of all to designate that which resists our experiences, representations, descriptions, images, or even mathematical formulations. insofar as nature participates in the being of the world, one must give an ontological dimension to the concept of reality. reality is not merely a social construction, the consensus of a collectivity, or some intersubjective agreement. it also has a trans-subjective dimension: e.g. experimental data can ruin the most beautiful scientific theory. of course, one has to distinguish the word “real” and “reality”. real designates that what it is, while reality is connected to resistance in our human experience. the “real” is, by definition, veiled for ever, while the “reality” is accessible to our knowledge. by “level of reality”, notion i first introduced in nous, la particule et le towards transdisciplinary education 9 td, 1 (1), december 200�, pp.�-16 monde � and later developed in other works,� i designate an ensemble of systems which are invariant under certain laws: for example, quantum entities are subordinate to quantum laws, which depart radically from the laws of the physical world. that is to say that two levels of reality are different if, while passing from one to the other, there is a break in the laws and a break in fundamental concepts (like, for example, causality). levels of reality are radically different from levels of organization as these have been defined in systemic approaches. levels of organization do not presuppose a break with fundamental concepts: several levels of organization can appear at one and the same level of reality. the levels of organization correspond to different structures of the same fundamental laws. for example, marxist economy and classical physics belong to one and the same level of reality. the emergence of at least three different levels of reality in the study of natural systems – the macrophysical level, the microphysical level and the cyber-space-time – is a major event in the history of knowledge. it can lead us to reconsider our individual and social lives, to give a new interpretation to old knowledge, to explore the knowledge of ourselves in a different way, here and now. the existence of different levels of reality has been affirmed by different traditions and civilizations, but this affirmation was founded either on religious dogma or on the exploration of the interior universe only. in our century, in an effort to question the foundations of science, edmund husserl6 and other scholars have detected the existence of different levels of perception by the subject–observer of reality. the transdisciplinary viewpoint allows us to consider a multidimensional reality, structured by multiple levels replacing the single-level, one-dimensional reality of classical thought. according to the transdisciplinary approach, reality is structured via a certain number of levels. the considerations which follow do not depend � b nicolescu, nous, la particule et le monde, (2e édition, le rocher, monaco, collection “transdisciplinarité”, 2002). � b nicolescu, “levels of complexity and levels of reality”, in b pullman (ed.), the emergence of complexity in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. proceedings of the plenary session of the pontifical academy of sciences, 27-31 october 1992, (casina pio iv, vatican, ed. pontificia academia scientiarum, vatican city, 1996, distributed by princeton university press); b nicolescu, “gödelian aspects of nature and knowledge” in g altmann and wa koch (eds.), systems new paradigms for the human sciences, (walter de gruyter, berlin new york, 1998); m camus, t magnin, b nicolescu and k-c voss, “levels of representation and levels of reality: towards an ontology of science” in nh gregersen, mws parsons and c wassermann (eds.), the concept of nature in science and theology, ii, (éditions labor et fides, genève, 1998), pp. 94-10�; b nicolescu, hylemorphism, quantum physics and levels of reality, in demetra sfendoni-mentzou, introduction by hilary putnam (eds.), aristotle and contemporary science, i, (peter lang, new york, 2000), pp. 1��-1��. 6 e husserl, méditations cartésiennes, (translated form german by gabrielle peiffer and emmanuel levinas, vrin, paris, 1966). nicolescu 10 on whether or not this number is finite or infinite. for the sake of clarity, let us suppose that this number is infinite (i.e. we take n→∞ in fig. 1). two adjacent levels in fig. 1 (say, nr0 and nr1) are connected by the logic of the included middle, a new logic as compared with classical logic. the classical logic is founded on three axioms: 1. the axiom of identity: a is a. 2. the axiom of non-contradiction: a is not non-a. �. the axiom of the excluded middle: there exists no third term t (“t” from “third”) which is at the same time a and non-a. figure 1: the transdisciplinary object, the transdisciplinary subject and interaction term. towards transdisciplinary education 11 td, 1 (1), december 200�, pp.�-16 using this logic one immediately arrives at the conclusion that the pairs of contradictories advanced by quantum physics are mutually exclusive, because one cannot affirm the validity of an assertion and of its opposite at the same time: a and non-a. most quantum logics� have modified the second axiom of classical logic — the axiom of non-contradiction — by introducing non-contradiction with several truth values in place of the binary pair (a and non-a). history will credit stéphane lupasco (1900-1988) with having shown that the logic of the included middle is a true logic, formalisable and formalized, multivalent (with three values: a, non-a, and t) and non-contradictory.� our understanding of the axiom of the included middle — there exists a third term t which is at the same time a and non-a — is completely clarified once the notion of “levels of reality” is introduced. in order to obtain a clear image of the meaning of the included middle, we represent in fig. 2 the three terms of the new logic — a, non-a, and t — and the dynamics associated with them by a triangle in which one of the vertices is situated at one level of reality and the two other vertices at another level of reality. the included middle is in fact an included third. if one remains at a single level of reality, all manifestation appears as a struggle between two contradictory elements. the third dynamic, that of the t-state, is exercised at another level of reality, where that which appears to be disunited is in fact united, and that which appears contradictory is perceived as non-contradictory. it is the projection of the t-state onto the same single level of reality which produces the appearance of mutually exclusive, antagonistic pairs (a and non-a). a single level of reality can only create antagonistic oppo� ta brody, “on quantum logic”, in foundation of physics, 14,(5), 1984, pp. 409-4 � 0 . � s lupasco, le principe d’antagonisme et la logique de l’énergie, (2nd edition, le rocher, paris, 1987), foreword by b nicolescu; stéphane lupasco l’homme et l’oeuvre, le rocher, monaco, coll. “transdisciplinarité”, 1999, under the direction of horia badescu and basarab nicolescu. nicolescu 12 sitions. it is inherently self-destructive if it is completely separated from all the other levels of reality. a third term which is situated at the same level of reality as that of the opposites a and non-a, cannot accomplish their reconciliation. the t1-state present at the level nr1 (see fig. 1) is connected to a pair of contradictories (a0 and non-a0) at an immediately adjacent level. the t1-state allows the unification of contradictories a0 and non-a0, but this unification takes place at a level different from the one nr0 on which a0 and non-a0 are situated. the axiom of non-contradiction is thereby respected. there is certainly a coherence among different levels of reality, at least in the natural world. in fact, an immense self-consistency — a cosmic bootstrap — seems to govern the evolution of the universe, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, from the infinitely brief to the infinitely long. a flow of information is transmitted in a coherent manner from one level of reality to another in our physical universe. the logic of the included middle is capable of describing the coherence among these levels of reality by an iterative process defined by the following stages: (1) a pair of contradictories (a0, non-a0) situated at a certain level nr0 of reality is unified by a t1-state situated at a contiguous level nr1 of reality; (2) in turn, this t1-state is linked to a couple of contradictories (a1, non-a1), situated at its own level; (�) the pair of contradictories (a1, non-a1) is, in its turn, unified by a t2-state situated at a third level nr2 of reality, immediately contiguous to the level nr1 where the ternary (a1, non-a1, t1) is found. the iterative process continues to indefinitely until all the levels of reality, known or conceivable, are exhausted. in other words, the action of the logic of the included middle on the different levels of reality induces an open structure of the unity of levels of reality. this structure has considerable consequences for the theory of knowledge because it implies the impossibility of a self-enclosed complete theory. knowledge is forever open. the open structure of the unity of levels of reality is in accord with one of the most important scientific results of the twentieth century concerning arithmetic, the theorem of kurt gödel,9 which states that a sufficiently rich system of axioms inevitably leads to results which are either indecisive or contradictory. the implications of gödel’s theorem have considerable importance for all modern theories of knowledge, primarily because it concerns not just the field of arithmetic, but all of mathematics which include arithmetic. to be sure, there is a coherence of the unity of levels of reality, but this coherence is oriented. if coherence is limited only to the levels of real9 see, for example, e nagel and jr newman, gödel’s proof, (new york university press, new york, 1958); hao wang, a logical journey from gödel to philosophy, (the mit press, cambridge, massachusetts london, england, 1996). towards transdisciplinary education 1� td, 1 (1), december 200�, pp.�-16 ity, it stops both at the “highest” level and at the “lowest” level (see fig. 1). if we wish to suggest the idea of a coherence which continues beyond these two limiting levels, so that there is an open unity, we must conceive the unity of levels of reality as a unity that extends by a zone of non-resistance to our experiences, representations, descriptions, images, and mathematical formulations. this zone of non-resistance corresponds to the “veil” which bernard d’espagnant referred to as “the veil of the real”.10 in this zone there are no levels of reality. quite simply, the non-resistance of this zone of absolute transparence is due to the limitations of our bodies and of our sense organs — limitations which apply regardless of what measuring tools are used to extend these sense organs. the zone of non-resistance corresponds to the sacred — to that which does not submit to any rationalization. it is rational but not rationalizable, a distinction often used by edgar morin.11 it is important to note that the three loops of coherence in fig. 1 are situated not only in the zone where the levels of reality are absent but also in between the levels of reality: the zone of non-resistance of the sacred penetrates and crosses the levels of reality. in other words, the transdisciplinary approach of nature and knowledge offers a link between the real and the reality. the unity of levels of reality and its complementary zone of nonresistance constitutes what we call the transdisciplinary object. a new principle of relativity12 [1] emerges from the coexistence between complex plurality and open unity: no level of reality constitutes a privileged place from which one is able to understand all the other levels of reality. a level of reality is what it is because all the other levels exist at the same time. this principle of relativity is what originates a new perspective on religion, politics, art, education, and social life. and when our perspective on the world changes, the world changes. “saying a true word is equivalent to the transformation of the world” writes the great brazilian educator paulo freire in his pedagogy of the oppressed.1� the different levels of reality are accessible to human knowledge thanks to the existence of different levels of perception, described diagrammatically at the right of fig. 1. they are found in a one-to-one correspondence with levels of reality. these levels of perception {npn, ... , np2, np1, np0, np-1, np-2, ... , np-n} permit an increasingly general, unifying, encompassing vision of reality, 10 b d’espagnat, le réel voilé analyse des concepts quantiques, (fayard, paris, 1994). 11 e morin, la méthode iii la connaissance de la connaissance/1. anthropologie de la connaissance, (seuil, paris, 1986). 12 b nicolescu, la transdisciplinarité, manifeste, (le rocher, monaco, collection “transdisciplinarité”, 1996); english translation: manifesto of transdisciplinarity, (translated from the french by karen-claire voss, suny press, new york, 2002). 1� p freire, pedagogy of the oppressed, (the seabury press, new york, 1968). nicolescu 1� without ever entirely exhausting it. as in the case of levels of reality, the coherence of levels of perception presuppose a zone of non-resistance to perception. in this zone there are no levels of perception. the unity of levels of perception and this complementary zone of nonresistance constitutes what we call the transdisciplinary subject. the two zones of non-resistance of transdisciplinary object and subject must be identical for the transdisciplinary subject to communicate with the transdisciplinary object. a flow of consciousness that coherently cuts across different levels of perception must correspond to the flow of information coherently cutting across different levels of reality. the two flows are interrelated because they share the same zone of non-resistance. knowledge is neither exterior nor interior: it is simultaneously exterior and interior. the studies of the universe and of the human being sustain one another. the open unity between the transdisciplinary object and the transdisciplinary subject is conveyed by the coherent orientation of the flow of information, described by the three oriented loops in fig. 1which cut through the levels of reality, and of the flow of consciousness, described by the three oriented loops which cut through the levels of perception. the loops of information and consciousness have to meet in a least one point x in order to insure the coherent transmission of information and consciousness everywhere in the visible and invisible regions of the universe. in some sense, the point x is the source of reality and perception. the point x and its associated loops of information and consciousness describe the third term of the transdisciplinary knowledge: the interaction term between the subject and the object, which can not be reduced neither to the object nor to the subject. this ternary partition { subject, object, interaction } is radically different from the binary partition { subject, object } which defines the modern metaphysics. the view i am expressing here is totally conform to the one of the founders of quantum mechanics werner heisenberg, wolfgang pauli and niels bohr. in fact, werner heisenberg came very near, in his philosophical writings, to the concept of “level of reality”. in his famous manuscript of the year 1942 (published only in 1984) heisenberg, who knew well husserl, introduces the idea of three regions of reality, able to give access to the towards transdisciplinary education 1� td, 1 (1), december 200�, pp.�-16 concept of “reality” itself: the first region is that of classical physics, the second of quantum physics, biology and psychic phenomena and the third – that of the religious, philosophical and artistic experiences.1� this classification has a subtle ground: the closer and closer connectiveness between the subject and the object. the methodology of transdisciplinarity is therefore founded on three postulates: i. there are, in nature and in our knowledge of nature, different levels of reality and, correspondingly, different levels of perception. ii. the passage from one level of reality to another is insured by the logic of the included middle. iii. the structure of the totality of levels of reality or perception is a complex structure: every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time.1� the first two get their experimental evidence from quantum physics, while the last one has its source not only in quantum physics but also in a variety of other exact and human sciences. it is important to note that one can assume the validity of the three postulates of transdisciplinarity independently of their historical roots in some branches of modern science. in other words transdisciplinarity does not rest on a transfer from modern science: this would be a wrong epistemological and philosophical procedure. modern science, via its most general aspects, allowed us to identify the three postulates of transdisciplinarity, but once they are formulated they have a much wider validity then in modern science itself, namely they could be applied in the field of education and culture. the transdisciplinary education, founded on the transdisciplinary methodology, will allow us to establish links between persons, facts, images, representations, fields of knowledge and action, to discover the eros of learning during our entire life and to built beings in permanent questioning and permanent integration. 1� w heisenberg, philosophie le manuscrit de 1942, (translation from german and introduction by catherine chevalley, seuil, paris, 1998). 1� b nicolescu, la transdisciplinarité, manifeste, (le rocher, monaco, collection “transdisciplinarité”, 1996); english translation: manifesto of transdisciplinarity, (translation from the french by karen-claire voss, suny press, new york, 2002). abstract introduction literature review methodology research design, paradigm and sampling data collection method data analysis and interpretation research results discussion of results conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) alfred h. mazorodze department of information systems, school of computing, university of south africa, johannesburg, south africa peter mkhize department of information systems, school of computing, university of south africa, johannesburg, south africa citation mazorodze ah, mkhize p. an investigation into the knowledge–sharing practices for innovation in higher education institutions of developing countries. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1230. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1230 original research an investigation into the knowledge–sharing practices for innovation in higher education institutions of developing countries alfred h. mazorodze, peter mkhize received: 24 apr. 2022; accepted: 27 june 2022; published: 29 sept. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the adoption of knowledge-sharing practices in higher education result in improved decision-making, improved access to information and increased collaboration. a knowledge-sharing culture enables the free exchange of knowledge amongst academics and this drives institutions towards innovation. this study examines the extent to which knowledge-sharing practices have been adopted at higher education institutions (heis) of developing countries. the article reports on an inquiry conducted at heis in zimbabwe to determine the knowledge-sharing practices in place. a survey was used to collect quantitative data from 240 purposefully selected academics at the heis. the data were analysed using descriptive statistics. this study established that heis have not fully implemented the knowledge-sharing practices. empirical evidence confirms that attendance of conferences is important for knowledge sharing where 43% of the participants approved the proposition. coaching and mentoring improve academic skills such that 21.7% of the participants approved the premise. subscribing to international journals increases the visibility of scientific research work and only 18.3% of the participants confirmed that their institutions subscribe to internationally recognised journals. surprisingly, 60% of the participants confirmed that their institutions do not offer knowledge-sharing workshops. unremarkably, 23.3% of the participants confirmed that their institutions do not have a knowledge-sharing culture. transdisciplinarity contribution: higher education institutions have not fully exploited the knowledge-sharing practices that could make them more innovative. the institutions are still at the trial stage of adopting knowledge-sharing practices. this study therefore recommends the creation of communities of practice (cops) specifically for knowledge sharing. keywords: knowledge sharing; communities of practice; academic; higher education institutions; innovation; coaching and mentoring. introduction knowledge sharing basically involves the communication of knowledge to other individuals in an institution.1 innovation is described by hassan2 as a multistage process where institutions transform ideas into value-added services and processes, so as to compete with others and differentiate themselves in their marketplace. the innovation process transforms new knowledge into useful products and services thereby creating value for the institutions. to this date, knowledge sharing remains an important catalyst for innovation in higher education institutions (heis) of both developed and developing countries. according to farinha et al.,3 innovation contributes to institutional growth and sustainability. all over the world, the business of higher education is to teach students and conduct research, although other scholars4 argue that heis are not business institutions. research is pivotal for innovation as it allows knowledge-sharing, a knowledge management (km) process, which farooq5 underscores as crucially important. research findings through publications could be used to improve institutional competencies, including improved strategies for teaching, learning and collaborating. higher education institutions naturally store and access knowledge in some manner and these institutions are expected to be at the cutting edge of such innovation.1 research-intensive institutions are ranked according to their core missions of teaching, research and the international outlook. an institution of higher learning’s knowledge base is a major factor in attracting and nurturing tomorrow’s finest minds and this inspires and motivates the next generation of potential research academics. as a result, research and publications are principal factors that foster innovation in heis. moustaghfir and schiuma6 reported that, innovation and knowledge sharing are closely related and exert significant impact on institutional sustainability and performance. this study was conducted at four heis in zimbabwe, directed by the following two objectives, designed to: determine the extent to which knowledge-sharing practices have been applied at the heis recommend the adoption of knowledge-sharing practices at the heis. knowledge can only have a positive impact on a hei if it is shared with others and applied to solve problems in an institutional setting.7 knowledge sharing considerably increases team productivity,8 making it easier to access expertise from within the team and this certainly boosts institutional creativity. this study contributes to scholarly knowledge by recommending the adoption of knowledge-sharing practices in heis of developing countries. the following section provides the theoretical framework that guides the study and reviews literature on different tools and techniques, which could be used for effective knowledge sharing in heis. literature review the diffusion of innovations (doi) theory focuses on understanding how innovative ideas are spread in social systems,9 which in this case are heis. according to nowacki and bachnik1 and lee and trimi,10 innovation is a new idea in organisational practices that gains momentum and diffuses through a social network system. taking cue of innovation adoption from rogers,9 nowacki and bachnik1 define innovation adoption as the application of an innovation within an organisation. the ultimate goal of innovation adoption is to ensure that users adopt the idea or service to solve practical problems. for this specific study, innovation diffusion is therefore the dissemination of innovative knowledge-sharing practices within the heis in developing countries. knowledge-application refers to the practical use of knowledge that has been created, captured and put into the km cycle. cheng, ho and lau11 underscore that knowledge application is when available knowledge is used to make informed decisions and execute tasks through direction and routines. it is vital to underscore that knowledge re-use promotes efficiency and innovation by introducing more effective ways of doing work in an institution. this is quite seminal at a hei in creating and maintaining a competitive advantage. from an academic perspective, knowledge-sharing application results in improved decision-making, improved access to information, increased collaboration and improved understanding of information in context in a timely manner. according to farinha et al.,3 institutions of higher education are in the business of creating and disseminating knowledge because their core focus is the creation, dissemination, knowledge sharing and institutional learning. these institutions of higher learning aim to equip new generations with the practical skills through effective knowledge-sharing. it is important to highlight that knowledge sharing should be promoted as a way of advancing knowledge in innovative ways. thus, encouraging knowledge sharing would positively scaffold academic excellence in developing countries. laudon and laudon12 define knowledge sharing as the transfer of one person’s knowledge and ideas to another person using a computer-based information system. this definition illustrates that heis should have knowledge-sharing systems in place. knowledge sharing enables heis to converge towards knowledge portals. in many heis, knowledge sharing takes place by means of publications, presentations, workshops, meetings, seminars, written reports and focus group discussions.13 as a matter of fact, knowledgeable and experienced researchers should be prepared to share knowledge with others. knowledge shared by academics in communities of practice (cops) becomes institutional knowledge14 and can encounter challenges such as a lack of time, a barrier which is very consistent in the km literature. coaching and mentoring are some of the tools used to nurture knowledge in heis. coaching empowers employees and encourages them to take responsibility15 whilst mentoring offers professional socialisation and support to enable knowledge-transfer in heis.16 in addition, mentoring increases knowledge sharing through collaboration and this undoubtedly strengthens the institutional culture. many institutions of higher learning invest millions of dollars into information and communication technology (ict) without considering the effective integration of those technologies into shared decision-making processes that ultimately improve academic operations.17 during knowledge-sharing, knowledge held by an academic is converted into a form that can be understood and used by other academics in an institution to solve practical problems. this basically means conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge using different processes. people are the core of institutional knowledge sharing because it is people who create, share and manage the knowledge in an institution of higher learning. knowledge management, specifically knowledge-sharing, brings together the three core organisational resources: (1) people, (2) processes and (3) technology to enable the institution to use information and knowledge effectively.18 people are the holders of knowledge and should understand the processes, assisted by different technologies. figure 1 shows the connections amongst these three core resources. figure 1: aligning people, process and technology in knowledge management. from figure 1, we can infer that academics in heis build a knowledge-sharing culture and they are assisted by different technologies to execute their core functions of teaching, learning, community engagement and research. according to simmons,19 people signify the capabilities of academics within an institution to inspire and influence others with their valuable knowledge. thus, training and motivating people to be integrated and aware of the processes become an act that strives to continuously improve services using appropriate technology. processes, on the other hand, describe how one creates and implements best practices for effective knowledge sharing. in addition, processes aim to share knowledge with the teams and therefore apply the new knowledge in problem-solving. laudon and laudon12 confirm that technology addresses how one selects and uses the tools to facilitate effective knowledge sharing. moreover, technology assists with storing and securing information and knowledge in an institution. knowledge sharing builds a learning and development culture4 and it is vital to have managers and leaders in heis who can inspire the knowledge workers to share the knowledge they have nurtured. institutions of higher education need to attend effective education and training workshops that develop a thriving knowledge-sharing culture.11 in knowledge-intensive institutions, knowledge sharing nurtures a corporate learning culture. this corporate culture develops into a shared vision and team-work and as a result the institutions become innovative. as a learning culture is characterised by values and beliefs of academics in an institution, this culture certainly boosts the morale and motivates the academics to share knowledge. the methodology adopted to complete this study is presented next. methodology after an in-depth literature review on the knowledge-sharing topic, the researchers established that knowledge-sharing practices are not fully embraced in heis of developing countries. the research method and procedure adopted to complete the study is explained here in an effort to answer the following questions. to what extent have knowledge-sharing practices been applied at heis of developing countries? which tools could be recommended for effective knowledge sharing in heis? research design, paradigm and sampling a quantitative research design in the form of a survey was conducted at four heis in zimbabwe: a developing country in africa. the positivist paradigm was used in this research because it is scientific and objective.20 moreover, positivism permits statistical analysis following well-defined structures. the research participants were drawn from a sample of 240 academics in different disciplines at the heis using a purposive sampling technique. data collection method quantitative data and facts were collected through the use of a structured online questionnaire. the questionnaire was divided into different sections including the demographic section and the knowledge-sharing applications section. the demographic section enabled the researcher to understand the different profiles of the academics. the second section enabled the researcher to understand the extent to which knowledge-sharing practices have been applied at the heis in zimbabwe. academics were asked to rank statements on a 5-point likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree on the different aspects of knowledge sharing in heis. responses to likert scale questions are standardised and these are analysed collectively to draw meaningful conclusions. data analysis and interpretation for quantitative data analysis, microsoft office excel 2019 was utilised because of its charting capabilities and user-friendliness. internal consistency is a measure of reliability,21 which determines the extent to which a measure yields the same results. the internal consistency tests were therefore performed to improve the validity and reliability of the research findings using cronbach’s alpha. the reliability tests were performed on the knowledge-sharing applications and cronbach’s alpha was 0.74 confirming the appropriateness of the data collected and analysed. according to salkind,22 cronbach’s alpha above 0.6 is acceptable although other scholars advocate for higher values of 0.90–0.95 to perform both descriptive and inferential statistics. in line with the ethical principles outlined by surmiak23 and for confidentiality reasons, the names of the participants and the heis are not disclosed in this article. interestingly, the response rate was 66.6%, which was actually reasonable to analyse and generalise the findings to heis in developing countries. this article therefore reports on the quantitative data only from the academics on the knowledge-sharing applications for innovation in heis. research results the demographic data of the participants is given in table 1. according to potter and hoque,24 demographic information is necessary for the determination of whether the participants in a specific study are a representative sample of the target population for generalisation of the results. moreover, demographic data permits readers and researchers to compare and replicate findings in similar contexts. table 1: demographic data of the participants. from the data presented in table 1, we can infer that majority of the participants were higher degree holders with more than 10 years of working experience in heis. as the business of heis is to teach students and do research,25 work experience of the academics is very important to deliver the best services to the institution. knowledge-sharing practices aim to tap the expertise possessed by experienced academics and share it with junior academics and this helps to retain organisational knowledge. the data analysed and discussed in the next section sought to determine the extent to which knowledge-sharing practices have been applied at the heis and also recommend the tools, which could be used for effective knowledge-sharing. the data analysis was guided by the doi by rogers,9 which looks at how ideas spread in social systems. as explained earlier on in the methodology section, the data were collected from four heis in zimbabwe, a developing country in africa. all the questions were on a 5-point likert scale from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). figure 2 shows the distribution of responses obtained from the study. it is important to note that the distribution of responses show an effective visual picture on the responses of the participants. figure 2: distribution of responses on knowledge-sharing practices for innovation (n = 240). from the distribution presented, figure 3 presents a summary and analysis of responses obtained from academics at the heis in zimbabwe. in figure 3, positive responses refer to the participants who strongly agreed and agreed, respectively, to the different propositions on a specific knowledge-sharing aspect. neutral reflects on the responses where participants were not sure or indecisive of the different propositions. lastly, negative is a combination of participants who disagreed and strongly disagreed with the propositions on the knowledge-sharing practices in their heis. from the descriptive analysis, useful conclusions can be drawn for each individual proposition. figure 3: knowledge-sharing practices for innovation in higher education (n = 240). ethical considerations the research ethics committee in the college of science, engineering and technology of the university of south africa approved the study with reference 2021/cset/soc/041. discussion of results an institution of higher learning can only be innovative if it allows its academics to attend both local and international conferences.26 it emerged from this enquiry that 43.3% of the responses were positive on their institutions allowing attendance of local and international conferences, specifically for knowledge-sharing. it further emerged as shown in figure 3 that 26.7% of the participants were indecisive on their institutions allowing attendance of local and international conferences. on the same construct, exactly 30% of the participants were negative on the proposition that their institutions agree to attending local and international conferences. it therefore becomes explicit that heis should allow attendance of conferences for academics to share knowledge. international conferences establish connections and socialisation with acquaintances to gain a plethora of knowledge. the findings here corroborate with cheng et al.11 who established that institutions of higher education should allow attendance of local and international conferences for them to be innovative. in most higher education norms, both locally and internationally, knowledge sharing and transfer is typically performed through peer-reviewed journal publications.27 it was established by only 18.3% of the participants that their institutions subscribe to internationally recognised journals. on the same proposition, 31.7% of the participants were neutral on their institutions subscribing to internationally accredited journals. exactly 50.0% of the participants had a negative view on their institutions subscribing to internationally accredited journals as shown in figure 3. when one shares research results via publications, they essentially become part of the scientific community. surely one benefits from the critique of other scholars in similar disciplines and exchange of ideas. we can therefore confirm that getting research published in accredited journals holds benefits for both the researcher and the institution hosting the journal. some of the most widely used techniques to nurture knowledge in heis include coaching and mentoring. as part of knowledge sharing, coaching focuses on immediate problems and opportunities.15 it was also confirmed by only 21.7% of the participants that their institutions cultivate knowledge through coaching and mentoring. on the same proposition, 35% and 43.3% of the research participants were neutral and negative, respectively, on their institutions nurturing knowledge through coaching and mentoring. the importance of coaching to an academic and the institution is the perfection of an employee’s skills that eventually lead to better institutional performance and innovation. from this finding, we can deduce that coaching and mentoring is partially practiced at the institutions of higher learning in zimbabwe where this study took place. subscribing to international journals increases the visibility of scientific work. if a journal is on the elite listings for institutions of higher learning, then it is a good journal. interestingly, 75.0% of the participants agreed that their institutions have accredited journals where they can publish their own research work. also, 16.7% of the participants were neutral whilst 8.3% were negative on their institutions having accredited journals to publish their research. reputable journals should provide open access to all peer reviewed articles.28,29 open access has increased readership because it is free for all and this is vital in advancing knowledge, especially in developing countries. institutions and funders always expect researchers to publish in internationally accredited journals to increase credibility of the heis. lee30 posit that workshops have a positive impact on an institution’s innovation capabilities as they allow peers to collaborate and share knowledge. it is important to state here that workshops build professional relationships between and among academics at the heis, not only in developing countries but also in developed countries. it emerged that only 21.7% of the participants were optimistic that their institutions offer knowledge-sharing workshops. on the same premise, 18.3% of the participants were non-aligned on their institutions offering knowledge-sharing workshops as shown in figure 3. surprisingly, a majority (60%) of the participants confirmed that their institutions do not offer knowledge-sharing workshops. from the submissions here, we can infer that institutions of higher learning partially offer knowledge-sharing workshops. seminars and workshops permit an active interaction between and amongst academics in heis. continuous interaction amongst academics paves a way to generate new knowledge, which will certainly contribute to an institution’s innovation capabilities. innovation in heis is supported by appropriate technologies.11,29 these technologies are therefore operated by competent and knowledgeable academics in heis. interestingly, 75% of the participants established that their institutions have all the necessary technologies to support effective knowledge sharing. such technology basically meant a computer, which is connected to a reliable internet connection for research purposes. on the same construct, 11.7% of the participants were neutral on their institutions having all the necessary technology to support knowledge sharing. it also emerged that 13.3% of the partakers disagreed that their institutions have all the required technology to support knowledge sharing. based on the empirical evidence gathered and presented here, we can therefore extrapolate that the institutions of higher learning have the necessary technology to support effective knowledge sharing. a knowledge-sharing culture may certainly promote innovation in heis.31,32 such a knowledge-sharing culture should therefore be embedded in the academics of a specific hei. it was confirmed by 33.3% of the participants that their institutions promote a knowledge-sharing culture. also, 43.3% of the participants were indecisive on their institutions promoting a knowledge-sharing culture. on the same premise, 23.3% of the participants had negative views on their institutions supporting and promoting a knowledge-sharing culture. the findings here confirm that a knowledge-sharing culture is not yet fully embedded in the academics at the specific institutions studied and this may result in significant delays with regard to institutional innovation. wolfenden14 described cop as an approach where knowledge is transferred through formal or informal groups and he argues that a cop provide access to new knowledge, which is very essential for innovation. out of the 240 participants who partook in this study, only 18.3% of the participants agreed that they have cop either in their respective departments. also, 25% of the participants were neutral on their institutions having cop for effective knowledge sharing. however, 56.7% of the participants confirmed that they do not have cop for effective knowledge sharing. communities of practice can foster trust and a sense of common purpose, confirming the ability to link academics for effective knowledge sharing. from the findings, we can underscore that institutions of higher education in developing countries have not yet fully adopted cop as a tool for knowledge sharing. reaburn and mcdonald33 established that cop are very important for engagement in heis and they underscore that people should have time to participate. more so, cop encourage knowledge sharing and provide instant feedback and collaboration amongst academics. executive support is imperative to support all knowledge-sharing undertakings30,34 and 33.3% of the participants responded positively to this proposition. also, 23% of the participants were neutral on their executive supporting knowledge-sharing activities. nevertheless, 43.3% of the participants disagreed that knowledge-sharing activities at their institutions require executive support. from these findings, we can therefore deduce that executive support is very important to enable knowledge sharing but it is again not fully supported at the heis in zimbabwe. executive support stimulates cultural change and innovation by allowing free flow of ideas between and among academics and this support should be seen as an instrument for change by developing decisive strategies for knowledge sharing. conclusion and recommendations in response to the research questions and objectives, this study established that heis in developing countries have not yet adopted all the knowledge-sharing practices. the institutions can only be innovative if they allow their academics to attend both local and international conferences for effective knowledge-sharing. based on the empirical evidence, we can conclude and recommend here that institutions of higher learning should allow attendance of local and international conferences for them to be innovative. as 50% of the participants submitted that their institutions do not subscribe to internationally accredited journals, we can again conclude and recommend that all institutions of higher learning subscribe to internationally accredited journals. effective knowledge sharing through publications is a catalyst and critical motivator for innovation. it was established by 22% of the participants that institutions of higher education foster knowledge through coaching and mentoring of junior academics. on the other hand, 43% of the participants submitted that their institutions do not nurture knowledge sharing through coaching and mentoring. we can further conclude and recommend that heis should immediately implement coaching and mentoring to perfect employee’s skills that consequently lead to improved institutional performance. both techniques focus on the future, creating the necessary change, which is needed by all the institutions of higher learning in developing countries such as zimbabwe. majority (53%) of the participants submitted that their institutions do not offer knowledge-sharing workshops. from these submissions, we can deduce that the institutions of higher learning partially offer workshops for knowledge-sharing, which could be attributed by limited financial resources, a common trend in developing countries. the study therefore recommends adequate funding to transform institutions and improve quality of services. innovation in higher education is supported by proper technologies and it was confirmed by 75% of the participants that their institutions have all the required technology for effective knowledge-sharing. we can therefore draw conclusions that the investigated institutions of higher education have the necessary technology to support effective knowledge-sharing. on the premise that a knowledge-sharing culture may promote innovation, 23% of the participants disagreed with the proposition. the findings therefore confirm that the knowledge-sharing culture is not fully embedded in the academics and this may result in a delay to institutional innovation. based on empirical evidence from heis in a developing country, the study recommends a knowledge-sharing culture change to accelerate innovation. to realise innovation in heis, policies that support knowledge sharing should be put in place and these require executive support. this study recommends the creation of academic cop for knowledge sharing in heis of developing countries. acknowledgements the researchers would like to thank the participants from the higher education institutions identified in zimbabwe. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions a.h.m. collected that from institutions of higher learning and wrote this article. p.m. provided guidance as the supervisor of the study. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the author’s institution or the funders. references nowacki r, bachnik k. innovations within knowledge management. j bus res. 2016;69(5):1577–1581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.10.020 hassan nm. increasing the pace towards an innovation economy 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knowledge sharing in higher education institutions: a systematic review. j enterp inf manag. 2018;31(2):226–246. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeim-09-2017-0129 intezari a, taskin n, pauleen dj. looking beyond knowledge sharing: an integrative approach to knowledge management culture. j knowl manag. 2017;21(2):492–515. https://doi.org/10.1108/jkm-06-2016-0216 reaburn p, mcdonald j. creating and facilitating communities of practice in higher education: theory to practice in a regional australian university. in: mcdonald j, cater-steel a, editors. communities of practice. singapore: springer, 2017; p. 121–150. o’dell c, hubert ct. the new edge in knowledge: how knowledge management is changing the way we do business. hoboken, nj: wiley; 2011. abstract introduction methods results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) eduan kotze department of computer science and informatics, faculty of natural and agricultural sciences, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa burgert senekal department of computer science and informatics, faculty of natural and agricultural sciences, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa citation kotze, e. & senekal, b., 2020, ‘not just a language with white faces: analysing #taalmonument on instagram using machine learning’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a871. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.871 original research not just a language with white faces: analysing #taalmonument on instagram using machine learning eduan kotze, burgert senekal received: 29 apr. 2020; accepted: 18 sept. 2020; published: 15 dec. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract from the late 19th century, and especially during apartheid (1948–1994), afrikaans became inextricably tied with white people, white domination and apartheid. this association has persisted after 1994, and calls to preserve afrikaans are often derided with claims that the preference for afrikaans is also a preference for racial segregation. in such anti-afrikaans views, afrikaans is seen as synonymous with white people and apartheid despite the fact that afrikaans was never exclusively spoken by white people. this prejudice towards afrikaans is also shown towards the afrikaanse taalmonument, which was unveiled in 1975 to commemorate this language. using machine learning and a large dataset of social media posts from instagram, we show that not only white people visit this monument to afrikaans, but also take pictures here and post about it on one of the largest social media platforms. as such, we show that the interest in this monument – just like the language itself – is not exclusively tied to one race. we also make suggestions for further research, such as using machine learning for image recognition using social media datasets that could illuminate how other south african monuments are seen in the contemporary world. keywords: afrikaans; taalmonument; machine learning; convolutional neural networks; instagram; apartheid. introduction since the late 19th century, afrikaans ‘was constructed as a “white language,” with a “white history” and “white faces”’ (willemse 2017). because the afrikaner-dominated national party (np) carried out its policy of racial segregation (apartheid) in south africa from 1948 to 1994, afrikaans also became associated with apartheid. in particular, the 1976 soweto riots, which was to a large extent opposition towards afrikaans as a medium of education, turned the focus of anti-apartheid resistance towards afrikaans, ‘this rebellion stigmatized or “further stigmatized” afrikaans, because the apartheid policy and its application caused injustice and increased a negative attitude towards afrikaners and standard afrikaans’ (steyn 2014:418).1 afrikaans is still associated with the apartheid government and related concepts such as oppression and the restriction of freedom, which has led to a resentment towards the language by a large proportion of the south african population (van zyl & rossouw 2016:310). recent protests at south african university campuses (e.g. #afrikaansmustfall and #openstellenbosch) saw black students mobilising to remove afrikaans as a language of tertiary education, arguing that it remained a barrier to education, offered an unfair advantage to white students, perpetuated racial segregation and alienated black students. this hostility towards afrikaans can also be seen in the conduct of african national congress (anc) officials, in particular gauteng mec for education, panyaza lesufi, and minister of higher education, blade nzimande, who have made numerous statements against afrikaans (friedman 2019; steward 2014). nzimande, for instance, called the private afrikaans-only tertiary education institution, akademia, ‘racist’ because of its language policy (steward 2014), whilest lesufi made similar comments about sol-tech (friedman 2019). such views ignore the fact that the majority of afrikaans speakers (60%) are not white people (willemse 2017) but have become commonplace in south africa nevertheless. the monument to the afrikaans language, the afrikaanse taalmonument (afrikaans language monument), is likewise associated with apartheid by some, and there have been calls to dismantle the taalmonument in the interest of nation-building (smith 2013:124; van zyl & rossouw 2016:310). groenewald (2018:230) calls the anc-regime ‘antagonistic to the language that the monument valorises’, and hence hostility towards the monument itself can be expected. the current study investigates posts made with the hashtag, #taalmonument, on the social media platform, instagram. as instagram posts constitute a voluntary association with this monument in the public sphere, the objective of the current study is to determine whether only white people – the race associated with afrikaans – voluntarily associate themselves with this monument or whether people of other races do the same and to what extent. to this end, we develop, train and evaluate our own machine learning image recognition classifier after constructing our own annotated corpus of images, which is also benchmarked against an internationally recognised dataset. we also make suggestions for future research. background to the taalmonument the first proposal to erect a monument to afrikaans was made at a commemoration of the founding of the genootskap van regte afrikaners (association of real afrikaners) in 1942 (groenewald 2018:227; van zyl & rossouw 2016:299). following this proposal, the afrikaanse taalmonumentkomitee (afrikaans language monument committee) was founded to raise funds for this purpose (groenewald 2018:227; van zyl & rossouw 2016:299). more than 20 years later, in 1964, a competition was held to select an architect to design the monument, and the architect jan van wijk was chosen to design the monument (de vaal-senekal, de kock & putter 2018:198; van zyl & rossouw 2016:300). the monument was unveiled by prime minister bj vorster on 10th october 1975, and the accompanying taalmuseum (language museum) was inaugurated on 14th august 1975 (de vaal-senekal et al. 2018:197; van zyl & rossouw 2016:298). a monument to afrikaans will inevitably be placed in the racialised discourse that is associated with this language. although afrikaans is currently associated with white people and apartheid, this was not always the case: when the genootskap van regte afrikaners was founded in 1875, most afrikaans speakers were not white people, and afrikaans was often referred to as a hotnotstaal2 (groenewald 2018:228). as willemse reminds us, ‘afrikaans also has a “black history” rather than just the known hegemonic apartheid history inculcated by white afrikaner christian national education, propaganda and the media’. throughout the apartheid years (1948–1994), however, the afrikaner was depicted as a white nation, with afrikaans-speaking coloured people marginalised by the apartheid state. today, the majority of afrikaans speakers are not white people, and whilest 60% of south african white people have afrikaans as a first language, over 90% of the coloured population speak afrikaans as a first language (smith 2013:133). nevertheless, the afrikaner is generally seen as a white nation (senekal 2019) (note that afrikaner and afrikaans-speaking are two different labels, the former generally denotating an ethnic group and the latter a linguistic group). in light of this association between white people and afrikaans, calls for the preservation of afrikaans are often seen as an attempt to maintain segregation and ‘white privilege’ (see e.g. pilane 2015). the taalmonument symbolises afrikaans’s diverse roots, including western european (dutch, french, german and portuguese), malaysian and african languages, including those of the khoi-khoi, san and other black africans (smith 2013:144; van wijk 2014:76; van zyl & rossouw 2016:300–301). nevertheless, there has been fierce criticism of this monument, including that it is an ‘apartheidmonument’ (van zyl & rossouw 2016:309). however, van wijk (2014:21) states that he did not design the monument for white afrikaners but rather for the language itself (see also van zyl & rossouw 2016:310). moreover, an effort was made to secure the attendance of coloured afrikaans speakers and authors at the inauguration of the taalmonument in 1975 (smith 2013:146; van zyl & rossouw 2016:309). a poem by adam small (one of the most prominent coloured afrikaans authors), ‘nkosi sikelel’ iafrika’, was also recited at the opening (smith 2013:146). from the beginning, then, the taalmonument has aimed at shedding the stigma of afrikaans being a language reserved for white people. however, with the soweto riots occurring just the year after the opening of the taalmonument, this attempt at making afrikaans more inclusive seems to have had little effect. today, the taalmonument still aims at inclusivity, ‘the atm strives for all south africans to appreciate afrikaans. in this spirit, the atm works hard to encourage and support afrikaans among the youth and non-mother-tongue speakers’ (de vaal-senekal et al. 2018:198, see also van zyl & rossouw 2016:311; smith 2013:138). this effort to broaden the appeal of the taalmonument and the museum should lead to a diverse collection of visitors. in the contemporary world, visitors to monuments and museums often share their visits with others on social media platforms, such as instagram, which provides the opportunity to analyse social media posts to obtain a better understanding of who visits monuments and why. the following section provides a short background on instagram. instagram being founded in 2010, instagram quickly became a major role player as a social media platform. currently, instagram has around a billion worldwide users each month and 500 million users each day, with over 50 billion photos uploaded to date (aslam 2020). in south africa, facebook is the most popular social media platform, followed by youtube, whatsapp, facebook messenger, linkedin, twitter and instagram (qwerty 2017:12). instagram is a photo-based platform that allows only photo and video posts, that is, no text-only posts similar to facebook and twitter. instagram is, however, not representative of the entire population of a country as instagram users tend to be younger (anderson & jiang 2018; aslam 2020; duncan 2016). this is particularly relevant in the current study, as people who visit the taalmonument and post pictures of their visits later will probably be from a younger generation that is less tied to a first-hand experience of apartheid and the np. note, however, that we do not have access to users’ ages. to investigate whether only white people or people of different races associate themselves with the taalmonument on instagram, we first had to train a model to distinguish between different races. the following section provides a background to machine learning for racial classification, after which we discuss the specific methods we used. machine learning for image classification machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence (ai) and was developed from the 1960s onwards (kononenko 2001; michie 1968), in particular through the works of rosenblatt (1962), nilsson (1965) and hunt, martin and stone (1966). the field gained ground in the most recent two decades because of the big data revolution (jordan & mitchell 2015:256), leading jordan and mitchell (2015:260) to claim, ‘machine learning is likely to be one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century’. a large amount of recent research has been directed towards identifying race in images using machine learning (fu, he & hou 2014; trivedi & amali 2017; vo, nguyen & le 2018). although the concept of race is a contentious issue, particularly as the term is often used interchangeably or confused with ethnicity (see, e.g. bartlett 2001; collins 2004; markus 2008), fu et al. (2014:2483) define the difference between race and ethnicity simply, ‘race refers to a person’s physical appearance or characteristics, while ethnicity is more viewed as a culture concept, relating to nationality, rituals and cultural heritages, or even ideology’. we prefer this simple distinction between race and ethnicity and focus the rest of our discussion on race. racial classification is in one sense a highly controversial topic, because it carries the baggage of the population registration act (union of south africa 1950) that, along with other apartheid-era legislation, led to racial discrimination and human rights abuses in south africa before 1994. in contrast, racial classification is not controversial in contemporary south africa: broad-based black economic empowerment (bbbee), as well as the discourse around white monopoly capital, transformation, white privilege and land expropriation, assumes racial categories. despite the abolishment of racial categories in south africa during the final years of apartheid, racial categories have persisted in the south african census and in public discourses. most university staff have experienced being obligated to indicate their race on administrative forms as well, with racial categories reminiscent of the population registration act (union of south africa 1950) (white-, black-, coloured-, indian people and other). we would therefore like to emphasise that we trained a model to conduct racial classification because the discourse on afrikaans and the taalmonument is already racialised; the irony of deracialising this discourse is that we first need to be able to distinguish between races to ascertain whether visitors to the taalmonument who post about their visits afterwards on instagram belong to one or various races. a variety of racial classification methods using machine learning have been proposed. fu et al. (2014:2487) note ‘statistically significant variances in facial anthropometric dimensions between all race groups’, which ‘pave the way of anthropometry-based automatic race recognition’. the question is what to measure. there is a common misconception that race is defined by a skin colour (as exemplified by referring to people as ‘white’ or ‘black’), and numerous efforts have been made to use skin colour to differentiate between races, but fu et al. (2014:2485) argue ‘skin color is such a variable visual feature within any given race that it is actually one of the least important factors in distinguishing between races’. a second view holds that ‘physical characteristics such as hairshaft morphologic characteristics and craniofacial measurements are viewed as significant indicators of race belongings’ (2014:2485), whilest another method compares the eyes of subjects; fu et al. (2014:2490) note ‘statistically significant race differences in retinal geometric characteristics’, which have been reported in several studies. we opted for a more holistic approach by extracting whole faces and teaching a model to which race faces belong, as discussed below. depending on the criteria and level of analysis, there are between three and 200 races (coon 1962). fu et al. (2014:2485) distinguish between seven races, which cover about 95% of the world population: african/african american, caucasian, east asian, native american/american indian, pacific islander, asian indian and hispanic/latino. these seven races, of course, exclude coloured people. in adapting racial classifications for the south african context, we initially used the classifications suggested by jan raats, whose classification was used by the np government through the population registration act (james 2012; union of south africa 1950) and can still be found on administrative forms in south africa today. these categories distinguish between four races: white-, black-, colouredand asiatic people (we substitute his classification of ‘bantu’ for the more politically acceptable term ‘black’). however, the difference between indianand asian people is so striking that we decided to split the asiatic category into asianand indian people. people of a mixed-race origin pose a significant challenge to existing facial recognition models (fu et al. 2014:2502). this predicts that there will be difficulty in classifying south africans who have been mixing for the past 350 years, especially for the coloured population. afrikaners, although generally considered white people, are also not exclusively caucasian in their genetic makeup (erasmus, klingenberg & greeff 2015; greeff 2007; h. heese 1979, 1984; j. heese 1971). our experiments confirmed fu et al.’s (2014:2502) assertion and encountered substantial difficulty in distinguishing between white-, colouredand black faces. when all five categories were included, we failed to move beyond an accuracy level of 70%, regardless of how we refined our model. we, therefore, simplified our racial categories to a binary classification, white or black, as the objective of the current study is in any case to determine whether only white people associate themselves with the taalmonument and whether other races do the same, regardless of which race those people belong to. the following section describes how the model was constructed and trained. methods model training #modelsofinstagram dataset a random sample of images was downloaded from instagram to collect sufficient training data that could be used in the construction of a classifier. images placed on instagram are already annotated to some degree by placing them with a hashtag, but the hashtag indicates to which discourse the image belongs and not necessarily what the content of the image is. a picture with the hashtag #europeans could, for instance, show the picture of an african slave, as europeans are known for slavery, but the hashtag does not indicate that the content of the image is a black african. we experimented with various possible hashtags that could be used to construct a labelled dataset, but possible hashtags differed considerably across races: whilest #blackmodels and #indianmodels collected images of people belonging to these races, #whitemodels had a very limited selection of images and #colouredmodels created problems with the different meanings associated with the term. hashtags such as #san, #european and #sotho did not return a meaningful number of relevant images. the hashtag #afrikaner delivered a considerable number of irrelevant images, again partly because the term carries different meanings in different languages. we eventually decided to use a single hashtag, #modelsofinstagram, and used an annotator to classify people according to race. the annotator is in his late thirties and thoroughly familiar with racial categories in a south african context. after the annotator had labelled the images, we began work on developing an image classifier. to classify an image according to race, we first needed to perform face detection and extract a face from an instagram image, because this reduced the amount of noise in an image. for automatic face detection, we used opencv-python 4.2.0.34 (heinisuo 2020), a wrapper package for opencv python bindings to perform image processing. opencv is a modern implementation of the novel classifier cascade face detection algorithm (viola & jones 2001) and provides the cascadeclassifier class that allowed us to create a cascade classifier for face detection. a cascade, in machine learning terms, is an approach where a function is trained from numerous positive and negative images. this will allow the image classifier to detect objects (such as faces) in images. the result is that opencv allows us to extract faces from images, regardless of how many faces there are in a single image. using the face detection classifier, we were able to successfully detect and extract 3534 faces (2129 that were annotated as white people and 1405 that were annotated as black people) from our training dataset, using a confidence factor of 0.98 (in other words, we only allowed opencv to extract faces if it was 0.98% certain that it was a face it had identified). we then randomly selected from each image dataset to create the training and testing datasets. table 1 shows the number of images we used for the training and validation of the model. table 1: number of training and validation images for dataset 1. utkface dataset we also wanted to compare our annotator’s classification by benchmarking our classifier with an internationally recognised dataset. the utkface dataset by zhang, song and qi (2017) is a large face dataset with a long age span (subjects of between 0 and 116 years old) and consists of over 20 000 images with annotations in terms of age, gender and race. we applied an age filter (18–65 years old) on the dataset resulting in 17 655 images, as the #modelsofinstagram facial images were extracted from instagram users who will most likely fall within this age range, as will the images posted with #taalmonument. we then randomly selected from these images selecting only white people (race = 0) and black people (race = 1) images to create the training and testing datasets. we did not filter on gender, because we wanted our classifier to function across genders. table 2 shows the training and validation sets we used from the utkface dataset. table 2: number of training and validation images for dataset 2. data augmentation as both datasets consist of a relatively small number of training examples, one can inadvertently introduce overfitting into a model. overfitting occurs when a model learns the noise instead of the signal of the training data and consequently will not generalise well from training data to unseen data. in predictive modelling, the signal is the underlying pattern that the machine learning model should learn from the data. in other words, overfitting refers to when the model does not accurately learn what it is supposed to evaluate because of a small dataset. suppose a large number of images of dogs also contain cars, the model can mistakenly identify cars with dogs and classify a cat as a dog because of the presence of a car in the image. one way to overcome overfitting is to introduce data augmentation by generating more training examples from the existing training dataset. data augmentation may include flipping, rotating or blurring images. the goal is to use random transformations that create believable-looking images and consequently artificially increase the number of training examples. for our experiment, we made use of the imagedatagenerator class that is bundled with keras (chollet 2017), a python deep learning library, to create batches of images with real-time data augmentation to both training datasets (#modelsofinstagram and utkface). these included flipping images horizontally, rotating images by 45 degrees and zooming images up to 50% randomly. finally, we also applied width shift and height shift by factors of 0.15. deep learning models for our machine learning classifiers, we made use of convolutional neural networks (cnns) (goodfellow, bengio & courville 2016:326). these classifiers are a specialised kind of neural network that process vector space (grid-like topology) datasets. these datasets can be a one-dimensional grid (1-d) such as time-series data or a two-dimensional grid (2-d) of pixels such as image data. convolutional neural networks have been used successfully in applications such as facial recognition and more recently in natural language processing. examples of cnn image recognition models are mobilenet by howard et al. (2017), levi and hassner’s (2015) age and gender recognition model and campos, jou and giró-i-nieto’s (2017) image sentiment recognition model. convolutional neural networks consists of a series of convolutional and pooling layers, and all cnn models have a similar architecture. the architecture of cnn models is shown in figure 1, which is adapted from dertat (2017). figure 1: convolutional neural network architecture. as the name convolutional neural network indicates, the neural network model employs a mathematical operation called a convolution. a convolution is a specialised kind of linear operation and enables a cnn to use convolution instead of a general matrix multiplication in at least of one its layers (goodfellow et al. 2016:327). after a convolution operation, the network will perform pooling to reduce the dimensionality. this enables the network to reduce the number of training parameters and as a result also shortens the training time. the most common type of pooling is max pooling, which is the same type of pooling we use in our classifiers. this enabled the models to reduce the input to the pooling layer (e.g. 32 × 32 × 10 dimensionality) to a 16 × 16 × 10 feature map as illustrated in figure 2 (adapted from dertat (2017). figure 2: convolutional neural network pooling. for our study, we constructed three cnns: a cnn model consisting of three convolution blocks (model1), a cnn model consisting of four convolution blocks (model2) and a cnn model based on the vgg16 model proposed by simonyan and zisserman (2014) (model3). the first cnn model consists of three convolution blocks (3 × 3 filter) with the same padding and a max pool layer (2 × 2 filter) in each of them resulting in eight layers. for the classification block, there were two fully connected layers with 512 units on top of the convolution blocks that were activated by a relu activation function. in deep learning neural networks, the activation function is responsible for transforming the summed weight input from a node into the activation of the node or output for that node (brownlee 2019). popular activation functions include sigmoid (or logistic), tanh (hyperbolic tangent) or relu (rectified linear units). we opted for relu as it allows for backpropagation of errors to train our deep learning models (goodfellow et al. 2016:226). in total, there were 10 904 097 trainable parameters. the second cnn model consists of four convolution blocks (3 × 3 filter) with the same padding and a max pool layer (2 × 2 filter) in each of them resulting in 12 layers. for the classification block, there was a single fully connected layer with 512 units on top of the convolution blocks that were activated by a relu activation function. in total, there were 7 595 809 trainable parameters. the third cnn model was a scaled-down version of the original vgg16 model proposed by simonyan and zisserman (2014). the original vgg16 model consists of five convolution blocks (3 × 3 filter) with a max pool layer (2 × 2 filter) in each of them where the ‘16’ refers to 16 layers that have weights. our model consists of four convolution blocks (3 × 3 filter) with the same padding and a max pool layer (2 × 2 filter) in each of them resulting in 14 layers that have weights. for the classification block, there were two fully connected layers with 512 units on top of the convolution blocks that were activated by a relu activation function. in total, there were 12 790 433 trainable parameters. all three models output class probabilities based on a binary classification by the sigmoid activation function for output. we made use of the adam optimiser and a binary cross entropy loss function. adam is an adaptive learning rate optimisation algorithm specifically designed for deep learning (kingma & ba 2017). as we are using a binary classifier, our loss function will also be binary and use cross entropy to measure how far from the true value (0 or 1) our prediction of each image was. the loss function will then average these class-wise errors to obtain the final loss (peltarion 2020). we also experimented with dropout, a regularization technique used to reduce the overfitting of a network. dropout takes a fractional number as its input value, in the form such as 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, etc. this means dropping out 10%, 20% or 40% of the output units randomly from the applied layer. for cnn model 1 and cnn model 3, we applied dropout to the last max pool layer (0.3 for model 1 and 0.2 for model 3). testing the models we trained the three cnn models on both datasets. as the classifier is a binary classifier (only two labels, i.e. white people or black people), we report the precision, recall, f1 and accuracy as the evaluation metrics used to assess the performance of the cnn models. precision is the ability of a classifier not to label a sample as positive if it was negative. recall is the ability of the classifier to find all the positive samples. accuracy returns the number of correctly classified samples whilest f1 is the weighted average of precision and recall. as the training of the models took a substantial amount of time, we did not train using n-fold cross validation. cross-validation is a resampling technique to evaluate machine learning models on a limited dataset whilest n (in n-fold) refers to the number of groups that a given dataset is split into. instead, we made use of model checkpoint and early stopping. model checkpoint monitors a specific parameter of the model (we used val_loss or validation loss) and early stopping will stop the training process of the model if there was no improvement in validation loss after a number of epochs. an epoch refers to the number of times that a learning algorithm with work through a training dataset. we set the maximum number of epochs at 100 and allowed the model to stop after 10 epochs if there was no improvement in validation loss. after the training was completed, we tested each model with both #modelsofinstagram (n = 800) and utfface (n = 1000) testing datasets. table 3 provides the test evaluation metrics of each model and dataset. table 3: the test evaluation metrics of each model and dataset. from the testing of the models, cnn model2 with our own #models of instagram dataset performed the best. when examining the model during testing, we noted a test loss of 0.106758 with an accuracy of 0.97. the model reached the optimal training validation loss value at n = 33 epochs. in other words, our model is capable of predicting a person’s race with 97% accuracy. with the model created, trained and evaluated, we could now apply it to a dataset of images downloaded with the hashtag #taalmonument, as discussed in the following section. data gathering before we could investigate the race of people that posted with the hashtag #taalmonument, we first had to download all posts tagged with this hashtag. posts were downloaded using the application, instabro, on 14 february 2020. the first post was made on 01 july 2012, meaning that the dataset spans over 7 years. there were 2988 photos posted with this hashtag (#taalmonument) during this period. note that we could not gather any data about users, including their names, age, location or gender. importantly, we could only download posts from public profiles, that is, we were not required to follow users in order to include their content in the analysis below. in other words, these posts were made openly, in front of an audience numbering around a billion, which means that the dataset constitutes posts made by people who openly chose to associate themselves with the taalmonument. furthermore, not including any information about users prevents violating user privacy. for the same reason, we cannot provide examples of the racial classifications of users and rather use the results in aggregate. results to perform predictions on the unlabeled facial image dataset (#taalmonument), we deployed the best-performing classification model (cnn model 2). first, the unlabelled dataset from instagram (#taalmonument) was preprocessed, which included scaling and extracting human faces. from the 2988 unlabelled photos, 668 human faces were identified and extracted using opencv (the rest of the photos were of the monument or the landscape around the taalmonument). we then passed these facial images to our model as input and received a label as output. table 4 summarizes the results. table 4: results. the following section discusses these results. discussion census data show that most afrikaans speakers are not white people, but as noted in the section discussing the background, the taalmonument and afrikaans are both accused of being exclusively white phenomena. the results in the previous section, however, show that this is not entirely the case in our study. of 688 faces identified from instagram posts made with the hashtag #taalmonument, 529 (76.89%) were white people and 139 (20.2%) were black people. as we showed our classifier to predict people’s race with 97% accuracy, this shows that 20% of people who chose to associate themselves with the taalmonument are not white people. the key issue here is voluntary association: whilest people may attend an afrikaans university based on the geographical location, the availability of transport, limited course options or for other reasons, people who take a photo at a monument and post it to instagram do so willingly and intentionally. moreover, taking the time to travel to the monument, taking a picture and posting it on instagram constitute a significant effort on the part of the user. the fact that a substantial number of people who associate themselves with the taalmonument are not white shows that this monument does not only garner attention from the white population but rather functions in an inclusive capacity, as intended by van wijk. however, it is unclear why only 20% of the faces we identified are not white people, whilest white people are a minority both in the national population of south africa and amongst afrikaans speakers. this over-representation of white people may reflect instagram user demographics (no data are available on the distribution of instagram use by race in sa), cultural differences or it may indicate a smaller proportional interest in the monument. it may, for instance, be that a smaller proportion of coloured people show an interest in this monument than is the case for white people, but we have no data to explain this skewed distribution and other factors could be at play. of course, although the above shows a diverse association of people with the taalmonument on instagram, this study did not conduct a representative investigation into attitudes towards the taalmonument. such a study of attitudes can better be conducted using a large sample of questionnaires or interviews. however, the above does show that, contrary to claims that it is an ‘apartheidsmonument’, users on instagram take the time and effort to publicly associate themselves with this monument even if they are not white people. conclusion this article showed that people who visit the taalmonument and post about their visits later on instagram are from various racial backgrounds. contrary to the racialised discourse on afrikaans in south africa, our study shows that not only white people take the time and effort to travel to this monument, take pictures and post about it afterwards on instagram – in other words, voluntarily associate with this monument on a highly public global platform. our study therefore does not suggest that the afrikaanse taalmonument is considered to be a ‘white people only’ or ‘apartheid’ monument but rather a monument that has enough significance for people of other races to also take the time and effort to take photos here and post about it on social media. we only investigated one monument and one factor, namely race. future studies could apply a similar method to investigate the demographics of visitors who post on social media with relation to other museums and monuments in south africa, including, for example, considering visitors’ age and gender. social media provides a wealth of data with which to investigate how museums and monuments function in the contemporary world and in people’s lives, and much of this opportunity has not been realised in academic research yet. acknowledgements authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. funding information university of the free state interdisciplinary research grant. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for carrying out research. data availability statement the data are not publicly available due to privacy restrictions. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references anderson, m. & jiang, j., 2018, teens, 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standaardafrikaans laat toeneem’. 2. a term for a person of colour from the cape area in south africa. the use of this term is now deprecated and considered offensive. the term ‘hotnot’ was historically used to refer to the non-bantu indigenous nomadic pastoralist people of the western cape province of south africa. the preferred name for the non-bantu indigenous people is currently khoi, khoikhoi or khoisan. td journal july 2007.p65 dignity and work: global market and self-sustenance j j (ponti) venter· abstract:it is argued here that market fundamentalistic theories ignore the issue of human agency in work, and the different types of work, because – focussing on the market mechanism, supply, demand, and price they have lost track of that which economic activities (work) are intended for, namely self-sustenance. they have also minimised human agency in the economic theory, and therefore the understanding of being-human is lost from both economic theory and practice. thus they cannot explicate the role of work for the individual and the community – namely care for self and others – the significance quality work as part of human dignity is forgotten. i am arguing for a restoring of meaningful self-sustenance as the norm for work, and the recognition of the dignifying role of such self-sustenance – both for the community and the individual. keywords: human dignity, global market, capitalism, labour, competitiveness, socuiety, morality, human agency amd selfsustenance disciplines: philosophy, economics,ethics. 1. springtime for the ‘market’-idea1 the different areas of the economic sciences (with the possible exception of development economics) tend to identify ‘economic life’ (praxis) with ‘the market’. (in fact, since adam smith ‘market behaviour’ has become a metaphor for all human interaction, and therefore and assumed basis for human society.) the expansion of the ‘free market’ over the globe tends to confirm this direction in theorizing as ‘universally’, ‘empirically’ true. the globalization of the unfettered market, however, � prof. jj (ponti) venter is professor of philosophy in the school of philosophy, potchefstroom campus of north-west university. 1 this is a serious revision of a paper written for the international society for the study of european ideas (issei). 8th international conference, 22 27, july 2002, aberystwyth, wales. conference proceedings: section 5: language, philosophy, psychology. workshop 501: human understanding in a changing world: social sciences and everyday thinking. workshop chair: natalia smirnova. i also wish to express my indebtedness to a long time friend and mentor, bob goudzwaard (emeritus of the free university in amsterdam), and his colleague, h. de lange (in canada), for their pointers in the direction of an economics of care. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 133-168. is itself a universalizing of a set of values. these include: � non-intervention in the market, � the ‘law’ of supply and demand as the primary economic law, � efficiency as satisfaction of ‘unlimited’ needs, � commercial advertising as rightfully imposing itself, � rewriting wants as needs, the urban lifestyle as the primary way of life, � work and skill as a purely marketable commodity, � money-making as efficiency, and � leisure/entertainment/enjoyment as an important (or the supreme) economic need. since vast numbers of the people of the globe sustain themselves outside of the ‘market’ 2 , and since in developed market economies important economic activities do not directly fit under the ‘law’ of supply and demand (such as crime and voluntary unpaid work) the hidden assumption of an identity between the formal ‘market’ and ‘economic life’ is suspect and not universal. its value system can therefore also not simply be accepted as universal. the serious question, which we have to address, on the level of theory and intellectual thinking, is how this universalization came about, and what consequences this has for a dignified life? given broader, shifting, social values about the conduct of a good life, such as � working honestly for your keep, � supporting one’s family – including the elderly who cannot work; � children ‘working’ within traditional communities, versus child labour as frowned upon; � the ‘gender division’ of work in traditional societies and the anti-discrimination movements in modern societies; 2 according to a recent article in time magazine, in saudi arabia (origin of osama bin laden and his inner circle), apparently the largest majority of citizens sustain themselves outside of the ‘market’. venter td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. � taking care of the poor – whether voluntarily or officially; � the growing propagation of entrepreneurship and innovation as the supreme meaning of human life; � the idealisation of the supreme technician; and � the developmentalist attitude towards everything not yet touched by modern marketing and the culture shock effects of this. it has become necessary to ask oneself how the springtime of the ‘market idea’ influences ‘human dignity’ – the latter is more and more recognised as a right. does the totalitarian, universal, global market value system contain enough basis for a dignified work life? (many of the old fashioned values, such as working honestly, care for family, care for the poor, living in peace with one‘s neighbours, have been part of the idea of ‘human dignity’ since cicero and the stoics, and are also part of the ancient-judaeo-christian tradition.) in this regard is it well worth noting that ‘human dignity’ was directly associated with ‘rationality’ – at least until the middle of the 20th century. self-interested market behaviour was considered instinctual. but somewhere in the 19th century self-interested behaviour was suddenly considered ‘rational’. thus the whole ‘nature’ versus ‘reason’/ ‘culture’ dialectic, and the inversion of ‘rationality’ in economic theory (still present in textbooks), must have had an effect on the understanding of a dignified human life. given the fact that the market economy is based on formalised human employment (waged labour), any connection between ‘rationality’/ ‘irrationality’ and market behaviour, must therefore have had implications for the understanding of work and its relationships to life in its totality. the universalisation of the ‘market’ and its values grew of over a period of centuries. in the course of this development, other social changes had an influence: the decline of the roman catholic church’s social power, the reformation, globalisation by colonisation, the advent of the nation state and the idea of a national economy; two world wars, decolonisation, the large dualism of the world economy, the collapse of the soviet bloc and its vassals, the advent of world communication media. the influence of these are assumed and referred to, but not analysed here. the argument follows the development of philosophical ideas within the context of economic theory and occasionally practice – it does not pretend to be an analysis of empirical economic developments or a theory in economics. the focus remains the development of the idea of the market, the understanding and dignity and work 136 appreciation of work in that context, and the relationship between work in the context of market values, and human dignity. 2 ‘human dignity’ traditionally, in the west, human dignity has been identified with ‘rationality’. being ‘rational’ has been considered the distinctively human characteristic, and behaving ‘rationally’ meant behaving in a ‘dignified’ way – different from ‘irrational brutes’. ‘rationality’, however, is not unambiguous i can quote (cf. venter, 2006: 279ff) at least nine fairly different definitions of ‘rationality’ covering the area from � the logic of teleology in natural theology over � the logical control of the emotions and passions, and � the logic of spiritual efficiency (in a magical world view) and � ‘public reason’ (the logic of state security), to � the logic of the maximizing of self-interest (individual mechanical ‘teleology’). initially that rational behaviour which qualified as dignity behaviour, was conceived of in first person terms: in order to be dignified, i have to behave thus ... ‘ cicero, seneca, anselm, and especially the mystical process of self-dignifying in pico della mirandola would be good examples. (cf. venter, 2000: 111ff) but since kant defined dignity in terms of ‘ ... never to treat any rational being merely as an instrument ... ‘ (venter, 2000: 133ff) the second/ third person perspective became much stronger and after the collapse of rationalism this perspective became dominant. at least since the late nineteenth century the distinctively human in as far as it still functioned could no more be universally expressed in terms of ‘rationality’. this pushed the debate about ‘human dignity’ to a different level; in fact a powerful tension arose: � on the one hand the denial of the ‘humanness’ (however we define it) of the individual human being (regardless of specific social connections such as ‘state’ or ‘nation’) as a normative value in itself, by nazism and fascism, afterwards led to an enforcement of ‘human dignity’ as an individual characteristic and right in many modern constitutions and the charters of the united nations. (cf. venter, 2002c: 351ff; 2004: 538ff.) venterventer 137 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. � on the other hand the growing belief in the power of science – in spite of the irrationalistic philosophies underlying it subverted the belief in human life as something special, and therefore ‘science’ moved in the direction of an outright denial of human dignity and an insistence of the scientists on their right to power over the human ‘object’. but present-day ideas of ‘dignity’, � accentuate the preservation of subjectivity in interaction through justice, welfare, cultural disclosure and love as central. � and within such a conception of human dignity, cultural a ctivity, specifically work (and its quality) is something central (given the self-imposing global capitalism). of all present threats to human dignity, however, the assumption of the market as the only real economic process, and the imposition of ‘market freedom’ globally, may be the most serious, since it is hidden. a deepened understanding of economic activity as the self-sustenance of a person, household, or community, puts work in a central position in terms of a new understanding of a dignified life. for stable employment is the only way of self-sustenance in an urbanized life form. not only work, but also the quality of work, and the problem of a fair remuneration (sidelined by the supply-demand-’law’) are necessary parts of a dignified life in the more recent senses of the word ‘dignity’ – the very having of a work at all is essential. an important (both political and sociological) question is how to preserve dignity where the market fails? in this regard it is necessary to conceptualize human dignity also in terms of the ‘decent work’ paradigm of the international labour organization. all these will touch also on the dignity of women and of traditional societies which are not yet fully organized in terms of market principles. in the present global technological economy, fewer persons are accommodated stably in the labour market. the zimbabwean question of land is not simply one of political manipulation, but also one of vast numbers of people attempting, and failing, to enter the labour market, and then returning to the resource for self-sustenance traditionally communally available the land. understanding human self-sustenance therefore contributes to understanding human dignity. this on condition that human life is considered to be something distinctly valuable. � marcuse, a dialectical materialist(!) (1966: xi) makes this a point of departure, dignity and work 138 � christianity sees it as part of the essence of being created in the image of god, and the � united nations calls it a ‘faith’. 3 the global market as a cultural formation economic globalization favours a very specific type of market: more and more resources circulate through the minimally productive section of the ‘market’, such as the money markets, the ‘gaming’ industry (casinos, lotto cmpeititons), the entertainment industry, the leisure industry, and the consumption market. this implies a specific culture apparently sustainable in societies where ‘basic needs’ have seemingly been met. the global market is therefore supported by a value system given direction by these societies a value system that transforms local culture in economically weaker areas to fit its aims. it reallocates resources away from ‘basic needs’ in less developed economies, and imposes values that probably clash with local traditions of selfsustenance.3 we have to re-theorize economics in terms of the cultures of selfsustenance. but this implies a different understanding of economic processes: they are not impersonal causal processes similar to, or analogical to physical processes, as friedman (see below) would like to have it. they are cultural processes brought into action by human beings in a normative setting. economic theories especially neo-classical and monetarist are missing out on creative economic activity because: a) they elevated the market to a process divinity which allows for almost no human agency; b) they confuse market behaviour with human behaviour in order to have a deductive theory c) they espouse a value dialectics in which work is opposed to 3 from turgot over adam smith up to the psychologist maslow in the west, a set of teleological values came to dominate not only economic activity, but human life as such, since human life is seen as economic in nature, or at least as self-interested contractual behaviour. the issue here is that material needs are hierarchised, and more complex needs are then constructed as superstructure on top the less complex, material ones … it is the question whether those needs which are here reserved for ‘later’, are not as fundamental as the material ones. venter 139 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. enjoyment and thus we have an irony: those who would have been the leisure class are slaves, and those who need work have the leisure which they cannot afford to have. 4. the market as ‘the’ economy and ‘the’ society when reading newspapers and listening to/watching economic analyses on the electronic media, one almost only hears about the value of the currencies (usually measured against the us dollar), the upd and downs of the world’s stock markets, the level of the interest rate (coordinated with the inflation rate), exports and imports, and the (un)employment rate. all these analyses are clearly focused only on market activities, and to a large extent it is a selection of market activities in which a limited percentage of the world population is active. what percentage of economic agents (people) in the world show up in the figures of the world stock markets? how many economic subjects are active agents in the currency markets (we know that large numbers are ‘victims’ of what happens there)? even in the well-developed economies small businesses provide more than 80 per cent of the employment – these economic agents may register in interest rate analyses, and employment statistics, but they disappear in the percentages and index points. i have indicated above that the majority of the citizens of saudi arabia apparently do not register in the formal (market) economy; so do millions of the rural poor in many developing countries. since the saudis are human beings who stay alive by acting in specific ways, possibly following traditions thousands of years old they must be economic agents in some sense of the word. [is the urban economy which dominates the media really the one that feeds the people of the world?] somewhere along the line in capitalist theory the appreciation for work has been swept under the carpet. goudzwaard provides intensive analyses of this (cf goudzwaard & de lange, 1995p: 47ff)). two thinkers in this tradition did show some sensitivity for the nature and value of work: alfred marshall and jm keynes. if, however, we take a closer look at the actions of the world’s pacemaker economic institutions such as the world bank and the international monetary fund (imf) then these two are not holding their own against neoclassical, monetarist, and austrian economic theory, who, though different among themselves, share certain values: � most of them are very apprehensive about the state’s role dignity and work 140 to promote justice, for all of them tend to give primacy to market values. all accept the view of adam smith that the human being is by nature a barterer who always takes care of his/her own individual self-interest even if this interest is not directly translatable into monetary terms. � and the stronger paradigms here, neo-classicalism and monetarism, share the idea of a quantitative deductive economic theory based on ideal equilibrium situations. � both of these tend to neglect those activities where money does not change hands, for since they want a quantitative economic theory, they reduce economic activity to such activities as where money as a measure of value within the parameters of supply and demand is transferred. thus the activities of a housewife, of a voluntary welfare worker (goudzwaard en de lange: 1995: 55ff), and of people exchanging their produce as ‘gifts’ rather than as ‘goods for sale’ (latouche et al: 15ff), are not taken into account as ‘work’. in fact the subsistence economy and the communal economy find only sporadic negative mention in economic textbooks, and thus (not being studied in any depth), it becomes very difficult to disclose the potential of these economic cultures. in order to make this neglect understandable, it may be helpful to give an overview of the basic parameters of the development of capitalist economic theory with regard to the dis-appreciation of work. 5. adam smith since adam smith – the 18th century father of capitalistic liberal economic theory there has been a progressive undervaluing of all (also non-waged) work, as economic activity. this has its foundations on the one hand in the value system adopted by theorists, a value system which we have imbibed over centuries and on the other hand in the progressive stereotyping and later elimination of economic agency and action as such from theorizing (by transforming agency into a mechanical equilibrium-seeking competitiveness). 5.1 adam smith – specialisation and work adam smith represents the human being as an individualistic contractual being first and foremost. human beings live by concluding self-interested contracts between individual and individual. this is venter 141 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. the way of nature, and the state is allowed to intervene if and only if the network of individual contracts is threatened in some way. smith espouses the foundational belief that the human being is primarily a being caring for himself/herself originally through agriculture or hunting/gathering (a ‘peasant’ way of life). yet he already accepts the market – bartering as a direct consequence of this productive behaviour. the ongoing specialisation (‘division of labour’; smith, 1950: 17) in turn the source of national wealth is the consequence of market development (especially of the growth of markets, and therefore urbanisation) (smith, 1950: 19). i) the original human being is a peasant who barters (i.e. contractually sells) his products (agricultural products, bows and arrows, plough shears). ii) this is followed, historically, by the feudal tradition in which landownership was concentrated in a few hands (the lords). iii) finally we have the industrial era in which the capitalist middle class sets the pace of an economy, using vast armies of workers in factories. all these are factored into smith’s price theory: the price of a product is determined a) on the one hand by the division of income from production, to i) the rent of the land (remnant of the feudal system), ii) the wages of labour (remnant of peasant agriculture), and iii) the profit of capital (the new middle class of traders in the market), and b) on the other hand by the ‘gravitation’ of supply and demand in the process of buying and selling the sophisticated, modern form of contractual bartering (smith, 1950: 32-100). smith had to take all these into account, since they were presupposed in his very view of the human being: this division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not·originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. it is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature, of which no further account can be given, or whether, as it seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present object to inquire. it is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor that species of contracts .... nobody dignity and work 142 ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another. nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that is yours; i am willing to give this for that (smith, 1950: 15). following the traditional line of characterising the human being by comparing it with (brute) animals, smith refers to the ancient view that the characteristically or essentially human is ‘rationality’, and almost half-heartedly tries to relate ‘contractuality’ to this tradition (in terms of ‘reason and speech’). he remained unsure whether the tendency to conclude contracts is ‘primitively’ or ‘archetypically’ or ‘essentially’ present in human nature, but he did see it as a distinctive and universal human trait. in fact, he finally elevated it in a somewhat metaphorical form to being the best possible basis of all social relationships, excluding love or benevolence as necessary for a stable community4 . this is important: what smith says is that it is possible to have sound human relations based solely on the premise that each cares far his/ her own interest. thus social institutions and formations such as marriages, families, religious institutions, can all be based on selfinterest, and function well. smith is an adherent of the contract idea of society, but his contract society is an almost anarchic boiling pot of self-interested contracts.5 in taking this line, he confirmed and established a moderate hobbesian perspective on the individual human being in relationships to others – the idea that we are naturally competitive and want to outdo others. but smith’s idea of ‘competitiveness’ is moderated by his belief in basic human goodness: within the discipline of the market, we shall behave fairly. in fact, the market will reveal any bad intentions, and through the negotiation process, eliminate this. this would take firm hold in the liberal tradition. during the past fifty years this approach has become stronger; on the one hand through the threat of communism, and finally through the collapse of communism. the self-interested individual in the ‘anarchic’ social market, and under the discipline of the market place, is (supposedly) acting as he/she should, and in the only way his/her human essence will allow. but: the same individual acting in the same way in the 4 society may subsist among men, as among different merchants, from a sense of utility, without any mutual love or affection; and though no man be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation (smith, 1976: 86). 5 this differs very clearly from the structural collectivistic, securocratic, contractualisms of hobbes and rousseau (venter, 1996: 177ff.). it is a difference of world picture – rousseau thinks in terms of organic holism, and smith follows a mechanistic aggregationism. venter 143 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. structured relationships which constitute the state or the political sphere, is considered a threat to freedom and must be given minimal leeway. smith anticipates marx when he says that in the early stages of society ‘the produce of labour belongs to the labourer’, and the value-basis of exchange resides in ‘equal quantities of labour’. the appropriation of land (feudalism) and the accumulation of stock (capitalism) makes it possible to purchase somebody’s labour, thus the product is alienated from the producing worker; (smith, 1950: 49-50). in the original state, then the farmer owns all his/her produce – the alienation takes place under feudalism and capitalism: the produce of labour constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labour. in that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. he has neither landlord nor master to share with him (smith, 1950: 66). it is important to note that smith analyses productive work always only from the perspective of individual production, since this is already implied in his view of the human being. he conceives of work, even in a factory, as a long row of specialised individuals – a pin is made more efficiently if one person makes the head, another the shaft, another fixes the head to the shaft, another sharpens it. (understanding of real team work came much later.)6 it is by treaty, barter, and purchase, that we obtain from one another the greater part of those mutual good offices which we stand in need of: so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives occasion to the division of labour ... and thus the certainty of being able to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men’s labour as he may have occasion for, encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation, and to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or genius he may posses for that particular species of business (smith, 1950: 17). true, the quote is about specialisation in work, which is the consequence of human ‘trucking’ and ‘bartering’ behaviour. but the underlying assumption is that specialised products are produced by individuals (of course later included in larger industries). another important presupposition is that originally work is for self-sustenance, 6 in fact, this kind of individualism still reigns in large sections of neo-liberal managerialism. it creates a new hierarchy for management. the assumption seems to be that a team cannot, by interaction, take responsibility for a process of production. a team always needs a manager to co-ordinate. this means that individuals in the team are not in the first place accountable towards one another, but to management. this is why, within the business model of the university, the centuries old collegial model of management is eroded and eliminated by managers. there is no understanding of inter-individual accountability among equals. dignity and work 144 and only the surplus is exchanged for whatever else one may want. but, of course, as exchange grows, (producing your own) selfsustenance is replaced by exchange in the market. thus smith comes to interpret the interaction and interdependence of human beings, which he clearly recognizes, not in terms of structural community relationships, but rather as a typical market interaction since i do not produce everything that i need myself, in fact, since my own production is specialised in a very small area and most of the things i need have to be obtained by exchanging my own specialty for products made by other specialists, interdependence, and therefore a social community, comes into being because of the (mutual) economic needs of specialists: in civilized society he stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. in almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for no other living creatures. but man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. he will be more likely to prevail if he can serve their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them (smith, 1950: 16). as the human being moves away from pure animality, interdependence comes about, but this can only function through contractual means, in which the self-interest of each individual is of prime importance. the idea that an individual can produce his/her own individual selfsustenance all alone through calculative technology and rational (selfinterested) behaviour, was well established as a narrative of modern economics, through the enormously successful novel of defoe, robinson crusoe (and possibly also his other novel, moll flanders) (cf berthoud, 1995: 61ff; roets, 1996: 9ff). one has also to note that the link between ‘civilized’ society and the dialectic of distance-in-contract (individualistic mutual interdependence), which has become so acute in our own times, is almost explicit in the quote above. being ‘civilized’ here means being ‘civil’, being a member of bourgeois society, in which all are free and equal in ability for self-care. in such a society one is an individual, first and foremost – one is at a distance from all other individuals: intimacy of relationships is not in the forefront. but rather than fighting it out for food and terrain, like brute animals, one agrees to mutual service by entering into contracts. the distance is bridged in two ways: i) by the contract itself and its execution, and ii) by the instruments of contracting: the divisible means to equalise the values, i.e. money. venter 145 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. this kind of societal bond, with its dialectic of interdependence versus means-bridged distance, was not as clear in the times of adam smith as it is now, where the new means of communication has made contracting over very large distances possible. and the contracting itself, as bonding, implies its own dialectics of competitive contracting. the central ideas of liberal capitalism, of which interdependence is one, are condensed in the general narrative of economic theorists, derived from the physiocrat, turgot: two savages meet in the desert, one carrying a bag of fish, the other one some leather skins from which he can make clothes and a tent. both have surplus stock. they swap, and both are better of, for each has gotten rid of his surplus, and each has acquired something he needs (berthoud, 1995: 62) the classic example of a ‘win-win’ situation. thus halévy in 1901 characterised the idea of exchange as the foundational idea of political economy and bastiat, the well-known 191h century economist, said, ‘exchange is society’ (berthoud, 1995: 63). in saying that we obtain the greater part of good ‘offices’ (not material goods) by contractual bartering, this totalitarianism of the market is already implied in smith’s discourse too. hidden in all of this, are four interconnected beliefs: 1. the belief that the barterers are equal with regard to trade (they are equal in power and each has complete information about the other’s product) while all barterers are honest. (of course, if one analyses the turgot narrative, this belief is spurious: the seller of the fish is probably in a weaker position than the seller of skins, for he has to sell fast before his product becomes rotten; and his problems will increase if there is competition from other fish traders). 2. the belief in necessary progress through competition or conflict (cf. venter, 1992; venter, 2002b). the nucleus of this belief is that although competition/conflict is in itself a bad thing, this is only temporary, for the more we pressurise one another, the faster we progress. competition even includes threatening the other’s life, for this stimulates technological advance. 3. the belief that material production or wealth creation is the necessary and only condition for cultural progress. this was the beginning of the base versus superstructure model, which has become so well known through the writings of karl marx. we can, however, already find it in turgot and adam smith (venter, 2002a). adam smith’s famous book is aimed at improving the material base of cultural progress, therefore it is entitled: ‘an enquiry into the nature and cause of the wealth of the nations’. this title is reminiscent of turgot’s little work, reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses. but this implies a dignity and work 146 supreme value structured into the economic system: that of a systematic striving for wealth, based on internal, individual, civil, as well as national, and therefore international, competitive contractuality. equality and the power of the stronger will be played out against one another. 4. the belief that labour acquired is a measure of wealth. market fundamentalists sometimes make fun of adam smith’s theory of the value of a product as if he had said that the amount of labour invested in the product is the measure of value of the product. he was somewhat more nuanced though: he thought of the evaluation of the buyer, rather than the seller, as the labour value of the product. this he transferred to his idea of wealth: the amount of other people’s labour that can be acquired indicates the wealth of the buyer. (smith was not the first to propose this theory see cannan’s introduction, footnotes 1 and 2 on the origins of these ideas.) 5. 2 labour as ‘value’ in labour as a measure of the value of a product, adam smith thus includes a characterisation of wealth: the amount of somebody else’s (specialised) work, which my own work (through its specialised products) can acquire in the market. however, this ‘value’ is given a more explicit content: every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniencies, and amusements of life (smith, 1950: 32;. the practical logic of this definition is that as the ‘necessaries’ are increasingly met in a ‘successful’ economy, more resources are going to be allocated to the ‘conveniencies’ and the ‘amusements’. it is of necessity a class logic, in the sense that the rich will be the ones who control and enjoy the ‘amusements’, and shift investment away from the ‘necessaries’, while of course the allocation comes from the full resources of society (its stock of ‘labour’). in smith’s case, this logic is not only intended for the internal relationships within one state, for his work is aimed at the ‘wealth of the nations’. it thus has consequences for the allocation of resources on the international level also. (the implication of this is happening practically in our present global economy: note the play with the weaker currencies on the money markets, and the vast offering of entertainment all over the globe.) in his defence against mandeville’s cynical idea that vice is the basis of wealth, smith follows exactly the mentioned practical logic, arguing that the vanity and spend thriftiness of the rich keep the country’s venter 147 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. economy and culture afloat. (in fact, he gives an early formulation of the belief in the ‘trickle through effect’ the market increases wealth for everybody; smith, 1950: 68). the market facilitates the division of labour. thus we find a clear division between skilled toolmakers and ‘philosophers’ or ‘men of speculation’. the first may improve their machines through ingenuity and trade skill; but the philosophers are also practicalists in the sense that they may also succeed in technological improvements by virtue of skilled observation and creative combination of ‘the most distant and dissimilar objects’ (smith, 1950: 12). the market, through specialization, is even the cause of the difference in talents (genius).7 smith pre-formulates the population principle, expanded later by malthus, ricardo, and marx. this guarantees the worker wages at least enough to sustain himself as worker, and to bring up a family large enough to replenish the workforce, while it determines the numbers of workers (smith, 1950:82). the more specialisations there are the more extensive social wealth becomes: 7 the difference in natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division of labour. the difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education .... but without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. all must have had the same duties to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great difference of talents (smith, 1950: 17-8). ‘according to cannan’s footnote this is an idea derived from hume (in the essay: ‘original contract’ in the work, essays moral and political) and may have been directed against harris’ treatise money and coins, i,ii. smith’s idea was copied by marx and built into the superstructure: genius (such as raphael’s artistic talent), he says, is the consequence of supply and demand (i.e. market processes), which again depends upon the capitalist division of labour and its unequal distribution of wealth (cf. marx, 1977: 189). i do think that smith and marx have not been completely on the wrong path: the children of richer people have more access to socially preferred experiences than the children from the working class, and success on the intellectual front is among others to some extent the product of financial investment in specialised programmes. the idea that we are the products or our environment has its limitations in view of visible differences in talent and intellectual abilities. however, it is not a museum piece, we still find it in revised form in the works of the behaviourists, radicalised into absurdity. dignity and work 148 it is the great multiplications of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in ‘a well-governed society, that universa1 opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of people. every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. he supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society (smith, 1950: 13). the quote goes back to turgot’s narrative, but this time for the collective. the large number of specia1isations makes a bartering or contractual network possible, because every worker can exchange different units of his product to many different other workers producing other things. specialisation increases production and improves the products, and thus things become cheaper in real terms, which is to the advantage of even the lowest classes of workers. specialisation is to the advantage of the whole, since ‘what improves the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole’, for no society can be ‘flourishing and happy of which the far greater part of members are poor and miserable’. and, very importantly, for smith it is really a question of equity that those who supply the basic needs (‘feed, cloath and lodge’) of the whole body of the nation, should receive such a share of the common good that they are ‘tolerably’ well-provided with those needs (smith, 1950: 80). smith apparently assumes that at least the head of every household is able and does produce a surplus of something marketable. this, of course, still assumes that in some sense the worker in a capitalist industry is (supposed) to retain that section of his/her work which gives him/her that tolerable life, and sells that section of his/her product which he/ she does not need. this is the contradiction to which view a rural, barter-oriented view of the formal market (a distinctively urban entity) leads: it assumes the worker owns his/her own products, and produces it, as if on a farm, to fulfil basic personal needs, while selling the surplus. both turgot and smith forgot that specialisation exactly meant that one does not produce for own needs, but rather to sell almost every unit of the product and buy the needed in stead8 . some brief notes on smith’s theory of prices is necessary. a number of factors determine price: � the work needed to supply the basic needs for a tolerable life would determine the overall level of desired income from work; � the amount of work a product requires determines the value venter 149 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. of the product9 ; � in capitalism, however, the input is more than just labour so the rent of land, the price’ of labour, and the profits of stock determine the price asked, i.e. the ‘natural price’, which will be the price to which the market tends; � but, in reality, it is the market which determines the price: supply under competition, and demand under competition allows the price to ‘gravitate’ (smith, 1950: 62) towards an equilibrium, which may be above, or below, but over time tends to equal the ‘natural price’. i have argued above that smith propagated an economy of wealth creation, and that wealth is measured in terms of the degree in which the ‘necessities, conveniencies and amusements of life’ can be afforded. but smith wants to determine wealth according to the labour theory of the value of the product. this is surprising: apparently he falls back on the ‘original’ situation, where rents and profits did not yet come into the equation. but he does include the market, for value is the amount of the other’s labour purchased. this amount is the measure of wealth, since the division of labour makes it impossible to produce the ‘necessities, conveniencies and amusements of life’ all by oneself: the far greater part of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase (smith, 1950: 32). economists who puzzle about the strange discrepancy between ‘market value’ and ‘labour value’, should remember two things: 1) in the 18th century progress is dialectically related to the state of nature, thus although we move away from nature, nature belongs to our human essence (and thus the ‘natural’ price expresses itself in the bargaining which establishes itself as the ‘market’ price); but 2) smith (as mentioned above) does not say that the amount 8 once one understands this, marx’s theory of alienation becomes easier to understand. marx adopts from smith the idea of selling one’s labour. however, he views the situation from the other side: it is not the worker who has the power to retain what he needs and sell the surplus, but it is the capitalist who has the power to enforce the selling of the labour, and by minimising the needs of the worker to a survival-and-reproduction wage, increases the ‘surplus’ at no extra cost thus he profits from an increase of that which would not have willingly been included in the surplus by the worker himself. 9 the value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. labour, therefore, is the real measure of exchangeable value of all commodities. dignity and work 150 of the worker’s labour which has been invested in the product, determines the value of the product, as marx did; he rather includes the bartering process and specialisation (the ‘market’) by saying that the value of a product is the same as the amount of somebody else’s labour which it can acquire. smith is clearly conscious of the problem of measuring labour value, for the labour bought he measures against the labour exchanged for it, and these two may be incomparable. but he believes that the ‘haggling and bargaining of the market’ produces a ‘rough equality’ of values, which makes it ‘sufficient for carrying on the business of common life (smith, 1950: 33). implicitly power and leisure also become determining values of the smith society, for the more labour i am able to purchase, the more power i have over those who do the work10 , and the less i have to work myself (of course assuming that a stock of ‘labour’ – in commodity form can be accumulated by some). in brief: smith’s points of departure are: 1) the specificity of the human being as a se(f-interested, contractualist, barterer; 2) the market (the process of competitive bartering) as the ‘place’ of exchange of the specialised products of labour; 3) material progress as the necessary base for superstructural cultural progress; 4) wealth creation (including power and leisure) as the supreme aim of society (in casu the nation state); 5) labour purchased as the measure of product value (as well as the potential for power and leisure = wealth); 6) implicitly a hierarchy of needs/wants: (a) necessities of life; (b) conveniences; (c) ‘amusements’. smith firmly believed that ‘nature’ would take care of justice through the market processes, and that interference with such processes was really ‘original sin’. he anticipated veblen’s theory of the leisure class with his idea of wealth and the higher needs at which the economy aims. he tended to overlook the ability of the worker to be creative, and he could no more see the possibility of a non-market form of labour in caring for oneself. 10 wealth, as mr. hobbes says, is power (smith, 1950: 33). venter 151 in fact, like mandeville, he could almost not imagine that anybody would want to care for others for free. and thus he was unable to appreciate the economic meaning of non-waged work. but we must note that smith still showed some appreciation for work in fact it is work which creates (economic) value. and wealth is the amount of work one can acquire from the piled up stock of work which one possesses. through this lens he at least still sees the worker as economic agent, negotiating for the value of his/her work (possibly in livelihood terms) with those who buy his/her labour. unfortunately he does not take his realisation that wealth is power into account when discussing the negotiating position of the worker in market terms. his view of the human being as by nature a barterer allows the market side to dominate this is the urban economy. smith tends to remain in the area of the descriptive, with some normative lamentations. thus he describes the possibilities of progress for the worker through the division of labour under the discipline of the market, and laments the exploitation of the workers. but he does not take note of the fact that the fragmentation of work under these conditions of exploitation reduced the quality of work while expanding its load. reducing the quality of work means diminishing the dignity of the human being doing the work. smith notes that in the original situation the human being owned all of his work, while under capitalism the major part of the work is owned by the capitalist entrepreneur. but he is so excited about the progress in terms of output brought about by specialisation, that he does not see the serious qualitative difference between work in its supposed original sense creative self-sustenance and the fragmented toiling of the urban market economy. it remained for the early marx to point out that what the worker lost was not simply the ownership of his/her work, but that (s)he lost him/herself – or from my point of view: something of him/herself as creative producer. it is not that smith did not care about the plight of the worker; he was clearly concerned about the treatment of workers under capitalism. but within the context of his view of prices and the workings of the market, he could not find an argument for easing that plight. 5.3 the economy caught in the prison of deductive theory. the macro-market society with its realize-your-own-rights attitude is becoming reality. neither the competing ‘other’, nor anybody else, cares or is supposed to care about your rights. one’s rights are protected in a bill the assumption being that the self-interested individual now dignity and work td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. 152 has a legal base to care for his/her own interest. the universal winwin representation about self-interested exchange the moral of the economists’ lasting narrative (berthoud, 1995: 63) now encompasses all social situations. three presuppositions underlie the win-win representation: i) negotiating parties are equal, ii) processes are transparent, and iii) competition guarantees improved quality. an [imagined] ideal world is underwritten by these presuppositions. they were initially needed to construct a mathematically deductive social science able to predict and ‘engineer’on the basis of [constructed] laws. such engineering was needed to speed up no more was supposed to be possible the inevitable, law-regulated, closing of the gap between evolving ‘nature’ and trans-historical rational ideal.11 however, deep down lurks the modern ideal of the mastery of ‘nature’ (descartes and kant; cf. venter, 2001), which includes the human being and society as ‘nature’ (the early comte, marx, skinner, and others; cf. venter, 2002a). in post-enlightenment economic theorising the method used to create a quasi-physical ‘experimental’ situation, was either (1) stereotyping or (2) idealisation. in both cases productive agency quality productive involvement and self-expression in work was lost from sight. 1) david ricardo worked with stereotypes: the capitalist always competes, the landlord always increases the corn price; the worker always procreates (cf heilbroner, 1955: 77ff; ekelund & hebert, 1983: 124ff). having established the stereotypes, it was easy to derive laws in terms of the supply and demand of food, work, and capital under competitive market conditions. although ricardo thought of the capitalist entrepreneur as creative, he actually has no room 11 this contrast cannot be formulated simply as the concrete (nature) versus the abstract (ideal). a complete idealist (hegel) retains ‘reality’ (sein) and ‘concreteness’ as attributes for the rational idea; ‘nature’(both its emanation and its opposite) has only ‘abstract existence’ (dasein). naturalists (feuerbach) invert this: ‘nature’ is concrete reality, passion is knowledge; the ideal is human super-maximal selfprojection. in critical idealism (kant) ‘nature’ as mover and ‘reason’ as imposer of the rationally ideal, are both concretely real but in historical tension. venter 153 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. for any economic agent. for him there are only anthropomorphic machines that relate to one another in regular ways. 2) the alternative to stereotyping was idealisation. experiments, as used by galilei, boyle, and others, were constructed as maximally ideal situations. the regularities galilei deduced were supposed to be valid in a physical vacuum, and boyle constructed the air pump exactly to create such an ideal situation. of course fully ideal conditions are always only assumed to be ... once economists and other human scientists model their work after the quantitative natural sciences, they are faced with a much more difficult situation: since the scientist is ‘inside’ the reality he/she hopes to study, predict and control, it is not possible to set up experiments. you have to experiment in abstracto by means of idealising assumptions. one has, firstly, to assume that social processes proceed analogically to physical processes. thus bookkeeping balancing the books is transformed into equilibrating processes the books are assumed to balance themselves, analogical to the entropy processes in thermodynamics or the balance scale. (this goes back to the development of bookkeeping and the accompanying algebra during the renaissance.) to construct such an ideal reality, requires assumptions which express the ‘perfection’ of that ‘reality’. thus the economist idealises through the means of abstract assumptions. in the tradition of edgeworth (1825-1926), one has to assume: i) perfect rationality, ii) perfect individual independence, iii) perfect freedom of choice, iv) perfect mobility, v) perfect communication, vi) perfect information, and vii) perfect divisibility of wants and products. in combination these assumed ideal factors constitute a perfect market, which can be used as ‘ideal reality’ in economic analysis. idealised dignity and work 154 perfection12 or ‘the ideal perfect being’ (whether it concerns ‘god’ or the ‘cosmic law’ or a fusion of the two) is teleological – the ‘ideal being’ is the unified focus point of the striving of a diversity-in-evolution. the ontology of perfectionism accepts that what we normally call ‘laws’ (both so-called ‘natural’ and ‘moral’ laws), are the unified super-eminent counterparts of the less perfect aspects of our environment. it is a teleological ontology of striving for an excellent reality which is ‘sameyet-other’ (the antinomy of analogia entis). it is not the same as, for example, identical with the genesis ontology of a sovereign ‘let be ... ‘ and ‘thou shallt (not) ... ‘ it is rather a strange tension-ridden mixture: what ought to have been normative bookkeeping, becomes mechanical balance and yet remains an ideal towards which engineering can take place ... using an ontology of [striving for] perfection in a modern context, allowed edgeworth to harmonise conflictual naturalism, the faith in progress, and calculated, predictive, technical rationality. the logic of human social perfectionism is one of maximisation of pleasure, and edgeworth’s ‘mathematical psychics’ aims at plotting and revealing the necessary and sufficient conditions of this maximisation (1881: 3) this, he feels, is analogical to the calculation of energy maximisation in physics. it is in fact more than just analogy: edgeworth accepts a real parallelism between the physical and the psychical: ‘man is a pleasure machine’ (1881: 15ft). thus he constructs a double mathematical calculus of pleasure, consisting of 1) an economic calculus investigating the ‘equilibrium of a system of hedonic forces tending to maximum individual utility’ (deductive economics), and 2) a utilitarian calculus, investigating ‘the equilibrium of a system in which each and all tend to maximum universal utility’ a deductive social mechanics. 12 the argument from idealised perfection has its origins in xenophanes of colophon’s criticism of the deficiencies of the tribal view of the divine, which he replaced by one idealised, unmoved moving consciousness. plato used this as basis for an idealised view of the law as primary reality into which he included idealised mathematical forms. in the middle ages the law-god was conceived of in terms of idealised perfection note especially the works of anselm of canterbury and the analogia entis theory of thomas aquinas. in modern times, especially in those thinkers who had their orientation in a mathematical universe, idealised perfection remained a prime way of conducting scholarship (e.g. husserl). venter 155 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. the two calculi represent the traditional opposition between egoism and altruism, but edgeworth believes that evolution has left us somewhere in between. even if anyone adopted pure altruism as his life policy, he will still kiss his wife for his own individual pleasure, without keeping the general interest in mind (1881: 102ff). of course edgeworth is blinkered here into an exposition of his views in the frame of a very specific opposition: that between the individual and the social or general. (in this case a more appropriate opposition would have been ‘i’ versus ‘the other’, for the individual-social opposition fuses the variety of inter-individual relations into a vague ‘social’ or ‘general’ concern, which is misleading.) but edgeworth is an individualist he maintains that individual happiness is preponderant. using war talk he interprets the heritage of adam smith in a social darwinist sense: ‘the first principle of economics is that every agent is actuated only by selfinterest (1881: 16).’ smith limited the competitive processes to contractual interactions. edgeworth, however, distinguishes between: � ‘war’: realising self-interest without the consent of others; and � ‘contract’: realising it with consent. a contract spells out the amount of sacrifice demanded from each partner, and the principle of distribution. but note: economic competition is both ‘contract’ and ‘war’: peace during contract, and war when some of the contractors re-contract without the consent of the others. competition is both war and peace: under contract it is peaceful, but as soon as the contract expires and one party re-contracts elsewhere, or as soon as the auctioneer turns away for the last bidder to re-contract with a higher bidder, it becomes war! even ‘with reference to contracts’ there is a field of warlike competition, consisting of ‘all the individuals who are willing and able to recontract about the articles under consideration’ (1881: 17). edgeworth’s discourse anticipates present-day managerial talk in terms of survival strategies: a general, or fencer making moves, a dealer lowering price, without consent of rival ... (1881 : 17). philosophically a deep militarism is embedded in economic discourse, and taken over by present-day ‘competitiveness’ proponents. to this edgeworth added a discriminatory elitism: there are different capacities for pleasure (p. 64), and those that already have most pleasure, have the highest capacity for more (and therefore the world machine will dignity and work 156 favour them). the same goes for education: those that are most advanced, have the most capacity for further education and should receive more, for universal education is unaffordable13 . he also does not hesitate to advocate the eugenetic substitution of bad parents with good ones (p.68-70).14 edgeworth’s hidden basis is the faith in progress with conflict as its mechanism, going back to turgot and kant. all of these characterised conflict as bad, yet also ‘perceived’ it as the necessary cause of a continuous rise in cultural level and rationality, with an eventual utopian outcome (kant’s ‘eternal peace’; cf. venter, 1992; 1997; 1999a). note two aspects: 1) the hedone, which according to adam smith is the highest step on the hierarchy of needs, is here the only positive element; and 2) ‘utility’ is defined in terms of maximum pleasure and minimum pain. this was edgeworth’s heritage from bentham. true: their hedonism was not the crude one of indulgence in food, alcohol, sex, and leisure which we have today. but in this tradition already power, wealth, and leisure are ‘pleasures’ (utilities) while labour is a ‘pain’. in the case of edgeworth economic competition, and social relationships for that matter, are conceived of as warlike. this means the loser is ‘naturally’ inferior. once one thinks in this way there is no revisiting of the issue of active economic agency, especially through work. there is no investigation of the possibilities of transforming denigrating fragmentary work under industrial capitalism into a creative situation. there is no interest in the nature of the human being as producer, maker, innovator, for work itself has been disqualified as a ‘pain’. neither is it important to investigate any form of economic agency as such, for the human being is viewed as a pleasure machine: it avoids pain automatically while the economy balances itself equally automatically through the interaction in the war of self-interest. and 13 on this point edgeworth shows himself in line with the elitist rationalism of hobbes, rousseau, kant, hegel, comte, and marx. the point made here is (a) that the modern categories of rational versus subrational is sustained; (b) that at this stage of history the subrational is usually in charge, yet on occasion reason, usually peace fit/ and altruistic (cf. also turgot and kant) shows its might; (c) that in any case hobbes, smith, and edgeworth are already firstly rational people, sometimes preaching the sovereignty of their science. 14 i suspect that natural selection is here combined with the aristotelian model of potentiality moving in the direction of its form, but for some the ceiling occurs earlier. venter 157 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. the elite will move forward ... it is in this context that one has to appreciate the work of the early marx. it is too easy to dismiss him for having used ‘the labour theory of value’. he may not even have appropriated it completely. in fact his analyses of value have always had an oppositional flavour. he loved to play around with the dialectics of capitalist theory; the latter struggling to cope with the relationships between production costs and market price. his contribution lies in the fact that as a materialist, he focussed on and reduced the human being to a self-sustaining organism, while, dialectically, as a humanist, he was prepared to accept the tension of insisting also on the typically human side of work, and on the selfexpression which is at the root of this. marx’s theory of the worker as a productive being, and work as selfsustaining expression of the individual-social essence, is difficult to catch in simple phrases. he was probably too fixated on the analysis of the capitalist form of denigrating work, to really get much further than the rejection of all specialisation in die deutsche ideologie. however, in this rejection are hidden norms: 1) that the boundaries of divided labour ought not to become the boundaries of making a living or producing. i would like to understand it in this way: self-care ought not to be systematically funnelled into meaningless repetitive toil this is not creative transcendence of present circumstances.15 2) and secondly, almost as if giving a parody on the age old adage that what has dignity has no price, marx without using the term ‘human dignity’ writes that alienated labour 15 what constitutes the externalization of labour? first, it is the fact that labour is external to the labourer that is, it is not part of his nature and that the worker does not affirm himself in his work but denies himself, feels miserable and unhappy, develops no free physical and mental energy but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind. the worker therefore feels at ease only outside work, and during work he is outside himself. he is at home when he is not working and when he is working he is not at home. his work, therefore, is not voluntary, but forced labour. it is not the satisfaction of a need but only a means to satisfy other needs. its alien character is obvious from the fact that as soon as no physical or other pressure exists, labour is avoided like the plague ... in religion the spontaneity of human imagination, the spontaneity of the brain and the heart, acts independently of the individual, as an alien, divine or devilish activity. similarly, the activity of the worker is not his own spontaneous activity. it is the loss of his own self. (marx, 1967: 292). dignity and work 158 means that the human being has acquired a price and that the price is falling with the rate of increase of the fragmentary output.16 edgeworth is not a museum piece in the history of economic thought. the ideal of an economics which gives us structures or laws or patterns according to which we can predict and control for example in friedman’s economics. and when one lives under the regime of inflation targeting, privatisation, and balanced budgets imposed by the world bank and the imf (ask the latin americans and the africans), one realises that the doctrines of friedman and the neo-classical economists have much more influence at the moment than those of alfred marshall ort j m keynes. while friedman pretends to write a methodology of economics, he produces an ontological separation between ‘what is’ (positive) and ‘what ought to be’ (normative; 1953: 4-5) a separation often propagated but never sustained. in friedman’s case the separation already collapses when he admits that his edgeworth-like idealised assumptions are aimed at predictive control and not description as such. but to see the ontological complications clearly, it will be fruitful also to look into his view of the relationship between ‘theory’ and ‘reality’: 16 we proceed from a present fact of political economy. the worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and extent. the worker becomes a cheaper commodity the more commodities he produces. the increase in value of the world of things is directly proportional to the decrease in value of the human world. labour not only produces commodities. it also produces itself and the worker as a commodity and indeed in the same proportion as it produces commodities in general. this fact simply indicates that the object that labours produces, its product, stands opposed to it. as an alien thing, as a power independent of the producer. the product of labour is labour embodied and made objective in a thing. it is the objectification of labour. the realization of labour is its objectification. in the viewpoint of political economy, this realization of labour appears as the diminution of the worker, the objectification as the loss of and subservience to the object, and the appropriation as alienation (entfremdung), as externalization (entaeusserung). (marx, 1967: 289.) venter 159 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. a fundamental hypothesis of science is that appearances are deceptive and that there is a way of looking at or interpreting or organising evidence that will reveal superficially disconnected and diverse phenomena to be manifestations of a more fundamental and relatively simply structure. and the test of this hypothesis, as of any other, is its fruits a test that science has so far met with dramatic success. if a class of ‘economic phenomena’ appears varied and complex, it is, we must suppose, because we have no adequate theory to explain them. known facts cannot be set on one side; a theory to apply ‘closely to reality’ on the other. a theory is the way we perceive ‘facts,’ and we cannot perceive ‘facts’ without a theory. any assertion that economic phenomena are varied and complex denies the tentative state of knowledge that alone makes scientific activity meaningful ... the confusion between descriptive accuracy and analytical relevance has led not only to criticisms of economic theory on largely irrelevant grounds but also to misunderstanding economic theory and misdirection of efforts to repair the defects. ‘ideal types’ in the abstract model developed by economic theorists has been regarded as strictly descriptive categories intended to correspond directly and fully to entities in the real world independently of the purpose for which the model is being used. the obvious discrepancies have led to necessarily unsuccessful attempts to construct theories on the basis of categories intended to be fully descriptive (1953: 33-34). friedman wants a ‘positive’ economics, in which we strictly separate ‘that which is’ from ‘that which ought to be’ (i.e. what kind of economic policies you have to follow). but once he is busy with his ‘positive’ economics, he relinquishes the description of ‘what is’ with the statement that a ‘realistic’ descriptive science is impossible, since ‘facts’ are not separate from ‘theories’ rather the latter is the way in which we see facts. and the criterion for seeing well is the realising of one’s aims i.e. getting back into the normative sphere. what is clear is that friedman, although writing about the method of economics, is here not spelling out procedures for finding new knowledge or exact data in his discipline he is rather busy with the rationalising of a philosophy of power (cf. venter, 1999: 181ff). although he searches for ‘explanations’ of phenomena, he assumes in advance that such phenomena can always be included in a simple theory. the assumption of simplicity is inherent in the tradition of abstract quantitative science and a necessary assumption for all intended control. simplicity is also one of the most dangerous assumptions of science aimed at control: it is needed to sustain the pretence of an overview of reality which makes control possible (it is the rationalising assumption of a scientific archimedean point), but the simplification itself creates the illusion of good control while leaving sensitivity for the damage by human intervention outside the simplified perspective. friedman’s whole view of the ‘real’ is finally condensed into the simple coherence of those few elements which are predictable if certain assumptions are made. dignity and work 160 some of these assumptions are ‘universal’’ (assumed, idealised, generalities) such as � that economic agents act ‘rationally’ (i.e. in their own interest), and that � they are ‘fully’ informed. such assumptions co-operate with ‘circumstantial’’ assumptions in order to predict certain specific empirical outcomes. if these outcomes are realised, then measures of control follow from them. for example: 1) assume that the mentioned universal assumptions hold. 2) we also add the specific hypothesis that a high rate of expansion of the money supply will lead to a certain increase in the inflation rate (and possibly vice versa). 3) now we have a specific concrete situation where it is viable to accept that both (1) and (2) will hold. 4) then we can a. predict that we can control the inflation in this case by b. controlling the money supply. for friedman it does not matter that the assumptions under (1) are unrealistic. all that counts is whether the prediction under (4a) can be made true by implementing (4b). although friedman pretends not to take into account any norms and rather rely on causal relationships, he is fascinated by the specific ‘causal’ relationships which determine inflation. why is this? because he has a hidden triple norm: 1) he thinks inflation is bad, because 2) inflation is the product of government intervention in the market, and such intervention is always bad; 3) therefore the growth of the money supply should be strictly controlled by an independent banking authority. i do suspect that friedman will not feel at home in a metaphysical approach, but the way in which he plays around with ‘is’ and ‘ought’, ‘ideal’ and ‘real’, the ‘predictable’ and the ‘simple’, and the ‘rational’, surely has one leg over the metaphysical precipice. and together with this comes his view of the human being: all human beings are selfinterested entrepreneurs. the bureaucratic and political entrepreneurs will almost ‚necessarily‘ allow a high growth rate of the money supply venter 161 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. in order to create the illusion of prosperity, which gives them excuses to intervene in the only bastion of freedom and democracy: the ‘market’. the market, he believes, is the root and guarantor of freedom. the monetarists and the neo-classicals are at one in this respect: they have bought into the tradition, coming from adam smith, that all human beings are market animals, and that in fact society is one large market. yet friedman, for all his insistence on freedom, gives us an economics of pragmatic, but total control, as if there were an archimedean point from which this can take place. he is not interested in employment, or in economic agency as such. he believes in the’ control of the system through the control of one supposedly central process. he makes light of the fact that the theorist who predicts is inside the system that he studies, and therefore not ‘out there’ where one can have an overview of the total system the only position which makes control possible. he bargains on the assumed simplicity to give him such an overview. this is impossible. for how can anybody claim to have an overview of even a small nation’s economy (and this within the global economy)? friedman’s principle is again an equilibrating process (supposedly) predictable by good bookkeeping (balancing the books) – presupposing again a set of mechanising stereotypes: the politician always acts in one way, and the businessman in the opposite way. some control might, indeed, have been possible if our bookkeeping had been stable. but simply the movements of the international money markets are enough to upset national bookkeeping. and, importantly, the bookkeeping does not take into account the masses of people who are not reflected in the gnp. many developing countries are not even sure of the size of their populations, in spite of meticulous censuses. this includes sophisticated ones, like south africa. the question is then: if market freedom is (really) the root form of freedom will inflation controls not affect the freedom of those at the bottom end of the economy? von hayek (of the ‘austrian school’) shares this idea of freedom with the monetarists and the neo-classicals. they all assume that the discipline of the market will make sure that business will behave (justly, honestly, and patriotically), and that if we all live under competitive circumstances, then surely we shall all behave. von hayek somewhere goes as far as arguing that we ought to sacrifice some justice for the sake freedom. he differs from the others in his rejection of an idealised equilibrium model which [supposedly] automatically takes care of justice, and he accentuates the concrete rivalry of real agents in competition. having seen the limitations of his training in the positivist tradition, he rejected a mechanistic (physicalist), deductive, quantitative approach in the human sciences. but he agrees with the other schools in economics that competitiveness should be allowed dignity and work 162 free reign in all areas of social life. he does not even consider the possibility that concepts like justice and freedom may be ‘transcendental’ (in the medieval sense) i.e. that they may imply one another to a certain extent and therefore cannot/shouldn’t be managed in a trade-off perspective .... 6. conclusion competitiveness, the global market, and local self-sustenance there is no space here to argue my alternatives in full, thus i shall give them in only a few theses. 1. there is the widespread belief that we are living happily in a postideological era. wrong: the propagation of the formal market and its hedonism as the only way of living, the only source of efficiency and freedom, is ideological, and is being promoted by the theorists in the academe. 2. human dignity has become a protected right after the practical denial that human life is special by the nazi’s and the fascists and apartheid south africa. 3. among the famous, it belongs to locke, marx, and alfred marshall, to have seen that human productive work is special, and that making a living by honest work is an expression of dignity, while not having a work constitutes the removal of dignity. importantly (with the possible exception of marx), they may not have seen the variety of work outside of the formal labour market. 4. present-day conceptions of dignity are no more focussed in first person rational behaviour, but on treating the ‘other’ as a ‘person’. this implies positive inter-subjectivity: love and care, allowing for justice, welfare, cultural self-expression, social inclusion, and being able to sustain yourself in a relatively independent way. it does not ask to be put in the position of a permanent loser in the market (in a manipulated competition). 5. economic theorists have over centuries preached that the only meaningful economic activities are those measurable in terms of supply and demand (exchange), and that the only way to look at economic activity is through the lenses of mathematical deduction, assuming idealised and stereotypical processes and leaving economic agency outside of perspective. thus ‘work’ is forgotten in capitalist economic theory especially work that does not register in the market, although it may serve self-sustenance and contribute considerably to the gnp. venter 163 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. 6. the term ‚‘competition’’ has become very confusing. it runs parallel with terms like ‘quality’ or ‘excellence’ which are empty terms, since there are no universal or even agreed standards for them. they are terms that willy-nilly intimidate, for who can argue against ‘excellence’ or ‘quality’? and what can be said against ‘competition’? according to the western tradition, competition guarantees progress in quality and efficiency. all too often economic or self-interested ‘competition’ is interpreted as if it were akin to what happens in the transparent situation of amateur sports. but where, in the global market, is the track, the judges, the goalposts, and who controls it all? 7. from the traditions in economic theory we have imbibed certain values: a. becoming rich at the cost of others; b. allocating large amounts of resources to unproductive ‘amusements’ or money trading; c. having strong money supply controls (inflation control) within a totally open, ‘free’, market, even if people go hungry (in spite of the keynesian alternative) – creating a ‘lean’ and ‘mean’ economy; d. privatisation is the answer to all our economic ails (even if it costs the taxpayer more to keep the jobless alive); e. remunerating the powerful at an outrageous level, and giving golden handshakes if they fail (while locking up the lower ranks if they fail); f. trading is (supposedly) always a win-win situation. 8. there are good signs and bad signs in certain areas. the ilo has moved in the direction of labour standards and quality work. the point is to be able to sustain yourself inside or outside the market is to have dignity. in the neo-liberal setting it is again assumed that the expansion of the market will have a trickle through effect to the poor and underdeveloped. this implies that the answer lies in industrialisation as such, and that national wealth leads to individual satisfaction. the theory never worked very well, and leads to mechanisation. intermediate technology would be a better approach. 9. we need urgent attention to, and support for, voluntary work. against the liberal doctrine one could say that it is not promoting a religion when the state supports voluntary community work dignity and work 164 done by religious organisations. it is just getting things done by ‘core’ committed people (cf. kuhn & geis, 1988;156: 159), at a very low price. a very brief survey of web pages on the net shows that these voluntary care organisations are all committed to dignity and respect. 10. however, i still do want to defend an economics of self-sustenance and self-care. this is the way to dignify people in interactive subjectivity. before the appearance of the formal market as we know it, human beings did care for themselves. there was a cultural tradition about this, with its own strengths and weaknesses. given that the market will for a long time not be able to function as a locality for self-care (mostly communal, but often individual), it is our duty to study such cultural formations and to find their strengths. very often their strengths would lie exactly in the opposite direction of the highly technological market society which we are trying to introduce. an example: in the north of namibia there is a local grain called ‘mahango’. since the seeds are really tiny, harvesting is very difficult. yet its nutritious value far outweighs that of maize, which is penetrating the area through consumer markets at a fast rate. the people are used to cultivating mahango. why not develop easier methods of harvesting, and improve the cultivars? this way, our technology will harmonise with self-care: not disrupt it. the ‘market’ has no respect for the creativity and culture of sustenance ‘it’ prefers profitable dependency rather than self-sustenance on the fringes of the market. ‘it’ will rather introduce new consumer products than draw on local expertise.). 11. we must remember that human dignity is situated a. in acceptance within a social structure, b. in the possibility to care for yourself and yet c. develop those talents and abilities you have, d. in the knowledge that you will be cared for when unable to do so yourself, but e. in such a way that your personhood, your subjectivity, will be recognised, and f. knowing also that whatever measures be taken by society regarding your person, these measures will always recognize you as a fellow human being of those who take such measures. 12. modernisation is probably inevitable in the long run. but it is undignifying, in fact cruel and inhumane, to introduce modernity in such a way that the individual is dumped in a situation of venter 165 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 133-168. culture shock, totally unable to care for her/himself, subject to alien measures of control which intrude into his/her sense of being human, and becomes a foreigner in the context of the functioning symbols and instruments of the innovated environment. modernisation caused by the market promotes the use of goods for which not enough infrastructure has been created. furthermore the turgot narrative, and adam smith’s view of bartering, suggest that marketing is a distribution of surplus not needed by the producer. the ‘market’ does not function that way anymore. an industry producing bolts and nuts does not calculate how many bolts it needs for itself, and then sell those not needed. it sells all of the output. in fact any economic system based on specialisation moves away from surplus trading to the marketing of all production and the fast movements of money promotes this. resources are therefore allocated according to price/demand to those who have a lot more, and away from the poor, simply as a consequence of specialisation and currency trade. (compare the use of water between rich and poor in a modern setting, keeping in mind that in a traditional community the personal energy needed to supply water may cause physical hardship, but is not dependent upon the cash needed to tap into an urban supply system.) i am not simply and only questioning the shift from ‘basic needs’ in the direction of non-productive ‘amusements’ (the entertainment economy) as such, as well as the speculative high speed currency trade which pushes local food prices up to the levels in the richer countries. in the name of human dignity i am questioning the structure of the value system itself. in even a humanist theory of human needs (where one would expect the distinctively ‘human’ to go up front), such as maslow’s needs hierarchy, one finds the ‘human’ needs, such as that of dignity and love, at the upper end of the hierarchy, and at the later positions in the succession of realisation of needs. structurally this does not differ very much from adam smith’s hierarchy, and of the base-superstructure models of marx and some neo-marxists. the western debate about needs has structurally not moved much in the past three centuries: it remains within the context of material needs first and more complex needs later. my issue would be that the position that material needs are the basic and the earliest ones is not sustainably defensible. for the so-called ‘higher’ needs ought not be assumed to be ‘later’ than the ‘material’ ones. in fact the needs work interactively in a cycle and cross-wise over the circle. assuming the means are available: one cannot imagine a baby being well-cared for if it is not loved; neither is it defensible to say that a baby is loved if it not well-cared for. one should not say that amusements are higher needs of which the realisation is only for dignity and work 166 the rich. one should rather investigate the situation in a less well-off rural farming community, or an agrarian tribal community. in such communities there are no formal, separate, entertainment structures. leisure and work are integrated in such a way that they are almost indistinguishable. veblen’s theory of the leisure class may be the logical consequence of adam smith’s value hierarchy, but it is empirically untrue and normatively inhumane: those who should have leisure, the upper classes, are very often the slaves of workaholism, and those who have too much leisure would prefer to have food. i am pleading for an economics of dignity, in which the material needs and the higher order needs are considered equally basic. one can have no development, no social upliftment, if it does not happen under the guidance of dignity. and this means that the full ‘person’ should be accepted as the economic agent, and has to be recognised as such. the economic agent must work in a context of justice, quality of production, enough independence to find positive ways of sustaining himself/herself, have enough well-being and resources and freedom to disclose own potential. but then managers and economic theorists will have to abolish their almost obsessive striving fro a quantitative deductive system with predictive capabilities. it will have to analyse economic institutions, social institutions, power relationships, and technological inversions of the economic processes. and take account of the value system at work in the economy as such about which few words are said in any economics textbook. which means that the pretence of being a purely descriptive, non-normative discipline, has to be relinquished. it will have to become a humane human science again. latouche (1995: 2021) and caille (1995: 52-60) argue that the prize for the most ‘scientific’ among the social and moral sciences still goes to economics. yet this is grand bluff, because economics, in constructing itself as a rigorous and coherent scientific system, has precisely abolished the moral and political questions. pretending to realize the greatest welfare for the greatest number, economics has not only transformed human beings into hats, as marx accused it of doing, but both human beings and hats into equations, and has thus become an inhuman science. ‘political economy’, as it has traditionally been called, has become both the most ‘scientific’ of all human sciences, and at the same time venter 17 the ricardian naturalism, mechanism, and determinism made it possible to reduce human activity and history to a vast machinery by postulating a machine-man; the homo oeconomicus. an economic society made out of an ensemble of subjects/ individuals, which function as calculating automata, brings about an impressive clockwork. the economist needed only to put these gears into equations. 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(ed.) analecta husserliana, yearbook of phenomenological research, 74) amsterdam: kluwer. pp. 537-601. venter, jj. 2006. a human(e) university: resisting scientism, technicism, economism. koers, festschrift opgedra aan prof n theo. van der merwe. 71(1): 275-318. abstract introduction research questions theoretical framework literature review methodology research design data analysis findings discussion study implications conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) patient rambe department of business support studies, faculty of management sciences, central university of technology, bloemfontein, south africa crispen chipunza department of business support studies, faculty of management sciences, central university of technology, bloemfontein, south africa dick ng’ambi school of teacher education, faculty of education, university of cape town, cape town, south africa citation rambe, p., chipunza, c. & ng’ambi, d., 2020, ‘using whatsapp for co-creation of learning resources: a case of a south african university’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a791. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.791 research project registration: project number: 10/2020 original research using whatsapp for co-creation of learning resources: a case of a south african university patient rambe, crispen chipunza, dick ng’ambi received: 21 nov. 2019; accepted: 30 june 2020; published: 22 sept. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract although culturally diverse students have potential to create enriched learning resources, it is difficult to harness students’ agency and to aggregate individual contributions into a meaningful learning resource. this is one of the challenges facing higher education institutions in south africa where institutions are increasingly cosmopolitan and culturally diverse, but production of knowledge has largely remained skewed in favour of those students with unlimited access to learning resources, the internet and peer networks, anywhere, anytime. although the appropriation of emerging technologies such as mobile phones has enabled a digital sharing culture, this social practice has not been harnessed for co-creation of learning resources. this article reports on a study that sought to uncover the extent to which the use of whatsapp-enabled phones facilitated the co-creation of learning resources in a human resource management programme at a university of technology in south africa. the article employed amartya sen’s capabilities framework to analyse whatsapp interactions of 72 participants from underprivileged backgrounds. the article concludes that leveraging students’ capabilities, including rich culturally diverse knowledge, is not a mere outcome of access to a tool such as whatsapp, but requires pedagogical designs that exploit the affordances of the tool. keywords: whatsapp; mim; collectively generated resources; dialogic interactions; learning resources. introduction the phenomenal surge in ownership of mobile phones among south africans and at south african higher educational institutions (saheis) has accentuated the clarion call for the integration of such devices into tertiary teaching and learning. o’dea (2020) reported that in march 2020, about 23.3 million south africans owned smartphones, which constitutes approximately a third of the country’s population. by 2023, the figure on mobile ownership would be 26.3 million (o’dea 2020). similarly, a study conducted by north, johnston and ophoff (2014) revealed that 99% of students at the university of cape town owned mobile devices. the claim about universal mobile ownership among students at saheis is corroborated by shava, chinyamurindi and somdyala (2016) who reported that most technical and vocational education and training (tvet) students owned smartphones with instant messaging, data and information exchange and speedy internet access capabilities. despite an increasing ownership of mobile phones among students at saheis, there is a paucity of empirical evidence to suggest that the adoption of mobile phones is changing university teaching and learning practices. although the popularity of smartphones presents an opportunity for heis to integrate student-owned mobile phones into institutional information and communication technologies (ict) infrastructure, the academic uptake of mobile phones for instructional purposes at saheis has been disappointing. some scholars have attributed this mobile inertia to the following: educators’ lack of pedagogical knowledge to integrate mobiles’ usage in didactic lectures (rambe & bere 2013); insufficient theoretical and pedagogical guidelines on mobile phone-mediated pedagogies (bozalek et al. 2014); fears of replicating socio-technical marginalisation, itself a reflection of demographic legacies of inequality in south africa (madge et al. 2019). although these challenges provide insight into the reasons for the low uptake of mobile phones at saheis, they do not explain the gulf between ownership (hence access to applications for knowledge sharing) and willingness to engage in cross-cultural knowledge-sharing practices. it was this phenomenon that motivated this study to explore the impact of student ownership of mobile phones on their academic agency (i.e. choice to contribute to shared learning resources in situations where (1) an educator may or may not have required it as a pedagogical strategy and (2) access to peers for face-to-face interaction is constrained by either time or distance). we identify with moore’s (2016) definition of agency as the feeling of control over choices and actions and their consequences. as student agency encapsulates their access to mobile resources, grasp of their functionalities and possession of competencies to use them, exploring agency is critical to student-effective use of mobile phones for learning. mindful of the fact that agency manifests in students’ deployment of their learning skills, competencies and capabilities to make meaningful choices about how, when and with what resources they learn, it (i.e. agency) therefore reshapes itself in relational terms of articulation; of the vested interests of learners; the new roles and positions that some occupy and others do not; and in terms of the novel situations in which all students find themselves (archer 2010). gorski (2005) argues that high levels of agency provide a useful avenue for breaching digital inequities and mobilising appropriate skills to accomplish intended goals. to the extent that students are generally competent users of mobile phones, we wondered about the gulf between social uses of mobile phones (social agency) and mobile uses for meaningful engagement to achieve pedagogical goals (academic agency). as agency resonates with assessment of one’s mental state and corresponding actions (sen 1985a) in response to situated conditioning circumstances, this study bridges the gap between social and academic agency by employing sen’s capabilities approach to explore the potential of a mobile phone application, whatsapp, to enhance the academic agency of students at a south african university. with its focus on agents’ capabilities, functionality of the tool and perceived freedoms (e.g. affordances and constraints), sen’s capabilities approach provides a vantage point for exploring the nexus between mobile phone access and student agency in a higher education context. research questions in resource-constrained environments such as the south african universities of technology (uots), the augmentation of institutionally provided ict infrastructure with devices owned by students is an obvious choice. however, students have regulated freedom when using icts provided by institutions such as learning management systems (lmss) and therefore are likely to view whatsapp as providing opportunities for unregulated freedom. as such, the relationship between students’ possession of mobile phones and their academic agency needs to be explored to ensure productive use of collaboratively generated content. we distinguish the functionings of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ (sen 1985a): ‘being’ as allowing a practice of sharing (i.e. doing) to become a social practice as opposed to a one-off social act. our thesis is that it is the aggregation of social acts (i.e. the ‘doings’ as in posting of text, photos and videos in mobile instant messaging [mim]) that results into a collaboratively shared artefact. as freedom, itself the actual ability of a person to achieve valuable functioning, should have instrumental relevance (i.e. its value as a means to other ends) (sen 1985a), we assume that student participation in these social acts enabled by technology can shape and increase their academic capabilities (e.g. as knowledge generators, effective collaborators). mindful of the complexity and serendipitous nature of mobile media engagement by previously disadvantaged students (pdss), optimal access and use of mobile phones cannot always be anticipated. considering the foregoing discussion, the following research questions are posed: how does students’ access to mobile phones shape their capabilities as agents engaging in ‘being’ and ‘doing’? how does their ownership of whatsapp-enabled phones enhance their agency to co-create learning resources? theoretical framework social learning theory ideally, the aforesaid questions can be researched and analysed from a multiple lens such as social learning theory, social network theory and capabilities framework. social learning is a complex amalgam of computer-supported collaborative learning (scardamalia & bereiter 2006) and social learning (vygotsky 1978). vygotsky (1978) argued that internal consciousness (i.e. psychological development) is a consequence of individuals’ social interaction with social beings, objects and materials. therefore, consciousness is socially mediated through learners’ interaction with peers, educators, facilitators and artefacts before it is internalised through internal psychological processing. social learning theory further postulates that humans use observation and imitation to learn from their interactions with others in a social context (bandura 1977; nabavi 2012). upon observing the behaviours of others, people assimilate and imitate that behaviour, especially if their observational experiences are positive ones or include rewards related to the observed behaviour (nabavi 2012). from a social learning perspective, it can be argued that social interactions are the seedbed through which individuals learn in communities and groups (huang, spector & yang 2019). as students interact with their peers, educators and facilitators, and learning materials, objects and activities are collaboratively co-created, shared and disseminated through whatsapp groups, opportunities to learn socially from each other are created. social media support social learning by facilitating collaboration (i.e. shared creation) (schrage 1990) and knowledge creation and aid students’ deep understanding (resta & laferrière 2007) and flexibility of time and space (huang et al. 2019). the argument is that through continual communication and interaction, students gain confidence in self-articulation and reflection, allowing for deep learning to happen. more so, question-based interactions can facilitate socratic dialogues that enhance students’ intellectual development. however, the main criticism levelled against social learning is its failure to sufficiently acknowledge differential levels of understanding among group members, which can reproduce social hierarchies in terms of knowledge construction. furthermore, social learning theory simplifies learning by assuming that the presence of artefact mediation supports expansive learning, which is not always the case as this depends on social context of interaction, academic maturity of learners to remain task focussed and the duration of the interaction. therefore, although this theory is useful in explaining social interaction and collaboration as the sources of social learning, the theory fails to acknowledge the fundamental role of capabilities and agency as shaped by academic maturity of learners in shaping social learning dynamics. social network theory the collaborative generation of learning resources can also be studied from a social learning theoretical lens, which emphasises examining learning from the perspective of social networks. a social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organisations) called nodes, which are connected by specific types of interdependency, such as interaction, friendship and kinship (huang et al. 2019). a whatsapp group serves as a social network to the extent that it comprises individuals connected to other persons (e.g. peers, educators and facilitators) who share resources, artefacts, mutual trust and social interaction, to facilitate social learning. therefore, social network theory focusses on the role of social relationships in transmitting information, channelling personal or media influence and enabling attitudinal or behavioural change (liu et al. 2017). at the core face of social network theory, there are sociogram, centrality and density of the social network. the sociogram comprises the nodes, line and arrows. the node represents the actor, the line represents the relationship between actors and the arrow direction represents the information flow (haythornthwaite & de laat 2010). therefore, the whatsapp group member who shares substantial learning resources, questions, objects and activities with his or her peers would be represented by a bigger node compared with his or her peers. the density of the network describes the degree of connectivity of an individual. it comprises the number of ties an actor has, divided by the total possible ties an actor could have (haythornthwaite & de laat 2010). therefore, the width of the line connecting nodes within a whatsapp group sociogram demonstrates density of the network between any two given interactants (e.g. student–peer, educator–student). centrality describes the number of ties an actor has. one deciphers that the student or educator who has the highest connections within a whatsapp group has the higher centrality. however, although the social network theory is critical in demonstrating the source of knowledge by highlighting individuals who sustain interactions and the sharing of resources the most, the theory does not provide explanations for the high or low level of interactions in the network. further, while in-degree and out-degree interactions are useful in showing which interactants provide and receive most comments, information and artefacts from the group, respectively, the theory is not useful for showing the qualitative nature of relationships as relationships are only illustrated quantitatively in terms of numbers of posts or comments. amartya sen’s capabilities approach in view of the limitations of the social learning and social network theories in illuminating understanding of capabilities and the quality of knowledge co-constructed, the capabilities approach is advanced as a better theoretical lens. one of the fundamental principles of amartya sen’s capability approach is the notion of ‘achieved states of “being” and activities of an individual’ (kuklys 2005:5). thus, capabilities are described in terms of what people are able to be and to do (sen 1985b). this theory provides a way of understanding mobile phones as a way of being, and that users have capacity to act and to be depending on the affordances of the mobile application. sen (1992) argues that the various combinations of functioning (‘beings’ and ‘doings’) are indicative of what a person can achieve. capability is thus a ‘person’s freedom to lead one type of life or another […] to choose from possible livings’ (sen 1992:40). it follows that the capability approach may provide a useful way of describing academic agency of heterogeneous students at a higher education institution, how they act and what they do with mim. this argument is strengthened by the view that in sen’s capability theory, functionings are outcome-based as opposed to being resource-based (kuklys 2005). the significance of viewing the constructs of ‘being and doing’ in terms of outcomes lies in understanding choices that students make when using mim for collaborative knowledge sharing. sen (1985b) also envisages capabilities as a set of real opportunities that an individual could use in one way or another. it captures a person’s or group’s freedom to promote or achieve valuable functionings (alkire 2005), and it is within the context of freedom that choices are made. the affordances of multiple applications of mobile phones render users the freedom to achieve what they consider to be valuable tasks and activities. valuable functionings at the core of sen’s (1987a) capabilities approach, there are two quintessential constructs of valuable functionings and freedom. functionings denote the ‘various things a person may value “doing” or being’ (sen 1999:75) that are deeply rooted in ideal welfare and productive physical and mental states. broadened access to knowledge networks, trustworthy affinities and sound judgement are among the functionings an academically oriented learner aspires to acquire via networked communities. when conceived in its entirety, the capabilities approach encompasses all qualitative changes in human ways of life: from knowledge, relationships, employment opportunities and inner peace, to self-confidence and the valued activities made possible by the literacy classes (alkire 2005). the bottom line is that education should give students access to the necessary positive resources and enable them to make choices that matter to them. freedom freedom emphasises ‘the real opportunity that we have to accomplish what we value’ (sen 1992:31). it should be conceived as the actual ability of a person to employ valuable functionings (sen 1987a). the realisation of freedom necessitates making informed choices, prudent ranking of functionings and perfect information about alternatives open to individuals. sen (2000) argues that the exclusion of the poor from participation in and access to opportunities and activities is a constraint that needs to be recognised and addressed. in the same vein, constraints such as limited access to libraries, erratic power supply and unreliable networks can frustrate students’ attempts at effective academic engagement and trigger academic exclusion in purportedly inclusive learning environments. sen (1987a) classifies freedom into two – ‘positive’ terms, where emphasis is placed on individual choices about possible actions and achievements, rather than on the absence of particular restraints that prevents his or her from making choices about possible course of action. on the contrary, ‘negative’ freedom describes the absence of restraints that one person may exercise over another, or the state may exercise over subjects. the pursuit of negative or positive freedom may yield qualitatively different results and our research considers both outcomes. we understand that although they result in qualitatively different outcomes, positive and negative freedoms are not mutually exclusive because the search for virtuous life is incomplete without recourse to grasping the fundamental impediments that block its realisation. for instance, the discourse on south african students’ efforts at becoming accomplished learners who engage productively with authentic knowledge is insufficient without an interrogation of pds-constrained access to technological networks, computers and other educational resources. previously disadvantaged students are university students emerging from under-resourced, underperforming schools and deprived socio-cultural backgrounds. sen’s (1987a) pursuit of freedom is deeply implicated in pursuit of power in decision-making because freedom undergirds agentive action and authority to make informed choices. consequently, the conditions of deprivation and exclusion that constrain students’ accessibility to peer-based social networks for organised academic activity (e.g. discussions, critical questioning and academic support structures) are instantiations of restrained academic power. literature review socio-economic and cultural access as the study is preoccupied with students’ access to mobile phones, which potentially enables collaborative generation of learning resources, the term ‘access’ needs some clarification to ensure its in-depth understanding in resource-constrained environments. bozalek, garraway and mckenna (2011) attribute the psychological, social, cultural and financial obstacles that the first-year students encounter at universities to their socio-economic and cultural access. they observe that most students find a university to be a foreign social and cultural environment and are therefore sandwiched between excitement of being at a university and managing academic pressures. as such, one strategy of addressing these challenges is to leverage the technology and capabilities students bring with them, to ensure equity of access to educational resources and overcome historically induced imbalances in students’ knowledge production. a related challenge has been the incapacity of different offering of universities to provide sufficient access to learning resources and accommodate students’ diverse circumstances such as those working full time and studying part time, as well as those studying in situ at ‘home’ (waters & leung 2013), through branch campuses (lane 2011; madge et al. 2019). tondeur et al. (2010) reconceptualise access as varying patterns of attitudes, competencies and uses of icts that constitute differences in cultural capital. cultural capital that determines cultural access to icts is a function of cultural backgrounds and historical contexts of ict users, which invariably shape the ict competencies and skills they deploy to effectively use digital resources. with increased personalised student access to social media, grasping cultural access therefore necessitates educators to interrogate ‘situated knowledge practices’ that students use to engage with social media for communication, expression and social action so that the educational context of its use can be preserved while simultaneously eroding the formal–informal space divides (ng’ambi et al. 2016). czerniewicz and brown’s (2013) study demonstrated how pds’ technological habitus, itself shaped by their cultural capital, was a function of their social backgrounds characterised by limited access to and limited practices in relation to computers. however, these students also demonstrated diverse practices and widespread astute use of cell phones, suggesting their capacity to draw on cultural capital to enhance their academic pursuits. mobile instant messaging for meaningful teaching and learning as this study explores the nexus among student mobile ownership, academic agency and networking capabilities and uptake of mobile phone applications, a review of literature on mim is inevitable. a body of academic literature has explored the learning (cetinkaya 2017; gasaymeh 2017; sayan 2016) and instructional potential of whatsapp (coleman & o’connor 2019; gon & rawekar 2017). gasaymeh (2017) interrogated university students’ intended adoption of whatsapp for educational purposes and their perceptions of its formal integration into their education practices. despite the limited application of whatsapp for learning purposes, students expressed positive feelings and intentions about its potential use for formal learning. they anticipated that its integration into education would be easy, fun and educationally useful. cetinkaya (2017) explored the extent to which appropriation of whatsapp could enhance success in education. the results revealed that while students affirmed the adoption of whatsapp in their courses, the possibility of using messages with images to support unconscious learning, some students expressed negative sentiments about the redundancy and timing of some posts in groups. the scoping review conducted by coleman and o’connor (2019) on the contribution of whatsapp to supporting instruction in medical education revealed three strategies for whatsapp use: its educational use within a pre-defined curriculum, its educational use without any curriculum and its non-educational use. their integrated learning design framework for instruction, which drew on these three strategies, demonstrated whatsapp can serve as an effective tool in medical instruction. gon and rawekar (2017) interrogated the effectiveness of using whatsapp as a teaching tool in the natural sciences. in addition to continual learning provided via this platform and the continual availability of facilitators, students taught via this platform performed better than those taught using traditional lectures. the study, however, reported a deluge of messages, constraints of time and eye strains as technical challenges associated with using whatsapp for instructional purposes. in the south african context, willemse (2015) examined the reflections of undergraduate nurses on whatsapp use in improving primary health care education. her findings revealed students’ positive experiences of using the application; its capacity to facilitate the integration of clinical theory into practice; avail resources for test preparation; and provide opportunities for students to seek clarification. however, the challenges of its use for educational purposes included potential academic exclusion of students without the appropriate devices and quick depletion of battery power with prolonged use of the application. gachago et al.’s (2015) research on lecturers’ perspectives on the potential of whatsapp to support teaching and learning revealed that this technology increased immediacy and connections across formal, informal and open distance learning contexts, facilitated reflection by students while simultaneously increasing their control and ownership of learning. justification for using whatsapp whatsapp is a low-cost, instant messaging application that runs on web-enabled devices such as cell phones, personal digital assistants and laptops. on this web-based platform, users can form small groups of up to 11 members and exchange materials in various formats like audio, video, graphics and textual messages. users may choose to interact using their mobile numbers as their personal ids thus ‘hiding’ their real identities and may use pseudonyms or their authentic names. there are multiple mim platforms in south africa such as wechat, mixit and facebook messenger. the wechat platform’s user base is predominantly in china, the headquarters of this company (feng 2019), and is not popular in south africa especially among university students judging from the small numbers on this platform. as both whatsapp and facebook messenger are facebook applications following facebook.com’s acquisition of whatsapp platform, these platforms have comparable functionalities (friends’ lists, cheap calls and group messaging) as well as subtle differences. for example, while many mobile phone operators may sell mobile phones pre-loaded with whatsapp and facebook messenger depending on mobile packages they offer, whatsapp remains more easily accessible and user-friendly for students irrespective of any phone’s sophistication. this is because while facebook messenger is integrated with a facebook user’s profiles and requires them to log into their facebook accounts to access it, whatsapp is a stand-alone platform that allows users to connect to contacts already stored on their phones without any log-in requirements (khillar 2018). weinberg (2020) highlights that creating a user account is not required on whatsapp because the user’s phone number serves as his or her username. furthermore, although facebook messenger users must add their friends, all whatsapp friends are automatically added by scanning the user’s contact list for friends existing on her or his phone (kumar 2016). apart from the convenience of accessing whatsapp, the platform runs on any phone irrespective of its simplicity or sophistication. whatsapp calls can be executed via second-generation (2g) and third-generation (3g) phones and on wi-fi including in locations with weak signals (verma 2019). whatsapp supports a myriad of platforms and devices ranging from smartphone platforms such as ios, android and windows phone to feature phone platforms such as nokia s40 and s60 (whatsapp 2020; weinberg 2020). in contrast, facebook messenger tends to be more effective on more sophisticated phones such as an android operating system. although facebook messenger is ideal for conference calling involving up to 50 participants and whatsapp only accommodates four people per conference call (verma 2019), calling is not the ideal choice of cash-strapped students. further, group work at our university often involves between three and seven students, and hence, whatsapp is ideally suited for group collaboration as work commitments and logistical challenges often constrain all group members from participating at once. the greatest benefit of whatsapp for students is that it requires less bandwidth to connect with little configuration compared with facebook messenger, a heavy bandwidth application that consumes much data and continually sends messages regardless of network strength (khilla 2019). access to data has remained a perennial issue in south african higher education judging from the #data-must-fall-protests by university students, and the sub-optimal attempts by universities to provide free data for accessing learning resources to students further compound the challenge. although facebook messenger is more sophisticated in loading multiple pictures, conducting conference calls and using colour gradients to show the mood of interactants, these features are more bandwidth-intensive and hence are not popular among students. moreover, whatsapp messages are protected by end-to-end encryption by default, implying that only authorised interactants can view messages exclusively – thereby guaranteeing more privacy. this can be contrasted with facebook messenger where encryption must be activated to work (khillar 2018). methodology case study paradigms unlike other methodological designs (e.g. quantitative surveys) that exhibit a clear paradigmatic orientation, the practical versatility of the agnostic approach of case studies (harrison et al. 2017) implies that ‘they cannot be assigned to a fixed ontological, epistemological or methodological position’ (rosenberg & yates 2007:447). case studies therefore can fit multiple epistemological and methodological positions such as quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches. in recognition of this complexity, the researchers had a choice to approach case study research from a realist (i.e. positivist) perspective or a relativist (i.e. interpretivist) perspective. drawing on a realist perspective would mean that the researchers ascribe to the existence of a single reality, which is independent of them, can be apprehended, studied and measured (harrison et al. 2017). a post-positivist approach focusses on conducting empirical inquiry drawing on the maintaining objectivity to allow for and the generalisability of results (ellingson 2011; yin 2014). post-positivist employs science as a mode of inquiry to understand the nature of reality and utilises multiple data collection methods as an acknowledgement of the imperfection of all tools of measurements, to arrive at the ‘truth’ (harrison et al. 2017). although we conceded that data source triangulation allows the capturing of the multi-faceted nature of reality, we questioned the claim that using multiple sources would increase objectivity because as social beings, individuals are subjective by nature. we submitted that researchers and students employ their subjective experiences to make sense of their interactions and to understand any given phenomenon in context. the researchers also questioned yin’s (2014) pre-occupation with hypothesis testing as a way of generating alternative explanations for reality and adoption of multiple case studies to allow for generalisability of results. although post-positivists conceive a case study as a naturalistic study, they employ scientific strategies such as allowing the investigator to exert control over and manipulate the variable(s) of interest (crowe et al. 2011) to get to the bottom of the issue under investigation. as case studies cannot be disentangled from their context, we submitted that meaning making and use of experiences are context-dependent and would vary if contexts of their application change. for that reason, the extent of generalisation of case studies using a post-positivist perspective would be limited. our research identified with an interpretivist perspective that emphasises the existence of multiple realities and meanings, which depend on and are co-created by the researcher and participants involved in the research (lincoln, lynham & guba 2011). to the extent that case studies strive to generate for the researcher an in-depth, holistic, multi-faceted understanding of a complex issue in its real-life context (crowe et al. 2011), the deployment of interpretation and inductive reasoning would be more reasonable than seeking to generalise findings. the research was therefore informed by a constructivist and interpretivist orientation, which strives to discover meaning and understanding of experiences in context (harrison et al. 2017; stake 2006). adopting an interpretive and constructivist perspective allows the researcher to look at the phenomenon in context (farquhar 2012), enter the scene with a sincere interest in learning how (participants) function in ordinary pursuits and milieus and with a willingness to put aside many presumptions while they learn (stake 1995). stake (2006) emphasises an interpretivist role where realities are multiple and subjective, dependent on the meanings and understanding of those directly involved in its construction. research design the research adopted a case study approach. a case study is an intensive, systematic investigation of a single individual, group, community or some other unit in which the researcher examines in-depth data relating to several variables (woods & calanzaro 1980). the case of student interaction with the facilitator and lecturer was examined in-depth to get a closer glimpse of how students’ access to mobile devices shaped their capabilities as social agents involved in social acts (i.e. ‘doings’ such as posting texts, photos and videos and ‘beings’ – their sense of themselves), and how their ownership of mobiles shaped their agency in co-creating educational resources. the variables examined are accessibility to mobiles, capabilities, student agency and co-creation of resources. fouchè and schurink (2011) suggest that case studies allow researchers to understand the meaning that research participants assign to their life experiences by immersing themselves in the activities of these participants to obtain an intimate familiarity with their social worlds. the approach was therefore qualitative to the extent that it examined lecturer–student, facilitator–student and peer-based interactions on whatsapp including students’ reflections of their whatsapp academic activities via their personal blogs. in case study research, complex phenomena are examined in their natural setting to provide a holistic understanding of them (yin 2003). students’ social acts of posting different learning resources were examined to systematically dissect and understand the contribution of mobile access to shaping students’ capabilities including how accessing mobiles shaped their agency in creating learning resources collaboratively. the e-research strategy the study participants comprised 72 black african human resource management (hrm) students at a university of technology in south africa. as this university’s admission policy considers all black african students as ‘historically disadvantaged’, we classified this group of students in similar terms. to further compound this historical disadvantage, most of these students stayed off campus, which limited their access to institutional ict networks, library resources and university-based peer networks. this meant that these students only accessed these learning resources on campus during the day and had limited access at home because of the high cost of internet data plans. although these students accessed the university lms during their contact hours, access was also limited after hours because of connectivity problems off campus. the rationale for using whatsapp in the programme was to expose these geographically distributed hrm students to the research concepts, processes and techniques as well as render them first-hand experiences of using mobile technology to support their collaborative learning and co-creation of knowledge. to establish the extent of students’ familiarity and usage of whatsapp, the educator inquired about the number of students who had used it for social interaction consistently for more than 3 months and a majority claimed they had. although most students had some experience of social uses of whatsapp, a few had used it for academic purposes, thereby necessitating additional educator support. although most participants already had whatsapp downloaded on their mobile phones, the educator encouraged all participants to have this mobile application active on their mobile phones. the 72 participants were divided into seven clusters of up to 11 participants per cluster and encouraged to join their respective clusters on whatsapp. although no formal assessment and marks were awarded for online participation, students were expected to engage in the following tasks: respond to one research methods question that the lecturer sent to all clusters when they interacted after hours, use whatsapp to post, respond to and discuss a research methods question from peers and contribute to the development of research knowledge through collaborative learning in groups. as the study focussed on students’ use of whatsapp and agentive experiences thereof, non-participants were naturally excluded from the study although no sanctions were imposed from non-participation. in addition to the lecturer, an external researcher from another university served as the online facilitator. the facilitator posed questions about research concepts and processes taught in class by the lecturer and responded to participant queries via whatsapp. prior to this, the lecturer had introduced the online facilitator to students in a face-to-face session and notified them of his or her availability between 18:00 and 20:00 to engage with them on their research methods challenges. besides consulting with the lecturer and the online facilitator, participants also engaged with peers on research processes via whatsapp after lectures. student–facilitator, student–lecturer and peer-based interactions focussed on students’ understanding of research processes such as refinement of research topics, tenets of a good literature review, research design and methodological issues and advice on complex research processes. student interactions lasted for a semester (6 months). most postings were on research processes especially research design issues, choices of research topics and descriptions of good literature reviews. the lecturer also clarified and reinforced in class the issues discussed in all clusters online. blog reflections to corroborate the evidence of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ in whatsapp collaborative learning, participants were also expected to create personal blogs and reflect individually on their learning via whatsapp. they were encouraged to reflect on how their online access to learning resources impacted their engagement capabilities including potential challenges of accessing whatsapp. the blogging commenced 2 months after participants had started interacting on whatsapp and enabled them to individually reflect on their whatsapp collective engagements. the personal blogs were in the institutional lms, blackboard. of all participants, only 19 of them (11 females, 8 males) made one to three blog entries each. a total of 32 blog entries were recorded. entries focussed on whatsapp’s communicative power in relation to research processes, the value of the academic support the facilitator provided, whatsapp’s capacity to break the ‘transactional distance’ (moore 1993:22) between participants, and access to the facilitator’s advice during group assignments after hours. the tasks related to asking peers, the educator and facilitator research methods questions, responding to questions and contributing to collaborative production of research knowledge. sampling and participant selection to the extent that all students despite their social circumstances were enrolled for the hrm course, it can be argued that these participants were self-selected by virtue of being members of this course. however, it can also be argued that as all students who participated were expected to be whatsapp participants, purposive sampling was employed as participants were expected to have experience of interactions and collaborative engagement with peers during the co-creation of knowledge. as the study focus was on co-creation of knowledge drawing on a social media platform, only students who had participated via the platform were deemed to have developed some knowledge of and experience in using the platform for learning. data analysis although capabilities concepts (e.g. functionings, capabilities and freedoms) were drawn upon to provide a broad framework against which categories could be interpreted, the categories themselves were drawn from raw data using inductive analysis (see table 1). thematic analysis was used in the extraction of categories from raw data. thematic analysis involves repeated reading and analysis of texts and the identification of key themes across diverse data (pimmer & rambe 2018). the process involved gleaning through the whatsapp and blog data entries to gain a broad grasp of their contents. the second reading emphasised identifying relevant texts from the raw data. the next step involved coding and development of categories, guided by texts that frequently emerged from the raw data. it is important to emphasise that the focus here was not only on the texts exchanged, but also the broader context and milieu in which they emerged. categories were derived from raw data inductively even though the main concepts that framed the overall analysis were deductively derived from the reading of capabilities framework literature. in other words, while the analysis of texts was inductive, the main concepts were applied in a deductive manner (pimmer & rambe 2018) (see table 1). table 1: an analysis of original whatsapp and blog posts using sen’s capabilities approach. findings the tenets of the theoretical framework were drawn upon to interpret the research findings. these tenets include functionings, capabilities and freedoms. these tenets were informed by the research questions that focussed on the: influence of ownership of mobile phones on student agency over co-creation of learning of learning resources; impact of mobile access on students’ capabilities as agents involved in ‘being’ and ‘doing’. functionings functionings describe the various endowments including entitlements that human beings value possessing or becoming (or being). these acquisitions can be material (wealth, higher education, health) or non-material (skills, knowledge, capabilities, technological networks). student functionings (what they valued ‘doing’ or ‘being’) therefore involved exchanging specific information (e.g. conducting credible data analyses or literature reviews), (see figure 2 and figure 4) reminding each other of upcoming academic tasks and giving suggestions on solving them. to this effect, they valued becoming information givers, information seekers, knowledge brokers and informal mentors to their academically challenged peers. they cherished becoming contributors to knowledge through their responses to online facilitator’s question on how to conduct a credible literature review: other student functionings were related to their yearnings about redressing information asymmetries that plagued their academic institution. in poorly resourced institutions, off campus students often struggled to access library books and journals after hours. students’ desire to widen mobile access to educational materials is embodied in the suggestion (see figure 1). figure 1: example 1 of student functioning. figure 2: example 2 of student functioning. figure 3: example of lecturer’s functioning. this resonates with student functionings on improving personalised access to academic resources for all students. students also reflected via blackboard blogs on the academic value of multiple accesses to educational materials, open communication and group sharing of content: ‘i have been using a blackberry phone but was not familiar with whatsapp. now i enjoy using it as a communication tool. it helps with the research methodology in that the questions being asked and answered, we all share it as groups […].’ (female student, blog post, june 2018) ‘whatsapp is a smart way of learning with our peers as we can share ideas and openly question each other’s views. whatsapp allows [us] to exchange messages without having to pay much. it allows us to understand the lecturer’s expectations of us.’ (male student, blog post, july 2018) these blog posts are indicative of the communicative, critical questioning and collaborative sharing culture on whatsapp. student functionings played out in their praising of familiar technologies that enhanced public expression and fostered collaborative learning communities. the lecturer’s functionings were entrenching students in appropriate academic conventions and practices that enabled them to: (1) become emerging, informed contributors to their field, (2) engage with educational materials to execute assignments effectively (see figure 3) and (3) improve students’ academic networking based on learning tasks. thus, she or he occasionally provided announcements and additional materials on the institutional lms to ensure effective execution of academic tasks by students. therefore, the lecturer and online facilitator’s support interfaced with peer-based networking to ensure collective generation of resources and integrated online learning. access to academic networking the appropriation of whatsapp breached the psychological barriers among students by enhancing peer-based academic networking among those with different academic abilities. the use of whatsapp also bridged students’ physical distance from institutional resources and breached transactional distance between peers caused by lack of physical contact and limited communicative competence. open conversations via whatsapp enhanced students’ sharing of academic information as shown in figure 4. figure 4: example of students’ sharing of academic information. the peer response to the student’s question on data analysis, which highlighted the need to consult the study guide, track conversations in one’s whatsapp group and to attend classes regularly, highlights the potential of whatsapp interaction to support students’ context-free access to peer-based educational resources and artefacts (questions, responses, elaborations and critique) anywhere, anytime. capabilities capacities embody human commitment to purposive actions and enactment of particular identities. they constitute expressions of human agency and free choice within environmental enablers and constraints. capabilities included role play in collectively generated resources and critical questioning of postings. these roles are discussed in sub-sections on role play and critical questioning below. role play in collaborative engagement capabilities were instantiated in peer-based sharing of advice on the execution of academic tasks. students exploited whatsapp to assist peers in dealing with problematic concepts and tasks the lecturer and the online facilitator assigned to them. consequently, some students assumed ‘advisory’ roles on whatsapp: ‘my advice will be that please ensure that you investigate literature in line with your research topic […] you can use existing literature and be able to expand your findings […].’ (student peer, whatsapp post, may 2018) such additional responsibilities and serendipitous learning illustrate transformative uses of whatsapp as students transcended roles prescribed by their educators of information generation, knowledge sharing and group collaboration on academic tasks. these capabilities are expressions of student agency and knowledge construction through complex processes of intuitive learning. critical questioning the lecturer’s capabilities involved his or her intentional modelling of learning tasks through critical questioning. he or she occasionally tested students’ understanding of research concepts by posing questions on complex, but often taken-for-granted concepts: ‘what is the difference between concepts and constructs in research?’ (lecturer, whatsapp post, april 2018) ‘constructs are concrete forms of behaviour […] concepts are collection of meanings associated with events […].’ (female student, whatsapp post, april 2018) students also extended their knowledge of technology-mediated interaction beyond whatsapp by using it to discuss features of other learning platforms like the institutional lms (blackboard): ‘hi guys how do i open the test page […] where do i click to get it?’ (male student, whatsapp post, march 2018) ‘assessment on your left side menu when you open ethutho.’ (student peer, whatsapp post, march 2018) as such, whatsapp presented an information gateway linking students to other ict platforms, extending practical knowledge of their interfaces. as capabilities are in sen’s (1985b) view outcome based and relate to authentic activities accomplished, accessing other platforms and extending knowledge all suggest the productive nature of capabilities. given that capabilities comprise a set of functionings from which a person can choose (sen 1987b), it can be argued that whatsapp enhanced students’ ability to choose among different roles and identities at a time: engaging in dialogue with the educator, ‘being’ an inquirer and ‘being’ a respondent as evidenced by the interactions. freedoms freedom encapsulates an individual’s actual ability to achieve her or his functionings (i.e. endowments and acquisitions she or he values). for sen (1987b, 1992), freedom finds expression in choices about possible actions and achievements of those things that individuals value (positive freedom) and the absence of constraints that undermine the achievement of functionings (negative freedom). both positive freedom and the eradication of impediments to realising functionings (negative freedom) are discussed in sections on freedom. positive freedom whatsapp presented students with opportunities to make informed choices (freedom) about academic commitments they valued such as sharing of knowledge of complex concepts and routine academic practices. it allowed students to ‘get instant positive feedback from educators without having to commute to campus’ (male student, blog post, july 2018) and extend their consultative base by ‘connecting to an attentive, cohesive group rather than wait for educators’ responses’ (male student, blog post, june 2018). these acquisitions and entitlements were quintessential for off-campus students with limited access to libraries after hours and limited internet connectivity. similarly, the lecturer employed whatsapp for academic planning and scheduling of tasks, which students prepared for before lectures: ‘dear students. remember tomorrow tuesday (7 august) your group is presenting […] put your presentation on power point […].’ (lecturer, whatsapp post, august 2018) ‘i have uploaded the manual for references on blackboard […] use this as a guide for your assignments.’ (lecturer, whatsapp post, july 2018) whatsapp became the lecturer’s strategic tool for initiating student understanding of other learning platforms. blog comments illustrated that whatsapp enhanced students’ flexible learning by broadening opportunities for academic questioning at their convenience: ‘watsapp has been a great help because i don’t have to wait for a class to ask a question, i can ask anytime, anywhere.’ (female student, blog post, july 2018) whatsapp also enhanced mobile learning for off-campus students who had limited access to institutional networks after hours (see student blog entry under positive freedom in table 1). as such, their remote location did not hinder their networked access to learning resources. negative freedom negative freedom describes the removal of impediments to the realisation of capabilities. however, eradicating these barriers and constraints to the attainment of capabilities constitutes an essential but inadequate precondition for the full enjoyment of one’s capabilities. it merely provides a starting point for the pursuit of positive freedoms. one manifestation of negative freedom was students’ limited access to internet networks, which prevented them from accessing whatsapp and blackboard-generated resources: ‘there is no internet access […] can those in offices make copies for us if they are logged on […].’ (male student, whatsapp post, april 2018) ‘dr, this test switches off on its own […] after 19 minutes […] even though one has not yet saved.’ (female student, whatsapp post, april 2018) students’ blog entries on the removal of constraints to learning and access to educational material via whatsapp affirmed the application’s potential to reduce transactional distance between students: ‘whatsapp group is very convenient especially when we are doing assignments. it shortens the distances between us all and helps us get information quickly from other students and the lecturer.’ (male student, blog post, june 2018) blog comments also illustrated that whatsapp afforded students’ free expression in a friendly non-classroom environment thus ameliorating non-participatory constraints. ethical consideration ethical clearance was obtained from the faculty of management sciences research ethics committee – central university of technology, free state (ethical clearance number: pcd/2019, august 2019). discussion the discussion is presented consistent with the research questions, by using the evidence presented in the ‘results’ section. access and productive use of collectively generated resources the results of the study provide support for peer-based collaborative engagement and hierarchical academic networking through student clusters’ access to knowledge, the lecturer and the facilitator. the whatsapp platform created an ambient, informal ‘rendezvous’ (rambe & ng’ambi 2014) for student expression of their choices about information sources and academic resources they preferred. student agency manifested in their conscious decisions to appropriate whatsapp to breach physical and cognitive disconnects from institutional resources and face-to-face conversations after hours. this breaching manifested in their contributions to online facilitator’s questions, communication of academic routines and sharing of peer-generated advice. this demonstrates that access to whatsapp-enabled mobile phones activated and accentuated their learning capabilities as they became more engaged in their ‘doings’ – academic activities they valued and cherished. at best, whatsapp provided a unique way of connecting to peers that offered real opportunities to develop meaningful learning communities and enable negotiation of their learning journey (madge et al. 2019). moreover, the use of whatsapp enabled students to traverse and cross boundaries of their ‘beings’ – their identities as historically disadvantaged students with limited access to learning opportunities after hours and in their geographical enclaves. therefore, the academic exchanges among student clusters and with their educators and facilitators pointed to enablement of students’ discursive capabilities and breaching of knowledge enclaves based on social geography and ethnic backgrounds. this resonates with madge et al.’s (2019) claim that in south africa, the interweaving of access to technological infrastructure with socio-economic differences found expression in students’, who are from disadvantaged backgrounds, perception of whatsapp as a unique opportunity to engage collaboratively and negotiate their academic identities. therefore, the engagement capabilities (afforded by technology) would have asserted among these students the freedom to attain their well-being (robeyns 2011). this is partly because such students often emerged from historically disadvantaged high schools, which inadequately prepared these students for university education – therefore, whatsapp could have augmented their academic deficiencies. as pachler, cook and bachmair (2010) observe, student agency is tied to the effective appropriation of cultural tools, interrelationships between informal learning settings and mobile media usage including enactment of practices that improve authentic value of resources students bring into learning contexts. the study also sought to address how ownership of whatsapp-enabled phones enhanced student agency to co-create learning resources. with whatsapp usage, academic agency also manifested in problem solving and serendipitous learning through sharing of academically related information (due dates for assignments and research methods readings), which unfolded at students’ own pace and time. with the ubiquity of mobile devices, student agency now therefore manifests in finding information rather than merely possessing it, in new forms of (academic) performance and new ways of accessing them (traxler 2007). literature concurs with these findings by arguing that, in the knowledge society, the important pedagogical approaches that engender student agency are providing variety in learning activities, offering opportunities for students to learn at their own pace, encouraging collaborative work and focussing on problem solving (ng’ambi, bozalek & gachago 2013; voogt et al. 2011). information sharing through whatsapp enabled the development of a complex hierarchy of individual student roles: knowledge brokers, knowledge seekers, information givers and informal mentors. redressing information asymmetries it is critical to emphasise that the study examined why despite student access to mobile phones, and general understanding of the affordances thereof (i.e. whatsapp), knowledge-sharing practice could not be fostered using whatsapp. an assortment of factors seemed to explain this phenomenon: absence of institutional learning materials to draw on during conversations on whatsapp, students’ limited knowledge on how to use collaborative cloud-based technologies in academically meaningful ways, limited availability of high-end mobile phones with enhanced functionalities and linguistic challenges to engage collaboratively in groups. while appreciating the agency that whatsapp usage activated, it also exposed subtle forms of the digital divide such as off-campus students’ limited access to learning materials (books, journals) availed in institutional libraries. these broad inequalities are symptomatic of the broader and longstanding inequalities that south africa continues to grapple with in the contemporary period despite the end of colonialism and apartheid (letseka, letseka & pitsoe 2018). the university where this research was conducted is situated in an urban setting with unlimited access to the internet even though most of its off-campus students come from economically deprived settlements (formerly called ‘bantustan locations’) with limited access to modern amenities created by legacy of apartheid. as such, economic apartheid is reproduced in economic enclaves with asymmetric access to learning resources and the internet connectivity. to address this anomaly, some students suggested that universities should provide ipads preloaded with electronic books to increase their access to educational materials after hours. recently, the south african government acknowledged the prevalence of these asymmetrical economic geographies, which necessitated the provision of internet data plans and laptops to under-privileged students by higher educational institutions during covid-19-induced lockdown (nzimande 2020). although whatsapp academic conversations contributed to redressing information asymmetries between offand on-campus students, it also highlighted the need for complementary measures for the provision of academic resources. therefore, students’ exposure to multiple learning platforms such as lms and whatsapp, which heightened open communication, could be critiqued for overlooking differential access to learning and knowledge networks (czerniewicz & brown 2005). thus, claims about whatsapp’s capacity to sufficiently breach information asymmetries should take cognisance of evidence on varied access to high-end mobile phones, asymmetries in ict skills and general underpreparedness among at-risk students. in south africa heis, mobile phone ownership, particularly smart phones, cannot be assumed to be equal and balanced (czerniewicz 2009), and digital strangers remain a challenge in tertiary contexts where students’ asymmetrical access to educational technologies persists on and off campus (czerniewicz & brown 2013). supported role play access to whatsapp shaped student-networked capabilities in online learning communities by empowering them to assume alternative roles to those assigned by their educators. for instance, whatsapp created a viable technological context for students’ role play in problem solving and advising peers on complex academic matters. these supplementary roles suggest that whatsapp created a quasi-informal learning context that students exploited for self-discovery and intuitive learning. webb (2013) suggests that introducing new technology enhances pedagogical demands, enables purposive sharing of roles between educators and students and engenders a learning culture that supports interaction. an unintended effect of accessing mobile applications on students’ capabilities was the transference of technology usability skills. the educator’s strategic modelling of tasks (e.g. task-focussed discussions, critical problem solving, research-based consultations) enabled students to explore the affordances of whatsapp tools and interfaces in conjunction with other institutionally sanctioned technologies such as blackboard lms. our findings dovetail with makoe (2010) who found that students’ use of mxit enhanced the understanding and use of other exclusive online learning communities. mxit is a popular south african instant messaging platform that runs on mobile devices and allows users (predominantly youths) to form and exchange social networks, messages and other mobile resources of their choice. negative freedom the findings also exposed other variations of the digital divide such as challenges of internet connectivity because of power cuts and erratic networks, which limited access to educational materials during work hours and after hours. the articulation of these challenges demonstrates whatsapp’s capacity to expose the ‘networked divide’, which describes stratified access to hardware, software, applications, networks and devices, which produce classes of winners and losers of the information society (fuchs & horak 2008). these network asymmetries foreclose opportunities for students to make meaningful technology-mediated educational decisions. our findings describe conditions of network failure, limited connectivity beyond campus and limited educational opportunities in the absence of complementary technologies – which are all expressions of negative freedom. our findings transcend a ‘technicist’ conception of the digital divide, which over-emphasises access to personal computers, internet networks and technological infrastructure but ignores complex, access variations in perceivably homogenous groups (intra-group dynamics) on and off campus. although on-campus access was relatively equal, variations persisted beyond campus after hours. this resonates with the view that technological binaries should consider effective use of technologies and quality of access that have become pertinent in an increasingly interconnected world (mutula 2008). study implications our study demonstrates that student-centred constructivist ways of generating knowledge are critical to students’ effective engagement with peers on whatsapp. student agency found expression in their engagement with the lecturer and facilitator on academic issues. the heightened participation of students suggests that they valued online facilitation of discussions by academic educators, pointing to the importance of sustained moderation by educators. online facilitation, however, should embrace more than question-based consultation to include assisting students in more scholarly application of whatsapp to research processes such as academic referencing, meta-learning skills such as academic research writing and logical argumentation in groups. ng’ambi et al. (2013) recommend a framework for educator online facilitation of authentic learning activities that foregrounds inter alia: group-based sharing of web applications, collaborative working on documents and following opinion leaders in students’ fields of research to access current articles and blog posts. drawing on sen’s (1985b) capabilities, we descried the different choices of actions that educators and students adopted and identities they assumed across different educational contexts. the educator’s capabilities manifested in strategic scaffolding of students in research by posing critical questions that required students to reflect and engage with concepts and constructs. students’ limited engagement with these concepts provides justification for aligning educational resources availed in class with whatsapp tasks and collaborative discussions to ensure more authentic, meaningful learning. students’ capabilities were embodied in their academic identities as networked collaborators who transacted with their academic community (peers, lecturer and facilitator) on whatsapp. they also assumed super-tutor roles of mentoring peers in complex problem solving and serendipitous learning such as exploring the affordances of the lmss. such unintended effects of whatsapp usage suggest that more integration of lms and whatsapp pedagogical activities should be promoted through shifting focus from learning with these technologies to learning from them (i.e. foregrounding transformative adoption of tools so that pedagogical tasks or activities can be better executed). drawing on sen’s (1999) conception of functionings as the various things humans value ‘being’ or ‘doing’, we highlighted that students valued seeking information, giving information, communicating and brokering knowledge and serving as informal mentors to peers. the dominance of information exchange (information seeking and giving) suggests that educators’ pedagogical activities could benefit from emphasising this capability to create the conversation threshold necessary for progressing to more complex tasks (e.g. more complex problem solving, argumentation). the educators’ functionings were embodied in their valuing of critical questioning, contributing factual information and knowledge during scaffolding, foregrounding task-focussed academic networking, individual reflection and collaborative networking. there was, however, no evidence of deep philosophical conversations on research processes among students, suggesting that the discussion of concepts and constructs needed to target more cognitively demanding discourses on research philosophy to improve the academic usefulness of whatsapp. effective access to learning resources via whatsapp and online facilitation of learning tasks was often disrupted by students’ asymmetrical access to mobile learning networks. increasing wireless hotspots on campus could support universal access to educational resources on campus via mobile devices. university administrators should also lobby internet service providers to subsidise mobile data provision for academic activities via local cellular networks or reduce communication costs by incentivising mobile network operators that invest in upgrading of university mobile networks. conclusion this study investigated the potential of whatsapp to support student academic agency particularly their access and appropriation of collectively generated educational resources. findings suggest the capacity of whatsapp to heighten students’ access to learning resources through collaborative dialogue and engagement between peers (student–peer interaction) and collectives (lecturer–student and student–facilitator). to explore geographically remote students’ access and productive use of mobile learning resources in resource-constrained environments, sen’s capabilities framework, which analyses technology users’ capabilities, functionings and freedoms, was drawn upon as an interpretive and analytical framework. mindful of the resource-constrained context marked by asymmetrical access to learning networks, slow internet connectivity and unreliable networks, student agency and strategic use of their capabilities and functionings were critical to optimise access and use of mobile learning resources. self-initiative through strategic engagement in peer-generated networks and heightened participation in learning activities when online learning networks were available became ideal strategies for academic survival. as such, sen’s (1987b) conceptions of positive and negative freedom constituted useful lenses for leveraging students’ capabilities (peer-based collaboration, academic networking, problem solving) and ameliorating the constraints and risks associated with the use of emerging technologies in resource-constrained contexts. in view of these results, productive mobile media pedagogy should encapsulate an integrated pedagogical strategy that assesses the situated context of mobile media innovation (enablers of effective adoption of mim and barriers to mim-mediated learning) and aligns it consistently with pedagogical activities, students’ capabilities, learning needs and preferences. consistent with sen’s (1992) preoccupation with capabilities, effecting this strategy demands assessing the available stock of students’ functionings and mim-mediated capabilities and aligning them with educators’ scaffolding techniques albeit variations in access to networks and resources. lastly, student clusters need to adapt to the nature and complexity of tasks given to ensure the authentic generation of collaborative resources. overall, whatsapp served as an important vehicle for bridging access to learning resources, a platform for providing peer-based and hierarchical support, for leveraging on-task behaviour and promoting meaningful context-free learning. these technology affordances were deeply implicated in several negative freedoms, which impeded mobile access such as students’ limited access to web-enabled mobile phones, erratic network connectivity and cost of data plans. consequently, any interventions aimed at redressing these access issues should be located at the interface of timeous pedagogical delivery, technological affordances and the broader social constraints of technological applications. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank all the students who participated in the study, as well as the institution which granted permission for the study. competing interests the authors declare that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions conceptualisation was performed by p.r., c.c. focussed on the literature and data collection a bit and d.n. helped in the write-up, language editing and final presentation of the article. funding information this research received no grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or non-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is applicable – new data were 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researching pedagogy with information and communications technologies’, journal of computer assisted learning 29(1), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00465.x yin, r.k., 2003, case study research: design and methods, 2nd edn., sage, thousand oaks, ca. yin, r.k., 2014, case study research: design and methods, sage, los angeles, ca. abstract introduction an overview of the amd problem facing the witwatersrand environmental rights, environmental legislation and acid mine drainage methodology, aims and research questions grootvlei mine: its surroundings and amd problem findings: mining operations at grootvlei gold mine, a historical analysis summary and analysis conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) tracey j.m. mckay department of environmental science, university of south africa, south africa milton milaras department of environmental science, university of south africa, south africa citation mckay, t.j.m. & milaras, m., 2017, ‘public lies, private looting and the forced closure of grootvlei gold mine, south africa’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a347. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.347 original research public lies, private looting and the forced closure of grootvlei gold mine, south africa tracey j.m. mckay, milton milaras received: 07 june 2016; accepted: 28 oct. 2016; published: 28 feb. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract mine closure and acid mine drainage (amd) are major interrelated challenges facing south africa’s witwatersrand gold mines. as a result of mining, the east, west and central rand compartments of the witwatersrand basin are interconnected, making amd a regional problem. consequently, the south african national department of mineral resources recommends regional mine closure strategies. unfortunately, the mismanagement of grootvlei gold mine and its amd problem resulted in premature and unplanned closure of the mine; massive job losses; pollution of a river and its ramsar wetland site, as well as a significant setback for regional mine closure. although directors were held civilly liable for damages to the mine, to date no one has been held liable for the water pollution, creating an impression that environmental laws can be flouted with impunity. introduction gold mining has been ongoing in the witwatersrand basin since 1886, with a cumulative impact on the region’s land, water quality and ecosystems (tutu, mccarthy & cukrowska 2008). rehabilitation is expensive, in part because impacts do not cease when a mine closes and the impacts are multiple. moreover, the south african gold mining industry is in its ‘sunset stage’, creating major cash-flow challenges for the proper management of impacts (de wet & sidu 2013). one well-known and major impact is that of acid mine drainage (amd) (blowes et al. 2014; bremmer 2013). the impact of amd is a regional one, as underground workings are prone to flooding. if water is not consistently pumped out, underground tunnels become unworkable which may lead to forced mine closure. but pumping brings the amd to the surface. as the underground tunnels of various mines are often connected, cessation of pumping (and subsequent flooding) of one mine threatens others (de wet & sidu 2013; mccarthy 2011). thus, mines must pump this amd even if the amd is not actually a result of their own mining. amd, however, is a threat to the freshwater systems of the vaal barrage sub-catchment and vaal river, as well as the crocodile west and limpopo rivers (durand 2012). therefore, any water pumped out by mines must also be treated to ameliorate such pollution. consequently, the management of amd is a major concern both for government and mining operations. in the case of financially stressed, end-of-life mines, such amd responsibilities can become a serious financial burden in times of diminished cash flow (milaras, ahmed & mckay 2014). this is a study of the grootvlei gold mine (see figure 1) situated in springs, east of johannesburg. declining gold production has resulted in mine closures and the progressive cessation of amd pumping regimes in the region, leaving grootvlei the last operational gold mine on the east rand basin (mccarthy 2011). all responsibility to pump and treat amd thus fell to grootvlei, as the eastern basin’s interconnected underground tunnels placed substantial water pressure on grootvlei’s operations. if the mine did not dewater, it would not be able to maintain production (durand 2012). however, as grootvlei was not always able to cope with both the cost of pumping and treating huge volumes of acidified water, untreated amd was often pumped straight into the blesbokspruit river system (fourie 2009). figure 1: grootvlei gold mine, gauteng, south africa. an overview of the amd problem facing the witwatersrand the gold mines of the witwatersrand region connect three sub-basins: the east rand, west rand and central rand (see figure 2). to varying extents, all three face an amd problem (dwa 2011). amd forms when rocks that contain sulphide mineral pyrite (fes2) are exposed to oxygenated air and water. the resultant oxidisation leads to the formation of sulphuric acid and ferrous sulphate, or amd (blowes et al. 2014). amd is saline, acidic, rich in mobilised heavy metals and thus highly toxic. management of amd, therefore, requires (inter alia) acid neutralisation regimes. although ideally source control techniques (preferably in the initial mine design) should be implemented, amd on the witwatersrand has been managed with ‘reactive’ control techniques (murphy, taylor & leake 2012). figure 2: the three witwatersrand sub-basins and the associated water catchment areas of the upper vaal. in 1957, the first report on the amd problem in the witwatersrand was released, although no action was taken to deal with it, until the severity of the amd decant problem became apparent. then, a treatment plan was presented to parliament in 1996. the plan was accepted in 1998, but again, little action was forthcoming. mining and its associated underground dewatering practices first ceased on the west rand in the 1990s, causing the old mine voids to flood (mccarthy 2010; winde & stoch 2010). consequently, by august 2002, amd began decanting to surface from an abandoned randfontein estates ltd mine shaft in mogale city into the tweelopiespruit and wonderfonteinspruit (bremmer 2013; hobbs & cobbing 2007). it was only then the nature of the environmental risks to freshwater resources, as well as the socio-economic consequences, began to be realised (ewart 2011). as all mining (and pumping) ceased in the central basin in 2008, it is expected that a similar situation will develop there. despite this escalating situation, many mining companies appear to have little appetite for upgrading water treatment facilities or adhering to legislation designed to deal with the problem, resulting in perceptions that they are unwilling to take responsibility for the amd problem (hobbs, oelofse & rascher 2008; mccarthy 2010). the decanting of amd on the west rand resulted in a massive outcry by environmentalists, ngos and the media (bremmer 2013). consequently, the minister of water affairs established an inter-ministerial committee (imc) in 2010 (mccarthy 2010). this imc was a specialised technical team tasked with investigating the problem and proposing a viable solution for the short, medium and long term. task team members were made up of employees from the department of water affairs (dwa), department of mineral resources (dmr), council for scientific and industrial research (csir), council for geoscience (cgs) and mintek and water research commission (wrc). cabinet adopted the final recommendations of the imc report in january 2011 and, following pressure from ngos, released it to the public in february 2011 (ewart 2011). the task team report maintained that the amd problem needed urgent attention and proposed solutions that drew on international (and national) best practices concerning water ingress, amd generation and decanting, namely: (1) reduce the volume of water ingress into the shafts, (2) undertake to install flood and decanting management solutions so as to reduce the need to pump, (3) accurately predict when and where decant will occur once pumping ceases, (4) undertake to monitor the impact of underground mine flooding, (5) undertake an analysis of the impact of amd on the environment and human health risks, and (6) ensure that uncontrolled decanting of amd is avoided. funds for the rehabilitation of abandoned mines and the financing of amd have proven to be highly controversial and problematic, as has prosecution of the accountable mining companies (de wet & sidu 2013). the delays in taking action have been prolonged by both the government and mine owners, each claiming that the other is ultimately responsible and, thus, should pay for amd treatment (milaras et al. 2014). environmental rights, environmental legislation and acid mine drainage south africa has a strong legal regime promoting environmentally responsible mineral extraction and mine closure. legislation includes the following: (1) the mprda or mineral and petroleum resources development act no. 28 of 2002, enforced by the department of mineral resources (dme), (2) the nema or national environmental management act1 no. 107 of 1998, enforced by the department of environmental affairs (deat 1998) and (3) the nwa or national water act no. 36 of 1998,2 enforced by the department of water and sanitation (dwaf 1998). both nema and the nwa (particularly section 19) demand reasonable pollution prevention measures where a duty of care falls to the owners, managers or land occupiers. nema also makes provision for the polluter to pay for rehabilitation. the mprda demands mines manage mine-related pollution, holds them responsible for both preventing the pollution and paying for rehabilitation, as well as dictates what must occur in the event of mine closure.3 thus, south african legislation imposes a duty of care on mine owners, a legal and financial responsibility for mine closure and the remediation of environmental degradation. key compliance tools available to government officials are permits, compliance notices and directives. non-compliance is a criminal offence (paterson & kotzé 2009). despite this, liefferink and van eeden (2010) raise concerns that government departments do not see amd as an urgent problem, nor is there enforcement of the legislation. overall, south africa has a poor track record with respect to compliance with, and enforcement of, environmental laws, and government departments, the courts, as well as public and private institutions seldom work together to ensure compliance and enforcement (paterson & kotzé 2009). this weak response is partly owing to the perception that the environment should be leveraged for socio-economic growth (strydom & king 2009). methodology, aims and research questions this study used an inductive, qualitative case study framework (yin 2011). the study sought to (a) establish the pattern of ownership and management of the grootvlei gold mine and (b) detail the consequences of the mismanagement of both the mine and its amd. historical time sequencing of events using archival material and an inductive analytical approach was undertaken (eisenhardt & graebner 2007). the historical timeline was constructed using specialised reports, newspaper articles and online archival records, and they are accordingly referenced in line as primary data, with author and exact date. a two-tier search for all available online articles was conducted. google searches, using key words (aurora empowerment systems, pamodzi gold, grootvlei, amd and acid mine water) led to the following 16 source websites: mining weekly, news 24, sapa, mail & guardian, sapa, eyewitness news, business report, the star, timeslive, fin 24, the sunday times, legal brief, associated press, e-news online, city press and africa report. thereafter, a search of each website was undertaken in order to find all relevant articles published. these online sources totalled 272 pages, with contributions from 29 different writers/authors.4 from this data set, information pertaining to mine ownership, government action, the behaviour of the liquidators, owners and the relevant trade unions was extracted. this study has some limitations: some of the sources presented contradictory or differing views and the authors were not able to obtain confidential government and corporate documentation. thus, the study is limited to the extensive media reports and the bertelsmann judgement. follow-up studies to clarify and support the findings presented here are recommended. grootvlei mine: its surroundings and amd problem grootvlei mine is situated in the far east of the east rand basin (lea, waygood & duthie 2003). the mine is located 3 km east of springs and borders consolidated modderfontein (cons modder) mine and nigel mine (thorius 2004). grootvlei had been actively mined for more than 80 years prior to its forced closure in 2011 (palmer, waygood & lea 2006). there were four production shafts (shafts: 1, 4, 6 and 8). the primary water pumping shaft was shaft no. 3. grootvlei made use of a high density separation (hds) plant and numerous settling ponds to treat amd (van der merwe & lea 2003). subsequently, water flowed into the blesbokspruit river, which was a typical non-perennial, meandering highveld stream. the river also has a wetland, known as the marievale bird sanctuary and wetland, which is a designated ramsar site. the river is a tributary of the suikerbosrand river, which flows into the vaal river (see figure 3) (dini 1998). both the blesbokspruit and the wetland have been degraded by both urban and mining-related developments, and its conservation status is deemed threatened (thorius 2004). figure 3: location of grootvlei mining shafts, the blesbokspruit and marievale ramsar site. between 1995 and 2003, a number of investigations on water ingress at grootvlei were undertaken (see barradas & loggenberg 1996; jones & wagener (pty) ltd., 2003; scott 1995; wates, meiring & barnard (pty) ltd. 2002). these studies found that approximately 65% of grootvlei’s underground mine water originated from surface water, and thus, seasonal rainfall patterns exacerbate the underground flooding and amd problems (palmer et al. 2006). jones and wagener (2003) suggested a canal be built to reduce ingress volumes and to significantly reduce the volume of amd and the amount of pumping and treatment required. but as another study felt that the canal would negatively affect the blesbokspruit, it was not built (palmer et al. 2006). no other plans to limit surface water ingress were ever tabled. findings: mining operations at grootvlei gold mine, a historical analysis by the 1970s, gold mining on the east rand was in decline. difficult operational conditions were caused by a decline in the gold price, a decline in the already low-grade gold reserves, rising costs and increased water ingress (baartjes & gounden 2012). because of the poor financial conditions, government subsidised the pumping and treatment of amd from the east rand with a sum of r8 million a month (marius keet, parliamentary portfolio committee on water and environmental affairs, amd public hearings 20 april 2011). during the 1990s, gengold ltd. and harmony gold (pty) ltd. jointly owned grootvlei and consolidated modderfontein (cons modder) mine (last actively mined in 1962) (plaut 2011). eventually, in 1991, only grootvlei mine remained operational, making it the last remaining east rand mine pumping and treating amd (mccarthy 2011). by october 1995, the volume and the cost of pumping and treatment (of what was essentially the entire eastern basin) overwhelmed grootvlei and massive volumes of untreated amd (between 75 and 80 megalitres per day) flowed into the blesbokspruit (mccarthy 2010). the result was salination of the soil within the region and a decrease in water quality (thorius 2004). in 1996, the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) issued grootvlei with a water permit despite the water having high levels of sulphates and iron concentrations (mccarthy 2010). this permit was revoked once it became clear that grootvlei was contaminating the wetland with red iron oxide particulate matter (van der merwe & lea 2003). in late 1996, a second dewatering permit was issued but stipulated that grootvlei had to install six iron and sulphate settling ponds and a hds water treatment plant to remove metal contaminants (fourie 2009; lea et al. 2003). despite this, the water still contained high levels of sulphates. once the hds plant was fully operational, grootvlei was issued a third permit to legalise the discharge of this partially treated water into the blesbokspruit (lea et al. 2003). subsequently, hds quantity and quality monitoring data supplied by grootvlei indicated that the mine was operating within its (somewhat lenient) permit restrictions (de wet & sidu 2013). in 1997, harmony gold (pty) ltd. bought out gengold ltd.’s share in the two mines. subsequently, in 1998, both cons modder and grootvlei were sold to petmin ltd. (salgado, 28/02/2011). soon thereafter (in 2000) petrex (pty) ltd. (part of bema gold corporation, canada at the time) bought both mines, as well as neighbouring nigel mining company’s mine (salgado, 28/02/2011). pamodzi gold ltd. purchased a controlling stake in bema’s gold east rand operations in december 2006 and, in doing so, took control of all three mines (plaut 2013). things did not go well, and by early 2009, pamodzi gold ltd. began to suffer financially. thus, the holders of the gold hedge, unicredit and hypovereinsbank of germany, both had to invest money to keep the mine afloat (creamer, 06/10/2009 & 08/06/2010). the state-owned industrial development corporation (idc) was also a major secured creditor (creamer, 19/03/2010). in a bid to reduce costs, the pumping and treatment of amd, already confined to off-peak hours (to benefit from eskom’s off-peak electricity tariffs), were significantly reduced, threatening the viability of the mine as the water level rose (creamer, 29/04/2009). with pamodzi gold ltd. experiencing cash-flow problems and facing provisional liquidation, the dme allocated r7.5 million to assist the mine with some of the pumping costs (creamer, 29/04/2009). justification for the subsidy was based on the need to prevent the flooding of the mine ‘at all costs’ and that the ‘fairly new pumping infrastructure … had to be saved’. this was because if amd were to decant and remain untreated ‘tons of poisonous ferrous and ferric acids will flow into the river’ (marius keet, deputy director, dws, in stuijt, 10/03/2010). at this point, the south african government committed to spending at least r2.5 million per month to support amd pumping and treatment in the east rand basin, a sum which represented roughly half of grootvlei’s monthly pumping cost (sabcs 50/50, 07/06/2010).5 however, it seems that this money was not paid across on a regular basis and mine managers often had to beg to get the transfers effected (creamer, 29/04/2009; stuijt, 10/03/2010). one reason for the delay in payments may be owing to grootvlei failing to submit external laboratory certified water quality reports. cash-flow problems had resulted in the laboratory been unpaid; consequently, they refused to do more work for the mine. the last laboratory report submitted by grootvlei to dws was june 2009 (sabcs 50/50, 07/06/2010). intermittent pumping resulted in corrosion of underground steelworks and concerns began to be raised about possible underground flooding (creamer, 19/03/2010 & 26/03/2010; naidoo, 07/05/2009; masondo, 18/01/2011). in a further bid to reduce costs, the treatment plant used less and less lime, flocculent and oxygen (naidoo, 07/05/2009; salgado, 28/02/2011). consequently, the amd concentrations in the blesbokspruit worsened. by late 2009, pamodzi gold ltd. was facing provisional liquidation. many employees were put on unpaid leave, whereas others were on a work stoppage over non-payment of wages. by september and october 2009, the company went into final liquidation (creamer, 12/10/2009). six liquidators were appointed. soon thereafter, enver motala, as the lead liquidator, announced that aurora empowerment systems (pty) ltd.’s bid of r495 million for grootvlei had been accepted (salgado, 28/02/2011). the managing director of aurora empowerment systems (pty) ltd. is zondwa mandela (nelson mandela’s grandson), its chairperson is khulubuse zuma (jacob zuma’s nephew), and three other directors were sheshile thulani ngubane (commerical director), fazel and solly bhana (creamer, 12/10/2009 & 26/04/2010; prinsloo, 07/04/2010). at the time, financial backing was said to be coming from malaysia and the middle east. later on, it became clear that there was no such funders and that the liquidator had been warned of this at the time (creamer, 12/10/2009; hawker, 25/08/2014). despite this, sandra du toit of standard bank testified (in a later high court enquiry) that motala refused to entertain any other offers for the mine (hawker, 25/08/2014). in october 2009, aurora paid a deposit of r10 million and took control of the shafts (four at grootvlei; one at nigel and one at cons modder) and the one pump station (van der merwe & lea 2003; wates, meiring & barnard 2002). aurora promised to invest r600 million to upgrade and rehabilitate mine infrastructure, establish a community trust, provide health care services, fund housing purchases for employees, provide bursaries for employee’s dependents and retain all the workers at the mine (creamer, 12/10/2009 & 19/03/2010). around the same time, some of the aurora directors also offered r376 million (r296 million in cash for a 60% share, and r80 million as working capital) for drd gold’s financially troubled, and under judicial management, blyvooruitzicht mine on the west rand (creamer, 11/12/2009; marais, 06/08/2014). however, once aurora took control of grootvlei, the hds plant was shut down (de wet & sidu 2013). the financial manager (fazel bhana) blamed a lack of payment of the governmental pumping subsidy for this (stuijt, 10/03/2010). the mine was also beset with fatalities, resulting in two separate notices by the dme to cease operations, although the aurora directors were able to make use of their political connections to continue mining (seccombe, 29/08/2014; bertelsmann, 25/06/2015). by january 2010, inconsistent pumping practices rendered two grootvlei mine shafts permanently flooded (sapa, 27/01/2010). later, a third shaft also flooded (stuijt, 10/03/2010; fig, 2011). during this period, aurora’s md maintained that grootvlei was producing 150 kg of gold a month, although the financial manager said the amount of gold being mined was minimal6 (creamer, 11/12/2009; stuijt, 10/03/2010). it was later established that grootvlei had produced at least r81 million in gold between october 2009 and march 2010, although the trade union solidarity has argued that r122 million is a more accurate figure (groenewald & rawoot, 26/03/2010; wolmarans, 25/11/2011; evans, 04/05/2012). the mine also suffered from intermittent work stoppages, as miners downed tools demanding their salaries. aurora cajoled (some allege threatened) them into returning to work, but when promises of payment went unfulfilled, they downed tools again (prinsloo, 31/03/2010; creamer, 19/04/2010). both solidarity and another trade union, the national union of mineworkers (num), claimed that aurora either underpaid or failed to pay its estimated 5200 employees. nor were the other promises (such as housing) ever met (creamer, 19/03/2010). as the mine appeared to be bereft of any on-site managers, shop stewards were forced to engage directly with the liquidators. num called for the dmr to intervene (prinsloo, 25/03/2010). this did not happen, and by march 2010, aurora laid off 1440 workers citing cash-flow problems (creamer, 19/03/2010; prinsloo, 26/03/2010). various suppliers also went unpaid (groenewald & rawoot, 26/03/2010; creamer, 17/06/2011). non-payment resulted in eskom cutting off the mine’s power supply (the debt was r54 million) and the security contractor withdrawing its services, which caused a substantial increase in illegal mining (sapa, 05/11/2014). reports started to emerge of unpaid miners engaging in illegal mining and cable theft (prinsloo, 07/04/2010; prinsloo, 12/08/2010; keepile, 07/09/2010). rand mutual also cancelled grootvlei’s insurance policy owing to non-payment (groenewald & rawoot, 14/05/2010). in april 2010, aurora claimed it had paid wages for february 2010 and that an agreement with the trade unions had been signed to restart operations so that the remaining outstanding wages could be paid (prinsloo, 07/04/2010; 09/04/2010; creamer, 24/05/2010). miners did return to work, but when only a portion of the outstanding salaries were paid, strike action recommenced (prinsloo, 31/03/2010). trade unions were by now openly expressing their unhappiness with the situation. for example, num and congress of south african trade unions (cosatu) spokesperson said ‘we have been very soft on the aurora management for too long. it is about time to expose the type of management that aurora has’ (in prinsloo 31/03/2010). in turn, aurora said wages could only be paid if the mine was in production and, as such, urged workers to return to work (prinsloo 14/04/2010). this did not happen and the mine effectively ceased operations on 19 march 2010 (sabcs 50/50, 07/06/2010). despite this, aurora continued to claim that their takeover of the mine was on track, funding from a private international equity fund had been secured and the proposed listing on the johannesburg stock exchange (jse) would proceed (prinsloo, 14/04/2010). the lead liquidator continued to support aurora’s offer to purchase, indicating that switzerland’s global emerging markets (gem) had pledged equity capital once aurora was listed (creamer, 26/04/2010; 08/06/2010). later on, gem claimed that their (one and only) investment (of r13 million) was personally facilitated by president jacob zuma and gem thought the money was to pay grootvlei wages. there is no evidence that wages were paid with gem’s money, or even that aurora received the cash. president zuma has not made any comments on gem’s allegation at all (evans & sole, 16/05/2014). at the behest of the unions, a management and gold sales audit was undertaken. this audit revealed attempts by directors to use company cheques (that bounced) to pay personal debts (groenewald & rawoot, 14/05/2010). by june 2010, roughly 100 pump station workers downed tools over non-payment. at the time, marius keet of dws said he was ‘extremely concerned’ about the situation and ‘would have to intervene if pumping ceased again’ as ‘the department will not allow the mine to flood the pumps as this will result in the flooding of the [eastern] basin and subsequently the decanting of acid mine drainage’ (in groenewald, 11/06/2010). aurora management again persuaded the workers to return to work on the promise of payment. this spurned the economist mike schussler to say that these aurora workers were effectively working ‘in the hope that they may be paid’ and that, as they were doing so without life insurance, both the department of labour and south african labour laws had failed them (sapa, 01/07/2010). during this time, allegations that political influences were enabling aurora’s bid for grootvlei to remain in place were made by solidarity (prinsloo, 12/08/2010). certainly, enver motala, the lead liquidator, implied this, saying that ‘aurora’s bee credentials were impressive’ (groenewald & rawoot, 26/03/2010). despite the urgency with which amd pumping and treatment needed to be undertaken, by mid-2010, the six of the virtually new heavy duty pumps were removed by aurora, who claimed the pumps had to be relocated to a higher level to protect them from possible flooding of the shaft (bell 2011). the pumps were never reinstalled. rather, they were sold off as scrap (groenwald, 11/06/2010). as reports claimed that aurora had also sold off other mine infrastructures, for scrap, such as the cons modder ndlovu shaft no 6, the ore-crushing and the gold-smelting plant, allegations of asset stripping began to emerge (creamer, 30/07/2010). by this stage, amd was flowing untreated into the blesbokspruit (creamer, 19/03/2010). this was confirmed by water samples taken by dws officials (frankson, 12/11/2014). dws consequently issued a directive to the mine to both pump and treat the amd. in may 2010, it was announced that criminal charges for ignoring the directive and polluting the blesbokspruit had been laid against aurora directors (groenewald & rawoot, 14/05/2010; sabcs 50/50, 07/06/2010; kardas-nelson, 26/11/2010). as grootvlei only had two pumps left, by july 2010 only 40 megalitres of amd was being pumped per day, causing the mine to flood. this prompted a site visit by marius keet of dws, accompanied by the democratic alliance, south africa’s official opposition party. keet was assured that pumping equipment had been acquired and would be installed within days (jonck, 27/07/2010). in august 2010 when it was apparent that this had not occurred, aurora said it needed to repair the pumping equipment, but pumping at full capacity would resume within days and the electricity to do so had been secured from eskom. mine management denied that untreated amd was flowing into the blesbokspruit. subsequently, marius keet indicated that the matter had been dealt with ‘at ministerial level’ (in sapa, 04/08/2010). owing to the ongoing non-payment of wages, solidarity requested an insolvency inquiry relating to the activities of the directors of aurora and their business consultants. in september 2010, solidarity indicated that progress had been made into the matter and that a companies act section 424 application, which holds directors personally responsible for the mismanagement of a company, had been made (keepile, 07/09/2010). in response to a labour court ruling, brought by solidarity and num, in december 2010, aurora7 paid over r2 million to the department of labour, who, in turn, paid some r800 000 to 240 miners in outstanding wages (prinsloo, 25/01/2011). although aurora owed 1400 workers their wages (totalling r15 million), not all had lodged official claims and for some their information could not be verified (sapa, 22/12/2010). despite the ongoing amd problems, failure to pay suppliers and workers, motala maintained that aurora’s listing on the jse was ‘on track’ and that funding had been secured from a state-owned mainland chinese company (in creamer, 19/11/2010). jen-chih huang (khulubuse zuma’s business partner) was actively involved in promoting this deal (news24, 22/06/2014). thus, aurora was given until 28 february 2011 to come up with the finance to pay for grootvlei, a decision the employees of the mine did not support (sapa, 17/12/2010; 22/12/2010, masondo, 18/01/2011). by early 2011, only a handful of employees remained. reports indicated that the rate of underground flooding was increasing and the window of time to save the mine from being rendered unworkable (because of the gold becoming inaccessible) was down to months (masondo, 18/01/2011; rawoot, 11/02/2011). despite this, the lead liquidator was still adamant that ‘things are 100% on track. it is just a matter of time. by february 28 [2011] the chinese company that will partner aurora must issue guarantees and the deal will go through’ (in masondo, 18/01/2011). num indicated that they did not think this was likely due to the history of ‘unfulfilled promises’ (in masondo, 18/01/2011). disillusioned with the lack of payment by aurora of salaries, union dues and benefits to both its members and even non-members (who wished to be part of the class action),8 solidarity announced that it would seek a high court liquidation order of the company (prinsloo, 25/01/2011; sapa, 16/02/2011). it was also reported that aurora removed the two remaining pumps (valued at r1 million each) ostensibly to ‘protect’ them from rising mine water (mckay, 06/02/2011). the removal of the last two pumps meant that by february 2011, all pumping ceased and goliath gold had to temporarily shut its nigel one shaft because of water seeping in from grootvlei (rawoot, 11/02/2011; sapa, 09/06/2011). when linda page of dws was made aware of this, she said there was ‘no danger of any flooding’ and that her department was ‘monitoring the water levels’ (in rawoot, 11/02/2011). in april 2011, zondwa mandela, representing aurora, reported to the parliamentary portfolio committee on mineral resources that grootvlei was suffering from cash-flow problems because of the need to pump and treat amd, the lack of a pumping subsidy from dws, illegal miners, as well as the actions of num and solidarity (city press, 14/04/2011). he also claimed that 80% of the outstanding wages had been paid. during this time, the chinese deal fell though and so aurora was unable to come up with the required funding to pay for grootvlei. nevertheless, the high court gave the directors yet another extension (until 16 august 2011) to come up with the money. this prompted the south african human rights commission (sahrc) to request the minister of mineral resources to intervene to get the workers paid, to prevent the rise of amd and to come up with a plan to rehabilitate the mine. sahrc was concerned that the granting of extensions to aurora to finance the purchase of the mine had caused many of the resultant problems (sapa, 15/04/2011). in may 2011, solidarity lodged a liquidation application against aurora, for a sum of r3.1 million (creamer, 20/05/2011). in the same month, the master of the pretoria high court removed enver motala and the kpmg liquidator gavin gainsford as liquidators, seemingly based on a report compiled by the other liquidators and submitted to a formal section 381 of the companies act enquiry (creamer, 23/05/2011; rawoot, 27/05/2011; sapa, 21/09/2011). within days of this decision, the remaining liquidators (with johan engelbrecht from icon insolvency, as the new lead liquidator), assisted by a private security firm, ousted aurora from grootvlei (creamer, 27/05/2011; 10/06/2011). motale, blaming the trade unions for his removal, did make some effort to get himself reinstated, to no avail (rawoot, 27/05/2011; rawoot, 03/06/2011; sapa, 21/09/2011). he was also subsequently struck off the role as a liquidator when it emerged that he had been convicted of fraud and theft charges (city press, 31/08/2014). at this stage, not much was left of the mine, having being stripped of metal, wood, headgear, infrastructure, pumps and the like, by both aurora and remaining unpaid mine workers (rawoot, 27/05/2011; hawker 26/03/2015). cosatu called for government to investigate the liquidators, the asset stripping that took place and the violation of labour laws (sapa, 02/06/2011). one aurora director, thulani ngubane blamed the mine itself, the workers, the media and the unions for the fate of the mine and the loss of the chinese buyer (rawoot, 03/06/2011). subsequently, it was claimed that dwa was proceeding with the criminal case, with respect to the amd pollution, with charges having been laid and advice being sought if the directors and the liquidators should be charged as well (balzer, parliamentary portfolio committee on water and environmental affairs, amd public hearings 20 june 2011). the new liquidators denied that they could be held criminally liable, maintaining that they had done all that was necessary to ensure that amd from grootvlei would not enter the surface water. this included approaching the dwa with a plan to prevent an amd decant (creamer, 17/06/2011; 23/06/2011). in august 2011 aurora’s directors testified under sections 417 and 418 of the companies act, to the master of the pretoria high court with respect to allegations of asset stripping and cessation of operations at grootvlei (groenewald & rawoot, 05/08/2011; prinsloo, 11/08/2011; sapa, 21/09/2011). on 5 october 2011, aurora empowerment systems was liquidated based on a r9 million claim lodged against the company by a creditor, copper eagle (wolmarans, 25/11/2011). in january 2012, another aurora creditor, protea security, obtained a default judgement against khulubuse zuma for r10 million, based on him standing surety for their unpaid claim against aurora (sapa, 12/01/2012). in march 2012, lead liquidator johan engelbrecht issued section 424 summonses against aurora directors with respect to personal liability claims for damages relating to grootvlei owing to how they had ‘managed the affairs of aurora recklessly with the intent to defraud’ (creamer, 05/03/2012; engelbrecht in evans, 04/05/2012). this included the failure to pay workers, stripping of assets, lying about securing funding to purchase the mine, being commercially insolvent while operating grootvlei and the removal of gold from the mine (evans, 04/05/2012). grootvlei was so irreversibly stripped of equipment and vandalised that it could not be revived as a mine. gold one and goliath gold bought the remnants of the gold processing plant, the office block and the mineral rights for a sum of r70 million in 2012 (esterhuizen, 18/04/2012; evans & sole, 16/05/2014; bertelsmann, 25/06/2015). environmental liabilities were limited to a maximum of r10 million (esterhuizen, 18/04/2012). marius keet had noted that it was unlikely that the mine would have been sold if the sale included the transfer of all the environmental liabilities (parliamentary headings into amd, 20/06/2011). thus, most of the environmental liabilities fell to the state. to deal with the amd problem, dws applied for authorisation for the construction of an amd treatment plant at grootvlei’s no. 3 shaft (mukhuthu, 20/06/2014). as the amd problem was deemed an emergency, environmental authorisation was granted quickly (as eia requirements can be ignored if the construction is an emergency), in spite of a public outcry (mukhuthu, 20/06/2014). the plant is yet to come online (creamer, 02/07/2015). as the mine was no longer a going concern, the liquidators laid fraud charges against the directors of aurora (evans, 04/05/2012; hawker, 24/08/2014). a smaller claim for r15.5 million was successfully laid by the liquidators against faizel and suliman bhana, mohamed limbada and zeenat laher for monies paid to them from aurora accounts, supposedly as repayments for loans (van rensburg & van der merwe, 21/08/2014; gifford, 26/09/2014). this ruling was appealed, but later upheld (hawker, 22/03/2015). the liquidators argued that aurora had to reinstate and restore the mine to the state it was in when aurora took over in october 2009 (rawoot, 03/06/2011). failure to do so meant that aurora faced a claim of r1.7 billion for damages, loss of gold sales and unpaid salaries (sapa, 25/08/2014). at the same time, sections 417, 418 and 424 hearing into aurora went ahead. this was heard in camera, and the north gauteng high court refused to make the report public, despite a promotion of access to information act (paia) application (harper, 26/01/2014; hawker, 24/08/2014). at the time it was claimed because the report made damning findings, there was a potential defamation claim and that criminal charges could be laid (rossouw in harper, 26/01/2014; hawker, 24/08/2014). judge bertelsmann finally made the transcripts of the insolvency enquiry public in august 2014. although the report called for criminal charges to be laid, the special investigating unit (sia) claimed that only president zuma could authorise the start of the criminal investigations into aurora and that ‘the presidency has not given any indication of when the proclamation will be issued’ (boy ndala in hawker 24/08/2014). the national prosecuting authority (npa) said they could not investigate, only the south africa police service could, and, as such, referred the master of the court’s report back to the court (hawker, 24/08/2014). the case against the aurora directors was postponed several times. delays were attributed to the late filing of court papers by aurora, their lawyers requesting delays to secure funds and a lack of financial records for aurora (creamer, 14/10/2011; hawker, 19/08/2014). the case was finally heard in 2015 and judge bertlesmann ordered that the aurora directors be held jointly and severally liable, in their personal and private capacities, for the damages to the mine. they were also held liable for the non-payment of mine workers and creditors, as well as for gross negligence and mismanagement (such as routing money from grootvlei to themselves instead of paying salaries and creditors) (hawker, 22/03/2015). during the course of the case, it became clear that aurora had bid for the mine without having the financial resources to pay for them (maromo, 24/03/2015). the respondents were also ordered to pay the costs of the applicants (bertelsmann, 25/06/2015). based on this judgement, the police announced that they were investigating charges of fraud, money laundering, racketeering and misrepresentation (brigadier hangwani mulaudzi in falanga & mabotja, 06/07/2015). the parties did lodge a request to appeal the bertlesmann ruling, but this met with no success (mabuza, 18/09/2015). the directors of aurora approached the supreme court of appeals with an appeal application which was rejected (crowley & prinsloo, 15/02/2016; makhafola, 12/05/2016). the liquidators are now pursuing the directors and managers for the aurora debt of r1.7 billion. the case has been postponed till march 2017 (legalbrief, 01/04/2016). in september 2016, the bhanas were sequestrated by the north gauteng high court and khulubuse zuma settled with the liquidators and unions for a sum of r23 million (to be paid over 52 months) for unpaid wages (iol, 07/09/2016). summary and analysis grootvlei was historically a financially marginal mine because of frequent flooding, declining gold ore reserves and volatile gold prices. thus, grootvlei often required capital injections and was ill placed to deal with the cost of an amd problem generated by the entire eastern basin. as the difficulties and liabilities of grootvlei became apparent, various owners put the mine up for sale (sharife, 21/03/2011). between 1990 and 2014, grootvlei underwent multiple changes of owners, with control passing from larger, established, better-funded mining companies to smaller, less well-funded junior ones (stuijt, 10/03/2010; salgado, 28/02/2011). these smaller black economic empowerment (bee) companies may not have fully realised grootvlei’s financial and environmental problems and were certainly not in a financial or knowledge position to deal with them. from 2009 onwards, grootvlei faltered in meeting its amd obligations, exposing the blesbokspruit to untreated amd decant (marais, 06/08/2014). this was most certainly an indication of mine managers trying to contain costs. although the state paid an amd subsidy, it was insufficient; payments were intermittent and attached to stringent verifiable pumping and treatment regimes. however, there was a significant change in management practices at grootvlei when aurora took control of the mine. aurora actively hindered the ability of workers to keep the mine operational or meet its amd obligations by removing (and selling) mine equipment, pumps and headgear. labour practices also changed. workers were paid late or not at all and strikes ensued. the pumping and treating of amd became more intermittent and eventually ceased, leaving the mine permanently flooded and rendering it unworkable. the loss of the underground gold reserves can be taken as a loss to south africa as all mineral resources are national assets (mckay, 06/02/2011). of concern is that strikingly similar circumstances, including some of the same people, lead to the closure of the blyvooruitzicht mine on the west rand (humby 2014). as a consequence of the eventual liquidation of aurora and the sale of the remaining assets to gold one, most of the environmental liabilities passed to the state, with serious implications for the taxpayer (sharife, 21/03/2011; marais, 06/08/2014). in march 2014, the dwa announced the state would build an amd treatment plant costing r319 million, a sum that quickly tripled to r956 million by june 2014. more recently, the plant is said to cost r10 billion (creamer, 02/07/2015). pg mavundla, an anc regional branch head in kwazulu-natal and former anc mayor of umvoti municipality, has won the contract for the project (mthethwa, 19/10/2014; mukhuthu, 20/06/2014). thus, the actual cost to the south african state associated with the amd problem has escalated alarmingly. from a state pumping subsidy of between r2.5 and r6 million per month to that of r10 billion capex for a brand new amd reverse osmosis or ion exchange treatment plant, as well as an estimated ongoing cost of r25 million per month for running costs (molatlhwa, 19/05/2016). despite south africa’s mining and mine rehabilitation legislation placing legal obligations on the directors, this did not prevent (or even mitigate) the situation at grootvlei. law enforcement was intermittent, weak and seemingly not viewed as urgent by dws or dmr, despite the high-level inter-ministerial committee’s report indicating that grootvlei’s pumping shaft had to be secured and amd pumping and treatment had to resume (van der merwe, 24/02/2011). although key environmental compliance and enforcement tools such as permits, compliance notices and directives were at the disposal of government officials, very few were used. it has been argued that the amd crisis at grootvlei could have been avoided if law enforcement was stronger (liefferink & van eeden 2010). despite the specialised cabinet commissioned amd task team urging extreme urgency and action regarding amd, it is clear such urgency is not government policy (mccarthy 2011). to date, the dmr has not taken any action against the directors or mine management (mckay, 06/02/2011). thus, num has argued that aurora ‘directors … are receiving preferential treatment because of their political clout’ (sharife, 21/03/2011). solidarity also claims the first set of liquidators are partly responsible for the forced mine closure as they did not do due diligence on the directors, nor did they ensure that the mine was run properly while under aurora’s care, despite their legal obligation to preserve the asset (mckay, 06/02/2011; sapa, 20/05/2011; marais, 06/08/2014; hawker, 22/03/2015). in addition, solidarity and num note the insolvency act does not offer adequate protection for workers. they argue for tighter regulations over who can be appointed as company directors (30/05/2012, sapa). there is also need to review south africa’s liquidation laws, as selling a mine in liquidation simply to the highest bidder may not be the best option. importantly, the new owners should have the relevant experience and skills to run a mine and manage the attendant environmental impacts (creamer, 27/05/2011; 03/06/2011; marais, 06/08/2014). in addition, although the dmr has to agree to the mining rights to be transferred in the case of liquidation, the dmr has little legal standing to intervene in liquidations. there is also a compliance gap between mining law which requires mines to obtain a closure certificate and company law which allows a company to be deregistered relatively easily (marais, 06/08/2014). furthermore, during the period of liquidation, it is not clear who is responsible for environmental damages (marais, 06/08/2014). it may be that the sale of near-closure mines to inexperienced, underfunded junior miners undermines the duty of care obligations embedded in mine closure legislation. the events pertaining to ownership, operations and management of grootvlei is crucial for highlighting responsibilities pertaining to amd. south africa’s environmental legislation framework (which encompasses amd) is strong, but it is clear that a combination of political will and amended legislation is needed to effectively tackle abandoned mines and attendant environmental liabilities (humby 2014). because the ‘environment as a creditor’ is not prioritised and has no ‘special call’ on a company’s assets, it behoves the state as custodian of the environment to shoulder its responsibility and uphold its creditor rights with respect to the liability of mine closure rehabilitation. conclusion grootvlei was a marginal mine, hobbled by inheriting responsibility for pumping and treating amd for the entire eastern basin. its financial difficulties resulted in its continual change in ownership, as mine companies sought to offload an underperforming, near end-of-life asset. until 2009, however, grootvlei was operational, paying wages and fulfilling its amd obligations (albeit intermittently and with difficulty). the situation changed radically when aurora took control. mining activities ceased; mine infrastructure was dismantled and sold for scrap; amd was no longer pumped or treated, and mineworkers went unpaid. the mine is now permanently closed. amd now continues to rise and will certainly decant in time (dwa 2011). despite comprehensive environmental legislation, the mine owners, mine managers and the various government officials (who should have prevented such flagrant violations) have not been brought to book. in addition, the destruction of this mine has created the impression that laws can be flouted with impunity. fortunately, the determination of the second set of liquidators to pursue the aurora directors civilly resulted in a judgement holding them liable for the non-payment of workers and the destruction of the grootvlei and cons modder infrastructure. acknowledgements the authors are deeply grateful to wendy job of the uj cartographic unit for the maps. the authors also thank andrew karam for sourcing the media articles and some of the literature. competing interests 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research, sage, los angeles, ca. footnotes 1. sections 2; 24; 24r; 28; 32; 33. 2. section 19. 3. allowing a viable mine to close because of negligence may also be known as unplanned, forced or catastrophic closure. 4. adriana stuijt, bongani mthethwa, christine leondardi, christy van der merwe, david fig, david masondo, david mckay, dewald van rensburg, dianne hawker, ernest wolmarams, gabi falanga, gertrude makhafola, gill gifford, idele esterhuizen, ilham rawoot, inge salgado, jana marais, jeanne van der merwe, jocelyn newarch, johan jonck, karabo keepile, khadija sharife, liesel frankson, loni prinsloo, lucky biyase, lynley donnelly, mara kardas-nelson, mariaan webb, martin creamer, martin plaut, martin zhuwakinyu, megan wait, meshack mbangula, natasha marrian, sally evans, sipho masondo, yolandi groenewald, tyler durden, zwanga mukhuthu. note these media reports are referenced in line by author and the exact date of the article. 5. although in july 2010 zondwa mandela said pumping cost r6.5 million a month (jonck, fin24, 27/07/2010; sapa, 04/08/2010). 6. there were accusations that the liquidator failed to do due diligence on aurora. for example, it emerged that fazel bhana had a questionable financial history having been fined by the financial services board (fsb) for insider trading and arrested on charges of vat fraud (groenewald & rawoot, 14/05/2010, 26/03/2010; mckay, 06/02/2011; evans, 24/10/2014). 7. enver motala said the chairman of aurora had paid the money from his personal accounts (sapa, 17/12/2010). khulubuse zuma testified to this fact as well (evan, 04/05/2012) and bertelsmann (25/06/2015) noted that a sum of r35million was paid in the chairman’s personal capacity. 8. solidarity claimed that aurora failed to pay salaries, failed to pay over pension fund contributions, failed to pay uif and paye, as well as deducted union membership fees but did not pay them over to the union (sapa, 16/02/2011). this resulted in the mineworker’s pension fund reporting aurora to the fsb and the national prosecuting authority (npa) (groenewald & rawoot, 26/03/2010). abstract introduction adapting hakim’s preference theory and the socialisation theory factors affecting choice of specialisation research design sampling data collection data analysis trustworthiness of data ethical considerations findings levels of flexibility offered by medical laboratory disciplines the role of gender in determining choice of specialisation love and commitment for the discipline personal choice regardless of gender exposure to non-clinical disciplines at medical school discussion other factors influencing choice of specialisation conclusion potential human resources for health implications acknowledgements references about the author(s) suveera singh department of human resources management, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa shaun ruggunan department of human resources management, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation singh, s. & ruggunan, s., 2016, ‘gendered health care labour markets? a case study of anatomical pathologists and haematologists in kwazulu-natal, south africa’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a334. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.334 original research gendered health care labour markets? a case study of anatomical pathologists and haematologists in kwazulu-natal, south africa suveera singh, shaun ruggunan received: 13 mar. 2016; accepted: 14 sept. 2016; published: 03 dec. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this study qualitatively explored the role of gender and related factors that influence medical doctors’ decisions in selecting a specialisation within medical laboratory medicine. this study is novel in that it disaggregates doctors by specialisation. it further focuses on non-clinical medical specialists who have been ignored in the global human resources for health literature. hakim’s preference theory as well as socialisation theory is adapted to explain some of the reasons female doctors make certain career choices regarding specialisation within the medical field. the study focused on laboratory doctors in the public and private sector in kwazulu-natal. a qualitative approach was adopted given the small population size and the need for an interpretive approach to the data. the research design was an exploratory case study and thematic analysis was used to discover the relevant themes. the non-probability purposeful sample comprised a total of 20 participants, of which 11 were anatomical pathologists and 9 were haematologists, all based in kwazulu-natal, south africa. data collection was performed via in-depth interviews. trustworthiness of the data was ensured through methods of credibility and triangulation. the key finding is that although gender is a significant factor in career choice (for specific disciplines), it is one of many factors that determine self-selection into a specific medical laboratory specialisation. the conclusions, although not generalisable, have implications for human resources for health policies targeted at achieving higher levels of recruitment in laboratory medicine as a profession. introduction the purpose of this article is to explore the role of gender dynamics in doctors’ choices of medical laboratory specialisation. most of the global and national literature on human resources for health focuses on clinical practitioners (brandis et al. 2016:240; hongoro et al. 2016:73; maier & aiken 2016:3; reich, hansen & link 2016:6). clinical practitioners are health practitioners who interact directly with patients. there is a gap in the empirical and theoretical work on medical specialists who work in non-clinical settings (holleyman & jones 2016; raghuram & kofman 2002:2074; ruggunan 2013:100; young et al. 2003:14). it is within this context that this article hopes to contribute by extending our empirical knowledge of non-clinical doctors. laboratory medicine refers to a medical specialisation in which pathologists provide testing of patient tissue samples (drexel university college of medicine 2014). medical laboratory medicine has several branches or disciplines. these are anatomical pathology, haematology, chemical pathology and virology. this study focuses on the specialisations of anatomical pathology and haematology. anatomical pathologists are specialists who deal with the tissue diagnosis of diseases (royal college of pathology of australia 2011). therefore, anatomical pathologists require a broad-based knowledge and understanding of the pathological and clinical aspects of many diseases (holleyman & jones 2016; raghuram & kofman 2002:2075; ruggunan 2013:101; school of laboratory medicine & medical sciences, ukzn 2014; young et al. 2003:18). the specialisation involves the diagnosis of potential disease and malignancies based on the analysis of biopsied tissues and sometimes consists of post-mortem investigation (school of laboratory medicine & medical sciences, ukzn 2014). haematologists specialise in the branch of pathology in which components of diseases that affect blood are studied (singh 2013:12). in terms of patient care and clinical decision-making, laboratory medicine is required in more than 80% of clinical decision-making at all levels from outpatient care for ambulant patients to inpatient care for critically ill patients (school of laboratory medicine & medical sciences, ukzn 2014). both anatomical pathologists and haematologists are critical to the south african healthcare system. they service both the private and public healthcare markets in south africa. increasingly, both the private and public sectors are forming partnerships to facilitate healthcare delivery (michel 2016; tsiko 2016). given the alarming epidemic rates of hiv and/or aids and tuberculosis in south africa (michel 2016), both anatomical pathologists and haematologists contribute significantly to the healthcare chain in diagnosing communicable diseases via biopsies and blood samples. clinicians are unable to begin appropriate clinical treatments and management of their patients without these initial non-clinical assessments by these medical laboratory specialists. an adequate level of healthcare professionals must be available in order to efficiently maintain the health of the population. however, as outlined by naidoo (2012:149), ruggunan (2013:101), ruggunan and singh (2013:4), cassim and ruggunan (2014:2), pathcare (2015), michel (2016) and tsiko (2016), a shortage of key human resources exists in the health sector including medical laboratory specialisation exists. it must be noted that non-clinical work is a crucial part of medicine (hajjaj et al. 2010; joyce et al. 2015; tsiko 2016). most studies on gender and career choice in medicine have been conducted on male-dominated clinical specialisations (riska 2003:60). in addition, studies of female physicians and career choices and experience of work have been conducted on women who are general practitioners, or in primary care contexts (riska 2003:71). further studies by heald et al. (2016) and lu (2016) support riska’s claims. this study addresses this gap through a focus on two non-clinical medical specialisations: anatomical pathology and haematology. the south african labour market comprises 278 anatomical pathologists and 147 haematologists (hpsca 2016). the discipline of anatomical pathology is male dominated in kwazulu-natal (kzn), with only 11 of the 32 anatomical pathologists being female (hpsca 2016). at national level, only 113 of the 278 anatomical pathologists (or 40%) are female. haematology by contrast is female dominated both provincially and nationally. in kzn, 11 of the 18 haematologists are female and nationally 92 (63%) of the 147 haematologists are female. adapting hakim’s preference theory and the socialisation theory hakim’s preference theory is a sociological theory that can be used to explain the changes that women have experienced in contemporary societies in relation to two main lifecycle patterns, namely fertility and employment (vitali et al. 2009:7). hakim’s preference theory has been used in several studies, such as yee kan (2005), hakim (2006), manea (2007) and hakim (2011), to explore work–family life balances of women. increasingly, the theory is used by human resources practitioners and theorists to explain career preferences of women in countries, like south africa, that have legislated liberal and egalitarian policies towards women yet continue to experience gendered professional labour markets. according to hakim (cited in vitali et al. 2009:18), women in more egalitarian societies are more likely to exercise their preferences to follow certain career paths or to remain at home to raise their families rather than these being decisions of patriarchal legislation or cultural norms. in societies that are egalitarian, such choices are seen as having equal value, because structural obstacles to women’s employment have legislatively been removed, and therefore the choice made by women is viewed as a ‘free choice’. hakim (cited in vitali et al. 2009) explains that there are three types of women who are evenly distributed across industrialised societies and societies that have egalitarian labour market legislation. the three types of women are family-oriented, career-oriented and adaptive women. family-oriented women have family life as the main priority and unusually opt not to work. career-oriented women focus on work and generally remain childless. adaptive women, however, combine work and family life and obtain the best of both worlds. in other words, there is a trade-off between family and career. these women may move into part-time work after childbirth (vitali et al. 2009:8). for purposes of this study, it is the latter category, adaptive women, that is of key concern. however, hakim’s theory can be enhanced by combining elements of socialisation theory. socialisation theory has many proponents depending on its disciplinary origins. for purposes of this article we draw on contemporary gendered socialisation theory as proposed by carter (2014). carter (2014:245) and riska (2003:61) maintain that girls and boys are socialised differently and hold different values and expectations about their sex roles and tasks as adults. through symbols and language, carter (2014:244) argues that children are gendered into certain behaviours from birth itself. language for boys is centred on physical characteristics, whereas girls are addressed in terms of expressivity and affection (carter 2014). career choices are made in agreement with expected gender positions that they are expected to occupy in the family. men are seen as more career oriented, whereas women make career choices that depend on their skills. however, they also make career choices at a later stage that can accommodate work as well as family demands (carter 2014:245; riska 2003:70). once again, it is evident that the ways in which one is socialised individually influence one’s choices, even in terms of careers. factors affecting choice of specialisation gender plays a role in the choice of medical specialisation (bhat, d’souza & fernandez 2012). both male and female students receive the same education; however, it is noted that the distribution of gender across several medical specialities is not proportionate (van tongeren-alers et al. 2013). such an imbalance within specialities may have an impact on the physician workforce in future (bhat et al. 2012; van tongeren-alers et al. 2013). this is an indication that there are numerous factors that attract male and female specialists differently. in other words, there are variances in the specialities that attract males and females (chung et al. 2013; eze et al. 2011). the additional factors that influence the choice of medical specialisation have been classified as personal interest, career prospects, lifestyle, job security, appraisal of own skills, hours of practice, scope and the influence of parents/family (bhat et al. 2012; correia lima de souza et al. 2015; eze et al. 2011; gour et al. 2011; van tongeren-alers et al. 2013). research design the research design of this study is an exploratory case study. exploratory studies are particularly important in understanding new phenomena in areas where little empirical work has been done before (saunders, lewis & thornhill 2012). based on an extensive review of the literature, we assert that there is limited empirical work on medical laboratory specialists in south africa; therefore, this research design is appropriate. this type of case study is more attuned to uncover qualitative experiences of participants and the reasons that they select themselves into the anatomical pathology and haematology professions, rather than establish causal mechanisms between two or more variables (bryman & bell 2007:30; burton 2000:54). exploratory case studies are important in that they serve as building blocks for future large-scale quantitative studies (burton 2000:87; gummesson 2000:11; saunders et al. 2012). qualitative studies are relevant when there is a need to gather meaningful data that are rich in details. given the small population of these specialists in kzn, a qualitative study is deemed appropriate. sampling non-probability sampling was used in this research study. the sampling technique used for this study was purposive sampling. purposive sampling is a technique in which participants of a study are selected based on their qualities and certain criteria necessary for the study (etikan, musa & alkassim 2016). participants were chosen based on their specialisation, that is, whether they were anatomical pathologists or haematologists practising in a permanent position in kzn. these were the only criteria applied in purposively selecting the sample. the study sample comprised a total of 20 participants. of the participants, 11 were anatomical pathologists, representing 39% of the total population of anatomical pathologists in kzn in 2013. in addition, nine haematologists were interviewed. the total percentage of haematologists interviewed constituted 81% of the total haematology population of kzn in 2013. data collection in-depth face-to-face interviews (conducted by the researcher who as a social scientist has had previous experience and expertise both theoretically and practically in the interview process) with participants were the key method of data collection for this study. the interviewer was therefore an ‘outsider’ and a neutral person in conducting interviews with participants. interviews allow for construction and reconstruction of knowledge through the interaction between participant and interviewer. a flexible structure (probing where necessary) is possible, while at the same time direction and focus can be maintained as the interviewer is present (edwards & holland 2013). field notes were also taken to supplement data. interviews were recorded with a digital voice recorder and thereafter transcribed by a professional. each interview lasted approximately 1 hour. interviews were conducted in 2013 and were all off-site. by ‘off-site’, it is meant that venues other than the place of work for participants. the interview schedule, with the core themes based on the role of gender in medical specialisation as well as other factors that influenced the same, was open ended and allowed for probing. data analysis data for this study were analysed through thematic analysis. thematic analysis refers to a process for the identification, analysis and reporting of ‘patterns’ or themes within data (braun & clarke 2006, cited in judger 2016). themes were manually coded in this case study by way of categorising them into different themes or patterns, and developed through consistent and thorough reading of all interview transcripts repeatedly. the factors that contributed to the choice of specialisation within medical laboratory specialisation were categorised using braun and clarke’s (2006:80) method of thematic analysis. this consisted of six steps and was an iterative process. the six steps include the following: familiarising yourself with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes and producing the report (braun & clarke 2006). although recurring concepts and ideas were coded as patterns, the researcher also noted minority views in the data. these temporary themes were then revised and further reduced through an iterative process of recoding the data also known as progressive coding. trustworthiness of data to ensure trustworthiness of the data, the framework as proposed by babbie and mouton (2009:407) was used. this included credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. credibility was achieved through a prolonged period of engagement with participants during the fieldwork process. engagement consisted of several initial meetings with participants before interviews in order to establish trust. this also consisted of observing work processes at the sites of work. this was enhanced by purposive sampling, peer debriefing and the experiential and academic expertise of the researchers. transferability was enhanced by purposively selecting the participants based on their experience and expertise (babbie & mouton 2009:128). dependability was achieved by maintaining an audit trail of the research process. this allows for greater transparency of the research process and verification of findings against the raw data. given that this was part of a larger research project, both researchers in this project coded the data independently to generate themes. both sets of themes were then compared to achieve a measure of credibility and trustworthiness of the data analysis process. after the initial coding process, both researchers discussed how to label, collapse and disaggregate themes where needed. interview data were also triangulated against available labour market statistics and empirical findings from other studies to ensure a level of credibility. a high participation rate of the population also ensured trustworthiness. confirmability was realised by allowing participants to read transcripts of their interviews as a way of ensuring that the interviews were accurately transcribed. ethical considerations this study has been granted full ethical approval from the university of kwazulu-natal ethics committee. findings in exploring the role of gender in relation to the choice of specialisation under the medical umbrella, several themes were identified. evidently, findings illustrate that gender as an isolated or independent concept is not the only contributing factor towards choice of specialisation within the medical profession. findings have been categorised into five broader themes: flexibility; gender, ‘love’ and commitment for the discipline; personal career choice regardless of gender and exposure to non-clinical disciplines during undergraduate studies. levels of flexibility offered by medical laboratory disciplines flexibility appears to be an attraction within most medical laboratory disciplines at large as indicated by one of the participants: ‘… i think that any laboratory speciality givesawards you a little bit of flexibility.’ (participant 1: interview 23 august 2013: durban) furthermore, findings reveal that certain laboratory disciplines boast more flexibility than others. flexibility within the discipline of haematology specifically can be much higher as opposed to other medical laboratory disciplines, as mentioned by participant 4: ‘… with haematology what you can do is you could go either into the laboratory side or you can go into the clinical side. and you can actuallyif you have got dual speciality you can move between the two. so you can either choose to work in the laboratory or you can choose to work with patients. there is ayou have to do extra years to specialise in both areas. so there is a bit more flexibility i think with haematology compared to say chemistry or micro or histopathology where those are pure pathology disciplines, whereas haematology you do have this option to go into clinical.’ (participant 4: interview 30 august 2013: durban) another participant expressed similar sentiments as above: ‘… you can do lots of things. and in the lab you can’t really have a laboratory based anatomical pathologist. you can do flow, you can do immunology, you can do blood transfusions.’ (participant 3: interview 24 august 2013: durban) when taking a closer look particularly within the discipline of haematology, flexibility appeared to be a major influential factor in determining career choice not only within the medical field but also within the realm of medical laboratory specialisation as a whole. flexibility within the haematology discipline exists even in the nature of work processes as activities. gour et al. (2011) indicate that wider scopes of certain medical specialities are an influential factor in choice of careers. as mentioned earlier, the discipline of haematology offers the flexibility of manoeuvring between clinical and laboratory settings. as expressed by a respondent: ‘… one of the advantages that i mentioned earlier was that you can move between clinical and laboratory. and that is a big advantage. the nice thing is you can do a bone marrow biopsy, see the patient and come to lab and interpret the sample yourself.’ (participant 2: interview 4 may 2013: durban) a similar, more detailed account of flexibility with haematology is expressed by another respondent as follows: ‘… haematology offers you both lab and clinicalyou have got two branches in clinical. you have the oncology branch and the general non-malignant branch.’ (participant 3: interview 24 august 2013: durban) the nature of working hours affects how ‘flexible’ a medical discipline may be. gour et al. (2011) and bhat et al. (2012) found that working hours serve as a factor that influences the choice of medical speciality. the duration of working hours may attract or drive away medical professionals, as indicated by one of the participants when questioned on whether or not flexibility influences a choice of specialisation: ‘… definitely, flexibility in the department and working hours being fixeddefinitely it would, it has been one of the main reasons that i joined the department and i think it’s a draw card for a lot of people.’ (participant 2: interview 4 may 2013: durban) similarly, an anatomical pathologist expressed the following regarding working hours: ‘… it’s more flexible – yes because a lot of the private sector pathologists, allow you part-time work …’ (participant 5: interview 17 may 2013: durban) although flexibility does play a role in determining a specialisation within the medical field, it is not the only reason as will be elaborated in this article. this is expressed by a respondent when questioned on whether or not flexibility affects the choice of speciality: ‘… i don’t think it’s the prime reasons that i chose it at all.’ (participant 1: interview 23 august 2013: durban) the role of gender in determining choice of specialisation as indicated by bhat et al. (2012), van tongeren-alers et al. (2013) and correia lima de souza et al. (2015), gender is influential in determining the choice of specialisation. findings of this study indicate that gender does play a role in determining specialisation within medical laboratory medicine. when asked if gender affects a decision regarding which specialisation is selected as a career choice within the medical field, the majority of the participants agreed. some participants felt that laboratory disciplines generally are dominated by females. the following quote is an expression of the above sentiment: ‘the nature of work is day based as opposed to after hours. pathology per se is female dominated. aside from the fact more female doctors are qualifying now as doctors, so the whole graph is skewed as well. when it was my choice as wellbecause of these reasons.’ (participant 1: interview 23 august 2013: durban) in addition to this, another respondent expressed the following: ‘… females, in fact, all the laboratory based disciplines have lots of females. one, it takes females out of seeing patients in the wards. the other thingit gives them a bit of set hours and it’s not so stressfuland being on call. most of the calls you have are telephonic in the laboratory and so females are still be able to spend time with their family and take care of their children …’ (participant 3: interview 24 august 2013: durban) another respondent emphasised the issue of females and family life: ‘… i think it does, definitely. pathology has always been seen as a very stable type of environment where your hours are fixed and therefore it attracts female colleagues yes it definitely plays a role. in our department we are female dominated.’ (participant 2: interview 4 may 2013: durban) pathology as a discipline within the medical field appears to be chosen by females because of commitments to their families, their roles as wives and mothers, the flexibility of work itself, as well as working hours. as indicated by a respondent below: ‘… but the reality is that a lot of them are married and have kids and have a family life … working nine to five monday to friday and that is it. and a lot of females tended to choose that [pathology] because it’s amenable to their family life.’ (participant 2: interview 4 may 2013: durban) in a similar manner, the concept of gender and working hours being a contributing factor for females in deciding a speciality can be reinforced further as follows: ‘but i have noticed that a lot of females tend to be attracted not only to haematology but laboratory disciplines per se. i think the hoursthe operating hours are good, it’s usually standard operating hours. i am talking as a registrar as well from training level. there are weekend calls but its half day and you don’t have to be on site. if there are problems, queries you are at reach via your cell phone. and if there is a reason for you to come in yes you can come in.’ (participant 1: interview 23 august 2013: durban) although there is said to be many females within the laboratory discipline, one participant highlighted that despite this males are still part of pathology: ‘… and when you go to conferences as well, there is a lot more females. i wouldn’t say a lot more females because in certain departments you find that there are quite a few males involved in pathology. but it is generally a female dominated department, yes.’ (participant 2: interview 4 may 2013: durban) another point of note is that although laboratory disciplines tend to attract females who assume the roles of wives and mothers, this is not the sole reason for their choice of specialisation as one participant who is not a mother expresses in the following: ‘… your gender? for me … i don’t have any children. i think if you look at it generally it probably does.’ (participant 12: interview 20 june 2013: durban) interestingly, within the discipline of medical laboratory medicine, haematology is found to attract more females than most other pathology or laboratory disciplines. this can be indicated through the following participant: ‘haematology as a discipline attracts more females and i would say things like virology, chemical pathology, microbiology as well because of the nature of the work. although haematology training is partly clinical, the calls after hourscalls that we do are not on site, they are telephonic, working hours are 8 to 4 and even the calls during the week are once a week. you have a lot more free time for family and i think for females with families and children, it allows you to divide your time without feeling that you are neglecting family.’ (participant 6: interview 26 may 2013: durban) importantly, one must note that there has been an increase in the number of females graduating in haematology. as participant 1 highlights: ‘yes, there’s only been females. hard to get a male [graduate] now. dominated by females. even when i go to conferences, it is female dominated.’ (interview 23 august 2013: durban) it must be noted, however, that haematology cannot be seen as a ‘soft discipline’, as highlighted by the following respondent: ‘… i don’t think it’s a soft job for a female. you have a choice of doing clinical work and laboratory work and as a mother and wife, its [sic] easier to have certain — so you have your second job to go to when you leave work.’ (participant 10: interview on 4 may 2013: durban) moreover, haematology is not seen by all participants as attractive only to females. participant 10 emphasises this: ‘no, i would not say that. any laboratory discipline gives you a certain amount of flexibility and it also allows you to decide where you want to workhours you want to work … no, it does not attract more females.’ (participant 10: interview on 4 may 2013: durban) in addition to the issue of working hours, anatomical pathology is seen as having much more demanding working hours than haematology, which may be influential in driving females (who are mothers) away. as expressed by a participant: ‘… a lot of people are dissuaded from anatomical pathology because of their long working hours. they might not do calls on weekends but their working hours are seven to six and it is intense.’ (participant 6: interview 26 may 2013: durban) another respondent reinforces the abovementioned: … hours are long7h30 to 18h00 … no flexibility in anatomical pathology … (participant 7: interview 24 august 2013: durban) love and commitment for the discipline it is clear that an inherent ‘love’ for a particular discipline played a vital role in decisions regarding choice of specialisation. hence, choosing a discipline was not solely attributed to being male or female, but based on passion or innate drive for a certain specialisation and its labour process. correia lima de souza et al. (2015) identified social commitment as a factor affecting choice of specialisation. as expressed by a respondent: ‘… i think definitely is, because i know with my female friends when they were choosing a speciality because some of them chose purely based on the fact that they loved the speciality …’ (participant 5: interview 17 may 2013: durban) personal interest for the discipline has also been a contributing factor in this study similar to findings identified by gour et al. (2011): ‘i was interested in haematologymy interest actually stemmed when in the uk and i worked in a haematology unit there. and that is where my interest grew in haematology.’ (participant 1: interview 23 august 2013: durban) the nature of work is influential in attracting doctors into the field, again based partially on one’s personal interests. as highlighted by participant 2: ‘though i must admit when you speak to a lot of colleagues … a lot of them cannot see themselves sitting behind a microscope. and sitting behind papers and interpreting … so without a commitment or love for that process, you won’t succeed. it’s not patient contact based which some doctors thrive on.’ (participant 2: interview 4 may 2013: durban) in addition to this, another participant emphasised the following which demonstrates that one’s personal interests and likes determine one’s choice of specialisation within the medical laboratory field: ‘what doesn’t appeal to them about an anatomical pathologist is that you don’t have patient contact and so that is why they are not drawn to it.’ (participant 5: interview 17 may 2013: durban) personal choice regardless of gender specialisations can be selected based on individual characteristics, personal interests as well as talents (chung et al. 2013; correia lima de souza et al. 2015; eze et al. 2011). some participants were of the view that choice of specialisation was unrelated to gender and had more to do with personal choice. as indicated by one of the participants: ‘… nothing to do with gender. it is equally split but there are a lot of females. haematology doesn’t restrict it this way. i think its [sic] personal choice.’ (participant 8: interview 18 may 2013: durban) in addition, another respondent indicated that choice of specialisation was quite simple by stating briefly: ‘personal choice.’ (participant 9: interview on 19 may 2013: durban) personal choice can also be based on the fact that some pathologists have a natural drive to empower and train other pathologists for the benefit of the health system, and simply because they are content with what they do. this is expressed by a participant as follows: ‘i am staying here because i need to train more pathologists and i need to provide service to those who are in needthose who cannot afford to go to private for this service. so i am here to provide service for them to train more pathologists and i am happy.’ (participant 11: interview 20 june 2013: durban) exposure to non-clinical disciplines at medical school exposure to certain disciplines has also been a reason for selecting a speciality. a study by correia lima de souza et al. (2015) indicated extracurricular experiences during medical school as a factor that influenced a corresponding choice of specialisation. thus, awareness of the various disciplines influences one’s choice of medical specialisation. for instance, participant 2 indicated the following: ‘the strange thing is that unfortunately at undergraduate level you don’t get exposed to haematology that much. it was my exposure to haematology patients in clinical setting that got me interested in the field. and i really only discovered haematology when i understood what i was getting into and i started doing haematology as a medical officer. still, working in a clinical department, but we had exposure to the laboratory and we were looking at slides and we were discussing cases. so that is how i got interested.’ (participant 11: interview 20 june 2013: durban) discussion one of the findings of this study illustrated that flexibility within a profession may be an attractive component for deciding on a career, and more specifically a particular speciality within medical laboratory medicine for this case study. several participants highlighted that laboratory medicine per se is quite flexible and is their reason for selection, more especially the haematology discipline. the haematology discipline itself can be further divided into laboratory and clinical work which boasts increased flexibility making it an attractive career specialisation. this is in line with the literature on flexibility as several writers have linked flexibility with increased job satisfaction and a high level of commitment to employment (jacob et al. 2008:148; moen et al. 2016; richman et al. 2008:190). in addition, workplace flexibility such as family-supportive policies and management could result in an increase in job satisfaction (jacob et al. 2008:150; richman et al. 2008:187). workplace flexibility has a way of acting as a method of retention (moen et al. 2016; richman et al. 2008:184). at this point, it is clear that the core element of hakim’s preference theory – adaptive women – may be applied. hakim’s theory explains that adaptive women will gravitate towards employment opportunities that allow for flexibility in order to balance the trade-off between work life and family commitments more effectively. in addition, the socialisation theory adapts to this issue as women are sometimes socialised to understand their duty as a mother once children are born, and thus opt for a more flexible job to accommodate the demands of work–life balance. the socialisation theory highlights that women eventually (at a later stage) take career-related decisions according to needs of their job as well as family, which is evident in the case of most female pathologists in kzn. it is evident through the findings of this study that one’s gender is highly influential in the decision of a medical speciality within laboratory medicine. gender may affect the type of speciality one chooses to pursue (interview: participants 5, 6 and 10). it is believed that pathology as a discipline is female dominated as discussed further below. findings have also revealed that there is a disproportion of males and females within different disciplines, and this form of gender disproportion may be seen as underappreciated (interview: participant 13). this is supported by the notion of a disproportionate gender distribution throughout various fields of medical specialisation (eze et al. 2011; van tongeren-alers et al. 2013). furthermore, participants felt that pathology as a discipline may be viewed as having a stable working environment with hours that attract females (interview: participants 2 and 3). a study by riska (2003:67) based on reasons for a career in pathology illustrated that one of the reasons women chose pathology was because of gendered expectations. the first motivator is the lack of on-duty work, which played a role in career choice (riska 2003:70). females generally move into disciplines that have more flexible hours as they are involved in ‘traditional’ roles and duties of a wife and mother, which are traditional duties as seen by the society (interview: participants 2 and 6). laboratory disciplines were seen to be more appealing to females as they can control their hours (interview: participants 1 and 6). certain fields of pathology, depending on the laboratory rules and regulations, are day based as opposed to after hours which serves as an attraction to females. again, it is evident that hakim’s notion of ‘adaptive women’ can be used to explain some of the reasons women choose to remain or pursue certain fields of work, especially in pathology. dumelow and griffiths (cited in miller & clark 2008:241) highlighted the issue of role conflict which included career breaks, childcare and difficulties combining professional and family demands. also, a study conducted on surgeons by fitzgerald et al. (2013:114) argued that irrespective of career interests, 59% of male and 68% of female participants viewed surgery is not a career welcoming of women. the reasons for this dealt with difficulty maintaining family life and limited flexible training. in this study, and within the pathology field of medicine, it is important to note that many female participants opted for haematology because of flexible working hours that allowed for their role as a wife and mother once they left the laboratory. studies by gour et al. (2011), bhat et al. (2012) and correia lima de souza et al. (2015) have identified the influence of working hours and lifestyle as determining factors of medical careers. riska (2003:70) in a study on gender and pathology stated that most western societies constitute almost half of women in terms of the composition of medical students. however, research conducted by the british medical association (cited in miller & clark 2008:240) argues that the distribution of men and women over career grades is disproportionate and the number of women at senior career grades is less as compared to men. in addition, research in the united kingdom illustrates that female surgeons account for only 10% of the consultant workforce in the united kingdom (fitzgerald et al. 2013:115). however, in the south african context, there has been a large number of females graduating in haematology specifically, so much so that it is difficult to find a male (interview: participant 1). participant 2 explained that in 2011 there were 8 female histopathologists. with regard to the literature that indicates a lack of female graduates, the case of kzn paints a different picture. riska (2003) in her study on pathology and gender also demonstrated that working hours were fixed according to a schedule, and there were no calls after hours or on weekends which motivated and attracted more females to this field. a similar trend exists in this study when looking at the discipline of haematology specifically – calls are telephonic instead of being on actual site and are once during the week, again, making this more attractive for females who have the option of taking these calls (emergencies) from the convenience and comfort of their homes. however, it must be noted too that being female, or being a wife or mother, does not necessarily mean that this is the sole reason for deciding to pursue haematology. as one participant indicated she is not even a mother despite her mature age, which indicates that there are other factors owing to her choice of specialisation. findings show that anatomical pathology was a field that previously attracted more females than males (interview: participant 7). although anatomical pathologists do not engage in calls over the weekend, their working hours are extensive. anatomical pathologists have to work from 07:00 to 18:00, which might be a reason that females and even males are dissuaded from the discipline (interview: participant 6). in light of this, miller and clark (2008) illustrated that in 76% of cases, women leave general medical practise because of family responsibilities. in support of this, moen et al. (2016) argued the importance of flexibility in employee retention. in terms of the discipline of haematology, however, one will find that females outweigh males at conferences (interview: participant 1). hakim’s preference theory may be used to explain the notion of females being driven away through extensive working hours of anatomical pathologists. for instance, hakim’s theory explains that women gravitate towards employment opportunities that are more flexible so as to create a better balance between work and family life; however, the theory also adds that in cases where part-time work or flexibility is not available, they either leave full-time work temporarily or gravitate towards jobs that are more accommodating of their needs (hakim 2006). importantly, the assumption that more females are attracted to haematology rather than anatomical pathology because of haematology being a ‘soft’ job must be avoided as indicated by one of the female participants. the socialisation theory, in a similar manner, may be used to reinforce the notion that for women the role of a wife and mother especially takes precedence because of patterns of socialisation. interestingly, however, one of the participants felt that there are more males in private haematology than there were females (interview: participant 10). this could be owing to the fact that there were only two haematologists in total in one of the branches of a laboratory in kzn: one is a male and the other a female. the bar graph (see figure 1) is an illustration of the division of gender in the disciplines of anatomical pathology and haematology based on available information regarding the number of males and females. anatomical pathology has 21 males with just 4 females, whereas haematology has 7 males and 11 females. anatomical pathology may be seen as a more male-dominated discipline, whereas haematology may be viewed as a female-dominated area. however, one must consider that this does not imply that haematology is a ‘soft job’, as outlined by an interviewee. figure 1: division of gender in the specialisations of anatomical pathology and haematology in kzn. other factors influencing choice of specialisation another theme that emerged within the findings is that choice of specialisation does not solely depend on gender alone, but other influential factors too. for instance, not all women settled into pathology simply because it offers flexibility, or because they are mothers. a study by riska (2003:59) revealed that content of work rather than hours of work mattered to them. pathology enabled them to focus on one issue at a time, whereas other specialities were too broad, including demands by patients. female participants in riska’s (2003) study indicated that the microscope added an aesthetic value that gave medicine a visual dimension that they loved. a female participant in this study indicated that she chose haematology not because of being a mother, but because of personal preferences. personal preferences as highlighted in earlier sections of this article have indicated that although gender is influential in career choice, personal preferences are also key determining factors in one’s choice of specialisation. as outlined by participants 1, 2, 8, 9 and 11, there are numerous other reasons to select a particular discipline. some of these include one’s passion, the exposure to a certain field within pathology, experience, as well as the love of training and inspiring future doctors within the field. on the subject of exposure to the discipline during undergraduate studies, findings showed that exposure of disciplines within pathology to students at undergraduate level plays a role in decisions regarding which field of medical laboratory medicine to pursue. in line with this, the literature revealed that in order to meet this demand of clinical laboratory medicine, the educational requirements for clinical laboratory science have advanced in tandem with the development and expansion of the scope of the field. as a result, early clinical exposure (ece) as an innovative and active experiential learning methodology applied on patient samples in hospital-based diagnostic laboratories under direct supervision of practising laboratory clinical instructors (imamwerdi 2013). in relation to findings of this study, one such respondent mentioned that it was unfortunate that they were not exposed to haematology during undergraduate years, and it was through exposure to haematology that she had developed interest in it. conclusion this study clearly demonstrates the factors contributing to the choice of specialisation within medical laboratory medicine. most studies focus on women in popular medical fields such as general practice or primary health care. however, this study has emphasised the reasons that account for why women pursue certain disciplines within medicine, specifically the cases of anatomical pathologists and haematologists. haematology displays a trend of being more attractive to females, whereas anatomical pathology is male dominated. key elements of the preference theory and socialisation theory aid in explaining the influences women are affected by when selecting a career within medicine, that is, a work-life balance. although most women choose certain disciplines based on their roles and demands of being a wife and mother, there are others who select careers based on flexibility and scope of work, personal preferences, interest and social commitment. this study proves that males enjoy a flexible occupation and have personal interests in certain disciplines irrespective of gender stereotypes that may exist in the medical realm. potential human resources for health implications human resources management policy intervention to recruit more doctors into haematology and anatomical pathology should not necessarily focus on different strategies for men and women. however, flexibility does have a gendered dimension. in addition, personal preferences independent of gender are a further driving factor impacting the choice of specialisation and psychometric tests may be one way to tap into the dimensions that make doctors more likely to succeed in non-clinical specialisations. clearly, the lack of sustained and significant exposure to these disciplines during undergraduate medical school training also needs a policy intervention. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions s.s. and s.r. equally contributed to the research and writing of this article. references babbie, e. & mouton, j., 2009, the practice of social research, oxford university press southern africa, cape town. bhat, s., d’souza, l. & fernandez, j., 2012, ‘factors influencing the career choices of medical graduates’, journal of clinical and diagnostic research 6(1), 61–64. brandis, s., 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perspective’, 1–36, viewed 10 august 2014, from www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/download/edrp_2_07.pdf yee kan, m., 2005, ‘work orientation and wives’ employment careers: an evaluation of hakim’s preference theory’, viewed 12 august 2014, from https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/files/iser_working_papers/2005-27.pdf young, r., nobel, j., hann, m. & sibbald, b., 2003, the international market for medical doctors: perspectives on the positioning of the uk, national primary care research and development centre, manchester, united kingdom. project management in ghana 77 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 project management in ghana: expectations, realities and barriers to use fred venter� abstract. this article reports the findings of an empirical study of the problems of developing project management (pm) practice in ghanaian organisations. based on previous research and survey data, the characteristics of the project life cycle (plc) are used as a basis to examine the nature, type and severity of the problems encountered by organisations implementing projects. it is also used to determine the extent and relevance of pm usage: concepts, methods and application. it is concluded that although pm is important, legitimate and relevant, its practice in ghana has been fraught with problems. some recommendations for overcoming these problems are also made, and it is recommended that further research is required in order to ascertain the nature of pm practice and to gauge the attitudes and opinions of people involved in projects in ghana. keywords. project management; project life cycle; ghana introduction project management as a distinct management concept has been used as a management tool by organisations across industries to achieve a broad spectrum of objectives. in the field of development economics, project management has been used as a vehicle to drive the economic development aspirations of developing countries like ghana. project management is useful for both private sector and public sector development. hinson (2004) has, for instance, noted that there has been an ‘expansion and intensification of competition’ in ghana’s banking sector. with an increase in competition in ghana’s business sector, astute project management practices could easily become a source of differential business advantage. projects are themselves comprised of many inter-related elements including the tasks to be performed, methods to be employed, resources to be committed, and the environ� school of economic sciences, (vaal triangle campus) north-west university td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. � no. �, december 2005 pp. 77-96 venter 78 ment in which the project is being implemented. these elements are also integrated within the successive phases of a project life cycle (plc). to ensure their proper functioning, the pieces have to be brought together to form workable systems which will promote and enhance the attainment of a project’s objectives. however, several problems, resulting from the meshing of the different parts of these systems, sometimes hinder the effective and efficient functioning of projects. the causes of project failures span the whole spectrum of the project life cycle; from concept, formation, planning and control, to implementation factors. project management (pm) research to date has focused on private sector project management issues, public sector project management issues, firm-specific pm issues, and general macro-level pm issues. private sector pm issues have been expanded upon by researchers like kotnour (2000); bryde (2003); dey & ogunlana, (2004); sense (2004); dey (2002); smith (�997); othman, hassan & pasquire (2005); metcalf (�99�); khamooshi (�996); ellis, wood & thorpe (2004); and baccarani, salm & love (2004). researchers who focused on public sector pm issues have included dey (2000); cervone (2004); khan (�995); london (�994); gent, walker, hampton & peters (2002); nagelsmeier – linke (�995). finally, researchers who have investigated firm-level and general macro-level pm issues have included lee – kelley (2002); cicmil (2000); leseure & brookes (2004); palmer (2002); longman & mullins (2004); chan & tam (2000); gale and cartwright (�995); and duhlsten (2004). benko & mcfarlan (2004) also concluded in a pm study that ‘today, all companies are more dependent than ever on projects for growth’. zwikael & bar-joseph (2004) also concluded in a study that there are a ‘large number of projects that fail to achieve their objectives’. finally akgun, lynn & byrne (2004) also reported on their findings from an ongoing seven – year research project that ‘successful project teams perform certain practices better than unsuccessful ones’. all the pm studies discussed earlier have focused largely on pm research concentrated on europe, north america and asia. very few of the studies have focused on pm issues in africa, and none of the articles reviewed contained pm research conducted on ghana. to date, no specific studies have been done to ascertain the performance of projects in ghana, nor indeed, to track the types of problems that have plagued pm in ghana. some development and donor agencies track the performance of their project interventions but often, these are internal exercises whose results are rarely published and at best become ‘internal documents.’ the current theme explored in this article therefore attempts to discuss some key issues that characterise project management activity from a developing country context, particularly ghana. the author believes that the peculiarity of developing country project management nuances might project management in ghana 79 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 contribute some interesting dimensions to the global debate on pm. there is a need to study the problems of pm in ghana because projects are important in ghana. the ndc government, which ruled ghana from �992-2000, published a development policy white paper, ‘vision 2020,’ (ndpc �998). the paper advocates the use of projects as a development tool to optimise the rate of economic and social development. this was to be achieved through the efficient and effective management of the country’s projects, programmes and enterprises with the support of both the private and public sectors. the npp government, on its assumption of power in 200�, reiterated its commitment to the use of projects as a development tool to accelerate the country’s economic development. indeed, many projects have since been launched, established, and begun implementation under the ambit of the presidential special initiatives (psi). the government’s economic development policy framework paper, couched within the ghana poverty reduction strategy paper (gprs, ndpc 2003) also lays a heavy emphasis on the use of projects. it is clear therefore that projects have come to stay and will increasingly be employed as a vehicle of choice to drive ghana’s economic development goals. this article consequently aims to outline the problems associated with project management in ghana, and to subsequently examine the nature, type and severity of these problems. finally, recommendations for overcoming the problems are proposed. a brief industrial history of ghana successive ghanaian governments pursued various models of economic development throughout the �960s, 70s and 80s. in the immediate postindependent era of the early �960s, ghana’s economic development objectives were geared towards the ‘big push’ primary economic policies. these revolved around: a major investment effort; an industrialisation drive; increased import substitution; processing of commodities and minerals previously exported in their raw form; and direct state participation in leading areas of the economy. the �970s ushered in a policy of increased ‘ghanaianisation’ or indigenisation with specified industrial activities reserved for state participation, ghana-foreign ownership, and exclusive ghana ownership, among others. the early �980s saw the liberalisation of the ghanaian economy and the encouragement of foreign investments. all these approaches, however, fell far short of expectations and the failures were exacerbated by adverse terms of trade, falling commodity prices, and crippling debt by the mid �980s. the failure of the various economic models and the severe strains exerted by external forces, in tandem, had contributed in no small measure to ghana’s dire socio-economic condiventer 80 tion: a depressed economy; massive unemployment; high levels of inflation; capacity under-utilisation; dependence on primary commodity exports; and low productivity. the challenge for development therefore has not merely been a matter of finding technically optimal solutions. over the long-term, the challenge for ghana has been to use its limited resources more efficiently and effectively through the management of enterprises, programmes and projects in both the public and private sectors. the need for manageability of the development process led ghana, from the late �980s, to adopt various programmes and projects as the vehicles by which to deliver social and economic initiatives. evolution and use of project management the difference between traditional management and project management project management as a distinct organisational concept has its roots in world war ii when complex war-related operational problems needed to be solved. it arose as a response to particular perceived needs. traditional organisational structures and management techniques were insufficient to handle project-type work effectively. the traditional functional organisation tended to be mechanistic, product directed and functionally oriented, whereas in project organisations, intense focus is on objectives. the physical and human resources are co-ordinated so that ideally functional affiliations are subordinated to project objectives. the emphasis shifts to team activity and the integration of skills. in organisational situations involving many firms with long time spans, large uncertainties and very large sums of money, the problems of manmanagement, financial management, planning and control can lead to serious inefficiencies, delays in production and delivery schedules and waste of resources unless project management is used. therefore, the principal reason for the development of project management was the failure of the traditional forms of organisation structure and management techniques to handle project-type work effectively. what is project management? young (�996) defines a project as a collection of linked activities, carried out in an organised manner with a clearly defined start point and finish point, to achieve some specific results that satisfy the needs of an organisation as derived from the current business plans. kerzner (2003) defines projects as any series of activities and tasks that project management in ghana 81 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 have a specific objective to be completed within specifications; have defined start and end dates; have funding limits; consume human and nonhuman resources and are multi-functional. a project has also been defined as, an endeavour in which human, material and financial resources are organised in a novel way, to undertake a unique scope of work of given specification, within constraints of cost and time, so as to achieve unitary, beneficial change, through delivery of quantified and qualitative objectives. a project may therefore be viewed as, the entire process required to produce a new product, plant, system or other specified result at a particular point in time and within an established budget (archibald, �976). the art of project management has been described by young (�996) as, the dynamic process utilising the appropriate resources of the organisation in a controlled and structured manner, employed to achieve a change clearly defined with specific objectives identified as strategic needs. for kerzner (2003), project management involves project planning; definition or work requirements, quantity and quality of work and of resources needed; and project monitoring, including tracking progress, comparing actual outcome to predicted outcome, analysing impact and making adjustments. project management is the management of anything that has a beginning, a clear and final end and whose output is subject to time, budget and resource constraints. the end or result is as important as the start-up and comprises the first effective use of a road, factory, dam, power station, social system, technical system, business strategy, organisational design or other project result. the project management concept, in short, endeavours to provide at the minimum, the co-ordination of the work of the different groups involved and at the maximum, the integration of all groups involved into one effective organisation. the elements of a project project managers, or the organisation, can divide the project into phases, stages or steps to provide better management control. collectively, these phases are known as the project life cycle (plc). the plc defines the phases that connect the beginning of a project to its end. although every project goes through a life cycle, there exist different views on what constitutes the project life cycle. dinsmore (�990) characterises the activity distribution of a typical project life cycle as comprising a conceptual phase, a planning phase, an execution phase, and a termination phase. this characterisation mirrors that of chapman and ward (�997). archibald (�976) also classifies the project life cycle phases as progressventer 82 ing from concept to definition to design to development to application and, finally to post-completion. karger and murdock (�963), in one of the earliest definitions of the concept, identify the four phases of the project life cycle as being: conceptual or idea phase involving activities like, market analysis, demand-pull/technology push, and technical feasibility; formative, planning or structural phase involving analysis of forces of competition, opportunity costs, external factors (project environment like social, legal regulations, economics) resources and proposal preparation; operational, execution or functional phase involving planning, detailed work breakdown, schedules/priorities and operations; and termination or conclusion phase addressing issues on project conclusion, termination for convenience termination for default and project evaluation. the project management forum (pmforum) captures the three foregoing elements in one of its definitions of a project, a systematic process for achieving a distinctive objective. the ‘system’ consists of a period of planning followed by a period of ‘doing,’ and this system is repeated at every level of detail. these two ‘periods’ are the genesis of the project life cycle. project management is the process of managing the project process (kerzner, 2003). dinsmore (�990) also categorises a project in terms of the expertise needed and lists the divisions as:  scope – the boundary definitions of given tasks, responsibilities and missions  time – the start to finish project characteristic  money – the costs of materials, labour and financing  quality – the standards of measuring project performance  communications – intra-organisational, interpersonal, and within the community  human resources – administration and bureaucracy, manpower allocation and motivational management  contracts and supply – involving third parties  risk – including technological, market fluctuation and managerial risks categorising and organising projects lock (�988) notes that projects can be conveniently classified into four different categories: civil engineering, construction, petro-chemical and mining. these are the most usual kind of projects. a common theme running through them is that, the implementation stages of such projects are usuproject management in ghana 83 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 ally conducted on a site that is exposed to the elements. they also tend to be far removed from the contractor’s head office, leading to special kinds of risks and problems of organisation and communication. such projects often involve impressive capital investment and they require correspondingly intensive management of progress, finance and quality. manufacturing these projects aim at the production of a piece of equipment or machinery, ship, aircraft, land vehicle or some other item of specially designed hardware. the finished product may be purpose-built for a single customer, or the project could be generated and funded from within a company for the development of a new product range. manufacturing projects are usually conducted in a factory or home-based environment, where the company is able to exercise on-the-spot management and provide an optimum environment. these projects often involve some work away from the home base in installation, commissioning and training of the customer’s staff. management projects these are the projects that arise when companies relocate their headquarters, develop and introduce a new computer system, or prepare for a major trade exhibition. these projects prove the point that companies may require project management expertise at least once in their lifetime. management projects also arise when companies mount a stage show, or generally engage in any operation that involves the management and coordination of activities with an end result that is not measurable in terms of hardware or construction. research projects projects for pure research can consume vast sums of money, last for many years and end up with results that please, surprise or disappoint. these are projects which aim to extend the boundaries of current scientific knowledge and are capable of being managed by project management methods. an increasing number of organisations in all spheres of industry are now using project management as a distinct management concept in order to achieve a number of organisational objectives. development projects in addition to the projects discussed above, another genre of projects – development projects – can also be identified. these are projects which venter 84 have been used by developing countries as a way of effecting structural change within their economies. countries have used development projects as a tool to improve on their existing condition of under-development. the various categories that can be identified in this genre include institution building projects, policy advice projects, educational projects, health projects and infrastructural projects, among others. developing countries such as ghana have sought to use the resources available to them locally and from the international donor community more efficiently and equitably in order to improve their economic, political, social and environmental indicators through the management of their projects, programmes and enterprises. development projects emerged as a category of a well-tested genre in response to the need for a formal approach towards effecting structural change within the economies of developing countries. its raison d’être was to be its use as a vehicle to drive the economic development aspirations of poor countries and to help improve on their existing conditions of under-development. christensen (�995) notes that, well-designed development projects are essential for laying the foundation for long-term growth, through the development of human resources and various other economic infrastructures. objectives of projects the objectives of any project can be grouped under the following factors: quality – the end result of the project must be fit for the purpose for which it was intended. the project’s specifications must be satisfied. budget – the project must be completed without exceeding the authorised expenditure. this does not necessarily mean that the project must be profitable. many projects are undertaken without any profit motive for example those undertaken for and by local government authorities. time-scale – project progress must match planned progress so that final hand-over to the customer takes place no later than the specified date. this objective is particularly important if a project runs late, it is almost certain that the cost will overrun the budget. conversely, if the work is carefully progressed against a sensible plan much of the cost control battle will already have been won. perceived need – a project with a development agenda must meet the needs for which it was conceived. it must satisfy the aspirations of all stakeholders and must represent an improvement on the existing condition. it must aid the development effort on a sustainable basis. environment – increasingly it is being required of planners and implementers that the end product of projects, apart from meeting technical performance and design characteristics, must also meet environmental project management in ghana 85 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 parameters. thus, the project must be environmentally sustainable and its presence in the locality must not be seen to have disturbed the ecological balance. nature of the problem the track record of pm in developing countries, including ghana, has been very poor – and projects have failed to deliver – hence the anticipated returns to various communities and beneficiaries have not materialised. instead, these failures have exacerbated the very characteristics of under-development that projects were meant to ease. indeed, ellis (�985) comments that the track record of projects is fundamentally poor, particularly for the larger and more difficult ones. he notes that cost overruns are common and that many projects appear as failures, particularly in the public view. baum & tolbert (�985) also support this view, pointing out in their research that world bank projects have consistently overrun their cost projections. in addition, christensen (�995) also identifies deficiencies associated with this approach to economic growth. he asserts that in several cases, governments have attempted to execute too many projects, which in the end, have not been completed because of factors such as inadequate financing, non-existent counterpart funds, and insufficient local implementation capacities. he maintains that this inadequacy is mirrored in the increasing frequency of failed projects prevalent in most developing countries, including ghana. morris & hough (�993) concur, stating that, projects are often completed late or over budget, do not perform in the way expected, involve severe strain on participating institutions or are cancelled prior to their completion after the expenditure of considerable sums of money. they, however, suggest that, in development terms, the emphasis should not be on project management per se, but on the management of projects. the focus being not on the tools and techniques of bringing the project in on schedule, in budget, and to technical performance, but rather, the phenomenon of projects and how they can be managed successfully. boorman & kuroda (�995) also state that developing countries need to put in place, sound macroeconomic and structural policies in order to maximise the benefits from foreign assistance and from their own local resources. they emphasise that at the individual project level, projects need to be well designed so that they help lay the foundation for longterm growth. hence, previous research and survey data establish a clear trend of the problems of pm in developing countries. this article seeks to present a picture of what is relevant to ghana. venter 86 data and research method the sample population of the study was based on 53 project funding, sponsoring and implementing organisations in ghana. the sample size cut across the entire spectrum of development projects and encompassed over �00 case studies. an eight-section questionnaire was designed and sent to each respondent organisation. the projects examined in the study were promoted, funded, sponsored and managed in ghana by local and international agencies operating within both the public and private sectors in the ghanaian economy. the survey used a cross-sectional design approach in which data was collected from a research questionnaire conceived on the basis of a typical project life cycle (plc). this approach allowed the use of the plc as the logical framework for the examination of pm in ghana – and for the project itself to be the unit of analysis. findings and summary the results of the study were drawn from a thematic analysis and clustering of findings from the eight sections of the questionnaire. a combination of descriptive accounts as well as summary statistics in terms of frequencies and percentages was used to examine the findings. the comparative approach adopted allowed a comparison between the planned and actual performance targets of the respondent organisation’s projects, using five measures of project success as a benchmark. these measures included: project functionality – where the project is measured financially, technically or in the ways expected by project stakeholders. project management – the project is assessed in terms of its three basic principles – budget, schedule, specification. incremental change – this measure ascertains whether the project represents a process of structural or incremental change which engendered an improvement on existing conditions. reason for termination – in the event that a project had to be cancelled, was the cancellation made on a reasonable basis and was the project terminated efficiently? were expectations of key project participants’ satisfied? – in other words, were customers’ expectations met? (nicolas, �989; larson & gobelli, �989; deutsch, �99�; nemann, glockner, hite & taylor, �993; maylor, �999; tukel and rom, 200�). not only did the study establish that pm in ghana is also fraught with problems, but the thematic analyses and clustering approach adopted in the study also uncovered several different classifications of the problems project management in ghana 87 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 associated with pm in ghana. one approach classified the problems of pm in ghana according to seven different headings based on the elements existing within a typical project life cycle. this is presented in figures �-6. in figure �, lack of a clearly stated project policy and protracted negotiations over selection issues and project objectives are some of the problems associated with project conceptualisation, definition and selection. figure 2 shows that ineffective use of project management tools, as well as inadequate and ineffective methods of control, are some of the causes of problems in project planning, scheduling and control. figure 3 presents the problems engendered by wrong project organisation while figure 4 shows that unavailability of trained personnel and the ambiguous division of authority and responsibility do cause problems in the project environment. the problems of project monitoring, termination and evaluation are presented in figure 5. it shows some of the problems existing in this area include lack of an appropriate risk management function and an inadequate maintenance system. figure 6 shows that the problems of project management related to political, social and community factors include frequent policy changes by officials and their frequent attempts to appoint favourites and cronies to projects. figure 1: problems of project management in ghana project conceptualisation, definition and selection lack of a clearly stated project policy frequent design and modification changes insufficient consultation among players incomplete/inaccurate project description protracted negotiations over project selection, objectives, etc. figure 2: problems of project management in ghana planning, scheduling and control ineffective use of project management tools lack of an appropriate risk management function lack of adequate and effective methods of control untimely communication of pertinent information venter 88 figure 3: problems of project management in ghana organisation poor/wrong project organisation inaccurate/incomplete definition of positions undue reliance on procedural matters ad-hoc project organisation figure 4: problems of project management in ghana human factors non existence of a project team unavailability of trained personnel poor managerial expertise in technical environment ambiguous division of authority and responsibilities figure 5: problems of project management in ghana monitoring, termination and evaluation lack of an inspection and quality assurance function lack of an appropriate risk management function lack of an adequate maintenance system contradictions and inappropriate applications of codes and regulations figure 6: problems of project management in ghana political, social and community factors frequent policy changes by politicians frequent attempts by officials to appoint various officers, suppliers, etc to projects corrupt practices that lead to theft, wastage, etc interference by officials and interested parties at various stages of projects  another schema grouped the problems of project management in ghana according to the nature of the problem. under this classification, three main groups are identified:  general problems of project management in ghana; non-specific problems that are related to the projectisation of activities – simply put, they come with the territory project management in ghana 89 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96  specific problems; these are problems of a more pernicious nature, more projectspecific and being manifested in function of the particular project type and/or environment  unique problems of project management in ghana; project management practitioners in ghana also seem to be faced with a distinct class of problems spawned by a combination of local cultural, social, human and environmental conditions including both tangible and intangible variables. a discussion of some of these problems follows. timing of contract awards this mostly occurs when project implementation is contracted out to an external organisation. sometimes the length of time it takes to get higher level approval of a budget (for example) and the procedures for the award of contracts may result in wrong timing for the commencement of the project. for instance, when contract awards coincide with heavy rains, the commencement of road projects may be held up, resulting in extensions in project duration and increased project costs. variations in original scope of projects the scope of projects sometimes changes in the process of implementation. in such cases, additional activities, or projects which should normally be treated as stand-alone contracts, are then tagged onto the original project as a contract variation. sometimes, a particular aspect of an approved project may change, leading to a delay or even suspension of the whole project. delayed payments this is a finance function, which encompasses several problem areas. delayed payments can result from a lack of co-ordination of project implementation with the approved budget. it may also result from a lack of matching funds from government of ghana sources in cases where project implementation hinges on a release of funds from a particular government agency. it could also be due to inadequate portfolio management where the implementing agency is responsible for multiple projects. currency fluctuations this is another finance function, which has serious implications for several of the previously explored problem areas. in view of the large proporventer 90 tion of projects and programmes which originate from external donors, any changes in exchange rates and prices of goods and services in the course of project implementation may necessitate an upward revision of some project cost elements. this is especially significant in view of the percentage of project finance that originates from external funding sources. for instance, in the decade of the �990s, ghana received close to us$ 5bn in loans and grant aid from overseas donors (ofori, �999). these funds were consequently applied to over 350 projects and programmes. poor inter-agency co-ordination this happens especially where project implementation cuts across sectors and is common in infrastructure planning, for example, in road expansion and improvements. typically, the major implementing sector would be primed to go but because other sectors involved in the project may have different priorities, project execution may lag behind due to inadequate synchronisation of activities. for instance, the budgeted cost of a road project could be exceeded because the relocation or replacement of water, electricity and telephone lines lag behind due to the non-existence or non-availability of maps of utility lines required from other agencies. legal issues this is an area that is increasingly gaining prominence within the project milieu in ghana. problems occur when legal battles are fought between the contract-awarding agency and the project-implementing agency. differences arise out of a mis-interpretation of guidelines surrounding project design, management, maintenance, etc. for example, in 2004, the government of ghana was sued over contract provisions by a malaysian company which had been brought in as a strategic partner and minority shareholder in ghana telecom. this court case, which was only resolved in late 2004, held up several projects that made up a $�80m ghana telecom restructuring programme. a second example is the landmark case involving the ghana government and construction pioneers (cp), a large german construction firm with extensive infrastructure project interests in ghana. the dispute revolved around contract payments. cp contended that the government deliberately and maliciously withheld contract payments involving work already executed. they further held that any additional requirements had to be written into a revised project document. the government of ghana, for its part, claimed that the work it is insisting on existed in the contract all along. consequently, the project was stalled while the impasse dragged on and on. project management in ghana 91 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 conclusions and recommendations project management has evolved into an accepted scientific way of managing programmes, projects and entities in a way that is different from traditional management but which meets the objectives of its practitioners. it has become an important and relevant tool for driving ghana’s economic development aspirations. however, the attempt to use projects as a tool for realising development objectives has not been as successful as anticipated. the management of projects in ghana has been plagued by a myriad of problems, some of which have been discussed in the preceding sections. this section now proposes a set of project improvement factors identified by officials of non-governmental organisations, project beneficiaries, government ministries, donors and other support institutions within the public and private sectors as being crucial to the successful implementation of projects in ghana. some of the strategies for improving project performance suggested include: the preparation of meaningful implementation plans for all projects. this would allow for adequate budgetary allocations to permit the completion of projects within their estimated completion dates. for specific loan-tied programmes, there is the need to project and forecast an annual matching fund element per project per sector in order to facilitate loan disbursements. subsequent loan financing should also include the matching fund element. comprehensive project plans and designs must be prepared in order to cater for variations in the project during implementation. in order to avoid disputes and ensure the efficient handling of variations, all variations must be agreed upon and signed off by all project stakeholders. project implementation plans must always be adhered to. officials should avoid the importation and introduction of new and unplanned projects that unhinge the implementation schedule of the original project; a charge levelled against the government by the construction firm, cp during its legal tussle with the former. project implementation contracts must be based on the project life cycle. this will enable projects to be scheduled and implemented in natural phases, the start of which must not be affected by the weather. as an adjunct to this point, the project contracts themselves must be awarded through the ‘open tender’ system in order to encourage the participation of qualified agencies. the government must establish an overall project ‘guru’ at the office of the presidency – along the lines of the recently established (2004) office of accountability. this official would have overall responsibility for coordinating projects throughout the country. s/he would be tasked with venter 92 establishing and running inter-agency co-ordination units within government ministries and departments which have oversight responsibility for project implementation. civic authorities, like the environmental protection agency (epa), must be empowered to prosecute individuals and institutions whose activities hinder project implementation – especially with regard to infrastructural projects. project monitoring units within ministries, departments and agencies (mdas) should be strengthened through training and the provision of equipment. they should also be empowered to enforce corrective actions on implementation issues arising out of their monitoring activities. a system of interim reports using a prescribed format should be introduced as a pre-requisite for the payment of funds. this will aid the tracking of funds released to project implementing agencies. the only operational system currently in place relates to the road construction sector. concrete and definite evaluation procedures should be prepared for all projects to measure the attainment of all project objectives. donor governments and agencies should include good governance and project measurement as requirements in their project application procedures and, finally, projects and programmes selected and presented for funding should dovetail into the country’s development policy framework as set out within the ghana poverty reduction strategy and the ‘vision 2020’ paper. this article contends that the science and art of managing projects in ghana can be improved with the adoption, by project practitioners, of a two-pronged approach to project management: firstly, by engaging in the deliberate and practised avoidance of the problems of project management identified by the study; and secondly, by adopting a concentrated and formal training programme to prepare and equip stakeholders and project principals with the requisite skills to plan and manage projects more efficiently and effectively. the successful implementation of these two actions, in tandem, will enable the use of projects, as an essential tool for laying the foundation for sustainable long-term economic development in ghana. project management in ghana 93 td, 1 (1), december 2005, pp. 77-96 references archibald rd. �976. managing high-technology programs and projects. new york: john wiley & sons. akgun ae, lynn gs & byrne jc. 2004. taking the guesswork out of new product development: how successful high – tech companies get that way. journal of business strategy, 25(4). baccarani d, salm g & love ped. 2004. management of risks in 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policies and procedures. london: kogan page. zwikael o & bar-joseph ba. 2004. improving the capabilities of project team management using the gestalt cycle of experience. team performance management, 10(7). abstract introduction and background social media and music as popular culture methodological path and theoretical framework the problems of social media in the family as an institution conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) raphael nhongo department of english and comparative literature, faculty of social sciences and humanities, university of fort hare, east london, south africa baba p. tshotsho department of english and comparative literature, faculty of social sciences and humanities, university of fort hare, east london, south africa tendai f. muringa department of english and comparative literature, faculty of social sciences and humanities, university of fort hare, east london, south africa citation nhongo r, tshotsho bp, muringa tf. the ‘anti-sociality’ of social media as portrayed in selected zimdancehall songs. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a839. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.839 original research the ‘anti-sociality’ of social media as portrayed in selected zimdancehall songs raphael nhongo, baba p. tshotsho, tendai f. muringa received: 15 feb. 2020; accepted: 04 sept. 2020; published: 19 mar. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: although social media was designed with the aim of bringing good, it has however taken negative trajectory in societies of the world which has resulted in unpleasant outcomes such as conflicts, lack of ubuntu, family disintegration and even death of some people. all sectors of the society that include media, government departments, the law courts, the police, educational institutions, the home and arts industry have all pointed to the negatives of social media. musicians as social commentators and members of the society sensitive to social issues have also observed and raised their concerns about the effects of social media through songs. aim: the article analyses the effect of negativity of social media on the lives of the people of zimbabwe as revealed in selected songs. setting: selected songs and most particularly zimdancehall songs that are about the problems that are brought by social media in society will be analysed. methods: in the analysis, the article, therefore, adopts textual analysis as the method. whatsapp is the major form of social media that will be focused on although others such as facebook, instagram and twitter would also form part of the discussion. results: zimdancehall artists appear to have nothing to celebrate about social media as they are blame everything about it. conclusion: the article shall conclude that although social media was meant to bring people together, it has, however, set them apart and has created many problems in society and thereby becoming an antisocial platform. keywords: social media; zimdancehall songs; whatsapp; antisocial; ubuntu. introduction and background social media allow people to get closer than ever before, regardless of wherever they are in the world and the distance that they are apart from one another. social media although meant for communication and information sharing, it has proved to have adverse or undesirable effects ranging from immorality, lack of ubuntu, divorce to murder. despite the important role of sharing information fast and between many people at a given time, the use of social media has been extended to some roles that fall outside the ethical limits of society. koc and gulyagci1 argue that it is unfortunate that despite the benefits that social media has provided, it is evident that more people, especially teenagers, are becoming addicted to using it. these adverse effects of social media have been witnessed in the public sphere, in the media and in some works of art. according to sriwilai and charoensukmongkol,2 although social media has become a key integral part of people’s life in the digital age, it is important to understand the negative impacts that it causes as well. the abuse of social-media platforms and the insensitivity of some social-media users have attracted the interest of many including musicians. these musicians have expressed their dissatisfaction with the conduct of some social-media users by composing songs and playing songs that reflect their dissatisfaction. it is for this reason that we have chosen to look at music, particularly zimdancehall, to show how some musicians feel about the abuse and misuse of social-media platforms. zimdancehall music has been chosen because it is the most popular music in zimbabwe and is followed by many and treats current issues affecting the society. music as a genre has also been chosen in this article because it is the easiest and fastest way of communicating an artist’s feelings with the society. it reaches a large audience, both literate and illiterate, in a short span of time as entertainment whilst sending some messages. a work of art is a mirror of society which reflects what happens in society. it is noteworthy that music is part of popular culture and that musicians play the role of being social commentators. in the words of p’bitek,3 artists are part of the ‘most sensitive and imaginative minds that society has produced … they respond intuitively to what is happening, what has happened and what will happen’. according to ngara,4 a work of art is like a sand grain which resembles the characteristics of a soil lump out of which it has been taken from. as this music is from zimbabwe and about zimbabwe, it reflects the treatment of social media and the feelings about such treatment of social media. social-media platforms include whatsapp, facebook, instagram and twitter amongst others. this article focuses more on whatsapp, which is the most common form of social media platform, whose application is compatible with cellular phones and does not only require internet but can also use cellular-phone network. the social-media phenomenon has evolved over the past few years, and it has grown significantly, resulting in billions of subscribers.5 although whatsapp is a social-media platform, it has set people closer who are physically apart and those who are physically a distance apart have become socially closer. in public transport and even at home, people choose to communicate with those who are far away through their cellular phones on whatsapp and ignore those who are closer to them physically. such are the acts of immorality because it is a sign of being rude for one to be glued on his or her phone, ignoring those who are present and chatting with those who are far away. even at work places, some people ignore those who will be coming to them to access some services because they will be communicating on whatsapp. at home, some parents ignore their children whilst they are on social media. children now lack proper socialisation because of social media in which their parents will be engrossed in instead of paying attention to them. some couples end up quarrelling because the other spouse is busy on social media whilst ignoring the other. in cases where people are involved in an accident or where they need help, those who come across with such incidents choose to take photos and videos so that they can post on social media. despite the fact that whatsapp is a social-media platform, it has however become antisocial. whatsapp has become so much problematic in society that even musicians have found it necessary to sing about this social media platform. a number of zimdancehall artists have sung songs about whatsapp pointing to its negative effects in zimbabwe and beyond. musicians who include king shady, hwindi president, stunner, juntal and nox sang about whatsapp. the article analyses the negative effects of whatsapp as reflected in zimdancehall songs that include pawhatsapp by king shady, handikurowe (i won’t hit you) by freeman, let you go by stunner and nox-whatsapp by hwindi president, whatsapp by juntal and whatsapp by nox. these are the songs that are analysed and from there the arguments about how social media becomes antisocial are based. it is important to first delve on the understanding of social media, the society and how music as part of popular culture is important as a genre for social commentating. social media and music as popular culture social media is generally understood as ‘social platforms where people share information, ideas and personal interests and this also includes online tools and websites’.6 miller, costa and hayness7 refer to social media as a place within which people socialise implying that social media is more than just a means of communication. the sociality of social media has however been a point of concern. herring8 notes that social media is useful in providing a sense of identity, sense of belonging, uniqueness and shared values within a group but each positive value can also be a negative reason to reconsider one’s social-networking membership. sandoval9 argues that by including the term social to online media, it implies that other forms of media, such as television and newspapers are unsocial, yet, this is not the case. the television, radio and newspapers are even more social than what is referred to as social media because they hardly harm people’s lives as they transmit information that is authentic and verified. the sociality of social media can be further viewed to be problematic on the grounds that it creates an illusion of knowing what is transpiring in one’s life by seeing posts and social-networking pages and reading comments on one’s posts,10 yet some people may be leading a life that is contrary to their posts. genuine sociality of social media can also be questioned as comments can be sent by both friends and foes. more so, given the unpleasant outcomes of using social media, such as cybercrimes, fraud, conflicts, family disintegration and even human loss, social networks are increasingly being labelled as antisocial platforms.11 with the negatives of social media, blame can be assigned to an individual but sometimes the vehicle of blame-in this case the social networking sites-is all that can be identified.8 the way people associate with each other to form social relations and society is referred to as sociality.7 social life requires associations between individuals which potentially lead to interactions.12 all sociality involves some medium of communication. social media has potential to create sociality in private and public spaces and amongst small and large groups of people.7 sociality can involve face-to-face interaction with friends, family and peers whilst digitally-mediated sociality makes use of innovative technologies in enhancing communication and social relations.13 to be antisocial implies that one’s behaviour deviates from the social norm such that one fails to hang out or interact with other people as expected or prescribed by society. social media is labelled as an ‘antisocial’ tool when users fail to interact with people in their immediate environment whilst investing effort in chatting to ‘known and unknown’ friends elsewhere in the globe. the unsocial character of social media is also witnessed when users of social networking sites forget that they are posting information on a giant billboard in a heavily trafficked area. a few minutes after posting, their negative remarks would have circulated around the world before they could even post a second thought.8 media is like an ecosystem embedded with human relations and influencing human relations.14 on the one hand, social media is praised for enhancing text-based communication and creating business opportunities whilst on the other hand, it is blamed for destroying social relations that once existed in a traditional family unit and the wider society. when social media is seen to promote ‘antisocial behaviour’ and also used as a medium to destroy existing human relations, it is then labelled as an antisocial tool that dissolves social relations that it is supposed to cement. all behaviours should fall within the ethical limits of society and must be guided by culture. culture, according to p’bitek,3 is a philosophy of life as lived and celebrated by members of a particular society. on the other hand, rendell and whitehead15 are of the view that: ‘… culture is information or behaviour-shared within a community-which is acquired from conspecifics through some form of social learning’. culture is concerned with the worldview of a given society and is socially learnt. cultures are never static and not homogenous across different societies. social media brings people who share different cultures closer together resulting in culture bomb and culture shock. what is considered as ethical in one culture may be a culture bomb or a culture shock in another society. social media knows no cultural boundaries, but those people who get connected by the social media remain culturally sensitive, either consciously or unconsciously. musicians as artists are also sensitive about culture and the songs that they produce are conditioned by the culture of a society from which they come from. music is the most common and widely shared part of popular culture in a society. it plays an essential part in articulating societal issues and can be considered to be the voice of the voiceless.16 zimdancehall stems from a combination of two words zimbabwe and dancehall meaning that zimdancehall is dancehall music that grew from zimbabwe. the term ‘dancehall’ has grown to be associated with a digitally mastered music genre, termed ‘ragga’ or ‘dub’, which emerged in 1970s and 1980s in jamaica.17 dancehall is part of a continuum of jamaican music that developed long time ago as a tool of resistance against slave oppressors, but it has grown over the years to occupy a critical space in definitions of jamaican and black identity. although related to the more laid back, often spiritual genre of reggae, dancehall music is more inclined towards partying and urban lifestyle.18 the name dancehall arose from the popular high-density venues associated with exhibitions of the genre.18 dancehall is a venue or space where shows are held but it may also mean a place where those involved in dancehall culture go to dance and participate in events with performing disc jockeys and dancers.18 zimdancehall music started in backyard studios unlike the traditional forms of music that used established entities such as gramma records and tape promotions or zimbabwe music corporation.19 this genre of music is known for its hard-hitting lyrics, which often encompass social commentary on issues like poverty, unemployment and drug abuse.20 the visits of other jamaican artists like ub 40 in 1984, shaba ranks in 1993, sizzla kalonji in 2010 and capleton in 2010, amongst others, led to a large number of zimbabweans to compose their own version of the dancehall type of reggae music in the 1990s, for instance, artists, like potato, major e and booker t, gained popularity through their jamaican style of music.18 zimdancehall gained full recognition in 2013 when a show was organised with the title ‘the battle for the king and queen of zimdancehall’ and the guest speaker was the popular jamaican musician sheldon campeble ‘tubulance’. the first zimdancehall awards were held in early 2014 to honour artists, producers, promoters as well as entertainment journalists who supported the rise of the music genre.18 zimdnacehall musicians as social commentators have observed and raised their concerns about the unsocial effects of social media through songs. this article therefore analyses the antisocial nature of social media as revealed in selected zimdancehall songs in zimbabwe. this article therefore analyses the notion of ‘anti-sociality’ of the social-media platforms themselves and their users as depicted in selected songs by king shady, freeman, nox, juntal and stunner. methodological path and theoretical framework the article adopts a qualitative approach as music that addresses the adverse effects of social media, particularly whatsapp, which is being analysed. zimdancehall music that touches on the negative of social media was analysed. the songs were purposefully selected through a thorough search of zimdancehall songs that were produced between 2014 and 2016 that addresses the adverse effects of social media. zimdncehall songs were chosen because this kind of music is the most popular local music in zimbabwe and is mostly followed by the youth who are the most active users of social media. the singers were not having any priority in selecting the songs but it was the subject matter of social media and the genre of the music which is zimdancehall was a priority in the selection. a total of six songs that include pawhatsapp (on whatsapp) by king shady, handikurowe (i won’t hit you) by freeman, let you go by stunner and nox-whatsapp by hwindi president, whatsapp by juntal and whatsapp by nox were analysed. these songs were analysed with the aim of picking out the artists’ views about the negativity of social media in the zimbabwean society. the aim was to locate how some members have gone against the philosophy of ubuntu as a result of social media and the analysis of these songs was done through the lenses of ubuntu as a philosophy. the arguments raised in this article are informed by the philosophy of ubuntu which is part of afrocentricity. ubuntu is a word from nguni languages and refers to correct behaviour, but correct in the sense defined by a person’s relation and interaction with other people. mawere and mubaya21 note that ubuntu inspires, permeates and radiates high mental and moral attributes such that it promotes brotherliness, togetherness, sharing, caring for one another, kindness, courtesy and good relations. they further note that ‘ubuntu is a philosophy of humanness that emphasises love, camaraderie and hospitality’.21 (p.79) it refers to behaving well towards others and carrying out daily relations with others by maintaining the morality that is expected by the society. a person who behaves in the ways that are socially acceptable is considered to have ubuntu.22 to mawere and mubaya21: [t]the philosophy of ubuntu stresses the values of respect, collectivism, social cohesion, consideration for others and the respect for life and nature: it is a collectivistic approach to life as opposed to euro-centric approaches that are largely individualistic. (p. 79) the central point of human communications in all cultures is found in african philosophy called ubuntu. bell23 says that the concept of ubuntu is tied to identity and is intrinsic to this ‘community-oriented’ outlook. all cultures possess a form of ubuntu that crafts laws, beliefs and values amongst its people to maintain good human treatment. the key concept of ubuntu is good behaviour and interaction in the context of different social roles and responsibilities.24 however, ubuntu is not mechanical, automatic and inevitable.23 this entails that ubuntu is not automatically observed by certain individuals and certain societies as they chose to willfully ignore ubuntu. this makes it important to use the philosophy of ubuntu as some people either choose to abide by ubuntu or choose not to do so. as the philosophy of ubuntu is grounded in the african culture and celebrates african values, morals and norms, it fits well in analysing the anti-sociality of social media as reflected in selected zimdancehall songs. the problematics of social media in society as reflected in zimdancehall music social media has played many positive roles in easing communication and also bringing together people who have lost contact of each other. however, despite the good role that it plays, social media also brings many other problems in society and the negative side of social networks is made more conspicuous. in selected songs by king shady, freeman, nox, juntal and stunner, social media is blamed for promoting antisocial behaviour amongst users of social networks such as facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube and whatsapp. the artists emphasise on whatsapp as the most common form of social media in zimbabwe. the general views of artists are that social networks which were developed to maintain social connections at individual and group level are resulting in adultery, lack of respect and responsibility, jealousy, carelessness and obsessive behaviour. zimdancehall artists have been sensitive about these problems that are brought by social media. these artists address issues that mainly touch on lack of ubuntu by these social-media users. social media has also become a risky platform where secrets and pornographic material can be publicised to spite an individual after divorce or separation implying that in some cases it is an antisocial platform. amongst the negative effects of social media, these zimdancehall artists address issues of insensitivity and lack of conscience where social-media users want to capture sensitive encounters that they come across with so that they can post on social media. the other major issue that is addressed by these zimdancehall artists revolve around how social media negatively affects the marriage institution in a number of ways. insensitivity and inhumane behaviour amongst social-media users one of the major concerns that have been raised about social-media users is that of being insensitive and lacking conscience. addiction to social media has led to obsession with it. sriwilai and charoensukmongkol2 (p.427) note that ‘addiction to social media has now become a problem that societies are concerned with’. people have been so obsessed with sharing of graphic material that includes photos and videos of other people who may have encountered problems to the extent that they find capturing the videos and photos more important than helping those that they find in trouble. when an accident occurs, when people are quarrelling or when someone is in trouble, people choose to take videos and photos instead of rendering help which is a sign of lack of humanness, a concept that is emphasised by ubuntu philosophy. in noticing that such kind of behaviour resembles lack of ubuntu, zimdancehall artists got interested in the issue and sang about it. king shaddy in his song whatsapp ridicules those people who have lost the sense of ubuntu because of whatsapp. king shaddy in the song is singing about obsession with whatsapp where even when seeing an accident, one who is so attached to whatsapp takes photos instead of helping the person so that he or she can share those photos on whatsapp. in the song he says: ringava bhazi raita accident panekuti abatsire ocapture video. [if the bus that has been involved in an accident, instead of helping you capture a video] the concern by the singer is not new as we, on our day-to-day lives, always witness incidents of accidents on whatsapp. one then wonders where the person who will be shooting such photos and videos will be. it also boggles one’s mind of how the people who will be taking such videos at accident scenes will be feeling about those who will be involved in the accident. instead of helping the accident victims, those social-media users who lack ubuntu will get there and start capturing photos and videos. at times, some victims might be having a chance to survive but end up passing away because those who arrive there first do not help them but just get interested in capturing the incident so that they can share on whatsapp. what makes the matter worse is that sometimes, the relatives and friends of those who get involved in accidents and die get to learn about the fate through social media which could harm them emotionally than when they are told by someone who is trained to relay such frightening messages. a living case is that of a zimbabwean and a south african security guards who were shot by armed robbers in their service car where the relatives of the zimbabwean security guard got to know about his death through seeing the video on social media. some dangerous situations that those who get into can be avoided but end up being fatal because those who will be close do not render any help but simply record the incident on their phones. all of us at one time in our lives must have witnessed a person being attacked by a dangerous animal, drowning, falling from a tall object or being attacked by fire amongst other heinous experiences. whilst such incidents are still being captured on camera, we see no one rendering any help and then at the end we wonder if the person who was capturing that incident could not help the person in trouble. such people who capture such incidents instead of helping the victim are undoubtedly lacking ubuntu. a south african photojournalist, kevin carter, died by committing suicide after capturing a photo of a sudanese young girl in 1993 (who later in 2011 the father of the child revealed was actually a boy), who was crawling to a feeding centre after she had fallen down because of hunger. the photo came out in the new york time on march 26 and thereafter, in 1994, kevin carter won the pulitzer prize for feature photography because of the photo of the vulture and the little girl. the reaction by the readers of new york times pointed that carter was inhumane. they wanted to know what happened to the girl after the shooting of the photograph and one of the readers’ comments was saying that there were two vultures, one behind the girl, the real one, and another carrying a camera. this reaction led kevin carter to commit suicide on the 27th july 1994 by putting a hose into his car’s exhaust pipe and the other end of the hose into the car and running the engine until he died of carbon monoxide.25,26 although kevin carter took his life because he felt that he had acted inhumane by posting a photograph of a child who was about to be devoured by a vulture, he again went against the philosophy of ubuntu because ubuntu does not condone suicide but one should apologise as a way of regaining human dignity. as mentioned above that some social-media users lack ubuntu by shooting photos in situations where another human being is in trouble instead of rendering help, king shaddy bemoans such people again in his song whatsapp. he says: bonzo achinyura mumvura umwe akamira ocapture video [bonzo drowning in water and someone is staring capturing a video] king shaddy is castigating the way some social-media users have become so obsessed with it so much that even when someone is drowning in water they do not even find it important to save a life but what is more important to them is to shoot a video so that they can become social-media heroes by sharing such material. one wonders whether when one is sharing material on social media of someone being in trouble is considering it as entertainment or is sympathising or is trying to prove that he or she has made history by capturing a reality movie or drama. people have lost ubuntu by capturing sad and painful experiences of other people as if they are recording some rarely ever witnessed traits about wild animals for national-geographic screening on television. obsession with social media has led to loss of ubuntu. people who are obsessed with social media have proved to be insensitive from the way they would conduct themselves whilst carrying out some duties, relating with others or even doing any other things because they always remain glued to their gadgets. king shaddy’s sensitivity about the loss of ubuntu as a result of social media is reflected through lyrics in his song whatsapp as follows: ndobasa avo and havambomboneta kana mumigwagwa vatyairi votohuta vamwe varikurara nefoni mumagumbeze hanzi pandinomukira vanondiona mabusiness makuhwa kana varikutsvaga varume kana varikutsvaga mabhebhi apinda muchimbuzi akabata matissue asi ari imomo kunyangwe vachinamata muchurch ziso rakavhara rimwe rakavhura unenge uchatsva musoro mudryer akarivara mazvake mazvake mubhazi musoro ndaona vese vakatsikitsira pasi mungava mumunda varikuviga vanhu kumarinda kunyangwe pastor achipreacher vamwe mai vozvitora picture kunyangwe teacher achiticha anotorwa picture. [that’s their work and they will never tire on the roads drivers are ever hooting some get into their blankets with their phones saying i want to disturb others at night businesses, gossiping and some are searching for dating partners using cell phones they get into the toilet holding a tissue on one hand and the phone on the other even when praying in church one eye is closed whilst the other is opened will be burnt on the scalp by the drier in a saloon because is relaxed on the phone in the bus each man by himself everyone is looking down on the phone in the fields and even when burying someone at the cemetery even when the pastor is preaching one woman is shooting a selfie even when the teacher is teaching a photo of him is shot.] in this song king shaddy, with the real name shadreck kwarire is reflecting to his audience that this obsession with whatsapp has dehumanised the people to the extent that their behaviour has become strange as a result of the loss of ubuntu. nox in the song ‘whatsapp’ equally expresses concern on how obsession with whatsapp is affecting individuals in society singing: kana kugeza haageze angoripo pawhatsapp anorara nayo tsvina angoripo pawhatsapp haachina mafingerprints nekuchata pawhatsapp. [is always on whatsapp and no longer bathing sleeps with a dirty body but always on whatsapp no longer have papillary ridges on fingers because of all the typing on whatsapp.] these zimdancehall artists have observed that this obsession with whatsapp has become toxic in the people’s minds making them behave in an unusual and undesirable manner. ubuntu has disappeared because of whatsapp. people now fail even to engage in a conversation beyond greetings because they will be concentrating on whatsapp. nox is making it even more comic by mocking those who are obsessed with whatsapp by saying that some have even lost their finger prints because their fingers never rest typing on their cellular phones. he says some have even stopped performing or have become inefficient in performing their duties because of whatsapp. we have witnessed several times in the media when some people are reprimanded at their work places for concentrating on whatsapp and neglecting their duties. some employers have gone to the extent of banning their employees for using their phones at work because some workers become inefficient as they will be concentrating on their cellular phones. some of these behaviours that result from over concentration on social media are detrimental to the rendering of crucial services such as in the home affairs, health and other departments. sriwilai and charoensukmongkol2 note that: because of the negative impacts that social media addiction might cause the well-being and job outcomes of employers, it is important for companies to consider policies to help prevent and overcome this problem in the workplace. (p. 433) some of the people who are employed to offer these important services but are obsessed with social media ignore the clients whilst concentrating on their gadgets and such is a sign of lack of ubuntu. at times social-media users post some graphic material without considering how the recipients of such material would react. those who post sensitive graphic material are in most cases not even aware that they must first put a warning that they are about to post sensitive material. on television when sensitive graphic material is about to be screened, the viewers are warned that ‘those of nervous dispossession’ should not watch but those who post on social media do not put such warning thereby harming the emotions of other social-media users. some people post images and videos of people who are dead, who are murdered, who are burnt excessively or those who are injured amongst other sensitive graphic images, before they put a warning for other users and such acts demonstrate lack of sensitivity and being inhuman. these social-media users at times do not consider that such images and videos may be those of relatives or close friends of those who are being posted. the problems of social media in the family as an institution the family is the social institute that has been heavily affected by social media negatively, particularly the marriage institution. marriages have broken down, there have been quarrels between spouses and cases of infidelity have been witnessed, some resulting in violence and some resulting in divorce because of social media. the singers whose songs are being analysed here have all sung about the issue of problems in marriages that are as a result of social media which explains that the marriage institution is the one that is most negatively affected by social media. on the problems of social media on marriage and family cohesion, king shaddy sang the song whatsapp, juntal also sang the song entitled muroyi whatsapp (whatsapp the witch), whilst freeman sang the song handikurove (i will not beat you), hwindi president sang pa whatsapp (on whatsapp) and nox sang the song with the title whatsapp. whatsapp has brought problems of infidelity, lack of trust and jealousy in marriage unions. it has set couples and other members of a family unit who stay under the same roof apart instead of bringing them closer together. this is revealed by freeman in the song handikurove where whatsapp is depicted as the medium used to communicate in extra-marital affairs leading to marriage dissolution. he sings: pangamunaye muritwo mangamuchiiteyi? ndaigara ndichingozvibvunza inyaya dzeyi dzinokugarisa pawhatsapp everyday … [when you were the two of you what were you doing? i used to ask myself what exactly is keeping you busy on whatsapp everyday] in the song handikurove the central concern is suspicion of infidelity by the husband on his wife as a result of the consistent and prolonged chatting on whatsapp. whatsapp is blamed as a negative implement which has perpetrated divorce to the extent that the artist says, ‘rudo rwasvika pakupera, dai ndisina kukuroora’ (our love has come to an end and i regret why i married you). the song confirms that some marriages have broken down because of whatsapp where the other spouse will be always chatting on the phone raising suspicion and jealousy on the other. tokunaga27 argues that overusing social media can jeopardise the quality of interpersonal communication that people develop with others. whatsapp is also seen as an enemy in the family that sets people apart. the parasitic nature of whatsapp in the family devours the emotional attachment that exists in the family union and creates an emotion of hate that sets people apart. whatsapp is also perceived as a witch that comes into the family spreading a bad spell that results in a repulsive relationship between family members. juntal in his song muroyi whatsapp (whatsapp the witch) says: mumba hamuchina rudo rwekutamba chikudo rwuya rwataita kare whatsapp ndiwe muroyi ndiwe wapunza musha wangu iwe whatsapp maive nerudo mumba manga tichidya pamwe chete semhuri ine rudo zvachinja mhamha tichadya time time mira tiri online saka ndichakuponda ponda ndichikubuditsa mumba mangu iwe whatsapp mukadzi wangu akutambidza chikafu akafuratira ari pawhatsapp vana vangu havachanditariri kana mumba havachateereri vana whatsapp ini vacho hazvichambondifadza ndoita kunga ndisina mhuri ndina whatsapp. [there is no longer any love in the family that we used to enjoy whatsapp you are the witch you have destroyed my family they used to be love in the family we would eat together but now it has changed mother we will eat later we are online i will deal with you whatsapp and throw you out of my house my wife is handing a plate of food to me looking aside whilst on whatsapp my children no longer listen to me because of you whatsapp it is am no longer having a family but whatsapp] the concern by juntal in his song is that there is no longer any love in the family because of whatsapp which has bewitched the family. the wife no longer cares about the husband and the children no longer notice the presence of their father because they are now always engrossed on whatsapp. the father now feels neglected by both his children and wife because they no longer have time for him as they are now always occupied by whatsapp. wang and wellman28 argue that these relationships that are created online through social media now compete with offline relationships where family members of the same household will be together physically but relating more with those who are geographically far away from them. social media-enabled-online relationships can displace and damage offline interaction and relationships.29 in a normal family and under normal circumstances, family members who live in the same household are expected to engage in a conversation and share experiences of their lives but whatsapp makes them engage in conversation with those who are elsewhere and forget about those who are closer to them. this kind of behaviour is a creation of a new family order in the 21st century where members of the same family unit living under the same roof find comfort in interacting with their gadgets than other human beings present. king shaddy in the song whatsapp puts it in the following words: vamwe vatukana varambana mudzimba umo hapana zvamaona whatsapp yatora mari panezvinhu zvese yavekumberi kunyangwe mwana achichem mai varikuignowa varipiko baba vapira gotsi mugumbezi mai vakanda ziso kunodongorera baba isu tanzwa nekutenga nyama itsva zvichinzi mhofu guru ramatenga ratsva [some are fighting, they have divorced in the houses there you are yet to see whatsapp is now the highest consumer of money even when the baby is crying the mother is ignoring the husband has covered his head with a blanket in bed and the wife is peeping we are tired of buying meat that gets burnt during the cooking] whatsapp is making relations sour in marriages because most of the wrong doings that happen in these unions are as a result of whatsapp. king shaddy is saying that some go to the extent of divorcing because of whatsapp. he is concerned about the expenditure that takes place because of whatsapp where money is used to buy data and some other losses like food getting burnt. he is also worried about the neglect that young children suffer from as they are no longer getting the attention of their mothers because of this social-media platform. children need to be socialised by their parents and taken care of but they are no longer getting enough attention because their parents will be busy concentrating on social media. in that way, the parents will be demonstrating antisocial behaviours to their children so much that they will be moulding them to become members of the society who would lack ubuntu because they would not have had enough of coaching or nurturing from their parents. nox, on the other hand, in his song whatsapp reveals how social media fuels jealousy in a marriage and expresses it as follows: foni yako yarira ndinoda kuziva ini akufonerandiyaniko? akusendera message ndiyaniko aita unyemwerere? maawa four shuwa here uchichata pawhatsapp nepafacebook hanzi babe chimbomira ndipindure chat, kusvika usiku ndakangomirira. [your phone rang i want to know who is calling you who sent you a message that has made you to smile? you have spent four hours chatting on whatsapp and facebook whilst you ask me to wait until you reply chats until its evening whilst i am waiting] whatsapp is depicted as causing social problems such as jealousy that leads to suspicion that a spouse is involved in an extra-marital affair. the husband is questioning why the wife is spending many hours on whatsapp and facebook and why she is smiling when she is receiving a message on her cellular phone. this implies that when digitally mediated sociality takes precedence over face-to-face interaction, it becomes problematic in a marriage union. billedo, kerkhof and finkenauer,30 and johnson, bostwick and bassick31 observe that those who are in long-distance romantic relationships become jealous when they connect through social media. this then entails that those who have extra-marital affairs will always be on social media because they are jealous and those that they are involved with are also jealous. the relationship becomes complicated because the spouse who is close at home under the same roof will also become jealous because the spouse is always concentrating on social media and in that scenario, life becomes complicated for the three and even the children if they are there because all of them need one another’s attention. a spouse who waits for his or her other half to attend to him when he or she is busy on social media gets annoyed by the behaviour of the other. social media, particularly whatsapp which is easily accessible, has become an agent for lack of ubuntu in marriages and this has led to lack of trust, jealousy, quarrels and at worst divorces. butler and matook29 observe that the individuals in households are present physically but ignoring one another because they are focused on their mobile devices. neglect of a spouse because of concentration on the cellular phone shows that social media can destroy social relations in a home when users of this platform display antisocial behaviour to their loved ones. in marriages, it is not only women who annoy their spouses by being always on whatsapp but also men do the same as reflected by hwindi president in the song pa whatsapp (on whatsapp): vatete murume wangu haabve paapp dai ari makwikwi aitotora cup akada anotokupindura rough haatirimuke kunyangwe kumupa chikafu ukuda kumubvunza baby unotaura nani mhinduro yake iwe ndiwe ani kukumbira vamwe rudo sendisipo ndikada kumubvunza ndodhakwa nemakopo kungodai chete hanzi ita zvaunoda [aunt my husband is always on whatsapp if it was a competition he would win the cup sometimes he replies me negatively even if i serve him food he ignores me when you ask him whom he is chatting with he asks me who i am he is asking for love from other people as if i am not there in his life if i ask him he assaults me when i ask him he tells me to do what i want] whatsapp results in marriage relationships reaching other levels that are unbelievable to be happening in normal society. in the song, the husband is no longer treating his wife in a societally expected manner and is no longer regarding her as a human being or someone with feelings who also deserves respect. the husband has become inhuman and even violent towards his wife because of the obsession with whatsapp. what boggles the mind is that this man could be chatting with someone else’s wife who is also demonstrating the same behaviour towards her husband wherever she is. this is clear testimony that social media has created serious problems in society where people are now living in an idealised world of fantasy. stafford32 and johnson et al.31 are of the view that relationships that are maintained through social media are more idealised. whatsapp has made people to see a rosy life outside their vicinity, yet on the other end they have the same belief that those that they are chatting with are living a better life because people only reveal the positive side of their lives on social media when they are chatting with those they admire. this has turned the people to become inhuman because of idealising life by believing what they see on social media which is not even close to reality. the idea of being human has been lost because people no longer realise what is realistic because of living a life of imagination that is portrayed on social media. social media has resulted in an antisocial behaviour where people become closer to those who are geographically far away from them and emotionally further apart from those who are physically closer to them. social media is also antisocial in that sense when a vendetta arises between people and they use social media to tarnish one another’s image. stunner and nox in the song i’m letting you go portray social media performing antisocial roles. whilst on one hand, social media was and is still used to cement and publicise a loving relationship between couples, the same social media has however become a risky and antisocial platform. it becomes anti-social especially when the love between couples is facing collapse. on that note stunner and nox reveal that one may decide to publicise bad issues about the other on social media where they say: i am letting you go asi dai wadeleter mamessage nemapic andaikusendera, netumwe tumasin twandaikutumira murudo … [i am letting you go but you should delete all the messages and the pictures that i used to send you and the other stuff that i used to send you whilst we were still in love] when people are still together and are happy, they share a lot on social media even nude images of themselves. sometimes, because of bitterness when the relationship ends, the other part may want to cause pain on the other by sending such nude images or sending pictures of the other and attaching negative messages on the image like saying one is a thief, a murderer and so on. such acts are inhuman as they degrade the image and the social standing of the other. culturally, one’s nude image should not be displayed in public as ubuntu values privacy of the human’s genitals but those who get infuriated in relationships decide to publicise their ex-partner’s disgusting images on social media. in the song, the artists further implore the ex-partner to remove all material on facebook and not to upload any of their private material on youtube by singing: handichadi kubatika ndichibuditswa pafacebook … youtube ndogona kuita kana mamillon likes butcareer rinodonha kunge council yakanda maspikes [i don’t want to be accessible on facebook … i might have a million likes on you tube but my career will be destroyed just like the council police who would have thrown the spikes on a car] the song, i’m letting you go, reveals the potential of social media to be used as a means to destroy and tarnish one’s image through sending sensitive and private information to the public. the artists are wary of one’s career which can be destroyed through social media where their lyrics say ‘wakuda kuforwader mapics angu ndiparare’ [you now want to forward my pictures so that you destroy me]. the sociality of social media is then questioned when it can be potentially used to mar the once publicised special memories and fame. on the contrary, the fame of ‘a million likes’ will be obtained for the wrong reasons proving that the sociality of social media is relative depending on whether publicity is negative or positive. therefore, social media can be used as a means to divide people and set them apart in as much as it connects and bring them closer together. conclusion social media has been shown to be carrying a lot of antisocial realities as revealed through zimdancehall songs by selected singers. the singers as artists are the sensitive eyes of the society who can detect what is happening around them and then publicise through music. social media, although its intended use was to bring people closer together, it has proved that it also does the contrary which also turns to be accompanied by devastating effects like lack of sensitivity, lack of ubuntu, divorce, jealousy, fighting, neglect of others, wastage of resources, tarnishing of one’s image, rumour mongering, failure to perform as expected at work and at its waste even murder amongst many other problems. the initiative to have social media was a very good one that was meant to ease communication in bringing people closer together and easing ways of doing business but the initial intended purpose has been overtaken by the anti-sociality that it has brought. social media, particularly whatsapp, has dehumanised the people and the philosophy of ubuntu has been lost through it. those who are closer together physically are set further apart emotionally by social media and those who are further apart physically are emotionally brought closer together by social media. social media also has a problem of making it easier for people to engage in antisocial behaviours that demonstrate lack of ubuntu such as engaging in extra-marital affairs and making family members suffer from emotion by being neglected by those whom they want attention from. the anti-sociality of social media also manifests where people become so obsessed with social media that they value social media more than humanity and human life. this happens where some social-media users would want to shoot photos and videos in situations where they should be instead rendering help to those who would be in trouble in situations like accidents, quarrels or when one is being attacked by a dangerous animal. social media has resulted in moral decadence and lack of ubuntu. since social media is mostly blamed for promoting antisocial behaviour in the society and even online, artists now regard it as an ‘antisocial tool’ although there are other factors that can also contribute to destroying social relations in a society. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have 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relationships. in: berger cr, roloff me, editors. international encyclopaedia of interpersonal communication. hoboken, nj: wiley, 2016; p. 1–8. microsoft word 03 bahta.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(4) december 2014, special edition: san dispute resolution, pp. 36-51. cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san communities at platfontein g.t. bahta1 abstract this article examines the cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san communities at platfontein in the northern cape province of south africa. a critical review of written texts, interviews, observations and focus group discussions with the community knowledge-holders shows that the community’s new westernised lifestyle in the midst of the capitalist society at platfontein turns the collective spirit, human relations, mutual reverence, sincerity and self-confidence that existed before their contact with westernised societies into unusual selfishness, individualism, impiety, dishonesty, greed and disregard for others. the conflict between the communal hunter-gatherer culture and the alien individualist mode of existence has created serious dilemmas and moral conflicts in the community. the westernised mode of existence has alienated the community from their human nature, their natural environment, their productive chores and their communal life. the community has an undefined, unclear and controversial understanding of their own racial identity. the san refer to the black and white races that have historical relationships with them as others, which in turn has an othering effect on the san themselves. the causes of moral and psychological conflicts, identity crises, dilemmas and disillusionment are power relations related to ethnic and racial politics, colonial discourse and identity politics. the researcher recommends that to achieve harmonious relationships with other communities and among themselves, the san need to redefine themselves and other societies that have historical ties with them. keywords: identity politics, disillusionment, dilemma, alienation, othering, san, platfontein, interpellation 1. introduction informal and constructive means of conflict resolution are not exclusively attributed to the socalled “civilised” western societies. the conflict resolution mechanisms of hunter-gatherer societies have recently attracted the attention of anthropologists and other scholars who pursue constructive ways of creating conflict resolution mechanisms. according to ury (1990:229), “the most studied group of contemporary hunter-gatherers are the bushmen of the kalahari desert.” they are mostly known as “san” in anthropological discourse. their traditional means of conflict prevention and conflict resolution have been widely studied and appreciated by many scholars (lee 1968, 1979a, 1979b; biesele 1978; dyer 1985; ury, brett & goldberg 1985; ury 1990, 1995). in the words of ury (1990:388), people “who live in far more technologically advanced societies have much to learn from this so-called simple but in many ways more socially advanced society.” scholars argue that the san community’s primary focus is on conflict prevention rather than on conflict resolution. the conflict management system, most of the time, addresses the healing of emotional wounds, the reconciliation of 1 post-doctoral fellow at the institute for dispute resolution in africa, university of south africa. cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 37 conflicting interests, the recompense of infringed rights and the retention of the balance of power hierarchy that existed before the conflict. the foraging san communities of the kalahari desert were forced to occupy the arid land because of continuous pressures from dominant bantu-speaking communities of southern africa and the occupation of the coastal areas on the southern tip of the continent by white settlers and colonisers. until the second half of the 20th century, the !xun and khwe lived a hunter-gatherer mode of life in angola. their strained relations with other black communities may be due to complex power relations across millennia. the discord between the san and other black communities seems to be more extreme than the enmity the san community felt for colonisers and the settlers. when some black communities were fighting the portuguese colonisers in 1975, some of the san fought on the side of the colonisers. after the portuguese abandoned the san community to their fate when angola became independent in 1975, they were made to fight in support of the south african defence force. for economic reasons, they were forced to engage in an armed conflict that had international implications related to the cold war. this article is not directly concerned with the san community in the kalahari desert; it is related to the san community at platfontein in south africa, who originally came from namibia and angola accompanying the south african defence force in 1991. due to continuous contact with alien cultures, their engagement in meaningless wars and periodic migrations and relocations, the community’s knowledge of its traditional conflict resolution mechanism has been severely weakened. at present, they are not engaged in any violent conflict among themselves or with other communities. there are, however, non-violent cultural, moral and psychological conflicts within and between communities that are assessed in this study. 2. methods and theoretical framework this study is limited to the analysis of the cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san community at platfontein. data related to these themes was collected from the subjects of this study, community leaders and field researchers of the community, mainly through participant observation, oral discussions and interviews as well as from manuscripts and printed collections of personal memoirs, pamphlets, periodicals, electronic media, articles and books. the collected data was analysed based on the theoretical frameworks suggested by some tools in the fields of language and the humanities: the stylistic technique, the marxist approach, the deconstructivist approach and pan-african theories. the stylistic approach helped the researcher to analyse the implications of the type of language used by the respondents, their political stance and whether it inflamed, minimised or eliminated conflicts. some concepts of the marxist approach relating to ideology, interpellation and alienation were found to be ideal ways of scrutinising the effect of power relationships in dominant societies on their victims; the relationship with the colonial masters; and the san community at historically attested times. the deconstructive approach helped to assess thematic concerns peculiar to misunderstood, disoriented, impoverished, dispossessed and victimised groups of people. through this approach, the implications of issues that are taken for granted as universal truths were scrutinised. it was also possible to demonstrate the invalidity of established norms and relationships that seem to be “naturally” correct: the implications of self-contradiction within the san community at individual and group levels, the significance of ahistorical themes and the meanings of the silences and gaps in discourses. pan-african bahta 38 theory helped to discover the impact of white supremacy on the ideological makeup of the san community at platfontein. 3. cultural conflict the analysis of moral issues revealed in the respondents’ assertions and some documents demonstrates the presence of contrasting moral values among the san before and after their migration to south africa. this is evident in the responses of jansu jim (sibongo 2014d), tomson moronga (sibongo 2014j), moshani sibongo (sibongo 2014i) and john mushamba (sibongo 2014e) to the interview questions posed by a field researcher named hanzie sibongo. similar concerns are also mentioned by karina shiwarra’s respondents sorofina tsiohimba (shiwarra 2014c) and elisa kiyanga (shiwarra 2014a). all the answers to the interviewers’ questions and documents directly or indirectly show that the new way of life in a capitalist society destroys the communal spirit, humane relations, reciprocal reverence, sincerity and self-confidence that existed before their contact with western society. elderly respondents feel that their contact with western society has corrupted their way of life at platfontein with torrents of selfishness, individualism, wickedness, insincerity, covetousness and disrespect. the moral degeneration that existed during their stay at schmidtsdrift continued after their arrival at platfontein. the moral values of the san people before their contact with colonial powers in angola and namibia were characterised by the clan’s ownership of the means of production: mainly the hunting and gathering grounds, the natural division of labour, communal ownership or the fair allocation of the products of nature. the most important moral value of the san people was a communal spirit. according to the work of anthropologists lee 1968, 1979b; biesele 1978; dyer 1985; ury, brett & goldberg 1985; ury 1990, and the respondents’ views, the san community used to work together; plead to the san god and the ancestral spirits together for daily necessities and health; get together in community meetings to settle disputes; dance in the same rhythm; commemorate initiation rituals; design accoutrements for their rituals; paint their bodies with the same potion from the same natural bowl; and drink the same potion in the same quantity. since they were not cognisant of the western mode of life, which values a person based the extent of accumulated wealth, they did not have the greed and egoism that can lead to serious disputes. all clan and family members were aware of their social and familial duty. humane relationships, respect, reliability and modesty existed among the clan and family members. when the san people lived in angola and namibia, the respondents argue, the youth used to respect the elderly. the elders in turn used to keep their word and lead their clans with wisdom, modesty and politeness. in contrast, today elders are not respected by the youth in platfontein, as stated by respondents such as dala filismano (sibongo 2014b), kantsja mbambi (sibongo 2014g), jansu jim (sibongo 2014d) and dennis moyo (sibongo 2014c) in answer to the interview questions posed by hanzie sibongo. there are incidents when the youth beat their own parents when the elders refused to give money to their children on pension paydays, as witnessed by karina shiwarra’s (2014) respondent elisa kiyanga (shiwarra 2014a) and in the focus group discussion lead by hanzie sibongo on 7 april 2014 (sibongo 2014a). elders are neither respected nor listened to nor obeyed by the young generation. elders are not comfortable with the moral degeneration of the youth. they remember the “good old days” with excessive nostalgia and reverence (kamama mukuai (sibongo 2014f); matumbo dikua (sibongo 2014h)). this cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 39 seems to be caused by the clash between the communal culture of the san people and the modern capitalist mode of production that bases itself on individualism and egoism. after the san people were exposed to the white colonisers’ infrastructure such as courts, police stations, a conventional army and churches in namibia and angola and later on in south africa, their moral values such as respect for old people, a sense of collectivism, respect for human beings, commitment to living in conformity with nature and determination to fight the alien forces, have gradually melted away. the unbridled desire for money and material possessions makes the young people unsympathetic and negligent towards familial relationships. on the contrary, they have been infected with greed, egoism, insincerity, wickedness, thievery, robbery and violence. the virtues of the past are imprinted in the memories of the old people rather than on the examples of practical experience of the community today. in the “good old days” there was no reason to be greedy to obtain the daily necessities of life, which were acquired from the natural environment. every member of the society was free to hunt animals and gather plants for food. men used to work together to defeat the forces of nature that could challenge the wellbeing of the community. money was not a crucial part of earning social honour. meneputo manunga, an elderly healer, remembers that “in the early days, the san people’s hands were always busy. it was not like today, when the people have nothing to do … they [the children] did not learn to ask nature for food” (winburg n.d:14). in the new platfontein community, meneputo manunga admits: “if you have money, life is easier than it was before. if you do not have money or you do not have a veld in which to find food, you have nothing. you are a person without breath while you are alive” (winburg n.d.:14). thus, people have started to crave money more than anything else. all the members of the community are doing their best to acquire this tantalising demigod. some are attempting to engage in commerce. others toil in factories and plantations, while still others struggle to be elected as elders so that they can earn money. moreover, members of the community are involved in theft, treachery, favouritism and other fraudulent practices for money. the culture of the hunter-gatherer is corrupted as people gradually try to adopt the lifestyle of the colonisers and settlers. the youth acculturate into the western culture by taking drugs and excessive drinking. this is revealed in the responses of kadike mbangu (dixon 2014b), latsia sihangi (dixon 2014c) and mariana kameri (dixon 2014d) to the interview questions posed by kasivi dixon. many respondents said that there are no taboos at platfontein. things which were forbidden in angola and namibia are now practised by the youth at platfontein. the loss of traditional moral values causes dishonesty, greed, pessimism, alienation, deterioration and lack of selfconfidence. members of the community, mainly elders, are well aware of the consequences of the rapid acculturation. they are mesmerised by the harsh realities of the existing situation and their nostalgia for the “glorious past”. due to the loss of traditional culture, the moral fabric of the community has been severely damaged. the clash of cultures creates a deterioration of the moral values that maintain peace and security among the members of the community. as a result, there is lack of harmony among family members, mainly between the elderly and the youth. bahta 40 3.1 conflict between social being and social consciousness the relationship between social being and social consciousness in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle before the san had continuous contact with white and black people in angola and namibia was without serious conflict. as a classless society, people used to work for themselves. under such circumstances, social consciousness objectively and directly reflects social being; members of the community do not have contradictory interests. after the san community lost their ancestral land and became soldiers who fought proxy colonial wars against other black people, a contrast between social being and social consciousness emerged. after that historical episode, their land and other material wealth were gone forever; thus, their share of consumption fell extremely low. those soldiers who were engaged in supporting their colonisers in subjugating other communities lost their lives for the sake of getting daily necessities of life for the warriors and their families. other classes, the owners of the ancestral lands, have developed a different social consciousness; they regard the western type of land ownership as normal. the san communities were not in a position to control their own destiny. they were not actors, but acted upon. they were interpellated (convinced) to consider other black victims as sources of their problems. hence they engaged in armed conflicts, fighting proxy wars that had no relevance to their strategic interests. thus, the conflict between social being and social consciousness is evident among the san community at platfontein. 4. conflicting religious beliefs religion is one of the crucial elements of culture for the san community, like many other communities. currently, the community is in transition from one faith system, which mainly favours the role of the san god and ancestral spirits, to christianity. the transition marks a major identity shift that could be characterised by multitudes of social, behavioural, ethical, moral and cosmological issues. as is recorded in the wildebeestkuil dvd (n.d.), some elderly people like baita dumba, machai bandje and joão remember the significance of the san god, the ancestral spirits and the healing and rites of passage rituals performed in the trust and honour of the san god and the ancestral spirits. the elders nostalgically recall the san god and the ancestral spirits; however, they express their frustration when they come to understand the difficulty of going back to the indigenous faith system. others, like the !xun san healer meneputo manunga, are frustrated when they realise that their traditional faith system has been crushed by christianity, the religion of the industrialised western society that can tantalise the hungry community through monetary aid and material supplies. the community seems to have been systematically assimilated through derision, material provision and intimidation and adopted the new religion through systematic encouragement. some elders are confused about the situation: officially, they are christians but still have some reverence for the traditional faith system. some, like meneputo manunga, are unhappy about the expansion of christianity at the expense of the traditional religion. still others try to appreciate the two conflicting faith systems, but these conflicting moral values confuse the people. the most important deterrent against successful christianity is the religious implication of the rock art around platfontein. the rock art, which consists of human, animal and various geometric figures, has deep symbolic and religious meanings. according to williams (n.d.) as recorded in the wildebeestkuil dvd, “each rock engraving was a reservoir of power; the animals have this power and when they hammer them into the rock, they will nail down this power in creating a spiritual place.” regardless of the power of this religious and cultural cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 41 reservoir, christianity as an element of the superstructure of the powerful western society has crushed traditional belief. trance dance, which was associated with the healing power of the san god, seems to lose its authority to clinics, which are regarded by some people as holy places. 5. alienation according to marx and engels (1932), alienation (estrangement) is a psychological condition of individuals, groups and social conditions in which the members do not have power to control or alter their fate within the categories of human relations. alienation disturbs natural and cooperative human interrelationships. it detaches human beings from their human nature, from their social relations, from the fruits of their own labour and from their environment, as is succinctly expressed below: alienation (‘entfremdung’) is the systemic result of living in a socially stratified society, because being a mechanistic part of a social class alienates a person from his and her humanity. the theoretic basis of alienation within the capitalist mode of production is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine his or her life and destiny, when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of himself as the director of his actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define their relationship with other people; and to own the things and use the value of the goods and services, produced with their labour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/). the alienation discussed above is related to the situation of the proletariat in the industrialised societies of the western world, which is bound to objectives and side-tracked by practices in favour of the bourgeoisie. in their historical relations with the colonialists in angola and namibia, the black communities in southern africa and the former apartheid rulers of south africa, the san communities at platfontein did not have a “worker versus bourgeoisie” relationship. there are, however, certain similarities between the alienated life of the worker in industrialised societies and the alienated lifestyle of the san community at platfontein versus the western colonial powers. 5.1 alienation of the san community from its natural environment the san community at platfontein is alienated from its natural environment. the social organisation of a hunter-gatherer community demands a wide area of land for hunting, gathering and ritual practices. such land possession seems to have gone forever, due to the capitalist mode of land tenure that contradicts the communal mode of life. the community is forced to live within small fenced plots of land that separate them from other communities and landlords. sometimes when they leave these confined spaces to fetch firewood or water, they experience harassment by the owners of the land. such confinement contradicts their previous way of life. members of the community regard the fence as a physical and moral barrier that deters them from communicating with other communities and from the fruits and beauties of nature. the communities feel that that they are in jail; the modern capitalist way of land ownership treats members of this community like “birds in a cage”. the confinement deters the community from deciding the kind of work they should be engaged in in order to sustain their life; the alienation from their environment forces the san bahta 42 community to turn themselves into housemaids, wardens or industrial workers around kimberley. under such circumstances the people cannot control the products of their labour. they are forced to adapt a capitalist way of life, which is at the other extreme to the life of hunter-gatherers in the development of human society. the conflict of the two separate cultures (hunter-gatherer and capitalist modes of production) results in trauma, despair and non-violent inter-community and intra-community conflicts. the spatial restriction denies the daily food necessities of the community. they cannot practise healing rituals; they cannot go to look for herbal medicines that used to be prepared from the leaves, bark, roots, shoots and seeds of trees during the “good old days”. after their lands were inhabited by other “white” and “black” people, the san were encouraged to get medication in clinics and hospitals. the traditional healers like maneputo manunga complain that the healing wisdom that used to be transferred from generation to generation was suddenly disrupted within her lifespan: i come from a long tradition of healing, as it was taught to me by my ancestors. in my lifetime, this tradition has been broken. as we moved through the wars in angola to namibia to south africa, there has been no-one to whom i could teach my healing work. the healers who were men went to war. the healing hands were silenced as the white soldiers set up a clinic for the san people and told them to use it (winburg n.d.:20). the alienation from the natural environment is the source of all other types of alienation experienced by the san community. it is also a source of cultural degeneration and moral corruption. 5.2 alienation of the community from productive work in previous times, the community used to toil hard to earn the necessities of everyday life. those who worked harder used to consume more and were able to marry. currently, the hardworking hands are either stilled by the lack of a job or made to toil with little or no reward. the once proud hunter-gatherers are turned into idle consumers who look for philanthropy from donors, archaeologists and other researchers. this shatters the psychological and moral values of the community. the psychological conflict of maneputo manunga, a healer who should be considered a living witness of the dying san community’s traditional culture, is caused by the clash of the two cultures: [i]n the early days, the san people’s hands were always busy. it was not like today, when the people have nothing to do. when the war came, the white people fed our children in the camps, while the men were fighting. they did not learn to ask nature for food. these days, you buy things you need to survive. if you do not have money or you do not have a veld in which to find food, you have nothing. you are a person without breath while you are alive (winburg n.d.:14). since their contact with the “white” people in angola and namibia, they have been alienated from productive practices (hunting and gathering), a way of life their ancestors had practised for millennia. the productive endeavour of the san community is an external existence, independent of and alien to them; they have no say over the circumstances in which they toil and how their productive labour is structured. this seriously affects their mental and physical wellbeing. their lack of power over the type of work they like to be engaged in and the way they should cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 43 do it transforms their ability to work ingeniously into passivity. the youth even descend to engaging in destructive practices such as drug addiction and excessive drinking. the absence of jobs leads them into activities that are directed against families; against their own physical and mental wellbeing; and against inter-community and intra-community harmony and peace. their alienation from work makes the youth forget the traditional skills of hunting, gathering and healing while at the same time they are unable to acquire other modern productive skills. this diminishes their self-worth and psychological satisfaction. before their arrival in south africa, they were not independent actors; they were turned into objects of action. they were acted upon by social and political forces that were beyond their power and knowledge. these victims of history were not only alienated from productive processes but also interpellated (misguided) and abused to fight battles that were not only useless to them but also caused hostile relations with other victims of history. they were forced to support international imperialism in suppressing other “black” communities that share a similar cultural, racial and social background. this creates social alienation, which reduces people to human objects who cannot exercise every aspect of their human nature. 5.3 alienation of the people from themselves like any other human society, the san people should not have been parted from their proactive endeavours to fulfil their inherent human potential. their aspirations to undertake activities that advance communal survival and psychological satisfaction can be demonstrated by the emotional bonds among the members of the community. the san community had to objectify their intentions and creativities that could make them subjects. they were not able to perceive the ends of their actions as purposeful endeavours. rather, they have been subordinated to the external demands imposed upon them by other people. they have been interpellated to hate themselves and their own race; live for other people; hate the enemies of other people; love their own inveterate enemies; speak and advocate the language of other people; fight the adversaries of other people; and worship the gods of other people. under the existing historical circumstances, their essential nature as human beings is not yet actualised. they are interpellated (falsely convinced) to behave in ways detrimental to their own future relations with other communities, economic benefits and identities. like any other people who are interpellated in ways contrary to their own true human nature, the san community has to redefine itself in order to maintain its true identity and maintain peaceful coexistence with other communities. 6. disillusionment as perceived in the words and deeds of the community elders at the time of data collection, they are cognisant of the exploitative nature of the outsiders who visit the community: colonisers, historians, archaeologists and other researchers. before they render any information about the san community, the elders ask questions about the significance of the research and how it relates to the community and try to make sure of the honesty and integrity of the researcher. during some of the interview sessions in kimberley they asked me to explain why i ventured to collect the data; before the elders offer any piece of information, they want to know who the researcher is; why he or she needs to know about the community; what effect it could have on the community; and when and how the researcher will bahta 44 communicate with them about his or her findings. they also expressed their concern that researchers, after they get the information they need, do not come back and tell the people about the outcome. this shows that, at the least, the community leaders are sceptical and have a clear understanding of the ethical responsibility of researchers. until they are satisfied that they come for good reason, they suspect guests. this shows the exploitative nature of the existing developed world structure, which steals knowledge from exotic societies. the community elders understand that they hold knowledge that is worth giving to those who deserve it and denying to those who do not. they also expect returns to the community for the time they spend giving information and sharing knowledge; they offer information if and only if they are convinced that the researcher can bring positive returns to the community. the elders of the community are aware of the rights and responsibilities of the san community as citizens of the world. they know how the community has been misunderstood by other societies because of communication barriers. in response to an interview, which is recorded in the wildebeestkuil dvd (n.d.), mario the elder summarises this concern: the thing is that for centuries other people have seen us as being far from all other people; not part of the world; but living alone. but we want to be part of the world. we want to be part of every one and we want to contribute in order to be a part. we see ourselves just like any other people. so we must be a part. the elder clearly reveals the extent of the san community’s isolation from other communities around the world. the more a certain community lives away from other communities, the more misunderstandings arise. mario underlines the significance of inter-societal communication in facilitating peaceful coexistence and mutual interdependence. he also states that the san community is endowed with its own wisdom to share with other communities; the san are not merely passive recipients of the knowledge of other communities. this shows the san community’s desire to integrate with other communities. the speaker also demonstrates his concern about acculturation, which is the subjugation of the san community’s culture by other cultures. he underlines the importance of mutual sharing and interdependence. if such a view were widely held among all members of the san community, it would be a source of peaceful coexistence. this view of the enlightened elder, however, seems to contradict the views of the majority of the elders; they remember the time of their aloofness as a golden age. one important point of disillusionment is related to the elderly people’s awareness of their cultural degeneration and its negative consequences for conflict resolution. in the focus group discussion led by dixon on 29 may 2014 (dixon 2014a), elders stressed that the institution of traditional conflict resolution that had been very successful in angola and namibia did not exist at schmidtsdrift and platfontein. in angola and namibia, the community had great respect for the elders and the elders were also very supportive and honest. currently, they experience power rivalries because they feel that leadership can earn them money and other benefits. other members of the community, therefore, do not know whom they should support or ignore. the discussants argue that the law of the land (the formal law of the republic of south africa) should be blamed for all this ambiguity and confusion. in the words of field researcher dixon, the elders hold that: “the law of the land has made us to change our traditional law and we do not know what to do and the most important thing that is destroying our life is this law of the land and now children are not respecting us” (dixon 2014a:26). this shows that the elders and other community members are disillusioned about cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 45 one of the components of the superstructure (the formal law) that has shattered their culture of conflict resolution. another very important reason for their disillusionment is their awareness of the impossibility of returning to “the good old days” as well as their determination to adapt themselves to existing historical and political circumstances. they regret their current situation of landlessness and the disruption of their indigenous culture. they do not, however, blame other communities for their problems. they feel that the return of their ancestral farmland at platfontein, though a very small thing, has a great deal of significance. they understand the power dynamics in south africa. 7. redefining and reclaiming identity the identity of a certain group of people is related to how they understand themselves, who they are, their origin, their rightful place among other communities and how other communities perceive them. the incongruence between how people see themselves and how the same group of people is understood by other groups has been a source of conflict across millennia. there is a general societal tendency for a dominant group to attach certain negative attributes to fragile societies and dehumanise the victims. most victims of history have had some negative stereotypes attributed to them before they were dominated or persecuted. identifying and confronting such negative attributes is of prime importance for mutual understanding among communities. the san community is misunderstood by other communities as alien quixotic survivors of an ancient people; as people who live a lifestyle that is far from modern people’s mode of life; as people who used to believe in different gods; and as advocates of colonialism and white supremacy. this demands a change of awareness of the true identity of the san community at platfontein at both interand intra-community levels. in order to facilitate the transition of perception by other communities, the san community has to reassert its true identity in terms of the racial, ethnic, historic, cultural and political factors that have shaped them. one important identity of the san community that needs to be clarified is their racial identity, which is important both at the time of apartheid and in the contemporary south african political conditions. in most official documents and forms that require a person’s identity, he or she has to indicate whether he or she is black, white, coloured or “other”. in this context, the need to define the san community’s identity is very important. how do they identify themselves in terms of racial category? how do other communities perceive them in terms of their racial identity? the san at platfontein do not have a clear-cut view of their own racial identity. in their responses to interview questions, all members of the community referred to other people as “white” or “black”, distancing themselves from both, as is clearly indicated in the responses of hotrie conrade (dakane 2014a) , sabella paul (dakane 2014b) and sussana ngongo (dakane 2014c). in the war stories of what they experienced in namibia and angola, they narrate how the white and black men treated them. in any of their discourse related to white people, the san never include themselves in that category. moreover, they refer to other non-white african communities using third-person referents such as “they” or “the black people”; they exclude themselves from the black race. this shows that they are unconsciously or consciously othering the black communities. this creates and widens the psychological and moral rift between the san community and other black african societies. similarly, the san do not subsume themselves in the white community. they tell bahta 46 stories of what is done to them by the white people using the pronoun “they.” the white people are also others to the san community. then could the san community fall into the racial category of coloureds or griquas or “other coloureds?” they cannot be categorised into any of these racial groups since these imply a mixing of the black and white races. in all of my interview communications and in any discourse available to this study, the san community have never identified themselves as coloureds or griquas. they seem to feel that they are just themselves: the san community, the indigenous inhabitants of the land, the reservoir of primordial wisdom and the victims of modern history. in a real sense the san community’s refusal to be labelled as a racial entity may be justifiable. this, however, contradicts the real historical and political circumstances of south africa. in south african political conditions where racial identity becomes crucial, having an undefined identity may lead to reciprocal misunderstanding between black and white. if they do not identify themselves as “black”, it may be difficult for them to claim the benefits and entitlements of affirmative action and black economic empowerment stipulated in the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa 1996: section 9(2)) and the employment equity act 55 of 1998 (rsa 1998). they are legally required to categorise themselves as one of the race groups. another type of identity worth discussing is national identity. there is no doubt that the san community at platfontein are south african nationals. from the discussions and interviews, however, it is clear that they are suffering from nostalgia. most of their memories, mainly of the senior generation, are connected to namibia and angola; they are highly nostalgic about the “glorious past”. because of the strange life they live inside the fences at platfontein, they feel that they are in exile, not in their own homeland. some of them of course argue that no one has the right to challenge their legal status as south africans. some leaders of the first people at platfontein were engaged in colonial wars waged against other destitute people in angola and namibia who were fighting for their freedom. this creates a huge rift between the san community and other black people in southern africa. as has already been argued, the san community should not be blamed in any way, for they were alienated from themselves as a people who were not in full control of their destiny. moreover, they were interpellated by the ideology of the colonisers; they were physiologically, morally and psychologically controlled by other people. if the people who fought for freedom understood the alienation of the san community, there would be no reason to have any grudge against them. others would only pity the san as the first people who are victims of historical circumstances. one basic issue worth assessing is the degree of mental colonisation of the members of the san community at platfontein. one way of doing this is to evaluate the community’s language preference for formal communication purposes; from this it is possible to evaluate their relationship with the black and white cultures and communities. in the observation of the researchers, the communities speak !xun and khwe among themselves. this signifies their determination to maintain their own identity regardless of the discrimination they experience from other communities. this is an important step in decolonising the mind, a concept reiterated by ngugi (1986) and other pan-africanist thinkers. on the other hand, their attitude to the two dominant south african languages, afrikaans and english, seems to have historical and political associations and may have its own impact cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 47 on their relationship with other people in south africa. the children were seen studying afrikaans comfortably in their spare time. at formal meetings and forums, the community leaders, who can speak english and afrikaans, demand translators when they communicate with people who can only understand english. some individuals seem to abhor the use of english for reasons that demand further research and investigation. a typical example of this is one community leader’s refusal to deliver a speech in english at the consultative writing retreat comprising research staff of the institute of dispute resolution in africa, the field researchers and san community leaders held at roodevallei held from 10-13 july 2014. in his introductory speech about the significance of the workshop, mario mahongo stated that he was aware of the international significance of the english language as medium of communication. however, he declined to speak english for reasons he did not want to state explicitly. this happened in a situation where other scholars who speak afrikaans as their first language spoke in english without any hesitation. this might be connected to the political, social or historic relationships of the san community with the afrikaansand english-speaking communities. the san elders’ preference for afrikaans seems to be a conscious political decision. this implies that the members of the san community feel that the afrikaans-speaking community in south africa is historically friendlier than the englishspeaking community. it may also show that the san community wants to demonstrate its alliance with the afrikaans-speaking community in the violent and non-violent conflicts between afrikaans and english-speaking communities in the country. is the preference for afrikaans over english based on justifiable grounds, or is it because of ideological interpellation? the answers are debatable, but are not, however, the concern of this paper. that concern is the future pragmatic effect of this grand political decision on the first people, who seek their own legal, moral and psychological space in the current political, social and historical situations of south africa. in order to minimise misperceptions of these first people and integrate them with the wider south african community, they may have to either align themselves with the demands, aspirations and political ideology majority of south africans or at least remain neutral in such grand political decisions. otherwise, it might adversely affect the mutual understanding between english-speaking south africans of british descent and other south africans who prefer english to afrikaans for whatever reason. the researcher believes that the abrogation of english as a formal medium of communication, at any cost, is a political decision that can be justified neither by the current political situation in south africa nor by the practical lifestyle of the fragile people at platfontein, who demand much support from individuals as well as governmental and nongovernmental institutions that favour the english language. it also seems contrary to the most important catchword of south africans at this time: forgive and forget. it may also bring these first people into conflict with international communities that advocate english as an international language. the researcher suggests that the community should work hard to study its own history critically in order to distinguish between truth and myth, historical fact and ideological interpellation, as well as the existing power dynamics in the country. then they can redefine themselves and take a pragmatic political stand that truly reflects their history and helps them integrate with other south african nationals in particular and black africans in general. another identity crisis related to acculturation is the naming of people. when the san were proud hunter-gatherers with their own indigenous religious faith, they used to name their children using explanatory (symbolic) nomenclatures that were relevant to their traditional bahta 48 way of life. this is demonstrated in the !xun healer meneputo manunga’s many names, given to her at different stages of her life by her loving parents: “i was small when i was born, so they [parents] called me tjini. then i become bambi as i was as lithe as a little springbok. when i was older, i loved making dolls from natural material i found in the veld. and so my name became meneputo, the doll” (winburg n.d.:4). this local naming is not restricted to meneputo manunga. her relatives were also given names related to their everyday activities and behaviour: • her father’s name manunga means someone who makes good traps for catching birds; • her first uncle on her father’s side is g’toma, efficient hunter of springhaas; • her second uncle on her father’s side is gerimbe, one who should not hunt a lion; • her mother is ngamba tsikela, one very swift at healing rituals; • her grandfather on her mother’s side is litongwha, someone who is unchallengeable by the extreme heat of the sun; • her first uncle on her mother’s side is mujalo, a frequent carrier of heavy items; • her second uncle on her mother’s side is ngungoo, an adept porcupine hunter; • her elder sister’s second name is kadimba, a cross and talkative person. most of these names are connected to courage, stamina and endurance to challenge the forces of nature in the life of hunting and gathering. the other names sometimes encourage or discourage certain conduct by the individuals who bear the names. they are strongly connected with the culture and identity of the !xun community’s philosophy and cosmological beliefs and assumptions. hence, the names should be regarded as the fingerprints of the san community which embody the mind-sets, beliefs, norms and moral values of the community. unfortunately, such naming styles now seem to be discouraged. in order to make comparisons, the researcher attempted to verify the first names of the members of the san community at platfontein. the first names given to individuals in the last 30 to 40 years can show the extent of acculturation, since the san community’s frequency of contact with other communities was very high at this time. the randomly selected names, mostly of the elders, field researchers and respondents in the current project, include: antonio, sabao, max, mario, jack, dominca, josephine, elisa, albertus, denis, annie, sabella, joyce, anna, rebekka, albertus, jim, tomson, john and susanna. most of the youngster’s names and some of the elder’s names are, in one way or another, western christian names. this contradicts the view that the san community as an independent social entity has to integrate with other world communities to maintain its identity. the names of the people are cultural reservoirs of the communities they represent. changing the san names into westernised christian names is like burning down the moral museum of the san community; it is part of the subtle ideological dominance that forces third-world communities into one central western mode of thought, which is known as “logocentrism” or eurocentrism. the san community has to maintain its identity by giving local san names to its children, and the world has to embrace these names. 8. summary and conclusion due to the continuous pressures from settlers and other indigenous people of southern africa, unstoppable migrations and relocations, cultural and ideological influences, violent cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 49 regional and international political pressures, dire hunger and their frequent contact with westernised people, the san community at platfontein have experienced severe cultural conflicts. the acculturation turns their communal spirit, humane relations, honesty and selfworth that existed before their contact with westernised society into something completely contrary. this caused lack of respect of the youth for adults, the elimination of the cultural wisdom of the adults, lack of reverence for each other, absolute dissatisfaction of the youth and greed for material possessions. the different types of dilemma and moral conflict are the consequences of the incongruence between the communal hunter-gatherer culture and the alien capitalist way of life. the new eccentric way of life has alienated the community from their species (human nature), their native environment, their usual productive engagements and their collective life. the community are sufficiently misguided to lose self-worth. they have unclear ideas about their colour identity, which is a very important issue in south africa. they refer to both black and white people as “others”. they misunderstand other black communities as enemies; on the contrary, they align themselves with settlers who have dehumanised the san for hundreds of years. in short, they were brainwashed to look down up on themselves, to hate their own race, to fight against other victims of history, to support their own historical enemies and to fight proxy wars. they are currently suffering dire moral and psychological conflicts, identity crises and dilemmas related to ethnic and racial politics and colonial discourse. in order to achieve harmonious relationships with other communities and among themselves, the researcher recommends that the san redefine themselves and other societies that have historical ties with them. other communities and authorities shall also understand the plight of the san community and assist their redefinition and integration with other south african communities. references biesele, m. 1978. sapience and scarce resources: communication systems of the !kung and other foragers. social science information, 17:921–947. constitution of the republic of south africa. act, 1996 section 9(2). dakane, r. 2014a. interview with hatrie conrade, 22 may. block: morosani, platfontein. 28 march 2014. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14055 __________. 2014b. interview with sabella paul, 21 may. block: morosani, platfontein. 28 march 2014. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14055 __________. 2014c. interview with sussana ngongo, 21 may. block: morosani, platfontein. 28 march 2014. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14055 dixon, k. (2014a). focus group discussion. block: kamatoka, platfontein. 29 may 2014. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13949 __________ 2014b. interview with kadike mbangu, 21 may 2014. block: kamatoka, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13949 bahta 50 __________. 2014c. interview with latsia sihangi, 22 may 2014. block: kamatoka, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13954 ___________. 2014d. interview with mariana kameri, 22 may 2014. block: kamatoka, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13955 dyer, g. 1985. war. new york: crown. lee, rb. 1968. what hunters do for a living. in man the hunter, edited by r.b. lee & i. devore. chicago: aldine. ________ 1979a. the !kung san: men, women and work in a foraging society. cambridge: cambridge university press. ________ 1979b. the dobe !kung. new york: holt, rinehart and winston. manunga, m. (n. d). audio-visual equipment for the auditorium of the san centre at platfontein. donated by de beers: a diamond is forever. marx, k. & frederic. e. 1932. the german ideology. moscow: progress publishers. ngugi,wt. 1986. decolonizing the mind: the politics of african literature. london: heinemann. republic of south africa (rsa). 1998. employment equity act 55 of 1998. sibongo, h. 2014a. focused group discussion. block: morosani, platfontein. 28 march 2014. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14055 ____________ 2014b. interview with dala filismano, 28 march 2014. block: morosani, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14055 ______________. 2014c. interview with dennis moyo, 27 march 2014. block: morosani, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14080 ______________. 2014d. interview with jansu jim, 21 may 2014. block: morosani, platfontein san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14075 ______________. 2014e. interview with john mushamba, 21 january 2014. block: kamatoka, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14051 _______________. 2014f. interview with kamama mukuai, 24 january 2014. block: morosani, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14052 _______________. 2014g. interview with kantsja mbambi, 22 may 2014. block: morosani, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14052 cultural conflicts, dilemmas and disillusionment among the san td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 36-51. 51 _______________. 2014h. interview with matumbo dikua, 21 april 2014. block: kamatoka, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14053 _______________. 2014i. interview with moshani sibongo, 23 march 2014. block: morosani, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14060 _______________. 2014j. interview with tomsen moronga, 22 may 2014. block: morosani, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14079 shiwarra, k. 2014a. interview with elisa kiyanga, (n.d). block: caprivi street, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13921 ______________. 2014b. interview with rebekka kaye, (n.d). block: tseringu street, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13946 _______________. 2014c. interview with sorofina tsiohimba, (n.d). block: morosani street, platfontein. san dispute resolution oral archive (sandroa). http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13948 ury, wl., brett, .m. & goldberg, sb. 1985. getting disputes resolved: designing systems to cut the cost of conflict. san francisco: jossey-bass. ury, wl. 1990. dispute resolution notes from the kalahari. negotiation journal, 6:229–238. _________ 1995. conflict resolution among the bushmen: lessons in dispute system design. negotiation journal, 11(4):379–389. wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. 2014. the_german_ideology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 28 october (accessed 20 september 2014). wildebeestkuil dvd. n.d. audio-visual equipment for the auditorium of the san centre at platfontein. donated by de beers: a diamond is forever. williams, d. n.d. audio-visual equipment for the auditorium of the san centre at platfontein. donated by de beers: a diamond is forever. winburg, ms. (ed.) n.d. healing hands: interview with !xun san healer meneputo manunga (a tract that records the healer’s feelings and memories). abstract introduction participants literature review methodology exploring sehnsucht as homoeroticism through the music of strauss and brahms nostalgia for a lost home and the desire to love and to be loved in return seeing beyond the surface: the evolution of idealised love depictions of wanderlust portrayed through found objects commonalities and differences conclusion acknowledgement references footnotes about the author(s) conroy a. cupido department of music, north-west university, south africa citation cupido, c.a., 2016, ‘from song to visual art: exploring sehnsucht in the lived experiences of visual artists’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a341. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.341 original research from song to visual art: exploring sehnsucht in the lived experiences of visual artists conroy a. cupido received: 28 apr. 2016; accepted: 12 oct. 2016; published: 03 dec. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article explored the experiences shared by four artists during their processes of creating an art work which represented a specific art song or lied. during 2015, south african artists marna de wet, kevin du plessis, jean lampen and eljana van der merwe collaborated with the pianist tinus botha and baritone conroy cupido. the essence of the poetry and music of vaughan williams, quilter, schumann, strauss and brahms presented in this project conveyed a feeling known as sehnsucht. the purpose of this article was to understand the experiences of these artists during their creative processes. their processes entailed ascribing meaning and communicating their interpretation of the elements of sehnsucht from the music and poetry to visual art. this was achieved through interpretative phenomenological analysis. the artists used various media including, charcoal on paper, oil paint on sourced objects, oil on canvas and photography to portray their interpretations. through their artistic processes, the artists uncovered melancholy, wanderlust, homo-eroticism, longing and the desire for love in the music and poetry. one of the artists discovered how her own concept of idealised love had evolved through her artistic process. the artists used both music and narrative content to visualise sehnsucht; however, due to the non-referential nature of music, the artists were not always able to verbalise how the music influenced their work. the article includes images of some of the art works. introduction gertrude stein once stated that ‘a writer should write with his eyes, and a painter paint with his ears’ (rogers & rogers 1985:42). the relationship between proponents and creators of visual art, music and poetry is so clearly connected that it is not surprising how the popularity of transdisciplinary collaboration has grown. while it is unclear exactly when this kind of collaboration began, research has been conducted on a multidisciplinary approach to music as early as the 19th century (adler 1885). while it has been argued that the similarities between the mediums of visual art and music may not at first be evident, artists and musicians are increasingly overcoming boundaries set in place by the constraints of each medium: music is also about the passage of time whereas paintings and most other works of visual art convey their content in a single, all-at-once eternally present moment. paintings are singularities, unique and un-reproducible physical commodities. music, on the other hand, is intangible ephemera […] today, the worlds of music and painting continue to intertwine as more and more multi-media work gets created. a piece of music inspired by a painting or a series of paintings is a commonplace event on a concert program. and, as artists continue to reject the aristotelian notion of one artist making one type of art, there is also a lot of work which combines aural and visual elements into a unique whole. (oteri 2005) this article explores the experiences shared by four south african artists, marna de wet, kevin du plessis, jean lampen and eljana van der merwe, during their processes of creating an art work representing a specific art song or lied. the german word lied has been accepted since the 15th century to describe what is considered as western art song (orrey & warrack n.d.). during 2015 these artists collaborated with pianist tinus botha and i on a multimedia project (concert/exhibition). when i approached the artists they were all resident in potchefstroom, south africa, and the musicians were both affiliated with north-west university. i was therefore the performer, researcher and responsible for the concept of this study. i also selected all the art songs presented to the artists. i conceived the idea of creating a visual representation of the songs while planning a concert programme consisting of works by composers antonin dvorak, robert schumann, richard strauss, johannes brahms,1 roger quilter2 and ralph vaughan williams.3 while i studied the poetry it became evident that there was an interlinking theme arousing my interest in the music. the poetry of heyduk, rückert, heine, hart, hoffmann von fallersleben, mackay, f. schumann, stevenson, lord alfred tennyson, von gilm zu rosenegg and waller, enhanced by the music, seemed to encapsulate feelings of wanderlust, and unrequited and reciprocated love, longing and desire. the essence of these poems conveyed a feeling known as sehnsucht. sehnsucht is often defined as longing, yearning, nostalgia, craving or intensely missing someone or something, or as originating from an impassioned, wholehearted longing or yearning (das sehnen) and addiction (die sucht) (kotter-grühn, wiest, zurek & scheibe 2009:428) the purpose of this article was to understand the experiences of these artists during their creative process. their creative process entailed ascribing meaning and communicating their interpretation of the elements of sehnsucht derived from the music and the poetry in creating visual art. this was achieved through an interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa). participants four visual artists were chosen to represent the music and poetry in their own medium. kevin du plessis was the youngest among the artists. besides art, his studies guaranteed him a firm foundation in the literary world, having completed a bachelor and post-graduate degree in language and english literature. during his studies, kevin began to struggle with and discover his own identity, beyond society’s constraints of what a hetero-normative, white afrikaner male was supposed to be. his chosen medium of photography had previously allowed him to express his feelings of race in south africa: my work, ‘looking to see in colour’, explores the continuing need for south africans to engage socially and otherwise with different cultures, albeit a difficult process met with discomfort, and even disapproval. the title encompasses what the work is about: looking, seeing, and colour. dealing with perceptions and projections, and a personal struggle in learning to be comfortable in situations that ought not to be uncomfortable, the work looks to engage the observer into its own observations. marna de wet spent a great deal of her career as a freelance graphic designer. her journey as an artist started in 2009 when she participated in a ‘salon’ exhibition followed by her first solo exhibition. in 2013 she visited the cité internationale des arts in paris, france, for two months where she had the opportunity to hone her skills and self-reflect upon her work. marna mostly paints in oil and although she describes herself as not being a conceptual artist, she describes her paintings as ‘very poetic and almost melancholic of nature with deep meaning and depth’. eljana van der merwe is a self-proclaimed gypsy: ‘i have been on the road for the best part of my life. from my birth in stella (in the north west province of south africa) nearly thirty-five years ago, my parents familiarized me with the gypsy way of life, always traveling across south africa. my formative years were mostly spent in klerksdorp, south africa after which my adventurous spirit took over, leading me to explore all kinds of foreign destinations.’ eljana has held fixed positions as an arts and culture teacher, but in 2008 continued her travels from south africa to europe and central america. during a 9-month stay in mexico she donated two nelson mandela-themed murals to the community: ‘67 colours of mexico’s mural for madiba’ was done in cooperation with the students of the universidad del sur in guerrero mexico (unisur) and ‘espacio cultural de nelson mandela’ in mexico city. jean lampen specialises in water colours, sculpture and life drawings. she was the oldest artist in the group, and this was reflected in an extensive body of work reflecting her life experiences and years of acquired knowledge and skill. she has exhibited throughout south africa as well as mauritius and in paris, france. she is a part-time lecturer at north-west university (potchefstroom) in the school for graphic design and school for creativity. she describes her work as ‘mostly monochromatic using mainly pen and ink, charcoal or linocuts, and would like to complete a project adding layers and meaning to the work by combining the different media, as well as working with recycled materials’. literature review this review is divided into three sections. its aim was to uncover perspectives in the literature about (1) how sehnsucht has previously been interpreted in music and art, (2) the influence of visual art on music compositions (to contextualise the significance and unique nature of the current study) and (3) the influence of music on visual artists. the occurrence of sehnsucht in research what makes this article unique is the fact that no research has been done on the experiences of artists transferring elements of sehnsucht found in music and poetry to visual art. research on sehnsucht has in fact been limited to music. what is understood as sehnsucht in the literature is often identified in research on longing, desire and nostalgia. several settings of goethe’s poem nur wie die sehnsucht kennt4 may be found in the music literature today where composers have captured the essence of sehnsucht in the poetry. doherty (2014) applies a semiotic analysis of the music and text of schubert’s lied, nur wer die sehnsucht kennt (d. 877, no. 1). he focuses on presentation, representation and interpretation in a pastoral context. forbes (1972) argued that although schubert’s settings of nur wer die sehnsucht kennt were superb and fully conveyed the textual meaning, zelter and beethoven’s settings were a truer reflection of what the poet (goethe) had in mind. other authors who have written about settings of this poem include larsen (1969), mcclain (1984), olthafer (2006), urmoneit (2002), jung-kaiser (2009) and doherty (2013). in her dissertation ‘unendliche sehnsucht: the concept of longing in german romantic narrative and song’, reichert (1994) examines the concept of sehnsucht in german romantic narrative and song, specifically tracing its emergence and programmatic use. she focuses on songs by schubert and schumann, and on writings by johann friedrich reichardt, wilhelm heinrich wackenroder, ludwig tieck and e.t.a. hoffmann. canisius (1992) discusses the longing and unrest in beethoven’s music. rummenhöller (1999) discusses the subject of love in the arts and how this subject is discussed pedagogically in the classroom, specifically describing how being in love can be seen as a motif found in music, literature and the fine arts. malvano (2003) describes schumann’s use of musical motifs as a means to convey the sehnsucht in the texts of the poets, specifically elements of remoteness and his fascination of the faraway world. beller-mckenna (2010) discusses sehnsucht and nostalgia in beethoven’s lieder und romanzen for women’s chorus, op. 44. petrauskaitė (2012) describes nostalgia as an expression of longing in the lithuanian music of the 20th century. in an empirical study of the listening experiences of 32 college students, juslin et al. (2008) discovered that nostalgia/longing was one of the most frequent emotions identified by these students. music from visual art during the last century the number of works reflecting a composer’s integration of art and music increased significantly. oteri (2005) summarises some of the most noteworthy examples of such composers ranging from rachmaninov to tan dun. he mentions that composers from various backgrounds have used colour through instrumentation to depict tone combinations. perhaps the most famous example of a composer depicting art sonically is mussorgsky’s pictures at an exhibition (1874) (oteri 2005). the composition draws inspiration from 10 drawings and watercolours by his recently deceased friend, victor hartmann. another successful transference of art to music is sondheim’s sunday in the park with george. this broadway musical was inspired by george seurat’s sunday afternoon on the grand jatte. other composers influenced by art include debussy, schoenberg, mikalojus konstantinas ciurlionis (who was both painter and composer), gershwin and john cage (oteri 2005). in his book, the music of painting: music, modernism and the visual arts from the romantics to john cage, peter vergo (2010) extensively examines the correlation and relationship between artist and composer, and how their art works and compositions influenced each other. de duve (2013) mentions how john cage was influenced by duchamp and the dada avant-garde art movements of the 20th century. jewanski (2011) discusses the influence of the visual arts on the compositions of morten feldman, specifically how john cage’s collaborative style was a trigger for his interaction with painting. in her dissertation wharton (1998) describes how poulenc was also influenced by the visual arts. poulenc himself mentions this in his journal de mes mélodies, a volume of brief essays on each of his songs. here he describes how art works or artists were associated with a particular song. wharton mentions that he was influenced primarily by french artists as well as spanish and italian painters ranging over a period of 5 centuries. visual art inspired by music it is clear that much research exists (as described above) on the influence of visual art on music compositions. to my knowledge far less research exists concerning visual artists who have been influenced by music (western classical composers specifically). manfred mohr (2000) describes how the french composer pierre barbaud radically changed his artistic development to cultivate a more systematic, geometric form of expression. gottdang (2006) describes how artists around 1850 could not reach a consensus on whether landscape paintings should draw inspiration from vocal or instrumental music. only a few artists (ludwig richter, friedrich preller and gabriel max) were able to depict the influence of music in their landscape paintings. de decker (1989) discusses the journey of baudouin oosterlynck from composer and performance artist to an artist mainly specialising in drawing and installation art. she also mentions john cage’s influence in this artist’s life. in 2015, inala, a multidisciplinary performance piece featuring music, dance and art, was premiered at the edinburgh international festival. this singing ensemble was collaborated with classical composer ella spira and members of the royal ballet company. this performance was themed ‘abundance of goodwill’ and was a fusion of western and traditional south african culture (www.southafrica.info). while works like this continue to garner attention in south africa, the works of william kentridge remain some of the most notably documented. south african artist, william kentridge, is well known for his multimedia works and collaboration. inspired by mozart’s opera, die zauberflöte, his work, learning the flute (a 35-mm animated film transferred to video and projected on blackboard), was an attempt to ‘find the visual language for the opera’ (auping et al. 2009:171). in his work, black box (a model theatre with drawings – charcoal on paper, mechanical puppets and 35-mm animated film transferred to video), kentridge examines the ‘political unconscious of the magic flute – at the damages of colonialism, which described its predations to itself as bringing enlightenment to the dark continent’ (auping et al. 2009:171). kentridge’s attraction to the tradition of classical singing also includes german lieder. from 11 to 13 march 2016 san francisco opera produced kentridge’s staging of schubert’s winterreise. this production had previously appeared in 2014 in aix and at the lincoln centre’s white light festival. matthias goerne, baritone, and markus hinterhauser, pianist, performed schubert’s cycle, while kentridge included artwork and 24 short films in the production (mazzaro 2016:6). methodology meeting with the artists i was aware of two prominent artists, marna de wet and kevin du plessis, in the potchefstroom vicinity. marna de wet referred two other artists, jean lampen and eljana van der merwe, who were both members of the potchefstroom art society. i wanted to use local artists to promote the talent in the area and because it was convenient and efficient to collaborate with artists in such a close proximity. after the artists agreed to participate in the project, they listened to the art songs, read the poetry and indicated which art songs they would like to express visually. they were requested to produce one art work depicting each song (a minimum of four songs each), and they were not limited to any specific medium. they were tasked with illustrating the elements of sehnsucht as they experienced them in the music and poetry. upon completion, the musicians presented a concert in potchefstroom where images of the art works were displayed as each art song was performed. separate gallery exhibitions were also presented in potchefstroom and pretoria (where the actual art works were on display). at these exhibitions visitors were able to look at the art while reading the poetry and listening to recordings (by botha and cupido) of the art songs provided alongside each work at a listening/reading station. the viewer/listener/reader therefore enjoyed a complete sensory experience of the music heard, the text and visual art. study protocol the reason why i chose this qualitative research approach was because the key elements of ipa best suited the objectives of this study. these key elements are described by reid et al. (2005:20) as follows: ‘ipa aims to capture and explore the meanings that participants assign to their experiences. participants are recruited because of their expertise in the phenomenon being explored. analysis relies on the process of people making sense of the world and their experiences, firstly for the participant, and secondly for the analyst. a successful analysis is: interpretative (and thus subjective) so the results are not given the status of facts; transparent (grounded in example from the data) and plausible (to participants, co-analysts, supervisors, and general readers)’. after completing the literature review, to my knowledge, no research has been done on the lived experiences of artists during their process of creating artworks depicting sehnsucht found in art songs (both in the music and poetry). in fact, in this review, i did not encounter any significant ipa studies regarding visual art and music. although semiotics features in this type of study and in the literature reviewed, it is not my intent to assign meaning to the works created by the artists. the artists rather themselves assign meaning through their interpretation of the text and music and as is the nature of ipa my role is to interpret their experiences within this interpretative paradigm. ‘this attempt by the research participant to make sense of what is happening to them takes us to ipa’s second major theoretical axis. it is an interpretative endeavour and is therefore informed by hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation’ (smith, flowers & larkin 2009:3). another characteristic of ipa is that these artists or participants were selected based on their expertise. a brief biographical description of each artist is given prior to each individual case. the main research question is: what did the creative process entail when transferring musical and narrative elements of sehnsucht to the artists’ chosen visual medium? two sub-questions arose: (1) how did each individual artist find meaning in transferring the elements of sehnsucht to art? (2) what were the shared commonalities and differences in their experiences during the creative process? my role as the researcher was to make sense of the experiential data obtained through semi-structured interviews and observations by coding and systematically analysing all the data. in doing so i could interpret the distinct or shared commonalities and differences in the experiences across the artists. the artists gave their informed consent before the interviews took place, and they allowed their names to be used for the purposes of this article. the results were validated by member checking. my interpretations of these shared lived experiences will be discussed later in the article. leman (2010:85) states that ‘a motivation for developing transdisciplinarity in music research may be grounded in ethical principles that foster progress and well-being of society’. he also highlights the need for more research to be done and says that ‘the transdisciplinary nature of music research may be a strong asset to the development of a new type of creative music industry’ (2010:65). with the notable exception of work done on kentridge by auping et al. (2009), the study of the phenomenon of using music with text as inspiration for visual creation is limited. byrnes (2007) describes how visual artists were influenced by the dissonance and abstraction of the compositions of 20th-century composers: to visual artists moving beyond formal representation, music provided a guide because they considered it already to be in a state of pure abstraction. as frances guy, the curator of ‘eye-music’ puts it: ‘its freedom from representation or narrative content, and its ability to communicate directly with the soul and evoke an emotional response, was an inspiration for artists who wished to do the same’. (p. 43) this provided a theoretical framework with an interpretive paradigm to explore how the artists in this study found their ‘visual language’ while having to convey sehnsucht found in both text and music. this ipa therefore contributes to need for new research as mentioned by leman (2010). each artist had the freedom to internalise the poetry and music subjectively. their interpretations may at times be superimposed on the text and music based on their own previous lived experiences. the artists identified sehnsucht in the poetry and music as the following four main themes respectively: sehnsucht as homoeroticism nostalgia and the yearning for requited love the interpretation of love after divorce connecting wanderlust to emotionally linked sourced objects. exploring sehnsucht as homoeroticism through the music of strauss and brahms kevin du plessis selected the following four art songs by brahms and strauss: allerseelen op. 10, no. 8 r. strauss (1864–1949) cäcilie op. 27, no. 2 morgen op. 27, no.4 dein blaues auge op.59 no.8 j. brahms (1833–1897) kevin extrapolated the elements of sehnsucht in his art works through the medium of photography. he expresses his synthesis of human experiences in his works through his artistic philosophy: i see art as a tangible visual representation of human experiences. for it to be true and meaningful i believe that art should emerge and be formed by the things that occupy the mind and human condition. art is a strong form of communication that may vary from powerful but difficult to interpret to relatable and aesthetically pleasing. it is complex and in a constant state of change, like the human spirit. kevin listened repeatedly to the music and poetry of the art songs until he found a place of inspiration within himself from which visual material started to emerge. kevin’s process and experiences differed significantly from that of the other artists, as he was the model for his photographs and he also played the particular art song on repeat while he was busy with that specific photo shoot. even though kevin was the model for his own images, he does not view these as self-portraits. he managed to capture several emotions in different images, incorporating various aspects of sehnsucht depending on the moment in time when he shot the photograph and at which point the recording track was being played: listening to the music on repeat all the way through the shooting process, i used myself as model, struggling to capture images whilst running back and forth between the set up scenes and the camera itself. by doing this the performances in front of the lens were affected by the tone in the songs that were being sounded throughout the house. i kept reading and rereading the translations of the poems until i felt like i related to the narrators, then re-enacting to what they are describing. kevin listened to recordings of morgen and cäcilie with orchestral accompaniment5 which i presented him in addition to my own recordings with the piano accompaniment. i wanted to see if the colour and emotional intensity provided by the orchestra would contribute to his lived experiences of the works. when he describes tone, he distinguished the difference in colour and texture which the orchestra provided the piano accompaniment alternative. the elements of sehnsucht which kevin identified and wanted to incorporate in his visual representations included ‘longing, love, broken-heartedness, and yearning for things past or out of reach’. to unify these elements visually, kevin used a house with a single (lonely) occupant as a metaphor in all four works: the house itself is meant to represent longing; in a post-apartheid south african small town the house has gone through many stages of its existence. it was once a regular family dwelling, after which it was a guesthouse which eventually closed as it started to deteriorate and was then rented out as cheap accommodation to students. it was known as provence while it functioned as a guest house. kevin also associated emotional meaning with the architecture and structure of the house and items found inside: the owners had tried to make the house seem like it was somewhere in europe and used bits and pieces from european culture to create a romantic atmosphere for guests to experience. i associated this with the parts of the songs where the narrator yearns for that which is out of reach, causing the pain so evident in the performance of the songs. in the same way the house yearns for a past or a place or a time that is out of reach. kevin used a bedroom in the house to depict strauss’s cäcilie (figure 1). heinrich hart’s text overflows with emotion capturing the yearning for a specific person, possibly in a state of unrequited love: if you only knew what it’s like to dream of burning kisses, of wandering and resting with one’s beloved, eye turned to eye, and cuddling and chatting – if you only knew, you would incline your heart to me!6 figure 1: cäcilie: ‘the bedroom’. kevin wanted to subtly reference van gogh’s ‘the bedroom’ in this piece: ‘the sad story of his life as an artist is meant to add to the sadness and the longing for the glorious love of the narrator in this poem’. kevin used the significance of the bedroom and the movement of the furniture to capture the feeling of longing and to add meaning to his experience: the bedroom is also a place of love-making; however, in this case the absence of the person being desired creates an especially empty lonely place. with the furniture moving in and suffocating the speaker, the empty bedroom is a personal place of imprisonment filled with the hurtful nature of unfulfilled possibilities and desires. although the listener never knows whether the narrator eventually captures the heart of his beloved in this declaration of love, strauss’ music suggests hope and happiness in the final verse of hart’s text: likewise, the sunny return to the major mode at the end of the second text strophe predicts the expansion of the imagery of the third strophe into ideal realms, to which one travels in a blaze of light to the heights of the blessed creation. the ascending scalar figures in the piano postlude confirm this upward sweep. (hambrick n.d.) a striking feature of this image is the sheet being thrown up in the air which kevin equates to hart’s portrayal of hope in the final verses of the poem: the song moves into a more dramatic space closer to the end, becoming more hopeful and dreamy, showing that the narrator is not completely without hope since he is still dreaming of how glorious it could all be; i tried capturing this by means of the spontaneous play with the sheets on the bed being thrown up into the air. it is a moment of hope and excitement at the narrow possibility of his desires being fulfilled. as the final lied of strauss’s opus 10, allerseelen,7 set to a text by hermann von gilm, depicts the longing of a lover who has since passed. in his work ‘the door’ (figure 2) kevin used a door and hallway of the house to depict this nostalgia and yearning for the person who had died: i focused on the door in this part of the house, although the hallway also plays a part. since a person does not normally sit in a hallway it was meant to suggest that the subject had fallen to the ground in a sudden fit of sadness and extreme longing. figure 2: allerseelen: ‘the door’. although kevin recognised loneliness in all four art songs to varying degrees, he experienced it most in the text of von gilm. to make sure that he captured the essence of this loneliness, kevin was alone in the house whenever he captured his images for all four works. in the final lines of the poem von gilm writes: ‘one day in the year is free for the dead. come close to my heart, so that i can have you again, as once i did in may’.8 kevin once again used movement (of the person and the sheet) and also colour to depict loss and yearning: by holding himself up in a ball and collapsing to the floor, the movement of the person is meant to suggest extreme mourning as well as trying to reach out and hold on to the figure of his lover. of course the lover is no longer there and instead the person grasps at shadows (depicted by wispy figures made through long lens exposures). the black material is a symbol of death as it covers the face of one of the captured instances of the figure sitting on the floor and in part also hovers over his life like a black cloud on his spiritual well-being. even though it is out of place in this instance, the material throughout the series is referencing sheets on a ‘lovers’ bed. kevin uses the door to illustrate the barrier or separation between the subject and his lover. when one examines the image, one sees that the hallway is covered in shadows while light fills up the space beyond the threshold. he ascribes this light not only to the afterlife where the deceased lover now resides, but also to memories of their time together: the door, then, is the separation between the two lovers. the deceased has passed the threshold whilst his lover remains on the side of the living. the world of the mourner is in darkness (the hallway), whilst the light radiates from the other side of the threshold. the light touches the mourner from the other side as his memories of time spent in their relationship lights up his mind from beyond the grave. similarly to ‘the bedroom’, kevin used a chair positioned in a forward angle with flowers on its seat. these elements represent a physical manifestation of the lover who has been left behind waiting for death and the deceased who also leaves signs that he is always present, even after death: the empty chair is what the speaker, as i interpreted my feelings on the subject, sees as his empty seat that awaits him until such time as they will be reunited. the flowers on the chair, dried out, are a sign from his deceased lover that he is receiving his gifts and love even beyond the physical world. of course these elements can be read simply as visions in the mourner’s own mind during his fits of longing and heartbreak. as previously mentioned, the artists superimposed their own experiences onto the text and music. their experiences do not necessarily reflect what the poet or composer had intended. experiencing sehnsucht is best described by c.s. lewis in the weight of glory: we cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience […] these things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. for they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. (lewis 1949 [revised 1980]:29–31) while creating visual representations of the poetry and music, kevin could not prevent his own personal experiences of love to influence his work. he had recently been on a path of self-discovery where he began to accept aspects of his sexuality: i must admit that bits of my own challenges in life did creep through. having come out of the proverbial closet at the time and starting to identify as a homosexual male, the transposed long exposure images have definite homo-erotic effects. i had, without realizing it at first, viewed these extreme emotions in the songs not as hetero-normative messages, but i saw them through my own view-point as male-on-male love stories. all four of kevin’s depictions are open to homoerotic interpretations, but they are most prevalent in brahms’s dein blaues auge (figure 3) and strauss’ morgen (figure 4). figure 3: dein blaues auge: ‘the floor’. figure 4: morgen: ‘the window’. brahms’s musical setting of klaus groth’s text depicts the yearning for relief after the subject had been severely hurt by a former lover. he seeks comfort in the blue eyes of his current paramour. kevin uses the floor to suggest a place where the subject and the previous lover had been intimate or where the current lovers find solace in each other’s arms: being on the floor of the house in this work, and maybe i was the only one to ever really know this, the scene is actually being shot on a spot where an intensely passionate night or sexual encounter may have occurred between the two lovers. the narrator heads back to that spot on the floor in an attempt to capture that moment of pure lust and joy. the bed sheets are used once again in the image. ‘the sheets here are grey, representing the cool headedness of the whole affair, but it also symbolises the lack of empathy or love from the blue-eyed lover’. although the blue-eyed lover never speaks in the poem, it was interesting to observe kevin’s experience of the lover as ‘lacking empathy’. during the interview, it was evident that kevin’s past experiences of love during his coming-out process came into play. ‘the blue-eyed lover on the right is distinctly wispier, like many beautiful people can be: hard to tie down’. he also mentions oskar kokoshka’s ‘the bride of the wind’9 as a subtle point of reference to ‘the floor’. kevin’s visual representation of strauss’s morgen is different from the other three works in many ways. while the other songs portray stronger feelings of longing and hurt, kevin experienced morgen as optimistic. this optimism is clear in the beginning and in the final lines of john henry mackay’s text: and tomorrow the sun will shine again and on the way that i will go, she will again unite us, the happy ones […] silently we will look in each other’s eyes and upon us will sink the mute silence of happiness.10 kevin uses the window of the house, specifically what is beyond the window, to illustrate optimism and the possibility of happiness and new beginnings. he states that: it is the one work that is optimistic, even though it is still a song of longing, but longing with the added ingredient of hope. amidst the other songs i saw it as a moment of hope whilst looking out of the window and feeling the wind and sunshine, a moment that love seems just about within reach and where the longing for a person is not heavy but light and beautiful. in the metaphorical house, ‘the window’ looks out towards new and fresh possibilities. the slow and peaceful melody of the song generates nostalgia and positive thinking. for me, an inherent sadness remains in the work since we will never know if the ‘tomorrow’ being sung about here will ever come for the person/people in these songs and this series of artworks. besides grey scale, kevin also uses natural light to depict optimism as opposed the artificial light used in the other three works: this is meant to emphasise inner struggle/inside the bowels of the house and to highlight the moment of joy and positivity, the moment where love is an optimistic possibility and not a sad retrospective or yearning. nostalgia for a lost home and the desire to love and to be loved in return after listening to a selection of art songs sung by bryn terfel,11 artist marna de wet chose to create a visualisation (oil on board) of the following four english art songs: let beauty awake    r. vaughan williams (1872–1958) whither must i wander? now sleeps the crimson petal op. 3 no. 2  r. quilter (1877–1953) go, lovely rose op. 24 no. 3 in her approach to this project marna stated that she definitely did not only want to create a literal representation of the text and music, but rather an emotion or feeling for the viewer. she describes her work as generally poetic in nature, full of emotion and depth with undertones of melancholy. she mentioned that she had been previously inspired by the elements of sehnsucht in her own work, but did not notice this specifically as sehnsucht until working on this project. before beginning this project, i presented all the artists with a recording of the various art songs as well as the text of the poems. after listening to all the songs marna de wet (figure 5) was instantly drawn to the songs of ralph vaughan williams and roger quilter. she connected immediately to certain words in the poems which together with the music evoked feelings of nostalgia: the music spoke to me and i knew that i could create something based on it. i allowed the music to guide my emotions to the feeling i wanted to recreate in my art. i extracted a word or sentence with which i connected and combined it with the emotion in order to illustrate the elements of sehnsucht. figure 5: let beauty awake: ‘the bed’. marna’s process also involved identifying words or phrases from robert louis stevenson’s poem and expanding upon them by associating them with other words, imagery, emotions or concepts. from the art song, ‘let beauty awake’, which is the second song from vaughan williams’s cycle songs of travel, marna associated the following words and ideas with sehnsucht: ‘morn’, ‘fresh’, ‘awaken’, ‘slumber of day’, ‘day/night’, ‘nature as a person’, ‘love which awakens’. these words and associations culminated in the idea of the narrator’s love (beauty) or love itself which awakens within the narrator. the conceptualisation of love as these two embodiments is also described in the literature as follows. larson (2001:31) identifies ‘beauty’ as ‘the narrator’s impression of nature as the embodiment of beauty’. hallmark rather describes ‘beauty’ as ‘the dawn of romance in the vagabond’s life or [it can be] interpreted as the artist’s awakening to his calling’ (hallmark 2003:134). marna’s ‘light-bulb moment’ (as she describes it) was the visualisation of a luxurious bed which had already been slept in. when the viewer sees the bed, it is already empty, perhaps suggesting the longing for a love which the narrator never truly receives (figure 6). figure 6: whither must i wander? ‘the boy’. ‘whither must i wander? has a homely simplicity, appropriate to the poet’s images of childhood and the security of home and family which are now long in the past, never to return’ (burn 2003). it was this security of home that evoked marna’s interest. she indicated that the following words stood out from stevenson’s poem: ‘childhood’, ‘open door’ and ‘moorland’. marna was not familiar with the term ‘moorland’ and after some research found the following definition as she described in her interview: ‘a type of habitat found in upland areas or uncultivated hill land’. immediately ‘habitat’ triggered marna’s interpretation of sehnsucht in the poetry. ‘habitat represented the longing for the place where you grew up. man is always in search of or trying to create a habitat where he feels safe’. this longing is also captured by clark (2014) who writes: in this poem, the vagabond has either returned to his childhood home or he is remembering what it was like to live there. the comparisons between his former life and his current one are stark indeed, for now he is experiencing the hunger and the cold and, since he left his love behind, he is also experiencing these hardships alone. his childhood home, by contrast, was always warm, lit with a fire, and full of friends. these memories are happy ones, but memories are all they are. just as the vagabond has left home, so has everyone he used to associate with his home. now it is an empty house and the vagabond will never return to the life he had as a child. (p. 179) she searched for images of moorlands until she found one where the colours conveyed the emotion and longing she interpreted in the text and music. after painting the landscape, she superimposed the silhouette of a boy over it. to marna the silhouette was reminiscent of portraits of children found in family homes during victorian times. ‘by making the silhouette transparent, the landscape became part of the child, illustrating the desire or longing for this habitat or safe place’ (figure 7). figure 7: now sleeps the crimson petal: ‘the journey’. marna’s deep-rooted connection to melancholia is one of the reasons that the poetry of lord alfred tennyson appealed to her. lord tennyson himself spent seven months in a ‘hydropathic’ establishment in an attempt to cure his melancholy (tennyson n.d.). from the text marna identified the following words and word associations: ‘a road to somewhere’, ‘a road to your heart’, ‘to be lost’, ‘be lost in me’, ‘to lose yourself in someone’ (figure 8). figure 8: go, lovely rose! ‘reflection’. after listening to the music and reading the poem, marna described her experience of sehnsucht in the art song as an emotional journey rather than erotic love-making: the feeling that i wanted to visualise was the desire to be able to completely give yourself to someone that you end up losing yourself in them. i also wanted to illustrate the journey that one would embark on in order to do so. this would be a metaphorical road that you and your significant other would travel upon. marna describes the experience of making a visual depiction for this art song as the most difficult to accomplish. a rose would be the most logical representation as this is what the poet, edmund waller, used as a metaphor to describe the subject. ‘the rose serves as a metaphor for an attractive woman. the speaker hopes that the lesson provided by the rose will prompt the maiden to yield to his advances’ (miller 2002:1). the sehnsucht identified in this art song is the desire to have one’s love accepted while there is still time to do so. this may require the object of one’s affection to resolve issues which may cause pain in order to accept this love (miller 2000): the poem ends as it began, with an appeal to one who is ‘sweet and fair’. the woman must accept his advances while she can. time is short, as he reiterates in the closing couplet: ‘how small a part of time they share/that are so wondrous sweet and fair’. the poem is a call to action, since his interest and her beauty may both be short-lived. (p. 3) instead of focusing on this aspect of the man’s desire, marna instead chose to focus on the maiden or the object of desire. ‘i wanted to focus on the shyness of the lady who also does not know how beautiful she is’. miller (2000) states that: waller reveals that the woman is shy; she’s ‘young/and shuns to have her graces spied.’ yet, such charm will be wasted if it remains cloistered. the strongest admonition regarding the fragility of beauty arises in stanza 2, when the speaker likens her to a rose that blooms in an uninhabited desert and then dies ‘uncommended’. (p. 3) the fragility of beauty as described by miller is evident in marna’s depiction of a woman who hides behind her own reflection. marna describes her as ‘she stands behind the window; one can only see her reflection, she stays hidden and almost becomes incorporeal or intangible’. seeing beyond the surface: the evolution of idealised love even though jean lampen was unfamiliar with the music and poetry, she was intrigued in particular by the music of robert schumann and johannes brahms. after listening to recordings by karita matilla12 she chose the following four art songs: widmung op. 25, no.1    r. schumann (1810–1856) du bist wie eine blume op. 25, no. 24 meine liebe is grün wie der fliederbusch op. 63, no. 5 j.  brahms (1833–1897) von ewiger liebe op. 43, no.1 all four songs are powerful declarations of passionate love. the poetry is both bold and tender and conveys an idealised romance, which jean experienced as a yearning for an ‘other-worldly’ love. jean is a self-proclaimed minimalist and when first viewing her works they might seem to some as simplistic and literal adaptations of key words in the text. it is upon further viewing and understanding of her process that the deeper even cynical nuances are revealed. jean’s process began with an analysis of the text, where she discovered that she could create visual cohesion using birds and sound waves: i definitely did not know what i was going to do, until i listened to the music and started working through the poetry. then i made a brain chart/map where i extracted words from the poetry, like nightingale … it’s a bird … birds fly … musical notes can also fly or soar … so i deduce that this could be a metaphor for something. when exploring the other art songs, i also noticed that birds are mentioned and i immediately thought that there is a common theme which i could develop through the songs. so my process is finding words which trigger other words, also triggering metaphors or concepts i would like to convey in the art. on a good day i could write and find three related words stemming from this triggering process; on an exceptional day there are many more words and connotations. once it became clear how jean connected the birds to the elements of sehnsucht in the poetry (figure 9), her personal experiences of longing for an idealised love became evident. she reflects that ‘birds are not something that you can hold on to, these are not birds in cages, they are flying […] the context in which you place them already depicts something on a deeper level’. figure 9: von ewiger liebe. jean had been divorced for several years and she no longer experienced love in the way that the poets expressed themselves in these songs. as a performer my interpretation of these songs was positive and extremely romantic, but as an observer and/or researcher it was enlightening to experience jean’s interpretation of the subject matter: it was not ‘feel good’ music to me. for my age, i am beyond that kind of naive love. for me it is almost too sentimental. i interpreted it on another level. it was not just simply love, it was almost a philosophy. in her depiction (figure 10) of heinrich heine’s text, du bist wie eine blume, jean’s pragmatic philosophy of love also guided her starting point during her process. by placing charcoal on paper on top of a speaker while she played the song, the vibration of the music through the speaker guided the charcoal to their final point of rest as the song finished. her minimalistic point of view was also portrayed in figure 10 depicting the flower as described in heine’s text: ‘thou art so like a flower, so pure, and fair and kind’. this minimalism, evident in all her works, was the perfect vehicle to illustrate her own experiences of love, which entailed an evolution of idealised love to what she describes as reality: i could have depicted a ‘schmaltzy’, gushy piece of work but instead i chose to create a weird charcoal flower which in fact does come from reality […] i am a minimalist, so i go straight to the point of what i see. leave out the fluff. figure 10: du bist wie eine blume. jean’s depicted cynicism and humour in brahms’s von ewiger liebe. in the opening lines of august heinrich hoffmann von fallersleben’s text, ‘dark, how dark it is in the forest and field, night has fallen; the world now is silent. nowhere a light and nowhere smoke. yes, now even the lark is silent’,13 jean depicts the lark with its beak wide open (figure 9): the lark was silent but i depicted it with an open mouth. i am very cynical. my cynicism definitely came through with these four songs. it doesn’t really manifest itself in my other works. this is obviously because of the subject material. although these pieces came from a cynical point of view, [they] still depicted joy, appreciation and realism. this joy and realism which jean spoke of was finding love in herself through her art. in schumann’s widmung (figure 11), friedrich rückert’s poem states: ‘your gaze transfigures me; you raise me lovingly above myself, my good spirit, my better self!’ in her depiction she showed a musician who was transfigured to his better self through music and by doing all the things he was passionate about. figure 11: widmung. to jean one did not need romantic, idealised love to find fulfilment. she experienced this self-fulfilment in brahm’s meine liebe ist grün (figure 12), specifically in felix schumann’s text: ‘my soul has the wings of a nightingale’. ‘this art song connected with widmung in the way that i also wanted to depict a longing or desire to be my better self’. figure 12: meine liebe ist grün. by creating a visual representation of the elements of sehnsucht in these songs, jean confronted feelings about love in a way that she did not have the opportunity to do in previous works. the overtly romantic nature of the poetry might have guided another artist in a completely different direction, but it was the music of schumann and brahms together with jean’s minimalistic aesthetic which ultimately materialised in her art: the music is actually greater than the text. the words are almost fluff. the words were almost the vehicle to bring life to the music. i may have used the words literally in my depictions, but it was on another level saying something with significantly more meaning than what is superficially evident. depictions of wanderlust portrayed through found objects i am homesick for a place i am not sure even exists. one where my heart is full and my soul is understood … (anonymous) this quotation which eljana van der merwe remembered seeing somewhere in the past inspired her not only during this project but also during her life so far. this is why she was immediately drawn to antonin dvorak’s gypsy songs (cigánské melodie) op. 55, which includes the following seven songs: my song sounds of love (ma pisen zas mi laskou zni) hah, how my triangle ringing (aj, kterak trojhranec muj) the forest is quiet all around (a les je tichy kolem kol) songs my mother taught me (kdyz mne stara matka) the string is tuned (struna naladena) wide sleeves (siroke rukavy) give a hawk a cage (dejte klec jestrabu). this song cycle is a musical setting of the first part of a collection of poems by adolf heyduk entitled gypsy melodies. of her whole experience while working on these visual representations eljana writes: dvorak’s gypsy songs were at times soothing like a homecoming song and at other times they stirred up urges of restlessness – inspiring a strong desire to lead the feet in the direction of the unknown. eljana had preconceived notions of what her interpretation of the songs would be because of her previous encounters with the gypsy lifestyle. before listening to the recordings of anne sofie von otter’s interpretation of the gypsy songs14 eljana already decided to transfer the elements of sehnsucht (specifically wanderlust) to visual art. however, after reading the texts and listening to the music, she knew immediately that she would have to abandon her initial plan to visualise these songs: i assumed that the theme of my works would reference what i interpreted as the typical bohemian gypsy style: a wild and free one. as soon as i listened to the rich music carefully and analysed the text, i could not have felt more removed from my initial idea (unless i deliberately wanted to exploit the commercial sense of the gypsy interpretation), but dvorak is far from commercial or frivolous in that way. i had to dig much deeper to interpret an honest sense of the works. before embarking on this musical–visual amalgamation, eljana had just returned from mexico where she showcased a travelling exhibition called ‘wanderlust’. she thought it would be possible to adapt previous works from her mexican visit to incorporate the elements of sehnsucht which lent themselves to the feelings of wanderlust: the strong desire to travel and explore. but heyduk’s and dvorak’s presentation of the feelings of wanderlust was completely different: they [the poems] are characteristic for their fervent expression and emphasis on the bond between man and nature, on man’s elemental need for music, and on freedom as something to be valued above all else.15 two elements of sehnsucht feature prominently in these songs: nostalgia and longing for freedom. eljana’s visual depiction of these elements of sehnsucht was unique and again very different to that of the other artists. instead of painting in her preferred medium of oil on canvas, eljana sourced various materials which she felt told a story complementing the feelings and nostalgia conveyed in heyduk’s text and dvorak’s music: i sourced ‘found objects’ to enhance the nature of a traveller’s journey and the legacy that lives on. the untold journeys hiding in each of the carefully sourced items triggered nostalgia and awakened a longing in me for something or someplace i did not know […] like a driftwood adventure, or the heat of a burning forest found in the final remains of the ruins and it is slowly smouldering in the aftermath […] or the metal discs that once were part of the astronomical engineering works that focused the eye on the marvels of galaxies and promises of explorations beyond. eljana used these found objects as part of her visualisation of sehnsucht in each art song: the first song, with its use of an ‘exotic’ gypsy scale and its tender, schubertian shift from minor to major for the middle verse, is typical of the set in its mingled joy and soulful yearning. (wigmore 2004) presented with the german and english translation16 of the original czech text by emily ezust and gayle royko heuser, respectively, eljana isolated the words ‘wanderlust’ and ‘my feet roam distant lands’ to serve as her inspiration for her first piece (figure 13): i recalled a specific day in the city of puebla when i photographed an anonymous elderly woman along the way. she looked so fine, so well balanced on her stilettos on the cobblestone sidewalk. i had no idea about her, her journey or her destination – i was drawn to the secrecy of this stranger. i sensed a romantic undertone in the music and associated that mood with the strong colour of the woman’s dress. the rhythm of her stroll sounded of love to me as mentioned in heyduk’s text. figure 13: ‘my song sounds of love’. eljana painted this image on wood from a dismantled bird-feeder. she also used this bird-feeder as the surface for her paintings (figure 14) of the fifth song, struna naladěna (the string is tuned), capturing the highly energetic nature of the poetry and music by the dutch signs ‘heen’ and ‘weer’, meaning ‘to go back and forth’. she captured these images in leiden in the netherlands. figure 14: ‘the string is tuned’. eljana used three metal discs and a burnt piece of wood as her canvases for the second and third songs, respectively. she captured the nostalgia in the second song, conveyed by dvorak’s brisk tempo, by portraying it across three separate pieces. ‘the music is fast and having to view a fragmented work accentuates and compliments the jerky rhythm’. in dvorak’s third song he sets heyduk’s lines:17 ‘the forest is quiet all around; only the heart is disturbing the peace. as if black smoke is flowing, tears flow down my cheeks and so they dry’. eljana drew inspiration from the words ‘black smoke’ and painted a forest scene (figure 15) while trying to convey the hopeful sentiments of the final verse of the poetry: i chose a burnt piece of wood to work on. it was the remains of roof beams from a burnt-down house. i detected a sombre mood in the music and chose a quiet forest scene i photographed in the netherlands. as the lyrics have an optimistic end, the bridge resembles hope. figure 15: ‘the forest is quiet all around’. dvorak’s fourth song, translated as ‘songs my mother taught me’, (figure 16) is arguably the best known song of the cycle. dvorak employs an unusual rhythmic structure which, together with heyduk’s text, conjures nostalgic images of a mother’s love for her child.18 eljana depicted this nostalgia by painting images of vintage toys on old discs she sourced from an observatory: i chose to paint vintage toys i photographed in the shop windows of the hague and mexico, as they remind me of old mothers. these toys are timeless and transport me to a state of oblivion. figure 16: ‘songs my mother taught me’. while the first five songs highlighted nostalgia in the music and poetry, the last two songs awaken the intense longing for a gypsy’s freedom. ‘nostalgia is banished in the next two songs, which celebrate the carefree gypsy life in bold, leaping – and unmistakably czech – dance rhythms’ (wigmore 2004). in the sixth song, široké rukávy [wide sleeves], eljana depicted this yearning for freedom as clothing blowing in the wind painted on a piece of driftwood: i see a humble washing line with white laundry blown by the breeze – free from constraints and transparent in nature. i carried the surface for the painting with me all the way from mozambique. nothing could be more liberated than a piece of driftwood. eljana also captured this longing for freedom in the final song through symbolic images representing freedom, painted on the beam of a roof. commonalities and differences during the course of this project, there were some commonalities and differences in the approach and process shared by the artists. while working on this project the artists became aware of a fresh understanding of their process. understanding sehnsucht leads to a further awareness and development of the creative process as a result of our initial conversations during our meetings and studying the music and poetry, the artists better understood the essence of sehnsucht. marna only realised after identifying the nostalgia and melancholy in the music and poetry that she had tried to capture this feeling in her paintings in the past. in essence the understanding and awareness of sehnsucht informed her creative process more clearly. identifying and understanding sehnsucht also lead the artists to super-impose their personal lived experiences on the meaning which they ascribed through the music and poetry. this resulted in a development of their creative process. creating a work of art from music and poetry served as a magnifying lens which the artists used to intensify the emotions which they wanted to illustrate in their work. while kevin du plessis was able to use his works as an outlet for new, unexplored feelings of sexuality, jean lampen confronted feelings of love as experienced by a single woman and mother who is divorced. she had never known that her cynicism about love was so strong until she participated in this project. the artists also incorporated their own interests into their work. marna’s affinity for a victorian aesthetic and melancholy propelled her inspiration together with the text and music. eljana’s self-proclaimed gypsy lifestyle and her feelings of wanderlust were the perfect fit for her portrayal of sehnsucht in the poetry of heyduk and music of dvorak. music v text: varying degrees of inspiration throughout the creative process none of the art works was a merely literal representation of the text, but rather an intense personal and emotional portrayal by the artists of the essence of the music and poetry. while all of the artists studied the poetry and music in depth prior to beginning their work, their processes did differ significantly. katz (1989) refers to music as being non-referential: it pictures, describes or symbolises none of the actions, persons, passions and concepts ordinarily associated with human experience […] there is no reason to expect that our emotional experience of it should be referential. (p. 180) the artists mentioned that the music significantly influenced the conception of their ideas and final works, but with the exception of kevin du plessis to a certain degree, the artists were unable to verbalise precisely how they were influenced directly by the music. this could be attributed to the fact that none of the artists were musicians and did not possess the necessary vocabulary to describe the melodies, harmonies, tonal colour and rhythm. another reason could be the non-referential nature of music as described by katz (1989). marna de wet, jean lampen and eljana van der merwe used word associations to varying degrees; nonetheless the association of words and the emotions which they felt in the music led to their eventual depictions of sehnsucht. while kevin du plessis also studied the texts, he actively incorporated the music during his photo sessions, thus leaving creative space for the music, including the harmonies, phrasing, rhythms and emotional intensity of the singing voice, to guide him in capturing the ultimate frame used in the art. symbolism and colour used to ascribe meaning to sehnsucht the artists used symbolism and colour to varying degrees in all of their works. jean lampen used birds not only as a unifying theme in her works, but also to represent love which was not smothered but rather free. the imagery which she used to fill in the person in her charcoal drawings symbolised their better selves. although the poetry spoke of a yearning for a passionate love, this love was not represented in her work by another person, but rather other passions in the lives and careers of the subjects in her works. although her work was mostly black and white, her subtle use of watercolours used selectively for some of the birds accentuated her idea of love through minimalistic means. kevin used a house with its single occupant to emphasise the loneliness and longing he interpreted in the texts and music. this longing was further represented by places inside the house, such as the bedroom (the longing for love), the floor (the longing for emotional relief), the door (the longing for a deceased lover) and the window (longing with hope for new beginnings). the colour and movement of the white, grey and black sheets and the technical use of grey scale added symbolic meaning to his interpretation. although he did not see his works as self-portraits, kevin was the model for his own photographs depicting homoerotic love, longing, broken-heartedness and the yearning for things past or out of reach. marna de wet’s use of symbolism was evident in her oil paintings on canvas. her use of the bed and luxurious sheets which were already slept in portrayed the longing for love. the combination of the victorian silhouette of the boy and the use of colour to depict the moorland was instrumental in her portrayal of nostalgia for a home long gone. her sombre use of colour also contributed to her interpretation of melancholy in the music of roger quilter. while eljana van der merwe incorporated vibrant colour throughout her work, the symbolic use of colour was most evident in her first piece, where the rich tones of purples, reds and pinks represented her interpretation of what the sounds of love would be like. she used sourced objects with emotional significance for her to complement the feelings of wanderlust, nostalgia and yearning for freedom present in the poetry and music. these included a dismantled bird-feeder, metal discs from an observatory, a burnt piece of wood, a piece of wood from a roof beam and a piece of driftwood from mozambique. conclusion this research has granted the reader access to the experiences shared by these four artists during their process of portraying the elements of sehnsucht in the music of vaughan williams, quilter, dvorak, schumann, strauss and brahms. it could be interpreted that when presented with both text and music, visual artists are drawn to the text because of its referential nature. however, it is clear that the music (although not always describable) remains an intrinsic part of their process and inspiration. future research is recommended and necessary to further understand these experiences. because other artists’ interpretation and experiences of these specific art songs would be completely different, the outcomes of future research might differ significantly from, or illustrate commonalities with, the experiences of these four artists. also, the oeuvre of the art song is limitless, with new works being composed regularly; hence multimedia projects like this one would always inspire musicians and visual artists to collaborate and produce work crossing traditional transdisciplinary boundaries. acknowledgement competing interest the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references adler, g., 1885, ‘umfang, methode und ziel der musikwissenschaft’, vierteljahrsschrift für musikwissenschaft 1, chapter 2, p. 5. auping, m., butler, c., hecker, j., biesenbach, k. & kentridge, w., 2009, ‘sarastro and his master’s voice’, in m. rosenthal, (ed.), william kentridge: five themes, pp. 170–193, yale university press, new haven, ct. beller-mckenna, d., 2010, ‘between sehnsucht and nostalgia: brahms’s lieder und romanzen for women’s chorus, op. 44’, ars lyrica: journal of the lyrica society for word-music relations. ixx (2010): [felix mendelssohn and johannes brahms issue] 19, 129–152. burn, a., 2003, songs of travel, viewed 1 march 2016, from www.hyperion-records.co.uk: http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=w4429_67378 byrnes, s., 2007, ‘the colour of music’, new statesman 136(4869), 42–43. canisius, c., 1992, beethoven: sehnsucht und unruhe in der musik, piper, münchen. clark, r., 2014, ‘aspects of national identity in the art songs of ralph vaghan williams before the great war’, phd dissertation, university of illinois at urbana-champaign, urbana, il. decker, d., 1989, ‘baudouin oosterlynck’, artefactum 31, 16–18. de duve, t., 2013, ‘don’t shoot the messenger’, artforum international 52(3), 264–312. doherty, w., 2013, ‘“ein unregelmäßiges duett”: the duet settings of “nur wer die sehnsucht kennt”’, music: function and value—proceedings of the 11th international congress on musical signification: cracow, akademia muzyczna w krakowie, kraków, september 27–october 2, 2010, vol. 2, pp. 978–983. doherty, w., 2014, ‘semiosis in a schubert song’, chinese semiotic studies 10(2), 353–362. dvorak, a., grainger, p. & hahn, r., (composers)., 2000, folksongs. 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(ed.), n.d., (oxford university press), the oxford dictionary of music, 2nd edn. rev. edn., oxford music online: the oxford dictionary of music, 2nd edn., rev. edn., oxford music online, viewed 20 january 2016, from http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/42507 kotter-grühn, d., wiest, m., zurek, p. & scheibe, s., 2009, ‘what is it we are longing for? psychological and demographic factors influencing the contents of sehnsucht (life longings)’, journal of research in personality 43(3), 428–437. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.012 langfield, v., n.d., (oxford university press) from grove music online. oxford music online, viewed 20 january 2016, from http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/22702 larsen, j., 1969, ‘zu schuberts vertonung des liedes nur wer die sehnsucht kennt’, in musa – mens – musici: im gedenken an walther vetter, pp. 227–281, veb deutscher verlag für musik, leipzig. larson, m., 2001, ‘text/music relations in ralph vaughan williams’ songs of travel: an interpretive guide’, dma thesis, arizona state university. leman, m., 2010, ‘music research at the cross-roads of innovation: tendencies, perspectives and opportunities of a transdisciplinary approach’, in s.d. pena (ed.), themes in transdisciplinary research, pp. 64–89, editora universidade federal de minas gerais, ghent, belgium. lewis, c.s., (1949) [revised 1980], the weight of glory and other address, harper collins publishers, new york. malvano, a., 2003, voci da lontano: robert schumann e l’arte della citazione, edt, torino. mazzaro, m., 2016, ‘noteworthy and now’, opera news 80(9), 6. mcclain, m., 1984, ‘goethe and music: nur wer die sehnsucht kennt’, in johann wolfgang von goethe: one hundred and fifty years of continuing vitality, pp. 201–227, texas technical university, lubbock, tx. miller, p., 2002, ‘go, lovely rose’, in masterplots ii: poetry, rev. ed., pp. 1–3, literary reference center, ebscohost, viewed 1 march 2016, from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.nwulib.nwu.ac.za/ehost/detail/detail?sid=0d9e31b9-8647-444d-aa06-92976ede0bf3%40sessionmgr120&vid=65&hid=114&bdata=#an=103331poe15120351000105&db=lfh mohr, m., 2000, ‘digital salon artists’ statements’, leonardo 33(5), 441, viewed 1 march 2016, from www.poetryfoundation.org: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/alfred-tennyson olthafer, r., 2006, ‘goethe’s mignon: settings of nur wer die sehnsucht kennt’, doctoral dissertation, dma from university of wisconsin, madison. orrey, l. & warrack, j., n.d., (a. latham, editor, & oxford university press), grove music online. oxford music online, viewed 20 january 2016, from http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e3971 oteri, f., 2005, music and art beneath the surface, viewed 3 march 2015, from http://www.americancomposers.org:http://www.americancomposers.org/archive/2004-05-season/art-surface-essay-htm/ petrauskaitė, d., 2012, ‘characteristics and reflections of nostalgia in the lithuanian music of the twentieth century’, in between nostalgia, utopia, and realities. series: musicological studies: proceedings, no. 4, pp. 289–297, fakultet muzičke umetnosti, beograd, yugoslavia. quilter, r., (composer)., 2004, silent noon. [b. terfel, & m. martineau, performers] deutsche grammophon. reichert, s., 1994, ‘unendliche sehnsucht: the concept of longing in german romantic narrative and song’, doctoral dissertation, phd from yale university. reid, k., flowers, p. & larkin, m., 2005, ‘exploring lived experiences’, the psychologist 8(1), 20–23. rogers, f.r. & rogers, m., 1985, painting and poetry: form, metaphor, and the language of literature, associated university presses, cranbury, nj. rummenhöller, p., 1999, ‘“nur wer die sehnsucht kennt…”: verliebtheit als motiv in musik, literatur und kunst’, musik und unterricht: zeitschrift für musikpädagogik 10(54), 4–7. schumann, r., brahms, j., schubert, f. & beethoven, l.v., (composers)., 1998, wild rose. [k. mattila, & i. ranta, performers] ondine. smith, j., flowers, p. & larkin, m., 2009, interpretive phenomenological analysis, sage, london. strauss, r., (composer)., 1983, four last songs, six orchestral songs, [j. norman, performer, & k. masur, conductor] decca. tennyson, a., n.d., www.poetryfoundation.org., viewed 10 april 2016, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/alfred-tennyson#poet urmoneit, s., 2002, ‘mignons sehnsucht: versuch über goethe, zelter und schubert’, schubert: perspektiven 2(1), 22–56. vergo, p., 2010, the music of painting: music, modernism and the visual arts from the romantics to john cage, phaidon, london, england. wharton, m., 1998, visual art and poetry in the songs of francis poulenc, dma from university of iowa, iowa city, ia. wigmore, r., 2004, antonín dvořák and the songs of his time (essays from the program booklet), salzburg festival, viewed 10 april 2016, from http://hampsongfoundation.org/antonin-dvorak-and-the-songs-of-his-time-essay/ williams, v., (composer)., 1995, the vagabond. [b. terfel, & m. martineau, performers] deutsche grammophon. www.southafrica.info. n.d., viewed 10 april 2016, from http://www.southafrica.info/about/arts/south-african-grammys-2015-091215.htm#.v_odxmlinra footnotes 1. the german lied flourished during the 19th century, while schumann and brahms were considered to be two of the masters of the genre (orrey & warrack n.d.). richard strauss was not only an important proponent of the lied in the 20th century but also a major force behind the transformation in its compositional style (gilliams & youmens n.d.). dvorak’s music was greatly influenced by brahms and folk music in particular (kennedy n.d.). 2. quilter, a contemporary of richard strauss, came to prominence as a songwriter in 1901, when denham price performed the four songs of the sea at the crystal palace. he associated with many poets and painters. he favoured shakespeare, herrick and shelley, often setting their texts to music. ‘his wistful lyricism was characterized by chromatic harmonies and highly vocal melodic lines’ (langfield n.d.). 3. folk music proved to be a major influence in the music of vaughan williams as well as the revival of interest in english 16th -century composers (kennedy n.d.). 4. only he who knows what yearning is (translation). 5. jessye norman. richard strauss: four last songs; 6 orchestral songs (recording): decca, 1983. 6. english translation by emily ezust (www.lieder.net: accessed 02/01/2015). 7. hambrick (n.d.) writes that: strauss’s largely syllabic vocal declamation and frequent repetition of pitches underscore the nostalgic simplicity of the text. the waves of graceful arpeggiated sweeps in the piano accompaniment throughout the song reinforce gilm’s interpretation of all souls’ day, suggesting the yearning for the ideal springtime place where love is innocent and lovers are united in otherworldly bliss. 8. translation by emily ezust (www.lieder.net: accessed on 02/01/2015). 9. this work is a self-portrait depicting oscar kokoshka next to his lover, alma mahler (johnson 2009). 10. translation by emily ezust (www.lieder.net: accessed on 02/01/2015). 11. bryn terfel. the vagabond (recording): deutsche grammophon. 1995. bryn terfel. silent noon (recording): deutsche grammophon. 2004. 12. karita mattila: wild rose (recording): ondine. 1998. 13. english translation by leonard lehrman (www.lieder.net: accessed on 02/01/2015). 14. anne sofie von otter. folksongs (recording): deutsche grammophon. 2000. 15. http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/en/gypsy-songs (accessed on 08/03/2016). 16. translations were found on the liedernet archive (www.lieder.net/lieder accessed on 02/01/2015) and used with permission. 17. ‘a les je tichý kolem kol, jen srdce mír ten ruší, a černý kouř, jenž spěchá v dol, mé slze v lících, mé slze suší’ (original czech). 18. ‘its haunting, nostalgic tune and subtle pull between the melody (in 2/4 rhythm) and the syncopated 6/8 accompaniment has enabled it to weather any number of sentimental performances and dubious arrangements’ (wigmore 2004). microsoft word 06 beyene.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(4) december 2014, special edition: san dispute resolution, pp. 99-119. socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict of the san community in platfontein hg beyene1 abstract the study examines the role of socio-economic factors in conflict in the san community of platfontein. this article’s analysis is based on the primary data collected from individual interviews and focused group discussions conducted in 2013 and 2014. it reveals that socioeconomic factors are both the cause of the conflict and serve as remedies for the conflict. the causes date back to the historical displacement and dispossession of land the community faced. the san community is highly dependent on the limited income of a few veterans while the vast majority is unemployed. the lack of skills and limited command of the dominant language in the community makes them less able to compete for jobs. the community’s economic hardships are increased by the dependency syndrome shown by the adults, who tend towards job-seeking rather than job creation and self-reliance. the economic hardship has become one formidable cause of conflict in the community. a concerted effort is needed to change the attitude of the community so that it becomes entrepreneurial and independent. one factor that erodes unity within the san community is that the leadership does not work closely with the people – a situation that increases the likelihood of conflict. the efforts undertaken to empower the san community and lift them out of poverty are very limited. the conflict between !xun and khwe is attributed to the divisive political rule adopted during the apartheid regime in south africa. comparative economic asymmetries between !xun and khwe are also causes of conflict. furthermore, the widening of social distance, along with competition for jobs and housing, increases the tensions and divisions between the !xun and khwe communities. the cause of conflict between the san community and other communities is also associated with unemployment and unfair treatment. socio-economic factors are valuable ingredients in the process of conflict resolution and healing the emotional problems of the conflicting parties. keywords: conflict, emotional healing, platfontein, resolution process, san, community, socioeconomic factors, !xun, khwe introduction the issue of conflict resolution is as old as the history of mankind. it has been defined in different ways, based on different perspectives by various scholars. conflict is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived diversity in needs, values and interests. conflict takes place when two or more parties find their interests incompatible and express hostile attitudes towards each other, or take action which damages the ability of the other parties to pursue their interest (mustafa 2013).2 1 post-doctoral fellow at the institute for dispute resolution, university of south africa (unisa). 2 the definition is given as shown by mustafa (2013) citing the works of fathali & rom (2010) and sandole & van der merwe (1995). beyene 100 it is one of the most frequently discussed and debated issues, as the literature indicates. before highlighting the multitude of arguments, here is a brief historical background of the san community that is the focus of this study. the san community has been deprived of possessing natural resources and has been exposed to displacement for more than 300 years. after the victory of national party in the 1948 election, the san community was categorised as “coloured” and lived in poverty in the remote areas of northern cape. the san community has been exposed to harsh living conditions and an extremely marginalised status for about four decades. the !xun and khwe, who were on the side of the portuguese in angola and namibia, fought against apartheid and later fled to south africa along with south african defence force (sadf) (robins 2001). the process of relocation from namibia was carried out in 1990, when 500 veterans of the sadf’s “bushman battalions” along with their 3 500 dependents relocated to schmidtsdrift. the sadf decided on this relocation to protect the bushman battalion soldiers from the likelihood of retribution by the new swapo government in namibia. the sadf believed that retribution was inevitable, as the bushman battalions had been against swapo in the independence struggle in the 1980s. however, contrary to the expectations of the sadf, swapo took no retaliatory action against the members of the bushmen battalions who decided to remain in namibia. then the sadf facilitated the granting of south african citizenship to 4 000 relocated people at schmidtsdrift. in the post-apartheid era 360 san soldiers were integrated into the south african national defence force (sandf) (robins 2001). mahongo (2014) explains that from 1990 the san tribe arrived in south africa with the help of the sadf, which provided it with food for few months. there were 350 people from the san community employed as soldiers in the sadf, which later increased to 600. these 600 soldiers were financially responsible for the whole community at that time. later people were made to work on farms, which helped generate more income for the community’s survival. of the two peoples of the san community that moved to south africa, the khwe come from botswana and the !xun are mainly from angola (swart 2014). when they arrived in south africa they lived in tents at the military camp based in schmidtsdrift, close to kimberley, for about 10 years until they were eventually relocated to a permanent settlement area where housing and other facilities were provided (robins 2001). the dislocation of the san community (the !xun, khwe and ‡khomani), and their eviction to relatively unproductive and remote areas, ended in south africa in 1999 when they were placed in two principal land settlements. the khomani san were entitled to their own land: the other san communities, the !xun and khwe, which settled in platfontein, are entitled to own farmland closer to kimberley (robins 2001). in june 1999, the african national congress granted land to 4 500 !xun and khwe san people. currently, the total population of the san community at platfontein is 7 000. of these about 4 500 are !xun and the rest are khwe (beyene 2014c). this settlement has changed their way of life from nomadic to sedentary. this new secure sedentary lifestyle is presumed to offer greater opportunities to transform their lives, and is viable if supported by development schemes that allow the community to settle sustainably (robins 2001). the san people were considered authentic bushmen who kept their original identity for decades. they presented themselves to outsiders as primordial pure bushmen by conforming socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 101 to the myths about and attitudes to bushmen commonly held in the west. this process continued until after the end of apartheid. the peculiarities of the san have been an issue that attracted the attention of journalists, photographers and film-makers who created global awareness of the community. the san do not benefit from such activities, which focus on the distinctive features of the group (robins 2001). after 1994, the san people who had been soldiers came into conflict with the new south african defence force, especially over the type of discipline it followed. as a result many of the san soldiers opted to take early retirement; however, one of the problems these soldiers then faced was a language or communication problem. the san soldiers’ medium of communication used to be afrikaans, but others in the army in the new dispensation prefer to communicate in english. this communication problem also contributed to military personnel from the san community leaving the army (beyene 2014b). collier (2006) points out that the communities in platfontein are now, post-conflict, exposed to higher risks that polarise grievances even more than before. methodology the study is principally based on fieldwork that involved data collection through interviews with selected respondents from the san settlement areas of platfontein, with a focus on !xun and khwe san. a total of 250 interviews and focused group discussions were held in 2013 and 2014. this study has made use of the data collected in both the individual interviews and focused group discussions. to strengthen the quality of the study, data was also collected from selected key informants at a retreat workshop in 2014. in this workshop, the study also used individual as well as group discussion approaches to obtain detailed facts about the socioeconomic situations and dispute resolution practices of the specified san communities. furthermore, relevant literature about the san community was reviewed to substantiate the data and analysis of the study. the retreat workshop organised in pretoria also opened up an opportunity for informal communication that further enhanced the researchers’ understanding of the dynamics of the san community. rationale of the study the study is intended to examine the socioeconomic factors that serve as a cause as well as a solution for the conflicts that arise in the san community. this will help to explain the role of socioeconomic factors in the conflict and pacification processes. the study examines the role of socioeconomic factors in conflict between the communities of the san; between san and other communities; and during the process of conflict resolution. further, it addresses how socioeconomic factors should be treated in the community’s social setting in a way that enhances peaceful living patterns. literature review violence can be determined by economic or non-economic factors or a blend of both (krueger & maleckova 2003). with regard to the conflict-poverty nexus there are two schools of thought. while the first argues that poverty gives rise to conflict, the other school beyene 102 argues the reverse. various scholars use different terminologies in presenting their arguments about the relationship between poverty and conflict. these include indirect relationship, twoway association and complex relationship, or a bifurcated type (ikejiaku 2012). the relationship between conflict and poverty is widely observed, as they are closely interwoven. both of them explain the suffering of human beings. poverty can result in conflict when complaints and grievances are not resolved; poverty-stricken people may revolt or challenge the administration in other ways. furthermore, deterioration in economic conditions can lead to the eruption of violence (ikejiaku 2012). the centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) (2009) examined the violence rate and its causes. it stated that violence in south africa is caused by high levels of inequality and poverty, unemployment, marginalisation, and uneven treatment of south africans and others by state institutions performance. luckham, ismail, muggah and white (2001:1) state that “war and poverty are in a dynamic and mutually reinforcing relationship. not only has armed conflict been a major determinant of poverty in sub-saharan africa, poverty has amplified conflict’s impact and made civilians more vulnerable. and in turn poverty and inequality remain among the major sources of conflict”. one of the fundamental factors that play a role in preventing civil strife is the implementation of both economic and political reforms simultaneously in a way that attempts to distribute both costs and benefits to the communities (brinkman 2001). in south africa, although there were many other factors the apartheid regime is blamed for, the cause of conflict is stated thus: “… the immediate cause of the conflict could be linked to the high rate of poverty and unemployment arising from politicisation of every bit of life in the homeland” (irobi 2005:4). the impact of poverty on conflict is further supported by archbishop tutu’s warning to south africa: “if the disadvantaged, the poor, the homeless and unemployed become desperate, they may use desperate means to redress the imbalance” (2003:3, cited in ikejiaku 2012). from this it can be inferred that economic resources are at the heart of both the conflict’s initiation and its resolution. mustafa (2013) finds that pakistan is exposed to multifaceted problems that lead it into conflict; however, the most important are socioeconomic. despite the significance of these socioeconomic factors, they have remained unaddressed since pakistan became an independent nation. conflict in pakistan is complex and multifaceted. most of the problems are internal in nature, related to the drive to attain economic and social power. political and economic solutions should be devised to sustainably resolve conflicts in the country. in addition, goodhand (2001) examined the effect of chronic poverty on grievances that lead to violence. goodhand discovered that chronic poverty per se does not lead to the eruption of violence. however, if chronically poor people are denied a say in political affairs, the likelihood of conflict increases. moreover, inequalities in societies of the same level (horizontal), exclusions from opportunities coupled with locational or identity territories may increase the tendency of the society to violence: political entrepreneurs become active in exploiting the discontent and grievances of society. a community that suffers from chronic poverty can be utilised as an important weapon to wage and sustain war. poverty-stricken people may consider involvement in violence and predation as their sole option to sustain a livelihood. socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 103 tadjoeddin and murshed (2007) found that economic deterioration and a rise in poverty are directly associated with the degree of conflict. they state that enhancement of economic growth and poverty alleviation are panaceas that will bring about social cohesion and unity. bohlken and sergenti (2010) made a study of the causal relations between economic growth and ethnic violence in india which revealed that there is an inverse relationship between the two. the likelihood of conflict is inhibited by a boost in india’s economy. their study suggests that an improvement in economic progress serves as a tool that is part of the conflict resolution process and peace-building activities. kim and conceição (2010) investigated the relationship between economic factors and the outbreak of conflict. the empirical results indicate that they are interlinked. though the eruption of conflict can be attributed to several factors, lower levels of human development raise the likelihood of conflict. furthermore, the violence further reduces economic values, leading to impoverishment by destroying existing wealth. the relationship between conflict and human development is like a vicious circle: the two reinforce each other. it is suggested that the formulation and implementation of policies that strengthen and sustain human development will have an indirect influence on reducing the likelihood of conflict. ikejiaku (2012) reveals that the cause-and-effect relationship between conflict and poverty is not unidirectional. each affects the other, though the effect of conflict on poverty is more critical than the other way round. while the impact of conflict on poverty is direct, the latter’s effect on conflict is indirect. furthermore, no evidence exists that supports the hypothesis that conflict cannot result because of poverty. the argument of other scholars is somewhat different to either of the stances that conflict leads to poverty or the reverse. nelson (1998) argues that the association between conflict and economic grievance is indefinable, owing to the significant influence of non-economic factors. however, studies done recently reveal that the outbreak of conflict and its recurrence are explained significantly by economic situations (kim 2010). atwood (2003) states that there is a strong association between deprivation of material necessities and the likelihood of violence. this could range from crimes that are committed in poverty-stricken areas resulting in social conflict to centre-city of the neighbourhood political instabilities. there are several theories supporting the hypothesis that poverty and inequality lead to violence or conflict. some of these include: “… frustration-aggression theory, the entitlement perspective, marxian perspective, relative deprivation theory, liberal economic and democratisation theory, and human basic needs perspective” (ikejiaku 2012:130). according to relative deprivation theory, conflicts and violence erupt due to the disparity between one’s stated right to entitlements and the actual reward (gurr 1970). a study by kimenyi and ndung’u (2002) discloses that the conflict between kikuyus in kenya was mainly related to poverty and inequality before and after independence. similarly, in senegal poverty and inequality were the principal causes of conflict at casamance (humphreys & mohamed 2003). drez and sen (1995, cited in ikejiaku 2012) argue that apart from the direct correlation between impoverishment, inequality and wellbeing, a higher level of economic asymmetry inhibits society’s drive to boost its valued capabilities. inequality can be the driving force for tension and violence in a community. beyene 104 darman (2003) adds that such disparities result from governance’s failure to appropriately allocate resources, with some parts of the society being privileged and others disadvantaged. the burden of poverty due to mismanagement leads to frustration and anger, which give rise to violence. starr (2006) criticises the neo-liberal conception that overemphasises boosting the individual’s incentives and undermines the role of socioeconomic injustice in causing violence. starr criticises the assertions of neo-liberalism that socioeconomic injustice does not have a role in violent conflicts. he argues that in societal problems, socioeconomic aspects should be given due attention in order to effectively and sustainably solve them. the third proposition that goodhand (2001) briefly investigated is the causal relationship between greed, grievance and conflict. the study reveals that rebel groups have used grievances as a camouflage while they assert their financial interests in high-value items like diamonds and other primary products that can bring them money. to realise their financial interests, the rebel group generates grievances as a strategy, which leads the community to make them a hot issue. hence, greed leads to conflict using grievance as an instrument. the other school of thought argues that conflict results in poverty. scholars who disagree contend that conflict is a driver towards poverty. goodhand (2001:4) states that “chronic poverty by itself is unlikely to lead to conflict – the chronically poor often lack political voice and organisation”. in fact, the adverse impact of conflict on any country’s economy and poverty is virtually an agreed-upon and accepted idea. one of the three propositions goldin (2001) has examined deals with the causal relations between conflict and chronic poverty. it was found that livelihood and entitlements are directly and disastrously affected by the eruption of conflict that intentionally destroys livelihoods, leading to chronic insecurity. the state of chronic insecurity further worsens chronic poverty. in fact, the magnitude of the impact varies according to age, gender, ethnicity and region. in the vast literature that discusses the cause-and-effect relationship between conflict and poverty, no conclusive assertion and consensus have yet been reached. sen (2008) argues that the factors thought to cause violence or conflict within and between communities should be seen in a systemic way. economic conditions, social inequality, deprivation and other factors should be examined as integrated with each other and other pertinent factors to determine the root cause of conflict. one factor should not be singled out as important at the expense of others. an attempt to address an issue in isolation would inhibit one’s understanding of the whole picture of the causes of violence. idemudia and ite’s (2006) finding is consistent with the assertions of sen (2008). they state that to resolve the more than decades-old conflict in the niger delta region of nigeria, an integrated approach should be adopted in dealing with the factors responsible for the occurrence of conflict in the region. the basic factors specified as causes for the conflict are economic, social and environmental, among others. a comprehensive solution that integrates the specified factors should be designed and implemented, one that sustainably resolves conflict and enhances ongoing development. murray (2001) notes that the methods adopted to resolve conflicts in africa have achieved little success. one of the reasons is that the issue of the link between the violation of human rights and conflict is overlooked. as a general principle, the literature suggests that africa needs to take a holistic perspective to solve its conflicts. as it becomes more complex to socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 105 investigate all the causes of conflict in africa, it is suggested there would be a more productive outcome if it was approached from the wider human rights perspective. warnecke and franke (2010) state that the successful transformation of conflict into peace requires appropriate measures across the whole band of sectoral and socioeconomic dimensions. they note that expenditure during the post-conflict reconstruction phase is more than conflict prevention. as the likelihood of post-conflict societies to relapse into conflict is higher, serious attention and special measures are needed to prevent further eruption. they cite collier et al (2003) that post-conflict, under conditions where the likelihood of relapsing into violent conflict is high, it is common practice to deploy military forces to the area to maintain security as the basis for peace-building endeavours. however, this could be perceived as militarisation of the peace process, which may hinder local ownership. it is suggested that active development engagement directed at preventing relapse into violence is a more effective approach. development measures have the effect of reducing structural conflicts; they support civil society and enable local government to design non-violent dispute settlement strategies and structures. this leads to sustainable peace in the postconflict stage. analysis of the socioeconomic causes of conflict in the san community of platfontein factors responsible for conflict in the san community the lives of the !xun and khwe have been full of hardship. they lived in tents exposed to the extreme heat and cold of the northern cape while waiting for permanent settlement. these hardships were worsened by unemployment, poverty, social problems resulting from displacement and war experiences. these complications also triggered intra-community tension that eroded its cohesion and led to a break between !xun and khwe; moreover, they have contributed to alcohol addiction, violence and the rise in high school dropout rates. some of the reasons for the lack of motivation to search for jobs and break the dependence syndrome are stated by robins (2001:22) as: … the paternalistic sadf military culture has produced a pervasive passivity and lack of initiative that could become a long-term obstacle to community self-reliance. almost 10 years of waiting to move from this temporary relief camp to a formal settlement have demoralised many people and driven some to deep dependency, pessimism and alcohol abuse. traumatic experiences of war and violence have predisposed the community to inward aggression and self-destructiveness, manifested in, for example, very high levels of alcohol abuse, domestic violence and rape. the adult males and females are more dependent on the income of veterans in the community than is the case in other black communities of south africa. this is evidenced by the fact that 51 per cent of residents at schmidtsdrift are male. this contrasts with the case of other south african communities, where males are usually absent as they migrate to look for employment (robins 2001). this implies that the adult males’ motivation to gain an income and boost the family finances by searching for employment is quite limited. the poverty of the community can be tackled if the attitude of the youth is changed from the current inactive and unproductive one of relying on parents’ income to a vibrant and productive one of selfgenerating an income. beyene 106 generally, females account for a significant section of the communities. ignoring this segment of a community in economic activities may have adverse effects on the livelihood of most families. with regards to the san community in platfontein, females at schmidtsdrift constitute 49 per cent of the population. however, formal employment of these members of the community in economic activities that enable them to generate income for a household is virtually non-existent. this situation further widens the gender disparity in the community (robins 2001). the cultural background has contributed to the platfontein san community’s lack of commitment to its own growth and development. robins (2001) shows that their military background has influenced them to be less independent. in addition, they tend to admit and accept a paternalistic and hierarchical style of leadership, which runs contrary to entrepreneurial endeavours. besides, the military culture is biased towards males, who reinforce the inhibition of females’ involvement in economic undertakings. some of the factors that restrict the involvement of the san in socioeconomic activities include dysfunctional organisational and leadership dynamics. shiwarra (n.d.a) explains that they do not have good leadership that works closely with the community. if this were so most of the problems they currently face could have been resolved. lower educational qualifications and skills resulting from a lack of formal education are cited as bottlenecks in the san community. this situation restricted people from competing in a job market that demands specialisation (robins, 2001). the lack of skills in the san community is witnessed by sibongo (2014b), who confirmed that people do apply for jobs but are rejected due to lack of computer skills and the inability to speak english. instead of completing their school studies, some of the youngsters spend their time drinking alcohol and smoking dagga, even at a young age. the factors that drained the san community and led to economic impoverishment are its background and experiences in colonial times, being without land for quite long periods, and the policies of apartheid (robins 2001). from this one can infer that these situations did not lay a foundation for a secure life for the san community. without guidance, the working-age group of youth are vulnerable to addictions. this tends to stimulate the youth to commit unlawful acts that lead to conflict. as mentioned by shiwarra (n.d.a), “most of our young people abuse alcohol and that is why there is too much fighting and conflict. the young people do not respect their parents anymore.” the deep division between intra-san communities has become a barrier to communal economic development. this problem has been worsened by the delay in the provision of infrastructure and employment opportunities. these problems have become principal factors in the san communities’ heightened frustration and conflict (robins 2001). various efforts have been undertaken to empower the san community in platfontein. this can be seen in the skills training that was organised in 2008 by the south african san institute (sasi) to build the capacity of the community to participate in economic activities. more than 400 crafters from the three san communities participated in this skills-training workshop. in addition the institute attempts to have families from the san community manage small-scale farms such as vegetable gardens, chicken and goat kraals to encourage the community to engage in agricultural farming, which leads to self-sufficiency. the institute’s small-scale farming project has been scaled up to three cooperative groups. five young people have been given tourist guide training; two people have been supported to become involved in a taxi business (sasi 2008). socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 107 sibongo (2014c) makes the point that both !xun and khwe prefer to be employed than to create their own jobs. they lack the self-confidence to establish and run their own business firms and feel very comfortable working in someone else’s firm. from this one can infer that for the members of the san community to become more entrepreneurial, a change in their attitude towards running one’s own business and building self-confidence through skillsoriented training is required. beyene (2014d) says that some initiatives are taken in the community to run small businesses. however, the whites administering the area do not allow the people to run small businesses, claiming that they are not legally authorised firms. the lack of entrepreneurial skills is cited as a common problem in the san community. this is supported by the interviewee (jack 2014a), who explains that business does not work well there. when a san person starts a business and gives items on loan, the customers do not repay on the due date. this causes the business to become bankrupt. however, the indians running small businesses are doing well. still another interviewee, (jack 2014b), supports the fact that the san community is unable to do any business except selling alcohol. the main problem is that when one sells on credit, the repayment is poor and the business becomes bankrupt; then the indians take it over. the people have free land that can be used for irrigation but it is far from the water source (the river). with the use of technology the land could be irrigated, which demands capital capacity and skilled human resources. however, the san community in platfontein does not have these resources; consequently, they rent the land to white farmers for grazing. in fact, the khwe people have the capacity to become subsistence agriculturalists (beyene 2014a). in the past, because of the nomadic ways of the community, whatever a person had was shared among all communities, but nowadays everyone takes care of himself (beyene 2014d). it is said that because of the failed schooling system, many people are becoming dropouts. this leads them to spend their time in undesirable activities such as drinking tombo (a locally brewed beverage), taking drugs and becoming addicted. to meet these demands, some of the youth may get involved in stealing and similar activities. this situation results in conflict within the san community and with other communities affected by the unlawful acts (beyene 2014b). beyene (2014d) explains that dropping out is partly attributed to the ignorance of parents. the parents do not have educational qualifications, but some of the children finish their schooling and some are dropouts. their reason for discontinuing their school studies is that, as the parents themselves are not educated, they are unaware of the benefits of education. the parents’ lack of awareness does not give them the motivation to influence their children to attend school. secondly, the children are accustomed to drinking in the early morning and chatting; they prefer to spend the day drinking tombo to going to school. economic factors as causes of conflict in the san community in platfontein the !xun people are the majority and the khwe are the minority in platfontein. the families of the san at platfontein depend on the pension income of the grandparents who served in the sadf. the grandparents look after their grandchildren. many people are dependent on a single person (the pensioner) in a family. because of a shortage of resources, conflicts can happen between family members (beyene 2014a). as the interviewee swart highlights, economic factors are one of the causes of conflict in the community (beyene 2014a). swart beyene 108 adds that conflict is common between the khwe and !xun people of the san community. mahongo (beyene 2014b) also adds that the loss of the income earned by sadf soldiers was huge. nowadays the increasing unemployment further lowers the income of the community. beyene (2014d) explains that currently, the san community depends on the pension income of retired military staff, monthly wages earned from farmers serving as security personnel and child grants of r250 per child until the child reaches 18 years old. sibongo (2014a) asserts that the main cause of the hardship and sufferings of the san community is the prevailing poverty. the situation is worsened by the fact that most of the youth who have completed their schooling are jobless. moreover, the motivation of the matriculated youth to initiate and run their own businesses is low. this further exacerbates their economic deprivation and prolongs their unemployed status. the study attempted to examine efforts to rehabilitate the san community after relocation. studies indicate that some sort of attempt has been made, as robins (2001) highlights. in platfontein, a business plan was prepared with an emphasis on commercial agriculture that included ostrich-farming, olive production and cattle-ranching. however, these business plans were not implemented for various reasons, one of which is that the san in schmidtsdrift were not interested in the envisioned economic activities. on the other hand, many of the san complain that they were not properly consulted when these business plans were prepared. from this it can be inferred that had the rehabilitation programmes been effectively carried out, at least the economic challenge the community is facing might not be as severe as it is at present. had the question of the economic livelihood of the communities been settled, at least the pace of the ongoing disparities between the !xun and khwe and the divisive tendencies and attitudes would have been slower. the economic disparity between the two groups in relation to income from the sandf has widened the rift between them (robins 2001). moreover, other factors that prevented the business plan from being implemented included the trap of the required overdraft of r850 000 the !xun and khwe trust would be saddled with. in addition, the community were not willing to engage in any commercial agricultural activities before the promised housing and land materialised. before settlement, the people became extremely doubtful and sceptical about engaging seriously in any planned economic activities (robins 2001). the study attempted to investigate the causes of economic problems in the community. beyene (2014b) opines that no economic empowerment activities were undertaken in the community, an omission that led to poverty. the people are living in small houses along with their animals. the quality of the houses is very poor, the toilets are dry and the roads are not well prepared. even though most of the community have the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter, significant numbers of people do not. this implies that the poverty of the community is one of the reasons for the occurrence of conflict. beyene (2014b) supports the idea that the source of conflict within the community boils down to economic deprivation. beyene (2014a) gives the example that currently people seeking jobs and higher positions are fighting among themselves. furthermore, those who do not have an adequate income opt to spend the limited amount of money they get on locally brewed beverage called tombo. spending lots of time drinking alcoholic beverages increases the likelihood of conflict, and it happens frequently in platfontein. the high rate of socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 109 unemployment in platfontein also creates and aggravates social problems such as under-age pregnancies. this further worsens the economic burden, which in turn increases the possibilities for conflict within the community. conflict between the two san communities !xun and khwe sociocultural and political causes of conflict robins (2001) argues that the basis of conflict between !xu and khwe is political, dating back to the divisive rule of apartheid. the apartheid-era sadf actively enhanced ethnicisation using the phenotypic and racial stereotypes for the two communities; this has widened spatial separation and raised communication barriers between them. the same stereotyping has been further practised and developed by the members of the community who seek division rather than harmony and unity. jack (2014e) states that the two communities are settled in platfontein in two separate places, though these are in close proximity. the “divide and separate” strategy adopted by the sadf has worked to some extent. this is supported by dankane’s (2014a) view that “we have different background and we come from different places. the problem of the past still exists. the people didn’t like one another and the adults fought about positions.” moreover, beyene (2014b) suggests that the two communities differ in various ways and should be separated to avoid conflict. the validity of the divisive intention of the previous apartheid regime that considered the two tribes to be different is challenged by the youngsters from both !xun and khwe groups, who claim that they co-exist. this is supported by robins (2001), who states that, because of the social distance between the !xun and khwe that has widened over time. with regard to a solution to the recurring conflicts between the two tribes, parents and the youth are not in agreement. the youth advocate socialisation as a potent force for unification between the two tribes. unification helps to harmonise attitudes, which is important in resolving the recurring conflicts sustainably. on the other hand, the senior members of the san community in platfontein consider that spatial separation serves as a barrier against conflict, as it reduces interaction between the two communities. they believe that tensions and conflicts can be sustainably reduced if the two tribes are separated. the youth see unification as the best solution because they attend the same school and have friends and lovers from both the !xun and khwe communities. this inter-tribe friendship serves as an important force of cohesion that strengthens the spirit of unification. however, the conflicting ideas for solutions between the youth and parents remain a challenge in the san community. as far as the motivation and desire to obtain jobs is concerned, in relative terms, the khwe people are highly motivated to work but the motivation of !xun people is low. for this reason, most of those employed by white farmers as security guards are khwe. their monthly salaries enable the employed ones to support their families. this is one of the factors that give some of the khwe people relative economic superiority over the !xun people: in other words, the !xun are economically inferior to the khwe (beyene 2014a). it is said that language serves as a divisive as well as a unifying factor. according to robins (2001), statistics show that while 15 per cent of khwe people can speak the !xun language in addition to their own, no !xun people can speak the khwe’s language. in this case learning one another’s languages may not be accepted by both of the communities and may even beyene 110 widen the division between them. however, the new generation’s first language is afrikaans for both !xun and khwe; this could serve as a unifying common language for both communities. in relative terms, more khwe people are employed than !xun. using the example of the radio station that transmits its programmes in both afrikaans and local languages, initially the employment policy specified an equal number of workers from each clan. accordingly, 50 per cent of the labour force was !xun and the rest was khwe. however, because of capacity problems and lack of work motivation, a significant number of !xun employees have abandoned their jobs. currently, about 70 per cent of the employees of the radio station are khwe (beyene 2014a). the ongoing widening social distance coupled with competition for jobs and housing could escalate tensions and division between the !xun and khwe communities (robins 2001). there are micro-finance non-governmental institutions that aim to support the poor. however, in the !xun community there is a lack of skill to manage the loans they may take from the lending institutions. they also display inadequate financial management: there is a tendency to extravagance whenever people from the community obtain some income, in the form of festivities, much eating and drinking and visits to extended families. they do not have the habit of saving what they earn for the future (beyene 2014a). in the case of khwe, unlike !xun they have a culture of saving and it is common for a khwe person to have a savings account. in addition, the khwe people are inquisitive and search for more information about business and other issues and are therefore better informed. they prepare business plans and are very active in making money: for instance, they are involved in poultry farming and other business initiatives (beyene 2014a). socio-cultural factors also have a significant influence on the eruption of conflict in the san community. this can be seen in the interview with swart (beyene 2014a; 2014c), who affirmed that conflicts that usually happen between the khwe and !xun people are mainly the result of cultural differences. culturally and attitudinally the two clans are not the same. the khwe clan intermingles relatively more than the !xun with other communities around platfontein, such as the black communities. the languages of the two groups are dissimilar: the !xun language has more gestures than khwe. there is language diffusion between the khwe and black languages. relatively, the !xun’s language is still in an original form. the khwe people are more enquiring and are more motivated to seek information than the !xun people, whose motivation to grow and prosper is lower and whose dependence mentality is higher. the two peoples of the san community have different points of origin: the khwe come from botswana and the !xun are mainly from angola. the !xun are distinct from khwe in various dimensions: customs, culture, language, literacy level, ambition (for advancement and growth), self-confidence and emotional health. these differences between the two communities increase the likelihood of conflict whenever misunderstandings happen between them (beyene 2014b). moreover, the sociocultural disparities when combined with educational disparities may increase the possibility of misunderstandings, raising conflict between the two tribes. within the two communities some sort of difference in educational status can be observed, as swart (beyene 2014a; 2014c) states. relatively, the khwe are better at reading and writing and have greater potential for progress and advancement than the !xun (beyene 2014b). the overwhelming majority of !xun people socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 111 do not read or write. in terms of attrition or dropout rate at school, the khwe people’s performance is better as their number of dropouts is negligible. however, in the case of the !xun people school performance is low and the dropout rate is very high. furthermore, it is indicated that the political leadership in the san community is one factor intensifying conflict within the san community. this is shown in an interview (shiwarra 2014a) that revealed that people are fighting for leadership. in addition, the people who belong to different villages want to have leaders who assume power, which results in fights for leadership (shiwarra 2014b). similarly, shiwarra (2014c) posits that the people are unable to work together due to the competition and hostile relationships among the leaders. it is the wish of the people to see the leaders work in peace and harmony to lead the community righteously. it is also asserted that the san people of platfontein do not have high regard for the leaders, as the communities do not believe that they are just and trustworthy. the leaders are blamed for giving priority to their families’ interests whenever there are job opportunities (sibongo 2014g). economic causes of conflict between san communities economic disparities usually lead to an increase in the likelihood of conflict between communities (see bohlken & sergenti 2010; kim & conceição 2010; starr 2006). this is the case between the majority !xun and minority khwe. as robins (2001) indicates, the proportion of khwe people employed as soldiers in the sandf was 39 per cent, compared to 20 per cent in the case of !xun. moreover, a relatively higher proportion of khwe than !xun have attained higher positions in the military. such a job imbalance increases the likelihood of rising tensions that could lead to conflict (kimenyi & ndungu 2002). when we examine the comparative economic status of the two communities, swart (beyene 2014a; 2014c) says that basically, khwe are more involved in selling tombo. the !xun people do not have the habit of brewing alcoholic beverages, although both groups drink tombo. khwe people are involved in economic activities, while the !xu are not. the khwe people have some entrepreneurial skills that help them run small businesses (beyene 2014a; 2014b). the relative economic disparities between these two communities could trigger conflict, which is consistent with the school of thought supporting the hypothesis that poverty and inequality lead to violence or conflict (ikejiaku 2012:130). drez and sen (1995, cited in ikejiaku, 2012) and others argue that inequality or economic asymmetry can be the driving force of tension and violence in a community. the economic disparities between !xun and khwe can be seen in the type of assets they own and their motivation for engaging in small business activities. it is obvious that in most cases, the khwe families own more assets than the !xun. for example, the majority of khwe people have satellite tv dishes. khwe houses are better maintained than !xun houses, which are mainly grass-roofed. khwe people are involved in small business such as retail and taxi businesses (beyene 2014a). in fact there are many small businesses run by khwe people, such as the many khwe taxi entrepreneurs (beyene 2014a). overall, according the interview report by beyene (2014a), if the income earned by each community is evaluated separately, the khwe people’s per capita income is higher than that of the !xun. this could become a cause for conflict, as the community that suffers most from the prevailing poverty can use any weapon it thinks will assert its interests (goodhand 2001). beyene 112 conflict between the san and other communities the problem of hunger and joblessness has caused the san community to fight with other communities, stated in the interview as: the main problem is poverty. this causes the children to leave their education. they fetch woods by cutting the fences of the farmers and we get into trouble with farmers. it is the poverty that lets us get in to conflict with communities (farmers). now the children are turning back into the san community and started taking window glasses and selling it out (jack 2014a). that economic factors are causes of conflict is further supported by another interviewee, who noted that there was conflict in angola when the san community worked with blacks. the causes were basically economic: the low wages for labour were unfair (dankane 2014c; 2014d). socioeconomic factors in the process of conflict resolution in the san community of platfontein socio-cultural factors sociocultural factors have a significant place in the process of conflict resolution in the san community. a witness from the san community (mahongo 2013a; sibongo 2013a) states that in the past a ceremony carried out at night was very important. by slaughtering a goat, the ceremony celebrated building the relationship and forgetting what has happened between the two parties who were in conflict. however, currently those at the ceremony eat and drink large amounts and then go back home. the next day they merely have a small meeting, greet each other and bid one another farewell. if someone has emotional problems because of the conflict, the community is assisted by traditional emotional healers. according to witnesses (sibongo 2013a; sibongo 2014d; jack 2014f) people with emotional problems visit the healer’s house. the healer should be told all the facts of the case. then the healer tells the person what to do and sometimes prescribes something to take or to use (dankane 2014e). apart from economic compensation, in the past emotional healing was commonly carried out by consulting a traditional healer. the healer poses questions and the person who needs treatment must answer frankly. after analysing the situation the healer prescribes what actions the person must take (dankane 2014f). jack (2014c) also adds that when the traditional leader comes to heal the person in trauma, the elders are supposed to gather and sing trance songs. the healer is believed to go into the trance and talk to the ancestors, which helps him receive the power to heal. even to proceed with the healing process requires a pledge of material things to the traditional healer. according to jack (2014d), he is paid on an hourly basis. the payment is not given directly to the healer. it is placed in a bucket, in the belief that the ancestors will give the healer power to heal the people in trauma. if payment is not effected in the traditional way, the healing is less effective. socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 113 the actual conflict resolution process is embedded in both economic and sociocultural elements enmeshed. this form of conflict resolution seems consistent with the ideas of sen (2008) that the resolution process should not focus on economic factors and neglect social and other factors. conflict resolution should be addressed under the premise of a holistic perspective. economic factors economic factors as incentives are used in the san community’s traditional conflict resolution process, which includes economic compensation to the victim. the economic compensation partly explains the assurance of the completion of successful resolution of the conflict. a witness from the community states: after violence, compensation should be given to someone and the nature of compensation after violence is very different. it has its own procedure and only parents and leaders are supposed to decide the amount of the compensation. even in the past times, it was a practice of the wrongdoer used to pay something valuable thing to the victim. during this time pots or blankets were handed over to the victim as these items were important valuables then. currently, money can be used as a means of payment whereby the amount to be paid is decided by the leaders of the community. in addition, in the past ceremony was very important that has been done to bring the two parties to peace. they set two three fires separately for kids, men and women while celebrating. finally, they call the two fighting persons and let them shake their hands. then they break grass in the middle and put it on each other’s hair and drink water from the same cup indicating the problem is resolved (dankane 2014f; sibongo 2014e). sometimes a goat is slaughtered in the victim’s house (sibongo 2014f). shiwarra (n.d.b) confirms that valuable items such as cows, money and goats are pledged by the family to the victim as compensation for the wrongful act. in an interview conducted by dankane (2014g), the respondent asserted that compensation was very important after violence. but before compensation is paid, both parents and leaders should come together and decide what to do. this idea is strengthened by the respondent in another interview conducted by dankane (2014h). in the past the leader and the parents discussed the case and decided on the type and amount of compensation, which could be a blanket or a pot. currently, compensation can be paid in money and having the parties shake hands. the actual conflict resolution process enmeshes both economic and sociocultural elements. this form of conflict resolution seems consistent with the ideas of sen (2008) that the resolution process should not focus on economic factors and neglect social and other factors. conflict resolution should be addressed from a holistic perspective. furthermore, even to proceed with the healing process it requires the pledge of material things to the traditional healer. according to jack (2014d) on hourly basis the traditional healer is paid. the form of payment is not direct to the healer. it is put inside a bucket with the belief that the ancestors will give the power the healer to heal the people in trauma. if payment is not effected as per the traditional norm, the healer’s service of healing reduces. beyene 114 recommendations suggested by the interviewees and the literature the community has the potential to utilise the land resources they have to their economic advantage. robins (2001) states that the farmland owned by the san community is 13 000ha, which in addition is endowed with natural resources such as gypsum and diamonds. the community earns r12 000 per month by leasing out a little over half of the total farmland (7 000ha). using the land for commercial agriculture and mining the minerals within it would have a significant impact on improving the economic wellbeing of the san community. this would in turn help to prevent conflict that derives from economic factors. to give the san community a sustainable livelihood, the first thing to do is develop an adequately diversified socioeconomic environment. their people’s material deprivation should be addressed immediately. it is unlikely that the culture and language of the san community can be preserved and sustained through projects without establishing the socioeconomic security that is the community’s top priority (robins 2001). beyene (2014b) opines that economic empowerment of the community is the main factor that can alleviate the multifaceted problems and conflict within the community, between the two tribes and with other communities in platfontein. in addition, training in skills that equip people to become entrepreneurs and run small businesses will help the people become self-reliant. because of their background, people are not motivated to set up small businesses: training and orientation programmes that change their attitude to work and business are needed. establishing centres and other infrastructures in the area that can employ people will also mitigate the current poverty. all the leaders should be dedicated to serving the society with impartiality. sen (2008) partly supports that idea that poverty is the main factor in conflict. he argues: the influence of poverty and inequality has to be understood not through an exclusive concentration on deprivation and destitution in isolation from society and culture, but through looking for a larger and much more extensive framework with interactive roles of poverty and other features of society. the linking of poverty and injustice to violence does indeed have some plausibility, but there is neither any immediacy nor any inevitability there (sen 2008:12). when sen’s idea is applied to the situation of the san community in platfontein, it has some validity. beyene (2014b) opines that for the san community to sustain peace it should have enough land and a respected language of its own. this implies that economic resources should be treated in conjunction with other sociocultural elements in conflict resolution and peace-building activities. beyene (2014d) believes that the community should be encouraged to run small businesses. alcoholic drinks should not be sold to people younger than 18. a uniform curriculum that includes subjects such as mathematics, statistics and biology should be designed and taught to the community. it has been suggested that only government can solve the serious socioeconomic problems of the community. however, community leaders and the government should come together and take measures to resolve the problems, and the council must also become involved (dankane 2014b). the comments of the interviewees given above strongly support the school of thought that argues that economic disparities, caused by various factors and explained in different forms, socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 115 are the principal causes of conflict. this implies that redressing socioeconomic problems is important both before and after a conflict arises in the san community. conclusion the root cause of the intra-community conflict among the san and with other communities is their historical displacement and dispossession of land. the new lifestyle, which depends on the income of a few veteran members of the community, is one factor in the conflict within the san community and between them and other communities. the paternalistic employment culture has created a dependency that reduces motivation for self-reliance and independence. the people tend to accept a paternalistic and hierarchical style of leadership as opposed to one that encourages entrepreneurship. the extreme dependency of san youth on obtaining employment as opposed to engaging in entrepreneurial activity, accompanied by a lack of jobs, results in hopelessness, violence, alcohol addiction, high dropout rates and rape. moreover, the sadf employment culture was biased towards males and ignored females’ involvement in economic activities. economic deficiencies are another cause of conflict within the san community and with other communities. this demands a concerted effort to change the attitude of the community and transform them from jobseekers to job creators. apart from the economic reasons, the parents’ lack of appreciation of the importance of education (because they themselves are not educated) means they are not motivated to guide their children’s education, which has contributed to rising dropout rates. these dropout students are exposed to alcohol addiction and become involved in activities that create conflict in the community. furthermore, lower educational qualifications; fewer skills due to lack of formal education; and poor command of english are cited as barriers for the san community, and make them less competitive in the job market. the capacity of the community to become competitive for jobs and creators of jobs must be upgraded. that the current leadership is not working closer with the san community in platfontein is one reason for the erosion of harmony and unity within the community, and increases the likelihood of conflict erupting within the community. concerned parties need to give this matter due consideration. the efforts undertaken to empower the san community are very limited and must be carried out at a higher level to lift the community out of the prevailing poverty. the delay in the provision of infrastructure and employment has aggravated this poverty, which can be mitigated by concerted effort and support to make the land produce a variety of marketrelated products. the conflict between the two tribes is attributed to the divisive political rule adopted during the apartheid regime in south africa. this is practised by separating the two communities by an ethnicisation strategy that amplifies phenotypic and racial differences into stereotypes. the economic asymmetries between !xun and khwe are causes of conflict. although both tribes belong to the same san community, their attitude and motivation towards work is different. in relative terms, khwe are more highly motivated to work and higher numbers are employed than !xun. khwe seek information more and are better motivated to run small beyene 116 businesses than !xun. in relative terms and on average, the khwe own more assets than the !xun. the economic disparity between the two tribes is one factor that triggers conflict. another is the widening of social distance along with competition for jobs and housing, which increases the tensions and divisions between the two communities. in addition, the khwe have a culture of saving, while spontaneous festivity and extravagance are common among the !xun. the sociocultural disparities combined with educational disparities increase the possibility of misunderstandings between the two tribes that can develop into conflict. conflict between the san community and other white communities is caused by hunger and joblessness. the conflict that used to happen between the san community and other black people was economic in nature: the san’s economic reward for their labour was unfairly small. sociocultural factors have a prominent place in conflict resolution in the san community. a traditional ceremony is used to repair the relationship and let the conflicting parties forget what has happened between them. apart from the ceremony, compensation as decided by the elders is given to the victim’s family as one way of resolving conflict. in addition, those with emotional problems are healed through the services of a traditional healer, who must receive economic reward. in summary, economic factors serve as both causes and remedies for conflict in the san community of platfontein. recommendations the economic deficiency and disparities are revealed as principal causes for conflict among the san and with other communities. this demands concerted effort by concerned bodies to empower the community economically through the provision of opportunities for employment. moreover, training based on lived experiences should be provided to change the attitude of the community members and transform them from being job seekers to job creators (entrepreneurs). furthermore, training on ethical values that strengthen the san communities’ traditional norms, and the importance of education (schooling), should be provided to the community members. endeavours that upgrade the capacity and communication skills of the members of the community be carried out to empower community members to compete for jobs in the market. the leadership of the platfontein communities should work closely with the community, give due attention to their concerns and solve their problems and conflict in consultation with the community. to mitigate the prevailing poverty (cause of conflict) of the san community in platfontein, support should be provided to the san community to encourage them directly to use their lands and produce a variety of market-related products to sell. references atwood, b. 2003. the link between poverty and violent 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(eds). 1995. conflict resolution, theory, and practice. new york: manchester university press. sen, a. 2008. violence, identity and poverty. journal of peace research 45 (1): 5–15. south african san institute (sasi). 2008. annual report. accessed on 14 july 2014 from http://www.sasi.org.za/img/sasi%202009%20annual%20reports.pdf starr, ma. 2006. growth and conflict in the developing world: neo-liberal narratives and social-economy alternatives. review of social economy 64(2):205–224. tadjoeddin, mz & murshed, sm. 2007. socio-economic determinants of everyday violence in indonesia: an empirical investigation of javanese districts, 1994–2003. journal of peace research 44(6):689–709. warnecke, a & franke, vc. 2010. sustainable conflict transformation: an analytical model for assessing the contribution of development activities to peace-building. international journal of peace studies 15(1):71–93. interviews beyene, hailay. 2014a. interview with hennie swart block: faircity hotel, pretoria. 11 july 2014. ______ 2014b. interview with mario mahongo block: faircity hotel, pretoria. 11 july 2014. ______ 2014c. interview with hennie swart 2014c block: faircity hotel, pretoria. 12 july 2014. ______ 2014d. interview with norman jack 2014d block: faircity hotel, pretoria. 12 july 2014. dankane, rassie. 2014a. interview with fani mahongo block: villolusu, platfontein. 21 may 2014. socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 99-119. 119 ______ 2014b. interview with lino dala block: villolusu, platfontein. ______ 2014c. interview with b. luka block: villolusu, platfontein. 05 february 2014. ______ 2014d. interview with p. kongo block: villolusu, platfontein. 11 february 2014. ______ 2014e. interview with voster litratu block: villolusu, platfontein. 21 january 2014. ______ 2014f. interview with m. fulai block: villolusu, platfontein. 21 january 2014. ______ 2014g. interview with maria block: villolusu, platfontein. 21 january 2014. ______ 2014h. interview with casro block: villolusu, platfontein. january 2014. jack, norman. 2014a. interview with arturi batista. block: 4, platfontein. 21 jan 2014. ______ 2014b. interview with adriand kasanga block: 4, platfontein. 21 jan 2014. ______ 2014c. interview with vridie driben block: morosani, platfontein. 22 may 2014. ______ 2014d. interview with john mushamba block: morosani, platfontein. 22 may 2014. ______ 2014e. interview with mbumbo katimo block: morosani, platfontein. 22 june 2014. ______ 2014 f. interview with shimuma angola block: 4, platfontein. 24 march 2014. shiwarra, karina. n.d.a. interview with rebekka kaye. block: kamatoka, platfontein. ______ n.d.b. interview with salone ndane. block: kamatoka, platfontein. ______ 4014a. interview with kasongo tsitawu. block: kamatoka, platfontein. 21 jan 2014. ______ 2014b. interview with kapande sangara. block: kamatoka, platfontein. 21 jan 2014. ______ 2014c. interview with sasoria mushamba. block: kamatoka, platfontein. 21 jan 2014. sibongo, hanzi. 2014a. interview with gerber jetembo block: morosani, platfontein. 01 april 2014. ______ 2014b. interview with oucho ndumba block: morosani, platfontein. 28 march 2014. ______ 2014c. focus group. venue: knowledge centre, platfontein. 29 may 2014. ______ 2014d. interview with eriena ditso block: morosani, platfontein. 27 march 2014. ______ 2014e. interview with max katjara block: morosani, platfontein. 28 march 2014. ______ 2014f. interview with albertus ndumba block: morosani, platfontein. 28 march 2014. ______ 2014g. interview with nagare kapunda block: morosani, platfontein. 24 march 2014. ______ 2014 h. interview with kazungu sibongo 2013a block: kamatoka, platfontein. 11 december 2013. mahongo, chakwanda. 2013a. interview with ghita sabora block: 001/05, platfontein. 24 january 2013. abstract introduction sexuality education: towards a conceptual framework of cultural intelligence methodology results and discussion recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) eben h. swanepoel department of psychology of education, university of the free state, south africa christa beyers department of psychology of education, university of the free state, south africa lizette de wet department of computer science and informatics, university of the free state, south africa citation swanepoel, e.h., beyers, c. & de wet, l., 2017, ‘exploring judgement and internal bias of life orientation teachers in sexuality teaching’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a405. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.405 original research exploring judgement and internal bias of life orientation teachers in sexuality teaching eben h. swanepoel, christa beyers, lizette de wet received: 22 dec. 2016; accepted: 09 may 2017; published: 27 june 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract there are various challenges in the teaching of sexuality within a south african multicultural context, as there is no uniform knowledge across learner backgrounds. as such, teachings often revert to the teacher’s beliefs, in order to create meaning within the uncertainty, at the expense of the individual learners’ personal identity formation. this paper explores the teachers’ internal bias and its subsequent influence on the teaching of alternative sexualities in life orientation classes. through purposive sampling, four teachers in the mangaung area of the free state province participated in semi-structured interviews and electroencephalogram (eeg) measurements. data were analysed by means of thematic analysis and descriptive statistics collected through eeg readings in order to explore how teachers construct knowledge about alternative sexualities while mediating internal conflict, specifically through measuring frustration responses to stimuli. findings suggest that the challenge of personal background influences teaching practice as well as limitations at curriculum level, leading to personal interpretations of content. furthermore, sensitisation to content significantly affects levels of frustration, while the active versus reactive nature of teaching sexuality becomes apparent in how teachers ultimately accommodate personal bias. recommendations include the need for sensitisation, during teacher induction, to sensitive topics such as sexuality, and to provide less biased messages during teaching. introduction … the post-apartheid landscape brought the promise of freedom under broad constitutional reforms enshrined in a bill of rights … the current context has therefore steadily and progressively shifted from a model which conceives homosexuality as a behaviour to one in which identities can be produced. (reddy 2010:18) the challenge of conceptualising knowledge related to homosexuality is deeply rooted in the complexity of the multiculturalism characteristic of modern south africa (sigamoney & epprecht 2013). this, in turn, causes difficulties for the ideals of identities to emerge without judgement. african culture has strongly critiqued the westernised discourse and the subsequent construction of meaning related to being homosexual as a perversion entering society based on euro-american influences (reddy 2010), still carrying stigmatisation placed on preconceived identities and subsequent stereotyped behaviours. south africa is characterised by a diverse spectrum of cultural backgrounds with complex historical influences. as such, the role of the teachers’ perceptions on teaching against such a myriad of cultural influences in the classroom is challenged in terms of non-biased teachings against the learners’ backgrounds (meier & hartell 2009). we question how the teachers’ internal judgements that influence practice (perkins 2012), specifically within the subject of life orientation, strengthen restrictions on gender identity formation within culturally diverse classroom practices. ultimately, and with approximately 10% of south africa’s youth experiencing same-sex attraction during puberty, the influences of discrepancy between the teachers’ personal bias and the learners’ backgrounds can significantly give rise to a myriad of contradictory messages between traditional and modernised knowledge systems related to what homosexual, and sexuality itself, means (francis 2011; richardson 2009). life orientation’s component of sexuality education was implemented at curriculum level as a step to align the constitutional underpinning of respect for sexual diversity and the eradication of gender discrimination at societal level by educating the youth as to their responsibilities within a culturally diverse society (department of basic education 2013). francis (2011) argues that the focus of sex education in south africa has been significantly indicative of the judgements related to hiv/aids and is underpinned by policies that advocate sexual practice and disease within a unison framework. formby (2011) refers to the world health organization’s definition of sexual health accordingly. ‘health’ is not defined by the mere absence of disease but encompasses a respectful approach towards sexual diversity, knowledge embedded in intimacy and pleasure related to sex, and is based on the protection of all individuals within a non-judgemental and non-discriminatory context. this is reflected in the life orientation curriculum’s aim to nurture the learner on not only the physical aspects of life but also the emotional and psychological factors related to sexuality (department of basic education 2013). while the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) envisions space for such topics as intimacy, sexual preference and desire, teachers who experience discomfort or conflicting morals related to the teaching thereof can still ignore critical reflection on their part when topics of sexual diversity emerge (shefer & ngabaza 2015). in practice, the above ideals of social justice and sexual inclusivity are thus not fully realised within a judgement-free and respectful context (francis 2011). the educator’s knowledge or emotional underpinning related to sexuality forms a transference of prejudice within the teaching–learning environment (beyers 2013; meier & hartell 2009). potgieter and reygan (2012), as well as shefer and macleod (2015), refer to textbook-level interaction regarding topics related to sexual minorities. while topics of alternative sexualities are covered, the manner in which the messages are conveyed often further marginalises these groups by enforcing gender stereotypes and heteronormative standards. it thus becomes apparent that embodying the ideals embedded in respect of diversity is complicated by emotive topics such as sexuality, widening the gap between policy and subsequent transformative teaching of what learners need to know in a judgement-free society (morrell, bhana & shefer 2012). this gives rise to issues in policy–teacher interaction and messages conveyed during classroom practice may revert to information that is familiar and of personal value to the teacher (beyers 2013). while learners enter the classroom with unique individual backgrounds, the teacher also embodies a cultural self (vassallo 2012) that manifests within teachings and may be grounded in judgements and attitudes related thereto. these judgements create boundaries within which sexuality is conceptualised, often reiterating normative expectations (applebaum 2013) and placing ‘who’ and ‘what’ parameters on the shaping of a personal identity (formby 2011). making sense within the complexity of unison knowledge related to concepts of sexual orientation occurs by forming cognitive groupings based on schematic stereotypes of what it means to be male or female (crespi 2004) to make sense of the environment. such groupings, however, may form the basis of marginalised and normative boundaries of behaviour (habarth 2008). this may further be complicated by the formation of culturally unison knowledge related to concepts such as homosexuality (baumeister & bushman 2011). in turn, judgements of heteronormativity are counter to those of freedom and allowing identity to emerge within the context. reddy (2010) underpins the modern views of homosexuality and sexuality in general. modern views on sexualities as fluid from labels and categories often form ambiguity in meaning, and subsequently raise the problem of addressing an inclusive and uniform knowledge set applicable across cultural diversity within the teaching of sexuality and gender. this study aims to explore both how life orientation teachers construct meaning within the teaching of sexuality in alignment with the ideals embedded in life orientation, and the role of emotional judgement in the teaching thereof. we shall first place sexuality education within a framework that advocates cultural sensitivity and judgement suspension in order to provide a working framework that aligns with the ideals embedded in social justice and citizenship education. allowing for meaning to emerge based on interviews, results will be discussed using emergent themes and compared to data gathered by means of electroencephalogram (eeg) readings that measured emotional reaction, in real time, to five videos based on alternative sexualities. sexuality education: towards a conceptual framework of cultural intelligence sexual culture draws on the norms and values held by individuals regarding sex and gender, based on specific socialisation agents that ultimately influence the messages conveyed during interaction (formby 2011). male dominance, as reflected on earlier in the prevalence of south african cultures, is often still rooted in traditional gender expectations and remains a prominent form of power discourse within our society (reddy 2010). such discourse challenges teacher methodologies across cultural diversity and power inequalities in order to instil values of respect and responsibility within classroom practices related to gender equality (hammett & staeheli 2011). this calls for greater sensitivity and self-reflection on the part of the teacher when teaching sexuality in order to understand how sexuality is constructed through culturally rooted concepts of power-vested beliefs (iverson 2012). drawing on research by baxen (2006), davids (2014:41) argues that the role of the teacher in sexuality education is based on being actively involved, as opposed to being mere passive-reactive agents acting as ‘rational, intellectual professionals who “mindfully” educate the “minds” of learners’. the view of power thus encompasses not only a socially constructed component but also a biological one, taking into account the responses elicited at behavioural level (teaching). accordingly, meier and hartell (2009) argue the difficulty of teaching actively within a multicultural environment. they refer to the complex interaction between not only the socialisation teachers receive during teacher induction but also the influences of their personal psyche related to past experiences in shaping values and prejudices that influence teaching. depalma and francis (2014a:3), however, draw on the often discomforting and morally deviant nature of teaching about alternative sexualities, specifically the cultural taboo of discussing sexuality with children. they also question the static nature of uncritically teaching sexuality within the context of south african historical exclusion in envisioning an inclusive future, further emphasising the importance of understanding cultures as ‘dynamic, complex and interactive’. it thus becomes increasingly important to engage the teaching of sensitive topics such as sexuality within a framework that advocates dynamic change in both the classrooms as well outside communities. the framework of cultural intelligence accounts for the active role of the teacher, as opposed to the reactive role of uncritically mediating mere knowledge preceding behaviour (swanepoel & beyers 2015). cultural intelligence proposes three primary components: knowledge, mindfulness and behaviour (thomas 2006). knowledge knowledge reflects on issues such as the sociocultural context of south african history and sexuality. this component frames teachers’ knowledge of issues explored in previous studies such as sociocultural traditions (depalma & francis 2014a), colonialism (depalma & francis 2014b) and knowledge about nonconforming genders (collier et al. 2013). while it is not possible to have a complete knowledge base of specific cultural groups (or the subsequent categories such as heterosexuality or homosexuality), cultural intelligence advocates the application of limited knowledge to be used optimally and to adapt dynamically to the current context (van den berg 2008). this becomes especially relevant during classroom pedagogies in acknowledging the knowledge, values and attitudes that teachers hold of their own sexuality and culture, and in turn that of the diverse spectrum of sexualities embodied among learners themselves. mindfulness every context consists of various stimuli that evoke various emotions (brown & ryan 2003). mindfulness accounts for a critical awareness of how the environmental stimuli influence one’s emotions, thus adapting accordingly in order to advocate a positive interactional exchange. mindfulness becomes increasingly important in the teaching of sensitive topics such as sex and sexuality within the classroom (swanepoel & beyers 2015). behaviour behaviour refers to the overt actions taken during teaching based on the above interaction between knowledge and mindfulness. the skill to suspend judgement is also prominent in cultural intelligence. this skill promotes the individual’s awareness of his or her limited knowledge and emotional judgements (hülsheger et al. 2013), to gather further information and thus elicit behaviour based on a better understanding of the current context (brislin, worthley & macnab 2006). the lowest form of cultural intelligence encompasses the individual drawing on culturally normative stereotypes to facilitate behaviour, whereas higher cultural intelligence promotes the individual’s understanding of the complexities of culture, and interacting optimally across various ambiguous cross-cultural contexts with sensitivity and suspended judgement (swanepoel & beyers 2015). methodology participants a total of eight participants were approached for the research project. however, the selected sample did not take part in the final study as the use of the eeg headset caused discomfort in revealing their emotions and judgements to the researcher in a manner that they could not control. in total, four participants were purposefully selected for this study. according to blanche et al. (2011), the use of this nonprobability sampling method is adequate for small non-generalisable populations for testing the theory about processes. to examine how teachers mediate knowledge and values related to the teaching of sexual diversity, the researcher selected teachers with at least one year’s life orientation teaching experience during which they covered the theme of sexuality education at least once. as the study aims to test the teachers’ judgement processes regarding alternative sexualities, all selected participants were identified as heterosexual. the final sample of participants consisted of three female teachers and one male teacher. data gathering the gathering of data took place in three phases. phase one consisted of semi-structured interviews that lasted between 45 and 60 minutes. these interviews focused mainly on participants’ knowledge, prompting responses based on the participants’ experiences, opinions and background knowledge as related to the teaching of sexuality and alternative sexualities within the classroom context. this phase also elicited responses of participants’ views regarding their own teaching practices and behaviour. in the second phase, the participants watched five videos (20 minutes in total) while wearing the epoc-emotiv eeg headset (see figure 1 for an example of the headset, and figure 2 and figure 3 for data collected and represented in visual form) that measures five specific emotions, namely attention, short-term excitement, long-term excitement, frustration and meditation. the final phase of the study entailed a semi-structured interview to gain insight into the teachers’ understanding of what they watched and their emotive responses thereto. for the five selected videos, this paper will report mainly on the findings gathered through videos 1 and 5, with specific reference to frustration. the wi-fi-enabled headset provides the ability to measure the intent and emotional underpinning of expressions and responses (zier 2012), incorporating sensory and perceptual responses to content and stimuli. harrison (2013), in a study of the device’s validity, often reflected a dissociation between self-reporting and measurement, referring to the value of the device’s use among small samples. this proves valuable as the study sought to measure the conscious awareness of individual teachers as compared with the true emotional responses that underlie their narratives. the eeg system thus holds value for measuring smaller samples but should be used with caution in generalising results. for this study, however, the measurement is merely a means to identify the manner in which emotions and bias underpin interviews and narratives, and thus not to generalise finding across the spectrum of participants. figure 1: the epoc-emotiv headset. figure 2: box-plot of frustration across the five videos. figure 3: the stark decline through to the end of video 5 for frustration. the videos used in this study were selected on the basis of issues relevant to sexuality and judgement, specifically their reflection on prejudice, stereotyping, bullying and equality. the videos reflected the following content: video 1: heteronormative activities across the lifespan of a man being filmed, ending with him proposing to the cameraman who is revealed to be male. video 2: ellen degeneres speaking out about bullying, teenage suicide and unsafe school climates. video 3: a satirical video of the legalisation of gay marriages, while a heterosexual family believes it is the end of their own marriage. video 4: a video portraying various people who do not conform to homosexual stereotypes addressing the public to speak out against stereotyping and stigmatisation. video 5: a young man exploring his homosexual feelings and visiting various gay spaces in order to find love, yet only finding promiscuity and further heartbreak. while surfing, he meets another man who ultimately proposes to him, with his family agreeing to the union. data analysis the first level of analysis was informed by a thematic analysis of the qualitative data according to tesch’s (1992) method. the interviews were primarily transcribed and read through individually to gain an understanding of the global base thereof. transcripts were then read for meaning and the emerging patterns were identified, coded and named. patterns of meaning that emerged from the transcription were grouped as themes that became descriptive of the content that participants expressed. prominent themes that will form the prime report of this article include personal background influences, the limitations of the caps and textbooks, and the active versus reactive role of the teacher. for the eeg data, each video was broken down into sections in which the emotional states of shortand long-term excitement, meditation, frustration and attention were captured on a moment-to-moment basis. for the purpose of this study, we shall focus on the data captured from the emotional state of frustration. this emotion reflects a physiological arousal that connects with the idea of a sudden realisation. this aligns with a moment of insight that occurs during a sudden internal realisation and accounts for a moment of arousal at a specific time (harrison 2013). for the purpose of this paper, the main examination will be informed by frustration, which is used to explore dissonance of internal judgements (allen 2013) or previous perceptions that are challenged in certain sections of the videos used. the captured data were standardised and represented in percentages, where 0% reflects a very low or no arousal, and 100% a very high arousal. a senior statistician using statistical analysis software (sas) further analysed data from the eeg readings by means of descriptive methods. for each video and section within the video, the following descriptive statistics were calculated: mean, minimum, median and maximum. initially, pooling the data from all sections of a given video, the data from the five videos were plotted side-by-side as boxplots, reflecting each of the five emotions. the plots clearly indicate that the measurements for the emotions ‘attention’ and ‘meditation’ were essentially constant and uninformative. therefore, data for these two emotions were not analysed further. because of the short timeframe of each video, ‘long-term excitement’ was not included in the analysis of the results. for the emotion ‘frustration’, and separately for each video, the data from the various sections of the videos were further plotted side-by-side as boxplots. ethical considerations registration and clearance were provided by the higher education institution where the study is based. further ethical clearance was gained from the department of basic education to perform research in the free state province. the participants were briefed about the scope of the study, and no deception took place. full anonymity was ensured with the option to withdraw from the study at any time. to ensure anonymity, all the participants’ names were changed. should the participants feel uncomfortable with the use of headsets or videos, they were allowed to stop the process at any given time. while the videos were selected to portray everyday interactions, a registered psychologist was approached to debrief any discomfort the participants may have experienced during the course of the study, if need be. results and discussion in discussing the qualitative section of the study, we shall draw on the results and the discussion thereof based on the following three themes: namely personal background influences, the limitations of the caps and textbooks, and the active versus reactive role of the teacher. the discussion will be informed through the three components of cultural intelligence. discussion in the analysis of the qualitative data, three prominent themes emerged from coding the participants’ narratives. while the dominant measurement of emotional reactions will be discussed as informed by the eeg readings at an internal level, it is valuable to draw on the participants’ narratives pertaining to their emotional awareness during the interviews in order to provide a holistic construct of how they engage with alternative sexuality teaching and their conscious understanding thereof. correlations between teacher narratives will be identified alongside the eeg measurements as a means to strengthen the reporting as well as examine how emotive underpinnings are mediated on part of teachers during sexuality teaching. the question the narratives and the eeg thus address is: how do teachers mediate emotional responses during content ambiguity such as sexuality education, and how aware are they of sexuality bias? to sustain the reporting of the results, narrative extracts will inform the discussion of the respective themes. the second stage of reporting will base the qualitative data within the findings of the eeg readings, and this will be discussed accordingly. however, as narratives are often strongly correlated to the eeg counterpart of the study and inform the discussion, the discussion will reflect on the use of the eeg at various stages where the data correlate with participants’ responses. these two segments are accordingly placed under two categories; however, they should be read not as mutually exclusive but as interconnected and correlative. theme 1: personal background influences the first theme elicited various subthemes pertaining to religion and culture. it is within this context that various judgements are formed through socialisation on the part of the teacher. the challenge, elucidated in the following narratives, reflects finding common ground between establishing a mutual relationship between teachers and learners in the classroom during sex education. this refers to the interference that may occur between the teacher’s prejudices and the learners’ backgrounds in a culturally diverse classroom (meier & hartell 2009). when asked about his experiences of teaching life orientation within the realm of sexuality, jonathan responded: my experience is that when you deal with sexual orientation, you as a facilitator have to be clear what your sexual orientation is. if you are at peace with that you know about yourself then you will be able to let learners discover themselves also. because the information which you give them if you know about your own orientation will be true, it will not be based on some religious ideas or some norms that have changed or the learners’ peers’ influences. you will be able to help the learner discover his own sexuality, and how he fits into the world and what role he can play. as i said our school comes from a poor community. the norms and values that are set within those settings are very traditional. it has been influenced by the way the church wants us to live, how our parents, their own parents, perceive their own sexuality, the type of topics that are allowed to be discussed in the home therefore. you have to be quite sure that the way in which you attempt to address the topic will not be in conflict with what the child learns from home. so you try and have that relationship you have although the church says this about sexuality and this is wrong and your parents may believe it, there is another stance that one can take. (participant 1, male, life orientation teacher in a rural context school) as reflected in jonathan’s narrative, the stringent normative expectations of some contexts reflect the unyielding norms and judgements of traditional sexuality expectations in the community (butler & astbury 2008). jonathan draws on the importance of being knowledgeable about one’s own sexual orientation as a counterpart to successfully teaching about alternative sexualities. this narrative portrays the mindfulness component of cultural intelligence in that the individual exhibits a heightened sense of awareness of the self and emotions that mediate interaction at a given time (hülsheger et al. 2013). further importance is given to promoting learner understanding about knowledge systems that can differ from their personal upbringing and beliefs as a means to successful sexuality teaching. while jonathan has been teaching life orientation for 12 years, his narrative indicates a confident and broad understanding of normative values and the influence thereof within his teaching. consider the following extract from sandra (who is a white teacher who has been teaching life orientation for three years) when asked to elaborate on how her background influenced her perspective on homosexuality: let’s start with religion. because i am a christian, they tell you a man and a man should not be in a relationship or be sexually attracted to each other, that a woman is made for a man. my parents have never told me that being gay is wrong. we haven’t really ever spoken about it, but i think if you look at today and you look at religion, you need to consider the time in which the bible was written. if you look at the old testament, we are not allowed to eat pork, or wear certain clothes, which we all do. so gay being wrong should be taken into consideration, and knowing that times have changed, it might not be the case anymore and i think that if your relationship with god is strong and you are on the right track then why would he not want you to be happy and love the person of your choice. (participant 2, female, life orientation teacher for 3 years) the discourse of religion again prevails. compared to jonathan’s reference to the church as a socialisation agent and the influence thereof on teaching, sandra exhibits a more personal perspective. she specifically draws on a generalisation in that ‘we are not allowed to eat pork, or wear certain clothes, which we all do’. her narrative, albeit accepting of alternative sexualities, forms a discourse of inclusive christianity. this is an issue, as such a message may unknowingly exclude and marginalise other religious beliefs and practices, especially when she concludes that ‘we all do’. the lens through which sexuality and background influences such as religion give rise to judgement becomes further apparent in jenna’s narrative: i want the best for my learners, and that they live healthy and responsible lives. i am a christian, and it will always be important for me to connect sexuality to that belief. it is very difficult in a diverse classroom to discuss it (alternative sexualities), especially in a conservative afrikaans classroom if i think about where i taught … it will offend the learners if i discuss how a homosexual person can have a healthy orientation. i will prefer that learner … that learner must come talk to me afterwards … i want the best for that learner, so sadly … i will teach a lesson based on heterosexuality, the mainstream. i will need to receive training, because it is … it is against … i will not want to advocate it. i think there is a lot of turmoil … from my perspective something happened which made you enter that orientation, like a passive father figure or absent father. (participant 3, female, life orientation teacher within an urban context school) jenna displays a strong awareness of her religious background and the manner in which it influences her teaching. internal conflict, however, emerged during her discourse in justifying her beliefs and providing an acceptable answer or an answer that will be acceptable to the research content, known as demand characteristics (stangor 2011). this may be because of the researcher’s presence as an agent of change in her dialogue. however, her discourse soon reverted to the premise of an absent father figure to construct meaning about sexual identity. it is, however, worth reflecting on her judgement suspension during the viewing of video 5 (a more explicit portrayal of a gay man’s struggle in finding happiness apart from mere promiscuity). her focus begins with the view of turmoil and non-acceptance. however, jenna, acknowledges the positive nuances of the video while recognising her own discomfort: what i saw was he had a lot of turmoil, his parents are also not happy with him. he is looking for acceptance. we see at the end that he is happy with the partner he chose, he cannot believe this guy committed to him. it feels odd, that interaction [between the two men]. i felt at one point to stop, but wanted to see how the video plays out. (participant 3, female, life orientation teacher within an urban context school) after viewing video 2, depicting a satirical portrayal of a heteronormative couple who fears that they will have to divorce once gay marriages are legalised, the researcher asked whether the video reflects truth. jenna’s response was ‘drama queen based, not containing emotion’. the characterisation of ‘drama queen’ is linked to the stereotype of gay men who often make scenes (dynes 2014), a stereotype perpetuated by the traditional portrayal of homosexual men, which, through examples such as jenna’s narrative, echo the stereotyped judgements placed on certain behavioural cues to construct meaning at a very reactive level to the video. classifying behaviour within the video as such, the question arises as to how such a classification would be received within the life orientation classroom. sandra’s response to the messages of the video on a more critical level reflected a deeper understanding of the problematic portrayal of the heteronormative family. during the interview, she exhibited a great deal of frustration in body language during her narrative. when sandra was questioned as to whether the video intended to be humorous, she responded: i don’t think it matters. look at the message being sent. if i was not as educated as i am, i would think it would be bad for all people if gays were allowed to get married, which is not the case. why would that influence my marriage? why would i hate my kids? it’s ridiculous. even if it is a joke, is the joke funny? no its not, many a true word is spoken in jest. people make jokes about things they don’t understand or don’t necessarily want to understand, and why in today’s time and age where it is still a struggle to get married if you are gay, or even to come out and say i like men or i like women … why would you make something like this? that can have such an immense effect on those people? (participant 2, female, life orientation teacher for 3 years) while each of the narratives reflects distinct approaches to how the teachers approach the teaching of sexuality in the life orientation classroom, it becomes apparent that an awareness of self and personal backgrounds interlink with how the topic is taught at pedagogical level. beyers (2013) refers to the importance of challenging the teachers’ self-concept to create a more valid approach to teaching sensitive topics such as sexual diversity. not only the awareness of the self but also an intimate knowledge of the sociocultural background against which topics are taught shape the messages conveyed during teaching (thomas 2006). as such, teachers should approach topics with a firm awareness of terms that carry biased and stereotyped labelling, as well as an understanding as to how personal bias due to culture or religion constructs these topics. theme 2: the limitations of the curriculum and assessment policy statement and textbooks the implementation of the caps statements for life orientation saw the ideal to promote knowledge and skill sets that will enable learners to adapt optimally within their communities (magano 2011). there is, however, critique as to whether change is caused at practical levels pertaining to the content taught according to the curriculum (coetzee & esterhuizen 2010). in their analysis of caps-based textbooks, potgieter and reygan (2012) found that, when the topic of alternative sexualities is covered, the manner in which it is approached is often stereotypical, marginalising non-conforming genders as separate from heteronormative standards. the following extracts reveal two of the teachers’ experiences (samantha and sandra) with the caps documents pertaining to the teaching of alternative sexualities when prompted about how they use the resources to frame their teachings at curriculum level: the caps documents are very good at generalising and giving a broad perspective, but it does not adequately cover what they would need to get to the point of acceptance. it doesn’t branch out to the different types of sexualities. once again, to me it once again says society is generalising and stereotyping one acceptable sexuality. (participant 4, female, life orientation teacher in a rural context school) i think it (caps) is superficial. you cover it … you do it a lot, instead of going deeper into the issues and what the learners are experiencing, for example if they are gay … the judgement from others, how they exert themselves in their communities. instead of talking about that, it is always about sex before marriage, stds, and that i have a problem with. i think it is all round still, i don’t think that caps and being teachers go deep into the subject matter. i actually leave a lot of space in my planning for learning interaction. i will talk to them about it and will stop and ask, what you want to know, what do you experience, let’s talk about that. i cannot sit at home and think ‘maybe this is what they experience’. i need to know, so then in the classroom we will have a discussion about it. so then we will address it and talk about it, so that they know i am on their side and that i want to be there for them. (participant 2, female, life orientation teacher for 3 years) both extracts reflect the participants’ opinions that the caps are limited in scope as to guidelines pertaining to sexuality as a topic. samantha’s narrative reflects the manner in which heteronormativity is advocated as the dominant content base. in this instance, the participants felt that caps does not provide a uniform or stable knowledge set that should be taught regarding the appropriate characteristics of diverse sexual categories. the emergence of topics pertaining to sexual orientation and sexuality is thus based on normative standards and, in turn, can further be stigmatised by the teacher reverting to heteronormative messages in order to accommodate topics that may arise (depalma & francis 2014a). francis’s (2011) research indicates south africa’s dominant discourse of sex education as being based on disease and safe-sex practices (reflecting the knowledge component of cultural intelligence), an argument highlighted by samantha who explains that ‘it is always about sex before marriage, sexually transmitted diseases (stds), and that i have a problem with’. while these issues are important aspects of sex education, it becomes an issue when teachers focus mainly on pathology in their teachings at the expense of critically reflecting on aspects of holistic psychological, emotional and physical well-being related thereto. at this point, we would like to hypothesise the problematic nature of addressing a curriculum that provides clear guidelines for the educators in teaching alternative sexualities. samantha’s manner of addressing the topic displays interaction in which the meaning is constructed, and the learners form a guiding agent in how to approach the topic. however, the teachers’ skill sets and pedagogical methods of teaching lead such discussions. we question the viability thereof to be done truthfully across schooling contexts, as the bias of the teacher (viewed as an agent of power in the classroom) can ultimately fill in the gaps of the lesson’s content. on the other hand, a stringent curriculum with guidelines as to different sexual orientations can become problematic and will mean a uniform knowledge base for contexts where cultural constructs thereof take on different meanings. jonathan highlights this when asked how he experiences caps in terms of teaching sexuality: caps is about three years old, its new, i think it is a curriculum that can be developed more to be focused on life orientation. yes, caps is a nice practical curriculum. it’s not educator based, it is discussion based, so it creates that space. at the moment it creates the space for new ideas about sexuality and gender. but one must … it creates the space where people will be identified, labelled, but because we focus on other themes, we talk about the healthy lifestyle … the themes are interrelated. you can discuss these by using the constitution. (participant 1, male, life orientation teacher in a rural context school) it is thus essential to find a harmonious combination between the educator’s teaching and the construction of knowledge within an interactional space, enhancing a bias-free pedagogy that will still be based within the guidelines for the educator to follow. consider jenna’s narrative, as to how the topic can be completely silenced during classroom interaction: it [alternative sexuality] was never named. if the caps textbook had it i would have covered it. i was taught in life orientation didactics that one must be careful of pushing your values on the child. (participant 3, female, life orientation teacher within an urban context school) the above narrative contrasts with jenna’s discourse earlier stipulating that her pedagogy will be linked to her christian beliefs. while her school context is christian in itself, it is broadly stated that all learners will share the denomination of christianity and, in turn, receive messages with equal acceptance. it also becomes apparent that the ‘silence’ in the textbooks about alternative sexualities provides an opportunity not to touch on the topic. as jenna explained earlier, she will conduct the lesson according to the normative standards of heterosexuality and would rather have learners approach her individually with questions about alternative non-conforming sexuality topics according to what she feels is best. would such freedom be of value to the ideals of creating proactive learners, or does silence indicate an acceptance of marginalising groups? in this way, the emotional and psychological perceptions of learners can be challenged through content in order to frame a less ignorant, less biased, and more sensitised perspective on the issues of judgement and homophobia. swanepoel and beyers (2015) consider the manner in which questions facilitate interaction in the classroom at both educator-learner and textbook level (which is often riddled with ambiguity about sexual categories, or normalises sexuality within a heterosexual perspective and classification of information). they draw on the importance of moving away from reactive questions such as ‘do you think homosexuality is wrong?’ or ‘how do you feel about same-sex marriage?’ to an approach that will allow the use of cultural intelligence’s components of knowledge, mindfulness and behaviour with less reactive judgement. for example, ‘how has south africa’s past influenced the way in which we feel and act towards same-sex marriages?’ and: should you feel uncomfortable when meeting someone whose sexual orientation you do not agree with, what can you do to ensure that both you and the person feel respected during interaction? (swanepoel & beyers 2015) such questions enable learners to incorporate non-judgemental attitudes and construct knowledge and skills in such a way as to facilitate a behavioural outcome that is consistent with their own background as well as that of the topic or person in question. theme 3: the active versus reactive role of the teacher an important point raised by jonathan’s narrative earlier reflected that the role of the teacher has changed from that of an educator to that of a creator of context within which discussions are facilitated. he later draws on the transformed role of the traditional life orientation teacher to the modern facilitation role: there was a difference between guidance in the old days where you had to sit and do and accept the educator’s view of topics, repeat what was written in the books. lo was introduced, the focus changed from the orientation of the educator to the view of the learner. so you became, the educator became … a facilitator. he facilitates discussions around the theme and learners give their views, but he won’t force his view whether it is indigenous beliefs, whether it is sexual orientation, whether it is the view of the church, families, you have the theme in front of you, you present the outcomes … and you discuss and facilitate them. (participant 1, male, life orientation teacher in a rural context school) the importance of not enforcing personal background beliefs on the learners forms an important aspect of jonathan’s discourse. this embodies the role of the modern life orientation teacher who suspends judgement to facilitate topics of value to a multicultural classroom context. this in itself is a further cornerstone, as discussed earlier, to being a culturally intelligent educator, in that one takes on an active role as opposed to a reactive role that biases personal beliefs in the teaching of alternative sexualities. sandra’s reaction to the next question that arose during the interview further reflects the skill of suspended judgement, in that the teachers acknowledge their limited knowledge about a topic and gather information before responding. she further draws on the component of mindfulness by referring to her own emotional comfort with the context of the question. sandra’s answer reflects a high embodiment of cultural intelligence as to when learners approach her regarding topics of sexuality of which she is not knowledgeable or with which she feels uncomfortable, for example her narrative as follows which aligns with the findings of discomfort teachers experience in swanepoel and beyers (2015) and francis (2017): okay firstly i wouldn’t discuss it in the class as a group, and i would honestly say to the learner give me a chance that i will come back to you. just to go and prepare, how should i approach this, what is the right way to go about this. so that i will not be uncomfortable, but also so that the learner is not uncomfortable either. so i will first go and do my homework and come back to what you wanted to know, lets discuss it. i have now talked to people and whatever, and now know the right way to do it in the classroom. (participant 2, female, life orientation teacher for 3 years) the theme of the active versus the reactive role of the teacher emerged strongly in all four participants’ narratives. they are all of the opinion that the role of the modern life orientation teacher is facilitator-based, and that the learners should form an active part in the construction of knowledge. however, while sandra and jonathan’s narratives remained constant throughout all four themes, jenna and samantha’s narratives as a whole reflected discomfort about raising the topic of alternative sexualities in the classroom. while jenna stipulated that it will not be consistent with her christian beliefs, samantha was of the opinion that it will be difficult, as her classroom consists of mostly black students, while, as a female teacher, she will be disrespected for raising a topic that is against the learners’ background influences. it is interesting to note that jonathan, highlights this during his interview in the following extract from his narrative: in terms of gender, sexuality specifically, some teachers don’t want to talk about it, especially young teachers. they tend to stay away from topics like sex because the teachers now are 21, and some of the learners in grade 9 are 18, so the age difference plays a big role. it all depends on the emotional intelligence and emotional development they received during the years. (participant 1, male, life orientation teacher in a rural context school) these findings are consistent with swanepoel and beyers’s (2015) findings. they propose that the role of the teacher can either be reactive or proactive, and accordingly the latter will yield a more empathetic and judgement-free classroom context. this is further aligned with the mindfulness component of cultural intelligence in how behaviour is strongly mediated through emotional influences. the figure is based on the manner in which an educator perspective will inform the traditional classroom context, whereas the culturally intelligent and proactive classroom context will be based on a reciprocated way of constructing knowledge. jonathan’s narrative highlights the important aspect of challenging teacher perceptions during teacher induction to reflect a greater emotional awareness on the basis of the self and the learners in the teaching of sexuality education (beyers 2013). the importance of sensitising teachers to topics of sexuality, especially regarding the emotional dissonance found with frustration, becomes clear from the eeg data reported below, namely that emotional reactions related to sexuality topics influence bias and preconceived ideas about sexuality. the data below will be discussed accordingly, with careful consideration as to the role of sensitisation regarding the topics on which the teachers reflect. specific focus will be on videos 1 and 5 as a means to understand how viewing these videos influences internal reactions. results and discussion of the emotiv electroencephalogram data: frustration descriptive statistics calculated the mean, minimum, median and maximum readings for each section in the video and for all sections in total. to represent the descriptive results comprehensively, box-plot figures are used to inform the discussion of the results that show significant fluctuations in the readings. the main fluctuations were found in videos 1 and 5. while fluctuations in sections and videos, in general, could be because of various external variables, the consistent attention level across all participants strengthens the reliability of the results (table 1). table 1: frustration calculated by means of descriptive statistics. pooling the averages of all sections per video provides an overview of all four participants’ frustration levels. video 1 reflects the highest mean, with an average of 65% across all sections, followed by video 3 (58%), video 4 (54%), video 5 (51%) and video 2 (46%). it is interesting to note the different results between videos 1 and 5, with a difference of 11%. video 1 reflects the least amount of content pertaining to alternative sexualities, with the only reflection thereof being at sections 7 and 8, with the reveal of the cameraman being male and the subsequent marriage proposal. video 5, however, contains frequent content related to homosexuality, yet reveals the lowest range for percentages across sections compared to video 1. while the build-up to the end reveal of video 1 shows an increase in frustration (section 1, 60%; section 8, 80%), video 5 shows a strong decline (section 1, 79%; section 15, 51%). a possible explanation for this is the participants’ preconceived expectations, as reflected in the following narratives when participants were asked about their experiences with the videos. because of the content of the research study, preconceived judgement was already formed regarding expectations. the narratives are followed by the percentages of individual frustration in sections 6, 7 and 8 (the final sections of video 1). video 1: when the ring opened i knew there will be more. (jonathan’s frustration level increased greatly from the previous section, 59%, to sections 7 and 8, 89%) (jonathan). i expected the ending, because i am here for what i am here for. (sandra’s frustration level decreased greatly from the previous section, 57%, to sections 7, 47% and 8, 35%) (sandra). when i saw it was a male, i thought okay … i would have wanted it to be a girl. (jenna’s frustration levels increased greatly from the previous section, 50%, to sections 7, 76% and 8, 80%) (jenna). from the above narratives from video 1, it becomes apparent that when expectations are met with preconceived judgements, there is a significant decrease in frustration (as with sandra). however, when expectations are challenged, frustration levels increase, as with jonathan’s and jenna’s individual results. video 1 enables the participants to form judgements and further expectations as the video progresses. for this reason, video 5 starts with content that challenges expectations immediately in section 1 that follows through to the end of the video. the following are extracts from participants’ narratives when asked about their experiences with video 5. video 5: that was amazing. it is the ultimate search for identity … and finding yourself. (significant decline in frustration from section 1, 60%, to section 15, 28%) (samantha). joh, very graphic. it is the first time i see a video of two men being in love. in some scenes i felt awkward seeing two men being together, but as they expressed love, it felt normal again. (significant decline in frustration from section 1, 94%, to section 15, 49%) (jonathan). it feels odd, that interaction [between the two men]. i felt at one point to stop, but wanted to see how the video plays out. (decline in frustration from section 1, 87%, to section 15, 72%) (jenna). results for each participant reflect the highest percentage of frustration at the start of the video (jenna, 83%; samantha, 60%; jonathan, 94%; sandra, 75%) and show a significant decline in frustration, regardless of the explicit content in the subsequent sections. it ends with frustration levels of lower percentages (jenna, 72%; samantha, 28%; jonathan, 49%; sandra, 65%). it is interesting to note how frustration levels dropped significantly, on average, after section 1 and remained consistently low throughout the remainder of the video. it appears that sensitisation to the content of the videos significantly decreases frustration levels, while results further suggest that frustration levels decrease consistently after a preconceived judgement or expectation is challenged. with reference to videos 1 and 5, it can be deduced that expectations of the participants led to increased frustration until these expectations were either met or broken, whereas frustration as a whole decreased when there was no time to strengthen expectations or judgements during the showing of the video. in challenging the preconceived expectations of the participants, the results are indicative of beyers’s (2013) notion that the predetermined ideas about teachers’ sexuality must be challenged to form a more truthful basis for the teaching thereof, thus decreasing the preconceived judgements during initial teacher induction. this further reflects on cultural intelligence in how mindfulness mediates knowledge and how emotions underpin the type of knowledge that manifests during behavioural (and thus teaching) output. the results across the videos suggest that it is viable to introduce such material in stages in order to challenge internal bias and personal background knowledge of alternative sexualities. at classroom level, however, the teachers acknowledged that video 5 could not be used due to its explicit content, whereas videos 1 to 4 would add significant value to challenging the learners towards more truthful knowledge about alternative sexualities and the implications of homophobia and sexism. jenna, however, remained consistent in her narrative that the videos will not be informative to her learners, as they will reject the messages that will cause significant problems with parents if shown. jenna’s post-narratives touched mainly on the general aspects of the videos, where high frustration level sections were skipped during her narrative of the videos. a decrease in frustration ultimately led to a more open narrative among the other participants to speak about the contents of the videos. in general, participants’ narratives reflected consistency with their eeg readings. the results of the participants’ decreased frustration across videos also show consistency with their understanding of how sexuality teaching (and personal teacher dispositions) should be approached during classroom practice and teacher induction in order for messages to be received systematically and to ensure that messages are not rejected outright. after viewing video 4, jonathan responded that this would be a good video to show after a lesson, as it would allow the learners to be further challenged by their preconceived ideas about gender stereotypes. he further elaborated that lessons will differ, in the manner in which they are taught, from grade 10 to grade 12, as grade 12 will be a better level to focus on emotions, whereas a knowledge base of alternative sexualities can be systematically built up from earlier grades (specifically grade 8). samantha’s narrative also reflects this (as the extract below shows), while elaborating on the influence of preconceived knowledge about alternative sexualities within the classroom among learners: being a new teacher i went too fast. this year i am slowing it (teaching) down to ease them into it. but they do reject the idea, it is in total conflict, you can see them denying it, rejecting it. you have to take it slowly to get them to think outside their traditional box. (participant 4, female, life orientation teacher in a rural context school) the conflicting messages shown in the videos and the teachers’ beliefs are highly indicative of how exposure to content sensitises the perceptions thereof. internal beliefs about alternative sexualities were met with frustration when inconsistent with the expectations of the participants, while subsequent exposure decreased these emotional levels, as was the case with jonathan, samantha and sandra. jenna rejected the messages on the basis of her beliefs shared during the pre-interview (as discussed in the section on qualitative results). the manner in which discomfort and frustration manifest within teacher pedagogies are further reflected upon by reygan and francis (2015) and francis (2016) in how teachers’ emotional underpinnings often dictate teachings, and how negative emotions lead to socially unjust messages or complete silence during sexuality education. the remaining participants accommodated messages and, while experiencing initial dissonance, allowed the messages to be evaluated with better awareness. these findings are in line with research on cognitive dissonance in challenging previously held beliefs with incoming information (baumeister & bushman 2011; taylor, peplau & sears 2006). accordingly, the results indicate an understanding among participants that learners must be sensitised by incoming messages in order to accommodate new information against their background influences that cause interference with contradictory knowledge about alternative sexualities. recommendations as part of an ongoing need to establish research within the emotional underpinning of sexuality education, we recommend that critical consciousness and self-reflective practices of teachers become central during teacher induction and life skills didactics. this is especially important in sensitising future teachers to sensitive content such as sex and sexuality as a means to promote comfort during the teaching of sexuality education. it is further important to establish more spaces, such as workshops, where teachers can communicate openly and acquire knowledge about cultural diversity and sexual inclusivity, specifically related to the experiences of colleagues at different schools and with different challenges. conclusion the teaching of sexuality within a multicultural environment is met with various challenges. while teachers are limited in their knowledge about the background influences that shape incoming messages for learners, their personal beliefs shape these messages. this paper focused on how teachers mediate personal bias in teaching about alternative sexualities, with specific emphasis on teacher bias manifesting during teachings. by examining how knowledge is constructed in the teaching thereof, further examination of internal bias was informed by measuring frustration and by post-interviews in order to understand how teachers accommodate the experienced dissonance. frustration, as a measured item in the composition of teacher emotions, was used to show the extent of teacher responses to dissonant experiences. the results thus suggest that cultural intelligence is a valuable framework to use for the teaching of sexuality in the south african context. while considering the reactive nature of sensitive topics such as alternative sexualities, the paper details that the active role of teachers with an awareness of their emotional bias and preconceived ideas will align more valid teaching methods in order to give learners the space within which to form their sexual identities. by taking into account the three components of knowledge, mindfulness and behaviour, the active teaching of sexuality in life orientation classes can provide a platform where preconceived ideas are challenged, judgement is suspended, emotions are explored and ultimately behavioural change can be facilitated. acknowledgements we would like to thank the national research foundation (nrf) for the support in conjunction with this study (competitive programme for rated researchers, grant number cprr13082330440). competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions a study completed by e.s. for his master’s degree with his supervisor, c.b. and co-supervisor l.d.w. the area of expertise included by c.b. is sexuality education and life orientation, and l.d.w. is the expert on the use of the eeg for the empirical part of the study. references allen, k., 2013, emotions and cognitive dissonance: your supreme divine guidance, viewed 2015, from http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/02/05/emotions-and-cognitive-dissonance-theory-your-supreme-divine-guidance/ applebaum, b., 2013, ‘ignorance as a resource for social justice education?’, philosophy of education archive 391–399, viewed 17 may 2017, from https://www.bing.com/search?q=ignorance+as+a+resource+for+social+justice+education%3f&form=edgear&qs=pf&cvid=77f999165eb645a191cd3056d471afd1&cc=za&setlang=en-us baxen, j., 2006, ‘an analysis of the factors shaping teachers’ understanding of hiv and aids’, doctoral thesis, university of cape town, cape town. baumeister, r.f. & bushman, b.j., 2011, social psychology and the human nature, wadsworth, belmont, ca. beyers, c., 2013, ‘in search of healthy sexuality: the gap between what youth want and what teachers think they need’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa: special edition: sustainable learning environments and social justice 9(3), 550–560. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v9i3.197 blanche, m.j.t., blanche, m.t., durrheim, k. & painter, d. 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zier, b.j., 2012, ‘ssvep-based brain computer interface using the emotiv epoc’, master’s dissertation, eastern washington university. microsoft word 01 chigudu.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 1-29. international migration: the state-sovereignty-migration nexus d chigudu1 abstract commonly, international human migration is blamed for corroding states sovereignty, especially stemming from policy circles, academic literature and citizens of the host countries. this has attracted the attention of the media highlighting hazards of being a migrant, with some countries viewing migrants as enemies; and, cuba provides a vivid case. yet in other countries, migrants are viewed as important contributors to social and economic development, with mexico, the dominican republic and india serving as examples. this article locates migrants in the framework of human rights as guided by international law without prejudice to the demands of state sovereignty, but linking the two in the context of developing international standards. migration is seen as a feature of human history dating back to primordial time. nothing appears surprising in the movement of people across borders, defining a migrant through emigration and immigration while giving due respect to the sovereignty of states, both sending and receiving. the article discusses the nexus between migrants and state sovereignty in order to highlight the mutual benefit grounded in international law. it attempts to portray a more positive image of the migrant person in light of the global world, socio-economic development and human rights fundamentals. the main challenge remains that of implementing human rights, which appear to be at the crossroads of individual rights and state sovereignty. the paper reveals how the challenge can be overcome while maintaining the structure of rights and freedoms without infringement on states’ sovereignty. it concludes that migrants remain on the periphery of effective protection from the vagaries of the citizens, partly because the state has a tendency to confine certain rights to its citizenry. states possess discretionary authority to control the ingress of foreign nationals into their territories though sometimes they fail to do that as evidenced by hundreds of millions of irregular migrants around the world. the paper reveals that, the symbiotic relationship between migrants, regular or irregular, and state sovereignty should be strengthened. keywords: state sovereignty, migration, migrant, rights introduction international migration is growing owing to a number of factors and manifests, as one of the most constant social process. iom (2010: xix) suggests that these factors include “a result of growing demographic disparities, the effects of environmental change, new global political and economic dynamics, technological revolutions and social networks”. it estimates that the number of migrants in the first decade of the 21st century grew from 150 million to 214 million worldwide and suggests that this growth is likely to continue into the future. the iom (2003) reported that, at the beginning of the 21st century, one out of every 35 persons worldwide was a migrant. while according to zentella & schiesser (2005), the population 1 department of public administration & management, university of south africa, p.o. box 392, unisa, 0003, south africa, e-mail: dancing@gmail.com chigudu 2 division of the united nations estimated the total number of international migrants at approximately 175 million, including refugees and displaced persons, but not the irregular migrants who were not counted in official statistics. gilligan (2012) contends that this migration is believed to be undermining the sovereignty of states and corroborates castles & miller’s (2009: 3) portrayal of “the challenge posed by international migration to the sovereignty of states, specifically to their ability to regulate the movement of people across their borders.” the view that the sovereignty of states is being undermined is exacerbated by the media reports in western europe and other affluent parts of the world (gilligan 2012), regarding immigration as invasion, mafias, unemployment, violence, crime, drug trafficking, backwardness and illegality (van dijk, 2007). however, some scholars dismiss the idea of migrants presenting a challenge to state sovereignty because the power to determine who enters the border of a country resides in the national sovereignty (munck, 2008). a case in point is noted by flynn (2005) that, in the united kingdom’s recent policy developments there has been provision for migrant access to jobs, family reunification, welfare services with realistic prospects for ultimate integration and acquisition of citizenship. issues surrounding migration and migrants have had complexities in the way they are handled by the nationals the world over. to bustamante (2010), in some instances the issues revolve around structurally vulnerable abuses of migrants as non-citizens, weighing heavily on those with undocumented status. these abuses are compounded with political manipulations and recurrent economic crises. chetail (2013) observes that, the last decade has witnessed an increase in the awareness of migrants’ vulnerabilities with corresponding measures to ensure due respect for migrant rights and privileges. a number of measures and initiatives have resulted in states and international organisations developing instruments making migrants rights “more clearly recognisable as human and labour rights” (cholewinski, 2010: 614). on the other hand, the “universal respect for, and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction” is provided for as one of the basic principles of the international legal order of the un charter article 55 paragraph c. despite this provision, a lot remains to be done practically through domestic laws to draw all the normative and practical consequences for those who are not nationals of the country in which they live. this is a challenge that receiving countries may have to live with. in another dimension, brainard & brinkerhoff (2006) view the challenge to state sovereignty as stemming from both globalisation and localism and that, challenges are directed from above and from below the national level. they argue that, “among the many challenges to state sovereignty, three trends are often highlighted: migration, information technology, and the emergence of universal values that increasingly inform international law” (brainard & brinkerhoff, 2006: 595). although these three trends are often highlighted as challenges to the evolving complexity of state sovereignty they may not necessarily be challenges. the various definitions may help locate the link between state sovereignty and migration. state sovereignty as a legal construct has been described as a theory (fox, 1997), an empirical reality (philpott, 1997) and a multifaceted concept (heller & sofaer 2001; montgomery, 2002). but krasner (1999, 2001) describes state sovereignty in its broadest sense as concerning the definition of authority, the criteria for becoming such an authority and the prerogatives of these authorities. this paper aims to locate migrants and refugees within the context of state sovereignty and human rights. based on the principle of nondiscrimination as fundamental, the thrust is on analysing those provisions enshrined in the basic human rights instruments purporting to exclude migrants. the purpose is to dwell on the justification for the distinctions emerging in the state-sovereignty-migration nexus td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 1-29 3 recent state practices on the strength of state sovereignty while considering the usefulness of the migrant worker, undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees against a system of rights. these rights, according to goodwin-gill (1989), include freedom of movement, rights to leave and to return to one’s country, not to be expelled, not to be returned to a country in which life or freedom to one’s country may be endangered, to seek refuge and asylum and “procedural” rights. procedural rights would entail equal protection under the law, the right to work, political rights, freedom of thought and conscience, association and cultural rights that relate to education, community rights and language. background: international law on migration it is interesting to note that the legal protection of migrants dates back to the history of international law when the term “jus gentium” designated rules for the legal status of migrants during the law of ancient rome. according to chetail (2013), this latin expression was used to denote the law of nations before “international law” was coined by jeremy bentham in 1789. in practice and principle, migrants belong to the dual dependency of the state where they temporarily stay and to that where they have the nationality. there is an overlap between the territorial and personal jurisdictions which is inherent to alienage. further, the human rights law provides for equality of treatment between citizens and migrants in accordance with the national standards. the general assembly adopted the declaration on the human rights of individuals who are migrants. this was done in december 1985 through resolution 40/144. the un general assembly has further reaffirmed “the need for all states to protect fully the universally recognised human rights of migrants, especially women and children, regardless of their legal status.” the practice is however still incomplete as it is evolutionary in nature. article 1 of the 1948 universal declaration of human rights opens with the affirmative that, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. also, the preamble to the charter of the united nations provides for the determination “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person”. brownlie (1983a) observes that, the annex to the ilo constitution affirms that “all human beings irrespective of race, creed or sex have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity of economic security and of equal opportunity”. furthermore, as sieghart (1983:10) observes, “it is the recognition that all human beings differ from each other, and that each individual is unique, which underlies the concept of the integrity and dignity of the individual person which human rights law is primarily concerned to protect”. these provisions in the international law appear to be challenges for both receiving and sending countries. this led sheffer (1985) to conclude that migrants are not necessarily politically good news for the government of a sending country; and, that they are also not necessarily good news for the hosting country. they have become a political factor to be taken account of by both countries. migrants come in different categories, ranging from those highly educated professionals seeking better working conditions, political refugees fleeing persecution to economic refugees escaping poverty and hunger. all these categories are motivated by the desire to improve their lives or escape violence. in some developed countries, migrants have contributed immensely to the economic growth; and, the united states of america is a living testament (panjabi, 2010). to panjabi (2010: 2), “if this planet ever progresses to the point where people consider themselves citizens of the world, the impetus for that internationalised being will have come from this contact with diversity, chigudu 4 fueled by migration.” migrants, to this end, could be a vehicle to globalisation and development, if properly managed by the hosting countries. state sovereignty and human rights state sovereignty is premised on the concept that, all states are equal and independent. traditionally, the notion has been considered the foundation of international law. brownie (2003b: 287) describes sovereignty as: “(1) a jurisdiction, prima facie exclusive, over a territory and the permanent population living there; (2) a duty of non-intervention in the area of exclusive jurisdiction of other states; and (3), the dependence of obligations arising from customary law and treaties on the consent of the obligor”. therefore, what is critical in state sovereignty is the state’s control over its territory as well as the sovereign right to control the movement of migrants. however, lillich (1984) points out that, although there is a distinct manifestation between nationals and migrants in most legal systems, migrants have been granted rights as societies have desired their presence for trade reasons, reciprocity or for diplomatic protection. some legal instruments laying down standards for the protection of migrants have been developed. for instance, the united nations provides such protection through the international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and their families (1990); the international labour organisation (ilo) does so in the convention on migrant workers (1975); and, the council of europe through the european convention on the legal status of migrant workers (1977). the effectiveness of these legal instruments has not been realised as expected because they depend on ratification by individual states (cator & niessen, 1994 cited in morris (1997). the ratification may easily be done by sending rather than receiving states. it is within the powers of states to determine the terms of who can legitimately enter the territory, duration of stay and if the migrant can or cannot undertake paid employment (iom, 2010). to fekete (2009), states can detain migrants who do not adhere to their terms or they can expel them from their territory. this practice is common in many parts of the world and south africa. in this regard, a state restrains or structures the opportunities available to immigrants (gilligan, 2012). this implies that, migrants/immigrants are objects whose actions and functions are directed by the actions of the state. weiner (1985) argues that, states may actually promote the influx of migrants to increase their population or to fill a temporary demand for labour. some countries advanced countries, such as australia and new zealand, have experienced that practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries. western european countries solicited for migrant labour from greece, turkey, north africa, during the period 1950s-1960s. in the period 1970s-1980s, the oil producing persian gulf countries also actively sought migrant labour from the arab states and asia. the israeli state promotes immigration of jews regardless of their country of origin in order to fulfill its nationalist ideology of creating a homeland of jews (weiner, 1985). states may encourage their citizens to seek employment abroad as a way to relieve unemployment and boost remittances. examples are india, bangladesh, sri lanka and pakistan whose governments promote migration to the middle east. the turkish government has promoted migration to germany and, in africa, the algerian government has promoted migration to france. the state-sovereignty-migration nexus td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 1-29 5 the preamble of the american convention of human rights (cited in chetail, 2013: 243) states that, “the essential rights of man are not derived from one’s being a national of a certain state, but are based upon attributes of the human personality.” this is reinforced by the principle of non-discrimination, endorsed in all human rights treaties including article 2(1) of the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr). the principle is a well-recognised norm of general international law whose impact on the legal position of noncitizens is quite clear and straightforward. but, even when lawfully within the territory, a migrant may still be deported from that territory if some procedural guarantees are not fulfilled. the question of whether a migrant is lawfully within the territory or not is determined by domestic law. the 1981 african charter on human and peoples rights as well as the 1988 additional protocol to the american convention on human rights in the area of economic, social and cultural rights guarantee the right to work without any discrimination. despite all these provisions, the international labour organisation (ilo) drew a list of challenges migrants currently face (zentella & schiesser, 2005: 5). although the list is not exhaustive, it includes among others, the following challenges: a deterioration of human security and increased human displacement; increased exploitation of migrants and lack for respect for basic human rights; manifestation of xenophobic hostility; increased trafficking in human beings; an exodus of well-educated professionals (brain drain); feminisation of migration, with female migrants now accounting for nearly half of all migrants. to these challenges, zentella & schiesser (2005) added their concern about the increase in the number of migrant children, particularly unaccompanied minors. south african immigrations laws have been amended in 2015 to address this concern. according to vietti (2013), the complexity of the challenges discussed above are highlighted by the traditional distinction between “voluntary” migrants or “free population movements” and “forced” or “involuntary.” forced migrants are driven from their home countries by war, violent conflicts, human rights violations and abuses or discrimination (fisher et al., 1997). for voluntary migrants, it is assumed that the movement is a result of free choice rather than force. in reality, social, political, and economic insecurity can compel people to move from one place to another. they move even in the absence of overt forms of persecution or force associated with involuntary migration. kothari (2002: 20) posits that, although all forms of migratory acts appear to be “voluntary,” in “reality the decision to move is made within a context where the individual or group is faced with no alternatives since staying in situ is not a realistic option.” this view invalidates the attempt to categories migrants as voluntary or involuntary. state sovereignty-migration nexus the existing international law on migration does not undermine state sovereignty by protecting human rights as may be feared. the law does not dictate upon states how to control migration flows, nor does it impose on how to formulate migration rules and regulations. what the law does is to prescribe that states ought to develop migration laws that protect and manage the rights of both documented and undocumented migrants. migration management laws should not infringe on fundamental human rights enshrined in the international law provided by various instruments discussed in this article. these laws should also not compromise the security and public order of the state. for instance, there are practices that protect human rights of irregular immigrants such as human trafficking, chigudu 6 curbing corruption by immigration officers at border posts and in the department of home affairs. goodwin-gill (1989: 529-30) cites musgrove v. chun teeong toy (1891) case in which the privy council denied the proposition that any migrant had any right to enter british territory; and, in nishimura ekiu v. united states (1892) the supreme court concluded: “it is an accepted maxim of international law, that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to its self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions, or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe”. in the judgments above, migration control as it was then, still obtains to this day. it is directed towards mostly potential migrants from the developing world apart from those with desirable qualifications. the controls come hard upon a long time in which receiving states have profited hugely from the labour of the same or similar environments (goodwin-gill, 1989). states today, laments goodwin-gill (1989), are quite vocal in their need for controls on migrants. yet they are less vocal in their obligations towards these migrants within their countries, such immigrants have and continue to contribute to their economic well-being of host societies. zilbershats (2010) notes that, the international law of human rights provides for every person to leave any country including his own. it does provide for states to allow entry and perhaps accord permanent residents. for a person to enter as a tourist or an immigrant the discretion lies with the state with the exception to this provision being the right given to refugees in terms of the 1951 convention on the status of refugees. the convention provides for the principle of non-refoulment of people who enter the state within its ambit (that is, not to expel refugee migrants). globalisation is about blurring of boundaries or de-bordering (zilbershats, 2010) to promote the interconnectedness of the world with speed and high frequency in exchange of goods, technology, labour and services. empowering states to control entry of migrants in the principle of state sovereignty presents challenges to the globalisation phenomenon. to sur (1997), societies can prosper in a globalised world. the interdependence brings about cultural homogeneity and increased ideological, economic solidarity. globalisation carries many benefits and, it explains why europe’s de-bordering model provides flexibility to migration rules from one country to another. betts (2009) concludes that although state sovereignty remains at the centre of world politics, it is no longer absolute, in the wake of global governance. global governance is manifested by the formation of supranational bodies like the united nations, the world trade organisation, and regional blocs like the european union, the african union, the southern african development community, and the north american free trade agreement among others. foreign nationals are increasingly crossing state borders despite international recognition of powers vested in states to control their ingress. they cross borders in thousands yearly without express permission from the authorities. the majority of these migrants crossing the borders under such circumstances ultimately get employed. according to bosniak (1991), irregular migration is unlikely to diminish anytime soon. this could be due to the fact that, undocumented migrant labour is increasingly relied on by advanced and developing states (sassen, 1989). there is need to strengthen the symbiotic relationship between migrants and state sovereignty. the state-sovereignty-migration nexus td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 1-29 7 conclusion the rule of state sovereignty is fundamentally a governing principle guided by international legal and political systems. it refers primarily to a state’s power for exercising exclusive control over its jurisdiction, subject to limitations provided for by international law. migrants are viewed as those people who move from one state to another in search of jobs or better living conditions. while theorists on globalisation put emphasis on de-bordering and international linkages they remain ambivalent about the nexus between migration and national sovereignty. this article reviewed migration in the context of state sovereignty and globalisation. although the term sovereignty is so diverse, it remains embedded at the centre of world politics and yet less absolute due to the fast growing trends of globalisation. some states are seeing value in the migrants and granting them citizen status, including associated privileges. these actions reassert rather than diminish state sovereignty. further, such actions represent expansion of sovereign authority because these extraterritorial citizens become legitimate stakeholders under the dominion of that nation-state. references betts, a. 2009. forced migration and global politics. chichester, sussex, uk: wileyblackwell. bosniak, l.s. 1991. human rights, state sovereignty and the protection of undocumented migrants under the international migrant workers convention. international migration review, 25(4): 737-770. brainard, l.a. & brinkerhoff, j.m. 2006. sovereignty under siege, or a circuitous path for strengthening the state? digital diasporas and human rights. international journal of public administration, 29: 595–618. brownlie, i. 1983a. basic documents in international law. oxford: clarendon press. brownlie, i. 2003b. principles of public international law, 7th ed. oxford: oxford university press. bustamante, j.a. 2010. extreme vulnerability of migrants: the cases of the united states and mexico. 24 geo. immigr. l.j, 565: 565-66. castles, s. & miller, m.j. 2009. the age of migration: international population movements in the modern world. houndsmills: palgrave/macmillan. united nations, n.d. chapter ix: international economic and social co-operation, http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter9.shtml [accessed: 15 august 2015]. chetail, v. 2013. the human rights of migrants in general international law: from minimum standards to fundamental rights. georgetown immigration law journal, 28(1): 225-255. cholewinski, r. 2010. human rights of migrants: the dawn of a new era? 24 geo.immigr. l.j, 585: 585-615. fekete, l. 2009. a suitable enemy: racism, migration and islamophobia in europe. london: pluto. fisher, p., reiner, m. & straubhaar, t. 1997. should i stay or should i go? in brochmann, g., tamas, k. & hammar, t. (eds.), international migration, immobility and chigudu 8 development: multidisciplinary perspectives. new york, ny: berg publishers, pp. 4990. flynn, d. 2005. new borders, new management: the dilemmas of modern immigration policies. ethnic and racial studies, 28(3): 463-490. fox, g.h. 1997. new approaches to international human rights: the sovereign state revisited. in hashmi, s.h. (ed.), state sovereignty: change and persistence in international relations. university park, pa: pennsylvania state university press, pp. 105–130. united nations, n.d. g.a. res. 40/144, u.n. doc. a/res/40/144 (dec. 13, 1985). http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/40/a40r144.htm [accessed: 16 august 2015]. gilligan, c. 2012. immigration controls and the erosion of popular sovereignty. gritim working paper series , 10. (s. c. o’dowd, ed.) universitat pompeu fabra. goodwin-gill, g.s. 1989. international law and human rights: trends concerning international migrants and refugees. international migration review, 23(3): 526-546. heller, t.c. & sofaer, a.d. 2001. sovereignty: the practitioners' perspective. in krasner, s.d. 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(ed.), state sovereignty:change and persistence in international relations. university park, pa: pennsylvania state university press, pp. 15–47. sassen, s. 1989. america's immigration problem. world policy journal, 811-832. sheffer, g. 1985. diasporas. london: croom helm. sieghart, p. 1983. the international law of human rights. oxford: clarendon press. sur, s. 1997. the state between fragmentation and globalisation. eurpean journal of international law, 8(3): 421-434. van dijk, t.a. 2007. racism and the press in spain. in blas, j.l. & others, discurso y sociedad ii. nuevas contribuciuones al estudio de la lengua en un contexto social (pp. 59-99). castelló de la plana: universitat, jaume i. vietti, f. 2013. human insecurity: understanding international migration from a human security perspective. journal of migration and human security, 1(1): 17-31. weiner, m. 1985. on international migration and international relations. population and development review, 11(3): 441-455. zentella, g.t. & schiesser, f. 2005. migration and development. 113th assembly of the inter-parliamentary union 17-19.10.2005. geneva: second standing committee cii/113/r-rev, pp. 1-9. zilbershats, y. 2010. sovereign states control of immigration: a global justice perspective. isreal law law review, 46(126): 126-163. abstract introduction objectives of the study research approach background and related work finding representative equations processing the dr math conversations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) bertram haskins department of information technology, nelson mandela metropolitan university, south africa reinhardt a. botha department of information technology, nelson mandela metropolitan university, south africa citation haskins, b. & botha, r.a., 2017, ‘aligning mathematics with tutoring platform topics’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a428. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.428 original research aligning mathematics with tutoring platform topics bertram haskins, reinhardt a. botha received: 09 mar. 2017; accepted: 02 june 2017; published: 08 aug. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract dr math was a mobile mathematics tutoring service, used by school learners across south africa. the wealth of historic data available, with regard to the conversations between tutors and learners, may contain valuable insights as to which mathematics topics are most frequently encountered on the dr math service. this alignment may serve as an indicator of the utility of an online tutorial service as a reflection of the curriculum covered by learners, and as an extra avenue of support. this study makes use of automated means to rank the topics discussed on the dr math service and to align them with the topics encountered in the south african national senior certificate final examinations. the study finds that there is a close alignment with regard to the observations of the department of basic education on factors influencing the performance of the learners. the topics most frequently discussed on the dr math service also align closely with the topics with which the learners have most difficulty in their final exams. introduction dr math was a mathematics tutorial service accessible on cellular phones. this service allowed south african school learners to get in touch with human mathematics tutors. the tutoring service cost the learner no more than the data charges applicable to using an online chat platform. the mobile nature of the service also allowed the learners to gain access to the tutors from wherever they found themselves at a given moment. the dr math service is, unfortunately, now defunct, but during its operation it stored all of the conversations between the tutors and learners as anonymous text files. these text files contain a wealth of information, to be mined. using dr math and its historic system logs as a case study may reveal subtle alignments between the tutoring process and the real-world educational process. objectives of the study dr math was and is still by no means the only tutoring service available. although the availability of tutoring services, such as dr math, may be seen as a blessing for providing much needed extra help and information to south african learners, it is yet to be determined whether the tutoring help provided by such a service aligns with the south african educational curriculum in any shape or fashion. to that end, this study makes use of dr math as a case study. there are many ways in which both to mine and to interpret the data from the learner–tutor conversations on dr math. as the dr math service was available to all south african learners, it provided a feasible means of gathering an overview of which mathematical topics are problematic to the school learners in south africa. gathering this information would make it possible to determine whether the learners on dr math requested help on the same topics with which learners are struggling during examinations. techniques used in natural language processing (nlp) may be used to discover whether an alignment exists between these topics. if such an alignment exists, then it follows that these online tutoring services align with aspects of the south african mathematics curriculum and, as such, provide a useful extra avenue of support to school learners. to address this hypothesis, the study proposes to answer a single research question, namely how closely do the mathematical topics that are most frequently discussed on the dr math service align with the performance of learners in national senior certificate (nsc) paper i mathematics examinations? in order to address this issue, it is necessary firstly to determine how learners perform, with regard to specific topics, in their nsc mathematics final exams. furthermore, it is necessary to determine which mathematical topics occur most frequently on the dr math service. research approach this study has been conducted in five phases. the first phase constitutes the gathering of background information, by means of literature study. the background information consists of the historic performance data (in the form of rankings) from the south african nsc mathematics final examinations, as well as information on how the conversations on the dr math service may be processed automatically to extract useful information. this study aims to use the equations found in mathematical textbooks as a means to search through the historic dr math logs. by aligning these equations with the chapters and high school grades in which they are found, it is possible to align dr math conversations according to mathematical topics. in order to perform this task, several equations need to be processed. thus, the second phase of the study discusses how the equations were captured and converted to a form that may be used as search terms. in the third phase of the study, an automated process is used to extract the equations embedded in the conversations on the dr math service. these equations are saved in a list, to be aligned with the equations identified in the second phase. the dr math conversations are all recorded in anonymous text files which serve as source data for this study. our study makes use of the dr math text logs for the years 2010–2013, which contain 248 993 individual lines of conversation, to provide a historical overview of the equations, and associated topics, discussed on the service. in the fourth phase of the study, the equations from phases 2 and 3 are aligned. these alignments are used to determine in which grades an equation is encountered, as well as to provide a ranked list of the most frequently encountered topics on the dr math service. the final phase of the study attempts to draw an alignment between the nsc rankings created in phase 1 with the dr math rankings compiled in phase 4. background and related work to place the conversations on the dr math service in context, this section, which serves as the first phase of the study, firstly discusses the performance of learners on the nsc examinations. furthermore, an overview is provided of what the dr math service is as well as the means by which its historic conversations may be processed automatically. historic learner performance the main goal of this study is to determine whether the topics addressed by the learner–tutor conversations on the dr math service reflect the topics with which the south african school learners struggle most on their exams. the south african department of basic education publishes yearly diagnostic reports, which contain a breakdown of the issues faced by learners in the final nsc examination papers of all subjects. the 2011 nsc examination results for mathematics report that many of the errors made by learners have their origins in a poor understanding of the basic and foundational mathematical competencies, which have been taught in earlier grades (department of basic education 2012). these concepts include algebraic manipulation, factorisation, the solution of equations and inequalities. the authors of the report make the observation that candidates struggle to form a conceptual understanding of the topics presented. this may stem from their only attempting to answer those mathematical questions and forms put to them in a classroom environment and may explain why they face difficulty when confronted with varying forms of the same concept. this aligns with the observations made by mhlolo, venkat and schafer (2012). in their study mhlolo et al. (2012) conclude that many opportunities to have learners gain a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts or to relate these concepts to real-world concepts are missed because the teachers do not have the knowledge or capacity to use metaphors or analogies as teaching instruments. many learners do not have the necessary background to form the connections with these abstract concepts without their being tied to real-world foundations. setati (2008) lends further support to this argument by stating that one of the reasons for this lack of connection may be the language in which the learners are educated. if the language in which they are taught differs from their home language, most of their effort is focused on simply understanding what the teacher is saying and not specifically on the mathematical concepts being conveyed. the main underlying conclusions of the 2012 (department of basic education 2013) and 2013 (department of basic education 2014) reports are very similar to those of the 2011 report, namely that the learners are struggling with the fundamental concepts of mathematics. both reports comment that the learners should solve more non-routine problems and not just those found in the normal classroom setting, that is, those found in textbooks and historic question papers. the 2012 and 2013 reports both provide breakdowns of both paper i and paper ii according to learners’ average performance on each question and on what content or mathematical concept was covered in the questions. this study focused exclusively on the paper i topics, as the paper ii topics, in the document which was used as the source for the 2012 data, accidentally replicated the paper i averages for the same paper. for the purposes of the study the paper i question averages were reworked into rankings for both 2012 and 2013, using the average performances as an indicator of which topics were most problematic to the learners. the topic names for both years were reworked so that they could be aligned properly. these topic rankings, listed in table 1, serve as the baseline for comparing the topics identified from the conversations on the dr math service. table 1: paper i topics ranked according to lowest performance. dr math the dr math service was devised by the meraka institute of the south african council for scientific and industrial research. initially, the service was an attempt to see if high school learners would use their own cellular phones to contact mathematical tutors. eventually, the service grew to accommodate the requests of tens of thousands of school learners. the tutors on the service were all volunteers, who lent their time freely. the popularity of the service ensured that there were generally many more learners accessing the service than available tutors. this led to availability issues which were partially addressed by providing a queuing system (butgereit & botha 2010) and methods for detecting the presence of equations in learner queries (haskins & botha 2012). the current study is not the first attempt at determining the topics in dr math conversations. a prior study by butgereit and botha (2011) used topic spotting to provide the dr math tutors with links to supporting documentation with regard to the specific topic identified. the free nature of the service has ensured that a wealth of data have been generated as a result of the conversations between the tutors and school learners. the statements in box 1 demonstrate the range of statements that are found in the text logs. even though the text files consist of learner–tutor conversations regarding mathematics, identifying mathematical equations found in these texts may not always be a simple task. scrutinising these texts manually, to determine the types of mathematical equations they contain, is not a feasible endeavour. box 1: a few example queries taken from the historic logs of dr math. natural language processing the conversations on the dr math service constitute a form of natural language, called microtext. microtext may be defined as the short snippets of text used in modern digital forms of communication (hovy et al. 2013). this form of text consists of various misspellings, informality, varied grammar and non-language forms, such as emoticons. an emoticon is a set of keyboard symbols used to represent a facial expression, such as a smiley face. they are icons that represent emotion. a study by xue et al. (2011) surmised that nlp tools and techniques may be applicable to microtext-based content. natural language processing is a diverse research field, concentrating on both textual and vocal user input. this field pursues the elusive question of how we understand the meaning of a sentence or a document (feldman 1999). natural language text-processing systems are thus concerned with the translation of potentially ambiguous natural language queries and texts into unambiguous internal representations on which matching and retrieval can take place (liddy 1998). the dr math conversations represent such ambiguous statements which require translation to highlight or extract their hidden mathematical equations. there have been other studies that used nlp techniques to address the problem of mathematics in text. adeel, cheung and khiyal (2008) proposed a prototype search engine, enabling a user to search for mathematical formula content. to index and retrieve mathematics, they make use of a combination of regular expressions and keywords to perform template matching. because mathematics makes use of specific operators and operands, it may be possible to devise patterns from known equations. this study attempts to make use of a similar principle, in that it may be possible to use nlp techniques to convert the dr math statements into equations and then use these patterns to classify these equations. there are many techniques that are applicable to matching or identifying strings. similar to the study by adeel et al., this study makes use of regular expressions for this purpose. regular expressions regular expressions are a means to identify valid strings. the strings are matched against a series of patterns. each individual pattern is referred to as a regular expression. regular expressions are made up of a series of wildcard and constant characters, examples of which are shown in table 2. the wildcard characters are special characters, which are used to represent one or more varying (i.e. interchangeable) characters in a given regular expression. table 2: example of regular expression wildcards and constants. the constant characters in the pattern have to match explicitly, whereas the wildcard characters provide a degree of variance. regular expressions have been used in text processing to remove html tags when processing web pages (li 2011), to identify chinese cultural terms in an online search (zhenjun & xiangyu 2009) and to aid in the automatic annotation of electronic documents (djioua et al. 2006). by using the basis of regular expressions, it is possible to build representative patterns of the equations that may be found in the dr math text logs. these patterns would not only be applicable to specific mathematical equations, but would also allow various equations to be identified using the same pattern, thereby extending the applicability of the patterns beyond the equations from which the patterns were initially generated. figure 1 shows how a single regular expression could map to multiple equations. figure 1: a single regular expression and some of the equations to which it could map. in figure 1, the first ^ character denotes that the match must start from the beginning of the input string. the $ character species indicates that the match must stop at the end of the input string or at the end of a line in the input string. the \( and \) statements denote single instances of opening and closing round brackets and the \^ statement signifies a single instance of the exponent operator. the [a-za-z0-9]+ statement signifies that the specific statement may be replaced by any lowercase or uppercase alphabetic character or numeric character. the associated plus symbol specifies that the match should extend for at least one character, but that it may be any number of characters, that is, the number 4 could match, but so too could the constant–variable combination of 45124z. finding representative equations as part of the second phase of the study, it was necessary to source example equations as a means of comparison. to facilitate the equation capture, a software application was created to allow any equations from various sources to be captured manually. notational guidelines were created to facilitate the capture of equations. this ensured that the equations were captured in the same format as equations created by the automated process. five high school mathematics textbooks were consulted as sources of equations, each representing a specific grade in high school (carter et al. 2010; goba et al. 2011; goba & van der lith 2008; van der lith, 2008, 2010). every captured equation was saved and any incidental spacing removed. for each subsequent entry, the application checked the list of existing equations to ensure that no duplicates were captured. this technique yielded 3145 unique equations. each of the equations was saved along with details regarding in which high school grade and chapter in the textbook it was first encountered. this study makes use of the chapter names from the textbooks as our general mathematics topics. some of the chapter names, such as patterns, functions and algebra, are repeated across different grades. using only the unique chapter names as topics yielded a total of 22 topics. to provide some idea of the range of equations found in the textbooks and also the format in which they were captured, a few example equations are shown in figure 2. it is interesting to note that the longest of the captured equations is 67 characters in length, but the average equation is only 13 characters in length. this may indicate that learners tend to query the tutors on simpler equations. figure 2: example equations taken from mathematics textbooks. the software application used to capture the mathematical equations was used to generate a regular expression matching every equation captured from the textbooks, using the wildcards and constants listed in table 2, automatically. character spacing is disregarded by the regular expressions. this process yielded 3145 regular expressions. as each of the 3145 equations was already tagged with information regarding the grade in which it was encountered, as well as the associated chapter name, it was possible to tag the regular expressions with this same information. processing the dr math conversations as part of a related study, an automated system was developed which is capable of processing an input statement from the dr math text files to extract any perceived mathematical equation and to structure it in a representative form. the processing of these text files serves as the third phase of this study. the process makes use of various concepts found in the fields of natural language and text processing, not only to extract equations that are explicitly stated, but also those that may be structured in an unexpected manner. the equations may be structured in unexpected ways as the learners make use of the same forms of language to phrase their questions as they would in chatting with their peers, that is, by leaving out many words or using abbreviated forms. another influence on the structure of these messages could be that the keypads of most feature (non-smart) mobile phones, which were still used by many school learners during the period 2010–2013, do not lend themselves to entering mathematical equations properly. figure 3 contains a few examples of the statements found on the dr math service and the outputs provided by the automated process. the year 2013 was the first year in which smartphone sales overtook feature phone sales globally (gartner 2014). modern-day tutoring platforms would most probably be based on smartphones. it should thus be noted that the spelling and structure of the statements provided by the learners might look more structured as the learners would have access to the built-in dictionary functions of the phones. these properly spelled and grammatically correct messages would simplify the translation and equation extraction process, as the decreased variance in message spelling would shrink the search space of the problem. figure 3: dr math statements and their associated equations. determining the validity of the equations even though the automated process provides a convenient and quick way of processing the dr math text logs, the results of the process would only be of use if it could be proven that the process approximates similar judgement to that of a human performing the same translations. to that end, two tests were conducted using human volunteers. the first phase of the tests consisted of having three human volunteers scrutinise 1000 entries found in the dr math text logs. they had to perform a simple coding process, stating whether they believed the entry to be translatable or not. coding is a process in which participants record data according to rules supplied as part of the study. these same entries were processed (coded) by an initial phase of the automated process. this coding process forms part of a simple content analysis task. content analysis is a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts to the contexts of their use (krippendorff 2004:18). three human participants were used because, if required, it allows a majority decision rule to be applied in case of coding discrepancies. this step was not necessary for the purposes of this study. the levels of agreement between the three human coders and the automated process was calculated using krippendorff’s α krippendorff’s α is a very general measure of intercoder agreement, which allows for uniform reliability standards to be applied to a great diversity of data (krippendorff 2004:221). the calculations result in values in the range of 0 to 1, with 1 signifying complete agreement between coders and 0 signifying complete disagreement. krippendorff suggests that values between 0.667 and 0.8 may be used for drawing tentative conclusions (krippendorff 2004:241). the results of the individual α calculations are listed in figure 4. to show that the level of agreement reached by the coders is not random, figure 4 includes the level of agreement that the individual coders may have reached by chance (θ). these results show that the automated process is able to reach a fairly high level of agreement with two of the human participants, but not with the third. the two human participants who were in close agreement with the automated process were also not able to reach a high level of agreement with the third participant. these initial results were encouraging in indicating that the automated process provides a fairly close approximation to the ability of human participants to identify dr math statements containing mathematical equations. figure 4: comparison of calculations between the automated process and individual coders on agreement (α as the first value) and the level of agreement they could have reached by chance (θ as the value in brackets). a further round of tests was conducted to validate whether the automated process could deliver acceptable translations. to that end, the two human participants who were in relatively high agreement in the first test phase were asked to translate a series of 250 dr math statements into mathematical equations. the automated process was tasked to do the same. the equations created by the automated process were compared to those created by the human participants across various metrics. the metric calculations between the two human participants were used as a baseline for the tests. in all metric calculations, the automated process was able to meet or to exceed the results of the human participants. furthermore, the metric results calculated between the two human participants showed a moderate level of correlation. this level of correlation was matched by the automated process. these results serve as validation that the automated process is able to identify and to extract equations at a level similar to that which may be expected by a human participant. extracting the list of equations to facilitate the tests required for the current study, the statements found in the dr math text files were structured according to the year in which they were captured. this provided four separate sets of text files to process, for each of the years 2010 to 2013. the automated process was applied to each statement for a given year. if the process yielded an equation, the equation was saved to a list of equations for the given year. table 3 lists how many statements were processed for each year and how many equations were extracted for the given year. table 3: statements processed and equations identified per year in total, 248 993 unique statements were processed from the dr math text files. from these statements, a total of 36 141 equations were extracted. these equations serve as the source data for identifying the mathematical topics encountered on the dr math service. initial distributions and rankings in the final phase of the study, the equations from the second and third phases were aligned by using the regular expressions generated in the second phase to match to the equations generated in the third phase. regular expressions may be used to form either partial or complete matches to strings. for this study, the regular expressions were used to identify equations generated from the 2010 to 2013 dr math text logs with which they formed a complete match. a specific equation may be aligned with various topics found in multiple grades. although, during processing, all the possible topic associations of an equation were saved, this phase of the study only makes use of the lowest grade (and topic) with which an equation was aligned. this was performed in an attempt to illustrate what the fundamental principles are that are discussed during tutorial sessions. table 4 illustrates the number of these unique matching equations for each topic across all four years of the data set. table 4: number of equations matched to the 22 topics for the period 2010–2013. from these alignments the chart shown in figure 5 was generated. the chart illustrates the distribution of equations, per year, according to the grade when they were first encountered in the textbooks. all distributions in this section are expressed as a percentage of the total number of expressions processed for a given year. the results from the four years show a relatively similar pattern, with most of the equations from each year having first been encountered in grade 8, followed by grades 9, 12, 10 and 11. in all cases the fewest new equations are encountered in grade 11. figure 5: distribution of where equations are first encountered by grade for the years 2010–2013. these results may be interpreted in two ways. the first interpretation is that most of the learners seeking guidance from the dr math tutors are in the lower high school grades, namely 8 and 9. the second interpretation is that the results are representative of the fact that most of the learners struggle with concepts of which the basic structure was covered in grades 8 and 9 and that all other concepts are related to these concepts. this interpretation aligns with the observations made in the diagnostics reports created by the south african department of basic education, as discussed above, that most of the learners who wrote the nsc examinations struggle with the basic concepts taught in grades 8 and 9. to further investigate this phenomenon, figure 6 ranks the most frequently occurring topics for each year. some of the topics were not encountered frequently across the dr math text logs; thus, figure 6 only shows the 10 topics most frequently encountered. it is also important to note that there may be some overlap across some of the topics, but they were kept separate so as to have a direct alignment with the individual chapters of the textbooks used as the data source of the study. figure 6: the 10 most frequently encountered topics (as measured by the number of equations) for the years 2010 to 2013. across the data sets for all four years, the two most frequently encountered topics are those of patterns, functions and algebra, and numbers, operations and relationships. the topic of patterns, functions and algebra deals with such basic concepts as factors and exponents, whereas numbers, operations and relationships address the simplification of algebraic expressions, roots and fractions. as these topics are fairly basic, it further supports our prior theory that they are flagged so frequently simply because their base understanding is a requirement for other mathematical topics. alignment with national senior certificate results for the first round of tests, the distributions and rankings were calculated according to the lowest possible grade in which a concept was encountered. from the tests it became clear that most of the concepts aligned with the basic concepts covered in grades 8 and 9. for the second set of tests, it was necessary to determine whether some of the equations could also match to regular expressions representing higher level concepts. an example of this is the equation 3x − 2y = 5 which may map to equations linked to the topics of patterns, functions and algebra, encountered in grade 8, and solving and graphing linear equations, encountered in grade 10, in the textbooks. to do this the data sets were reprocessed to include all possible matches for an equation on any grade or topic, but the equations matched to the topics of patterns, functions and algebra, and numbers, operations and relationships were relegated only to those instances when the equations could only be aligned to these specific two topics. from these alignments the chart shown in figure 7 was generated. figure 7: distribution of equations by grade on all possible alignments for the years 2010–2013. with these changes made it is apparent that, based on the equations, the learner queries are distributed fairly evenly between concepts first encountered in grades 8, 10 and 12. this is to be expected as grade 8 constitutes the initial contact of the learners with high school-level mathematics topics. new topics are introduced in grade 10, as this is when the learners make their subject choices for the remainder of their high school career. finally, grade 12 represents the outcome-level for high school learning. as such, it is to be expected that a fair number of learners would require help in preparing for their final exams. for the final comparison, and the final phase of the study, the 22 topics used to distinguish the dr math conversations were summarised into the 6 topics identified on the nsc paper i examinations. furthermore, for this comparison, only the results from the 2012 and 2013 dr math text files were used. this was performed in order to perform a direct comparison with the nsc paper i topic rankings for 2012 and 2013. the comparison between these rankings and the same topic rankings from the conversations in the dr math text logs are shown in table 5. table 5: ranked topics from the nsc examinations compared with the ranked topics from dr math. the nsc rankings indicate which topics learners received the lowest marks for on average in the examinations, whereas the dr math rankings indicate which topics were most frequently encountered. there is a definite alignment between the first two ranked topics of calculus, and functions and graphs. topics 3 and 4 are reversed in order between the nsc and dr math results. the same can be said for topics 5 and 6. this further demonstrates the closeness in rankings, as topics are never more than a simple swap away from being aligned. conclusion this study set out to answer the question: how closely do the mathematical topics that are most frequently discussed on the dr math service align with the performance of learners in nsc paper i mathematics examinations? in order to answer this question, two objectives were addressed. firstly, the historic diagnostic reports from the south african department of basic education were consulted, to determine which issues were most pressing. from these reports, the average performance of the students on specific questions (and their associated topics) was used to create a ranked list of six topics in the order in which the learners performed the worst. secondly, the historic text logs of dr math were processed by automated means to determine which topics occur most frequently. initially, it was observed that the learners struggled with the basic mathematical concepts covered in grades 8 and 9. this aligns with the observations made by the department of basic education. the department of basic education lists a lack of exercise on the topics, beyond that which may be found in textbooks and prior question papers, as one of the reasons that the students have such a low level of conceptual understanding of the topics. further processing of the data also revealed that the topics most frequently discussed on the dr math service aligned relatively closely with the topics which the learners found most problematic on their nsc final examinations. this serves to answer the research question of the study. furthermore, the close alignment between the topics discussed on dr math and the topics of the examination shows that an online tutorial system has utility because it reflects aspects of what is covered in the south african mathematics curriculum. with the highest tutorial focus being on aspects considered challenging in the nsc reports, this also has the effect of independently validating the results of these reports. although the 2011–2013 nsc diagnostic reports were consulted, only the 2012 and 2013 nsc diagnostic reports contained the average performance figures for each question and its associated topic. as the topics listed were very general, a future study may analyse the question papers themselves to ascertain a greater list of topics, which would provide an even greater insight into the alignment with the topics discussed on dr math. this kind of information could be of value to the dr math tutors as it may allow them to present the learners proactively with questions on those topics, which they would not encounter in their daily classroom activities. in addition, it may address both the conceptual understanding of the learners and the concerns of the department of basic education with regard to the amount of mathematical experience the learners gain outside of the classroom. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. references adeel, m., cheung, h.s. & khiyal, s.h., 2008, ‘math go! prototype of a content based mathematical formula search engine’, journal of theoretical and applied information 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‘normalizing microtext’, in d.w. aha, d.w. oard, s. ramachandran & d.c. uthus (eds.), analyzing microtext, vol. ws-11-05, pp. 74–79, aaai, menlo park, ca. zhenjun, y. & xiangyu, j., 2009, ‘a simplified application of regular expressions: with the extraction of chinese cultural terms as an example’, in isecs international colloquium on computing, communication, control and management, vol. 1, pp. 439–442, ieee, sanya, china, 8–9 august. microsoft word 08 liebenberg.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. viewing ‘the other’ over a hundred and a score more years: south africa and russia (1890–2010) i liebenberg* abstract whether novel is history or history is novel, is a tantalising point. “the novel is no longer a work, a thing to make last, to connect the past with the future but (only) one current event among many, a gesture with no tomorrow” kundera (1988:19). one does not have to agree with kundera to find that social sciences, as historiography holds a story, a human narrative to be shared when focused on a case or cases. in this case, relations between peoples over more than a century are discussed. at the same time, what is known as broader casing in qualitative studies enters the picture. the relations between the governments and the peoples of south africa and russia (including the soviet union), sometimes in conflict or peace and sometimes at variance are discussed. past and present communalities and differences between two national entities within a changing international or global context deserve attention while moments of auto-ethnography compliment the study. references are made to the international political economy in the context of the relations between these countries. keywords: soviet union, south africa, total onslaught, united party, friends of the soviet union, ideological conflict (south africa), russians (and the anglo-boer war), racial capitalism, apartheid, communism/trotskyism (in south africa), broader casing (qualitative research) subject fields: political science, sociology, (military) history, international political economy, social anthropology, international relations, conflict studies introduction the abstract above calls up the importance of “‘transnational’ and ‘transboundary’ theories and perspectives” and the relevance of the statement that, worldwide, the rigid boundaries that once separated disciplines have become less circumscribed; they are no longer judged by the static conventions of yesteryear (editorial, journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2009: iii-iv). such developments in the human sciences have potential to expand our horizons of knowledge. * centre for military studies, military academy; department of political science, faculty of military science, university of stellenbosch south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 429 the terms ‘viewing’ and ‘the other’ call up contending and complementary world views. these terms relate to ideology, political socialisation, conflicts, peacemaking, past memories, international relations and projected futures. such discourse also calls up social identities and political dynamics – concepts deployed in various social science disciplines. and in this case, also involves long standing relations between two peoples and their governments. tapping into social sciences such as sociology, political science, international political economic insights and qualitative approaches, this contribution is interdisciplinary in nature. terms such as power elite, mobilised societies, symbolic politics, ideologies, groupthink, and the phenomena of stereotyping and labelling play a role. contending paradigms of economic thinking (international political economic interests) also enters the picture. in south africa and russia (previously the soviet union), viewing ‘the other’ preceded and outlasted the anglo-boer war (1899–1902), the 1917 overthrow of tsarist rule, two world wars, demise of the berlin wall, the ‘border war’, the fall of minority rule in south africa and beyond. russia saw the departure of the last tsar, a communist revolution and the rise of new authoritarianism, its decline and a relatively failed attempt to establish liberal democracy. both countries saw regime changes, mutation of political structures and evolving ideologies. south africa experienced the demise of the boer republics, the becoming of a union, the apex and decline of the british empire, the rise of a whites-only republic with a unique brand of authoritarian rule and transition to a dominant party system under a negotiated constitution in an attempt to establish a (liberal-) democratic system. in 2010 while south africa hosted the fifa world soccer cup, namibia commemorated its 20th year of independence from south african dominance after an election won by the south west african peoples organisation (swapo) which some claim would not have happened if it were not for soviet support. others argue it came about by the voluntary withdrawal of apartheid forces from first angola, then namibia. a century and a score more are not an arbitrary choice. south africa became a union in 1910, and russia was shaken by two revolutions in 1917. amongst the englishmen who visited russia in 1897/1898 was john hammond, an american rhodes admirer who was involved in the unsuccessful anti-boer conspiracy in johannesburg in 1895. two years after the jameson raid hammond was a guest of the russian minister of finance, sergei julievitch witte (davidson, 2003: 27–28). in 1895, hammond described rhodes as “undoubtedly the greatest englishman of the century” (davidson, 2003: 28). in contrast, lenin mentioned rhodes as an example of how the ravenous british bourgeois viewed the economic advantages of naked imperialism (davidson, 2003: 29), while jan smuts and olive schreiner became staunch critics of rhodes before the turn of the previous century (spies and nattrass, 1999:14). international (strategic) views influenced developments. the political elite, what c. wright mills, sociologist, calls the power elite, in both societies were at odds at times. there are no recent contributions by south african academics from an interdisciplinary perspective who investigate relations between the two powers over the past century. this article addresses the topic. a methodology rather than ‘the methodology’ the permanent flux of social developments and political dynamics frequently introduce a level of analysis that makes objective writing problematic. in sociology, anthropology, political science and (lately) history and theology (most) approaches are paradigmatic. multiple research liebenberg   430 approaches can add to insights by providing a more fluid digm. the interdisciplinary scholar contributes to intersubjectivity rather than objectivity (read: “objectivity”). historiography plays a role but other subject disciplines provide the feeding grounds. jan romijn reminded us that the writing of any/all history should not and could not be divorced from the subjectivity of the author − perhaps for the better. wright mills in turn pointed out that a researcher cannot divorce him or her from their work and pretend to be all-knowing (wright mills, 1977: 18, 184ff, 223). in human understanding and action in context (vrijheid als historie), existence as the temporary (de tijdelijkheid existeert) and the links to history in a strict sense (historie in strikte zin) the author as human subject enters a discussion with others in view of the others and him-/herself. it then stands to reason that: zo treed hij (the author) voortdurend in gesprek met zijn medemensen, so blijft het verleden leven in de heden en wordt het geprojecteerd naar een toekomst. de mens is nooit ‘af’ en zijn/de wereld is nooit ‘af’ …” (luijpen, 1980: 226). ad peperzak in his work vrijheid echoes this view (1977).1 in this contribution, the author argues for intersubjectivity and dialogue rather than the static truths of objectivity or subject disciplinary constraints in this contribution when reading the relations between the two countries. the research utilises an ongoing literature review and qualitative research approaches. it combines insights borne out of various social science disciplines. research reflects secondary and primary reading, and since 1987 contact with soviet/russian citizens as well as south african cadres and students trained in the soviet union/russia. the latter represents a measure of qualitative research. personal perspectives and experiences of the author or auto-ethnographic moments observed or participated in also inform this contribution. as a qualitative research approach the strength of auto-ethnography is that it provides a collage to context and experience at a particular moment in time (bryman, 2004:301, 315; ellis and bochner, 2000:733–734, 739; schwandt, 2001:13). some criticise the auto-ethnographic approach as limited, and those not well-disposed to auto-ethnographic approaches may argue that it is “personalistic” (liebenberg, 2008: 63ff). despite criticism against it, the autoethnographic angle adds value to other research approaches and complements available data such as archival sources, literature studies and comparative approaches, while contextualising it within human and personal experience and interaction with other social agents (schwandt, 2001: 13; quelette, 2003: 13ff; ellis, 2004: 31–32; sparks, 2002: 2–5; bryman, 2001: 299ff). such added value justifies the use of auto-ethnography to complement other approaches in a contribution such as this. auto-ethnography as qualitative research angle provides a view rich in data about an era, personal experiences, social interaction and observations in a particular context (etherington, 2006:141; josselson, lieblich and mcadams, 2003). it throws a unique light on socio-political developments and outcomes in combination with other sources of data (blenkinssop, 2006; crang and cook, 2007:13; philaterou and allen, 2006:65,67ff). for this reason, autoethnography is combined with other human science discipline insights. 1 . this contribution, while valuing the work of peter gay, freud voor historici (1987) does not take its views on history or social sciences as far as gay. south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 431 review of literature and sources archival sources played a role within identified areas. in addition, personal archives collected by the author over more than twenty years were utilised. the united party archives housed at the university of south africa (unisa) were more than useful. so did consulting the archival group: communist party and russia, 1922–1975 at unisa. documents in this group include pamphlets, correspondence and press cuttings donated by prof. w.a. kleynhans to the unisa archives. a number of other earlier historical sources were also used. these consisted of publications to which could be referred as historical afrikaans and english works (africana). the author used these for illustrative purposes, as such works relate the atmosphere of the time so closely, albeit not objectively. the monthly newsletter of the institute for democracy in south africa (idasa), democracy in action, as well as occasional papers brought out by idasa between 1987 and 1992 were valuable.2 the work of idasa3 as a democracy advocating body and advancing the notion of a negotiated settlement in a deeply divided south africa touched on internal as well as external relations in its workshops, international exchanges and its publications. idasa publications covering such initiatives, where applicable, to relations between south africa and the soviet union contributed to the literature review. the russian embassy kindly provided useful documentation and archival photographic material during april/may 2005.4 issues of die matie, a student newspaper of the university of stellenbosch, between 1980 and 1990 and available in the media compendium in the kosie gericke library, proved relevant. valued colleagues and friends in the soviet union and russia and inside south africa made their contribution in sharing solicited and unsolicited documents and experiences. to an extent, the author also drew on insights gained from interviews done in the course of his d litt et phil studies (2005–2008) and ongoing interviews for a project on the war in angola. 2 . the author of this article joined idasa in 1987 and served as regional and student coordinator, research consultant and later director of research (1986–1990) which provided for some auto-ethnographic moments related here. 3 . the institute for democracy in south africa, initially known as the institute for a democratic alternative for south africa (idasa), was established in late 1986. following the resignation of the leader of the official opposition, the progressive federal party (pfp) in the white chamber of the parliamentary system, idasa was born. van zyl slabbert, as opposition leader, resigned in order to pursue an agenda that would bring extraparliamentary organisations such as the united democratic front (udf), the exiled african national congress (anc) and south african communist party (sacp) into the mainstream discourse of transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. alex boraine, a leading member of the pfp, followed slabbert’s example. 4 . the author owes gratitude to andrey sharashkin (counciller) and fiodosiy vladyeshevskiy (attaché) of the embassy of the russian federation in pretoria/tshwane (2004/2005) for assistance. liebenberg   432 strengths and limitations of the contribution relations between south africa and russia have been studied before. currently few south africans are researching the relations between russia (then soviet union) and south africa. where current research takes place, it is mostly published in russian and not english or afrikaans. current research does not combine insights from various social sciences in this area or provide an overview of the period in question. this is done in this contribution. this contribution is exploratory. it adds to the work of russian academics in the field of socialhistorical studies such as apollon davidson, irina filatova, vladimir shubin, andrei pritvorov and andrei ignatenko and work done in south africa in the 1980s. a younger generation of russian researchers such as gennady shubin, veronika usyachova and others are also noteworthy. the historical works of elisaveta kandyba-foxcroft (then at unisa) and others were pioneering and cannot be ignored. more recent work relates to linguistic and cultural studies by irina garmashova-du plessis at the university of south africa (unisa) during 2002–2007. an obvious limitation of the article is that the author is not russian-speaking and had to rely on english, afrikaans and in some cases german sources. on authors, auto-ethnography and being participant-observer the 1990s are seen as the “end of communism” and minority rule/apartheid in south africa. in witty quips, some observed that pretoriastroika followed the example of perestroika. these societies parted with authoritarian rule in an attempted transition to democracy, as transition theorists refer to it. large segments of the power elite of both societies aspire currently to the ideal world of liberal capitalism or the stage in history that apologists for capitalism such as francis fukuyama call “the end of history”; victory for the free market. others seem more critical (see current debates between the trade union cosatu and members of the sacp in south africa, sunday independent, 22 august 2010: 15). in discussing south africa and russia, one cannot speak about relations between the two countries without discussing south africa’s peculiar transition to democracy. some of these observations should perhaps be confined to the reflections of a participant-observer or of auto-ethnographic reflections. for example, how did the author experience some political developments in south africa? divisions between south africans deepened substantially during the 1980s. children born in the 1960s were to hear at a young age over south african radio that a revolutionary (the term to equal “terrorist” or “anarchist”), che guevara, was gunned down in a far-off latin american country called bolivia. they would hear that south africa’s northern neighbour rhodesia was under threat from a communist and terrorist onslaught. portuguese colonies were under threat from the same evil forces, they heard. so was suidwes-afrika (south west africa – later namibia) where swapo, a terrorist movement backed by the soviet union, fought the order and stability that white rule and christianity brought to that backward region and its irreconcilable tribes. it was said that the state of israel fought valiantly against the egyptians and the syrians who had massive “soviet support”. less was said about massive us support for israel, or us and french/belgium support for mobutu of zaire, or apartheid south africa and israeli defence cooperation (sunday independent life, 22 august 2010:16). little was said about economic exploitation, neo-colonialism, nationalist movements as driving sources of liberation struggles or that the un general assembly resolved way back in 1948 (when the apartheid state was born) that palestinians deserve their own independent state. the message was ad nausea repeated that south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 433 communist china and the soviet union were aiming at total control of africa with the help of puppet states, and that these evil forces aimed at the destruction of western civilisation. cuban people deployed in arica (also angola) ostensibly had no mind or strategy or loyalty to african people. they were simply mindless puppets of a godless state in moscow. if they were white and male, south african children were “registered” at the age of sixteen through the help of the apartheid department of education for military service (afrikaans: nasionale diensplig). apart from conscription of whites, the cadet system at school prepared young men (boys) for military life. more than 600 cadet units were established and functioned countrywide. two years after registration, white males were conscripted – since 1979 for two years and further years for part-time call-ups. should any of these (young) men refuse military service they were liable for prison sentences of six years. at a symposium at the university of pretoria held in 1977, one of the speakers, prof. john ericson, had, amongst others, to say that russian influence is growing in africa as part of a “pincher movement” and classic ‘satellitesation’ (armed forces, 1977: 20). prof. g.c. olivier at the same symposium argued that (m)any communist states pursue with vigour both domestic and foreign propaganda programmes (sic), something that democratic states do not pursue as vigorously (see armed forces, 1977: 20). at the same time, others were called up for such ideas to occupy namibia and destabilise angola. many of the apartheid conscripts were from white working class families drafted directly from school and thereafter returned to working class jobs. strangely, neither the south african truth and reconciliation commission (trc) nor the new post-apartheid government recognised that such people were thereby drafted permanently into workers class status and yet, frequently they are still counted as “privileged whites”. some of these ex-conscripts are psychologically scarred and can be seen wandering in south african streets reduced to begging, like many other south africans. at the same time, president thabo mbeki and his elite followers insisted rather fleetingly that there are two “nations” in south africa: a rich white one and a poor black exploited one. the implication was that all whites are rich and as past oppressors still racist, and all black people are poor and non-racist in their attitudes. such attitudes can perhaps be termed “post-apartheid nation building through discrimination and stereotyping”.5 during the 1980s, military units were established at universities and technical colleges. in the case of the university where the author studied, the university of stellenbosch military unit (usme) was established to retain and redeploy those who finished their first two years of conscription. critique against the system was vilified and speakers from, amongst others, the angolan rebel movement unita were organised to speak on the stellenbosch campus (psa bulletin, 1986: 9). students were told that terrorism should be unmasked, that bishop tutu, 5 . not only white ex-conscripts are discriminated against. the new democratic government in its first years failed largely in the compensation and re-integration of ex-cadres and guerrillas into civil society while rationalising out scarce skills because of colour/race (liebenberg, roefs and ferreira, 2000). conscript veterans tired of generals talking on their behalf, after years of silence are now increasingly writing against the madness and manipulative nature of their then political leaders and political generals (see batley, 2007). liebenberg   434 alan boesak and the south african council of churches were communist, that the sacp controlled the anc and that unita was making a lasting contribution to angola’s future” (psa bulletin, 1986: 2, 3, 7 and 8). as an infantry officer in the sadf, before the author objected to further military service, he was to hear from a company commander that scandinavian nurses in northern namibia where swapo and that the sadf were at odds were “finnish whores”. at a command information session in oshivelo in 1979, a major suggested that those who supported swapo and communism were “slegte kaffers” (bad caffirs). those who supported the locally (rsa) run political government in namibia were “goeie kaffers”. on objecting to this terminology, a few of the servicemen were admonished by the information officers with the words: “julle sal nog grootword” (you’ll still grow up). critical thinking at the time certainly was not seen as part and parcel of professional military men/women. this particular officer was rather blunt in sociopolitical thinking and sharp with sword, not a professional armed with sword and thought, it seemed to him – even in a cold war context. needless to say that critics of apartheid and racialism were called “naïve”, “people who flirted with the terrorists”, “gay” (afrikaans: moffies), traitors, etc. in the psa bulletin of november 1986 the chairperson (chairman), nic myburgh, of the popular student alliance (populêre studentealliansie) that was aligned and sponsored together with the national student federation by government (read: military intelligence) spent a whole page attacking and slandering persons for their involvement with “terrorist gangs” and “feel-good trendies”. the fact that some (including the author) met earlier on with an anc delegation in harare and refused further military service, some commissioned officers were not welcomed, to say the least (psa bulletin, 1986: 7). the director of the institute for the study of marxism (ismus) whose institute was partly funded by military intelligence spoke on the position of religion in the soviet union at a meeting of the christian association (christenvereniging) in stellenbosch (see dinamiek, 1987: 8). the director of ismus, after it became known that he collaborated with military intelligence, moved to the department of political science at the stellenbosch university. the institute (ismus) became known as the centre for soviet studies. the above illustrates the complexities, if not contradictions, in the politics of the time for those caught up in it. notes on politics, social being and subjectivities the national party victory in 1948 saw growing antagonism between the ruling elite as incumbents of the state and its political contenders because of segregation as official policy. inherited ethnocentric attitudes from the dutch colonisers and subsequent impositions by the british led to a deeply divided southern african society in the age of modernity. ‘ethnic’ divisions were to deepen substantially after the national party’s election victory in 1948. the national party and its cohorts like the afrikaner broederbond (ab),6 following the defeat of the 6 . afrikaner broederbond: a cultural society for afrikaans-speaking, white, male, christian (protestant) persons established in 1917 to achieve a white ruled republic independent of britain. circa 1920 it became a secret society. the broederbond operated in conjunction with several organisations such as the national party and the federasie van afrikaanse kultuurverenigings (fak). their control was challenged by some smaller south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 435 united party, engineered top-down ‘separateness’ of races (apartheid). the fear for ‘the other’ also nurtured an antagonism towards the swart gevaar (black danger). in afrikaner ideology, communism, as threat and scapegoat increasingly featured since 1933, became pronounced by 1938 and ten years later, the word communism became “crime thought” under the apartheid regime.7 political rule in apartheid south africa became increasingly hard-handed and the rise of an authoritarian state inevitable. race, ethnicity and social identities were exploited and manipulated for financial and political gain by dutch mercantilists, the british colonisers and subsequent boer rulers (zegeye, liebenberg and houston, 2000). after the ravaging war between britain and the boer republics, south africa was to become the land of boer and brit. under the union of south africa voting rights for the few indigenous people who still had it as well as the land owned by them, were whittled down. some radical theorists referred to this as colonialism of a special type (cst) (compare kotze, 1994: 48–49). the soweto rebellion took place in 1976. following these upheavals an increasingly militarised (white) society that approached the status of a praetorian or garrison-state developed. rather than relying on police support as under the rule of bj vorster, the laager mentality that marked afrikaner nationalist thinking evolved into an authoritarian state or bunker society (grundy, 1987; davis, 1987). richard leonard refers to this era as “from police repression to military power” (leonard, 1983: 3ff). for a short while after 1948, south africa had the characteristics of a (whites-only) democracy. after df malan had left the political scene, hans strijdom introduced the term baasskap (herrenschaft). following the reign of verwoerd, the vorster regime increasingly relied on police assistance. the latter was eclipsed under pw botha by a securityfocused regime under an executive presidency relying on military support. the loci of power moved away from the (whites-only) parliament to the military. the state security council (ssc), established by the security intelligence and state security act, no. 64 of 1972 to combat “any particular threat to security in south africa”, played no small role (horrel, 1982: 245). earlier the author argued that south africa could perhaps be described as an example (perhaps the only one) of a third world country that reflected an authoritarian political system with totalitarian elements during the zenith of apartheid rule (liebenberg, 1990: 135–136). this was organisations since 1967 such as the herstigte national party, a breakaway group when vorster came to power, die volkswag and the conservative party, two other breakaway groups following the introduction of the multiracial tricameral parliament under pw botha. some broeder-/afrikanerbonders post-1994 closely aligned themselves with the new anc regime with others staying “neutral” and some highly critical of the new government’s policies. following the 1990 elections the afrikaner broederbond (ab) changed its name to the afrikanerbond (ab). various erstwhile broeder-/afrikanerbonders pragmatically became advisors to, or members of the african national congress (anc). other conservatives formed groups such as the group of 63 and praag that mobilised around language politics. others tried to “reform” the so-called federasie van afrikaanse kultuurverenigings (fak) to include afrikaans-speaking people from other than white backgrounds. in the new parliament those who held culturally conservative perspectives from the white african side (the afrikaners) aligned themselves under the vryheidsfront plus. the latter accepted in principle a liberal democratic constitution achieved through a negotiated settlement but remained distrustful of non-racialism, populism and the cultural relativity implied in the new constitution, yet produced a cabinet member serving under anc rule. 7 . the notion is derived from george orwell’s 1984. for an application of orwell to south africa, see b. itterbek (1984: 20). what orwell communicated through his work about totalitarian communist governments was as applicable to an authoritarian apartheid government with its sophisticated technical abilities to suppress the democratic movement. liebenberg   436 made possible by the relatively high state of industrialisation that south africa achieved as well as technological capacity that evolved since the end of the second world war (the latter provided an industrial “take off” stage for a previously mostly agrarian society). south africa’s high-levelled development compared to other “third world” countries endowed it with a vast bureaucracy to bolster the apartheid state. c. wright mills attuned readers to the fact that bureaucracies play an immense role in strengthening the state (wright mills, 1977: 114–115). to discuss the political role of bureaucracies in developing societies and what happens when a highly mobilised ideological society and its incumbent state focus on control rather than inclusion is beyond the scope of this article. it suffices to mention that in such a case bureaucratic power in developing areas may clearly inhibit, perhaps preclude, the development of a democratic polity (la palombara, 1971: 22). at the time, south africa and the soviet union shared some similarities, especially if one reflects upon the previous sentence. the lack of other parties as opposition and a one-sided/partisan bureaucracy in an industrialising state subverted potential for nurturing democracy and inclusive political ethos. authoritarian elements in the soviet union before chernenko/andropov – and to an extent brezhnev – and south africa’s power elite shared similarities such as an elite deciding on behalf of the others and oppression of political opposition. sadly enough, frequently the academic discourse under apartheid and the soviet union lost the critical impetus by cowtowing government thinking. as wright mills so correctly observes: “the practicality of ‘social problems’ … (became) overshadowed by newer conservative uses of a managerial and manipulative sort” (wright mills, 1977: 100). academic activity in south africa, especially at afrikaans universities, seemed to gravitate towards ‘abstracted empiricism’ that represented a ‘bureaucratic’ development (mills, 1977: 101) which led to academic institutions such as the human sciences research council (hsrc) acting as a consultant to the state, and so assisted bureaucratic forms of domination (compare again wright mills, 1977: 101. see also van vuuren, 1985: 47ff; van vuuren, 1987: 15ff; van vuuren and liebenberg, 1998: 95). despite this, the positive and the negative elements of reciprocal views between russia, later the soviet union, were not always shared by all sides within the respective societies. views were sometimes confined to certain minority groups or sectors of society, and the power elite depending on their material and political interests. soviet observers critical of apartheid warned as early as 1973: “a slowdown in economic growth and sharpening of racial, political and social contradictions are characteristic of south africa” (butlitsky, 1973: 80). as ever, the highs of political power may not coincide with perceived economic strengths. soviet economists correctly predicted tension and socio-political violence three years before the soweto rebellion. the second world war days of comrades in arms under the smuts government were past. associations such as the sa society for peace and friendship with the soviet union were easily forgotten under the new national party regime. it started earlier: following the end of the second world war, the leader of the united party, jan christiaan smuts, became suspicious of the soviet leadership and the ideology of marxism-leninism under stalin’s rule. one marked difference between the soviet government and the apartheid government was that the communist regime strived for greater inclusiveness by top-down measures and the apartheid regime to maintain exclusion by the same measures. since 1948 south africa tried to impose an exclusivist racial and ethnic programme of social engineering or “ethnicity from above” – with or without success, depending on the political orientation of the observer (zegeye, liebenberg and houston, 2000). in sharp contrast, the soviet union, through social engineering, attempted to south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 437 steer away from class, racial, sexual, religious and ethnic differences after their revolution – again with or without success in the view of the observer. the soviet attempt at social engineering was aimed at inclusion and consequently the ideal of an equal society rather than apartheid’s order of inequality and exclusivity. in the south african political structure, racial capitalism was in favour of white control over the economy, white privileges and socio-political control (alexander, 1985: 43). alexander, in reference to the structural violence of apartheid, argues: “(in south africa) the national bourgeoisie came to consist of a class of white capitalists. because they could only farm and mine gold and diamonds profitably if they had an unlimited supply of cheap labour … they found it necessary to create a split in the labour market – one for cheap (unskilled) black labour and another for (semi-skilled), mainly white labour … made easier by the fact that in the preindustrial colonial period white-black relationships had essentially been master servant relations” (alexander, 1985: 43). racial domination was modernised to make apartheid look more acceptable (see adam, 1971). in the labour field, the same happened. while black workers were forced to be a-political through the wiehahn commission report, in reality capital restructuring and the modification of racial elements in the world of work took place without compromising power for the white economic elite (davies, 1978). over all these years, irina filatova remarks: “but no one can claim with assurance that all these contradictions notwithstanding, there is (or rather; was at the time) a common element in soviet perceptions of south africa. soviet people rejected race discrimination and sympathised with the struggle the majority wage against the apartheid regime. … (yet) they have never harboured hostility towards the white minority as such; they denounce the regime but not the people” (filatova, 1988: 7). changing epochs and contexts a century is a short time. this contribution focuses on the linkages between these issues while the topic is in need of much more concerted research, and research cooperation between south african and russian (and then soviet) historians, sociologists and economists. the following eras are discussed: (1) before and during the “second boer war” [also known as the anglo-boer war, die angloboereoorlog;8 (2) the first world war to the end of the second world war; (3) the post-second world war and the apartheid era; (4) the post-apartheid era. 8 . for this reason, some refer to the liberation struggle against apartheid as the “third war for liberation” or for that matter the “third republic”. liebenberg   438 1. before and during the “second boer war”/anglo-boer war refugees from the kamchatka in eastern siberia rounded the cape in 1771. two of the first russians to visit south africa were a junior officer, yuri lisyansky, and a musician, gerasim lebedev. the latter conducted some recitals in the british occupied south africa in 1798 with the permission of the then governor (filatova, 1988: 3).captain vasili golovnin’s ship was confiscated and held in cape town during the british-french war of 1808-1809 when russia was an ally of france. golovnin describes the settlers and their languages, the malay people, the khoikhoi and slavery as institution (filatova, 1988: 3). his memoirs were published in south africa in the 1960s (filatova, 1988: 3). during 1853 ivan gontcharov spent time in the cape colony and interviewed xhosa leaders jailed during the wars of dispossession (pejoratively known by the colonialists as kaffir wars). another illustrated book by an artist, vysheslavtsev, followed gontcharov’s five years later (filatova, 1988: 4). filatova argues that “the formation of grass-roots conceptions” by russians took place during the anglo-boer war (filatova, 1988: 4). the work of sophia izyedinova a few months with the boers: the war reminiscences of a russian nursing sister, was published in south africa in the 1970s. russian military attachés were deployed before the anglo-boer war to the zuid-afrikaansche republic (zar). according to shubin: the russian empire sent six official military agents to the south african war theatre in 1899-1900 (shubin, 2000: 13ff). one may assume that the tsar and the russian foreign office were well-informed about developments in the far-off republics. the russian populace and the elite clearly saw the boers as “the good people” and had sympathy with them in their struggle against british imperialism (davidson, 2003; davidson & filatova, 1998: 177ff; 207ff; scheepers-strijdom, 1970; gedenkalbum van die tweede vryheidsoorlog, 1949: 338). “boer mania reached such a pitch” and the authors noted that ‘[w]herever you go these days, you hear the same stories, the boers, the boers, the boers’” (davidson and filatova, 1998: 177). church services were held for the health of paul kruger in st. petersburg and moscow. orchestras played on request the republican anthems of the transvaal and the free state (“kent gij dat volk vol heldenmoed …” and ”kom’t burgers, heft de lied der vrijheid aan …”). sarie marais, a boer folksong (volksliedjie) was translated in russian, and sung in moscow and st. petersburg (to become leningrad after the revolution). a popular song at the time, composed by a female poet, called transvaal, transvaal, my own true land was sung. funds were collected for the boer wounded (davidson, 2003: 27). political groupings such as the social democrats felt that the boers stood for democracy against a system of oppressive monarchism. amongst others, vladimir illiich ulyanov (lenin), then a young social democrat, spoke out in the favour of the boers in iskra. so did some russian conservatives (davidson and filatova, 1998: 190). in this case the radical factions and the conservatives in russia were of one opinion. olive schreiner, a famous south african author who first was pro-rhodes like the young christiaan smuts, felt betrayed after the jameson raid and started writing feverishly pro-boer and anti-imperialist works. schreiner’s works were published widely in russia (davidson & filatova, 1998: 190, 191). maxim gorky wrote on olive schreiner in 1899 in nizhegorodsky listok (davidson & filatova, 1998: 274). her works were translated and published in russia as early as 1893. paul kruger’s and general de wet’s memoirs were also translated. later on works by uys krige, breyten breytenbach, andré brink, ingrid jonker and barend toerien, amongst others, were translated into russian. soviet/russian students at the moscow state south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 439 university studied dutch-afrikaans (afrikaans-nederlands), and read south african poetry and novels up till today. i was fortunate to meet with some postgraduate students during a visit to the soviet union in 1990. at occasions since then i met with some of the dedicated afrikaansdutch such as andre ignatenko. a member of the institute for african studies spoke at length to the author in afrikaans in 2000 during a march commemorating the october revolution. amongst others, he enquired about the clicking sounds found in oranjerivier-afrikaans. he was informed on the work of ponelis and interested in the work of prof. gawie nienaber. filatova, however, reminds us that not all was well in the then state of “pretoriana” (zar). russian observers commented on the treatment of blacks and their interpretation of black people’s lives as victims rather than participants in history (filatova, 1988: 4). whether novel is history, or history is novel, is a point to contemplate. one could “read” history, even if between the lines, as becoming unfixed discourse (bleicher, 1980: 257–259; thompson, 1982: 145–146). one does not have to agree with kundera to find that being human holds surprises. the same applies to russian-south african relations. interesting anecdotes (yet well confirmed in archives) are worth mentioning. gennady shubin relates the story of the russian volunteer, prince mikhail yengalishev, an aristocrat with tartar ancestors, who served the moscow princes in the 15th century: “on his return from the boer war he did not enlist for military service again. but later in saratov in 1907 he was sentenced for an attempt (to) create a terrorist organisation among local peasants” (shubin, 2003, e-mail correspondence, 2005). the aim of this would-be terrorist is both intriguing and a surprise: to stage a plot against the tsar, to assassinate him and establish a republic in russia based on the boer model of the transvaal! for his newfound democratic zeal and progressive avant garde-ism the activist was arrested by the tsar’s secret police for subversion, sentenced to death and then reprieved. needless to say that he spent the rest of his life under continued surveillance of the tsarist secret police (shubin, 2003; e-mail). as history has shown time and again the one person’s terrorist is the freedom fighter for the other.9 9 . gert van der westhuizen in beeld, an afrikaans daily newspaper, article miskien is die vsa die terroris? (english: maybe the usa is the terrorist?), beeld, 2003 addresses this issue with reference to the conflict in the middle east. colonel gurko, the russian military attaché with the boer republics at the start of the anglo-boer war, 1899-1902. like many others, russian volunteers came to assist the boer republics in their struggle against british imperialism. some of them resigned their military positions in order to take part in in the activities down south. maximov for example became a veggeneraal (field general) during the war, one of only two foreign officers that were promoted to that rank in the boer forces. the other one was the frenchman, de villabois-mareuil. source: izedinova, 1977: 19 liebenberg   440 what about international politics during the anglo-boer war? the dream of a great intervention besieged the tsar. realpolitik was to prevent this. davidson refers to the “emperor’s dreams” versus “the harsh realities” (davidson & filatova, 1998: 208; 220). osten-sacken, a russian diplomatic representative, enquired from von bulow of germany in 1900 about possible joint action. the diplomatic representative explained that his country and the kaiser were hesitant in view of the hesitant position of france (boeseken, kruger & kieser, 1953: 185– 186). from the plans to challenge the brits and by the consequences of that perhaps assisting the boers in their hour of crisis very little materialised. in drie eeue we find a perspective on why russia could not go to war against britain at the time − even if the tsar may have dreamt of it. references are made to the then geo-strategic position and the power politics of the great nations in europe. while the tsar and his followers may have considered challenging the might of the british empire, die grosse politik der europa made it impossible. outside south africa some people conjectured that russia was to intervene. one of south africa’s great authors, the late jan rabie, during his stay in paris in the 1950s relates an interesting story: he comments that in 1954 he found a small book in a flea market entitled le président kruger en france. the publication dated 1901 informs us that during kruger’s visit to france some french journalists visited the fortune-teller madame julia layfonvielle. on their question whether the boers will win or lose the war she made a statement: the boers will not lose the war. they will receive help. in 1901 russia will intervene (see a publication by kannemeyer compiled on jan rabie by kannemeyer [(2003: 64]). rabie mentioned that the french daily paper, le gaulois, reported on this incident. amongst others la vie illustree also reported on the madame’s statements. was the soothsayer wrong? or was she expressing a sentiment? or was she perhaps, by saying this, trying to influence public opinion and political decision-makers? (in political science jargon: was she involved in agenda setting or influencing the political agenda through her intervention?) at the same time her opinion was that france would not intervene directly, but would provide monetary assistance. was this an attempt to influence the french politicians, knowing that she was widely quoted by french newspapers? france already sold artillery pieces and expertise to the boer republics and not too well disposed to an international rival, britain. it seems that either in opinion or agenda setting the soothsayer was wrong – at least for that moment. her reference to french-south african relations may have been based on her knowledge of an arms deal between the french and the boer republics. at least in terms of military equipment sold, this happened again seventy years later with the republic of south africa importing french armament such as allouette, super frelon and puma helicopters, mirage aircraft, panhard armoured cars and daphne submarines. boer leaders remained optimistic that russia may intervene. leyds informed president steyn from the oranje vrijstaat that russian intervention in india may be a possibility, but added that it was “a probability, not a certainty” (pakenham, 1979: 388). help would not be forthcoming.10 a delegation of boers (afvaardiging or delegatie) consisting of fischer, wessels and wolmarans went to holland, the united states, germany and st. petersburg, russia (st. petersburg later became leningrad and the name was again changed to st. petersburg under the yeltsin regime). the afrikaner historians reported that “die tsaar was simpatiek” (the tsar had 10 . for more detail, see walker (1941: 485, 473, 482 and 492). south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 441 sympathy with the cause). alas, given the international situation, little help was forthcoming (boeseken, kruger & kieser, 1953: 190). pakenham points out that president steyn of the oranje vrijstaat for public consumption spoke about possible ‘favourable news’ from europe. pakenham, however, reminds us that steyn at the time already knew that it was a forlorn hope. even if the rumour about russia about to take herat close to the border of afghanistan was true, that did not mean that british-india was at threat (pakenham, 1979: 388). at no given time the british empire was to come under serious geo-strategic pressures. the german kaiser’s telegram much earlier on (following starr jameson’s less-fortunate foray into the transvaal, 1895/1896) was of little value and few other observers posted hope on it. russian volunteers took on the long voyage to the zar and pretoria, while german and russian government pleas to negotiate a settlement fell on deaf ears in london (boeseken, kruger & kieser, 1953: 187). together with others from ireland, germany, france and the united states of america (the latter mostly irish) the russians departed to the zuid-afrikaansche republiek (zar). many of the russian volunteers came without the permission – or in some cases knowledge – of their government. some others resigned their military ranks before their departure in order not to embarrass the tsar. the boers saw the majority of volunteers as loyal and admirable friends (gedenkalbum, 1949: 279). “die boere het nie alleen gestaan toe hulle in hul uur van nood hulle toevlug tot ‘god en mauser’ geneem het nie. van heinde en ver het vreemdelingvriende hulle na die oorlogstoneel gehaas om die afrikaners in hul tweede vryheidstryd met woord en daad behulpsaam te wees” (van niekerk, 1949: 279). a russian corps of about sixty men was established according to one afrikaans historian (van niekerk, 1949: 296). the russian military attaché to the boer republics at the time, rumeiko-gurko, compiled a list of twenty-five russian volunteers of whom the majority were officers (davidson & filatova, 1998: 46–48). davidson and filatova concluded in their research that at least 225 russian volunteers came to the transvaal (davidson & filatova, 1998: 45). a number of russian jews also served in the dutch volunteer corps, we are informed (davidson & filatova, 1998: 51). two of them became renowned scouts under the boer generals hertzog and de wet, with the endearing nicknames of “jakkals en wolf” (the fox and the wolf). others were killed, one of them an elected kommandant (commanding officer). another russian, yevgeni fiodorovitch augustus, an infantry officer, served in and fought with the krugersdorp commando, the russian detachment and the johannesburg police commando. in june 1900 he was wounded by the british and taken prisoner. he was released on condition that he pledges “on his word of honour” that he would not serve under arms for the boers. this did not prevent yevgeni to write extensive memoirs on the war and his participation therein before again fighting in the russo-japanese war (1904–1905). he was later killed in the first world war then holding the rank of captain (2nd class) (shubin, 2000: 25). the prince nikolai georgiivitch bagration-mukhransky was nicknamed “niko the boer”. lieutenant colonel yevgeni yakovlevich maximov joined the boers as an experienced officer. after being wounded near thaba n’chu in the free state, he received a hero’s welcome in pretoria and was elected general (veggeneraal) – the highest rank to be awarded in boer military structures. paul kruger, while in exile in switzerland, wrote a personal letter to thank maximov for his contribution. only one other foreigner was bestowed the same honour as maximov. that was the frenchman, colonel de villabois-mareuil, who was appointed in the field to the rank of general (veggeneraal). mareuil died early in 1900 when his corps was routed near boshof by general methuen’s superior forces. liebenberg   442 russian officers and fighting men found the boer strategies and tactics bewildering (discussion with gennady shubin, 2005 and consequent e-mail correspondence. see also shubin and shubin, 2005 in snyman et al.). this is not the place for an extensive discussion, as it belongs more in the realm of comparisons between regular and citizen armies, different approaches to war by european armies and african armies, and irregular tactics used in war against a better armed and larger enemy force (asymmetric war tactics). despite valiant efforts the republics would eventually surrender under the pressure of the british army in one of the most costly wars britain had ever fought. russian empathy remained. the bratina, as a sign of honour, empathy and respect (boeseken, kruger & kieser, 1954: 203) accompanied by 70 000 signatures were handed to the boer delegation when they visited russia. the bratina is to be seen in the transvaal museum (today the gauteng cultural museum) in pretoria, tshwane. 2. the first and the second world wars and between by 1910 the land where boer and brit fought against each other in one of the first modern resource wars11 was to become the land of boer and brit as the new ruling elite.12 but resistance was brewing. in 1904 the black people in natal embarked on the failed bambate rebellion. the south african native national congress (sannc) – later to become the african national congress (anc) – was established in 1912. in the following year the discriminatory land laws that were to oust thousands of black people from their land into “reservations” were passed. the bondelswarts people in namibia, then south west africa (suidwes-afrika), embarked on an illfated and desperate rebellion against the union government of south africa. the south african military and air force defeated the small force of bondelswarts people and vanquished further efforts from namibians to resist for a while. in 1921 the communist party of south africa (cpsa) followed the establishment of the socialist league that came into being in 1915. the 1922 mineworkers strike influenced by, among others, communist sentiments took place on the east rand with names like boksburg and benoni soon to be carved out in south africa’s history. drie eeue refers: “duisende mense het deur die strate gedrom en ’n ware skrikbewind het losgebars … dit was feitlik die begin van ’n rewolusie wat baie mense herinner het aan die bloedige russiese omwenteling van 1917. die kapitaliste het dit ook werklik so beskou, veral omdat die kommunistiese elemente hulle nou laat geld het. die rewolusionêre lied, die ‘rooi vlag’ is gehoor en daar is gepraat van die stigting van ’n swart republiek.” the author in drie eeue over-interpreted. few social scientists, including historians, would argue that the 1921 strike was about establishing “a black republic” today. communist ideals played a role in the strike but few of the strikers had been involved in order to establish a black government. the spectre of a russian-like revolution under the red banner caused extreme disconcert amongst the white ruling elite, financial bosses and mine magnates.13 11 . some historians prefer the term “the last of the (great) colonial wars” (discussion: greg cuthbertson, 07/04/2005). 12 . on modern resource wars, see pritvorov & liebenberg, 2000: 75ff. 13 . this golden thread of the ‘threat’ of the red banner was found sixty years later when elements of the south african communist party (sacp) and student groups also sung the red flag at meetings during the third liberation struggle. south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 443 df malan, the nationalist afrikaner leader, had sympathy with the actions by the striking miners. he likened the national party to the bolsjewiste (bolsheviks) in one of his orations (talk by apollon davidson, national research foundation, pretoria, 2001). two decades later the very same party of malan frequently referred to the communist danger masterminded by moscow. history, like shortstories or novels, is filled by the odd irony. so are economic realities and politics. fearing a communist revolution and debilitating industrial unrest, the smuts government unleashed the police, the military and the newly established south african air force in force against the strikers with devastating effects (fokkens, 2006). the strike was broken at the loss of at least 230 lives, fifty of them policemen (krüger, 1978: 125. some strike commanders were captured. some were sentenced to death. others committed suicide when the strike collapsed. more than 4 600 people were detained for questioning. by 1923, 425 people were awaiting trail while 608 had already been sentenced. eighteen persons were sentenced to death for murder. instead, prison sentences were given, though a few were hanged (krüger, 1978: 125–126; oberholster, 1982: 190–191; fokkens, 2006; visser & fokkens, 2003 150 -153). “the sacp has always played an important theoretical role in its own right and in the context of the wider national democratic struggle.14 the party and all its members should collectively seek to continuously develop and deepen the ideas of marxism-leninism and in particular seek to develop its application in our own society” (quoted in kotze, 1994: 47). joe slovo was later to plead for a more pragmatic approach in order to maintain the “inextricable link” to the anc (kotze, 1994: 50). yet, slovo remained convinced that “ultimately south africa will arrive at a socialist system”. existing socialism, he argued, failed because it was divorced from democracy, that democratic socialism is the only rational future for humankind and that it can be realised in a future south africa (slovo, 1994: 41 in liebenberg et al.).15 his words echoed the approach of gorbatchov: “vele jaren geleden was alles heel wat eenvoudiger. er waren een paar mahcten die vaststeden wat hul belangen waren …wij hebben een oog open voor wat gaande is (gorbatsjov, 1988; 157, 156, 161 – dutch translation). gorbachov and slovo’s arguments boiled down to ‘newfound realities”.16 did they now, after years of marxism-leninism, return to marx’s idea of the future socialist state as “a direct democracy in which the task of governing would not be the preserve of the state bureaucracy”? (slovo, 1989: 11). arguably history will finally put the blame or absolve. while some south africans admired communism (and the soviet state), others feared and loathed the “new russia” and its ideology. schisms and fault lines developed that were to mark future relations between the two countries for the greater part of the 20th century. the left in south africa at the time became deeply divided between stalin supporters and trotsky supporters (hirson, 1994; liebenberg, 1990; liebenberg et al., 1994). the “lunatic left” or trotskyite tendency was consistently vilified by the sacp in south africa as “reactionaries” – very much as happened in the soviet union during the rule of stalin. those who persisted were 14 . also referred to as the national democratic revolution. 15 . more can be read in slovo: the unfinished autobiography (1996) 16 for an intellectual engagement with slovo’s “new” approach, see heribert adam (1990). adam is correct; the sacp led many into the negotiation process – and thatcherite/reaganomics if viewed a decade, two and more later. liebenberg   444 drummed out of the marxist-leninist vanguard represented by the communist parties in both countries. the trotkyist groups that broke with the cpsa and the comintern voiced their anger at what was happening in the ussr in 1932 … but squabbled, split and … retreated into self-righteous sectarianism (hirson, 1994: 52). while the trotskyites were essentially anti-war at the outbreak of the second world war, hirson remarked that they also heeded “trotsky’s call for the unconditional defence of the ussr”. one of the historical ironies of the marxist movement in south africa at the time was that while internally the marxist-leninists and trotsky followers fought each other, belittled each other and implied treachery, they nevertheless had agreement on the necessity for the defence of the ussr against racism and nazism. but then again, the irony of the time could be a form of visionary focus. the trotskyites in south africa had newspapers the spark (derived from iskra) and the torchlite. they cooperated with the young radical hashomer hatzair (the young guard), a sionist group, before internal strains and different views on the ussr, china, spain and the spanish civil war divided them, and rendered further cooperation impossible (hirson, 1994: 59, 63). these debates would influence south african liberation politics for years to come, perhaps even today. debates initiated by martin legassick and the marxist workers’ tendency of the anc (legassick, 1994: 173ff) lasted up to the 1980s – at least at the two universities where the author studied (stellenbosch and the university of western cape). jaco malan, then chairperson of the stellenbosch branch of the national union of south african students (nusas), was ousted because of his sympathies for the marxist workers tendency (mwt) and the political philosophies of leon trotsky. after he had been drummed out of nusas, mark behr was elected chairperson of nusas being more ‘mainstream’. behr was later identified as being in the pay of the south african security police and made a submission in this regard to the truth and reconciliation commission (trc). given the ever fluid nature of western cape politics, such debates were not unknown at the university of western cape, which then was known as the “intellectual home of the left”. (at the time jakes gerwel was the rector of bush.) again, the influence of debates and tensions following from different interpretation and application of marx’s theory had an effect. perhaps as much as the deep routed racism advanced by the white power elite one may argue … the suppression of communism act in the 1950s before south africa became a white republic, declared communism unlawful. the act stated that “communists were those following the teachings of marx, engels, lenin and trotsky”. names like antonio gramsci, palmiro togiatti and rosa luxemburg were not mentioned – otherwise the apartheid regime would have had to add plenty more names to their list.17 following the suppression of communism act, marxist groups were driven underground and the marxist-leninists dealt with their banning more successfully than the trotskyites. some of the latter group aligned themselves with the committee of liberation or african resistance group (arm). arm “counted amongst its members a bewildering array of political tendencies” which became involved in amateurish sabotage and the infamous harris bomb, and soon thereafter predictably rounded up by the 17 . the names of anarchists such as bakunin and peter kropotkin were relatively unknown to the security agencies in south africa at the time. if so it would have struck fear into their harts and enhanced their angst about a revolution substantially. south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 445 south african security police (du toit, 1994: 97ff; hirson, 1994: 62). but, let us take a step back. stories, like history, are not always chronological. south africa was to join the allies, inclusive of the soviet union, in the war against fascism and nazism. war was declared on 1 september 1939. on 4 september the pleas for neutrality of the then south african prime minister, jbm hertzog, were defeated in the south african parliament with thirteen votes. the united party of smuts argued for entering the war on the allied side (oosthuizen, 1942: 4). hence, south africa was on the side of, amongst others, the soviet union against the axis forces of herr adolf hitler and il duce benito mussolini, and later on by implication, at war with japanese militarism. the labour party, the dominium party, the naturelle-verteenwoordigers (representatives for black people in parliament) and some of the hertzogites supported smuts (muller, 1980: 450– 451). many south africans within the national party and two major right wing movements, namely the ossewa brandwag headed by hans van rensburg and the new order party headed by oswald pirow were supportive of the nazis. internally the government saw movements sympathetic to nationalism and socialism as a threat. ossewa brandwag leaders were interned. many south africans may be aware that the soviet union lost around 20 000 000 citizens and soldiers during world war two. they are well aware that the “russians” – in other words, the soviet union – sacrificed people, material and their future to defeat fascism and nazism. the number of people that the “russians” in war (the soviet people) lost in comparison with others, for example the united states of america, the uk, france and other allies fade to insignificance. history tells us that those who suffered the greater losses were jewish people and the soviet people, the latter more than the former. (sadly south african historiography does not sufficiently inform us about chinese or for that matter, civilian losses in the east in the same war). south africans supportive of the war against fascism and nazi-nationalism in their own way tried to support allied forces and the soviet union. an organisation called medical aid for russia (afrikaans: mediese hulp vir rusland), following a request from the soviet red cross, acted on the call to provide “ten thousand bottles of human blood serum” for the “soldiers of the red army”. among others, members from kimberley, bloemfontein, port elizabeth, east london, pietermaritzburg, durban, johannesburg and pretoria contributed. the mobilising slogan simply read: “give your blood that they shall not die!” (unisa, archival group: communist party and russia, 1922–1975). liebenberg   446 a letter dated 16 october 1942 from the minister of posts and telegraphs and public works to the consul general of the ussr in pretoria, nicolai demianov, read: this meeting of the united party wishes to express its admiration and gratitude to the heroic russian armies who with so much valour fight against the nazis. it continues: (i)t is our earnest prayer that the awful struggle will soon be brought to a successful conclusion and that every nazi will be driven out of russia. (unisa, archival group: communist party and russia, 1922–1975). smaller acts of solidarity deserve attention. the workers of eskay shirts (pty ltd) in salt river, cape town gave a donation to the medical aid for russia. the covering letter for the donation is dated 17 december 1943. it is likely that this gift was to be an offering to coincide with christmas 1943. the cash cycle and motor works wholesale and retail at 345 pretorius street, pretoria, donated 50 pounds. the manager, a. wolson, signed the letter (unisa, archival group: communist party and russia, 1922–1975). south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 447 source: unisa, archival group: communist party and russia, 1922–1975 the south african medical aid for russia, apart from cash donations totalling roughly £800 000, also supplied antigas gangrene serum, antibacterial dysentery serum, antityphus vaccine, 7 452 bottles of human blood serum, 600 000 yards of bandage, 5 000 000 vitamin b (complex) tablets and 80 tons of tuna fish. correspondence from the medical aid for russia dated january 1945 addressed to the soviet consulate, mr. snagerev, proves that by 1945 deliveries continued. liebenberg   448 south african seamen also served on board naval vessels in the operations to relieve leningrad during 1941/42. in 2005, the great patriotic war commemorations in south africa took place in cape town in order to honour some of the seamen who were still alive and back then took part in the “arctic convoys” (photo compliments, andrey sharashkin and fiodosiy vladyeshevskiy, embassy of the russian federation in pretoria, 2005). south african seamen participated in the arctic convoys to assist the soviet union during the siege of leningrad (today st. petersburg). source: embassy of the russian federation in pretoria, 2005 an illustration of the divisions within the white community in south africa at the time can be seen from a letter from the afrikaans reformed churches. in a letter addressed to the smuts government the afrikaans reformed churches appealed to the smuts government about the “dangers of communism” (die gevare van die kommunisme) and “the pressures of communist propaganda” (die druk van kommunistiese propaganda). the letter, signed by eight reformed church leaders delegated to do so, mentioned by name the unacceptability of “communist principles that are materialist, godless and unchristian”. the trade and labour council, the trade unions and the friends of the soviet union are mentioned by name. the letter appealed to the government to ban all communication between the soviet union and unions (unisa, united party archives, division of information, “church and politics”). at the time the dutch reformed church members were mostly afrikaners. the afrikaans reformed churches (the south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 449 nederduits gereformeerde kerk, die gereformeerde kerk and the hervormde kerk) were penetrated by members of the secret afrikaner broederbond. the afrikaans churches were to a degree also sympathetic to the authoritarian national-socialist movement, the ossewa brandwag,18 of which many members were interned by the smuts government.19 in the western transvaal institutions of higher education were supportive of the ossewa brandwag. in 1948 the international community accepted the universal declaration of human rights, a direct result of the horrific effects of racial supremacy that led to the second world war. the national party and its broederbond cohorts came to power with the slogan apartheid (separateness) soon to be transformed under the premier hans strijdom to baasskap (herrenschaft). it speaks for itself that, compared to the universal declaration of human rights, the white power elite’s idea of racial separatism for south africa was not received well. in the soviet union and the rest of the civilised world that saw the effects of extreme nationalism whereas they tried to eradicate class, religious and ethnic differences, apartheid was abhorrent. in the soviet union the attempt to eradicate class, religious and ethnic differences happened through authoritarian strategies. at the same time the new south african government under the broederbond and national party power elite in tandem with the afrikaans churches installed racial exclusivity, ethnic differences and racial-class divisions by authoritarian means. the paths between erstwhile comrades would split. 3. apartheid, liberation struggle (and a cold war) the smuts government was defeated in the general election of 1948. the national party came to power – a reign under one dominant white party that was to last 40 years. in the soviet union the reign of the communist party was to last roughly 70 years. did this perhaps happen because at least theoretically communism aimed at inclusion and some benefits were redistributed under communist rule, while apartheid in theory and practice aimed at exclusion and exploitation of a perceived ‘inferior’ other and hence caused earlier alienation from its subjects? the period 1948 to 1988 can, perhaps from the south african (elite) side, be described as grudging admiration turning into fear, if not hate, for the soviet union. it was the beginnings of apartheid social engineering, legalised racialism, the red bear syndrome and paranoid fears for communism as ideology. the cold war mythology also played a role. south africa was to align itself with the “christian west” and in tandem their free market ideology. geldenhuys, with reference to the afrikaner power elite, argues that in 1949 the south african minister of justice, cr swart, referred to “communism as a snake in the backyard which had to be killed before it bites” (geldenhuys, 1988: 8). geldenhuys points out that from the days of df malan, the first national party prime minister, to the times of verwoerd and vorster “… the soviet union was regarded as the source of (all) communist evil” (geldenhuys, 1988: 9). he also 18 . northwest-university (previously the potchefstroom university for christian higher education) houses a comprehensive archive of ossewa brandwag literature and history worth consulting. 19 . john vorster and later boss chief, hendrik van den bergh, were internees, among others. liebenberg   450 points out that for a brief period john vorster, who succeeded verwoerd, singled out communist china as the most serious threat facing south africa. this happened especially during the time when china financed and built the tanzam railway line between tanzania and zambia in 1970–1975. however, the soviet union remained in the scope and would be the dominant focus of anti-communism. “jy kan ’n kommunis vertrou om ’n kommunis te wees” became the slogan used by national party/broederbond leaders from the late 1950s in order to mobilise whites and “moderate” (“responsible”) black people against internal and external resistance which was presumed to be orchestrated from the soviet union. for many moscow became a loathsome word, in contrast to the time of the anglo-boer war and partially the period up to the end of the second world war. schisms became pronounced and different sections of the population in south africa and presumably the soviet union viewed each other with feelings that varied from admiration, grudging respect, shear adulation, scepticism and hate/fear. needless to say, the political elite (and their faithful media) played a major role in influencing opinions on both sides. vale (2008: 22) observes that “south africa was a cause célèbre in the life and times of the cold war … a rich white majority seemed to enjoy the support of the west while an impoverished black majority looked towards the soviet union and its allies as a source of support”. many white elite viewed the picture as such. vale quotes verwoerd: “south africa is unequivocally the symbol of anti-communism in africa. although often abused we are still a bastion in africa for christianity and the western world” (vale, 2008: 22). in 1950 the suppression of communism act (act no. 44 of 1950) was passed. it also applied to occupied territories such as the then south west africa (today namibia) (see horrel, 1982: 201). the official definition was wide open to interpretation and (ab)use. it covered anyone or anybody or any group, institution or association that expounded the teachings of marx, lenin or trotsky. in an ironic twist the law condemned any scheme or action that aimed at “despotic rule or dictatorship of the proletariat”, any action aimed at “bringing about political, industrial, social or economic change within the union”, “political disturbance” or “the encouragement of feelings of hostility between european and non-european races in the union” (horrel, 1982: 202). following the sharpeville shootings on 21 march where 83 black persons lost their lives and many were injured, the unlawful organisations act (act no. 24 of 1960) followed. hence, the pac and anc were banned. in 1961 south africa left the commonwealth and declared herself a republic. between 1962 and 1966 the general law amendment act (1962) and the further general law amendment act (act no. 37 of 1963) were passed, outlawing various organisations. (for a full list consult horrel, 1982: 204–205.) the affected organisations act of 1974 and the internal security amendment act, act no. 79 of 1976, were to follow. between 1960 and 1975 several organisations were banned. following the internal security amendment act another eighteen organisations followed. amongst them were parents and teachers organisations, youth and black journalist organisations and various black consciousness movement related organisations. several publications and the christian institute headed by beyers naudé followed the same path (horrel, 1982: 205–207). the newsletter of the christian institute, pro veritate, was amongst the publications banned. south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 451 the afrikaner political elite led their followers into the psychosis of a presumed total onslaught.20 south africa’s minority, due to increasing international criticism and later isolation in their view, stood alone – much like the smith regime in the then rhodesia did before zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. the south african regime felt betrayed by the united states of america which temporarily withdrew its initial support to south africa and the rebel movement unita after the 1975/1976 invasion of angola by three south african battle groups. geldenhuys argues that a “complex love-hate relationship” developed between south africa and western powers (geldenhuys, 1988: 9). such feelings of betrayal can perhaps be traced back to the comparisons, similarities (even mirror images) that the south african white people shared with the american south. the intertwining of religion, especially puritanism, elements of calvinism, a belief in a god-given right to rule over and to decide on the life and death of the underlings of a different race, had a major influence. romanticism also played a role. in the south african case ideas – amongst others, herder – brought in by dutch immigrants after the anglo-boer war also played a role. south african theologians who studied in nazi-germany such as the brother of the then prime minister john vorster also played a role in advancing ethnocentrism and authoritarian attitudes. the stellenbosch dutch reformed church theologian fjm potgieter, a committed calvinist, who studied in pre-war germany later became known for his insistence that “apartheid was god’s will”. cash (1971: 93–106, 127ff, 216 ff, 346, 382ff) in referring to the mind and mentality of the american south discusses romanticism’s role at length. for more on romanticism in south africa, see the late dawid bosch on the roots and fruits of afrikaner civil religion.21 notwithstanding a complex love-hate relationship with the west, south africa did cooperate with france on nuclear energy and security issues, and imported military transport aircraft via morocco from western states. south african scientists studied nuclear physics in the usa without restrictions. major oil companies such as shell and british petroleum exported oil to south africa, and south africa continued to work closely with usa/western supported states at the time. german companies exported soft skin vehicles to the rsa of which many found their way into the sadf. covert nuclear cooperation with the usa, france and israel (and some say germany) continued. pro-western countries and us proxies with which rsa colluded at the time, included argentina, chile, uruguay, paraguay, israel and taiwan. in the latin-american cases these countries were all authoritarian regimes. in africa the relationships with us-backed states like zaire of mubutu seseseko remained warm. outspoken anti-communist statesmen on the continent like president banda of malawi (who happened to be an authoritarian leader) were hailed in south africa. likewise, socialist leaders such as julius nyrere of tanzania were vilified. even kenneth kaunda of zambia that frequently pleaded for a peaceful settlement of conflict in southern africa was frequently scoffed at. inside south africa tensions increased as political oppression deepened through a cynical judicial mix of repressive acts and marginal reforms. southern africa, especially angola, was to see an escalation of war fuelled by apartheid involvement. following the support for the south africans 20 . compare marthinus van schalkwyk’s sudden conversion to the anc that resulted in a cabinet post for the “leader” of a nearly non-existent party. the “miracle” conversion since 1998 of the ex-national party leaders such as pik botha and others falls in the same category. 21 . bosch coined the term an “afrikaner civil religion”. in this regard a book, the puritans in africa, by wa de klerk is also notable. so is debroey’s, zuid-afrika: naar de bronnen van apartheid published in the early 1970s. liebenberg   452 and unita by the cia, east block countries, including the ussr, supplied military advisors, weapons/arms to angola’s mpla government. cubans were dispatched to angola to bolster the new government’s defences against the increasing destabilisation of southern africa by the apartheid regime.22 south africa was becoming increasingly militarised by the likes of pw botha and general magnus malan. some observed that the south african state transformed from a state backed by police to a militarised state (frankel, 1980, 1984). under the rule of bj vorster the south african state depended heavily on the south african police (sap), more specifically the security police and the bureau of state security (boss). following the ascendancy of pw botha and magnus malan the state became more dependent on the military for its survival. as a member of the afro-asian solidarity committee, vladimir shubin practically engaged in the south africa/soviet union/africa arena during the struggle for liberation in close association with the african national congress (anc) and its armed wing, umkhonto we sizwe (“the spear of the nation”). subsequently vladimir shubin published extensively on south africa. so did members of the afro-asian solidarity committee such as slava tetekin.23 afro-asian solidarity committee members worked closely with members and leadership of the exiled movement. in the 1980s vladimir shubin, being closely involved with the liberation struggles in southern and south africa, wrote a book entitled social democracy that was clandestinely distributed amongst south african activists (especially students at the university of the western cape). the author used the pseudonym vladimir bushin at the time. vladimir and slava were aware of other afrikaners who joined the struggle against apartheid, albeit from different points of departure in south africa (1963–1990) such as abraham fischer, beyers naudé (oom bey), hein grosskopf, hw van der merwe, van zyl slabbert and various others. english-speaking whites involved in the struggle such as joe slovo, ronnie kasrils and rocky williams were also known to shubin and colleagues. at various stages shubin, tetekin and others worked closely with especially the former two persons during the resistance (shubin, 2008a: 192, 364; 2008b, 239ff). closer links and loyalties between anc/sacp and soviets developed. vladimir shubin24 in the anc: a view from moscow deals in great detail with this. the afro-asian solidarity committee played a major role. the name slava tetekin may ring a bell for many here. anc cadres went for training in russia. many of them still speak the language. many students from third world countries went to study in the ussr at the people’s friendship university, amongst them many south africans. others went for military training. a few stayed behind in the soviet union while the majority returned home.25 in south africa, following the transition to democracy, the newly created south african national defence force 22 with tacit or not so tacit usa/cia support. see amongst others moorcraft and mclauchlan (2008: 186−188, 189−190). 23 . tetekin’s views on the ussr’s foreign policy towards southern africa may be read in an idasa occasional paper (no. 15, 1988: 7–10). 24 . in april 2005 vladimir shubin received the order of the champions from oliver tambo (silver) for his contribution to the struggle against apartheid and colonialism in southern africa (pretoria news, 27 april 2005). 25 . in russia there is an association catering for fathered or mothered children who were left behind when the “third world” trainees and cadres returned to their countries then already liberated or involved in struggles for liberation. one would presume that this also applies to cadres, guerrillas and students from southern africa and perhaps south africa. the organisation is known as the inter-racial children’s fund (french: enfants interraciaux fond humanitaire (“metis”). south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 453 (sandf) incorporated, among others, mk cadres trained in various arms of service in the soviet union. during these years the south african regime had apologists, if not advocates, outside south africa. in 1988 (the same year that gorbachev’s perestrojka – in dutch – saw its 10th impression in the netherlands) a dutch scholar, m de haas, wrote sovjetbeleid ten aanzien van zuidelijk afrika. de haas spent much of his work pointing out that the soviet union was delivering arms, not food, to sub-saharan africa. like south african magazines of the time such as die huisgenoot, scope, paratus26 and armed forces (earlier also newsweek) de haas listed the perceived quantities of soviet equipment delivered to african countries. the work aimed at pointing out the soviet union’s attempt to isolate south africa through soviet propaganda (een propagandacampagne) against south africa (de haas, 1988: 33). de haas, for example, referred at the time without qualification to the african national congress (anc) and south west african people’s organisation (swapo) as terrorist organisations (de haas, 1988: 34ff). while a variety of dutch organisations such as the kairos werksgroep fought apartheid, others like the nederlandsch zuid-afrikaansche werksgemeenschap supported the apartheid philosophy. others such as the nederlandsch zuid-afrikaanse vereeniging (nzav) remained “liberal” (verlig) in orientation, pledged political neutrality and believed in “racial reform” in south africa, and maintained cultural links with south africa in a time of increasing calls for international isolation. in 1981 we see a person ronald reagan: “can we abandon a country that stood behind us in every war we fought, a country (that) strategically is essential to the free world in its productions of minerals that we must have and so forth?” (shubin, 1999: 234). reagan’s attitude would eventually lead to the policy of constructive engagement that prolonged south africa’s aggression in angola. in sharp contrast oliver tambo, president of the anc, responded: “we stood together with the soviet union and the allies in fighting nazism in the second world war … the soviet union and other socialist countries stand with us to this day fighting the apartheid system and its leaders … of nazi ideology and practice” (shubin, 1999: 234). interestingly enough, at this time the people’s republic of china, having made a shift in policy, tried to make closer contact with the anc and the sacp. the “chinese question” was to be discussed with the cpsu during a visit by moses madhiba, sacp representative, when he attended brezhnev’s funeral (shubin, 1999: 233).27 in 1982 the sacp secretariat discussed the issue in maputo and decided that “we should be cautious about the issue but should not reject the overtures” [by the chinese]. shubin argues that the decision was an example of sacp and cpsu relationships. “the soviet did not dictate their position to the sacp, nor did they prevent the sacp from developing relations with beijing” (shubin, 1999: 234). it should be mentioned that, following rivonia and the infamous treason trial in the early 1960s, some cadres of umkhonto we sizwe (mk), the armed wing of the anc, did military training in china. earlier on relationships between the anc and china were most cordial. 26 . see for example magazines between 1967 and 1988, inclusive of nou magazine. many of these progovernment magazines also (before 1980) regularly reported on the struggles by rhodesians to maintain minority rule (see for example nou, 08 august 1975 or armed forces, may 1977). 27 . the first edition of this work sold out in a short while. after numerous delays, the second edition of shubin’s work was published in 2008 by jacana media, auckland park. it is a sad reflection that such a work did not find a publisher (or rather a suitable publisher found it) for its second edition. among others, the university of south africa undertook to publish it but publication were delayed. liebenberg   454 4. post apartheid: contradictions and transition to democracy in 1990 the author acted as coordinator for a visit of young scientists to the soviet union. hermien kotze, zorah ebrahim, khehla shubane, nic borain, mark swilling and the author undertook an extensive ten day visit to the soviet union. the visit, needless to say, was less scientific and more political in nature. the group met with a whole range of political parties, and political and economical experts. the group had freedom of movement, and also interacted with working people and those on collective farms. supporters and critics of the system spoke freely. some such as khehla shubane and nic borain became disillusioned with what they saw in the soviet union. on return, nic borain (no relationship with alex boraine) wrote an article in the monthly newsletter of the institute for a democratic alternative for south africa (idasa) titled “ten days that shook my world” (democracy in action, 1990: 1–6). borain resigned from all activist positions and entered the literary world. perhaps nic was more honest than many other sacp members of then. they remained in office and since 1997/98, together with the new anc leadership, led their followers into a new macroeconomic strategy (gear) that was to lead to the jettisoning of a reconstruction and development program (rdp). despite lip service to equality they seem to have embraced liberal “equity” and the free market that led to “jobless growth” and increasing poverty and corruption. by 2000 the reconstruction and development program (rdp), a social democratic initiative based on growth through redistribution during mandela’s rule, was jettisoned. the alliance partners, the trade union cosatu and the sacp paid lip service to government and followed mbeki diligently into a macroeconomic programme that was to be based on “redistribution” through capitalist growth. the “trickle-down effect” of this programme resulted in jobless growth and job reduction in south africa. mbeki was jettisoned at the polokwane conference in south africa. the new leadership after polokwane’s youthful decisions follow the motto of “do not challenge us. we are right”. it seems to the observer that the elite in new russia and the new elite in south africa share a common characteristic. they changed from one system to the other for reasons of material benefit and opportunism without missing a single goosestep (with apologies to a south african poet). in the meantime critics of the government from the left (or if white) are told that they are unpatriotic, racist and against progress or transformation. or, as in governments obsessed with security those speaking their mind have become enemies of the people. this notwithstanding that many of these people formed part of the resistance movement and at home destroyed apartheid. history is seldom without irony … during one election the independent democrats were called “traitors” when the party was established. in 2008 another breakaway party, the congress of the people (cope), whose leadership, together with the anc, oversaw the introduction of a very peculiar democracy was called “snakes” by some anc members. an anc youth movement leader recently claimed that fellow south africans that differ from him are less than rats at best insects. among others this young man referred to the leader of the opposition as a cockroach, a term used to describe political enemies during the rwandan genocide (die burger, 04/11/2010). interesting how history and social dynamics brought us around to the time when national party leaders referred to their opposition as a snake in the backyard. south  africa  and  russia  1890-­2010   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 428 – 460. 455 the road to democracy is no easy one another long march to transform an emerging democracy to a non-racial equal society will have to continue in which all sectors of society will be involved without fear or prejudice ... conclusion the people of “old south africa” and the russian people experienced times of affinity and adversarial relationships. this can be related to bi-lateral agreements (or the dislike of it) driven by nationalism, the nature of government, the vision of an equal society and views on the desirability of racialism or the struggle against racism and economic inequality. economic pathways chosen and advocated by governments in power (western aligned capitalism/free market versus socialisms of various sorts) exacerbated tensions. political antagonisms (1948 – 1990) between respective governments relate to the effects of the cold war mythology perpetuated by us leadership and their loyal journalists. “cold war” mythology deeply influenced the (white) south africans caught up in a northbound gaze. the rift between cold war warriors between 1950 and the 1980s and those that resisted racial capitalism on a non-racial basis was a given. “the cold war discourse came as gods grace to the apartheid politicians and their hawkish generals” to paraphrase a thoughtful retired sadf colonel.28 oppressed people in south africa as elsewhere in the world found countries like the soviet union and china more receptive of their needs for liberation and economic equality. with countries that aligned themselves with the west, this caused political tensions; not because of the soviet union or china but because of the perceived and projected sympathy for national liberation movements and those in favour of a socialisation of economies. frozen relations post 1948 between the south africa and the soviet union thawed only after the fall of the wall of berlin and south africa’s negotiated transition (1990–1996). both post-authoritarian governments embarked on the liberal-capitalist course. both countries seem to reflect tolerance for white collar corruption. the elites of both countries seem to have warmed up substantially to the ways of exploitation that they once fought.29 the idealised vision of the liberal-capitalist society as logical outcome at the end of history now awaits both countries. in reality joblessness, crime and exclusive tendencies increase in both countries and the political elite gains while citizens experience the converse (compare van tonder, rapport, 11 january 2009). the rich-poor gap grows in south africa and russia while the elites empower themselves more and more at the cost of the citizenry. in both countries white collar corruption and crime in general are accepted social problems, if not the norm. in both countries the evolution of a consolidated left opposition seems remote or at least fuzzy. following “transition to democracy” all may not be well in tshwane and moscow. 28 . name withheld. 29 . for an insightful article in this regard, see m.b. ramose, african renaissance: a northbound gaze. politeia (vol. 19(3): 47–61). liebenberg   456 what does the future hold for the relations between the people of russia and south africa? we can only speculate. time, economic developments and political dynamics will tell. sources archives “metis” 2001. inter-racial 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april 2007) newspapers, bulletins, newsletter and journals armed forces, vol. 2(5), may 1977. democracy in action, july/august 1990. die burger, 04 november 2010 dinamiek, jaargang 4, 21 mei 1985. dinamiek, jaargang 7, 14 april 1987. matie, 25 oktober 1984. pretoria news, 27 april 2005. psa bulletin, no. 2, 1986. psa bulletin, no. 3, 1986. rapport, 11 januarie 2009. sunday independent, 22 august 2010. sunday independent life, 22 august 2010. microsoft word 04 mouton.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. 167-184. ‘great and lasting service to this country’: sir leander starr jameson, conciliation and the unionist party, 1910-1912 fa mouton1 abstract: the jameson raid of december 1895 estranged the two white groups in south africa and contributed to the outbreak of the south african war of 1899-1902. with the rise of afrikaner nationalism in the twentieth century the perception that l.s. jameson (1853-1917) was the cause of all tension and rivalry between the two white groups became entrenched. and yet, jameson as leader of the unionist party between 1910 and 1912 did his utmost to atone for the damage done by his reckless raid. he publicly lauded botha’s ability and integrity and this played a crucial role in diluting the anti-afrikaner attitude of many english-speakers, convincing them to accept an afrikaner dominated government. in addition his encouragement of a south african identity within the empire, and his restraint on the anger and opposition to bilingualism by english-speakers supported botha’s conciliation and nation building policies. jameson helped to lay the foundation of a south african nation within the british empire. keywords: l.s. jameson (1853-1917), unionist party, jameson raid, conciliation. union of south africa, south african war, british empire, south africanism disciplines: history, political studies prime minister louis botha in his eulogy of sir leander starr jameson in the house of assembly on 18 january 1918 pointed out that the former leader of the unionist party had done things in his lifetime which one could not agree with. but he had ‘rendered great and lasting service to this country’ with his prominent role in the unification of south africa, and the bringing together of afrikaners and english-speakers to secure concord and unity in the country.2 botha’s speech, according to john x. merriman, former prime minister of the cape colony, was coldly received by parliament.3 merriman, in declining a request to unveil a portrait of jameson in january 1917 provided the reasons why the majority of parliamentarians did not share botha’s high opinion of the former unionist leader: 1 professor fa mouton, department of history, university of south africa, po box 392, pretoria, 0001. e-mail: moutofa@unisa.ac.za. telephone 012 429 6457, fax 012 429 3221. i wish to express my gratitude to john lambert for his comments and criticism. 2 cape times, 19 jan. 1918. 3 p. lewsen, (ed.), the correspondence of john x. merriman 1905-1924 (the van riebeeck society, cape town, 1969), p 307. mouton 168 … i regard jameson by his one fatal mistake as the ‘fons et origo’ of all our south african woes, of which i fear we have not by any means come to the end.4 the ‘one fatal mistake’, which botha had also hinted at, was jameson’s armed invasion of the south african republic in december 1895. this act of imperial piracy estranged the afrikaner and english-speaking communities in southern africa, and contributed to the outbreak of the south african war of 1899-1902. with the rise of afrikaner nationalism in the 1910s and 1920s the perception of jameson as the root of all tension and rivalry between the two white groups became entrenched. ian colvin’s hagiography the life of jameson (1922), described by sir james molteno, first speaker of the south african parliament, as ‘… a tribute to the imagination of an enthusiastic hero-worshipper, but as a gesture towards truth, … sadly wanting’,5 bolstered afrikaner loathing of jameson as a scheming british imperialist. 6 the raid has meant that jameson’s leadership of the unionist party of south africa received scant attention from historians. biographical essays by the historians rodney davenport, 7 donal lowry8 and elizabeth van heyningen9 make no attempt to deal with this part of jameson’s career. in m.r. siepman’s d. phil thesis, ‘an analytical survey of the political career of leander starr jameson, 1900-1912’,10 the emphasis is on jameson’s premiership of the cape colony and his role at the national convention. this article, by evaluating jameson’s stoic attempts as leader of the unionist party to atone for the damage done by the raid, will argue that botha’s eulogy was true. jameson had helped botha reconcile the two white groups after the trauma of the south african war, laying the foundation for a south african nation within the british empire. jameson was born on 9 february 1853 in edinburgh, scotland, the youngest of eleven children. his father was an impoverished scottish lawyer and journalist who died in 1868. with the financial assistance of an older brother, jameson qualified as a medical doctor in 1877 at university college, london. in 1878 he joined a medical practice in the mining town of kimberley in the cape colony. from then onwards he would always be known as ‘the doctor’, to be dubbed ‘dr. jim’ in later years by the english-medium press. short, below average height, stocky and bald, jameson was a man radiating energy and leadership. 4 lewsen, the correspondence of john x. merriman 1905-1924, p 292. 5 j.t. molteno, further south african recollections (methuen & co, london, 1926), p 74. 6 d. lavin (ed.), friendship and union: the south african letters of patrick duncan and maud selborne 1907-1934 (van riebeeck society, cape town, 2010), p 382; die burger, 14, 17 and 21 november 1922. 7 t.r.h. davenport, ‘leander starr jameson’ in d.w. kruger and c.j. beyers (eds.), south african dictionary of national biography iii (human sciences research council, cape town, 1977), pp 438441. 8 d. lowry, ‘leander starr jameson’ in h.c.g. matthew and b. harrison (eds.), oxford dictionary of national biography (oxford university press, oxford, 2004), pp 9 e. van heyningen, ‘leander starr jameson’ in j. carruthers (ed.), the jameson raid. a centennial perspective (the brenthurst press, johannesburg, 1996), pp 181-192. 10 university of natal, 1979. jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 169 according to elizabeth longford his personality was irresistible and people attached themselves to him with extraordinary fervour although he made no attempt to encourage it.11 in kimberley jameson developed a friendship with cecil john rhodes, imperialist, mining magnate and after 1890 cape prime minister, with whom he shared a house from 1886. colvin describes their friendship ‘as strong as a marriage bond’ and a ‘marriage of twin minds’.12 rhodes was jameson’s idol and he assisted him in his imperial vision by ensuring the hegemony of rhodes’s british south africa company (bsa) in south-central africa in 1893. jameson, according to rhodes’s biographer, robert i. rotberg, was ideally suited to be an imperial adventurer as he was a born buccaneer, decisive and showing contempt for diplomacy and morality.13 by late 1894 rhodes, frustrated by paul kruger, president of the south african republic, in his plans to create a british federation in southern africa, decided to engineer an uitlander revolt in johannesburg to overthrow his government. the uprising would coincide with an invasion of the republic by jameson, with a force of 500 mounted bsa troopers from bechuanaland (botswana). although it became clear by 28 december 1895 that there would be no revolt and despite the requests of the johannesburg conspirators to postpone the expedition, jameson invaded the republic the next day.14 the raid was a fiasco. on 2 january 1896, trapped in an ambush at doornkop, jameson was forced to surrender. he was deported to britain, where he was found guilty in terms of the foreign enlistment act and sentenced to fifteen months’ imprisonment. he was released on 2 december 1896 on health grounds.15 although jameson attempted to carry the entire blame for the raid, rhodes had to resign as premier of the cape colony after he lost the support of the afrikaner bond, the political platform of the cape afrikaner and the colony’s largest political party.16 through his recklessness jameson had destroyed rhodes’s political career and his dream of a united south africa under the british flag supported by afrikaners, while the subsequent tension between the south african republic and the british empire contributed to the outbreak of the south african war in october 1899. jameson rushed to natal where he expected most of the fighting to take place. here he had to endure the boer siege of ladysmith between november 1899 and february 1900, becoming seriously ill with dysentery. the siege broke his already fragile health as his physique had been damaged by the hardships he had endured in rhodesia.17 rhodes died on 26 march 1902 and a bereaved jameson was determined to compensate for the damage done by the raid and to complete his idol’s vision – the unification of south 11 e. longford, jameson’s raid (jonathan ball, johannesburg, no date), pp 63-64. 12 i. colvin, the life of jameson, i, (edward arnold, london, 1922), pp 38, 79, 81. 13 r.i. rotberg, ‘who was responsible? rhodes, jameson, and the raid’ in j. carruthers (ed.), the jameson raid. a centennial perspective (the brenthurtst press, johannesburg, 1996), p 140. 14 j. van der poel, the jameson raid (oxford university press, cape town, 1951), p 88. 15 ‘an outline of the jameson raid’ in j. carruthers (ed.), the jameson raid. a centennial perspective (the brenthurst press, johannesburg, 1996), pp 13-19. 16 h. giliomee, the afrikaners: biography of a people (tafelberg, cape town, 2003), p 239; t.r.h. davenport, the afrikaner bond. the history of a south african political party (1880-1911) (oxford university press, cape town, 1966), pp 127, 132-134, 161-167. 17 i. colvin, the life of jameson ii (edward arnold, london, 1922), p 157, 192. mouton 170 africa under the british flag.18 according to victor sampson, a close political ally, jameson ‘… was animated, almost to obsession, by a desire to carry out what rhodes had designed, and in as far as in him lay, to make amends by a public career of usefulness, for the ill he had done by the raid.’19 lady selborne, wife of the british high commissioner to south africa between 1905 and 1910, believed that jameson was not religious, but that he craved for something to worship and that he filled this empty niche with rhodes whose memory he revered with a respect that was almost idolatrous. 20 in pursuit of rhodes’s vision jameson supported the attempt by loyalists in 1902 to suspend the cape colony’s constitution. the fear was that the afrikaner bond could secure control of the government through the ballot box and in doing so could reverse the hard won british victories on the battlefield. for jameson the suspension of the constitution would place party politics on ice, preventing the fuelling of racial hatred between afrikaners and englishspeakers.21 as a member of the cape parliament since a by-election in may 1900 in kimberley, he personally experienced this hatred. for afrikaner bond members his presence in parliament was a provocation and he became a target of their taunts and abuse.22 the suspension movement petered out when joseph chamberlain, the secretary of state for colonies, made it clear that he would not condone it. jameson, realising that the age of the imperial buccaneer was over, focused on his parliamentary career to secure rhodes’s imperial dream. on 28 august 1902 he used his maiden parliamentary speech to ask forgiveness for the bad blunder of the ‘abominable raid’.23 the speech established his parliamentary reputation and on 8 june 1903 he became the leader of the pro-imperial progressive party (pp) which represented the overwhelming majority of english-speakers in the colony. a few months later jameson led the party into a general election. with 10 500 cape afrikaners disfranchised for fighting on the boer side during the south african war the pp secured a narrow victory over the bond.24 as premier of the cape colony from 1904 to 1908 jameson focused on securing south africa for the british empire by working to unify the four south african colonies. aware that unification could only take place with the support of afrikaners he convinced the fanatically jingoistic pp of the benefits of winning the goodwill of afrikaners.25 this attempt at conciliation was not merely politically motivated as he did not share the instinctive dislike of the afrikaner of so many english-speaking women and men in south africa.26 afrikaners, however, rejected jameson’s hand of friendship with disgust. ons land, the bond’s influential newspaper, attacked and mocked jameson as the ‘ex-raider’, the ‘hero of doornkop’, and the 18 colvin, the life of jameson ii, pp 210-211. 19 v. sampson, my reminiscences (longmans, green and co, london, 1926), p 96. 20 lavin, friendship and union, p 39. 21 colvin, the life of jameson ii, p. 215. 22 g.s. fort, dr jameson (hurst and blackett, london, 1918), p 209. 23 debates of the cape house of assembly, 28 august 1902, col 74. 24 p. lewsen, john x. merriman. paradoxical south african statesman (ad. donker, johannesburg, 1982), pp 268-269; davenport, the afrikaner bond, pp 249-250. 25 sampson, my reminiscences, p. 103. 26 b.k. long, drummond chaplin. his life and times in africa (oxford university press, london, 1941), p 137. jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 171 leader of a jingo party held together by hatred of the afrikaner.27 rudyard kipling, an admirer of jameson and a regular visitor to the cape, noted how jameson’s ‘studious urbanity is driving the dutch wild and they are working hard … to remove any good impression that dr. j. may make.’28 in reality these attacks caused jameson anguish. james molteno describes in his memoirs how his accusation in the house of assembly that the raid was the root of all misery in south africa, discomforted jameson: i can see dr. jameson directly opposite me; he was a small man and he seemed at the moment when i sat down to be shrinking and to become smaller in the corner of his seat and closing his eyes and then leaning forward and placing his head on his hands on the desk in front of him. 29 jameson was, however, not discouraged, in 1904 most of the cape afrikaner rebels were pardoned, and his conciliation policy combined with his charm gradually won some afrikaner bond mp’s over. colvin claims that ‘many dutchman in the house came to love the doctor’.30 although this was clearly an exaggeration, the impact of jameson’s charm offensive did have an effect. even a vehement critic such as molteno conceded that ‘… dr. jameson became a friend of afrikanerdom’.31 the success of jameson’s charm offensive was, however, limited to the cape parliament as afrikaners outside the club-like atmosphere of parliament continued to loath him. crucially, jameson won over f.s. malan, a bond parliamentarian and the editor of ons land, who had a reputation of being a bitter enemy of jameson. with lionel curtis, one of the leading members of lord milner’s kindergarten, as intermediary jameson collaborated with malan to get the selborne memorandum, a document outlying the reasons why it would be to white south africans benefit to unite the four colonies, in the public domain. malan suggested that he would ask jameson in parliament whether there was any correspondence between the cape government and the high commissioner on unification, and if it could be published. jameson agreed to do so when parliament convened.32 jameson’s conversion to a south african identity within the british empire, announced at a banquet in cape town on 4 june 1907 to celebrate his return from london where he had attended a conference for colonial premiers in april 1907, strengthened the link with malan. the fact that the prime ministers of australia and canada could combine a love of their countries with a strong pride in the empire convinced jameson that a south african patriotism need not weaken the imperial link.33 with the opening of the cape parliamentary session in july 1907 malan asked his question and the selborne memorandum was released. the two former enemies continued their collaboration when on 23 july 1907 malan introduced a parliamentary motion, seconded by jameson, for the cape colony to lead 27 ons land, 20 february 5 and 29 march 1904. 28 bodleian library, oxford, the papers of alfred milner, mss. eng. hist. c. 688, r. kipling lord milner, 4 april 1904. 29 molteno, further south african recollections, p 103. 30 colvin, the life of jameson ii, p 242. 31 molteno, further south african recollections, p 110. 32 bodleian library, lionel george curtis papers, mss. curtis 141 142, diary 5 june 1907; d. lavin, from empire to international commonwealth: a life of lionel curtis (oxford university press, oxford, 1995), p 80. 33 cape times, 5 june 1907. mouton 172 the unification process.34 the release of the selborne memorandum and jameson’s support of malan’s motion initiated the rapid movement towards the unification of south africa. in october 1908 jameson attended the national convention in durban at which representatives of the four british colonies in south africa gathered to discuss unification. but as the unionist party, (as the pp had renamed itself to reflect its desire for a unified south africa), had been defeated in the parliamentary election of february 1908 he did not attend as cape premier. at the convention jameson played a leading role representing the interests of the english-speaking community and trying to appease their concerns about their position in a unified south africa dominated by an afrikaner majority. he also went out of his way to win the good will of afrikaner delegates, accepting the motion of language equality between dutch and english, while making it clear that he opposed compulsion with regard to the use of dutch. 35 for his role in the unification process jameson was awarded a baronetcy in 1911.36 a hallmark of the national convention was jameson’s close collaboration with general louis botha, the premier of the transvaal colony, and the respected former commandantgeneral of the south african republic. jameson’s charm and sincere desire for reconciliation won botha over at the 1907 imperial conference in london. for jameson, botha was the only person who could heal the deep divisions among the two white groups, securing in the process south africa for britain.37 it was, however, more than a pragmatic relationship as a genuine affection developed between them. f.v. engelenburg, the occasional secretary of botha, was struck by the great happiness jameson showed in botha’s company.38 botha made no secret of his affection for jameson, telling percy fitzpatrick, a close jameson ally, that with jameson ‘you only have to know him and you can’t help loving him …, 39 and that he is ‘… a personal friend of mine in whose judgment i have the fullest trust.’40 aware of the desire amongst many south africans to push party politics into the background jameson saw the spirit of goodwill at the national convention as an opportunity to create a ‘best man’ government compiled from the best talents in south africa, irrespective of ethnic or party affiliations. such a step would do away with the racial friction between afrikaners and english-speakers, and would furthermore secure political power for the english-speaking community as demographics made an electoral victory of an alliance of the predominately 34 debates of the cape house of assembly, 23 july 1907 col 227-231. 35 l. thompson, the unification of south africa, 1902-1910 (oxford university press, oxford, 1960), pp 178, 196, 198. 36 davenport, ‘leander starr jameson’, p 441. 37 thompson, the unification of south africa, pp 33, 398, 435. 38 f.v. engelenburg, generaal louis botha (j.l. van schaik, pretoria, 1928), p 193. 39 j.p.r wallis, fitz. the story of sir percy fitzpatrick (macmillan, london, 1955), p 154. 40 p. fitzpatrick (introduced and edited by deborah lavin), south african memories. scraps of history (ad donker, cape town, 1979), p 256 jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 173 afrikaner parties governing the transvaal, free state and the cape a certainty. 41 jameson initiated discussions on a ‘best man’ government with botha while they were in britain as national convention delegates to attend the passage of the south african bill through the british parliament. botha was only prepared to agree to such a step if it was supported by the majority of white south africans. 42 on his return to south africa jameson toured the country, visiting leading politicians to convince them of the merits of a ‘best man’ government, but only met discouragement. the transvaal progressives, representing the interests of mining capital, were particularly suspicious of botha. they were were of the opinion that he was dominated by his reactionary rural followers who wanted to plunder the mines and industry for their own interests.43 they mining magnates wanted a party to defend their financial interests and those of the empire against the afrikaner.44 drummond chaplin, a leading transvaal progressive, furthermore thought that jameson was being manipulated by the transvaal premier to secure his own position against merriman, his main rival for the south african premiership.45 jameson was, however, confident that he could lead the transvaal progressives into a ‘best man’ government.46 botha was in a more difficult position as all leading afrikaner politicians rejected any notion of a government with jameson as a member. president steyn warned that it would be a political kiss of death for him.47 by mid january 1910 jameson knew that there would be no ‘best man’ government. although he confided to his brother sam that botha was a much weaker vessel than he had expected in dealing with his supporters, it did not alter his high opinion of him as he had been honest throughout the negotiations.48 on 19 may 1910 in a meeting with lord gladstone, the first governor-general of a unified south africa, he strongly recommended botha for the union premiership.49 with the ‘best man’ government idea dead, and aware that botha was surrounded by afrikaners who did not share his forgive and forget attitude to the british empire, jameson was determined to stand by him by forming a party, the unionist party, which would represent english-speakers as a bloc vote. it would be a party on which botha could depend for support, and possibly even merge with, should he break with extremists in his government. 50 here jameson had j.b.m. hertzog, a former judge in the free state republic, 41 m.r. siepman, ‘an analytical survey of the political career of leander starr jameson, 1900-1912’ (d. phil, university of natal, 1979), p 284. 42 engelenburg, generaal louis botha, p 193. 43 m. fraser and a. jeeves (eds.), all that glittered. selected correspondence of lionel phillips 1890-1914 (oxford university press, cape town, 1977), pp 215, 221-224; l. phillips (edited by maryne fraser), some reminiscences (ad donker, johannesburg, 1986), p. 143; long, drummond chaplin, pp 145, 156. 44 a. duminy & b. guest, interfering in politics. a biography of sir percy fitzpatrick (lowry publishers, johannesburg, 1987), p. 180. 45 long, drummond chaplin, p 156. 46 thompson, the unification of south africa, p 440. 47 a. h. marais (ed.), politieke briewe 1909-1910, (instituut vir eietydse geskiedenis, bloemfontein, 1972), pp 115-116. 48 colvin, the life of jameson ii, p 295. 49 british library, london, viscount gladstone papers, 46097, gladstone’s notes on his meeting with jameson. 50 siepman, ‘an analytical survey of the political career of leander starr jameson, 1900-1912’, p. 313. mouton 174 a bitterender in the south african war and a champion of afrikaner rights who was uncompromising when it came to his principles, in mind. hertzog was responsible for the education act of 1908 in the orange river colony which gave the dutch language equality with english in the colony’s schools and decreed that all children after standard three had to study dutch as well as english. this policy of compulsory bilingualism, dubbed hertzogism by the unionists, was deeply resented by most english-speakers. as botha was determined to attract english-speaking support he was reluctant to have hertzog in his cabinet and he was offered a seat in the court of appeal. hertzog, a volatile, highly strung personality who was extremely sensitive to any slights, real or perceived, saw the offer as an insult and a vote of no-confidence in his political ability and it strained his relationship with botha.51 with hertzog in the cabinet jameson confidently predicted that there would be a break in the government within two years.52 jameson also wanted a party representing the english-speaking community to convince them of the necessity to reconcile with afrikaners, and that the acceptance of a south african identity did not imply a break with britain. this was all part of his attempt to replace british south africans with english-speaking south africans. most english-speakers regarded themselves not as south africans, but as british and expressed their loyalty and patriotism to the king whose authority was symbolised by the union jack.53 they did not see afrikaners as their equals, and resented efforts to bring about language equality as they scorned dutch, and later afrikaans. english-medium newspapers, which encouraged imperialism and the maintenance of a british identity, reflected the resentment of english-speakers that afrikaners were able to secure political control only a few years after losing a war that britain had won at great cost. a despairing drummond chaplin reflected: and so, after all that has taken place, the country goes back to the boers. they have got their thumb on us now and they will never be fools enough to take it off … nothing violent will be done, but slowly and gradually dutch traditions, ideals and methods will more and more assert themselves, and one fine day the british public will wake up to find that south africa is actually boer.54 jameson, convinced that he could win the english-speaking community over to conciliation politics, made it clear to botha on the eve of the founding of the unionist party of south africa on 24 may 1910 that the party’s purpose was not to oppose him, but to pursue their joint convictions and principles.55 this was reflected in their respective election manifestos. the aim of the unionist party was to protect the ‘sacred tie’ between south africa and britain and the building of a strong and united south african nation, working out its own 51 a.h. marais, ‘die politieke uitwerking van die verhouding van die afrikaanssprekende tot die engelssprekende, 1910 1915.’ (d.phil, university of the orange free state, 1972), p. 118; j.h. le roux, p.w. coetzer, a.h. marais, generaal jbm hertzog. sy stryd en strewe i (perskor, johannesburg, 1987), pp 110 -117. 52 colvin, the life of jameson ii, pp 297-298. 53 j. lambert, “south african british? or dominion south africans? the evolution of an identity in the 1910s and 1929s”, south african historical journal, 43, november 2000, pp 202, 209. 54 p.f. van der schyff, ‘die unioniste party in die suid-afrikaanse politiek, 1910 – 1921’, (ma, potchefstroomse universiteit vir christelike hoër onderwys, 1964), p 47. 55 siepman, ‘an analytical survey of the political career of leander starr jameson, 1900-1912’, p 312. jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 175 domestic problems according to its own needs and aspirations. the manifesto of botha’s three party alliance, the bond in the cape colony, het volk in the transvaal, and orangia unie in the free state recognised south africa as an integral part of the empire, and set out to promote a healthy south african spirit.56 jameson was elected leader of the unionist party although he was in poor health – he was in the grips of a malaria attack at the founding conference,57 – as he was the only person with the stature to unite the fractious english-speaking community. his life as a former imperial adventurer and convict who had become a prime minister made him the most recognisable english-speaker in south africa. he was especially admired for his stoic fortitude in adversity. this admiration was reflected in rudyard kipling’s poem ‘if’, drawn from jameson’s character: if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you … if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same … if you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and lose, and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss … 58 the news that jameson would address a public meeting was enough to fill the local city or town hall to over flow. although he was naturally a shy person and hated speech-making he had the ability with his pleasant voice, to exercise magnetism over political meeting without resorting to demagogy. his profound idealism to atone for the raid and to serve south africa and the empire won individuals and crowds over.59 in addition many found his charm irresistible. although the failure of the raid, and his prison experience, dispelled for ever jameson’s ebullient personality – he had become a withdrawn person with an immense capacity for silence – he was nevertheless the life and soul of any gathering.60 according to b.k long, who served with jameson in the cape and union parliaments, his personality was unique in that he masked himself under a surface veil of cynicism, but that he was a man of acute and unfailing common sense who liked men for their failings as much as their virtues though both frequently enraged him.61 his leadership of the cape pp had also proven his leadership abilities. for victor sampson he was, although wanting in the mastery of detail, a born leader who did not hesitate to make decisions and to stick to them, and that he had courage and tenacity in his purpose which was assisted by his wit, charm and sangfroid 62 56 w.a. kleynhans, sa general election manifestos 1910-1981 (unisa, pretoria, 1987), pp 25-26. 57 long, drummond chaplin, p 154. 58 s. gray, ‘the literature of the jameson raid’, the jameson raid. a centennial retrospective (the brenthurst press, johannesburg, 1996), pp 37-38. 59 the times, 27 november 1917. 60 fitzpatrick (introduced and edited by deborah lavin), south african memories. scraps of history, p. 165; colvin, the life of jameson ii, p 274. 61 long, drummond chaplin, p 137. 62 sampson, my reminiscences, p 96. mouton 176 not all english-speakers, however, hero-worshipped jameson. lady selborne felt that he had no reliable standard of morality, which meant that he had no pattern by which he could judge his own actions and that he acted on impulses which he did not submit to a rational principle, and that he was ‘not really a very clever man’. patrick duncan objected to jameson’s ‘absolutely cynical outlook on things’. and yet, both lady selborne and duncan saw much to admire in jameson. for lady selborne his idealism, describing him as ‘a pure idealist by nature’, his faithfulness to friends, indifference to money and the absence of an ego made him an attractive personality. as she told duncan, ‘there is so much that is loveable in him in spite of his many faults that it is easy to judge him charitably’. duncan again conceded that jameson ‘would be a good man to be in a tight corner – with a clear and a losing game.’63 the 15 september 1910 parliamentary election was a ‘tight corner’ and a ‘losing game’ for the unionist party as it could not win the election, but jameson, determined to secure a position of influence for the unionists with botha, distinguished himself as a shrewd and intelligent politician. in june 1910 sir james rose-innes ran into botha and jameson lunching together in the pretoria club and asked: ‘which is the lion and which the lamb?’ jameson tapped his breast and said, ‘lamb, lamb’.64 jameson’s answer was more than a jest as he was determined to secure an alliance with botha, as was evident in his lamb like reaction to botha’s decision to contest the pretoria east constituency. this constituency had been represented by percy fitzpatrick in the transvaal parliament for the progressives, and he was determined to be its representative in the union parliament. botha’s decision to leave standerton, his safe constituency in the transvaal parliament, for a seat in which his chance for victory was marginal, against an ally of jameson, made no sense and remains unexplained. jameson was placed in an impossible position when botha asked him to arbitrate as to who should withdraw from the contest. he eventually, after attempting to find fitzpatrick an alternative seat, had no choice but to support fitzpatrick’s candidature. botha, however, refused to withdraw. jameson, according to fitzpatrick, was so profoundly shocked and hurt by the premier’s behaviour that he did not want to discuss the matter or even to hear reference to it. in reality jameson was doing his utmost not to harm his relationship with botha. he made no attempt to campaign in pretoria, while urging fitzpatrick to tone down his personal attacks, and not to quote him against the premier.65 jameson’s final election speech was a testimonial to botha’s honesty. a disgusted fitzpatrick condemned the speech as ‘an emotional tribute to an opponent, untimely, unsolicited and undeserved, just at the moment when he is trying to beat a colleague.’66 what he did not realise was that for jameson he was expendable as botha was crucial to secure south africa for the british empire. writing his memoirs fitzpatrick attempted to come to terms with jameson’s ruthlessness. secretly sensitive and shy; superficially cynical and indifferent, at times almost brutal; intensely loyal, broadminded and sympathetic in big things; yet strangely unconscious of, or indifferent to certain influences which weigh with a good many men – the 63 lavin, friendship and union, pp 39, 41, 61. 64 lewsen, the correspondence of john x. merriman 1905-1924, p 201. 65 duminy & guest, interfering in politics, pp 187-188. 66 fitzpatrick, south african memories. scraps of history, pp 256-257, 271-272; wallis, fitz, pp 155, 158. jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 177 consideration for persons, principles, conventions or interests which he could dismiss as minor to the great purpose …’67 hertzogism was a more dangerous challenge for jameson and botha’s relationship than pretoria east. before the election jameson warned botha that he would have to denounce and oppose the government if hertzog insisted with his education policy.68 with botha unable to keep hertzog out of the cabinet, hertzogism became the main issue of the election. the unionist party launched scathing attacks on the free state politician as an anti-british racialist. jameson addressed enthusiastic mass meetings in johannesburg, durban, grahamstown, port elizabeth and cape town to spread the message that he was at one with botha on policy and that it was not his objective to replace his government, but that the unionist party was to be strongly represented in parliament to help the premier against the reactionary hertzog.69 gladstone felt that the targeting of hertzog, who was in his eyes no enemy of the british, was violent, unfair and a caricature of his policy and led to him becoming anti-british.70 hertzog fought back by recalling jameson’s role in the raid, and his support for the suspension of the cape constitution, condemning it as ‘a criminal effort to persuade the british government to rob his adopted fatherland’ of ‘its existence as a selfgoverning colony’. he denounced jameson’s support for conciliation as insincere.71 the attacks on hertzog, combined with the use of the slogan ‘vote british’ by some unionist candidates,72 did much to destroy the image of moderation and conciliation jameson had secured after 1904. jameson fought an energetic election campaign, ignoring medical advice and stoically enduring his physical weakness and constant pain, going so far as to contest two constituencies. the unionists of cape town harbour, a constituency which encompassed green point, sea point, the docks and robben island, had fallen out with its candidate, sir pieter bam who refused to return from his honeymoon for the election. it was feared that the bond candidate, j.w. herbert, a prominent shipping merchant, a former city councilor and mayor of green point and sea point municipality, as well as a former member of the cape town harbour board,73 could win the seat. this was enough to convince jameson, who by then knew he would be elected unopposed in the albany constituency, representing grahamstown and the surrounding countryside, to accept the harbour challenge.74 he had a tough fight on his hands as he had made a public promise in grahamstown that he would represent albany in parliament. herbert fought an enthusiastic campaign, supported by bond heavyweights such as merriman and david graaff, portraying jameson as a carpetbagger, 67 j. p. fitzpatrick (prepared for the press from the manuscript of the author by g.h. wilson), south african memories (cassell, london, 1932), p 306. 68 british library, london, viscount gladstone papers, add.mss 46097, gladstone’s notes on his meeting with jameson, 19 may 1910. 69 thompson, the unification of south africa, p 465. 70 viscount gladstone papers, add.mss 46 118, unpublished memoirs, pp 192-194, 199. 71 thompson, the unification of south africa, p 468. 72 the south african news, 7 september 1910. 73 the south african news, 31 august and 1 september 1910. 74 cape times, 15 and 16 august 1910. mouton 178 keeping the seat warm for a rand mining magnate.75 jameson fought for every vote, going as far as to visit robben island to address the staff of the leper and mental asylum.76 in addition he had to support other unionist candidates in the western cape by addressing numerous meetings. it was a punishing routine, aggravated by cape town’s cold and stormy weather. jameson’s hard work reaped dividends as he won harbour with a comfortable majority.77 nationally the unionists secured 39 seats to the 67 of the government alliance, four labourites and 11 independents of whom ten represented natal, the only province with a majority of white english-speakers. the unionist party had won only five of the province’s seventeen seats. the reason for this was that the province had no culture of party politics and distrusted parties. furthermore the english-speaking farmers of natal were repelled by the unionist party leadership dominated by mining magnates. apart from jameson who had close ties with de beers consolidated mines, prominent unionists such as percy fitzpatrick, lionel phillips, george farrar, and drummond chaplin were former presidents of the chamber of mines. this fuelled the perception that the unionists only represented the interests of witwatersrand mining magnates, whom natalians blamed for the economic depression in their province. as a result they elected independent candidates. seven of these mps eventually joined botha’s farmer dominated south african party (sap) which was formed in october 1911.78 despite the unionists poor showing in natal jameson was satisfied with the election result. his friendship with botha had survived the election unscathed as the premier blamed hertzog for his defeat in pretoria east,79 while his praise of botha’s ability and integrity did much to reconcile english-speakers to an afrikaner dominated south africa. furthermore the unionist party represented the majority of english-speaking community, providing jameson with the ability to support botha. botha was in need of support as his majority was much smaller than he had hoped for, while he was shattered by his defeat in pretoria east at the hands of fitzpatrick. he was eventually elected to parliament in a by-election. most afrikaners were, however, in a less forgiving mood. for them the hounding of hertzog and the exuberant public celebrations in pretoria and johannesburg after fitzpatrick’s victory was seen as proof that the unionists placed british imperial interests above that of south africa. many afrikaners were thus offended by botha’s publicly declared friendship with jameson,80 undermining his stature while raising that of hertzog amongst afrikaners outside the free state81. 75 cape times, 1 september 1910 and the south african news 2, 6 and 14 september 1910. 76 cape times, 12 september 1910. 77 jameson promptly resigned as harbour’s mp and the unionist party retained the seat in the subsequent by-election. 78 p.s. thompson, natalians first: separatism in south africa 1909-1961 (southern publishers, johannesburg, 1990), pp 8, 10, 14, 18. 79 marais, politieke briewe 1909-1910, p. 200; w.k. hancock, j. van der poel (eds.), selections from the smuts papers, iii, june 1910 – november 1918 (cambridge university press, cambridge, 1966), p 16. 80 engelenburg, generaal louis botha, p 195. 81 r. keiser, ‘the south african governor-general, 1910-19’, (d. phil, university of oxford, 1975), p 60. jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 179 the biggest threat to jameson’s policy of supporting botha was, however, not the rise of hertzog, but his own poor health. the election had put enormous strain on his frail body. when sworn in as an mp and the leader of the official parliamentary opposition on 31 october 1910 jameson was physically a broken man. his poor health meant that his attendance in parliament was sporadic and for short spells. but even as a semi-invalid jameson towered over his fellow unionist mps. gladstone had a high opinion of him, observing that in south african parliamentary politics only three men were national figures and able to undertake crusading work, namely botha, jameson and hertzog.82 jameson was determined to support botha in his crusade to create a south african nation within the british empire. botha needed all the help he could get in building the union so soon after the trauma of the south african war. south africanism had to find a space for itself between advancing afrikaner nationalism and retreating british imperialism.83 for a significant number of afrikaners the legacy of the south african war meant that the british empire signified oppression, symbolised by the 26 000 afrikaner women and children who died in the concentration camps. for them the british flag was the hated symbol of oppression, and the benefits of the empire could not compensate for the trauma of the war.84 afrikaner nationalism was also fuelled by the english-speakers’ attitude of superiority. an attitude jannie hofmeyr, a leading intellectual and a future sap mp, summarised: it is a painful fact that to the ordinary dutch-speaking south african the idea of an englishman naturally arising (and i fear we could hardly expect anything better) is that of a fearfully superior individual who won’t learn his language, who treats him, if not like a piece of dirt, then as being in some grade between his exalted self and his native boy, and who is continually waving over him the glorious folds of the union jack.85 afrikaners felt marginalised in the new state. they found it difficult to identify with ‘god save the king’ as the anthem, the union jack as the national flag, and the king’s likeness on every stamp and coin.86 for them reconciliation was a give-and-take situation in which afrikaners gave and english-speakers took. it was against this background that jameson and botha had a close relationship. they were, in the words, colvin ‘very good friends, in essence rather colleagues than opponents’.87 this was reflected in december 1910 when j.w. jagger, a prominent unionist with a reputation as an opinionated, impetuous and obstinate politician, led a withering attack on the government for commissioning the construction of the civil service offices, the union buildings, in 82 viscount gladstone papers, add.mss 45 997, gladstone harcourt, 12 august 1911. 83 giliomee, the afrikaners, p 361. 84 j.h. hofmeyr collection, university of the witwatersrand, fc, j.h. hofmeyr, ‘the republican movement and the problem of the british empire’, fc, jh hofmeyr p duncan, 22 march 1919. 85 a. paton, hofmeyr (oxford university press, london, 1964), p 73. 86 giliomee, the afrikaners, p 380. 87 colvin, the life of jameson ii, p 294. mouton 180 pretoria without a parliamentary warrant, jameson made one of his rare parliamentary speeches to calm the situation and to smooth relations with the government.88 jameson also came to botha’s rescue with the emotional issue of bilingualism. the premier had to deal with the challenge that approximately 90 per cent of the civil service was unilingual english-speaking,89 and that the proposed use of dutch in the civil service outraged many english-speakers. botha went out of his way to appease the english-speaking community, but with the possible use of dutch as a medium of instruction in schools the anger of jingoes boiled over. on 24 november 1910 colonel c.p. crewe, the unionist party mp for east london, tabled a motion that compelling english-speaking children to receive instruction in dutch was an infringement of their rights and in conflict with the principles of freedom and of equality in the south africa act.90 jameson was unhappy that the question had been raised, condemning it to his brother sam as ‘a most unfortunate bout’.91 to prevent an emotional division in the house of assembly he colluded with botha behind the scenes to secure an education bill that would be acceptable to both sides. botha was jameson’s neighbour in cape town as jameson’s house, westbrook, was next door to groote schuur, the official residence of the premier. botha was a regular visitor dining with jameson or playing bridge.92 to resolve the issue they met more than once in secret at night at westbrook, on one occasion with an ill jameson in bed. their solution was to appoint a parliamentary select committee. botha informed gladstone that he and jameson ‘agreed to steam roller the whole lot if they wouldn’t come to terms’.93 jameson’s poor health, however, nearly derailed the plan as he was not always in parliament to rein in the unionist hardliners. even when in parliament he found it difficult to control hardliners such as farrar, phillips, chaplin, jagger and fitzpatrick who were forceful personalities. jameson’s habit of passing unionist backbenchers in the corridors of the parliament buildings without any recognition also weakened his influence over them.94 jameson, however, managed to control his mps while botha with the support of f.s. malan, the minister of education, manoeuvred hertzog into withdrawing the provision compelling teaching in both languages. the select committee’s recommendation, after five months of deliberations, was the use of the mother tongue up to the sixth school year, with the second language taught as a subject. after that parents could choose one or both languages as the medium of instruction.95 botha and jameson’s friendship fuelled resentment and suspicion amongst their followers. president steyn reflected the view of many afrikaners when on 4 june 1911 he expressed to merriman his bafflement about the friendship, and his unwillingness to forgive jameson for the raid, despite his moderation at the national convention.96 merriman who was still a 88 house of assembly debates, 19 december 1910, col 928-930. 89 j.c. steyn, trouwe afrikaners. aspekte van afrikaner-nasionalisme en suid-afrikaanse taalpolitiek 1875 1938 (tafelberg, cape town, 1987), pp 69 71. 90 house of assembly debates, 24 november 1910, col 264 281. 91 colvin, the life of jameson ii, p 299. 92 long, drummond chaplin, pp 167-168; fort, dr jameson, p 316. 93 british library, viscount gladstone papers, add.mss 45 997, gladstone harcourt, 28 march 1911. 94 the times, 27 november 1917. 95 house of assembly debates, 24 november 1910, col 281 288. 96 lewsen, the correspondence of john x. merriman 1905-1924, p 210 jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 181 prominent mp of the sap also viewed botha and jameson’s friendship as an ‘evil alliance’, a travesty of parliamentary government as botha’s attempts to consult every move with the opposition led to poor leadership, while the unionist acquiescence encouraged governmental rapacity and inefficiency.97 fortunately for botha his afrikaner followers were unaware of his secret dealings with jameson as it would have destroyed his credibility amongst them. when colvin’s the life of jameson arrived in south africa in october 1922, the lengthy quotations from jameson’s letters to his brother sam on his relationship with botha caused a storm in afrikaner circles. in a number of lengthy editorials d.f. malan, editor of die burger and leader of the cape national party (np), used the book to accuse botha of betraying the afrikaner. 98 he repeated this accusation in parliament in january 1923.99 on the other hand some unionist party mps felt that botha was double crossing jameson and they demanded partisan exposure and criticism of government policies. fitzpatrick and chaplin in particular felt that jameson was a victim of botha’s considerable charm, and that he was manipulated by the premier for his own political gain. chaplin, who stayed at westbrook during parliamentary sessions, expressed his resentment in private, but the volatile fitzpatrick, who after his bruising victory over botha only saw the worst in the premier, publically articulated the frustration of many unionists with jameson’s pro-botha stance. 100 in this he was supported by vere stent, the ultra-jingoistic editor of the pretoria news who resented the rise of afrikaner ascendancy and condemned jameson’s affection and support for botha.101 it was not unionist criticism, but jameson’s poor health that undermined his collaboration with botha. he missed a big part of the 1911 parliamentary session as he was seriously ill with an internal hemorrhage.102 his absence provided unionist hardliners with the opportunity to oppose government policies with ‘slash and burn’ tactics in the house of assembly. while jameson was in britain for medical treatment the unionist party’s biannual conference in durban between 19 and 21 november 1911 passed a resolution ‘… that the time has now arrived when the unionist party should adopt a policy of active opposition against the present government.’103 the resolution filled gladstone, who shared jameson’s view that botha’s hand had to be strengthened against the radicals in the sap, with exasperation. in his regular dispatches to lewis harcourt, the secretary of state for colonies, he made no attempt to hide his contempt for the rank-and-file unionist mps. he viewed their stance on bilingualism in the civil service as destructive: ‘i think their political standpoint almost wholly wrong. in the main their attack is based on dutch racialism…’ 104 97 a.h. marais, politieke briewe 1911-1912 (instituut vir eietydse geskiedenis, cape town, 1973), pp 39, 114-115. 98 die burger, 14, 17 and 21 november 1922 and 30 january 1923. 99 cape times, 27 january 1923. 100 duminy & guest, interfering in politics, pp 193-199. 101 pretoria news, 9 april 1912; s. and b. stent, the forthright man (howard timmins, cape town, 1972), p 107. 102 long, drummond chaplin, p 168. 103 van der schyff, ‘die unioniste party in die suid-afrikaanse politiek’, p 95. 104 viscount gladstone papers, add.mss 45 998, gladstone harcourt, 25 november 1911 mouton 182 for morris kentridge, a prominent durban unionist who defected to the labour party in 1912, parliamentary politics had to be more than just the opposition to compulsory bilingualism, which ‘savoured of racialism’.105 this perception was shared by a growing number in the english-speaking community who felt that the party, with its focus on the imperial tie and bilingualism had failed to adapt to a modernising south africa with its unique challenges. this was reflected on 24 january 1912 with the crushing defeat of the unionist candidate by the labour party in the georgetown by-election. in reaction to hertzogism this germiston mining constituency was won with ease by george farrar in september 1910. by 1912 white miners and railway workers, a significant group in the constituency, were more concerned about their wages, working conditions and employment security and as a result they deserted the unionist party. for fitzpatrick and stent, however, the reason for the defeat was that the rank-and-file of the party rejected jameson’s support of botha.106 in the pretoria news of 25 january 1912 stent ranted that jamesons’ pro-botha policy was a ghastly failure and he demanded uncompromising, determined and militant opposition to the government. jameson, however, took the defeat calmly, believing that that the loss of georgetown was ‘good for the unionists’ as it brought an alliance with the sap closer. the georgetown result was a shock for botha. support for the government candidate had dropped by fifty per cent, compared to the 1910 election, as afrikaner workers voted for bill andrews, the labour party candidate and future leader of the communist party. botha informed jameson that he was concerned that poor afrikaners in urban areas were attracted to the syndicalism and socialism of the labour party. desiring a strong government to deal with south africa’s challenges, especially with a surging radical labour party, he considered a possibility merger with the unionists with two to three cabinet seats for them. as a result jameson was confident that a ‘best man’ government would be in place in a year or two.107 some unionist mps, however, did not share jameson’s sanguine view of the georgetown result and they demand partisan opposition. on the eve of the 1912 parliamentary session jameson was confronted with a revolt in the parliamentary caucus. fitzpatrick accused him of ‘a distinct bias towards going soft and trusting botha to do his best’ and declared that if this policy should continue the party might as well dissolve as most unionists mps would not follow him.108 in an attempt to pacify his rebellious mps jameson introduced a parliamentary motion on 15 february 1912 condemning the methods adopted by the government to implement bilingualism in the civil service as in conflict with the constitution. to gladstone he admitted that he had to do so as it was necessary to maintain the support of the ‘principal section’ of the party ‘who liked to feed on this stuff’. 109 jameson’s speech was moderate, restrained and effective, but jagger went overboard, descending into emotional afrikaner bashing. gladstone was aghast and condemned jagger’s speech as ‘…contemptible and its failure discredited the whole party’. jameson repudiated jagger in the house of 105 m. kentridge, i recall. memoirs of morris kentridge (the free press, johannesburg, 1959), p 24. 106 van der schyff, ‘die unioniste party in die suid-afrikaanse politiek’, p 97. 107 viscount gladstone papers, add. mss 46 099, gladstone’s notes of a confidential meeting with jameson, 7 april 1912; marais, politieke briewe 1911-1912, pp 109-111. 108 duminy & guest, interfering in politics, p 199. 109 viscount gladstone papers, add. mss 46 099, gladstone’s notes of a confidential meeting with jameson, 7 april 1912. jameson, conciliation and the unionist party td 7(2), december 2011, pp. 167184. 183 assembly.110 for the governor-general the unionists had shown ‘momentous incapacity’ in the debate,111 and jameson’s intervention, based on his stance that ‘neither the british nor the dutch races would stand compulsion … a little give and a little take would bring them into harmony’ saved the situation and was the only redeeming feature of the debate.112 jameson ruefully conceded to gladstone that the attacks on the government during the civil service debate were overdone and cost the unionists support in the english-speaking community. 113 this was not, however, how the unionist hotheads saw the political situation. for them all the ills of the party were the result of jameson’s support for botha. gladstone concluded that jameson had lost his party.114 in april 1912 jameson resigned as leader of the unionist party. the bloemfontein newspaper the friend claimed that as a result of jameson’s speech during the civil service debate the unionist parliamentary caucus came near to a vote of no confidence in him, and that this convinced him to resign the party leadership.115 jameson, however, still had the loyalty of most of his mps despite the growing criticism of his leadership.116 his decision to resign was medically inspired. he was exhausted and crippled by pain. despite regular visits to europe for medical treatment, his physical condition deteriorated. apart from malaria and gallstones he had to endure neuritis, gout and eczema. he wanted to resign in 1911, but the party refused to let him go as it was divided on a successor. three days after the stress of the civil service debate he was so ill that fitzpatrick urged him to resign and to return to britain for his own good.117 long was of the opinion that jameson’s endurance in leading the unionists had shortened his life.118 on 19 march 1912 jameson confessed at a public meeting that he was physically unable to lead the party and that he had to retire. on his recommendation his close friend sir thomas smartt succeeded him as the leader of the party on 10 april. jameson left for britain on the same day. his parting advice to smartt was to collaborate with botha: we must frankly acknowledge to ourselves that our best alternative is … to choose botha …, and hope for the inclusion of our people with botha’s immediate party. 119 in a farewell speech in parliament botha lauded with sincere warmth jameson’s role in bringing about peace and unification in south africa.120 the majority of parliamentarians did not share this view. merriman thought that botha’s speech was ridiculous.121 110 house of assembly debates, 19 february 1912, col 488. 111 viscount gladstone papers, add. mss 45 998, gladstone harcourt, 20 mar. 1912. 112 viscount gladstone papers, add. mss 45 998, gladstone harcourt, 21 feb. 1912. 113 viscount gladstone papers, add. mss 46 099, gladstone’s notes of a confidential meeting with jameson, 7 april 1912. 114 viscount gladstone papers, add. mss 45 998, gladstone harcourt, 20 march 1912 115 the friend, 11 april 1912. 116 the transvaal leader, 10 april 1912. 117 wallis, fitz, p 170. 118 long, drummond chaplin, pp 137, 163. 119 colvin, the life of jameson ii, p 306. 120 house of assembly debates, 10 april 1910, col 1703-1704. 121 lewsen, the correspondence of john x. merriman 1905-1924, p 217. mouton 184 jameson, to botha’s regret, as he missed his friendship and advice, 122 settled permanently in britain for health reasons. he died in london on 26 november 1917. botha was in need of jameson’s friendship in december 1912, when hertzog was expelled from the cabinet for his bitter attacks on english-speakers as foreign fortune seekers. smartt, instead of supporting botha held him responsible for hertzog’s behavior and publically criticised him, aggravating the situation. 123 under these circumstances it was impossible for botha to consider any merger with the unionist party. although jameson’s hope of a party under the leadership of botha representing the majority of afrikaners and english-speakers was dashed, his faith in botha was vindicated with the outbreak of the first world war in august 1914. south africa actively entered the war against germany. by the time of his death jameson had reason to believe that he had atoned for his recklessness in december 1895. although his attacks on hertzogism strained relations with afrikaners, while his support for botha angered some unionists, he had played a leading in laying the foundation for a south african nation. his lauding of botha’s ability and integrity was crucial in diluting the anti-afrikaner attitude of many english-speakers. in the process he convinced most of them to accept an afrikaner dominated government. his encouragement of a south african identity within the empire, but especially his stance on bilingualism assisted botha’s attempts at nation building. the heading ‘a great south african’, used by the jingoistic natal mercury and pretoria news newspapers for their editorials on jameson’s death reflects his success in encouraging a south african identity amongst english-speakers. his collaboration with botha furthermore ensured that south africa had a smooth launch as the parliamentary sessions between october 1910 and april 1912 were not marred by confrontation between the two white groups. botha, with jameson’s encouragement and support, had created a broad foundation on which south africa was being built. together they did the groundwork for a society which gradually encouraged english-speakers to see themselves as south africans, and in which many afrikaners accepted their place in the british empire. when the np came to power in 1924 hertzog followed botha’s path to create an independent south africa within the empire. although unable to erase the memories of the raid, jameson as leader of the unionist party, had rendered a great and lasting service to the founding of modern south africa. 122 marais, politieke briewe 1911-1912, pp 109-111. 123 long, drummond chaplin, p 173. microsoft word 03 han.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 47-59. exploration of transnationalism as a concept and phenomenon in public administration br hanyane1 abstract transnationalism as both a phenomenon and a concept has received negligible attention in modern times in relation to the practice of public administration and its corresponding field of study. this article provides an account of the meaning and the relevance of both the concept and phenomenon as received and applied by practitioners and scholars in the said practice and field of study. from the latter, a deliberate approach towards policy matters is undertaken in relation to the concept and phenomenon of transnationalism. in this article policies used by the national department of home affairs in south africa form the basis from which a case is made relevant to this topic in p(p)ublic a(a)dministration. additionally, case studies in the sadc region are considered. this article therefore argues that transnationalism is as much local as global issues such as immigration, citizenship, global economy, service delivery, government (in)efficiency and (in)effectiveness and such other matters of public interest. keywords: transnationalism, migration, public administration, human mobility, citizenship, cross-border introduction since the 9/11 bombing in new york, global mobility has been restricted to local boundaries. entry into countries in the western world has become controlled by suspicion and “home designed” laws of restriction that discourage immigration and asylum seeking movement. the nation-state has thus begun to re-invent itself in the preservation of autonomy and power. transnationalism has also begun to be seen as a driving force in shaping global politics, labour and social movements. as a result, this phenomenon seems to supersede localism and/or the existence and preservation of the nation-state. conversely, “political risk management” has also become a priority function of legislatures in most democratic countries in defence of democracy, patriotism and nationalism. this observation, however, does not mean that all is well. internal problems such as xenophobia continue to increase unabated. in re-inventing the nation-state, governments of most countries in the developing world have expressed interest in establishing and modifying economic, political and social growth and 1 department of public administration & governance, north west university, private bag x6001, potchefstroom, 2520, south africa, barry.hanyane@nwu.ac.za hanyane 48 development goals. reference is made in this instance to the southern african region. apparently, the most pressing issue faced by modern governments is to promote and maintain prosperity, development and economic growth. approaches and theories of development and dependency best describe the theoretical underpinnings of this debate. these theories are used in analysing the rate of development in underdeveloped countries, especially in africa. african countries, south africa included, have started to embrace and implement programmes such as the new partnership for africa’s development (nepad) (mulaudzi, 2009: 54). critics of this programme have, for instance, labelled it an ambitious plan aimed at achieving more at the expense of limited resources. the question that stands out is how nation-states can start to promote freedom of movement of individuals in a given regional geographical area. proponents of globalism (stiglitz, 2001: xvii) have also added a dimension to the whole debate on the phenomenon of transnationalism, albeit at a different level. in this article, the phenomenon and concept of transnationalism is equated with the process of human movement from their country of birth to a host country of choice. inevitably, this phenomenon has to be defined in the context of its appeal, relevance and significance of a particular context. the question to be asked is whether transnationalism as both a concept and a phenomenon has a place in a political and public domain within a given society where citizens of the world are seen as subjects. this article will attempt to illuminate the complexities of transnationalism as both a concept and a phenomenon. firstly, a definition of the concept transnationalism will be made for theoretical purposes. secondly, the phenomenon of transnationalism will be contextualised in an environment where a person is seen as a worker without boundaries and restrictions based on geographical settings. key variables are identified that shape the content and nature of the concept and phenomenon. the following variables or factors are discussed: the definition of transnationalism, transnationalism as a phenomenon in the southern african context, implications of transnationalism for south africa and selected neighbouring countries of the south, and recent incidents on the negative consequences of transnationalism. contextualising transnational research in public administration and management when does a research area or topic become relevant to a discipline? can a topic in the area of civic interest or public interest as it is known in certain areas be considered researchable in public administration and management (pam)? what happens when some members of the department linked to the afore-mentioned discipline’s research committee reject it outright? a few years later, now a colleague of ours, valiant clapper (2000), in his phd thesis wrote about the subject, albeit in its limited usage as a concept in his study titled “organisational culture and transformation: the role of the department of public service and administration”. speaking of the south african public service, it should be noted that the department of home affairs, for instance, has two components, namely civil and immigration administrative components. it is the immigration component that has some form of relations with the topic on transnationalism. immigration deals with movement of people from one area to another. transnationalism focuses on social and economic spaces created by migrant workers who retain some measure of connection to their original country of birth. in her inaugural lecture at the university of johannesburg on 12 september 2007, christelle auriacombe presented a topic titled “public governance and the public interest: speaking truth to power”. critical issues pertinent to the usage and importance of the conceptual transnationalism in public administration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 47-59 49 argument on public governance and public interest were highlighted. this presentation indicated that the said conceptual argument is alive and well in the discipline, despite earlier suggestions of its reception by the members of the research committee in the said department. the question is then asked: when is a topic considered a researchable topic? is it because of its popularity, or the reception shown by those who we regard as custodians of research agenda? think of a restaurant that insists on serving what patrons do not want to eat. why bother to be a patron then? think of a restaurant menu that serves “thai prawn wraps” with a steamy sauce and the option of frog legs as a starter. instead of opting for a beef fillet, why not order a kudu fillet served with an option of rice or baked potato? to cut the matter short, we in the discipline of pam have forsaken our passion, focus and statement of intent in critical areas such as those captured in the following questions: where should the discipline focus its research attention? which areas are distinctively pam research areas? a number of research articles have been produced by scholars in pam on areas such as migratory tendencies and related policy issues. it is the researcher’s opinion that the topic on transnationalism, beyond issues of migration and immigration researched by scholars and practitioners of pam, warrants attention. sub-themes such as transnational human rights (equivalent to research areas of social justice and constitutionalism), transnational migration (equivalent to research areas of migratory policy and public administration) and transnational communities (equivalent to research areas of transnational service delivery, transnational informal economy and feminist theory (briggs, mccomark & way, 2008: 637-638) social security, transnational and migratory careers and welfare) require the attention of pam practitioners and academics. in recent times, the feminist theory of analysis of transnational realities has emerged (briggs et al., 2008: 637). in the feminist theoretical domain, the variable of gender is used equivalently to variables of politics, society and culture related to transnationalism. with reference to society and culture as symbols of gender or feminist studies, transnational transactions are influenced by cultural symbols, meaning of such symbols, social institutional arrangements and subjective identity such as gender. for example, the proliferation of hair salons owned and managed by african migrants in south africa post-1994 is seen as an expression of feminist tradition of “ownership”. this article will consider the meaning of the concept of transnationalism, which is crucial to the argument presented. meaning of transnationalism transnationalism is a social movement grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the loosening of boundaries between countries (harney & baldassar, 2007: 190). this means that the concept of transnationalism embraces processes and patterns connecting people, businesses and other entities in different places of the world. additionally, it denotes economic meaning involving the global re-organisation of the production process. in this instance, various stages of production can occur in different countries with the aim of reducing costs. take the example of popular efficient western companies such as harman international pty ltd which specialises in the production of audio components worldwide. designs are made in the united kingdom and the production of the final product takes place in china. south african perceptions about “everything and anything made in china” are quite diverse and imbued with scepticism, prompting everyday utterances such as “fake” with reference to poor quality of products produced. transnationalism as a process also has economic underpinnings. popularly known as globalisation (castles, 2007: 352-353), which became prominent in the latter half of the 20th hanyane 50 century, transnationalism has had an impact in the establishment of multinational corporations that seek to promote efficient means of economic production, irrespective of political boundaries (mulaudzi, 2009: 50-51) and gender affiliation (briggs et al., 2008: 638). but from a social perspective, transnationalism refers to the flow of people, ideas and goods between regions. as a result, there seem to be an increasing flow of migratory work force, globalised corporations (clavin, 2005: 439), global money flow and global scientific cooperation, establishing links between people, institutions or nation-states (metropolis, 2007: 1-2). such institutions may either be public or private in a given nation-state. transnationalism beyond mere migratory behavioural patterns takes the form of ongoing movement between two or more social spaces. facilitated by increased global transportation and telecommunication technologies, more and more migrants have developed strong transnational ties to more than one home country. transnationalism also refers to global cooperation between people and points to activities which transcends national boundaries, wherein nation-states governments do not play the most important or even significant role. in this instance, the concept and phenomenon of regionalism takes shape (mulaudzi, 2009: 51-55). furthermore, transnationalism often entails a vision of the obliteration of nationstates to make way for a unified world government. the recent drive in europe to establish the european union towards one common economic, political, cultural and financial market domain serves as reference. apparently, transnationalism is closely related to cosmopolitanism, where the former describes the individual experience, and the latter is the philosophy behind it. transnationalism as a phenomenon in the southern african context to some degree, the african continent is still viewed by outsiders as ungovernable, misunderstood and a place of mysteries unresolved. lack of documented evidence as to the level and degree of movement among labourers implies that the phenomenon is either nonexistent or misrepresenting of the realities on the ground. this is also compounded by forced movement of people in war-torn african countries and those countries ravaged by internal strife as well as the lack of basic services and public goods. social problems such as poverty, hunger and natural disasters have also contributed to the involuntary movement of people in africa. as yet, there needs to be a scientific investigation to determine the extent of movement of professional migrant workers from one african country to another. common movement of this nature has been the uncorroborated survey of professionals from africa to europe, oceania and the western world. from egypt to south africa, professional workers in the fields of medicine, telecommunication and natural sciences have left their countries of origin in search of “greener pastures”. this has resulted in what is popularly known as “brain drain”, and not necessarily from an individual perspective of seeking a better life elsewhere. as already alluded to, reliable scientific evidence is yet to be collected, analysed and published suggesting the degree or magnitude of this dysfunctional situation. south africa is one of the many african states that have lost professional workers to the economic benefit of other wellto-do countries. countries such as the united kingdom, united states of america and some in europe have so far benefited. in the field of public administration for instance, one has yet to determine how many public service professionals actually trade their skills and expertise within the south african government arena. what impact, if any, does this phenomenon have for the south african economy and the drive to improve efficient and effective delivery of public goods and services? in 2007, in a statement reported in the media circles, the then minister of public administration, mrs geraldine fraser-moleketi, was quoted as saying transnationalism in public administration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 47-59 51 that the south african government intended to hire senior government workers from india, africa and oceania to serve in the public service ranks. reasons cited were inter alia, lack of capacity to deliver public services and goods, lack of professionalism in the public service generally, lack of necessary skills for the public service and the need to strengthen the south african public service staff compliment. notably, some of the private sector industry have unilaterally promoted the idea of seeking foreign african work force to trade their labour in exchange for cheaper wages. cape town`s hospitality industry serves as reference in this regard. the situation in zimbabwe has somehow contributed in the distortion of the actual meaning and manifestation of the phenomenon of transnationalism. due to sociopolitical conditions in that country, desperate highly skilled workers are forced to leave zimbabwe for south africa, searching for economic opportunities and benefits (gaidzanwa, 1999; solomon, 2003; muzvidziwa, 2005; duri, 2010). in the process, some skilled workers open themselves to abuse and poor living conditions, arranged by shady “organisers” for social and economic exploitation, while other skilled workers receive better working contracts and conditions. interestingly, yawlui (2013: 12) identified the movement of skilled labour into the south african job market (public and private sectors) as a contributing factor for the sporadic increase in xenophobic cases. instead, professional migrant workers from namibia, swaziland, uganda, tanzania, kenya, nigeria and malawi have voluntarily sought for economic opportunities in south africa. migrant workers from the democratic republic of congo (drc), zimbabwe, at some stage sierra leone, and other countries, have been forced to seek job opportunities in south africa, europe and the western countries. research in this area is needed to determine and measure the extent of this problem. of particular interest is the degree to which this situation impacts on the efficiency of public administration in south africa. this article proposes that possible topics and/or concerns that require immediate attention by public administration thinkers and practitioners are, inter alia: • 90% of post-graduate research in public administration and management is focused on “local problems”. this serves as the researcher`s own observation as a member of the senior degrees committee in the afore-mentioned department at the university of south africa’s pretoria campus. • from a pragmatic point of view, this phenomenon is “new” to south africa. it appeals at the individual level, rather the collective (society) scale. therefore, one cannot say that transnationalism is not people-centered. • given south africa`s recent history, most citizens have not come to terms with sharing the “africaness” with legal and/or illegal persons, especially from other african countries, post-apartheid period. • there is a need to redefine and perhaps contextualise understanding of sociocultural and, sometimes, sociopolitical philosophies such as “ubuntu” within the context of harmonising social, political, economic, cultural and even religious meanings of the world. • public administration (and management) has a profound role to play. in this instance the discipline has to make a meaningful contribution in determining the following: o what determines the international scope of this investigation or inquiry? o can public policy-making, for instance, exert some form of influence in matters related to transnationalism? hanyane 52 o can intergovernmental relations also exert some form of influence in matters related to transnationalism? beyond the scope detailed above, further questions on the topic of transnationalism and the concomitant government response require immediate attention. proposed issues are, yet not limited to: • realities of extreme social phenomenon such as xenophobia that have an impact on the management of transnationalism in the southern african region (zondi, 2008: 26-35). • risk management (administratively and politically) – poverty, political instability, lack of effective government structures and systems, diseases, poor living standards and other factors. • social and economic insecurities related to global economic meltdown/credit crunch or recession. • globalisation – its negative impact on transformationalism (castles, 2007: 352-353). • vulnerability – rights and ownership. • the rise of china and india in challenging the us hegemony as a superpower and, more recently, the g4 countries/alliance of russia, brazil, india and malaysia. • globalising metropolitanism – reflective of rapid urbanisation in nation-states. other factors considered in this article as pull and push, respectively, warrant discussion. pull factors in promoting transnationalism according to sirkeci (2009: 5), transnationalism is realised when certain factors are considered. at the helm of this debate, human insecurity is a prime determining factor. sirkeci (2009: 5) refers to maslow`s (1943) five-stage hierarchy of needs model to justify the importance of human needs as pull factors in promoting transnationalism. specifically, sirkeci (2009) emphasises the relevance of the second tier of the hierarchy of needs, referred to as “security and safety”. conversely, human insecurity can be seen as a concept defining various situations where conflicts lead to perception of deprivation of some kind, among certain people, in a given context. these contexts could range from the civil strife for arab countries in north africa and the middle east or environmental hazards for countries in the asian pacific such as new zealand, indonesia, thailand and other countries, which are perceived subjectively by individuals, households, communities and public policymakers. human insecurity is relative, subjective and may arise from civil conflicts, wars, latent tensions and/or environmental catastrophes. perception of human insecurity can be based on material or non-material environments. for example, members of a minority group may feel insecure because they are not allowed to practice their own cultural traditions and develop their own mother tongue. this was felt by some afrikaans-speaking people in south africa after 1994 when south africa became a democratic state. therefore, the main motive in observing international migration can be interpreted as seeking human security or avoiding human insecurity. another pull factor in realising transnationalism is conflict. conflict in transnationalism is associated in this article with revolts, wars, armed conflict, contests, competitions, disputes and tensions. as sirkeci (2009: 8) puts it, conflicts and migrations that are constantly transformed by transnational space. in this instance, the dynamic nature of conflict and migration influences the structures, actors and processes. subsequently, different channels of transnationalism in public administration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 47-59 53 migration become available while others disappear. for instance, the observation of changing admission rules, visa policies, boarder control policies as well as new migration types have a profound effect on transnationalism. the recent south african case reference of granting skilled and semi-skilled workers from zimbabwe during the period of 2010 to 2011, visa permits to seek temporary employment in south africa is a case in mind. here public officials and some executive office-bearers in the employ of the public service must see to it that there is proper effective structure, systems and processes conducive to achieve the stated goals. latest developments in transnational research and studies point to the emerging discourse of migratory careerism, especially for public servants (martiniello & rea, 2014: 1079-1085). for example, the south african public service may consider attracting best candidates from the diaspora to serve in strategic key public service positions. opportunities, networks and migratory structures are established. in transitional migration space, there are conflicts among individuals, ethnic or religious groups, social classes, supranational agencies and countries. as mulaudzi (2009: 49) argues, migration and increased levels of informal cross-border trade are some of the defining features and indicators of the predominance of the new regionalism in southern africa. transnationalism is viewed in this article as a product of neo-liberal tendencies emanating from the globalisation debate. in this instance, governments are expected to spend less and to allow the private sector to lead in public and private investments. thus, governments should spend money in areas of human development such as education and public health. as mulaudzi (2009: 50) puts it, regional states especially in the sadc region, should make effort to create alliances and to pool resources with neighbours in order to effectively respond to the challenges posed by globalisation, putting the state at the centre of the regional integration agenda. the closure of hyundai and volvo plants in botswana, owing to pressure from south africa, illustrates this point. according to sirkeci (2009: 9), another pull factor for transnational conflict is gender security. gender inequalities and traditional gender roles as well as unwanted female children are areas with potential for conflict. another related area is the homosexuality and attitudes towards it in some countries of origin (for example, uganda) and asylum seeking gays escaping from places such as ethiopia and war-torn somalia. sirkeci (2009: 9) also notes the influence of environmental disasters as a source of conflict in managing transnational movements. people can be displaced in their original countries of birth, while some cross borders because they “can no longer gain a secure livelihood” in their homeland due to environmental problems. this may further cause conflict between communities and individuals over scarce resources such as water. governments of countries affected by environmental problems must then work together to deal with potential environmental threats. a good example in southern africa was the signing of the great limpopo transfrontier park agreement between heads of state of mozambique, south africa and zimbabwe on 9 december 2002 (rodgers, 2009: 1). this initiative was also aimed at curbing animal poaching. in addition to poaching, the park authorities also had to deal with mozambicans who were constantly crossing through the park. according to rodgers (2009: 402), mozambicans regularly travelled from their rural villages to the industrial centres of south africa in search of work from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. this practice continued into the twentieth century and was gradually institutionalised and controlled. in the decades before the 1980s, illegal migrants crossing the park proved to be of some value to the kruger national park (knp) section of the new park. faced with a high demand for cheap labour to build infrastructure of the park, the warden, in his capacity as justice of the hanyane 54 peace, sentenced trespassers (or “deurlopers” in the afrikaans nomenclature of the knp) who were arrested for two weeks of forced labour. interestingly, once they had served their sentence, prisoners were permitted by knp officials to proceed into south africa and continue their search for work (carruthers, 1995: 95). the establishment of the park was also aimed at achieving an ambitious goal of establishing one of the biggest conservation parks in the world, as attested in the park`s eventual expansion from 35 000 km2 to 100 000 km2, mostly into southern mozambique. south africa`s knp and mozambique`s limpopo national park (lnp) were the focus of integration. in august 2006 the giriyondo border post was established and put into operation between south africa and mozambique. later, the lobito and maputo development corridors were established (mulaudzi, 2009: 49). the then president of south africa, thabo mbeki, described the park as the “beginning of a new era when we will bring down the colonial fences which divided our nations”. coincidentally on his 85th birthday, nelson mandela gave his unequivocal support to the transfrontier initiative by saying: “i know of no political movement, no philosophy, no ideology, which does not agree with the peace parks concept, as we see it come into fruition today.” push factors in promoting transnationalism factors such as lack of job opportunities, socioeconomic deprivation and wage differentials, protests against environmental degradation, and workplace closures can be conceptualised as sources of conflict, albeit non-violent one (munck, 2010: 209; sirkeci, 2009:10). similarly, dual labour markets and ethnic discrimination in destination countries would also reflect a conflict between immigration labourers and natives. as munck (2010: 209-214) argues, the demise of neo-liberalism and the resurgence of marxist thinking in managing labour on a global scale led to the resuscitation of the polanyi problematic. the role of the state, organised labour, social capital and the economy needed to be redefined in the wake of the 2007 global economy meltdown. new policies and thinking on economic affairs became a reality, refuting claims that there was no alternative to globalisation. despite this reality, commodification of labour remained unabated; and, so was the movement of goods and services from one country to the other. unfortunate incidences of xenophobia in south africa as a case, are a reflection of the unintended consequences of transnational migration. other countries in sub-saharan region experience unique conditions that are different from those in south africa. two examples are discussed hereunder. notable case studies of transnationalism in sub-saharan africa sub-saharan african countries such as zimbabwe, zambia, botswana, angola, uganda and tanzania experience transnational migration in ways that reflect realities such as displacement, because of internal strife, poor management of the economy, lack of employment opportunities and investments, inadequate educational opportunities and other associated challenges. according to spaan & van moppes (2006: 3) migration policies of subsaharan african states have gradually evolved from laissez faire to more restrictive policies. these policies are generally based on politico-economic motives and, at times, ethnic and nationalistic considerations. the following table illustrates how few sub-saharan african countries managed transnational migration in the past three decades. transnationalism in public administration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 47-59 55 table 1: management of transnational migration by selected southern african countries country economy/labour policy type kenya labour-importing and labour-exporting. liberal labour. in 2006 kenya`s net migration was estimated at 0 migrants/1 000 population (cia, 2006 estimates). less restrictive absorbing labour migrants mostly from somalia, sudan, ethiopia, uganda and rwanda rwanda less solid extreme liberal characterised by political instability complex. most rwandans were hosted by neighbouring countries such as tanzania during the genocidal incidence in 1994. somalia traditional labour exporting country ad hoc basis or nonexistent. labour-donor country. since 1977 somalia has been plunged into internal strife, chaos, civil war and anarchy. kenya, yemen, uk, ethiopia, djibouti, and lately south africa have benefited from somali labour. south africa highly regulated e.g. aliens control act of 1991 and several bilateral agreements, indigenisation, use of labour brokers. highly regulated benefited from labour-donor countries such as mozambique, zimbabwe and lesotho, mostly in the mining and agricultural sectors source: adapted from spaan & van moppes, 2006. from the preceding analysis, managing migrant transnational movement in the sub-saharan context has been a complex process. the southern african countries have also experienced their share of difficulties in areas of security and governance, and manyange (2014: 84) points to migratory hostilities between tanzania, rwanda and burundi in recent times. such political hostilities and challenges have a negative impact on the region’s public sector human development, the role of government in regulating labour movement, specifically for the public service, promoting formal economic activities and ensuring better livelihoods. this article advances the need to acknowledge the significance, where possible, of labour regulation by legitimate means as critical in managing transnational realities. policy implications of transnationalism in south africa according to spaan & van moppes (2006: 3-4), few sub-saharan african countries implement an explicit and tightly controlled migration policy. in general, it can be said that the policies of sub-saharan states have gradually evolved from laissez-faire to more restrictive policies. evidently, migration policies vary according to country and period, but they are generally based on politico-economic motives and, at times, ethnic and nationalistic considerations. sub-saharan african countries often resorted to more restrictive policies during the 1970s, in the form of stricter boarder patrols, regulation of the internal labour markets through labour inspections and administrative measures such as the use of entry visa and work permits (spaan & van moppes, 2006: 3). south africa has over the past 15 years or so become a sanctuary for refugees from war-torn neighbouring countries like somalia. hanyane 56 the international position of south africa as a regional player of note and its ability to influence political and economic trends in the global community cannot be ignored. from a local perspective, south africa needed to establish a strong policy regime in dealing with issues relating to transnational migration and labour, for example. brennan (1984: 416) notes, south africa is the only country on the sub-continent where labour migration has been highly regulated for several decades by means of official recruitment schemes. some african countries initially pursued more liberal immigration policies, which were subsequently followed by forced expulsion of migrant labour, resulting from an economic downturn if not for political reasons. to this end, the following policies were established to regulate transnational mobility in south africa (table 2). these policies seek to regulate internal affairs associated with the right to citizenship, regulating matters of immigration and migration of people in and out of the country, refugee services and registration of bona fide citizens. table 2: policies administered by the national department of home affairs legislation focus/objective immigration act, 2002 (act 13 of 2002) empowers the department of home affairs to promote a human rights based culture in both the government and civil society domains in relation to immigration control. immigration amendment act, 2004 (act 19 of 2004) to amend certain sections of the immigration act, 2002 (act 13 of 2002) refugees act, 1998 (act 130 of 1998) regulation of all matters pertaining to the establishment of structures dealing with refugee affairs including application for asylum, rights and obligations of refugees. south african citizenship act, 1995 (act 88 of 1995) deals with all matters about citizenship, naturalisation, citizenship by descent, loss of citizenship, renunciation of citizenship, deprivation of citizenship and other related matters. south african citizenship amendment act, 2004 (act 17 of 2004) repeal section 9 of act 88 (above) and the insertion of section 26b in act 88 of 1995 identification act, 1997 (act 68 of 1997) regulates the establishment and provisions of the population register and related functional portfolios and related functions. furthermore, the act regulates functions such as the assignment of identity documents (including id numbers, handling of applicant`s photos and fingerprints). chapter 2 of the act outlines offences and penalties associated with related functions source: adapted from the department of home affairs, 2007: 1-136. conclusion this article has devoted attention to focus on transnationalism in the context of sub-saharan africa, taking into account developments in the discipline and practice of public administration and management. practical realities in relation to the conceptual framework were emphasised. specific case references to the conceptual argument and practice of transnationalism in sub-saharan africa was also given attention. the kenyan, somalian, rwandan and south african case references were utilised. as a process and conceptual element, transnationalism has over a period of time been associated with transnational labour transnationalism in public administration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 47-59 57 migration in relation to managing goods, work force and human movement between the country of origin and the host. complexities and unforeseen experiences such as xenophobic attacks, human rights violations, labour exploitations, human trafficking and other related sociocultural problems cloud the realisation of the concept and practice of transnationalism. public administration scholars and practitioners cannot afford to ignore the aforementioned realities. concerned with government behavior and process management in policymaking, intergovernment relations and cooperation, cross-border management, processing of asylum applications and process-management of matters relating to citizenship require sensitivity to transnational realities. governments of the sub-saharan countries should take in their strides the objective of establishing a common understanding of practice and management of crossborder transnational labour migration. mechanisms should be put in place in dealing with the aforementioned. in order to achieve success, democratic principles such as labour rights, open and transparent transaction handling between migrant workers and government officials, and institutions of the host countries, remains essential. bilateral agreements on an international country-to-country scale should be encouraged. growing trends such as the demise of the nation-state should not be discouraged since this should be perceived as the natural evolutionary nature of politics and human development. the new world order demands good management of transnational labour migration to 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(ed.), the great transformation: the political and economic origins of our times. boston: beacon press. transnationalism in public administration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 47-59 59 wikipedia, n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/transnationalism [accessed: 19 march 2009]. yawlui, r.m. 2013. the socio-economic impacts of xenophobia in south africa: a case study of the nelson mandela bay metropole. masters dissertation submitted to the department of public administration and management at the nelson mandela metropolitan university, port elizabeth. zondi, s. 2008. xenophobic attacks: towards an understanding of violence against africa immigrants in south africa. africa insight, 38(2): 26-35. abstract introduction literature review methodology study results discussions implications of results for policy and practice study limitations conclusion future research required acknowledgements references about the author(s) robert w.d. zondo faculty of management sciences, durban university of technology, south africa citation zondo, r.w.d., 2018, ‘the appropriateness of the design of experiments to support lean six sigma for variability reduction’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a469. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.469 original research the appropriateness of the design of experiments to support lean six sigma for variability reduction robert w.d. zondo received: 05 sept. 2017; accepted: 12 july 2018; published: 27 sept. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract a design of experiment (doe) is a strategy for planning, conducting, analysing and interpreting the experiment so that valid conclusions can be drawn efficiently and economically. it has the ability to reduce product and process variability. hence, this study examined if doe is an appropriate tool to support lean six sigma in selected automotive component manufacturing companies in south africa. the automotive component manufacturing sector uses various tools aimed at reducing variability. this includes lean six sigma. consequently, companies that participated in the study have (over and above lean six sigma) adopted a doe strategy. thus, the study was designed to establish if doe is an appropriate tool to support lean six sigma. of the 123 participants identified, 107 completed the questionnaires. middle managers of four automotive component manufacturing companies in the ethekwini district municipality participated in the study. the study investigated production and the related experiences of the automotive component manufacturing companies. descriptive and correlation were used to analyse data. results indicated that the appropriateness of doe to support lean six sigma in various business activities (like finance, strategy and product development) has no relation to both product improvements through reformulation during product development and process optimisation using quality control tools. however, study participants provided a number of reasons for implementing doe in the automotive component manufacturers. it is advised that the automotive component manufacturers develop a comprehensive variability reduction policy that aligns doe tools to business performance. introduction the design of experiment (doe) is a powerful technique that studies the effect of several process parameters affecting the response or quality characteristic of a process or product (johnson, hutto, simpson & montgomery 2012). it was developed in the early 1920s by sir r.a. fisher at the rothamsted agricultural field research station in london, uk. his primary goal was to determine the optimum sunshine, water, amount of fertiliser and underlying soil condition needed to produce the best crop. after fisher introduced the technique and demonstrated its use in agricultural experiments, much more research and development of doe in the chemical industry followed (johnson et al. 2012). fisher’s approach to doe was a direct replacement of traditional one-variable-at-a-time (ovat) approach to experimentation. sinha (2011) adds that the ovat approach has limitations regarding experimentation. it lacks reproducibility, the interactions among the process parameters cannot be studied or analysed, there is a risk of arriving at the false optimum conditions for the process and it is not cost-effective but time-consuming in many cases. over the last 15 years, doe has gained increased acceptance in the usa and europe as an important tool for improving process capability, driving down quality costs and improving process yield (steiner, mackay & ramberg 2008). a number of successful applications of doe for improving process performance, product quality and reliability, reducing process variability, improving process capability and developing new products have been reported by many manufacturers over a decade (albin 2001; antony 2001; ellekjaer & bisgaard 1998; green & launsby 1995; sirvanci & durmaz 1993). doe has gained increased attention among many six sigma practitioners as it is the key technique employed in the improvement phase of the six sigma methodology (sinha 2011). johnson et al. (2012) recommend that doe be employed within the optimisation phase of design for six sigma (dfss). however, it must be indicated that doe differs from observational statistical studies in that the factors of interest are controlled by the experimenter, rather than simply observed through the selection of randomised samples (evans & lindsay 2011). it is a technique for developing reliable and robust products or processes in the 21st century (laureani & antony 2012). consequently, this article investigates the appropriateness of doe as a management tool to support lean six sigma in automotive component manufacturing companies of south africa. lean six sigma has over the years played a huge role in the manufacturing industry around the world (aboelmaged 2010). womack, jones and roos (1990) started the lean movement and described toyota’s automotive approaches, which encompasses supplier and new product development issues. they also use the term lean production for the first time. for this article, lean is defined as a philosophy designed to improve competitive advantage of the organisation by placing the customer at the heart of its processes and eliminating all non-value-adding activities. at around the same time, lean was transforming the automotive world, and six sigma was gaining traction in a different market. in 1994 larry bossidy, ceo of allied signal, introduced the same techniques under the term six sigma as a business initiative to ‘produce high-level results, improve work processes, expand all employees’ skills and change the culture’. this was followed by the well-publicised implementation of six sigma at general electric (schroeder, kevin, charles, & adrian 2008). within just a few years, six sigma had become a philosophy for business improvement within the industrial landscape. however, it was not long before the best of lean was combined with the best of six sigma (timans, ahaus, van solingen, kumar & antony 2014). the phrase ‘lean six sigma’ brought together these different approaches under one unifying umbrella of business improvement. on the same note, doe, as introduced in the 1920s, was used as a test or a series of tests that enables the experimenter to compare two or more methods, thus determining better controllable factors that optimise the yield of a process or minimise variability of a response variable (evans & lindsay 2011). it gained increased attention among many six sigma practitioners as a key technique that must be used in the improvement phase of the lean six sigma methodology (sinha 2011). however, johnson et al. (2012) advised that doe must be used during the optimisation phase of lean six sigma. hence, this article investigates the ability of doe as a management tool to support lean six sigma in the automotive component manufacturing companies of south africa. it determines the reasons for management to implement doe. the remaining sections of this article discuss the literature review, research methodology, results, discussion and the implications of results for policy and practice, limitations, as well as the conclusion. literature review this section discusses doe as an approach to reduce variation. it elaborates on the framework of integrating doe within six sigma framework. overview of design of experiments as an approach to reduce variation there are many processes of interest in agriculture, industry and scientific studies for which experimentation is of high value. for these kinds of processes, experimentation is often the only possible way to understand the underlying mechanisms. the statistical techniques for designing and analysing such experiments may be very useful (sinha 2011). this is where doe plays a crucial role. a doe is a test or a series of tests that enables the experimenter to compare two or more methods (evans & lindsay 2011). it determines the better or controllable factors in order to optimise the yield of a process or minimise the variability of a response variable. evans and lindsay (2011) add that doe differs from observational statistical studies in that the factors of interest are controlled by the experimenter, rather than simply observed through the selection of randomised samples. hence, doe is recognised as an approach for improving the quality of the firm’s product and service through variation reduction. it is an important tool available to the design and process engineers. as a result, the methodological tools of doe have high utility in developing a quality product (sinha 2011). a notable development in doe was when sir r.a. fisher, in the 1920s suggested ways to change more than one factor (synonymously, input or controllable variable) simultaneously, in contrast to changing one factor at a time (steiner et al. 2008). the approach of changing one factor at a time may take an unnecessarily large number of experimental trials and may not give clear understanding of the interactions among the factors in the experiment. consequently, doe has gained increased acceptance as an efficient tool for improving process capability and yields (steiner et al. 2008). integration of design of experiments within six sigma framework rapid globalisation of products and markets in the 21st century means that manufacturing competitiveness is increasing in every moment. in the present operational management environment, researchers have shown the importance of integrating a mix of different but overlapping manufacturing practices to achieve manufacturing competitiveness (pullana, bhasib & madhuc 2011). this includes integrating doe within six sigma framework. the lean production has received attention from academia and industry because of the significant achievements of a variety of manufacturing and service organisations within and outside the automobile industry (hines, holweg & rich 2004; holweg 2007). according to shah and ward (2007), the main objective of lean management is to eliminate waste by concurrently reducing or minimising supplier, customer and internal variability. many of the tools (such as the just-in-time, one-piece-flow, 5s and kaizen) of lean were derived to minimise waste in the eyes of the customer. lean thinking recognises that manufacturers can make significant progress by squeezing out the large number of non-value-added activities that are inherent in their processes. thus, the lean six sigma and taguchi methods of doe are based on the premise that waste is undesirable. lean views waste as a by-product of failing to understand what constitutes ‘value’ to the customer (shah & ward 2007). the philosophical elements of doe view waste as a by-product of failing to produce a product (or design a process) that is robust against the variations of the environmental factors. both methods originated in japan, a society that does not tolerate waste (bhasin & burcher 2006; holweg 2007; liker 2004). surprisingly, very few studies look at how the taguchi method of doe could be integrated within a lean manufacturing environment. a small electrical manufacturing company in midwestern, united states, used doe methods to reduce the waiting time and defects in the plasma-cutting machine. the lean six sigma team which solved the problem also used the ‘5 whys’ method to clear one of the major bottlenecks that keep the company away from moving towards the future state (chen, li & shady 2010). one of the leading forging companies in eastern india used taguchi doe methods (i.e. the parameter design) to successfully map in lean environment to minimise forging defects produced because of imperfect operating conditions, which were identified through the present and future states of value stream maps (sahoo, singh, shankar & tiwari). hence, this study investigates if doe has the ability to support lean six sigma in functional business activities (such as finance, strategy, product development, standardisation and customer service) in the automotive component manufacturing companies in south africa. methodology four automotive component manufacturers in the ethekwini district municipality in kwazulu-natal that uses lean six sigma participated in the study. these companies have integrated a doe strategy in their processes. hence, this study investigates, via a survey using a questionnaire, if doe is an appropriate tool to support lean six sigma. it determines the reasons for management to implement doe. the study assesses production and related experiences of the middle managers of the four participating companies. descriptive and correlation analysis were used to analyse data. this section will be discussed under the following headings, namely research design and approach, the target population, sample size, data collection as well as measurement and data analysis. research design and approach this study was quantitative in nature. bryman and bell (2007) explain that the quantitative approach involves the use of statistical procedures to analyse the data collected. consequently, after the measurements of the relevant variables, the scores were transformed using statistical methods. the study was also conclusive in design. conclusive studies are meant to provide information that is useful in reaching decision-making (yin 2008). target population four automotive component manufacturers in the ethekwini district municipality participated in the study. the target population comprised of 123 middle managers. these individuals were operating from either production or administrative sections of the companies. sample size a simple random sampling technique was used to select the participants. a sample size of 107 middle managers participated in the study. this comprised of 79 middle managers from production and 28 from administration. data collection the collection of data was achieved by physically distributing the questionnaires to the human resources department of participating companies. similarly, the completed questionnaires were returned to the researcher via the human resource departments of the four participating companies. one hundred and seven questionnaires were returned, representing 86.9% response rate, considered high compared with the norm for survey responses (baruch & holtom 2008). the main reason for this high response rate was because of the invitation letter sent to the participants and consistently following up the questionnaires through telephone calls. measurement and data analysis in line with research framework, the study measured 15 variables using the questionnaire. it employed a likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). descriptive and correlation analysis were used to test the two objectives. the ability of design of experiments as a management tool that supports lean six sigma in various business activities the following variables measured the appropriateness of doe to support six sigma in various business activities. these include the following: finance: to help realise a lean six sigma’s return on investment (roi). according to the cambridge dictionaries (2011), the roi is the ratio between the net profit and cost on investment resulting from an investment of some resources. a high roi means the investment’s gains compare favourable to its cost. strategy: to help lean six sigma expedite problem-solving. product development: to create confidence when new ideas are required from lean six sigma. standardisation: to help lean six sigma standardise processes. customer service: to help lean six sigma improve quality of products. the reasons for management to implement design of experiments thirteen items are listed in the questionnaire as the reasons for implementing doe. these include to find the effects of variables when conducting a test, to take decisions involving unknowns, to determine the reasons of product rankings (i.e. the best product within product range), to reduce product variation, to assess the significance of the test results, to be convinced that certain product development actions are best, to optimise production costs, to make adjustments in order to improve performance, to solve production related problems when basic disciplines (like lean six sigma) do not offer technical solution, to reduce product development time, to reduce process development time, to improve product reliability and to improve process capacity. the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) version 23.0 was used to analyse data. study results this section used correlation analysis to analyse variables relating to the appropriateness of doe as a management tool to support lean six sigma in various business activities. it also employed the descriptive analysis to determine the reasons why management implement doe. the appropriateness of design of experiments to support lean six sigma in various business activities the pearson’s correlation tests were used to find any significant relationship between study variables, which any two study variables are dependent or independent of each other, and to find the direction and strength of dependency (cooper & emory 1995). correlation can reveal the significance of correlation, if significant, whether it is positive or negative (direction of correlation) as well as the strength of the correlation. the tests for significant relationships between the variables for the appropriateness of doe to support lean six sigma with the product and process performance were done in table 1. the two performance variables include product improvement through reformulation during product development and process optimisation through quality control tools. these two variables were tested with doe expected outcome variables in various business activities. they include the following: table 1: the appropriateness of design of experiments to support lean six sigma and product improvement through reformulation during product development. finance: to help realise a lean six sigma’s roi strategy: to help lean six sigma expedite problem-solving product development: to bring confidence when new ideas are required from lean six sigma standardisation: to help lean six sigma standardise processes customer service: to help lean six sigma improve quality of products. table 1 presents the analysis on the appropriateness of doe to support lean six sigma with product improvement through reformulation during product development and process optimisation using quality control tools. the doe variables in table 1 do not statistically have a significant relationship with product improvement through reformulation during product development and process optimisation using quality control tools (at p > 0.05). these include the expected outcomes for finance (to help realise a lean six sigma’s roi), strategy (to help lean six sigma expedite problem-solving), product development (to bring confidence when new ideas are required from lean six sigma), standardisation (to help lean six sigma standardise processes) and customer service (to help lean six sigma improve quality of products). the reasons for management to implement design of experiments the study has used the descriptive statistics to analyse the reasons for management to implement doe. table 2 presents the reasons for management to implement doe. table 2: reasons for management to implement design of experiments. table 2 provided high percentage response rates from middle managers in the automotive component manufacturing companies on the reasons to implement doe. the highest reasons that range from 80% to 94.45% include to find the effects of variables when conducting a test, to reduce product variation, to assess the significance of the test results, to optimise production costs, to make production adjustments in order to improve performance and to improve process capability. discussions the main objective of the study was to investigate, via a survey using a questionnaire, if doe is an appropriate tool to support lean six sigma. it assesses the reasons for management to implement doe. the results indicate that the appropriateness of doe to support lean six sigma in various business activities has no relation to both product improvements through reformulation during product development and process optimisation using quality control tools. these include finance (to help realise a lean six sigma’s roi), strategy (to help lean six sigma expedite problem-solving), product development (to bring confidence when new ideas are required from lean six sigma), standardisation (to help lean six sigma standardise processes) and customer service (to help lean six sigma improve quality of products). steiner et al. (2008) indicate that six sigma is valuable for many types of industrial problems and is appropriate for integration with other process improvement methodologies. however, the six sigma tools are neither novel nor necessarily the best. on the contrary, the study established a number of reasons for implementing doe in the automotive component manufacturing companies. key factors include doe as a management tool that helps to find the effects of variables when conducting a test, reduces product variation, assesses the significance of test results, optimises production costs, makes adjustments in order to improve performance and improves process capability. the highest percentage response rate ranges from 80% to 94.45%. this indicates that middle managers in the automotive component manufacturers were optimistic about the benefits from doe. this has been confirmed by steiner et al. (2008). they indicated that, over the years, doe has gained increased acceptance in the usa and europe as an important ingredient for improving process capabilities, driving down quality costs and improving process yield. implications of results for policy and practice doe methods have achieved considerable success in many industries (evans & lindsay 2011). however, this research produced mixed results. doe’s ability to support lean six sigma has no relations to both product improvements through reformulation and process optimisation using quality control tools. the automotive component manufacturing companies must develop a comprehensive variability reduction policy that aligns doe tools to business performance. during the course of the study, management provided a number of reasons why they have implemented doe. these include (among others) the following: to reduce product variation to optimise production costs to make production adjustments in order to improve performance. study limitations the study was limited to the automotive component manufacturing industry within the ethekwini district municipality. the investigation was conducted in four companies that have adopted doe. hence, the result cannot be generalised to companies operating in other industrial sectors. conclusion in order to maximise performance, a comprehensive variability reduction policy must be developed, which aligns doe tools to business performance. although the study indicated that the doe variables for finance, strategy, product development, standardisation and customer service lack appropriateness to support lean six sigma in the automotive component manufacturing companies of south africa, management listed various benefits they get by implementing doe tools. these include doe as a management tool that helps to find the effects of variables when conducting a test, reduces product variation, assesses the significance of test results, optimises production costs, makes adjustments in 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ghebretekekle david gibson claudia gouws ina gouws patricia-ann harpur karen horn simon howell mark k. ingle hans w. ittmann brian jarvis joseph s. kau franklin lewis mariette liefferink eric louw usapfa luvhengo savathrie maistry suriamurthee maistry kealeboga j. maphunye marshall t. maposa athabile masola za-mulamba p. mbecke tracey j.m. mckay sanlie middelberg samukelisiwe mngomezulu sipho k. mokoena paseka mosia kholofelo a. mothibi nhlanhla mpofu oliver mtapuri betty c. mubangizi eliasu mumuni victor munnik maxwell c.c. musingafi rennie naidoo emeka a. ndaguba eric j. nealer jabulisile c. ngwenya sithabile ntombela mark nyandoro anyamba nyembezi ogo nzewi marie m. oelofse veruschka pelser-carstens rakgadi phatlane ansurie pillay kishore raga mogobe ramose mohaeka raselimo ephrem h. redda purshottama s. reddy isabella rega cornelis j. roelofse shaun ruggunan martin rupyia luke a. sandham sonja schoeman dale t. snauwaert bronwyn l. strydom thys swanepoel johann tempelhoff ruth terblanche happy m. tirivangasi shirambere p. tunamsifu gerrit van der waldt saloshna vandeyar johan wassermann yolandi woest anna xoyane acknowledgement to reviewers http://www.td-sa.net https://td-sa.net https://td-sa.net https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/user https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/user mailto:publishing@aosis.co.za abstract introduction literature review research design and methodology key findings limitations conclusion implications for policy and future research acknowledgements references about the author(s) robert daugherty department of business management, faculty of advanced management studies, forbes school of business and technology, ashford university, san diego, ca, the united states of america maja zelihic department of business management, faculty of advanced management studies, forbes school of business and technology, ashford university, san diego, ca, the united states of america chera deresa department of business management, school of business studies, mulungushi university, kabwe, zambia hellicy c. nga’mbi department of business management, school of business studies, mulungushi university, kabwe, zambiadepartment of business management, college of economics and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa david ssekamatte department of business management, school of business and management, uganda management institute, kampala, uganda department of management, faculty of education and social sciences, carl von ossietzky university of oldenburg, oldenburg, germany citation daugherty r, zelihic m, deresa c, nga’mbi hc, ssekamatte d. empowering global leaders through workplace sustainability: a case of zambian leaders. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a897. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.897 original research empowering global leaders through workplace sustainability: a case of zambian leaders robert daugherty, maja zelihic, chera deresa, hellicy c. nga’mbi, david ssekamatte received: 12 june 2020; accepted: 05 nov. 2020; published: 22 jan. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the african continent is experiencing a significant economic development characterised by many challenges as its emerging 21st-century leadership is finding its own path. forceful and often uneven integration into the global economic system causes many of the issues that many african nations face. the leadership gaps, gender inequality, bias and multigenerational workforce coupled with inherent lack of strong institutions capable of driving the development agenda in the continent remain an impediment to a full realisation of responsible, accountable, relevant and ethical (rare) leadership. this article presented two fulbright quantitative descriptive research projects, which were presented at mulungushi university in kabwe, zambia. the first fulbright project aimed at educating zambian faculty and students on how to develop leadership skills appropriate for the 21st-century workplace. the second one aimed at conducting a comprehensive assessment of the current zambian leadership across 18 different industries. a mixed-methods approach was adopted for this study with a convergent parallel mixed-methods design. data were collected using a survey questionnaire triangulated with focus group data from 246 zambian leaders across 18 different industries. quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics with the statistical package for social sciences (spss) software, whilst qualitative data were analysed by thematic analysis. the results revealed that zambian leaders face challenges of lack of proper talent management and poor infrastructure, effective mentoring and human resource gaps. the findings also indicated that offsetting leadership gaps will require a focus on education, talent management, empowerment of women leaders and finding a unique african path of leadership. the findings of this study pointed to the need for zambian industries to deal with leadership deficits so as to enhance workplace sustainability. keywords: rare; empowering global leaders; workplace sustainability; the 21st century leadership skills; african leaders; bias. introduction two fulbright projects were carried out in zambia from june 2018 to april 2019. the purposes of the projects were twofold. the first fulbright project aimed to educate zambian faculty and students on how to develop the leadership skills the 21st-century workplace demands, with an understanding of the complexities, challenges and opportunities unique to the southern african region. fulbright specialists did not set out to share western best practices with the audience. instead, through sharing survey findings, they attempted to identify an effective path for leaders within zambian societal and cultural frameworks, whilst reflecting on some comparable western leadership experiences. the aim of the second fulbright project was to conduct a comprehensive assessment of current zambian leadership, with its full range of challenges and opportunities through research data gathered from the leaders of zambia across 18 different industries. the two fulbright projects were completed at the mulungushi university in kabwe, zambia. the first project took place in december 2018 and the second one was completed in april 2019. mulungushi university is one of the three zambian public universities established in 2008 and has six schools (faculties), which offer degrees, diplomas and certificates. considering mulungushi university’s history of partnership with the konkola copper mines and its excellent cooperation with zambian businesses in both curriculum development and postgraduate career prospects for its students, it is imperative for this university to provide students and faculty with superb expertise in leadership studies. the first project consisted of researchers gathering data on comprehensive leadership survey findings from 246 participants, middleand high-level zambian leaders across different industries: business, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, education, government, retail and several other sectors. in december, fulbright researchers gathered data, conducted analysis and made presentations at an executive leadership seminar with the theme empowering global leaders in the 21st century. the second fulbright project, zambian path to workplace sustainability through efficient leadership, consisted of a series of lectures with zambian students and a 2-day seminar with zambian leaders, including two esteemed key speakers, dr ronald msiska, secretary to the cabinet of the president of zambia and mr chance kabaghe, chief executive officer (ceo) of indaba agricultural policy research institute (iapri). the fulbright seminar exposed students, faculty and staff to the most current concepts within the field of global leadership, whilst focusing on some relevant topics impacting african business markets, particularly the southern african region. the leadership expertise provided by the fulbright specialist facilitated the exchange of ideas, the incorporation of suggestions from other experts in the field, and the introduction of some of those concepts into mulungushi university’s future curriculum, which will enhance the responsible, accountable, relevant and ethical (rare) value system embedded in its strategic plan. the first fulbright project involved the following: sharing of data gathered through a survey completed by zambian leaders; analysis of emerging leadership theories within a framework of rapidly developing african economies, focusing on variables of change adaptability, implementation and complacency avoidance; and discussion on empowering female leaders whilst focusing on innovative approaches as participants addressed specific obstacles that women leaders encounter in the developing world. this segment highlighted the significant role of men in enhancing women’s progress in all avenues of life, education arena and workplace in particular. furthermore, the researchers and audience members analysed multigenerational workforce challenges, with a focus on unconscious bias at a 21st-century zambian workplace. the participants agreed that as digital natives collide with digital immigrants at any workplace, it becomes imperative for business leaders to maintain the delicate balance of talent and technology capitalisation whilst ensuring the ideals of a harmonious relationship between employees. the project also included aspects of offsetting the leadership gap in the developing world through education, talent management, emerging technology utilisation (cloud-based technology) and adaptability to rapid change environment, and analysis of a unique african path to global leadership with a focus on its rich pre-colonial tradition. the audience agreed that african leaders should not mimic their western counterparts but instead develop their unique styles properly positioned within their respective societies. the second fulbright project analysed the role the zambian government should play in regulating some of the foreign companies entering the domestic market. the consensus was reached that locals standing to gain from market globalisation through stipulating multinational companies should hire a certain segment of the local force, regulating excessive land ownership by the foreign corporations, and training and hiring local managers. the project also explored ways to ensure female empowerment in all ranks of leadership, including but not limited to affirmative action methods, such as gender quotas, in cases of equal qualification and competence of two candidates of opposite gender. the participants identified the fields where women are under-represented, brainstorming ways to address this gap, whilst identifying roles the community should play in women’s empowerment. it also involved discussions of ‘triple threat capability leadership’ as advocated by bill boulding, dean of duke university: raw intelligence (iq), emotional intelligence (eq), ‘decency quotient’ (dq) and cultural intelligence (cq) in reference to its impact on the zambian workplace and the unconscious bias in the workplace, which impacts all layers of zambian business.1 the question was raised whether differences in age, gender and tribal affiliation are over-emphasised and whether those issues are obstacles to perceived workplace. there was also a discussion on the need to avoid a ‘copy/paste’ leadership approach under the assumption that african leaders should not pursue western-style leadership. zambian leaders need to create their unique leadership path fitting their culture, tradition, diversity and national pride. the key research questions were as follows: which set of variables can offset the leadership gap in africa, and zambia in particular? what particular resources do african leaders lack in order to offset the leadership gap? what are some specific challenges unique for african leaders, not shared by their global counterparts? how much of a challenge does a multigenerational workforce present to zambian leadership? what are some of the challenges female zambian leaders experience? what is the unique path zambian leaders ought to take to be compatible with their global counterparts? this article begins with the conceptual and theoretical framework adopted for the study and then presents the literature review on leadership in the african context, highlighting the key debates and issues that other researchers have raised regarding the nature of leadership styles and challenges of leadership on the continent. it explains the methodology followed and presents the key findings from the study, as well as the conclusion. literature review conceptual framework and theoretical framework for the purpose of this article, the researchers explored, amongst others, the concept of workplace sustainability. this concept refers to the balancing act of ensuring resources, human element and tools within the organisation are aligned to produce success and viability in the long term. the study was informed by the theoretical framework on transformative leadership. in his seminal work leadership 1978, james macgregor burns introduced the theory of transformational leadership (see figure 1).2 figure 1: transformational leadership. abazeed3 argued that transformation leadership is a type of leadership that enhances ‘the level of achievement and self-development’ amongst groups of individuals and entities (p. 119). transformational leaders are characterised by their ability to pursue the interest of their groups or entities over their own interest and can ably rally subordinates towards achievement of the entity objectives. as illustrated in figure 1, there are four key dimensions of transformation leadership: the first one is the idealised influence, which relates to the behaviour of the leader and how it inspires the subordinates to work towards achievement of the vision and mission of the entity. the behaviour of a transformative leader will enable him or her to get trust and respect from those below him or her, and therefore the ability to influence others towards achieving organisational goals. the second dimension is the inspirational motivation of the leader to rally others behind the vision, mission and objectives of the organisation. the transformative leader inspires others and shows enthusiasm to work towards achieving the objectives of the organisation. the third dimension is the intellectual stimulation of the transformative leader, which involves the ability of the leader to think and act rationally and intelligently when leading others. a transformational leader will mobilise new ideas and inspire others to try them out. the fourth dimension is the individualised consideration, which relates to the ability of the leader to assess the needs of the individuals working under him or her and linking their priorities to the development of the organisation. this theoretical framework was adopted to support the analysis of leadership gaps, the available resources to leaders and the challenges they face towards achieving transformative leadership and sustainability in zambia. the dimensions of transformation leadership were used as indicators to measure variables that offset leadership gaps in the selected sectors in zambia. empirical perspectives on the leadership in the african context research ventures have shown that transformational and adaptive styles of leadership are best equipped to handle the ever-changing business landscape in the southern african region. ngambi4 stated that ‘the african continent has a paradox of being one of the richest in natural resources and its diversity but one of the poorest in basically all aspects’ (p. 70). managing these vast national resources to foster economic growth and development, thereby alleviating poverty, is a crucial skill for africa to master.5 foreign direct investment increased for africa from $30.5 billion to $42.7bn.5 considering the rapid growth of businesses and globalisation of the entire african continent, encouraging the production, dissemination and practice of management and leadership knowledge applicable to africa cannot be overemphasised when it comes to the growth and development of its organisations and economies. globalisation in africa brings employment opportunities, higher living standards, foreign trade and more choices in both products and services to customers. whilst africa is developing rapidly, the leadership gap needs to be addressed in order to create empowered leaders who can address the challenges globalisation brings to a developing world. business leadership and management are the critical determinants of any undertaking and, subsequently, the entire economy. donkor et al.6 argued that ‘the success of any business depends on how effective its leaders are’ (p. 6). the effectiveness of the leaders will determine how inspired and motivated the employees of the firm will be and, therefore, how productive they will be. today, business leaders must adopt sustainable leadership approaches if they are to lead and manage businesses in the 21st century in an effective manner. the authors argued that global business leaders should be able to take into consideration the complex and ever-changing global systems and how these relate to human values in undertaking their operations. global-oriented leaders require a high level of flexibility in their leadership and management styles in addition to highly competitive skills required for global markets. therefore, leaders need to be empowered to meet the required standards through both skills and resources. business leaders should be able to deal with the key challenges to businesses. in africa, for example, george et al.7 reported that: the greatest challenge to business stems from the persistence of institutional voids, understood as the absence of market supporting institutions, specialized intermediaries, contract-enforcing mechanisms, and efficient transportation and communication networks. (p. 377) these challenges require business leaders to ensure sustainable business performance and to tap into existing opportunities. empowering global leaders will entail skilling them to be strategic thinkers, entrepreneurs and innovators, who are rare8 and responsive managers, as well as to be effective knowledge managers in their firms and businesses. olalere9 called for the adoption of a complexity leadership approach in africa in order to deal with the leadership crisis. the author argued that ‘complexity leadership is ideal for african nations because it can identify the various tensions inherent in the systems, the interactions, networks, pressures and conflicts’ (p. 182). this kind of leadership promotes adaptability and flexibility amongst the leaders and managers of businesses to ‘generate emergence and change’ in business entities and, therefore, catalyse new and creative ideas. the leader, in this case, becomes a catalyst for learning and new ideas as well as creativity, which leads to sustainable business ventures. according to the author, the biggest challenge for the business leaders in africa is the size of the complexity. in africa, there are huge complex issues but a limited number of business leaders who are ready to handle the complex business environment on the continent. nkomo10 argued that management knowledge is vital to the development and transformation process in africa. business firms in africa are yet to explore their capabilities through management knowledge, ensuring that their institutions are able to create, share, use and manage institutional knowledge in their operations. firms in africa could enhance their abilities to expand and boost their productivity if they deliberately adopted a systematic approach to developing a knowledge base in their organisations. ultimately, knowledge promotes innovation in business firms, which subsequently stimulates growth. acquaah et al.5 decry the limited scientific literature on knowledge about management in africa, especially by african authors. this gap in knowledge management on the continent illustrates a deficiency in the development of management capacity on the continent. the continent needs contextualised research and scholarship that will adequately support developing sustainable solutions to local issues. sustainability of businesses in any economy requires a high level of entrepreneurship and innovation by business leaders and managers. donaldson et al.11 contends that ‘entrepreneurship and innovation form the cornerstone of economic development in many developing countries’ (p. 19). the authors explain that the role of entrepreneurs in any economy cannot be overemphasised, as entrepreneurs stimulate production, create jobs and supply consumption products and services that enhance the welfare of society. in many african countries, the level of entrepreneurship is still low, limiting the growth of businesses and, therefore, stunting the private sector. it is notable in the literature that many of the small and medium enterprises on the continent never celebrate their first birthday.12 business leaders need entrepreneurial skills and a supportive environment to create and manage sustainable business ventures, especially in developing economies.13 the continent lacks gender diversity in business leadership and management, as well as in the workforce, which significantly affects economic performance and sustainability. in their study, augustine et al.14 examined the relationship between gender diversity within the workforce and the sustainability of economic performance in the microfinance industry in africa. they reported that ‘gender inequality in africa’s labour market overwhelmingly confines women to low-paid, insecure jobs and limited career paths’ (p. 228). this illustrates another serious gap in the management of businesses on the continent, limiting productivity and inhibiting the private sector. gender inequality in african business could be attributed to a dominant and slowly changing patriarchal culture on the continent. the authors argue that managers of the 21st century need to be empowered in order to ensure female participation in the workforce, as well as in leadership and management of businesses, as gender diversity promotes sustainable business ventures and firm performance. this assertion is supported by tom peters15 who indicated, based on his studies, that women have the skills and competencies that the organisations of the 21st century need to succeed. empowering global leaders is not complete without information and communications technology (ict), especially in developing countries. african economies, coupled with infrastructural limitations, can ably make use of ict not only to communicate and access information but also to develop and expand their production by introducing new products and services. ponelis et al.16 indicated that adoption of ict offers an array of opportunities and delivery systems that can increase the size, quality and variety of output for customers. this implies that african business leaders need to be empowered in the use of ict to support their businesses and expand their operations, given the limited infrastructure and the absence of institutions that support efficient marketing of products and services. this will significantly lead to sustainable businesses, especially in the global south. research design and methodology design and approach researchers adopted a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative data collection methods to identify the determinants of leadership in africa. this approach was adopted because of the versatility it provides for investigating the research problem from diverse points of view, giving a deeper understanding of leadership deficits. the approach was used based on a recent systematic review calling for increased application of mixed-methods designs in educational leadership and management research in africa.17 in order to ensure a collection of valid, reliable and quantitative data, a cross-sectional survey was used. the survey questionnaire consisted of 12 likert-type questions that probed what the participants perceived as the most important determinants to leadership. before the final distribution, the survey was piloted upon and discussed with a convenience sample of relevant respondents. focus groups were adopted to gain more in-depth insights into possible determinants and to encourage reflections on the experiences of the participants as leaders. the discussion guide for focus groups was piloted and discussed in the research team, and then revised on the basis of the pilot results. the participants in the focus groups were asked to reflect upon and generate statements to the presented questions. sample size and sampling techniques the researchers used the krejcie et al.18 table to determine the sample size. simple random sampling was used to select respondents for the survey, whilst purposive sampling was used to select participants for the focus group discussions (fgds). data analysis survey data were entered into an excel sheet and later transferred to statistical package for the social sciences (spss) software for analysis. the researchers analysed the data using descriptive statistics. qualitative data were analysed by thematic analysis and later triangulated with the findings from the survey data. key findings demographics and characteristics of study participants with respect to gender, 39.34% of participants were women, whilst 60.66% were men (see figure 2). figure 2: gender distribution of study participants. it also revealed that 37.70% were between the ages of 26 and 35 years and 43.03% were between the ages of 36 and 45 years, with a significant small percentage of participants being younger or older than the two mentioned age groups (see figure 3). figure 3: age distribution of study respondents. both the gender and age ratio were in line with zambian leadership demographics. with respect to education level, the large majority of survey participants had at least an undergraduate degree (20.58%), with some having graduate (49.38%) and postgraduate (29.63%) education (see figure 4). figure 4: education level of study participants. the findings indicate that 246 zambian leaders participated in the survey across 18 different industries, including 25.71% from the government, 11.45% from the business sector, 9.39% from the agriculture sector and 4.90% from the mining industry (see figure 5). figure 5: sectors in which participants work. with respect to the experience of respondents in leadership, the clear majority of leaders were relatively new in their roles, with 45.90% of leaders having 1–5 years and 29.10% having 6–10 years of leadership experience (which correlates with the young age of surveyed leaders). about 45.87% of leaders managed fewer than 10 employees. about 42.45% of leaders had some global leadership experience, and 54.69% of participants had no leadership experience, with a small percentage having extensive global leadership experience (see figure 6). figure 6: experience of participants in a leadership position. in summary, on average, the survey participants were younger, highly educated women and men, representing a variety of zambian industry sectors. about 45.68% of participants had 1–5 years of leadership experience, and almost 30% had 6–10 years of leadership experience (see figure 6). cross-tabulation between gender and education variables and gender and experience in leadership position variables is presented in tables 1 and 2. table 1: gender level of education cross-tabulation. table 2: gender experience in a leadership position cross-tabulation. some global experiences were reported by 42.62% of participants, which was cross-tabulated with the overall leadership experience in table 3. table 3: experience in a leadership position global experience cross-tabulation. participants were asked to share their views and perspectives regarding strategies that can be adopted to offset leadership gaps in their sectors and the country at large. the findings revealed that two variables that were deemed as the most important in offsetting leadership gaps were education and talent management at 36.59% and 35.77%, respectively (see figure 7). figure 7: proposed strategies for offsetting leadership gaps. as far as offsetting the leadership gap is concerned, education and talent management were deemed to be the most significant, with each noted by 36% of participants (see figure 8). figure 8: resource gaps for african leaders. the findings also revealed that amongst the resources, african leadership was lacking, technology was a leading variable at 23.97%, followed by educational and financial resources at 17.36% and 16.94%, respectively. lack of natural resources was not deemed to be significant by 55% participants, which is aligned with the consensus of the focus group participants (see figure 8 for findings on resource gaps). in terms of missing resources, human resource management was deemed to be the most significant at 25%, with technological resources following at 23% and financial and educational resources both at 17% (see figure 8). similar findings can be observed when it comes to the lack of talent, with 53% of participants dismissing that as an impactful variable. leaders’ empowerment and finding a unique african path of leadership were deemed to be significant by more than 70% of participants in each category. over 50% of participants defined african leadership in terms of its traditionalist stance. the multigenerational workforce and women’s path to leadership is defined as challenging by almost 50% of participants (see table 4). table 4: likert-scale responses on challenges for african leaders. an overwhelming majority of survey participants agreed that african leaders face a unique set of challenges in comparison with their western counterparts; lack of proper talent management and poor infrastructure were noted as two of the leading variables. similarly, most of the participants felt that african and zambian leaders need to pursue their own unique path of leadership rather than pursuing a ‘copy/paste’ approach of observing some other leadership styles. based on the survey findings and leadership seminar group activities, the findings show that despite the record growth rates, the african region faces a multitude of issues in the areas of infrastructure; resource curse; human resources; and talent management, mentoring and training. survey participants found that the clear majority of resources need to be invested in talent management, education, empowering female leaders and finding a unique african leadership path in order to ensure that zambian leadership is sustainable in the global economy and equipped with skills needed in the 21st century. qualitative findings the fgds were conducted at each seminar, which included 50 (each session) middleto high-ranking zambian leaders who were attendees from 18 different industries. seminar participants completed a group activity, and found the following themes and patterns that zambian leaders need to focus on: integrity of leaders, effective leadership education, proper management of resources, knowledge management specific for the southern african region and proper financial management. others were development of critical thinking, accountability and adaptation skills, newer meaningful technology that enhances business bottom line, and clear vision for both their enterprise and their country. the deficiency in these skills could be the inability to practise and infuse the rare values in the modus operandi of the leaders and managers. during one of the fgds, some of the participants argued: ‘a number of things are lacking; critical thinking is one of the aspects that is lacking. i think most schools (both undergraduate and postgraduate) do not address this aspect fully. another challenge is the lack of objectivity in judgement. this comes as a result of the cultural influence on most zambian leaders. there is a need to separate the individual’s private life from life at work, which most leaders fail to do. this is lacking in most leaders leading to selecting wrong people for certain jobs without a critical review of performance. patronage when appointing people to critical positions or when making critical decisions is affecting leadership negatively.’ (fgd, participant c) ‘what i think is lacking is visionary leaders who are committed to public service and have a discipline to identify and curb corruption at its highest form. then also bridging the leadership gap between the old and young. in terms of solutions, i think we need thought leaders who are visionaries to be put in sensitive offices for they will have the power to set the tone of how we should run as a country.’ (fgd, participant f) ‘our leaders lack discipline with regard to the management of available resources to achieve sustainable development. this is evident in many african countries where corruption is reported on a daily basis. possible solutions to these challenges include: utilize within the means of the country to avoid massive borrowing and empower the younger generation to lead higher offices or start up businesses which the govt can promote.’ (fgd, participant a) one of the participants, however, reported that zambia has many talents to provide good leadership but the system of recruitment and placement in the position of responsibility is not based on merit. one participant had this to say: ‘zambia has enough talent to provide good leadership but unfortunately most leadership positions are not given on merit but instead based on political affiliation. we have people who can contribute to solving most of our problems but such people are not offered these positions because they do not belong to certain political groups and cannot obtain favour. if we could only be more professional in our recruitments and embrace people who have a lot to offer, we would be on our way to attaining this sustainable development.’ (fgd, participant l) the issues of poor working environment and political culture, as well as overstaying in power, were evidently mentioned by some participants in the fgds. one of the participants reported that: ‘the main items lacking in leadership for sustainable development are: (1) many african leaders do not allow a culture where people can operate independently and make decisions; (2) the need to groom successors. most african leaders would like to lead till their death bed without grooming a successor; and (3) the need to adjust and adapt to new ways of doing things in the global village. most leaders prefer to do things generation after generation. they are not open to new ideas provided the traditional ways keep bearing fruits. this has led to serious directional challenges for most organizations.’ (fgd, participant k) focus group participants were asked to share their views and participants regarding what needs to be performed to promote transformative leadership and workplace sustainability. many of them recommended a review of the education system, improvement of communication and working environment, as well as promotion of local solutions and innovation. some of them said: ‘there is a need to ensure that the educational system drives a mindset that seeks to change society rather than conform. the educational system does not encourage a more thinking process but rather a more memorising mindset. therefore, we find less entrepreneur mindset that think outside the box and are not limited by socialisation constraints of being puppets who do not stray or question the status quo. there is more of a selfish drive without consideration of how leadership will impact society as a whole.’ (fgd, participant k) ‘i think leaders need to look for solutions first in their surroundings, be more transparent and communicative with their employees in finding possible solutions, rely on their team, and should does not underestimate them, but improve communication.’ (fgd, participant e) ‘i think we should shift away from a centralised approach to engaging and empowering local systems and leverage financial service innovations.’ (fgd, participant c) from a sustainability lens, some participants called for integration of ecological issues in development and business management. one of the fgd participants stated: ‘what is lacking is the missing link between profit making and conservation of the environment or the ecological and social aspects in the management of the organisations. leaders pay more attention on how to maximize the profit. the possible solution is to orient managers on how to manage their organisations taking into account of the organisations’ impacts or effects on the environment and the social part. to take a holistic approach to minimise damage on any of the three spheres. damage to the environment can be reduced by incorporating or use of technology in the operations of the institution. also on the social aspect to consider the community and employees’ needs instead of concentrating on getting profits.’ (fgd, participant b) some participants called for creation of awareness on sustainable development issues amongst leaders and the need to consider diverse cultural workforce across sectors, as well as on promotion of rare values amongst leaders. one of them suggested: ‘to start with, political, traditional and the corporate world leaders need to understand what sustainable development is (development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of the future generation). secondly, our leaders need to understand the importance of having a diverse cultural workforce and how to use diversity for productivity purpose and not for division. thirdly, zambian leaders need to have the rare (responsible, accountable, relevant, ethical) values. finally, the possible solution to leadership challenges in zambia and in africa at large is accountability, we need a board in zambia and in africa where our political leaders will be accountable to.’ (fgd, participant h) limitations this study is limited to the data pool of zambian leaders. to ensure significant findings in the entire southern african region, similar studies need to be conducted in the neighbouring countries. the clear majority of participants were in middleto high-level leadership positions. leaders in lower ranking leadership positions might have different perspectives. the male and young leaders were over-represented in the data pool, but this reflects the current demographics of zambian leadership. conclusion the landscape of african leadership is changing. african emerging markets, changing demographics, disruptive technology integration and global political environment are shaping a new brand of african leaders. zambian leaders realise that isolating themselves is not a winning strategy in the long run. however, opening to global opportunities does not entail allowing zambia to be taken advantage of, as was the case in the past. the luxury of african leadership is that it does not have to be slowly evolving but can ‘skip some steps’ taking advantage of the lessons learnt in the west. the survey and focus group participants expressed optimism when it comes to zambian leaders being able to pursue their unique path of leadership creating political, economic and social structures, which will take advantage of zambian natural and human resources in order to enhance zambian development and growth. the research community might need to explore the underlying sociocultural factors that affect women leadership on the continent. there is a need to explore initiatives that are effective in dealing with leadership deficits on the continent, as well as opportunities for the business leaders in the global north to effectively work with those of the global south. there is also a need for research into how african indigenous knowledge and value systems, such as rare values, can be exploited to support the development of effective leadership on the continent as pursuit for global opportunities continues. implications for policy and future research the findings of this study shed light on a number of policy issues that may require policy responses. these include the need for a review of the education systems to embed aspects of transformative leadership, especially at the university level; the need to ensure recruitment of business and other leaders is based on merit; and the need to incorporate sustainability issues in the workplace management culture and practices. there are other policy implications at various levels with respect to promotion of gender and women empowerment for transformative leadership across sectors. these findings might be useful for policymakers at national and organisational levels. to ensure relevance and applicability of findings in other southern african regions, researchers suggest similar studies to be conducted in several neighbouring countries: south africa, angola, botswana, lesotho, mozambique, namibia, south africa, swaziland and zimbabwe. the data pool can be expanded to include more women leaders and junior-level leadership to see whether the findings would significantly change. the focus groups can also be conducted in a corporate versus seminar-type setting to avoid the logistical complexity of a fulbright seminar and to gather more samples. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the financial support from the fulbright program. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration the researchers ensured ethical research practice in undertaking the study. participants were given all the information about the study and asked to consent in writing before participating in the study. to ensure confidentiality, the researchers anonymised all participant names and ensured privacy. the study protocols and tools were subjected to ethical review at mulungushi university in zambia. funding information this study received funding from the fulbright program. data availability statement data are available for sharing on request from the authors. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references the dean of duke fuqua looks specifically for candidates with triple threat capabilities that don’t come naturally to everyone [homepage on the internet]. business insider india; 2018 [cited 2020 may 17]. available from: https://www.businessinsider.in riva-mossman s, kampel t, cohen c, verloo h. the senior living lab: an example of nursing leadership. clin 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activities. educational and psychological measurement. 1970;(30):607–610 abstract introduction background information ‘wicked problems’ the taming wicked problems framework discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) christopher j. burman the community engagement unit, rural development and innovation hub, affiliated to the turfloop graduate school of leadership, university of limpopo, south africa citation burman, c.j., 2018, ‘the taming wicked problems framework: a plausible biosocial contribution to ‘ending aids by 2030’’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a401. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.401 original research the taming wicked problems framework: a plausible biosocial contribution to ‘ending aids by 2030’ christopher j. burman received: 12 dec. 2016; accepted: 28 mar. 2018; published: 19 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract in 2014, the joint united nations programme on hiv/aids (unaids) published the gap report, which states that a new biosocial response to the hiv and aids epidemic is required to reinforce the biomedical strategy – vision 90:90:90 – which is designed to end aids by 2030. this article provides a descriptive account of how a community–university partnership developed and piloted an innovative, transdisciplinary approach to hiv and aids management that could represent a nascent biosocial candidate to reinforce the biomedical strategy. the biosocial strategy has been labelled as the taming wicked problems framework that is influenced by ontological perspectives associated with complexity theory. the article focuses on how the taming wicked problems framework was developed by co-opting and repurposing management techniques associated with complexity into an action-oriented hiv and aids combination intervention. three years after the pilot began, the taming wicked problems framework continues to provision the partnership with opportunities to ‘tame’ non-linear, biosocial aspects of the hiv and aids epidemic in rural south africa. however, with the benefit of hindsight, there are some improvements and caveats that are highlighted so that future applications will be more robust. it is suggested that the taming wicked problems framework could represent one localised biosocial response that could contribute to ending aids by 2030. introduction this article provides a descriptive account of how the taming wicked problems framework (henceforth ‘the framework’) was developed. the practical purpose of this article is to provide a holistic statement about the framework, with some reference to the key findings, followed by some critical reflections. the strategic purpose of the article is to open a conversation about developing a biosocial response – which the joint united nations programme on hiv/aids (unaids) has called for – that makes sense to grass-roots communities. the common theme which links the practical and strategic objectives is the development of a mechanism to identify and respond to both linear and non-linear dynamics that influence the hiv and aids biosocial environment. the article is structured as follows: firstly, background information about the pilot is provided; secondly, the meta-theoretical and pragmatic factors that influenced the design are presented; thirdly, the framework is described; fourthly, the discussion section provides extra theoretical layers that have been consolidated during the learning process and, fifthly, a tentative statement is provided about the potential of the framework to contribute to the biosocial response that unaids has called for. the article concludes by suggesting that the framework enables the non-linear complexity that is now associated with hiv and aids to be responded to. it is also suggested that the framework could represent one localised, transdisciplinary biosocial response that can contribute to ending aids by 2030. background information the partnership the partnership that initiated and implemented the pilot is between the university of limpopo’s community engagement unit and the waterberg welfare society (wws 2017). the partnership has been reported on in detail elsewhere and so only a brief overview is provided next (burman & aphane 2016a; 2016b). in the last quarter of 2013, discussions between the community–university partners identified one challenge that appeared to be ‘wicked’. the challenge was the legacy of the abstain, be faithful, condomise campaign (abc) which – despite being phased out by the national department of health (ndoh) – continued to frustrate the work of wws (burman & aphane 2016a). because of the continued frustration that wws was reporting about the influence or influences of the abc-legacy, reducing its impact became the practical focus of the partnership. the partnership agreed that the challenge was a ‘wicked problem’ and should therefore be tackled by attempting to build resilience to the challenge, rather than trying to solve it. vision 90:90:90 vision 90:90:90 means that the global community: aim for 90% of people living with hiv knowing their hiv status, 90% of people who know their status receiving treatment and 90% of people on hiv treatment having a suppressed viral load so their immune system remains strong and they are no longer infectious. (unaids 2014a:10) vision 90:90:90 has been made possible by the unprecedented medical breakthroughs of the previous decade. these breakthroughs transformed hiv from being a life-threatening condition to a chronic disease if people living with hiv strictly adhere to antiretroviral therapy (art) (teeraananchai et al. 2016). however, despite the unique opportunities afforded by the biomedical breakthroughs, unaids argued that (1) ‘it is necessary to invest in communities … [to] ensure that the aids response is people-centred and take it to new levels’ and (2) ‘we have to come up with a biosocial response and not just a medical response to end the aids epidemic’ (unaids 2014b:300, 305). they also argued that the new biosocial response had to be capable of incorporating the ‘complex life challenges’ experienced by many people at risk of hiv and aids (unaids 2014b:118) which required that there should be a focus ‘not just at the national level but also at the local level’ (unaids 2014b:301). ‘wicked problems’ wicked problems are difficult to ‘identify and define’; have ‘no definitive solution that will resolve them’; solutions are ‘not correct or incorrect but rather they range from better to worse’; solutions ‘cannot be tested in the short term and are impossible to determine once and for all’; often attempts to solve a wicked problem ‘changes the problem but does not necessarily alleviate it’; each wicked problem can ‘be explained in numerous ways, and one’s choice of explanation determines the solutions that will be generated’ – and whilst attempts to overcome wicked problems may change the dynamics of the situation, the efforts can sometimes generate unexpected outputs that are ‘potentially harmful’ (adapted from sharts-hopko 2013:104). wicked problems are now associated with intractable challenges situated across multiple disciplines including, inter alia health promotion (signal et al. 2013), hiv and aids (smith et al. 2013) and nursing (hutchinson et al. 2015). the dominant consensus within these perspectives reflects a comment by churchman (1967:b-141) that it is difficult to solve wicked problems using conventional strategies, but it is possible to ‘tame their growl’. because of the consensus that the challenge was ‘wicked’, the university component of the partnership used existing materials to design a prototype intervention. three inter-related factors influenced the design of the prototype that was further influenced by the adoption of vision 90:90:90 in 2014 by the south african ndoh (figure 1). figure 1: factors that influenced the development of the framework. existing hiv and aids literature was used as a starting point, augmented by two meta-theoretical influences: the broader ontology of developmental discourses and complexity theory. previous human immuno virus management strategies in 2010 a supplementary issue of aids care included a summary of four dominant biosocial hiv management strategies (campbell & cornish 2010), as summarised in table 1. table 1: four generations of human immuno virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome management. campbell and cornish (2010:1570) argue that one of the reasons that the ‘first and second-generation’ hiv-related interventions failed to achieve the intended impact is because they were often ‘conceived by external experts’ and imposed on communities in ‘top-down’ ways. as a result, they: fail to resonate with the worldviews and perceived needs and interests of their target groupings, or to take adequate account of the complex social relations into which programs are inserted. (campbell & cornish 2010:1570) this argument is based upon lessons learnt from global experiences and gave rise to the ‘third and fourth-generation’ approaches that were influenced by the argument that ‘community involvement is a vital pre-condition for creating “health-enabling” social environments’ (campbell & cornish 2010:1570). however, a literature review of the impact of community mobilisation in middleand low-income countries on hiv prevention indicated that ‘no significant results were found for reductions of hiv incidence or prevalence’, although there was ‘suggestive evidence for sex worker groups’ (cornish et al. 2014:2128). these findings were mirrored by the south african national hiv prevalence, incidence and behaviour survey, 2012, which presented evidence of the poor track record in relation to hiv incidence rates in south africa during the previous decade (shisana et al. 2014). more recent data also indicate that the biosocial progress towards ending aids are not being achieved quickly enough (mayer, shisana & beyrer 2016) – with the exception being new infections in children because of the gains made in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (unaids 2016b). despite the opportunities that the biomedical innovations are contributing to the ambition of ending aids (vella 2015), unaids continues to emphasise the necessity of reinvigorating biosocial hiv prevention strategies to reinforce the biomedical opportunities (unaids 2016a). this is reinforced by other commentators who argue that the biosocial strategies ‘must be regarded not as complementary, but as integral, to biomedical interventions’ (emphasis added, govender & poku 2016:iv). previous biosocial human immuno virus management strategies from the perspective of the framework design from the pilot perspective, these findings and arguments prompted a question about whether the types of biosocial innovations that could contribute to ending aids should be generated from within the dominant biosocial hiv management paradigm, or whether a disruptive, paradigm shifting innovation was justified. in order to gauge whether, or not, a disruptive innovation was appropriate, a perspective based on broader developmental discourses was developed and applied during the pilot. the ontology of developmental discourses cole (1999:222) argues that ‘what we believe the world to be, ontology, which defines the questions we wish to ask, determines how we study and understand existence, epistemology’ (emphasis in original). for cole, there are three dominant perspectives that influence the ontological, hence epistemological, parameters of developmental enquiry. the three perspectives include ‘independent actors’, whose potentials are biologically endowed; ‘dependent actors’, whose potentials are a product of ‘adaptive socialisation’ and ‘interdependent actors, whose potentials evolve as emergent properties with social experience’ (emphasis added, cole 2003:327–332). these three categories were used as a heuristic to gain insights into the variable perspectives about beliefs in human potentials – and possible biases – within the firstto fourth-generation approaches to hiv management. the heuristic suggests that the firstand second-generation approaches to hiv management are biased towards the independent actor category because they relied on the assumption that people would respond to new knowledge, independent of societal influences. the thirdand fourth-generation approaches to hiv management appeared to be biased towards the dependent actor perspective because social environments were considered to either enable or constrain ‘effective community mobilisation’ (campbell & cornish 2010:1574). the ontology of developmental discourses from the perspective of the framework design this brief summary of the assumed potentials of people in communities to engage with the hiv and aids epidemic generated two areas that required further consideration. firstly, if it had been assumed by the designers of the firstto fourth-generation approaches that the potentials of people living in communities are restricted to either the independent or dependent actor category, was this a discrete bias that was adversely influencing outcomes? secondly, if, as cole suggests, people influence the social environment – and the social environment influences people and their behaviours – how could this abstract, interdependent concept be built on to improve outcomes during the pilot? the possibility of moving beyond the ontological parameters of the ‘first to fourth-generation’ approaches to hiv management (cole’s independent and dependent categories) provided one meta-theoretical focus of enquiry for the pilot to determine if additional impact could be derived from applying the interdependent ontological perspective. the other meta-theoretical query was linked to the association between wicked problems and non-linear complexity, hinted at by strogatz (2003:182) who argued that ‘every major unresolved problem in science – from consciousness to cancer to the collective craziness of the economy, is non-linear’. in the context of hiv and aids, this comment is underscored by brown et al. (2015:1) who argued that if we rely exclusively ‘on the current linear but disconnected approaches to [hiv] intervention research and evidence we will miss the potential to achieve and understand [complex] system-level synergies’. the human immunodeficiency virus and complexity in 2008, the incumbent executive director of unaids argued that ‘hiv prevention must be able to deal with complexity …. [and] tools need to be designed to capture these dynamics’ (piot et al. 2008:853). despite this argument, the literature suggested that there had been very few attempts to address biosocial hiv management using mechanisms associated with complexity theory (for one rare example, see auerbach, parkhurst & caceres 2011). the absence of literature relating to the non-linear complexities that influence biosocial hiv management strategies seemed to be an anomaly in the face of a statement in the gap report that in ‘many instances, marginalised populations face complex life challenges, risks and obstacles on multiple fronts’ (emphasis added, unaids 2014b:118) and committed 12 chapters to explain the complex challenges experienced by those populations (unaids 2014b:119–279). this reinforced the idea that attempting to explore the ‘wicked problem’ identified by the community partner using a complexity perspective had potential merit. complex systems the earliest writing about complexity is generally associated with a short essay authored by warren weaver (1948). in the period imbetween, complexity has developed into a fragmented international field of scholarship. for the sake of brevity, only the aspects of complexity that have influenced the development of the framework are outlined in table 2. table 2: aspects relating to complexity that have influenced the development of the framework. table 2 highlights some of the dominant characteristics of complex systems. one of the most striking characteristics of complex systems is that they do not produce entirely random, nor entirely predictable, outputs or outcomes. this means that whilst it is not possible to produce replicable results that fit the criteria associated with evidence informed best practices, it is possible to manage them (ramalingham 2013; snowden & boone 2007). the other aspects of complex systems that are relevant include (1) complex systems are made up of multiple agents that interact through feedback loops (dunn et al. 2016); (2) agents are understood to mean any entity that influences the system (sturmberg & martin 2009); (3) the outcomes, or outputs, associated with complex systems emerge from the feedback interactions of the agents within the system (shiell, hawe & gold 2008), and (4) the feedback processes that maintain the system are self-regulating (pincus & metten 2010), self-organising (lee 1997) and self-sustaining, or – to use jargon from complexity, autopoietic – (chettiparamb 2007). emergence from a complex system is thus mediated by discrete and indeterminate interactions of the agents within the system which is represented in figure 2 using an iceberg metaphor. figure 2: the discrete interactions that influence emergence from within complex systems. the emergence is a result of the feedback interactions between both the surface descriptor – that is the characteristics of a phenomenon, such as adherence to medication – and the submerged properties that co-constitute the feedback dynamics between the agents within the system that generate and sustain the characteristics of the phenomenon. consequently, management of complex systems requires altering the submerged feedback dynamics between the agents in order to change the properties of the system, which in turn, alters the subsequent emergence (coleman et al. 2007). complexity theory from the perspective of the framework design the application of complexity theory to the pilot enabled the hiv and aids epidemic to be formulated as the consequences (outputs and outcomes) that emerge from the feedback dynamics within, and between the submerged components of the ‘human-virus-environment’ that sustain the hiv and aids system (burman, aphane & delobelle 2015:15). this formulation began a process of considering that one of the likely mediators of the outcomes of the pilot would rely upon initially working with the discrete, submerged, properties of the dynamical system, rather than focusing exclusively on the surface descriptors. to achieve this required insights into how the submerged feedback dynamics influence emergent outputs and outcomes. the dynamical feedback processes within complex systems are influenced by strange attractors (henceforth ‘attractors’), which means that attractors represent one focus of the management strategy (snowden & boone 2007). attractors represent recurring convergences of agents towards multiple equilibria zones within a complex system which influence emergence (pincus & metten 2010; sturmberg & martin 2010). ‘strange attractors are reflected in patterns of behaviour, that is, shapes in space or movements over time, which are never exactly repeated but are always similar to each other’ because they are fractal in structure (stacey 2003:44). consequently, as attractors are discrete forces that mediate self-similar emergence, they represent a loci of change opportunities when managing complex systems – and thus became a strategic analytical focus during the pilot (burman & aphane 2016a). from theory to implementation: managing complexity from the pilot perspective, it was not only necessary to gain insights about how attractors – dominant potential loci of change – influence systems, it was also necessary to identify a mechanism to simultaneously manage both non-linear and linear emergence during the pilot. the primary source that influenced the development of a mechanism to manage emergence was a theoretical article in the harvard business review called a leader’s framework for decision making (snowden & boone 2007). the authors of the article introduced a management heuristic called the cynefin framework that enables leaders to identify both non-linear and linear challenges and provides a management response typology for each category (figure 3). figure 3: the cynefin framework. the two domains on the right-hand side of the cynefin framework – complicated and obvious – represent ordered, predictable, linear decision-making contexts and the two on the left-hand side – complex and chaos – represent unordered, unpredictable, non-linear decision-making domains. the cynefin framework has been applied in multiple contexts (dettmer 2011; elford 2012; sturmberg & martin 2008; van beurden et al. 2013) and the intention was to co-opt it into the hiv challenge that the partnership was focusing on. responding to the different domains required that the partnership understood how to implement each management response typology. the best, good and novel practices within the obvious, complicated and chaos domains were easy to understand. however, the emergent practice in the complex domain required further investigation. snowden and boone (2007:72) argue that in complex scenarios, it is only possible to ‘understand why things happen only in retrospect’. however, they also argue that when attempting to identify opportunities to manage complex situations, it is possible to identify ‘instructive patterns’ if ‘safe to fail’ experiments are undertaken (snowden & boone 2007:72). safe to fail experimentation safe to fail experiments – contra fail–safe strategies – represent low risk, ethically sound experiments of which about 50% are expected to fail, but the learning from the failure can be exploited to improve the more successful experiments (dickens 2012; huertas 2014). when working with complexity, this is a viable strategy for developing future management opportunities because complex systems are robust and have the capacity ‘to reorganise and recover from change and disturbance without changing to other states’ (ahern 2011:341). the notion of a safe to fail management response to complex challenges was therefore integrated into the framework design. the taming wicked problems framework during the pilot, the framework was developed from a combination of concepts into a coherent entity through experiential learning and critical reflection (figure 4). figure 4: the taming wicked problems framework. in the sections below, a brief description and the theoretical foundation of each phase (1–5) is provided. reflections about these different phases – and how some of them can be improved – follow in the discussion. determining if the system is complex and agreeing an end-condition (phase 1) non-linearity – inputs which produce disproportional outputs – is a useful indicator of a complex system. in the case of hiv and aids management, ‘billions of dollars have been poured into hiv and aids interventions’ (campbell & cornish 2010:1570), yet incidence rates in south africa remain stubbornly high (shisana et al. 2014). the disproportionately small impact from the billions of dollars suggests that the hiv and aids epidemic is systemically robust in the face of attempts reduce risk and is an indicator of non-linear complexity. once it has been agreed that the system contains some non-linear complexity it is necessary for the partnership to agree an end-condition. an ‘end-condition is imagined and not a specific end-state’ because complex systems are unpredictable; thus, it is not possible to determine the precise ‘end-state’ – but it is possible to predict the desired parameters of emergence. in this instance, because the 90:90:90 ambition represents reducing the aggregate global viral load to the lowest possible level, it was decided by the partnership that the end-condition for the pilot would be a ‘reduced aggregate community viral load’ (burman & aphane 2016a:95). systemic destabilisation (phase 2) the next phase involves destabilising the environment within which the wicked problem is situated and has been labelled the primary probe (figure 4). it is possible to ethically destabilise the system because complex systems are inherently unstable, yet robust enough to recover, through adaptive processes that may ‘create new order’ (dunn et al. 2016:4). in this instance, the primary probe was an educational package called ‘a-3b-4c-t’ that focused on the human–virus–environment interactions (leadership training resource centre 2014). the a-3b-4c-t educational package was delivered to wws’ leaders to provision them with new perspectives about the hiv and aids epidemic (burman & aphane 2016a). systemic re-organisation (phase 3) if the primary probe has been effective, a period of systemic re-organisation occurs as people affected by the destabilisation begin to make sense of the changes and act on them. this process reflects a series of indeterminate iterations that can be associated at a theoretical level with frame theory (goffman 1974), including ‘unlearning’ existing frames (rogers et al. 2013:4) and reconstructing new frames which are influenced by the primary probe. this process involves sense-making (dervin 1998) and closely resembles theories associated with experiential, adult learning (wals 2007). in this instance, the systemic re-orientation catalysed new attractors which wws began to incorporate into their work. identifying emergent attractors (phase 4) in order to identify the existing and emergent attractors, a qualitative analytical methodology called causal layered analysis – which is designed ‘to deconstruct complex social issues’ (bishop & dzidic 2014:13) – was applied 10 months after the a-3b-4c-t educational package had been delivered. in this instance, six attractors that contributed to the end-condition ambition and three that detracted from it were identified (table 3). table 3: emergent attractors and associated influences on social practices and/or cognitive processes that contributed to the end-condition. table 3 provides an overview of the attractors which were influencing the local hiv and aids environment 10 months after the a-3b-4c-t educational package was delivered. the emergence of new attractors indicated that wws was developing emergent perspectives with regard to the abc-legacy. decision-making: the cynefin framework (between phases 4 and 5) the cynefin framework is a decision-making heuristic that is designed to determine whether or not a challenge is exclusively linear or contains some non-linearity, so that appropriate management decisions can be determined (snowden & boone 2007). in this instance, it was also used as a monitoring and evaluation device which was designed to identify movement within the cynefin framework as an indicator of the utility of the framework at that stage in the pilot (burman & aphane 2016a). the leadership response (phase 5) reinforcement of emergent attractors that contribute to the end-condition influenced by the outputs of the cynefin framework and the resources available to the partnership, it was decided that four of the attractors – labelled as ‘action themes’, figure 4 – would be focused on using safe to fail reinforcement techniques. the four attractors included: reframing of hiv from being a death sentence, to a chronic condition; the viral load; relating the new knowledge to personal experiences and the origins of hiv. the focus was to reinforce the presence of these attractors within the wws hiv and aids environment and simultaneously to develop new tools and techniques in response to the demand that wws had identified. this was achieved by supporting the education and awareness department with resources to integrate the attractors into their working practices with support groups for people living with hiv. dampening undesirable attractors it was decided that despite the significance of the community influences as an attractor that detracted from achieving the end-condition, there was no identifiable mechanism to dampen it. this was influenced by both wws’ experiences – and reinforced by the observation that both the firstto fourth-generation hiv and aids management approaches had produced ‘no significant results’ (cornish et al. 2014:2128). instead of expending resources on attempts to dampen this attractor, the decision was to reinforce the attractors that were believed to offer the most opportunities to contribute to ending aids and to monitor the community influence attractor to see if it altered during the subsequent work. the sections above have described the context of the pilot and an overview of how the framework was conceptualised and implemented. during that period, the university component of the partnership continued to reflect on the process from multiple theoretical perspectives. in the discussion, these reflections are presented prior to considering whether the framework represents a nascent biosocial response that could contribute to ending aids. discussion the discussion is split into two sections. the first is a reflection on the practical aspect of the intervention design and the second relates to the strategic component – unaids’ call for a new biosocial response to reinforce the biomedical opportunities that are believed to be sufficient to end aids by 2030. a practical reflection on the effectiveness of the framework determining if the system is complex and agreeing an end-condition (phase 1) in this instance, the abc-legacy did appear to contain some non-linear complexity and showed similarities with many of the characteristics associated with a wicked problem. however, with retrospect, the early analysis was crude and could be improved by applying the cynefin framework at the beginning of the intervention. the cynefin framework can be used to break down the challenge into its constituent parts and then categorising the parts into the appropriate non-linear and linear domains. if the challenge contains some non-linear components, then this provides a clear indicator that the challenge is complex, which could improve this aspect of the framework. the primary probe and systemic destabilisation (phase 2) in this instance, the a-3b-4c-t educational package was used as the primary probe in order to destabilise the system in order to catalyse downstream systemic re-organisation and the outcome was satisfactory. however, from the framework design perspective, relying on one mechanism to destabilise the system is risky. in future, a safe to fail approach will be applied so that multiple possible destabilisers can be identified. systemic re-organisation (phase 3) from an engaged, action-research perspective there are two practical issues that relate to this phase that are relevant. the first is the importance of ensuring that the re-organisation process reflects the local context and the second is the ambiguity that the expression sense-making represents. the importance of the local context it is important that the systemic re-organisation process reflects the local context so that the emergent attractors make sense in that geographical location. the reason for this is that the local context represents the ‘initial conditions’ which ‘increasingly restrain[s] present and future choices’ (koch et al. 2009:67, also see table 2). this means that the future systemic trajectory is partially constrained, hence neither precisely predictable, nor entirely random. contaminating the intervention with non-local perspectives – such as the university’s perspectives – risks introducing frames that do not make sense in a particular context and could jeopardise the relevance of the subsequent outputs and outcomes (olivier de sardan, diarra & moha 2017). insights into the sense-making process that influences the systemic re-organisation (phase 3) sense-making is an ambiguous concept. in an attempt to better understand the process more clearly, a review of literature influenced by cognitive psychologists was undertaken. the dominant insights include selective attention (drew, vo & wolfe 2013; simons & chabris 1999); culturally specific categorisation patterns (chiu 1972; unsworth 2005) and naturalistic decision-making (klein 2008). this combination represents cognitive filters that influence subsequent emergence as people make sense of the world so that they can act in it. the three cognitive filters suggest that the uptake of information contained in the a-3b-4c-t educational package and the application of that information to real-world challenges by the participants will probably be skewed – or biased – by a series of cognitive filters that reflect localised cultural dispositions. from the perspective of the pilot, this suggests that the way in which the a-3b-4c-t educational package and working realities were synthesised – and subsequently applied – by wws reflect local cultural dispositions, rather than being a uniform, one-size-fits-all response. from the perspective of complexity, this suggests that the cultural disposition of the participants represents a component of the ‘initial conditions’ that constrain the emergence as a system re-organises, see table 2. this suggests that future program designers should expect a variable, yet non-random, application of the new information by people working in the field. allowing for this variability requires expecting that there may be both linear and non-linear cognitive absorption – and subsequent application of knowledge – rather than expecting a uniform, linear knowledge-to-action response and ensuring that both can be incorporated into the phases that follow. systemic re-organisation (phase 3) from a conceptual, ‘academic’ perspective the implication of the above combination of factors that influence the systemic re-organisation phase is that the primary probe will be interpreted and applied in idiosyncratic ways that reflect patterned biases. it also suggests that if the participants are provided with the autonomy to work through the sense-making phase without external interference, the likelihood is that the process is (1) hard wired to reflect the local cultural context, and (2) will generate systemically constrained interpretations about the primary probe (the a-3b-4c-t educational package) – which has the effect of promoting uniquely localised cognitive platforms from which new social practices can emerge. these platforms represent the basis of creative opportunities for future actions that make localised sense in particular social contexts. it also provided an opportunity to reflect on the ontological parameters of developmental discourses that were introduced above. systemic re-organisation and the ontological parameters of broader developmental discourses one theoretical aspect of the pilot was to ask how to better understand the notion put forward by cole (2003:332) that ‘individuals’ potentials evolve as emergent properties with social experience’. this was based on the concern during the design phases that both the independent and dependent actor presumptions about peoples’ potentials highlighted by cole (1999) were unnecessarily restrictive. during the pilot, it became evident that the wws participants were demonstrating creativity as their ‘social experiences’ changed during the re-organisation process (phases 1–4), indicating that they were demonstrating traits that can be associated with cole’s interdependency theorem. in order to conceptualise how this process of interdependency could be integrated into the framework, the concept of exaptation was considered to be a likely candidate (gould & vrba 1982). exaptation exaptation is a concept derived from evolutionary scholarship that explains how traits, or physical characteristics, evolved from earlier characteristics that originally had qualitatively different functions or purposes (thanukos 2009). one example of this is the way in which birds’ ability to fly emerged from the plumage found on some small dinosaurs. the dinosaur plumage was originally used for heat regulation, then co-opted for display purposes and has – more recently, in evolutionary terms – been further co-opted, provisioning birds with the ability to fly (norell & xu 2005). in the context of human beings, this process is often described as the ability of people to innovatively repurpose artefacts for novel applications. repurposing happens when a context alters sufficiently to demand innovations, or when an individual or collective imaginary prompts it. this provisions human beings with the unique ability to creatively devise new artefacts with exceptional speed – compared with the rest of the animal kingdom (mars 2013). examples include the repurposing of condoms to hold football socks up in rural africa (beninger & robson 2014); the use of music in hiv prevention (banda & mambwe 2013) and – most commonly recognised – the repurposing of commercial pharmaceuticals (batman, hampson & hampson 2011). the relevance of both the cognitive filters and repurposing of artefacts during the systemic re-organisation (phase 3) in this instance, wws selected aspects of the a-3b-4c-t educational package that made sense to both themselves and their clients. wws gradually repurposed aspects of this knowledge into artefacts – thereby reinforcing the tools and techniques attractor to promote the agreed end-condition of reducing the aggregate community viral load. recent discussions with wws facilitators indicate that the repurposing is continuing amongst their clients – which is a planned area of future research. for example, it was reported that the reinforcement of the ‘viral load’ attractor with one support group for people living with hiv has prompted a competition between the members about who can maintain the lowest viral load. another example has emerged by reinforcing the origins of hiv attractor. the zoonotic origins of hiv are being used by the same group as a counter argument to local beliefs that hiv is caused by ritual defilement and should be treated through traditional approaches, rather than antiretroviral medications. both of these examples demonstrates how two of the emergent attractors – the viral load and the origins of hiv – continue to be repurposed by wws and their clients. it also suggests that the assumptions made by the proponents of the first to fourth-generation of hiv prevention and management that people in communities are either independent or dependent actors may have been an overly simplistic view of human nature. in this instance, the community partners continue to repurpose some of the attractors through social experience which corresponds with cole’s interdependent actor category. the shift from ‘individuals’ potentials evolv[ing] as emergent properties with social experience’ (cole 2003:332), to exaptation, to the more pragmatic notion of repurposing provided an opportunity for soft indicators of change to be identified and evaluated during the pilot. identifying the emergent attractors (phase 4) identifying the attractors required a straightforward analysis of narrative data using the causal layered analysis technique. the methodology described by bishop and dzidic (2014) was found to be easy to apply and the findings were satisfactory. however, the limitation of this approach is that it is confined to the level of a localised project. a subsequent literature review revealed that there is now propriety pattern detection software called sensemaker® that is capable of analysing hundreds of micro-narratives which have been ‘interpreted by the person who has told a story, therefore removing the need for – and the potential bias of – a third party to interpret the data’ (emphasis in original, undp 2013:10). the software was developed by a company called cognitive edge and their training materials indicate that it is possible to identify attractors using this tool (cognitive edge 2008). further research is required to establish if similar, yet much larger, projects can be attempted using this software. decision-making: the cynefin framework (between phases 4 and 5) the cynefin framework was a functional heuristic and did enable appropriate decision-making categorisation by the partnership leadership as well as an opportunity to use the same findings as a mid-term monitoring and evaluation device. the leadership response (phase 5) while the leadership response was appropriate – given the resources available to the partnership – it could be improved on. the potential impact of future action-oriented interventions of this nature would increase if strategic partners are incorporated from the outset. by identifying and securing partners who have the requisite skills and capacities to respond with real-time efficiency to emergent opportunities would have improved the pilot. a strategic reflection: is the framework a potential biosocial response that can contribute to ending aids? joint united nations programme on hiv/aids unaids do not define what the new biosocial response should look like. however, by extrapolating the concepts that contributed to the development of the framework, the following can be suggested: (1) the introduction of new biomedical opportunities to end aids could be generating destabilisation within the south african hiv and aids environment; (2) the likelihood is that the complex hiv and aids environment is consequently undergoing a period of systemic re-organisation in response to the biomedical opportunities; and (3) the likelihood is that new attractors are emerging at multiple scales. if it was possible to identify and respond to the emergence, then the south african ndoh and partners could respond with increased precision. however, this would require a dual focus on targeting not just people at risk (the surface descriptor), but also the discrete, attractors that mediate – or influence – the patterns of risk (the properties of the complex system). this is explored in more detail below. national destabilisation: the south african human immuno virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome environment the south african hiv and aids environment is undergoing a profound shift – a form of destabilisation at a national scale – which is being enabled by the ndoh’s commitment to vision 90-90-90. this destabilisation is primarily being driven by the increased coverage of biomedical technologies and is likely to produce a broad portfolio of systemic, biosocial ripple effects along the entire treatment and care continuum (whiteside, cohen & strauss 2015). some of these ripple effects will generate desirable emergent outcomes and contribute to achieving unaids’ end-condition of ending aids by 2030. however, there will also, inevitably, be undesirable emergent outcomes that will undermine the ambition. one possible example includes the way in which the biosocial ripple effects associated with pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep) medications could generate dual ripple effects: ‘prep has the capacity simultaneously to increase judgement and stigma about sexual behaviour and to decrease fear and stigma in sexual encounters’ (brown et al. 2015:4). following the logic of the framework – and assuming that there is consensus that the hiv and aids environment contains some non-linear, biosocial complexity – targeting the emergent, systemic re-organisation of the national hiv and aids environment as it responds to the destabilisation that is being generated by biomedical opportunities is a pragmatic management response. this is briefly discussed subsequently. targeting emergence ideologically, unaids – and by default the south african ndoh – takes an evidence informed position that it is necessary to target specific, at risk, populations. there is a pragmatic logic to this approach if the challenge is exclusively linear. however, as the epidemic is now becoming more ‘complex’ and ‘nuanced’ (unaids 2015:178) and the 90:90:90 window of opportunity is closing, there is also a logic to respond to the non-linear factors that influence the south african hiv and aids environment. this would require identifying emergent attractors that affect the trajectory of the epidemic as affected people respond to the ripple effects of the biomedical opportunities. once the attractors that contribute to ending aids have been identified they can be reinforced and the attractors that do not contribute to ending aids can be dampened so that the submerged feedback dynamics – the properties of the system – which influence the global end-condition of ending aids by 2030 are reinforced appropriately. by doing this, it will be possible to consolidate the social practices that contribute towards achieving the 90:90:90 end-condition of ending aids as they are developing – and simultaneously dampen social practices that detract from the 90:90:90 end-condition. this methodological design would be inclusive of both the surface descriptor and the submerged properties of the hiv and aids environment which suggests that the response would be (1) likely to make sense at localised scales; and (2) be sustainable, because the focus of the intervention would be the whole system – rather than just the surface descriptors. the implications of this is that the new biosocial response to the changing hiv and aids environment needs to be responsive to both serendipity and rational opportunities to target both linear and non-linear emergence. by targeting the nuanced, emergent shifts so that they are being continually directed towards achieving the end of aids could represent an innovative biosocial addition to the 90:90:90 armamentarium. expanding the application of the framework – especially if it was augmented by pattern detection software such as sensemaker® – could represent an opportunity to begin this process. from this perspective, the framework does represent a nascent biosocial response that can make localised sense in variable contexts. conclusion the development and application of the taming wicked problems framework has been presented. the framework was designed to counter wicked problems that contain some non-linear complexity. through the experiential learning of the pilot, the framework has been developed into a more coherent entity. at a meta-theoretical level, the design was influenced by (1) going beyond the constraints of the independent and dependent actor categories associated with the firstto fourth-generation approaches to hiv management by opting for the interdependent category; and (2) managing systems that contain some non-linear, biosocial complexity. the framework does enable the constraints associated with the firstto fourth-generation approaches to biosocial hiv management to be reduced. it also provides a mechanism to manage systems that contain both linear and non-linear dynamics. concomitantly, unaids have called for a new biosocial response to the epidemic and – by default, if the case material presented in the gap report is genuinely complex – this requires management strategies that are capable of working with non-linear complexity, rather than ignoring it. the framework is capable of doing this and also enables discrete emergence to be targeted in ways that make sense in localised settings – rather than relying exclusively on targeting phenomena that are directly observable to experts who are unfamiliar with local contexts – to affect change. consequently, it is suggested that this style of management of the hiv and aids environment may represent a nascent biosocial response that can contribute to the ambition of ending aids by 2030. acknowledgements this work is based on research supported by the national research foundation (nrf) and the flemish interuniversity council for university development cooperation (vlir-uos). the work was also made possible because of the cooperation of the waterberg welfare society (wws). the author would like to extend his appreciation to mr marota aphane who assisted with much of the fieldwork and data analysis during his time with the university of limpopo. any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material are that of the author, and the nrf, vlir-uos and wws do not accept any liability in this regard. the original research was supported by the nrf and the flemish interuniversity council for university development 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of hiv medicine 16(1), 355. https://doi.org/10.4102/hivmed.v16i1.355 wws, 2017, waterberg welfare society, viewed 05 november 2016, from http://www.waterbergwelfaresociety.org.za/ microsoft word 02 tsheole & segage.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2014, special ediction, pp. 3046. governance, ‘sovereignty-state-territory triad’, human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa j tsheola1 and m segage2 abstract this article seeks to examine the association of the concept of governance of international relations and, by implication, human population migration, through the rigid practices of “sovereignty-state-territory triad” with the fomentation and exacerbation of societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia in africa, in general, and south africa, in particular. ascriptions of the majority of population migration as “international” affirms the centrality of the operationalisation of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” in understanding the fragmentary constructions of societal attitudes and perceptions of people resident in distinct geopolitical entities ascribed as national territories. state and non-state governance entrapments with this triad perpetuate societal stereotypes that are in concurrence with bordered-territories where populations described as citizens are stimulated to protect endowments and resources of the land against the perceived destruction associated with the conduct of the out-groups. unsurprisingly, the theorisation of human population migration has equally been intricately involved with environmental conservation and securitisation of biodiversity that enables land dispossession of the vulnerable sections of the population through the western economic narratives of “peace parks”. simultaneously in southern africa, the concept of african renaissance, inescapably embedded with “cooperation and conflict” at all scales, has offered a buzzword to be realised through “peace parks” that have evidently failed to deliver reaffirmation of african cultures, continental emancipation and democratisation. the preeminence of societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia and violent abuses of african immigrants in south africa provides vivid illustrations of the inconsistencies and non-linearity of concepts such as african renaissance and “peace parks”. this article asserts that measures for repairing the landscapes of xenophobia among africans, especially in south africa, will remain pipedreams if they are not embedded with adaptive governance designed to undermine the rigidities of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, prevalent in the international relations. keywords: migration, governance, sovereignty, state, territory, african renaissance, xenophobia, africa introduction the character of international relations itself, based on the socio-political boundaries, is responsible for the fragmentary “bordering, ordering and othering” of the world population with attendant disputes, conflicts and nationalistic xenophobia (van houtum & van 1 faculty of management & law, university of limpopo, p.o. box 313, fauna park, 0787, south africa, email: johannes.tsheola@ul.ac.za 2 department of development planning & management, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: martina.segage@ul.ac.za human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa td, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 30-46. 31 naerssen, 2002; paasi, 2005; moilanen & arponen, 2011; dallimer & strange, 2015). the socio-political partitioning of the world has created administrative, ownership and management landscapes with fragmentary governance of habitats and change thereof, inclusive of that for human population and its migratory tendencies (dallimer & strange, 2015; kark et al., 2015). therefore, international socio-political borders influence the management of populations and their migration, which are themselves further subjected to “different governance structures, political priorities, and societal attitudes on either side of the boundary” (dallimer & strange, 2015: 133). these impositions of “lines of separation” are more than just “physical barriers that are demarked by legal, institutional, and social processes”; instead, they define geopolitical entities that “delineate the limits of decisionmaking processes” (dallimer & strange, 2015: 132) with realistic potential to determine human survival, security, insecurity, enjoyment of peace or sufferance of wars. in a similar manner as for all other animals, human population habitat and migration are affected by these socially constructed boundaries and geopolitical entities. for these reasons, “international migration can and should be managed” rather than being halted (balbo & marconi, 2006: 708) along the existing “sovereignty-state-territory” relation (lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). this article argues that the monocentric governance of population habitat and international migration along existing socio-political boundaries is fundamental to understanding the constructions of xenophobic attitudes and perceptions along national divides. whereas it may be easier to unravel the causes of xenophobia associated with the recent and ongoing drift of africans into europe, the locus for the fatal versions experienced in (south) africa is to be located in the hegemonic governance of population habitat and migration landscapes through the rigidities of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, as conceptualised by lunstrum (2013, 2014). to this extent, this article seeks to place into sharp focus the contrasting “dual forces of localisation and transnationalisation” (wittmayer & buscher, 2010: 763) that are precipitated by the ascendency of processes of globalisation. human population migration is a longstanding phenomenon that cannot be halted or reversed, given the intensification of the processes of globalisation; instead, its persistent as well as the attendant challenges entail a corresponding shift from monocentric to adaptive governance. however, transition in governance is itself beset with conceptual, philosophical and ideological complexities (pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; kark et al., 2015; tsheola & nembambula, 2015). given the global reverence for the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, international relations governance continues to be embroiled in intractable contestations (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; kark et al., 2015; tsheola & nembambula, 2015). but governance competency (pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; kark et al., 2015), notwithstanding the potential for reinforcing the geopolitics of “bordering, ordering and othering”, is central to successful management of population migration for stability and peace without undermining territorial integrity and de jure sovereignty of states. furthermore, this article asserts that the practice of the concept of african renaissance, which is assumed to resides on five cornerstones of “regional cooperation”, “emancipation”, “revaluation of african cultures”, “sustainable economic development” and “democratisation”, is intricately embedded with the coexistence of cooperation and conflict (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 11). the ongoing violent abuses against african immigrants in a democratic south africa is a vivid demonstration of the depth of society’s xenophobic attitudes, which are evidently informed by the perceived understanding of the fragmentary governance based on the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). tsheola & segage 32 hence, the popularity of african renaissance notwithstanding, especially as peddled by south africa’s political elite, heightened xenophobic attitudes and violent abuses of african immigrants is perpetrated by socio-economically poor, former victims of the apartheid regime, amidst constitutional multiculturalism, respect for human rights, inclusivity, emancipation and democratisation. this perpetration of violent xenophobic abuses against african immigrants is an ingrained paradox of the african renaissance cornerstones of revaluation of african cultures, emancipation and democratisation. the next section draws from pereira & ruysenaar’s (2012), lunstrum’s (2013, 2014) and kark et al.’s (2015) analyses of the concepts of state sovereignty and territory in order to theorise their manifestations in monocentric governance of geopolitical entities for xenophobic societal attitudes and perceptions, especially in (south) africa. thereafter, the article discusses the embeddedness of african renaissance with contradictions, conflict, cooperation and dilemmas that make for coexistence of the collectivism of pan-africanism “revaluation of african cultures” with the fragmentary modern globalist neoliberalism (van amerom & buscher, 2005; lunstrum, 2013, 2014, devine, 2014, duffy, 2014). subsequently, the fourth section uses governance and securitisation of environmental conservation in “peace parks” to distil the potential for orchestrating societal xenophobic tendencies along nationally-bordered worlds. the conclusion recommends that measures for redress of xenophobic tendencies associated with international migration would remain ineffective if they are not couched with tactics to undermine the rigidities of the “sovereigntystate-territory” relations-based governance of the socio-politically bounded worlds, especially in southern africa. theorisation of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” governance for xenophobia following graham, amos & plumptre (2003: ii), thondhlana, shackleton & blignaut (2015: 122) define governance as “the interactions among structures, processes and traditions that determine how power and responsibilities are exercised, how decisions are taken, and how citizens or other stakeholders have their say”. to this extent, governance “processes and structures” involve institutional mechanisms such as contracts, networks, policies, cultural practices, legislation and rules as well as regulations, agreements, constitutions, values and social practices that structure socio-political interactions, mediate access to and control over natural resources through negotiated permission or prohibition, reflective of vested interests of state and non-state actors (pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; kark, tulloch, gordon, mazor, bunnefeld & levin, 2015; thondhlana et al., 2015). the world is territorially fragmented into socio-political boundaries, epitomising landscapes of ownership, governance and management and, in return, shaping societal attitudes and perceptions of people on either side of the border (lunstrum, 2013; dallimer & strange, 2015). iossifova (2013: 1) and dallimer & strange (2015: 132) concur that “socio-political boundaries pervade many aspects of society at multiple spatial scales from local … to global”. societies have traditionally used social construction of territory into geopolitical entities to delineate governance of ownership and “the limits of decision-making processes” almost always along social, economic, political and/or cultural identities (dallimer & strange, 2015: 132). territorially defined, geopolitical entities “are subject to different governance structures, political priorities, and societal attitudes on either side of the boundary” (dallimer & strange, 2015: 132). the net effect of international geopolitics on societal stereotypes, xenophobic attitudes and perceptions cannot be neutral because socio-political boundaries govern landscape administration, ownership, natural resources access and human population habitation. with such a fragmentation of geopolitical entities for governance of ownership, administration and management of human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa td, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 30-46. 33 resources use and human habitat, the likelihood for tensions and conflict among parties sharing socio-political boundaries is realistic. the present world is governed through an interstate system wherein legality and illegality of control over natural resources is governed through law, rules, norms and conventions that are predicated upon landscapes of multiple sovereignty and fragmentary territorial jurisdictions (mackleworth, holcer & lazar, 2013; milgroom, giller & leeuwis, 2014; kark et al., 2015; massé & lunstrum, 2015). for this reason, “border disputes between neighbouring states are a regular occurrence” with “the potential to undermine relations at national, regional, local and even individual level” (mackleworth et al., 2013: 112). this spatial socialisation is globally prevalent and engraved into the everyday experiences of life through the sociopolitical boundaries, as the primary instruments of its implementation. hence, international relations governance is intricately bound with “debates on national sovereignty” and poverty redress (wolmer, 2003: 261). notwithstanding its prevalence and massive impact on world population and the rest of the biodiversity, the triad of “sovereignty-state-territory” (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015) does not necessarily “build confidence, trust, and friendly relations between parties” on both sides of the socio-political boundaries (vasilijevic & pezold, 2011 cited in barquet, lujala & rød, 2014: 3). the significance of understanding bordered-territories for nation-states in the theorisation of the causes of xenophobia resides in the conceptualisation of borders as more than just physical barriers because they “exist both in space and mind” (chaderopa, 2013: 50). therefore, spatial socialisation is crucial to the construction of “trust, social capital and intercultural awareness” that “encourage crossborder communities to exhibit approach rather than avoidance behavior towards each other” (chaderopa, 2013: 50). in this context, the propensity for immigrants to remain distinctly transnational in identity, culture and language could be escaped, with the result that integration and, perhaps, assimilation presents realistic options that dampen the negative societal xenophobic stereotypes, perceptions and attitudes. however, spatial socialisation is impaired by the hegemonic governance of international migration and access to resources along the globalist modernity of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, which is not amenable to constructions of trust and intercultural awareness. the concept of sovereignty has multiple, inconsistent and heterogenous meanings and practices, including the following four: “the ability of states to control movement across their borders” (interdependence sovereignty); the internal state authority structures and their ability “to effectively regulate behavior” (domestic sovereignty); the “exclusion of external sources of authority” (vattelian or westphalian sovereignty); and, the “international legal sovereignty”, which involves “mutual recognition” (krasner, 2001: 19-21 cited in lunstrum, 2013: 3). in practice, sovereignty comprises of different and inconsistent “powers with different targets, ranging from excluding foreign influence to maintaining internal order” (lunstrum, 2013: 3). for this reason, sovereignty has been overwhelmingly conceived as “territorial and exercised by central state authorities”, prescribing the “sovereignty-state-territory relation” (agnew, 2005 cited in lunstrum, 2013: 3). in practice, though, sovereignty does not operate along territorially tightly-bounded spaces (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015; devine, 2014; duffy, 2014). sovereignty is in reality “an articulation-in-motion” because it is an endlessly incomplete project, contingent upon actors’ interests, sets of laws and discourses, constant negotiations and reconsolidation as well as power inequities (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015; devine, 2014; duffy, 2014). however, the present governance of international relations is predicated upon the hegemonic “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, framed out of a juridical conception which does not account for the reality of “messier and tsheola & segage 34 less containable” state “ability to exercise power”, captured in the notion of “de facto or effective sovereignty” (lunstrum, 2013: 3). as lunstrum (2013: 3) puts it, “mainstream international relations literature” support “a legal concept, or de jure sovereignty” wherein the state enjoys “unlimited and indivisible rule over its territory”. the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” is accepted wisdom in the governance of international relations of the modern, ironically, “borderless” globalist world. it is this governance character of international relations that explains the predominance of fragmentary “bordering, ordering and othering” of the world population and territory. the concept of governance involves institutions, processes, rules and norms that guide the exercise of authority and decision-making by both state and non-state actors (termeer et al., 2010; kok & veldkamp, 2011; pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; thondhlana et al., 2015). literature proposes three broad approaches to governance, viz.: monocentric, multilevel and adaptive. whilst the monocentric approach places the state at the centre of political power and authority for the exercise of control over society, economy and resources, multilevel approach prescribes for dispersion and devolution of authority as a precursor of continuous interactions among state and non-state actors at all levels of the exercise of policy and administration in pursuit of collective goals (termeer et al., 2010; kok & veldkamp, 2011; pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; kark et al., 2015). multilevel governance is thought to be superior to monocentric approaches but virtually impracticable because of the predominance of international relations founded on the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”. on the assumption that the world consists of continuous and unpredictable changes, adaptive governance is portrayed as the ideal approach because of its emphasis on the improvement of policies and practices in the process of learning from ongoing implementation (termeer et al., 2010; kok & veldkamp, 2011; pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; kark et al., 2015). just like multilevel governance, adaptive approach is incompatible with the matrices of the present frameworks of interstate-reliant international relations and the hegemonic “sovereignty-stateterritory triad”. to this extent, monocentric governance has continued to be prevalent and predominant within globalist modernity, enforcing the endurance of transnational identities, cultures, languages, values and such other ethnic features among immigrants groups, distinct from the local societies. human population migration too is subjected to this heavily fragmented landscape of ownership, governance and management. at the beginning of the 21st century, over 175 to 200 million people were reported to be international migrants; and, about 16.3 million thereof occurred in africa (balbo & marconi, 2006; gigaba, 2006; jolly & digiusto, 2014). international human population migration will persist along with consonant political, social, cultural and economic controversies of globalist modernity (balbo & marconi, 2006; de haas, 2006; gigaba, 2006; heilmann, 2006; neumayer, 2006; jolly & digiusto, 2014) wherein “technological, social, demographic and political advances” perpetuate obscene and pervasive inequalities and abuses (moses & letnes, 2004: 1611). there are two competing paradigms that explain the origin and evolution of migration systems: the neo-classical economics and the world-systems perspective (de haas, 2006; heilmann, 2006; jolly & digiusto, 2014). broadly, there is agreement that global restructuring creates and reinforces “patterns of socio-economic polarisation and spatial segregation” associated with large-scale international migration (de haas, 2006; heilmann, 2006; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). evidently, migrants’ motives are dominated by “both income and nonincome factors, including ownership of businesses and houses,” “superior working conditions”, “close relatives overseas” (brown & connell, 2004: 2193) as well as issues of human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa td, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 30-46. 35 security, conflict, cooperation, insecurity and peace (balbo & marconi, 2006; masse & lunstrum, 2015). forced international migration too tends to hide undertones of frustrated development at home and the stark inequities in global distribution of opportunities (balbo & marconi, 2006; jolly & digiusto, 2014), closely linked to the dynamics of the sociopolitical and economic world order geopolitics. to this extent, international migration is embedded with the geopolitics of globalisation, identity and cultural differences that often result in discriminatory reactions, socio-economic exclusions and violent abuses within localities (balbo & marconi, 2006; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). in (southern) africa, attempts were made to ensure that international migration is not met with deleterious consequences within localities through the concepts such as african renaissance and “peace parks”, which have however become buzzwords with multiple and inconsistent meanings and practices (van amerom & buscher, 2005; martin et al., 2011). overwhelmingly, literature on the nexus of international migration and development portrays this relationship “as transnational dynamics that both cement and complicate” global geopolitical relations (wittmayer & buscher, 2010: 763). importantly, the international migration-development dynamics “articulate with, shape and are being shaped by ‘the local’”, with the effect that a variety of “conflictual situations” place the “ethnographic spotlight on the ways in which ‘local people’” deal with the contestations of the “dual forces of localisation and transnationalisation” (wittmayer & buscher, 2010: 763). whereas the imperatives of flexibility are apparent in these scenarios, the universally accepted wisdom and norms invoke pursuit of monocentric governance and rigidities of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”. the latter is reliant on socio-political boundaries, from which it has remained virtually unimaginable how governance of international migration could be extricated. by their nature, socio-political boundaries accentuate territorially defined geopolitical rigidities of identities, cultures, languages and such other ethnic features along which xenophobic stereotypes and tendencies are commonly constructed. indeed, international migration is “inevitable” and “a manifestly” complex dynamic phenomenon with the potential to precipitate conflict and controversies due to the multiple actors and interests at play, inclusive of those of individuals, institutions, legal, illegal, public and private entities. however, the notion that it is a “security issue” and “permanent” has encouraged adoption of “highly restrictive” national laws (balbo & marconi, 2006: 710, 711, 715) as well as characterisations through securitisation of in-groups against immigrant outgroups. as a result, governance of international migration is universally conceived along the rigidities of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, rendering the denial of access to citizenship rights a perfectly acceptable practice (balbo & marconi, 2006; lunstrum, 2013, 2014; mackleworth et al., 2013; massé & lustrum, 2015). thus, governance structures for international migration allow for constructions of xenophobic stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions through parameters and frameworks of the in-groups versus the out-groups (martin et al., 2011; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). according to balbo & marconi (2006: 712), international “migration strengthens non-civic identities and reinforces both a condition and a sense of marginalisation up to the point of exclusion”. through such “non-civic identities”, immigrants too engage in a process of selfexclusion from the local host society, because the converse, which is integration, relies heavily on “command of the local language”, affiliation to values and life styles, “legal status”, participation in civic and political affairs as well as access to socio-political and economic tsheola & segage 36 services (balbo & marconi, 2006: 712). these challenges entail a complex process wherein immigrants become “‘deterritorialised’ groups which owe allegiance to no single space but operate in transnational space with identities of their own” (skeldon, 2001 cited in balbo & marconi, 2006: 712). this character makes possible, sustained constructions of distorted images and stereotypes about the immigrant out-groups, which feeds out of the overarching governance of international relations along the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”. african immigrants in south africa appear to have largely opted for “strengthening their own identity”, which is unique in terms of the transnationality of behavior and cultural practices (balbo & marconi, 2006; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). in this way, culture, language, values and such other ethnic features of immigrant groups remain distinctly different from those of the local society, without necessarily keeping the original form of the homeland country, thereby accentuating cultural diversity that impairs the necessary integration. besides, the notion that international migration is not permanent perpetrate societal perception of plunder of their lands and resources in the context of the hegemonic universal official preoccupation with governance founded on the frameworks of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”. given the absence of “multicultural tradition” and assimilation as well as spatial agglomeration of african immigrants in south africa’s marginalised economic sectors, characterisation as “out-groups” has tended to reproduce anxiety, fear and collective perception of threat among the locals (balbo & marconi, 2006; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014) amidst hyperbolic sentiments of african renaissance and “peace parks”. african renaissance: embeddedness of cooperation with conflict martin et al. (2011) asset that conflict can coexist with cooperation and, sometimes, with worst forms of state and/or non-state violence. post-1990 southern african geopolitics, container-concepts such as african renaissance and “peace parks” presented convenient buzzwords for securitisation narratives to reinforce polarisation, conflict and violent rationales. van amerom & buscher’s (2005) analysis of the concept of african renaissance reveals inherent complexities and inconsistencies that highlight non-neutrality of this container-concept in the constructions of new south africanism’s xenophobic stereotypes against african immigrants. recent conceptions of african renaissance, led by a democratic south africa’s political elite, were “all-embracing”, with its hegemonic globalist interpretation founded on western economic paradigms of “privatisation, free trade, private land ownership and the commercialisation of conservation” (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 10). equally, the “peace parks” rationale has itself insinuated that ideals of african renaissance could be realised through securitisation of conservation that enables capital accumulation (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). that is, “peace parks” enable capital accumulation by securitisation of profitable wildlife conservation, facilitated through the dispossession of the lands of the most vulnerable groups of the population. rather than enforce african renaissance, the establishment of “peace parks” consolidates de jure sovereignty, which promotes socio-political boundary fragmentation and geopolitics. as a “philosophical” and “ideological umbrella”, the concept of african renaissance was vigorously championed and promoted by south africa’s former president mbeki, in order to agitate for “african solutions for african problems” (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 2). however, this concept has been elusive and its pragmatic effect has been mixed and inconsistent, notwithstanding the suggestion that it was inspired by the “vision of panafricanism” and “the dream of a united africa” (landsberg & hlophe, 1999 cited in van human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa td, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 30-46. 37 amerom & buscher, 2005: 3). attempts to realise the african renaissance vision through “peace parks” in southern africa have in practice involved “re-territorialisation of sovereignty” wherein capital accumulation, as originally conceived through western economic philosophy, is contingent upon securitisation of wildlife conservation (devine, 2014; duffy, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). according to maloka (2000 cited in van amerom & buscher, 2005: 4), african renaissance has, in its post-1990s conception, “become a popular buzzword, used opportunistically by many different actors in both public and private realms, especially in south africa”. whereas the hype has now dissipated, african renaissance has virtually become “a container-concept, in which everything fits, effectively losing all meaning”; and, south africa’s lead thereof is tacitly married to the “dominant western narratives such a liberalisation, privatisation and stabilisation”, associated with modernist globalist perspectives (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 5). hence, pursuit of the african renaissance through “peace parks” enables its practice through the ironic western economic narratives of capital accumulation and securitisation of wildlife conservation, which do not reinforce reaffirmation of african cultures, emancipation or nascent democratisation (devine, 2014; duffy, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). vale & maseko (1998 cited in van amerom & buscher, 2005: 5) insisted that, far from the hegemonic globalist perspective, an africanist interpretation of african renaissance is necessary wherein emphasis is placed on “african identity and culture”, with the future of the continent in its own hands, “making use of the wealth of knowledge” possessed by africans rather than reliance on “western notions of progress or civilisation”. conversely, capital accumulation through securitisation of conservation in southern africa has always provoked land dispossession of the most vulnerable sections of the population, thereby reinforcing an antithesis of emancipation and sustainable economic development, two of the cornerstones of african renaissance (devine, 2014; duffy, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). evidently, african renaissance is an inherently politically value-laden concept and practice. as landsberg & hlophe (1999: 1 cited in van amerom & buscher, 2005: 5) posit, a democratic south africa appears to have sought to usurp ownership of a nuance conception of african renaissance as its “foreign policy doctrine” that it would operationalise to serve elitist self-interests “in a set of political, social and economic relations”. van amerom & buscher (2005: 5) argue that south africa had “a greater edge” and “upper hand in operationalising the african renaissance” vision, which has however created pressures for a balancing-act governance because of the discrepancies of interests of the domestic constituencies with those of other parts of africa. hence, framing african renaissance through “peace parks” invoked depoliticisation of land dispossession of the poor people whilst simultaneously enabling capital accumulation by securitisation of wildlife conservation, thereby setting up nuance power relations that re-territorialise sovereignty (devine, 2014; duffy, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). equally, “peace parks” is a deeply geopolitical wildlife conservation narrative and practice. according to van amerom & buscher (2005: 11), african renaissance consists of five cornerstones: “regional cooperation”; “emancipation”; “revaluation of african cultures”; “sustainable economic development”; and, “democratisation”, to which “peace parks” in southern africa are supposed to contribute. to this extent, “peace parks” have been variously “designated as an important vehicle to stimulate an african renaissance” (van amerom & tsheola & segage 38 buscher, 2005: 6). the effect of re-territorialising sovereignty through “peace parks” is to perpetuate the fragmentation of landscapes into geopolitical entities, rather than reinforcing regional cooperation or integration, through land dispossession of the poor in order to enable capital accumulation by securitisation. land dispossession of the poor based on wildlife conservation security logic and enabling of capital accumulation through the usual western economic narratives are a far cry from reaffirmation of african cultures, emancipation, democratisation and/or sustainable economic development for africa. the next section highlights inconsistencies of “peace parks” as well as implications for societal xenophobic stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions, by drawing anecdotal illustrations from the great limpopo transfrontier park. “peace parks”: governance, securitization, environmental conservation and xenophobia according to martin et al. (2011: 624), citing from sine (1997), the “underlying contention is that the instituionalisation of international resource governance cooperation can lead to the establishment or strengthening of international friendship”. increasingly, insight into the relationship of environmental conservation and securitisation narratives suggests that the establishment of “peace parks” to enable capital accumulation provokes land dispossession of the vulnerable sections of the population, creating nuance geopolitical entities that reterritorialise sovereignty in ways that embed cooperation with conflict, inclusive of xenophobic violence (martin et al., 2011; kaszynska, cent, jurczak & szymanska, 2012; massé & lunstrum, 2015). it has also been established that securitisation of environmental conservation to enable capital accumulation can potentially obscure the actual political agendas and ambitions of economic liberalisation and commodification of wildlife that provoke deeper entrenchment of pauperisation of vulnerable sections of the population through land dispossession (wolmer, 2003; van amerom & buscher, 2005; martin et al., 2011; kark et al., 2015). indeed, the politics of “peace parks” in the context of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” and the geopolitical entities, are non-linear, inconsistent and complex as they increase cooperation simultaneously as they exacerbate old conflicts and create new ones, especially among local people on either side of the borderland conservancies (van amerom & buscher, 2005; martin et al., 2011; massé & lunstrum, 2015). this observation is particularly relevant for south africa “where ideologically-laden concepts such as regional integration, democratisation, the african renaissance, and peacebuilding go hand in hand with the establishment of transboundary protected areas” (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 9; martin et al., 2011: 623-624) as well as coexistence of constitutional and human rights culture, respect for multiculturalism and inclusivity with fatalistic xenophobia against african immigrants (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). in essence, “peace parks” have become geopolitical entities for the coexistence of cooperation and conflict, sometimes with violent abuses, notwithstanding the ecological, economic, political and security narratives. the majority of developing countries, especially in southern africa, have experienced political unrest and colonialism which created enduring conflicts in the governance of natural capital (van amerom & buscher, 2005; king, 2009; watts & faasen, 2009; dahlberg, rohde & sandell, 2010; kark et al., 2015; scheba & mustalahti, 2015). current conservation practices in africa have remained inherently colonialised and preservationist, sustaining old human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa td, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 30-46. 39 conflicts and brewing new ones in the governance of natural capital in borderlands (van amerom & buscher, 2005; torri, 2011; kaszynska et al., 2012; kark et al., 2015), thereby frustrating the potential for spatial socialisation of local communities on both sides of the socio-political boundaries. thus, the notion of african renaissance and the revaluation of african cultures has equally been a quest for borderless natural landscapes of biomass, creating bioregions for international security and peace (van amerom & buscher, 2005; pool, 2006; barquet et al., 2014; kark et al., 2015). but acceptance of the notion of internationalisation is itself an admission of the separation imposed by geopolitical boundaries on the landscapes of habitats and migration. barquet et al. (2014) state that the adoption of the phrase “peace parks” in africa provides evidence of the transformation intent expressed in the notion of african renaissance, which is driven through a pan-african vision of reuniting a continent artificially divided by colonial powers. the popularity of the concept of “peace parks” in the mid-1990s and its enforced connection to african renaissance gave a false impression of being african in origin (van amerom & buscher, 2005; muzeza, schuttle & snyman, 2013; kark et al., 2015; sibanda, 2015). as barquet et al., (2014) puts it, “peace parks” are commonly presented as initiatives for resolution of border disputes, alleviation of political tensions and facilitation of cooperation between neighbouring states. whereas southern africa too had jumped onto the bandwagon of “peace parks” (van amerom & buscher, 2005; king, 2009; rusinga & mapira, 2012; barquet et al., 2014; kark et al., 2015), persistence of conflicts and absence of spatial socialisation of parties on both sides of the geopolitical boundaries for peace and security has meant that the african renaissance dream of revaluation of african cultures has remained unattainable. paradoxically, post-apartheid south africa has championed the establishment of “peace parks” in southern africa in the endeavor to improve on relations with neighboring states and in the hope of creating foundations for spatial socialisation of local communities on both sides of the socio-political boundaries (van amerom & buscher, 2005; pool, 2006; rusinga & mapira, 2012; barquet et al., 2014; kark et al., 2015). indeed, the attainment of international cooperation, security and peace became primate for post-apartheid south africa, wherein cross-border interactions would precipitate the idealised “pan-africanism” and the african renaissance vision (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 1). in practice, the interface of african renaissance, through revaluation of african cultures, emancipation, democratisation, socio-economic development and regional cooperation, with peace and security in “peace parks” remains scarcely realistic (van amerom & buscher, 2005; pool, 2006; rusinga & mapira, 2012; schoon, 2013; sibanda, 2015). van amerom & buscher (2005: 1) argue that in reality the establishment of “peace parks” has hardly stimulated regional cooperation and, by implication, african renaissance, because of the continued “domination of national interests” as well as the “sensitive border issues such as the illegal flows of goods and migrants between south africa and neighbouring countries”. rather than bring peace and security, “peace parks” have generally marginalised local institutions and residents, undermining them as loci of decision-making and power whilst simultaneously instigating increased conflicts between local people, authorities and impairing the potential for spatial socialisation of local communities on both sides of the socio-political boundaries (balbo & marconi, 2006; kark et al., 2015; sibanda, 2015). governance of border bioregions through the ecological and biomass logic has failed to deliver security and peace, tsheola & segage 40 because wildlife poaching, involving endangered species such as rhino, has spiraled out of control over the years, inclusive of southern africa. globally, responses to the scourge of poaching have included the establishment of partnerships among the private and public stakeholders wherein areas of biodiversity and biomass, which are almost exclusively along the national borders, presented governance challenges that entailed co-management. governance of “peace parks” is complex (kark et al., 2015) because it involves the exercise of power from the global to local scale in ways that allow for top-down marginalisation of local institutions, “creating imbalances of power that generate conflicts among actors” (sibanda, 2015: 79), inclusive of residents on both sides of the socio-political boundaries. universally, it is hoped that the transfrontier conservation areas (tfcas) would encourage inter-governmental collaboration and co-operation that fosters peace and security by, among other things, ameliorating political and cultural tensions associated with disputed borderlands where there may be competition for shared resources (foggin, 2012; rusinga & mapira, 2012; kothari, camill & brown, 2013; kark et al., 2015; sibanda, 2015). in theory, governance of “peace parks” involves decentralisation of power that would allow for democratic and equitable administration, management and regulation of borderlands by stakeholders on both sides of the socio-political boundary (kothari et al., 2013). such governance is expected to precipitate greater exchanges between stakeholders on both sides of the boundary, creating multiple learning interactions (kothari et al., 2013; sibanda, 2015), in the process of which hostilities, animosities and antagonisms would be repaired through conflict resolution mechanisms, protection of human and civil rights, increased trust as well as shared decision-making processes (de koning 2010; zhou, wang, lassoie, wang & sun, 2014; kark et al., 2015). in practice, though, it has been difficult for states to ignore the hegemonic international relations that are governed through the fragmentary socio-political “bordering, ordering and othering” and the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” of bounded-spaces and populations (paasi, 2005; van amerom & buscher, 2005; lunstrum, 2013, 2014; rusinga & mapira, 2012; dallimmer & strange, 2015; sibanda, 2015). hence, “peace parks” have not uniformly necessarily facilitated peace and security for local populations on both sides of the sociopolitical border (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; rusinga & mapira, 2012; dallimmer & strange, 2015; sibanda, 2015). more often than not, “peace parks” in southern africa recreated societal perceptions that could be described as “afrophobic”, largely due to the public sentiments that insinuate wrong doing of one form or the other against populations fragmented by the socio-political boundaries and geopolitical entities. whereas the establishment of national parks along apartheid south africa’s borders was initially suspected of being a security strategy against infiltration from neighboring states such as zimbabwe and mozambique, the democratic era witnessed changes in the logic of existence of protected natural capital along the borders under the notion and practice of tfcas (lunstrum, 2013, 2014; muzeza et al., 2013; barquet et al., 2014). this article argues that the sharp rise in poaching in the tfcas among south africa, zimbabwe and mozambique dispels the idea of attaining national security and peace through statemonocentric governance of borderland bioregions as mythology. it insinuates that the propensity to scapegoat the escalation of poaching as well as the absence of peace and security in the tfcas through illegal migration and cutting of fences is a typical example of the expression of afrophobia because only africans are thought to be involved in the wildlife scourge. responding to uses of environmental arguments against immigration, neumayer (2006: 204) confirms the optimism that “if managed competently and fairly, international human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa td, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 30-46. 41 migration and other forms of globalisation present a promise, not a threat, to a more sustainable world.” however, large-scale immigration could precipitate perceptions of collective threat among the locals because resource scarcity is likely to exacerbate conflict among self-identifying “tribal” groups within multi-cultural societies. whereas there are twenty-two “peace parks” in the southern africa development community (sadc), this article draws anecdotal illustrations from the greater limpopo transfontier park, which was established in 2000 through the merger of the kruger national park (south africa), the gonarezhou national park (zimbabwe) and the limpopo national park (mozambique), as well as several private game reserves and state-owned “communal” agricultural lands (wolmer, 2003; king, 2009; rusinga & mapira, 2012; schoon, 2013; barquet et al., 2014; sibanda, 2015). the hope was that this “peace park” would make for peace and security in the region, following mozambique’s 1992 peace accord and south africa’s 1994 democratic elections (barquet et al., 2014). in practice, the three states have continued with their self-interested state-centric governance (pelser, redelinhuys & velelo, 2011; andrade & rhodes, 2012; pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; mariki, 2013; kark et al., 2015). also, the rigid adherence to the ideals of state sovereignty through territorial jurisdiction implies that the hegemonic political culture is inconsistent with “peace parks” (pool, 2006). apparently, poaching syndicates have increased in the greater limpopo transfontier park (rusinga & mapira, 2012), and it has tacitly been blamed on the 27 000 mozambicans who reside on the park, fuelling cross-border stereotypes, xenophobic perceptions and conflicts. indeed, there is evidence that the removal of boundary fences was accompanied by intensification of poaching and such other illegal activities in the park (van amerom & buscher, 2005; pool, 2006; kark et al., 2015; massé & lunstrum, 2015; sibanda, 2015). unsurprisingly, sentiments of mozambicans being portrayed as illegal, poachers and so on cannot be dissociated from the senseless violent abuses they suffered in 2008 and 2015 in a democratic south africa. notwithstanding the collapse of fences in the establishment of the parks, the loss of animals to poaching continues to be presented in a fragmented manner that suggests, for example, that south africa through the kruger national park, which shares a long porous border with mozambique, is a victim because it has lost a total stock of 1 200 in 2014 at the hands of mozambicans (massé & lunstrum, 2015). evidently, sentiments such as these are “afrophobic” because poaching in the kruger national park is complex and far much wider in scope than the geographic confines of mozambique’s borderlands (lunstrum, 2013; massé & lunstrum, 2015). the contestations of ordinary citizens on both sides of the border arising out of the governance of the park itself, enforce societal perceptions that are counter to the african renaissance cornerstones of regional cooperation, emancipation, revaluation of african cultures, sustainable economic development and democratisation. to complicate matters, the collapse of fences has been blamed for fuelling illegal immigration and goods smuggling, which are levelled against both zimbabweans and mozambicans (pool, 2006; massé & lunstrum, 2015). the reportage that illegal immigration and traversing of evidently dangerous park areas where mozambicans and zimbabweans are said to have been killed by wild animals, make those who survived the treacherous journey to appear less than human, in the eyes of most south africans. to this extent, the popularity of the “peace park” has ironically been associated with heightened perception of collective threat and fear amongst south africans against mozambicans and zimbabweans, largely due to sentiments and public stunts that are inherently “afrophobic”. to this extent, this article asserts that the tsheola & segage 42 prominence of “peace parks” in southern africa has ironically reduced cornerstones of african renaissance into pipedreams that evaporated into thin air. the establishment of “peace parks” for conservation practices through securitisation rationales to enable capital accumulation along with land dispossession of the most vulnerable sections of the population (massé & lunstrum, 2015), has allowed for the construction of perceptions that those who endanger the natural capital are equally the enemies of the local society. perhaps, it is the securitisation narratives of conservation that explain the xenophobic anger that pervades south africa’s poor masses against equally vulnerable african immigrants. uniformly, local residents and specifically those on the mozambican side of the socio-political boundary, are characterised as “environmentally destructive security threats” and as dangerous heavily armed rhino poachers, jeopardising national security and peace of the local society (devine, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). this security logic reinforces stereotypes among south africans, wherein societal attitudes and perceptions about mozambicans are couched through distrust and disrespect. where securitisation of wildlife conservation takes place, it also invokes land dispossession of the most vulnerable and poor people in order to enable accumulation economics (massé & lunstrum, 2015). hence, where poachers are cast as “the enemy of the nation-state and its natural resources” (lunstrum, 2014), negative societal stereotypes against african immigrants are reinforced, precipitating violent abuses (duffy, 2014; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). caution has to be made that african renaissance and “peace parks” perpetuate, rather than cause, societal stereotypes; instead, international relations governance is primarily responsible for fragmentation of the world into geopolitical entities through socio-political boundaries and the triad of “sovereignty-state-territory” along social, language, cultural, economic, racial and such other ethnic characters for administration and management. the article asserts that the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” impairs the capacity for spatial socialisation of populations along the borderlands, thereby creative narratives for distrust, disrespect and devaluation of african cultures. that, describes the locus of the fundamental causes of societal stereotypes and xenophobic tendencies in (south) africa. conclusion the institutional mechanism for governance of international relations provoke notions and practices of sovereignty. this article has argued that governance of international relations is preoccupied with the re-enforcement of the socio-political “bordering, ordering and othering” of the world into bounded territorial landscapes and geopolitical entities. adherence to de jure conception of sovereignty, associated with the exercise of power over territory, has allowed for prominence of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” in the governance of international relations. this article has, therefore, established that the thinking that “peace parks serve the basic ideals of the african renaissance” is flawed in many respects because these borderland conservancies “hardly stimulate and possibly even undermine the realisation” of regional cooperation, emancipation, cultural reaffirmation, sustainable economic development and democratisation in africa (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 1). “peace parks” provoke securitisation of wildlife conservation to enable capital accumulation along traditional western economic narratives through land dispossession of the vulnerable sections of the population. also, the attendant security rationales have been used to “re-territorialise sovereignty”, creating borderland geopolitical entities, and portraying people on one side of the borderland as dangerously armed poachers and enemies of the nation-state, with xenophobic undertones. human population migration and xenophobia in (south) africa td, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 30-46. 43 additionally, the institutional landscape for governance, administration and management of international relations is indeed complex and inconsistent, with inequities of geopolitics of power and sovereignty. further, this article has argued that re-territorialisation of sovereignty through wildlife conservancies has not reaffirmed african cultures; instead, it has undermined continental emancipation and reinforced societal stereotypes associated with xenophobic hatred 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– this should be the final focus of university education if education (and not mere training) is still considered part of the task of institutions of higher learning. all the authors involved reflected deeply and seriously on the importance of the pursuit of intelligence and re-enchantment for institutions of higher education and our country to survive. in publishing the series of articles we hope to contribute to the re-enchantment of a disenchanted world. we aim to do this in a transdisciplinary way, by transcending disciplinary boundaries in significant ways, without risking disciplinary authenticity. the re-enchantment in itself is a tremendous challenge and the battle for intelligence and the struggle against ignorance will be a real but implicit condition. foolishness, foolhardiness, ignorance and stupidity are the main contributory factors to disenchantment. the articles are efforts from different perspectives to take on this challenge we set for ourselves − firstly by participating in the two conferences and secondly by reworking our papers into publishable articles. the two conferences were sparked off by the awareness that a desperately disenchanted world has established itself − a world in which it becomes more and more difficult and problematic for humans to lead or live meaningful lives. the single most important, significant and decisive reason for this status of the world is the depletion, degradation, or even loss of human spirituality. the most serious implication of this process of despiritualisation, is the fatal loss of focus on human intelligence in the true sense of this word (as a translation of the greek word nous) as well as the loss of a world of meaning. many have the conviction that by attending, with full responsibility, to these different losses in order to regain their decisive importance, may be what is essentially required if we wish to re-enchant the world, to make it more liveable, and to regain the responsible power of intelligent human thought, as its condition, through the re-invention of human spirituality. the inspiration for this initiative stems from the many colleagues who share in great despair their experiences of the fate of key institutions, among other institutions of tertiary education, in their inability to cope with the real crises in the world and with the appeal to bring about a better world. these experiences of many colleagues, almost in a generalizable sense, are in substantial ways supported and also reinforced by the literature in this regard. it is significant to note how many of these studies are the outcome of the intellectual work of prominent intellectuals world wide – certainly significant names in their areas of specialisation and definitely worth taking cognizance of. the reinvention of intelligence in tertiary education is a condition for the much desired reenchantment of a disasterfully disenchanted world. the importance for academics to go beyond the generally expected and accepted ways of making a contribution to this (in other words, transcending the status quo) is highlighted and capably articulated and must be emphasised. the necessary transition from creating intelligence to re-enchantment is editorial comment iv articulated in terms of ‘re-enchantment through transcendence’ (naidoo). the closely related emphasis on the human spirit as a condition for higher education to flourish and achieve success (wessels) and the engagement between science and society for the rediscovery of the relevance of science for society and of society for science (lotriet) is complemented by a significant reflection on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence, an initiative extensively underplayed in contemporary higher educational institutions (olivier), as well as by the emphasis on whole brain activity instead of reduced brain activity in the education of students (and lecturers) (de boer, du toit, bothma). these contributions on intelligence development and cultivation pave the way for a better world, for the re-enchantment of a disenchanted world. reflecting on the complexity of the situation of disenchantment/reenchantment reveals the difficulties involved in such pursuits and the sincere hope is expressed that the house of man built by the lord can/may become our glorious and enchanted universe (pauw). this proposal is amplified by the exploration of the difference between the embracement of the sense of place as a form of enchantment and impersonal space as something representing disenchantment (de klerk), while the articulation of the history of ‘the lived earth’ in terms of the disenchanting impact of the turbulent history of water is required to encourage humans to learn to act and interact in concert with nature in order for the re-enchantment of the world to materialise (tempelhoff). the condition for both the re-invention of intelligence and of the re-enchantment of the world requires a wholehearted compliance with the condition of invention, an inventive spirit and inventiveness, namely the attitude and strategy of multiple, connective intellection in the dealings with the vast problems humans encounter on a daily basis (de beer). i wish to sincerely thank the authors for their commitment and dedication to this project and the referees for their thorough and diligent contributions. a special word of appreciation and thanks to johann tempelhoff (editor) and the editorial board of the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa who kindly agreed to the initiative that made this special issue, the battle for intelligence/ the re-enchantment of the world, possible. fanie de beer special edition editor university of pretoria october 2015 references about the author(s) johann tempelhoff school of social science, faculty of humanities, north-west university, vanderbijlpark, south africa citation tempelhoff, j., 2019, ‘the ethiopian example: time for taking bold steps in our neck of the woods?’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a792. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.792 editorial the ethiopian example: time for taking bold steps in our neck of the woods? johann tempelhoff copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the iconic status of ethiopia in africa is well deserved. with the exception of two short botched attempts by italy to colonise its ‘share of a european share of africa’, the country was never colonised by europe or any other state. ethiopia is the most mountainous country in africa – home to more than 80% of the continent’s elevations above sea level. perhaps its geographical setting played a role in the preservation of a unique social ecological space where indigenous ethnicity and environmental biodiversity have prevailed on a continent that is still scarred by the legacy of colonialism. ethiopia is a slumbering giant. since the start of the new millennium, its economy has taken off. there have also been signal changes in recent times. in 2019, a new 43-year-old president, abiy ahmed, set about restoring ethiopia’s relations with eritrea that had broken down more than two decades ago. in the process of creating an atmosphere of collaboration in east africa, he won the 2019 nobel peace prize. abiy courageously released political prisoners, revoked repressive laws, promoted an open economy, appointed women in senior leadership positions, recognised human rights and became a leader who listens to ethiopia’s ethnic and growing urban voices. the way ahead is littered with obstacles, but there are indications of the political will to seek normalisation at a time when a predominantly rural society is urbanising at a blistering pace (hagmann & tronvoll 2019). there have been notable developments. in 2011, ethiopia’s government, at the time of the arab spring in north africa and the middle east, announced that it would start construction work on the $6 billion grand ethiopia renaissance dam (gerd). on completion in the 2020s, gerd will be the largest hydropower dam in africa– paid for by the ethiopian state. the country was unable to raise the funds on international markets for building the dam, but there is evidence of financial responsibility. in 2017, the then cost of $4.8 made out a decent 5% of the country’s gross domestic product. the finalisation of the project requires serious negotiations with neighbouring states, egypt and sudan. there has to be consensus over the responsible management of the much-valued water of the blue nile that has its origins in northern ethiopia (hammond 2013; lawler 2019; mccann & blanc 2016; mengistu 2018) the country’s phenomenal economic annual growth rate in recent times, along with that of kenya, has attracted considerable global economic interest in east africa (moller 2015, 2016). ethiopia currently remains amongst the fastest growing states of the world. what can we learn from ethiopia’s example? and what does it have to do with southern africa? the world’s leading medical and pharmaceutical researchers, along with a plethora of specialists in other fields, have now embarked on exploring the human genome on the african continent. africa has the greatest human genome diversity on the planet. securing african data implies that people of african descent will have access to medical and especially medicinal treatment. it will also contribute to our growing global knowledge of health. most of the research – especially in the uncertain fields where science may have no knowledge – corresponds to substantial international and current transdisciplinary research (bentley, callier & rotimi 2019:179–186). the medical world knows much about natural science. african data can now be incorporated into a knowledge system based on northern hemisphere science breakthroughs since the 20th century. it is of global relevance. however, when it comes to understanding indigenous culture, and the need to ethically determine a responsible ethical strategy for generating knowledge that is from the freebooting harvesting of valuable data generated in africa, there need to be firm ethical principles. the free market has to be disciplined, but not obstructed. african humanists and social scientists have their work cut out for them. natural scientists may value collaborating with them. theoretical and methodological experts in the humanities and social science disciplines have to start (or continue) with an internalisation and re-invention process that can pave the way for a better global understanding of african and universal knowledge. in southern africa, we have allowed under-development to proliferate and undermine societies. think about south africa, mozambique, angola and zimbabwe as examples. it is time to engage more closely with ethiopia, and the likes, if we want to make headway. in the fields of multi-, interand transdisciplinary research, a considerable amount of work needs to be done. we need to promote benign migration, although temporary, from silos of existing knowledge, even though it does not correspond exactly to the demand for much-needed african knowledge to feed into global academic wisdom. in this volume of the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa (td), there are two important contributions worth mentioning. in the first article, mkhize (2019) combines mathematics and accounting – a field explored some time ago at the university of pretoria and university of south africa (rehwinkel & gouws 2015). now the focus has shifted to using transdisciplinarity to integrate maths and accounting at undergraduate level. it is a field deserving of further exploration. the research is commended. in the second article, schepen and graness (2019) write on kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy and the quest for epistemic justice. there is a call for greater awareness on (in)justice. not only african but also feminist and gender voices have to be added to philosophical discourses. there is a rich african field ready to be harvested, if only adventurous philosophers would take up the challenge. the remaining articles are sound, peer-reviewed, empirical studies, reporting on matters of real life. they are innovative and they explore spaces of thinking we have yet to ponder. these contributions are valuable. they add to our existing knowledge. most praiseworthy is the growing contribution of articles in the field of education. we need more, also from other disciplinary fields. however, we need more ground-breaking knowledge. we also need a pronounced inter-, multiand transdisciplinary methodological discourse in td articles. the sooner we start sharing methodologies with our peers on the how and why of research beyond conventional disciplines, the better it is for all. we need to become more sensitive and embrace methods and theories in a variety of disciplines, as well as the special empirical circumstances under which we conduct research, especially in africa. only by reporting on a research-finding platform such as td, will it be possible for us to make a contribution towards knowledge and grassroots savvy. we take pride in the offerings of our authors in this edition of the journal. references bentley, a., callier, s. & rotimi, c., 2019, ‘the emergence of genomic research in africa and new frameworks for equity in biomedical research’, ethnicity & disease 29(suppl 1), 179–186. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.29.s1.179 hagmann, t. & tronvoll, k., 2019, ‘abiy ahmed won the nobel peace prize. now he needs to earn it, in depth analysis’, new york times, viewed n.d., from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/opinion/abiy-ahmed-nobel-peace-prize.html?auth=login-email&login=email hammond, m., 2013, ‘the grand ethiopian renaissance dam and the blue nile: implications for transboundary water governance’, in gwf discussion paper, pp. 1–5, global water forum, canberra. lawler, d., 2019, ‘egypt and ethiopia take dam dispute to russia, news’, axios, viewed n.d., from https://www.axios.com/grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam-sisi-abiy-ahmed-russia-0ce74c42-1267-4ffd-b178-1800d0ad9365.html mccann, j. & blanc, g., 2016, ‘bahir dar and the lake tana basin: history of an urbanshed’, études rurales 197, 113–124. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesrurales.10659 mkhize, m.v., 2019, ‘transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a451. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.451 mengistu, d., 2018, ‘consensus on the grand ethiopian renaissance dam (gerd): media coverage on the reporter (amharic) and addis zemen’, ma thesis, university of addis ababa, addis ababa. moller, l., 2016, ‘ethiopia’s great run: the growth and acceleration and how to pace it’, in world bank (ed.), working papers, revised edn., pp. xxii, 171, world bank, washington, dc. moller, l., 2015, ethiopia’s growth miracle: what will it take to sustain it?, viewed n.d., from https://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/ethiopias-growth-miracle-what-will-it-take-to-sustain-it rehwinkel, a. & gouws, d., 2015, ‘towards the conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 11(3), 149–170. schepen, r. & graness, a., 2019, ‘heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy and the quest for epistemic justice’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a554. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.554 abstract introduction mining and corporate social responsibility in zimbabwe corporate social responsibility and its capacity to address poverty issues linking corporate social responsibility and the capability approach research methods discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) addmore t. muruviwa department of sociology, faculty of social sciences and humanities, university of fort hare, south africa fhulu h. nekhwevha department of sociology, faculty of social sciences and humanities, university of fort hare, south africa wilson akpan department of sociology, faculty of social sciences and humanities, university of fort hare, south africa citation muruviwa, a.t., nekhwevha, f.h. & akpan, w., 2018, ‘the volatility of institutional arrangements that influence development: the case of bram fischer international airport in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a440. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.440 original research corporate social responsibility as a drive to community development and poverty reduction: a stakeholder approach to development in zimbabwe addmore t. muruviwa, fhulu h. nekhwevha, wilson akpan received: 10 apr. 2017; accepted: 29 jan. 2018; published: 07 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: the emergence of a ‘southern’ discourse of corporate social responsibility (csr) highlight the crucial issues of poverty reduction, infrastructure development and the broader questions of social provisioning and community development. aim: this study builds on existing knowledge to reveal how csr has become a drive or aid in the community development discourse and poverty reduction mechanisms. this was done through the analysis of major csr projects by zimplats mining company. setting: the study was carried out in mhondoro-ngezi, zimbabwe, which is in a rural setting. method: the study employed a triangulated design, with data collected using a mini-survey, focus groups and in-depth interviews. results: the key findings are that the fundamental roles of csr have been to link it to addressing under-development and poverty reduction issues in developing countries. conclusion: through distributional csr activities, the mining company was able to address the health, educational, employment and water needs of the local people. introduction business and society relations have remained a major discussion topic in the academic and research arena over the past decades. this relationship revolves around a number of issues including economic, environmental, ethical and social. graafland, eijiffinger and simid (2004:137) posit that ‘the debate in society about the ethical and social aspects of business has forced companies to react to the social and ethical pressure of the public’. according to carroll and buchholtz (2009:5), ‘although the business system has served society well, criticisms of business and its practices have become commonplace in recent years’. these criticisms have come from the lack of commitment by business to the environmental and socio-economic development of society. some of the criticisms towards business have come from stakeholders such as the government, civil society organisations, trade unions and local communities in the global south. in response to the criticisms, business entities in both developed and developing countries have initiated counter-adaptive ways of relating to different stakeholders. idemudia (2014) supports this assertion by arguing that since the late 1990s corporate social responsibility (csr) has been used as a tool by private business to initiate fundamental contributions towards improving socio-economic and ecological conditions in africa. scholars such as levitt (1958) and friedman (1970) have argued that the primary role of business is to satisfy its shareholders, produce goods and services for the society, and maximise profit. similarly, brummer (1983:112) contends that ‘business responsibility is to merely meet the objectives of business executives in conformity with the laws and regulations of the government or state’. critics of this assertion argue that business’ obligation should not centre only on profit making and satisfying the needs of its shareholders. rather, it should incorporate the needs of society at large to address the socio-ecological problems within society (frooman 1999). beesley and evans (1978) argue that the genesis of csr by business entails or propel social improvements through development in society. the relationship between business and society is now embedded in the concept of csr. the csr discourse has been articulated in a variety of ways by different scholars and these ways are related clearly to differing views regarding the role of business in society (clarke 1998; lantos 2001). frooman (1999) posits that the ‘stakeholder perspective’ is based on the suggestions that besides shareholders, there are other groups or stakeholders that are affected by a company’s activities (such as employees or the local community, government, etc.) and must be in the company’s decision-making plan and also be treated equally with shareholders. in the discussion of contemporary csr, the stakeholder perspective has become common, such that it is an inescapable phenomenon that defines business and society relations. freeman (1998) and clarkson (1995:106) viewed stakeholders as the groups who have a stake in or claim on the firm, and these include suppliers, customers, employees, stockholders, governments and the local community. the utility of the stakeholder perspective in this study is that it allows the identification of the different groups that the mining company is working with/for in its csr activities in community development projects. the role of business in society has been questioned over the past decades and, therefore, the framing of csr has sought to bridge this gap with explicit actions and policies that show the role of business in development and its contributions to society. blowfield and dolan (2014) raised an important debate of whether business can contribute to development through csr. several studies have been carried out to support or dismiss this debate on csr and development. idemudia (2014) noted that the notion of csr and development in africa is not new and several case studies have been undertaken on this matter in africa. however, available literature is dominated by accounts from nigeria, south africa, democratic republic of congo and angola. it is against this background that this article seeks to document how csr has been used as a tool for development and poverty eradication in the zimbabwean context. using a stakeholder approach, this study looks at how the zimplats mining company has implemented csr initiatives to meet the developmental needs of its stakeholders. with a vast base of natural resources, zimbabwe has many multinational companies that have invested in natural resources extraction sectors such as mining, forestry and agriculture. mining and corporate social responsibility in zimbabwe in zimbabwe, mining is one of the critical sectors that anchor the economy. according to hawkins (2009), relative to global standards, zimbabwe cannot be compared with other african nations as a mineral-rich economy, but it does possess enough quantities of minerals such as platinum, gold, diamonds, methane gas, asbestos, nickel, coal and chromite to generate export earnings in the region of us$2 billion annually over the medium term and upwards of $5 billion a year within 15 years, thereby ensuring that mining remains comfortably the country’s largest exporter. according to the business herald (2013) the zimbabwean mining sector has since been officially declared by the government as the centrepiece of zimbabwe’s economic growth in the short to medium term. the sector has been important to the economy as it has grown to become the biggest contributor to gross domestic product, marginally overtaking agriculture with 16.7% in 2012 and is seen maintaining this position beyond 2018 (business herald 2013). despite the influx of foreign mining companies in zimbabwe, issues of social development in the mining communities have remained silent or at a very low level. the government has been the main benefactor of foreign direct investment (fdi) in the country as it has accrued much from the payment of taxes and royalties by foreign mining houses. the mining history in zimbabwe shows that mining has been instrumental in the development of local communities in rural areas. as a result of the decentralisation policy by the national government, ‘rural district councils (rdcs) were established to promote rural development in their areas of jurisdiction through the provision of social and infrastructural services’ (mashuku, chazovachii & mamhova 2012:23). these have seen the sprouting of rural growth points, which are the centres of socio-economic growth in the rural areas. many towns have developed and evolved around mining centres in zimbabwe, for instance, shurugwi, zvishavane, hwange, kadoma, chegutu, bindura and bulawayo (chamber of mines 2010). unlike in other african nations such as south africa, nigeria, ghana, drc and angola, in zimbabwe for so long the issues of csr have been dormant. according to matahwa (2007), zimbabwe still lags behind when it comes to csr as there has not been any legislation encouraging company involvement in social responsibility programmes. the lagging behind of csr in zimbabwe can be confirmed by the dearth of literature on the subject matter. despite having vast natural resources and a liberated market dominated by foreign companies in the mining, agriculture and manufacturing sectors, zimbabwe has lagged behind on csr issues with very few studies conducted by local watchdogs. the only available literature on csr is mostly in the form of newspaper articles, company reports and case study reports by local research organisations. companies in the mining, manufacturing, retailing and agricultural sectors have voluntarily carried out csr in their localities. major findings by matahwa (2007) show that most of these csr initiatives were philanthropic in nature, with very few initiatives going beyond this level. the crafting of such csr policies was based on what corporations perceived as important for the community and also their implementation plan lacked the participation of the beneficiaries. corporate social responsibility and its capacity to address poverty issues according to volkert (2009), corporations have increasingly been seen as development agents that implement csr strategies that appeal to poverty reduction in the global south. although this has been acknowledged, knowledge or evidence of this engagement among the vulnerable groups has remained sparse (jenkins 2005). this is why jamali and mirshak (2007:260) posit that although there has been theoretical research about the impacts of csr in general, studies on csr and poverty in developing nations are still particularly lacking. for a long time, poverty issues in the south have always been seen as the domain of mainstream development, where the state comes up with various strategies to minimise or eradicate it. jenkins (2005:540) argues that although there is potential for csr to tackle poverty, the current csr agenda is silent on poverty reduction as a major objective. instead there is overemphasis on environmental issues, labour and human rights. kapelus (2002) acknowledges that owing to the transnationalisation of opposition to transnational corporations (tncs), csr has currently been largely driven by the concerns of northern ngos, trade unions and consumers who have advocated for better csr policies. because of the pressure that is exerted by such groups, tncs have been concerned chiefly with the potential damage to their reputations and image that may come as a result of media exposure of corporate malpractice. therefore to improve their ratings on the global scale, csr policies of most tncs have tended to focus on the negative, meaning to say that, emphasis has been put on things that corporations should not do (jenkins 2005). such inappropriate behaviour includes child labour or violation of human rights and pollution. the focus on these issues has diverted attention from addressing the serious issues of seeking positive development outcomes, such as helping to eradicate poverty. that is why idemudia (2008:98) calls for a shift in focus, from a ‘do no harm’ agenda by corporates to a csr agenda that demonstrates development benefits. international organisations that have linked csr to international development goals have a belief that csr can become a core strategy in the achievement of united nations sustainable development goals. the debate about the potential of csr contributing to poverty reduction has seen blowfield (2007:516) coming up with a hypothesis that questions whether csr has a direct impact on poverty or not. as a response to this claim, jenkins (2005:525) states that by following socially responsible practices, business will be more inclusive, equitable and reduce poverty. nelson (2006:47) gives his support by stating that ‘most corporations across all sectors are capable of making a sustainable contribution to poverty alleviation’. linking corporate social responsibility and the capability approach the best possible way to understand how csr can be tucked in as a way to avert the poverty crisis, especially in the south, is to integrate armtya sen’s concept of the human development and capability approach. sen (2001) approaches development from a human capability and freedom approach. according to sen (2001), poverty is a complex, multifaceted concept that requires a different approach of analysis. whilst other benchmarks on poverty see it as sheer shortage of income, to sen poverty is defined as a lack of human development that encompasses ‘multiple forms of deprivation and social exclusion’ (volkert 2009:393). sen’s work on poverty is based on the hindrance to the capabilities and functioning of people’s entitlements. dreze and sen (1980) and williams (1999) define entitlements as the set of alternative bundles of commodities or resources that an individual has at his or her disposal for the realisation of capabilities, and these go beyond income. the implication for the lack of these entitlements and commodities is that there are high chances that capabilities will be greatly constrained and as a result will affect the overall livelihood. sen (1997) views development as expanding the choices people have to lead lives as a result of exercising their various capabilities and entitlements. therefore, successful outcomes on poverty can be measured on the basis of a set of commodity bundles such as investment in rural education, employment creation in local communities, empowerment of women and youth and investment in the rural health sector. research methods this study used a triangulated approach where qualitative and quantitative approaches were utilised. the study acknowledges that the data collection method was predominantly qualitative in nature, with the quantitative aspect coming in to play a complementary role. with an understanding that both qualitative and quantitative approaches have their own weaknesses, the researcher saw it feasible to use both methods to ameliorate any inherent biases or weakness from each of the methods. the field work was carried out in eight different wards in mhondoro-ngezi. using a purposive sampling technique, site visits were made to the village heads, rural district council offices, zimplats mining company offices and ministry of youth, indigenisation and economic empowerment. eight focus group discussions (fgds) were employed to engage with the ordinary members of the community, whilst semi-structured interviews were used to capture the data from other individual stakeholders, such as government officials, representatives from the mining company, the member of parliament for mhondoro-ngezi constituency, local government officials and community leaders. as a follow-up to the qualitative study, a mini-survey was also used in this study. questionnaires were randomly distributed in the eight wards of the mhondoro-ngezi community for the members to answer questions related to the impact of csr projects by zimplats on community development. the study also utilised secondary materials where newspaper articles, magazines, government and company reports and research outputs from other organisations were analysed to provide a concrete understanding of csr matters in zimbabwe. research findings the following sections are a presentation of the research findings from the field work conducted in mhondoro-ngezi depicting how csr has been used as a drive to community development in cases where other stakeholders such as the government have failed to make any developmental impacts. the findings are presented in thematic form as they emerged from the field data. the presentation of the findings was done under five themes: (1) distributional csr initiatives, (2) investment and promotion of rural education in mhondoro-ngezi, (3) rural employment creation, (4) health and water facilities in mhondoro-ngezi and (5) empowerment of women and youth. the general belief among csr enthusiasts from the south is that business activities must contribute positively to the sustainable development of the local communities in which they operate. proponents of the resource curse theory argue that despite having an abundance of natural resources some resource-rich nations still remain poor and backward because of ill-informed policies from both the private and public sector. mhondoro-ngezi has been pointed out as one of the poorer communities in zimbabwe, yet it hosts the second largest platinum producer in the world. however, findings from the study present a positive picture of the benefits of csr initiatives on the development of local community and poverty reduction. distributional corporate social responsibility initiatives by zimplats according to mutti et al. (2012:7), ‘the primary objective of distributional csr is to ensure a visible flow of benefits from the mining projects to surrounding community via investment in schools, healthcare and physical infrastructure’. idemudia (2011:3) differentiates between macro-level and micro-level csr indicators. on one hand, micro-level indicators encompass community development efforts where there is prioritization of social investments in social infrastructure provision, such as schools, roads, hospitals and business and community centres. on the other hand, the macro-level indicators involve addressing the factors responsible for community underdevelopment such as environmental degradation; corruption; lack of accountability, transparency and capacity building; and declining manufacturing and agricultural sectors. semi-structured interviews with the management of zimplats indicated that the company has managed to contribute to various development initiatives in the mhondoro-ngezi community. from the study empirical evidence from the company’s representative noted that the zimplats has spent millions of dollars on community development projects as part of its csr activities. table 1 gives a summary of some of the expenditure by zimplats towards the development of mhondoro-ngezi community. table 1: zimplats’ expenditure on corporate social responsibility (2000–2013). the above table gives a summary of the money that has been spent by zimplats in mhondoro-ngezi as part of its csr initiatives. in total, the company has spent us$209 million on community projects. this is an example of distributional csr projects designed to benefit the local community in which the mining company is located. it has been argued that a lot has been said about the actions and inactions of multinational companies (mncs), but very little is known about the implementation processes of these actions. one of the best ways of analysing the csr projects in developing countries is to consult the capabilities for poverty reduction as alluded to by sen in the earlier section. from the emerging themes in the study, the csr programmes or projects in mhondoro-ngezi were classified under areas that include access to education, health, employment, income generating projects, empowerment of women, livelihood enhancement and infrastructure development. therefore, the following sections are a breakdown of the csr projects that have been implemented by zimplats mining company that have aided in the development and social improvement of the mhondoro-ngezi community. investment and promotion of rural education in mhondoro-ngezi from the study, it was noted that zimplats managed to fulfil the following development initiatives as part of its social responsibility to promote rural education, as demonstrated in table 2. table 2: list of schools assisted by zimplats. as noted from the table above, the activities by zimplats to refurbish the schools around mhondoro-ngezi are a sign of the mining company’s commitment to improving the educational standards in mhondoro-ngezi. the primary and secondary data testifies that zimplats invested a lot of money ($5m) for the construction, refurbishment and renovation of both primary and secondary schools. the school development initiatives focused on different schools in the different wards in mhondoro-ngezi. before the intervention of zimplats, the majority of schools in the area were in a dilapidated state and needed urgent attention. during the data collection in the community, the residents frequently mentioned development in the educational sector as the most important development initiative at the local level. extracts from focus group discussions verify some of the initiatives that were carried out by the mining giant in the community as follows: the company has been involved in the rehabilitation of local schools especially in turf. the schools were transformed into modern schools like those you find if you go to the bigger cities. (fgd no 2, interviewee no 3, april 2013) the idea of investing and promoting education ensures that local children are capacitated with basic knowledge and skills. according to sen (2003:17), one of the fundamental capabilities to tackle poverty is education because it plays a role in the expansion of capabilities. sen (2003:27) further points out that ‘education makes a child autonomous in terms of creating a new “capability set” for the child’. this is because a well-educated and skilled workforce is able to contribute to social transformation and the enhancement of local livelihoods by accessing employment opportunities. the mining company invested a lot in education so as to ensure that the local young people are able to gain employment opportunities after they complete their studies. sen’s (2003) argument on education is that investing in education creates the expansion of the child’s capacity and ability and also widens the opportunities in the future. therefore, by focusing on human capacity development, the company ensured that its human resource base is equipped with the necessary skills required in the labour market. as shall be shown later, most of the general workforce for the mining company comprises the local people who come from the various wards within the community. results from the mini-survey concur with the qualitative accounts on the contribution that zimplats has made in promoting and developing education in mhondoro-ngezi community. figure 1 shows a pie chart with the distribution of responses on the perception of local people about the csr impact on education. figure 1: investment in education. question: have zimplats’ community projects managed to build both primary and secondary schools in mhondoro-ngezi community? with 94% of the respondents acknowledging that zimplats managed to ensure the development of local schools, one can simply say that business has the potential to support access to education and improve the quality and relevance of education. proponents of csr argue that it can play a complementary role where government has failed. in this context, the majority of schools that are supposed to be serviced by the government were neglected for a long period, but with the assistance rendered by zimplats, most rural schools are able to ensure that their services reach the residents of mhondoro-ngezi. although mhondoro-ngezi covers a wide geographical area, the company has made sure that even in the remote areas that are far away from the mine, schools benefit from this programme. rural employment creation one of the anticipated roles or duties expected of mncs when they invest in a local community is the creation of employment. jenkins (2005:536) argues that ‘business can help reduce poverty through job creation’. most mncs in developing countries have been criticised for their poor labour standards in the host communities. jenkins (2005:540) posits that a relatively small number of people from developing countries are employed by mncs and this is likely to constrain the impact of csr on poverty. despite all these claims, zimplats is commended for its contribution towards employment creation for the local people. from the semi-structured interviews with community leaders, it was noted that the mining company directly employs from the local population. whilst other mncs bring in their experienced or skilled labour force, zimplats has relied on the local workforce for its skilled labour and general labour. most of the miners are selected from the different villages based on their qualifications. in an environment that is characterised by scarce job opportunities, zimplats is the biggest employer. the government is the second largest employer, with occupations such as nursing, police and teaching being dominant. table 3 gives a distribution of the employment patterns in mhondoro-ngezi community. table 3: type of employment. table 3 shows the employment distribution in mhondoro-ngezi. from the study it was noted that 37.2% of the respondents are formally employed both in the private and public sector and 11.6% of the population is informally employed, while 51.2% of the population is unemployed. because of the mining investment in the local community, the employment figures have since risen to a higher percentage. the reason why the employment figures in mhondoro-ngezi seem to be good is that the national unemployment rate currently stands between 80% and 85% (van wyk 2014), with zimbabwe being considered as one of the most literate countries in africa. from the 37.2% of formally employed people in the community, zimplats has employed the greater percentage. table 4 also summarises the distribution of the occupations in mhondoro-ngezi, with zimplats leading the pack. table 4: occupations. the table shows that zimplats employs about 20.5% of the total population. the government, which is usually considered the biggest employer in the whole country, falls behind zimplats’ employment statistics in mhondoro-ngezi. one of the positive issues from the study is that the mining company has ensured that even those people who are not formally employed by the company are subcontracted by various contractors for short-term stints whenever there are local projects to be fulfilled. in one of the interviews with the local leaders, it was revealed that local people were happy with the employment opportunities offered by the mining company, because this has helped them to make a living. with most people relying on agriculture as the main livelihood option, zimplats’ investment in the mining industry has offered young people including women the opportunity to make a living. the positive contribution of zimplats’ employment opportunities on the local people is witnessed by the desire of almost everyone in the community to work for the platinum mining giant. with better working conditions, housing opportunities, medical coverage, pension and all other work-related benefits, zimplats has made a positive change on the livelihoods of those fortunate members of the community who have had the opportunity to work for the company. the following interview extract captures the view of the local member of parliament on employment opportunities in mhondoro-ngezi: we agreed as the board that every general hand (miners) has to come from the communities and it was adopted. i am happy to say that zimplats employs directly from the community. all the contractors who come to zimplats have to employ locals. the locals come through the chiefs. the community leadership sits down with their community and present what is needed by the company for one to be employed there. so in total there are about 3000 people from the local community who are employed at the mine directly or indirectly. (semi-structured interview with local mp, april 2013) the above interview extract is an indication that great strides have been made by both the local community leaders and the company to ensure that local people are able to fight rural poverty through employment. employment of local people is a positive move towards ensuring that households guard against risks and uncertainties. according to sen (2001), access to employment opportunities is one of the fundamental capability sets that the poor can use to evade the effects of poverty through income generation. the sustainable livelihoods approach by scoones (2009) states that for rural people to fight poverty they need to have access to essential assets. financial and human capitals are some of the idealistic assets that rural households can have to ensure livelihood building blocks. the access to cash enables rural people to adopt different livelihood strategies (department of international development 1999). community members in mhondoro-ngezi confirmed that zimplats offered the best and most sustainable employment package for the locals. results from the mini survey confirm this assertion. table 5 is a testimony of the community’s appreciation of the contribution zimplats has made through the employment of local people. the idea that most of the jobs are full-time and permanent gives local people the certainty that they are able to cope with any uncertainties and also guard against vulnerabilities. to ensure that its employees and other local people are healthy and fit, the mining company has also invested some money into the building and support of the rural health centres and the drilling of public boreholes. the following section discusses some of the csr projects by zimplats meant to improve the health and water reticulation processes in mhondoro-ngezi community. table 5: sustainability of jobs offered by the mining company. provision of clean water facilities in mhondoro-ngezi the most notable problem faced by rural dwellers in africa is the unavailability of clean water and affordable health services. most people in the rural areas resort to digging water wells on their homesteads for domestic use. for some they rely on water from the nearby natural streams and rivers, the same source of water that is used by their livestock. data from the fieldwork in mhondoro-ngezi shows that as part of its community development initiatives, the mining company implemented projects meant to address the water problems in the rural community. this was witnessed by the drilling of more than 25 boreholes at a cost of us$130,000 for the benefit of the community. the move by the mining company was seen as a way to address the persistent water problems in the community. one of the members from a fgd confirmed the drilling of boreholes by indicating that: the company also managed to provide tapped water in some areas, mainly the growth point; boreholes have been drilled so that community members can have access to clean water. most people in mhondoro-ngezi have been relying on the traditional wells that they dug on their homesteads. (fgd no 3, interviewee no 2, april, 2013) some of these services are part of the services government should offer to its local residents. however, because of budgetary constraints, the local rural district council has over the years failed to address the water problems in the local community. the sealed boreholes were constructed in a way that ensures there is no contamination from external sources. borehole drilling is one of the community development projects that have had a direct impact on the lives of local people, as this has minimised diseases that come as a result of contaminated water sources. these boreholes can serve up to 30 households per day with water for domestic use. since most of the rural villages are in a cluster settlement, the boreholes were sunk at the centres of the villages to ensure that all residents have access to them. key developmental functions such as the provision of basic infrastructure and enabling access to water, electricity, health and education are traditionally associated with the state, but because of the decline in confidence in the state as an agent for development, these roles are now performed by a range of civil society and market actors (newell & frynas 2007). the basic idea is that where the state has failed, business and ngos can fulfil the duties as a way to reciprocate its investments in local communities. investment in health facilities as noted from table 1, which shows zimplat’s expenditures on distribution csr projects, investment in health has been part of the mining company’s development initiatives. the mining company reported spending at least us$1.6m on refurbishing medical facilities and purchase of equipment for the local clinics. such an approach has made a positive impact on the lives of the rural community members, who often find it difficult to access health facilities. one of the notable projects that have been done by the company is the purchase of an ambulance for a local community clinic. the ambulance for st michael’s hospital came at a critical time when some patients were carried in scotch carts to the hospital or when pregnant women had to be transported to a nearby hospital in a wheelbarrow owing to the absence of an ambulance to carry patients. the following interview extract reveals how community members have benefited from investment in health in their communities: the provision of an ambulance to our local clinic will go a long way to assist the residents of mhondoro-ngezi community. in emergency cases, we used to struggle to get to a better health institution but now that we have a vehicle this will make it easier. we are grateful for the work done by the mining company. (fgd no 6, interviewee no 3, april 2013) this was a reaction to calls by various community leaders who had been concerned by the increasing rates of maternal deaths owing to rural people giving birth at their homes. some of them would have developed major complications by the time they arrived at the clinic. persistent calls by community members in mhondoro-ngezi were some of the issues that the mining company could not simply ignore or fail to address. mitchel et al. (1997) argue that the stakeholder approach presents a platform where there is need for managers to assess which stakeholders or groups deserve their attention and urgency. by recognising that local community members were walking long distances to access certain medical services, coupled with the dilapidated state of rural medical centres, the mining company saw it as paramount to respond to the urgent stakeholder call for improved medical facilities. unlike urban hospitals with better equipment, rural hospitals have struggled to attend to some health issues because of absence of machinery. as a result of this, some patients are referred to urban hospitals, where they pay more money and transport costs to be attended. to address such challenges, the mining company donated equipment to local hospitals to ensure that local people would not need to travel longer distances to seek medical attention. such a move was commended by the former vice president of zimbabwe, joice mujuru, when she was commissioning one of the completed projects by the mining company. the following extract from a newspaper article summarises the impact of zimplats’ health initiatives: i am aware that in the health sector, zimplats supplied a new ambulance to st michael’s hospital, assisted chegutu hospital with x-ray equipment and rehabilitated turf clinic by enhancing its facilities and ensuring the provision of running water and electricity for the benefit of the communities. (chronicle 06 april 2011) the corporate services management of zimplats also confirmed that such projects were fulfilled by the company as part of its csr initiatives. the success of these projects has been that they have minimised incidences where community members have to travel for long distances to access certain medical services. members of the community believe that the mining company has made enormous efforts to ensure that they receive the basic health services in their community without having to travel. the following interview extract from the fgds supports the role played by zimplats towards development of the community: our general view is that, once we have established health systems and schools, this is a great development for the community because everything centres on health and education. we commend our local leaders and the mining company for their efforts to develop our community that has been neglected for a very long time. (fgd no 5, interviewee no 4, april 2013) the economic and political conditions in zimbabwe have affected the level and quality of healthcare delivery in most rural areas (kevany et al. 2012:46). the economic and political factors have seen many government or public health services in the rural areas shutting their doors in the past years (lee 2009), owing to the acute shortages of drugs, essential medical equipment and limited operational funding. therefore such factors simply show how zimplats’ csr initiatives are of importance to the local community. according to mcadam and leonard (2003), when mncs engage in csr initiatives, it reflects their awareness of the impact and potential of their social investments in terms of improving the living standards of indigenous communities. discussion the analysis of the results of this study have shown that zimplats mining company has played a fundamental role through csr projects in mhondoro-ngezi for community development purposes and poverty reduction. the point of departure for this article was an acceptance that despite mncs being considered as engines for social development in developing countries through csr initiatives, there is little evidence to account for this assertion. voices and first-hand experiences of the beneficiaries of developmental projects by zimplats testify that csr can be used as a developmental tool meant to complement the developmental duties of government towards its people. the paucity of literature on the csr initiatives by mncs in zimbabwe prompted the researchers to have a thorough look at the activities of zimplats on community development and their capacity to address poverty reduction in an environment where mainstream development through the state has regressed or become dormant. deductions from the key findings present important contributions that this article can make to the csr and development nexus. from the study it emerged that zimplats mining company is guided by a central csr policy that states the community development programmes to be carried out. most of the csr projects that have been applauded by corporate stakeholders (local community members) met and addressed their urgent claims for basic needs such as water, health and education. since the stakeholder theory claims that corporations are not only entitled to satisfy the shareholders’ needs but also to consider the needs of its stakeholders, it is important to note that through the stakeholder salience approach, corporations also determine the degree of seriousness or urgency of every claim tabled by stakeholders. not all claims by legitimate stakeholders are treated with urgency by the firm. according to mitchell, agle and wood (1997:867), urgency can be defined as the degree to which stakeholder claims call for immediate attention. the two determinants of urgency of a claim are time sensitivity and criticality (agle et al. 1999). criticality of a claim simply refers to the importance of the claim on the relationship to the stakeholder (mitchell et al. 1997). the importance of the urgent experience for the organisation is that it presents a more imminent impact to organizational activity and therefore elicits an imminent response. unless a claim is deemed urgent by the corporation, the possibility of it being addressed or attended to is minimal. so many claims for community development have been made by communities in the south but very few have received attention from mncs. that is the reason why scholars such as idemudia (2011), fox (2004), frynas (2009) and christian aid (2004) have been calling for a development-oriented csr agenda that transcends the boundaries of business profitability. indigenous communities in the developing world have demanded better infrastructure, employment opportunities and service delivery in resource extraction communities, but all these claims have fallen on deaf ears as they are the least of urgent priorities for the big corporations. the core objective of this article has been to understand how csr has been used by zimplats as a development tool to foster community development and poverty reduction in mhondoro-ngezi. using this aspect of stakeholder salience, the findings clearly show the stakeholders (community members) always had expectations from the mining company that needed urgent attention. in so doing the mining company reciprocated through distributional csr initiatives to ensure that the developmental concerns of the stakeholders were addressed. in this study, the stakeholder approach was used to analyse how the mining company responded to their stakeholders’ demands and claims for csr activities that addressed their development needs. conclusion the conclusion derived from this study is that with diverse crises ranging from the social, economic, health related and environmental, csr in developing countries has been become a complementary mechanism used by businesses to address such issues. in the zimbabwean context, despite the presence of quite a number of mncs operating in resource-rich areas, inadequate information has been documented on the role played by these organisations on their role in community development and poverty reduction mechanisms. this study adds to the already-existing work that has been carried out in other african countries such as nigeria, south africa, angola and ghana on the role played by business in fostering community development through csr. that is why there are so many expectations from both the government and local communities for business to assist in addressing poverty and development issues through csr. this article fills in the gap in csr theorisation on development by documenting how csr projects in mhondoro-ngezi aided community development and mechanisms to reduce poverty. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this 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https://africacheck.org/reports/is-zimbabwes-unemployment-rate-4-60-or-95-why-the-data-is-unreliable/ volkert, j., 2009, ‘companies as agents of overcoming poverty and development. their contribution out the view of ordoliberalism and capability approach’, in i. ordo (ed.), yearbook for the arrangement of economy and public stuttgart, pp. 389–413, lucius and lucius. williams, g., 1999, assessing poverty and poverty alleviation: evidence from west bengal, blackwell publishing, somerset. abstract introduction background youth identity as a socially constructed category white youth identities during apartheid fieldwork and methodology brief discussion on participants’ background ethical consideration discussion on the interview results discussion and conclusion acknowledgements references footnote about the author(s) luvuyo ntombana department of sociology and anthropology, nelson mandela university, south africa thandiwe bubulu center for leadership ethics in africa, university of fort hare, south africa citation ntombana, l. & bubulu, t., 2017, ‘shifting boundaries of racial space in post-apartheid south africa: the case of afrikaner youth in east london’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a432. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.432 original research shifting boundaries of racial space in post-apartheid south africa: the case of afrikaner youth in east london luvuyo ntombana, thandiwe bubulu received: 15 mar. 2017; accepted: 24 aug. 2017; published: 17 nov. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract south african democracy has brought about changes like freedom of associations, as opposed to apartheid which emphasised separateness of races and cultures. this social change warrants new ways of living among south africans, especially among young people. using a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews, this study examined how white afrikaans-speaking university students carve out their identities, given the reality that political, social and cultural circumstances have changed in the last two decades. participants consisted of afrikaner university students, based in east london. this study attempts to understand difficulties and privileges associated with being a young white south african 20 years after the fall of the apartheid regime. seeing that the participants were not born during apartheid, we wanted to understand the extent to which their parents’ perception, influence and stories affected the way participants identify themselves, their place and their roles in the democratic south africa. the study found that afrikaner youth are caught between two worlds: the democratic and contemporary social context, and their parents’ traditional or orthodox way of seeing things. this study also found out that, in spite of some of their parents’ influence on racism and the perception of the south african community about white people, these young people are able to carve out their own identity in which they are able to shift racial space boundaries. introduction recently, south africa has been affected by racial conflicts and serious racism utterances from both black south africans and white south africans. some of those racial expressions and complexities are because of a deep-seated pain and division that was caused by the apartheid experience (puttick 2011:1). to some extent, it is understandable when such racist tendencies are exhibited by older generations who have had direct experience of apartheid. however, one tends to ask various serious questions when young people, who were either very young or had not been born as yet when apartheid and its racial policies were in effect, exhibit such tendencies. there have also been cases of serious racist allegations among university students in the country and most of those who were involved were youth, who did not have direct experience of apartheid. for instance, goga (2010:41) notes that at a university in the eastern cape, racist utterances on the university’s online discussion forums led to its use being temporarily suspended in 2006. similarly, the university of free state has been the site of numerous spates of racism. in 2007, four white students reportedly made a racist video in which black cleaners were made, among other things, to eat food said to have been urinated on (soudien 2010). also, at the same university, in 2016, there was a violent clash between young black people and white people, and some of those involved were the so-called ‘born-frees’, those born after apartheid. research also suggests that south africa is not a unified country and that racial differences persist and also exert their power over every feature of our lives (dyer 1997; gibson & mcdonald 2001; goga 2010; vincent 2008). it is a reality that south african society is still racially divided and that many white people still find themselves in a position of privilege, while many black people are still poor and marginalised (beall, gelb & hassim 2005:683; sehlongonyane 2015:84). in this paper, we acknowledge the realities as depicted in the media and various research papers. however, we also recognise that there are many layers of realities in south african society and such layers must also be uncovered. this paper presents a different picture than what most people have seen and read in the democratic south african media. this paper shows that as much as south africa is still a racially divided space, wherein white people are still privileged, some white people in other spaces attempt to shift racial boundaries and are able to create an inter-racial identity. the contention is that, as a result of racial tensions and a divided society, south africans seem to overlook the positive stories of how youth in other spaces are able to carve out new identities, irrespective of the divided society and the negative stories. this study shows that some afrikaner youth living in east london are able to shift racial and cultural boundaries irrespective of their apartheid privileged backgrounds and the current societal perception of white people. furthermore, this study illustrates that for these students, being a white south african no longer means privilege and superiority but inclusiveness and multiracialism. the main focus is on what makes them who they are in the democratic south africa. we investigate the conversations their parents had with them about both apartheid and the democratic south africa and how such conversations impacted their perceptions of themselves and others. furthermore, we investigate the meanings derived from the experiences of living in the democratic south africa, as a white young person, and probe into those experiences that give them hope for their future aspirations. background south africa is not different from the other parts of the world in experiencing the demographic shifts from colonisation, migration and immigration (meier & van wyk 2012:19). in the last two decades, there has been social change brought about by political changes, the abandoning of the apartheid policies and the influence of globalisation, resulting in an identity and culture change. with the election of a democratic government in south africa in 1994 and the legal promulgation of a new constitution, afrikaner culture and ‘whiteness’ was no longer a privilege (puttick 2011:1). the new constitution and regulations that were introduced no longer favoured white people; in fact, they disadvantaged them because they were meant to redress the inequalities of the past. various laws and regulations such as black economic empowerment (bee) and affirmative action (aa) policies were introduced, so as to give more opportunities to previously disadvantaged (non-white) citizens. with the democratic government came freedom of choice, freedom of association and equal rights for all. there were no longer exclusive schools for white children and areas designated for only white people. with the integration of the school system in south africa, the predominantly white government schools were now admitting more and more black learners. this meant that white children were becoming more exposed to black people and black children at an early age. such a change was not just political; it obviously influenced how white people see themselves, white youth in particular, considering that that their parents were privileged by the apartheid regime. the end of white privilege and white supremacy meant that white south africans would have to rethink their identities and how they fit into the broader south african community. various questions around what should be the role of white people in the new south africa have been posed (alexander 2007; franchi & swart 2003; rasmussen 2001; steyn 2001, 2004), as well as questions about what steyn (2001:59–63) calls the ‘grand white narrative’1 and the best way to dispel it in the south african society. njabulo ndebele (2000:46–47) suggests a need for white south africans to develop a ‘new sense of cultural rootedness’. ndebele’s (2000) contention is that if white south africans are to find a legitimate way of belonging in south africa, they will have to engage critically with their identity and their apartheid privileged ‘whiteness’. this suggests that they have to embark upon a process of looking at themselves differently as part of the democratic south africa, and this is clearly not an easy process. for white people, obviously these questions are not just political abstracts, these are psychological, emotional and identity interrogations. those who were there during apartheid have an experiential point of reference, while the youth who were born in democracy are in limbo, as they only have their parents and history as their point of reference. with such a limited point of reference, one wonders how white youth handle the fact that the white race was once privileged and presently it is not. as a point of reference, what stories do their parents narrate to them? to what extent do such stories negatively or positively affect them? it is against such a background that we endeavour to examine what must be the contemporary identity construction of young white people born in post-apartheid south africa. we took great interest in knowing how the so-called ‘born free’ young white people deal with sharing with black people the same space in schools, public transport and public facilities. this paper takes a particular interest in the studies of neighbourhoods of afrikaans-speaking white people. yes, to some extent white south africans do share many common identifications and assumptions of privilege, but there are also significant differences in how their ‘whiteness’ is being reframed in post-apartheid south africa (steyn 2004:144). theoretically, this study is located in the broader discussion on youth identities and youth cultures, with the intention to better understand how young white people see themselves in the globalised world where they are no longer just local citizens but citizens of the world. youth identity as a socially constructed category while many seem to understand what is intrinsically meant by ‘identity’, it is perhaps fruitful at this point to clarify that identity is socially constructed, fluid and the product of human thinking, discourse and action (puttick 2011:1). any identity formation process entails continuous contestations and negotiations (roderick, postmes & spears 2008:168–169). an individual typically occupies more than one identity at any given moment and these identities can shift according to the subjective position of the individual (puttick 2011:1). we constitute and invent ourselves through our interactions with others. there is no identity without the other and the old african proverb of ubuntu and coexistence explains this thought very well by pointing out that umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a person is a person by other people). the literal translation of this phrase puts it interestingly: that, ‘because i am, therefore we are and because we are, therefore i am’. this places the identity of an individual in the collective identity of others. if we take into consideration the significance of an individual and the collective identity, identity is therefore about belonging, about what one has in common with others and also what differentiates one from others. also, identity is constructed and modified in relation to the individual’s social, cultural and historical context. in the process of identity construction, through interactions with others, previously held beliefs, knowledge, understandings and values become destabilised. as such, new social meanings are created, generating new social roles, which inherently disrupt previously held identities through exposure to a relatively more diverse peer group, as well as through other agents (willis 1990:12). furthermore, it is acknowledged that all young people experience one aspect or another of the contemporary ‘social condition’ of youth (willis 1990:12). one can argue that identity is not something one has but something that develops during one’s whole life. identity is not static or predetermined but rather varies in different contexts (gutiérrez & rogoff 2003:20). especially among the youth, it is socially constructed throughout one’s life, as individuals interact with people and society at large. thus, identity is important for social interactions in everyday life, because it affects trust formation and group participation. various studies exist on how youth socially construct their identities, focusing on various topics, such as general youth cultures and identities, various cultural paradigms in relation to culture change, societies in transition, economic and labour systems, and political and government systems. although approached from various fields, such studies have shown that youth from all races and cultures, urban and rural and at different times, have been able to redefine and regroup themselves to make meaning of their daily changes and environment. one interesting study on youth in transition was conducted by nayak (2003) who begins by dissecting various perceptions on his own identity. he says that his parents saw him as indian, his colleagues saw him as british but he sees himself as both indian and british. nayak’s point is that his identity does not depend on how others define him but on how he sees himself in relation to his prevailing socio-political conditions. nayak (2003) conducted an ethnographic study on how global change affected white youth in a small town of tyneside in ‘white highlands’ in post-war britain at the end of the twentieth century. nayak (2003) argues that although the youth are labelled as ‘deviant’, they are merely frustrated and are faced with a socially constructed panic that is more about the identity of traditional englishness in a divided closed society. nayak (2003) suggests that the youth should be understood by looking at the fact that trends of globalisation are changing and moving forward at a very fast pace, thereby influencing cultural ways of life. nayak’s (2003) cultural identities seem to be no different from the south african youth caught between two worlds – which are the ‘traditional’ and the ‘contemporary’. the traditional is characterised by trying to satisfy parents’ expectancy of living and the contemporary is more about the reality of constructing meaning out of the new order in which they find themselves. the political changes in south africa, the global influences and the contemporary changes call white youth to rethink their identity and sense of self. white youth identities during apartheid as much as this study takes more interest in cultural distinctiveness, one cannot overlook the fact that the afrikaans-speaking population was more privileged because of their racial category (jansen 2009:57). the study of ‘whiteness’ has emerged as an influential tool for analysing and interpreting the workings of power and privilege in numerous societies (hage 1998; lipsitz 1998; o’meara 1997; phoenix 1997). various studies on ‘whiteness’ have shown that ‘whiteness’ is often a somewhat dominant and normative space against which difference is measured and only exists in so far as other racialised identities exist, such as ‘blackness’ (steyn 2001). in this manner, ‘whiteness’ is frequently seen as a centre from which the self and others are perceived and understood. for this reason, white south africans have always constructed their identities around ‘whiteness’. the construction has always depended on supremacy and enlightenment, where the white culture was more superior and powerful than all other cultures. during apartheid, white privilege status and supremacy were never questioned. ‘whiteness’ was seen as a continual social hierarchy which grants differential access to economic and cultural capital. on the contrary, darkness was often seen as the antithesis to ‘whiteness’; the black people were considered by many to be inferior and subordinate (fearon 1999; mir & watson 2000; rasmussen 2001; steven, duncan & bowman 2006). various studies on afrikaans youth show that their conceptualisation of their identities has been influenced by afrikaner ethnicism and the pursuit of a ‘true’ afrikanerness; as a result, there was no way they could not see themselves as superior and pure (o’meara 1997; sibanda 2012; steyn 2001; vincent 2008). in order to maintain the continuation of afrikaner pureness, the afrikaans youth were influenced by various apparatuses of white afrikaans culture, such as church or religion, sport (rugby), schooling system, peers and military organisation. for example, there have been studies that show how afrikaans youth wrestle with dilemmas, such as the afrikaner broederbond and military training (o’meara 1997). it is reported that during apartheid, white youths received intense military training which also served as a powerful socialisation tool (conway 2008; frankel 1984; jansen 2009). jansen (2009:85) asserts that ‘if other circles of influence worked softly … this aggressive military approach to their socialisation sealed any chances of dissent’. regarding the influence of school on white youths’ identities, lambley (1980:198) observed that young white people have been brought up on values and perspectives of life that have always been expressed uniformly at every level of their society. he claims that the values and perspectives of life imparted to the young people at school from teachers and school books, at home from parents, church, from the media, television, radio, newspapers, magazines and the cinema established and reinforced identity. jansen (2009:71–80) agrees with lambley (1980) that during apartheid, there was a strong cultural cohesiveness that bound the white youth together. jansen (2009:73) claims that almost every white boy played rugby at some stage of his childhood and that rugby is ‘a powerful social circle in which identity is tied to achievement on the rugby field’. white churches were the prime and powerful instrument for transmitting apartheid politics and policies (jansen 2009:73). the dutch reformed church became the instrument to preach white superiority as a chosen and pure race (jansen 2009:73). what the white youth experienced from an early stage was knowledge of a glorious past of struggle and achievement of white people against all odds (mbembe 2008:12). the historical documentations of young people reflected demographic veracity and policies that were enforced by apartheid. the democratic south africa has caught up with forces of globalisation, which are significantly influential in marking out a set of culture, identity and meaning, aligned to concepts such as ‘multi-culturalism’, ‘universality’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’. now, there has been a paradigm shift in the demographic landscape of south africa. there is freedom of association and people can choose to live anywhere without infringing on anyone’s rights. thus, this change challenges one to look at the concept of culture as more than just a localised or ‘tribalised’ reference but rather as a diverse and ‘holistic’ engagement. such a diverse engagement includes imperatives such as identity, ideas, representation, social construction, context, ‘positionality’, difference and institutional ‘embeddedness’. walker (2005) has explored how change has unfolded across time in the lives of young white people of east london. the exploration was about how they have changed or stayed the same as the world has dramatically shifted around them, how they are formed by the past, but also against it. walker (2005:51) found that the afrikaner students’ identities were formed at the nexus of competing discourses of transformations, or preserving the apartheid past, of language, culture and colour. there is also limited social mixing. also, social and economic conditions shape and influence friendships. walker further found out that young white people’s lives are marked by race, racialised subjectivities and a past of racial separateness. after 1994, the centre tipped, heralding a renegotiation of their identities. a change in the flow of cultural information is one of the most defining aspects of the new south africa (steyn 2001:152). ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ are seen to have a pervasive impact on society. as such, individuals and groups may come to accept and internalise these constructs in their personal capacities and are thus often unable to change or contest them. thus, social categories such as race, ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ are often naturalised and viewed as being normative and often have the same necessity as laws which govern the natural world. ‘whiteness’ is now no longer fixed but a site of change and struggle. the characteristics of ‘whiteness’ are heterogeneity, and feelings of guilt, fear and dislocation (steyn 2001). overall, ‘whiteness’ theories unanimously perceive that the meaning of ‘whiteness’ has indeed changed in recent times. for instance, in south africa, white people are no longer privileged in the current democratic south africa, although the economy is currently in their hands because of the privileges of apartheid; but, being a white south african does not necessarily translate into superiority. fieldwork and methodology part of this study was conducted by thandiwe bubulu in 2014, as part of her master’s dissertation at the university of fort hare on white identities in post-apartheid south africa. she interviewed white youth registered at various tertiary institutions in east london, between may and july 2014. bubulu did not necessarily concentrate only on afrikaans-speaking youth; she also interviewed white youth in general who also included english-speaking white students. she interviewed 10 young people, of whom 6 were afrikaans speaking. in 2015, between august and october, a follow-up study was conducted and 20 white students who were of afrikaner background, living in various areas of east london, were interviewed. in this instance, we concentrated more on afrikaner youths’ identities; as a result, our focus here is more on cultural identity than on racial division. however, one cannot look into afrikaner identities and exclude race identity because of the fact that the apartheid context was identified by racial complexities. in 2014, bubulu met participants once a week over 3 months. also, as the supervisor of the master’s thesis, i went and visited them to see if proper procedures were followed. in july 2015, we requested the six leaners who were initially interviewed by bubulu, to introduce us to other afrikaans-speaking leaners, which they did, and as a result we ended up interviewing all of them between august and october 2015. during the 3 months we met them twice a week for the first month on a monday and thursday and thereafter we met them twice a month for 2 months. therefore, this study is a result of the interviews and interactions that took place in 2014 and 2015. the interview schedules used during the interviews were made up of semi-structured questionnaires which allowed participants an opportunity to express their opinion and perception without any pressure. the interviews were recorded by both tape recorder and note taking. during the interviews, participants were free and they only spoke about a number of issues related to them as afrikaner youth living in the democratic south africa. participants were not forced to participate (voluntariness) and were informed of their rights and that they could also withdraw from the study any time if they wished to do so. pseudo names were used for referring to participants in order to protect their true identity. each participant signed a consent form which explained that they participated in the study voluntarily and that no one coerced them to do so. participants were not given anything in appreciation of their participation. it was observed in both instances in 2014 and 2015 that most participants were excited about the research and as a result they were always looking forward to it. this study is not without limitations. one of the limitations is that the fieldworkers were black africans which might have resulted in response bias, where the participants tell the fieldworkers what they think they want to hear. this might be the consequence of the fact that participants were aware of the general perception of black people about white people, and as a result during this study they could have tried their level best to show that they are not racist and this might have compromised the findings of the study. in recognition of the above limitation, researchers assured participants that the interviews were for research purposes and that pseudo names will be used while reporting findings and that their true identities will not be revealed. also, the researchers explained the significance of research to participants and further emphasised the importance of being themselves and not pretending to be what they were not. during the information session, participants seemed to have understood the importance of this study, and this was clear from their interaction with the researchers. for example, all of them showed an understanding of the role and meaning of research in documenting participants’ feelings, experiences and perceptions. the second limitation is that the research sample consists of white students who normally socialise with black students on a daily basis, thereby resulting in them not being representative of the research population. the third limitation is that the research sample is small; therefore, it is not representative of the larger population. as a result, findings cannot be generalised to the larger population. in addition, this study does not provide a gender comparison of the perceptions and experiences of the participants. however, as previously stated, this research is a qualitative study, which aims at understanding the meaning behind the discourses, reflective of the target population, and not necessarily using the results for statistical purposes. in acknowledging these limitations, the study nonetheless does highlight the perceptions and lived experiences of young afrikaner youth living in east london. brief discussion on participants’ background including bubulu’s participants, the number of participants in total was 26, and their ages were between 20 and 25, with a gender distribution of 17 women and 9 men. participants were born in various places in south africa but were now permanent residents of either east london or king williams town. all participants study in east london for financial reasons. the participants stated that if they were given the opportunity, they would have studied at better universities outside east london. for instance, david said: ‘most better universities like university of cape town, wits university and rhodes are expensive for me and if i were to go there my parents would not afford paying residence for me’. (male, 24) while elizabeth said; ‘obviously i would have loved to study at wits university in johannesburg but my parents would not afford to pay rent for me’. it seems as much as participants were worried about exorbitant fees at other universities, they were also concerned about accommodation if they were to study outside east london; as a result, all participants were staying at their parents’ homes and some with their relatives. ethical consideration the ethical clearance for this study was granted by the university of fort hare and this study forms part of the national research foundation (nrf) thuthuka grant on youth cultures and identities, post apartheid. discussion on the interview results participants’ conceptualisation of apartheid and the white privilege all participants were well aware of the reputation attached to their skin colour and the fact that they were of apartheid privileged afrikaner background. although a few of them saw nothing wrong with apartheid, most of them were shameful of such a privileged past. those who saw nothing wrong with such a past expressed the view that apartheid was god’s purpose and that now that it is over, there is no reason to talk about it. those who saw nothing wrong with apartheid were also irritated by the question of apartheid privilege. for example, david said: ‘i really don’t like to talk about this subject, i only agreed because of my friends, i’m not racist but i don’t see anything wrong with apartheid, it was god’s purpose and it must remain in history’. (male, 24) marlene (female, 24) was also irritated by the question regarding privilege and she responded: ‘even if we were privileged then, now we are not, so what’s the relevance of asking me about my privileged apartheid situation?’ david further said that he does not see anything wrong with apartheid and the fact that they were privileged because now they were no longer privileged; his parents were now struggling to pay his university fees while black students were studying for free. those who were shameful of the apartheid past noted that they felt ashamed of what their grandparents and parents did to black people. emily said that: ‘even though i was not there during apartheid but i feel sad for what our grandparents did to black people as much as my parents have raised me well and are now supporting me through my education but sometimes i am not proud of being white, i don’t see myself as special or privileged but i am ashamed of my past’. (female, 24) in turn, rhoda said: ‘there is really nothing to be proud of; it is such a shameful past, whenever i read and hear about how black people were treated by white people i become ashamed of being white’. (female, 22) elizabeth said: ‘yes, i am fully aware of the apartheid privilege, but i am sorry for what our grandparents did to black people’. (female, 24) most of them did not necessarily blame themselves but expressed regret in the apartheid system and its policies. some even said that if there was a way for them to compensate black people, they would do that. rhoda said: ‘i live a simple life like most of the black kids in the university and some of them are even better off than me, but still if there was a way to compensate them for what apartheid did to them i would compensate them’. (female, 22) emily said: ‘most of my classmates come from poorest families and they made me realise what poverty has done to them due to apartheid laws’. (female, 24) emily further noted that: ‘one can see that poverty among black people has not only been financially but even emotionally, i noticed how my black friends treated me when i first approached them for friendship. they looked down on themselves and respected me as umlungu’. (female, 24) she also noted that it took a long time for her black friends to see her as normal just like them. rhoda on the contrary said that as much as they were privileged during apartheid, presently some white people were poorer than other white people and even poorer than some black people. for example, her family is poorer than some of the black people. even though a very few participants, in fact only two out of the total number of participants, took pride in apartheid and its policies, not all the participants were proud of it, and some of them even expressed regret about the consequences of apartheid. there was a general acknowledgement of the apartheid system as a system that benefited all white people, but there was also a point made that not all white people are rich today, and that some were even poorer than some black people. at what age or what point did participants become aware of apartheid? this question sought to better understand where, how and who first talked to participants about race, apartheid or white superiority, the extent to which this was done and the perspective from which the story was told. one of the research aims was to identify the first instance of influence on the subject and the role such influence has on their current perception on the subject. as already mentioned, all participants were born between 1991 and 1998 and did not have a direct experience of apartheid; although some were born in 1991, they were only 3 years old in 1994 and therefore were too young to know the difference. most participants heard about apartheid’s history from a young age at home from their parents and other family members, while a few heard about it from school. those who heard about it from school were taught by primary school teachers on the subject of history of white people and pride in their heritage. elizabeth said: ‘i studied at a primary school where there was only white people and i vividly remember hearing about apartheid from primary school, but it was not necessarily called apartheid, but it was a general history of how white people came and settled in south africa and the role they played in developing this country’. (female, 24) most of those whose parents told them about their history and heritage were told about how evil black people are and were also told about communism and some of the black people who were imprisoned because they were communists. furthermore, it was emphasised to them that before 1994, white people lived a peaceful life away from black crime and corruption. david recalled how his parents used to tell him to work hard and get involved in family business, because ‘now south africa is in the hands of communists’. johann recalls that when he was in grade 8, when he had just enrolled at a multiracial high school, his father warned him about black people. he said: ‘i arrived at home and told my father that i had a new friend and he was excited and asked me more about my friend and i told him that he was a black, my father gave me a long lecture and warned me to be careful of black kids because their parents are not good’. (male, 24) frieda also received a lecture from her parents after they saw her with black children when they went to pick her up from school. emily said that her parents were fine with her having black friends even from primary school, but in the beginning they would ask her what the black child used to talk about in order to establish whether they talked negative about white people or not. ‘actually i’m still friends with vusi and as result of our strong friendship bond our parents also became friends’ added emily. a few said that their families would have specific meetings to talk about their history and not necessarily give them details of the situation of the time, and the emphasis was more on preserving their afrikaner identity without giving them apartheid details. rhoda said she vividly remembered her father saying to them ‘my children it is important for us to teach you our history and heritage, because out there you will hear all sorts of bad stories about white people’. david said his father refused to take him to a multiracial school but took him to a school with white people only so that he could not hear bad stories about white people. johann who studied at a multiracial school in amalinda said that his mother did not necessarily have an unpleasant attitude towards black people, except that she told him that he needs to be careful about the fact that black people have a tendency of talking negative about white people and not all white people are bad. she further said, ‘i had black friends from as early as primary school, because some were my class mates and my mother had no issue with that’. most informants were never told or influenced about apartheid as a bad practice; in fact, it was only when they were in high school that they heard about the term and it was mostly used on tv during news, which they also hardly watched. most said that while they were young even the tv channels they watched were those of white afrikaans speakers and for some reasons they were never encouraged to watch other channels like sabc 1 and sabc 2. some said they heard about nelson mandela, who was the first black president, from an early age, and it was their interest in this person that made them want to watch news more often, as the news often used the term ‘apartheid’ whenever it reported on nelson mandela and the african national congress (anc). peter recalls that when they used to watch news on the tv, they would talk about mandela who was the president and who suffered under apartheid and would ask his father what exactly did mandela do to deserve such suffering? his father responded ‘it’s south african history when white people and black people were fighting’. he felt that his father avoided answering exactly what the issues were and this frustrated him and made him to want to know more about president mandela and black people in general. how were participants influenced by their parents’ perception of black people? the effect and the impact of what they were told by teachers, parents and other family members varied, with most saying it made them more inquisitive about black people. some said after their parents’ negative talk and influence about black people, they stayed away from black children for some time, but ended up befriending some other black children at a later stage. some of them mentioned that they had already been exposed to black children prior to their parents’ negative influence, and they did not see anything wrong with them. beyond their parents’ influence, they wanted to hear and find out for themselves if what they heard was true. sonia said: ‘i remember after my father told me how bad and immoral black people were, i developed interest to get to know them better and i did not see what my father spoke about’. (female, 23) emily said: ‘at the beginning i also did not like black people but the more i interacted with them in high school, i realised that they are not so bad and a result i am now dating one of them’. (female, 24) what does it mean to be a young white person in post-apartheid south africa? for most participants, being a white young person in the democratic south africa is the most difficult thing. at the grass-root level, they felt accepted by their classmates and have developed good relationships with people of all races, but their main concern was the democratic laws that seem to bring down white people. over and above these laws, they were also discouraged by the general perceptions of black people about them and the statements by politicians which suggest that white people will never genuinely care for black people. their main concerns are that they feel disadvantaged, even though apartheid advantaged their parents, and consequently they experienced financial difficulties in the same manner as many black people. marlene said, ‘all the laws in this country favour black people and white people are left to suffer’. the an other said ‘not all white people are privileged you know’. one said: ‘look at me i am studying here in east london so i could stay at home, my parents could never afford rent otherwise i could have decided to study at other better universities’. (rian, male, 21) for them to be young and white south africans in the democratic south african means one must work much harder than black youth, more especially if one is a white south african and comes from a poor family. emily said ‘even when we finish studying still we won’t get jobs, because they are meant for black people and it seems that now we have to pay for our parent’s sins’. joseph noted that: ‘one day i would want to raise my children over a clear conscience, a clean slate you know, not on what my parents have experienced, i therefore would love us young people of different races to move on with our lives and not be influenced by what our parents have experienced’. (male, 23) for most participants to be a white young person in the democratic south africa means living a life of constant adaptation. in the context of affirmative laws that favour black youth, white youth have to get used to being overlooked and adapt to constant changes. they regret that apartheid divided the society and further feel that apartheid is over and society must to be ready to change along with it. most of them appreciate the fact that everyone is free under the new south african democratic laws and policies, even though some of these laws oppress them. these include freedom of choice, freedom of association and freedom of speech. ‘we are all same’, the most popular phrase used by participants ‘we are all the same’ is the most popular phrase used by participants in defining themselves and their state of being, in relation to other young people. this sameness relates to the fact that most of their parents work as teachers, school principals, police, social workers, church ministers and others in the private sector. furthermore, they live in affordable areas like amalinda, greenfields, quigney and west bank. like other black young people, some of them travel to school with their parents who drop them off, some take lifts with friends, while some use public transport. for example, stacy stays in amalinda and travels by taxi to school, while rhoda who stays in quigney walks to school because her parents cannot afford taxi fare. in her own words, rhoda said: ‘i walked to school with some of my friends and it feels healthy and that does not bother us, yes there are those who take the taxi but we can’t afford it and so we have accepted it’. (female, 22) when asked whether the friends she walks with were black people or white people, she responded: ‘does it really matter? i walk with black friends, for some reason i have been with them so much that colour does not matter anymore in defining them’. as much as participants acknowledge that apartheid privileged white people and disadvantaged black people, their issue is currently that their parents have to work like everybody else, and it is unfair to look at them differently and assume that they are well off. rhoda said: ‘some of my black classmates are better off than me and sometimes kuhle, one of my classmates, buys me lunch when i don’t have money’. johann said ‘not all white people are rich, maybe our grandfathers were but our parents work very hard just like black people’. rhoda further said, ‘i don’t see myself in anyway different from black youth and the only difference is the skin and it does not mean i am privileged or better’. peter also said: ‘when i arrived in high school i tried to make friends with black learners, but i could see that they were avoiding me and some thought that i was better than them and it took a long time to finally convince them that we are all the same’. (male, 21) the participants also did not regard themselves better or more morally upright than black people. some see themselves as south africans first before the question of white privilege and therefore they tried their level best to reach out to some of their black classmates and friends so as to convince them that they are all the same. some of the black youth easily accepted them while some resisted. as it will be mentioned later, some of the participants were dating while some have dated black people at some point. what is it that makes participants happy and hopeful? their joy and hope depended on various things such as being accepted by black peers and coloured peers, on the changing political landscape and on achieving their ambitions. the biggest thing that makes them happy is when coloured and black youth accept them and when they are treated normally in classes at school. furthermore, what makes them happy and hopeful is that one day, they will be accepted for who they are, not based on being white south africans or privileged apartheid children. also, their hope is on the changing political landscape in south africa. for them, the anc is a racist party that divides the society and they have hope in the inclusive laws that will be introduced by the democratic alliance (da). there was a specific trust and hope that they expressed in the da. for example, samuel said, ‘we participate in university politics and the democratic alliance students association (dasa) is our hope, there we have all races and we treat each other equally’. dasa is growing very fast and as a result in 2014, at the university of fort hare, the student representative council (src) was dasa, and the same was the case in the nelson mandela metropolitan university as well. frieda said: ‘look who would have thought that the democratic alliance would grow and have more black people, even a black leader in mr musi maimane. now in the da we have all races and we don’t look at each other the same way our parents did’. (female, 24) the participants were also hopeful that they will complete their studies and secure employment, even though it might be difficult, but they are hopeful that in the end things will work out well for them. peter who was doing his final year in law said: ‘my uncle is a practising lawyer and after i finish my studies i plan to go and do my article at his firm and that really keeps me hoping’. fred said: ‘i am now engaged to my boyfriend and once we are done studying, we will both relocate to cape town and work there and that is what keeps me going’. what are their aspirations and future wishes for the democratic south africa? almost all the participants stated that it would be positive and empowering if the ruling classes promoted association, cooperation and unity among or within the different races. without a unified rainbow nation, much conflict might be reborn, whereas the present young generation should be trying to move away from that. some of them expressed the following: young people in the democratic era wish for peace and harmony among the different races; even though there are different associations, the youth should rather learn from each other’s differences and build a broader nation with better and bigger opportunities for all, regardless of the different races and identities. learning from each other’s differences and creating the best out of them could open many brighter doors and opportunities for all south african citizens and would also encourage other nations as well. discussion and conclusion this study suggests that to a large extent, white youth have been negatively influenced against black people. this influence has been enforced in the pretext of ‘afrikaner pride’ and the intention was to make them think of themselves as superior to others. furthermore, efforts were made by their parents and family members to isolate them from black influence and to some extent some parents moved them from certain schools that admitted black learners, while some denied them an opportunity to listen to sabc news that could expose them to negative identities of white people. however, this study shows that despite all influences they received from parents and despite isolation, these young people are still able to make up their own minds about who to associate with and even going to the extent of engaging in racially mixed relationships that were not approved by their parents. one such example is that of one of them decided to date a black student, with their relationship resulting in their families reaching out to each other. this study shows that in spite of parents’ influence on apartheid and black hatred, young people are able to make up their minds on who they want to be and who they want to associate with. their identity is no longer defined by apartheid’s influence, and they are able to shift boundaries and spaces of race and culture. this is contrary to the small white superior world driven by influences on military training, rugby, dutch reformed church and secluded schools system. their identity and sense of belonging is influenced by their interaction with other black youth and coloured youth. this study shows that white youth are now defining their own identity, which includes interaction with youths of other races as equals – just like nayak (2003) a person of indian origin who grew up in england and was seen by his parents as indian, by his colleagues as british, but who carved his own identity which included being both indian and english. the findings of this study agree with nayak’s (2003) argument that to some extent one’s identity among the youth does not necessarily depend on how others define one, but on how one perceives oneself in relation to one’s socio-political contexts. there is also a sense that the laws that are introduced in south africa are meant to punish all white people; as much as they recognise the injustices and the results of apartheid, they also feel that they are being made to pay for their grandparents’ and parents’ sins. this also brings to light the questions of white privilege and the black disadvantaged; their issue is that as much as white people could have been privileged in apartheid, after 20 years of democracy some black youth are now better off than white youth. a white female student made the following comment on facebook during the #feesmustfall campaign (october 2016): ‘the political parties are gaining by driving a wedge between all races, i supported the fmf, but know … i don’t know, once again i find myself questioning my place in this country – the only country that i know and love. i am privileged, but not in any financial sense – why would i be studying now if i have could afforded it when i was 18?? i am privileged because i know how the world works, i have been exposed to different things from a young age and was brought up in a safe and sometimes over protective environment. do i agree with the fact that ‘we let you live’ … i am so shocked and appalled that i don’t even know what to say. free education for the poorest of the poor, the rest must pay on a sliding scale. i have watched the wits protestors get into their big black mercedes-benz or audi or bmw and they have the audacity to tell me that i don’t know about financial struggle or any struggle for that matter’. (facebook post, 5 october 2016) her dilemma is that she is a white south african and yet poorer than some students who participated in the campaign. she raises an interesting question on the meaning of the term ‘poor’. she questions the idea that being a white south african she cannot be poor. furthermore, she questions the state of a black south african and yet privileged students who drive expensive cars that some white students cannot afford. in this way, just like in the findings of this study, not all white students are rich. therefore, the #feesmustfall campaign should not be about black students and white students but about students who cannot afford tertiary tuition, irrespective of their skin colour. this study also shows that there is a strong feeling of anger and bitterness towards democracy and an observation that it has come to rob and steal what their parents have invested for them. there is a sense of victimisation and reverse revenge. they grew up in an era where all south african citizens were supposed to experience equality and non-racialism; however, it is not so, and as a result, they feel that it is the current government that perpetuates racism among youth. it seems as if the feelings expressed by participants is what many white south african youth are trying so badly to express just across the racial fence. it seems that a lot of young white south africans are saying that they are not responsible for apartheid, they are not racist, they are for racial harmony and coexistence with their black neighbour, but no one seems to hear them out because of their skin colour. the last interesting part is their interests and their hope in politics. they eloquently express their disappointment in the anc as a party that divides people according to racial lines and also their hope in the da as a party of the future and a symbol of non-racialism. for them, it seems that the da is not just a political party but a safe and non-racial space where they meet as youth of all races. one cannot speculate on the exact reasons why this group of youth have been able to go beyond racial boundaries and racial identities, but at least we have a clue that most of them come from middle-class white families that live a simple life which is the same as most black students in east london. in essence, what participants have in common with some black students in their classes and in their circles is their socioeconomic conditions. they live in the same areas, which are affordable for a number of black people in east london, and also their parents who are not necessarily successful business people; most of them are employed as nurses, teachers or police. it is their socioeconomic conditions that contribute to how they perceive themselves as equal and the same as black youth; as a result, their identity is drawn from a more integrated society. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions t.b. initiated the proposal for this article. l.n. was the study leader and supervised the research process. t.b. conducted most of the interviews while l.n. provided the conceptual framework for this article. references alexander, l., 2007, ‘invading pure space: disrupting black and white racially homogenised spaces’, south african journal of psychology 37(4), 738–754. https://doi.org/10.1177/008124630703700405 beall, j., gelb, s. & hassim, s., 2005, ‘fragile stability: state and society in democratic south africa’, journal of sothern africa studies 31(4), 681–700. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070500370415 conway, d., 2008, ‘“somewhere on the borderof credibility”: the cultural construction and contestation of “the border” in white south african society’, in g. baines & p. vale (eds.), beyond the border war: new perspectives on southern africa’s late-cold war conflicts, pp. 75–93, unisa press, 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university press, britain. footnote 1. this is a narrative where being white and european is seen to represent everything good and powerful – it is also a dominant system of beliefs against which everything is measured. abstract introduction aims and objectives literature review the concept of organisational resilience research methods and design results and analysis discussion conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) mourine s. achieng department of digital transformation and innovation, graduate school of business leadership, university of south africa, midrand, south africa masike malatji department of digital transformation and innovation, graduate school of business leadership, university of south africa, midrand, south africa citation achieng ms, malatji m. digital transformation of small and medium enterprises in sub-saharan africa: a scoping review. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1257. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1257 review article digital transformation of small and medium enterprises in sub-saharan africa: a scoping review mourine s. achieng, masike malatji received: 15 june 2022; accepted: 25 aug. 2022; published: 20 dec. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the economic activities of the small and medium enterprises (smes) in sub-saharan africa (ssa) drive much of the region’s economic growth and development. despite their importance, smes tend to fail in their first two years of operation compared to macro enterprises. digital transformation (dt) of organisations fosters resilience; however, dt of smes in ssa has been slow because of several impediments. the objective of this article is to establish how smes in the context of ssa can develop comprehensive strategies for integrating digital technologies into their operations to build resilience. arksey and o’malley’s systematic scoping review (sr) is used to identify and map articles over a 5 year period using inclusion and exclusion criteria. a total of 44 articles were included for in-depth analysis to address the issue under investigation. the results indicate toward economy-based, market-based and sociotechnical contextual factors emerging as themes that impede dt of smes in the ssa region. in the ssa context, smes face numerous regional constraints that create barriers in their operations, such as limited access to profitable and value-added markets. transdisciplinarity contribution: to develop strategies for integrating technologies, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of smes’ operational context. this is vital if smes in the ssa region are to fully realise the transformative potential of integrating digital technologies into their business operations and gain long-term resilience. through digitally enabled resilience, smes can continue to play their critical role in the economic growth and development of the ssa region. keywords: small and medium enterprises; digital transformation; sub-saharan africa; resilience; economy. introduction the significance of small and medium enterprises (smes) in the economic growth and development of sub-saharan africa (ssa) region is widely recognised and documented across the literature.1,2,3 this is not surprising given that smes’ activities – in both formal and informal sectors – account for a sizeable portion of economic activities in ssa. for a region characterised by high rates of unemployment, poverty and inequalities, it is clear that smes play a critical role in addressing these socio-economic issues. unfortunately, it is estimated that 70% – 80% of smes in ssa fail or remain stagnant in their first two years of operations.4,5 this is partly because of several issues that plague smes’ operations in the region, as summarised in table 1. the situation is exacerbated further by a rapidly changing market environment driven by globalisation, technological advancements and market pressures. these challenges have negative implications on the ability of smes to develop resilience capabilities critical for their survival. as a result, the critical role of smes in the economic growth and development of the ssa region is constantly jeopardised. table 1: challenges affecting small and medium enterprises in the sub-saharan africa. it is therefore imperative that ssa smes, in collaboration with various stakeholders in government and civil society, devise strategies to overcome some of the challenges they face to remain resilient in uncertain times. the strategies should be aimed at promoting the growth and development of smes in the region. with businesses starting to rely more on data analytics, digital tools and automation, resilience of the digitally enabled businesses is becoming an increasingly important component of smes’ survival.10 initiatives such as the use of computer and mobile applications, websites and social media platforms are viewed as business resilience enablers that can facilitate adaptability and transformation while capitalising on opportunities and challenges.11 although there is no single universal definition of ‘business resilience’, this article adopts the national academy of sciences’12 definition of resilience: ‘the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and adapt more successfully to adverse events’. the ability of smes to build operational resilience capabilities through digital transformation (dt) allows them to prepare for, adapt and withstand uncertainties and disruptions in the business environment. digital transformation of smes using technologies has the potential to rapidly expand customer and supplier bases, provide new business models aimed at improving business operations, products and services for value creation and revenue generation. the discourse on technology adoption among smes further indicates that the use of technologies is more likely to increase mobility and cross-border trade and improve interconnectedness with other smes. this is critical for smes in the ssa region with the enactment of the african continental free trade area (afcfta) agreement that promises to open africa’s markets and advance opportunities for digitally enabled economic growth.13 all these changes have the potential to boost smes’ competitiveness and foster digitally enabled resilience. as a result, the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd)14 emphasises the adoption of digital technologies by ssa smes. however, because of several impediments, smes in the ssa region have been slow to adopt digital technologies.15 when smes have adopted technology, it has been in the pursuit of efficiency and competitiveness in their business operations. nonetheless, the challenges of integrating technology into the business operations of smes are multifaceted. these challenges include those highlighted in table 1. to find appropriate solutions, all relevant stakeholders, including government and civil society, must work together. the solutions should aim to promote an enabling business environment that is conducive for the growth and development of smes and thus the socio-economic development of ssa. due to the ‘simple’ nature of their business structures, one of the major challenges smes face when integrating technologies into their operations is a lack of business strategic planning and business information structures. as result, developing comprehensive strategies for integrating digital technologies into business operations and objectives has been a challenge.16 furthermore, smes often fail to make a connection between technology adoption and their profit drives.17 this is a critical aspect of dt that has contributed to the failure of many smes’ digital initiatives. furthermore, misalignment of digital technologies and business objectives causes fragmentation of many digital initiatives in the smes sector, resulting in a lack of value and relevance.17 the distinctive characteristics of smes of the ssa region necessitate careful consideration of the operational context in the pursuit of digitally enabled business resilience. building digitally enabled business resilience capabilities often requires a holistic approach for reengineering business operations, culture and structure.18 such an approach requires comprehensive dt strategies that create an enabling environment for digital technology adoption and use. the primary goal of this article is to increase knowledge and understanding of dt of smes in the ssa context for improved business resilience. digitally enabled business resilience can facilitate long-term survival of smes in ssa in a highly competitive globalised market environment. aims and objectives this article aims to explore the status of dt of smes in the ssa context. the objectives are as follows: (1) identify digital technology use by smes and the contextual factors that influence technology adoption and smes profit drives and (2) outline guidelines on how smes in the ssa context can develop comprehensive strategies for integrating digital technologies into their business operations to build resilience. literature review small and medium enterprises in sub-saharan africa given the heterogeneous nature of smes, there seems to be no consensus in extant literature on a universal definition of smes.19,20 the absence of a unifying definition is attributed to the diverse perspectives of smes emerging from various sources, including governments, business leaders, scholars and policymakers.21 for example, scholars such as keskġn et al. argue that different countries employ various quantifiable variables such as size, number of employees, sales revenue, assets, smes’ level of development and so forth to define smes.22 other scholars contend that smes are defined by specific government legislation.23 based on these observations, it is difficult to capture all aspects of smes in a single description, resulting in the lack of a unifying definition. sub-saharan africa has 32 of the 42 countries ranked by the world bank as among the poorest in the world. as a result, this article adopts the world bank’s definition of smes as businesses with fewer than 300 employees, less than us $15.00 million in annual sales or assets and less than us $1m in loan size. sub-saharan african smes typically range from small microbusinesses run by one or two persons to medium-sized enterprises capable of employing several workers. a majority of the small businesses are often informally operated, while the medium businesses generally operate in the formal sector. these two sectors (formal and informal) account for an estimated 80% of the employment and economic activities in africa. as a result, smes contribute significantly to the region’s gross domestic product (gdp).24 examples of smes contributions in the ssa region include the following: in south africa, smes employ approximately 50% – 60% of the workforce and contribute 34% of gdp; in nigeria, statistics indicates that smes provide about 3m jobs annually on average as of 2019. in kenya, ghana, cameroon, rwanda and zambia, smes account for 38%, 49%, 19%, 33% and 60% of their gdps, respectively.25 based on these statistics, smes are regarded as engines of socio-economic growth and development in ssa. however, ssa smes’ productivity and thus contributions to the region’s gdp have dropped significantly in recent years. this is largely because of the challenges listed in table 1 that deter their growth and development.26 because of these challenges, most smes in ssa prioritise survival over growth and development, which has a negative impact on their success and resilience. small and medium enterprises’ survival in this context is understood as simply keeping the business running rather than expanding its customer base or revenue. these are considered aspects of business growth and development. furthermore, the united nations (un) has previously stated that globalisation of value chains (of products and services) is one of the most significant challenges that african smes face. to this, igwe et al.27 argued most smes in countries such as south africa and egypt are unable to identify their competitive strengths within a globalised value chain. in such cases, smes identified impediments such as lack of resources to understand the evolving global business environment in which they operate. the issue of globalisation, as well as those issues highlighted in table 1, are often a reflection of the business environment in which smes operate. in this case, an enabling business environment would consist of a set of policies, institutions (such as financial) and other factors that shape the opportunities and incentives for businesses to invest productively, create employment and develop.28 this is crucial for a region like ssa where there are widespread social inequalities that stifle access to opportunities. to boost and foster small businesses, entrepreneurship and start-ups, some countries in the ssa region have formulated several reforms and initiatives to support smes’ growth and development. for example, initiatives such as innovation hubs and business incubator programmes have been set up to support creativity and innovativeness.29 according to a joint report by briter bridges and afrilabs,30 the african tech hubs are growing in popularity. the report indicates that the african continent currently has 643 tech hubs, and the number is growing. in the ssa region, most of the tech hubs and business incubator programmes are in kenya, nigeria and south africa. tech hubs and business incubators play an important role, not only in assisting entrepreneurs and other small business owners on the continent but also in the economic growth and development of the region. tech hubs teach new skills that are critical for business owners’ survival in the digital ecosystem. furthermore, a tech hub provides entrepreneurs and small business owners with access to funding opportunities and a global network of other business owners. in recent developments, the formulation and enactment of the afcfta memorandum of agreement may provide new hope for the african business environment. the african continental free trade area is expected to boost intra-african trade and africa’s trading position in the global market.13 such a policy promises to provide an enabling business environment for smes in the continent by expanding customer and supplier base. market access, which has been a key issue for ssa smes, is one of the most significant opportunities provided by the afcfta. as a result, smes are a key beneficiary of the afcfta, as the free-trade zone offers significant opportunities for growth. however, for such as policy to successfully work, smes must firstly be aware of it; secondly, they must understand its purpose in the business environment. in other words, its grassroots implementation would be critical to its success and for small businesses across the continent to realise its benefits. furthermore, institutional challenges such as lack of financial support, political instability, corruption and inadequate infrastructure must be addressed. globalisation of value chains is changing the traditional business strategies, and these are also being fundamentally reshaped by technological advancements, necessitating adaptation by smes to remain competitive in a global digital economy. the concept of digital transformation digital transformation is viewed as a multifaceted phenomenon that affects all aspects of human activity, including technology, the economy, politics and society. from a broad perspective, authors such as kaplan et al.31 defined dt as ‘the radical and comprehensive changes caused or influenced by the use of digital technology in every aspect of human life’. in contrast, schallmo et al.32 defined dt from an organisational standpoint, arguing that dt is the use of technology to generally improve performance or reach. other definitions include ebert and duarte’s33 description of dt as the act of implementing disruptive technologies to boost productivity, value creation and social welfare. this, according to bharadwaj et al.34, enables ‘modular, distributed, cross-functional, and global business processes that enable work to be carried out across time, distance, and function boundaries’ in ways that were previously not possible. other aspects of dt that emerge in literature include digital skills, data security and privacy, among others. digital skills are required in terms of use, which lankshear and knobel35 argued facilitates innovation, knowledge management and creativity in an organisation’s environment. on this basis, dt is sometimes described as the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) or industry 4.0 in the literature.34 the emergence of new technologies is frequently associated with the revolutionary aspect of dt.36 as a result, it is argued that focusing on the changing nature of work enabled by digital technologies can provide a deeper understanding of the transformation process. mobile technologies, social media platforms, artificial intelligence (ai), analytics and big data, cloud computing and the internet of things (iot) are among the most influential technological developments associated with dt. these technologies are said to enable greater efficiency, improved connectivity and automation, among other advantages. digital transformation and small and medium enterprises in recent years, scholarly interest in sme-focused digitalisation and dt has grown significantly. however, the existing literature has primarily either focused on dt in macro enterprises or smes in high-income countries, as well as dt antecedents and outcomes in those regions. for example, bin and hui37 carried out a systematic literature review on factors that influence dt of smes. the results of the study showed that the population of the smes were mainly in high-income countries, including china, australia, the united kingdom and the united states of america, with a few exceptions of low-middle-income countries such as pakistan and chile. surprisingly, no african country was included in the list of smes’ population. this can be attributed to the fact that the majority of smes in high-income countries have advanced in their early adoption of digital technologies compared to those in low-middle-income countries. in ssa, improved mobile telecommunication infrastructure and the internet, particularly mobile broadband networks, provide a bedrock for the upsurge in digital initiatives. these have fundamentally changed the way people work, communicate, access government services and do business.38 improved mobile telecommunication infrastructure and the internet, together with the increase in mobile phone ownership, have brought great opportunities for smes in the ssa region. improved accessibility and affordability of mobile phones enabled by improved mobile telecommunication infrastructure has fostered dt among some smes in the services industry. in ssa, for example, retailers such as jumia (africa), takealot (south africa) and konga (nigeria) are among the leaders in providing digital services.39 other examples include kenya’s twiga, which uses digital technology to simplify the supply chain between fresh food farmers and suppliers.40 example of digital technologies emerging in this review that are typically used by smes include information and communication technologies (ict); computer and mobile technologies and applications (e.g. e-mail); electronic commerce; websites; cloud computing; electronic payment gadgets; social media platforms; and other technologies such as iots. to ensure successful transformation in smes, continuous innovation is necessary. in addition, the ability to respond quickly to the changes in the business environment and the ability to capitalise on challenges and opportunities are vital. the discourse on dt indicates that successful transformation is heavily influenced by the geographical context of an organisation.41 to adapt to available technologies, the dt process causes a continuous shift in business operations, models and competencies. thus, when it comes to dt, a certain level of motivation, inventiveness and awareness of the consequences is required. based on these perspectives, dt for smes, particularly those in the ssa region, requires support from all sectors, including government, private sector and civil societies. such assistance must include dt technology roadmaps and ecosystems to ensure a stable business environment. for example, in africa’s context, the africa union (au) recently formulated the dt strategy (2020–2030).42 the objective of the strategy is to provide support for the digital ecosystem. however, the implementation of such a strategy must harmonise with existing policies related to digital technology use in various countries across the continent.42 a strategy such as the dt strategy should facilitate the reengineering process of business operations, which involves analysing the business market environment, business needs, capabilities and competencies and establishing suitable solutions that address their needs. a thorough understanding of their operational context, the relevance of digital technologies in addressing smes’ business needs and the value of the transformation process in achieving their business objectives are essential. transformation induced by digital technology use among small and medium enterprises in sub-saharan africa examples of businesses using digital technology, such as twiga (an e-commerce platform) used in kenya, show how dt of smes in the ssa context can help them achieve the sustainable development goals (sdgs), particularly sdgs 1, 2 and 3. the transformative potential of digital technologies can enable overall optimisation of business process, efficient and cost-effective production of quality products and services, increased product or service range by responding faster to market changes and product customisation. through these improvements in their business operations, smes would gain competitive advantage, allowing them to reposition themselves as socio-economic drivers of the region. digital transformation of smes using digital technologies is critical to their internal operations, and they are used for a variety of purposes, including communication (e-mails), transactions, sales recording and processing, automation, production planning and stock control, document management, general accounting and finance, marketing and so on. digital transformation via electronic commerce (e-commerce) is well established in certain countries in the ssa region, with retailers such as twiga, jumia, takealot and konga being already prominent. websites that offer buyers and sellers the opportunity to transact on the site are also commonly used to display products and services. digital transformation via social media platforms such as facebook, youtube and instagram is also visible in smes in the ssa region. they use such platforms to engage their customers and market their goods and services with fewer resources.43 for smes, having a website and using social media platforms can help them improve their market and global value chain positioning without the need for pre-existing business relationships. in recent literature, dt through cloud computing in smes has been explored, although not many smes in the ssa region have adopted cloud computing as a tool for transformation.44,45 digital transformation via such technologies presents its own set of challenges. because of a variety of factors, including a lack of skilled personnel, smes are often limited in adapting to such new technologies. examples of disruptive digital technologies that can be applied in smes business operations include pervasive computing technologies, novel delivery models (cloud computing) and digital tools and techniques of exploiting data. furthermore, in comparison to other regions, digital innovations in the ssa context are notable in terms of digital financial inclusion, as evidenced by the widespread use of mobile money or digital wallet services systems in some countries.46 this abundance of digital innovations based on mobile internet is not limited to financial services and represents a tremendous opportunity for the growth and development of ssa smes.39 the relatively high diffusion of mobile money among smes in the ssa context can also be explained by their low access to formal financial services, which has traditionally prevented them from being considered by the traditional banking sector, as well as the various market imperfections that are prevalent in many african economies. figure 1 shows the impact dt can have on smes business operations. figure 1: impact of digital technologies on small and medium enterprises business operations. banga and te velde48 cautioned, however, that mobile telecommunication infrastructure alone is not the solution. for example, in greater parts of the ssa region, high internet costs are prohibitively expensive for smes, particularly those in the informal sector. furthermore, legislation that restricts equal access to the internet is a major impediment to the use of digital technology. for example, in some countries, the introduction of social media taxation laws resulted in increased costs associated with internet access. there are also issues concerning data privacy and cybercrimes that become particularly delicate with the use of online platforms and social networks.49 in today’s digital economy, the harm that data leaks or cybercrime can cause smes and their customers cannot be overstated. all these necessitate reforms in legal frameworks, regulations and cybercrime countermeasures to ensure data privacy and consumer protection. to fully realise the transformative potential of digital technologies, governments and other relevant stakeholders in the sme sector have a responsibility to enforce policies that enable dt to promote inclusive socio-economic growth. it is argued that strategic dt has the capability to address competitiveness gaps in the business environment as well as being a source of building resilience among ssa smes. the concept of organisational resilience the literature on the term ‘resilience’ reveals it to be a multifaceted construct that has been applied in many disciplines at the individual (human), system and organisational levels. its field of origin, however, is disputed in the literature, with some scholars and authors claiming it originated in the field of physics, while others claim it originated in the field of ecology, and still others claim it originated in the field of psychology, among other disciplines. regardless of the discipline or context, there is some agreement on the description of ‘resilience’ as the ability to recover or bounce back from a difficult situation.50 in an organisational context, the concept of resilience has gained interest recently among academics, development agencies, policymakers and other interested parties. in a more recent description of organisational resilience, this article adopts williams et al.’s51 summary of previous definitions. williams et al. suggested that it is the ability of an organisation to maintain reliable business functioning despite adversity or disruptions. looking at these descriptions, it is evident that organisational resilience aims at addressing different ways in which an organisation can prepare for, respond to and adapt to external risks of any nature. from this description, three key pillars emerge, adaptability, responsiveness and transformation. the adaptability pillar refers to an organisation’s ability to develop strategies to adjust to market disruptions or uncertainties. in other words, it is the ability of an organisation to prepare for uncertain times and disruptions. the responsiveness pillar, derived from the concept of crisis management, refers to an organisation’s ability to return to ‘normalcy’ following a period of disruption(s), while the transformation pillar refers to the ability of an organisation to make deliberate efforts to improve its ability to deal with market uncertainties and disruptions.52 based on these descriptions, achieving organisational resilience is a complex task that requires forethought. organisations therefore require comprehensive strategies to take on the onerous task of transforming business operations to meet the market environment demands.52 he et al.53 suggested two ways of achieving organisational resilience transformation: process and human resource management. in process management, the key elements include situation awareness, management of key vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. in situation awareness, an organisation is expected to have the ability to assess and measure its operation environment. from the analysis of the operation environment, organisations can then make informed decisions to potential disruptions or prepare for uncertainties. the management of keystone vulnerabilities aspect of process management involves an organisation identifying and managing its key functional areas.53 this includes having in-depth understanding of its operational and managerial aspects that drives the organisation. it is based on this understanding that organisations can adapt, respond and transform in the face of disruptions and uncertain times.53 the last element of process management in achieving organisational resilience through process management is adaptive capacity. this latter aspect is viewed as the ability of an organisation to adjust to market disruptions and potential uncertainties. it also involves the capacity of an organisations to take advantage of opportunities in their operation environment.54 it is clear from these statements that achieving organisational resilience through process management requires a ‘perfect’ application of situation awareness, management of key vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity. in support of the process management aspect of achieving organisational resilience, human resource management provides two key important aspects, namely individual contribution and systemic control.53 individual contributions, in this case, are viewed as individual core competencies within an organisation. organisations must understand and identify individual core competencies required to carry out business operations. organisations can gain a significant competitive advantage by employing individuals with the appropriate skill sets. individuals with appropriate skill sets can apply their knowledge and skills to understand the market environment to help the organisation grow. this can include the analysis of existing or historical data sets to forecast future trends in the business environment and adapting them to market demands. the systematic control aspect of human resource management involves adequate provision of appropriate and relevant resources and information by the organisations’ systems and subsystems to develop capabilities. on this, page52 suggested that organisations with access to relevant resources and information as well as the ability to adequately manage its human resource have a better chance of withstanding market turbulence. in summary, resilience is the ability for organisations such as smes in the ssa context to maintain business operations despite adversities in their market environments. to achieve this, smes must possess the three pillars of resilience: adaptability, responsiveness and agility to make deliberate efforts to successfully transform. acquiring these capabilities requires smes’ thorough understanding and management of their business processes and human resource competencies. in this article, the authors suggest that a combination of digital tools and technologies, managerial best practices and agility can foster a business environment for resilience development. if done right, dt can facilitate long-term resilience by increasing market access, providing efficiency in workforce productivity and stability.55 research methods and design a scoping review (sr), which is a subset of systematic literature reviews, was conducted for this study. the emphasis of sr is on an iterative process in which researchers begin with a broad search and then refine it as they become acquainted with the breadth of literature.56 the scope and range of literature on the use of digital technology by smes in the ssa context is the focus of this article. as result, the sr was deemed appropriate for its flexibility and usefulness in providing an in-depth and rigorous review of the use of digital technology by smes in the ssa context. arksey and o’malley56 proposed the usage of a 5-stage framework to identify and map the available evidence in literature on a given topic under investigation. the application of the 5-stage framework in this study is outlined as follows. stage 1: identification of research questions or objectives. aiming to investigate dt in smes in the ssa context, the research question posed was: how can smes in the ssa context develop comprehensive strategies for incorporating digital technologies into business operations to build resilience? to address this question, the following objectives were derived. firstly, the researchers set out to identify digital technologies commonly used by smes. secondly, contextual factors that influence technology adoption and use by smes in the ssa context were identified and discussed. stage 2: identification of relevant studies in literature. the researchers employed the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) (figure 2) as a guideline to identify relevant studies in literature that relate to the research questions and objectives. the researchers established a search criterion based on the keywords and timeframe. figure 2: preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) stages followed in identifying and selecting documents. search criteria and identification of sources the researchers searched the google scholar and scopus databases for relevant peer-reviewed journal articles and other documents on smes’ digital technology adoption and use as sources for this review. multiple iterations of searches were conducted to identify the relevant publications within a timeframe of five years (2017–2022). the main search terms were combined into a single query, with ssa and smes as delimiters. below are strings of the search keywords used: ‘technology’ and ‘small and medium businesses’ and ‘ssa’ ‘information and communication technology (ict)’ and ‘small and medium businesses’ and ‘ssa’ ‘digital technology’ and ‘small and medium businesses’ and ‘ssa’ ‘digital transformation’ and ‘small and medium businesses’ and ‘ssa’ exclusion and inclusion criteria the researchers established inclusion and exclusion criteria to retain the relevant publications and articles from the produced publications. after screening and reading through the titles and abstracts, the retrieved publications were deemed relevant if they met the pre-established inclusion criteria: (1) all publications were in english; (2) studies addressed digital technology or ict use by smes in ssa; (3) studies addressed dt in smes in the ssa context; (4) studies focused on contextual factors that influence dt or digital technology or ict use by smes in ssa; (5) studies had sound scientific and empirical design (qualitative or quantitative or mixed-methods); (6) reviews and meta-analyses focused on dt in smes in the ssa context; and (7) studies were published within the specified timeframe. for the exclusion criteria, publications that were written in other languages, studies undertaken outside the ssa context, non–open access publications, theses and dissertations were excluded from the study. stage 3: selection of relevant publications. all abstracts were screened against the inclusion and exclusion criteria before proceeding to the full-text screening stage. the screening was carried out by the researchers using mendeley citation software (elsevier, amsterdam, netherlands). the publications that passed the full-text screening served as the primary data sources for this review. using the search keywords ‘small and medium businesses’, ‘digital technology’, ‘use’ and ‘ssa’ yielded 42 publications. ‘small and medium businesses’, ‘technology’, ‘adoption’, ‘use’ and ‘ssa’ yielded 373 publications. while a combination of search keywords ‘small and medium businesses’, ‘ict’, ‘adoption’, ‘use’ and ‘ssa’ yielded 189 publications. a total of 604 publications were retrieved from the databases used in this study (google scholar and scopus). after removing 480 duplicates, 124 unique titles and abstracts remained. a total of 80 publications did not meet the inclusion criteria based on the titles and abstracts. as a result, a total of 44 articles were included for in-depth analysis. of the 44 articles included for analysis based on the inclusion criteria, 12 of the articles focused on factors or determinants of digital technology adoption and use by smes in ssa. stage 4: charting the retried data. the full-text articles that met the inclusion criteria were reviewed further at this stage. this required the use of an analytical criteria which entails synthesising and interpreting data. this was carried out by sifting through and sorting extracted material (data) based on the key objectives on the topic under investigation. this necessitated the use of a thematic analysis framework. the extracted data included the names of the authors, the year of publication, the purpose of the study, the location or context of the study and the main findings. stage 5: summarising and reporting results. this stage is divided into three steps: analysing the data, reporting results and considering the study results in a broader context. to provide meaningful understanding of the topic under investigation, the synthesised extracted data were first analysed and summarised based on the outlined objectives. for the first objective, through the review, several digital technologies used by smes in ssa were identified. this is mainly addressed in the transformation induced by digital technology use among small and medium enterprises in sub-saharan africa section of the article. for the second objective, the results were categorised into three main themes (economy-based, industry or market-based and sociotechnical contextual factors) that spoke to contextual factors that influence digital technology adoption and use by smes in the ssa region. the last two steps of this stage encompass the findings and discussions, which are presented separately in the sections that follows. results and analysis to address the first objective, through the review process, several studies on digital technologies adoption and use by smes in ssa were identified. extant literature indicates that the adoption of digital technologies by smes in the ssa context remains low.15 however, in the past 5 years there has been an increase in digital technology use by smes, particularly with the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic in 2020. based on the search results, themes such as ‘factors’ determining the ‘adoption’, ‘cloud computing’ adoption, ‘frameworks’, ‘approaches’ and ‘strategies’ emerged. in addition, themes such as ‘social media marketing’ ‘performance’ and ‘internalisation’ of smes were identified. the researchers relate the high frequency of such themes to the amount of research output on smes’ digitalisation in the past 5 years. table 2 provides examples of studies conducted on the use of digital technology by smes in the ssa region over the last 5 years. table 2: sample of studies on digital technology use by small and medium enterprises in the sub-saharan africa region. the results of the second objective’s analysis of the retrieved articles were classified into three main themes that addressed contextual factors that influence digital technology adoption and use by smes in the ssa region. the following discussions present findings on contextual factors influencing smes’ adoption and use of digital technology in the ssa context. according to the researchers, digitally enabled resilience in smes should consider factors specific to the operating environment. these factors, in most cases, limit the ability of smes in the ssa context to firstly adopt digital technologies and secondly to be resilient in today’s highly competitive global digital economy. there were 12 articles reviewed in terms of contextual determinants of digital technology adoption and use by smes in ssa. to understand the smes’ lack of or slow adoption of digital technologies (including icts and e-commerce technologies), it is necessary to examine the context in which they operate. because of the ssa region’s uniqueness, smes face numerous regional constraints. it is critical to examine these contextual factors to gain a better understanding and provide possible solutions to overcoming the barriers. the identified keywords were grouped into three broad themes: economy-based, industry or market-based and sociotechnical contextual factors. industry or market-based contextual factors inadequate infrastructure and resources are one of the key industry-based issues addressed in literature that influence digital technology use by smes in the ssa region and, by extension, dt.4,5,6 despite recent efforts by governments in the ssa region, many countries continue to face physical infrastructure challenges that limit the growth and development of smes. physical infrastructure, such as a consistent supply of essential utilities (such as electricity and water), is critical for the growth and development of smes. however, in many parts of the ssa region, reliable power supply remains a major issue. this has an impact on smes business operations in the region.57 the interruption of electricity supply has an impact on network coverage and device use which determine the extent to which digital services can be reliable. another factor raised in the reviewed literature is access to financial support and financial skill. for most smes, particularly those in the informal sector, access to financial support from the traditional banking sector has been a constant challenge.4,5,6 nevertheless, the relatively high diffusion of mobile money among smes in some countries in the ssa region has provided new ways of financial access. yet another issue in the smes sector is human capital development. often with dt, smes are forced to consider new skills that are required to operate in a digital economy. reskilling and/or recruiting skilled human resource personnel can be costly for smes, particularly those in the informal sector of the economy. however, advanced human capital is required to enable dt in smes. in addition, high costs attached to software and hardware of some of the disruptive digital technologies have been a deterrent for adoption and use in some smes. adequate financial and human capital, as well as adequate infrastructure and resources, are required for successful dt. unfortunately, many smes in the ssa context face significant challenges in obtaining these critical resources to fully realise the transformative potential of digital technologies. in addition, some countries in the ssa region have imposed controversial tax laws for operating on digital platforms. such laws prohibit some smes from using digital services in their business operation due to the fees attached to their use. other considerations that influence ssa smes’ growth and development in factors such as market pressures are customer demand for new experiences triggered by continental trade agreements and globalisation. for example, the afcfta agreement promises to integrate africa’s markets into ‘a single market for goods, services, facilitated by movement of persons in order to deepen the economic integration of the african continent…’13 this is likely to increase competition for customers among smes in the region as a result, driving the need for growth and development. economy-based contextual factors smes generally tend to be more prone to the effects of abrupt disruptions and risks in the global market economy. global economic disruptions, such as those caused by the covid-19 pandemic, exacerbated the ssa region’s economic distress. furthermore, geopolitical instabilities in certain regions of ssa have had a negative effect on economic activities in the region.7,8,9 the uncertainty caused by such economic disruptions causes markets to drastically change. these changes include market inflation, inaccessible markets, increased competition, market pressures and other economy-related factors. these factors not only influence smes’ incorporation of digital technologies in their business operations, but they also influence their profitability. this is because the costs associated with the acquisition, implementation and maintenance of digital tools and technologies, as well as the costs associated with digital service use, can be prohibitively expensive for smes. small and medium enterprises in ssa, particularly those that operate informally, are frequently forced to choose between survival and innovation in times of uncertainty. according to a centre for strategic and international studies (csis) report from 2021, a setback for smes, particularly those that operate informally, is a lack of access to financial institutions and government entities that can offer financial assistance during economic turmoil.24 even for those smes with access to financial institutions or government agencies, they tend to be deterred from applying for financial support because of high interest rates on the loans that may be the result of market inflations.24 this has negative implications for those smes who desire to expand or invest on digital initiatives, which in some cases require significant financial investments. sociotechnical contextual factors sociotechnical factors in digital technology use continue to be a persistent challenge in the ssa region. this is because of a variety of issues, including disparities in digital infrastructure, self-efficacy, perceived usefulness and challenges with digital skills and literacy. this translates to ineffective use of (or inability to use) digital tools and technology in the context of smes. for most smes located in areas without mobile network connectivity, the digital divide becomes a critical determinant of access to critical infrastructure resources. in this context, the digital divide extends beyond the possession of digital resources such as smartphones to access the internet. it entails multiple dimensions such as individual usage, technical access, digital literacy and skills and so on.8,58,59,60 language and communication emerge as additional social context barriers to effective digital technology use in ssa. often illiteracy and language barriers increase the digital gap, not because of lack of access to technology but because the intended users lack basic literacy and language skills to make timely, independent ownership decisions and effective use. therefore, digital initiatives in the sme sector in ssa must embody the expressions of the different dialects in the region. this is especially true for smes that use digital platforms to gain access to market, customers and financial data. other social factors considered in this review include individuals’ characteristics that affect their ability to effectively use digital technology.3 these include perceived ease of use, usefulness, acceptability, self-efficacy, self-awareness and so on for digital technology. these sociotechnical issues must then be addressed if smes in the ssa region are to capitalise on the benefits of digital technologies in their business operations. these findings on contextual factors may not necessarily be unique to the ssa context; however, the uniqueness of the ssa economic environment precludes generalisation of such barriers when it comes to dt. for example, challenges that are prevalent in the region include illiteracy and language barriers; lack of infrastructure (e.g. scarcity of power supply); political instability; stringent government laws; and socio-economic inequalities. these difficulties frequently reflect the social, cultural and political contexts in which most digital initiatives are implemented. according to heeks et al.61, ‘innovations in developing countries have traditionally been associated with inequality and have little connection or relevance to the low-income majority of the population’. this notion has been echoed by other scholars who have called for african interpretations and framing of the topic digital technologies in africa – in language, philosophy and worldview. the researchers in this article conclude that it is only when the issues raised here are addressed that smes in the ssa region can truly benefit from the transformative potential of digital technology use. furthermore, from a strategic decision-making viewpoint, developing digital policies and free trade agreements, such as the afcfta, is critical to understand the contextual factors that influence dt in ssa smes discussed in this article. the issues highlighted here necessitate intentional strategies and investments to mitigate some of the historical, structural and institutional barriers that have faced the african economies. the african continent has taken a step in the right direction with the recent enactment of the dt strategy initiated by the au to support the emerging digital ecosystem. however, it is still not clear how such a strategy would harmonise with individual countries’ policies and regulations. in addition, the impact such a strategy may have on dt in smes in the ssa region is yet unknown. discussion this section presents a discussion on strategies for digital technologies integration into smes’ business operations to build resilience. integrating digital technologies into smes’ business operations have the potential to change how they operate and increase their competitiveness. as a result, smes must be more adaptable or flexible to accommodate changes in a volatile business environment. the ability of smes to respond quickly to changing situations is critical for competitive advantage in dynamically changing business environment. figure 3 depicts the proposed conceptual framework for dt considerations for long-term resilience. the conceptual framework highlights the interrelations between the dt of process and the organisational resilience pillars. this interrelation is influenced by contextual factors that are inherent to the business environment in which smes operate. these interactions ultimately inform whether smes can build long-term resilience to survive in a global economy. figure 3: conceptual framework for small and medium enterprises’ digital transformation considerations. with the ability to adapt, smes are more likely to build resilience by timeously responding to opportunities, threats and changes. for example, the advancements of digital technology require that smes have an adoption strategy that can aid in developing a better understanding of their operations.58,59,60 this type of strategy would assist in determining how to effectively integrate digital technologies into business operations to increase resilience. this would entail understanding the business’s needs, goals and the technological infrastructure available to help the business achieve its goals and meet its needs. furthermore, rapid changes in customer expectations and globalisation necessitate smes’ adaptability, responsiveness and agility in transformation if they are to compete in a highly competitive and globalised market environment. attaining the resilience pillars requires that smes reengineer their business operations, organisational culture, and structures through process and human resource management. using digital technologies at their disposal, ssa smes can, for example, expand and diversify their customer and supplier base, offer digitised payment options and use digital marketing options such as social media platforms. all of these could directly or indirectly contribute to competitiveness and new ways of generating revenue and value. for smes to successfully achieve this, they would require a roadmap to allow them to integrate digital technologies with measurable benefits. as a result, an adoption strategy should consider the contextual factors discussed in the findings section that need to be addressed to create an enabling business environment. achieving digitally enabled resilience through the process management aspect requires a situation awareness strategy. small and medium enterprises in the ssa context can be well prepared to deal with the contextual factors in their settings and make informed decisions on a response plan. for instance, having timely information on changes in customer expectations or advancement in technology can enable smes to adapt to the situation quickly. small and medium enterprises can prepare for this through the analysis and management of their key vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity appropriate for a specific situation. however, situation awareness as a strategy cannot be viewed outside context relevance and value. this means that for ssa smes, having an awareness of their values and needs as well as relevance of digital technologies in their business operations is vital in the context of their operation. the researchers conclude that the situation awareness strategy fosters a business environment that enables responsiveness, a pillar of organisational resilience. situation awareness as a strategy can also assist smes in the ssa context in reallocating and focusing resources where they are most needed, as well as exploring new business opportunities. a third strategy the smes can develop to facilitate the integration of digital technologies is that of identifying and managing key vulnerabilities in their operations. this involves having in-depth understanding of its key operational and managerial aspects that drive their businesses and how digital technologies can support those processes. for instance, digital initiatives like mobile or digital wallets have transformed financial services and unlocked new payment models for smes. thus, it is vital for smes to have insight on the impact of embedding such an initiative in their operational process. for example, sme owners and employees must have knowledge and understanding of data privacy and cybercrime issues. these issues become especially thorny with the use of online platforms and social networks, and it is critical that smes in the ssa context identify and deal with such issues that might make them vulnerable. furthermore, digital initiatives may require the upskilling of individuals with the right skills to use such technology to add value to the business. having insight into their operational environments and keystone vulnerabilities, smes should assess their capabilities to adjust to the changes in their market environment. combining digital technologies, managerial best practises, market insight and agility should forge resilience capabilities in smes for long-term survival. conclusion and recommendations small and medium enterprises in the ssa context are regarded as the economic drivers of the region. however, most smes fail in their first two years of operations or remain stagnant. literature indicates that most smes’ digital initiatives often fail because of their inability to recognise the link between digital technologies and their profit drivers. the purpose of this article was to identify how smes in the ssa context can develop comprehensive strategies for integrating digital technologies into their business operations to build resilience, as well as improve their profit drivers. the researchers deduce that this is because of a lack of strategies that align smes’ business needs, goals, context and available digital technologies. the researchers argue that by developing comprehensive strategies, smes can foster an environment that allows for adaptability, responsiveness and transformation that is appropriate for the nature of their business. digital transformation is an ongoing process that necessitates the complete reengineering of an organisations’ business processes. it is thus socially and culturally constructed, with traditions and cultures shaping its understanding and application at the same time. this requires comprehensive strategies to assist smes realise the transformative potential of digital technologies. in the ssa context, smes face numerous regional constraints that create barriers in their operations. to develop strategies for integrating technologies, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of the operational context. the reviewed literature revealed economic, industry or market and socio-technical factors as contextual. these contextual factors limit smes’ ability to adopt and use digital technologies and develop digitally enabled resilience to compete in a competitive global digital economy. based on the researchers’ analysis of the reviewed literature, smes in the ssa context require an adoption strategy. this strategy can aid in better understanding of smes’ operations, needs and relevance of digital technologies. furthermore, the researchers contend that it is critical for smes to have a situation awareness strategy that can assist them deal with contextual factors in their environment and globally, as well as make informed decisions and response plans. a third strategy identified and advocated for in this article is identification and management of key vulnerabilities, which can be used to better manage the key vulnerabilities of smes. building digitally enabled resilience requires a thorough understanding of its key vulnerabilities, whether they are operational or managerial in nature. the researchers argue that these strategies can be a source of competitive advantage that are crucial in a highly competitive global digital economy. however, all these require governments and other relevant stakeholders to enact policies that promote an enabling business environment for smes in the ssa context. this is necessary if smes in the ssa region are to fully realise the transformative potential of integrating digital technologies into their business operations and gain long-term resilience. the contributions this article make can be beneficial to those with interests in sustainable growth, development and social emancipation of the ssa region through smes’ economic activities. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions m.s.a. and m.m. contributed equally to the conceptualisation of the manuscript. m.s.a. contributed to the development of the introduction, background literature, method and discussion section, while m.m. supervised the writing. ethical considerations this article does not contain any studies involving human participants performed by any of the authors. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article, as no new primary data were created or analysed in this study. the study is a review of openly accessible articles in online journal databases. disclaimer the views expressed in the submitted article are solely of the authors and not an official position of the affiliated institution or the publisher. references fatoki o. the impact of entrepreneurial resilience on the success of small and medium enterprises in south africa. sustainability. 2018;10(7):2527. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072527 abisuga-oyekunle o, patra s, muchie m. smes in sustainable development: their role in poverty reduction and employment generation in sub-saharan africa. afr j sci technol innov dev. 2019;12(4):405–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/20421338.2019.1656428 kyakulumbye s, pather s. understanding ict adoption amongst smes in uganda: towards a participatory design model to enhance technology diffusion. afr j sci technol innov dev. 2021;14(1):49–60. 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of information and digital technologies for development; 2021. pp. 468–480. available from: http://arxiv.org/abs/2108.09789 microsoft word 14 oelofse et al trc.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 253-272. the knowledge and perceptions of history students of south africa’s truth and reconciliation commission (trc) m oelofse and a oosthuysen* abstract using the truth and reconciliation commission of south africa (trc) and the concept of reconciliation as a case study, the article attempts to assess the knowledge and understanding of the registered undergraduate history students at the university of the free state’s main campus about the trc and the concept and process of reconciliation in the country at large. the research will firstly assess whether the younger generation of students, specifically students taking history as a subject, have any knowledge of such a significant and contemporary event in south african historiography as the trc process. secondly, in relation to the aims and recommendations of the trc and against the background of reconciliation efforts in the country, to perceive the views and thoughts of undergraduate history students on the progress in reconciliation endeavours in south africa. as a result, a sample of 128 undergraduate history students was randomly selected to complete a quantitative questionnaire. the questionnaire consisted of both closed and open-ended questions. group interviews, as a qualitative research method, were added and used to conduct interviews with 16 undergraduate history students selected randomly and answers were recorded. accordingly, an explanatory mixedmethod research method approach was employed by implementing both the qualitative and quantitative method. key words: truth and reconciliation commission of south africa (trc); reconciliation; views and perceptions; university of the free state (ufs) main campus; undergraduate history students 1. introduction nineteen years have passed since the “promotion of national unity and reconciliation act” (act no. 34 of 1995) mandated the truth and reconciliation commission of south africa (trc). the main goal of the trc was to uncover the origins, nature and level of the gross human rights violations that took place in south africa from 1 march 1960 to 10 may 1994, with the additional aim of fostering individual and national reconciliation.1 emphasis has been placed on reconciliation in south africa; however, taking into account the efforts and * university of the free state, department of history, po box 339, bloemfontein 9300. corresponding author email: oelofsem@ufs.ac.za; annelo911@gmail.com. 1 republic of south africa, “promotion of national unity and reconciliation act no. 34” in government gazette 361(16579), 1995, pp. 1-48. oelofse & oosthuyzen 254 recommendations of the trc there is intense debate whether south africa has, in actual fact, made any progress in terms of reconciliation.2 understanding history and having knowledge of historical events adds to a more balanced view of events. therefore, it is essential to know the history of one's country and its citizens to value certain circumstances and/or interpersonal relations better. whereas the trc was a significant contemporary event in the history of south africa, the concept of reconciliation is often used and debated in south africa thus giving rise to certain questions such as: what is the level of knowledge and perception of registered undergraduate history students regarding south africa's trc and reconciliation? would undergraduate history students have adequate knowledge about the trc which happened only a few years ago and forms part of contemporary south african historiography? and: although reconciliation as a concept is used so often, especially at the ufs, what would students’ views be towards reconciliation in south africa? the trc process took place when the said undergraduate students had already been born, thus adding to the contemporary nature of the trc as an historical event for these students. apart from this occurrence, as students at the ufs, they are exposed to a diverse multicultural and multiracial student population. using the trc and the concept of reconciliation as a case study, the article attempts to assess the knowledge and understanding of the registered undergraduate history students at the ufs main campus about the south african truth and reconciliation commission (trc), and the concept and process of reconciliation in the country at large. it is against this background of the established trc, where the aim was to set in motion a process of further reconciliation in the country, but also specifically at the ufs under the rectorship of professor jonathan jansen, that it was reasoned necessary to assess the knowledge and personal opinions of specifically history undergraduate students on the trc and on reconciliation. it is important to note that in order to delimit the field of research no in-depth investigation was done about post-graduate and other students' insights regarding the field of study at other campuses of the ufs and/or at other universities. consequently, it is not a comparative study to former research efforts undertaken on these issues. for this reason the research does not aim to generalise and/or compare the answers received from the students who participated in the research, or to provide in-depth answers and conclusions to the results. this research aims rather to stimulate further research and debate into these related topics. furthermore, this research may contribute to more information and a greater awareness of the ufs history students’ present-day knowledge, opinions and challenges of reconciliation, or the lack thereof, in a divided society. 2. historical background to the trc south africa, like other countries, has been confronted with a past withered by gross human rights violations. in 1994 the newly elected south african government was challenged with the question of how to deal with the atrocities of the past. the idea of a truth commission for south africa originated with the african national congress (anc). with a truth commission, the emphasis can be on full disclosure, accountability and the truth. since 1994 2 l. wessels, “good faith is not enough: we have to dialogue” in f. du toit and e. doxtader, in the balance: south africans debate reconciliation (auckland park: jacana media, 2010), p. 9. history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 255 discussions for a truth commission in south africa began to occur in parliament, the media and non-governmental organisations. south africa had to balance the requirements of justice, stability, peace, accountability and reconciliation. in answering the question on how to deal with the atrocities of the past, the anc preferred the notion of telling the truth via a truth commission process as the past could not be ignored.3 alex boraine expresses so clearly when he said: we accepted that it was necessary to turn the page of history, but first we needed to read that page.4 a unique south african truth and reconciliation commission was envisioned with the focus on the disclosure of truth through truth-telling, limited granting of amnesty and reparation for victims of gross violations of human rights. establishing responsibility for violations and knowing the truth were essential for south africa's transitional phase towards a future based on reconciliation and the recognition of human rights and dignity.5 the ‘promotion of national unity and reconciliation act’, act no. 34 of 1995 (the act) brought into being, empowered and mandated the truth and reconciliation commission of south africa.6 this marked the first time that a truth commission had been created through a public participatory process calling parliament to enable the creation of such a commission. the 17 commissioners of the trc were finally chosen in december 1995 by president nelson mandela and the commission was geared to start. the group of commissioners were multi-racial and were chosen to be impartial when executing verdicts and to be neutral towards the various political parties dealt with. former anglican archbishop of cape town, the very reverend desmond tutu, became the chairperson and dr alex boraine the deputy chairperson of the trc.7 the trc employed roughly 300 people and consisted of four large offices around the country, thus making it, as far as possible, accessible to all people. the trc’s headquarters 3 j. de lange, “the historical context, legal origins and philosophical foundation of the south african truth and reconciliation commission” in c. villa-vicencio and w. verwoerd (eds), looking back, reaching forward: reflections on the truth and reconciliation commission of south africa (cape town: university of cape town press, 2000), p. 20; a. boraine, a country unmasked. inside south africa's truth and reconciliation commission (cape town: oxford university press, 2000), pp. 5-8, 11, 258-260; k. christie, the south african truth commission (new york: palgrave, 2000), pp. 33, 68, 79; d.m. tutu, no future without forgiveness (london: rider books, 1999), p. 45. 4 boraine, a country unmasked …, p. 5. 5 j. sarkin, carrots and sticks: the trc and the south african amnesty process (schoten: intersentia publishers, 2004), p. 9; a. boraine, “south africa's truth and reconciliation commission from a global perspective” in c.l. sriram and s. pillay (eds), peace versus justice? the dilemma of transitional justice in africa (scottsville: university of kwazulu-natal press, 2009), p. 137. 6 republic of south africa, “promotion of national unity and reconciliation act …”, pp. 148. 7 l.s. graybill, truth and reconciliation in south africa: miracle or model? (london: lynne rienner publishers, 2002), p. 4; o. bubenzer, post-trc prosecutions in south africa: accountability for political crimes after the truth and reconciliation commission's amnesty process (leiden: nijhoff, 2009), pp. 9-10; c.l. sriram, confronting past human rights violations: justice vs. peace in times of transition (london: frank cass, 2004), p. 154. oelofse & oosthuyzen 256 were chosen to be located in cape town.8 the trc was split into three interrelated committees. firstly, the human rights violations (hrv) committee, which collected victims’ and witnesses’ accounts of stories in order to establish whether gross violations of human rights had occurred. the hrv committee conducted open hearings throughout the country to give victims the chance to testify about their experiences. secondly, the amnesty committee’s primary function was to consider applications for amnesty. this committee processed, facilitated and promoted the granting of amnesty in respect of those acts associated with political objectives of persons desiring to make a full disclosure of all the relevant facts relating to such acts. lastly, the reparations and rehabilitation committee which was responsible for providing recommendations to the president for the contribution of reparations and compensation for those found to be victims. an investigative unit was also created which performed inspective studies.9 south africa's trc was truly exceptional at that stage compared to previous commissions from around the world. it tested new boundaries and had very ambitious goals.10 the commission was the first to facilitate victim hearings in the public arena whilst also giving perpetrators a chance to give their side of the story, and eventually granted individual amnesty if the perpetrator qualified for it. public participation was deemed crucial by the trc. victims and perpetrators were significantly involved in the trc process giving them a sense of having important input in the process. therefore, the trc had the power to grant individual amnesty to perpetrators, search properties, confiscate evidence, subpoena eyewitnesses and protect testifiers in a witness-protection programme.11 the trc focused on exposing and investigating gross human rights violations from the time period 1 march 1960 to 10 may 1994. a gross human rights violation was defined as the violation of human rights through the killing, abduction, torture or severe ill treatment of any person.12 victims were encouraged to submit their written testimonies of the violations committed against them to the trc. of the 21 296 written statements the trc received, 1 818 individuals were invited to come and give their testimonies in the public hearings of the trc as their stories were considered broadly representative or ‘window cases’. a total of 86.9% 8 boraine, “south africa's truth and reconciliation commission from a global perspective”, p. 138. 9 truth and reconciliation commission, truth and reconciliation commission of south africa report (cape town: juta & co, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 267; 277, 285; p.b. hayner, unspeakable truths. transitional justice and the challenge of truth commissions (2nd edition), (new york: routledge, 2011), p. 28. 10 boraine, “south africa's truth and reconciliation commission from a global perspective”, p. 150. 11 a. krog, “to exchange justice for truth is to embrace evil: a view on human rights through the south african truth and reconciliation commission”, <http://www.ahrcentre.org/node/310>, 2002; d. backer, “victims' responses to truth commissions. evidence from south africa” in m. ndulo, (ed.), security, reconstruction, and reconciliation. when the wars end (new york: university college london press, 2007), p. 192. see also the act. 12 republic of south africa, “promotion of national unity and reconciliation act …”, p. 4. see also the act for more details on what a gross human rights violation constituted. history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 257 statements were made by africans and an insignificant number of only 1.1% of white people made statements. more men testified in the white, coloured and asian groups opposed to the overwhelming majority of women in the black population. these women did not in fact testify about their own experiences; instead, they testified about their male family members’ ordeals.13 the trc incorporated restorative justice and was based on the christian concept of 'forgiveness' and the african view of 'ubuntu'. restorative justice aspires to aid nationbuilding and reconciliation by aiming to improve social relations in a country. it focuses on the well-being of the victim, as well as the perpetrator being successfully integrated back into the community. the word 'ubuntu' features in the nguni group of languages and means essentially 'being human'. it symbolises the fact that all people are interdependent on one another. each person has an important role to play in his/her society to ensure peace and prosperity for all.14 the national and international media covered the proceedings and results extensively, with daily articles in the newspapers and reports on the television.15 the trc compiled a fivevolume final report which was made available in october 1998. report volumes six and seven were finished in 2002 and published in 2003.16 the trc has been widely praised for what it eventually accomplished and achieved. the commission has also been criticised for being a complete failure. anthea jeffery criticises the trc by emphasising that: the commission has done as much to distort as to disclose the truth. its approach was selective rather than comprehensive. some parts of its report are simply sloppy. the methods used by the trc are deeply flawed. from flawed methods flow flowed conclusions. the commission has issued a report, which can only be of an interim and tentative nature. in fact, what the commission has done is to focus on only half the story – and to tell that half in a selective and distorted way.17 however, the trc did focus on ordinary citizens and aimed to make the process understandable for all. involvement in the trc processes caused citizens to be more accepting, tolerant and respecting of other races and their different political views which 13 boraine, a country unmasked..., p. 115; p. govender, “truth, reconciliation and women in south africa” in du toit and doxtader, in the balance …, p. 77. 14 h. cobban, amnesty after atrocity? healing nations after genocide and war crimes (boulder: paradigm publishers, 2007), p. 10; c. villa-vicencio, walk with us and listen: political reconciliation in africa (cape town: uct press, 2009), p. 114; tutu, no future …, p. 34; r.a. wilson, the politics of truth and reconciliation in south africa: legitimizing the postapartheid state (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001), p. 205; c. villa-vicencio, “reconciliation” in c. villa-vicencio & e. doxtader (eds), pieces of the puzzle: keywords on reconciliation and transitional justice (cape town: institute of justice and reconciliation, 2004), p. 5. 15 boraine, “south africa's truth and reconciliation commission from a global perspective”, pp. 138-139. 16 p.j. salazar and e. doxtader, truth & reconciliation in south africa: the fundamental documents (claremont: new africa books, 2007), pp. xii-xiii. 17 a. jeffery, the truth about the truth commission (johannesburg: south african institute of race relations, 1999), pp. 2, 5, 11, 21. oelofse & oosthuyzen 258 encouraged democracy in south africa.18 according to alex boraine, the trc of south africa was a valuable experience and other countries in similar post-conflict situations may learn from the unique trc of south africa.19 the citizens had a shared responsibility of blame for apartheid which provided a basis for discussions. people on all sides were hurt and shocked to find out what really took place during the apartheid regime in south africa. a process of reconciliation could be set in motion between south africans, hopefully paving the way to a more peaceful and tolerant society in the country. 3. understanding the concept and process of reconciliation reconciliation can be explained as the willingness of people from different ethnicities and race to cultivate trust in one another and to live in harmony with despite their differences. it includes the discouragement of keeping condescending stereotypes about different races which may lead to hostility and violence. most importantly, reconciliation contributes to a country’s sustainability of democracy. it can also be accomplished through non-racialism, unbiased behaviour, religion and enhancing community relationships.20 reconciliation consists of both social rehabilitation and conflict resolution which ensures long-term peace in a country with a conflict ridden past. thus, it changes people's negative attitudes towards one another and creates innovative relationships among them. when people interact with one another they find a new understanding of the other which assists in building a bridge to eventually reach reconciliation. however, it remains neither a direct nor immediate solution to differences among people. furthermore, reconciliation cannot be forced on or implemented by a person, organisation or institution as it can only systematically take place within a person over time.21 reconciliation may take place when a person has empathy, understanding and is even forgiving towards other people. forgiveness is also believed to set the path to reconciliation which creates a peaceful society; the two concepts go hand-in-hand. people are set free from their hideous memories and can move on to be part of a reconciled society if they let go of all their bitterness. feelings of empathy and acceptance towards the perpetrator may even surface. it is then that forgiveness can set free both the person forgiving and the person who is forgiven. refusing to forgive may make one's life despondent, as well as negatively affecting 18 j.l. gibson, “the truth about truth and reconciliation in south africa” in international political science review 26(4), october 2005, p. 344; j.l. gibson, “the contributions of truth and reconciliation: lessons from south africa” in the journal of conflict resolution 50(3), june 2006, p. 413. 19 m.m. oelofse private collection, interview with a. boraine, 13.7.2007, cape town. 20 j.l. gibson, overcoming apartheid: can truth reconcile a divided nation? (cape town: hsrc press, 2004), pp. 4-5; p. gready, the era of transitional justice. the aftermath of the truth and reconciliation commission in south africa and beyond (milton park: routledge, 2011), p. 58; a. krog, country of my skull (2nd edition), (johannesburg: random house, 2002), p. 36. 21 gibson, “the contributions of truth and reconciliation: lessons from south africa”, pp. 414416; boraine, a country unmasked ..., p. 8; gready, the era of transitional justice …, p. 156; h. van der merwe and b. hamber, “what is this thing called reconciliation?”, <http://www.csvr.org.za/articles/artrcb&h.htm>, 2011; sarkin, carrots and sticks …, p. 34; villa-vicencio, “reconciliation”, p. 4; villa-vicencio, walk with us and listen …, pp. 152,172; wilson, the politics of truth and reconciliation …, p. 98. history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 259 those around one. yet, forgiving a person can never be predicted or forced; it can only happen within the person forgiving.22 there is also no set design to follow when achieving reconciliation. it must be a continuous process; unending through all generations. some people believe that reconciliation should take place from the bottom up. this means that it should start in local and domestic communities and end with the national community. 23 the process of reconciliation has been described as the only practical alternative for a society in transition to live in harmony with one another. thus, reconciliation may ensure a peaceful environment in south african society as it was and still is, an idyllic outcome longed for in south africa.24 however, reconciliation is a relatively new concept for south africans as apartheid taught people to be segregated and condescending towards people of different races. the first step towards reconciliation in south africa started through the termination of conflict through negotiations and not through the collapsing of the former regime or through victory in the field.25 the south african trc vaguely classified reconciliation as a process and a desired outcome in south africa but never gave a set layout in the act of specific processes in reaching it, or even officially describing what was meant by their idea of ‘true reconciliation’ for the country. the commission mainly aimed to promote reconciliation through revealing the truth and expressed that it is not an easy method. the trc believed that the more truth is revealed about the past, the greater the possibility of reconciliation taking place.26 the trc made the following recommendations in volume 5 of the final report to set in motion a process of reconciliation and unity in south africa's future. they requested that all south africans should reach out to one another and be more tolerant and understanding. barriers should be crossed in terms of language and religion so that better relationships could be formed between south africans. people should also be aware of the special needs of the previously disadvantaged, such as women and children. a culture of debate should be pursued so that issues can be resolved and eventually lead to the creation of a non-racial society. finally, the leaders in the local, provincial and national government should make reconciliation and unity a priority on their agendas.27 22 f.w. de klerk, “the need for forgiveness and reconciliation” and a. krog, “this thing called reconciliation: forgiveness as part of an interconnectedness towards wholeness” in du toit and doxtader, in the balance …, pp. 32, 141; gready, the era of transitional justice …, p. 201. 23 wessels, “good faith is not enough: we have to dialogue”, p. 11; villa-vicencio, walk with us and listen …, p. 172; gready, the era of transitional justice …, p. 158; truth and reconciliation commission, truth and reconciliation commission of south africa report, vol. 5, p. 306; christie, the south african truth commission, pp. 143, 204. 24 villa-vicencio, “reconciliation”, p. 3; villa-vicencio, walk with us and listen …, pp. 170-172. 25 historical papers, university of the witwatersrand, the kairos collection, ag2918: 4.5.4 articles, villa-vicencio, “from coexistence to reconciliation. the trc: a step along the way”, 8-9 february 1998, p. 1; gibson, overcoming apartheid …, p. 15. 26 salazar and doxtader, truth & reconciliation in south africa …, p. xiii; wessels, “good faith is not enough: we have to dialogue”, p. 9. 27 truth and reconciliation commission, truth and reconciliation commission of south africa report, vol. 5, p. 304. oelofse & oosthuyzen 260 critics believed that the trc did not make enough efforts towards ensuring reconciliation in the end. people believed that reconciliation would occur automatically after the trc processes had taken place, but this was not the case.28 charles villa-vicencio argues that truth-telling processes do not always lead to reconciliation. victims and/or perpetrators were sometimes enraged by the truth which hindered future reconciliation. expecting victims of gross violations of human rights in south africa to reconcile has been a greatly debated subject. for many victims of gross violations of human rights in the country, the memories of suffering are too painful and reconciliation is not always an option.29 following the trc's processes there are still arguments about the real meaning of reconciliation: who are making real efforts towards it; if the process has really begun and if it is continuing in south africa? a reconciled south africa would ideally consist of people who respect and trust people from different races; who are tolerant towards people with diverse political views; who believe that all south africans are entitled to their human rights and are equal no matter the race.30 it is clear that the process of reconciliation may have been encouraged by the trc, but continues to be every south african citizen’s responsibility. 4 research methods and approach the problem statement was an empirical question: what is the knowledge and perceptions of registered undergraduate history students at the university of the free state’s (ufs) main campus regarding south africa's truth and reconciliation commission (trc) and the concept and process of reconciliation in the country? answering this question is of importance to firstly assess if the younger generation of students, specifically students taking history as a subject, have any knowledge of such a significant and contemporary event in south african historiography as the trc process. secondly, to gauge, in relation to the aims and recommendations of the trc and against the background of the efforts been made by the ufs on reconciliation, to perceive the views and thoughts of undergraduate history students on the progress of reconciliation efforts in south africa. the study is of a contemporary nature, with data that were collected in 2012 in bloemfontein at the university of the free state’s main campus. a sample of 128 registered undergraduate history students were randomly selected and asked to voluntarily complete a questionnaire individually during undergraduate history classes’ scheduled time. thus, the questionnaires were completed by the participants at the same time, making the response rate optimal. questionnaires as a quantitative method of gaining information were distributed amongst the first-, secondand third-year history students. the questionnaire, which consisted of 20 questions, focused on factual questions, as well as opinionated questions which included both open-ended and closed questions. all responses to the questionnaire were done in an anonymous manner and the questionnaire measured what it was intended to measure. the 28 truth and reconciliation commission, truth and reconciliation commission of south africa report, vol. 5, p. 306. 29 villa-vicencio, “reconciliation”, pp.3-4; gready, the era of transitional justice …, p. 160; c. villa-vicencio, “reconciliation: a thing that won’t go away” in du toit and doxtader, in the balance …, p. 161. 30 gibson, overcoming apartheid …, p. 4. history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 261 questionnaires’ validity was tested through content validity by submitting the questionnaire beforehand to two historians to evaluate the questions and to determine if it is actually measuring what it is intended to do. to supplement the quantitative data, multiple respondents from the undergraduate history students from different year groups, who completed the questionnaire, were selected randomly to be voluntarily interviewed in two diverse group sessions and answers/feedback were recorded. to emphasise the confidentiality of their opinions and remarks, the interviewees were recorded anonymously by not using the students’ names, but by referring to them as respondent 1, 2, etc. the fact that south africa is a country with a democratic system, made it easy for students who participated in the questionnaire, as well as in the interview process to freely express their opinions and statements. answers and results from the questionnaire guided the questions for the interviews. these questions were structured in such a way as to gain data to be qualitative in nature, thus explanatory orientated, giving the researcher in-depth and breadth information to the answers from the questionnaire. this was a dynamic process based on interaction between various students. these focus group interviews were used as a holistic approach to gain knowledge to be used in a complementary way with the questionnaire to create a more multifaceted understanding of the students’ knowledge and views on the topics under research. questionnaire results were analysed in order to compile the profile and frequencies of the data. during this phase the quantitative results were summarised, interpreted and compared with the information further gained from the qualitative data. thus, for the purposes of this research, an explanatory mixed-method research method approach was undertaken where both the qualitative and quantitative methods were implemented. the reason for this was to be able to gain more comprehensive and insightful results, as well as to provide a fuller understanding of the research problem. 5. results of the research the 128 undergraduate students who take history as a subject at the university of the free state (ufs) main campus who completed the questionnaire individually are students from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. the youngest person who completed the questionnaire was 18 years old and the oldest person was 42 years of age. the average age of the students who completed the questionnaire was between 20 and 21 years of age. out of 128 people completing the questionnaire, 123 were citizens of the republic of south africa. there were five other nationalities, namely american, belgian, french, cameroonian and namibian. sixty-seven women completed the questionnaire compared to 61 men. according to james l. gibson, it is impossible to write about south african politics without focusing on race and is it common to divide the population into four distinct categories of race.31 for the purposes of this article, gibson’s line of argument will also be followed and used.32 the history classes consist of diverse races; therefore, the results of the questionnaires 31 gibson, overcoming apartheid …, p. 24. 32 for the purpose of this study the term ‘black’, ‘coloured’ and ‘indians’ are used. by using these terms, no negative connotation or prejudice is implied towards the people grouped in this way. oelofse & oosthuyzen 262 were also evaluated according to race to be able to explain the demographic qualities. in 2012 the ufs had the largest portion of black students of the historically afrikaans universities; over all campuses 70% of the student population is black.33 with answering the questionnaire, black students were in the majority with 69.5%; white students who participated amounted to 21.9%, coloured students were 7.8% and indian students had only 0.8% representation. there clearly exists a gap on indian students’ knowledge and opinions towards this research as only one indian female student completed a questionnaire. her opinions could not be utilised to represent the student population as a whole. 5.1 knowledge about the trc when students were asked about their knowledge regarding the trc (question 1), the majority knew only a little (59.4%). others indicated that they knew a great deal (32%), 7% had never heard about it and 1.6% said they were not interested in the trc at all. when the results were examined closer, only 17.9% of white students claimed to know a great deal about the trc in contrast to the 37.1% of black students and 30% of coloured students. gender does not really play a role as male and female students claimed to know more or less the same with 91.8% of males and 91.1% of females stating that they know something about the trc of south africa. t a b l e 1 : d e s c e n d i n g o r d e r o f a l l e g e d k n o w l e d g e a b o u t t h e t r c as seen in table 1 is it evident that white and coloured students claim to have very little knowledge on the trc in relation to the black students. this is confirmed when the 14.3% of white students asserted that they had never heard about the trc in relation to only 5.6% of black people who had never heard of the trc. this ‘little knowledge’ about the trc was further emphasised by the students’ answers to the second question where 46.9% of them had been told ‘a little’ about the trc by their family and/or friends. from the rest of the respondents, 39.1% had been told nothing by their family and/or friends and 14.1% had supposedly been told a great deal. from the answers to question 4 it appears that the students gained most information and knowledge about the trc at school and university, as well as from media sources, such as the television and newspapers. the absence of knowledge about the trc is reflected further when only 44.5% accurately chose the correct objective of the trc (question 7), which was to establish as complete a picture as possible of gross violations of human rights and to create a culture of reconciliation 33 university of the free state, “university of the free state strategic plan 2012-2016”, <http://www.ufs.ac.za/content.aspx?id=57>, 2012, p. 17. history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 263 in south africa; 55.5% chose the wrong definition by saying that the trc established reconciliation in south africa. however, in stark contrast to these results and indeed surprisingly, 57.8% correctly identified april 1996 as the date of the first victim hearing which was held in east london (question 8). taking into account the high percentage of “little knowledge about the trc” from the participants, one may conclude that answering this question correctly was based more on a ‘correct guess’, than of having the correct, in-depth knowledge. knowledge about the trc appears to be limited among the undergraduate history students at the ufs main campus. the impression is that adult family members have not really exposed them to information about the trc, and amongst their peers it is not a frequently discussed and debated topic. nonetheless, on a more positive note, the results from question 12 indicated that 75% of students would like to learn more about the trc. for 18.7% it is a ‘maybe’, while 5.5% of students are not interested at all, and 0.8% are indecisive. again, it is the white students who are more reluctant about knowledge on the trc with 17.9% specifying that they do not wish to learn more about the trc, compared to the 2.2% of black students. 5.2 views on the trc most of the students were neutral (44.5%) when asked if their family was positive about the trc process (question 3). the lack of knowledge and dialogue about the trc were repeated in the answers to this question when 34.4% did not know how their family felt about the trc. for 14.8% their family was positive, while 6.3% of students were frank when they revealed that their family was not positive about the trc process. 14.3% of white students, compared to 15.7% of black students and only 10% of coloured students indicated that their families were positive about the trc process. the majority of white students (42.9%) did not know how their family felt about the trc process compared to the 33.7% of black students and 10% of coloured students who were also unaware of their family’s opinions towards the trc. more female respondents (19.4%) felt that their family was positive in relation to 9.8% of males. t a b l e 2 : r e s u l t s o f t h e s t u d e n t s ’ a n s w e r s o n h o w p o s i t i v e t h e y a r e a b o u t t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f t h e t r c oelofse & oosthuyzen 264 although knowledge about the trc seems to be limited, students were overwhelmingly positive about the establishment of the south african trc (question 5). see table 2. surprisingly and even contradictory to the previous results on the negative perspectives and limited knowledge from the white students on the trc, 64.3% of these students felt positive about the establishment of the trc in relation to the 61.8% of black students. the highest percentage was from the coloured students with 70%. more black students (10.1%) indicated that they are not positive about the trc compared to the 7.1% of white students who were also unconvinced about the trc. once again, taking into account the limited knowledge of the trc, one tends to wonder if the positive indication towards the establishment of the trc is a true reflection of a knowledgeable answer having been made to this question. f i g u r e 1 : s t u d e n t s ’ o p i n i o n s a b o u t t h e t r c p r o c e s s a n d w h a t w a s r e v e a l e d a b o u t s o u t h a f r i c a ' s p a s t as seen in figure 1, the majority of students felt neutral (41%) about the trc’s process and what was revealed about south africa’s past (question 6). students also signified that they felt ashamed (21.3%) and felt a sense of dishonour (14.2%). for 17% of students the trc's processes made them feel a sense of dignity and self-respect with 6.5% who were proud. the majority of black students felt ashamed (24.7%) and a sense of dishonour (18%), compared to the white students’ responses of 21.4% feeling ashamed and 10.7% having a sense of dishonour. a mere 3.6% of white students and 9% of black students felt proud about the trc’s processes. in contrast to this 7.1% of white students, 23.6% of black students and 10% of coloured students had a sense of dignity and self-respect towards what was revealed about south africa’s past (figure 2). history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 265 f i g u r e 2 : b l a c k a n d w h i t e s t u d e n t s ’ o u t l o o k t o w a r d s t h e t r c p r o c e s s research regarding the trc reveals that the process was, at first, predominantly viewed as positive and victims were supportive of the idea of a trc. however, not all viewed the trc with the same enthusiasm afterwards. it seems as if some victims had over-inflated expectations from the trc. misunderstandings concerning the role of the trc also surfaced amongst south africans.34 it could be that these unmet and mistakenly high expectations may have had an influence on particularly black students’ negative responses concerning their feelings towards the trc process and what was revealed. when asked about the trc's contribution to enhancing relations between different population groups in south africa (question 9), the majority again chose the neutral option (35.2%) with 32% indicating the trc's contribution as ‘good’. this neutral option was chosen by 21.4% of white students, 13.5% of black students and 20% of coloured students who were unsure about how they felt about the trc's contributions. the other opinions were 'very bad' (3.9%), 'bad' (7.8%) and 'very good' (5.5%). 15.6% of students did not know how they felt about the trc's contributions to enhancing relations between different population groups. 18% of males tended to be more negative about the contribution of the trc to enhancing relations between different population groups compared to only 6% of females. the majority of students, 67.2% pointed out that the trc improved the reconciliation processes in south africa against the 32.8% who thought that the trc did not (question 10). as seen in figure 3, the majority of white students (75%) agreed that the trc 34 m.m. oelofse, remembering the truth: an oral history perspectives on the victim hearings of the truth and reconciliation commission of south africa, 1996-1998, unpublished ph.d. thesis, university of the free state, 2007, pp. 305-308. oelofse & oosthuyzen 266 improved reconciliation in south africa compared to 65.2% of black students and 60% of coloured students. f i g u r e 3 : p e r c e n t a g e o f s t u d e n t s w h o a g r e e t h a t t h e t r c h a s i m p r o v e d r e c o n c i l i a t i o n i n s o u t h a f r i c a again, it is the female gender group which is more positive towards the processes of the trc, as well as its contribution to improving the reconciliation processes with 73.1% compared to only 60% of males (figure 4). f i g u r e 4 : c o m p a r i n g g e n d e r b a s e d p o s i t i v e v i e w s a b o u t t h e t r c ' s p r o c e s s e s the students’ responses are relatively high compared to the reconciliation barometer of 2011, which indicated that only 47% of people thought that the trc improved the reconciliation processes in south africa. according to the barometer the research participants described conditions in south africa after the trc as a “peaceful coexistence” history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 267 rather than “true reconciliation”, where the latter was described as “pretence” and a “distant dream”.35 this notion is confirmed by previous surveys which found that almost two-thirds of urban south africans thought that the trc harmed rather than reconciled race relations between south africans.36 when questioned (question 11) if the final report of the trc was a true reflection of south africa's past, 28.1% of the students agreed with this statement and 25% were neutral; 6.3% strongly agreed in contrast to 5.5% who strongly disagreed and 14.8% who disagreed with this statement. the 20.3% who did not know, once again emphasises the lack of insight and knowledge about the trc. there seems to be relatively high percentages of ‘neutral’ responses to questions asked about students’ personal feelings about the trc. this may be due to the fact that the students have limited factual knowledge about the trc and what it entailed to truly have a thoroughly informed own opinion about the trc, its aftermath, and the continuous process of reconciliation that the trc was aiming for in south africa. 5.3 knowledge about reconciliation in south africa students were asked to define the concept 'reconciliation' in question 13. the majority of students (39.1%) believed that it entailed forgiving perpetrators, and a form of healing that takes place; 20.3% indicated that it meant establishing peace between different races and 18.8% described reconciliation as unity between different races. 8.6% of students vaguely spoke of reconciliation as a state where no racism exists between people. the other 13.2% of students could not define the concept. the concept reconciliation remains difficult for people to define as the word is constantly used in different contexts in south africa, making it difficult to establish the real meaning. people may not be able to precisely pinpoint what reconciliation entails but seem to “know it when they see it”.37 in the opinion of the students to question 15, 75% indicated that justice and reconciliation are linked. this concurs with the view of most victims who generally feel that justice must happen if the desire for reconciliation is to take place.38 furthermore, 92.2% of students thought that reconciliation is necessary for post-conflict reparation and reconstruction for a peaceful south africa, with 7.8% thinking that reconciliation is not necessary. responses to the question if the process of reconciliation is easy, the vast majority of 96.1% indicated that the statement is 'false'. maybe from their own experiences with intergroup relations, it seems that the students are aware that the process of reconciliation is not instant and takes time.39 when asked if forgiveness and reconciliation go hand-in-hand, students understood that it is always the case (53.1%), sometimes the case (45.3%) and never the case (1.6%). as seen in figure 5, the ‘neglect’ of reconciliation is reflected in the students’ answers to question 20. only 13.3% of students indicated that they regularly discuss reconciliation with 35 k. lefko-everett et al., sa reconciliation barometer survey: 2011 report (cape town: institute for justice and reconciliation, 2011), p. 42. 36 oelofse, remembering the truth …, pp. 150-151. 37 gibson, overcoming apartheid …, p. 12. 38 villa-vicencio, “reconciliation”, p. 3. 39 villa-vicencio, walk with us and listen ..., p. 110. oelofse & oosthuyzen 268 their friends; 46.1% said that they sometimes discuss reconciliation with 40.6% pointing out that they never discuss reconciliation with their friends. f i g u r e 5 : s t u d e n t s ’ r e s p o n s e s t o h o w o f t e n t h e y d i s c u s s r e c o n c i l i a t i o n deeper investigation revealed that 75% of white students and 40% of coloured students never spoke about reconciliation compared to only 29.2% of black students (figure 6). interestingly, males tended to discuss reconciliation more than females. f i g u r e 6 : p e r c e n t a g e o f s t u d e n t s f r o m d i f f e r e n t r a c i a l g r o u p i n g s w h o a d m i t t e d t o n e v e r d i s c u s s i n g r e c o n c i l i a t i o n w i t h t h e i r f r i e n d s history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 269 table 3 distinctly represents the inadequate knowledge of the students on the trc and its reconciliation process as asked in question 14. archbishop desmond tutu is clearly more well-known for his efforts in the reconciliation process of south africa with 48% acknowledging him. only 11.4% of students know about the key role played by alex boraine. startlingly, 28.7% of students thought that eugene de kock and joe mamasela played a key role in the reconciliation processes in south africa. students are clearly unaware of the trc's chairpersons, let alone the more well-known perpetrators that were active during the former regime in south africa. t a b l e 3 : s t u d e n t s ’ r e s p o n s e s w h e n a s k e d a b o u t t h e p e r s o n s w h o p l a y e d a k e y r o l e i n r e c o n c i l i a t i o n p r o c e s s e s the results once again emphasise that undergraduate history students at the ufs main campus have a limited knowledge about the reconciliation processes in south africa, let alone the trc. 5.4 views about reconciliation in south africa for 85.9% of students it is realistic to ask south africans to reconcile, while 14.1% disagree (question 16). the students’ optimism about the desire to reconcile is relatively high compared to the 66% of people who indicated in the reconciliation barometer of 2011 that it is the ultimate outcome for all.40 interestingly, more black students (16.9%) believed that it is not realistic to ask south africans to reconcile compared to only 10.7% of white students. with reference to the students’ own feelings towards reconciliation in south africa (question 18), they were mostly neutral (39.8%) but also a high percentage of 38.3% were positive. other indications were very negative (3.9%), negative (11.7%) and very positive (6.3%). black students seemed to be more optimistic about reconciliation with 48.3% of students 40 lefko-everett et al., sa reconciliation barometer survey …, p. 29. oelofse & oosthuyzen 270 commenting positively and very positively on their feelings of reconciliation in relation to 39.3% of white students. interestingly, only 20% of coloured students had positive remarks towards their feelings of reconciliation. it was also evident that more males (24.6%) were pessimistic about reconciliation in south africa compared to only 7.5% of females. this statement was confirmed once more when 53.8% of females indicated that they were optimistic towards reconciliation in contrast to 34.4% of males (figure 7). f i g u r e 7 : g e n d e r b a s e d v i e w s c o n c e r n i n g r e c o n c i l i a t i o n i n s o u t h a f r i c a to ensure a peaceful south africa (question 19), 55.5% of students indicated that justice should be the first priority followed by reconciliation with 35.9%. the other 8.6% said that equality, forgiveness, peace, as well as ending corruption in south africa’s governmental systems should be the main priority. the majority of white students (60.7%) and 55.1% of black students believed that justice should be the first priority in south africa. the coloured students are 50-50 with 50% making the choice for justice and 50% for reconciliation. 39.3% of black students believed that reconciliation should currently be the first priority with only 21.4% of white students who clearly are doubtful that reconciliation should be the main concern in south africa. during the group session interviews with students, all 16 respondents indicated that south africa is definitely not reconciled yet. they rated reconciliation in south africa between 3050%.41 the reconciliation barometer of 2011 indicates that some south africans feel very confident about the state of reconciliation in south africa, while others said that 'true reconciliation' was not taking place in south africa. it indicated further that people chose to associate themselves with people of the same language, ethnicity, and interests, which can be 41 two group session interviews were held with 16 respondents on 17 october 2012 in bloemfontein. history students and sa’s trc td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 253-272. 271 seen as an obstacle that may prevent future interactions between people from different backgrounds.42 all 16 respondents were concerned that it might not be possible for south africa to be completely reconciled, even within 20 years from now. respondent 1 said that crime and corruption must first be eradicated for reconciliation to take place in the future. respondent 6 added that south africa is in a downward spiral due to bad management and poor services which will prevent reconciliation in the future. according to respondents 2, 4 and 9, south africa has not improved that much for racism to stop within 20 years. respondent 16 also expressed: hopefully in 20 years people will have better relationships with one another and all inequalities will be eradicated, but it is uncertain if this can actually occur. i don't think this is possible.43 6. evaluation with reference to the outcomes and results of the questionnaires one must bear in mind that close to 70% of the students who completed the questionnaires were black students with another close to 10% coloured students and an indian student. thus, without emphasising the race issue, this aspect cannot be ignored in the study and is significant for interpreting the results as more than 75% of the outcomes are based on what the non-white population groups know of the trc and think of reconciliation in south africa in general. taking gender differences into account in the results, they did not differ significantly. however, it seems that the women appear to be more positive about reconciliation in the country than the males. leon wessels emphasises that it is commonly known that south africans do not know their history before and during apartheid.44 even the history after apartheid is not that well-known. this is clearly the case with the history students at the ufs main campus. students had minimal knowledge and few observations about the south african truth and reconciliation commission and what reconciliation entails. the history lecturers at this tertiary institution cannot take it for granted that the contemporary nature of an historical event, which more specifically deals with south african history, or a concept used frequently in the institution and country, is in fact general knowledge for the students. it will be a risk for the lecturer to assume that the average history student has a conceptual understanding of contemporary historical events. it seems as if the average student tends to focus on the content of the modules offered, make use of rote learning and memorise the relevant historical facts and details presented within the modules. if the historical event and accompanying information lies outside the confines of the module content and/or curricula, it appears that the majority of history students at the ufs are uninformed beyond the scope of these presented modules and accompanying information on historical events. the fact the ufs department of history deals only with the trc as an historical event on a postgraduate level as part of the curricula and not in detail on undergraduate level, supports this line of argument. 42 lefko-everett et al., sa reconciliation barometer survey …, p. 41. 43 two group session interviews were held with 16 respondents on 17 october 2012 in bloemfontein. 44 wessels, “good faith is not enough: we have to dialogue” p. 10. oelofse & oosthuyzen 272 furthermore, it appears that apart from not being truly well-informed, the trc and reconciliation as such is not a greatly debated issue among the undergraduate history students at the ufs main campus. it is unfortunate that the average history student is oblivious to the trc, as it reveals important information about south africa's past. it is disturbing that the students so often chose the option ‘neutral’ in the questionnaire. it can be debated that they did not have an opinion due to a lack of knowledge, and/or to avoid showing their real feelings or opinions about these specific issues. taking into account their minimum knowledge of the trc, the neutral option then seems to be the safer option to go with. nonetheless, it remains surprising that the students do not have more informed and opinionated information on an issue such as reconciliation against the background of all the talk, lectures, development and so on, on the ufs campus regarding reconciliation. the reconciliation barometer of 2011 reveals that south africans do not know what reconciliation is and how it impacts their lives.45 this is in line with the answers given by the students; especially amongst the majority of white students who admitted that reconciliation is never discussed with their friends. it is important to note that this research focuses on the students’ perceptions and knowledge about the trc and the concept of reconciliation in the country. therefore, it was not the aim of this particular study to do in-depth research to assess why certain opinions and views were given. to provide answers to the why of the outcomes, could provide additional information to future researchers. it seems that south africa still remains a deeply divided country and a more united south africa where differences are celebrated and not just tolerated, must still emerge. it is important to remember, as previously stated, that reconciliation cannot be forced on or implemented by a person, organisation or institution; it can only systematically take place within a person over time and should be a constant process, continuous through all generations. therefore, it remains necessary for south africans to know their past and frequently talk to one another about past events and the future, so that the people of this country can understand one another better and make concerted efforts to reconcile a divided country. 45 lefko-everett et al., sa reconciliation barometer survey …, p. 42. abstract introduction the status and role of emerging black farmers in agriculture financing emerging black farmers for agricultural farming in south africa models for promoting emerging farmers for agricultural development in south africa the effectiveness of the used models is there a workable alternative model? conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) mokoko p. sebola school of economics and management, university of limpopo, south africa citation sebola, m.p., 2018, ‘financing emerging black farmers for agricultural development in south africa: a wasteful and unworkable model for creating black farmers’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a555. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.555 original research financing emerging black farmers for agricultural development in south africa: a wasteful and unworkable model for creating black farmers mokoko p. sebola received: 23 feb. 2018; accepted: 24 june 2018; published: 24 oct. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the purpose of this article is to investigate the effectiveness of the model used by the south african government to finance emerging black farmers for agricultural development and empowerment. it is widely acknowledged that the south african government spends a vast amount of money attempting to help black community members become commercial farmers. in this article, i argue that those who currently qualify for the funding are mostly farmers with little experience, expertise or interest in agricultural farming. the huge investment spent on such farmers ends up being lost in failed agricultural projects, and the government has not succeeded in finding better alternatives to empower emerging black farmers. such activities benefit neither the government nor the black farmers intended to be assisted in various areas of the country. the black south african farmers remain agriculturally underdeveloped, while the government on the other hand loses a huge amount of money financing unsuccessful agricultural projects, which potentially threatens future food security. this article is conceptual in nature and uses literature to argue that the financing of emerging black farmers can only succeed if emerging black farmers are financed on basis of experience or ability and interest in farming and that such funding does not exclude potential public and private sector motivated employees who want to access such funding to pursue agricultural farming. introduction access to agricultural finance is a known problem in sub-saharan africa (international finance corporation 2013), which significantly compromises africans’ ability to sustain themselves economically through agricultural projects. statistically, it is argued that one in four africans are malnourished (opportunity international n.d.:2), which demonstrates a lower level of african participation in food security measures. south african agricultural development is known for its history of discrimination based on both gender and race (hart & aliber 2012; kloppers & pienaar 2014), which skewed the patterns of land ownership and individual contribution to the economy through agriculture. the south african government did indeed introduce beneficial land reform programmes to change the status quo in order to ensure that agriculture makes a meaningful contribution to the economy without racial and gender bias. however, there seem to be chronic problems, as the land reforms seem unable to address the failings of agricultural development to benefit black south african farmers (cousins 2002:1). to date the department of rural development and land reform (2016:4) argues that the ‘south african agricultural economy is shrinking and has not delivered according to expectation in terms of economic growth, rural development, job creation, equity and transformation’. nel and davies (1999) also note that agricultural contribution towards the gross domestic product (gdp) today stands at 5% as compared to its contribution in the 1930s, which used to be around 20%. however, the decline is not a uniquely south african problem; even the usa experienced an agricultural gdp contribution of 4.8% in 2004 that declined to 1% in 2008 (quarterly bulletin 2010:2). in this dilemma, predominantly black south african farmers contribute only less than 1% as commercial farmers. hall (2007:1) reports that in 2007, primary agriculture contributed just under 3% towards the gdp of south africa. despite its limited gdp contribution, agriculture contributes to 10% of the country’s formal employment record (department of national treasury 2014:147–148). for improvement of the current status of south african agricultural development, the need arises for the government to introduce land reform that targets improving the capacity and potential for black farmers to contribute to agricultural development and the economy. access to land and financial support emerge high on the priority list for developing black farmers. however, that is an aspect that the government of south africa consciously ignores and concentrates on political allocation of land against economic and empowerment realities facing south african agriculture. programmes such as land redistribution for agricultural development (lrad) and proactive land acquisition strategy (plas) exist, as well as various government financing opportunities. while all these exist, black farmers remain undeveloped and are characterised by failing agricultural projects, which emanate from a general lack of financial and logistical support to south african farmers (aliber & maluleke 2010; hart & aliber 2012). a critical question raised in this article is the following: how effective are the models used for financing emerging black farmers for agricultural development? in addressing this question the article will focus on the status and role of emerging black farmers in agriculture, financing for agricultural farming in south africa, the models for promoting emerging farmers for agricultural development in south africa, the effectiveness of the models and finding solutions as well as an alternative model for financing emerging black farmers in south africa. the status and role of emerging black farmers in agriculture south african agriculture has a two-sided nature, which includes a well-developed commercial sector comprised of 46 000 commercial farmers and 86% of productive agricultural land (sebola & tsheola 2014) and small-scale black farming communities occupying only 14% of unproductive farmland (ortman 2005; tsheola & sebola 2014). south african land reform policies such as lrad were mandated to transfer 30% of land ownership to black south africans by 2014 (antwi & nxumalo 2013; greenberg 2003; ministry for agriculture and land affairs n.d.:1). pringle (2013), however, disputes the 86%:14% land ownership ratio between white south africans and black south africans, arguing that it is purely based on hectares rather than on agricultural potential (sebola & tsheola 2014). in spite of all these political and ideological contestations between the black south africans and white south africans, agricultural farming in south africa was and still is dominated by the white community, which has centuries of experience of surviving on commercial farming, with the role of the black community limited to being that of labour surplus and unsuccessful subsistence farmers. cousins (2002:2) added that their role was more of ‘[s]ub-subsistence activities and urban dependence’. although white south african farmers have experienced dramatic political and economic changes since 1994 (hall 2011:2–3) with regard to their legacy as prominent agricultural farming role players in south africa, critics maintain that they remain advantaged against their fellow black counterparts, hence the continuous talk of the need for economic and political transformation to empower black farmers to play an active role in agriculture. the role of black farmers compared to white farmers continues to be an open question in the new south africa as current affairs remain unchanged, in which the government has relatively failed to upgrade the status of black farmers compared to commercial white farmers, who remain successful without the help of a black government in power. the reasons for the unchanged situation, although known, are being dealt with at a much slower pace to accommodate the economic realities of productive land use in south africa. the government operates at an economically conscious pace to safeguard any threat to food security and devaluation of productive use of agricultural land. the role of the government in providing and supporting black farmers with financing, research and development and extension services, however, remains extremely weak to say the least (greenberg 2013:2). black south african farmers, like all those in the region, suffer ‘from lack of financial intermediation, enterprise developmental services and social services’. it is argued that if given the necessary support, black farmers would be likely to succeed and potentially contribute to the success of agriculture and the economy in south africa. however, it is also notable that most literature on this matter has overly concentrated on the injustice regarding the ignored role of black farmers in the south african agricultural sector, without making a greater effort to look at the readiness of black farmers in that role. groenewald (2004) suggested that selecting beneficiaries for the agricultural development role would require that they be ‘agriculturists with experience and knowledge of farming; be of similar background and have some capital of their own’. a similar view is held by sebola and tsheola (2014), who argue that ‘land allocation for beneficiaries for agricultural development should take into consideration the business interests of the individual’ so as to minimise the likelihood of failing agricultural projects. although not subscribing to the notion that such beneficiaries should have their own capital, one would argue that those who previously struggled in an attempt to set up an agricultural project that failed because of lack of resources should be given preference for government financial support. such individuals should have shown the seriousness of having pursued an agricultural project that failed because of lack of financial resources. the difficulties faced by black farmers in the agriculture business are exacerbated when they are given loans by the government and financial banks rather than grant funding. nevertheless, black, conradie and gerwel (2014) indicate that south africa has ‘200 000 commercially orientated small holder farmers and 2.5 million households involved in agriculture primarily for subsistence purposes’, which is potentially a good sign of agricultural development. financing emerging black farmers for agricultural farming in south africa without an effective funding model for agricultural development, emerging black farmers are not likely to successfully play a role in south africa’s agricultural development. the financing of agricultural farming in south africa cannot be dissociated from the ambitious land reform the country created to achieve equitable land ownership. while the country has succeeded somewhat in transferring land to the targeted beneficiaries for agriculture, little achievement has been recorded in transferred land owned by black farmers. typically, the government and its citizens have been more concerned about balancing ownership of land on a racial basis than achieving productive use of the land already in the hands of black farmers. numerous cases exist in which beneficiaries have not used the land bought for them productively as expected by the government (vink, van rooyen & karaan 2012) and have instead collapsed the productive economic activities on the farms concerned. manenzhe, zwane and van niekerk (2016) noted that 73% of restituted farms have become unproductive shortly after being owned by black farmers, which could be a result of inexperienced farming, in which instance it becomes imperative that mentors be appointed to assist them (zwane, van niekerk & groenewald 2014) to use land productively for agricultural purposes. there are few approaches that the government has used to finance the buying of land for emerging black farmers that have included access to both loans and grant funding. the land grant was put into operation in 1995 in the earliest years of south africa’s democracy. the land grant operated through the settlement land acquisition grant (slag). through this grant the government provided a grant of r15 000 per beneficiary household to buy land that would be registered as a property, with up to 500 families registered as beneficiaries (lyne, zille & graham 2000). this kind of financing does not seem to have improved the status quo in agricultural problems faced by black south africans. overcrowded decisions and lack of cooperation among beneficiaries themselves led to the downfall of such projects, causing beneficiaries to flee from the project. hall (2007:124) notes the decline in land utilisation in the period 1995–2003 in the country, which signalled a failing objective by the government in achieving agricultural empowerment for black farmers. in 2004, the comprehensive agricultural support programme (casp) was also introduced for emerging farmers. like its predecessor, it was negatively reviewed as its implementation was affected by bureaucratic procurement problems, inadequate support to beneficiaries as well as officials failing to implement the programme in line with the land reform (hall 2007:127). while grant funding has problems, the government often continues to improve grants to suit the current situation in order to benefit potential emerging black farmers. what is troubling about the feasibility of achieving the dream of an emerging black farmer is putting a loan tag on a previously disadvantaged individual with no assets and security (unemployed black south africans) and on the other hand discriminating against a particular category of potential farmers who could improve agricultural development in south africa (white south africans and working black south africans). it is argued that if employed public and private sector individuals were to qualify for a grant fund they could use their salaries to help with expenses, a resource that unemployed potential black farmers, who have been the preferred candidates, lack. indeed, one area that is confusing about agricultural funding models in south africa is how contradictory the criteria are for the requirements to access either a grant or loan funding for agricultural purposes. models for promoting emerging farmers for agricultural development in south africa typically, models for funding emerging black farmers in south africa are known to be categorised into two types: loan funding and grant funding. a major problem in both funding models has been the failure of south african policymakers to look into the effectiveness of the models in the sense that from the start the models have targeted the wrong beneficiaries. by design both models are contradictory with regard to their goals in achieving the intended agricultural development through emerging black farmers. both government funding support models have ignored the potential role to be played by an employed black farmer, a farmer running an agricultural business while also employed full-time in another organisation. such black farmers do not qualify for grant funding from government, while on the other hand loan funding from commercial banks is dominated by white-aligned business, making it impossible for black farmers to secure loans. these black farmers are failing on their own without government support, while spending their own money to finance expensive agricultural projects. their contribution to helping the government reduce unemployment is hardly recognised. they are not beneficiaries of either of the two models. the conditions for awarding funds in the two models are discussed next. loan funding access to credit funding is a common problem for emerging farmers in africa (onumah & meinjerink 2011; international finance corporation 2013), which is a limitation that minimises their contribution to the agricultural economy. they experience this limitation at the point of starting the business as well as running the business after the first harvest. such a situation causes potential farmers not only to lose potential income but also to resort to unregulated money lenders, who take advantage of them through exorbitant interest rates (opportunity international n.d.:2–3). in south africa loan funding for agricultural purposes is offered by both government agencies and commercial banks for the specific purpose of agriculture. for example, government agricultural funding such as the isivande women’s fund and strategic business unit grants are loans for women’s economic empowerment and for opportunity in developing competitive processed food, beverage, fibre and forestry businesses. government-funded banks such as the development bank of southern africa and the land bank offer farmers loan opportunities for the purpose of general agricultural development activities (department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries 2013:1–22). while one would expect both the development finance institutions and government funding programmes to be lenient on requirements for black beneficiaries to acquire funding, the opposite is true. the requirements that are exclusively meant for black farming entrepreneurs do not seem to benefit them at all. on average in terms of requirements set, only selected unemployed, black potential farmers may qualify to benefit or indirectly benefit by being fronted by the previously mentioned well-established, white commercial farmers, which have the financial resources to help them access funds. the only significant requirement from them for funding that they meet is to ‘be a black south african or a designated group’. all other requirements such as ability to repay debt, having start-up funds, being in business for a specific period (12 months) are clearly not applicable to the condition of emerging black south african farmers. these requirements are a luxury for black farmers who previously had access to neither agricultural experience and practice nor land. hence being fronted by a former white commercial farmer becomes the only available option. firstly, it should be known that the first problem of emerging black farmers is lack of land to conduct agricultural business before the issue of capital comes to the fore. black et al. (2014:2) note that the success of agriculture in any country is dependent on the available infrastructure, which in this case black farmers never had. access to land ownership remains a problem for emerging black farmers despite the promises of the post-apartheid land reforms (vink et al. 2012:16). south africa is still struggling to sustain the promise of agricultural land to black beneficiaries. where a little land has been given to them they have been packed in as multifamily beneficiaries to the extent that their agricultural practice becomes pragmatically impossible to produce as expected. therefore, without fair access to land and usage, there won’t be any feasible agricultural role to talk of from emerging south african black farmers. only a well-developed funded agricultural sector that is non-discriminative in approach in south africa will assure everyone of an important role as a contributor to the agricultural economy. the current requirements or the eligibility criteria may only assist in promoting selected unemployed black farmers and ignoring those with the potential to grow and contribute successfully to agricultural development and the economy. as much as the literature on land reform has noted the disjuncture between land reform and government support to promote farming, indeed the situation has not changed. access to funding to maintain the land is not granted; those who want to farm and are in need of both land and funding do not have easy access to such funds and land. however, it was known from the outset that the african national congress did not in their conception of the land reform promise any small-scale farmers financial support for farming production from claimed land (greenberg 2013:13). commercial banks in south africa such as the first national bank(fnb), amalgamated banks of south africa (absa), nedbank and standard bank of south africa created agri-business units and offer longand short-term loans to potential agricultural farmers (department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries 2013:22–25). unlike government-funded institutions that require workable business plans, these banks only look at the ability of an individual to repay the loan as well as a high percentage of a deposit to buy land, as they do not provide a 100% loan for buying land for agricultural purposes. for example, a 30% deposit may be required from an applicant for a loan to buy a farm – a percentage that is highly unlikely to be afforded by an emerging black farmer in south africa. their eligibility criteria are impossible for emerging black farmers; they are only workable for previously advantaged white farmers who can use previous assets as security for the loan. other funding options exists that are supported by government, such as government incentive schemes and public–private partnership funding, which unfortunately for emerging black farmers are all repayable transactions. thus the dream of achieving economic growth, food security and poverty reduction for black farmers is more or less impossible (manenzhe, zwane & van niekerk 2016) in the rural context. grant funding grant funding is mostly non-recoverable and is free to beneficiaries. in south africa such grants are intended to promote the role of black farmers as emerging commercial farmers as well as to empower them for future sustainability in agricultural business (olubode-awusola & van schalkwyk 2006). for the purpose of this article my focus will be on grants for two current land reform programmes, the lrad and plas. these two programmes have one common goal, which aims to provide grants for agricultural projects that will promote and sustain the role of emerging black farmers in agricultural development and the economy. the government of south africa reviews grants regularly to determine their effectiveness and replaces them with new ones if their application did not achieve the objectives of land reform. the initial slag grant was halted in 1999 after failing to achieve the land redistribution target of 30% set for 2014 (antwi & khumalo 2014) and later casp started in 2004 for the same purpose; however, it also did not achieve the goal, although it was retained for a longer period. land redistribution for agricultural development land redistribution for agricultural development replaced the slag in 2001. it was market driven and was created to provide larger grants to emerging black farmers with the aim of achieving 70 000 black commercial farmers in 15 years’ time (antwi & khumalo 2014). like slag, lrad did not do anything out of the ordinary in more or less failing to achieve agricultural success for emerging black farmers. the same problems of projects collapsing after being funded, lack of access to capital and poor mentoring caused the lrad to fail at supporting emerging black farmers (andrew, anslie & shackleton 2003:20; olubode-awusola & van schalkwyk 2006). government grants, although not paid back, are not contributing to agricultural development and economic growth because insufficient follow-up is done by government to monitor its investment in agricultural projects. even though slag was halted to improve the benefits for black farmers from land projects, it seems that again the government has become more interested in distributing land to black beneficiaries than in getting gains from it. giving land to people with little agricultural expertise and failing to support them but expecting them to perform miracles is the same as knowingly investing in a bankrupt firm. moreover, lrad prescribes that typical beneficiaries should be marginalised groups such as women, farmworkers, the disabled and youth (hall 2007:63). this eligibility criterion is mostly responsible for the failure of emerging black farmers to contribute to the agriculture of the country as expected. despite the criterion, the grant is not a pure grant because an individual contribution fee of r5000 is required in order for the project to be approved for the group to qualify for a r20 000 or r100 000 grant (ministry for agriculture and land affairs n.d.:1). the good thing about lrad is that it provides grants in different contexts in which even an individual could be assisted depending on the project to be pursued. however, its success will be dependent on the identification of correct beneficiaries. proactive land acquisition strategy proactive land acquisition strategy was adopted in 2006 and is currently the available policy programme meant for land distribution to promote emerging black farmers. unlike the previous models that provided grants, in this case beneficiaries are provided with land in a lease agreement for a period of 3–5 years, after which they can purchase the land for permanent ownership (cousins 2013). the land can only be purchased if the previous record of its use was productive. the conditions are probably designed to ensure that the land is productively maintained by beneficiaries for fear of losing it. the lease agreements qualify the beneficiaries for recapitalisation funds from government, and moreover in this model a strategic partner exists in the form of an experienced commercial white farmer to mentor the beneficiaries (cousins 2013). de satge (2013:24) posits that ‘there is an unequal spread of farmer support and the need to directly involve resource-poor small farmers and the landless farm workers in policy development and implementation’. it is argued that the implementation of both slag and lrad resulted in a threat to food security (antwi & khumalo 2014) and to a certain extent more job losses for agricultural employees (cousins 2013; sebola & tsheola 2014) than expected. slag and lrad completely failed in their mission to deliver targeted objectives before being replaced with plas (mfaise 2017). therefore, closing the gaps that failed the previous two models was addressed in plas through a condition imposed on the beneficiaries as well as some relatively strict criteria of eligibility, which in this instance still target designated females, black people, youth and disabled who are not employed by any public institution. even with the threat that unproductive land use will result in government taking the land back from the beneficiaries, plas does not seem to have yielded results that are different from the two preceding models and their grants. challenges are still experienced with regard to physical capital on the projects (nxumalo & antwi 2013), which practically threatens the role of a black farmer in agricultural development and the economy. the effectiveness of the used models neither funding methods for supporting black farmers, whether loan or grant, seem to have benefited the targeted south african beneficiaries. in this fracas, not only is the government of south africa a loser but so are the targeted beneficiaries. while loan funding in itself is difficult to access by emerging black farmers, grant funding also targets the wrong beneficiaries for agriculture and economic development. crosby, boshoff and amour (2016:8) note that the plas model, like its predecessors, uses the ‘supplier led approach’ in which the state buys up land and then tries to match it to a suitable beneficiary. the problem with the approach is that when a suitable beneficiary cannot be found, the wrong beneficiary will be given the land to run an agricultural project with the risk of collapsing the existing business. in general, it can be argued that a high number of government grant beneficiaries are indeed the wrong beneficiaries. if they were not the wrong beneficiaries, many of the agricultural projects they ran would have succeeded. while it is believed that grants given to emerging black beneficiaries through the slag, lrad and plas are to support their role in the agricultural economy, the grants have not sufficiently improved the status of emerging black farmers. the failing results of these models have been revealed through research studies commissioned by the department of land affairs on numerous occasions, showing that the problems lie not only with the bureaucratic structure of government but with choosing the wrong beneficiaries, who are either not ready to handle agricultural projects or have no business interest in agricultural farming at all. while steps have been taken to improve the current status, at least through the current plas model, improvement has not been seen because the wrong beneficiaries continue to be identified for agricultural projects. in the first place, in all the grant models the eligibility criteria for beneficiaries remain discriminative against black people interested in farming. for example, employed individuals, no matter their keen interest in promoting agriculture, are not covered by grants, even though they would be able to supplement the grants with their personal salaries to take up agricultural projects. they would indeed assist government to avoid selecting poor-resourced or cash-strapped individuals for agricultural projects. employed potential black farmers wishing to pursue agriculture are faced with the challenge of approaching the commercial banks, which in turn have huge deposit eligibility criteria that make it impossible for emerging working black farmers to secure a loan. potential working emerging black farmers cannot secure loans at commercial banks. on the other hand, deserving unemployed emerging black farmers who want to create a living from agricultural business rarely meet the criteria to get either grants or loan funding. indeed, funding for emerging black farmers in south africa through the current existing models (commercial and grants) is very difficult. moreover, grants require start-up fees from poor, black potential farmers. the identified beneficiary targets – women, farmworkers, the disabled and youth (hall 2007:65) – are expected to draft a workable business plan, which is not a problem because they rarely do it on their own. the responsible government department arranges a consultant to do it for them. a weakness of the whole business plan arrangement is that not many of the beneficiaries know what is written in the plan and rarely care about the content as much as the funds. as such, the implementation of the whole process has less to do with the beneficiaries than with government officials ticking boxes to count the number of emerging farmers to whom they have allocated grants. it is highly unlikely that the identified beneficiaries, who in the first place have no skills or farming knowledge attained through training (antwi & nxumalo 2014), could achieve successful implementation of an agricultural project through business plans that they did not craft on their own. andrew et al. (2003), however, posit that ‘this lack of adherence to business plans is not without precedent’. it is indeed not only important for the government to target emerging black farmers through grants but is equally important for their funding models to assist potential emerging black farmers who are willing to play a role in agricultural development. it is very clear that commercial banks, being privately owned, operate for profit and will not risk their investments on emerging black farmers with no track record of prior successful agricultural farming. taking into consideration the numerous records of ‘black failure’ in government grant-funded agricultural projects, that decreases the chances of employed potential emerging black farmers being able to obtain loans to buy land for agricultural farming. commercial banks in south africa are likely to be unconsciously racially biased when they decide to fund only white commercial famers, because they can be trusted to pay the loan back as they have experience in commercial farming. thus far it is still believed that land reforms in south africa will not lead to viable farms (oecd policy briefs 2006:6), because beneficiaries of land reform have suffered defaults and lack of capital financing to assists themselves as they are indeed ill prepared for agricultural farming. is there a workable alternative model? previously adopted models have done little to achieve sufficient agricultural empowerment for emerging black farmers in south africa. though mentorship and support have been suggested by numerous literature sources for this purpose (hall 2011; terblanche 2011), little has been achieved in the way of promoting and empowering black farmers to play a role in south african agriculture. incremental adjustments to programmes to improve the role of black farmers in agriculture commerce have also failed dismally by high margins. the major limitation identified was indeed choosing the incorrect beneficiaries for agricultural projects meant for emerging black farmers. aliber and hall (2012) posit that most black farmers are indeed invisible, which is the reason why the correct ones cannot be identified. such an assertion is highly contestable. however, it is known that the issue of land debate in south africa has been used for political rhetoric (jankielson & duvenage 2011) with little consideration for economic realities (sebola & tsheola 2014) facing the country and the region in terms of food security. most of the difficulty for black south african farmers is access to the markets (thamaga-chitja & morojele 2014), and nothing has been done to solve this problem, despite it having long been a problem in post-apartheid south africa. thus far, as articulated by mbatha (2017), there have been problems with the manner in which we expect good results from land reform without the proper logic and framework for it. it is on the basis of such problems that in this article i propose that a workable model would need to consider the following: identification of the correct beneficiaries so as not to threaten the food security of the country; a balanced consideration of both social justice and economic imperatives in the allocation of land to black farmers as beneficiaries; removal of all forms of discriminatory requirements to access grant funding by emerging black farmers; creation of a conducive environment by the government for black farmers to prevail as farmers through agricultural equipment and the government becoming a market for such farmers. the creation of such a model will assist black farmers to get both attention and support to pursue agricultural development. thus far the government of south africa has been providing moral support and taking a back seat approach, in which emerging farmers are left to fend for themselves in penetrating the difficult agricultural markets. however, if the government can take full responsibility for identifying the correct potential black farmers, make grant funding accessible to all potential black farmers, consider the productive use of land and become a major market and a buyer for emerging black farmers to protect food security, black south african farmers will be highly motivated and empowered to play a leading role in the agricultural economy. conclusion this article argued that the models for financing agricultural projects for emerging black farmers in order to improve the economy are tantamount to waste of the country’s financial resources. in this context, two funding models were analysed: loan funding and grant funding. while loan funding is offered by both commercial banks and development banks funded by the government, it has become clear that commercial banks are highly unlikely to fund an emerging black farmer to start-up an agricultural project. while government development banks such as the land bank and development bank of southern africa may provide funds, this depends on the business plan evaluated, and there are major risks in getting the investment return by the banks. government-aided banks take the same risks as the government, which buys land and funds the project through grants. it is therefore concluded in this article that if the government wants to reduce the risk associated with funding for emerging black farmers, it needs to lessen discriminatory requirements that target only poor-resourced or cash-strapped beneficiaries in favour of a model that favours both poor-resourced and employed farmers who will use the grants and their salaries to develop themselves as farmers. land reform needs to be revised in order to achieve political settlement without compromising the economic value of land utilisation. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references aliber, m. & hall, r., 2012, ‘support for small holder farmers in south africa: challenges of small scale and strategy’, development southern africa 29(4), 540–562. aliber, m. & maluleka, t., 2010, ‘the role of black capital in revitalising land reform in limpopo, south africa’, law, democracy & development 14, 1–23. andrew, m., anslie, a. & shackleton, c., 2003, evaluating land and agrarian reforms in south africa, university of the western cape, cape town. antwi, m. & nxumalo, k.k.s., 2014, ‘impact of proactive land acquisition strategy (plas) projects on human capital livelihood of beneficiaries in the dr kenneth kaunda district in south africa’, journal of agricultural science 6(12), 1–13. black, a., conradie, b. & gerwel, h., 2014, should agriculture receive greater support as part of an inclusive growth strategy? university of cape town, cape town. cousins, b., 2002, reforming communal land tenure in south africa – why land titling is not the answer: critical comments on the communal land rights bill. programme for land and agrarian studies (plaas), pp. 1–9, university of the western cape, cape town. cousins, b., 2013, ‘land retribution, populism and elite capture: new land reform policy proposals under the microscope’, journal of the helen suzman 70, 11–19. crosby, a., boshoff, t. & amour, j., 2016, land ceilings: the magic wand for land reform or a bad idea? agrisa, swartkop. de satge, r., 2013, synthesis report: land divided: land and south african society in comparative perspective, university of cape town, cape town. department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, 2013, comprehensive agricultural support programme, government printer, pretoria. department of national treasury, 2014, provincial budget and expenditure review, 2010/11–2016/17, government printer, pretoria. department of rural development and land reform, 2016, transforming the agricultural sector towards an inclusive economy, ‘food for all and 1 million jobs, by 2030’, government printer, pretoria. greenberg, s., 2003, ‘land reform and transition in south africa’, transformation 52, 42–67. https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2003.0030 greenberg, s., 2013, the disjuncture’s of land agricultural reform in south africa: implications for the agri-food system, working paper 26, plaas, university of the western cape, bellville. groenewald, j.a., 2004, ‘conditions for successful land reform in africa’, south african journal of economic and management sciences 7(4), 673–681. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajems.v7i4.1298 hall, r., 2007, land reform how, and for whom? land demand, targeting and acquisition, university of western cape, cape town. hall, r., 2011, the next great trek? south african commercial farmers move north, working paper 19, institute for poverty, land and agrarian studies (plaas), university of the western cape, bellville. hart, t. & aliber, m., 2012, inequalities in agricultural support for women in south africa: policy brief, human sciences research council, pretoria. international finance corporation, 2013, access to finance sub saharan africa, international finance corporation, nairobi. jankielson, r. & duvenage, a., 2017, ‘radical land reform in south africa: a comparative perspective?’, journal for contemporary history 42(2.1), 1–23. kloppers, h.j. & pienaar, g.j., 2014, ‘the historical context of land reform in south africa and early policies’, potchefstroomse elektroniese regblad 17(2), 678–707. https://doi.org/10.4314/pelj.v17i2.03 lyne, m., zille, p. & graham, d., 2000, ‘financing the market based redistribution of land to disadvantaged farmers and farm workers in south africa: recent performance of the land reform credit facility’, sociological research online 1–15. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.495 manenzhe, t.d., zwane, e.m. & van niekerk, j.a., 2016, ‘factors affecting sustainability of land reform projects in ehlanzeni district mpumalanga province, south africa’, south african journal of agricultural extension 44(2), 30–41. mbatha, n.c., 2017, ‘how to understand, evaluate and influence efficient progress in south africa’s land reform process: a typology from historical lessons from selected sub-saharan african countries’, south african journal of economic and management sciences 20(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajems.v20i1.1990 mfaise, y., 2017, addressing land redistribution through the one household one hectare policy, agrisa, swartkop. ministry for agriculture and land affairs, n.d., land redistribution for agricultural development: a sub-programme of the land redistribution programme, government printer, pretoria. nel, e. & davies, j., 1999, ‘farming against the odds: an examination of the challenges facing farming and rural development in the eastern cape province of south africa’, applied geography 19(3), 253–274. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0143-6228(99)00005-3 nxumalo, k.k.s. & antwi, m.a., 2013, ‘impact of pro-active land acquisition strategy on physical capital livelihood of beneficiaries in dr. kenneth kaunda district, south africa’, journal of human ecology 44(2), 161–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/09709274.2013.11906654 olubode-awosola, o.o. & van schalkwyk, h.d., 2006, ‘mentorship alliance between south african farmers: implications for sustainable agriculture sector reform’, south african journal of economics and management sciences 9(4), 553–566. onumah, g. & meijerink, g., 2011, innovative agricultural financing models, agrinatura, the hague. (policy brief no. 6). opportunity international, n.d., financing small holder farmers to increase incomes and transform lives in rural communities, opportunity international, il, oak brook. organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), 2006, agricultural policy reform in south africa, oecd, geneva. ortman, g.f., 2005, ‘promoting the competitiveness of south african agriculture in a dynamic economic and political environment’, agrekon 44(3), 286–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/03031853.2005.9523714 pringle, e., 2013, ‘land reform and white ownership of agricultural land in south africa’, the journal of the hellen suzman foundation 70, 37–42. quarterly bulletin, 2010, review and outlook of agriculture industry in south africa and gauteng. economic analysis directorate gauteng department of finance, gauteng, johannesburg. sebola, m.p. & tsheola, j.p., 2014, ‘economics of agricultural land restitution and redistribution in south africa: willing-seller, willing-buyer business imperatives versus socio-political transformation?’, journal of human ecology 46(2), 113–123. terblanche, s.e., 2011, ‘mentorship a key success factor in sustainable land reform projects in south africa’, south african journal of agricultural extension, 39, 55–74. thamaga-chitja, j.m. & morojele, p., 2014, ‘the context of smallholder farming in south africa: towards a livelihood asset building framework’, journal of human ecology 45(2), 147–155. vink, n., van rooyen, j. & karaan, m., 2012, ‘farmer support programmes: lesson from implementation’, paper read at strategies to overcome poverty and inequality: towards carnegie iii conference, university of cape town, cape town, 04 september. zwane, e.m., groenewald, i.b. & van niekerk, j.a., 2014, ‘critical factors influencing performance of extensionists in limpopo department of agriculture in south africa’, south african journal of agricultural extension 42(1), 49–61. book review on the way to the best possible science: an intellectual travel guide book title: on the way to the best possible science authors: a.p.j. roux c.s. de beer isbn: 978-1-928355-00-7 publisher: sun press, 2016, r150* *book price at time of review review title: on the way to the best possible science: an intellectual travel guide reviewer: jacobus s. wessels1 affiliation: 1department of public administration and management, college of economic and management sciences, university of south africa, south africa corresponding author: jacobus wessels, wessejs@unisa.ac.za how to cite this book review: wessels, j.s., 2017, ‘on the way to the best possible science: an intellectual travel guide’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a421. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.421 copyright notice: © 2017. the authors. licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. it is not easy to ignore a book with a title such as on the way to the best possible science, when it waits for you right in the middle of your pathway – except if you are perhaps not into travelling at all. however, most of us who work in the world of science are currently completing application forms to obtain funding for endeavours on the way to some or other best possible scholarly destination. our ultimate destination may vary from the well-intended exploration of new ideas that may ‘truly benefit humanity’ (roux & de beer 2016:129) to the refining of practices to maximise some unintended benefit for ourselves. as i constantly find myself on the way to promising destinations, i could not ignore a book with the potential not only to change my perspective on my best possible destination but also to change my destiny. this book is on the way to the best possible science by a.p.j roux and c.s. de beer. the late braam roux was emeritus professor of philosophy at the university of south africa until he passed away in september 2012. fanie de beer, emeritus professor in the department of information science, university of south africa, is currently associated with the department of information science, university of pretoria. the book was first published in 2014 under the title onderweg na die beste moontlike wetenskap. the english translation was done by irma kroeze, department of jurisprudence, university of south africa. as a scholar of a subject field with a special interest in attaining the best possible life for all the citizens of a country, i did not dare pass this book by, as the sounds of familiar concepts such as ‘measure’, ‘function’, ‘strategy’, ‘vision’, ‘policy’, ‘precondition’, ‘evaluation’ and ‘communication’ beckoned me to investigate further. these concepts are used in public administration to explore, explain, describe and reflect on the way to the best possible life for all citizens. used to reading travel guides, i opened the book at what seemed to be the most appropriate place for directions to the best possible destination, namely chapter 2, with the title ‘the function of strategy, vision and policy’. and, i wondered why the authors decided not to call this chapter ‘in the way to the best possible science’. this book by roux and de beer has become my travel guide for exploring policies, visions, strategies and operational plans as possible prerequisites for or obstacles to the occurrence of science, and more specifically, the best possible science within the context of south african higher education. for two scholars to journey in more or less the same direction requires a shared understanding of ‘science’, in this case within the south african context, as well as its preconditions and consequences. the title of this book, on the way to the best possible science, poses a challenge to the reader’s own understanding of the concept ‘science’, even before they can determine how roux and de beer understood ‘science’ when they coined the title of their book. considering the diverse uses of the concept, one may rightfully doubt whether agreement on the use of the concept ‘science’ is possible. john wilson (1985:54) in his work thinking with concepts (first published in 1963) warns that there is no ‘such thing as “the” meaning of a word’ or ‘“the” concept of a thing’. he proceeds by explaining, ‘we can talk about your concept, … or my concept, or cicero’s concept’ (wilson 1985:54). the defining elements or attributes of roux and de beer’s concept of ‘science’ gradually unfold when reading this book. the most striking defining attribute of their use of ‘science’ is encapsulated in the following sentence, ‘the basis of science is a human being who wants to understand and know his [or her] world’ (p. 60) [author’s emphasis]. without the presence of the human being, the word ‘science’ will apparently mean something different. the human being (pp. 60, 63), constituting the core element of the authors’ concept ‘science’, serves as qualifier for all the other elements of their use of ‘science’, such as critical tradition (pp. 59, 63, 86, 87, 99, 115), knowledge (pp. 18, 59, 60, 69, 82, 86, 115), enquiry (pp. 59, 82), systematise (pp. 59, 63, 86), share and discourse (pp. 59, 69, 74, 79) and tentative (p. 59). these elements are eventually human in nature. for roux and de beer, the best possible science relates primarily to the human being with ‘a particular human interest in and relationship with society’ (p. 63). the element critical tradition can also be traced back to the scholar and the conditioned habits and conventions of their diverse societies (pp. 59, 63, 86, 87, 99, 115). it is especially the knowledge and knowing element (pp. 18, 59, 60, 69, 82, 86, 115) of science that relates directly to society. the nature and trustworthiness of knowledge are expected to respond to the needs and expectations of society – therefore, the specific traditions of enquiry, systematising, openness, sharing and tentativeness that characterise science. is it possible for science to exist on its own? if not, what needs to be in place for the concept ‘science’ to exist? walker and avant (2014) refer in this regard to the antecedents of a concept as ‘those events or incidents that must occur or be in place prior to the occurrence of a concept’ (walker & avant 2014:173). roux and de beer (2016) identify several antecedents for ‘science’ within the south african higher education context. these antecedents are mostly of an extra-scientific nature and include ‘preferences, prejudices and assumptions, ideologies, paradigms, convictions and faith’ (p. 82). the nature of these antecedents implies that ‘the aptitude for research, the motivation for certain research and projects’ (p. 82) has its origin and meaning outside the realm of science. the above-mentioned incidents of extra-scientific human orientations can only be expressed through language. for roux and de beer, science ‘is impossible without language’ (p. 83). closely related to this antecedent is the social context of science ‘in which requirements, interests and views of society and of government is present’ (p. 30). this context implies a ‘social embeddedness … and … the community’s involvement in science’ (p. 85) as well as adherence to ethical guidelines ‘based on the existing norms in a community’ (p. 85). through their respect for these norms, scientists may earn the trust of society – a prerequisite for meaningful science (p. 79). roux and de beer also attend to the more formal antecedents for science, namely prerequisites such as ‘comprehensive institutional involvement and large financial inputs’ (p. 99). these prerequisites are directed by the visions, strategies and policies as published by the relevant institutions (p. 37). the institutionalised nature of especially the latter antecedents may unevenly influence the defining attributes of science, which subsequently influence the consequences of science. the authors have eloquently demonstrated that science does not exist in a clinical vacuum. science is influenced and it influences for the better or the worse. this brings us to the consequences of science: are they good or are they bad? with the human being as a central defining attribute of science, and language as a prerequisite for science (p. 83), a key consequence of science is ‘meaning’, as determined by the ‘values and ideals that humans have’ (p. 108). not only do roux and de beer argue for socially embedded science relevant to the ‘requirements, interests and views of society and of government’ (p. 30), but they express their frustration with the seemingly neglect of the ‘dimension of real distress or need’ (p. 92) by the official strategies, visions and policies. roux and de beer argues for a science, which: respects and accepts the uniqueness and values of individuals constituting society (p. 58) realises human ideals and motives (p. 108) fosters peace and prosperity, as opposed to ‘distress and need’ (p. 92) stimulates trustworthy intellectual social engagement with conversation partners (p. 79) contributes to credible knowledge (p. 85). on the way to the best possible science was published by sun media metro under the sun press imprint. it consists of four chapters, namely ‘peer review: reliable measuring scale or superfluous practice?’, ‘the function of strategy, vision and policy’, ‘preconditions for the best possible science’ and ‘evaluation and communication’. this book cannot be ignored by any serious explorer of the world of science. it serves as a caring intellectual guide on the way to the best possible science, whatever meaning this may have for the individual traveller. references roux, a.p.j. & de beer, c.s., 2014, onderweg na die beste moontlike wetenskap, sun press, stellenbosch. roux, a.p.j. & de beer, c.s., 2016, on the way to the best possible science, sun press, stellenbosch. walker, l.o. & avant, k.c., 2014, strategies for theory construction in nursing, 5th edn., pearson new international edition, pearson, new york. wilson, j., 1985, thinking with concepts, cambridge university press, cambridge. references about the author(s) johan wassermann department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, south africa citation wassermann, j., 2018, ‘editorial’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a635. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.635 editorial editorial johan wassermann copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. when analysing the structures of faculties of education in south africa, one cannot but be struck by the wide range of appellations, for example departments, clusters or units used for purposes of demarcation. some are logical academic categories or groupings, for example mathematics and science education, educational psychology, education studies or leadership and management education. however, such neatness is not shared by humanities, social sciences or social studies education as they include a plethora of fields such as sport science education, life orientation education, music education, history education, tourism education, geography education, gender education, social justice education, commerce education, language education and art education, to name the most common fields. often academics in these disciplines not only teach the academic content but also the subject-specific methodologies. this is contentious as in-depth transdisciplinary expertise is expected. academics and students in the above-mentioned disciplines are invariably left to create some form of internal cohesion and logic that might explain their academic work and justify the existence of the humanities, social sciences or social studies education departments, clusters or units they find themselves in. this is a hard row to hoe when compared to the neat epistemologies embedded in the more clearly demarcated academic departments, clusters or units. a possible way of creating cohesion among the disciplines embedded in humanities, social science or social studies education is by means of transdisciplinarity. drawing on the works of jantsch (1972) and godemann (2006), ‘transdisciplinarity’ refers to contexts that require academics to work together across disciplinary boundaries, also known as ‘boundary talk’. this transfer or integration of knowledge and understandings is limitless and can ensure wide engagement with scholarly ideas shared from diverse knowledge bases. transdisciplinarity can also manifest itself in other forms of ‘boundary talk’ related to, for example university policy, information communication technology usage, pedagogy and student relations. it can, however, also bring about tension and resentment when disciplinary identities are threatened. in light of the above, this special edition of the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa – an accredited dohet publication (issn: [online] 2415-2005, [print] 1817-4434) dealt, in 12 articles, with ‘transdisciplinary manifestations in humanities, social sciences or social studies education’. in his article, davids mapped out how a history project on the district six removals evolved into a collaborative transdisciplinary inquiry that transcended disciplinary boundaries. this resulted in the use of a myriad of conceptual frameworks of research approaches across disciplines. this is followed by an article by jarvis in which she argues that restorying can be used as a teaching-learning strategy to engage social sciences students, in the context of human rights education, in transdisciplinary boundary talk. such talk happened in the space between, across and beyond academic disciplines. crossing disciplinary boundaries was also the focus of the article by ntombela and mngomezulu. in their contribution, they interrogated a learning support programme at a south african university that transcended disciplinary boundaries. for their part, kruger and evans engaged with the transdisciplinary possibilities on how to read peace education and teach english to speakers of other languages through multiple literacies theory. linguistic teaching was also the focus of the contribution by evans and nthulana. this article focussed on the linguistic challenges faced by tshivenda-speaking learners and teachers when they have to transition disciplinary boundaries to english in grade 4. textbooks as transdisciplinary constructions also came under the spotlight. maposa, in his article, investigated the representation of the temporal notion of post-colonial africa in south african history textbooks. he laid bare the ambiguous manner in which temporal notions of post-colonial africa were framed – which creates a challenge for learners who have to engage with the textbooks. pillay and maistry focussed on gendered discourses in southern african business studies school textbooks. overall they found that gendered ideologies continued to prevail in a remarkably overt manner in the textbooks analysed. the idea of integration as a form of transdisciplinarity was foregrounded in two articles. in her contribution, iyer investigated attempts at integrating history and geography and how it led to disciplinary commonalities and teacher discongruity. on their part, mpofu and maphalala proposed an integrated curriculum approach for assessing student teachers’ professional competence. an original slant on transdisciplinarity was adopted by woest, who in her contribution, investigated the demands placed on beginner teachers to teach subjects that they were not qualified in. this resulted in amongst others, fear and frustration. in his article, wasserman reasoned that the personal narratives of the history of south africa of the history students who participated in his study shunned a broader disciplinary framework. instead they favoured a form of political history dominated by race. finally, pieter du toit turned the educational research lens on himself and reflected on his more than 20-years of involvement in a postgraduate higher education qualification for academics. although the 12 articles which appeared in this special edition speak of transdisciplinarity in numerous ways, they were held together by an internal cohesion and logic that speaks about the nature of humanities, social sciences or social studies education in south african universities. the fulcrum around which humanities, social sciences or social studies education revolves is the rich transdisciplinary nature of their make-up. references godemann, j., 2006, ‘promotion of interdisciplinary competence as a challenge for higher education’, journal of social science education 5(2), 51–61. jantsch, e., 1972, ‘interand transdisciplinary university: a systems approach to education and innovation’, higher education 1(1), 7–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01956879 td12(1).indb reviewer acknowledgement open accesshttp://www.td-sa.net page 1 of 1 we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who provided scientific and logistical support for this issue of the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa: should names have inadvertently been excluded from this list, the publisher apologises and undertakes to amend the exclusion in the next issue. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa in an effort to facilitate the selection of appropriate peer reviewers for the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, we ask that you take a moment to update your electronic portfolio on www.td-sa.net for our files, allowing us better access to your areas of interest and expertise, in order to match reviewers with submitted manuscripts. if you would like to become a reviewer, please visit the journal website to register. to access your details on the website, you will need to follow these steps: 1. log into the online journal at http://www. td-sa.net 2. in your ‘user home’ [http://www.td-sa.net/ index.php/td/user] select ‘edit my profile’ under the heading ‘my account’ and insert all relevant details, bio statement and reviewing interest. 3. it is good practice as reviewer to update your personal details regularly to ensure contact with you throughout your professional term as reviewer for the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa. please do not hesitate to contact us if you require assistance in performing this task. publisher: publishing@aosis.co.za tel: +27 21 975 2602 fax: +27 21 975 4635 alethea c. de villiers aletta j. van as amandine pras andreas g. velthuizen bertha m. spies bethuel s. ngcamu charisma acey charl blignaut chris w. callaghan christopher rabali christopher j. burman claudia gouws cornelis j. roelofse costa hofisi costa hofisi dirk postma elda de waal elrena van der spuy elsa mentz engela p. de crom eric j. nealer francisco p. garcia francois ibara gerrit van der waldt happy m. tirivangasi j.d. taylor jacobus s. wessels janet condy janet liebenberg jannie hugo johan cilliers kealeboga j. maphunye kishore raga kogie archary m.t. lukamba m.r. terblanche magda huisman manuela fernandes-martins marie m. oelofse marieta jansen van vuuren mariette liefferink mark k. ingle melvin diedericks michael j. hill mojalefa l.j. koenane nisha sewdass phiwe n. makaula pragna rugunanan rennie naidoo sello sithole stefan gruner steven h. dunga sysman motloung tsegai b. ghebretekekle victor munnik www.td-sa.net� www.td-sa.net� http://www.td-sa.net http://www.td-sa.net http://www.td-sa.net/index.php/td/user http://www.td-sa.net/index.php/td/user mailto:publishing@aosis.co.za abstract introduction purpose of the study literature review the sustainable livelihood framework and the care household livelihood security framework research methodology empirical findings discussion and lessons learnt conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) marietjie ackermann school of social and government studies, north-west university, south africa doret botha school of social and government studies, north-west university, south africa gerrit van der waldt research focus area: social transformation, north-west university, south africa citation ackermann, a., botha, d. & van der waldt, g., 2018, ‘potential socio-economic consequences of mine closure’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a458. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.458 original research potential socio-economic consequences of mine closure marietjie ackermann, doret botha, gerrit van der waldt received: 31 july 2017; accepted: 29 sept. 2017; published: 26 jan. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: mine closures generally reveal negligence on the part of mining houses, not only in terms of the environment, but also the surrounding mining communities. aim: this article reflects on the findings of research into the socio-economic consequences of mine closure. the research specifically explored how mineworkers’ dependency on their employment at a mine affects their ability to sustain their livelihood. setting: the research was conducted at the orkney mine and the grootvlei mine (springs). methods: the research was conducted within a naturalistic domain, guided by a relativist orientation, a constructivist ontology and an interpretivist epistemology. data were collected by means of document analysis, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and unstructured observation. results: from the research findings, it is evident that mine closures, in general, have a devastating effect on the surrounding mining communities as well as on the employees. mine closures in the case studies gradually depleted the mining communities’ livelihood assets and resulted in the collapse of their coping strategies and livelihood outcomes. it generally affected the communities’ nutrition, health, education, food security, water, shelter, levels of community participation and personal safety. conclusion: if not managed efficiently and effectively, mine closures may pose significant challenges to the mining industry, government, the environment, national and local economic prosperity and communities in the peripheral areas of mines. this truly amplifies that mine closure, whether temporary or permanent, is an issue that needs to be addressed with responsibility towards all stakeholders, including the mining community and the labour force. introduction south africa is a resource-rich geographical area and provides many opportunities for mining houses to take on mining operations. the one significant contribution by the mining industry to south africa is the employment opportunities it provides. in 2015, the mining industry contributed r286 billion towards the south african gross domestic product, directly employed 457 698 individuals and indirectly supported roughly 4.5 million people (chamber of mines of south africa 2017:6). for this reason, mining communities are potentially adversely affected by mine closures (jenkins & obara 2008:3; limpitlaw 2004:1). globally, there are a significant number of mines on the brink of life cycle closure (camargo 2014; stacey et al. 2010b:379; world bank 2010:3). the international council on mining and metals (icmm) defines mine closure as: a process that extends over the life cycle of the mine, and results in the handing over of the mining site (to the government or to a legally appointed third party), when operations cease and infrastructure is removed and the site is limited to monitoring. (icmm 2008:13) a mine should close in line with the definition of the icmm, as a result of its finite lifespan, extracting from non-renewable resources, yet this is not always the case (baartjes & gounden 2011:2; stacey et al. 2010b:379). mining operations and specifically mine closures reveal general inattention on the part of mining houses to potential consequences not only for the environment, but also for the mining community (digby 2016). mining communities include directly affected mining communities, adjacent or in close proximity to a mine, and labour-sending areas, which include areas from which the majority of mineworkers both historically and current are or have been sourced (rsa 2017:5). negligence can also be attributed to the competence of organs of state tasked with the enforcement of the closure requirements (liefferink 2009:6; olalde 2016). government is the regulator of the mining industry and should act as responsible mechanism to serve the public’s interest to ensure a safe and healthy environment (swart 2003:489). mine closures have generally left behind a legacy of polluted areas, abandoned mines and ghost towns. if not managed efficiently and effectively, mine closures may pose significant challenges to the mining industry, government, the environment, national and local economic prosperity and communities in the peripheral areas of mines (limpitlaw 2004:2; oliveira 2016). ineffective mine closures also impact adversely on future generations. mine closures, in terms of section 24 of the constitution and the concept of sustainable development, should address not only intergenerational equity, but also intergenerational equity (hoadley & limpitlaw 2008:850). this truly amplifies that mine closure, whether temporary or permanent, is an issue that needs to be addressed with responsibility towards all stakeholders, including the mining community and the labour force (digby 2016; world bank 2010:14). purpose of the study in light of the foregoing introduction, the purpose of this article is fourfold. firstly, it provides a contextualisation of mine closure in south africa. secondly, it aims to highlight the application of the sustainable livelihood framework (slf) and the care household livelihood security framework (care hlsf), as they assisted in assessing socio-economic consequences, and, in particular, how the loss of people’s assets as a result of mine closure increased the vulnerability of the mining communities. thirdly, the article has the purpose to reveal the socio-economic consequences of the closure of two mines formerly owned by the liquidated pamodzi gold ltd, namely the orkney mine and the grootvlei mine, as case studies. fourthly, the authors make practical recommendations to limit and address the socio-economic consequences of mine closures. literature review a contextualisation of mine closure according to laurence (2006:285), ‘for the past decade or more, the term “mine closure” has firmly entrenched itself into the lexicon of mine operators and regulators’. laurence (2006:285) further contends that ‘even “hard-nosed” or “old school” mining engineers have come to appreciate that this phase is just as important as the other stages of the mining cycle’. unfortunately, mine closures have also become a contested and controversial matter with a number of unresolved issues that landed on the table of government (van eeden, liefferink & du rand 2009:52). mines are usually closed at the end of their life cycle because of depleted resources, but may also be closed for other reasons such as economic, geological or structural reasons (laurence 2006:286). some mines in south africa closed because of a number of reasons, including liquidation and legislation, or natural occurrences such as landslides and earthquakes. temporary closure may occur because of the need for necessary care and maintenance when the mine has ceased production for various technical, environmental, financial or labour-related reasons (swart 2003:490). unfortunately, the last stage of mining, which is mine closure, still lacks the interest or prestige surrounding the other phases (laurence 2006:285). a closure plan must contain the information set out in appendix 5 of the environmental impact assessment regulations (rsa 2014). a closure plan must be subjected to a public participation process of at least 30 days. the closure plan must address the requirements, as set out in the regulations, pertaining to the financial provision for the rehabilitation, closure and post-closure of prospecting, mining or production operations made in terms of the act. the global focus on sustainable development and the impact of the increased efforts to protect the environment in the last few decades have changed the way the mining industry approaches the issue of mine closure. ideally, good practice of mine closure planning emphasises that planning for closure of mining operations should be done during the exploring phase, when the feasibility of the mine and the design and permits for mining are established (stacey et al. 2010b:379). mine closure planning should uphold the following principle with respect to the mining community: ‘using, conserving and enhancing the mining communities’ (stacey et al. 2010a:9). mine closure in south africa in south africa, most mines are 50 years and older. south african regulators had been considering mine closure strategies merely in the previous 15–20 years (digby 2016, as cited in oliveira 2016). however, formal mine closure had been required in the mines and works act (27 of 1956) and agreed to, in practice, under the fanie botha accord of 1976 (international institute for environment and development 2002:9). historically, a mine was closed simply by being boarded up and abandoned when an ore body was exhausted, or when production ceased (limpitlaw 2004:1). according to swart (2003:489), the early legislation focused on ‘surface rehabilitation’ and the mining companies followed a reactive approach in which they complied with the mere minimum requirements. the irresponsible mining practices of the first mining companies left long-term residual effects on the social, health and environmental well-being of communities residing in the vicinity of the mine (swart 2003:489). today, south africa has a comprehensive statutory and regulatory framework to guide mining operations in the country. the constitution of the republic of south africa 1996 provides general guidelines for the mining industry with regard to its operational and closure activities. as far as the socio-economic environment is concerned, section 24 of the constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to ‘an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being’ and ‘to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations’ (rsa 1996). the minerals act (50 of 1991) (rsa 1991), the nuclear energy act (131 of 1993) (rsa 1993), the national environmental management act (107 of 1998) (rsa 1998a), the national water act (36 of 1998) (rsa 1998b) and the national nuclear regulator act (47 of 1999) (rsa 1999) further provide particular controlling measures for the mining sector. furthermore, the minerals and petroleum resources development act (28 of 2002) (mprda) initiated the required submission of a social and labour plan in order to obtain a mining licence (dmr 2010). the mining charter of 2004 (rsa 2004) and the amended mining charter of 2010 (rsa 2010) also focused on the socio-economic aspects of mining and had a significant impact on the mining industry concerning maintaining sustainable development principles (swart 2003:491, 492). section 43 of the mprda provides for the issuing of a closure certificate by the minister of minerals and resources and the transfer of closure liabilities to a competent person (rsa 2002). the following recent legislation was also introduced to further provide controlling measures for the mining industry: the environmental impact assessment regulations of 2014 (rsa 2014) and the national environmental management act (107 of 1998) regulations pertaining to the financial provision for prospecting, exploration, mining or production operations (warburton attorneys 2016). there is evidence of a growing ethical consciousness, a corporate social responsibility disposition in the mining industry. mine owners are required by law to leave behind decommissioned infrastructure and sustainable economic arrangements that do not hamper opportunities for communities to function once a mine is closed (stacey et al. 2010a:6). the sustainable livelihood framework and the care household livelihood security framework the slf and the care hlsf are instruments or tools that can be used to pinpoint, understand and analyse the main factors that affect the livelihood of poor people. as such, both frameworks were utilised for the purposes of this study. the sustainable livelihood framework the slf (see figure 1), developed by the department for international development (dfid) in 1999, seeks to eliminate poverty. it can be used as ‘a tool or checklist to understand poverty in responding to poor people’s views and their own understanding of poverty’ (glopp 2008). the environment in which a community functions plays a pivotal role, as this is where the community negotiates its existence. such an environment should provide sustainable livelihoods to the community in order for them to make a living. chambers and conway (1991, as cited in knutsson 2006), define a livelihood as follows: a livelihood comprises of the capabilities, assets and activities for a means of living. a livelihood is sustainable when it can cope and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, provide sustainable livelihoods for the next generation and which contributes net benefits to other livelihoods at local or global level. (p. 90) figure 1: the sustainable livelihood framework. the slf enables agencies to identify stresses and shocks that increase the vulnerability of a community or entry points towards strengthening a community’s capacity and resilience (twigg & bottomley 2011:2). the slf includes the following components: the vulnerability context, livelihood assets, transforming structures and processes and livelihood strategies and outcomes (dfid 1999; glopp 2008:3). the vulnerability context refers to the external environment of a community where stresses, shocks, trends and seasonality have a direct effect on the livelihood assets of a community. this causes a chain reaction, affecting people’s livelihood strategies and outcomes. a negative input has an adverse effect on the assets, outcomes and strategies of the affected community. each community has different quantities and forms of livelihood assets available to them. to achieve positive livelihood outcomes, people require a range of assets. ‘no single category of assets on its own is sufficient to yield all the many and varied livelihood outcomes that people seek’ (dfid 1999). livelihood assets are present in the internal environment of a community as well as in the external environment. these assets are listed as different forms of capital (dfid 1999): human capital refers to skills, knowledge, health and energy. social capital refers to networks, groups, institutions and family relations. physical capital includes infrastructure, technology and equipment. financial capital refers to savings, credit, pension fund and medical aid. natural capital refers to natural resources, such as gold ore and water. transforming structures and processes refer to policies, institutions, organisations and other structures in which a certain community operates and that could affect the community’s livelihood assets, strategies and outcomes positively or negatively. livelihood assets determine both the livelihood strategies a community adopts and the livelihood outcomes a community achieves. livelihood strategies refer to the goals the community is seeking for themselves regarding their livelihood and comprise a range and combination of activities and choices that people make or undertake to achieve these goals. livelihood outcomes refer to the ‘achievements or outputs of livelihood strategies, such as more income, increased well-being, reduced vulnerability, improved food security and a more sustainable use of natural resources’ (glopp 2008:4). if people or households have better access to assets, their ability to influence structures and processes will increase so that these become more responsive to their needs (carney 2000, as cited in glopp 2008:4). the care household livelihood security framework the care hlsf emphasises the dynamic interrelationships between different aspects of the framework and also includes other approaches. care distinguishes between assets, capabilities and activities, rather than looking at using the ‘five capitals’ approach to assets (anon s.a.:7). the care hlsf (see figure 2) provides the opportunity to analyse the level of basic livelihood of a family and its coping mechanisms in the absence of such livelihood. the analysis of household security is determined by the interactions between assets, the household and the processing of these assets, as well as related activities of production, income and consumption. the framework explains the environment that should provide resources for the actions of production, income and consumption, which are represented by the collective term ‘livelihood strategies’. these activities, or the absence or inability of a household to participate in them, would constitute the level of security or vulnerability that households face (frankenberger, drinkwater & maxwell 2000:1; frankenberger et al. 2002:3). figure 2: the care household livelihood security framework. the main components of the care hlsf are the household, the assets and the livelihood strategy and outcomes (frankenberger et al. 2000, 2002). the household is the most important and most affected by livelihood strategies and responds and reacts to internal and external factors in the environment, which is represented in the shocks and stresses box. in order for the household not to be vulnerable, it has to have assets and resources. access to resources indicates that a household is resilient; hence, inability to access resources indicates vulnerability (wisner, gaillard & kelman 2012:27). the assets box represents a variety of procurement strategies for food and cash. assets refer to natural, human, social and economic capital and represent the degree of vulnerability of a community. the assets box explains the interaction of the household to access resources that are provided in the external environment. the level of interaction is determined by the quality or quantity and value of assets available to the household (krantz 2001:15). livelihood outcomes are positive when households have access to livelihoods, as well as security through access to food, water, shelter, education and community participation. household livelihood security would imply that the inhabitants are able to acquire, protect, develop, utilise, exchange and benefit from assets and resources. livelihood outcomes are hampered and diminished when a household cannot withstand shocks or meet contingencies that negatively affect assets and access to livelihood strategies (frankenberger et al. 2000). research methodology this study employed a qualitative research design. qualitative research aims to capture reality through intense interaction, allows entry to subjective social constructions of people and offers ‘thick’ descriptions (sarantakos 2013:45). the research was conducted within a naturalistic and interpretive domain, guided by a relativist orientation, a constructivist ontology and an interpretivist epistemology (cf. sarantakos 2013:36). research setting this research investigated the closure of two mines, namely the orkney mine and the grootvlei mine. the mines were purposively selected, as they were suddenly closed, without prior warning, mainly because of the liquidation of the mining companies. in april 2009, aurora empowerment systems negotiated to take over the ownership of the grootvlei mine (springs), the orkney mine and the president steyn mine (welkom), after the previous owners, pamodzi gold ltd, were liquidated (deep sa 2006:1). the takeover process was finalised in october 2009. the liquidation of pamodzi gold ltd was unexpected, as this was an established, prospering black economic empowerment company, which was active in one of the richest gold-producing areas in the world, orkney. the expectation was that by 2010, pamodzi gold ltd would increase its output of gold to 1 million ounces per annum. instead, from early 2009, pamodzi gold ltd struggled to remunerate all of its workers (stuit 2009; van der walt 2009:1). the following conditions arose at the two mines, orkney and grootvlei, after the liquidation of pamodzi gold ltd: since february 2009, only certain shafts were in operation and mineworkers experienced problems receiving their salaries. during april 2009, the mine was closed and workers, already struggling financially, were sent home without salary (van der walt 2009:3). during the period april 2009–october 2009, the mineworkers required emergency food aid. the welfare organisation helping hand (affiliated and partially funded by the labour union solidarity) provided food parcels to the unemployed mineworkers (t. esterhuizen, personal interview, 25 march 2011). schools in orkney and springs launched projects to feed the children, and parents began collecting funds to support the mineworkers and their children (van der walt 2009:1). in october 2009, the liquidation of pamodzi gold ltd was finalised and the orkney and grootvlei mines were handed over to aurora empowerment systems ltd, which agreed to buy the liquidated mines from pamodzi gold ltd (williams 2009:7). in december 2009, the president steyn mine was bought by the harmony gold group (competition tribunal 2009:1). the mineworkers thought that their situation was restored. six shafts at the orkney mine and seven shafts at the grootvlei mine were reopened, raising the hope that the situation in the communities surrounding these mines would change (aurora 2010; williams 2009:7). the new owners began to pay partial salaries from december 2009 (van rensburg 2012). the situation soon changed and the crisis (as described above under the previous owners, pamodzi gold ltd) repeated itself in 2010 (van rensburg 2012). the newly appointed managers of the grootvlei and orkney mines failed to pay employees’ full salaries from april 2010. the mining activities ceased, except for a few miners overseeing the ‘care and maintenance’ of the orkney and grootvlei mines (tempelhoff 2010a:12). these care and maintenance activities included basic maintenance of the mining equipment and shafts, as well as the daily pumping out of mine water to prevent the shafts and the surrounding areas from flooding. these workers were not remunerated in spite of working their normal shifts and beyond to keep the mines safe and to prevent the mine and the surrounding environment from being flooded with toxic mine water (oberholzer 2010:38). early in 2011, all the shafts at the grootvlei mine were finally closed down because of the following factors: safety risks of working with poorly maintained mining equipment, the continued non-payment of workers (after promises of pending remuneration) and the cutting off of the electricity supply to the mines because of unpaid eskom accounts by aurora (g. du plessis, personal interview, 05 august 2011; joubert 2011:2). the issues surrounding these mines received extensive media attention. these issues included the non-payment of the aurora mineworkers and the threat of a devastating environmental crisis posed by the mine water if the daily pumping of 108 000 mega litres of water from the shafts would cease (oberholzer 2010:38). the closing of the orkney and grootvlei mines affected an estimated 5300 mineworkers (with dependents) who lost their income (g. esterhuizen, personal interview, 26 march 2011). as a result, the mineworkers and their dependents were living in dire circumstances and needed humanitarian assistance. shafts at both mines were also flooded and ransacked, which caused permanent damage. the sudden closure of these mines left the surrounding communities in a state of crisis (a. klopper, personal interview, 08 august 2011). this study focused on the period under the new management, aurora empowerment systems ltd. data collection and sampling data were collected by means of document analyses, semi-structured interviews, a focus group discussion and unstructured observations. the non-governmental organisation (ngo) helping hand assisted with the research and also formally sponsored it. the document study included newspaper articles and internet publications from the mining industry and government on the mine closures. semi-structured interviews are used to form a detailed picture of the participant’s beliefs about, or perceptions or accounts of, a particular topic (greeff 2005:296). semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data from the mineworkers and their relatives in the surrounding mining communities (orkney and springs), business owners or managers in the two mining towns, the role players who assisted with the helping hand projects and members of the labour unions who were involved, directly or indirectly, with the plight of the mineworkers and the loss of their employment. the participants were purposively selected from a database provided by helping hand. written field notes were also taken and interviews were recorded with the permission of the participants. the information gathered from the semi-structured interviews provided insight into the detrimental effects that the experience of the mine closure had on the participants. focus group discussions create a process of sharing and comparing information and experiences and produce large amounts of concentrated information (greeff 2005:301). one focus group discussion was held with the mineworkers at the orkney mine who were living on site to gather information on the immediate needs their families experienced after the mine closure as well as to determine the effects on their livelihood and family life. the two sites in orkney and springs, the aurora-orkney mine and the grootvlei mine, were visited to gain insight into the circumstances of affected mining communities. the observation confirmed the magnitude of the damage on and to the mining site and correlated significantly with the data obtained from the interviews, document analysis, focus group discussion and literature survey. the following ethical considerations were considered while collecting the data: voluntary participation, informed consent, privacy, anonymity and confidentiality, as recommended by babbie and mouton (2011:520). data analysis the data were analysed by means of coding (thematic analysis). this process involves the sorting of data according to themes and phrases that the participants repeated (oplatka 2001). the slf and the care hlf were used to identify themes and categories from the data collected. the data collected were verified by means of source, method and data triangulation, which is regarded as one of the best ways to enhance the validity and reliability of qualitative research findings (babbie & mouton 2011:275). empirical findings by scrutinising the data, three main categories (livelihood assets, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes) with supporting themes and sub-themes were developed (see table 1). the themes were identified according to variables that indicate an increase or decrease in the vulnerability of a community or household, unique to each category. table 1: categories and main themes used to analyse the data collected. category a: livelihood assets of the two mining communities category a: livelihood assets consist of five main themes: human capital, natural capital, financial capital, social capital and physical capital. human capital four sub-themes were derived from the theme human capital: skills, knowledge, health and energy. the mineworkers’ skills were restricted to the mining industry only. when the mine closed, most of these workers were unable to find work; they could not afford travelling expenses to attend a job interview or they lacked the skills and abilities required to work outside the mining industry. approximately 1000 mineworkers stayed on at the hostels of the mine, with no food and clean water (tempelhoff 2010a:19). in general, there was a feeling of hopelessness and despair among the mineworkers who did not find employment and some completely gave up on hope to find employment. natural capital data collected from the document study revealed that criminal charges were brought against the mining company aurora for discharging inadequately treated acid mine water into the wetlands surrounding the springs area (tempelhoff 2010b:9). a scientific report published by van vuuren (2013) confirms that the blesbok spruit is contaminated by acid mine drainage. data gathered from the semi-structured interviews revealed that the vegetable gardens of the miners residing at the hostels, at the orkney and springs mines, were watered from untreated mine water. financial capital the main effect of the mine closure at the orkney and grootvlei mines was the mass loss of employment. at first, aurora promised that they would not lay off any of the workers (van rensburg 2012:7). however, within a few months after the takeover from the previous owners, the workers were unemployed. as a result, most of them lost their medical aid, unemployment insurance fund (uif) and pension benefits, some after working 25 years for the mining industry (pmg 2013). it is reported that even though the money for their pension and medical aids was subtracted from their salaries, the mining companies did not pay over their money to the respective funds (tempelhoff 2010b:12). payments were also not made to the uif. furthermore, value-added tax was never paid on any of the transactions made by aurora (pmg 2013). the mine owners were accused by the media of running the two mines on a ponzi scheme. this practice involves making payments on the grounds of promises of money based on forthcoming income and funding, which was never realised in the case of aurora (pauw 2012). social capital deterioration of networks and social groups was reported. mineworkers had to change their lifestyles to adapt to their newly acquired statuses of low income or no income. some of the mineworkers who were part of the care and maintenance team had to sleep at the mine. they actually had no money for transport to take them home, as they received no salary for 4 months (tempelhoff 2010a:10). the mine closure negatively affected 40 000 people. the findings showed that mineworkers who were laid off had an estimated 4–10 dependents (g. du plessis, personal interview, 05 august 2011). the number of workers who suddenly became unemployed at the two mines was 5300, according to calculations by the media, and according to estimates of helping hand, about 40 000 mineworkers and their dependents were affected (deikema 2010a). a significant number of participants and many reports indicated an overall presence of depression and feelings of hopelessness among the people in the communities concerned. instances of substance abuse, domestic violence and divorce escalated. a number of suicides, suicide attempts and attempted family murders were reported after the mine closures (deikema 2010b; oberholzer 2010:38). physical capital equipment and tools: the mines that provided employment to 5300 workers were stripped of equipment, which reportedly was sold as scrap metal. furthermore, the flooding of the mining shafts worsened the damage to the mines, and will cost millions to repair before mining operations could take place again (du venage 2011). when approached on this issue, the owner reacted: ‘i do not owe you any explanation’ (de lange 2011:2). technology: the companies that supported the mines with basic services such as electronics, electricity and security were not paid and their services were duly terminated. some of the smaller businesses that benefitted from the mining operations and workers’ salaries were closed down or went bankrupt after the mines closed. electricity was cut in 2010 because of the non-payment of bills to eskom and because the amounts exceeded the mine owners’ ability to pay (g. du plessis, personal interview, 05 august 2011). infrastructure: the buildings in which the mine offices were situated were left empty and were not maintained. electricity at the mines and at the homes of mineworkers was cut off because of lack of payment to eskom and the local municipalities (deikema 2010a). the entrance to the gate and the roads were not maintained and showed signs of damage. the pipes were rusting because of lack of maintenance and caused a safety risk to the workers who were part of the care and maintenance operations (tempelhoff 2010a:9). workers of the care and maintenance unit complained that the lights on their safety helmets were faulty and miners had to rotate the helmets among them to have light when working underground. the following comment was made in this regard: the mine was destroyed, the environment endangered and equipment for employment was removed – interview at helping hand, and government publication (pmg 2013) category b: livelihood strategies of the two mining communities three sub-themes were derived from the theme livelihood strategies: production and income activities, consumption activities and processing, exchange and marketing activities. the effect of the mine closure on the livelihood strategies of the mining communities under investigation is revealed below. production and income activities mineworkers reported that they arrived at closed gates in april 2010. their main activity to provide income to their families was ended abruptly, leaving them in despair. the damage to the mining sites also destroyed the possibility that the mines will be in operation any time soon (de lange 2011). consumption activities the lack of income and loss of cash flow excluded the mineworkers and their relatives from normal activities to which they had access prior to the mine closure. these include being able to partake in social activities such as eating at restaurants and going to places of entertainment provided by the city and municipality. interviews with the business owners during the observation of the mining site confirmed a severe drop in the mining communities’ ability to partake in these activities. the families affected by the mine closure did not even have the finances to buy groceries and the basic personal items that they needed (tempelhoff 2010a:9). the workers and their families needed food parcels because of the non-payment of salaries from april 2010 to october 2010 (deikema 2010a, 2010b). processing, exchange and marketing activities the mining communities under investigation depended on the mine as their main source of income. the workers’ salaries provided them with the opportunity to also partake in the local market. when the mines closed, they lost their ability to participate in this aspect of their livelihood strategies. production and exchange opportunities were not a main activity, even though it was reported that the mineworkers living at the hostels maintained vegetable gardens to sustain themselves and their families. the mine closure affected the mineworkers living in the mining town differently than those who remained at the hostels. a newspaper reported: ‘more than 1000 mineworkers are waiting at the hostels, with no clean running water, and without food’ (tempelhoff 2010a:9). no data were collected from the miners living in town that reflected any activities of production or exchange of livelihoods, other than the salaries that they received for working on the two mines mentioned in this study. category c: livelihood outcomes of the two mining communities the following sub-themes were derived from the theme livelihood outcomes: nutrition, health, education, food security, water, shelter, community participation and personal safety. nutrition nutritional status is often considered one of the best outcome indicators for overall livelihood security. the inability of the households to provide nutrition for their children was evident from the following responses: the mineworkers are living in terrible conditions at the hostels for months; there is no food, water or electricity. (pmg 2013) my neighbour died, i think he was depressed, there was nothing to eat. another neighbour died of hunger. (orkney mine, female mineworker living in hostel after the mine closed) i fell pregnant. i was under stress all the time, not having enough to eat during my pregnancy. my baby was declared dead after it was born. (springs, mineworker’s life partner, female) malnutrition was reported by all the participants. this condition resulted in miscarriages and bouts of depression among children and adults. children felt ashamed of their situation at home. as a result, suicide attempts and suicidal behaviour were reported in the mining communities, the media and the semi-structured interviews. proper nutrition is crucial as an expression of general health and well-being of a community, of which regular access to food is only one aspect. nutrition is also very important in supporting psychological behaviour (who 2013). health conditions of health-threatening situations were reported from all the sources of collected data, including deterioration of the physical health as well as the psychological health of the mining communities. these conditions manifested in tendencies of diabetes, heart conditions, miscarriages, depression, increased mental health issues, substance abuse, suicides and, for children, learning difficulties that impacted negatively on their school performance. the following responses from the interviews corroborate this situation at the mines: there was an increase of substance abuse and domestic violence after the mine closure. (interview at helping hand, media spokesperson, female) divorces occurred; schools had to provide food for the children who arrived at school hungry, people moved in together, … two to three families in one home. (deikema 2010b) education children experienced learning problems and were not motivated to perform well at school. children had to cope with their households’ new financial position in which parents were not able to provide new school clothes; they had to wear second-hand clothes. it was reported that one child was so embarrassed that he attempted suicide. children were taken out of school because of non-payment of school fees (deikema 2010b). some children also did not have access to their year-end academic results because their parents owed money to the school. children arrived hungry at school and as a result feeding schemes were launched at the schools (van der walt 2009:1). food security the two communities had no food security during this event. the community lost their access to food because of the non-payment of their salaries for a prolonged period. food parcels were distributed to the miners and their families on a regular basis between april and december 2010 (deikema 2010a, 2010b). food parcels provide basic foods and do not always make provision for the needs of the family for proper nutrition to ensure psychological health as well as growth and development in children (who 2013). food security is an extremely important aspect of the care hlsf. the need for food is almost in every case the first sign of a community’s vulnerability and of a condition of poverty (frankenberger et al. 2002). this condition becomes apparent from the responses below: the mineworkers received half their salaries at the end of december 2009, and this continued into march 2010, then in april, the mine closed and no salaries were paid. (interview at helping hand, labour networking consultant, female) i ask myself if life is still worth living if you have lost everything and have nowhere to go, and no food to eat. (orkney mine, male mineworker) water polluted mine water, untreated by the mine owners, was not only posing a health threat to the community exposed to the water, but was also threatening to flood the whole municipal area in the long run. the impact on the mining community was not only on conditions of personal health, but also on the entire external environment on which the community members depend for their existence. the following comments describe the situation experienced by mineworkers: 108 000 mega liters must be pumped out of the mines daily to prevent the flooding of the shafts of the mines in the vicinity of grootvlei mine, and of nigel. (oberholzer 2010:89) the mine shafts do not have fences around them, the mine dumps are not treated and it holds risks to the mining community living in that area. the polluted mine water [is] used to irrigate the vegetable gardens where the mineworkers live. (interview at helping hand, environment spokesperson, male) shelter the mineworkers received partial salaries for 3 months and thereafter from april 2010 no remuneration at all. the partial payment and non-payment of their salaries influenced their ability to keep up the payments on their housing. mineworkers who did not live in the mine hostels lost their homes and were forced to find less expensive accommodation. some families moved in together and two to three households shared expenses. some families had to leave town and went to live in areas that provided arrangements for informal settlements. many hostel residents had nowhere to go and stayed on in the hostels, which were not supplied with running water and electricity anymore. community participation before the mine closure, some of the families of the mining communities had access to higher middle-class lifestyles. they could eat out regularly, some families possessed more than one vehicle and they participated in normal activities in their local municipalities. mineworkers could plan for their children’s education, and some supported their children in further studies after school. after the mine closure, these families had to go on foot when they needed something in town, and in some cases, they found themselves in situations where they had to beg for food from local businesses and churches. the parents also could not pay the fees for their children to participate in tertiary education anymore. personal safety when the mines were in the ‘care and maintenance phase’, the few workers who did go down the shafts had to face the danger of faulty tools, unsafe shafts and defective mining equipment. discussion and lessons learnt the mine closure experienced by the two mining communities was referred to as a human tragedy. this tragedy caused human suffering because of negligence and the inability to manage the mines and run the mining operations (joubert 2011:2; tempelhoff 2011:8). it resulted in the collapse of the mining communities’ livelihood assets, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes. the mineworkers did not immediately leave the mining sites to find alternative employment. some mineworkers still arrived for work each day; they worked in the shafts, performing ‘care and maintenance’ tasks and preventing the mines from flooding without receiving compensation. others stayed on in the hostels. this delay in their ability to generate salaries to meet the needs of their dependents negatively affected their livelihood outcomes. workers stayed on after the closure for the following reasons: they regarded the mine closure as a temporary situation, they trusted the new owners and they were loyal to the mines. the necessary steps to protect the total deterioration of their livelihood were delayed because of the expectation that the situation would return to normal in a matter of weeks. by the time the mineworkers and the labour unions realised that the situation was entering into a longer term than expected, and that the workers were not going to be paid, the loss of their assets and livelihood was beyond recovery. most mineworkers who did not find other employment had to make radical lifestyle adjustments. such adjustments included moving to informal settlements, sharing homes with two or three other families and sharing scarce food resources among each other to avoid starvation. most mineworkers needed humanitarian assistance. the only positive input bringing relief to the suffering communities came from the labour unions and the ngos who assisted the mining communities with food parcels and tended to other needs that arose from the mine closure. helping hand played a pivotal role in avoiding a crisis when the mines closed. their immediate and timely involvement helped mitigate the effect the mine closure had on the socio-economic well-being of the mineworkers and their dependents. helping hand also initiated legal investigations, which led to court cases in which the mineworkers’ case was presented. gift of the givers supported the mineworkers with food in orkney for several months. the efforts of helping hand to increase awareness of the situation resulted in widespread media attention and fundraising projects. eventually, the case was presented to parliament on numerous occasions (g. du plessis, personal interview, 05 august 2011). it was evident from the findings that the mining communities were already vulnerable, even before the mines closed, because of their unsustainable livelihood. they depended on only one source of income, namely from the mines where they were employed. the mining communities were not secure in sustaining their livelihood assets. their human capital, natural capital, financial capital, social capital and physical capital were affected. as indicated in the literature review, livelihood assets determine both the livelihood strategies a community adopts and the livelihood outcomes a community achieves and are affected by stresses and shocks in the environment (dfid 1999; glopp 2008:3). therefore, the mine closure impacted negatively on the communities’ livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes. with regard to their livelihood strategies, the following were affected: their production and income activities, consumption activities and processing, exchange and marketing activities. in the slf, these livelihood strategies are also referred to as the vulnerability context. livelihood assets and resources are of utmost importance to protect a community from being vulnerable and to achieve positive livelihood outcomes (dfid 1999; glopp 2008:3; wisner et al. 2012:27). the mine closure depleted the mining communities’ livelihood assets and resulted in a total collapse of the workers and their families’ livelihood assets and outcomes. it affected the communities’ nutrition, health, education, food security, water, shelter, community participation and personal safety. according to christopolos (2012:547), a socio-economic disaster follows when vulnerability of livelihood deteriorates into total collapse. a socio-economic disaster does not only entail the loss of employment, but also implies a humanitarian crisis, in which a large number of people would be suffering because of a severe negative impact on their socio-economic well-being (coppola 2007:26). conclusion and recommendations from the research, it is evident that mine closures have a devastating effect on the surrounding mining communities as well as on the employees. it affects their livelihood assets, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes. therefore, it is of utmost importance that mining companies and the relevant stakeholders participate in careful and thorough planning for mine closures. in light of the findings of the research, the following recommendations are made to mitigate the socio-economic consequences following an unexpected mine closure: mining companies should develop a contingency plan to mitigate the potential socio-economic consequences of an unexpected mine closure. a contingency plan will assist in building resilience into the livelihood strategies of mineworkers and their dependents and it will create the ability for an organisation to respond and meet immediate needs for sustenance in a mining community after a mine closure. mineworkers must be involved in planning for closures and in all other matters that involve them and the sustainability of their employment. community participation should be promoted. community members should be involved in all activities and planning to deal with an expected emergency. community members must be able to voice their concerns and represent themselves and their marginalised groups on equal grounds with the local stakeholders (twigg & bottomley 2011). mine closure insurance, made available in monthly payments for a fixed period or as a lump-sum payment, would provide protection during the months when the workers are not remunerated. this measure could assist workers in the period of temporary closure of a mine or during the period of transition from one employer to another. labour unions dealing with mineworkers should take the leading role to act as watchdogs on behalf of the mining industry. they must ensure that mine owners who employ their members uphold the principles of the social and labour plans proposed by the mining charter and the mprda. mine owners are obliged to follow up on their commitment to develop the skills of mineworkers. learning new skills would help mitigate the devastating effects a mine closure has on the mineworkers and their livelihood assets, strategies and outcomes. it is also recommended that the state prosecutes directors of mining companies who fail in their duty of care (the specific requirements for the duty of care are stipulated in section 28 of the national environmental management act (107 of 1998). the systemic non-enforcement by organs of state for non-compliance with the relevant laws and regulations, in particular mine closure, encourages delinquent behaviour with impunity. acknowledgements this article is based on mrs marietjie ackermann’s dissertation, north-west university. the non-governmental organisation helping hand assisted with the research and also formally sponsored it. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions m.a. conducted the literature review as well as the empirical research. d.b. acted as supervisor of the research project, assisted with the literature review and the empirical research and wrote up the article. g.v.d.w reviewed the article. references anon, s.a., introduction to the livelihoods framework, viewed 29 june 2017, from http://www.phuhlisani.com/oid%5cdownloads%5cch1.pdf aurora, 2010, aurora empowerment systems, viewed 16 march 2011, from 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(1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 aspects of irrigation development in the netherlands east indies maurits w ertsen� abstract: the ‘romijn’ discharge measurement structure was developed in the netherlands east indies. by the end of the colonial period in the 1930s, it had become the standard structure in irrigation. the romijn design is not only still the main discharge measurement structure in indonesia, it is also used in dutch water management practice and education. the question of continuity is at the heart of concepts such as ‘technological tradition’ or ‘technological regime’, and this continuity links the information embodied in a community of practitioners with the hardware and software the members master. such communities define accepted modes of technical operation. engineering education is an important mechanism in preference-guided selection of design solutions, and obtaining an engineering degree is much like passing the preparatory requirements for community membership. when, in 1967, a civil engineering student from delft polytechnic presented his final paper for an irrigation design to his supervisors, the first question they asked was why he had not used a romijn weir as an off-take structure. the dutch irrigation regime, which consists of the explicit and implicit rules of dutch irrigation design, is the central subject of this paper. in this paper i shall discuss two related issues: (1) how the netherlands east indies irrigation regime developed, and (2) how the (dis)continuities in irrigation education and practice following indonesian independence can be understood. naturally, while discussion of these issues, to a certain extent at least, depends on the data available, it also depends on the researcher’s perspective. introduction one day in 1967 a civil engineering student in the department of civil engineering of delft polytechnic presented to his supervisors his final paper in engineering design for an irrigation system. one of the first questions the supervisors asked him was why he had not used a ‘romijn’ weir as secondary off-take structure in his design. this romijn structure was developed in the netherlands east indies at the � water resources/water management group, department of civil engineering and geosciences, delft university of technology, p.o. box 5048, 2600 ga delft, the netherlands, stevinweg 1, delft, tel. + 31 (0) 15 27 87423, fax + 31 (0) 15 27 85559, http://www.wrm.tudelft.nl td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 1, july 2006 pp. 47-72 ertsen 48 end of the colonial period, and by the 1930s it had become the standard structure used in new irrigation schemes. this student’s experience is only one example of the persistence of netherlands east indies irrigation and drainage design practices in civil engineering education in delft. the artefact in question, the romijn weir, also persists. it is not only one of the main discharge measurement structures still used in indonesia, but it is also used in dutch water management practice. the horizontal broad adjustable weir (hobrad) is a modified romijn weir; it dates from the 1970s, when drinking water supply activities in a dutch province required a structure that could measure and regulate discharges with little head losses (not over a few decimetres) (figure 1).1 figure 1 romijn (upper left) and hobrad (lower right) weirs2 such apparent persistence in dutch irrigation practice and education was the main inspiration for this paper.3 the idea of persistence in engineering practice is not new. irrigation in the east indies 49 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 technological knowledge comprises traditions of practice, which are properties of communities of technological practitioners. technological traditions of practice comprise complex information physically embodied in a community of practitioners and in the hardware and software of which they are masters. such traditions define an accepted mode of technical operation, the conventional system for accomplishing a specified technical task. such traditions encompass aspects of relevant scientific theory, engineering design formulae, accepted procedures and methods, specialised instrumentation, and, often, elements of ideological rationale.4 engineering education is an important mechanism in this process of preference-guided selection of design solutions. obtaining an engineering degree is much like passing the preparatory requirements for community membership. the question of continuity is at the heart of the concept of ‘technological tradition’5 or ‘technological regime’.6 the regime concept aims to overcome the difference between internal and external positions, and recognises that invention and innovation are conditioned by such factors as earlier innovations, the search heuristics of engineers in an industry, available technical knowledge, market demand and industrial structure.7 since the regime concept bridges the gap [b]etween the formalised knowledge that can be traced through courses and treatises, and the everyday decisions made by engineers, there must be for sure some kind of intermediate know-how.8 the intermediate know-how, the rules structuring ‘how and what to do’ are included in the regime concept. the netherlands east indies irrigation regime, consisting of explicit and implicit rules for irrigation design, is the central subject of this paper, in which i shall explain two related issues: (1) how the netherlands east indies irrigation regime developed, and (2) how the (dis)continuities in irrigation education and practice following indonesian independence can be understood. naturally, discussion of these issues, to a certain extent at least, depends on the data available. it also depends on the researcher’s perspective. when analysing technical rules, decisions, or practices over a certain period, it is possible to emphasise similarities or differences over time; that is, the focus can be on continuities or discontinuities in regime development. i prefer to start from a relatively narrow definition: to analyse the development process of the netherlands east indies irrigation regime by focusing on rules that structure the activities of actors involved in its development. more specifically, i am interested in those actions, discussions, and positions of dutch irrigation engineers that shaped their irrigation design approach. continuity, discontinuity, and technological regimes continuity may be at the heart of the regime concept, but many researchers have studied technological regimes as a way to describe technological change or transitions.9 these studies explain changes in technological ertsen 50 development, or shifts from a particular technology to another type, by referring to the structural environment a regime offers. while there is no ‘change’ without ‘persistence’, change would be measured against a background of non-change or persistence. change and persistence both exist in worldwide irrigation development; schools of irrigation, or regimes, still influence irrigation practice. our model student was confronted with the colonial design school. engineering education, which transfers existing knowledge and design rules to new engineers who have no direct link with the practice in which the rules were developed, can be considered a structuring element of the mind. another such a structuring element of the mind, closely related to education, can be found in engineering handbooks. successful approaches become examples, even blueprints, for technological design. selected examples are presented to students at engineering schools. the professional engineering organisations, including educational institutions as well as departments of irrigation (or generally, public works), select, discuss, and promote successful technological solutions. gradually, a tradition develops. a key term here is ‘gradually’, because studying technological change and trying to identify shifts of only a few years’ duration is not very fruitful. geels studied technological change over a longer time-frame, on the order of 70 to 100 years.10 there, change and persistence not only become difficult concepts, but may not even be applicable. studying such long periods is like studying social change: “continuity” is actually a more useful term by which to examine the relation between stability and change in society than words like “persistence” are: for continuities exist through the most radical and profound phases of social transformation. . . .11 the extremely simplified description of regime development given above still has some functional connotations. such a description obviously does not provide a better understanding of development and maintenance of technological regimes. functionalism is the last thing i would want to defend; human beings, not abstractions or ‘forces’, created the irrigation works and knowledge in the netherlands east indies. i am much more interested in conceptualising technological traditions in the way giddens discusses the concept of structure: “structure” refers to “structural property”, or more exactly, to “structuring property”, structuring properties providing the “binding” of time and space in social systems. . . . [t]hese properties can be understood as rules and resources, recursively implicated in the reproduction of social systems.’12 structures do not exist; they are manifested through the constituting moments of social systems. this implies recognising the existence of: (a) knowledge – as memory traces – of “how things are to be done” (said, written), on the part of social actors; (b) social practices organised through the recursive mobilisation of that knowledge; (c) capabilities that the production of those practices presupposes.13 irrigation in the east indies 51 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 technological regime development is a two-way process between structures and actors. inspired by giddens’ propositions and guided by van de poel,14 i define a technological regime as a set of rules that structures activities of actors (engineers) involved in development and use of a particular technology (irrigation). these rules can vary in form and content. some are related to the design of technologies, others to use, still others to divisions of labour or roles. some rules will be explicitly laid down in requirements and technical norms. other rules will be tacit and implicit and will be followed by the actors on the basis of habits or tacit knowledge… rules in technological regimes can also be embodied in production apparatus or technological artefacts.15 the totality of the relevant rules shapes the technological regime. within a technological regime different categories of rules can be ordered hierarchically (figure 2); i employ five of these categories. together, these five categories shape the irrigation regime; they represent the information, hardware, and software relevant for the community of irrigation engineers. figure 2 the technological regime triangle16 the basic premises were coined by van de poel. these include: ‘guiding principles’, which link the design of a technology to doctrines and values that are used to legitimise a tradition and its outcomes. closely related to these principles are the ‘promises and expectations’ about a future technology, which will be translated into more specific requirements for new technology. i use the term 1. 2. ertsen 52 ‘design requirements’ to integrate the categories of ‘design criteria’ and ‘requirements and specifications’ used by van de poel. both his terms define the kind of functions to be fulfilled by an artefact and the kind of boundary conditions that are important in the design of a technology. to enable fulfilling the requirements, ‘design tools’ are employed, including scientific knowledge, design heuristics, technical models, and formulas, design methods, and approaches. moreover, the category ‘artefacts and operation’ includes the result of any design activity; both as physical objects (canals, structures) and in the operation and management procedures (water distribution regulations). artefacts should not be considered rules, as they only fulfil functions and must meet design criteria and requirements. on the other hand, artefacts contain (many) implicit rules used in the further development of a technology. they can and certainly do function as exemplars: future designers still apply them because they are known or have been proven in practice. our civil engineering student experienced the power of the typical exemplar. the categories are structured in a hierarchy; guiding principles are on a ‘higher level’ than ‘design tools’. in the netherlands east indies context, ‘higher level’ not only refers to the more abstract nature of guiding principles, in contrast to, for example, design tools, but also to the larger number of stakeholders involved in formulating guiding principles (as well as in the political connotation of such activities). debates on water regulations involved civil servants and engineers, government and private industry. discussions about which structure performed best to realise water distribution were exclusively situated within the civil engineering circle. higher level rules determined whether lower level rules, such as design tools and artefacts, were appropriate: to understand the development process of the artefacts, it needs to be linked to the general discourse on water regulations. debates on artefacts within engineering circles, however, do not refer to political-economic discourse. irrigation development in the netherlands east indies17 when the predecessors of our modern irrigation engineers arrived on java, they found people who made a living from farming, either rain-fed or irrigated. from early times irrigation technology has been an important factor in the expansion of wet rice farming on sawahs in the indonesian archipelago. in the beginning the dutch were impressed with indonesian irrigation technologies and results, but this soon changed. the engineers stressed that the (larger) indigenous irrigation structures had to be seen as unsatisfactory. of course, it was in their interest to do so, given their 3. 4. 5. irrigation in the east indies 53 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 relatively weak position in the early colonial state. developing engineering irrigation was an important instrument in the emancipation of engineers in the colonial bureaucracy. irrigation systems were (and are) constructed to achieve certain goals: they were the material translation of colonial production and water management principles. the colonial engineers were trained in the dutch water tradition; they were experienced in the struggle against water. but short of confronting the engineers with severe drainage and flooding problems, the east indies context demanded a struggle for water quite different from that in the mother country. in this respect the engineers had to start pretty much from scratch. the learning process of dutch irrigation engineers in the east indies, their struggle with a foreign environment, resulted in the establishment of new design rules and the development of new knowledge. a colonial irrigation technological regime developed over time. especially in the first half of the nineteenth century the ‘permanent’ engineering structures were destroyed or seriously damaged by ‘bandjirs’ (flash floods) as quickly as were the indigenous ‘temporal’ structures. the establishment of the bureau of public works in 1854 was a political recognition of the potential role of engineers and technical support in colonial irrigation development: one main task of the bureau was to construct irrigation works on java. the engineers remained subordinate to the civil service, however; the ‘resident’ (administrative representative of the civil service on the regional level) usually took the initiative for irrigation development. civil servants did not always call for help from the engineers, however. furthermore, the bureau had to cope with a lack of financial resources and personnel, and even in cases where civil servants required support, the bureau could not always provide it. not many projects were realized before 1890. the quality of these projects did improve, however, indirectly strengthening the position of engineers. engineers succeeded in better understanding and controlling the (natural) environment in which they had to design and construct. colonial irrigation activities were initially intended to support the european sugar cane cultivators in the nineteenth century, but later efforts were extended to supporting and improving the rice cultivation methods of the indigenous population as well. in the period from 1830 to 1870, javanese farmers had to cultivate certain cash crops as part of the ‘cultivation system’ (‘cultuurstelsel’). this system was introduced by governor general van den bosch in an attempt to make the colony profitable following the java war (1825–1830). two of the crops to be cultivated needed irrigation: sugar cane and (to a lesser extent) indigo. sugar cane, the most important irrigated commercial crop by far, was grown in eastern java. in the 1840s and 1850s several famines occurred on java, and colonial policy also began to include support for rice farming through irrigation development. commercial crops were grown in the same areas and on the same fields as those used for rice. the commercial ertsen 54 agricultural enterprises did not own land, as they would have done in a plantation system, but rented land from the javanese farmers. thus, even in the early colonial irrigation efforts, irrigation systems in the east indies had to irrigate both sugar cane and peasant crops (mainly rice in the wet west monsoon between october and march/april and dry crops (‘polowidjo’) in the dry east monsoon). water had to be distributed to all these crops through the same canal system. therefore, water distribution methods were designed to divide (distribute and measure) the water between commercial and food crops in a just way. following a period of discussions (concentrated around the turn of the nineteenth century) about what exactly ‘just’ meant and how it could be achieved, a centralized water management system developed, with engineers in charge. co-existence of peasant crops (rice, and in the east monsoon the non-irrigated crops known as polowidjo) with the commercial crop, sugar cane, in the javanese irrigated areas has been a determining factor in dutch colonial water management (guiding principle). sugar cane was an important irrigated crop from the very beginning of the cultivation system; sugar estates were the sugar producers in the east indies. the estates did not own the land on which the sugar cane grew, but they rented it for a period of three years from the peasant owner.18 otherwise, rice was usually grown on these lands in the west monsoon. as sugar factories rented new land every year, each year different sawahs were chosen to plant with sugar cane. rice and sugar cane were irrigated, but not according to the same rhythm: rice needed irrigation water in the west monsoon, whereas sugar cane needed most of its irrigation water in the east monsoon. for further details on water distribution patterns, see below. what matters here is that: (1) in general the irrigation infrastructure on java had to irrigate both sugar cane and rice, and (2) that the relative amount and location of sawahs planted with these crops changed over the years. later on water was distributed to rice and sugar cane separately, but using the same canal system. apparently, the custom of allowing sugar cane to be irrigated during the day in the east monsoon meant that peasant crops had to be irrigated at night (or from late afternoon onwards). this custom had its origins in the cultivation system. water distributed to sugar cane was measured with movable measuring weirs immediately before the water entered the field(s). the above description reveals the two basic requirements of east indies water management: (1) water measurement (although in the beginning only for sugar cane), and (2) the need to adjust water distribution daily and annually.19 in 1885 a new regulation for the bureau of public works was introduced; the bureau became independent of the general civil service. the new department of public works, which had general and regional offices, became the centre of irrigation activities. the residents controlled only the small regional offices, but it was the general office that included the ‘irrigation brigade’. this brigade, which was merged a few years later irrigation in the east indies 55 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 with the existing technical unit, was charged with conducting research on the possibilities for providing all governmental areas with modern irrigation facilities. in 1890 the general irrigation plan for java defined 19 irrigation projects to be developed; other projects were included in 1907. most of these projects were located in east or central java. as part of these projects several regulations were developed to define procedures for allocating and distributing irrigation water to various crops and use(r)s. although local management arrangements to distribute water had already existed, they were often not written down. the dutch civil service was only required to deal with them if there were problems. in 1893 a test carried out on two small irrigation systems on eastern java was intended to provide experience with proper, standardised colonial water management on an irrigation system level. both these schemes, the pekalen and the pategoean systems, were relatively small compared with the systems designed and exploited from 1895 to 1900. unlike many of the new systems, both of these were improved versions of javanese systems, and both were located in hilly or mountainous areas. in contrast, later engineering irrigation systems were usually located in the extensive coastal plains of northern java. therefore, the irrigation environment of the experiments may no longer have been very representative of newer systems, and the governmental decision in favour of the pategoean experiment may not have matched daily practice for the majority of new irrigation systems. the pemali system was the main example of the new systems (its irrigated area was about 45 000 bouw). the pemali water distribution methodology set the standard for water regulation in the east indies. in 1901 an ethical policy introduced new welfare measures to improve conditions for the javanese population, which also led to javanese agriculture receiving increased attention. as a result, agricultural experts from the department of agriculture (established in 1905) entered on the irrigation scene. irrigation was an important instrument in the welfare approach. the option to import rice for the growing population also became an issue. irrigation efforts continued as part of the general plan. not everything the irrigation engineers did was successful, however. the irrigation plans in the solo valley proved to be overly ambitious. these plans were developed as part of the projects to divert the river’s estuary away from the surabaya area to the java sea to prevent sedimentation of the surabaya waters. the plans included a canal to surabaya to be used for transportation and drinking water. this canal could also irrigate more than 200,000 bouws (a bouw equals 0.7 hectare). the entire system would consist of a 165-km main canal and 900 km of smaller canals. at the end of the nineteenth century it became clear that the project costs were much higher than the budget would cover; it was suspended in 1898, and cancelled altogether in 1903. the abandonment of the solo project was a source of great consternation among the dutch engineers, and ertsen 56 was perceived as showing a lack of confidence in engineering irrigation activities. the planned works of the general irrigation plan, however, were continued. the irrigation engineers could point to several successful projects: one was the pemali system. its design process as well as water management procedures and regulations have become the standard model for irrigation development in the east indies. in the early 1920s, after the general irrigation plan had been realised and colonial policies returned to normal following the first world war, a new set of irrigation projects was defined. the budget for irrigation reached its peak in this period, with around ten million guilders per year. the number of engineers employed by the department of public works exceeded 200 in the early 1920s, and reached a maximum of 263 in 1930. irrigation design procedures in the 1920s were not very different from those in the 1890s, although the formulas and artefacts had changed. the development of hydraulic laboratories in which designs could be tested brought a new dimension to the design process, even if irrigation practice remained a determining factor in the engineering community. the romijn weir, mentioned above, which dated from the early 1930s, belongs to this period. discharge measurement of course, while dutch engineers had measured water long before 1930, measuring it in the indies only began in the early nineteenth century.20 most common were the cipoletti and thomson measuring structures until well into the twentieth century (figure 3). these devices are accurate and easily relocated, but are sensitive to silting and require a relatively large energy head. they were usually used if flows to the sugar cane fields had to be determined. in most cases the cipoletti weirs were placed in the canal downstream of the intake. the head loss of the cipoletti weir added to the existing head loss of the intake structure. it is not surprising then that engineers did not use structures at all in many irrigation systems; instead, they measured the velocity of the flow with a floating device in a straight canal section. by multiplying velocity and the surface of the canal profile, the discharge was determined. both editions of the irrigation design handbook of van maanen include descriptions of floaters.21 floaters required a relatively high labour input; in addition, there was a regular need to redefine the canal profile. the pekalen system represented development of one of the first permanent control structures to discharge and measure water from secondary into tertiary canals (which is very similar to the modern american constant head orifice). although it was never applied again, for the first time in the east indies it combined the ability to discharge and measure water in one structure. the introduction of the venturimeter was the first breakthrough in standardising discharge measurement structures in the east indies. dutch irrigation engineer irrigation in the east indies 57 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 begemann introduced the venturi structure in the east indies in 1923.22 the venturis became quite popular on java, as they combined discharge and measurement in one structure; furthermore, a venturi structure was accurate and required only a small head loss. its popularity did not mean that new solutions were no longer sought, because the venturi structure had two major drawbacks that were directly related to javanese irrigation circumstances. first, it had a small measuring range: the structure could only measure a relatively small range of flows accurately. this small range was a problem on java, with its great differences in water flows and requirements between east and west monsoons. for venturis the range was even more problematic, as readings were in millimetres (rather than the centimetres of other devices). to overcome its small measuring range, the possibility of constructing two small venturis next to one another (rather than using one bigger one) was discussed. this allowed for closing one of the structures when low discharges were passing through.23 such a solution provided satisfactory results, but it also made the structure more expensive. the second disadvantage with venturis received more attention: a venturimeter is not modular; the water flow through the structure depends on the tail (or downstream) water level. in other words, activities below the structure influence the flow. the fact that interested parties (farmers and sugar factories) could potentially influence the use of measurement devices was not acceptable. a metal flap with its rotating point close to the bottom of the canal at the tail of the venturi was proposed. experiments in controlled laboratory circumstances showed that constructing the flap did improve the modularity of the structure. the flap was moved with a chain. this construction had only been applied to smaller venturis, as the full water load on the chain would probably become too high for bigger ones. other disadvantages included high maintenance requirements (with a rotating point under water) and the possibility that the javanese farmers would manipulate the flap with the chain. another potential improvement of the venturi was better received, however: engineer verwoerd proposed providing the venturi with an overflow gate at the downstream side (figure 4).25 the gate had two parts: the lower part (a flat gate) could be opened to flush sediments; the upper part (which included a broad crested weir) was used to regulate the flow. using the overflow gate, however, made the complete venturi meter obsolete, because the overflow gates enable measuring the flows at the same time. this weir promised to provide an improved measuring range with lower head loss. immediately after the article appeared, tests were conducted in the semarang hydraulic laboratory and the demak irrigation area close by.26 in 1932 romijn presented the results of these tests using the overflow structure proposed by verwoerd (although romijn does not mention verwoerd).27 the structure was generally considered the answer to the most important design demands for a new structure: it could discharge and measure water, had ertsen 58 a small head loss and good sensitivity, it was relatively easy to construct and easy to manage. an additional advantage was that even in situations in which upstream and downstream water levels were almost equal (a drowned situation), the structure functioned quite well. in practice this meant that downstream effects on water levels had little influence on the structure’s discharge, which makes it semi-modular. in irrigation systems of the late 1930s, romijn weirs were the standard division structure,28 and their excellent performance with respect to management needs in the netherlands east indies was beyond doubt.29 the romijn weir has become one of the symbols of dutch irrigation technology, and has made the name of its researcher, romijn, famous, while the person who proposed it, verwoerd, has been forgotten. figure 3 cipoletti and thomson structures24 irrigation in the east indies 59 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 figure 4 the overflow weir attached to the venturi 30 regime development the economic recession of the late 1920s and early 1930s and the growing nationalistic sentiments on java stimulated government attention to irrigation development, as irrigation helped provide security for food production, and thus enhanced social stability. the political and management context changed somewhat when irrigation works became the responsibility of the provincial public works departments. these provincial departments were the result of colonial decentralisation policies. three provinces were established on java, each with its own public works department. in 1936 the first general water regulation for java was established, which was basically a copy of the pemali regulation. as a result of colonial irrigation policies, independent indonesia had 1.3 million hectares of land irrigated by engineering systems on java in 1950. although this was a considerable achievement, it was less than ertsen 60 half of the 3,3 million hectares of land used for irrigated rice farming on java in the same year. since achieving independence, the population of java has increased from 45 to more than 110 million today (about 220 million for indonesia). at the same time, wet rice farming was extended. although civil engineering systems covered an ever-increasing part of the agricultural lands under irrigation, farmers’ systems remained responsible for a substantial portion. many of the colonial irrigation systems still exist today. this short overview reveals that in the general process of irrigation development at least three distinct but related sub-processes can be distinguished: 1 a technical development process, which includes design procedures and routines and the infrastructure resulting from them; 2 a political process, which includes the goals of irrigation and budgetary issues; and 3 a process of professionalisation related to state formation, in which the engineers managed to empower themselves. i have discussed the first process, using the political developments (and to a lesser extent the professionalisation process) as context. the regime categories i use reflect this approach: the political discourse on irrigation focuses on guiding principles and promises/expectations; these general categories are translated into design requirements, which in turn need to be met by applying design tools and artefacts, the major technical categories. our next concern is to understand the social construction process in which the netherlands east indies irrigation regime(s) have come about. i touched on the distinction above between the situations in the 1830s and the 1940s: the first part deals with how to understand the transformation from 1830 (no irrigation regime whatsoever) to 1940 (well established irrigation regime); the second part deals with whether or not this transformation process involved interim regime changes before the final one in 1940. the dutch irrigation approach did not develop all at once between 1830 and 1940. for the design triangle, it could be argued, the guiding principles and the design requirements were formulated relatively early, whereas the design tools and artefacts showed a more continuous development over time. ‘closure’ of the principles and requirements occurred much earlier than ‘closure’ for tools and artefacts. along with the new expenditures, there was a new wave of broad political debate in the first years of the twentieth century that included extensive discussions on welfare policies and water distribution. the relationship between sugar cane and rice remained an important issue up to the 1930s; nevertheless, their co-existence was not itself discussed. thus, while the political debate may have changed, with new social groups entering the arena (such as the agricultural engineers after 1900), politics had already exerted its influence. the agricultural context of dutch colonial irrigation (translated into guiding principles) had been set with the cultivation system: commercial and food crops needed to be irrigated through the same irrigation infrastructure. the new generation of irrigation projects irrigation in the east indies 61 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 on java of the 1920s did not differ fundamentally from the generation before: the new systems had been designed along the same rationale and procedures as their ancestors. changes in the elements (particularly artefacts and the design formula) had not altered the design rationale and procedures already established in 1900. in a way, the second generation projects realised the basic principles of colonial water management through application of new hydraulic insights and artefacts. thus, the irrigation regime development process in the netherlands east indies should not be regarded as one that included regime shift. ravesteijn, however, argues that in the irrigation development in colonial java various technological regimes can be distinguished.31 he focuses especially on the transition from the ‘technical irrigation regime’ (a tradition that emerged in 1885) to the ‘technical-agricultural irrigation regime’ (which emerged around 1920). in reality, the technical-agricultural irrigation regime did not dispel the technical irrigation regime, rather it absorbed it.32 ‘absorbing’ seems to be more continuous than ‘transition’; indeed, the author occasionally stresses a gradual transformation. my research also supports the idea of gradual transformation. in the conclusion to ravesteijn’s article, however, the differences between the two regimes are again stressed. in 1920, when colonial irrigation activities recommenced after world war i, a new generation of irrigation projects that differed in main outline from what had gone before . . . (developed).33 ravesteijn argues that these new systems were different in several aspects: irrigation management, agricultural aspects of projects, reservoir construction technology, the step-wise approach to the creation of irrigation works, and the development of laboratory facilities.34 figure 5 shows our two points of view. i would argue that the differences between the ‘technical’ and ‘technical-agricultural’ regimes are not significant enough to support regime shift. what i would call fundamental design approaches, mainly those resulting from the presence of sugar cane and rice, were similar in the two ‘regimes’. clearly, certain elements have changed, especially the artefacts and the design formula used in the design process. but these changes have not affected the rationale and procedures already established around 1900. explanations of transformations in the design process and its results need to be couched in terms such as ‘refinement’ or ‘detailing’ (terms also used by ravesteijn), not in ‘transition’ or ‘change’. for the regime triangle, the guiding principles and promises/expectations of colonial irrigation have not profoundly changed. while i do define one change below, i conclude that the ‘rules vital for the continued existence of a technological regime’35 did not change once they had been established for dutch colonial irrigation. i agree with van de poel when he argues that a: ertsen 62 technological regime is transformed if one or more of its core or constitutive rules changes. it is historically contingent which rules are constitutive for a specific technological regime.36 it is reasonable to acknowledge a shift from one technological regime to another only if there is a significant difference in most of the guiding principles and promises/expectations, along with some of the requirements. figure 5 two regime development points of view one important explanation for ravesteijn’s and my different positions on regime development is in our conceptualisations of the regime concept. ravesteijn’s concept of regimes is broader than mine: i focus on the design activities of the irrigation engineers, who sought ways to translate the results of discussions on irrigation in colonial circles into an irrigation infrastructure. ravesteijn attempts to distinguish patterns within these broader debates and to link these patterns to technical developments in colonial irrigation. one clear example that helps elucidate our different positions is the increasingly important influence of agricultural engineers in the colonial state. in an emancipation process similar to that of the civil engineers, the agricultural engineers gained positions within the colonial apparatus, including those related to irrigation. i do not view the growing institutional influence of the technological regime as being sufficient reason to distinguish a change in regime. to warrant such a change, there should be a change in design principles or practices to define changes. as for the agricultural aspects of projects, the sugar cane and rice tandem influenced the debates throughout the entire colonial period, but the procedures to deal with the problems were set around 1880. these procedures have been applied in systems design in the 1920s, irrigation in the east indies 63 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 even when sugar cane cultivation was not feasible from an agricultural perspective. similarly, i argue that for irrigation management, an issue intimately related to the cropping tandem, the final contours of water management regulations, established in the 1930s, are really copies of contours set around 1900. the setting in which new artefacts were introduced was not fundamentally different. the romijn weir relates directly to the first discourses on water distribution on java, even though its final shape was tested in the hydraulic laboratory of semarang in the early 1920s. the outcomes of these debates have been influenced by changes in the colonial context (policies, economics). yet, the basic guiding principles of dutch colonial irrigation and its related design practice have not been contested in these debates. therefore, i conclude that the development process of the dutch colonial irrigation regime cannot be described as a series of different regimes. not being able to distinguish different regimes does not imply that it is not possible to distinguish several phases in the regime development process in the netherlands east indies. although i would argue that these phases cannot be seen as representing shifts or changes in direction of the regime, i do think it is possible to recognise a certain pattern in the regime development process. i argued above that the ‘higher level rules’ (guiding principles and promises/expectations) were developed earlier than ‘lower level rules’. here i provide some of the specifics. for example, illustrative is the statement that periodization is clearly a function of the present: as one looks back from further away in time, the pioneering phase was longer and the distinctions more general.37 indeed, i am also part of the law of the distant observer, since i distinguish between two phases of the development process in the netherlands east indies irrigation regime (figure 6 shows a graphic view of these phases between 1870 and 1940). the phase between 1870 and 1910 can be best understood as the ‘formation phase’ of the regime, when the guiding principles, promises/expectations, and most of the design criteria took shape. the focus in this phase was on developing principles for irrigation design. the phase between 1910 and 1940 can best be understood as the ‘elaboration phase’ of the regime, when the tools and artefacts to translate the general rules into physical infrastructure were defined. the focus in this phase was on perfecting the tools and artefacts applied in irrigation design. while it is difficult to pinpoint the exact year that separates each phase, the period between 1900 and 1910 can be viewed as a turning point. it is clear that in the early period the higher level rules and the most important design criteria were defined, whereas the later phase focused on the tools and artefacts. the key elements for colonial irrigation, culminating in the requirements for water management and system design, were established in 1900. the only element that should be ertsen 64 defined as new is that irrigation activities of the late colonial state (that is, after 1920) focused on developing empty areas through irrigation infrastructure for settlers. these settlement schemes in west java and other islands differed to some extent from the early systems, which were mainly located in east and central java. the co-existence of sugar cane and rice was true for these regions of early colonial irrigation development on java. the presence of sugar factories and its associated emphasis on water use and management was a strong motive for colonial rule to intervene in irrigation development in the first place. in the later colonial systems sugar cane was not yet cultivated (nor was it even expected in the future); yet the potential presence of sugar cane was accommodated in the design. i would argue that the regime rules constructed in the formative phase mainly focused on east and central java, whereas the elaboration phase, in which the central activity was to provide further detail for the technological framework, focused on west java. thus, the guiding principles of dutch colonial irrigation, developed in the early days of colonial irrigation policies, were based on systems that were not generally representative of the newer systems after 1920, neither in scale nor topography. the shift from the early (generally smaller) systems of east and central java to the (larger) settlement schemes did change the practical context of regime elaboration, but it did not change the guiding principles. nevertheless, at the end of dutch colonial rule, the technological vision of the irrigation engineers became separate from its original guiding principles; these original principles were not ignored, but were well integrated, or even hidden in the technological framework. the irrigation regime development process described in this paper (or the innovation/transformation pattern of the netherlands east indies irrigation regime) can be understood as a mission-oriented innovation pattern, which is defined by van de poel (2003; 55) as a pattern in which ‘innovations derive from a mission formulated by a powerful actor acting as principal for the artefacts designed. such missions define a framework within which innovations are accomplished.’ in such a mission-oriented innovation pattern, the main carriers of innovation/transformation are governmental agencies, and the areas in which such a pattern is to be expected include defence, energy, communications, and transport. in the netherlands east indies, the powerful principal actor is the colonial state – and this state should be understood as resulting from a process of social construction, at least insofar as its irrigation related policies are concerned. several social groups, including civil engineers, civil servants, and agricultural engineers (as insiders in the state regime), and the principals in the sugar cane industry (as important outsiders) debated desired irrigation developments. i argue that the civil engineers became the dominant group early on (that is, around 1890) in this discourse. although the civil servants were the dominant group, irrigation was not their core business. they were involved in some important regime irrigation in the east indies 65 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 elements, such as establishing water regulations, but their importance decreased steadily over time. agricultural engineers entered the discourse to some extent after 1900, when the guiding principles were already defined. while they were active in javanese agriculture, they had little influence on regime elements as defined in this paper (which mainly focuses on irrigation design). figure 6 regime phases in the netherlands east indies38 while it is expected that the engineers would have been the logical social group to determine regime development for the technical aspects of irrigation development (other examples are defining layout of systems and applying design tools), they exercised a strong influence on the ‘nontechnical’ regime aspects, as well. the final general water regulation for java in 1936 (the pemali regulation) is a case in point. of course, the pemali regulation and the many others discussed were not exclusively engineering products. within the engineering community, opinion was divided about the best water regulation; moreover, civil servants were usually involved in the development of regulations. nevertheless, it was the responsibility of irrigation engineers (and lower staff members) to shape water distribution practices in the irrigation systems within the context of these regulations. the key position of the engineers within colonial regime development is partly explained by the mission innovation ertsen 66 pattern: if in such patterns the relationship between main actor and innovators is close, the design of the technology will be guided by the existing mission in a more direct sense, i.e. via direct hierarchical relations. such a situation, for example, existed at least until recently in the dutch infrastructure section. in this sector, governmental agencies – pre-eminently the rijkswaterstaat – act as client/principal, designer, researcher and regulator. . . . r&d and design activities, to an important extent, take place within the same organisation that formulates missions for technical projects.39 another factor that explains the relatively important role of the engineers is in the phasing of the regime development process. for the phasing and regime hierarchy, i would argue that the guiding principles (‘core rules, i.e. rules that are vital for the continued existence of a technological regime’40) were defined before most of the rules for tools and artefacts (‘peripheral rules. . . not constitutive for a technological regime’41 (although they are still important42). these core rules were developed in a period when the engineers were one of the most influential social groups in the colonial state. the years from 1870 to 1900 may well have been the most successful period for engineers: they had power, influence, and independence. the most important core element (in the technological tradition, the guiding principle) was the presence of sugar cane and rice in the same irrigated area. this was a direct result of the colonial economic optimisation approach, which was based on productivity per unit of land. such an approach should ensure that the benefits of irrigation development would accrue to the colony as a whole, not just a small group in colonial society. using the guiding principles they helped establish, the engineers continually looked for and proposed new applications to regulate and measure discharge within the irrigation system; final closure only came in the 1930s. there was a pause in this development between 1910 and 1920, with world war i as a clear demarcation. from 1920 to 1940 there were renewed irrigation activities. the internal decision-making process of the department of public works and its representatives checked the design process; proposals made by designers were required to meet the standards, unless there were good reasons not to. internal documents, or design guidelines, produced within the engineering community played a very important role in maintaining continuity, and these internal guidelines had a considerable influence on the direction dutch colonial irrigation developed in the east indies irrigation design process. the guidelines stored the information available to the design engineering network. the continuous relevance of colonial design rules in indonesian irrigation practice and delft irrigation education shows the essential role of storage in the existence of networks representing technological traditions, as it permits time-space distantiation: older design guidelines still influence later designers. before guidelines can be produced, the design rules to be included must be well known, tested, and accepted. in the east indies the irrigation in the east indies 67 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 proof of the pudding was in the eating. applications that had been shown to work in a real-life irrigation system were potential candidates for use as a guideline from the department of public works. irrigation practice was the determining factor in the selection of discharge measurement structures. begemann proposed the venturi structure based on his own experiences in a javanese irrigation system, and it became a success. problems raised in practice, especially in the modular behaviour of the structure, however, finally resulted in the romijn weir. a similar story emphasising the central role of practice is true for water regulations: many regulations existed on java that were usually designed by local and temporary coalitions of participants, including engineers, local governmental authorities, and occasionally others. the engineers, in charge of daily activities for the irrigation system, were the impetus behind most regulations. in 1936, when the legal base for water regulations was finally approved, the pemali regulation (mainly developed by civil engineers) was extended to the entire area of java. these findings accord with geels (2002), who concludes that novelties first in [sic] emerge in technological niches. . . . the novelties often contribute to solving problems in the existing regime. the interpretation of the functionality of novelties often occurs with categories from the existing regimes.43 the irrigation engineers’ niche was the practice of their irrigation systems: developments proven in or based on practice were selected. the romijn weir was originally proposed as an improvement to a practical problem of the venturi structure. when the broad-crested weir proposed by verwoerd was tested against the regime requirements (adjustability, measurement, low head loss), it immediately became the new solution. regime continuity unlike world war i, which only put a temporary halt to expenditures, world war ii clearly demarcates a difference in irrigation regimes: suddenly the stable working practice that had existed in the east indies disappeared. following world war ii, new political realities necessitated a major shift for the dutch irrigation regime. indonesia was no longer the main context. indonesia and the netherlands were not unique in the disruption of colonial realities, for in the 20 years following the end of world war ii most colonies had gained their independence (and were redefined as ‘developing countries’). in this new reality dutch irrigation engineers began to work in areas beyond what had been the dutch colonial empire. the first generation was able to benefit directly from its experience in the indies, while the second generation benefited from that experience through their education and training in delft. as geels argues, ‘diffusion and breakthrough of new technologies depends on wider ertsen 68 external circumstances…’,44 and the post-war situation provided several ‘windows of opportunity’.45 dutch engineers began to work in other tropical regions, and engineers from different countries operated in an independent indonesia. the windows of opportunity, however, remained closed for a long time in the irrigation education program in delft. although the new working realities for dutch irrigation (and hydropower) engineers were recognised and explicitly taken into account to defend continuation of the delft irrigation and hydropower programs, the course materials suggest that irrigation engineering in delft was based on the application of several design principles developed in the netherlands east indies. professor haringhuizen, who held the irrigation chair in delft from 1919 to 1938, must have been the founding father of delft irrigation education (with his predecessors having created the necessary place). he was the first irrigation professor in delft to develop written course materials on a larger scale than simple handouts.46 haringhuizen’s successor, s.h.a. begemann, continued this pattern by providing lecture notes.47 haringhuizen’s and begemann’s notes were based largely on the netherlands east indies, since other regions were scarcely mentioned. from 1954 onwards, professor berkhout was responsible for three courses on irrigation.48 these included: f17 (a short course on irrigation), f18 (the regular extensive irrigation course), and f19 (a course on major structures and reservoirs, which included most of the statistical materials). course f17 dealt with most of the standard elements that had been included in begemann’s lecture notes. these notes contained about 110 pages, as did the f17 notes, and the two are very similar in content, although there were some differences, for such as the section on discharge measurement. berkhout’s materials include much more information on cipoletti’s and thomson’s weirs, but there is less attention to venturi’s and crump de gruyter’s technology. professor schoemaker, who followed berkhout in 1967, continued to use his lecture notes. although he kept the lecture notes, schoemaker developed new course materials; he produced a number of (sometimes extensive) monographs on several subjects, including canal design. these additional documents were not part of the final examination, however, but were available to the students for use in their professional practice, if needed. it is likely that only very few students actually studied the additional materials. all civil engineering students in delft specialising in irrigation engineering had to develop a final design for an irrigation system. fortunately, i have been able to retrace several student design reports from the delft irrigation department archives. the designs are from the period 1937 to 1980, with most having been done after 1954. about two-thirds of the total deal with indonesia (96 of 149), with most of them taken directly from systems developed during the colonial period (see the discussion below). more than half the designs dealing with areas outside indonesia concern two irrigation in the east indies 69 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 african countries, ethiopia and tanzania (34 of 53); it is probably not a coincidence that these designs were for irrigation systems for sugar cane cultivation (although the designs for ethiopia do include some other crops). all design tasks require similar activities; they must include: (1) the main layout of the irrigation system, including the planning of units, (2) calculations for a number of canals, including drawings of length profiles, and (3) details for one or two hydraulic structures, usually the intake structure and the sand trap. an analysis of these student designs shows that they all include typical elements from the east indies. in almost every design the romijn weir is selected as the discharge measurement structure. what may have been self-evident for indonesian designs (and, probably not even surprising for the modern researcher) is also self-evident for non-indonesian subjects: delft students based their designs of irrigation systems on the east indies model. in only three of the designs was a particular reason given for the choice of the romijn weir. most students selected the romijn weir without any discussion: the structures are not usually detailed, but are included in the design reports because their head losses influence the water level needed at the intake. in the three cases where the students did discuss the appropriateness of the romijn weir, the justification is quite different. one student selected romijn weirs for most off-takes in his syrian system. while he recognised it would have been possible to choose a different type of structure for one off-take with considerable available head loss, he decided to select the romijn weir for reasons of standardisation. in a design for east pakistan (bangladesh), one student used romijn weirs for small off-takes and venturis for larger ones. student visser, however, who designed an irrigation system for ethiopia, decided to use a parshall flume; this choice was also influenced by the fact ‘that it is useful to gain some experience in designing these measuring devices of american origin.’49 apparently, using a structure that was different from those used in the east indies context needed more justification than did the usual romijn weir. most designs for a final paper include the same frame-based elements, and most of these elements were used without any further justification. these designs all employed techniques that had been socially constructed between 1830 and 1940 under the dutch colonial irrigation regime. the regime was constructed as part of a process in which irrigation practice was the main determining context for transformations. after indonesian independence, however, the direct link between irrigation practice and regime disappeared; the regime lost its clear locus. nevertheless, delft education remained strongly rooted in the east indies regime. in the 1980s, however, irrigation education in delft severed its ties to the netherlands east indies technological regime, allying itself with the international diversity of current irrigation practice. yet, even though the netherlands ertsen 70 east indies influence is still recognisable, the colonial elements are no longer prescriptive, but are seen as only possible examples to follow. notes 1. boiten, w. (1987), de hobrad stuw. regelen en meten van debieten, pt/c 1(41), pp. 51-57. 2. from http://www.bergschenhoek-ct.com/nl/bct/pdf/rowatrvs/rowat _ overstortschuiven.pdf on april 28, 2005. 3. this paper is based on ertsen (2005), prescribing perfection. emergence of an engineering irrigation design approach in the netherlands east indies and its legacy, 1830–1990. ph.d. thesis delft university of technology. 4. constant ii, e.w. (1980), the origins of the turbojet revolution, johns hopkins, baltimore; p. 10. not only hardware is included (e.g. artefacts), but the software asnot only hardware is included (e.g. artefacts), but the software as well (e.g. management principles). 5. constant ii (1980). 6. poel, i. van de (2003), the transformation of technological regimes, research policy 32, pp. 49-68; poel, i. van de (1998),poel, i. van de (1998), changing technologies. a comparative study ofa comparative study of eight processes of transformation of technological regimes, twente university press, enschede. 7. poel, van de (2003; p. 49). 8. picon, a. (2004), engineers and engineering history: problems and perspectives, history and technology 20(4) 421-436; p. 424. 9. poel, van de (1998); poel, van de (2002); geels, f.w. (2002), understanding the dynamics of technological transitions. a co-evolutionary and socio-technical analysis,a co-evolutionary and socio-technical analysis, ph.d. thesis twente university. 10. geels (2002). 11. giddens, a. (1979), central problems in social theory: action, structure and contradiction in social analysis, contemporary social theory, macmillan, london; p. 216. 12. giddens, (1979), p. 64. 13. giddens, (1979), p. 64. 14. poel, van de (1998; 2002)., van de (1998; 2002). 15. poel, van de (1998), p. 16., van de (1998), p. 16. 16. from poel van de poel (1998), p. 17.poel van de poel (1998), p. 17. van de poel (1998), p. 17. 17. based on ertsen (2005). 18. the cropping cycle of sugar cane was three years: first year planting, second and third year maturing, and several times harvesting. 19. the comparison with british india is illustrative: the british were looking for afor a structure that could deliver a fixed (relative or absolute) amount, but they were not interested in regulating this on a short-term basis. see, for example, boldin, a., mollinga, p.p. and van straaten, k. (1995), modules for modernisation: colonial irrigation in india and the technological dimension of agrarian change, journal of development studies, 31(6) 805-844; ertsen, m.w. (2002), irrigation traditions, irrigation in the east indies 71 td, 2 (1), july 2006, pp. 47-72 roots of modern irrigation knowledge, international journal of technology, policy and management, 2(4) pp. 387-406. 20. chapter 3 of ertsen (2005) discusses these in detail.s these in detail. these in detail. 21. maanen, th.d. van (1931) irrigatie in nederlandsch-indië. een handleiding bij het ontwerpen van irrigatiewerken ten dienste van studeerenden en practici, boekhandel visser and co, batavia (first edition, 1924). 22. begeman, s.h.a. (1924), toepassing van venturimeters voor bevloeiïngsleidingen met gebruik van differentiaal peilschalen, de waterstaatsingenieur 12(11) pp. 325-330. 23. verwoerd, a.l. (1930), ontwerp van een module venturimeterinlaatsluis met groot meetbereik, de waterstaatsingenieur 18(4). 24. lecture notes on irrigation ct4410 (1997), delft university of technology. 25. verwoerd, a.l. (1930), ontwerp van een module venturimeterinlaatsluis met groot meetbereik, de waterstaatsingenieur 18(4). 26. national archives, the hague, the netherlands; collection haringhuizen-schoemaker; no. 2.22.07; inventaris van een verzameling stukken betreffende openbare werken in nederlands-indië en suriname afkomstig van het instituut voor waterbouwkunde in delft over de jaren 1872-1970; inventory number 53; meetinrichtingen in de irrigatieafdeling pemali-tjomal (probably around 1930); romijn 1931 verslag 1931 over de ervaring, opgedaan bij de exploitatie van meetinrichtingen in de sectie demak der provinciale irrigatieafdeeling “serang”. 27. romijn, d.g. (1932), een regelbare meetoverlaat als tertiaire aftapsluis, de waterstaatsingenieur 20(9). 28. other engineers discussed certain individual features of the romijn weir, such as the reading mechanism (hens, e.e. (1934), de aanwijsinrichting van den regelbaren meetoverlaat, de ingenieur in nederlands-indië 1(12) vi, 129-131), or the slope of the weir blade (vlugter, h. (1940), de regelbare meetoverlaat, de ingenieur in nederlandsindië 7(10) ii, pp. 157-164). 29. steneker, p. ph. (1935), overzicht van met verschillende meetinrichtingen verkregen uitkomsten, de ingenieur in nederlands-indië 2(6) vi, p. 83-85. 30. romijn, d.g. (1938), meetsluizen ten behoeve van irrigatiewerken. handleiding voor het ontwerpen en exploiteeren, ten dienste van practici en studeerenden; p. 19. 31. ravesteijn, w. (2002), irrigation development in colonial java: the history of the solo valley works from a technological regime perspective, international journal of technology, policy and management, 2(4) pp. 361-386; p. 363. 32. ravesteijn (2002), p. 378. 33. ravesteijn (2002), p. 383. 34. ravesteijn (2002), p. 382. 35. poel, van de (2003), p. 52. 36. poel, van de (2003), p. 52., van de (2003), p. 52. 37. ravesteijn, w. (1997), de zegenrijke heeren der wateren. irrigatie en staat op java, 1832-1942, delft university press, delft; p. 364. 38. ertsen (2005). 39. poel, van de (2003), p. 55; note 11; emphasis in original. 40. poel, van de (2003), p. 52. ertsen 72 41. poel, van de (2003), p. 52. 42. see for a much more detailed analysis, poel, van de (1998).poel, van de (1998)., van de (1998). 43. geels (2002), p. 322. 44. geels (2002), p. 323. 45. geels (2002), p. 323. 46. national archives; collection 2.22.07; inventory number 148–153, college dictaten vancollege dictaten van colleges van prof. ir. j. haringhuizen. 47. archive section land and water management. 48. archive section land and water management. 49. final paper, design visser (1959), p. 33; archive section land and water management. microsoft word 04 velthuizen.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(1) july 2012, pp. 51 62. a transdisciplinary approach to understanding the causes of wicked problems such as the violent conflict in rwanda a velthuizen1 abstract the paper is presented against a background of many wicked problems that confront us in the world today such as violent crime, conflict that emanates from political power seeking, contests for scarce resources, the increasing reaction all over the world to the deterioration of socio-economic conditions and the devastation caused by natural disasters. this article will argue that the challenge of violent conflict requires an innovative approach to research and problem solving and proposes a research methodology that follows a transdisciplinary approach. the argument is informed by field research during 2006 on the management of knowledge in the great lakes region of africa, including research on how knowledge on the 1994 genocide in rwanda is managed. the paper will make recommendations on how transdisciplinary research is required to determine the causes of violent conflict in an african context and how practitioners and academics should engage in transdisciplinarity. it was found that transdisciplinary research is required to gain better insight into the causes of violent conflict in an african context. it requires from the researcher to recognise the many levels of reality that has to be integrated towards a synthesis to reveal new insights into the causes of violent conflict, including recognising the existence of a normative-spiritual realm that informs the epistemology of africa. it furthermore requires a methodology that allows us to break out of the stifling constraints of systems thinking and linear processes into the inner space at the juncture where disciplines meet (the diversity of african communities). key words: africa, conflict, rwanda, crime, genocide, violence, transdisciplinary disciplines: politics, education, law, epistemology, sociology, theology, management science introduction many wicked problems2 confront us in the world today. every day we are bombarded with news of violent crime, and the less fortunate among us are witnesses or victims of violence. wicked problems that come to mind are violent conflict that emanates from political power seeking (the protracted conflict in libya), contests for scarce resources (the continued conflict in the sudan), the increasing reaction all over the world to the deterioration of socio 1 dr andreas velthuizen is a senior researcher at the institute for dispute resolution in africa at the university of south africa, pretoria. email: velthag@unisa.ac.za 2 a ‘wicked problem’ is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize because of complex interdependencies that create other problems, if an effort is made to solve one aspect of a wicked problem. see rittel, h.w.j. and webber, m.m. ‘dilemmas in a general theory of planning’, policy sciences, vol. 4, 1973, pp. 155–169. velthuizen 52 economic conditions and the devastation caused by natural disasters all over the world. finding solutions to these problems is obviously not easy. for a start, it requires a thorough understanding of the causes, dynamics and consequences of these wicked problems. every challenge of violent conflict requires an innovative approach to research and problem solving. such an approach creates a bridge between science and practice and relates to what actors should do about it in the real world. analyzing the problem, we discover two distinct sub-problems: • what research methodology is required to find the causes of violent conflict? • what methodology is required to remove the causes? the crux of this paper will be the first sub-problem (what research methodology is required to find the causes of violent conflict?). the aim of the paper is thus to propose a research methodology that follows a transdisciplinary approach.3 the researcher conducted field research during 2006 on the management of knowledge in the great lakes region of africa. the field research included research on how knowledge on the 1994 genocide in rwanda is managed. experience of this research will serve as an empirical case study on how transdisciplinarity is required to determine the causes of violent conflict in an african context. firstly, the methodology followed during this field research is used to demonstrate the need for transdisciplinary research methodology, after which the discoveries of the value of transdisciplinary research will be discussed. theoretical assumptions the theoretical framework for the study was the trans-dimensional knowledge management model (tdkm-m), a theoretical model that was developed as the result of research on african knowledge systems. the tdkm-m challenges existing models for conflict resolution in africa as presented by multi-national institutions and introduces the principles of normative foundation, holistic order, collectiveness, activation of intervention and metaphysical innovation, as well as certain good practices. the tdkm-m requires the organization to participate in a collective middle ground in an equal way with communitybased groups, ensuring credible intra-action to add value to decisions and intervention actions in a multi-dimensional conflict arena, through the application of holistic knowledge production and distribution, focusing on mutual learning. (velthuizen 2007, 311) the model shows that knowledge can be managed to activate intervention in conflicts, replacing a culture of class-consciousness, racism and impunity with the norms of justice, truth and humaneness. cultural change leads to the metaphysical innovation of perspectives that focus on peace in a free society, and transformation of african society into a society 3 transdisciplinarity is defined as bringing together, in some fashion, distinctive components of two or more disciplines in a single mind, research endeavor, or instructional programme (nissani 1995, 121). transdisciplinarity is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines. the object of transdisciplinarity is to understand the present world through the unity of knowledge. (nicolescu 2005, 2-3). transdisciplinary understanding of wicked problems 53 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 51-62. characterized by growth, productivity and competitiveness. the model asserts that this ideal situation can be attained by the application of the principles and related good practices in the management of knowledge by both transnational organizations and african society, in an equal relationship to complement each other. the ultimate aim is to advance the african renaissance as part of the betterment of humankind. (velthuizen 2007, abstract). for the purpose of this paper, the tdkm-m is used to capture markers of successful transdisciplinary collaboration and the conditions that enable them. the tdkm-m offers the following assumptions about the nature of knowledge, notions of causality and 'inference', as well as processes of knowledge creation in africa (velthuizen 2007, 311). § in the african knowledge system there is a normative-spiritual realm where political ends, strategic goals and the expectations of society are founded on the meta-norms of humaneness, peace, trust, justice and social equality (in some african societies called ‘ubuntu’). § 'higher minds’ are part of an african knowledge system like any other knowledge system. in this system, we find thought leaders, indigenous knowledge holders, capable managers and specialist knowledge workers. these ‘higher minds’ are part of african communities of practice (cops). they promote cross-cultural cohesion, as well as the ability to cross mental and physical boundaries into a transdisciplinary realm in a quest for synthesis of interpretation and synergy of activation. § the african knowledge system is holistic in nature, displaying a fundamental order of global interor intra-activity among all entities. these entities implicate one another in a holistic bond manifesting in an intrinsically woven, balanced, inter-connected, intra-connected and iterative network of knowledge clusters managing knowledge within each other and as part of each other. § a new fusion of transdimensional knowledge is the result of the processing of knowledge claims as knowledge flows through a network of entities, continuously renewing knowledge and using the network as social capital to improve the conditions of africa. protective mechanisms are flexible or may be abandoned to allow for fusion of interpretations, allowing maximum sharing while protecting own interests. § collectiveness that involves the harnessing of the collective memory of the village community, allowing processing of indigenous knowledge with african society participating. collectiveness requires an atmosphere of mutual trust, respect and acceptance of the equity of all worldviews/perspectives without concern that one perspective is superior or inferior to the other. § activation of intervention involves transdimensional insight into the causes and effects of phenomena such as conflict that activates a synergy of interventionist initiatives by the community, civil society, government, regional organizations and global actors. knowledge-driven actions attempt to arrest the destructive cycle of frustration that leads to violence and suffering, replacing it with the regeneration of a peaceful order, for the benefit of all humanity. § metaphysical innovation involving the comprehensive inner transformation of perspectives and actions of society, replaces persisting negative values such as racism and impunity with a humanizing experience, recognizing the uniqueness of humanity and the positive values of ubuntu. velthuizen 54 these theoretical assumptions will be evaluated in this paper, revisiting the methodology that was used during the field research on the genocide in rwanda. attempting the multi-, interand transdisciplinary approach a qualitative methodology was followed keeping in mind that knowledge of the social world includes a practical knowledge of the real world (bourdieu 1997, 446). the study was aimed at developing an important account of how people view their world in social reality and based on developing an in-depth appreciation of structures and processes of knowledge creation. an instinct based on many years of working in a system that forced the researcher to work and think within the boundaries of systems, prompted the researcher to approach the research on the genocide in rwanda from a mono-disciplinary point of view; in this case, the political science point of view. immediately the literature review took the researcher to historical causes of the conflict. the historical citations mostly tried to force the facts (and perceptions) into a model that reflects a dichotomized and dualistic view of conflict between two ‘classes’ or cultures without considering what the people of rwanda had in common.4 it was found that one single discipline could not make adequate contributions to the study, due to the tendency of traditional disciplines to specialize. the researcher had the benefit of a strategic studies background that is multi-disciplinary in nature. therefore, the researcher could quite successfully apply political variables and considered the socio-economic, environmental, technological and legal factors that not only caused the violence in rwanda, but also influenced the management of the outcomes. consequently, a multi-disciplinary approach was followed, meaning a conscious effort to examine a particular topic using different disciplinary approaches, in either the same study, or parallel to each other (zulu & carroll 2007, 88). in the specific case of research into the genocide in rwanda, the research required interaction with the legal fraternity, epistemologists, educators, sociologists, anthropologists and management scientists. the multi-disciplinary approach enabled the researcher to ask the right questions about actors and their actions; in other words, ‘observable facts’ that could be verified using the multiple empirical ‘evidence’ that was available. research from several disciplines converges in the end to enhance understanding of knowledge in africa. however, the multi-disciplinary nature of the research could not take the researcher out of the constraints of systems thinking. the separate treatment of disciplines did not lead to something new, and only reinforced existing paradigms about africa. binary logic was not sufficient to encompass the purpose and scope of the research. political science, and specifically sub-disciplines like strategic studies or conflict studies, proved to be too specialized and 'belong' to a community of experts, despite the multi-disciplinary nature of these fields. it became evident that disciplinary research tends to address only one level of reality. this study had to confront a complex array of realms. the more the researcher worked with the data, the more the researcher realized that political explanations, using the 4 see for instance unesco. 1995. multiculturalism: a policy response to diversity. paper prepared on the occasion of the 1995 global cultural diversity conference, 26-28 april 1995, sydney, australia. http://www.unesco.org/most/sydpaper.htm#ethnic. (accessed 6 july 2012). transdisciplinary understanding of wicked problems 55 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 51-62. interdisciplinary approach of historians, and the multi-disciplinary approach of security experts would not lead to any new insight that would discover some realities regarding rwanda. the research required an awareness of the holistic nature of the challenge far beyond explanations brought by the exponents of systems thinkers who were trying to force the conflict into a ‘global system’. such awareness would require the recognition of unseen factors that goes beyond scientific explanations. the methodology required research that would break out of the structured and limited way of conducting scientific research. the researcher had to find a research methodology that not only requires consideration of empirical practice and logical procedure, but also discards an apathetic approach to values and value systems and the tendency to dichotomize and analyze knowledge into meaningless propositions. the researcher realized that to discover reality, critical reflection is required of the unseen factors such as values, motives and influences that lie hidden in a metaphysical dimension that the human senses are perhaps too limited to observe and analyzeanother characteristic of transdisciplinarity. such a holistic approach had to be transdisciplinary, in the sense that it requires the researcher to: § transcend the boundaries of conventional academic disciplines to reflect and act in a new paradigm that goes beyond the empirically observable towards understanding of the tacit. § apply the methodology in the african context, addressing power disequilibrium between urban elites and the rural periphery and between africa and the west, as well as a conscious movement away from neo-colonialism, marginalization of societies, political dogma, the selfish advancement of economic interests and contempt for indigenous cultures. § identify common ground where lasting solutions to wicked problems can be found. towards a transdisciplinary approach ‘transdisciplinarity’ is not a new discipline but is a manner of seeing the world as systemic and more holistic (max-neef 2004, 15). all research takes place along a fluid continuum, ranging from the two imaginary poles of pure disciplinary work to a grand synthesis of all human knowledge. knowledge contains two exemplars: research and education. research and education can be compared by weighing four variables: the number of disciplines involved; the ‘distance’ between them; the novelty and creativity involved in combining the disciplinary elements and their degree of integration. (nissani 1995, 121). transdisciplinary education is founded on transdisciplinary methodology, allowing us to establish links between persons, facts, images, representations, fields of knowledge and action, to discover the ‘eros of learning’ during our entire life and to build permanent questioning and integration of beings. transdisciplinarity is coherence among different levels of reality in the natural world. an immense self-consistency (‘a cosmic bootstrap’) seems to govern the evolution of the universe, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, from the infinitely brief to the infinitely protracted. a flow of information is transmitted in a coherent manner from one level of reality to another in our physical universe. (nicolescu 2005, 7). velthuizen 56 what then lies between, across the disciplines, and beyond all disciplines? from the point of view of classical thought, there is absolutely nothing. the space between and beyond disciplines is empty, completely void, like the vacuum of classical physics. however, in the presence of several levels of ‘reality’, the space between disciplines and beyond disciplines is full, just as the quantum void is full of all potentialities such as quantum particles to the galaxies that condition the appearance of life in the universe. nicolescu reiterates that transdisciplinary research is distinct from disciplinary research, even while being entirely complementary. disciplinary research concerns, at most, one level of reality or fragments of reality. in contrast, transdisciplinarity concerns the dynamics engendered by the action of several levels of reality at once. the discovery of these dynamics necessarily passes through disciplinary knowledge and in the end disciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are like ‘four arrows shot from a single bow: knowledge’ towards an ‘included middle’. (nicolescu 190, 3). as the study sought to deal with the problem of dysfunctions in contemporary society, the use of the transdisciplinary approach enabled the researcher to move beyond dichotomized and divisionary thinking into the space that lies beyond all disciplines in search of the wholeness of knowledge together with the harmony of our being and the understanding of the present universe. collection and treatment of data in transdisciplinary research transdisciplinary research within the context of african epistemology required contextualism, 5 meaning access to different viewpoints available not only in diverse libraries to find local publications by african scholars, but also required participant observation, semistructured interviews and participation in focus groups of experts and specialists. in this regard, valuable data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with key informers, to find what was in the minds of the people that experienced or witnessed the events, recognising that the most valuable information could only be obtained by participating in events. the researcher did not witness the genocide of 1994. the next best research method was to access diverse sources from different cultures who were direct observers or participants in the tragic series of events. it was found that ‘truth’ depicted by one or even a few disciplines cannot be universal or holistic. views tend to be ethnocentric or biased in favour of a particular culture or civilization that attempts to establish domination over other modes of knowledge by declaring it’unscientific’. therefore, data triangulation and recursiveness, in terms of time (historical context of the genocide), space (the broader great lakes region of africa as universum) and different people, had to be applied. in the social sciences, triangulations is often used to indicate that more than two methods are used in a study with a view to double(or triple-) checking results. this is also called ‘crossexamination’. it is an alternative to traditional criteria such as ‘reliability’ and ‘validity’. it is a method-appropriate strategy of founding the credibility of qualitative analyses. denzin (1978, 291) identified four basic types of triangulation: 5 contextualism describes a collection of views that emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs (price 2008, 208). in epistemology, contextualism is the treatment of the word 'knows' as context-sensitive (stanley 2005, 16). transdisciplinary understanding of wicked problems 57 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 51-62. • data triangulation: involves time, space, and persons • investigator triangulation: involves multiple researchers in an investigation • theory triangulation: involves using more than one theoretical scheme in the interpretation of the phenomenon • methodological triangulation: involves using more than one method to gather data, such as interviews, observations, questionnaires and documents in the case of rwanda, transdisciplinary triangulation had to be applied, implying a research process that uses methods or tools suitable for the collection of data, irrespective to which discipline it ‘belongs’. transdisciplinary triangulation can be illustrated as follows (see illustration 1): • • • illustration 1: transdisciplinary triangulation recursiveness is a general principle of transdisciplinary research that points to the iterative procedures that characterize both the entire research process and its individual phases. recursiveness can be illustrated as depicted in illustration 2. illustration 2: transdisciplinary recursiveness velthuizen 58 recursiveness was attained when during the course of the interviews and focus groups a number of events happened that redirected the inquiry and ultimately led to a more complex data set. the initially planned structured interviews had to be handled as semi-structured, even allowed to become unstructured narrative. for instance, while the security expert described the events that led to the genocide, the judge of the gacaca court would disagree on the details. the researcher therefore allowed deviation from a list of structured questions and invited the subjects just to tell what was on their minds. different people from different disciplines then described their experiences and observations freely. the different sets of descriptions confirmed a disparaging and depressing picture of a context of recursive inhumane, violent actions by different perpetrators on different levels. because of the initial handling of the data during the collection phase, it became possible to maintain the principle of recursiveness during the analysis and interpretation phase of the research process. it was found that recursiveness requires that the research process is shaped in such a way that concepts and methods can be repeatedly tested by listening to real-world experiences that occurred in the various ‘living-laboratories’ of more than one discipline. most disciplinary research practices, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects are characterized by a variety of disciplines and various practitioners in professional fields outside academia. consequently, general evaluation methods that have been developed for disciplinary work can only be used to assess specific disciplinary contributions but are not appropriate for assessing specific interor transdisciplinary goals, processes and achievements. (the swiss national science foundation 2011, home page). in this study, to attain a transdisciplinary and holistic result, a certain methodology that mediates between epistemology and political science was required to access the knowledge embedded in african knowledge systems. for instance, for the field studies on rwanda abductive logic was used for the interpretation of the data. abductive logic means that the mind seeks to bring facts, as modified by a new discovery, into order. the mind seeks to find a general conception; in some cases, by an act of generalization. in other cases, the mind suggests a peculiar state of facts that will ‘explain’ a surprising phenomenon and an already known ‘law’ is recognized as applicable to a suggested hypothesis. the phenomenon, under that assumption, would not be surprising but likely, or would be a necessary result. this synthesis suggesting a new conception or hypothesis is the ‘abduction’ (peirce 1903, 287). in practice, ‘abduction’ implies listening and observing different views expressed by different experts and actors to explain how discourse amongst people can contribute to the understanding of phenomena. it was found that abductive logic involved a special creativity to generate a new account of the way in which role-players structure reality, going beyond just reproducing meanings expressed by participants. this form of logic enabled the researcher to identify themes; patterns; trends; and specific indicators about knowledge claims and how these are managed to find the causes of violent conflict. the evaluation, analysis and interpretation of the collected data required a holistic perspective to claim transdisciplinarity. the interpreter had to view the world through several ‘windows’, preferably as part of a cross-functional team that places data in a holistic context, applying experience, empathy, vision, intuition and above all, recognizing what is beyond observation to allocate meaning to data. it is therefore highly unlikely that one individual could attain transdisciplinary understanding of wicked problems 59 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 51-62. transdisciplinarity during the research process. to follow this methodology meant the synthesizing of all forms of knowledge through discourse, in a search for understanding. this effort has long been ‘bedevilled’ with aspects such as racialist myths based on outward appearances. the interdisciplinary approach may be a cure, which brings together different types of evidence in the search for the truth, implying a loose association, and no more than agreeing to common objectives. each member of the group then works according to the techniques of own disciplines, with a meeting at the end to collate results. african culture is to give full weight to all the parts and so portray the dynamic development of the whole. in other words, the interdisciplinary method should eventually lead to a transdisciplinary approach, one in which all disciplines are represented with equal right. life, whether individual or collective, is neither linear nor one-dimensional: it is dense, compact tissue. (kizerbo 2000, 355-356). common bond links man; animal; plant; and galaxy: ‘in the unitary principle of all reality; the self without the universe is empty’. the purpose of this re-convergence is to reveal to us that evolution and development are interchangeable and that the entire system of the interweaving of man, nature and the universe constitutes a living totality. to comprehend the new reality at which the convergence begins, we need to develop a new holistic reality, which can reveal to us the integral world that is beginning to emerge. epistemology must go beyond scientism as developed in the west to applying the principle of the unitary structure of the universe and hence of everything consistent with the ubuntu philosophy of ‘i exist because you exist’. methodology to access the knowledge or wisdom of africa has to be hermeneutical (understand how africans see the world) because it is not only scientific reason that is involved. the predominance of 'orality' and 'verbality' requires interdisciplinarity, as one of the mechanisms to fight the rigidity of western scientific method, but it is not enough. (anshen 1986, xi-xii). the predominance of orality and verbality in the african worldview presents humanity with the possibility of tracing back the origin of concepts of things and worldviews. in the pursuance of this task, interdisciplinarity is only one of the mechanisms of challenging modern ‘scientific method’ that focuses too narrowly on ‘the disciplines’, ‘constructed’ for production of knowledge for domination. nabudere proposed that multiand interdisciplinary research is not the answer to discovering the knowledge and wisdom present in african worldviews. while we may use existing mit approaches to try to understand our reality, we do so with approaches that emanate ‘from outside’. the question is whether we can move further from this external orientation ‘nearer to the inside’; so that we should discover that the ‘african story’ knows of no disciplinary boundaries to negotiate with. as we move from the outside to the inside, we have to define new approaches of understanding that are appropriate to the african world (nabudere 2011b, 29). traditional methods of acquiring knowledge and problem solving are insufficient. transdisciplinary training is an additional method of knowledge acquisition. universities need to innovate, evolve and adapt to be able to deal with challenges of global and long-term impact (songca 2006, 221-230). in terms of research, methods and methodologies, there is a greater need for a deeper search for deeper meanings of science, philosophy, law, morality, history, technology, placing all the disciplines in a trans-disciplinary frame of reference (see illustration 3). velthuizen 60 illustration 3: transdisciplinary research in an african epistemology conclusions trans-disciplinary research is required to determine the causes of violent conflict in an african context. mono-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity may bring forth valuable insights into a conflict, but it is when the researcher breaks out of the stifling constraints of systems thinking and linear processes set by western hermeneutics towards critical reflection, that we develop an insight that would allow us to seek the causes of wicked challenges and engage it. gaining such insight and understanding into the causes of violence requires from the researcher to recognise the many levels of reality that has to be integrated towards a synthesis that reveals new insights into the causes of violent conflict, including recognising the existence of a normative-spiritual realm that informs the epistemology of africa. it is at the spacious ‘piazza’ at the juncture of many ‘avenues’ (or the gathering on the village lawn) that new knowledge can be created in the search for reality. it is in the living laboratory of the village community or community of practice that collective knowledge can be discovered and used to find lasting solutions by means of transdisciplinary research for the restoration of humanistic norms. such an intellectual adventure requires substantial courage and skills in applying the wealth of methodologies and tools that the traditional disciplines provide to erase boundaries and fuse knowledge into one transdisciplinary knowledge sphere, especially in view of the disciplinary correctness that became part of our academic world and the persistent protection of territories that comes with managerism and administrative bureaucracy. it is evident that the trap of protectionism and managerism in a constrained system does not allow for insight into wicked problems, let alone the finding of innovative and sustainable social solutions. a new holistic paradigm of interpreting phenomena is required, which would deliver a new body of knowledge that can be applied for innovation, change, transformation and the promotion of the cross-cultural cohesion of a society in conflict. transdisciplinary understanding of wicked problems 61 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 51-62. recommendations it is recommended that dispute/conflict resolution practitioners engage in trans-disciplinary research by embarking on a venture to learn more about the application of transdisciplinarity as an extension of the specialist, multiand transdisciplinary knowledge and skills they are already mastering. such ventures will probably meet with resistance or apathy, but serious professionals are encouraged to persist in finding new knowledge on the causes of conflict, and especially a wicked problem such as genocide. such knowledge will probably be found in the space among disciplines, where crosscutting normative and spiritual causes may reveal new perspectives on the deep-lying causes of genocide. academics should draw on the experience of practitioners in the business world, the public service and communities, because in most cases these practitioners are generalists and primarily transdisciplinary in their thinking. this type of collectiveness may enable academic institutions to develop new integrated and coherent transdisciplinary models on how to contribute to efforts that deal with complex and wicked problems in the real world, such as the resolution of violent conflict and other forms of disputes. postgraduate scholars and other knowledge workers should be encouraged to move beyond the constraints of disciplinary boundaries when deciding on research methodology. they should not allow themselves to be constrained by boundaries that were created for administrative purposes and to design protected territories where private agendas are playing out. such an inhibition would lead to constrained thinking and a convenient escape from a reality without finding lasting solutions for the wicked problems of the world we are living in. leaders and managers should use transdisciplinarity towards collective sense making of a changing world to create a better society, characterized by social cohesion among entities in the spirit of honest efforts to do away with dichotomies and dualism in society, creating 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(accessed 6 july 2012) abstract introduction research methods and design results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) jacobus p. fouché school of accounting, faculty of economic and management sciences, north-west university, mahikeng, south africa workwell research unit, north-west university, mahikeng, south africa johanna manyaapelo school of accounting, faculty of economic and management sciences, north-west university, mahikeng, south africa workwell research unit, north-west university, mahikeng, south africa citation fouché, j.p. & manyaapelo, j., 2020, ‘analysing personal financial wellness amongst employees of a south african tertiary institution’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a682. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.682 original research analysing personal financial wellness amongst employees of a south african tertiary institution jacobus p. fouché, johanna manyaapelo received: 13 mar. 2019; accepted: 09 oct. 2020; published: 14 dec. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the financial health of employees is increasingly becoming important in many organisations. personal financial wellness not only contributes to the overall well-being of employees but also affects their job productivity. thus, employers need the necessary knowledge to evaluate and address employees’ personal financial wellness levels effectively. the main objective of this study was to analyse the level of personal financial wellness amongst employees at a south african tertiary institution and gain insight which employers can use in addressing the needs of their staff with regard to personal finances. the study followed a cross-sectional design. primary data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire from 60 attendees of a personal finance workshop, using the validated personal finance well-being scale. practically visible to practically significant correlations were found between the number of years employed, income tax percentage paid on income earned, age, number of years being a homeowner and personal financial well-being, respectively. there were also practically non-significant correlations between general health levels, highest qualification, the number of children living in a household, number of children or other financially responsible adults and personal financial well-being. employees’ sources of advice also seemed to influence their financial well-being. respondents indicated that they experienced high financial stress to overwhelming stress and were dissatisfied with their current financial situation. it is also the first study to determine the level of financial wellness amongst a group of employees in the higher education sector using the personal finance well-being scale and only the third study that was found to use this scale amongst employees. this should enable employers to better support their employees. keywords: personal finance well-being scale; personal financial well-being; tertiary education; university employees; employee financial wellness; personal finance. introduction the financial health of employees is increasingly becoming important in many organisations. financial concerns and the manner in which employers deal with these issues have changed over the last two decades (garman et al. 1999). previously, organisations expected their employees to leave their problems outside the workplace; however, employers are now required to assist their employees with a range of personal finance-related difficulties (garman et al. 2005). seeing that financial distress adversely affects individuals and their families, an argument can be made for the evaluation of financial distress and financial well-being of large groups, for instance employees, to determine whether they are experiencing problems or doing well financially. if the extent of perceived financial distress and financial well-being amongst employees is known, focused intervention can be implemented to improve their personal financial wellness levels (prawitz et al. 2006). previous studies have established an important relationship between financial education and financial behaviours. a number of international studies have been conducted over the years concerning financial matters and the impact they have on employees’ personal and work life (manyaapelo 2017). empirical testing of the levels of employees’ personal financial wellness will emphasise the importance of workplace financial education. the remainder of the article addresses the research objectives, past literature, research methodology and results. the results are followed by the discussion and conclusion. research objective the main objective of the study was to analyse the level of personal financial wellness amongst employees at a tertiary institution to assist employers in addressing the needs of their staff with regard to personal finances. findings from the study would also enable financial counsellors, financial planners, tertiary institution employers and government to identify financial wellness levels of workers within the tertiary education sector. literature review according to kamaluddin et al. (2018), financial wellness is seen as one of the important parameters in measuring an individual’s socio-economic status and financial situation (joo 2008:21): derived from the definition of general wellness, financial wellness could mean a state of being financially healthy, happy and free from worry and this could be the concept that should be addressed. joo and garman (1998) view personal financial wellness as a ‘comprehensive, multidimensional concept incorporating financial satisfaction, objective status of financial situation, financial attitudes, and behaviour that cannot be assessed through a single measure’. researchers have reported that a number of factors appear to affect financial satisfaction, of which the most common are demographic and socio-economic characteristics (porter & garman 1993). joo and garman (1998:174) concur by stating that an individual’s level of personal financial wellness is, to a large extent, affected by various factors, which include demographic characteristics. delafrooz and paim (2011:10096) investigated factors that affected financial wellness amongst 2000 malaysian workers. the study indicated a low level of financial literacy. similarly, mokhtar et al. (2015:49) studied the determinants of financial well-being and described the extent of financial well-being of 30 malaysian public employees. the study found moderate levels of financial literacy. joo (1998) suggests that the number of financially stressful events experienced by employees during the past year affects their level of financial wellness. financially stressful events are also known as financial stressors and include life cycle events, job-related events, unexpected changes and unfavourable financial situations. prior studies have examined the relationship between financial distress and workplace outcomes (kim, sorhaindo & garman 2006:460). researchers have established ‘that financial distress spills over into the workplace, contributing to such work-related occurrences as personal finance-work conflict, lower commitment to the organisation, less satisfaction with pay, work time wasted dealing with personal finances, more absenteeism, and poorer health’ (prawitz & garman 2009:4). these occurrences can reduce job productivity, a condition of special interest to most employers (prawitz & garman 2009:2). in response to the detrimental effects that employees’ financial worries have had on firms’ turnover and society at large, most countries have devised and implemented a variety of intervention measures (bahri 2008:9). bernheim and garrett (1996) found that financial education strongly influences household financial behaviour. financial literacy has a positive impact on an individual’s personal and business life (taft et al. 2013:64). financial wellness programmes have proven to be a lucrative investment for organisations that have implemented them (pillay 2008:21). mokhtar et al. (2015:53) reported that gender and marital status are not socio-economic predictors of a person’s level of financial well-being. this was also supported by a study by joo and grable (2004:27). sumarwan and hira (1993:80) found a significant positive correlation between age and satisfaction with one’s financial affairs whilst ross and huber (1985:313) showed that people with higher income and those who were property owners demonstrated higher levels of financial wellness. this was supported by porter and garman (1993) and delafrooz and paim (2011). the results of a study by dickason-koekemoer and ferreira (2019) also show that a significant difference exists between the financial well-being of males and females. they also found a significant difference between the financial well-being amongst different age categories. the results of past literature are therefore inconclusive. according to joo and grable (2004:41), the number of financial dependents and education had no direct effect on a person’s level of financial satisfaction whilst o’neill et al. (2005:81) found that health status is positively associated with financial satisfaction. employment was also pointed out to be a factor that predicts overall well-being (dolan, peasgood & dolan 2008:95; o’neill et al. 2005:73). research methods and design research approach and sampling a cross-sectional research design was undertaken in an attempt to gain greater insight on personal financial wellness amongst workers at a tertiary institution in south africa. the empirical objectives of this study were achieved by applying quantitative research methods in the form of a self-administered questionnaire. this study applied both non-probability and purposive sampling. all staff members at the tertiary institution were invited to attend a personal finance workshop. all employees who attended the personal finance workshop were surveyed although not all forms were completed in full. instrument the questionnaire comprised two sections. the first part, section a, pertained to the demographic characteristics of the sample, whilst section b constituted a validated questionnaire designed by prawitz et al. (2006:50), the personal finance well-being scale, to measure the respondents’ level of financial well-being. section b consisted of eight questions in the form of a 10-point likert scale, the lowermost score indicating financial distress and the uppermost score indicating a higher level of financial well-being. this eight-item scale scored a cronbach alpha of 0.920, indicating high reliability (mouton 1996:216). data collection and analysis the self-administrated questionnaire was completed by 58 respondents from a total of 60 employees who attended a personal finance workshop. the selected sample size is in the same range as previous studies conducted with similar research objectives, for example, a study conducted by mokhtar et al. (2015) with a sample size of 70 respondents. the captured data in the current study were analysed using the statistical package for social sciences (spss), version 21 for microsoft windows. descriptive analysis, significance tests, t-tests and correlation analysis were applied. in calculating the effect size (d) for any comparison, the difference between the two group means is divided by their average standard deviation. an effect size of 0.25 indicates that there is one-quarter standard deviation between the two means (cohen 1988; valentine & cooper 2003:4). the following guideline exists for the interpretation of effect sizes (d) (boersema 2015:94; cohen 1988:24; steyn & ellis 2009:113): 0.2 effect size = small explanation 0.5 effect size = medium explanation 0.8 effect size = large explanation practical significant data is encountered where the variation has a large effect (cohen 1988:24; steyn & ellis 2009:106–108, 113). these interpretations of the effect sizes are only guidelines. ethical consideration permission to conduct this study was obtained from the relevant ethics committee at the north-west university. participants were briefly informed about the main objective of the study, and they voluntarily agreed to partake in it. to ensure confidentiality, participants were requested not to provide their names in the questionnaire. ethical clearance was issued at the faculty of economic sciences and it on 29 july 2015 (ethical clearance number: econit-2015-017). results participant detail most participants (67.2%) belonged to the white ethnic group and the majority (82.8%) were female. the minimum age was 24 years and the maximum 74 years. all the respondents in the study had obtained their matric (grade 12) and the highest qualification indicated was a doctoral degree. married and engaged respondents constituted 47.4% and 5.3%, respectively, whilst 47.4% indicated that they were either separated or divorced or never married. the majority (56.9%) indicated overall good health. a total of 45.5% had no children living in their household, whereas 54.5% had between one and five children living in their household. the majority (80.7%) were permanently employed. employment years ranging between 1 and 10 years, constituted 42.1% of the participants. a total of 35.3% indicated an individual tax rate of 25% (income of r174 551 to r272 700). the greater number of participants (63.2%) were homeowners. frequencies and descriptive statistics table 1 depicts the level of financial stress experienced by the respondents according to the questionnaire. a total of 32.7% experienced high financial stress to overwhelming stress. a mean of 5.56 and a standard deviation of 1.78 were reported. table 1: what do you feel is the level of your financial stress today? table 2 indicates that 60.4% of the participants were dissatisfied (scoring 5 or below) with their current financial situation. a mean of 5.19 and a standard deviation of 2.08 were reported. table 2: how satisfied are you with your present financial situation? according to table 3, 58.6% of the respondents indicated that they sometimes felt worried to overwhelmed about their current financial situation. a mean of 4.78 and a standard deviation of 1.87 were reported. table 3: how do you feel about your current financial condition? table 4 depicts how often participants worry about their ability to meet their normal monthly living expenses. half (50%) of the respondents indicated that they were always worried about their normal living expenses. a mean of 5.5 and a standard deviation of 2.41 were reported. table 4: how often do you worry about being able to meet normal monthly living expenses? table 5 illustrates the respondents’ confidence in their ability to find money to pay for a financial emergency that costs approximately $1000 (or r12 000). a total of 47.4% indicated that they had little to no confidence in their ability to find money to pay for a financial emergency. a mean of 5.53 and a standard deviation of 2.73 were reported. table 5: how confident are you that you could find the money to pay for a financial emergency that costs approximately $1000 (or r12 000)? table 6 illustrates that 50.9% of the respondents indicated that they often to regularly are unable to eat out or pay to watch a movie because they could not afford it. a mean of 5.11 and a standard deviation of 2.40 were reported. table 6: how often does this happen to you? you want to go out to eat, go to a movie or do something else, and do not go because you cannot afford to. table 7 depicts how frequently the respondents find themselves just getting by financially. a total of 66.7% indicated that they sometimes to always find themselves just getting by financially and living paycheck to paycheck. a mean of 4.23 and a standard deviation of 2.34 were reported. table 7: how frequently do you find yourself just getting by financially and living from paycheck to paycheck? table 8 shows that 34.5% of the participants reported high stress to overwhelming stress about their personal finance in general, whilst 53.4% indicated low stress to no stress about their personal finance in general. a mean of 5.38 and a standard deviation of 1.76 were reported. table 8: how stressed do you feel about your personal finances in general? inferential statistics the reported overall mean score for personal financial well-being and standard deviation score as calculated by the instrument were 5.17 and 1.78, respectively, indicating average financial distress amongst the participants. independent t-tests were conducted to compare personal financial well-being scores between the demographic variables. the mann–whitney u test was used in some cases. according to cohen (1988), d = 0.2 indicates a small effect, d = 0.5 a medium effect, and d = 0.8 a large effect. p-values are reported for completeness, but will not be interpreted, as a purposive sample instead of a simple random sample was used. a small practically non-significant difference in mean scores of the white ethnic group and other ethnic groups (effect size = 0.18) was indicated. the independent t-test showed a small practically non-significant difference in average scores of the males and females (effect size = 0.29), as well as a small practically non-significant difference in average scores on financial distress of the married and other groups (effect size = 0.22) and average financial distress of the homeowners and other groups (effect size = 0.26). there was also no practically significant difference in average scores on financial distress of permanent and temporary employed staff as reported by both the independent t-test and the mann–whitney u test (effect sizes = 0.16 and 0.04, respectively). table 9 shows that, with regard to the preferred source of personal financial advice, a practically significant difference (effect size = 0.71) was indicated. table 9: the preferred source of personal finance advice. from the table above, it is clear that the group that preferred books, magazines and newspapers as a source of personal financial advice leaned towards moderate well-being (mean = 5.69). the other group showed lower well-being (mean = 4.69). therefore, the group that prefers to consult written sources was slightly less financially distressed. correlations with the personal finance well-being scale spearman’s rho was calculated to determine whether relationships exist between demographic characteristics and a sense of the overall personal financial well-being scores (on a scale of 1 to 10) calculated by the instrument. the results are given in table 10. table 10: correlations with personal finance well-being scale. table 10 indicates a positive practically significant correlation (spearman’s rho = 0.45) between age and personal financial well-being scores. this indicates that the higher a participant’s age, the greater their personal financial well-being score and, therefore, the better their perceived financial well-being. table 10 also indicates a practically visible positive correlation (spearman’s rho = 0.34) between the respondents’ total number of years employed and their personal financial well-being. in other words, the longer the employment, the greater the personal financial well-being score. there is also a practically visible to practically significant correlation (spearman’s rho = 0.40) between income tax percentage levied on income earned (level of income) and personal financial well-being. this indicates that the higher the income level, the better the financial well-being. table 10 further reveals a positive practically significant correlation (spearman’s rho = 0.48) between the number of years being a homeowner and personal financial well-being scores. thus, the longer the respondents have been homeowners, the better their financial well-being. a practically non-significant positive correlation was found between respondents’ highest qualifications, general health, the number of children living in the respondents’ households, the number of other dependants of the respondents and their personal financial well-being. discussion this study sampled employees from the education sector and was conducted in a country (south africa) different from those in previous studies, such as o’neill et al. (2005) and taft et al. (2013). the statistical techniques used to analyse the data also differed from those in previous studies. based on the results, 32.7% of the respondents experienced high financial stress to overwhelming stress, and 60.4% indicated that they were dissatisfied with their current financial situation. a total of 58.6% reported that they sometimes felt worried to overwhelmed about their current financial condition. half of the respondents were sometimes worried to regularly worried about their monthly living expenses. in addition, 47.4% indicated little to no confidence in finding the money to pay for a financial emergency costing approximately r12 000 (according to the exchange rate at the time of the study). approximately half (50.9%) of the respondents reported that they often to regularly were unable to eat out or pay to watch a movie because they could not afford to do so, and 66.7% indicated that they sometimes to always found themselves just getting by financially and living from pay check to pay check. a total of 34.5% reported high stress to overwhelming stress about their personal finance in general. however, 53.4% indicated that they experience low to no stress about their personal finance in general. these findings agree with those of a previous study that also found respondents were sometimes worried about their current personal finance (mokhtar et al. 2015:51). this should be a matter of concern for employers, especially should they consider the overall well-being of their employees. independent t-tests were conducted to compare personal financial well-being scores and the demographic variables such as ethnicity, gender, marital status, home ownership, preferred source of financial advice and employment information. the mann–whitney u test was used in some cases. based on the results of the independent t-test and mann–whitney u test, a practically non-significant difference was found in average scores of the males and females and financial distress between participants who are married and the other group (single, divorced or never married). this supports the assertion by mokhtar et al. (2015:53) that gender and marital status are not socio-economic predictors of a person’s level of financial well-being. a study by joo and grable (2004:27) was also unable to prove the effect that ethnicity and home ownership have on the extent of a person’s financial satisfaction. the current study supports this notion, as a practically non-significant difference was found in average scores of the white ethnic group and other ethnic groups, as well as a practically non-significant difference in average financial distress of homeowners and the other group. based on the results of the study, practically non-significant differences in the average financial distress of the permanent and temporary employed groups were indicated by both an independent t-test and the mann–whitney u test. spearman’s rho was calculated to determine whether relationships exist between certain demographic characteristics and a sense of financial well-being scores (on a scale of 1 to 10). the findings are discussed in the remainder of this section. a positive practically significant correlation was found between age and personal financial well-being scores – the older the respondents, the higher their personal financial well-being score, and the higher their financial wellness. this finding supports sumarwan and hira (1993:80) who reported a significant positive correlation between age and satisfaction with one’s financial affairs. this indicates that younger employees are especially in need of financial advice and support. a study by ross and huber (1985:313) indicated that household heads who earned higher income and were property owners demonstrated higher levels of financial wellness relative to others. porter and garman (1993) also confirmed that financial well-being is positively related to income. therefore, those with higher income are more satisfied with their financial situation (delafrooz & paim 2011:10098). the current study agrees with the literature, as a practically visible to practically significant correlation was reported between income tax percentage levied on income earned and personal financial well-being. previous studies indicate employment to be a factor that strongly predicts happiness and overall well-being in most cultures (o’neill et al. 2005:73). individuals who are economically secure are more financially well off. a practically visible positive correlation between the respondents’ total number of years employed and their personal financial well-being was reported. this was interpreted as, the longer individuals have been employed, the higher their personal financial wellness level. the study, therefore, concurs with dolan et al. (2008:95) who stated that being employed contributes to greater personal well-being. employees can therefore reduce their personal financial distress by not changing employment too frequently. a positive practically significant correlation between the number of years being a homeowner and personal financial well-being scores was reported. the findings in this study support those by delafrooz and paim (2011:10098), namely that homeowners tend to be more satisfied with their financial situation compared with the group that rents or leases a property. employees should therefore be motivated to own their own properties. according to joo and grable (2004:41), the number of financial dependents and education had no direct effect on a person’s level of financial satisfaction. the evidence found in this study is, to some extent, consistent with previous findings, as a practically non-significant correlation between the number of children or extended family members living in a household and their personal financial well-being was reported. a practically non-significant correlation between respondents’ general health and their personal financial well-being was also reported. however, this is inconsistent with the finding by o’neill et al. (2005:81) that health status is positively associated with financial satisfaction. it is therefore important to address health issues because of the impact it has on financial well-being. conclusion this study is one of a few to address personal financial wellness, specifically amongst employees, within a south african context. it is also the first study to determine the level of financial wellness amongst a group of employees in the higher education sector using the personal finance well-being scale and only the third study that was found to use this scale amongst employees. it is recommended that the institution should design bespoke financial literacy programmes specifically for the personal finance needs of its employees. employee demographics should be taken into account in the design by, for example, focussing on the specific needs of married couples and home owners. the institution could also design its own website or annual magazine to make personal finance information readily accessible to its employees. employees should be encouraged to engage in current initiatives that educate employees on personal finance. assessment tools such as the personal finance well-being scale could be administered before and after a personal finance workshop in order to determine the effect of the intervention on the level of financial well-being or financial distress of employees. moreover, the institution should take note that employees are dissatisfied with their current financial situation and often worry about their current financial situation. this could be alleviated by means of providing financial education to employees to raise more awareness about the importance of financial well-being. the institution should also take note that most employees’ salaries run out before the end of the month, which contributes to their financial stress. it would therefore benefit the institution to assist employees in this regard (pillay 2008:21). lastly, the findings of the study also serve to motivate employees to take responsibility for their personal financial management by reading further on the topic, as this would improve their perceived financial well-being. as indicated in table 9, those that read had less financial distress. the research was conducted on a small sample of the population who attended a personal finance workshop at a tertiary institution. the participants of the workshop were probably also more susceptible to receiving financial advice, which could have influenced their perceptions as reported in the study. therefore, the findings cannot be generalised. the study does, however, contribute to the literature, being the first study applying the personal finance well-being scale to employees from a tertiary institution in south africa. further studies are required to determine the extent of financial distress amongst tertiary institution employees and its impact on their health and job performance. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to the work. j.m. was the master’s student. j.p.f. was the supervisor and wrote the article from the student’s work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency. data availability statement the data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, j.m., upon reasonable request. the participants however did not give consent to share the data publically. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references bahri, g., 2008, ‘ensuring personal financial wellness: a range of intervention measures and the role of voluntary approaches’, in e. crous (ed.), employee financial wellness: a corporate social responsibility, pp. 7–18, gtz (deutsche gesellschaft für 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south africa. in the context of mounting migrationrelated complexities globally, the media have increasingly become a fundamental communication infrastructure through which citizens come to understand realities that affect their daily lives. this observation is particularly applicable to the majority of south africans who currently face multiple socio-economic challenges, cited as the “ignition spark” to recent xenophobic attacks on immigrants in the media. numerous public institutions including government and civic society have used mainstream media to champion condemnations of these attacks, however through optimistic top-down projections such as national electronic and print publications, with limited success. although the latter forms of communication do reach large audiences, they lack heterogeneous appeal and are usually carriers of dominant discourses embedded in structural biases that are slanted towards the elite. this approach often marginalises the lower stratum of the population who usually bear the brunt of the xenophobic scourge as either perpetrators or victims thereof. the article uses participatory communication models to explicate how, as a typical product and reflection of the dynamics of the communities it serves, community radio could be used to promote a grassroots common narrative context for reflective anti-xenophobia communication discourse. the article concludes that, as part of the broader multimedia intervention strategy, community radio can provide an effective local perspective to the anti-xenophobia discourse through sustainable mainstreaming of migration issues in its programming. keywords: community radio, xenophobia, migration, participatory communication models, mainstreaming introduction the high levels of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments in southern africa are largely a product of (mis)information about foreigners from secondary sources including the media (mcdonald & jacobs, 2005). the latter have a profound responsibility to challenge and transform societal perceptions held about foreign nationals. in certain instances, the media are the only contact some south africans have with foreign migrants and as such, they have an indirect influence on social construction of xenophobic attitudes. since the fateful xenophobic attacks towards foreign nationals in south africa in 2008, the mass media have somewhat been used by both government and civil society as part of a broad public intervention strategy to stop the scourge and to encourage african solidarity. nevertheless, widespread coverage of these events primarily on mainstream, large commercial and national 1 department of languages & communication, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: thabiso.muswede@ul.ac.za approaches to “xenophobia” interventions in africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 220-231. 121 formats such as television, radio and newspapers often failed to effectively address these attitudes (lerner, roberts & matlala, 2009). instead, xenophobic tendencies have continued unabated, albeit in sporadic fashions, attracting less press reportage and government attention until the recent xenophobic outburst in april 2015, which left at least seven people dead, displacing thousands. notably, coverage of these issues in community media remains largely unexplored; yet, it is local communities that feel the effects of continuing discriminatory tensions and the impact of migration most keenly (lerner et al., 2009: 20). this is supported by findings in a study by the institute for democracy in southern africa (idasa), which holds that xenophobic violence in may 2008 appeared to be a result of “decentralised community organising; that it was focused in informal areas; and, that strong organisational structures, particularly local government institutions, in some cases, served to mitigate the violence” (idasa, 2008: 8). moreover, misago (2009) also argued that “strong community leadership” served to prevent further xenophobic violence against foreign nationals. hence, this article argues that, if we acknowledge that xenophobic violence and discrimination against foreigners happens largely at the community level, then the adoption of top-down extensive exogenous national interventions without emphasis on community approaches is questionable, if not irrelevant. moreover, generalised approaches fail to reach the target population groups who are in the lower economic stratum because they lack heterogeneous appeal to these target audiences, organisationally. often, these channels are carriers of dominant discourses embedded in structural bias and slanted towards the elite (mundy & compton, 1991). this is evidenced by their regular use of formalist news angles and choice of media analysts. the latter are often associated with big state-sponsored or corporate institutions, and they tend to interpret xenophobic events from a superficial and remote perspective that hardly resonates with the realities of people on the ground. more often than not, the illiterate and semi-literate are marginalised due to the highly pitched discourses that usually attribute xenophobia to “deeper political agendas … rather than to bread and butter issues of poverty” (idasa, 2008: 8). on numerous instances, xenophobic violence has often been associated with criminality, an approach that ignores the realities and further frustrates the “players”. on the contrary, community broadcasting in south africa boasts at least 204 radio stations with a listenership of over 8.3 million across the length and breadth of the country; and, it is recognised as a critical component of grassroots development (panther, 2014). more importantly, the sector serves largely poor communities faced with high unemployment and lack of access to basic infrastructure and services (muswede, 2009), arguably a breeding ground for xenophobia due to competition for scarce resources among residents. in this view, the article explores how a developmental and participatory community radio programming that is differentiated from other forms of mass media can be used as a sustainable platform to provide organic interventions through the promotion of anti-xenophobia social dialogue. it interrogates how proximity to its target audiences gives community radio an additional impetus to giving marginalised communities a voice. development communication models development communication challenge despite having numerous definitions, the concept of development has key aspects upon which it is premised. it is also on the basis of these aspects that development communication muswede 122 should be defined and interpreted in order for it to impact on people’s lives. todaro (1994) identified three elements that entail the process of development as: • improving the quality of all human lives by raising people’s living standards through economic growth; • improving the self-esteem of people by establishing the relevant social, economic and political systems and institutions that will promote human dignity and respect; and, • increasing people’s freedom to choose and broaden their range of choices as a rainbow nation, the post-1994 south african society has a diverse population outlook characterised by a dramatic communication environment, amid developmental challenges. this makes it important to acknowledge that any interventionist communication endeavour to deal with complex social milieu such as poverty, crime and xenophobia among citizens, will be difficult to handle. despite the information revolution that has created the virtuous global village, stark reality is that in some parts of the developing world, including south africa, many people still do not have adequate access to mainstream media information, let alone the internet. they have to combat the challenges of lack of basic services, unemployment and poverty in the context of complex migration problems inter alia, without the assistance of new technologies. as such, the suitability of the means of communication in determining the success of any corrective campaign in south africa, will have to be informed by a needs analysis and evaluation mechanisms within the communication process (barker, 2001). this is important in order to adopt the relevant social, economic and political systems that will promote human dignity and respect. for several decades, the developing nations have built their systems on a colonial legacy that made little provision for the unique conditions of third world countries. these have been characterised by the absence of communication infrastructure, professional skills, economic means of production and cultural resources. compounding this predicament is the high level of illiteracy and the diversity of languages used in these countries (roelofse, 1997: 56). in addition, the dependency syndrome has continued in the post-colonial era in the form of neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism. to address this deficit, developing countries have advocated for the positive use of the media to promote national development, autonomy and cultural identity among other issues (mcquail, 1987: 119). this model lies within the development strategy which does not merely suggest inclusiveness of, but provides a delivery mechanism that largely arises from the recipients of these media initiatives. hence, central to this approach are such tenets as participation, cultural identity, community empowerment and dialogical communication (banda, 2003). in south africa, this approach was realised through the development of a media regulatory framework that encapsulates media pluralism and diversity such as the three tier broadcasting system that includes community broadcasting (independent communications authority of south africa, 2000). community development approach community development practice has generally been predicated on theoretical propositions that maintain that people have the right to participate in decisions which have an effect upon their well-being (cook, 1994: 14). this submits a conceptual framework that presents a logical basis for and general guides to the use of an open system or democratic structuring. it calls for the application of a holistic approach in efforts to stimulate the building of capacities, and to improve the performance of community systems (cook, 1994: 20). the theory establishes an orientation toward community systems and human behaviours that are approaches to “xenophobia” interventions in africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 220-231. 123 considered relevant in and for particular types of social organisations. it does not purport to give answers to the basic questions of what, why, or how this should happen for every community system. however, it does provide a conceptual platform or grounding for the building of community and provides theoretical bases by which to guide and assess interventions in each particular system (cook, 1994: 10). development goes beyond economic growth and technological advancement, and must be seen as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy; and, this has found an ideal expression through community media (sen, 2000). current development theory places people central to development, believing that the opportunity to participate in development projects will determine the achievement of outcomes that people value, and have reason to value (roelofse, 1997: 57; bell & morse, 1999: 65-7). it also places change in both the context of individuals and the larger context of social structures. in sen’s (2000) view, development in local radio should therefore be seen in the context of the removal of tyranny, poverty, inequality and intolerance in favour of building community service institutions and economies. instead of using media and communication as a one-way means of persuasion and of disseminating information from the developed to the undeveloped community, the media should be seen as tools or facilitators of development, and as vehicles for community selfexpression and empowerment (roelofse, 1997: 57). in this context, development communication should be seen as a process that must involve both the transmission of messages about development issues, and empowerment of the disadvantaged to have a greater control of their social, political and economic institutions. in this view, development radio, community radio in particular, acts both as a catalyst for and a facilitator of change for communities to participate in reconstruction, development and democracy (mtimde, 2000: 6), a favourable platform for locating the anti-xenophobia dialogue. democratic participatory communication model the democratic participatory communication model comprises most of the ideal features compatible with community sound broadcasting, particularly its local focus. second, the approach represents a flexible theoretical framework within which a variety of community media projects can easily and justifiably be located (banda, 2003). the model highlights the importance of cultural identity from the perspective of local players and advances the need for the democratisation of local people at all levels. the communication process is tailored around formulation of meanings based on the social relational patterns and social institutions that are the result of and are determined by the communication process (banda, 2003). this demonstrates a shift from the positivist-instrumentalist paradigm towards “another development” model that embraces the notion that communication should be characterised by multiplicity, smallness of scale, locality, de-institutionalisation, interchange of senderreceiver roles and horizontality of communication links at all levels of society (mcquail, 1987: 97; melkote, 1991: 234). the above argument is premised on the freirian pedagogy of dialogic communication where interactive participation becomes a process of conscientisation in which dialogue is inherently audience-driven and conscious of the social structure (freire, 1996; banda, 2003). this is in contrast to the traditional pedagogical communication systems which perceived audiences as passive and gullible recipients of the world view of the elite class. subsequently, this uncritical ingestion of elite-framed content made audiences to perceive their lives in terms of the latter’s frame of reality. it is within this context that freire then posited a contemporary dialogical pedagogy in which the receiver would be emancipated from the mental inertia of elitist muswede 124 programming as it were. thus, participatory communication assists the audiences to evolve out of the ideological “cocoon” into which they were immersed by elites and then autonomously perceived the realities of their existence (banda, 2003: 121). as such, instead of superimposing a universal structural change mechanism based on the dominant paradigm, community media are a typical concept based on priorities that are more contextual to the needs and challenges of specific communities (banda, 2003). the democratic participant model was developed in reaction to existing paradigms such as the normative theories which rarely took into account the development of new media and the rise of large media organisations (fourie, 2001: 274). it is primarily a reaction to the trends towards commercialisation and monopoly formulation in privately owned mass media and towards centralisation and bureaucratisation in public broadcasting (roelofse, 1997: 58). the democratic participant model advocates for the promotion of media development towards the direct and active participation of communities in publications and narrowcasting as opposed to broadcasting. the participant media theory is characterised by the establishment of more local and community radio stations with more talk radio programmes, phone-in programmes, interactive television systems and digital villages (fourie, 2001: 274; mcquail, 1987: 119121), to empower the ordinary citizen whose voice has been marginalised for many decades. overview of community radio in south africa background and operational context in girard (2007)’s view, community radio basically refers to the radio in the community, for the community, about the community and by the community. it is characterised by wide participation from regular community members with respect to management and production of programmes. the involvement of community members distinguishes it from the dominant commercial media that are operated for profit, propaganda, power, politics, privilege, et cetera. over and above these conditions, mainstream media serve the people or the public as a token gesture mainly to justify their existence in the government bureaucratic licensing procedures. to the contrary, community stations are collectively operated by the community, dedicated to development, education and people empowerment. they operate to achieve the principles of democracy and community development through community participation (jordan, 2006: 1). community radio belongs to the third layer of broadcasting in south africa. it is basically characterised by community ownership and control usually through a trust, foundation or association with the goal of serving the interests of particular communities (fraser & estrada, 2001: 3). it is a non-profit entity which operates for non-profitable purposes. the stations’ success is dependent on encouraging community membership and stakeholders who actively participate in its operations including the selection and creation of programmes. funding of community radio stations usually comes from various sources such as donations, grants, membership fees or sale of advertising time or a combination of all these methods (wigston, 2001: 429). a clear distinction between the community radio sector and private or public radio is the element of participation by listeners at all levels of the station. this involves the inclusion of community members in the board, management and programming structures of the station. hence, community radio’s primary object is to empower those who were previously disempowered in order to enable them to participate in determining their own destiny through community systems (lloyd, 2000: 8). approaches to “xenophobia” interventions in africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 220-231. 125 goals of community radio the concept of development entails the involvement of the people in their own development as reflected in their participation in radio programming, ownership and control (simmering & fairbairn, 2007: 10). accordingly, members of the community take development of the community into their hands by assuming various roles in the running of the station as volunteers, presenters, developers of programme content and other station management responsibilities. these attributes of community radio broadcasting make the sector to be viewed as a vehicle for the development of rural communities where most of these stations are located (mmusi, 2005: 102). more importantly, the community development features of community radio make it a culturally appropriate horizontal communication process through which community issues such as “ubuntu” can be addressed through public dialogue. community radio aims to serve target communities with information, education and entertainment as a pragmatic tool for community development by embracing active community participation. central to community radio is the ability to ensure that stations remain available to community residents to allow them to participate in the programmes, express their needs or discuss their issues of interest. stations must be accessible to members to enable them productive access and benefit. furthermore, the station must be acceptable and accountable to its target market by catering for the listeners’ diverse needs and respecting the languages, traditions, beliefs and cultures of the respective communities. affordability to the community members serves to allow listeners the possibility to contribute what they can afford to help sustain the daily running of the station as a community project (open society foundation, 1999: 10; fairbairn, 2000: 7). interactive programming as a two-way communication devise, community radio thrives on active participation from both the radio personnel and its audiences in order to add value to the community. it pays special attention to soliciting messages from listeners through simple interactive means such as ordinary letters, phone-in shows, electronic mail, open broadcasts, public meetings et cetera. this provides an instant feedback mechanism which is often absent in other forms of media such as print, because daily newspapers have a minimum turnaround time of one day. as a result, until cheap television production, videophones, and broadband internet are universally accessible, community radio still remains by far the most appropriate medium with immediate feedback for poor communities, particularly rural people. as a success factor, community radio marketing encourages and facilitates interactive links between programme producers and audiences through local-oriented interactive activities, engendering a relevant audience-driven programming that better meets the consumers' needs (list, 2002: 54). community radio programmes can be tailored to serve specific groups of interest such as women, youth or linguistic and cultural minorities. in certain instances, a special slant on news, entertainment and education can be designed specifically to support social change and development in the community. the approach often encourages local creative talent and fosters local traditions while providing entertainment, education and development programmes for the benefit of listeners. this kind of community radio programming is reflective of a collective local expression of issues, often neglected by mainstream media, that constitutes the backbone and unique aspect of existence within localities (fraser & estrada, 2001: 18; girard, 2007: 2). community radio, therefore, evidently addresses the glaring inadequacies and knowledge gaps in broad mass media interventions that often result from muswede 126 disregard of specific groups of people with unique programming preferences. furthermore, it is a prompt response to the need for more focused strategies that can address group-specific needs. social capital through community radio community radio’s founding principles are engendered to promote community development through a unique participatory decision making process to create social capital. social capital is the ability of people to work together for common purposes in groups, organisations and workplaces (fukuyama, 1995: 6) to enhance social collaboration that creates the possibility for community development. this allows the community to uphold decisions that should be made by those most directly affected by their outcomes in order to meet their group needs (vuuren, 2001). based on the social themes of trust and accountability, honest and cooperative behaviour, community radio operates on the basis of shared norms and values generally understood as unauthored formula for determining appropriate behaviour. it draws from a philosophy of the commons where individuals are not motivated by utilitarian interests in pursuit of pleasure but by collective social and individual goals (onyx & bullen, 1997). social capital thrives on participatory networks with mutual relationships between individuals and groups regardless of their geographic communities. community radio stations achieve this partially through voluntarism, community outreach programmes and annual general meetings where board members are elected in the common interest. the regulatory framework for the sector requires audiences to be a pro-active citizenry that is willing to contribute to community development with a sense of both personal and collective capacities to produce desired outcomes. although not all non-profit organisations are conducive to creation of social capital, due to their horizontal, voluntary operational and governance structures, community radio stations are capable of generating sustained social capital among their target audiences (onyx & bullen, 1997). towards an integrated strategy for mainstreaming xenophobia based on the theoretical underpinnings and the tenets of community development and participatory communication, abundant possibilities exist towards the formulation of an integrated strategy for mainstreaming migration issues, including xenophobia, through community radio programming. this entails taking into account migration concerns in the organisational processes of community radio to contribute towards the transformation of xenophobic attitudes. in this discussion, reference is made to institutional documents of community radio as key elements to strategically operationalise both editorial and programming activities in the mainstreaming process. hence, the study proposes that, through the “demystified” informal broadcasting environment provided by community radio, programmers can mainstream migration issues through the means discussed hereunder. social inclusivity to address negative stereotypes stereotypical representation of immigrants including use of derogatory terms such as makwerekwere, aliens, foreigners or illegals is often a challenge in the media in general (nyamnjoh, 2010), because it has the potential to present them as threats to locals. this has often been the source of hatred leading to the exclusion of immigrants as their “large-scale” migration is perceived to put pressure on the existing scarce resources in the host countries. therefore, community radio programmes could be used to deconstruct these stereotypes by approaches to “xenophobia” interventions in africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 220-231. 127 promoting a fresh alternate discourse about migrants with a deliberate emphasis on the benefits of migration. programmes could be tailored to explain the contributions of migrants to the local economy where they undertake hazardous and dangerous unwanted tasks (ramakrishnan & arora, 2015) that most south africans usually do not want to perform. these highlights should be mainstreamed, in order to portray how immigrants have historically been and continue to be the backbone of the infrastructural development of south african cities by shouldering the bulk of the construction and labour tasks (ramakrishnan & arora, 2015). positive representation of migrants would assist to dispel common myths and stereotypes, especially those that associate them with stealing jobs, criminality, witchcraft, dreadful diseases and so on, as a concerted effort towards encouraging social integration. design of content and series that address migration issues community radio programming is inherently community-driven, hence the mainstreaming strategy should begin with the application of development communication methods that inform programme design based on community needs analysis. in south africa, community radio, as it is commonly known, is governed by the broadcasting act (1999), icasa (2000) and the electronic communications act no 36 of 2005, as policy guidelines regarding content development and how the sector should relate to target communities. although these regulations may vary based on context, there are commonalities in the application of these guidelines on content development, globally (ramakrishnan & arora, 2015). in addition to broadcasting in local languages and/or dialects, community radio ensures that its programmes do not cover content that is contemptuous of any religious communities nor promote disharmony among groups or perpetuates hatred against any person or group on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation or any form of disability (ramakrishnan & arora, 2015). in this context, content design could be tailored to include the concerns of immigrants or foreign nationals. this deliverable could be reinforced by incorporating migration matters into policy statements which, in turn, inform or govern programme scheduling and other operational activities of the stations. humanity and/or faith-based themes that resonate with the african philosophy of ubuntu could be infused into various projects such as outreach events, special day commemorations and drama storylines. therefore, the article argues that inclusion of these fundamental elements could underpin the xenophobia discourse on community radio with the main emphasis placed on coverage of issues relating to the treatment of immigrants and other vulnerable groups within the broader community. development of participatory and representative content the mainstreaming of migration issues should further be based on the development of participatory and representative content. this should be premised on an all-encompassing, transparent and participatory programming process that depicts a representative community outlook irrespective of social hierarchies. this will ensure that issues and concerns of all members in the community are reflected in the programmes, made possible through the input of volunteers who are best placed to understand the concerns of the locals and have the ability to articulate them effectively in the familiar language of target audiences. participation in such programmes can also take the form of expert interview clips, vox pops and the phone-in programme where individual callers air their views or concerns. this approach could help to demystify stereotypes about the presence, activities and circumstances around foreign nationals. stations could also feature migration issues on their weekly editorial reviews featuring local commentators as news sources to explore local news angles to xenophobia. muswede 128 adoption of innovative programming formats as opposed to use of standard and professional formats adopted for mainstream broadcasting that are usually associated with the elite class dimension, community radio programing incorporates elements that enable community members to openly talk (talk shows) about their issues and concerns, without standard gatekeeping procedures. the programmes practically advance the articulation of public opinion, highlight collective grievances and promote the transference of shared knowledge which top-down communication structures often systematically stifle through bureaucratic capping (hadland, 2010). this approach fits in well within the sphere of empowering communities that are “voice-poor, and bereft of opportunities to openly express themselves” (ramakrishnan & arora, 2015) as an alternative to violence resulting from the public’s anger and frustrations over bread and butter issues. examples of innovative formats may involve use of storytelling formats and drama which have traditionally been well received as part of generic radio programming. drama as a popular genre on community radio takes different forms such as monologues, multi-part drama (episodic) and docu-drama series. used in combination with other formats such as live programme phone-ins, off-line voice messaging, magazine show or feature and social media input, these formats can invoke social mobilisation and create linkages between those in the society’s margins and citizens. hence, these programming formats and other creative formats (depending on contexts) could be useful as both edutainment and infotainment leverages for awareness-building and promotion of empathetic gestures and solidarity towards immigrants. collaborative content development partnerships in order to promote broad dialogue and understanding of migration issues among citizens, community radio programmers may work closely with stakeholders in the communities they serve. this can take the form of stakeholder’s consultative meetings to share expertise and exchange information towards the creation of a “community of practice” forum. this has the potential to provide a creative brainstorming platform where innovative ways can be mooted through the involvement of local government officials and civil society including traditional leadership, corporate personnel, migrants, religious groups and professional bodies on how to address migration challenges. broad community participation has the advantage of lending credibility and encouraging buy-in from members of the community and therefore can serve as part of an effective public awareness campaign strategy. furthermore, due to financial challenges in community radio, participation by corporate stakeholders will assist in ensuring adequate commitment of sufficient resources towards the development of sustainable migration-sensitive programmes. another alternate method may involve collaborative effort to create a common programme or content that will be used to provide a continuous stream of information (ramakrishnan & arora, 2015), that can be shared with other radio stations on how to live together with african immigrants in south african communities. guidelines for news reporting and programme packaging operational guidelines in radio programming simply refer to documented internal principles or basic values that spell out procedures within which news and programmes are packaged and aired. lessons on the formulation of reporting guidelines regarding xenophobia and migration issues could be learnt from the experiences of how the mainstream media in particular cover(ed) the hiv/aids scourge in the recent past (swanepoel, fourie & froneman, 2007). due to the sensitivity of the subject and the vulnerability of migrant approaches to “xenophobia” interventions in africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 220-231. 129 groups, editorial teams could be capacitated to comprehend the context and degree of thoughtfulness needed in reporting the situation of migrants. the significance of the guidelines lies in providing terms of reference for both management and newsroom staff, particularly as an induction document for new volunteers in the station who lack training on reporting about sensitive matters. where necessary, additional clauses that encapsulates an ethical code will assist in guiding programming to ensure fair coverage of migration issues. conclusion the article explored the prospects of community and participatory communication models to xenophobia interventionist dialogue in contrast to conventional approaches. it espouses theoretical propositions that support intervention designs that are conceived within community frameworks as opposed to top-down projections which are often external to target audiences and tend to marginalise the target addressee in the lower class dimension. this paradigm strives to address problems from the “collective interest” approach through the communal forms of decision-making and use of dialogic and democratic participatory processes. the community approach enhances and facilitates buy-in from local participants thereby rendering relevant and effective intervention programmes to target audiences. in view of the context within which xenophobic attacks occur, the article posits that the tenets of community development and democratic participatory communication serve as organic approaches to facilitate effective transformational dialogue on migration issues since they are situated within the community where the violence often happens, rather than in the elitist perspective. the article highlights community radio’s potential in promoting grassroots narratives for reflective anti-xenophobia dialogue through programmes mainstreaming. essentially, this involves the development of xenophobia-sensitive programming wherein all information, communication and institutional policies, programmes, training and capacity building purposefully take a constructive role to promote a better understanding of migration issues. this is intended to build a sustainable medium-long term campaign that incorporates immigration-related issues on the calendar and scheduling of community radio stations as opposed to the sporadic, event-based coverage of xenophobia often associated with the press such as mainstream newspapers. as such, community radio is an affordable low cost mechanism that can be adapted to local contexts to promote a local perspective to “xenophobia” interventions. in south africa and elsewhere in the continent, the sector remains strategically positioned to influence positive attitudes by instilling african solidarity initiatives and championing the anti-xenophobic discourse through uniting people of diverse nationalities. hence, there is a need for a systematic broad-based partnership to create a “community of practice” towards the design 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(ed.), media studies: content, audiences and production. lansdowne: juta education. td journal july 2007.p65 ‘when we are tired we shall rest’: bus boycotts in the united states of america and south africa and prospects for comparative history derek charles catsam· abstract: this article looks at some of the practical, methodological, and disciplinary issues connected to comparative and transnational history through the lens of bus boycotts in south africa and the united states in the 1950s. comparative history by its very nature requires historians to transcend both the restrictive boundaries that the profession sometimes imposes as well as a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach to scholarship. yet as the suggestive comparisons between boycotts in montgomery, alabama, baton rouge, louisiana, and the transvaal in the mid-1950s show, such work can be rewarding in providing a transnational framework for understanding protest movements that transcend national borders. catsam argues in the end of his article that “a deeper understanding of both [the american and south african] struggles together may well help us better to grasp the significance of each separately.” keywords: protests, boycotts, civil rights, anti-apartheid, alexandra, montgomery, baton rouge, martin luther king, jr., comparative history, historiography, witwatersrand. disciplines: history, american studies, african studies, politics, sociology, black/african american studies, international studies, comparative studies introduction in early january 1957 south africa’s public utility transport corporation (putco) announced that it would be raising bus fares by one penny, from 4d to 5d. this would be the first fare increase on putco buses in twenty years, spokesmen for the parastatal � derek catsam is an assistant professor in the department of history at the university of texas of the permian basin. he is also the writer and blogger on south african issues for the foreign policy association, based in new york. he is working on a book on bus boycotts in the united states and south africa in the 1940s and 1950s. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 79-94. 80 organization announced, and was largely the result of rising petroleum costs. the fare hike would take place effective on the 7th of january, a monday.1 in response, more than 2000 black south africans in the northern johannesburg township of alexandra met under the leadership of the alexandra people’s transport committee (aptc) and voted to commence a boycott of putco. that monday, thousands heeded the boycott, with aptc estimating that more than 5,000 walked the nineplus miles into johannesburg, the main center of employment opportunities for township dwellers. residents of sophiatown also boycotted putco services, as did blacks in lady selborne, a pretoria township where fares had also increased. putco officials estimated that monday ridership was down to 2% of its normal levels, and by the 8th, the boycott was total, with no black riders in alexandra.2 the rallying cry for the boycotters was “azikwelwa!” which in zulu means “we will not ride!” and which, in a nod to history, was itself borrowed from bus protest campaigns of the 1940s.3 what followed would be a three-month standoff between putco, government officials, and an increasingly emboldened protest movement. thirteen months before the commencement of the alexandra boycott rosa parks, a stalwart of montgomery, alabama’s civil rights struggle, long-time naacp activist, and respected community member, refused to give up her seat when the bus driver told her to do so. according to montgomery’s segregation laws, parks’ refusal to yield made her subject to arrest, and so the bus driver contacted police, who carted parks to jail. on 5 december parks was convicted of violating montgomery jim crow laws and montgomery’s black population engaged in a one-day bus boycott that proved to be a rousing success. montgomery’s african 1 rand daily mail, 5 january 1957. (much of the newspaper research for this paper comes from the clippings files at the historical collections, william cullen library, university of the witwatersrand.) there is some dispute as to the necessity of the fare hikes. there can be no doubt that putco’s costs had risen and profits were down. nonetheless, protest leader dan mokonyone has written that putco ‘shed crocodile tears about its meager profits’ and that in any case, ‘if putco can only worry about profits they are better off than we who cannot even manage to make ends meet’. d mokonyane, lessons of azikwelwa: the bus boycott in south africa (nakong ya rena, london, 1994), p. 32. 2 star (johannesburg), rand daily mail, pretoria news, cape argus 7 & 8 january, 1957, sunday times, (johannesburg) 8 january, 1957. 3 mokonyane, lessons of azikwelwa: the bus boycott in south africa, p. 4. catsam american community decided to continue with the boycott.4 what followed would be a thirteen-month standoff between montgomery’s city bus lines, local officials, and an increasingly emboldened protest movement. the comparisons between the montgomery and alexandra bus boycotts, and indeed many of those in both the united states and south africa, seem obvious at first, and some of the parallels are striking. both movements saw the emergence of what appeared to be an almost ad hoc mass protest based upon principles of nonviolence in the wake of what had become an intolerable situation, often characterized by abuse, violence, terrorism, and mistreatment. in both cases women took lead roles in organizing and sustaining the boycotts. an impressive array of informal transportation networks emerged in both instances, including shuttle services, carpools and taxis. masses simply compensated for the buses being off limits by traveling on foot or bicycle. police and other authorities resorted to intimidation, duplicity and violence. there were disagreements of tactics within each movement. the boycotts also proved to be a source of charismatic leadership, though this was more pronounced in the american case, where martin luther king jr. ascended to what would become his truncated run as the most visible and significant civil rights leader in america and arguably the best-known symbol for freedom and human rights in the world. these points of symmetry and confluence are significant and worthy of exploration in much further depth.5 but equally important are the differences in context, history, and circumstances that make for a vital element of comparative and transnational history. this brief paper will provide tentative suggestions for comparative scholarship between these movements in the united states and south africa, emphasizing points of contrast as well as briefly touching upon conjunctions. comparative history: historiography, methodology and interdisciplinarity in recent years, comparative and transnational history has become one of the most exciting trends and vibrant areas for scholarship. and 4 see stewart burns’ skillfully edited document collection, daybreak of freedom: the montgomery bus boycott (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 1997). 5 this article marks the beginning, the first steps, of what will be a comprehensive comparative study of these cases. bus boycotts in the us and sa prospects for comparative history td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 79-94. 82 no two nodes of comparison have produced as much high quality work as the united states and south africa on the issue of race.6 in 1981 george fredrickson published white supremacy: a comparative study in american & south african history, which did not invent comparative history, but pretty clearly redefined the endeavor in almost revolutionary ways.7 fredrickson looms so large, in fact, that non-specialists can be forgiven for forgetting that white supremacy, which seems to stand alone now, actually had some formidable competition in john w cell’s the highest stage of white supremacy, an equally ambitious treatment of, as cell’s subtitle explicates, “the origins of segregation in south africa and the american south” and, to a somewhat lesser degree, stanley greenberg’s race and state in capitalist development: comparative perspectives.8 both are fine works, but neither author sustained his inquiries as fredrickson did in the years and decades to come. in the quarter century that followed, fredrickson, who to that point was a respected expert on racial ideologies in the united states, became most well known for his comparative work. he and the field of comparative history became inextricably linked. after what seemed like an interminable delay for his devotees, fredrickson released the sequel to white supremacy, black liberation: a comparative history of black ideologies in the united states and south africa in 1995.9 other 6 the section that follows is largely drawn from my own essay, “the comparative imagination: george fredrickson and new directions in comparative and transnational history,” in safundi: the journal of south african and american studies, special issue devoted to george fredrickson, issue 21, january 2006. the other articles in the issue are also tremendously useful in situating fredrickson’s work within the literature. 7 gm fredrickson, white supremacy: a comparative study in american & south african history (oxford & new york: oxford university press, 1981). 8 jw cell, the highest state of white supremacy: the origins of segregation in south africa and the american south (cambridge university press, cambridge & new york, 1982) and s greenberg, race and state in capitalist development: comparative perspectives (yale university press, new haven,1980). 9 gm fredrickson, black liberation: a comparative history of black ideologies in the united states and south africa (oxford university press, oxford and new york, 1995). catsam td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 79-94. vital works followed.10 fredrickson thus was an essential figure in not only the emerging comparative scholarship that would emerge in the wake of white supremacy, he also has cast a significant shadow on some of the most vibrant trends in recent scholarship, including transnational studies and even a particular strand of works on diplomatic and international history. the remainder of this section will investigate (admittedly only partially and suggestively, and not comprehensively and exhaustively) some of these trends. fredrickson is most closely linked to that work that is explicitly comparative, and in which the nodes of comparison are the united states and south africa. fredrickson has endorsed comparison on a grand scale, emphasizing broad geographic terrain, extended time periods, and ambitious phenomena (white supremacy; black liberation, racism – no micro-histories in that lot). there are two especially noteworthy recent trends that have emerged in the comparative historiography involving the united states and south africa. one buttresses fredrickson’s grand approach, the other goes in the other direction. fredrickson’s imprint nonetheless looms large with both approaches. the first of these trends has involved branching beyond the united states-south africa axis to include a third node of comparison. potentially unwieldy, there have nonetheless been some signs that this is a fruitful, if daunting, approach. in 1992 donald harmon akenson published god’s peoples: covenant and land in south africa, israel and ulster (a book, incidentally, reviewed by john cell in the american historical review). although it does not involve the united states, akenson’s ambitious work reveals one of the possibilities for multi-nation comparisons that americanists and south africanists are beginning to take seriously – expanding the nodes of comparison but limiting the thematic acreage. akenson emphasizes the role of covenant theology, the belief of a people that their tie to a land and thus their dominance over it is ordained by a higher power. akenson tends to focus on each case individually rather than embrace the sort of full-fledged comparison that fredrickson has endorsed, and some of his conclusions are problematic (he veers toward a somewhat exceptionalist view of his three societies) but god’s people nonetheless kicked off a process that would reach further fruition in scholarship 10 see gm fredrickson, the comparative imagination: on the history of racism, nationalism, and social movements (berkeley: university of california press, 1997). gm fredrickson, racism: a short history (princeton university press, princeton, 2003). bus boycotts in the us and sa prospects for comparative history 84 as the last century came to its conclusion.11 anthony w. marx’s 1998 book, making race and nation: a comparison of the united states, south africa and brazil marks, for the time being, the apogee of such multinational studies. unlike akenson, marx covers almost as ambitious thematic territory as fredrickson has tackled by linking the creation of nations with the simultaneous construction of racial identity so that the two are inextricably bound even as they manifested themselves somewhat differently in the three cases. marx reveals the particular benefits to adding a third area of analysis in his use of brazil, for as he ably shows, brazil lacked the sort of black political mobilization and thus explicitly racialist mobilization among whites that emerged in the united states and south africa, and as a consequence national identity emerged in some ways more easily in brazil, where elites effectively skirted the race question that scarred elsewhere.12 brazil represented the third node of comparison as well for a collection of essays for which fredrickson provided the lead essay, beyond racism: race and inequality in brazil, south africa and the united states. uneven in quality and approach, beyond racism is nonetheless indicative of future directions in comparative studies.13 in such endeavors, collaborations such as edited collections will always be a useful way to approach comparative studies because of the difficulties and limitations inherent in comparative work. it will always be more manageable, even if the end results is not more satisfying, for several contributors to wrestle with an aspect of a problem than for one ambitious scholar to do so. 11 dh akenson, god’s peoples: covenant and land in south africa, israel and ulster (cornell university press, ithaca, 1992); jd cell, review in the american historical review vol. 98(5), december 1993, pp. 1567-1568. 12 aw marx, making race and nation: a comparison of the united states, south africa and brazil, (cambridge university press, cambridge and new york, 1998); incidentally, yale university’s courtney young assesses making race and nation: the comparative imagination and ran greenstein’s important edited collection, comparative perspectives on south africa in a review essay in african studies review vol. 42(3), (december 1999) pp. 56-62. 13 cv hamilton, et. al., beyond racism: race and inequality in brazil, south africa and the united states (lynne rienner publishers, boulder & london, 2001). one other edited collection worth noting in this context is peter alexander and rick halpern, racializing class classifying race: labour and difference in britain, the usa and africa (palgrave mcmillan, new york, 2000). this book both expands the frame of reference for comparison by focusing on britain, the united states and the whole of africa while at the same time limiting focus to questions related to race and labour. interested readers can see my may 2001 h-safrica review of this book at http:// www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=31222988823518 catsam td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 79-94. comparative works of the other sort, perhaps best termed as microcomparisons, have not yet hit full stride and yet would seem to reveal the capacity for richness and depth that the more broadly focused studies of necessity must sacrifice. 14 whether in the forms of monographs yet to emerge or essays in the respected us-south african studies journal safundi (including the two books that safundi has published) and elsewhere, the hope remains that studies centered on specific themes will emerge to fill in gaps of our comparative understanding.15 the best book-length study to date is probably james campbell’s songs of zion: the african methodist episcopal church in the united states and south africa, a sensitive and meticulously researched work that has increased our understanding of religious development and identity in the united states and south africa.16 campbell’s book is a work of comparative history that also fits into the next category under discussion, transnational history, where some of the most vibrant work in contemporary scholarship is emerging. in recent years there has also been an explosion of work not explicitly comparative, but rather that explores the interactions between peoples and institutions in the united states and south africa, or between americans and africans. furthermore, although one needs not look far to find lamentations about the decrepit state of diplomatic history, which in many university history departments has fallen out of favour, there is one noteworthy exception to this apparent trend: studies of american relations with africa appear to be alive and well. americans and south africans have long been fascinated with one another and have found points of comparison and contrast. in some ways, the written legacies of these sojourners mark early examples of transnational scholarship, for even when the goal is comparative reflection, the project is the result of the sorts of interaction on the ground that transnational scholars have come to excel at producing. maurice evans, a white south african, was one of the first south 14 it is into this trend where i hope my bus boycott project will fit. 15 see a offenburger and c saunders, (eds.), a south african and american comparative reader: the best of safundi and other selected articles (safundi, 2003); and a offenburger, c saunders, and c lee, (eds.) safundi: south africa & the united states compared: the best of safundi, 2003-2004 (safundi: 2005). along these lines, in 1996 the university of london’s school of advanced study, institute of commonwealth studies held a conference, “beyond white supremacy: towards a new agenda for the comparative histories of south africa and the united states” for which fredrickson was the keynote speaker. the collection was gathered in the institute’s “collected seminar papers 49.” 16 j campbell, songs of zion: the african methodist episcopal church in the united states and south africa (university of north carolina press, chapel hill, 1998). campbell contributed to the conference discussed in footnote 12, above. bus boycotts in the us and sa prospects for comparative history 86 africans to leave such a record, and his book, black and white in the southern states: a study of the race problem in the united states from a south african point of view was recently re-issued in the southern classics series of the university of south carolina press with the ubiquitous fredrickson providing an introduction.17 based on his 1914 travels to the south, evans, one of the english-born south africans who was present at the birth of the union of south africa in 1910, evans’ book brings together his observations about the american racial situation and allows him to draw the conclusion that america was not the place to look to settle south africa’s racial issues, as in the south of necessity blacks and whites lived amongst one another. evans would conclude from this that strict racial separation was south africa’s only hope. of equal historical significance, but without a comparable agenda, is the record that the famed american civil rights activist and 1950 nobel peace prize winner ralph bunche left after his three month trip to south africa from september 1937 to january 1938. howard university professor robert edgar compiled and annotated bunche’s notes and ohio university press released them in a 1992 volume, an american in south africa: the travel notes of ralph j. bunche 28 september 1937-1 january 1938.18 far from being an anomaly, bunche’s marvelous, insightful account can be seen as simply an early example of american black interest in south africa’s racial problems. one of the most exciting trends in transnational historiography is the explosion in the last decade or so of studies investigating americans addressing not only south african but african affairs generally. not necessarily the stuff of traditional diplomatic history (more on which momentarily) these studies investigate the role that african americans and their white supporters played in drawing attention to not only america’s racial problems, but also to those of south africa, and to pushing an aggressive approach toward combating apartheid. perhaps the most prominent and well-regarded early example of such a study is lewis baldwin’s groundbreaking toward the beloved community: martin luther king, jr. and south africa which examined american responses to the south african struggle through the most 17 ms evans, black and white in the southern states: a study of the race problem in the united states from a south african point of view with a new introduction by george fredrickson, (university of south carolina press, columbia, 2001). 18 r edgar, (ed.), an american in south africa: the travel notes of ralph j. bunche 28 september 1937-1 january 1938 (ohio university press, athens, 1992). catsam td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 79-94. visible civil rights leader.19 baldwin showed how king was at the forefront of an american engagement with south africa’s onerous racial system that would continue to grow to the point of directly affecting american policy in the 1980s. in a small and sadly overlooked book published in 1999, political scientist donald culverson explored american anti-apartheid activism in contesting apartheid: u.s. activism, 1960-1987.20 the topic would receive its fullest treatment to date in francis njubi nesbitt’s wonderful book race for sanctions: african americans against apartheid, 19461994.21 both culverson and nesbitt recognize both the salience that the anti-apartheid struggle held for many americans, especially blacks dealing with their own issues of racial oppression, and reveal the crossnational implications of their struggle, as well as the difficulties they faced within the united states in mounting a struggle that crossed national boundaries during the cold war years. black americans did not limit their gaze to south africa either. american policy toward africa and the anti-colonial struggle drew the attention of many americans, and part of this growing transnational trend has been the emergence of a first-rate body of work. the best examples are brenda gayle plummer’s rising wind: black americans and u.s. foreign affairs, 1935-1960, penny von eschen’s race against empire: black americans and anticolonialism, 1937-1957, james meriwether’s proudly we can be africans: black americans and africa, 1935-1961 and plummer’s edited collection, windows on freedom: race, civil rights and foreign affairs 1945-1988.22 19 l baldwin, toward the beloved community: martin luther king, jr. and south africa (the pilgrim press, cleveland, 1995). safundi readers may recall a memorable recent exchange that professor baldwin and i had in the pages of safundi (issues 15, 17 and 18) in which i maintained that baldwin had overreached in trying to link king’s legacy beyond parameters that i felt the historical record could support. nonetheless, baldwin’s book is an essential contribution to what has become, in no small parts thanks to his work, one of the most exciting subfields in the historical profession. 20 d culverson, contesting apartheid: u.s. activism, 1960-1987\ (westview press, boulder, 1999). 21 f njubi nesbitt, race for sanctions: african americans against apartheid, 19461994 (indiana university press, bloomington, 2004). my review of race for sanctions appeared in history: reviews of new books, vol. 33(4), summer 2005 22 bp plummer, rising wind: black americans and u.s. foreign affairs, 1935-1960 (university of north carolina press, chapel hill, 1996); p von eschen, race against empire: black americans and anticolonialism, 1937-1957 (cornell university press, ithaca, 1997); j meriwether, proudly we can be africans: black americans and africa, 1935-1961 (university of north carolina press, chapel hill, 2002); and plummer, (ed.), windows on freedom: race, civil rights and foreign affairs 19451988 (university of north carolina press, chapel hill, 2003). it should be noted that culverson contributes an essay to plummer’s collection. it also is worth recognizing that the university of north carolina press has been at the forefront of this sort of transnational scholarship.. bus boycotts in the us and sa prospects for comparative history 88 though somewhat less transnational in nature, there is also a growing literature on the role that the cold war played in shaping (and stunting) black aspirations during the civil rights movements. one of the predominant themes of the transnational literature is the way in which politicians manipulated cold war fears to frustrate the desires of citizens striving for better treatment and equal rights. american civil rights activists, even when they were not agitating for sanctions against apartheid or to push america to recognize african liberation struggles, operated within this environment as well. the best of these works include mary dudziak’s cold war civil rights: race and the image of american democracy, thomas borstelmann’s the cold war and the color line: american race relations in the global arena, george lewis’ the white south and the red menace: segregationists, anticommunists, and massive resistance and jeff woods’ black struggle, red scare: segregation and anti-communism in the south, 1948-1968.23 generally, dudziak’s and borstelmann’s books are more concerned with the ways in which race and the cold war shaped american race relations at home and foreign policy abroad, woods and lewis are more concerned with the pas de deux between the civil rights movement and advocates of massive white resistance. all four books are important contributions. at first glance they may not seem to fit into a discussion on comparative and transnational history, but they do inasmuch as international relations and diplomatic history can benefit from an infusion of transnational and comparative perspectives. much of the transnational literature of the last few years has operated under the understanding that the international context within which actors moved was vital to what they could accomplish. writing comparative and transnational history presents a series of problems for historians. in order for comparative history to be truly effective, its practitioners have to develop a deep familiarity over two literatures, a daunting endeavor given that most of us realize that developing mastery in one area is something most of us can only approximate. because of this task, few advisors encourage their 23 m dudziak, cold war civil rights: race and the image of american democracy (princeton university press, princeton, 2000); t borstelmann, the cold war and the color line: american race relations in the global arena (cambridge: harvard university press, 2001); g lewis, the white south and the red menace: segregationists, anticommunists, and massive resistance (university press of florida gainesville date????) and j woods, black struggle, red scare: segregation and anti-communism in the south, 1948-1968 (louisiana state university press, baton rouge, 2004). for the sake of full disclosure, i attended graduate school with jeff woods, we are co-editors on a book project, and i consider him a friend, as i do george lewis. i do not, however, think that has prejudiced me into my conviction that these are both good and important books. catsam td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 79-94. students to pursue comparative studies. few junior scholars feel comfortable working in two or more areas. one of the most serious impediments to comparative scholarship within the profession is the proprietary hold too many historians have over their subfield. the comparativist is familiar with the plight: show up at a conference of south africa specialists, and they will look askew, questioning your credentials in south african history. show up before an audience of americanists and the problem is the opposite. apply for a job and all sides will have questions over where your loyalties will lie, as if africanists and americanists come from different worlds in which zero sum games prevail. and given the nature of the profession, where resources are scarce and every desired hire meets a fight with administration, zero-sum does too often win out. add to these unseemly aspects of interdepartmental struggles the fundamentally interdisciplinary nature of comparative studies and the difficulties multiply. when a historian walks into a room of social scientists, she is likely to hear questions about ‘field work’ and ‘methodology’, ‘literature reviews’ and ‘models’, terms with which most historians have an at-best distant and sometimes skeptical relationship. so what is the determined transnationalist to do? one approach is simply to whistle past the graveyard, to ignore the internecine struggles and cross-disciplinary sniping matches. but while in an ideal world the work stands for itself, we all know that academia is rarely an ideal world. the best advice in this context is to approach ones work openly, and not to start off as a comparativist. it might instead be useful for the scholar interested in comparing the united states and south africa effectively to pursue separate research agendas, to become both a south africanist and an americanist. rather than just attend history conferences, the comparative historian should also attend meetings in political science, sociology, and especially african and american studies meetings where interdisciplinary discussion is not only accepted, but expected. some of the same askew looks and dubious responses will still emerge, but at a certain point one’s work will have to stand on its own merits. plus, only after earnest immersion within the separate subfields will one truly be qualified for the sort of comparative endeavor that requires a full immersion across subdisciplines and academic fields. bus boycotts in the witwatersrand: 1944-1957 during the 1940s rising bus fares in south africa’s witwatersrand had led to a series of bus boycotts. an increasingly activist and bus boycotts in the us and sa prospects for comparative history 90 conscientized african population used various protests, stay-aways, and boycotts throughout the decade to challenge the tightening noose of segregation, and bus boycotts were among the more prominent frontal challenges. between 1940 and 1950 there were at least eight documented instances of bus boycotts in south africa. seven of them involved fares in whole or in part. five of these occurred in alexandra.24 furthermore, an epochal strike by the african mineworkers union in 1946 had showed young cadres of africans the possibilities for mass action while at the same time providing a rude awakening for increasingly concerned white south africans. with the onset of apartheid after the national party victory in the 1948 elections, repression became ever more brutal even as africans called for greater freedoms. township residents in 1950 in evaton, in 1954 in evaton, brakpan and kliptown, in 1955 in katlegong and evaton, and in 1956 in brakpan continued this protest tradition. all of this culminated in the events of 1957 when africans from alexandra and nine other areas, many of whom protested in explicit sympathy with alexandrans, used bus boycotts to protest rapidly rising fares.25 most township residents were at the whim of public transportation companies, as residential segregation policies forced people to live far from their places of employment. alexandra, for example, was 15 kilometers (9 miles) from johannesburg. in the alexandra boycott that ensued in 1957, 60 000 commuters boycotted for more than three months with women, who worked as domestics in the city, taking serious leadership roles. alfred nzo and the local branch of the african national congress (anc) spearheaded the boycotts largely without the help of the national anc, which was preoccupied with the treason trials. other organizations and individuals played a significant role as well, and the internal political dynamics associated with the boycott were often intense. the alexandra bus boycott ended when johannesburg employers agreed to provide subsidies for their workers and putco agreed to maintain the 4d price for any riders who agreed to buy weekly fare coupons that would guarantee regular riders a maintained rate and putco both a more guaranteed cash flow as well as increased fares from irregular riders. 24 s essig, “transportation boycotts in south africa: 1940-1984,” south african institute of race relations (hereafter sairr) topical paper june 1985, p. 5. in hw van der merwe papers bc1148, archives & manuscripts, university of cape town. 25 s essig, “transportation boycotts in south africa,” p. 5. catsam td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 79-94. bus boycotts in the united states: baton rouge and montgomery meanwhile, in the united states, against a backdrop of both heightened civil rights activity and a rising tide of massive resistance, black americans in baton rouge in 1953, montgomery in 1955-1956, and tallahassee in 1956 engaged in their own bus boycotts.26 if south africans protested over fares, blacks in the american south had more diffuse goals that also might initially seem to be of more noble origins than those of the south africans. at first glance, black americans wanted either to end or modify segregation. most famously, in montgomery the initial demands that the montgomery improvement association (mia) presented before local officials, were quite moderate. although montgomery’s black citizens found segregation loathsome, the initial demands fell short of overhauling the system. instead mia demands were threefold: rather than having black patron give up their seats to whites when the bus filled, the mia wanted a flexible line of segregation whereby blacks filled the bus from the back, whites from the front, and when the bus was full, bus drivers would not be able to demand that black patrons stand; more courteous treatment of black passengers; and the hiring of black drivers for predominantly black neighborhoods.27 it was only after insurmountable official intransigence that the mia called for nothing short of the end of segregation on the city’s buses. if the montgomery bus boycott began with relatively modest goals, the baton rouge boycott, which lasted for nine days in june 1953, had asked for even less in the form of concessions and stemmed initially from the same issues south africans faced: in the early weeks of 1953 the baton rouge city-parish council decided to raise fares on city buses. a young pastor, reverend t j jemison, went before the council in february 1953 and called for an end to segregation on the city’s buses. with little fanfare the local officials did so, abolishing reserved seating as long as african americans did not sit with or in front of any 26 on the baton rouge boycott see signpost to freedom: the 1953 baton rouge bus boycott, louisiana public broadcasting (lpb). on tallahassee, see ga rabby, the pain and the promise: the struggle for civil rights in tallahassee florida, (university of georgia press, athens, 1999), especially pp. 9-46. 27 montgomery advertiser, december 9, 1955; excerpted in burns, pp. 98-99. bus boycotts in the us and sa prospects for comparative history 92 white passengers. blacks would continue to board from the back and whites from the front.28 the new law was supposed to take effect in mid-march, but for nearly three months bus drivers and their employers ignored the council’s action and segregation on buses continued unabated. after a driver violently ‘manhandled’ a woman who tried to sit in one of the reserved seats for whites in the front section, black baton rouge mobilized, with reverend jemison in the lead. negotiations led to a settlement on june 24 in which blacks would load from the back, whites from the front, no black passengers could sit with or in front of whites, and the front seats were reserved for whites, the back bench on the bus for black passengers.29 in effect, what began as black complaints over fare raises in conjunction with segregation ended in a nine-day boycott that achieved results similar to the goals the mia desired as its boycott commenced two-and-a-half-years hence. in baton rouge, an increase in fares and the local response served to reveal larger dynamics at work. this is a valuable lesson for understanding the south african context. the comparative lens: subsistence or civil rights? the political scientist tom lodge has called the bus boycotts in evaton and alexandra, which were the largest of their kind, ‘the two major subsistence protests of the 1950s’, a description that is accurate, but incomplete and misleading.30 the proximate cause of the boycotts was the rise in fares. indeed, one of the phrases that emerged from the boycott in conjunction with “azikwelwa” was ‘asinamali’, which means ‘we have no money’, and which was intended not as a lamentation but rather as an assertion of defiance, in recognition of how racism and poverty were inextricably linked in the south african context. the boycotts did not attempt to address larger problems in the system that left africans vulnerable to a penny a day fare increase. but the root cause of the bus boycotts stemmed from the circumstances that created a place like alexandra to begin with. africans were 28 see lpb, signpost to freedom: the 1953 baton rouge bus boycott, louisiana public broadcasting; see also m price, “baton rouge bus boycott background,” louisiana state university library special exhibit. available at http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/ exhibits/boycott/background.html 29 see lpb, signpost to freedom and mary price, “baton rouge bus boycott background.” 30 t lodge, black politics in south africa since 1945, (longman, london and new york, 1983), p. 153. catsam td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 79-94. disproportionately (indeed, almost exclusively) concerned with and thus affected by rising fares because africans were most reliant upon public transportation. the economic sector being what it was in the townships – largely informal, virtually no industry, a small-tononexistent service sector, almost no public sector jobs, and so forth – meant that to find steady employment, africans had to go to the city, to johannesburg, in order to work. because of the host of segregation and later apartheid laws, africans had no choice but to live in the townships and commute to the cities. furthermore, given the political climate and the totalitarian nature of the apartheid state, (which would only get worse in the years to come, especially after sharpeville in march 1960) protesting against fares was a proxy for protesting against apartheid. the buses were a tangible manifestation of a holistically closed society. boycotting rising fares was tantamount to challenging apartheid, even if the leaders of the boycott movements knew that to assert as much meant to violate a host of laws that could lead to imprisonment and worse. the 1957 boycotts took place within the context of the treason trials against the leaders of the freedom charter movement of the african national congress, after all. punishment for political activism was thus not an abstraction for boycott participants. as one contemporary of the boycotters wrote in 1958: the people of the ‘dark city’ of alexandra, an unusually stubborn and independent suburb of a hundred thousand africans lying just outside the municipality, were united in their dislike for the smoky green buses called tigers. the long queues waiting without shelters, sometimes for an hour and a half in the early mornings, the rude and autocratic officials, and the cramped uncomfortable journey, stood for everything that was most hated about the white men’s city to which the buses carried tens of thousands of workers every day. the extra-penny touched off all this latent hatred.31 challenging bus fares thus was a challenge to apartheid in one of the only ways that might have been able to prove effective under the circumstances. conclusion in the middle of the alexandra bus boycott, dan mokonyane, assistant secretary of the aptc and a law student at the university of the witwatersrand, joined several of his more radical africanist colleagues 31 a terrels sampson, the treason cage, (heinemann, portsmouth, 1958) pp. 207208; quoted in mokonyane, lessons of azikwelwa, p. 4. bus boycotts in the us and sa prospects for comparative history 94 32 quoted in t lodge, black politics in south africa since 1945, p. 165. in calling for transforming the boycott into a general strike. at a mass meeting mokonyane declared: when we are tired we shall rest . . . they are punishing us because we are poor.32 in montgomery, meanwhile, there is the famous story of old mother pollard, as she was known far and wide. when offered a ride during the boycott and told that everyone would understand if she chose to ride the buses, mother pollard famously responded: my soul is tired but my feets is rested. in both south africa and the united states in the 1950s tired feet and rested souls embraced the principles behind ‘azikwelwa’ and ‘asinamali’. the circumstances and contexts were different, but the universality of the desire for human rights marched on in the obstinate face of oppression. feet spoke eloquently as the poor walked on, taking dignity where it had been stolen and demanding justice where it was absent. a deeper understanding of both struggles together may well help us better to grasp the significance of each separately. catsam abstract introduction the voluntourism market globally voluntourism in south africa criticism of voluntourism research methodology research findings discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) carina strohmeier centre for higher education and training, faculty of education, rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa savo heleta office for international education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa citation strohmeier, c. & heleta, s., 2020, ‘improving the contribution of foreign voluntourists in south africa: the importance of training and supervision’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a730. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.730 original research improving the contribution of foreign voluntourists in south africa: the importance of training and supervision carina strohmeier, savo heleta received: 08 july 2019; accepted: 07 nov. 2019; published: 12 feb. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the market for voluntourism from the western world to developing countries is on the rise. voluntourists are mainly young people who combine travel with volunteering in educational, early childhood development, environmental or other projects. hence, it is of outmost importance to assess and analyse the contribution of voluntourists to the projects, and especially to the development and progress of the children they work with. this research assesses the skills, experiences and contributions of foreign voluntourists to the development of vulnerable children in south africa. to get a better understanding of what voluntourists contribute to their projects and the children they work with, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with people who work with voluntourists, as well as with voluntourists themselves in port elizabeth, south africa. one of the main findings of this research is that training and supervision of voluntourists is crucial if the impact of the voluntourists is to be improved. keywords: volunteer; voluntourist; children; development; ngos; schools; south africa. introduction the increasing number of volunteer and voluntourism opportunities gives young people from all over the world, and particularly from the global north, the possibility to travel and gain experience abroad (slowe 2011). the increasing interest in voluntourism has been noted since the early 1990s, and the number of young people going abroad after finishing high school or university (or even during their studies) is continuously on the rise. one of the main reasons why young volunteers and voluntourists from the developed world go abroad is ‘to make a difference’ in the global south (hartman, paris & blache-cohen 2014) or to achieve fulfilment for themselves (wilson & musick 1999). while volunteering is about offering one’s experience and knowledge to other people or communities in order to help them (beigbeder 1991), voluntourism connects a holiday trip with a chance to participate in a social or charity project in the travel destination (alexander 2012; guttentag 2009; luh sin, oakes & mostafanezhad 2015; raymond & hall 2008; simpson 2004; wearing & mcgehee 2013; young 2008). mcgehee (2014) added that while volunteering is primarily about self-development and altruism, voluntourism gives equal weight to both volunteering, on the one hand, and travel and tourism, on the other hand. the most common volunteer and voluntourist projects deal with community work, environmental projects, work with children or charity programmes (guttentag 2009; luh sin et al. 2015). the term voluntourism is still not widespread. according to mostafanezhad (2014), people who are aware of the term voluntourist do not associate it necessarily with something positive. during mostafanezhad’s study, it emerged that people were more willing to book a volunteering experience on a homepage that advertises ‘volunteering opportunities’ instead of ‘voluntourist opportunities’. therefore, many organisations continue to advertise volunteer experiences, even though they are offering voluntourism opportunities (mostafanezhad 2014). in this article, the terms volunteer and voluntourist are used when discussing the volunteering practices in general. however, the term voluntourist is used when discussing south africa, in particular, as well as the data and findings presented in the second part of the article. this is performed primarily because of the fact that most foreign volunteers are interested in south africa, due to it being an attractive travel and tourist destination (govender & rogerson 2010). while there are many young people whose volunteering engagement is driven by altruism and wanting to assist the less fortunate, they often combine this with travel, sightseeing and exploring south africa and the surrounding region. sub-saharan africa is one of the fastest growing voluntourist destinations for young people from the global north. voluntourists in africa have various project opportunities, and the continent offers one of the biggest selections of programmes globally. south africa, in particular, is not only one of the favourite destinations in africa but also one of the top global destinations for voluntourists (hartman et al. 2014). opportunities for voluntourism in south africa most commonly involve wildlife or forest conservation, education, and the possibility to work in orphanages and on health-related projects (rogerson & slater 2014). young volunteers and voluntourists can also be part of the education system in south africa, by helping pupils with their homework, teaching them foreign languages or computer skills (go overseas 2016; projects abroad 2016). many non-profit organisations (non-governmental organisations [ngos]) focus their projects specifically on the education of children in developing countries because children represent their future and hope for development and progress. this was also supported by the millennium development goals (mdgs), which aimed to achieve universal primary education for children all over the world (kumar, kumar & vivekadhish 2016). basic education is also a key part of the sustainable development goals (united nations 2015). furthermore, because of extreme inequality and a high rate of severe diseases, organisations are also faced with the task of caring for orphans or children who would otherwise be without caregivers (banks & hulme 2012). as there are many projects involving children in low-income countries, foreign voluntourists frequently get involved in tutoring, and working in orphanages, primary education or day-care centres (go overseas 2016; projects abroad 2016). as most voluntourists are from different cultures and very different social backgrounds, it is often difficult for them to work and interact in an appropriate manner with people from the host community. this is because of a lack of essential knowledge about the country, cultures, traditions, challenges and needs. in addition, many voluntourists are not trained in the fields that they end up working in. however, some organisations from the global north that offer voluntourist experiences in south africa advertise on their homepages that there is no need for any skills or experience in order to participate as a teaching volunteer (projects abroad 2016; slowe 2011). ‘whatever your age, ability, or level of experience, you are welcome to join a volunteer care project in south africa’; this is just one ad promoting voluntourism opportunities in south africa, which does not require any specific experience (projects abroad 2016). while teaching children and young adults is normally something that needs to be studied before it is practised, it seems that this often does not apply to western voluntourists who work in many parts of the global south. this is highly problematic as vulnerable children and young adults may suffer from lack of support and care by people who are not experienced enough to provide these in a professional and correct manner. vulnerable children in developing countries, and especially children in orphanages, are often traumatised by what they have experienced in an early stage of life, and they need qualified people to work with them and support them. there is very little research available on the impact voluntourists and volunteers have on the children they are working with in the developing world. in order to fully understand how the children are impacted and how they can be better supported by volunteers and voluntourists, it is important to hear the voices of the different parties involved in voluntourism. this research has engaged with voluntourists, ngo staff and managers, a principal and teachers at a local school, and a social worker in port elizabeth, south africa, to better understand how the outcomes of voluntourist engagement in projects with vulnerable children can be improved through training and supervision of voluntourists. the voluntourism market globally non-profit organisations around the world, and particularly local ngos in the developing world, often invite or accept volunteers and voluntourists to assist them on projects and daily activities as they hope to get additional capacity, which they might otherwise not be able to afford. voluntourists travel mostly from the global north to global south in the hope of gaining experience and contributing to local development through serving in local communities (guttentag 2009). they are involved in community work, work with children, environmental projects, charity programmes and many other projects (guttentag 2009; luh sin et al. 2015). voluntourists are generally young people who go abroad in search of new experiences and to explore other countries and cultures, all of which is seen as a new kind of tourism combined with volunteering and charity work (alexander 2012; govender & rogerson 2010; simpson 2004). as many young voluntourists are not only interested in the volunteering work they are doing but also in the destination they travel to (simpson 2004; raymond & hall 2008), more projects for voluntourists can be found in countries with picturesque landscapes and friendly populations. this makes the interests and demands of voluntourists the primary focus of this industry, which is also manifested in the tendency of existing research to focus on the voluntourists themselves, and not on the host countries, projects or the beneficiaries of their support and work (ouma & dimaras 2013; raymond & hall 2008; wearing & mcgehee 2013). this is in spite of the fact that the projects are originally created to help people in need or to generate development, and not to serve young western voluntourists and their interests. voluntourism in south africa the argument that voluntourists are primarily interested in attractive locations can be seen in south africa. cape town is not only one of the most popular cities for tourists but also hosts more voluntourist projects than any other south african city (govender & rogerson 2010). other cities of similar size have comparably as many needs for volunteers, but they rarely appear as locations for voluntourism opportunities on homepages targeting voluntourists from the global north. a study by benson and seibert (2009) about voluntourists from germany showed that 78% of the voluntourists spent their time in and around cape town, while 11% were placed in port elizabeth and only 5% volunteered in projects in or around durban. this is the case even though the western cape province, where cape town is located, performs better when it comes to employment or provision of education and health care than other parts of south africa. in addition, while many people in need live in rural areas, most foreign volunteers tend to go to the urban centres (benson & seibert 2009). as big cities offer more tourist attractions and places for socialising, this might be the reason why voluntourists prefer being in or close to these places, as a significant part of their motivation is tourism, travel and sightseeing in the host country. at the same time, volunteers and voluntourists are playing an important role in community development, and educational and charity projects in south africa. according to the research by benson and seibert (2009), 41% of the participants in their study worked on education projects, and a further 30% worked in projects related to social services, which include orphanages or work with people with disabilities. many of the organisations that host them require volunteers, as they lack the capacity to provide services with their limited staff. however, there is almost no research on the impact these young voluntourists have on children and other vulnerable groups they work with, even though this should be the main focus as these are the beneficiaries of the projects and assistance. criticism of voluntourism even though volunteering and voluntourism are popular and in high demand, and young people benefit or learn by being part of the experience, there is serious criticism in the literature on this topic. voluntourists are often involved with vulnerable and less fortunate communities and individuals. their main goal – and that of the organisations that recruit them – should be to achieve positive change and to facilitate community development that helps vulnerable people. nevertheless, this is not always the case in developmental projects and in the work of the voluntourists. a positive outcome for volunteers and voluntourists travelling to foreign countries and cultures is that they have an opportunity to get to know other cultures and to understand other ways of living and interaction. hartman et al. (2014) suggested that this can possibly support a more peaceful world and solidarity. this is influenced by an increasing international understanding and tolerance for and between different cultures (raymond & hall 2008). however, guttentag (2009) argued that volunteers, rather than the local communities, benefit in the form of personal growth and increased intercultural understanding. foreign voluntourists travel to the host country with an aspiration to make a difference. they often think that their opinions and values are the ones that count, and they want their host community to ‘benefit’ from them. divergent thoughts and ideas of local ngo workers or people in the host community are often seen as less important and sometimes even ignored by the foreign volunteers and voluntourists (guttentag 2009). many try to force their ideas onto their host community even when they know very little about the host society or local people’s needs and interests (guttentag 2011; simpson 2004). thus, many projects facing these challenges might not achieve their developmental goals because foreign volunteers and voluntourists have a negative impact on the projects. it is important for the host communities to ensure that they preserve their own culture, language and the way of being; it is also crucial that the projects that aim to assist them focus on what the communities need the most. the commonly promoted assumption about voluntourists ‘making a difference’ should mean that they have the required and necessary knowledge, expertise and capacity to create positive social change (mcgloin & georgeou 2016). this is questionable when it comes to young voluntourists from the global north, because for most short-term volunteer placements, skills, experience or knowledge about the local history, current affairs, culture and language are not required. for some researchers, this brings into question the contribution that can be made by voluntourism and the assumption that young foreign volunteers and voluntourists can make a difference in their host communities and organisations (raymond & hall 2008; simpson 2004). guttentag (2009) went further and stated that voluntourists and volunteers can inhibit progress in communities where they work. a manager of an ngo who was interviewed during guttentag’s research conducted in kenya confirmed this and said that, in spite of all the challenges, they continue to work with voluntourists mainly because they help generate awareness for their organisation and projects. however, it is questionable if the awareness alone might help, while the original work that needs to be performed with vulnerable populations is hindered by the voluntourists. as volunteering and voluntourism in the global south are seen to be an open and popular market, more people desire to participate in the projects and more private companies look to sell the experiences (sharp & dear 2013). increasing commercialisation is jeopardising vulnerable communities and their environment (raymond & hall 2008). companies and organisations in the global north that are selling voluntourism to young people are in most cases not directly engaged with local communities in the developing world and their needs. they are often not interested in local community desires because their interests are to expand their business and increase profits; most importantly, money comes from the voluntourists, and not from the affected communities abroad (wearing & mcgehee 2013). this is different from the focus and the aims of most local ngos, which are usually established to contribute to community development and to support local communities in countries such as south africa. nevertheless, the ngos are also in need of voluntourists to achieve their goals, as they often lack capacity or have inadequate funds to employ enough workers (wearing & mcgehee 2013). while many voluntourism-promoting organisations in the global north are primarily focussing on the interests of their paying customers over the needs of the host communities (foller-carroll & charlebois 2016; wearing & mcgehee 2013), it is even suggested that for-profit organisations that promote voluntourism should be stopped from sending voluntourists to developing countries because they are not at all interested in assisting vulnerable communities (mosvy 2011). research methodology this was a qualitative study conducted in 2017 and 2018. the data collection method employed was semi-structured interviews, as they provide an in-depth understanding of a social phenomenon which has not been studied in-depth yet, at least in south africa. all interviews were conducted with a prepared interview guide, which consisted of open-ended questions. the interview guides differed between each group to ensure that the questions were adapted to the specific role of the participant in the conducted research. the main aim of the research was to analyse the contribution of foreign voluntourists to the development of young children in south africa. this article reports on the findings of a larger research project, which looked more widely at voluntourism and development in south africa. given its focus on voluntourism and work with children specifically, this article draws on part of the broader interview data to look at the training and supervision needed to improve the contribution of foreign volunteers and voluntourists. potential ethical issues were considered during all the steps of the research process. before the data collection, ethical clearance was obtained. all interviews were based on informed consent. every participant was told about the aim and objectives of the study and ensured that no harm will befall the participants. all participants were entitled to withdraw from the study at any stage if they wished to do so. to protect anonymity and confidentiality, participants’ names are not revealed in any publications or presentations (bryman & bell 2011; matthews & ross 2010). research findings this section will discuss the findings that emerged from semi-structured interviews with 10 voluntourists, four managers of local ngos, two teachers, a school principal and a social worker (see table 1 for participant details). five of the 10 interviewed voluntourists came to south africa without any previous experience of working with children, ngos or vulnerable communities (voluntourists 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9). only three voluntourists had a job in their home country that was related to their volunteering work in port elizabeth (voluntourists 4, 5 and 10). table 1: interview details. representatives of three organisations said that they have an introductory session for the voluntourists, or at least give them some information before or when they arrive (manager a, b and d). one organisation, for example, gave voluntourists a township1 tour and told them about the history, culture and the issues and challenges facing people in the townships in the port elizabeth area (manager a). only one organisation had a training day when new voluntourists arrived (manager d). five voluntourists did not consider the lack of training upon arrival as an issue, as they felt that training was not necessary owing to the easy nature of the job (voluntourists 1, 2, 6, 8 and 9). on the other hand, two voluntourists who worked at a school wished that they received more information about their job at the time they started with the work (voluntourists 5 and 7). they said that nobody told them what to do with the children – neither when the teacher was around nor when they had to take care of the class by themselves. one voluntourist, who studied to be a social worker, also wished to have been better prepared for the work and the setting in order to know how to handle certain situations more appropriately and with respect for local circumstances and culture (voluntourist 10). only two voluntourists mentioned that they had somebody with experience who supported them while doing their volunteer job (voluntourists 3 and 7). a number of voluntourists mentioned lack of communication and instructions as one of the main issues during their stay (voluntourists 5, 7 and 10). in contrast, an issue highlighted the most by staff members and managers was that voluntourists were too selective about the jobs and duties they wanted to do (manager c; principal; teachers 1 and 2). while five voluntourists said that they felt appreciated most of the time, they also said that they did not feel appreciated by some people or at certain times while working on their projects (voluntourists 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8). voluntourist 1, for example, said that she spent her first day at a crèche in a township feeling unappreciated and even had the feeling that they did not want her there. the following day, she asked her sending organisation whether she could change her project. her feeling was based on the fact that the local staff only spoke in the local language, isixhosa, which led her to assume that they were not interested in her at all. she was moved to another project the next day. two voluntourists at a primary school were asked to teach a class for a week when one of the teachers got sick. even then, neither of the two received any instructions about what they should or should not do with the children; they were sent into the classroom and left alone with the children when they came to the school on a monday morning (voluntourists 5 and 7). when the less experienced voluntourist was asked how he felt when they sent him into the classroom to teach, he said: ‘i could not be a teacher … i could not be the teacher for the classroom … i think i can keep them quiet, for example, but it is not my best skill.’ (voluntourist 7, pers. comm., 10 august 2017) voluntourist 7 went on to add that he is not used to teaching and taking care of so many children the other voluntourist, who studied to be a teacher in her own country, said she knew how to handle the children and how to teach them for a whole week (voluntourist 5). while the less experienced voluntourist was not feeling confident most of the time, the more experienced voluntourist said that the opportunity to teach children when their teacher was absent was great for her (voluntourist 5). she added that it was interesting and valuable to get an opportunity to teach in another country. although she is used to teaching, she pointed out that it was unprofessional that she did not get any instruction from the people working there and that she had to be creative to come up with things to do with the children without any guidelines or advice (voluntourist 5). as this voluntourist had already worked as a teacher in her home country, she was able to come up with a plan to teach the children. if she did not have the teaching knowledge and experience, the kids would have lost a whole week of effective teaching or may have been taught in an incorrect way. even though she was working in another country and culture, and was teaching in a foreign language, this particular voluntourist felt confident throughout the whole week of teaching. she mentioned that the other less experienced voluntourist would have struggled with the work without her and that she thinks that most voluntourists would not be able to cope with working with children in the classroom alone for a week of teaching. in addition, she also stated that the school knew about her teaching background and she is convinced that they would not have given her the responsibility of teaching and taking care of children without her teaching background. when asked if she thought other voluntourists without educational background could have performed the same job, she seemed offended and said: ‘no. not everybody can do it. my background helps me a lot … for my colleague, i think it is more difficult for him … because he has no background. i had four years of school to be a teacher.’ (voluntourist 5, pers. comm., 10 august 2017). voluntourist 10, who studied to be a social worker, said that she was sometimes unsure as to how to handle certain situations. she said that from her educational background, she knew that it was important to keep a distance from the children and not hug them and cuddle them all the time, as this would make them attached to the people who would be leaving in a few weeks. nevertheless, she had situations where the children ran towards her calling her ‘mama’, and she did not know how best to handle these situations. however, the social worker, with whom all the interview data were discussed at the end of the data collection phase, mentioned that the word ‘mama’ in xhosa culture does not have the same meaning as the terms ‘mom’ or ‘mother’ elsewhere. many kids in south africa use this term as a sign of respect, and they would call any older person ‘mama’. she said that the voluntourists often think that the vulnerable kids they work with see them as a substitute for their parents, which is not the case in most situations. nevertheless, the voluntourist had never heard about this and added that she wished that somebody had prepared her for these situations, so that she would have known how to react and how to deal with them better. even though she was used to working with vulnerable children back home, and she was experienced in dealing with difficult situations, she was not prepared enough for many things that happened during her time in port elizabeth (voluntourist 10). the local social worker who was interviewed for this research said that most ngos and projects that host voluntourists do not have an orientation or preparation phase for new voluntourists, or supervision during their stay: ‘i would say the organisations are either too busy, or they don’t realise how important orientation and preparation are and how lost the volunteers are without them.’ (social worker, pers. comm., 13 september 2017) according to the social worker voluntourists are often overwhelmed with the work they do, as they are not used to that kind of work and are not typically trained to do it. in addition, they also do not know how to handle certain challenges and problems that come up with the children or even the other staff members. she criticised organisations that do not instruct their voluntourists, and even called it ‘unethical’, as it can cause serious problems not only for the children they are working with but also for the voluntourists themselves. she also mentioned that most local organisations want to have volunteers or voluntourists because they lack staff, but they often do not know how to take advantage of the additional workforce that is given to them or to assist the volunteers to do well in their roles. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. discussion in many local projects and organisations in south africa, foreign volunteers and voluntourists are welcome, particularly because of the staff shortages. as most of the foreign volunteers are young people who lack experience and knowledge to work with children, they require training and assistance to perform well in their important roles. however, when they arrive, volunteers and voluntourists are not given enough, and in some cases, any orientation, preparation, training or supervision for working with vulnerable children. it is highly irresponsible, unprofessional and unethical for the organisations that promote volunteering experiences in the global north to tell young people that they can work with children, in orphanages and schools in the global south, without any previous experience. it is equally irresponsible and unethical for schools and organisations in the global south to allow these same volunteers to work with children without orientation, training and supervision. the findings in this research suggest that appropriate preparation of voluntourists before or upon arrival, as well as training and supervision throughout their stay in countries such as south africa, should be a vital part of every project that hosts voluntourists and volunteers from the global north. birdwell (2011) argued that proper training and information about host country’s historical background, local cultures, current realities and challenges, and preparation for what to expect during the volunteering experience are essential for every foreign volunteer and voluntourist working for an ngo or a project in the developing world. this would ensure better experience for the volunteers and voluntourists and better service delivery at the projects. only three of the 10 voluntourists who were part of this research received a short instruction about what they should expect and do while working on the projects in south africa. the others did not get any kind of training before they started working on their projects. voluntourists and volunteers who are involved in work with children, such as teaching, must receive proper instruction and orientation before they start with their duties. while birdwell (2011) wrote about the importance of training for volunteers and giving them necessary instructions and supervision during their time with the ngos and projects, only two of the organisations studied provided their voluntourists with some kind of training or with a supervisor who provided guidance and advice. this is particularly important because most of the interviewed voluntourists were young and not experienced in the field they were volunteering in. hence, it is questionable whether they should have been allowed to interact with children without proper preparation, training and supervision. hartman et al. (2014) stated that the preparation of the volunteers and even their host communities is vital for successful integration and utilisation of volunteers from abroad. however, this has not happened in most of the studied ngos and projects. a few voluntourists mentioned the lack of communication and instruction as a problem that came up during their time in port elizabeth. while one voluntourist did not feel appreciated at her project site and asked to be assigned to another project, some voluntourists felt uncomfortable in certain situations. even though the main aim of the projects and local ngos was not the satisfaction of the voluntourists, they should still try to make their stay worthwhile and use their presence in the best way possible. some difficulties and discomfort might arise because of the challenges such as speaking different languages and a lack of mutual understanding when it comes to cultural differences. one voluntourist mentioned that the staff members were only speaking isixhosa and did not communicate with her, which might not be because of disrespect but possibly because of a language barrier. we must also remember that the staff members at schools and ngo projects are often faced with frequently changing volunteers. it is not difficult to imagine that it might be tiring for the staff and teachers to engage with and instruct new voluntourists every few weeks while also trying to complete their daily work. nevertheless, it would be helpful to engage with young voluntourists from abroad before they start working at their projects, train them about cultural differences and language barriers, and prepare them for possible issues that could come up during their stay. this would help them make the most out of their experience while at the same time improving the contribution to their projects. the social worker who was interviewed for this research has developed an orientation programme for foreign volunteers she works with at her university, which aims to help them balance the expectations with the reality they are likely to experience. student volunteers often have expectations about what the volunteering would be like; as they often come from europe or the united states, they are used to a very structured way of working, which is not always the case in the projects they are volunteering at. during their orientation, they learn about south africa, its history and demographics, and they discuss issues related to poverty and inequality in the country. they also critically discuss volunteering and the problems that could come up throughout their time as volunteers, which is supposed to get them prepared for what they might have to deal with. in addition, the social worker has monthly workshops with volunteers where they talk about their experiences, challenges and problems at the projects. the social worker also acts as a neutral facilitator between the ngos, local schools and projects, on the one hand, and foreign volunteers, on the other hand. sometimes, volunteers are uncomfortable to talk about their challenges with the people at the projects, but it is easier for them to open up in a classroom with other volunteers and a neutral facilitator (social worker, pers. comm., 13 september 2017). the social worker’s and arguments about preparation and supervision for volunteers relate to birdwell’s (2011) suggestions mentioned above. arguably, prepared and supervised volunteers are likely to have a better impact than those that are not prepared, oriented and continuously supervised. the reality in south africa is that most local ngos and projects lack capacity to run their basic operations. similarly, many public schools where foreign volunteers work are dysfunctional, lack resources or are in a state of crisis. many organisations and schools would be unable to provide structured orientation, training and supervision to foreign volunteers and voluntourists. this is where the national department of basic education and the department of social development, together with their provincial counterparts, can play a role and provide assistance in the form of training and workshops for ngo and school staff, and even foreign volunteers. this needs to be performed to protect the well-being of the vulnerable children with whom foreign volunteers work. similarly, south african public universities can provide support to the organisations and schools in the cities and areas where they are based, similar to what the interviewed social worker provides to foreign student volunteers at her university. the universities can develop online courses that are required to be completed before foreign volunteers and voluntourists can start with their work at local projects. a key limitation of this research is that it focussed only on one city in south africa, a few ngos and a primary school, and a small number of foreign voluntourists. however, this is an important start that shows serious challenges that must be addressed. future research should expand to other parts of south africa, africa and the rest of the developing world. in addition, more host organisations, sending organisations and volunteers should be interviewed or surveyed, and different areas should be compared to find out if similar challenges and problems are faced elsewhere. future research should also explore in more detail possible solutions that can assist the orientation, training and supervision of foreign volunteers to provide meaningful assistance to their host organisations and the recipients of their assistance. conclusion in south africa, many foreign volunteers and voluntourists work in the education system or day-care facilities for infants and young children. however, most of them come to the country with limited or no skills to work with children. still, they are given the opportunity to work with this vulnerable population because of the shortage of staff at organisations or schools where they volunteer. often, volunteers and voluntourists are not given training or supervision at the projects where they work, leaving them to improvise or do as they wish. because of an increase in the presence of volunteers and voluntourists in educational projects, orphanages and day-care centres, it is essential for the host organisations to ask about their capacity and the contribution they can make to the projects and the children they work with, as well as how this can be improved. keeping in mind that sustainability is one of the main issues of development in the 21st century, the real effects of a development project should always be questioned. increasing participation of volunteers and voluntourists in development, and in educational and charity projects in the global south, gives them significant power to influence the development of their host community, and even the host country. health, education and safety of children are vital issues for sustainable development in any country, as the children are the future, and they can create social change and development in the coming years if they are given quality support, care and education at an early stage. there is no blueprint approach for volunteer or voluntourist engagement with projects and ngos in the global south. as organisations and projects differ and face various challenges, it is important to individually figure out what each project needs and if that can be achieved with the help of foreign volunteers. however, when projects and organisations decide to work with volunteers and voluntourists, it is of outmost importance to engage critically with them from the beginning and provide them with orientation and training about the setting, the organisation, the recipients of the assistance, and the work-related information and knowledge. volunteers also need to be supervised throughout their stay with organisations and projects in order to be able to contribute effectively and meaningfully to the well-being of the children and other vulnerable groups they work with. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement the data collected and analysed in this study are available upon request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references alexander, z., 2012, ‘the impact of a volunteer tourism experience, in south africa, on the tourist: the influence of age, gender, project type and length of stay’, tourism management perspectives 4, 119–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2012.07.002 banks, n. & hulme, d., 2012, ‘the role of ngos and civil society in development and poverty reduction’, 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of volunteering on the volunteer’, law and contemporary problems 62(4), 141–168. https://doi.org/10.2307/1192270 young, t., 2008, ‘mediating volunteer tourism alternatives: guidebook representations of travel experiences in aboriginal australia’, in k.d. lyons & s. wearing (eds.), journeys of discovery in volunteer tourism: international case study perspectives, pp. 195–209, cabi, wallingford, ct. footnotes 1. a ‘township’ in the south african context generally refers to a low-income area, often on the periphery of a town or city. according to domingo (2011:1940–1942), the apartheid system enforced separate residential areas, with the aim to segregate different racial groups politically, economically and culturally. poorly developed and serviced townships were reserved for black people as a way to restrict and dehumanise black south africans. the post-1994 transition has largely failed to meaningfully transform the apartheid residential and spatial planning and segregation, with the ‘morphology of the post-apartheid city … not all that different from what it was during apartheid’ (domingo 2011:1953). td journal desember 2006.p65 dialogue among preand post-genetic revolution civilisations donrich jordaan * abstract: the genetic revolution will have a profound impact on human society and therefore on the public policy environment. this article aims to describe the public policy paradigms and paradigm shifts that will determine the framework for dialogue – public policy discourse – on an abstract conceptual level. the genetic revolution will place the determination of children’s genetic endowment squarely within the domain of human control, and hence the responsibility for a new child’s genetic endowment will shift from nature to man. in order for this paradigm shift to take place in public policy, it must be realised that ‘naturalness’ has no ethical significance. a further major obstacle in the way of this paradigm shift is the mystification paradox: as the genetic revolution is increasing our scientific understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of life, so these mechanisms are being demystified; but simultaneously a variety of factors, for instance the fact that this new science seems to penetrate the very essence of life, as well as the existence of a new esoteric genetic terminology that is inaccessible to the general public mystify genetics. education provides the essential platform for dialogue among the preand post-genetic revolution civilisations. keywords: genetic revolution, preand post-revolution, civilisation, policy paradigms, mechanisms of life, genetics, nature and nurture, open society, education. 1. introduction 1.1 background: the genetic revolution since the dawn of our species, humankind has steadily acquired knowledge about itself and its surroundings. the mystery that surrounded life in prehistoric times has progressively been replaced by scientific understanding. ours has been – and is perhaps now more than ever – a voyage of discovery! a mere half century ago knowledge of the building blocks of life was rudimentary. but since watson and crick’s (1953:737) momentous discovery of the now well known double helix structure of dna, td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 369-378. _______ * donrich w jordaan is an advocate of the high court of south africa, head of the unit for policy studies, centre for international political studies, university of pretoria. 370 molecular biology has blossomed, cracking the genetic code, cutting, joining, and moving genes, reading the sequences of bases in dna molecules, and who can forget dolly the sheep, the first ever mammal to be cloned from an adult cell (wilmut, schnieke, mcwhir, kind & campbell 1997:810-813). in april 2000, a company, celera genomics, announced that it had sequenced the entire human genome – beating the internationally funded official human genome project with this important phase of the project (lemonick 2000:51). the next phase, the mapping of the human genome, is now commencing. what was a challenge for the best postdoctoral researchers little more than a decade ago has metamorphosed into everyday work for undergraduates, technicians, and even robots (kitcher 1996:15). we are indeed witnessing a genetic revolution, which promises to have at least the same profound impact on human society – and therefore on the public policy environment – as did the agricultural and industrial revolutions. 1.2 dialogue among civilisations shortly after being voted into office the reformist president mohammad khatami of iran proposed the idea of ‘dialogue among civilisations as a paradigm for peace’ to the united nations general assembly. this inspired the general assembly to declare 2001 the year of ‘dialogue among civilisations’. fate unfortunately took an ironic turn and 2001 became the year of renewed tension among civilisations: 9/11 distorted international public relations and iran achieved the controversial status of being part of bush’s ‘axis of evil’. the idea of dialogue among civilisations however has particular application-value in context of the genetic revolution. khatami defined the concept ‘civilisation’ as follows: [c]ivilisation consists of the material aspects of social life and all institutions and organizations that act as political, economic, industrial, and other frameworks for social organization. (in bekker & pretorius 2001:38) i submit that the scientific knowledge and technologies associated with the genetic revolution will in the near future drastically and permanently change certain material aspects of social life, for instance procreation. the genetic revolution will therefore usher in a new civilisation, according to khatami’s definition. the subject of this article will be the dialogue between the pre-genetic revolution and postgenetic revolution civilisations. i will therefore be dealing with what bekker and pretorius (in bekker & pretorius 2001:10) term the vertical dimension of dialogue among civilisations, denoting the fact that the relevant civilisations do not exist simultaneously, but rather consecutively. ‘dialogue’ in this context denotes the public policy discourse that facilitates the transition from the old to the new. the new post-genetic revolution civilisation will seriously challenge jordaan 371 our current culture and bioethical values. this challenge transcends current horizontal civilisation frontiers; the genetic revolution will affect all national, ethnic, class and religious groupings. the question is: how well will all of this civilisations-in-the-horizontal-dimension be able to adapt their cultures to deal with the genetic revolution? this article aims to describe the public policy paradigms of both the preand post-genetic revolution civilisations, which will determine the framework for dialogue – public policy discourse – on an abstract conceptual level. 2. public policy paradigms 2.1 the pre-revolution civilisation: current demarcation of responsibility many factors impact on the rearing and eventual ability-levels of a child at the onset of adulthood. in the pre-revolution civilisation, these production-factors, to use economic terminology, could be broadly divided into two categories, namely initial genetic endowment and postconception inputs (steiner, in burley 1999:133-150). while initial genetic endowment – your genes – is beyond human control, post-conception inputs include a wide variety of gestational, nutritional, medical and educational factors, which are all man-made or at least mancontrolled. the quality of the two types of production-factors varies considerably between individuals and between nation states, as do the resulting levels of ability (or disability). for reasons of equality and socio-economic advancement, governments have increasingly taken measures to regulate and even actively to participate in many post-conception inputs: vaccination against certain illnesses is mandatory, a system of compulsory schooling is enforced, mothers and children are given free medical attention, etcetera. harmful post-conception inputs, for instance smoking or drug taking during pregnancy, child abuse, and in some reported cases even sub-standard education, are subject to remedial legal action. on the other hand, initial genetic endowment, as a natural object beyond human control or influence, cannot be subject to governmental regulation or legal remedy. one cannot sue their parents for passing on to them a genetic inclination for obesity or nearsightedness. in the pre-revolution civilisation, a genetic weakness or disability is more often perceived as a constitutive element of the person’s personal identity. such a person cannot complain that they would have been better off without the genetic weakness, because without it they would not exist. if a person is born with a genetic weakness or disability, it is not – from a legal perspective – their parents’ fault, but rather because of preand post-genetic revolution civilisations td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 369-378. 372 the imperfectness and randomness of nature, or even – as some religious people will view it – the will of a god. in the pre-revolution civilisation, parental and societal responsibility towards children is clearly limited to the second production-factor, namely post-conception inputs. 2.2 the post-revolution civilisation: radically expanded responsibility the genetic revolution will place the determination of children’s genetic endowment squarely and completely within the domain of human control: the human genome project will provide us with all the loci of genes and information concerning their common alleles. parents and their genetic clinicians will be able to obtain a complete genetic profile of any germ cell or pre-embryo, based on which selections can be made for transfer in utero. in a more advanced scenario, mere screening and selection will be transcended by genetic engineering. in the post-revolution civilisation, the two-fold classification of production-factors in initial genetic endowment and post-conception inputs will therefore simply collapse. a pivotal consequence of the collapse the two-fold classification, is that responsibility for a new child’s genetic endowment will shift from nature or the supernatural to man. once man has plucked and eaten the metaphorical apple from the tree of knowledge, it cannot be undone. there is no return to the blissful ignorance of paradise. man cannot deny his knowledge and the consequential responsibility it places on him. to tell a child who is about to die a slow and painful death at the age of ten because of a genetic illness, that the genetic illness is the will of nature or the will of god, will in the post-revolution civilisation not suffice. genetic adversities will become cause for liability – in the same class or perhaps even worse than other forms of child neglect. man will have to take up the complete burden of responsibility for the genetic well-being of future generations and transform culture and value systems accordingly. just as collective resources have been channelled to compulsory public education in recent centuries, collective resources on a state and global scale will have to be channelled to the health and general well-being of future generations. 3. paradigm shift and naturalness the genetic revolution entails a clear paradigm shift away from nature to human control. the ethical implications of ‘naturalness’ is therefore central in the dialogue among preand post-genetic revolution civilisations. those who resist the paradigm shift towards taking jordaan 373 responsibility and who want to entrench current traditions and belief systems argue that the new technologies associated with the genetic revolution are ‘unnatural’ (contra naturam) and therefore unethical. insofar as the term ‘natural’ denotes a situation as it exists in nature, unaffected by technology, the new technologies associated with the genetic revolution are radical departures from ‘natural’ sexual reproduction. intervention in the process of human reproduction other than sexual intercourse has often been attacked on the grounds that it is ‘unnatural’ and hence unethical. in this argument ‘nature’ can either refer to ‘human nature’, or ‘the natural processes of life’. let us first focus on human nature: humans are natural toolmakers and tool-users; we are natural manipulators of our world. (ridley 1998:105-106.) to negate this fact is to sever ourselves from our own nature, to ridicule our own intelligence and to limit ourselves to our most primitive origins. (susanne, in susanne & stuy 1990:258.) but is it morally justified to apply our natural tool-making abilities to the natural processes of life? those who would answer in the negative must necessarily perceive the natural processes of life as somehow self-justifying, as inherently good. if this perception is true, the whole medical science should be rejected as an immoral interference with the self-justifying, inherently good natural processes of life. ridley demonstrates the consequences of this perception: cure diseases? no: diseases are part of the natural process of life. ease the pain of cancer? no: it’s natural that cancer should be painful. rebuild a shattered limb? no: shattered limbs should stay naturally in bits (1998:106). there is nothing necessarily good about what is natural. it must, however, be remembered that for the entire existence of our species, the random determining of a new human being’s genotype has been shrouded in mystery; only now is it being demystified. the perception of the natural processes of life concerning human procreation as mystically self-justifying has been reinforced over millennia. there is, however, no rational foundation for such a perception. more often than not, ‘natural’ is merely a disguise for prejudice and tradition. as mccarthy (1999:98-104) remarks, the unnatural-label has been used to condemn inter-racial marriage, various kinds of sexual activities, etcetera, and is only worth bringing into the open to be dismissed as an argument of ethical significance. 4. the mystification paradox the successful transformation of cultures to the post-revolution civilisation will largely depend on the general public and public policy makers’ clear understanding of genetics. our general knowledge and perception of genes and genetics are crucial aspects of the dialogue preand post-genetic revolution civilisations td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 369-378. 374 among the preand post-genetic revolution civilisations. a major obstacle in the way of successful dialogue is a phenomenon that i call the mystification paradox. it can be explained as follows: as the genetic revolution is increasing our scientific understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of life, so these mechanisms are being demystified; but simultaneously a variety of factors, for instance the fact that this new science seems to penetrate the very essence of life, as well as the existence of a new esoteric genetic terminology that is inaccessible to the general public (susanne, in susanne & stuy 1990:203, 211), mystify genetics. this paradoxical mystification of genetics by the genetic revolution deserves closer analysis. 4.1 the mystification of genetics: genetic reductionism john avise begins the first chapter of his book the genetic gods as follows: they mastermind our lives, influencing our physical appearance, health, behavior, even our fears and aspirations. they constitute our material reason for being¾for eating and sleeping, warring and loving, hating and caring, forging relationships¾for procreation. to them we owe our existence ... they give us life, yet dictate senescence and death. “they” are not gods, but our genes. describing genes as “gods”, however, is particularly apt (1998:3). he points out three similarities between gods and genes: 1) genes have special powers over human lives and affairs; 2) genes exert influence over the course of nature; and 3) gene lineages are potentially immortal, and demonstrably so over billion-year time scales. the god-status of genetics in general owes a lot to expectations created by the genetic revolution. the message to the public is simple: we can put our faith in genetics – it will provide wondrous new cures for previously incurable diseases: the human genome project... will revolutionize the detection, prevention and treatment of conditions from cancer to depression to old age itself (begley 2000:30-31). and [t]he imminent mapping of the human genome ... could lead to rapid advances in treating heart disease, cancer, alzheimer’s and perhaps even aids (time 8 november 1999:33). the media plays a primary role in the mystification of genetics. with reference to the sequencing of the human genome almost finished, newsweek (begley 2000:30-31) reported that soon “science will know the blueprint of human life, the code of codes, the holy grail, the source code of homo sapiens”. make no mistake – this is stuff of legend: images of arthur’s quest knights relentlessly searching for years on jordaan 375 end for an elusive sacred artefact; “code of codes” can just as well refer to some religion’s ancient holy scripture; and “blueprint for human life” conjures up images of genesis: in the beginning god created... other sciences and technologies may have varying degrees of impact on human existence, but genetics seems to impinge on the essence of life itself. the sociologists dorothy nelkin and susan lindee (1995:4142) describe it well: dna appears in popular culture as a soul-like entity, a holy and immortal relic, a forbidden territory. the similarity between the powers of dna and those of the christian soul, we suggest, is more than linguistic or metaphorical. dna has taken on the social and cultural functions of the soul. it is the essential entity¾the location of the true self. because of this mystification of genetics, humans seem to be reduced to their genes. newsweek (begley 2000:32) quoted a harvard scientist as remarking with reference to the completion of the sequencing of the human genome, that then science will know “what it is to be human.” we are our genes – our expectations about each other’s accomplishments; our suspicions about each other’s faults are all centred on our genes. this genetic reductionism (or genetic determinism) is strongly reminiscent of the role society used to give to the soul or a god in human affairs – the soul as the essence of a person and a god as the determinating force in human affairs. the coalescence of genetic reductionism and the mystification of genetics are therefore not surprising. avise makes the following thought-provoking observation: indeed, over the last century, the genetic gods would seem to have wrestled from the supernatural gods considerable authority over human affairs. does any room remain for a metaphysical god? (1998:204) 4.2 the genetic gods in perspective: nature versus nurture although i will not speculate as to the room left for a metaphysical god in human affairs, i will surely expose the myth of genetic reductionism – in the words of the advisers to the president of the european commission on the ethical implications of biotechnology: “we are not just our genes (1997:351).” reducing the character and accomplishments of an individual to his or her genotype is an extremely narrow perspective on human nature. harris remarks, “it may be that ‘manners maketh man’ but genes most certainly do not (1999:78).” the reality, however, is far more complex: most human traits – and specifically personality – are the result of the intricate interaction between multi-genes and the environment (gardner, in burley 1999:35; juengst, in agius & busuttil 1998:95-96; kitcher 1996:251; renzong, in agius & busuttil 1998:112; preand post-genetic revolution civilisations td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 369-378. 376 silver 1999:250). how certain human traits are influenced by genotype vis-à-vis environment, is generally referred to as the ‘nature-nurture debate’. while acknowledging the complexity of the subject, i will attempt briefly to illustrate the interaction between genes and environment with the following example: a1 and a2 are siblings with similar alleles at the genes relevant to this example, as are b1 and b2. a1 and b1 are brought up in very similar ways, yet a1 has a gifted iq while b1 scores average in iq tests. likewise, a2 and b2 are reared very much alike, but quite differently from a1 and b1, and both score average in iq tests. does this scenario reveal a genetic basis for intelligence? in one sense yes: a1 and b1 share the same environment, but a1 intellectually excels above b1. clearly, the determining factor is their different genotypes. yet, on the other hand, an environmental basis for intelligence can just as easily be deduced from the scenario: a2 has the same genetic endowment as a1, but does not fare nearly as well as a1 in iq tests! the crucial factor in the nature-nurture debate therefore depends on whether the focus is on the difference between a1 and a2, or between a1 and b1. the temptation, of course, is to think that demonstrating that genetic differences make the difference in some environments amounts to demonstrating that they make the difference in all standard environments, moving on to the conclusion that genes are therefore destiny. the mystery and wonder of genetics make this false conclusion all the more seductive, yet it remains false. finally, mention must also be made of our species’ capacity for free volition: even if a person is born with an innate talent in music, mathematics, or athletics, it will not be enough to turn that person into a musician, a mathematician, or an athlete, if that person chooses to ignore the good starting points in his or her genes. aside from genetic and environmental influences, a lot depends on an individual’s determination and hard work. the interplay between free will, environment and genes is an immensely complex subject, but for purposes of this paper this discussion should suffice. silver encapsulates the basics well: environment and genes stand side by side. both contribute to a child’s chances for achievement and success in life, although neither guarantees it (1999:264). 5. conclusion: the importance of education at the beginning of this article i posed the question: how well will all the civilisations-in-the-horizontal-dimension be able to adapt their cultures to deal with the genetic revolution? khatami (in bekker & jordaan 377 pretorius 2001:52-62) has referred to the muslim civilisation’s current problem with transforming their culture and traditions to the capitalist western civilisation. in the case of the post-genetic revolution civilisation, with its radically expanded responsibilities to future generations, both east and west will have to transform age-old traditions, value-systems and religious dogma. as khatami (in bekker & pretorius 2001:41) reminds us, religious interpretations – even if they are entrenched in centuries of tradition – are relative to time and space and never absolute. since any process of rational public policy formulation and sensible public debate are based on knowledge of the subject, biological education – on a global scale – is essential to the demystification of the genetic revolution. south africa’s constitutional commitment to the open society, which entails rational decision-making (jordaan 2001:107-114), is very relevant in this context. this need for public education has been widely recognized – by the council of europe (council of europe 1992:285) and the american national bioethics advisory commission (1997:v) to name but a few. the south african government also recognised this need and in 2003 established the public understanding of biotechnology (pub) programme under the auspices of the national research foundation, which has been remarkably active during its short existence (see www.pub.ac.za). the media, with its crucial role in forming public opinion and hence in legitimizing science (weingart 1998:869-879), has all too often given in to sensationalism, instead of empowering people with knowledge about the genetic revolution (susanne, in susanne & stuy 1990:202; benagiano & bianchi 1999:868). this situation places even more weight on the shoulders of national governments, as the primary role-players in the public education to allocate enough resources to empower their people with accurate scientific knowledge. education provides the essential platform for dialogue among the preand post-genetic revolution civilisations. bibliography advisers to the president of the european commission on the ethical implications of biotechnology. 1997. ethical aspects of cloning techniques. journal of medical ethics, 23:349-352. agius, e. & busuttil, s. editors. 1998. germ-line intervention and our responsibilities to future generations. dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers. avise, j.c. 1998. the genetic gods. cambridge, massachusetts, usa: harvard university press. preand post-genetic revolution civilisations td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 369-378. 378 begley, s. 2000. decoding the human body. newsweek, 10 april: 30-37. bekker, t. & pretorius, j. eds. 2001. dialogue among civilisations: a paradigm for peace. pretoria, south africa: unit for policy studies, centre for international political studies, university of pretoria. benagiano, g. & bianchi, p. 1999. sex preselection: an aid to couples or a threat to humanity? human reproduction, 14:868-870. beyond 2000: your body, our planet. 1999. time, 8 november:32-88. burley, j. editor. 1999. the genetic revolution and human rights. new york: oxford university press. council of europe. 1992. recommendation no r(92)3 on genetic testing and screening for health care purposes. international digest of health legislation, 43:284-289. harris, j. 1998. clones, genes, and immortality. new york: oxford university press. jordaan, d.w. 2001. the open society. journal for contemporary roman dutch law, 64:107-114. kitcher, p. 1996. the lives to come. london: penguin books. lemonick, m.d. 2000. victory for venter. time, 17 april:51. mccarthy, d. 1999. persons and their copies. journal of medical ethics, 25:98-104. national bioethics advisory commission. 1997. cloning human beings: executive summary. rockville, maryland, usa. nelkin, d. & lindee, m.s. 1995. the dna mystique: the gene as a cultural icon. new york: w.h. freeman. ridley, a. 1998. beginning bioethics. new york: st. martin’s press. silver, l.m. 1999. remaking eden. london: phoenix. susanne, c. & stuy, j. compilers. 1990. bio-etiek. brussels: vub press. watson, j.d. & crick, f. 1953. a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. nature, 25 april:737. weingart, p. 1998. science and the media. research policy, 27:869879. wilmut, i., schnieke, j., mcwhir, j., kind, a. & campbell, k.h.s. 1997. viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells. nature, 385:810-813. jordaan abstract introduction research methods and design results and discussion conclusion acknowledgement references about the author(s) adelia carstens faculty of humanities, unit for academic literacy, university of pretoria, south africa citation carstens, a., 2016, ‘cultivating the soft skills of future construction managers through restorying construction workers’ career narratives’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a335. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.335 original research cultivating the soft skills of future construction managers through restorying construction workers’ career narratives adelia carstens received: 13 mar. 2016; accepted: 26 aug. 2016; published: 29 sept. 2016 copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: in the construction industry, there is an increased awareness of the importance of soft skills. however, no empirical studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of pedagogical strategies in higher education to improve the soft skills of future construction managers. aim: the main aim of the research was to explore how undergraduate students of the construction sciences construe the identities of construction workers and whether their views have been changed through their retelling of and reflecting on the career stories of these workers. it was anticipated that the results would give an indication of whether the students’ ‘soft skills’ can be improved through curricular interventions. setting: the research was situated in a module on academic and professional literacy for students of construction economics at a large residential university in gauteng. the module serves as an adjunct to a core module in building science. methods: theoretically, the article is underpinned by critical multicultural education, and methodologically, it is based on theories of narratives and storytelling. the primary instruments of data gathering were students’ narrative reconstructions of the career stories of construction workers that were gathered through personal interviews. the student narratives were analysed using the qualitative data analysis program atlasti. results: four themes emerged from the analysis of the narratives – personal characteristics, sponsors/enablers, challenges and agency – while the analysis of students’ critical reflections on their narratives pointed towards an understanding that career success is determined by diligence and work ethics, rather than circumstances. conclusion: an important change that occurred in students’ perceptions about construction workers is a realisation that successful workers are driven by an internal locus of control and are not derailed by adverse circumstances. the changed attitudes go beyond tolerance and reduced stereotyping. it is recommended that in order to deliver well-rounded graduates to the construction industry, multiple opportunities should be created in the curricula for modules focused on the acquisition of ‘hard’ as well as ‘soft’ skills. introduction well-rounded professionals (professionals with ‘hard’ as well as ‘soft’ skills) in the built environment are of the utmost importance to provide infrastructure necessary to support economic well-being and quality of life in the modern world (othman 2014:5). in the construction industry, ‘hard skills’ primarily refer to knowledge of and the ability to apply construction methods and techniques and the ability to perform cost estimation techniques such as preparation of tenders (sacpcmp n.d.:39–40). ‘soft skills’ include abilities that can be broadly categorised as personal attributes (self-management skills, emotional intelligence, stress management skills, workplace ethics and workplace professionalism); interpersonal skills (communication skills, collaboration skills, workplace diversity skills, cultural knowledge and social intelligence); and problem-solving and decision-making skills (conflict resolution skills as well as planning and organising skills) (hager, cowly & garrick 2000; mahasneh & thabet 2015; shakir 2009). soft skills have become increasingly important in the construction industry, because it is rapidly moving from an industry focused on the delivery of technical services to a service industry that competes in the global marketplace (shakir 2009:309). however, in wilson’s (2013) opinion, the culture in the construction industry is still a matter of ‘do as i say, not as i do’, which may be caused by too great an emphasis on a command and control style, at the expense of motivation, engagement, communication and coaching, and the benefits they can bring. for construction managers, engagement and motivation of others are of particular importance, because they ‘have to determine what drives people to exhibit certain behaviour, what directs or channels people’s behaviour, and how the behaviour is sustained’ (sunindijo & zhou 2013:99). the construction industry has become more reliant on tertiary education and training programmes to supply the work force for an increasingly complex and demanding work environment (bilbo et al. 2000). however, employers are still concerned about the low level of these skills among newly hired construction graduates (ahn, annie & kwon 2012). one of the major causes of the ‘skills gap’ that has been confirmed by the literature-based research of mahasneh and thabet (2015) is that ‘the existing construction education curriculum cannot sufficiently support students to cultivate soft skills competencies to match the industry’s needs’. othman (2014:5) agrees that universities are not doing enough, nor are they on par with the standards demanded by industry, in particular with regard to producing well-rounded graduates with technical knowledge as well as being flexible and adaptable. othman (2014) quotes rwelamila (2007) who found that most present-day construction management courses are dominated by a technical skills base with little or no social cultural knowledge base. in south african higher education there is an increased awareness of the importance of soft skills. firstly, soft skills are explicitly mentioned in the graduate outcomes specified by the south african council for the project and construction management professions, who accredits degrees in construction in south africa (n.d.:39–40). these outcomes include ‘understand[ing] socio-economic issues affecting construction and [the] project environment‘ and ’knowledge of written and oral communication in the construction environment‘ as two of the eight outcomes for these degrees. secondly, the department of construction economics at the institution where this research took place reiterated the importance of teaching both language and interpersonal skills in the module on academic and professional literacy, which is a compulsory module for all students of real estate, construction management and quantity surveying (van heerden 2016). in the business environment, narratives have been successfully used to promote the development of soft skills as well as knowledge transfer. published research studies on storytelling in business organisations include boje’s (1991) study in a large office-supply firm in the united states on how people perform storytelling to make sense of events, introduce change and gain political advantage during conversations; meyer’s (2004) investigation into the use of narrative as a medium for knowledge transfer in small teams in the united kingdom; and tobin’s (2006) research into the use of stories and storytelling as knowledge-sharing practices in the mining industry in south africa. a fairly recent study presents cases of storytelling applications in construction projects and suggests that the storytelling approach should be widely applied in the construction industry (leung & fong 2011:480). however, no empirical studies have been found on the use of narratives in formal training programmes to promote the development of soft skills. although the above-mentioned studies touch on the implications of using narratives in training contexts, none of them have been conducted in formal tertiary education settings. in addition, they lack clear pedagogical frameworks and educational approaches. critical multicultural education offers a viable framework for pedagogy as well as research on soft skills training that makes use of narrative methodologies. critical multiculturalism in education seeks to create an open and culturally diverse education. it conceptualises culture as dialectical and full of tensions, rather than coherent, orderly and predictive (kubota 2004:39) and recognises that all individuals take part in the cultural production of domination and subordination. furthermore, critical multicultural education celebrates ‘border knowledge’, as opposed to canonical knowledge (rhoads 1995). border knowledge is the knowledge that culturally diverse students (mostly those located on society’s margins) bring to the university. in an extended sense, border knowledge could also include the knowledge that workers on the margins of a profession bring to that profession. critical multicultural education is closely linked to service-learning approaches in higher education, as expounded by boyle-baise (2002:5). service-learning strongly correlates with tolerance, personal development and linking the university experience to the community (einfeld & collins 2008:96) through considering the perspectives of ’those who are disenfranchised and marginalised in society‘ (boyle-baise 2002:4). when students start understanding local issues from a different perspective, they are likely to develop multicultural competence. this should in turn lead to a reduction in negative stereotypes and an increase in tolerance for diversity (eyler & giles 1999). to explore the issue of curricular support in cultivating soft skills in a diverse workplace – within the framework of critical multicultural education – the following research questions were asked: how do students pursuing degrees in the construction sciences construe the identities of construction workers with no formal qualifications? how are students’ perceptions about the identities of construction workers changed as a result of engagement around the construction workers’ life stories? question 1 was aimed at providing students of the construction sciences with a method or tool to better understand construction workers socially and culturally and what may drive them to exhibit certain behaviour (sunindijo & zhou 2013:99), which should then ideally equip the students to build better relationships with workers on site; whereas question 2 was aimed at exploring what students thought they had learnt about the construction workers through the interviews and their restorying of the content. research methods and design study design narrative inquiry was considered to be an appropriate methodological paradigm for the research. as a research method in the social sciences, it has been established through the work of scholars such as polanyi (1989), lieblich, mashiach-tuval and zilber (1998), and clandinin and connelly (2000); and as a method in educational and applied linguistics research, it ties in with the so-called ‘(auto)biographical turn’ (pavlenko 2007). its application in applied linguistics is comprehensively documented by pavlenko (2007), de fina and georgakopolou (2012) and barkhuizen (2013). within this paradigm, narrative research is regarded both as a social activity (steier 1991) and as a sense-making activity (ochs & capps 2001). barkhuizen (2013:4) embeds these two components in the notion of ‘narrative knowledging’, which is ’the meaning making, learning, or knowledge construction that takes place during the narrative research activities of (co)constructing narratives, analysing narratives, reporting the findings, and reading/watching/listening to the research reports’. narrative knowledging allows narrative inquiry to take place at two levels: the construction of narratives out of non-narrative data and qualitative analysis of narratives. polkinghorne (1995) refers to this distinction as ‘narrative analysis’ and ‘analysis of narratives’, respectively, which can be related to bruner’s (2006) distinction between ‘narrative cognition’ and ‘paradigmatic cognition’. barkhuizen (2013:12) explains that narrative analysis entails ‘the temporal organization of experience, while seeking context-sensitive explications’ – in other words, synthesising experiences into a narrative whole – while the analysis of narratives entails ‘classifying a particular instance as belonging to a category or concept’. narratives are analysed through coding for themes, categorising them and looking for relationships between the themes. in alignment with critical multicultural education, i intended to conduct narrative research with a transformative aim (denzin & giardina 2009). narrative research has the potential to challenge the interests of the powerful by foregrounding the voices of those who are traditionally seen as the objects of research and as beneficiaries of western expertise, materials and methods (rubdy 2009). the purpose of narrative inquiry within a transformative paradigm is to reflect and cause others to reflect on and transform their own everyday practices in response to their narration of own experience or the experience of others. in the analysis of the (re)storied narratives (of construction workers) by first-year students, i was interested in both content and form and how the students’ narrative constructions conform to or resist dominant discourses. my ultimate aim was to explore the possible changes in the students’ conceptions regarding the knowledge and values contributed to the building industry by workers at the lower end of the professional spectrum. setting a major assignment for a first-semester core module on building science in the bsc programme in construction management at a large residential university in gauteng requires students to write a comprehensive report on a site visit. students have to identify a suitable construction site to visit once or more weekly. the construction activities have to be documented by taking notes, making drawings, taking photographs and interviewing the builder, project manager, architect, contractor and general workers. they also need to consult a variety of primary sources on building construction and integrate the primary and secondary data. ‘correct use of reference techniques’, ‘proper use of language and spelling’ and ‘professional layout’ as additional requirements are also demanded (department of construction economics 2013). an adjunct module, academic and professional literacy for construction economics, provides cognitive as well as communicative scaffolding for the compilation of the report. when assessing students’ site visit reports during 2013, i found very little evidence of social and communicative interaction on site. students seldom reported on interviews, especially with general workers and artisans. therefore, it was decided to include an assignment in the academic and professional literacy curriculum that would create space for students to interact with workers who may be overlooked as sources of knowledge and experience. each small group of three to five students had to interview at least one worker on their career history, transcribe the interview, convert it to a narrative essay and reflect on how the interview had changed their perceptions about workers in the construction industry. study population and sampling strategy the population comprised students registered for bsc programmes in quantity surveying, construction management and real estate and who were simultaneously registered for an adjunct module in academic and professional literacy in 2014. the sample consisted of 65 students, who constituted themselves in groups of 3–5 (17 groups). each group chose a particular construction site for their research. the sample was both convenient and purposive, in that i fulfilled the roles of both course designer and lecturer. approximately 50% were white students, while the other half comprised black students, mixed-race students and asian students. the construction workers were purposively sampled during one of the students’ weekly visits. the interviewees comprised 15 black workers and 2 asian workers. a third of the black interviewees (5) had not completed school or received any career training, two had limited practical training (a heavy vehicle driver’s license and a certificate to operate excavating equipment, respectively), six occupied supervisory positions (stock managers, foremen and site managers) without having obtained a national senior certificate (nsc) and two were self-employed sub-contractors who had improved their skills through practice training, and eventually became entrepreneurs. both the asian interviewees had at least an nsc qualification. data collection the following set of questions was provided to the students as a guideline for structuring their interviews with the workers: please share (tell us) your name, and what your trade is called. please also describe your duties and responsibilities. where did you grow up, and which school did you attend? where did you start your work as an x (carpenter, bricklayer, plumber, etc.)? were you trained to do this work? if you were, what kind of training did you receive? please tell us about the people who played important roles in your training or your working career (some may have helped you, and others may have made it difficult for you to get ahead). what do you enjoy most about your job? what challenges do you face on a daily basis? what have you done/achieved in your career as an x that you are proud of? what changes have you seen in your trade/working conditions over the years, and what changes would you like to see in the future? what is your advice to someone interested in becoming an x (plumber, carpenter, etc.)? is there anything else you want to tell us? all interviews had to be transcribed, and a narrative essay of approximately 750–1000 words (based on the interview data) had to be written. the introduction was to contain a contextualising sentence to introduce the interviewee, a thesis statement and an outline of the main points of the essay. to write the body of the essay, students had to read through their notes and listen to the recording of the interview, write down three or five main themes or ideas related to the identity of the worker that featured prominently during the interview and write a chronological narrative with main ideas and supporting detail, making sure that the body paragraphs supported the thesis statement. it should be noted that the freedom to select salient topics introduced inherent ‘data loss’ in the procedure. the essay had to be concluded by ‘a critical reflection on new meaning’ that the students constructed for themselves by listening to the interviewees, for example, how their perceptions about people in certain categories of jobs may have changed, and how they might act differently when engaging with the workers (as managers) on site in the future. the recordings and the transcripts had to be submitted together with the essays. if the interview was conducted in a language other than english or afrikaans, an english translation of the transcript had to be produced. a research assistant was appointed to check the accuracy of the transcripts against the recordings. however, in some instances, the quality of the sound files was very poor, and eventually, the transcripts were the only evidence of the full scope of the raw data. ethical considerations written permission to use students as data gatherers and respondents was obtained from the head of the department of construction economics, the dean of the faculty of humanities, the dean of the faculty of engineering and the built environment and the registrar of the university. thereafter, ethical clearance for the project was obtained from the research ethics committee of the faculty of humanities. students had to obtain written consent from the interviewees on site to conduct the interviews and to use the interview data for research purposes. in turn, all the students had to submit a signed letter of consent to allow the analysis of their narratives by the researcher. in total, 17 narratives, accompanied by the original sound or video recordings, were submitted. data analysis firstly, the narratives were read individually and annotated in the margins. linguistic items that drew my attention – mostly lexical features and direct quotes – were underlined. this assisted me in recording my initial impressions, which i developed into coding categories. the emerging codes were entered into the ‘code manager’ of the software program atlasti, version 7. fundamentally, grounded theory analysis principles were used (strauss & corbin 1990) to perform the content analysis. after coding the narratives, the codes were clustered together into themes on the basis of similarities. output queries were generated for each family, listing all the quotes under each code in the family. results and discussion narrative analysis from the qualitative content analysis of the workers’ narratives, four broad themes emerged: personal characteristics, sponsors/enablers, challenges and agency. a fifth theme, informal apprenticeship, partially overlaps with sponsors. these themes will be discussed by referring to the codes or primary categories they comprise. quotes will be supplied to support the salience of the codes within the themes. in all instances, pseudonyms will be used to protect the anonymity of the respondents and third persons mentioned in their responses. personal characteristics generally, the interviewees were construed in a positive light. the students highlighted the following personality and character traits: ambition, diligence, thirst for knowledge, job satisfaction (joy/passion), motivation, problem-solving attitude, pride in work achievements, professionalism and reliability. the four characteristics that featured particularly prominent are job satisfaction, thirst for knowledge, diligence and ambition. the notion of job satisfaction is primarily construed through the use of lexical items and phrases with positive values, such as at ease, enjoy, love and passionate. sipho is said to be ‘at ease with his working environment’; samson’s own words are quoted as ‘being a builder is not a job everyone prefers, but it is something i love’; vuyani is reported to be ‘very passionate about construction; and a person can tell this by just talking to him about his site and the project he works on’. the possessive form ‘his site’ construes vuyani as experiencing ownership and a sense of belonging. workers’ thirst for knowledge is construed by the students in 50% of the narratives. their choices of words reflect the interviewers’ admiration of this trait. piet is construed as follows: ‘he considers each day as a new chance to learn’; johnson’s goal is to ‘constantly gather information to expand his knowledge’; tsietsi’s optimal goal ‘is to expand his current knowledge about all the different trades practiced on the site’; ruben’s ‘passion for the built environment is shown by his dedication to improve his skills’; and tonderai is ‘hard working and motivated to learn more’. judged by the way that students portray certain workers, hand (diligence) and heart (passion and joy) operate in close relation to each other. about nelson, it is said that ‘[he] enjoys his job very much’ and ‘he would encourage any hardworking person who needs an income to consider it’. elias is quoted as an authority, when they report his conviction that ‘diligence and passion are key factors of success in the built environment’. across culturally diverse groups, students admired the ambition demonstrated in the workers’ responses to the interview questions. some are portrayed as expressing the desire to be promoted, improve their qualifications, learn another trade, earn a better income or even establish their own construction company; whereas others are portrayed as already having made career progress through their ambition. it is interesting to note the predictions of success that some of the student groups make on the basis of their observations: ‘elias is full of hope, and looking at the way he has come, it’s easy to see he is going to make something great out of his life.’ [author’s emphasis] and: ‘he wants to be a contractor one day with his own company and an estimated team of a 100 people. joseph has big dreams for the future and with his determination nothing would be able to stand in his way!’ [author’s emphasis] sponsors/enablers the term ‘sponsor’ has been derived from the work on literacy narratives by barton and hamilton (2000). these authors use the term with regard to people who have contributed towards the literacy development of the storyteller or narrator. in the present article, the thematic label ‘sponsors’ is used to refer to people who had played significant roles in the career development of the workers who were interviewed. this theme is populated by the codes manager, father, friends and lives with nuclear family. manager and father converge on the theme informal apprenticeship. through the encouragement, motivation and benevolence of fathers and managers, and in one instance friends, the worker learnt either new trades or managerial skills on site through observing others, informal instruction and being entrusted with more responsibilities. it is surprising that fathers would have had such a strong formative influence on their sons, particularly in light of the dominant discourse of absent fathers in black communities. one student group wrote about a construction worker who had improved himself to the level of a site manager: ‘his dad was a great master not only as a father but also as an educator in the building trade’. another group relate the story of tsietsi, who was born in the limpopo province and ‘spent his young life attending middle school and working for his father as a mechanic’. in yet another narrative, the group sings piet’s praises and almost exaggerates his father’s contribution to his career: ‘all the knowledge and experience he gained was contributed by his father’s experience in the construction industry’. this may reveal a tendency that aptitudes, skills and interests are passed on from one generation to the next. in five narratives (three written by predominantly black groups and two by predominantly white groups), the students emphasise the benevolence, foresight and facilitating role of managers, which served as catalysts in the careers of the construction workers – often after they had entered the industry through the inspiration of their fathers. this holds true for tsietsi’s career story, where ‘the second big influence is his manager at [d]elta who sent him on the training course’, and then later ‘last but not least his current boss [has] a massive influence, and aspires [sic] him to greater heights’. a discourse that still dominates in many communities is that black workers are treated poorly by white managers. for example, on 24 december 2013, vincent masoga, national media officer of satawu (the south african transport and allied workers’ union), writes: ‘workers, majority black, still remained treated as slaves and undignified minions of repressive white bosses in this democratic dispensation’ (masoga 2013). contrary to this discourse, i found that the narratives construe relationships between white managers and black workers as healthy and cordial and provide ample evidence of workers’ appreciation of the opportunities that their managers afforded them. the word opportunity and its plural occur 12 times in the narratives, mostly in connection with their work under the guidance of a particular manager, for example: ‘gave him an opportunity to do a two month building course known as the epwp’; ‘offered him a job as …’; ‘sent him on a training course’; ‘saw he had a natural talent with excavators and tlbs and took over his contract’; ‘the company that he worked for sent him on to school through an organization called shadayim’; ‘he was granted the opportunity to come work at a company as the driver’; ‘he dived in head on in his first and current employer mr venter. it was a huge risk for mr venter to entrust [sic] an unskilled worker with such a responsibility and mr mbuli acknowledged that’. the pertinence of the code living with nuclear family, as a predictor of career success (which includes work–home balance in addition to a steady and sustainable income, recognition and autonomy), was unexpected. for instance, it was surprising to read the following about a zimbabwean worker: ‘growing up in zimbabwe, tinashe dreamed of coming to south african to provide for his family. with a wife and two children living in zimbabwe would not have given them the life they deserved. that is why he and his family moved to south africa. […] compassionately [sic] he spoke of his wife and children and their life here in south africa.’ the fact that four of the essays provide evidence of stable nuclear families constituting a support system for breadwinning workers run counter to the almost universal myth of black men fathering children and then abandoning them and their mother (coles & green 2009). challenges according to ncwadi and dangalazana (2005), the construction industry in south africa is characterised by temporary and insecure employment and poor working conditions, which they largely attribute to conditions created under apartheid. under apartheid laws, such as the group areas act, groups within the construction industry became racially homogenous: the majority of mixed-race people became artisans, while black people were marginalised in terms of education and skills and remained labourers. given the dominant discourse of low wages and unacceptable working conditions in the construction industry, i anticipated that the interviewees without formal qualifications would dwell on the many challenges they had to face. however, contrary to my expectations, structural challenges do not feature prominently in their narratives. although more than half of the interviewees indicated that they had not completed school, they are not construed as laying blame on any person or institution. compare, for instance, phrases such as ‘circumstances forced him to make decisions in order to provide for his family’; ‘he attended three schools in his early days but he did not complete his schooling career’; ‘life became so expensive and it was difficult for me to continue with my studies’ (direct quote from the interview). this focus on the outcome rather than its causes may be ascribed to the workers’ assessment of what is appropriate to convey in an interview with young strangers from the middle class or it may be a construal of the students’ subconscious guilt about their own positions of privilege. other challenges mentioned by the black workers include unstable childhood, hard physical labour, inadequate remuneration and struggle to find employment. the mentioning of these challenges is usually followed by a description of how the particular barrier was overcome through the agency of the interviewee, which is the next theme to be discussed. agency the theme agency functions as an effect of the causal themes personal characteristics and sponsors/enablers, whereas challenges stand in a functional relationship of ‘despite x, y occurred’. the theme agency is constituted by two codes: overcoming challenges and seizing opportunities. one of the stories about overcoming challenges is that of johnson, who lives in mpumalanga with his wife and two daughters (his two sons are already employed). he commutes between mpumalanga and pretoria on a daily basis, using the putco bus service (the cheapest bus service available in major cities and towns in south africa, used exclusively by black people from the working class). about this sacrifice, the students wrote: ‘he has no problem balancing his daily work with his influence as a father at his house, since he loves being in charge at site and at home’. piet matipa, another worker who has managed to progress from general construction worker to foreman, finds his new position challenging, but is portrayed as in command and capable of solving all problems at hand: ‘it is his first time working as the only foreman on site. he seems to be managing well and occasionally gets called by his subordinates as they need his help’. a precursor of agency is a conscious or unconscious decision to take responsibility for your own life and desiring to change your circumstances volitionally. such changes are often the result of seizing opportunities. as mentioned earlier, the word ‘opportunity’ occurs frequently in the narratives. in the majority of instances, the sponsor is the worker’s line manager or father. it seems natural for a father to pass his trade on to his son. the themes informal apprenticeship and agency are bi-directionally related. having acquired skills through an apprenticeship builds self-confidence, which leads to agency. agency, on the other hand, could make an informal apprenticeship successful through willingness to learn from experienced others. i assigned the code seizing opportunities 14 times – whenever the text provided clear evidence of volition on the part of the construction worker; for instance, when a noun or pronoun referring to the worker as the subject of an active sentence. the pronoun is usually combined with an action verb, such as in ‘he began his journey as a stock manager in the year 2002 with no prior skills or knowledge of the task. he dived in head on in his job […]’; and ‘at age 20 he applied for a job at delta mechanics’. the use of direct quotes strengthens the agentive focus, as in ‘i saw an opportunity in scaffolding, because everyone was scared of it. i am a person who is not scared of challenges’. summary of the narrative findings pavlenko (2007:167) advises narrative researchers ‘[t]o provide analysis that goes beyond a list-making activity’ and to adopt a specific theoretical framework that allows clarification of the nature of the conceptual categories as well as clarify the links between themes. i offer figure 1 as a schematic representation of the grounded theory that precipitated from the analysis of the student narratives. figure 1: codes, themes and relationships on worker identities emerging from the data. the schematised results of the content analysis point to agency as the primary determinant of career success in the lives of construction workers. agency, in turn, is catalysed by three main factors: personal characteristics, sponsors and informal apprenticeships, provided to them by some of the sponsors. on the other hand, agency may be potentially inhibited by challenges, if they are not resisted or managed. contrary to my expectations, i observed no marked differences between the narratives of groups comprising predominantly white or black students. the themes that precipitated occurred across the narratives written by different cultural groups. i now turn to what students perceived to have learnt through the interviewing and writing of the narratives. analysis of students’ critical reflections critical reflection occupies a central place in models aimed at improving intercultural understanding and in consciousness-raising practices (freire 1970). it also gives learners a sense of ownership over meaning making (norton 2010). the student groups comprising the sample in the study had to conclude their essays by means of a critical reflection on how their views of construction workers have changed as a result of the interviewing and writing of the third-person career narratives. two themes feature prominently in the students’ reflections. the first is circumstances do not determine career success. the following quotes instantiate this theme: ‘this tells us that the challenges that we are facing now does [sic] not define our future success.’ ‘thabo is a great example of someone who rose above their circumstances and made life better for themselves and their families.’ ‘coming from a disadvantaged background should not be your limitation.’ ‘our interview with samson taught us that you don’t always have to have the highest qualifications to be happy and enjoy your job.’ from a social literacies perspective (gee 1996; street 1995; new london group 1996), it can be asserted that students arrived at an understanding that literacy is not a prerequisite for social mobility and progress and that ‘literacy practices specific to the political and ideological context and their consequences vary situationally’ (street 1995:24). the second theme that emerged from students’ reflections on what they had learnt is that diligence and work ethics are the most important determinants of career success. instantiations of this theme include the following: ‘there is [sic] no shortcuts to success.’ ‘he [samuel motupi] teaches us that the only road to success is hard, hard, hard work.’ ‘piet teaches us that with hard work and determination we can succeed in this field.’ ‘what truly matters is the unquenchable thirst for knowledge and hard work to build your dreams into reality.’ ‘it is important to always stay professional especially in the built environment, and be clinical [sic] in everything you do.’ thus, in general, the students regarded personal dispositions (work ethics) and diligence as determinants of success. when comparing the students’ reflections with the findings from the qualitative content analysis, important overlaps could be observed. however, i realised that i had overlooked the outcome of satisfying work endeavours: success, which was then added to the theoretical model, as indicated by figure 2. figure 2: addition of ‘career success’ to the theoretical model on worker identities derived from the analyses of the student narratives. conclusion conclusions may be drawn regarding the effectiveness of the pedagogy of narrative analysis as well as the results of analysing the student narratives and the students’ reflections on the process of narrative knowledging. regarding the pedagogy of narrative re-storying, evidence was provided that the learning experience engaged students in a critique of knowledge production and assisted them to (re)negotiate their own identities in relation to others in the building industry. secondly, the researcher’s analyses of the student narratives indicated that agency is the most important predictor of success for construction workers. agency, in turn, is driven by personal characteristics and the roles that significant others have played in offering opportunities, such as informal apprenticeships. however, agency may be constrained by challenges that are either not resisted or not managed. this is indeed a positive finding, which powerfully negates the stereotype of black south african workers as an ignorant majority that lacks the personal dispositions to get ahead in life, as well as the self-awareness to assess gaps in their knowledge, skills and abilities and seek to improve themselves accordingly. what all students of construction economics may take from these results is the importance of identifying and developing employees’ personal strengths and providing them with opportunities, both formal and informal, for career advancement. on the other hand, future managers should be sensitised to the common barriers to career success and job satisfaction. where possible, the barriers or the potential causes of harm should be removed; and where the effects have already occurred, they should be managed and mitigated. finally, the analysis of students’ critical reflections on what they had learned and how their perceptions of workers had changed demonstrates a realisation that successful workers are driven by an internal locus of control and are not derailed by adverse circumstances. contrary to common stereotypical beliefs about black workers, the majority of the interviewed workers were self-reflective individuals who overtly ascribed success to work ethics. one (white) student acknowledged that before given this assignment he had thought that black economic empowerment was one of the worst nightmares to face him as a construction manager. before embarking on the interview assignment, he was convinced that workers’ laziness and lack of ambition were the major stumbling blocks in running a profitable construction business. a limitation of the research was the duration of the academic literacy module (one semester), which did not allow me to probe whether students’ transformed perceptions translated into transformed practice. a further limitation is linked to the research design. when researchers (in this case the students) restory others’ narratives, they are imposing meaning on these persons’ lived experience. bell (2002:210) cautions that the effects of such ‘imposed restorying’ can be powerful. future research should involve triangulation, for example, by administering attitude surveys preceding and following interviews with workers and retelling their career stories. this methodology would facilitate a more accurate picture of the changes that have occurred in students’ critical multicultural awareness as a result of their interaction with workers and their critical reflection on their own reconstructed narratives. on the pedagogical side, in order to deliver well-rounded graduates to the construction industry, multiple opportunities should be created in the curricula for modules focused on the acquisition of ‘ hard’ as well as ‘soft’ skills. a method to teach diversity skills, which has been applied successfully in other subject-specific academic literacy modules, is to engage students in the reading of and reflecting on oral, written or multimodally presented personal career narratives by professionals from different cultural, gender and age groups. acknowledgement the contribution of ms linda-anne alston in planning the narrative assignment and providing feedback on the interview questions as well as the first draft of the article is duly acknowledged. competing interest the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. references ahn, y.h., annie, r.p. & kwon, h., 2012, ‘key competencies for us construction graduates: industry perspective’, journal for professional issues in engineering education and practice 138(2), 123–130. http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(asce)ei.1943-5541.0000089 barkhuizen, g., 2013, ‘introduction: narrative research in applied linguistic’, in g. barkhuizen (ed.), narrative research in applied linguistics, pp. 1–16, cambridge university press, cambridge. barton, d. & hamilton, m., 2000, ‘literacy practices’, in d. barton, m. hamilton & r. ivanic (eds.), situated literacies: reading and writing in context, pp. 7–15, routledge, london. bell, j.s., 2002, ‘narrative inquiry: more than just telling stories’, tesol quarterly 36(2), 207–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3588331 bilbo, d., fetters, t., burt, r. & avant, j., 2000, ‘a study of the supply and demand for construction education graduates’, journal of construction education 4(1), 54–65. boje, d.m., 1991, ‘the storytelling organization: a study of story performance in an office-supply firm’, administrative science quarterly 36(1), 106–126. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2393432 boyle-baise, m. 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on the growing importance of soft skills in the construction industry’, university of pretoria, 16 march. wilson, e., 2013, construction needs soft skills in a tough culture, viewed 28 august 2016, from http://www.constructionmanagermagazine.com/management/construction-undermining-foundations-leadership-de/ microsoft word 02 20160202 murray & wolff mobiles fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(3) december 2015, pp. 171-185. a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions in low-income households – mobile phones for improved managed health care as test case m murray1 and e wolff2 abstract in this article the authors, a philosopher and a social development practitioner, formulate recommendations for responsible planning of technical interventions in health care relations under circumstances of uncertainty and moral risk. it is proposed that the hermeneutic approach followed in this article could serve as a heuristic guide to research and development teams in the planning phase of similar projects to proceed in a responsible manner. the introduction of mobile phone technology by a managed health care service provider to clients from a low-income south african context is used as a test case to illustrate the value of the proposed heuristic approach. the strength of this approach is situated in its coordination of general anthropological considerations, with interpretative attention to particularities. the test case is a relevant to the problem since it cannot be assumed that the same habitus of acquaintance with the mobile phone apparatus has been formed in the low-income south african context as in contexts or societies where people have been using telephones for decades. key words: managed health care; responsibility; technical intervention; mobile phones; communication in rural health care; heuristics; hermeneutics disciplines: development studies, philosophy, medicine, ict studies, organization studies. 1. introduction in the south african context, where the current study is situated, the term managed health care is commonly used to refer to the range of techniques intended to reduce the cost of providing health benefits while simultaneously improving the quality of care rendered (adapted from ncbi). according to chabikuli et al (2008) three key role players are involved in the production of managed health care services: the patient and his/her family (first party), the health care provider (second party, e.g. a doctor) and the medical insurance and/or medical aid administrator (third party). ideally, managed care seeks to define the roles and duties of each party in such a way that health care cost escalation is contained and benefits of the services to the patient optimised. in june 2005 a managed health care organisation (mhco), enablemed, approached the nova institute to form an alliance to jointly embark on a programme to improve health care to their clients, in particular to extend their offering of services to people of an income 1 . montagu murray is a programme manager at the nova institute (http://www.nova.org.za). email: montagumurray@nova.org.za. 2 . ernst wolff is professor in the department of philosophy, university of pretoria. email: ernst.wolff@up.ac.za. murray & wolff 172 bracket that would normally fall below the minimum requirements for managed health care. nova studies quality of life in low-income households in southern africa, typically the milieu from which most of enablemed’s existing and prospective clients derive.3 from the outset the parties agreed that good communication and personal relationships between the three managed health care role players would be essential guiding criteria for the project. when the idea gradually emerged that mobile phone technology as means of communication could possibly be employed to improve the health benefits of clients, these shared values lead to at least two decisions: i) the ethical pitfalls of a one-sided technocratic implementation of mobile technology had to be avoided, and ii) the introduction of mobile technology to facilitate communication between the key role players had to be designed to complement rather than substitute human interaction. 2. problem statement the above decisions to guard against a one-sided technocratic attitude and to regard the human being as an agent in the application of technical means have implications for the problem at hand. it means that the research and development team has to orientate itself to the possible ethical and sense making (hermeneutical) implications of its innovation process on the people concerned. the particular nature of the challenges involved in initiating such a project can be highlighted by situating the preparation of the project within the phased approach to r&d and implementation used at the nova institute. two elements of this diagram should retain our attention. first, in the initial phases of innovation, r&d plays an important role in guiding the entire project; second, even when full scale implementation is reached, r&d does not end, since it accompanies the implementation process critically. it is this task of preparation and reflecting accompaniment 3 funding for this project was attained through the thrip programme in collaboration with the university of pretoria. a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 171-185. 173 of the innovation process that is our object of concern in this article. applied to our case study, the following four factors of this innovation process should at least be taken into consideration – it would entail i. intervening in the efficient and cost effective rendering of services by the mhco, ii. intervening in the household milieu of the clients by activating the new mobile phone technologies within the intimacy of health related issues, thus iii. linking the household with the medical service and medical financing industry in previously unknown manners, and iv. that all of these take place in a context where not only the cultural background of the inventors of the technical artefact and the communicational system differ from that of the clients, but also where the clients show enormous cultural difference amongst themselves. the aim of this article is to critically document and systematise the authors’ subsequent research on the means by which to prepare and launch responsible work on such a problem. for the purposes of this reflection we define responsibility as (i) the concern to act (ii) by using the best knowledge available, under circumstances of uncertainty concerning the possible consequences of actions (iii) enforcing it with a heuristics directed at the future, (iv) in order to be able to justify to all relevant parties that the necessary has been done in the early phases of a project to avoid likely negative consequences (derived from jonas 1979:61-68). we would thus consider an approach to the described task to be responsible, when it could be reasonably argued that its future applications are likely to have a beneficial impact on all the key managed health care role players with their respective (and even contradictory) interests. since the development of this kind of project is expensive and time consuming, and since it contains a high level of risk of negative impact on the people concerned, the importance of the preparatory phase of the project is considerably increased. hence the problem to be reflected on in this article: how could a research and development team that prepares such a project that evidently aims at design specification(s) of a new product or service, simultaneously orientate themselves to the possible ethical and hermeneutical risks of their innovations on the people concerned? while answering this question we shall show what advantages there are in combining the skills of a development specialist and a philosopher in this phase of the project it will not be possible to consider the impact on all role players in this article. our focus will be on how a research and development team can anticipate certain possible negative consequences of the introduction of new technologies on the living standard of their potential beneficiaries. our notion is that the hermeneutic framework presented in this article could help to guide a research and development team in the early phases of a project to anticipate some ethical pitfalls and thus to demonstrate greater responsibility when introducing new technologies to lowincome households. as background to the hermeneutic theory we need to briefly comment on the roles and duties of key role players in managed health care (§3). this is followed by a brief presentation of the results of a study in a rural south african area (typical of where enablemed’s clients stem from) regarding the availability and usage patterns of mobile phones – and an indication of the socio-cultural significance of these findings (§4). we then present the hermeneutic framework we believe could be of help as a heuristic component of a responsible research and development process. we also illustrate how this framework may be applied, by taking mobile telephony as an example (§5). in conclusion a few suggestions are made on how the murray & wolff 174 interpretative strength of this framework could be made productive for a r&d project, like the one presented in our case study (§6). 3. roles and duties of the managed health care role players the mhco has the task to assist in mediating a fair transaction between the patient and health care service providers. economically speaking this means that the mhco wants to keep the trust of the patient (buyer) and the medical service provider (seller) by brokering a fair transaction. by doing so, value could be added for both the buyer and the seller. the mhco has the best opportunity to mediate a fair transaction when the client has access to the maximum benefits which he/she uses sensibly and the seller makes a good profit discreetly. the mhco wants to accomplish this by delivering a quality service costeffectively. chabikuli et al argued that, of the three key role players in managed care, the health care provider is usually the best informed on medical matters and is therefore at the advantage when deciding on what the appropriate medical treatment should be for a particular episode of illness. this state of affairs could be described as an asymmetry of information (chabikuli et al 2008, p. 66a). chabikuli et al further asserted that the asymmetry of information is critical in creating what is known as moral hazards. one such moral hazard is ‘over-servicing’ that can occur if the health care provider has an incentive to do so. for example, in the fee for service payment method, the more services the health care provider renders the more reimbursement he/she receives. this hazard is complicated by the cost of decisions by the provider e.g. hospitalisation and technological investigations, which generate income to a strong health industry. another moral hazard is ‘under-servicing’ in the case of capitation payment whereby the less a provider spends on the patient the more profit is made. the patient can also request more unnecessary service in a capitated arrangement if no limits are set to the benefits. a good managed care organisation will seek to design contracts and benefits in such a way that moral hazards are kept to a minimum. the negative consequences of such moral hazards could be exacerbated under circumstances of low income. the patient and his or her family can get better benefits at a reduced cost, provided that they keep to the rules of their specific package. these rules could include requirements such as a call for authorisation to the call centre of the mhco before accessing particular medical services, for example before being hospitalised or seeing a specialist. since the role of the doctor is crucial in this regard, one important requirement could be to expect of patients to choose one regular health care provider in their area of residence. previous research undertaken by nova can be used to illustrate the dynamics involved in the relations between different role players in managed health care. in 2005 the managed health care organisation enablemed approached the functional household programme of the nova institute and the university of pretoria to assist with research to determine if their clients are satisfied with their medical aid packages and to get an idea if the clients are informed about their benefits and how to access them. murray (2005) undertook a contentment investigation amongst health plan members under the administration of enablemed at three different sites in south africa: alrode in gauteng, piet retief in mpumalanga and somerset west in the western cape. one of the main findings was that the managed care principle of going to one registered doctor is a source of discontentment amongst members in alrode and piet retief – but not as much in somerset west in the a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 171-185. 175 western cape. murray suggested that further research is necessary to understand this state of affairs and to determine if language and cultural factors played a part, since in both alrode and piet-retief – where the discontent was strongest – all the interviewees where zulu and sotho speaking africans, whereas the majority of the members in somerset were afrikaans speaking “coloureds” (murray 2005:3-8). murray further found that misconceptions, misunderstandings, confusion and suspicion with regard to the aims and functioning of managed care still prevail amongst a substantial number of enablemed’s clients. in 2006 a qualitative enquiry was done to gain deeper insight into the doctor hopping phenomenon observed amid the enablemed clients in the form of key informant interviews and focus group discussions. generally, the participants expressed a greater willingness than in 2005 to adhere to one registered doctor on condition that the doctor is a “good doctor”. the definition of a good doctor as provided by the participants was not based on strict clinical criteria but rather on recent experiences of care under a particular doctor. the typical good doctor was described as a popular, friendly person who does not discriminate, listens seriously to anything presented to him or her and examines you properly. he/she takes the patient’s illness seriously, refers when necessary and gives sick leave that can be used to see a traditional healer (chabikuli et al. 2008). for enablemed as mhco it is important that clients are informed as to what their benefits are and how to access these benefits sensibly. the above investigations brought to the fore that it cannot be assumed that clients from different socio-cultural and economic backgrounds will spontaneously grasp the concept of managed health care and the rules and benefits of their medical aid package. for many of the clients, their packages, as administered by enablemed, are their first medical fund they have ever participated in. enablemed concluded from the results of these investigations that it would be worthwhile to revisit their existing communication system to find enhanced ways of communicating benefits to clients and to enable clients to utilise benefits correctly. the criteria for successful enablement are not only access to information or benefits, but a measurable indication that clients utilise these benefits appropriately. for example, it is not sufficient that clients know that they have to go to one registered doctor if it is evident from the administrator’s call centre records that people do not adhere to this guideline and authorisation for medical treatment has to be declined. the above studies disclosed that the mhco’s clients were not yet sufficiently knowledgeable regarding their benefits and that there was still much to be learnt about the perspective from their particular socio-economic and cultural backgrounds in order to predict their health care seeking behaviour. the preference to adhere or not with one registered doctor is but one example of how people’s socio-cultural background and views influence their health care seeking behaviour. the type of relationship entry level clients have with their registered doctor as well as with the managed health care service provider influences the way in which they communicate with these parties. focused on the question of interventions in the dynamics between managed health care role players, this clearly indicates that if one, then, aims at the responsible introduction of new means of personal communication between the three parties (patient and family, health care provider and medical insurance/medical aid), it would be misguided to assume that clients will automatically adopt new technologies according to the typical usage patterns thereof as prevalent in the milieu of the health care provider and agents of the medial insurance. the application of these technologies is embedded and takes place within an existing socio-cultural actuality. the question thus arises: could mobile phone technology be used to cost effectively facilitate managed health care benefits to murray & wolff 176 clients, without incurring detrimental effects to other aspects of their quality of life? this question has to be answered in two phases: first an indication has to be given of the prevalence and usage patterns of mobile phones in low-income households and of the meaning of this phenomenon (§4); second, given the limited information about user behaviour available, a heuristics has to be developed to form a framework in which user behaviour could be anticipated with sensitivity (§5). 4. socio-cultural significance of mobile phone availability in low-income households in december 2006 murray and tumbo conducted a baseline survey of the health status of 24 low-income communities surrounding the lonmin platinum mine in the limpopo province. apart from questions focussing on the health of respondents a section was also included to gather data regarding the communication means available to households. this information was important in order for enablemed to determine if the utilisation of mobile phone technology as means to facilitate benefits to low-income managed health care clients was a realistic goal. a total of 560 households with 2666 household members were sampled. the availability of means of communication as reported by primary caregivers in the households is summarised in the table below (murray & tumbo 2007:125): table 1: available communication in households communication available frequency percentage radio 444 79.43 tv 337 60.29 telephone 8 1.43 fax 1 0.18 mobile phone 409 73.17 personal computer 5 0.89 internet access 1 0.18 e-mail 3 0.54 mobile phone banking 0 0.00 from the above table (n = 559) it can be deducted that most households have radios (79.43%), cell phones (73.17%) and television sets (60.29%) available as communication mediums. it is remarkable that only 1.43% of households have a telephone while 73.17% of households own a cell phone! this finding is even more thought provoking if one considers that, unlike the television and the radio, the mobile phone is the only to allow two-way communication. only 0.89% of respondents have a personal computer while just 0.18% of respondents have internet access. none of the respondents reported that they have access to mobile phone banking. a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 171-185. 177 respondents further reported that the majority of mobile phone users in their households are over 30 years of age and female. of the caregivers who do own a mobile phone, only 12.64% had no education, while 26.43% had grade 11 to grade 12 schooling. of the caregivers who do not own a mobile phone, 41.94% had no education, while 1.66% had grade 11 to grade 12 schooling or higher. according to the respondents, 34.05% of mobile phone owners make a call at least once a day and 55.38% of mobile phone owners in all the communities receive an incoming call at least once a day. the number of people using the sms function is a little bit smaller, with 36.84% of respondents never sending a sms and 21.36% never receiving a sms. in most of the affluent parts of the world, the land-line telephone has become a standard piece of equipment over the last few decades. it belongs, with the fridge, the radio, the television and others, to the set of regular instruments that typically furnish the habitat of many households in many different cultural contexts. within this context it plays an important role in the enhancement of dialogical and personalised communication. it serves to coordinate activities of individuals and families amongst one another and with the outside world. these phones also fulfil a function in maintaining and cultivating ties with people out of direct reach. furthermore, phones could, especially in emergencies, take a key position to link the household with a broader system of support. of these the link with medical service providers is of central importance for the current study. the households in the above study could be considered part of the enormous wave of newcomers to telephonic services through the rapid spread of mobile phones in the developing world (for worldwide statistics, see itu 2013). two considerations prohibit one from considering these findings as ordinary. on the one hand the fact that an unparalleled spread of the use of mobile phones has arisen in an extremely short space of time without building on a historical precedent of the “normal” fixed household phone. on the other hand this new artefact, apart from being able to take exactly the same position as the former fixed telephone, is also characterised by an immense increase of its technical functionality. these two factors allow us to speak of a revolution concerning this element of the household existence, provided that we understand by a revolution a sudden dramatic change in historical continuity and nature of the system. the revolution in the spread of mobile telephony imposes the demand for an interpretation of the spread of mobile phones other than considering it a mere extension of the former telephone. existing research on the quality-of-life impact of cell phones on their users has not sufficiently taken these conditions, and the uncertainty entailed in them, into consideration (cf. sirgy et al 2007), beside the fact that it has been designed to validate user satisfaction after implementation. 5. a hermeneutic framework for the responsible introduction of mobile technology to low-income households 5.1 the value of hermeneutical insight now that we have commented on the roles and duties of the managed health care role players and explored the profile of the revolution in the spread of mobile telephony in our context of study, the next step is to ask what competency could be gained by the developers of a new communication system for the mhco with regard to the unknown factors of humantechnology interaction in this project. we would like to argue that hermeneutical insight (i.e. insight gained from the general theory of understanding and interpretation) is valuable for murray & wolff 178 the theoretical reflection on the conditions for the responsible application of mobile technology by such a mhco for the following reasons: • all hermeneutic theories are based on the temporality of human existence and their living contexts which imply that it is by its very nature suitable to handle phenomena of change. • a general theory of hermeneutics maintains the inseparable link between technical change and changes on the levels of society and meaning. • the project is about the establishment of a communication system, but communication has been generally argued by hermeneuticists to be much more than the mere transfer of bites of information from a sender to a receiver – it rather involves an array of factors from the living context of the partners in communication. • in a context where the factor of cultural diversity is significant, but where the specifics thereof are largely unknown in the individual case, hermeneutics is capable of providing a general anthropological theory of interpretation that could render the structure according to which the appropriation of technical artefacts would take place. it doesn’t predict the future, but holds the place of what might still come – and this in such a manner that all design and development that is based on it could accommodate changes. • the hermeneutic approach to technology and technical change doesn’t take its point of departure in a positive or negative evaluation of technics. in this regard it could in a sense be considered as a pre-normative interpretational activity concentrating on positive as well as of negative implications of technical change. • hermeneutics is suitable to provide an interpretational framework for the artefactual and the communicative aspect of the mobile phone at the same time. • hermeneutics is a practical philosophy – it takes the living human being (as individual and as member of society) and his/her understanding interaction with the world as the source of everything that is meaningful. furthermore, since it centres in the capabilities of the human being – the “i can”. as such it has proven to be easily compatible with the normative model of nova’s functional households programme, in which the functioning human being is central. • for this reason, a hermeneutics of technical change is valuable since it is able to function in a heuristic manner in the preparatory reflection that precedes the normative evaluation of the possible effects of the application of mobile telephony on the quality of life of the households. as a framework by means of which the effects of the project’s interventions could be anticipated, it plays a major role in sensitising the managed health care administrator to possible impact scenarios on the efficiency of the product that is being developed, as well as on the quality of life of the people involved. 5.2 overview of a general hermeneutics of technical change guiding our interpretation of technical change is a broad understanding of basic anthropological developments: the human being, apart from being a biological entity, is historically constituted by at least three changing aspects and their changing interaction, namely the social aspect, the aspect of meaning and the technical aspect (this perspective is inspired by leroi-gourhan 1993). in undertaking to formulate a theory of the human experience of technical change (as has been done in more detail by wolff 2012, and presented in outline here), one is obliged to take into account how the other constitutive aspects of the a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 171-185. 179 human being are changed at the same time and how they bear influence on the reception (or rejection) of new forms of technology. the technical aspect of the human being could be considered to be constituted by three elements that constantly depend on one another: (i) the human being that participates in the technical system by means of a socially and individually acquired technical disposition (habitus), (ii) the systems of means (tools, forms of energy, procedures, institutions, etc.) and (iii) the interaction between the technical agent and the system in order to have some potential of the system and of the agent realised. these three aspects of human technicity change over time because of easily identifiable interventions, for instance skill acquisition, the breakdown or modification of the system, ageing of the agent, etc. however, they continually constitute what could be called a technical figuration. the three-fold technical figuration undergoes change in very much the same way as the change in narrative figuration analysed by ricoeur (see especially ricoeur 1983:105169). according to him, the event of understanding a narrative presupposes a narrative disposition (or prefiguration), it needs a told or written narrative (that is the configuration) and, in the process of listening to or reading the narrative, one understands it while at the same time a world of self-interpretation of the reader/listener in response to the text is opened (which entails a refiguration of the initial prefiguration). in what follows, the textual and narrative hermeneutics of ricoeur in its threefold structure will be adopted and adapted for the interaction between human beings and a changing technical environment. it should thus be clear that we adopt here a general anthropological perspective on the hermeneutic engagement of human beings and their technical environment (this perspective exceeds but encompasses the “hermeneutic technological relation” of agents to technical objects as presented by ihde especially 1979:11-13 and 1990:80-97). (i) prefiguration habitus it is only on the basis of an implicit pre-understanding of action that one is capable of having any understanding at all of narrations on actions. in very much the same way as life is structured in an implicit narrative manner, it is also structured in an implicit technical manner. this implicit technicity of human existence – or the technical second nature – is the technical habitus. the habitus is the set of changing and interrelated capabilities that are sedimented in the human body (cf. mauss [1934]1950 and bourdieu 1980 in particular 8889). the process by which such capabilities become embodied and individualised starts in early childhood and continues (although at a decreasing rate) until death; it is the cumulative result of the individual’s exposure to and appropriation of culturally specific forms of societal learning. thus is shaped the bodily, pre-reflective mode of existence that merleau-ponty called “i can” (merleau-ponty 1945:160). more than a mere agglomeration of bodily knowhow’s, the “i can” that is formed to a habitus is the way in which an individual is acquainted with the world. very often this acquaintance does not constitute an arrangement of representations; in fact, it is rather a non-consciousness-centred, lived through familiarity with the world. (ii) configuration – autonomy of technical means technical means form an interrelated system that is characterised by autonomy in very much the same way as is the case with texts. the technical means are autonomous in the sense that they have an existence (1) independent from the intention of its inventor or fabricant, (2) always independent from the socio-cultural conditions in which it has been produced, at least murray & wolff 180 in principle, and (3) independent from the intended user(s) (cf. ricoeur 1986:207ff). in short, technical autonomy is the fact of the de-contextualisation of which technical means are capable (cf. wolff 2006:34-37). of course, the de-contextualised technical means have the potential to be transferred and to be re-contextualised by a user in a new set of circumstances – just like a reader does with a text that is sent to him/her. but again, just like the text is at the mercy of the reader’s capability to make sense of it, so the technical means is at the mercy of the technical agent who will interpret what that technical means is for and thus re-contextualise it. the autonomy or de-contextualisation of a technical means is suspended when that means is (re)inserted into a context of a project, in other words when the technical means serves to do this or that (see point iii below). the “what it is for” of the technical means transfers in the autonomous technical means the possibility of doing something. it is as if the means contains an invitation to whoever will use it, to use it in a certain way or for a certain purpose. on the one hand, this remains only an invitation or a proposition of how to take benefit of the technical means; as stated, the event of re-contextualisation is at the mercy of the user of the technical means. the new user can use the technical means in a way that is worse or better for the purposes intended by the producer, or for different purposes altogether. on the other hand, it would be an error to think that the user has all the say in the practical meaning of the technical means. on the contrary, the very technical qualities of the means facilitate some actions and at the same time makes others more difficult. the event of suspending the autonomy of the technical means will thus be a confrontation of whatever the designer of the means invested in the means, but also the agility, inventiveness and cultural formation of the technical agent. though it is easy to follow the analysis above by imagining different kinds of tools and instruments, one should not forget that it actually describes the entire technical system that enjoys such a form of autonomy with which a particular socially situated individual could engage. this remark is of no slight importance, since it has been pointed out that the very use of technical means will be a confrontation between the technical means and the agent. what is at stake is the quality of this confrontation and thus, by extension, the kind of contribution that a set of technical means make to the quality of life of a particular person. thus we need to go into further detail with this matter. (iii) refiguration – confrontation of the agent with the technical means in the same way that the autonomy of technical means could be compared to the autonomy of a text, one could compare the engagement of the technical agent with the technical means as a kind of reading. technical “reading” is the event of interplay between the prefigured technical habitus of the agent and the configured technical system. when the “i can” of the agent interacts with the facilitating technical qualities of the means, this gives rise to a (re)actualisation of the means, with the purpose of doing something. something is used as something, for a purpose – thus could be summarised the lesson already learned from heidegger (see heidegger [1927]1993, chapters 3&5 and in particular §32), namely that technical action is an understanding mode of existence. when using something as this or that, a world of possibilities is opened. we call it the world of the technical means. however, it is at the very same instant a world of possibilities of the technical agent. thus, in very practical terms, the agent interprets himself/herself as agent in the use of the means. furthermore, not only does the technical agent discover his/her own capabilities, but the technical second nature or habitus is changed in the process. a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 171-185. 181 when considering the confrontation of the agent with the technical means, all three aspects of human technicity (habitus, technical system and understanding interaction) thus enter into consideration. furthermore, the aspects of human-hood, thus far left out of consideration (the social and the meaningful), necessarily impose themselves on the analysis. this becomes apparent when it is considered that one doesn’t read alone (cf. ricoeur 1970:7). reading is never solitary, since it is an acquired skill, not only of deciphering signs, but also of placing them within a horizon of socially construed meaning. the same holds for technical know-how: nobody exploits the technical possibilities of objects alone since one’s very body holds in stock (amongst others) a socially or culturally acquired set of capabilities and the very end to which an object is used is stamped by socially informed meaning. note that the idea of social determinism is rejected, but with it also the notion of the absolutely free, self-sufficient, individual subject. the use of technical means situates that means within a context of use or a project. but this very project is an excellent vantage point from which to see that the technical understanding of technical events remain only a partial perspective; when human technicity is considered purely technically, it is not fully understood. one could, in fact, distinguish three different references or understandings of technicity: • the technical reference, i.e. the internal reference of the constituting parts or elements of a technical mean to one another by means of their technical qualities • the usage reference, i.e. the reference opened by the usage of a means within the context of a project, in other words the practical interpretation of something as a this or that, for this or that • the symbolic reference, i.e. the reference beyond the technical qualities or usage to socio-cultural values or ideas, such as fashion, quality, luxury, etc. and that depends on the manner in which the (personal, cultural, technical) history and context of technical events informs the use of technical means. 5.3 contours for the interpretation of mobile telephony within this framework of the hermeneutics of changing technical interaction, the mobile phone should be explored as a particular example. as a revolutionary new aspect of the household it should against this background be considered from a three-fold perspective that will take into account its technical axis, socially informed usage axis and symbolic-historical axis. these three axes that are in many regards intertwined correspond with the three-fold reference of all technicity, and with the three aspects of humans: technicity, sociality and meaning. these axes are the temporal trajectory that the changes of the three named sets of references undergo, both with regard to their constituting elements and their usage. practically this means that the mhco should consider all three of these aspects before implementing mobile applications to facilitate benefits to households: i. technical axis: the use of the mobile phone is made possible by ‘upstream’ requirements and opens towards ‘downstream’ implications or possibilities. between the upstream and downstream is the mobile phone as artefact. together these elements constitute the technical system of mobile telephony and constitute the first axis of its interpretation – the technical axis. this axis has to be analysed (1) from the perspective of the mobile phone itself (its internal functionalities and the way in which these functionalities operate in relation to the external usage network) and (2) as it fits into a broader technical, social and symbolic world of the user. all kinds of murray & wolff 182 questions concerning the requirements for and capabilities to use mobile phones enter into play. to name only two relevant examples applicable for enblemed’s consideration: some clients may have sub-standard or aged mobile phones which places limitations on the type of messages that can be sent to these members and in some areas households might not have a reliable signal or network connection. ii. usage axis: the technical artefact takes on a meaning within a usage network or practical context. this means that the entire technical axis is subjected to what a particular individual does in each step of its technical possibilities, within a particular historical situation – this is the usage axis of the interpretation of technics. (in our case this concerns individuals from low-income sectors of society that will use their mobile phones for medical services provided by enablemed.) it is a mobile phone only in as far as it is used, i.e. embedded within a context of actions, within a project. it is the concern, the “in order to…” that determines what the mobile phone is. the impact of the mobile phone to access benefits and as such contribute to improved quality of life can be established only if the usage (and not only the artefact) of the mobile phone is taken into account. in other words, this perspective on the usage of mobile phones enables the researcher to advance from the mere technical possibilities of mobile telephony to the question of the manner in which particular users are enabled or disabled to act or live in certain ways by the use they make of the aspect of the mobile phone system at their disposal. the entire range of socially acquired tendencies of action or action adopted under social pressure also enters into consideration here. practically for enablemed it implies that it is significant to understand if and how an illiterate mother reacts to an sms reminder to take chronic medication. not only the cost and technical axis as described above will contribute to the decision the mhco makes to send either an sms or a voice clip, but also the capabilities of this mother and her family such as their language ability and literacy level. iii. symbolic-historical axis: the entire complex of human technicity (habitus, technical system and technical usage) changes over time. this means that not only do the technical axis and usage axis of mobile telephony change, but it changes within a broader context of the changes of the entire technical system, that is in turn integrated into the larger complex of the symbolic and the social figurations that constitute human existence. from a particular position within this context, every particular agent, as member of a social figuration, derives (implicit or explicit) meaning of particular interactions with particular technical artefacts, in this case the mobile phone – this constitutes the symbolic-historical axis for the interpretation of the mobile phone. this axis opens up a perspective to the historically and culturally contingent horizon within which the usage of the technical qualities of the mobile phone will be a meaningful event in the life of the user. in order to analyse this axis, careful attention has to be given to the manner in which the artefact and its usage becomes incorporated in the sphere of symbols – in our case, the usage of mobile phones in the context of medical service provision, with all the ideas concerning gender, social status, intimacy, privacy, shame, social prejudice and the like that may be attached to it. practically this could mean that it would be in some instances better for the mhco to make a personal call to a client rather than sending a sms, for example when a chronic patient is informed of his or her condition for the first time. the complexity of the mobile phone as technical artefact is, however, considerably augmented by the fact that it is a means of communication. not only is it subject to be a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 171-185. 183 interpreted as technical artefact, but most often it will serve to transmit messages. these may be textual, auditive, image or cinematographic. in all of these variants of transmissions, the user may be sender or receiver of messages. these two facts require a sharp vigilance from the researcher concerning the interplay of different layers of signification and agency – the active user of the mobile phone may, for instance, be passively subjected to a message which he/she actively inserts into a meaningful context. 6. conclusion: recommendations for future application the above hermeneutics of technical change and its application on the mobile phone provides the broad framework for understanding and situating present and future changes that may impact on the nature and evaluation of the use of mobile phones by the mhco’s clients, as in the case of enablemed’s relation with low-income, entry-level clients. the framework is designed to make a contribution to the preparation (1) for the development of a practical and effective communication system, but also (2) for the evaluation of the technical changes involved in this project with regard to its users’ quality of life. on the practical side, this framework points out factors that would constitute and influence the proposed mobile phone usage; it presented a theory of the process by which newly transferred technologies are interpretatively accommodated into the life-world of new users. in turn, the number of known, or probable hypothetical, permutations of the prefiguration of the clients (for instance the phenomenon of doctor hopping or the problem of illiteracy) should be confronted with the proposed changes in the figuration (communication system that may for instance require stability with regard to the choice of doctor and propose the usage of sms’s) in order to establish if it could likely be expected to have the required results (good communication as determined by the task giver, enablemed in the example we used here). in the process questions should be asked concerning the possible need for supplementary interventions (for instance training of users) in order to form a habitus that would enable the users (both employees of the mhco and its clients) to take full advantage of the communication system, to see what practical obstacles (technical, social or symbolic) may arise during usage, and to adapt the project accordingly. if, during the later phases of implementation, deficiencies occur in the product or its usage, the hermeneutic framework could then be deployed as a guide for troubleshooting. furthermore, the framework forms the basis of any research tool that will be developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the product. on the normative side, this hermeneutic approach provides a guide for the first brainstorming that is necessary to pre-empt possible detrimental effects of the technical innovation and intervention that the project entails on the quality of life of the end-users. it should be noted that this implies a prior commitment to responsible innovation, which entails understanding the technical and social implications of a particular innovation, but also making a conscious decision that the best available measurement tools will be employed to measure the impact of a newly designed product or service on the clients that employ these means. furthermore, the analysis of the embeddedness of the technical means within its setting of society and meaning helps to cultivate a vigilance for possible practical difficulties (like culturally distinct perspectives on health treatment) and possible ethical mistakes (like the one-sided imposition of new usage patterns by a mhco). in short, the hermeneutic analysis brings a competence in the inbuilt uncertainties of the project that allows the mhco (or any organisation faced with similar circumstances) to act in a more responsible manner when introducing mobile (or other technological) applications for the facilitation of managed health care benefits. murray & wolff 184 employment of this hermeneutic framework would imply sensitivity for the fact that, in a context that has witnessed a sudden and dramatic rise in the use of mobile phones, it cannot be assumed that people have formed a habitus of acquaintance with this apparatus in the same way as in contexts or societies where people have been using telephones for decades (without any value judgement implied) and where, furthermore, their usage of telephony is embedded in an entirely different socio-technical environment. the audio and visual functions of the mobile phone create new possibilities for the mhco to communicate, for instance, with illiterate people. it could also facilitate new opportunities for communication with people that are otherwise badly integrated into the existing technical system of communication, such as the limpopo communities in the case study under consideration. these possibilities could best be utilized if the existing prefiguration of people in these communities (as sociological generalisation) is recognized and the particular patterns of usage and symbolic-historical horizon in which they give meaning to it are taken into account. the criteria for the successful implementation of new communication technologies should therefore not be measured exclusively in terms of the availability of products and services, but at least also in terms of the number of clients that actively employ these technologies to capitalise on their benefits. on the side of the mhco, this would require openness to the diversity of their clients and recognition of differences. whereas the implementation of new technologies for communication will require adaptation from the part of the clients, the mhco could reciprocate by e.g. adopting a code of conduct that would allow for negotiation concerning these patterns of communication with the clients. failure to take these considerations seriously would mean running the risk of managed health care forming a dominating interpretational force that accompanies the recontextualisation of the autonomous technical artefact. this could happen if the product is enforced or available to people by means of packaged services that imply predetermined usage patterns that were modelled on social and symbolic presuppositions that do not fit theirs or that enforce existing social injustices (selinger’s study on the social effects of the grameen bank’s “village phone project” in bangladesh [selinger 2008] illustrates this point). similarly, failure in the responsible introduction of new usage of technology could take place if the necessary social accompaniment for the refiguration of the people’s prefiguration is not realised in such a way that it serves to re-contextualise this technical means to actualise the benefits intended. responsible introduction of mobile technology by a mhco such as enablemed – this has been our argument – consists of combining (1) available information regarding mobile phone availability and usage patterns amongst clients and (2) the development of technologies of interaction between service provider and client, (3) with a heuristics provided by a hermeneutics of technical change. this type of approach is of particular importance for a mhco to support its commitment to the improvement of the quality of life of the clients from low-income contexts with multiple factors of uncertainty. the introduction of mobile phones to low income households will have the best chance of being “enabling” if the mhco takes responsibility to avoid the ethical pitfalls of a one-sided technocratic implementation of this technology. our notion is that the hermeneutic framework as presented can be of help to managed care administrators in this regard. 6. references bourdieu, p. 1980. le sens pratique. n.p.: minuit. a hermeneutic framework for responsible technical interventions td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 171-185. 185 chabikuli, n., murray, m., fehrsen, s.g. and hugo, j.f. 2008. choosing, changing or adhering to a registered doctor in a managed care plan: what will it take? a qualitative survey in rural mpumalanga, south africa. south african family practice, 50 (4), 66– 66d. heidegger, m. 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instead, it is a product of socialisation which becomes excessive with violent abuses of the outgroup immigrants where such conduct is institutionalised through state apparatus. in this context, post-apartheid south africanisms cannot be generalised as intrinsically xenophobic because the dreadful societal attitudes and violent abuses are evidently products of institutionalized governance for socialization of public perceptions of hostilities and animosities through the politics and struggles of politico-socio-economic resources. the coinage and officialdom of rainbowism was admission that construction of a new national identity around culture was a virtual impossibility; and, the result was usurpation of exclusionary citizenship that came to define insiders away from outsiders. this notion of citizenship promised access to state and pubic resources, which did not materialise, leading to frustration against government and targeting of out-group african immigrants. hence, the apparent “felt” collective threat among in-group communities against out-group immigrants over the untenable alibi of job and women stealing as well as acceptance of below minimum wages are inherently functions of irrational jealousy. this article frames this argument through a rigorous examination of the theorisation of xenophobia as “new racism”, models of governance of xenophobic societal attitudes for public hostilities, animosities and violent abuse. furthermore, it examines constructions of new south africanism, african renaissance, exclusionary citizenship, exceptionalism, differentness and the society’s frustration with politico-socio-economic resources exclusionism amidst constitutional inclusivity, tolerance, cultural pluralism, inviolate human rights and the political elitism’s hyperbolic public stunts of a better life for all. keywords: xenophobia, governance, public perceptions, societal attitudes, exclusionary citizenship, collective threat, exceptionalism; south africanism introduction in their article on racialization of the african immigrants in post-apartheid south africa, adjai & lazaridis (2013) frame xenophobia as the “new racism”. their contention is that the modeling of racism along colour divides “as a single overarching factor shaping racial and ethnic relations” is inadequate and that it has to be conceptualised through “the interplay of 1 . faculty of management & law, university of limpopo, p.o. box 313, fauna park, 0787, south africa, johannes.tsheola@ul.ac.za 2 . department of development planning & management, university of limpopo, p.o. box 313, fauna park, 0787, south africa, millicent.ramoroka@ul.ac.za 3 . department of development planning & management, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, loretta.muzondi@ul.ac.za xenophobic societal attitudes in a “new” south africanism td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 232-246. 133 difference, diversity and cultural pluralism” which are precipitated by the politics and struggle for politico-socio-economic resources (adjai & lazaridis, 2013: 192). this article questions whether south africanism is a xenophobic expression against african out-group immigrants, given years of apartheid racism? indeed, african immigrants have exclusively experienced discrimination, social exclusion and, importantly, violent abuse in a democratic south africa, notwithstanding the constitution that decrees cultural inclusivity and pluralism, tolerance and inviolate human rights (balbo & marconi, 2006; vincent, 2008; gade, 2011; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). the article finds the locus of xenophobic societal attitudes in a democratic south africa in the institutionalisation of exclusionary citizenship, domestically and internationally. exclusionary citizenship implied the onset of governance of public perceptions for hostilities, animosities and violence against african outgroup immigrants through the politics and struggles over access of politico-socio-economic resources. xenophobia is not only emotive, just as land ownership and reform, it is also an intensely complex and multifaceted subject; and, “the relationship between the presence of immigrant population and xenophobic sentiments” (jolly & digiusto, 2014: 464) remains unresolved. to this extent, it would be a shoddy and sloppy cognitive simplicity to conclude that postapartheid south africanism is intrinsically xenophobic, notwithstanding the evidence that most of the violent abuse witnessed is perpetrated largely by youthful people who may be younger than the democratic miracle itself. questions of the governance of the perpetrators’ institutionalised socialisation into xenophobia cannot exclude the state apparatus that deflect attention from the incapacity to deliver the promise of a better future for all. unsurprisingly, the untenable alibi of the unjustifiable exclusive violent abuse of african immigrants around issues of job and women stealing and acceptance of below minimum wages, have been demystified as a function of irrationality and sheer jealousy (burns & gimpel, 2000; balbo & marconi, 2006; jennings, 2009; hainmueller & hiscox, 2010; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; de sante, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). this article draws from the longstanding literature in social psychology wherein xenophobic societal attitudes are theorised through, among other things, the extremes of contact, prejudice, power, cultural-symbolism, phenomenology, threat and economic theories as well as the egocentric pocket-book and regional economics sociotropic ideological principles. there exist a plethora of theoretical and philosophical engagements that have sought to determine the causes of xenophobic societal and public attitudes. whereas contact and threat theories are diametrically on opposite sides of the argument about the causes of societal attitudes and public perceptions that drive animosities, hostilities, antagonism and violence against the immigrant out-groups, a meticulous scan and analysis of contextual variables will suggest that they both have variable applicability depended on the geographic scale and dominant factors precipitating xenophobia (hainmueller & hiscox, 2007, 2010; hopkins, 2010, 2011; de sante, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). further, it is tenable to assert that in a democratic south africa violent abuses of the african out-group immigrants in 2008 and 2015 cannot be leisurely dissociated from the argument that xenophobic expressions have intricately become unintended strategy for national citizenship self-reassurance which occurred “after intensive phases of modernization” that failed to keep up with the promises of social welfare state and a better life for all (hjerm, 2009; ha, 2010; hopkins, 2011; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; de sante, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). tsheone, ramoroka & muzondo 134 in this context, given the enduring legacies of apartheid racial discrimination, is south african xenophobic attitudes and evident institutionalised governance of public perceptions for socialisation into hostilities, animosities and violent abuses against the african immigrant out-groups, “new racism?” theorisation of this question must of necessity always be a complex and sophisticated undertaking because it simultaneously draws into questioning the institutionalisation and governance of the exercise of citizenship, which is inherently exclusionary. hence, amidst the “rainbowism nation” metaphor, the aphorism of “ubuntu” and constitutional inclusivity and inviolate human rights, new south africanism’s search for national identity continues to be built on exclusionary citizenship that perpetrates xenophobic societal attitudes and public perceptions (ngunjiri, 2010; gade, 2011; khomba, vermaak & gouws, 2011; mabovula, 2011; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). perhaps, the question to be framed is whether or not the societal tendencies of xenophobia against the african immigrant out-groups are indicators of the post-apartheid south africanism becoming fascist (chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015). the institutionalisation and governance of public perceptions for societal hostilities, animosities and violent abuses are evidently constructed through state apparatus that drove african renaissance and new south africanism. questions linking african renaissance, south africanism and xenophobia against the african out-group immigrants should not find expression in simplistic straightforward answers. theorisation of xenophobia as “new racism” at its core, xenophobia involves dislike and fear of the out-group immigrants (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). adjai & lazaridis (2013: 192) cites the world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’s (2001) definition of xenophobia as “attitudes, prejudices and behavior that reject, exclude and often vilify persons, based on the perception that they are outsiders or foreigners to the community, society or national identity.” chinomona & maziriri (2015: 20) regard xenophobia as “a buzz word” that relates to “any hostility or negative attitude or behavior” against the out-group. the deep “distrust and suspicion” against the out-group, which is potentially fatalistic, manifests along “ethno-linguistic and cultural identities,” allowing for discriminatory treatment on the bases of “national origin or ethnicity” (adjai & lazaridis, 2013: 192). this description explains the apparent paradoxes, ironies and contradictions in south africa’s mix of constitutional inclusivity, reconstruction of citizenship that is discriminatory, rainbowism, ubuntu and a better life for all. the question that begs asking is: does new south africanism expresses “new racism” and xenophobia against the african out-group immigrants? the concept of “new racism” is founded on the expressions and emphasis of differentness in terms of culture, ethnicity and nationality; and, a democratic south africa has since 1994 usurped concepts of exceptionalism and differentness in its endeavor to champion and to take leadership of african issues ranging from security, economy to development. under former president mbeki, south africa became a virtual selfselected ambassador for the rest of africa, which was at times very unwelcome. if this conduct of international relations influenced the society’s constructions of citizenship of exclusionism and discrimination against the out-group african immigrants as a threat, then there is reason to explore the resultant xenophobic attitudes, from the “new racism” perspective. generally, social psychology literature suggests that fear of the other plays a significant role in the manifestation of animosity, hostilities, antagonism and violence against the immigrant xenophobic societal attitudes in a “new” south africanism td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 232-246. 135 out-groups. where societal and public animosities, hostilities, antagonism and violence are driven through perceptions that differentiate the out-group through its racial and ethnic africanness, such attitudes would be extending xenophobia into afrophobia. however, it should suffice to state that racism, as apartheid south africa has known, was a structural ideology governed for reproduction by “rules, laws, regulations and institutions” (adjai & lazaridis, 2013: 193). whereas this paper argues that the original seed of societal attitudes of xenophobia against out-group african immigrants was planted through official state conduct of international relations and reconstruction of citizenship, largely on behalf of the majority of the previously disenfranchised, there was no deliberate structural ideology and conscious governance for its reproduction through “rules, laws, regulations and institutions”. some scholars do trace the current xenophobic attitudes back to apartheid south africa (see for example, akokpari, 2002; bernstein, 2005; zuberi & sibanda, 2005; ngoiyaza & rondganger, 2008; vincent, 2008; gade, 2011; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). this paper, though, argues that it was the present democratic regimes’ attempts to break loose from the shackles of apartheid through a strongly asserted citizenship, domestically and internationally, that backfired as a matter of cumulative impact. first, it should be important to explore the theoretical formulations on the making of xenophobic societal attitudes. contact of in-group with immigrant out-group or phenomenology theoretically, “contact alone does not determine intergroup attitudes”; however, its effects are mediated through “the state of the economy or sociotropic concerns” (jolly & digiusto, 2014: 466) as well as interactions among groups. but increased contact and interactions with the out-group immigrants has been assumed to have the effect of undermining xenophobic societal attitudes and public perceptions (brown & lopez, 2001; vincent, 2008; hopkins, 2010). the argument assumes that in the processes of interactions of the in-group and the out-group who are in pursuit of common goals, the cultural, ethnic and xenophobic stereotypes would be undermined whilst fostering “understanding, integration, and peaceable relations”, notwithstanding the disparate nature of such groups (jolly & digiusto, 2014: 465). contact theory emphasizes the common humanity and similarities of the in-group and the out-group, rather than disparities as well as “relative status and goals” which drive anxiety, suspicion, skepticism, “distorted images” and “negative stereotypes” that precipitate xenophobic conflict and violence (brown & lopez, 2001; jennings, 2009; ha, 2010; hopkins, 2010; jolly & digiusto, 2014). however, self-interest theory relates to individuals’ personal socio-economic circumstances, which may be superseded by collective threat perceptions. whereas interactions alter the intra-group dynamics, “the threat theory relies more clearly on simple concentration levels, as opposed to contact” (jolly & degiusto, 2014: 468). there are several important moderating variables that need consideration, including the demographics, especially the size of the out-group, geographic scale, political rhetoric and so on (golder, 2003; gabel & scheve, 2007; hjerm, 2009; hopkins, 2011). the effect of contact on societal attitudes and public perceptions as well as racially-/ethnically-motivated tensions is a function of a variety of contextual variables (brown & lopez, 2001; brinegar & jolly, 2005; jolly & degiusto, 2014). that is, the content and magnitude of the effect of contact with the immigrant out-group on the in-group xenophobic societal attitudes and public perceptions should be examined within the contextual variable of demography, geography, politics, culture and so on. equally, contact between in-group and out-group can tsheone, ramoroka & muzondo 136 equally “undermine” xenophobic tendencies and “exacerbate” tensions (jolly & digiusto, 2014: 471). interactions, especially where both groups are driven by the pursuit of common goals, could potentially undermine negative stereotypes, distorted images and foster understanding, integration and peaceable relations between out-group and in-group (hainmueller & hiscox, 2007; vincent, 2008; jennings, 2009; ha, 2010; hopkins, 2010; jolly & digiusto, 2014). paradoxically, contact can trigger threat perceptions, which may as well be objectively absent, and subjective perception of vulnerability, with the resultant prejudicial attitudes, animosities and violent abuses of the out-group immigrants. in the final analysis, it can be conclusively argued that contact by itself does not precipitate xenophobic attitudes, in the absence of strong collective threat public perceptions. societal perceptions of collective threat the threat theory offers a direct converse of the contact thesis; and, it is linked to economic theory on xenophobia (burns & gimpel, 2000; brown & lopez, 2001; jennings, 2009; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). a rudimentary tenet of the threat theory states that intergroup tensions and conflicts intensify with contact that exposes in-groups and out-groups to competition for scarce resources (hjerm, 2009; kopstein & wittenberg, 2009; rink, phalet & swyngedouw, 2009; jolly & digiusto, 2014). generally, societal attitudes and prejudice against the out-group are driven primarily through collective threat perceptions rather than egocentric individual contact or sociotropic “objective personal economic circumstances” (burns & gimpel, 2000; hopkins, 2010; jolly & digiusto, 2014). but the defining lines between threat, economic and power theory are not necessarily vivid. collectively, these theories attribute xenophobia to factors such as poverty, unemployment, deprivation, inequality and so on (burns & gimpel, 2000; brown & lopez, 2001; zuberi & sibanda, 2005; soyombo, 2008; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). the contention is that it is the disgruntled, poor and unemployed citizenry, especially youth, who engage in xenophobic tendencies. according to quillian (1995 cited in jolly & digiusto, 2014: 466), though, the “size of the out-group” and the “economic circumstances” are the two key factors that determine collective threat public perceptions. contact theorists themselves concede that “… higher levels of immigration at the state level – especially if citizens live in homogeneous areas themselves – may actually exacerbate relations by increasing threat perceptions” (jolly & digiusto, 2014: 471). public perception of collective threat does not necessarily have to be a direct result of the reality of competition in the job market (burns & gimpel, 2000; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). strong perception of collective threat can on its own precipitate resentment, animosities, antagonism and abusive violence. from the threat theory’s perspective, the size of the out-group can easily precipitate intensive collective threat in the in-group with the attendant prejudices and antagonism against immigrants (jennings, 2009; rink et al., 2009; ha, 2010; hopkins, 2010, 2011; jolly & digiusto, 2014). as hjerm (2009) put it, antipathy against the out-group intensifies with the increase in the size of the immigrant population, which is directly correlated with the ingroup perceived collective threat. generally, social psychology literature tacitly insinuates that “perceptions of collective threat”, rather than contact between the in-group and the outgroup or “their objective personal economic circumstances” drive societal and public attitudes of animosity, hostility, antagonism and violence (jolly & digiusto, 2014: 466). that is, egocentric and sociotropic considerations do not necessarily determine societal xenophobia outside the effects of the size of the out-group, on collective threat public perceptions. xenophobic societal attitudes in a “new” south africanism td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 232-246. 137 egocentric and sociotropic theses notwithstanding the association of threat theory with economic theory on xenophobia, competition for economic resources should not necessarily be fundamental to the causes of animosities, antagonism and abusive violence against the out-groups. instead, “culturalsymbolic theory” points to in-groups’ sense of exceptionalism and differentness (hainmueller & hiscox, 2007, 2010; vincent, 2008; ha, 2010; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015), which is consistent with the ongoing theorisation of xenophobia as “new racism.” according to jolly & digiusto (2014: 465), “identifying how contact with immigrant populations and political economic conditions shape public opinion, especially racist or xenophobic attitudes, is essential to understanding public attitudes to racial minorities and immigrants …” basically, the egocentric and sociotropic theses are established on the bases of political value judgments of differentness and exceptionalism (kessler & freeman, 2005; hjerm, 2009; jennings, 2009; hopkins, 2011; mafukata, 2015), wherein societal perceptions are exceptionally exposed to state governance that creates, wittingly or unwittingly, xenophobic attitudes. this observation is perfectly applicable to the south african xenophobic situation because it was never contact by itself that drove societal attitudes and public perceptions of animosities, hostilities, antagonism and violence against african immigrant out-groups. instead, certain hidden variables altered the public moot and agitated it against the african out-groups that lived in the communities for years prior to the social upheavals. the businesses that were looted and the african immigrants who were violently displaced and/or killed lived in the localities as neighbors. the xenophobic attacks started exclusively in the informal settlements and/or townships, diffusing to city centres, where poverty and basic services access is severely constrained. in this context, governance becomes a critical variable in drawing insight into the necessary and sufficient causes of xenophobic public attitudes and perceptions. hence, evidence shows that out-group african immigrants are generally entrepreneurial and that they create jobs (akokpari, 2002; cde, 2006; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015). governance is crucial to shaping societal attitudes and public perceptions because mere contact with the out-groups does not by itself precipitate conflict and violence. evidence suggest that some of the african out-group immigrants who were attacked in south africa in 2008 and 2015 owned a variety of small businesses. apparently, the mediating effects of the constructions of south africanism through african renaissance and exclusionary citizenship precipitated societal sense of exceptionalism and differentness associated with egocentric and sociotropic propensities. the role of the state and the political elite in driving african renaissance and exclusionary citizenship cannot be discounted. governance and political elitism in contrast to modified contact theory, jolly & digiusto (2014: 465) find that “… political economic conditions matter … while the presence of large immigrant populations is associated with diminished local xenophobia”. indeed, political party rhetoric and elite manipulation are also critical in the creation of collective threat perceptions as well as hostilities (gabel & scheve, 2007; jennings, 2009; hopkins, 2010, 2011; de sante, 2013). as a result, “animosity toward multiculturalism at the elite level will correlate with xenophobia at the individual level” (jolly & digiusto, 2014: 468). in this way, jolly & digiusto (2014) are contend that scientific analyses of xenophobia should incorporate political party rhetoric, politicisation of national-scale interactions, perceptions of threat and political elite manipulation as well as rational economic factors, beyond mere personal tsheone, ramoroka & muzondo 138 ideologies, individual self-interests and egocentrism at localities. necessarily, interpretations of societal attitudes and public perceptions of xenophobic animosities, hostilities, antagonism and violence against the immigrant out-groups should be cognitively sophisticated (jennings, 2009; hopkins, 2010, 2011; jolly & digiusto, 2014). for this reason, scientific examination of xenophobia should necessarily entail meticulous care in order to eschew the entrapment of the inherent paradoxes and ironies of the caliber of those perpetrated through polities. in the latter, it is the norm to have public stunts that assume rejection of xenophobia when in practice politicisation of regional economics through the in-group versus out-group rhetoric exacerbate societal attitudes and tensions of racial/ethnic animosities, hostilities, antagonism and, eventually, open violence (gabel & scheve, 2007; hopkins, 2010; mafukata, 2015). often, when xenophobic attacks and violent abuse of the immigrant out-group manifest, the polities tend to disown them without much reflection on the political rhetoric underlying attendant societal attitudes and public perceptions. whereas not always overt, political elites tend to adopt a political rhetoric that manipulates citizenry’s insecurities to amass political mileage without careful considerations of the enduring effects on xenophobic societal attitudes and public perceptions. in the united states of america (usa), for example, the republic presidential contender donald trump is presently drawing large crowds and leading polls through a rhetoric that demeans mexicans as criminals, murderers and rapists. this political rhetoric appears to be outright racist and xenophobic. establishing political support on xenophobic attitudes through fear and threat wherein out-groups are cast as the primary causes of the national social ills and economic problems, has almost always provoked anti-immigrants animosities, hostilities, antagonism and violence everywhere in the world (golder, 2003; the economist, 2011; jolly & degiusto, 2014; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015). whereas no one appears to be paying careful attention to the enduring legacies of donald trump political rhetoric’s agitation of xenophobic public perceptions, the potential for future anti-out-group abuse and violence is real. the point to make is that the presence of immigrant out-groups in itself, should not serve both necessary and sufficient cause for xenophobic public attitudes. equally, contact with the immigrant out-group itself does not precipitate societal attitudes and perceptions that drive animosities, hostilities, antagonism and violence within localities or nations. however, the effects of contact on the societal attitudes and perceptions (jolly & digiusto, 2014; mafukata, 2015) are mediated through governance of egocentric exceptionalism and sociotropic differentness. polities would not readily openly concede that political party rhetoric, in an attempt to capture votes, plays a significant role in racial and ethnic animosities, hostilities and antagonism against the out-group minorities (gabel & scheve, 2007; hopkins, 2010, 2011; mafukata, 2015). equally, governance of society in all its facets bears significant impacts on public perceptions that drive attitudes towards the immigrant out-groups. thus, insight into xenophobia entails multidisciplinary theoretical integration that covers a range of subjects including governance, of polities, inter-state relations, intra-state dynamics, socio-economic status, environmental conservation, demographic constitution of the population as well as cultural and traditional factors. as jolly & digiusto (2014: 471) put it, “… context is crucial” to understanding public perceptions that drive society’s exclusionary preferences relating to immigrant out-groups. apparently, these are the reasons why xenophobic violence in south africa was, both in 2008 and 2015, directed exclusively against the african out-groups, rather than all immigrants. south african experiences affirm the significant role played by the myriad of governance structures, systems and process ranging across the spectrum of african xenophobic societal attitudes in a “new” south africanism td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 232-246. 139 recovery, environmental conservation, human settlement, services provisions, population policy and democratic constitutionalism, all of which are central to national identities that define south africanness, differentness and exceptionalism. hence, in trying to construct citizenship in the absence of cultural national identities, new south africanism became deeply exclusionary and divisive. whereas the south african police services (saps) have been accused of using rudimentary and crude archaic techniques for apprehending people they thought are illegal immigrants, such as dark skin colour, hairstyle, size of shoes, clothes, accent and pronouncements of words, among other identification methods, this conduct was never sanctioned through state policy. in recent attempts to clear the streets of johannesburg of crime, the state coined “operation fiela” which raised further eyebrows in terms of the negative societal perceptions that it strengthened against the out-group african immigrants, given the longstanding belief that the latter are responsible for the upward spike in crime. the ongoing scourge of department of home affairs and immigration officers using coercion and abuses of human rights to solicit bribery, were never condoned through legislation or policy. according to adjai & lazaridis (2013: 201), the democratic south africa’s first immigration act no. 13 of 2002 and the attendant political discourse promulgated xenophobic sentiments. the same sentiments were previously codified by akokpari (2002), bernstein (2005) and cde (206, among others. however, this paper argues that any sense of xenophobic inclination in a democratic south africa’s legislation and policy would not have been by conscious design because reconstructing national identities on citizenship, in the absence of cultural commonalities, for the majority of apartheid victims was destined to be exclusionary and divisive. such state actions have continued to reinforce societal perceptions that out-group african immigrants are a collective threat. governance of south africanism, differentness, exceptionalism and exclusionary citizenship for xenophobia a democratic south africa is generally characterised as a “highly xenophobic society in which suspicion, fear, and rejection of foreigners create communal tensions that have negative political, social, and economic effects” (cde, 2006: 8). the democratic state too has already been accused of being xenophobic and heavy-handed against african out-group immigrants (akokpari, 2002; bernstein, 2005; zuberi & sibanda, 2005; cde, 2006; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). the editorial of the star (23 july 2008: 14) describes the may 2008 events as “an orgy of xenophobic violence” wherein in-groups vented their frustrations and despair on african out-group immigrants, unfairly blaming them for the unmet post-1994 euphoric expectations of a better life for all. as meyerson (2004) and neumayer (2006) cautioned, the fact that the anti-immigrants drive has appeared to be grounded on racial/ethnic lines could also imply that the underlying debate and political rhetoric was itself devoid of any rational intellectual argument. indeed, african out-group immigrants are perpetually exposed to alleged “xenophobic” hatred, rape, robbery and other fatal crimes (mail and guardian, 2006a). more instructive are the reports that “up to 25 percent of identity documents issued by home affairs could be illegal” (sowetan, 2006: 1). ina van der merwe, the chief executive of kroll south africa a risk analysis consultancy company specializing in verification of the authenticity of identity documents confirmed that millions of identity documents issued by home affairs were illegal (sabc special assignment, 2006; sowetan, 2006). she estimated a probability of “one in every four” identity documents being illegal (sabc special assignment, 2006; sowetan, 2006). furthermore, the reported improper use of tsheone, ramoroka & muzondo 140 illegally-acquired identity documents in 2006 marked a 29% increase on that of 2005 as well as the claims that their abuse has since 1994 involved about r40 billion (sowetan, 2006), exacerbate xenophobic societal attitudes and public perceptions. significantly, reported abuse of identity documents could also involve claims on the state social welfare, with the implications that south africans could construct negative xenophobic attitudes against the african out-groups (neumayer, 2006). such headlines make for enduring distorted images and negative stereotypes against the immigrant out-groups. according to turok (2006: 3), “obscene inequalities, poverty and joblessness” have remained pervasive in post-apartheid south africa, creating therefore societal insecurities that the political elite could have opportunistically manipulated. beyond complaining about jobs, pessimistic versions insist that “immigrants are a threat to the social and economic fabric of the nation” and are, therefore, unwanted competitors “for the scarce resources” because they “prevent the transition to a new economy in south africa” (zuberi & sibanda, 2005: 267). according to bernstein (2005), south africa’s current policy framework is grounded in xenophobic intonations. the repeal and replacement of the aliens control act with the new immigration act is adjudged to have reinforced the old bureaucratic apartheid procedures (bernstein, 2005). according to the chairperson of the committee on immigration at south africa’s law society, julian pokroy, the many new amendments to the immigration policy have rectified the omissions in the existing law by re-enacting the old status quo (mail & guardian, 2006b). the new immigration act is blamed for attempting to protect south african jobs, thereby perpetrating the sentiments of the out-groups stealing jobs. hence, the suggestion that south african immigration laws are rigid and xenophobic is an unfair characterization; instead, it is the attempt at the construction of citizenship for the formerly disenfranchised majority that became deeply exclusionary and divisive, unfairly casting the african out-group immigrants as the reason for all societal ills. for this reason, perceptions of collective threat, rather than reality, along with the construction of new south africanisms, cannot be underestimated. the public anti-immigration rhetoric has been that the african out-groups “take away jobs from south african nationals,” and that immigrants are “an obstacle to economic integration for the african majority who are awaiting the gains in employment and living standards anticipated with the end of apartheid” (zuberi & sibanda, 2005: 267). government too responded to such sentiments by adopting policy measures that are allegedly “harsh,” “hostile” and “notorious” (akokpari, 2002; cde, 2006; the star, 2008). african immigrants are allegedly the most hated, severely dealt with and arrested, detained and deported from lindela facility in south africa (akokpari, 2002; cde, 2006). akokpari (2002) describes the treatment of african immigrants as “immigration terrorism.” for example, the cde (2006) concludes that the witbank community is characterised by stereotypes and hypocrisy wherein there exists, simultaneously, full acceptance for europeans, ambivalence for indians, pakistanis and chinese, as well as rejection of nigerians, mozambicans and zimbabweans with variable degrees of dislike. furthermore, cde (2006: 7) reports that the community believes that african “immigrants caused overcrowding, utilized public services and amenities to which they were not entitled, spread disease, and … were ‘less civilized’ than south africans.” these volatile beliefs have characterized the public debate, pointing to an old prejudice against african out-group immigrants. colonisation and apartheid engendered a deep sense of disrespect and prejudice against africans by fellow africans; and, the psychology of this longstanding prejudice cannot be discounted from the xenophobic tendencies in a democratic south africa. xenophobic societal attitudes in a “new” south africanism td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 232-246. 141 in an attempt to reconstruct south africanism on african renaissance and exclusionary citizenship, the state may have inadvertendly encouraged xenophobic attitudes. the white paper on international immigration documents that unskilled immigrants, a majority of whom are african, “compete for scarce jobs” and weaken state institutions through their involvement in criminal and fraudulent acts (rsa, 1999: 21). hence, the south african society appears to be generally antagonistic towards african out-group immigrants, scapegoating the unfulfilled expectations and the post-1994 euphoria that remained unmatched by reality (akokpari, 2002; cde, 2006). it can be expected that “poor communities threatened by poverty, crime, and unemployment, in which people lack confidence as individuals and have the feeling of being victims themselves, and where their few resources of pride are in their own culture,” could react negatively towards foreigners because their judgments become purely subjective, drawing from emotions and feelings of “insecurity and resentment of competition” (cde, 2006: 9). the deep sense of south african exceptionalism and differentness defines the root of xenophobia against african out-groups in the democratic dispensation of rainbowism, multiculturalism and constitutional inclusivity. a democratic south africa’s self-selection of leadership of african renaissance and believe that the world wants this country to succeed, which was a mere exercise of puerility, provides a perfect example. in assuming such self-selected leadership, a democratic south africa set out to enlighten africa because its pursuit of african renaissance, south-south relations and the establishment of a new world order were couched through the preaching of peace, human right, liberalism, continental welfare, good governance, democracy, humane values and politico-economic recovery (calland, 2013; habib, 2013; kotze, 2013). south africa had hoped to establish itself as a credible champion and leader of african renaissance on the bases of differentness and exceptionalism, which became an enduring presence in the societal imagination of a new south africanism. in 1995, for example, south africa embarked on a human rights crusade mobilising opposition against nigeria’s sani abacha following the hanging of ken saro-wiwa (habib, 2013). perhaps, a democratic south africa had genuine reasons to set itself as “a voice of reason for voiceless africa” (vale & maseko, 1998; calland, 2013; habib, 2013), but the long-term societal impacts of this official construction of a new south africanism have become evidently deleterious. for reasons of its attempts at african renaissance leadership, premhid (2014: n.p.) labels south africa as a “pretender to the role of regional hegemon.” according to marais (2001: 251), the official belief that the world wanted south africa to succeed was in harmony with this country’s “self-image of distinctiveness and superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the continent – thereby resonating with the pervasive sense of differentness and superiority frequently encountered and remarked upon by visiting foreigners.” the pursuit of leadership and championship of african renaissance on the bases of south african differentness and exceptionalism was itself paradoxical and contradictory. hence, vale & maseko (1998) emphatically warned that south africa should not have even attempted to lead african renaissance when the central tenet was so deeply and overtly paradoxical. conclusively, south africanisms official state policy on africa and citizenship contributed to societal attitudes of xenophobia against out-group african immigrants. additionally, the south african government itself spearheaded the process of citizenship reconstruction that is deeply discriminatory because of the emphasis on differentness and exceptionalism. arising from a history of racial discrimination against the majority africans, south africa sought to establish a new national identity which remained a virtual pipedream under the desperate in-groups’ cultures that contradicted and, in some cases, contested tsheone, ramoroka & muzondo 142 validity of each other. the most pragmatic route was to create such national identity through citizenship, which inevitably became exclusionary because the out-groups did not meet the criteria and were excluded (weldon, 2006; adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). domestically too, the construction of national identity through exclusionary citizenship has been deeply fragmentary with different levels for gauteng and western cape versus all other provinces. for the in-groups, this concept implied “inclusivity,” “belongingness and ownership” (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015) albeit fragmentary and unequal. the inevitable outcome of the adoption of the concept of citizenship for establishment of national identities is that it characterized people as “insiders and outsiders” or “in-groups and out-groups” (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015). whereas the creation of the national identity was predicated on the notion of citizenship, which was simultaneously protected through legislative instruments (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015), there was no official conscious structural xenophobic ideology that was governed through “rules, laws, regulations and institutions”. to this extent, notwithstanding the various commonalities of the manifestations of xenophobia and “new racism,” south africa’s xenophobia cannot be tenably characterised as “new racism.” the promise of national identity built on exclusionary citizenship was for the regulation of “access to state and public resources” (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; mafukata, 2015), which remained unrealized. the frustration and anger attendant to this unrealized better life for all, translated into xenophobic attitudes, animosities, antagonism and abusive violence against the out-group african immigrants due to the psychology of exceptionalism and differentness. this paper has already pointed to state constructions of citizenship, domestically and internationally, which exploited the notions of exceptionalism and differentness, thereby shaping societal perceptions of africans and outgroups in particular. as to the abusive violence, it should be examined through the apparent abandonment of the original promise of the establishment of the national identity around the notion of citizenship. in the critique of south africa’s most recent reflexivity in the 2012 national development plan (ndp) 2030, alloggio & thomas (2013: 109) poignantly state: the rhetoric of active citizenry adds insult to injury: those who suffered the worst forms of injustice under apartheid are now liberal subjects who are cast as responsible for their failure to transcend and transform the harshness of life post-apartheid. first, it was the 1996 growth, employment and redistribution (gear) which, through neoliberal reflexive global modernity, led to the 2006 accelerated shared growth in south africa (asgisa) and then the 2012 ndp 2030, both of which remained synonymous with societal inequalities, severe poverty, crime and enduring service delivery backlogs. as adjai & lazaridis (2013: 194) put it, the politics of access in a democratic south africa meant that xenophobia became “an expression of disillusionment of the government’s inability to deliver” the promise of exclusionary citizenship where the out-group african immigrants are victims, in accordance with the societal perceptions that the state had itself established over the years of failed attempts to lead and champion african renaissance. indeed, post-apartheid south africanism has exhibited “high levels of xenophobia towards fellow african citizens, subjecting them to different forms of prejudice and discrimination” (adjai & lazaridis, 2013: 192) with an amazing dose of irrationality. the alibis of “fear” about employment opportunities and income, stealing of women and accepting of hazardous jobs at below minimum wages have been dismissed as jealously-related scapegoats because most out-group african immigrants are entrepreneurial (akokpari, 2002; chinomona & maziriri, 2015; xenophobic societal attitudes in a “new” south africanism td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 232-246. 143 mafukata, 2015). however, new south africanism and the attendant xenophobia cannot be tenably characterised as “new racism” as there have been no state rules intended for its reproduction. conclusion this article has discussed the theorisation of the causes of societal attitudes of xenophobia against the out-groups in order to identify the constructions of collective threat as a fundamental ingredient in the governance of public antagonism, animosities and violent abuse. attempts to lead african renaissance based on a new south africanisms, exceptionalism and differentness created an enabling environment for societal tensions against the african out-groups. furthermore, the article linked the notion of collective perception of threat to unintended contextual consequences of south africa’s governance of national identities around exclusionary and divisive citizenship. however, the paper rejects the insinuation that the new south africanism is an expression of “new racism” because there are no rules enforced for reproduction of such societal attitudes of xenophobia. in the absence of any cultural commonalities for the reconstruction of national identities in a democratic era, new south africanism relied on citizenship with inevitable emphasis on exceptionalism and differentness that bore deleterious consequences for the african out-group immigrants. references adjai, c. & lazaridis, g. 2013. migration, xenophobia and new racism in post-apartheid south africa. international journal of social science studies, 1(1): 192-205. akokpari, j.k. 2002. international migration, xenophobia and the dilemma of the south african state. in buthelezi, s. & le roux, e. 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(eds.), the demography of south africa. london: m.e. sharpe, pp.266-296. abstract introduction background to conflict prevention and conflict avoidance methodology inter-communal conflict amongst the platfontein san community witchcraft as a factor increasing conflict in the platfontein community conflict prevention and conflict avoidance amongst the san conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) nina mollema department of criminal and procedural law, university of south africa, south africa citation mollema, n., 2017, ‘the san values of conflict prevention and avoidance in platfontein’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a429. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.429 original research the san values of conflict prevention and avoidance in platfontein nina mollema received: 09 mar. 2017; accepted: 10 aug. 2017; published: 29 sept. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the aim of this article is to identify measures that can prevent violent conflict through the maintenance of traditional cultural values that guide conflict avoidance. moreover, the article focuses on the concepts of conflict prevention and conflict avoidance as applied by the san community of platfontein. the causes of the inter-communal tensions between the san community members are also examined. a selected conflict situation, that of superstition and witchcraft, is assessed as factors increasing interpersonal conflict in the platfontein community. this investigation is made to determine if the san preventive measures have an impact in the community, so as to prevent ongoing conflicts from escalating further. introduction the san of southern africa have experienced colonial oppression, dispossession of their traditional lands, displacement and systemic violence over the past hundreds of years (see adhikari 2010; velthuizen 2010). although their human rights have been violated throughout southern african history, the san have in the past been idealised by scholars such as lee (1979) and vorster (1996) as peace-loving and harmless communities.1 in their traditional settlement areas, disputes surrounding land and natural resources seldom produced any conflict (lee 1979:370). however, conflict still exists which in certain cases may lead to serious injuries and death.2 generally, the san avoid any type of conflict by applying appropriate conflict prevention methods before any clashes may erupt. this is evident from interviews conducted in platfontein, where it has emerged that, amongst other causes, conflict is currently generated in the community by fear of alleged practices of witchcraft.3 malicious magic is blamed for misfortunes such as disease, sudden death and any type of calamity. the overarching purpose of the article is to determine if the traditional san preventive measures have an impact in platfontein, so as to diffuse these types of imminent conflict situations and to forestall ongoing conflicts from escalating further. in this context, the article first considers the concept of conflict as well as the key components of effective conflict prevention and avoidance strategies; secondly, it critically assesses the conflict prevention and avoidance capacities of the platfontein san as regards witchcraft and, finally, customary approaches to deal with and improve the current conflict situation in the community are presented. in order to effectively prevent, manage, and resolve conflict in the community, pre-existing preventative measures must be strengthened and adhered to, but new mechanisms must also be instituted and developed. background to conflict prevention and conflict avoidance throughout human history, people have been exploring ways to prevent conflicts; however, the term was rarely used explicitly and people did not necessarily see their actions as preventive. for conflict prevention measures to be initiated, the perception of a threat or actual occurrence of conflict is necessary. it is as such essential to briefly address the concept of conflict before exploring possible approaches to prevent or avoid such occurrences. traditionally, conflict is the result of opposing interests involving scarce resources, goal divergence and frustration. this may not only include violence (behaviour) or hostility (attitudes), but also incompatibility or differences in issue position (swanström & weissmann 2005:7). drivers of conflict are primarily identity and values. conflicts may be caused by substantive drivers such as territory, resources, economy or politics and identity drivers, group memberships such as ethnicity, culture,4 tribe, race or religion. all conflicts seem to involve interplay between both kinds of drivers. it is important to note that conflict per se is not always undesirable; conflict may have positive consequences such as transformation and growth. however, resolving conflict through violence is destructive and does not lead to viable and lasting solutions. the study of the concept of conflict prevention has a relatively short academic history, yet there is a vast amount of literature on the subject (swanström & weissmann 2005:19). although commonly practised by all parties concerned, there is generally a lack of consensus and diverging interpretations of the concept. the term suggests different things to different people and there is no approved meaning amongst scholars, as seen from the examples below: the application of non-constraining measures (those that are not coercive and depend on the goodwill of the parties involved), primarily diplomatic in nature. (munuera 1994:3) the aim of preventive action is to prevent the emergence of violent conflict, prevent on-going conflicts from spreading and prevent the re-emergence of violence. (carnegie commission on preventing deadly conflict 1997:xviii) a medium and long-term proactive operational or structural strategy undertaken by a variety of actors, intended to identify and create the enabling conditions for a stable and more predictable international security environment. (carment & schnabel 2003:11). on a general level, conflict prevention is a broad term for ‘methods and mechanisms used to avoid, minimise and manage potential conflicts [between different parties] before they have developed into active conflicts’ (swanström & weissmann 2005:5). as all conflicts are context-specific, conflict prevention requires the identification of conflict dynamics such as the causes, possible escalation and sustainability of the conflict. as such, effective conflict-prevention strategies will entail a conflict analysis where deficiencies in the current situation are identified and addressed before any possible outbreak of violence to ensure a desired future. conflict prevention is closely related to conflict management, which focuses on the limitation, mitigation and containment of a conflict without necessarily solving it (tanner 2000:541). these two concepts are in many ways inseparable, having overlapping and integrated aspects. conflict prevention may be sectioned into two main categories: direct and structural prevention. direct prevention attempts to avert the impending escalation of a potential conflict in the short term, while structural prevention addresses factors which may likely cause conflict in the long term. following lund’s definition of conflict prevention (lund 2002:117), the concept will, in this article, include any structural means to: prevent internal disputes and strains from increasing into substantial violence reinforce the competencies of parties involved in a potentially violent conflict situation to settle their differences peacefully gradually diminish the underlying causes of such disputes and tensions. conflict avoidance, in contrast, is a strategy wherein an attempt is made to indefinitely defer or directly evade the imminent conflict. the reasoning behind avoidance is the prospect that the conflict may resolve itself without any confrontation occurring. this may be accomplished in a variety of ways, for example issue avoidance, person avoidance or mere passivity, amongst others. however, this method seems to be suitable more as a temporary measure as the issue causing conflict is not directly dealt with. conflict avoidance can also take the form of withdrawal (swanström & weissmann 2005:19). terminating an impaired relationship when parties cannot resolve a potential conflict may, in certain situations, be a sounder option. thus, avoidance strategies can produce outcomes where one party has benefitted from the process but the other has not, or where none of the parties perceive the result as positive, or even where both parties have gained from the resolution. it is preferable that parties in a potential conflict settle their differences so as to satisfy mutual interests. this may entail that a new solution than originally acquiesced will have to be found, a possibility that the platfontein san should consider in their specific conflict scenarios. methodology this article is informed by the research results from the san dispute resolution community-based participatory research (cbpr) project. this participatory project aimed at engaging the san community as active contributors in research, wherein they provide their own perceptions on local conflict situations. in this manner, they pursue their own solutions according to their specific priorities. as such, the participatory research methodology utilised emphasises a ‘bottom-up’ approach where san indigenous knowledge and perspectives are explored. the data for the research project were collated by trained platfontein san field researchers. the field researchers were selected considering their multilingual abilities (they needed to read and write english, afrikaans and either !kun or kwedam to access the knowledge of especially knowledge holders who could not speak any modern language). equity was also a consideration: four men and four women were chosen. the individuals were nominated by the community property association of platfontein who appointed a coordinator, who took responsibility for general conduct. bias was mitigated by ensuring that a broad spectrum of knowledge holders in terms of gender, age and clan could be reached, reducing the influence of dominant narratives of a few. the project leader, dr velthuizen, taught the field researchers the basics of field research including interviews, focus group facilitation, report writing, capturing with cameras and voice recorders, administration concerning individual informed consent and ethical conduct. the field researchers interviewed the san community and community leaders on selected conflict issues. in this manner, more than 250 interviews, focus group and interpretation discussions were conducted from 2013 to 2015.5 from these interviews and discussion, the researcher was able to make use of only 14 interviews where the theme of witchcraft was specifically discussed. data collection further took place by means of field visits to the !xun and ‡khomani san settlements of platfontein and andriesvale, respectively, where participant observation as well as a workshop were undertaken. further personal unstructured and semi-structured interviews with two respondents were completed. an extensive review of the secondary literature and official documentation on the situation of the platfontein san was also conducted to inform the collated data. the information gained from the interviews was interpreted with the assistance of key knowledge holders and field researchers from the san community who assisted with the breakdown and critical reflection of the data.6 inter-communal conflict amongst the platfontein san community originally from angola, the san have been transplanted to namibia and south africa, which has led to their way of life, values and beliefs being transformed (velthuizen 2010:28–29). the resettlement of two mostly unrelated groups of san to a more sedentary life, who now have to share a far smaller area, has brought new challenges. originally micro-communities living as highly mobile nuclear family groups, the various san clans used to have enough land to sustain their family groups, while being able to respect territorial borders and avoid conflict with neighbours. on platfontein the san feel trapped, boxed in by the borders of surrounding farms. people cannot walk far enough to gather sufficient firewood or veld food, let alone hunt and crossing over onto neighbouring farms means dealing with irate farmers. there are also intense inter-communal tensions between the two resident groups of !xun and khwe. to trace these tensions, one must examine the history of these groups. the !xun (vasequela) and khwe (baraquena) are two very different groups of people with a complex history of division and segregation (robins, madzudzo & brenzinger 2001:9). both !xun and khwe regard themselves, and are considered by others, as san, but they understand themselves to have very different geographical origins, histories and traditions (see h. sibongo, sibongo oral archive (soa), interview with k.m., block: morosani, platfontein, 22 may 2014.; soskolne 2007). it is believed that the !xun originally came from central angola around serpa pinta (however, opinion is divided over whether the !xun were originally from angola, or if they had migrated up north from namibia and botswana), while the khwe were mainly from south-east angola and zambia, centred around eastern caprivi (robins et al. 2001:8). the khwe have been described as ‘black bushmen’ (uys 2014:7–8) because of their relatively tall stature and darker skin, in comparison with the !xun’s lighter skin and small stature. this ethnic, social and cultural separation is also visible in the settlements as the !xun and khwe requested two spatially divided farms at platfontein, but were not granted this because of insufficient funds (robins et al. 2001:9). the platfontein community is divided and ravaged by deep distrust between the two groups.7 jealousy may play a factor here. when the san were employed by the south african defence force (sadf) at the omega military base, the khwe were regarded as more powerful: ‘there was apparently quite a bit of status involved with being khwe’8 (robins et al. 2001:21). the !xun are, however, the majority population in platfontein, a power shift which may be uncomfortable for the khwe.9 the first conflicts that took place between these two groups also occurred at omega in the 1970s (vorster 1994:72).10 a dispute started, for instance, when an intermarriage occurred between a khwe woman and a !xun man. the young men of these two groups fought for almost two days about the discord.11 it was also at omega where suspicions were raised that certain persons were dabbling in the dark arts,12 as confirmed in s v mathoka and others 1992 (2) sacr 443 (nc) 445. in this case, the deceased, who relocated from angola to namibia with the san group, was known to the community as a wizard who used black magic to kill people in angola as well as in northern namibia. in omega, an alleged witchcraft-killing caused by this man was reported to the sadf officers; however, when nothing was done to solve the problem, the san chose to tend to these types of matters themselves (see mathoka case). witchcraft as a factor increasing conflict in the platfontein community although most traditional san believe in a ‘greater’ and a ‘lesser’ supreme being or god (guenther 1999:61–62) as well as other supernatural beings and the spirits of the dead, the practice of witchcraft – that is, the manipulation by malicious individuals of supernatural powers and magic materials to kill or cause harm to others – is not encountered in all these hunting–gathering societies. the two san groups at platfontein are a suitable illustrative case. one group (khwe) make use of shamans, while the other group (!xun) does not.13 the !xun san state unequivocally that witchcraft is ‘not a bushman thing’ and that witchcraft should not be practised in their community (vorster 1994:77).14 this is also confirmed by literature on this society (guenther 1992:91, 1999:88). historical research on the khwe has shown that shamanism was acquired mainly by means of acculturation with african tribes (köhler 1978/1979:11–12).15 according to these studies, shamanism is quite specialised amongst the traditional khwe and includes such ritual actions as divination, hunting magic, and an extensive complex of pharmaceutical and shamanic curing techniques. research has, however, revealed that evil shamans or sorcerers, while well-defined socially within khwe culture and folk imagination, are relatively rare ‘on the ground’.16 this also holds true for the contemporary society as none of the san will admit that witchcraft is practised by them – it is a clandestine subject.17 as a result of co-residence within the same farm, the !xun and the khwe have been drawn within the cultural matrix of the other. the san’s loss of mobility and collective settlement has not only resulted in acculturation, but also in their economic dependency for survival – firstly, on the sadf and, currently, mainly on government grants – and led to loss of egalitarianism, individual autonomy, language and traditional tutelage. the community further displays elements of social disintegration with prevailing group tensions, unemployment, poverty, and health and service delivery concerns. it has been discerned that ‘witchcraft superstition seemingly flourishes in times of social instability’ (parrinder 1963:205).18 thus, whenever an episode of conflict involves the transmission of harm through supernatural means, the one group tends, in terms of their perception, to be at the receiving end of witchcraft, as its victims, not as its transmitters. traditionally, the san rarely attribute illness or death to the evil intent of another person (shostak 1981:212). however, at platfontein, cases of interpersonal conflict were expressed socially in the idiom of witchcraft. this expression ranged from suspicions and accusations through rumours, to outright accusations, and these actions could either involve only an individual, his or her close relatives or neighbours, or they could be amongst all members of the community. witchcraft accusations are seen by some scholars to reflect the underlying tensions in a community, which may serve various functions. allegations may act as a vent for repressed social anxieties in order to readjust social relationships (evans-pritchard 1976:xxi–xxiii). as such, an upsurge in witchcraft accusations indicates the moral breakdown of that community (gluckman 2012:241). witchcraft blame-pinning may fulfil the purpose of terminating unwanted social relations (marwick 1982:64), or may even be employed to intimidate the opposition (steadman 1985:115). it may be asserted that all of these functions feature to various extents amongst the platfontein san. witchcraft-related conflict issues in the community range from unexplained, sudden, and ‘bad deaths’, rivalry for authority, failure to pay money, domestic quarrels between spouses or school children, refusal to accept sexual advances, retaliation for a wrong suffered and, the classic issue, envy over another person’s good fortune (guenther 1992:84). in all identified cases of witchcraft accusations or speculations, the belief is held that misfortune and suffering are signs of the act of invisible and malevolent power. sorcerers have the capacity to utilise any agent or means to achieve this purpose. common instruments employed to inflict sufferings are magic potions (usually kept in pots),19 dreams,20 mirrors21 or familiars such as cats and chickens (ashforth 2000:188).22 the belief amongst the platfontein san is not only that there are sorcery specialists in the community, but also that every individual is a potential sorcerer or witch, depending either on a person’s incidence of quarrelling with others or on the extent of envy and desire. even neighbours, relatives or school children can utilise bad magic (ashforth 2000:5).23 it is purported that many men extort girls into having sexual relations by threatening them with the consequences of witchcraft. the girls bear children with these men whereafter the mother and children are abandoned, leaving the girl’s family to raise the children.24 there is especially amongst the san communities a fear that their culture and their values will be swallowed up as a community subjected to mandatory merging. the !xun especially do not want their group members to acquire patterns of witchcraft as a result of acculturative contact and conflict. as such, any use of occult powers is forbidden. an incident that occurred at schmidtsdrift illustrates this well (n. mollema, mollema oral archive (moa), interview with m.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014). after discovering that his wife had extra-marital relations, the husband warned his spouse with the ill-fated forewarning: ‘you will see’.25 not long thereafter, the pregnant woman experienced problems and died within a few hours. after a traditional hearing, the husband was found guilty of causing a witchcraft-related death and sentenced to death. the family and community were particularly infuriated by the man’s usage of sorcery. this counter-killing was not a revenge-induced action of vindictiveness but an act of ‘self-help’, intended to rid the community of a dangerous agitator.26 as ‘every evil and misfortune that is incapable of rational explanation is attributed to witchcraft’ (mutungi 1977:105), afflicted persons seek out traditional healers and diviners to determine the source of the misfortune. these shamans are regarded as having occult power capable of curing and protecting one from evil. the desired result is not always achieved,27 as in the case where a khwe man’s foot had to be amputated because of alleged bewitchment. despite receiving medical attention and being hospitalised for a period of 18 months, the man’s condition deteriorated. convinced that the malevolent hex could only be repelled by powerful shamans, the man visited a traditional healer; however, without any success (vorster 1996:10). when conventional and traditional remedies fail, the source of the illness must be identified in order to induce them ‘to retract their evil powers, and [be] punished (or cleansed and redeemed)’ (ashforth 2001:6). this traditional manner in dealing with a witch is exemplified in the only witchcraft case concerning the san, that of s v mathoka. in this case, a san man who had been proved to be by repute a witchdoctor allegedly caused the death of a corporal’s mother in december 1991. all the community’s attempts to bring him to book failed. the man subsequently threatened one of the accused persons that he would soon die. when the threatened person’s wife died while in childbirth the following day, the man was confronted by the accused. he admitted that he had caused the woman’s death. he was requested to hand over his black magic paraphernalia in order for it to be destroyed either by being thrown into a stagnant river or by being burnt in front of the community.28 the man surrendered some items; however, it was believed that not everything was submitted. this was acknowledged; still the man persistently refused to hand the rest over. if a witchdoctor refuses to submit his items, he may be banned from the community or killed. as excommunication was not an option in this community, the only choice was to have him publicly executed.29 the community, which included the deceased’s two children, all agreed on this option.30 as can be seen from the examples provided above, witchcraft suspicions, accusations and practices are nurtured and maintained, more than anything else, by intraand inter-communal conflict. this conflict is often intense and abiding in the community as it is built into the structure and chemistry of community ‘politics’. invidious feelings of rivalry and envy amongst the two groups have corroded most efforts towards collaboration in the community. the jealousy factor especially often tests, and even cripples, the development of local leadership in the community and development efforts. this witchcraft-generating conflict tends to be ongoing amongst members, ‘not to be admitted to and thus pushed “underground” to fester and gain momentum, through brooding resentment and mounting anger’ (guenther 1992:93; mayer 1982:54). conflict prevention and conflict avoidance amongst the san it has been revealed by several researchers that in a society such as the san, conflict such as described above should not exist (guenther 1992:89). this is because there are effective tension-releasing mechanisms constantly at work to cope with their differences. san children are taught by their elders to avoid disputes and to fear and avert violence.31 traditionally, disputes are prevented by sharing resources, which includes the practice of gift exchange to foster amicable relations amongst the community members. community norms such as respect for one another, especially for elders, are venerated. incipient disputes are placated by gregarious and even playful acts which all members engage in to tend to each other’s moods and demeanour. these mechanisms allow the primary actors in a dispute to save face, because the reproach is handled with discretion by one person or several persons about another, for instance, the ‘forced eavesdrop’ (silberbauer 1982:26), where community members will reprimand someone within hearing distance by talking to others about the concern. also, the mechanisms allow the san to vent their displeasure or hostility freely by means of talking, shouting, singing or even dancing. as guenther (1992) proclaims: in such spirited and extroverted fashion, feelings of anger, jealousy, or rivalry get aired; they are brought out in the open and become objectified, rather than being swept under the rug of sociability and repressed, to fester on, as ‘unacted desires’, accumulating rage and guilt. (p. 93) dancing is normally engaged in at the end of a potentially tense incident (lee 1979:377), and is an especially effective mechanism of conflict prevention. as a creative form, it gives free expression to and consequent release of any repressed emotions. as such, dancing produces a swift and thorough pacification of anger or dissatisfaction in the context of an expressive social performance. not only does dancing give expression to and manage hostility, but it is also a vehicle for criticising a member of the group and community healing (guenther 1992:93). a further method for expressing criticism and tension openly within the community is the joking relationship which is common within the san culture (guenther 1992:93). there is seemingly a licence to tease amongst group members. this may be triggered by an individual who approaches another person – his partner-to-be in the jesting bout – to jokingly convey his ire or displeasure. conflict prevention through mechanisms of this kind thwarts the conception of prolonged sentiments of malice, jealousy, hatred and revenge, ‘the impulse to detract and spite – [conditions which are] so conducive to harbouring sinister suspicions of witchcraft or the desire to inflict the same’ (guenther 1992:93). conflict that cannot be controlled by means of these methods may culminate in violence. the san are a people who have traditionally been deeply uneasy about tension and strife, especially the kind that can lead to a killing (either outright or supernaturally). as such, conflict is avoided mainly by withdrawal from the conflict scene. the traditional approach of the san is consequently conflict avoidance, and if this is not possible, then to engage the other side on the basis of traditional wisdom that respect for nature should engender respect for others in conflict situations. the avoidance option is a highly effectual approach for constraining conflict: in instances where a quarrel grows too fierce or a stalemate is reached, one of the disputing parties departs to another place, settling with another group until all is forgotten (guenther 1992:93). withdrawing from one’s antagonist may discontinue resentments as well as direct accusations and suspicions of witchcraft in the community. today, however, amongst the sedentary platfontein san, withdrawal has essentially ceased to be an option. thus, unable to remove themselves bodily from such dreaded conflict, the san has opted for community consultation as a means of conflict prevention with regard to inter-personal conflict. yet accusations of witchcraft practices still persist, and consequently no lasting trust relationships are built amongst the two groups. issues remain unsettled and tension and strife continue. conclusion lasting peace in the community requires that key actors have the skills and access to conflict prevention practices allowing them to cooperate across dividing lines, managing disputes through inclusive participation as well as open and honest communication. conflict prevention at platfontein has been reasonably successful in maintaining relative peace, but has not improved the conflict situation or strategies for conflict prevention and avoidance at all. in order to progressively reduce the underlying problems that produce their disputes, the two groups must build towards shared norm systems, which makes increased trust and understanding possible, and will finally result in the development of inter-communal cooperation and long-term relationships and interaction. however, mutually acceptable solutions to intra-communal conflict have not yet been found. the groups maintain to have been tolerant of each other for many years already, and have attempted to handle the conflict in ways that are more likely to produce constructive, rather than destructive, outcomes. conflict-generating structures in the community such as witchcraft have been identified but conflict dynamics are still not altered at this stage. the conflict between the !xun and the khwe has prompted some san members to openly voice a desire for separation. it has been suggested that platfontein should be sold or liquidated so as to purchase separate locations for the two groups, thus ending any existing linkages between them (robins et al. 2001:20; soskolne 2007:24). although it is the wish of some san to rather withdraw from platfontein in order to build a new life elsewhere, it is hoped that with their shared history of dispossession, relocation and struggle, a common platform can be found to resolve their inter-communal tensions. to surmount the social tensions that might underlie the conflicts expressed in terms of witchcraft accusations, community mediation is certainly advocated. this traditional method of conflict resolution may promote peaceful and constructive management of their differences in order to create more positive communal relationships. acknowledgements the author would like to extend a special thanks and appreciation to dr ag velthuizen, the project leader, all the platfontein san field researchers, and especially the platfontein san community for their assistance. any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author. competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. references adhikari, m., 2010, ‘a total extinction confidently hoped for: the destruction of cape san society under dutch colonial rule, 1700–1795’, journal of genocide research 12(1–2), 19–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2010.508274 ashforth, a., 2000, madumo, a man bewitched, university of chicago press, chicago, il. ashforth, a., 2001, aids, witchcraft, and the problem of power in post-apartheid south africa, institute of advanced study, school of social science, occasional paper 10, princeton, nj. barnard, a., 2007, anthropology and the bushman, berg, oxford. becker, h., 2003, ‘the least sexist society? perspectives on gender, change and violence among southern african san’, journal of southern african studies 29(1) 5–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305707032000060557 beyene, h.g., 2014, ‘socio-economic factors as causes and remedies for conflict of the san community in platfontein’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 10(4), 99–119. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v10i4.91 boehm, c., 2000, ‘conflict and the evolution of social control’, journal of consciousness studies 7(1–2), 79–101. brain, j.l., 1982, ‘witchcraft and development’, african affairs 81, 371–384. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097432 carment, d. & schnabel, a., 2003, ‘introduction – conflict prevention: a concept in search of a policy’, in d. carment & a. schnabel (eds.), conflict prevention: path to peace or grand illusion?, pp. 1–11, un university press, tokyo. carnegie commission on preventing deadly conflict, 1997, preventing deadly conflict: final report, carnegie corporation, washington, dc. evans-pritchard, e.e., 1976, witchcraft, oracles and magic among the azande, oxford university press, oxford. felton, s. & becker, h., 2001, a gender perspective on the status of the san in southern africa, legal assistance centre, windhoek. fry, d.p., 2007, beyond war: the human potential for peace, oxford university press, new york. gluckman, m., 2012, politics, law and ritual in tribal society, transaction, new brunswick. guenther, m.g., 1992, ‘“not a bushman thing” witchcraft among the bushmen and hunter-gatherers’, anthropos 87, 83–107. guenther, m.g., 1999, tricksters and trancers: bushman religion and society, indiana university press, bloomington, in. hammond-tooke, w., 1989, rituals and medicines, ad donker, johannesburg. hitchcock, r.k., 2012, ‘refugees, resettlement, and land and resource conflicts: the politics of identity and !xun and khwe san in north-eastern namibia’, african study monographs 33(2), 73–132. isaacson, r., 2001, the healing land, fourth estate, london. köhler, o., 1978/1979, ‘mythus, glaube und magie bei den kxoe-buschmannern’, journal of the south west africa scientific society 33, 9–50. lee, r.b., 1979, the !kung san: men, women and work in a foraging society, cambridge university press, cambridge. lund, m.s., 2002, ‘preventing violent intrastate conflicts: learning lessons from experience’, in p. van tongeren et al. (eds.), searching for peace in europe and eurasia. an overview of conflict prevention and peacebuilding activities, pp. 99–122, lynne rienner publishers, london. marwick, m. (ed.), 1982, witchcraft and sorcery: selected readings, penguin, middlesex. mayer, p., 1982, ‘witches’, in m. marwick (ed.), witchcraft and sorcery: selected readings, penguin, middlesex. munuera, g., 1994, preventing armed conflict in europe: lessons learned from recent experience, chaillot paper 15/16, institute for security studies, alençon. mutungi, o.k., 1977, the legal aspects of witchcraft in east africa with particular reference to kenya, east african literature bureau, nairobi. oatway, j., 2013, the lost crows, viewed 07 june 2017, from http://www.panos.co.uk/preview/00166861.html?p=4 parrinder, e.g., 1963, witchcraft: european and african, faber and faber, london. prinsloo, m.w., 1993, ‘boesman-geloof in towery as strafversagtende faktor’, tydskrif vir die suid-afrikaanse reg 2, 334–338. robins, s., madzudzo, e. & brenzinger, m., 2001, an assessment of the status of the san in south africa, angola, zambia and zimbabwe, john meinert printing, windhoek. s v mathoka and others 1992 (2) sacr 443 (nc). san dispute resolution oral archive, viewed 07 june 2017, from http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/13723 sharp, j. & douglas, s., 1996, ‘prisoners of their reputation? the veterans of the ‘bushman’ battalions in south africa’, in p. skotnes (ed.), miscast: negotiating the presence of the bushmen, pp. 323–329, university of cape town press, cape town. shostak, m., 1981, nisa. the life and words of a !kung woman, harvard press, cambridge, ma. silberbauer, g., 1982, ‘political process in g/wi bands’, in e. leacock & r.b. lee (eds.), politics and history in band societies, pp. 23–36, cambridge university press, cambridge. soskolne, t., 2007, ‘“being san” in platfontein: poverty, landscape, development and cultural heritage’, ma dissertation, dept. of social anthropology, university of cape town. steadman, l., 1985, ‘the killing of witches’, oceania 56(2), 106–123. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4461.1985.tb02114.x swanström, l.p. & weissmann, m.s., 2005, conflict, conflict prevention and conflict management and beyond: a conceptual exploration, silk road studies, uppsala. tanner, f., 2000, ‘conflict prevention and conflict resolution: limits of multilateralism’, international review of the red cross 82(839), 541–559. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1560775500184615 tebbe, n., 2007, ‘witchcraft and statecraft: liberal democracy in africa’, the georgetown law journal 96, 183–236. unesco, 1982, mexico declaration on cultural policies, unesco publications, paris. ury, w.l., 1995, ‘conflict resolution among the bushmen: lessons in dispute systems design’, negotiation journal 11(4), 379–389. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1571-9979.1995.tb00753.x uys, i., 2014, bushmen soldiers, gg books, warwickshire. velthuizen, a.g., 2010, ‘on truth-telling and storytelling: truth-seeking during research involving communities with an oral culture and a history of violent conflict’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 10(4), 19–35. vorster, l., 1994, ‘towery by die !xu van schmidtsdrift: ’n verklaring’, sa tydskrif vir etnologie 17(3), 69–82. vorster, l., 1996, ‘konflik en konflikhantering by die !xu en khwe van schmidtsdrift: ’n verkenning’, codicillus 37(2), 4–13. footnotes 1. see also isaacson (2001). some authors have suggested that lee has simplified the situation; see, for example, boehm (2000) who identified ‘pre-contact’ conflict-ridden patterns common to all hunter-gatherer groups. fry (2007) again differentiates between simple, nomadic hunter-gatherers (nhgs) and complex hunter-gatherers (chgs), and asserts that while in nhgs war is rare, it is common in chgs. he draws a causative link between settled living (as copious food resources allow chgs to settle down) and war. boehm (2000:81) further maintains that ‘so long as they remain mobile – rather than sedentary – they are remarkably uniform in their social, moral, and political makeup’. he adds that these bands are moralistic ‘for they practice sanctioning according to established values that assist in identifying deviants’ and that ‘they suppress undue competition, and head off attempts of individuals to exert domination or control; as a result, they tolerate very little leadership’. 2. reasons for inter-personal conflict have mostly been different viewpoints, unfair distribution of meat or exchange of gifts, laziness and accusations of adultery (see lee 1979:372). 3. r. dakane, dakane oral archive (doa), interview with j.a., block: n/a, platfontein, 26 may 2014: ‘the people are jealous of other people’s possessions. they practice witchcraft/put spells on one another and they do wrong things’. witchcraft and sorcery are used interchangeably in this article, although some researchers of african societies differentiate between these two terms – witchcraft is seen as the use of black magic by women born with this ability, while sorcery may be learned and practised by anyone. see also hammond-tooke (1989). this sensitive subject seems always to be relegated to footnotes as barnard (2007) observes: on the other hand, concern with the specific, such as the question of … witchcraft among bushmen, would end up as footnotes in the works of scholars within bushman studies. (p. 96) 4. to elucidate the values and norms by which the san live by, the term culture is defined as: a set of distinctive, spiritual and material, intellectual and emotional characteristics, which define a society or social group. in addition to the arts and letters, it encompasses ways of life, the fundamental rights of the person, value systems, traditions and beliefs. (see unesco 1982:1) 5. this information is stored online as the san dispute resolution oral archive available at http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/13723. also see velthuizen (2010:30–31). 6. see velthuizen (2010:31). this occurred mainly at a writers’ retreat workshop held in august 2014. 7. many interviews refer to the lack of trust between the groups. see, for example, doa, interview with k.c., block: n/a, platfontein (22 may 2014): there are two communities here but we are different. we don’t speak the same language and we don’t trust one another. the result of the huge problems the san community experience was that they didn’t live together in olden times. there were different villages and each village had a tribal leader. the community is also physically divided as both the !xun and the khwe occupy opposite ends of the platfontein farm. 8. the opinion of roger chennells from the south african san institute (sasi) is quoted here. chennels further maintains that while in the sadf, the khwe were in the majority; however the accuracy of this statement cannot be verified. 9. there are currently approximately 4500 !xun and 2500 khwe inhabitants in platfontein (see beyene 2014:100). 10. conflict may also have been initiated by the differential treatment by the sadf of the two groups. according to sharp and douglas (1996:325–326), the sadf tended to provide greater assistance to the khwe because of their perceived military value. they were regarded as ‘the ideal warrior – combining the strength of the black with the cunning of the bushman’ according to uys (2014:10). see also hitchcock (2012) for further evidence of intra-group tensions. 11. although the san do not frequently marry outside their own ethnic group, intermarriages do occur. see n. mollema, mollema oral archive (moa), interview with m.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014 and becker (2003:21). there are also inter-ethnic non-marriage liaisons, but as will be illustrated, if the liaison results in a teenage pregnancy: more often than not a boyfriend does not acknowledge paternity and in any event does not provide for the child, in particular if he is from a different ethnic group. see felton and becker (2001:41); see also moa, interview with m.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014, who maintains that ‘baie van die khwe mense trou met ons meisiekinders, nie eintlik trou nie, hulle mors met hulle eintlik. hulle maak kinders, twee, drie kinders, dan los hulle daardie vrou en dan moet ons daai kind grootmaak, en as daai kind groot is, hy is khwe, hy is nou nie meer ons kind nie (many khwe men marry our girls, no, not actually marry, they mess with them. they have children, two, three children, then they leave the woman and we have to raise that child, and when the child is grown, he is khwe, he is no longer our child)’. 12. n. mollema, mollema oral archive (moa), interview with m.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014 where it was stated that there were persons ‘living with magic items on their bodies’. 13. shamans include both medicine specialists (traditional specialists who heal with herbs and roots) and diviners (soothsayers who diagnose the cause of illnesses). see guenther (1999:88–89), vorster (1994:77) and h. sibongo, sibongo oral archive (soa), interview with o.n. block: morosani, platfontein, 28 march 2014: currently here in platfontein they are still practicing, and they do good, most of us use to visit them because in the past our elders use to believe in them because they as the traditional healers and fortune tellers save us from danger and cure us from sickness. most of the time if someone lose a loved one like his wife or her husband and are alone, to talk about it then he/she have to see the specialist. h. sibongo, sibongo oral archive (soa), interview with m.k., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 16 march 2014: ‘there were also traditional healers who have dreams about what’s going to happen tomorrow’. the problem is that shamans may turn towards evil, employing either the services of malicious spirit familiars or mystical or outright poisons to harm their victims, and thus become a sorcerer. 14. brain (1982:380) argues that sedentary communties tend to engage in witchcraft. 15. robins et al. (2001:4) notes that circa 1800 the mbukushu tribe migrated southwards where they enslaved and forcefully intermarried with khwe in namibia/botswana. 16. see, for example, tebbe (2007:190): ‘sorcery is thought to be practiced in secret … witchcraft is not a faith that people openly profess. rather, it is a second-order term of accusation or suspicion’. 17. in s v mathoka (1992:448), judge kriek expresses this as such: ‘van toe af is swart magie by hulle ‘n werklikheid waarmee rekening gehou moet word, maar waaroor daar nie graag gepraat word nie, want as jy daaroor praat roep jy dit (since that time black magic became a reality which has to be taken into account, but which is not spoken about, because if you talk about it, you call it)’. 18. brain (1982:378–379) identifies the policy of villagisation (forced movement into villages) in tanzania as the main factor contributing to fear as regards witchcraft. he avers that suppression of anger results in feelings of depression which inevitably leads to further negative psychosomatic results, such as various illnesses and ultimately death. communities forced to live close together deal with their fears about one another by means of witch-finding movements, that: erupt in conditions of social and economic change, uncertainty and insecurity, poor nutrition and health facilities, and when people feel that traditional practitioners like waganga are inadequate to cope with present difficulties. although brain’s hypothesis corresponds to the situation of the platfontein community, there has not been any evidence as yet of witch-finding movements. 19. see ashforth (2000:160). a huge, consistently-boiling pot filled with magical concoctions emanating deadly smoke is blamed for the many illnesses and deaths in the platfontein community. see also n. mollema, mollema oral archive (moa), interview with m.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014. it is also deemed one of the reasons why so many youths commit suicide – suicide is seen a result of witchcraft. see oatway (2013). 20. ashforth (2000:208) and vorster (1994:78). a familiar that appears in one’s dreams is sent by the sorcerer as a warning that one will become ill. dreaming of a familiar allegedly caused the legs of a platfontein man to swell up so that he had to make use of crutches in order to walk (see n. mollema, mollema oral archive (moa), interview with m.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014). 21. in s v mathoka, the alleged sorcerer had a piece of mirror in his medicine bag. he placed medicine on this mirror to summon familiars to haunt people in their dreams (see vorster 1994:78). shamans also make use of mirrors in order to identify the cause of the illness or misfortune. 22. it is asserted that a chicken, treated with magic medicine, was roaming the community, spreading disease. if the chicken pecked a person, that person would die (see n. mollema, mollema oral archive (moa), interview with m.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014). 23. for example, knowledge (during times of assessment) may be transferred from one pupil to another by means of magic spells. this may be countered by the use of sea water, an antidote against evil charms (see n. mollema, mollema oral archive (moa), interview with o.m., block: kamatoka, platfontein, 08 august 2014). the so-called ‘salt-churches’ (apostolic church in zion) present in platfontein also make use of salt as cleansing agent (see vorster 1994:72). 24. according to felton and becker (2001:50): ‘!xu girls were said to be impregnated by khwe men, who later took no responsibility for either the young mother or the child’. threats of sorcery are accordingly blamed for engaging in early sexual relationships and the resultant high number of teenage pregnancies. 25. this threat, that is, ‘you will see death’, seems to be the standard warning in case of witchcraft-related accusations in this community (see vorster 1994:75). 26. mutungi (1977:104) states that killing a witch ‘is not only approved but … is also a praiseworthy service’ in the eyes of many communities. 27. n. jack, jack oral archive (joa), interview with m.s., block: morosani, platfontein, 30 june 2014: many of our good traditional healers stay in namibia and we can’t find them in south africa. you have to take your family to that place if you want it, but it will cost you a lot of money. n. jack, jack oral archive (joa), interview with b.k, block: morosani, platfontein, 30 june 2014: today we don’t have good traditional healers and when we take any problem to them, they help but it doesn’t, it stays longer. the same problem comes back to the person. n. jack, jack oral archive (joa), interview with r.k., block: morosani, platfontein, 30 june 2014: ‘they help many people but you have to pay them. if you don’t pay them, it is not going to work’. 28. this is done in order to neutralise the sorcerer’s powers. the river should not flow as this will spread the evil charms; also, care must be taken that people do not inhale the fumes of the fire into which the charms were cast (see vorster 1994:77). 29. he was then tied up with a chain and cables and suspended from a tree by his feet. the chains pulled his upper arms together behind his back and were pulled tighter until he died. the reason why he was killed in this manner was to prevent any of his blood from being spilled on the ground where they lived which would have caused his evil powers to remain behind (see s v mathoka 1992:443). 30. approval was also obtained from a member of the san council, see prinsloo (1993:335). 31. ury (1995:380) relates a remark made to him by a san elder: ‘the greatest lesson my father taught me was, “never cause a problem so that it won’t have to be settled. live in harmony”.’ (see also soskolne 2007:36). abstract introduction location of mpumalanga province theoretical framework of community development worker programme roles and functions of community development workers advantages of community development workers disadvantages of community development workers research methodology analysis of results ethical considerations discussion and conclusion acknowledgements references annexure 1: location of mpumalanga province, south africa. about the author(s) sipho k. mokoena department of public management, tshwane university of technology, south africa kabelo b. moeti department of public management, tshwane university of technology, south africa citation mokoena, s.k. & moeti, k.b., 2017, ‘community development workers as agents of change and conduit of authentic public participation: the case of mpumalanga province in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a415. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.415 original research community development workers as agents of change and conduit of authentic public participation: the case of mpumalanga province in south africa sipho k. mokoena, kabelo b. moeti received: 14 feb. 2017; accepted: 22 may 2017; published: 10 aug. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article explores the role of community development workers (cdws) in the mpumalanga province of south africa. the cdws are by law expected to regularly communicate, inter alia, government initiatives in a way which is easily accessible to community members. literature shows that the cdws forward concerns and issues on the service provided by national and provincial government in general, and local government to be specific. this article acknowledges that cdws share the working space with ward committees who have a direct say in the planning, decision-making and project implementation that have impact on their respective wards. the question that this article attempts to answer is whether the establishment of cdws in the country has achieved the desired result to the extent that it can be recommended for permanent incorporation in the local municipality structures. the research design used in this article was a qualitative method. data were collected through extensive review of public documents, accredited journal articles, observations and interviews. the results showed that the cdws coordinate teams of volunteers in community projects, coordinate teams employed on public works programmes, help communities develop and submit proposals for inclusion in integrated development plans to municipalities, and other spheres of government or donors. furthermore, the roles and functions of both cdws and ward committees do overlap. it is very difficult for the local communities to differentiate between these two structures. introduction in 2003, the south african government introduced the community development workers (cdws) system administered at the provincial sphere, but operating in municipalities according to the geographic demarcation of their wards. cdws are appointed public servants governed by the public service act 1994 (act 103 of 1994) (ministry for public service and administration 2007). according to the former minister of public service and administration, minister fraser-moleketi (2007), cdws are a fundamental building block of the public service registering an important step forward in south africa’s developmental agenda. thus, this article argues that cdws are formed to bridge the gap between government and citizens in great need of services provided by it. it is a complementary structure to existing structures in municipalities with different, and to a certain extent, some overlapping, responsibilities to other structures such as ward committees and ward councillors. these structural arrangements were formed to promote public participation and democracy to people where they live. the research problem that this article attempts to address is as follows: with the recent community protests experienced in mpumalanga province, cdws may be able to play a role in identifying causal factors of the protests while enhancing citizen participation (however, acknowledging the existence of other important stakeholders such as ward committees, ward councillors, non-governmental organisations [ngos] and business community, just to mention a few). the article initiates discussion by presenting the geographical location of mpumalanga province; thereafter follows a discussion on the theoretical foundation of the roles and responsibilities of cdws. secondly, the research methodology used in this article is explained briefly. thirdly, an analysis and interpretation of the empirical findings are presented. finally, the article provides concluding remarks. location of mpumalanga province the province of mpumalanga is one of the nine post-1994 provinces in the republic of south africa. mpumalanga province is a culmination of mainly the former kwandebele, kangwane, parts of the former lebowa and gazankulu homelands in the bushbuckridge local municipality areas (municipal demarcation act 1998 [act 27 of 1998]). in terms of the above-mentioned act, mpumalanga province (see annexure 1) is divided into three distinct districts, namely nkangala, gert sibande and ehlanzeni. nkangala district nkangala district in mpumalanga province comprises mainly the former homeland kwandebele, former witbank now known as emalahleni, some north-eastern parts formerly attached to the province today known as gauteng, middelburg and the respective surrounding farmlands areas. gert sibande district gert sibande is in mpumalanga province comprising areas previously under the northern-eastern kwazulu-natal homeland, the main power or energy supply industry areas of the pre-1994 eastern transvaal province and their adjacent enormous streaks of farmlands. ehlanzeni district the ehlanzeni district of mpumalanga province comprises, among others, mainly former kangwane homeland areas, also former lebowa and gazankulu homelands. ehlanzeni is the biggest district in terms of population in the province, but it is constituted by only 5 of the 18 municipalities in the province, namely nkomazi, umjindi, thaba chweu, bushbuckridge and mbombela, the capital city of the province (municipal demarcation act 1998 [act 27 of 1998]). the local municipalities where the study forms its base comes from the above-mentioned districts with each district represented by one local municipality, namely emalahleni (nkangala district), msukaligwa (gert sibande district) and thaba chweu (ehlanzeni district) (van rooyen and mokoena 2013). the current population is estimated to be approximately 4 600 000 in 1 165 000 households (republic of south africa 2011). theoretical framework of community development worker programme cdws can be defined as participatory change agents who work in the communities where they live, and to whom they answer for their activities. cdws are expected to help community members to understand how they can participate in the plans for development in their communities. they are expected to facilitate community participation in policymaking and implementation, and in service delivery (ministry for public service and administration 2007). as mentioned above, community development workers programme (cdwp) was introduced in 2003 as a national mandate to fast-track service delivery and development in various local municipalities. cdwp was registered as an alternative to a conventional policy model to service delivery backlogs (tshishonga and mafema 2010: 562). the researchers argue that the cdwp is a south african government democratic approach to social welfare. the white paper on social welfare 2007 summarises this approach as follows: the goal of developmental social welfare is a humane, peaceful, just and caring society which will uphold welfare rights, facilitate the meeting of basic human needs, release people’s creative energies, help them archive their aspirations, build human capacity and self-reliance, and empower them to participate fully in all spheres of social, economic and political life. in this connection, it is vivid that this particular programme was established to enhance the public participation in order for people to identify with the government programmes in their different communities. south africans will be afforded the opportunity to play an active role in promoting their own well-being and in contribution to the growth and development of our nation. the challenge facing the welfare system is to devise appropriate and integrated strategies to address the alienation and the economic and social marginalization of vast sector of the population who are living in poverty, are vulnerable, and have special needs. an inter-sectoral response is needed within government and between government and civil society to adequately address welfare needs. (republic of south africa 2007) in the 2003 state of the nation address, the former president, thabo mbeki, presented the rationale for the cdwp stating that government will create a public service echelon of multi-skilled cdws who will maintain direct contact with people where these masses live. the aim is to ensure that government goes to the people so that it sharply improves the quality of the outcomes of public expenditure intended to raise the standards of living of the people. the above paragraph serves to illustrate the significance of structures like cdws in this case, to be multi-skilled because they work in direct contact with communities to ensure that citizens have access to quality services. cdws are expected to be knowledgeable about services provided by various departments in all the spheres of government. it is essential that all spheres of government cooperate to give citizens a complete package of services that will improve their conditions. the ministry for public service and administration (2007:8) further states that well-trained cdws will help enrich the quality of government services for communities by identifying new programmes and creating linkages and coordination with other community stakeholders. for example, cdws will help people access information and services to set up community-based projects such as small business development projects. the cdwp is based on the following objectives as identified by the ministry for public service and administration (2007:9): to deepen democracy to contribute to citizen education to ensure integration and coordinated function of government at all spheres and between departments to raise skills levels within local government to improve the dissemination of information to all sectors of society. the idea is to facilitate developmental projects easier while at the very same time, the local people are being skilled on any project that may be running at the time in their locality. in this regard, ham, chirwa and theron (2013:179) argue that people-centred approaches in community forestry are based on three very important principles, namely (1) the active and authentic participation of community stakeholders in projects, (2) the use, and acknowledgement, of the importance of indigenous knowledge system (iks) and (3) the use of policies that support participation and collaborative management of resources. they argue further that the cdwp emphasises the importance of a holistic approach, of co-developing a customised local context, the relevant solutions to problems through two-way information flow, which refers to a mutually beneficial social learning process, of partnership planning between the change agent and the local community, and of the acknowledgement of iks. taken in the light of the above contribution of ham, chirwa and teron, it can be concluded that cdws are expected to work essentially as change agents. roles and functions of community development workers the ministry for public service and administration (2007) describes the roles of cdws as follows: to assist in the smooth delivery of services by identifying and removing obstacles to strengthen the social contract between government and communities to link communities with government services to pass on communities’ concerns and problems to government structures to support and nurture the increased exchange of information to improve government–community networks. the above serve to emphasise the significance of government working together with local communities. an observation can be made, based on media reports, that communities are mostly feeling that government is not communicating enough, and as such they are left behind on matters affecting them directly. in essence, cdws are formed to bridge the gap between government and citizens in great need of services provided by it. it is a complementary structure to existing structures in municipalities. advantages of community development workers the former president mbeki on 14 march during the cdws indaba (summit) in tshishonga and mafema (2010:574) argued that cdwp had brought in a new category of professionalism in the local government sphere and would assist and fast-track service delivery. it had a structural resource budgeted for its effective and efficient operations. the cdwp was formed on the basis of the following strategic objectives and advantages: to assist in the removal of development and service delivery bottlenecks to link communities with government services and relay community concerns and problems to government to support, nurture and advocate for an organised voice for the poor to improve government community networks (the presidency 14 march 2008 ‘sa: mbeki: community development workers indaba (summit)’ in tshishonga & mafema 2010:574). the above advantages have been summarised by the forum for australian services for survivors of torture and trauma (fasstt) in tshishonga and mafema (2010:575) as a process which contributes to the strength of a community by increasing its social capital, developing self-reliance through encouraging cohesive relationships and external partnerships, enhancing and harnessing community skills and resources, and promoting participation in decision-making leadership to ensure community ownership. disadvantages of community development workers according to tshishonga and mafema (2010:575) the disadvantages of cdws during the stage of its formation are as follows: the cdwp is a cumbersome programme: it is based in the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta), but is overseen by the whole municipalities as the locus of their day-to-day activities. therefore, the cdwp was conceived without a policy direction. communities did not trust the programme because of new suspicion that the cdws spy for the government, a legacy of the previous oppressive government. the south african culture is built on suspicion of top-down and state-led community development programmes as they were used during the apartheid to control people. the role and responsibility of the cdws are misunderstood by both local government and communities, and it often causes conflict and tension (gray & mubangizini 2010; tshishonga & mafema 2010). the issue of programme accountability was an added challenge as councillors had an expectation that cdws were to report directly as councillors had an expectation that cdws were to report directly to them, thus there was confusion as to who was in charge of them. this resulted in fragmented and uncooperative relationships and networks between ward councillors and cdws (gray & mubangizini 2010; tshishonga & mafema 2010). the local government officials and councillors felt threatened by cdws’ position and direct line communication to the cogta. cdws were thus treated with suspicion in case they assumed the government and councillor’s roles. the suspicions and infighting with political stalwarts of the communities placed cdws in a precarious position where they felt exacerbated by the lack of a formal introduction of the programme, particularly to the relevant stakeholders such as government departments, the private sector and communities as targeted recipients of their services. the above disadvantages present the fallacy and misconception by both local government officials and councillors about cdws at its inception. however, its main aim as discussed by van rooyen (2007) in tshishonga and mafema (2010:577) that cdws are an effective way of removing development deadlock caused by bureaucratic and top-down development practices as well as strengthening the democratic social responsibility by giving voice to the poor and improving the relationship between a municipality and communities to build a responsible and accountable government. figure 1 presents the roles and responsibilities of councillors, ward committees and cdws as the roles are supposed to complement each other. the researchers acknowledge that this article focuses primarily on cdws; however, it was deemed fit to depict some similarities and differences of the three role players because they are all operating in the same space. figure 1: roles and responsibilities of ward councillors, ward committees and community development workers. figure 1 serves to clarify the distinct roles and responsibilities of councillors, ward committees and cdws as persons that are expected to be working with citizens on governance issues. in as far as the councillors are concerned, for example, it should be noted that councillors are politically elected representatives who live in and service the ward. furthermore, councillors are required to manage queries and complaints, resolve disputes and refer unresolved disputes to the municipality and work with ward committees to draw up an annual plan of activities. regarding ward committees, for example, they are structures elected from the communities in a ward general meeting to represent sectoral interest. a ward committee is formed by 10 members and is chaired by the ward councillor. and it is supposed to be apolitical and should be involved in matters such as the integrated development plan (idp) process, municipal performance management, the annual budget, council projects and other key activities. moreover, it can support the councillor in dispute resolution and can identify and initiate projects to improve the lives of people in the ward. cdws are appointed as public servants governed by the public service act 1994 (act 103 of 1994) and are expected, for example, to regularly communicate government and other information to communities in an accessible way, pass concerns and issues on the service delivery, inform communities about problems in the delivery of basic services and help implement projects. it can be argued that all the above roles and responsibilities of three actors serves to enhance the involvement and participation of citizens in the governance of municipalities. however, it should be noted that, for example, roles such as managing complaints (by the councillor), identification of projects to improve the lives of people in the ward (by ward committees) and communicate problems in the delivery of basic services to communities have a potential of power struggle and conflict over who has authority over the ward. these roles, for example, seem to have some overlapping responsibilities. however, both ward committees and cdws were formed to bring and enforce democracy to people where they live (republic of south africa 2005). research methodology the qualitative research methodology was utilised in this study in order to be in a position to evaluate the impact by cdws in relation to citizen participation on governance issues regarding services delivery. qualitative research was deemed suitable for gaining a rich understanding of cdws’ roles in enhancing citizen participation towards municipal service delivery and finding out the representatives of the local communities’ views on the above-mentioned structures’ roles and their performance in municipal service provision, in the research areas. in attempting to study the above-noted dynamics, a case study of three local municipalities in the province was identified, namely thaba chweu (ehlanzeni region), msukaligwa (gert sibande region) and emalahleni (nkangala region). the researchers used the qualitative research approach as it offers greater depth of understanding. as such, the qualitative method usefully allowed the researchers to explore and highlight the challenges confronting cdws towards enhancing citizen participation. the research utilised multiple data collection strategies to collect the necessary data. this includes the literature review, observations, analysis of statistics already produced by others, official publications and correspondence discussion documents, official papers presented at workshops and conferences, speeches and debates, newsletters and pamphlets, newspaper surveys, theses and dissertations as well as material from the internet. primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews. the sample of the study comprised a total of 65 participants consisting of 9 ward councillors, 31 ward committee members and 25 cdws from all the three local municipalities. the sample breakdown from the three municipalities is as follows: thaba chweu local municipality – 3 ward councillors (sample) from the 14 wards (population) as per the municipality’s demarcation, 10 ward committee members (sample) (5 wards represented by 2 members) from 140 members (population) and 8 cdws (sample) from 14 wards (population). msukaligwa local municipality – 3 ward councillors (sample) from the 16 wards (population) as per the municipality’s demarcation, 10 ward committee members (sample) (5 wards represented by 2 members) from 160 members (population) and 8 cdws (sample) from 16 wards (population). emalahleni local municipality – 3 ward councillors (sample) from the 34 wards (population) as per the municipality‘s demarcation, 11 ward committee members (sample) (6 wards represented by 2 members, of whom 1 ward member withdrew at the last minute) from 340 members (population) and 9 cdws (sample) from 34 wards (population). the sample of the wards was randomly selected with a consideration of a geographical distance from one ward to another. this was done for convenience purposes about the distance that the researchers had to cover within the limited resources and time. the data collected through semi-structured interviews were analysed by using a thematic content analysis. braun and clarke (2006) argue that a thematic analysis is a qualitative analytic method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data. it minimally organises and describes a data set in (rich) detail. however, frequently it goes further than this, and interprets various aspects of the research topic. creswell (2003) asserts that an analysis in qualitative research consists of exploring the data, writing down ideas and thinking about the organisation of the data in text segments or themes. braun and clarke (2006) further state that a theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set. the following steps suggested by leedy and ormrod (2001) were followed when carrying out the thematic analysis in this study: organisation of details about the case categorisation of single instance identification of patterns synthesis and generalisation. analysis of results the following responses by cdws have been categorised into six, namely the establishment of ward committees, membership and composition, functions, roles and responsibilities, community participation processes; training and capacity building and general. as mentioned above, these classifications were made to provide a systematic flow of the responses and create an order for the analysis and writing of the article. furthermore, it should be noted that cdws’ roles cannot be looked at in isolation from other stakeholders like ward committees’ and ward councillors’ roles. on the establishment of ward committees and cdws, the respondents (cdws) were asked if their local municipalities have adopted a policy on how ward committees should carry out their roles and functions. all (100%) respondents indicated that the various municipalities had adopted policies on how ward committees and cdws should carry out their roles and functions. this symbolises the commitment that the various local municipalities have shown on the whole concept of both ward committees and cdws. in addition, the respondents were asked if the respective councils budgeted for the functioning and support of ward committees. as many as 70% of the respondents indicated that there is a budget that has been put aside for community participation, but they were unsure whether it was mainly for the functioning and support of ward committees and cdws. only the remaining 30% of the cdws confidently responded that the various councils had actually budgeted for the functioning and support of ward committees and cdws. regarding the membership and composition of the ward committees, the respondents were asked about the term of office that the various local municipalities set for ward committees. all (100%) respondents indicated that the term of office that their various local municipalities had set for ward committees was five years. this is in line with the current council’s term of office. a follow-up question to respondents was in relation to whether, in their view, ward committees generally were representative of race and gender. it was very interesting to observe that all (100%) respondents indicated that race and gender were not issues for them, because of the fact that the current wards spread across the former white, mixed race, indian and african townships or residential areas. instead, they were more interested in ensuring service delivery to the communities. issues of representativity would appear to be at the core of the ward committee’s purpose, that is, legislative provisions make it clear that the policy intention was to bring a full spectrum of demographically defined and sectoral groups into the ward committee system. in as far as the function, roles and responsibilities of both cdws and ward committees are concerned, the minority of the respondents (37%) felt that ward committees are accountable, in the sense that they have some form of mechanism to account to the local constituency for their actions and responsibilities. however a significant 63% did not agree. however, this portion mentioned the general dysfunctionality in the ward committees and cdws as being frequently related to a lack of resources. furthermore, the 37% of respondents agreed that ward committees do account for their actions to their local constituency through sub-forums of the ward, regular meetings that are open to the public, community report-back meetings. while the 63% disagreed. in addition, when respondents replied on the question whether the municipalities have delegated any specific powers to cdws and ward committees, the respondents indicated that it does not appear that there is any significant delegation of powers to ward committees and cdws – an option that exists within the legislation. a clear majority (70%) of the respondents indicated that no powers were delegated to ward committees and only 20% disagreed with this view, while 10% were still unsure on this issue. moreover, on issues of whether the various councils have systems within their respective councils to get reports from these structures, all (100%) respondents indicated that the ward councillors are expected to hold public meetings once a month. it is at these meetings that they are expected to deal with, among other issues, concerns of the local community members, issues of cdws, etc. it was interesting to find out that these structures do submit reports on meetings held to office of the speaker or the office of the municipal manager, which then forms part and parcel of their reports and recommends them for the various municipal councils for adoption. with regard to community participation processes, the participants were asked how they would define community participation in the context of their local municipalities. although the respondents came up with different definitions, all their responses included the following: that all stakeholders, including the broader public, should be afforded an opportunity to make inputs into the municipal affairs. as such, examples given to activities that stakeholders do participate in include the idp review process, idp representative forum, the budget and the performance management system. in addition, all (100%) respondents agreed that the cdws do have an impact in the various councils’ decision. however, it was interesting to hear from the respondents when they were asked if there is any link between cdws and ward committees. the respondents indicated clearly that there is confusion to a certain extent on operational grounds because of the overlap in functions while the legislations are there to guide the working relationship between the ward committees and cdws. the largest percentage of respondents (52%) felt that there was no link, while 27% perceived a link and 21% were unsure and stated that both the cdws and ward committees are part of the government structures that serve the local people and have to work together to improve the lives of the poor. it was clear to the researchers that there is still confusion in terms of the roles and functions of both the ward committees and cdws. this sometimes results in conflict. in as far as the challenges facing the implementation of the cdwp and what remedial actions would they recommend. all (100%) respondents felt that the only challenge facing cdws was the lack of maximum exposure in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities. moreover, on the question whether the respective local municipalities are doing enough to promote community participation, 62% of respondents felt that the local municipalities were doing enough to promote community participation and cdws as all structures and systems for community participation were properly in place. however, 38% disagreed completely. the respondents were asked about what can be done to improve overall community participation in your local municipality. although all the respondents came up with different viewpoints, a clear message from them was that cdws should be a major supporting engine of all community participation processes in local municipalities. all the respondents felt that the non-partisan nature of both cdws and ward committees is an important ingredient in the enhancement of public participation at local government. on the training and capacity building, the question was asked on the kinds of training or capacity building cdws and ward committees have received in order to fulfil their intended functions. the largest percentage of respondents (85%) said that this training had in fact improved ward committee performance, whereas 15% said it had not. those who said that the training had been effective held the view that it had helped ward committee members and ward councillors to understand their roles and therefore to become more effective. generally, those who felt that the training had been ineffective did not explain how and simply indicated that it had not produced the expected results. in general, in view that the cdws are salaried government officials, all respondents felt that the ward committees should be remunerated. the obvious reason for remunerating ward committee members was that many were drawn from indigent communities and were required to undertake public interest activities, whereas their own livelihoods were not secure. it was, however, mentioned that the only significant form of compensation that had occurred was for the payment of transport costs. ethical considerations the authors would like to confirm that all ethical considerations were adhered to when writing this article. discussion and conclusion the researchers observed that the role played by both cdws and ward committees in local municipalities create the platform for public participation process as these structures are links between the public and the local municipalities as this was meant to improve communication channels within local government. furthermore, both these structures are perceived by the communities as credible and competent structures to present the communities’ demands to local municipalities and was proven by the findings of this research. however, the public does not differentiate between the cdws and ward committees. the role played by cdws has a better part of improving the government communication network in linking the public with government services. the cdws are by law expected to regularly communicate government and other information to communities in an accessible way, while at the very same time the ward committees are by law expected to take issues of local concern to the councillor, who in turn takes these to the council. furthermore, the cdws pass concerns and issues on to the service providers, and the ward committees have a direct say in the planning decision-making and project implementation that have an impact on their wards. in this connection, it is interesting to observe that the cdws coordinate teams of volunteers in community projects, coordinate teams employed on public works programmes, help communities develop and submit proposals for inclusion in intergraded development plans to municipalities, other spheres of government or donors, while the ward committees increase the participation of local residents in municipal decision-making, just to mention a few legislative roles. in essence, the roles and functions of both cdws and ward committees do overlap and they create conflict among these two structures. it is very difficult for the local communities to differentiate between these two structures. this conclusion is supported by the responses of the community members as presented above. the article concludes by providing the following recommendations: (1) in order to improve the effectiveness of the ward committees and cdws in municipalities, there is a need to improve cooperation and coordination in the rendering of government services by its institutions, and in this case, the municipalities. the philosophy behind the introduction of the idp in all municipalities in the country was to improve cooperation and coordination. the constraint with the idp process is that most municipalities do not have the capacity to facilitate it timeously. in most cases, the idp is a document for audit purposes but it will not necessarily influence the delivery of services within the municipality. this could be done if the ward committees, councillors and cdws work together in all initiatives that require their co-operation. (2) the municipalities should continuously provide ward committees and cdws with appropriate capacity-building or training programmes in order for them to function effectively. ward committees’ training strategies should take cognisance of the unique nature of ward committees as fragile voluntary bodies that are still in the process of exploring and building upon this uniquely structured model of participatory democracy. these training programmes should also attempt to accommodate the different academic backgrounds of the ward committee members. the local municipalities should also conduct a careful participatory review of ward committee experiences and local knowledge bases before planning any further ward committee training and capacity-building programmes. some successful examples of capacity and training approaches emphasise the importance of building on past experiences and gains in capacity. the above approach could also be applied to the cdws as well, because they are appointed as public officials. this can only be accomplished by working with beneficiaries in an interactive manner and focusing on the key development challenges and issues that are identified by both internal stakeholders, for example cdws, and external service providers. building the capacity of ward committees and cdws must go together with deepening the interaction between ward committees, councillors, cdws and the communities, to ensure that it is really the communities that can take advantage of newly empowered ward committees and cdws. (3) the researchers recommend that further studies should be conducted with a view to fusing the two structures into one. this is supported by the fact that certain roles, functions and responsibilities do overlap, for example informing the citizens about projects, just to name one. acknowledgements the corresponding author would like to acknowledge and thank the tshwane university of technology for offering him the opportunity to study his doctoral degree. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions this study was completed by s.k.m for his doctoral degree. s.k.b was responsible for the conceptualisation of the article, analysed and interpreted the data. k.b.m. was the supervisor and made conceptual contributions, proofread and supervised the writing of the article. references braun, v. & clarke, v., 2006, ‘using thematic analysis in psychology’, qualitative research in psychology 3(2), 77–101. creswell, j.w., 2003, research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches, 2nd edn., sage publication, new delhi. gray, m. & mubangizi, b.c., 2010, ‘caught in the vortex: can local government community development workers succeed in south africa?’, community development journal 45(2), 188–197. ham, c., chirwa, p. & theron, f., 2013. the forester as a change agent – from trees between the people to people between the trees, the development change agent: a micro-level approach to development, van schaik, pretoria. ministry for public service and administration, 2007, address by minister fraser-moleketi on the roles of community development workers, government printers, pretoria. leedy, p.d. & ormrod, j.e., 2001, practical research: planning and design, 7th edn., prentice-hall, upper saddle river, nj. republic of south africa, 1994, public service act (act no. 103 of 1994), government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa, 1998, municipal demarcation act (act no. 27 of 1998), government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa, 2005, handbook for community development workers, government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa, 2007, white paper on social welfare, government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa, 2011, statistics south africa, government printers, pretoria. tshishonga, n. & mafema, e.d., 2010, ‘policy development for service delivery through community development workers programme in south africa: exploring the implications of placing a cart before the horse’, journal of public administration 45(4), 561–583. van rooyen, d., 2007, ‘community development workers: four lessons from international experience of community-based workers’, journal of social work 43(3), 209–223. van rooyen, e.j. & mokoena, s.k., 2013. ‘the role of ward committees towards enhancing public participation: the case of the mpumalanga province, south africa’, journal of business and economics 4(8), 761–770. annexure 1: location of mpumalanga province, south africa. abstract introduction and background literature the approach and data summary, conclusions and policy recommendations acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) syden mishi department of economics, faculty of business and economics sciences, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa zintle sikhunyana department of economics, faculty of business and economics sciences, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa nomasomi ngonyama department of economics, faculty of management and commerce, university of fort hare, alice, south africa kin sibanda department of economics, faculty of business and economics sciences, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa citation mishi, s., sikhunyana, z., ngonyama, n. & sibanda, k., 2020, ‘livelihood strategies and diversification amongst the poor: evidence from south african household surveys’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a726. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.726 original research livelihood strategies and diversification amongst the poor: evidence from south african household surveys syden mishi, zintle sikhunyana, nomasomi ngonyama, kin sibanda received: 27 june 2019; accepted: 04 mar. 2020; published: 25 may 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract south africa faces persistent challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality. recently, there has been growing literature trying to effectively address such challenges as the livelihood strategies of the poor need to be adequately understood. this article studied the livelihood strategies and diversification among the poor in south africa using two data sets, namely the statistics south africa general household survey 2016 (ghs) and the programme to support pro-poor policy development (psppd ii)-university of fort hare (ufh) economics survey. the study measured welfare using per capita income standardised by the adult equivalence scale (aes) which accounts for intra-household variations in members’ access to household’s resources and therefore corrects for economies of scale. logistic regression techniques were employed to test the stated hypotheses. the ghs 2016-based results are in line with the sustainable livelihood framework, which posits that households need access to different sets of assets to sustain livelihoods. in this context, access to different assets has been shown to increase the probability of engaging in high-value strategies that will ensure sustainability of livelihoods. the psppd-ufh economics data collaborate ghs-based results, showing that assets’ access deprivation increases the odds of relying on non-labour income (like social grants) than engaging in high-value strategy (no farming income). male-headed households and those with greater access to financial capital are more diversified. keywords: poverty; adult equivalence scale; transfer income; vulnerability; farming. introduction and background about two-thirds of the world’s poor people reside in the rural areas of low-income countries, mainly depending on subsistence farming and other natural resources for their livelihood (aguilar & sumner 2020). considering that there is very high rate of unemployment particularly in developing nations (international labour organization ilo 2018), entrepreneurship and household livelihood strategies can help to improve the standard of living of the poor, marginalised and unemployed (alemu 2012; united nations food and agriculture organisation [un-fao] 2013). rural people across nations no longer rely solely on agriculture but are engaging in a range of occupations to construct a diverse portfolio of livelihood activities (alemu 2012). households combine a set of activities such as agriculture, trade, informal employment, entrepreneurship and migration to achieve livelihood goals (ellis 1998). however, goals of the rural households are not always achieved because of factors such as poor rainfall and lack of inputs, lack of funding and limited education, among other limitations especially around access to key assets (blein 2013; mishi & mudziwapasi 2014). south africa is battling persistently high levels of inequality (gini coefficient ranging between 55 and 70); high unemployment rate (over a quarter of the labour force with that of the youths being over 50%); high and severe poverty levels (statistics south africa 2018). given the high levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty, improving access to key assets is crucial in order to enhance income generation for the majority of the rural poor. this makes an essential component of a successful rural development strategy in south africa. according to alemu (2012), labour endowment, age, education and community characteristics in terms of access to basic infrastructure are some of the barriers that poor households in rural areas face to enter into high-return livelihood strategies. south africa is an interesting case study among the developing and emerging economies given the level of the three socio-economic ills mentioned above, which are significantly higher relative to peer economies. data show that, for example, amongst the brazil, russia, india, china and south africa (brics) group of countries, south africa is the most unequal (gini coefficients of the countries for 2018 stand at 51.3, 37.7, 35.1, 42.2 and 63, respectively) (world bank 2018a), it is the one with the highest unemployment (13.32%, 5.20%, 3.52%, 4.68% and 27.33%, respectively) (world bank 2018) and it is the one with the greatest proportion of individuals living in poverty (8.7%, 13.2%, 21.9%, 3.1% and 55.5%, respectively; including working poverty) (ilo 2018). globally, south africa is in the league of emerging economies, but in terms of development indicators, south africa performs well below its peers as shown by the statistics mentioned above. the paradox is puzzling and has seen several programmes and policies being implemented, especially since the dawn of democracy from apartheid in 1994, albeit with limited evidence of effect. there is limited evidence to show how rural households in developing and emerging economies, including south africa, provide for and sustain their livelihoods (see few studies that have attempted this at a small-scale level: alemu 2012; carter & may 1999; leibbrandt, woolard & woolard 2000; mathebula et al. 2017). the results from such studies are inconsistent or leave gaps such as inabilities to properly articulate alternate strategies for livelihood, and ingrained diversification of income sources connected specifically to socio-cultural patterns in the south african society of neo-duality, especially in the rural communities. the challenges of south africa differ in terms of severity across the nine regions (provinces1). eastern cape is the poorest performing province in terms of education, having the lowest percentage of people with an education level higher than matric (eastern cape socio-economic consultative council [ecsecc] 2017). this is a function of both low educational quality within the province and the high outward migration of those with high educational attainment to other parts of the country. in terms of the human development index, south africa rates behind many of its ‘poorer’ neighbours, and the eastern cape lags the country as a whole, only ahead of limpopo province (eastern cape non-governmental organisations [ngo] coalition 2012). the people in the eastern cape province are worse off than the people of south africa in terms of overall development indicators. this is mostly because of a backlog in services, as well as fewer job opportunities in the rural areas. therefore, this article is aimed to identify livelihood strategies, investigate the determinants of livelihood strategies chosen by rural households and examine the extent to which rural households diversify their livelihood strategies. barrett and swallow (2005) argued that the analysis of livelihood strategies is more crucial for rural development policy. analysis of historical, existing and possible livelihood strategies is crucial for understanding how people make economic decisions, and, in return, this could be used for achieving sustainable environmental management and development planning. alemu (2012) argued that rural development intervention strategy requires economic policy-makers to have knowledge of what constitute the prevailing source of their livelihood strategies, why poor rural households are trapped into lower income activities and what policy interventions that can be followed to reduce rural poverty. one characteristic of the poor is involvement in diverse livelihood strategies for survival with limited option to identify one strategy to invest on (ellis 1998). diversification is a key to the survival of the poor and enables them to smooth consumption in the face of negative shocks (ellis 1998). it is imperative to note that in numerous cases the poor expend much on low-value activities and/or on the ones they do not enjoy competitive advantage on because of following other households within the community. this is explained by learning theory that individuals can watch what others (especially influential figures in the community) are doing and follow suit (gautam & andersen 2016). with all these facts being stated, the study aims to provide information about livelihood strategies that can be targeted and incorporated by rural development policy-makers in decisions concerning poverty alleviation, employment creation and inequality reduction. the study makes use of two data sets: the official survey by the central statistics organisation (general household survey [ghs] 2016 version) and primary data collected through a project under the programme to support pro-poor policy development2 (psppd ii) (simatele, mishi, tsegaye, makhetha-kosi, kapingura & khumalo, 2016). this triangulation of data allows for cross-pollination of evidence for better understanding the phenomenon under study. literature theoretical literature the study is underpinned by the new institutional economics theory. this theory explains how economic activities depend on social and legal norms and rules (groenewegen, spithoven & van den berg 2010; mishi & mudziwapasi 2014). for the households to derive livelihoods from an activity, utilising certain assets, it requires that such activity is socially acceptable and is legal. in addition, access and usage should be in line with the rules governing the jurisdiction in which the activities are to take place. an example is use of land, for example, in cultivation, one need to have legal access to the land and practice acceptable agricultural activities. in south africa, the apartheid system differentiated the access and use of the different livelihood assets. the study therefore uses sustainable livelihood framework (slf) and the asset-based community development (abcd) framework to guide inquiry. these theoretical frameworks are critical in understanding the livelihoods strategies and diversification among the poor as discussed below. sustainable livelihood approach sustainable livelihood approach (sla) is about empowerment of the most vulnerable and poor through strengthening of their capacity to achieve secure livelihoods. chambers and conway (1992) assert that: [a] livelihood is sustainable if it is able to cope with and recover from shocks and stresses and be able to sustain its capabilities or assets now as well as in future. (p. 6) various communities have varied potentials and resources that can be exploited to promote sustainable livelihoods, and these include social, human, financial, natural and physical capitals. sustainable livelihood framework recognises that poor may not only need money but also need other material or non-material assets (lloyd-jones & rakodi 2002). for instance, they also require health, labour, knowledge and skills. therefore, sla is useful in understanding the dynamic relationship between the vulnerability context, local capacities and how people adopt various livelihood strategies. the sla focuses on poor people as key actors in detecting and addressing livelihood challenges. the sla should be responsive and participatory through building local processes and structures that support individuals to build their livelihoods upon their own strengths (ashley & carney 1999). it then implies a bottom-up approach to development planning that considers local priorities, capacities and strengths in building resilient communities. in addition, understanding the key assets needed to establish and sustain livelihoods is critical in understanding how households will cope in the event of a shock, positive or negative (mishi & mudziwapasi 2014). the asset-based community development approach this study is also informed by the abcd approach. the abcd approach considers local assets as the primary building blocks for sustainable livelihoods of the people. the abcd approach captures assets inclusive of social, financial and physical assets (mathie & cunningham 2003). the framework builds on the skills of residents, the strengths of local associations, the supportive functions of local institutions and the natural environmental endowments; hence, it draws upon existing community strengths to build more vibrant and sustainable communities. development plans are fashioned so that of necessity they should impact on the livelihoods of those who are meant to benefit from it positively (loison 2015). assets refer to the resources available to individuals, organisations or entire communities that can be used to further create wealth, reduce or prevent poverty, and redress skewed distribution (wilke 2006). broadly, assets may therefore be stocks that can be developed, transferred, managed and shared across generations. the focus on community assets, rather than her needs, represents a significant paradigm shift from a needs-based community development practice to assets-based development. this shift demands that development practitioners have a handle on the functioning dynamics of institutions and organisations as they interact socially among themselves and with the resources in the environment. empirical literature several studies have been conducted concerning livelihood strategies grouping (alemu 2012; maniriho & nilsson 2018; mukotami 2014; munhenga 2014; scoones 2016). most of these studies have focused on migration, livelihood diversification and agricultural intensification. some researchers explored different factors that determine the probability that farm household participates in non-agricultural income diversification activities and agriculture (barrett, reardon & webb 2001; eneyew & bekele 2009; geremew, sangho & fellizah 2017). these researchers grouped livelihood strategies into three categories, namely farming activities, non-farming activities and agriculture, while alemu (2012) grouped livelihood strategies into four categories, namely non-labour, agriculture, off farming and non-farming. grouping livelihood strategies enables easy analysis and comparisons as there are a multitude of economic activities that households may engage in, but with classification, the options become comparable. brown et al. (2006), alemu (2012) and leibbrandt et al. (2000) were interested in the factors that influence livelihood strategies. brown et al. (2006) identified these factors as geographic, demographic and finance, while alemu (2012) stressed that factors that influence livelihood strategies are age, gender (demographics) and assets endowments (related to finance in brown et al. case). the two studies concur on the determinants. by the same token, it is of interest to understand what factors drive households to change from one strategy to another as in the case of munhenga (2014). the focus of munhenga (2014) was on households shifting from farm livelihood strategy to other livelihood strategies, and credit, remittances, market, distance, affiliation to cooperatives, education and house hold size were the driving factors. on the other hand, leibbrandt et al. (2000) examined the contributions of different household livelihood strategies on total income generated by each household, which is livelihood diversification. this determines which livelihood strategy is more rewarding to the household. because of limited capitals, in the context of the slf reviewed above, livelihood strategies engaged on by the poor are often of low reward. in that context, maniriho and nilsson (2018) as well as urrehman, jahanzeb and rana (2008) recommended governments to provide professional training (human capital) and internet access through wireless, increase investment in infrastructure (physical capital) and make loan policies favourable (financial capital) to support and sustain livelihood strategies. it is apparent that households employ different strategies for livelihood, with each strategy potentially contributing differently from the other, depending on access to different capitals by a household. literature has acknowledged that diversification of livelihood strategies emanates from unpredictability of shocks, trends in the economy and microeconomic logic of households depending on farming (hussein & nelson 1999; ellis 2000; warren 2002). carter and may (1999) assert that households whether they are poor or non-poor derive their livelihood strategies from diversified activities to reduce risks associated with shocks. the patterns of livelihood diversification depend upon activities chosen based on how labour is remunerated (majority of poor household have access to human capital and labour in terms of quantity in most instances) and on the location of the activity (mathebula et al. 2017). according to reardon, delgado and matlon (1992), bryceson (1996), chambers (1997), hussein and nelson (1999), ellis (2000) and warren (2002), households derive their livelihood based on key assets available, and their ability to diversify their livelihoods also depends upon key assets availability. this implies that diversification as a strategy is good; however, it is not always possible for all households as the base assets are key. in line with this thinking, loison (2015) conducted a study on diversification of rural livelihood in sub-saharan africa. the findings showed that households with sufficient assets are able to diversify their livelihoods between farming and non-farming activities. guided by the sustainable livelihoods approach and survey data from farmers in the three gorges reservoir area in china, xu et al. (2015) focused on the factors that determine a household choice of livelihood strategy. the study provides a descriptive statistical analysis and ordinal logistic regression model that shows that close to 56% of households exhibit a low dependence on agriculture. the following variables had a significant influence on livelihood strategy: the maximum years of education of any household member, the age of the household head, the number of labourers in a household, household location and formal and informal social networks. social capital is one of the cheapest capital in terms of financial outlays that are limited; however, it takes time to be established and developed as trust among people required interactions of time. ellis (1998) asserts that diversification is not only voluntary but also involuntary. von braun and pandya-lorch (1991) and mathebula et al. (2017) stated that rural households diversify their livelihood strategies to minimise risk and to respond to shocks. on the other hand, barrett et al. (2001) stated that a household diversifies its livelihoods because of push factors such as risk reduction and also pull factors such as increase in income generated. khatiwada et al. (2017) investigated the livelihood strategies by rural households in rural nepal, with the results showing that the majority (61%) of the households diversified their income to non-farm sources. land holding (natural capital), education, agriculture and skill training (human capital), access to credit (financial capital) and proximity to the road and market centre (physical capital) were the major influencing factors on the adoption of higher returning livelihood strategies. in the same vein, geremew et al. (2017) investigated the factors that determine the probability that a farm household participates in non-agricultural income diversification activities in ethiopia. using logit econometric and seemingly unrelated regression (sur) estimations, the study showed that institutional factors such as secured perception of land ownership (natural capital) and becoming membership in cooperatives (social capital) have significant influence on the probability of farm households’ participation in non-agricultural activities. furthermore, reardon et al. (1992), bryceson (1996), chambers (1997), hussein and nelson (1999), ellis (2000) and warren (2002) looked at livelihood diversification as a strategy for risk management. the basic argument was that diversification requires households to choose the second best alternative strategy source of income. the concluding remarks were that farmers consider risk reduction as more important than income given up in the process of diversification. on the other hand, urrehman et al. (2008) investigated different livelihood strategies and the factors affecting the livelihood strategies in abbottabad district, north-west frontier province (nwfp), pakistan. the study shows that only 15.8% of the poorest households were having secondary income from other sources. the average or better-off households were mostly depending on the government and private services, remittances from within the country and abroad, self-employment and farming. majority (80.4%) of the respondents were involved in secondary source of incomes, and hence, livelihood strategies were classified in diversified group. alemu (2012) sought to identify dominant livelihood strategies in rural south africa applying two approaches – stochastic dominance test and multinomial logistic regression. the study obtained the results that showed households who generate income from wage employment in non-farm and farm activities are better off than other households. the findings by hosu and mushunje (2013) on livelihood diversification showed that on-farm diversification can increase income and also reduce risks, whereas the study by carter and may (1999) showed that even though households can derive their livelihood from different activities, wage income earners are better off than households depending on agriculture for income. in the case of eastern cape, south africa, toyin and mushunje (2016) found that households do not diversify their livelihoods and that they rely upon government cash transfers. maniriho and nilsson (2018) identified determinants of income diversification among rwandan households using unique panel data obtained from the integrated households living conditions surveys of 2011 and 2014. the study applies a binary logit panel model to a representative sample of 3839 households across rwanda controlling for latent household-specific factors. the results reveal that education, access to information and communications technology (ict) and urban areas were among the most important factors that influenced livelihood diversification. literature therefore has a gap, in that the poor maybe the ones considered to have interest in diversifying livelihood strategies; however, they need to have access to key assets to do that and they are poor because they have limited assets. furthermore, where there is government social security net, households, even if they are poor, do not want to diversify, maybe because the drive for diversification is more of risk reduction that increases wealth and income and transfers income acts as an insurance. the approach and data the approach of this study was concurrent mixed methods with data, methods and researcher triangulation embedded to provide a better understanding of the livelihood strategies and diversification (creswell 2014). mixed methods involved the collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, while triangulation entailed use of secondary data (stats sa ghs 2016 – eastern cape sample) and survey conducted between february and july 2016 across the eastern cape under the psppd ii-university of fort hare (ufh) economics project. triangulation refers to the practice of using either multiple sources of data or multiple approaches to analysing data to enhance the credibility of a research study. this is important as it helps to increase one’s confidence in the study findings. this is performed through the confirmation of a proposition using two or more independent measures. this ultimately helps to provide comprehensive picture of the findings that one approach cannot do. this study triangulated data sources by using ghs and psppd ii-ufh economics data sets as well as utilising different techniques in analysing the data. ranking of rural livelihoods to be able to rank livelihood strategies, we calculated welfare of each household. as it is not apparent which strategy is superior, literature provides means of determining that through linking livelihood strategies to welfare (organisation for economic co-operation and development [oecd] 2011; stifel 2010). for this study, following oecd (2008; 2011), we measured welfare using per capita income standardised by the adult equivalence scale (aes) that accounts for intra-household variations in members’ access to household’s resources. this is so because the needs of a household grow with each additional member but – because of economies of scale in consumption – not in a proportional way. the demand for housing space, electricity, for example, will not be four times as high for a household with four members than for a single person. with the help of equivalence scales, each household type in the population is assigned a value in proportion to its needs. the factors commonly considered to assign these values are the size of the household and the age of its members (whether they are adults or children).3 in this study, we used the square root technique of aes discounting which is applied by dividing household income with the square root of household size. this implies that, for instance, a household of four persons has needs twice as large as one composed of a single person. for south africa, we have adopted the oecd measure because there is no own scale, as is the case with other countries. after computing the standardised per capita income as discussed above, four quintiles have been devised for the variable. strategies that account for households in top quintile are considered superior as they set the household in the rich category compared to strategies that define households in the lower quintiles. stochastic dominance test is a method that is generally used to identify dominance of category if general descriptive analysis cannot tell. in this study, quintiles were able to classify the households without a doubt and therefore no need for stochastic dominance test. the article is testing whether poor households have been constrained to access high-income strategies (similarly, what factors explain participation in high-income strategies compared to the inferior strategies). households need to engage in superior strategies for better welfare and thus sustainable livelihoods. this is a powerful tool for this study to be able to identify the factors attributable to poor households’ failed entry into superior strategies (or rather confine then to inferior strategies), thereby presenting an opportunity to tackle poverty and inequality. analysis of general household survey the sample reflected that majority of households in the sample drawn from eastern cape are female-headed (50.21%) and 49.79% of households are male-headed, as shown in table 1. the sample contained 3033 households. the table also shows that most of the population resides in rural areas (51.6%) with 48.4% residing in urban areas. this reflects the true structure of the province which is considered predominantly rural. table 1: demographic characteristics of eastern cape sample from the general household survey 2016. in addition, the province is predominantly rural (51.60%). by statistics south africa definition, urban areas are municipalities designated as cities, everything else is rural – there is no formal definition (ministry of rural development and land reform [mordlr] 2009). this is the definition that was used in this study in comparison to the definition in department of land affairs (dola) (1997) of defining rural as sparsely populated areas where people rely on farming and natural resources. determining livelihood diversification patterns, factors affecting them and related constraints within eastern cape we hypothesised that poorer households engage in numerous low-value activities to sustain livelihoods, while high-income households tend to specialise in few high-value strategies.4 this assertion is supported by the literature with huber et al. (2014), concluding that different economic activities are found in poor communities and more often are diverse (huber 2014). livelihood strategies are depicted from the various sources of income. the ghs (2016) has the following categories: income from wages, salaries and commissions; income from own businesses; income from sales of farm produce and services; income from rents and interest; and finally, income from remittances, pensions and grants. table 2 illustrates the different income sources. it should be noted that households engage in different activities, and the classification here is based on what households reported as main source of income. table 2: income sources. agriculture is the mainstay in poor communities to the extent that literature suggests that activities should be grouped as farm related and not with non-farm activities increasing over the recent past (stifel 2010; zerihun 2012). for the purpose of analysis, activities were re-grouped into non-labour (unearned or transfer income), farming, labour income (business and wages or salaries or commission earned) and non-farming as follows (stifel 2010; corral & reardon 2001). table 3 shows that most households in eastern cape are reliant on transfer or non-earned income with majority being social grants, followed by remittances. very few households are engaging in farming as main activity, despite the region believed to be supportive of farming activities. black africans are concentrated in the non-labour category, with white people and mixed race concentrated in the non-farming income. table 3: livelihoods. majority of the households (55.97%) derived their main source of income from non-labour (unearned or transfer income) of which grants account for 42.94%, remittances 10.10% and pension 2.93%. earned income is the next dominant strategy representing 43.18% of the households (labour 38.34%, business 4.57%, other 0.27%), and farming was a strategy of only 0.14% of the households. farming could have been made less attractive by segregating apartheid policies which confined the black majority in non-arable areas. as in zerihun (2012), 25.17% of the sample are very poor (quintile 1), the majority contributor being those who rely on unearned income (71.27%). considering by welfare categories (the quintiles), all unearned income is in the majority poor (32.05% + 36.56%) and those relying on farm income are generally rich (all in quintiles 3 and 4), while only earned income category is rich in the majority (48.18% in quintile). as welfare increases, reliance on unearned income decreases, while reliance on farming income and earned income increases. it is, however, ironic that 73% of pensioners are rich (8.73%) of the rich households and 4.29% of the rich are grant recipients. however, it was observed that the majority of those who are rich are labour income-based households (78.25%) which makes unearned income a superior strategy and demotes entrepreneurship third place (6.09%) after pensioners. logistic regression to determine the reasons why some households do not pursue superior livelihoods strategies, that is, factors that affect livelihood diversification patterns and possible barriers to better living, logistic regression has been implemented. this is motivated by the nature of the dependent variables, which is categorical (kremelberg 2011). the household decision to follow through a strategy is considered to be dependent upon a number of factors such as demographic characteristics of the households, asset endowments (sla approach) and access to services among others. this is expressed functionally as: where yi is per capita income of household i expressed as a function of livelihood strategies ai which are a function of other factors such as age, gender, ownership or access to assets, among other factors (qi). to determine the effects of qi on ai, we model a multinomial regression with n possible responses with probabilities p1, p1, … pn as: where j = 2, 3, …, n; i = 1, 2, 3, … i, where j is the observation index, i is the number of observations, qi is the ith observation on 1 × k vector of predictor variables and bj is a k × 1 vector of parameters. in that sense, the probability that an observed household (i) belongs to a livelihood strategy ( j) is given by: while the probability that a household belongs to the other livelihood strategies is represented by: the above theoretical expression is going to be applied to our data sets (ghs 2016) and psppd ii economics ufh survey. multinomial logistic regression this type of regression is for dependant categorical variables, with observed categories being three or more. in this study, we have three categories of interest (unearned income, farming income and earned income), and no income category has been removed as it showed no livelihood strategy and skewed the data. the data, as presented in table 7, show that sex of head of household, ownership of assets (stove) and number of children are the factors that can predict farming strategy distinguishing it from non-labour strategy. the coefficients are converted to relative risk ratios (rrrs, i.e. odds ratios); therefore, we can conclude that the likelihood of relying on farming as compared to be non-labour (transfer income) reliant is 11.86 times for maleas for female-headed households. table 4: population grouping. table 5: sources of income. table 6: livelihood strategies as defined by income sources. table 7: multinomial regression: livelihood strategies. farming is considered high-value strategy across literature (see huber et al. 2014; stifel 2010), and the results imply that female-headed households are less likely to engage in such strategy. female-headed households in eastern cape province are therefore observed as constrained to improve their livelihoods. on the other hand, access to assets as proxied by owning basic household gadgets like electric stove makes a household 1.69 times more likely to be relying on farming than non-labour income. having more children in the household (under 17-year-old household members) makes the household 0.833 times likely (reduces the odds) to be relying on farming than non-labour income (social grant mainly and remittances). children cannot work, and in south africa, there is child support and foster grant that cater for children up to the age of 21 years. therefore, households with more children are likely to be receiving more of state support and thus make non-labour income the greatest source of livelihood for the household. more of such grants are received, the more the parents are no gainfully earning elsewhere. the question that is often asked is that: is there over reliance on social grants, we will turn to this later? the last column of the table 7 reports the rrr in relation to the coefficients on non-farming income. recall, non-farming income encompasses all labourand business-related income other than what is linked to farming (zerihun 2012). the results show that there are 14 factors that help classify households into non-farming income strategy compared to non-labour. the factors are (in no specific order): race; sex of household head; access to electricity, cell phone, internet, computer, electricity stove and tv; household size; number of children; number of adults over 60 years; presence of disabled household member; geographic type; rural versus urban; and whether the household is involved in other income source other than the main. the results show that the likelihood of relying on non-farming income (high value or superior strategy) compared with non-labour income (low value or inferior strategy) is 1.91 times high for white africans than black africans. in addition, being male-headed household increases the odds of relying on non-farming income by 2.15 times than relying on non-labour income, so is access to electricity (1.7 times higher), cell phone (1.96 times), internet (4.65 times), computer (1.16 times), stove (1.18 times), tv (1.25 times), household size (1.18 times) and diversification (2.07 times). while having a disabled member, and more dependents (adults over 60 years, more children under 17 years), owning reduces the odds of relying on non-farming activities, but rather increases the dependency on non-labour income. the results are in line with the slf which posits that households need to access different sets of assets to sustain livelihoods. in this context, access to different assets has been shown to increase the probability of engaging in high-value strategies that will ensure sustainability of livelihoods. to summarise the five assets that can be proxied as follows – from the statistically significant predictors: human capital (sex of head; race; household size, children, adults, disabilities), physical (cell phone, computer, stove, tv), financial (diversification) and social (electricity). the results are robust with likelihood ratio (lr) chi2 (38) of 1420.15, and the prob > chi2 being statistically significant at 1%. in addition, the pseudo-r2 is 35% and the log likelihood is −1323.37. figure 1 summarises the effect of welfare (based on per capita income quintiles) on livelihood strategy. the figure has panels a–d representing the four quintiles 1–4, respectively. in can be observed that the probability of someone engaging falling in quintile 1 (very poor) (see panel a) and quintile 2 (poor) (see panel b) is highest among unearned or non-labour reliant households. while probability of someone being in quintile 3 (see panel c) is high among farm income-reliant households and quintile 4 (shown by panel d) is highly predicted by both only farming income and non-farm income. figure 1: adjusted predictions of strategies with 95% confidence intervals: (a) first quartile, (b) second quartile, (c) third quartile and (d) fourth quartile. furthermore, we were also interested in factors explaining welfare (an order logistic regression was carried out) as well as predictors of diversification and food security (skipped meals) through binary logistics regressions. diversification is dichotomous with 1 when the households practice more than one of the livelihood strategies listed, else 0. on the other hand, food security is 0 if the households did not skip any meal, while 1 resembles those households who have skipped a meal. several factors have been found to explain these variables – see table 8. for each model, the coefficient and corresponding odds ratio to be interpreted (for statistically significant coefficients only) are displayed. the results reflect those discussed under multinomial logistic. table 8: logistic regression. even though assets are critical for sustainability of livelihoods, it appears that owning a computer and tv increases the odds of skipping a meal. those who own a computer are more likely to be not diversified but are likely to be falling in high-income category (higher per capita income quintile). to provide reliable results, we did the diagnostics tests to check the robustness of the results. the diagnostics tests were to check and correct for specification errors, classification and multicollinearity. table 9 presents the results of the diagnostic tests. table 9: diagnostic tests. the first thing to do to remedy misspecification is to see if we have included all of the relevant variables – this was checked, and all possible predictors were in the model. interaction terms were included, but the specification did not improve. the overall rate of correct classification is estimated to be 65.94, with 65.94% of the no diversification group correctly classified (specificity) and 62.87% of the diversified group correctly classified (sensitivity). the multicollinearity results are measures of the strength of the interrelationships among the variables. two commonly used measures are tolerance (an indicator of how much collinearity that a regression analysis can tolerate) and variance inflation factor (vif – an indicator of how much of the inflation of the standard error could be caused by collinearity). if all of the variables are orthogonal to each other, in other words, completely uncorrelated with each other, vif is 1. if a variable is very closely related to another variable(s), the variance inflation gets very large. a standard vif of 10 or greater is of concern. prediction power is tested through looking at area under the curve. the area under the receiver operating characteristic (roc) curve can give us insight into the predictive ability of the model. each point on the roc curve represents a sensitivity or specificity pair corresponding to a specific decision threshold. if the value is equal to 0.5, the model can be thought of as predicting at random. higher values, approaching 1, indicate that the model has good predictive ability. the results in table 9 and figures 2 and 3 show that our models have good predictive power. figure 2: receiver operating characteristic curve diversification model. figure 3: receiver operating characteristic curve food security model. programme to support pro-poor policy development ii survey the dependent variable is livelihood strategies and it is presented in table 10. table 10: livelihood strategies. the results show that deprivation increases the odds of relying on non-labour income (e.g. social grants) than engaging in high-value strategy (no farming income). a unit increase in deprivation, signifying more deprivation, results in odds of being non-labour income-based household increasing by 1.026 times. on the other hand, high trusting households are 0.912 times more likely going to be non-labour-based than non-farming-income-based. to trust individuals and institutions, you would have engaged with them several times, with that engagement likely to boost chances of engaging in high-value strategies. social capital has been seen to significantly boost the likelihood of engaging in non-labour incomes as well as in farming strategy compared with non-farming activities. the positive effect on non-labour strategy is counter-intuitive; however, on farming only, it is as expected (farming is regarded high value and is critical in sustainability of households among predominantly rural population). those who have contacted a local leader in the recent past have likelihoods 4.734 times higher for being relying on non-labour income compared to non-farming income. table 11: variable description. table 12: summary statistics. table 13: logistic regression results. migration seems to be used as a livelihood strategy, as households who have a migrant member are 2.149 times likely to rely on non-labour income (which will be mainly remittances) and such households are also 3.06 times more likely to engaging in farming (resource intensive) than being reliant on non-farming income (salaried job or business income). in this context, remittances, could be viewed as provided, need capital to engage in farming activities which most household cannot afford. lastly, greater access to assets makes the odds of being reliant on income 0.18 times higher than being engaged in non-farming activities like salaried job and business (which is more likely going to be engaging in high-value strategy of non-farming income than relying on handouts). on the other hand, such access increases the likelihood of engaging in farming activities by 1.03 times. this is as reported from the ghs (2016) data and in line with the slf framework where access to assets is key for sustainability of livelihoods. summary, conclusions and policy recommendations based on the literature covered in this study, it is evident that poor people are the ones who rely mainly on agriculture and other livelihood strategies. rich people, according to literature, run big businesses across nations. centred on the results from other studies, it is also evident that the main reason why poor people suffer is that they do not get financial assistance from the government, and hence, some researchers have pointed out that the government should provide reasonable loans to rural households for them to start their livelihoods projects and improve their standard of living. education, access to ict and urban areas are among the most important factors that influenced livelihood diversification. based on the results, it is recommended that professional training, internet access through phones and wireless and urbanisation should be enhanced to enable households to diversify their sources of income and thus improve food security for their family members. acknowledgements comments from participants at the global development finance conference 18–20 october 2017 held in somerset west are acknowledged. the views and any omissions in this article are those of the authors and not of the conference participants or conference organisers. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information funding for this research was obtained from the national research foundation (nrf) under syden mishi grant uid:107401. opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at in this study are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the nrf. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references aguilar, g.r. & sumner, a., 2020, ‘who are the world’s poor? a new profile of global multidimensional poverty’, world development 126, 104716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104716 alemu, 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cape. 2. grant number: psppd2/cfp2/2014/15/1. 3. see oecd (2008 and 2011) for more detail. 4. this category contains employment (formal or non-formal) and self-employment initiatives which may not really be high value currently, but the potential is compared with transfer income option. microsoft word 04 20160202 erasmus & de crom vredefort dome fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(3) december 2015, pp. 208-224. the meaning of sense of place: the community of vredefort dome and parys, free state t erasmus1 and ep de crom2 abstract the vredefort dome was declared a world heritage site by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) in 2005. this status has led to an increase in tourism to the adjacent town of parys and the dome as well as an increase in developers that could change the character of the area. therefore, the sense of place of the residents of, and tourists to the area requires consideration in order to find a balance when development takes place. sense of place refers to the unique features that gives the area its character and the manner in which people relate to these features. this study investigated the participants’ understanding of sense of place of the area under study. the participants consisted of residents and tourists from parys and the dome. the non-probability sampling technique, amongst other, was used. the qualitative research method was utilised to gather data which was analysed through content analysis. thereupon, themes were identified and interpreted. the connotation the participants attached to sense of place was categorised into three broad themes: affective, anthropogenic and the physical environment. the participants showed a special awareness towards protecting the character, nature and history of the area. sense of place is rarely considered when development is considered. the findings of this study could be used as a guideline for developers in the area. a better understanding of the relationship between place and the attributes individuals assign to parys and the vredefort dome world heritage site may help the stakeholders to acquire enhanced approaches to address, identify and engage the community (both residents and tourists) in conservation and future planning processes to ensure the well-being of all concerned. keywords: sense of place, place attachment, world heritage site, heritage, tourism, well-being, anthropogenic, environment 1. introduction the vredefort dome is the world’s largest and oldest meteorite impact crater. it is accessible to visitors and rich in biodiversity, archaeological and anthropological remains (unep, 2006:1). it lies on the border of the north west and free state provinces. the vredefort dome was inscribed with unesco as a natural world heritage site (whs) on 14 july 2005. on 26 may 2012, the government and landowners of the vredefort dome signed a 1 corresponding author: ms t erasmus, tshwane university of technology, department of nature conservation, private bag x680, pretoria, 0001. email: tanya.erasmus88@gmail.com 2 dr ep de crom, tshwane university of technology, department of nature conservation, private bag x680, pretoria, 0001. email: decromep@tut.ac.za meaning of sense of place: the community of vredefort dome and parys, free state td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 208-224. 209 memorandum of agreement, taking the area a step closer to becoming a new world heritage site, protected under south african law (sanews, 2012). according to reimold and coney (2001), more than seven hundred publications have appeared during the last decade with some reference to the vaal river, the scenic vredefort hills and the vredefort dome. since 2005, there has been an increasing number of reports about the pollution of the vaal river which has threatened the tourism industry. tempelhoff (2008) posits that the future of the vredefort dome as a world heritage site was in danger of losing this status due to the sewage pollution of the vaal river. in addition, the pollution of the vaal river poses a great health risk to tourists and residents of the area (van riet & tempelhoff, 2009:31). apart from the polluted vaal river running through parys and the dome area, not many aspects threaten the integrity of the area at present (puren, 2010). however, the anticipated increase in tourist numbers and facilities serving tourism, will need to be regulated if this status is to be retained (unep, 2006). the number of tourists to the vaal river in parys and the vredefort dome world heritage site (vdwhs) has increased significantly despite the polluted river. gouws (2013:9) asserts that since 2005, with the inscription of the vredefort dome as a world heritage site, tourism has become a profitable industry in the area. with regard to the planned developments and growth in tourism, puren, drewes and roos (2006) argue that natural and rural spaces (such as vdwhs) are under constant pressure to develop, especially in the developing south africa. schoeman and van den berg (2010:3) are also of the opinion that it is a ‘constant struggle’ to protect and improve the natural and cultural environment of such areas. moreover, they hold that “extra care should be taken for the dome environment and future development to blend into nature”. the character of these natural areas must be maintained. consequently, it is important to consider the sense of place of the communities, which include both residents and the tourists in these areas. furthermore, the ‘place image’ of tourists and the residents is also a significant consideration, especially for place marketing. no universal definition for ‘sense of place’ exists, although numerous academics and practitioners in various fields have contributed towards investigating this subject (puren, drewes, & roos, 2006:191). sense of place is also known as place identity. various authors have defined sense of place according to their own understanding. puren (2010:15) defines sense of place of an area which is unique to a place and gives a certain character or identity to it. nanzer (2004) explained sense of place as the manner in which humans relate to, or feel about, the environments in which they live. according to hague and jenkins (2005), since the 1960s, various publications have emerged, which included related concepts such as place, character and identity, often used to explain sense of place in respect of conservation and the impact of development on existing areas. the psychological relevance of place (and sense of place) has been extensively emphasised in research (day, 1999; korpela, hartig, kaiser & fuhrer, 2001; holmes, patterson & stalling, 2003; spencer, 2005). since the area is awaiting its formal proclamation as a world heritage site, it has been noted with concern that sense of place is not taken into consideration in the national heritage resource act of south africa. according to van vollenhoven (2015:17-18), cultural significance is the determining factor in making any decision about the future of any heritage resource and this includes the area’s (vdwhs) social-, cultural-, historic-, scientific-, and aesthetic values. place image refers to the mental pictures or perspectives that people hold of a place (kotler, haider & rein, 1993) and is a key concept which underpins place marketing research. place image is important for various reasons, such as, attract tourists and highly skilled employees, erasmus & de crom 210 encourage government officials and investors to fund and develop as well as promote civic pride among local residents (stylidis, sit & biran, 2014). according to stylidis, sit and biran (2014), place image studies have focused mainly on tourists to determine their tourism destination image to comprehend how it influences people’s choice, experience and their behaviour associated with a tourist place. in addition, other stakeholders such as residents with their perspectives are equally insightful for development and marketing activities (hall, 2008; stylidis, sit & biran, 2014). from the literature consulted, it can be inferred that sense of place is an important issue to consider with any type of development where communities are affected. place image and sense of place is closely related, while place image focuses more on the branding and marketing of a particular place. since people are unique beings and perceive experiences differently, they have different preferences towards their environment. therefore, the experience of ‘place’ is likely to be private and distinctive from one person to the next (bell, greene, fisher & baum, 1996). to avoid landscape conflicts and enhance sustainable landscape development complying with tourists’ and locals’ requirements, the sense of place of members of both groups must be understood and evaluated with respect to differential meanings (ewert & stewart, 2004). with regard to the development that might be needed in the study area, the well-being of the environment itself has to be considered before over-development and globalisation takes place and possibly impact its sense of place. future marketing in the area should benefit the sense of place and place image of the community. the area also has a rich history and heritage value. therefore, the sense of place of the area should be included in the national heritage resource act. in order for an area to be declared a national monument (or heritage area such as the vdwhs), it should be of cultural-, historical-, aesthetical-, and scientific or technological interest (van vollenhoven, 2003:27). the vdwhs meets all of the criteria of which sense of place could form part of the cultural value. from the abovementioned it is clear the necessity exists to identify the sense of place of a certain area for both its residents and visitors as well as be aware the role it plays in the development and marketing of such an area for tourism purposes. the sense of place of a community also plays a part in the cultural value of the area. the objective of this study is, therefore, to get a better understanding of the meaning participants attach to their sense of place in parys and the vdwhs as well as discuss the extent to which they experience such attachment. 2. study area the study took place in parys, which is situated on the outskirts of the vdwhs. the latter section was selected as the second area of study. this area is situated in two provinces, namely: north west and the free state province (figure 1). meaning of sense of place: the community of vredefort dome and parys, free state td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 208-224. 211 figure 1: the location of parys and the edge of the vredefort dome impact crater along the vaal river (lerm, 2014) 3. methods the qualitative research design was adopted to determine the sense of place of the participants who comprised tourists visiting parys or the vdwhs and permanent residents of the respective areas of study. the respondents selected for the study were eighteen years of age and older. the non-probability sampling technique was used, that is, purposive, convenience and snowball sampling. data was collected until saturation was reached. primary data was collected through interviews, semi-structured questionnaires and photographs over a period of four years (2011-2014). coding and content analysis were used to analyse the collected data (jennings, 2001:84; creswell, 2009:183). triangulation3 was used to enhance trustworthiness (maree, 2012). 4. results and discussion in order to get a clearer understanding of the participants’ sense of place, the study first endeavoured to determine the meaning of sense of place from the respective groups of participants. the participants comprised 60 tourists in parys, 84 tourists in the vdwhs, 3 triangulation has been generally considered a process of using multiple perceptions to clarify meanings, verifying the repeatability of an observation or interpretation (stake, 2000:147). erasmus & de crom 212 194 residents from parys and 34 residents from the vdwhs. saturation was reached when no additional or significant data emerged. 4.1 meaning of sense of place it was crucial to establish the participants’ understanding of the concept 'sense of place’, also referred to as 'place attachment' (kaltenborn, 1998;williams & vaske, 2003; legault, 2013). pertinent dimensions of sense of place was identified by gouws (2013:435) in previous research in this area of study. these were (1) the objective (cognitive) dimension, which includes the visual quality and character of the environment and (2) the subjective (affective) dimension that refers to the feelings and experiences in the environment which is more symbolic or psychological in nature (gouws, 2013:436). the data gathered in this study revealed three main themes within the abovementioned dimensions with each theme consisting of different categories (table 1). table 1: themes and categories emerging from participants’ description of the meaning of sense of place theme category verbatim quotes affective (subjective) 1) spiritual 2) psychological 3) attachment 4) belonging this is a good place to be, a place for spiritual fulfilment (participant p27, 2013); ...just keep faith (participant p2, 2013); …to become deeply connected (participant vqt64, 2013) the feeling you have when you enter a space or area (participant pqr33, 2012); …a place where i can have peace of mind (participant pqr34, 2012); a place where i am happy (participant pqr52, 2012) the longer i stay, the more i can’t leave (participant pir1, 2011); …feeling at home (participant pqr37, 2012; participant pqr62, 2012); i was born here and my life evolve around here (participant pqr134, 2013) home is where the heart is (participant pir6, 2012); …experiencing a sense of belonging (participant pqr116, 2013); …it is where i want to be (participant vqr7, 2012) anthropogenic (objective) 1) development 2) tourism 3) historical one should develop this area...a world heritage site is there for people to see (participant vir6, 2012); …develop to a certain level, blend it in with nature (participant vir9, 2012); certain buildings has significant value in the area and its character (participant p42, 2013) it is very quiet and peaceful...must be fully utilised to attract tourists (participant pqr39, 2012); …it has a holiday feeling (participant pqr69, 2012); the geology is an attraction that the tourists would like to learn more about (participant p22, 2013) conserve the history of this part of the country (participant vir7, 2012); it offers more about the historical events that took place in recent years (participant vqt84, 2013); the san rock engravings are significant (participant p25, 2013) meaning of sense of place: the community of vredefort dome and parys, free state td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 208-224. 213 4) well-being 5) human interaction it is peaceful and quiet and little crime...you can raise children here (participant pqr54, 2012); …higher quality of life (participant vir7, 2012); …a place where i can relax and rejuvenate away from the stress and noise of day to day life (participant vqt43, 2012) feeling at home with my family (participant pqr175, 2013); sense of place is also about who you see there...whether it is a tractor on the road or donkeys next to the fence (participant vir8, 2012) physical environment (objective) 1) care for the environment 2) natural features 3) use of senses the respect you show towards the area (participant vqt39, 2012; participant pqr102, 2013); …keep the beautiful sounds of nature (participant vir9, 2012); …the place should be kept in a good condition or maintained (participant vqr27, 2013) the unique character of the area consists of the plants, geology, topography and animal species (participant vir3, 2011); it is peaceful...it is magic! you can see the stars! (participant vir6, 2012); you can hear the birds during the day and during the night you hear the frogs and owls... it makes this area so special (participant vir9, 2012) being in touch with nature and feeling the breeze wherever you are (participants pqr171, 2013); there is a harmony between what is inside me and what i see around with my eyes and hear with my ears (participant vir11, 2012); …being able to use all my senses (participant vqt35, 2012); one could feel the fresh air and relax listening to the sound of the flowing water and the different bird calls (participant p20, 2013) each of the abovementioned themes will be discussed below: 4.1.1 affective the affective aspects refer to the subjective dimension of sense of place which includes the symbolic values, feelings and emotions experienced by people (gouws, 2013). these experiences are not the same for all individuals because two people will experience one situation differently and will not have the same feelings (de crom, 2005). the affective theme is, therefore, divided into the following categories in order to explain the understanding of sense of place by the participants: spiritual in this paper the term 'spiritual' is used as a category in the affective theme because the participants ascribe sacred feelings, rather than an exclusive religious meaning to it. a large number of the participants experienced spirituality on a deeply emotional level. spirituality in this instance includes various aspects of the mind and soul and not necessarily refer to religion only, although religion is often included in the descriptions. the participants frequently claimed to have experienced a certain heightened sensory awareness during a spiritual erasmus & de crom 214 experience. this was also highlighted in studies undertaken of people’s experiences in nature by fredrickson and anderson (1999:34) and confirmed by sharpley and jepson (2011). in the current study the participants pointed out that certain landscapes and natural features had both a symbolic and spiritual meaning, for example, a participant gave the following description of a photograph taken during a walk in the area of the dome: this small green tree is still standing strong among large trees. to me it shows that no matter how small one can be, you can still survive and make it among the stronger ones. it indicates confidence and willingness to me. everything starts small and grows bigger and stronger, just keep faith (participant p2, 2013). the vast open spaces and nature was symbolic of an ‘open mind’ and ‘closeness to god’ for the participants. they explained the area as “a place of solitude and thinking by yourself and your place in the universe” (participant pqr118, 2013) and “to become deeply connected to the landscape, to one’s creator…touched by the area” (participant vqt64, 2013). they also expressed that the feeling of spirituality, quietness and the ‘enclosure of the outside world’ was omnipresent. a participant felt that “it is a quiet place where i can be able to talk to myself, and to god, without seeing any person around me” (pqr128, 2013). these findings are supported by gouws (2013:437) who also found that the residents in the dome area felt that god was present in the landscape. similarly, roos, coetzee and puren (2011) established that the residents of the vdwhs placed personal symbolic meanings to the area which included spirituality. various participants associated their understanding of sense of place with spirituality. the landscape enables the participants to connect on a deeper level. the spiritual relationships indicates the potential, especially in rural areas, to reflect on the meaning of life (roos, coetzee and puren, 2011). mazumdar and mazumdar (2004) confirmed that a reciprocal relationship exists between a location and spirituality. the common theme that emanates throughout the examples is an expression of the sacred an environment can have. these spiritual experiences emerge through creating relationships with places or with elements in nature (shaw, 2003). this is an important aspect to consider when development in this area of study is considered. inadvertent development can have a negative impact on these relationships, with the concomitant opposite effect of what was initially intended. psychological the psychological relevance of place (and sense of place) has been extensively emphasised in research (for example, korpela et al., 2001; holmes, patterson & stalling, 2003). the psychological category refers to the feelings and emotions that participants express in their understanding of sense of place. emotions included positive and negative feelings, such as: being happy, feeling excited or hopeful as well as feelings of loneliness. sense of place was portrayed as “the feeling you have when you, as a person, enter a specific space or an area such as the dome” (participant pqr33, 2012). this statement suggests that when one enters various areas, the feelings experienced at distinct localities will differ from each other. each individual will also experience each locality differently (de crom, 2005). other participants stated their feelings as: “it is a place where i can have peace of mind” (participant pqr34, 2012) and “a place where you feel that positive energy, a place that inspires you” (participant vqt76, 2013). none of the participants in this study alluded to any negative feelings associated with the area, although some expressed concerns about the bad publicity due to meaning of sense of place: the community of vredefort dome and parys, free state td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 208-224. 215 incidents of pollution in the vaal river. however, positive emotions were expressed by the participants in statements such as “…happiness in an area where i feel at home”, “…feeling good to be here”, “…every time we plan a trip to this place, i feel excited” and “this is where i am very happy”. in addition to feelings of happiness, excitement and feeling good, a study conducted by roos, coetzee and puren (2011:78) refer to positive emotions experienced by participants of curiosity and hope in their study undertaken in the vdwhs. attachment the core concept, place attachment, is a positive emotional bond that develops between inhabitants and their environment (stedman, 2003). it is well-known that residents within or ‘inside’ an area have a great sense of place or attachment to a location. “to be inside a place is to belong and identify with it and the more profoundly inside you are, the stronger is the identity with the place” (relph, 1979). however, tourists can also develop an attachment to a place. as visitors interact with places, they may develop a bond that has been called place attachment (budruk, white, wodrich & van riper, 2008:189). in the current study, both the residents and the tourists referred to place attachment as an explanation of their sense of place. a resident from parys expressed attachment as the meaning of sense of place as “the longer i stay here, the more i can’t leave, it grows on me” (participant pir1, 2011). this is confirmed by nanzer’s findings (2004) that the longer a person stays in an area, the more attached he/she becomes thereto. various residents in both parys and the vdwhs mentioned that they were born in the area and therefore were attached thereto, for example: “i was born on the farm on which i now live and want to keep it in my family. this is my life” (participant vir4, 2011). this suggests that this place is a part of his/her life and that one grows fonder of the locality. the participants also referred to attachment as follows: “…the place where i can be myself and where i feel at home” (participant pqr70, 2012) and “the comfort that i have towards the area that prevents me to move somewhere else” (participant pqr58, 2012). belonging belonging to a place is almost similar to place attachment in the sense that it is assumed that one has to be a part of the place in order to feel that one belongs there (nanzer, 2004). the residents and the tourists in this research expressed that they belonged in the area and that this depicted their understanding of sense of place. after moving to surrounding areas, a resident, born in parys, stated that “home is where the heart is” (participant pir6, 2012). this was an indication that he felt he belonged in this area and that his heart remained in parys even when he had left town. in contrast, a new resident to parys said: “i have found what i have been looking for; i am ready for marriage and looking forward to raising kids here” (participant pir7, 2012). this resident felt that parys was the place where she wanted to be and start a new chapter in her life. sense of place has also been explained as “somewhere that i think i can be proud to belong to” (participant pqr40, 2012) and “being in harmony with nature, making you feel you belong” (participant vqt39, 2012). 4.1.2 anthropogenic the anthropogenic theme forms part of the cognitive or objective dimension. the term anthropogenic refers to anything as the result of or induced by people. according to a resident in the area “the people aspect of sense of place is something one needs to give a lot of attention to” (participant vir8, 2012). the anthropogenic theme includes the following: erasmus & de crom 216 development a number of participants indicated that sense of place represented some kind of development of the environment. in this instance development refers to any anthropogenic change to the environment. it may also refer to the “way in which the place operates” (participant pqr133, 2013). this suggests that the infrastructure of an area may influence the sense of place of people. a resident of the vdwhs stated that “one should develop this area, because you cannot have a world heritage site that is inaccessible. it is there for the people” (participant, 2012). future development in the area should also be “invisible” (participant vir8, 2012) and should “blend in with nature” (participant vir9, 2012) in order to sustain the character of the area. the sense of place of people was also determined through certain historical buildings in the area. for example, the nederduitse gereformeerde moederkerk in parys was significant since the town was establishment in the 1870s because of the church community. tourism participants alluded to tourism or touristic attributes as their understanding of sense of place, for example: “it is a very quiet and peaceful place that one can live in and we have the world heritage site. it must be fully utilised to attract tourists and to create job opportunities” (participant pqr39, 2012). the participants also referred to the “holiday feel/character of the area, the friendly people and socialising” (participant pqr69, 2012). the geology of the area is also part of the sense of place and this can be used to attract tourists. a tourist commented as follows on a photograph of a rocky hill: when i took the photo i felt happy because it is uniquely bright in colour with the sun setting…and it is formed in a unique way. the upturned quartz rock is an important physical evidence of the meteorite impact. it is an attraction that the tourists would like to learn more about (participant p22, 2013). tourism and potential future tourist activities formed part of the meaning participants attached to sense of place of the area. these activities, events and attributes of the area were that which highlighted the identity and, therefore, a sense of place to the participants. a participant emphasised that the activities in the area should complement its peaceful ecofriendly and quiet atmosphere. he further explained that “people visit the area because there is nothing and no cell phone reception and this should be used to market the area. use the beauty and 'old world charm'…” (participant vir11, 2012). additional quotes from participants in this regard included: “the old mines should be used as a living museum where people do live demonstrations” (participant vir9, 2012) and “…the museum in parys and the annual adventure dome festival is worth experiencing” (participant pqr69, 2012). historical sense of place was also understood as the history or heritage of the area. for example, participant vir7 (2012) stated that “they must spend time to conserve the history of this part of the country as part of the world heritage site”. the cultural heritage goes hand in hand with the history of the area, and includes the abundance of rock engravings and signs of mining activities, together with historical sites and buildings. the following quote represents the value individuals assign to the cultural heritage of the area: the engraving of the san people on the rock shows that not only did people live in the area, but also that animals were abundant and water was available. it shows that these people communicated with each other by engraving pictures on the rocks. it brings much meaning of sense of place: the community of vredefort dome and parys, free state td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 208-224. 217 peace in me that they were depending on nature and the fact that this place is still protected today (participant p25, 2013). the historical and cultural heritage of the area are both also part of the tourism category and, therefore, important aspects of the participants’ description of their sense of place. well-being the well-being of people refers to the enjoyment of people and the positive effect that the environment has on them, as seen from the various participants’ explanation of sense of place. studies have revealed that visiting nature is important to people because it is an effective way of relieving stress and improving ones well-being (kaplan, 1992; lewis, 1996). many individuals experience nature as an environment where they can rest and recover from daily stress. in the frantic times that the majority of the world’s population live in, there is a growing need for nature as a source of relaxation and recreation (maas, verheij, groenewegen, de vries & spreeuwenberg, 2006). more than 100 research studies have revealed that outdoor recreation reduces stress (ulrich, simons, losito, fiorito, miles & zelson, 1991). by observing the ever-changing environment in nature, individuals cultivate a positive attitude, renewed attention, mindfulness and sensory awareness (ulrich et al., 1991). the participants indicated that their understanding of sense of place relates to holistic wellbeing, that is, their mental and physical health. well-being consists of various elements and the following phrases were selected to illustrate the participants understanding: “it is peaceful and quiet and little crime is present in the area… you can raise your children here” (participant pqr54, 2012); “a higher quality of life on the farm…” (participant vir7, 2012); and “it is a place where i can relax and rejuvenate away from the stress and noise of day to day life” (participant vqt43, 2012). the experience of nature and appreciation thereof expressed by the participants can be related to well-being in that people need to get away from daily life routine in order to experience and appreciate a more nature-based environment (garst, 2005). human interaction a number of participants referred to sense of place as 'interaction with other humans'. this included the friendliness displayed by inhabitants in the area, the close-knit community and the relationship between fellow-inhabitants in the area. the participants referred to sense of place as “being in an area with the family” and “society and the relationship with the people in my area”. “sense of place is very important and has many components; it’s not only about the natural appearance of a place, but also about who you meet here” (participant vir8, 2012). the participants experienced a sense of place “whether you see a tractor on the road, or you see donkeys next to the fence…you know it is part of you”. the local residents with a sense of place recommend attractions and facilities to visiting tourists and/or friends and relatives, because of their familiarity and solace with the destination (shani & uriely, 2012). furthermore, the residents also act as salespersons who share stories or narratives of their hometown’s attractions with other people (stylidis, sit & biran, 2014). this cordiality among the residents, tourists and inhabitants towards each other contributed greatly to their sense of place for this study. 4.1.3 physical environment the physical environment refers to natural features and references made towards the environment. sense of place is generally based on symbolic meanings attributed towards the setting (williams & stewart, 1998). however, stedman (2003), suggested that the physical erasmus & de crom 218 environment itself contributes to sense of place through specifiable mechanisms. the theme and physical environment forms part of the cognitive or objective dimension and consists of the following categories: care for environment care for the environment reveals that one has a strong sense of place or place attachment and this may develop over a period of time (carr, 2002). understanding sense of place in this regard was expressed as: “the respect you show towards the area you live in and appreciate its natural beauty” (participant vqt39, 2012; participant pqr102, 2013). the participants often referred to specific natural features and the importance of taking care of them. for example, a participant explained the view of the vaal river and adjacent plains and farms from the top of a mountain in the vdwhs as follows: it is of great significance that the vaal river passes through the vredefort dome. it’s amazing how nature is interlinked; therefore, i somehow wish that other people could just respect what nature gives to them because when people perish, nature will still remain long after. i experience a lot of positive emotions about this view, just seeing how beautiful it is and how it can change a person’s perspective and life by just looking at it. nature is precious and we must take care of it (participant p11, 2013). natural features link closely with caring for the environment and for the purpose of this paper is placed in a distinct category. natural features the participants portrayed sense of place as the rich biodiversity of species and landscapes in the area. some authors implied a direct relationship between landscape features and sense of place and that one is attached to places because of outstanding physical features (stedman, 2003). statements from the participants confirmed stedman’s findings. sense of place has been explained as “the unity of people within a natural environment” (participant pqr50, 2012). this statement suggests that people perceive themselves as united with the area and its natural features. other participants referred to the beauty of the environment as “clean air and beautiful place”, the “mountains” and the “unique character of an area that consists of its plants, geology, topography, and unusual and new plant and animal species” (participant vir3, 2011). another participant stated that “it is peaceful; one doesn’t hear people or cars – its magic! you can see the stars” (participant vir6, 2012). it can be inferred that natural features formed an important part of the sense of place for the participants in this study and should be taken into consideration when development is intended. natural features are experienced and appreciated by means of one’s senses. ‘use of senses’ is, therefore, considered as a distinct category under the physical environment theme. use of senses the individual participants become aware of their surroundings when they spent time in the area. experiences of nature are multi-sensory. in other words, they stimulate and involve all the senses. as people participate in activities in nature such as game drives, hiking and bird watching, their experiences are shaped by the information that they receive through their senses. for example, gramman (1999) and mace, bell and loomis (2004) examined the impact of noise and sounds on national park visitors and found that the restorative properties of nature, experienced through the senses, were significant. although the multi-sensory nature of experiences in a specific area may possibly be somewhat intuitive, this characteristic should not be overlooked. one’s senses are often under-utilised, which can prevent people meaning of sense of place: the community of vredefort dome and parys, free state td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 208-224. 219 from fully appreciating their surroundings and from connecting to their natural abilities as humans (mace, bell & loomis, 2004). the opportunity to use one’s senses was cited by a number of participants to describe their understanding of sense of place. a participant referred to “being in touch with nature and feeling the breeze wherever you are” (participant pqr171, 2013). others associated the use of senses as “there is a harmony between what is ‘inside’ me and what i see around with my eyes and hear with my ears” (participant vir11, 2012) and “being able to use all my senses in this specific environment” (participant vqt35, 2012). a participant expressed the feeling of excitement when standing next to the vaal river for the first time, remembering the experience because of his sensory awareness at that moment: the most interesting thing for me was that the river was flowing and making a loud sound through the bridge. there were a lot of birds … a spoonbill, herons and egrets. one could feel the fresh air and relax listening to the sound of flowing water and different bird calls. you could feel that you are in true nature (participant p20, 2013). this quote is confirmed by ryden (1993:38) who emphasises the physical nature of place as “grounded in those aspects of the environment which we appreciate through the senses and through movement: colour, texture, slope, quality of light, the feel of wind, the sounds and scents carried by that wind”. from the abovementioned description of themes and categories, the complexity of the concept ‘sense of place’ becomes apparent. individuals expressed diverse meanings and opinions about the different places and features from their narratives. the participants expressed themselves affectively (subjectively) or objectively, while certain participants merged the features in their depictions. 5. conclusion sense of place is a complex phenomenon and has various dimensions. the meaning that the respective participants attached to sense of place was divided into three main themes, namely: affective, anthropogenic and the physical environment. it can be concluded that all the participants ascribed an affective meaning to sense of place and made reference to spiritual, attachment, belonging and psychological aspects. this dimension is found and addressed to a certain extent in the national heritage act of south africa. emotional attachments to a place represent a unique sense of place involving unusually strong sentiments about places and increasing concerns about their management. the connectivity between people and places is often described as powerful emotional sentiments that influence how people perceive, experience and value the environment. in addition to the physical setting of places, it includes human activities, social and psychological processes, meanings, and values. therefore, the participants also understood sense of place as the physical environment and the anthropogenic aspects of nature. it is clear that the current character and ‘spirit’ of the place are important to both the tourists and the residents. there are subtle differences in the meanings that the respective participants attached to sense of place. the residents of the vdwhs in particular saw both the anthropogenic and natural features as an extremely important part of their sense of place. this group is, therefore, the most vulnerable when future development is considered. the residents in the area were in general open to tourism and a great shift towards tourism establishments, activities and wildlife areas have been noticed in the last decade. however, this should not lead to uncontrolled development, globalisation or impact negatively on the erasmus & de crom 220 ‘small town’ or ‘country’ atmosphere of the area. development should not jeopardise the sense of place and should adhere to strict regulations. as a tourist attraction, it is recommended that the inhabitants be educated, various zones of engagement be identified, the number of visitors and entry into the area be regulated and the type of recreational activities be monitored. enhanced cooperation and involvement are needed from the government, the municipality and the landowners to ensure that the future of the area is secured and approved by everyone. sense of place is rarely considered when development is contemplated in an area which should be part of every heritage report regarding future development. there are many enquiries and heated discussions that currently prevail among planners, developers, authorities and other role players about development opportunities in the area. therefore, it is important to be aware of the guidelines which must be followed that will suit all the roleplayers involved. it is recommended that the findings of this research be used as a basic guideline for developers in the area. a better understanding of the relationship of place and the attributes individuals assign to parys and the vdwhs may help managers and practitioners find worthier ways to address, identify and engage residents in conservation and in future planning processes. the sense of place and the place images that both the tourists and residents attached to parys and the vdwhs is essential for future marketing of the area. the participants value the simplistic country atmosphere of the area. subsequently, all planned development and marketing should be integrated with the area. 6. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank the tshwane university of technology and the faculty of science (tut) for the scholarship to undertake this study. 7. references oral interviews (notes in possession of the author) participant p2. 2013. photograph. vdwhs. participant p11. 2013. photograph. vdwhs. participant p20. 2013. photograph. vdwhs. participant p22. 2013. photograph. vdwhs. participant p25. 2013. photograph. vdwhs. participant p27. 2013. photograph. vdwhs. participant p42. 2013. photograph. vdwhs. participant pir1. 2011. interview. parys. participant pir6. 2012. interview. parys. participant pir7. 2012. interview. parys. participant pqr33. 2012. interview. parys. participant pqr34. 2012. interview. parys. participant pqr37. 2012. interview. parys. meaning of sense of place: the community of 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accepted: 28 feb. 2017; published: 26 apr. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the new democracy in south africa advocates for a community participatory approach in matters of governance using the imbizo (plural, izimbizo) among other channels. existent studies on imbizo indicate that the major motivation for organisation of such gatherings by governments appears to be interactive community mobilisation, rather than feedback to matters raised during such gatherings. however, if participatory development aided by communication is to be effective, then it is imperative that feedback is provided not only during a once-off interaction with citizens by government but also, and more importantly, as follow-up to grievances raised during imbizo. adoption of imbizo as effective channels of communication necessitates a provision of quality feedback by government to service delivery concerns raised at the imbizo. a qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with participants from three local municipalities in limpopo province. findings reveal that the limpopo provincial government does not provide adequate feedback to service delivery matters raised by communities during imbizo. the study is relevant to the scholarship of government communication in the context of public discourse, which attributes growing sporadic service delivery protests to poor or inadequate feedback from government. introduction the advent of the south african democracy in 1994 compelled government to partner with all its citizens in order to address governance issues affecting their daily lives. this democracy followed 45 years of struggle during which the then government is alleged to have operated under a culture of secrecy and disinformation to its citizens (comtask report 1996:13). under the new democracy, it appears that government has gravitated towards partnering with citizens in order to deal with issues affecting their daily lives. rasila and mudau (2013:13) posit that this partnership between government and communities can work to identify viable and desirable development initiatives through development communication. such partnerships between government and citizens, which aim to achieve developmental goals for communities, form the core of development communication. a participatory development communication approach, therefore, provides an ideal platform for studying community participation and feedback relating to partnerships with government. in light of the participatory approach, the south african government adopted the imbizo and thusong service centres as the main tools of development communication to bridge the information gap and address service delivery backlogs in rural areas (government communicators’ handbook 2014:65). the imbizo is crucial to this study because it has become the most popular platform for engagement due to its direct, face-to-face interaction between citizens and government representatives. imbizo is a traditional zulu word, which means a ‘calling’, where traditional leaders summon people to solve societal issues of common interest (mabelebele 2006:104). chaka (2014:358) notes that the practice of imbizo is traditionally used to resolve community challenges by robustly and thoroughly engaging with traditional leaders. however, today, the term imbizo has become more commonly associated with government gatherings that afford people the opportunity to participate in solving issues that directly affect their lives (hartslief 2008:1). the imbizo is regarded by government as a ‘style of interactive governance and communication [that] should promote dialogue between government and people without mediation’ (government communicators’ handbook 2014:57). izimbizo as platforms for citizen participation although the imbizo was introduced as an approach to resolve community issues, some critics point out a number of inadequacies (kondlo 2010; rasila & mudau 2014). for example, kondlo (2010:388) argues that the imbizo appears to be a travesty of the good it should be, because it lacks authentic participation practices by not bringing any solutions to the problems that people are facing. in practice, although izimbizo are public communication platforms, as kondlo argues, they often fail to facilitate participation because people are mobilised to meet and listen to government officials, rather than to participate. rasila and mudau (2014:615) too note that the government imbizo does not engage communities, but is simply a process of mobilisation. participation through imbizo would be an ideal way of involving affected community members with their own matters (rasila & mudau 2013:14). these authors conceptualise participation as relating to active community engagement in matters of development to ensure that communities identify their own development problems. inherent in this perspective is that the community is expected to be an active participant in monitoring and evaluating development processes. however, it may be argued that the imbizo may not be the best forum to ensure effective participation, simply because it lacks feedback. as kondlo (2010:390) observes, the imbizo lacks a proper feedback mechanism and does not provide authentic community participation. in practice, the current state of affairs of imbizo in the limpopo province appears to be that feedback on issues of service delivery previously raised during gatherings is inadequate. there seems to be no operational feedback mechanism to grievances raised during imbizo by citizens. the imbizo process is rendered incomplete and ineffective if there is no follow-up to issues raised during previous meetings, because the purpose of this gathering is to provide a platform for airing grievances. therefore, it is not only logical but also incumbent upon the limpopo provincial government to respond to development matters arising during izimbizo. the government ought to ensure that further feedback is provided as a follow-up to such gatherings in order to provide a cyclical communication process, an embodiment of effective communication. it is within this context that this article analyses the quality of feedback following some izimbizo that were conducted by the limpopo provincial government. a number of key questions arise: what kind of feedback is given to communities in response to concerns raised during izimbizo? to what extent does the limpopo provincial government provide feedback to issues previously raised during izimbizo? what factors limit the provision of feedback from the limpopo provincial government to its citizens following the imbizo? it would be ideal within the ambit of the participatory development communication approach for regular interaction through available channels of communication to continue after the imbizo in order to inform citizens about the decisions taken by government. although some limited research has been conducted on imbizo in south africa, most of the available studies do not address feedback to matters by citizens raised at these meetings (hartslief 2008; kondlo 2010; mathagu 2010; netshitomboni 2007). this article, thus, attempts to contribute to the existing body of government communication scholarship and inform praxis by examining feedback to issues raised during government–citizen izimbizo. theorising community participation and feedback in positioning the twin concepts, community participation and feedback, within participatory development communication, it should be noted that the two are applied differently in developed and developing countries. there is no uniform approach and application of community participation, as it varies according to the ethos, principles and available tools of each country (msibi & penzhorn 2010:226). in addition, bessette (2004:116) argues that participatory development communication has different tools for facilitating participation such as interpersonal communication, mass media, traditional media and information communication technology. grounding the community participation concept within the context of development communication necessitates that this study also examines the tools used to support the participation of people in governance. considering the differences in the application of participation and feedback, there is general consensus about the discourse of digital or online participation as adopted by developed (western) countries. bonson, royo and ratkai (2015:52) found that proficient citizen–participation countries such as spain and germany prefer to use technology to facilitate citizen participation because it is assumed that citizens of such countries are technologically savvy. their study revealed that citizens become involved in government affairs by means of the internet and that as many as 70% of the participants prefer digital communication channels. in addition to the use of digital participation, a study conducted in germany argues that online participation epitomises changes in the current communication environment, as most citizens resort to online platforms to share information and interact with government officials (heinze, schneider & ferie 2013:370). however, these studies (bonson et al. 2015; heinze et al. 2013) do not address how feedback is conducted through social media sites to ensure a complete process of participation. the paucity of feedback in existing studies about community participation propels the need for this study to delve into the subject of the feedback phenomenon in online communication. another study, conducted by colineau, paris and vander linden (2012), addresses the commonality of the adoption of digital participation. the researchers of this study found that in australia, government has migrated from traditional to new online means of participation (colineau et al. 2012:177–178). their study revealed that the adoption of online participation by government adds to the notion of keeping citizens informed. the main communication tools that were found to be effective were facebook and twitter. as sanders and canel (2013:310) point out, digital participation has also predominantly been used for citizen engagement in singapore, where government heavily relies on websites and social media networks to frequently consult with citizens about policies. however, although these studies relate the efficiency of communication using digital platforms, they do not expound on the nature of the feedback processes between government and citizens regarding the issues raised on such online platforms. the imbizo paradox central to the practice of community participation and feedback, developing countries such as south africa have adopted traditional tools such as the imbizo for participation as opposed to online participation (booysen 2009:13). it should be noted that the imbizo is not the only tool used for participation. nevertheless, this article focuses on the imbizo because of its participatory nature. participation between communities and government is the crucial trigger inherent in the imbizo, because people are afforded the opportunity to decide on what kind of services they want government to render, because they are the end-users (south african public service commission 2008:2). the paradox lies in the fact that contrary to the purpose of izimbizo as tools of participation, actual community participation in these platforms is inhibited because government makes decisions on when and how people should participate. as such community input is often not implemented. the unintended effect of the imbizo programme is that communities feel marginalised and disempowered by the very instrument that was meant to empower them through participation, to the extent that they perceive government services as not belonging to them (kondlo 2010; mathagu 2010; netshitomboni 2007; silima & auriacombe 2013). these researchers argue that izimbizo lack authenticity as tools of participation. for example, kondlo (2010:386) argues that the imbizo is not an appropriate platform for communities to air their grievances due to limited participation. another defect in the imbizo platform appears to be partial participation, the fact that not everyone is allowed to participate (mathagu 2010:116). netshitomboni (2007:181) found that the imbizo lacks interactivity because it does not pave way for extensive discussion by citizens, and community suggestions are not implemented. the mere act by government of not implementing community contributions may suggest to citizens that their participation is not instrumental to community development. paucity of feedback currently, most notably in relation to literature about the imbizo, there is no empirical evidence suggesting that the platform directly offers solutions to problems affecting communities. as such, some researchers have questioned, albeit in disconcert, the relevance of the imbizo in contributing to addressing service delivery backlog (kondlo 2010; mabelebele 2006; mukhudwana 2015; netshitomboni 2007). for instance, kondlo (2010) suggests that izimbizo lack a proper feedback system on previously raised issues relating to the provision of services. this may indicate that the imbizo cannot meaningfully contribute to the reduction of service delivery backlog, if it does not provide follow-up to previously raised, but unresolved, issues of service delivery. in the case of the limpopo provincial government, ngobeni (2015) reveals that during that year, the premier of the province launched an extended public works programme during izimbizo whereas they were held to provide feedback. this may possibly raise challenges in terms of citizen expectations about the role of the imbizo especially with regard to feedback provision. as the world bank (2007:6) argues, there is still poor implementation of service delivery redress mechanisms and provision of insufficient feedback. rowe and frewer (2005) suggest that ‘imbizo feedback’ is non-existent in practice, as there is no empirical evidence of redress, follow-up or responsiveness to matters raised. considering the inadequacy of feedback or responsiveness, there has recently been a growing amount of public discourse, suggesting a relationship between service delivery protests and lack of responsiveness from government (kamwendo 2016; kotane 2016). kamwendo (2016) concludes that government only appears to respond or provide feedback to communities whenever there is ‘smoke’, in apparent reference to burning of vehicle tyres or buildings during such protests. kotane (2016) too argues that there does not seem to be any reason for government to address communities’ needs unless violent protests erupt. this suggests that the more violence during community protests, the faster the response by government. it is against this background that tadesse et al. (2006:22) assert that service delivery protests become acceptable and are utilised by communities as channels of communication whenever government is unresponsive to matters. however, this article, specifically due to the methodology adopted by the study, cannot claim to establish a causal link between lack of feedback and service delivery protests. the participatory paradigm it is historically noted that development communication evolved from modernisation to dependency, and later to a participatory paradigm. for purposes of this article, the focus is on the latter paradigm, which emphasises feedback, participation and empowerment. the imbizo as a participatory tool in south africa is used to strengthen community participation, exert control and possibly provide feedback on matters raised (government communicators’ handbook 2014:55). this implies that two principal benefits may be derived from the existence of imbizo: the channelling of service delivery and a sense of ownership by communities on account of the right to receive feedback on the issues they raise. in light of those benefits, tomaselli and chasi (2011:212) state that, firstly, the participatory paradigm enables beneficiaries to sustain development because through their participation, they develop skills and abilities to the degree that their growth and transformation lead to self-affirmation. secondly, the paradigm enables ordinary people to take control of their own development, where development can continue without the assistance of the benefactors. in addition to these benefits, servaes (2008:169) contends that the participatory paradigm decentralises power where beneficiaries can assume the duties of ownership. this theory accentuates the need not only for beneficiaries of development to actively participate in related activities but also for them to engage in interactive feedback with benefactors (bessette 2006:54). the theory is, thus, central to the article in three ways. firstly, it helps to point out the need for community participation in development programmes through platforms such as the imbizo. secondly, it stresses the important role of regular feedback in participatory development projects and initiatives. finally, it places emphasis on the need for public meetings such as izimbizo to adopt a two-way participatory approach that benefits both citizens and government. as a result, both parties attain equal opportunities at izimbizo enabling them to share knowledge as opposed to linear communication (from government to citizens) aimed at persuasion (otto & fourie 2016:28). methodology this article adopted a case study within the qualitative approach. a qualitative research approach was invaluable to study izimbizo because it could provide description about the feedback phenomenon. two forms of non-probability sampling techniques, purposive and convenience, were used to select 27 participants who are well versed with imbizo operations from three different local municipalities in limpopo: molemole, makhado and greater giyani municipality. according to the limpopo provincial government (2014:15), limpopo province consists of 25 local municipalities and 12 hold izimbizo every financial year. thus, the selected local municipalities are three of the 12 municipalities that have hosted izimbizo in the 2014/2015 financial year. the study was conducted in 2016, and therefore in order to conduct a post-analysis of izimbizo, it could best lend itself to the 2014/2015 financial year. according to the limpopo provincial government research office, six izimbizo were conducted between may and november 2016. the 2017 gatherings are scheduled to commence in april 2017, which makes the 2016/2017 financial year incomplete for purposes of this study, considering that it assessed feedback to already conducted izimbizo (bvuma 2017). participants were divided into three categories according to their designation: three community members who regularly attend izimbizo, three community development workers and three ward committee members from each of the three above mentioned municipalities. data were collected from participants who were interviewed using semi-structured interviews, as well as content from some limpopo provincial government documents relating to izimbizo. documents that were analysed included the state of the province address (sopa), imbizo progress reports and the limpopo provincial government communication strategy. a database was obtained from the limpopo office of the premier and was used to contact the participants telephonically in order to schedule interviews. consent was sought from the participants. interviews were individually conducted with participants in their natural settings, the municipalities molemole (south) to makhado (north) and giyani (north-west of limpopo province). permission was sought from the participants to record the interviews. while recording the interviews, it was also important to note what was being observed such as personal reaction of the participants, to enhance the verbal communication. the audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and later typed using microsoft word. data were categorised by using open and axial coding (du plooy-cilliers, davis & bezuidenhout 2014:233). by applying open coding, data were broken down into chunks of the text before attaching meaning through information coding. axial coding was used to categorise the data into the emerging themes. in terms of document analysis, the study applied a deductive approach using thematic analysis to categorise the data into the pre-existing themes that emerged from semi-structured interviews. bowen (2009:32) points out that when applying the thematic method, it is important for researchers to have themes prior to the analysing process, particularly if the documents are supplementary to other research methods used in the study. the process of document analysis involved discovering, selecting, judging and synthesising data contained in documents. findings and discussions a number of themes emerged from the data that were collected from the participants. poor quality and quantity of feedback the findings of this study reveal that there is minimal and uneven distribution of feedback in the three municipalities, in relation to concerns raised during izimbizo, specifically about service delivery. two out of the three municipalities mentioned that they do not receive feedback from government. for example, participants, particularly in greater giyani and makhado municipalities, revealed that: ‘feedback is not given at all, given to the people at all. i have not even heard government telling us about what they promise. every time people expect good services from us as the ward committees, but the problem is that we have wait for top officials to brief us before we can go to the people [sic].’ (ward committee member 2, makhado municipality) the response above, among others, suggests that the imbizo does not attempt to redress or provide feedback to the affected communities. it further suggests that izimbizo are not effectively utilised by the limpopo provincial government to serve the purpose of providing feedback. praxis versus verbal feedback participants reported that the practical provision of services is more important to them than verbal feedback. it is evident from most of the responses that feedback without tangible deliverables is not considered to be enough. as illustrated below, some communities consider actualisation of their concerns as feedback: ‘there is feedback in terms of communicating in our municipality, but all we want is the services. even if government can give us feedback on the matters brought to their attention and do not fulfil what they promised us, yet we are still without what we needed [sic].’ (ward committee member 1, molemole municipality) with reference to the above comment, it is considered that verbal responses from government following concerns raised at izimbizo make no difference to them if services are not delivered to the communities. community expectations seem to be such that verbal feedback cannot replace service delivery, despite regular interaction between communities and government. in other words, communities appear to prefer actual rendering of services to regular verbal feedback on raised grievances. these responses suggest that verbal feedback does not alleviate the developmental burden and challenges that communities are faced with, yet actual delivery of services does. barriers to feedback provision two factors seemed contribute to the limitation of feedback on issues raised by communities: dysfunctional ward committee structures and poor accountability. it must be emphasised that due to the qualitative methodology of the study, a causal link cannot be established between the two identified variables, although such a relationship was suggested by participants. dysfunctional ward committee structures the findings show that ward committee structures are dysfunctional in terms of providing feedback to communities. the majority of the participants mentioned that they do not receive feedback about their grievances because ward committee members are incompetent in terms of communicating with their communities. regarding the irregularity of feedback, for example, a participant said: ‘ward committees provide feedback whenever they want and it is difficult for us as community members to keep abreast of government’s fulfillments and that is unacceptable [sic].’ (community member 1, greater giyani municipality) poor accountability poor accountability about service delivery by the limpopo provincial government was found to be another factor hindering the imbizo feedback. one of the participants argued as follows: ‘there is no accountability in our government. everything is done without the knowledge of people. government is afraid to tell people about the progress of development because it knows that people will be angry at them. sometimes it is because government did not spend wisely the allocated money and is ashamed to keep us posted about the progress made. that’s why in most instances, government give excuses of insufficient budget whereas cost-benefit analysis was done prior to the commencement of projects [sic].’ (community development worker 3 in greater giyani municipality) the findings suggest that the limpopo provincial government is unwilling to account to the public, because of its inability to manage finances. the participant suggests that government officials rely on the ‘budget-constraint’ claim as the commonly given excuse, to avoid providing feedback to the citizens. communication channels three communication channels that are deemed appropriate for providing feedback on the matters raised during izimbizo were suggested by the participants. some participants in molemole municipality indicated that the imbizo is an ideal platform on the basis of its direct interaction between government and the public. for example, a ward committee member and a community development worker said: ‘imbizo is the appropriate channel to give feedback because it gives government an assurance that people have heard the message and government can see how many have attended [sic].’ (ward committee member 3, molemole municipality) ‘at an imbizo, feedback can be sent to a multitude at the same time [sic].’ (community development worker 1, molemole municipality) the majority of the participants especially in molemole municipality preferred traditional channels such as radio as opposed to digital ones: ‘the most preferred channel was radio, which is deemed to be informative and less expensive in terms of cost and accessibility. although there has no feedback through the imbizo forum, radio is used to give us clarity on the service delivery matters [sic].’ (community development worker 2, greater giyani municipality) the participants revealed that social media platforms such as facebook and twitter are the main digital communication channels that have gained momentum in this era, and which could be used. the majority of the participants indicated that they prefer feedback on issues raised at izimbizo to be provided through facebook. the following views were expressed: ‘i prefer facebook because the communication environment has drastically changed over the past years. none in this year have time to sit next to their radios to listen to dictated conversation between politicians and radio presenters. feedback may also be given via facebook as we walk everywhere with our cellphone and other gadget in our bags [sic].’ (community member 3, greater giyani municipality) ‘i have access social media for communication and research [sic].’ (community development worker 2, makhado municipality) the overarching idea from the results is that online media have the potential to grow into feedback channels in the limpopo province. however, challenges such as access to rural communities may arise and should be given due consideration in decision-making. nevertheless, facebook allows individuals to personalise their communication. this implies that communication may be confined to an individual and government. the results further show that the social media are increasingly becoming a dominant form of communication today. recommendations the following recommendations are suggested from the study. the limpopo provincial government should consider utilising a parallel strategy in addition to the main communication strategy: izimbizo. the izimbizo strategy could be used to outline the focus or objectives of government to the citizens in addition to other supporting channels of communication such as radio and social media. for instance, it would be ideal for the limpopo provincial government to purchase time slots on both the south african broadcasting corporation (sabc) and commercial radios such as capricorn fm to attend to matters raised by citizens. this could be done every quarter in the year to inform the affected communities on either progress made or challenges impeding the completion of services, to allow for frequent communication. arising from the study, there is need for affected communities to have access to progress reports containing all issues raised at izimbizo. these reports could be uploaded on government departments’ websites, which could ultimately minimise public distrust. conclusions the article has argued that communities expect feedback on the matters raised at izimbizo to be provided in a tangible form such as actual delivery of services rather than verbal feedback. at present, there is minimal and uneven distribution of feedback in the limpopo province. dysfunctional ward committee structures and poor accountability appear to be major contributory factors to uneven provision of feedback, whereas poor accountability hinders the limpopo provincial government from providing adequate feedback. room for accountability about development issues exists in the form of imbizo progress reports, although these reports are held confidential and strictly meant for the premier, members of executive council (mecs) and the director general at the premier’s office in the limpopo province. with regard to channels for feedback, radio is the most preferred specifically for service delivery matters, with online media specifically facebook viewed to have potential for growth in future. at present, apart from radio, the imbizo is deemed to be a possible communication channel due to its cost-effectiveness and accessibility with potential for further interactivity if feedback is provided by government to previous grievances. further research through quantitative studies could be conducted to establish possible causal links between post-izimbizo feedback between government and citizens. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank mr david bvuma for providing information about the 2016/2017 imbizo schedule. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions m.l.b. was responsible for conceptualisation of the project, collected, analysed and interpreted the data. e.l. made conceptual contributions and supervised the project. references bessette, g., 2004, involving the community: a guide to participatory development communication, southbound, ontario, ca. bessette, g., 2006, people land and water: participatory development communication for natural resource management, international development research centre, ottawa, canada. bonson, e., royo, s. & ratkai, m., 2015, ‘citizens’ engagement on local government’s facebook sites. an empirical analysis: the impact of different media and content types in western europe’, government information quarterly 32, 52–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2014.11.001 booysen, s., 2009, ‘public 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public service commission, 2008, report on the assessment of public participation practices in the public service, government printers, pretoria. tadesse, e., ameck, g., christensen, c., masiko, p., matlhakola, m., shilaho, w. et al., 2006, the people shall govern: a research report on public participation in policy processes, centre for the study of violence and reconciliation (csvr) and action for conflict transformation (action), johannesburg. tomaselli, k.g. & chasi, c., 2011, development and public health communication, pearson, cape town. world bank, 2007, world congress on communication for development: lessons, challenges and the way forward, the international bank for reconstruction and development, washington, dc. abstract introduction and background theoretical framework methodology selection of participants and the selection criteria data collection and analysis findings discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) christopher rwodzi department of applied languages, faculty of humanities, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa lizette de jager department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa nhlanhla mpofu school of social sciences and language education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa citation rwodzi, c., de jager, l. & mpofu, n., 2020, ‘the innovative use of social media for teaching english as a second language’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a702. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.702 original research the innovative use of social media for teaching english as a second language christopher rwodzi, lizette de jager, nhlanhla mpofu received: 09 may 2019; accepted: 07 nov. 2019; published: 20 feb. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the need to improve english proficiency and inclusion of social media in language teaching have resulted in teachers having to develop new teaching strategies incorporating digital tools. in south africa, english teachers in township settings have to develop teaching strategies suitable for teaching english using social media platforms, especially in resource-constrained secondary schools. from literature and education policies, teaching of digital literacy is strongly recommended, but teachers in some township environments are not pedagogically capacitated to teach and use social media in teaching english. to explore the experiences of such teachers, this study explored the use of social media for the teaching of english as a second language in township schools. the study used an interpretivist qualitative approach in an exploratory case-study design to understand teachers’ initiatives and strategies in teaching english as a second language using social media. data collection was done using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions and document analysis. teachers’ voices, actions and documents on the use of social media were analysed inductively and thematically. the research findings indicate that the sampled english teachers used social media for collaboration, networking, communication and out-of-school digital literacy practices as their initiatives. these digital initiatives lead to the utilisation of digital connection platforms for socialisation and teaching and learning english. in addition to dividends of connectivism, visual communication and cyber linguistics were found to have become critically important practices for learners learning english as a second language. the implication is that the education policy-makers and planners in south africa need to revisit the policy on e-learning and information communication technology (ict) usage in schools to incorporate the methodological requirements and competences for teachers to use in the teaching of english using social media. in addition to improvements in policy measures, english teachers in resource-constrained township secondary schools need to improve their digital literacy skills to line up themselves for online and out-of-school literacy learning requirements. keywords: digital literacy; multiliteracy; second language learning; social media; teacher initiatives. introduction and background technological development and the teaching of english as a second language have been the focus of debate among academics and language specialists in the past decade. english language teachers in secondary schools have been compelled by technological innovations and curriculum needs to update their teaching and learning skills in line with technological requirements and policy. the purpose of this article was to explore the digital development and technological innovations that have changed the communication landscape the world over (prensky 2001) and is true for the african continent as well. the presence of social media has provided many opportunities for teaching and learning english as a second language. in south africa, teachers are required to use digital technology for teaching subjects such as english as recommended by the syllabus rolled out in 2011 (national department of basic education [caps] 2011). social media in the south african education system is not widely used officially because of disciplinary challenges and financial constraints. according to dzvapatsva, mitrovic and dietrich (2014), social media has a chance to improve participation by learners who perform poorly because social media can cater to different personality profiles. social media is also convenient as individualised learning experiences. social media, thus, connects cultures through collaborative authorship and digitally connected and networked knowledge communities in a participatory culture. in support of becoming knowledge communities, practising teachers must be aware that single authorship is now an option and that the classroom extends beyond the visible walls, as it is connected to digital resources and learning partners (lotherington & jenson 2011). for computer technology to support cognitive functions and encourage higher learning outcomes, teachers have a duty to reconceptualise the way digital tools are used in the integration of theory and practice (jonassen 2006). the reconceptualised procedure should result in a shift away from a teacher-centred approach to instruction that attempts to engage learners in collaborative activities that support knowledge construction in an integrated fashion. in the modern paradigms of language teaching, teachers are not necessarily knowledge reservoirs but are facilitators who should enable learners to discover and understand their environment. ingre and basil (2017) claimed that social media comprises platforms that promote interactivity and community building among users. according to savage and mcgoun (2015), digital classrooms, digital music, cell phones, smart phones, video games, digital music players, online entertainment, cyber learning and collaboration, massive open online courses, video cams and all other forms of digital toys have characterised the environment of the child of the digital age across international boundaries. in support of the use of technology in english language teaching, mubarak (2016) and shava and chinyamurindi (2017) said that the use of social media, such as facebook, twitter, youtube and whatsapp, is an attempt to take advantage of peer attention, freedom of expression, and to create and manage participants’ identities as they seek for information. in addition to socialising and sharing of information, mcknight et al. (2016) strongly argued that digital classrooms outperform traditional classrooms, and their findings and the declaration by the former us president barak obama in 2013 to have internet in classes within a period of 5 years in american schools show a commitment towards the use of digital technology and social media for teaching and learning. mubarak (2016) supported the use of social media in education, as it provides more flexible language learning experiences through constructivism. learning communities in mubarak’s (2016) view have significantly progressed from regular classroom to a computer-generated education environment in which learners come together in a virtual environment to exchange ideas, solve problems, explore opportunities and understand the world in a better way. recent research has demonstrated how collaborative learning improves learners’ performance and provides extended learning time (le, jansen & wubbels 2018). in view of the advantages of collaborative learning in a digital landscape, teachers should eliminate inhibitions and perceived obstacles limiting learner progress. in a study on the use of tablets in a classroom context, falloon (2015) attributed the positive findings on the use of technology to tablets’ capabilities for instant sharing and feedback. in the same project, falloon and khoo (2014) explored the impact of open-ended apps versus closed-ended apps on students’ learning and found that the content generation requirement of open-ended apps stimulated more interaction among learners through which different subject teachers could build learners’ verbal and other communication skills. in view of the learning opportunities provided by the apps, english teachers in resource-constrained secondary schools in south africa have the chance of using social media platforms to interact with learners, thereby sharing content, developing writing, curation and other visual communication skills. in a study by bagdasarov, luo and wu (2017), the use of apps and technology in the teaching of a second language improved on the learners’ writing and averages because of the use of technology in learning mathematics. we argue in this article that the use of technology, and social media in particular, provides opportunities for learners to develop critical thinking skills, writing abilities, communication effectiveness and learning experiences. previous studies, as mentioned earlier, focussed on the use of tablets in teaching mathematics in the classroom. bagdasarov et al. (2017) and sangra and gonzalez-sanmamed (2016) focussed on the role of ict in education in terms of content access. yarbro et al. (2016) explored digital instructional strategies for content coverage, cognitive process and instructional practice, and made comparative analysis with english language arts (ela) subjects in classroom practice as well. the mentioned researches did not cover in detail the use of technology in resource-constrained english second-language teaching environments such as township secondary schools. in the south african research landscape, shava and chinyamurindi (2017) investigated the use of social media in learning at tertiary institutions in south africa and found that social media connects and links students’ learning opportunities through socialisation, habituates the learning process through the perceived social media addiction and connects students to a global digital citizenship. on the social networking and use of social media continuum, eke and singh (2018) explored the proliferation of violence in schools perpetuated by social media and also discovered that collaboration and networking played a critical role. on the role of social media and its negative effect, i therefore suggest improved legislation and improved school policy on participation of learners in social media platforms. this participation is very important because it creates opportunities for teachers and learners to have critical discourses, thereby constructing solutions to human challenges. the practices on social media with digital technology concur with constructivist perspectives, which posit that reality is socially constructed. in this research, we also sought to understand the strategies used by english teachers while teaching in resource-constrained schools without making a comparison with other subjects in the curriculum. this study is unique in the south african context in that it explores the use of social media in the teaching of english in resource-constrained secondary schools where cell phone usage during class time is highly controlled and access to smart phones for connectivity poses a challenge to learners from poor communities (rwodzi 2018). although studies by ngesi et al. (2018) were conducted on the use of social media, very few studies were conducted in resource-constrained secondary schools or on teachers’ initiatives in the teaching of english using social media in gauteng. social media largely benefits active participants (through interaction) either as consumers of knowledge or architects on knowledge construction sites (cognitive function). for english second-language learners in township settings, critical thinking skills, collaboration and networking provide a platform to exchange ideas across international physical boundaries where english is used as a medium of instruction in schools or for communication in business and socialisation. social media therefore combines socialisation and learning at the same time. social media combines a number of practices such as creativity, networking, content selection, entertainment, electronic writing, editing and evaluation, critical thinking and problem-solving through collaboration (hicks & turner 2013). the above-mentioned practices combine to make social media practices a set of human experiences and practices in organised social settings such as schools. if literacy is understood as the relationship between the reader and the text, social media participation provides more opportunities in text construction, deconstruction, analysis and interpretation for meaning-making. creativity, networking, content selection, collaboration and connectivism (bell 2011) all add up to critical thinking in problem-solving using digital literacies. the aim of the article was to explore the opportunities, unpack the experiences and authenticate english teachers’ initiatives on the use of social media in teaching english as a second language. theoretical framework social media combines a number of human digital literacy practices. according to hicks and turner (2013), creativity, networking, content selection, entertainment, electronic writing, editing and evaluation, critical thinking and problem-solving through collaboration form part of the practices imbedded in the social media interaction process. for this study, socialisation on social media platforms helped learners develop language writing and communication skills through collaboration. social media provided electronic writing opportunities, creativity in english as a subject in school and an ability to analyse information presented to them in different formats. the use of social media involves an ability to manipulate digital devices and software as well as a willingness to share experiences as participants interact. the knowledge construction as indicated by savage and mcgoun (2015) is informed by constructivism. constructivist theories propagate that learning is achieved through active construction of knowledge in different contexts and to serve different purposes (hew & cheung 2008). in addition to active construction of knowledge, wang (2008) said that the belief of constructivism is founded on the premise that knowledge is actively constructed by learners rather than transmitted by the teacher. in the same vein, learners are active knowledge constructors rather than passive recipients. participation by learners on social media in diverse groups presents opportunities for them to construct knowledge in their different contexts. at both the concept and the theory level, learner participation as part of a response to the presence of functional technology in behaviourist perspectives and cognitivist context makes a perfect merge and guidance to the teaching and learning of english as a second language. in this case, the technology provides stimuli and motivation, while the content discussed online involves a cognitive process, as the learner and teacher construct knowledge and bring an awareness and understanding of the concepts in english as a second language. methodology the study is rooted in the interpretivist–constructivist world view. according to creswell (2013), interpretivism attests to how meaning is assigned by participants to their actions as well as how social constructions yield knowledge about their practices. interpretivism focusses on participants’ subjective experiences on how they construct the social world by sharing meanings. interpretivists assume that reality is not objectively determined, but socially constructed (nieuwenhuis 2010). constructivism belongs to the broad framework of interpretivism and was used as a foundation for the research process. we used the qualitative approach to explore the strategies used on social media by english language teachers in selected resource-constrained secondary schools. we used a case-study design for this exploration because the use of social media for teaching english as second language in resource-constrained secondary schools is a critical issue in the tshwane north district because of a lack of digital resources and limited pedagogical support from curriculum planners. yin (2012) said that an exploratory case study is pertinent when the research addresses either descriptive or exploratory questions. selection of participants and the selection criteria we purposively selected six english teachers and 12 learners in township schools who teach and learn english as a second language, respectively, using social media. three secondary schools were selected as research sites in the tshwane north district. we selected secondary schools that are resource-constrained in terms of computer technology, network connection, financial resources and infrastructure to accommodate large numbers of learners for the teaching with technology. the selection process was guided by the need to find an understanding of the initiatives taken by english language teachers in resource-constrained secondary schools considering the increased use of social media in society. participants selected were english teachers and learners who use social media, such as facebook, whatsapp and youtube, which are popular in resource-constrained locations. the participating english teachers were digitally literate and competent or proficient in some of the social media platforms, such as facebook and whatsapp. the participants were selected for this study on the use of social media because their schools did not have enough computers for digital literacy and social media learning practices. teachers and learners who were participants relied on their personal smart phones. data collection and analysis we used interviews, field notes and document analysis as research instruments to explore participants’ initiatives or innovative use of social media to teach english as a second language in resource-constrained secondary schools (flick 2014). we used audio recordings of the interviews, and writing pads for capturing additional data (flick 2014). scheduled interviews with selected english teachers were conducted and their views recorded. we analysed electronic texts, images, pictures and group chats from participants’ cell phones to collect data on the innovative use of social media for teaching english as a second language. documents analysed included the texts on social media, learner activities, pictures and any other graphic images linked to the use of social media in learning english. we followed creswell’s (2013) spiral data analysis framework to analyse the collected data, by first managing the data, then organising the data (files and units), followed by reading (making margin notes and comments) and reflecting, as well as forming initial codes. the iterative process involved examination, analysis, interpretation of participants’ views and actions about the innovative use of social media in the teaching of english as a second language. we adhered to all ethical considerations in accordance with the recommendations from the department of basic education in south africa and the institution where the research was conducted. findings the main findings indicate that english teachers use social media to communicate with learners on matters relating to school work. english teachers and learners use online resources to research and then share the information with their classmates on social media groups in spite of the fact that the use of social media in teaching english has not been advocated by the department of basic education policy on methodology. the platforms commonly used by teachers and learners are whatsapp, facebook, instagram and twitter. learning english also involves the innovative use of new and existing cartoons, games and puzzles to understand and practice the use of different language aspects using the social media platforms. most of these resources are in electronic format. findings reveal that teachers and learners combine socialisation, working and learning through extended hours in digital literacy practices. while on the school premises, teachers and learners limit the use of digital tools for typing, storage, transfer, curation and retrieval of information, but they continue to access the same information sources even after school hours on their smart phones. in other cases, teachers use applications such as share it and bluetooth to share information with learners and colleagues. a participant said: ‘my learners are in different groups based on their interests on social media. i discuss homework assignments, selected english topics and answer questions asked by learners on academic issues. whatsapp has made my class to become a family because we also discuss social issues, share jokes, music, videos and gospel preaching. learners also ask questions relating to the subject.’ (t1, english teacher, male) the social media is an extension of the class activities, and learners construct knowledge through interaction. data collected show that teachers and learners connect and chat on whatsapp groups, participate on twitter, and share pictures and videos, thereby improving their communicative ability and language proficiency. lessons observed indicated that the cartoons shared on social media, jokes and images are also used for communication. one of the participants said: ‘i use images and pictures to communicate my feelings and to demonstrate my ability to use different digital facilities. the use of images creates an emotional appeal and motivates texting online. i feel happy to receive hearts from my friends, learners and colleagues in trying times. so, social media combines academic discussions and socialisation. in other instances, the images are combined with music tunes and voices on youtube and i become happy. this mode of communication and socialisation makes learning an exciting activity.’ (t2, english teacher, female) in other cases, participants indicated that they enjoy socialising and learning at the same time, and find the support valuable when faced with challenges during difficult times. another participant said: ‘we use social media images and pictures for fun and assisting learners with homework and other subject-related matters. images, pictures and videos provide entertainment, learning opportunities and socialisation. we share music videos, pictures and images with learners on social media. in some cases, we discuss the lyrics with learners on certain music genres. in one of my group chats, we also use videos that explain or help answer a question about homework or any other form of classwork.’ (t3, english teacher, female) the reality of social media in township secondary schools, as observed and understood from interviews, indicates that english teachers and learners were doing their best to use social media for learning and teaching even though many learners do not have access to smart phones and the internet. english teachers who participated in the study were concerned that learners who do not have smart phones or access to the internet could not participate in social media activities. in some cases, learners from families with no access to the internet or social media tried to make use of their friends or neighbours’ resources, but there was limited progress in such instances. participants indicated during interviews that they share knowledge with their teachers, and solve their personal problems by asking for working solutions from their peers and teachers using the social media. one of the participants said: ‘i share knowledge with my peers on our social media group chat. they ask questions and i also ask questions. the good thing about whatsapp group is that i can attend to the questions any time and sometimes share jokes. they help with solutions or guidelines on life challenges. the use of social media is very very nice. i can even chat to my friends any time of the day or ask questions to teachers any time.’ (l1, learner, male) in view of the comments from the participants, i observed that they enjoy the use of social media. the texts and images analysed show how english teachers communicate and discuss matters relating to their school work. the extract below shows how learners and teachers communicate on social media. figure 1 indicates that the conversations are taking place online and learners use their digital literacy skills such as composing messages, typing (electronic writing), punctuating and responding to requests during chat sessions. learners ask questions during the conversations, and voluntary participation results in sharing of information. an analysis of the extract also shows the use of short forms, abbreviated language and emoticons. participants indicated during discussions that the use of images provided emotional aspects of communication. they indicated that certain images ignited some positive emotions during the chat sessions, which encourage the discussions. the extract also indicates the times when the learners had the discussion, which shows that the conversations were done after school. this clearly shows the extension of learning time after normal school hours. figure 1: extract of communication of learners and teachers on social media. during interviews, participants strongly indicated that extreme caution needs to be taken when working with learners using social media. participants stressed that the content that they post on social media needs to be examined and analysed carefully before posting. participants recommended strongly that the social media group chats require rules and structures that control and mediate the conversation as well as take cognisance of the different cultural contexts of the group members. group administrators need to constantly check on the behaviour of participants to avoid insults, obscenities, undermining public figures and spreading falsehoods as well as fake news. participants also indicated that english teachers need to prepare content, and identify learners’ critical needs and interests in the process of designing tasks and activities. there is also the need to cautious while allowing creativity, diversity and constructive criticism during chat sessions. during group interview discussions, english teachers were critical on the use of emoticons, images, abbreviated language, short forms and acronyms and their impact on the learners’ communicative ability as well as their ability to raise an emotional appeal. ethical consideration ethical clearance (number: hu 16/08/03) was granted by the department of humanities, faculty of education, university of pretoria, gauteng department of basic education. discussion the fundamental experience of learners in the social media connection brings a sense of belonging to a network where social matters and academic issues are combined. the practices connect and link with constructivist tenets where knowledge is constructed collaboratively in the respective contexts. learning in this context, as mentioned by yarbro et al. (2016), takes place through collaboration (constructivism), self-correction, self-regulation and self-rewarding. learning in social media is personalised because each learner is connected to groups of their choice in accordance with their interests and motivation. this study discovered that learners join chat groups, such as the cartoon club and spelling competition groups, on the basis of their interest. social media incorporates creation of new knowledge through recycling, remixing and legitimisation of the existing material. this way, new forms, patterns, structures and genres of knowledge are created and shared among the group members (ingre & basil 2017). teachers implement innovative initiatives to create strong partnerships with learners in both social and academic matters. learners seek advice in both social and academic issues on social media platforms. teachers have become almost 24 × 7 online parents, caregivers, mentors, supervisors and counsellors. the study found that teachers can provide individual support to learners if group and individual connections with their learners are made available even after school. the social media according to patterns from this research reveals that class activities are extended beyond the school hours, thereby creating more opportunities for learning. based on the constructivist perspective, the interaction of learners on social media, as they socialise, creates a platform for them to share knowledge with their teachers, shape their thinking, solve problems and apply different solutions to challenges in their life (hew & cheung 2008). the study revealed that the innovative use of social media provides opportunities for teachers and learners of english as second language to practise, share and construct knowledge as they participate in their diverse contexts. digital literacy practices in addition provide access to other digital competence facilities. for example, social media socialisation and learning english using digital technology help learners with typing skills, editing, copying and pasting, forwarding and resolving ideological differences in a professional way. the revealed practices and their implications in language education are a product of constructivist underpinning principles (mcgoun 2015). digital tools provide access to videos on youtube, pictures, cartoons, texts, diagrams, tables and graphs, all combined to communicate and present content to both teachers and learners. according to kajee (2018), the experience of merged learning environments, and socialand work-related settings, makes digital literacy a socio-cultural practice and excites learners when they combine work, play and learning in one continuous process. multimodalities and multiliteracies create opportunities for learners as they develop their identities in social media participation and share cultural beliefs and values across ethnic groups in a multilingual and multiethnic south africa. learners experience learning in multicultural contexts (lie 2017). teachers indicated that the social media group chats and discussions took place across ethnic and cultural groups. in situations where social media is used, learners experience, construct, analyse and question knowledge in multiple contexts (lotherington & jenson 2011). this practice creates rigour in learning and is based on partnership. conclusion limitations of the study this study could have covered a number of resource-constrained schools; however, because of financial constraints, the opportunity for participation was limited to selected schools. it was also not easy to access digital devices for some english teachers and learners, especially on their socialisation patterns. implications for teaching english as a second language the use of social media for learning and teaching extends the classroom activities beyond the school programme. in view of the technological development, social media supports the teaching of english as a second language by providing electronic writing opportunities, use of symbols and images for communication, thereby improving proficiency, multiliteracy and multimodality skills. teachers need to develop pedagogical skills in the use of social media in teaching english as a second language. in terms of policy development and implementation, the department of basic education needs to provide professional training for english language teachers to be able to use social media in the teaching of english in resource-constrained secondary schools. acknowledgements this article is an extract from a completed doctoral thesis by christopher rwodzi who was supervised by dr l. de jager and co-supervised by dr nhlanhla mpofu. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions all authors equally contributed to this work. funding information the research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit 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focus on an additional counselling tool that complements the genogram and that will enable counsellors to successfully utilise the time spent during a counselling session. the article sets forth the thoughts of socialisation as well as various social components that influence the construction of reality of the self. these social components elaborate on aspects such as our identities, our beliefs, our evaluation, regulating our behaviour and focusing on our sense of self. the main objective is to answer the question: what is the influence of social components on marriage counselling? key words: counselling, socialisation, counsellors, marriage, identities, behaviour. disciplines: sociology, psychology, counselling, family studies. 1. introduction the purpose of this paper is to focus on an additional counselling tool, complementary to the genogram and the egogram, which will enable counsellors to ensure successful utilisation of time spent during counselling. the goal of the marriage counsellor is not to effect any drastic change in the personality of either partner, but to help each to perceive his or her own reality, the reality of the partner, and that of the marriage or relationship more clearly, and to focus on social components which may influence the reality of both parties. 2. socialisation much of our self-knowledge comes from socialisation. during childhood, we are treated in particular ways by our parents, teachers and friends and we participate in religious, ethnic or * department of sociology, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark. email: pierre.vanniekerk@nwu.ac.za ** department of sociology, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark. email: rob.fradgley@nwu.ac.za *** department of psychology, university of johannesburg, auckland park campus, johannesburg. email: leonvn@uj.ac.za mailto:pierre.vanniekerk@nwu.ac.za� mailto:rob.fradgley@nwu.ac.za� mailto:leonvn@uj.ac.za� van niekerk, fradgley & van niekerk 396 cultural activities that later become significant aspects of ourselves. children who spend their weekends being taken to art exhibitions and concerts by their parents, for example, may come to think of themselves as cultured individuals. socialisation, then, forms the core of our experience. the regularities in those experiences may eventually become internalised as important aspects of the self-concept. the self-concept becomes the collection of beliefs we hold about who we are… (taylor, peplau and sears 1994). the self-concept is heavily influenced by factors that make us distinctive and, according to taylor, peplau and sears, we will mention things about ourselves which make us distinctive in a particular situation. a deaf woman, for example, is more likely to mention that she is deaf if there are relatively few deaf people in her particular group, whereas she is more likely to mention the fact that she is a woman where she finds herself in a predominantly male group. there are several concepts embedded within socialisation that help broaden our selfknowledge and that play a vital role in the socialisation process. before we continue with the main focus of the article, we need to briefly discuss these concepts. 2.1 reflected appraisals berne (1987) states: parents deliberately or unwarily, teach their children from birth how to behave, think, feel and perceive. liberation from these influences is no easy matter, since they are deeply ingrained and are necessary during the first two or three decades of life for biological and social survival. c.h. cooley, as referred to by taylor, peplau and sears (1994) developed the concept of the looking-glass self, maintaining that people perceive themselves as others perceive and respond to them. our perception of how other people react towards us is called reflected appraisals. sometimes people give us explicit feedback about our qualities. this process often begins in socialisation, when our parents tell us not to be so shy, how good we are at the piano, how math is not our strong point, or what good readers we are. generally speaking, there is a strong relationship between how parents think about their childrens’ abilities and the own selfconceptions of the children on these same dimensions. in later childhood and early adolescence, feedback from peers may be more important. adolescence brings with it additional sources of direct feedback, such as whether one is asked out on a date by many people or only a few, or whether the persons one asks out accept or decline the invitation. on the whole, people prefer objective feedback about their personal attributes. objective feedback is regarded as less biased and fairer than personal opinion (taylor et al. 1994). the opinions of others still count, however. this is particularly the case when those opinions are shared by a large number of people when we may come to believe that they are true. we also learn about ourselves through interpreting the reactions that other individuals display towards us. 2.2 self-perception when we observe ourselves, we see that we tend to prefer certain activities above other activities, certain foods above other foods, or certain persons above other persons. selfknowledge is gained when we are able to observe these regularities. on the other hand bem’s (taylor et al. 1994) self-perception theory suggests that this source of self-knowledge may be useful primarily for aspects of the self that are not particularly central or important. for social components in marriage counselling td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 395 – 410. 397 example, we do not need to observe ourselves avoiding anchovies to know that we do not like anchovies. bem feels that many important aspects of the self have clear internal referents in the form of enduring beliefs, attitudes and affective preferences. 2.3 social comparison at times, when we want to evaluate ourselves on a particular dimension or quality, some of the information is not readily available. as a result of this we assess our personal qualities by comparing ourselves to other people. taylor, peplau and sears (1994) provide us with an example: (y)ou know if you are a good dancer or not by observing those around you and noting whether you seem to be dancing more gracefully than those people. taylor, peplau and sears refer to this process as social comparison. we tend to compare ourselves with those who have similar abilities to us. we receive information from those with whom we can compete on an equal basis, and with this information we can evaluate our qualities and self. since the family is an intricate part of a larger network of culturally patterned ways of behaviour and shared ways of looking at the world, each individual becomes immersed in shaping mechanisms that vitally affect their own behaviours, perceptions and orientations toward all areas of life, including those relating to the opposite sex in dating, marriage and the family. the question can now be asked, what are the mechanisms that are brought into play to channel our perception and desires into socially approved and predetermined avenues? while such orientational attitudes are ordinarily deemed a matter of personal preference, perceptions of marriage ability and desirability are, in fact, determined by a myriad of sociocultural factors. these factors influence and shape each individual’s reality. in a way, societies exercise control over their members and, to assure continuity over time, each society needs to exercise this control; it is a basic fact of social existence. an example of this can be gender-role, which focuses on the important facet of the socialisation of the members of both genders. individuals must be socialised in order to become truly human. this process continues throughout life as new roles are played in each new situation or group that the individual enters. social pressures mould newcomers so that they conform to the expectations and the customs of the particular group they are entering. only then can the individuals accept their roles in the particular society. each generation learns from the other in time (duvall and muller 1985). the resulting social control, however, is so pervasive that it affects almost every aspect of life. to demonstrate this aspect, as well as how the social components shape the individual’s reality of what is expected or not, let us look at two people, peter and mary, as taken from the authors henslin (1985), goode (1982), belkin and goodman (1980), bell and vogel (1968) and eshleman (1994). largely invisible to peter and mary, were the shaping devices put into effect by their society, culture and family, and what they constructed for themselves regarding their own schema. for example, their culture dictated that monogamy is the only acceptable form of marriage and their society had provided idealised expectations concerning the proper timing of marriage, which is after school. their peer group becomes another shaping device and exercises remarkable influence over them. it exerts social control over personal choice in matters of height, weight, age, race, intelligence, social class as well as popularity and reputational qualities of their prospective ‘dates’. other sources of primary influence on peter and mary, that are worth mentioning, are their parents whose residence in a certain social class and radically van niekerk, fradgley & van niekerk 398 segregated neighbourhood limits their choices, their religion with membership typically following social class and radical lines and its highly specific teachings about right and wrong in dating and marriage, and their education whether private, public, or parochial schools with their mix or lack thereof concerning social class and racial backgrounds. in addition to all these influences are the broad socio-historical factors that become part of the choices that peter and mary make after their marriage. these influences largely determine their expectations concerning, for example what peter is like as a male, mary as a female, and their expectations of one another as a man and a woman. this becomes essential in their basic roles of husband and wife. each of them experiences these roles largely as a matter of personal choice, generally remaining blind to the many pervasive cultural, social and historical factors that shape the choices they make. these are the basic ideas and related behaviour moulds wherein we are immersed from birth and which constantly influence us regarding the ways in which we conceptualise and use space, time, money, work, property, leisure, sex and the behaviours considered proper among other people due to their designated relationships with one another. this idea, of proper relationships among people, becomes part and parcel of our basic orientation of life. we cannot escape these social influences, and they shape our expectations of life; directing not only how we ought to act towards others, but also our fundamental assumptions concerning who we are and, therefore, how others ought to regard, and act towards, us. we might say that these assumptions of relationships become rooted in our social being and that they become a major part of what goes into making us social creatures. 2.4 the dialogical nature of the self polischuk (1998) argues that the postmodern approaches to the understanding of the self are focused on metaphorical descriptions, of which the dialogical approach to the self (taylor 1989 and taylor 1991) is one of many. in this approach the self is conceptualised as multi-voiced and dialogical (richardson, rogers & mccarroll 1998). hermans and kempen (1993) explain the dialogical self as a combination of the concepts of “self” and “dialogue” in such a way that their theoretical integration opens up new vistas for the understanding of the social self. the function of the dialogical self can only be understood within the social nature of being human. the self is organized through socialisation in a context of dialogue. hermans (1999) points out that our thoughts frequently take the form of dialogue. someone who thinks does not only experience a fleeting thought, he is also a thinker who perceives the thought, evaluates it, corrects it and reacts to it. at times other persons are involved in this process. thoughts concerning a happening in the past, or an anticipated future event, are often incorporated in an imaginative discussion with others who ask questions, are of the same mind or differ and react in an agreeable or disagreeable manner. these events constitute the basis of the approach to a thinking self. crossley (2000) believes that the construction of self is a temporal process during which a person has dialogue with various images of the self in both the future and the past. this construction of the self is mediated by the anticipated response of important and ordinary others. for the purposes of this study the dialogue of self is seen as the experience of an intercourse of voices which explains the identity of the person. who, and what, a person is, is seen in the context of the voices which are incorporated in the dialogue of self. the development of the dialogue of self finds its philosophical foundation in the writings of several scholars who were associated with the paradigm move from modernism to postmodernism in the description of the self. richardson, rogers & mccarrol (1998) point out social components in marriage counselling td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 395 – 410. 399 that the conceptualisation of the dialogue of self relies on theorists who visualise the self as a narrator of dialogue within the ambit of constructionism. herman’s, kempen & van der loon (1992) regard theorists such as giambattista vico (1968), hans vaihinger (1935) and george kelly (1955) as important pioneers in constructivistic thought, as well as significant founders of the development of the dialogue of self. the scientific work of vico, scienza nuova (new science) (1968), was originally published in 1744 and is accepted as one of the original works showing how the meanings of historical events are created by people (hermans, kempen & van der loon 1992). vico is thus generally recognised as the father of constructivism (hermans & kempen 1993). the approach of vico (1968) to knowledge is focused on two important suppositions, namely that language has a body and that knowledge is created in relation to other persons (hermans & kempen 1993). he postulates that the relationship between thoughts and reality can only be understood in constructive behaviour-people create their own history. contrary to the dualistic approach of rene descartes (1911), the father of modern philosophy (1596-1650), regarding the human body and spirit, vico states that the body and the spirit are indivisible. vico (1968) maintains that mankind, in a continual endeavour to understand the world, from the beginning of time, accepted the human body as a model to facilitate interpretation of the world and the environment. people still, in everyday life, use imagination as an instrument to interpret perceptual elements as significant forms of narrative in terms of which the environment is created and recreated. vico (1968) calls this creative power in the person ingenium (imagination) (hermans & kempen 1993). hermans, kempen & van der loon (1992) state that the contributing work of vaihinger (1935) sets out that fiction and myths are not reality, but only constructions that are easily formed from empirical elements. vaihinger (1935) is of the opinion that fiction is a scientific instrument without which the higher development of thoughts would be impossible. according to hermans, kempen and van der loon (1992) the constructionistic alternativism of kelly (1955) is also of great importance for the development of the dialogue of self. when one wants to make sense of the world it should be interpreted, and alternative interpretations are always available. he views the person as a scientist who evaluates the constructed form by considering similarities and differences. positive and negative experiences are interpreted and conseptualised as a construct. the individual invents constructs to describe the incident which is being experienced. theories on life are created in this fashion. all these pioneering theorists are responsible for challenging the concept of an objective reality, by acknowledging the idea of the subjective experience of a world wherein alternative interpretations may be made by the person. vygotsky (1986), james (1890) and bahktin (1993) are among the theorists who made significant contributions in the conseptualising of the dialogue of self. (hermans & kempen 1993). the dialogical view of self is based on the works of vygotsky (1986), who creates the idea of thought as an internal discourse, and bakhtin (1973), who creates the concept of dual voice discourse, as indications of the manner in which others are represented in a person’s discourse and internal discussion (hermans & kempen 1993 and richardson, rogers & mccarroll 1998). both theorists describe how external discourse is subjected to a process of internalisation and thus increasingly summarised and refined. it is pointed out by taylor (1991) that this internalisation indicates that the entire conversation, including the inter-action of the van niekerk, fradgley & van niekerk 400 voices therein, is assimilated and united. the contributions of vygotski (1986) and bakhtin (1973) focus on the assumption that the ‘thoughtworld’ is socially constructed, that others play an important role in the development of this ‘thoughtworld’ and that the ‘thoughtworld’ then dictates the actions which are taken. according to day & teppan (1996), both vygotsky and bakhtin indicate that the thoughtworld of a person is mediated and created semiotically and linguistically in the context of social relationships and interaction. hermans & kempen (1993) make the assumption that bakhtin’s ideas, regarding the dialogical character of the self, is in concord with what mead (1934) believes is a process wherein the discourse, and the dialogue with others and the self, eventually develops into the reflective self. mead (1934) points out that the self is not just a slavish experience and a reflection of social influence but rather acts as an innovative agent in a process of re-inspiration to take action personally (hermans, 1999). mead distinguishes between ‘me’ and ‘my’ in the experience of the self by pointing out that the social rules and rituals of the generalised others are placed in the ‘my’ while the ‘i’ continues to be innovative (hermans, 2000). the ‘my’ represents the values and actions of the group, which the ‘i’, on the other hand, does not slavishly follow but rather initiates innovative actions which are contrary to what the group may expect. this interaction between the ‘i me’ positions, which is described by mead (1934), gives rise to alternative actions that are unique and different from what is expected from the individual. although all these theorists played an important role in the development of the philosophical foundation for the dialogical self, it is especially the concept of bakhtin (1973) and his multitude of voices in a polyphonic self and the multiple ‘i’ positions concept of james (1890), that led to the conceptualisation of the dialogical self (hermans & kempen 1993). hermans, rijks & kempen (1993) approach their study of the self as a polyphonic narrative. a polyphonic narrative is a narrative wherein different voices, often with a variety of characters and representations of a number of multi-faceted relatively independent worlds, interact with the intention of creating a self-narrative. the idea of a polyphonic narrative is derived from the literary theory of bakhtin (1923), concerning the poetry of dostoevsky (barresi 2002). the theory postulates that the self is, in some or other manner, constituted from a multiplicity of voices, each with its own quasi-independent perspective, and that these voices are related to one another dialogically. the idea of a polyphonic narrative accepts that there are several authors, each relating its own story in its own voice. according to barresi (2002), bakhtin points out that there is a fundamental difference between the self and others. in order to understand a person’s behaviour, it is important that integration takes place between first person (self) information and third person (other) information (barresi, 2002). in the polyphonic narrative the various perspectives meet one another in time and space, in the narrative (and behaviour), often directed at one another, but never in an attempt to replace or overcome one another. because no single voice in the polyphonic narrative can entirely agree with the other regarding interpretation of the deeds of one another, the self and the other is in continual discussion (dialogue) with one another. according to tappan (2005), bakhtin(1973) specifically points out that the power which drives the development of the self is the experience of dialogue. dialogue makes it possible to study the internal world of a single person in the form of an interpersonal relationship (hermans 1996). when the internal thoughts of a character are transformed into a judgement, the dialogical relationship between this judgement and the judgements of other persons spontaneously come to the fore. social components in marriage counselling td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 395 – 410. 401 james (1890), according to barresi (2002), in his theory regarding the self, makes a clear distinction between the two aspects of the self, the self as the subject of ‘i’ (the self as the judge) and the self as the object of ’my’ (the self as knowable). the ‘i’ organises and interprets experiences in a purely subjective manner and has three characteristics, namely continuity, distinction and desire (hermans 1996). continuity is founded on a feeling of personal identity and stability over time, while reflecting the distinction of the personal experience of existence from that of others. continuity creates a feeling of personal identity and stability over time, while the distinction gives the impression of an existence divorced from others. an experience of own desire becomes possible in the continuing application and rejection of thoughts wherein the self (as knower) manifests as an active processor of experiences. in his conceptualisation of the self, james, in baressi (2002) points out that the ‘my’, as the objective experience of the self, can be distinguished as having three distinct facets, namely the materialistic ‘my’, the social ‘my’ and the spiritual ‘my’. the ‘my’ is an empirical self which includes, in the broadest sense, all that the person can refer to as his (hermans, 1996). the indication of what belongs to the person defines the basic aspect of the self as an extension, the extended self. baressi (2002) makes a further deduction in stating that the subjective experience of the ‘i’ cannot be postulated in this fashion, but that the thought which is being thought is, in itself, the thinker. the border between what the self is and what the non-self is, lies in what the person’s emotional attitude is regarding a particular object or a thought. the development of the experience of the self is, according to crossley (2000), related to a child’s arrival in the world of language and symbols. this world of language and symbols provides a system of etiquette to the child to enable him to distinguish between himself (i and my) and other persons or things (you and it) in the development of an experience of himself. the development of the dialogical self is, for hermans & kempen (1993), founded upon two important goals, namely (a) to discover the forerunners to an adult self in closer proximity with the initial appearance of dialogue, and (b) to determine when and how the social environment and institutions form, organise and limit the potential attainability of i-positions in the dialogical self. dialogue develops from random routines, which fogel, de koeyer, bellagamba & bell (2002) refer to as a dialogical framework, which is either creative (it changes and develops continuously) or rigid (it remains unchanged). there is a non-verbal form of the dialogue of self which develops during the infant years. hermans & kempen (1993) show that an ability to make a distinction between the self and others (differentiation) develops from birth. this enables a person to establish an own orientation towards others. differentiation and orientation between the two poles of communication (self and others) is necessary for the development of dialogue. lyra (1999) makes the assumption that an analysis of the process of dialogue between mother and infant serves as a microscopic lens which enables one to understand the dynamics which regulate dialogue. according to hermans & kempen (1993) there are four conditions required for the proper development of the dialogical self, namely: • interaction between mother and child, where the mother creates the context for dialogue, van niekerk, fradgley & van niekerk 402 • a memory, to facilitate bringing the events from different contexts and relate them to the present moment, • an imagination which combines actual events to form new significant structures, and • language, which gives the child the ability to exchange recalled events with the products of his imagination, thus enabling him to relate them to others. when children reach an age where they have developed the ability to converse and think about themselves (the ‘i’ concerning the ‘my’ dialogue), the community increasingly influences the organisation of their worlds. because the ‘my’ is also a ‘social my’, it is not possible for children to think, feel or act in isolation from the community of which they are part. children engage constantly in dialogue with members of the community (for example, father, mother, uncles, aunts) who position them (for example, child, friend) according to different social situations (for example, family, school) wherein the children then function. the feedback which a child receives in this process, whether positive or negative, is interpreted by the child, according to his construction of the self-narrative, from ‘you are…’ statements to ‘i am…’ statements. as the child develops the ability to understand the role of ‘others’ the child begins to speak to others in the same manner that others speak to the child. the child then arranges the spectrum of possible positions in the dialogical self accordingly. during this process certain positions acquire a more powerful or significant place in the dialogical self than other positions do. this domination, as an intrinsic element of dialogue, in placing one position above another, organises and limits the multitude of possible positions in the process of socialisation. in this fashion the child develops, resists or avoids certain positions more than others (hermans & kempen), 1993). children have a multitude of ‘selves’, but the number of voices increases drastically during adolescence as a result of the enlarging environment and a change in their cognitive capacities (kunnen & bosma 2000). these voices remain compartmentalised until they discover contradictions and confrontations in the self during mid-adolescence. this leads to confusion, ambivalence and conflict. it is only during late adolescence that a reflection on the voices, and a purposeful dialogue, takes place between the voices. at this stage the adolescent has developed the cognitive ability to construct higher levels of integration for contrasting and conflicting voices. during the development towards adulthood these voices are organised into more manageable patterns. this construction of an integrated and coherent system of multiple voices is a developmental accomplishment of adulthood. tappan (2005) shows that identity, even in the development of oppressed minority groups, is a negotiated and dialogical phenomenon. in order for us to expand our knowledge of socialisation, we need to look at ourselves, and more importantly, at the reality of the self. 3. reality of the self counselling one person is a difficult task; counselling a husband and wife is eminently more difficult, and requires special skills and alertness in the counsellor. frequently one, or both, of the spouses are filled with scepticism about the value of counselling, and sometimes there is an attitude of resistance or even hostility. it has been said that marriage counselling is “one of the most difficult and sensitive of therapies – filled with psychological traps and surprises”. before initiating therapy, and frequently thereafter, counsellors should look at themselves and clarify the understanding of the social components present and examine how they are able to derive a clear understanding of what reality of the self means. counsellors should ask themselves: (1) what is the reality of the self? and (2) where does self-knowledge come from? social components in marriage counselling td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 395 – 410. 403 let us first pay attention to the question: what is the reality of the self? watzlawick, weakling and fisch (1974) stress the fact that the ‘real’ is seldom, in psychopathology or counselling, the ‘real’ of a thing in itself (if indeed such a thing can be comprehended), but rather the referent, as it is demonstrated and understood. ‘real’ is thus made up of opinions, in the example of the meaning the situation has for a group of persons. ‘real’ is what a sufficiently large number of people have agreed to call real (watzlawick et al. 1974). keeping this in mind watzlawick, in his book ‘how real is real’ (1976), draws a distinction between two types of reality; a first-order reality and a second-order reality. a firstorder reality is based on a consensus about perceptions. in other words, it is the physical properties of things such as ‘gold is a yellow metal’. the first-order reality is thereby based on experimental, repeatable and verifiable evidence. the second-order reality is the attributed meanings, significance, or values that people give things. it is thereby the symbolic or sociocultural value of the events of the first-order reality. to explain these two concepts more simply, we may refer to watzlawick’s example of gold as referred to by geisler (1991): the first-order reality of gold (that is its physical characteristics) is completely known and can be verified whenever necessary. the meaning that gold has had in human life since ancient times and the fact that it is given a value (which is a totally specific aspect of reality) twice a day in the city of london, and that this attribution of worth largely determines many other aspects of our reality – all this has very little, if at all, to do with its physical characteristics. it is however this second-order reality of gold which can make one immensely rich or bankrupt. the reality of the self consists of various other explanatory concepts, namely social identity, self-schema, self-esteem, self-monitoring behaviour, and self-focusing. an understanding of these concepts will add value to our understanding of the reality of the self. 3.1 social identity according to tajfel, in taylor et al. (1994), social identity is …the part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from [his or her] membership in a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership. the self, or self-concept, is also a collection of beliefs which we hold about ourselves such as: what are our most prominent characteristics? what are we good at? what are we poorly at? what kinds of situations do we prefer or avoid? therefore, we acquire our self-concept, or selfidentity, primarily through our social interactions, and the self with its acquisitions regarding various components. these social groups, as mentioned above, include one’s family, community, religious or ethnic group, and other groups that highlight or reinforce important aspects of the self. we are born into a particular family, a particular ethnic group and sometimes a particular religious group. as we get older, the attributes we value in ourselves lead us to pick social groups that reflect and reinforce those values” (taylor et al. 1994). thus the self-concept and social identity mutually determine and shape each other. van niekerk, fradgley & van niekerk 404 if we focus on ethnic identity to enlighten social identity, note must be taken of the complexity of this identity. carmen guanipa-ho and jose guanipa (1998) provide us with the following statement: ethnicity refers to a specific characteristic of shared unique cultural traditions, and a heritage that persists across generations. ethnic identification is defined as a real awareness of self within a specific group, which is followed by a great sense of respect and pride, and it constitutes a base for the development of a healthy selfconcept. during the adolescent and young adult years when people are forming their sense of themselves, reconciling ethnic background with mainstream culture can be difficult. an example of this struggle is clearly illustrated by the effect that the apartheid system had on the south african black community. some of them still live according to traditions which closely resemble those of the pure african style of the past. there are others who resist urbanisation (the so-called migrants) and who, for example, attempt to strictly limit their interaction with people of the town, and who only try to associate with people from their own home areas and visit them in the rural areas as often as possible (bester 1995). taylor, peplau & sears (1994) mention that some adolescents are caught between their parent’s ethnic beliefs and values, and that of the mainstream society and therefore they may identify with both mainstream culture and their ethnic group, creating what is called a bicultural or integrated identity. others may maintain a strong ethnic identity but have few ties to the majority culture, maintaining a separated identity. individuals who give up their ethnic heritage in favour of mainstream culture are said to be assimilated. finally, some adolescents and young adults develop only weak ties to both their ethnic culture and the mainstream culture and feel marginal, like outsiders in both cultures. it is important to note that ethnic identity is an identity that develops from within, instead of an image that is imposed by society stereotypes. however, maldonado in (guanipa-ho and guanipa 1998) states: it is important to say that the stereotypes that a large society places on ethnic groups can be a great contribution to the adolescent’s sense of pride or shame. therefore ethnic identity is an important part of self-knowledge with respect to social identity. altogether, the self-concept is a complex collection of diverse information that is somehow held together as if glued in place. if each of us is not just a random collection of information, what then is the ‘glue’ that holds all the information together in a unified self-image? the answer lies in the concept of the schema. 3.2 self-schema according to taylor, peplau & sears (1994) a schema is an organised, structured set of beliefs and cognitions about some concept or stimulus…self-schemas describe the dimensions along which you think about yourself. each of us has a self-schema in which our selfknowledge is organised. self-schemata reflect all our past self-relevant experiences; all of our current knowledge and existing memories about ourselves; and our conception of what we were like in the past, what we are like now and what we may be like in the future. from this the counsellor must take note. a person’s self-schema is the sum of everything that the individual knows or can imagine about himself or herself (baron & byrne 1994). social components in marriage counselling td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 395 – 410. 405 people hold self-conceptions about their current qualities as well as conceptions of themselves that may become self-descriptive at some time in the future. taylor, peplau and sears (1994) call these possible selves. some of these involve goals or roles to which people aspire. possible ‘selves’ function in much the same way as self-schemas. they help people to articulate their goals and develop behaviours that will enable them to fulfil those goals. not all self-schemata are positive. people also hold well articulated beliefs about themselves on negative qualities. if the self is the centre of our social universe, and if our self-schemata are well developed, it follows that we should do a better job of processing information that is relevant to ourselves rather than any other kind of information. self-relevant information should be more likely to capture our attention, to be entered into memory, and to be recalled. taylor, peplau and sears (1994) state that this tendency, for information related to the self to be most readily processed and remembered, is known as the self-reference effect. though the self-reference effect has been firmly established experimentally, what is it about relating information to the self that enhances our ability to process it effectively? in an important study klein and loftus, in baron and byrne (1994), reasoned that the recall of self-relevant information might be facilitated in one of two ways, each of which has been shown to enhance memory. first, self-relevance encourages what is termed elaborative processing, or the tendency to think about the meaning of words or events. second, self-relevance might facilitate categorical processing, or the tendency to place stimuli in specific categories. both mechanisms underlie the self-reference effect, making it easier to recall self-relevant information. but how do we make use of the self-relevant information or, in other words, how do we evaluate our self-schema? the answer can be found in the concept of self-esteem. 3.3 self-esteem self-esteem refers to the self-evaluations each individual makes. persons expressing high selfesteem believe themselves to be fundamentally good, capable, and worthy. low self-esteem is a view of oneself as useless, inept, and unworthy. the opinions expressed by others probably help shape these attitudes and an outsider’s opinions may sometimes bring about changes in one’s self-esteem. according to taylor, peplau & sears (1994), people with high self-esteem…use feedback in a self-enhancing manner…people with low self-esteem…have more adverse emotional and behavioural reactions to criticism or other kinds of negative feedback. self-evaluations are also affected by the characteristics of others with whom we compare ourselves. another aspect of self-esteem, that should be taken into account, is the discrepancy, or difference, between the self and the ideal self. the difference between persons’ perceptions of how well they are functioning and how well they believe they should be functioning is known as a self-ideal discrepancy research has consistently shown that having positive self-regard, or self-esteem, is generally beneficial, provided that it is not carried to extremes. for example, people with high selfesteem tend to be less lonely than those whose self-esteem is low, suggesting that a positive self. for example, michelle sees herself as anxious, a dreamer, and irresponsible, but she would like to be relaxed and responsible. the self-ideal discrepancy indicates the changes a person would like to make in order to achieve their ideal. we can also make the assumption that the less discrepancy there is between self and one’s ideal, the higher one’s self-esteem ought to be. van niekerk, fradgley & van niekerk 406 evaluation is associated with good social skills. if self-esteem represents the characteristic evaluation an individual makes, it would seem to be an internal trait or dispositional variable. if self-esteem can be raised or lowered in response to the evaluations of others, it would seem to be a temporary state that fluctuates with changes in the external situation. in fact, both the trait and state concept of self-esteem are accurate. when self-esteem is conceptualised as a trait, it is evaluated along a positive-negative scale that indicates where the person measures in relation to others. dispositional self-esteem does not indicate a totally unchanging characteristic, set in stone, but rather a general tendency to evaluate oneself in a relatively consistent way at different times and in many different situations. if your dispositional self-esteem is higher than the person sitting next to you, you probably feel better about yourself than that person feels about himself, both now and in the future. most studies of trait self-esteem concentrate on environmental factors that bring about individual differences. a classic example is that of a child whose parents divorce; self-blame follows when the child makes the false assumption that a parent is leaving because the child did something wrong. such childhood misperceptions may underlie the finding that negative childhood events, such as having a parent enter a mental hospital, divorce, remarry or die, are associated with low general self-esteem as an adult. in contrast to the long-lasting effects of early experiences on dispositional self-esteem, situational effects in later life are likely to be temporary (baron & byrne 1994, taylor et al. 1994 and fullerton 1977). until now we have discussed how our identity is shaped by the societal groups, how we process information, and how we evaluate ourselves. a question that is raised when revising these aspects is: what is the influence of all these aspects on an individual? the answer lies within the concept of self-monitoring behaviour. 3.4 self-monitoring behaviour self-monitoring refers to the degree to which individuals regulate their behaviour on the basis of the external situation and the reactions of others, or on the basis of internal factors such as their own beliefs, attitudes and interests. in the original formulation of self-monitoring it was assumed that high self-monitors engage in role-playing in an attempt to behave so as to receive positive evaluations from others. more recently, schwalbe, in baron & byrne (1994), proposed that the high self-monitoring behaviour of some individuals is based not on skilfully tuned roleplaying, in response to the reactions of other people, but on relatively permanent images or ‘scripts’ assumed to be appropriate in a given situation. the ability to regulate our behaviour lies in our ability to become self-aware or self-focused. this is the final concept to be discussed within the reality of the self. 3.5 self-focusing self-focusing refers to the centrality of an individual’s sense of the self. the extent to which you are self-focused is indicated by the degree to which your attention is directed inward towards yourself as opposed to outward, towards the environment. self-focusing is tied to memory and cognition. you can focus on yourself only if you can recall relevant past events and process relevant current information. two areas of memory can be identified in respect of self-focusing. self-focus affects the accuracy of biographical recall, or how well you can retrieve factual information about yourself, and the complexity of self-descriptive judgements. duval and wickland, in baron & byrne (1994), suggested that a person with a high sense of self-focusing, or self-awareness either acts to reduce any discrepancies between his self-concept and actual behaviour or avoids situations in which such discrepancies occur. in both instances, behaviour is influenced by whether or not attention is focused on the self. social components in marriage counselling td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 395 – 410. 407 as with self-monitoring behaviour, those whose self-focus is strong would be expected to show consistent behaviour across situations, while a weak self-focus would be associated with behaviour that changes as the situation evolves. because self-concept contains multiple elements, it is possible to focus on only a portion of it at a time. many people store positive and negative aspects of themselves separately in their memory. thus, if the individual focuses on the negative, his mood and subsequent behaviour will be different to what they would be if the focus is on the positive. some individuals, however, seem to store positive and negative self-knowledge together; the result is a less negative affect and a higher self-esteem. the most general conclusion is that the organisation of self-evaluations affects self-esteem and mood beyond what could be predicted on the basis of the amount of positive and negative content. though the self-content, on which a person focuses, influences his mood, mood also affects self-focusing behaviour, and environmental factors in turn affect the individual’s mood. the extent and the content of the self-focusing behaviour, as well as mood, can affect expectations. the second part of the question, which counsellors should ask themselves, with regard to selfknowledge, is: where does self-knowledge come from? with what has already been said in mind, it is apparent that knowledge of the self comes from many sources, such as receiving and processing information, self-evaluation, self-awareness, and focusing on the internal rather than external aspects. some of it may be seen to be spontaneous, or a realisation that something is true of the self, without any certainty of where that knowledge comes from. more commonly, however, we can identify the origins of our beliefs about ourselves in specific experiences. to understand this question, one must focus on the process of socialisation as a tool to construct one’s own perceived reality with regard to the marriage or the family. we cannot, however, ignore the complexity of the individual and the internal processes that form the perceptions of each and every person. we have mentioned several factors which play a critical role in shaping our reality and contribute to our socialisation. what then is the influence of social components on marriage counselling? we answer this question in the following brief discussion. 4. social components we need to focus on the social components and their influence on marriage counselling and briefly discuss the various mechanisms that the counsellor should take note of when counselling a married couple. as was mentioned before, socialisation plays an important role in an individual’s perception of reality. the following factors are the main focus: (a) religion, because it teaches the individual the rights and wrongs of dating and of marriage, (b) education, since the opportunity to mix with other social classes or racial groups, or a lack of such opportunity, can influence an individual greatly, and (c) ethnic or cultural background. we can combine these factors to see what influence they have on a married couple, for instance john and mary, who present for counselling. john was brought up in a household where weekends were spent on either a rugby or a cricket field. his parents motivated him to participate in these sporting pastimes. he considers himself a sporting person. his parents also took him to church with them. they had a positive, yet strict, outlook on life. he attended a public school with mixed races and social classes and had friends in all spheres. mary, on the other hand, had a different upbringing. her weekends were spent with her parents at museums and at the theatre. she considers herself to be a cultured person. she attended the catholic church with her parents who were particularly strict regarding dating arrangements. mary was generally not allowed to date in high school and when consent was given, it had to be with a young man from van niekerk, fradgley & van niekerk 408 their church. mary also attended a private school for girls and had friends that came from the same social class. she barely mixed with persons from another race or ethnic group. the marriage counsellor has to take these social components into consideration when counselling john and mary, since most of their conflicts and differences lie within their different social upbringings. the way they view themselves are poles apart and they may experience conflict when giving their respective opinions about each other’s socialised skills. it is safe to say that the way we’ve been socialised differs from person to person. personal preference, as well as our perception of marriage, is determined by socio-cultural factors because social components shape our reality of what is expected from us. thus, depending on our social skills and cultural background, our perceptions of marriage will differ. again it is important for the counsellor to take note of these different perceptions because they can create an atmosphere where both parties are allowed to share these differences and resolve their conflict. these social components also shape our reality of ourselves, and this aspect emphasises our identity, schema, esteem, behaviour, and focus. we need to take a closer look at the social groups involved because they also provide some of the social components that may influence marriage and the counselling process. these groups determine what we are born into, such as our particular family, particular ethnic group, and particular religious group. all these components make up part of a social package, and each individual belongs to one of them. 5. conclusion each and every individual constructs his or her own reality regarding a marriage or a relationship. with that reality they enter into a relationship or marriage without relating the individual content thereof to their partner. since each person or spouse has his or her own framework, containing their reality or perception of themselves, others, and of the world, we should rather refer to reality as a ‘perceived reality’. this social construction of reality is the process whereby people assign meanings to social phenomena, such as objects, events, and characteristics, which almost always 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(ithaca: cornell university press, 1991), pp304-14. taylor, s.e., peplau, l.a and sears, d.o. 1994. social psychology. new jersey: prentice-hall. vygotski. l. 1986. thought and language. cambridge. ma. mit. press. watzlawick, p., weakland, j.h and fisch, r. 1974. change: principles of problem formation and problem solution. new york: norton. the influence of social components in marriage counseling pjm van niekerk,0f* ra fradgley1f** and rl van niekerk2f*** abstract 1. introduction 2. socialisation 2.1 reflected appraisals 2.2 self-perception 2.3 social comparison 2.4 the dialogical nature of the self 3. reality of the self 3.1 social identity 3.2 self-schema 3.3 self-esteem 3.4 self-monitoring behaviour 3.5 self-focusing 4. social components 5. conclusion references td journal desember 2006.p65 hominisation and humanisation: a perspective from the sociology of technics ernst wolff * abstract: this essay will present a few challenges to a new humanism from the perspective of the sociology of technics. for this purpose humanism will be described as an effort to intervene in the process of human formation or hominisation. in order to intervene an understanding of this process is needed. hominisation starts in the palaeolithic era: technics, religion, language and the human being mutually give birth to one another. reference will be made especially to the work of leroi-gourhan and girard to analyse this point. hominisation, however, is a continuous process and has not come to an end. the most recent phase of our hominisation is the industrial revolution: western modernisation seems to be the future of global humanity. but industrialisation spreads unevenly, leading to a varied network of the human conditions, of advantages and disadvantages. a critical assessment of africa’s position in the global politics of technics will lead to a description of inhuman conditions as part of the network of industrialisation. the scale and extent of misery tolerated and produced by this era of hominisation could be considered as a possible springboard from where to reflect on a contemporary global humanism even after the ‘death of god’ in modernity. but to what extent does modernisation allow intervention in the process of industrial hominisation in order to give it the quality of humanization? aspects of theories on multiple or alternative modernities are considered. a suggestion to the kind of humanist orientation solicited by the inhuman condition of misery is presented with reference to nussbaum’s capabilities theory. finding the content of a new humanism is, however, only a beginning of a new humanization. the technical conditions for the possibility of a new humanism and of its transmission are reflected on. in conclusion, on the basis of the preceding analyses, five technics-orientated tasks for a new humanism will be identified. keywords: new humanism, sociology of technics, hominisation, paleolithic era, cultural history, ethology, network formation, modernisation, africa, capabilities theory, globalisation, homogenisation. 1. paleoanthropological and cultural historical introduction the living organism that is in the centre of all discussions on humanism, homo sapiens sapiens, has been in existence for about 100 000 years and is, with the homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latest td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 231-248. _______ * department of philosophy, university of pretoria. 232 development in the evolution of the species homo that has been present on earth for the last two million years. this is the only species to survive from the hominid genealogical tree of which the furthest testimony is at this stage given by the fossils of thoumai (seven million years old). homo sapiens represent the most sophisticated point of an evolutionary line of which the most salient characteristics are the following: • a bilateral symmetrical anatomy accompanied by mobile habits (gp 26); • the development of the forelimb and facial organs; • the complimentary anatomical and functional development that withdrew the forelimb from use in locomotion and involved it in a functional coordination with the mouth; and • the development of the hand to use tools and of the brain to assume the coordination of functions more advanced than in any other species hitherto. the end effect of this process, that i describe here borrowing principally from leroi-gourhan1, is an organism that is characterized by an ‘erect posture, short face, free hands during locomotion, and the possession of movable implements’.2 such is the state of existence of hominids before the dawn of the species homo. with the subsequent developments of the hands and brain we encounter an organism with practically the same anatomical qualities as humans have today, this, before the coming of homo sapiens in which the functioning of these will still advance. the specifics of the hominids’ digestive system were also responsible for the formation of a recognizable social organisation. this protoinstitution is determined by the type of food needed for the organism and hence its territorial spread and population density (gp 150). ‘humans could not have survived living in herds or living alone’ (gp 156). added to this should be taken into consideration the slow growth of infants for which females had to take care and probably the company of weaker individuals, both of which would have inaugurated forms of social specialisation (gp 153). wolff _______ 1 cf. a leroi-gourhan, gesture and speech, (mit press: cambridge massachusetts & london, 1993). randall white, in his introduction to this english translation of le geste et la parole (1964) [to which will be referred to as gp], describes the project of this book as a ‘systematic attempt [...] to assemble all the components necessary to a kind of ‘united theory’ of human biocultural evolution’ (p. xvii). this paleoanthropological theory provides the current study of the basic orientation and assumption with regards to the intimate connection between the biological and cultural (technical and linguistic) evolutions of the hominids. 2 these are leroi-gourhan’s criteria for humanity (gp 19). it should however be noted that what he calls humanity here includes all the organisms that i have opted to refer to as the hominids. 233 thus by the time homo sapiens appeared on the scene of world history, its ancestors had already made fire and fabricated tools (gp 893 ) and it had also had a form of social organisation. but these elements of a proto-culture could still be explained in the same way as one does that of other animals. in order to pass the threshold into humanity (homo sapiens), the biological evolution should be taken over by an ethological evolution.4 the transgression of this frontier is attested to by fossil remains of human action: in particular the accelerated advance in the development of tools.5 initially the fabrication and use of tools were integrated in the biological development of the species to which it remained parallel and of which it could be considered a mere extension (rather than the product of a mental project or discovery, (gp 106). but when the biological development had in essence reached its point of culmination, the technical development of the species started soaring.6 the technical development consists of a complexification of means of production of tools, enhanced efficiency of tools and diversification of tools. the same specialisation of the neurology of the brain that lead to the truly human use of tools is also responsible for the truly human use of language; the formation of technical syntax testifies to the formation of the technics of language.7 this allows paleoanthropologists to believe that the ascent of the fabrication and use of tools was accompanied by the ascent of the use of language (gp 113-114). hominisation and humanisation _______ 3 encyclopaedia universalis, edition 8, dvd, 2002: art. ‘paléolitique’: ‘in the current state of knowledge [ ... ] the invention of the tool is attributed to the australopithecus.’ (my translation.) 4 ‘by the time of the australopithecus, the hand must have been almost as it is today. by the end of the archanthropian stage, the development of the technical brain was practically complete’ (gp 117). henceforth ‘major changes had to result, not from input of new matter, but from changes in proportions between different parts of the brain’ (gp 130). gp 26: ‘the brain was not the cause of developments in locomotory adaptation but their beneficiary’. these palaeoanthropological observations seem to affirm at least the essentials of the role of motricity in the functioning of consciousness as described by merleau-ponty in his phénoménologie de la perception (cf. especially pp. 114-172, ‘la spatialité du corps propre et la motricité’). 5 as was already remarked by marx, in das kapital v. 6 cf. encyclopaedia universalis, edition 8, dvd, 2002: art. ‘hominidés’: ‘our evolution that was principally physical up to the arrival of homo sapiens, then became cultural.’ and ibid, art. ‘paléolithique’: ‘the passage to humanity, the point of no-return of hominisation is not defined exclusively by anatomical criteria (standing posture, cerebral capacity) any longer, but by a criterion of behaviour: the capacity to fabricate tools.’ (my translations.) 7 cf. gp 114: ‘techniques involve both gestures and tools, sequentially organized by means of a ‘syntax’ that imparts both fixity and flexibility to the series of operations involved. this operating syntax is suggested by the memory and comes into being as a product of the brain and the physical environment. if we pursue the parallel with language, we find a similar process taking place.’ td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 234 when this technological and linguistic development beyond biology development took place, when ethology superseded biology as formative of the new species, human society formed in distinction from the zoological species (gp 131); a social body formed of which the characteristics is cultural and of which the study exceeds that of the study of the constitutive members. the formation of the most archaic human society is theorized by rené girard.8 his theory is ethological and starts by what is common to hominids and other animals, namely behaviour of imitation, and more specifically behaviour imitating desire (mimetic desire) that leads to mimetic rivalry.9 but instead of giving rise to patterns of dominance as in animals the mimetic behaviour and consequent rivalry is intensified in the late hominids by the augmented brain (des choses 127-8) the complexification of technics (origines 165) and associations by other individuals with the conflicting enemies. at the height of this rivalry, the initial object of desire blurs to the background; only the mimetic antagonists remain in one another’s perspective. in this situation of mimetic crisis, a scapegoat effect enters into motion whereby the antagonism of both the conflicting parties is transferred and directed at a victim (origines 77). once the intense violence has spent itself on the sacrificial victim, a mimesis of reconciliation appeases the two antagonistic camps and restores social order. in an attempt to avert the reoccurrence of a mimetic crisis, the collective murder of the scapegoat is ritually re-enacted. this process that is a shorthand rendition of a very long evolutionary process theorises the event of hominisation.10 the origin of all culture could, according to girard, be traced back to this process. space does not allow me to go into the detail of how the domestication of animals and the development of agriculture are explained to have emerged from this religious nucleus. two elements of his theory should be stressed. first, the aspect of language. religion, or sacrifice, or ritual marks the wolff _______ 8 i shall refer principally to des choses caches de puis la foundation du monde, grasset, 1978 [abreviated as des choses] and les origines de la culture, desclée de brouwer, 2004 [abreviated as origines]. 9 ‘violence is not originary; it is a by-product of mimetic rivalry.’ ‘mimesis and violence’ (1979) in j g william (ed.), the girard reader, (the crossroad publishing company, new york, 1996), pp. 9-19, (citation, p. 12). 10 ‘beyond a certain threshold of mimetic power, animal societies become impossible. this threshold corresponds therefore with the appearance of the victimary mechanism; it is the threshold of hominisation.’ // au-delà d’un certain seuil de puissance mimétique, les sociétés animales deviennent impossibles. ce seuil correspond donc au seuil d’apparition du mécanisme victimaire ; c’est le seuil de l’hominisation. (les choses 128, my translation.) 235 commencement of language: it is the first use of something to be not only what it is, but to be taken for something else, in short, it is the first symbol (origines 157).11 the sacrificial victim as first symbol will be taken by the young humans as the transcendental signifier that jumps out of a surrounding atmosphere without signification (des choses 135) and grounds their symbolic universe, of which the meaning of ulterior cultural phenomena would be derivatives, differentiations or elaborations (des choses 138-9). this holds for sexual taboos, hunting, domestication of animals and all other aspects of the field of symbols or language. it certainly holds for what would henceforth be produced by the hands of society: the artisans. which brings us to the second important aspect of this theory of hominisation by the emergence of culture. it should be clear that the scapegoat effect and the consequent production of ritual are preceded by the first forms of technology, which also contributes to the emergence of this process. but once the process of hominisation has started, it grafts the young humans into a new phase of development which spontaneously leads to practices of fabrication and use of tools, in a spiralling augmentation of the use of it. the development of technology even in the young humans transforms the form of its being human. of this we can once again call leroi-gourhan to witness. big ‘techno-economic changes’ take place at the end of the paleolithic period (gp 157): proto-stockbreeding from familiarisation with animals (gp160), the contemporaneous emergence of agriculture (gp 161), which led to the concentration and sedentation of humans and ultimately to ‘capitalization, social domination, military hegemony’ (gp 164). to summarise: in what precedes i have juxtaposed two quite different theories on hominisation. my aim was not to present a critical discussion of them, nor did i intend to claim that they form a harmonious whole. what is decisive is that the paleoanthropological theory of leroigourhan and the cultural historical theory of girard concur that biological evolution was for all intents and purposes finished when homo sapiens sapiens appeared on the scene of world history. the subsequent development of the evolutionary line of the hominids that gave us the human being, took place on the level of ethology, that is, behaviour. whereas the use and nature of tools and language followed a line of development parallel to that of the biological evolution hominisation and humanisation _______ 11 even if one concedes the sacrifice to be the primordial symbol, in the sense that one thing stands for another, it would be unwise to neglect the symbolic or at least signifying character of the use of tools (that necessarily forms a constitutive element of this mimetic theory): i use this or that thing as a tool, as a knife, as a blanket, etc. this has been convincingly argued by heidegger under the heading of the ‘hermeneutical as’ (hermeneutisches als) in sein und zeit, (max niemeyer verlag, tübingen, 1927), (see especially §§ 32 and 33). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 236 of the earlier hominids, once biological evolution came to an end, human formation or hominisation was taken over by the souring development in the technical and cultural behaviour of the new human being. what should be learned from the reconstruction of the earliest processes of hominisation is the following: • the process of hominisation had been going on for a long time when homo sapiens sapiens appeared on the scene. • the development of the advanced fabrication and use of tools and the use of symbols and language are not fortuitous accompaniments of the essential process of hominisation; they are in fact constituting elements of the process itself. • hominisation happened to a socialised organism who grew to require tools and language and the acquisition of tools and language created new social forms; after the completion of biological evolution, hominisation takes the form of an interdependent evolution of society, technics and language. • there is no hominisation without violence and the question about violence. from this, i shall venture two assumptions that will lead my reflection henceforth. • being human means becoming human. this means, humanity is always submitted to the socio-technico-linguistic process of hominisation. hominisation has not finished, it is continuing up to this day. • humanism is an attempt to intervene in the process of hominisation. it is an attempt to bring about a qualitative change in being human. i shall reflect on hominisation and on the possibility of a new humanism from the perspective of the sociology of technics. this will be done against the background of the preceding indication of the essential intertwined mutual constitution of the technical, biological, social and cultural aspects of our species. since history is sometimes kind enough towards researchers to have times of accelerated change, or what is sometimes called ‘revolutions’, i shall allow myself to take up the discussion of hominisation at the latest of these accelerations. incidentally, this is also one of the most dramatic ones in the history of humanity and took place, or rather, has been taking place since the dawn of the industrial age. 2. the recent phase of hominisation: ethology of industricalisation the changing ethology of homo sapiens under industrialisation has been thoroughly documented by sociology. practically no aspect of human life has been left unchanged by this process that saw a change from the dominance of the countryside to that of the cities, from a wolff 237 community constituted mostly by families to a society of liberally associating individuals, from traditional power to bureaucratic power, from the sacred symbolic universe to a secular one, but also from human powered labour to labour supplemented or supplanted by machine work and later the industry of services, etc. three characteristics of the new technical order that is responsible for the changing ethology need to retain our attention. 2.1 formation of a network the process of network formation does not merely consist of the spread of unrelated similarities. industrialisation is formative of networks of corresponding needs, requirements, provisions, standards, etc.12 industrialisation demands amongst others the urbanised structure of human organisation and behaviour: it sets up a requirement for centralized sites of production, distribution, exchange and credit. it demands a regular system of communications and transport. it calls into being duly constituted political authorities with the power to establish a dependable coinage, a standard system of weights and measures, a reasonable degree of protection and safety on the roads and regular enforcement of the laws. all these developments conduce to a vast increase in urbanization.13 the technical network or system is the condition for the creation and often for the maintained use of its products. and the formation of the network binds into the technical process natural resources, but also human beings as designers, constructors, marketers, consumers, audiences, etc. technical network formation also implies the spread of the technicisation of an increasing number of elements from the human life world: from energy and transport, to governance and memory, to nature and recreation. furthermore, the spread of industrialisation causes changes in the way of life and incites the formation of new ways of being for labour, family life, politics, authority, recreation, education, etc. consequently symbolisation and transmission are integral aspects of all technical systems.14 2.2 homogenisation industrialisation starts its acceleration at a specific time and place: in north-western europe from the sixteenth century onwards. but soon hominisation and humanisation _______ 12 on the systematic nature of all technics, cf. jean-pierre séris, la technique, (puf, paris, 2000), pp. 47-65. 13 k kumar, the rise of modern society: aspects of the social and political development of the west, (basil blackwell, new york & oxford, 1988), p 15. 14 for a perspective on the symbolic and transmitting character of all technics, cf. my ‘transmettre et interpreter: le temps du dialogue’ in médium 6, january-march 2006, pp. 30-47. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 238 it seems to become a paradigm on which the whole world is modelled. very often however the following of this paradigm is considered not that much the consequence of a deliberate plan of imitation, but rather the inevitable outcome of a subjectless process that unfolds itself according to its own logic. marxist theorists (from ellul to marcuse) have been especially sensitive to this aspect of the technological world. this process of homoginisation could not be ascribed to the forces of colonisation alone. it is clear that even after the process of decolonisation the pressure to develop, i.e. to adopt a program of industrialisation, has augmented. in fact, whereas decolonisation has been suggested to be the political manifestation of the death of god,15 one could say that the dominant international discourse on development forms a new ‘god’, a new ultimate and unitary foundation and goal of human culture. today, development is a transcultural framework of values, discourses, and symbols, but also of legitimisations, institutions and praxis that is internationally adopted and propagated. this process has not been completed, but is already astonishingly advanced. 2.3 marginalization or differentiation the effect of marginalisation due to industrialisation is felt locally when the countryside looses its dominance and becomes an annex or extension of the cities; it also happens in the weaker parts of cities, namely in the formation of slums or squatter settlements. internally, in the industrial centra, marginalisation takes place with the formation of lower classes and the associated precariousness due to automatisation, job insecurity, deskilling, dehumanising work and consequent miserable living conditions. these marginalising consequences of industrialisation are spread over the globe, not only in the ‘third world’, but also in a fourth world of marginalised citizens, immigrants, and illegal immigrants in richer countries one should also insist on the fact that marginalisation takes a special form inside the centres of power and influence: those who are lucky enough to have an advanced education are in a sense marginalised with regards to the process of technical progress. they are not capable of grasping the totality of their situation;16 surrounded by the astonishing products of scientific and technological advances, people often live in ignorance about these things, their constitution and their origin. they are frequently reduced to apathy and/or impotence. and wolff _______ 15 implied by emmanuel lévinas in humanisme de l’autre homme, (fata morgana, 1972), p. 34 linked with p. 40. 16 this disorientation inherent in the modern condition has already been analysed by karl jaspers in die geistige situation der zeit, ([1931], de gruyter, berlin, 1979). 239 the conditions for a prosperous life also has a heavy toll in its specific forms of fragilisation of jobs in the service sector, stress and related diseases, loneliness, strained family situations, etc.17 in short, what i have presented, not without simplification in these three points, is a global industrial network of similar phenomena that creates centra of wealth and influence, in matters of economic, political and symbolic power, and relegates other areas or forms of life to a periphery often of powerlessness and misery. such is the human technical condition in the world today. in order to qualify better some aspects of this condition, i shall now return to each of these points. 3. globalisation of the socio-technical network the expansion of the technical network has become global, as we all know. two aspects of the global spread of technology should be highlighted. 1. the industry responsible for its spread is not only of the nature of production and trade of goods, but is also an industry of communication, culture, sport, crime, war, information, etc.; and 2. if the metamorphosis of the technical condition of primitive humanity was integrally linked with that of other aspects of being human (as described above), this still holds for human beings in the age of the global industrial society. this fact is recognised in the use of the term socio-technical system. the lesson of the social constructionist theories of technology,18 has been to emphasise the indispensable social aspect of any technical system: technical systems are ‘both socially constructed and society shaping’19 (and leroi-gourhan could just as well have written these words). the socio-technical system comprises physical artefacts, but also organizations, scientific elements, a legislative and judicial sphere and natural resources, each with its own associated sociosphere of personnel and institutions.20 the socio-technical network spreads its web throughout all aspects of human reality, carrying with it, implicitly or explicitly, values, hominisation and humanisation _______ 17 on this subject, see k kumar, the rise of modern society: aspects of the social and political development of the west, pp. 23-25. 18 cf. w.e. bijker, t.p. hughes and t.j. pinch (eds.), the social construction of technological systems: new directions in the sociology and history of technology, (mit press, cambridge, massachusetts & london, 1987) and w.e. bijker and j. law (eds.), shaping technology / building society. studies in sociotechnical change, (mit press, cambridge, massachusetts & london, 1992). 19 tp hughes, ‘the evolution of large technological systems’, in the social construction of technological systems, op. cit. pp. 51-82 (citation p. 51). 20 cf. ibid. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 240 symbols or ideas that determine how human beings understand themselves and live their lives. the spread of this socio-technical web has in our time become known under the popular name of globalisation, and could be defined as the widening, deepening and speeding up of a worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual; it is a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power.21 none of the terms used to compile this description can retain their meaning if they are emptied of their socio-technical import. it is, however, important to know that this development is neither complete, nor unambiguous. the following two points – the precisions on homoginisation and marginalisation – bring further precisions to this global network. 4. multiple modernities that socio-technical globalisation is not completely as homogenous as presented above, has also been well documented. we know that the new technical possibilities open up new possibilities of resistance to globalisation. we also know that globalisation is accompanied by movements of localisation or regionalisation or even anti-globalisation. but often these movements also use the means of the global network.22 the most spectacular recent example is the use of advanced media technologies by religious fundamentalists in the clash of ‘jihad vs mcworld’, in fact barber acknowledges that ‘jihad is not only mcworld’s adversary, it is its child’.23 this, however, only suggests a deeper ambiguous and contradictory process of homogenisation. correlative to the emergence of a theory of social constructivism in the sphere of technology seems to me to be the subsequent theory of multiple modernities. instead of presuming that the western form of modernisation is the template according to which all societies will wolff _______ 21 d. held (et. al.), global transformations: politics, economics and culture, (polity press, cambridge, 1999), pp. 2 & 16. 22 cf. krishan kumar’s overview of ‘globalisation’ in from post-industrial to post-modern society: new theories of the contemporary world. (second edition), malden, oxford, carlton: blackwell, 2005), pp. 7-16. this book has been an invaluable aid in the writing of this article. 23 as cited by kumar, from post-industrial to post-modern society, op. cit. p. 13. 241 sooner or later be arranged, this theory illustrates and argues that modernisation does not necessarily imply westernisation.24 the combined conclusion of the social construction of technical systems and the theory of multiple modernities, would seem to point to a global process of non-uniform modernisation due to the spread of the one industrial network. thus modernisation produces fairly similar phenomena everywhere, forming symbolic worlds that are like the dialects of a same language. evidently not every form of modernisation, not every position in the global socio-technical network, is equally advantageous for the people concerned. this brings me to my area of focus. 5. focus: africa whereas it now seems impossible to say where globalisation is taking us, it is much easier to state where it has brought us thus far. we know that the biggest part of africa falls on the periphery of the global network. this fact might tempt some to ask if this is necessarily something bad – could africa not just hypothetically disengage itself from the process of globalisation, continue to live without the means without which it had been living since times immemorial and thus escape the processes that tend to homogenise africa with its styles of life and symbolic universes to those imposed from elsewhere? is development the appropriate response to the situation of africa? i move that if ever there was a time at which this question could be answered in practice with a ‘no’, it is past now. the reason for this is the advanced stage of global industrialisation by which practically the whole world is integrated in one way or another, even if it is only to be the margin of the centra, or to be the used or exploited of the powerful. it becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to live outside of this network, and this holds also for africa. this seems to me a plausible conclusion to draw from the work of manuel castells.25 hominisation and humanisation _______ 24 cf. sn eisenstadt, “multiple modernities” in daedalus 129/1, winter 2000, pp. 1-29. the author describes the issue as follows: ‘the idea of multiple modernities presumes that the best way to understand the contemporary world – indeed to explain the history of modernity – is to see it as a story of continual constitution and reconstitution of a multiplicity of cultural programs. these ongoing reconstructions of multiple institutional and ideological patterns are carried forward by specific social actors in close connection with social, political, and intellectual activists, and also by social movements pursuing different programs of modernity, holding very different views on what makes societies modern. through the engagement of these actors with broader sectors of their respective societies, unique expressions of modernity are realized.’ (p. 1); see also d. sachsenmaier & j. riedel (eds.) (with s. n. eisenstadt), reflections on multiple modernities: european, chinese and other interpretations. (brill, leiden, boston, köln, 2002.) 25 i draw here especially from chapter 2 ‘the rise of the fourth world: informational capitalism, poverty, and social exclusion’ in manuel castells, end of millennium, (blackwell, oxford, 1998). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 242 it might be the same process of globalisation that stretches over the whole globe, but this obviously does not mean that all people are being globalised in the same way: under the new, dominant logic of the space of flows [ ... ], areas that are non-valuable from the perspective of informational capitalism, and that do not have significant political interest for the powers that be, are bypassed by flows of wealth and information, and ultimately deprived of the basic technological infrastructure that allows us to communicate, innovate, produce, consume, and even live, in today’s world.26 even the processes that bring about deprivation, or that cause some regions to be bypassed, are nothing but ways of starting the integration, albeit a distorted integration, of such regions into the global network. this can be adequately demonstrated with reference to the international trajectories of african natural resources, the depositing of toxic waste from over the world in africa, the quite well-integrated ‘high consuming elite’27 of africa, the sale of weapons to and in africa, africa’s provision of human capital in forms such as soldiers, even child soldiers, and prostitutes to the rest of the world and lastly africa’s effective internal spread and external export of aids. africa can thus not escape development, it is being developed, it is being hominised all the time. with this focus on africa i conclude my discussion of the first subject in the title of my paper, namely hominisation, as i have called it, with palaeoanthropology and ethology, but that i would like to call, for the purposes of this essay, menschbildung. human beings are constantly subjected to a process by which they – their ways of living, thinking, symbolising – are formed. a significant number of writers have stressed the (relative) autonomy of technical progress: technics progresses and functions according to an inherent logic and momentum and not (or not in the first place) according to the wishes and designs of a human author or subject. the autonomy of technics seems to leave little room for improvisation by human beings that are integrated into its field of power. this is not the place to argue about the extent of initiative still available to us, though the recent theories of the social constitution of technics and that of multiple modernities might indicate a bigger space for manoeuvring than is sometimes allowed for by the more cynical of authors. two points have to be stressed here: 1. there is a global process of menschbildung going on despite us, whether we like it or not. there are different globalisations that bring about different hominisations. wolff _______ 26 ibid., p. 74. 27 ibid., p. 91. 243 2. but this fact is open for evaluation: highlighting the more positive aspects as we have seen in the modern era since bacon, or the more negative aspects as has been done at least since rousseau. it has long since become very difficult to consider these changes in a neutral way, as simply the newest phase in human evolution. some forms of hominisation could be considered as dehumanisation28 and to this i now turn. 5. technical conditions for humanisation 5.1. ethical orientation: adorno on education after auschwitz my intuition is that we find ourselves in a situation not dissimilar to the one in which adorno found himself when reflecting on culture and education after auschwitz. according to him, enlightenment has switched over to its contrary to such an extent that this fact confronts us as it were with an appeal for intervention. he says: hitler has imposed a new categorical imperative on humans in their condition of unfreedom: your thoughts and actions should be arranged in such a way as to prevent auschwitz from being repeated, so that nothing similar happens.29 something similar things would happen if the value of a human being were to become instrumental to attaining some other purpose that in practice contradicts the value of humans.30 for me as an inhabitant hominisation and humanisation _______ 28 according to castells – and i agree fully with this – dehumanisation is not only that of people living and dying in misery (as referred to in the citation above), but that of everybody albeit in different ways: ‘i shall try, in the following pages, to show the complex interplay between economy, technology, society, and politics in the making of a process that denies humanity to african people, as well as to all of us in our inner selves.’ (ibid. p. 83.) 29 ‘hitler hat den menschen im stande ihrer unfreiheit einen neuen kategorischen imperative aufgezwungen: ihr denken und handeln so einzurichten, daß auschwitz nicht sich wiederhole, nichts ähnliches geschehe’ negative dialektik, in gesammelte schriften vi, (suhrkamp, frankfurt-am-main, 1977), p. 358 (my emphasis). 30 the correspondence with the kantian imperative is undeniable. see also ‘über technik und humanismus’, gesammelte schriften xx/1, p. 317 in which he pleads for a ‘menschwürdigere gesellschaft’ (more humane society or a society more respectiful of human dignity), which is described in ‘résumé über kulturindustrie’ (gesammelte schriften x/1), p. 345 by its negation: in the cultural industry ‘aufklärung, nämlich die fortschreitende technische naturbeherrschung, [wird] zum massenbetrug, zum mittel der fesselung des bewusztseins. sie verhindert die bildung autonomer, selbständiger, bewuszt urteilender und sich entscheidender individuen. die aber wären die voraussetzung einer demokratischen gesellschaft, die nur in mündigen sich erhalten und entfalten kann.’ (enlightenment, that is, the progressive technical mastering of nature, [becomes] mass deception, a means of blocking the consciousness. it prevents the formation of autonomous and independent individuals who judge and decide consciously. such individuals would however be the condition for a democratic society that could only survive and develop amongst mature people (my translation). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 244 of africa at the beginning of the twenty first century, i can not but identify this ‘something similar’ as that which is happening today inter alia on an enormous scale in the misery of those living in abject poverty in its multiple forms. as for our response to this first categorical imperative, adorno maintained the very important role of education and claimed that all education (or bildung)31 start with the lesson that auschwitz (or by implication, anything similar) should never be repeated.32 this lesson cannot, and should not be justified, as adorno indicates. in the same spirit i claim that if there is to be an intervention in our hominisation, if there is to be a new humanism, it could be conceived of only as starting as a response to a similar first lesson, namely that humanity should not be left to sink into the kind of miserable situation tolerated today. this conviction seems to be shared by jörn rüsen in the formulation of the project for a new humanism.33 inspired by adorno in this way, i would now like to reflect on the technical conditions for the possibility of any humanism that would be an intervention or a disruption, but also a changed continuation, of the process of hominisation, which means a humanisation or bildung that strives at recognising and safeguarding the value of every human being within a particular historical situation. 5.2 the ‘capabilities approach’ and the technical conditions for an intervention in hominisation it could be considered counterintuitive to some extent to want to insist on the positive link between ethics and technics, especially when this entails the technics of hominisation. we have in philosophy, amongst others in the critique of humanism, become accustomed to wolff _______ 31 this use is allowed by the citation of gesammelte schriften x/1, p. 345 of the previous note. 32 gesammelte schriften x/2, ‘erziehung nach auschwitz’, p. 674: ‘die forderung, daß auschwitz nicht noch einmal sei, ist die allererste an erziehung.’ (the demand that auschwitz should not happen again, is what is primordial to all upbringing. – my translation) this is the sentence with which the essay starts. 33 when justifying the project for a new humanism he writes: ‘zweitens aber geht es auch darum, die schreckenserfahrungen des 20. jahrhunderts und der gegenwart systematisch zur geltung zu bringen: ein humanismus, der mit den verbrechen gegen die menschlichkeit nicht wirklich umgehen kann, die zur signatur der späten moderne in der ganzen welt gehören, läßt sich nicht plausibel machen und bleibt schwach und wirkungslos von anfang an. demgegenüber kommt es darauf an, aus den massiven historischen erfahrungen der unmenschlichkeit einen neuen funken des verständnisses des menschen zu schlagen. die dem menschen in fast allen kulturen zugeschriebene hohe werthaftigkeit muß wieder neu und überzeugend zur geltung gebracht werden.’ (p. 2-3) – jörn rüsen, der humanismus in der epoche der globalisierung. ein interkultureller dialog über kultur, menschheit und werte. last download, 7 october 2006 at http://www.kwi-nrw.de/cms/k126.humanismusprojekt.htm. 245 calls for vigilance against whatever form of ethical reflection that would seem to programmatise, that is instrumentalise, ethics.34 we could in this regard think about the criticism levelled at a technocracy in which a hermeneutical sensitivity for the specifics of the relevant situation as well as the creativity and engagement of the ethical agent are sacrificed in favour of a bureaucrat or a technician that would mechanically execute a one-size-fits-all program based on a priori principles. i do not deny, nor wish to neglect, the important contribution of such critical theories. but i do claim that there is no ethical agency that does not have a technical aspect, just as there is no ethical goal and its implementation that does not depend on some technical support and that has to be worked out in a technical world. it should be emphasised that what i try to reflect on is not ethics or justice or humanism in their entirety, but only the minimal technical conditions for a humanisation or bildung that would be true to the lesson of adorno. a rereading from the point of view of technicity of what has become known as the ‘capabilities approach’ to development could inform our reflection on this matter. though i have not found a discussion of technology in her work, i believe that martha nussbaum’s philosophy (that i shall use here as example) is impregnated with an implicit support by technology that i shall now try to highlight. what she proposes is a partial theory of justice or a theory of the requirements for a minimal level of justice. according to this theory, the expression ‘human dignity’ or ‘human value’ has only been realised if a person disposes of at least of a number of basic human functional capabilities or abilities or opportunities. in other words, human dignity is less a thing or an abstract value, and more a way of existing; human dignity exists in the living of a valuable life, in the exercise of the capacity to an existence worthy of being called human. the aim of any development program would consequently be, before anything else, to assure that people are capable of exercising a set of ten capabilities that nussbaum drew up.35 these are: 1) life; 20 bodily health; 3) bodily integrity; 4) use of senses, imagination and thought; 5) use of emotions; 6) use of practical reason; 7) practice of affiliation; 8) practice of care for other living species; 9) play or recreation; and 10) political and material control over one’s environment. she claims that this set of capabilities can gain a broad cross-cultural consensus. the aim of any developmental intervention based on this theory hominisation and humanisation _______ 34 see for instance the succinct formulation of this problem by jacques derrida in adieu à emmanuel lévinas, (galilée, paris, 1997), p. 201. 35 for the most recent formulation thereof, see m nussbaum, frontiers of justice. disability, nationality, species membership. (belknap press of harvard university press, cambridge massachusetts, london, 2006), pp. 76-78. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 246 wolff is thus restricted in the sense that it strives after a threshold level of each of these capacities, rather than imposing an idea of the good. thus, the theory is open-ended in that it does not prescribe any use that should be made of these capabilities.36 what i find attractive in this theory is its potential sensitivity for the nature and consequences of the process of technical hominisation connected with a certain notion of human dignity or value. human value is inseparably linked to the technical conditions for the possibility of the provision and of the exercise thereof. one could consider the list of capabilities as an indication of what the technical requirements of human dignity would be in a specific historical situation. the fact that these capabilities are not merely ten liberties, but minimal opportunities to function in a certain way implies and calls for a situation in which each human being could be formed or educated or developed to practice these capabilities. it follows from this that the socio-technical idea of development that i see as the driving force behind the capabilities approach and that i consider sound for a new humanism is to be defined very carefully. ‘development’ has to be defined in terms of the globalising socio-technical system, but in a way that is primarily detached from and critical of the ideology of progress, expansion or growth, even though it could not in principle exclude any of these. since this ideology sees the western style of industrial growth as the model for the whole world and since it is impossible to emulate this model without adopting the appropriate individual and social lifestyle that supports it, they implicitly proclaim that the ‘western’ world has discovered the only viable way of life for the whole planet. this ideology reflects a dangerous logic of identity with the disastrous consequences that we have now come to associate with it. typical of this ideology is the division of the world into ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ zones. at this stage in history, the past participle in the name ‘developed’ country, indicates the state of a country that has realised a self-sustaining economic growth – the use of the term however implies a description of the state of hominisation that does not consider the state of humanisation, neither inside the country (as is so clearly the case in the usa), nor outside the country (as should be evident for instance from what i have highlighted about africa’s relation to the rest of the world). if a part of the response to the primordial categorical imperative is the development of a situation in which capabilities expressive of human _______ 36 though it becomes quickly clear that the distinction between helping someone to gain a certain capability and the real use or functioning of that capacity can not always be maintained in practice – cf. m nussbaum, ‘functioning and capabilities’, in women and human development. the capabilities approach. cambridge university press: cambridge 2000, pp. 86-96. 247 hominisation and humanisation dignity could be formed, then the centres of power in the current state of the global socio-technical network could not unilaterally contain the answer for the rest. nobody would claim the inverse, namely that the marginalised world contains the example for the world at the centre either. but i do claim that the question with which we are confronted by the misery of the margins of the global system could serve to orientate us in a quest for humanisation everywhere. in our current state of affairs, no country is developed; no country is not in need of an intervention in the process of hominisation. every region needs to be developed not only in the provision of at least the basic functional capabilities of all of its citizens, but also in the development of the capability of all citizens to be engaged in the care for themselves and for those in the world whose life is reduced to the passive submission to blind processes of hominisation, and thus compromising not only their human dignity, but also that of the rest of the world.37 6. conclusion to conclude, i would like to list a number of tasks that my perspective from the sociology of technology brings to the project of a new humanism. • a thorough study is needed of the technical aspects of the processes of hominisation. i have opted to present this issue here by using paleoanthropology; i could not imagine not supplementing this approach with a hermeneutics of the technical condition of the structure of being human. • such a study of hominisation should ideally be done to cover the whole of human history, as well as the history of its interpretation. this should be done not only to inform us of the nature of this process and to understand the genealogy of currently living human beings, but to open us up to the plurality of possibilities of human technicity and its interpretation, and safeguard us against any one-sided, cultural-specific perspective on technics. such a history would be vital to inform our reflection of the extent and possibilities of intervention in the process. • notice should be taken of the contributions from all disciplines concerned with the description and assessment of the current state of globalisation and modernisation in all its various particularities. this would enable us to understand what it means to be or to become human in the different positions in the system. such a study would naturally be accompanied by a cultural critical analysis of _______ 37 i recall in this regard once again the reference of castells to ‘the complex interplay between economy, technology, society, and politics in the making of a process that denies humanity to african people, as well as to all of us in our inner selves.’ (ibid. p. 83, my italics.) td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 231-248. 248 hominisation and of the destruction of certain forms of being human. • the technical conditions for the possibility of interventions in the process of hominisation should be reflected on. this implies that there are technical conditions for the possibility of installing a new humanism. it would be naïve to think that a new humanism means anything if the ideas formed by it are not transmitted. transmission is amongst others a question of technics. what is needed is a mediology38 of all the different varieties of humanisms worldwide, of their dialogue and their possible continued influence. but this too, would be only a means to the utopian end of a humane existence for the whole of humanity. • how should the technical conditions for the possibility of a valuable human life be understood in a world in which the capacities to express this value themselves tend to be defined by a situation dictated by the ‘western’ or at least non-african techno-cultural word? one might, for instance, claim that our list of capabilities are culturally unspecific, but in most cases people cannot practice their practical reason in the domain of politics without being informed by information that comes only by newspaper, radio, television or internet – i.e. by means formed by the western world. this confronts us with one of the biggest problems for a new humanism today. on the one hand a new humanism will always come ‘too late’ – too late, since it is always preceded by the global situation which is not a neutral environment – it is a system of values, of common symbols and language, an orientation to marginalisation and domination that is already in place, doing much of what a humanism would like to do. on the other hand a new humanism will always come ‘too soon’ – too soon, since it could not lay out a program for an alternative humanisation without having to pre-empt conditions that it does not know, not only since the future is inherently unknowable, not only since the new humanism would like to bring a situation about that still does not exist, but since it would be contradictory to this humanism itself to impose on humans a programmed future and thus to deprive them of their openness to the future. this calls for an insistence on the provisional character and openness to plurality in a world in which the process of hominisation imposes itself. if humanism is an effort to intervene in the process of hominisation, it will, to summarise, have to have its roots in a critical assessment of what humans have been and are, what humans have been made to be, and will have to form human beings that could in future still ask this same question and answer responsibly to it. _______ 38 in the sense developed by régis debray, namely as study of transmission. see especially his cours de médiologie générale, (gallimard, paris, 1991) and introduction à la médiologie, (puf: presses universitaires de france, paris, 2000). wolff abstract introduction research methods ethical consideration results conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) brenda chatira-muchopa gary magadzire school, great zimbabwe university, masvingo, zimbabwe munyaradzi chidarikire school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa kudzayi s. tarisayi school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation chatira-muchopa, b. & tarisayi, k.s., ‘solid waste management practices in zimbabwe: a case study of one secondary school’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a636. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.636 original research solid waste management practices in zimbabwe: a case study of one secondary school brenda chatira-muchopa, munyaradzi chidarikire, kudzayi s. tarisayi received: 10 nov. 2018; accepted: 01 mar. 2019; published: 06 june 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the discourse on waste management in general and solid waste management in particular has captured the interest of many scholars. although there is a plethora of literature on the solid waste management phenomenon globally, there is an apparent dearth of literature on solid waste management in schools in zimbabwe. this study explored the solid waste management practices at a secondary school in masvingo. the researchers adopted a descriptive survey research design. data were generated from 110 learners and 3 teachers using questionnaires and interviews. the researchers also utilised observations. findings from the study revealed that solid waste generated by the school included paper, plastics, furniture, food, vegetables, stationery and cans. in addition, the researchers noted that the school used standard bins, cardboard boxes, plastic bags, old desks and open dumping as solid waste receptacles. the researcher also established that the main solid waste disposal system at the school was open dumping. other solid waste disposal systems identified in this study were incineration, landfills and composting. based on the research findings, the researcher recommends waste sorting and use of durable, standard and formal receptacles. keywords: solid waste; solid waste management practices; secondary school; masvingo; zimbabwe. introduction a plethora of studies have been carried on waste management around the world (ana et al. 2011; jerie 2006; paya 2016; yukalang, clarke & ross 2018). waste can be classified in a multiplicity of ways. generally, waste can be classified as liquid waste, solid rubbish, organic waste, recyclable rubbish and hazardous waste. another narrative in waste management classifies waste as industrial and domestic waste (links 2006). in addition, the legal instrument guiding waste disposal in zimbabwe, the environmental management act (ema), chapter 20:27, section 72 (1), identifies the following categories of waste: hazardous waste, corrosive waste, flammable waste, toxic waste and radioactive waste. this article focuses on domestic solid waste generated at a school. in addition, the domestic waste generated at the school is of the non-sewage fraction. globally, less developed countries are facing a high level of pollution, partly because of a lack of adequate solid waste disposal facilities (ana et al. 2011). the most common types of waste generated in schools in zimbabwe include paper, plastics, cans, food waste, aluminium foils, airtime voucher cards and stationery items like pencils and sharpeners (chatira-muchopa 2015). in the zimbabwean context, a number of studies on solid waste management have been carried out, arriving at varying conclusions. nyanzou (2014) focused on solid waste management in high-density suburbs in harare. jerie and tevera (2014) profiled the composition of solid waste generated in the informal sector of gweru. in another study, jerie (2006) pursues a comparison of environmental problems in domestic waste management in gweru and kwekwe. in addition, mafume et al. (2016) interrogated the challenges of solid waste management in high-density suburb in sakubva. according to a study by van niekerk (2014), there is empirical evidence globally, establishing that there is poor waste management in schools. however, it can be noted that there is an apparent dearth in the literature on solid waste management in schools in zimbabwe. legislation on solid waste management in zimbabwe there are several pieces of legislation in place pertaining to litter and waste management. solid waste management in zimbabwe is guided by the ema, chapter 20:27. section 70 (1) of the ema act which stipulates that ‘no person shall discharge or dispose any waste in a manner that causes environmental pollution or ill health to any person’. thus, it follows that according to the ema act, any person whose activities generate waste is mandated to use measures to minimise the waste through treatment, reclamation and recycling, among others. in addition, section 83 (1) of the ema act prohibits littering by stating: no person shall discard, dump or leave any litter on any land or water surface, street, road or site in or at any place except in a container provided for that purpose or at a place which has been specially designated, indicated, provided or set apart for such purpose (ema act, chapter 20:27). in addition, the urban councils act, chapter 29:15, designates to urban local authorities the responsibility to provide solid waste collection, transportation and disposal services in areas under their jurisdiction. the urban councils act and ema act are some of the legislation that has been enforced in zimbabwe, which provides a framework for solid waste management. therefore, it can be argued that there is a legal framework on solid waste management in zimbabwe. despite the supportive legislation in zimbabwe, the environmental management agency (2014) reports that solid waste management in schools is still lagging behind. in addition, a study by mandevere (2016) in harare established that solid waste management problems are more pronounced at schools in urban areas. therefore, it was imperative that another study be carried out in masvingo to explore the adherence of schools to the legal framework. the participating school was selected because of its location close to the central business district. research methods this study on the solid waste management practices used a descriptive survey. orodho (2012) avers that a descriptive survey is a method of collecting information by interviewing or administering a questionnaire to a sample of individuals. in addition, a descriptive survey research design is a method of investigation which attempts to describe and interpret what exists at present in the form of conditions, practices, process, trends, effects, contribution and beliefs (kulbir 2002). one school was purposively sampled by the researchers. the school was located in an urban area in masvingo district, zimbabwe. the sample for the study was composed of 110 learners and three teachers at the participating school. the demographic data for the learners who participated in this study are captured in figure 1. figure 1: demographic data of the learners. figure 1 shows that there were 60 girls and 50 boys in this study. age distribution of the learners was as follows: 29 learners (26%) were aged 13 years and below; 25 learners (23%) were aged between 14 and 15 years; 32 learners (29%) were aged between 16 and 17 years and 24 learners (22%) were aged 18 years and above. thus, there was an even distribution in both gender and age. among the teachers, there were two female participants and one male participant. data were generated through 100 self-administered questionnaires which were distributed with the help of the teachers at the school. in addition, data were also generated through 13 interviews (10 learners and 3 teachers) and observations. trustworthiness of the data was ensured through triangulation of both data sources (learners and teachers) and data generating methods (questionnaires, interviews and observations). ethical consideration gatekeepers permission was obtained from the ministry of primary and secondary education, as well as ethical clearance from great zimbabwe university results the results from this study are presented as themes that emerged in the analysis of findings from the questionnaires, interviews and observations. the following major themes emerged: characteristics of solid waste, types of receptacles and average carrying capacity, waste disposal systems and preference of waste disposal. characteristics of solid waste this section presents findings on the characteristics of solid waste generated at the school that participated in this study. the data were generated from the researchers’ observation. the solid waste was sorted into the following categories: paper, plastics, food, stationery, cans, vegetation, furniture and airtime. each category of waste was then weighed and the researchers tabulated the findings according to the source of the solid waste. the solid waste sources at the school were kitchen, hostel, grounds, classes, laboratories, workshops, administration block and agriculture. table 1 reveals the solid waste characteristics at the school that participated in this study. the school kitchen bin was composed of 61% food waste, 20% cans and 10% stationery. waste from classes was composed of 60% paper, 20% plastic and 10% cans. however, waste from the administration was 50.5% paper, 12% plastics and 10% furniture. in addition, the study revealed that the waste had the following characteristics: 26% paper, 16.5% plastics, 16% furniture, 12% food, 10% vegetables, 8.5% stationery and 8% cans. the study established that the school’s main sources of waste were the kitchen, classes and administration in chronological order. the waste at the school was mainly composed of paper, plastics and furniture. the interpretation of the findings indicates that the main type of solid waste at the school was paper. in addition, the results suggest that there is reliance on paper at the school that participated in this study. these findings feed into the narrative by ana et al. (2011) that less developed countries are struggling with waste management. in addition, we argue that generating paper waste is still evident in schools in less developed countries that are yet to embrace information communication and technology. thus, these findings on paper being the main solid waste at schools concur with findings by hoornweg and laura (1999). furthermore, it was noted that furniture was another major solid waste at the school. this suggests that the school instead of maintaining and repairing damaged furniture opted to dispose it as solid waste. table 1: characteristics of solid waste. types of receptacles and average carrying capacity the researchers elicited data on the type of receptacles at the school through questionnaires, interviews and observations. the learners were asked to identify the receptacles that were available at the school, and this data was triangulated through the use of interviews and observations. the findings are presented in table 2. table 2 shows the types of receptacles identified in this study. the study identified the following receptacles used in solid waste management at the school: cardboard box, old desks, plastic bag, small metal bin, standard bin and open dumping. the study established that solid waste management at the school was not standardised as revealed by the different types of receptacles. in addition, it was also noted from this study that there was no waste sorting, as all solid waste was disposed in the same receptacle. the findings indicated that the main receptacles utilised at the school were cardboard boxes. the main reason being that cardboard boxes were readily available at the school as stationery, sports equipment and foodstuff for the school kitchen are supplied in cardboard boxes. hence, instead of disposing of the cardboard boxes, they are used for the collection of solid waste around the school. therefore, we argue that there is a form of recycling of waste as the cardboard boxes are reused within the school in waste management. however, it was also established from this study that the school was relying on traditional waste management in the form of open dumping. this finding indicates that the school is in actual contravention of section 83 which prohibits littering. resultantly, the findings of this study confirm the findings by the environmental management agency (2014) that schools in zimbabwe are struggling with solid waste management. in addition, findings indicated that there is no waste sorting at the school that participated in this study. therefore, an essential component of waste management is that waste sorting is not being practised at the school. ndum (2013) opines that waste sorting is essential in solid waste management. table 2: types of receptacles and average carrying capacity. waste disposal systems this section presents findings on the waste disposal systems adopted at the school that participated in this study. the data were generated from questionnaires, interviews and observations. the researchers utilised pictures to buttress findings, as shown in table 3. table 3: waste disposal systems. table 3 indicates that 67% revealed that solid waste at the school was disposed using open dumps, 35% indicated the use of composting, 30% revealed landfills and 36% stated the use of incineration. the findings captured in table 3 are buttressed by figure 2, showing an open dump. the picture aptly reveals an open dump where waste has been partially burnt. in addition, the solid waste in the picture includes furniture, ceramic, cans and plastic containers, among others. thus, it can be argued from this study that the main solid waste disposal at the school was open dumping. this finding concurs with findings by maluluke (2014), who reported that the main waste disposal system in polokwane was open dumping. open dumping is a cheaper option in developing countries despite its limitations and threats to sustainable development. in addition, khan and farooqi (2012) argue that if solid waste is not collected by the responsible authorities, residents resort to illegal dumping in open areas and drains. figure 2: open dump at the school. preference of waste disposal the respondents were asked to indicate their preferred waste disposal system and their responses are captured in this section. all the respondents were unanimous in their preference for burning and refuse collection by council as waste disposal systems. there was consensus among learners and teachers that the preferred waste disposal methods were burning and refusing collection by council. it was evident that the participants were oblivious of the fact that burning solid waste leads to air pollution. in addition, the obvious fact that the school is located close to the central business district, as well as a residential area did not deter them from suggesting that they preferred burning solid waste. figure 3 shows solid waste being burnt at the school. figure 3: burning of solid waste at the school. consequently, we argue that there was a preference for traditional waste disposal methods. as revealed earlier, the bulk of the solid waste at the school was apparently recyclable. thus, it can, therefore, be reasoned that the participants in this study seemed to be oblivious of recycling as a waste disposal method. the characteristics of the waste generated at the school indicated that paper and furniture were the main solid waste. given such characteristics of the solid waste, recycling would have been a preferred method of waste disposal. hence, we agree with mandevere (2016) that waste disposal in zimbabwe is still hinged on traditional methods and recycling is yet to be integrated in waste management. the researchers further confirmed findings by mafume et al. (2016) that recycling strategies were none-existent in sakubva residential area in zimbabwe. resultantly, we further argue that there is a need for the adoption of recycling strategies instead of relying on traditional waste disposal systems. conclusion the researchers conclude that the major solid waste at the school were paper, plastics, furniture, food, vegetables, stationery and cans. despite the strides made in the use of paperless communication to information communication and technology integration, the use of paper and paper communication is still prevalent at the school. consequently, paper is the main solid waste at the school that participated in this study. in addition, the researchers conclude that there was no waste sorting at the school. all the solid waste was disposed of in the same receptacle. from the research findings, the researchers further conclude that the school did not use durable, standard and formal receptacles. the study established that the school used standard bins, cardboard boxes, plastic bags, old desks and open dumping as solid waste receptacles. the researchers also conclude that the main solid waste disposal system at the school was open dumping. other solid waste disposal systems identified in this study are incineration, landfills and composting. recommendations based on the research findings and conclusions presented above, the researchers recommend waste sorting. the researchers further recommend the use of durable, standard and formal receptacles at the school. from the findings of this study, it is further recommended that school administrators and teachers be trained in proper solid waste disposal systems such as waste sorting and recycling. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. the authors are solely responsible for the information, opinions and views presented in this article. author’s contributions b.c-m. designed the research instruments and generated the data. m.c generated the data and analysed the data. k.s.t. did the literature review and analysed the data. all authors participated in the presentation and editing of the article. references ana, g.r.e.e., oloruntoba, e.o., shendell, d., elemile, o.o., benjamin, o.r. & sridhar, m.k.c., 2011, ‘solid waste management problems in secondary schools in ibadan, nigeria’, journal of environmental health 74(2), 24–29. chatira-muchopa, b., 2015, ‘analysis of solid waste management practices in secondary schools: a case of victoria and mucheke high schools, masvingo, zimbabwe’, unpublished master’s thesis, midlands state university, gweru. environmental management act chapter 20:27, parliament of zimbabwe environmental management agency, 2014, sustainable waste management programmes, viewed 02 july 2018, from https://www.ema.co.zw/index.php/140-sustainable-waste-management-programmes.html. hoornweg, d. & laura, t., 1999, what a waste: solid waste management in asia, urban and local government working paper series; no. uwp 1, the world bank, washington, dc, viewed 02 july 2018, from http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/694561468770664233/what-a-waste-solid-waste-management-in-asia. jerie, s., 2006, ‘analysis of institutional solid waste management in gweru zimbabwe’, eastern africa social science research review 22(1), 103–125. https://doi.org/10.1353/eas.2006.0004 jerie, s. & tevera, d., 2014, ‘solid waste management practices in the informal sector of gweru, zimbabwe’, journal of waste management 2014, article id 148248, 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/148248 khan, s. & farooqi, i.h., 2012, ‘prioritising municipal solid waste management factors in india using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process’, international journal of environment and waste management 10(4), 423–440. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijewm.2012.049821 kulbir, s.s., 2002, methodology of research in education, sterling publishers private limited, bangalore. links, j.m., 2006, municipal, industrial and hazardous waste, environmental health, lecture 15, johns hopkins university, baltimore, md. maluluke, p.h., 2014, ‘a review of solid waste management practices in polokwane city’, unpublished master’s thesis, university of south africa, pretoria. mandevere, b., 2016, ‘an investigation into the effectiveness of household solid waste management strategies in harare, zimbabwe’, unpublished master’s thesis, unisa. ndum, a.e., 2013, ‘bottom-up approach to sustainable solid waste management in african countries’, unpublished phd thesis, brandenburg university of technology, cottbus. nyanzou, p., 2014, ‘analysis of solid waste management practices in high density suburbs: a case of budiriro 3, harare’, unpublished dissertation, midlands state university. mafume, p.n., zendera, w., mutetwa, m. & musimbo, n., 2016, ‘challenges of solid waste management in zimbabwe: a case study of sakubva high density suburb’, journal of environment and waste management 3(2), 142–155. orodho, j.a., 2012, techniques of writing research proposals and reports in education and social sciences, kanezja publisher, maseno, kenya. paya, c., 2016, ‘an integrated system of waste management in a developing country case study: santiago de cali-colombia’, unpublished master’s thesis, university of waterloo, ontario. urban councils act, chapter 29:15. parliament of zimbabwe. van niekerk, i.m., 2014, ‘waste management behaviour: a case study of school children in mpumalanga, south africa’, unpublished master’s thesis, north-west university, potchefstroom. yukalang, n., clarke, b. & ross, k., 2018, ‘solid waste management solutions for a rapidly urbanizing area in thailand: recommendations based on stakeholders input’, international journal of environmental research and public health 15(7), 1–23. https://doi.org/3390/ijerph15071302 microsoft word 10 lukamba.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. natural disasters in african countries: what can we learn about them? mt lukamba* abstract problems posed by disasters have become increasingly important for all african governments. every year a variety of disasters occurs in sub-saharan africa and these are becoming more prevalent. this article presents an analysis of statistical surveys for natural disasters in different regions of africa over a 30-year period from 1974 to 2003. it shows that disaster frequency is increasing on the continent. the investigation of the data demonstrates that the east africa region is under the greatest threat from natural disasters. in 2008, climatological disasters, notably droughts, claimed many victims in the eastern part of africa, with more than one third of the population affected in djibouti, eritrea, and somalia. the region has experienced the highest recorded number of disaster events for the past 30 years, followed by the west africa region. the southern africa region is placed third as far as the frequency of disaster events in sub-saharan africa is concerned. the least disaster prone region is central africa. the observations made in this analysis relate to the economic losses in different regions from the impact of natural disasters. in some instances, recovery from economic loss could not be recouped because of stunted growth and other internal problems in these countries. in addition, this article suggests some strategies to mitigate the problem of natural hazards in sub-saharan africa. keywords flood; drought; volcanic eruptions; political governance; climate change; specialised capabilities. 1. introduction natural disasters occurring in african countries undermine the economic survival of poor communities. many populations in countries throughout the continent have suffered under the impact of such hazards, which have killed thousands and caused injuries to many others. for example, the flood in algeria in 2001 killed around 900 people and adversely affected approximately 45,000 others. in eastern africa in 2002, heavy rain brought floods and mudslides that forced people to evacuate their homes in tanzania, uganda, kenya, burundi and rwanda (huq et al: 2007). moreover, homan (1996: 138) argues that contemporary research shows * subject group public management and governance, school of basic sciences north-west university (vaal) email 22558497@nwu.ac.za natural  disaters  in  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. 479 exposure to such disasters are far from “natural”, and that power inequities may often explain differences in loss sustained and recovery time. perception studies reveal that people tend to view such events as an exaggeration of the natural world. further, the un-habitat (2003) argues that developing nations, particularly those residents in major cities, face greater risk of economic and social catastrophes because of a relative lack of resources to adapt to the situation. this problem is exacerbated by the rapidly increasing urban population in most african countries. disasters create serious disruption and economic loss which impair the ability of communities (particularly the poorer people) to recover. government assistance in such situations is often limited due to the already grave financial burdens they face. according to the international strategy for disaster reduction (isdr) (2004: 149), the african continent is exposed to disaster risk from various natural causes, particularly those arising from hydrometeorological hazards. one reason for this increase in disaster risk is the vulnerability of many communities; the risk to the livelihoods on which they depend, remains high. this vulnerability is also influenced by endemic poverty in many african countries, such as malawi, mozambique, and zimbabwe. another problem is recovery planning because not every national government is able to assist all poor communities. furthermore, increased population growth in most african countries has become an additional problem. it is argued by pelling and wisner (2009) that the population of sub-saharan africa is increasing, and that in 2007 it had risen to 800 million. the escalating urban population in african cities and towns poses a real challenge to managing disaster risk. this article analyses 30 years of statistical data on natural disasters in africa. it looks at various regions of the continent, and covers different types of hazards, such as floods, earthquakes, wildfires, drought and volcanoes. the 30 years (1974 to 2003) of statistical data focuses on different sub-regions of the african continent. in its analysis, the paper will also provide some suggestions on how to manage natural disasters in africa. 1.1 methodology the researcher has used secondary statistical data covering 30 years of natural disasters on the african continent. this research is based on data gleaned from the centre for research on the epidemiology of disasters (cred) at the university de louvain in belgium. additional information has also been collected from various other international organisations including the world bank, the united nations’ children fund (unicef), and the international strategy for disaster reduction (isdr). other important documents and relevant statistics were found, inter alia, in the library at north-west university (potchefstroom campus). another point the paper highlights is that there are as yet very few scientific journals that publish information on disasters on the continent. disaster risk management in sub-saharan africa is still a relatively new field of study. this is one of the reasons why the paper makes use of many reports from international organisations that have collect data on different types of disaster occuring in africa. 2. natural disasters in sub-saharan africa it is obvious that with the increase of disaster risk in africa, more people are adversely affected. disaster events have substantially increased the economic loss of poor communities – so much so that the impact of disasters on the african continent has had a negative impact on sustainable lukamba   480 development (africa union: 2006). the african union claims that hydrometeorological hazards, such as floods, drought, windstorms, wildfire, and tropical cyclones have accounted for loss of life, widespread damage and economic loss and that in 2000 and 2001 almost 35 million people in africa were affected by these disasters. furthermore, the international strategy for disaster reduction (2008:4) predicts that drought will continue to be a major concern for many african communities. the frequency of weather and climate related disasters has increased since 1970 and the sahel region and southern africa have become drier during the past three decades. following this argument, in the future the african continent could face a reduction in water and this would impact on the agricultural sector. from an economic point of view, most countries affected by disasters have had their economic development severely interrupted. for example, the flood in mozambique in 2000 displaced approximately 4,000 people in maputo alone and destroyed the road network which linked the city with other provinces (christie and hanlon; 2001). the economic recovery took years to overcome. there is also the case of a volcanic eruption in 2002 at mount nyiragongo in goma, in the eastern part of the democratic republic of congo, which destroyed the tourist town of goma. another example is the droughts in kenya and ethiopia, which had a devastating effect on the agricultural production of these countries. there are many cases in the sub-saharan africa the list is long. 2.1 west africa adger and brooks (2003: 27) argue that the sahel drought of 1972 and 1973 was the culmination of a downward trend in rainfall that began in 1950, despite regionally high rainfall. by 1972, a large number of sahelians had already suffered the effects of several years of drought. the only previous year in which the average rainfall for the entire region was similarly deficient was in 1913. current information shows that the sahel region is still experiencing floods, desertification and drought. it is also pointed out by world health organisation (who) (2004: 1) that the sahel region continues to be affected by a range of natural disasters which have caused various health problems in the region. for example, in 2004 there were a number of epidemic diseases which spread across west africa such as cholera, yellow fever, meningitis, and hiv/aids. the who considers the proliferation of these diseases as a new configuration of hazards (undp: 2004). the reason is simply that these epidemics are decimating communities in sub-saharan african countries. furthermore, in 2001, ghana experienced torrential rain, which caused widespread floods in the capital, accra. more than 100,000 homes were destroyed. roads in the city were under water; others were completely washed away (bbcnews: 2001). moreover, songsore et al (2008) maintain that floods in ghana are more frequent in the rainy season but that flash flooding is prone to happen at any time. during the rainy season, between may/june and august, severe flooding of large areas of accra has become a predictable seasonal occurence. this situation has arisen because the capital was built on a flat terrain, and its drainage system is currently inadequate. in 2007 there was a similar situation in the neighbouring country of nigeria where floods destroyed housing and other infrastructure, especially in poor areas. disaster events were registered in nine federal states of nigeria, namely lagos, ogun, plateau, sokoto, nasarrawa, bauchi, yobe, borno and kebi. other factors that contributed to the flood problem were poor drainage systems in those states and an overflow of water from a dam, which caused a major impact (red cross: 2007). natural  disaters  in  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. 481 the analysis presented by enda (2008: 198) shows that the west african region is associated with hazards such as drought, desertification, flood, spread of disease and various other hazards. these occur not only in west african countries but are also found in other parts of sub-saharan africa. in addition, in 2004 and 2005, mali, niger and senegal registered drought, all of which caused extensive economic loss. burkina faso, like other countries of the west africa sub-region faces similar hazards. according to the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies (2007: 1), in 2007 burkina faso registered one of its heaviest rainfalls, which caused havoc throughout the country. the government reported that over 40,000 people were severely affected and were forced to live in miserable conditions. together with international organisations, the government intervened, but economic losses and damage to housing and other infrastructure was extensive. according to government sources in burkina faso, no less than 8,412 houses were damaged. it is unclear whether these houses were ever rebuilt. the observation is that west african countries are exposed to natural disasters virtually every year. another argument the paper suggested was that the growing incidence of hazards in the west africa region could be linked to climate change. according to nyong and fiki (2005: 8) it is anticipated that climate variability and change in west africa will have an overwhelming impact on agriculture and land use; the ecosystem and biodiversity; human settlements; diseases and health; hydrology and water resources. they suggest that the region should have a better mechanism in place to try to combat the effect of climate variability. 2.2 central africa the countries of this region have also suffered similar hazards. since 2006 the region has registered significant floods in most countries in central africa (red cross; 2008: 1). for example, according to ayanji (2004: 4) in cameroon the extensive and prolonged rainfall caused severe flooding in 2001. in the municipality of limbe the heavy downpours destroyed not only large areas of agricultural land but also urban property and homes in the surrounding suburbs, especially dwellings inhabited by the poor. the floods thus had a direct and indirect impact on human, environmental, and economic losses. the republic of congo experiences flooding virtually every year. according to the red cross bulletin (2007: 1) brazzaville, the capital city of congo, registered torrential rain which caused flooding in the central city area in 2007. one reason for the flooding phenomenon is the situation of the city on the banks of the congo river, the boundary between the democratic republic of congo (drc) and the congo republic. another reason is the poor drainage in brazzaville, which makes it very vulnerable to flooding. the drc is considered one of the countries most affected by floods. it is at the mercy of the congo river, which crosses it from east to west. the flooding of the river presents a serious threat to riparian communities, including the 12 million inhabitants of kinshasa, the capital. the water level of the congo river has been increasing steadily. this is a threat that the drc government needs to take very seriously because a combination of cholera (which is recurrent in the country) and floods would complicate the situation immeasurably (red cross bulletin; 2007). beside the flood situation in the western drc, in the eastern part of the country there is also the danger of volcanic eruptions. lukamba   482 according to the united nations disaster assessment and co-ordination (2008: 3) the east african rift valley system is one of the most seismically active regions on the african continent. the lake kivu basin is among the most active areas in this rift and earthquakes frequently damage villages and towns situated there.the earthquakes also generate landslides on mountain slopes and hills surrounding lake kivu. seismic studies and field observations indicate that since 1997 the lake kivu basin has become more active than usual. in 2007 the country experienced another earthquake registering 6.1 on the richter scale, which struck the province of sud kivu (undac; 2008: 3). significant damage was caused in bukavu, the capital city of the province and in surrounding districts. other countries of the central africa region such as gabon, central african republic and săo tomé and principe also registered floods and landslides. according to the red cross bulletin (2007: 2), flood is registered as a disaster when occurring annually in these countries. 2.3 east africa the eastern part of africa is recognised as one of the regions which has suffered severe drought for a number of years. countries well known as being at high risk of drought conditions include kenya, ethiopia and sudan. the drought has had a particularly negative impact on the poor because of lack of food. according to cred (2009: 4) climatological disasters in the form of drought have claimed many victims in the eastern part of africa, with more than one third of the population affected in eritrea, djibouti, and somalia. then too, kenya has suffered drought conditions for the past decade. in 2000, it experienced one of its worst droughts in 37 years. according to ifrc (2005) the kenyan government needed international assistance in terms of food supplies for more than 2 million of its people. it is argued by gadain et al (2005: 165) that an impact analysis of the el nino flood event clearly shows that the kenyan government is inadequately prepared to mitigate the adverse effects of such disasters. the government has neither a flood disaster management policy nor an institutional framework to monitor and manage flood related disasters. floods registerd a significant impact in the west kenya region and destroyed crops over a wide area. the country also registered a high death toll at that time. in the wake of this disaster the kenyan government decided to strengthen its disaster capacity, and placed a major focus on preparedness and risk management. in april 2009, the government realised that there was another severe drought in western kenya where a pastoral community had lost many head of cattle and crops had failed. most of the inhabitants of that part of kenya needed government assistance. turning now to ethiopia, according to the national policy on disaster prevention and management (1993: 2) this country is severely threatened by disasters induced by drought and other natural hazards. in the last 20 years, disasters have, in varying degrees, occurred every year. these have cost the ethiopian government heavily in terms of both human lives and resources. the ethiopian government is determined to take every possible precaution to eradicate these persistent droughts. this is why the government decided to draw up the national policy on disaster prevention and management. the reality is that ethiopia has faced drought conditions for decades. the areas worst hit have been on the border between ethiopia-djibouti, northern-kenya, central and south somalia and parts of eritrea (red cross, 2006: 1). it is argued by undp (2004: 49) that ethiopia shows high levels of vulnerability to drought and has recorded a growing number of droughts in the period 1980 to 2000. natural  disaters  in  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. 483 the drought conditions in ethiopia have a significant impact on food security in that country. it is argued by the international red cross crescent (2006: 1) that as many as 11 million people are affected by drought in the wider horn of africa region. food insecurity in ethiopia has left almost 2.6 million people in need of emergency assistance. the worst hits are the pastoralist or agro-pastoralists in the southern and the southern east part of ethiopia, where most communities are dependent on the fertility of the land. when there is a drought these people are forced to relocate to other areas where the land is relatively fertile. the cause of the drought in this region is a scarcity of rain. ababe et al (2008: 2) argue that of those who are in immediate need of assistance, 69% reside in critically affected pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of the afar region. although the ethiopian government has already established a policy on disaster prevention and management to deal with the problem of disasters, the reality is that the country still faces natural hazards every year. the impact of natural disasters as result of severe hazards drains the economy of the ethiopian government. ideally, the government should have a financial reserve to solve this problem. the situation in sudan is not substantially different from that in ethiopia, which has faced drought and flood hazards for a long time. sudan has registered drought for two decades. according to telku, braun and zaki (1991: 16) rainfall levels have declined in sudan during the past three decades: mean annual rainfall declined by 6.7% between 1960–69 and 1970–79, and by 17.7% between 1970–79 and 1980–86. drought has had severe consequences for the poor, and particularly those in the northern region of sudan, many of whom faced hunger and even starvation. the low rainfall also had a negative effect on crop production, which dropped sharply. the same authors argued that a 10% drop in annual rainfall resulted in a decrease of 7.3% and 3.0% in sorghum and millet production respectively. a marked drop in rainfall levels at the end of 1970 meant that drought conditions became even worse. hulme (1984: 271) has shown that on the basis of observed rainfall data in the arid zone of sudan, the years from 1979 to 1983 were as dry as the 1969–73 period. following the same argument, the international federation red cross red crescent (2001: 1) noted that severe drought was reported in the western and the central parts of sudan which affected at least 900 000 people, and that 600 000 people were at risk of famine. sudan has also experienced severe flooding in past years. in 2007 the sudanese government registered torrential rain across the country and the nile and other rivers burst their banks in eight sudanese states, resulting in widespread damage. according to an assessment of the situation by the government and to reports which appeared in the media, more than 30 people were killed, 100 were injured and more than 25 000 houses were destroyed by the floods. villages were submerged and the raging floodwaters caused extensive damage to infrastructure, including roads and bridges (ifrcrc, 2007: 1). the analysis provided in this article indicates that natural hazards still take place in virtually every country on the africa continent. the relevant governments should be the main role player in attempts to offset these tragedies. 2.4 southern africa like its counterparts to the north, the southern africa region also faces the impact of natural hazards. in south africa’s western cape province wildfires occur annually and the threat of natural hazards is frequent in many other countries in the region. research indicates that southern african countries have suffered at least two debilitating droughts, triggering serious water-related imbalances and causing loss of crops. the shortage of water also led to loss of livestock, wildfires, famine and outbreaks of disease. furthermore, the consequence of drought in lukamba   484 the 1994 and 1995 season caused a decline of cereal production by 35% compared to the previous years (southern africa environment outlook: 2008). similar circumstances were experienced in countries such as malawi, zambia and zimbabwe. further, the region also registered floods. some analysts have linked the impact of floods to climate change. it is argued by singh (2006: 13), for example, that climate change has a direct impact on rainfall. scientists forecast that in the coming years, countries in the sahel region will receive increased rainfall and the threat of floods will increase while southern africa is likely to encounter persistent drought. in march 2000, flood caused by cyclone el nino impacted heavily on the southen africa region, particularly in mozambique, where more than 900 people were declared dead. as regards the threat of drought, unganai (1994: 1) reports that droughts have become a regular occurrence in southern africa and also one of the most debilitating natural disasters in the sub-region. in fact, it is becoming increasingly unusual for drought conditions not to be experienced somewhere in southern africa each year. this hazard impacts most heavily on the region’s agricultural sector, which plays a major role in the economics of the sub-region. an analysis of statistics on droughts and floods in the southern africa region is presented below in the form of table. this is to illustrate that the entire region has registered severe natural hazards over an extended period of more than 150 years. it suggests that most countries in the region have recorded natural disasters. droughts and floods were the most frequent natural hazards. the table shows that virtually every year a natural hazard of some kind was registered. on the basis of this information it can be predicted that similar natural disasters will continue to occur in southern africa. the consequences of these hazards obviously differ in each country, depending on the magnitude of the particular disaster. table: 1 chronology of droughts and floods in southern africa 1820 – 1830a this was a decade of severe drought throughout africa. 1844 – 1849a southern africa experienced five consecutive drought years. 1875 – 1910a there was a marked decrease in rainfall in southern africa, and 1910 experienced a severe drought. 1921 – 1930a there was a severe drought throughout southern africa. 1930 – 1950a southern africa experienced dry periods alternating with wet seasons and in some years the rains were very good. the 1946–47 seasons experienced a severe drought. 1968–73 this 6-year period was dry across the entire region. some records show a severe drought in 1967. the equatorial region (including the drc) experienced above-average rainfall. 1981–82 severe drought in most parts of southern africa. 1982 most of sub-tropical africa experienced drought. 1983 this year saw a particularly severe drought for the entire african continent. 1986–87 drought conditions returned to the region. natural  disaters  in  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. 485 1991–92 worst drought in living memory experienced in southern africa, excluding namibia. 1994–95 many countries in the sadc were hit by a severe drought, surpassing the impacts of the 1991 to 1992 drought in some regions. 1999 – 2000 cyclone eline hit the region and widespread floods devastated large parts of the limpopo basin (southern and central mozambique, southeastern mozambique, parts of south africa and botswana). 2001 – 2002a southern africa experienced abnormally high rainfall and disastrous floods causing damage to infrastructure, loss of life and property 2005 – 2006b parts of southern africa received heavy rains resulting in flooding causing considerable structural damage, destroying schools, crops, telecommunications and roads. 2007c cyclone favio hit madagascar and mozambique and affected parts of zimbabwe. flooding killed about 40 people and affected more than 120,000 people in mozambique. nearly 90,000 people had to be evacuated. more than 700 cases of disease were reported among flood victims. parts of angola, namibia and zambia were also struck by devastating floods in early 2007. 20072008d early season floods were recorded in malawi, mozambique, tanzania, zambia and zimbabwe, affecting more than 190,000 people by january 2008. source: southern africa environment outlook: 2008 3. statistical data analysis it is important to clarify that the available statistical data has been reorganised for the purposes of this article. these figures do not stipulate particulars of the specific disasters that occurred in each country in africa for the past 30 years. some countries experienced more natural disasters than others. another important point that must be made is that this present analysis includes the north african countries. in its initial form, the disaster statistics from the centre for research on the epidemiology of disasters (cred) at the university de louvain in belgium, only discussed disasters in sub-saharan africa. figure 1 below presents a breakdown of the natural disasters that occurred in africa for the 30-year period from 1974 to 2003. figure 1: natural disasters in africa: 1974 to 2003 source: cred north africa 14 % west africa 24 % cent ral afri ca 10 % east africa 41 % south ern afri ca 11 % north africa west africa central africa east africa southern africa lukamba   486 figure 1 shows the spread (expressed as a percentage) of natural disasters in africa for the past 30 years. the findings show that 41% of these disasters occurred in the east africa region, while 24% were in the west africa region. in the same 30-year period, 14% of natural disasters took place in the north africa region. southern africa recorded only 11% of the continent’s natural disasters, while the region with the lowest percentage, is central africa with 10%., although this region is not without risk of such disasters. eastern african countries are by far the worst off in terms of the number of disasters registered on the continent. the data indicates that for the past 30 years, 379 natural disasters occurred in that part of africa. by way of comparison, southern africa registered 101 disasters. however, it is clear that each region on the continent faced a number of hydrometeorological hazards. figure 2 provides a graphic representation of the five regions showing the comparable geographic incidence of hydrometeorological disasters for the past 30 years. figure 2: hydrometeorological disasters in africa: 1974 to 2003 source: cred according to figure 2 above the readings for hydrometeorological disasters that occurred in the period 1974 to 2003 in eastern africa, western africa, northern africa, southern africa and central africa are 41%, 25%, 13% 11% and 10% respectively. the next figure (figure 3) provides an indication of the geological disasters that took place on the african continent in the same 30-year period. figure 3: geological disasters in africa: 1974 to 2003 source: cred 13 % 25 % 10 % 41 % 11 % north africa west africa central africa east africa southern africa 38 % 7 % 17 % 31 % 7 % north africa west africa central africa east africa southern africa natural  disaters  in  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. 487 in africa, geological disasters are less prevalent than other forms of natural disasters. the northern african countries are the most at risk with a reading of 38% as compared to 31% in eastern africa and 17% in central africa. western and southern africa both recorded the same incidence (7%) of the continent’s geological disasters over the same 30-year period. figure 4: drought hazards in africa: 1974 to 2003 source: cred each region of the continent recorded a fairly high number of droughts in the 1974 to 2003 period. reading from the left of figure 4, and beginning with the north africa region, 28 cases of drought were recorded. west africa was considerably worse off with 101 cases while in central africa there were 31 cases reported. the east africa region was severely stricken by drought in the 30 years of statistical analysis and shows by far the highest incidence of this natural disaster. there were 128 cases of drought in that part of the continent. however, in the sadc region, the number dropped by more than half to 45 cases of drought for the same period. figure 5: flood hazards in africa: 1974 to 2003 source: cred the incidence of flooding increases every year on the african continent. the 30 years of data analysis in this research is aimed at presenting a clear picture of the current situation on the continent. the north africa region experienced 74 floods in the evaluation period. this 28 101 31 128 45 0 50 100 150 north africa west africa central africa east africa southern africa 7 4 9 8 4 7 16 2 3 1 0 5 0 10 0 15 0 20 0 nort h afric a wes t afric a centra l afric a eas t afric a souther n afric a lukamba   488 incidence of flooding continues until today. in western africa the number of floods was far higher, reaching 98 cases, but in central africa there were only 47 cases. by far the highest incidence of this hazard was in the eastern african countries where 162 cases were recorded in the past 30 years. in the sadc region only 31 cases of floods were experienced, making southern africa the region least affected in comparison with the rest of africa. figure 6: volcanic related disasters in africa: 1974 to 2003 source: cred based on the available statistics, volcanic eruptions on the african continent are limited in number. figure 6 demonstrates that there were no volcanic related disasters in northern africa in the 30 years under review, while in western africa only one case was recorded. the number increased sixfold as far as the central africa region was concerned, the reason being that volcanic eruption is relatively common in the drc and cameroon (undac: 2008). in eastern african countries only four cases of volcanic disasters occurred, while in southern africa no volcanic eruptions were recorded in the survey period. figure 7: disasters with economic damage in africa: 1974 to 2003 source: cred the economic impact caused as a consequence of natural disasters in the period 1974 to 2003 differs from one african country to another. in the north africa region 26 such cases were 0 1 6 4 0 0 2 4 6 8 nort h afric a wes t afric a centra l afric a eas t afric a souther n afric a 26 43 8 58 16 0 20 40 60 80 north africa west africa central africa east africa southern africa natural  disaters  in  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. 489 recorded. figure 7 does not identify the specific countries, which were affected but it is clear that east africa (58) is particularly vulnerable in this regard, followed by west africa (43) north africa (26) and southern african (16) cases. the central africa region recorded only 8 instances where natural disasters caused economic damage but this is linked to the limited number of natural disasters that occurred in the region. 3.1 key findings on statistical data the analysis presented in this data evaluation on natural disasters in africa indicates that many countries on the continent faced economic losses. some of these losses could not be recovered because of slow economic growth and other internal social and political issues within the countries concerned. a crucial effect on the increase of hazards in various countries in sub-saharan africa is climate change. this problem of disasters cannot be discussed without making reference to changes in climate. when analysing disaster events that took place in the last 30 years in different regions of the continent, there is a strong correlation between disaster and climate change. according, to isdr (2008: 5) climate change affects disaster risk in two ways. firstly because it increases weather and climate hazards, and secondly, because climate change increases the vulnerability of communities to natural hazards, particularly through eco-system degradation, reduction in water and food availability and changes in livelihoods. in addition, kreimer, arnold and carlin (2003: 12) argue that the economic losses suffered do serious damage to developing countries and those without post-disaster contingency plans; they are forced to divert funding from development to disaster relief, stunting their economic growth even more. they also claim that there are countries which do not even try to alleviate the risk of natural disasters, opting instead to demand that the international community bail them out. the statistical analysis of available data for the 30-year period shows that the east african region of the continent is most heavily impacted by natural disasters. it is argued by united nations for environmental programme (unep) (2008: 1) that the enso floods in 1998 in east africa resulted in human suffering and death, as well as extensive damage to infrastructure and crops in kenya. however, this analysis does not focus on kenya, because the data shows that other countries in the region, such as sudan, ethiopia, somalia, and eretria to name but a few, also registered serious natural disasters during the same period. another region which recorded a high incidence of various types of natural disasters is western africa. the literature shows that some of the countries in this part of the coninent, for example the sahel region (nigeria, ghana, burkina faso, mali and benin) began to experience severe drought and other natural calamities such as lack of water resources, destruction of crops etc. before 1974. furthermore, this situation has also caused the outbreak of various diseases in the region and natural disasters continue to impede development. north africa is a region that was not initially included in the research. when this study was first envisaged it focused on sub-saharan african countries. however, as the study progressed it became evident that while not as vulnerable as east africa, north africa is indeed at risk particularly as far as the total number (expressed as a percentage) of natural disasters is concerned (figure 1, where it is the third higest reading); geological disasters (figure 3); flooding (figure 5); and economic loss (figure 7). lukamba   490 southern africa is in fourth position (of the five regions) in terms of overall percentage of natural disasters occurring in africa over the 30 years covered by this survey. this needs to be explained. some of the countries in the region faced devastating disasters, as did mozambique in the floods of 2000. it was the only country in the sadc region that was hit by this disaster however, countries such as malawi, zimbabwe and zambia experienced severe drought a few years earlier as shown in table 1. the impact of these hazards led to severe economic loss, which in turn reflects on southern africa’s fourth standing (figure 1) finding solutions in order to recover from such hazards is extremely difficult for many of these countries. the central africa region faced the lowest percentage of natural disasters overall in the 30 years of statistical evaluation (see figure 1). when compared with other regions on the continent. however, it recorded the highest number of volcanic eruptions, specifically in the democratic republic of congo and cameroon. the effects of this hazard in these two countries was (and remains so) exceptionally severe in terms of destruction of infrastructure and human suffering. 3.2 the consequences of climate change the increased frequency of disasters in africa is a consequence of climate change on the continent. according to cred (2009: 16), in 2008 africa registered a 20% increase in global disaster events. the major type was climate induced disaster, most countries being affected by severe drought, which claimed more than 14 million victims. following the analysis in this article it could be argued that in the long run many countries will be affected in terms of agricultural production. the isdr (2008: 4) predicts that by 2020 agricultural yields in some african countries could be reduced by as much as 50%. by 2080, areas of arid and semi-arid land in africa might increase by 5–8%. figures 4 and 5 indicate that the east african region tops the list in terms of natural disasters in sub-saharan africa. this is closely linked to climate change in the region. hulme et al (2001: 4) claim that projection of climate change readings suggest that east africa will experience warmer temperatures. they predict that by 2050 there will be a 5–20% increase in rainfall in the december to february season and a 5–10% decrease in rainfall from june to august. this situation will have significant consequences for water availability and drought conditions in that region. these predicted climate changes and the variability of rainfall will impact heavily on the agricultural sector in east africa because rain plays a major role in crop production. according to the international food policy research institute (ifpri) (2004), agriculture contributes 40% of the region’s domestic product (gdp) and provides a livelihood for 80% of the population of east africa. increased occurrence of floods and drought is likely to decimate the agricultural sector in a number of countries in the region and famine will continue to wreak havoc. the west africa region ranks second highest in terms of disaster risk on the continent (see figure 1). again, this is linked to climate variability. it is argued by madiodio et al (2004) that west africa is highly vulnerable because some of its physical and socio-economic characteristics predispose it to be disproportionately affected by the adverse effect of climatic variations. moreover, the isdr (2008) maintains that africa is vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of multiple stresses and the continent’s low adaptive capacity, arising from widespread poverty, and weak civil administration. these circumstances are also linked to conflict such as civil wars. all these issues impact negatively on the occurrence of natural disasters on the african continent and the ability to cope with them. natural  disaters  in  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 478 – 495. 491 3.3 government strategy to reduce disaster risk in africa at this point the article suggests certain strategies to help african governments deal with natural disasters. this is especially relevant for those governments who are not as yet applying a mechanism to mitigate disaster. it has been pointed out that 30 years of statistics indicate that natural disasters occur in all regions of the continent so all country’s face some risk. the paper suggests three points which every government should consider: • strong political governance; • internalisation of the responsibility; and, • specialist capabilities. 3.4 strong political governance it is recommended that governments should employ a skilled administrator on disaster risk management in all levels of government structures. this means senior public officials who have expertise in disaster risk reduction must be appointed to manage the disaster risk reduction department. according to undp (2004: 75) the heart of political governance implies participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, effectiveness, efficiency, accountability and strategic vision as solutions for sustainable development and disaster risk reduction. it is also argued by isdr (2008:10) that government should develop a coordinated national mechanism. this should be implemented by calling an interdepartmental and national consultation forum with those involved in disaster risk reduction and climate change. what is required here is a government policy to be applied at different levels of government when disaster strikes. for example, in tanzania, according to robert et al (2009: 145) in order to minimise hazards in urban areas, in both formal and informal settlements, disaster risk reduction measures should be an integral part of the policies, law and planning procedures. once institutionalised, these polices should be consistently enforced. furthermore, by political governance is meant that local community participation is essential in terms of intervention. government should be able to take private participation into consideration. 3.5 internalisation of responsibilities african countries should be able show responsibility when natural disasters occur. governments should offer strong intervention depending on the scale of the disaster. some countries depend on external assistance from international non-governmental organisations in developed countries. the reason for internalised responsibility is to permit budgeting. a major problem is that some countries do not have the resources. in other words, a crisis budget may not be available. governments need to develop mechanisms to collect data relating to disasters to assist experts with a clear picture of the different hazards that threaten their particular country. this database would then be available to assist in terms of planning. 3.6 specialised capabilities disaster risk reduction should become a ministerial function rather than simply a minor department as they exist in most african nations. in view of the increase of natural disasters on the continent it is each government’s responsibility to put in place a specialised capacity particularly in central government and local administration. mehrotra et al (2009: 11) explian lukamba   492 that capacity here refers to the quality of institutions at various levels of government – local, regional, and national and within different departments. a lack of capacity impacts negatively when disasters occur. conclusions this article demonstrates that natural disasters are on the increase in africa and that governments must act; each region has recorded natural disasters of varying degrees and frequency. research shows that climate-related disasters have increased by 20% in the period 2001–2008 on the continent. all african countries must therefore play their part by including disaster risk reduction as far as natural disasters are concerned. the west africa region has demonstrated for years that it is at very high risk indeed in this regard. it is one of the highest in terms of natural disasters registered in sub-saharan africa. these natural hazards adversely affect a large number of poor communities and the damage in terms of economic loss runs into billions of dollars. but as yet, there is not an effective recovery plan; this is one of the biggest hurdles in that part of africa. the central africa region has recorded fewer disasters than other regions in sub-saharan africa. the major difference is that here, disaster related to volcanic eruption has the highest incidence. economic losses are also higher because of extensive devastation that volcanic disaster can bring. the findings in this statistical analysis show the east africa region is most severely affected in terms of natural disasters. data proves that over the past 30 years most eastern african countries have been hard hit by these hazards. even today, natural hazards continue to cripple east africa. there is currently a drought in kenya that has led to the displacement of many communities. moreover, other nations in the region face similar risks and other hazardous situations. the southern africa region has experienced fewest natural disasters. in 2000 mozambique was threatened by crippling floods and severe natural hazards have impacted on zimbabwe, zambia, malawi, and south africa. the agricultural sector, and thus food supply for the poorer populations, particularly those in the rural areas, was most affected. finally, the study demonstrates that natural disasters in africa have a highly negative impact on the country concerned, seriously undermining sustainable development. african countries should aim to mitigate such problems. governments must insist that precautions be taken and sound management policies be implemented. this is vital to the development of the continent. references ababe, d., cultis, a., aklilu, y., mekonnon, g., and ghebrechirstos, y. 2008. impact of a commercial destocking relief intervention in moyale district, southern ethiopia. overseas development institute. published by 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democratic republic of congo earthquake in the great lakes region. 10 to 22 february 2008. undac. new york. united nations environmental programme (unep) 2008. global environment outlook. united nations. new york. world health organisation 2004. west africa: health sector needs assessment. who report. geneva. www.bbc.co.uk. 2001 june. flood hit accra causing 10 deaths and forcing 100,000 to flee their homes. access date: 15/03/2009. abstract introduction development of public administration in south africa understanding multi-complexity perspectives in public administration global epistemology of transdisciplinarity of public administration trends in contemporary public administration analysing transdisciplinarity: typologies and indicators contribution of transdisciplinarity for public administration the future of public administration from a transdisciplinarity perspective unpacking the future of transdisciplinarity for public policy and administration in south africa limitations summary of findings and conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) emeka a. ndaguba institute of development assistance management, school of government and public administration, university of fort hare, south africa edwin o.c. ijeoma institute of development assistance management, school of government and public administration, university of fort hare, south africa citation ndaguba, e.a. & ijeoma, e.o.c., 2017, ‘exploring the epistemology of transdisciplinarity in public policy and administration in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a406. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.406 original research exploring the epistemology of transdisciplinarity in public policy and administration in south africa emeka a. ndaguba, edwin o.c. ijeoma received: 23 dec. 2016; accepted: 24 mar. 2017; published: 30 june 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article seeks to address and direct future research collaboration in public policy and administration from a transdisciplinary perspective in south africa, by answering three major questions: firstly, how can public administration be understood from a transdisciplinary perspective? to demonstrate the development of public administration vis-a-vis trends in contemporary public policy and administration in south africa? and establish the scope for future collaborative research in public policy and administration from a transdisciplinarity perspective in south africa? this article uses themes in the qualitative realm to provide answers to the research aims: two special editions of future, transdisciplinary manifesto and over 100 journal articles were read and scanned to provide evidence for the arguments in this article. it concludes that the need for transdisciplinarity in public policy and administration cannot be undermined or overlooked as a result of depleting strategies, theories, models and frameworks in resolving complex society quagmires from a disciplinary or interdisciplinary nomenclature. introduction the knowledge approach in public policy and administration studies and transdisciplinarity are largely interwoven. it is a general practice that issues relating to agenda setting, policy cycle and analysis are germane for institutional and state survival in that agenda setting and policy circle among others require dynamics and complexity in the policy processes involving several disciplinary taxonomies for problem solving, taking into cognizance the complexities that exist in the public domain such as depleting financial resources versus an increasing demand for government presence in communities, municipalities, agencies and departments all over south africa. this article aims to think around three issues as suggested in the abstract, how public administration can be understood from transdisciplinary perspective, the trends in contemporary public administration and finally the future of transdisciplinarity in public administration research in south africa. in thinking around these issues, one needs to understand that the problems surrounding government operability, network governance, e-governance, decision-making, comparative public administration, policy cycle, agenda setting and policy analysis, conflict management, diplomacy, poverty, inequality, peace and security, and recently sustainable development require concerted engagement from several disciplinary perspectives. hence, we talk of transdisciplinarity. transdisciplinarity involves a deliberate contribution of both researchers and practitioners in various disciplines in shaping or providing solutions to contentious issues from disciplinary perspectives, while achieving a consensus. from time immemorial, problem-solving techniques in public policy and administration have been interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary. consider, for instance, the legislature, which is an arm of the public domain. the legislature is made up of individuals from diverse disciplinarities participating in a debate or argument with the intention to arrive at a common good. these arguments or engagements involve individuals and groups from diverse disciplinarities in the search for what would otherwise be described as a perfect government decision, policy or law. arguments and counterarguments in public administration as a discipline are numerous with the idea of interdisciplinarity clearly identified (see berkley 1975; greenfield 1986; raadschelders 2009, 2011a, 2011b; ringeling 2012; riccucci 2012; farazmand 2012; wildavsky 1980). the maladies of interdisciplinarity create a vacuum for a more comprehensive and inclusive methodology in addressing both global and local quagmires with the rise of ‘transdisciplinarity’. transdisciplinarity provides a methodology that incorporates several disciplinary perspectives into one, in tackling government inadequacies from a plethora of disciplinary perspectives such as democracy, good governance, public–private partnership, theory of change, change theory, among others. this article is divided into three sections. the first section deals with the problem of public administration as an interdisciplinary concept. it goes further to clarify essential concepts such as disciplinarity, cross-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and ultimately transdisciplinarity. from here the study moves towards the global epistemology of transdisciplinarity of public administration and then to trends in contemporary public administration, which tend to provide critical analysis for transdisciplinarity on two counts: typologies and indicators. the final section will then deal with the contribution of transdisciplinarity to public policy and administration or what public policy and administration could achieve by exploring the transdisciplinarity route. hence, establishing and identifying fields in the discipline requires a transdisciplinary collaboration and integration in order to provide answers to several lingering government deficiencies. the article concludes with a postulation of what the future holds for transdisciplinarity in public policy and administration research in south africa and also states three critical factors that will contribute greatly to the understudy of decolonisation in the field of public policy and administration. the idea for decolonisation in this study is routed in the notion of localisation and localism of concepts, constructs, frameworks, models and theories in the field of public policy and administration. in moving forward, the problem of public administration takes the centre stage. development of public administration in south africa public administration is a field of study that deals with the functionality and non-functionality of government activities, events, projects and programmes on a daily basis (appleby 1947; clapp 1948; kettl & fessler 2009; lodge 2014; mckinney & howard 1998:62; pommer & van houwelingen 2016:34; rabin, hildreth & miller 1989:iii; van vuuren 2014) and also deals with justice, service provision, development and management, among others, that contribute to the liberty, self-worth and esteem of citizenry. the significance of the discipline is further recognised in chapter 10 of the 1996 constitution. yet the discipline is not seen as cognate, scarce or critical skill in south africa (see dhet listing of scarce and critical skill in south africa). this despite issues of financial misappropriation, mismanagement, ineffectual policy implementation, poor monitoring frameworks, lack of depth in evaluation outcomes, problematic goal and agenda setting, state capture, non-interactive systems and institutional failures (businesstech 2017; chutel & kuo 2016; clark 2016; co-pierre 2016; de vos 2016; luke 2017).1 in addition, there are protests resulting from ineffectual service provision to communities in a sustainable manner.2,3 worthy of the note is the discourse surrounding decolonisation of the academic space (teaching, learning, research and practice) of public administration in south africa. understanding multi-complexity perspectives in public administration as stated elsewhere, the methodological approach of discipline of public administration from puberty predominantly assumed an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary narrative. from antiquity, it has been noted that the foremost proponents and theorists in the disciplines were mainly those from pure sciences; hence, their idea of measurability of the discipline premised on certain parameters and principles. this ushered in the ideas of do’s and dont’s as seen in the principle of public administration and taylorism and the weberian notion of bureaucracy. public administration though famously popularised by woodrow in the late 19th century (1887 and before) gave a definition of the discipline from the perspective of disciplinarity. woodrow argued then that public administration in 1887 is the implementation arm of government. by extension, an academic discipline studies both the implementation aspect and the training part of public servant (see woodrow 1887). it could be argued even further that the philosophy of woodrow’s contention covers every segment of government activities as well as research in pure science, art and the social science because government activities cover all spectrum of academic spheres. in the same vein, public administration can also claim the right to cover all/every spectrum of academic discipline (see policy studies, policy analysis, agenda setting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, corruption and anticorruption among others). perhaps, bach puts it more succinctly in his argument on urban planning in his booklets in 1722 and 1742 titled, the well-tempered clavier? and jonathan f.p. rose in his 2016 publication on the well-tempered city described urban planning as ‘just about everything’. therefore, we argue in a similar manner that public administration is an academic field that is concerned with just about everything. but this time, it is concerned with just about everything that pertains to government operability and non-operability. it can also be said that the field is that arm of knowledge that incorporates the engagement of individuals, groups, experts, communities and a nation in formulating perspectives in resolving a problem, which are not piquantly connected to a given discipline, for example, physics, political science, mass communication and computer science, among others. disciplinarity tends to emphasise a group of professionals as evaluators, breeders and geneticists, among others. according to frances and karl (2011): the notion of academic disciplines is said to belong to an earlier age and a simpler world. accelerating rates of scientific and technological innovation, increasingly globalized flows of knowledge, people and capital, evermore hybridized cultures, proliferation of new information and communication technologies and growing fluidity in employment are among many changes portrayed as harbingers of fundamental transformations in the social landscape. (p. 1) the assertion from frances and karl (2011:1) and forman (2012) contend ‘disciplinarity is now an impossibility, both ideologically and practicably’. hence, their argument is that the philosophy of problem solving from a single epistemic viewpoint in the discourse is essentially utopia and it is necessary to consider the development of notions that advance the interplay of epistemological paradigms across disciplines as cross-disciplinarity. cross-disciplinary cross-disciplinary is a method that relates to engagement between two or more disciplines. it is a kind of knowledge that explains an aspect of a discipline in relation to another discipline, for example, administration of philosophy, culture of administration, administration of development, gender of administration, physics of music, administration of literature or politics of literature. the philosophy of cross-disciplinary is that a field of study is used to provide an explanation for another discipline. on the other hand, studies that engage with more than a discipline, that is, corroboration between two or more disciplines in the explanation of a given phenomenon, are referred to as interdisciplinary. interdisciplinary as the name suggests, the word ‘inter’ means ‘between’. the notion of interdisciplinarity is ceded in idealism of integrated science/studies, in which a discipline uses methods from a variety of interrelated disciplines in engaging a phenomenon but tends to harmonise the interrelated clusters of ideas to the viewpoint of the principal discipline for three main purpose: new analysis, new application and in generating an entirely new discipline. therefore, interdisciplinarity involves a combination of two or more disciplines in engaging a phenomenon. the use of the interdisciplinary approach is appreciated when dealing with issues such as writing an academic research project, poverty issue, reasons for continuous inequality, formulating public policy, social policy and policy circle, and leadership. hence, we argue that interdisciplinarity is an innovative methodology for the creation or exhibition of new knowledge through cutting-edge approaches across disciplines. it is neither using a discipline in the explanation of the other as seen with multidisciplinarity nor running a linear race as disciplinarity. in this case, it is a process through which various fields are entwined in the understanding of a phenomenon or research. this methodology is traceable in the works of the 20th century greek philosophers such as ausburg (2006), gunn (1992) and andrés-gallego (2015), where the authors argue that interdisciplinarity involves the broadmindedness of a discipline in problem solving by engaging other disciplines in other to gain perspectives in achieving a task or solving a problem. an example of such problems in contemporary philosophy is educational administration and poverty. poverty is perceived, conceived, defined and understood from various disciplines and fields of engagement. however, the dominant perspectives have remained the economic perspective, which has its roots in the philosophies of the world bank, international monetary fund and the united nations; hence, global poverty is monitored and understood from the perspective of consumption. in public administration, policy studies and development studies, poverty is viewed as a multidimensional process involving the general well-being of an individual and an individual in-group. from a food and animal science perspective, it is understood in light of food security; physicists see the concept through the prism of sustainable energy and geographers argue from the standpoint of climate change and global warming. whatever the assumption, the ideal is that poverty must be eradicated anywhere and everywhere on all fronts as stated by the goal 1 of the sustainable development goals. this study argues that in understanding such concepts as poverty more than just an interdisciplinary perspective will do. a typical example of a kind of study that transcends interdisciplinary was conducted by leibniz on the system of universal justice, which used methodologies, theories, frameworks and approaches from economics, law, philosophy, sociology, sinology, management and linguistics in having a robust understanding of systems of universal justice (andrés-gallego 2015). however, interdisciplinary is limited premised on its assumption of having a standpoint through which it branches into other disciplines and therefore makes a case for a more complex and robust methodology called multidisciplinarity. multidisciplinarity multidisciplinarity is a case where a panel of different disciplines is used for the evaluation or processing of a given phenomenon, for instance, health care, decision-making and education; the idea is to ensure that ideas of every discipline formulate the basis for both a conceptual and a contextual argument in the field. this methodology was developed after the second world war (plsek & greenhalgh 2001). the basis for the methodology was to draw multiple academia from various disciplines to redefine and reconstruct complex ideas outside the conventional methods. history has it that the first utilisation of this method was at the ‘military–industrial complex, notably, the lockheed aircraft company nicknamed the skunk works in 1943 develop the xp-80 jet fighter in just 143 days’ (green & gordon 2001). the major challenge of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity is that both methods uses thematic orientation in the diagnosis of a given problem from a disciplinarity point of view (balsiger 2004:412). unlike transdisciplinarity, it ensures that universal knowledge production is acceptable from all sides of the chain. transdisciplinarity transdisciplinarity research is a research strategy that cuts across, transverses, zigzags and crisscrosses several disciplines towards designing a holistic perspective in the understanding of a phenomenon (nègre 1999; nicolescu 1997, 2014). according to nicolescu, the object of transdisciplinarity research is to understand and solve real-world problems, and the complexities that come with transformation and technological advancement on the one hand and the unification of knowledge on the other, rather than being stereotypical about disciplinary egoism. analysis on transdisciplinarity like multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity is focused on problem solving that cuts across several disciplinary boundaries between two or more, such as performance measurement, good governance and network governance, among others. the notion of transdisciplinarity according to françois (2002) is that while interdisciplinarity teams, transdisciplinarity is needed to unify the existing and emerging knowledge across trenches, even beyond traditional nomenclature of a discipline. the reason is that its idea is to establish a common premise. the legal foundation of the method was promulgated at the world congress of transdisciplinarity: in 1994, a transdisciplinary charter was struck at the first world congress of transdisciplinarity in portugal (15 articles). it says that transdisciplinary does not strive for the mastery of several disciplines, but rather to open all disciplines to that which they share and to that which lies beyond them, emergent as they interact. (mcgregor 2004:6) the argument of kötter and balsiger (1999:109) in their study between interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity opines that transdisciplinarity stems from four perspectives: the problem is generated in an extra scientific field (human resource management, leadership, financial management in local government, economics, politics, the living world) a solution to the problem is urgently required in this field public opinion considers these fields relevant when it is brought to science in an institutional way (research tasks, financing of project). the aforementioned definitions and perspectives show that transdisciplinarity is concerned with the science of problem solving independent of any discipline. the idea of the methodology is to shape the society or provide a clearer understanding to social chaos. transdisciplinarity methodologies in public policy and administration encompass the cosmos of an identified number of affected persons in need of the intervention, the degree and modus of which the intervention influences the society are established, and the elucidations at the time of intervention are highly adequate. in a similar manner, mittelstraß (1993:18) asserts, ‘transdisciplinarity should be interpreted as a form of research which defines and finally solves its problem independently from any disciplinary background’ (balsiger 2001:413). issues in modernisation, public opinion and public choice, democracy, open government and e-governance systems including concerns surrounding transparency, accountability, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability have to be understood from a transdisciplinary perspective oblivious of any individual or independent discipline, if such issues will ever be resolved. global epistemology of transdisciplinarity of public administration the philosophy and notion of public administration outgrew disciplinary connotation4 much leaning on an interand transdisciplinary field from inception. earliest theories and frameworks in understanding public administration as a discipline were borrowed from engineering, sociology and psychology (see taylorism, weberianism, efficiency, motivation and bureaucracy). this goes to show that approaches and principles in the study of public administration from puberty were seldom of engineering, mathematics and human resource management to recently such fields as nursing (change theory), space science (see space administration), physics (see quantum administration), anthropology (ethnography) and many others. the raison d’etre this paper argues that the pioneering assemblage of the discipline by one of its frontrunners rather than the founder of public administration woodrow wilson in 1887 was built on multidisciplinary perspective.5 the reason is that a multi-perspective discourse does not in all sense require a narrow view leading to no single theory for problem solving in the discipline, hence the use of concepts, constructs, frameworks, scenarios and analytical tools in providing an understanding to the discipline rather than relying on a single theory. according to wilson, public administration is envisaged as the total action and inaction of the central government (wilson 1887). drawing from wilson’s assertion, dye provided a definition of a sub-field of the discipline called public policy as ‘whatever governments choose to do or not to do’ (dye 1987; huang 2002:276).6,7 in addition, the local government white paper (in cogta 1998) envisioned a municipality as ‘a key component of the developmental state’, since it is the vehicle that drives the transformation agenda of the state with the intent of extending progressively to cover more citizens (figure 1). both definitions of woodrow wilson and thomas dye seem very similar and simple. the idea according to both the authors and the white paper is that the functionality, operability and life span of any government are dependent on the policy choice, project and programme it executes. hence, my earlier assertion that public administration deals with the wholeness of government activities, events, actions and inactions. therefore, the failure or success of a government is much dependent on the nature and calibre of administration provided. from the definition, one will agree that public administration covers every aspect of government activities, events, programmes and fields such as psychology, oncology, microbiology, space science, medicine, animal science, health sciences and other action or inaction the government engages in. figure 1: access to basic services. for governments (local, provincial and national) in south africa to make significant strides in providing solutions to the quagmires, decay and deficiencies in government in terms of potable water, drainage systems, roads and road networks, technology, schools, smart cities and economies, and recreational facilities, among others. trends in contemporary public administration as the world becomes more sophisticated, the challenges of government become more complex with tighter finances. hence, government must seek the best means through which services are provided in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. in recent times, certain concepts and theories have either been revisited or proposed. several scholars have identified some of the recent trends to be included in public administration: smart and innovative cities, new governance, technological boom, new leadership styles, grassroots campaigns, ethics and transparency, innovation, new thinking about service delivery, e-government, open government and e-democracy, reorganising work structure and process, sustainable transition and sustainable development, citizen centric, strategic management or performance measurement, generational change and succession planning, sustainable institutions and systems, programmes and projects, environmental and health policy, water policy, global thinking and localisation, climate change, disaster risk reduction and management and global warming, aid effectiveness, institutional development, democratisation, post-conflict environments and peacebuilding, gender studies, urbanisation and population studies, land governance, tenure system and natural resource, and area-based development. in south africa, the most trending issue in public administration revolves around decolonisation (barnes 2010; undp 2010).8 in that, these issues encompass all forms and fabric social chaos in society, which cut across several disciplines in problem solving including public policy and administration in south africa and elsewhere. analysing transdisciplinarity: typologies and indicators transdisciplinarity research methodologies are researches carried out to solve real-world conditions. article 2 of the 1994 charter for transdisciplinarity recognises: the existence of different levels of reality governed by different types of logic is inherent in the transdisciplinary attitude. any attempt to reduce reality to a single level governed by a single form of logic does not lie within the scope of transdisciplinarity (nicolescu 1997). in addition, article 5 corroborates this assumption that involves other fields categorically in the transdisciplinarity agenda (nicolescu 2002). it must be noted that arguments from the inception of public administration have always favoured a multidimensional perspective in tackling deficiencies and chaos in public administration (see the parliamentary system, agenda setting, conflict management, high powered delegations and diplomacy). therefore, it is reasonable to assert that the concept of transdisciplinarity is essential to establishing certain baselines. the ideas and assumptions of klein thompson (1990) in unity of knowledge and transdisciplinarity: contexts of definition, theory and the new discourse of problem solving (see unity of knowledge in transdisciplinary research for sustainability) establish the baseline for a discipline to be qualified as transdisciplinary if it deals with the following conditions: whether or not transdisciplinary research aims to achieve a holistic view of the problem being studied (holism); whether or not it relates to real-world problems (i.e. problems external to science) (problem orientation or issue orientation); whether or not it involves actors from non-scientific fields (participation); whether or not it primarily serves the implementation of research results and the development of concrete solutions for practice (practical knowledge); and whether repeated cyclical modification of basic observations in relation to research issues, study methods and interpretation concepts arise in the course of the research (process nature of research) (hadorn, pohl & scheringer 2009:5). these assumptions towards a discipline that has the potential in harnessing the gains of transdisciplinarity can be summed up in a definition for transdisciplinarity. it could therefore be said that transdisciplinarity involves an integrative and holistic approach in the creation of new knowledge in tackling real-world situations, consistent with repeatable methodologies that are validated in the development involving practical solutions between scholars and practitioners from various disciplines. just like public administration, transdisciplinarity does not have a generally acceptable definition like most concepts in the social science and unlike the pure sciences. therefore, it could be argued even further that the methodology of transdisciplinarity is well suited in the social science domain rather than the pure sciences where there is a high need for specialisation and professionalism from methodological perspectives. according to hadorn et al. (2009), there are three main typologies of transdisciplinary research in the social sciences: systematicity approach, negotiate and trade approach, and learning approaches (see box 1); these approaches are dealt with in van der waldt (2014). box 1: typology of approaches in transdisciplinarity. contribution of transdisciplinarity for public administration the transdisciplinarity approach enables researchers to discover the resurrection of man as subject of his own discourse, and not the end of history. it stretches to assess the beginning of a new stage in human history. transdisciplinary researchers are new breeds of contemporary knight-errant, utterly irrepressible rekindles of hope (nicolescu 2002:2). they tend to solve real societal problems and deficiencies from a multiple disciplinarily standpoint. hence, transdisciplinary research portends enormous opportunity for public policy and administration especially in africa and south africa, where the discipline is not fully established. for instance, little research in south africa has been conducted in harnessing the opportunities and challenges of smart and innovative cities in ensuring sustainable economic development in municipal government or the importance of e-governance to gender empowerment. other factors of weakness include the following. the opportunities open to digital government give a notion of cost saving, which is largely lacking in academic discourse in south africa. in south africa as well, there are few studies and departments offering health policy and administration, and educational administration between other rebranded spheres towards educational and health development. again, monitoring and evaluation have clearly not been fully established in the country in tracking and measuring economic growth, development and transformation. the idea of localisation, localism and indigenous content in public administration research is far from being realised, because there is skewer information from a disciplinary perspective to comprehend. hence, there is a higher need for anthropological and sociological antecedents in public administration. the lack of localisation and local content has brought about the clamour for decolonisation of the scholarly space in south africa. all these transdisciplinarity can solve, thereby strengthening government and governance networks in becoming much effective and efficient. transdisciplinarity approach as shown above brings light to new understanding of concepts, especially contentious ones, such as poverty, development, democracy and inequality among several others. van der waldt (2014) was apropos in describing the contribution of transdisciplinary research to public administration research in the mildest and modest way (table 1). table 1: synopsis of public administration modal contribution to transdisciplinarity. the philosophy surrounding van der waldt’s (2014) contribution of transdisciplinarity to public administration was embedded in dooyeweerd’s (1958) idea in his study a new critique of theoretical thought. dooyeweerd argued that the state is structured on foundational modalities to perform for major functions as social, economic, juridical and ethical. this assumption of the four modalities is drawn from woodrow’s definition of public administration as the implementation arm of the executives. the reason is that these were the primary functions of the government at that time. however, the realities of government in the 21st century have gone beyond merely the four foundational functions to involve more complex fundamentals such as corporate and intergovernmentalism, global governance and international development, humanitarianism and peace operation support, security and terrorism issues, peace and peace management, monitoring and evaluation, and urbanisation and sustainable development among a proliferated list of policy activities. therefore, to fully grasp what transdisciplinarity holds for public administration will be to understand the diverse and emerging nature of public administration in the 21st century. the future of public administration from a transdisciplinarity perspective in understanding the potential and the need to view public policy and administration from a transdisciplinary perspective, we offer the long-standing argument of whether or not public administration is an art, a craft or a science (raadschelders 2011b). according to farazmand (2012:499), the major problem with public administration is the notion of professionalism outside academic institutions. this has continually ridiculed the discipline in a number of ways. the debate about the nature, coverage or scope of public administration exists from puberty and will continue to stigmatise the discipline (berkley 1975:3–8; dubnick 1999:7; lynn 1994 1996:149–166; majone 1989:42–68). dwight waldo (1948) was among the very first to have published an empirical study that separated public administration as a subfield of political science. in two separate essays in 1968, he rejected the hypothesis that public administration is a sub-discipline of political science. however, waldo did not conceive or grant disciplinary status to public administration either. arguing in tandem with a recent publication by farazmand, the philosophy of public administration is seen as a de-professionalised field. an essential characteristic is that de-professionalists apply their knowledge in a routinised and predictable manner usually dependent on compliance documented in a generalised fashion (dionne 2009). among the first to argue for the science of public administration was herbert simons in 1957. his argument was premised on the understanding that public administration is at the heart of decision-making in government, which is arguably a science in its own right. hence, the machinery for decision-making in government as agenda setting and subsequent readings in policymaking is predominantly the same in most countries around the world. this notion however united the discipline around a central concept (raadschelders 2009:3). greenfield (1986), riccucci (2010) and raadschelders (2011a) highlighted the grievous consequences of simon’s assertion, which created a shift from the nature and scope to an obsession for inquiry in tone with the one best way. raadschelders (2011b:920) argued that the ontology of public administration cannot be fathomed via a single narrative or methodology. hence, the use and adoption of the interdisciplinary route from inception in public policy and administration studies in theory and practice. ringeling (2012:2) further argued that public administration is much more than management and organisational sciences; he argued that it is a cognate discipline that concentrates little attention on politics, law and normative questions. from the foregoing, it is crystal and well established that while some academics support the narrow narrative (i.e. the narrow conception of analytical rigor and science as commonly used in pure and natural science) others prefer the silkier approach mainly used in the humanities and social sciences (zalmanotovitch 2014). wildavsky (1980:15) refers to art as ‘the solving of problems that cannot be expressed until they are solved’. since its inception, public administration has been an applied field, seeking to ensure that its findings are based on evidence, experience and relevance to practice (art) and also highly empirical and engaging in the critical thinking process (dodge, ospina & foldy 2005:287). the idea portrayed from the heyday of public administration to its present form only shows that public administration cannot be understood from one perspective, that is, a disciplinary perspective. more so, that interdisciplinarity, which was the foundation of public administration in the usa, is still not able to solve several maladies and quagmires in government business in the usa, presently, and south africa. therefore, there is a need for a new methodology in both the understanding of growing trends in governance complexity and the adaptation of the new technologies in government palace. these views have given rise to the need for a comprehensive manipulation of realities in resolving systemic issues of government and government in the 21st century from an angle termed transdisciplinarity. in south africa, the story is similar to that of the world stage. however, the future of public policy and administration in africa, in general, and south africa, in particular, in relation to its expansion in the recent past is yet untapped. this is because south africa and africa in general have failed to test, formulate and implement workable principles and doctrines in administering sustainable services delivery, methodologies that lead to the promotion of individuals and citizens, and that could eliminate poverty, inequalities, corruption, nepotism, racism and favouritism, among others. the dependence on western and eurocentric philosophies has largely failed the discipline, because the structures, systems, institutions, support and empowerment are not on par. so, transferring western theories and frameworks without localising or africanising or decolonising such concepts and frameworks have set the continent back. these are some of the reasons why western, orthodox and eastern theories have not proved their workability in south africa, as a result of the disparity in capacity, network, finance, morale and culture among others. as seen in van der waldt’s study on the contribution of public administration to transdisciplinary inquiry (as stated above), we argue that public policy and administration has gone beyond the nomenclature of the four foundational functions (social, ethical, juridical and economic) to issues relating to compliance and adaptability as seen in the core science disciplines such as physics and mathematics. the new school of public policy and administration researchers in south africa (as kambidima wotela of the wits school, university of the witwatersrand and michel tshiyoyo of school of public management and administration, university of pretoria) are currently exploring the potential benefits of thermodynamics, chaos theory, game theory and quantum administration in strengthening government’s functionality in the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner. as zalmanotovitch (2014:808) noted, public administration is the tool that politicians use to solve problems of citizens within a given territory. therefore, the understanding, interaction and proper integration of the three pillars of public administration, that is, the managerial, the political and the legal, are configurative imperatives (see rosenbloom 1983; rosenbloom, kravchuk, & clerkin, 2009). in that, the three pillars need to function in unionism and optimally, if citizens are to harvest bountifully from the government in a sustainable manner. where these fail, the nation fails, and the state is either seen as a failed state or a fragile state. the future of public administration is no doubt silkier; rather the major problem that constitutes essential argument is the ‘how’ part of the story, as well as ways to innovate and change what was considered historical facts. as a society, we live in an ever changing landscape be it economics, business, politics or society. public administration as a field of discourse must also reinvent itself to suit present realities and not stand akimbo. so, we argue that as the society changes, there should be equal, proportional or correlational adjustment on the part of public administration scholars in teaching and learning. unpacking the future of transdisciplinarity for public policy and administration in south africa in figure 2, we have provided 11 perspectives, which can also be seen as 11 fields or subfields that give a proper or holistic interplay towards an effective government system. however, it must be recounted that these are not exhaustive; rather it presents a baseline through which the discipline can begin to reach out towards other disciplines for research collaboration. in south africa, little has been done in most of these fields especially in relation to physics, engineering and mathematics. it is a truism that while the power dynamics or power cube could be understood better using the game theory in mathematics, instability and conflict escalation can be understood through an integrated research with a quantum specialist and analyst in chaotic theory in both physics and mathematics. yet no research in south africa has reached out to these scientists towards solving such contentious problems as racism and xenophobia and widespread violence in the country. this is the reason we argue that the future of transdisciplinarity in the context of public policy and administration will afford the discipline the leverage to reinvent itself in the area of problem solving. einstein’s assertion or a quote largely attributed to einstein is appropriate in this discourse. ‘repeating the same thing over and over again with negative result is insanity’. this statement is true of practitioners and scholars in the discipline. while the latter have continued to use same aged methodologies, approaches and theories in most universities have left most graduates of the discipline underemployed because while workplace standards have changed curriculum in the discipline remains largely the same, thereby producing similar candidates and the practitioners that have failed to live up to the expectations of the communities or to keep a clean audit outcome. figure 2: the future of transdisciplinarity for public policy and administration. the idea that public administration from a global perspective gives is very enticing. however, south africa has failed to tap this opportunity because of overreliance on orthodox and western theories, which do not reflect current realities nor provide solutions to pertinent quagmires in the country. for instance, from the 11 perspectives shown in figure 2, only research in local government could be argued as thoroughly researched but with western and dated theories. this is the reason why the myriads of problems in local government continue to persist. it is on this note that this study categorically states that the lack of evidence from research cannot solve the problems of the local government because most researchers do not take into account variance between the borrowed theories or framework and the place or municipality where these theories and frameworks are implemented. therefore, there is a need for home-grown theories, approaches and frameworks or the africanisation of the concepts, theories and approaches of western philosophers to fix into the mix the realities of research in public administration in south africa. in other words, localising these ideas to fit into present realities such as the culture, capacity and expertise among others is necessary. it is on this note that the study concludes that the major challenge of public administration in present day south africa is decolonisation, which is explained in figure 3. figure 3: major challenges in public administration in south africa. to solve the problem of public administration in south africa is to decolonise, which involves three essential and vital elements: africanisation, knowledge management and integration,9 and openness, truth, transparency and accountability (otta).10 with these resolved from a transdisciplinary perspective, it is a surety that smooth implementation of government programmes and projects is guaranteed, and a corresponding reduction in nepotism, corruption, godfatherism and favouritism is assured. limitations although this research was carefully prepared, there are several limitations that we are aware of. firstly, the study is based on the south african narrative, hence the inclusion of talks on scarce and critical skill by the directorate of higher education and technology in south africa. secondly, the study did not cover every aspect of transdisciplinarity but those aspects relating to public policy and administration in the south african context. otta, km, africanisation, and decolonisation were not discussed in this article but introduced as a means through which localisation of public administration can be enriched. more so, a qualitative paradigm was favoured to gain the idea for this article because it is an exploratory article to test the grounds for good fit of transdisciplinary research in pa. it does not also explain the concepts introduced in figure 2. the reason is that figure 2 is a proposition through which we believe transdisciplinary research can be accessible to public administration researchers. hopefully, we believe we would demystify figure 2 in another article in this journal. summary of findings and conclusion the idea of martinuzzi and sedlacko (2016) unequivocally gives credence to the science of mankind in resolving problems in the society and public administration. their argument is that: knowledge brokerage … is more than a simple question-and-answer game: … is a process of co-creating and re-framing knowledge … trade-offs and ambiguities, as well as world-views, cultures and the preferences of stakeholder groups. (p. i) this confirms the idea that knowledge, ambiguity and world view of a single discipline among others limit the understanding of any given discipline. in that, knowledge tends to re-create and re-frame itself to suit present realities rather than relying on utopian ideas, which do not in any way create advancement for any disciplinarity. for public administration, for instance, the use of theories and framework, which are not re-framed and re-conceptualised to fit into realities of the 21st century on the one hand, and the realities of institutional failures, capacity and experience, has limited several theories and concepts from improving governance and governance frameworks among others in the discipline. from the foregoing, it is perhaps safe to say that the idea of public policy and administration has moved from trash collection to space exploration, from the regulation of complicated economies to aiding fragile economies move beyond subsistence farming, and from biomedical technological advancement to census accuracy, as well as from taylorism to bioethical conduct of administrative personnel in government palaces. contemporary public administration is thus amazingly complex and will become even much complicated in the coming era. for instance, the idea of due process and equal protection, gender and feminism, migration and litigation, refugees and deportation portend severe rethinking in the discourse of public policy and administration and similar fields of studies in south africa. however, it must be noted that traditional public administration evolved from a regimented, rule-bound notion, having more a prescripted catalogue in the do’s and don’ts of public administration pinned in the philosophy of ‘trait theory’. hence, the proliferation of the top-down management approach for decision-making, employee administration and implementation of projects and programmes on a global scale has plundered to a large extent (non-existence perhaps) the notions and ideas of motivation and emotional intelligence, team building, collaboration and shared precepts in government functionality. having massive size and structure of a depersonalised and market-driven approach, these are perhaps idealisms that shape the old thinking of public administration where citizen participation was also non-existent. in conclusion, it is imperative that public policy and administration inclines to the use of transdisciplinarity in research in the future. in that, the transdisciplinarity approach is critical in offering broader universal vision from diverse disciplinary angles in order to arrive at a single conclusion. the need for transdisciplinarity in public policy and administration cannot be overlooked, considering the complexities in service delivery protest all over the country. also through this approach an antidote for solving the cancer of government corruption and the cancer of human existence ‘poverty’ might be found. more so, transdisciplinarity could help public administration in realising a developmental state and the concept of a developmental local government, including sustainable livelihood for the destitute. it is anticipated that issues relating to inept and poor governance structures and ill-informed institutions, poor administrative capacity and the lack of adherence to organisational instructions, procedures and processes, ineffective and mal-functional implementation of framework and poor evaluation patterns can be bridged by engaging diverse disciplines in understanding these complexities from individual disciplinary vision. the complexities that exist in government leading to several protests in south africa call for not just a narrative or single dimension in solving these quagmires. therefore, there is a need to embrace any methodology that integrates emotions, actions and thought in problem solving. also, any methodology that can overlook the specific and the particular by rising beyond the staffing room of any individual disciplinary vision towards finding a caveat through which disciplinary perspectives can integrate and merge ideas of diverse disciplines into developing a creative capacity from all human disciplinary dimensions in solving these problems. this methodology is what is known as the science of mankind.11,12 this science of mankind must be able to integrate every discipline into solving the world’s problems in general, and the most pressing need of south africa (decolonisation), which several authors and schools have referred to as transdisciplinarity.13 hence, transdisciplinarity connotes a research strategy that intersects diverse disciplinary borders to establish a holistic perspective to problem solving in research and real-life situations. the idea cut across diverse disciplinary boundaries (two or more) such as bioethics, anti-corruption, poverty, inequality, social policy, governance, management and development administration. to create an understanding not from a particular world view, but by re-crafting, re-framing, re-conceptualising, re-theorising, and re-modelling of ideas from different disciplinary standpoints with the intent of arriving at a common solution to resolve societal quagmires. this notion we are hopeful would revolutionise and put public policy and administration in south africa in its rightful place as the implementing arm of the executive, a scarce and critical skill in south africa and a cognate department around africa.14 to avoid leaving this study without contending questions from which public administration can benefit, we therefore share the following sentiments: how can sustainable development be understood from a transdisciplinary perspective with public administration leading the pack? how can local twinning be used in the realisation of local economic development, disaster management and consequence management? have grants helped in improving the living condition of the poor? what are other means through which the poor can be aided to fulfil to the height of their ability? how can leadership be re-conceptualised in the notion of materialism, nepotism and favouritism as currently seen the geopolitics and geo-administration of south africa? to what extent can monitoring and evaluation save cost? and what must we do next after evaluation? how can dynamic theory be understood in fighting corruption in the context of chaos and quantum theories in public administration? premised on the understanding of decolonisation, how can km, africanisation and otta help to pave the way for new thinking in public policy and administration using system thinking? acknowledgements we are grateful to david ndaguba, godwin nebo, nwabuwanne nwokolo and gerrit van der wadlt for their insight to this study. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions e.a.n. was supervised by 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international review of administrative sciences 80(4), 808–826. https://doi.org.10.1177/0020852314533456 footnotes 1. http://www.news24.com/tags/topics/corruption for several evidences related to mismanagement and corruption in the public domain in south africa. 2. http://www.infrastructurene.ws/2013/03/11/challenges-in-smaller-municipalities/ 3. http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2017/02/27/welfares-empty-coffers-a-sign-of-big-collapse-kids-in-grave-danger 4. public administration is one of the limited fields of study that cannot be understood from just a disciplinary perspective, so it borrows most of its concepts and abstractions from other fields in providing solutions on effective functionality of government business. 5. this study refers to woodrow wilson as one of the frontrunners rather than the father of public administration (see wu 1985) because the principles, construct, systems, and notions of pa have been seen in the ancient african traditional kingdom, which african studies have failed to explore (chain of command, scalar chain, impersonality among others are what africans know elders for in the ancient times). 6. http://profwork.org/pp/study/define.html 7. http://www.civiced.org/pc-program/instructional-component/public-policy 8. http://publicadmin.usc.edu/resources/news/public-management/5-global-trends-affecting-the-public-administration-landscape-today/ 9. knowledge management is a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving and sharing all of an enterprise’s information assets. these assets may include databases, documents, policies, procedures and previously uncaptured expertise and experience in individual workers. (koenig 2012) because, according to nicolescu (2014:188), the idea of transdisciplinarity is to identify knowledge and produce new knowledge towards building a better science. 10. see works of falola and jennings (2002), the introduction in africanizing knowledge: african studies across the disciplines and others studies of falola. including several studies of asante (2001) on the afrocentric idea. mazama (2002) on afrocentric paradigms (brizuela-garcía 2006:87–88). these studies form the basis for rewriting africa’s history from the african standpoint. it also brings to the fore the need for debate in public administration and accuses the discipline of running on parochial avalanche, which are too parochial in dealing with realities of the 21st century. the reason for the choice of these essential three element towards an understanding of the concept of decolonisation is premised on the fact that most theories, philosophies, frameworks and models are western and do not reflect the realities. therefore, it does not offer solution to new and emerging problems with regard, for instance, to technology and land empowerment among others. 11. according to wilson (1999), heilbron (2003:vii), newton (1687) and the encyclopædia britannica (2016), ‘science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe’. 12. ‘contemporary science is typically subdivided into the natural sciences, which study the material universe; the social sciences, which study people and societies; and the formal sciences, which study logic and mathematics. the formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations’ (http://www.cnrt.scsu.edu/~psc152/a/branches.htm). 13. isaac newton’s philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1687), for example, is translated ‘mathematical principles of natural philosophy’, and reflects the then-current use of the words ‘natural philosophy’, akin to ‘systematic study of nature’. 14. see the original definition of woodrow wilson of public administration in 1887. td journal desember 2006.p65 mapping cultural and natural landscape: metaphors in mapping human nature cornel w du toit * abstract: the article uses the cartographic metaphor to describe the relations between culture and nature, science and life world, signifier and signified. modernism may be defined as a project to map the whole of human reality to ensure our comprehension and control of it. the hobbes-boyle controversy is cited by way of example. today this project is under critical scrutiny, because there is more to the world than what is captured in maps. the main example of control and reduction of meaning is the way human nature is defined. nowadays the main factor is not so much ideology of one kind or another but, increasingly, technoscience. mapping the future of humankind will depend on successful integration of humans with nature, faith with reason, natural sciences with human sciences, physicality with spirituality. heidegger provides an example of a meaningful way to integrate science and technology with the human life world. finally, the self-transcending character of human culture remains the driving force behind the process. keywords: mapping, science, culture and human nature, modernism, cartography, metaphors, cultural geography, technoscientific identity, religion. geographic mapping as a metaphor for our relationship to nature in saint-exupéry’s little prince (1991:49-55) the little prince happens to land on a planet occupied by a geographer. he compliments the geographer on his beautiful planet and questions him about its geography. the geographer is unable to answer because he has no explorers and would rely on them to gather information. i haven’t a single explorer on my planet. it is not the geographer who goes out to count the towns, the rivers, the mountains, the seas, the oceans, and the deserts. the geographer is much too important to go loafing about. he does not leave his desk. but he receives the explorers in his study (saintexupéry 1991:50-51).1 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 289-309. _______ * head, research institute for theology and religion, university of south africa (unisa), pretoria. 1 interestingly, the philosopher kant, who lectured in geography as well, never left his königsberg! 290 nonetheless, having explained to the little prince what geographers do, he asked him to describe his own planet. the little prince replied: “i have ... a flower.” “we do not record flowers,” said the geographer. “why is that? the flower is the most beautiful thing on my planet!” “we do not record them,” said the geographer, “because they are ephemeral.” “what does that mean – ‘ephemeral’?” “geographies,” said the geographer, “are the books which, of all books, are most concerned with matters of consequence. they never become old-fashioned. it is very rarely that a mountain changes its position. it is very rarely that an ocean empties itself of its waters. we write of eternal things.”2 the little prince obstinately insisted on learning the meaning of ‘ephemeral’. when the geographer explained that it meant that “which is in danger of speedy disappearance”, the little prince regretted having left his frail flower behind on its own. very much in passing the author then points out that, by implication, humankind on earth is probably not far removed from the ‘ephemeral’ category.3 the comment reads (saint-exupéry 1991:55): men occupy a very small space upon the earth. if the two billion inhabitants who people its surface were to stand upright and somewhat crowded together, as they do for some big public assembly, they could easily be put into one public square twenty miles long and twenty miles wide. all humanity could be piled up on a small pacific islet. human beings have mapped their world. virtually every discipline, practice, philosophical system, tribe and individual has been mapped. whether the maps are of the physical environment – land, the atmosphere, oceans, celestial space, the human genome – or cultural maps like anthropological, economic or political maps, the fact is that our entire reality has been charted. many maps are not drawn to scale and use symbols to represent reality. the map of london’s underground railway is user-friendly but by no means accurate! if we had to have all the maps of humankind at our disposal the differences in worldview, anthropology, god concepts, epistemology, ontology, cosmology, technology, politics, economics and the like would be apparent. du toit _______ 2 ‘eternal things’ are eternal according to human thought and construction. a good example is the recent decision (august 2006) by the international astronomical union that pluto isn’t a planet any more. our solar system has now only eight planets and pluto, renamed ub313 is now the largest dwarf planet. a planet is redefined as “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round body shape, and has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit”. 3 see foucault’s dictum: “man is of recent origin and destined to disappear soon.” 291 the whole modernist project can be summed up by the mapping metaphor. mapping is a metaphor for our cultural handling of our world. from mapping our natural, physical environment we can move on to mapping the whole of human reality and draw maps of our genetic, psychological, social, political and religious worlds. but it’s not just a matter of representation; more importantly, it needs interpretation. maps are cultural artefacts depicting our efforts at representing reality. but reality cannot be ‘mirrored’ accurately any more than it can be known an sich. although almost ‘everything’ has been mapped, maps of physical reality remain vitally important. when galileo changed the map of our solar system he turned the whole of human culture upside down and started the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. thus the shift from a static to a dynamic worldview inspired hobbes, after his encounter with galileo, to construct his entire philosophy round the metaphor of motion (see his map of the classification of the sciences, hobbes 1968:149). mapping the human genome is probably going to be the revolution of the 21st century. the ‘rediscovery’ of human reason during the enlightenment is reflected in the priority that d’alembert assigns rationality in his preliminary discourse (his manifesto for the enlightenment). he calls the preliminary discourse a world map (mappemonde) of knowledge. the world map of human knowledge has three continents – reason, memory and imagination – each with its various countries and each country with its provinces. the continent of reason, naturally, is at the centre and the largest. its cardinal feature is philosophy, divided into the science of being (metaphysics), religious sciences (theology, religion and thence, through abuse, superstition), human sciences (logic, ethics), and natural sciences (mathematics, physics). the continent of imagination is the source of secular and sacred poetry (including narrative, dramatic and allegorical verse). the continent of memory is the source of history (secular, literary, sacred, ecclesiastic and natural). reason alone (‘the known’) yields knowledge (‘what science tells us’); memory and imagination produce something else. poetry and history belong to the unknowable. both natural and revealed (religious) knowledge fall under philosophy. revealed theology (and things like good and evil) are knowable in the same way as zoology and botany are (see gieryn 1995:429-432). the modernist hangover (überdruss) we are experiencing today is a result of maps that have become inadequate. the enlightenment map contained directions (reason) to find a treasure (truth). once the treasure on a treasure map has been found, the map (its information) becomes worthless. reason’s treasure hunt has come to an end. metaphors in mapping human nature td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 292 mapping means control a map is an amazing instrument. it is like surveying paris from the top of the eiffel tower (see barthes 1983). maps give an overview, departure points and terminals, truth, insight, understanding. they reduce the world to a few beacons and lines, to concepts and symbols that we believe capture reality. maps disenchant the world. knowing and naming things domesticate them, close distance, verbalise mystique. cartography disciplines nature. nature is disciplined through the formation of the various natural scientific disciplines. maps are about boundaries. people turn natural boundaries into political boundaries; they create artificial boundaries where there were none in order to demarcate ‘inside’ from ‘outside’. boundaries identify by classifying, as is evident in anthropological topography (cf kant’s denigration of non-european peoples). thus maps indicate physical boundaries (rivers, mountain ranges); symbolic boundaries (religious maps, political boundaries, maps showing the spread of aids); and man-made physical boundaries (berlin wall, jewish wall on the palestinian west bank). harley sums it up: power comes from the map and it traverses the way maps are made. maps are a technology of power, and the key to this is the cartographical process. by this i mean the way maps are compiled and the categories of information selected: the way they are generalized, a set of rules for the abstraction of the landscape; the way the elements in the landscape are formed into hierarchies; and the way various rhetorical styles that also reproduce power are employed to represent landscape. to catalogue the world is to appropriate it, so that all these technical processes represent acts of control over its image which extend beyond the professed uses of cartography. the world is disciplined. the world is normalized. we are prisoners in its spatial matrix. for cartography as much as other forms of knowledge, ‘all social action flows through boundaries determined by classification schemes’ (1997:164). cartography as a science,4 science as cartography a map is a visual representation of reality. the aim of mapping is to produce a ‘correct’ relational model of the terrain. initially art and science combined in map making. those maps were relegated to wall decorations once science became the sole motive for making maps. du toit _______ 4 kant believed that geography (together with anthropology) defined the preconditions for all knowledge and that such knowledge was a necessary preliminary – he used the term ‘propaedeutic’ – to everything else. hence, while geography was obviously ‘precritical’ or ‘pre-scientific’, its foundational role meant that it warranted close attention. geography organises knowledge synthetically by ordering space, as opposed to history, which provides narration in time. geography is an empirical form of knowledge, marked by contingency and particularity as much as by the universality that can be derived from first principles – presumably one of kant’s aims in order to make it more critical and scientific ... 293 although it is claimed that mapping is, as all sciences should be, value free, this is not really the case. some of the values governing the cultural production of maps are ethnicity, politics, religion and social class (harley 1997:158). usually a map is a two-dimensional, geometrically accurate representation of a three-dimensional space. road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today and form a subset of navigational maps, which include aeronautical and nautical charts, railroad network maps, and hiking and cycling maps. quantitatively, the largest number of drawn map sheets is probably composed of local surveys conducted by municipalities, utilities, tax assessors, emergency services providers and other local agencies. a map is a cultural symbolisation of physicality. we usually consult a road map when we don’t know or are uncertain about the route to a destination, or are looking for a short cut. but empirical experience precedes abstraction. people tend to be very conservative about familiar routes and do not easily change them, even if someone were to point out a shorter one. the map is not our ultimate goal, but a means to an end. it helps us to get to a place we want to reach in order to do something else (business, a visit, a holiday). a map is just that: a map, not a territory. to a great extent mapping (metaphor for truth) does become an end (life) for cartographers and scientists. it occupies most of their lives. scientists are cartographers. compiling a map is very different from consulting one. the map has to show some resemblance to the world ‘out there’. not just anyone can compile a map. it takes an expert to do so. science and culture require ongoing cartography, because our cultural and intellectual landscape is forever changing.5 a map is not an arbitrary construct but a representation of reality. scientists mediate between humans and nature. they help society to read the world correctly. nature can easily mislead us. knowledge and truth help us to know nature, safeguard ourselves and use nature to our advantage. as a guidebook, a road map tells us the right way. if we don’t follow that way we end up on false tracks. there is only one right way and many false tracks. science, being truth, usually doesn’t offer metaphors in mapping human nature _______ 5 maps (meanings/representations) are continually changing, for the territory/reality ceaselessly changes. there is nothing as frustrating as losing one’s way in a city because one discovers too late that one is using an outdated map. for many south africans the changing of street and place names is traumatic because changing the name (representation) is just as bad as removing the place. pretoria is no longer physically pretoria once it becomes tswane. it is just another form of forced removal: instead of removing me from my place, the identity of my place (which has become my identity) is removed. change of designation is experienced as confrontation. from the viewpoint of a black sotho speakers it may be experienced quite differently as gaining identity. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 294 alternative routes. it is either exclusively true or it is nothing. it is, however, reductive. scientific truth represents no more than a particular slant on the world. maps as routes to truth are a figment of modernism. in real life truth as an ultimate is constantly transcended. western society is built on an epistemology of representation. the world is communicated to us via our senses, intellect, mind and memory. because these are unreliable, we rely on interpretations of reality captured in cultural development, which includes religion, history and tradition. reality is represented primarily by words, which are obviously reductive. their meaning is determined by a fixed definition and their position in the sentence. that is why one often needs a lot of words to describe reality. in the sciences reality is represented by mathematics, natural laws, models and metaphors. those representations are likewise reductive. although the mathematical and nomological systems that science has devised ostensibly represent reality very adequately, mathematics remains a symbolic system and reality is more than just symbols. kant pointed out the impossibility of knowing reality as it really is (ding an sich). we can never know the kantian ding an sich. mapping the mental world: cultural geography culture in the sense of interaction between life and physicality started millions of years before the advent of homo sapiens. the earliest forms of life were characterised by interaction with their environment, transformation of the environment and transformation by the environment. culturally human beings are latecomers to the arena of earthly life, uncreatively copying nature and its technology that evolved over the ages. by and large we are ignorant of the complex natural history to which we owe our existence and have only just begun to get an inkling of its miracles. the term ‘nature’ is the trickiest to define, with ‘culture’ coming a close second. natural processes grow in complexity, reaching a zenith in rationally self-conscious homo sapiens. crucial aspects of life are to be found in inanimate or material nature, such as energy, atomic and molecular activity, chemical and electromagnetic activity, natural laws and the like – building materials and conditions for generating life of varying degrees of complexity. the evolution of humans into verbalising beings (zoon logon egon) (see heidegger 1976:165) epitomises nature’s emerging self-awareness or personification. verbalised existence is self-conscious existence, which is how people recognise themselves as part of nature and see nature reflected in various spheres of their existence. nature determines science (natural laws/lex natura), rule of law, religion (lex divina), art, and philosophy (natural philosophy, cosmology). human beings are nature’s self-replication, and as du toit 295 nature’s ‘other’ humans can function beneficially or detrimentally in relation to themselves. in das kapital marx observes, man opposes himself to nature as one of her own forces (quoted by fitzsimmons 1997:189). human beings are nature personified. epitomising her being, they give nature meaning. in them nature achieves consciousness, thus permitting the creation of a mental world, a world of ideas. that is nature in a cultural dimension. culture is an epiphenomenon of nature, piggy-backing on nature. it depends on physical nature but also transcends it, just as thought depends on the physical brain but is more than the brain and transcends its physical matrix. by verbalising nature, human beings recreate her as sacral nature in their religion; in their science they recreate her as predictable, rule-governed nature; and in technology homo faber (literally ‘workman’, since faber (latin, ‘worker’) refers to the strong human thumb that enabled humans to be become tool makers) transforms her into manageable nature to serve human needs. ‘culture’ may be difficult to define, but ‘nature’ is even more so. the fact that both terms are human constructs relating to the specific value or motive one has in mind when using the word accounts for the difficulty. they are ‘interpreted as ... ’ or ‘regarded as ... ’ whenever they are explicated in terms of some concept or other. nature may be interpreted in terms of darwinian evolution, divine creation, big-bang cosmology, molecular and biological sciences, and so forth. culture is interpreted in anthropological terms; religiously in terms of christ (niebuhr); philosophically in terms of mind (hegel), history, idea, being, existence; or in terms of contemporary information and computer technology (ict). nature prepares humans for culture in how far does our genetic substratum control the cultural superstratum? gould (quoted by dupré 2001:39) said: humans are animals and everything we do lies within our biological potential. this implies that there is no other, extraneous source that governs us. in other words, things like hope, motivation, perseverance, kenotic sacrifice, love – all values, in fact – are reducible to biological, nonreductive physicalism. many scholars object to this view, calling it reductive, but jeeves affirms it: linden eaves, having shown us the links between genes and aspects of physical and mental growth, gave us evidence of relationships between genetic factors and the development of religious behaviors, beliefs, and values... [t]he nature of the interdependence increasingly uncovered by scientific research makes a substance dualism harder to maintain ... (2004:240). metaphors in mapping human nature td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 296 the social brain hypothesis posits that the brain develops primarily to equip an animal to fit in with other members of the species. no member of a species can survive on its own; survival is bound up with a group. hence the evolutionary equipment of an animal that can survive only as a member of a species (within a specific cultural environment) is no less important than its equipment to survive in a particular physical environment. in the case of homo sapiens this means that nature prepares us for culture, for culture and all it entails is the mode in which the human species survives. baumeister states with complete conviction: the real question is whether people are better suited to any other form of life than in a cultural society, and the answer to that is no (2005:29). one must be critical of baumeister’s preponderant emphasis on nature, who in her wisdom predetermines what is good for human beings and prepares them for that. with reference to chimpanzees, for instance, he writes: so, again the sequence in evolution appears to be that first there were some beginnings of language in other species, and then our own species evolved to be capable of far more extensive use of language. mother nature recognized the value of speaking before we appeared on the scene, and we were designed to capitalize on this (baumeister 2005:17). in this view nature is personified as a purposive planner, which does not accord with our current understanding of how evolution operates. instead of regarding nature as the wise planner of the future of humankind, dawkins’ notion of accumulative evolution – underscoring its gradual nature, with the occasional leap (‘punctuated equilibrium’) caused by interaction between species and environment – may be more accurate (dawkins 1986:60ff). in this context the interaction between brain and thought is analogously applicable to the nature-culture relationship. culture supervenes on nature, the substructure (in marxian terms, culture is the superstructure of nature). hobbes versus boyle boyle not only established experimentation as a scientific method, but in his polemics with hobbes it became clear how bias, ideology and worldview influence our interpretation of ‘empirical reality’. in the 1660s hobbes and boyle were engaged in a controversy about an air pump: how would one make it, how could it be made, what would be its uses? the pump demonstrated the power of a vacuum, ‘nothingness’. it certainly was one of the most public scientific experiments ever conducted. everybody got embroiled in the argument. it du toit 297 confirmed the value of scientific experimentation, exceeding that of speculative reason. the controversy went beyond just boyle’s experimentalism and hobbes’s rationalism: [a]t issue as well was the constitution of the social order itself in restoration england. it centred on which authoritative and authentic knowledge could be assigned or denied to knowledge producers by where they were located (and how) (gieryn 1995:424; also see jacob 1997:58-60). robert boyle offered his corpuscular or atomic philosophy, as opposed to pantheism or materialism, and made it the foundation of chemistry. this amounted to a christianised epicurean atomism (the world is made up of lifeless atoms colliding in the vacuum of space) that boyle elevated to the status of a hypothesis to be tested experimentally. he saw atomism not just as a theory but as a theory worthy of consideration. the puritans, like boyle, upheld the dualism of matter and spirit. a providential god, not chance, was responsible for all motion in the universe. hobbes and the radicals believed that all matter was endowed with soul and that spirit was immanent in nature. thus nature operated autonomously. if spirit resided within people and nature, they can be independent of organised churches supported by tithes and learned ministries. vitalism, with spirit diffused equally throughout the material world, could also be used to support the notion of human equality and justify in cosmic terms antimonarchical and even democratic political ideals (jacob 1997:58). the puritans triumphed. the experiments of the puritan savants also offered a way to knowledge through induction and the testing of hypotheses, as opposed to hobbes’s deductive rationalism. both sides submitted their own maps of reality: the two maps depicted alternative cultural universes, with important places and landmarks given different labels and with distinctive grounds for locating a border here or there. the maps guided presumed users to where they could find authentic and credible knowledge and told them why they could not find it outside that space (gieryn 1995:425). mapping human nature human nature is ancient and has come a long way.6 that is evident in our genetic geography. our nature is genetically determined but at the same time malleable. human nature is primarily determined by metaphors in mapping human nature _______ 6 the selfish gene theory holds that every coding segment of dna seeks its own immortality, and the reproductivity of the organism is the mechanism with which dna makes more dna. genes are selfish and they want to replicate themselves, even if it means eliminating other genes in the competitive process. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 298 nature, who provides the ‘building blocks’ for cultural influencing. culture, too, is ancient and is transmitted by cultural dna (‘memes’) comprising tradition, education, books, religion, media, trade and any number of influencing factors. the bill of human rights in our new constitution gives a fair indication of post-apartheid anthropology and, indirectly, of how human nature is perceived. the bill of human rights is meant to protect human beings against their fellows, against those aspects of human nature that makes them prey on each other like wolves (homo homini lupus). we know now that our language construction is physically determined (lakoff & johnson); that rationality has biological roots (wuketits); that our thinking is governed by the physicality of the brain (d’aquila & newberg); that on the whole nature sets the parameters for our cultural development (baumeister). whereas religion once was the main source of human identity, its role is increasingly taken over by technoscience, gene mapping being the cardinal example. cartographers of human nature every proposal of what human nature is, represents a reductive attempt to find a transcendentally inviolable fulcrum which will finally encapsulate what human nature ‘actually’ is: human beings as sinners (flesh, mortality, finitude); images of god; persons (individuals, social beings); verbalising animals; self-conscious nature; apex of evolution; creators of meaning; workers; technicians; designers; irrevocably ‘thrown in the world’ (geworfenheit/dasein); playful person (homo ludens); carriers (slaves) of age-old genetic codes (dna) (dawkins). we are born into a society that has already been mapped, where human life is governed by culture and tradition, and where truth is contained in sacred scriptures and secular educational texts. at birth we are irrevocably assigned to a particular group according to our gender, religion, nationality and language. we are destined to form part of a host of classificatory systems and social statistics. whereas we are born with a relatively open-ended nature that can grow and develop, our cultural identity is quite rigidly dictated. we are born ‘in sin’, more specifically as ‘lost sinners’ needing a roadmap or compass to survive – lifebuoys to be supplied by religion in the form of revelation, scriptures, laws. the roadmap also comprises moral and ethical codes that travellers must observe, as well as doctrinal systems of deliverance that they have to accept. it means that you cannot use just any map: other, ‘alien’ religions will lead the faithful on false tracks. acceptance into a group comes from using the right map; it means respecting the distinctions of in-group/out-group, true/false and good/evil. most du toit 299 religions point the way to paradise or the hereafter and believers spend their whole lives travelling to a destination that they only reach when life is over. the image of a curriculum vitae works on the same principle: once you have completed your curriculum vitae, you are no longer around to enjoy it. we draw the map of human nature, and then the map draws us. human behaviour can be changed by way of changing self-descriptions. that was the tenet in the works of freud and marx (rorty 1980:379). we construct the values that are supposed to shape us. an important question is, which cartographers help to alter the map of human nature, culture and civilisation? nowadays the map of human nature is no longer drawn by a handful of theologians, philosophers and politicians. it is dictated by far greater, more powerful agencies like the media, technology and consumer society. upshot is that all these maps are designed by humans, even though they may appeal to one or other source of authority. foucault indicated that the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ is fundamentally linguistic. he insisted on the paradoxical distinction that the one thing that is not natural is nature itself (quoted by mcgrath 2001:112). mapping human nature means controlling it. foucault claimed that many phenomena, such as present-day sexuality, exist because we construct them. the very naming of an object includes the will to control it. there’s probably no such a thing as human nature an sich. that would be the same as trying to pin down a person’s identity or personality in terms of some explanation. the human will to meaning seems inevitably to entail transcendence. religion promises realities beyond the finitude of mortality and death. sociology proceeds descriptively and depicts human nature without prescribing normatively what it should be, because there is no transcendent norm (see weber). religion describes reality from the angle of a belief that the world was created by god and that its fate (outcome) will be determined by god. but there is growing resistance to such attempts to pin down human nature.7 fukuyama quotes paul ehrlich, who expressed the hope that people would abandon all talk of human nature once and for all because it was a meaningless concept (2002:130). this is not simply a rational choice we have. we are irrevocably part of nature, immersed in natural processes and dependent on the natural environment. without the working concept of human nature it would be impossible to reach any self-understanding or understanding of metaphors in mapping human nature _______ 7 “however, when we talk about the nature of man, we enter a metaphysical dimension of the world, which completely escapes the modern empirical methods of science” (liana 2005:36). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 300 others. but ‘nature’ is a broad, ambiguous concept and its meaning has to be determined anew in every context. have we shifted from radical transcendentalism to radical naturalism? western anthropology was characterised by a theological interpretation. we are reverting to a different interpretation of human nature – a radically physicalist one. oviedo (205:117) says we must resist ‘the complete naturalization or secularization of the maps of human nature’. contours of the religious map: human beings as imago dei for 2000 years the notion ‘image of god’ typified the western image of human nature. but the image of god was only a dim, barely visible watermark on the map of human nature. on that map the fall and sin stood out sharply and dictated the bodily aspects of human nature – ‘the flesh’, desire, concupiscence and mortality. the immortal soul was housed somewhere in this earthenware vase, awaiting trial and tribulation.8 the map of human nature has changed radically. sharply profiled is the wonder of its evolutionary development, mind-body unity, the absence of soul, the impossibility of a ‘fall’, the naturalness of suffering and death, dna strings and genetic codes, the ‘image of our evolutionary past’ and the promise of a better future.9 the map of human nature has been secularised. the supernatural and the transcendental are part of its evolutionary development and du toit _______ 8 our worldview affects our concept of god. long before feuerbach typified religion as a human projection and the gods as mirrors of human desires and consciousness, hume (1963:40-41) stated that “[t]here is a universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. we find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us.” 9 in the february 2001 edition of the journal nature the human genome project announced that the “sequencing of human dna was essentially complete”. originally it was expected that the human genome would comprise some 100 000 genes, but it turned out to house between 30 000 and 40 000 – double that of a fruit fly. an important development in this regard is the international haplotype map, or hapmap. blood samples collected from around the globe will be used to characterise individual genetic differences, using the database sequence as a key for the comparison. the goal is to determine genetic contributions to disease precisely and even tailor drugs to the patient’s unique genetic makeup. hapmap can also be used to highlight slight differences among various groups of the human population. if human nature is viewed simply as the sum of the base pairs, then such differences can be used to justify a variety of ill conceived agendas (hewlett 2004:188). 301 transience. we realise that by now we are created co-creators of human life. this places an enormous responsibility on us: our technological manipulation of life, our ‘playing god’. humans are changing the map, at the same time following its directions to an open future. in the process we realise that we are not entirely free to decide on either plan or direction. we are already determined to some extent by our own technology. human beings as imago imaginis (image of an image): out technoscientific identity in our virtual culture reality has become ephemeral, fleeting images flashing past us, especially on the electronic media. this insight dawned even in the days of post-structuralism when books represented reality: behind each book or text there are other books in an ever receding line of texts without any possibility of tracing a primary or normative text. we become disoriented in hyperspace and lose perspective and the ability to position ourselves cognitively in the great global, multinational and decentered communicational network in which we find ourselves caught as individual subjects (jameson, quoted by duncan 1996:430). cobb (2005:175) avers that the market economy and technology have taken god’s place: by others, providence has been taken over by the polytheism of commodity fetishism and a universe re-enchanted with mythical powers represented by the iconography of brand logos... by yet others the role of divine providence has been transferred to technology, as the great, protective matrix in which we spend our lives, from which we obtain our blessings, and which demands and receives our absolute loyalty... whatever deep need we have for there to be a power in the cosmos that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, the constant whisper of knowledge and rumours on the web provides a convincing simulacrum. caputo writes: in the future we will see our religion not as supernatural doctrine but as an experiment in selfhood (1997:82). consequently we will have to salvage practices of selfhood, valuable modes of consciousness and ways of self-expression. mapping our future: interdependence between humans and nature; faith and reason; natural and human sciences; physicality and spirituality if existence precedes essence, our real-life experience is more important that our abstractions from it. but human beings should not be subdivided into essences and existences either – any more than one metaphors in mapping human nature td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 302 should propound either a substantial or a relational ontology. it is not a matter of either brain or thought, of either reason or extension. nature and culture, faith and reason are intertwined. we must alternate between maps of reality without creating a single mega-map, a master narrative. to live meaningfully is to compose without blotting out certain instruments. ultimately science and technology are there to serve life. when they become entities in their own right they alienate us from life. life (terrain) comes first, our mapping is secondary. the map we consult helps to orient us to the world. the technical artefacts we have devised should enhance life. heidegger cites a good example when he shows how something like a bridge (technoscience) is integrated with human existence. that is the point heidegger (1971) makes in his essay, bauen, denken, wohnen. he starts the essay by asking what it means to dwell (german, wohnen). we dwell by building. the purpose of building is to dwell: one builds a dwelling place. heidegger briefly refers to buildings and structures (in a city) that are not dwelling places but form part of the dwelling horizon. dwelling refers to where we live, not a place where we seek shelter or work. etymologically the activity of building is the same as dwelling (to dwell is to build). in high german bauen, ‘to build’, means ‘to dwell’. it can still be traced in the word ‘nachbar’ (neighbour), which is made up of ‘neah’, ‘near’, and ‘gebur’, ‘dweller’. ‘to be, i am, you are’ (ich bin, du bist) means ‘to dwell, i dwell, you dwell’. building as cultivating (lat. colere, cultura) and building as the raising of edifices (aedificare – see edification) are both subsumed in genuine building. building in the sense of dwelling is people’s daily experience on earth (das gewohnte; quotidian). the quotidian has to do with building. the point heidegger is making is that dwelling is not experienced as what people are; dwelling is never thought of as the essence of humanness. but what does it mean to dwell (wohn)? the gothic word ‘wuniasi’ means ‘to be at peace’. peace, friede, means das frye (free) which is preserved from danger. hence the fundamental character of dwelling is saving and preserving (heidegger 1971:149). what is it that is preserved? first of all, the earth: earth is serving bearer, blossoming and fruiting, spreading out in rock and water, rising up into plant and animal (heidegger 1971:149). but earth is inconceivable without sky, humans are inconceivable without gods. hence dwelling includes earth and heaven, gods and humankind. the four are one. to dwell on the earth means to dwell ‘under the sky’. the four – earth and sky, divinities and mortals – belong together in one (heidegger 1971:149). du toit 303 dwelling is to preserve all four. mortals dwell in the way they preserve the fourfold in its essential being, its presencing ... mortals dwell in that they save the earth ... to save means to set something free into its own presencing (heidegger 1971:150). he goes on, pointing out: to spare and preserve means: to take under our care, to look after the fourfold in its presencing (heidegger 1971:151). to explain what ‘presencing’ is about – being the interaction between the foursome that establishes a special order of existence (dasein, ‘cause to appear’/‘call into being’) – heidegger cites the example of a bridge. a bridge is a thing (das ding). to westerners in their mapping of the world a bridge is and remains a bridge (= thing). the consequence, in the course of western thought, has been that the thing is represented as an unknown x to which perceptible properties are attached (heidegger 1971:153). stripping objects (things) of all non-empirically observable attributes is the legacy of western science. a bridge is a bridge and the theory of strength of materials can determine its molecular structure. we cannot know a bridge as a kantian ding as sich; proper bridge construction depends on proper physics and engineering. the inability to relate heidegger’s playful interaction between the four factors (‘fourfold’) to a thing like a bridge is in fact a modernist attrition. it is spending our whole life on a map (representation) without ever reaching the destination (life) that the map is supposed to guide us to. for a bridge to ‘bridge’ it has to be drawn into the arena of gods and mortals, earth and heaven. heidegger writes: to be sure, the bridge is a thing of its own kind; for it gathers the fourfold in such a way that it allows a site for it (1971:154). the site on a river bank is vacant, empty space. once the bridge has been built it becomes a location. the bridge gathers the fourfold in such a way that it allows a site for it. it is only once a ‘thing’ has turned space into location that one can speak of a site. a space (raum, rum) indicates a location that has been cleared, a settlement and lodging (cf heidegger’s notion of a clearing (space) in a forest – lichtung as metaphor for truth). a space is something that has been made room for, something that is cleared and free, namely within a boundary, greek peras. a boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the greek recognised, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing (heidegger 1971:154). thus heidegger turns all geographical categories topsy-turvy for the sake of integrating all dimensions of human existence. the idea of a cultural landscape approximates what heidegger had in mind. the concept of a cultural landscape is a bridge between space and society, metaphors in mapping human nature td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 304 culture and environment, natural science and human science. whereas initially geography, being a science, was tinctured by empiricism and logical positivism, it was broadened by expanding the landscape to incorporate historicism, interpretation and humanity. landscape studies today are still primarily associated with humanistic inquiry; however, this distinction is less important as epistemological boundaries become blurred in the movement away from methodological dogma (rowntree 1996:127). the concept of landscape integrates nature and culture. rowntree (1996:135), following jackson, lists the following features of creating landscape: • landscape is anchored in human life. • it integrates community and environment. the separation and dichotomy of humans and nature is a 19th century aberration and in time will pass. • landscapes are living, therefore judgments of landscape quality should assess it “as a place for living and working”. • the individual dwelling is the elementary unit in the landscape. • understanding landscape requires attention to the prosaic environments of the workday world, the vernacular. • all landscapes are symbolic in that they represent striving to achieve a spiritual goal of making the earth over in the image of some heaven (special meaning). • landscapes are constantly changing; there is no such thing as a static human landscape.10 the traditional line between nature and culture, organism and machine, the natural and the artificial is being systematically erased. we are increasingly living in a world where these old kinds of dualisms are losing their value. instead we are living in a culture defined as one where the distinctions among humans, animals, machines, and the non-physical are progressively blurred (barnes & gregory 1997:179). many people equate culture with civilisation, hence with cities as opposed to nature, countryside, undeveloped areas. nature is only ‘artificially’ reappraised and romanticised by disillusioned urbanites seeking a brief reprieve from stifling urban space. urban-economic geography took space as its unique object of analysis; but it was space devoid of nature, a ‘featureless plain’ about which it could theorize in increasingly mathematical terms ... cultural geography addressed nature but eschewed formal theory, working with metaphor and narrative at the uncomfortable margins of proper science (fitzsimmons 1997:188). du toit _______ 10 sauer (quoted in rowntree 1996:141) saw landscape as the principal source of information on how humans change the earth. 305 the will to transcendence: seeking un-mappable reality the modernist project is complete. nature, god and human nature have been mapped. what difference has it made? are we really better off, post-religion and post-ignorance? is a cushioned life of guaranteed human rights, employment, medical care and education really without hazards? does global democracy make the world a safer place? do we understand life better after the ict-communications revolution? is our restlessness assuaged by the avalanche of entertainment that we have within arm’s reach? map is not territory, the road map is not the journey. explaining life does not guarantee living. postmodernity has dispensed with pinning down humans and nature by mapping them. it means dispensing with mega-metanarratives: (i)t is [the] privileging of aesthetics over ethics, of the politics of place and localism over realities of the internationalism of capitalism ... (duncan 1996:442). postmodernism focuses on the incommensurability of reality. if we cannot measure, we cannot compile maps. maps are about measurement and comparison. we are confronted with incommensurability, not only in heisenberg’s principle of quantum uncertainty, but also in anthropology’s search for understanding, in cognitive sciences and the dead-end street of our metaphysics and epistemologies. bernstein (1983:91) already pointed out that ‘the truth of the incommensurability thesis is not closure, but openness’. foundationalism is closure. we are living in a post-representational era. not that we don’t represent – but we do it, knowing full well that signifiant and signifié do not coincide exactly. in a cartographic context: they honestly confront the impossibility of representing reality in language – that is, the radical undecidability in the relation between signifieds and signifiers. such honesty challenges assumed ‘connectedness’: (t)his does not imply that there is no truth, but rather that if there is, we are incapable of pinning it down (duncan 1996:449). it implies metaphorising understanding and symbolising existence. metaphorising understanding (as above) does not mean that we don’t know what we are saying or that we cannot know anything. it means that meaning is ‘open’, is more than what we are saying. there are maps (meaning) alongside and behind the maps (meaning) that we present. that introduces a playful element into our serious project of mapping (assigning meaning). and in the mapping game, like in poker, we are constantly testing each other’s maps/cards/plausibility (epistemologies): it is to constantly ‘up the ante’. metaphors in mapping human nature td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 306 the will to transcendence manifests itself in the acknowledgment that reality is ‘more’ than human rationality and scientific methods. in a certain sense such relativism requires one to approximate the ancient, pre-socratic greek acceptance of both religious and scientific knowledge, where the world of gods ... [was] a sensuous correlate of the aspects of intellectual knowledge (worringer, quoted by bunske 1996:370). bunske continues: it requires recognition that there are different kinds of truth, with each having its own set of criteria or test validity. it further requires that the criteria for one set of truths be not applied to another, that is, the truth of religious belief, a myth, or an imaginative, artistic insight, image, or orientation should not be tested by cartesian-inspired methodologies (1996:370). don cupitt says that: (t)he quest for transcendence constitutes a life-enhancing mistake we need to keep on making (quoted in thiselton 1995:115). cobb explains: in the film fight club tyler tells the first cell of disenfranchised young men: ‘you are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank, nor the car you have, the contents of your wallet. you’re not your f***g khakis.’ he circles around to tell them: ‘you are not special. you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. you are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.’ with this tyler invites them to make the one unimpeachable connection with reality that is available to them: to pound one another senseless with their fists; this is the ritual action that allows them to have an experience of ecstatic transcendence (cobb 2005:293). conclusion mapping nature is one of the achievements of modernism. mapping the human mind appears to be a more elusive ideal. the most effective language for mapping the mind (which includes emotions like faith, hope, love, fear and loneliness) has always been built on the grammar of transcendence. the transcendent realm encompasses religion, philosophy, myths, symbols, metaphors and every other linguistic capacitator for storing meaning that cannot be expressed unambiguously. unambiguity kills all imagination and creativity and puts an end to ‘open dialogue’. life is an open dialogue (and transcendence is open to the future), in which techno-scientific capitalism is a reluctant participant. we suffer from loss of hope of the better future that modernism promised and tackled with short-lived gusto, but failed to bring about. we romanticise ‘ancient’ cultures, in which ignorance swathed the unknown in mythical allure. another naivety is little more than mist before the sun of rationalism: modern western culture harks back to transcendence by resorting to belief in angels, ufos, new age advendu toit 307 tures and secular spirituality. these alternatives entail a choice between exclusiveness and inclusiveness, between either/or and both/ and. must we really choose between techno-scientific capitalism and pre-modern transcendence, or can techno-scientific capitalism be reconciled with spiritual values? neither techno-scientific capitalism nor any form of transcendence should be treated as absolute. both are threats to humankind. technoscientific capitalism is a closed system prone to unbridled growth (like cancer). any form of spiritual fundamentalism offers its adherents the certitude of one-sidedness and fanatical hope, with all the fatal consequences we hear reported on the daily news. is the heideggerian ideal articulated in his bauen denken wohnen still attainable? should the story of the little prince’s rose not form part of our authoritative mapping manuals? can techno-scientific capitalism and ecological responsibility, map and territory, nature and soul be reconciled? without a doubt meaningful survival, if any, depends on that. maybe only a new god can save us (à la heidegger) by charging the human mind’s dynamo with new energy. if human greed and unbridled growth are not curbed, the very notion of a human mind is illusory anyway. that would leave us spectators of a contest in which brute nature and evolutionary, inherited drives fight it out ruthlessly to the bitter end. mapping nature and the consequent techno-scientific achievements are a monument to human ingenuity. maps of human nature can be found in sociology textbooks. maps of the human mind remain an open agenda. mapping the mind means opening pandora’s box and losing hope.11 without hope there is no transcendence – and the transcendence offered by human greed is just veiled immanence. may the ideal remain that after all our mapping we will remember that a road map is always just a map. mapping isn’t life but must take us to a destination where we can celebrate life, respectfully in all its open versatility! bibliography barthes, r. 1983. selected writings, edited and with an introduction by susan sontag. london: fontana. baumeister, roy, f. 2005. the cultural animal. human nature, meaning and social life. oxford: oxford university press. metaphors in mapping human nature _______ 11 note that hope should not be confused with a desire for limitless power (unbridled growth). hope in our context is not synonymous with a desire to be like god (sicut deus). it is the hallmark of sufferers, those who want to escape from oppression and suffocation and long for a meaningful, communal life. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. 308 bernstein, richard j. 1983. beyond objectivism and relativism. oxford: blackwell. bunske, edmunds v. 1996. humanism: wisdom of the heart and mind, in earle, carville. caputo, john. 1997. after god. the future of religion. london: weidenfeld & nicolson. cobb, kelton. 2005. theology and popular culture. 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(eds). creative creatures. values, and ethical issues in theology, science and technology, 107-122. london: clark. peters, ted. 2005. techno-secularism, religion, and the created cocreator, in zygon 40/4, 845-862. rorty, richard. 1983. philosophy and the mirror of nature. london: blackwell. rowntree, lester b. 1996. the cultural landscape concept in american human geography, in earle, carville; mathewson, kent & kenzer, martin s. (eds) concepts in human geography, 127-159. boston: rowman & littlefield. thiselton, anthony c. 1995. interpreting god and the postmoderns self. edinburgh: clark. weis, gail & haber, honi f. (eds) 1999. perspectives on embodiment. the intersections of nature and culture. new york: routledge. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 289-309. abstract introduction global disaster risks reduction collaborative relationships in the dairy supply chain in zimbabwe legislative framework in zimbabwe results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) felix chari department of public management and economics, durban university of technology, south africa bethuel s. ngcamu department of public management and economics, durban university of technology, south africa citation chari, f. & ngcamu, b.s., 2017, ‘the impact of collaborative strategies on disaster risk reduction in zimbabwe dairy supply chains in 2016’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a433. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.433 original research the impact of collaborative strategies on disaster risk reduction in zimbabwe dairy supply chains in 2016 felix chari, bethuel s. ngcamu received: 21 mar. 2017; accepted: 09 may 2017; published: 19 sept. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract disasters are on the increase globally with accompanying devastating effects on dairy supply chains. the devastating effects, caused by disasters on economies in various countries such as united states of america, japan, kenya, uganda, mozambique and zimbabwe call for urgent sustainable mitigating measures in disaster risk reduction. these countries have experienced notable natural and man-made disasters in the past. the disasters negatively impacted the economies of both developed and developing countries, causing misery to people as hunger and poverty drastically increased. zimbabwe’s dairy industry was not spared from these devastating effects as it was vulnerable to disasters such as droughts and cyclones. disasters adversely affected supply chains in the country as evidenced by the closure of some dairy firms between the years 2000 and 2014. this article is set against the backdrop of declining output across all agricultural sectors in zimbabwe, evident particularly in the dairy farming sector which has witnessed inadequate supply of raw milk and dairy products by local producers. the article assesses the impact of dairy organisations’ partnerships with government departments and non-governmental organisations in reducing disaster risks on the dairy supply chain cost efficiency. it also aims to show how partnerships can reduce disaster risks and weighs the benefits of reduced supply chain costs in improving the affordability of milk and milk products to the general public. the study employs a mixed-methods approach comprising structured questionnaires, administered to a sample of 92 respondents out of a randomly sampled population of 122 participants from dairy farming clusters across the country, with an 85% response rate. key informants in the form of 18 dairy officers were purposively sampled for interviews throughout the dairy farming regions. the research findings will help government in the formulation of public policies for the dairy sector network in reducing disaster risks. introduction the world faces new and emerging hazards that multiply disaster risks (ozturk & cherix 2013; united nations secretariat of the international strategy for disaster reduction [unisdr] 2011). according to ozturk and cherix (2013), when a disaster hits, disruption that results ripples through national, regional and global supply chains, causing losses in related industries. a supply chain is a network of organisations that work together and coordinate their actions to deliver or move a product or service from supplier to customer (subbaiah, rao & babu 2009). because of the inter-linkage of world economies, through global supply chains, nations are sensitive to disasters regardless of geographical locations (reddy, singh & anbumozhi 2016). globally, supply chains have been disrupted by disasters that occurred in the united states of america and japan (asian development bank [adb] & asian development bank institute [adbi] 2013; silva & reddy 2011). in the united states of america, about 73% of companies experienced disruption in their supply chains network at least once in five years, with natural disasters being the most frequent cause of these disruptions (silva & reddy 2011). the year 2011 witnessed the great east japan earthquake and thai floods that caused disruption to production networks and supply chains that extended to other countries in the asian region because of the interdependencies of regional and world economies (adb & adbi 2013). the tsunami that accompanied the earthquake displaced about 350 000 people with most of them suffering psychological distress (goodwin et al. 2015). the tsunami and earthquake also resulted in seafood prices rising by 6%. the financial implications of these disasters were estimated at $2.2 billion and $235 billion for the thai floods and the great east japan earthquake, respectively (adb & adbi 2013). cost effective ways of alleviating poverty, increasing productivity and generating economic growth need to be put in place. the 2016 el nino weather pattern adversely affected agricultural supply chains in sub-saharan africa, with south africa’s production of white corn falling by 31%, leading to food insecurity in the country (bizcommmunity 2016). in the same manner, an industrial action by 5000 workers at mombasa port in kenya in 2015 disrupted multiple industries in the country and subsequently in neighbouring countries such as the democratic republic of congo and somalia (dhl 2016). armed conflicts are also a significant source of food insecurity, for they disrupt both production and distribution networks as people get displaced (hendrix & brinkman 2013). in darfur, the sudan armed conflicts brought a lot of negative effects that included reduced food crops production, destroyed educational and health infrastructure, and reduced and terminated employment. this consequently highlights the need for, and significance of, disaster risk reduction strategies across global supply chains. hunger and food insecurity have caught the attention of the international community. about 780 million people in developing countries are undernourished mainly because of low agricultural productivity, lack of nutritious food and climate change that has increased droughts and flooding (fao 2002). zimbabwe has also experienced an increase in natural and human disasters such as disease outbreaks, floods, droughts, veld fires, storms, road traffic accidents and army worm invasions affecting 6.8% of its yearly population (betera 2011; bongo et al. 2013; kellett & spark 2012). a report by government of zimbabwe and united nations (2012) suggests that related disasters are going to increase in the country. disasters negatively impact agriculture, one of the driving forces of economies in developing countries, where human misery has drastically increased (fao 2002). the dairy industry struggles to recover from the devastating impact of droughts, land reform programme and economic turmoil. diets in developing regions of the world are deficient in quantity and quality terms, exposing people to hunger and malnutrition (otte et al. 2012). increasing the availability of animal-source foods (asfs) such as milk, meat and eggs for poor populations could significantly reduce the burden of low nutrition levels. zimbabwe experienced severe droughts in the years 1991, 1992, 1995, 2008 and 2016 which had both direct and indirect consequences on the economy. consecutive droughts exacerbated poverty, high food insecurity, hunger and disease. (maphosa 1994; mavhura, manatsa & mushore 2015). the perennial droughts zimbabwe experienced had severe effects on the dairy farming industry because it thrives in favourable rainfall conditions (masama 2014). pursuant to the droughts, tens of thousands of cattle succumbed to drought related deaths (sadc agromet 2016). livestock have an important contribution to poverty alleviation, economic growth and raising nutrition levels in developing countries where the demand for livestock products has increased rapidly (otte et al. 2012). disasters, however, were responsible for disrupting the supply chains network in the country, resulting in a decline in dairy industry production and the subsequent collapse of related firms (commercial farmers’ union [cfu] 2010). poor performance across the zimbabwe dairy sector has been evidenced by a sharp decline in the production of milk from an annual production of 187.05 million litres in year 2000 to 71 million litres in 2015 (cfu 2016). consequently, there was inadequate supply of raw milk and dairy products across the country, leading to an influx of imported dairy products with lengthy supply chains. as a follow up, disaster risk reduction strategies targeting dairy supply chains and milk production can be an effective technique for hunger and poverty reduction (otte et al. 2012). scholarships on zimbabwe, notably by betera (2011) and bongo et al. (2013), have generalised the impact of disasters on the economy of the country without giving particular attention to their effects on the dairy industry. bongo et al. (2013) examined organisational arrangements for disaster risk reduction from a rights-based perspective. they concluded that when a rights-based thrust to disaster risk reduction is adopted, the government and civil society can build on what people already know and on communities’ social and cultural strengths. tarisayi (2014) analyses the effects of flooding on rural livelihood systems in zimbabwe. he concludes that the floods that resulted from the excessive rains in the communal areas of neruvanga and nemauzhe adversely affected people’s crops and livestock, social networks and other non-agricultural livelihoods. it is against this background that this article seeks to assess the impact of collaborative strategies in reducing disaster risks on dairy supply chain cost efficiency in the country. disaster risk reduction represents a move from a humanitarian relief approach of managing disasters to prevention of disasters through reducing vulnerability to disasters (van riet 2009). the dairy industry is a fundamental pillar in the agro-based economy of zimbabwe. it provides incentives for investing in disaster risk reduction. with an average of a 7% increase in global demand for milk and milk products (more 2009), there is an increased need for researches focusing on disaster risk management and reduction in general, and in the dairy supply chain in particular. there is widespread clamour that supply chain resilience in response to disaster risks means nothing unless weighed against supply chain cost efficiency (chopra and sodhi 2014). some strategies of building resilience may have exorbitant costs resulting in poor financial performance by government and private organisations. it is a concern especially in developing countries where budgets are constrained and there is heavy reliance on aid and foreign borrowing. it is against the backdrop of constrained budgets existing in developing countries that supply chains call for protection from adverse disruptions and improve supply chain cost efficiency. no single individual, company, country or region can provide total management of supply chain risks. in essence, cooperation in disaster risk reduction activities among governments, both local and national, non-governmental organisations (ngos) and the various sectors of the economy are essential in reducing disaster risks (guzman 2003). in zimbabwe, some government departments are mandated by law to cooperate in disaster management. ministry of environment, water and climate through environmental management (ema) act 13 of 2002, the zimbabwe national water act 31 of 1998 and the zimbabwe national water authority (zinwa) act 11 of 1998 are directed to participate in disaster alleviations. in the same manner, through the dairy services act, section 19 (2001), ministry of agriculture has plenty of responsibilities. while ministry of education is touted to have a significant role in disaster risk reduction, the silence in the education curriculum is a sad story for disaster risk reduction in the country (mudavanhu 2014). in the same manner, though ngos have assisted dairy farmers, their bad relationship with government may compromise the success of their efforts (brown et al. 2012). this article posits that collaborative relationships in the dairy industry are indispensable in addressing disaster risks and ensuring supply chain cost efficiency. specifically, it discusses collaboration between government ministries and ngos in reducing disaster risks to avoid hunger and under-nutrition. the article uses supply chain costs as a proxy of supply chain efficiency. given, the limited role of education in disaster issues and the hostile relationship between government and ngos in zimbabwe, the following hypothesis is formulated linking supply chain members’ collaboration with ngos and the ministry of education in disaster risk reduction with supply chain cost efficiency: hypothesis 1: collaboration with ngos and ministry of education has insignificant influence on dairy supply chain cost efficiency. the following hypothesis was formulated linking collaboration with the ministries of agriculture and environment in disaster risk reduction with supply chain cost efficiency: hypothesis 2: collaboration with the ministries of agriculture and environment has significant influence on dairy supply chain cost efficiency. this article tests the two hypotheses using a mixed research approach that involves the use of both quantitative and qualitative research methods (creswell 2014). the use of the mixed research method enabled the researchers to combine the best of both qualitative and quantitative methods in overcoming their weaknesses, thereby providing a better understanding of the research problem (creswell 2014; saldanha & o’brien 2014). qualitative methods use words and narratives to add meaning to quantitative data while quantitative methods enable numbers to add precision to words and narratives (johnson & onwuegbuzie 2004). the study was carried out in two phases. in the first phase, 18 semi-structured interviews were employed to elicit information from dairy authorities (dairy officers with the department of livestock production and development). in the second phase, 92 structured questionnaires were administered to dairy farmers (farm owners or dairy farm managers and dairy processors) to determine the cost efficiency of collaborative strategies in addressing disaster risks. the study population was divided into five regions (clusters) of chipinge, mutare, harare, gweru and bulawayo and the proportional random sampling technique was employed to derive research samples from the dairy clusters. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.741 was computed. the value was above the recommended threshold value of 0.7. content validity of the research instrument was also done (sekaran & bougie 2009). the researchers sought informed consent from participants to decide whether to partake in the study or not (sekaran & bougie 2009; walliman 2011). the information given by participants was treated as confidential to guarantee the privacy of the participants (sekaran & bougie 2009). the ordinary least squares (ols) regression analysis was done to determine the impact of individual collaborative strategies on supply chain cost efficiency. individual collaborative strategies were regressed against supply chain cost efficiency to determine their effectiveness in the dairy industry. an index for collaborative strategies that summed the variables, ngos and the government ministries of agriculture, education and environment was computed to determine the degree of the impact. there was no known work done on the same or similar problems in the past. this led to the development of a structured questionnaire to guide the interviews with dairy farmers and dairy officers. global disaster risks reduction collaborative efforts are essential in managing disaster risk situations (shepard 2012). there is need for disaster risk reduction through a multisectoral approach involving the collaboration of government ministries, ngos and private sector organisations (government of the people’s republic of bangladesh 2010). observations by the united nations (2010) in el salvador indicated that partnership between international and national ngos can pool donor funds more effectively than individual effort. the indonesian government has also embraced the multi-sector, multi-level and multi-based approach (united nations 2010). the united nations (2010) has reiterated that good coordination of all stakeholders from government to the private sector is key to reducing disaster risks. guzman (2003) concurs, argues that with the immensity and complexity of the disaster problem, no single stakeholder can effectively address the problem alone. collaboration strategy in disaster risk reduction is a field which is growing in importance and this article sets out to assess its impact on the supply chain. empirical studies by chen, sohal and prajogo (2013) and murigi (2013) recommend collaboration as a strategy to mitigate risks. collaboration has benefits that are not achieved by non-collaborative strategies (o’donnell 2012). it gives partner organisations increased access to a wider pool of skills, technical knowledge and experience. in addition, collaboration reduces costs through elimination of duplication and sharing of information and resources. murigi (2013), in a study of the brooks dairy limited in kenya, recommends that dairy companies should widen their collaboration with the supply chain’s many stakeholders such as suppliers and partners in response to changes in the supply environment. the involvement of stakeholders in strategic decision-making process ensures all-encompassing robust policies and practices that will go a long way in mitigating disaster effects in dairy farming. chen et al. (2013) concur that supply chain collaboration is a good risk mitigation strategy. they propose collaboration with suppliers, customers and internal stakeholders as a way to mitigate risks. cooperation among stakeholders in the same organisation and among different organisations in the supply chain saves resources and improves efficiency (the supply chain council risk research team [sccrrt] 2008). in the indian dairy industry, mishra and shekhar (2012) recommend that milk producers should join societies and cooperate with other stakeholders to mitigate supply chain risks. however, the impact of these partnerships differs from one country to another depending on organisational arrangements and capacities as well as the political and administrative commitments of the various governments to disaster risk reduction (unisdr 2004). as a result, the next section outlines the collaborative relationships exhibited in zimbabwe’s dairy sector. collaborative relationships in the dairy supply chain in zimbabwe ngos collaborate with dairy stakeholders to promote improved household incomes, employment and food security (kagoro & chatiza 2012). they partnered with the zimbabwe association of dairy farmers (zadf) and exhibited a collaborative spirit by assisting dairy farmers in cattle restocking and training them in basic animal health and artificial insemination techniques (kagoro & chatiza 2012; land o’lakes 2014). all farmers at milk collection centres (mccs) in the eastern highlands of zimbabwe restocked their cattle through a loan facility from a cattle bank scheme (land o’lakes 2014). milk processors, namely dairibord zimbabwe, nestle and kefalos provide extension support services and in some instances act as loan guarantors to the dairy farmers (kagoro & chatiza 2012). furthermore, the processors are putting in place measures to mitigate the effects of droughts through heifer distribution programmes. under the programme, dairibord zimbabwe imported heifers and distributed them to dairy farmers across the country to boost milk production and ensure continuity of supply across dairy supply chains networks (dairibord holdings limited 2015). on the same basis, the collaborative arrangements highlighted in this article establish the cost efficiency of the strategy in reducing risks in a bid to achieve poverty reduction, economic growth, reduce inequality and the mortality rate in developing countries. of all the supply chain risk reduction efforts, collaboration that includes partners in supply chains and government has received little attention from researchers. this has motivated a study empirically testing a collaborative framework in dairy supply chains in zimbabwe. legislative framework in zimbabwe the government of zimbabwe, using the civil defence act of 1982, established a national board, the civil protection unit (cpu) to oversee and coordinate disaster management in the country. the 1982 legislation was abrogated by the civil protection act of 1989 and later by the civil protection act of 2001, chapter 10:06 (government of zimbabwe 1989). the cpu coordinates government departments, private organisations and ngos in drawing up preparedness plans (betera 2011; chikoto & sadiq 2012). however, the civil protection act has been criticised for being reactive and not promoting training and research relating to disasters (betera 2011). cpu’s engagement with the ministry of education could have enhanced training in disaster risk reduction. georgescu (2013) posits that new challenges posed by climate change and natural catastrophes demand responses through education. she recommends that disaster risk reduction should be incorporated into the curriculum as a cross cutting theme in a number of subjects. in the same way, mishra and shekhar (2012) recommend education and training to address risks in the dairy food supply chains. zimbabwe’s education system has not incorporated disaster management in curriculum of secondary schools (mudavanhu 2014). in the absence of clear education and training policies, collaboration with the ministry of education is not expected to work. the participation by ngos is frustrated by unfriendly zimbabwe ngo bill (2004) as it infringes the right to freedom of association and other rights, enshrined in the zimbabwean constitution (international bar association 2004). this legislation makes ngos’ relationship with government hostile because of differences in perceptions (brown et al. 2012). the government is sceptical of ngos and many ngos prefer to work alone, without partnering government, as they accuse government of putting obstacles in their way (yagub 2014). bongo et al. (2013) indicate that ngos are dominant players in providing relief after a disaster has occurred and ngos may suddenly withdraw their support. the zimbabwean civil protection act works closely with other acts such as the ema act 13 of 2002, the zimbabwe national water act 31 of 1998 and the zinwa act 11 of 1998 which governs the sustainable management of resources and environment protection in zimbabwe (chagutah 2010). zimbabwe takes enforcement of its environmental laws very seriously by providing for severe criminal sanctions against violators and incorporating numerous economic incentives to encourage compliance with environmental regulations. as a result, it is mandatory for the ministry of environment, water and climate to collaborate with partners that include industrialists, mines, schools, farmers, government departments, law enforcement agencies, parastatals and traditional leaders. through the dairy services act, section 19 (2001), ministry of agriculture extension workers assist dairy farmers with technical expertise on how to run their projects viably and efficiently. there is continuous inspection of dairy parlours and milk processing plants by the dairy unit. dairy service officers periodically collect milk samples from farmers to check for conformity to quality and standards set out by the dairy services act (2001) in order to protect consumers from unsafe and unhygienic milk and milk products. these measures are guided by the dairy services act (2001) which ensures that regulatory standards are followed. this legislation directs the ministry of agriculture to collaborate with dairy farmers, dairy processors and retailers. results and discussion demographics the demographic data of the respondents are discussed in terms of age, gender, educational qualification, location, role assumed and experience in the dairy industry as illustrated in table 1. table 1: demographic data 2016. based on table 1, 15% of the total respondents to the questionnaire were female and 85% were male. results from a research by schaper, lassen and theuvsen (2009) to assess risk perception and risk management strategies by dairy farmers in germany, the netherlands, ireland, switzerland and france confirm a male dominated dairy industry with 95.7% of the interviewees being male. it can be deduced from table 1 that the majority of the respondents (47%) fall within 51–60 years age group. this is consistent with the fact that the zimbabwe land reform programme, of year 2000, benefited mostly senior army and government officials (mudimu 2003), who are veterans of the liberation struggle. table 1 also reflects that most respondents had diplomas as their highest educational qualification as shown by a mean of 2.13. a significantly high number of dairy farmers (96%) are literate as they have formal primary education, and are able to receive training from dairy extension officers (stichting nederlandse vrijwilligers [snv] 2013). the results displayed in table 1 indicate that harare, which is the capital city of zimbabwe, has the highest number of dairy farmers (31%). most of the sampled dairy farmers were operating in the peri-urban area of harare. it can then be deduced from table 1 that a few dairy farmers are relatively experienced with only 15% having at least 16 years of experience in dairying. most of the experienced white commercial farmers were displaced during the land reform programme (zimbabwe human rights ngos forum 2010). ordinary least squares (ols) regression in statistical package, stata version (13), was computed to test hypotheses. the regression analyses are repeated using tobit model to test for the robustness of the models. the statistical computations held the control variables, such as gender, education, experience and the regions (chipinge, mutare, harare, gweru and bulawayo) constant to isolate the role of collaborative variables on supply chain cost efficiency. results of the ols regression analysis and the tobit model show the impact of collaborative strategies on dairy supply chain efficiency and are presented in tables 2–6. comparing the ols regression and tobit models, it can be seen that the results are fairly comparable. table 2: ordinary least squares and tobit estimates: impact of collaboration with non-governmental organisations on supply chain costs 2016. table 3: ordinary least squares and tobit estimates: impact of collaboration with education ministry on supply chain costs: 2016. table 4: ordinary least squares and tobit estimates: impact of collaboration with agricultural ministry on supply chain costs: 2016. table 5: ordinary least squares and tobit estimates: impact of collaboration with the ministry of environment on supply chain costs: 2016. table 6: ordinary least squares and tobit estimates: impact of combined collaborative strategies on supply chain costs: 2016. impact of collaboration with non-governmental organisations on supply chain costs the findings of this study presented in table 2 reveal a negative relationship between ngos and supply chain cost efficiency as evidenced by a beta value of −0.106. however, the impact of collaboration with ngos on dairy supply chain cost efficiency is insignificant implying that increased collaboration by ngos would not improve dairy supply chain efficiency. interviewees voiced the same weak association between the government and ngos because of scepticism and lack of trust. partnerships with ngos were short term and had no sustainable impact. this finding, therefore, supports hypothesis 1 of this study, which notes that collaboration with ngos has insignificant influence on dairy supply chain cost efficiency. the research result concurs with the findings by brown et al. (2012) which indicate that the functionality of ngos in zimbabwe is stifled by unfriendly government policies. collaboration among the government, the private sector and ngos requires that the government provides an enabling environment (forbes 2010) to have a successful private-public partnership. impact of collaboration with education ministry on supply chain costs table 3 illustrates the results of collaboration with the ministry of education on supply chain costs efficiency. no statistically significant linear dependence of supply chain costs on education was detected with an ols beta coefficient value of −0.0227. sensitivity test results of the tobit model also show no significant impact with a coefficient value of −0.00120. interviews with dairy officers blamed the existing school and college curricula in zimbabwe for not incorporating extensive and relevant content on disaster risk reduction. they confirmed that the ministry of primary and secondary education has only introduced disaster management now, as a cross cutting theme in the new curriculum which is due to be introduced in 2017. findings from interviews support hypothesis 1 of this study which notes that collaboration with education has insignificant influence on the dairy supply chain cost efficiency. these findings concur with mudavanhu’s (2014) conclusion that the education system in zimbabwe has not incorporated disaster management in curriculum of secondary schools and for this reason schools could not be the focus for disaster risk reduction. impact of collaboration with agriculture ministry on supply chain costs results presented in table 4 show that collaboration with the ministry of agriculture (with a beta coefficient of −0.685) has a significant impact on supply chain cost efficiency. the results imply that increased collaborative efforts with the ministry of agriculture led to a reduction in dairy supply chain cost efficiency, implying a reduction in the cost of supplying milk and milk products. the tobit model results confirm that the results are showing a robust model. interviews conducted with dairy officers confirmed significant influence of collaboration with the ministry of agriculture on dairy supply chain cost efficiency. the dairy and veterinary services in the ministry conducted training programmes in clean milk production to prevent milk contamination. this finding, therefore, supports hypothesis 2 which notes that collaboration with the ministry of agriculture has significant influence on dairy supply chain cost efficiency. these results are consistent with the objectives of land o’lakes (2014) partnership with zadf and the ministry of agriculture to train dairy farmers in basic animal health. the dairy services act of 2001 makes it mandatory for the ministry of agriculture to collaborate in dairy supply chains with stakeholders who include dairy farmers, milk processors and retailers to ensure that they meet requirements for milk quality control. impact of collaboration with ministry of environment, water and climate on supply chain costs the ols regression test was also done to examine the significance of collaborative relationships with the ministry of environment, water and climate. results in table 5 show a beta coefficient value of −0.478‡ implying that increased collaborative efforts with the ministry of environment, water and climate could lead to reduced dairy supply chain costs by reducing environmental risks and litigation costs. the tobit model in the table confirms the same relationship and a similar impact on the supply chain cost efficiency. the results from interviews similarly show that awareness programmes on veld fires were conducted regularly to reduce the depletion of pastures. this finding, therefore, supports hypothesis 2, which says that collaboration with the ministry of environment, water and climate has a significant influence on dairy supply chain cost efficiency. the finding is consistent with the expectations of ministry of environment, water and climate zimbabwe environmental to achieve cost efficiency in their endeavour to sustainably manage resources and protect the environment (chagutah 2010). impact of combined collaborative strategies on supply chain costs the results in table 6 and interview results suggest that in the full model including all the variables collaborative strategies have a significant impact on supply chain cost efficiency with a beta value of −0.180. the implication is that positive collaborative efforts reduce supply chain costs. this improves the affordability of milk and milk products because lower supply chain costs imply lower prices. the sensitivity test and the tobit model confirm the same results indicating the robustness of the models. sccrrt (2008) concurs with these findings where it recommends cooperation among departments in the same organisation and among different organisations in the supply chain to save resources and improve efficiency. conclusion the article has determined the impact of collaborative efforts on disaster risk reduction on dairy supply chain cost efficiency. it concludes that overall collaboration has significant influence on supply chain cost efficiency, if a sound legislative framework is in place. backed by solid legislation, collaboration with the ministries of agriculture and environment, water and climate significantly influences dairy supply chain cost efficiency. however, when collaborative efforts are analysed separately, the results of collaboration with ngos and ministry of education have insignificant impact on supply chain cost efficiency largely because of the absence of relevant laws. thus, government contribution through government departments is effective in reducing disaster risks and achieving supply chain cost efficiency if schools, colleges and universities expand their curricula to include disaster related management. the finance ministry may be requested to channel financial resources, to the ministry of education, to develop and implement disaster risk reduction curricula. an enabling environment for partnership between the government and ngos through transparent sharing of information is important. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions f.c. was the project leader and collected data, analysed and discussed with the literature reviewed. b.s.n. made a conceptual framework contribution. f.c. and b.s.n. wrote the conclusion and recommendations. references asian development bank (adb) & asian development bank institute (adbi), 2013, disaster risk management in asia and the pacific: issues paper, adbi, tokyo, viewed 11 september 2015, from https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/157232/adbi-rp75.pdf betera, l., 2011, overview of disaster risk management and vulnerability, civil 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suriamurthee maistry sysman motloung tendayi garutsa thabiso muswede thys swanepoel tracey j.m. mckay vimolan mudaly wessel p. visser za-mulamba p. mbecke http://www.td-sa.net� https://td-sa.net� https://td-sa.net� https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/user https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/user mailto:publishing@aosis.co.za microsoft word 09 abra dispute resolution fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2014, pp. 152-164. dispute resolution mechanisms among the afar people of ethiopia and their contribution to the development process ka gebre-egziabher1 abstract disputes are one of the major factors negatively affecting the development process of any nation. they divert resources that could otherwise be used productively; hence, there appears to be general agreement on their undesirability (alexander 2005). disputeresolution practices and peace-building mechanisms remain problematic for most societies in the world including those in africa, as most of them are trying to imitate western modalities instead of using their own indigenous knowledge systems and skills. the dispute-resolution practices of the ancient ethiopians in have been established for many thousands of years, and have been used to prevent loss of life and the destruction of property. this paper reveals that the dispute-resolution practices of the afar people of ethiopia significantly contributed to the development process. the article reveals that it is difficult to attain development without developing dispute resolution practices and it also shows that it is difficult, though not impossible, to resolve disputes without assuring development by eliminating poverty. thus, it concludes that the ancient aksumite, which was one of the first four great civilizations on earth, must have developed a unique type of dispute resolution practices that enabled ethiopia of that time to be one of the leading countries in the globe during that time. no doubt every nation has its own indigenous dispute-resolution practices. it is thus possible to resolve disputes in by using indigenous knowledge systems, instead of using western modalities. in this paper, the dispute-resolution practices of the afar people of ethiopia are discussed. keywords: afar, dispute resolution, ethiopia, horn of africa, indigenous knowledge, peace building, stability introduction taking the present situation in africa, where many countries suffer from disputes of various types, the “conference on resolving disputes in the south african way” which was organized by idra (institute of dispute resolution in africa) held on 5-6 november, 2014 in pretoria at kgrong function hall, unisa main campus is timely and relevant. there are reports daily that thousands of africans are suffering from disputes. on the other hand, nowadays, disputes in the african continent are becoming more of a business and way of life to many western organisations. until now, africans have tried to resolve disputes using western modalities; but practical evidence has already shown that such modalities often 1 . dr kinfe abraha gebre-egziabher is the director at the institute of population studies, mekelle university, ethiopia. email: kinfeab@yahoo.com dispute among the afar of ethiopia td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 152-164 153 aggravate the disputes in africa and do not resolve them. the author thus congratulates idra for taking the initiative of organising a problem-solving conference that tries to resolve african disputes in an african way. it is the author’s strong belief that dispute-resolution practices are as old as humans. thus much can be learned from the dispute-resolution practices of the first ethiopian people, as ethiopia is a site of human origin. “all human beings are descendants of africans” (henze 2000: 6). but as a result of population dynamics (mainly due to high mortality rates and high rates of emigration that have existed for centuries), it is only at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century that the african population rises to one billion. disputes are one of the factors contributing to the premature death of thousands of africans almost every year. thus, it is important to develop mechanisms for resolving disputes in the african way; and it is believed that the dispute-resolution practices of the first people of ethiopia offer lessons in this regard. ethiopia has a strong claim to being one of the oldest countries in the world. written and pictorial records reveal aspects of its history extending back well beyond 4 000 years. petrography takes it back at least 5,000 years. archeology and paleontology bring the country’s history back millions of years. ever since the american paleontologist donald johanson discovered that the skeleton of a twenty-year-old hominid female on 30 november 1974 in a dried up lake bed at hadar in the afar triangle 100 miles northeast of addis ababa, ethiopia has come into the forefront of regions where mankind is believed to have first evolved. this famous young ape lady whom johanson called lucy and gave the scientific name australopithecus afarensis (afar ape-man), lived more than 3 million years ago (henze 2000: 1). thus, when we talk about the dispute-resolution practices of the first people of ethiopia, in a way we mean the dispute-resolution practices of the afar people; though migrations and other elements of population dynamics might have influenced the ethnic compositions of such a people. in any society, disputes are one of the major factors negatively affecting development. they divert resources that could otherwise be used productively; hence, it appears that there is a general agreement that they are undesirable (alexander 2005). dispute resolution strategies and peace-building mechanisms remain problematic for most societies in the world, including africa. the need to develop and sustain a culture of peace has become more important than ever given the scale of destruction and the resilience of disputes. the afar national regional state (anrs), also known as region 2, shares international borders with djibouti and eritrea and is lies in the north-eastern part of ethiopia. the total size of the region is 94 817 km2. the region is divided into five administrative zones, 32 weredas and 358 kebeles. the north-eastern part of ethiopia is one of the centres of ancient civilizations of our planet, the aksumite civilization being the oldest. “the persian prophet mani, who lived in the third century ad, wrote: there are four great kingdoms on earth: the first is the kingdom of babylon and persia; the second is the kingdom of rome; the third is the kingdom of the aksumites; the fourth is the kingdom of the chinese” (yuri 1979, cited in henze 2000: 22). from this one can deduce that the dispute-resolution practices of the first people of ethiopia were effective and a prerequisite to the ancient civilization of the ethiopians. henze (2000) also explains that the area around aksum would have provided food for a continually expanding urban population during the period of maximum expansion of the empire. according to henze (2000), in the late 3rd century bc the aksumites expanded to gebre-egziabher 154 control the trade of the whole red sea region. the emperors developed military power to protect their trading interests. rome and persia valued these trading connections and respected the power and influence of the aksumites, and the persian prophet’s inclusion of aksum among the four great empires of the world was justified. munro-hay sums up the justification of the prophet as follows: as far as the history of civilization in africa is concerned … aksum, egypt and meroe … were the only internationally recognised independent african monarchies of important power status in its age. aksumite ethiopia, however, differs from the previous two in many ways. its economy was not based on the agriculture wealth of the nile valley, but on the exploitation of the ethiopian highland environment and the red sea trade; unlike egypt and meroe, axumite ethiopia depended for the communication not on … a great river, but on the maintenance of considerably more arduous routes across the highlands and steep river valleys. for its international trade it depended on sea lanes which required vigilant policing. most important, aksum was never to have come into open conflict with either rome or persia, and was neither conquered by these contemporary powers, nor suffered from punitive expeditions” (munro-hay, cited in henze 2000: 30), this may show that the existence of peace and stability was one of the main factors in the ancient civilization and conversely, the civilization also helped to ensure peace and stability. this peaceful coexistence is a reflection of the internal dispute-resolution practices of the first people of ethiopia in general and the afar people of ethiopia in particular. for a reason that is not well documented in ethiopian history, the ancient civilization of ethiopia disappeared and now little is known about it. but most probably the disputeresolution mechanisms of the ethiopian people of that time were eroded for various reasons which may need further research works and investigations. the horn of africa is home to millions of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. the region has faced recurrent drought, famine and socio-economic crises, which have led to a decline in the standard of living. disputes and civil wars have further complicated the life of pastoralists. wars in the region denied the pastoralists peace, freedom of movement and the freedom to support themselves. with social and political problems added to the existing environmental problems, efforts to enhance the living standard of the pastoralists were delayed and became more complicated. different forms of dispute that hindered the wise utilisation of the natural resources (mainly the land) in different countries were reasons why the country did not use more than 80 per cent of its resources – including human resources. according to the central statistical agency (csa) of ethiopia, ethiopia is a multi-ethnic country with over 82 ethnic groups (csa 2008). these ethnic groups have co-existed peacefully for centuries, perhaps with the exception of struggles for power or occasional clashes due to territorial (land) claims between the neighbouring ethnic groups. mesfin et al (2007) indicates that there were no wars due to racial, linguistic or religious differences. to the author’s knowledge, none of the governments of ethiopia have clearly reported the nature, magnitude and modes of resolution of ethnic conflicts. as would be expected in any major multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious country, some stereotypes of ethnocentrism and misperceptions exist among various ethnic and social groups in ethiopia. describing the ethiopian case, habtamu (1998: 34) explains: dispute among the afar of ethiopia td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 152-164 155 despite the diversities, great similarities exist between the ethnic groups in ethiopia. dominant values, outlook to life, the general socioeconomic situation (farming, house construction, etc.), some ethnic friendships and marriages, and existence in one social system for hundreds of years tend to unite and create major similarities between the various peoples. some degree of commitment to common values and norms is usually needed to maintain social order in a country and this is perhaps the case in ethiopia. in fact, there is much room for critical and objective social, historical and socio-economic research on ethnic relations in ethiopia. ethnic or national identity is a powerful, sometimes non-rational group attachment that should be handled carefully. despite the co-existence, tolerance and other common values that the ethnic groups of ethiopia share, conflicts between different ethnic groups exist; they cause the deaths of thousands of people and hinder the development process. describing the ethiopian case, habtamu (1998: 34) reports that “on the surface, the issue of ethnicity, displacement and national integration look like temporary problems. but, they have deep social and psychological roots and will continue to affect and disrupt the society if not properly understood and dealt with”. despite the tolerance, co-existence and other shared values of the different ethnic groups of ethiopia, the intra-group disputes of the afar ethnic groups has been one of the main problems that the regional and federal governments have tried to address; but they usually use a westernised approach, which is not effective. having considered the above major problems and their potential consequences, the need to address disputes using the indigenous knowledge and skill of dispute resolution among the afar ethnic groups is becoming increasingly urgent. ethiopia is a multi-ethnic country with a population of 89 million (csa 2013). lowlands occupy over 61 per cent of the land area and are home to over five million pastoralists that belong to diverse cultural groups; the afar ethnic groups being some of the largest. pastoralists are those who are highly dependent on livestock eating natural forage for their livelihood, practise a mobile system of land use, and tend to live in areas of low population density. the afar people are cushitic-speaking people living in the arid and semi-arid areas of ethiopia, eritrea and djibouti. dispute-resolution practices of the afar people of ethiopia before looking at the dispute-resolution practices of the afar people of ethiopia, it is necessary to define “dispute”. in this paper, conflict is defined as a latent dispute between two opposing groups or individuals, or as opposition between two simultaneous but incompatible interests. thus, dispute is a state of opposition, disagreement or incompatibility between two or more people that may or may not be characterised by physical violence. disputes are everpresent in human relations and occur at all times and in almost all places. studies show that there has never been a time or a society in which some individuals or groups did not come into conflict. the first step in resolving disputes is to understand the causes of the particular dispute. but, generally speaking, conflicts arise as a result of differences between rates of change in the moral norms of a society and people’s desire, hopes, dissatisfactions and demands. the dispute resolution of the afar people of ethiopia involved elders and clans leaders to solve minor disputes in the context of traditional law; in case of the afar ethnic groups, this system is called mada’a, which is governed by an unwritten law that is transmitted from gebre-egziabher 156 generation to generation orally. the law is of two types – dispute-resolution laws that concern intra-ethnic group disputes, and laws concerning inter-ethnic group disputes. in the case of the afar people, the law is called afare when it concerns disputes within the afar and adanle for those with outsiders. islamic law (shari’a) is secondary to traditional law. almost all ethnic groups have traditional judges. in afar ethnic groups, the muslim judges (kadi) are consulted only for civil affairs like marriage and divorce. afar tribal law, the mada’a, varies from tribe to tribe and has complex rules. certain lineages are highly reputed for their knowledge of these dispute-resolution practices prior cases set precedent and are integrated into the dispute-resolution practices. in the event of major litigation or of a previously unheard-of case, or when the various clan leaders have been unable to impose their judgment on the litigants, an appeal is made to the father of the law (called mada’a abba in the case of the afar). most of the time this is a subclan chief (kedo abba) chosen and backed by the elders for his knowledge of the mada’a. when an appeal is made to him in an unprecedented case, he gathers an assembly, the malla, which functions as a legal body to pronounce a brand-new judgment, which in turn will be incorporated into the mada’a. in case of the afar ethnic groups, when the father of the law (mada’a abba) is not the kedo abba, and if the conflict is not resolved, an assembly presided over by the kedo abba is called, which includes the disputants. a decision made at the court level would not have much chance of being enforced in tribal territory without the consent of the kedo abba, unless force were used, something which risks confrontation. a gulub (knee) is a sub-clan and several gulub form a kedo or clan. each social level is ruled by designated leaders (bura abba, dalla abba, gulub abba and kedo abba) who play a large role in solving internal conflicts and maintaining group cohesion. there is a separation between the judiciary (mada’a abba and malla), the legislature (kedo abba, mablo and maquar’a) and the executive (fima and fima abba). consultation allows agreement to prevail and avoids conflict that would result in division and violence. the maro institution for the afar people, maro is the session held under a tree to resolve conflict when dispute arises. a makaban (judge), the elders, the disputants, witnesses and observers sit in a circle (from which the term maro derives). the makaban is a clan leader (at the confederation level) who knows the customs. depending on the gravity of the case, the number of makaban may vary from one to ten. besides, the makaban may select elders who have a good reputation within the community to assist him. although many of those elected as elders are aged people, a young person who has good integrity and has won the respect of his people may be elected to give such service. women are excluded from giving service as makaban and elders. the makaban and elders are not required to have formal training. they give this service to their community without any remuneration, although the community gives them food and drink if the disputes they adjudicate take more than a day. the first people of ethiopia use dispute-resolution practices to settle disputes that arise within the family, between neighbours, within a clan and between clans. the traditional institution of maro has jurisdiction over every dispute with the exception of disputes relating to marriage, divorce and inheritance, which are left to the shari’a court, mainly in urban areas. the afar use this institution to resolve criminal cases that range from insult to homicide and every civil case, without taking into account the amount of money involved. dispute among the afar of ethiopia td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 152-164 157 the regular civil and criminal courts adjudicate cases arising between settlers from other parts of ethiopia working in the state, and cases that involve those settlers and the afar people. in short, the first people of ethiopia use dispute-resolution practices that are accessible, cheap and provide justice within a relatively short period of time. this system resolves minor cases like insults within a single day when the accused admits the charge. although some complicated cases relating to homicide that result in disputes between clans sometimes take up to ten years, the average dispute within a clan usually does not take more than six months to resolve. in the case of the afar, for example, the makaban continues to serve as a judge indefinitely as long as he does not commit acts that erode the people’s confidence on him. he is expected to be impartial, to have a good knowledge of customary law and precedents of traditional/customary decisions throughout his service. about 15–20 sub-clans exist under each major clan. except for crimes like theft, which come directly to the makaban, all disputes that arise within the sub-clan and between the sub-clans are resolved by the kedo abba of the sub-clans. a disputant dissatisfied by the decision of the kedo abba can appeal to the makaban. the decision of the makaban is final in cases arising within a specific clan. inter-clan disputes are brought to the makaban of neutral clans, who resolve the issue supported by elders selected from other clans. disputes between different clans usually arise from conflict over boundaries. a clan dissatisfied with the decision of the makaban on such issues may appeal to the sultan, who, after hearing the makaban and the elders, who participated in the decision and the aggrieved party, may maintain, modify or reverse the decision of the makaban. the decision of the sultan is final and no appeal is available against it in the customary dispute-resolution system. in addition to the above kinds of dispute arising between individuals of the same clan and conflicts between different afar clans, occasionally conflict occurs inter-ethnic groups bordering afar territory. these include tigrean, amhara, oromo and issa and are often over homicide or grazing land. this kind of conflict is usually resolved by establishing a committee of arbitrators composed of elders and government officials from both sides. procedures to resolve intra-clan disputes disputes that occur intra-clan usually arise from minor conflicts such as insults and quarrels that may result in bodily injury. conflict over grazing land and homicide rarely occur between members of the same clan. any member of a clan who comes across conflict between two or more individuals has the moral obligation to try to reconcile the disputants. if they do not accept the proposal of reconciliation or if the committed crime is grave, the injured party or anyone who witnessed the cause of the dispute can bring the case to the kedo abba of the subclans or the makaban of a clan, depending on the gravity of the case. the makaban to whom the disputants bring their case selects elders who help him in deciding the case and fixes the place and date of hearing the dispute in the maro. after the elders, disputants, witnesses, if any, and observers are gathered under a tree, the makaban opens the proceedings by requesting the disputant to bring ahabi, who guarantees the good behaviour of the disputant and acceptance of the makaban’s decision. the habi may be a member of a family or a subclan chief of the disputants. after the disputants nominate their habisi [plural form] the makaban gives the plaintiff the first opportunity to explain his case. the plaintiff may do this personally or select a representative, usually a chief of his clan, to speak in his name. children below the age of 15, or persons who are considered unable to explain their case, are not allowed to give testimony in front of the maro, and must be represented by an elder from their clan or by her husband in gebre-egziabher 158 a case of married woman. unless he admits the allegation, the defendant or his representative is given the chance to explain their version of the case after the plaintiff completes his presentation. after hearing both parties, the makaban may give both parties a chance to rebut, if possible, what their opponents say. if there are witnesses named by the plaintiff the makaban asks them to explain what they know about the dispute. if the witness is not present in the maro, the makaban orders him to appear and adjourns the case for other time. the plaintiff or anyone who hears this order informs the witness. the witnesses appear in the maro because they respect the order of the makaban. the people of afar take it as their religious obligation to give testimony on what they have witnessed and never hesitate to fulfil this duty. if the defendant has witnesses, he has the right to present them. the plaintiff has the right to cross-examine the testimony of the defendant’s witnesses. if no one witnessed the disputed issue brought before the makaban and if the defendant denies the allegation, the makaban asks the defendant to take an oath, which is usually done by putting his hand on the koran. before the defendant make an oath the makaban adjourns the case for another day to give family members and clan chiefs a chance to convince the defendant to admit to the allegation, if he did commit the offence. they may go to the extent of promising to make a contribution to the compensation paid to the injured party if the defendant is convicted. if the defendant insists that he is not guilty, he takes the oath and is set free from the allegation. if the defendant admits the allegation, or after the oral evidence presented by the plaintiff or both parties is heard, the makaban gives any volunteer who attended the proceeding a chance to summarise what was said. after summarising the proceedings and the testimony of witnesses, the speaker may give his opinion on the allegation. after all the above procedures have been followed, the makabans and the elders discuss the case and agree on a decision, taking into consideration the manner in which the offence was committed, notably whether it was intentional, unintentional or negligent. finally, the makabans pronounce the decision in public and the maro is declared closed by the blessing made by an elder. all the proceedings in the maro are carried out in public without regard to the nature of the dispute and the age of parties. this practice is one of the features that differentiate a maro from procedures applicable in a formal court, which may prohibit a public hearing only in exceptional cases and conduct sessions in camera to protect private lives and public morality. procedures to resolve inter-clan disputes when conflict occurs between members of different clans, the makaban of one of the disputant clans bring his case to the makaban of a neutral clan before the conflict can cause serious damage; in the case of inter-clan homicide, the intention is to resolve the issue amicably before the clan of the deceased can seek revenge. if the issue is not resolved members of a deceased’s clan are duty-bound to kill any member of the offender’s clan, including an innocent person, in vengeance. a prominent personality whose death would hurt the clan of the offender is usually selected as the victim. the makaban of the neutral clan announces to both parties the date of the hearing and orders both parties not to take any measures that can harm the amicable resolution of the case. both parties, and members of the injured clan, are expected to refrain from taking vengeance and respect the words of the makaban. depending on the gravity of the case, the makaban may ask the help of other makabans of different (neutral) clans and select elders from different clans to dispute among the afar of ethiopia td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 152-164 159 resolve the dispute brought to him. makabans of disputant clans represent their clans and explain their version of the disputed issue to the makabans of the neutral clan. after this the dispute goes through the procedures employed to resolve intra-clan disputes. substantive rules applied and remedies available under the maro the customary mada’a passes from generation to generation orally. the makaban and elders who are elected to resolve disputes are expected to know the mada’a and how it is applied. the late fitwarari yasin mohammad made efforts to put these laws in writing; afar customary law (mahomed 1973: 7) is based on information he collected from the memories of the afar elders to preserve the mada’a for future generations. the mada’a classified criminal acts into five types, namely: 1) crime against life; 2) crime against the body; 3) crime against property, 4) crime related to adultery and 5) crime of insult. besides, the mada’a mentions vengeance and compensation as modes of remedy or penalties for offences committed. disputes are resolved without reference to written rules and rely on memories of previous decisions (precedents) and knowledge of afar mada’a. remedies available under the mada’a are vengeance and different amounts of compensation, depending on the nature of the dispute. vengeance is ordered in rare cases when a person who commits a murder disappears and the case is heard in his absence. in this exceptional situation the makaban may take a decision that allows members of the clan of the deceased to take revenge, but only against the murderer. although there is no clear rule that allows capital punishment under this kind of decision implicitly allows members of the deceased clan to kill the murderer. the clan of the offender usually accepts such a decision to avoid vengeance being taken on its other members. although the mada’a uses goat kids as standard measures of compensation, which may be convertible to money or other livestock, elders state that in most afar areas cattle are the standard used to measure the amount of compensation. the maximum amount of compensation is 100 camels for the intentional murder of a man. if this murdered person is a woman, 50 camels are awarded as compensation. the lowest compensation is a cow for the offence of insult. the compensation given in cattle or camels is convertible to money in many areas. the amount of compensation payable in case of bodily injury is fixed after examining the injured part. in cases where a scar is left on the body of the injured, its length and depth are measured by using fingers to decide the amount of compensation. mada’a has fixed penalties, with a gradation for any kind of bleeding: the loss of one finger costs 10 silver coins, a thumb is considered as four fingers which costs 40 silver coins and a hand costs 500 silver coins. cash payment was introduced under the italian occupation, with a cow equivalent to 12 silver thalers. the customary rules and procedures applied in resolving the dispute are the same in all afar areas, though the amount of compensation differs slightly from place to place. after fixing the amount of compensation the makaban may reduce the amount by up to 10 per cent to create an opportunity for reconciliation between the disputants. the injured party may collect only part of the compensation to re-establish good relations with the offender or his clan. this practice is widely accepted and indicates that the amount of compensation pronounced at the judgment is nominal and reducible to a lower amount for the sake of reconciliation. execution of the decision unlike in modern justice systems, traditional dispute resolution usually lacks the machinery to enforce judgments unless the disputant voluntarily accepts the penalty imposed. in afar gebre-egziabher 160 society the family of the offender or his clan members, who guarantee that the decision of the makaban will be carried out, persuade the offender to pay the compensation. in many cases members of the offender’s clan contribute money or cattle for payment of compensation if the offence committed was grave and many cattle are payable in compensation. the clan may ostracise a member if he refuses to respect the decision of the makaban. in the case of decisions regarding disputes between different clans, the execution of the decision is guaranteed by fear of further killings between clans and the complete acceptance of its ruling by all parties concerned. this indicates that under this system social sanction is at the centre of the decision-enforcement mechanism, and ostracism is very common. the fima constitutes a social institution capable of providing sanctions to ensure peaceful outcomes, together with the above maro, without referring to legal governmental authorities. the power of its leader, the fima aba can thwart that of the clan elders. the fima is responsible for implementing a judgment and ensuring the penalties are paid. the solidarity of the fima towards its members is exercised both at the time of the physical failings and following events causing significant expenditure (such as marriage and burial), similar to the role of customary credit associations (ikub). the fima can also intervene when the herd of a member is decimated by drought; it answers the need of individuals for protection against disasters and shocks and thereby plays a role in social welfare. the fima has some regional variants. in tadjourah (djibouti), the system is based on age classes; in the awsa, it is related to land ownership, and other varieties are related tribal membership within geographical areas. the fima thus provides protection and defence; it also offers mutual help and constitutes a strong social institution. dispute resolution practices and their contribution to the development process “development is a concept that has become to define both our identity and the direction of the arrow of time . . .development is also now closely tied to the controversial concepts of the first, second and third worlds” (hoppers and richards 2011:13). the environmental protection authority of ethiopia (epa) has also defined the concept development as follows: development is a broad concept that has many components with it. development is a change in society’s economic, cultural, institutional and political life. a change in one aspect of these development ingredients also does not make any difference unless supported by the others. development has to deal with the allocation of available resources, which should not be misused or corrupted; and should consider the economic, social, political and institutional situations of a certain country (epa, 2008: 7). there are so many indicators of development. as explained by epa (2008: 7), some of the indicators of development are: 1. raising peoples’ living standard; their income and consumption levels of food, medical services, education, etc. through relevant economic growth processes. this encompasses all the socioeconomic indicators that help to enhance their wellbeing between two points in time. 2. creating conditions conducive to the growth of peoples’ self-stream through the establishment of social, political and economic systems and institutions that promote human dignity and respect; and dispute among the afar of ethiopia td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 152-164 161 3. increasing people’s freedom by enlarging the range of their choice variables, as by increasing varieties of consumer goods and services. one can easily understand that such a development is not attainable without peace and stability. thus, dispute resolution has to be considered as a precondition for any type of development. on the other hand, if there is no sustainable development, it becomes difficult to have peace and stability. hence, the indigenous knowledge systems and skills that the afar people are practicing in resolving disputes has to be considered as one main strategy in the development process of the nation. conclusion and recommendations although the customary system has some weaknesses relating to the violation of human rights, the afar people prefer its services because it is cheap, accessible, gives the people the chance to participate in the process and emphasises reconciling the feuding parties, rather than punishing the offender. especially when the dispute involves conflict between clans, the government usually requests the help of these customary institutions to resolve cases instead of using the formal justice system. although the customary system makes a considerable contribution to keeping law and order in the state, it has not obtained legal recognition under national law. to bridge this gap between practice and the law, the house of peoples’ representatives and the afar state council should officially recognise this customary dispute-resolution mechanism, and should consider the implications of limiting its jurisdiction to personal and family issues according to article 34 (5) of the fdre constitution (fdre 1995). this would be important in raising the awareness of the afar people, especially those who serve as makaban and elders. however, before the government recognises the maro and decides on the limits of its jurisdiction, it must strengthen the efficiency of the formal justice system to handle criminal cases that arise between individuals and clans. the overall aim of this paper is to present the dispute-resolution practices of the ancient aksumite civilization of ethiopia by taking the afar people as a case study. the author suggests that the following points need to be considered so that disputes can be resolved in an african way and sustainable development can be ensured. 1. dispute resolution is a very expensive process, mainly when addressed using imported knowledge and skills. the best strategy is to prevent conflicts before they occur. in ethiopia, clear strategies of dispute prevention must be developed, discussed and then implemented. such dispute-prevention and dispute-resolution mechanisms must be based on the indigenous knowledge of the people and be included in the elementary school curriculum. the subjects must be taught by well-trained teachers, which implies that the nearby universities must create such programmes. in this regard, one of the centres that the institute of population studies at mekelle university has is a centre for dispute resolution. the support that it receives from idra is of paramount importance. 2. it is obvious that development is the best mechanism for preventing and resolving conflicts. hence, continued efforts must be exerted to ensure development in ethiopia in general and the afar regional state in particular. all stakeholders working in ethiopia should focus their efforts on the development processes of the nation so that peace and stability can be sustained. 3. in africa, disputes have become a way of life for many international organisations. as a result, instead of focusing on strategic and long-term solutions, many international gebre-egziabher 162 ngos are focusing on short-term solutions; and some may even play a role in aggravating the disputes. it is now time to rethink the issue and then give long-lasting solutions by taking the main causes of the disputes into account and resolving disputes in an african way (using the indigenous knowledge systems of dispute resolutions). 4. it is obvious that the traditional leadership and the modern governance system will co-exist and have their own roles in both the development process and the dispute resolving strategies. hence, both leadership styles will have their own role in either aggravating or resolving disputes between two ethnic groups. it is recommended that the best practices of the two leadership styles (the indigenous and the western) be harmonized so that there will be no gap between them. this demands an attitudinal change in the leadership of both sides, so that they keep an open mind and learn from each other. 5. the dispute-resolution process has to ensure the participation of all stakeholders and those who are affected by the conflict. the leadership at all levels must devise mechanisms that ensure the participation of the general public by developing and institutionalizing the indigenous knowledge and practices of dispute resolution. 6. as educational levels increase, the probability that people may create conflict decreases. but this decrease also depends on the quality and relevance of the education delivered. hence, due attention must be given to enhancing the quality and relevance of the educational system, from elementary schools to university level. 7. as disputes arise in the african continent, different groups which have vested interests get involved in aggravating the magnitude and extent of the dispute. hence, the involvement of such groups with vested interests needs due attention; mainly by the people who may suffer from the consequences of such disputes. 8. like the afar people of ethiopia, almost all african countries have their own indigenous knowledge and practices of dispute resolution. it is time to harmonise these by taking the best practices and the common ones so that common, agreedupon and 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(1996). an introduction to sociology. allahabad: kitab mahal. abstract introduction research purpose and objectives a brief overview of the literature findings ethical consideration discussion implications of the study conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) justice muchineripi department of business management, university of fort hare, alice, south africa willie chinyamurindi department of business management, university of fort hare, alice, south africa tendai chimucheka department of business management, university of fort hare, alice, south africa citation muchineripi, j., chinyamurindi, w. & chimucheka, t., 2019, ‘a narrative analysis of barriers encountered by a sample of immigrant entrepreneurs in the eastern cape province of south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a556. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.556 original research a narrative analysis of barriers encountered by a sample of immigrant entrepreneurs in the eastern cape province of south africa justice muchineripi, willie chinyamurindi, tendai chimucheka received: 02 mar. 2018; accepted: 31 oct. 2018; published: 20 mar. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract a growing movement of foreign nationals is settling and starting up businesses in south africa. given this fact, there is a need to understand those factors influencing the human capital side of being an immigrant entrepreneur as a basis for coming up with mechanisms to support such a sample group. the focus of this empirical investigation was to understand those barriers that are encountered by immigrant entrepreneurs in the eastern cape province of south africa. to fully experience this, there is a need to understand those factors that affect immigrant entrepreneurship as a practice and the entrepreneur as someone who seeks to enact this value. the narrative research paradigm was adopted to understand the main purpose of the study. guided by the study objectives, semi-structured interviews were conducted using a sample of foreign immigrants operating businesses in the eastern cape (n = 23). individual stories and narratives highlighted the fact that immigrant entrepreneurs encountered the following challenges: financial resources, xenophobia and crime, legislation and finally lack of networks. keywords: barriers; immigrants; entrepreneur; entrepreneurship; narratives; south africa. introduction entrepreneurship is argued to be at the forefront of economic development in both developed and developing countries (coskun & akdere 2017). entrepreneurship yields positive rewards and upward economic mobility (wassink & hagan 2018). entrepreneurs also play an important role in the economic growth of a nation and individual communities (chinyamurindi 2016). according to welter et al. (2017), entrepreneurs contribute to job growth, innovation and the shaping of communities. in the past years, entrepreneurs have managed to revolutionise entrepreneurship, and it has evolved to become part of globalisation and the boundaryless world. immigrant entrepreneurship has become one of the popular modes of entrepreneurship and has enabled immigrants to create space to co-exist in their new adopted countries (griffin & olabisi 2017). globally there has been an increase in the movement of labour not only for social progress but for ideological reasons, often resulting in the start of small businesses (czaika & haas 2014). south africa has attracted a lot of foreigners from all over the world; chiumia (2016) reported that there were an estimated 2.1 million immigrants, as per the 2011 census results. immigrants have played an important role in shaping south african small, microand medium enterprises (smmes) (rambe & mpiti 2017). as smmes continue searching for new opportunities in the market, survival of these enterprises heavily rely on the innovation of entrepreneurs (radipere & dhliwayo 2014). the immigrant entrepreneurs have become an important driving force in the establishment of new businesses and reducing the escalating south african high rate of unemployment (fatoki 2014), which according to statistics south africa (2017) showed that in the first quarter of 2017, unemployment was at an astounding rate of 27.7%. therefore, immigrant entrepreneurs, in recent years, have been found to be playing a key role in alleviating unemployment in the communities they operate in (chimucheka 2014; fatoki 2014). kalitanyi and visser (2010) in their study discovered that over 80% of the african immigrant entrepreneurs interviewed, engage south african citizens in their business ventures. the number of south africans who are involved in entrepreneurship has been noted to be dropping since 2013; however, immigrant entrepreneurs have tried to maintain the balance of entrepreneurial ventures in the country by filling the vacuum being left by local entrepreneurs (global entrepreneurship monitor [gem] 2017). according to the gem (2014) report cited by dludla (2015), the percentage of adult south africans in entrepreneurial businesses has dropped by 34% from the year 2003. from a regional perspective, africa reported the highest established business rates; however, south africa is reported to have one of the lowest established business rates (gem 2017). a report by the gordon’s institute of business science (2015) stated that the government has not fully recognised the impact that the growth being offered by immigrant entrepreneurship can have on the unemployed youth of south africa, especially given the necessary support required (marks 2015). immigrant entrepreneurs are faced with a number of challenges. the increasing number of immigrants venturing into entrepreneurship has not helped the cause of the immigrant entrepreneurs, but it has escalated the challenges they face. entrepreneurial business growth is crucial in sustaining economic recovery as it creates jobs (vorley & williams 2017). research that has been conducted all over the world regarding immigrant entrepreneurship (e.g. cain & spoonley 2013; kerr & kerr 2016; thechatakerng 2012) has given rise to the recent research in south africa, including this study to find out the barriers affecting immigrant entrepreneurs’ ventures. research purpose and objectives the purpose of this study was to investigate and understand the barriers encountered by immigrant entrepreneurs in the eastern cape province of south africa. immigrant entrepreneurs have been part of the business environment in south africa and have fared reasonably under the circumstances they operate under (toli 2017). the immigrant operating ground is not level. according to desiderio (2014), though it can be argued that immigrants have a higher rate of entrepreneurship, it can be noted at the same time their businesses have lower survival rates. immigrants usually operate in businesses sectors that are neglected by local entrepreneurs (halkias 2017). because of the fact that immigrants are said to be more entrepreneurial but usually fail, compared to their local counterparts, this has culminated in the need for having research that investigates challenges that immigrant entrepreneurs encounter (ghoul 2017). further, the research applied a different approach in investigating the challenges encountered by immigrant entrepreneurs, as entrepreneurship studies usually adopt a quantitative approach. hence, there was need to investigate the lived experiences using immigrant entrepreneurs’ narratives. a brief overview of the literature in search of ways of surviving in their adoptive country, immigrants in south africa have resorted to venturing into entrepreneurship (masocha, buso & fatoki 2017). considering that venturing into entrepreneurship is difficult under normal circumstances, it can be more difficult by virtue of being a foreigner in south africa (lose & tengeh 2015). factors that have been identified by previous researchers as barriers to immigrant entrepreneurs are discussed next. education and training education and training are key to the success of entrepreneurs, and immigrant entrepreneurs are not immune to this (marchand & siegal 2015). the gem (2017) supported this notion by arguing that immigrants are innately entrepreneurs because of circumstances in their native countries, hence the need to have higher levels of education as well as business skills in order to penetrate attractive markets in business. a number of immigrants who do not possess educational and vocational training have been restricted to traditional sectors, which include small-scale retail, snack bars and restaurants because of lack of knowledge (beckers & blumberg 2013). the educational level that is possessed by an immigrant can potentially increase skill and knowledge of being innovative, starting their own businesses and having ways to manoeuvre through challenges (kruss et al. 2015). xenophobia and immigrant entrepreneurship halkias et al. (2015) posited that cultural adaptation, racism and the fear of foreigners pose the greatest threat to the entrepreneurial spirit by immigrants. xenophobic attacks in south africa have forced some immigrant entrepreneurs to close their businesses temporarily while some had to close permanently as they could not recover from the losses incurred during the xenophobic attacks (khosa & kalitanyi 2014). tshishonga (2015) concurred with this notion as he argued that non-south africans were forced to shut down their businesses and go into hiding. crush and ramachandran (2017) highlighted the failure by the relevant authorities to address the problem, as officials have intolerant views indistinguishable from those of ordinary citizens and excuse attacks on immigrant entrepreneurs as unrelated to xenophobia. khosa and khaitanyi (2014) found that in cape town xenophobia was detrimental to immigrant entrepreneurs’ business ventures. xenophobia can cause major problems to the operations of immigrant entrepreneurs’ business ventures, as it leads to loss of income and livelihood (masocha et al. 2017). funding strict adherence to requirements for granting loans by formal financial institutions effectively excludes immigrant entrepreneurs from obtaining access to funding (tengeh & nkem 2017). immigrant entrepreneurs have cited lack of funding as a major problem in getting their businesses going from the infancy stage (blz & binder 2017). khosa and kalitanyi (2014) also acknowledged that for micro-enterprises run by immigrants to access start-up and growth funding, they have to move mountains. traikova (2017) highlighted that immigrant entrepreneurs face difficulties in accessing funding because of the lack of information on existing financial support programmes to entrepreneurs. fatoki (2013) found that access to formal debt and equity markets is limited for immigrant entrepreneurs. crush (2017) pointed out that migrant street traders encounter difficulties in accessing finance and capital necessary to start their entrepreneurial businesses and for daily operations. a study conducted by garg and phayane (2014), in terms of the source of start-up capital, found that 100% of all start-up funding for immigrant entrepreneurs was sourced from their home country. thus, immigrant entrepreneurs have to adopt various bootstrapping strategies to survive (bizri 2017). policy and regulation migrant entrepreneurship is increasingly a feature of policy-oriented debates in a number of countries that have been receiving a considerable number of immigrants (ram, jones & villare-verda 2017). since independence, the south african government has been trying to devote resources to supporting small enterprises; however, a follow-up survey conducted in 2004 showed that the government had dismally failed to provide assistance to small enterprises (phillips, moos & nieman 2014). tengeh and lapah (2013) pointed out that because of various obstacles, immigrant entrepreneurs need the support of the government. hence, policymakers may need to develop different sets of policies to support opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship. this clear evidence has significant policy implications nowadays, when many western governments around the world are facing increasing numbers of immigrants from less developed countries (nugent 2017). the findings support empirically the claims of human rights organisations that put emphasis on the positive contributions of immigrants (zelekha 2013). criminality as a barrier to immigrant entrepreneurship criminality has affected south african society and immigrant entrepreneurs have not been spared (chikanda & tawodzera 2017). violence associated with the targeting of foreign shops can best be described as criminality with links to economic competition in the informal economy of south africa (piper & charman 2012). the main challenge chinese migrants have to deal with is the high crime rate in south africa in general, and johannesburg in particular (lin 2014). chinese people consistently refer to johannesburg as a dangerous place, where it is not safe to walk around at night (lin 2014). shopkeepers retold horror stories of fellow immigrant entrepreneurs from neighbouring stores who were severely beaten and robbed, sometimes losing hundreds of thousands of south african rand after just withdrawing money from the bank (crush & tawodzera 2017). police corruption is also considered normal in south africa (barnes, beaulieu & saxton 2017). police were often described as worse than criminals because chinese people never felt safe from those who were supposed to protect them and because there was nothing they could do to fight the police (lin 2014). research question the overall research question guiding this study was: what barriers influence immigrant entrepreneurs as part of their lived experience of being entrepreneurs? research design research approach the study falls within the qualitative research paradigm. this approach was adopted to understand not only the factors but also the lived experiences of immigrant entrepreneurs. the narrative research paradigm was used as a method of inquiry in this study as it gives a sense of movement and a coherent sequence of events about an engaged factor in a specific context (neuman 2011). this approach allows studies to reach their research goals of understanding and interpreting human actions and behaviours (wiid & diggines 2013). saunders, lewis and thornhill (2012) highlighted that qualitative research helps in gaining an understanding of the meaning humans attach to events. research methodology and empirical findings sampling and participants the study did not set up a predetermined sample size. interviews were conducted until a point of saturation, which is the point at which responses from participants became similar. in this study saturation was reached at 23 interviews; thus, the sample size is n = 23. convenience sampling was utilised in the study as it allowed the researcher to target participants who were conveniently accessible (teddlie & yu 2007). participants had to be immigrant entrepreneurs. table 1 summarises the participants’ biographical details; pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of the participants. table 1: participant profiles. data collection methods in conducting the study, semi-structured interviews were utilised. semi-structured interviews were used in this narrative inquiry as they allowed the asking of additional questions from participants in order to explore further their lived experiences. interviews facilitate the collection of detailed data from their participants with regard to the subject in question of understanding barriers encountered by immigrant entrepreneurs. before the interview commenced it was ensured that the participants were made aware of the purpose of conducting the research and that it was clear to them. the interviews were recorded on audio tapes and transcribed within 24 h of being recorded; the interviews were typed up on microsoft word while the audio tapes of the interviews were being replayed. data analysis in analysing the data, the researcher followed previous works by other researchers who used narratives in understanding human experiences (blustein, kozan & connors-kellgren 2013; chinyamurindi 2016). what then followed was a procedure to ascertain the three levels of meaning-making. this entailed that firstly the content of each interview was written as a brief piece and then developed into a much longer narrative about each participant. this was accomplished to help develop a good understanding of being an immigrant entrepreneur. each interview was then reread and the recordings listened to. chinyamurindi (2016) in his study followed the labovian narrative analysis, where each narrative is scanned for makers of stories, namely, orientation, abstract, what happened, evaluation and coda (labov 1972). the rudimentary goal at this point is to enter into the emotion and details, as defined by the storyteller. the type of interrogation is viewed as allowing for key questions to be answered about each (thornhill, clare & may 2004). strategies to ensure data quality and reporting the study addressed the questions of reliability and validity on the use of narratives to conduct research by using prescribed guidelines (anney 2014; leung 2015; morse 2015). data was collected over a reasonable time period to avoid fatigue for the researcher. to ensure that all the data was recorded, the interviews were audio taped. after the interview, each audio tape was transcribed within 24 hours. in also trying to ensure data quality, the interviews were conducted in a way that allowed responsiveness and adaptability to changing circumstances, was holistic and had professional immediacy, sensitivity and the ability to clarify and summarise (guba & lincoln 1981). findings based on the data analysis, the following five barriers were found as affecting immigrant entrepreneurs: financial access, legislation, networks, xenophobia and crime. in presenting the analysis, participants’ stories and narratives were used. financial access from the stories that were collected during the interviews, financial access was a major impediment to immigrant entrepreneurs’ business activities. some of the participants claimed that some business ideas have died in their embryonic stage because of lack of funding. immigrants fail to access financial aid from financiers because of their lack of credit history. capital for starting operating businesses was a major threat to immigrants as it meant there was no way to kick-start their business. the issue of accessing finance also affected some of the participants in securing a place to operate their businesses ventures as landlords ask for cash up front. besides many business opportunities available in south africa, prince had to postpone his plans for opening the business until he had met the financial requirements: ‘mainly the challenge i faced is accessing financial help; especially when i was starting, i needed capital to have a place to operate from. i had to postpone the opening of my business as most doors i knocked were shut for me as a foreigner.’ (prince, male, nigerian) in the same way, the problems that prince faced with start-up capital can also be illustrated in kuda’s narrative, who lamented about start-up capital being a hindrance in starting up his stationery business. he pointed out that as a foreigner your options are limited when it comes to the doors you need to knock on for assistance. for kuda to raise the much-needed capital, he resorted to selling his personal belongings and risked losing everything he had worked for. ‘the barriers i faced was mainly to do with finance; since my business had to do with printing, the start-up capital to buy the stationery and printing machines was a challenge as a foreign national. i could not access loans from banks or financial institutions; i had to sell some of my belongings to start the business, which was a risk of losing everything i had worked for if the business failed.’ (kuda, male, zimbabwean) sipho’s story had a different angle on what he termed as the financial challenge faced by immigrant entrepreneurs. sipho alluded to the lack of financial incentives offered to immigrant entrepreneurs to keep their business afloat and competitive. he argued that even after you manage to kick-start your business, you still need support systems in order to remain in business, and he feels the south african government has not fully recognised the contribution they bring to the communities they operate in: ‘… like now it is difficult for a foreigner to own a business formally and also the environment whereby you try to fund your own business, you cannot find financial incentive from the government whereby they fund foreigners involved in small entrepreneurial activities, whether at start-up or during the operational stage.’ (sipho, male, zimbabwean) this quote also introduced a new dimension in the findings. the lack of financial support leads to immigrant entrepreneurs operating their businesses illegally as it becomes expensive for them to do it in a formal way because of lack of support. blessed highlighted another aspect of the failed dreams of immigrant entrepreneurs, as their ideas and dreams just die a natural death because the majority of immigrant entrepreneurs cannot raise the money that is required by their businesses: ‘the major challenges have been financial; we need a lot of money to start more businesses. we have so many ideas and projects in mind to initiate, but the limitation is capital; we cannot get funding from the banks by the virtue of being a foreigner.’ (blessed, male, zimbabwean) xenophobia and crime the effects of xenophobia and crime were also ascertained from the participants’ narratives. xenophobia and crime were combined because xenophobic attacks are usually associated with crime. however, the study discovered through interviews with the participants that xenophobia was not as rampant as in other provinces. for instance, in his interview, donald narrated that even though he had heard about xenophobia in other provinces here in eastern cape, it was not a problem he had faced. what he lamented dealing with was crime: ‘… even though they were xenophobic attacks in other cities, this side of the country we never experienced any case as far as i am concerned. from the area i operate from, my main concern is crime as sometimes with the nature of my business we have to close at night. the danger with closing at night is we will attract a lot of criminals due to the fact that we will be carrying cash at the premises.’ (donald, male, zimbabwean) in some cases, crime affected the way the business was operated. typically, immigrants try to operate their business longer than the normal 8 h but lately there is a need to revert to normal operational hours because of high rate of crime. this resulted in natasha changing her operating hours as keeping her hair shop open late made her vulnerable to criminal activities. ‘i used to open my business until late hours to cater for those who would be at work during the day but would want their hair to be done during the night. they could not get the chance during the day. i stopped opening till late when i was robbed of cash, client’s belongings and also the merchandise which was in the hair shop …’ (natasha, female, zimbabwean) natasha further reiterated that changes in her business trading hours meant loss of possible income from those who did not have time during the day: ‘… now due to the high rate of crime we face, it is difficult for me to open my business until late, which has impacted negatively on my income, as it means now all those working-class clients i have been targeting are no longer coming to my saloon.’ (natasha, female, zimbabwean) legislation immigrant entrepreneurs lamented the bureaucratic processes involved in trying to legalise their businesses. these cumbersome bureaucratic processes have forced some of the immigrant entrepreneurs who do not meet the requirements, to operate their business illegally. immigrant entrepreneurs have reached a level where they hate the process that needs to be followed in order to regularise and legalise their operations. the laws that are in place for the registration of business by foreigners are daunting; thus, many of the immigrants mentioned that they are discouraged from registering their businesses with the responsible authorities. this can be illustrated by olga’s response: ‘there are a lot of red tapes when registering your business, which includes the tax; there is too much bureaucracy in south africa, which makes it difficult for immigrants to register their businesses. hence, some end up operating illegally.’ (olga, male, cameroonian) other participants corroborated the concerns raised by olga: ‘it is difficult to open a business bank account when you are a holder of a general work permit and it is a challenge to operate without a bank account.’ (blessed, male, zimbabwe) ‘it was not an easy journey to receive an operating licence for my nightclub as the authorities wanted a south african citizenship.’ (alex, male, zimbabwean) ‘even though the government says there are laws that enable open opportunities to everyone, that is not the case with us small immigrant entrepreneurs; i think it is only open to big foreign investors.’ (david, male, nigerian) lack of local networks through participants’ narratives it was concluded that in the modern-day business environment as an entrepreneur, there is a need to have networks in the area in which you will be operating. networking has proven to be a powerful tool to expand a business, as people can exchange ideas as well as getting jobs within the network. following are participants’ response on how the lack of networks have stood as a barrier they encounter in running their businesses. according to joe’s narrative, it was challenging for him to break into the system and manage to get jobs like anyone else. joe attributed this to the fact that the businesses he was targeting preferred someone they had worked with previously or who was already in the company’s network: ‘as a foreigner, it is difficult to do business with established companies as you do not know anyone in their networks.’ (joe, male, zimbabwean) joe’s narrative was reiterated by desmond, who is in the taxi business and who acknowledged that if you are not in their network and they do not know who you are, you pose a threat to them such that some might even conspire to take your life if they feel you will stand in their way: ‘it was difficult for me to get my taxi business up and running, as i was constantly told by the taxi bosses: you will not be able to operate in this line of business.’ (desmond, male, zimbabwean) joe’s and desmond’s narratives are similar to those of other participants who were in the same scenario as well: ‘when i first established my business, i had no one who could network with me with other players in the business; whenever i would try to get prospective clients, as soon as they realise i was a foreigner, they would develop an attitude and the transaction [would] end up not getting through.’ (witness, male, zimbabwean) ‘bidding for tenders, whether from the private sector or the government, it is always who you know in the system, which makes it difficult for me as an immigrant entrepreneur.’ (kuda, male, zimbabwean) there was also an interesting dimension to the findings, which was brought forward from the narratives of desmond and sipho, which also proved the importance of networking to a business. both participants incorporated local partners as a way of dealing with the challenge of lack of networks, which proved to be a fruitful move; hence, immigrant entrepreneurs should not take the challenge of networking lightly: ‘when i realised the need for networks in the taxi business i decide to incorporate a south african who would act as the owner of the business and from there on my business started running smoothly.’ (desmond, male, zambian) ‘i have gained a lot of networks and i have managed to mingle with many individuals, which have made it possible for me to get jobs and work which used to be difficult to get.’ (sipho, male, zimbabwean) ethical consideration ethical approval (ethical clearance number: ch145smuc01) was sought from the research ethics committee of the participating institution. the participants were asked to sign an informed consent form, as a way of giving consent to participate in the research voluntarily. participants were guaranteed confidentiality and anonymity and, in order to help keep their identities anonymous, pseudonyms were used in the research. the participants were also informed of their right to pull out of the interview at any time if they felt uncomfortable. discussion the main purpose of this study was to investigate the barriers encountered by immigrant entrepreneurs. operating an entrepreneurial venture has the prospect to change lives; however, that does not come easy, as illustrated in the responses from the participants, who face many challenges. the main factors were discovered to be the barriers affecting immigrant entrepreneurs, including financial access, xenophobia and crime, legislation and lack of networks. comparison with previous research the issue of difficulties in accessing finance by immigrant entrepreneurs is similar to previous work (blz & binder 2017; tengeh & nkem 2017). immigrant entrepreneurs bemoaned the challenges they faced when trying to obtain credit lines from formal financial institutions, which is practically impossible as a foreigner. furthermore, the findings of the study are consistent with the work of traikova (2017), which suggests that the difficulties in accessing funding by immigrant entrepreneurs are coupled with a lack of knowledge and awareness of existing programmes that can help immigrant entrepreneurs to access financing. the results of this study align with literature that suggests that the existence of stringent policies and regulation when it comes to legalising immigrant-owned businesses has been a major challenge (al-mataani, wainwright & demirel 2017; phillips et al. 2014). it also emerged from the study that immigrant entrepreneurs have been overlooked by policymakers as potential contributors to the economy. uniquely in this study, this happens within the buffalo city metropolitan municipality in east london, south africa where immigrant entrepreneurs bemoan the requirements put in place in order for them to register their businesses; this is a notion that no other studies have explored before. the findings are also in line with the recent work of ram et al. (2017), which stated that immigrant entrepreneurship has been a feature of policy-oriented debates in a number of countries because of its influence on the local economy. the findings of this research support some general factors of xenophobic attacks and crime as challenges faced by immigrant entrepreneurs. there is support from previous studies that showed how xenophobia and crime have affected immigrant entrepreneurship (chikanda & tawodzera 2017; crush & ramachandran 2017; khosa & kalitanyi 2014; lin 2014). in essence, these factors of crime and xenophobia were acknowledged by participants in this study, who stated that crime affected them negatively as it kept them from potential profits. the findings also revealed that in eastern cape, attacks cannot be blamed wholly on xenophobia. it emerged from the study that there were criminals who would attack and forcefully take immigrant entrepreneurs’ belongings under the disguise of the xenophobic attacks, which were happening around south africa. the findings concur with a previous study conducted by crush and ramachandran (2017), in which south african officials had indistinguishable intolerant views on the attacks on immigrant entrepreneurs as unrelated to xenophobia. furthermore, the research findings illustrated that because of lack of local networks, it was difficult for the participants to bid for tenders in both the private and public sector. this finding was not identified in earlier literature. implications of the study implication for policymakers a clear understanding by policymakers in south africa of the factors that affect the success and survival of immigrant entrepreneurs can help in coming up with different policies that are not hostile to immigrant entrepreneurs. immigrant entrepreneurs comprise a population of entrepreneurs that is not being fully engaged and whose economic contribution is not appreciated by policymakers. participants of the study recommended that policymakers should look into easing the restrictive entry requirements for immigrant entrepreneurs. the south african government has sought to respond to the needs of skilled immigrants through amending immigration acts that appreciate them as scarce skills (stern & szalontai 2006). however, they have not done much to facilitate the movement of immigrants who want to venture into small businesses. the majority of immigrant entrepreneurs who participated in the research bemoaned the bureaucratic process that one has to go through in order to be a legally registered entity. a better understanding of the motivations for immigrant entrepreneurs can help policymakers to design policies that encourage and promote setting up of businesses by immigrants (radipere & dhliwayo 2014). policymakers should develop policies towards growing the economy. in the proposed vision 2030 from the national development plan, african immigrants should enjoy equal protection to everyone (national planning commission 2013). there should be policies that make it easier for local entrepreneurs and immigrant entrepreneurs to co-exist and help each other in moving the economy of south africa forward. there is a general consensus among scholars that immigrant entrepreneurs help economic development in countries where they set up their businesses; a good example is the usa, which has benefited from immigrant entrepreneurs (matricano & sorrentino 2014). for instance, policymakers can develop synergies between immigrants and local institutions, especially with credit assistance, in order to help immigrant entrepreneurs grow. south african policymakers can also come up with provisions that create an environment where immigrant entrepreneurs can transfer their knowledge, skills and experience to the locals, as it was identified from the research findings that some of the immigrant entrepreneurs possess skills that are considered to be scarce in south africa. policymakers can take advantage of these skills and harness them to the advantage of south african citizens. this can be achieved by awarding jobs to deserving people regardless of nationality and then coming up with a framework that entails an immigrant entrepreneur working with locals and sharing his or her expertise to make it a point of benefit for everyone. a good example is the motor mechanics industry. one immigrant entrepreneur said he had the capacity to train and teach many youths, including those who did not qualify to be enrolled in colleges, to work for themselves. implications for immigrants the findings of the study have different implications for immigrants who would like to start their own ventures. as an immigrant entrepreneur who wants to start a venture, one has to be prepared for the challenges in setting up a business. many immigrants establish businesses as an alternative to working in low-wage jobs. a notable characteristic of these immigrant entrepreneurs is their willingness to take risks. they are able to find workers within their immigrant community, often at a lower cost; hence when starting up the business, immigrant business owners are able to minimise costs. as immigrants’ presence in entrepreneurial pursuits is becoming increasingly noticeable, there is a need to explore their issues, challenges and business prospects. the study can help immigrant entrepreneurs to understand the types of challenges they should anticipate when starting their business and running the venture. moutray (2009) argued that immigrant entrepreneurs have to cope with taxes and other regulatory requirements that differ from country to country. the study also helps the immigrants to understand that in order for them to survive or work around challenges they face, they should not always worry about financial success. there is also non-financial business success, which refers to a situation where a business measures its success by other indicators such as the number of employees, efficiency, reputation and perception. this can help immigrant entrepreneurs to be accepted in the communities they operate in, which is important to the survival of their businesses and overcoming challenges. limitations as with any study, this study also has its limitations. the study was only conducted in the bcm, which makes it difficult for the study to be generalised for the whole country. the research focused on small businesses run by immigrants; hence, the research cannot be generalised to well-established businesses run by immigrant entrepreneurs. the researcher also had difficulties in conducting interviews with immigrants who came from non-english speaking countries, as they would not understand the questions, and thus the researcher only approached those who had knowledge and good command of english. there was also a challenge of participants being sceptical of participating in the research interviews. this is because of fear of being victimised; for instance, some did not have proper documentation for their stay in south africa. future research can be extended to also include immigrant entrepreneurs who are operating at a much bigger scale. based on the participants’ responses, there is a need to conduct research that would pay more attention to women immigrant entrepreneurs. it is also important to conduct research dedicated to the strategies that immigrant entrepreneurs apply to overcome the challenges they face as immigrant entrepreneurs. future research opportunities could also compare barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs and south african entrepreneurs. there is also a need to carry out the research in other parts of south africa, as this study only focused on bcm. conclusion immigrant entrepreneurship is a relatively new, emerging topic in south african. this study sought to understand the lived experiences of immigrants involved in entrepreneurship using the qualitative paradigm. the study managed to elucidate the barriers that immigrant entrepreneurs face in operating their ventures. the study may ignite dialogue between the government and immigrant entrepreneurs on how best they can work together to ease the barriers affecting immigrant entrepreneurs and at the same time also help the south african economy. besides the barriers immigrant entrepreneurs encounter, it is also important for them to come up with innovative ideas to counter these negative experiences. such behaviours position them not just as victims of negative experiences but as entrepreneurs who can rise above their challenges. acknowledgements this article was in retrospect, funded by the govan mbeki research and development centre (gmrdc) supervisor linked bursaries while researching for master’s studies. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contribution the investigation on which the article reports was carried out by j.m. under the supervision of w.c. and t.c. 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y., 2013, ‘the effects of immigration on entrepreneurship’, kyklos 66(3), 438–465. https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12031 microsoft word 07 wotele et al.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration into south africa k wotela1 and c letsiri2 abstract arising from the supposed negative impact of illegal immigration, including security threats as well as recent xenophobic violence, the south african government would like to counter illegal immigration. to do this, it needs to understand the root causes of illegal immigration into the country. this article, therefore, seeks to explain and interpret why illegal immigrants make south africa their ideal choice of destination. to provide a context, the article begins with a discussion on the research setting, that is, the south african international boundaries. thereafter, the article discusses the concept of illegal immigration from the south african context before reviewing literature on the number of illegal immigrants in south africa and the supposed impact. the article then explores literature on international movements and discusses established migration frameworks that explain and interpret these movements. lastly, to confirm some facts arising from the review, we interviewed officials that manage illegal immigration as well as detained immigrants. we establish that four migration streams that have created a blended society in southern africa sparked illegal immigration into south africa. the article conclude that the problem of illegal immigration into south africa is perpetuated by deep-rooted migration networks. therefore, if the south african government wants to avert illegal immigration, its policy-makers should examine these roots and take them into account to arrive at a solution that is in sync with the root causes of the problem. keywords: immigration, illegal immigrants, migration push and pull factors, migration networks south african’s international boundaries as figure 1 shows, the current official boundary of south africa stretches from the atlantic ocean on its west to the indian ocean on its east. to its south are the two oceans while to its north is namibia, botswana, zimbabwe, mozambique, and swaziland to its east. there is also lesotho right within its boundaries. as detailed in thompson (1960), walker (1962) and beck (2014), this boundary was established in 1910 after combining two boer independent countries — the south african republic (formerly the transvaal colony) and 1 wits graduate school of governance (wsg), university of the witwatersrand, p.o. box 601, wits, 2050, south africa, e-mail: kambidima.wotela@gmail.com 2 wits graduate school of governance (wsg), university of the witwatersrand, p.o. box 601, wits, 2050, south africa, e-mail: cleophas.letsiri@gmail.com wotela & letsiri 100 the orange free state (formerly the orange river colony) — and the two british colonies, that is, the cape colony and the natal colony. obviously, the previous four international boundaries that make-up the current south africa are a product of the berlin conference of 1884 to 1885 that decided on international boundaries of the african continent.3 however, we do not engage this debate because our focus is illegal immigration vis-à-vis the current official boundary of south africa. figure 1: the map of south africa showing its neighbouring countries concept of illegal immigration as figure 2 conceptualised by the authors shows, migration4 — temporal, seasonal, and permanent movement of people from one society to another — is one of the three 3 at the request of portugal, german chancellor otto von bismark called major western powers to realign their control of africa. the outcome of this conference was current artificial international boundaries that cut across communities and ethnic societies because they used land marks such as rivers and mountains for this purpose. 4 statistics south africa (2004: 27) describe “migration as the movement into and out of countries, and within countries, from non-urban to urban areas or the other way around, or from one province or state to another”. international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. 101 components of demography, the other two being fertility and mortality. migration can occur several times in an individual’s life — unlike the other two components, that is, an individual is born once and dies once. further, migration comprises of internal and international migration. internal migration describes within country migration or the movement of people across subnational boundaries — for example, when individuals belonging to one municipality or province move to another municipality or province. international migration5 describes the movement of individuals across international boundaries—for example, when south africans move to other countries (emigration) or non-south africans move into south africa (immigration).6 gebrewold (2007) has distinguished immigrants into two groups— that is, individuals that move into a country involuntarily or on humanitarian grounds and those that move voluntarily. the former include those seeking asylum and refugees. the latter do so to set up businesses, to work, or to unite with family. figure 2: the three components and subcomponents of demography with migration, international migration, immigration status further, one can divide individuals coming into a country into legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. the former obtain official permission to enter and stay for a prescribed duration in the country of destination. the south african immigration act 4437 (2002) accommodates within its boundaries non-south africans with temporary or permanent residence permits to visit, study, work, and transact. the illegal immigrants comprise individuals without legitimate or valid official permission to be in south africa. lebhart (2002), crush & williams (2005), as well as campbell (2007) break down illegal immigrants into two groups — that is, those that enter south africa legally but stay on after their permits have expired and hence remain in the country illegally as well as those that enter south africa illegally and go on to stay illegally. to this, we can add one more group, that is, those that 5 “international migration … as we know it [today] came into being around the beginning of the twentieth century” (zolberg, 2006: 223). 6 for internal migration, outmigration (rather than emigration) refers to persons moving from a particular region while in-migration (rather than immigration) refers to persons moving into a particular region. solomon (2003) has described the different typologies of migration within the context of southern africa in general and south africa in particular. 7 klotz (2012) has discussed the coming of this act as well as its limitations especially its focus on enforcement. demography fertility mortality migration internal international emigration immigration legal illegal enter legally enter illegally enter legally enter illegally stay legally stay legally stay illegally stay illegally wotela & letsiri 102 enter illegally but legalise their stay in south africa. due to the supposed negative impact of illegal immigration including security, the south african government would like to counter illegal immigration. therefore, our focus is on foreign nationals that are in south africa illegally regardless of their status when they entered the country.8 the south african government applies national, continental, and global procedures and protocols to deal with immigration. national documentation includes the 1996 constitution of the republic of south africa, the south african refugees act 130 of 1998, and the south african immigration act 443 of 2002. at continental level, it is the 1969 african union convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa.9 the global documentation includes the 1948 united nations universal declaration of human rights;10 and, the 1951 and 1967 united nations convention and protocol relating to the status of refugees11. kabwe-segatti (2008) has detailed these procedures and protocols. needless to say, refugees in south africa are not restricted to designated camps and are free to go anywhere and participate in economic and social ventures. this makes illegal immigration easy and difficult to counter. in the next section, the article reviews literature on the number of illegal immigrants in south africa and thereafter the supposed impact of the problem. the article then explores literature on international movements that sparked illegal immigration into the country and established migration frameworks that explain and interpret these movements. lastly, we interviewed officials that manage illegal immigration to confirm some facts arising from the review. illegal immigrants in south africa the department of home affairs can account for legal immigrants as well as those that enter south africa legally but stay on illegally after their permits have expired. however, they cannot account for individuals that enter the country illegally and stay illegally.12 as a result, the south african government does not know how many illegal immigrants are in south africa.13for example, crush and williams (2005: 12) have observed that “the political and economic conditions in zimbabwe have caused an increase in economic migration to neighbouring countries such as south africa and botswana, however the often cited numbers of 2-3 million [illegal zimbabwean immigrants] in south africa …” is an upward exaggeration. similarly, polzer (2010) has also argued that the commonly quoted estimates, ranging from one to eight million immigrants in south africa, are based on unreliable 8 in this article, we do not refer to immigrants staying in south africa illegally including those accorded asylum or refugee status by the south african government, limitation that we take on for purposes of being focused. 9 http://www.au.int/en/sites/default/files/convention_en_refugee_problems_in_africa_addisababa_ 10september1969_0.pdf 10 http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ 11 http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html 12 peter mudau of the south african police service has stated that authorities know that there are undocumented foreign nationals who enter south africa illegally through the fence at the south africa/zimbabwe border (e-news channel africa, 2013). 13 the then home affairs minister nkosazana dlamini-zuma has confessed that providing a figure of illegal immigrants in the country is “difficult” (editor, 2009). international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. 103 statistics. instead, she proposes that there are about 2 million immigrants in south africa — that is about 4 per cent of the south african population. table 1 presents provincial residence by citizenship figures in the statistics south africa 2011 census report even though they did not ask about citizenship per se (statistics south africa, 2012).14 approximately 2 million (1 621 691 + 373 218) immigrants live in south africa15 — a figure equal to polzer’s (2010) estimate. as kok & collinson (2006) have also established, the majority of foreign nationals in south africa reside in gauteng province — the economic power house of south africa. of this group, the “unspecified” figure (373 218) probably captures some, but definitely not all, illegal immigrants living in south africa. table 1: number of usual residents by citizenship according to province, 2011 population census to demonstration that features of illegal immigrants has probably changed over time, table 2 shows the number of documented immigrants by population group between 1971 and 2001.16 before 1994, the proportion of european white immigrants in south africa was about 46 per cent but this has since halved to about 21 per cent. it is probable that this trend is also a reflection of illegal immigration as well. before 1994, most illegal immigrants came from europe mostly whites (crush & williams, 2005) but after 1994, most illegal immigrants are 14 does this oversight indicate that the south african government is not giving immigration the attention it deserves? 15 the editor (2012) reports that diego iturralde, the chief director of demographic analysis at statistics south africa, thinks this number is not sensationally under-reported despite individuals hesitating to state where they were born under suspicion that statistics south africa will pass such information to the department of home affairs, the south african police service, or the south african revenue service. in this newspaper article, it is not clear where he got the figure of 2.2 million immigrants. he affirms that migration is a tricky subject and statistics south africa cannot state that they have a firm hand on it. 16 kabwe-segatti (2008) has also provided similar but more detailed tables and figures on migration by race. per cent number per cent number per cent number eastern cape 98.4 6 334 585 0.9 57 938 0.7 45 063 6 437 586 free state 97.8 2 604 492 1.9 50 599 0.3 7 989 2 663 080 gauteng 91.9 10 984 248 7.1 848 620 1.0 119 524 11 952 392 kwazulu_natal 98.1 9 921 812 1.1 111 254 0.8 80 912 10 113 978 limpopo 96.9 5 157 148 2.6 138 375 0.5 26 611 5 322 134 mpumalanga 96.8 3 856 096 2.6 103 573 0.6 23 901 3 983 570 north west 95.9 3 298 672 3.5 120 390 0.6 20 638 3 439 700 northern cape 98.8 1 111 802 0.9 10 128 0.3 3 376 1 125 306 western cape 96.0 5 424 444 3.2 180 815 0.8 45 204 5 650 462 total 48 693 299 1 621 691 373 218 50 688 208 souce: statistics south africa (2012) notes: 1 2 because of rounding off these proportions differ slightly from those provided in statistics south africa (2012) the table excludes cases where the province was unspecified or unknown. without clarifying, statistics south africa (2012) state that they obtained this information from the household questionnaire [a]. citizens non-citizens unspecified total residents province of usual residence wotela & letsiri 104 black africans (segatti, 2011) — with about 60 per cent coming from neighbouring countries especially lesotho, mozambique, swaziland, and zimbabwe.17 table 2: number of immigrants into south africa by population group, 2001 population census supposed impact of illegal immigration there are certainly several positive impacts that accompany legal immigration—for example, ellis (2008) as well as johnson, altbeker, and bernstein (2010) point out how skilled immigrants have filled scarce-skills sectors as well as open businesses and employ south africans. however, since our focus is on illegal immigration, we limit our discussion to the negative impacts of illegal immigration. first, illegal immigration is a threat to governance and security (solomon, 2003; zolberg, 2006).18 second, since the number of illegal immigrants is unknown, it is impossible to plan19 for service delivery20 (landau & singh, 2008). du toit & others (2002) point out that effective and efficient service delivery depends on accurate knowledge of intended recipients. if figures for intended recipient are unknown, the quality of services is compromised. undersupply of a public service leads to ineffectiveness while its oversupply leads to inefficiency (kanyenze, 2004). this is probably — as implied by hill (1990) and cleland (1996) — why most countries with good information systems — for example, scandinavian countries as well as mauritius — can account for almost all their intended recipients and, therefore, do not have acute service delivery problems. the perception is that illegal immigrants in south africa compete with locals for jobs and consume public goods and services, therefore, “ … frustrating state efforts to regulate health, education, and housing sectors” (vigneswaran, 2008: 135). as polzer (2010) has argued, the effects may be negligible at national and probably provincial level but they are quite notable at district and municipality level.21 zolberg (2006: 244) argues that “despite changing conditions, the presence of immigrants and the prospect of further immigration will continue 17 the listing here is in alphabetical order and not an ordinal ranking. 18 for example, the illegal cigarette trade between south africa and zimbabwe (rees, 2013). 19 bryan (2004) has observed that demographic and socio-economic parameters—such as size as well as age and sex composition—of an entire population in a defined region at a specific time, and their changes thereof, are useful for accurate development planning, implementation, and evaluation. 20 there is a need for a research study to establish the proportion of service delivery problems that are due to unaccounted for individuals including illegal immigrants. 21 landau and singh (2008) as well as isike (2012) have discussed the effects of immigration into south africa at sub-national level in more detail. population group per cent number per cent number per cent number asians 2.9 63 720 2.9 125 664 2.7 150 087 blacks 40.5 894 000 67.9 2 909 948 67.7 3 754 379 coloured 10.4 228 980 7.7 331 321 9.0 500 460 whites 46.3 1 023 420 21.5 921 514 20.5 1 136 722 total 100.0 2 210 120 100.0 4 288 447 100.0 5 541 648 source: statistics south africa (2004) 1975 1980 1992 1996 1996 2001 international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. 105 to stimulate xenophobic or at least exclusionary sentiments …” similarly, the human science research council (2008) and klotz (2012) have attributed xenophobic or more specifically afrophobia — that is, violence directed at non south africans living in south africa — attacks22 leading to destruction of property and life to the growing number of illegal immigrants jostling for limited resources and services with south africans. they take the law in their hands because they think the south african government is not managing illegal immigration effectively — landau & singh (2008) refer to this as privatisation of violence. the foregoing shows that despite poor data and methodological drawbacks, there are a notable number of illegal immigrants in south africa. we also establish that these unaccounted for individuals pose negative impacts especially at subnational level. the next section discusses movements that led to this inflow and thereafter we review some frameworks that can explain these movements. international movements into south africa and post-apartheid dispensations there are four migration streams that have created a blended society — and, therefore, strong migration networks that might have sparked illegal immigration into south africa. figure 3 illustrates three sets of immigration streams into south africa from neighbouring countries and an emigration out of south africa into neighbouring countries. figure 3: immigration into south africa from neighbouring countries and emigration out of south africa into neighbouring countries the first migration stream is forced migrant labour (maharaj, 2004). exceptional to the general rule where labour voluntarily drifts towards greener pastures, it is south africa that sparked labour immigration from present-day angola, botswana, lesotho, malawi, mozambique, namibia, swaziland, zambia, and zimbabwe (jones, 1990). to avoid wage increases due to competition for scarce local labour and effective labour unions, the south african chamber of mines instituted a carefully crafted policy to recruit labour from neighbouring countries (wilson, 1972). as a follow-up to this policy, the transvaal government and the portuguese jointly created the witwatersrand native labour association (wenela) in 1897. the wenela centres stationed in neighbouring countries were recruitment vehicles of labour destined for south african gold mines and 22 regardless, the south african municipal workers’ union (2012) think that illegal immigrants find themselves in south africa “… to escape the ravages and poverty of their own countries”, the union does not believe that blaming and attacking foreign nationals is the answer to poor service delivery. angola botswana lesotho malawi mozambique namibia swaziland zambia zimbabwe south a frica immigration due to wenela labour importation emigration due to the struggle against minority rule immigration due to a shortage of skilled workers immigration of refugees and asylum seekers wotela & letsiri 106 farms (kanyenze, 2004). naturally, human beings, including africans, find it hard to move from their comfort zones. with this in mind, the association and the respective host governments used coercion to push them out of their societies—for example, they imposed hut or poll tax on every adult male and in some cases they also expropriated land from them. with time as networks of individuals coming from the same regions grew, migration to south africa became self-driving. by 1974, labour migrants in south africa had peaked at a cumulative figure of 400,000 (griffiths, 1987). it is these foreign nationals that created an initial migration network in south africa. second, the struggle against colonial and then minority rule, which ended in 1994, sparked a wave of emigrations that created thousands of south african refugees (kliot, 1987). politically independent neighbouring countries — angola, botswana, lesotho, mozambique, swaziland, tanzania, zambia, and zimbabwe — were more than willing to host freedom fighters — more prominently, the african national congress (anc), black consciousness movement (bcm), pan africanist congress (pac), and the united democratic front (udf) — and ordinary south africans fleeing hostilities due to countermeasures enacted by the colonial and the minority-rule governments to stop movements that advocated for majority-rule. these emigrations peaked between 1960s through to the 1990s, especially after the 1976 student uprising in soweto (kliot, 1987). more specifically, suttner (2003) has described how most members of the african national congress (anc) military and security wing left the country when the party was banned by the apartheid government in 1961. at first, most anc members would be out of the country for months before coming back to train others. however, with the top leadership arrested, many exiles23 had to camp out of the country for long periods until the party was unbanned in 1990. further, suttner (2003) points out that life in exile was extremely difficult for several reasons — such as leaving loved ones behind, crossing hostile regions, as well as facing arrest and interrogation. therefore, the exiles sought help from the locals who in some cases risked their lives to provide for and protect the comrades. as a result, allegiances24 between south africans and non-south africans grew and further strengthened migration networks created by the witwatersrand native labour association (wenela) forced labour immigration. third, the south african government’s deliberate policy to encourage immigration of skilled workers to fill the scarce-skills sectors (kabwe-segatti & landau, 2008)25 has attracted skilled economic immigrants since the late 1980s — with most of them coming from the southern african development community (sadc). brain draining its neighbouring countries only started to tap off in the mid-1990s — after the aliens control act (aca) of 1991 meant to control, if not prevent, immigration became effective (crush & williams, 2005).26 these 23 the exact number of african national congress (anc) comrades who were in exile remains unknown. 24 it is believed that some comrades still travel and visit families they lived with during their exile days. it is also possible that some comrades have facilitated for the non-south african families they lived with to come and stay in south africa. 25 the south african department of labour’s description and list of scarce skills is posted and constantly updated on their website: https://www.labour.gov.za/downloads/documents/useful-documents/skillsdevelopment-act/scarce%20skills%20pamphlet_pamphlet.pdf 26 crush & williams (2005: 7) have argued that even if the post-apartheid immigration act was designed to facilitate immigration of skilled personnel, “ … the more general immigration policy of the post-apartheid government … [is] … restrictive and anti-immigrationist … [to allow for] … nation-building, job protection for south africans, and rampant intolerance of outsiders”. international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. 107 immigrants might seem the group that formed a network of professionals and, therefore, were not exactly the kind that would spark illegal immigration. to the contrary, the strong extended family arrangements of africans meant that these individuals had the propensity to attract a family member or a friend that fits the description of an illegal immigrant in south africa. fourth, since signing almost all international treaties on hosting refugees and asylum seekers, south africa has received political and economic refugees from countries affected by postindependence civil conflicts and misplaced economic policies (kabwe-segatti, 2008) — such as angola, eritrea, mozambique, burundi, rwanda, somalia, the sudan, and zimbabwe. although refugees and asylum seekers started arriving during the apartheid regime, their immigration became more pronounced after 1994. according to kabwe-segatti (2008: 57), during the 1980s, “… south africa might have hosted … over 300 000 mozambican refugees” fleeing war in their country. this massive inflow has only been surpassed by that of zimbabweans whose “… acknowledgement as refugees is [still] problematic …” (kabwesegatti, 2008: 63). further, a year after ushering in the african national congress, the government relaxed—that is, amended section 55 of the 1991 aliens control amendment act—several immigration measures “… as evidence of south african good will within the wider framework of its incorporation into the south african development community … ” (kabwe-segatti, 2008: 97). relaxing immigration measures implied free movements within the southern african region (vigneswaran, 2008). there is also evidence that some south african cities have incorporated skilled refugees and asylum seekers into their development outlook and networks (landau & singh, 2008). further, like the united states of america — see for example, sarabia (2012) — the south african government has provided two major amnesties and are planning another one. first, between 1997 and 2000, the cabinet offered permanent residence to undocumented mozambicans who entered south africa during the 1980 civil war as well as to citizens of southern african development community (sadc) who entered illegally before 1990 (klotz, 1997; crush & williams, 2005). second, in 2008, the government suspended the deportation of zimbabwean illegal immigrants and legalised their stay in south africa (department of national treasury, 2012). this dispensation reduced deportations from about one quarter of a million per year to less than a hundred thousand annually. surprisingly, the department of home affairs is not aiming to attain this level of deportations anytime soon because they only plan to deport up to eighty-five thousand illegal immigrants by 2015. lastly, they are also intending to extend the amnesty they offered to the zimbabweans to other sadc nationals (department of national treasury, 2011). exaplanatory frameworks for international movements several textbooks, reports, and journal articles — for example, massey and others (1993), thieme (2006) as well as de haas (2008) — have summarised several migration frameworks that we can use to explain the south african migration streams and the conditions under which they have occurred. some frameworks explain how migration starts while others explain the conditions under which migration perpetuates (thieme, 2006). further, like in most social sciences, demographers have agreed that there is no single framework that can explain migration comprehensively because the reasons why human beings initiate and continue to migrate are multifaceted and intertwined. besides, the explanatory power of some frameworks is only effective at a particular threshold of a migratory flow and hence their importance varies with time as well as economic and social development. therefore, to wotela & letsiri 108 explain the south african migration history we suggest invoking all relevant strands of different migration explanatory frameworks. here, we restrict our discussion to those that are relevant. one framework that stands out is the “pull and push” theory of migration proposed by lee (1966). solomon (2003) has argued that although some scholars — for example, de haas (2008, 2011) — have questioned the explanatory power of this framework, because it is descriptive rather than analytical, it does explain that the gravity of illegal immigration into south africa is due to push rather than pull factors. pull factors are attributes that attract people to move to societies pulling them while push factors are attributes that force people to leave their current societies to elsewhere. the third migration stream — immigration into south africa due to shortage of skilled workers — is the only immigration explained by pull factors. south africa has an economic and social environment that challenges and rewards skilled and professional personnel. most, not all, of these immigrants qualify for and have legal documentation that allows them entry and stay in south africa (gebrewold, 2007). these individuals usually have an option to go back home or another country if their stay in south africa does not materialise — an aspect that the decision theory of migration explains in more detail (beshers, 1967; sell & dejong, 1978). the remaining three streams — including emigration due to the struggle against minority rule—are all explained by push factors. the witwatersrand native labour association (wenela) created push conditions to get labour in neighbouring countries to migrate to south africa. refugees and asylum seekers come to south africa to escape the political and economic wrath of their countries. further, although not as directly, solomon (2003) has argued with examples, that most illegal immigrants find themselves in south africa because the economic and social setup of their respective countries pushes them out. they are more comfortable being in south africa illegally than in their countries legally because they are escaping the harsh realities of life in their home countries. inferring from zolberg (2006: 239), immigration, both legal and illegal, is likely to continue because the “ … gap in economic conditions … [between south africa and its neighbours] … is unlikely to be narrowed in the foreseeable future, [therefore] rational human beings will continue … [coming to south africa] … to seek to improve their condition … even at a high cost”. further, the pull and push migration explanatory framework nests other frameworks. for example, the world systems theory explains the economic and social position of south africa relative to its neighbours. the world market structure has developed and expanded unequally among countries leaving some countries and regions more wealthier than others (wallerstein, 1974). similarly, by positing that migration is driven by pull factors created by labour market segmentation (piore, 1979), the dual labour market theory does explain the south african legal immigration. it is also probable that pre-colonial migrations have facilitated postcolonial and post-apartheid migrations within the southern african region. the unified migration systems theory captures this aspect (kritz, lim & zlotnik, 1992) by pointing out that migrations mainly occur between regions connected historically, culturally, politically, and economically. at an individual level, the decision theory of migration maintains that people move because individuals want to maximise their benefit (beshers, 1967). lastly and more importantly, the migration networks framework posits that as people migrate and settle in another region, they reduce the next person’s financial and emotional cost of migrating (massey et al., 1993). therefore, “migration becomes self-perpetuating because migration itself creates the social structure to sustain [itself]” (massey, 1990: 8). international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. 109 intuitively, every legal or illegal immigrant in south africa has a potential to facilitate another’s immigration into the country. this might explain why correcting this problem by legalising or documenting illegal immigrants actually exacerbates the dilemma.27 therefore, unless managed, migration networks may impede efforts to effectively deter illegal immigration. we should remember that strong migration networks are more likely in africa because the culture of this continent is still centred on extended family arrangements. although solomon (2003) does not rank the core attributes contributing to international movements in southern africa, his discussion points to cultural attributes being second after economic attributes — with the others being demographic, socio-political, and environmental. every ethnic group in this part of africa has relatives on the other side of the border because of the artificial manner in which the berlin conference decided on the african international boundaries. for example, the ndebele of zimbabwe as well as the ngoni of zambia are historical relatives of the zulu of south africa. similarly, the barotse people of western zambia speak a similar language with the basotho of lesotho and south africa. these historical, cultural, and linguistic links strengthen migration networks across international borders in this region. in sum, we can attribute the initiation of south african immigration to the pull and largely the push factors. we can also attribute its perpetuation to well-established migratory networks. the political, economic, and social arrangements in sending countries as well as migration social networks in south africa are rendering enforcement measures ineffective. kollapen & others (1999) have argued that enforcement — that is, capture, detention, and deportation—actually increases the determination of illegal immigrants to return to south africa. further, enforcement promotes human rights abuse among law enforcement officials (polzer, 2010). regardless, the south african government has to enact measures to deter illegal immigration effectively — to avert among other problems xenophobic or “afrophobic” violence. in the next section we discuss findings from interviewing officials that manage illegal immigration to confirm some facts arising from the review thus far. research design and methods given the nature of the enquiry, we opted for a qualitative research strategy and a crosssectional design described in bryman (2012). further, the study employed a semi-structured interview schedule comprising twelve open-ended questions. we purposively targeted officials in three institutions — the department of home affairs, the south african police service, and the south african human rights commission — that have a key role in governing and managing immigration into south africa (the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996; polzer, 2010). although this was not our target population, we also interviewed two detained illegal immigrants to compare and contrast their views with those of the officials.28 before each interview — that took place between 4th and 24th august 2011 — we informed the respondents about the research and their right of not taking part and not answering questions they are not comfortable with. we assured them that we will never reveal their identities and encouraged them to respond freely. all the six respondents took part in the 27 though dated, eisenstadt (1954) points out that in 1948 the newly formed state of israel faced a similar dilemma when it attempted to integrate or absorb immigrants. 28 we only asked the two detained illegal immigrants the six questions of the twelve on the interview schedule. wotela & letsiri 110 study although some did not answer all the questions. descriptively, the respondents included a department of home affairs senior official in his mid-forties who has served the department for 15 years and another officer in his late thirties who has served for 8 years. the other was a colonel in his early fifties who had served the south african police service for 22 years. the last official was an experienced 50 year old commissioner with the south african human rights commission. one of the two detained illegal immigrants was a 34 years old male who had been in detention for 8 months and the other was a 32-year old female who had been in detention for three weeks. the latter had been detained twice before for durations lasting four and two months, respectively.29 during our visit to lindela repatriation centre,30 we also got a general description of an illegal immigrant in south africa. most illegal immigrants are physically fit young males of working age (20-40). this is probably because as the south african police service official had remarked, “illegal immigration is risky business and only physically fit males take on such a risk”. however, the detained female illegal immigrant observes that the proportion of “female illegal immigrants [is on the increase] because we [females] also have to strive to survive”. because of proximity, most illegal immigrants come from neighbouring countries other than namibia and botswana.31 however, neither the officials nor the detained immigrants could pinpoint countries that send the most illegal immigrants into south africa. after the interviews, we transcribed the responses and analysed the transcripts independently for face and content validity as suggested by struwig & stead (2001). thereafter, we compared our findings for common themes, namely, “what initiates migrations in contemporary southern african countries”, “why is south africa the ideal choice of destination for illegal immigrants”, as well as “what perpetuates illegal immigration into south africa”. a major limitation of this study is the few interviews conducted due to accessibility and resource constraints. however, we supplemented these interviews with a detailed literature review of academic material and official reports. after reviewing other past studies that have used a similar approach but with more resources — for example, solomon (2003) — we observe that they also generated similar findings. findings and discussion official respondents attribute immigration into south africa to favourable economic conditions that enable individuals to create wealth—an observation that resonates with the dual labour market theory that suggests that migration is driven by pull factors created by labour market segmentation (piore, 1979). such immigrants are usually not convinced that their governments are creating conditions that favour economic growth and social development. however, as the human rights commissioner remarked, “this band of 29 this is almost 1 year 2 months at an average cost of between zar36 , 500 (mataboge, 2013) and zar69 , 000 per year — the latter estimate came from a senior official of a cape town-based judicial inspectorate of prisons (editor, 2008). 30 since illegal immigrants should not be detained in ordinary prison facilities, the south african department of home affairs holds them at this facility. 31 diego iturralde, the chief director of demographic analysis at statistics south africa, made a similar description, stating that “the majority [of migrants] tend to be younger people with skills generally not at the level of a professional person. they are mostly male, with a significant proportion being female. they are mostly from african countries and mainly self-supporting entrepreneurial types” (editor, 2012). international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. 111 immigrants come to south africa voluntarily driven by personal ambitions” —an observation captured by the decision theory of migration (beshers, 1967) that maintains that people move because individuals want to maximise their benefit. this group is not directly the focus of this paper because these immigrants have resources and qualifications to obtain documents that allow them to remain in south africa legally. besides, they are not actually pushed out of their countries but rather they are pulled to south africa. neither the officials nor the detained immigrants could pinpoint the nationality of most illegal immigrants in south africa. however, because of proximity, most illegal immigrants come from neighbouring countries other than namibia and botswana.32 the officials as well as the detained illegal migrants state that poverty resulting from economic and social insecurity as well as political and cultural conflict in some extreme cases is what compels them to migrate from their respective countries—an aspect captured by the push component of lee’s (1966) pull and push theory. for example, one of the detained immigrants had this to say, “back home i spent days without seeing … food and did not know where i could find means to survive”. the other states that she would not have migrated to south africa if she had an alternative —“this is the only way i can support my family back home”.33 to concur, the south african police service official remarked that what else other than starvation would explain why “illegal immigrants enter south africa without fear of conviction”. this finding points to earlier reports and arguments that an unfavourable economic and social landscape of sending countries underlies the south african illegal immigration space (solomon, 2003; crush & williams, 2005; tati, 2008). this points to why the former department of home affairs minister, dr mangosuthu buthelezi, noted that it is almost impossible to effectively avert illegal immigration (vigneswaran, 2008). a prominent reason why south africa is the illegal immigrant’s destination of choice is that during the apartheid era their countries hosted many prominent figures that are in government today. more specifically, some immigrants see the political ties that south africans forged with citizens of their countries when they were in exile as a stamped passport into south africa. one of the two detained illegal immigrants observes that, “many south africans were ‘home’ in my country and benefited from the security that my country offered, so i don't understand how that is forgotten in such a short period”. as captured by the unified migration systems theory (kritz et al., 1992), migrations mainly occur between regions connected historically, culturally, politically, and economically. this probably explains why despite doing well in the region, illegal immigrants are not as prominent in botswana and namibia (campbell, 2007). lastly and more importantly, it is the deep-rooted migration networks that perpetuate illegal immigration into south africa. the two detained illegal immigrants observe, “that once in south africa, we [immigrants from a particular country] live in proximity with each other. we are in touch with our families back home and support them with monies we earn here.” 32 diego iturralde, the chief director of demographic analysis at statistics south africa, made a similar description, stating that “the majority [of migrants] tend to be younger people with skills generally not at the level of a professional person. they are mostly male, with a significant proportion being female. they are mostly from african countries and mainly self-supporting entrepreneurial types” (editor, 2012b). 33 this is almost what yusuf roble, a cape town immigrant, is reported to have said “i’m told there are many criminals in south africa, but i will endure them. it is better than being killed by insurgents in mogadishu” (isilow, n.d.). wotela & letsiri 112 further, they state that “when our earnings here [in south africa] are inadequate to maintain our ‘home’ (that is, households in their respective countries), we invite our partners and children to our ‘new found home’ and find them jobs as well”. both these observations are captured in the migration networks framework (massey, 1990; massey et al., 1993) that posit that migration becomes self-perpetuating when the cost of moving is reduced by the previous migrants. conclusion and recommendations this article set out to explain and then interpret why illegal immigrants make south africa their ideal choice of destination. to do this, the research reviewed the migration history of south africa to understand its context and extent. thereafter, we reviewed the established explanatory frameworks to place the immigration history of south africa in a theoretical perspective. lastly, we interviewed officials managing illegal immigration to confirm and understand issues arising from literature. in conclusion, we should point out that distinguishing between legal and illegal immigrants in south africa is important.34 the former are mostly white-collar individuals pulled to south africa to advance their education and career. however, the latter are mostly individuals in non-white-collar occupations pushed out of their respective countries to find means of subsistence in south africa’s construction, service, and commercial farming industries (crush & williams, 2005) as well as small informal enterprises. the pressure to come and remain in south africa illegally is so great that they hardly mind the consequences. it is likely that the south african police service official made the “starvation remark” having witnessed the despair illegal immigrants present when arrested. the reviews and interviews show that several features define the south african illegal immigration landscape. largely, we establish that push factors and well-established migratory networks explain contemporary illegal immigration into south africa. from the work of polzer (2003), suttner (2003), kanyenze (2004), maharaj (2004), as well as crush & williams (2005) — we conclude that foreign non-skilled labour recruitment, the south african freedom fighters exile programme, immigration of skilled professionals, and massive hosting of refugees and asylum seekers sparked notable immigration. to this, we should add the amnesties the current south african government has offered to some illegal immigrants. further — as suggested by migration networks and cumulative causation frameworks (massey, 1990) — illegal immigration into south africa has since become stable and acquired a structure due to strong extended family arrangements of most africans.35 sociologists have shown that it is strong kinship networks that generate further immigration because they cut the movement and emotional cost of the next migrant (zolberg, 2006). similarly, most studies—for example, del rey poveda (2007) — have found that international migration is mostly available to families that have the means to migrate. this means, due to established international migratory networks, illegal immigration into south africa will 34 on this front, there is a need to determine an accurate estimate of illegal immigrants in south africa. we can use polzer’s (2010) approach or derive an estimate based on the number of legal immigrants. the latter, needs a theory that links legal to illegal immigrants to calculate the proportion of illegal immigrants per legal immigrant. this might give us a working figure at national level which unfortunately may not be helpful at subnational level. 35 similarly, there is a need for a research to establish the strength and role of migration networks in perpetuating immigration into south africa. international movements, post-apartheid dispensations and illegal immigration td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 99-117. 113 continue even after there is no push in sending countries and probably no pull in south africa. this is why when the earnings of immigrants cannot maintain two households (here and their country of citizenship), they do not return to their countries—instead, they invite their family members to south africa and find them employment. in sum, while the effects of illegal immigration are within south africa, the causes of the problem are largely outside its borders. therefore, to avert illegal immigration, the south african government needs interventions beyond conventional arrangements. we, recommend a “four-legged” stool,36 that is, [1] to commit to serious and effective enforcement so that the government can [2] firmly but fairly deal with illegal immigrants who are already in south africa and [3] manage family networks of illegal (and legal) immigrants residing in south africa rather than legalise or document illegal immigrants. while these humane interventions are welcome, the department of home affairs should control for the ripple effects of family networks—that is, as soon as they legalise an illegal immigrant, she or he attracts another immigrant, illegal or legal. therefore, as a counter, the government should control, if not cut, migration networks within and outside south africa. lastly and more importantly [4], to deter potential illegal immigrants from coming to south africa through encouraging, rewarding, and protecting south african private entrepreneurs that provide employment and training to unemployed low-skilled individuals residing in countries with the most illegal immigrants in south africa. the last stool implies employing initiatives such as the expanded public works programme (epwp) to encourage, reward, and protect south african private entrepreneurs that create employment outside the border. acknowledgements we are grateful to professor anthoni van nieuwkerk and dr manamela matshabaphala for the helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article and more so dr mark orkin and the reviewers for helping us to fine-tune and reconcile our argument and write-up. references beck, r. b. 2014. the history of south africa. santa barbara: greenwood. beshers, j. m. 1967. migration. in beshers, j.m. 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xenophobia is an embarrassment to the new south african government, which is considered the leader of african unity, democracy, good governance and development by some governments in the world. south african and african political leaders have remained indifferent and they have not as yet developed and implemented policies and strategies to address the massacre of africans in their own continent, hampering prospects of realising the promise of the new partnership for africa’s development (nepad). this article emphasises a public administration perspective on managing and preventing xenophobia through national and pan-african policies and strategies. it uses migration theory to review south africa’s migration and anti-xenophobia policies and strategies. through literature review and interviews with the nepad agency, the silence of the continental initiative on xenophobia was confirmed, prompting the need to review the european union (eu) best practice. the article acknowledges the importance of existing anti-xenophobia strategies in south africa and advocates for their revival. it also proposes the development of a pan-african framework and structure to deal with racism and xenophobia at the nepad continental level. keywords: xenophobia, afrophobia, migration, nepad, africa, south africa introduction and background in 2001, south africa hosted the world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance which ended with a declaration condemning and proposing the fight against such social ills. it is evident that south africa was chosen to host the conference because of its history, not only of the racial domination during apartheid, but also the scourge of attacks against foreigners (mostly africans), which were experienced since 1994 portraying an image of a xenophobic nation. policies and strategies to directly curb such attacks exist but are not fully implemented and monitored. xenophobia has a negative impact on the success of the african union (au)’s new partnership for africa’s development (nepad), which is a pledge by african leaders to promote unity and continental development, inclusive of economic growth and respect for human rights and democracy. section 51 of nepad stipulates two conditions for its success: “ownership” of nepad by africans and their “unity in diversity”. evidently, unity cannot coexist with xenophobia. in his statement on the april 2015 xenophobic violence in south africa, the nepad agency chief executive officer (ceo), dr ibrahim mayaki, emphasised unity of africans. he declared that the recent spate of violence, looting and 1 department of public administration & management, university of south africa, p.o. box 392, unisa, 0003, pretoria, south africa, e-mail: mbeckzp@unisa.ac.za mbecke 72 attacks on foreigners is a violation of human rights, life and dignity as well as a betrayal of the core values and principles of pan-africanism and “ubuntu” (hospitality and solidarity) (cited in ajayi, 2015). it is however unfortunate that nepad has no official body, policies or strategies to address racism and xenophobia. this was confirmed by professor mzobanzi mboya, the special adviser to nepad ceo (telephonic conversation, 26/08/2015). most research on xenophobia focusses mainly on its causes and consequences than on management, prevention and control policies and strategies at national and continental scales. this article emphasises the public administration research perspective for two reasons. firstly, it facilitates the understanding of the incidence of xenophobia in south africa. the first argument is therefore that xenophobia is rife in south africa and that although there have been opportunities and potential for south africa to address xenophobia, existing policies have not been implemented and existing intervention strategies were abandoned. secondly, the au through nepad has no policies and strategies to address xenophobia at the continent scale. the second argument is that xenophobia is a threat to the unity and development of africa. yet, the au (via nepad) has not prioritised measures for addressing xenophobia through a specialised pan-african body nor developed antixenophobia policies and strategies, besides isolated recommendations from the african peer review mechanism (aprm). the two arguments prompted two key recommendations. in the case of south africa, the existing policies and strategies such as the roll back xenophobia (rbx) campaign (braamfontein statement) and the subsequent national plan of action against racism and xenophobia should be implemented in full. for the au, the european commission best practice on racism and tolerance (ecri) could be used to inform, not only the design of a pan-african anti-racism and xenophobia body, but also to strengthen policies and strategies designed for addressing racism and xenophobia, thereby fostering unity and development of africa. methodology the research from which this article is drawn emphasised the need for a public administration perspective on addressing xenophobia through national and pan-african policies and strategies. it concurs with box (2005) that public administration research analyses how public institutions can influence a better future. the research used a migration theory through qualitative social science methodology. for castles (2012: 20), migration theory is concerned with the social consequences of trans-national or cross-border human movements. social science research methodology not only assessed the incidences of xenophobia in south africa but acknowledged the link between xenophobia and africa’s underdevelopment. social science research methodology facilitated suggestions on antixenophobia policies and strategies in order to foster unity for the development of africa. the research adopted the idea of castles (2012: 8) that social enquiry should be relevant to the pressing issues facing individuals and groups in society, especially in this time whereby a solution to xenophobia seems dubious and does not appear to be on the agenda of the south african or african political leaders. theoretical framework three themes justify the theoretical framework adopted for this article. they are social change, identity and diversity as well as the impact of citizenship education, civic and political culture. anti-afrophobia policy shortfall td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 71-82. 73 social change research and development social change research involves assessing the long-term consequences of xenophobia as a particular type of social change (silbereisen & chen, 2010). the article refers to social change as a transition from hospitality and solidarity (“ubuntu”) to hostile and negative values (xenophobia) as direct consequences of movement of people across borders. reinstating the principles of hospitality and solidarity is therefore crucial. for inglehart & welzel (2005:48), socio-economic development brings pervasive cultural changes in people. xenophobia is then an expression of unjustified victimisation attitudes by some poor south africans to vindicate the negative impact of the presence of african immigrants. identity and diversity xenophobia in south africa is illustrative of a struggle of the affirmation of identity. although the management of local identities within a diversified society is still unachieved, accommodating foreign africans has been a dilemma of black communities in south africa. this dilemma describes a phenomenon that ibanez & saenz (2006: 15) refer to as intercultural communication. policy on citizenship education, civic and political culture inglehart & welzel (2005: 245) argue that a political system is largely determined by political attitudes and value-orientations of its people. mnyaka (2003) is critical of the importance of citizenship education, civic and political culture in curbing xenophobia in south africa. the cultural dimension of social change on human development for this article questions the value change, self-expression values and people’s increasing priority to act according to their choices (inglehart & welzel, 2005: 2). the authors argue that cultural tradition are remarkably enduring and that they shape the political and economic behaviour of the society (inglehart & welzel, 2005:18-19). major changes in cultural values at the individual level are reflected in changes at the societal level, according to inglehart & welzel (2005:39). research methods and process a qualitative methodology included the review of the literature, policies and strategies as the principal data collection technique. similarly, the analysis of the literature, policies and strategies was the primary data analysis and interpretation technique for the research. existing policies, strategies and best practice on anti-xenophobia were considered for investigation. telephonic interviews were conducted with professor mzombazi mboya, the adviser to the nepad ceo, on the role of nepad in addressing racism and xenophobia. four migration research steps adapted from castles (2012:14) facilitated the research reported in this article. the first step outlined the issue to be studied and its importance by reviewing the negative impact of xenophobia. the second step consisted of the review and analysis of literature, policies and strategies on xenophobia as core methodology to highlight how south africa has minimised the incidence of xenophobia and deserted its antixenophobia policies and strategies. the research also observed that nepad has no antiracism and xenophobia policies besides few unbinding recommendations through the aprm. the third and fourth steps analysed and reconsidered existing policies and strategies for south africa and recommended a pan-african body, policies and strategies (informed by mbecke 74 international best practice) to address racism and xenophobia as a prerequisite for africa’s unity and development. xenophobia in south africa codified the ongoing incidences of violent attacks against and killings of africans, the looting and destruction of property are not recent in south africa. this section explains xenophobia (“afrophobia” in the case of south africa) and briefly describes its incidences, consequences and reasons for its persistence. for hatting (2008), the ugly head of xenophobia has been present in south africa since the 1990s. meda (2014:72) espouses the same argument that the dislike of foreigners in south africa developed from the 1990s and spiralled in may 2008. violent xenophobia has thus become a regular feature of south african life, according to crush & ramachandran (2014). tracing the first and providing the account of all incidences of xenophobia in south africa are beyond the scope of this research. however, the 2007 south africa aprm report already emphasised the “high levels of xenophobic tendencies, especially against foreigners from other african countries” (aprm, 2007: 373). what is “xenophobia?” etymologically, the term xenophobia originates from two greek words: xenos (meaning “foreigner” or “stranger”) and phobos (meaning “fear”) translating to “the fear of foreigners or strangers”. for shabangu & mbecke (2008), xenophobia is an unreasonable fear, distrust or hatred of foreigners or strangers perceived as different by a certain population group. they refer to two main elements influencing xenophobia: the presence of a population group considered not part of the society and the proximity to and direct social interaction with noncitizens that impacts citizens’ negative attitudes which elicit and sustain hostilities such as mass expulsion, killings and looting as it has been the case in south africa. “afrophobia” xenophobic attacks in south africa target mostly africans, thus the use of the term “afrophobia” to mean the dislike or fear of africans by south africans. for chen (2015), it is sad that south african nationals are welcomed in other african countries yet the same courtesy is not being afforded to other foreign africans in south africa. the 2007 aprm also highlights high levels of xenophobia against africans in south africa. incidences and consequences of afrophobia crush & ramachandran (2014: 1) explain the incidence of xenophobia in south africa, especially the events of may 2008 through three general categories. “xenophobia denialism” whereby the denialists reject the idea that xenophobia plays any role in violence against african immigrants. the then president thabo mbeki was a denialist. he once stated that he had never met a xenophobic south african and anyone who called south africans xenophobic was themselves guilty of xenophobia (crush & ramachandran, 2014: 8). the “xenophobia minimalism” meant that the minimalists argue that although xenophobia might exist, it is an epiphenomenon which does not get at the root causes of violence. the “xenophobia realism” describes the realists who suggest that xenophobia is a pervasive phenomenon throughout south africa and that there is a predisposition to resort to violence on the part of a considerable number of south africans. anti-afrophobia policy shortfall td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 71-82. 75 crush & ramachandran (2014: 6) provide a good brief account of xenophobia incidences in south africa. they argue that the 2008 attacks were coordinated actions by mobs of south africans targeting migrants, their properties and causing deaths, injuries and widespread destruction, including the burning alive of a mozambican man. the estimations of the consequences of the 2008 afrophobia are tragic; and, they include: 100 000 persons displaced, 30 000 residential properties destroyed, over 600 people seriously injured and over 60 people murdered. after may 2008, recurring aggressions against african immigrants continued: some 3 000 zimbabweans were forcibly displaced from de doorns in the western cape in 2009; in 2012, 238 incidents were recorded by the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr), including 120 deaths and 7 500 persons displaced; an estimated 120 somali and 50 bangladeshi shopkeepers killed in townships; 62 migrants murdered during the first six months of 2013 and around 130 separate episodes of attacks reported. the above account depicts the barbaric incidences of xenophobia in south africa and its tragic consequences that need to be stopped. causes of afrophobia? the causes of afrophobia are based on perceptions and myths that need to be addressed. mcdonald, zinyama, gay & de vletter (1998) argue that the perceptions of south africans on the causes of migration to south africa are more myths than realities, resulting in afrophobia. the authors cite myths such as: “every poor and desperate person on the african continent wants to get into south africa”; and, “other africans flood to south africa to find work or to use health and other social services”. maharaj (2002) argues that xenophobic tendency stigmatises immigrants from other african countries as criminals and people who undermine economic development and take jobs from locals. for shabangu & mbecke (2008), many theories as well as the perception held by some poor, black local residents that black african foreigners compete with them for employment and living space and contribute to the high rate of crime in south africa explain the main cause of violence and crime against foreign africans. mnyaka (2003) and mpofu-chimbga (2013) also refer to such unfounded causes as contributing to xenophobia. mpofu-chimbga (2013: 22) highlights the strong link between the characteristics of apartheid and issues that seem to lead people to be xenophobic. but these parameters are not explored in this article. why afrophobia persists? three main reasons contribute to the persistence of afrophobia in south africa and should be reversed: the non-implementation of policies and strategies addressing xenophobia; the role of the media; and, the absence of citizenship education, civic and political culture. south africa hosted the world conference against racism and xenophobia in 2001; and, as a un member, it has acceded to and ratified most international laws that emphasise human rights, including the rights of migrants. the national legislation consists of the constitution as well as different laws and regulations respecting basic human rights. it is unfortunate that the rights of migrants are not respected in the implementation of the existing laws. similarly, strategies such as the roll back xenophobia and the national plan of action on racism and xenophobia exist, but were abandoned leaving the country with no viable option to address afrophobia. mbecke 76 some media play an important role in fuelling the incidences of afrophobia. exaggerated figures on immigration broadcast through media can only fuel the anger of some poor, unskilled and unemployed south africans. for palmary (2003), the fears that result in hostilities towards foreigners originate in a way from widespread perception that there are “floods” of illegal immigrants coming into south africa. the author refers to a televised statement by the then national commissioner of the police (jackie selebi) that there were 8 million illegal immigrants in south africa in 2002 and the then minister of home affairs who said that there were between 2.5 and 5 million illegal “aliens” in south africa, costing the state “billions of rand per year” in 1998 (palmary, 2002: 5). for crush (2001: 16), public attitudes have been fanned by highly emotional media images that portray south africa being “flooded” or “overrun” by undocumented migrants from the rest of africa. contrary to these exaggerations, gigaba (2015) quoted the 2011 census that there were only 2.2 million foreigners residing in south africa (approximately 4% of the population, compared to 12% in the uk and france, 20% in canada, and 27% in switzerland). he admitted that international migration is an area which is constantly beset by myth and distortion. the media has failed to educate south africans on immigration issues, on the rights of foreigners and on the myths and perceptions; and, the same is true for government. according to crush (2001: 17), a 1998 survey of human rights awareness conducted by the community agency for social enquiry (case) revealed that knowledge of the existence of the bill of rights in the constitution is low among the south african population. there are some initiatives that have been implemented for awareness but their impact is trivial, considering that they are punctuated only during the incidences of xenophobia. anti-xenophobia policies and strategies review south africa has no direct anti-xenophobia policies although it has a progressive legislation on numerous other issues (shabangu & mbecke, 2008). such a vacuum has resulted in challenges in addressing afrophobia. the au shares the same dilemma as it has no policies and strategies designed for addressing racism and xenophobia. this section assesses existing policies and strategies that could have assisted the south african government to address afrophobia. it also reviews international best on anti-racism, discrimination and xenophobia to inform the recommendations to the au. the universal declaration of human rights although not really framed as a direct anti-xenophobia policy, the universal declaration of human rights (undh) is an international tool that guarantees the basic rights of all individuals. proclaimed on 10 december 1948, the undh emphasises the recognition of the inherent dignity as well as equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. three articles of the undh are essential in dealing with xenophobia. article 13(1) stipulates that “everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state” and 13(2) that: “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. article 14(1): specifies that “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”. article 17(1) and (2) stipulates that “everyone has the right to own property alone and in association with others and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”. all these provisions are known to the south african government and are included in laws like the refugee act. however, they are not implemented, monitored and enforced anti-afrophobia policy shortfall td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 71-82. 77 with regard to dealing with afrophobia. for the au, there is no policy and strategy that has been developed at the nepad level to practically address racism and xenophobia. constitution of the republic of south africa the constitution guarantees basic rights and freedom to everyone. basic rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of movement, legal protection, police protection and access to services are however not afforded to many south africans let alone foreigners immigration act, 2002 the immigration act provides for the regulation of admissions of persons to, their residence in, and their departure from the republic; and, for matters connected therewith. the act ensures that push factors of illegal immigration may be addressed in cooperation with other departments and the foreign states concerned; that immigration control is performed within the highest applicable standards of human rights protection; and, importantly that xenophobia is prevented and countered both within government and civil society. the main complaints are that foreigners are not well treated by the department of home affairs itself and/or officials therein. the refugee act, 1998 the refugee act was enacted to give effect to relevant international legal instruments, such as the 1951 convention relating to status of refugees, the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees and the i969 organisation of african unity convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in africa. it provides for the reception of asylum seekers into south africa and it regulates applications for and recognition of refugee status. the act was supposed to facilitate the treatment of refugees in accordance with standards and principles of the international law. however, the experience of asylum seekers and refugee is not appreciated by the human rights activists and organisations. european commission against racism and intolerance (ecri): best practice ecri was established in 1993 as a mechanism consisting of measures to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance in europe in order to protect and promote human rights. it is a human rights body of the council of europe which monitors problems of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, intolerance and discrimination, along “race”, national/ethnic origin, colour, citizenship, religion and language divides. ecri promotes the creation and strengthening of bodies, development of standards, guidelines and recommendations in addressing all forms of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance in europe (ecri, 2006). it provides general policy recommendations and platforms for the exchange of good practices regarding racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance. the council of europe supports ecri in carrying out its work in co-operation with national authorities, institutions and civil society (ecri, 2006: 5). however, ecri cannot claim full success in curbing racism and xenophobia. yet, it is a good initiative that the au (nepad) can learn from in its strife to prevent and manage racism and xenophobia, thus promoting the unity and development of africa. conclusion and recommendations the literature on the causes, consequences and persistence of xenophobia is rich. however, the public administration-based approach on policies and strategies to address afrophobia in south africa and racism and xenophobia in africa is deficient. thus, this research suggests mbecke 78 that the constitution of south africa, the immigration act and the refugee act are important in promoting and sustaining the rights of migrants if effectively implemented. strategies such as the roll back xenophobia and the national plan of action are relevant and valid tools in addressing afrophobia in south africa. developing a pan-african body, policies and strategies against racism and xenophobia, including pragmatic recommendations on anti-racism and xenophobia in the aprm. south africa’s anti-afrophobia strategies, the roll back xenophobia (rbx) campaign: in 1997, the south african human rights commission (sahrc) identified xenophobia as a major source of concern to human rights and democracy in south africa. it then partnered with the unhcr and the national consortium on refugee affairs (ncra) to develop a public and media education programme known as the roll back xenophobia which was launched on 15 october 1998. the key message of the rbx campaign was that: “an irrational prejudice and hostility towards non-nationals is not acceptable under any circumstances”. the rbx’s braamfontein statement is still relevant (see box 1 below). box 1: roll back xenophobia – braamfontein statement source: south african human rights commission the braamfontein statement was a key strategy for addressing xenophobia. it is unfortunate that government never devoted itself to its implementation and monitoring; thus, this article advocates for its resumption. there are some roll back xenophobia activities that are happening in silos that need to be coordinated by government. for instance, a call for expressions of interest was issued by the foundation for human rights in partnership with the department of justice & constitutional development on 29 april 2015 to raise anti-afrophobia policy shortfall td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 71-82. 79 awareness and knowledge of the constitution amongst vulnerable groups as a response to the resurgence of afrophobia. the national plan of action on racism and xenophobia emphasised the need for public education on racism and xenophobia and clarified the role of civil servants, migrants and media in fostering tolerance and better understanding of the reasons for the presence of migrants and promoting creative use of the skills brought by migrants to south africa. such a plan has never been implemented and should be reconsidered. the media can play a positive role in educating the public on migration issues the same way it has contributed in fuelling the incidences of afrophobia. part of the rbx campaign was to work with the media in an attempt to facilitate accurate, factual and truthful coverage of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. such an initiative is still valid and should be revived. for mnyaka (2003), the reduction of inflammatory statements by government representatives and the media can assist in reducing xenophobia. citizen education, civic and political culture: accepting inalienable human rights as outlined in the udhr and the constitution of south africa at individual and societal levels is essential for xenophobia (shabangu & mbecke, 2008). for mnyaka (2003), educating the unemployed, the youth and workers on xenophobia is crucial in south africa. mcdonald, zinyama, gay & de vletter (1998) emphasise the importance of education in addressing the myths and clarifying the realities about cross-border migration to south africa. in addressing xenophobia, citizenship education must emphasise the relationship between individuals and groups from different backgrounds and cultures (kiwan, 2008). interactions with others from a diversity of backgrounds reduces prejudices and undermines negative stereotypes is appropriate. anti-racism and xenophobia strategies in nepad: two strategic considerations are important to put the au at the forefront of the fight against racism and xenophobia: to develop a panafrican body against racism and xenophobia and to include practical anti-racism and xenophobia recommendations as part of the aprm. a pan-african framework against racism and xenophobia: nepad acknowledges that xenophobia is not only rife in south africa, but that it is also an african predicament that needs to be curbed. using ecri best practice, the au needs to have a body and structure to deal with racism and xenophobia. although not yet officially announced, nepad is coordinating a think tank to develop a pan-african concept document on addressing xenophobia in africa (telephonic conversation with professor mzobanzi mboya, 26/08/2015). it is advisable that such initiative seeks the support of au structures in order to develop a binding pan-african system considering the proposed framework (see figure 1). review of the aprm to include anti-racism and xenophobia as a full theme: the 2007 south africa aprm report recommended amongst other things that south africa should: “find better-informed measures for combating the growing problem of xenophobia, such as programmes of civic education (department of home affairs; department of education; civil society actors)”; and, “strengthen anti-xenophobic institutions such as the counterxenophobia and counter-corruption unit (counter-xenophobia and counter-corruption unit; parliament; judiciary)” (ajayi, 2015). these recommendations are unfortunately irrelevant as they are not based on existing pan-african policies. it is therefore important to review the aprm to include clear recommendations on anti-racism and xenophobia strategies responding to the vision, mission and principles of nepad. mbecke 80 figure 1: the pan-african committee against racism and xenophobia (pacrx) source: author the aprm is a mutually agreed self-monitoring mechanism, voluntarily adopted by the au member states to promote and re-enforce high standards of governance. the mandate of the aprm is to ensure that the policies and practices of participating countries conform to the agreed values in the following democracy and political governance, economic governance, corporate governance and socio-economic development. although there is no conditionality attached to the aprm, democracy and good political governance focus seeks to ensure that the constitutions of member states reflect the democratic ethos, provide accountable governance and that political representation is promoted, allowing all citizens to participate in the political process in a free and fair political environment. this focus must therefore be reviewed to elevate the fight against racism and xenophobia to the level of a full theme. the pan-african committee against racism and xenophobia (pacrx) the pan-african committee against racism and xenophobia (pacrx) is a nepad advisory and monitoring body established by the au heads of state and government to prevent, manage and control racism and xenophobia and their impact on africa’s development. vision: pacrx envisions a developed and prosper africa free of racism and xenophobia mission to provide strategies to prevent, manage and control racism and xenophobia and to protect and promote human rights in africa objectives 1. advise countries on establishing national legislations, strategies and bodies to prevent, manage and control racism and xenophobia 2. provide specific recommendations on preventing, managing and controlling racism and xenophobia through the aprm 3. share information, international legal instruments and best practices on preventing, managing and controlling racism and xenophobia 4. monitor and evaluate progress of each member state on preventing, managing and controlling racism and xenophobia through the aprm advisory, monitoring and evaluation tasks of the pacrx are (explained below): task outcome responsibility develop/implement nepad anti-racism and xenophobia framework pan-african anti-racism and xenophobia framework pacrx review the aprm to include anti-racism and xenophobia indicators reviewed aprm including anti-racism and xenophobia indicators pacrx develop guidelines on national antiracism and xenophobia legislations, strategies and bodies guidelines on national antiracism and xenophobia legislations, strategies and bodies pacrx facilitate the development of national anti-racism and xenophobia legislations, strategies and bodies (recommendations, technical support) national anti-racism and xenophobia legislations, strategies and bodies for each member state pacrx member states provide training and capacity building on preventing, managing and controlling racism and xenophobia officials from member states are trained pacrx monitor and evaluate the progress made by each member state on preventing, managing and controlling racism and xenophobia aprm reports focussing on anti-racism and xenophobia monitoring and evaluation indicators pacrx anti-afrophobia policy shortfall td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 71-82. 81 references african peer review mechanism (aprm), 2007. country report no. 5: republic of south africa. midrand: apr secretariat. ajayi, a. 2015. nepad agency statement on xenophobic violence in south africa. url: http://www.nepad.org/ceo039s-office/news/3627/nepad-agency-statementxenophobic-violence-south-africa [accessed: 20 august 2015]. castles, s. 2012. understanding the relationship between methodology and methods. in vargas-silva, c. (ed.). handbook of research methods in migration. cheltenham: edward elgar publishing limited, pp.7-25. chen, l. 2015. regressive effects of xenophobia to south africa's economic growth. url: http://www.leadershiponline.co.za/articles/xenophobia-14276.html [accessed: 13 july 2015]. crush, j. 2001. immigration, xenophobia and human rights in south africa. cape town: southern african migration project/south african human rights commission. crush, j. & ramachandran, s. 2014. xenophobic violence in south africa: denialism, minimalism, realism. migration policy series no. 66. cape town: southern african migration project. european commission against racism and tolerance (ecri), 2006. examples of good practices: specialised bodies to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance at national level. strasbourg: council of europe. gigaba, m. 2015. address at “youth and migration dialogue”, 14 august 2015, pretoria. hattingh, s. 2008. xenophobia, neo-liberalism, and nepad: the end of african unity? url: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/hattingh050608.html [accessed: 26 april 2015]. ibanez, b.p. & saenz mc. l. (eds.). 2006. interculturalism: between identity and diversity. bern: peter lang. inglehart, r. & welzel, c. 2005. modernisation, cultural change and democracy: the human development sequence. new york: cambridge university press. kiwan, d. 2008. education for inclusive citizenship. oxon: routledge. maharaj, b. 2001. economic refugees in post-apartheid south africa – assets or liabilities? implications for progressive migration policies. geojournal, 12: 47-57. mcdonald, d., zinyama, l., gay, j. & de vletter, f. 1998. challenging xenophobia: myths & realities about cross-border migration in southern africa. cape town: southern african migration project. meda, l. 2014. the mist that they declared to be over is still around: xenophobic experiences of refugee children living at a community centre in south africa. child abuse research a south african journal, 15(2): 72-82. mnyaka, m.m.n. 2003. xenophobia as a response to foreigners in post-apartheid south africa and post-exilic israel: a comparative critique in the light of the gospel and ubuntu ethical principles. doctoral thesis submitted to the university of south africa, pretoria. mbecke 82 mpofu-chimbga, w.w. 2013. the role of secondary schools in averting xenophobia in south africa. doctoral thesis submitted to the university of south africa, pretoria. african union (au), 2001. the new partnership for africa’s development. abuja: au. palmary, i. 2002. refugees, safety and xenophobia in south african cities: the role of local government. braamfontein: centre for the study of violence and reconciliation. republic of south africa (rsa), 1996. constitution. pretoria: government printers. republic of south africa (rsa), 1998. refugee act. pretoria: government printers. republic of south africa (rsa), 2002. immigration act. pretoria: government printers. silbereisen, r.k. & chen, x. (eds.). 2010. social change and human development: concepts and results. london: sage publications limited. shabangu, t. & mbecke, p. 2008. practical guide for defending the rights of refugee children and refugee unaccompanied minors in south africa: policy review, process, procedures & practical experience. johannesburg: refugee children’s project. south african human rights commission (sahrc), 1998. roll back xenophobia – braamfontein statement & national plan of action. racism & xenophobia: a violation of human rights. houghton: sahrc. abstract introduction literature review development of growth points in zimbabwe and the emergence of ruwa growth centre rise and role of private land developer companies in ruwa (zimbabwe), 1980–1991 road to partnership between ruwa local board and private land developer companies conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) mark nyandoro cudywat, north-west university, south africa department of economic history, university of zimbabwe, zimbabwe terence t. muzorewa department of development studies, midlands state university, zimbabwe citation nyandoro, m. & muzorewa, t.t., 2017, ‘transition from growth point policy to liberal urban development in zimbabwe: the emergence of ruwa town, 1980–1991’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a426. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.426 original research transition from growth point policy to liberal urban development in zimbabwe: the emergence of ruwa town, 1980–1991 mark nyandoro, terence t. muzorewa received: 04 mar. 2017; accepted: 21 july 2017; published: 16 oct. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article traces the transition from growth point policy to liberal development in the emergence of ruwa town in zimbabwe from independence in 1980 to 1990/1991 when the town was declared an urban area under the administration of the ruwa local board. in this period, there was a dire need for urban infrastructure (catalysed by a boom in urban population) in what was originally a commercial farming area. the article also analyses the role of private–public sector partnerships in promoting urban development. it contends that the establishment of ruwa growth point and the town is closely associated with the rise of private land developer companies (pldcs) in zimbabwe. it further argues that all post-colonial established towns in zimbabwe emerged out of the government’s direct investment initiated under the growth centre policy. however, the development of ruwa was not influenced by the government, but by a transition from the state-led growth point policy to a liberal urban development approach, which involved public–private partnerships in infrastructural development and facilitation of public amenities. the economic liberalisation process adopted by the country in the early 1990s weakened the growth point policy and gave private actors leverage to enter the urban land market, which was originally monopolised by the government. the failure of the government-led growth point policy and the local authorities’ incapability to finance infrastructure development to improve service delivery forced the ruwa local board to seek partnerships with pldcs. the post-colonial state’s acquiescence to draw on the services provided by pldcs demonstrates that the companies were effective instruments in ensuring the success of the liberal urban development strategy. introduction the article aims to investigate the changes that took place in the emergence of ruwa town1 on the periphery of harare, the capital city of zimbabwe, in the decade after independence. it questions whether there was a clear transformative transition in urban development in zimbabwe from the 1980s government-led growth point policy2 to the liberal private–public partnership development of the 1990s. the decade 1980 to 1990/1991 is important to examine as it is directly related to the transition that culminated in declaring ruwa as an urban area under the administration of the ruwa local board (rlb). in this period, there was a dire need for urban infrastructure (catalysed by a boom in urban population) in what was originally a commercial farming area. in analysing the role of private–public sector partnerships in promoting urban development, the article contends that the establishment of ruwa growth point and the town is closely associated with the rise of private land developer companies (pldcs) in zimbabwe. it further argues that all post-colonial established towns in zimbabwe emerged out of the government’s direct investment initiated under the growth centre policy. however, the development of ruwa was not merely influenced by the government, but by a transition from the state-led growth point policy to a liberal urban development3 approach which involved public–private partnerships (ppps) in infrastructural development and facilitation of public amenities. the economic liberalisation process adopted by the country in the early 1990s weakened and led to the failure of the growth point policy and gave private actors leverage to enter the urban land market, which was originally monopolised by the government. the failure of the government-led growth point policy and the local authorities’ incapability under economic liberalisation to finance infrastructure development to improve service delivery forced the rlb to seek partnerships with pldcs. the post-colonial state’s acquiescence to draw on the services provided by pldcs therefore demonstrates that the companies were effective instruments in ensuring the success of the liberal urban development strategy in zimbabwe. zimbabwe has experienced economic and social transition since 1980. in ruwa’s development, urban population growth in particular catalysed the demand for urban infrastructure in areas hitherto dominated by european agro-enterprises. the demand led to increased government presence in directing socioeconomic growth. however, faced with depleting financial resources, the government gave in to the encroachment of the ruwa farms by a private company, the mashonaland holdings private limited, whose operations were overseen by a government-initiated urban development corporation (udcorp). the advent of mashonaland holdings witnessed the opening of floodgates to further encroachment onto the land by more private company developer agencies after 1987, mostly at the invitation of the rlb. from 1987 ruwa shifted from a dependence on government funding as ascribed by the growth point policy to a liberal approach that incorporated private land developers in the infrastructural development of the town after the adoption of economic structural adjustment policies. this article illustrates the transition from growth point policy to a ppp-oriented urban development in zimbabwe using the case of ruwa town. based on whether there was a clear transition in urban development or not, it accounts for the establishment of ruwa as a growth point within a commercial farming area by the government of zimbabwe in 1986. the article is divided into a background and three main sections. to illustrate the transition, the first major section examines the development of growth points in zimbabwe and the emergence of ruwa growth centre. it argues that growth point development was influenced by the government’s need to redress colonial established disparities between rural and urban areas and that the emergence of ruwa was closely related to the growth point policy. the second section flips this paradigm in zimbabwe in general and ruwa in particular by arguing that economic challenges faced by zimbabwe in the late 1980s prompted the rise of pldcs after the government had failed to sustainably fund the growth point policy. in the circumstances, the economic interventionist liberal policies adopted by the government in 1990 catalysed the development of pldcs, which in turn took over the responsibility of urban infrastructure provision formerly monopolised by the government. the last major section discusses the factors that led to the establishment of ppps in ruwa. it concedes that soon after the establishment of the town, the rlb faced challenges in securing land and financial resources necessary for the area’s growth and only pldcs provided such resources. thus, the main reason for the partnership between the rlb and pldcs was to tap into each other’s advantages in facilitating urban development. literature review urban development is not unique to africa alone. it is a world-wide transformation induced by population growth and the demand for improved services. some areas with limited population have witnessed stagnant growth. others as a result of boundless increases in population have grown from growth pole centres4 into vibrant towns and cities, emphasising the connection between growth-point theory and urbanisation. for dickovick (2011), in africa, latin america and developing parts of asia, towns were the outcome of government decentralisation policies which, however, amounted to efforts at recentralisation of human settlements and services.5 freund (2007) and kessides (2006) have argued that the transition to urbanism in africa is gathering pace and has implications for long-term economic and social development (freund 2007; kessides 2006). the world bank (2013:3) has predicted that 50% of africa will be urbanised by 2030. while africa is rapidly becoming urbanised, with half of its population living in urban agglomerations, beall, guha-khasnobis and kanbur (2010) and dillinger (1994) caution on the necessity of infrastructure for the improvement of urban service delivery. historically, infrastructure development was the responsibility of governments. however, the onset of financial crises crippled government capacity, which in turn meant urban residents constituted a limited tax base for funding the provision of viable and expansive public services. consequently, emerging urban centres have increasingly found it necessary to engage private development partners in order to meet the rising demand for housing, electricity, industrial infrastructure and social services such as water, education, health and sanitation. scholarship, as explained by abrams (1964a, 1964b), aldrich and sandhu (1995), hardoy et al. (1990), hauser and schnore (1967), howard (2003:197–235), stren and white (1989) and stren (2004:30), confirms the necessity for improved service provision in these fields. improved services affect urban residents in a positive way. in zimbabwe,6 literature on growth point development and associated service delivery systems has been written by rukuni, schonker and muzari (1993), helmsing (1990), wekwete (1987) and manyanhire et al. (2009). rukuni et al. in particular analyse how the process of urbanisation was linked to the growth point policy and the late 1970s policies on rural development or rural service centre theory in zimbabwe. the genesis of the growth point policy was meant to stop or minimise rural–urban migration by creating rural service centres, growth points and business centres to absorb people looking for jobs in the cities (rukuni et al. 1993:11). for these scholars, between the 1960s and 1970s the growth point policy stimulated private sector investment in small rural towns to decentralise services (munzwa & jonga 2010:120). this was the context in which small towns like ruwa in zimbabwe and the involvement of the private sector and private land developers in these towns emerged. wekwete argues that since the 1950s, growth centre planning has been one of the key features of regional development planning in the world (wekwete 1991:189). it was initially linked with industrial development and economic growth, but has increasingly shifted towards the provision of basic services. for nyandoro (2007:157), something along these lines was therefore attempted in zimbabwe, especially after the colonial government had realised in the 1960s that there were vivid signs of underdevelopment in the communal areas,7 which represented poorly developed areas with weak links to the urban centres of the country. as a result, since independence in 1980, the government took a leading role in developing and uplifting rural growth points like ruwa and chitungwiza, which were turned into towns (wekwete 1988:5). the development of small towns helps to demonstrate the link between ruwa and the growth centre theory. however, the ruwa case goes beyond the growth point policy enunciated by the government by moving towards a clear partnership approach to urban development. the transition of ruwa from growth point–oriented development to private–public partnerships–led development can be illustrated by the operation of ppps discussed by van der veen (2009:89). in his work, he highlights the operations of international urban projects, which involved ppps in london, new york and amsterdam. he examines the content of contracts and agreements between the public sector (city administrators) and the private property developers in these big western cities in a way that has interesting parallels with what happened in ruwa. his work, though focusing on cities in the industrial developed world, is vital in analysing the way pldcs operated in ruwa on the basis of contractual agreements or permits. studying ruwa, however, goes beyond an analysis of partnership agreements and an examination of the activities of pldcs in relatively better-funded european metropolitan centres. the growth of ruwa shows the transition from the growth point policy to liberal urban development in zimbabwe (southern africa) where pldcs played a crucial role in the expansion of the town. in zimbabwe, pldcs operated within the context of urbanisation and land markets. marongwe, mukoto and chatiza (2011:8) have defined urban land markets in the country as the platform for interaction among land buyers, land developers and retailers, as well as a process of registration of land and property. they emphasise governance of urban land markets. for them, land markets are the framework that govern planning and land administration in the country. private land developers who were actively involved in infrastructure development in ruwa were the main actors in land markets. understanding the urban land market helps to appreciate the importance of pldcs in zimbabwe’s urban development. however, unlike marongwe et al., our study goes beyond the governance of urban markets and gives a detailed account of the rise of pldcs in ruwa and their role in infrastructure development in a context of no or limited government funding. to address the broad issue of infrastructure provision and the attendant shortage of government funding and active state engagement, the emerging ruwa town of zimbabwe, in the decade between the 1980s and 1990s, made valiant efforts to lure private company investment into an area which originally was a white commercial farming hinterland. this marked the beginning of the change from growth point policy to liberal urban development in ruwa. the emergence of ruwa town (1980–1991) is thus a case of transition from state-led growth point policy to ppp-oriented urban development in zimbabwe. ruwa town near harare’s central business district was established as a growth point within a commercial farming area by the government of zimbabwe in 1986.8 prior to that date, it depended on harare and the government for essential services such as water supply and funding. however, in 1987 ruwa shifted from a dependency on government funding as ascribed by the growth point policy to a liberal approach which incorporated pldcs in the infrastructural development of the town. pldcs are companies that subdivided land which they owned or purchased from individual private owners into urban residential and industrial plots in line with permits given to them by the government or local authorities for the purpose of making profit (independent european development portal 2012). they serviced the land by constructing offsite and onsite infrastructure, which included water supply and sewerage facilities (ruwa local board 2011b:1). the developers also developed road networks and other public amenities in accordance with the provisions of the land development permits issued by the town council’s planning authority. in 1991, ruwa became an urban centre administered by the rlb and had a population of over 25 000 people (central statistics 2014). the rlb was the local administrative arm of the ministry of local government, rural and urban development. this article examines the emergence of ruwa. it argues that the town adopted a ppp approach to development because the local authority or rlb had limited financial resources and land needed to sustain the expansion of the town commensurate with a growing population. the rlb opted to partner with pldcs, which had better financial resources to lead development. the rise of pldcs is therefore central to the emergence of ruwa beginning in 1980 when the growth point policy which existed since the 1950s was first applied to post-colonial urban development in ruwa.9 the year 1991 is appropriate as a cut-off point for this article because it marked the full integration of pldcs into the development of ruwa, resulting in the area, which began as a growth point, earning urban status. development of growth points in zimbabwe and the emergence of ruwa growth centre the growth centre policy in zimbabwe emerged as a major feature of the colonial government. the colonial realisation of the problem of underdevelopment in the rural areas led to the official adoption of the growth point policy in the late 1960s/1970s. the policy was premised on creating ‘african towns in african areas’, to generate employment for africans and halt the influx to ‘european towns’ (hansen 1972; heath 1978; norcliffe, freeman & miles 1984; nyandoro 2015; richardson 1978:123; wekwete 1987:11, 1991:195). it was designed to prevent the migration of africans into urban areas not only through generating employment in rural areas but also through establishing growth points in those areas to provide basic services for africans. the period that followed the unilateral declaration of independence (udi) by rhodesia in 1965 up to 1979 was influential in the growth and expansion of growth points and urban areas. when rhodesia declared udi, proclaiming independence from britain, it faced international trade sanctions approved by the united nations and there was a drastic reduction of imports of consumer goods. the trade sanctions forced the colonial government to substitute imported consumer goods with locally manufactured ones (kapungu 1973; losman 1978:333; mckinnell 1969; wekwete 1994:34). more industrial infrastructure than during the second world war10 was developed in cities such as salisbury (now harare) and bulawayo. consequently, additional african labour was required in the urban areas, and this compelled the government to increase housing construction as it was apparent that africans were becoming permanent residents in the city where their residency had been restricted under colonial laws. towards 1979, the liberation war reached its apex.11 the urban population grew rapidly because many people fled the rural areas as a result of the war. the rhodesia government was so overwhelmed by the urban influx caused by the war that it failed to effectively apply the african urban restriction laws (patel 1988:3). the influx of africans into the urban areas resulted in the development of squatter camps in some towns, for example the chirambahuyo settlement in chitungwiza (patel 1988:3). the government seemed to turn a blind eye on the urban african population boom as it concentrated on pacifying african nationalism and containing the liberation war. the high rate of rural–urban drift by africans in the late 1970s forced the colonial government to intensify the development of rural or growth centres in a bid to stop african inflows into the urban areas. in 1978, the government introduced a policy document, named the integrated plan for rural development (iprd). the iprd planners nominated 10 centres in the rural areas of zimbabwe to be established as growth points. the 10 growth centres were gutu, mushumbi, chisumbanje, mataga, jerera, murewa, wedza, maphisa, sanyati and nkayi (manyanhire et al. 2009:509). in the same year, statutory instruments 57 and 58 relating to income tax and sales tax, respectively, provided for industrial decentralisation incentives (wekwete 1988:7). such provisions included a reduction in revenue tax for industrial companies that moved to designated growth points (wekwete 1988:7). companies operating in such areas were also exempted from capital equipment purchase tax. two years after the implementation of the iprd and the tax legislation, the country gained independence and a new government came into power. the new government inherited a stratified dual economy with very poor rural settlements and better developed urban centres. there was need for the government to redress colonial imbalances through the growth with equity (gwe) policy. gwe was an overall macroeconomic policy framework based on empowering the formerly disadvantaged african population. it also formed the foundation of the growth point policy after independence. in the urban areas the government introduced the home ownership policy in 1981. this policy was part of the gwe framework and was aimed at enabling africans to own houses in the urban areas. under the policy, 90% of all houses in african townships were sold to sitting tenants (paradza 2005:2). this was one way of empowering urban africans. after independence there was clear government intention to increase the number of growth points. in 1981 the department of physical planning identified 55 potential growth points and 450 rural service centres for development into growth centres (munzwa & jonga 2010:129). the growth points were created to facilitate decentralisation or devolution of power under the gwe policy. in the zimbabwean context, growth points were areas considered by the government to have potential for development in the future and because of that they required support from the government to enhance growth. in 1986, the government established the udcorp which was created under the provisions of the urban development corporation act of the same year, which became the basis for the establishment and emergence of ruwa as a growth point. ruwa had existed as a rural area under the goromonzi rural district council between 1890 and 1986.12 the corporation formed in 1986 had a mandate to create employment and encourage the establishment of industries in the growth centres (wekwete 1988:7). the udcorp was part of government effort to catalyse the development of growth points and urban areas in zimbabwe. in 1987, the government of zimbabwe stepped up the tax incentives through a publication entitled ‘tax incentives for businesses in the growth point areas’ (rukuni et al. 1993:11). the government reduced corporate income tax and gave rural companies import tax rebates. companies located in growth points were given a corporate tax allowance on construction costs for developing industrial complexes (rukuni et al. 1993:11). these tax incentives which consolidated the government’s industrial decentralisation thrust were meant to lure investors to the designated growth points. the growth point policy, however, faced challenges soon after implementation. some areas selected as growth points became characterised by retarded and stagnant growth. these included mount darwin, chipinge, lupane, mudzi, uzumba maramba pfungwe, mwenezi, rushinga and tsholotsho (chirisa, dumba & dube 2013:44). in spite of the tax incentives, most large-scale industries did not relocate to the growth points with the exception of a few that were located in centres near harare such as ruwa and juru. the implementation of the growth point policy was disturbed by economic challenges faced by zimbabwe in the 1990s because of the economic structural adjustment programme (esap). capital investments in growth points and the provision of social services (water, education, health and transport) by the government proved costly. in 1991 the government embarked on esap as a way to scale up economic growth in the country. the country decided to seek financial inflows from the international monetary fund (imf) and the world bank in order to undertake economic restructuring to improve the country’s economic situation (alderso 1998; chakaodza 1993:16). the two multilateral aid institutions required the government to implement liberal economic policies before funding was disbursed. within this neo-liberal package of policies was the decontrolling of prices, deregulation of trade, devaluation of the local currency, the removal of subsidies, reduction of public expenditure, wage restraints, removal of tariffs, encouragement of foreign investment, the removal of administrative controls and privatisation of key sectors of the economy (chakaodza 1993:16). structural adjustment sought to reduce government expenditure on social services and to redirect expenditure towards investment in the manufacturing, agricultural and mining sectors (mlambo 1997; nyandoro 2007; zhou & zvoushe 2012:216). this was in a bid to promote individual entrepreneurship in all sectors of the economy as advocated by the neo-liberals. in turn, esap prompted ruwa, which was experiencing infrastructural challenges, to adopt a neo-liberal approach. the approach was meant to solve the town’s infrastructural development problems caused by lack of finance because the government had cut expenditure on social services and growth point development. besides, residents constituted an inadequate tax base for funding the required public infrastructure. as a result, ruwa increasingly looked to the public–private sector partnership to provide the required infrastructure, hence engaging pldcs in a relationship which started in 1980. rise and role of private land developer companies in ruwa (zimbabwe), 1980–1991 there are a series of events that led to the rise of pldcs in zimbabwe. with the increase of urbanisation in the whole world during the 20th century, both western capitalist and communist countries adopted pldcs in urban development. urban liberalism and privatisation were sometimes reluctantly implemented by most communist countries. countries like china and russia, which resented economic non-interventionist policies, however, adopted a liberal approach to urban development in the 20th century. ding and lichtenberg (2009:1) note that the expansion of chinese cities has been catalysed by the creation of a secondary market, which gave the private sector long-term leasing rights to urban land. the private sector’s intervention policies have accounted for the rapid expansion of cities like shanghai, guangdong and guangzhou in china (ding & lichtenberg 2009:1). similarly, in zimbabwe demands for democratisation and liberal processes led to the rise of pldcs and the development of ruwa town. private urban land developers in zimbabwe consisted of land developer companies, unit trusts, building societies and life insurance companies. according to marongwe et al. (2011:36), private institutional investors were responsible for about 85% of all property and land development in zimbabwe’s urban areas. the activities of building societies can be traced back to the enactment of the building societies act in 1951. however, building societies that operated during the colonial period mainly financed white community infrastructure development leaving out african areas. building societies such as founders building society and the central african building society (cabs) were not involved in developing land for urban purposes. rather, they just financed european housing development schemes. in the independence era, building societies became the major private sector companies involved in land development. building societies such as cabs, the commercial bank of zimbabwe building society and zb building society were directly involved in the servicing of land, development of offsite infrastructure (water and sewer) and the construction of public amenities like schools, hospitals and recreational facilities in the urban areas. zb building society, for example, was a major land developer in ruwa town during the post-colonial period. before independence, colonial legislation did not allow pldcs to thrive. there was generally low urban population resulting in a restricted land market. the colonial city was only designed to sustainably house the white population. the government was not concerned about building and improving urban african housing because africans were viewed as temporary residents of the city. such colonial legislation not only alienated africans from the towns but also decongested urban space. for white officials, there was no urge for the expansion of african housing because the majority of the african population had been condemned to the rural areas. the need to expand urban land arose because of the demand prompted by high rural–urban migration in the wake of independence. as the urban population grew, it became apparent that the government and local authorities were limited in their ability to provide adequate accommodation and other services. this provided an opportunity for the emergence of pldcs before and especially when the economy was liberalised through the implementation of esap in 1991. because one of the main tenets of esap was to promote a liberal market and private investment, the programme created a good environment for pldcs to operate. individual residents started to align themselves with the private sector in an endeavour to access the services they hitherto lacked but required. at the same time, ‘the government’s role [in the circumstances] changed from that of a provider to that of an enabler of human settlement development’ (chirisa 2013:104). the government had to create a platform where the market could operate through the encouragement of cooperation between the public sector and the private sector. during esap (1991–1995) there was, thus, a rise in the activities of pldcs and the private sector in zimbabwean land markets. the period up to 1996 witnessed a rapid expansion in the housing market in ruwa, driven by pldcs (chirisa 2013:104). in light of this, by liberalising the land market, esap created a flourishing environment for pldcs to operate. the land market blossomed because of the increased demand for urban land in the post-colonial era, as illustrated in figure 1. figure 1: land supply and demand in zimbabwean urban areas. figure 1, although it goes up to 2000, demonstrates how the increasing population in urban areas outgrew the demand for land between independence in 1980 and 1990. the population boom resulted in a desperate need for urban serviced land. the local authorities’ failure to meet the demand for serviced land partly before and as a result of esap, therefore, prompted the rise of pldcs in ruwa. the results of esap were disastrous in almost all sectors where the government provided services such as education, health and public housing. by default, this resulted in the private sector taking over some public service responsibilities. the removal of government subsidies from local authorities resulted in poor service provision in areas ranging from infrastructure development and health services to education. this affected urban livelihoods.13 the private sector, because of its relatively sound financial status, started to provide services previously provided by the government and local authorities. these services included the construction of housing, health and education facilities. because the rlb faced shortages of funds to develop infrastructure and skilled manpower especially after the removal of government subsidies, it established a partnership with the pldcs (chirisa 2000:30). the removal of government subsidies forced local authorities to look for alternative funding and one avenue was incorporating pldcs into the development of the town. road to partnership between ruwa local board and private land developer companies when the first local authority, the rlb, was created in 1990, it opted for partnership with pldcs in an endeavour to promote the growth of the newly established town. in the partnership, the pldcs provided the land and constructed onsite and offsite infrastructure on a build and transfer agreement. under the build and transfer agreement the pldcs constructed onsite and offsite infrastructure, which included roads, water and sewerage reticulation systems and other supporting public amenities. the developers then handed over the infrastructure to the local authority after completing construction. pldcs benefited from the opportunity from the council to subdivide their land and sell it for profit and the build and transfer was part of endowments they paid to the local authority. the reason for the partnership between the rlb and pldcs was to tap into each other’s advantages. most of the land in ruwa was privately owned and the local authority had limited land for town expansion. the companies had access to land, which they bought from commercial farmers and other plot holders. in addition to land scarcity, the local authority did not have enough funding to initiate development projects in the area except the limited grants administered by the central government. the grants were to assist local governments with capital investments. hence, the authority needed external financial investment from the pldcs. bedevilled by challenges related to land and finance, the rlb, therefore, sought a partnership for development with the private sector. in spite of the challenges faced by the authority, the two needed each other as private developer companies also relied on the rlb for securing land development permits. the development of the partnership can be traced back to the time ruwa was designated a growth point in 1986. at that time, the udcorp was given the mandate to administer the area. however, it faced difficulties in securing land for the development and expansion of the growth point while mashonaland holdings private limited owned land, which was a large farm belonging to terence hardy, the holdings company chairman (muzorewa 2012:63). it was the mashonaland holdings land that relieved the udcorp from its land scarcity frustrations. with the acquisition of that land, development kicked off in ruwa. nevertheless, the rlb, which was established after the udcorp in 1990, inherited only 1% of the land under its jurisdiction. the 1% was acquired through land endowments after subdivision permits were issued to mashonaland holdings by the department of physical planning of the ministry of local government, rural and urban development (ruwa local board 2011b:6). this acquisition was important because expansion of infrastructure and service institutions in urban areas was based on land available. land was generally a scarce commodity in ruwa before the partnership with mashonaland holdings and other commercial farmers. since the inception of ruwa initially as a growth point, the land issue resulted in a number of problems, some of which included the paucity of affordable housing schemes for the low-income earning groups, the inability of the rlb to accommodate small-to-medium entrepreneurs, and social facilities and amenities such as churches and recreational facilities (muzorewa 2012:51). as a result of land shortages, the local authority failed to secure land for a formal refuse dump site and resorted to using a private dump, which was neither properly planned nor formally acquired (ruwa local board 2011b:6). furthermore, there was no land to establish a sewerage treatment plant and ruwa relied on a plant in neighbouring epworth (davison 2005:57). given a situation where the local authority did not have sufficient land (and most of it was privately owned), it was difficult for it to take full control of development-oriented activities and planning of the built environment. public planning was limited as the town planner could not plan on land that did not belong to the council. because of land scarcity for town development as illustrated in table 1, the ruwa local authority collaborated with several pldcs, such as mashonaland holdings private limited, chipukutu properties, zimbabwe reinsurance corporation and others,14 that had access to private land as land scarcity was seen as one of the factors that retarded the growth of ruwa. table 1: land use in ruwa town. table 1 is an illustration of land usage. it demonstrates that most of the land in ruwa town was already developed with only 6.12% of the area remaining for future development. land used for commercial centre development only amounted to 2.23% of the total and this did not tally with the huge land use proportion of 72.75% taken by residential plots. in order to redress the imbalance in land usage, the local authority had to seek more land through partnerships with the pldcs. there were also disparities between big and small local authorities. these were not entirely based on possession of land. in zimbabwe, big local authorities like the harare city council acquired significant autonomy to perform their functions through the decentralisation policy, which gave them the power to establish income-generating entities within the council area. however, smaller authorities such as ruwa had less capacity to exercise autonomy because of their inability to generate funds. the main sources of revenue for local authorities included sales of water, tariffs for services rendered and assessment rates on properties. other revenue sources included public amenities grants as well as road grants, loans for capital works from central government through the national housing fund for housing development, the general loan fund for other infrastructure like water and sewerage reticulation and loans from the open market (de visser, steytler & machingauta 2010:37). although this list may look as if the council in ruwa had a vast pool of revenue sources, the council faced many challenges in getting revenue from these sources. its largest source in terms of managing council costs has been support for a grants system administered by the central government to help local governments plan capital investments. the assistance, however, did not quite materialise in a financially difficult economic environment especially under esap. the local authority therefore generally lacked the ability to create income-generating projects to sustain development in the area. most big local governments in zimbabwe like the gweru city council (midlands province) did not entirely depend on the government and tariffs for capital revenue, but had alternative revenue sources in the form of enterprises. the gweru local authority owned revenue-generating operations, for instance the go beer brewing company (mika 2010:15), which was run by an independent board with directors appointed by the council. it produced and retailed traditional beer, reared livestock and grew maize on the council’s farms (mika 2010:5). in contrast, ruwa town had no such income-generating ventures as it failed to establish economic enterprises; hence, it relied on rates collection, which did not provide sustainable revenue as some ratepayers defaulted. in light of this, ruwa local authorities thus opted to partner with pldcs to complement their limited sources of revenue. the economic meltdown in zimbabwe exacerbated by esap in the 1990s had a large bearing on ruwa’s incapacity to fund its development projects. esap restricted the government from giving substantial grants and subsidies to local authorities. the situation worsened following the political and economic fall-out with bilateral and multilateral institutions like the wb and imf. the two stopped financing urban councils because of tensions between the ruling party (zanu-pf) and the international donor agencies. the poor relations between the zimbabwean government and the donor community resulted in economic sanctions from the moneylenders and this affected ruwa and other urban councils’ sources of revenue. because the government had been starved of loans from the multilateral aid donors, it could not continue to fund local authorities, which traditionally received grants and loans from the government. this hampered development in the area and forced the ruwa local authorities to search for partnerships with land developers. the partnerships, however, did not signal the end of ruwa’s problems. the local authorities’ revenue crisis was still worsened by poor payment of rates and the enforcement of charges and tariffs on ratepayers. in the circumstances, the local authority used the water supply termination method (water cuts) to force and make people pay up their service charges, but most residents dug wells to evade the council measures and, hence, were no longer threatened by water disconnections. nevertheless, james gutu (ruwa resident), in an interview on 11 february 2014 noted that most residents blamed the local authority for not supplying water to their households and argued that was the reason why they deliberately refused to pay rates and council charges. this meant that the water termination method used by the local authority to enforce revenue collection from the residents was not effective. the town secretary, in an endeavour to collect the debts owed by residents, sent ‘debt final warning’ letters to residents, but in spite of some residents receiving more than three such letters, they still did not comply (ruwa local board 2011a). the warning statements were not followed by any revenue collection enforcement measures and because of this, most of the residents in debt tended to ignore the warnings. the lack of an effective way to collect revenue from rate payers in debt resulted in loss of revenue by the council. on the whole, the majority of urban councils in zimbabwe charged subeconomic rates and service fees because of the government’s interventionist regulations on council charges. the minister of local government and national housing was the chief determiner of council rates and tariffs (chirisa & jonga 2009:3), so urban councils could not increase surcharges or rates without permission from the ministry. the regional town and country act of 1976 mandates the ministry to approve local authorities’ budgets, and increases of tariffs and supplementary charges (the regional town and country act 1976). the regulation of council service charges was a political populist control weapon used by the government without considering its detrimental effects on service delivery in the urban areas. according to the rlb financial director, mhiti, in an interview on 9 march 2012, ruwa was bedevilled by government regulation of water charges, where the town council was forced to charge 40 cents per cubic meters (m3) of water to its consumers, while the council purchased water for 47 cents per m3 from damofalls water treatment plant. this meant that the rlb made a loss of about 7 cents per every m3 of water they supplied to consumers. mhiti also revealed that this was the case with refuse collection where the rlb paid an undisclosed sum of money per month to the goromonzi rural council for a dump site, but charges for refuse collection could not cover all the expenses involved. charging service fees that were not proportional to the amount of money invested in service delivery made it economically unviable. government control and determination of charges was uneconomic and made the local authorities in ruwa to partner with private developers who had financial capacity to compensate the losses made through the government tariff regulation policy. linked to the shortages of finance was the water supply and sewer reticulation challenge. ruwa failed to cater for residents in the provision of water and sewer reticulation services. the population boom had resulted in an increased demand for water, making it difficult for the local authorities to satisfy the demand for water and reticulation services. the water pumping mains which delivered water to ruwa in the year 1991 had been designed in 1986 only to deliver 133 m3 of water per day (davison 2005:57). the demand for water in ruwa in 1991 was 1900 m3 per day, leaving a deficit of about 1767 m3 per day (davison 2005:57). the problem that affected the system of water distribution in ruwa had more to do with demand outstripping supply than the ageing of the system. clearly, the local authority could not solve the water shortages on their own because of financial constraints. that is why they opted to partner with the pldcs in order to ease the situation. ruwa was, therefore, outstanding for involving pldcs in the development of the town on the basis of a ppp between the rlb and the pldcs. conclusion the article finds that after independence up to 1991 the changes that took place in the emergence of ruwa town in zimbabwe indicated a major transition in urban development. this was a change from state-led growth point policy to liberal urban development on the basis of the activities of pldcs. the article therefore concludes that the transition from the growth point policy to liberal urban development in zimbabwe explains not only the emergence of ruwa town but also the leading corporate role taken by pldcs towards facilitating infrastructure development at a time the government was facing cash flow (inflow and outflow) problems. it demonstrates that ruwa and pldcs rose because of a dire need for urban facilities in what was originally a commercial farming area. the need for urban infrastructure was catalysed by a boom in urban population during the post-colonial era. economic liberalisation adopted by the country in the 1990s gave private actors leverage to enter the urban land market, which was originally monopolised by the government. upon entering the land market in ruwa from 1987, the companies bought land from commercial farmers, which they developed into residential, commercial and industrial areas before selling it to individuals and other entrepreneurs and surrendering the administration of the land to the ruwa local authorities. guided by land development permits issued to the developers under the provisions of the regional town and country act of 1976, the pldcs played a critical role in infrastructural development and facilitation of public amenities such as roads, sewerage and water systems, educational institutions, electricity and health facilities. developer companies were, thus, the most appropriate vehicles for urban development in ruwa. the transition in development from the growth point policy to a ppp approach was a way to ensure the survival and further development of the town as poor economic conditions in post-colonial zimbabwe had made it impossible for the government and local authorities to finance urban growth as proposed under the growth point policy. esap clearly restricted government funding towards growth centre development; hence, ruwa sought partnerships with pldcs whose financial capacity was higher than that of the government and the council combined. in addition, ruwa benefited from the land acquired from pldcs because the rlb did not have land for the town’s expansion. by moving from the traditional growth point approach to a liberal approach involving private–public partnerships ruwa, therefore, offers unique insights into modern urban development in zimbabwe. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank cudywat. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions m.n. and t.t.m. contributed equally to the writing of this manuscript. references abrams, c., 1964a, man’s struggle for shelter in an urbanizing world, mit press, cambridge, ma. abrams, c., 1964b, housing in the modern world, faber and faber, london. alderso, 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to facilitate decentralisation of economic activities by creating small towns. 3. liberal urban development has become the mode of production of urban space, not only in developed countries but also in developing nations. it is the dominant laissez-faire entrepreneurial urban policy with agent-oriented perspectives emphasising relations, networks and coalitions between governmental and commercial agents such as pldcs. 4. the theory states that growth manifests itself in an area or point from which it is then transferred to other regions. see wekwete (1991:190). 5. decentralisation is ‘the economic development of growth points outside the major cities with particular reference to commercial and industrial activities’. decentralisation equated to community development as a strategy for democratic governance, which accords local communities responsibility over their own development. it seeks to transfer power from a central authority to local or grassroots authorities. it is a regional development policy aimed at promoting a wider and more balanced distribution of economic activity in the national space. see howman (1969:3–8), brand (1991) and nyandoro (2007:132). 6. before independence, zimbabwe was known as southern rhodesia, later rhodesia. 7. in the colonial period, communal areas were known as tribal trust lands. 8. ruwa was established in the 1890s as a commercial farming area and its first local authority, the bromley-ruwa rural council (brrc) was set up in 1950. after 1980, when zimbabwe got its independence, the brrc changed its name to goromonzi rural district council. see ruwa local board (2011b:6). 9. although the growth point theory existed since the 1950s, it was not practically applied until the late 1960s/1970s in some cases and not until 1980 in other cases. 10. just like in the period after the second world war, the local manufacturing industry blossomed after udi. 11. for detail on the guerrilla war, see mtisi, nyakudya and barnes (2009) and kriger (1992). 12. ruwa operated as a growth point from 1986 to 1990. in 1990, it was an urban area under the administration of the ruwa local board (rlb) which was set up in september the same year. it however only gained town status in 2008. 13. for detail on the impact of esap on zimbabwe, see chakaodza (1993:4–23) and potts (2000:879–910). 14. since 1987, there were nine major developers operating in ruwa. these were mashonaland holdings private limited, chipukutu properties, zimbabwe reinsurance corporation, wentspring investments private limited, damofalls investments land developers, fairview land developers, zimbabwe housing company, barochit property developers and tawona gardens private limited. abstract introduction conceptual frameworks in social science research: a contextual and conceptual orientation the significance of literature reviews in constructing conceptual frameworks the interface between conceptual and theoretical frameworks constructing a conceptual framework: suggested ‘how to’ steps conclusion acknowledgements references footnote about the author(s) gerrit van der waldt research focus area: social transformation, faculty of arts, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation van der waldt, g., 2020, ‘constructing conceptual frameworks in social science research’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a758. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.758 original research constructing conceptual frameworks in social science research gerrit van der waldt received: 10 sept. 2019; accepted: 02 dec. 2019; published: 26 feb. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract research in the social sciences is concerned with complex social behaviour, group dynamics and unique human settings. researchers have different patterns of thought and modes of thinking. as such, they often use different words to explain phenomena, thereby causing conceptual confusion. this article explains how conceptual frameworks can help overcome such confusion by serving as visual organising tools and mental maps to direct and guide research. by using a descriptive approach, the article aims firstly to outline the necessity, purpose, nature and scope of conceptual frameworks in social science research and, secondly, to provide a ‘how-to’ guide on the design of such a framework by exploring a practical example. the results illustrate conclusively the significant contribution that conceptual frameworks can and should make in social science research. keywords: concepts; constructs; conceptual framework; social sciences; theoretical framework; research; conceptualisation; literature review. introduction probably, one of the deepest frustrations of candidates engaged in postgraduate research in the social sciences is having to sift through a vast array of literature for relevant information on their topic. furthermore, candidates will often get feedback on their proposals from their supervisors advising them that their efforts lack sound conceptual frameworks. this raises several questions beforehand: what is a conceptual framework? why should it be regarded as an integral part of research and how does it guide a literature review? how should such a framework be constructed? lack of clear answers to these questions generally leaves researchers adrift. such a cognitive deficiency is even more acute in qualitative research involving the social sciences where, as tilly and goodin (2006:2) put it, ‘it all depends …’. social science research can be defined as the conventions and methods scholars follow to comprehend, explain and predict the social world. in this regard, a comprehensive conceptual framework can function as an invaluable organising tool, focal point, mental map and blueprint for the entire study. a study without a sound conceptual framework typically lacks focus, contains irrelevant theory and suffers from weak methodological arguments. scholars such as maree (2012:42, 212) and ravitch and riggan (2017:136) regard conceptual frameworks as the ‘key part’ of a research project as well as a key success factor in the approval of research manuscripts. there is clear evidence of research methodological textbooks’ significance and contribution to the research process. however, these sources often only make a cursory mention of the conceptual frameworks and offer limited insight into its uses within research, let alone provide guidelines on to how to construct such a framework. given this limitation, the purpose of the present article was twofold: firstly, outline the necessity, purpose, nature and scope of conceptual frameworks used in social science research; secondly, provide a ‘how-to’ guide on designing such a framework by exploring a practical example. conceptual frameworks in social science research: a contextual and conceptual orientation social scientists are typically engaged with highly ambiguous sense-making designs. social science research is not usually conducted under fixed laboratory conditions (flick 2014:33). therefore, findings seldom neither conform neatly to expectations nor are linear or isolated easily (ravitch & riggan 2017:108; williams 2003:1). social science research is concerned with complex social behaviour, group dynamics and unique human settings, such as culture, socio-economic status and educational background (ritchie et al. 2014:13). in this regard, erickson (cited in ravitch & riggan 2017:83) argued that ‘human interaction is not rocket science – it is far more complicated …!’ a critical component of human interaction is the study of verbal (language), and non-verbal and written engagement. erickson (cited in ravitch & riggan 2017:83) argued that language has multiple formal and informal meanings and is ‘astonishingly complex’. in scientific writing, scholars ascribe particular meaning to words, as wilson (1971:129) explained, ‘the conceptual equipment of people differs’. this realisation also leads hornby (cited in imenda 2014:188) to point out that defining concepts is ‘not an innocent exercise’. people use different words to explain phenomena or describe emotions; they have different patterns of thought and modes of thinking. such a variety may cause conceptual confusion. for example, the question arises about the difference between words such as ‘concepts’, ‘constructs’ and ‘variables’ often used in social science research. therefore, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of ‘concept’ briefly compared to other words often used in scholarly work. such clarification is critical to grasp the meaning of concepts as used within conceptual frameworks. clarification of concepts is furthermore essential as accentuated by qualitative schools of thought, such as interpretivism and constructionism (ritchie et al. 2014:12–13). according to lauffer (2011, cited in saunders et al. 2015:39), the term ‘concept’ refers to ‘a mental image or abstraction of a phenomenon’. in its broadest sense, a concept summarises ideas or observations about the characteristics of a mental image about a phenomenon. maree (2012:34) stressed the importance of clarifying concepts derived from the title of a study by means of a thorough literature review. silverman (2005:9) and leggett (2011:3), in turn, stated that the notion that ‘concept’ has progressive levels of abstraction. concepts such as ‘table’, ‘window’ and ‘door’ have extremely low levels of abstraction and are thus relatively simple to define. however, concepts with a high degree of abstraction such as ‘personality’ are difficult to visualise and define. such abstract concepts are typically referred to as ‘constructs’. examples of constructs are ‘leadership’, ‘ethics’, ‘democracy’, ‘welfare’, ‘performance’, ‘motivation’ and ‘anxiety’. a clear definition of the above-mentioned constructs is not possible without a particular theoretical disposition. constructs are thus heavily theory-laden (kumar 2014:57). a definition of the construct ‘religion’, for example, is only possible if particular theoretical attributes are clarified, such as doctrines, scriptures, rituals and hermeneutics, which combinedly constitute a specific religion. the definition of ‘religion’ is also highly case-dependent; in other words, its meaning depends on the societal context. such a set-up includes cultures, belief systems, traditions, values and norms that characterise followers of a particular religion. in light of such complexity, miles and huberman (1994:17) referred to constructs as ‘intellectual bins’ that define and show the interrelationship between the key concepts. conceptualisation entails building the level of sophistication to define concepts – from elementary to comprehensive (kumar 2014:57). the level of sophistication is reached by indicating how different scholars add characteristics, elements, dimensions and attributes to a concept. the researcher should finalise the development of key concepts with a comprehensive working definition that will be applicable to the particular study. conceptualisation is thus broader than mere definition and should produce an agreed-upon meaning (i.e. through adequate scholarly consensus) for concepts guiding a study. it should be evident that conceptualisation essentially does not concern questions of facts, value, meaning of words or its definition. the focus is rather about the usage of words in particular settings. as ravitch and riggan (2017:7) argued, ‘the definition is far more important than the label’. according to welman and kruger (1999:13), the term ‘variable’ refers to ‘a characteristic or an attribute of the study object that varies’, which implies at least two possible values. examples of variables are: scores on a corruption index, level of performance on a measurement instrument scale or participants’ gender and age demographics. the mentioned elements are incorporated in hypotheses to measure the correlation between a dependent and an independent variable (thomas & smith 2003:11). variables and operational definitions go hand in hand (somekh & lewin 2011:46). operational definitions in particular identify how the variables are measured for the purposes of the research. an operational definition should identify how the variable is calculated or recorded as a numeric value (asher 1984:187). utilising conceptual frameworks in social science an extensive literature survey revealed at least two different perspectives or applications of conceptual frameworks in research within the social sciences. based on the first perspective, scholars, such as miles and huberman (1994:23), jacard and jacoby (2010:54) and ravitch and riggan (2017:153), view a conceptual framework as a visual representation of a study’s main theoretical tenets or concepts. such a framework is usually introduced in the form of a graphical or schematic diagram depicting the key concepts and their relationships. in this view, a conceptual framework is required at the outset of a research project to identify key concepts, conceptualise these and indicate their interrelationship. typically, such depiction is performed graphically as well as in the narrative form (maree 2012:220). miles and huberman (1994:18, 20) referred to this process as ‘intellectual sorting work’ and argued that it should be portrayed visually, allowing researchers to ‘lay out sets of relationship to explore and make sense of’. maxwell (2005:35), in turn, referred to the above-mentioned visual frameworks as ‘concept maps’, which are the elements the researcher must ‘construct’. he explained: ‘a conceptual map incorporates pieces that are borrowed from elsewhere, but the structure, the overall coherence, is something that you build, not something that exists ready-made’ (maxwell 2005:47). in the same vein, marshall and rossman (2006) regarded a conceptual framework as a ‘visual map’ resulting from a thorough literature review. maree (2012:221) pointed out that such a map is tentative and will change during the course of the study as new insight emerges from a robust literature review. tracy (2013:97) held the same view and regarded a conceptual framework as synonymous with keywords in a research proposal. green (2014:36) and ravitch and riggan (2017:153) cautioned, however, that a visual conceptual framework should not only be regarded as a product (i.e. a tick box exercise for postgraduate candidates) but also a process – an effort to direct the related research processes. the second application or perspective states that conceptual frameworks should be regarded as the mental map that connects the various dimensions of the research process such as the researcher’s a priori knowledge and interests, the literature survey, theory, methods, data analysis and findings. in this regard, maxwell (2005:33) defined a conceptual framework as ‘the system of concepts, assumptions, expectations, beliefs, and theories that supports and informs your research’. miles and huberman (1994:18) considered such a framework as the entire ‘idea context’ for the study. based on the above view, ravitch and riggan (2017) defined a conceptual framework as: [t]he identification of presumed relationships among key factors or constructs to be studied, and the justification for these presumptions may come from multiple sources such as one’s own prior research or ‘tentative theories’ as well as established theoretical or empirical work found in the literature. (p. 10) according to this definition, a conceptual framework comprises at least three core dimensions, namely, personal interest of the researcher, topical (similar or relevant) research (based on an extensive literature review) and a theoretical framework. the problem statement of a study presents the context and the issues that prompted the researcher to conduct the study. especially, in cases of research involving multidisciplinary projects, broad conceptualisation of the problem is essential. this implies breaking down and converting different research ideas into a common interpretation among team members. the first perspective (visual representation) thus only implies identifying keywords (i.e. key concepts and related concepts as these appear in the title) and the visual mapping of the interrelationship between these elements. in contrast, the second perspective (mental map) regards a conceptual framework as the overall design of the research project. such a map includes the following elements: personality and interests of the researcher, the research questions, methodology, methods, data analysis and findings. thus, the second perspective entails a much broader view on a conceptual framework. based on the exposition above, there is evidently no clear-cut definition and application model for conceptual frameworks. researchers may easily fall into the trap of entering into a semantic debate with other scholars. i certainly do not wish to add to the apparent confusion in this regard. fortunately (or unfortunately), there is no pope in science (á la karl popper 1963) to judge whether a particular position is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. one should, however, be aware of the pitfalls of oversimplification and reductionism by attaching complex notions to conceptual frameworks. for the purposes of this article, i base my working definition of conceptual frameworks on the first perspective. however, later, in the article, i will illustrate, through a practical example, how to incorporate aspects of the second perspective in the research process. my working definition is based on a synopsis of the attributes and contributions of a conceptual framework, namely: serving as an ‘organising instrument’ (ravitch & riggan 2017:8) functioning as a ‘sorting and learning tool’ (miles & huberman 1994:20) being the thought-experiment aspect of a ‘speculative model-building exercise’ (maxwell 2005:38) functioning as a ‘mental map’ to direct and focus a literature review (ravitch & riggan 2017:15) providing an ‘interpretative approach to social reality’, thereby aiding understanding (jabareen 2009:51) supporting the argument for the study’s significance and identifying the relevant theory (marshall & rossman 2006:73) providing a ‘visual illustration’ of how concepts and constructs interconnect (jarvis 1999:45; tracy 2013:97). the significance of literature reviews in constructing conceptual frameworks postgraduate candidates in social sciences are often told to read extensively. the expectation is that this ‘reading’ will become the basis of the literature review. candidates tend to become overly anxious about this rather ambiguous, open-ended and seemingly never-ending task. this apprehension raises several questions. where should they start? what are the most important and authoritative texts? how many books must be read and when is it sufficient? the result is that candidates begin to read abstracts of articles and open books, scanning through the table of contents to determine whether the publication is ‘relevant’ or not. then, they begin transcribing content in the hope that it is significant for the study. however, the criterion or yardstick to use when determining the relevance of the content of textbooks or scholarly articles remains largely elusive. paulus, lester and demster (2014:49) stated that a literature review is important to situate the study’s key concepts within a discipline’s larger context, in order to join the ongoing conversation among a community of scholars. the literature review also guides the conceptualisation of key terms. welman and kruger (1999:253) stated that the literature review is essential to determine the ‘current state of knowledge’ about the research title. it is thus expected that researchers in the social sciences critically read the peer-reviewed studies related to their topic and identify the theories aligned with their study (somekh & lewin 2011:17). a conceptual framework should be regarded as both the result and focus of a literature review. as a result of a literature review, the researcher has to consult literature to: (1) identify relevant and related concepts, (2) determine the potential connections (interrelationships) between these concepts and (3) identify suitable theory(-ies) by which to embed the study in a particular theoretical perspective. a preliminary (draft) conceptual framework designed before the commencement of the research also provides focus for a literature review. in other words, instead of engaging all the available literature on a topic, the researcher focusses on relevant literature based on the concepts identified in the framework. the scope of the review is thus limited to the suitability and relevance of literature instead of attempting to outline a broad, generalised review (cf. hart 2001:23; silverman 2005:296). naturally, the approach differs from grounded theory where the researcher refrains from conceptualisation as the development of concepts is precisely the focus of research. the researcher thus works without pre-concepts, which makes the conceptual work inductive and corresponds to the hermeneutic nature of research in social sciences. the interface between conceptual and theoretical frameworks the literature does not always delineate clearly between theoretical and conceptual frameworks. there are generally three perspectives evident in a relationship between conceptual and theoretical frameworks: firstly, conceptual and theoretical frameworks are viewed as synonymous (maxwell 2005; saunders et al. 2015:36). secondly, a conceptual framework is considered as much broader in scope than a theoretical framework (eisenhart 1991:205; ravitch & riggan 2017:137). thirdly, a theoretical framework is understood as part of a conceptual whole (imenda 2014:189; jacard & jacoby 2010:78; kumar 2014:57). closer inspection of the above-mentioned perspectives indicates that authors ascribe a particular meaning to the notion of ‘theory’ (as applied in theoretical frameworks). scholars who regard theoretical frameworks as broader than conceptual frameworks seemingly understand ‘theory’ in terms of meta-, grandor macro-level theory or as a theoretical model in which the study is imbedded (cf. maree 2012:42). this implies that a conceptual framework is rooted in the research traditions, paradigms and approaches of a particular discipline such as (van der waldt 2017:186): phenomenology grounded theory ethnomethodology symbolic interactionism feminism postmodernism. scholars who view theoretical frameworks as part of conceptual frameworks understand theory in terms of a micro-range where it informs specific concepts or constructs, such as motivation theory, leadership theory and organisational theory. in this regard, kelly (2010) argued that micro-range theories guide research in at least four ways: provides a contextual orientation for the study by focusing attention on the specific aspects under investigation serves as instrument to conceptualise and classify concepts and constructs summarises what is already known about the object of study, including empirical generalisations, and systems of relationships between propositions; also pinpoints gaps in existing knowledge predicts results or findings of research. (p. 286) in this latter sense, theoretical frameworks may also refer to existing established theories or researchers’ own theorising, for example, assumptions, presuppositions, premises or hypotheses (sutton & staw 1995:373; torraco 1997:115). apart from the first perspective, namely, that conceptual and theoretical frameworks are synonymous, i concur fully with both the second and third perspectives mentioned previously, depending on the definition of the concept of ‘theory’. a conceptual framework is informed by theory to imbed the study philosophically, epistemologically and methodologically (second perspective). however, such a framework is also broader than a theoretical one (third perspective). the reason is that concepts and constructs identified in the conceptual framework will guide the application of theory on a micro-level. a study concerned with human resource management will therefore be imbedded in, for example, symbolic interactionism and behaviourism as its grand, macro-level theory. then, the study would narrow its focus to micro-level theory. this is performed to inform the main concepts and constructs of the study, such as theories of leadership, communication or group dynamics, and organisations. theoretical frameworks are thus both broader and form part of (is smaller than) conceptual frameworks. constructing a conceptual framework: suggested ‘how to’ steps as there is no single, best format for making an argument, there is also no single ‘right’ way to construct a conceptual framework. as stated previously, a sound conceptual framework provides a clearly articulated point of reference from which the researcher can make sense of the dynamic nature of the research process. as new insight emerges and adjustments are made, the conceptual framework will remain the focal or the reference point. the effective construction of a conceptual framework requires certain skills from the researcher, for example: contextual awareness by understanding the world as dynamic interaction of multiple events and trends general knowledge and meaning-making abilities logical reasoning and common sense basic understanding of the potential causal relationships between multiple variables a measure of linguistic acumen (e.g. suitably apply dictionary meanings of words and its usage in different social settings) model-building skills the ability to answer the ‘what-if’, ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ questions related to research topics and titles. in the absence of some of the above-mentioned skills, researchers or ‘emerging researchers’ (e.g. postgraduate candidates) may simply brainstorm ideas with a more senior, experienced colleague or their supervisor. the purpose of this section is to provide a practical reference point from which researchers in the social sciences can construct their own conceptual frameworks. the proposed steps to follow are expounded briefly below. step 1: choose the topic. the topic describes the field of study, for example, public finance, project management or human resource management. therefore, the topic should be within the researcher’s field of interest and/or specialisation. step 2: choose the title. typically, a title should focus on the study and illustrate the relationship between variables, for example, ‘the significance of leadership for organisational excellence’, where ‘leadership’ and ‘organisational excellence’ are key constructs. step 3: isolate the key concepts and/or constructs in the title. identify the specific variables described in the literature and determine how these are potentially related. step 4: do a literature review and identify related concepts and variables. review relevant and updated research on the title of the study in general and the concepts and constructs in particular. consult preferably peer-reviewed text books and established scientific journals because these are more reliable sources of information. step 5: generate the conceptual framework. in this phase, the researcher should be in a position to construct at least a basic conceptual framework by using the information gathered from the literature review. the study’s problem statement provides a reference for constructing the conceptual framework. the purpose of such a framework is to illustrate the research approach in graphical form to aid understanding of the research approach and design. causal relationships: the basis of constructing a conceptual framework is often using a cause–effect relationship. if the study involves this type of research, the goal is to prove such a relationship empirically. a cause–effect relationship typically involves two types of variables: independent and dependent. cause–effect relationships frequently include several independent variables that affect the dependent variable (welman & kruger 1999:13). design components: the basic components are boxes, arrows and lines. it is advisable to create a box for each concept or construct. then, arrows are inserted to indicate cause–effect relationships. each arrow should start from the variable that has causal influence and point to the one being affected. lines are used to indicate an expected correlation between two variables, but not necessarily of cause and effect. it should also be noted that conceptual frameworks do not have to be limited to independent and dependent variables. other types of variables can be incorporated as well (e.g. moderator, mediator and control). once the conceptual framework is nearing completion, the researcher can commence scientific research that will prove the illustrated relationships. any number of qualitative and quantitative research methods can be used for data collection, including literature reviews, interviews and surveys. to illustrate the steps in constructing a conceptual framework practically, the following example is used: research title: community perception regarding municipal service delivery efforts based on the mentioned title, the following key concepts are evident: ‘community’, ‘perception’, ‘municipality’ and ‘service delivery’. figure 1 illustrates the most basic conceptual framework or visual map for these key concepts. figure 1: basic conceptual framework. however, such a simple illustration is inadequate to guide the literature review effectively and operationalise the research objectives. based on the typical expectations of a conceptual framework, this illustration cannot be considered as an adequately completed stage. it is therefore necessary to unpack or frame these concepts further. this could be performed by formulating and answering simple questions such as ‘what to cover?’ (in the literature review); ‘who to approach?’; the ‘theoretical framework’ and ‘variables’; and ‘when?’ in the process, the content of the concepts will populate rapidly into more detail and the broader design of the study will emerge. in the tabular columns below, the respective concepts (1–4) associated with the title used as examples are expounded in more detail. this is performed by answering the mentioned questions, thus placing the study as a whole in sharper focus. the content of each dimension (i.e. right columns) is open for interpretation based on the particular a priori knowledge of the researcher, research approach and methodology followed, as well as the thoroughness of the literature review. the content merely serves as a guideline for researchers embarking on a study of similar nature. tables 1–4 explain in detail the attributes related to the four concepts, namely, community, municipality, service delivery and perception, as depicted in figure 1. table 1: framing concept 1 – community. table 2: framing concept 2 – municipality. table 3: framing concept 3 – service delivery. table 4: framing concept 4 – perception.1. the example expounded above clearly focusses on the study and could be used as a blueprint for the design of the study as a whole, including: focussed literature review investigating the identified concepts, constructs and variables analysis of the case study and processing of the units of analysis relevant theoretical framework: macroand micro-level theory per concept or construct formulation of research questions – directed by framing questions in the columns choice of instrumentation for data collection. then the conceptual framework can be used as a focal point in the remaining steps of the research process. this includes the following: identifying a grand or macro-level theory in which to embed the study and pinpointing smaller theories to probe the correlation and interrelationship between concepts (i.e. theoretical framework). based on the expounded example, this framework would integrate theories related to service delivery and organisational (municipal) excellence. embedding and anchoring constructs within the identified theories. determining suitable sources and methods of data collection. analysing data based on the conceptual framework (correlation, relationships). developing grounded theory (if relevant for the nature of the study) derived from the findings. by incorporating the outlined detail, it is possible to construct a far more comprehensive conceptual framework, as depicted in figure 2. figure 2: example of a comprehensive conceptual framework. the schematic illustration in figure 2 presents the researcher with a clear map to direct the literature review and design the content of theoretical chapters. the dimensions and variables associated with each concept will have to be addressed in these theoretical chapters (e.g. headings and subheadings) for an adequate conceptualisation of the main concepts and constructs. such an exploration must be embedded in theory(-ies) at both macroand micro-levels. it should be noted again that conceptual frameworks can be reconceptualised and modified based on the perspectives and insights that were unavailable when the framework was first constructed. such reconstruction is consistent with the fundamental premise that research in the social sciences is non-linear, evolutionary and dynamic. conclusion the purpose of this article was to outline the contours of conceptual frameworks as applied in social science research and practically illustrate possible steps to construct such frameworks. it is evident that conceptual frameworks mainly serve the purpose of directing literature reviews and helping embed the study in theories both at macroand micro-levels. constructing conceptual frameworks is not easy at first. however, with exercise and experience, it will add significant value to any research within the social sciences. as tracy (2013:v) rightly remarked, ‘anything worth doing well is worth doing badly in the beginning’. acknowledgements competing interests the author has declared that no competing interest exists. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research article. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references asher, h.b., 1984, theory-building and data analysis in the social sciences, university of tennessee press, knoxville, tn. eisenhart, m., 1991, conceptual frameworks for research circa 1991: ideas for a cultural anthropologist; implications for mathematics education rese, psychology of mathematics education, blacksburg, va. flick, u., 2014, an introduction to qualitative research, 5th edn., sage, london. green, h.e., 2014, ‘use of theoretical and 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administrative sciences, oxford university press, cape town. williams, m., 2003, making sense of social research, sage, london. wilson, j., 1971, thinking with concepts, cambridge university press, cambridge. footnote 1. for consistency, ‘perception’ is referred to as a concept, although, technically, it is regarded as a construct. microsoft word 02 boyce-tillman.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 12-33. music and well-being j boyce-tillman1 abstract. this paper scrutinizes how human beings relate to the wider cosmos in the thinking of the european middle ages. the re-invention of the ‘spiritual’ might liberate western culture from cartesian elements within western christianity and the consequent limited and exclusive views of musicking. practical examples of how singing together forms community at a variety of levels will be discussed. others aspects that will be addressed are: being human; culture, health and illness; the place of the spiritual and the implications of this for music education. keywords. music education, singing, community, well-being, spirituality, musicking introduction this paper (originally given as a keynote presentation)2 will explore the view of what it is to be human and how well-being is constructed (helman, 1994). in this context it will scrutinize how human beings relate to the wider cosmos in the thinking of the european middle ages. i shall further explore how process models of well-being (whitehead, 1929; dewey, 1934 & shusterman, 2008) can inform the place of music as a source of well-being (small, 1998). this paper shall also discuss how the re-invention of the ‘spiritual’ (heelas & woodhead, 2005; wigglesworth, 2005) might liberate western culture from cartesian elements within western christianity (claxton, 2010) and how this resulted in limited and exclusive views of musicking. i shall also argue the re-invention of the idea of the ‘spiritual’ challenges, the sacred/secular divide (bender, 2010) and the potential for enabling a musical pedagogy based on respectful encounter (levinas, 1969; buber, 1970; ellis, 1985; tisdell, 2007, boyce-tillman, 2010; nussbaum, 2012). thus, the emerging methodology for the current study is crystallization. this methodology is a qualitative approach seeking to gain insight into a particular phenomenon through an indepth understanding of its complexity (richardson, 2000b): in postmodernist mixed-genre texts, we do not triangulate, we crystallize ... i propose that the central image for “validity” for postmodern texts is not the triangle — a rigid, fixed, two-dimensional object. rather, the central imaginary is the crystal, which 1 . rev dr june boyce-tillman is a professor of applied music at winchester university in the uk, and an extraordinary professor at north-west university, potchefstroom campus (niche entity – musical arts in south africa: resources and applications). she is a popular international keynote speaker and was appointed member of the order of the british empire (mbe) for her contribution to music and education. june.boyce-tillman@winchester.ac.uk 2 . there were performative elements in the original presentation, which are difficult to encapsulate in an academic paper. i have endeavoured to summarise the gist of them in written form in this article. it is in line with the crystallization methodology. music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 13 combines symmetry and substance with an infinite variety of shapes, substances, transmutations, multidimensionalities, and angles of approach (richardson 2000:934, original emphasis). this allows for a variety of writing styles (and in the actual keynote presentation performative elements) to explore music and well-being by means of an interdisciplinary weaving together of philosophy, theology, music (as approached by musicology, ethnomusicology, music therapy), hymns, poetry and musical practice. crystallization sees truth as a crystal with different facets revealing different aspects of truth: crystallization combines multiple forms of analysis and multiple genres of representation into a coherent text or series of related texts, (ellingson, 2009:4). singing and community the first performative event was designed to demonstrate how singing together forms community at a variety of levels. recent research in neuroscience at the university of gothenburg has confirmed this and linked it with emotional well-being: singing in a choir is as good as yoga because the breathing patterns can regulate your heart beat. when choir members sing together their heartbeats become synchronised growing faster and slower at the same time as they breathe in and out in unison, the researchers found. the study could explain why choral singing is said to be good for your health, because reducing the variability of your heart rate is likely to be good for your well-being, they said. it also suggests singing can enhance the spirit of co-operation in a group because it helps regulate activity in the brain’s vagus nerve, which is linked to emotion and communication with others. the researchers, from the university of gothenburg, studied the heart rates of 15-18 year old choral singers as they performed three different vocal exercises: humming, singing a swedish hymn and chanting a slow mantra. the combined results showed that the melody and the structure of the music directly affected singers’ heart rates and that singing in unison caused their pulses to rise and fall at the same time (collins, 2013:5). it is on the basis of such claims that i asked the group present to take their pulse and listen to the different speeds of the heartbeats within our group. then we sang together: chorus sing us our own song the song of the earth, the song of creation, the song of our birth, that exists in belonging to you and to me, to the stars and the mountains, the sky and the sea. 1. listen! you’re hearing the song of the earth, they sing it who know of their value and worth, for they know they belong with the sea and the sky, to the moonshine at midnight, the clouds floating by. chorus 2. it is not one song but patchworks of sound. that includes all the pitches that people have found that includes the vibrations of earthquakes and bees boyce-tillman 14 of the laughing fire’s crackling and murmuring breeze. chorus 3. all blend together to make the earth song, fragmented parts separated too long, true notes and rhythms and colours and beat make sacred spaces where we all meet. chorus (boyce-tillman, 2006b). following the singing i asked everyone to take their pulse again and we found that all our pulses had entrained with one another. we had become more like one another physically by communal musicking. in music and mind, anthony storr (1993) sees this as the main purpose of musicking – to create community. the song also implies that this is a community that extends beyond the human community. storr’s notion of a cosmic community would possibly have been the prevailing philosophy/theology of mediaeval europe in the work of people like hildegard of bingen (boyce-tillman, 2000c). being human where does the notion of community sit in western thinking about what it is to be human today? many would say that one of the most serious losses in the globalisation of capitalism is a sense of community. central to this may be the loss of communal contexts for singing like church or synagogue services. the dominant model of the self is now one of an often aggressive individualism (boyce-tillman, 2007b). as i was driven to the potchefstroom campus i passed a number of villages – houses huddled together with a real sense of a close community or ubuntu. many in the west are drawing on this traditional concept: one of the sayings in our country is ubuntu – the essence of being human. ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. it speaks about our interconnectedness. you can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – ubuntu – you are known for your generosity (tutu, 2008). but the great march of global capitalism is on the way to obliterating such ideas which make community central to what it is to be human; for such ideas do not fit with its aim of controlling notions of humanity to serve its own needs. thinkers like cathy benedict see how within global capitalism ideas of competition between humans have become institutionalised: the point … is that competition at global level has indeed become institutionalised … a class system that provides the mechanisms for the satisfaction of profit and a division of labor that produces “a product whose goal is not to satisfy human needs but rather to re-order the lives of the people who come into contact with it” (ollman, 1976:200 in benedict, 2013:15-16). such a way of ordering society is creating a community to serve the ends of those at the top – the rich – rather than one based on mutual service and understanding. in particular, it is not one that values diversity. a capitalist economy ... creates and enacts the “universal subject of music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 15 the modern state” (lyon, 1999:5). so, our society is structured to create community based on a class structure that requires “the invention of a new class of poor and a new definition of poverty” (illich, 1972:4). thus far, encouraging the development of a rich humanist education resulted in dedication towards serving capitalist ends rather than giving people the tools for creating a community of mutuality one needs educated workers. and this ritualized progression of global competitiveness serves to create further divisions of labour and class and confusion between teaching and learning (or learning as “certification” and commodification) (benedict, 2013:16-17). i have been composing a piece portraying the ideas of the futures of capitalism entitled the great turning (boyce-tillman, 2014), in which darkness is portrayed by the repeated ostinato of “they are not serving us; we are serving them”. my suggestion is that attending to the spiritual aspects of education could provide a chance of rehumanizing our educational systems. culture, health and illness our state institutions like education and medicine have become organized around the capitalist goals described above, which may be regarded as limiting what it truly means to be human. cecil helman (1994) in his book culture, health and illness describes three models that underpin thinking about the health of the body which is inextricably bound up with what it means to be human. these models are: the balance/imbalance model – “the healthy working of the body is thought to depend on the harmonious balance between two or more elements of forces within the body” (helman, 1994:21). the plumbing model – “the body is conceived of as a series of hollow cavities or chambers, connected with one another, and with the body’s orifices, by a series of “pipes” or “tubes” … central to this model is the belief that health is maintained by the uninterrupted flow of various substances … between cavities, or between a cavity and the body’s exterior via one of the orifices” (helman, 1994:24-25). the machine model – “the conceptualization of the body as an internal combustion engine, or as a battery-driven machine, has become more common in western society” (helman, 1994:26). the first of these has far greater scope for the inclusion of mind and soul than either of the others. medieval cosmic schemes tended to see the world as a whole as being constantly in a state of rebalancing and the notion of healing as balance/imbalance fitted better in such a view of the world. john foskett (1984), dealing with mental health, identifies a variety of models which include: • the medical model which sees mental disturbance as the result of a chemical deficiency; • the psychodynamic model based on the work of analysts like freud; • the behavioural model which deals in cause and effect and is influenced by experimental psychology and learning theory; • the social model that emphasises the effect of social deprivation (foskett,1984). the above mentioned models show a variety of locations for the disturbance leading us to see how complex our humanity is. although the most useful model for music as well-being is boyce-tillman 16 balance, we have already seen how current research is accommodating the emotional and i will integrate into this the spiritual. if we put together aspects of these models with current research we get a version of a human being who has the following domains within the self: 1. material (or physical) – i.e. has parts moving and so on but those parts are inextricable bound together through the natural world; 2. emotional and feelingful – a domain that includes personal history, natural and behavioural circumstances, interpersonal and intrapersonal areas and notions of identity; 3. mind – a domain associated with reason and thinking; 4. social situatedness – which will be in a variety of contexts involving a variety identities; 5. spiritual– which includes some sense of the beyond. the place of the spiritual i wrote this poem after conducting a performance of one of my own pieces. for me, it was a real glimpse of glory and as with many of these experiences it was not planned but was rather connected to the musicking experience. it was as if i went to the garden as the sun was descending ... it was as if the great ferns had grown longer and greener it was as if the greening power of the earth was everywhere – filling the world with love and strength it was as if the entire world was singing it was as if i love everything and everything loved me it was as if i had found the place i was really meant to be it was as if i was in the place just right – the valley of love and delight it was as if god had made me just for this moment it was as if i was alive for the first time it was as if i saw the world made new it was as if the garden enclosed me and held me safe it was as if everything was higher than it had ever been it was as if everything was cool it was as if nothing mattered but this one moment of divine promise (boyce-tillman, 2011). theorists are gradually bringing into their models an element of the spiritual in an effort to identify the limitations in the dominant machine models of what it means to be human. rowson calls this unease spiritual embarrassment: spiritual embarrassment is grounded in confusion about human nature and human needs … surely religions are the particular cultural doctrinal and institutional expressions of human spiritual needs which are universal? … compare the designations music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 17 “educated, but not due to schooling” or “healthy but not because of medicine” (rowson, 2013:42). he goes on to identify some of the problems which our current systems are not tackling effectively as spiritual: when you consider how we might, for instance, become less vulnerable to terrorism, care for an aging population, address the rise in obesity or face up to climate change, you see that we are – individually and collectively – deeply conflicted by competing commitments and struggling to align our actions with our values ... the best way to characterise problems at that level is spiritual (rowson, 2013:40). in order to understand how we got to this opposition we need to examine how the present concept of the spiritual developed. a brief history of spirituality in the nineteenth century nietzsche declared god dead and thus spirituality (heelas & woodhead 2005) can be seen as a solution to the loss of god. robert fuller, in his book spiritual but not religious (2001), traces its roots into the nineteenth century, linking it with such movements in the us as transcendentalism, swedenborgianism, theosophy, spiritualism and eastern religions. the transcendentalists centring on ralph waldo emerson drew on kant’s view of the transcendental to see it as all the intuitive aspects of the mind. swedenborgianism was a system of philosophical and religious doctrines which asserted the spiritual nature of the universe. the theosophical society in 1875 saw the oneness of all life. from this rudolf steiner developed anthroposophy which stresses the centrality of the quest for the spiritual/transcendent to what it is to be human. during the 19th century the notion of the perennial philosophy developed the idea of a universal truth underpinning the various religious traditions. organized religions such as christianity, taoism, buddhism, sikhism, hinduism, and islam are seen to be derived from this universal truth (huxley, 1945). notions of spirituality therefore included other faith traditions, as in world spirituality: an encyclopaedic history of religious quest, (dupre, 1990) which included twenty-five examples of ‘spirituality spanning a range of eras and faith traditions’. however, if underpinning all this is a search for an essential unity at the heart of religious thinking, in the early 21st century diversity reasserts itself as king suggests: it is ... much more appropriate to speak of ‘spiritualities’ rather than spirituality in the singular. christian spirituality differs from jewish, muslim, hindu or buddhist spirituality ... many contemporary spiritualities have come into existence which are not defined by traditional religions but are secular or newly created (king, 2009:4). the current development of consciousness studies has entered this area of the interconnectedness of creation with figures like ken wilber (2009). missing god this history of spirituality could be seen as varied attempts to fill the hole left by religion. alain de botton – a self-declared atheist – turns to the arts as a replacement for god. boyce-tillman 18 following a similar line, the atheist philosopher alain de botton, warns that before we dismiss religion we must ask the reasons for its existence: [first] the need to live together in communities in harmony, despite our deeply rooted selfish and violent impulses. and second, the need to cope with terrifying degrees of pain which arise from our vulnerability to professional failure, to troubled relationships, to the death of loved ones and to our decay and demise ... the error of modern atheism is how many aspects of the faiths remain relevant even after their central tenets have been dismissed … there might be a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content (de botton, 2012:5-6). thus, we are looking for processes that will comfort us and give us a sense of belonging, which can be related to the musical experience. process or product we live in a product centred society which has little concern for the methods by which a particular product is produced. success is often associated with a particular product – an exam result, a qualification, a transaction, a new job, a partnership. it is associated with commodification in our society. human beings are invited to package themselves with branded names and life styles that make them a certain sort of product. image makers are paid to support this process. advertising offers a range of options in terms of image whether it is for dwelling place, domestic gadgetry, sports equipment, plastic surgery or a typology of children. doing – i.e. producing products – has become dominant and being has consequently become a subjugated valueless way of knowing. capitalism deals only in products. this value system validates de-humanizing forms of production and the rape of the earth for the materials of production. schools and exams are also commodified. macfarlane roots this tendency in education with the passing on of the literate religions: the task of education was to instil truth in young minds through repetition. there was no questioning, just some explanation, elaboration, leaving out of obscure meanings. this tendency was reinforced as wealth increased. there were more priests and teachers; the ability to pass examinations on the texts became ever more important as the key to power and status; the period of education became ever longer ... mental worlds were, if anything, increasingly closed. truth was asserted and given sanction by being written down … there was nothing new to be said or thought (macfarlane, 2005:141). the workplace is increasingly literate and the orate3 can find no place in it, whereas processes, in general, contain a higher level of oracy: knowledge has been passed on through most of history by word of mouth. this does not allow much criticism. nothing is written down, so different versions cannot easily be compared. there is no ‘external truth’ or ‘way’ providing an orthodoxy from which there can be deviations (macfarlane, 2005:140). 3 . the words “literacy” and “oracy” refer to processes of communication. the terms “literate” and “orate” refer to societies which use either the written word or the spoken word as the prime means of communication (ong, 1982). music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 19 this paper sees how theologians have challenged a product-based view of life to produce more process-based models of spirituality that roots it more in a series of interactions rather than belief in a codified and reified divine being of some kind. the god delusion the term “god delusion” comes from a text by richard dawkins (2006) in which he claims that a personal belief in a supernatural creator is a delusion. this leads him to a description of religion as a shared insanity. the sales of this book – which reached 2 million copies by january 2010 indicates the popularity of the ideas that he sets out. he is following in the footsteps of authors like philip pullman who similarly describes in the amber spyglass, a puny male divine figure that draws on western iconography of some 1500 years including the popular creation one on the ceiling of the sistine chapel by michelangelo. the narrative of christianity developed this anthromorphic view of god only after 300 years of the use of symbols like the fish. they surrounded this idolatrous representation with creeds and dogmas to support it still reflected in the male hierarchical structures of many of the christian traditions. the move in our culture towards a personal descriptor of spiritual but not religious has, in general, rebelled against the systematisation of the supposed teachings of their founding figures (which are often passed down initially orally resulting in a problematic access to the figures themselves like jesus) creeds and dogmas outlined by mcfarlane above and underpinning the atheism of the likes of pullman and dawkins. characteristics of spiritual but religious can be summarised as: • a rejection of creed and dogma and a source of truth; • a valuing of experience over received tradition; • an embracing of plurality in belief frames; • a celebration of the mysterious and paradoxical linked with experiences of awe and wonder – the ‘sacred ignorance’ of the theology of liberation theologians (keller & danielle, 2002; christ, 2003); • a notion of spirituality as potentially transformative encounter; • an awareness of a wider connectivity in the universe; • a sense of journeying or seeking which draws on process philosophy and theology (whitehead, 1929) underpinning the aesthetics of dewey (1934) and shusterman (2008). the problematic nature of the god delusion that i was instructed into as a child i expressed in a hymn, which reworks one that i regularly sang as a child: finding god (with apologies to mrs emily huntington miller) 1. a child once loved the story which angel voices tell how once the king of glory came down on earth to dwell. 2. now, father god, i miss you – boyce-tillman 20 your beard, your robes, your crown – but you have served us badly and let us humans down. 3. so easy to disprove you and doubt your truthfulness; for you were just an idol that kept your power suppressed. 4. for you are deep within us revealed within our deeds, incarnate in our living and not within our creeds. 5. no image cannot hold you; and, if to one we hold, we keep some from your loving and leave them in the cold. 6. excluded groups are legion – disabled, female, gay – old father of the heavens, your picture moves away. 7. life’s processes reveal you in prison, death and war, in people who are different, in gatherings of the poor. 8. for godding means encounter, gives dignity to all, has every shape and no shape in temple, tree and wall. 9. so we will go a-godding and birth you in our world; in sacrificial loving we find your strength unfurled (june boyce-tillman, 2012 unpublished). my conclusion is that we have lived with a god delusion for a long time and that this was revealed to us by the prominent atheist writers of our day whose position would be impossible without this particular narrative of the divine. if we change our view of the spiritual to view it as a process and not a product, the atheistic position would be much more difficult to defend. such a society would be open to much wider possibilities for accessing ways of knowing beyond the rational and every day – a condition longed for by the human products of a post-nietzschean god-is-dead pseudo-secularised society. music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 21 a process-based spirituality – going a-godding the notion of a way of being as the essence of christianity rather than a commitment to a certain set of facts set in a particular narrative have been a strand of christian thought for some time. christological scholars have been rethinking jesus’s development of the idea of the kingdom in a more process-based light – not as a thing to be achieved but as an on-going co-operation between human beings and god (crossan, 1992:29f). feminist theologians have also drawn on the development of process thought (daly, 1973; grey, 1989). ruth mantin writes that she wishes to see spirituality as process and sacrality as performative (mantin, 2002) seeing the process as never completed. carol christ (2003) saw change as at the heart of the divine. i have attempted to capture these ideas in this song: chorus and we’ll all go a-godding to bring the world to birth. 1. new life is calling; help set it free. and we’ll all go a-godding with a song of liberty. chorus 2. hunger is calling, find food to share; and we’ll all go a-godding to give out abundant care. chorus 3. hopelessness calling lonely and drear; and we’ll all go a-godding in warm friendship drawing near. chorus 4. warfare is calling. when will it cease? and we’ll all go a-godding, in our arms, the flowers of peace. chorus 5. justice is calling scales in her hand; and we’ll all go a-godding, in her strength we’ll take a stand. chorus 6. wisdom is calling; search out her ways; and we’ll all go a-godding, to the ending of our days. chorus (june boyce-tillman, 2006b). boyce-tillman 22 process spirituality finds its expression in breaking down the sacred secular divide as we encounter the divine in unusual places: … did we see that day the unseeable one glory of the everlasting world perpetually at work, though never seen? (muir 1963, quoted in holloway, 2012:4). a process view of spirituality is much more able to encapsulate failure within its remit and therefore encompass risk. there is an ancient saying that you cannot find light unless you are prepared to enter the darkness and that this is part of the process of life. this is taken up by leonard cohen in his song anthem: ring the bells that still can ring forget your perfect offering there is a crack, a crack in everything that’s how the light gets in (cohen 2012). isabel clarke takes the last two lines of this as title for her chapter on psychosis and spirituality in ways of knowing (2005). she draws on cognitive psychology (thalbourne et al., 1997) in setting up a model of the trans-liminal as a ‘porous’ relation to other beings. this she contrasts with ‘propositional knowing’. we cross an internal ‘limen’ or threshold to reach this way of knowing which is characterised by a both/and logic; this may appear as a way of not-knowing; the ability to live with paradox is the central feature of this not-knowing (clarke, 2005). the arts as spiritual experience alain de botton and tina beattie make an impassioned plea to artists to rethink their teaching in order to enable music to fill the void left by god. therefore, the task of artists is to enable us to understand the processes of life and our solidarity in accordance with other parts of creation. this is echoed by jill dolan writing of music theatre: utopia in performance argues that live performance provides a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination that can describe or capture fleeting intimations of a better world (dolan, 2005:2). she draws on joseph chaikin, founder of the open theatre: [theatre] becomes a privileged, intimate area of human experience within which one can demand that the promise of another dimension of existence be revealed, and that the impossible be achieved/experienced here and now (quoted in dolan, 2005:6). millie taylor (2013) develops this idea in her inaugural lecture: the utopia that dolan outlines is not a stabilized model nor a self-determined system, not a narrative or realistic representation of a better world, but something always in process, always slightly out of reach, as an approach toward, a momentary experience, and yet as powerfully real as hopes, desires and ‘concrete fantasy’ (dolan, 2005:7). these utopian performatives are momentary experiences within performance that music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 23 ‘exceed the content of a play or performance’ (dolan, 2005:8), and it is in this sense that i am using the term excess today, as something that is beyond what might be anticipated and that lifts us into a moment of illumination that is always ephemeral and evanescent. she illustrates this from stephen sondheim, showing how his song into the woods (1987) sets us a contemporary morality based in journeying into difficult places. this thinking is in line with that of alain de botton as quoted above; according to millie taylor’s thinking, the audience finds meaning in and accompaniment on their own journeys through their experience of musical theatre through the previously mentioned song. this is part of the spiritual experience but as we have seen it is, as we have already seen, a complex area and academe has traditionally not gone into it. jonathan rowson describes this problem thus: while there has been a growing normalisation of the idea that person can be ‘spiritual but not religious’, this designation may actually compound the problem of intellectual embarrassment. it does nothing to clarify what spirituality might mean outside of religious contexts, nor how religion might valuably support and inform non-believers ... the injunction of philosophy is to question assumptions, make distinctions and be logical. if spirituality is to be recognised as something with ontological weight and social standing it also needs an injunction that is culturally recognised, as it was for centuries in the christian west and still is in many societies worldwide (rowson, 2013:42-43). the research at hand has revealed six main areas in which people have an experience of the divine: • through the natural world which i have called inter-gaian (concerned with our relationship to the other-than-human world); • intrapersonal (within ourselves); • interpersonal (our relations with other people); • extrapersonal /ethical (our relations with the wider world, the global context); • metaphysical (their experience of god as a voice inside, as an answer to prayer, or as a vision or guiding principle); • narrative which “refers to the fund of ‘story’ in which an individual ‘dwells’ and that constitutes the primary reference for religious identity” (pratt, 2012:4) – the stories with which people make sense of our lives. jonathan rowson identifies similar areas when he writes: being spiritual can mean safeguarding our sense of sacred, valuing the feeling of belonging or savouring the rapture of intense absorption. and then there is the quintessential gratitude we feel when we periodically notice, as gift and revelation, that we are alive ... it is therefore time to question the common default position that emphasises the autonomous individual striving to consciously construct their own religious belief system as a guide to how they should act in the world. it is not just about sociality. the emerging early 21st century view of human nature indicates we are fundamentally embodied, constituted by evolutionary biology, embedded in complex online and offline networks, largely habitual creatures, highly sensitive to social and cultural norms, riddled with cognitive quirks and biases, and more rationalising than rational (rowson, 2012:42-43). these areas do overlap in people’s account of their mystical experiences (james, 1903; pratt 2012). i have already referred to the varying narratives in use in judaism and christianity but boyce-tillman 24 i shall not further deal with the variety of narratives (that characterise other faiths) which people use to explain their metaphysical or religious experiences. these descriptions of the characteristics of these ways into the divine are drawn from some of the writings about these areas and act rather like a smorgasbord from which people in various contexts construct what they mean by spirituality: inter-gaian • a sense of oneness and deep relationship with the other-than-human world. (boycetillman, 2000 & 2010; grey, 2007; primavesi, 2008). intrapersonal • an internal sense of empowerment, bliss and realisation. guy claxton (2002) links it with being energised and a sense of great clarity like ‘a high-spirited child’ or ‘a spirited horse’. • a sense of coming home to be at peace and at one with ourselves … the joy and reconciliation of better knowing ourselves … and the unity of being at peace with ourselves (jorgensen, 2008:280). • an evanescent and fleeting quality that cannot be controlled, which may result in a sense of givenness with a mixture of grace, insight and effort (tisdell, 2007:533). • freedom – a feeling of an opening-up in the experiencer as boundaries start to dissolve and an expansion in the sense of identity. • the opening up of the intuitive faculties. • the ability to experiment with new ways of being. open-mindedness and curiosity replaces fundamentalisms of all kinds, leading to creativity born from unusual associations (koestler, 1964). this ability is derived largely from the unconscious and symbolic processes (tisdell, 2007) so that diversity can exist within it easily. this capacity may be manifested in image, symbol, music, and other enculturated expressions. paradox can be tolerated (clarke, 2005). • a sense of transformation and change (boyce-tillman, 2002, 2007 & 2009; mezirow, 2000). interpersonal • empathy – a sense of belonging and being at ease in the world and replacing competition with caring and attempts to bless (buber, 1970; laurence, 2010). extrapersonal/ethical • a feeling of unity with other beings, people, the cosmos (communitas) (turner, 1969). • peace building within the mind and beyond in a state of inner harmony and clarity, and less often conflicted and self-conscious. tisdell (2007) describes this as a sense of wholeness, healing, and the interconnectedness of all things resulting in the finding of ultimate meaning. music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 25 metaphysical • a sense of encounter with mystery. this links with the experience of ‘contemplative thinking’ (lancaster, 2004). • a sense of the beyond – the all shall be well of the mystic, julian of norwich – a releasing of control – a sense of connection to a life-force, god, higher power or purpose (tisdell, 2007). implications for music education how does the conveyed argument impact on music education? education has often reflected the dominant culture – the classical traditions with the emphases that i have just outlined. for example, there are two aesthetics for singing. music education has been coloured by classical approaches to music making: classical perspective emphasizing performance, perfection and virtuosity – the standard or “taproot” aesthetic that has been recognized in music education since its inception in the mid-1800s. the second is an aesthetic for singing which stresses community building, diversity, group collaboration and relationship (pascale, 2005:167). the dominance of the classical perspective has meant a devaluing of indigenous singing traditions – the use of singing as i examined at the beginning of this article, to create community: one of the great losses in life is that, as a nation, most people don’t sing now. the idea that a singer was someone exclusive was not there then. everybody sang. some sung well, some didn’t, but singing was as normal as breathing. we sang up the woods, we sang anywhere. you sang when you felt in the mood – you’d be in the pub and someone would start a song and all of a sudden the whole place lit up (stradling, 2001). this has resulted in many being excluded from the musical experience: one of the biggest barriers to audience engagement is the notion held by many that the arts are simply not for them. the ‘it’s not for me’ syndrome is endemic and conspires to exclude people from experiences that could transform their lives (mcmaster, 2008:7). it is the stress on the excellence of the product demanded by the classical tradition that has underpinned these developments and in order to establish the relationship between spirituality and music i shall draw on john dewey’s idea of the arts as engaged experience. [he] emphasized the importance of: … direct experience over received knowledge; valued the rough, unpolished quality of vernacular creation over the normative aesthetics of cultural institutions; believed in the pedagogical effectiveness of both experience and art; and saw artistic form as arising out of fully engaged experience (dewey, 2012: no pages). other theorists like christopher small (1998) and richard shusterman (2008) have been arguing for a more experience and process-based view of musicking for it is in the process of experiencing music that people enter the realm of contentless experience that is transformational in character and is named by individual cultures or persons in a variety of ways. it includes notions of awe, wonder and mystery (yob, 2011). boyce-tillman 26 a process based model of musicking my model of music making emphasises experiencing in all its complexity: figure 1: model for spiritual experience in music boyce tillman (2006a) the model depicted in figure 1 enables us to understand the complexity of the musical experience with its diverse domains which are experienced with different intensities at different times and in different contexts. this model, with its interlocking domains, easily maps onto the model of spirituality with the inter-gaian (the relationship with the environment) area sitting in the domain of materials, the intrapersonal in the domain of expression, the interpersonal in the domain of construction, the extra-personal in the domain of values and the metaphysical in the domain of spirituality which is encountered by moving through these facets of the crystal. the research that led to this model was multi-faceted and each facet has its own methodological strategies associated with it. therefore, the strategies and methodologies used for examining the various circles differ. traditional musicological techniques for notated music are clearly appropriate in the construction domain. techniques drawing on the literature on music therapy help considerably to illuminate the expression domain while ethnomusicological methodologies illuminate the domain of values. organology is a clear part of the domain of materials as is also the physiology of the body. the model offers a thick description of the musical experience (geertz, 1973). it accepts the essential subjectivity of the experience with different aspects gradually becoming apparent as the experiencer views it through different facets of the crystal (ellingson, 2009). the fluidity of the model enables is to interrogate the process of musicking through different lenses which may present us with various paradoxes. in the model, the domains interact with one another powerfully. the expression domain concerns developments within the self (often limited unnecessarily in the past to therapeutic contexts) – the intrapersonal. rethinking in this domain can also affect interpersonal behaviour in the domain of construction which is different in literate traditions (performing in orchestras or choirs) from improvised traditions (like jazz and african drumming music and well-being td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 12-33. 27 traditions). such rethinking will cause changes within the domain of values. extrapersonal views and behaviours may change and challenge fundamentalisms and understandings of ethical issues in musicking (boyce-tillman, 2007c, 2011). in this domain there can be debates about religious narratives in contexts such as education (boyce-tillman, 2001). the environmental (boyce-tillman, 2010) part of the material domain is seldom present in educational contexts except in exploring experiences of awe and wonder at the natural world. the spiritual domain opens up as the domains fuse together in a spontaneous way. the uncoupling of the spiritual domain (relating the metaphysical experience to contemporary developments in the study of consciousness) from the narratives of the great faiths (located in the model in the domain of values) offers the possibility of a religionless spirituality. there is a developing literature showing how notions of the spiritual can draw on any or all of these domains. frank heuser (2012) concentrates on the interpersonal when he claims that music opens up the spiritual essence of the human character which enables individuals to move beyond their own immediate concerns, feel compassion for others, and experience private moments of awe, wonder and transcendence. he suggests that teachers need to “nurture a child’s natural capacity for creating meanings and allow spirituality to unfold in the course of instruction” (heuser, 2012:116). in the metaphysical area tina beattie suggests that: all theological language, all mysticism and prayer, all art, music and literature, are ways of trying – and failing – to express the ‘no-thinglyness’ of god (beattie, 2007:175). in the domain of expression sits the area of identity: music is a key resource for realizing personal and collective identities … identities [which] are at once individual and social … the crucial link between identity formation and arts like music lies in the specific semiotic character of these activities which make them particularly affective and direct ways of knowing (turino, 1999: 221). batzoglou distinguishes this from therapy: the facilitation of the process aims towards a deeper inner self-exploration rather than therapeutic attendance of the participants’ psychopathological needs. this relationship is interpersonal and inter-psychic, happening verbally or non-verbally with the whole group and each individual separately (batzoglou, 2011:no pages). in this domain also lie the transformative possibilities of the liminal space both interpersonally and intrapersonally as in the story of a woman brought up in india who was ashamed but could not abandon her anti-islamic position born of her experience of islam in her youth. during a space for peace event she sat at the foot of the pulpit where the imam was chanting and cried it all away. after it she felt her islamophobia washed away by the crying generated by the music. in a similar event an intrapersonal transformation occurred: on one side of the west door the rabbi sang the lord’s prayer in hebrew, in a beautiful resonant voice. we had been told we could make a request to the singers, perhaps to sing in memory of someone for example. so i asked the rabbi to hold someone in his heart when he next sang, my beautiful mum. it was rich and beautiful. and i wept. i have never asked anyone to do this before, and no one has ever offered. in the past people have said they would remember someone in prayer or thought, but never through music. i didn’t know music could be so powerful. that solo voice singing boyce-tillman 28 with such a depth of intention and love for someone i loved. i shall never ever forget that (unpublished conversation 2010). so if we concentrate on the process of experiencing music we can see that it can transform in a variety of ways: my intention was also to show that music could be a genuine way to create situations, to construct social relations in situations, to communicate in a holistic way that combines body and ethics, individual and community (westerlund, 2002:144). summary i have set out a process model of spirituality drawing from a variety of texts and both contemporary and much older. i have seen how the marginalisation and fluidity within concepts of spirituality and its relationship to well-being, in favour of fixed narratives passed on by means of literary texts have resulted in a fixed, less experiential set of creeds and dogmas; this has resulted in various groups being excluded from religious citadels. i have shown how the rise of the description spiritual but not religious is a challenging of these fixed ideas and how a process based model of musicking reflects the concerns of contemporary writers on spirituality. i have reflected further on the model and seen it in a more crystalline form with various facets or domains through which one can examine the whole. this enables the encompassing of paradox and mystery within the experience. the platonic theory of perfect forms coloured the christian codification of the nature of god and still persists in theories of aesthetics based on an ideal structure situated somewhere in the universe to which our forms of construction aspire. by adopting a process based model of examining the musicking experience i hope that i have shown you the possibility of aesthetic judgements based on a variety of bases which enable them to be fluid and diverse and varying within various contexts. spirituality, i have shown, is to be located primarily in the process rather then the product. this is encapsulated in these final words from a us song: oh, you gotta get a glory in the work you do; a hallelujah chorus in the heart of you. paint, or tell (write) a story, sing, or shovel coal, but you gotta get a glory or 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accepted: 18 nov. 2018; published: 23 apr. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this study’s focus on the xenophobic violence in south africa is topical, mostly concentrating on the economic competition between foreign nationals and local people as a root cause. whilst the south african government’s record of poor governance has led to a high crime rate, poor service delivery, corruption and poorly implemented and enforced legislations have been overlooked and disassociated with xenophobia. the current study explores other forces that have triggered the xenophobic violence in south africa in 2015 with a clear focus on the province of kwazulu-natal. the study aims to ascertain some of the causes and dimensions of the xenophobic violence and the government’s inability to detect and respond to such a catastrophe in kwazulu-natal. the research methodology chosen was interpretivism, utilising qualitative in-depth interviews. seventeen informants, comprised of community activists, non-governmental organisations and government officials, including the south african police service, were interviewed. four major themes that triggered and influenced xenophobia emerged in this study. firstly, there is economic competition amongst foreign nationals who use local gangs to attack their competitors, as well as competition between foreigners and local business owners. secondly, the study established an association between xenophobia and criminal business, where both victims and perpetrators compete over turf and skills in committing crimes. thirdly, the study noted the inability of the state to employ risk-reduction to prevent and mitigate the impacts of xenophobia. fourthly, the state apparatus’s failed to detect, prevent or mitigate the impact and respond timeously. a number of themes and issues untouched in previous research surfaced. this study necessitates the need for municipalities to develop or review by-laws on economic development in the townships and in the informal settlements by regulating informal businesses. the research study will further encourage the government to apply effective, efficient and appropriate crime-intelligence strategies that can detect or combat any sign of xenophobia in all sectors of society. the study will contribute to the conceptual and theoretical empirical developments and realities regarding the issues, as well as the policy, as most studies published on xenophobic violence have concentrated on the economic dimension, to the exclusion of other underlying causes. keywords: xenophobia; competition; intelligence; illegal immigrants; gangsterism; township. introduction south africa has experienced violence against african foreigners since 2008, and it has become an almost chronic problem. the uncontrolled influx of migrants has been categorised over the years as legal, documented, illegal or undocumented (bekker et al. 2008:9). on occasion, such realities have led to what has been called ‘xenophobic’ or ‘afro-phobic’ violence. on 30 march 2015, attacks on foreign nationals started in isipingo, outside durban, and later spread to other areas. mainly, these attacks were directed at african immigrants and their businesses, allegedly sparked by a labour dispute over the employment of immigrants at jeena supermarket in isipingo. later, south african families who were landlords to immigrants were also targeted. goddey (2017) attributes the causes of the xenophobic violence in africa to numerous factors including civil wars and communal crises, poverty and unemployment, cultural and biological differences, contestations on religion, and criminal activities including human trafficking. the author further mentions the discrimination faced by foreigners from state security agencies, provocative statements by leaders and divisive media reporting as root causes. there has been a plethora of authors who have attributed such events to the dislike or hatred of foreigners by indigenous people (akinola 2014; ramphele 2008), cultural and biological differences (nyamnjoh 2006), stereotypes and intergroup anxiety (mothibi, roelefse & tshivhase 2015) and scapegoating for social ills in a foreign country. tafira (2011) terms it a culturally-based racism exacerbated by ethnicity, speech patterns and accents, economic and social inequalities, cultural and ethnic differences, and social and territorial origins. it has been said that the continuous scramble of immigrants into south africa is because they are running away from their own impoverished countries (oucho 2006) or are in search of economic opportunities at the mines and commercial farms (crush et al. 2006) in south africa. research studies of the phenomenon in the country have been confined to the economic dimension as the main reason behind the xenophobic violence. in this analysis, south africans have been described as the perpetrators, and the foreigners as the victims. in view of this, the current study attempts to gain insight into different stakeholders’ understanding of different dimensions, such as the existence of ‘a third force’ as an explanation for the xenophobic violence, and to assess the government’s capability to detect and respond timeously to such violence. the study by tsheola and segage (2015) interpreting and ‘theorising’ xenophobia as the ‘new racism’ rejected the belief that the ‘new south african identity’ expresses a ‘new racism’. a regression analysis performed by ruedin (2018) of the south african social attitudes survey (hsrc 2013) displayed clear patterns indicating that people in vulnerable social and economic positions and people with less contact with foreigners are xenophobic. a study by tshishonga (2015) exploring the impact of xenophobic attacks on the informal economy during the 2015 violence in the durban central business district (cbd) revealed that the events had detrimental effects for both non-south african and local traders as those visiting the vicinity mainly depended on the services of informal businesses. a number of authors (mothibi et al. 2015; ntshishonga 2015) posit that fear was evident in the louis trichardt and durban cbds during the 2008 and 2015 xenophobic violence. against the backdrop articulated above, this study attempts to achieve the following objectives: to ascertain civil society’s perception with regards to ‘a third force’ as an explanation for the xenophobic violence to assess the adequacy of the government’s mechanisms for understanding, detecting, investigating and responding to xenophobia to investigate and uncover new dynamics and realities underlying the roots and actions related to xenophobic violence. the utilisation of the case study approach and research design, based on interpretation of in-depth interviews as a data collection method, is believed to be the foundation of a new understanding of the phenomenon at local level (saunders, lewis & thornhill 2007:103). its exploratory element was based on in-depth, face-to-face, qualitative interviews (blumberg, cooper & schindler 2005), where the data categories, based ‘lived experience’, were dissected (charmaz 1990:1162). conceptual framework there are a number of interpretations and perceptions of the meaning and causes of xenophobia. mcdonald and jacobs (2005) and shisana (2008) refer to it as ‘a deep dislike of foreigners’. crush and ramachandran (2009) and crowther (1995) describe it as ‘strange or foreign and phobia’. the xenophobic violence of 2008 was regarded by everatt (2011:10) as caused by a combination of sociopolitical conditions, whilst crush (2008) has described what he calls ‘anti-foreigner attitudes’ as ‘widespread and vitriolic’. crush (2009:6) states that xenophobia is rooted in discriminatory practices emanating from negative perceptions about foreigners based on their nationality. numerous researchers have referred to xenophobia as aggressive (crush 2009:6), tension-based acts of violence (hook & eagle 2002:170) and with the potential to cause bodily harm and damage (harris 2002:170). however, in the south african context, xenophobia may denote many things but it is mainly linked to criminal activity, which this study is partly investigating. a number of commentators define the phenomenon of crime as criminal offences motivated by hate and by the victim’s group identity (hall 2013:2), an intentional illegal act against a foreigner that is based on prejudice of the perpetrators against the perceived or real status of the victim (craig 2002:86). furthermore, some researchers define such violence as the result of foreigners being perceived as people of no value (wolfe & copeland 1994:201). it has been assumed that social and political factors motivate such acts (sheffield 1995:438), which in most cases are violent and discriminatory against marginalised and stigmatised groups (perry 2001:10). the present study takes into account the aforementioned interpretations and perceived causes of xenophobia and their relationship to criminality. however, it is believed that the underlying causes and influences of such violence have not yet been interrogated deeply and comprehensively by researchers in the townships or peri-urban areas where it is prevalent. hence, this study attempts to fill this void and to unravel the core causes by targeting the wide array of ‘foot soldiers’, including civil society groups and government decision-makers, who are directly affected by this catastrophe. theoretical framework the scapegoating theory informs this study. it is a sociological theory that dissects aspects of prejudice in a period of change and social transition (allport 1961). the author assumes that prejudice, driven by frustrations, lead to prejudice, mainly from marginalised local groups who identify foreigners as scapegoats. people displace their frustration onto convenient targets, thereby obscuring the actual causes of their anxiety. hostile attitudes are formed in relation to unmet promises and limited resources, such as housing, education, healthcare and employment, coupled with high expectations during transition (morris 1998; tshitereke 1999). these are ideal circumstances for xenophobic acts to increase through the creation of a ‘frustration scapegoat’, who is perceived as the key reason for the local population’s continuous poverty and deprivation (tshitereke 1999:4). this is supported by south africa’s xenophobic violence in 2008, which claimed 60 lives. in addition, 700 were wounded, dozens of foreigners were raped and more than 100 000 were displaced. a third of those were south africans who were considered to have been married to foreigners (landau 2012:1). the researcher argues that the south african government denied the 2008 cataclysm, blaming it on the criminal element, opposition and sinister forces, with the minister of intelligence blaming criminals and foreigners for instigating the xenophobic violence. according to landau (2012:2), community leaders, business associations and gangsters attacked and killed shopkeepers. the author opines that the xenophobic violence was caused by anger and resentment, the essence of overzealous citizenship and an anti-outsider sentiment by south africans. meanwhile, neocosmos (2010:1) posits that xenophobia is directed against africans, with mozambicans and nigerians as the key targets because they are the key perpetrators of illegal immigration and drug dealing according to the media. he contends that foreigners who have reached south africa for economic or political reasons are considered to be involved in acts of crime. this means that the perception is created that all the survival activities of foreigners are criminal. such discrimination is aggravated by the economic and social crisis facing the country. neocosmos (2010:4) describes xenophobic attacks in south africa as being associated with the country’s transition to democracy and the frustrations of the local population; morris (1998) and tshitereke (1999) associate xenophobia with south africa’s historical exclusion from the rest of the african continent; and morris (1998) with south africans’ intolerance towards strangers. neocosmos (2010:15) outlines four theoretical positions on xenophobia: firstly, xenophobia excludes foreigners from communities; secondly, the process associated with exclusion is political, with the central role played by the state; thirdly, xenophobia is founded on the exclusion of foreigners from duties and citizenship; and finally, xenophobia is the result of a relationship between popular and state politics. neocosmos (2010:18) contends that xenophobia cannot be framed only on scarce resources, social change and competition but that it also revolves around the popular-democratic politics. the author developed a schematic theory that forms the basis of the understanding of xenophobia, which includes the division of labour that emanates from the realities of the political economy within the context of global capitalist and imperialist forces (migration). neocosmos (2010:19) further mentions the process of state interpellation discourse as belonging to a nationality, ethnic and tribal groups, and gender. finally, the author discusses the mediation of politics, which includes silence or voice, as well as popular politics. this study is guided by the theories articulated as it attempts to investigate the positions of these theories at a local level, where xenophobia occurs. causes and dimensions of xenophobic violence wimmer (1997) coined three theories that attempt to identify the causes of xenophobic violence. these are power theory, cultural-symbolic theory and phenomenology. the power theory stems from the belief that people’s insecurities in the face of real or imagined ‘threats’ lead them to resentment and hatred and that violence stems from a competition between immigrants and locals (nyamnjoh 2006). the cultural-symbolic theory is based on the belief that animosity is not a result of economic competition between local and foreign groups, whilst phenomenology articulates the position that such violence emanates from the state’s reassurance to its nationals and to its boundaries. it is not a fight about scarce jobs but an outcome of a cultural clash. according to fungurai (2015) and soyombo (2008), the economic theory attributes xenophobic violence to poverty and unemployment (especially amongst the youth), which leads the citizens of a country to become xenophobic. xenophobic violence has been associated with a multiplicity of causes, including jealousy on the part of locals in respect of job opportunities, foreigners agreeing to lower salaries and foreign business successes (clark 2011:5; khosa & malitani 2014), foreigners’ attraction to local girls as they can afford to spoil them (dodson & oelofse 2002:134; mnyaka 2003), encouragement of prostitution (nkealah 2011:125) and foreigners as cheap labourers who ‘steal’ jobs from the locals (nyamnjoh 2006:2; steinberg 2010). a research study conducted by charman and piper (2012) in delft, an african township in cape town, surveyed 100 spaza (small, informal shop) owners and different key stakeholders, including the police, and found that such violence is not driven by anti-foreigner sentiment. the findings of the study revealed that the majority of spaza shopkeepers resented the advent of somalian businesses, but consumers remained indifferent as they preferred the lower prices. the study found that ‘violent entrepreneurship’ rather than xenophobic violence was prevalent in delft, which was exacerbated by business competition driven by a group of ruthless businesspeople, high crime levels and an association between business profitability and the protection offered by a powerful landlord. moreover, those foreign shopkeepers who aligned themselves with gangsters and street committee leaders were most vulnerable to such violence. charman and piper (2012) espoused the belief that local shopkeepers whose businesses had suffered because of foreign competition had become both hostile and bitter with foreign competition. a number of authors have perceived xenophobic violence as triggered by the struggle to access resources, including low-cost housing, employment and business opportunities in the informal sector (hadland 2008), as well as price competition and the demise of local establishments (charman, petersen & piper 2012; mamabolo 2015). numerous researchers have associated xenophobia with nationalism and nation-building (neocosmos 2011), as well as with defensiveness, protectionism, criminal threat and diseases (crush 2009). such a position leads to the belief that the 2008 xenophobic violence was instigated and perpetrated mostly by poor, young south african men targeting properties and businesses of foreign african nationals (bekker 2008:4–5). a desktop study analysing the trends of the xenophobia and violence in 2008 by bekker et al. (2008) concluded that government officials were just reacting to attacks and disputed that the violence was of a xenophobic nature, that the attacks were perpetrated by criminals and that a ‘third force’ was responsible. dodson (2010:1) believes that a democratic, human rights-based migration policy in south africa is extraordinarily difficult. in fact, research has shown that, nationally, 48% of the country’s citizens believe that foreigners are a ‘criminal threat’ (crush & williams 2003). leggett’s (2003:52) research findings showed that 63% of the respondents living in johannesburg thought that it was ‘foreigners’ who had been committing most of the crime in the inner city. landau and jacobsen (2004:45) showed that there is a strong belief amongst 70% of johannesburg’s respondents that there has been a continuous increase of crime in the city primarily because of the ‘foreign invasion’. the paucity of published studies in south africa using a case study design makes the present study unique, as the province of kwazulu-natal was used. parts of the province faced such events in 2015 and beyond. the majority of the studies conducted, as presented, show that such violence is motivated by economic competition without the utilisation of the voice of community activists, civil society groups or government officials to buttress such claims and beliefs. landau, keogh and singh (2005:2) reported that there is ‘strong evidence’ that foreigners who live or work in south africa face discrimination at the hands of government officials, including the police and the country’s citizens, as well as organisations entrusted with the management of their deportation and detention. the government’s highest political leadership have declared the situation as an ‘emergency’, but a number of attempts to respond have not been adequate, as the so-called third force or ‘criminal’ elements predominate (monson 2012:455). this has been supported by desai (2008), who claimed that following the may 2008 attacks, a powerful xenophobic culture was created. the state organs were geared towards hounding african immigrants and the media engaged in stigmatisation and stereotyping, whilst in many townships african immigrants lived under the threat of scapegoating that carried within it the use of violence (desai 2008:6). furthermore, a plethora of derogatory names, characterised by stigmatisation and stereotypes and referring to immigrants, have been used by the print media, which has had an influence on the human behaviour of groups of foreign africans. this study is informed by the perspectives presented, but it hopes to bring new realities to the fore by investigating and dissecting existing theories and perceptions. it hopes to dig deeper in an effort to discover reliable underlying causes and dimensions that fuel this violence. table 1 identifies the causes and dimensions of the xenophobic violence evident in existing literature. table 1: the causes and dimensions of the xenophobic violence evident in existing literature. table 1 describes, in a condensed form, the real or perceived causes and dimensions of the xenophobic violence already evident in the existing literature. it can be gauged that most of these positions explicitly suggest that the causes or dimensions of such violence are basically rooted in economic competition between the south african people and ‘african foreign nationals’. this economic competition includes foreigners being preferred for job opportunities and used as cheap labour by industries, and consumers’ preference for their low prices. moreover, the causal relationship between the xenophobic violence and other dimensions, including police incompetence and crime, is scant as compared to the economic competition. research design and methodology the case study is based on the interpretative perspective and founded on the deep knowledge of a variety of different stakeholders with direct involvement in the situation. the study utilised an exploratory element where in-depth, face-to-face, unstructured interviews with a carefully selected, purposive sample were the core of the inquiry that included senior government officials in all tiers of government, leaders of civil society groups and community activists located in townships including cato crest, bottlebrush, dassenhoek and kwandengezi. triangulation followed the findings in respect of the different questions used to interview the interviewees (golafshani 2003:7). researchers interviewed a total of 17 informants, a number in line with charmaz (2006:113), dworkin (2012:1319) and marshall et al. (2013), who advocate smaller number of interviewees in qualitative research. the face-to-face interviews were conducted at a prearranged venue decided upon by the respondents, mainly offices and informal settlements in and around durban townships. the phenomenological interview (bryman & bell 2014:4) was employed as the data collection method where the first-hand experiences of the respondents were shared. these were based on the extent of crime associated with the foreigners and evidence thereof; the perceptions regarding the ability of state organs to detect and prevent xenophobic violence or to alleviate its consequences; the extent to which the south african border situation contributes to the xenophobic violence in south africa; and any other new realities and perspectives on the phenomenon. the interviews were recorded using a voice recorder machine and transcribed verbatim. researchers used version 10 of the nvivo software that has been designed to facilitate common qualitative techniques for organising, analysing and sharing data. the software allows for qualitative inquiry beyond the coding, sorting and retrieval of data. it was also designed to integrate qualitative linking with coding, modelling and shaping (wong 2008:15). for each interview conducted, themes and trends were developed and categorised in respect of the xenophobic violence of 2015. the research findings of the study were trustworthy – credibility was established whereby the research was conducted according to the principles of good practice and the interview transcripts and research findings were submitted to all informants in order to confirm their authenticity (bryman & bell 2014:45; lincoln & guba 1985). research findings the ‘third force’ and material conditions one of the key objectives of the study was to test and ascertain the truth in the theory of the existence and actions of a third force behind the xenophobic violence in the province of kwazulu-natal and the government’s capability of detecting and reacting to such a catastrophe. monson (2012) elaborates on the reasons why the south african government refutes the very existence of xenophobic violence but rather considers it as workings of a so-called third force. almost all the representatives of the civil society groups who were interviewed refuted the existence of a third force as an explanation for the xenophobic violence. as a community activist of many years declared: ‘in all my life in the movement, i have come to believe that the only third force is the state and its agencies; they are the ones calling something they don’t like a “third force”.’ (community activist, male, unemployed) the mere fact that competition amongst african foreigners themselves leads to ‘fights’ and reciprocal attacks between different groups, as outlined in detail and evidenced by the leader of an ngo who assists refugees, is a clear negation of the existence of a third force. it was shown concretely that there is open and hidden cooperation amongst such groups operating with small local gangs, leading to looting of the ‘opposition’. the ‘theory’ is also negated by the ‘selection’ of nationalities that are perpetually targeted (congolese, zimbabweans, malawians, mozambicans, ethiopians and somalis). on the other hand, pakistani, chinese and bangladeshi nationals have not been targeted, as they are not perceived to be ‘competing with locals for access to resources’. targeting people from poor countries, as presented by the interviews, supports numerous authors (hall 2011; perry 2001; wolfe & copeland 1994) who claim that criminals target them because they are not valued in communities and are also marginalised. a provincial government official indicated that the theory of the third force is negated by the material realities evident before and after the attacks, including competition such as access to resources; business and employment rivalry amongst national groups and south africans; complete failure to regulate the registration of businesses; involvement of émigré communities in criminal activity, such as drug trafficking and trading in stolen goods; and the spreading of misinformation on social media platforms. it was a police official who had worked on the problem associated with widespread criminal activity, mostly drug-related as well as jealousy as key reasons. such evidence coincides with empirical findings, pinpointing that violence is based more on the actions of thugs, and fuelled mainly by somalian shopkeepers who are aligned to local gangsters and street committees (violent entrepreneurship) (charman & pine 2012). this concurs with the findings of a number of researchers (bekker et al. 2008; landau et al. 2005) who have described how such shady operators are working collaboratively with the state apparatus, including the police and home affairs officials. as a provincial manager outlined, existing material conditions at the sites of xenophobic attacks point to the reality of competition for scarce resources; the influx of foreigners because of the border situation; the situation of corruption in the home affairs department; competition at all levels; the private sector’s preference for foreigners who are paid less and do not join trade unions; and the lack of ‘serious intelligence services’. this is incongruous with numerous authors who claim that the xenophobic violence is triggered mostly by economic competition (goddey 2017; wimmer 1997) and job opportunities (nyamnjoh 2006; tshishonga 2015). bekker et al.’s (2008) conclusion that government policies on border control and diplomatic relationships with other countries have exacerbated this violence is also supported. besides these existing conditions, there have also been specific cases, as in the case of isipingo outside durban, where attacks were rooted in the replacement of south africans with foreigners in a factory, combined with popular dissatisfaction with service delivery. this analogy was corroborated by bekker et al. (2008) that government’s policy failure with regard to service delivery triggers xenophobia. on the other hand, the assessment by goddey (2017) and tsheola, ramoroka and muzondi (2015), who argue that discrimination against foreign nationals is instigated and institutionalised by state security agents and leaders, has been negated. it has been reiterated time and again that people in the township know the realities, but still the government talk about a third force. the mechanisms for understanding, detecting, investigating and responding to xenophobia there was a general belief amongst the interviewees in the public service that the key weakness in fighting xenophobia has been the lack of coordination amongst the relevant state security clusters. this led to non-existent plans, whilst there is the knowledge that such attacks will continue. this is the result of the lack of a comprehensive risk assessment. in addition, there is no planning for services for the displaced foreign nationals, and there has been pressure by locals on state organs, complaining about foreigners and their behaviour. this leads to the reality that opportunists and criminal elements take advantage. young people are in the forefront of the attacks. the situation is exacerbated by the fact that young south africans are jobless, whilst many of the foreigners have work permits and are married to south african women. different key stakeholders have pointed out the government’s reaction and inability to prepare for and respond to such violence. a community activist of many years indicated that the belief of the community is that government is not interested, and they only request the police after everything is over. the lack of intelligence collection and analysis is key, despite the fact that they may have been warned about the attacks and the involvement of foreigners in crime activities, whilst ‘police do nothing’. they simply arrive after the looting of shops ends. the police have no patrols, and some of them who stay in the area operate together with the crooks and criminals. they have no capacity to control the crowds. these sentiments are in agreement with the findings of different authors (charman & piper 2012; crush & williams 2003; nkealah 2011) who have discovered that areas prone to xenophobic violence have over the years faced the problem of high crime levels. this is aggravated by the presence of the foreign nationals working in conjunction with the police. it was revealed by two community activists in different areas that in both the 2008 and 2015 attacks, the police arrived late and took 300 foreigners to the police station ‘to protect them’. however, by that time all the shops had been burnt and looted. it is known in the townships that the south african police service (saps) have informers who are paid to ‘spy’ on certain categories of foreigners – mozambicans, malawians and a few somalis. however, there is evidence that somalis are on good terms with the police because they give them cooldrinks and groceries in exchange for letting them operate freely. another prominent civil society activist indicated that the police in many areas have been alerted that immigrants are responsible for crime, drugs, stealing and fraud and in some areas are the masterminds behind it all. the police do nothing, as they lack the mechanisms and know-how in terms of strategies to combat attackers. ‘real crime intelligence’ does not exist or is ineffective. all this despite the fact that attacks are occurring during ‘risk-reduction campaigns’ run by the municipality and driven by community safety and liaison. a lack of communication from the police at all levels leads to many problems, according to community activists, as there are no patrols detecting criminality; hence, people are not prepared to work with them. people report crime, but the police have no vehicles or fuel. on the other hand, thousands of foreigners have fraudulent republic of south africa (rsa) ids from crooked officials, and they are involved in criminal work throughout. these are the things the police know and allegedly do nothing about. informal settlements, the ‘rent problem’, electricity and youth involvement it has been established that a serious bone of contention that leads to xenophobic attacks, especially in informal settlements, is the fact that ‘landlords’ there prefer to rent to foreigners, who can afford to pay, unlike locals. a shortage of housing and the aforementioned preference has led to sporadic attacks against foreigners in areas such as ekupholeni and bottlebrush near the predominantly indian chatsworth suburb. the selling of reconstruction and development programme (rdp) houses to foreigners also creates tension amongst locals. there have been specific areas where local gangsters operate with young, unemployed groups in order to control the ‘lucrative’ rent and housing market flourishing in and around bottlebrush and ekupholeni. they control the market and offer ‘protection’. the housing and rent issue is directly related to the issue of gangsterism, youth and electricity theft in informal settlements. it is controlled by gangsters who ‘specialise’ in cable theft, burglaries and carjacking, assisted by youth who are trained in a variety of ‘skills’. this takes place in most informal settlements, operating in gangs of 5, 10 or 12 people at a time. the trend that emerged in this study was that key instigators and participants in the xenophobic violence were young and unemployed black men. one civil society activist stated that the looting of foreigners’ shops pulls people together, but the young people lead the crowds because they have their eyes on the ground and people in the township know what is happening and they do not hide things. the journalists come after things happen and they pretend they know everything. they are not interested in their lives; that’s why they and the government talks about the third force. another civil society member indicated that on occasion groups of between 10 and 12 young people with branches, sticks and knives attacked malawian and zimbabwean drug dealers in the area and left them bleeding after stealing the ‘merchandise’ and everything they had, including their shoes. this finding has been corroborated by bekker et al. (2008), who believe that the poor young men see an opportunity to access resources as a result of the xenophobic violence by looting the businesses and properties belonging to these foreign nationals. this finding also concurs with the economic theory (fungurai 2015; soyombo 2008), which associates xenophobia with poverty and unemployment amongst youth. the ‘border question’ different informants elaborated on the extent to which south african borders are contributing to the xenophobic violence in south africa. a senior provincial politician who had visited the borders said that they were unguarded, enabling the free flow of immigrants and refugees from all neighbouring countries. a key reason for this is weak budgets and insufficient (and on many occasions corrupt) guards, who, under the circumstances, are underpaid. it was believed that the situation in the next few years will worsen, as things throughout africa will not become better and most of europe has closed its doors to refugees. conclusion the article’s empirical research both confirmed and rejected theories and empirical findings already produced on xenophobic violence in south africa. it discovered that there is severe competition amongst african migrants, including groups from the same countries who compete between themselves, sometimes violently. the competition between foreign and local businesses also leads to violence, and it has been shown that both groups have created ‘alliances’ with both the police and unemployed youth groups in the perpetual struggle for dominance, both in business as well as in criminal endeavours. the diversified group of interviewees, including provincial and local government representatives and community and ngo activists, believed that the third force claims have been driven mostly by the south african government, its agencies and the media, and the ‘force’ is just a cover-up for incompetence. a new insight into the situation that provides a foundation for attacks is the material conditions in african townships and informal settlements – the never-ending existence of the ‘housing or selling or renting’ market, controlled by gangs who ally themselves occasionally and opportunistically with foreign traders and the police and use young people for their misdeeds. they have also influenced xenophobia in the durban area. there is a unanimous belief that the organisational weaknesses of the police both at strategic and tactical levels are instrumental in the perpetration of the attacks, as the force is lacking in detection, investigation, intelligence-driven and risk-reduction analysis and planning that would lead to effective implementation of strategies and tactics against violence. the well-known and admitted corruption in key departments such as home affairs and correctional services as well as municipalities exacerbates the existing problems created by the ‘wide open borders, uncontrolled policy’. whichever direction the country takes in the next few years, unless key state institutions such as the saps, home affairs, municipalities and provinces operate in accordance with the existing laws and rules, the attacks and violence will continue. the enforcement of business laws or by-laws on illegal businesses mainly dominated by foreigners in the townships, the department of labour’s failure to conduct audits on private organisations and other institutions that employ foreign nationals illegally, and an overhaul of the porous borders, as well as the relentless fight against crime and corruption in the state, the private sector and communities are the only way out from a social, economic, political and human disaster. acknowledgements funding for this study was provided by the national research foundation (nrf) thuthuka. project research reference number: ttk160527166475. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. 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physician 3(1), 7. abstract introduction community protest action and communication within local government structures and strategies to enhance co-production of trust theorisations of public participation and co-production elements of participatory democracy and community participation defining governance relative to trust findings of the empirical study recommendations: creating a virtuous cycle conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) j. derek taylor department of public management and leadership, faculty of arts, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa enaleen draai department of public management and leadership, faculty of arts, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa amina jakoet-salie department of public management and leadership, faculty of arts, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa citation taylor, j.d., draai, e. & jakoet-salie, a., 2020, creating a virtuous cycle for increased trust in local government, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a731. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.731 original research creating a virtuous cycle for increased trust in local government j. derek taylor, enaleen draai, amina jakoet-salie received: 10 july 2019; accepted: 09 june 2020; published: 27 aug. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract after the advent of the first free and fair elections in south africa in 1994, access to municipal services became a right for all residents. now, more than ever, the inclusion of previously disadvantaged communities is being intensified. however, the delivery of services often remains inadequate, eliciting increasing protests throughout the country. protests, which are often the last resort by communities, are indicative of declining levels of trust in local government. it becomes problematic when trust in communication channels and public participation strategies is limited, co-production of services is impeded and the possibility of increasing such trust is, in turn, negatively affected. this study used a mixed-methods approach including both quantitative and qualitative research techniques to validate the posed research questions and authenticate the presented problem statement. the triangulation approach allowed for effectively engaging the strengths of both research methodologies. the findings of the study revealed that as a result of communities’ increasing lack of trust and confidence in local government, service delivery protests are increasing. the study further indicated that communities in the nelson mandela bay municipality (nmbm) are generally not well informed about the development plans of the municipality and do not adequately participate in local government activities. the study provides recommendations to augment trust in local government communication channels to improve public participation that could lead to the co-production of services. in this way, the study asserts that trust can be enhanced in what amounts to a virtuous cycle. keywords: trust; public participation; co-production; participatory democracy; governance; communication. introduction post-1994, access to municipal services in south africa was no longer regarded as a privilege meted out to communities based on race, but rather as the right of all residents. thus, the need to extend such services to citizens who were previously excluded became paramount. local government has the mandate to render basic services within defined geographical areas that aim to enrich communities’ conditions of life (davids, theron & maphunye 2005:59). in conjunction with this mandate, the local government is also responsible for promoting the principles of democracy (davids et al. 2005:59). yet, recent studies have revealed that the redress hoped for after 1994 has not been adequately directed and local government has failed to address the service needs of those previously disadvantaged. that is, despite the national government having injected significant financial resources to promote social and economic development by providing basic infrastructure and services, many municipalities have failed to adequately address the basic needs of their communities (jakoet-salie 2018:15). furthermore, certain municipalities have failed to resolve problems related to the local governance, particularly pertaining to effective communication between the local government and the citizenry. correlatively, in these failing municipalities, public participation is low; there is both a tendency amongst citizens to have lower trust levels in government and, in the long run, an increase in service delivery protest actions. these problems suggest that where there is little trust in government communication channels, there is also little public participation, co-production of services is impeded and the possibility of such trust is thereby negatively affected, in what amounts to an increasingly self-destructive cycle (jakoet-salie 2018:56). in this study, it is advanced that active public participation between municipalities and ward committees may foster the improved co-production of services. in this regard, the proper channels of communication can identify the specific service needs of communities. the means of potential co-production solutions could then be established. in other words, a virtuous cycle could be created whereby municipal councils become more aware of what services and concerns they need to address so that by delivering these services efficiently and effectively, municipalities can restore the trust of communities in local government (jakoet-salie 2018:212). community protest action and communication within local government section 152 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, stipulates the objectives of local government, which include the establishment of community participation and community consultation in local government matters. in terms of section 152 of the constitution, the objectives of local government are to: (1) provide a democratic and accountable government for local communities; (2) ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner; (3) promote social and economic development; (4) promote a safe and healthy environment; and (5) encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government. community involvement could, therefore, play an important developmental role by making sure that municipalities regard citizens as the focal point of local development initiatives. the 1996 constitution is unique in south africa’s history because it acknowledges the local sphere of government as a distinctive, interdependent and interrelated confederate in intergovernmental relations. however, despite south africa taking a significant and positive stride towards the promise of developmental local governance after 1994, most municipalities are still plagued by significant challenges that have sparked a wave of national service delivery protests. these protests are summarised in figure 1. figure 1: major service delivery protests by 2005–2018. from figure 1, it is evident that service delivery protests are still a regular occurrence in the lives of many south africans; however, what the figure does not show is the increasing intensity of the protests. this increased intensity is a perceived consequence of municipalities not responding satisfactorily in addressing respective community and service delivery issues. this unsatisfactory response by the local government further fuels the fires of community discontent, and the negative cycle continues. interestingly, not only has the number of protests increased, but these protests are more violent in nature. some of the integral gauges in evaluating the adjustments of local government are the following: (1) the existing insights and daily experiences of communities, and, more specifically, (2) whether or not there has been progress in the services delivered to them (tippett & kluvers 2010:23). it is fundamentally important to restore trust and confidence in communities by enhancing the co-production of services, as consistently poor service delivery diminishes trust in local government. this improvement requires effective channels of communication in order for municipalities to better understand exactly what services are deemed crucial by communities (jakoet-salie 2018:50). structures and strategies to enhance co-production of trust the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998 introduced a key vehicle for public participation, namely, ward committees. the ward committee system was first introduced in south africa in 2001 when the former state president, thabo mbeki, sought to strengthen community participation (ward committee resource book 2005:32). the policies and legislation governing the role of ward committees stipulate that ‘…such process[es] thus reinforces two of the fundamental mechanisms of sustainable democracy, which is participation of the people and accountability of local government’ (ward committee resource book 2005:39). ward committees are, thus, regarded as one of the main mechanisms available to municipalities and communities to heighten public participation within local government (jakoet-salie 2018:54). however, ward committees face a number of challenges, as their powers are limited to only advising communities, and the relevant councillors often lack information and understanding of their work. according to karamoko and jain (2011:online), findings by the local democracy, peace and human society (ldphs) indicate that many ward councillors in many areas are not leading, directing or, in some areas, not even attending ward committee meetings and, as a result, there is often no consultation with communities on matters that are affecting them. in terms of section 73(2) of the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998, public participation is an essential factor for affecting and enhancing accountable governance and is often driven by ward committees, as mandated, to facilitate open communication channels between municipalities and communities. section 19 of the act further prescribes that municipalities should develop adequate tools that enable them to consult with communities and community groups in their performance and implementation of their powers. the act also requires that municipalities must annually review the needs of communities against available funding. municipalities have been battling to successfully fulfil the implementation of these legislative prescriptions. draai and raga (2012) contend that levels of trust in public services are defined by their perceptions of the willingness and expedience with which the government responds to issues that citizens deem critical. these issues would include areas such as crime, poverty or poor client services. accordingly, high levels of trust are attained by overtly positive performances by local government, whereby citizens experience change, whilst low levels of trust, or even distrust, occur when citizens receive poor service delivery. thus, whilst it might be true that protests turn to violence only after formal channels have been exhausted, it is also possible that the underlying problem may also include insufficient public participation and co-production at the local government sphere. mle (2014:61) asserts that citizen participation in the affairs of a municipality promotes a sense of pride and belonging within citizens and can work to eliminate an ‘us’ (communities) versus ‘them’ (municipality) mentality. therefore, if the aforementioned nation-wide service delivery protests are indicative of the decline in public trust in the government, it is crucial that this loss of trust is improved through the establishment of more effective communication channels between communities and municipalities (jakoet-salie 2018:58). theorisations of public participation and co-production citizens who are not actively involved in municipal undertakings tend to have a more negative perception of government and its institutions. conversely, co-production through the involvement of citizens in the delivery of public services is believed to foster trust. ostrom (1996:1073) defines co-production as ‘…the process through which inputs used to provide goods or services are contributed by individuals who are not in the same organisation’. in addition to co-production, the service delivery process itself acts as an integral tool for evaluating the service in its entirety and, thus, communities that receive a service should be involved in designing the service based on their real needs (bovaird & loeffler 2012a). systems theory as previously stated, the legacy of apartheid imposed upon the new south africa numerous challenges, which include poverty, inequality and the demand for greater access to basic public services. the post-apartheid government, therefore, sought to address these challenges by enshrining constitutional rights to basic services and maintaining that service delivery programmes be funded and properly implemented (jakoet-salie 2018:59). to understand this new governmental approach to service delivery, systems theory has been chosen and forms the basis of the theoretical framework to study the interactions and relationships between the various role-players in government and their external environment. draai (2016:21–32) describes a system as ‘a set of interrelated components whereby the system uses inputs (stimuli from the environment), which it then converts into outputs and obtains feedback concerning the impact of its responses’. similarly, pestoff, brandsen and verschuere (2013:368) distinguish between the input and output sides of a political–administration dichotomy by stating that citizens make demands and give support on the input side of the political system, whilst they are subject to public decisions and receive goods and services on the output side. according to sithomola and auriacombe (2018:87), systems theory facilitates the role-players in public decision-making to contextualise and comprehend the status quo and expand their viewpoint on situations and what the impact will be on the system and environment. consequently, co-production has become an important factor for effective service delivery in south africa and should be conducted via transparent and accountable relationships between politicians, public officials and communities. pestoff et al. (2013:24) argue that citizen involvement in service delivery is highly dependent on the significance and magnitude of the service provided and the following questions should be considered in relation thereto: ‘is the important service for them, their family, loved ones, a relative, a friend or not? does it have a direct impact on their life or does it only have an indirect effect?’ furthermore, lindquist, vincent and wanna (2013:76) define a ‘citizen’ as part of the combined ‘we’ who plays a role in establishing what government should do through being involved in all the practices of democracy. from the above discussion, it can be inferred that increased co-production should positively affect the public’s perception of the value of services rendered to them by local government. it is therefore recommended that citizens and community groups be consulted in so far as municipal affairs and development in their municipal areas are concerned. correlatively, john et al. (2011) state that the reasons for citizens engaging in co-production are multifaceted, and their co-productive behaviour is determined by two factors: (1) their willingness to co-produce (acting as ‘motivators’) and (2) their ability to do so (acting as ‘facilitators’). in their survey of 1800 adult south africans, the pan-african, non-partisan research network, afrobarometer (2016), in association with the institute for justice and reconciliation and plus 94, found that involving citizens in service delivery matters improves trust levels and confidence in local government (afrobarometer dispatch no. 90 2016). conversely, askvik and bak (2005:80) contend that communities with low levels of trust tend to resist municipal governance and support rent and service boycotts. the 2017 edelman trust barometer indicates that, internationally, the south african government is least trusted by its populace, with only 15% of citizens verifying their trust in government (rittenberry 2018:online). a year later, the 2018 edelman trust barometer reported that more than 33 000 people were surveyed between october and november 2017. the countries surveyed included, amongst others, the united states of america, the united kingdom, germany and brazil. globally, more than half (56%) of respondents had lost trust in government leaders (rittenberry 2018:online). in south africa, 86% of those surveyed harboured distrust towards the government. these responses indicated a 1% improvement from 2017, however south africa was still placed at the bottom of a list of 28 surveyed countries (somdyala 2018:online). these statistics support the notion of the research that communication channels need improvement in order for trust to be restored. bovaird and loeffler (2016:28) propose that the move towards co-production can be conceptualised as a change from ‘public services for the public’ towards ‘public services by the public’. however, these authors acknowledge that systemic barriers exist (see table 1), which prevent co-production from being used in public services. table 1 identifies the barriers and initiatives that have been used by the current south african government and how, as previously indicated, despite these implemented measures, service delivery still remains problematic. table 1: barriers to co-production. elements of participatory democracy and community participation ward committees are positioned to facilitate participatory democracy by disseminating information, helping to rebuild partnerships for improved service delivery and solving problems at ward level (mafunisa & xaba 2008:452). as a developing country, south africa possibly has one of the most advanced policies on participatory local governance in the world (jakoet-salie 2018:60). democracy and public participation are closely connected. this progressive intent is further enhanced by the importance of public participation, as outlined in the 1998 white paper on local government; the white paper on transforming public service delivery, 1997 (the batho pele principles); the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998; the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 and the local government: municipal finance management act 56 of 2003. the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 also further purports that communities have the directive to participate in any public consultation and decision-making processes in local government, for example, ward committees, budget consultations, ward meetings and integrated development plan (idp) forums. in 2005, the national policy framework on public participation was published and defines participation as ‘… an open, accountable process through which individuals and groups within selected communities can exchange views and influence decision-making’ (department of provincial and local government 2005:1). in their capacities as citizens and voters, municipalities are mandated to engage with citizens and community groups in matters of municipal development in their area (white paper on local government 1998:4–5). the national policy framework on public participation views public participation as the democratic process of engaging people in decisions that affect their communities, and which allows citizens to be active role-players in the development and management of services that affect their lives (department of provincial and local government 2005:1). however, whilst such aforementioned policies promote cooperation, elected public representatives have largely not been successful in bringing about visible and fundamental changes in their relations with the public and institutions of governance at the local sphere (jakoet-salie 2018:60). instead, elected officials’ participation has benefited mainly those who have access to resources and are better organised (jakoet-salie 2018:60). once a political party is voted into power, according to their election manifesto, the government is expected to deliver the services that it has promised, and citizen participation is critical to this process. as part of public participation, van der waldt et al. (2014:27) assert that citizens have the right to protest and gradually demand more interaction with their local governments when they, as beneficiaries of services, regard these services as inefficient and ineffective. without public participation, a democratic government cannot function as a democracy because positive public participation becomes stifled and the public is not actively involved in governmental decisions and processes. to illustrate the importance of public participation, bovaird and loeffler (2003:193) have developed a typology of public participation, illustrated in figure 2, that highlights the importance of ‘consultation’, ‘listening’, ‘being in touch with the people’, ‘involving users’ and strengthening ‘accountability to local communities’. figure 2: public participation spectrum. according to bovaird and loeffler (2016), involving citizens in policy-making and the planning and provision of services is not a modern-day concept because co-production includes ‘…professionals and citizens making better use of each other’s assets, resources and contributions to achieve better outcomes or improved efficiency’. the south african local government system is there to serve citizens and if that service is failing, even though there are good structures in place, trust levels amongst citizens will continue declining. despite the fact that the new local government system is already in its second decade, there are still signs and trends to indicate that the majority of south african municipalities are failing in delivering on their local government mandate. an apathetic public that does not take part in governance provides a fertile ground for widespread corruption, fraud and maladministration. in addition, according to bovaird and loeffler (2003:200), engaging citizens in policy-making and the design and delivery of services is increasingly being seen as a key to good governance. defining governance relative to trust from early writings, keohane and nye (2000:37) define governance as ‘…the processes and institutions, both formal and informal, that guide and restrain the collective actions of a group’. pestoff et al. (2013:103) state that ‘the distinct way to warrant good governance is by institutionalising powerful accountability mechanisms that hold every public official responsible for his or her actions as a public servant’. according to van der waldt et al. (2014:4), good governance implies the presence and account of all groups in a municipality by implementing the integrity and transparency of local government actions in the pursuit of goals. conversely, poor or bad governance has often been shown to undermine the legitimacy of the government. the issue of mistrust in governmental ability can permeate nearly every sector of a society, so trust is a crucial component required for the effective functioning of all spheres of government. draai and raga (2012) state that a minimum level of trust is important for the maintenance of, and aspiration to, levels of good governance, as good governance is directly determined by the levels of trust held by citizens in both the areas of political authority and public service, as well as in terms of officials’ accountability and citizen interaction with government. according to fukuyama (1995:129), trust is defined as an interpersonal concept that informs how citizens view one another in terms of what they know of one another. draai (2016:158) further states that trust in the political sphere and within public service is conditional; it ‘ebbs and flows’ according to experience and perception and is behavioural, depending on how citizens assess the actions of political leaders and/or the performance of public officials. pillay (2017:33) states that political trust is founded on good governance that is based on the existence of ethical codes and accountability procedures, as citizens expect good and ethical governance in all spheres of life. furthermore, pillay (2017:33) affirms that political trust is not won by fancy or verbose party manifestos, or pre-election promises but rather by politicians’ and administrators’ responses to these election manifestos. it is when citizens believe or realise that manifestos and promises are forgotten, that mistrust emerges. draai (2016:158) also contends that trust within a democratic governance system is complex and multidimensional, particularly because of its social, political and organisational ramifications. the author defines social trust as the confidence that citizens in a community have in each other (draai 2016:158). this type of trust permeates all segments of society. shaidi (2013:279) states that it is clear that communities have lost trust in the engagement process with their government and that public participation, as legislated, works below anticipated optimal levels. in this regard, shaidi (2013:279) contends that the citizens have now chosen their own way of talking to the government, namely, via violent service delivery protests to show their dissatisfaction. political trust is generally partisan and relates to the assessment by citizens of the levels of credibility and perceived integrity of political leaders, especially in relation to the ruling party (draai 2016:158). this assessment of credibility is based on organisational aspects that include a party’s commitment to its political manifesto by demonstrating positive performance in political leadership and oversight responsibilities (draai 2016:158). trust is, therefore, an essential pre-requisite for good governance. in the public sector, good governance refers to effective arrangements put in place to ensure that the intended outcomes for stakeholders are defined and achieved, for example, political, economic, social, environmental and administrative arrangements (fourie 2015:106). in response to governance challenges, the national development plan (ndp) was adopted in 2012 as a regulatory policy to guide governmental departments towards realising political and governmental policy goals by 2030 (draai 2016:121). the ndp – vision 2030 (national planning commission [ndp] 2011) articulates a vision for south africa to 2030 and provides an overarching framework for further planning and delivery by actors from every sector of society to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality. chapter 13 of the ndp establishes the goals that must be met so as to construct a proficient and developmental state in south africa. these objectives are as follows: to create a state that is proficient at portraying a developmental and transformative role to have an engaged public service that is disconnected from undue political interference to provide all staff the required skills and competence that is essential to fulfil their jobs to improve intergovernmental relations by implementing a more pro-active approach to ensure transparent governance structures and possess stable leadership that will enable state-owned initiatives to achieve their developmental potential (botha et al. 2015:288). as previously stated, ward committees and public participation are regarded as key tools to promote both the co-production of services within municipalities and to enhance stakeholders’ commitment to participatory governance. however, certain communities still feel isolated and disengaged from decision-making processes and feel disempowered in terms of their capacity to influence the affairs of their local municipality. findings of the empirical study the empirical component of this study restricted its geographical focus to the nelson mandela bay municipality (nmbm), which has a population of 1 263 051, as reported in the 2016 community survey (stats sa 2016). the nmbm provided the empirical base for the data collection from which reliable conclusions could be derived for purposes of this study. for the purpose of this research, the quantitative research approach was regarded as best suited for examining the data related to the studied ward councillors (60), members of the executive mayoral committee (10) and senior municipal officials (50). the 60 ward councillors represent the 60 wards in the area of jurisdiction of the nmbm. the qualitative data were generated from focus group interviews with 23 nmbm ward committee members, whereby useful insights relating to trust, and citizen and public participation were obtained using questions extracted from an interview schedule. the focus group interviews with ward committee members were conducted to distinguish whether or not citizens would continue to disengage from the government no matter how much progress is made within the nmbm, as well as whether or not the municipality can increase the trust of citizens in government by improving services and better engaging community members. collectively, the findings of the quantitative and qualitative research were used to generate final findings and conclusions. the findings of this study disclosed some thought-provoking, some weak and some neutral responses to the statements presented. in particular, responses indicated communities’ fading lack of trust and confidence in local government, increased service delivery protests, and that citizens are more likely to participate in matters that will directly improve their well-being. table 2 indicates that a total of 84.3% of the respondents agreed with the statement that service delivery protests were intensifying as a result of the fading lack of trust in government, whilst 11.4% were undecided and 4.3% responded negatively. table 2: as a result of communities’ fading lack of trust and confidence in local government, service delivery protests are increasing. table 3 indicating the relationship between citizen engagement in decision-making issues and trust levels reflects that all respondents agreed that by engaging citizens in decision-making issues, trust levels amongst citizens will increase. open communication between citizens and officials was paramount regarding decision-making within the nmbm. if the public was involved in the decision-making processes, they would have a better understanding of how the municipality functions. table 3: engaging citizens in decision-making issues will increase trust levels amongst citizens. the set of questionnaires administered to the aforementioned 120 politicians and officials did not comprise only quantitative questions or statements but also contained open-ended questions. the opinions of ward councillors, mayoral committee members and senior municipal officials are important in determining the causes of the declining levels of citizen trust in local government and the possible solutions thereof. the responses from the surveyed politicians and officials commonly identified the following reasons, in descending order (from most important to least important), behind the service delivery protests in the nmbm: unfilled election promises made by politicians political interference lack of involvement by communities in development programmes lack, or slow delivery, of basic services high rate of unemployment frustration of long-outstanding services poor communication, public participation and lack of effective information-sharing sessions maladministration of resources and funds lack of trust in local government in delivering quality services (e.g. poor housing and poor public healthcare). furthermore, the findings of the empirical study revealed that service delivery protests are used as a channel by communities to express their dissatisfaction and distrust in local government regarding the slow pace or lack of service delivery. however, ward councillors, mayoral committee members and senior municipal officials stated that a change in political leadership would not ultimately lead to trust unless all the role-players in decision-making processes worked together. these groups of participants also reaffirmed the important need to address and improve the communication channels between political and administrative staff and citizens. from the presented findings, it became clear that open communication between citizens and officials is paramount for effective decision-making within the nmbm. if the public became more involved in decision-making processes, they would have a better understanding of how the municipality functions and officials would better understand the needs of the community. according to bianchi, bovaird and loeffler (2017), co-production brings together paid public officials and citizens who may act as individuals, households or communities. however, public governance principles need to be defined and operationalised to provide the ‘rules of the game’ and the agreed-upon processes by which citizens and officials work together (bianchi et al. 2017). the department of performance monitoring and evaluation implicitly states that citizens’ experiences and opinions must be included in the government’s monitoring system, and underscores the government’s need to be responsive to citizens’ opinions because it is required by law and policy (dpme 2013). recommendations: creating a virtuous cycle it is acknowledged that it is not possible for governments to exist in solitude when community alienation with the government is rampant and additional groups within communities are gradually forming and developing (lindquist et al. 2013). it is crucial, therefore, for local governments to connect with citizens and their needs. in south africa, the introduction of public participation has demonstrated itself as a key concept towards the shaping of a participatory democratic and developmental state. the empowerment of communities can only happen when communities are given the opportunities and the resources to actively engage in matters of local government decision-making affairs. heightened levels of co-production may have a positive impact on the public’s level of trust and confidence in local government by ensuring that councillors play a more meaningful role in ensuring accountability. this accountability, in turn, could lead to further mobilising co-production in the community, thereby creating a virtuous cycle (see figure 3). conversely, this cycle may undermine good governance when it reverses because a decrease in public trust could inhibit participation, which, in turn, could weaken participatory democracy and potentially lead to a decrease in transparency and accountability (jakoet-salie 2018:65). figure 3: virtuous cycle of public participation, co-production and trust. through their legislative framework and co-production of services, municipalities may provide citizens with the opportunity to indicate what their needs are and to endeavour to take the necessary action to address these needs. government should be acknowledged for putting current structures in place, but it still tends not to adequately incorporate citizens’ opinions and experiences in its interventions or improvement programmes (davis, roberts & struwig 2016). co-production necessitates that nobody knows better which public services are most important for citizens’ welfare than the service users (citizens) themselves and the communities wherein they live. citizens’ involvement in identifying problems and setting priorities could motivate a greater sense of community involvement, and thereby facilitate greater co-production between local government officials and councillors in setting common goals, which, in turn, could be an integral trust-enhancing device (askvik & bak 2005:98). according to john et al. (2011), ‘…citizen co-producers are not pavlovian respondents to carrots and sticks’. that is to say, citizens would rather participate in government activities based on what the government has to offer and if their own interests are amplified. conclusion as an ongoing call to urgently address community needs, municipalities should find sustainable ways to meet needs and improve the quality of communities’ lives. it is, therefore, imperative that municipalities, in future, involve citizens more fully in service delivery by creating a sense of community collaboration to compensate for previous municipal failures in this regard. it is an observable fact that services that do not lead to improvements in the quality of life of communities and citizens are more likely to be challenged and more likely to engender mistrust in government (jakoet-salie 2018:67). south african citizens need to become more involved in the future of their municipalities so that both citizens and the public sector contribute towards effective service delivery and, in due course, (re)gain trust in government. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the relevant standing committee (faculty postgraduate studies committee [fpgsc] – faculty of arts) at the nelson mandela university (reference no. h/17/art/pml-005 granted on 07 june 2017). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references afrobarometer, 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word 04 madue.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 60-70. south africa’s foreign and migration policies missteps: fuels of xenophobic eruptions? sm madue1 abstract south africa plays a crucial role in the development of the african continent, especially in the south african development community. hence, south africa’s foreign and migration policies shape the perceptions of both its citizens and those of neighbouring states. since 1994, south africa has continued to attract the highest number of migrants in the region. the widespread perceptions among south africans that there are “floods” of illegal immigrants, stealing their jobs and depleting social and economic resources, is a course for concern. undoubtedly, the south african society is under pressure to effectively respond to the sporadic eruptions of xenophobic attacks on african foreign nationals. this article argues that the missteps of south africa’s foreign and migration policies partially contribute towards fuelling xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals. the findings of this article suggest that south africa is not as committed to rooting out xenophobia as it would have us believe. keywords: foreign policy, migration, multilateralism, xenophobia introduction the context of migration to south africa has changed exponentially since 1994. the democratic government has rapidly embraced entry into the global arena, pursuing neo-liberal economic policies aimed at encouraging the free movement of international trade and capital. an area of contradiction, however, is related to the free movement of people, particularly african unskilled economic migrants (often in the form of informal sector traders) and refugees (handmaker & parsley, 2001: 41). there are widespread perceptions among south africans that there are “floods” of illegal immigrants entering south africa. these perceptions and other related myths, as well as the economic and social struggles of the south africans often ignite sporadic xenophobic attacks of the foreigners. palmary (2003) stresses that “... xenophobic attitudes indeed have translated into violent attacks on foreigners recently”. in south africa, foreigners, especially black foreigners, have come to be perceived as s direct threat to the future economic health of the country (patel, 2013). this article sets out to examine the commonly held view that xenophobic attacks are caused by, among others, the perception that foreigners are stealing jobs from south africans, weak foreign policy, and government’s lack of commitment to rooting out xenophobia. according to steenkamp (2009: 440), xenophobia is a feature of societies under pressure. undoubtedly, the south african society is under pressure to effectively respond to the sporadic eruptions of xenophobic attacks on foreigners. the first part of this article outlines the path travelled by the south african government on matters of foreign and migration policies, followed by a 1 department of public management & administration, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, p.o. box 1174, vanderbijlpark, 1900, south africa, e-mail: mpedi.madue@nwu.ac.za south africa’s foreign and migration policies missteps td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 60-70. 61 conceptual and philosophical framework. the second part discusses research design and methodological aspects. the final part presents and discusses the findings, recommendations and conclusion. first, the path travelled by the south african government is discussed hereunder. the path travelled by the south african government paradoxical though it may sound, south africa’s foreign policy, like that of all other states, is a story essentially of both continuity and change (landsberg, 2012: 1). in terms of continuity, south africa's foreign policy is influenced by the international outlook of the african national congress (anc), politically and economically. the ruling party, anc, has embraced the concept of internationalism long before coming into government. it can be argued that the internationalism concept of the anc can be traced to an article written by pixley ka isaka seme, published on the 5th april 1906, in which he affirmed himself as “... i am an african”. he was calling on all africans to rise to the challenges of the new world, using their achievements as a springboard to ascend to the apex of human endeavour in the world. furthermore, nqakula (2013: 2) notes that questions relating to international peace were highlighted as part of the anc's response to the atlantic charter, which was endorsed by the allied nations on 02 january 1942. on the matter of the destruction of nazi tyranny, the anc argued: "africans are in full agreement with the war aim of destroying nazi tyranny but, they desire to see all forms of racial domination in all lands, including the allied countries, completely destroyed. only in this way, they firmly believe, shall there be established peace which will afford to all peoples and races the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, as well as the assurance that all men in all lands shall live out their lives in freedom from fear, want and oppression”. fast forward to 1994, a democratic south africa informed by the anc policies, developed and adopted policies that would see an increase in the influx of migrants, especially those of african origin. as far as foreign policy is concerned, nathan (2005: 362) postulates that the 2004 strategic plan of the erstwhile department of foreign affairs, now the department of international relations and cooperation, highlights the principles that underpin south africa’s foreign policy, including commitments to the promotion of human rights and democracy, justice and international law in the conduct of relations between nations, international peace and internationally agreed-upon mechanisms for resolving conflict, promoting the interests of africa in world affairs, and economic development through regional and international cooperation in an interdependent and globalised world. crush & williams (2003: 3) argue that while over 200 pieces of new legislation were passed, migration legislation was slow to be reconsidered, with the refugee act passed in 1998 and the immigration act only in 2002. according to palmery (2003: 3), the refugee act of 1998 is generally considered to be a progressive legislation as it allows for any person to apply for asylum and, it states that no person should be denied the right to apply for asylum in south africa. despite passing the refugee act of 1998, this article argues that the first visible xenophobic attacks in south africa can be traced to september 1998 when one mozambican and two senegalese asylum seekers were killed in a train between pretoria and johannesburg, by a mob of unemployed south africans. since then, sporadic xenophobic attacks often erupted in townships and informal settlements. the sporadic eruptions of xenophobia in south africa can be considered to be part of the country’s legacy of its racist history. handmaker & parsley (2001: 44) posit that xenophobia “... is also the product of futile, isolationist policy designed to intimidate and control foreigners”. in the above discussions, madue 62 concepts such as policy, xenophobia and migration have featured extensively, thus the following section presents a conceptual and philosophical framework that informs this article. conceptual and philosophical framework a conceptual framework is the basis of the research problem (wellington et al., 2005: 81). according to babbie & mouton (2005: 111), “... the product of this conceptualisation process is the specification of one or more indicators of what we have in mind, an indication of the presence or absence of the concept we are studying”. the concepts that form the framework of this article include policy, ubuntu, batho pele, multilateralism and migrant. however, focus of the conceptual framework in this article is on xenophobia. policy development and implementation south africa’s foreign policy takes into account the ever-evolving global environment in which the country operates in order to respond effectively to domestic imperatives. effective policy development is essential for the survival and prosperity of any country in the global system (south africa, 2011: 7). foreign policy is a multidimensional set of policies, principles, strategies, objectives, and plans that cannot easily be packaged into a neatly described formula (dirco, 2009: 13). foreign policy analysis is typically concerned with the relations of states (zondi et al., 2014: 8). ubuntu (humaneness) and batho pele (people first) philosophies south africa’s unique approach to global issues has found expression in the concept of ubuntu. this concept informs the country’s particular approach to diplomacy and shapes its vision of a better world for all. this philosophy translates into an approach to international relations that respects all nations, peoples and cultures. it recognises that it is in south africa’s national interest to promote and support the positive development of others. dirco (2015: 148) reports that after 1994, inspired by the notion of ubuntu, south africa’s foreign policy approach was characterised by cooperation, collaboration and the building of partnerships rather than conflict and competition. all departments that represented south africa internationally were transformed within the first decade of democracy. in the modern world of globalisation, a constant element is and has to be our common humanity. south africa therefore accords central importance to our immediate african neighbourhood and continent, working with countries of the south to address shared challenges of underdevelopment, promoting global equity and social justice (south africa, 2011: 4). the philosophies of ubuntu and batho pele can also be understood from a multilateralism perspective. multilateralism multilateralism is both a primary goal and strategy for south africa’s foreign policy. the country promotes multilateralism in the international system as the best means of maintaining global order, addressing global problems, mitigating the domination and unilateralism of powerful states, and empowering weaker countries (nathan, 2005: 365). south africa has embraced multilateralism as an approach to solve challenges confronting the international community. in this regard, it took up a leading role in various multilateral forums, including sadc, the african union (au), non-aligned movement (nam), g77+china, the commonwealth, and the united nations, championing the cause of developing countries and, africa in particular (south africa, 2011: 7). south africa’s foreign and migration policies missteps td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 60-70. 63 migrant the united nations defines a migrant as a person living outside his or her country of birth for a year of more. it estimates that the number of such people roughly doubled between 1985 and 2010, from 11 million to 214 million (martin, 2011: 9). martin elaborates that “... migration is a process that governments learn to manage; it is not a problem governments ever solve”. xenophobia according to shisana (2008), xenophobia is a dislike and/or fear of that which is unknown or different from one. it comes from the greek words (xenos), meaning “stranger,” “foreigner” and (phobos), and meaning “fear.” the term is typically used to describe a fear or dislike of foreigners or people significantly different from oneself, usually in the context of visual differentiation. steenkamp (2009: 439) stresses that the irrationality of the fear when stating that “... xenophobia refers to the irrational fear of the unknown, or especially, as the fear or hatred of those with a different nationality. it relies heavily on the circulation of myths and stereotypes about foreigners”. it is from this view that handmaker & parsley (2001: 44) argue that xenophobia is largely based on unfounded myths and stereotypes with foreigners scapegoated for domestic social and economic problems. thus, in formulating the problem statement, the foreigners are generally accused of stealing jobs and other economic opportunities from south african citizens. handmaker & parsley (2001), steinberg (2008), steenkamp (2009) and hammerstad (2011) posit that civil servants, particularly those in the department of home affairs, have perpetuated and upheld stereotypes about african migrants and contributed to the intimidation and exploitation of asylum seekers and other migrants. patel (2013) notes that while xenophobia is a destructive and reactionary force wherever it is found – in france, in indonesia as in south africa, the 2006 xenophobia survey conducted by the south african migration projection found the extent of xenophobic attitudes to be particularly excessive. a critical question to be asked is: what might be the contributing factors of sporadic xenophobic attacks in south africa? but before attempting to respond to this fundamental question, a research problem, design and methodology need to be stated. research problem, design and methodology there are legitimate concerns that south africa’s capital, agency, and stature are fast depreciating because of apparent missteps and strategic blunders in the conduct of south africa's foreign and migration policies, especially on president zuma's watch. on the one hand, some of south africa’s missteps in foreign policy include the on-going dalai lama visa debacles, the misguided and divisive campaign to win the chair of the au's commission, and the tragic military misadventure in the central african republic (le pere, 2013; 2015). on the other hand, teething problems with immigration policies, especially the slow pace with which the department of home affairs processes the applications of asylum seekers, the porous borders, as well as the inhumane way by which detained undocumented migrants are treated, seem to be fuelling myths and misconceptions about foreign nationals as far as xenophobia is concerned, literature stress that foreigners are typically accused of committing crimes, bringing disease (particularly hiv/aids), stealing employment and swamping social services (palmary, 2003; steinberg, 2008; steenkamp, 2009; hammerstad, 2011). hammerstad (2011: 42) writes that since 1994, south africa’s tough “immigration madue 64 policy was accompanied by intemperate pronouncements on the threats of african immigrants as stealers of jobs, scroungers on welfare, bringers of disease and perpetrators of crime – reflecting widespread and hostile sentiments among the south african populace, particularly in the townships and informal settlements most affected by the influx of undocumented african migrants”. it is from this perspective that steinberg (2008: 1) argues that if the economy is understood as a finite lump, then visible and relative prosperity among foreign nationals is viewed as theft of national resources that ought rightly to belong to south africans. thus, handmaker & parsley (2001: 44) hold that xenophobia shows up in many ways starting from derogatory language to extreme levels of violence. if not properly addressed, the factors that fuel xenophobic attacks, particularly the stereotypical myths about foreigners stealing jobs, south africa will continue to see the sporadic eruptions of attacks on foreigners and thus spoiling the international standing of the country. therefore, the pertinent questions about sporadic xenophobic attacks on foreigners in south africa are worth pursuing. research questions the sporadic eruption of attacks on foreigners of african origin in some south african townships raises pertinent questions about xenophobia. this state of affairs generates invaluable questions that may add new knowledge in the social sciences fields, particularly in the disciplines of public administration, sociology, development studies and law. therefore, this article is informed by the following research questions: • how do the twists and turns of south africa's foreign and immigration policies contribute towards xenophobic attacks? • are south african foreign and immigration policies to be blamed for xenophobia? • is south africa really as committed to rooting out xenophobia as it would have us believe? • since foreigners are generally accused of stealing jobs from south african citizens, do foreigners really “steal” south african jobs? xenophobia is becoming a prominent aspect of life in africa. therefore, answers to these research questions might shed some light on the south african government as to how to effectively address the frequent eruptions of xenophobic attacks. a number of other related questions often crop up. for example, le pere (2015: 51) poses questions which include: ... as an avowedly continental power, can south africa provide more assertive leadership in strengthening regional and continental security, especially as far as peacekeeping and conflict mediation are concerned? by its own example, is it capable of deepening democracy in the face of manifest reversals in many african countries? and, given their unsteady and highly politicised genesis as well as huge resource constraints, can south africa really rely on the au and nepad to drive the pan-african security, governance, growth and revival agendas? is south africa's faith in the ethical foundations of multilateralism a sufficient base from which to address the north-south divide and the growing gap between rich and poor countries? and can south africa's global governance reform discourse succeed in a world where the dictates of asymmetric power and influence still hold strong sway, and where unilateral militarism by the us is still practiced with impunity? however, le pere (2015) cautions that these matters must be posed against the backdrop of south africa as a country that is still undergoing a daunting transition, exacerbated and south africa’s foreign and migration policies missteps td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 60-70. 65 scarred by poverty, social unrest, unemployment and inequality. although questions raised by le pere (2015) require empirical study, this article attempts to only respond to the four research questions stated earlier on. research design and methodology this article uses the qualitative research approach as well as the literature review and document analysis techniques. data was mainly collected from journal articles and research reports. the primary focus of this article is on the myths and misconceptions that south africans have about foreign nationals, as well as the missteps of south africa’s foreign and migration policies and their effects on xenophobic attacks. in the next section, the findings of this article are presented and discussed. findings: myths or reality? in the southern african development community (sadc), south africa receives the highest number of migrant workers from its neighbours. nshimbi & fioramonti (2013: 1) stress the point that south africa attracts the largest number of cross-border migrants from southern africa. there is evidence that south africa’s current responses to the reality of regional migration in southern africa do not provide the most optimal solutions to the phenomenon. government has the responsibility of effectively managing the influx of migrants, particularly the low-skilled. martin (2011: 11) posits that migrants are often attractive to local employers because they are willing to work hard in jobs shunned by local workers. therefore, south africa constantly develops or amends its policies in an attempt to effectively manage the influx of migrants, as well as strengthen its global reputation. south african policymakers are often hard pressed, facing trenchant critiques for failing to strike a balance between material demands and normative constraints. the material demands usually entail dealing with divergent constituencies clamouring for domestic expectations of redistribution, on the one hand, and market-led demands, on the other, whilst normative constraints involve having to seek a compromise between cosmopolitanism and pan-africanism (van der westhuizen & smith, 2013: 1). van der westhuizen & smith (2013) elaborate that as a result, multiple contradictions clutter the policymaking domain: a widely pronounced commitment to an “african agenda” amongst the political elite, set against severe levels of xenophobia amongst the poor, in part because south africa has had to deal with the largest influx of refugees in the world; increasing trade and economic ties with china, including chinese sponsorship of south african membership of brics, set against massive chinese imports which have, for example, decimated the local textile industry; and, enunciating a commitment towards ‘democratising’ international institutions, yet having to tolerate one of the world’s last absolute monarchy’s in its own backyard. the challenges faced by citizens from southern african states often lead to an influx of migrants seeking refuge in south africa. at the same time, in south africa, myths and misconceptions about migrants and asylum seekers, especially in poor communities, often fuel xenophobic attacks on the foreigners. there is a disconnection between perception and reality. myths and misconceptions travel very quickly. if not timeously corrected, such misconceptions will continue to fuel the xenophobic attacks whenever the opportunity arises. a number of surveys have been conducted to determine the extent to which myths and misconceptions fuel xenophobic attacks in south africa. a study by the consortium for refugees and migrants in south madue 66 africa found that in 2011, attacks on foreigners continued, with national statistics showing that on average, one person a week was killed, while 100 were seriously injured and over 1 000 were displaced. as far as the involvement of south africa in sadc is concerned, nathan (2005: 366) argues that it has not driven the integration project as many observers expected it to do in the light of its strength in the region. south africa is a developing country with a relatively small economy, a host of domestic challenges and limited capacity to contribute to external development. thus, south africa’s foreign and immigration policies are blamed for aggravating xenophobic attacks. the migrating for work research consortium (miworc) has in 2014 released two studies to test the myth that foreigners are stealing jobs from the south africans. the studies examined the impact that migration might be having on the south african labour market. the findings of their studies suggest that a lot of what has been said is based on hearsay and anecdotal evidence or myths. evidence from the two studies conducted by miworc show that 82% of the working population aged between 15 and 64 were bona fide south african (non-migrants), with 14% being domestic migrants who moved between provinces in the past five years. only 4% of the working population was found to be migrant workers. patel (2013) argues that there is a political vacuum or competition for community leaders allowing scope for the emergence of unofficial, illegitimate and often violent forms of leadership. such leaders then mobilise residents against foreign nationals in order to strengthen their own powerbase. therefore, some of the community leaders are fuelling the myths and misconceptions about foreign nationals, thereby contributing towards the eruptions of xenophobic attacks. it is thus necessary to single out some of the major causes of xenophobic attacks. causes of xenophobic attacks in south africa the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, bestows rights to the citizens and those who live in it, no mention is made whether documented or not. thus asylum seekers have the right to seek employment, healthcare and education while their application for asylum is still being processed, which could take years to complete. hammerstad (2011: 2) argues that ... south african immigration system is anti-immigrant in form, but littered with legal practical loopholes. the combination of tough talk and legislation on the one hand, and the inability to stop undocumented immigration in practice, on the other hand, has provided ample breeding ground for discontent and xenophobia in the townships and informal settlements, among police and immigration offices. south african immigration regulations today put more stringent restrictions on and discourage (especially unskilled) illegal immigration into south africa, while pursuing a less exclusionary policy towards especially skilled migrants than before (nshimbi & fioramonti, 2013: 3). this policy approach creates pressure on the department of home affairs’ handling of asylum applications, which results in inefficiencies and longer turnaround times. the inefficiency and slowness of processing of asylum applications by the department of home affairs renders asylum-seekers more vulnerable, unable to seek work or to claim their right to education (palmer, 2013: 8). one of the frequently cited explanations of xenophobic attacks is, according to patel (2013), the discriminatory attitudes learned during apartheid, whose legacy continues. another explanation of the causes of xenophobic attacks is south africa’s foreign and migration policies missteps td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 60-70. 67 attributable to the criticism of the anc government’s record of service delivery. south african xenophobia has also been explained by the rate of socio-economic inequality in the country. it has been pointed that the greatest scourge of xenophobic violence has been perpetrated in margins of formal society, where foreign nationals compete with the poorest south africans to eke out a menial living (patel, 2013). recommendations having discussed the findings and some of the causes of the sporadic eruptions of xenophobic attacks, it is important then to highlight some recommendations. south africa strives to promote its national interest in a complex and fast-changing world. the impact of these complexities and changes must be factored into the nation’s attempt to achieve a better life for its people both at home as well as in a regional and continental context. the business of national interest cannot be the purview of the state alone, but it can encourage an enabling environment of dialogue and discourse among all stakeholders to interrogate policies and strategies, and their application in the best interests of the people (south africa, 2011: 3). south africa should further be encouraged to establish a sadc-based multi-lateral framework for the management of labour migration and social protection issues (nshibi & fioramonti, 2013: 5). as far as south africa’s foreign and migration policies are concerned, a number of inconsistencies are prevalent. nathan (2005: 370) stresses that the one major inconsistency with respect to the government’s emphasis on africa and the africanist approach occurs at the domestic level. there is widespread xenophobia in south africa, targeted mainly at people from other african countries. in order to counter the toxic levels of xenophobic attacks, hammerstad (2011: 1) recommends that south africa’s senior political leaders should speak more openly about the political and economic reasons why foreign nationals flee to south africa. the skilled foreign nationals in south africa (n.d.) adds that ... xenophobia must be discussed in the corridors of power and government, in the board rooms of big business, in the kraals and assemblies of royal and traditional leaders, in the lecture halls of institutions of higher learning and the factory floors of vehicle assembly plants. it must be discussed amongst labourers working in fields across the country small and medium business enterprises and operators at community level churches mosques and the classrooms where young minds are receptive and shaped and every other place in between. traditionally, recommendations are usually drawn from one study. in this article, convention has been challenged, in that, because of the magnitude of the problem of xenophobic attacks in south africa, it became necessary to also reiterate the recommendations of other related studies. the following recommendations provided by the institution for justice and reconciliation (2015: 2) are also worth noting: • education – learners need to learn about other african countries, their people and cultures, geopolitics and histories. the best way to achieve this is to promote a more inclusive and africentric syllabus. this will assist the broader public and society at large to better understand foreigners in south africa and why they have immigrated there. • immigration policy and integration – south africa needs clear and concise immigration policies that address who comes into the country, and how, and how those who immigrate are better integrated into society. in particular, there is the need madue 68 to develop integration policies. currently, integration is left in the hands of local communities. • foreign policy – the foreign policy aims should ultimately be to create opportunities for cultural and economic exchanges between south africa and the rest of africa and should lead to a perceived win-win situation on both sides of the border. • understanding the problem –there is a need for research on migration and the numbers of foreigners living in south africa, so that the role of foreign nationals in the employment markets, particularly the low-skill, low-income workforce, is better understood. • woundedness – south africans need to acknowledge that they are a deeply wounded and traumatised people, including their leaders. wounded leaders cannot lead a wounded nation effectively. south africa cannot afford not to deal with its past. it is important that government, the private sector and civil society mobilise resources in order to address the trauma, violence and marginalisation at a societal level. psychosocial support against trauma is necessary for refugees who were affected by conflict and then faced with hardship in south africa through the need to survive and xenophobia. this article supports these recommendations as the most practical and viable interventions that could potentially address the challenges of xenophobic attacks against african immigrants in south africa. conclusion since 1994, south africa adopted a multilateralism approach to pursue its national and global interests. according to nathan (2005: 36), this is consistent with the country’s negotiated settlement and pluralist politics as well as with the emphasis on african state politics on unity and solidarity. as such, south africa has since then attracted many more migrants, economic and otherwise, and asylum seekers. the increasing number of immigrants from neighbouring countries, coupled with the south african citizens’ socio-economic struggles, unemployment and the slow level of service delivery in some instances, often fuel myths and misconceptions about foreigners, especially those of african origin. in an attempt to address the scourge of xenophobic attacks on foreigners, the south african government often make pronouncements of its commitment to solve this problem. government acknowledges some shortcomings in its foreign and migration policies. at the same time, xenophobic attacks continue to erupt in south africa’s townships and informal settlement, whenever the citizens become frustrated by the slow pace of service delivery and other related problems. this article has argued that the myths about foreign national persist, and some of the community leaders even use the frustrations of the members of the community to fuel attacks on foreigners, to selfishly strengthen their leadership ambitions. the article is concluded by the words of patel (2013) who stresses that “... the 2006 survey confirmed, xenophobia and hostility to (particularly) other africans is not the preserve of a lunatic fringe, it stems from the xenophobic convictions of the majority of south africans”. the missteps of south africa’s foreign and migration policies are also partially to blame. references south africa’s foreign and migration policies missteps td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 60-70. 69 babbie, e. & mouton, j. 2005. the practice of social research. oxford: oxford university press. centre for development and enterprise (cde), 2011. south africa’s migration policies: a regional perspective. cde workshop no. 8, centre for development and enterprise, johannesburg. department of international relations and cooperation (dirco), 2009. vote 3 – 2009/2010 annual report. pretoria: dirco. department of 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opinion survey. safpi policy brief, no. 55, open society foundation for south africa/south african foreign policy initiative. webb, w. & auriocombe, c.j. 2006. research design in public administration: critical considerations. journal of public administration, 41(3.1): 588-602. wellington, j., bathmaker, a., hunt, c., mcculloh, g. & sikes, p. 2005. succeeding with your doctorate. london: sage. zondi, s., masters, l., jumat, w., reinecke, r. & boldt, r. 2014. a foreign policy handbook for parliament: an overview of south african policy in context. pretoria: institute for global dialogue, unisa. microsoft word 06 koenane et al.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. afrophobia, moral and political disguises: sepa leholo ke la moeti1 mlj koenane2 and kj maphunye3 abstract violent or other attacks on nationals from other african states are a reality we have come to expect time-after-time in post-apartheid south africa. we are once confronted with the ugly reality of barbaric and cruel acts of attacks on foreign internationals from other african states, which some have labelled “xenophobia” or “xenophobic attacks” while others term this “afrophobia” (black-on-black conflict and violence directed at other africans). we argue that this unsolicited characteristic of being african (indigenous) will never disappear unless the moral and political disguises thereof are dealt with radically and proactively. generally, the subject of xenophobia is one which almost everyone has an opinion on – therefore this must be a subject close to every person’s heart, be this controversial or not. keywords: afrophobia, attitude, divide-and-rule, foreigner, hatred, power introduction with the dawn of democracy in south africa in 1994, the “rainbow nation” espoused by retired archbishop desmond tutu was usually perceived as a kind of nirvana or paradise based on the numerous rights and freedoms that were enshrined in its new constitution. these rights, which are enshrined in the bill of rights, include freedom of expression, rights to human dignity and equality, freedom of religion, belief and opinion, freedom from slavery, servitude and forced labour, right to life and freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading punishment (constitution of south africa, bill of rights ss. 7-39). such elaborate rights and freedoms suggest that the country is a mature democracy in which these and other rights are sacrosanct and greatly respected. ironically, the situation on the ground in many south african towns, townships, villages and other localities seems to point in another direction. at least since around the year 2000, there have been increasing incidents of hatred, negative attitudes and dislike of foreigners in general from asian countries but specifically targeting african migrants from the different parts of the continent such as somalia, democratic republic of congo, zimbabwe, nigeria, ethiopia mozambique, malawi, to name a few (enca, 2015). violent attacks on other nationals or some forms of attacks on nationals from these and other african states are a reality we have come to expect time-after-time. 1 sepa leholo ke la moeti is the sesotho expression which suggests that whenever anything goes wrong in a home, community or society, blame is attributed towards strangers or foreigners. 2 college of human sciences, university of south africa, p.o. box 392, unisa, 0003, south africa, email: koenamij@unisa.ac.za 3 inaugural wiphold-brigalia bam chair in electoral democracy in africa at unisa, .o. box 392, unisa, 0003, south africa, e-mail: maphukj@unisa.ac.za koenane & maphunye 84 once again, south africa confronts the ugly reality of barbaric and cruel acts of attacks on foreign nationals from other african states. some have labelled such phenomena xenophobic attacks while others conclude that this is nothing more than afrophobia (black-on-black conflict and violence directed at other africans). mudimbe in his work entitled: the invention of africa (1988) bluntly points to the negative consequences of colonialism on the african soil. one way in which these consequences still haunt africans is the tendency by some of them to look down on other africans especially if they are from elsewhere in the continent. in the case of south africa, the brutal systems of colonialism, racial segregation and apartheid had over centuries inculcated a negative attitude of disdain and hatred of fellow africans from “beyond the limpopo”. during the apartheid era, many africans who came to south africa usually worked in the mines and factories. while this situation might have changed since the country’s democratisation, relatively very few south africans (especially blacks) ventured beyond the borders of the republic in search of work partly because of the apartheid system’s restrictive policies. the end results were that very few south africans (especially africans) clearly understood the socio-economic, cultural and political lifestyles of fellow africans beyond the limpopo. we argue that this unsolicited characteristic of being african is never going to disappear completely unless the moral and political disguises are dealt with radically and proactively by all the role-players in south african society. in a sense, radically here means transforming the way we in south africa do things, including dealing with all aspects of life in settings such as homes, religious and political gatherings and cultural and social meetings, to name but a few. arguably, a child is born as an amoral and apolitical being who then is socialised into becoming anything we shape this child into be-ing, or what sociologists call socialisation. child development depends very much on socialisation, which suggests that under ordinary circumstances, every child be-comes what they were taught or developed to be. the attitude they grow up with – that is, their moral outlook and perspective in life is generally what they were taught to be. to use behavioural theory, people are conditioned in their early childhood to become who they are at their later adulthood stage. we are yet to meet someone who is not in part or completely a product of their society. letseka (2013: 351) views it thus: eventually, i offered my readers african traditional education and the basotho indigenous education as programmes we might draw onto to address the development of the sort of personhood that is necessary for ubuntu moral disposition. justified my choice of basotho indigenous education on the grounds that is my own native education about which i can write uninhibitedly. i surmised that young people who are initiated into ubuntu morality have the potential to become citizens that are inclined to treating others with fairness at all times. in many ways this further suggests that we are all socialised into becoming who we are as well as what we are by our environment. it is also true that we chose at some stage to out-grow certain tendencies we learnt from childhood. but even then, the fundamental reference point still largely remains that of the person’s upbringing and essentially shapes their views later in life. as a result of this conviction, we believe that people can and must be educated on how to view the other person. first and foremost, we need to teach ourselves (even more so our young generation(s)) how to treat others as persons before we can notice differences. kollapen’s primary concern regarding xenophobic actions against other africans from across the borders (cited in koenane 2013: 107) is that “not enough was done to understand the afrophobia, moral and political disguises td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. 85 cause of these attacks”. this equally applies to afrophobia, the blatant hatred and dislike of africans from other parts of the continent and this, fundamentally, disguises the crux of the matter; which is the basis of any disagreement and conflict. in order to come up with a working solution and reach a common ground the cause of any conflict must be understood. with regard to afrophobia, probably everyone at the offices believes that they understand the causes of these atrocities. the most striking ones are the now familiar statements such as: “during the apartheid period in south africa, we stayed in their countries” or “during our time of need in the apartheid era they hosted or welcomed us in their country”. there is nothing wrong with these kinds of remarks but the problem is that these statements never made any difference before, they have had no impact in dealing with afrophobic incidents in the past and might not make any positive contribution in the current state of affairs either. the apparent indifference of the south african society to such statements may be attributed to possible disjuncture between the country’s leadership and ordinary citizens who do not understand why they must “share” their country with foreigners, irrespective of wherever they come from. it would seem that some south africans believe their lives would have been better if foreign nationals were barred from coming to their country; but this belief is clearly false in our view. xenophobia or afrophobia as power relations the recent incidents of xenophobia/afrophobia4 and their consequent attacks began in durban, kwamashu, and the city centre and subsequently spread to isiphingo and a vast number of places in kwazulu-natal. the general public (mostly people of goodwill and those whose lives and livelihoods are threatened) is concerned that sooner or later these attacks will spread to the rest of the country, probably targeting new “enemies” such as some other south african ethnic or racial groups. as such, we begin by defining the word xenophobia. for the purpose of this paper, the working definition of xenophobia is taken from frank bealey (1999: 344) it is formulated thus: a fear and hatred of foreigners often reflected in harassment of minority ethnic groups. it may begin as a dislike of people with strange dress and behaviour and develop into specific phobias […]. xenophobia may be particularly rife where a community or nation feels threatened. xenophobia or resentment of foreigners is not a unique phenomenon to south africa, perhaps what could be unique is the manner by means of which this resentment is expressed. speaking at the mail & guardian and university of south africa critical thinking forum recently (23/04/2015), anti-apartheid stalwart and human rights activist, advocate george bizos, made the following remarks on the spate of attacks on foreign nationals in south africa: this isn’t about fear of foreigners. this is far more malevolent than that: rather, we are dealing here with the hatred of foreigners − as the greeks would call it, mísos gia tous xénous. 4 in this article, the two concepts xenophobia and afrophobia are used interchangeably. we however, prefer afrophobia since it emphasises that it is mostly africans from other african countries who are always attacked by frustrated locals. we are aware of pakistanis and other asian nationals who are doing business in south africa and who are usually victimised by xenophobic incidents. koenane & maphunye 86 julia kristeva in her book entitled strangers to ourselves (1991) articulates her own experience of being a foreigner in france. nyamnjoh (2006: 38) asserts that xenophobia in all its different manifestations affects all societies but emphasises that not all foreigners became targets. of note are certain elements which according to bealey constitute a definition of xenophobia. firstly, he mentions that “xenophobia is fear and hatred of foreigners”. insofar as we are aware both fear and hatred are real emotions, in a sense that people fear something and such a fear has its source. to begin with, he states “fear”, we therefore would like to investigate if this is a justified fear or not. in other words, is it rational to fear? we believe that xenophobia/afrophobia, is a reality which affects people differently and as such people hold different viewpoints about it. contrary to the belief that xenophobia exists only among africans, it is not only a problem in south africa and among africans only as seen in the current efforts by european countries to keep away africans fleeing from north africa through the mediterranean to southern europe. thus, afrophobia exists at all levels of life and it is expressed in different ways depending on the level at which it operates (koenane, 2013). we also believe that such fear may or may not be reasonable (again depending on the level from which one finds him or herself). the importance of this investigation is that from a philosophical perspective, fear as an emotion is something neutral, that is, fear does not have any moral dimension on its own. it is only if it is judged as a justifiable or unjustifiable act where it adopts such a moral aspect to it. but again it is not as simple as it looks, since what is justifiable for one person may not necessarily be so for the other person. in other words, people may not necessarily agree with what constitutes justification for acting in a particular manner. hence, what genuinely constitutes fear in one person may genuinely not necessarily constitute fear in another. however, afrophobic incidents outline power relations. experience teaches us that no matter the progressiveness of a policy or a constitution, a migrant or a foreigner would not have as much comfort in a foreign land as though they were in their own country. in practical sense, power relations characterise the level of comfort a foreigner can enjoy. this again operates within given levels as suggested by koenane (2013), where he outlines three levels on which afrophobia is experienced and expressed. koenane argues that these three levels are: i. the lower level – which is mostly where the frustrations (reasonable or otherwise) lead to acts of vandalism, violence, attacks and looting. simply put, at the lower level xenophobia is expressed in barbaric acts. this is the lower moral road. ii. the second level is characterised by people who do not commit themselves but would simply opine that foreigners must not be attacked or killed as it is the situation in south africa but that they must go back to their own countries; and indifferent people. this he calls the middle road but he does not commit himself into mentioning whether this is a moral or unethical way. however, in this paper, we would refer to this middle road as a moral disguise. iii. he further maintains that the third level of xenophobia is a professional level in which violence and criminal acts do not necessarily play a role. among foreigners in south africa, there are those who are highly skilled and educated. there is high competition for positions at this level and more often than not these foreigners easily elbow locals aside because of their superior education and experience. in the case of zimbabweans and to some extent mozambicans, another factor we often hear is about “hard work”. the binary used is that “south africans are lazy compared to zimbabweans and mozambicans who are “hard workers”. in other words, foreigners are knowledgeable, afrophobia, moral and political disguises td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. 87 experienced and preferred to locals. koenane (2013) suggests that the experience of these foreigners could be used to benefit south africans who are at the same level of skills and education if and when these foreigners are meant to train and mentor south africans to acquire skills and experience such as they have. he argues that this in his view is a more moral approach to establishing better relationships between foreigners and locals. for koenane (2013), this is a high moral road. the above differentiation reminds us that there are two different kinds of immigrants: voluntary and involuntary immigrants. immigrants are of heterogeneous groups and their reasons for coming to south africa vary. nyamnjoh (2006: 38) rightly affirms that as much as xenophobia is experienced in all societies those who are targeted are chosen carefully by perpetrators, according to him, people are targeted in terms of the hierarchies in the society,. as such, voluntary immigrants are those who willingly go into a host country for different reasons in particular for greener pastures in terms of seeking professional jobs because of their education and skills. most of those who belong to this group are those affected by xenophobia differently and are generally protected by law since they have work and residence documents which allow them to live in a host country legally. among these are those who cross borders for economic reasons, usually also termed “economic migrants”, even those with little education and little knowledge of this and that (that is, people with no specialised professions in a strict sense of the words – generally referred to as manual labourers). most of these without specialised professions would also have no legal documents to be in a host country. as such, in most cases the dog-eats-dog situation, which is characterised by violence affects most of these unspecialised general labourers. competition at this level is rife since there are normally thousands of unskilled job-seekers in a host country such as south africa. be that as it may, there is no moral justification for violating others’ human rights whether they are in the country legally or not. involuntary immigrants are those who cross borders into other countries unwillingly, these are individuals who are forced by circumstances including political and other forms of persecution in their country of origin. among these are those who are regarded as political refugees in terms of the united nations (un) high commission for refugees (unhcr) convention relating to the status of refugees (1951) and its 1967 protocol (unhcr, 2010). overall, political refugees are fairly educated but this differs from country to country and in africa many refugees tend to be women from rural backgrounds who are illiterate (unhcr, 2009: 48). essentially, they are politically involved individuals who, because of their opposition to the ruling party in their country of origin, are then persecuted together with their families and as such are pressured into fleeing their own country into exile in another country5. sometimes they are also forced to flee their countries of birth owing to internecine or civil wars, political instability, despotic or authoritarian regimes and myriad violations of their rights as specified under the universal declaration of human rights. we agree with pogge (2006: 710) that governments have moral obligation and political responsibility to give such people a refugee status and south africa is within its rights in terms of international law to accept refugees into its territory. amnesty international (2002) 5 however, there must be a an element of persecution and fear of such by anyone so defined. the unhcr convention relating to the status of refugees (1951) defines a “refugee” as “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, members of a particular social group, or political opinion” (unhcr, 2010: 3). koenane & maphunye 88 confirms that a number of governments imprison, persecute and torture their political opponents. since fleeing is one of the main reasons people live in exile, it bothers us that countries continue with political disguises by evading serious issues which ought to be addressed. issues which make people flee their countries are generally political issues; as such political remedies ought to be found in addressing this particular problem. in africa, the african union was established originally as the organisation for african unity (oau) with a hope of addressing african problems head-on and to ensure that africans throughout the continent are liberated from the yokes of slavery, colonialism and white minority governments that used to plague many parts of the continent. to what extent this is taking place, given the tendency of african governments to hide such matters within the cloaks of diplomacy and “national interest”, is difficult to discern but it looks to us as though there is an avoidance strategy in dealing with real political problems which negatively impact on the continent. yet, seriously addressing issues which pressurise people to flee their own countries would undoubtedly ensure that people are safe and protected and thus obviate the need to flee. this would further ensure political freedom and freedom of speech and other fundamental human rights that are often trampled upon easily by african governments. furthermore, this would help to safeguard constitutional change of government through the holding of credible democratic elections that comply with international election management best practices. incidentally, the african charter on democracy, elections and governance, which was adopted by the african union in 2007, clearly stipulates the relevant steps that african governments must take to enhance democratic rule in their own countries (acdeg, 2007). in the end, the enforcement of this charter is left to the same governments that usually drag their feet in implementing such agreements. as the un convention for refugees attests (unhcr, 2010), it is not only political views that make people targets in their own countries; and, religion also plays a role in people fleeing their countries. in some cases, some religious groups and sects are usually persecuted for not participating in the political and other processes of their countries. some religions have imposed extremely harsh penalties against their own members to such an extent that people would denounce their religion and flee for their lives. again this is an issue which should be checked against compliance with national laws, continental instruments and international law since all people first and foremost belong to a state. evidence suggests that south africa experiences several impediments to democratic consolidation, suggesting that the country is deply divided along “racial, ethnic and linguistic lines” (gibson & gouws, 2000: 278). similarly, it experienced political tolerance shortly after the demise of apartheid. this may not be dissimilar to the presence of political intolerance and religious oppressive laws in some african states which, inevitably, will require a political solution. such a solution, however, does not imply that african governments must sweep blatant violations of human and democratic rights under the carpets and that, with collusion from western governments; they should pay lip service to the obligations of the universal declaration of human rights including african human rights obligations. undoubtedly, the situation of people crossing borders legally or illegally to get jobs or make money from other countries would always be an urgent political problem which needs to be urgently addressed especially if it looks to insiders as though foreigners are preferred over them.6 thus, there is need for robust political debate in south africa which may lead to 6 anecdotal evidence and public talk in taxis, buses, trains and other public forums suggests that some employers do not always hide their preference for foreign nationals in certain industries especially afrophobia, moral and political disguises td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. 89 finding a sustainable political remedy to this situation. unfortunately, extreme poverty is one of the characteristics of the new south africa, resources are not enough for everyone and as such competition for these limited resources causes frustration on locals. unemployment on all levels is a serious matter to an extent that competing as an underdog would always threaten one who is at the disadvantage. the mind set and xenophobia in his work, i write what i like, steve biko (1978) argues that the most powerful weapon at the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. this is further supported by mzwakhe mbuli in one of his songs where it states: ukulimala kwenqondo ukulimala komuntu. literally, this means that once the mind of the human being is damaged the whole person is damaged beyond repair. in simple terms, this article argues that the problems about certain systemic structural rules of engagement are deep-seated in the minds of individuals. certainly, xenophobia manifests itself differently – this depending on the level at which it operates. however, in all its manifestations xenophobia has everything to do with power relations. power relations, which are some of the main causes of afrophobia, reasonable or unreasonable, were entrenched initially through a well-orchestrated project of the apartheid regime namely the divide-and-rule strategy mostly based on race and ethnicity. this strategy worked and some south african leaders and elsewhere in the continent may have found it appealing as a means to prolong their stay in power. during the apartheid era, the so-called black-on-black violence, which was essentially orchestrated by the regime, was an effective tool which the apartheid government used to its advantage to undermine genuine and organised resistance to its illegitimate rule and draconian policies. in order for this violence to take effect, the apartheid regime had to ensure that the divide-and-rule strategy was in place by carefully co-opting collaborators and elements from the former bantustans who were forced to accept the legitimacy of apartheid in return for concessions from the then white-dominated government. how the strategy worked was simply to turn africans against each other. for instance, one group was made to believe that they were “better” than the others and thus “superior”, while at the same time the same group which was made to believe they were “better” was reported to other black groups as a “sell-out” group. as a matter of fact envy and jealousy were the order of the day, these groups began to hate one another and the hatred aggravated to a deeper level. individuals from these different groups began to see others as enemies, which must be defeated or perpetually undermined; and, in a true sartrean sense, afrophobia is an act of viewing the other africans as “hell”. this is typified by the negative naming of the other which is expressed differently using derogatory terms such as: makwerekwere, izifikanemithwalo, matswantle, etc. (koenane 2013: 106). in terms of the apartheid psyche or ingrained attitudes, a concerted attempt was made by consistent state propaganda and disinformation campaigns to discredit african “beyond the limpopo” by painting a picture of “backwardness, violence and death”. this was often done through biased films, radio broadcasts and newspaper articles. thus, many south africans grew up either hating people from such countries or at least being suspicious of their presence hotels and catering, construction and agriculture. observation by the authors on the nationality of individuals employed in some major retail, hotels and catering outlets in cities such as johannesburg, pretoria and cape town suggests that (unstated or unofficial) preference by these outlets is disproportionately leaning towards foreign nationals. koenane & maphunye 90 within their midst. the anti-apartheid war against the state, while it ultimately exposed the bankruptcy of the apartheid laws and policies nevertheless did not help much in demystifying many stereotypes created by the apartheid regime. most often than not, cultures embody attitudes towards others in particular those who do not belong to “our own group(s)”, which is a manifestation of the “us and them” syndrome. xenophobic attitudes have everything to do with the mind-set, negative in this case. for instance, among the basotho culture, there is a proverb which largely expresses an attitude towards foreigners or strangers as follows: “sepa leholo ke la moeti […]”7. current and past xenophobic attacks and attitudes in south africa are characterised by allegations and accusations of foreigners engaging in criminal acts. making foreigners scapegoats for things which go wrong is a hypothesis which most authors have explored (wilson, 2015). these include taking out frustrations on foreigners for poor service delivery (fauvelle-aymar & segathi cited in landau 2011: 59). in other words, foreigners are blamed for crime and political failures which they too have no control over. evidence of this is elucidated by landau (2011: 9-10) wherein he quotes the late joe modise’s (the then minister of defence) utterance where he remarked thus: as for crime, the army is helping the police to get rid of crime and violence in the county. however, what can we do? we have one million illegal immigrants in our country who commit crimes and who are mistaken by some people for south african citizens. this is the real problem (landau, 2011: 9). this statement can be read together with that of billy masethla, who proposed that strong action must be taken against criminals. masethla asseted as follows: approximately 90 per cent of foreign person who are in rsa with fraudulent documents, ie, either citizenship or migration documents, are involved, in other crimes as well … it is quicker to charge to these criminals for their false documentation and then to deport them than to purse the long route in respect of the other crimes that are committed (landau, 2011: 10). accodingly, both this statemen are convinced that foreigners are a problem since most of them are criminal elements that should be taken care of. foreginers are equated with crime thus sepa le holo ke la moeti. evidently foreginers are blaimed for everything that goes wrong it is for this reason the authors argue that all efforts to address xenophobic attitude and violence is a political disguise. kristeva (1991) differentiates between citizenship and foreignness. in her work: strangers to ourselves, kristeva (1991: 95) asks the question: “by what right are you a foreigner?” she then moves on to what she terms jus soli, jus sanguinis. she is basically concerned with that which constitutes a foreigner or put differently, she wonders how best we could define a foreigner. she explores all sorts of avenues, could a foreigner be someone who does not belong to a particular group? or is the foreigner someone born in another country (kristeva, 1991: 95). she maintains that in terms of a foreigner, two legal systems were created. firstly the jus soli, which is latin for the right of the territory; she refers to the right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognised. secondly, the jus sanguinis this refers to the rule through which birth in a state is sufficient to confer nationality, irrespective of the nationality of one’s 7 loosely translated, this suggests that the “visitor” that is foreigner is normally to blame whenever things go wrong. afrophobia, moral and political disguises td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. 91 parents. both definitions suggest some new definition of a nation state in which the foreigner has no place. analysing the situation from her european context, kristeva (1991) is curious at how foreignness attracts such negativity and fear. she further articulates that the possibility of threat or benefit from the other (foreigner) dictates what rights are offered to him or her. on the lower level in respect of education, self-reliance and skills, the assumption is that the other (foreign nationals) must not have rightsand must be excluded from public service. in terms of the power relations argument propounded in this article, this is a typical example wherein the powerful (police or the state in this case) clearly prey on the powerless (“undocumented” or illegal migrants). such practices have deep roots in the modus operandi of the south african police during apartheid whereby virtually all africans or black people were generally presumed guilty until proven otherwise. during such encounters, police brutality at its worst including the indiscriminate unleashing of police dogs on africans was the norm in many black townships. we find this disturbing and, therefore, we believe that something should be done to legitimise the stay of africans from other parts of the continent in the country and thus extend legal protection to them as well. empty rhetoric and political disguises xenophobic attacks and incidents of violence against african others occur year-in and yearout. we hear the same rhetoric every time these incidents occur; this rhetoric has up-untilnow had no impact and has not made any difference. this leads us to ask this question: is our government serious about curbing xenophobia among south africans? the new rhetoric reads as follows: #saynotoxenophobia and #simunye8 – africa unite. however, as the word suggests, rhetoric implies hollow promises or verbal declarations that are not backed by concrete action. some south africans anecdotally acknowledge this rhetoric but ascribe it to the fact that “foreigners cannot win votes”, alluding to the fact that politicians from the governing african national congress (anc) and the opposition are not always that enthusiastic about issues pertaining to afrophobia and xenophobia since foreign nationals are legally barred from voting. if this view is correct, it might serve as partial explanation to the apparent official lethargy or reluctance to take meaningful action in dealing with this phenomenon that continually keeps embarrassing the country (enca, 2015; wilson, 2015). with a few slogans, radio, television and print media campaigns that have been undertaken in 2008 and in 2015 when the attacks against other africans occurred, we ask the question: is this the best we can come up with? to answer these two questions, it appears that not enough is done to stop these xenophobic attacks. the attacks are mainly directed to the vulnerable sections of foreigners living in south africa, that is, those in the lower level of the economy, those without specialised skills or education, those who do not have legal documentation to be in the country. in every country, issues of development are of primary concern for government, particularly in developing countries. therefore, in order for development to effectively take place, a country should have a reliable estimation or accurate population statistics of people living in the country, which includes foreigners living in a given country. as observers have argued, this is part of the usual requirements of good governance that governments are expected to comply with (davids, theron & maphunye, 2005: 64). south africa is no exception in this regard. arguably, therefore, those entering the country illegally render development efforts 8 simunye is nguni expression meaning “we are one”. koenane & maphunye 92 ineffective as this strikes at the heart of development and economic planning aimed at providing services for all citizens. this problem thus needs to be addressed. in cases where foreign nationals are properly documented, we believe xenophobic attacks would be minimised since these foreign nationals are protected by law. however, this means that all the other variables will also have been taken care of such as corruption among state officials such as police, other security agencies and home affairs employees. this applies equally to illiteracy, high unemployment and poverty. kristeva (1991: 96) writes: if political regulations or legislation generally speaking define the manner in which we posit, modify, and eventually improve the status of foreigners, they also make up a vicious circle for it is precisely with respect to laws that foreigners exist. indeed without a social group structured about a power base and provided with legislation, that externality represented by the foreigner and most often experienced as unfavourable or at least problematical would simply not exist. we agree with kristeva (1991) that taking care of what exposes foreigners to exploitation of any sort and legalising their stay in the country is for us the first step in the right direction. this would further provide foreigners with political rights thus making them responsible members of society with rights and obligations like all other nationals. in this way, south africa would in a true sense of the word belong to all who live in it. what kristeva (1991) and wilson (2002) later on challenge us to do is to work towards self-knowledge or selfrealisation of who we are. wilson in the book with a similar title as that of kristeva: strangers to ourselves argues that in order to know ourselves better, we need to find a way of discovering our unconscious selves. he further articulates that for one to know oneself, and how one feels all one needs to do is to take into consideration what one actually does. in other words, our actions define who we are or what we are. put differently, xenophobic acts define south african culture in terms of our relationship with africans from within the continent. xenophobic incidents stigmatise south africans in general. they define south africans as intolerant, violent, heartless and generally brutal to those speaking different language(s) especially if these come from another african country. this, to some extent, exposes the hypocrisy and essence of the so-called ‘xenophobia’ as being actually “afrophobia”. for instance, we have hardly witnessed any incident wherein refugees from the former eastern bloc countries such as czechoslovakia, bosnia-herzegovina, slovenia, and other former yugoslavian territories were exposed to acts of “xenophobia”. yet some from such countries have over the years settled in south africa and were readily accepted as “whites”. they may not have settled in some african township or village but in this case it would appear that the black-white binaries of the south african society seems to have ascribed a “superior” (white) status to them unlike the african migrants who bore the brunt of blatant discrimination. treating others differently with a view to discriminate unfairly against them is a deep-seated problem among africans in particular (enca, 2015). for example, the zulu people in deep kwazulu-natal would refer to any sesotho speaking groups as izilwanyana (little animals); check this out, they are not even animals but little animals because they consider them to be inferior, a negative ethnic mind-set which steve biko cautioned against when he coined the slogan: “black man, you’re on your own”9. this kind of attitude is also reflected in hugh 9 despite the gendered nature of this slogan (man), biko never meant to exclude women as his philosophy is egalitarian. afrophobia, moral and political disguises td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. 93 masekela’s hit song, chileshe, in which he cautions against looking down on others, calling them derogatory names and treating them in any inhumane manner. in the song the zulu people represented by ngobese refer to others as izilwanyane (little animals). interesting enough, in the song, dlamini (representing the swazi people refers to others as abantu bezizwe (foreigners) or those who belong to other cultures. again, referring to other africans as foreigners is clearly not acceptable to masekela. technically, it does not make sense to call africans foreigners anywhere in africa – this is their mother continent divided by artificial borders created or invented by colonisers at the 1884 berlin conference. frankly, attitude and prejudice are learnt or acquired, but most importantly they are internalised. it is for this reason that we argue that people could be taught early on in their lives to adopt a positive attitude towards others. furthermore, the country does not deserve the rhetoric and apparent indifference by politicians from all political formations as this has clearly proved ineffective and suggests that south africans merely criticise afrophobic acts whilst in principle not doing much that is sustainable in practice. our approach also urges all individuals and civil society organisations to assist the state to address the manifestations of negative attitudes and prejudice among their compatriots, (enca, 2015; wilson, 2015). way forward avoidance strategy is in our view fuelling incidents of xenophobia and afrophobia in south africa. this avoidance strategy is what we earlier referred to as political disguise. political disguise is understood as a political strategy to refuse or avoid addressing pressing issues such as immigration policies in the name of maintaining good relations with other countries. we believe that every child is born amoral that is without a sense of morality; as such, morality in human beings is something people learn as they grow up. we therefore believe that introducing moral education from early age schooling would make a difference in terms of people’s attitudes’ towards others. in this respect, all approaches to moral education would be of great help especially aristotle’s approach of character ethics. the reason we advocate for aristotle’s virtue ethics is simply that it emphasises the character of the moral agent. since it emphasises the character of the moral agent, it thus presupposes character formation. better citizenship and sensitivity towards the other could be established earlier in the moral formation of our children. kristeva (1991: 97) moves on to note that as much as certain groups whose philosophy is based on stoicism and the judeo-christian religion have offered some equal status and equal rights to foreigners these are only realistic in a spiritual city since another set of group is created to exclude foreigners from benefiting from the country’s resources. like kristeva (1991), we believe that this is where the political power or the state in its broader sense should play its role. how the political order plays its role is for us a serious moral matter. certainly, politics has everything to do with distribution or allocation of limited resources in a given country. some believe that charity begins at home; by this, the respondents meant that these scarce resources must benefit south africans in the legal sense of jus soli; jus sanguinis. this theory obviously excludes foreigners, therefore where these foreigners benefit from the country’s resources, locals are inevitably frustrated, jealous and strategize and react by victimising the foreigners who seem to be benefitting disproportionately from government interventions such as rdp (reconstruction and development programme) houses and small business initiatives especially in the black townships and villages (wilson, 2015). koenane & maphunye 94 the question of resources raises another serious question for julia kristeva (1991). she asks: do we have rights as men and women or as citizens? she argues that insofar as resources or rights are allocated in terms of a citizen and a non-citizen, it is equal to recognising one as fully human while the other, a non-citizen, is regarded not as a human being (kristeva, 1991: 98). kristeva (1991) additional emphasises that the idea of exclusion is closely connected with the idea of nation-state, as such she recommends two solutions to this problem. first, she recommends the global united states of all former nation-states where the rights of all human beings are integrated. second, she recommends small political sets designed by humanistic cosmopolitanism with a statute introduced to protect the rights of foreigners (kristeva, 1991: 98). certainly, kristeva’s (1991) view is not new to africa. it seemingly reminds us of the ideas of the pioneers of the organisation of african unity (oau) in 1963 when the likes of kwame nkrumah of ghana were strongly advocating for a “united states of africa” and a continent free from colonialism and white minority rule. of course, probably owing to the reformism from which the oau subsequently suffered, the question of the borders fell out of its agenda (au, 2002). in 2002 when the organisation of african unity became the african union, such ideas again surfaced but africans are still awaiting to see the full commitment and political will of all their governments to such ideas. thus, kristeva’s (1991) argument is not far-fetched. however, the greatest challenge will be on the nature and development of such a “united states of africa” including the actual types of “small political sets designed by humanistic cosmopolitanism”. in koenane (2014: 2) discusses what she refers to as self-defeating behaviour. we therefore believe james’ theory of self-defeating behaviour applies perfectly well in acts of xenophobia and afrophobia (regarded by many as xenophobia). accordingly, reacting also has some selfdefeating consequences as well. consequently, understanding kristeva’s analysis of “strangers to ourselves”, she maintains that we are strangers to ourselves and that which we fear in ourselves needs to be dealt with and accepted in others for us to be able to understand and accept the stranger in others. the growing frustration on other things such as joblessness, scarce resources and political failure to provide services are not reasons enough to take out the frustration on innocent people from other african countries or elsewhere in the world. a xenophobic and afrophobic environment has been allowed to exist for a long time now; and, this environment breeds all kinds of violations and criminal activities ranging from rape, looting, violence, inhumane treatment of others and many other injustices against foreigners who are perceived by locals as a serious threat. yet, the capacity of the state to deal with all these acts of criminology and lawlessness also needs to be brought under scrutiny here. why, for instance, do we constantly see incidents of locals appearing on national television and print media looting “foreigners’ shops” and yet seeing police standing idly by when such acts are perpetrated? (enca, 2015; wilson, 2015) why have we not seen any prosecutions of the perpetrators of the 2008 violence against foreign nationals, many of whom also appeared daringly on national television? (enca, 2015). the answer can only point to the fact that south africa’s state is increasingly becoming “soft” or weak and therefore incapable of addressing such crises. this, for us, also accounts for the current crisis and dilemma facing the country in terms of xenophobia and afrophobia. as much as other scholars express their disillusion regarding ubuntu as a concept on which a south african identity could be established, we argue that given the idea that ubuntu emphasises certain character traits that only could promote friendliness, caring and values that could foster good behaviour, it is our duty to promote the idea of ubuntu and teach afrophobia, moral and political disguises td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. 95 young people from early on in their lives to cherish ubuntu ideals. in supporting the ideals of ubuntu landau (2011: 229) writes: while the emphasis on a just and caring society reflects an implicit criticism of capitalism’s inhumanity, […], ubuntu’s action plan – helps shroud a demon to create national cohesion means to overcome difference in a country which, if nothing else, is characterised by difference. therefore we believe ubuntu values cannot be discarded that easily as most scholars argue that these are needed to establish a cohesive south african cultural identity. we believe that from a moral perspective, south africa needs strong leadership that would pave the way in dealing with xenophobia systematically and sustainably. we further need clear policies in terms of dealing with xenophobic incidents in their manifestations. unless tough action is taken against xenophobia in all its manifestations, these incidents will reoccur and define south africa for ages to come. the negative attitude and lack of trusting the other has characterised south africa for a long time. macintyre (2007) argues that behaviour cannot be characterised independently of intention. if macintyre’s assertion is correct, then xenophobic/afrophobic violence and attitude must have an intention – it is this intention which must be uncovered. we likewise believe that incidents of violating the other such as afrophobia attacks, violence, looting and killings would stop if in our school curricula, subjects and modules that are directed at shaping the lives of south african citizens are introduced from early on and are carried through. akinpelu (1981) rightly argues that any system of education would not necessarily change people but education gives individuals an opportunity to make informed choices and further enables them to internalise what they have been taught and personalise it. political will is another critical part of the equation because once the political will and determination on the part of leaders is strong enough, afrophobia in all its manifestations its related incidents would be addressed effectively. such political will is quite critical given the fact that whenever the leadership does not seem to prioritise an issue, the general public might erroneously assume that such issue is unimportant.10 finally, we believe that borders we invented to with an intention to divide africa, and if mudimbe’s thesis of the invention of africa is correct, then the new africa could be reinvented by eliminating borders and allowing africans to move freely in the continent without the hindrance of visas and other such hurdles to freedom of movement. we similarly believe that africans must be allowed to have unconditional dual or multi-citizenship in africa. furthermore we suggest that addressing all the real issues that affect africans with honesty will contribute positively towards solving the problem such as afrophobia – this is indeed working towards what landau calls exorcising the demons within. exorcising the demons from within would be the most moral thing to do than adopting the political and moral disguise strategies which in our view are not sustainable solutions to the current intractable problems facing african migrants in south africa and elsewhere in the continent. 10 in april 2015, zulu king goodwill zwelithini was quoted as saying: “we ask that immigrants must take their bags and go where they come from” (enca, 2015). following these comments, official response from the highest echolons of government was muffled and no forceful message was sent out to condemn such anti-foreigner sentiments. instead, the official line was that the king was “misquoted”; hence there was need to “investigate” what the monarch really said. koenane & maphunye 96 conclusion afrophobia remains a threat to africa’s long-term stability. however, serious efforts, which will address the concerns of locals in south africa and other countries, have not yet taken place. this is informed by the fact that most countries react instead of addressing the issue proactively. countries affected by border problems need to adopt different strategies than just empty political disguises and rhetoric. it was pointed out that in most situations, the basotho proverb “sepa leholo ke la moeti, […]” is just a strategy to escape blame and apportion it on someone else especially a stranger; which is a way of avoiding confronting a problem. we believe this basotho expression does not always reflect or express truth. foreign nationals cannot be a scapegoat for all social ills that south africa is confronted with. like other crises situations, we all need to learn lessons regarding things that should not happen in our history. this prevailing hostility between africans leaves families broken and destroy trust among africans, xenophobic incidents in south africa have proven that no one is the winner; we all become losers at the end. fighting afrophobia is not an individual responsibility; and, it is a responsibility of the entire society. it is for this reason that the leadership, traditional, political and religious and from other civil society sectors, must lead the way. failing to address this from the leadership perspectives may mean that we have weak leadership morally and politically. we argued that with the introduction of certain subjects and modules in our education system, citizens’ lives may be shaped and that this is important towards shaping the attitudes of society towards others. we further argued that in order for south africa to achieve its objectives in terms of fighting xenophobia, we need true political will and strong determination on the part of our leaders including pro-active initiatives by political parties and all role-players. recommendations we suggest that serious political remedies ought to be found in order to address this problem which, as we have established, does not affect south africa alone. we therefore suggest that it is time a sustainable political solution is found to the problem of borders, which was apparently shelved when the oau decided to tackle the challenges of colonialism in africa. we suggested that borders in africa must be abolished for africans to be allowed free movement in the continent. however, we insist that this must be accompanied by african governments’ compliance with all the relevant continental and international instruments such as the universal declaration of human rights and the african charter on democracy, elections and governance, among others. such instruments, we maintain, essentially seek to promote free, just, and democratic rule which will subsequently deter citizens from fleeing from one polity to another. finally, an effective strategy that would eradicate xenophobic attitudes and behaviours at all levels is recommended but may not be an immediate feasibility given the factors raised here. references acdeg, 2007. african charter on democracy, elections and governance, african union commission. http://www.africa-union.org/rot/au/documents/treaties/treaties.htm [accessed: 11 may 2015]. akinpelu, j.a. 1981. an introduction to philosophy of education. london and basingstoke: macmillan press ltd. afrophobia, moral and political disguises td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 83-98. 97 amnesty international, 2002. report 2000. baltimore: lucas publishers. african union (au), 2002. transition from the oau to the african union. http://www.au2002.gov.za/docs/background/oau_to_au.htm [accessed: 30 may 2015]. bealey, f. 1999. the blackwell dictionary of political science: a user’s guide to its terms. malden, ma: blackwell publishers. biko, s.b. 1978. i write what i like: 1946-1977. london: heinemann publishers. davids, i. & maphunye, k.j. 2005. the public sector: promoting development and good governance. in davids, i., theron, f. & maphunye, k.j. 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https://www.africacheck.org/…analysis_are_foreigners_stealing_jobs_in_south_africa / [accessed: 08 october 2015]. abstract introduction and study background significance of the study research methodology data collection data analysis results and discussion challenges or stressors experienced by fishers declining fish catches food insecurity destruction of infrastructure water currents (tide) and winds crayfish (invasive predator species) wildlife lack of access to information and early warning systems fishing equipment lake co-management fishing boundaries conclusion acknowledgement references about the author(s) rodney t. muringai african centre for food security, school of agriculture, earth and environmental science, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa denver naidoo african centre for food security, school of agriculture, earth and environmental science, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa paramu mafongoya rural agronomy and development, school of agriculture earth and environmental sciences, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa citation muringai, t.r., naidoo, d. & mafongoya, p., 2020, ‘the challenges experienced by small-scale fishing communities of lake kariba, zimbabwe’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a704. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.704 original research the challenges experienced by small-scale fishing communities of lake kariba, zimbabwe rodney t. muringai, denver naidoo, paramu mafongoya received: 11 may 2019; accepted: 29 nov. 2019; published: 08 sept. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract small-scale fisheries play a significant role in enhancing livelihoods, creating employment and contributing to food security especially in developing countries. rural fishing communities are highly dependent on natural resources, which are climate sensitive. many research efforts have been made to understand the impacts of climate change on fisheries and fishing economies. however, little attention has been given to understand the challenges experienced by small-scale fishing communities in developing countries in africa. this article assesses non-climate change and climate change-induced challenges according to the experiences of the gillnet small-scale fishers of sanyathi fishing basin of lake kariba, zimbabwe. the study used a qualitative research design, and data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews with fishers. thematic content analysis was used to analyse interview transcripts. the study results showed that declining fish catches is one of the major challenges experienced by fishers. the main themes that emanated as the challenges faced by fishers are food insecurity, wildlife attacks, lack of access to information systems, lack of fishing equipment, the existence of the predator crayfish, poor lake co-management and shrinking fishing boundaries. overall, the study found that fish production is negatively affected by several political, economic and environmental factors; therefore, development through the public and private organisations should incorporate small-scale fishers in policy formulation to positively enhance livelihoods and food security. keywords: climate change; small-scale fisheries; wildlife; food insecurity; fish production. introduction and study background small-scale fisheries (ssfs) and the associated post-harvest activities significantly contribute to food security and support millions of livelihoods worldwide. small-scale fisheries account for more than 90% of the world’s capture fishers and provide livelihoods and food security for millions of individuals around the globe (basurto et al. 2017; frawley, finkbeiner & crowder 2019). globally, more than 1 billion people derive their protein and micronutrients from fish, whilst in sub-saharan africa it is the main or only source of protein to more than 20% of the population (mohammed & uraguchi 2013). according to the world bank (2013), ssfs and aquaculture produce contribute about 10% of total agricultural exports, and the value of fish trade surpasses the value of trade of all other animals combined. according to tietze (2016) and frawley et al. (2019), ssfs are characterised by labour-intensive harvesting strategies, relatively small fishing vessels, short fishing trips, close to shore, low relative catch per vessel and limited capital investment. therefore, small-scale fishing communities are amongst the most destitute socio-economic groups in developing countries. small-scale fisheries are exposed to a range of natural and anthropogenic stressors, such as climate change, resource scarcity, poor socio-economic conditions and policy that require changes in their behaviour to mitigate damages and to take advantage of opportunities (gammage, jarre & mather 2017). the impacts of climate change such as rising global average temperature and changes in precipitation patterns are already affecting ecosystems, biodiversity and human systems throughout the world (kotir 2011). climate change is increasingly threatening the fishing industry, that is, the ability of fisheries to sustain livelihoods, contribute to economic growth and improve food security (rockefeller-foundation 2014). according to barange et al. (2018), loss of production and infrastructure arising from the increased occurrence of extreme weather events such as floods, cyclones and droughts are some of the short-term climate change impacts on ssfs. declining fish catches of ssfs negatively affect the living conditions of the fishing communities (blythe murray & flaherty 2014). multiple natural and human factors can be attributed to declining fish catches of ssfs. cawthorn (2011) and benkenstein (2013) argue that declining fish catches cannot be solely attributed to climate change, but can also be a result of social vegetative issues in lakes and pollution, overfishing and illegal fishing. research has been conducted to understand the impacts of climate change on fish productivity and the vulnerability of ssfs to climate change. however, little is known about the challenges experienced by ssfs of lake kariba in zimbabwe. therefore, this study sought to answer the following research question: what are the climatic and non-climatic challenges experienced by small-scale gillnet fishers in sanyathi fishing basin of lake kariba in zimbabwe? significance of the study the food and agriculture organisation (fao) states that zimbabwe has over 3910 km2 of inland water bodies that support small-scale and commercial fisheries (fao 2019). lake kariba is the predominant water body that supports both commercial and ssfs that contribute significantly to the economies of zimbabwe and zambia (ndhlovu et al. 2017). small-scale fisheries in lake kariba contribute to providing employment as well as food security to the local people in kariba. however, according to fao (2019), lake kariba is characterised by declining fish production. therefore, it is essential to understand what the ssfs perceive to be the challenges hindering fish production. this study will show the underlying challenges experienced by ssfs, which will provide helpful information for the development and the enactment of useful types of corresponding interventions from governments, policymakers, non-governmental organisations (ngos), development agencies and interested stakeholders. research methodology this study was conducted in sanyathi fishing basin on the shores of lake kariba in zimbabwe. lake kariba is approximately 365 km from the capital city of harare and it borders zimbabwe and zambia in the north-western part of zimbabwe. lake kariba is the second largest man-made lake in the world by water holding capacity (ndhlovu et al. 2017). sanyathi fishing basin lies within a wildlife-protected area; hence, humans and wild animals share the space and resources. the study area was selected mainly because of its contribution of fish supplies to small-scale fishing communities in mashonaland west province. data collection this study adopted an integrated research design. an integrated research design incorporates both qualitative and quantitative data to answer the research question. primary data were mainly used in this study. semi-structured questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (fgds) were used to gather information from the ssfs. a purposive sampling technique was used to select study participants. sixty-six semi-structured questionnaires were administered to heads of small-scale fishing households. the questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data about the socio-economic demographic information. in addition, three fgds were conducted in three different communities under sanyathi fishing basin: gache-gache, nyaodza and fothergil. the fgds were made up of both men and women, ordinary fishermen, community leaders and fisheries extension officers from lake kariba fisheries research institute (lkfri). focus group discussion questions were designed to identify climate-induced and non-climate-related challenges that affect fishing practices of ssfs in their respective fishing zones. observation data collecting tool was also used whereby the researcher paid attention to access and availability of basic services to the fishing communities, infrastructural developments and fishing materials used by the ssfs. data analysis quantitative data obtained from semi-structured questionnaires were coded and entered into statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 25.0 for analysis. descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. thematic content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data obtained from in-depth interviews, fgds and observations. this method involved identifying, analysing and reporting themes within the data. ethical consideration ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from the humanities and social sciences research ethics committee of the university of kwazulu-natal (ethical clearance number: hss/1819/018m). results and discussion socio-economic demographics a total of 66 fishers participated in the study. results (table 1) show that most of the respondents who were interviewed fall under the 26–35 years age group (41%), followed by the 36–45 years age group (30%). eleven per cent of the fishers were below 25 years of age and the 46–55 and 56–65 years age groups both constituted 9% of the respondents. the fishing sector is male dominated, with 89% of the fishers being men and 11% women. the majority (85%) of the participants were married, 8% were divorced, 6% were single and 2% were widowed. the fishing community depicts a high literacy level, with 98% of the fishers having attended formal education. fishing households in sanyathi fishing basin are characterised by multiple livelihood activities. table 1 shows that 80% of the respondents are fishermen, 16% also involved in agriculture and 15% also engaged in fish drying. table 1: demographic characteristics of respondents. challenges or stressors experienced by fishers small-scale fishers are exposed to various livelihood stressors. the themes that emerged from the qualitative data analysis were categorised into two categories: (1) climate-induced challenges (challenges emanating from and aggravated by climate change) and (2) non-climate-related challenges shown in table 2. table 2: challenged experienced by fishers in sanyathi fishing basin. declining fish catches the majority of the fishers (80%) agreed that fish catches in their fishing zones have been declined compared to previous years. these study findings confirm ndhlovu et al.’s (2017) and ndebele-murisa, mashonjowa and hill’s (2011) research findings that fish catches of small-scale fishermen in lake kariba are declining. the fishers believe that the continuously declining of fish catches will negatively affect their livelihoods, incomes and food security. from the fishers’ point of view, declining fish catches are not attributed to a single cause but several causes. climate change emanated as one of the major factors causing fish catches to decline. ndebele-murisa et al. (2011) assert that declining fish catches in lake kariba is attributed to climate change. the study results are congruent with limuwa et al.’s (2018) research findings where 89% of fishers in lake malawi reported that climate change is the main driver of low fish catches. in the delta state of nigeria, fishers believe that climate change has led to poor fish harvests (aphunu & nwabeze 2012). climate change is argued to have resulted in a decline of fish catches in faza island, lamu east district of kenya, with fish catches dropping from 800–1000 kg to 300–400 kg per trip in less than a decade (owiti et al. 2012). food insecurity fishing is the main livelihood strategy and fish is the main source of animal protein for households in sanyathi fishing basin. with the challenge of declining fish catches in the study area, 79% of the fishers indicated that their households are facing challenges of food insecurity. in this fishing community, fish is used for household consumption and the surplus is sold for income. béné et al. (2016) and high level panel of experts, (hlpe) (2014) assert that fisheries contribute more than one-third of the total animal protein consumed by fishing communities, especially in low-income food-deficit countries (lifdcs). fish provides high-quality protein and essential micronutrients to fishing populations (fisheries 2014). furthermore, declining fish catches will result in decreasing incomes of household fishing communities, which negatively affect the purchasing power of fishermen and jeopardise their ability to access or purchase different foods to supplement their diet. therefore, food insecurity of fishing households can also be attributed to climate because climate variability and change directly affect fish availability. daw et al. (2009) and khoshnevis yazdi and shakouri (2010) believe that changes in climatic conditions modify the distribution and productivity of marine and freshwater resources. changes in the geographic distribution of fish change total fish availability for catch, which potentially affects food security (mohammed & uraguchi 2013). destruction of infrastructure fishers under sanyathi fishing basin expressed that zimbabwe parks and wildlife management authority (zpwma) banned the construction of permanent structures in sanyathi fishing basin. fishermen cannot build permanent structures for shelter because the area is protected wilderness and safari area. however, most of the fishermen were born in sanyathi fishing basin, inheriting fishing equipment and practices from their parents and grandparents who were also fishermen in the same area. despite the time they have resided in the area, zpwma rejected to declare households and communities under sanyathi fishing basin to be permanent residents. therefore, shelters in the fishing basin are constructed using mud and wood for the walls and the roofs are grass and wooden poles. these temporary structures are susceptible to the risk of floods and cyclones. the occurrence of extreme weather events can result in loss of human lives as the temporary structures cannot shelter the fishermen from harsh weather events. climate change in the tropics is characterised by unpredictable extreme weather events like floods, cyclones and heat waves. mboya (2013) postulates that adverse weather events can destroy productive assets and public physical infrastructure. water currents (tide) and winds most of the fishers (67%) in sanyathi fishing basin indicated that fishing practices are frequently disrupted by unstable winds which fishers consider to be a driver of increasing waves or unstable water currents. harsh winds and unstable water currents pose a great challenge to fishing activities. binga wind or wave is a name given to one of the most devastating wind or wave in lake kariba by the local residents. binga wind was identified as one of the most dangerous winds that poses risks to fishers’ lives during fishing practices. small-scale fisheries in lake kariba are characterised by the use of low-cost fishing equipment. the fishermen use small unmotorised boats which are at risk of capsizing under harsh winds and tides in the lake. therefore, harsh winds and tide reduce the fishing days of the fishermen. reduced fishing days negatively impact total fish catches, which affect the household income and food security. ndhlovu et al. (2017) postulated that fishers may sometimes go for periods of up to 3 days without fishing because of winds and storms. ndhlovu et al. (2017) also stated that winds and unstable water currents are also a challenge to fisheries in the benguela current large marine ecosystem. increasing strong winds were also reported by fishermen in ngobe villages, cayo cayo de agua and tigre in panama, who reported that tides are a great challenge to their fishing activities and result in less fishing days (basu, 2016). furthermore, a study conducted by muktha et al. (2016) on the fishermen’s perceptions of climate change concluded that fishermen in andhra pradesh reported that wind intensity is the most critical change impacting fisheries as wind velocities would impact the water currents, navigation and fishing effort. crayfish (invasive predator species) small-scale fishermen of sanyathi fishing basin use gill nets to catch fish. the fishermen reported that currently there is a growing concern about crayfish, which is a predator fish that feeds on other fish, which directly affects their fish catches. helfrich and distefano (2005) postulated that crayfish are both predator and prey fish that live in freshwater streams, ponds, lakes, swamps and marshes around the world. fishermen in sanyathi fishing basin trap fish, usually tilapia and tiger fish species. the fish are trapped using nets overnight, and the more they stay trapped the more vulnerable they are to be eaten by crayfish from the nets. when the fishermen pull the nets, after a whilst some of the fish that were caught by the nets will be eaten and some fish parts remain on the nets. the ecologist from lkfri confirmed that there is an increase in the abundance of crayfish in lake kariba. rahel and olden (2008) stated that: [c]limate change may provide suitable thermal conditions to allow non-native warm water fish species to thrive in lakes and such species may prey on or compete for food resources with native fishes, leading to the decline or loss of native fish populations. (p. 522) wildlife zimbabwe parks and wildlife management authority declared kariba area to be a protected wildlife habitat. hence, fishing communities that fall under kariba district administrative area share space and resources with wildlife. fishermen in sanyathi fishing basin pointed that dwindling natural resources in their fishing zone has resulted in an increased competition of resources between humans and wild animals. wildlife attacks are increasing in the fishing zone. fishermen are vulnerable to crocodile and hippopotamus attacks, with an estimated six lives lost to hippopotamus attacks from 2017 up to the study data collection period (early 2019). crocodile attacks have caused several mortalities and injuries to fishermen and some community members. community members rely on water from lake kariba for household consumption. household members use buckets to fetch water from the lake banks, which make them more susceptible to crocodile attacks. during the study period, one community member lost her hand to a crocodile attack as she was fetching water for household use. ndhlovu et al. (2017) stated that more than 95% of fishers in lake kariba experienced threats from wildlife, mainly crocodiles and hippopotamus, during their fishing operations. mozumder et al. (2018) stated that ssfs in sundarbans mangrove forest in bangladesh experience attacks from wild tigers. lack of access to information and early warning systems sanyathi fishing basin is a marginalised and isolated community. it has no access to electricity and proper transportation methods. it is important for fishers to know about the prevailing and future weather predictions in advance before getting into the lake to undertake their fishing activities. kariba region has a local radio station (nyaminyami radio station) which is responsible for sharing information that are of interest particularly to the residents of kariba. the information shared on nyaminyami radio station encompasses weather information that is essential to fishermen. however, because of the lack of electricity in sanyathi fishing basin, fishermen have no access to weather information. lack of information on predicted weather events leaves fishermen in sanyathi fishing basin vulnerable to death threats inclined to extreme weather events. for example, lake kariba experiences a life-threatening current or wave in the summer season called the binga wave or current, which fishermen cannot predict when it will occur. practically, fishermen use their own judgements to predict weather patterns and sometimes severe weather events occur whilst they are unaware. fishing equipment the majority of the fishers (73%) indicated that lack of access to fishing equipment is one of the major challenges impeding their fishing practices. fishermen in sanyathi fishing basin are gillnet fishermen. gillnet fishing method is the widely used method by ssfs in sanyathi fishing basin. mendonca and pereira (2014) argue that gillnet fishing method is a widely used fishing method used by both industrial fisheries and ssfs. gillnet fishing entails the use of nets to catch fish. the fishermen use small boats and nets during their fishing practices. fishermen in the study stated that in zimbabwe there are no fishing nets producers; hence, the fishermen purchase and smuggle in fishing nets from zambia and mozambique. it is costly for fishermen to purchase nets from neighbouring countries. purchasing of equipment from neighbouring countries causes financial constraints (acquiring forex is very expensive in a country hard hit by a cash crisis and depreciating currency), and the time that could be used for fishing activities is wasted during the fishing nets procurement process. lake co-management another widely held view (opined by 58% of respondents) was that the main two authorities (lkfri and zpwma) who co-manage fishing activities in lake kariba work in silos. fishers believe that there is no coordination between the two authorities who oversee the fishing activities. lake kariba fisheries research institute is a department under zpwma that focuses on regulating fishing practices and licensing of both commercial and ssfs. on the contrary, zpwma regulates all activities done in the protected wilderness and safari areas including fishing activities. the fishermen reported that the fishing regulations brought forward to them by lkfri are different from the fishing regulations brought forward by zpwma despite the two organisations being under the same management. for example, one respondent from fgd 1 noted that: ‘lkfri provides maps with defined fishing boundaries where the fishermen are supposed to carry out their fishing activities. however, these maps are not shared with zpwma lake patrol officers and in such cases, fishermen face arrest and confiscation of fishing equipment for fishing in unauthorized areas which results in disrupted fishing schedules.’ (male, fishermen, literate) in lake kariba, gill net fishers are allowed to cast their fishing nets after 18:00 in the evening and are supposed to remove their fishing nets before 06:00 in the morning, and failure to do so subjects them to fines. the fishermen stated that because of unpredictable and increasingly fluctuating weather conditions, sometimes they will not be able to get into the lake and remove their nets before 6:00 as required by the lake authority, and have to wait for the wind and water current to calm in order to safely remove the fishing nets. however, if zpwma lake patrol officers find the nets in the water after 6:00, the fishermen are prone to fines, possible arrest and seizure of the fishing equipment. fishing boundaries another 61% of the fishers reported that decreasing fishing boundaries is also a challenge experienced by fishermen in lake kariba. shrinking fishing boundaries can be attributed to both climate change and lake management factors. lake kariba fisheries research institute regulates and monitors the fishing practices undertaken on the zimbabwean side of lake kariba. it determines the fishing boundaries for different communities as a way of regulating detrimental fishing practices and to conserve the lake species. fishers indicated that the fishing boundaries where they can fish are small and are continuing to shrink. the fishermen are of the notion that lkfri is reducing the sizes of the fishing grounds which has resulted in increasing competition on limited aquatic resources. on the contrary, fishermen also believe that climate change contributes to the problem of shrinking fishing boundaries. one of the respondents from fgd 2 said: ‘our fishing boundaries are continuously decreasing because of climate change. climate change has resulted in decreasing rainfall in our area which is causing the dam water level to drop, thereby negatively affecting our fishing boundaries.’ (male, fishermen) barange and perry (2009) stated that in the past few decades several lakes worldwide have decreased in size because of declining precipitation and increasing human water use (e.g. lake chad). decreasing of the lake size directly affects the fishing boundaries of fishers by shrinking the fishing grounds. records show that freshwater lakes have altered their shapes and distributions and have disappeared entirely with the processes related to climate change (cochrane et al. 2009). conclusion the objective of this study was to assess challenges that affect livelihoods of fishing-dependent households of sanyathi fishing basin in lake kariba. the study revealed that fishing practices are exposed to multiple, simultaneous and interconnected environmental, social, political and economic pressures. in many instances, it is quite difficult to determine the main causes of the depletion of fish stocks. climate change and variability exacerbate the already existing socio-economic challenges experienced by fishers because of the ssfs’ lack of alternative livelihood strategies. therefore, it is essential for the development agencies to understand both climate-induced and non-climate-related challenges experienced by small-scale fishermen at the community level for the formulation of effective policies that could address the given challenges. acknowledgement the authors thank the small-scale fishers of lake kariba for particiapting in the study, as well as the lake kariba fisheries research institute for their assiatance in accessing small-scale fishers. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions r.t.m. designed the study, collected and analysed the data and wrote the article. d.n. and p.m. supervised the writing process. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references aphunu, a. & nwabeze, g., 2012, ‘fish farmers’ perception of climate change impact on fish production in 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https://assets.rockefellerfoundation.org/app/uploads/20150401225417/securing-the-livelihoods-and-nutritional-needs-of-fish-dependent-communities.pdf. food and agriculture organisation, 2016, technical and socio-economic characteristics of small-scale coastal fishing communities, and opportunities for poverty alleviation and empowerment, by uwe tietze, fao fisheries and aquaculture circular no. 1111. rome, italy. world-bank, 2013, ‘fish to 2030: prospects for fisheries and aquaculture’, agriculture and environmental services discussion paper, no. 3, world bank group, washington, dc. abstract introduction strands in academic language literacy research social constructivism view of disciplinary literacy discussion implications acknowledgements references about the author(s) nhlanhla mpofu school of social sciences and language education, faculty of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa mncedisi c. maphalala department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, university of zululand, richards bay, south africa citation mpofu, n. & maphalala, m.c., 2020, ‘what counts as disciplinary literacy instructional approaches in teacher education?’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a728. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.728 original research what counts as disciplinary literacy instructional approaches in teacher education? nhlanhla mpofu, mncedisi c. maphalala received: 06 july 2019; accepted: 17 dec. 2019; published: 26 feb. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract drawing on the literature, this article examines approaches for developing disciplinary literacy in teacher education. findings from different researchers indicate that most university entrants are underprepared for the academic literacy required to thrive in this system. while the focus of such research is critical, the generic approach that most researchers have taken in this area is largely questioned. building on this dissatisfaction, there is a growing number of studies that promote distinctive, epistemological and discursive practices of disciplinary literacy. however, limited studies have sought to understand the approaches used in disciplinary literacy instruction in teacher education. thus, this study explored through a literature study the approaches used by initial teacher education to prepare pre-service student teachers as disciplinary literacy facilitators. through this focus, this article contributes to this knowledge gap by accounting for the approaches used in teacher education to develop disciplinary literacy instruction. to achieve the purpose of the article, we framed our argument from a social constructivism perspective. based on an analysis of literature, we motivate for the need for understanding disciplinary literacy as a phenomenon that is embedded in social practice, fluidity, human interaction, and institutional and historical artefacts, but that also requires regulation. keywords: disciplinary literacy; normative approach; social constructivism; teacher education; transformative approach. introduction the history of colonialism in africa has left a legacy of students in the education system who must learn in a language that differs from their mother tongue (wolff 2017). in such education systems, higher education institutions have raised concerns that university entrants have limited academic literacy to engage at the cognitive level required for them (butler 2013). to mitigate this situation, most higher education institutions have academic literacy programmes to develop students’ language skills. according to weideman (2018), academic literacy is the ability for students to comprehend and interpret a variety of academic vocabulary. it is also the competent use of language to communicate, express, argue, apply and infer in academic contexts. because of the importance of language in learning, students’ competencies in it have been pointed out as a contributory factor in university students’ low academic success (ralarala, pineteh & mchiza 2016). as an intervention, most education systems have devised various strategies to mitigate and support student academic literacy (butler 2013). in contrast to kress (1997), who states that: [i]f we assume that language is dynamic because it is constantly being remade by its users in response to the demands of their social environment, we do not then have a need to invent a plurality of literacies. (p. 115) however, in line with airey (2012) and lillis and scott (2007), we embrace the fluidity of academic literacy within sociocultural contexts as both practised and lived contexts. thus, the term literacy is used in this article to signal our epistemological orientation to academic communication as plural rather than singular (boughey & mckenna 2016). this position is elaborated in subsequent sections of the article. realising the nuanced nature of literacy, academia has in recent years refocused the debate on academic literacy from being a mere medium of communication to an emphasis on dialogic classroom activities performed using discursive practices specific to the target knowledge area so that students are provided with the most effective platform for constructing meaning (clarance & mckenna 2017; jacobs 2016). boughey and mckenna (2016) indicate that language is a debatable issue in institutions of higher learning. despite this disputed space, there is an urgent call for the recasting of our understanding of the use of language in the academia. for example, petrová (2013) argues that: [t]he role of language in developing higher psychological functions cannot be discussed without discussing the role of cultural tools because language is assumed to be a unique cultural tool with the special potential to restructure the cognitive behaviour of individuals. (p. 239) in addition, we embrace the geo-historical debate and how it shapes academic communication by (lillis & scott 2007:5): [recognising] the location of ‘academic literacies’ at the juncture of theory and application as this accounts, in part, for the ways in which it is adopted and co-opted for use in many settings, often with a range of meanings – sometimes confusing and contradictory – and sometimes strategic. this perspective allows researchers to highlight the students’ epistemological access rather than formal access. epistemological access is the understanding of the students’ cultural and historical contexts as resources for shaping the type of support they require to gain access to the institutional knowledge forms and structures (muller 2014). by reorganising this debate in this article and drawing from transdisciplinary viewpoint, we give prominence to the understanding of language as a disciplinary artefact – a social context of learning not only facilitating (or impeding) the learning process but also changing what can be learnt (clarance & mckenna 2017). strands in academic language literacy research the concept of academic literacy has currency in most second-language contexts as evidenced by the burgeoning research output in the field. however, its definition, tenets and how they are implemented in different disciplines are fiercely debated (lillis et al. 2016). traditionally, it referred to the students’ ability to communicate through reading and writing as evidence of being able to engage with academic content (mcgowan 2018). in this strand, the focus is on guiding students to master the academic language skills, as these are a strong determinant of academic achievement. in hindsight, researchers acknowledge the limited view of a skill-based orientation to academic literacy (mcgowan 2018). butler (2013) cautions that an understanding of academic literacy as a skill fragments its interrelatedness with disciplinary literacy. also, in second-language learning, there has been a realisation that ‘supporting the reading comprehension and content knowledge acquisition of english language learners (els) requires instructional practices that continue beyond developing the foundational skills of reading’ (vaughn et al. 2017:22). in responding to this inadequacy, boughey and mckenna (2016:2) explain that academic literacy has ‘…a great deal to do with the mastery of a “way of being” required of students as they engage with higher education…’ rather than a narrow sense of good command of grammar and ability to write essays. this dissatisfaction led to a shift in second-language learning contexts where academic literacy is currently understood as a sociocultural process (cummins 2008) and a social justice practice (angu 2019) by which students utilise disciplinary discourses to negotiate meaning and being in the world (boughey & mckenna 2016). drawn from an orientation in new literacy studies, academic literacy has come to be understood as including language skills, culture, social and cultural practices (butler 2013). this world view is critical as it provides the foundation for viewing academic literacy as embracing linguistic standards, epistemological norms and transformative assumptions. this approach undergirds the rootedness of academic literacy in how language skills are reconstructed as concepts of identity and being in their academia (boughey & mckenna 2016). this means that academic literacy is understood within a particular context and embedded in the rhetorical realities of a context (e.g. a disciplinary community of practice) (angu 2019; boughey & mckenna 2016). to add credence to this viewpoint, cummins (2008) highlights that there is a need to understand academic language literacy as socialisation into disciplinary communities by offering students opportunities to interact, share and collaborate with experienced members in the field of study. this shift indicates that each field of study has its disciplinary literacy that highlights ‘the use of reading, reasoning, investigating, speaking, and writing required to learn and form complex content knowledge appropriate to a particular discipline’ (mcconachie & petrosky 2010:16). in the literature, disciplinary literacy is also referred to as content area literacy (draper 2008) or curriculum-specific literacy (morgan 2013). disciplinary literacies refer to the ontological and epistemological ways in which knowledge is thought about, generated and communicated within the boundaries of the content area (draper 2008; shanahan & shanahan 2012). fang’s (2014) view is that: [l]iteracy instruction in the content areas should aim to promote the development of students’ ability to engage in social, semiotic, and cognitive practices compatible with those undertaken by disciplinary experts. (p. 444) although holding this view, we are aware that the development of disciplinary literacies does not happen by chance, as moje (2008:103) argues that it requires ‘scaffolding and mediation by teachers who know the content well and understand the role that language and literate practice play in producing knowledge within it’. thus, well-prepared teachers provide guidance to their learners by modelling, immersing and apprenticing them to the knowledge modes and practices as they develop as citizens in the social cultural community of the discipline (gee 1996). while the locus of this study is teacher education, we have purposefully explored disciplinary literacy from a wider range of studies for two reasons. first, notwithstanding the nuanced research sites that have been studied in previous research, the issues of disciplinary literacies, especially in second-language contexts, have been generic. in other words, such studies have explored the implementation of disciplinary literacy and how institutional practices and learner factors enhance or limit individuals’ competencies in the medium of instruction. while this research focus has merit it has proverbially placed the cart before the horse, as the teacher and how they are prepared to develop disciplinary literacies for professional use has not featured prominently in the current literature. second, as a result, there is limited research output emanating from initial teacher education that seeks to understand the approaches used to undergird the preparation of student teachers in disciplinary literacies. to recast the study of disciplinary literacy and minimise the knowledge gap discussed above, this study gleans approaches from the current literature that have been described as possible instructional strategies for developing student teachers’ disciplinary literacies. this shift in focus moves away from explaining the value of generic academic literacies to identifying models of disciplinary literacy in the preparation of student teachers for both practice and lifelong learning (alvermann et al. 2011). the article is organised into three sections. in the first part of the article, we argue for the intentional inclusion of academic literacies in institutions that use a second language as a medium of instruction. we signal the discontent among researchers with the incomplete and traditional perspective of referring to academic literacy as a singular phenomenon for supporting students to read and write by giving prominence to disciplinary literacy (also called content area literary or curriculum-specific literacy). in the second part of the article, we provide theoretical foundations for positioning the disciplinary literacy within a social constructivist orientation. in the third section of the article, we examine the approaches for disciplinary literacy and evaluate their theoretical logic in guiding students to gather, organise and interpret knowledge and discourses in the content area. social constructivism view of disciplinary literacy the study is located within a social constructivism orientation. it brings together insights from distinct but complementary theoretical disciplines in its analysis of the empirical data. its theoretical outlining comes initially from second-language academic literacy, which is then embedded in disciplinary literacies drawn from the work of gee (1991), bernstein (1999) and airey (2012). gee (1996) argues that there is a: [s]ocially accepted association among ways of using language, other symbolic expressions, and artefacts, of thinking, feeling, believing, valuing and acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or ‘social network’ linguistic and social aspects. (p. 131) accordingly, gee suggests that there is a disciplinary discourse that forms a way of being and identification for members that belong to a certain group. the way gee (1996) uses the word ‘discourse’ is beyond the sociolinguistic orientation as it includes an understanding of the intersection of the use of language, social identity, social relationships and contexts. this way of thinking about disciplinary discourses shifts from focusing only on the development of language skills for academic use to include sociocultural patterns that individuals in a social context employ to construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world. discourses are fluid as they are constantly negotiated in the use of language, identity, context and the way of being in the world. for student teachers, the fluidity of their disciplinary literacies is a result of the multidisciplinary nature of learning how to teach. human beings participate in multiple discourses. gee (1996) claims that there are two types of discourse, namely primary and secondary. the primary discourse is the phonological (oral) component of language that is internalised from birth, while the secondary discourses are communicative practices that are situated in contexts and sites. as no individual functions in one discourse, there is a need to acquire both. in arguing for the fluid nature of secondary discourses, airey (2012) states that secondary discourses are developed in three distinct sites, namely society, academy and workplace. the language demands of each site differ, as distinct skills for using the language are required, in what greenleaf et al. (2010) refer to as specialised language. this means that the language used in disciplinary interaction has different rules in terms of the vocabulary and syntax used depending on the context. thus, belonging to a discourse means being able to know and use its grammatical and lexical features. similarly, mercer (1995) explains that discourse refers to the language in its social context that is used as a conduit for expressing the knowledge and meaning of social and intellectual communities, for example, being able to use the social language of biologists, linguists and anthropologists if you claim membership of the discipline. as no one functions within one discourse – and such discourses cannot be internalised through intentional instruction – there is a need to develop covert ways of acquiring them as cultural tools and artefacts of knowing in a discipline (petrová 2013; vygotsky 1981). such an understanding develops the functional view of language as an epistemological resource for meaning – as the essential condition for experiencing knowledge (halliday 1984). there are three ways of acquiring disciplinary discourses, namely socialisation, apprenticeship and modelling (gee 2001). arguing this viewpoint, airey (2012) states that disciplinary differences exist in the use of language in the academy, as each discipline differs in its use of the language of instruction. airey (2012) based his reasoning on bernstein’s (1999) disciplinary knowledge structures. bernstein (1999) postulates that each discipline has its own ontological and epistemological assumptions based on a disciplinary knowledge structure that demands that students develop an agreed discourse (hierarchal knowledge) or introduce a new discourse (horizontal knowledge). the distinction that bernstein (1999) draws between disciplinary knowledge structures makes a case for specialised discourses for each discipline and connects to the vygotskyan view that emphasises sociocultural cognitive development, that is, providing student teachers with opportunities to develop an awareness of specific discourses that induct them into the world of being in their discipline (boughey & mckenna 2016; gee 2008). it is likewise apparent from the insights of the theorists discussed above that there is a symbiotic interplay in the use of language and disciplinary identity, socialisation and context. this relationship is beyond mere verbal utterances that are recognised by members of the same community, as they embed a sociocultural disposition that births belonging, social affinity and identity (angu 2019; boughey & mckenna 2016). each discipline has agreed conventions, practices and modes that give guidance on the way knowledge is constructed, critiqued and communicated (airey 2012; shanahan & shanahan 2012). the overarching definition by airey (2012), which states that disciplinary literacies are challenging the notion that there is a single approach to reading across the curriculum, is the one we embraced in this study. this definition calls attention to the view expressed by shanahan and shanahan (2012:9) that disciplinary literacies ‘differ extensively in their fundamental purposes, specialized genres, symbolic artefacts, traditions of communication, evaluation standards of quality and precision, and use of language’. through disciplinary literacies instruction, student teachers are carefully apprenticed in their content area to be active recipients of knowledge (draper 2008). as active participants in their disciplinary field, student teachers are able to challenge the agreed knowledge modes, practices, arguments and reasoning. however, researchers have indicated that teachers are not always prepared to internalise or facilitate disciplinary literacies. for example, johnson et al. (2011:102) found that, in practice, teachers experienced a ‘disconnection between content disciplines, teaching methods, and literacy education’, while hart and bennett (2013:222) suggest that there is a need to focus on ‘secondary content area disciplines [that] represent separate communities of practice, with unique discourses – shared repertoires of language, tools, routines, gesture, symbols, actions, and ways of being’. the section below draws from the literature to highlight approaches for disciplinary literacy instruction in initial teacher education. in addition, fang (2014) states that the focus on disciplinary literacies has led to a recognition that teachers as facilitators of their learners’ content development require adequate preparation that allows for a ‘deep understanding of both discipline content and disciplinary habits of mind’ (fang 2014:444). approaches to disciplinary literacies instruction there are two approaches to disciplinary literacy instruction, namely normative and transformative (jacobs 2016). from the literature, it would appear that the approaches are rarely applied in understanding the preparation practices of student teachers for disciplinary literacies instruction. normative approach to disciplinary literacy instruction in teacher education the normative point of view states that practices and patterns that individuals hold in society are regulated by norms that are agreed upon. this perspective relates to the idea of a standard or correct way of doing things. applied to disciplinary literacies, the notion of normative highlights that there are regulated norms and patterns that insiders use to construct and communicate knowledge (shanahan & shanahan 2012). this means that ‘disciplinary texts are unique and contain highly specialized language and text structures’ (gabriel & wenz 2017:1). following this view, shanahan and shanahan (2012:43–44) explain a three-category progression that ought to develop learners’ literacies, namely basic literacy (general ability to decode words), intermediate literacy (ability to comprehend text and fluency) and disciplinary literacy (high-level content literacy skills). furthermore, in their study, shanahan and shanahan (2012) found that teacher educators and high school teachers in chemistry, history and mathematics, who were part of their study, approached their texts differently. they found ‘educationally relevant differences in literacy use among three subject-matter disciplines – history, chemistry, and mathematics’ (shanahan, shanahan & misischia 2011:393). admittedly, it must be pointed out that disciplinary literacy normativity follows a gradual release model that emphasises the teacher modelling the disciplinary discourses gradually for the students. this view categorises levels of disciplinary literacies in a progressive pattern. in following this view, pre-service teachers are prepared using developmental courses and activities from the time they begin as students to when they graduate. transformative approach to disciplinary literacy instruction in teacher education the rethinking of disciplinary literacy also demands an exploration of additional normative understandings. the transformative approach provides a useful epistemological context to alternative strategies for framing disciplinary literacy. jacobs (2016) states that there is a need to reorient the discussion on literacies from a focus on the mere academic socialisation of students to a transformative approach ‘where the literacy practices of disciplines might be critiqued and contested’. (140). likewise, moje (2007:4) sees the transformative approach to disciplinary literacies as ‘opportunities to learn [and] must not only provide access to mainstream knowledge and practices but also provide opportunities to question, challenge, and reconstruct knowledge’. this approach allows us to see literacies development as a dialogic interplay of content, students, cultural norms, social practices and institutional ethos. this means that there is a need to understand the institutional discourses and how they are moulded and interpreted through transforming the situated ways of knowing (jacobs 2016). this suggests that disciplinary literacies cannot be thought of as a phenomenon that is fixed; rather, they should be regarded as unstable as a result of what students bring to the learning environment and how they interact and reconstruct valued forms of knowledge in their field. arguing this point, moje (2007) insists that a disciplinary literacies curriculum should not provide prescriptive guidelines for framing instruction. the students’ development of disciplinary literacies is not a once-off activity but rather a sociocultural, situated, nuanced and ongoing process that is embedded in the pragmatic nature of academia. from a transformative approach, disciplinary literacies have a sociocultural orientation, as they are ‘shaped, distributed and acquired in relation to community contexts and larger social institutions, discourse formations and ideological interests’ (luke 1997:143). transforming disciplinary literacies requires social and political willpower to reorder, reframe, reorganise and reconstitute the teaching and learning environment to allow student teachers to have epistemological access to their disciplinary knowledge. as noted from largely south african studies, the transformative agenda in education is both challenging and uncomfortable as it dismantles hegemonic academic practices (see kelly-laubscher, muna & van der merwe 2017; paxton & frith 2016). in calling for this intellectual discomfort, wingate and tribble (2012) note that holding to one approach to literacy development has missed a critical point, such that: [a]cademic discipline is not a purely linguistic matter that can be fixed outside the discipline, but involves an understanding of how knowledge in the discipline is presented, debated and constructed. (p. 481) by reclaiming this multiplicity, we strategically motivate for disciplinary literacies that place the student teachers at the centre of the use of sociocultural resources for distributing, interpreting and meaning-making. discussion our description of the two approaches on which the theoretical foundations of disciplinary literacies are grounded is not an attempt to draw parallels between them but rather to gain insights on how this process unfolds in teacher education. in fact, our argument questions the superficial divide that exists in the literacy literature. our stance is, therefore, binary and convergent as we favour an integrated approach to disciplinary literacies instruction in teacher education. in reframing this argument, we acknowledge that there is a need to have guidelines for the social and cultural normative pedagogy in developing the disciplinary curriculum. in line with lillis et al. (2016), we uphold the notion that a: [n]ormative stance is the default position in much practice in academia (pedagogy and policy) and a necessary stance in order to participate (and enable participation) successfully in academic institutions as currently configured. (p. 10) however, we are cognisant of the fact that the exclusive focus on approaching literacies instruction from a normative approach is an incomplete and fragmented conceptualisation. to connect the ‘full range of semiotic practices to intellectual labour’ (lillis et al. 2016:10) and provide opportunities for student teachers to decontextualise familiarity by drawing from pluralistic knowledge construction, a transformative approach to disciplinary literacies is critical. in following this integrated approach to disciplinary literacies, we acknowledge that a normative approach is required that favours a structured and pre-programmed way of learning disciplinary literacies for student teachers. by bringing in a transformative approach, we situate the student teachers as knowers who build upon their experiences to consciously construct disciplinary literacies. in support, alvermann et al. (2011:52) state that the aim of the: [t]eacher education course should not be to settle anyone’s identity within a particular [d]iscourse [sic], but rather to support teacher’s experimentation with different identities—sometimes being more focused and other times being more content focused. (p. 52) further, drawing on the vygotskian viewpoint, a transformative perspective allows for an understanding of a sociocultural interplay of language, artefacts and context, providing a frame of reference for the student teacher to develop knowledge of disciplinary literacies. this transformative approach emphasises teachers as agents of change and is an empowering aspect that identifies awareness of situational factors and how they enable meaning-making. from the discussion in this section, the traditional definition of literacy as the ability to read and write is inadequate to account for the disciplinary literacies required in teacher education. to answer research question, in the article title, we asked whether disciplinary literacies instruction in teacher education is normative, transformative or cognitive and whether it is situated and enshrined in the social practices of the discipline and in the multidisciplinary nature of academia. by drawing from this standpoint, we accounted for disciplinary literacies in teacher education, first, as a regulated and social practice that is situated in the context of the institution and moulded in the way individuals interact with the text. second, disciplinary literacies in teacher education are embedded in human interaction patterns and the historical artefacts of the institution and the broader societal goals and practices. lastly, disciplinary literacies are fluid and unstable in nature, assuming expressions in sociocultural situations from multifaceted and overlapping identities that student teachers continuously develop as lifelong learners. implications from this literature study, there appears to be a need to advocate for literacy learning approaches that blur the normative–transformative dichotomy. this argument is founded on the idea that developing student teachers’ disciplinary literacy is a social act – a way by which they have access or are inhibited from being active participants in the academia. such collaborative practices develop pedagogies aimed at supporting student teachers’ disciplinary literacy. this position embraces the notion that disciplinary literacies are social constructs that are field-specific and located in the dialogic process of knowledge generation. this orientation is beyond having students use language skills (writing, reading, speaking and listening) in disciplinary learning by embedding the use of language in their being, identity, values and skills as a strategy of inducting them into the disciplinary community of practice. this stance allows for a twofold pedagogical synergy. first, it will foster a closer collaboration between content and language specialists in developing disciplinary literacy programmes that are both generic and yet specific to the subject field. second, an integrated approach to disciplinary literacy allows for both normative and transformative practices to be implemented that by default overcome the content–subject dichotomy that seems to currently beseech the academia. hence, future research in this area should focus on developing an approach that incorporates both implicit and explicit disciplinary practices. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the national research foundation (nrf) thuthuka for providing funding for this study. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for carrying out research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this study was funded by the national research foundation (nrf) thuthuka. project research reference number: ttk170427229083. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and 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fort collins, co. petrová, z., 2013, ‘on the relevancy of using vygotsky’s theoretical framework to legitimize dialogic teaching/learning’, journal of pedagogy/pedagogický casopis 4(2), 237–252. https://doi.org/10.2478/jped-2013-0013 ralarala, m.k., pineteh, e.a. & mchiza, z., 2016, ‘a case study on the language and socio-cultural challenges experienced by international students studying at cape peninsula university of technology: part 2 general articles’, south african journal of higher education 30(4), 231–255. https://doi.org/10.20853/30-4-572 shanahan, c., shanahan, t. & misischia, c., 2011, ‘analysis of expert readers in three disciplines: history, mathematics, and chemistry’, journal of literacy research 43(4), 393–429. shanahan, t. & shanahan, c., 2012, ‘what is disciplinary literacy and why does it matter?’, topics in language disorders 32(1), 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1097/tld.0b013e318244557a vaughn, s., martinez, l.r., wanzek, j., roberts, g., swanson, e. & fall, a.m., 2017, ‘improving content knowledge and comprehension for english language learners: findings from a randomized control trial’, journal of educational psychology 109(1), 22–34. vygotsky, l.s., 1981, ‘the genesis of higher mental functions’, in j.v. wertsch (ed.), the concept of activity in soviet psychology, sharpe, armonk, ny. weideman, a., 2018, ‘what is academic literacy? [introduction.]’, in a. weideman academic literacy: five new tests, geronimo distribution, bloemfontein, viewed 19 november 2019, from https://www.academia.edu/36293073/academic_literacy_five_new_tests_introduction. wingate, u. & tribble, c., 2012, ‘the best of both worlds? towards an english for academic purposes/academic literacies writing pedagogy’, studies in higher education 37(4), 481–495. wolff, h.e., 2017, ‘the history of colonialism in africa left a legacy where students in the education systems learn in a language different from their mother tongue’, stellenbosch papers in linguistics plus 51, 1–22. abstract introduction methodology the occurrence of agricultural drought in the lubombo region social capital and developing disaster risk reduction practices contribution of gender in effective disaster risk reduction conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) samukelisiwe myeni unit for environmental sciences and management, faculty of natural and agricultural sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa gideon j. wentink unit for environmental sciences and management, faculty of natural and agricultural sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation myeni s, wentink gj. a gendered approach to drought-coping mechanisms: a case of the lubombo region, eswatini. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a744. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.744 note: this article is partially based on the author’s thesis for the masters dissertation completed in the faculty of natural and agricultural science, unit for environmental science and management at the north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa, under the supervision of mr gj wentink and mr lb shoroma, received may 2018, available at: https://repository.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/31280. original research a gendered approach to drought-coping mechanisms: a case of the lubombo region, eswatini samukelisiwe myeni, gideon j. wentink received: 01 aug. 2019; accepted: 16 oct. 2020; published: 15 mar. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract during periods of drought, coping mechanisms employed by society differ based on gender, and are related to socio-cultural implications. this study is premised on the gendered approach to drought-coping mechanisms by focusing on the manner in which communities undergoing drought adapt to the adversities experienced and thus employ gender-sensitive coping mechanisms. socio-cultural implications emphasise and dictate the different gendered behaviour patterns within society. thus, the purpose of this study was to determine and evaluate gender-differentiated coping mechanisms of withstanding drought used by communities in the lubombo region of eswatini. the exploration of this phenomenon utilised a mixed-methods approach to collecting data. this universal approach involved adopting both qualitative and quantitative techniques of gathering information to help in an in-depth analysis of the situation in the lubombo region. under the umbrella of mixed methodology, an exploratory sequential approach was used to collect data. the purpose was to allow findings from a qualitative phase to be developed and tested for wider application and validation using a quantitative approach. the collection tools used under the qualitative enquiry included semi-structured interviews, face-to-face interviews and a focus group. the information gathered was subsequently presented in a thematic manner to draw attention on the dynamics within coping mechanisms. two sampling techniques were used: initial stratified random sampling (representing the population being sampled) followed by purposive sampling to specify population characteristics and thus locating individuals who match the characteristics. there were 179 respondents in the study, of which 83 respondents were part of the focus group discussions and the remaining 80 respondents engaged in self-completion survey questions. the gender spectrum of the respondents was uneven during the focus groups with 39 females and 44 males. however, during the self-completion survey questions, an even number of 40 males and 40 females participated. the gender gap observed displayed women as burdened with developing various coping mechanisms, whereas men solely adapted through seeking employment. women’s coping mechanisms included crop production, water management, foreign aid, sale of livestock and household functional change. in contrast, men’s coping mechanisms involved migration and seeking employment. the disparities between men and women were observed as founded in cultural beliefs and practices as women tool a domestic role whilst men were tasked to be providers. this perspective directly impacts on the lines of vulnerabilities during drought, declaring women as the target population for social aid such as food packages from foreign aid and strong social capital. through this study, culture and vulnerability were identified as risk factors contributing to the impact of drought forcing men and women to build and engage in mechanisms to alleviate the adversities experienced. the major recommendation of this study is that drought-prone communities need to build gender-sensitive and gender-neutral coping mechanisms to withstand the adversities of drought. keywords: coping mechanisms; disaster risk management; drought; eswatini; vulnerability. introduction drought is the most frequent natural calamity that affects africa in comparison to natural calamities such as cyclones, earthquakes and fires.1 drought is ranked highly amongst all natural calamities in terms of the number of people directly affected; with a total of about 642 drought events reported across the world during the period 1900–2013.2 the relationship between natural hazards and disasters is closely associated with the crisis situation in which the devastating event strikes. thus, natural calamities play a defining role in the manifestation of disasters. the impact of disasters causes immense suffering, including disruption of livelihoods, loss of life, loss of financial stability and environmental degradation.3 in this regard, the magnitude of a disaster depends directly on the intensity of the calamity and the susceptibility of the exposed environment.3 the dependency relationship between environmental shocks, economic stresses and human livelihoods has a direct bearing on a community’s resilience and coping capacity.4 evidently, the repercussions of drought have an enormous influence on the quality of life, economy and health of the environment it befalls.5,6 in addition, mata-lima et al.7 specifies that understanding the relationship between calamities, disasters and the social impacts, thereof, addresses questions relating to adaptive capacities, social impact and survival. according to singh,8 the impact of droughts is expected to grow over the years to come, affecting community livelihoods, aggravating poverty levels and impacting the sustainability of basic societal living. african countries, and particularly those within the southern hemisphere, have over the years been affected by severe and recurring droughts.9 within southern africa drought occurs often and in all climatic zones at various times of the year.10 the region is characterised by strong inter-annual rainfall variability since the 1970s and as a result is particularly vulnerable to drought.10 the impacts of drought on the sub-continent are aggravated by the fact that the region is dependent on rain-fed agriculture, foreign aid and water availability.11,12 the recorded history of drought in eswatini as part of the southern africa region dates back to 1982.13 since then, the most severe droughts have been felt in 1992, 2001, 2007, 2008 and recently in 2015.13 droughts in the lubombo region (located in north-eastern eswatini) (see figure 1) have occurred in different magnitudes, periods and areas. as an agricultural ‘haven’, the lubombo region is frequently faced with a constant risk in crop production, water scarcity, poverty, hunger and livelihood stability.14 in eswatini, drought events have prompted livelihood shifts and triggered escalating vulnerabilities within communities.15 le masson et al.16 caution regarding the importance of understanding the vulnerability lines between men and women in the midst of droughts including mobilising the community towards gender sensitivity. he further encouraged capacity-building strategies that are neutral between genders. drought adds strain to the already fragile gender lines that exist in eswatini.17 traditionally, in eswatini, women and men have well-defined roles and responsibilities.17 women and girls in eswatini are primarily responsible for domestic chores and care-giving, whereas men are described as bread winners and awarded power and rights.17 in this regard, during the occurrence of a drought, women and men are expected to function and perform distinct duties. these duties shape the livelihood mechanisms employed as a tool to cope with drought.18 therefore, developing sustainable coping mechanisms to withstand the widespread effects of drought is challenged by the vulnerability measure of the communities in eswatini.19 in this context, gendered disaster risk reduction (drr) mechanisms that will help cope with extreme weather events are a stepping stone towards vulnerability mitigation. however, a key challenge lies in the integration of these mechanisms and bridging the gender gap.20 most of the global and national literature on eswatini focuses on agriculture, drought, food insecurity and vulnerability alleviation.21 there is a literature gap in drr in relation to gender and culture. thus, the gap in the empirical and theoretical literature pool, on crucial issues such as drr, gender, culture and drought as both individual and interactive phenomena, needs to be bridged. furthermore, this gap necessitates this study on the gender-differentiated coping mechanisms for adapting to drought used by prone communities in the lubombo region. to address these gaps, limitations and the disparity between men and women during drought, the following article is necessitated. the need to develop and explore the gendered coping mechanisms in eswatini is the primary focus of the study and is a means of integrating gender mainstreaming in drr. figure 1: map of eswatini. demarcation of study area the lubombo region, in eswatini, is populated by 300 000 people of which 78% are considered poor and vulnerable.22 the lubombo region is a pastoral region with an annual mean rainfall of 700 mm and an average annual temperature of 19 °c.23 agriculture provides livelihoods and income for 70% of the population of the lubombo region, making the communities within the region dependent on produce.23 consequently, the region is prone to weather-related calamities such as drought because of its dependency on rain-fed agriculture.24 under the lubombo administrative region, there are 11 regional councils called tinkhundla.25 an inkhundla (singular of tinkhundla) is an administrative sub-division, smaller than a district but larger than umphakatsi or chiefdom.26 the five regional councils that were included in the study are: inkhundla lomahasha; inkhundla mhlume; inkhundla mtsenjeni nord; inkhundla mpolojweni and inkhundla sphofaneni the map of eswatini is displayed in tinkhundla and shows the parameters of each inkhundla which will be under investigation as well as the main administrative region (lubombo), which is the case study. problem statement globally, the livelihoods of millions of men and women are at risk because of droughts. the risk incurred is different depending on whether an individual is male or female.27 the difference between the risk faced by the different persons based on gender emanates from social norms, practices and vulnerabilities experienced on a day-to-day basis within affected communities.9 as a result, men and women develop different means to cope with and implore different coping mechanisms to resist drought. the relationship between drought-coping mechanisms and gender is pronounced through the ability of men and women to rise above the existing repercussions of water scarcity and gender roles.28 cultural beliefs and resulting social practices that support patriarchy reinforce the male dominance and female submissive behaviour in eswatini.9 these cultural beliefs and practices around gender roles influence how men and women adapt to and mitigate drought and drought-derived disasters. in the lubombo region, one-third of swazis live through the devastating impact of drought with significant effects on livelihoods and the environment.29 because of recurrent drought events, the devastation of limited rainfall has affected all sectors in the lubombo region, which has forced the population to engage in and develop coping mechanisms as responses to their vulnerabilities and impact to drought.30 evidently, the implications of drought have a downstream effect that is dependent on the context and underlying population dynamics of the area.9 the struggle of living in a drought-prone region has inevitably made men and women eager to devise methods for protecting themselves and their livelihoods. in the face of a drought, or threat thereof, coping mechanisms are built based upon skills, technologies, resources, culture and experiences of men and women.31 the priority of building human capacity and alleviating the impact of drought on gender levels seeks to prioritise, build and create awareness of gender as an underlying issue towards the achievement of drr in immediate societies where people dwell.32 according to swaziland vulnerability assessment committee,15 coping mechanisms are an essential component of how the lubombo region attempts sustainability. the capacity to adapt and adjust to the adversity of drought is not the same between men and women. the coping mechanisms index used by the svac indicates that the different coping mechanisms between men and women are dependent on vulnerability associated with culture, roles, responsibilities and locality.15 the role of gender within the coping process of drought depicts the personal encounter of individuals and steps to be taken to ensure that drr is achieved. hence, the coping mechanisms that individuals engage in are directly dependent on gender (mkhabela g 2016, [women and drought in mambane], personal communication, july 10). for example, in a patriarchal country like eswatini, men and women have set roles that culture prescribes, thus awarding certain tasks to certain individuals.9,17 mkhabela emphasises that surviving the disastrous effects of drought, women engage in practices that are separate yet domestic to men. building gender-focused mechanisms within drought-prone communities is a priority towards the achievement of drr activities.33 women have been identified by united nations international strategy for disaster reduction (unisdr) as being more exposed than men to disaster risk, suffering mortality, morbidity and damage to livelihoods.33 this premise generates the foundation of this study, determining the different coping mechanisms employed by men and women in the lubombo region. the problem under study will further be explored by addressing the research questions. research objectives the main objectives of the study were to: provide a theoretical overview of the impact of drought on communities. provide theoretical perspective of gender mainstreaming in drr. analyse drought-coping mechanisms employed in lubombo, eswatini. determine the value of gender coping mechanisms within the lubombo region. provide conclusions and recommendations on the gendered approaches to coping with drought in the lubombo region, eswatini. theoretical perspectives on drought as a recurrent climate phenomenon, drought affects humanity in many ways including the loss of life, crop failure, livestock loss, famine, malnutrition, health issues and mass migration.34,35 additionally, drought is dependent on the geographic scales, severity and the intensity of the affected area.36 the southern african region has been heavily affected by livelihood changes resulting from severe drought.37 subsequently, drought becomes a disaster once it produces social, environmental and economic impacts that are above the means of coping within communities.38 during a drought, communities practise and adopt strategies aimed at building capacity to enable coping with drought impacts.39 additionally, the behavioural choices during a hazardous event are shaped by the interpretation of the hazard, as well as the need to survive the event.40 variety in community arrangement contributes extensively to the ability to adopt and build coping mechanisms.41 men and women in disaster-prone communities are challenged with building different levels of coping mechanisms towards existing hazards and the damaging effects of the hazard occurrence.18 understanding this echoes the problem statement and position that men and women are differently affected because of the socially constructed roles and responsibilities.33 since the level of exposure differs on gender lines, unsafe conditions for men and women are generated, calling for a need to survive, grow and understand how drought-resistant capacity can be built.18 drought-coping mechanisms the primary means by which populations cope with drought are found within community, household and individual mechanisms that act to safeguard against drought-related losses.42 it is for this reason that unisdr43 defines coping strategies as the manner in which people and organisations use existing resources to achieve various beneficial ends during unusual, abnormal and adverse conditions of a disaster phenomenon or process. gaillard44 emphasises that coping mechanisms are rooted in resources which are endogenous to the community, such as traditional knowledge, systems and skills, technologies and solidarity networks. coping mechanisms further relate to resources and assets available to individuals and societies to enable them in dealing with, and recovering from the impact of, hazardous incidents and disaster shocks.45 for example, the impact of a drought can affect and change societal beliefs, customs, social organisations like gender, attitudes and values.46,47 droughts have over the years haunted arid and semi-arid communities, forcing them to change or to mitigate shocks and stresses on their livelihoods by building temporary adjustments as response.48 adaptation and coping practices are necessary to reduce vulnerability to drought stress as well as to prepare for future extreme weather variations.49 theoretic perspectives of gender according to nelson,50 gender lines in society present the relationship between vulnerability, environmental change and the interaction between the societal standing of men and women. vulnerability associated with women’s or men’s identification accentuates inequalities in society through the disproportional exposure of individuals to risk and hazards.51 hummell et al.52 posit that the difference in human capacity to prepare for, respond to and recover from drought is dependent on social vulnerabilities, social constructs, power dynamics and the roles of men and women. the value of bridging the gap between gender and disaster risk within a community is to ensure that capacity between men and women is built.43 according to eckert and mcconnell-ginet,53 gender lines exist in the general functioning of societies. the lines of gender are found in institutions that provide direction for society and also the actions of men and women along with their beliefs and desires.53 based on a report compiled by unesco,54 in nearly all societies, men and women behave differently, dress differently and have different attitudes and interests. these differences found between men and women are not biologically or genetically determined, rather they are socially constructed.55 from a tender stage in human growth, both men and women are moulded through socialisation within the community, emphasising a humanity split through actions, performances and duties.56 gender and disasters disasters affect social groups differently and to different degrees.33 during a talk on women, disaster reduction and sustainable development, the unisdr secretariat20 said: both women and men are part of the same society, which, as we know, does not mean we have the same rights, education, and options to manage, neither in ‘normal’ times, nor when a disaster strikes. (p. 1) the occurrence of disaster in society is a consequential challenge of the established roles and stereotypes imposed on men and women.16 according to enarson and chakrabarti,27 the magnitude of disasters on gender demands the need for establishing and practising gender sensitivity towards analysing disasters and building drr policy and practices into the promotion of building a culture of safety. as an extension of encouraging gender sensitivity at the national level, policies like the sustainable developmental goals, the sendai framework for drr and the paris agreement on climate change are enacted and adopted to ensure adherence to gender-sensitive drr. methodology the research process was guided by the principles of conducting mixed methodology research. creswell57 describes mixed methodology as the collaboration of qualitative and quantitative data to yield in-depth understanding of a phenomenon or field of knowledge. in this study, mixed methodology research was conducted through exploratory sequential design.58 more specifically research was conducted using three phases.57 during phase 1, following a review of the literature available on gendered coping mechanisms of drought in the lubombo region, data were collected through focus group discussions. this information was used to creating themes as foundation of participant’s perspectives, validating the instrument with a large sample representative of the lubombo region inhabitants. collecting this data qualitatively establishes the impacts of droughts on communities, including integrating and mainstreaming gender in drr. for phase 2, self-completion survey questions were administered to participants in all five tinkhundla to establish the drought-coping mechanisms employed in the lubombo region as well as, to confirm the information given by the respondents in phase 1 quantitatively. lastly, phase 3 was an integration enquiry, where data gathered from both qualitative and quantitative enquiries were combined to determine what the gendered coping mechanisms employed in the lubombo region are, and secondly achieve the desired outcome of highlighting the need for gender equity and sensitivity in policy and during disasters in eswatini. in this study, stratified random sampling that is proportional to the population was used first to represent the qualitative enquiry. under the lubombo region, five regional councils were selected, and two focus groups were conducted in each. the focus groups were separated by gender, where 44 male and 39 female respondents were engaged. this was followed by purposive sampling to specify characteristics of the population under study and thus locate individuals who match the characteristics.59 eighty respondents were approached for a purposive sample as part of a self-completion survey question. there were 16 surveys completed per regional council. this makes a complete sample size of 179 respondents, all answering the broad topic of gendered differentiated drought-coping mechanisms in the lubombo region. beginning with phase 1 and using themes, this topic will be explored further. perception of drought according to taylor et al.,60 the word ‘perception’ refers to beliefs, judgements and attitudes one has towards something. during a drought, the perception of the inhabitants of the lubombo region is shaped by the experiences they face. this observation is validated by dessai and sims61 that during a drought, the characteristics of a dry spell and the experiences thereof influence the judgements, beliefs and attitudes of communities. this necessitated the understanding of drought from a gendered lens as the core of this paper. derived from the qualitative data collection, drought was defined through various synonyms by the respondents. numerous times respondents said, ‘somiso indlala yodvwa, kute emanti, kumaima kulima’ [drought means hunger, no water and farming is a serious challenge]. in the lubombo region, the dependency on agriculture fostered the response that amongst hydrological, meteorological, socio-economic and agricultural drought, the most relevant for the region was agricultural drought. as an agricultural sanctuary, farming industries harvest sugar and cotton whilst households rely on subsistence farming for survival. respondents qualified this stance by saying, ‘lalibonjeni silambhile kakhulu, siphila ngekusebenta emobeni,sibe bomagawulane tsine emadvodza nekulima ke lowentiwa bomake. nakhona litulu nalivumile, ngoba emanti kute’ [in the lubombo region we are very hungry, we depend on the sugar industry to employ us, men as cane cutters and women as planters. there is a strong dependency on water that makes farming difficult]. the respondents further agreed that agricultural drought and the lack of soil moisture amounted to a drought. of the men within five inkhundla administrations, 10.3% stood by this definition, and were supported by 17% of women in the region. more men (33%) than women (30%) believed that an agricultural drought was mostly experienced in the region because of soil moisture and crop planting constraints. figure 2 on water shortages during drought displays the relationship between water and livelihood shift of men and women in the lubombo region. water is the core and was deemed as such by both men and women equally. in lubombo, respondents’ conceptualisation of drought was defined as comprising water shortages and insufficient food by both men and women at 72%. on an average scaling, 25% of both women and men were of the opinion that water shortages described a drought period. figure 2: water shortage during drought. in addition to defining drought as water shortage, respondents were of the opinion that during a drought hunger is rife and food resources perish. statistically, a majority of 77.5% of women voiced this stance strongly and only 65% men strongly agreed. the responses of the community members advocate that the relationship between water availability and food availability is challenged during a drought as communities depend significantly on these commodities (see figure 3). figure 3: drought food insecurity. the impact of drought socio-economic impacts of drought can be viewed at macroand micro-levels. macro-level involves the economy at a large-scale (country and regional) level, yet micro-level is that which affects the community, household and individual. because of the scope of the study, the focus will be on micro-level as a tool to inform the macro-level. during the study, it was revealed that at the community level, the livelihood source is vastly affected by a drought, particularly crops, livestock and labour.62 in the lubombo region, 70% men expressed a significant lifestyle change opposed to 30% women. women participants expressed that ‘lesimo sesisijwayele, kwamele sente taba tekumelana naso somiso hhayi kubaleka njengemadvodza etfu’ [we are used to this situation; we have to adapt through coping mechanisms rather than leave like our men]. the lubombo region is an agricultural hub, dependent on rain-fed farming systems. of both male and female respondents, 98.7% emphasised the drought impact to be recurring and yearly. cropping systems are therefore changed to withstand the drought adversities and avert production loss. an example was expressed by women farmers as collecting cow dung and using it as alternative fertilizer and floor polish (‘tsine bafati siyanidza etinhlini siphindze sakhe umcuba entinsimini ngebulongo’). men gave an example of recycling two-litre bottles and using them as a drip system as part of water management (‘emadvodza akha tindlela tekwonga emanti njegekusebentisa tigubu, tekunisela tinsimu noma tibhidvo’). to the detriment of the livelihood and nutrition of families, the change in production level threatens food security. when asked about food security during drought, women responded that hunger is rife and food resources perish (‘indlala siphila nayo ne kudla kuyaphela’). a majority of 77.5% women voiced this stance as opposed to the 22.5% men who agreed and were indifferent. this food availability measure further displays the gender lines within households as women are culturally tasked with manning the household compared to men who are traditional providers of the household. consequently, women are more aware of food availability compared to men. this research has determined that livestock in the lubombo region represents wealth and food security. severe livelihood changes have been identified by respondents as compelling the liquidation of livestock and agricultural products. the occurrence of a drought undermines this livelihood pattern, forcing inhabitants to liquidate livestock in exchange for food and money.63 this is not an easy process for men, as culturally men are characterised by having cows. to emphasise this point, the respondents referred to livestock as ‘libhange lemaswati’ [the bank of the swazi nation]. eighty per cent of the men questioned about livestock’s impact of drought expressed psychosocial repercussions of watching their animals die from hunger. male respondents expressed that besides selling livestock, the frequency of lobola ceremony was rising. male respondents described that as the prices of cattle dropped, men ready to take a wife would buy cows to pay lobola for their girlfriends [‘somiso sifika netimanga, emadvodza ayalobola entele kungalusi futsi kuhambisa imfuyo ngoba iyashipha kani kuyondla kumatima’]. according to kreimer and arnold,64 coping with the economic impact of disasters is associated with the allocation of funds for assistance and understanding the financial abilities of a community. during a drought, there is a close association between fluctuation of food, prices and unemployment. the respondents highlighted the fact that food prices soar during a drought, for example, the price of cooking oil increased by e20. this forced various communities within the lubombo region to sell assets such as livestock, vegetables and conduct services like domestic work and prostitution. ‘etitolo konkhe kuyadula, kuvele kukhushulwe emaprice ngenca yekusti sonkhe sesiyatsenga, ngibekise emafutsa ekupheka abita bo e80.00 kantsi singakangeni somiso bekabita e55-60’. of the male respondents, 85% have jobs, whereas 72.5% of females are employed. seeking work has become a reality in the lubombo region, especially because a single income is not sufficient to run a household. there is still a dependency behaviour among women towards men and they receive money from men. a majority of women (77.5%) receive money from someone other than an employer, as opposed to 22.5% of men. money is received from various individuals and organisations during a drought. during the collection of data, it was discovered that women (54%) received more money from the immediate family than men do. statistics continue to highlight the fact that men received the lowest amount of money from immediate family and relatives; however, government grants are received by more men than women. the amount received by men from the government is an annual grant of e2640.18 socially, the livelihood impact of drought includes cultural change and changes to gender dynamics within the community. in the lubombo region, people migrate to other towns, especially those next to industries and plantations as a means of searching for employment. the towns targeted are big bend, mhlume and tabankhulu. respondents mentioned that these towns have sugar plantations and employ most men as cane-cutters and women as sugar planters [‘kuze sitfole imali sisi, sihamba siyosebenta ehlandzeni kasugela simadvodza, sishiye imindeni nebantfwabetfu ngoba kuhlalwa emahostela’]. despite this, the majority of the respondents identified that migration was a coping mechanism used by men as a consequence of cultural and societal roles as being financial providers of households. in addition to migrating for financial gain, men also migrate to search for livestock feed and water, through buying livestock land and the kukhonta system (i.e. traditional land acquisition, allocated by chiefs). migration is not perceived as a positive coping mechanism because family structures are torn apart when men never return home. additionally, once the men migrate, women are forced to rise above cultural constrains and become providers for their households in the absence of their husbands. the respondents explained that women assume the roles of men during droughts, resulting in females becoming heads of families (‘nakasishiya emadvodza etfu kusala kubona tsine sibomake’). drought continues to undermine culture, forcing some practices such as keeping livestock, water management being solely women-oriented and women not having jobs paying more than men to be abandoned. social capital is also affected during a drought. social capital and trust relationships in society are very important and valuable for increasing society’s livelihoods, standards of living and social welfare of a community.65 in the lubombo region, social support is important and made up of neighbours, relatives, government, foreign aid, non-governmental organization (ngo) and household members. the respondents, both men and women, agreed that ‘umuntfu akalakhi likhaya ayedvwa’ (individualism is not accepted because no one can live alone or be an island). oddly, in the event of a drought disaster, 72.5% of men and 87.5% women respondents felt supported by the community. coping mechanisms in terms of social capital in the lubombo region involved assisting one another with food sample donations from ngos, borrowing of livestock for farming, food sharing, gifting and loaning of money and helping physically to plough fields of those who have lost cattle. social capital is thus a pivotal disaster reduction strategy aiming at mitigating the adverse impacts of disasters. social capital is depicted in the statistics above as necessary towards reducing the social impact, networks and influences as a form of coping mechanism. the burden of vulnerability and impact is lightened, when community unifies and acts in solidarity, this position stems from the pressure and release framework. this model is a tool of analysis, which shows how disasters occur when natural calamities affect vulnerable people.66 in addition, singh8 points out that the pressure and release model (par) depicts disaster as a product of physical exposure and socio-economic exposure by distinguishing between root causes, dynamic components and unsafe conditions as conditions of the manifestation of a disaster. adaptation and coping practices are necessary to reduce vulnerability to drought or hazard stress as well as to prepare for possible future extreme weather variations.49 coping mechanisms are a stepping stone towards evidence of drr within the lubombo region. these coping mechanisms are, however, challenged because some community members become self-centred. a traditional swazi saying was used numerous times during the research data-gathering stage: ‘gubela kwesakhe’ [focusing on oneself and ignoring anyone else]. eight per cent of men explained that during droughts community members are unwilling to share, hogging all food and job opportunities for themselves and their relatives. gender-differentiated roles during drought the results of this study show that both men and women living in drought-stricken lubombo region adhere to cultural roles and deviate against them only when necessary. fao67 identifies a gender gap between men and women in relation to disasters such as drought and highlights that gender roles perpetrate differentiation and inequality. the findings of the study further reveal that a large majority (97%) of male respondents believe that men and women have different roles and responsibilities to fulfil during drought. an affirmative response of 92% women respondents also agreed when asked about the differences in roles and responsibilities. in addition, men mentioned that ‘kulisiko kuhholwa ngubabe noma indvodza’ [it is culture to be led by a man rather than a women]. women emphasised this position by stating that ‘lusiko nenkholo iyahlukanisa emisebentini netindlela tekuphila tamake na babe, siphila ngalokuhlukanisa’ [culture and religion are guiding principles of the way of life, society abides by the fact that men and women are separate with separate roles and responsibilities]. based on the differentiation of roles, the respondents affirmed that gender determines the power relations in a household. this position was affirmed by 95% male respondents. gender-differential roles during drought reflect the resources associated to men and women by displaying that men have better opportunities over women. for example, 97.5% men and 92.5% women have agreed that, regardless of the situation or disaster, men continue to be heads of the household and women continue to manage the domestic responsibilities of the household. despite this cultural implication, men however felt burnt out as they have to continue taking the leading role during a drought and not deviate from being providers. men expressed ‘kuba yindvodza, khonkhe kufunwa kuwe khani nawe usazama kuhlanganisa. labomake babheke tsine’ [it is tough being a man; all is needed from us men. our wives depend on us]. the dependency women attach to men indeed does not subside unless the man is not around. women felt that ‘imali yababe ayipheli’ [a man or father’s money doesn’t finish]. thus, during a drought, men experience psychosocial challenges of which women and culture implications do not acknowledge. on the other hand, women are burdened by culture differentiation. women are generally described as their husbands’ first child.68 this sets the tone for women’s activities in the community, forcing women to only participate in activities or duties dictated by their husbands. seventy per cent of the women attested to this stating that during community meetings women do not have legal standing and thus entrust all coping mechanisms or drought awareness initiatives to be presented publicly by male counterparts [‘bafati bayayihlonipha indvodza futsi bangephansi kwayo ngaso sonkhe sikhatsi.kungako sisi ngisho emphakatsi bafati abakhulumi balalela kuphela’]. drought-coping mechanisms drought-coping mechanisms serve as activities and a tool that the community uses to manage the situation. several coping mechanisms were found to be practised in the lubombo region to minimise the effects of drought such as migration, drought relief scheme (foreign aid), crop management, water management, sale of livestock and household activities. migration drought-affected families migrate to other areas to seek income-producing employment that can help them to survive the adversities of drought. in the lubombo region, people migrate to other towns, especially those next to industries and plantations as a means of searching for employment. the towns targeted were big bend, mhlume and tabankhulu, and respondents mentioned that these towns have sugar plantations and employ most men as cane-cutters and women as sugar cane planters. despite this, the majority of the respondents identified that migration is a prominent coping mechanism used by men to fulfil their societal role of being ‘bread winners’ and financial providers of their households. statistically, livelihood breakdown is evident in migration (43.59%). the separation of families is a form of generating income, yet leaves the family unstable and forced to adapt to change. women are forced to assume traditional male roles (30.77%) like herding the cattle and looking for work to supplement the financial situation of men. migration has been identified as a practice rather performed by men than by women. men also migrate to search for livestock feed (7.50%) and water (5%), by buying livestock land through the kukhonta system. women on the other hand migrate to escape from home conflict (2.5%) and the frustration of not having enough water and food. respondents concluded that migration is necessary but undermines the livelihoods of the community, with 43.6% of both men and women concurring with this view. drought relief schemes to better cope with drought, households received help from beyond their communities.69 the support received was drought relief, by the government of eswatini, supported by united nations and development partners known by locals as ‘tinini tenkhosi’ [the kings friends]. assistance was in the form of cash, food, seed and fertilizer. organisations such as usaid, red cross, world food programme and world vision assist with food rations once a month, which is used by women to feed their families and curb hunger in the households. on the other hand, men are given training to build their capacity. the trainings received equipped men with coping strategies such as eating twice a day, using animal waste as manure for crop production, dividing food among days and using bath water to irrigate plants and vegetables. according to the information gathered from the government officials, the field of drr is new in the country. the growth of the field is drawing attention on the varied behaviour and methods of coping that men and women follow. government officials further acknowledged the fact that women are target population during a disaster such as a drought, thus imposing interventions that begin with assisting women. they justified this approach by stating that ‘bafati beswele kanye nebantfwana kahkhulu, kwengca emadvodza. loku akusho kutsi emadvodza asiwanaki kopha sibuka simo’ [women and children are most vulnerable. it does not dispute the vulnerabilities of men; however, assistance is a situational approach]. this perpetrates the topic of this study and enforces the need for gender sensitivity and equity practices at all times. crop management the survey data showed that drought affected crop production greatly and enforced inhabitants of the lubombo region to engage in comprehensive crop management mechanisms. agricultural adjustment was practised by all community members as 100% men and women indicated that they practise crop replacement during a drought. this activity involves cultivating more water-efficient crops. crop production in the lubombo region is very important for the stability of livelihoods and for food security. during a drought, men and women plant and grow crops that should withstand the grave dry conditions. the women are in charge of weeding and management of the crop. women plant nuts, cassava and sweet potatoes as substitute for maize starch. they eat natural shrubs and weeds such as ligusha (corchorus olitorius), umbhidvo [shoot] and inkhakha (mormodica balsamina). these greens are healthy and full of nutrients, helping them maintain a healthy diet. male coping mechanisms relating to crop production include men hiring trucks and driving them to prepare the fields for production. water management water management is an essential part of ensuring that drought alleviation occurs. during droughts, water scarcity within the community, in particular rural areas, threatens the livelihoods of individuals.70 people depend on water for survival, hence the respondents indicated that water management coping mechanisms are developed and applied to withstand and adapt to the scarcity (‘emanti ayongiwa, alandzwa khashane futsi amucoka,senta siciniseko kutsi asiwadlabhatisi’). the respondents further discussed that water management is practised through activities such as regulating domestic water usage, regulating water to fulfil basic household activities, separating water gathered by quality, either for consumption or for cleaning and watering plants. the role of women in water management involves collecting water, fetching water from rivers, ensuring that water is not used in wasteful ways, ensuring that children are bathed once a day and not twice, only using it for drinking and ensuring that enough water is available every day. men on the other hand do not employ water management as a coping mechanism because water management is done mainly by women. women also described that during drought seasons, local water pumps overflow with people queuing to fill buckets and 25-litre tanks. because of the high volume numbers of people, some individuals come home empty-handed without water. this process forces households to collect river water and purify it using traditional methods of purification such as the use of bleach (jik) and cleaner (dettol) [‘basifundzisile kutsi emanti asemfuleni singawahlanta, basifundzisa kutsi sibowafaka i jik noma dettol bese siyawayekela athule singakawasbentisi’]. the purifying ratio is 1 teaspoon of disinfectant for every 25 liters of water and leaving it to settle for a full day. the respondents mentioned that this makes river water consumable [‘emanti emfula abese ayanatseka’]. a balanced opinion of 60% between men and women respondents attested to the fact that water management at the household level was predominantly women based with day-to-day activities. sale of livestock during a drought, community members were challenged with disposing assets like livestock because of the lack of water and animal feed. the sale of livestock is a difficult coping mechanism to implement. men are in charge of the livestock and thus have a wealth-based attachment to cattle, goats and poultry. this is advocated by the saying which states that a man is judged by his herd size. the selling of livestock allows a household to get money, food or services. food stock and household expenses were said (60% both male and female respondents) to overwhelm families forcing them to sell assets to raise money to buy food. the dominance in the sale of livestock was also highlighted by a minority of men. the frequency of marriage proposals and dowry (lobola) ceremonies was said to be the reason for the growing number of cow sales during droughts. ninety per cent men respondents expressed the fact that as the prices of cattle dropped, men ready to take a wife would buy cows to pay lobola for their girlfriends. household activities household coping mechanisms are the day-to-day coping mechanisms that a community and household implement. the households within the lubombo region have been identified as following practices such as skipping meals to save food. respondents mentioned that ‘kudla kuyongiwa, labadzala badla kancane kunebantfwana’ [food is scarce so we share among the family, children eat more than adults]. children eat first and adults share food, reducing the portions of food being eaten. bathing once a day and not at all on weekends, cooking outside to save electricity or the expense of buying electricity, switching on the necessary lights at night only, collecting wood and selling it to neighbours in exchange for food and money, doing laundry for others in exchange for food and saving money for essentials are some of the coping mechanisms followed. other adopted coping mechanisms during drought included back yard gardens and selling vegetables, working as casual laborer (men as cane cutting at sugar belt), selling of livestock products such as milk, and maas (sour milk), little use of credit, kunanisa [borrowing from neighbors], sales of personal items, selling of household items (furniture) and prostitution. at the household level, the coping mechanisms are practised and enforced equally between men and women. there were some instances, like fetching water, where men and women do work together; however, these instances are more supportive towards women. fifty per cent men added that men will drive tractors to carry water for women from the river at times. thus, men have been identified to help women when roles get overwhelming but not as a primary duty. the occurrence of agricultural drought in the lubombo region in the lubombo region, the dependency on agriculture fostered the response that amongst hydrological, meteorological, socio-economic and agricultural drought, the most relevant for the region was agricultural drought. this graph validates the recurring conversation in the study. the graph displays the contribution and perspective of drought on agriculture by both men and women. as an agricultural sanctuary, farming industries harvest sugar and cotton whilst households rely on subsistence farming for survival. the respondents all agreed that agricultural drought and the lack of soil moisture amounted to a drought. at a neutral level, an agricultural drought occurs in the lubombo region because the soil loses moisture, which results in making crop planting impossible. within five inkhundla administrations, 10.3% of the men stood by this definition and were supported by 17.5% of women in the region (see figure 4). the number of individuals who agreed with the definition included more men (33.3%) than women (30%). figure 4: drought impact on agriculture: absence of soil moisture. in light of the definition of an agricultural drought, respondents were questioned on the impact of drought on crop production and community’s livelihoods. the responses indicated that drought causes a significant decline in the availability of agricultural produce thus causing a livelihood loss. also, 98.75% of the respondents indicated that the magnitude of the drought is experienced every second year because of the region being arid. respondents further said that ‘njalo njalo kune somiso, siyehluleka kulima nekudla site’ [the region struggles with the recurrence of drought and the inability to farm that comes with the calamity]. subsistence dry land farming provides livelihoods for 70% of the population in the region. the occurrence of a drought undermines this livelihood pattern, forcing inhabitants to liquidate livestock in exchange for food and money. respondents also highlighted the fact that because of the close proximity with the sugar band (tabankhulu, mhlume, simunye sugar estate), during a drought subsistence farming is minimal because land is rather rented out to sugar companies as they have irrigation means and resources. social capital and developing disaster risk reduction practices social capital and trust relationships in society are very important and valuable for increasing society’s livelihoods, standards of living and social welfare of a community.65 social organisations such as networks, norms and social trust within a society allow individuals to work together and achieve mutual benefits.65 in the lubombo region, social support is important and comprises neighbours, relatives, government, foreign aid, ngos and household members. in the event of a drought disaster, 72.5% of men respondents felt supported by the community whilst 87.5% women felt that support from the community was evident. coping mechanisms in terms of social capital in the lubombo region involved assisting one another through food sample donations from ngos, borrowing of livestock for farming, food sharing, giving and loaning of money and helping physically to plough fields of those who have lost cattle. these coping mechanisms are a stepping stone towards evidence of drr within the lubombo region. contribution of gender in effective disaster risk reduction vulnerabilities are associated with women more than men because of culture and lack of opportunity. respondents highlighted this position by showcasing that during drought women’s traditional duties do not change; duties such as reproduction, household maintenance and agricultural production strain women during a drought. the findings of the study reveal that a large majority (97%) of male respondents believe that men and women have different roles and responsibilities to manage during drought. an affirmative response of 92% women respondents also agreed when asked about the differences in roles and responsibilities as reflected in table 1. table 1: gender-differential roles during drought. based on the differentiation of roles, the respondents affirmed that gender determines the power relations in a household. this position was affirmed by 95% male respondents. table 1 displays the gender-differentiated roles during drought. it reflects the resources associated with men and women by displaying the fact that men have better opportunities compared to women. for example, 97.5% men and 92.5% women have agreed that, regardless of the situation or disaster, men continue to be heads of the household and women continue to manage the domestic responsibilities of the household. conclusion the study has established that coping mechanisms are essential towards the alleviation of the effects caused by drought. from the results, the vulnerabilities of men and women have been identified as contributing factors to risks associated with being a community member in the lubombo region. the coping mechanisms identified in the study include migration, foreign aid, cropping systems during drought, water management, sale of livestock, government departments and ngo aid and household activity changes. gender relations have also been identified in this study as key contributors to the opportunities and constraints experienced in a community. culture has been identified as the central mandate, prescribing rules, roles, norms and responsibilities to men and women. the interactions of coping mechanisms and gender have been clearly portrayed in this study focusing on the vulnerabilities and gender sensitivity as a tool for drr. for further studies, and the contribution to knowledge, this study establishes a gender gap between societies. further study could look at the effectiveness of these coping mechanisms whilst maintaining the gender attribute. in eswatini, drr is a new field of knowledge; further research can look at expanding this domain. the study has thus alluded to a gendered culture existing in eswatini and the need to expend the gender lenses of understanding disaster impact in the country. analysing the coping mechanisms during a drought has surfaced the need to acknowledge disparities amongst men and women, disadvantages and vulnerabilities during disasters. this understanding informs decisions made and reasons behind chosen coping mechanisms. therefore, integrating gender equality into legislation and practice remain as a critical stepping stone towards building a gender-sensitive environment. the integration of international protocols into the operations of all activities is a key recommendation as this will allow good practices to be observed such as gender mainstreaming. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the kind respondents from the research area for assisting them in finding some answers as to how they perceive and cope with drought. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions s.m. adapted the article from a master’s thesis. g.j.w. was the supervisor. ethical considerations ethical clearance was not needed or required for the study but followed all ethical standards for carrying out research. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references de la fuente a, dercon s. background paper for the 2009 isdr global assessment report on disaster risk reduction [homepage on the internet]. 2008 [cited 2017 mar 14]. available from: 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digital storytelling as a tool for teaching: perceptions of pre-service teachers c tiba,1 j condy,2 a chigona 3 and n tunjera4 abstract it has been shown that teachers are reluctant to use technology despite the south african (sa) government’s huge expenditure on technological equipment. this might be the result of teachers being unable to select appropriate technology that will yield positive learning outcomes as well as being ill-equipped to integrate technology into their pedagogy. to this end, pre-service teachers at a university were trained on how to integrate digital storytelling (dst) effectively into their teaching. the aim of this study is to gain insight into the potential benefits of dst for teaching and learning and to determine factors that may prevent pre-service teachers’ uptake of dst during in-service practice. this is a qualitative study in which fifty pre-service teachers were divided into five groups for focus group interviews. data were analysed, and the results show that preservice teachers perceived dst to be beneficial in the classroom as it has the potential to (i) motivate and engage learners, (ii) promote voice/self-expression, and (iii) promote collaborative learning and acquisition of multiple skills. pre-service teachers are of the opinion that a lack of resources, self-confidence and time owing to restrictive curricula may prevent uptake of dst during in-service teaching. it was recommended that school stakeholders create a balance between intrinsic and extrinsic factors that will promote the adoption and integration of dst into teaching. also, the education institution concerned strives to balance all three strands of knowledge: technology, pedagogy and content. keywords: technology, digital storytelling, technology integration, multimedia, pedagogy, digital native, pre-service teachers introduction digital technology has become commonplace as many children are using technology on a daily basis. these children spend most of their time with technological tools such as computers, videogames, digital music players, cell phones and other tools of the digital age (prensky, 2001: 1). the growth in the use of technology by children has forced school stakeholders in south africa to deploy technological equipment in classrooms such as tablet 1 . chantyclaire a. tiba (corresponding author: 3063369@gmail.com) is a doctoral student at cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. 2 . prof janet condy is an associate professor at cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. 3 . dr agnes chigona is a research fellow in the faculty of education at cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. 4 . nyarai tunjera is doctoral student at the cape peninsula university of technology, south africa. tiba, condy, chigona & tunjera 286 phones and smart boards (guest, 2014). anecdotal evidence, however, shows that the field of education has seen a slow growth in the use of technology for teaching and learning. one of the reasons may be that teachers seem unable to select appropriate technology that will yield positive learning outcomes and are also illequipped to integrate technology effectively during teaching. chigona, condy, gachago and ivala (2012:1627) warn that unless pre-service teachers are given clear direction on how to integrate technology into their pedagogy, they will not adopt technology for curriculum delivery. this resulted in a department of education in a university of technology teaching final-year intermediate senior phase (isp) pre-service teachers of 2013 on how to integrate dst effectively into teaching, as part of the professional development course. the professional development course aims to equip pre-service teachers with skills that they will require to teach effectively and efficiently during in-service practice. the aim of this article is to gain insight into the potential benefits of dst in the classroom and to determine factors that may prevent the uptake of dst by pre-service teachers during in-service practice. considering that digital storytelling is cutting-edge and many studies on the subject have been conducted internationally, in south africa (condy, chigona, gachago & ivala, 2012; chigona, 2013) it is still gaining ground. it is hoped that an article on the potential benefits of dst in the classroom and challenges that may prevent uptake and how these challenges can be addressed, may encourage more teachers to use dst. also, school stakeholders may gain a better understanding of the benefits of this technological tool in teaching south african learners. these learners come from diverse language backgrounds and they prefer the english language as their language of teaching and learning. therefore, digital technology may be an appropriate tool as it has the potential to motivate and engage learners, promote self-expression and collaboration as well as to allow learners to acquire multiple skills. according to dogan (2012), the more school stakeholders know about dst, the more they will tap into its benefits and use it in the classroom. research questions • what are the perceptions of pre-service teachers of the potential benefits of digital storytelling (dst) as a pedagogical tool? • what are the perceived barriers by pre-service teachers to up taking digital storytelling (dst) during in-service practice? to answer the research questions, students who were part of the professional development course at a university of technology were approached to participate in this study. of the 75 students, 50 voluntarily accepted being part of this study. the 50 pre-service teachers were divided amongst five lecturers for focus group interviews and the questions asked were semistructured. data was analysed and emerging themes were related to the research questions (merriam, 1998:45). the theoretical framework that underpins this study is mishra and koehler’s (2005) technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpck), a vigorous theoretical framework to understand the knowledge needed for effective integration of technology into teaching. many educational institutions separate technological knowledge (tk) from content knowledge (ck) and pedagogical knowledge (pk). mishra and koehler (2005) argue that good teaching must be interplayed between seven constructs: “ck is knowledge about the actual subject matter that is to be learned or taught”; “pk is deep knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching and learning; pedagogical content knowledge (pck) is relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 285-301. 287 knowing which teaching approaches fit the content, and likewise knowing how elements of the content can be arranged for better teaching”; “tk is knowledge about standard technologies such as internet and digital video”; “technological content knowledge (tck) is knowledge about the manner in which technology and content are jointly related”; “technological pedagogical knowledge (tpk) is knowledge of the existence, components, and capabilities of various technologies as they are used in teaching and learning settings, and conversely, knowing how teaching might change as a result of a particular technology”; “tpck is the basis of good teaching with technology and requires an understanding of the representation of concepts using technology, pedagogical techniques that use technology in constructive ways to teach content, knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology can help redress some of the problems that students face, knowledge of students’ prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge and to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones” (mishra & koehler, 2005:1026-1031). the tpck framework guided the process of collecting data. the above-mentioned seven elements guided the researcher to initiate discourses around technological pedagogical content knowledge benefits and challenges of dst to learners and teachers. literature review three areas influence the literature review. these areas are (1) an overview of dst which gives a general understanding of dst, (2) benefits of dst in the classroom, and (3) factors that may prevent the uptake of technology. (1) overview of digital storytelling stories have been an element of the human tradition since the beginning of time (hastings, 2009). before the advent of written language, wisdom, knowledge and information were communicated orally through stories (czarnecki, 2009). according to maddin (2011:2-3), storytelling is intertwined into our everyday life as people use stories for communication and to share information. maddin (2011) explains further “that it is through stories that humans understand history, themselves and the world”. today the way we tell stories has changed as stories are integrated, for example, with technology, and this is known as dst. digital stories are a blend of image and text that focus on tales ‘from the heart’ (hayes, 2011:291). similarly, stenhouse, tait, hardy and sumner (2013:134) concur that digital stories provide a creative way for people to tell their stories using a mixture of voice, image and music. in addition, the digital storytelling association (2002) describes dst as “the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling”. yuksel, robin and mcneil (2011) reiterate that dst derives its “power through weaving images, music, narrative and voice together”. there are different kinds of dst which have been categorised into three types. these are: personal narratives, in which authors tell personal stories which revolve around significant events in their life; stories that inform and instruct, are used primarily to convey instructional material in many different content areas (teachers use it to teach the curriculum); and stories that examine historical events: this type of dst is used to recount historical events (cited in robin, 2008:224-225). tiba, condy, chigona & tunjera 288 in order to produce an effective digital story that instructs, informs or recounts historical events and personal tales, lambert (cited in dreon, kerper & landis, 2011:5) identifies seven elements that must be taking into consideration. these elements include: • a point of view which outlines the perspective from which the story is told; • a dramatic question that sets the tension of the story by identifying issues to be resolved; • emotional content which engages the audience through common emotions and themes; • the gift of using the producer’s voice during production: helps the audience to make meaning of images; • the ‘power’ of the soundtrack which sets the mood of the story; • economical balance of the auditory and visual tracks of meaning; and • pacing which sustains the attention of the audience by establishing and modifying the rhythm of the story. (2) benefits of digital storytelling dst has drawn attention as an appropriate pedagogical tool which can be used in today’s classroom. hastings (2009) is of the opinion that the importance of integrating dst in education is that learners are having fun while learning. when such indirect learning takes place, learners may reach their full potential. therefore, the benefits of dst have been categorised into themes. these themes are that dst: (i) has the potential to support learnercentred activities, (ii) promotes the acquisition of multiple skills in learners, (iii) encourages voice/self-expression, (iv) motivates and engages learners, (v) encourages deep reflection, and (vi) encourages collaboration. in the next section, literature is provided/an explanation is provided/a brief description is provided on the six benefits of dst when learners are involved in its production. i. dst supports learner-centred activities dst is a technological tool that has the potential to engage students in learner-centred activities (barrett, 2005; hayes, 2011:291) since learners are challenged in creating their own stories. in a study, learners were given an opportunity to take pictures with digital cameras, develop their story based on the pictures taken, produce a film based on the pictures by adding subtitles and a background, and present their stories (hung, hwang & huang, 2012:371). this means that learners take active responsibility for their learning (menezes, 2012) which has been proven to improve academic performance (hayes, 2011:291; sadik, 2008:487). ii. dst promotes multiple skills in learners dst has the potential to engage learners in both conventional and innovative ways of teaching (gregori-signes, 2008). being literate in the 21st century no longer involves only being able to read and write: learners must be able to download, upload, rip, burn, chat, save, blog, skype and share information (mullen & wedwick, 2008:66). according to robin (2008: 224), sylvester and greenidge (2009: 287), dst can promote multiple skills. these skills include the ability to: relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 285-301. 289 • communicate with an ever-expanding community, to discuss issues, gather information, and seek help (digital literacy); • read, interpret, respond, and contextualise messages from a global perspective (global literacy); • use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity and performance (technological literacy); • understand, produce and communicate through visual images (visual literacy); and • find, evaluate, and synthesise information (information literacy). studies such as those of chigona (2013: 25) have shown that learners gained technological skills during the production of dst. she revealed that during production, there were learners who had adequate technological skills and those who felt inadequate. those with expertise in using technological tools helped peers who had difficulties (chigona, 2013:25). hence, learners with difficulties improved their technological know-how through assistance from knowledgeable peers. the campbell study (2012: 390), during the two years of a dst project, showed that learners became comfortable and skilled in the use of technological programs offered by macbook. learners continued to use technological programmes for writing homework and for projects. digital technologies have the potential to improve learners’ writing. according to hayes (2011: 297), and hicks, turner and stratton (2013), writing is no longer an act of putting words on paper, but writers must use technological tools to communicate their message. the use of technological tools such as dst has been shown to improve writing (figg & mccartney, 2010: 1; michalski, hodges & banister, 2005). in a scenario where learners faced difficulties with constructing phrases, using correct grammar and spelling or vocabulary to crafting sentences effectively, they showed an improvement in their writing when they participated in the production of digital stories (michalski, hodges & banister, 2005). dst has been found to have a positive effect on taiwanese english first language sixth graders’ vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing skills (chuang, kuo, chiang, su & chang, 2013). it has been shown that during dst production, learners re-write their stories many times (rance-roney, 2008:29). learners’ writing may be improved in the process of rewriting and re-forming their scripts. iii. dst has the potential to encourage voice/self-expression self-expression or voice has been used interchangeably by the researchers to mean ‘giving learners a say in how they want to tell their stories’. dst has the potential to encourage students’ voice (alexandra, 2008:101) as learners’ views are valued from selecting of a topic, deciding on the use of images to tell their stories and background sound to enhance their narratives (hayes, 2011:292). self-expression also occurs when learners present their stories to a global audience (botturi, bramani & corbino, 2012:11; reinders, 2011:3), for example, through youtube, facebook or via presentations to a community. dst can give voice to struggling learners who find it difficult to communicate in a classroom setting (botturi, bramani & corbino, 2012:10). this is because learners learn to tell their stories, which may enhance their communication skills. iv. dst has the potential to motivate and engage learners studies such as that by figg and mccartney (2010:54) have shown that dst has the potential to motivate learners. their findings revealed that using dst as a technological tool motivated learners to construct their digital stories with enthusiasm. it was noted that tiba, condy, chigona & tunjera 290 learners wrote on a daily basis without noticing it. michalski, hodges and banister (2005) revealed that learners spend more time on tasks required to produce their digital stories because they were motivated to learn new software. dst has the potential to engage learners. a study by campbell (2012:392), in which the learners’ level of engagement was measured by time spent on task completion and positive writer self-perception revealed that learners spent more time on the dst project compared to time spent on non-digital writing tasks. another study by ivala, gachago, condy and chigona (2013:82) which investigated the potential of dst in enhancing student engagement. focus group interviews were conducted with 29 pre-service teachers and their facilitators. the result revealed that the production of dst enhanced students’ level of engagement with their studies. pre-service teachers reported that the production of dst extended opportunities for students to study beyond classroom time since they were engaged with the subject matter, both at school and at home. v. dst encourages deep reflection dst has been identified as a tool that can encourage deep reflection. in the sandars and murray study (2009:442), 12 undergraduate medical students volunteered to use dst as a reflective exercise. the aim was to encourage students to reflect on their experience of first meeting a patient. the students indicated that the process of producing their dst required them to think critically about each image. one participant remarked that when i was putting mine together [dst], i took photographs from around the area. rather than just writing a quick essay i actually thought about what i wanted the picture to say. similarly, when learners align each paragraph in the storyboard to an image (sylvester & greenidge, 2009:287), they are engaged in deep reflection. in addition, learners have to reflect on how to present the dst so that the potential audience will find it interesting, compelling and engaging (boase, 2008). vi. dst encourages collaboration during dst production, learners are divided into groups which have been proven to be beneficial to learning. this is evident in chigona’s (2013:22) study, which showed that learners gained technological skills because they had to learn from peers who are more skilled (chigona, 2013:22). the learners learnt how to trust each other enough to ask for assistance. on this point, chigona concluded that learning was taking place as learners’ technological skills were enhanced. in another situation, learners’ finished or draft digital stories can be posted on the internet perhaps facebook, blog or youtube for comments and suggestions (reinders, 2011:3). students may use the comments to gain different perspectives on their stories and to shape their draft stories. the benefits of dst in the educational setting are vast, as is evidenced from the discourses mentioned. it may be an appropriate pedagogical tool to be used in the classroom. though the literature has focused on the benefits of dst to learners, it is important to mention that dst may be a valuable tool for teachers. for example, dst can help teachers gain insights into issues of diversity from learners’ stories if they are given a task on social issues, thus enabling teachers to gain a better understanding of their learners (condy, chigona, gachago & ivala, 2013:281). relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 285-301. 291 (3) factors that will prevent the uptake of technology there have been considerable studies on factors that may prevent the uptake of technology by teachers into teaching (hutchison & reinking, 2011: 324; obiri-yeboah, kwarteng & kyere-djan, 2013: 13). for example, hutchison and reinking (2011:324) listed barriers that may prevent teachers from using technology. they include: a lack of understanding of how to integrate technology into instruction, professional development related to integrating technology into instruction, understanding of how to evaluate students’ ability to use icts (information communication and technology), and insufficient time due to high-stakes testing. cassim and obono (2011) found that the attitudes of teachers, their perception on the usefulness and ease of use of ict, their ict awareness and school location all affect adoption of ict in the classroom. it is argued by chigona and chigona (2010) that other significant factors that hinder integration are personal factors such as insufficient ict training, social factors as a result of rules that prescribe who can use technology and what it can be used for at schools, and environmental factors such as teachers lacking technical support regarding integrating technology into teaching. similarly, ahadiat (2005:228) ranked factors that will prevent teachers from using technology. these factors are: a lack of time, required software, technological support, relevance to course material, latest hardware, administrative support, contribution to professional advancement and interest in technology. methodology this is a qualitative study that explores pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the potential benefits of dst and perceived barriers to dst uptake during in-service practice. qualitative study gave depth to the research questions. as part of the professional development course in 2013, 75 intermediate senior phase (isp) students had eight-week workshops on how to integrate dst during in-service practice. at the end of the project, each student made their own digital story. all 75 students were invited verbally to take part in a focus group interview. of the 75, 50 voluntarily accepted. all 50 pre-service teachers who agreed to be part of this study were divided into five groups among five researchers facilitating the discussion. semi-structured questions, which were informed by the literature, were used during interviews. furthermore, classrooms were used as venues for the interviews and each interview was scheduled for an hour. the selection of a university venue was preferred because the teachers participating in the study were registered students at the university. therefore, organizing a focus group interview at the university was convenient. data from the five focus group interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. the transcribed data were analysed: themes were generated to answer the research questions. ethics the study followed a rigorous code of ethics to protect the researcher as well as the participants (denscombe, 2007:141). permission was requested from the university of technology ethics committee to collect data. participants of the research were asked to sign informed consent forms to indicate their participation is voluntary (glesne, 2011:166). permission was sought from participants to use an audio recorder during interviews to capture data accurately (bogdan & biklen, 1998:7). aims and outcomes were continuously discussed verbally with participants to ensure that they understood their role in the research. tiba, condy, chigona & tunjera 292 result and discussion according to the pre-service teachers, the dst project was enriching. as a result, they believed dst might be an appropriate pedagogic tool which could be used in the classroom as it has the potential to motivate and engage learners, promote voice/self-expression, and collaborative learning or acquire multiple skills. however, the pre-service teachers indicated that a lack of resources, self-confidence and time due to restrictive curricula might prevent uptake of dst during in-service teaching. the results of the data collected are discussed under the themes that follow. digital story has the potential to motivate and engage learners one factor noted by pre-service teachers that would influence them to use dst during inservice practice is that dst has the potential to motivate and engage learners. this is because learners are fascinated by technology because they use it daily. therefore, teachers integrating technology into their curriculum delivery would motivate these learners. with regard to motivation, one pre-service teacher indicated that: i think digital storytelling will develop their [the learners’] interest … keeps them focused in class for a longer period and this is because they use technology every day … walk around with cell phones in their pockets. they grew up with technology … so it will motivate them to come to class and study … yeah. another pre-service teacher added that they would use dst during in-service practice because the visual aspect of dst may motivate learners. the pre-service teacher indicated that “today’s learners are visual … they [learners] like visual stuff … they like to see things … like the images … this [dst] might just motivate them to come to class”. this discussion shows that today’s learners have grown up using technology: integrating it into the classroom may attract their attention. the figg and mccartney findings (2010:12) showed that using dst as a technological tool attracted learners’ attention as they spent more time on tasks. the visual component of dst might captivate learners’ interest, thus increasing their motivation. dst has the potential to engage learners, as they can be given tasks to do on a subject both at home and at school. on this point, a pre-service teacher reported, you can give learners tasks on a topic, get them to go to the library to do research, search the internet for music and images … this [the digital story] will get them engaged both at school and at home as it did to us when we were creating our own digital story. this finding is in line with the ivala, gachago, condy and chigona study (2013:85) in which pre-service teachers reported that the production of dst extended opportunities for students to study beyond the classroom time, since they were engaged with the subject matter both at school and at home. a student in the ivala et al. (2013: 85) study supported this discussion by stating, i also did most of my work at home, like writing out the story and asking when i came to campus, asking the lecturers maybe to edit and just to check if my story is according to how it’s supposed to be … and i will do the typing on campus. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 285-301. 293 digital storytelling has the potential to give learners voice/self-expression dst has the potential to give learners voice in the classroom. according to pre-service teachers, a good teacher must be able to give learners opportunities in the classroom for their voices or opinions to be heard. the pre-service teachers believed that dst may give learners voice when teachers involved them in the production. this is evident in one of the participants’ responses: … i was thinking we most of the times … we don’t give learners in our classes voice … as schools, as teachers, as parents we don’t really know what our children [learners] are thinking or feeling … so am thinking we can use digital story as platform where children [learners] have their voices heard because now they are for instance in a classroom – you could have a class do a digital story on any social issue … they present it in class you know… so it could be a way for learners to voice their views, their feelings and thoughts about social issues or what not, yeah. another pre-service teacher added: you can give them [learners] task on digital story to do, the final product can be presented in class, put on youtube or facebook and even show to a church community. these are some of the platforms for their opinions on certain issues to be heard. the result indicated that giving voice to learners is beneficial to teaching and learning. hence, dst can be used as a platform to give learners voice. consistent with the above findings, robin (2007) and porter (2006: 28) echoed that voice is given to learners when they publish their stories online to be available to a global audience. digital storytelling has the potential to promote collaborative learning according to pre-service teachers, dst projects may increase collaboration between learners. during dst projects, learners may be divided into groups to help each other to complete their stories. as a result, learners may learn skills such as sharing diverse views on a subject matter and supporting each other to solve complex tasks. hence, they learn to trust each other during the process. on this point, the pre-service teacher indicated: learners can be divided into groups … they would help each other to complete a task and learn how to respect each other’s point of view on a subject matter. helping each other may build trust between learners. and when learners trust each other, they will interact easily in the classroom. since today’s classrooms are so diverse, another participant said they were going to use dst to create interactions in the classroom. the pre-service teachers intend to create interactions by doing group or peer work with technology. the pre-service teacher revealed that: there may be black, white, coloured and indians mixed in one classroom … i will put them [different races] in one group for them to brainstorm on a topic and to do the river of life and other related aspects of digital story … by doing that i want them to learn to tolerate each other … this skill [working in group] they will need with them for life. the above findings reveal that putting learners into groups to do digital story tasks may be beneficial to teaching and learning. studies such as ivala et al. (2013) have shown that learners benefit from group work as they learn from each other during the production of dst. tiba, condy, chigona & tunjera 294 digital storytelling has the potential to promote the acquisition of multiple skills according to robin (2008:224), sylvester and greenidge (2009:287), dst has the potential to promote the acquisition of multiple skills in learners. the pre-service teachers indicated that they will use dst in their classrooms because several skills are involved during the production of a single digital story. on this point, a pre-service teacher revealed that: i will use digital story because there are many skills involved when learners are given the opportunity to produce it [digital story] … these skills are reading, writing, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills and technological skills…technological skills because learners will be working with technological hardware and software another pre-service teacher added: …through the process of making a digital storytelling, learners will learn copyright stuff. i will explain to them why they cannot just take images or photos from the internet. they have to reference everything at the end of the story…so yeah they learn these skills. in addition, pre-service teachers may use dst because learners may develop critical thinking skills. a pre-service teacher reported: …i will integrate digital storytelling into my teaching because learners will gain critical thinking skills. learners have to make decisions as to what images will be suitable for their story and also deciding on the genre of music to put in their digital story. for other participants, dst has the potential to enhance communication skills. a participant indicated: …to me i will use it to enhance students’ communication skills … there will be learners in our classrooms who don’t like talking in class. so with digital storytelling you can put them into groups and assign them different roles … so with their peers, they may be comfortable to discuss issues. pre-service teachers were overwhelmed by the dst project since they acquired many skills. as a result they were certain that with resources at the schools, they might integrate dst into their teaching. in addition, pre-service teachers reported that they will use dst in their classrooms because it has the potential to develop learners’ writing. learners are given a platform to think about what they will write and how they will write their stories during production. during dst production, learners write many drafts (rance-roney, 2008:29) which may improve their writing. a pre-service teacher commented: during any digital storytelling project, learners will be given an opportunity to write their stories … they can write on their laptops, computers or using a paper and a pen. in the process of learners writing their stories, they may write so many drafts which may possibly improve their writing. i remember i wrote how many times? three/four times … four times … i got it right the last time. it’s never easy and most especially when you’re writing in a second language, yeah. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 285-301. 295 another pre-service teacher added: i will use it because it may improve learners’ writing. this is because learners tend to write beyond what they are supposed to write and this [digital storytelling] will help in condensing their writing and then keep it to the fact since learners are required to write between 300-500 words. i will definitely use it in the classroom. according to the pre-service teachers, writing is the most important aspect of dst. learners learn how to summarise and review their work for consistency. these skills, according to preservice teachers, are needed in the learners’ future workplace. ohler (2006:44) emphasises the importance of writing by indicating that teachers should focus on learners writing their story first and then using the story to enhance learners’ skills in critical thinking and media literacy when they produce their story. although all pre-service teachers perceived dst to be beneficial in the classroom, some might refrain from using it due to a lack of resources, self-confidence or time because of restrictive curricula. below is a discussion on barriers to the uptake of dst. lack of resources firstly, with regard to lack of resources, the pre-service teachers acknowledged that they have acquired the skills required for effective integration of dst during teaching. lack of technological resources at the schools where they will be teaching would, however, make it difficult for them to integrate dst into their teaching. one pre-service teacher remarked: … how i wish i was going to use it but unfortunately i wouldn’t be able to use it because i will be going to transkei and rural areas, so there is no technology there even tv … there is only one tv in the area so i would definitely not be going to using it. some teachers, with their positive experience during the production of dst, claimed that, even if they were to teach in under-resourced schools, they would manage to use some sort of technology. a participant indicated: i will carry my radio…laptop to school just for them to be exposed to some sort of technology, yeah. in line with the above argument, ahadiat’s (2005) findings showed that one barrier to integration of technology might be lack of resources such as technological software and hardware. lack of self-confidence secondly, the analysis shows that lack of self-confidence may prevent pre-service teachers from using dst. few teachers felt that the project did not prepare them sufficiently to teach with dst since they had only eight weeks to complete the project. they were worried that during in-service teaching, they may not be able to apply it in classroom. a pre-service teacher said: … the digital story thing was new to us … we never really got the opportunity to be familiar with all the technological tools. the facilitators showed us yeah to get our stories done but we never had time to practise. so i might face challenges implementing it at school because i am not sure i have the confidence yet, yeah. tiba, condy, chigona & tunjera 296 another pre-service teacher added: … and i find that sometimes people are so computer literate or skilled that when they have to show or teach someone something they are so into it that they don’t keep track with the fact that you are but slower than what they are, so they just go on. so in the process you don’t learn anything. it was argued by another pre-service teacher that they feel comfortable using other approaches in the classroom than dst. this is because the dst project did not give the preservice teachers enough time to be competent users of the technological tools. the pre-service teacher noted: there are many [kinds of] equipment [hardware and software] that i don’t know how to use like the photo story because the project was too fast … i wouldn’t even try to integrate it in the classroom … i will use textbook because i am more comfortable with textbook, yeah. pre-service teachers believed that if they had had more time to practise with dst, it would have increased their self-efficacy. thus, the pre-service teachers recommended that coordinators for the dst project should consider starting the project from the first year. this might give ample time for pre-service teachers to gain skills which may boost their selfconfidence to use dst. pre-service teachers recommended that the education institution where this study was conducted should strive to balance all three strands of knowledge: technology, pedagogy and content. this is because students lacked basic technological knowhow during the dst project which caused delays in the project. teachers spend time showing learners how to use basic technological hardware and software. lack of time thirdly, the greatest proportion of research has shown time to be a major issue in dst projects (sadik, 2008:502; bromberg, techatassanasoontorn & andrade, 2013:10). this is because teachers need time to teach learners the many skills already mentioned that are needed to produce a dst. some students faced difficulties operating technological tools and, as a result, they would needed more time for the teacher to assist them during production (sadik, 2008: 501). pre-service teachers complained that the dst project was timeconsuming; they had to work both on campus and at home. therefore, using dst during inservice practice might require additional time and the pre-service teachers were not sure if they would have enough time to integrate it in the classroom. a pre-service teacher explained their concern: there were people who struggled to get music during the digital storytelling project … oh yes, there were people who couldn’t ok going back to the basics … there were people who couldn’t even go to the internet and find pictures they didn’t know how to go to the … to the internet search engine and then and there were people who couldn’t save pictures so and there were people who struggled with say it with finding music [laughing] … yeah, so basically they were those types of things … imagine you have such learners in your class when you start teaching … it means introducing digital stories will be timeconsuming and difficult. these discussions reveal that some pre-service teachers lack basic technological knowledge during the dst project. introducing dst during in-service practice to similar kinds of relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 285-301. 297 learners who may lack basic skills is time consuming. this is because learners need extra time to become familiar with the technological hardware and software. a student added that …there may be cases were learners are from disadvantage home…they may not know basic things about a computer, so introducing digital storytelling will require a lot of time. on this point, bromberg et al., (2013:17) suggest that the teacher can set aside some class time to teach learners how to use the technological equipment required to produce a dst before embarking on a project. conclusions pre-service teachers of this study had first-hand experience of making their own digital storytelling (dst). as a result, they were motivated to use dst during in-service practice. the use of digital stories in a classroom can be an effective tool for teaching and learning as it involves many skills. however, according to the teachers, the deeper impact of digital storytelling is when learners think critically about how to integrate their story with audio and visual components. despite the many benefits of dst which may influence teachers’ uptake of dst during inservice training, some pre-service teachers believe that a lack of resources, self-confidence and time due to restrictive curricula may prevent their uptake of dst during in-service practice. pre-service teachers indicated that they might not use technology in the lower grades because learners may not be able to deal with certain social issues and technological equipment. it was argued by the majority of pre-service teachers that teachers could still use dst with lower grades but the theme or topic should be age-appropriate. in addition, some teachers indicated that they lacked technological knowledge of how to teach with dst although they valued the importance of dst in today’s classroom. as a result these teachers plan to undergo further training to augment their skills. it is recommended that teacher education programmes strive to balance all three knowledge streams: content, pedagogy and technology. this is because the pre-service teachers lacked technological compared to content and pedagogical knowledge. furthermore, to school stakeholders, it was pointed out that they should not only deploy technological equipment in school but they must create balance between extrinsic and intrinsic factors that may encourage teachers to use dst. in schools with technological resources, teachers may still resist integrating dst into their curriculum delivery due to their beliefs, attitude and selfefficacy towards technology. limitations of this research/study: the findings cannot be generalised, since the focus is on pre-service isp teachers of 2013. the result might be different given a different set of students with different experiences of producing dst. as a recommendation for further study, pre-service teachers could be tracked in their classrooms during in-service practice to ascertain the benefits of dst in a classroom setting. this is important as there is a great gap between pre-service and in-service training as teachers perceptions may change based on the school they find themselves. tiba, condy, chigona & tunjera 298 acknowledgments we are grateful to the intermediate senior phase students of 2013 for their insightful comments and to the staff 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(2011). educational uses of digital storytelling around the world. in m. koehler & p. mishra (eds.), proceedings of society for information technology and teacher education international conference 2011 (1264-1271). chesapeake, va: aace. retrieved from http://www.warehouse.olc.edu/khecrow/webfolder/site_digitalstorytelling abstract introduction background to the establishment of orania literature review methodology sentiment analysis results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) eduan kotzé department of computer science and informatics, university of the free state, south africa burgert senekal unit for language facilitation and empowerment, university of the free state, south africa citation kotzé, e. & senekal, b., 2018, ‘employing sentiment analysis for gauging perceptions of minorities in multicultural societies: an analysis of twitter feeds on the afrikaner community of orania in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a564. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.564 original research employing sentiment analysis for gauging perceptions of minorities in multicultural societies: an analysis of twitter feeds on the afrikaner community of orania in south africa eduan kotzé, burgert senekal received: 19 apr. 2018; accepted: 31 july 2018; published: 15 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract south africa is well known as a country characterised by racial and ethnic divisions, particularly for the divisions and conflicts between the white population and black population. this study uses the twitter platform to analyse the discourse around the controversial town of orania, a minority afrikaner community that aims to preserve their afrikaner culture. in doing so, we make use of sentiment analysis, a subfield of natural language processing (nlp). we follow a lexicon-based approach using four different publicly available data sets to test how the discourse around this minority community can be analysed. we show, based on the discourse on orania on twitter, that (1) orania is mostly depicted in a negative light, (2) orania is mostly seen as a racist community, and (3) orania is often mentioned in reference to other issues that affect afrikaners directly, such as farm attacks, first language education and land expropriation without compensation. our study also shows that using lexicons as a sentiment analysis technique was not sufficient in the automatic detection of abusive language, but rather the sentiment of the tweet. suggestions are made for further research that focuses on the automatic detection of abusive language online. introduction south africa is a diverse country renowned for its racial and cultural tensions. in recent years, commentators such as khoza (2017b), roets (2017), brink and mulder (2017) and steward (2016) have noted an increase in racial tensions as witnessed on social media platforms. social media platforms are a group of internet-based applications that allow for the creation and exchange of data that are generated by people. gundecha and liu (2012) describe the different types of social media applications such as online social networking (facebook, myspace, linkedin), blogs (engadget), microblogging (twitter, tumblr, plurk), social news (digg, reddit), media sharing (youtube, flickr) and wikis (wikipedia, wikitravel, wikihow). the most important social media platforms used to create and exchange user-generated content (ugc) are online social networking, microblogging and blogs (stieglitz & dang-xuan 2013). one of the most prominent microblogging platforms is twitter.com (http://www.twitter.com/), which has grown steadily in its adoption as the main microblogging platform in south africa over the last few years. in a recent survey, world wide worx (2016) reports that twitter is used by approximately 7.7 million people in south africa, making it the third most used social media platform after youtube (8.74 million) and facebook (14 million). some recent important debates under the hashtags #feesmustfall and #statecapture have also drawn much attention to how the general public can voice their opinions using social media (findlay 2015), and one could add the conflict around the hashtag #winniemandela as a more recent example of how ethnic tensions play out on social media. sentiment analysis, a widely adopted big data analytics technique, is often used to mine customers’ views and opinions from online social media platforms (pang & lee 2008). sentiment analysis is a growing focus area of natural language processing (nlp) used to determine whether a text, or part of it, is subjective or not, and if subjective, whether it expresses a positive, negative or neutral view (taboada 2016). sentiment analysis of microblogging data, such as twitter, has attracted much attention in recent years, both in industry and in academia. the reasons are mainly because of the rapid growth in twitter’s popularity as a platform for people to express their opinions and attitudes towards topics of interest. not only is twitter popular, the platform also contains an enormous volume of text as well as links to external media, including websites that are visible to subscribed users to that service (pak & paroubek 2010). this makes it an invaluable research resource for sentiment analysis, a field associated with extracting sentiments (or opinions) from unstructured text (such as twitter messages). the purpose of this study is to investigate the discourse surrounding the community of orania by using the sentiment analysis on tweets and whether this approach is effective at gauging the public perception about a minority community. the rest of this article is organised as follows. firstly, we provide some background to the establishment of orania. thereafter, we describe business intelligence, sentiment analysis and related work. we then include an outline of the methodology and the data used for analysis, and highlight the results. after this section, we discuss the findings and whether it is applicable in gauging sentiment for a minority community. background to the establishment of orania since united by the british empire in 1910 when the union of south africa was established, south africa has struggled with accommodating its various ethnic groups. although best known for the conflict between black population and white population because of apartheid, these groups are themselves also diverse and have often been in conflict. one solution to the problem of handling such a diverse population, and in following the european example (see muller 2008), is to divide the country so that each population can achieve self-rule while still maintaining economic and other ties. muller (2008:27) argues that ethnic conflict was one of the primary causes of the two world wars and that aligning national borders with populations was proposed by winston churchill, franklin roosevelt and joseph stalin as ‘a prerequisite to a stable postwar order’. muller (2008) also quotes churchill from a speech to the british parliament in december 1944, where he referred to the forced resettlement of populations: expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. there will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble. … a clean sweep will be made. (p. 27) this was the original notion behind apartheid, which was formally introduced in 1948: each population would gain independence and self-rule in their own geographic area. prime minister verwoerd, for instance phrased this view clearly on 20 may 1959: ‘die een beginsel is die vrymaking van die bantoe: die ander beginsel is die vrymaking van die blanke’ [the one principle is the liberation of the bantu: the other principle is the liberation of whites] (pelzer 1966:275). in other words, no population group would rule over another; each would follow the european example where nations ruled themselves in their own geographic area. to do this, attempts were made to expand the existing homelands and grant them independence, with transkei being the first to gain independence in 1976 and bophuthatswana following in 1977. however, by this time it was already apparent that the homelands were not economically or politically viable, and alternative forms of partition were debated by, for instance tiryakian (1967), sulzberger (1977), von der ropp (see blenck & von der ropp 1977; von der ropp 1979; 1981; von der ropp & blenck 1976), lambsdorff (1986) and pabst (1996) (see also geldenhuys 1981:55). von der ropp, for instance proposed that south africa would be divided into a white part and black part, which would allow each part access to mines, harbours and large metropolitan areas that would give people access to land and economic resources. partition in the south african case did not and has not gained favour, neither nationally nor internationally, and in the run up to south africa’s first inclusive election in 1994, the leadership of most of these communities decided to opt for an inclusive ‘rainbow nation’ where all would integrate and work and live side by side. one of the communities that challenged this integrative solution was the afrikaner nationalist community. fearing that majority rule would eradicate minority rights, languages and communities (the afrikaner currently comprises 59.1% of the white population, which in turn comprises around 8% of the total south african population), it was proposed that the afrikaner establish a volkstaat (a country for the afrikaner) where they would rule themselves (hagen 2013; pienaar 2007; schönteich & boshoff 2003). the idea of violent cessation was discussed in the early 1990s, but given the cost of a civil war, the leading organisation that proposed this solution, the freedom front, reached a settlement with the african national congress (anc) that led to the inclusion of article 235 in the new south african constitution, which guarantees minorities’ right to self-determination. no volkstaat was however established. the afrikaner vryheidstigting (afrikaner freedom foundation), founded on 21 march 1988 and currently known as the orania beweging (orania movement), however sought a practical rather than political solution. in 1991, they bought the abandoned town of orania in the northern cape with the goal of establishing an afrikaner community here. a few hundred afrikaners moved here, and although initial progress was slow, in recent years this community has grown to around 1400 currently. orania now has its own bank, the orania spaar-en krediet koöperatief (orania savings and credit cooperative); uses its own ‘currency’, the ora (although tied to the south african rand); has a fast-growing economy; and exports products globally (see de beer 2006; hagen 2013; kotze 2003; labuschagne 2008; pienaar 2007; steyn 2005). part of the reason for orania’s recent growth has been the afrikaner’s increasing sense of marginalisation, as studied, for instance, by hermann (2006). affirmative action, the loss of first language education, negligible political power, crime, farm attacks and threats of violence by black political leaders have all contributed to many afrikaners questioning the viability of the rainbow nation. for instance, the leader of the third-largest political party, the economic freedom fighters (eff), julius malema, has repeatedly called for the dispossession of ‘whites’’ property and urged his followers to kill ‘boers’ (afrikaners). in 2017, brink and mulder (2017) compiled a report that shows numerous government officials calling for violence against afrikaners, while commentators such as khoza (2017b) and steward (2016) also note the increasing amount of hate speech directed towards whites on social media. at the time of writing, the south african government is in the process of evaluating how to expropriate land without compensation, and the discourse around the subject is often phrased in ethnic terms: black people are the ‘original’ owners and white people ‘stole’ the land and should therefore be dispossessed (see, e.g. eloff 2017; osborne 2018). importantly, a report by the south african institute on race relations, based on a nationwide study, notes that: … 61% of black respondents now agree that south africa is a country for blacks rather than whites, while only 38% disagree. this suggests that anc and eff rhetoric castigating whites and demanding a major shift in the ownership and management of the economy may be having significant impact on black opinion (jeffery 2018). from its inception, orania has been the target of fierce criticism. orania is often depicted in the media as a racist town, a leftover of apartheid populated by white people who refuse to abandon their prejudices (see, e.g. khan 2014; mcnally 2010; ngugi 2017). focusing on afrikaner culture, orania does not exclude anyone based on race, but in reality, the afrikaner – as a descendant of european settlers since 1652 – is a white community and no black people have settled in orania. this has led to orania becoming a synonym of racism. literature review business intelligence and sentiment analysis business intelligence and analytics (bi & a) is becoming increasingly important in analysing ugc, which includes sentiments, images and videos using big data analytics (chen, chiang & storey 2012). effective bi & a can be used to improve a firm or an organisation’s decision-making capabilities. other uses include improving operations, reducing marketing costs or simply obtaining a better understanding of customer preferences and opinions (wixom & watson 2010). one such an example is twitter sentiment analysis (tsa), where text mining techniques are used to mine messages posted on twitter. twitter, a microblogging platform, allows users to share short messages, links to other websites, images or videos. the message is written by one person and read by a number of individuals, called followers. most messages also contain hashtags, which in turn are used to indicate the relevance of a tweet to a certain topic. these hashtags are created using the # character, followed by the name of topic (#topic). twitter sentiment analysis tends to focus on the sentiment identification or sentiment classification of individual twitter messages, called tweets. generally, two main approaches are followed for tweet-level sentiment detection: machine learning and lexicon-based. the machine learning approach uses a sentiment classifier to determine the polarity of new texts (document, sentence or phrase). this process is referred to as supervised learning and requires training data to teach the sentiment classifier characteristics which distinguish a negative sentiment from a positive one (pang, lee & vaithyanathan 2002). the training data are usually labelled according to the tweet’s polarity (positive, negative and neutral) and can be inferred using hashtags and emoticons (go, bhayani & huang 2009), or by means of consensus using results from twitter sentiment websites (barbosa & feng 2010). the sentiment classifier algorithms, using the given training data set, build a predictive model to classify new incoming data. in the absence of sufficient manually labelled data, a semi-supervised approach can be followed to extend the existing training data set with newly labelled instances. twitter sentiment analysis, using a machine learning approach, has been applied extensively. some of the most applied sentiment classifiers include naïve bayes (nb), support vector machines (svm), maximum entropy (maxent), random forests and logistic regression (da silva & hruschka 2014; go et al. 2009; pak & paroubek 2010). an important drawback of supervised learning is that it tends to be domain-dependent and requires labelling of data in a new domain, or re-training new arriving data (taboada 2016). on the contrary, once a labelled data set is available, that is, where text has been labelled positive, negative or neutral, training is trivial, and a classifier can be built relatively quickly with programming languages such as python, which supports machine learning algorithms (pedregosa et al. 2011; perkins 2014; sarkar 2016). unlike sentiment classifiers, the lexicon-based approach does not require training data, but instead relies on a sentiment lexicon. the lexicon-based approach is a rule-based approach and is used to analyse text at the document or sentence level in conventional texts such as blogs, forums and product reviews (ding, liu & yu 2008; kim & hovy 2004; turney 2002). the lexicon-based approach can be used across different domains without changing the dictionaries, making it an attractive approach for tsa (taboada et al. 2011). in this approach, sentiment values of text are derived from the sentiment orientation of the individual words using an existing lexicon dictionary. the sentiment values provided by the model’s dictionary indicates a word’s polarity (e.g. awesome is positive and horrible is negative). when new text is classified, words in the text are matched to words in the dictionary, and using various algorithms, the values are aggregated into a sentiment score for the text. in general, lexicon-based approaches are more intuitive, robust and easier to implement than supervised learning approaches. for example, lexicon-based approaches have been shown to be successful on conventional text, as well as tweets (mohammad, kiritchenko & zhu 2013; thelwall, buckley & paltoglou 2012; thelwall et al. 2010). however, unlike the machine learning approach, lexicon-based methods are less explored in tsa, tsa is less explored mainly because of the uniqueness of tweet messages (words such as gr8 and yolo) and the dynamic nature with new hashtags emerging daily (giachanou & crestani 2016). related work sentiment analysis is often used in recommendation systems, online advertising systems and question-answering systems (pang & lee 2008). more recent studies include business and governments mining opinions from human-authored documents to assist with reputation management (seebach, beck & denisova 2012). other applications include mining twitter data for opinions and sentiments during political elections (tumasjan et al. 2010), stock market indicators (bollen, mao & zeng 2011) and identifying social issues during natural disasters (neppalli et al. 2017). in addition to these, sentiment analysis can also explore how news events affect public opinion. for example, in a study conducted by wang et al. (2012), a real-time sentiment analysis model was used to evaluate responses to and public opinion regarding the 2012 us presidential election, while a more recent study by jiang, lin and qiang (2016) assessed public opinion during the whole life cycle of a large hydro project. in addition to these studies, real-world applications, such as we feel, are made available to the public to gauge and explore the real-time signal of the world’s emotional state (milne et al. 2015). however, in south africa the sentiment analysis of microblogging data has received very limited attention (see ridge, johnston & o’donovan 2015; swart, hardenberg & linley 2012). methodology corpus twitter provides two application programming interfaces (apis) to access and collect data – rest api and streaming api. the twitter search api is part of twitter’s rest api and allows search against a sample of recent tweets published in the past 7 days. the twitter streaming api, on the contrary, provides developers’ low-latency access to twitter’s global stream of tweet data over a longer period. both the twitter search api and twitter stream api were used to collect a sample data set. a python 2.7 tweet collector application was developed for the twitter streaming api to collect the responses from the public stream, all in json format. twitter archiver, a publicly available plugin for google sheets, was used to collect and archive tweets from the twitter search api (agarwal 2015). as the study focuses on the minority community of orania, tweets were downloaded with the keyword orania or hashtag #orania in both apis. sample data were collected over a single month (09 september 2017 to 09 october 2017) using both apis. the twitter streaming api tweet application collected 272 tweets, while twitter archiver collected 895 tweets. as the study’s aim is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the public sentiments about a minority community, the twitter archiver was used for further data collection. in total, 10 104 tweets were collected and archived between 09 september 2017 and 15 march 2018. the data set was then filtered according to language, where only english tweets were selected using google’s detectlanguage() function. this function is offered as part of google’s spreadsheet function list and calls the google translation api to detect the language of a string parameter (google 2018). next, all tweets unrelated to the orania community were removed. the final corpus consisted of 7192 tweets, with 5309 unique tweeters and an average number of words of 16.92 words per tweet. text preprocessing basic linguistic preprocessing is required to prepare the lexical source for sentiment analysis, as most forms of social media (except reviews) are very noisy. this function includes preprocessing tasks and methods that include data cleansing, tokenisation and syntactic parsing (dey & haque 2009). firstly, external links and user names (signified by @ sign) were eliminated. we replaced all urls with a tag ||http_url|| and targets (e.g. ‘@john’) with tag ||at_user||. special care was also taken with elongated words. we replaced a sequence of two or more repeated characters by two characters, for example we converted ‘huuuuuungry’ to ‘huungry’. special characters ($, % and #) and punctuation marks (full stops, commas, question marks and exclamation marks) were removed, except emoticons, as people often use the latter to express sentiment with tokens such as ‘:)’, ‘:-)’ or ‘:(‘. because of the small corpus size, retweets (tweets that are re-distributed and start with ‘rt’) were kept in the corpus. we also applied automatic filtering to remove duplicate tweets, and tweets that were not written in english. after cleaning, we performed sentence segmentation, which separates a tweet into individual sentences. as is standard in nlp practices, the sentences were tokenised. several tokenisers were investigated and the tweettokenizer as part of the national language toolkit (nltk) by bird, klein and loper (2009) was found to be best suited for the study. the tokeniser handles emoticons, html tags, urls, retweets, user mentions and unicode characters correctly. finally, all english stop-words (i.e. words that are common words with low discriminating power, e.g. the, is and who) were removed and the remaining tokens were converted to lowercase. negation and modifiers handling negation refers to the process of converting words from positive to negative, or negative to positive by using special words: never, no, not and n’t. handling negation is an important step of sentiment analysis as the negation can influence the sentiment of a text. a simple implementation strategy of handling negation was followed in this study: if a negation word is found, the polarity score of the word following the negation is reversed. a similar strategy was followed handling modifier words such as very, much and really. the polarity of the word following the modifier was adjusted with a factor of 1.3, thus increasing or decreasing the polarity of the word. sentiment analysis the design of the sentiment model used in this study followed the lexicon-based approach using two lexicon dictionaries. this was because of the lack of sufficient training data and the notion that the lexicon-based approach can function without any corpus and does not require any training. a python 2.7 sentiment analysis classifier was developed to handle the preprocessing, negation, modifiers and score each sentiment. the sentiment score of each tweet was derived using the polarity scores of each word found in the lexicon dictionaries. the scores were then used in a classification method to classify the polarity of the tweets into either positive, negative or neutral categories. lexicons used the sentiment analyser employed two lexicon-based dictionaries, namely bing liu’s opinion lexicon (hu & liu 2004) and the national research council canada (nrc) hashtag sentiment lexicon (mohammad, kiritchenko & zhu 2013). the opinion lexicon, assembled by hu and liu, consists of 6789 words and is divided into two lists of words: one containing positive (n = 2006) and one containing negative words (n = 4783). these words were manually extracted from customer reviews. examples of positive opinion words are beautiful, wonderful and good, and examples of negative opinion words are bad, poor and terrible. the nrc hashtag sentiment lexicon by mohammad and colleagues consists of 54 129 unigram words associated with positive and negative sentiment and was generated automatically from tweets with sentiment-word hashtags such as #amazing and #terrible. the lexicon contains 32 048 positive and 22 081 negative words. score aggregation given a tweet t, the sentiment words were first identified by matching with the words in the two sentiment lexicons. we then compute an orientation score for the tweet t. using, for example the lexicon of hu and liu (2004), a positive word is assigned the semantic orientation score of +1, and a negative word is assigned the semantic orientation score of −1. a similar approach is followed using the lexicon of mohammad, kiritchenko and zhu (2013). the sentiment score of a tweet t is then calculated as the sum of scores of its sentiment words divided by the number of words with scores to produce an average score. evaluation measures precision, recall, f-measure and accuracy are evaluation metrics used to evaluate the performance of a sentiment analyser (go et al. 2009). these evaluation metrics are used within a confusion matrix to indicate true positives (tp), true negatives (tn), false positives (fp) and false negatives (fn). true positives or negatives are correctly predicted values, which means the value of the tweet sentiment and the value of the predicted tweet sentiment are the same. false positives or negatives are incorrectly predicted values, which means the value of the tweet sentiment and the value of the predicted tweet sentiment are not the same. precision measures the ratio of correctly predicted positive instances among the identified positive or negative tweets. precision (p) is defined as the number of true positives over the number of true positives plus the number of false positives (fp). recall measures the ratio of correctly predicted positive instances among all the positive or negative tweets. recall (r) is defined as the number of true positives (tp) over the number of true positives plus the number of false negatives (fn). accuracy is the most intuitive measure among these and measures the ratio of correctly predicted instances among all the tweets. finally, the f-measure (or f1 score) is the weighted average of precision and recall. the formulas for the evaluation measures are given as follows: method evaluation and results to evaluate the accuracy, recall and precision of the polarity classification method, a publicly available data set available within nltk was used. the twitter samples data set (bird, klein & loper 2009) contains 20 000 annotated tweets that were collected in july 2015 from the twitter streaming api. the tweets were grouped into positive and negative tweets using happy emoticons (e.g. ‘:)’, ‘:-)’, ‘=)’ and ‘:d’) and sad emoticons (e.g. ‘:(’, ‘:-(’, ‘=(’ and ‘;(’). the two groups were of similar size, each consisting of 10 000 tweets. a comparison was made to evaluate the effectiveness of the polarity classification method with other sentiment analysers, which included pattern (de smedt & daelemans 2012) and afinn (nielsen 2011). both sentiment analysers make provision for sentiment classification using a lexicon. the afinn lexicon consists of 2477 words that have been purposefully created for sentiment analysis of microblogging messages such as tweets. the pattern lexicon is a subjectivity lexicon-based on english adjectives, where adjectives have a polarity (negative or positive, −1.0 to +1.0) and a subjectivity (objective or subjective, +0.0 to +1.0) score. the results in table 1 show that the lexicon-based classification method performed similarly when compared to other sentiment analysers. table 1: summary of sentiment classification results (in percentages). on average, the polarity classification method using the nrc hashtag sentiment lexicon scored 63.40% for precision, 63.33% for recall, 63.28% for f-measure with an accuracy of 63.33%. the results of the polarity classification method using the opinion lexicon were on average 65.70% for precision, 63.24% for recall, 61.74% for f-measure with an accuracy of 63.24%. these results were very similar to the results of the sentiment analysers being used in afinn and pattern. on average, afinn scored 63.81% for precision, 63.54% for recall and 63.36% for f-measure, while pattern on average scored 64.55% for precision, 63.65% for recall and 63.08% for f-measure. for the purpose of sentiment analysis, our method was used using the nrc hashtag sentiment lexicon. the results will now be presented. sentiment analysis results to gain an understanding into the data set, the corpus was first analysed in terms of word frequencies. thereafter, a time-series analysis was conducted, followed by a sentiment analysis of the twitter data. content analysis a word frequency analysis revealed the top hashtags used in the corpus of english tweets. some of the most popular hashtags included #languagepolicy (n = 112), #blackmonday (n = 56), #hoërskoolovervaal (n = 42), #ann7prime (n = 36), #dstv405 (n = 36), #eff (n = 35), #effmarch (n = 33), #afriforum (n = 19), #blackfriday (n = 12), #pagans (n = 11), #racists (n = 11) and #kalushi (n = 11). a word frequency analysis was also performed on the words (excluding hashtags) used in the corpus. some of the most popular words included go (n = 351), people (n = 337), apartheid (n = 268), white (n = 259), land (n = 169), bursting (n = 167), allowed (n = 153), government (n = 152), university (n = 131), move (n = 130), solidarity (n = 113), racist (n = 112) and racists (n = 95). to gain a better understanding about the sequence of words, tweets features based on word n-grams (4-gram) were created to identify underlying themes (see table 2). table 2: n-gram word sequences and themes. the following tweets recorded the highest number of retweets: “another whites only settlement in south africa kleinfontein sister town to orania” (n = 1348) “@effsouthafrica please table a motion to disband orania, declare #afriforum as a right wing movement and ensure they feel the heat” (n = 176) “south africa: orania schools bursting at the seams” (n = 117) “afriforum and solidarity must go open their university in orania. #languagepolicy” (n = 111) “welcome to orania a whites only settlement in south africa” (n = 95) “the orania land was bought in the 80s to prepare for the end of apartheid. the anc knew about it then. madiba visited verwoerd’s widow there. they have a museum honouring all apartheid presidents except de klerk. statue of verwoerd looks over the town. i wrote a paper on this” (n = 75) “paarl is the kind of town white people move to when they miss apartheid but dont want the commitment orania requires” (n = 66) “you know what’s scary? that orania is protected by the constitution. what’s even more scary is that the kids who go to primary and high school in orania can go to any university in the country! multiracial and all! and we think racism is going to fall? funny!” (n = 52) tweet time-series analysis from a preliminary time-series analysis, several target dates showed an above average number of tweets (> 24.81), which would suggest that the hashtag #orania or keyword orania were tweeted frequently that day on twitter. the content of these tweets referred to specific news events in south africa during the data collection period, which are given in table 3. table 3: political or news events. tweet trending analysis results the tweet corpus was analysed for retweet trends (i.e. tweets that are retweeted over a short period of time). results can be seen in figure 1. figure 1: retweet trends. the tweets that were retweeted the most are presented in table 4. table 4: tweets that were retweeted the most. sentiment analysis results because the proposed method produced a consistent level of accuracy in comparison with other sentiment analysers, the english tweet corpus was analysed by the polarity classification method. in addition to this, afinn and pattern were also used as sentiment analysers. a threshold of zero was used to classify the tweets into positive, neutral or negative groupings. in other words, if the score was 0, which indicates no sentiment value, the tweet was classified as neutral. a score of +0 was considered positive, and a score of −0 was considered negative. the results of the sentiment analyser in terms of polarities are shown in tables 5 and 6, with some annotations in table 7. table 5: results of the sentiment analysis (with retweets, n = 7192). table 6: results of the sentiment analysis (without retweets, n = 2649). table 7: examples of sentiment classifications. the varied results suggest that a lexicon is dependent on a particular domain. for example, the lexicon opinion words were extracted from customers reviews, which are not limited to 140 characters associated with twitter messages. the hashtag sentiment lexicon, on the contrary, was generated from tweets with sentiment-word hashtags, and thus, are much closer associated with the corpus used in this study. we were surprised at the results of the afinn, whose lexicon was also generated from tweets. the afinn lexicon, however, only consists of 2477 words, while the nrc-canada hashtag sentiment lexicon consists of 54 129 unigram, and therefore, would be able to score more words than the afinn lexicon. for these reasons, the study will use the results of the nrc lexicon in our discussion. discussion the results above clearly show that orania is associated with racism. whether or not the community actually see themselves as a ‘whites only’ community, word frequencies and trending tweets clearly show an association with racism. the nrc lexicon’s results, as shown in tables 5 and 6 above, also indicate that the majority of unique tweets without retweets (63.95%), as well as total tweets (50.47%), have a negative sentiment towards orania. twitter is clearly used as a platform to share negative sentiments about orania. this is to be expected, as an afrikaner-only community that goes against the dominant ideology and government policy of integration in a majority black country is bound to elicit fierce criticism. note also that the word racist has a score of −1.377 in the nrc lexicon, while apartheid has a score of −4.999 and racists a score of −2.699; and given the high frequency with which these words occur in the corpus, a substantial part of the total negativity score can be attributed to the frequent occurrence of these negative words. interestingly though, these negative tweets are all from outside the community: we checked for overtly racist tweets coming from users identified as people living in orania and did not find a single occurrence. racial slurs are limited to references to ‘white pigs’, while no slurs targeting black people occur in this corpus. the time-series analysis above also shows that orania is part of the south african political landscape, especially where issues affect afrikaners. the high number of tweets associated with the black monday protests on 30 october 2017, the issue surrounding the language policy at the university of the free state, the issue around hoërskool overvaal and afrikaans as a medium of instruction, the election of cyril ramaphosa as south africa’s new president and the debate around land expropriation are all issues that affect afrikaners directly. whenever a major event occurs that affects afrikaners, mentions of orania rise. in line with commentators such as steward (2016) noting that anti-white sentiment on social media platforms is on the increase, negative sentiment towards orania is also tied to negative sentiments towards afrikaners. black monday is a case in point: the nationwide protest against farm murders was condemned as racist by the anc, eff and black first land first (blf) (khoza 2017a; mphahlele 2017), and this was accompanied by tweets such as: ‘orania racists are out in our streets today #blackmonday’. ‘orania is basically an old apartheid flag, been provoking #blackmonday’. and: ‘that @username [from afriforum] is just a piece of racist crap. he’s representing a bunch of rightwingers who are bitter, they can go to hell or orania if they so wish.’ however, our classifier had limited success when identifying the most negative tweets. the most negative tweets (−0.9 to−0.999) in this corpus, together with the polarity score of each word, are shown in table 8. the words that contributed most to a tweet’s negative polarity are in bold. table 8: the most negative tweets. none of these tweets are exceedingly negative, with some actually positive. tweet no. 10, for instance conveys a positive idea. table 9 shows more examples of positive tweets that received a negative classification. table 9: positive tweets with negative sentiments. on the contrary, some exceedingly negative tweets were underestimated, as shown in table 10. table 10: underestimated negative tweets. through our analysis, it became clear that more research needs to be performed on identifying hate speech and racist rhetoric. numerous tweets about orania go beyond the sharing of a negative opinion and can be considered examples of abusive language. future research could follow the line of research conducted by tulkens et al. (2016) and work towards the automatic detection of abusive language, which is an especially important research area given the recent cases of hate speech and racism in the south african media. note also that these negative tweets are about orania: we did not find a single tweet of someone defending orania using such racist or hateful language. we should note a few important limitations of the study. twitter is not representative of the general population: twitter users tend to be young and urban, and hence, one cannot generalise our results to conclude that the general south african population regards orania in a negative light. furthermore, from manually examining the user profile pictures and usernames of the top 50 tweeters (people), we deduce that the vast majority of users are not afrikaners. hence, the negative sentiment towards orania does not include the perspectives of a substantial number of afrikaners themselves. a future study will investigate the views of afrikaners, but that will involve using social media platforms other than twitter, for example facebook. conclusion the rise of social media brought a wealth of data that can aid in the understanding of social issues. this article showed some of the potential and limitations when using sentiment analysis to extract meaning from unstructured text when trying to gauge the opinions people have of a community. in the case of orania, it was shown how negatively this community is portrayed on twitter. it was also shown how the discourse on this community is tied to the discourse on the afrikaner in general through the fact that mentions of orania rise when major issues occur that concern the afrikaner. one of the most important avenues for future research that was identified in this study is the need to identify racist and hate speech. some of the tweets clearly showed undertones of hate speech (see example 3 in table 10). however, the automatic detection of abusive language online is an open challenge for nlp and still an emerging research field. our study found that using lexicons as sentiment analysis technique was not sufficient in the automatic detection of hate speech, but rather the sentiment of the tweet. possible future research could consider using collocation extractions, as most words are not offensive in themselves but become offensive with other words or word combinations. in particular, word embeddings (mikolov, yih & zweig 2013) could be useful. machine learning, which is a subfield of artificial intelligence, could also be used as a statistical approach to train an automatic detection system to ‘learn by example’. given the continuing and escalating racial divisions in south africa, this avenue of research can open up new opportunities to gauge the level of tolerance or lack thereof that characterise the south african society. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to tom de smedt and walter daelemans from the computational linguistics and psycholinguistics research centre (clips) for their helpful comments and advice in developing the sentiment classifier. they also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and advice. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions e.k. was the project leader and was responsible for experimental and project design and performed most of the experiments. b.s. made a conceptual contribution and ensured the overall scientific rigour of the project. references agarwal, a., 2015, how to save tweets for any twitter hashtag in a google sheet, viewed 12 march 2018, from https://www.labnol.org/internet/save-twitter-hashtag-tweets/6505/ barbosa, l. & feng, j., 2010, ‘robust sentiment detection on twitter from biased and noisy data’, coling ‘10 proceedings of the 23rd international conference on computational linguistics: posters, august 23– 27, 2010, beijing, 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http://www.worldwideworx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/social-media-2017-executive-summary.pdf abstract introduction and background to the study contextual setting of the study problem statement significance of the study literature review research methodology data collection data analysis trustworthiness of the study results and discussion limitations of the study conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) asphat muposhi department of marketing and sport management, faculty of management sciences, vaal university of technology, south africa manilall dhurup department of marketing and sport management, faculty of management sciences, vaal university of technology, south africa citation muposhi, a. & dhurup, m., 2017, ‘to blend or not to blend? consumer attitudes towards mandatory use of ethanol-blended fuel in zimbabwe’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a417. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.417 original research to blend or not to blend? consumer attitudes towards mandatory use of ethanol-blended fuel in zimbabwe asphat muposhi, manilall dhurup received: 17 feb. 2017; accepted: 26 apr. 2017; published: 22 june 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract worldwide, the use of bioethanol is proliferating as an alternative to fossil fuels. consistent with this trend, the zimbabwean government mandated the blending of unleaded petrol with 10% ethanol. as the use of ethanol-blended fuel is still at the infancy stage in zimbabwe, the objective of this study was to explore consumer attitudes towards mandatory use of ethanol-blended petrol. the study employed a qualitative research design, and data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews from motorists who regularly use blended fuel. thematic content analysis was used to analyse interview transcripts. the study showed that the market acceptance of blended fuel remains low in zimbabwe. the main themes that characterised consumer attitudes towards blended fuel were cynicism, misinformation, unavailability and risk perception. overall, the study found that the use of ethanol-blended fuel remains a contested terrain in zimbabwe and there is a need for consumer education to correct misconceptions prevailing in the marketplace. introduction and background to the study in recent years, motorists have witnessed the resurgence of biofuel as an alternative to fossil fuels (algier 2014; jaeger & egelkraut 2011; kallas & gil 2014). biofuel lost its market appeal during the 21st century owing to the growth of the petroleum industry (cacciatore, scheufele & shaw 2012). the renewed interest in biofuel is spurred by the need to reduce greenhouse gases, growth in climate change concerns and volatility of global oil prices (khachatryan, joireman & casavant 2013; pacini et al. 2013). for this reason, several countries have crafted and implemented policies and legislation aimed at promoting the use of biofuel (negash & swinnen 2013; proost & van dender 2012). globally, brazil, the united states and china are the top producers of biofuel (hertel & tyner 2013). in southern africa, mozambique, zambia, south africa, malawi and zimbabwe are some of the countries that have invested significantly in the production of biofuel (saruchera, phiri & chitakunye 2014). this was motivated by the significant potential of biofuel in southern african countries owing to favourable climatic conditions for the production of biofuel crops (chakauya, beyene & chikwamba 2009). in southern africa, the use of bioethanol has largely been promoted by way of mandates ranging from e2 to e10 in south africa and e10 in mozambique, zambia, zimbabwe and malawi (henley 2014). according to henley, malawi is the only southern african country that has managed to successfully implement and sustain biofuel mandates since 1982. contextual setting of the study the study took place in zimbabwe, where the mandatory use of ethanol-blended fuel continues to generate polarised views from key stakeholders (chawafambira 2014; pickelsimer & esterhuizen 2011; thondhlana 2014). in zimbabwe, the use of ethanol as a fuel blend started in the early 1980s but was later suspended because of the 1992 drought that affected the production of sugar cane (saccharum officinarum) (chakauya et al. 2009). interest in biofuel was reignited by acute fuel shortages in the early to mid-2000s coupled with the need to reduce over-reliance on imported fuel (saruchera et al. 2014). the zimbabwean government’s biofuel policy promotes the use of jatropha (jatropha curcas) and sugar cane for the production of biofuel (pickelsimer & esterhuizen 2011). to demonstrate its commitment to migrate to biofuel, in 2007, the zimbabwean government commissioned a biodiesel plant with a capacity to produce 10 000 litres per annum in mount hampden (saruchera et al. 2014). this was followed by the installation of an ethanol distillery plant with an estimated annual capacity of 100 million litres of ethanol in chisumbanje in south-eastern zimbabwe in 2011 (pickelsimer & esterhuizen 2011). the chisumbanje ethanol project is supported by triangle limited and hippo valley limited, which are the main sugar milling companies in zimbabwe (pickelsimer & esterhuizen 2011). in october 2013, through statutory instrument 17, the zimbabwean government directed the mandatory blending of unleaded petrol with 5% locally produced ethanol (ministry of energy and power development 2013). in november 2013, the blending ratio was increased to e10, which is a volumetric mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% petrol (pembere 2013). currently, green fuel ltd is the only company that has the licence to produce ethanol for blending purposes in zimbabwe (saruchera et al. 2014). it is envisaged that in the long-term, bioethanol will contribute a significant percentage of zimbabwe’s liquid fuel consumption (pickelsimer & esterhuizen 2011). problem statement the mandatory blending of petrol with ethanol (e10) was received with mixed views in zimbabwe (pembere 2013; pickelsimer & esterhuizen 2011). critics of ethanol-blended fuel pointed out its threats to environmental sustainability and food security (lazarus 2014; thondhlana 2014). supply chain bottlenecks were also reported as a number of fuel distributors were reluctant to stock and sell blended fuel (moyo et al. 2014; saruchera et al. 2014). additionally, a trend was noted where motorists deliberately avoided using blended fuel and in some instances convinced with fuel distributors to sell them unblended fuel (chawafambira 2014). however, proponents of biofuel heralded it as a solution to energy security (chakauya et al. 2009). given this background, this study explored consumer attitudes towards mandatory use of blended fuel in zimbabwe. it is worth noting that previous studies that have been conducted thus far focused mainly on the social impact of ethanol production and its effect on sustainable development (moyo et al. 2014; thondhlana 2014). until now, little was known about consumer attitudes towards the use of blended fuel in zimbabwe. this is despite the fact that consumer attitudes play a pivotal role in the market acceptance of biofuel (aguilar et al. 2015). this study, therefore, sought to answer the following research question: what are consumer attitudes towards mandatory use of ethanol-blended fuel in zimbabwe? significance of the study the use of ethanol-blended fuel is situated within the global debates on food security, climate change, environmental conservation and sustainable development (petrolia et al. 2010). the fact that the use of ethanol-blended fuel is mandated by the zimbabwe government and criticised by key stakeholders such as motorists, car manufacturers and fuel distributors raises pertinent questions such as: do motorists in zimbabwe perceive the production of ethanol as beneficial to the natural environment? do zimbabweans perceive the production of ethanol as a threat to food security? do motorists in zimbabwe consider the use of ethanol-blended fuel as a way of reducing over-dependence on imported fuel? do motorists in zimbabwe perceive the use of ethanol-blended fuel as a stimulus to economic growth? this study attempts to answer the foregoing questions with the objective of informing zimbabwean government’s policy on the use of blended fuel. literature review bioethanol production, food–fuel nexus and environmental sustainability debate bioethanol is emerging as an environment-friendly alternative to fossil fuel and its use is growing substantially (khachatryan et al. 2013). bioethanol is classified under the first-generation group of biofuels (kallas & gil 2014), which refer to a cohort of biofuels produced from food crops such as sugar cane, corn and sugar beets (lee & lavoie 2013). one of the advantages of using bioethanol as a fuel is that relatively less carbon dioxide is emitted as compared to fossil fuels (van de velde et al. 2009). this is particularly important in this era in which concerted efforts are being taken globally to reduce greenhouse gases (kallas & gil 2014; smith et al. 2013). additionally, the production of bioethanol contributes to employment creation, economic growth, infrastructure development and energy security (florin, van de ven & van ittersum 2014; smith et al. 2013). despite the noted advantages, the production of bioethanol is constrained by competing social, economic and environmental goals (cacciatore et al. 2012; mohr & raman 2013). food security is one of the major counter-arguments against the production of bioethanol (selfa et al. 2011). in what has been dubbed the ‘food–fuel nexus’, opponents of bioethanol argue that food security is threatened when significant portions of arable land are devoted to sugar cane production (huang et al. 2012). for example, the increase in food prices in the united kingdom between 2007 and 2008 was attributed to the growth in ethanol plantations that displaced food production (mohr & raman 2013). in order to reduce the food–fuel conflict, murphy et al. (2011) stress the need to formulate land management policies that promote synergies between food and fuel production. in the same vein, sims et al. (2010) suggest the use of marginal land or degraded land rather than arable land in ethanol production. other drawbacks of ethanol production include loss of entitlement to land by communities, social exclusion of local communities in ethanol projects and environmental degradation (florin et al. 2014). for instance, in 2011, infringements of human rights were reported in zimbabwe’s chisumbanje area where people were displaced to pave way for the ethanol plant. according to pickelsimer and esterhuizen (2011), this resulted in people being deprived of their land resulting in loss of livelihoods. critics of biofuel also contend that the intensive use of fertilisers and water in ethanol production results in loss of biodiversity (campbell & doswald 2009; pilgrim & harvey 2010). in addition, the possibility of a ‘blending wall’ is one of the major challenges that negatively affect the long-term prospects of bioethanol (zhang, qui & wetzstein 2010). according to aguilar et al. (2015), blending wall refers to a saturation point where limitations in blending ratios will ultimately result in excess supply, which potentially render further ethanol production unviable. although increasing blending ratios may seem to be a possible solution to the blending wall, aguilar et al. (2015) note that this route is belied by uncertainty over market acceptance and large-scale availability of flex-fuel cars. because of the aforementioned challenges, zhang et al. (2010) argue that it remains a challenge to ascertain with certainty the net environmental benefits of bioethanol. notwithstanding the aforementioned challenges, pilgrim and harvey (2010) note that bioethanol may prove to be a good alternative to fossil fuel if it is supported by strong governance premised on monitoring the environmental and social impact. research methodology the study was underpinned by the constructivism research paradigm. this research paradigm is generally recommended in exploratory studies (creswell 2009). the use of ethanol-blended fuel is at infancy stage in zimbabwe and, as such, constructivism research paradigm was considered as suitable for the study. additionally, by employing this paradigm the researcher was able to understand the lived experiences of participants in their interface with the phenomenon under study (guba & lincoln 1994). consistent with the constructivism research paradigm, by utilising in-depth interviews, the researcher managed to co-construct knowledge relating to consumer attitudes towards ethanol-blended fuel with the participants. in-depth interviews were selected as a research approach because they gave the researcher the opportunity to probe and clarify the views raised by participants (babbie 2013). in addition, semi-structured interviews accorded the researcher the flexibility to engage with participants with the aim of getting detailed insights of the phenomenon under study (fouché & de vos 2011). the target population of this study was motorists who use blended fuel. the participants were selected through the use of the purposive sampling method. this method was preferred as it allowed the researcher to select participants who were more knowledgeable about biofuel. the use of purposive sampling was particularly important given the prevalence of misconceptions and myths that characterises the use of ethanol-blended fuel in zimbabwe (saruchera et al. 2014). additionally, purposive sampling was employed as it enhanced the collection of rich data (bryman & bell 2015). data collection data were collected from motorists who use ethanol-blended petrol in harare, zimbabwe. harare was considered as the ideal setting for this study because of its stature as the economic hub of zimbabwe and it has high volumes of fuel consumption as compared to other cities (shonhiwa, nhamo & chinguwa 2013). semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted in harare from 26 june to 8 july 2016 with the aid of an interview guide. the interview guide consisted of questions on motorists’ knowledge of blended fuel, attitudes towards ethanol-blended petrol and factors that influence or inhibit the use of ethanol-blended petrol. prior to interviews, a pilot study was conducted with three participants to assess the appropriateness of the questions as well as to gauge the general attitude of participants towards the study. following the results of the pilot study, minor adjustments were effected to the interview guide. participants were screened by asking a general broad question on ethanol-blended fuel. only participants who showed detailed knowledge and enthusiasm on the subject were considered for in-depth interviews. the venues for the interviews were selected based on the convenience and accessibility of participants. after securing their consent, interviews were conducted following same procedures. with prior permission of participants, all interviews were recorded digitally and supplementary notes were jotted down. the recorded transcripts and interview notes were labelled properly for each interview. the dates of the interview including the gender of participants were indicated clearly. pseudo-names were used to enhance confidentiality and anonymity of participants. the duration of interviews ranged from 40 to 60 minutes. guided by principle of theoretical saturation of strauss and corbin (1998), interviews were conducted up to the point when no new information was emerging from participants. theoretical saturation was deemed to be achieved by the 20th interview. data analysis thematic content analysis was used to analyse data collected from in-depth interviews. this method involved identifying, analysing and reporting themes within the data (o’brien et al. 2014). using verbatim interview transcripts, thematic content analysis followed a three-stage process suggested by strauss and corbin (1998). the first stage involved listening to the audio-recorded interview transcripts and glancing through the interview notes with the objective of getting the general sense of the data. an iterative process was used to coalesce and classify emergent themes into broad categories. the objective of this stage was to capture as far as possible all pertinent concepts from interview transcripts (lawrence & tar 2013). the second stage, known as axial coding (strauss & corbin 1998), involved a detailed re-evaluation of interview notes with the objective of collapsing broad themes identified during open coding into specific themes. axial coding was done by identifying the interrelationships between sub-themes and merging them based on the associations between them (lawrence & tar 2013). the final stage, called selective coding (strauss & corbin 1998), involved the process of naming themes that emanated from the study including a concise qualitative description of each theme. trustworthiness of the study the study employed a number of strategies to enhance reliability and validity of findings. firstly, measures to enhance the trustworthiness of this study were incorporated deliberately in the research design process. effort was made to ensure that the sample was suitable for the study by employing purposive sampling (o’brien et al. 2014). secondly, a pilot study was conducted to enhance the reliability of interview questions (graneheim & lundman 2004). thirdly, the anonymity and confidentiality of all participants were guaranteed through the use of pseudo-names to ensure the generation of valid responses (silverman & marvasti 2008). fourthly, member checks were undertaken in which six participants who were readily available were requested to validate whether their views were properly captured in the study. the participants agreed that the themes that emerged from data analysis adequately captured views raised in the interviews. lastly, the interview transcripts were also independently analysed by two experts who were not directly involved in the study and there was consensus on the themes that emerged from the study. results and discussion this section presents the profile of participants and discusses the themes that emerged from data analysis. representative excerpts from interview transcripts are used to support the discussion. the findings of the study are discussed as follows: sample composition the sample consisted of 75% (n = 15) men and 25% (n = 5) women. the over-representation of male participants is a common feature in surveys involving zimbabwean motorists because there are more male than female drivers. in terms of education, almost half of the participants (55%; n = 11) had attained a diploma, 30% (n = 6) were degree holders and 15% had attained an advanced-level certificate. the majority age was 40–45 years (60%) followed by 35–39 years (30%) and 46–50 years (10%). all participants had more than five years of driving experience. in terms of ethnicity, the majority of the participants, 70% (n = 14), were black ethnicity and 30% (n = 6) were of mixed ethnicity. in terms of occupation, eight were teachers, four were mechanics, three were lecturers and five were self-employed entrepreneurs. the themes that emerged from data analysis were blending gap, cynicism, perceived risk, unavailability and unethical product. the themes are discussed as follows: blending gap the majority of participants (75%) pointed to the existence of a ‘blending gap’. the presence of the blending gap was manifested when participants acknowledged the potential benefits of using blended fuel yet at the same time expressed reluctance to use it. in particular, almost three-quarters of the participants rationalised their apathy towards blended fuel by citing its low energy content as compared to unblended fuel. tom’s comment, for instance, indicated the prevalence of the blending gap: ‘given our background of fuel shortages … blended fuel is a noble idea … but for me the decision to use blended or unblended petrol is informed by value for money.’ (tom, 41, male, teacher) ‘if i was given a choice i would prefer unblended fuel because i can drive more kilometres than when i am using blended.’ (pinky, 36, female, lecturer) the inferior tag attached to ethanol-blended fuel by pinky was also reported in previous studies on bioethanol acceptance (tyner & viteri 2010) and other products with pro-environmental attributes (hartmann & apaolaza-ibanez 2012). earlier studies conducted by gan et al. (2008) as well as ginsberg and bloom (2004) also note that consumers were not prepared to sacrifice quality for the sake of supporting environmental sustainability goals. based on this result, implementation of strategies aimed at bridging the blending gap needs to be prioritised. to do this, moyo et al. (2014) stresses the importance of generating awareness among the motoring public on the environmental, social and economic benefits of switching to blended fuel. consumer cynicism the majority of study participants (80%) expressed scepticism towards the mandatory use of ethanol-blended fuel. because of this scepticism, respondents indicated their unwillingness to use blended fuel. the sense of cynicism was explained by bobby in the following excerpt: ‘i really support the idea of blended fuel but the way it was introduced everything is secretive … you have one company benefiting, the biofuel policy and pricing model is not clear … this blending thing was forced on people without our input.’ (bobby, 44, male, entrepreneur) it is evident from the foregoing excerpt that the motorist perceives the use of blended fuel as a burden that was imposed on him. this feeling of being coerced resulted in negative attitudes towards blended fuel. this finding was also reported in previous similar studies (ricci, bellaby & flynn 2010; rogers et al. 2012) where lack of public consultation was cited as a key driver of consumer cynicism towards the use of bioethanol. for instance, rogers et al. (2012) note that lack of public involvement and participation in biofuel policy breeds a cohort of passive and unreflective consumers, and this acts as an impediment to mainstream adoption of biofuel. consumer scepticism was heightened by perceptions of unfair pricing as shown by tom’s remark: ‘when blending was introduced we thought that fuel price was going to be cheaper … but look we are still paying more even when global fuel prices are going down … we are being ripped off.’ (tom, 41, male, teacher) this view underscores the importance of transparency in the pricing of blended fuel. in order to generate primary demand, saruchera et al. (2014) recommended the use of incentives such as subsidies in order to promote market acceptance of blended fuel. this finding also points to the need for a comprehensive biofuel policy that considers the inputs of all key stakeholders. perceived risk the majority of participants (70%) indicated that their unwillingness to use ethanol-blended fuel was influenced by risks posed. the main concerns of motorists were centred on the compatibility of blended fuel with vehicle engines. these sentiments are illustrated by the following comments: ‘i am afraid to use blended fuel because i hear people saying it damages the engine … i don’t know whether blending ratios will be increased or not … which car to buy … even flex-fuel cars are still very limited here.’ (paddy, 36, male, mechanic) ‘i use blended fuel but i noticed that my engine is no longer performing well … i always visit a mechanic now … he told me that this fuel is corrosive and advised me to buy a fuel upgrade kit.’ (prim, 35, female, entrepreneur) the risk perceived by study participants adds on to the prevailing debate on the safety of blended fuel. this finding was also confirmed in a previous study by saruchera et al. (2014), which identified misinformation as one the barriers to the adoption of biofuel. in an attempt to address risks perceived by motorists, the ministry of energy and power development (2013) advised that the blending ratio of e10 complies with international standards and is compatible with most car engines in zimbabwe. overall, this finding underscores an urgent need for consumer education to allay misconceptions associated with the use of ethanol-blended fuel in zimbabwe. an undercurrent of uncertainty also fuels the perception of risk over the zimbabwean government’s long-term policy on the use of ethanol-blended fuel as captured in the following excerpt: ‘the whole issue is confusing … at one point we were told that the blending ratio was increased to e15 and was later reduced to e10 … some are saying it will be increased to e20 by year end … if you want to buy a new car it’s all confusing.’ (timmy, 48, male, mechanic) it is evident from timmy’s comment that uncertainty regarding government policy on blending ratios is diluting consumer confidence. in order to reduce uncertainty, there is need for a long-term policy on biofuel that is communicated well to the motoring public. unethical product the majority of participants (75%) regard ethanol-blended fuel as an unethical product associated with a number of societal costs. in particular, the overriding concern among most participants was that consumer rights and social responsibility obligations were sacrificed in an attempt to enhance energy security. this view was captured in the following excerpts: ‘i know a lot of my relatives who were deprived their land when that ethanol plant was built … they were promised jobs and financial compensation but up to now nothing happened and the government is not doing anything that’s why i shun anything associated with this fuel.’ (hazy, 39, female, teacher) ‘as a consumer i value my right to choose … by making the use of blended fuel mandatory, i believe my right to choose was violated.’ (harry, 48, male, lecturer) the foregoing quotes suggest that study participants felt a sense of psychological disengagement from the use of blended fuel. for example, hazy’s comment suggests that the tone of disengagement emanates from lack of tangible societal and individual benefits accruing from the use of ethanol-blended fuel. in order to enhance public acceptance of bioethanol, peters, fudge and sinclair (2010) stress the need for stakeholder involvement and effective monitoring of economic, social and environmental impact of biofuel production. unavailability there was broad consensus from participants that the use of ethanol-blended fuel was inconvenient because of its limited availability. this view is captured in the following excerpts: ‘if we are to use biofuel we need to get our supply in order … in most cases fuel stations ran out of fuel and people waste a lot of time looking for fuel.’ (pinky, 36, female, lecturer) another widely held view (65%) associated with unavailability of blended fuel was limited blending infrastructure. this view is encapsulated by the following comment: ‘i don’t make sense why the government grant licence to one company to supply the whole country … the blending facilities is very few and this result in shortages.’ (hazy, 39, female, teacher) hazy’s comment resonates with the findings of the study conducted by zapta and nieuwenhuis (2009), which found that instability in bioethanol supply results in perceptions of energy insecurity, which in turn affects adoption levels. overall, this result underscores the need to enhance capacity and supply of bioethanol in zimbabwe. for instance, moyo et al. (2014) note that mandatory blending is only effective if a stable supply chain backs it. in order to enhance availability, moyo et al. (2014) suggested the need to build capacity in terms of installation of blending pumps, storage tanks and distribution infrastructure compatible with e10. limitations of the study the findings of this study need to be considered in view of three notable limitations. firstly, the study employed a qualitative research design, which limits the generalisability of results. future studies may employ a survey method in order to generalise the findings to a broader population. secondly, this study relied on cross-sectional data, which limited the researcher in observing the changes in motorists’ attitudes towards blended fuel in the long-term. thirdly, the study was based on one developing country and this limits the extendibility of findings to other developing countries in africa. despite the noted limitations, the study offers a solid foundation for policymakers to develop policies that have the potential to enhance mainstream voluntary adoption of ethanol-blended fuel. conclusion the aim of this study was to explore consumer attitudes towards mandatory ethanol blending in zimbabwe. the results of the study showed that motorists have negative attitudes towards the use of blended fuel. cynicism, perceived risk, misinformation and unavailability were identified as the main impediments that need to be addressed to enhance the adoption of ethanol-blended fuel in zimbabwe. there is also a need for an integrated assessment of the environmental, social and economic implications of the use of blended fuel in zimbabwe. this will enable the government to formulate long-term policies for the implementation and coordination of the use of blended fuel in zimbabwe. the study also points to the need for capacity building to enhance availability, consumer education and stakeholder involvement in order to enhance the market acceptance of blended fuel. overall, the study provides valuable insights to other southern african countries that intend to mandate the use of ethanol-blended fuel. 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transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(4) december 2014, special edition: san dispute resolution, pp. 120-32. dispute resolution – an archaeological perspective with case studies from the south african stone age and san ethnography d morris1 abstract this paper presents an archaeological perspective on dispute resolution. being a discipline based primarily on tangible material remains, archaeology may be hard put to draw firm conclusions on a phenomenon whose expression is usually intangible. it nevertheless takes up the challenge to consider whether there are traces suggesting the successful avoidance of conflict in the past. drawing insights from south african stone age archaeology and san ethnography, the evidence of unperturbed continuance of a given cultural tradition is considered, as are indications of hxaro-like gift-giving mechanisms known to reduce tension in ethnographic instances of the recent past. findings based on such indicators may be ambiguous. evidence of negative outcomes in terms of conflict and homicide would be more obvious and pertinent to dispute resolution, specifically its failure. the role of “othering” in oral literature is referred to for situations where external social distance is emphasised or where regulation of inappropriate behaviour within a group is hinted at. the paper touches on the history of colonial encroachment and genocide in the karoo, and finally, on the role of heritage itself as it becomes a locus of dispute in the present. keywords: dispute resolution, archaeology, hxaro, conflict, heritage, san introduction the life of man left to its own natural ways, declared thomas hobbes (1588–1679), would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” famously countering this view, jean-jacques rousseau (1712–1778) proposed that “nothing is more peaceable than man in his primitive state” – a noble condition, indeed, to which civilisation was a threat. with these philosophical speculations in mind – as they resurface from time to time – this paper presents thoughts towards an archaeological perspective as background to the topic of discussion at the conference on san dispute resolution: resolving disputes the south african way (institute for dispute resolution in africa, unisa, 5–6 november 2014). insights are drawn mainly from south african archaeology, with some emphasis on material from the northern cape. the conference theme of dispute resolution per se is one not easily addressed through archaeology. archaeology is a discipline based primarily on tangible material remains, from which it seeks to flesh out the histories of people from a past that is remote in time, beyond – often far beyond – the reach of oral or written records. but dispute resolution, by its nature, tends to be an intangible phenomenon which, for as long as it is successful, may not generate a great deal in the way of material traces – and hence it is a feature of human life that archaeology may be hard put to demonstrate in any substantial and unambiguous way. the converse applies of course that for as long as dispute remains unresolved, a range of distinctly material consequences may ensue. there is indeed a sub-discipline within archaeology 1 . dr david morris is head of archaeology at the mcgregor museum kimberley, p.o. box 316, kimberley, 8300 and affiliated with the department of heritage studies, sol plaatje university, kimberley. email: dmorriskby@gmail.com dispute resolution – south african stone age case studies td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 120-32. 121 devoted to conflict, having even its own journal of conflict archaeology, addressing every conceivable aspect of violence and dispute, from battlefields to street protests, forensic work and human rights issues, and even conflict over landscapes and monuments, i.e. archaeology itself. this paper takes up the challenge to consider whether there are traces that, as a positive outcome of dispute resolution, might suggest a successful avoidance of conflict by and large. these would be situations that generally lack the proverbial smoking gun – evidence perhaps of an unperturbed continuance, endurance or stability through time of a given cultural tradition (not that successful dispute resolution would necessarily be the principal or most significant factor in such scenarios – but it would doubtless be part of the mix). ethnographic evidence is cited of distinctive gift-exchange and sharing practices amongst hunter-gatherers, taken by anthropologists to be a kind of “insurance” and of tension-releasing reciprocity between individuals and groups. it has been argued that these practices may be detected archaeologically and are, evidently, a feature of the later stone age in south africa. in contrast, the paper looks to evidence of negative outcomes, for example the incidence of homicide and interpersonal violence, where this can be shown. also relevant perhaps would be indications of more or less strong assertions of territoriality, reflecting actual or potential tensions that may have mounted along social boundaries, or surfaced as stress within groups. historical insights and an analogy for the way that differences might be approached are derived from the late 19th-century bleek and lloyd archive of folklore from the |xam san of the northern cape. in a recent study, mark mcgranaghan (2014) shows how “othering” in this oral literature could work both to emphasise external social distance or, as an internal ideological imperative, to point out instances of inappropriate behaviour within a group. the colonial encounter in the karoo and northern cape would prove to be a devastating era of sustained conflict and, for san people, genocide, through which land, culture, language, way of life – and, for many, life itself – was lost. descendant communities experience marginalisation to this day. the earlier emergence of precolonial farming elsewhere in the subcontinent would have involved heightened stress with, again, conflict and/or incorporation and consequent marginalisation. heritage today, for the san and descendant communities, may be a means of restoring, if only symbolically, something of what was lost, and for this reason it is – potentially at least – intensely political. as such it is susceptible to being contested, and often becomes a locus itself for dispute resolution in the 21st century. endurance of the archaeological record as positive outcome the continuance through time of the archaeological record of a particular tradition is arguably an indication of the existence of conflict-resolution mechanisms that were successful in the long term. is there support for this view? south africa boasts an unparalleled wealth of stone age sites, amongst which are some of the longest sequences in the history of humanity anywhere. sampson (1985:107) characterised the sum of the evidence from the central plateau of the country, stating that it was unique in the world: “it supported large numbers of non-farming people who were also prolific makers of stone tools until very recent times. a brief comparison of surveys conducted elsewhere in the world reveals promptly and unambiguously that south africa is richer in stone age remains than any other place on earth.” the evidence includes the deepest morris 122 histories of our species, homo sapiens, and of earlier ancestral forms. the origins of the later stone age, it has been argued, may be traced back some 43 000 years in the case of border cave (d’errico et al. 2012; villa et al. 2012), with demonstrable linkages between the technology of historical hunter-gatherers, reaching into the 19th century, and the material culture of their predecessors, in antiquity. in fact, however, the degree of continuity has been questioned – as has the risk of portraying the san of today or the recent past as living fossils, unchanged for tens of millennia (mitchell 2012; pargeter 2014). before that, apparent stability in stone age material culture is exemplified by the hundreds of millennia through which earlier stone age hand-axe technology persisted. where relative changelessness seems on the face of it to be a feature of this record, closer examination demonstrates palpable dynamism and diversity both regionally and through time. long sequence sites, with northern cape examples including canteen kopje (e.g. mcnabb & beaumont 2011; leader 2013), wonderwerk cave (e.g. berna et al. 2012; chazan et al. 2012) and the kathu site complex (e.g. wilkins & chazan 2012; wilkins et al. 2012; walker, lukich & chazan 2014), show that change and innovation characterise even the oldest, more slowly evolving technologies and ways of life evident at these sites. by a million years ago at wondewerk cave there is evidence for habitual use of fire (berna et al. 2012). stone tools undergo a signal shift from the earliest simple flaked oldowan tools to the systematic production of bifaces (handaxes) from circa 1.6 million years ago (chazan et al. 2012). these became a seemingly stable type of formal tool through something like a million years, yet the sites mentioned show that flaking techniques and local cultural expression in tool manufacture were not static. latterly, stone age tool-makers were crafting blades and points that would characterise what archaeologists term the middle stone age. at kathu around 500 000 years ago stone points, it has been shown, were being hafted as spearheads – another posited innovation for the region, ahead of convincing evidence for this elsewhere (wilkins et al. 2012; although see rots & plisson 2014). palaeoclimatic shifts suggest that environmental stresses would have pertained at many junctures in this early history, with potential to generate conflict. mounting scarcity, particularly of resources such as water, also affecting the availability of plant foods and prey, would have been a trigger. phillip walker (591) remarks on the close correlation, repeatedly, in a bioarchaeological survey of past violence, between outbreaks of conflict and climatic instability. through much of the later stone age there was broadly speaking continuity in the kinds of artefacts made and used, and the hunter-gatherer way of life they reflect. a wide range of material culture documented at the time of european contact from the 17th century is found in archaeological sites spanning most of the holocene (that is the last 10 000 years). stone tool types remained relatively constant, albeit changing in size and shape and relative abundance, as did basic hunting equipment – bows and arrows – along with gathering tools – digging sticks, bored stones and ostrich eggshell water flasks. beads and pendants, and fragments of leather, similarly testify to an enduring pattern, as far as this can be discerned, in clothing and ornaments (deacon & deacon 1999). but once again the broad similarities mask variation in the regional and temporal specifics of hunter-gatherer ways of life and material culture across a variety of ecological settings in the subcontinent (mitchell 2012). moreover, the earlier phases of the later stone age, pre-12 000 years ago, present greater differences in artefacts and foraging strategies (pargeter 2014). dispute resolution – south african stone age case studies td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 120-32. 123 changing demographic patterns were doubtless a response in part to environmental constraints and opportunities. during the holocene in the karoo, there is a relative dearth of sites dating between about 8 000 and 4 000 years ago, probably resulting from drier conditions at that period. after 4 000 years ago, both there and in other parts of southern africa, there was a significant increase in the number of hunter-gatherer sites – and hence of people. a much higher population inhabited the subcontinent during the last 4 000 years than at any time previously (deacon & deacon 1999). pottery and a pastoralist economy appeared from about 2 000 years ago, which is taken to imply a migration of people or diffusion of herding practices from further north. in the eastern half of the subcontinent farmers, also with ceramics and livestock, together with metallurgy and agriculture, had also migrated south. in consequence the last 2 000 years has been a period of increasing social complexity: an era in which tension and levels of conflict may be expected to have been exacerbated. if there is a sense of enduring stability through long periods in the stone age in southern africa, it is certainly not a history without change. to what extent disputes and mechanisms for dispute resolution were a feature in these histories is not clear. the chain of causality leading to whatever technological stability there was would surely have included other factors, but coping with conflict must have been part of the equation. hxaro the idea that a significant degree of altruism would have pertained amongst hunter-gatherers – as the quintessential “harmless people” (thomas 1959) – received support from anthropological research in southern africa in the second half of the 20th century. work with people in the kalahari, particularly from the 1960s, pointed to the existence of an egalitarian ethic as a typical feature of these societies, evidence for it being noted in the hxaro (ju|’hoasi) or ||ai (nharo) system of exchange reciprocity (wiessner 1982; cashdan 1985). gifts would be exchanged amongst hxaro partners who could be friends as well as close or more distant relatives over both the short and long term. stories and story-telling reinforced actual sharing practices for the exchange of information as well as food and desirable objects. exchange across language boundaries has been documented (barnard 1992:141), and hilary and janette deacon (deacon & deacon 1999:138) see hxaro-like exchange as a likely explanation behind the appearance of seashells in later stone age sites far inland: more than merely “trade items”, they may be a material expression of relationships that neighbouring groups sustained one with another across the subcontinent. lynn wadley (1987) interprets the differences between contemporary later stone age sites in the magaliesberg in terms of seasonal aggregation (coming together) and dispersal, as extended families responded to opportunities in the landscape and social needs. what appeared to be aggregation sites contained an abundance and wide range of different kinds of artefacts including ostrich eggshell beads and other ornaments – items made for exchange as gifts, so it is suggested – which were far less prevalent in or absent from the more private dispersal sites. the relative abundance of certain artefacts, as well as of animal and plant food remains, seen through time at sites in the thukela basin has been linked by aron mazel (1989) to the changing alliance networks that would have arisen as people moved into the area in the period after about 4 000 years ago. consequent on population expansion, it has been suggested, there was increased social stress and instability, including shifting gender relations. morris 124 in turn, the argument goes, more time was spent making the kinds of artefacts suitable for hxaro-like gift exchanges to service social relations. of course the mere occurrence of such artefacts in an archaeological setting does not prove the presence of ju|’hoan-like hxaro exchange networks – a point which researchers sceptical about extrapolations from kalahari analogues would note, as mitchell (2012) has done in discussion of early finds of this nature at border cave. negative outcomes: the archaeological evidence of conflict and territoriality the “harmless people” stereotype arose in counterpoint to a rather different idea that referred not to living people of the kalahari but to early human ancestors in africa (of whom of course the san had come to be depicted as living fossils) – namely raymond dart’s (1953) “killer ape” hypothesis and its popularisation by best-selling african genesis author robert ardrey (1961). the dramatic opening sequence in the movie 2001: a space odyssey derives from this view, which envisages a fundamental, defining aggression in our species, with emergent humanity cast very much in the hobbesian role – more of “nature” than “civilisation” – indeed somewhat red in tooth and claw. the dart/ardrey scenario attracted limited support in scientific circles (but see johnson 2011). the “viciously pejorative fabrication” that depicted the san as “brutal savages” (guenther 1980:137) had receded. but recent re-evaluation suggests that, in the swing of the pendulum, the ‘harmless people” stereotype was equally a misrepresentation that understated the extent of conflict in san society and over-emphasised a pristine, rousseauesque innocence. it was suggested that it may even have jeopardised the welfare of the people in question (guenther 1980:137). a strong sharing ethic may have been projected as an ideal at the ideological level in the kalahari, but in practice these hunter-gatherer societies did not always live up to this reputation (humphreys 2007:100). specific evidence to suggest that dispute resolution did not invariably succeed amongst kalahari hunter-gatherers comes in the form of exceptionally high homicide rates, documented ethnographically by richard lee (1979:8), marked levels of conflict reported by guenther (1980) as also in high incidences of this in the later stone age archaeological record (pfeiffer & van der merwe 2004; humphreys 2007). in the modern setting the rate of death by homicide amongst the !kung was treble the contemporary figure for the united states and “six to eight times higher than the average cited for ‘tribal’ societies often considered to have relatively high degrees of conflict themselves” (humphreys 2007:100, citing lee 1979 and knauft 1987:458). matthias guenther (1999:136–138) has referred to the “ambivalent blend of conflict and anger with laughter and playfulness” which was an important mechanism of dispute resolution for the people amongst whom he worked in the kalahari. but, he shows, these ways did not always solve conflict when it arose. thus, a further mechanism he observed was the withdrawal of one or another of the antagonistic parties, who would simply move off and join another band. where territories were more fixed (in other environmental settings) and opportunities constrained – with higher levels of what ian hodder (2012) would term “entanglement” – this option for antagonists to withdraw from a situation of dispute may well have been more limited, if available at all, so that feuding may easily have spilled more often into actual violence – and murder. dispute resolution – south african stone age case studies td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 120-32. 125 anthony humphreys suggests that the higher levels of interpersonal (often domestic rather than inter-group) violence noted in many decentralised and egalitarian societies may indeed be “a reflection of an enforced dependence on reciprocal altruism.” he concludes, in line with the behavioural ecology model he advocates, that the alleged lack of selfishness amongst hunter-gatherers is illusory, and that “what we in fact see is exactly what one would expect in terms of the classic sociobiological theory of inclusive fitness” (humphreys 2007:100). instances from the archaeological record point to a certain prevalence of homicide and interpersonal violence in the south african later stone age – which is mirrored in other archaeological hunter-gatherer contexts: “a remarkably high level of violence for small-scale societies” is noted by steven mithen (2004, cited by humphreys 2007:101), commenting on the “endemic violence” evident in the northern european mesolithic period. walker (2001) comes to the same conclusion for precolonial archaeological settings in north america. a number of specific cases are reported from south africa: a murder at quoin point about 2 000 years ago in which two bone arrowheads penetrated a young woman’s 12th thoracic vertebra, shot from behind as she lay on the ground (morris & parkington 1982); injury to the top of the skull of an adult woman in the southern cape, consistent with the impact of a digging stick (pfeiffer et al. 1999); fatal trauma to the head for three juveniles found at the modder river mouth (pfeiffer & van der merwe 2004); and an older man who lived several weeks after receiving blows to the top of the skull (morris, thackeray & thackeray 1987). although, as carmel schrire (2014; cf. walker 2001) recently said, there are “many faces” to murder, the causes of conflict in these instances may well have included the limitation of options for dispute resolution/withdrawal of antagonists alluded to above. several lines of evidence suggest degrees of territoriality in support of this. the potential for territorial fixing is heightened by the kinds of language differences noted in the historical period (traill 2002). there are hints of landscape referents or topophilia in identity formation, which may have made for strong attachments to place (deacon 1988; morris 2002). and there are indications that the degree of seasonal mobility across the landscape derived from historical huntergatherer analogues in the kalahari was not universal (sealy 2006). on the latter score, isotopic analysis of diet shows that later stone age people in some areas, for example the southern and western cape, did not move, as previously suggested, between coastal and adjacent inland areas, but probably remained more permanently – more “entangled” – in a more circumscribed area. it appears that certain traits noticed in the archaeological record, including burial patterns and particular kinds of artefacts, served as territorial markers (hall 2000; sealy 2006; humphreys 2007). regional patterning in rock art may also be part of a place-based identity-signalling cultural repertoire. mcgranaghan (2014) recently discussed the role of the |xam phrase k’e e: |xarra in processes of “othering” that might have served both to establish social distance and, more locally, to point out or condemn anti-social behaviour within the social group. it is a phrase familiar to south african citizens from its incorporation in the national motto, k’e e: |xarra ||ke – a loose translation of the political notion of “unity in diversity”. the latter is not an idiomatic expression occurring in |xam oral literature but is an aspirational construct adopted by the modern state (mcgranaghan 2014:672–673; see smith et al. 2000; barnard 2003, 2004). what does occur in the |xam language, recorded by bleek and lloyd and pointed out by mcgranaghan, is the concept k’e e: |xarra, or, in the singular, kwi a |xarra, signifying “a person who is different”. this is an example of |xam terminology which, as mcgranaghan remarks, was suitable, and deployed by the people of the upper karoo in the 1870s, for morris 126 discussing appropriate and inappropriate behaviours. it was applied equally well to friends and relatives as to non-human species, for example lions and hyenas. “these descriptive epithets,” he adds, “were applied just as easily to non-|xam human individuals and groups” – for example korana, “bastards” and european colonists. significantly, mcgranaghan finds, “it is in the characterisation of these ‘others’ that this terminology might be said to have been most fully explored, discussing communities that were outwardly human but who often behaved in strikingly non-|xam ways” (mcgranaghan 2014:678). in sum, kwi a |xarra – “a person who is different” – would be any “person” (human or animal) who was anti-social, angry, greedy, ugly or selfish. the phrase clearly had dispute-resolving valency for the greedy hunter who ate all the springbok without sharing the meat – who was in short kwi a |xarra, like a hyena – and who would have been expected by fellow band members to amend his ways. at another level, however, it defined who was “in” and who was “out” in the wider social landscape, and in this context it would reflect situations of potential – or actual – conflict. a no more devastating instance of the latter was the colonial encounter experienced by the |xam in the 18th and 19th centuries in the cape interior. the loss of land, language, culture, identity and of life itself, in that period has come to be recognised as nothing less than genocide (penn 2005; adhikari 2010; de prada samper 2012). marginalised survivors would have descendants today who are genetically khoisan but who are all but cut off from their precolonial past. remnants of stories and veld lore are told not in the now-extinct |xam language but – as this history would have it – in afrikaans. a dwindling number of individuals who were native speakers of n|uu in remote places in or at the edge of the kalahari have left, through language researchers, a linguistic record of their fast-disappearing language, which is related to |xam. one of the last speakers of n|uu, ouma |una rooi (1930–2012), remarked that: “if a person who speaks our language dies then our language also dies. when you cover him with sand the language is not a plant that grows again” (sciencenetlinks). the role of heritage today |una rooi’s remark is a poignant appraisal of the nature of culture loss and the essential tragedy of heritage where, with sebaldian gloom, it can be said that “everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every extinguished life” (sebald 2011:31). a consequent clutchingat-straws constructedness of heritage in contemporary situations makes it a notoriously loaded resource (wright 2013) that is drawn upon in the negotiation of rights and in restoration – albeit often by no more than an empty symbolic gesture – of what was and is being lost. the particular political currency of khoisan heritage was sharpened in 2013 when president jacob zuma, in his state of the nation address, announced the re-opening of opportunities to lodge land claims for those who had missed the 31 december 1998 deadline. he went further in promising to create exceptions to the 19 june 1913 cut-off date to accommodate claims by descendants of the khoe and san, “including claims on heritage sites, and historic landmarks” (mxotwa 2013). the full ramifications of this probably have yet to be realised, since hardly a segment of the south african landscape exists which is not, one way or another, embodied, as far as khoisan history goes, by “heritage sites and historic landmarks” (morris 2014). khoisan heritage is thus catapulted into a field of political contestation in an unprecedented way. heritage becomes a locus itself for potential disputes, where conceivably more than one descendant constituency could present a more or less legitimate (or indeed dispute resolution – south african stone age case studies td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 120-32. 127 spurious) claim over a given heritage resource, where the available evidence may often be insufficient to decide the case conclusively (cf. morris 2014). the uncertainties of the archaeological record would often render archaeologists reticent if not unable to adjudicate in such matters. appeals made to a deep cultural continuity may have other unanticipated political implications. an unwitting portrayal of the san as living fossils – as such deep-time links may imply – risks denigrating contemporary communities (mitchell 2012). the presidency in botswana, referring to san people by reference to stone age ancestors, dismissed them recently as an “archaic fantasy” (pargeter 2014:23). at the more recent end of the chronological span, recognition of san or khoisan individuals or groups in post-1994 south african liberation narratives has been less than consistent. the story of the resistance leader kousop, the 150th anniversary of whose death was commemorated and memorialised at the wildebeest kuil rock art centre outside kimberley on 6 july 2008, is included in the book the struggle for liberation and freedom in the northern cape, 1850–1994 (allen, mngqolo & swanepoel 2012). but a submission to have one of kimberley’s major streets named in his honour has yet to be acted upon, while another suggested name-change submitted at the same time (transvaal road to phakamile mabija) was successfully implemented. more controversially, ruling political party insignia were engraved on a flat granite slab on the grave of the ≠khomani leader dawid kruiper without the family or community being consulted. the disputed granite slab replaced the stones carried by mourners from near and far to be placed on the grave at the time of the burial in 2012 (times live 2012; netwerk24 2013). where heritage is concerned, it is relevant to ask who owns the past, who speaks for whom, and which voices are heard. conclusion if an archaeological perspective on dispute resolution, as such, has been hard to pin down, it has been possible to gain some sense of outcomes from this sphere of interaction, through time and insofar as they are reflected in the archaeological record. positive outcomes are inherently more difficult to identify, and more ambiguous, than negative ones. guenther (1980) concluded, on anthropological grounds, that the stereotypical images of “brutal savages” and “harmless people” both reflect and deviate from reality – as stereotypes do. the first reflected the reality of san fiercely resisting colonial encroachment, but was primarily pejorative and a pretext for genocide; the second was “overly charitable”, failing to acknowledge that conflict and aggression exist as everyday problems for people in the kalahari. the hard evidence of archaeology and forensic anthropology, suggests walker, reveals ultimately that wherever and whenever disputes have arisen, both “brutish” and “peaceable” responses have come into play. “everywhere we probe into the history of our species we find evidence of a similar pattern of behaviour: people have always been capable of both kindness and extreme cruelty … peaceful periods have always been punctuated by episodes of warfare and violence” (walker 2001:590). the search for an earlier, less violent way to organise social affairs, he suggests, “has been fruitless”: “as far as we know, there are no forms of social organization, modes of production, or environmental settings that remain free from interpersonal violence for long.” as to underlying causes, walker finds no neat materialist/ecological correlates but rather complexity at the specific level where violence morris 128 erupts – but that one “sobering pattern”, already mentioned, relates to episodes of climatic instability. if there is pessimism in these conclusions, it is even more pervasive in the work of steven pinker, who in the better angels of our nature: the decline of violence in history (2011) campaigns against “nostalgia for a peaceable past”. critiques of pinker’s book (e.g. corry 2013) point to a selective use of evidence and statistics to paint an overly gloomy view. johnson (2011) takes on the now resurgent “popular concept” of the “killer-ape”, presenting recent research on bonobos, our closest primate relative, whose success is based not on violence but on mutual aid and pleasure. “the killer-ape is our own creation,” urges johnson, “and by holding on to this myth we are chaining ourselves to a pessimistic vision of human nature. we may be risen apes,2 but this need not reduce the better angels of our nature” (2011:39). john terrell, the author of a talent for friendship (2014), also looks to how, in a world filled with disease, floods, famine and other natural afflictions, “our friendships and social networks have the potential to extend the range of people we can call upon and learn from,” and how this buffers people “against the trials and tribulations of life” (2014:31). the substance of his argument is the evidence of a “wealth of inherited friendships” and functional “intersecting social relationships” that bridge different communities across language and cultural boundaries in new guinea (cited in green 2015). for terrell these suggest a compelling case for an impulse to form relationships of this kind despite linguistic barriers, warfare and distance. if we cannot avoid conflict entirely, there is at least this: that “as a species we are remarkably talented, not just at thinking up new ways to kill other people, but also at turning strangers into friends” (terrell 2014:30). harold green (2015) cites cicero in a review: if the natural love of friends were to be removed from the world there is no single house, no single state that would go on existing; even agriculture would cease to be … we can readily see how great is the power of friendship and love by observing their opposites, enmity and ill will. for what house is so firmly established, what constitution so unshakable that it could not be utterly destroyed by hatred and internal division? (cicero, on friendship, cited in green 2015). the truth, with an archaeological record to prove it, is that houses and states have gone on existing, and subsistence has been sustained – for some of the time. and equally, from time to time, houses, once firmly established, and constitutions seemingly unshakable, have fallen. pivotal, one way or another in these histories, is dispute resolution – successful or not. acknowledgements i wish to thank dr dries velthuizen and professor john faris, and the institute for dispute resolution in africa, unisa, for the opportunity to contribute to the conference on san dispute resolution. i am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. references 2 johnson (2011:38) cites here robert ardrey’s summing-up: “we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides.” dispute resolution – south african stone age case studies td, 10(4), december 2014, pp. 120-32. 129 adhikari, m. 2010. the 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(eds). politics and history in band societies: 61–84. cambridge: cambridge university press. wilkins, j. & chazan, m. 2012. blade production ~500 thousand years ago at kathu pan 1, south africa: support for a multiple origins hypothesis for early middle pleistocene blade technology. journal of archaeological science. (accessed 4 february 2012). wilkins, j., schoville, b.j., brown, k.s. & chazan, m. 2012.evidence for early hafted hunting technology. science 338(6109): 942–946. wright, j. 2013. heritage as feel-good history. the digging stick 30(2):1–3. abstract introduction method results discussion limitations of the study conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) petronella jonck department of research and innovation, national school of government, johannesburg, south africa eben swanepoel school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation jonck, p. & swanepoel, e., 2019, ‘investigating career guidance implementation between historically advantaged and disadvantaged schools’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a637. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.637 original research investigating career guidance implementation between historically advantaged and disadvantaged schools petronella jonck, eben swanepoel received: 12 nov. 2018; accepted: 25 july 2019; published: 25 sept. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this study examined school learner views on career guidance processes and outcomes contrasting historically advantaged and disadvantaged schools in the free state province, south africa. the study comprised 430 learners from seven schools located in the mangaung area (females = 63.9%, black people = 47.4%, mean age = 15.85, sd = 0.77). a survey was completed underscoring career guidance service delivery, personal growth, career path knowledge and subject satisfaction. multivariate analysis of variance was computed to examine differences in learners’ perception of the career guidance they received, emphasising school type, besides controlling for selected demographic variables. results indicated that school type statistically significantly influenced career guidance service delivery, personal growth and career path knowledge gained from career guidance, but not subject satisfaction. moreover, a statistically significant interaction for type of school with gender and race as covariates, and personal confidence and subject satisfaction as dependent variables, emerged. keywords: segregated schools; career guidance; life orientation; type of schools; comparative analysis. introduction career guidance in the south african context currently forms part of the national curriculum policy statement (caps). this policy document details the skills and knowledge to teach and assess within the various learning areas in south african schools. one of these learning areas, which is often scrutinised as to the overall effectiveness thereof within the south african curriculum, is life orientation (jonck 2015). the aim of life orientation as compulsory subject at secondary school level, is to create a platform to promote the harmonious transitioning of learners into society and their subsequent roles within the community and workplace (adewumi 2012; francis & reygan 2016). the component of life orientation that specifically underscores career guidance comprises of 28-h classroom instruction in the senior phase (grade 7 to grade 9) of which 3-h explicitly focus on subject selection. after the completion of grade 9, learners are expected to select subjects which would inform future career choices and access to institutions of higher learning (rsa department of basic education 2011). career guidance was initially made mandatory in 1967 to white south african learners and to other south african racial groupings 14 years later, that is, during 1981 (bholanath 2007). for the sake of clarity, career guidance subsumes services and activities aimed at assisting individuals at any point in their lifespan to make educational, training and career decisions as a means to ultimately manage their chosen profession (lewin & colley 2011). discourse on the aforesaid is mostly subject to perspectives centred on academic sub-disciplines including vocational psychology, educational sociology, education or social work (weber et al. 2018). specifically, within the educational context, the eminence of career guidance is driven by an increased awareness of the pivotal role thereof in the school-to-further-education and workplace needs of secondary school learners (ho & leung 2016). the said authors furthermore note that the educational policy imperative to infuse career-related elements in educational systems internationally, and the subsequent support towards career guidance, was a response to generic challenges including youth unemployment and skills shortages (ho & leung 2016). career guidance in south africa is still challenged by historical and socio-political impediments created through apartheid, which altered the inclusive nature of successful transitioning from school to the vocational environment (horn 2006; spaull 2012). life orientation is further challenged by a lack of training to optimally teach the subject area, as well as teachers who lack the experience to teach the subject holistically (francis & depalma 2015). furthermore, the provision of career guidance often draws on euro-centric frameworks (watson 2009), creating a need for multicultural inclusive approaches aimed at previously excluded population groups. currently, there is a strong thrust by national education bodies and the student population for an african renaissance in educational discourse propagating that transformative educators should embrace an indigenous socio-cultural and epistemological framework (higgs 2013). the most predominant educational reforms in the post-apartheid period subsumed the desegregation of schools, the development of a national qualifications framework, the adoption of new language policies for education and the implementation of outcomes-based curricula (vandeyar & killen 2007) to ‘redress past injustices in educational provision’ (rsa department of basic education 1996:1). however, it appears that little has changed in relation to transformation of the school systems to reduce the impact of historical disadvantage in quality and intensity of educational resources (branson et al. 2012; vandeyar & killen 2003). a crucial link between education and inequality in south africa is the role of education in unemployment (branson et al. 2012). branson, leibbrandt and zuze (2009) indicate that the completion of secondary and tertiary education substantially improves the probability of employment. education furthermore plays a pivotal role in human capital development, which can be seen as the attainment of knowledge and intellectual stock intended for the expansion of productivity, efficiency, performance and output to ultimately increase fiscal revenue for all stakeholders (akinyemi & abiddin 2013; jonck & minnaar 2015). horn (2006), however, asserted that only 10% of secondary school learners transition to the vocational environment successfully, raising questions as to the effectiveness of education. consequently, there is a greater need for learners to proactively engage with their prospective career developmental needs (coetzee & esterhuizen 2010). as such, career guidance has gained prominence to facilitate the match between supply and demand factors in the labour market, to reduce unemployment and to address prevailing social exclusion, defined as the process of societal detachment (jonck 2014a; lundahl & nilsson 2009; randolph, ruming & murray 2010). as a means to accommodate the need for employability that surpasses mere knowledge, career guidance is foundational to provide learners with dynamic, internationally competitive skillsets (rooth 2005; van de venter 2006), especially in relation to the current workforce that is characterised by a need for technologically driven skills and globalisation, where self-efficacy is principal to vocational adaptability (patton 2005). previous research underscores the importance of career guidance services in economic development (jonck 2014a), specifically because the lack of access to career guidance for diverse population groups (bernes, bardick & orr 2007; du toit 2005), the lack of academic provision (van schalkwyk 2007) and the lack of career guidance in secondary schools have been identified as factors that infringe on skills development (dabula & makura 2013), thereby hampering economic growth. additionally, singaravelu, white and bringaze (2005) indicate that developing countries, such as south africa, in the early stages of economic development should direct individuals into professions that benefit the national economy, particularly in light of the fact that skills shortages are deemed endemic in the south african context (jonck 2014b; sharp 2011). to this end, the organisation for economic co-operation and development confirmed the need for countries to recognise career guidance systems as part of their active labour market policies (watts 2010). in light of the foregoing discussion, the primary aim of this study was to ascertain whether previously advantaged, marginally advantaged and disadvantaged schools differ in career guidance outcomes from the perspective of the learners themselves. as such, learner differences in career guidance outcomes by school between and within school types were examined focusing on service delivery, personal development and growth, career path knowledge and subject satisfaction. the primary research question subsumes: do school learner views on career guidance processes and outcomes differ in relation to type of school? the secondary aim of the study included investigating the influence of race and gender on the aforementioned correlation which was investigated by means of the following research question: do gender and or race statistically significantly influence school learner views on career guidance processes and outcomes per school type? historical developmental disparities and experiences, diverse experiential perceptions and future expectations might influence the self-efficacy of learners, which, in its turn, would impact the individual interests and eventually determine career choices (jonck 2014a; lent, brown & hackett 2000). learner evaluations are often secondary if at all taken into account (dabula & makura 2013), while research is predominantly focussed on evaluating other stakeholders’ perceptions (mittendorf, den brok & beijaard 2010). to bridge the gap between successful career guidance at theoretical level and ultimately instilling practical change that leads to proactive and sustainable career development for all south african citizens (jacobs 2011), the perspectives of learners become crucial. taking these disparities into account, the effectiveness of how career guidance is received in accordance with the current theoretical framework of holland’s career choice theory (stead & watson 2006) can be further critiqued as south african development does not show analogous developmental paths, contrary to the core assumption of the theoretical framework used during career education at curriculum level. method participants and setting participants represented a convenience sample of 430 learners, 47.40% (n = 204) of them from historically disadvantaged and 12.8% (n = 55) from marginally advantaged schools (see table 1). of the sample, 274 learners were female and 155 male. the two dominant language groupings that formed part of the composition was afrikaans (n = 235; 54.7%) and indigenous languages (n = 165; 38.4%), with the remaining 30 learners speaking english as their home language (n = 30; 7%). when considering the racial composition, it was noted that the two dominant racial groupings subsumed black respondents (n = 166; 38.6%) and white respondents (n = 172; 40%), followed by mixed race respondents (n = 74; 17.2%) and those respondents who could not be categorised in the previously stated groups (n = 18; 4.2%). about 39.8% (n = 171) of learners were from previously and predominantly white enrolment (advantaged) schools, 47.4% (n = 204) from previously and predominantly black enrolment (disadvantaged) schools and 12.8% (n = 55) from previously and predominantly mixed race (marginally advantaged) schools. table 1: demographic profile of the sample. table 2: cross-tabulation of demographic variables with type of school. instrument the learners self-reported socio-demographic information including age, gender, language and socio-economic status, in addition to completing a 25-item career guidance questionnaire. the questionnaire covered five categories subsuming: (1) service delivery (e.g. ‘my life orientation teacher teaches us study methods to study more effectively’), (2) personal confidence (e.g. ‘i am confident that i will be able to choose a study field from a list of potential study fields that i am considering’), (3) the completion of personality inventories (e.g. ‘i have done a personality versus job questionnaire’), (4) overall knowledge of career path (e.g. ‘i know what i want to do after school’) and (5) overall satisfaction with subject choices (e.g. ‘i have chosen the correct subjects’). items were scored on a four-point likert scale ranging from 1 (representing either always, very confident or strongly agree) to 4 (representing either never, no confidence or strongly disagree). the theoretical range of the measuring instrument was between 25 and 100. scores from the career guidance questionnaire reached a cronbach’s alpha reliability index of 0.86. procedure school principals and parents or guardians of the learners subsequently granted consent for participation in the project. learners completed the survey during normal school hours. statistical analysis multivariate analysis of variance (manova) was computed to examine differences in reported career guidance outcomes by school type emphasising service delivery, personal confidence, use of personality inventories, career path knowledge and subject satisfaction. in addition, an anova was carried out, and post hoc comparisons using the tukey’s honestly significant difference (hsd) test with reference to observed statistically significant group differences were performed. a two-way between-group analysis of covariance (ancova) was utilised to determine statistically significant differences between the various school types vis-à-vis the dependent variables while controlling for race and gender. ethical consideration ethical clearance was obtained from the department of education, free state province (ethical clearance number: 16/4/1/25-2012). results table 3 presents the descriptive statistics included in the study. in terms of gender, male respondents from advantaged schools expressed dissatisfaction (mean = 2.76; sd = 0.553) with service delivery, while respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 2.55; sd = 0.458) and marginally advantaged (mean = 2.06; sd = 0.585) schools were somewhat satisfied. with reference to personal confidence, respondents were very satisfied with mean scores ranging between 1.61 and 1.88. as to personality inventory, male respondents from various types of schools were somewhat satisfied, with male respondents from advantaged schools being least satisfied (mean = 2.46; sd = 0.854) and respondents from disadvantaged schools being most satisfied (mean = 2.04; sd = 0.920). similarly, when considering career path knowledge, the mean scores ranged from 1.25 to 1.96 with male respondents from advantaged schools being less satisfied (mean = 1.96; sd = 0.905) than respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 1.45; sd = 0.920) or marginally advantaged (mean = 1.25; sd = 0.985) schools. the same pattern persisted relating to subject satisfaction with male respondents from advantaged schools (mean = 1.60; sd = 0.650) being less satisfied than male respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 1.57; sd = 0.705) and marginally advantaged (mean = 1.25; sd = 0.622) schools. table 3: measures for central tendency with reference to the independent and dependent variables per type of school. female respondents from advantaged schools expressed dissatisfaction (mean = 2.61; sd = 0.546) with service delivery, while respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 2.48; sd = 0.479) and marginally advantaged (mean = 1.95; sd = 0.443) schools were somewhat satisfied. with reference to personal confidence, female respondents from disadvantaged and marginally advantaged schools were very satisfied with mean scores ranging between 1.60 and 1.74. female respondents from advantaged schools were somewhat satisfied (mean = 1.96; sd = 0.459). regarding the variable personality inventory, female respondents from various types of schools were somewhat satisfied, with mean scores ranging from 2.05 to 2.29. concerning career path knowledge, female respondents from advantaged schools were less satisfied (mean = 2.16; sd = 0.998) than respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 1.49; sd = 0.700) or marginally advantaged (mean = 1.42; std = 0.730) schools. concerning subject satisfaction, female respondents in totallity were very satisfied with mean scores ranging from 1.50 to 1.75. when considering race, black respondents from advantaged schools were very satisfied with service delivery (mean = 1.58; sd = 0.000) opposed to respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 2.48; sd = 0.436) and marginally advantaged (mean = 2.16; sd = 0.238) schools. pertaining to personal confidence, black respondents from various school types were very satisfied with mean scores ranging between 1.40 and 1.76. regarding personality inventory, black respondents from various school types were somewhat satisfied, with mean scores ranging from 2.00 to 2.63. as to career path knowledge, black respondents from advantaged schools were less satisfied (mean = 2.00; sd = 0.00) than respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 1.46; sd = 0.686) or marginally advantaged (mean = 1.00; sd = 0.000) schools. concerning subject satisfaction, black respondents from advantaged schools were dissatisfied (mean = 3.00; sd = 0.000) with subject selection, while respondents from disadvantaged (mean = 1.51; sd = 0.714) and marginally advantaged (mean = 1.38; sd = 0.744) schools were very satisfied. white respondents from advantaged (mean = 2.67; sd = 0.547) and disadvantaged (mean = 2.72; sd = 0.632) schools were dissatisfied with service delivery. with reference to personal confidence, white respondents from advantaged and disadvantaged schools were somewhat satisfied, with mean scores ranging between 1.92 and 2.05. regarding personality inventory, white respondents from advantaged and disadvantaged schools were somewhat satisfied, with mean scores ranging from 2.00 to 2.36. as to career path knowledge, white respondents from advantaged schools were less satisfied (mean = 2.08; sd = 0.967) than respondents from disadvantaged schools (mean = 1.50; sd = 0.707). concerning subject satisfaction, white respondents from advantaged schools were very satisfied (mean = 1.68; sd = 0.692) with subject selection, while respondents from disadvantaged schools (mean = 2.00; sd = 0.00) were somewhat satisfied. mixed race respondents from disadvantaged schools (mean = 2.61; sd = 0.612) were dissatisfied with service delivery, while respondents from marginally advantaged schools (mean = 1.95; sd = 0.490) were somewhat satisfied. with reference to personal confidence, mixed race respondents from disadvantaged schools were somewhat satisfied (mean = 1.96; sd = 0.592), while respondents from marginally advantaged schools (mean = 1.63; sd = 0.509) were very satisfied. concerning personality inventory, mixed race respondents from disadvantaged and marginally advantaged school were somewhat satisfied, with mean scores ranging from 2.14 to 2.17. as to career path knowledge as well as subject satisfaction, mixed race respondents from disadvantaged and marginally advantaged schools were very satisfied. respondents who could not be categorised in the stated categories were either somewhat satisfied (viz. disadvantaged schools) or very satisfied with service delivery (viz. marginally advantaged schools). with reference to personal confidence, respondents were very satisfied with mean scores ranging from 1.50 to 1.74. regarding personality inventory, respondents from disadvantaged schools were very satisfied (mean = 1.88; sd = 0.993), while those from marginally advantaged schools were somewhat satisfied (mean = 2.00; sd = 0.000). as to career path knowledge, respondents from disadvantaged and marginally advantaged schools were very satisfied. lastly, with reference to subject satisfaction, respondents from disadvantaged schools were very satisfied (mean = 1.41; sd = 0.507), while respondents from marginally advantaged schools were very dissatisfied (mean = 4.00; sd = 0.000). as per table 3, learners from advantaged schools were only dissatisfied with one aspect related to career guidance that being service delivery (mean = 2.67; sd = 0.552), as can be seen in table 3. overall, subject satisfaction (mean = 1.69; sd = 0.697) was the aspect respondents were most satisfied with. this was followed by personal confidence (mean = 1.92; sd = 0.477), career path knowledge (mean = 2.08; sd = 0.964) and completion of personality inventories (mean = 2.36; sd = 0.865). respondents from disadvantaged schools yielded positive evaluations for all the aspects related to career guidance provided as part of the subject life orientation. service delivery was the aspect that received the score closest to a negative evaluation, for which respondents were only somewhat satisfied (mean = 2.51; sd = 0.471), followed by personality inventories (mean = 2.05; sd = 0.828). very positive evaluations were yielded for career path knowledge (mean = 1.48; sd = 0.7), subject satisfaction (mean = 1.53; sd = 0.677) and personal confidence (mean = 1.79; sd = 0.447). similarly, respondents from the marginally advantaged schools yielded positive evaluations for all the aspects related to career guidance provided as part of the subject life orientation. personality inventories (mean = 2.24; sd = 0.860) was the aspect respondents were least satisfied with, followed by service delivery (mean = 1.97; sd = 0.474), while career path knowledge (mean = 1.38; sd = 0.707) was the aspect respondents were most satisfied with. this was followed by personal confidence (mean = 1.6; sd = 0.481) and subject satisfaction (mean = 1.64; sd = 0.890). to test the primary research hypothesis, a manova test was performed, as illustrated in table 4. table 4: multivariate analysis of variance results for type of school and various aspects related to career guidance provided. as indicated in table 4, the type of school statistically significantly influenced the evaluation of career guidance service delivery. service delivery, personal confidence, personality inventories and overall career path knowledge specifically were statistically significantly influenced by the type of school on the 99th percentile. subject satisfaction did not yield a statistically significant result. an anova test was conducted to further explore the impact of school type on service delivery, personal confidence, personality inventories and career path knowledge, as measured by the measuring instrument. according to the anova results, as depicted in table 5, there were statistically significant differences on the 99th percentile between respondents from the different school types in terms of service delivery, personal confidence, personality inventories and career path knowledge. despite reaching statistical significance, the differences in the mean scores between the groups were small. the effect sizes, calculated using eta squared (η2), were 0.16 for service delivery, 0.05 for personal confidence, 0.12 for career path knowledge and 0.03 for personality inventory. the biggest effect was noted for service delivery. table 5: analysis of variance results for type of school as independent variable post hoc comparisons based on the tukey’s hsd test were calculated to determine how respondents from the various school types differ in terms of the measured dependent variables. by considering the results depicted in table 3, it appears that respondents from advantaged schools evaluated service delivery as dissatisfactory, while respondents from the disadvantaged and marginally advantaged schools had a slightly more positive evaluation of service delivery. more specifically, results indicate that respondents from advantaged schools had the most negative evaluation of service delivery (mean = 2.67; sd = 0.552), followed by respondents from disadvantaged schools (mean = 2.51; sd = 0.471) and, lastly, marginally advantaged schools (mean = 1.97; sd = 0.474). in addition, respondents from disadvantaged schools statistically significantly differed from respondents from the marginally advantaged schools. as per the post hoc results for personal confidence, respondents from the various school types statistically significantly differed from each other. results indicated that all respondents had a slightly to very positive evaluation with reference to personal confidence (see table 3). respondents from advantaged schools had the most negative perception (mean = 1.92; sd = 0.477), followed by respondents from disadvantaged schools (mean = 1.79; sd = 0.447). respondents from marginally advantaged schools had the most positive perception about their personal confidence (mean = 1.60; sd = 0.481). considering the post hoc results for personality inventories, the only statistically significant result was that respondents from advantaged schools differed statistically significantly (mean = 2.36; sd = 0.865) from those from disadvantaged schools (mean = 2.05; sd = 0.828). with reference to career path knowledge, respondents from advantaged schools statistically significantly differed (mean = 2.08 sd = 0.964) from respondents from both disadvantaged (mean = 1.48; sd = 0.700) and marginally advantaged schools (mean = 1.38; sd = 0.707). concerning overall career path knowledge, respondents from advantaged schools had a more negative evaluation, whereas respondents from disadvantaged and marginally advantaged schools had a more positive evaluation and did not statistically significantly differ from each other. a two-way between-group ancova was conducted to explore the influence of gender and type of school on career guidance processes and outcomes (see table 6). table 6: analysis of covariance results for school type as independent variable and various covariates per dependent variable. as per table 6, the only statistically significant interaction effect yielded was for school type with gender as covariant and personal confidence as dependent variable on the 95th percentile (f = 3.138; p = 0.044*). the effect size was small as evident from the partial eta square (η2) of 0.015. nonetheless, only school type yielded a statistically significant main effect (f = 7.098; p = 0.001**), while the same for gender was not statistically significant (f = 0.086; p = 0.769). a statistically significant interaction effect was established for school type with race as covariant and subject satisfaction as dependent variable on the 99th percentile (f = 5.819; p = 0.001*). however, the effect size was small (partial eta square = 0.040). nevertheless, a statistically significant main effect for school type (f = 4.653; p = 0.010**) as well as race (f = 2.768; p = 0.041*) came to the fore. post hoc comparisons using the tukey’s hsd test did not reveal any statistically significant differences between the racial groups. discussion the primary aim of this study was to investigate whether school type (i.e. advantaged, disadvantaged or marginally advantaged) statistically significantly influences the evaluation of career guidance processes and outcomes as part and parcel of the subject life orientation, with specific reference to service delivery, personal confidence, personality inventories, career path knowledge and subject satisfaction. the hypotheses related to service delivery, personal confidence, personality inventory and career path knowledge were accepted. however, the research sub-hypothesis for subject satisfaction was rejected, indicating that school type does not statistically significantly influence the evaluation of career guidance received with specific reference to overall subject satisfaction. the secondary aim of the study was to determine whether gender and race statistically significantly influence the aforementioned correlation. results indicated that gender as covariant influences the relationship between school type and personal confidence, while race as covariant influences the correlation between school type and subject satisfaction. before discussing the results, it is important to again briefly reflect on the use of holland’s career choice theory as the basis for career guidance at curriculum level (rsa department of basic education 2011). the theoretical foundation of aligning personality types of learners with the environment has been critiqued as stagnant when fostering proactive change within the current vocational environment (stead & watson 2006). consequently, when reviewing the curriculum of life orientation for grade 9 learners in south africa, it is advisable to exclude holland’s career choice theory. the results further indicate that as the majority of afrikaans-speaking respondents attended historically advantaged schools and the majority of respondents speaking an indigenous language attended disadvantaged schools, it would appear as if the desegregation of schools as set out by the department of basic education as an educational reform (vandeyar & killen 2007) has not materialised at grass-roots level. this finding is in accordance with a statement made by spaull (2012), who indicated that inequality still plagues the south african education system. moreover, the results reflect that service delivery was the facet respondents, for the most part, were least satisfied with. the aforementioned results are corroborated by research findings by coetzee and esterhuizen (2010) who questioned the sustainability of career guidance based on current policies, especially in providing future-oriented and skill-based development at a holistic level. these findings are also in line with the research conducted by rottinghaus et al. (2002), who found that learning environments significantly influence future career aspirations. in south africa, the contexts of previously segregated schools have influenced the context within which learning and career guidance currently take place (lindley 2005). the results, however, seem to be contradicting with research done by dabula and makura (2013), who noted that south african learners are restricted when making career choices, ascribed to a lack of knowledge and self-efficacy or personal confidence. with regard to the results pertaining to personality inventories, the health professions council of south africa (hpcsa) stipulated that teachers are not qualified to administer personality tests. rather, school psychologists or trained psychometrists are required to assist learners with identifying their personal strengths and to foster in-depth insight into optimal individual career path knowledge. research by miller and nickerson (2006) indicated that the type of school significantly predicts the evaluation of career guidance with reference to personality inventories, as different types of schools have different resources to provide such services, if applicable. it should therefore be questioned whether the guidance learners receive on part of personality inventories are consistent across the diverse context of schools in south africa, while also underscoring that teachers are not authorised or permitted to administer personality tests set out by the hpcsa. life orientation as a subject should ideally provide a basis in which the personal characteristics and backgrounds of learners are also taken into account in order to enhance personal confidence and career path knowledge. yet, as discussed, this is complicated by the lack of optimal teacher induction to provide holistic career guidance (jacobs 2011), time and resource constraints (miller & nickerson 2006), and a theoretical foundation that is predominantly westernised and lacks significance in the multicultural environment typical of south africa’s diverse society (watson 2009). in addition, previous research studies have indicated that teachers are inadequately equipped in supplying career guidance (magano 2011; rooth 2005). often, schools with limited funding utilise currently employed teachers who are not formally trained to teach the subject life orientation, especially in order to deploy resources deemed more important elsewhere. limitations of the study recipient feedback provides a measure of the perception of the relevance and the value of services rendered with a certain amount of bias. the study thus provides a one-sided view from respondents which forms one part of a system within which career guidance services are rendered. as such, it would be valuable to gain further perspectives from various other stakeholders who form part of the context of career education (such as teachers, principals and parents). another limitation to the study is that the data reported present only a quantitative perspective, whereas a qualitative view will be needed to gain further understanding, especially related to the specific contexts of the respondents. conclusion south africa’s apartheid history created an unequal society that has not been sufficiently addressed in the post-apartheid period as the country is facing a deepening of disparity. this is evident in the increase of unemployment, widening of income disparities, continuous employee strikes and problematic transitioning of secondary school learners to the vocational environment. south africa has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world with the best-developed policies and intentions, but the implementation thereof seems to be problematic. against this backdrop, the research reported on in this article attempted to investigate one aspect of educational reform, that is the desegregation of schools, with specific reference to career guidance received as part of the subject life orientation. the importance of career guidance is well documented, ranging from economic development to fostering social inclusion, defined in terms of participation in paid employment, which is easier to obtain for those with a tertiary education. in light of the intention of career guidance, as a component of the subject life orientation which is to instil lasting skills to enable learners to enter the dynamic workforce, it becomes evident that there are still challenges in the south african education system that create a disjuncture between theory and practice. the findings of this research indicate the need for career guidance and education that is aligned with the patterns of disparities that would counteract the historical backdrop of south africa. aligned with the social cognitive career development theory, the context and background of learners influence their future career choices and expectations. as such, the research indicated that there is a significant difference in how learners evaluate career guidance, dependent on the type of school they attend. although most respondents evaluated career guidance received as part of the subject life orientation in a positive light, respondents from the advantaged schools yielded the most negative evaluation. furthermore, the use of a unison theory to provide career guidance at secondary school level is questioned, while a recommendation is made towards teacher induction based on interpreting the curriculum and the tailoring thereof to learners’ contexts. acknowledgements sincere gratitude is hereby extended towards the free state department of basic education for the willingness to participate in the research project. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contribution p.j. conceptualised the project and was responsible for the development of the measuring instrument, data gathering and analysis as well as write up of the article. e.s. assisted with data gathering as well 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‘an examination of the challenges of quality water provision in madibeng local municipality, north west province’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a775. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.775 original research an examination of the challenges of quality water provision in madibeng local municipality, north west province josephine e. ranngu, ricky m. mukonza received: 26 oct. 2019; accepted: 25 aug. 2020; published: 24 nov. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract like most municipalities in south africa, madibeng local municipality (mlm) is faced with the dual problem of access to water and provision of quality water services. despite the constitutional responsibility bestowed on municipalities to ensure that residents have consistent access to affordable, reliable and quality water, communities in larger portions of the mlm still have no access to quality water services. this article aimed to explore challenges of quality water service provision in mlm. focusing on the letlhabile area within the mlm, the article applied a mixed-method research approach whereby a non-probability sampling design was used to draw a sample of 70 respondents, comprising residents and responsible municipal officials. as part of the study findings, several challenges hindering provision of water services in mlm were confirmed. these included faltering district-local relations between mlm and bojanala platinum district municipality, acute scarcity of technical skills such as water treatment technicians and as paucity of competent municipal leadership. in its conclusion, this article proposes possible solutions to the water-related problems prevalent in the municipality. keywords: madibeng local municipality; water; service delivery; challenges; provision; quality water. introduction madibeng local municipality (mlm) has a faltering water service delivery system, which led to healthcare hazards for its inhabitants as recently as 2016 (govender 2016:9). for instance, the provision of contaminated water to the residents of letlhabile in brits led to service delivery protests in the area in 2017 (municipal iq 2017). according to govender (2016), such protests are an indication that the municipality is failing, both in terms of access and quality of services delivered to its people. therefore, such failures inherently implicate health conditions for members of the public, thereby promoting inconsistency, in so far as sustainable development is concerned. this article looks at service delivery from two perspectives: general access to services by the communities and the quality of those services. cognisance is taken of the solid link between service access or quality and the ability of citizens or residents to lead decent lives. oftentimes, however, municipalities experience difficulties in providing such public services (akinboade, mokwena & kinfack 2014:5; rogerson 2018:23). these services include, inter alia, the inability to provide adequate and clean water to their communities – and mlm is not an exception. whilst the right to water is engraved vividly in various policies and statutes such as section 27 of the constitution (republic of south africa [rsa] 1996) ensuring that communities sustainably get access to safe, clean and sufficient amounts of water goes beyond a mere inscription in black and white. a case in point is the mlm, which has struggled to implement and reach its service delivery targets for 5 years in a row, due to scarce resources and poor limited capacity (south african human rights commission [sahrc] 2016:1). based on this, it is crucial to highlight the fact that the failure by the said municipality to provide water services sustainably to its residents violates their right to such services and further affects their ability to have a decent standard of living. in addition, this is taking place almost 25 years after the dawn of democracy, thereby putting the need to exploit the gains of freedom in jeopardy. the overall objective of this article has been to examine the challenges to quality water provision in mlm, in the north west province of south africa. the following questions were asked: what are the statutory and policy prescripts of water provision, challenges to water provision and theoretical approaches guiding water service provision on the local government sphere of south africa? are there monitoring arrangements for water (and sanitation) provision in mlm? and lastly, to what extent is mlm complying with quality water provision and regulations policies? the research methodology chosen for the study is also presented. presentation and analysis of the empirical findings are done. lastly, the preceding evidence and analyses, conclusion and recommendation are presented. contextualisation of the study location – letlhabile mlm has 43 villages (mlm integrated development plan 2015–2016), with a total population of 536 110 as of the 2016 population census, the study area (letlhabile) has a total population of 41 497 residents (city population 2017:2). although this represents about 8% of the total population of the municipality, the study regards this is as relevant because these are the places that have been highlighted with water service delivery challenges. figure 1 is a map depicting the areas that the study focused on. the following section reviews literature on the subject matter. figure 1: madibeng municipality. literature review south african water service delivery is characterised by both achievements and challenges. there are several challenges that exist to effectively supply affordable, sufficient, clean and safe water to communities in south africa. these include a lack of attention to maintenance and sustainability, as well as uncertainty about the government’s ability to sustain current funding levels in the water sector (brillantes & cuachon 2002). such impediments are seen to be markedly affecting how communities in mlm access water and get proper quality in rendered water. whilst it may be easy to cast blame on municipalities and related role-players, there is considerable difficulty in ensuring that communities get quality water. according to moeti and khalo (2008:222), the issue of balancing the costs of providing water with the tariff (price) that consumers should pay for receiving it could be a key challenge in the provision of water to local communities. it is further acknowledged that there are some communities that are so impoverished that they cannot afford to pay any tariff on delivered water. in such scenarios, it was found that most municipalities relied on revenue generation strategies, as well as goodwill from civic and community-based organisations, to foot the bill for treating and providing quality water. it is also recognised that constrained service delivery progress results in a shortage of service delivery capacity (khalo 2008:228). mafete (2005:45) observes that the delivery of safe and sufficient water remains a goal of the local sphere of government in the 21st century. as such, in order to counter the relentless water problems, the author stressed a need to launch awareness campaigns for those who are able to pay for water services in time to avoid local government swindling people; to have improved staff training and development; to have community involvement in the process of water delivery; and to sub-contract some tasks to other multi-sectoral stakeholders (mafete 2005). kolanisi (2005) concurred, adding that there is a need for the delivery of quality water to communities and that one should also consider the demand and use of water to enable those providing water to deliver it sufficiently to the communities. in addition, there is a need for an all-inclusive, multiple-stakeholder approach to service delivery, to ensure that all relevant role-players collaborate in the sustainable delivery of water to local communities. from another angle, the perceptions and service expectations of water consumers should be the starting point for the delivery of this important community need (kolanisi 2005). hofmeyr (2012:110) regards the existence of poor water service delivery in local government as a sign of a dismal failure of intergovernmental cooperation and relations. smooth intergovernmental relations should enable the easy detection of failing quality water provision, which could trigger provincial intervention in the form of section 139 of the constitution (rsa 1996), which authoritatively states that: … when a municipality cannot or does not fulfil an executive obligation in terms of the constitution or legislation, the relevant provincial executive may intervene by taking any appropriate steps to ensure fulfilment of that obligation. (p. 1) such interventions are warranted, when municipalities fail to deliver basic services, like water or sanitation. for hofmeyr (2012), upholding the spirit of ‘oneness in separation’ across the three spheres of government in south africa could make way for the successful delivery of critical municipal basic services. khan (2003) explored the prospects of privatising water service delivery in south africa as a way of improving the efficiency of service delivery. in the main, khan (2003:78) mentioned that the privatisation or quasi-privatisation of an essential service, such as water, will have a detrimental effect for the poor or low-income earners, who sometimes cannot even afford to pay for low-priced government water tariffs. given the prevalence of a culture of non-payment in south africa, khan (2003) argues that private-sector water providers would never dare to provide water in deep-lying rural areas, where they may expect to have a huge proportion of water tariff defaulters. khan (2003:78) further suggests that public services need not get sub-contracted to profit-obsessed, private-sector companies, who only seek to maximise profits without paying much attention to the need to ensure basic, decent living standards to the citizenry. hence, water should always be overseen, or provided, by a government through a working social contract. makhari (2016), who assessed water service delivery in three metropoles, namely, city of cape town, city of tshwane and ethekwini, concluded that water service delivery could be made easier by keeping and monitoring water service management records or indicators. furthermore, periodic monitoring and punitive evaluation of a municipality’s water server provision plan is crucial in keeping local government on track with its targets on improving both access to water and quality of delivered water (makhari 2016:61). in the metros sampled (cape town, tshwane and ethekwini), the study recommended the improvement of water governance through competent leadership and staff, together with the balancing of expenditure and delivery to build financial sustainability. above all, water services are a major community need and should, therefore, be delivered in an economic, efficient and effective manner (makhari 2016). lastly, a study by madi (2016) on the delivery of equitable water and sanitation services in newcastle local municipality revealed that, although there was water service delivery to the community, this was not equitable, with some (mostly informal settlements) having to use pit latrines for ablution. in addition, there were water cuts, leading to erratic water supply, especially in areas with low-income earners. the major findings by madi (2016:86) were that politicians were out of touch with the realities, when it came to the water and sanitation needs of newcastle local municipality; and technically skilled employees were in short supply, disrupting water and sanitation service delivery. in the end, madi (2016) values the training of municipal employees responsible for water treatment and delivery; the installation of yard taps in communities, which use common open-space taps, because these taps are currently vulnerable to vandalism and negligence; and the expansion of water and sewage treatment plants to enhance access to water and sanitation. in light of the above, the perused literature touched on different aspects of water service delivery in the local sphere of government; however, none of them focused on the quality of water delivered, especially in the context of mlm. this is a municipality, which has, over the past 5 years, been on a collision course with its residents on its failure to deliver water in a sustainable manner (municipal iq 2017). a myriad of factors have been imputed to the municipality’s failure to ensure that both improved access and good quality water services are established and sustained. in addition, the study further identified a gap which exists in reviewed literature where no single study focused on water access, quality and monitoring of water service delivery. water provision in local government: legislative overview south africa has a quasi-federal system of government, with one national government, nine provincial government entities and 259 municipalities constituting local government (municipalities of south africa 2018:1; republic of south africa 1996:21). although various legislative and regulatory frameworks place water service provision as the responsibility of local government, national and provincial governments are mandated by schedule 4 (part b) of the constitution of south africa (rsa 1996) to perform oversight in the sustainable provision of water (haigh et al. 2008:15). therefore, water is the responsibility of municipalities, which should do so in line with provincial and national water service delivery blueprints. section 27 (1) (b) of the constitution (1996) further outlined the right of everyone to access sufficient food and water. in the same vein, the white paper on local government (rsa 1998a) obligates municipalities to create liveable societies and communities through, amongst others, provision of accessible and safe drinking water. how municipalities execute their roles and responsibilities is mandated in the guide provided in the objects of local government in section 154 of the constitution (1996). of particular importance to the article is section 152 (a) (b) of the constitution (1996), which states that one of the objectives of local government is ‘to ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner’. in deducing this, the article values the central role that municipalities have in bringing social and economic development to communities. recent semantic developments have seen local government in south africa labelled by scholars, such as nsingo and kuye (2005:755), as well as nealer and raga (2007:180), as ‘grassroots’ government, due to its proximity to the people and its goal of democratising government. furthermore, there is a moral and inherent mandate that the state should fulfil in the process. section 27(2) of the constitution (1996) declares that the state should take appropriate legislative and other measures to ensure a progressive realisation of the citizens’ rights, including the right to access water. in this regard, various legal and policy frameworks have been passed to ensure citizens have unhindered access to clean, drinkable water. local statutes such as municipal systems act (32 of 2000) empower municipalities to raise revenues to fund their services. hence, municipalities get their funding from taxes, rates and charges, amongst others; thus, such revenue is accumulated from members of the public. in return, residents participate in local elections and pay taxes, where applicable, in anticipation of service delivery. section 155 (1) of the constitution of the republic south africa (1996) provides for the placing of south africa’s municipalities into three categories, as a way of streamlining their operations and abilities to fulfil their service delivery mandates. in that regard, the following categories exist in local government: category a, comprising those municipalities that have exclusive municipal executive and legislative authority in their areas of jurisdiction. these types are commonly referred to as metropolitan municipalities. this category currently has eight municipalities. category b, consisting of municipalities that share municipal executive and legislative authority in their areas with a category c municipality within whose area they fall. these are commonly called local municipalities, and there are 207, as of 2016. category c is comprised of those municipalities, which have municipal executive and legislative authority in an area that includes more than one municipality. often referred to as district municipalities; there are 44 district municipalities. in light of this, mlm falls within category b and, hence, is called a local municipality, because it shares municipal executive and legislative authority with a district municipality – in this case, bonajala platinum district municipality. this status accords the local municipality the authority to determine its own legislative and executive powers in a bid to further its mandate of service delivery (shopola & mukonza 2020). the municipality also is empowered to determine its own ways of delivering quality water to residents, and this should be in line with its district’s vision and mission. this article thus values the need for intergovernmental cooperation in the delivery of services. this is also echoed by the white paper on local government (rsa 1998a), which encourages district-wide planning and planning alignment between municipalities sharing the district jurisdiction. in the ensuing paragraph, the article unpacks the legal mandate of local government. in addition, chapter 7 of the constitution (1996) is exclusively dedicated to the objectives of local government in south africa. however, of particular interest to this article is section 152(1), which stipulates that the objectives of local government are to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities; ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner; promote social and economic development; promote a safe and healthy environment; and encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in matters of local government. these objectives could also enable municipalities to move progressively towards the social and economic enhancement of local communities. in this regard, the ideal of these objectives of local government may seek to provide the core principles, mechanisms and processes that could be necessary in local government. take, for example, the aims linked to service delivery that reflect on the need for service provision, socio-economic development and health and safety. it is this collective obligation that municipalities, such as mlm, are given for their local communities. the current study values the great bearing that section 152 (1) of the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996) has on the need for quality water in municipalities such as mlm. research methodology: approach, data collection, sampling methods and respondents’ profile this article adopted a mixed-methods approach, which, according to creswell and plano clark (2011), is a mixture or triangulation of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. importantly, a key assumption of this approach is that both qualitative and quantitative data provide different types of information, often detailed views of participants qualitatively and scores on instruments quantitatively, and together they yield results that should be the same (creswell & plano clark 2011). as guided by brynard, harnekom and brynard (2014), empirical data were collected using both closed-ended questionnaires and interview techniques which were then analysed thematically and triangulated with the secondary data sourced from the existing literature, thereby strengthening validity. in terms of selecting the respondents, the study used a non-probability sampling method that, according to bless, higson and kagee (2006), is commendable when the target population is relatively small and accessible. table 1 presents the total number of respondents in this study. table 1: respondents’ profiles (n = 70). whilst this study used a mixed-method approach that was skewed towards the qualitative research paradigm, the research questions were equally spread across both the questionnaire and interview schedule. presentation and discussion of findings this section presents, analyses and discusses the data and findings gathered through the questionnaire and interviews, in line with the following three study goals: ascertain if there is monitoring of water (and sanitation) provision in mlm. assess the extent to which mlm is compliant with water provision and regulation policies. establish the challenges confronting mlm in the provision of quality water to its residents. also in this section, the analysis is premised on the quality water provision specifics from the data collected through the questionnaire. briefly, these specifics regard access, quality, compliance and monitoring for efficient and effective delivery of water in mlm. access to water resident respondents were asked various questions relating to their access to quality water in their locality. the questions also explored the relative distances that some residents of mlm had to walk to fetch water for domestic use and drinking. the data shown in the frequency distribution in table 2 reflect the dire need to improve access to safe drinking water in mlm. table 2: frequency distribution of residents’ access to water. quality of water delivered letlhabile (near brits) is one of the areas that have suffered immensely in the faltering water provision culture in mlm. a case in point is the delivery of contaminated water through tankers; the water was so dirty and contaminated that residents could not use it for any personal or domestic purposes. water quality becomes an issue, because contaminated water can contain harmful pathogens, which cause and aggravate the outbreak of water-borne diseases, like cholera, dysentery and typhoid. because section 27 of the constitution (rsa 1996), and other global statutes declared water a fundamental human right, this level of access to water for the residents of mlm constitutes an infringement of citizens’ rights. thus, the government has to take appropriate remedial action to correct such a situation. the data are presented in figure 2. figure 2: quality of delivered water. figure 2 reflects positive results in relation to the quality of water delivered in the letlhabile area, but at the same time it shows that over 35% residents are still not drinking safe water. according to mafete (2005:45), the delivery of safe and sufficient water remains a goal of the local sphere of government in the 21st century. it is important that mlm cover the outstanding areas and maintain consistency in the delivery of clean and quality water going forward. data show that 30 respondents concurred that they had access to quality water, both for domestic consumption and drinking. despite that, a significant number of respondents (25) indicated that the water was poor or moderate, in terms of its quality. monitoring of water treatment and delivery respondents were asked whether there is monitoring of water provision in the mlm. this was one of the study’s objectives. data were collected through interview with responsible officials from mlm and bojanala platinum district municipality, as well as other respondents pooled from locally based civic organisations. in all interviews, respondents agreed that there are no proper and effective monitoring mechanisms to monitor water provisions. respondents’ answers are corroborated by one mlm official responsible for water provision, who said: ‘the surge in monitoring and evaluation practices in the public sector has not spared municipalities in their quest to deliver public goods and services in a sustainable way to their residents. in so doing, all components of the broader service delivery programmes could be improved by regular monitoring, to check compliance and progress. madibeng local municipality’s water provision apparatus and infrastructure needs continuous monitoring, e.g. monitoring of water treatment.’ (female junior official, mlm water unit) another official who is a manager in the mlm unit responsible for water added that: ‘the municipality is currently trapped in a web of obstacles, such as political interference, critical skills shortage, and the absence of projects monitoring … all of which need to be addressed in the near future.’ (participant 3, manager, mlm water unit) respondent 1 touched on the issue in the following excerpt: ‘the madibeng municipality is clouded in a lot of political interference in the administrative functions. as a result, we have not been able to effectively deliver services. those with the political muscle view themselves as the most powerful and therefore want to influence all aspects, including task that we, the administrative arm of the municipality, are hire to do. due to them having this imaginary and quite powerful influence, we are left disempowered, and it is not only our work that suffers, but public service delivery. we, for example, rank water access and quality as being a top priority, but some local government politicians might be obsessed with the surfacing of roads, since they perceive it to be a way of wooing votes, be it in local government or general elections, for their party.’ (respondent 1, senior district official) this view from a middle-level municipal official is indicative of the faltering relations in the municipality. such a situation resembles most modern-day politically charged workplaces, where professionals, like municipal or supply chain managers, have their decisions and powers vetoed by mayors, who prioritise political point-scoring over achieving the objectives of local government, as set out in section 152 of the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996). this predicament continues to haunt municipalities, who have to grapple with otherwise solvable conflicts, which hugely affect quality water services provision. therefore, as argued throughout this article, and based on the constitution (1996) and other pieces of legislation or policies, water is a basic human right, which enables the subsequent enjoyment of other related and auxiliary rights. for instance, the right to a safe environment and human dignity will not be attainable in the absence of the ‘world’s most precious liquid’, water. in the same vein, water should be treated as a broad and hugely significant right in modern society. conclusion and recommendations the following recommendations seek to improve the quality water provision in mlm, and they are based on the findings in the previous section. human capital training and development: south africa has, over the years, grappled with the scarcity of critical and other skills that could give effect to an expedited socio-economic and community development. as the literature and data analysis reveal, water treatment, harvesting and provision to the communities in mlm have been, inevitably, negatively affected by these human capital shortfalls. in that regard, the study recommends an intensive training and development intervention for public-sector human capital provisioning. the state should lead by incentivising training and development initiatives aimed at building enough stock of critical skills for the provision of quality water and other essential services. this correlates with what mpofu and hlatywayo (2015:135) have argued, that is, that training and development of staff is essential for building capacity for basic service delivery by municipalities. harmonious intergovernmental cooperation: according to malan (2008:83), an effective system of intergovernmental relations is critical to the success of public service delivery. in the context of the study, the ugly squabbles between officials of mlm and bojanala platinum district municipality are holding back progress made in community development and, hence, should be amicably resolved. the intergovernmental spirit of ‘oneness in separation’ should be duly promoted, in line with constitutional requirements for cooperative government, as stipulated in sections 40 and 41 of the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996). therefore, as shopola (2019) contends, district and local municipalities have to find common ground and forge cooperative and amicable relations, so as to expedite action on service delivery and quality water provision. in conclusion, there is no doubt that south africa prides itself into having one of the most advanced constitutions in the world, and this is because of its stance on fundamental human rights. one of the rights that are promoted includes the right to access clean and quality water. in endorsing this right in 2010, the united nations underscored that the right to water is quite significant in the advancement of living standards (un 2010). as demonstrated throughout the article, south african municipalities have been tasked with providing basic services like water to their communities. regrettably, like other municipalities, mlm has been confronted with various challenges that continue to affect its ability to deliver quality water. as indicated earlier on, it is these challenges which have affected the zeal to improve community access to water, together with the need for quality drinkable water provision. the article has examined and analysed challenges of water provision in mlm using a mixed-methods approach. therefore, key findings include political tensions and skills scarcity, which can be resolved through various mechanisms such as harmonious district-local intergovernmental relations, and human capital training and development as discussed in the closing section of this article. in closing, the study values the right to water, sanitation and healthy living conditions as a tenet of decent living standards. public entities need to ensure that people-centred strategies are used to deliver services and desist from egoistic behaviours which are derailing community development. water is precious to life, and its absence affects nourishment and sanitation, which can be detrimental to local communities even to an extent of bringing catastrophic eventualities like disease outbreak. acknowledgements tshwane university of technology, department of public management. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exist. author’s contributions this work was extracted from josephine e. ranngu’s master’s dissertation, which she wrote under the supervision of dr ricky m mukonza. all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration this work was approved by the faculty of humanities ethics committee at tswane university of technology on 18 may 2012. ethical clearance number: fcre/pm/std/2012/12. funding information this work received no specific grant from any funding agency in public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references akinboade, o.a., mokwena, m.p. & kinfack, e.c., 2014, ‘protesting for improved public service delivery in south africa’s sedibeng district’, social indicators research 119(1), 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south africa’, african journal of public affairs 2(1), 76–86. moeti, k. & khalo, t., 2008, ‘privatisation and ensuring accountability in the provision of essential services: the case of water in south africa’, journal of public administration 43(special issue 1), 219–230. mpofu, m. & hlatswayo, c.k., 2015, ‘training and development as a tool for improving basic service delivery; the case of a selected municipality’, journal of economics, finance and administrative science 20(39), 133–136. municipal iq, 2015, tackle the root causes to kill off protests, viewed 07 june 2020, from: http://www.municipaliq.co.za/index.php?site_page=article.php&id=83. municipalities of south africa, 2018, the local government municipalities of south africa’, viewed 10 march 2018, from https://municipalities.co.za/ nealer, e. & raga, k., 2007, ‘nature and extent of local governance in south africa’, journal of public administration 42(5), 171–182. nsingo, s.a.m. & kuye, j.o., 2005, ‘democratic participation for service delivery in local government in zimbabwe: humanising structural configurations and legal provisions’, journal of public administration 40(4), 744–760. republic of south africa (rsa), 1996, constitution of the republic of south africa, government printer, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa), 1998a, white paper on local government, department of provincial and local government, pretoria. rogerson, c.m., 2010, ‘local economic development in south africa: strategic challenges’, development southern africa 27(4), 481–495. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2010.508580 rogerson, c., 2018, local economic development in the changing world: the experience of southern africa, routledge, london. shopola, m.a., 2019, ‘an empirical analysis of intra-local governmental relations in mopani district municipality’, unpublished masters dissertation, tshwane university of technology, pretoria. shopola, m.a. & mukonza, r.m., 2020, inter-governmental relations in mopani district municipality, south africa – an empirical review, african renaissance 17(3), 149–165. south african human rights commission (sahrc), 2016, madibeng water issues goes to court, viewed 20 march 2018, from https://www.sahrc.org.za/index.php/sahrc-media/news/item/437-water-issue-to-go-to-court united nations (un), 2010, united nations general assembly no. 64/292: the human right to water and sanitation, united nations, geneva. abstract introduction prior to the industrial age the 19th century specifically in south africa summary and conclusions points to take away acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) kevin wall department of construction economics, university of pretoria, south africa citation wall, k., 2018, ‘the evolution of south african wastewater effluent parameters and their regulation: a brief history of the drivers, institutions, needs and challenges’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a581. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.581 original research the evolution of south african wastewater effluent parameters and their regulation: a brief history of the drivers, institutions, needs and challenges kevin wall received: 07 june 2018; accepted: 28 aug. 2018; published: 29 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract understanding the historical context of sanitation provision and wastewater disposal is essential to understanding its regulation. the aim of this article was to provide that context for south africa, interweaving the story with social, institutional, policy and technological developments over more than two centuries. given that so much was initially developed in europe or encountered in europe, it was subsequently adapted for use in south africa. the article begins in earnest with the population disruptions which accompanied the industrial revolution, drawing parallels between the scale of these disruptions and the 20thand 21st-century mass urbanisation in the developing world. thereafter the article dealt exclusively with south africa, highlighting the major reversal of policy in the mid-20th century, prior to which time wastewater could not be discharged to watercourses, whereafter treated wastewater could only be discharged to watercourses. the article then spelt out some key current regulations, especially with respect to the skills required, and some difficulties in applying the regulations. introduction understanding the historical context of sanitation provision and wastewater disposal is essential to understanding its regulation. the article begins by describing the great social disruptions – also the institutional and technological advances – which accompanied the late 18th-century through 19th-century enclosures of the commonage, growth of the industrial revolution and the phenomenal urban development in pace-setting europe. although in all of the above, frequent reference is made to developments in south africa, the second half of the article deals exclusively with south africa, commencing with a broadly chronological description of urban development and the growing need for wastewater disposal and treatment. attention is drawn to the major shift of policy in 1956 – prior to that wastewater (not even treated wastewater) could not be discharged to watercourses (certain exceptions permitting), but after that treated wastewater could only be discharged to watercourses. the article then spells out some key current regulations, especially with respect to the skills required, and some difficulties in applying the regulations. prior to the industrial age up to less than 200 years ago, even in western europe, sanitation practices and wastewater collection and treatment had not advanced much for many centuries. isolated inventions, such as the water closet in elizabethan times, were adopted by only a very few households. human and animal waste was, for the most part, simply dumped in the street. collection was intermittent and usually organised by the local parish council in the absence of more formal municipal government other than (sometimes) in the larger urban settlements. cesspits were common in these larger cities, at least in europe – emptying of these was intermittent, and during the intervals the liquid part of the cesspit waste would drain into the groundwater. water conservation was largely a non-issue in countries with adequate rainfall. major (for the times) engineering works, such as aqueducts, brought water to cities,1 but in other settlements, rivers or streams were seldom far away – populations were low compared to today, and settlements were small and very compact. in european formal settlements, the parish or some other authority would organise a water supply to a fountain in the town square (if a larger settlement, there would be several of these fountains), and the townspeople would fetch their water supply from these fountains. other supply would be obtained from wells or furrows.2 in dry countries, water was collected and stored with great care, but again, the technologies hardly changed, if at all, in centuries. none of which is to say that many of the practices were not flawed. a particular issue, for people dependent for their water supply upon fountains, wells, springs, streams or canals, was pollution by other users. for example, within a year of his 1652 arrival at the cape, commander van riebeeck felt compelled to issue a ‘placaat’, or proclamation, surely the very first environmental regulatory measure enacted in colonial south africa. although the settlement had been established primarily as a refreshment station between holland and the east indies, and the site had been carefully chosen to secure supplies of clean water from the ‘fresh river’ flowing from the slopes of table mountain, some ships reported sicknesses which they ascribed to the supposedly clean water, not in fact, being clean. it was readily discovered that people in the settlement upstream of the shoreline were washing in the stream or dumping their refuse into it. hence the proclamation to the effect that any such practice was forbidden on pain of a fine being levied (figure 1). figure 1: remains of the wash troughs next to the platteklip stream. during the latter part of the 19th century, the municipality provided off-stream wash troughs as an incentive to washerfolk not to wash clothes in the stream. the 19th century from the late 18th century, the pace of change increased rapidly in response to far-reaching social and institutional change, together with medical, scientific and technological advances. the first country to experience radical change was britain. with the industrial revolution there appeared both a compelling cause and an enabling force of these other advances. ‘largely’ a british story, yes, but by no means ‘only’ a british story. several other countries in europe and north america generally started later, but then followed close behind – or made their own contributions before the british did. the more urbanised parts of british colonies, such as the south-western cape colony, were often not far behind in terms of adoption of any innovations. as briefly as possible: in britain, scientific, industrial and other advances picked up momentum in the late 18th century and quickened as the 19th century progressed. the story is well known – to name a few advances: early steam engines, the building of canals, early experiments with electricity and chemistry and so on – and there is no need to list them here. intensified enclosure of the commonage from the late 19th century deprived many countryfolk of their livelihood, pushing them from the land. the growing demand for industrial workers drew many countryfolk to towns. thus towns grew. spectacularly so, in some cases, if the town became an industrial hub. the flood of people into the industrial towns overwhelmed the existing infrastructure and technologies for sanitation, water supply and clearing of refuse. existing governance institutions – for example, the parish councils – were also overwhelmed. the average living conditions in these towns deteriorated rapidly. reform was clearly needed, but it had to surmount four major obstacles, namely: absence of the political will to act lack of effective and properly resourced institutional and administrative machinery – to govern, to plan, to implement and to regulate knowledge of how to act, including the necessary engineering and medical technology need for a vast improvement to the basic education system. the parallelism between 19th-century britain and that of the 20th and 21st centuries: … the cities of the developing world is, in several ways, exact. the people who flooded into the burgeoning 19th century industrial and port cities of britain … tended to be drawn from the poorer section of the rural population …. they had little or no knowledge of the technical skills needed by the new industry, or of the social and technical necessities of urban life. (hall 1974:23) nearly two decades ago, the then director general of water affairs (dwaf), commenting on the perceived slow pace of water and sanitation improvement in post-1994 south africa, stated that: we really do need a sense of history. local government was born of the pollution, poverty and pestilence of 19th century imperial britain. in 1850, the british solution to cholera was to build local government and have local government build sanitation and water infrastructure. it took time. fifty years later, the army generals complained that poverty and disease had produced a population so stunted that it was difficult to muster a credible army to fight in south africa. (muller 2001 – emphasis added by current author) it was only part of the problem that these migrants to the settlements were poor and lacked skills suitable for any employment other than that requiring the lowest levels. a bigger part was that their numbers overwhelmed the towns to which they emigrated – which in any case prior to their arrival had only the most rudimentary arrangements for providing water, or clearing refuse or sewage, or for treating mass epidemics. there was no way the towns could cope with the huge influx. london’s population doubled from 1 million in 1801 to 2 million in 1851; doubled again to 4 million in 1881 and reached 6 million in 1905. the results were predictable. limited water supplies became even more overstretched and also increasingly contaminated; arrangements for disposal of wastes of all kinds were unable to cope; personal hygiene was very poor; and public health controls were almost completely lacking. take london: nearly all of its wastes eventually found their way into the thames. at the height of summer in 1856, parliament was unable to sit because the stink from the adjacent river was unbearable (figure 2). figure 2: the scientist michael faraday presenting his business card to a stinking dirty father thames. reform was clearly needed, but it had to surmount the ‘major obstacles’ listed above.3 the political will to act gradually came. a series of parliamentary acts between 1835 and 1845 led to legislation that enabled the birth of something resembling local government, as we know it today. of course its development did not stop then – local government still had to acquire many powers, particularly financial powers, but over several decades, this evolved into the needed effective and properly resourced institutional and administrative machinery. (for the record, cape and natal colonial legislation soon followed the british.) the ‘knowledge of how to act’ involves both public health and medical knowledge and engineering knowledge. and of course the ‘how’ must include not just the conceptual knowledge but also the ability to implement, which includes, for engineering as an example, the institutions, technologies, materials and equipment. in more than one sense, while the industrial revolution caused great social misery, it was also a powerful means of alleviating much of that misery, as follows: in the pre-industrial era, water supply was brought into settlements in canals and pipes made of stone in the one case and wood in the other. but making a wooden pipe was a laborious process, besides which the wood had a limited life; also, pumps were primitive, and therefore water in any sizable quantity could only be gravitated to settlements, which implied that sources had to be at higher elevations than the settlements. (skipping over a few generations.) by the early 19th century steam-driven pumping technology could move large quantities of water against gravity. also, pipe-manufacturing capability, using cast-iron to begin with (later in the century, steel), made possible the conveyance of water in bulk across large distances, and also the reticulation of that water within the settlements – together with other innovations such as household plumbing, which gradually became more or less as we know it today. on many critical issues, such as the germ-borne causation of disease and its treatment, even by the mid-19th century the foremost ‘experts’ were sadly ignorant. often compounding the hampering of improved water, sanitation and health services provision was what we now know to be mistaken perceptions. an important example was the widespread belief that, whatever the medium was that carried cholera, it was not water. even influential britons, such as florence nightingale, professed that many diseases were borne on ‘bad air’ (the so-called ‘miasma’ theory). before the experiments of pasteur, lister and other pioneers, hardly anyone took seriously the notion that diseases could be transmitted by germs. cholera was first positively identified as a waterborne disease in 1854 by a london doctor, john snow. in an early spatial statistical analysis, he showed that the outbreaks in a slum district of london were systemically associated with the water supply from a single pump. but not until some time after this was his opinion generally accepted – it was only in 1883 that the german chemist robert koch conclusively established the link between cholera and contaminated water. ironically, the industrialisation and engineering advances that, attracted the immigrants through offering prospects of employment, had also both directly and indirectly caused the urban crisis. the industrialisation advanced so much since the start of the 19th century that it was – only now for the first time – possible to undertake on the huge scale required, the major engineering works that would bring fresh water to the cities and take away the wastes. the 19th century, especially the second half, was an era of boundary-pushing civil engineering works such as railways and bridges. but it should not be forgotten that the civil engineering works, that without any doubt had the greatest effect on quality of life, were those related to water and sanitation. the wastewater specialist whose name ought to be remembered above all others, is the civil engineer joseph bazalgette. it was claimed of him that he ‘probably did more good, and saved more lives, than any single victorian public official’.4 this is quite some claim, when one reflects that this was also the time of nightingale and lord shaftesbury.5 bazalgette’s major undertaking was responsibility between 1856 and 1889, for motivating and building from scratch the main drainage system of metropolitan london. this drainage system achieved two main direct objectives: provided the ‘backbone’ for a sewer reticulation system which could then be laid throughout the city, enabling all buildings to install flush sanitation; and by intercepting the foul waters which had been draining or seeping to the thames, vastly improved the water quality in the river, allowing it in due course to once again be used for water supply. along the way, responsible citizens gradually learned an important lesson which it seems had been forgotten, at least in the sense that it had seldom been taken into account in any planning or implementation. this lesson was that the effects of direct action on some part of the water cycle affect the next part of the cycle, and so on down the line. for example, contamination of a stream at one point has ripple effects downstream, maybe even affecting the water rights of others, or affecting the environment. for another of many possible further examples, deforestation of an area can affect streamflow in a catchment. health-related regulation of some sort had existed for centuries – for example mediaeval regulation of slaughterhouses. but it was only in the 19th century that water, sanitation and wastes generally could begin to be regulated in a way which we can recognise today – because giving effect to that regulation was then for the first time becoming possible in terms of the institutions (principally municipal government) and the technology. finally, ideas continually evolved on means to collect wastewater from settlements and to dispose of it. the first step in this evolution was to remove the wastewater from a settlement – by means of a sewerage system – thus ‘reducing, if not eliminating, pollution in build-up areas, and achieving more salubrious conditions in and around habitations generally’ (murray 1987:6). once the way was clear to achieving this removal (although implementation might no more than have begun), the second step had to be tackled – when the wastewater had been removed, how to dispose of it? the third step was treating the effluent – that is, rendering it less harmful before it is discharged to rivers, sea or land. the predominant tendency at first was to discharge the (totally untreated) wastewater into the usually most convenient of the above, namely the rivers. however, as the pollution load on the rivers increased, there grew an awareness that the discharge of sewage, industrial and other wastes into rivers would pollute them to the detriment of the interests of riparian users downstream. associated with this awareness came a realisation that some forms of treatment (in those days, the term generally used was ‘purification’) were necessary. in 1868 the british government established the rivers pollution prevention commission with a brief to investigate methods of wastewater treatment. then contemporary advances in understanding of chemical and biological processes aided the research. initial experiments under the auspices of the commission focused on mechanical separation and filtration of the wastewater, but the importance of chemistry and biology was soon recognised. initially, little was known about bacteria and the part played by them in wastewater, but this knowledge soon grew in conjunction with advances in microbiology. thus, by the late 1800s, the common methods of disposal were: discharge into rivers discharge into the sea disposal on land (the so-called ‘sewage farms’).6 specifically in south africa from the late 1800s, mining and then industrial development began in south africa, settlements grew rapidly with migration from within and without the country, the steadily improving infrastructure and medical and health knowledge from overseas really became needed in this country, and institutions and legislation to cope with this change had to be formed and formulated. for reasons which shall be explained, 1956 is a suitable year at which to separate this narrative into two parts. in south africa up to 1956 in much of 19th-century south africa, particularly the rural areas, significant change was slow in coming to either water supply or sanitation practice. populations were sufficiently dispersed that disposal of wastes of all forms could take place within a short walking distance of the households, with very little chance of harming anyone else – thus no need for any kind of regulation. in the new settlements which sprang up under the aegis of boer or british authorities, there was initially little need for regulation – practices deemed potentially harmful in some way were few and were usually self-regulated or regulated by community consent. thus cape town, supplementing the neglected canals (grachts)7 installed by the dutch administrations, by 1834 had 36 free-flowing fountains. however these were perceived to waste the water, so they were replaced by ‘swaai’ pumps, whose back-and-forth action required effort – and therefore users were less inclined to waste.8 in the city bowl these were fed either from groundwater or with supply piped from springs, for example, the breda springs in oranjezicht. over the years, as population grew steadily, these were supplemented by water caught on and conveyed from table mountain. water security was always to some or another extent directly dependent upon the rainfall patterns. thus there were water shortages, and rationing and supply interruptions, from time to time. until the discovery of diamonds (from 1866) and gold (foundation of johannesburg 1886), towns grew slowly. in these new rapidly growing mining towns technology introduced in europe usually made its appearance quite soon. of the new post-1880 inland settlements, johannesburg and its sister gold mining towns had major water problems from the start. in a sense, nature had not been kind by providing the rich gold-bearing reefs within a couple of kilometres of a major watershed – therefore such streams as existed were small and non-perennial. there are reports of water being sold by the bucket – at a price of two shillings and sixpence (an immense amount of money for those days) per bucket! this, of course, kept personal consumption at extremely low levels until the first of the engineered schemes, early in the 20th century, to bring water from more distant places. turning again to wastewater, as early as 1902 the cape peninsula commission was able to report that ‘nearly all’ of the houses in the centre of cape town were connected to a waterborne sewerage system (cape colony 1902), whereas houses in the suburbs were not: while by 1915, the suburbs of woodstock, maitland, mowbray, rondebosch and claremont were served with a more stable water supply from the newlands storage reservoir, with respect to sewerage [sic] removal, little had changed since 1895. thus the districts of woodstock, maitland, mowbray, rondebosch and claremont continued to be served via a pail system – the stercus being removed on a weekly basis. in woodstock and maitland moreover, there being no system of surface drainage, slop water was allowed to pass into the street gutter or on to adjacent land, and ultimately to find its way into neighbouring streams – in the other suburbs, the ‘very dirty slop water’ was collected in pails or tubs and emptied every day except sunday, whilst other water and bath water was treated in the same fashion as in woodstock and maitland. it was a most unsatisfactory situation. (buirski 1983:132) prior to the installation of a sewerage system, ‘night-soil’ buckets were conveyed by train nightly to a depositing site at bellville. in 1895 w.t. olive, a consulting engineer, was commissioned to design a sewerage system for cape town. almost co-incidentally the green point and sea point municipality introduced a waterborne sewage system which provided for final discharge9 into the sea. (murray 1987:27) cape town was not unique: the pit privy and bucket was the norm in pietermaritzburg before 1905, and household waste liquid was merely discharged into open street channels and drains for discharge to the msunduzi river. (osborn 1988:139) the first municipal wastewater treatment works placed in commission in south africa – by today’s standards, extremely small and using primitive technology – commenced operations in bloemfontein (november 1904) and at wynberg (january 1905), followed by pietermaritzburg (1908). in these cases, the improved resultant effluent was irrigated over adjacent land. in all other urban centres wastewater, if it was collected at all, was irrigated on land in a still untreated state. for the first half of the 20th century, land irrigation continued to be the main means of wastewater disposal: the union health act no. 36 of 1919 strengthened this situation, as it prohibited local authorities from discharging effluents into a river, irrespective of the quality … this legislation also permitted the minister of health to lay down standards for purified effluents, but these powers were never exercised. in 1951 the south african bureau for standards also published standards for the discharge of effluent to streams, but these were more in the form of a guide and there was no compulsion to enforce them. (osborn 1988:139–141) nonetheless, there was some regulation, in particular, that the national department of health laid down the area of land to be available for discharge – for example, not less than 100 acres of ‘suitable ploughable land’ for every million gallons treated per day (murray 1991:27). it was soon realised that seepage to groundwater and watercourses was likely to occur where land was irrigated, and so the department of health prescribed increased minimum areas of land for different qualities of effluent. however, events began to overtake this, principally in the form of the establishment of new industries with new substances in their effluents. realising the need, cities and larger towns built works where the wastewater could be treated before being irrigated. the pioneers included stellenbosch, cape town, kimberley, queenstown, johannesburg and pretoria. as a result of innovations from overseas, but coupled with local experimentation and monitoring particularly in johannesburg, the technology used was often the most modern available worldwide (grant & flinn 1992:63–69). nonetheless, before 1956, in terms of south african legislation (and consequent regulation), wastewater, even if treated, could not be discharged directly into watercourses, but could only be disposed of on land or out to sea. (some exceptions permitted, usually but not always temporarily,10 notwithstanding.) enforcement of effluent quality regulations was never that strict or effective, principally because (examples only): populations were lower than today (south africa: in 1911, 6.0 million people; 1936, 9.6; 1960, 16.0; 1996, 40.6; 2018 around 56). current comment: the effect of this population growth on water and sanitation has been enormous. for one thing, the open space, the environment ‘out there’, which could be the dumping ground for all manner of wastes,11 has effectively disappeared.) together with higher populations has come a disproportionately very much higher demand for water and sanitation services. current comment: for example: the type of household that in the past might have been satisfied with one outside tap, would now have taps inside and outside the house, together with several water-using appliances. wastewater constituents were generally less complex than today. current comment: for example: ‘new’ chemicals from the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries … these chemicals enter the environment through, for example: pesticide applications, as byproducts of industrial processes, and household waste such as cleansers and pharmaceuticals (du preez 2010:17). less was understood about the often pervasive effects of certain contaminants and causative chains. there was much less awareness of the natural environment and of the threats to it, if only because of the far lower populations than today, and their lesser mobility (100 years ago, very few people possessed motorcars, and roads other than in city centres were bad or non-existent). however, 1956 saw radical change. in south africa after 1956 as a result of both: awareness of increasing populations, complexity of wastewater and environmental concerns – and anticipating further population growth and urbanisation development, both in south africa and overseas, of treatment technology … … in 1956, a new water act brought radical change to how wastewater was viewed. the most immediate and striking change was a prohibition of irrigation of effluent onto land. discharging effluent into watercourses (rivers and streams, or in the case of coastal areas, into the sea) became the only legal option. together with this (among many other things), the 1956 act brought promise of: a complete revamp of the regulatory environment (in respect of not only wastewater effluent, but in many other related areas) a promise of more formally organised and much stricter enforcement. the water act no. 54 of 1956 ‘basically reversed’ the prohibition on discharging effluents into a river, … and made it obligatory to discharge purified effluents to the watercourse. permits were required to use water for agricultural purposes and to discharge effluents not complying with the quality standards. these were finally published in government notices over the period from 1962 to 1984. (osborn 1988:141) the concept was introduced of differentiating, according to the use to which the ‘receiving waters’ (the term used) are being put, the standards required of effluent to be discharged into watercourses. in brief, and to illustrate by two extreme situations: discharge into relatively undisturbed watercourses from which communities draw water, and which are also used for activities such as swimming, has to be to the highest standard discharge into already heavily polluted watercourses can be at a much lower standard.12 the concept of ‘general standards’, ‘general authorisations’, ‘special standards’ and ‘special authorisations’ for wastewater effluent quality was refined subsequent to the 1956 act.13,14 in brief, general standards, which are lower, apply to effluent discharge everywhere that special standards are not specifically required. special standards are: quality standards for wastewater or effluent arising in the catchment area draining water to any river specified in [a schedule] or a tributary thereof at any place between the source thereof and the point mentioned in the schedule, insofar as such catchment area is situated within the territory of the republic of south africa. (dwaf 1984:1) these quality standards have been raised from time to time over the years. for example: the oxidation pond system situated south of zeekoevlei served the city [of cape town] for many years. [however] the more stringent requirements set in recent years by the central governments department of water affairs for effluent quality made these ponds unacceptable and they thus had to be replaced. (cape town 1980:13) the preamble to the national water act of 1998 (no. 36 of 1998) – which, at least as far as wastewater effluent quality matters are concerned, updated and strengthened the philosophy of the 1956 act – commences as follows: ‘recognising that water is a scarce and unevenly distributed national resource which occurs in many different forms which are all part of a unitary, inter-dependent cycle …’, the act puts the national minister in charge as the state’s custodian of this public resource ‘to ensure that water is allocated equitably and used beneficially in the public interest while promoting environmental values’. in particular, in this act: chapter 3 ‘protection of water resources’ inter alia classifies water resources and resource quality objectives; and chapter 4: ‘use of water’ inter alia sets out the considerations, conditions and essential requirements of general authorisations and licenses. the same year dwaf brought out ‘revision of general authorisations in terms of section 39 of the national water act, 1998’.15 this took further the determinations of, inter alia: ‘wastewater limit values applicable to the irrigation of any land or property’ (limits set in terms of parameters such as suspended solids, chlorine as free chlorine, chemical oxygen demand, faecal coliforms and fluoride). the records of monitoring the quantity and quality of the wastewater used for irrigation. ‘wastewater limit values applicable to discharge of wastewater into a water resource’ (set in terms of similar – but not exactly the same – parameters as above). ‘listed water resources’ (mostly defined lengths of streams, but also including ramsar16 listed wetlands) – in respect of these areas, special standards apply. of course, the effect of all this legislation and these regulations can only be as good as the combination of:17 the attempts of water services institutions to comply with regulation the monitoring, regulation and enforcement. suffice to say: a number of agencies and individuals are conscientious, and do their best to meet the required standards. but all are juggling to provide services and meet a range of regulatory requirements, doing this on budgets which are usually too small for the task. from time to time therefore, despite the will to keep within the limits, even the best of them is unable to do so. other agencies and individuals seem not to care, or have given up trying. enforcement of the regulations ought to address this, but very seldom does effectively (figure 3). figure 3: what final effluent from a wastewater treatment works should look like. in brief, the enforcement of wastewater effluent quality regulations in south africa is, with few exceptions, hamstrung by budgets that are far too small. this with little doubt can be ascribed to the lack of capacity and will on the part of particularly, the department of water and sanitation (dws – the renamed dwaf) and the department of environmental affairs. (from time to time allegations also surface of other factors related to staff attitudes and competence.) the frustration facing the conscientious agencies and officials may be summarised as follows (using regulation of wastewater discharge – not from wastewater treatment works, but from industrial premises – as an example): too few posts are created in the establishment (e.g. a city at one stage had only six posts of inspectors – this to cover the city 24/7!). moreover (same city) two posts had been frozen. there are too few monitoring points on the watercourses (and in the storm water drainage system, which must also be monitored for industrial waste – discharge of which to a storm water system is illegal). if pollution is noticed, the way in which the regulations are generally interpreted by magistrates is to require that, if anyone is to be prosecuted, the source of pollution be proven beyond reasonable doubt. at least one inspector must therefore spend a large part of his or her time over the next few months working with the municipal legal advisers to prepare a case. the inspector must appear in court while the case is heard, and be prepared to give evidence and be cross-examined. the prospect then is that the magistrate may not understand the technicalities or is badly advised by his technical assessors (if any), and the case is dismissed. or the perpetrator is fined – but the maximum fine is a derisory amount which to the perpetrator is no deterrent whatsoever (figure 4). figure 4: discharge of industrial waste into a storm water canal – in broad daylight! as a retired former senior official stated, quoting his own experience when at dwaf (to paraphrase): i had prepared the department’s case most carefully, then briefed our attorney. but the other side hired the smartest senior counsel in the field – he proceeded, over two days, to trash both the regulations and our evidence. even a magistrate heavily biased in our favour, when confronted by this spellbinding performance, could not fail to have pronounced that the defendant must be acquitted on the grounds of inconclusive evidence. … … it was a long time before we felt bold enough to attempt another prosecution (pers. comm., name withheld – 2018). note that municipalities and any other institutions (including private institutions, state-owned enterprises and other government departments18) cannot operate a wastewater treatment works without a licence from dws. regulations require the registration of every ‘works’ and every ‘process controller’ (a defined qualification – these are the officials in charge of works) ‘on that waterwork’. these regulations have been changed from time to time (usually the requirements are made more stringent), but are always specified in terms of: the population served the infrastructure and its characteristics (e.g. design capacity, peak flows, power installation) operating procedures (e.g. raw influent flow rate, chemical dosing, stabilisation, disinfection) control processes (e.g. water losses, pumping, maintenance, laboratory services) ‘special processes’ (e.g. fluoridation, reverse osmosis, activated carbon – if any are used) sensitivity of water resource into which treated water is discharged. the regulations then set out the measurable parameters which must be met in terms of the above. but, in addition, ‘points’ are awarded on the basis of the above-listed parameters, and dws then classifies each works on a scale from a (larger quantities, more complex processes, greater sensitivity of waters discharged into) through e (smaller quantities, etc.). that classification is then used to determine the educational qualifications and other skills requirements of the process controllers. for example, ‘schedule 4: minimum class of process controller required per shift, and supervision …’ requirements. in terms of this schedule, the lowest scale of ‘works class’, namely e, must have a class i operator per shift, under overall supervision19 of the works of a class v supervisor, whereas the highest scale, namely a, must have a class iv operator per shift under a class v supervisor (dwaf 2005). a dilemma very often – too often – facing dws arises when a treatment works does not meet the licence requirements. what is dws to do? close the works down? obviously it cannot because the quality of the effluent from a work which is operating, even if not operating very well, is inevitably much better than the quality of the effluent from a work which is not being operated at all, but is flowing straight through without any treatment. finally on wastewater, monitoring for the purposes of regulation can serve purposes other than compliance checking. new analysis techniques suggest that monitoring of influent to and effluent from wastewater treatment works can identify certain health and social risks much quicker, with more certainty and much cheaper, than the public health system, which relies upon reporting from hospitals and clinics, is able to. wolfaardt described the extent to which treatment works monitoring methods already available, can identify within 24 h the extent to which specific drugs are being used in specific catchment areas. salient detail can also be provided – for example, with what other substances this drug-taking is associated, for example, alcohol. similar techniques are able within hours to identify selected characteristics of the use of medical substances, for example, antiretrovirals (archer et al. 2018; wolfaardt 2018). wolfaardt also described the fast-increasing range of chemical substances found in wastewater, many of them in pharmaceutical and personal care products, and the increasing use of indicators to track them – also the research into ways in which these substances might be neutralised at wastewater treatment works (archer et al. 2018; wolfaardt 2018). summary and conclusions authorities and users in south africa have, over a long period of development overseas and locally, gained extensive experience of strategies for the effective regulation of wastewater. that said, and as briefly as possible: population growth, spatial patterns (particularly urbanisation) and the demand for goods and services inevitably exercise the biggest influence on wastewater effluent volume and also on its quality. the second biggest influence is legislation and the regulations promulgated in terms of that legislation – but only if the regulations are effectively enforced. legislation will make little difference without regulations; regulations will make little difference without enforcement. in efforts to improve effluent quality, no one size fits all. sometimes, reform has to overcome ignorance and prejudice.20 reform often advances by a ‘virtual spiral’. for example: technology invention or adaptation might not be adopted until the need for it is accepted, and there is the will to install it.21 at other times, the need is identified ahead of the technology to address it – thus there would be a period while possible technologies are developed or mass-produced at an acceptable price. how effective any of these are depends on many factors, principally: the national and local context, including tradition of regulation and of voluntary contributions; and the current and past national and local situation, including where a society has come from, its norms and standards, and its expectations. so, to sum it all up – what generally can be said about the track record of these many and varied effluent quality regulations? the bottom line is while the general themes of wastewater effluent regulation have not changed in a century, their context has radically changed, and almost everything else about them has changed. in brief: because of population growth, and factors associated with population growth, the context of, for just a few examples, demand (for water, and for a cleaner environment [particularly, in the current instance, the quality of surface water courses]) has increased at a much faster rate than has population growth itself. at the same time, the opportunities for tapping new water resources have diminished and become much more expensive, particularly because the nearer and cheaper resources have already been exploited, and new sources are inevitably more expensive. available treatment technologies have multiplied, but only a small minority have proved to be of lasting value. nonetheless, the technologies commonly used, to implement improvement and to monitor it, have in general vastly improved. there is no doubt that, in all societies, the understanding of the link between water and wastewater and health – and the economy – has improved – in some societies more than others. there is today far more awareness of and concern for the needs of the natural environment, but the extent to which this is translated into action varies enormously. water and sanitation issues have become far more political than before, and bound with considerations of social reform. more and more, also, water and sanitation have taken account of access and equity. change has been far-reaching – although not radical enough for some. responses have often been ‘too little’ and ‘late’, but, thus far, seldom ‘too late’. some things have not changed – for example, the necessity for political will to prepare adequately for the future, and to fund what is and will become necessary. and a lesson repeatedly, not adequately, learned is that the passing of legislation is only the first step in a process of enforcing change. after legislation must come regulation, and after that enforcement. but it is enforcement which is so often weak and ineffective – truly, the weak link in the chain. points to take away for wastewater effluent regulation to succeed in its purpose: although legislation and regulation are not the weak link, enforcement is, and therefore this must be tightened: the political will to achieve this is needed: particularly to improve monitoring and enforcement capacity, and to increase the penalties and raise the rate of prosecutions. in the face of increasing source, variety and complexity of contaminants, methods to cope with these must continue to be evolved. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references archer, e., castrigano, e., kasprzyk-hordern, b. & wolfaardt, g., 2018, ‘wastewater-based epidemiology and enantiometric profiling for drugs of abuse in south african wastewaters’, science of the total environment 625, 792–800. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.12.269 ashton, p., 2010, ‘south africa’s water supplies and eutrophication’, in s. oelofse & w. strydom (eds.), a csir perspective on water in south africa, pp. 14–15, council for scientific and industrial research, pretoria. buirski, p., 1983, ‘mortality rates in cape town 1895–1980: a broad outline’, in c. saunders, h. philips, e. van heyningen & v. bickford-smith (eds.), studies in the history of cape town, vol. 5, pp. 125–166, university of cape town, cape town. city of cape town, city engineer’s department, 1980, cape flats sewage treatment project, city engineers department annual report 1980, city engineers department, cape town. city of cape town, city engineer’s department, cape town, 1982, organisational reform of local government services in greater cape town, city engineers department, cape town. city of cape town, city engineer’s department, 1989, wastewater treatment – a review, city engineer’s annual report 1988/1989, pp. 17–20, cape town, city engineers department, cape town. department of water affairs and forestry, south africa, 1956, water act, act 54 of 1998, department of water affairs and forestry, pretoria. department of water affairs and forestry, south africa, 1984, requirements for the purification of wastewater or effluent, government gazette 18 may 1984, no 9225, department of water affairs and forestry, pretoria. department of water affairs and forestry, south africa, 1998, national water act, act 36 of 1998, department of water affairs and forestry, pretoria. department of water affairs and forestry, south africa, 2005, regulations for the taking and storing of water from a water resource and the disposal in any manner of the water which contains waste: for the proposed registration of a water work and a person, department of water affairs and forestry, pretoria. department of water affairs and forestry, south africa, 2013, revision of general authorisations in terms of section 39 of the national water act, 1998 (act no 36 of 1998), government gazette 06 september 2013, no 36820, department of water affairs and forestry, pretoria. du preez, m., 2010, ‘water quality and human health’, in s. oelofse & w. strydom (eds.), a csir perspective on water in south africa, pp. 16–17, council for scientific and industrial research, pretoria. government of the cape colony, 1902, g21-1902 report of a commission to enquire into and report upon certain matters affecting cape peninsula municipalities and the cape divisional council, 3 vols., government of the cape colony, cape town. (quoted in cape town 1982.) grant, g. & flinn, t., 1992, watershed town: the history of the johannesburg city engineer’s department, johannesburg city council, johannesburg. hall, p., 1974, urban and regional planning, penguin books, harmondsworth, london. halliday, s., 1999, the great stink of london: sir joseph bazalgette and the cleansing of the victorian metropolis, sutton publishing, stroud, gloucestershire. muller, m., 2001, untitled address to a governance seminar at the human sciences research council, pretoria. murray, k.a., 1987, wastewater treatment and pollution control, water research commission, pretoria. (particularly chapter 2: ‘historical development of sewage disposal methods in south africa’.) oberholster, p., 2010, ‘the current status of water quality in south africa’, in s. oelofse & w. strydom (eds.), a csir perspective on water in south africa, pp. 8–13, council for scientific and industrial research, pretoria. oelofse, s., 2010, ‘industry and water quality’, in s. oelofse & w. strydom (eds.), a csir perspective on water in south africa, pp. 50–53, council for scientific and industrial research, pretoria. osborn, d.w., 1988, ‘sewage purification in south africa – past and present’, in i. buchan (ed.), water sa, water research commission, pretoria. wall, k., 2005, ‘water and wastewater treatment works in south africa: a study of the compliance and regulatory gap’, in p. camay & a. gordon (eds.), poverty reduction through improved regulation: perspectives on south african and international experience, pp. 215–235, core (co-operative for research and education), johannesburg. wolfaardt, g., 2018, ‘research and development’, presentation, by the director of the stellenbosch university water institute and incumbent of the erwat chair in water research, to the board of directors of the east rand water care company (erwat), magaliesberg. footnotes 1. notably those constructed by the roman and ottoman empires. 2. if the founding fathers of the settlement perceived the need, and if the topography suited, furrows would be laid alongside the main streets – this was also recognition of the demand for plots, even within the settlement, to be irrigable. quite a few south african settlements were laid out on this basis. furrows still run in stellenbosch and stanford, for example. 3. the fourth obstacle is not dealt with further in this article, other than to say that major reforms to the british basic education system were effected over decades – reforms to the institutions, the training of teachers and to the curricula. as legislated compulsory education took effect, large numbers of new state-supported schools were set up, and teaching became a respected profession. 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/great_stink#legacy 5. shaftesbury was a renowned philanthropist and a leading campaigner for child labour reform and the reform of working conditions in factories. 6. this article is not the appropriate place for a discourse on wastewater treatment methods or on the results of works not functioning effectively. suffice to say that a treatment works using up-to-date infrastructure and treatment methods, and properly staffed and run, is capable of consistently producing an effluent which matches or exceeds the works-specific parameters laid down by in the works’ licence conditions by the regulatory authority (in south africa, the national department of water and sanitation (dws)). unfortunately, many works are not operated effectively, are understaffed, have insufficient capacity (especially, but not only, in the rainy season – thanks to infiltration into sewers upstream), are ageing – and so on. the result then is effluent which does not meet licence conditions. this of course has many negative effects for users downstream. (the topic is well documented: for example as is neatly summarised by oberholster, ashton, du preez and oelofse (in csir 2010). but the effects of neglect continue right up to the present time, for example: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/municipalities-to-blame-for-contamination-of-vaal-river-system-parliament-2018-08-20) 7. the cape town canals, still in use for household water purposes during the 18th century, had by the 19th century gradually ceased to be used for that purpose, thanks to their increasing levels of contamination. (the effect of van riebeeck’s placaat, and subsequent attempts to keep the stream and canal water clean, clearly having worn off over the decades!) 8. for many years, the sole survivor has been the ‘hurling swaai’ pump in prince street, oranjezicht. 9. of untreated effluent. 10. in 1909, the governor of the transvaal granted permission for the pretoria city council to discharge purified effluent directly into the apies river. this enabled the daspoort wastewater treatment works to be built. (as an aside: commissioned in 1912, the main structures of the biofilters then installed are still in use to this day, although these biofilters now account for a minuscule part of treatment capacity.) 11. dumping of waste beyond the urban fringe was very seldom wilful damage. usually, disposing in this manner was chosen because it presented the financially cheapest solution. nonetheless there was often great faith in the healing power of the natural environment – for example the long-held belief that contaminated water flowing over seven stones would be cleaned. 12. some irony: situations where the quality of a stream below the discharge point of a wastewater treatment works is higher than that above it, thanks to the diluting effect of the treated effluent on the heavily polluted stream upstream, are by no means uncommon. for example: for many years the klipspruit through soweto was relatively cleaner below the olifantsvlei wastewater treatment works than above it. 13. ‘refined’, not introduced. a basic form had been introduced in earlier legislation. 14. initially in terms of government notice no 555 of 1962, promulgated in terms of section 21 of the 1956 act. 15. this has gone through several revisions, each entailing either greater control or raised requirements or both. for example: government notice 665 in government gazette 36820, 6 september 2013 (south africa 2013). 16. the convention on wetlands: https://www.ramsar.org 17. dubbed by the present author the ‘compliance and regulatory gap’ (wall 2005). 18. for example department of correctional services, which is the owner of several dozens of small wastewater treatment works. 19. the supervisor: does not have to be at the works at all times but must be available at all times. if the owner of a water work has no person of this class, a contractor or consultant with the required qualifications shall be appointed to visit the work weekly. (ibid.) 20. e.g. once cholera had been identified as a waterborne disease, in 19th-century western europe ignorance and prejudice had to be overcome before there could be widespread adoption of the means to conquer cholera’s effects. (this same lesson – the need to overcome ignorance and prejudice – has had to be learned by other societies over and over again since.) 21. technological and other developments have sometimes been referred to as ‘ahead of their time’. abstract introduction literature review research methodology data collection methods presentation of findings conclusions and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) douglas n. magagula department of public management, tshwane university of technology, mbombela, south africa ricky m. mukonza department of public management, tshwane university of technology, polokwane, south africa rasodi k. manyaka department of public management, tshwane university of technology, mbombela, south africa kabelo b. moeti department of public management, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa citation magagula, d.n., mukonza, r.m., manyaka, r.k. & moeti, k.b., 2019, ‘towards strengthening collaboration between district and local municipalities in south africa: insights from ehlanzeni district municipality’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a673. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.673 original research towards strengthening collaboration between district and local municipalities in south africa: insights from ehlanzeni district municipality douglas n. magagula, ricky m. mukonza, rasodi k. manyaka, kabelo b. moeti received: 13 feb. 2019; accepted: 10 sept. 2019; published: 25 nov. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article examines the state of collaboration between a district municipality and its local municipalities using ehlanzeni district municipality as a case study. this is important because in terms of the local government: municipal structures act, 1998, district municipalities are established to coordinate and support their local municipalities to enable them to deliver services to the communities that they serve. in spite of this, literature on local government shows that there is ambiguity regarding the roles of district and local municipalities within the sphere of local government. the study was essentially qualitative in design with the use of a semi-structured interview as a data collection instrument. the findings of the study reveal that local municipalities have an executive and legislative authority, which limits the district municipality towards holding them accountable for failure to execute their constitutional obligations. the study further affirms that there is ambiguity in legislation regarding the discharge in roles and responsibilities between a district and a local municipality. thus, it is suggested that for the district municipalities to strengthen their roles of coordinating, intergovernmental forums between a district and local municipality should be used as a starting point. the article concludes that there is a need to review legislation regarding the extent to which a local municipality should account to a district municipality, as well as clarity regarding the discharge in roles and responsibilities between a district and a local municipality. keywords: collaboration; district municipality; local municipality; intergovernmental relations; local government. introduction it remains true that the regime of apartheid in south africa has left the vast majority of communities severely affected, where marginalised black communities live in rural areas with lack of infrastructure, poor social services and a shortage of basic services such as access to water, sanitation, provision of electricity, as well as proper roads. in the democratic south africa, which came into place after the 1994 elections, the imbalances of the past needed to be robustly addressed. this view is supported by pretorius and schurink (2007), who explicate that access to public services is a legitimate entitlement that all people of the republic of south africa should enjoy, in particular, those who belong to previously disadvantaged groups. this democratic era saw the establishment of the three spheres of government, which are national, provincial and local government. local government consists of metropolitan, district and local municipalities that execute their mandates in accordance with the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 (also referred to as the constitution) and supporting legislation. the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998 (also referred to as the municipal structures act) (republic of south africa [rsa] 1998) provides for separation in functions and powers between the municipalities. metropolitan municipalities are autonomous local authorities, while the responsibility in respect of the local government is shared between the district and its local municipalities, and all institutions remain instrumental to the development and transformation of communities in south africa. the intended purpose of sharing responsibilities between a district and its local municipalities is to facilitate and ensure equal access to resources and services across all communities (van der westhuizen & dollery 2009). metropolitan municipalities are commonly in an expedient position with better infrastructures and substantial tax bases, and are more privileged in terms of the number of staff members appointed compared to the district and local municipalities, which poses the question of what can be done to improve the state of district and local municipalities in ensuring strong and effective local government (van der waldt 2014). palmer (2011) observes that the future of district municipalities in south africa remains questionable. this is attributable to the fact that their ability to assist and support local municipalities to render services has been a subject of discussion since the advent of the democratic dispensation. an issue here has always been whether the district municipalities are effectively providing their local municipalities with the necessary support required for them to undertake their functions optimally. district and local municipalities are envisioned to have differing but complementing roles and responsibilities whereby a district municipality focuses on macro-level functions such as planning, land and economic and environmental development, whereas a local municipality should deal with the provision of specific services such as waste removal and housing (afrika 2010). district and local municipalities mostly serve economically stagnant rural areas (van der waldt 2014). all of the established municipalities are governed by elected councils. there are intergovernmental forums provided for in terms of the intergovernmental relations framework act, 2005, to strengthen the colloboration between a district and its local municipalities so that the needs of local municipalities are well understood and addressed with the district municipality having to coordinate and manage the seating of these intergovernmental forums. this article commences with an examination of scholarly debates regarding the state of collaboration between the district and local municipalities. this is followed by the discussion of the findings of the study, as well as the conclusions and recommendations thereof. literature review this section reviews academic literature to seek an understanding of the role that district municipalities play in strengthening collaboration with local municipalities to ensure improved service delivery, and also to seek clarity on the current legislation and supporting regulations that govern the relationship between the district and local municipalities in south africa. global perspective towards cooperation between municipalities in both emerging and the developed countries, municipalities are faced with persisting challenges of enhancing the development of local communities and also ensuring that the quality of services that they render is improved (pooe & mafini 2012). nkuna and nemutanzhela (2012) posit that the rapid booming of urbanisation during the industrial revolution period in britain necessitated an increased need for municipal services. hartwich (2013) notes that in germany, the sovereignty of the district municipality is vested in its municipal council, which is appointed to serve for a period of 6 years, and its functions are not determined forever, because they change and develop according to social convictions and economic patterns, but not to political decisions (haschke 2013). germany uses the federal system of government, with a commendable municipal government, to such an extent that the need for national government in the provision of resources and services is relatively low, and with their robust legislation, municipalities are guaranteed the right to regulate all local affairs themselves (goldsmith & page 2010). the institutions of local government in germany are districts and municipalities, where the district is responsible for coordinating functions that, because of the nature of the function, a municipality cannot perform sufficiently on its own (steytler 2003). steytler (2003) adds that a district municipality also plays a role of supervision in constituent municipalities, and has the responsibility to administer all affairs of its territory within its own discretion. in canada, which is also a federal state, local municipalities fall within the jurisdiction of a district, and just like counties that are governed by county councils, districts do not perform municipal government functions unless there is an exception (swift 2012). slack (2008) submits that all canadian municipalities provide services irrespective of whether they are mandatory or not, as their legislation is more permissive in the provision of services to local communities. uganda is a unitary state in which municipal government comprises a five-tier structure in which the district becomes the basic unit where various municipal governments and administrative units resort, and the district council has executive and legislative powers because it is the uppermost political authority within the district (ojambo 2012). under the district, there is a lower municipality but the law does not make a clear provision for the extent to which municipalities may be accountable to the district (bainomugisha et al. 2014). bainomugisha et al. (2014) posit that district municipalities in uganda are dominated by a number of factors such as poor monitoring of projects rendered by local government, low levels of civic awareness among the voters, poor record keeping by councillors, internal political wrangles, lack of revenue generation strategies, as well as poor facilitation of councillors. a south african context in south africa, government is categorised into three spheres – national, provincial and local government – which should work together guided by the principles of cooperative governance as enshrined in the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996. the local sphere of government is consisted of metropolitan, district and local municipalities. south africa is a unitary state with federal characteristics in that district and local municipalities have to collaborate with one another and be fully involved in decision-making and budget coordination, municipal policies, as well as in activities of the two spheres of local government (paralegal manual 2015). kanyane (2014) notes that planning in the local spheres of government and planning for provincial and national government are not aligned and coordinated. this creates a problem of governmental institutions having to operate in silos. this is exactly what this study seeks to investigate. it is often argued that in most cases the failure of a district to assist local municipalities to deliver effective and efficient services is attributed to capacity constraints. it is for this reason that the paralegal manual (2015) affirms that district municipalities should capacitate all of the local municipalities in their areas of jurisdiction so that local councils can effectively and efficiently execute their functions. furthermore, district councils have to ensure that resources and services are distributed equitably among local municipalities. the district has an obligation to utilise resources of the district in a manner that is beneficial to all local municipalities within the district to ensure that communities are served in the best possible way (fourie & opperman 2011). the financial and fiscal commission 2017/2018 report states that local municipalities fail to utilise their resources in a manner that is efficient when compared to district municipalities, with the districts having better institutional capacity and ability to take on more complex strategic infrastructure projects for rural development (financial and fiscal commission 2016). all the local municipalities falling under ehlanzeni district municipality (edm) have been struggling to manage their municipal affairs over the last three financial years (auditor-general 2015). legislative and policy framework regulating district municipalities palmer (2011) posits that there are functions of district municipalities that are used in current policy debates, as depicted in figure 1. figure 1: functions of district municipalities. the municipal structures act, 1998, makes provision for the functions of district municipalities as depicted above. section 84(1) of the municipal structures act, 1998, states that the district municipality should: conduct an integrated development planning for the whole district, and a framework for integrated development plans for all local municipalities under its jurisdiction make provision for systems for supplying water make provision for the bulk supply of electricity provide municipal roads across the whole district municipality, and other services such as municipal health services. in terms of section 88 of the municipal structures act, 1998, the district and its local municipalities must cooperate with one another as follows: the district and its local municipalities must assist and support one another. the district may provide financial, technical or administrative support services to local municipalities in need. aa local municipality may assist the district on issues relating to technical support, financial support or administrative support services when a need arises and the local municipality has such capacity to assist the district. a local municipality may assist another local municipality within the same district on an issue of technical support, financial support or administrative support services upon request by the district municipality or the local municipality in need. the member of the executive council (mec) for the mpumalanga department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta) must provide assistance to the district so that it is able to provide support services to its local municipalities. the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996) vennekens and govender (2005) elucidate that the division of the local sphere of government into local and district municipalities is assumed to be motivated by the fact that certain services are resourcefully rendered on a much bigger scale because of the economies of scale, and such services could be allocated to district municipalities.. it is argued that proper planning and improved coordination can be achieved at the district level as it is assumed that opportunities for redistribution exist at the district level. the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, outlines powers and functions that these municipalities need to exercise and execute to fulfil their mandates, and also provides for the establishment of structures of local government that will oversee the functioning of each municipality and the whole sphere of local government. the white paper on local government, 1998 the white paper on local government (1998) is a policy document that outlines the systems to enhance developmental local government and to make it possible for local government to achieve the outlined objectives. the white paper on local government (1998) adds that in areas where the local municipalities do not have adequate administrative capacity, district municipalities become legally permitted to provide and maintain municipal services in an appropriate manner; the district municipality, in its role of capacity building, should strengthen the capacity of local municipalities to assume municipal functions; and that the district municipality should also provide bulk services where required. moreover, district municipalities should develop cooperative relations between municipalities because they are the point of coordination and location of support to local municipalities (the white paper on local government 1998). local government: municipal structures act, 1998 (act 117 of 1998) the municipal structures act, 1998, provides for the establishment of municipalities, and further calls for mutual support and cooperation between the district and local municipalities. section 83 of the municipal structures act, 1998, also makes provision for the division of powers and functions between a district and local municipalities in the following approach: it states that a district municipality must seek to achieve the integrated, sustainable and equitable social and economic development of its area as a whole, by: ensuring integrated development planning for the district as a whole promoting bulk infrastructural development and services for the district as a whole building the capacity of the local municipalities under its jurisdiction so that they are able to perform their functions and exercise their powers ensuring that resources are equitably distributed between the local municipalities so that they render municipal services at an appropriate level. section 23 of the municipal structures act makes provision for the appointment of councillors to represent local municipalities in the district council in order to ensure that critical issues affecting the local municipality receive the attention of the district municipality. section 88(1) of the municipal structures act, 1998, provides that there should be cooperation and support between a district and its local municipalities. local government: municipal systems act, 2000 (act 32 of 2000) the municipal systems act, 2000 (rsa 2000), positions development with the local sphere of government and an integrated approach to such an extent that cooperation between local government spheres becomes key to achieving development. in terms of sections 76 and 77 of the municipal systems act, 2000, a municipality should develop mechanisms that it should use to provide municipal services in its area, and also provide for the extent to which such mechanisms should be reviewed by the municipality. the municipal systems act, 2000, confirms that the executive and legislative authority of a district or local municipality is exercised by the council of that municipality and the council is the decision-making body of the municipality in accordance with section 59 of the municipal systems act, 2000, which deals with the delegation of powers and functions to other functionaries within the municipality. local government: municipal finance management act, 2003 (act 56 of 2003) the municipal finance management act (mfma), 2003 (rsa 2003) is a prerequisite of the constitution and it became effective in 2004. section 34 of the mfma calls for cooperation within all spheres of government and indicates that provincial, as well as national governments must, upon reaching an agreement, assist in building the capacity of municipalities to ensure that financial management in municipalities is effective, efficient and transparent. section 34 of the mfma further adds that provincial and national governments must assist municipalities in their attempt to identify and resolve the financial problems that they face. intergovernmental relations framework act, 2005 (act 13 of 2005) kahn, madue and kalema (2016) define intergovernmental relations as the relationship between the different spheres of a government hierarchy. the intergovernmental relations framework act, 2005, seeks to foster friendly relationships within local government and also to ensure that each sphere performs its functions as required by the constitution. part 4 of the intergovernmental relations framework act, 2005, makes provisions for the formation of district intergovernmental forums that will be responsible for facilitating and promoting the relationship between a district and its local municipalities. challenges faced by the district towards cooperation with local municipalities challenges that are faced by the district in improving its local municipalities to deliver services vary according to the needs of the local municipalities that they serve. de vries, reddy and haque (2008) note that these challenges are predominantly worsening local governments in countries that are still developing, because of various aspects that have negative outcomes on improved service delivery. capacity and skills shortages the african national congress (anc) (2010) asserts that a district municipality was established to ensure that local municipalities receive the necessary support, as well as equitable distribution of services and resources. however, a number of changes in policy and trends have overlooked the original model of the two-tier system of local government, which has resulted in the view that the district lacks a particular purpose of existence in local government (anc 2010). most of the district municipalities lack capacity and there is no way that they are able to assist local municipalities to deliver services (atkinson, van der watt & fourie 2003). according to sebola (2015), most criticisms in relation to a district failing to assist local municipalities in delivering effective and efficient services are centred on the scarcity of skills, which makes it difficult for districts to strengthen collaboration with local municipalities. palmer (2011) posits that district municipalities have been underspending their municipal infrastructure grant allocations. palmer (2011) adds that even though there has been insufficient research on the reasons for underspending, the likelihood is the lack of project management capacity in some district municipalities. this view is in contrast with the financial and fiscal commission 2017/2018 report, which elucidates that local municipalities are inefficiently using their resources compared to districts, as districts have better institutional capacity and they are able to take on more complex strategic infrastructure projects for rural development. according to kanyane (2011), all municipal stakeholders should have a sound basic knowledge and application of the mfma and other relevant legislation, because municipalities will be forced to cease operating if they do not possess proper knowledge and understanding of the systems of financial management. legislation-related challenges according to steytler (2003), the model that is emerging in local government is the one that sees district municipalities becoming direct service providers instead of coordinating and supporting local municipalities to perform their functions effectively and efficiently. in terms of section 151 of the constitution, 1996, district and local municipalities have legislative and executive authority, vested in their councils, to govern and run their affairs without interference by any other sphere of government. steytler (2003) asks a question about how legislative and executive authority can effectively and efficiently be shared. masehela, mamogale and makhado (2012) affirm that provisions of the constitution primarily safeguard the autonomy of the municipal council from other spheres of government. ensuring effective collaboration between the district and its local municipalities becomes a challenge because of the executive authority enjoyed by each of the spheres of local government. nkuna and nemutanzhela (2012) argue that the constitution addresses the powers and functions of the district and local municipalities apart from the delivery of services. nkuna and nemutanzhela (2012) go on to provide a distinction between the powers and functions and service delivery, in that service delivery is a synthesis of enforcing or applying power or authority by a municipality over functions to be performed. in view of the above, coordination of intergovernmental forums and providing support to local municipalities is a function to be performed by the district municipality. poor accountability masehela et al. (2012) add that there is poor accountability in local government. manyaka and sebola (2015) note that it can be argued that the inadequate service delivery in most south african municipalities is compounded by the fact that holistic mechanisms for monitoring the performance of officials are inadequate, and in light of this view, officials in south african municipalities are not properly held accountable for their performance. municipal councils at the district and local municipalities are found to be failing to take action on issues of poor performance and matters of financial misconduct, unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure (van niekerk & dalton-brits 2016). there has been an indication of a lack of cooperation between the districts and local municipalities from administration level to political oversight; mayors raised problems of undermining the competency of the council without necessarily improving delivery of services and enhancing accountability; municipal officials tend to utilise party political processes to subvert council procedures (chabane 2009). table 1 depicts the comparison of performances of the local municipalities under edm, as well as the district municipality. this comparison is for three financial years, namely, 2011/2012, 2012/2013 and 2013/2014. the table highlights the performance status of the district and its local municipalities, which is key to exploring the extent to which collaboration between these spheres of local government is coordinated. this performance outlook also shows the capacity of each municipality to govern its own affairs. the next section discusses the research methodology of the article. table 1: comparison of audit opinions for the ehlanzeni district municipality and local municipalities. research methodology research methodology is a way of solving the research problem in a systematic manner (kothari 2004). this article looks at the state of collaboration between a district municipality and its local municipalities, as well as trying to find ways in which these collaborations can be enhanced to ensure improved service delivery. a qualitative study approach was used in gathering information. kothari (2004) opines that the qualitative study approach is concerned with subjective assessments of attitudes, opinions and behaviour. the reason for using a qualitative approach is that it allows for the use of open-ended questions, and spontaneity and variation of the interaction between the researcher and the study participant (mack et al. 2005). it carries on from the assessment of the current literature on the role that district municipalities play in improving service delivery in local municipalities. in this study, the following institutions were selected and used: ehlanzeni district municipality the local municipalities that fall under ehlanzeni district, namely, the city of mbombela, nkomazi and bushbuckridge local municipality south african local government association (salga) mpumalanga department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs. the population in this research study comprised the political office bearers and top management officials of edmedm, political office bearers and top management officials of the local municipalities within edmedm, top management official from salga and the municipal cluster representative from cogta. thaba chweu local municipality was excluded from participating in this study because of the non-availability of officials as a result of work commitments and other reasons. purposive sampling, which is a part of non-probability sampling, was used and the selection of participants involved was informed by the judgement of the researcher. according to tongco (2007), purposive sampling is the deliberate choice of an informant because of the qualities possessed by that informant. tongco (2007) adds that the danger of using purposive sampling is that the researcher exercises judgement based on the reliability and competency of the informant. however, the reason for using purposive sampling was that the information needed for the study could be found from a certain group of officials, the top management and political office bearers, because they bear the responsibility to oversee the overall functioning of local government. data collection methods prior to commencement of data collection, permission to undertake the research study at edmedm was sought from and granted by the municipal manager. the researcher further requested permission to extend the research study to all local municipalities within ehlanzeni district. three of the four local municipalities granted permission in writing for the researcher to carry out the research project, namely nkomazi local municipality, city of mbombela local municipality and bushbuckridge local municipality. permission was also obtained from salga (through email) and mpumalanga cogta (through telephonic conversation), which also participated in the study. sutton (2015) asserts that whatever data collection method is employed in a research study, it will involve the generation of large amounts of data. interview as a research instrument was selected by the researcher and is clearly explained below. interviews de vos et al. (2005) posit that an interview is a principal method of data or information collection in qualitative research. according to rubin and rubin (2005), interviews are extended conversations about a research topic in which the researcher guides the respondent and a follow-up on feedback supplied by the respondent can be made. in this research study, semi-structured interviews were conducted so that answers could be open-ended to produce more ideas on the topic to constructively address the research objective. semi-structured interviews comprise several main questions formulated with the aim of defining the areas to be explored, but they also permit the researcher or the respondent to deviate to obtain feedback in broader detail (gill et al. 2008). in semi-structured interviews, it is critical for researchers to pay attention to the participant’s responses in order to ascertain and explore new arising lines of inquiry related to the research study (nieuwenhuis 2007). prior to the collection of data, briefing sessions were held through face-to-face meetings, phone calls and the use of emails so as to explain the purpose of the research study to the participants. the researcher sent the list of semi-structured questions to all research participants so that they could prepare themselves for the interview sessions, which also served as a method of saving time. data analysis techniques as argued by cohen, manion and morrison (2007), qualitative data analysis is the process of ensuring that views and opinions of situations, themes, corresponding patterns, categories and regular similarities are well understood as provided by the research participants. when engaging in qualitative data analysis, the researcher wishes not only to reflect the different steps, processes and the procedures that are at the researcher’s disposal, but also to point out recurring features that reveal the voices and emotions of participants to the researcher (vosloo 2014). after the data collection process had been completed, the researcher listened to the interview recordings a number of times while checking against the notes that were taken during the interviews. the results were categorised in accordance with the questions asked and an analysis of remarks was made according to the outcomes provided during the study process. the following section presents the findings of the research study. ethical consideration request letters to conduct the research were sent to the institutions within which the research has been conducted and permission was granted. all sources of articles and information used in this article have been well cited and acknowledged. the names and personal details of the research participants are kept private to protect them. presentation of findings this article sought to contribute to the discourse on the state of collaboration between a district and its local municipalities. this was done with the purpose of understanding the profundity of the need for district municipalities to live up to their legal mandate of playing a coordinating and supporting role to local municipalities. this is understandable because, in practice, it appears that there is no clarity as to what exactly the role of a district municipality is in assisting local municipalities to deliver services. moreover, section 151 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, states that a municipality should govern its own affairs without interference. afrika (2010) notes that lack of involvement by district municipalities limits the coordination role that they should be playing in ensuring improved service delivery in local municipalities. state of collaboration between ehlanzeni district municipality and its local municipalities: views of district officials it is understood that section 83 of the local government: municipal structures act, 1998 demonstrates that a district municipality is established not only to deliver services directly to the people, but also to play a supporting and coordinating role in assisting local municipalities to efficiently and effectively provide services to the local communities that they serve. in other words, the district municipality conducts planning for the local municipalities and also equitably distributes resources to those local municipalities so that they are well capacitated and able to execute their constitutional and legislative mandates. however, the view of one of the managers of salga, who is a female aged 51 years, is that the district municipality fails in its coordination role, as well as the manner in which it conducts planning for the whole district, and added that: to be honest, there is a serious lack of coordination by the district municipality and until that matter is resolved, local municipalities will continue to fail the public. the integrated development planning conducted by the district is not aligned with the planning of local municipalities, and some of the local municipalities fail to cooperate with the district. the challenge of district-wide planning was supported by the respondent from nkomazi local municipality who stated that ‘the district municipality may sometimes conduct planning in the space of a local municipality without having consulted that local municipality because local municipalities have their own priorities’. a key informant from bushbuckridge local municipality stated that the impact of edmedm in assisting local municipalities to deliver services is good and progressive. however, it was also noted that there are many areas for improvement. for instance, the manner in which coordination is conducted by the district municipality, as well as their ability to assist local municipalities need to be given the requisite attention. moreover, different role players in the district municipality perceive the intergovernmental relations framework act, 2005 (act 13 of 2005) as providing an opportunity to strengthen collaboration between a district and its local municipalities through the district forums in which they invite sector departments to be fully involved to ensure that local municipalities receive the necessary support, and that there is a sound working relationship between the district and its local municipalities. however, the respondent from salga stated that there is poor coordination of these consultative forums, and collaboration between the district and its local municipalities is very poor. this poor coordination attests to the comments made by afrika (2010) that there is a lack of involvement in district municipalities, which limits the coordination role that they are supposed to play. it was also noted that the municipal structures act, 1998, calls for collaboration between the district and the local municipalities. section 83(3) of the municipal structures act, 1998, further mandates the district municipality to conduct district-wide planning, but it remains a challenge to ensure the success of this planning. this is evident in that a director from the district municipality, who is a male aged 44 years, observed as follows: some of the local municipalities do not support the forums that have been put in place to share experiences between us (the district municipality) and local municipalities, and they sometimes fail to attend the meetings. it has been noted that most of the representatives of local municipalities do not honour the consultative forums organised by the district municipality, irrespective of the sector departments which are fully committed to working with the district so that these local municipalities receive the necessary support. this may be attributed to the fact that the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, gives too much autonomy to local municipalities, when it states ‘a municipality should govern its own affairs’ without interference. some of the respondents from bushbuckridge local municipality, a male who is a manager aged 49 years, and nkomazi local municipality, a male who is a chief operations officer aged 47 years, stated that: there is a lack of clarification of roles and responsibilities of a district and a local municipality. a clear distinction needs to be made from the legislation so that the workers can know exactly what should be done and what is expected of them. views of local municipality officials regarding collaboration between ehlanzeni district municipality and its local municipalities it was noted that the contribution of edmedm in assisting local municipalities is good because they have been able to assist local municipalities such as bushbuckridge local municipality when it was placed under administration in 2012. the district was also able to assist the city of mbombela local municipality in 2017 by deploying a chief financial officer to assist in managing the financial affairs of the local municipality. in light of the deployment of a chief financial officer to the city of mbombela local municipality, kanyane (2011) notes that it is critical for municipal officials and stakeholders to have knowledge of sound financial management systems because without such expertise, municipalities would be forced to cease operating. the study revealed that the role players in local municipalities are well conversant with the consultative forums that are aimed at strengthening collaboration between a district municipality and local municipalities, establishing in terms of the intergovernmental relations framework act, 2005 (act 13 of 2005). in spite of this, some municipalities are of the view that such forums are not assisting them. a respondent from one of the local municipalities, a male who is a general manager aged 52 years, stated that: the equitable share allocated to the district municipality by the national government should be directed to local municipalities to strengthen their capacities and scrap district municipalities because they play a relatively minimal role on the sphere of local government. the reason for the perception that consultative forums are not assisting is because the district municipality does not have enough human and financial resources to implement resolutions taken at forums, and the implementation becomes dependent on the budgets of local municipalities. the observation that district municipalities should be scrapped is not new. it has been raised in the past as a result of the frustrations that officials have regarding the lack of clarity regarding the roles of district and local municipalities. the view of scrapping district municipalities is supported by holomisa et al. (2017), in mokoena (2017), who argued that district municipalities are just a buffer zone with no clear-cut service delivery objectives, except in some instances, where district municipalities are responsible for the coordination of the provision of water and sanitation. on the contrary, the same respondent who stated that district municipalities should be abolished, proposed that the district should offer support to local municipalities during community service delivery protests, which is also suggested by a respondent from bushbuckridge local municipality. respondents from salga and bushbuckridge and nkomazi local municipalities mentioned that there is ambiguity in the discharge of the powers and functions of the district municipality, resulting from unclear legislation regarding the roles and responsibilities of district municipalities and local municipalities. this ambiguity in legislation corroborates with nkuna and nemutanzhela’s (2012) findings in their study ‘locating the role of service delivery within powers and functions of local government in south africa’, which argued that there is a misperception in policy and in practice on the concept of service delivery within the functioning and powers of district and local municipalities. one of the respondents from the mpumalanga department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs added that certain local municipalities do not respect the authority of the district municipality, and it negatively impacts on their relationship because they only want support when their local municipalities are in need. the respondent, who is a male director aged 55 years, observed that: some of the councillors of local municipalities within ehlanzeni do not respect the district; they will only come when they need help. the district municipality continues to obtain clean audits, whereas they are struggling, so you can ask yourself … this view was supported by a respondent from the district municipality who stated that some local municipalities have lost respect for authorities of the district municipality, adding that local municipalities recommend conducting their own municipal planning without the interference of the district. mechanisms suggested to strengthen collaboration between the district and its local municipalities it was proposed that district intergovernmental forums should sit more often so that collaboration between the district municipality and local municipalities can be strengthened. this is because most of these forums could play a crucial role in ensuring that councillors get to work as a collective and subsequently develop respect for each other. based on the findings presented above, councillors should attend training so that they know their roles and responsibilities and get to understand procedures and processes that govern district and local municipalities to promote a cooperative, democratic and accountable government. the cooperation between a district and a local municipality is central for efficient and effective delivery of services to communities. for this to happen, it is important that these municipalities should streamline their plans, thereby consulting each other on issues of common interest and to avoid working in silos. as it has been observed in this study, respondents from local municipalities stated that they often conduct their own planning without the district. this is, however, contrary to section 23 of the municipal structures act, 1998, which provides for the appointment of councillors to represent local municipalities in the district council so as to ensure that issues hindering service delivery in local municipalities are known by the district, and that plans of local municipalities are in line with the programmes and actions, as well as the plans of the district municipality. section 106 of the municipal systems act, 2000, gives powers to the provincial government to hold a municipality accountable for non-performance and maladministration. there is a need for the addition of a clause that would give a district municipality some legal ground to hold a local municipality accountable for failure to execute constitutional and legislative mandates and in that way, district and local municipalities will cooperate with one another. subsequent to legislative review, there is a durable need for review of certain critical aspects in legislation, such as the discharge in roles and responsibilities between a district municipality and a local municipality so that each of the spheres of local government knows exactly what functions to execute, instead of a district municipality providing services when a local municipality lacks such capacity. conclusions and recommendations this article sought to investigate the state of collaboration between a district and its local municipalities, as well as trying to find ways in which these collaborations can be enhanced to ensure improved service delivery, with edmedm being used as a case study. the following was discovered: ehlanzeni district municipality fails to coordinate intergovernmental forums as prescribed in the intergovernmental relations framework act, 2005, to promote and facilitate the relationship between a district and its local municipalities. some of the local municipalities under the district do not observe and respect the authority of the district municipality and its role in local government. there is ambiguity in legislation regarding the roles and responsibilities of the district and its local municipalities. according to the municipal structures act, 1998, a district municipality is not established to deliver services directly to local communities, unless a local municipality lacks such capacity. it is critical that municipal officials and councillors across the country are familiar with legislation that governs collaboration between the district and local municipalities. based on the findings presented above, the contribution by edmedm in improving service delivery in local municipalities is good. however, the district municipality has some areas of improvement, in particular, on their coordination role in which the district meets with all local municipalities to strengthen collaboration on local government matters. there is no cooperation between the district and some of its local municipalities, which suggests that the district municipality may not be able to successfully coordinate the intergovernmental forums. as much as it has been noted that most of the local municipalities do not honour these forums, the district municipality should continue to arrange the meetings and involve the higher structures of government when necessary. the notion of abolishing the district municipality and channelling the budget and resources directly to the local municipalities is practically not feasible, given the poor performance outlook by all four local municipalities, which is also confirmed by the reports of the auditor-general since 2015. palmer (2011), on the other hand, posits that a district municipality is not needed when there is a strong and effective local municipality. abolishing the edm would ultimately suggest that all the local municipalities should be dissolved as well and replaced with a metropolitan municipality, because it is evident that the local municipalities cannot function well on their own. evidence from various scholars, such as makgoba (2005) and palmer (2011), suggests that there is little research conducted on the role of district municipalities particularly in assisting local municipalities, because researchers often focus on the functioning of local government within the context of local municipalities. it therefore remains important for scholars to explore the district sphere of local government in its role towards strengthening collaboration with local municipalities, as this will assist the sphere of local government and policymakers to identify areas of improvement in order to ensure sound cooperation that will promote effective and efficient governance. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the tshwane university of technology, particularly the department of public management, for providing the opportunity to pursue this research study. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions the empirical studies were conducted by the student d.n.m., under the supervision of r.m.m., r.k.m. and k.b.m. the supervisors made it possible for the student to execute the research study. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy 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strengthen accountability and oversight within municipalities, with specific reference to the municipal public accounts committee and the audit committee of mangaung metropolitan municipality’, african journal of public affairs 9(3), 117–128. vennekens, a. & govender, s., 2005, local government budget guide, idasa budget information service, viewed 18 august 2017, from http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/assets/articles/attachments/02482_localbudgetguide.pdf. vosloo, j.j., 2014, ‘a sport management programme for educator training in accordance with the diverse needs of south african schools’, doctor of philosophy in movement education thesis, north-west university, potchefstroom. abstract introduction a brief overview of literature conceptual framework and research methods ethical considerations findings and discussion initiation and momentum of stakeholder engagements institutional conflicts conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) masilonyane mokhele department of town and regional planning, cape peninsula university of technology, south africa citation mokhele, m., 2018, ‘the volatility of institutional arrangements that influence development: the case of bram fischer international airport in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a436. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.436 original research the volatility of institutional arrangements that influence development: the case of bram fischer international airport in south africa masilonyane mokhele received: 05 apr. 2017; accepted: 29 sept. 2017; published: 22 jan. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract hailed as the best integration of the airport and urban development, models of airport-led development are used worldwide to promote the ideal land-use mix and spatial form of airport environs. despite the growing popularity of airport-led development, there is a lack of literature investigating how the institutional arrangements of african cities can facilitate or inhibit the implementation of such development. using bram fischer international airport in south africa as a case study, this article describes the nature and evolution of the institutional arrangements that influence development on and around airports. informed by the conceptual framework of historical institutionalism, the findings unveiled two contradictory phases in the evolution of institutional arrangements at the case studied: firstly, a period of harmony where all actors worked towards a common goal and, secondly, a period characterised by the absence of cooperation among stakeholders. introduction praised by proponents as the epitome of economically and physically integrated strategies of the airport and urban development (schlaack 2010), a multitude of planning models are used to promote the ideal land-use mix and spatial form of airport environs (for a thorough overview, see freestone & baker 2011). becoming bandwagons across the world, the models of airport-led development are dominated by the notions of airport city and aerotropolis. airport city is associated with the growth of economic activities around airports because of their dependence upon airports (see conway 1993; kasarda 2009; walker & stevens 2008), and as more firms are pulled towards airport cities, the urban form of aerotropolis emerges, consisting of developments that could extend up to 30 km from airports (e.g. kasarda 2009; kasarda & lindsay 2011). citing several examples, mokhele (2017) notes that like in other parts of the world, the models of airport-led development are gaining wide currency in south africa. however, despite the growing popularity of the so-called airport-led development, there is a lack of literature investigating how the institutional arrangements of african landscapes might facilitate or inhibit the implementation of such development.1 using bram fischer international airport in south africa as a case study, the aim of this article was to describe the nature, evolution and volatility of institutional arrangements that influence development on and around airports. transcending the disciplines of human geography, town and regional planning, sociology and political science, the elementary argument advanced herein is that the roles and interdependencies of institutions operating within african cities need to be considered carefully in the planning and implementation of development on airport environs. it should be noted from the onset that the article does not advance proposals on how the institutional processes should be organised, or how they should have been organised, within the case studied. the article is organised as follows. following this introduction, the next section provides a brief overview of literature on the institutional arrangements that influence development on and around airports. the ‘conceptual framework and research methods’ section outlines the conceptual frame of reference and research methods that the article is based upon. the penultimate section presents the findings on the nature and evolution of institutional arrangements at bram fischer international airport and its surroundings. the last section concludes the article. a brief overview of literature various stakeholders form affiliations to either support or oppose the development of airport environs (van wijk 2007). the current section highlights selected studies on the institutional arrangements pertaining to the development of the environs of frankfurt (germany), schiphol (the netherlands) and orly (france) international airports. developments on and around frankfurt international airport are influenced by stakeholders with varying interests and responsibilities wherein planning is particularly focused on facilitating infrastructure investments so as to promote development (van wijk 2008). van wijk (2008) notes that the socioeconomic impact of frankfurt airport extends to the states of hesse, bavaria and rhineland-palatinate. however, given that the airport is located within the boundary of the city of frankfurt, the local government is, in addition to hesse, the main actor that facilitates airport planning and development on and around the airport (van wijk 2007). with that background, it is important to highlight the roles of different actors in the institutional arrangements that influence development on and around frankfurt airport. van wijk (2007) notes that the state of hesse is solely responsible for the airport’s airside (aviation related) expansion processes, while the city of frankfurt is responsible for the real estate and infrastructure development, through operating as a facilitator for developers and other commercial players. according to van wijk (2008), another crucial actor is the regional transport authority of rhein main verkehrsverbund (rmv), a publicly financed but independently functioning body comprising a number of local and regional governments as shareholders. in the airport’s development, rmv’s involvement is in terms of the plans for the regional transport initiatives that connect the airport with the surrounding areas (van wijk 2008). as regards amsterdam schiphol region in the netherlands (i.e. a functional region encompassing the airport), van boxtel and huys (2005) note that decision-making regarding the development of the airport has been a controversial process since the 1960s. however, consensus could at times be reached, which, in 1991, culminated in the accepted plan for the development of the airport environs. galvin (2010) asserts that development plan resulted in a substantial growth of the region, accommodating activities ranging from logistics to mixed use projects. according to van wijk (2008), the province of north holland plays a mediating and coordinating role between the local and national governments, and between private and public interests. it also supervises local land-use plans to ensure that they align with the regional land-use plan. in the schiphol regional plan, encompassing areas around the airport, the province sets land-use and zoning regulations, including location approval based on airport-relatedness criteria. zoning is implemented to protect the airport and its surroundings from traffic congestion wherein it is required that the closer the land is to the airport, the more airport-related the proposed development should be (van wijk 2008). galvin (2010) adds that the province (north holland) is part of two forums where it acts as a coordinating body. firstly, there is an administration forum known as the bestuursforum schiphol (bfs), which is the urban planning actors’ platform in the airport region. the bfs is chaired by the province, with the municipalities of amsterdam and haarlemmermeer as its members. secondly, on a larger scale, there exists an administrative coordination group, bestuurljke schiphol, which includes neighbouring regions and municipalities that are interested in the airport’s aviation development. galvin (2010) notes that the public–private actors’ system is coordinated by two bodies during the development implementation phase: firstly, the schiphol area development company (sadc) coordinates public guidelines and private interests to achieve coherent development processes. functioning as an economic development agency, sadc is also authorised to develop land. according to van wijk (2008), sadc is, however, not in charge of real estate development. private real estate developers undertake the real estate functions. the second coordinating body, amsterdam airport area, which is a public–private association with members ranging from municipalities to port authorities, handles the marketing and communication duties of a larger defined airport area (galvin 2010). in france, galvin (2010) notes that in 2007, development in the orly airport area became so important that it was classified as a national project. national projects are located in areas with relatively big development potential and are carried out by the french land planning ministry. as a result of this arrangement, in areas characterised by the high concentration of businesses, local planning actors were replaced with a state agency, the establissement public d’amenagement (epa). policymaking and land planning are therefore almost completely the responsibility of the state wherein prefectures (representing the state at provincial level) are the only bodies mandated to issue construction licences and grant project authorisations within the national projects. local stakeholders participate in the development implementation phase through an economic development agency, which is the strategic coordination body that brings together the institutional and market actors, and accordingly assists companies to find locations to operate from (galvin 2010). the brief overview of literature above reflects that there are diverse ways in which stakeholders engage in the development of airports and surroundings. it serves as a backdrop to the description of the institutional arrangements pertaining to the case studied. conceptual framework and research methods conceptual framework in its endeavour to describe the nature, evolution and volatility of institutional arrangements that influence airport-centric developments, the article is befitting the institutional turn in human geography. according to martin (2000), that turn is based upon the premise that the economic landscape cannot be fully understood without considering the institutions on which economic activity depends. the assumption is that although institutions cannot be the sole cause of particular geographical patterns of development, they can enable or constrain development. in human geography, three conceptual approaches can typically be distinguished, which provide different interpretations of institutions, namely historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism (martin 2000). these are overviewed below, followed by an indication of the approach that was adopted in the bram fischer international airport study. according to hall and taylor (1996), historical institutionalists define institutions as the formal or informal procedures embedded in the organisational structure of the economy. historical institutionalists particularly analyse the evolution of institutional structures over time and attempt to understand how that evolution impacts the space economy. in that analysis, institutions are seen as the products of historically situated interactions, conflicts and negotiations among actors (martin 2000). in the lens of historical institutionalism, the state is no longer seen as a neutral body facilitating and reconciling competing interests, but it is understood as a set of institutions capable of structuring and influencing the character and outcomes of conflicts (hall & taylor 1996). in the rational choice perspective, the focus is, among others, on how far and in what way institutions serve to increase efficiency (martin 2000). using behavioural assumptions, rational choice institutionalists posit that the actors have a fixed set of preferences or tastes; while operating in a strategic manner, they attempt to maximise the attainment of those preferences. in that context, an actor’s behaviour is likely to be driven, instead of by impersonal historical factors, by a strategic reasoning and calculation, which is, in turn, influenced by that actor’s expectations about how others are likely to behave as well. institutions are particularly useful in structuring such interactions among actors (hall & taylor 1996). in the sociological model, institutions are seen as culturally influenced routines, networks of trust, obligation and cooperation. as such, institutions provide frameworks of meaning through which economic identities and actions are legitimised in society. sociological institutionalists see institutional evolution as arising out of collective processes of interpretation, and emphasis is put on the ways in which existing institutions structure the range of institutional change (martin 2000). unlike the rational choice institutionalists, sociological institutionalists argue that certain institutional practices are adopted not because they enhance efficiency but because they augment the social legitimacy of the actors concerned (hall & taylor 1996). although the three approaches described above are closely related, the historical institutionalism is befitting the analyses that attempt to understand how the institutional structures evolved over time and how the development of the bram fischer airport-centric development was accordingly impacted by that evolution and the associated volatility. research methods this article is based on a case study approach centred on the bram fischer international airport, which is located approximately 8.5 km east of the bloemfontein cbd, in the jurisdiction of mangaung metropolitan municipality, free state province. owned and managed by the airports company south africa (acsa), bram fischer international airport was opened in 1961, known then as the jbm hertzog airport, named after the former prime minister of the union of south africa.2 the airport is located along the planned n8 corridor and is regarded by the authorities as one of the important nodes along the corridor. bram fischer international airport was selected as a case study because the researcher was part of the institutional arrangements affecting the development on this airport from around 2008 to 2014. this allowed for first-hand experience of the institutional arrangements and a good platform for tracing their nature, evolution and volatility. because of the time dimension, the study can be regarded as longitudinal research, with investigations spanning over a 7-year period. in contrast to cross-sectional studies, longitudinal research is advantageous because it permits observations of the same phenomena over an extended period (babbie 2001; leedy & ormrod 2010). given that it allows for an analysis of the evolution of institutional arrangements over time, longitudinal research is particularly well suited to the conceptual framework of historical institutionalism. in social research, there are two main non-mutually exclusive techniques of data collection: quantitative and qualitative approaches. this article is exclusively informed by field research as a component of qualitative research (e.g. see babbie 2001; neuman 2000). it is argued that the ethnographic method used here is richer in comparison to other methods such as qualitative interviewing and getting the insights of people who were involved in or are knowledgeable of the phenomena investigated. such methods do not always yield the accurate story, as the respondents would potentially provide answers that are perceived to be logical, instead of reflecting on exactly what happened. as participant observers, field researchers conduct case studies on groups of people for some length of time (neuman 2000). the following were used as main sources of information in the field research conducted: meeting invites, observations at meetings and minutes of meetings held between the various actors. however, to avoid potential ethical issues (see below), those records are not appended to this article. figure 1: location of bram fischer international airport. ethical considerations the researcher was involved in the institutional arrangements purely as a professional town and regional planner; the idea of documenting and analysing the evolution emerged as the institutional arrangements unfolded. in that light, the research might be questioned on the aspect of objectivity as the researcher might be seen to belong to a particular ‘camp’ and thus represent the views of that group. to circumvent the objectivity problems, the article focuses on the institutional structures rather than on the individuals that make up the structure. in other words, it describes the evolution of institutional arrangements without focusing on individual actors that are (or were) part of those arrangements. however, because of the aforementioned ethical concerns, the article has a typical weakness of prioritising institutional structures over human agency (see, for instance, martin 2000). a conscious decision was taken that it is proper to leave the analysis of human agency in the hands of people who were not directly involved with the structures analysed. findings and discussion within the ambit of historical institutionalism, this section fulfils two objectives: it provides a snapshot of the main actors with direct influence on the urban development of the bram fischer international airport’s premises. it subsequently sketches the findings on the evolution of stakeholder arrangements within the case studied. overview of the main actors during the timeframe of the study, three main stakeholders or actors had direct influence on the development of the bram fischer international airport’s premises: acsa, the landowner and operator of the airport; mangaung metropolitan municipality, the local authority; and the free state provincial government. in order to put the subsequent findings and discussion in context, the mandates of these actors are summarised below. acsa was established in 1993 with the authority to acquire, establish, develop, maintain, manage or operate principal airports in south africa (rsa 1993). acsa is majorly owned (74.6%) by the south african government and is accountable to the minister of transport (acsa 2014), and is thus legally classified as a state-owned company. the revenue of acsa is derived from two principal sources. on the one hand, according to acsa (2014), aeronautical revenue is obtained from aircraft landing, parking and passenger service fees. on the other hand, non-aeronautical revenue is derived from retailers on airport premises, car rental firms, advertising, car parking, property development and property leases on airport premises. to reflect its significance, non-aeronautical revenue contributed 36% of acsa’s total revenue in 2013 (acsa 2014); and to further enhance that revenue, acsa promotes urban development on the airport premises through leases to the developers. it is also important to note that, long before the introduction of the models of airport-led development in south africa, acsa initiated programmes at its airports to unlock the development potential. acsa-owned airports that have been the subject of such initiatives include or tambo, cape town, bram fischer, kimberley, george, upington, east london, and port elizabeth airports. as prescribed in the country’s constitution (rsa 1996), south african government consists of the national, provincial and local spheres. of relevance to urban development generally, and specifically to the case study, mangaung municipality (like other municipalities) has constitutional authority over the matters listed in schedules 4b and 5b of the constitution, including the power to administer those matters. municipal powers intersect with provincial powers in two ways. firstly, the provincial government has its own constitutional competencies identified in schedules 4a and 5a of the constitution, which include provincial planning, regional planning and development, and urban and rural development. secondly, the provincial government has powers over the local government matters listed in schedules 4b and 5b. with that background, in the case of bram fischer international airport, the decisions related to land-use applications were, at the time of the study, made at provincial government level, based on the recommendations of the mangaung municipal council.3 following the deliberations of the provincial townships’ board, the member of the provincial executive council (mec) for cooperative governance, traditional affairs and human settlements would ultimately proclaim positive decisions in the provincial gazette. the background above, which includes particularly the two overlapping spheres of government, calls for a brief overview on the concept of state in so far as it relates to development. as noted by aoyama et al. (2011), it is needless to say that operating in diverse political ideologies, economic institutions and state–society relationships, states perform crucial roles in structuring economic development. generally, in the development process, a state’s intervention attempts to manipulate the timing, nature and location of development, thus influencing in one way or another the spatial distribution of economic activity (leitner & sheppard 1989). in economic geography, three perspectives on the concept of state can be identified. the first view regards state as a force that intervenes to correct market failures and neutrally guide economic processes. that is in essence similar to liberal–pluralist perspectives wherein states are seen as autonomous from economic institutions and thus able to decide neutrally over questions of resource distribution and other state functions. the second perspective views the state as inseparable from capitalist systems and the geographical context where it is situated. that view is similar to marxist perspectives, which dismiss the perspective that regards states as neutral, rather than seeing them as institutions whose actions are aimed at perpetuating capitalist accumulation. thirdly, neo-weberian perspectives take a middle stand and believe that although the state is embedded in socioeconomic institutions, it can act autonomously in decision-making processes (aoyama et al. 2011). among the perspectives above, the marxist perspective is arguably more aligned with the conceptual framework of historical institutionalism. institutional arrangements at bram fischer international airport the findings of institutional arrangements cover a 7-year timeframe, within which two main phases are distinguishable: an initiation phase that commenced in earnest in 2008 to about 2012, characterised by cooperation among the different stakeholders a second phase from around 2012 to 2014, marked by a lack of a common goal and the absence of cooperation among the actors. initiation and momentum of stakeholder engagements initiatives to introduce urban development on the premises of the bram fischer international airport began in 2007, when acsa appointed a group of consultants to investigate the potential of unlocking the land for development. the preliminary screening process entailed, among others, confirmation of the land ownership, the boundaries of acsa’s landholdings, and checking that the property’s title deed contained no conditions that would proscribe urban development. subsequent to that process, the first formal stakeholder meeting was held on 07 april 2008 between acsa, the consultants, mangaung municipality (planning department) and the free state provincial government (spatial planning division of the department of cooperative governance, traditional affairs and human settlements) to explore a desirable process to be followed in the development of the bram fischer international airport’s premises. although the idea of promoting urban development on airport premises was foreign within the municipality and provincial government, those actors were largely willing to listen and keen to assist. at the time, the immediate development needs were, among others, around the hospitality sector pertaining to the imminent 2010 fifa soccer world cup. this was particularly critical because bloemfontein was one of the host cities. the stakeholders agreed on the process as follows: firstly, because development on the airport premises was only managed in terms of the title deed as the site was not part of any town planning scheme (tps), the property had to be incorporated into the bloemfontein tps (no. 1 of 1954) boundaries so as to allow urban development to occur. the decision to use bloemfontein tps instead of bloemspruit tps like some of the neighbouring properties was that the former would in future provide scope for the development of diverse activities. secondly, subject to the incorporation into the bloemfontein tps, the property had to be rezoned to an appropriate zone that would permit urban development. in that respect, the stakeholders agreed that the property be rezoned to ‘special use’, which implied that, upon motivation and consideration by the authorities, the property could in essence accommodate any appropriate land use that is part of the bloemfontein tps. that flexibility was appreciated and agreed upon by the actors. an agreement included that at the time, the special use would include a hotel and also regularise the existing aviation and non-aviation land uses on the airport, including the terminal, car rental facilities, maintenance buildings and so on. the incorporation and rezoning applications were submitted to the authorities as agreed upon. to explore and guide future activities on the premises of bram fischer international airport, acsa continued to formulate a spatial development framework with a multidisciplinary team comprising town planners, engineers (civil, traffic and electrical) and an environmentalist. on 15 may 2009, a meeting was convened between acsa, the consultants, mangaung municipality and the provincial government to apprise the authorities of the preliminary investigations towards a development framework, introduce the preferred hotelier for the proposed hotel, obtain feedback on the rezoning application process and to get guidance on the process to be followed to get the development framework approved. following the meeting of 15 may 2009, the approval for rezoning of the property to special use cxxi (in the form of gazette proclamation) was granted in november 2009. the hotel was subsequently constructed on the airport property in time for the 2010 fifa soccer world cup and has since been operational. building upon the meeting of 15 may 2009, as well as other stakeholder interactions, in november 2010, acsa presented and submitted the airport’s development framework (final draft) to the mangaung municipality and the free state provincial government. the framework showed the long-term vision for development on the property and unpacked how the implementation would be phased. the municipality and provincial government endorsed the framework as a basis for guiding development on and around the airport. officially, that decision was incorporated into the integrated development plan in the form of a clause that ‘it is … recommended that all land-use development in the bloemfontein airport area be conducted in context of the bloemfontein airport development framework’ (mangaung municipality 2013:212). in july 2011, the free state premier convened major landowners along the proposed n8 corridor to discuss their plans, requirements and anticipated timeframes so as to unblock the bottlenecks constraining development along the n8 corridor. that high-level meeting, chaired by the premier, was held on 13 july 2011 and, notably, acsa’s chief executive officer and the executive mayor of the mangaung municipality were in attendance. acsa’s consultant presented the airport’s development framework and apprised the premier of the intention to develop a hospital on the airport premises. the proposals were largely well received, albeit one of the senior municipal officials asked, ‘why can’t the hospital be developed across the road?’ referring to municipal land located opposite the airport. as a culmination of the meeting, the premier appointed a senior official to set up the n8 working group or forum with the mandate of integrating the planning initiatives of various stakeholders located along the proposed n8 corridor, including acsa. the n8 forum was coordinated by a senior official from the provincial department of environment and economic development. other participants included the various departments of mangaung municipality (planning, engineering and transportation planning), the free state provincial government, the free state development corporation and centlec (mangaung municipality’s entity mandated with the provision of electricity services), among others. the main workshops were held on 21–22 july 2011 and on 30 august 2011 at the mangaung municipality wherein all the parties were granted an opportunity to present their plans, demands and expectations. acsa’s immediate needs at the time included the establishment of a hospital mentioned earlier. the process culminated in the compilation of the draft n8 development framework. immediately after the conclusion of the n8 forum, in august 2011, acsa submitted an application to the free state provincial government and the mangaung municipality for the amendment of the special use cxxi to incorporate a hospital, warehousing and business premises. the authorities considered that application speedily, and the approval was promulgated, within about 4 months, on 20 january 2012. the hospital subsequently opened its doors in early 2017. institutional conflicts from around 2012, there was a major reconfiguration of the institutional arrangements, which started to reflect a lack of cooperation and resistance from one key stakeholder. on 28 october 2011, acsa (in compliance with the processual agreement reached in 2008) had submitted an application to the mangaung municipality and the free state provincial government for the amendment of the special use cxxi to permit the establishment of a 3mw photovoltaic system (typically referred to as solar farm) on the airport premises. given the apparent delay in processing that application, various attempts were made by the developer to meet with the municipality and avail any information that could be required for a decision to be made. despite the south african air force having supported the proposal before, one of the additional pieces of information required by the municipality was a letter from the neighbouring bloemspruit air force base, located on the bram fischer international airport premises, confirming that the proposed solar farm would not interfere with their operations. a final version of that letter was submitted to the municipality on 27 march 2013. following various meetings and discussions between the developer and the mangaung municipality, the municipality ultimately confirmed officially that they did not support the development of a solar farm on the airport premises. the confirmation was in a letter of recommendation (dated 30 august 2013) to be considered towards a final decision by the provincial government. it should be noted that, ironically, the municipality indicated that they supported the idea of a solar farm but not on the airport premises because the location was ‘strategically unsuitable’. accordingly, the developer (through the appointed town planning company) submitted a letter to the provincial government, appealing the recommendation of the mangaung municipality and stating the merits of the solar farm proposal. it is important to note that, concurrently, the municipality had unveiled its plans in the media towards developing the area around bram fischer international airport into an aerotropolis. reflecting a dire breakdown in the institutional arrangements, acsa were not informed of the municipal plans, while some of the municipal proposals even encroached onto acsa’s land. this breakdown marked an era of ‘scramble for the airport’ and ‘scramble for development’. interestingly, also in the media, the municipality revealed its intentions to construct a solar park next to the bram fischer international airport (see van wyk 2013), definitely not referring to the proposal on the airport premises. following the letter of appeal above, the mangaung municipality and the developer were summoned for an inspection in loco and to present their cases before the neutral committee, the free state land advisory board on 15 november 2013. following the representations, the provincial government did not uphold the municipality’s recommendations and approved the establishment of a solar farm on the airport premises in a letter dated 01 april 2014. that decision was proclaimed in the provincial gazette of 11 april 2014. the process above and the subsequent decision marked the climax of institutional tensions regarding development on bram fischer international airport premises. continuing along the process agreements reached in 2008, in august 2014, and based upon the approved development framework, acsa submitted an application for amendment of special use cxxi to include a wide range of additional land uses. that application was accompanied by the associated environmental impact assessment and transport impact assessment approvals. even with the introduction of the mangaung mpt in late 2015, a decision on that application has not yet been made in 2017 during the writing of this article. therefore, despite so much promise, development on the airport premises has stalled and, about 4 years after the unveiling of the municipal aerotropolis programme, the anticipated development has not materialised. the loser in this evolution of institutional arrangements is urban development, and the associated direct and indirect impacts on the broader economy of the mangaung municipality. conclusion the analysis of the case of bram fischer international airport reflects the complex, dynamic, fluid and volatile nature of institutional arrangements that influence development. given the findings of this article, it is proposed that in the planning of airports and surroundings, concerted effort should be placed on ensuring that the institutional structures are resilient, adaptive and sustainable. it is further proposed that in the context of south african planning legal framework, future studies explore ways in which the economic and political institutional arrangements could be organised towards the implementation of airport-centric developments. acknowledgements the author acknowledges the constructive comments of the reviewers and editorial team. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references airports company south africa (acsa), 2014, airports company south africa integrated report 2014, acsa, bedfordview. aoyama, y., murphy, j. & hanson, s., 2011, key concepts in economic geography, sage, london. babbie, e., 2001, the practice of social research, 9th edn., wadsworth, belmont, ca. conway, m., 1993, airport cities 21: the new global transport centers of the 21st century, conway data, atlanta. freestone, r. & baker, d., 2011, ‘spatial planning models of airport-driven urban development’, journal of planning literature 26(3), 263–279. https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412211401341 galvin, v., 2010, ‘coordinating spatial development in airport regions. embeddedness and experimentation at paris orly and amsterdam schiphol’, aerlines 48, 1–5. hall, p.a. & taylor, r.c.r., 1996, ‘political science and the three new institutionalisms’, political studies xliv, 936–957. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1996.tb00343.x hodgson, g.m., 2006, ‘what are institutions?’, journal of economic issues 40(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2006.11506879 kasarda, j.d., 2009, ‘airport cities’, urban land 68(4), 56–60. kasarda, j.d. & lindsay, g., 2011, aetrotropolis: the way we’ll live next, penguin group, london. leedy, p.d. & ormrod, j.e., 2010, practical research: planning and design, 9th edn., pearson, upper saddle river, nj. leitner, h. & sheppard, e., 1989, ‘the city as a locus of production’, in r. peet & n. thrift (eds.), new models in geography: the political-economy perspective, vol. ii, pp. 55–83, unwin hyman, london. mangaung municipality, 2013, integrated development framework (2013–2014 review), mangaung municipality, bloemfontein. martin, r., 2000, ‘institutional approaches in economic geography’, in e. sheppard & t.j. barnes (eds.), a companion to economic geography, pp. 77–94, blackwell publishers, oxford. mokhele, m., 2017, ‘spatial economic evolution of the airport-centric developments of cape town and or tambo international airports in south africa’, town and regional planning 70, 26–36. neuman, w.l., 2000, social research method: qualitative and quantitative approaches, 4th edn., allyn and bacon, needham heights, ma. north, d.c., 1990, institutions, institutional change and economic performance, cambridge university press, cambridge. north, d.c., 1996, economic performance through time: the limits of knowledge, viewed 05 july 2012, from http://129.3.20.41/eps/eh/papers/9612/9612004.pdf republic of south africa (rsa), 1993, airports company act, act 44 of 1993, republic of south africa, cape town. republic of south africa (rsa), 1996, constitution of the republic of south africa, act 108 of 1996. statutes of the republic of south africa-constitutional law, viewed 22 march 2017, from http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/images/a108-96.pdf schlaack, j., 2010, ‘defining the airea. evaluating urban output and forms of interaction between airport and region’, in u. knippernberger & a. wall (eds.), airports in cities and regions: research and practise, 1st international colloquium on airports and spatial development proceedings, july 9–10, 2009, pp. 113–125, kit scientific publishing, karlsruhe. van boxtel, m. & huys, m., 2005, ‘unravelling decision making about the future developments of amsterdam airport schiphol’, paper prepared for the 45th european regional science association, amsterdam, 23–27 august. van wijk, m., 2007, ‘airports as cityports in the city-region’, doctoral thesis, utrecht university, utrecht. van wijk, m., 2008, ‘development of airport regions: varieties of institutions in schiphol and frankfurt’, aerlines magazine, airports: e-zine edition 40, viewed 22 march 2017, from www.aerlines.nl van wyk, m., 2013, ‘solar park for mangaung’, the new age, viewed 04 august 2013, from http://www.thenewage.co.za/printstroy.aspx?news_id=90683&mid=53 walker, a.r. & stevens, n.j., 2008, ‘airport city development in australia: land use classification and analyses’, in the 10th trail congress and knowledge market proceedings, rotterdam, the netherlands, october 14–15, viewed 12 october 2017, from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/17641/1/c17641.pdf footnotes 1. although the term ‘institution’ has a long history dating back to around 1725 (and used in philosophy, sociology, politics and geography), there is no consensus regarding its definition (hodgson 2006). the most widely used definition is that of north (1990, 1996), who defines institutions as the formal rules, the informal constraints and the enforcement characteristics of each. according to aoyama, murphy and hanson (2011), through the lens of economic geography, institutions can be organisations, laws and regulations, whose purpose is to coordinate economic activities by promoting or deterring developments. 2. the airport was later renamed bloemfontein international airport and changed to the current name in 2012, named after one of the prominent anti-apartheid activist, abram ‘bram’ fischer. the paper consistently uses the name of bram fischer international airport regardless of the timeframe under discussion. 3. this arrangement changed from around november 2015 with the establishment of the mangaung municipal planning tribunal (mpt). some decisions on land-use applications are now made by municipal officials, while others are referred to the mpt. abstract introduction stating the research problem approach and research methodology data report and findings dynamics and potentials of e-voting technologies in africa significance of technological innovations in elections conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) kealeboga j. maphunye department of political sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation maphunye, k.j., 2019, ‘the feasibility of electronic voting technologies in africa: selected case examples’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a621. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.621 original research the feasibility of electronic voting technologies in africa: selected case examples kealeboga j. maphunye received: 22 oct. 2018; accepted: 26 june 2019; published: 26 sept. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the use of electronic voting technologies (evts) presents hurdles to election management bodies (embs) and other election stakeholders in africa. the constitutionality and feasibility of such technologies provoke several questions that are tackled in this article. a key question is whether voting technologies such as electronic voting machines (evms) comply with national election legislation. the article’s methodology includes a review of the literature, official reports and policy documents, media and other articles, including public pronouncements on such technologies in africa’s elections. these are supplemented by case examples of interviewees from selected african countries, including namibia, kenya, uganda, nigeria, south africa and botswana. its main contention is that african countries should evaluate the constitutionality and legitimacy of evts before their use. finally, it will conclude that any use of voting technologies that does not meet constitutional and legal obligations will render the outcome of elections thereof flawed or dogged by irregularities, with questionable legitimacy, as seen recently in a few african countries. keywords: electronic voting technologies; legitimacy; e-literacy; constitutionality; electronic voting machines; information and communication technology. introduction according to one scholar: few, if any, developments in recent decades have more profoundly transformed politics and civil society than the emergence of digital information and communication technologies (icts). prominent among these have been the internet; the sprawling blogosphere that it has spawned; the proliferating array of social media tools such as facebook, twitter, youtube, and flickr; and the galloping growth in access to these digital media through mobile phones. (diamond 2010:ix, in diamond & plattner 2010) the above observations by diamond underscore the changes that have affected and now influence the political dynamics of contemporary societies, especially elections. given such observations, it may be stating the obvious to proclaim that elections require constant innovations and improvements to be able to produce legitimate and accountable public representatives for all governance levels across the world. such improvements and latest innovations include electronic voting technologies (evts), especially the electronic voting machines (evms) that some election functionaries increasingly resort to in order to address the problems they encounter in their work (alvarez et al. 2013; mcgrath 2011; smith & clark 2005; tolbert & mcneal 2003). the advantages of election-related technologies have been widely documented. for instance, one study on the use of election-related technologies in south africa found that ‘… participants favoured evt over the current paper-based system because of …convenience of access, time saving, cost (transportation) and the effort it would take to vote’ (achieng & ruhode 2013:9). despite such advantages, users of such technologies have to contend with their related disadvantages. in the african context, such disadvantages include lack of infrastructure, costly foreign technologies, some of which may be linked to country bilateral or multilateral agreements that may be irrelevant to elections per se, and illiteracy, poverty and acute inequalities that may affect the use and effectiveness of election-related technologies. nevertheless, the contention of this article is that technical innovation is critical to election management in many ways, as will be explained below. the key question, though, is how far such innovations should proceed among the election management bodies (embs), especially in africa, which experiences numerous technology-related problems such as minimal connectivity, low bandwidth, illiteracy and weak infrastructure. drawing from the literature, africa experiences internet connectivity-related problems that make it almost impossible for the continent to take advantage of the fourth industrial revolution (aker & mbiti 2010). the question of low bandwidth also poses serious problems as ordinary africans find it close to impossible to connect electronically to the world. finally, research continues to point to problems of illiteracy and weak infrastructure, the twin troubles that immensely impede information and communication technology (ict) development in africa (achieng & ruhode 2013; adesida 2001; ajayi 2013; aker & mbiti 2010; allers & kooreman 2009). terms used in the study information and communication technology: the ‘[t]erm is so broad that any device like radio, television, mobile phone or ipad can be classified in the ict arena’ (laverty 2012:1). thus, terms such as voting technologies, evts, voting machines, icts for elections and so on are used interchangeably in this article. constitutionality refers to the government of a country according to its national constitution and based on the rule of law, whereas feasibility refers to the extent to which something is possible. currently, in a few african countries, election officials, public officials and several election stakeholders opt to purchase such equipment before assessing their constitutionality and the legitimacy thereof. even then, where this is done, it would appear that some public representatives are eager to promote the use of such technologies without relying on relevant research and scientific evidence that could justify their widespread use. it will be argued that electoral and legal reform should be undertaken to amend national constitutions and the related legislation specifically to accommodate the use of voting technologies within the national electoral legal framework. based on the provisions of the african charter on democracy, elections and governance, electoral legal reform is critical for promoting democracy in africa. however, it is but one of several factors being advanced as possible solutions for enhancing the credibility of africa’s elections. others include assessing the ever-escalating costs of purchasing such technologies by the embs, comprehensive voter education and the timely piloting of such technologies and sufficient training of election officials long before those technologies are introduced in a country (dunne n.d.:241). ideally, comprehensive voter education should be jointly presented by the embs and civil society organisations (csos). however, the piloting of electronic technologies is a prerogative of the embs and their service providers (adesida 2001; ajayi 2013; aker & mbiti 2010; allers & kooreman 2009; laverty 2012). this article contends that legal and electoral reform should be accompanied by intensive public campaigns by csos. such organisations will need to train communities and all stakeholders including people who live under the areas of jurisdictions of traditional authorities on how to exercise their democratic rights when electing public representatives using newly introduced voting technologies. the irony surrounding the introduction of evts is that very few countries question the essence of technological innovations. the data collected from the respondents in this study also corroborate this. yet, another dilemma facing some african countries is that evts are usually linked to foreign donor aid.1 furthermore, some studies (e.g. stephenson in roseman & stephenson 2005) show that younger voters prefer evts as they perceive them to be credible, transparent, quick in releasing results and reliable. while in the african context the lack of infrastructure, financial and other resources serve as impediments towards the adoption and application of such technologies, nevertheless the respondents in this study also supported such sentiments, as discussed below. the challenges facing african countries that seek to improve their elections through the use of technology are that not all the countries that sell technologies are themselves practising democracy. a case in point is china’s role in producing election-related technologies for african and other countries. yet, the quality of such technologies is also questionable and sometimes comes as part of trade or aid packages with such countries (cheeseman, lynch & willis 2018). this clearly warrants serious interrogation, but this topic is beyond the scope of this study. stating the research problem africa’s elections require constant innovations and improvements to deliver credible results that enjoy wider acceptance and universal legitimacy; yet the introduction of new voting technologies (including evts) is not widely accepted and remains a contentious subject among embs, politicians, voters and citizens alike. some of these stakeholders either publicly oppose or promote the use of evts, although there are those who tend to adopt one of these two polarised positions based on the objective conditions and technology available in their countries. however, the thorny question that is normally very difficult to answer with a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by the main role-players is whether such technologies can guarantee fool-proof security mechanisms that will counteract any hacking, double or multiple voting, and fraud, thereby safeguarding the secrecy of the vote. the research gap from the existing body of knowledge suggests limitations in terms of the use of technology, specifically icts, in elections (adesida 2001; ajayi 2013; aker & mbiti 2010; allers & kooreman 2009). a synthesis of previous related studies shows that african embs are slowly utilising technologies. this motivated the objectives of the present study, but with specific focus on the emb officials who have first-hand experience in the running of elections in their countries. therefore, the focus of this study was on the relevance, security, acceptance, legitimacy and feasibility of evts as well as other icts in the enhancement of democratic elections in africa. another aspect of the research was to verify whether the use of evts and electronic voting gadgets that some countries are using or plan to use in their elections comply with their national constitutions and legislation. currently in many african countries, a quiet, although discernible, trend towards enhancing elections through technology is emerging. however, this trend is not accompanied by clear public pronouncements by either the embs or national governments on practical policy and other steps that are being taken to effect any changes that are planned or envisaged. as a result, the introduction of some technologies, including evts in some countries, seems to be haphazard, unplanned and shrouded in secrecy; and in some cases results in rejection by the voters or prospective voters, including disagreements among political parties or leaders on the merits of evts. therefore, as part of probing the main research problem, this study’s assessment proceeded as follows. firstly, it examined the extent of the envisaged and desired changes regarding the relevance and introduction of evts and other technologies in the elections. secondly, it analysed the nature of technologies deemed appropriate for enhancing the quality of elections in the selected countries; and thirdly, it solicited the respondents’ views on whether the technological enhancement of africa’s elections was the ‘silver bullet’ or panacea for ensuring credible, internationally accepted election results that equally enjoy local legitimacy. africa’s elections require constant innovations and improvements to deliver results that enjoy wider acceptance and universal legitimacy, but the introduction of new voting technologies (including evms) is not widely accepted and divides embs, politicians and citizens alike. there seems to be polarisation between the ‘traditionalists’ and ‘reformists’ or ‘modernists’.2 on the one hand, the traditionalists’ view posits that african countries and embs should retain what they have been doing all along by maintaining manual ways of conducting elections. they argue that any introduction of technology in election management will escalate the costs of elections and compromise the secrecy of the vote through such practices as hacking, compromised passwords and falsified cyber login credentials, which will eventually undermine the legitimacy of the outcome. some among this group also argue that evts are complicated, but still require human input and intervention. thus, as they further maintain, human beings can falsify or corrupt even the best systems in the world, which means that there should be less emphasis on evts in election management in africa. some opposition politicians are also known to argue that the increasing use of evts is intended to cheat the opposition of legitimate votes, and thus ensure the continued rule of the incumbent.3 on the other hand, the ‘modernists’ or ‘reformists’ state that african elections and embs cannot avoid the use of technology as it will revolutionise election management. in this group are the youths, sometimes referred to as the ‘bbcs’ (born before computers or cell phones), or the ‘thumb generation’ (following the ease with which they navigate cell phones and other electronic gadgets), who often express strong support for the introduction of more technological means of running elections in africa. this is probably because of their habitual dislike of standing for too long in long queues, after which the results are also terribly delayed. those who support the ‘modernist’ view normally argue that the problem is not increased but insufficient use of technology that makes elections problematic. thus, the aim is to improve the evts, train those who use them timeously and equip them with the relevant skills to enable them to deliver elections that are legitimate and the results of which are produced within record time. in their view, they maintain, this will significantly reduce the margin of error and avoid undue human interference in the outcome (struwig, roberts & vivier 2011). research questions the following research questions informed the study’s conceptualisation and data collection: are evts constitutional and legal? the respondents were asked to comment on whether the constitution or any national law in their countries referred to or authorised the use of technologies pertaining to elections. (this was framed deliberately as a closed-ended question to elicit direct and not general responses from the participants.) how feasible and legitimate are evts? here, the idea was to find out whether the use of evts was feasible in africa. a related task was to examine whether their use was legitimate. what dynamics impede the use of evts to improve africa’s elections? this question sought to examine whether there were any impediments to the use of evts in africa. what are the main gaps for embs in the use of evts? this last question helped the researcher to assess the gaps surrounding the use of evts through the questionnaire that was handed out to the participants. approach and research methodology this article developed out of an exploratory study that relied on qualitative research techniques. the argument contained herein is based on a review of the related literature, a standard questionnaire that was handed out to participants and theoretical postulation that borrows from theories of democracy, democratic consolidation and electoral democracy. a questionnaire containing a combination of 20 qualitative and quantitative (likert scale) questions was distributed to 104 participants who attended the management of democratic elections in africa (mdea) course that is offered by the institute for african renaissance studies (iars) at the university of south africa (unisa). the questions sought to elicit responses on participants’ understanding and use of evts, including ict in general. the purposive sample of participants comprised emb officials from 24 african countries: angola, botswana, burundi, cameroon, democratic republic of congo (drc), comoros, the gambia, kenya, lesotho, liberia, malawi, mozambique, namibia, nigeria, seychelles, sierra leone, south africa, south sudan, swaziland, tanzania, uganda, zambia, zanzibar and zimbabwe.4 each country was represented by at least two officials (male and female), according to the requirements of iars of ensuring ‘gender balance’ among the trainees. however, a few countries were represented by more than two participants. the data collection process entailed explaining the nature, aim and ethical requirements of the study to all the participants before the commencement of the study, usually in a lecture hall setting at the end of their mdea lecture, which was facilitated by the researcher. thereafter, they were given assurances that the research was being conducted for academic research purposes, based on unisa ethical principles aimed at protecting respondents in such studies. furthermore, the participants were informed that they had the right to refuse to participate in the study, or to withdraw at any time during the study should they feel like doing so. the participants were also informed that they did not have to state their biographical information to avoid being identified in the study. the data for this study were collected twice a year (march to april and june to july) continuously between 2015 and 2017 at the unisa sunnyside campus in pretoria, south africa, where the participants normally attended lectures at the iars. they were usually based in pretoria for about 3 weeks before they returned to their respective countries. among the participants were also a few representatives of csos such as media groups, human rights organisations and other interest groups from across africa. an average class or lecture of the mdea participants usually comprised 35–40 persons of different cultures, races, age groups, political orientations and world outlook. each lecture lasted on average for about three hours of interactive sessions between the mdea trainees and their various lecturers. such diversity made the relevant discussions robust as they were characterised by active engagement on any election-related subject matter that was discussed. the data analysis process entailed the manual counting of the questionnaires, and their categorisation into manageable bundles alphabetically according to country and date in which they were completed. thereafter, the qualitative and quantitative questions were analysed separately to capture the views of the participants. all quantitative and qualitative questions were grouped together (by date and country) before being categorised based on the questions or issues they addressed on evts. although an attempt was made to distribute the questionnaire to as many participants as possible among the mdea trainees, the results cannot be used to generalise the findings across the continent although they reflect various perspectives on evts across africa. the respondents’ comments are used to augment the literature and theoretical argument in the article. conceptually, the study is aligned to the theories of democracy, democratic consolidation. in terms of theories of democracy, it is argued in this article that the use of evts and icts cannot be isolated from the overall trend towards democratisation in many african countries. according to bratton and van de walle (1997:12–13), democracy can be defined ‘…as a form of political regime in which citizens choose, in competitive elections, the occupants of the top political offices of the state’. similarly, with the increasing use of technology in elections, such democracy is nowadays termed ‘e-democracy’, an ‘…umbrella term that covers many democratic activities carried out through electronic means’ (achieng & ruhode 2013:1, citing garson). therefore, the use of technology to communicate or disseminate ideas between the citizens and such political offices of the state becomes a critical research question that is of theoretical relevance. similarly, democratic consolidation is about the entrenchment of democratic practices and trends in a country. according to mthimkulu (2015:1), ‘[d]emocracy [in africa] is not yet firmly anchored to withstand the strong currents that threaten it’. to this extent, democratic consolidation is critical and, among others, entails the need to ensure that the voters maintain their vigilance of keeping their public representatives accountable long after an election has taken place. this means the need to sustain regular communication and contact with their elected leaders, taking special care to ensure that they do not veer off their electoral mandate. for the public representatives, this will require not only spending public money according to the fiduciary obligations and legislative requirements, but also accounting regularly to the citizens through standard channels that are used in many democracies to hold politicians to account, including the relevant parliamentary committees (such as the standing committee on public accounts and finance, scopa, in south africa). in its simplicity, consolidating democracy means going beyond the formal and mechanical forms of democracy such as voting, listening to politicians on radio and seeing them on the television, where they remain aloof from their constituencies. on the contrary, consolidating democracy requires systematic engagements and regular and direct interaction of the public representatives with people in areas of their jurisdictions on matters that affect their constituents and citizens. the study does not claim to be representative of the entire continent and neither does it generalise its research findings across africa. however, it seeks to share the ideas of some of the actors that are directly involved in election management about continental views on evts. these are the ideas of the experts that run africa’s elections, although their voices are rarely heard before each election. the subsection below outlines the rationale of the study. rationale of the study this study rests on the assertion that african countries cannot avoid using technology in elections. thus, the key question is: ‘‘how far do african countries want to go in using technology to improve their elections?’ the answer to this question is complex as it challenges the usual recourse of some countries to traditional or manual voting methods, especially when problems arise following the use of manual methods. the answer to this question depends on the views of a diverse range of role-players, such as political parties, legislatures, voters, csos and embs, among others.5 a study that examines the contemporary examples and practices of technology use in the election management processes of african countries is warranted and should help the role-players to examine the different aspects of technological use. an international study on the impact of e-voting in india, brazil, the philippines and venezuela notes that they ‘… are the only countries that have implemented e-voting outside the united states, which suggests that the use of these new technologies in emergent democracies should receive greater scrutiny’ (alvarez et al. 2013:117). while this study makes a case for the use of e-voting,6 a much bigger case can be made for the use of other voting-related technologies. pertinently, one respondent in one questionnaire noted that ict is the way to go for embs, if the election management is improved. this underscores the significant role new technologies play in enhancing elections in africa. the respondents’ comments in this study are augmented by review of the relevant literature in the next subsection. review of the relevant literature the review of the relevant literature helped the researcher to analyse the respondents’ views in a purposive sample, as stated earlier. evidence from several studies elsewhere in the world suggests that the difficulties faced by african countries in the use of evts and other voting technologies are not new and have been researched extensively (allers & kooreman 2009; alvarez et al. 2013; enguehard 2008; mcgrath 2011; roseman & stephenson 2005; schaupp & carter 2005; smith & clark 2005; tolbert & mcneal 2003). such research highlights the roles of electronic voting (or e-voting), the effects of the internet and other online technologies on political participation, new voting technologies, use of new icts to monitor election violence and the use and effectiveness of mobile phones, including citizens’ perceptions on the use of evts and icts for elections. further research evidence refers to ‘… developing countries where the use of e-voting has proliferated more quickly than in the established democracies’ (alvarez et al. 2013:117, citing pomares 2012). however, such proliferation in the african context still needs to be clearly visible given the continent’s infrastructure and other development challenges that usually impede technological advancements. overall, such research suggests that there are numerous issues to consider in terms of the use, relevance and improvement of technologies for elections. such technologies are different in terms of reach, use, applicability, usefulness, reliability and transparency and so they may enhance or compromise an election, facilitate easier voting for the electorate or threaten voter turnout among some sections of the voters (e.g. the elderly; roseman & stephenson 2005:39). similarly, there are cost factors, induction and training, piloting and many other dynamics that must be considered in the use of election-related technologies. in short, some of these dynamics include technical, financial, political or human resource-related hurdles; they can also have legal and constitutional implications, as argued in this study. technical dynamics specifically refer to the ability, expertise and technicalities of using or applying election-related technologies, for which certain skills have to be acquired by the embs and their service providers. financial dynamics include the money and funding needed to purchase the evts and election-related technologies, public budgets and budgetary allocations, and auditing and accounting mechanisms required to ensure sound financial accounting to legislatures and taxpayers in a country. the political aspects refer to the constitutional, political and legislative issues that all embs face to ensure that members of legislatures assist them to manage elections without any political hindrance or shenanigans. in terms of human resources, the major dynamics faced by the embs include recruitment, appointment, promotion and retention of the electoral officials as well as their ever-ballooning salaries, which require sustainable funding. finally, evts or election technologies have legal and constitutional implications in the sense that normally no one can change apply such technologies in a country’s elections unless the laws and constitution make special provision for such technology (the views expressed above largely rest on one-on-one and class discussions with the mdea participants), as stated in the ‘approach and research methodology’ section. as some note elsewhere on e-voting: … there has been a number of important efforts in latin america in the last decade to test and implement electronic voting, largely out of a desire to extend the franchise to citizens who might have trouble voting because of various accessibility problems (including geography and language) and to combat known forms of fraud—thereby increasing voter confidence that their votes will be counted as intended, as well as perceptions of electoral integrity (alvarez. et al. 2013:134, citing hidalgo 2010 and pomares 2012). even though this refers only to e-voting, it is clear that issues of accessibility, counteracting fraud and increasing voter confidence should be considered regarding extending the franchise to those who may be disadvantaged by the traditional methods. in another study on the effectiveness of technology, media and political participation in the united states, mcgrath (2011:41) cites one of the campaign proponents for former president barack obama saying that: ‘[w]e use online campaign tactics, media tactics rooted in technological tools to advance the political power of black people’. arguably, such tactics might have boosted obama given his popularity during his last us election campaign. in another study, tolbert and mcneal (2003) caution against the over-reliance of role-players on the internet to increase political participation. they argue that: … it is difficult to predict which communication technology will be widely adopted by the public and even more difficult to anticipate the impact it may have on areas such as the economy and politics. (p. 175) election management bodies are said to play ‘… the most important role in the institutionalisation of democracy …’ (mangcu 2015:159), with reference to south africa’s electoral commission. therefore, they play a critical role in the election management process. globally, they are known to rely on the media and the internet to disseminate information to the voters. likewise, research evidence suggests that ‘[t]he media (both traditional and the internet) can help increase voter participation by not only providing citizens with information to make informed decisions, but by stimulating interest in elections’ (tolbert & mcneal 2003:176). available data from african countries (achieng & ruhode 2013; ajayi 2014; ofori-dwumfuo & paatey 2011) suggest that african countries still have a long way to go before they can address election-related technological challenges. in terms of mobile phones in particular, the spin-offs ripped by the continent on economic development have largely benefited elections as well because the mobile phone is increasingly cited by the respondents in this study as being extremely useful in their communication with their offices and stakeholders or the ‘political marketplace’ (ormrod & henneberg 2010:115; vankov 2013). according to aker and mbiti (2010), while: … sub-saharan africa has some of the lowest levels of infrastructure investment in the world … access to and use of mobile telephony in sub-saharan africa has increased dramatically over the past decade. (p. 207) understandably, the original idea of introducing such technology was to enable ‘banking [for] the unbanked’ through what is termed ‘mobile money’, as in the kenyan mobile money service (m-pesa) (aker & mbiti 2010:220–221), but it has also extended the use of mobile phones in many of africa’s rural areas, ensuring that they are reached even during elections. yet another argument in the literature, presented by callen et al. (2016:2) and based on data from uganda, contends that: ‘irregularities plague elections in developing democracies. the international community spends hundreds of millions of dollars on election observation, with little robust evidence that they consistently improve electoral integrity’. this view suggests that the use of information and communications technologies will greatly enhance election management, and thus address these challenges. theoretical and conceptual framework theories of democracy generally focus on the extent, quality and essence of democracy (held 2006). theories of democratic consolidation refer to those theories that posit that democracy itself is insufficient but requires to be consolidated (anderson et al. 2001; o’donnell 1996). finally, theories of electoral democracy are about how elections contribute to democracy and democratisation. the rationale for selecting these theories, given the research problem identified, was to offer a conceptual framework but not theory testing because the sample size of the respondents was too small. the above theories were selected based on the research questions as outlined in the ‘approach and research methodology’ section. these research questions sought to address the following issues: whether evts were constitutional and legal, feasible and legitimate; what impedes their use to improve africa’s elections; and what the main gaps were for embs in the use of evts in the selected countries. however, these three theories were used to offer a conceptual and theoretical framework and therefore not tested or presented for theory testing or development. data report and findings the data captured here emanated from the questions in table 1. table 1: list of questions asked and summary of responses. the issues presented in table 1 (points 1–20) are related to theories of democracy, consolidation of democracy and electoral democracy. for instance, the questionnaire sought to link issues of icts to those of democratic participation; the kind of electronic gadgets used; the emb’s approach to ict matters; whether elections can be run effectively without ict and the need for budgetary allocations from the public purse. questions about the role and frequent use of icts and the extent of participation of the voters or use of icts by the embs, including the legislation, sought to assess democratic consolidation and extent of electoral democracy. obviously, these are merely a few variables that are tied to the three theories, although many more could have been added to the list had a much bigger sample of respondents been possible. moreover, these variables are used as understood by the respondents during the class discussions as well as in their questionnaire responses. the data from this study suggest an overall optimism on election-related technology among emb officials and civil society members who completed the relevant questionnaire as reflected above on table 1 and below as follows. many participants were aware of the policies and legislation governing the use of election-related technologies, but only one specifically made reference to the country’s constitution (research question on the legality and legitimacy of the evts). surprisingly, the question of corruption, mismanagement and so on in the procurement of certain icts for embs was not mentioned by any participant, although this author knows that it remains a thorny issue that undermines the modernisation or upgrading of many embs’ infrastructure. during class discussions, many participants cautioned about the use of certain evts, but omitted this in their questionnaire responses. financial, procurement, quality control, monitoring and evaluation issues on evts remain constant problems for embs, but the respondents expressed different opinions on how to resolve them (research question on the dynamics that impede the use of evts). when asked whether ‘ict plays an important role in my country?’, more than 90% of the respondents gave a ‘yes’ response. of this number, many stated that ict helps in communication across regions/districts/provinces minimises multiple registration is used to transmit election results was used recently in voter registration, mapping polling stations, to inform voters relays messages fast; and ‘we live in a world of technology’ helps in the production of the voters’ rolls/registers encourages people (voters) to go and vote in large numbers disseminates information to citizens, information storage and sharing helps reach majority of citizens in rural areas. in terms of the theories of democracy and democratic consolidation, the data above suggest that the respondents were aware that the electronic transmission of results; cross-regional or district communication; the need to minimise multiple voter registration as an aspect of election fraud; and speedy transfer of election-related data and results were critical to the entrenchment of democracy among the voters. moreover, the last four points about the production of the voters’ rolls or registers; encouraging voters to vote in large numbers; disseminating information to citizens, storing and sharing it; and reaching the majority of citizens in rural areas are specifically relevant to theories of (participatory and representative) democracy and consolidation of democracy. furthermore, many of the issues raised and concepts used by the participants to answer this question clearly suggest the presence and extent of electoral democracy in africa, at least in those countries whose nationals participated as respondents in this study. yet, given the nature of this (qualitative) study, the extent of applicability of these variables could not be quantified. overall, this data suggest that electronic voting is a complex issue in many african countries, although certain trends are discernible towards general preference to the use of ict to enhance elections. the complexity arises from the following eight themes that arose in the study: firstly, embs need money to purchase icts for elections, but such money is normally underpinned by ambiguous political and (governing) party hurdles that impede the procurement of effective technology by the embs without political interference from the incumbent and opposition parties; secondly, a recurring theme in the study was when to replace outdated technology; thirdly, training of officials; fourthly, the dangers arising from icts in elections and how best to secure the secrecy of the vote; fifthly, africa’s infrastructure and broadband challenges; sixthly, the brain drain phenomenon; seventhly, the legislation and finally, many respondents acknowledged that icts are not the ‘final solution’ to africa’s election-related woes. dynamics and potentials of e-voting technologies in africa the relevance of evts and other election-related technologies for enhancing certain aspects of elections such as the quick release of results, reduction in vote tampering and fraud, simplicity of voting and improved turnaround times, among others, cannot be over-emphasised. in response to a question on the importance of ‘ict use … [in] my country’s elections …’, the majority of respondents stated that it ‘facilitates/helps election processes’ (sierra leone, 16 july 2016; sierra leone, 22 june 2016; south sudan, n.d.; tanzania, 16 july 2016); ‘improves information flow’ (sierra leone n.d.; malawi n.d.; zimbabwe. n.d.); ‘people will suffer without it’ (botswana, n.d.; zambia, n.d.); ‘helps produce voters’ roll’ (zambia, 21 june 2017; zanzibar, 21 june 2016; botswana, n.d.); ‘simplifies voters’ situation and emb staff’ (zanzibar, 16 july 2016; zimbabwe, 16 july 2016; botswana, 16 july 2016) and ‘helps to conduct voter education easily’ (angola, n.d.). furthermore, they stated that ict was important to elections as it ‘increased the credibility of the voters’ roll (register)’ (south africa, 21 june 2017; swaziland, 16 july 2016; seychelles, n.d.); ‘makes it efficient [for embs] to run electoral processes’ (nigeria, 16 july 2017; liberia, 21 june 2017; the gambia, n.d.); ‘provides convenient data storage’ (mozambique, 16 july 2016; lesotho, n.d.); ‘speeds up election processes and accuracy’ (uganda, n.d.; lesotho, 16 july 2016) and ‘enhances transparency and accountability’ (nigeria, 21 june 2017; mozambique, n.d.; kenya, n.d.; zanzibar, 16 july 2016). some also stated that ict use ‘helps to reduce suspicion by creating electronic files’ (zambia, 22 june 2016; uganda, n.d.; kenya, n.d.; comoros, n.d.; cameroon, n.d.), and further that ‘data processing for voter registration cannot be done without computers’. (malawi, 22 june 2016).7 given the above views on ict in the elected african countries, the idea is not to romanticise and praise such technologies, given technological failures such as that of the 2000 election in florida which ‘…will be remembered as one of the biggest voting fiascos in the history of the usa’ (smith & clark 2005:513; roseman & stephenson 2005). in addition, the respondents in this study gave mixed responses about the number of officials trained in ict in their respective embs. only 27 stated that between 20 and more than 30 officials were trained in ict, whereas 58 chose ‘less than 10’ and ‘don’t know’. this might not suggest that ict training is less important in the respondents’ countries, but rather an acknowledgement that embs still struggle to train sufficient numbers of staff members in ict. question 19 (table 1) probed ‘… legislation or policy governing the use of ict for election management in your country’ and showed 42 respondents (34%) confirming the presence of such legislation, whereas 28 (22%) said it was not there while 27 (22%) did not know (of the 124 that offered a response). while the mere presence of such enabling legislation cannot guarantee the adoption and implementation of ict in a country’s elections, this at least may give hope that eventually such legislation will boost embs’ efforts at adoption and implementation. furthermore, despite the advantages of election-related voting technologies, one contention is whether these technologies can remarkably increase voter turnout (vassil & weber 2011:1336). however, other assertions suggest that there is a link between electronic voting and voter turnout (allers & kooreman 2009:159). admittedly, the question of voter turnout falls beyond the scope of the present study as the participants were not asked any question related to turnout. reponses to question 20 (any other information) were notably very few as no respondents ventured further details on the legislation or any other aspect of ict use in their countries. one respondent (respondent from kenya (3), pers. comm., 16 july 2016)8 mentioned the constitution, election regulations and election-related regulations on the use of technology in the country. however, even so, this author was in kenya in 2017 when the use of such technology fuelled huge controversies during the country’s national elections to an extent that such legislation and regulations were generally ineffective in helping to deal with those controversies. another respondent (respondent from angola (3), pers. comm., n.d) stated that the country did not have any voting technology, but added that ict was easier to use than to go without it. needless to add, this country is among those whose elections have been problematic as they always returned one candidate (jose dos santos) to power as the president, until recently when a new president was elected under the mpla party. another respondent (botswana (3), pers. comm., 16 july 2017) argued that the use of ict will require legislative changes to the country’s electoral act as its current legislation catered only for the manual system of conducting elections. at the time of writing, botswana was reported to be contemplating adopting the use of evts almost similar to those used in neighbouring namibia, although there was apparently some resistance at the local (kgotla)9 level as some citizens felt that they needed further information on such changes before they could be implemented in the country’s 2019 national elections. another respondent from this country lamented the ‘high illiteracy levels among the majority of the population which hinder ict use in botswana’ (respondent from botswana (7), pers. comm., 16 july 2017). limitations of the study the main limitation of this study is that it is not a continent-wide study that would have required a larger sample of participants from a diverse demographic profile such as the youth, women, urban–rural dwellers, age groups, persons with disability, political parties, policymakers from national governments, regional economic communities (such as southern african development community [sadc], economic community of west african states [ecowas] and east african community [eac], to name but a few)10 and continental bodies such as the african union, including numerous csos in the different african countries. furthermore, the present study cannot claim to be comprehensive as it only examined a few aspects of such technological use in a few countries whose nationals and emb personnel happened to attend the mdea course for election officials. for instance, many respondents mentioned the critical importance of adequate budgets and financial allocation for technological innovation in the embs; however, this matter is merely alluded to in this study. finally, this author acknowledges the fact that the selected countries in this study have differences in growth of democratic institutions and governments, which cannot always be compared. despite few countries being presented in this study, their comprehensive socio-economic, political, financial and other details are not presented here, as the idea was to focus on election-related technologies as per the class engagements of the respondents that informed the study. significance of technological innovations in elections the significance and justification of enhancing elections in africa using latest technologies have rarely been questioned. however, where the gaps have arisen is in terms of the legislation, including the constitution. the key issue here is whether any technologies are covered through relevant provisions in a country’s legislation, which would ensure that whatever changes that are envisaged are legitimate and legally compliant. this is particularly in the light of the assertion elsewhere in the world that: ‘… the paper ballot is being replaced by technologically more advanced ways of casting a vote in many countries’ (allers & kooreman 2009:159). yet, some have noted political resistance to ‘full-scale ict transformation of governance in africa’ (ajayi 2013:105). this probably explains why it is only in namibia where a bold move has been taken by the country’s emb and political parties to adopt evms and subsequently held its first national elections using such technology in 2014. others have adopted a very low key, which suggests that there is probably political unwillingness or citizen reluctance to adopt wholesale move to non-paper-based voting methods. some governments, such as south africa’s, usually make public pronouncements in support of an ‘e-literate society’ (cwele 2014), but what this will entail in terms of elections is hardly explained. this is despite the fact that this country is among those whose emb is foremost in the use of election-related technologies such as online registration, use of the sms messaging by voters to verify their registration status and the barcode scanners that south africa’s emb has used to verify voters’ identities. another key point that was highlighted in the literature is the effectiveness of i-voting on the internet on voter turnout. as an observer noted, proponents of online voting: … posit that the internet may make the voting process less intimidating to a demographic that is increasingly computer savvy and decreasingly inclined to vote (schaupp & carter 2005:587, citing hall & alvarez 2004; done 2002; eggers 2005; and thomas & streib 2003). yet, schaupp is quick to add that [d]espite its benefits, a potential to e-voting adoption is citizens’ lack of trust in the security and reliability of the technology used to implement this innovation (p. 587). this corroborates the findings of this study as stated in the respondents’ comments. this study did not conduct research on election observation, another fundamental phase of enhancing democracy in countries that undertake regular elections. however, evidence from uganda suggests that the use of ict can significantly enhance election observation through the combination of experimental design and ict to monitor the impact of any illicit or fraudulent practices during elections (callen et al. 2016:17–18). one author also cautioned against the dangers of an ‘orwellian scenario’ whereby the use of ict could lead to ‘… complete control by [an authoritarian] government’ (adesida 2001:18) to violate citizen rights and undermine their freedoms. these fears may be justifiable given the abrupt shutdown of social media such as twitter, facebook and whatsapp, including the internet, during uganda’s 2016 general elections that this author examined as an election observer. such shutdown severely inconvenienced many citizens and observers during the election period. finally, another issue that has been mentioned to this researcher in his interaction with some senior election management officials in africa is the (adverse) effect of corruption in the procurement processes pertaining to such election-related technologies. corruption remains a ‘major obstacle in africa’ for the public and private sectors (ajayi 2013:106). however, this issue was also not covered in the present study. conclusion information and communication technologies increasingly play a critical role in elections globally, and this innovation has not escaped many of africa’s embs. thus, this study has examined the role of evts in africa’s elections and suggests lessons for its embs, especially regarding the effects and significance of evts in elections. overall, there seems to be empathy and optimism regarding the use of evts in africa, but there are equally worrisome constitutional, legal and policy issues that must be considered before the embs can implement election-related technologies, especially evms. some national constitutions are either vague or lack relevant clauses or provisions to regulate the use of evts and other election-related technologies. yet, even in countries with general optimism regarding the use of such technologies, such as south africa, botswana and namibia, there is some caution or reluctance on the full-scale use of such technologies. currently, political, technical, brain drain, financial, infrastructure and many other problems impede the greater adoption and use of icts in some countries, but such impediments often arise from suspicions, or fear of hacking of evms that may compromise the secrecy of the vote. data from this research also suggested a level of mistrust of icts or suspicion by some emb leaders and some unscrupulous political leaders who apparently feared that icts would expose their biases or partiality whenever elections are held in their countries. hence, one respondent commented that: ‘almost always, results are disputed [in kenya]’, (respondent from kenya, pers. comm., 16 july 2016); yet another stated that evts or icts are not a panacea and technology can fail. thus, many opted for backup plans to anticipate problems in the relevant technology. in conclusion, therefore, any use of voting technologies that fails to meet constitutional and legal obligations will render the outcome of elections thereof flawed or dogged by irregularities, with questionable legitimacy as seen recently in a few african countries. finally, kwame nkrumah once contended that: ‘the independence of ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the african continent’ (http://www.ghana.gov.gh/). arguably, such liberation will be unattainable without efficient, effective, legitimate technology for africa’s elections. acknowledgements the author is grateful to the respondents in this study who were all trainees of the unisa management of democratic elections in africa (mdea) module between 2015 and 2017. without their consent and voluntary participation, this study would not have been possible. the institute for african renaissance studies (unisa) also granted access to the trainees, for which the author remains grateful. furthermore, based on the consent forms that all the respondents signed during the study, their identities are concealed in the text to ensure their anonymity. finally, the author is thankful to the editor and the two anonymous reviewers who offered valuable insights and constructive points that significantly improved the final version of this article. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions k.j.m. is the sole author of this article. ethical consideration ethical clearance was obtained from the ethics committee of the department of political sciences, college of human sciences, university of south africa. ethics approval is granted for 33 years (reference number 2019 chs 90186141). funding information the author has not relied on any grants, equipment, drugs and/or other support that facilitated the conduct of the work described in the article or the writing of the article itself. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references achieng, m. & ruhode, e., 2013, ‘the adoption and challenges of electronic voting technologies within the south african context’, international journal of managing information technology (ijmit) 5(4), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.5121/ijmit.2013.5401 adesida, o., 2001, governance in africa: the role for information and communication technologies, african development bank economic research papers no. 65, viewed 14 february 2017, from https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/documents/publications/00157664en-erp-65.pdf. ajayi, k., 2013, ‘the ict culture and transformation of electoral governance and politics in africa: the challenges and prospects’, 5th african european conference on african studies, centro de estudos internacionais do instituto universitario de lisboa, madrid, 27–29 june 2013. aker, j.c. & mbiti, i.m., 2010, ‘mobile phones and development in africa’, journal of economic perspectives 24(3), 207–232. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.24.3.207 allers, m.a. & kooreman, p., 2009, ‘more evidence of the effects of voting technology outcomes’, public choice 139(1/2), 159–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-008-9386-7 alvarez, r.m., levin, i., pomares, j. & leiras, m., 2013, ‘voting made safe and easy: the impact of e-voting on citizen perceptions’, political science research and methods 1(1), 117–137. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2013.2 anderson, r.d., jr., fish, m.s., hanson, s.e. & roeder, p.g., 2001, postcommunism and the theory of democracy, princeton university press, princeton, nj. bratton, m. & van de walle, n., 1997, democratic experiments in africa: regime transition in comparative perspective, cambridge university press, cambridge. callen, m., gibson, c.c., jung, d.f. & long, j.d., 2016, ‘improving electoral integrity with information and communications technology’, journal of experimental political science 3(1), 4–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/xps.2015.14 cheeseman, n., lynch, g. & willis, j., 2018, ‘digital dilemmas: the unintended consequences of election technology’, democratization 25(8), 1397–1418. cwele, s., 2014, ‘“e-literate society” is minister’s goal’, the star, 25 june 2014, p. 5. diamond, l., 2010, ‘liberation technology’, journal of democracy 21(3), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.0.0190 diamond, l. & plattner, m.f. 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discussion with this author, complained that sometimes they do not have much choice when the government enters into trade or economic deals with a foreign country, which, in turn, insists on selling the african country their election-related technologies as part of the deals. previous research by international idea (2018) suggests that further studies are required. the value of the present study is that it is exploratory and therefore not prescriptive to the embs or african countries, while seeking to identify gaps in current literature and practice. 2. as used here, these terms describe opponents of election technology and those who want to use it, respectively. 3. this author was part of an election observer mission in kenya in 2017 where opposition parties expressed such concerns. 4. while the participants spoke french, portuguese, english, kiswahili and arabic, the questionnaire was available only in english as the researcher was not conversant in these languages. 5. the researcher is aware of the limitations of not interviewing political parties, governments and other public representatives as this would have yielded valuable responses to answer the research questions. 6. according to smith and clark (2005:514), ‘… e-voting and i-voting should not be confused. essentially, e-voting deals with the electronic and automated technologies that try to minimise the human element in the vote collection and tabulation process. i-voting is the use of online information gathering and retrieval technologies to expand the reach and range of the potential voting population. i-voting cannot exist without the fully functional e-voting and related it infrastructure to support online initiative’. 7. all the respondents who consented to participate in this study requested anonymity in the consent forms, as a condition for their participation. hence, only country names and date are used here and in the analysis of the findings. 8. name withheld based on consent form signed by all the respondents who requested anonymity in the study. the number in parentheses indicates the order in which the respondents were interviewed (or submitted a questionnaire). 9. a village traditional court where the chief and village elders normally assemble to discuss community issues. eventually, botswana did not adopt evms for its october 2019 general elections. 10. southern african development community; economic community of west african states; and east african community. book review td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 496-497. linking relationships between scientists, policy-makers and stakeholders in water management gd gooch and p stalnacke: science, policy and stakeholders in water management: an integrated approach to river basin management london: (earthscan ltd. london, 2010). pp166. hard copy. sustainable water management is now the focus of concern for many different groups in society, including scientists, politicians, water services managers in the public and the private sectors, the public, non-governmental organizations and industrialists. their concerns are diverse, ranging from, inter alia, the effects of increasing demands on the quantity, quality and economic uses of water, as well as new challenges brought about by global issues such as more sophisticated needs by millions more people at many more localities, urbanization, over-extraction of water from underground aquifers and climate change. history and experience have shown that governments can not do it alone anymore due to the varying diversity and complexity of the water related services in especially the developing world out there. in this book the following objectives, inter alia, are identified to successfully address and manage the aforementioned challenges: • the identification and recognition of the ability of a ‘leading champion’, institution or forum which can facilitate the involvement of all stakeholders; • bring about optimum visibility, transparency, access and participation at all administrative and sectoral levels, including public policy-making and its implementation; and • in the final instance integrate the knowledge and experiences from the scientific, policy and stakeholder perspectives in a more efficient manner. integrated water resource management (iwrm) has been proposed as a way to address the aforementioned predicament and challenges. unfortunately a quest to improve the nature and extent of integration needs a deeper understanding of exactly why this integration often proves so difficult to realize, as well as examples of how different groups might be assisted to really work closer together in a more effective, efficient, economic and equal manner. in this book the authors attempt and succeed to do just that, namely, to analyze what integration in water management is about, to unravel some of the main obstacles to this quest to improved integration, and also to provide some good examples from different parts of the world on how integration can be improved. the authors of the book succeed in identifying the major role-player perspectives from the ‘scientists’, the public policy-makers and policy-doers, and lastly all the remaining stakeholders’ point of view. in order to make the needed integration manifest they identify the need for fully visible, transparent and accessible knowledge and information which can only be realized with improved communication. they also identified the place and role of ‘twinning’ (the deliberate development of permanent or semi-permanent ties between researchers and practitioners). the book review td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 496 -497. 497 aforementioned can only be achieved with effective internal and external organizational arrangements of which communication is the most important one. the research findings on the aspect of integration as key challenge in sustainable water management by means of trans-disciplinary research, are also enlightening and the identified and presented ‘lessons learned’ and proposed reflections throughout the book are valuable contributions and pointers to fellow researchers and managers in the water services management environment. it is clear from the book that the authors are masters in the organizational theory terrain in their exposition and highlighting of for example generic aspects from the four case basins of the striver research project regarding aspects such as participation, stakeholder participation per se, social learning, networks and governance and then especially their willingness to come up with very understandable recommendations for improved water services management. the last chapter of the book gives a very useful summary of common features with reference to the nature and extent of the spsi processes in the four basins. from these a number of general recommendations concerning methods to improve spsi in a holistically and integrated water services management quest, are presented which, to me as the novice reader and water services management researcher, is the ‘real cherry on top…’ it can be concluded that the authors of this book can be congratulated on the way in which they identify and demonstrate the fundamental sustainable development relationship between scientists, policy-makers, stakeholders as well as the place and role of the facilitating communication, twinning and collaborative interaction. this they did by conveying a breadth of information in a highly accessible and readable text. the book deserves warm recommendation to as wide an audience as possible. e nealer north-west university (potchefstroom) td journal desember 2006.p65 the world of spirits and the respect for nature: towards a new appreciation of animism heinz kimmerle * abstract: the belief in spirits has diminished in western thought since enlightenment. but it has not disappeared totally. in the subconscious of people and in different subcultures and also in literature and art it is still alive. derrida, before his death, worked out a new spectrology in which the status of reality of spirits is interpreted as absently present. in sub-saharan african thought this belief is broadly present and deeply rooted. it is the core of traditional african religions. also intellectuals, although they may have taken over christian or islamic convictions, mostly stick to this belief. an important aspect of the african belief in spirits is that they also dwell in nature. in principle they can choose for all natural things to dwell in them, and there is a special inclination for trees. the spiritual conception of reality as a whole is called animism. this important religion has been devaluated in connection with colonialism. recently the respect for nature which comes forth from this religion is highly appreciated by ecological philosophy. keywords: sprits, spectrology, derrida, marx, enlightenment, nature, animism, africa, christianity, islam, religion, ecological philosophy. 1. introduction the belief in spirits is widespread and deeply rooted in sub-saharan africa. it forms the essential core of african religions. belief is not meant here in the sense of not knowing. the vast majority of african people are convinced of the reality of the world of spirits. that is also true for most of the academically trained and of those who have td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 249-263. _______ * heinz kimmerle, born in 1930, is emeritus professor in philosophy at the erasmus university in rotterdam, in the netherlands. the last five years before his retirement in 1995 he occupied a special chair for the foundations of intercultural philosophy. his particular interest is the dialogue between western and african philosophy. in 2004 he received an honorary doctorate from the university of south africa (unisa), and in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2006 he taught as guest professor at the university of venda in thohoyandou, south africa. 250 become christians or muslims. in a first paragraph i will describe more in detail what the belief in spirits means in african thought and feeling. in a second paragraph the judgment of african philosophers on this belief is brought to the fore. leading philosophers point out that they do not see any opposition between spirituality and rationality. they even state that the development of epistemology in modern sciences is more in line with african ideas about spirits and about reincarnation than western conceptions, which stick to the traditional kantian model. but also in the thought and feeling of western people the belief in spirits has not disappeared totally since enlightenment. it rather seems to me that with us western people the organ has become stunted by which the reality of spirits can be perceived. in the subconscious and in subcultures, and also in literature and art in general, and in ordinary language, spirits still play an important role also in western culture. in the third paragraph i will give an explanation of the mode of ‘absent presence’ of spirits in western thought and feeling. in doing this, i will follow derrida’s work to establish a new theory of spirits (spectrology). an important aspect of the african belief in spirits is the assumption that spirits can also dwell in nature, in principle in all natural things. especially favoured dwelling-places are trees, and among the trees, before all, the mighty baobabs which are regarded as being holy. but also certain special places, lakes and woods or pieces of land close to a waterfall are preferred dwelling-places of spirits in nature. in the fourth paragraph i will refer to the project of wangari maathai, the mother of the trees, who has got the nobel peace prize for her work of planting millions of trees in kenya and east africa, together with the green belt movement which she had founded in the 1970s. the belief that spirits dwell in nature, that – in other words – all things in nature have or can have a soul is the basic idea of animism. this important religion has been devalued in connection with the low esteem for indigenous cultures by colonialism and christian missionary activities. in recent times the meaning of this religion for an ecologically conscious way of thinking and acting, for the protection and sustaining of nature, has become obvious. in the fifth paragraph i will plead that we need to come to a new appreciation of animism as one the so-called great world-religions like judaism, christianity, islam, hinduism and buddhism. in conclusion, i will quote three african proverbs on trees, one of the ashanti in ghana, one of the kikuyu in kenya and one which is common in many african communities. they will show that the respect for nature goes together with quite sober and pragmatic opinions in african thought. kimmerle 251 2. the world of spirits in african thought and feeling according to the belief of african people south of the sahara, in the reality of the universe as a whole and also in the human world, spirits are present and play an important role.1 this is an expression of the over-all effective spirituality of african thought and feeling. in this respect, ellis and ter haar are a bit reserved in their judgment. in worlds of power they state: the spirit world (as the core idea of african religion still) is commonly considered the ultimate source of power, (although) recent research suggests that more africans are indifferent to religion than in the past.2 with regard to the presence of the spirits there is one fundamental difference: their presence in the visible and in the invisible world. in the visible world the spirits are connected to the physical part of human existence and the things in the world. in the invisible world they are present without this connection, purely as spirits. they probably possess a non-physical bodily existence. they can be present at different places at the same moment and they can overcome huge distances of space in no time. the visible and the invisible world, however, are not divided from each other. they form one and the same scene. therefore, it would be apt to speak of the visible and invisible dimensions of the world. the now living people form together with animals and plants, the in-organic materials and the artefacts, the visible dimension of the world. the ancestors, those who have recently passed away, also called the ‘living-dead’, and those who died some time ago, but are still remembered by the now living, dwell as spirits in the invisible dimension of the world. and also the yet to be born are already present in this dimension. the boundary between the visible and the invisible world cannot be drawn clearly. in dreams, in certain rituals, but also at unexpected occasions the spirits of the ancestors can appear and give messages or warnings to the now living people. the living-dead take care that the relations with the living which were not in order at the moment of passing away – because for instance a debt that had not been settled – are set right later. in general the spirits of the ancestors can claim the privilege of being honoured, because they have founded and maintained the community of the now living. they are in charge of the further maintenance new appreciation of animism _______ 1 for the text of this paragraph i am using primarily g parrinder, african traditional religion, (sheldon press, london, 1961)3 as well as t fourche and h morlichem, une bible noire, (max arnold, brussels, 1973). 2 s ellis and g ter haar, worlds of power: religious thought and political practice in africa, (hurst & company, london, 2004), p. 6. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-263. 252 of this community and give it necessary advice or orders. the now living people become potential ancestors or get the qualification to become ancestors, when they pass away, during their lifetime. this happens before all by the initiation rites when they are informed about the basic knowledge of their culture and when they are circumcised. a chief, a member of the council of elderly people or the oldest sister of the head of the family act already during their life in the visible world as spirits, when they perform the tasks of the spirits for the community. thus passing away or changing the mode of being from living in the visible dimension of the world to the existence in its invisible dimension is not necessarily a sudden experience or a radical break. that the yet to be born are already present as spirits in the invisible dimension of the world, shows the spiritual character of the community as a whole.3 those now living are part of an infinite stream of life which is traversing them. it is important to notice that the ancestors live and have influence on the community as long as they are remembered and that the yet to be born begin to exist as spirits when they are expected by the now living people. one area of influence of christian ideas on african beliefs is to be found in the exposition that the spirits of the ancestors continue their living at some heavenly place when nobody remembers them any more.4 although the spirits are more powerful as spirits in the invisible world, they long for coming back by reincarnation into the visible world. the visible world is said to be warmer and only here can the spirits participate in the fullness of life. that is also one of the reasons why african women wish to have many children. thus they can offer more opportunities for the spirits to come back as babies to the visible world. in this connection it is possible, although it defies the conventional sense of logic, for a spirit to simultaneously partly come back into the visible dimension and partly remain in the invisible dimension of the world.5 it says much for the sense of reality in african thought that good and also evil spirits are assumed to co-exist. the fact that in the universe as a whole, and in the human world in particular, harmonic relations kimmerle _______ 3 jm nyasani, “the ontological significance of ‘i’ and ‘we’ in african philosophy” in h kimmerle (ed), i, we and body, (grüner, amsterdam, 1989), pp. 13-25. 4 mb ramose, african philosophy through ubuntu, (mond books, harare, 1999), pp. 7078; for the influence of christian ideas on african beliefs about afterlife ramose refers mainly to the book of john s. mbiti, african religions and philosophy, (anchor, new york 1970). 5 sb oluwole, reincarnation: an issue in african philosophy, in her book: witchcraft, reicarnation and the god-head, (excel publishers, lagos, 1992), pp. 39-54. 253 are pre-supposed, shows the stronger influences of the good over the bad spirits. this harmony is, however, endangered and has to be reinstalled and protected all the time. it can be thought of better as a dynamic equilibrium, which has to be maintained also by the living people and by the spirits acting in and through them. therefore, it is very important that the living people develop a character in which good intentions and actions prevail.6 taking into account what happened in africa during the last decade (the mutual genocide of hutu and tutsi in rwanda, the fighting between hema and lendu for participation in the exploitation of koltan in the soil of their living area, or the civil war between muslims and christians in sudan) one can have serious reservations about the ongoing cosmic harmony in the human world. while the spirits of the ancestors and of the not yet born exist close to the living people, as it where on the same scene, the supreme being, who has many different names in the african languages, which are translated in the terminology of christianity and other religions as god, is far away, at some place in heaven, from where he reigns the universe. in some parts of sub-saharan africa, especially in west africa, we find besides the belief in spirits and in the supreme being the assumption of deities, who are situated between the spirits and the supreme being. they take care of the fertility of the land and of the women, of good weather, superiority in wars, often also of certain regions or places and the people living there or of one single person for whom they feel responsible. the yoruba for instance, who live in the present states of nigeria, niger and benin believe in hundreds of deities.7 3. the judgment of african philosophers african philosophers have no problems with the religious beliefs of their peoples. spirituality and rationality are not in opposition for them. they even confirm the rational status of the belief in spirits. this is documented by statements of odera oruka from the university of nairobi when he was asked to give his opinion as an expert on a juridical case in court. the question under examination was whether or not a person who had passed away in nairobi should be buried according to his own will in the environment of his friends and colleagues in this city, or in the village of his birth at a great distance from this place. oruka advised that one should follow the traditional custom and bury this person in the village of his birth. the judge new appreciation of animism _______ 6 k gyekye, an essay in african philosophical thought: the akan conceptual scheme, (cambridge university press, cambridge, 1987), pp. 85-101 and 131-135. 7 c staewen, ifa – african gods speak: the oracle of the yoruba in nigeria, (springer hamburg, 1996). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-263. 254 feared that the spirits of the deceased would haunt those who take a decision against his will. oruka responded to that by saying that a spirit can only haunt somebody ‘if the customs are on its side’. furthermore it must have a reason which is accepted in the world of spirits. then the judge asked him: as a professor in our national university, do you believe that there are spirits? and then he got the following answer: i am still looking for reason why i should not believe in spirits. perhaps it would be a service to scholarship and law if you could provide me with a reason.8 appiah who had been teaching philosophy at the university of ghana, was later appointed at harvard university in the usa and is currently teaching at princeton university in new jersey, writes in an article on ‘old gods, new worlds’: most africans, now, whether converted to islam or christianity or not, still share the beliefs of their ancestors in an ontology of invisible beings ... these beliefs in invisible agents mean that most africans cannot fully accept those scientific theories in the west that are inconsistent with it. and he concludes: we cannot avoid the issue whether it is possible to adopt adversarial, individualistic cognitive styles, and keep, as we might want to, accommodative communitarian morals. cultures and people have often been capable of maintaining such double standards (and i use the term non-pejoratively, for perhaps we need different standards for different purposes).9 oluwole from the university of lagos confronts the african option for a belief in spirits and in reincarnation with the western epistemological conception to accept no explanation as reliable, which is not underpinned by sense data. she argues that after kant the conditions for the possibility of reliable knowledge have changed, and especially in advanced sciences like quantum-mechanics. therefore the african belief in phenomena which cannot be perceived by the senses is more likely to be true than western epistemology which still follows the kantian model. african experience gives according to her ‘overwhelming empirical evidence’ in support of the existence of spirits and of reincarnation. she summarises: today science has room for the possibility of reincarnation, although logical positivism does not.10 kimmerle _______ 8 ho oruka, sage philosophy. indigenous thinkers and modern debate on african philosophy, (brill, leiden a.o., 1990), pp. 74-75. 9 ka appiah, in my father’s house. africa in the philosophy of culture, (methuen, london, 1992), pp. 218-220. 10 sb oluwole, reincarnation: an issue in african philosophy, in her book: witchcraft, reicarnation and the god-head, pp. 51-52. 255 gyekye, also from the university of ghana, is critical with regard to the belief in the spirits. however, he does not doubt this belief itself; he fears that an ‘excessive and incessant attention’ to what the ancestors have done and would do, hampers the ‘cultivation of an innovative spirit or outlook’, which are necessary to make progress on the way to modernity. in a final analysis he tries to adapt the traditional ‘values and attitudes’ to the needs of the ‘constellation of the presence’. in the fight against corruption he pleads for a reconnection with traditional values under changed circumstances.11 4. the ‘absent presence’ of spirits in western thought and feeling in advanced sciences in the west and elsewhere, the borderline between matter and energy is indeed no longer a strict one. and in the virtual reality of the computer we cannot only communicate directly worldwide; it is easy to create pictures with people moving through walls. there are many films on television and in the cinemas showing persons who disappear and re-appear in a mysterious way. such phenomena can be understood as a new opening of the mind also in the western world for the reality of spirits. after enlightenment, in the west, the belief in spirits had never vanished completely. in certain subcultures, practices continued by which contact with the spirits of deceased persons is made. and examples for reincarnation, which have been collected, are manifold. jacques derrida has worked out a new theory of the spirits, which he calls spectrology. in this theory he examines the ‘absently present’ or ‘presently absent’ dimension of reality. this work has been inspired by the ghostly presence in the thinking of karl marx and of the theory and practice of marxism (‘which might be a different thing’) in the consciousness of the western world after the fall of the berlin wall and the collapse of the power of the soviet union in eastern europe in 1989.12 obviously, also marx himself uses the argument of the presence of ghosts and spirits in his time. the first sentence of the communist manifesto, which he had written together with engels in 1848, reads: ‘a ghost haunts europe, the ghost of communism’.13 by that, the new appreciation of animism _______ 11 k gyekye, tradition and modernity. philosophical reflections on the african experience, (oxford university press, new york/oxford, 1997), pp. 257-258 and 203-215. 12 j derrida, spectres de marx. l’etat de la dette, le travail du deuil et la nouvelle internationale, (galilée, paris, 1993), p. 90. (i quote from the french edition. and i give my own translation.) 13 k marx and f engels, manifest der kommunistischen partei (1848), in: ausgewählte schriften in zwei bänden, (dietz, berlin, 1961), vol. i, p. 15. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-263. 256 authors do not refer to the ghosts in a positive way; they want the ghost to be real in the visible world, to become ‘manifest’.14 in the german ideology (1844/45) these authors deny max stirner’s criticism of hegel’s philosophy, especially his phenomenology of spirit (1807). he calls hegel’s central notion of spirit a ‘phantom’. the counterposition of stirner, his solipsism, which recognises only the ‘i’ as the foundation of all reality, is looked at by marx and engels as a ‘phantom of phantoms’.15 (212-119) they intend to make the spirits, ghosts and phantoms real by founding human life and human history on concrete labour. in this sense also the ‘fetish-character of commodity’ and the ‘enchantment of money’, with which marx is dealing in volume i of the capital,16 have to be abolished by a revolutionary change of capitalism and taking over the administration of any kind of work by the workers.17 the apparently ambivalent attitude of marx towards ghosts, spirits and phantoms is summarised by derrida in the sentence: ‘marx does not love the spirits who love him.’18 finally, derrida comes to the conclusion: whenever the interest in spirits comes up, this is a sign of a deep crisis in the thinking and acting of a time. he finds the key-scene for that in the beginning of shakespeare’s tragedy hamlet. the ghost of his father appears to hamlet and asks from him to take revenge for the injustice of having been murdered by his own wife and her lover. hamlet expresses the difficulty of this task by saying: ‘time is out of joint:o cursed spite that ever i was born to set it right.’ taking revenge for an injustice and setting right time, which is out of joint, obviously belong together. so there is a connection between the appearance of the ghost of hamlet’s father and the quest for right and justice. the ghosts and spirits not only ask for revenge, they also haunt those who commit injustice and cause the time to be out of joint. therefore derrida calls his new theory of spirits not only ‘spectrology’, but also ‘hauntology’.19 derrida does not want to turn around the ‘collective exorcism’ of european enlightenment by assuring us that spirits do exist in reality. he leaves the case undecided. and he is content that the existence of spirits can no longer simply be denied. he states the presence of spirits in the mode of their absence. this is documented in ordinary language in which the ‘spirit of a time’ or of the ‘obsession’ of a person is kimmerle _______ 14 j derrida, spectres de marx. l’etat de la dette, le travail du deuil et la nouvelle internationale, p. 83. 15 ibid., pp. 212-219. 16 k marx, das kapital, vol. i (1862), (dietz, berlin, 1962), p. 76. 17 j derrida, spectres de marx. l’etat de la dette, le travail du deuil et la nouvelle internationale, pp. 254-255. 18 ibid., p. 173. 19 ibid., pp. 89, 173, 178, 255. 257 still spoken of although this is not meant literally. also in poetry and in fine art spirits, ghosts and gods continue to play an important role. hölderlin expects the appearance or re-appearance of the ancient gods. according to him jesus is one of them, although he is ‘unique’, being the last one and making their appearance complete.20 rilke often invokes god and angels; he wants them to support him in his care for the ‘things’ and their own right, although he is not sure that they will listen to him. therefore he asks: who, if i would cry, would listen to me from the order of the angels?21 in fine art fantastic representations can be found abundantly. i only refer to the bizarre imagination of salvador dali, rené-françoisghislain magritte or other surrealistic artists. in the christian churches, also after kant’s critical theory of cognition, it is spoken of god and angels. in catholic theology the saints are added to that; they are present in a transcendent sphere and can be invoked for help. in a conversation with derrida, when he stayed in amsterdam in 1994, i asked him, why he had not extended his theory of spirits to those who are present in nature or natural things. in this case he could add to his ‘new spectrology’ ideas of animism. i referred to african thought and feeling where spirits also dwell in nature. derrida answered that he acknowledged the necessity to do that. however, he would not do it himself, but asked me to work out such an extension of his theory. in the following section i will try to carry out this task. 5. natural things, especially trees, as dwelling places of spirits according to african beliefs, spirits can dwell in animals: in lions, for instance, because of their strength, and in snakes because of their wisdom. also plants, rivers, rocks or certain parts of a landscape can be their dwelling-places. as i have mentioned in the introduction, trees are especially preferred by them. that is understandable. trees are the biggest organic things. they can last much longer than an individual human life. it is obvious that the climate and the living conditions on earth are heavily dependent on the existence of trees and of woods. in his book on wangari maathai, whom he calls the ‘mother of the trees’, stefan ehlert describes ‘the meaning of trees for the kikuyus’, new appreciation of animism _______ 20 f hölderlin, der einzige, in: werke in vier bänden, ed. m. schneider, (walter hädecke stuttgart/weil der stadt, 1947), vol. ii, pp. 240-245. 21 rm rilke, duineser elegien, in: ausgewählte werke, ed. r. sieber-rilke/c. sieber/e. zinn, (insel, leipzig, 1942), vol. i, p. 253. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-263. 258 a people in central kenya. the nobel peace prize winner maathai belongs to these people. to give some basic information about this particular african group and the work of maathai, i quote from ehlert’s description: all started with a tree. ngai, the god, gave gikuyu, the founding father of the kikuyus, the land south-west to mount kenya. the hart of the land was a wood of fig trees’. elspeth huxley, a british journalist, ethnologist and writer, has found out, however, ‘that the kikuyus had a very ambivalent relation to their environment, especially to the wood. they hated the wood, but they also respected it’. by huxley different reasons are given: ‘the wood delivered the fertile land, and the kikuyus were thankful for that. however, the wood accommodated also the worst enemies of the farmers. there, the birds nested that ate up the seed of the millet. from there, the wood elephants came that devastated the fields. the bushes of the wood were about to overgrow the land. and last but not least in the wood dwelled the bad spirits, which the kikuyus feared so much. by most of the research is acknowledged ‘that western influences have turned around the originally sustainable way of dealing with the natural resources’. the kikuyus were shocked that the colonists even did not shrink back from hoeing up the fig trees. as a consequence, their traditional attitude gave way to a reckless mentality of cutting down.22 wangari maathai tries to reconnect her fellow-citizens to the positive aspects of the traditional attitude towards nature and towards trees. in 1977 she founded the green belt movement which was subsequently responsible for planting 30 million trees. in kenya more than 6 000 womens’ groups belong to this movement. they are doing impressive work. but this remains a first step only on the way to re-install in the african mind the respect for nature, which is part of the belief that spirits can dwell in all natural things. and it will be even more difficult and time-consuming to give meaning to the african model on a worldwide scale. 6. respect for nature in animism the belief that spirits can dwell in all natural things can also be expressed by saying that all natural things have a soul. animism as the religion, which is based on this idea, presupposes a certain relation between human beings and the natural world. a feeling of belonging together, of being brother and sister of the natural things, at least an attitude of respect for them are characteristics of this relation. it is the same life-force which is at work in nature and in human existence. this is not meant as a form of romanticism. there are also bad spirits in nature, and it provides not only necessary means for human life, but also dangerous and hostile influences come forth from it. kimmerle _______ 22 s ehlert, wangarai maathai – mutterder bäume. die erste afrikanische nobelpreisträgerin, (herder, freibdurg/basl/wien, 2004), pp. 21-24. 259 during the period of colonialism and christian missionary activity animism was devalued. it was regarded as heathen, primitive, superstitious, belonging to a low level of culture. to become a christian meant at the same time to climb up on the ladder of social acknowledgement. this religion was estimated as higher, because it belonged to a more powerful culture in terms of weapons and technical means. there was little understanding for a respectful attitude towards natural things. indeed, it is the judeo-christian influence, that from the very beginning is directed at multiplying humankind and subduing nature, having dominion over it.23 nature becomes an instrument for self-maintenance and self-multiplication of humankind. this was also an important condition for the development of science and technology in the western world and in the confrontation with animistic cultures of military superiority. also the mainstream of western philosophy is characterised by a type of rationality which is used for dominating all things. the own value of nature was pushed into the background. nietzsche declares the ‘will to power’ as the main principle of western thought, heidegger regards western history as dominated by the ‘essence of technique’, and adorno understands the prevailing form of knowledge as ‘knowledge of dominion’ (herrschaftswissen). the philosophers of difference see in this mainstream the forgetting of the other, everything is reduced to the self of the human being. recent environmental philosophy criticises the predominance of technique and the forgetting of nature. this type of philosophy comes to new ethical orientations. it strives after sustainable development and moderate economic growth.24 the ‘own weight of the things’ and ‘reverence for nature’ are recommended.25 van der wal argues that humans have to learn again to deal with nature and the natural things carefully and with circumspection. they have to experience themselves ‘as a part of the great animated connection of nature’. and he finds sources of inspiration for this new ways of thought ‘inside and outside’ the western tradition. ‘for the moment’ he decides to stick to the western sources.26 what the ‘great animated connection of nature’ and the position of new appreciation of animism _______ 23 genesis 1, 28-30. 24 h sachsse, ökologische philosophie. natur – technik – gesellschaft, (wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, darmstadt, 1984), k van der wal, “globalisierung, nachhaltigkeit und ethik” in natur und kultur. zeitschrift für ökologische nachhaltigkeit, 4(1), 2003, pp. 100-119. 25 m coolen and k van der wal (eds), het eigen gewicht van de dingen. milieufilosofische opstellen, (damon, budel, 2002). 26 k van der wal, “globalisierung, nachhaltigkeit und ethik” in natur und kultur. zeitschrift für ökologische nachhaltigkeit, 4(1), 2003, p. 118. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-263. 260 mankind in it means, could be made clear much more directly and precisely by a dialogue with african thought. mogobe ramose refers in the first instance to the ‘mother earth’. mother has an enormous impact in african ideas about the family. this becomes evident by a proverb of the chewa, who live in the present state of malawi: ‘mother is god number two’. life is an ‘incessant and complex interplay of visible and invisible forces in motion’. mother and like mother the earth play a highly important role in this. they are the ‘preserver of life in the specific forms in which it manifests itself’. mother earth ‘is sacred’ and its ‘non-injury’ must be respected. these demands have not been obeyed in western science and technique. however, if science and technique use the resources of the earth in a sustainable and moderate way, they would be ‘neither inconsistent nor incompatible’ with these demands. as a ‘basis of environmental ethics from an african perspective’ can be said: ‘like the mother, the earth has its own dignity ... it deserves reverence and respect’.27 the formula ‘reverence and respect’ expresses what i try to grasp by using the term ‘achtung’ in the sense of immanuel kant. achtung is more than respect only. unlike respect it has an emotional side. kant calls achtung, which is related in his context not to nature or to the other, but to the moral law only, a ‘reasonable emotion’ (vernünftiges gefühl). this is, according to my interpretation, akin to the eros of socrates, by which bodily love is transformed into love for wisdom.28 not only the mother earth, but also all that is moving on it, organic and in-organic things, deserve achtung. everything is animated, that means, it can be the dwelling-place of a spirit, a deity or the godhead. spirits are besides the spirits of the ancestors the forces of nature; the powers behind storm, rain, rivers, seas, lakes, wells, hills, rocks. they are not just the water or the rock, for they are spiritual powers capable to manifest themselves in many places.29 for a number of peoples in west africa the spirits in nature are nature gods. they give special dignity to the natural things in which they dwell. parrinder names in this connection ‘mountains and forests’, ‘pools and streams’, or ‘trees and other local objects’. again the trees, especially the baobabs, play a conspicuous role.30 kimmerle _______ 27 mb ramose, “the earth ‘mother’ metaphor: an african perspective” in: f. elders, visions of nature. studies on the theory of gaia and culture in ancient and modern times, (free university press, brussels, 2004), pp. 203-206. 28 h kimmerle, “zum primat der achtung als grundlage des toleranz-dialogs” in hr yousefi and k. fischer (eds), interkulturelle orientierung. grundlegung des toleranzdialogs, teil ii: angewandte interkulturalität, (bautz, nordhausen, 2004), pp. 49-68. 29 g parrinder, african traditional religion, pp. 23-24. 30 ibid., p. 43. 261 that spirits and gods in nature deserve reverence and respect, manifests itself concretely in certain forms of religious veneration, which is often expressed in prayers. it would, however, be inappropriate to say that african people ‘worship’ animals or other natural things. the ashanti from ghana and ivory coast, for instance, believe that the earth as the bearer of everything that lives on it, is animated by a ‘female principle’. the earth is not a goddess, but it is ‘of great importance in life’. its holy day is thursday. and it is forbidden, to work on the fields on thursday. before hoeing the land farmers propitiate the earth with offerings of fowls and yams, and at harvest they return thanks to the earth with a libation or a sacrifice. libations are also made when graves are dug, for it is the earth that receives the dead ‘into her pocket’.31 i cannot give a detailed description here of the different forms of veneration of the earth, the spirits and the nature gods which are called as a whole animism. it is part of the unfinished process of decolonisation of the mind, that animism is no longer in a subordinate position, but an equal to the ‘five world-religions’: ‘hinduism, buddhism, chinese universalism, christianity, islam’, as they are explained by glasenapp and other philosophers of religion.32 in a more recent and also more comprehensive work on world religions a more adequate place is given to ‘african traditional religion’. in the dutch translation of this work (in 295 pages) it is dealt with in the space of 10 pages.33 as far as environmental ethics is concerned, essential insights can be taken over from animism. workineh kelbessa from addis ababa university discusses in his article ‘indigenous and modern environmental ethics’ especially ideas of the oromo who live in the south of ethiopia. central to his discourse is the ‘conception of saffuu’. saffuu implies, according to the german anthropologist l. bartels, with whom kelbessa agrees, ‘that all things have a place of their own in the cosmic order, and that they should keep this place. their place is conditioned by the specific ayyana (soul or spirit) each of them has received from waaqa (the supreme being)’. the concepts of respect and reverence are applied again to describe the attitude of the oromo towards nature. this does not exclude the fact that ‘they have all along been actively manipulating the natural environment’. their activities have been guided, however, by ‘biological and ecological insights’ and by ‘sustainable resources management systems’. they combine the ‘ethic of production’ with an ‘ethics of preservation’, because they know new appreciation of animism _______ 31 ibid., p. 48. 32 h glasenapp, die fünf weltreligionen. hinduismus, buddhismus, chinesischer universismus, christentum, islam, (hugendubel, kreuzlingen/münchen, 2001). 33 s mcloughlin (ed), world religions, (flame tree publishing, london, 2003); dutch translation: wereld-religies, (rebo productions london, 2005), pp. 108-117. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-263. 262 kimmerle ‘that without production and transformation of nature human life is unthinkable’ and ‘that the green environment is a sine qua non for the survival of all living things’. their contribution to a modern environmental ethics complies with the argument ‘that the natural environment has inherent or intrinsic value’.34 in her dissertation narratives for nature zwaal analyses a great number of local and supra-local stories in cameroon. she comes to the conclusion, following for the most part the anthropologist k. milton, that in these stories differentiated conceptions characterise the attitude of people towards nature. they range from ‘fear’ with regard to a ‘capricious nature’ via ‘respect’ because of a ‘strong nature’ and ‘care’ for an ‘only within limitations strong nature’ to ‘compassion’ with a ‘vulnerable nature’, which leads in the end to an attitude of ‘protecting nature’. this implies that the forces of nature which act on the human beings and the forces of the human beings which act on nature are and have to be kept in balance.35 the research of kelbessa and zwaal can show us how the belief in spirits in sub-saharan africa can contribute to a modern environmental ethics. african thought and feeling is vicarious here for nonwestern philosophies. hereby a step is taken from a deconstructive reading of western philosophy, like derrida and van der wal prefer to carry out, to the inclusion of non-western philosophies. we aim at installing ‘partnership’, like kelbessa formulates, or at an ‘intercultural dialogue’, in which zwaal lets us participate. 7. final remarks as we have seen, african thought and feeling about nature sticks to traditional beliefs and mythical representations. that does not exclude a sober and pragmatic attitude. respect and reverence for nature, which are founded in the belief that all natural things can be a dwelling-place of spirits, are combined with ‘biological and ecological insights’ and ‘management systems’ for sustainable resources, like we have learnt from kelbessa. i want to conclude by explaining how this double attitude towards nature is expressed in african proverbs on trees, which are preferred dwelling-places of the spirits. in this explanation the meaning of these proverbs, maxims or epigrams is not given in its full dimensions or power, because they are not quoted _______ 34 k workineh, “indigenous and modern environmental ethics: towards partnership” in gm presbey a.o. (eds), thought and practice in african philosophy, (konrad adenauer foundation, london, 2002), pp. 47-61, especially 54-57. (remarks between brackets in the quotation are mine, hk.) 35 n zwaal, narratives for nature. storytelling as a vehicle for improving the intercultural dialogue on environmental conservation in cameroon, (diss. nijmegen 2003), p. 209. 263 new appreciation of animism in their original language, but only in english translation. the ashanti in ghana say: ‘a human being is not a palm-tree, he or she is not self-sufficient’. a palm-tree is useful in many ways. let me name only a few possibilities: the stem is good for building houses or bridges, the leaves are used for packing, from the juice wine can be made. it can be used universally. but a human being is not able to do so many things on his or her own. he or she needs the community for support and for security. the palm-tree seems to be superior to the human being. but the dependence of the humans on their community has its specific value. gyekye explains this by quoting another proverb or maxim: ‘the well-being of man depends upon his fellow men.’36 secondly i refer to a proverb of the kikuyu in kenya: ‘a tree at the roadside does not lack a scar.’ wanjohi from the university of nairobi who makes ‘the wisdom and philosophy of the kikuyu’ explicit by using their proverbs interprets them on three levels. in a literal sense, one can notice that trees alongside the road mostly have scars. in a metaphorical interpretation ‘tree’ stands for people in a public position. the ‘roadside’ means that their position makes them especially vulnerable. and ‘scars’ cannot be avoided because they are exposed to criticism and envy of others. a third level of interpretation is called by wanjohi ‘polysymbolic’. like for trees at the roadside it is true for human beings in general that they are vulnerable, that their communication with others always somehow will cause scars. in an even more general sense, i would like to add, according to the maxim of anaximandros from ancient greece, all things are guilty with respect to others because there cannot be another thing at the same time in the place where they are.37 thus a signal is given for a tragic, but not for a hopeless situation. a proverb that is in use in many different african communities says something about wisdom in general, what is, all the more, particularly true for the solution of the problem, which is decisive for the survival of mankind on earth. this problem is can be stated thus: how to find and set into practice an adequate attitude towards nature? here is the proverb: ‘wisdom is like a baobab, one person alone cannot embrace it.’ that means for the named problem: it cannot be solved by the philosophy of one culture alone, intercultural philosophical dialogues are necessary for that. _______ 36 k gyekye, “person and community in african thought” in h kimmerle (ed), i, we and body, p. 54. 37 gj wanjohi, the wisdom and philosophy of the gikuyu proverbs: the kihooto worldview, (paulines publications africa, nairobi, 1997), pp. 71-72; cf. for the maxim of anaximandros: wilhelm capelle (ed), die vorsokratiker: fragmente und quellenberichte, (kröner, stuttgart 1973), p. 82. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 249-263. abstract introduction the global and the local: a background the south african wheat market food security, government and the policy realm profitability and structural changes to the wheat market the international wheat market conclusion acknowledgements references appendix 1 appendix 2 footnotes about the author(s) francois de wet department of economics, stellenbosch university, south africa ian liebenberg centre for military studies (cemis), stellenbosch university, south africa citation de wet, f. & liebenberg, i., 2018, ‘food security, wheat production and policy in south africa: reflections on food sustainability and challenges for a market economy’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a407. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.407 original research food security, wheat production and policy in south africa: reflections on food sustainability and challenges for a market economy francois de wet, ian liebenberg received: 17 jan. 2017; accepted: 29 sept. 2017; published: 30 jan. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the traditional concept of security has broadened over the past decades. food security in south africa is an imperative for human and non-human survival. in the contemporary political economy, there is a real nexus between globalisation, exploitation, the state, scarcity of resources, the market, peoples’ need to feel secure, notions of state responsibility and food production. political economy and human security in theoretical debates and face-to-face politics are intrinsically linked. the notion of a ‘secure community’ changed. food security and the right to quality living became a social imperative. understanding current agricultural economics requires the ability to link security and access to food for all. in this case study, wheat production in south africa is addressed against the interface of the global and the local including south africa’s transition to a democratic and constitutional state with a bill of rights. the current security approach represents a more comprehensive understanding of what security is meant to be and include, amongst others, housing security, medical security, service delivery and food security, as set out in the millennium development goals and the subsequent sustainable development goals. the issue of food security is addressed here with particular reference to wheat production, related current government policies and the market economy. the authors chose to limit their socio-economic focus to a specific sector of the agricultural market, namely wheat, rather than discuss food security in south africa in general. wheat was chosen as a unit of analysis because as a crop, wheat used in bread is one of the staples for the majority of south africans and given the current negative economic developments, wheat as a staple is likely to remain integral, if not increasing its status of dependability. introduction the facts of wealth and income are not important for themselves. they are important as determinants of inequalities with respect to things people will give much or indeed almost anything to have. some of these are shelter, security in one’s place of living, home, land, nourishment, food. (honderich 1980:ix) at no time in human history, was there a non-existence of – if not the painful nexus between – exploitation, the ‘state’, scarcity of resources, the ‘market’, peoples’ need to feel secure and food production and (socio-) economic policies. political economy and human security in theoretical debates and face-to-face politics are intrinsically linked. over the past decades, the notion of a secure community changed. reflect, for example, on the millennium development goals (mdgs) and its refinement into sustainable development goals (sdgs) (2015). in the literature on national security, the concept of a secure country – indeed a secure community – has changed over the years. in the past, it was accepted and expected of sovereign countries to defend their citizens against outside aggression as well as protect them from internal disturbances, where such actions threatened the citizenry or the state as an embodiment of the citizenry within its geographical space. these requirements created a need for a viable defence force to be used for external protection, and to maintain a capacity to deploy these security forces in a secondary role assuming that food was secure to a large extent. human security became an integral concept in contemporary security thinking. in current political and socio-economic debates, there is far more to the understanding of security. in some ways, the new security thinking divorced the military element and morphed into the concept of security for human beings on a far more holistic level both inside and outside national borders. in time the concept national security (national as defined within the geographical boundaries of a demarcated state) progressed from securing the citizens of a country against external aggression and internal violence as a form of collective good to the security of both individual and community (or individual-in-community and community of individuals) well-being or welfare. the latter is a much more comprehensive understanding of what security is meant to be and include, amongst others, housing security, medical security and food security.1 in this context, security is comprehensively understood and holistically envisioned. food security is also seen as one of the fundamental objectives of the mdgs. the mdgs were refined into the sdgs in 2015. the sdgs were to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. in the case of south africa, this new security approach is implied in the constitution (act 108 of 1996) and the bill of rights and echoed by the first defence review and the white paper on defence (full report published as defence in a democracy 1998). food security and nutrition also form part and parcel of the south african national development plan (ndp). in this contribution, we as authors chose to look at human security and its applicability to one unit of study, namely south africa and one case of food production, being wheat, as related to human security and current economic developments. the main question is how does one, given current circumstances, within a context of a market economy, achieve and maintain the needed levels of food security while maintaining efficiency in the production of wheat in the long term? alternatively, are there changes needed around the current market approach to sustain and enhance wheat production (and hence food security) in south africa? the global and the local: a background the global and the local are deeply entwined, also in south africa. during the decline of the cold war, the political-security discourse changed from a divided world (east and west or communist and capitalist) to a short period of perceived multipolarity. the global tension between large state actors declined and the demise of hegemons allowed space for the rise of fragmented communities and intra-state conflicts. much more than in the past, human suffering and poverty (read: food insecurity) became part of a seemingly endless scenario of violence within states, whether through the outcomes of neo-imperialism, impositions by uni-polarised states, civil discontent, ethnic or identity conflicts, warlordism, resource-driven conflicts or syndicate crime coupled with organised violence. the current manifestations of conflict include the deep fragmentation of communities, the spread of trans-border and violent sectarian conflicts that arise after the toppling of the regimes of ‘non-pliant’ states (in the eyes of the usa, the uk and france and their pragmatic followers) such as in iraq and libya. simultaneously, one of the outcomes of globalisation is the deepening of the rich–poor divide and with it a lack of resources for numerous communities to feed themselves. as far back as the early 1990s, the sociologist anthony giddens foresaw globalisation as a growing phenomenon. the purported positive outcomes thereof such as globalisation or so-called liberal capitalism as an ideology were upheld as a glib mantra for progress, profit and development. but such progress is double-edged. globalisation from inception increasingly spawned underdevelopment, political alienation, socio-economic tensions, fragmentation and violent conflicts (giddens 2001:51ff, 69ff). the development of underdevelopment became a reality with peripheral states having less capacity to maintain or enhance their levels of development, while the ‘core states’ in the global north remained powerful both economically and politically. poverty and hunger remained as characteristics unique to ‘lesser’ and ‘poorly’ developed countries. such conflicts amongst others revealed around scarce resources such as water and food (including arable land as a resource) which are contested not only between countries but also within countries and communities. one example of globalisation causing violent tensions is the extraction of oil for profit that destroyed and still is destroying valuable fertile agricultural land in west africa. an example of the link between conflict, displacement, attempted resettlement, the negative effect on forest ecologies and agriculture in sierra leone is well described by munro and van der horst (2015:119ff). currently, some security analysts are arguing that water as a resource will become the next point of international conflict (needless to mention that food security will disappear where water is no longer accessible). south africa as an independent country was born out of the conflict surrounding scarce resources (liebenberg 1990). south africa’s case is deeply intertwined with development politics. this we have to consider against the background of developing countries or non-developing and peripheral states (the so-called developing states in the first-world jargon) that through a historic process of evolving private enterprise coupled with industrialism and the growth of core states being in a semi-permanent dependency compared to highly industrialised states. globalisation from its earliest times, stemming from the birth of the slave trade coupled with industrial growth, state-building in the west and the competition for colonies (scarce resources) and subsequent empire-building left a legacy of poverty on the globe. within the colonial, then apartheid state, a richer and relatively well-off white community evolved with, in contrast, poverty and lack of access to productive land for the larger part of the community (black south africans). the social theorist neville alexander spoke about racial capitalism at the time, while other radical theorists referred to the apartheid system as colonialism of a special type (liebenberg 1990). south africa is but a microcosm of the world. this legacy includes absolute poverty, relative poverty, food scarcity and hunger. worldwide statistics on poverty and lack of agricultural production is staggering: one billion people are stuck at the bottom (of the world economy). the twenty-first-century world of material comfort, global travel, and economic interdependence will become increasingly vulnerable … and it matters now. as the bottom billion diverges from an increasingly sophisticated world economy, integration will become harder, not easier. (collier 2008:178) caught up in all this is the vision that a better and more secure world can be constructed. the mdgs and sdgs reflect this commitment. however, achieving the mdgs or sdgs offers no easy challenge (un 2013; undp 2012). there are those such as jeffrey sachs (2005) who assert: this is about ending poverty in our time. it is not a forecast. i am not predicting that it will happen, only explain [that it] can happen. currently, eight million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive. our generation can choose to end that extreme poverty by the year 2025. (p. 5) sachs wrote these words 11 years ago. that means that if taken seriously, and all things are equal, that we (the world and its leaders) have lost 10 years, yet by assumption, we can eradicate dire poverty by around 2035. the club of rome pointed out the dire challenges around food production for a future world in the 1970s.2 these to be reckoned aside from natural and man-made disasters such as oil spills, red dust from iron ore plants, droughts, earth warming, destruction of green forests, pollution, acid water and nuclear incidents. south africa is a case in point. the drought that started in 2014–2015 already accounts for masses of losses because of under-production. as shingirai nangombe explains: the ‘drying up’ phenomenon in southern africa especially in south africa and zimbabwe: will have impacts on other sectors such as the economy … (and in the absence) of ‘a single and well-focused strategy to fight and adapt to the changing conditions in the global climate situation (more problems will arise)’. (karombo 2015:16) one example of such climatic change is the drought in south africa. in 2013–2014, south africa produced 14.2 million tons of maize. during 2014–2015, the production dropped to 9.9 million tons. the lower production figures may amount to an r9.2 billion knock, in turn, leading to higher prices and job losses. grain south african economist wandile sihlobo suggests that it may get worse before the turn for the better (bisseker 2015:18). drought could cost south africa billions in crop imports (karombo 2015). dry weather puts zimbabwe, south africa and others at risk.3 as far back as 1980, honderich (1980) observed: there are also yet the more terrible differences between the economically developed and economically less-developed societies. the per capita gross national product of a large number of countries in recent years was $200 or less. the figure for many developed countries was over $1000, with the united states being over $2300. … it has been generally accepted that since 1965, and indeed before then, economic inequalities between these parts of the world have been increasing rather than decreasing. (pp. 194–195; see again hoogvelt 1997) despite some high growth rates in africa, this situation has barely improved (mayor & bindé 2001): the world has seen the spectacular rise in poverty since the 1980s. we are witnessing (increasing) worldwide inequalities, accompanied in most societies by an increase in the number of individuals living in absolute poverty with the regions affected the most latin america, southern asia and sub-saharan africa. … despite positive progress in some areas, as reported in the 1997 human development report, statistics at the turn of the century pointed towards 266 m people out of 590 m living below the poverty line in sub-saharan africa. over three billion people worldwide live in poverty and 1.5 billion lack access to clean water. (p. 57-58) these global tendencies seem to be reflected within countries as well, where the gap between rich and poor is widening. south africa is no exception; neither are the south african political leadership and financial elite. michael todaro (2000 11ff) quite correctly argues that a new look – and resultant creative action – will mean to take note of how the other three-quarters live, to relentlessly and critically re-evaluate our current values that have led to global exploitation and to realise the limitations of traditional economic measures and act upon this decisively. and it is here that food security becomes of great relevance. the notion of food security has gained prominence and is entrenched in the ‘new security’ debate or discourse. south africa, following the general pathway of global liberal capitalism, is in a similar situation. development challenges, including chronic poverty and food insecurity, await many south africans unless the economy in general, and the agricultural economy of the country in particular, is not managed with acumen and prudence (masote 2012:4; the presidency 2011, 2013; compare also dbsa 2005, 2012). while some debate remains around it, a recent analysis of the south african statistical services suggests that one out of two south africans goes hungry every day. the south african wheat market needless to say, one dimension of security – or insecurity, more precisely – is poverty. poverty is a global concern as much as it should be a concern in south africa. especially, sub-saharan africa, latin america, south asia and the caribbean face the danger of chronic poverty; this, in part, is closely linked to food shortages or inability to access food as a scarce resource (kumar et al. 2009:288). again, south africa finds itself in this broad realm (on poverty in south africa, see pillay, hagg & nyamnjoh 2013:27–29, 141ff, 446ff, 458ffm, 581ff, 674ff): this decline in wheat production poses a threat to national food security in south africa. south africa has the potential to produce substantially more wheat, provided it is more profitable to do so. the importance of wheat [the second biggest staple food] in south africa necessitates a policy framework taking our dependency on imports into consideration. (fourie 2013:65) the above remark of fourie stems from before the 2015–2016 droughts in south africa. keep in mind that the 2016 budget speech came against the background of disenchanted investors and economic growth precariously around 1%. added to this, ‘poverty levels are high and income remains unevenly distributed’ (roux 2016:1). by 2017, the situation hardly changed. in economic literature, it is accepted that prices on agricultural markets are notoriously unstable because of supply inconsistencies. for food security reasons, governments worldwide protect their markets by subsidising the domestic producer and stabilising the market price. this also applies to wheat production. countries mostly keep domestic wheat production competitive internationally by subsidising the production costs of domestic farmers. governments further keep domestic wheat producers internationally competitive by increasing the price of imported wheat (tax-imported wheat). in terms of price, such action keeps the domestic producers competitive. the higher wheat price is thus paid by the domestic consumer. the income from such a tariff goes to the government. the responsibility of governments to feed their citizens has always been an accepted reason for governments to regulate agricultural markets. deregulation has caused a decline in the profitability of wheat farming in south africa because of uncertain international prices. in most wheat-producing countries, farmers are subsidised to assure a certain profit level to farmers which will enable them to plan and plant for the following season. this also ensures food security. in south africa, farmers are currently, in contrast with the past, not subsidised. this article argues that the south african government should stabilise wheat prices and equalise the playing field through subsidies or tariff protection by taking a long-term view of wheat prices and the protection other governments are providing to their wheat producers. this should ensure sustainable long-term wheat production in south africa as well as retain the efficient producers of wheat. dating to early periods, south africa was no exception. since the very early years, the wheat markets in the value chain in south africa have been regulated by the government. all market transactions such as wheat sales, pricing, distribution, storage and bread and flour production were controlled by the now terminated wheat board. the wheat board was established in 1935 in terms of the wheat industry control act of 1935 (howcroft 1991:1ff). the wheat board purchased the wheat from farmers; the farmers were obliged to sell their wheat to the wheat board for which they received a fixed producer price (in practice, thus a form of price control – or in afrikaans, prysbeheer). the delivery price was usually set at the beginning of the season, namely february or march of every year. a supplementary payment (agterskot) was made to producers when the actual size of the crop was known and after the sale of any surplus wheat produced. from the 1988–1989 season onwards, the board applied the principle that producers were liable for the financing of any surplus stock arising from a given crop. the wheat board was also responsible for fixing the selling price of wheat. changes in the wheat price by the wheat board needed the permission of the minister of agriculture (de kock 1991:14). regulation extended to the international market as well, with quantitative controls administered by the wheat board (edwards 1997:13). the wheat board distributed wheat purchased from farmers mainly through its agents, the agriculture cooperatives, to millers, cereal producers, animal food producers and other relevant buyers. the board exercised a distribution policy with the object of minimising rail costs to millers (de kock 1991:14). the quantity and quality of wheat produced per production area were also taken into account. in the 1939–1940 production season, the wheat board paid producers a subsidy for their wheat because of sharp cost increases as a result of the second world war. in 1941/1942, a subsidy was also paid to millers and bakers. the subsidy to producers was continued until the 1956–1957 season when it was replaced by a subsidy for wheat flour. from may 1977, a subsidy was paid on flour used for the baking of bread only. this subsidy was distributed in two ways: on bread sold by bakeries and on storage compensation and handling commission to agents of the wheat board. from 1985, the subsidy amount was substantially reduced on a yearly basis and by march 1991, the subsidy was no longer paid. food security, government and the policy realm the directorate food security within the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries acknowledges that food security has three dimensions. firstly, a country must have sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis at both national as well as household level. secondly, a country must have the ability to acquire sufficient food for its nation and households on a sustainable basis (import). thirdly, food should be used appropriately based on a thorough knowledge of nutrition and care (du toit 2011:2). south africa is largely perceived to be a food secure nation, but that cannot be said of households in rural areas where food security is widely lacking (du toit 2011:4; also compare haldewang 2014; pillay & southall 2014; sithole 2014).4 under the african national congress (anc) government, the wheat market was deregulated on 01 november 1997. under the new government that advocated the reconstruction and development plan (rdp) that was pivoted on the premise of redistribution first and then growth, the rdp was soon jettisoned for a macroeconomic plan that embraced the free market. the marketing of agriculture products bill of 1996 replaced the marketing act 59 of 1968. since 1997 wheat has been freely traded in south africa. producers can sell their produce to anybody in a free market environment without any government interference (van rooyen 2000:9). however, the government on occasion has intervened in the market by using tariff measures to protect domestic producers. for example, import duties on wheat came into effect on 14 april 1999. import duties were introduced at r181/ton. the tariff on wheat increased to r269 per ton on 11 june 1999. the consumer bore the full economic burden of these tariffs (van rooyen 2000:9). greater risks and lower profit margins are also a reality of deregulated markets. producers have to contend with the possibility of worldwide under or overproduction of wheat. the move from the rdp approach (that implicitly required forms of state intervention) towards gear, a macroeconomic program, implied the acceptance of a liberal free market economy in contrast to the past. with it came some of the drawbacks previously outlined around, for example, the issue of subsidisation. rethinking subsidisation and a resultant change in the policy approach should ensure sustainable production of wheat in the long run as well as contribute to the efficiency of wheat production. profitability and structural changes to the wheat market when almost all government interventions into the wheat market were lifted in 1997 and the market was left to the dictates of market forces, the profitability of wheat production declined sharply in all wheat-producing areas in south africa. in the western free state, the profit rate declined from 36.6% in the average sale price of wheat for the period 1971–1997 to 17.7% on the average sale price of wheat for the period 1998–2010 (table 1). in the eastern free state, the profit rate declined from 35.1% to 13.3% for the same periods and in the swartland within the western cape province, the decline was from 30.4% to 13.3%. this decline was in spite of the average yield per hectare for the same period increasing from 1.1 per hectare to 2.5 per hectare for the swartland, 1.6 per hectare to 2.5 per hectare for the eastern free state and 1.2 per hectare to 2.2 per hectare for the western free state (table 1). the only area where profits on average increased marginally was the southern cape with profits increasing from 10.3% in the average sales price to 11.5%. average yield per hectare increased from 2 per hectare to 2.6 per hectare. table 1: profitability of the wheat market in south africa (own calculations from appendix 1). left to market forces, wheat prices became more unstable after 1997 and in the north-west free state the producers experienced 3 unprofitable seasons out of 10 (appendix 1). the eastern free state, swartland and southern cape experienced 5 out of 13 unprofitable seasons, drastically increasing the risk of wheat production compared to the years of regulation where no losses were experienced except for the 1997 season. as a result of wheat price fluctuations and declining profitability, the area under wheat production in south africa shrank sharply after 1997 (table 2). the average land area that was used for wheat production before the market was deregulated was 1.4 million hectares. after deregulation, the average size declined to 761 000 hectares. the land area under production declined by 45.6%, with only 54.4% of the original land still in use. table 2: structural changes to the wheat market for the years 1985/1986 to 2011/2012. before the market was deregulated, the average output per hectare produced was 1.6 tons. after deregulation, the average output per hectare increased to 2.6 tons (calculated with the aid of table 2). before 1997, south africa, on average, produced 2.2 million tons of wheat per year. after 1997, the average production declined to 1.9 million tons. notwithstanding a growing domestic demand, total output declined by 11% over a period of 15 years. domestic demand grew by 2.5% per year before deregulation and by 0.7% thereafter. before deregulation, 178 000 tons of wheat per year were imported. this represented 19.9% of the total domestic demand. after deregulation, imports, on average, increased to 937 000 tons per year, which is nearly a third of the total domestic demand, therefore sharply increasing our dependency on foreign imports. to what extent the insecurity is caused by the land reform debate is not addressed here and no study was conducted on this as far as we could discern. from appendix 2, which deals with wheat production costs, it is also noted that although average variable cost as a percentage of total wheat cost increased from 72.4% in 2000 to 84.4% in 2009, labour as a variable cost declined from 9.3% of total variable cost on average in 2000 to 6.2% in 2009. there was therefore a sharp decline in labour’s share in the production of wheat in south africa for the years 2000–2009. wheat production is getting more capital intensive in south africa and adding to south africa’s high unemployment rate. the international wheat market the international wheat market is a protected one. in the usa, argentina, australia and elsewhere, wheat production has in one way or another been subsidised by their governments: on the global front, the distortional impact of agricultural subsidies on the global supply of wheat has a depressing effect on wheat prices, adversely affecting the competitive position of domestic wheat producers. (international trade administration commission of south africa 2013:13) a comparison of international wheat production costs (subsidised) with that of domestic producers in 2011 is set out in table 3. only south africa’s irrigated wheat lands are reasonably competitive internationally. we could therefore argue that south africa has a comparative advantage over some countries in this regard. on the other hand, the dry lands are not competitive at all. according to the international trade administration commission of south africa (2013:13), south african wheat farmers are burdened by higher cost structures than their international competitors because of high fertiliser costs, soil conditions and frequently unpredictable rainfall patterns including relatively frequent droughts. table 3: international wheat production cost for the year 2011. by the deregulation of the south african wheat market in 1997, the majority of south african wheat producers were put at a distinct disadvantage vis-à-vis their international competitors as their international competitors’ prices were and are still being subsidised by their governments. the domestic producers have asked for tariff protection should the free market international delivery price not allow for reasonable domestic profits. over the years, tariffs were amended so as to ensure reasonable returns on investments in domestic wheat production. the tariff is calculated as the difference between the domestic reference prices of wheat to the 3-week moving average of us no. 2 hard red wheat prices (international trade administration commission of south africa 2013:7). this was clearly not enough as 45% of the local wheat producers (mostly dry land producers) disappeared by diversifying into the production of alternative crops or some other farming activity, in some cases even complementing farming activities with other incomes. from the above analysis, it is clear that the remaining farmers producing wheat in south africa are the more productive ones. in his book the changing face of national security: a conceptual analysis, robert mandel (1994) argues convincingly that: while growth in truly global business certainly can increase efficiency and universal access to high quality and low-cost goods and services, this trend simultaneously (1) reduces the abilities of nations to direct their own economies (and to provide for needs from within) and (2) and increases the disparities between those who are successfully integrated into the global economic system and those who are not. (p. 73) mandel further argues that trade-offs exist between national economic self-sufficiency and control that makes the country vulnerable to internal shortfalls and international economic efficiency that again makes a country vulnerable to external disruptions. the economic exchange strategy therefore lies between economic nationalism and free-market exchange (mandel 1994:63). jennifer clapp of the quaker united nation’s office argues that international trade based on comparative advantage is flawed because of all the unrealistic assumptions made in support of the theory that calculating the true production cost differentials between countries is problematic and that the comparative material gains from trade are uncertain (clapp 2014:24). therefore, welfare losses because of domestic protection could easily be overstated. clapp (2014) argues that: countries that have become reliant on food imports over the past 30 years, which include most of the world’s ldcs are now deeply vulnerable to global price swings. ensuring stability of excess in this context is difficult for most of the world’s poorest countries, yet policies to insulate themselves from the instability of world markets are increasingly necessary for a global economy where food prices are high and volatile. (p. 24) in an article ‘food security and economic growth: an asian perspective’, timmer (2004:1) argues that keeping the domestic price of rice stable vis-à-vis a very volatile international price can be an important economic strategy (timmer 2004:6). it is argued that asian countries had increased consumer welfare and enhanced food security through the increased production (creating a surplus) and consumption of rice (timmer 2004:7). in indonesia, for instance, the domestic price of rice was engineered to stabilised within a range of the long-run international price. he states ‘pro-poor economic growth and stable rice prices were the recipe for food security in asia’ (timmer 2004:7). shrikant paranjpe in his analysis on indian national security alludes to the emphasis on human and food security in india (paranjpe 2013). since deregulation in south africa domestic producers have made use of short-term forward contracts to negotiate a secure delivery price for wheat. such hedging mechanisms are criticised by the marketing directorate of the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries (2012:26) as being too slow in reducing price risks for wheat farmers and are perceived to be one of the derived weaknesses of the free market system. the authors of this article are of the opinion that in the case of wheat production in south africa, the argument should be for stabilising domestic prices by taking a long-term view of international price trends. short-term adjustments should be brought in line with this. by taking a long-run view on wheat prices, production of wheat could be encouraged. most of the wheat produced in south africa is bread wheat and is used for human consumption (fourie 2013:5). domestic issues regarding the wheat value chain should also be settled so as to transfer maximum benefits (price wise and quality wise) to the consumer. in south africa, the wheat value chain is beleaguered with problems. there were accusations of bread price fixing as well as price fixing of wheat flour by amongst others wheat millers pioneer foods, foodcorp, godrich milling, premier foods and tiger brands, who controlled 90% of the local wheat flour market in 2010. the final outcome was that fines were exacted by the tribunal of the competition commission against these companies for their anti-competitive behaviour (webb 2010). accusations are also made that some domestic wheat buyers buy lower quality wheat abroad, mix it with higher quality domestically produced wheat and the mixture is then sold as if locally produced (fourie 2013:43–45). if true, this effectively decreases the demand for high-quality domestically produced wheat, increases the sales waiting period for high-quality domestic wheat and makes the storage of domestic wheat a cost-adding challenge for producers. it is interesting to note that when the international trade administration commission of south africa (itac) argued for an increase in the domestic dollar-based reference price for wheat from us$215 per ton to us$294 per ton so as to increase the profitability of domestic wheat production and therefore stimulate domestic produce, the national chamber of milling, a representative of wheat millers, objected to the increase on the grounds that wheat products (mainly bread) would become less affordable to consumers. this argument was rejected by the itac commission annual report (2013:12-13, 15–16) because of the small share of value added by the domestic producers compared to the final value of wheat products such as bread. taking all these arguments into consideration, the impression of a disturbing dysfunctional domestic wheat market is created. firstly, domestic producers are ‘unfairly’ competing with subsidised international wheat producers. secondly, short-term wheat delivery prices are unstable and the time lapse to secure government’s approval for corrective steps to stabilise the short-term wheat price causes undue delays and losses. finally, the potential for the predatory pricing of wheat in the wheat value chain in south africa cannot be ignored. this is counter efficient vis-à-vis production and food security in south africa – and in times of drought and the relative threat of increased inflation, this does not augur well for the small farmer nor for the consumer caught up in poverty or low household income. conclusion the authors chose to limit their socio-economic focus to a specific part of the agricultural market, namely wheat, rather than discuss food security in south africa in broad terms. wheat was chosen as a unit of analysis because as a crop, wheat is used to make bread which is one of the staples for the majority of south africans. food security, just as any other security dimension, deserves constant attention. in terms of price fluctuations and agricultural ups and downs, south africa is not unique. in terms of the small margin between self-sustainability and export potential (and on the downside, a shortfall in wheat production, our case under study), the south african situation is in need of serious reflection – including policy planning, formulation and implementation.5 agricultural prices, including wheat prices, are notoriously unstable because of the ever-present possibility of an under or oversupply, causing sharp increases or decreases in market prices despite forwarding contracts relieving some of the price uncertainties. uncertain prices, in turn, lead to more unstable production levels. it is for this reason that governments worldwide regulate agricultural markets by mainly subsidising them so as to assure farmers of a reasonable rate of return on their investments, and at the end of the value chain, ensure an affordable product for the buyer or user. this can be done by stabilising the short-term domestic price of wheat around long-term international price trends. this article argues for efficiency in production as well as self-sustainability in wheat production in south africa. the road to take therefore seems to be to protect the domestic producers of wheat by stabilising the short-term domestic price thereof. it is needless to say that such changes beg for reflection on and revision of current policies. although food is mostly always available and can be imported as needed in south africa, it must be paid for in foreign currency earned through domestic economic toil. between doing nothing or a wait and see approach little will change and stark challenges remain. recommendation: one way of confronting the current challenges is to reflect, re-think, correct or if need be re-design current policies. as authors, we argue that our research findings point strongly to a choice for the latter approach. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank their colleague dr tobie beukes, centre for military studies (cemis), faculty of military science, stellenbosch university, for his most useful comments on an earlier draft of this article. we also thank egbertus nel, agricultural consultant and colleague, for his comments on an earlier version, even if deeply critical of the argument tendered here. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions f.d.w. came up with the idea and the need for dedicated work in the field. both authors worked together in terms of their complementary skills such as agricultural economics and policy studies. references berry, l., et al., 2013, ‘income, poverty, unemployment and social grants’, in south african child gauge 2013, children’s institute, university of cape town, cape town. bisseker, c., 2015, ‘drought could cost sa billions in crop imports’, business day, 6 november, p. 18. clapp, j., 2014, trade liberalization and food security examining the linkages, quaker united nations office, viewed 20 august 2015, from http://quno.org/sites/default/files/resources/quno_food 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north-west free state appendix 2: composition of wheat production cost per hectare in rands (zar). appendix 2: table poverty – illustration: south africa: number and proportion of children (0–17 years) living in income povertya by province, 2003 and 2011. footnotes 1. shrikant paranjpe (2013:5) remarks that core values around security do not only include territorial integrity, autonomy and security of a state but ‘also the welfare of the people’. 2. for background on theoretical debates, that is, dependency theory, goals and goal critique, economic means and social ends, ‘natural law’ and exploitation, see interpretations of robert heilbroner (1969), huberman (1963), hoogvelt (1997), martinussen (1999), mohamed (2013) and ngepah and mhlaba (2013). 3. southern african economies at risk amid climate shift. business report, 15 november, p. 4. 4. see illustration – poverty in the appendix. 5. the importance of the role of government policy (or policies) in economic growth, inequality and poverty in south africa cannot be over-emphasised. consider, for example, that in 2009, 49% of south africans lived below the expenditure poverty line (ngepah & mhlaba 2013:72). consult again the table in appendix 1. microsoft word 04 olivier fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: re-enchantment pp. 43-54. “die siel van die mier”: reflections on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence ms olivier1 abstract this essay traces two research programmes in broad strokes. both programmes start from the same observation — the behaviour of an ant (or termite) colony and the ability of the ant colony to act in a collective manner to achieve goals that the individual ant cannot. for one programme such behaviour is indicative of intelligence; for the other it is indicative of (collective) instinct. the primary intention of the essay is not to assess the claims of intelligence found, but to consider the rationale of the researchers involved in the two programmes for doing such research. it is observed that virtue in one programme is understanding (with the concomitant ability to explain — and, hence, teach), while the primary virtue in the other programme is the utility — and ultimately efficiency — that this may add to human problem solving skills. the two programmes used as illustration are eugène marais’s study of termites in the first half of the 20th century and the emergence of artificial intelligence projects that are inspired by ant behaviour in the second half of the 20th century. the essay suggests that the current emphasis of inquiry at tertiary education institutions embraces utility to the extent that it displaces pure insight — and hence the ability to explain and, ultimately, the ability to teach. keywords: tertiary education, intelligence, artificial intelligence, epistemology 1 introduction a search for intelligence may be approached from two perspectives. on the one hand one may ask questions about the nature of intelligence. knowing its nature will enable one to recognise it — and hence find it. an alternative approach is one that locates intelligence — establishing where intelligence is to be found. note that both these uses of the term search are common in popular culture. many reality television shows search for some undiscovered talent — without necessarily leaving the television studio. on the other hand, games such as hide-and-seek (or its more recent commercialised versions) clearly denote the second meaning. an earlier version of this essay formed an oral contribution to the third of a series of three seminars or discussion sessions organised by prof fanie de beer from the department of information science at the university of pretoria. the series dealt with three aspects of academic enquiry, viz spirituality (or the role of ‘spirit’), disenchantment and “tertiary education and the battle for intelligence”. all three events were attended by a small but passionate group of participants. in addition to the formal discussion an almost emotional undercurrent was present that reflected the participants’ concerns about changes in academic 1 . prof. martin s olivier, department of computer science, university of pretoria. e-mail: ms.olivier@olivier.ms olivier 44 life based on non-academic factors (of which monetary value as a current determinant of value of academic activities was a recurring theme). this essay, being part of the third event, reflected on a search for intelligence using both meanings of the word search highlighted above. these two forms of searching are addressed in sequence using a strategy that potentially limits aspects of and locations of intelligence that may be discovered. these limits will be assessed once the strategy has been described. it also applies the strategy to the macro-level, questioning whether intelligence is to be found at the university. the problem faced by any project that entails a search for some phenomenon is the selfreferential nature of the project. in order to search for some phenomenon x it has to define or delineate x to serve as a demarcation criterion to help decide when some instance of x has been found. however, the very definition used as demarcation criterion determines what will be considered a true positive. reflection based on the true positives may then depend more on the demarcation criterion used ab initio than the diversity of the phenomenon as it occurs in all its richness in the “real world”. of course intelligence has been the topic of philosophical enquiry over centuries; it is neither possible, nor useful to try to comprehensively trace that history in a short essay such as this. the artificial intelligence community have been working on creating a form of intelligence for about half a century. during this period they have a explored a range of mechanisms intended to artificially recreate intelligence. in much of the most prominent work they have tried to emulate some natural phenomenon postulating (or, at least, considering) that the key to some degree of intelligence stems from that phenomenon. there are two general schools of thought. the one school presupposes that intelligence is an innate ability that stems from ‘logical’ processes, such as thought. this school reflects the famous conclusion by descartes: cogito ergo sum [9]. the other school proceeds on the premise that function follows form and that somehow, by replicating the form, the function can also be replicated. this latter school observes intelligence in nature and then artificially replicates the structure with the aim of replicating the function. it should be noted that this distinction between the two schools is somewhat blurred in reality, but the details are not important here. on the other hand many studies have been conducted in attempts to understand behaviour that apparently exhibits intelligence. this essay claims that the two strategies that search for intelligence represent two very different world views. two programmes executed about a century apart are traced to explore the different approaches. it is suggested that these approaches — independent from their subject matter — represent two different perspectives on intelligence. we further suggest that these approaches are (and have been) valued differently at various points of history. these forms of intelligence are most acutely juxtaposed against one another in the ‘intelligence enterprise’ — that is, in the tertiary education sector. this explains why a battle between proponents of these approaches are inevitable — and that the battleground for these conflicts are naturally the tertiary education sector. 2 tertiary education, battles and intelligence as indicated above, the thoughts contained in this essay resulted from reflection at the intersection of three themes: higher education, a battle and intelligence. an implied fourth theme that was clear from the discussions was one of currency and urgency. most participants reflections on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 43-54. 45 seemed aware of a battle of some sort raging in their midst that needed to be fought (and won) to secure a meaningful future (and present) for tertiary education. my rather old but trusted thesaurus [8] distinguishes between two broad categories of intelligence, namely (1) a human capacity and (2) information (such as that collected by military intelligence). our interest here is clearly in the former, but even for it the thesaurus indicates a wide range of ‘synonyms’ including acumen, aptitude, brain power, brightness, cleverness, comprehension, reason and understanding. the notion of tertiary education is, similarly, contested. until recently a number of options were open for those who wanted to continue their education beyond secondary level; options ranged from hands-on training (in the form of apprenticeships), through applied studies to pure scholarship. along this continuum the emphasis changed from practical knowledge to ‘theoretical’ knowledge and the verb switched from ‘train’ to ‘educate’ at some point. a select few pursued knowledge for the sake of knowledge. in ancient times universities formed where such scholars congregated to study. later universities were more formally established as institutions and even later universities became part of national education systems. trade and craft schools have an even longer history where skills were transferred from one generation to a new generation of skilled artisans. those wishing to enter the professions studied at institutions logically positioned somewhere between the trade schools and the universities. over time professional schools were incorporated into universities. trade schools evolved to become universities of technology. in march 2015 the economist [1] concluded “the world is going to university”. the university is no longer an assembly of intellectuals attempting to achieve deeper insight into the world. in the eyes of the world the university has become a facility that produces skilled labour. in a perverse twist the earlier scholarly quest for understanding through inquiry at universities was commodified into a “research” activity where production of papers trumps gaining of knowledge. outdated performance management strategies are used to manage productivity in terms of such outputs. outputs feed into university ranking systems, where such ranking systems are used to lure new students to be trained for their future careers [1]. as noted above, intelligence is multi-faceted. one of the attributes of a successful skilled artisan, accountant or computer programmer will always be intelligence, but only a fraction of them — and only a fraction of society in general — will want to search for knowledge for the sake of knowledge. only a few will become intellectuals, whose special flavour of intelligence was once the raison d’etre of universities. a premise of this essay is that the various ‘flavours’ of intelligence are incommensurate — no flavour is better or more important than another. however, it will be argued, from this incommensurability it also follows that an attempt to use one flavour of intelligence as grounds to sell another flavour and/or to imbue another flavour is doomed to failure. to be more specific, attempts to use scholarly intelligence to lure those who want workforce intelligence, to use those who have or want workplace intelligence to exhibit scholarly intelligence or to expect those with scholarly intelligence to imbue workforce intelligence to the masses are doomed to leave most participants disenchanted. this premise, however, requires reflection before it can be posited. over millennia words such as intelligence and knowledge have been interwoven. the history of, for example, the words episteme and techne (derived from the corresponding greek words) is complex; for some they denote the same knowledge (or intelligence); for others they are distinct categories olivier 46 [19]. in book vi of the nicomachean ethics aristotle distinguishes between various ‘intellectual virtues’ — or parts of the ‘rational soul’. in this context aristotle distinguishes between five virtues of thought: techne, episteme, phronesis, sophia, and nous. the enduring debate is between ‘practical thinking’ (approximately techne) and ‘scientific thinking’ (approximately episteme). a fundamental distinction between episteme and techne is that the former is an end in itself, whereas the latter is a means to an end; the former is about knowing that what cannot be changed, while the latter is about changing something — very often, about producing something. however, even aristotle does not use this distinction consistently. in fact, elsewhere he uses education — one of the anchor points of this essay — to demarcate forms of knowledge [19]: “as aristotle says, the master craftsman (technites) is wiser than the person of experience because he knows the cause, the reasons that things are to be done. the mere artisan (cheirotechnes) acts without this knowledge …. aristotle goes on to say that in general the sign of knowing or not knowing is being able to teach. because techne can be taught, we think it, rather than experience, is episteme…presumably the reason that the one with techne can teach is that he [sic] knows the cause and reason for what is done in his [sic] techne. so we can conclude that the person with techne is like the person with episteme; both can make a universal judgment and both know the cause.” aristotle’s practical examples provide some additions helpful insight: the (pure) mathematician seeks universal (mathematical) truth as an end in itself. the physician needs to know human health; the physician applies that knowledge to change the health of a specific patient based on knowledge of health; the ‘mere’ artisans who know how to produce or achieve something without an underlying scientific truth does not know the (universal) cause of what they effect, use a different (in principle) unteachable, flavour of knowledge. whether we are able to distinguish between all the ‘flavours’ of knowledge (and whether they overlap) is not the primary issue. from discussions (such as the one cited above) it becomes clear that there is a need for (and hence a need for a place for) seeking knowledge (or intelligence) as an end in itself rather than for its utility. below we will use the phrase scholarly intelligence for the search for (and ability to search for) knowledge as an end in itself. this is then how we see the battle lines drawn: tertiary education is by and large clinging to or appropriating the term university. at the same time scholarly intelligence is disenfranchised and, at most, tolerated. the semblance of scholarly intelligence is maintained by promoting ‘productive’ research. the university’s clientele, by and large, is buying workplace intelligence from it and the utility of intelligence becomes pre-eminent. however, in order to maintain the semblance of scholarly intelligence, the clientele is expected to participate in rituals that emulate scholarly activity — to do research that often answer empty questions and, more importantly, to produce research papers (that will never be read) based on these empty answers. on paper the result seems like a symbiotic relationship where participants, at the very least, learn about one another’s worlds. in practice, however, the student often does not get the advanced degree because he or she — although an admirable (potential) member of the workforce — does not fit into the scholarly paradigm. the scholar is too busy training others and producing papers to reflect on real problems and left frustrated. the employer of the exstudent deems the training of the student as disconnected with industry needs — especially given the cost of training. the aspiring academic fails to enter academia and turns to industry reflections on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 43-54. 47 as a latecomer. perhaps the captains of the university industry emerge victorious, but this one possible success is speculative at best. many books have been written that, when read in conjunction, support some version of the narrative above. it is possible to find support from a number of sources for each of the assertions above. however, rather than constructing the puzzle from the pieces that we know are available, this essay will follow a different route. before embarking on that route let us consider a sample of what has been said about the importance of research in tertiary education. 3 research in tertiary education twenty years ago anderson [3, p.121] already noted the “pretence today [sic] that [higher education’s] main business is the production of new learning, new knowledge. that pretense is a pernicious myth. very little new knowledge of any worth or substance walks out of the university gates these days.” boyer [6] identifies four (overlapping) functions of the professoriate, with ‘scholarship of discovery’ as the first of these functions. in what may seem like a contradiction of anderson’s dismissal of substantial research results, boyer points towards the huge strides research has made. however, he reports empirical data that indicates how the emphasis for promotion and (in the us) tenure has shifted towards research, with little assessment of teaching and only lip-service paid to service. his data shows how quantitative research is valued above qualitative research, how journal articles are valued above books and other outputs, and how research is valued above all other academic activities. his empirical results also show a general dissatisfaction of faculty (in the american sense) with these norms. a more recent book [7] echoes similar sentiments about a south african university. various explanations for the emphasis on research are posited. boyer [6] points to the inherent excitement of discovery and the central role this plays in tertiary education. in fact, it has already been mentioned that early universities originated from scholars forming scholarly communities to facilitate their quest for knowledge. other possible reasons cited is the ease with which research outputs can be measured (compared to other scholarly activities) [6]. research outputs also play a significant role in the ranking of universities [1]; a high ranking helps to attract more students, more subsidy and more research grants. the manner in which research outputs are measured sheds more light on the aspects of research that are valued. various indicators of research productivity are used. often the raw count of number of publications (meeting some criteria) is used, which obviously measures quantity rather than quality. in other cases citation counts are used as an indicator of quality: if many scholars refer to one’s work, one’s work seemingly has value. however, this argument is not always valid. textbooks and review papers (that do not report on new research results) often have higher citation counts than original contributions to a subject’s body of knowledge. it is often also true that erroneous papers attract more citations as other papers point to the errors in such papers. as an extreme example consider sokal’s paper “transgressing the boundaries: toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity” [23] — a nonsensical paper that, at the time of writing this already attracted 1192 citations according to google scholar. of course the many citations to this paper are due to the role it played in the so-called science wars [22]. olivier 48 it was therefore not surprising that an index that purported to balance productivity and quality was rapidly accepted by academic institutions. hirsch’s h-index [13] is used almost universally to quantify the quality of researchers. as an example, the south african national research foundation manages a rating process that places south african researchers in categories that reflect their reputation as researchers. the nrf’s remarks about the role of this metric sheds some light on the importance of such metrics [21]: in terms of h-index importance in the rating process, it is agreed that it be used as a supplementary source of information for the validation of opinions expressed in peer reviewer reports. it is important to the integrity and fairness of the system that peerreview take precedence over h-index information or other metrics. as a minimum this indicates that the h-index of a researcher is “used as a supplementary source” — the opinion of peers in the process are more important. however, the h-index is used “for the validation of opinions expressed in peer reviewer reports.” stated differently, the h-index is secondary to reports; however, it determines (perhaps in part) the veracity of the reports. if only ‘valid’ reports are considered, the h-index effectively determines the rating of the researcher. the reliance on h-indexes and similar metrics may be justifiable if such indexes measure what they purport to measure. however, it has been shown that the h-index is a combinatorial fermi problem [26]; in simple terms this means that a researcher’s h-index is primarily determined by the researcher’s citation count — a measure that was largely rejected in favour of the h-index. using a very different mathematical approach to analyse the h-index, waltman and van eck [24] identify several other undesirable properties of the h-index. “given the extensive literature on the h-index, it is remarkable that the inconsistent nature of the index has remained largely unnoticed” [24, p.410]. barnes [4, p.456] documents the use of this index “contrary to the evidence that the h-index is intrinsically meaningless”. one would imagine that, given the emphasis on research in tertiary education, findings such as those cited about the h-index would, at the least, cause the university to reflect on their practices based on such a metric. however, experience has shown that this is often not the case. for example, much of the management culture of universities is based on ‘fads’ [5] where research has clearly demonstrated that the technique does not increase productivity (and often decreases productivity and has other negative consequences). in my own field of speciality i have tried in vain to convince the university that regular forced password changes decrease security of campus systems [11, 15, 12] — yet they are unwilling to change their behaviour based on research results. these observations lead one to conclude that the university is not interested in knowledge or intelligence created through research. the importance of research for the university is merely the quantity of the research. given this context the journey below is intended to explore the search for intelligence using two related examples — where the presence and absence of some of the factors above impact on the nature of the search. 4 ant colonies and intelligence the route that this essay will follow starts with a well-known but still interesting phenomenon: the fact that an ant colony in many ways behave like a single organism rather than the numerous ants that constitute it. it then traces two programmes that stemmed from this observation almost a century apart. it should be noted that both programmes yield to reflections on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 43-54. 49 different interpretations than those presented here. however, we contend that our conclusions can be reconciled with other justifiable interpretations. note that we use the phrase ‘ant colony’ as it is used in related work. it is well known that the behaviour attributed to ants actually refers to behaviour of termites living in colonies. the two programmes to be discussed start at fundamentally different points of departure. the more recent programme is one that attempts to produce intelligence and finds inspiration in accounts of the ant colony. the older programme is one that starts with a fascination of ant colonies and seeks an understanding of their inner workings. the two accounts follow in reverse chronological order. 4.1 searching intelligence through emulation let us — at least initially — avoid an attempt to define intelligence and assume it is something that can be recognised when observed. it manifests in behaviours (such as physical actions or mental decisions) that lead another intelligent being to conclude that intelligent thought had to underlie that action. note again that this description is not intended as a definition, but as a construct to facilitate further discussion (but a construct that will not survive this section). in support of this construct many of us have seen actions that were indicative of great intelligence — sometimes by world leaders that shaped the future of history, sometimes by an elderly person who helped a younger person to handle some emotional problem and sometimes even by an animal faced by a challenge to obtain food. hence the description is familiar, even though it would not withstand rigorous analysis. human traits have over the years been associated with many organs. for our discussion it is not important at what point the brain and intelligence were associated. neither is the truth of this association important — the mere fact that the brain is (almost) universally seen as the seat of intelligence is sufficient for our purposes. it was therefore logical (and still may be) to analyse the brain to discover its operation. such analysis may be based on a physical and/or philosophical ‘dissection’ of the brain. on one level this is simple. the brain consists of neurons and other structures in the presence of chemical substances, where neurons ‘fire’ under some conditions and where the interconnection of neurons sometimes changes. however, how that produces intelligence remains a mystery reminiscent of the well-known mind-body problem. the observation of brain structure lead to (at least) two avenues of exploration. on the one hand computer scientists constructed artificial neural networks (anns) that consist of artificial neurons that emulate real neurons (to some extent, at least). while the problemsolving abilities of these anns are impressive when applied to some problems, they do not even begin to approach human intelligence in any significant manner. the second line of inquiry was (and is) based on the number of neurons in a human brain. this led to speculation that the operation of intelligence perhaps does not depend on the operation of individual neurons as much as it depends on the number of connections, neurons, or (in general) switches. one of the primary proponents of this view is hofstadter, who, in his seminal work, gödel, escher and bach [14] provides an intriguing (and entertaining) account of how structures in the natural world have certain characteristics when viewed from one perspective, but very different characteristics when viewed from another “layer”. from this he concludes that intelligence may (will?) emerge from a sufficiently large olivier 50 number of structures that are combined on a lower layer. whether this is true is a metaphysical question that we will not endeavour to answer here. a variation on this latter theme is one that does not focus on the number of neurons (or similar structures) in a natural or artificial brain, but one where signs of intelligence are seen in a large collection of units and where the intelligence of the collection seems to exceed the intelligence of the individual beings in the collection (or the “sum” of their combined intelligence far exceeds the sum of their individual abilities). one frequently cited example is the collective intelligence of an ant colony (or a termite colony) that is not explained by the intelligence of individual ants. the seminal work that suggested the use of artificial ant intelligence ‘credited’ the ants: [10, p.3]: “the algorithms that we are going to define in the next sections are models derived from the study of real ant colonies.” the shift to problem solving (for both humans and ants) is highlighted even earlier [10, p.2]: “in the approach discussed in this paper we distribute the search activities over so-called ‘ants,’ that is, agents with very simple basic capabilities which, to some extent, mimic the behavior of real ants. … one of the problems studied by ethologists was to understand how almost blind animals like ants could manage to establish shortest route paths from their colony to feeding sources and back.” however, as will be clear soon, the characteristics that are ‘borrowed’ from ants are very different from those which the student of the ant observes in an ant colony [10, p.24]: “the main characteristics, which are at least partially shared by members of this class of algorithms, are the use of a natural metaphor, inherent parallelism, stochastic nature, adaptivity, and the use of positive feedback.” 4.2 understanding the ant colony the programme that is to be juxtaposed to the search for intelligence outlined above, dates from the early 20th century, when the south african journalist, poet, author, lawyer and scientist, eugène marais, became fascinated by the behaviour of an ant colony and started a personal programme to observe and experiment with ant colonies in order to gain insight into their behaviour. the account of his studies was published in book form in 1937 in afrikaans under the title “die siel van die mier” [18]. however, the results of his studies were published as a series of articles in the early 1920s. the 1937 book was translated into english under the title “the soul of the white ant”. in what follows most quotations from the book will be from the 2009 edition of the english translation [17]. the preface included by the translator (winifred de kok) in the original english translation already provides interesting contrasts between scholarly activity as practiced by marais around a century ago and current scholarly activity [17, p.8]: a scholar and a man of culture, he [marais] chose nevertheless to live for a period extending over many years in a ‘rondhavel’ or hut in the lonely waterberg mountains, learning to know and make friends with a troop of wild baboons, whose behaviour he wished to study. he tamed them to such a degree that he could move among them and handle them without any fear or danger to himself. at the same time, he also examined the other end of the chain, and studied termite life. this was a study which often meant tremendous hard work and needed endless patience. during those years, eugène marais was not concerned with any sort of publicity. however, a friend persuaded him to write an article for the afrikaans periodical die reflections on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 43-54. 51 huisgenoot. this proved so popular that the author was besieged with requests for more research information. the articles continued for almost two years. the first striking contrast with current scholarly practice in this passage is the emphasis on studying, learning and understanding, rather than publication. this focus is confirmed by marais on the very first page of the first chapter of the book [17, p.17]: “over a period of ten years, i studied the habits of termites in an investigation into animal psychology. such observation reveals new wonders every day. to mention one instance, the functioning of the community or group psyche is just as wonderful and mysterious as that of people.” the notion of enchantment — the theme of the second workshop mentioned in the introduction of the current essay — is obvious; publication is secondary. when the question of publication arises, marais explains it as follows [17, p.18] “i want to tell you about the most common of our termites or ‘white ants’. i am also going to explain how anyone may observe what i have. indeed, readers may even discover new wonders for themselves.” even publication is about enchantment — about an introduction into a world of wonders. the importance accorded to time and patience is obvious from the quoted passages. a few pages after the quoted portions, marais notes this expressly [17, p.33]: “things always seem pretty hopeless in the beginning when we are dealing with phenomena which lie far beyond our senses, but ‘perseverance pays’ must be the motto of the traveller along these dark and unknown pathways.” the modern researcher is often expected to plan research, specifying details of milestones and deliverables — especially when applying for funding. perseverance no longer pays; careful planning does. but planning is only an option when one is able to construct some map of the road ahead — not when one is about to “travel along these dark and unknown pathways”. this sentiment is often expressed. nobel laureate and discover of the boson named after him, higgs, says that after formulating his theory on the boson “he struggled to keep up with developments in particle theory, published so few papers that he became an ‘embarrassment’ to his department, and would never get a job in academia now. then again, in today’s hectic academic world he thinks he would never have had enough […] time or space to formulate his ground-breaking theory” [2] [emphasis added]. in the battle for intelligence academia has become rather explicit about the type of intelligence that they welcome — and it is not the type of intelligence that is enchanted by “dark and unknown pathways.” in another ironic twist, there is some evidence that this type of intelligence may find a home in (a tiny part of) industry. the “application pointers” for a shuttleworth fellowship1 includes a subheading proclaiming that “the only true way is not a project plan but a champion.” somewhat later these pointers elaborate: “prospective applicants often ask us to narrow down the parameters for applications and be more specific about what we’re looking for. we are not planning on doing that, as we want to be surprised and intrigued by applicants, no matter how unconventional the idea may be.” enchantment is the key that unlocks this door — albeit not in the domain of tertiary education. as already noted, the observation that ants exhibit some form of intelligence lead to contrasting sequels. in the case of artificial intelligence the behaviour is characterised as problem-solving behaviour [10]. this inspires a process of emulation and immediate assessment of the efficiency with which such a solution can solve problems on behalf of humans. the notion that such behaviour may be transferable (and utilised) in another domain is based on metaphysical assumptions. hofstadter, for example, remarks that “the ants are not the most important feature. admittedly, were it not for them, the colony olivier 52 wouldn’t exist: but something equivalent — a brain — can exist, ant-free. so, at least from a high-level point of view, the ants are dispensable” [14, pp.331–332]. one recent study [16, p.8392] (based on mathematical modelling) concludes that “ants use their intelligence and experience to navigate.” however, the ant is yet again replaceable: “we emphasize the generic character of our analysis because a homing strategy in foraging is used by other animals with fixed basis, such as bumblebees, albatrosses, etc. our model is readily applicable to these situations” [16, p.8396]. the overall focus of this last cited paper is, as expected, on efficiency. it is, in contrast, constructive to read marais’s exposition of ant behaviour in chapter 4 of the soul of the white ant. it starts with reflection about what we are able to know about such an organism, and what lies beyond our abilities. from the fact that the colony “acts” he deduces the presence of a psyche and eventually attributes the behaviour of the colony to its psyche based on instinct — or the “race memory” of the species. he illustrates using a number of examples how instinct serves the ant in one context, but fails it in another. “on the whole, the result of inherited memory is to bind a race to a special environment” [17]. just how sophisticated and specifically adapted the navigational system of (a specific species of) ants is begins to emerge from a recent study [25] that identifies a new ‘module’, where these modules (in systems theoretic language) process a huge amount of inputs, but always reproduce the same instinctual behaviour. just as modern-day researchers immediately ‘recognised’ intelligence in the activities of the ants or termites, at least one observer reached a similar conclusion before the publication of marais’s book. about this observation marais remarks “intelligence and thoughtfulness, as we humans understand these qualities, never entered my mind in connection with the termites” [17, p.117], after which he discusses the absurdity of such a notion at length. for him it is clear that the ant colony exhibits no intelligence. however, he is convinced that the termites execute some collective plan, without any of the individual swarming termites knowing either the plan or the role it plays in the bigger plan. in his search for the origin of this plan, marais does not attempt to find intelligence — he attempts to locate the brain of the compound organism. he finds it in the queen and advances a number of compelling arguments. one of the most compelling is his observation that when the queen is killed all coordinated activity of the termite colony immediately ceases. however, he does not deem this brain as a manifestation of intelligence. for him it is merely the instinct of the colony that emanates from the queen. 5 the world a century ago in this essay we followed two programmes that stemmed from the same observations. the differences between the aims and ability to explain between these two programs are huge. however, the danger exists that the reader interprets the essay as a longing for a bygone era where time to think was necessarily more conducive to foster intelligence. returning to the past is not the magic wand that solves all problems. marais’s own history tells of an era of disenchantment. as a young journalist in the old south african republic he is disenchanted with the lack of foresight he perceives from the republic’s leadership — in particular from the president, paul kruger [20]. during his law studies at the inner temple in london he is confronted by a europe where art flounders — due to the loss of royal patrons as democracy sweeps across europe. marais’s medical knowledge cannot help him escape the perils of a reflections on the battle for ‘scholarly’ intelligence td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 43-54. 53 morphine addiction. eventually his world of scholarship, of arts and culture — his life of intelligence — is not sufficient for him to consider his life a life worth living. 6 conclusion samuel johnson once said “the greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” scholarly intelligence is similar in nature: it depends on absorbing others’ intelligence, on study and reflection. only in the context of intelligence — including intelligent critique — can intelligence flourish. however, we live in a time where scholarly intelligence is increasingly marginalised by practical intelligence and, more seriously, emulated intelligence. ‘truths’ are produced at ever increasing rates, but neither verified, nor engaged with. marais was able to contribute to scholarly intelligence in conditions of isolation. in fact, many of his observations would not have been possible without such isolation. the early scholars who established the first universities also often established such universities to isolate — and, often enough, to protect — them from the establishment. perhaps, as one commentator suggested, the ruins of the university in which we live may provide the isolation to revive scholarly work. the by-line of the piece in the economist that proclaimed that the world goes to university asked whether it was worth the cost. arguably it is not. and soon the disenchantment of the workplace with what the university now offers may initiate a decline and fall of the modern university. and perhaps this will be the point where the ascetic scholar will be able to help foster a new generation of scholars who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge. references [1] the world is going to university. the economist, mar. 2015. [2] d. aitkenhead. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgsinterview-underlying-incompetence, dec. 2013. [3] m. anderson. imposters in the temple — a blueprint for improving higher education in america. hoover institution press, 1996. [4] c. barnes. the emperor’s new clothes: the h-index as a guide to resource allocation in higher education. journal of higher education policy and management, 36(5):456–470, 2014. [5] r. birnbaum. management fads in higher education: where they come from, what they do, why they fail. wiley, 2000. [6] e. l. boyer. scholarship reconsidered — priorities of the professoriate. the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, 1990. [7] n. chetty and c. merrett. the struggle for the soul of a south african university — the university of kwazulu-natal: academic freedom, corporatisation and transformation. published by authors, 2014. [8] collins. pocket reference thesaurus in a–z form. william collins sons, london and glasgow, 1988. [9] r. descartes. rené descartes se bepeinsinge oor die eerste filosofie — waarin die bestaan van god en die onsterflikheid van die siel bewys word. academica, 1987. uit die latyn olivier 54 vertaal deur d.m. kriel; met wysgerige kantaantekeninge deur prof. dr. a.m.t. meyer. [10] m. dorigo, v. maniezzo, and a. colorni. the ant system: optimization by a colony of cooperating agents. ieee transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics-part b, 26(1):1–13, 1996. [11] c. herley. so long, and no thanks for the externalities: the rational rejection of security advice by users. in proceedings of the 2009 workshop on new security paradigms workshop, pages 133–144. acm, 2009. [12] c. herley. more is not the answer. ieee security & privacy, 1(1):14–19, 2014. [13] j. e. hirsch. an index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america, 102(46):16569–16572, 2005. 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[21] d. selematsela. foreword by the executive director: kmc. evaluation and rating: facts & figures, national research foundation, pretoria, south africa, 2014. [22] a. d. sokal. a physicist experiments with cultural studies. lingua franca, 6(4):62–64, 1996. [23] a. d. sokal. transgressing the boundaries: toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity. social text, 46/47:217–252, 1996. [24] l. waltman and n. j. van eck. the inconsistency of the h-index. journal of the american society of information science, 63:406–415, 2012. [25] a. wystrach, s. schwarz, a. baniel, and k. cheng. backtracking behaviour in lost ants: an additional strategy in their navigational toolkit. proceedings of the royal society b, 280(20131677):1–8, 2013. [26] a. yong. critique of hirsch’s citation index: a combinatorial fermi problem. notices of the ams, 61(9):1040–1050, 2014. abstract introduction methods findings two south african case studies the international sphere discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) mbalenhle mpanza department of mining engineering and mine surveying, faculty of engineering and the built environment, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa school of geography, archaeology and environmental studies, faculty of science, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa elhadi adam school of geography, archaeology and environmental studies, faculty of science, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa raeesa moolla school of geography, archaeology and environmental studies, faculty of science, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa citation mpanza m, adam e, moolla r. a critical review of the impact of south africa’s mine closure policy and the winding-up process of mining companies. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a985. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.985 review article a critical review of the impact of south africa’s mine closure policy and the winding-up process of mining companies mbalenhle mpanza, elhadi adam, raeesa moolla received: 20 nov. 2020; accepted: 15 june 2021; published: 23 nov. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: most mining operations are viable for a period of 30 years, depending on the mineral extracted and the available reserves. whilst the expectation is that mines will continue uninterrupted until the planned period is complete, unscheduled closure can occur. sudden and unplanned mine closure can result in immediate environmental and social impacts. in south africa, the challenges of mine closure are exacerbated by unexpected sudden closures owing to winding-up and business rescue processes. the literature is inconclusive regarding these issues and there is poor integration of affected communities by mining operations. aim: we reviewed south africa’s legal frameworks relating to mine closure, the winding-up of gold mining companies and the impact of sudden closure on the environment and communities. method: this review built on and extended previous systematic reviews. we focused on the regulation for financial provisioning for prospecting, mining, exploration and rehabilitation. two examples of gold mining companies that were closed prematurely were examined. we also reviewed the mine closure and environmental policies of other countries, notably australia and canada and noticed similarities to south african policies. results: differences are evident in the enforcement of compliance in australia and canada, which are more proactive in dealing with the challenges of winding-up and its impacts. conclusion: south africa could adopt these countries’ models to enforce compliance and proactivity regarding sudden mine closure. one recommendation is to establish a fund for immediate rehabilitation in such cases as part of the temporary mine closure framework. keywords: sudden mine closure; liquidation; south africa; winding-up; socio-economic; environment; impacts; financial provision. introduction in south africa, many unscheduled mine closures have occurred in recent years. this phenomenon has left mining communities distressed through environmental degradation and socio-economic effects. in this article, the terms ‘unscheduled’, ‘sudden’ and ‘premature’ mine closure all refer to the same process of closing a mining operation before the planned date. the processes of winding-up and business rescue sometimes enable mining companies to evade the normal but costly mine closure obligations.1 a winding-up process involves an insolvent company being placed under the custodianship of a liquidator, who manages the fair allocation of the company’s assets to its creditors, whilst remaining assets go to partners or shareholders.2 the purpose of winding-up a company is to cease its existence by dissolution. business rescue, by contrast, entails reorganising a financially distressed company to avoid liquidation and restore its profitability. the companies act 2008, section 128(1)(b), defines business rescue as proceedings to facilitate the rehabilitation of a distressed company by providing temporary supervision of the company and management of its affairs and property.3 business rescue provides some relief to recover from temporary liquidity complications or long-term debt by providing an opportunity to restructure business operations.3 the premise underlying business rescue is that the ‘going concern’ value of a company is generally greater than its liquidation or break-up value. the winding-up procedure, by contrast, requires the liquidator to send a certificate to the companies commission so that the company is dissolved and deregistered. this step ends the existence of the company as a juristic person and its capacity to bear legal rights and obligations. a serious concern is that government statutes cannot enforce compliance or sanctions on a dissolved company. the winding-up and business rescue processes have led to sudden and forced mine closure, resulting in poor rehabilitation of tailings storage facilities (tsfs), which affects nearby communities.4 moreno et al.5 defined ‘tailings’ as the crushed, sand-like by-product or refuse material that is generated during the extraction, crushing, grinding and milling procedures of mined ore. tailings are rock and other waste materials removed as impurities when waste mineral material is separated from the metal in an ore. the tailings from gold mining contain long-living cyanide metal complexes, naturally occurring radioactive materials and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials. they also contain a broad spectrum of metals in elevated concentrations, such as aluminium, manganese, arsenic (a metalloid), lead, iron, copper and cobalt. generally, tsfs are located on privately owned properties. however, the owners have no legal responsibility – or finance – to re-mine, reuse and rehabilitate the materials.6 when a mine is closed, considerable trauma and frustration affect the surrounding mining community. the distress results from job losses; safety threat issues associated with ‘zama zama’ (illegal miners) invading the disused shafts, electricity cuts, poor health and contamination of the soil, water and air.7 abandoned mine shafts are believed to host about 70 000 illegal miners.7 adler et al.6 called these effects on the community and environment as the ‘externalisation of costs’.6 in south africa, successful mine closure is difficult to achieve even with community and government agreement on process and objectives. the difficulty is exacerbated when closure is sudden owing to a mining company’s liquidation. the complexity arises from the notion that the government is responsible for enforcing compliance and promoting the industry whilst also protecting human rights. the government finds it difficult to strike a balance and appears not to take proper responsibility for closed mines, which means mining companies may opt for liquidation and sudden mine closure. mine closure has been known to occur when revenue streams dropped below the cost of operating the mine.6 in recent years, the labour costs per kilogramme for gold mining have risen, whereas productivity has remained largely unchanged.8 this has resulted in some gold mining shafts being abandoned, poorly rehabilitated, informally closed or placed under care and maintenance. this problem occurs because of the legacy of mining companies being obliged to generate maximum profit for their shareholders – an approach endorsed by the government. the world bank predicts that in the next 25 years, several mines will close in developing countries.9 the trend is already evident in south africa and zimbabwe, with mines either being closed, placed under care and maintenance or abandoned.9 given the environmental problems with abandoned mines, policy implementation needs to be reviewed and strengthened. this article reviews mine closure policy and its interaction with the winding-up procedure in south africa. the aurora empowerment system, the blyvooruitzicht gold mining company (bgmc) and the mintails mining south africa pty ltd. (mmsa) group of companies provide classic examples of sudden mine closure through a winding-up procedure. there is little research on identifying the key drivers of sudden closure. the known drivers include liability shifting amongst companies, unclear regulatory leadership on care and maintenance, challenges in enforcing an integrated closure plan and generic company regulation, poor mine planning, business rescue and the winding-up procedures. this article focuses on the winding-up process as the main driver of unscheduled or poorly executed mine closure in the bgmc and mmsa case studies. laurence10 observed that only a small percentage of mines are closed according to the mine closure plan; most are closed prematurely or suddenly for various reasons.10 milaras and mckay11 contended that numerous mines lack contingencies or specific plans for sudden or emergency closure. marais12 and milaras and mckay11 argued that there is a lack of institutional capacity regarding mine closure decision-making, compliance monitoring and enforcement. there are also insufficient long-term studies on mine closure impacts and remediation. the lack of rehabilitation by mining companies owing to sudden mine closure is seen by human rights and environmental activists to undermine section 24 of the south african constitution. section 24 states that every person has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being.13 the objectives of this article are as follows: to examine the interaction of mine closure policy and the winding-up process of mining companies in south africa. to review the effect of the interaction between mining and company laws. to understand what happens in other countries regarding mine closure and the winding-up process of mining companies and to derive lessons from those experiences. methods literature review this study used no primary data but reviewed existing literature on policies pertaining to mine closure and the winding-up of mining companies. the review built on and extended previous systematic reviews. the review process involved searching for publicly available literature on mine closure and sudden mine closure. we examined international conference articles, peer-reviewed journal articles, theses, books, policy documents, guidelines, government publications, newspapers and company reports and tool-kits. primary themes and key words were identified from these sources to assist with further literature search. several academic databases were used, such as google scholar, scopus, african mines online, engineering village, chemical rubber company (crc) netbase, geoscience world and the south african bureau of standards. other internet sites visited include the department of mineral resources and energy (dmre), the department of environmental affairs (dea) (now called department of forestry, fisheries and environment), the centre for environmental rights and lawyers for human rights (lhr). library catalogues were consulted to locate available material on library shelves and additional databases were suggested by librarians. where additional information was needed, the process was repeated. the keywords used during the search were limited to subjects concerning mine closure and mine liquidation or insolvency. we excluded oil, gas and marine mining. the sources obtained from the search were ordered according to the most cited, to select the most recent, relevant and valuable literature on the subject. journal articles were located through indexing and abstracting publications. as mentioned, the two case studies of bgmc and mmsa provided examples of the interaction between mining, environmental and company laws. we paid close attention to the dust impacts from tsfs after the sudden closure of these mining companies because of liquidation. content analysis the articles, books and policy documents that met the search criteria were assessed according to relevance. a summary of all the literature search categories includes publication details, author details (reference), location of the study or document, the scale or unit of analysis, commodity, year and research subject matter. policy documents were reviewed to identify any existing gaps. the main legislative documents referred to were the companies act 71 of 2008, the companies act 61 of 1973, the insolvency act of 1936, the mineral and petroleum resources development act 28 of 2002 (mprda) and amendments, the national environmental management act 107 of 1998 (nema) and the minerals act 50 of 1991. the sub-regulations accompanying these acts were also reviewed, as were any supplementary acts. findings adler et al.6 stated that mine regulation in the post-apartheid era has not been successfully implemented, despite mining having occurred for over 130 years.6 poor implementation is mainly the result of lack of specificity or interand intra-departmental disagreements about policies. this scenario has resulted in the mismanagement and abandonment of mine tailings or dumps, as evident in the south african landscape. humby14 stated that there is a disjuncture between the regulated mine closure model and the winding-up process as stipulated in the companies act 61 of 1973. the disconnect is evident in the winding-up procedure versus the rules of transfer of mining rights, financial provisions and final closure. this article focuses on the disjuncture between the winding-up procedure and the financial provisions. we noticed that this is a crucial issue in most prematurely closed and liquidated mining companies.14 it also appears to have a direct impact on poor rehabilitation of the environment and communities. corporate distress in south african mines ‘corporate distress’ is defined in chapter 6 of the companies act 61 of 2008 as a company appearing reasonably unlikely to be able to pay all its debts when they fall due or within the ensuing 6 months. alternatively, it appears reasonably likely that the company will become insolvent within the ensuing 6 months.3 corporate distress is becoming common amongst gold mining companies in south africa. examples are pamodzi gold, aurora empowerment system, lily mine, shiva uranium mine and the bgmc and mmsa group of companies. these companies either had to be placed under business rescue or were liquidated. this scenario is not unique to south africa. in australia, united kingdom, poland and spain (amongst others), corporate distress has been prevalent since 2013.15 the main challenge faced by mining companies is cash flow limitation. this problem is exacerbated by the time lag between the initial outlay for labour and services versus the recouping of costs from commodity sales. limited global economic growth is another factor. the downward pressure on commodity prices and rising costs such as wage pressure may also impact in the medium term. in numerous cases, the corporate distress of mining companies can lead to sudden mine closure. the world bank group16 stated that mining projects may be curtailed unexpectedly because of falling metal prices, technical difficulties or financial problems of the company. corporate distress in south african mining results in premature mine closure, which exacerbates the complexity of the regulated mine closure process. humby14 stated that struggling mines are placed under care and maintenance or business rescue and liquidation to avoid the liabilities associated with closure. this article discusses two procedures – business rescue and winding-up – through which a mining company expresses corporate distress. we focus mainly on winding-up because our case studies underwent this process, leading to liquidation. furthermore, winding-up generally results in sudden closure of mine operation. ‘business rescue’ is defined in the companies act 61 of 2008, as mentioned in the introduction of this article. the rationale of this procedure is twofold: firstly, to serve the public interest through a remedy directed at avoiding the deleterious consequences of liquidations where there is a reasonable prospect of salvaging the business of a distressed company. secondly, to secure a better return for creditors that could be achieved through immediate liquidation. ‘winding-up’ is defined in chapter 14 of the companies act 61 of 1973 and winding-up regulations (winding-up regulations gn2490, 1973). the term refers to a process whereby insolvent companies are placed under the custodianship of a liquidator, who then manages the fair and equitable allocation of the company’s property amongst its creditors.2 a company’s major and minor shareholders or the company creditors can voluntarily initiate either process without informing government statutory bodies. however, doing so contradicts the provisions set out in the mprda 28 of 2002. these provisions stipulate that once a company initiates mine closure processes, a closure certificate needs to be issued, which requires the involvement of the department of forestry fisheries and the environment (dffe), the department of water and sanitation (dws) and the dmre.17 a closure certificate is issued only after the chief inspector of mines and dws confirms in writing that the company has complied with provisions regarding health and safety and the management of potential water pollution. when the process of winding-up is initiated first that requirement is evaded because a company can be dissolved and suddenly close without a closure certificate. mine liquidation in south africa winding-up is regulated under several acts in south africa. however, for insolvent companies, liquidation is regulated by the companies act 61 of 1973 and the winding up regulations.2 the purpose of liquidation is to dissolve the company in an orderly manner and not to rescue it. the company’s existence ceases through the formal process of dissolution. winding-up may also be conducted before creating a new company. the companies act 61 of 1973 distinguishes between winding-up by a court (compulsory winding-up) and voluntary winding-up. the latter can be initiated either by a creditor or by members. according to the rules for these processes, the main distinction is between members’ voluntary winding-up and creditors’ winding-up versus compulsory winding-up by a court. the common feature in compulsory winding-up and voluntary creditors’ winding-up is that the company is insolvent and is thus unable to pay its debts. this is a specific ground upon which a company may be wound-up by the court under section 344 of the companies act 61 of 1973. section 345 sets out the circumstances in which a company is deemed unable to pay its debts.2 like a members’ voluntary winding-up, a creditors’ voluntary winding-up is initiated by resolution of the members, with no particular circumstances or reasons being required. in practice, however, the circumstance in which creditors would want to wind-up the company would be its inability to pay its debts. an early example of a mining company that experienced winding-up was the aurora empowerment system. its takeover of pamodzi gold ltd. was finalised in october 2009. since 2008, pamodzi had operated a mine in orkney, one of the richest gold mining areas in south africa.18,19 issues that arouse included employees not receiving their salaries in the post-liquidation period. sudden mine closure is common in south africa and has direct repercussions for the environment and surrounding communities. in the bgmc case, a tailings storage facility was left unrehabilitated, and soon after the sudden mine closure, the wind blew the dust towards the nearby communities. the dust became a serious nuisance4 and was perceived as a health threat by the community. blyvooruitzicht gold mining company had no closure certificate and was liquidated in 2013 when a sale between durban roodeport deep (drd) gold and village main reef (vmr) fell through. the liquidator and activists failed to gain access to the bgmc financial provision, which was still managed by durban roodepoort deep gold (drdgold) personnel.14 according to olalde,20 the promotion of access to information act (paia) documents showed that the funds were worth about r35 million – which drdgold admitted was inadequate to clean up the mine. however, the financial provisions of bgmc increased to r43m because of interest, and the total liabilities were listed as more than r891m. the trust fund amount of r43m was transferred to bgmc’s new owner, blyvoor gold capital (pty) ltd. another example of a liquidated mining company is mmsa. it holds three mining rights that cover 1751 ha near krugersdorp.20 mintails required about r259m to complete the rehabilitation regarding those rights, but this figure was far too low, according to the environmental management programme (emp) report.8 at the time of the liquidation of mmsa and mintails gold (pty) ltd, the company only legally held one mining right, namely mr 206 (for the reclamation of sand dumps and tsfs). when the mintails group of companies acquired mr 132 and mr 133 (open cast and hard rock mining), these rights were not approved by the minister of mineral resources and energy.21 the mintails group of companies nonetheless continued to mine the princess pits, the lancaster pit, the monarch and emerald cluster of pits and the platinum group of metals cluster of pits. the paia documents reveal that the company and related entities hold less than r17m in funds for rehabilitation.21 it is estimated that 260 permanent employees and 500 contractors lost their jobs through the liquidation of mmsa. furthermore, the surrounding communities were left with several partially rehabilitated tsfs, which generate dust and contribute to acid mine drainage. they are used by children as playgrounds. this poses a health threat to surrounding communities as the gold tailings contain hazardous heavy metals.10 mine closure in south africa mine closure planning is part of the mine life cycle, which includes exploration, pre-feasibility, development through operations and finally closure and rehabilitation. closure planning is multidimensional and mutually dependent on the surrounding communities.22 in south africa, mine closure is regulated under the mpdra and the nema 107 of 1998 as amended by the dmre and dffe regulatory authorities. in technical terms, the mine closure process commences with the mining right applicant’s preparation of an emp prior to authorisation. this process continues through the operation; it ends when a closure certificate is issued by the minister of mineral resources and energy. the best practice in mine closure planning is to consider closure even at the prospecting phase, when the feasibility of the mine and the design and mining permits are established.23 international best practice for mine closure involves setting social and environmental objectives, identifying ecological essentials, selecting and implementing appropriate technology and monitoring the ecological surrounds. mines normally close at the end of the mine’s life cycle when the mineral resources and reserves are depleted. however, recently mines have closed prematurely for various reasons, including economics, politics and geological complexities.13 mining operations also close before the environmental and social obligations have been fulfilled. fourie and brent24 stated that south africa has adequate policies and legislature on mine closure, especially regarding social and community development. the promulgation of the mprda was aimed at ensuring that mining companies take responsibility regarding community growth and development. the act sets out objectives that must be achieved during closure. they include the following points: eliminating immediate harm to human health and safety, ensuring that ground and surface water are fit for domestic use, eliminating the risk of harm to non-aquatic organisms and ensuring that soil is fit for current and future land use.23 the mprda section 38 (2) contains provisions that hold directors of registered mining companies and members of closed corporations accountable for any degradation, deprivation or contamination.25 section 39 of this act stipulates that an environmental impact assessment (eia) and emp must be undertaken by the applicant. these processes can help to identify, mitigate and manage environmental impacts originating from the mine’s closure and aid decommissioning and rehabilitation after the closure. section 40 makes provisions for consultation with, and involvement by, government departments during closure and decommissioning. the mprda section 43 (3) states that the holder of a mining right or permit must apply for a closure certificate upon cessation of mining operations or on relinquishing any portion of land to which the right or permit relates. section 43 also mentions closure planning.24 until mid-2014, mine closure planning was regulated by the mprda. since then, it has been regulated under nema as a sustainable development construct. however, some of the elements of mine closure, such as relinquishment, are still regulated by the mprda. the national environmental management act imposes the duty of care and remediation of environmental degradation on any person who causes, has caused or may cause degradation. section 2 of nema provides specific guidance on the closure of mining operations. it requires a mining right holder to: rehabilitate the environment as far as reasonably practicable to its natural state or to a land use that conforms to the generally accepted principle of sustainable development. set aside a financial provision, which only the state can access, to ensure such rehabilitation. retain liability for environmental damage even after closure of the operation. most attention has focused on the financial provision, the duration of liability and the gaps that allow companies to contract out of their mine closure obligations.26 the provision only applies if the new order mining right has been issued for a particular mining company. in the case of bgmc, the new order mining right was not issued prior to liquidation; hence, neither the dmre nor the liquidator could step in to take care of the community and avoid environmental degradation. brent and fourie24 stated that there are two key challenges that arise when mine closure occurs, which include environmental rehabilitation and the dependency of mining communities on operational mine activities. however, mine closure is framed by standards describing the quality of mine rehabilitation. they include five regulatory techniques, namely (1) forward planning for mine closure, (2) financial provision for rehabilitation, (3) flexible monitoring for oversight during the operational phase, (4) state-approved final closure and (5) transfer of environmental risks and liabilities. this article focuses on financial provisioning for rehabilitation regulation because it has direct implications for the liquidation of a mining company. the regulation is discussed in the following sention. financial provisions for prospecting, exploration mining and rehabilitation ‘financial provisions refer to the funds set aside for managing the environmental impact of mine closure as a common regulatory technique.27 in south africa, section 41 of the mprda requires mines to make financial provision for rehabilitation upon closure. these provisions were determined under regulations 53 and 54 and guidelines published by the department of minerals and energy.28 section 41 (1) of the mprda and section 24p of the nema require the provision of trust funds for rehabilitation purposes, with a financial guarantee from a south african registered bank and a cash transfer into an account specified by the director general. the financial provision must include a detailed list of all costs required for premature or unscheduled closure, decommissioning and final closure, as well as post-closure management of residual or latent environmental impact (regulation 54).27 mines must assess their environmental liability annually and increase the financial provision to the satisfaction of the minister (section 41.3, mprda).17 if the annual review reveals a shortfall in funds, the rights holder must increase the provisions within 90 days of the date of signature of the auditor’s report (regulation 114a, financial provisioning regulations of 2005). in 2005, the department of minerals and energy published the guideline document for the evaluation of the quantum of closure-related financial provision provided by a mine. the guidelines provide for quantifying various closure components. the quantum of financial provision must include a detailed itemisation of costs required for unscheduled closure, decommissioning and final closure and the post-closure management of residual and latent environmental impacts. humby14 observed that there is no official guideline for quantifying social closure costs, although large mining companies – such as anglo american and de beers – have done some work in this area. the only instance where social issues regarding mine closure are observed in the mprda is through the social and labour plan (slp). the slp addresses issues about how the employer should deal with retrenchments and downscaling when mine closure is certain (regulation 46d).29 the world bank group16 stated that it is important to consider social costs when predicting possible financial implications and final closure costs. humby14 added that the provisions in section 41 of the mprda and section 24p of the nema offer little protection in instances of company liquidation, and the insolvency act of 1936 does not cover financial provision for rehabilitation. the issue here is that the primary statutory authority regarding the allocation of funds upon a company’s demise is not the insolvency act but the companies act 61 of 1973. in november 2015, financial provisions regulations were promulgated for implementation by nema. requirements in the nema regulation government notice regulation (gnr) 1147 stipulate that the financial provisions must be audited by an auditor registered with the independent regulatory board for auditors. the audit must be conducted annually with comprehensive reconciliation. national environmental management act’s gnr 1147 supersedes section 41 and regulations 53 and 54 of the mprda. national environmental management act requires that the rights holder must assess environmental liability in a prescribed manner and increase the financial provision to the satisfaction of the minister responsible for mineral resources (financial provision regulation, gnr 1147).27 the gnr 1147 regulation requires the consideration of, and provision for, possible latent or residual environmental impacts. this includes remediation of environmental impacts such as the pumping and treatment of polluted or extraneous water. when a closure certificate is issued, the financial provision of latent and residual impacts may be ceded to the dmre. the financial provision regulation considers only social risk, contingency statements and cash risk in the audited financial statements. the social and long-term economic consequences do not appear to be a priority, yet there is much emphasis on the availability of funds to address the long-term environmental consequences of mining.12 in january 2016, the mining industry raised concerns and requested clarity from the deputy director general of the then dea about the 2015 financial provisioning regulations. the concerns included limitation on trust funds, inclusion of funds for annual rehabilitation, care and maintenance funds and requests for extensions on the implementation of the financial provisioning regulations. in november 2017, revised regulations were gazetted for public comment (government gazette 41236 under government notice (gn) r1128, draft regulations). in 2018, the focus was on consultations between stakeholders, professionals and parliament and holding interdepartmental meetings. in may 2019, a proposed revision of the financial provisioning regulation was published for comment.30 the revised regulation in chapter 3 of the financial provisioning regulation includes cancellation, withdrawal and claiming against a financial guarantee; claiming against a trust fund, closure rehabilitation company or cash deposit and withdrawal against a financial provision to facilitate decommissioning and final closure.30 these provisions had not been included in the original financial provisioning regulations. it is anticipated that the new provisions will deal with the challenges of mine liquidation and business rescue. for example, regulation 9 deals with the fact that the minister of mineral resources and energy can initiate a claim against the financial guarantee to effect remediation and rehabilitation.30 subregulation 9 (4) (a) states that the minister must provide the holder, liquidator or business rescue administrator and the financial institution with written notice of the intention to initiate a claim, including the reasons for such claim. this provision did not exist in the 2015 financial provisioning regulations and is yet to be exercised by the minister. regulation 10 deals with claiming against the trustees or directors of a fund or closure rehabilitation company or from the financial provision deposited into the account administered by the minister for that holder. subregulation 10 (1) states if the holder, liquidator or business rescue administrator fails to initiate actions to rehabilitate within 30 days after being ordered to do so, the minister may order the trustees or directors of the trust fund or closure rehabilitation company to deposit an identified amount into the account administered by the minister. this amount will enable the minister to undertake the rehabilitation on behalf of the holder. the aforementioned provisions seem reactive instead of preventative. they both discuss only what actions the minister can take should the rights holder, liquidator or business rescue administrator fail to initiate rehabilitation and closure. it appears that the 2019 financial provisioning regulations will still emphasise environmental rehabilitation over the socio-economic impacts. the regulations do not contain provisions that would enable interested and affected parties to make representations if the financial provisions for a specific prospecting, mining, exploration or production operation are inadequate. such provisions would be congruent with the national environmental management principle in section 2 of nema. this section states that the participation of all interested and affected parties in environmental governance must be promoted and in line with the requirements of the promotion of administrative justice act 3 of 2000 (paja).31 as mentioned in sections corporate distress in south african mines and mine liquidation in south africa of this article, winding-up through liquidation is becoming a working strategy for some mining companies that wish to evade the costly closure obligations. the mine closure framework itself provides little detail regarding sudden closure. this fact causes confusion amongst stakeholders regarding what should happen in the case of sudden, unscheduled or premature closure. milaras32 argued that unless authorities and responsibilities are clearly indicated and monitored, mine closure cannot be successfully performed in south africa. olalde,20 an investigative journalist, studied the financial provisions for mine closures and rehabilitation. olalde20 compiled, curated and analysed data in a series of investigations on mine closure trust funds, financial provisions for rehabilitation and closure certificates. ‘mine closures: what’s happening in your backyard?’ was a multimedia production – for which olalde sourced information from mmsa to complement his desk research with field research and interviews. he obtained information through the paia 3 of 2000 (paia, 2000) provided by the federation for a sustainable environment (fse). his work showed that between july 2012 and july 2015, no closure certificate was granted for mining rights held in the gauteng province. hence, none of the closed mines had been officially closed or followed the formal regulated mine closure framework. olalde’s second investigation showed that coal mines leave a legacy of ruin. since 2011, no large coal mines in south africa had been granted closure certificates. hence, some mines that were supposedly closed had not been rehabilitated but were simply abandoned, leaving local and global pollution. the third and final investigation exposed the r60-billion being held in mine rehabilitation funds across south africa for mines that might never be closed. this investigation exposed: [a] failed system of mine closure in which there is little flexible monitoring and oversight [and] large mining houses carry the brunt of responsibility for financial provisions that are never used and mines that are never fully closed.32 figure 1 illustrates the financial provisions that remain available in each province of south africa. figure 1: financial provisions for rehabilitation in each province.20 it is evident that funds are available to clean up after mining pollution. yet, it is unclear where these funds are currently held and what rehabilitation has been done to date. since 2012, the council for geoscience and the dmre have collaborated to rehabilitate derelict and ownerless mines. annual updates on the project are provided in the council for geoscience annual report. the 2016–2017 annual report states that there were delays in rehabilitation projects in gauteng33; the reasons given were collusion in the issuing of tenders and a challenge with illegal miners. the report stated that these issues were being resolved. however, it was clear that some abandoned mines in gauteng remain unrehabilitated.33 socio-economic aspects of mine closure studies have documented the multifaceted nature of mine closure.32 various stakeholders have unique needs relating to mine closure. for example, mine owners want minimal liability within a reasonable time frame for closure, whereas the government does not want to incur financial or environmental and social liabilities.20,32,34,35 affected communities want the opportunity to maintain and improve their quality of life post-closure. in most mining areas, the mining activity replaced subsistence farming and communities were rendered dependent on the mine. this dependence creates numerous challenges when a mine closes, including loss of employment and businesses.34 van eeden et al.,35 stacey et al.23 and du plessis36 all discussed the socio-economic implications of mine closure for host communities. these range from trauma through unemployment and loss of income or lack of self-employment to safety threats, depression, uncertainty, pollution and ecological degradation. the socio-economic impacts include an undeveloped local economy, poorly developed infrastructure and lack of economic opportunities and activity.37 communities are robbed of potential livelihood opportunities and agricultural activities and jobs are diminished. in the post-mining phase, agricultural activities never fully recover to the pre-mining level. the soil pollution from deposited toxic dust or precipitated contaminated water results in soils unfit for agricultural activities.38 these impacts are amplified when a mine closes suddenly through liquidation, owing to additional shock and trauma to the employees and surrounding community and businesses. the mining charter’s broad-based black socio-economic empowerment (b-bbee) is a south african governmental instrument designed to promote sustainable growth and meaningful transformation in the mining industry. the charter promotes equitable access to the nation’s mineral resources for all south africans and expands opportunities for historically disadvantaged south africans or persons. furthermore, it promotes employment and advances the social and economic welfare of mine communities and major labour-providing areas.39 the mining charter and slp are two frameworks that address socio-economic issues in the mprda. a draft mining charter was released in 2018 and is yet to be finalised.39 section 2.5 of this charter acknowledges that mining communities are an integral part of mining development, which requires a balance between mining and the community’s socio-economic development. it further states that mining companies should contribute meaningfully both in terms of impact and adhering to the principles of the social license to operate.39 a social license to operate signifies community buy-in for a project and helps a company to access local knowledge. the social licence for a mining company to operate should deal with a meaningful contribution to community development. the community participation process establishes the legitimate key players in the community and provides them with a mandate. good engagement with communities is also necessary to ensure that expectations are managed. this process limits the potential for external exploitation of the community and enhances community participation in identifying post-project options. ultimately, the community should take ownership of post-closure initiatives. this approach essentially manages sustainability risks and facilitates the avoidance of costly legacies on closure. the mining charter39 is solid in its requirements. however, section 2.1.1.7 states that a company may contribute subject to its solvency and liquidity as defined in the companies act of 2008. this provision suggests that a company could be exempt from making contributions detailed in the charter depending on its liquidity status. hence, mining companies might be able to avoid fulfilling their slps, leaving surrounding mine communities destitute and without benefit from their host mines. the mining charter sets no time-line regarding when a company should make contributions to community development and projects. the period for mining companies to fulfil their social obligations is open-ended, which allows for diverse interpretation by individual companies and communities. these points are significant gaps in the mining charter and they mean that sudden mine closure can occur before the social obligations are fulfilled. naidoo40 also pointed out that, although policy developments mention socio-economic impacts, there is no clarity on what these are and how they will be addressed. durand41 argued that the mining charter exacerbates the complexity of mine closure. for example, large mining corporations may sell their marginal operations to junior b-bbee companies, which often lack the financial capacity to rehabilitate the mine sites. when the junior company cannot further finance its operations, it files for bankruptcy, leading to abandoned mines and premature or sudden closure. the suddenly closed mine leaves behind in many instances poorly rehabilitated tsfs, which become a cost for the surrounding community. the issue of dust the pollution of air, soil and water caused by mining activities and the poor rehabilitation of tsfs has detrimental impacts on the health and well-being of surrounding communities. in 2016, the human rights commission42 conducted a study on mining-affected communities in south africa. they reported that most communities complained about increased levels of dust, deteriorating health, water pollution and food insecurity. communities have drawn attention to poor environmental remediation and overall management.42 according to anglo gold ashanti,43 as of 1997, south africa has produced an estimated 468 million tonnes of mineral waste per annum. gold mining waste accounts for 221 million tonnes or 47% of the total making it the largest single source of pollution and waste.38 water pollution, especially in the witwatersrand basin is of great concern, as acid water fills up the old mine shafts decanting into the environment. polluted air from tsfs also contributes to the acid water by depositing high concentrations of metals, sulphides and salts on surrounding water surfaces. air pollution by windblown dust from tsfs is a significant health issue because when it is inhaled depending on the size fraction can affect lung tissue. the three key national acts that have consequences for mine-related dust are the national environmental management: air quality act 39 of 2004 (nemaqa), nema and mprda. national environmental management act acknowledges that the state’s environmental obligation is linked to the responsibility to respect, protect and fulfil socio-economic rights. environmental degradation arising from the failure to rehabilitate tsfs infringes on human and socio-economic rights. environmental rights are associated with rights to food, water, health, land and dignity. anglo gold ashanti43 reported that more than 300 tailings dams exist in the witwatersrand basin, which covers 400 km2 of land. by introducing the mprda, nema and one environmental system, the state attempted to redress the negative environmental impacts of mining. the one environmental system (oes) was established in 2014 and allows for the environmental management of mining through a single environmental system. it shifted the statutory authority for environmental management of mining to the environmental legislation and split the implementing authority between the dmre and the dffe.1 air pollution in the form of dust from unrehabilitated tsfs can cause respiratory disease amongst surrounding communities. nkosi, wichmann and voyi44 found that exposure to mine dumps or residing near a mine dump posed an increased risk of respiratory disease. illnesses such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic cough, emphysema, pneumonia and wheezing are associated with close proximity to mine dumps (less than 5 km).44 the respiratory illness is triggered by fine-grained tailings material that are inhaled; the dust also contains toxic heavy metals. air quality monitoring and management are regulated under the nemaqa. in 2013, the then dea released the national dust control regulations, founded on the need to prevent pollution and ecological degradation and to realise section 24 of the south african constitution. moreover, section 33 of nemaqa requires mining companies to notify the minister in writing if mining operations are likely to cease within a period of 5 years.45 despite all these regulations and standards being in place, non-compliance remains prevalent in the mining industry, especially the gold sector. companies are suddenly closed because of winding-up, without having informed the minister in writing that the mine is insolvent and expected to close. this point is discussed in the bgmc and mmsa case studies here. oelofse38 observed that cooperative governance remains ineffective to protect the environment against mining waste’s negative impacts. in soweto, communities residing in close proximity to tailings dumps experience ongoing respiratory illnesses.46 international human rights clinic harvard law school47 (ihrchls) mentioned the chemical toxicity of the witwatersrand tailings dumps, which contain significant levels of arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, uranium, lead and zinc.35,48,49 uranium is of the greatest concern because it is radioactive; when broken down, it releases a toxic gas called radon. when radon is inhaled or ingested, it can cause brain damage and cancer in the long term.35 two south african case studies blyvooruitzicht blyvooruitzicht is a gold mining town located 6 km south-west of carletonville in the gauteng province, south africa. blyvoor gold mine commenced in 1937 and continued until august 2013, when bgmc was placed under provisional liquidation.14 the mine was renowned for being the richest gold-bearing mine in the world.50 it was liquidated approximately 14 years ahead of schedule owing to a slumping market and labour disputes. the mine generated about £2.5m in gold, silver, uranium and other minerals, but it is now a volatile wasteland.51,52 before the sudden closure of the mine, there were 10 tailings dams (slimes) on the mine property, of which only two were active. slime dam 6 was the disposal area, and slime dam 1 was utilised as a disposal area in emergencies. figure 2 shows dam 6, located in close proximity (60 m) to the community of blyvooruitzicht mine village (also called ‘blyvoor’). during the liquidation period, tailings storage facility 6 was perceived by the community to be a source of dust fallout (figure 2).4 figure 2: (a) tailings storage facility 6, (b) located close to the community, with (c) dust fallout. in 2016, when residents of blyvooruitzicht were interviewed by lhr, they mentioned that the air was not clean.52 the district just west of the city had recorded 42.24 metric tonnes of tailing-pile dust blowing into the air daily, contaminating livestock and food crops. residents in the lhr study said that tailings caused health problems including cancer, asthma, rashes, eye irritation and eczema.52 however, the lack of local epidemiological studies means that communities living near mine dumps cannot easily pursue litigation against mining companies. residents also mentioned that there had been several deaths in the area because of illnesses such as tuberculosis, which they believed were caused by the dust.4,52 blyvooruitzicht gold mining company is one of the oldest gold mines in carletonville, south africa. in 1997, drd gold limited acquired majority shareholding in bgmc and took over the gold mine operations. after the takeover, drd gold updated the emp to comply with the mprda. the new emp included a conceptual closure plan and a life of mine plan, which indicated that mining would cease in 2027.51 the emp also detailed the shortand long-term rehabilitation and closure activities regarding decommissioning and final closure of the mine. however, this emp was never approved by the department of mineral resources. in june 2011, bgmc voluntarily placed itself under supervision and business rescue in terms of the companies act of 2008.53 later that year, vmr concluded an agreement with drd gold for a 74% acquisition of bgmc, which then nullified the business rescue process. the acquisition was conditional on (1) the dmre converting the bgmc old order mining right to a new order mining right and (2) approval by the minister of mineral resources and energy to conduct a section 11 of the mprda, which is the transfer of mining rights.54 in july 2013, vmr issued a stock exchange notice that its board of directors had resolved to pull out of the bgmc agreement because of continuing losses. in august 2013, drd gold announced that it would not fund bgmc operations. gold prices around this time plummeted to an all-time low, creating challenges in sustaining the mine or even proceeding with the process of closure.54 after all these announcements, the bgmc directors resolved to place the company under compulsory winding-up by court order in terms of the companies act 61 of 1973. in the trust fund, the category of fixed assets shows that only r35m is available for financial provision for rehabilitation. however, approximately r108m would be required for environmental rehabilitation.54,55 furthermore, these figures contradict the amount reported in the updated emp, namely r75m. the fse, a non-profit company of environmental activists, has attempted to obtain accountability from the company through litigation, with no success. humby14 argued that although the regulated closure model in the mprda appears to be in order, the right to transfer mining rights as per section 11 of the act is ambiguous in terms of ownership and liability. humby14 further stated that the winding-up process governed by the companies act 61 of 1973 and the insolvency act of 1936 poorly articulates the mine closure model. this scenario results in inadequate protection of the financial provision for environmental rehabilitation. the rehabilitation of the environment and the social issues arising from either sudden or scheduled mine closure appear to be overlooked in the regulated model. humby14 further described the challenges associated with sudden mine closure through winding-up in south africa. the gold mining operation of blyvoor is now under a new owner, known as blyvoor gold capital. this company purchased some of the assets previously owned by bgmc with the hope of starting production and providing jobs for the bgmc employees and the wider community. mintails south africa (pty.) ltd. our second case study on mine liquidation is mmsa, also known as the mintails group. it operated in the krugersdorp area, west of johannesburg and focused on mining and processing gold.21 the company had 260 permanent employees and 500 contractors. the company was wound-up in august 2018. informal settlements still surround the mine, and the residents report negative health impacts caused by radioactive dust.21 environmentalists, regulators and activists have been reporting the non-compliance of the mintails group since 2015. hence, state officials were aware of the transgressions long before the final liquidation in 2018 – yet no legislation was enforced. an estimated r330m would be required for environmental clean-up, but only r20m is available for such rehabilitation.21 according to the ceo of the fse, the mintails group exploited mineral resources by mining only the profitable parts and failed to top up the financial provisions annually. mintails denies some of its environmental liability, claiming that the issues predated their involvement. however, the law states that the rights holder acquires the liabilities with the new order rights.17 figure 3 shows the environmental impact from unrehabilitated tsfs of mmsa. lucien limacher, an attorney at the legal resources centre, stated that it has become a trend for mines to opt for business rescue or liquidation after failing to set aside annual funds for rehabilitation.21 mintails has an estimated total liability of r485 967 811, which includes r258 749 771 for rehabilitation. furthermore, it has also been reported that mmsa has not complied with their slp commitments.55,56 this situation meant that some mintails group mining rights were granted but were never issued. figure 3: mintails south africa: tailings storage facilities site. the most widely discussed and visible types of mine closure are abandonment and terminal closure. the latter occurs when an ore body is mined out and the company – after reclamation and rehabilitation – permanently ceases its operations. the given case studies have revealed that in reality, mines are ‘temporarily’ closed for political, economic, market, technical, environmental or social reasons; there may be an expressed intention to reopen, but this rarely happens. the case studies have also shown that there was a lack of mine closure planning by both companies. there was no evidence of contingency planning, forward planning for mine closure or adequate estimated closure costs in the emps. inadequate funds had been set aside for rehabilitation by the time the mines were liquidated, which indicates a lack of monitoring and annual review of financial provisions. the lack of adequate mine closures that have already taken place and issues regarding the transparency and accessibility of closure documents makes it very difficult to verify the adequacy of a mine’s financial provision. the financial provision for closure was set aside as trust funds for the two companies, indicating that some companies fail to manage their own funds. furthermore, the case studies highlight the lack of enforcement by the dmre through allowing mining companies to operate without an issued mining right, as was the case with mmsa. only when sudden mine closure occurs is everything revealed, namely that dmre was not enforcing compliance with the mine closure plan. mining companies use either business rescue or the winding-up processes to opt out of their obligations as set out in the mining and environmental regulations. the international sphere according to andrews et al.,57 historically, many countries viewed mine closure as the mere stoppage of production and mine decommissioning. mining companies thus disregarded the fact that mine closure is multifactorial. it has social, environmental and financial effects.58 closed mines need rehabilitation and monitoring and the safe removal of equipment, plant and dangerous materials. the pits and tsfs must be safeguarded whilst the land is restored. in the 1960s, limited funding was set aside for mine closure costs and the policies addressing the issue were inadequate.57 countries such as australia, chile and saudi arabia had mines that required forced or premature closure. in these cases, policies had to be established to prioritise mine closure amongst stakeholders – which included governments, communities and mining companies. most countries have mine closure requirements within their mining laws or the associated implementing rules and regulations for mining laws or within specific environmental legislation that is applicable to the mining sector.59 the international organisation for standardisation in 2017 admitted that there is no global standard on mine closure and reclamation management. however, countries such as australia and canada partially provide best-practice examples for the world. internationally, the minerals and metals sector has been under increasing pressure not only to improve social and environmental performance but also to demonstrate that it is making real contributions to sustainable development. the very concept of sustainable development originates from public awareness of the pollution of natural sites through industrial activities. the international council on mining and metals (icmm) insists that planning for closure should be a core business practice of mining companies.60 the icmm issued an integrated approach to closure, which considers environmental and social matters to realise sustainable development.61 in 2019, the icmm produced guidelines for good practice in mine closure. these guidelines promote integrated mine closure planning, which means that closure should be integrated into the systems and decisions behind a mine’s operations. hence, mine closure planning should not be treated as a separate process tagged onto a project close to the end of a mine’s life. figure 4 illustrates the icmm22 mine closure framework. mine closure is considered early in a mining project and extends throughout the mine’s cycle, in line with canada’s national orphaned and abandoned mines initiative policy.22 the next sections of this article focus on international regulations and requirements for mine closure and compare the south african situation with that of other countries. figure 4: integrated mine closure good practice.22 australia the final decision to close a mine occurs when there is no viable financial return from the mining operations. however, the minerals council of australia accurately defines closure as a process, which begins during the pre-feasibility phase of a mining project and continues through operations until lease relinquishment. the mine closure policy sets clear objectives and guidelines, makes financial provision and establishes effective stakeholder engagement, leading to successful relinquishment of the lease.62 hence, in australia, closure is no longer thought of as an end-of-line procedure but rather as a planning process aimed at reducing long-term environmental impacts even before they become a problem. it is also aimed at reducing the financial burden of final closure and rehabilitation.62 mining in western australia (wa) has occurred for more than 150 years and many mines have been abandoned after initial exploration or mining. approximately 70% of australian mines have been closed in the past 25 years, mostly as unexpected or unscheduled closures.13 the abandoned mines caused health, safety and environmental risks. the potential cultural, social, environmental, educational or economic value of these sites remains unknown. in the 1980s, environmental impact became a key consideration for the approval of mineral exploration and mining. guidelines for mining were established by the state department of minerals and energy and contain technical details of rehabilitation applicable to tailings facilities.63 the department required that decommissioned tsfs must be safe, stable and aesthetically acceptable.61 more recently, in 2010, the western australian department of mines and petroleum (dmp) became responsible for the sustainable and responsible management of the resources sector in wa. the environmental protection authority is responsible for assessing mine closure under part iv of the environmental protection act of 2015. in 2011, the dmp and environmental protection authority collaborated and released the guidelines for preparing mine closure plans, which were updated in 2015. to apply for a prospecting right or permit (mining proposal in australia), a mine closure plan must first be submitted in accordance with the guidelines.64,65 the guidelines specify that rehabilitated mines must be safe for humans and animals, stable, non-polluting and capable of sustaining an agreed post-mining land use.64 the objective of the environmental protection act of 2015 is to ensure that mine premises are rehabilitated in an ecologically sustainable manner. in the northern territory of australia, the broad objective for mine closure is that sites must be rehabilitated to a standard that minimises or negates restrictions on subsequent land use – both at the site and surrounding it.63 reclamation plans form part of the mine closure plan and must be submitted to the competent agency for approval together with an environmental management plan. after adequate rehabilitation, the mining property is returned to the owner or the state. the minister of mines, land and environment then signs off the project and a relinquishment certificate is issued. the mine closure plan guidelines require the identification of completion criteria to demonstrate that closure objectives are detailed in the plans. the completion criteria must include performance indicators, trends and projections to predict any long-term impact. the closure guidelines also cover financial provisions for closure; this requirement entails sufficient funds for closure being held and for the affected community not to be left destitute.66 financial provisions should be held in corporate accounts specifically for mine closure costs. australia has a mining rehabilitation fund that is regulated by the mining rehabilitation fund act of 2012. the purpose of the fund is to secure long-term funding for the state to rehabilitate abandoned mines and other land affected by mining.67 this is a ‘superfund’, which contributes in addition to the financial provisions; it cannot be used to offset the financial provisions.63 moreover, in 2016, australia released an abandoned mine policy. it comprises a risk assessment strategy of how abandoned mines should be prioritised and rehabilitated. community engagements and input are needed at each stage of development of a closure plan. upon submission, relevant agencies review the plan and approvals are announced within 30 days of submission.68 regarding the winding-up of a mine, our document review identified a case in queensland that was handled by colin biggers and paisley lawyers. a coal gasification mining company called linc energy limited was liquidated in 2016. two laws were applied during the liquidation period, namely the corporations act of 2001 and the environmental protection act of 1994.68 in april 2016, linc energy appointed liquidators as administrators of the company. in may 2016, the department of environment and heritage protection issued an environmental protection order (epo) to the liquidators. in june 2016, the liquidators issued a notice disclaiming the land, site infrastructure and the environmental assessments (eas) under section 568(1) of the corporations act of 2001. the department took possession of the land and facilities. the matter was referred to the high court, which did not accept the liquidator’s submissions. the judge ruled that liquidators are executive officers under the envi ronmental protection act; hence, if they fail to comply with this law, they commit an offence.69 it thus appears that queensland deals accordingly with the winding-up of a mining company through the environmental protection act. where an epo is issued to a company to secure compliance with the general environmental duty under section 319 of the environmental protection act, liquidators cannot evade the company’s obligation to comply with the epo by disclaiming the land or infrastructure. in the given case, the epo was issued prior to the disclaimer, but the judge’s reasoning implies that the timing of the disclaimer and the issuance of the epo were irrelevant. the liquidators were still required to fulfil environmental compliance. canada in canada, the federal government and 13 provinces govern environmental and mining regulations. the federal law is, however, considered superior to the environmental statutes in case of conflict.65 municipalities and communities also play a significant role in mining and environmental regulation. the federal supreme court ruled that communities that used the land before it was mined have the right to be meaningfully consulted regarding the development and closure of mines. provincial governments are responsible, on behalf of society, for enforcing efficient and effective legislation regarding the development of mineral resources and the management of waste sites.70 mining companies are required to submit their mine closure plans before they are granted approval to initiate mining. in canada, mine closure can take between 2 and 10 years to complete; however, in cases where long-term monitoring of environmental and other impacts is indicated, decades can elapse before the closure is concluded.71 british columbia pioneered legislation on reclamation, which aims to ensure that once operations cease, the mine-site land is restored to a useful, productive standard.72 environmental assessments are required by the ea act of 1995 before mining projects are approved in british columbia. the ea process includes a conceptual-level decommissioning and reclamation plan. the plan involves long-term objectives for future use of the land after decommissioning. assurance regarding reclamation and closure activities is required in the ea plan. british columbia’s mines act of 1989 and the health, safety and reclamation code make provisions for minimising the health, safety and environmental risks linked to mining. a mine must apply for a permit from the chief inspector of mines under the mines act before ground disturbance can take place. the permit protects the land and water and requires a reclamation programme and permit holders must estimate the total costs for their reclamation obligations over the planned life of the mine. the mineral resources division in the ministry of energy and mines provides assurance that the province will not contribute to reclamation costs if a mining company defaults on its reclamation obligations.72 the mines act also requires permit holders to post-financial security in funds, in a form accepted by the chief inspector of mines. this security is accepted in several forms, such as cash certified cheques, bank drafts, term deposits, government bonds and irrevocable standby letters of credit.65 each province in canada has mine closure guidelines, namely british columbia, ontario, quebec, saskatchewan, northwest territories and manitoba.68 a common requirement amongst them is a conceptual closure plan to be submitted as part of the application for mining development. closure plans are supposed to be reviewed every 3–5 years. the plans are submitted together with the impact management plans, which cover land reclamation, revegetation and the remediation of environmental and socio-economic impacts of affected mining communities and employees. environmental protection agencies oversee and monitor the progress of closure plans. in june 2016, 10% of mining companies were delisted from the toronto stock exchange in canada because of formal insolvency proceedings. these proceedings had doubled between 2014 and 2015. however, the delisted 10% represented only 16 companies, probably because the capital structure of junior mining companies tended to be financed with equity (as explained here). furthermore, there were difficulties in accounting for fixed assets in various jurisdictions and remote locations. canadian law provides ways for insolvent companies to prolong the process until they can either devise a restructuring plan or find a buyer. canada’s main corporate restructuring law is the companies’ creditors arrangement act of 1935 (ccaa). this act allows a court to impose a freeze to prevent creditors from suing an insolvent company that owes more than $5m. the freeze enables the company to continue operations whilst it negotiates a deal with creditors. however, exploration and development juniors generally fund their operations through equity. hence, they do not necessarily have enough debt to seek reorganisations under the ccaa. they can instead seek relief under the bankruptcy and insolvency act of 1985. this act allows companies with debts of over $1000 to present creditors with reorganisation proposals or to wind up their operations with liquidation. it is common for junior mining companies to have no operating revenue; as a result, they may be able to place their properties under care and maintenance. summary regardless of the approach or the requirements, the plans for rehabilitation, reclamation and mine closure vary in detail amongst and within individual countries. so do the requirements for financial provision and other surety instruments to ensure that the plans are carried out. several similarities and differences are observed in the regulations of south africa and those of other countries. for example, australia requires the approval of mine closure plans and surety regarding financial provisions for mine closure even before a mining project is approved and the same is required in south africa. however, the australian government provides a mine rehabilitation fund to aid with rehabilitation on closure; such a fund does not exist in south africa. in australia, the enforcement of environmental laws is the responsibility of environmental protection agencies, whereas in south africa, is it the mineral resources and energy department.73 in both countries, the minister of mines, the minister of land and the minister of the environment must all sign off on closure and issue a certificate of abdication. canada requires an impact management plan and a mine closure plan, which must be approved by provincial regulators. furthermore, community participation during the planning and implementation of mine closure is regarded as a crucial contribution if the closure is to be successful.74 canada also requires the company to set funds aside for closure, reclamation and rehabilitation,75 and south africa and australia have the same requirement. discussion disjuncture in policy from a compliance perspective, sudden mine closure through liquidation of a mining company presents challenges. when a mining company applies for a provisional liquidation, there is no provision in the companies act 61 of 1973 to ensure that the company has been issued with a closure certificate. furthermore, there is no mention in the companies act 61 of 1973 that there must be adequate financial provision before the court will grant provisional or final liquidation. it is not even clear whether, in terms of government statutes, government is included as a creditor in the financial provisions. it is not clear whether the liquidator is responsible for environmental rehabilitation, or whether they must apply for a closure certificate during the provisional liquidation period. the companies act 61 of 1973 predated any comprehensive attempt to regulate mine closure by statute. hence, one would not expect to find explicit references and points of articulation with this process. nevertheless, the provisions of this act could be relevant to the extent that they: determine the ambit of ‘property’, ‘assets’ and ‘liabilities’ for purposes of winding-up proceedings. articulate notice requirements and access to information. set out the role and responsibilities of directors, the liquidator, and the master during the winding-up process. figure 5 presents the evolution of laws pertaining to mining and the environment, compared with company laws. the reasons for disjuncture between the laws are summarised in the figure. notably, the companies act 61 of 1973 predated any attempts to regulate mine closure. only in 1991 did the mining regulation introduce the concept of mine closure plans through the minerals act 50 of 1991. this statutory measure came into effect when most mines were already operational.25,27 hence, mines did not have to consider proactive contingency planning ahead of possible closure. figure 5: evolution of mining versus company legislation. the mines and works act 27 of 1956 regulated the protection and preservation of the surface of mines, the treatment of wastewater and the combustion of waste-heaps. the regulations were extended to address safe undergrounds, dangerous tsfs, the abandonment of activities and the restoration of land. comprehensive mine closure practices were established in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, with growing concerns over environmental issues related to mine closure, such as acid mine drainage and mine rehabilitation. in 1977, the mines and works act 27 of 1956 was amended to allow the minister of mineral and energy affairs to create environmental conservation regulations for mining areas and works. rehabilitation was strongly introduced in the minerals act of 1991, which included closure plans, issuing of closure certificates and emps. the act made provision for measures that mining companies should take when a mine closes at the end of its life-cycle.50 the main focus was restoration and management of the environment rather than socio-economic responsibilities towards the host communities.27 developments in mining laws and the promulgation of the mprda and its regulations gnr 527 government gazette 26275 of 2004 (amended in 2013 and 2015) brought detailed improvements to closure models. the main aim of the mprda was to establish appropriate regulation to fulfil the requirements of the south african constitution by ensuring orderly closure and minimising the state’s liability for abandoned and derelict mines. the mprda and mining charter together ensure that mining companies act responsibly and uphold sustainable development in areas where they operate. the charter has evolved since 2004 to the 2018 version mentioned in the ‘socio-economic aspects of mine closure’ section of this article. regarding the companies’ regulatory frameworks, no major amendments were undertaken between 2004 and 2008. the companies act 71 of 2008 covers business rescue comprehensively. it refers to the companies act 61 of 1973 for companies considering liquidation through winding-up procedures. concerns with policies as discussed in the previous section, figure 4 summarises disjunctures between mining and environmental regulation versus company laws. rapid progression and improvements occurred in the mining and environmental legislation but not in the companies’ legislation. mining legislation appears since 1903 when the legislation on fence and backfill was promulgated until recently with the amendments in the mprda in 2015 and financial provisions draft regulations in 2019. it is concerning that company laws have not progressed and adapted or kept up with changes to the mining and environmental laws. south african legislation imposes on mine owners a duty of care. this duty includes adherence to common law, acts of parliament, provincial legislation and local governments’ rules, regulations and by-laws, the bill of rights (in terms of the constitution of the republic of south africa) and financial provisions for remediation of environmental degradation. hence, south african policies pertaining to the environment and mining appear robust, with good intentions. however, gaps and loopholes exist in these regulations, which result in vulnerable communities suffering. there appears to be poor collaboration amongst the regulatory systems and government bodies. overall, the compani es act 61 of 1973 appears to be superior to other pieces of legislation. the mprda and nema provide little clarity on the procedural rights for communities, particularly the extent of community involvement through public participation and the oversight of rehabilitation of land in their immediate vicinity.76 in cases of liquidation, there is no clarity on the procedural rights of mine employees and communities. neither is there provision for periodic consultation before a mine is liquidated. in a study by laurence,13 mine liquidation was not mentioned as a reason why a mine might close prematurely. the study reported only economic issues, such as a drop in commodity prices, geological matters, geotechnical, mechanical or equipment failure, environmental breaches or policy changes and community disputes. liefferink and van eeden77 argued that government departments do not regard mine closure and the enforcement of legislation as crucial matters. indeed, the inadequate enforcement of mining laws appeared highly problematic in the bgmc and mmsa case studies. the enforcement of law in south africa is weak and penalties for environmental degradation fail to discourage polluters. the centre for environmental rights78 found that the south african environmental compliance monitoring and enforcement system is ineffective owing to the lack of immediate monetary penalties for environmental violations by companies. south africa’s mining law makes provision for several responsibilities relating to the closure of mines and rehabilitation of the land. these include contributions to a rehabilitation fund and plans for dealing with the effects on the workforce and community when the mine closes. they form part of the slp. as a prerequisite for obtaining a mining right, this plan outlines how the company intends to share some of the benefits that flow from mining. however, according to lhrs,52 these obligations seem to be overlooked during liquidation. during the initiation of liquidation, neither the environment nor the mining state agencies tasked with the custodianship of natural resources are legally affected by the conditions triggering the need for liquidation.1 lawyers for human rights52 thus recommended that a legal obligation be instituted to implement rehabilitation measures before a mine is allowed to enter liquidation. gaps and contradictions mining companies that have mature assets can use liquidation to avoid the full expense of closure and rehabilitation, as described by humby14 and lhrs.52 lawyers for human rights52 further argued that south africa’s gold sector appears to be experiencing a gradual decline, which could mean that many mining communities are deprived of the protection that mining law has attempted to create. in mining properties, there are dilemmas regarding the distribution of assets, with liquidators trying to find buyers, to keep mines functioning and avoid job losses or the cessation of basic services. references to ‘property’ or ‘assets’ in the companies act 61 of 1973 are unclear regarding the inclusion or exclusion of trust funds for environmental rehabilitation, mining rights and communities affected by mining. the sudden closure of mining operations, with the concomitant lack of rehabilitation and mitigation measures, has resulted in 75% unemployment and environmental devastation.52 environmental degradation occurs if there was no concurrent rehabilitation whilst the company was operational. when mines are closed abruptly, basic municipal services cease. the environment is subject to the ravages of mined-out land, including sinkholes and dust from unsecured and unvegetated tsfs. a common thread in the cases of bgmc and mmsa was inadequate financial provisioning for environmental maintenance and rehabilitation. mines are prematurely closed because of corporate distress, meaning companies are in debt and file for bankruptcy. the issue of liquidity amongst mines has direct implications for financial provisioning regulations. according to a study by the world wide fund south africa79 (wwf-sa), various challenges affect the mining sector regarding the availability of funds to manage the impact of mining. the wwf-sa79 highlighted the flaws and gaps in the financial provision regulations; in addition, wide variation in the quality of environmental management plans and programmes contribute to inadequate funds. when emps with substandard rehabilitation plans and financial calculations are accepted by the dmre, problems regarding fund availability are exacerbated. this is one reason why liefferink77 argued that the dmre allows mining companies, especially in the gold sector, to be non-compliant. the dea80 acknowledges the limited capacity of authorities to implement the regulations. however, the effects thereof are recognised in the long term, once a mine has closed legally or prematurely. the wwf-sa79 study observed that the environmental impacts of mining are severe, with measurable external costs that affect mining communities. there are minimal or no independent public reviews of financial provision calculations. therefore, these are inadequately audited. section 24p of the nema does not specify that financial provisions should complete a compulsory annual peer review process to assess their sufficiency. however, in terms of the proposed (as yet unpublished) 2019 regulations for financial provisions, that would be a requirement. when mining companies are sold to other companies, mining rights need to be transferred between the two owners. the financial provision regulation does not explicitly require rights holders to amend or replace their financial provisions when transferring or amending their rights and selling their operations. a mining right or permit can be transferred without any evaluation of the financial provisions for rehabilitation. this scenario presents a challenge for the acquiring company. a mine can also be sold without its mining right or permit being transferred to the buyer, as occurred with aurora empowerment system and bgmc.14 the impact of the insolvency act 24 of 1936 and the companie s act 61 of 1973 on the financial provisions is unclear given their ambiguity regarding salient issues. it is not clear, for example, whether financial provisions are protected or form part of the assets and creditors lists. the mprda does not clearly indicate whether company directors remain liable after the mining company has officially been liquidated. a notable gap is that a mining company may be deregistered through the process of winding-up (chapter 14, companies act 61 of 1973) regardless of whether a closure certificate has been issued in terms of section 43 of the mprda. regulatory authorities are informed retrospectively about the process of winding-up, which can take as long as 5 years before final liquidation. this is a laborious process that does not accord well with the mine closure model. there are currently no means to ensure the security of financial provisions during winding-up. the dmre, insofar as its claim in respect of the financial provision is concerned, would not be a secured or preferred creditor upon insolvency. this scenario has implications for the dmre in the event of insolvency of mines. as already noticed, the companies act 61 of 1973 does not articulate the mine closure model as its passage predated the mine closure standard (see figure 5). overall, south africa appears to still be coming to terms with the idea of sustainable development in mining. mining communities are not yet adequately included in mining projects from their inception to their closure. regarding sudden or final closure, there has been inadequate consideration of the future (post closure), social and community aspects. countries such as zimbabwe struggle with similar issues. in penhalonga in zimbabwe, there are several deep-level gold mines and small-scale mines. the surrounding community was mostly concerned about the immediate environmental impacts from mining, including water and air pollution and the loss of biodiversity, especially flora. most mines surrounding penhalonga have been closed for various reasons, with the political climate in the country being the main one. blyvooruitzicht gold mining company and mmsa are classical cases in south africa; they illustrate how sudden mine closure through liquidation can devastate communities. notably, at the time of liquidation, the owners of bgmc stated that worker disputes and in-fighting between trade unions, that is, the national union of mine workers and the association of mineworkers and construction union – as well as several mine stoppages were factors that contributed to the financial difficulties. the poor articulation of the companies act 61 of 1973 regarding mine closure has created an avenue for non-rehabilitation by mining companies. the result is a pollution challenge for the surrounding communities and natural environment. furthermore, a policy gap exists regarding the requirement that a closure certificate must be applied for and approved by the minister of mineral resources and energy, whereas the dmre is not a listed creditor according to the comp anies act 61 of 1973. hence, during liquidation or business rescue, the dmre is not involved. this situation has implications for the available financial provisions of the liquidated company, as the dmre and dffe cannot access the funds to remediate the environment during the mine’s liquidation or business rescue process. the mining communities therefore suffer as a result of environmental degradation, with severe implications for their quality of life. unrehabilitated tsfs leading to environmental degradation, which then cascades to local communities, is a long-standing problem in the mine life-cycle. the problems that occur with sudden mine closure are the outcomes of poor compliance, poor implementation, poor integration, poor enforcement and gaps or conflicts in policies. at the mine project inception stage, it is important to estimate potential environmental and socio-economic impacts by conducting eias. an integrated strategy between government and other role-playing institutions is vital to the implementation of well-defined operational guidelines and final closure measures. however, some companies’ operational standards and guidelines pertaining to the environment fail to integrate mining and environmental policies throughout the mine’s life-cycle. this point was observed in the bgmc and mmsa case studies, where financial provisions were inadequate for environmental care, yet that was only recognised in the period of sudden mine closure. during the operational stage of the mine, regulations about financial provision for rehabilitation and the continuous auditing of these funds, as well as active rehabilitation whilst mining continues, are essential policies. one practice that can affect these processes is the selling-off of marginal mines to smaller companies towards the end of the mine’s life, as part of the closure strategy. this point remains a challenge. there is no legislation that prevents mining companies from doing this. junior mining companies operate over the short term and cannot handle the environmental liability and thus file for bankruptcy, leading to sudden mine closure. the mining charter provides that mines should design and plan their operations so that adequate resources are available for the closure requirements of all operations. section 28(2)(c) of the mprda contemplates that mines should report annually on their compliance with the charter.17 however, where a mine is declared insolvent and subsequently closes, the responsibility is inherited by the state, which then must ensure the continuous rehabilitation of derelict and ownerless mines. technically, the mine escapes liability. in any event, the rehabilitation fund the mine provided is often insufficient for continuous infrastructure management and rehabilitation. at decommissioning and mine closure, mine operations are often left abandoned through care and maintenance orders or liquidation. when a mine is under care and maintenance, it is neither closed nor operational. environmental and human rights activists view such orders as a ‘faux legal term’, referring to indefinitely warehousing a mine instead of spending on rehabilitation.77 in liquidation, the funds recouped are never allocated to environmental rehabilitation. hence, the tsfs are left to impact the surrounding environment negatively. lessons from other countries our recommendations are that south africa should adopt practices that work in other countries. for example, every closure should be viewed as site-specific, with local conditions determining the closure plan and post-mining outcomes.74 the national orphaned/abandoned mines initiates (naomi) project is an example of successful closure planning and mine closure. another example is the eden project in the united kingdom, where a former clay-mining pit was transformed into an environmental tourism attraction and educational charity.81 international experience indicates that mining companies and local communities are equally ill-prepared to deal effectively with mine closure and often fail to generate post-mining economies.12 however, south africa could adopt the proactive approach of chile, which monitors mining activities with secure financial guarantees and warns surrounding communities about mine closure possibilities in advance. the main challenge regarding finances in south africa is the mismanagement of funds by the government, with issues of corruption being reported daily in the country. scarcity of funds is the reason why we have not achieved much in south africa. the implementation of the public–private partnerships, although proposed by both the private sector and government has experienced problems with implementation. this is because of the mishandling of funds by the government and the bureaucratic processes involved when private partners are attempting to access funds for clean up in the custodianship of the government. the process of accessing these funds is cumbersome such that qualified partners trying to rehabilitate and clean up the abandoned mine sites never succeed to access them and thus give up. a mining company might need to self-monitor and set aside extra funds for rehabilitation and manage their concurrent rehabilitation as mine production progresses. moreover, a mining company could use a third party to set aside funds during mining so that should sudden closure occur adequate provision of funds can be sourced. south africa can also learn from the icmm, which in 2010 noticed that mine closure requires the attention of multiple stakeholders. the stakeholders include the government, the global mining industry, the local community and international organisations that are involved in ensuring sustainability in the mining sector. stakeholder involvement is considered good practice internationally. the icmm also allows for community participation in decision making from the early stages of mine development through to mine closure. the icmm practices uphold ongoing maintenance and support of local mine communities even after the mine has closed. both temporary mine closure and post-mine closure frameworks are required to address the impacts of sudden mine closure. there are many lessons to gain from international experience. firstly, mining is unique because of its transitory nature and its deep social and environmental impacts.37 secondly, existing legislation concentrates on the natural or physical aspects of mine closure and on environmental rehabilitation rather than socio-economic rehabilitation.12 this narrow focus on the environment is evident globally, yet certain countries – such as australia and canada – display insight regarding the socio-economic impacts on the surrounding community. thirdly, there is increasing global consensus that planning for mine closure should be part of the overall life-cycle of a mine to pre-empt or reduce its negative socio-economic impact.81,82,83,84,85 fourthly, ensuring a viable economy in the aftermath of mine closure has been realised in a few instances, notably in australia and to a lesser extent in other countries.79 fifthly, mine closure should be addressed through the establishment of appropriate partnerships between local actors, mining houses and government.83,84 finally, the literature on deindustrialisation in developed countries indicates that an overarching response by government is required to assist communities affected by deindustrialisation.86 many reindustrialisation processes have involved local partnerships, some form of national government funding and substantial public sector input.86 conclusion this article has shown that mining companies in south africa are currently able to use devious but legal strategies to evade their costly obligations. the use of the winding-up procedure by the bgmc and mmsa illustrates how a company can prevent the adoption of legislation or investigations pertaining to mine closure. a mining company can be dissolved or cease to exist through winding-up, which renders it unavailable to deal with the legal requirements of closure, community engagement, rehabilitation and financial provisions. these events can adversely impact a company’s investments. the nema ‘polluter pays’ principle is clear, but loopholes exist through other pieces of legislation, including the companies act 61 of 1973 and the companies act 71 of 2008. the situation was demonstrated by the cited case studies. this article also demonstrates how a company – such as mmsa – may gain favour from the state and may be allowed to operate without an issued mining right until liquidation. in the case of mmsa, the mining right was granted but not issued, and the company failed to meet multiple financial and social provisions. despite the lack of a valid mining licence, mmsa continued its operations, amid many documented complaints of environmental contravention by the surrounding communities and ngos. despite parliament recommending prosecution and civil suits for company directors and shareholders in their personal capacities, to recoup some of the costs, the national prosecuting authority has been silent on the matter to date. companies sometimes leverage their power with government to obtain favourable treatment, security and impunity. where corporate interests have ‘captured’ the government or its agents, communities, human rights defenders and other rights holders risk losing fundamental protections and access to justice. in the mmsa case, it appears that the company benefited from the state’s lack of exercise of power or implementation of existing policy. the result was to the detriment of the surrounding communities. in this situation, the company avoided responsibility and liability; indeed, its actions seemed to be condoned by the state through non-enforcement by the dmre. the bgmc and mmsa case studies are classical examples of the use of legal strategies, such as the winding-up process, by mining companies. these manifest in a wide array of actions that obstruct justice, distort the facts and frustrate remedies for the affected communities. hence, although south african mine closure laws appear comparable to the laws of other countries, there are gaps in compliance. it is clear that distressed mining companies are poorly managed, as observed in the cases of mmsa and bgmc. this lack of management and compliance ultimately reflects inadequate implementation by the dmre, as well as the observed gaps in legislation on mining, companies and the environment. insufficient social impact assessment, contingency planning and public participation are evident in the mine closure planning process in south africa. there is no specific mention of sudden mine closure planning in the mprda, the regulations for financial provisioning or the nema. this silence is risky for both the mining communities and the environment. finally, the participation of the community, npos and activists in the regulatory processes is essential. a request to relevant stakeholders and environmental management systems is made through this article, for authorities to strengthen implementation and enforcement of legislation. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge ingrid watson for advisory on the key concepts discussed in the article. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions m.m. and e.a. conceived of the presented idea. m.m. developed the theory and conceptualised the key message. e.a. conceptualised and verified the methods. e.a. and r.m. provided guidance and supervision. r.m. edited the draft and supervised the findings of this work. all authors contributed to the final manuscript. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information the authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references humby tl. one environmental system aligning the laws of the environmental management of mining in sa26 (3). j energy nat resour law. 2015;33(2):110–130. 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mining. resour policy. 2000;26(3):127–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0301-4207(00)00024-6 td journal july 2007.p65 how to make sense of the past – salient issues of metahistory· jörn rüsen 1 abstract:this aerticle provides an overview of current issues in metahistoty. basic categories of historical thinking, such as memory and historical culture, or historical consciousness, are outlined and contextualised in the field of historical studies. the leading question adresses the process of historical sense generation and its fundamental principles and criteria. in respnse to the traumatic historical experiences of crimes against humanitiy in the 20th century two culturally established procedures of sense generation are applied to historical thinking: mourning and forgiving. the author tries to widen the horizon of historical thinking into the dimension of intercultural communication. in the process he responds to the challenge of globilization. there is an accent on the need to pursue new approaches in history. keywords: metahistory, memory, sense generation, historical consciousness, holocaust, trauma, mourning and forgiving, globalisation, intercultural communication. subjects: history, philosophy, cultural studies, communication studies, comparative studies of society. das vergangene ist nicht tot; es ist nicht einmal vergangen. wir trennen es von uns ab und stellen uns fremd. christa wolf2 memory renders the past meaningful. it keeps it alive and makes it an essential part of the cultural orientation of present day life. this orientation includes a future perspective, a direction which moulds all human activities and sufferings. history is an elaborated form of � this text is dedicated to the memory of richard van dülmen (+2005), the colleague who contributed a lot to historical sense generation by his commitment to historical anthropology and as the friend who encouraged me to work in the field of metahistory. 1 prof. jörn rüsen is attached to the institute for advanced studies in the humanities (kwi) in essen germany. he is an extraordinary professor in the vaal triangle faculty at north-west university. 2 c wolf, kindheitsmuster (1976), (frankfurt am main 1989), p. 11 (the past is not dead; it even has not passed away. we separate it from ourselves thereby alienating ourselves.) td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3 no. 1, july 2007, pp. 169-221. 170 memory. it reaches beyond the limits of one’s own life span. it knits the pieces of remembered pasts into a temporal unit open for the future providing the people with an interpretation of temporal change, which they need in order to come to terms with the temporal movement of their lives. this future directedness of memory and history has not yet been intensively thematized and researched. there are different reasons for this. to my mind the most important one is indicated by the coincidence of a loss of confidence in the western concept of progress (at least in the minds of western and westernized intellectuals) and the emergence of the memory discourse in the humanities. yet it is the becoming future which demands a critical review of then hitherto developed concepts of memory and history. the globalization process confronts different traditions with the threat of a ‘clash of civilizations’ due to the role cultural memory and historical thinking have played in the process of forming collective identities. are we already provided with a cultural tool to overcome domination, exclusiveness and unequal evaluation in conceptualizing identity? the unbroken power of ethnocentrism in the encounter of different groups, nations and cultures (even on the level of academic discourse) gives a clear negative answer to this question. there is another radical challenge for a reflected future directedness of memory and history: it is the heavy burden of negative historical experiences such as imperialism, world wars, genocide, mass murder, and other crimes against humanity. this burden presses the process of identity building into a clash and causes a gap between a horrifying past and a future which stands for its contrary. which modes of understanding this past and of working it through can contribute to a shift away from it towards a different future? how can historical identity be liberated from the suffering from a broken string between past and future? the following essay picks up these questions and tries to find answers on the level of metahistory. by doing so it takes the humanities into responsibility for the culture they work about and for the cultural role they play in their time. it thematizes the logic of cultural memory and historical thinking, since the challenges they have to answer reach into the realm of principles where sense criteria and basic modes of interpretation and representation are in concern. first of all two basic concepts of dealing with the past for the sake of the future are discussed: ‘memory’ (i.) and ‘history’ (ii.). the following part is dedicated to those issues of doing history which demand special attendance in the intercultural discourse of today: identity and the problems of ethnocentrism (iii.). the next part analyzes conceptual rüsen 171 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. and methodological tools for intercultural comparison (iv.). furthermore the special challenge of traumatical historical experiences is addressed (v.) and, finally, new modes of historical thinking as answers to this challenge are taken into consideration: mourning and forgiving (vi.) the last part (vii.) gives a short outlook on the practical dimension of intercultural communication. all together, the whole text may serve as a rough outline of the main issues of metahistory in a systematical argumentation. i. historical memory there are different modes of the discourse of history. first of all one can distinguish memory from historical consciousness. this distinction is not very easy since both concepts cover the same field. but they thematize it differently. the discourse on memory3 makes a sharp distinction between the role historical representation plays in the cultural orientation of practical life and the rational procedures of historical thinking by which knowledge of what actually has happened is gained. it emphasizes the force of the past in the human mind mainly in preor nonor irrational procedures of representation. it is interested in disclosing all modes of making or keeping the past present. it is not so much interested in the structural interrelation between memory and expectation,4 thus ignoring the eminent role futuredirected intentions play in representing the past. 3 m halbwachs, the collective memory, (new york 1980); p nora, “between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire”, in representations, 26, 1989, pp. 7-25; j assmann, das kulturelle gedächtnis. schrift, erinnerung und politische identität in frühen hochkulturen, (munich 1992); j assmann, “collective memory and cultural identity”, in new german critique, 65, 1995, pp. 125-133. 4 this interrelationship has been clearly explicated by husserl’s and heidegger’s philosophy of temporality. e husserl, vorlesungen zur phänomenologie des inneren zeitbewußtseins, (ed. martin heidegger. 2nd ed. tübingen 1980); m heidegger, sein und zeit, (tübingen 1984); cf. d carr, time, narrative and history: studies in phenomenolgy and existential philosophy, (bloomington 1986, 2nd ed. 1991); d carr, “time-consciousness and historical consciousness”, kk cho, (ed.), philosophy and science in phenomenological perspective, (dordrecht, boston, lancaster 1984), pp. 31-44. salient issues of metahistory 172 the discourse on historical consciousness5 includes rationality into the sense generating procedures of the human mind. it is especially interested in those forms of representation which give the past the distinctive shape of history. additionally it thematizes the impact of history on the future perspectives of human life. in an abbreviated form one could say that memory presents the past as a moving force of the human mind guided by principles of practical use, whereas historical consciousness represents the past in a more explicit interrelationship with the present, guided by concepts of temporal change and by truth claims; it stresses the temporal distinctiveness of the past as a condition for its relevance for the presence. memory is an immediate relationship between past and present whereas historical consciousness is a mediated one. memory is more related to the realm of imagination, historical consciousness closer to cognition. memory is stuck to the past, historical consciousness opens this relation to the future. these distinctions are necessary, but one-sided. it is much more useful to mediate or even synthesize these two perspectives on presenting and representing the past. 5 k-e jeismann, geschichte als horizont der gegenwart: über den zusammenhang von vergangenheitsdeutung, gegenwartsverständnis und zukunftsperspektive, (paderborn 1985); j rüsen, “the development of narrative competence in historical learning an ontogenetical hypothesis concerning moral consciousness”, in history and memory 1(2), 1989, pp. 35-60; b von borries, h-j pandel, j rüsen (eds): geschichtsbewußtsein empirisch (geschichtsdidaktik, studien, materialien. new series, vol. 7 (pfaffenweiler 1991); m angvik,; b von borries, (eds), youth and history. a comparative european survey on historical consciousness and political attitudes among adolescents. 2 vols. (hamburg 1997); b von borries, “exploring the construction of historical meaning: cross-cultural studies of historical consciousness among adolescents”, in rh lehmann, (ed.), reflections on educational achievement, (münster, new york 1995), pp. 25-49; b von borries, j rüsen, (eds), geschichtsbewußtsein im interkulturellen vergleich, (pfaffenweiler 1994); b von borries, “forschungsprobleme einer theorie des geschichtsbewußtseins: am beispiel einer studie zum empirischen kulturvergleich“, in h-w blanke, f jaeger, t sandkühler, (eds), dimensionen der historik: geschichtstheorie, wissenschaftsgeschichte und geschichtskultur heute. jörn rüsen zum 60. geburtstag, (cologne 1998), pp. 139-152; c kölbl, j straub, “historical consciousness in youth. theoretical and exemplary empirical analyses”, in forum qualitative social research. theories, methods, applications 2(3) september 2001 at (http: //qualitative-research.net/fqs); j rüsen (ed.), geschichtsbewußtsein. psychologische grundlagen, entwicklungskonzepte, empirische befunde: beiträge zur geschichtskultur, vol. 21, (cologne 2001); jwn tempelhoff, “seductive roots to the past: historical consciousness, memory and source mining for contemporary relevance”, in jwn tempelhoff(ed.), historical consciousness and the future of our past (vanderbijlpark 2003), pp. 54-68; c kölbl, geschichtsbewußtsein im jugendalter. grundzüge einer entwicklungspsychologie historischer sinnbildung, (bielfefeld 2004). rüsen 173 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. three levels of memory the memory discourse has brought about a very useful distinction of three different modes of dealing with the past in social life worthwhile to be applied to the issue of historical consciousness as well. 6 1. communicative memory mediates between self-understanding and the experiences of temporal change. in this medium memory is a matter of forming generational differences. it is a field of cultural exchange in which a milieu, as a social unit with floating limits and changing memberships, shapes itself in a special way that lets people feel they belong together and yet are different in the temporal dimension, that is in terms of their lives across different generations. communicative memory is reflected in discussions about the importance of the historical experience of specific events and of special symbols for the representation of a political system. 2. when there is a higher degree of selectiveness of the represented past, communicative memory becomes collective memory. in this form memory gains greater stability and has a more important role to play in cultural life. people committed to the symbolism of collective memory gain a stronger feeling of belonging in a changing world. this is also an important element of social stability for a broad variety of social units, such as parties, civil movements, schools of thought in the academic field, interest groups etc. 3. in time this stability may lead to cultural memory, which represents the core of historical identity. here memory is a matter of rituals and highly institutionalized performances. it has its own media and a fixed place in the cultural life of a group. cultural memory represents the political system as an entire structure and its permanence in the temporal flow of political affairs. these three types of memory represent different levels of selection and institutionalization with co-related levels of permanence and resistance to change. long-term historical processes can be interpreted by using the hypothesis of transforming communicative into collective and collective into cultural memory. every historical memory is changing in the course of time, but while communicative memory is fluid and dependent on current circumstances and collective memory 6 a assmann, u frevert, geschichtsvergessenheit – geschichtsversessenheit. vom umgang mit deutschen vergangenheiten nach 1945, (stuttgart 1999), pp. 35-52. salient issues of metahistory 174 shows first signs of organizational or institutional permanence, cultural memory becomes an institution with a high degree of permanence.7 responsive and constructive memory memory can be differentiated according to different criteria, including the way in which the past is represented. in an ideal typological sense there are two possibilities: responsive or constructive.8 responsive memory is triggered by the intensity of a specific experience that has burned itself into the minds of the people, so to speak. the memory hurts and a quasi-autonomous force is compelling people to react, to interpret and to work through it. this kind of memory becomes imprinted in the mind bringing the past into the present as a powerful and lasting image. one of the most relevant examples of such memory is the holocaust. the dominating concept for analyzing this mode of experience in historical memory is the concept of trauma. in the constructive mode, the remembered past is a matter of a discourse, narration, and an on-going communication. here, memory has moulded the past into a meaningful history and those who remember seem to be masters of their past as they have put memory into a temporal perspective within which they can articulate their expectations, hopes and fears. ii. historical consciousness historical consciousness is a specific form of historical memory. it is rooted in it and, to a great extent, even identical with it, but it is also distidifferentnguished in some important aspects. the specificity of historical consciousness lies in the fact that the temporal perspective, in which the past is related to the present and through the present to the future, is designed in a more complex and elaborate way. especially 7 in other contexts aleida assmann has presented a slightly different typology: (a) individual memory, here one can distinguish between episodic and autobiographical memory; (b) generational memory, (c) collective memory; (d) cultural memory. in respect to individual memory leibgedächtnis (memory of the body) is important. the body is the place for extremely individual experiences (erlebnisse). these very individual experiences cannot be completely integrated into socio-cultural, communicative orders. they always have and keep individual connotations which cannot be abolished by socialization and enculturation. the old sentence: „individuum est ineffable“ is still valid. cf. j straub, “multidisziplinäre gedächtnisforschung revisited: aleida assmanns begriffliche unterscheidungen und theoretische integrationsbemühungen“, in eus, 13, 2002, pp. 26-31. 8 i picked up the ideas of ursula van beek. a similar distinction can be found in a assmann, “erinnerung und authentizität”, in universitas 665(56) (2001), pp. 1127 – 1140. rüsen 175 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. in its modern forms historical consciousness pushes the past away from the present thus giving it the appearance of being something else. this is not being done to make the past meaningless for the present, but – on the contrary – as a means of ascribing the past the special importance of a historical relationship. a historical relationship is determined by a temporal tension between past and present, by a qualitative difference and its dialectics and argumentative-narrative mediation in time. the vital power of memory lies in its keeping alive the past which those who remember have really experienced. the past becomes historical when the mental procedure of going back into time reaches beyond the biographical lifespan, back into the chain of generations. accordingly the future prospects of historical thinking reach far beyond the life expectancy of individuals into the future of coming generations. thus, the historical relation to the past is enriched by an enormous amount of experience. only in this specifically historical kind of memory does the weight and the meaning of historical experience come into view and evaluation. it also changes the ways of meaningfully appropriating the treasures of past experiences. these ways of appropriation become much more complex, since they can employ a big range of narrative strategies. the mental process of historical consciousness can be shortly described as making sense of the experience of time by interpreting the past in order to understand the present and to expect the future. in a more detailed perspective the basic mental procedures involved can be organized somewhat artificially into four: � the perception of ”another” time as different: the fascination of the archaic, the obsolete, the mysterious trace, the insistent memorial, and so on. � the interpretation of this time as temporal movement in the human world, according to some comprehensive aspects(e.g., as evidence of the permanence of certain values, as examples of a general rule, as progress, etc.); � the orientation of human practice by historical interpretation— both ‘outwardly’ as a perspective on action (e.g., as the increase of political legitimacy by political participation, as the restitution of the world before its destruction, as the institution of ‘true’ conditions against the decline of morals) and ‘inwardly,’ as identity conceptions (e.g., ”we are the children of the sun,” or ”we as a nation stand for the universality and fulfillment of human rights,” or ”we belong to the communion of saints,” or ”we represent true spirituality as against materialism of the others”); salient issues of metahistory 176 � and finally the motivation for action that an orientation provides (e.g., a willingness to sacrifice, even die or kill, for the sake of historical conceptions of national greatness, the missionary spirit, etc.). here historical consciousness definitely leads into the future. in the historical culture of the public sphere, collective memory is being overpowered by the torrent of historical images. the forms of consciousness created by literacy—and above all the distancing effects of rationality—can quickly decrease in significance, and especially in political efficacy. the grammar of history is becoming an imagology of presentations in which every era is contemporaneous, and the fundamental idea of a single linear movement of time is disappearing. the constitutive difference of temporality can be suspended into a universal contemporaneity that can no longer be narratively ordered. whether there can then be a specific ‘historical order’ within the orientative temporal continuity between past, present and future has at least become arguable. the very term post-histoire, and the related discussion of a mode of life without genuinely historical interpretation,9 suggest that these questions are now open. at the same time, there 9 cf. l niethammer, posthistoire: has history become to an end? (london 1992). rüsen 177 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. has been an immense increase in empirical access. new storage media allow new modes of historical experience, and radically call into question previous criteria of significance. at the same time, new media of communication such as the internet do not allow isolated, politically sanctioned decision. the abundance of possibilities and the diversity of new voices require new strategies, new forms, and new contents of historically grounded participation and exclusion. in every case, fixed conceptions of the permanence and substance of individual and collective identity are being outstripped by the diversity of global communication, in favor of more dynamic and more open differentiations. this process then provokes reactions, often expressed through these new media, that stubbornly insist on ethnocentric distinctions. history is founded on a specific time experience. it is an answer to a ‘crisis’, which has to be treated by interpretation. the argument reads the other way around as well: if we want to understand a manifestation of historical thinking, we have to look for the crisis, the ‘critical’ time experience, that it meets. crisis constitutes historical consciousness. i do not think, that ‘crisis’ is simply an experience without any meaning. contingency always occurs in the framework of cultural patterns of meaning and significance. but it occurs in such a way that these patterns always have to be mobilized and sometimes even be changed in order to come to terms with the contingent event. i would like to distinguish three types of crises which constitute different modes of historical sense generation. these types are ‘idealtypes’ in the weberian sense, i.e. they are logically clearly distinct, but in historiography and all other modes of historical thinking and sense generation they occur in mixed forms and only in rare cases they can be observed in a ‘pure’ form. 1. a ‘normal’ crisis evokes historical consciousness as a procedure of overcoming it by employing pregiven cultural potentials. the challenging contingency is brought into a narrative within which it makes sense so that human activity can come to terms with it by exhausting the cultural potential of making sense of temporal change. the patterns of significance utilized in such a narrative are not new. in fact, they are a re-arrangement of already developed elements, which are pregiven in historical culture. let me choose the german unification as an example for this mode of coming to terms with a crisis. i would say that a conservative german could use a traditional (exclusive) concept of national history in order to give the challenging experience of the german unification the significance of a ‘normal’ crisis’. in this perspective the unification means a ‘return’ of germany to the path of national salient issues of metahistory 178 development, the paradigm of which was provided by the 19th century. such a concept would irritate germany’s neighbors and complicate the process of the european unification. 2. a ‘critical crisis’ can only be solved if new elements are brought about by substantially transforming the pre-given potentials of historical culture. in this case new patterns of significance in interpreting the past have to be constituted; historical thinking creates and follows new paradigms. in the case of the german unification it could bring about a new idea of national identity which transgresses traditional nationalism into a more open and inclusive one, related to the necessities of the process of european unification. 3. a ‘catastrophic’ crisis destroys the potential of historical consciousness to digest contingency into a sense bearing and meaningful narrative. in this case the basic principles of sense generation themselves, which bring about the coherence of a historical narrative, are challenged or even destroyed.10 they have to be transgressed into a cultural nowhere or even to be given up. therefore it is impossible to give such a crisis a place in the memory of those who had to suffer from it. when it occurs the language of historical sense falls silent. it becomes traumatic. it takes time (sometimes even generations) to find a language which can articulate it. this distinction is, of course, artificial. (as any ideal type it is a methodical means of historical interpretation and as such it is contrasted to the mode of historical thinking active in every-day-life.) without elements of a catastrophe there would be no really challenging crisis; and without elements of normality no catastrophic and critical crisis could even be identified as a specific challenge, not to speak of the possibility of radically changing the perception and interpretation of history. it is exactly this artificial character of my distinction which can render it useful for comparative purposes. all three types of contingency as crisis lead to history, however, they bring about very different kinds of historical interpretation. in the first case, the narrative order integrates the challenging contingent experience. it becomes ‘aufgehoben’ (negated and conserved at the same time) in the hegelian sense of the word. in the second case of 10 a good example of this challenge is saul friedländer’s remark that looking back at the historical experience of the 20th century one has to raise again the question: what is the nature of human nature? s friedländer, “writing the history of the shoa: some major dilemmas”, in h-w blanke, f jaeger, t sandkühler “(eds.), dimensionen der historik..., pp. 407-414, quotation p. 414. rüsen 179 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. ‘critical’ crisis, such an integration is achieved only by changing the narrative order. in the case of trauma, the challenging experience becomes ‘historized’ as well, but the pattern of historical sense is shaped by it in return: it relativates its claim for a coherent narrative order, which ‘covers’ the traumatic event, or it places senselessness into the very core of it. it leaves traces of incomprehensibility in the feature of history brought about by an idea of temporal change, which turns the experience of the past, the practical life activities of the present and the expectation of the future into a unity of time as a sense bearing and meaningful order of human life. it imprints disturbance and rupture into the historical feature of temporal order as an essential cultural means of human life. it marks the limits of sense in treating the experience of time. it furnishes the coherence between experience and interpretation with the signature of ambivalence and ambiguity. the interpretive work of historical consciousness and its product, the cognitive structure called ‘history’ is concretely manifested in a society’s historical culture. historical culture is multidimensional, like every other culture. it has religious, moral, pedagogical, political, and rhetorical expressions; its cognitive substance is always the knowledge of ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’ (how it really was). we can distinguish three basic dimensions of historical culture as an ideal type, each quite different in its logic and thus accountable to different criteria of meaning: � the political dimension, concerned with the legitimation of a certain political order, primarily relations of power. historical consciousness inscribes these, so to speak, into the identity conceptions of political subjects, into the very construction and conception of the i and the we, by means of master narratives that answer the question of identity. there is no political order that does not require historical legitimation. the classic example, applicable to every culture and every epoch, is the genealogy. even the pure rule of law that appeals only to the applicability of formal decision procedures must be historically based if these procedural rules are to be plausible to the participants. charismatic leadership also can not do without historical elements. generally the vehicle of political charisma will refer to the spiritual or natural forces that guarantee the world’s temporal coherence. � the aesthetic dimension, concerned with the psychological effectiveness of historical interpretations, or that part of its content that affects the human senses. a strong historical orientation must always engage the senses. masquerades, salient issues of metahistory 180 dances, and music can all have historical content. many older master narratives are composed in poetic form and are celebrated ritually. a formal defect can destroy the effect of such a presentation, and even endanger the world’s continued coherence. historical knowledge must employ literary models to become discursive. in many cultures, historical narrative occupies a secure place in the literary canon as a separate genre. in modern societies, memorials, museums, and exhibitions are among the familiar repertoire of historical representation. in older kinds of social systems, objects such as relics, tombs, temples and churches obligate the present to the legacy of the past, indeed make the present, in its relationship to the future, responsible for the vitality of historical memory. � the cognitive dimension, concerned with the knowledge of past events significant for the present and its future. without the element of knowledge, the recollection of the past can not effectively be introduced into discourses concerned with the interpretation of current temporal experience. mythical master narratives, too, have a cognitive status, though science would eventually deprive them of it; if they did not, however, they could never have provided ”historical” (in the wider sense) orientations. they can lose their orientative power when confronted with a science of the past that possesses a more elaborated relation to experience. master narratives then become prosaic, as they already did in antiquity, with herodotus and others. iii. identity and ethnocentrism historical memory and historical consciousness have an important cultural function: they form and express identity.11 they delimit the realm of one’s own life – the familiar and comforting aspects of one’s own lifeworld – from the world of others, which usually is an ‚other world’, a strange world as well. historical memory and historical thinking carry out this function of forming identity in a temporal perspective; for it is the temporal change of the humans and their world, their frequent experiences of things turning out different from what has been expected or planned that endangers the identity and 11 j assmann, “collective memory and cultural identity” in new german critique, 65, 1995, pp. 125-133; a megill, “history, memory, identity”, in history of the human sciences, 11, 1998, pp. 37-62; j straub, “identitätstheorie, empirische identitätsforschung und die postmoderne armchair psychology”, in zeitschrift für qualitative bildungs-, beratungsund sozialisationsforschung, 1(1), 2000. rüsen 181 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. familiarity of one’s own world and self. the change calls for a mental effort to keep the world and self familiar or – in cases of extraordinarily disturbing experiences of change – to re-acquire this familiarity. identity is located at the threshold between origin and future, a passage that cannot be left alone to the natural chain of events but has to be intellectually comprehended and achieved. this achievement is produced – by historical consciousness – through individual and collective memory and through recalling the past into the present. this process can be described as a very specific procedure of creating sense. this procedure welds experiences of the past and expectations of the future into the comprehensive image of temporal progression. this temporal concept shapes the human life-world and provides the self (the ‚we’ and ‚i’ of its subjects) with continuity and consistency, with an inner coherence, with a guarantee against the loss of its essential core or with similar images of duration within the changes of subjects. the location of the self, in terms of the territorial reality of living as well as in terms of the mental situation of the self within the cosmos of things and beings, has a temporal dimension. it is only by this dimension of time that the location of the self becomes fixed as the cultural habitat of groups and individuals. in situating themselves, subjects draw borderlines to others and their otherness within the locality and temporality of a common world, in which they meet and differentiate from each other in order to be subjects themselves. such boundaries are normatively determined and always value-laden. in that peculiar synthesis of experiences, which determine action and purposes of what one historically knows of and wishes for oneself can be defined as remembered experience and intended goal at the same time; it is fact and norm, credit and debit, almost undistinguished. this is especially important for the differentiation between self and other, sameness and otherness. in order to survive in one’s own world and with one’s own self, and to find living here and now meaningful and liveable, each one’s own way of life is provided with positive perspectives, values and normative preferences. negative, menacing, disturbing aspects are repressed and pushed away towards the other, where they get exterritorialized and liquidated. it is part of the utility of historical memory and of historical thinking’s intentional approach to the past that whatever counts as belonging to one’s own time and world order and legitimizes one’s self-understanding is subject to a positive evaluation; thus it is in this way generally accepted as good. in this way negative aspects of the experience of time in relation to the world and to oneself are eclipsed from one’s own world and from the inner space of one’s own self; they are pushed away to the periphery and kept in distance. the identity building difference between self and other is working in each memory, and any effort to remember in itself an asymmetrical normative relation. ethnocentrism (in all its salient issues of metahistory 182 12 i use the word in a more general sense, not in its strict anthropological meaning where it is related to an identity focused on the social unit of a tribe. 13 cf. e neumann, tiefenpsychologie und neue ethik, (frankfurt am main 1985), p. 38ff. an excellent description of this ethnocentric attitude, based on broad scale ethnographic evidence, is given by ke müller, das magische universum der identität: elementarformen sozialen verhaltens. ein ethnologischer grundriß, (frankfurt am main 1987); ke müller, “ethnicity, ethnozentrismus und essentialismus”, in eßbach, wolfgang (ed.): wir – ihr – sie: identität und alterität in theorie und methode, (würzburg 2000), pp. 317-343. different forms) is quasi-naturally inherent in human identity. this asymmetrical relationship between self and other, between sameness and otherness, makes historical memory controversial and open for conflicts. just as the stressing of one’s own group-identity will be met with consent by its members, it will be denied by those beyond the border-lines who do not recognize themselves in these time-tableaux let alone consent to them. degrees and ways of such an asymmetry vary enormously; their general quality is that of tension, i.e. they are always on the brink of a bellum omnia contra omnes among those who exclude each other in constituting their own selves. of course, all parties usually have a common interest in preventing an outbreak of this tension. therefore they seek and develop ways of intraand intercultural communication in order to tame, civilize or even overcome the ethnocentric asymmetry. ethnocentrism12 is a wide-spread cultural strategy to realize collective identity by distinguishing one’s own people from others. it simply means a distinction between the realm of one’s own life as a familiar one from the realm of the lives of the others, which is substantially different. the logic of this distinction can be summarized in a threefold way. it consists of: a) an asymmetrical distribution of positive and negative values in the different realms of oneself and in the otherness of the others, b) a teleological continuity of the identity-forming value system and c) a monocentric spatial organization for one’s own life form in its temporal perspectivity. a) concerning its guiding value-system ethnocentric historical thinking is based on an unbalanced relationship between good and evil. as i have already pointed out, positive values shape the historical image of oneself and negative ones the image of the others. we tend to attribute mainly positive values to ourselves and the contrary is true for the otherness of the others. otherness is a negative reflection of ourselves. we even need this otherness to legitimate our self-esteem.13 i want to rüsen 183 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. give you a pointed example from the level of daily life, which comes from the context of the irish-british struggle in northern ireland. it is the drawing of a pupil of eleven presenting his protestant identity as being sharply distinguished from the irish one. figure 1: george’s drawing, showing the separation of the british and irish realms in belfast, north ireland (ulster); on the left the protestant side with nice houses, nice children, a big british flag; on the right the catholic side barely drawn shabby huts, little monsters, a carelessly drawn irish flag without pole.14 on the higher level of sophisticated historical discourse of today we can observe a new mode of ethnocentric argumentation, which seems to have given up its internal violence and aggression to others: it is 14 r coles, “the political life of children” in the atlantic monthly press, 1986, figure 3.“in george’s picture the shankill is a place besieged by the dregs of society. catholics are messy, scattered, ratlike. protestants are stoic, clean, neatly arranged. armageddon [the end of the world] would appear to be the razed, rubble-strewn noman’s-land between any protestant part of belfast and its nearest catholic centre of population. a high red-brick wall should separate all such neighbourhoods, the child insists – and does so with a red crayon“ (coles’ description p. 86). salient issues of metahistory 184 the wide-spread strategy of self-victimization. being a victim makes oneself innocent; and vis-à-vis the permanent suffering in historical experience guilt and responsibility for this suffering is put into the concept of otherness. b) teleological continuity is the dominant concept of time. it rules the idea of history in master narratives. traditionally the historical development from the origins of one’s own life form through the changes of time to the present-day situation and its outlook into the future is a temporally extended version of all those elements of this special life form. they constitute the mental togetherness of the people. in the traditional way of master narratives the identity-formation value system is represented in the form of an archetypical origin.15 history is committed to this origin, and its validity furnishes the past with historical meaning and sense. history has an aim, which is the moving force of its development from the very beginning. this origin is always a specific one, it is the origin of one’s own people. otherness is either related to different origins or to an aberration from the straight way of one’s own development guided by the validity of the original life form. c) the spatial equivalent to this temporal perspective is a monocentric world. one’s own people live in the centre of the world, and otherness is situated and placed at the margins. 16 the longer the distance from the centre, the more negative is the image of otherness. at the margins of one’s own world there live the monsters. there is an astonishing similarity in western and chinese drawings, executed independent of each other: 15 an interesting example of the importance of origins in academic historical writing gives c petrescu, “who was the first in transylvania: on the origins of the romanian-hungarian controversy over minority rights”, in romanian political science review, 3(4), 2003, pp. 1119-1148. 16 masayuki sato gives illustrating examples of cartography in “imagined peripheries: the world and its peoples in japanese cartographic imagination”, in diogenes 173, 44/1, 1996, pp. 119-145, esp. p. 132ff. rüsen 185 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. figure 2 european idea of the chinese in medieval time; below chinese idea of the europeans.17 17 z vasizek, l’archéologie, l’histoire, le passé. chapitres sur la présentation, l’èpistemologie et l’ontologie du temps perdu (sceaux 1994), p. 116. salient issues of metahistory 186 figure 3. european and chinese presentation of otherness in early modern history. – the strangers are monstrous, they are misshaped and lack the look of humans. i have presented the three main strategies of ethnocentric master narratives in a very schematic way. its concrete realization is brought about in a broad variety and multitude of different historical cultures and their developments and changes. it is necessary to look through hartmann schedel: weltchronik. 1493 wu jen-ch’en: shanhai-ching kuang-chu. 1667 rüsen 187 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. this variety and identify the underlying anthropologically universal rules of identity formation. only if the specific logic of identity-formation by historical thinking is clearly stated, we can identify its power in many manifestations and efforts of the historical culture of today including the academic discourses of professional historians. the general logical structure should be understood as an ‘ideal-type” of historical consciousness as a cultural medium of identity-building which can be identified in all cultures and all times. it has also determined the historical consciousness in europe up to our times. identity-building along the lines of this cultural strategy of ethnocentrism inevitably leads to a clash of different collective identities. this clash is grounded on the simple fact that the others do not accept our devaluation of them; on the contrary, they put the blame of their negative values on us. here we see this deeply rooted and widely realized strategy of togetherness and separation from others, or to say it shortly: of identity building. it is the tensional impact in its relationship between the two fundamental realms of togetherness and difference, of selfness and otherness. the clash is logically inbuilt in this cultural strategy itself. the last word in the cultural relationship between different communities guided by ethnocentrism will be struggle, even war in the sense of thomas hobbes’ description of the natural stage of social life (bellum omnium contra omnes). corresponding to these three principles of ethnocentrism there are three principles of overcoming ethnocentrism: a) instead of the unequal evaluation the identity forming value system should include the principle of equality going across the difference between self and others. then the difference itself may lose its normatively dividing forces. but equality is an abstraction going beyond the essential issue of identity: there is a difference of engraved historical experiences and obligatory value systems. if one applies the principle of equality to identity formation and, at the same time, keeps up the necessity of making difference, the logical result will be the principle of mutual recognition of differences. mutuality realizes equality, and in this form equality gets the form of a balanced interrelationship. if we attribute a normative quality to this interrelationship (which is necessary since the issue of identity is a matter of constituting values) we transfer it to the principle of recognition. in order to introduce this principle it is necessary to break the power of self-esteem and its shadow of devaluating the otherness of the others. this demands another strategy of historical thinking: the necessity of integrating negative historical experiences into the master narrative of one’s own group. thus the self-image of the people in concern becomes salient issues of metahistory 188 ambivalent, and this enables them to recognize otherness. a short look at the topical historical culture in europe will provide a lot of examples. the catastrophic events of the 20th century are a challenge to raise this ambivalence in the historical self awareness of the europeans. such an integration of negative, even disastrous and deeply hurting experiences into one’s own identity causes a new awareness of the elements of loss18 and trauma in historical thinking. new modes of dealing with these experiences, of working them through, become necessary. mourning19 and forgiving20 could be such cultural strategies in overcoming ethnocentrism. b) in respect to the principle of teleological continuation the alternative is an idea of historical development, which is conceptualized as a reconstruction of a temporal chain of conditions of possibility. this kind of historical thinking is a gain in historicity: one definitely looks back into the past and not forward from an archaic origin to the present. instead, the present life-situation and its future perspective are turned back to the past in order to get knowledge about the pre-conditions for this present-day life situation and its intended change into the future. such a way of historical thinking strengthens elements of 18 cf. fr ankersmit, “the sublime dissociation of the past: or how to be(come) what one is no longer”, in history and theory, 40, 2001, pp. 295-323; s friedländer, “trauma, memory, and transference” in gh hartman(ed.), holocaust remembrance: the shapes of memory, (oxford, cambridge 1994), pp. 252-263; b giesen, “national identity as trauma: the german case” in b strath (ed.), myth and memory in the construction of community: historical patterns in europe and beyond, (brussels 2000), pp. 227-247; d lacapra, history, theory, trauma: representing the holocaust, (ithaca 1994); d lacapra, writing history, writing trauma (baltimore 2001); ms roth, the ironist’s cage. memory, trauma, and the construction of history, (new york 1995). 19 cf. b liebsch, j rüsen (eds), trauer und geschichte. (beiträge zur geschichtskultur, vol. 22, (cologne 2001); j rüsen, “historical thinking as trauerarbeit. burckhardt’s answer to question of our time” in a cesana,l gossman, (eds), begegnungen mit jacob burckhardt (1818-1897). beiträge zu jacob burckhardt, vol. 4, (basel 2004); d la capra, “revisiting the historians’ debate: mourning and genocide” in na gulie (ed.), “passing into history: nazism and the holocaust beyond memory. in honour of saul friedländer on his 65th birthday”, history and memory 9(1-2), 1997, pp. 80-112; j winter, sights of memory, sights of mourning: the great war in european cultural history, (cambridge 1995). 20 e mozes kor, “echoes from auschwitz: my journey to healing” in kulturwissenschaftliches institut: jahrbuch 2002/03, pp. 262-270; p ricoeur, das rätsel der vergangenheit. erinnern vergessen verzeihen (essener kulturwissenschaftliche vorträge, vol. 2), (göttingen 1998); p ricoeur, gedächtnis, geschichte, vergessen, (munich 2004), pp. 699ff: „schwierige vergebung“. rüsen 189 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. contingency, rupture and discontinuity in historical experience. thus the ambivalence and ambiguity of the identity forming value system in the realm of historical experience can be met. under the guidance of such a concept of history the past loses its quality of inevitability. things may have been different, and there has been no necessity in the actual development. if one applies this logic to the european historical identity, a remarkable change will take place: one has to give up the idea that present-day europe and the topical unification process are an inevitable consequence from the very beginning since antiquity. instead: europe has not only changed its spatial dimensions, but its cultural definition as well. its history becomes more open for alternatives; and this kind of historical awareness opens up a broader future perspective and gives space for a higher degree of freedom in the interrelationship between future and past, which belongs to the historical feature of identity. c) in respect to the spatial monoperspectivity the non-ethnocentric alternative is multiperspectivity and polycentrism. in the case of europe this multiperspectivity and polycentrism is evident: each nation and even many regions have their own perspective representing the past; and europe has many capitals. instead of one single centre europe has a network of communicating places. but multiperspectivity and the multitude of voices raise a problem. what about the unity of history? is there only a variety, diversity and multitude and nothing comprehensive? the traditional master narratives of all civilizations contain a universalistic perspective; and for a long time the west has been committed to such a comprehensive ‘universal history as well’. do we have to give up this historical universalism in favour of a diverse multiculturalism? many postmodernist historians and philosophers are convinced that this is inevitable. but such multiculturalism is only plausible, if comprehensive truths claims are given up. so the consequence would be a general relativism. but this relativism would open the door for an unrestricted ‘clash of civilizations’. if there is no possibility of integration and agreement upon a comprehensive perspective, which may mediate and synthesize cultural differences, the last word concerning the relationship between the different perspectives is pluralism and competition. under certain conditions this would lead to struggle and mental war. since it is impossible to step out of one’s own cultural context and to gain a standpoint beyond the diversity of cultural traditions what can be done about these multitudes? we have to find principles, which may mediate and even synthesize the different perspectives. in the salient issues of metahistory 190 academic discourses such universalistic elements are truth claims of historical cognition, which stem from the methodical rationality of historical thinking and which are valid across cultural differences. (this is at least true for source critique; but even for the higher level of historical interpretation one can find universalistic principles, which every historian is committed to: logical coherence, relatedness to experience, openness for argumentation etc.) but these principles are not sufficient to solve the problem of multiperspectivity and multiculturalism. i think that the solution will be a principle of humankind, which includes the value of equality, and can lead to the general rule of mutual recognition of differences. every culture and tradition has to be checked whether and how it has contributed to the validity of this rule and whether it can serve as a potential of tradition to inspire the topical discourses of professional historians in intercultural communication. how can this non-ethnocentric way of historical sense generation be applied to the topical discourses of historical studies? the first application is a reflection about the mode or logic of historical sense generation in historical studies. we need a growing awareness of the presupposed or underlying sense criteria of historical thinking. philosophy of history or theory of history should become an integral part of the work of historians. only if this is the case, it is possible to consider the power of ethnocentric thinking and the effectiveness of some of its principles. this reflection should lead to a fundamental criticism on the level of the logic of historical thinking. using a concept of culture or civilization should always be accompanied by a reflection whether this concept stems from the tradition of spengler and toynbee, because it defines its subject matter in an exclusive way. such a higher level of reflexivity will enable the historians to observe themselves whether they directly or indirectly thematize otherness while presenting the history of their own people. within such new states of awareness one has to check the extent of recognition or at least the willingness to give the others a voice of their own. this consequently leads to a new critical attempt in the history of historiography. since every historiographical work is committed to a tradition, it is necessary to check this tradition in respect to those elements, within which the historians can achieve recognition of otherness. in this respect the hermeneutic tradition of understanding is very important. to what degree the established methods of historical interpretation allow the idea of a multitude of cultures and their crossing over the strong division between selfness and otherness. there is one interpretative practice of historical thinking, which comes rüsen 191 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. close to the achievement of recognition. the historians should explicate and reflect their own historical perspectives and concepts of interpretation. in a systematic way they should confront the perspectives and concepts of interpretation, which are a part of those traditions and cultures they are dealing with. this mutual checking is more than a comparison: it introduces elements of methodically rationalized empathy into the work of the historians, and empathy is a necessary condition for recognition. iv comparison ideas of a frame of reference one of the most important fields of applying a non-ethnocentric way of historical thinking to historical studies is intercultural comparison. here cultural difference is at stake as a logical impact of every concept of historical identity. in order to pursue non-ethnocentric way of treating cultural differences the parameters of comparison have to be explicated and reflected at first. very often the topical settings of one’s own culture serve as such a parameter; and this, of course, is already an ethnocentric approach to otherness. therefore it is necessary to start from anthropological universals valid in all cultures whence to proceed by constructing ideal types on a rather abstract level, where these universals can be concretized. cultural peculiarity should be interpreted with the help of these ideal types. they can plausibly explain why cultural difference is not rooted in essential characteristics unique only to one culture. cultural particularity is an issue of a composition of different elements, each, or at least most of which can be found in other cultures as well. thus the specifics of cultures are brought about by different constellations of the same elements. the theoretical approach to cultural difference, guided by this idea of cultural specifics, does not fall into the trap of ethnocentrism. on the contrary, it presents the otherness of different cultures as a mirror, which enables us to come to a better self-understanding. it does not exclude the otherness which constitutes the peculiarity of our own cultural features, but includes it. cultural specifics bring about an interrelationship of cultures that enable the people to come to terms with differences by providing them with the cultural power of recognition and acknowledgement.21 21 cf. j rüsen, “some theoretical approaches to intercultural comparison of historiography” in history and theory, theme issue 35: chinese historiography in comparative perspective, 1996, pp. 5-22. salient issues of metahistory 192 in addition to these theoretical and methodical strategies of overcoming ethnocentrism, we need a practical one as well. professional historians are able to discuss their issues across cultural differences. however, as soon as these issues touch their own identity the academic discourse acquires a new quality. it requires a sharpened awareness and a highly developed sensitivity for the entanglement of historical studies in the politics of identity, in the struggle for recognition among peoples, nations and civilizations or cultures. the so-called scientific character of academic discourses can be characterized by its principal distance to issues of practical life. this distance enables professional historians to produce solid knowledge with inbuilt criteria of plausibility. at the very moment when identity issues enter the academic discourse this distance becomes problematic.22 nobody can be neutral when one’s own identity is in question. identity is commitment. but this commitment can be pursued in different ways. there is one way, which establishes an equivalent to distance and to truth claims: the way of arguing. bringing the issue of identity into an argumentative discourse will open up the historians’ fundamental involvement in their historical identity. it may allow an the awareness that the others are related to their own historical identity as well and that there is a chance of mutual recognition. in order to realize this recognition we need pragmatics of intercultural communication, in which the mode and the rules of such an argumentation about identities are reflected, explicated, discussed and applied to the ongoing communicative process. this is what we all should do, and doing so we will realize an enrichment in our own historical identity by recognizing the others. in general, there is a need for a careful conceptualisation when historical culture is schematized in a comparative perspective, with a special emphasis on fundamental cultural differences. to find out what is specific in a culture or civilization requires a reflected perspective. first of all it needs an organizing parameter. before looking at the materials (texts, oral traditions, images, rituals, ceremonies, monuments, memorials, everyday day life procedures etc.) one has to know what realm of things should be taken into consideration and in what respect the findings in this realm should be compared. this simple starting point entails a very complex way of answering it. intercultural comparison of cultural issues is a very sensitive matter it touches the field of cultural identity. therefore it involves the 22 cf. j rüsen, “introduction: historical thinking as intercultural discourse” in j rüsen(ed.), western historical thinking. an intercultural debate, (new york 2002), pp. 1-14. rüsen 193 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. struggle for power and domination between different countries, especially in respect of western dominance and non-western resistance on practically all levels of intercultural relationship. nevertheless, it is not only the political struggle for power which renders the field of historical culture in intercultural comparison problematic. beyond politics there is an epistemological difficulty with enormous conceptual and methodological consequences for the humanities.23 each comparison needs to be done in the context of a pre-given culture, so it is involved in the subject matter of the comparison itself. looking at historical memory in other cultures with a historical interest is normally done by a concept of memory, pre-given by the cultural background of the scholar. they know what memory and history is about, and therefore they have no urgent reason to reflect or explicate it theoretically. this pre-given knowledge functions as a hidden parameter, as a norm, or, at least, as a unit of structuring the outlook on the variety of phenomena in different places and times. non-awareness is the problem. in a comparison a single case of historical culture has an unreflected meta-status, and it is therefore more than only a matter of comparison, that pre-shapes its results. the ‘real’ or the essentially ‘historical’ mode of representing the past naturally can only be found in this pre-given paradigm, from which the other modes get their meaning, significance and importance. comparison here is actually measuring the proximity or distance from the pre-supposed norm. in most cases this norm is the mode of one’s own historical culture, of course. in other rarer cases the scholars may use projections of alternatives into other cultures in order to criticize their own point of view; but even in this case they never get a substantial insight into the peculiarities and the similarities of different modes of historical memory and historiography. there is no chance of avoiding the clashes between involvement and interest concerning the historical identity of the people whose historical culture must and should be compared. this involvement and interest have to be systematically taken into consideration; they must be reflected, explicated and discussed. there is, at least, one way of doing so. it opens a chance for comprehensive insights and cognition and for a potential agreement and consensus among those who feel committed to, or, at least, related to the different cultures in concern. it is theory, i.e. a certain way of reflecting and explicating the concepts 23 cf. j rüsen, “some theoretical approaches to intercultural comparison of historiography” in history and theory, theme issue 35: chinese historiography in comparative perspective, 1996, pp. 5-22 (also in j rüsen, history: narration – interpretation – orientation, (new york 2005); idem: “comparing cultures in intercultural communication” in e fuchs, b stuchtey (eds), across cultural borders: historiography in global perspective, (lanham 2002), pp. 335-347. salient issues of metahistory 194 and strategies of comparison. only by theoretically explicit reflection the standards of comparison can be treated in a way that prevents any hidden cultural imperialism or misleading perspective; at least, it may be corrected. the idea of cultures as being pre-given units and entities is committed to a cultural logic which constitutes identity on the fundamental difference between inside and outside. such a logic conceptualizes identity as a mental territory with clear borderlines and a corresponding relationship between selfand otherness as being strictly divided and only externally interrelated. this logic is essentially ethnocentric, and ethnocentrism is inscribed into a typology of cultural differences which treats cultures as coherent units which can clearly be separated from one other. i would like to propose a method of using theoretical conceptualization which avoids this ethnocentrism. ethnocentrism is theoretically dissolved if the specifics of a culture are understood as a combination of elements which are shared by all other cultures. thus the specifics of cultures are brought about by different constellations of the same elements. the theoretical approach to cultural differences, guided by the idea of cultural specifics, does not fall into the trap of ethnocentrism. on the contrary: a) it presents the otherness of different cultures as a mirror, which allows a better self-understanding; b) it does not exclude otherness when the peculiarity of one single culture is conceptualized; and c) it brings about a balanced interrelationship of cultures. the people who have to deal with their differences from others become empowered with recognition and acknowledgement. so, intercultural comparison has to start from some general and fundamental principles inherent in all forms of historical thinking. in order to identify and explicate such principles one has to look at a level of historical discourse which can be described as ‘metahistorical’. it reflects history and its various modes of dealing with the past; it is not only a mode of dealing but a theory about the past. its main issue are the sense-criteria, used to give the past its specific historical meaning and significance for the present; additionally, the constitutive role of needs and interests in dealing with the past and the function of remembering in orienting human activity and of forming all kinds of identity are of constitutive importance in this field.24 the specific logic of historical thinking cannot be explicated without systematically taking into account its constitution and function in 24 cf. j rüsen, history: narration – interpretation – orientation, mainly chapter 8: “loosening the order of history: modernity, postmodernity, memory”. rüsen 195 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. practical human life since it is constituted by its relationship to the cultural needs of human activities. it is one of the most important merits of the topical discussion on historical memory to illuminate this point. historical thinking takes place in the realm of memory. it is committed to its mental procedures by which the recalling and representation of the past are dedicated to the cultural orientation of human life in the present. recalling the past is a necessary condition of furnishing human life with a cultural frame of orientation, which opens up a future perspective, grounded on the experience of the past. the explication of the logic of historical thinking can be done in the form of a scheme, which explicates five principles of historical thinking and their systematical relationship.25 the five principles are: � interests in cognition generated out of needs for orientation in the temporal change of the present world; � concepts of significance and perspectives of temporal change, within which the past gets its specific feature as ‘history’; � rules or methods (in a broad sense of the word) of treating the experience of the past; � forms of representation, in which the experience of the past, brought about by interpretation into the concepts of significance, is presented in the form of a narrative; � functions of cultural orientation in the form of a temporal direction of human activities and concepts of historical identity. each of these five factors is necessary. all of them together are sufficient in constituting historical thinking as a rationally elaborated form of historical memory. (it may be useful to underline that not every memory in itself is already a historical one. ‘historical’ indicates a certain element of temporal distance between past and present, which makes a complex mediation of both necessary.) the five factors may change in the course of time, i.e. in the development of historical thinking in general and historical studies in specific, but their relationship, the systematical order, in which they are dependent on each other, will remain the same. in this systematical relationship all of them depend on one main and fundamental principle, giving their relationship its coherence and characteristics, which historical thinking displays in the variety of historical change and development. this main and fundamental principle is the sense-criterion, which governs the relationship between past and present within which the past gets its 25 for further details see j rüsen, “historisches erzählen” in id., zerbrechende zeit. über den sinn der geschichte (cologne 2001), pp. 43-105, esp. pp. 62ff.; id.: history: narration – interpretation – orientation, (new york 2005). salient issues of metahistory 196 significance as ‘history’. history and memory share this criterion despite their difference in representing the past. during most of the periods of its development in modern times historical studies mainly reflected their own cognitive dimension on the level of metahistory. it was eager to legitimate its ‘scientific’ status and its claims for truth and objectivity thus participating in the cultural prestige of ‘science’ as the most convincing form, in which knowledge and cognition can serve human life. this has been done in a broad variety of different conceptualizations of this ‘scientific character’. in most of these manifestations historical studies claimed for a certain epistemological and methodological autonomy in the field of the academic disciplines. doing so, it remained aware of some noncognitive elements still valid and influential in the work of historical studies, mainly in history writing. but only after the linguistic turn these elements and factors were considered to be as important as the cognitive ones. the memory discourse has confirmed and strengthened the importance of these factors. this can be made plausible in the proposed structure of the five factors of historical thinking in general (and historical studies in particular), if one looks at specific relationships among them:26 1. in the relationship between interest and concepts historical thinking takes place as a fundamental semantic discourse of symbolizing time which lays the ground for historical thinking. time is related it to human activity and suffering in a meaningful and sense bearing way. in this realm of the human mind fundamental criteria of meaning and sense of history are decided upon. 2. in the relationship between concepts and methods historical thinking is mainly committed to a cognitive strategy of producing historical knowledge brought about by the historians. (this strategy constitutes the ‘scientific’ character of historical studies under certain conditions of modernity. it subjugates the discourse of history under the rules of methodical argumentation, conceptual language, control by experience and gaining consent and agreement by rational means. in the case of historical memory ‘method’ is something essentially different. it is the way to give memory an empirical appearance; it moulds the experience of the past into an image which serves the needs of temporal orientation in the present. this can be done more or less intentionally. but in any case it is brought about by a mental 26 i have to thank achim mittag for a stimulating suggestion to complete my concept of this interrelationship. rüsen 197 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. activity of dealing with the remembered past. on the level of a clear intentional activity one can e.g. point to political ‘methods’, to shape collective memory in such a way that it serves as a legitimation of the political system. 3. in the relationship between methods and forms an aesthetic strategy of historical representation takes place. historical knowledge is shaped. the historians produce literature (historiography) and images (e.g. in the case of an historical exhibition). by doing so they refer to established ways of bringing the past back to life in the minds of the people. in its form historical knowledge becomes an element of cultural communication on the temporal dimension of human life. knowledge of the past adopts the features of present-day life and is furnished with its forces to move the human mind. 4. this communication is initiated within the interaction between the forms of representation and the functions of cultural orientation. here historical thinking is ruled by a rhetorical strategy of providing cultural orientation. 5. finally, in the relationship between interests and functions historical studies is committed to a political discourse of collective memory. it makes the representation of the past a part of the struggle of power and recognition. here historical thinking works as a necessary means of legitimazing or de-legitimazing all forms of domination and government. taking all the strategies together, historical thinking can be made visible as a complex synthesis of dealing with the past in five different dimensions: semantics, cognition, aesthetics, rhetoric, and politics. this synthesis stands for memory and history in general as an integral part of culture. the proposed scheme of the constitutive factors of historical thinking demonstrates its complexity. on the one hand, it is influenced by practical life and relates to it; on the other hand it has its own realm of knowledge about the past. in the case of historical studies this knowledge can reach beyond the practical purposes of life orientation. the scheme makes plausible why memory is changing in the course of time und history has always been rewritten according to the changes in interests and functions of historical knowledge in human life. it also shows why, at the same time, a development, even a progress in the cognitive strategy of getting knowledge about the past is possible. as every scheme illuminates complex phenomena and, at the same time, takes parts in them beyond our awareness it should be shortly indicated that there are elements in dealing historically with the past, which are not addressed by the proposed system of principles. so e.g. salient issues of metahistory 198 in the realm of constitutive interests there is already an experience of the past. it is substantially different from the experience methodically treated in the realm of elaborated historical thinking. the past is already present when historical thinking starts with questions, initiated by needs for and interests in historical memory. it plays an important role in shaping these interests and needs themseves. this is the case in very different forms: as an effective tradition, as a fascination of alterity, as a traumatic pressure and even as forgetfulness, which, nevertheless, keeps the past alive by suppressing it. starting from this general theory of historical sense-generation one can develop parameters of comparison which avoid ethnocentric biases. the following items only have an illustrative function. it depends upon rüsen 199 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. the materials to be compared to decide which item is useful, which can be omitted, and which has still to be developed.27 concerning the principle of interests one has to look for needs for orientation and perspectives in which self and society may be seen in an overall meaningful order. such an interest can be: a ‘natural’ interest in the continuation of cultural orientations; a ‘natural’ intention of the human heart and soul, a need for legitimation of certain forms of life, of certain ‘belief systems’ of political power, of social inequality, an interest in discontinuity, criticism, distinction etc. in order to understand these interests and needs one can ask for challenges that arouse historical consciousness. normally, the historical mind is basically negatively constituted, i.e. it is affected by experiences of ruptures, loss, and disorder, by experiences of structural defects and dissonances, by experiences of suffering, disaster, misfortune, domination, suppression, or by experiences of specific or accidental challenges, of arbitrary occurrences and casual events. here the horror of contingency takes place, a horror which has got the specific feature of a historical trauma in contemporary history. other challenges can be the fascination with the past or experiences of encountering the other. concerning the principle of concepts and patterns of interpretation, one has to look for sense criteria and guiding views on the past by which the human affairs in the past are transformed into history, i.e. the remembered past acquires a meaning. of highest importance are basic resources of sense and meaning (so called ‘belief systems’). they decide about the ability of integrating the ‘negative sense’ and the experiences of encountering the other. they define zones of sense and meaning and the limits of the extent of senselessness. they specify what is regarded as historical and what is subjected to historization. the whole field of the semantics of historical sense generation has to be taken into account: fundamental notions and concepts. they generate types of historical sense and meaning (like nietzsche’s distinction between a monumental, antiquarian, and critical mode;28 rüsen’s typology of traditional, exemplary, critical, and genetic historical sense generation29 ; hayden white’s tropes of metaphor 27 the following list has been worked out in close cooperation with horst walter blanke and achim mittag in their research project on comparing western and chinese historical thinking, funded by the volkswagen foundation. 28 f nietzsche, on the advantage and disadvantage of history for life, (translated p. preuss. indianapolis 1980). 29 j rüsen, “historical narration: foundation, types, reason” in history and theory, special issue 26: the representation of historical events, 1987, pp. 87-97; id.: “the development of narrative competence in historical learning an ontogenetical hypothesis concerning moral consciousness” in history and memory 1(2), 1989, pp. 35-60. both are also in rüsen, jörn: history: narration – interpretation – orientation. (new york 2005). salient issues of metahistory 200 metonymy synecdoche – irony which constitute the meaning of a historical representation30 ). of special interest are topoi of historical narration and modes of argumentation (like spontaneous and unsystematical, immanent (not reflective), and systematical (e.g. in the form of a philosophy of history). time-concepts31 play a categorical role in interrelating the past, present, and future. concerning the principle of procedures of interpretation, one has to look for mental operations, criteria of plausibility, rules of empirical research, modes of discourse (like monological or dialogical), types of rationality and argumentation, especially in the form of methods. concerning the principle of forms of representation one has to look at the aesthetic dimension of historical narrations, the media, forms of language and expression, differentiations of narrativity (e.g. narrative and non-narrative elements in historical representations). concerning the principle of functions one has to look at the role historical representations play in the cultural orientation of human life. in which way are the people empowered to come to terms with permanence and change? how does it refer to the legitimacy of political power? how does it address the intention of human action? historical thinking is a necessary means to build, formulate and express one’s identity. so special attendance should be plaid to this basic element of human culture, to the self-awareness of one’s own identity by encountering the other, to the range of collective identity as defining historical space, and to the relationship between universal and regional perspectives there are still some items of comparison which lie beyond the field which is disclosed by the matrix of historical thinking. they are related to the context within which historical thinking takes place. so i would like to mention some factors of this context which influence or even determine the way history is brought about within the framework of its specific logic (as it is explicated by the matrix): types of conduct that presuppose some sort of historical sense-making, especially so those which are related to the cultural memory, cultural practices of narrating, and the whole social network within which the historical discourse takes place. all these above-mentioned items are just a collection within the abstract 30 h white, metahistory. the historical imagination in 19th-century europe, (baltimore 1973). 31 cf. j rüsen, jörn, “making sense of time – towards an universal typology of conceptual foundations of historical consciousness”, in taida lishi xuebao 29 2002, pp. 189-205; also in: c-c huang, jb henderson (eds): notions of time in chinese historical thinking,(hong kong, 2006), pp. 3-18. rüsen 201 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. systematic order of the matrix (and outside). they indicate what should be asked for and taken into account in intercultural comparison. intercultural communication in the field of historical culture presupposes comparison, but goes a further step ahead: it brings the compared units into the movement of a discourse. this discourse is difficult because there are no established rules for it. and since it touches the issue of cultural identity it is loaded with all problems of ethnocentrism and the urge of overcoming it. even when the interpretative achievements of historical consciousness are being brought about in the academic form of historical studies the formative power of the normative factors of historical identity remain prevalent. even a historiography based on methodologically controlled research is determined by the political and social life of their time and by the expectations and dispositions of their audiences. academic historiography is ascribed to a historical culture, in which the self and the others are treated differently and evaluated as normative points of view. thus, in this context as well, the questions remain if and how the difference between and the differentiation of forms of belonging, which generally determine and socially organise human life, can be approached; and how the conflictory dimension of ethnocentric sensemaking can be tamed and overcome. the answers to these questions may be very diverse: academically historical studies are obliged to enforce an intersubjective validity of their interpretative transformation of the past into a historical construction of belonging and difference. here ‘intersubjective’ validity also includes the principle that others can agree as much as the members of one’s own group. however, such an agreement would not abolish the difference between the respective forms of belonging nor the particular identity of those affected by the respective histories. differences and identities, which (on the contrary) are to be articulated and coined by this appeal to the past. so the academic truth claims ultimately depend upon the very ways in which the procedures of ‘creating sense’ in the framework of methodologically controlled research are regulated. today, the quest for such a regulation is becoming increasingly important. for today not only mere historical differences within a common culture are at stake as was the case in a historiography committed to the national perspective and orientation of european standards of historical professionalism. by now processes of migration and globalization have produced new constellations of intercultural communication. the european countries, nations, societies and states find themselves questioned and challenged in a new way by noneuropean nations and cultures. they criticize the cultural hegemony of the west and forcefully intend to liberate themselves from the salient issues of metahistory 202 historical interpretations that we have imputed to them. western historical thinking has to reflect the critique of ideology which holds the reproach that behind the universalistic claims of validity and behind the standards of reason there are claims for power and domination which endanger, if not destroy, the sovereignty of other cultures. this confrontation has already caused a habit of self-criticism within western interpretations of historical thinking. yet, this does not mean that the established institutions and methods of historical culture have already found new ways of relating themselves to the others or of coming to terms with them about their cultural differences. a similar problem evolves within western societies themselves when the way of treating minorities is at stake, the cultures of which are thought of as being not only different, but as definitely uncommon and strange. how can this otherness find a place in the ways of life of the majority? the post-modern critique of the categorical application and ideological use of a variety of modernization models has undermined the hermeneutic tone of utter conviction that was to be heard when researchers in the field of humanities declared their patterns of interpretation to be intersubjectively valid – i.e. across all cultural differences. however, this critique threw out the baby of cognitive validity in historical reasoning with the bathtub of eurocentrism. the result is an epistemological and political culturalism which confines its insight into the specific character of cultures temporally and regionally to the innate scope of different cultures so that it has become dependent on the horizon of those cultures’ own self-understandings. besides the immense epistemological and hermeneutical problems of such an interpretation there is the irritation for those who follow it when freeing the value and self-esteem of others from eurocentric models of otherness. they find themselves handicapped to relate the liberated other self to its own culture so that it may indeed recognize the other. this kind of culturalism transforms cultural difference into a hermeneutic monadology preventing intercultural communication at all or enabling it only at the expense of any generally accepted rules. therefore we have to understand: how can the production of cultural and historical knowledge, which always is the production of cultural competence as well, be aligned with the goal of providing future generations with the means of intercultural communication? this question can only be answered by the practice of direct communication. the objective task of cultural orientation can only be regarded as subjectively achieved and solved when the others and we ourselves agree when we historically relate ourselves to them and vice versa. then the mutual consensus of selfness and otherness in historical self-realization has been achieved. (of course, this is not conceivable as a once and for all accomplished task but only as an rüsen 203 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. open and ongoing process. the ever recurring time-experiences rising from everyday life, from struggles for power, from collisions of interest and from the unintended side-effects of our own actions and of the reactions of others call for a continuous effort to historically position oneself and to understand the self-understanding of others.) the many voices contributing to this debate may easily be combined into a general tenor regarding further progress in conceptualizing historical thinking as a medium of identity-building, determining the otherness of others and relating this otherness to the self: the decomposition of western historical thought already in progress, its deconstruction to elements and factors to be further differentiated diachronically, should be continued. with the deconstruction of the western special character of historical thinking into a complex constellation of factors, each of which are not culturally specific at all, the pregnancy of cultural difference is decreasing. but it does not mean it is dissolving into a potpourri of historical sense-creations lacking the contours of an identity-building self-esteem.32 on the contrary: the self-esteem wins greater clarity with the complexity of the constellation as which it appears. at the same time the mutual perception focuses on the fact that what is different about the other is composed of elements that also belong to oneself. together with the decomposition of the western peculiarity, the special characteristics of non-western forms of historical thinking and historical culture should be outlined; they should be made visible as peculiar constellations of general factors in the creation of historical sense. without the perception of the others the narrow-mindedness of historical attitudes is strengthened: in whatever way this necessary research is being carried out, its results would be weakened without a critical rethinking of the decisive questions and interpretations that make other traditions and interpretations comparable. at the very point where they can objectify and intellectually support intercultural communication, they would hamper it without theoretical reconsiderations. considering the urgent problems of cultural conflict in an age of globalization and increased migration that such a use of theoretical reflections and empirical data should take place in direct discussion of our own as well as of other traditions and contemporary forms of historical thinking. the current features and forms of academic discourse do not yet correspond to these imperatives. too often, the 32 see j rüsen, “some theoretical approaches to intercultural comparative historiography” in history and theory, theme issue 35, chinese historiography in comparative perspective, 1996, pp. 5-22. salient issues of metahistory 204 respective experts have still been talking without giving them a voice in this discourse. but that can be changed. v. the problem of trauma have the historical culture of our time, and specifically the historical studies of today as an academic discipline already found a convincing answer to the challenge of the overwhelmingly negative historical experiences of the 20th century? one can treat this question by thematizing the holocaust as the most radical negative historical experience in recent european history. without denying its unique character as an historical event it nevertheless can serve as a paradigm for a specific mode of historical experience. with its provocative and irritating character it challenges the hitherto developed cultural strategies of making sense of the past by giving it the feature of a meaningful history. in order to find out where the problem is situated, it is useful to pick up the typological distinction between three modes of perceiving the past by experiencing events: a normal, a critical and a catastrophic or traumatic one. this distinction is necessary to focus on the unsolved problem: how to treat the holocaust and similar events of destructive and disturbing character as a part of meaningful history. i dare say we do not know it in spite of the excellent historical research and representation of the holocaust in the context of modern history. nevertheless, in the light of the proposed ideal typological distinction one has to look at the catastrophic or traumatic character of the holocaust in order to realize the fundamental and hitherto not sufficiently solved problem of historical interpretation. the holocaust is the most radical case of the ‘catastrophic’ experience in history, at least for the jews. in a different way, it is also a very special ‘catastrophic’ experience for the germans.33 for both it is unique in its genocidal character and its radical negation and destruction of the basic values of modern civilization, which they share. as such it negates and destroys even the conventional principles, usually applied in historical interpretation. it applies for as long as these principles are a part of this civilization. the holocaust has often been characterized as a ‘black hole’ of sense and meaning, which dissolves every concept of historical interpretation. when dan diner 33 the european character of the holocaust is treated in k-g karlsson, u zander (eds.), echoes of the holocaust: historical cultures in contemporary europe, (lund 2003). rüsen 205 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. characterized the holocaust as a ‘rupture of civilization’34 he meant that we have to recognize it as a historical event, which by its pure occurrence, destroys our cultural potentials of fitting it into a historical order of time, within which we can understand it and organize our lives according to this historical experience. the holocaust problematizes, or even prevents a meaningful interpretation for any unbroken (narrative) interrelationship between the time before and after it. it is a ‘borderline-experience’ of history, which does not allow its integration into a coherent sense bearing narrative. each attempt to apply comprehensive concepts of historical development fails here. nevertheless, it is necessary to recognize the holocaust as a historical event and to give it a place in the historiographical pattern of modern history, within which we understand ourselves, express our hopes and fears of the future, and develop our strategies of communicating with others. if we placed the holocaust beyond history by giving it a ‘mythical’ significance it would lose its character of a factual event of empirical evidence. at the same time, historical thinking would be limited in its approach to the experience of the past. this would contradict the logic of history, since a myth is not related to experience as a necessary condition for reliability. thus the holocaust represents a ‘borderline-event’; it transgresses the level of the subject matter of historical thinking and reaches into the core of the mental procedures of historical thinking itself.35 my distinction between a ‘normal’, a ‘critical’ and a ‘catastrophic’ historical experience is an attempt to meet this specific character of the holocaust as a trauma in historical experience. this distinction is, of course, an artificial one. (as any ideal type it is a methodical means of historical interpretation and as such it is contrasted to the mode of historical thinking active in every-day-life.) without elements of a catastrophe there would be no really challenging crisis; and without elements of normality no catastrophic and critical crisis could even be identified as a specific challenge, not to speak of the possibility of radically changing the perception and interpretation of history. destroying the effective concepts of sense as systems of orientation, trauma is a handicap for practical life. those who have made a traumatic experience have to struggle to overcome it. they try to reshape it in a way that it makes sense again, i.e. that it fits into 34 d diner, “zwischen aporie und apologie: über grenzen der historisierbarkeit des nationalsozialismus” in id.(ed.), ist der nationalsozialismus geschichte? zu historisierung und historikerstreit, (frankfurt am main 1987), pp. 62-73. 35 cf. j rüsen, “historizing nazi-time: metahistorical reflections on the debate between friedländer and broszat” in id., history. narration – interpretation – orientation, pp. 163-188. salient issues of metahistory 206 working patterns of interpretation and understanding: they omit or suppress what endangers the effectiveness and validity of these patterns. one can speak of an estrangement or a falsification of experience in order to come to terms with it. everybody is familiar with this distortion and alienation. it usually is applied when one tries to speak about an experience which is unique and deeply shaking one’s own mind. this is true not only for negative experiences with traumatic quality, but also for positive experiences as well. those who make these experiences are pushed beyond the limits of their everyday lives, their world view and self-understanding. nevertheless, without words events of a disturbing quality cannot be kept in the horizon of awareness and memory. it is on the realm of language where those who are concerned have to come to terms with them. even in the dark cage of suppression these experiences tend to find expression: if the people cannot speak about them , they are forced to substitute the lack of language and thought by compulsory activities, by failures and gaps in their ways of life. they have to ‘speak’ about them in this ‘language beyond words’, simply because these experiences have become part of them and they have to come to terms with this fact. historization is a cultural strategy of overcoming the disturbing consequences of traumatic experiences. at the very moment people start telling the story of what happened they take the first step on the way of integrating the distracting events into their world view and self-understanding. at the end of this way a historical narrative gives the distraction by trauma a place in a temporal chain of events. here it makes sense and has thus lost its power of destroying sense and significance. by giving an event a ‘historical’ significance and meaning, its traumatic character vanishes: ‘history’ is a sense-bearing and meaningful temporal interrelationship of events, which combines the present-day-life situation with the experience of the past in a way that a future perspective of human activities can be drawn from the flow of change from the past into the present. human activity needs an orientation, in which the idea of such a temporal continuity is necessary. the same is true for human identity. this detraumatization by historization can be brought about by different strategies of placing traumatic events into a historical context: � anonymization is quite common. but it prevents a distraction of rüsen 207 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. sense-bearing concepts. instead of speaking of murder and crimes, of suffering from a fault or guilt one mentions a ‘dark period’, ‘destiny’, and an ‘invasion of demonic forces’ into the more or less orderly world.36 � categorization subjugates a trauma under the domination of understandable occurrences and developments. it loses its disturbing uniqueness for those who are involved (mainly, but not only exclusively the victims) by designing abstract terms. very often these terms integrate traumata into a sense-bearing and meaningful temporal development. ‘tragedy’ is a prominent example. the term indicates horrible things, but these happened as a part of a story which has a message to those whom it is told, or to those who tell it to themselves.37 � normalization dissolves the destructive quality of what happened. in this case the occurrences appear as something which happens at all times and spaces again and again; and they are explained by their being rooted in human nature, which remains in all historical changes. very often the normalizing category of ‘human nature’ or ‘human evil’ is used. � moralization domesticates the destructive power of historical traumata. the traumatic event acquires the character of a ‘case’ which stands for a general rule of human conduct (do not do things like this). it takes the meaning of a message which moves 36 an example for this anonymization is the inaugural speech of leopold von wiese at the first postwar meeting of german sociologists: “die pest” kam „über die menschen von außen, unvorbereitet, als ein heimtückischer überfall. das ist ein metaphysisches geheimnis, an das der soziologe nicht zu rühren vermag“ (the plague came upon the unprepared people from outside. this is a metaphysical secret, not to be touched by a sociologist). l von wiese, “die gegenwärtige situation, soziologisch betrachtet” in verhandlungen des achten deutschen soziologentages vom 19. bis 21. september 1946 in frankfurt am main 1948, p. 29. 37 an interesting example is the way, the famous and influential german historian theodor schieder tried to deal with his own involvement in the nazi crimes (only recently disclosed). see j rüsen, “kontinuität, innovation und reflexion im späten historismus: theodor schieder” in j rüsen, konfigurationen des historismus. studien zur deutschen wissenschaftskultur, (frankfurt am main 1993), pp. 357-397, especially p. 377ff. (a shortened english version in h lehmann,j van horn melton(eds.), paths of continuity. central european historiography from the 1930s to the 1950s, (cambridge 1994), pp. 353-388. salient issues of metahistory 208 the hearts of its observers because it is so horrible. the best example is the movie schindler’s list by steven spielberg (1994). many of the american holocaust museums follow the same strategy of making sense. at the end of their way through the horror the victims had to suffer from the visitors get a clear moralistic message. has the world learned from the holocaust? the state of our world leads us to say: not enough... the holocaust was not inevitable. human decisions created it; people like us allowed it to happen. the holocaust reminds us vividly that each one of us is personally responsible for being on guard, at all times, against such evil. the memory of the holocaust needs to serve as a reminder, in every aspect of our daily lives that never again must people be allowed to do evil to one another. never again must ethnic hatred be allowed to happen; never again must racism and religious intolerance fill our earth. each one of us needs to resolve never to allow the tragedies of the holocaust to occur again. this responsibility begins with each of us today.38 � aesthetization presents traumatic experiences to the senses. they are put into the schemes of perception which make the world understandable and a matter of practice. the horror becomes a moderate a picture, which makes it – in the worst case – ready for consumption. the film industry gives a lot of examples. the movie life is beautiful by roberto begnini (1997) e.g. dissolves a disturbing experience by means of slapstick and a sentimental family-story. another example is the musealization of relics. they can be presented in such a way that their horrible character is changed into the clarity of a historical lesson.39 � teleologization reconciles the traumatic past with the present (or at least later) forms of life, which correspond to convincing ideas of legitimacy and acceptance. it is a widespread mode of this teleologization to use the burdening past for a historical legitimation of an order of life which claims to prevent its return or to offer protection against it. in this historical perspective a lesson is learned, the trauma dissolves into a learning process. 38 holocaust museum houston (visited in 1996). the exhibition of the holocaust centre in cape town ends with the quotation of archbishop tutu: “we learn about the holocaust so that we can become more human, more gentle, more caring, more compassionate, valuing every person as being of infinite worth so precious that we know such atrocities will never happen again and the world will be a more human place.” (recorded at the time of my visit in spring 2003). 39 cf. j rüsen, “auschwitz – die symbolik der authentizität“ in id.: zerbrechende zeit: über den sinn der geschichte, (cologne 2001), p. 181ff. [english: “auschwitz: how to perceive the meaning of the meaningless a remark on the issue of preserving the remnants” in kulturwissenschaftliches institut: jahrbuch 1994, pp. 180-185]. rüsen 209 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. an example is the historical museum of israel’s memorial yad vashem. the visitors who follow the course of time in the museum have to walk down into the horror of the concentrations camps and gas chambers and afterwards up to the founding of the state of israel. � metahistorical reflection allows the hurting factuality of traumatic events to evaporate into the thin air of abstraction. the challenging rupture of time caused by trauma initiates a critical question concerning history in general, its principles of sense and modes of representation. to answer these questions means to overcome the rupture by a concept of historical change. the traumatically ‘dammed’ flow of time40 in the chain of events can flow again and fits into the orientation patterns of present day life. � specialization, finally, is a genuinely academic way of keeping under control the senselessness of traumatic experiences.41 the problem is divided into different aspects which become special issues for different specialists. thus, the disturbing dissonance of the complete historical picture disappears. the best example for this strategy of specialization is the emergence of holocauststudies as a research field of its own. here, the horror tends to lose its status as a general challenge to historical thinking in becoming an exclusive topic for trained specialists.42 all these historiographical strategies may go along with a lot of mental procedures to overcome the distractive features of historical experience, which are well known by psychoanalysis. the most effective one is, of course, suppression. but it is too easy to only look at suppressive mechanisms of historical narration and to ask what they do not tell. it is better to ask how they tell the past in order to keep silent about its horrifying experience. psychoanalysis can teach the historians that there are a lot of possibilities of changing the senselessness of experiences of the past into historical sense by historically representing it afterwards in a disburdening way. those who know that they have been involved in and are held responsible for tend to disburden themselves by ex-territorializing this past out of the realm of their own history and by projecting it into the realm of the others. (it is very easy to translate the psychoanalytical findings into historiographical ones.) this ex-territorialization is brought about by changing the role 40 a formulation of dan diner. 41 psychologists of repression use the concept of ‘splitting off’. 42 this is, of course, a problem of the ‘living history project: holocaust in european historical culture’ as well. salient issues of metahistory 210 of perpetrators and victims, by dissection and projection of agency and responsibility. this can also be done by drawing a picture of the past, in which one’s own face has vanished in the representation of facts though it nevertheless objectively belongs to the events constituting one’s own identity. all these strategies can be observed if one asks for the traces of trauma in historiography and other forms of historical culture, within which people find their life orientation in the course of time. the traces have been covered up by memory and history, and sometimes it is very difficult to discover the disturbing reality under the smooth surface of collective memory and historical interpretation. the diagnosis of these strategies of historical sense generation inevitably raises the question how the historian’s work has to deal with them. is it impossible to avoid the alienating and falsifying transformation of senselessness into history, which makes sense? the distracting answer to this question is no. this doesn’t mean that careful historical investigation cannot overcome the shortcomings of suppressive falsifications and dissections, of hurting interrelationships (including responsibilities). in this respect historical studies have the necessary function of enlightening critique in order to clear the facts. but by interpreting the facts the historians can’t but use narrative patterns of significance, which give the traumatic facts a historical sense. in this respect historical studies, as a discipline, is by its logic a cultural practice of detraumatization. it changes trauma into history. does this mean that trauma inevitably vanishes when history takes over its representation? the accumulation of traumatic experiences in the course of the twentieth century has brought about a change in the historical attitude towards traumata. smoothing away its hurting stings is no longer possible, as long as the victims, the survivors and their offspring, as well as the perpetrators, and all those who have been involved in the crimes against humanity, have been objectively determined by this hurting deviation of normality and are subjectively confronted with the task of facing it. the problems of this face-to-face relationship have extensively been discussed in respect to the holocaust. here we find an attempt to keep up the specific nature of this traumatic event by separating its living memory from the hitherto developed strategies of historical sense generation. this distinction is characterized by the difference between myth and history. the ‘mythical’ relationship to the holocaust is said to be a form of saving its traumatic character from its dissolution by historization.43 but putting it thus aside means to rob it of its explosive 43 cf. j rüsen, “historizing nazi-time”, (fn. 34). rüsen 211 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. force in negating the usual procedures of historization. if a trauma is granted an asylum beside the normality of the human world view, it becomes shut off from the established procedures of historical culture. it lives its own life in a separate realm of significance. this separateness allows the normality of doing history to go on as if nothing had happened. (this is dangerous. it establishes ‘holocaust-studies’ as a separate field of academic work and ‘holocaust-teaching’ as a separate field in education: separate from the other realms of academic work and education, it indirectly and unwillingly stabilizes a way of thinking and teaching which should be at least challenged, insofar as the holocaust is an integral part of its subject matter). so, this attempt to keep up the traumatic character of events fails by unintentionally legitimating or even strengthening the detraumatization by ‘normal’ historization in cultural power. but how can detraumatization be prevented? i would suggest a ‘secondary traumatization’. this concept means that the mode of doing history has to be changed. i think of a new historical narrative, in which the narrated traumatic events leave traces in the pattern of significance itself, which governs the interpretative work of the historians. the narrative has to give up its closeness, its smooth cover of the chain of events. it has to express its distraction within the methodical procedures of interpretation as well as in the narrative procedures of representation. on the level of fundamental principles of historical sense-generation by interpreting events senselessness must become a constitutive element of sense itself. � instead of anonymization it should clearly be said what happened in the shocking nakedness of rude factuality. � instead of subjugating the events under sense-bearing categories, the events should be placed into interpretative patterns, which problematize the traditional categories of historical sense. � instead of normalizing history as dissolution of destructive elements, it has to keep up the memory of the ‘normality of the exception’. the horror under the thin cover of everyday life, the banality of the evil etc. should be remembered. � instead of moralizing the historical interpretation has to indicate the limits of morality, or better, its internal brittleness. � instead of aesthetisation historical representation should emphasize the brutal ugliness of dehumanization. � instead of smoothing traumatic experiences by teleology, history has to present the flow of time as being dammed up in the temporal salient issues of metahistory 212 relationship between the past of the traumatic events and the presence of their commemoration. discontinuity, breaking off connections, wreckage has become a feature of sense in the sense-generating idea of the course of time.44 metahistorical reflection, eventually, has to take over the distracting elements of historical experience in its traumatic dimension and lead it into the abstraction of notions and ideas. specialization, finally, has to be reconnected to a ‘compelling overall interpretative framework’45 of history and its representation. the cries of the victims, the laughter of the perpetrators, and the outspoken silence of the bystanders die away when the course of time gets its normal historical shape to orient the people within it. secondary traumatization is a chance of giving a voice to this ensemble of dehumanization. by remembering it in this way historical thinking opens up a chance of preventing dehumanisation from going on. vi. mourning and forgiving: at first glance history has nothing to do with mourning. mourning is emotional and related to losses that have recently occurred. history is cognitive and related to a remote past. but this impression is misleading, since history and mourning have something essential in common: both are procedures of memory and committed to its logic of sense generation. mourning is a mental procedure of commemorating somebody or something lost. the loss has the specific character of a loss of oneself with the passing away of a person or something of a high personal value. this mode of commemoration aims at gaining back oneself by ‘working through’ the loss (in the words of sigmund freud). gaining back oneself means to come back to life by the death of the beloved 44 ruth klüger, a holocaust survivor, has characterized this concept with the metaphor of “glasscherben, die die hand verletzen, wenn man versucht, sie zusammenzufügen” (pieces of glass which cut the hand, if one tries to put them together). see r klüger, weiter leben: eine jugend, (göttingen 1992), p. 278. 45 s friedländer, “trauma, memory, and transference” in gh hartman(ed.), holocaust remembrance: the shapes of memory, (oxford 1994), pp. 252-263, here p. 258. cf. also his “writing the history of the shoah: some major dilemmas” in hw blanke, et. al.(eds), dimensionen der historik: geschichtstheorie, wissenschaftsgeschichte und geschichtskultur. festschrift jörn rüsen, pp. 407-414. rüsen 213 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. person or object. in a certain way, even the lost (subject or object) comes back: it comes back in the form of the presence of absence, which enlarges the mental horizon of the mourning person by elements of transcendence. the archaic paradigm for this mental procedure, which, of course, is a procedure of social communication, is the ritual, which transforms the dead person into an ancestor. as ancestors, the dead are given a new form of life, invisible, but very powerful. this mental individual and social practice can easily be applied to history (astonishingly, this has not been done yet). i do not think that history today is ancestor worship, but at least it has some logical similarity with it. we should realize that itself in its very logic historical thinking follows the logic of mourning at least partly in a formal way. it transforms the absent past, which is a part of one’s own identity into a part of present-day life. in fact, it is only the very past which is important for the people of the present, can become history. this importance of the past can be characterized by its relevance for what is essential for people in their present-day life. identity is an issue of historical consciousness. if we realize this the past in the mental procedures of historical consciousness is essentially related to the feeling of belonging together in a group and of being different from others. in respect to the identity of a person or a group the past is not part of the outside world – not external, but an issue related to the internal life of the human subject. the relationship to the past can be compared to the relationship to deceased persons or objects in the mourning process. there is an astonishing similarity between historical consciousness and mourning. history mainly refers to the very past relevant for human identity. the absent past is present in the depth of human subjectivity. and this is exactly what mourning is all about. so in a simple logical argumentation one can say that mourning is constitutive for historical thinking in general and in principle. if those who have died contribute positively to the self-esteem of the people of today (and that is the rule in the context of historical consciousness all over the world) the remembrance of them keeps or makes them alive beyond their death. in other words, in historical consciousness the dead are still alive. and what makes them alive? what else but mourning? i think that meta-history has completely overlooked this constitutive role of mourning in the constitutive procedures of historical memory. the difference between history and mourning lies in the character of this act of regaining of oneself by revitalising the past. in the case of mourning, the process is full of bitterness and pain. the experienced loss opens a wound in one’s mind. historical thinking, on the contrary, seems to be a procedure of remembrance, without this hurting element salient issues of metahistory 214 is conceived of as a gain, as taking over a heritage, as bringing about self-esteem. but if the addressed past has this strong relevance for identity, can we assume that its passing away does not hurt? does it not leave a gap open to be filled by mental activity? i think it is worthwhile considering whether the procedures of historical consciousness are grounded in a mourning-like process. so far, history writing has not been seen in comparison to the process of mourning but understood as having a totally different kind of quality: that of recovering independent facts as if they were things which could be picked up and integrated into the properties of oneself. i would like to illustrate this by the issue of humankind as a constitutive factor of historical identity. a historical experience which negates the universal validity of the category of humankind by depriving individuals of their status as human beings touches the very heart of all identity concepts based on the category of humankind. if this negation is executed physically, one’s own individuality’s destroyed in its universalistic historical dimension. then the persuasive power of the criterion of humankind as a basic value is fundamentally weakened. such a historical experience leads to the loss of the human self subjectivity in its specifically human quality. it deprives civilized modern societies of their historical foundations and cannot possibly be integrated into the course of time in which past and future are seen as being held together by the unbroken validity of humaneness as a normative value. it destroys the continuity of a history in which civil subjectivity has inscribed its own universal norms. what does it mean to face traumatic historical experiences? first and above all, it means to realize that so far culturally dominant criteria of sense generation have lost their validity for the historical discourse.46 but a loss is not a sell-out. (selling out the criteria of sense generation in historical discourse on the grounds of deconstructing ideology would mean the cultural suicide of modern subjectivity — a subjectivity that relies on the category of equality as the basis of mutual esteem in human relations.) acknowledging a loss without recognizing what has been lost–leads back to the topic of mourning by history in a compelling way. at this point we are talking about historical mourning in the sense of humankind confronted with the historical experience of drastic inhumanity. in this case mourning could lead to the recovery of one’s self as fundamental human. mourning would have to consist of acknowledging the loss. this implies two aspects: first to admit that humankind as a normative concept is lost or absent in historical 46 this is how i read dan diners thesis of the “rupture of civilization”, see fn. 33. rüsen 215 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. experience, and second to accept that whatever has been lost remained as one’s own (or better still: has remained one’s own in a new and different way). what does this mean for the humankind criterion of historical identity? humankind in the sense of the widest extension of modern subjectivity has been deprived of its historical significance, which have so far been regarded as part and parcel of one’s own culture (or civilisation). it has died as a consequence of the historical experience of crimes against humankind, which are in effect crimes against the self (or better: its mental disposition). the self as defined in relation to humankind has died in the historical experience. postmodernity has drawn a melancholic conclusion from this: it is no longer interested in the humankind orientation of modern subjectivity.47 thus, it leaves the subject of modern societies disoriented and incapable of acting exactly at the point where its real life context – in terms of political, social, economic and ecological issues – is characterised by its objective universality: in its demand for human rights, and equality as a regulating category of social conditions in the globalizing process of capitalism and in the global danger for the natural resources of human life. in contrast to this melancholic attitude, mourning would be a cultural achievement. the subject could recover its own human dimension by moving beyond the deadly experience of a rupture of civilisation. this way of mourning would not simply incorporate this experience into culture, but would regard it as an effective stimulus to accentuate the validity of an orientation towards humankind in a passionate, yet disciplined and patient manner. what do we mean by humankind re-appropriated by mourning? what do we mean by humankind that is present in its absence? mankind is no longer a naturally justified fundamental value of human activity per se. in a historical discourse based on mourning, humankind has literally become u-utopian because it has lost its fixed and steadfast 47 karlheinz bohrer brilliantly characterizes the “attraction” of “melancholic rhetoric” in human sciences as “a popular resting place where due to the discourse on modernity that failed to move beyond the early stages, a frightened scientific community in the meantime gathers strength for new quasi-teleological design/ ideas…”, see k bohrer, der abschied. theorie der trauer: baudelaire, goethe, nietzsche, benjamin, (frankfurt am main 1996), p. 40. he heroically holds “no future” (zukunftslosigkeit) against the hopes for the future by a radical (and fortunately only) poetic farewell. the question is how far his interpreting repetition and affirmation against all historical thinking can be read as a desperate attempt to delay this farewell real-historically. it corresponds with the title of his book, in which mourning categorically takes precedence over melancholy (without being justified by objective reasons in his explanations). salient issues of metahistory 216 position in people’s every-day world (lebenswelt). as a consequence of its dislocation, it no longer can be taken as a plan for a world to be created (for that would correspond to death invocation and the designed world would be a phantom or ghost). as utopia it would have an effusive, literally meta-physical status, beyond the reality of a civilized world. it would have to be taken as the yardstick for its criticism, a disturbing factor of insufficiency in respect to the achievements of civilization. but what do we mean by presence in its absence? is it more than a shadow, a phantom of what could be, but unfortunately (because humans are disposed as they are) is not? in its absence, the notion of humankind could be no more than a conditional ‘as if’ of the human understanding the world and themselves. it could but take the effect of a mental driving force for human action, as a regulative concept for something that cannot be obtained, but can only be put into practice. it would not be transcendentally (as empirically based metaphysics) but transcending effectively as a value-loaded medium of sense definitions. this may stimulate actions by serving as a guiding principle in the process of defining an aim. one could speak of fiction in the sense of a real conditional ‘as if’. as lost, humankind is being reappropriated in the form of a standard, aiming in the direction of an improving civilisation; and the fact that this has not yet been achieved, urges man into action. the lost reliable and valid norms are retrieved as disturbance, criticism, utopia, and the motivation to keep one’s own world moving in a direction indebted to these norms. mourning is a mental activity to overcome a loss. it contributes to make sense of a self-destructing experience. in the case of history it is the matter of a loss of oneself. historical mourning refers to those historical experiences which are embedded in one’s own historical identity and threaten this identity. as identity always implies the relationship to others, these threatening events of a loss disturb this relationship as well. this is inevitably and especially the case when the disturbing events are brought about by a person or a group which can clearly be defined as „the others“. even beyond this destructive element, of a loss within the historical perspective of identity, the relationship between self and others, in general, is a fundamental problem. identity is shaped by a positive self esteem and a less positive or even a negative image of the others. in historical culture this asymmetrical evaluation is effective as the power of ethnocentrism.48 this power is strengthened when historical 48 cf. j rüsen, “how to overcome ethnocentrism: approaches to a culture of recognition by history in the 21st century” in taiwan journal of east asian studies, 1(1), 2004, pp. 59-74; also in history and theory, 43, theme issue “historians and ethics”, 2004, pp. 118-129. rüsen 217 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. memory includes events in which one’s own people have been harmed by others. if this event can be judged by universally valid standards of morality, this morality will have a deep influence on the process of forming historical identity and of constituting specific problems in the relationship between the individual self and others. evaluation of past events always plays an important role in historical identity, but when it follows moral standards which have to be accepted by the morally wrong others who were morally devaluated, a special interrelationship emerges – namely that between victims and perpetrators. in recent decades the status of being a victim has become a very effective factor for the forming of collective identity. its convincing power lies in a set of generally accepted universal values: a group of people (e.g. a nation) has to accept that in the past they themselves or their forefathers have done something which is morally damnable. and this agreement on the moral quality of what has happened in the past confirms the positive moral status of the victims and their offspring. the perpetrators and their offspring, in turn, are put into the dark shade of history. their otherness is constituted by a negative moral evaluation which they have to accept since they share the same universal moral standards as the victims. in a general historical perspective this moralistic mechanism is rather new. traditionally people tend to ascribe the highest standards of civilization to them.49 identity is a matter of pride of having achieved these standards and their historical realization. a victory therefore usually is a common event to brush up one’s own historical self esteem. take, for example, the second german empire. its victory over the french empire was transferred into its collective memory. the day of the battle of sedan (in which the army of the german confederation (deutscher bund) defeated the french army and took napoleon iii prisoner) became an official day of commemoration. this traditional one-sidedness is typical and confirmed by the way, morality is treated. it is only claimed for one’s own culture; otherness is defined by a lack or a negative deviation from it. thus traditional ethnocentrism is embedded in a double morality: the moral standards within one’s own culture are not valid for and applicable to the others; they are treated according to a different value system which principally attributes lower moral standards to the others. 49 cf. ke müller, “ethnicity, ethnozentrismus und essentialismus” in w eßbach (ed.), wir – ihr – sie. identität und alterität in theorie und methode, (würzburg 2000), pp. 317-343. salient issues of metahistory 218 but this double morality has vanished in the modernisation process in favour of universalistic moral standards. these standards are based on a general and fundamental value of humaneness which has to be applied to oneself as well as to the others. in the pattern of this morality crimes against humanity are historical events which serve as very effective means to evaluate moral qualities of people according to the comprehensive value system of humaneness. it has become a globally accepted strategy of historical culture to use universal standards to shape the difference between oneself and the others. the historical features of the division between oneself and the otherness of the others have been drawn on the canvas of a universalistic morality. historical identity has become a unique feature in the face of humankind. this moralistic impact has a problematic consequence: its leads to a new, a modern form of ethnocentrism. the germans, the japanese and other people of today are held responsible for what their forefathers did. indeed, this responsibility plays a role in international relations: representatives of nations officially apologize for what their people have done to others.50 it is a philosophically unsolved problem, what this ‘historical’ responsibility really means, 51 since the established modern morality only holds responsible the direct authors of the misdeed. his or her offspring cannot be held morally responsible. but nevertheless, on the level of everyday life and of symbolic politics, this responsibility seems to have been accepted as a specifically historical responsibility. morality furnishes historical identity with the mental power of innocence on the one hand, and of guilt, or shame, on the other. the attractiveness of victimization has its roots in the superiority of innocence and the ability of putting the blame on the otherness of the others.52 but it is the underlying morality which causes problems in this kind of forming identity. those others who are ridden by guilt and shame can only get their historical self esteem (which is necessary for a life serving identity) by self condemnation – which is a contradiction in itself. when the offspring of the perpetrators identify with the victims 50 hermann lübbe has described these rituals of officially apologizing as a matter of civil religion in modern societies: h lübbe, ‘ich entschuldige mich’. das neue politische bußritual, (berlin 2001). 51 cf. j rüsen, “responsibility and irresponsibility in historical studies. a critical consideration of the ethical dimension in the historian’s work” in d d carr, tr flynn, ra makkreel(eds), the ethics of history, (evanston ill., 2004), pp. 195213. 52 a worldwide known recent example is goldhagen, j daniel, hitler’s willing executioners: ordinary germans and the holocaust, (new york 1996). rüsen 219 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. (in order to get moral quality into their self esteem) they ignore the historically objective intergenerational relationship with the perpetrators. this identification obscures the lack of this interrelationship in the historical perspective of one’s own self awareness. this astute and rigid morality cuts the historical ties which objectively constitute historical identity. the issue of intergenerational victimisation is problematic as well. it burdens self esteem with the experience of suffering and paralysis the historical dimension of activity. in this case the future perspective can only be brought about by a shift from passive suffering to activity, but even this activity lacks a positive quality, as for example, the slogan ‘never again’ reveals: here the suffering in the past will lead to a future of nothing but never again. (the natural reaction – the turn from suffering into the activity of revenge runs against the morality of victimhood.) by these tensions and contradictions morality tends to transcend itself within the cultural processes of identity formation. victimisation furnishes the people with the self esteem of being innocent and morally superior to the perpetrators; but at the same time, it loads the people with the heavy burden of suffering. suffering tends to push the people to end and reverse it and their activities to do so are guided by a vision of happiness. being a victim is a challenge to liberate oneself from victimhood and to become able to be a master of one’s own life. does this imply that the innocence of victimhood has to be given up? can the pain of victimhood be ended only by losing one’s moral superiority? the same tendency of reshaping one’s own self is effective in minds who have been laden with the heavy burden of immorality, or crime, in worst case: of a crime against humanity. they face the fact that they put their inner self into the dark realm of having lost one’s own humanness. without a light in this darkness – how could history furnish their self esteem with a future which stands for the contrary of what happened in the past? this push beyond morality stems from the relationship between victims and perpetrators and their offspring as well. morality separates them. shared and mutually confirmed moral principles of humanness constitute an abyss of mutual exclusion. it is the shared universality of values which sets them apart. they mutually confirm the burden of a disturbing legacy in their historical identity. they live like siamese twins who have been tied intimately thus preventing each other from leading an independent and self determined life, in which they can pursue the shared moral values according to their different life conditions. separating the twins is a difficult task with no guarantee of success. salient issues of metahistory 220 the easiest and most frequently practiced way of overcoming this dilemma of morality in identity formation is to forget the events, which have to be morally condemned. should we praise the wisdom of ancient greek peace treaties, which included an obligation to forget the facts that caused the war and what happened in it?53 the subsequent wars in greece, despite the commanded to relegate the past to oblivion, suggest that hurting historical experiences cannot simply be forgotten, even if political reason demands it. this is all the more the case when the events have become engraved in the features of one’s mind and that of the former enemy. at least on the level of the unconscious there is a tradition and memory of the forgotten. so there is no alternative to the bitter task of working through the burdening experiences in such a way that one can escape the exclusiveness of morally constituted identity. the first step to this future perspective has to be a step away from the immediate (if not super-temporal) connexion with the past. this distance can be brought about by mourning. the mourner realizes the loss of humaneness the victims and their offspring have experienced. at the time the lost elements of identity (e.g. their dignity as human beings) become apparent by their absence thus providing the damaged identity with a new dimension and quality of memory. a similar transformation can be realized by the perpetrators and their offspring. they may become aware of the loss of humaneness which the immoral and criminal acts caused within themselves. thus they may rediscover it, realize its (historical) absence and reclaim it. and by pursuing this they may enlarge the realm of their identity by a constitutive awareness of their (historically) absent humaneness. how does the act of mourning affect the fact that the loss of human identity occurred? the lost humaneness can’t be revitalized. but what may happen by the act of mourning is that the haunting quality in the broken identity will disappear. those who suffer from the deed done to them (while being aware of their innocence and their (historical) responsibility) may find a place for it within their identity. then it has changed its character – from sheer destructiveness to a challenge for a meaningful life. if the mourning process has succeeded, the mourners have achieved a new quality of their memory and historical consciousness. they have transcended the exclusive character of morality, where good and evil define themselves and the others. (in the case of the perpetrators and rüsen 53 cf. e flaig, “amnestie und amnesie in der griechischen kultur: das vergessene selbstopfer für den sieg im athenischen bürgerkrieg 403 v. chr.” in saeculum, 42, 1991, pp. 129-149. 221 td, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 169-221. their offspring they themselves have integrated the others in themselves). the dark side of their history is no longer ex-territorialized for the sake of rescuing a rest of self esteem (be it the moral quality of innocence or self condemnation by taking over (historical responsibility). now the crimes have become a part of their own history – ‘own’ in the sense of being appropriated as a part of themselves into their memory and historical consciousness. this appropriation is a chance of overcoming the burden of being innocent victims, or responsible perpetrators and their moralistic mutual exclusiveness in turn. it is a chance for forgiving. by forgiving the realm of morality as a mental power of identity forming is transgressed. those who forgive and those who are forgiven experience to regain themselves and each other on a level of identity beyond the strict validity of universalistic values.54 it is the level of preand postmoral self-affirmation, where the human subject is able to recognize the humaneness of those who have radically lost or violated it.55 it is the constitutive level of human intersubjectivity in which recognition of others is a primary condition of human life.56 there is no established culture of historical forgiving in modern societies. but there is a growing awareness that bridges have to be built over the abyss of good and evil. this culture has started with official apologies for historical injustice and immorality. and there have already been motions for forgiving as well.57 it is an open question whether this indicates a change in memory and history towards a new recognition of humaneness vis-à-vis and in full presence of inhumanity in the past. 54 a very impressive example of forgiving is mozes kor, “eva: echoes from auschwitz: my journey to healing” in kulturwissenschaftliches institut (ed.): jahrbuch 2002/ 03, pp. 262-270. 55 this issue of re-humanizing the inhuman perpetrators is impressively presented by p gobodo-madikizela, a human being died that night. a story of forgiveness, (clarmont 2003); cf. p gobodo-madikizela, “remorse, forgiveness and rehumanisation: stories from south africa” in journal of humanistic psychology, 42(1), 2002, pp. 7-32. 56 cf. m tomasello, die kulturelle entwicklung des menschlichen denkens: zur evolution der kognition, (frankfurt am main 2002). 57 e.g. the president of the federal republic of germany, johannes rau, in the knesset, the israeli parliament, cf. lübbe (fn. 49) p. 15. salient issues of metahistory microsoft word 07 vyas-doorgapersad & ababio.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 411 – 427. the illusion of ethics for good local governance in south africa s vyas-doorgapersad & ep ababio* abstract ethics, the legislation and upholding of good conduct by public officials is a sine qua non for sustenance of good governance and service delivery. the white paper on the transformation of the public service 1994 identified the need for a code of conduct in south africa as an essential element to enhance high standards of ethics and professionalism. in 1996, the constitution of the republic of south africa prescribed the values and principles of public administration. subsequently, the public service commission developed a code of conduct in 1997. the legitimacy of local government is based on the same principles of ethics and professionalism as that of the national government. it is imperative to implement an ethical framework for social and economic development at the grass-root level. this article examines the theoretical terrain of ethics in public management and posits that, whereas there exist some state-of-the-art legislation that regulate the conduct of public functionaries at the local government sphere, outcomes of ethics in practice are rather unethical and illusive. there is therefore an advocacy for the need to intensify implementation of ethical guidelines for councillors and municipal employees. the fiduciary, management, operational and accountability framework is further upheld through the implementation of a code of conduct for local officials. theoretically, the framework should be scientifically accountable and practically feasible in implementation. the article recommends the need to strategise measurable implementation plans, conduct the on-going fraud risk assessments and sensitise the community through education and training regarding good governance and the code of ethics. the approach used is descriptive, though analytical. keywords: ethics, corruption, good local governance, code of conduct. disciplines: public management and governance, ethics. * proff. ernest ababio and shikha vyas-doorgapersad are both attached to the subject group for public management and administration, school of basic sciences at north-west university’svaal triangle campus in vanderbijlpark. they can be contacted at: the following emails: ernest.ababio@nwu.ac.za and/ord shikha.vyasdoorgapersad@nwu.ac.za vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   412 introduction the image of a government depends upon the conduct of public functionaries and the perceptions of its citizenry regarding the acceptable standards of services offered by the functionaries. it is, therefore, of fundamental importance that public functionaries act justly and fairly to one and all, not only paying lip service to transparency and openness (vyas-doorgapersad & ababio, 2006: 385), but also ensure that these are manifested based on batho pele principles per se. it is imperative that each public functionary, upon accepting government employment, takes cognizance of the fact that there is a special duty to be open, fair and impartial in interacting with the public. ethical standards and behaviour expectations of public servants are usually spelt out in a code of ethics normally documented in rules and regulations. they are also implicit in the behaviour that may constitute an act of misconduct that may manifest itself in various forms and at different times in the history of the state (agere, 1992: 39). in order to improve the ethical environment at individual and institutional level, it is imperative to understand and compare the traditional ethical system to the current one. the table below, as identified by sardar (raga and taylor, 2007: 9) is a comparison of public service ethics in the twentieth-century with envisaged public service ethics for the twenty-first century. table 1: traditional and modern public service ethics twentieth-century ethics twenty-first-century ethics determinants-ruling elites determinants-authentic discourse among all who will be affected common ethical code-belief in final solutions constantly managing code(s)-based on continuous authentic discourse support guaranteed through coercion support guaranteed through consensus dissenters subject to punitive measures dissenters subject to punitive measures western (colonial) ethics ethics based on anthropological and sociological pluralism corporate accountability (amounts to nonaccountability) personal accountability exercise of personal morality stifled and discouraged exercise of personal morality encouraged exercise of personal discretion discouraged exercise of discretion encouraged public interest nebulous, determined by governing elites public interest(s) disparate but relatively distinct, determined with all involved (authentic discourse), constantly redefined the table explores the fact that the new century seems to dawn with a renewed load of ethical and philosophical dilemmas which leave practitioners and academics of public administration alike in a predicament. whereas at the beginning of the 20th century there seemed to be only answers and convictions, at the beginning of the new century we are surrounded by new questions, uncertainties and doubts resulting from the overarching processes of the globalisation of market economies and information technology as well as the localisation of political conflict, authority systems and culture (makrydemetres, 2002: 3). this paradigmatic shift furthermore raises debate regarding the exercise of ethics at decentralized levels of authority and how ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 413 applicable these ethical codes are in creating an environment of good governance. the following sections are built on the pieces of information searching for measures to avoid ethical dilemmas for moral regeneration of public functionaries at the south african municipal sphere. meaning and nature of concepts ethics and good governance coicaud and warner (in walters, 2009:1) commented that ethics is concerned with what is essentially human in our nature. in thinking and acting in an ethical manner, the individual makes himself a witness to what positively distinguishes humans: the quest for dignity. ethics therefore is not about the self in isolation but fundamentally has a social quality freakley and burgh (in cranston et al., 2003: 1) see ethics as ‘about what we ought to do’. these perspectives imply that an ethical judgement often may need to be made about a given problem or situation (cranston et al, 2003: 1). there is the inference that functionaries may often be faced with choices that require them to make decisions that have no clear cut resolution and are likely to be highly problematic. that is, they are likely to find themselves confronted with ethical dilemmas. simply put then, an ethical dilemma, arises from a situation that necessitates a choice among competing sets of principles, values, beliefs, perspectives (cranston et al, 2003: 1). in other words, ethics is normative; it is the exercise of a capacity to discriminate among available courses of action on the basis of interpretation of shared values embedded in an ongoing institutional practice and in a broader form of communal life (jennings, in sindane, 2009:500). good governance includes ten principles as requisites of ethical local governance these principles are: • participation: to encourage all citizens to exercise their right to express their opinion in the process of making decisions concerning the public interest, both directly and indirectly; • rule of law: to realise law enforcement which is fair and impartial for all, without exception, while honouring basic human rights and observing the values prevalent in the society; • transparency: to build mutual trust between the government and the public through the provision of information with guaranteed easy access to accurate and adequate information; • equality: to provide equal opportunities for all members of the society to improve their welfare; • responsiveness: to increase the sensitivity of government administrators to the aspirations of the public; • vision: to develop the region based on a clear vision and strategy, with participation of the citizenry in all the processes of development so that they acquire a sense of ownership and responsibility for the progress of their regions; vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   414 • accountability: to increase the accountability of decision-makers with regard to decisions in all matters involving the public interest; • oversight: to increase the efforts of supervision in the operation of government and the implementation of development by involving the private sector and the general public; • efficiency and effectiveness: to guarantee public service delivery by utilizing all available resources optimally and responsibly; and • professionalism: to enhance the capacity and moral disposition of government administrators so that they are capable of providing easy, fast, accurate and affordable services. these principles are imperatives to enhance ethical environment for good local governance (united nations development programme, 2008; vyas-doorgapersad, subban & pillay, 2008). the elements of good governance can be hampered by several types of political corruption that occur in local government. some are more common than others, and some are more prevalent to local governments than to larger segments of government. local governments may be more susceptible to corruption because interactions between private individuals and officials happen at greater levels of intimacy and with more frequency at more decentralized levels. forms of corruption pertaining to money like bribery, extortion, embezzlement, and graft are found in local government systems. other forms of political corruption are nepotism and patronage systems (politicalcorruption.net, 2009). political corruption creates ethical dilemmas at grassroot level. this has been highlighted by ex-president thabo mbeki when he laments that …some of the people who are competing to win nomination as our candidate local government councillors are obviously seeking support on the basis that once they are elected to positions of power, they will have access to material resources and the possibility to dispense patronage. he added: these goings-on tell the naked truth that the ranks of our movement are being corrupted by a self-seeking spirit that leads some among us to view membership of our organisation as a stepping stone to access to state power, which they would then use corruptly to plunder the people's resources for their personal benefit (anc today, 2005; da, 2010: 2). the factors that can cause corruption in local government are discussed in the next section. causes of corruption in local government the south african prevention of corruption act, 1992, defined the term corruption as any person deemed guilty of a corruptible offence whenever such a person corruptly accepts, obtains, or agrees to accept any gift as an inducement or reward for himself/herself or any other person, the result of such an action leading to favour or disfavour being shown to the party offering the inducement; and any person who corruptly gives or accepts any gift from a party as an inducement or reward for rendering services on behalf and in favour of the designated party. corruption therefore symbolize any conduct or behaviour in relation to persons entrusted with responsibilities in public office which violates their duties as public officials an which is aimed at ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 415 obtaining undue gratification of any kind for themselves or for others (department of public service and administration, 2002; vyas-doorgapersad, 2007: 286). socioeconomic characteristics, size of the population and infrastructure development potential in municipalities are some of the encouraging causes of corruption at grass-root level. the democratic alliance (da) report titled “the rot in anc municipalities: five case-studies of cronyism, corruption and ineptitude” emphasized that (a) major problem facing many municipalities is the small revenue base in the poorer areas. this is largely a structural problem that cannot be blamed on councillors and municipal officials. however, all efforts to overcome this stumbling block are being undermined by three key factors that are wholly avoidable: corruption, financial mismanagement and the appointment of senior officials solely on the basis of political connectivity and/or employment equity considerations. municipal managers tend to be under qualified, overpaid and consequently do not perform” (da, 2010: 1). the extract from the da report reveals the following facts regarding corruption in south african municipalities: • local government has become virtually synonymous with illegal tendering practices, unauthorised loans to councillors and, in some cases, outright looting. a recent gautengbased survey on local government revealed that sixty percent of the residents profiled expressed concern over what they perceived as high levels of corruption in their municipality. intense rivalries in the anc have developed for positions in local bureaucracies and seats in councils because of the spoils on offer once appointed or elected. • the inability of many municipalities to comply with financial regulations set by the auditor-general is a disturbing indicator of the lack of capacity in many municipalities. • another indicator of financial misconduct is the failure to collect enough revenue to pay for service delivery. • it is generally accepted that municipalities should spend no more than 30% of their budget on salaries and the other 70% should go to infrastructure and service delivery. however, the amount paid in salaries to councillors and municipal officials outstrips spending on services by nearly r10 billion – 10% of the total municipal budget. some municipal managers have been known to earn in the region of r1.2 million, although the national average is closer to the r650 000 mark before performance bonuses. the issue with salaries and bonuses is not just the amount of money, but the fact that municipal managers are often rewarded despite their failure to run a municipality properly” (da, 2010: 1-3). the cases of corruption in south african municipalities are available at http://www.da.org.za. there has been a marked increase in unethical conduct and corruption in local government in south africa in the past five years. the government has acknowledged that the matter has to be addressed as a matter of urgency in south africa as it impacts negatively on service delivery. the republic of south africa constitution act of 1996 provides the constitutional basis for promoting ethical conduct. the local government municipal structures act 117 of 1998 has vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   416 ushered in a code of conduct for councillors, while the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 has introduced a code of ethics for officials. it is expected that the abovementioned codes will present challenges to both local politicians and officials in setting up the culture of an ethical and corruption-free environment in local government. within this framework and the broader context of local government, the community and municipal functionaries will have to seriously take cognisance of the institutional and administrative measures on hand to enhance ethical conduct and counter corruption. the curbing of corruption and enhancing of ethical conduct would, in the final analysis, ensure that the public interest is promoted and protected by addressing the needs and desires of the local citizenry (democracy development programme, 2006). the subject of ethics in south african local government has always evoked a great degree of interest in our relatively new democracy, particularly, as the local sphere of government is much closer to local communities compared to its provincial and national counterparts. it is also not uncommon for members of the public to view councillors and municipal staff members with suspicion and distrust, which is often attributable to past experiences of improper conduct on the part of certain individuals. it is for this reason that transparency and accountability tend to form the cornerstone of any legislation dealing with local government (nkosi, 2006). the framework of ethics for good local governance in south africa, explored in the next section. ethical conduct at the local sphere in south africa the code of ethics is a requisite for good local governance in south africa. the purpose of municipal code of ethics is to ensure transparency and ethical conduct by government employees and officials; to restore or foster public trust and citizen confidence in the administration of government; and to demonstrate a formal and codified commitment to ethical behaviour by government officials (un-habitat, 2004). the office of the public service commission initially issued a code of conduct for public servants as a government notice/gazette: regulation gazette 5947, no. r. 825, on june 10 1997. the code of conduct provides guidelines to both public officials and employers of what type of ethical behaviour is expected of them. the code also gives an indication of the spirit in which public officials should perform their duties; the action to take to avoid conflict of interest; and the terms of public official’s personal conduct and private interest (cameron & stone, 1995: 80). a code of conduct for the public service officials at national, provincial and local government levels includes (public service commission, 2010): relationship with the legislature and the executive: an employee is faithful to the republic and honours the constitution and abides thereby in the execution of her or his daily tasks; puts the public interest first in the execution of her or his duties; loyally executes the policies of the government of the day in the performance of her or his official duties as contained in all statutory and other prescripts; strives to be familiar with and abides by all statutory and other instructions applicable to her or his conduct and duties; and co-operates with public institutions established under legislation and the constitution in promoting the public interest. relationship with the public: an employee promotes the unity and well-being of the south african nation in performing her or his official duties; will serve the public in an unbiased and ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 417 impartial manner in order to create confidence in the public service; is polite, helpful and reasonably accessible in her or his dealings with the public, at all times treating members of the public as customers who are entitled to receive high standards of service; has regard for the circumstances and concerns of the public in performing her or his official duties and in the making of decisions affecting them; is committed through timely service to the development and upliftment of all south africans; does not unfairly discriminate against any member of the public on account of race, gender, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, political persuasion, conscience, belief, culture or language; does not abuse her or his position in the public service to promote or prejudice the interest of any political party or interest group; respects and protects every person’s dignity an her or his rights as contained in the constitution; and recognize the public’s right of access to information, excluding information that is specifically protected by law. relationships among employees: an employee co-operates with other employees to advance the public interest; executes all reasonable instructions by persons officially assigned to give them, provided these are not contrary to the provisions of the constitution and/or any other law; refrains from favouring relatives and friends in work-related activities and never abuses her or his authority or influences another employee, nor is influenced to abuse her or his authority; uses the appropriate channels to air her or his grievances or to direct representations; is committed to the optimal development, motivation and utilization of her or his staff and the promotion of sound labour and interpersonal relations; deals fairly, professionally and equitably with other employees, irrespective of race, gender, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, political persuasion, conscience, belief, culture or language; and refrain from party political activities in the workplace. performance of duties: an employee strives to achieve the objectives of her or his institution cost effectively and in the public’s interest; is creative in thought and in the execution of her or his duties, seeks innovative ways to solve problems and enhances effectiveness and efficiency within the context of the law; is punctual in the execution of her or his duties; executes her or his duties in a professional and competent manner; does not engage in any transaction or action that is in conflict with or infringes on the execution of her or his official duties; will rescue herself or himself from any official action or decision-making process which may result in improper personal gain, and this should be properly declared by the employee; accepts the responsibility to avail herself or himself of ongoing training and self-development throughout her or his career; is honest and accountable in dealing with public funds and uses the public service’s property and other resources effectively, efficiently, and only for authorized official purposes; promotes sound, efficient, effective, transparent and accountable administration; in the course of her or his official duties, shall report to the appropriate authorities fraud, corruption, nepotism, maladministration and any other act which constitutes an offence, or which is prejudicial to the public interest; gives honest and impartial advice, based on all available relevant information, to higher authority when asked for assistance of this kind; and honours the confidentiality of matters, documents and discussions, classified or implied as being confidential or secret. personal conduct and private interests: an employee during official duties, dresses and behaves in a manner that enhances the reputation of the public service; acts responsibly as far as the use of alcoholic beverages or any other substance with an intoxicating effect is concerned; does not use her or his official position to obtain private gifts or benefits for herself or himself during the performance of her or his official duties nor does she or he accept any gifts or benefits when offered as these may be construed as bribes; does not use or disclose any official information for vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   418 personal gain or the gain of others; and does not, without approval, undertake remunerative work outside her or his official duties or use office equipment for such work. significance of code of conduct/ethics promoting ethical standards in the public sector is a function of implementation and oversight of a code of conduct. such regulatory practice conforms to specific norms namely (urban governance toolkit series, 2004): creation: the process of producing a code of ethics must itself be an exercise in ethics. it must intentionally involve all members of the social group that it will include and represent. this necessitates a system or process of setting out “from top to bottom”, from the sundry to the specific, and constitutes progressive agreements in such a way that the final result is recognized a representative of all the moral and ethical character of the group; determining jurisdiction: municipalities need to designate individuals responsible for establishing enforcement guidelines and advisory procedures, and subsequently, including named entity within the code of ethics; disseminating the code of ethics: municipal employees and officials must understand the rules, obligations and expectations of standards to which they must abide; co-ordinating inter-government support: the relevant municipal stakeholder needs to strategize enforcement, communication and administrative support; and establishing a library of decisions and opinions: the transparent element of a code of ethics is best effectuated through cogent opinions and decisions interpreting the various laws and provisions. understanding the application of the code is an important element for transparent municipal governance. in addition to a code of ethics, provision is also made among the doctrines of democracy for the conduct of public officials. as pointed out by cloete (1995: 187-188),: it is generally accepted that public officials must promote the general welfare of the public in accordance with policy determined by the legislator; public officials, according to the doctrine of democracy, must in performing their duties, respect the rights and freedom of the population, whose rights and freedom can only be infringed upon directly by the legislator; the public should always be able to demand public officials to give account of their activities; in a democratic state, every member of the population has the right to insist on fair and reasonable treatment; and the activities of public officials can meet the ethical norms only if they fulfil their activities effectively without wasting the resources of the community. lessons learnt a number of countries implement some effective tools to enhance good local governance. the strategies and tools to support good governance at local level are specified in the table below (un-habitat, 2004): ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 419 table 2: strategies and tools to support good governance at local sphere strategies assessment and monitoring access to information and public participation promoting ethics, professionalism and integrity institutional reforms tools the municipal checklist e.g. namibia, greece public meetings e.g. wisconsin conflict of interest laws e.g. usa complaints and ombudsman office e.g. northern ireland, canada, germany the urban corruption survey e.g. kenya, brazil open meeting laws e.g. united states, arizona disclosure of income and assets e.g. usa municipal front office e.g. kosovo the municipal vulnerability assessment e.g. washington, dc access to information laws e.g. south africa lobbyist registration e.g. usa one stop shop e.g. australia, uk participatory corruption appraisal e.g. indonesia records management and computerization e.g. india, new guinea whistle blower protection e.g. usa oversight committees e.g. usa report cards e.g. india, filipino, bangladesh e-government e.g. korea, ecuador, finland, united states, india, south africa the integrity pact e.g. argentina, pakistan, nepal independent audit function e.g. vienna, namibia proof (the public record of operations and finance) e.g. india media training e.g. malaysia code of ethics e.g. south africa, australia, ethiopia, india independent anticorruption agencies e.g. botswana public education tools: media campaigns, school programmes, public speaking, engagements, publications e.g. lebanon, peru, united states, botswana, baltimore ethical campaign practices e.g. usa, azerbaijan participatory budgeting e.g. brazil, serbia, cotacachi public participation: public hearings, study circles, citizen advisory boards, government contacts committees, public watchdog groups e.g. south africa ethics training e.g. germany, usa vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   420 south african municipalities have also implemented a code of conduct for councillors to enhance the environment of ethics. for that matter, city councillors for all municipalities in south africa have to abide by a code of conduct which requires them, among other things, to declare their financial interests, and to report back to the constituencies at regular intervals. below is the full text of the code, in schedule 5 of the municipal structures act. councillors are elected to represent local communities on municipal councils, to ensure that municipalities have structured mechanisms of accountability to local communities, and to meet the priority needs of communities by providing services equitably, effectively and sustainably within the means of the municipality. in fulfilling this role councillors must be accountable to local communities and report back at least quarterly to constituencies on council matters, including the performance of the municipality yin terms of established indicators. in order to ensure that councillors fulfil their obligations to their communities, and support the achievement by the municipality of its objectives set out in section 19 of the act (city of johannesburg, 2010: 1), the following code of conduct is established (city of johannesburg, 2010: 1-8): general conduct of councillors: a councillor must perform the functions of office in good faith, honestly and a transparent manner; and at all times act in the best interest of the municipality and in such a way that the credibility and integrity of the municipality are not compromised. attendance at meetings: a councillor must attend each meeting of the municipal council and of a committee of which that councillor is a member, except when leave of absence is granted in terms of an applicable law or as determined by the rules and orders of the council; or that councillor is required in terms of this code to withdraw from the meeting. sanctions for non-attendance of meetings: a municipal council may impose a fine as determined by the standing rules and orders of the municipal council on a councillor for: not attending a meeting which that councillor is required to attend; or failing to remain in attendance at such a meeting. a councillor who is absent from three or more consecutive meetings of a municipal council, or from three or more consecutive meetings of a committee, which that councillor is required to attend, must be removed from office as a councillor. proceedings for the imposition of a fine or the removal of a councillor must be conducted in accordance with a uniform standing procedure, which each municipal council must adopt for the purposes of this item. the uniform standing procedure must comply with the rules of natural justice. disclosure of interests: a councillor must disclose to the municipal council, or to any committee of which that councillor is a member, any direct or indirect personal or private business interest that that councillor, or any spouse, partner or business associate of that councillor may have in any matter before the council or the committee; and withdraw from the proceedings of the council or committee when that matter is considered by the council or committee, unless the council or committee decides that the councillor's director indirect interest in the matter is trivial or irrelevant. a councillor who, or whose spouse, partner, business associate or close family member, acquired or stands to acquire any direct benefit from a contract concluded with the municipality, must disclose full particulars of the benefit of which the councillor is aware at the first meeting of the municipal council at which it is possible for the councillor to make the disclosure. personal gain: a councillor may not use the position or privileges of a councillor, or confidential information obtained as a councillor, for private gain or to improperly benefit another person. except with the prior consent of the municipal council, a councillor may not be a party to or beneficiary under a contract for the provision of goods or services to the municipality; or the ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 421 performance of any work otherwise than as a councillor for the municipality; obtain a financial interest in any business of the municipality; or for a fee or other consideration appear on behalf of any other person before the council or a committee. if more than one quarter of the councillors object to consent being given to a councillor, such consent may only be given to the councillor with the approval of the mec for local government in the province. declaration of interests: when elected or appointed, a councillor must within 60 days declare in writing to the municipal manager the following financial interests held by that councillor: shares and securities in any company; membership of any close corporation; interest in any trust; directorships; partnerships; other financial interests in any business undertaking; employment and remuneration; interest in property; pension; and subsidies, grants and sponsorships by any organisation. any change in the nature or detail of the financial interests of a councillor must be declared in writing to the municipal manager annually. gifts received by a councillor above a prescribed amount must also be declared. the municipal council must determine which of the financial interests must be made public having regard to the need for confidentiality and the public interest for disclosure. full-time councillors: a councillor who is a full-time councillor may not undertake any other paid work, except with the consent of a municipal council which consent shall not unreasonably be withheld. rewards, gifts and favours: a councillor may not request, solicit or accept any reward, gift or favour for voting or not voting in a particular manner on any matter before the municipal council or before a committee of which that councillor is a member; persuading the council or any committee in regard to the exercise of any power, function or duty; making a representation to the council or any committee of the council; or disclosing privileged or confidential information. unauthorised disclosure of information: a councillor may not without the permission of the municipal council or a committee disclose any privileged or confidential information of the council or committee to any unauthorised person. for the purpose of this item "privileged or confidential information" includes any information determined by the municipal council or committee to be privileged or confidential; discussed in closed session by the council or committee; disclosure of which would violate a person's right to privacy; or declared to be privileged, confidential or secret in terms of law. this item does not derogate from the right of any person to access to information in terms of national legislation. intervention in administration: a councillor may not, except as provided by law interfere in the management or administration of any department of the municipal council unless mandated by council; give or purport to give any instruction to any employee of the council except when authorised to do so; obstruct or attempt to obstruct the implementation of any decision of the council or a committee by an employee of the council; or encourage or participate in any conduct which would cause or contribute to maladministration in the council. council property: a councillor may not use, take, acquire or benefit from any property or asset owned, controlled or managed by the municipality to which that councillor has no right. duty of chairpersons of municipal councils: if the chairperson of a municipal council, on reasonable suspicion, is of the opinion that a provision of this code has been breached, the chairperson must authorise an investigation of the facts and circumstances of the alleged breach; give the councillor a reasonable opportunity to reply in writing regarding the alleged breach; and vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   422 report the matter to a meeting of the municipal council. a report is open to the public. the chairperson must report the outcome of the investigation to the mec for local government in the province concerned. the chairperson must ensure that each councillor when taking office is given a copy of this code and that a copy of the code is available in every room or place where the council meets. breaches of code: a municipal council may investigate and make a finding on any alleged breach of a provision of this code; or establish a special committee to investigate and make a finding on any alleged breach of this code; and to make appropriate recommendations to the council. if the council or a special committee finds that a councillor has breached a provision of this code, the council may issue a formal warning to the councillor; reprimand the councillor; request the mec for local government in the province to suspend the councillor for a period; fine the councillor; and request the mec to remove the councillor from office. any councillor who has been warned, reprimanded or fined may within 14 days of having been notified of the decision of council appeal to the mec for local government in writing, setting out the reasons on which the appeal is based. a copy of the appeal must be provided to the council. the council may within 14 days of receipt of the appeal make any representation pertaining to the appeal to the mec for local government in writing. the mec for local government may, after having considered the appeal, confirm, set aside or vary the decision of the council and inform the councillor and the council of the outcome of the appeal. the mec for local government may appoint a person or a committee to investigate any alleged breach of a provision of this code and to make a recommendation on whether the councillor should be suspended or removed from office. the commissions act, 1947 (act no.8 of 1947), may be applied to an investigation. if the mec is of the opinion that the councillor has breached a provision of this code, and that such contravention warrants a suspension or removal from office, the mec may suspend the councillor for a period and on conditions determined by the mec; or remove the councillor from office. any investigation in terms of this item must be in accordance with the rules of natural justice. application of code to traditional leaders: the above items must be applied to the traditional leader in the same way they apply to councillors. if a municipal council or a special committee finds that a traditional leader has breached a provision of this code, the council may issue a formal warning to the traditional leader; or request the mec for local government in the province to suspend or cancel the traditional leader's right to participate in the proceedings of the council. the mec for local government may appoint a person or a committee to investigate any alleged breach of a provision of this code and to make a recommendation on whether the right of the traditional leader to participate in the proceedings of the municipal council should be suspended or cancelled. the commissions act, 1947, may be applied to an investigation. if the mec is of the opinion that the traditional leader has breached a provision of this code, and that such breach warrants a suspension or cancellation of the traditional leader's right to participate in the council's proceedings, the mec may suspend that right for a period and on conditions determined by the mec; or cancel that right. any investigation in terms of this item must be in accordance with the rules of natural justice. the suspension or cancellation of a traditional leader's right to participate in the proceedings of a council does not affect that traditional leader's right to address the council. assessment and monitoring tools (as stated in the table 2) are required to review the implementation of code of conduct at municipal level and further assist to develop the environment of accountability and transparency at the municipal level. the access to information tool is a requisite to enhance public participation. the ethics and integrity tools ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 423 create a boundary of acceptable actions and behaviour. the institutional reforms tool simplifies and clarifies the procedures of good local governance. the following considerations have to be borne into mind as far as the ethical behaviour of municipal employees is concerned (obtained from matovu in plessis, 2003): attitudes of local government managers: the focus of local government managers should no longer emphasize managing of financial and material resources only but should also place emphasis on their human capital. one important implication of this attitude would include ensuring improved levels of communication. in terms of the codes of conduct, for councillors and officials a simple but relevant question revolves around the extent to which the codes are communicated to people…that information dissemination on the code of conduct should form an integral part of the induction process to which new councillors/employees should be subjected. it would in the case of officials also require active involvement of organised labour as representative of employees. increased dialogue between communities and the authorities: there is an increased need for local authorities to be participatory especially in the light of the emphasis on developmental local government …this requires continuous dialogue between authorities and the community. in a country like south africa the majority of citizens were in the past isolated from issues of governance. there is thus a need to involve and educate local communities on how the authority operates and what they can reasonably expect. in this way the public can also positively impact on councilor and official behaviour if they are aware of the rules applying to those in positions of authority. attracting professionals to local government: emphasis should be on portraying involvement in local government as a professional business. politicians and officials alike should realise that they have a professional obligation to render services in the best possible ways to the community, their clients. integrity within local government: there are increased concerns about corruption in all government spheres. activities of municipalities should be characterized by openness and honesty towards all stakeholders concerned to ensure the establishment of sustained relations of trust between the authorities and local communities. the code of conduct is a requisite to avoid maladministration and unethical behaviour at the local sphere of governance. though there are several factors that underpin the notion of good governance, viz. corruption. klitgaard (1997: 2) proposed a formula for analyzing the tendency for corruption to exist: c = m + d a (corruption = monopoly + discretion –accountability). there is a need to implement ethics in order to rectify the above formula for good governance. moor (2004) further observed that the missing element from the formula is the sense of community, of responsibility for the common good and of ethics. if …examine the pattern of existence of corruption in different societies, it might support a modified formula: c = (m + d – a) / e, where the denominator e is the ethical ambience (moor, 2004). vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   424 concluding remarks the following policy points are recommended to further help enforce ethical requirements of public officials: • education and training are undoubtedly the backbone of sensitizing and creating awareness of a policy issue. this calls for regular and mandatory training of public officials on issues of ethics. in a number of commonwealth countries, there exists the parallel institution of south african management development institute (samdi, presently known as palama) but which makes it mandatory for every public official to be trained for a diploma in public administration. a prerequisite would be for each candidate to submit research essay on combating unethical conduct. • the united states of america (usa) legislative system requires all political appointees to be vetted by a senate appointments committee. considering the gravity and rate of conducts on ethics in south african public service, it is appropriate that south africa borrows such practice into its system. such a committee scrutinises the entire fabric and life history of a prospective appointee, and once he/she is recommended, there is a hope that an ethical hurdle has been cleared. the existence of such a committee serves as bloodhound on unethical conduct. • further to the policy issue on appointments committee should be a policy on declaration of assets, on initial appointment, by officials from director rank upwards. to be administered by the public service commission, officials’ social standing would be periodically reviewed. • specific functional areas in the public service tend to be prone to unethical conduct. this may be true of tender and bidding functions. a rotation system where tender committee members are announced on the day of tender decisions will help close opportunities for unethical conduct in the process. • performance contracts of accounting officers should include degrees of commitment to unearthing unethical conduct; to declare periodically issues that were tackled and rooted out. • ultimately, a market-related remuneration may help thwart unethical conduct. the public service is not a profit oriented service institution. yet, a policy on attractive remuneration is needed for purposes of creating committed and dedicated public officials. for south africa, there were a number of lessons learnt with regard to the readiness of municipalities to develop and implement anti-corruption measures. most notable was that although some municipalities, especially the district municipalities and metropolitan municipalities, have anti-corruption and fraud policies and structures in place, those have proven to be inadequate to effectively fight corruption (department of provincial and local government, 2008). consequently, the local government anti-corruption strategy (lgacs) developed by the department of provincial and local government stresses on the following principles: creating a culture within municipalities which is intolerant to unethical conduct, fraud and corruption; strengthening community participation and relationships with key stakeholders. for example, south african local government association, employee representative unions and communities are strategic partners necessary to support the actions ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 425 required to fight corruption in municipalities; deterrence of unethical conduct, taking appropriate action in the event of such irregularities, e.g. disciplinary action, recovery of losses, prosecution, and applying sanctions, which include redress in respect of financial losses (department of provincial and local government, 2008). in order to fulfil these objectives of good governance, there is the need to strategise measurable implementation plans, conduct sustainable fraud risk assessments and to sensitise the community through education and training regarding good governance and code of ethics. the article offers recommendations to help promote ethical conduct in local government viz. through research (survey, opinion polls). there is a need to identify the underlying factors that cause corruption in local government. transparency and accountability are most important to the legitimacy of local officials hence there is a need to form coalitions with stakeholders to stop corruption locally. much publicity is needed to be given to the art of municipal financial reporting. the hearings at propacs (provincial public accounts committees), of audit committees, need to be in the public domain. auditor-general road shows could be conducted to enlighten municipal public on audit findings and soliciting public partnership in unearthing municipal unethical conduct. the public sector, according to lynch (in raga and taylor, 2007: 4), like individuals, is constantly changing through new leadership, environmental influences and socio-political development. government and society cannot promote and enforce ethical behaviour solely through the utilisation of ethical codes of conduct or through the promulgation of a plethora of legislation. social mindsets are often entangled in a micro-ethic paradigm. people tend to equate moral values and moral norms, which apply only to personal relations structures within which they interact. south africa needs an organisational culture that not only supports ethical behaviour, but also defines and underpins right and wrong conduct at an individual and institutional sphere. the code of conduct is a requisite to regulate the environment of transparency and accountability. the cases of misconduct which are not expressly provided for in terms of either code of conduct may be further regulated by each municipal council in terms of section 160 of the constitution, which deals with the internal procedures of a municipal council. for instance, the council would be entitled to incorporate into its standing rules and orders any act of misconduct which is not expressly provided for in the code of conduct for councillors. . it may be argued that the general prohibition contained in item 2 of the councillors’ code of conduct is wide enough to cover any type of misconduct which may have the effect of compromising the credibility and/or integrity of the municipality (nkosi, 2006). it appeared that the phenomenon of ethical conduct in public activities and all the circumstances surrounding them could be subjected to scientific investigations, in order to analyze the implications thereof. this serves as a motivation for the study, in order to research the phenomenon of good local governance within the context of ethics. references agere, s. 1992. ‘the promotion of good ethical standards and behaviour in public services in africa: the case of zimbabwe’. africanus, vol. 22. anc today. 2005. “anc today”. http://www.anc.org.za. accessed on 28 august 2010. vyas-­doorgapersad  &  ababio   426 cameron, rs and stone, ab. 1995. serving the public: a guide for practitioners (pretoria: van schaik). city of johannesburg. 2010. “code of conduct for councillors”. http://www.joburg.org.za cloete, jjn. 1995. accountable government and administration for the republic of south africa (pretoria: van schaik). cranston, n., ehrich, l. and kimber, m. 2003. ‘ethical dilemmas faced by senior public sector managers: towards an exploratory model’. http://www.gu.edu.au democratic alliance. 2010. “the rot in anc municipalities: five case-studies of cronyism, corruption and ineptitude”. http://www.da.org.za. accessed on 5 march 2010. democracy development programme. 2006. ‘towards good governance, ethical conduct and integrity in the second decade of democracy in south africa’. introductory note for the ddp/ukzn conference, 16-17 october 2006. http://www.ddp.org.za department of provincial and local government, 2008. ‘local government anticorruption strategy’. http://www.dplg.gov.za department of provincial and local government, 2008. ‘local government’. http://www.dplg.gov.za department of public service and administration. 2002. “public service anti-corruption strategy”. http://www.dpsa.gov.za. accessed on 24 march 2007. klitgaard, r. 1997. ‘international cooperation against corruption”. http://www.icgg.org makrydemetres, a. 2002. ‘dealing with ethical dilemmas in public administration: the ‘alir’ imperatives of ethical reasoning’. http://www.unpan1.un.org moor, j. 2004. “transparency and corruption”. http://ww2.unhabitat.org nkosi, v. 2006. ‘ethics and codes of conduct in local government (councillors and municipal staff members)’. http://www.ddp.org.za plessis, du lm. 2003. ‘promoting ethical conduct and integrity in local government: a south african perspective’. http://www.iiasiisa.be politicalcorruption.net.2009. “types of corruption found in local government”. http://www.politicalcorruption.net. accessed on 10 august 2009. public service commission. 1997. “code of conduct for public servants”. http://www.psc.gov.za public service commission. 2010. “code of conduct for public servants”. http://www.psc.za raga, k. and taylor, d. 2007. ‘impact of accountability and ethics on public service delivery: a south african perspective’. http://www.thepublicmanager.org republic of south africa. 1992. prevention of corruption act (act 94 of 1992) (pretoria: government printer). republic of south africa. 1994. white paper on the transformation of the public service 1994 ( pretoria: government printer). ethics  for  good  local  governance  in  south  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 411-427. 427 republic of south africa. 1996. the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 (pretoria: government printer). republic of south africa. 1998. the local government: municipal structures act, 1998 (pretoria: government printer). republic of south africa. 2000. the local government: municipal systems act, 2000 (pretoria: government printer). sindane, a.m. 2009 administrative culture, accountability and ethics: gateways in search of the best public service. journal of public administration vol 44 no. 3 un-habitat. 2004. ‘urban governance toolkit series’. http://www.hq.unhabitat.org united nations development programme, 2008. ‘introducing good local governance: the indonesian experience’. http://www.undp.or.id urban governance toolkit series. 2004. ’un-habitat’. http://www.hq.unhabitat.org vyas-doorgapersad, s & ababio, ep. 2006. ethical dilemmas and democratic values: how to reposition institutions for good governance and service delivery. journal of public administration. vol. 41. no. 2.2. vyas-doorgapersad, s. 2007. “corruption in the public sector: a comparative analysis”. journal of public administration. vol. 42. no. 5. vyas-doorgapersad, s., subban, m. & pillay, s. 2008. ethics for good local governance in south africa. paper presented at the iias conference in uganda. walters, s. 2009. “ethics and leadership for good governance”. http://74.6.239.185/search/srpcache? accessed on 15 august 2010. abstract introduction background literature methodology findings and discussion conclusions and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) raymond n. fru department of human sciences, school of education, sol plaatje university, kimberley, south africa makatleho liphoto department of languages and social education, faculty of education, national university of lesotho, roma, lesotho citation fru rn, liphoto m. history education and citizenship conundrum: experiences and perspectives of lesotho general certificate of secondary education history teachers in lesotho. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a975. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.975 original research history education and citizenship conundrum: experiences and perspectives of lesotho general certificate of secondary education history teachers in lesotho raymond n. fru, makatleho liphoto received: 18 oct. 2020; accepted: 04 feb. 2021; published: 22 apr. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract there have been serious efforts across countries to make history education more relevant. one such global effort is the integration of citizenship values into the history curriculum and syllabus of schools. despite the successes of this initiative in some contexts, others have received it with mixed feelings thereby problematising its implementation and compromising the chances of a successful outcome. this article interrogates the relationship between school history and citizenship through an exploration of the perceptions of history teachers in lesotho about the promotion of citizenship values through history education. the rationale for the investigation stems from the inclusion of citizenship values as part of the aims of the lesotho general certificate of secondary education (lgcse) history syllabus. the study operated within the interpretive paradigm and a qualitative case study approach of four purposively selected high schools and eight teachers in maseru, lesotho. the data collected from semi-structured interviews revealed that the teachers possess very vague and varying understandings of citizenship. this vagueness ultimately translates into the classroom practice in the form of a lack of harmonious implementation of the lgsce history syllabus’ prescriptions on citizenship values. the teachers however, have a mostly positive feeling about the importance of imparting citizenship values to learners, especially in the unique context of lesotho through history education. this article recommends that the ministry of education and training (moet) initiates a robust curriculum reflection process, together with relevant stakeholders that will inform policy on the effective implementation of the citizenship clauses of the lgsce history syllabus. keywords: citizenship; curriculum; history teaching; lesotho; lgcse. introduction history is considered by some as a simplistic story of the past or a school subject that studies events over time and space. other efforts to define history describe it as the study of people that take into account ethnic groups, social trends, religion, philosophy and political orientation.1 whilst ajala2 understands history as a tool used to develop peaceful coexistence in society by imparting to learners the norms and values that promote healthy human existence. cole and barsalou3 view history as a type of education, which promotes and secures heavily marginalised ethnic, religious and cultural identities that can easily be subjugated within the society. the views above are an insinuation that the promotion of certain values and production of good citizenry are critical in the mandate of school history. supporting this perceived relationship between history and citizenship, fru4 indicates that through history education, learners become responsible, reflective and active citizens who can make informed decisions. in this way, history helps learners improve their capabilities to think critically as informed citizens. stearns5 concurs by stating that history is the subject that creates well-informed citizens about the society they live in. this significant value of citizenship education has led to a global increased interest as with many more countries embracing the discipline, either as a stand-alone subject, or as an integral part of history education.6,7 the world education forum8 that took place in dakar, senegal, analysed the social ills of contemporary society and suggested education as a powerful tool for promoting democracy, citizenship and citizenship education to curb these ills. this is recognition that education in general and history education specifically, mutually complement citizenship and citizenship education in achieving holistic development of a child and supports the quest for a decent society. based on the above, it became necessary that practical implications of this relationship between history and citizenship be investigated primarily through the lens of people who are mandated with the responsibility to ensure that the relationship succeeds. we approach this article from an experiential premise and the assumption that the way teachers perceive a programme and the level of skills they are exposed to about that programme is directly proportionate to the extent of their commitment to its implementation and the eventual success or failure. consequently, we sought in this article to understand and interrogate the lesotho general certificate of secondary education (lgcse) history teachers’ experiences of citizenship, their perceptions on the expectation to promote citizenship values through history teaching, and problems encountered in their efforts at promoting citizenship values through the teaching of history. background subsequent to the link between citizenship and history as aforementioned, the effective implementation of the former is mainly reliant on how the latter is organised in the school set-up. in context of this article, in lesotho history is offered at the secondary school level as an optional subject in the personal, spiritual and social learning area as reflected in the 2009 lesotho curriculum and assessment policy.9 this policy document demonstrates an apparent intention of promoting citizenship values, especially at the lgcse level in varied ways. the curriculum and assessment policy emphasises that the overall goal of the ministry of education and training (moet) of lesotho is to review the entire primary and secondary education curricula to make education at these levels accessible, relevant, efficient, and of the best possible quality.10 apart from these broad goals, the curriculum goes further to provide specific aims for secondary education under which the lgcse history syllabus is accommodated. a vital component of these aims that is relevant to this article is the idea of provision of opportunities for learners to participate in activities that promote democratic principles, human rights and emerging issues in society.9 this implies that all subjects in the curriculum, inclusive of history, should not only foster the acquisition of relevant knowledge and skills, but also values that will make students active and holistic members of their society. furthermore, philosophical statements and expressions related to justice, equality, peace, prosperity, democracy and mutual coexistence, which underpin the way of life for the basotho (refers to citizens of lesotho) are to be expressed in the lgsce. out of the 14 lgcse history syllabus aims, three were identified in this article as having citizenship connotations and we, therefore, used these as the citizenship variables for this study. these three aims are presented as follows, with the numbering of the aims here corresponding to the order in which they appear in the curriculum and assessment policy:11 1.1 stimulates interest and enthusiasm for the study of the past in order to instill and develop a sense of nationality and patriotism. 1.4 inculcates ideals of tolerance as a pre-condition for the attainment of peace, stability and eventual national unity and development. 1.12 develops an awareness of environmental factors and their impact on the socio-economic and political development of lesotho. the inclusion of these three key citizenship-related aims in the lgcse history syllabus indicates the importance that the curriculum and assessment policy places on the attainment of citizenship goals through history education, and constitutes part of the rationale for this article. literature it is worthwhile noting as a point of departure that a desktop search of the literature revealed a study on the theme of citizenship education in lesotho, albeit with a different focus. in that study, tsilane12 investigates diverse approaches that can be adopted to institute a successful citizenship education programme in the lesotho junior secondary education curriculum. whilst the above study is similar to this article, because of the common theme of citizenship exploration in the context of the education system in lesotho, the divergence is at the level of the focuses of this article on perceptions of teachers on citizenship implementation, including their role thereof at the lgcse level. the meaning of citizenship is fluid and sometimes understood varyingly in different times and space. marshall13 describes citizenship as a status bestowed upon people who were full members of a community. according to him, it required a direct sense of community membership, based on loyalty to that community, which is a collective possession. in this view, being born into a particular community qualified someone to be citizen of that community. this is also referred to commonly as citizenship by birth. alternatively, citizenship is described as the status of a person recognised as being a legal member or part of a nation. this view deviates from the previous in terms of the focus on birth as opposed to legality, respectively. another dimension from herbert and sears14 assumes citizenship as a relationship between an individual and a state, and amongst individuals within a state. thus, citizenship refers to a person’s sense of belonging within a geographical state and her relationship with other individuals within that same state. citizenship involves being a member of a community by enjoying its rights and having relationships with fellow citizens. consequently, a person’s citizenship is intricately linked to their identity. mclaughlin15 supports the link between citizenship and belonging to a community by alluding to minimal and maximal interpretations, with both interpretations conceived in identity in its social, cultural and psychological forms. in the ‘new south africa’ for example, the official version of democratic citizenship is seen as a maximal one by positing, a citizen is one who is expected to hold an identity as a member of a democratic country, which entails not only rights but also duties.16 the vision of citizenship reflected in the constitution of south africa is also maximal in terms of the virtues it expects: citizens are assumed to be committed to the common good, to contributing to debates and decision-making at national level, as well as to the local, immediate concerns that are the focus of a more minimal conception of the citizen.16 many scholars have conceptualised the purpose and manner of teaching and learning of history in different and sometimes conflicting ways. scheiber17 brought up the idea of historical literacy, which refers to what an individual accumulates from studying history. one of the indicators of his historical literacy framework is the idea of citizenship. implying that for a person to qualify as historically literate, that individual is expected to have acquired certain demonstrable core citizenship principles. therefore, the process of learning historical concepts and historical facts can give an opportunity for pupils to develop their citizenship traits. this resonates very well with the arguments of ajala2 and ndille18 who argue that history affects learners’ norms and values, and that history is used in certain contexts such as in cameroon to enforce a policy of national integration which in itself is an element of citizenship. in this way, history as a subject is a tool that helps develop within a society a peaceful coexistence. phillips19 attests to the above arguments by suggesting that a history curriculum should encourage pupils to think independently, present sustainable arguments, communicate effectively, co-operate and learn from each other, be curious, interrogate evidence as well as be appreciative of more than one point of view and a range of different interpretations. he goes further to encourage that the history curriculum must seek to produce citizens who have a properly informed perception of their own identity as well as those of others and who actively promote inclusive, as opposed to an exclusive, view of community, society and nation. such citizens will also be able to cultivate a depth of vision amongst pupils, addressing some universal values such as tolerance, social justice and honesty. despite the above visible alignment between history education and citizenship, some views however, suggest that combining both can have a few challenges. brett20 for instance, states that there is a fear that a sustained focus on these issues will somehow take pupils away from the core business and substance of history. he further claims that the explicit teaching of citizenship in a history context may mean on occasions interweaving history and contemporary politics lessons within the context of an overarching sequence of lessons. to mitigate this impasse, batchelor21 therefore suggests that it would be useful for citizenship coordinators to issue guidelines in order that subject specialists understand the specific requirements that education for citizenship entails. he suggests that these guidelines should make explicit how the subject they are teaching contributes to the understanding of citizenship, how it can exemplify the operation of values and concepts essential for citizenship, how it may help students to develop their skills of analysis, critical judgments, expressing a point of view or participating co-operatively with others. methodology this qualitative study sought to explore lesotho history teachers’ understandings of citizenship and their perceptions of the role of history education in promoting the citizenship values embedded in the lgcse syllabus. we approached the study from an interpretive paradigm as we assumed the subjective perspectives of the teachers to be the reality that was primordial in achieving the goals of the study through an in-depth exploration.22 convenience and purposive sampling techniques were employed to determine participants for the study, with only schools offering history at the lgcse level being considered. four schools in the maseru district were used in a proportion of two history teachers per school. we ensured that all the teachers are currently teaching history at the lgcse level of forms d and e. data was collected with the help of semi-structured interviews. these interviews were guided by the main objectives underpinning this study and were divided into four main sections. firstly, the emphasis was on defining citizenship. secondly, participants were asked to identify from the lgcse history syllabus aims they thought reflected citizenship values. thirdly, participants were asked how they teach history in order to achieve those aims identified in the syllabus. lastly, participants were required to state challenges that they faced when addressing issues of citizenship whilst teaching history. follow-up questions were asked as necessary. the recorded data from the interviews was thoroughly listened to and then transcribed for analysis with the teachers being given the pseudonyms a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h for purposes of anonymity.22 the analysis of the data was done inductively following the a priori thematic approach. this implies that the themes were determined by the research objectives explained in the previous paragraph. on the basis of these a priori themes, trends and patterns were identified from the teachers’ responses and then analysed in a manner that was responsive to the objectives of the article.23 this was followed by a careful, more focused re-reading and review of data. even though the themes were determined a priori, this approach to data analysis was effective because, despite lgcse history teachers having differing views, they all relate to the research objectives, which were the main themes for this study. ethical considerations the researchers ensured ethical research practice in undertaking the study. participants were given full information about the study and requested to consent in writing before participating in the study. to ensure confidentiality, the researchers anonymised all participant names and ensured privacy. the protocols and tools of the larger master’s degree project from which this study is drawn, were subjected to ethical review by the national university of lesotho. findings and discussion teachers’ understandings of citizenship all of the teachers had the requisite credentials to teach as they all held a bachelor’s degree in education. one teacher indicated that he holds a managerial position in his school as the head of a department (hod). all teachers were therefore qualified to teach history in secondary schools at the lgcse level, and could be trusted to have a well-informed understanding of citizenship and proper familiarisation with the contents of the syllabus. however, despite their requisite qualifications in history teaching, the findings revealed that the teachers do not necessarily demonstrate a comfortable and professional understanding of the citizenship concept. this was evident in their responses to the question of their knowledge of citizenship that was often preceded by pauses and repeating of the word citizenship. teacher b’s first response was: ‘citizenship … citizenship is, is about emm …’ this manner of response often indicates a lack of comprehension on a topic and therefore, the absence of the correct words to explain the concept. the fact that a similar trend was observed in the responses of all the other teachers is an indication of the absence of a harmonious understanding of what the word citizenship entails and how it should be taught in the lgcse syllabus. the teachers, however, provided information that we were able to draw from and ascertain the kind of influence they have in their classrooms as they went about teaching history. an issue that came across strongly from the teachers is the one that links citizenship to national identity, and the rights and responsibilities that go with that. for example, teacher b stated that to her, citizenship means ‘… a person’s belonging to a certain country’ whilst teacher f concurred by noting that, ‘citizenship is the identity of a person’. teacher e highlighted the dimension of rights and responsibilities, which is equally linked to identity with: ‘[i] have to be a mosotho [singular form of basotho], born in lesotho. even if not born in lesotho but one who takes part in the development of the country either politically or this job that we do of teaching. that is what i understand as something i have to do also do other things to develop the country, not only myself.’ (participant e, history teacher, maseru district) the different reactions indicated above align the teachers’ understandings to those observed by marshall,13 haas24 and ten dam and volman.25 these authors argue that citizenship is being a member of a particular state and that it refers to the rights, responsibilities and actions carried out by those who belong to a community. haas24 submits that citizenship refers to the state of being a member of a specific state with the state as having the insiders and outsiders, the former being citizens and the latter being non-citizens. therefore, the understandings of the teachers cited above could be summated as being physical and tangible. in their perspective, they consider the physical location of the individual with relation to their state or country of residence as being paramount in the determination of their citizenship. going by this view, being born or living rightfully in a country qualifies one as a citizen of that country. in addition to these views, teachers d and g define citizenship through the values that they say reflects it. teacher d for instance noted that: ‘[c]itizenship entails patriotism and nationalism … i think if i am a mosotho, my citizenship as a mosotho is only dependent on the extent of the love i have for my country and my ability to respect the institutions and laws of the country.’ (participant d, history teacher, maseru district) this prospect is quite different from those held by other teachers because it sees citizenship as fluid and intangible. it goes beyond nationality to actions individuals take in favour of the nation-state. despite the divergent views in conceptualising citizenship, the expectation is that the exposure they give a student in their teaching and in assessment conforms to the prescriptions of the lgcse history syllabus. nonetheless, the extent to which these subjective understandings are managed in the history teaching process so that the syllabus takes centre stage is usually a far cry. teachers’ perspectives on history as a vehicle for citizenship education issues of nationality, patriotism, tolerance, peace, stability, national unity and development that are reflected in the aims of the lgcse history syllabus all demonstrate that history education is expected to promote citizenship values. this observation is in support of phillips,19 who stated that history education should seek to produce learners who easily demonstrate identified citizenship competencies. this study revealed that although lgcse history teachers showed little and varying understandings of the concept of citizenship, they however, demonstrated a positive attitude on promoting citizenship values through history education. this is encouraging considering that the class cannot reach its potential for cultivating active citizens if teachers do not have proper comprehension of that potential. responses from all participants show the different benefits that they believe could be attained if history education is used to promote citizenship values in learners. amongst some of the responses in this light are, teacher g who explained that: ‘learners should be made to apply what they learn from their history lessons to their daily lives if we are to see a different generation’. what this infers is that including issues of citizenship in history lessons would help bridge the distance or historicity of the discipline of history, since citizenship, just like heritage, is about the now rather than the distant past. putting this into practical perspective, teacher f elaborated that: ‘[t]he first place to start in trying to train children to be active citizens is by teaching them about their origin for them to know who they are and where they come from.’ (participant f, history teacher, maseru district) this implies therefore, that the process of learning historical concepts and historical facts can allow pupils to develop their citizenship competencies. supporting these positive perceptions, ajala2 explains that history inculcates in learners significant norms and values, which can facilitate healthy human existence. in this way, history as a subject is a tool that helps develop peaceful coexistence and harmony, which are indispensable variables for any stable society. there is a strong view from the teachers that if learners are taught citizenship values as part of their history education from a very young age, they will become better and patriotic citizens in the future. this position was held firmly by teachers g, b and a. teacher g noted that: ‘[i]f learners can be taught about these citizenship values and their importance, it will be easier for them to live by them daily as they interact with their community members.’ (participant g, history teacher, maseru district) teacher b concurred and advanced that: ‘[c]itizenship education should be instilled in learners from an as young age as these of secondary schools so that they can grow up with the mentality that they have to protect their country at all costs.’ (participant b, history teacher, maseru district) this, she said is because she felt the present political leadership of lesotho was lacking in patriotism; hence the frequent socio-economic and political troubles lesotho is facing. she thinks it will take a generation that not only understands and appreciates the history of lesotho but also values the basotho identity and nation, to the extent of striving for its prosperity and development. she concluded that this could be achieved through a very aggressive and rigorous implementation of a history education in lesotho that aligns itself squarely with core citizenship indicators. expressing similar concern regarding the degenerating socio-political and economic situation of lesotho, teacher a suggested that citizenship qualities be instilled early in children in order to nurture in them a real sense of patriotism. apart from the view amongst all these teachers that citizenship values are essential for lesotho, there is also a general agreement that it will be more effective if it is taught in an integrated manner with history, rather than as an independent school subject. this, they think is because of the highly convergent nature of the two bodies of knowledge. we know that the past is fixed and that no one can change what happened in the past. nevertheless, as the values of society change over time and space, the historians’ depiction of the past also changes with them. problems that the lesotho general certificate of secondary education history teachers encounter when promoting citizenship education the study revealed that even though the lgcse history syllabus stipulates very clearly the requisite citizenship values and competencies that learners are expected to attain, the syllabus does not provide guidance to history teachers on how they could instruct and assess the content in order to achieve those objectives. consequently, teachers are left to their own devices to decide and improvise on the methods and resources that could be used. it was further revealed that this lack of confidence from the teachers on how to integrate the citizenship competencies in their history lessons has a domino effect on the nature and quality of their classroom assessment. in this regard, teachers are said to provide minimal assessment opportunities, which are mostly done orally. these oral dominated assessments are compounded by unpremeditated and spontaneous questions with the hope that it will be revealed in their answers whether or not the learners have acquired the requisite citizenship competencies. also, lgcse history teachers’ responses revealed that they believe that the moet is only paying lip service to this initiative of integrating citizenship in history. the teachers explained that their experience of the standardised history examinations from the examinations council of lesotho indicate that the examinations give more weightage to the history content areas of the syllabus, and nothing on the citizenship values and competencies. this raises concerns about the rationale for the citizenship value aims in the syllabus if they are not given equal weightage in the exams. conclusions and recommendations there is no doubt that the political and socio-economic challenges currently facing the kingdom of lesotho would be greatly mitigated if current leadership exemplified great patriotism. it would be unsurprising to say they do not have it because they lack the kind of education that instils in citizens an understanding of the history of their country and appreciate its bearings with time, contributing to its advancement. this is the kind of education that the discipline of history, when integrated with citizenship values, can offer any nation. if the prescripts of the lesotho curriculum and assessment policy are anything to go by, then the aforementioned is also the kind of education envisaged for lesotho through the lgcse history syllabus. despite this clear history-citizenship overt syllabus prescription, its implementation is marred by significant challenges. this study revealed that whilst history teachers in lesotho have very positive attitudes about the promotion of citizenship values in learners through history education and would love to see more effort in incorporating citizenship education in both teaching and assessment of history, they demonstrated little and, varied knowledge and understandings of the concept of citizenship. consequent to this variance, there is a haphazard classroom implementation of the syllabus requirements. a key factor that emerged was the fact that the citizenship values expected by the syllabus are not examined by examinations council of lesotho, thereby raising concerns about the seriousness of lesotho’s intentions on citizenship education. it is recommended from this study that the moet with the support of history teacher associations and other relevant stakeholders undertake a robust process of curriculum reflection. this process will interrogate and review the implementation of the citizenship provisions of the lgsce history syllabus, with the ultimate goal of producing a framework for a more effective and unambiguous implementation by the history teachers. this will go a long way in supporting the curriculum and assessment policy of lesotho to achieve the valuable purpose for which it was designed. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge all the teachers who participated in this study. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions r.n.f. and m.l. contributed equally to this work. m.l. was the master’s student. r.n.f. was the supervisor and wrote the article from the student’s work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, r.n.f., upon reasonable request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references weiner rg. history: teaching and methods. tx: eric; 1995 [document on the internet]. no date. available from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed387402.pdf ajala em. the 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literature review research methodology quantitative research approach qualitative semistructured interviews data collection and analysis measuring instruments results of the study discussion of research results conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) bethuel s. ngcamu department of public management and economics, durban university of technology, south africa citation ngcamu, b.s., 2017, ‘the effects of leadership traits on transformation: a case study of a south african university’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a403. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.403 original research the effects of leadership traits on transformation: a case study of a south african university bethuel s. ngcamu received: 18 dec. 2016; accepted: 27 july 2017; published: 24 nov. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article investigated the effects of leadership traits on transformation in a merged and incorporated higher education institution in south africa. few studies have been conducted on leadership traits in universities, with none linking them to transformation. the study was guided by the traits theory, one of the systematic attempts to study the effect of leadership on transformation. both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used, the former through a structured survey questionnaire and the latter through in-depth interviews. the questionnaire generated a high reliability rate of 0.947, indicating a high degree of internal consistency of the results, which reflected nearly 40% of the research participants who felt that the university creates a platform for open debates. however, 30% of them did not feel that independent thinking and freedom of speech are promoted, a finding partly corroborated by the qualitative findings. it was also found that business processes were inflexible, there was no reward for performance, unproductive change interventions were introduced and decision-making centralised, all seen as contrary to the transformation agenda and reflecting poor leadership traits. it is hoped that the study will assist university decision-makers under the current state of turmoil in the south african higher education landscape to exhibit leadership traits that will bring about transformation. the study also fills a void in the scant literature on the effects of leadership traits on transformation in south african universities, thus contributing to the body of knowledge. introduction currently, south african universities of technology such as durban institute of technology (dut) are facing crisis relating to realising their transformation agenda. this crisis is characterised by violent protests emanating from a mixture of transformation-related demands, including free education, giving access to more black students, rather than merely promoting academic excellence and aptitude, as well as demands for decolonisation of the curriculum. leadership traits, considered as contributing to the achievement of the institutional transformation agenda, seem to be lacking amongst leaders of these institutions. although leadership has been linked to traits and situations (avolio 2005; northouse 2010), certain traits are not evident in leaders in universities in south africa to effect transformation (bass 2008). this study investigates different categories of leadership traits, including cognitive, social competency, emotional competency, biophysical and traits of character (bass 2008) and their effect on transformation at dut which had embarked on restructuring since the merger. hall, symes and luescher (2004:28) reiterate that the south african restructuring of higher education is unique to the extent that it is driven by a political agenda of transformation, redress and equity which explicitly seeks to break the apartheid mould of higher education. literature on institutional mergers in south africa indicates a high degree of stress amongst staff (de lange & olivier 2008; hay & fourie 2002; reddy 2007; van der merwe 2007). the study conducted by singh (2011:1195) at dut revealed that participants complained that ‘staff are under a lot of stress because of the effects of racism’. for example, chalufu (2002) indicates that there were major tensions, with a potential clash of institutional cultures, between natal and ml sultan technikons postmerger and incorporation. in view of this, this study ascertains the impact, if any, of leadership traits on transformation in the merged and incorporated dut. furthermore, it responds to the question on what leadership traits that have an impact on transformation at dut. an interview-based study conducted by reis (2015:14) on four women university presidents to describe leadership traits identified several themes related to leadership success. it included their responses to barriers in moving through the leadership labyrinth, barriers met that required navigational skills to negotiate, pure luck, and multiple layers of innate traits, commitment to practice, attention to detail and pure perseverance as a platform for leadership success and to achieve a leadership position. another study conducted on a sample of 99 students in two universities and a sample of 92 students at two colleges of education in south-west nigeria found that coaching leadership traits were preferred by athletes of universities and colleges of education. the results indicated that the traits of friendliness and happiness, sense of humour and cheerfulness, and cooperation were most preferred irrespective of the type of institution (keinde 2013). the two studies referred to show that few studies were conducted on leadership traits in universities, with none of them linked to transformation or conducted in the south african context. this study fills the gap. this study investigates the impact of leadership traits on transformation at dut after its merger and incorporation. what follows next is the literature review, research design and methodology followed by the data presentation, analysis and the discussion of the research findings with the literature reviewed. this article concludes by drawing conclusions and providing recommendations, limitations and advice for future researchers based on the research findings. history of the natal technikon and ml sultan technikon technikon natal was founded in the early 1900s for primary education and to promote education opportunities for indian people. the advanced technical education act (no. 40 of 1967) was a watershed for education in south africa as it provided exclusively for the needs of the white population. between 1953 and 1965, the provinces shed bantu education, mixed race education and indian education and were responsible for white education only. in 1996, more and more non-white students entered what was historically a white institution. between 1996 and 2002, it shed its white institution image and embraced the challenges of transformation, while addressing issues such as gender equity on campus and restructuring the curricula. ml sultan technikon was established in 1941 as a technical college which was opened on 07 august 1956 to provide educational opportunities for indian people in then natal province. the technikon act (no. 125 of 1993) empowered technikons to respond to the challenges of transformation. as the apartheid era began to shut down, it became clear that legislation alone could not address the challenges and changes facing the institution. transformation needed to be real, not symbolic. the transformation of ml sultan technikon was initially characterised by conflict between staff, management and students. during 2001, both staff and students sought strong leadership as ml sultan technikon moved beyond its historical status as an indian institution to one reflecting the demographics of kwazulu-natal poised to respond to national developmental needs. in 2001, the councils of both ml sultan technikon and technikon natal initiated a merger of the institutions, setting the trend in the transformation of higher education. the official merger of the ml sultan and natal technikons took place on 01 april 2002 and was the first in south africa. it was followed by the merger of the university of natal (predominately white people) and the university of durban westville (indian people), resulting in the formation of the university of kwazulu-natal. research into governance implications of merged and incorporated higher education institutions (heis) was commissioned by the council on higher education (che) in 2002. at that time, only one merger had been completed, which resulted in the establishment of the dut (formerly ml sultan technikon, which had been predominantly indian, and natal technikon, predominantly white people). in 2004, four universities were merged and five followed in 2005 (hall et al. 2004). it marked a turning point for higher education, representing the first of several tertiary institutional mergers designed ‘to create a system that is equitable in its distribution of resources and opportunities, academically and financially sustainable and productive so that it can more actively meet the teaching, skills development and research needs of the country’ (annual report 2002). in 2003, the newly formed university was named dut, with a focus on strengthening its academic fundamentals – quality teaching, learning and research – and the nomenclature was changed after the passage of the legislation to include the university of technology. as a newly merged institution, dut had to address outstanding issues that created alienation, mistrust and a lack of shared purpose and direction for the future. in 2005, the council set aside a sum of r2.5 million as a special allocation to advance equity objectives. the institution began identifying promising students to serve as junior staff under a new programme called ‘goot’ (‘growing our own timber’). following a damning assessor’s report and the formal dissolution of council, the highest decision-making body at a university in 2006, the minister of education appointed an administrator, professor jonathan jansen, for dut in august 2006. the task of the administrator was to carry out the functions of council, which included conducting a forensic audit, instituting effective management practices and, eventually, appointing a new council. up to that point, dut had suffered poor governance and a compromised management. governance had, in key areas, become indistinguishable from management. there were all kinds of questions within and outside the institution about financial integrity, low staff morale and a negative public impression about the merged ‘university of technology’. it can be deduced from this historical background that the merged institutions were established for only indian people, excluding african black native people. this background makes it necessary to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research on the leadership traits required to realise the transformation agenda of these institutions, which were established under racially segregated policies (apartheid). addressing the equity profile of dut remains a challenge as the demographic representation amongst academic staff in 2013 was skewed: 42% indian people, 28% black people, 25% white people, 3% mixed race people and 2% designated as ‘other’ (dut annual report 2013). representation of staff in administration was given as 48% black people, 40% indian people (mostly occupying strategic leadership positions), 8% white people, 3% mixed race people and 1% ‘other’. the university’s equity policy has an elaborate scheme to ‘grow our own timber’, an existing institutional strategy now referred to as the ‘siyazakhela programme’, which is wholly dependent on the development of a funding mechanism the university is unable to address at present (dut annual report 2013). background to the study area in the 1990s, restructuring the higher education system as part of the process of redressing the legacies of apartheid and transforming south african higher education focused on the expansion of enrolments, policy focus on redress funding, targeted capacity building and infrastructure provision, while the enrolment figures had dropped and some institutions counted less than half the students (department of education 2008:30). according to the department of education (2008:85), between 1995 and 1996, the national commission endorsed the need for transformation of the higher education system and asserted that if the legacy of the apartheid past was to be overcome, higher education would have to be planned, governed and funded as a single coordinated system (department of education 2008:31). the national working group charted a merger process, which included developing institutional statutes; new academic structures and the integration of academic programmes; new conditions of service and remuneration; coordination of tuition fees; integrating administrative, financial and computer systems and procedures; consolidating budgets; integrating support services such as libraries and student services; utilisation of facilities and infrastructure; reconciling institutional cultures and ethos; and development of a social plan (nwg 2001:55). in 2002, the ministry of education accepted a recommendation by the nwg, which remained original, consistent key premises for all mergers: that mergers should produce institutions with a completely new identity and mergers were mandatory and voluntary (asmal 2002). universities were reduced from 36 to 11 universities, 5 technikons, 3 ‘comprehensive institutions’ and 2 national institutes for higher education (asmal 2002), and section 23 of the amended higher education act (no. 101 of 1997), which outlines the process the minister must follow to effect mergers, was amended in 2001 and 2002. earlier developments, such as the publication of a standard institutional statute in 2002, are also of significance to mergers (asmal 2002). the audit report of the higher education quality committee (heqc 2008:6) highlighted that dut had developed a number of strategies to support its employment equity plan (2003–2008), including ‘growing our own timber’ project. black acedemics and mixed race academics studying for higher degrees were appointed on a contract basis and, upon successful completion, were offered full-time appointments. the report revealed that 5 years into the merger dut was still struggling to develop a new organisational culture to overcome previous institutional allegiances. the heqc panel heard in a range of interviews with management, staff and students that dut is still a fractured institution along the lines of race and technikon-of-origin. the governance and leadership crisis which has affected the institution has compounded some of these problems. the audit report (2008) found that during interviews with executive deans and heads of departments, the panel learned that academics generally do not participate in staff development initiatives. however, during interviews with staff, the panel heard that high workloads make it difficult for them to attend these workshops. the panel found that there is a large discrepancy between the workload policy targets and the actual workloads of staff. furthermore, knowledge of staff development opportunities was uneven across the campuses (audit report 2008:17). it was felt that the goals of the merger of the dut (between ml sultan and natal technikons) were not clearly stipulated (may & mason 2007). the dut, the research site, was formed from the merger of an indian (ml sultan technikon) and a white technikon (natal technikon) in 2002 (chalufu 2002). while the management of both technikons agreed to the merger, and the white technikon pushed strongly for it, as it was in financial difficulties, staff at ml sultan resorted to lawsuits to attempt to block it (chalufu 2002). the racial composition of staff reflects the demographics of the original institutions: a strong representation of indian people and white people that follows closely on the patterns at ml sultan and natal, respectively (chalufu 2002), and a predominance of men. postmerger and incorporation at the dut, hemson and singh (2010) have noted anger amongst staff of different racial groups and races. this has been confirmed by chalufu (2002) that major tensions in dut, with the potential clash in an era of great institutional cultures, frequent disruptions and changes in senior management, have been observed. du pre (cited in the annual report 2008:2) mentions that while it was a voluntary merger, it nevertheless had the usual number of challenges and problems faced by all other institutions which merged as part of the changed south african higher education landscape in 2004 and 2005. conceptual framework according to bass (2008), patterns of traits are consistent with successful leaders. bass (2008:103) defined traits required for leadership as ‘competencies’. zaccaro and banks (2004:104) define leader traits as an integration of personal characteristics that foster a consistent pattern of leadership performance across a variety of group and organisational situations that include both cognitive ability and various personality attributes. according to yukl (2006), ‘traits’ refers to a variety of individual attributes, including aspects of personality (e.g. self-confidence, extroversion, emotional maturity and energy level), needs and motives (guide, energy and sustained behaviour) and values (internalised attitudes about what is right and wrong, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral). examples of values include fairness, justice, honesty, freedom, equality, loyalty, excellence, courtesy and cooperation. against this background, this study seeks to determine whether these leadership traits impact transformation in this university. the term ‘leadership’ has multiple connotations. however, for the purpose of this study, it denotes institutional leaders who use their traits to effect transformation. the study does not intend to resolve different interpretations and understandings of leadership. according to okumbe (1998), leadership is a process of encouraging and helping others to do something of their own volition, neither because it is required nor because of fear of consequences of non-compliance. specific traits correspond to effective leadership (bass 2008; bono & judge 2004; carlyle 1869; costa, terracciano & mccrae 2001; derue et al. 2011; kirkpatrick & locke 1991). the previous authors indicate that leadership traits are organised in five categories, including cognitive traits, social competency traits, emotional competency traits, biophysical traits and traits of character. according to bass (2008:103), cognitive traits ‘provide task competence and problem-solving abilities’ and include intelligence, judgement, decisiveness, knowledge, fluency of speech, resourcefulness and technical abilities. the concept of transformation is multifaceted, multidisciplinary and multiperspectival with various scholars relating it to various variables including race, efficiency, change, organisational strategy and structure, systems and processes and capabilities (francis & hemson 2010; meyer & botha 2004; ntshoe 2004; oloyede 2007; seedat, khoza-shangase & sullivan 2014:69). powell (2001:17) defines change as any activity that alters the current state within an organisational or sociological setting. moran and brightman (2000) define change management as the process of continually renewing an organisation’s direction, structure and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers. the researchers state that change management ‘is really about managing (either well or poorly) the impact of some particular environment and/or organisational change on these core activators of workplace performance’. there is a paucity of published data on the relationship between leadership traits and transformation in universities, which this study attempts to address in a university of technology. theoretical framework traits leadership theory has grown from a list of inheritable qualities (bass 2008; carlyle 1869) to a theory of leadership (northouse 2010). a historical difficulty in examining leadership traits has been lack of a valid and reliable measurement (barker 2001; bass 2008; northhouse 2010). some studies have attempted to quantify traits for leadership analysis (bass 2008; kirkpatrick & locke 1991; lord, de vader & alliger 1986; mann 1959). however, with the emergence of the five-factor model of personality (mccrae & costa 1987) or the big 5, a reliable framework of personality traits emerged to support leadership research (judge et al. 2002). characteristics that comprise the big 5 are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. traits theory focuses exclusively on the role of the leader in leadership and provides a deeper and more intricate understanding of how leaders and their personalities are related to the leadership process (mat 2008). traits theory has some limitations, amongst which is the lack of a standard list of traits introduced. it is also linked to the assumption that leaders are born (mat 2008). traits theory has been criticised for being ill-defined and difficult to replicate in leadership development (northouse 2010). the most noticeable aspect of this theory is that successful leaders all over the world and throughout history are born with innate qualities such as personality traits, social traits, ability traits and physical traits (ng’ethe, namusonge & iravo 2012:299). stodgil (1948) outlines eight traits, namely: intelligence, alertness, insight, responsibility, initiative, persistence, self-confidence and sociability. leadership traits and characteristics have been categorised by jago (1982) and daft (1983) who divide them into four groups, namely: personality, social, ability and physical traits (mat 2008). the theory is very useful in differentiating leaders from followers, effective from ineffective leaders and higher echelon from lower echelon leaders. while this study is guided by the traits theory, it takes advantage of the limitation of the theory as there is no standard list of traits that can bring transformation to any institution, including universities. literature review effects of mergers on institutions and cultures researchers have noted numerous difficulties encountered by merging institutions. these include: anger amongst staff of different racial groups, racism (hemson & singh 2010), funding shortages (green & hayward 1997; kulati 2000:185) and an inability to retain black staff (soudien report 2008:54) in heis in south africa. the research context is the south african higher education landscape, which has seen extensive change ranging from the fundamental reorganisation of the distribution and character of higher education curricula governed by a national qualifications authority to the reconstruction of the academic workplace (ensor 2006). government-mandated mergers between 2002 and 2004 reduced the number of south africa heis from 36 universities and technikons to 23 new institutions. cohen (2006) observed that the nelson mandela metropolitan university, a merger between university of port elizabeth (pe), pe technikon and vista university, was the subject of legal action, several resignations and dissatisfaction by staff, who had to re-apply for their posts after the merger. kavanagh and ashkanasy (2006) explain that the purpose of mergers, closures and incorporations is to streamline for efficiency, with the focus on financial stringency and the achievement of diversity, growth and rationalisation. however, there was strong opposition to the mergers and it was contended that the process was driven by government through a mixture of politics, legislation and persuasion (jansen 2003). schultz (2009) echoes the sentiment that mergers have been a major and highly contested theme in higher education in the past decade. in the south african context, research shows that a political decision was made to change the higher education landscape. this has had the unintended effect of lower levels of organisational commitment and potentially lower employee job performance in merger-bound heis as a result of the ‘slap-dash’ manner in which the restructuring occurred. in an era of great transformation in south african education in early 2000, mergers and incorporations became a key strategy. in 2001, the che established a task team on governance to investigate the state of governance in higher education, which resulted in a policy report. the configuration of the landscape of public higher education in south africa, as per proposals on mergers and incorporations, was accepted in may 2002 (hall et al. 2004). the aftermath of merged and incorporated universities, including dut, has compelled leaders to promote a culture of silence, which has limited autonomy and academic freedom. achieving the transformation agenda in south africa has been based on compliance to government only with inconspicuous impact on institutions, faculties, departments and individuals. this study is framed on the perception that south african universities tend to ignore certain leadership traits which have a direct effect on transformation, including freedom of speech, independent thinking, flexible business processes and meetings with clear outcomes. the link between leadership traits and transformation is sparsely researched in south african universities. according to charney (2006:35), leaders spend a good portion of their time in meetings and much of that time is wasted. however, some researchers have focused solely on open debates (heifetz, kania & kramer 2004; ramphele 2008) as the way to provide solutions to problems encountered in south african universities. there is a paucity of published data on the causal link between leadership traits and transformation and it is within this void this study attempts to link the effect of leadership traits on transformation. the politicisation of south african universities has led leaders to be indecisive and emotional, with less interest in responding to institutional stakeholders’ needs (ngcamu 2015: 208a & 233b). leaders of dut do not apply effective leadership styles, although their influence on transformation is important (ngcamu & teferra 2015a: 408). the study conducted at dut by these researchers on factors influencing transformation revealed that leaders were not listening to the university stakeholders, including employees, and failed to respond to transformation challenges, which can be regarded as counter transformative. a study on the skills development programmes’ influence on the realisation of the transformation agenda at dut revealed that such programmes were accidental as training offered was irrelevant and unresponsive to academics’ particular needs (ngcamu & teferra 2015b:130). leadership and decision-making in universities a study by mcgrath (2015) exploring the application of management and leadership techniques in universities found that management style was either particularly democratic or autocratic, while staff noted that freedom has lessened over the years. several researchers (amzat & idris 2012; bryman 2007; lumby 2012; siddique et al. 2011) indicate that leadership in university pressures: employees expect various features, including autonomy, consultation over important decisions and ‘covert leadership’ (mintzberg 1998). thomas and thomas (2011:530) argue that leadership uses critical and constructive debates, communication, open examination and ‘thinking outside the box’ in order for the academia to be successful. a study conducted on 112 staff at the university of lagos in nigeria by solaja, idowu and james (2016) suggested that university leaders should mainstream all employees in the decision-making processes, which will increase creativity and innovation amongst them. coates et al. (2010:381) mention major features of a conducive university arena, which include administrative efficiency, autonomy and the involvement of employees in the decision-making structures. ‘human-oriented leadership styles increase job satisfaction and several studies have demonstrated that participative decision making can be beneficial to workers’ mental health and job satisfaction’ (chen & silverthorne 2005:282). other researchers (charney 2006:30; coates et al. 2010:386) argue that employees who participate in decisions benefit from improved self-esteem, low resignations, increased performance and customer service excellence. fullan and scott (2009) mention attributes of change-capable universities, which include vigorous, transparent decision-making and determination of priorities. meanwhile, mabelebele (2013:6) mentions definiteness of decision as personal attributes for leaders to be successful in a university. the current study investigates whether decision-making as a trait is centralised or decentralised and its effect on transformation at dut. academic and administrative staff members’ relationships holton and phillips (1995:43) argue that complaints on poor support from administrative support and the administrative staff’s lamentations on the unclear activities of the academic staff members are recurring in universities. there are a number of researchers who have described the relationship between academic and administrative staff members as uneasy and ambivalent (mcinnis 1998:161): a less cohesive, ‘us versus them’ mentality, ‘opposing camps’ on campus (kuo 2009:49). they further characterise academic staff as anarchists (kuo 2009:49) and view administrative culture as ‘stuck in slow motion, blissfully ignoring efficiency and leadership’ (meyer & kaloyeros 2005:16). emanating from the above arguments, this study further investigated leadership traits that ensure both academic and non-academic staff members work collectively, while realising the transformation agenda. change and transformation in south african universities fullan and scott (2009) list attributes of change-capable universities, which include vigorous, transparent decision-making and determination of priorities. abrahamson (2004:10) refers to ‘change without pain’ (actually change with less pain than usual) and argues that some organisations, when faced with relentless external challenges, make the mistake of engaging in repetitive change syndrome. the result is a combination of initiative overload, change-related chaos and employee burnout cynicism. scott, coates and anderson (2008) argue that effective higher education leaders not only take an active role in making specific changes happen by engaging people in the process of personal and institutional change and improvement, but also help reshape the operating context of their institutions to make them less change averse, more efficient and agile. mcmurray et al. (2012:366) concur that these activities require strategies for change management, including the need for senior leaders to value the development of managerial skills amongst middle-level academics. these researchers emphasise that leadership fosters change and transformation (herbst & conradie 2011:2) and copes with the challenges of inevitable change (fullan & scott 2009:110). davis, van rensburg and venter (2014) argue that heis do not adapt to change as fast as changes that occur in the environment and postulate that collegial governance is dominated by traditional academic structures and practices (aligned with guild-like interest) that lead to the creation of irrationalities and inefficiencies in the systems and its institutions’ subordinates. in the aftermath of mergers and incorporations of south african heis, shortfall in leadership capability of managing radical changes, from individual employees, departments, institutional and other key stakeholders has been witnessed. effective change management should consider soft human issues which would avoid resistance to change amongst employees (mabin et al. 2001; moran & brightman 2000; mumford 1999). this study is informed by ideas proposed by these researchers. however, an extension is made in investigating whether interventions of change conducted within dut are productive, including leadership development. research methodology this study embraced a positivist perspective, as perceptions were discovered, measured and manipulated through a structured questionnaire (mckenna 2003:217) and an interpretivist perspective (saunders, lewis & thornill 2007:103) as the study investigated the effect of leadership traits on transformation at the dut by using in-depth interviews. a mixed-methods approach was used (creswell & zhang 2009) with a structured questionnaire that involved a large number of employees in leadership positions, enabling some quantification of findings, and open-ended interviews targeting middleand senior-level university management. a lack of valid and reliable measurement of leadership traits (barker 2001) prompted this researcher to use mixed research method in examining the effect of leadership traits on transformation based on traits theory. a structured questionnaire was used and in-depth interviews conducted to ascertain leadership traits that have an effect on transformation in the merged university of technology under study. the study was guided by leadership traits theory to investigate whether leaders in this university promote independent thinking, freedom of speech, open debates, rewards, employee growth, flexible business processes and decentralisation of decision-making. the study also assesses whether the convening of meetings with clear outcomes, productive interventions and collegiality in the institutions can be mentioned as leadership traits that can drive transformation. in-depth interviews targeting university leaders in middle and senior management positions were conducted. the interviews were piloted on middle-level and senior leaders to gauge the effects of leadership traits factors on transformation. as jansen (2005:308) notes, research on organisational change and educational reform increasingly recognises the need to acknowledge the significance of feelings. ethical considerations permission to conduct this study was sought from durban institute of technology management and an ethics certificate was obtained. at the same time, confidentiality and anonymity of participants were maintained. quantitative research approach quantitative research is described as a collection of numerical data exhibiting a view of the relationship between theory and research (bryman 2004:3). the present study was also based on the quantitative research approach, wherein descriptive statistics, namely measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion, were used to describe the distribution of scores on each variable and by determining whether the scores on different variables were related to each other. ghauri and gronhaug (2005) argue that a quantitative design is essential as it deals with a large number of respondents and use of numbers to generalisable comparisons and conclusions about populations. in this study, a survey research design addressed the subdimensions, including the effect of leadership traits on transformation. this study used stratified random sampling, which is a modification of random sampling in which a researcher divides the population into two or more relevant and significant strata based on one attribute or a number of attributes (lewis, kaufman & christakis 2008:215–223). the sample size was 191 respondents between peromnes grades 8 and 6) distributed equitably between academic and non-academic staff as per the sekaran (1992) sample table. as this study used probability sampling, the sample size of 191 was ideal to test for the reliability and validity of findings. according to saunders, lewis and thornhill (2007:210), the larger the sample size, the lower the error in generalising from the population. qualitative semistructured interviews the qualitative aspect of this study used non-probability purposive sampling (babbie 2004:166), where 28 university staff in middle and senior management positions were surveyed. interviews were used in this study to obtain information on leadership traits’ effects on transformation, postmerger and incorporation, and the nature of transformation. as this study is located within the discipline of leadership and transformation in heis, anderson, sweeney & williams (2006:226) assert that research objectives, questions and strategy should be informed by non-probability sampling. in-depth interviews were conducted with 28 academic and non-academic staff between peromnes grades 1–5 as well as key stakeholders, including representatives of trade unions and the student representative council (src). these included faculty deans, executive management members, and registrar and director of human resources and finance, respectively. furthermore, academic heads of departments, a research director, director for quality directorate and marketing and communication were interviewed. this study also used document analysis, which is a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents both printed and electronic (computer-based and internet-transmitted) (bowen 2009:27). dut annual reports and government documents were reviewed as part of this study. document analysis yields data excerpts, quotations or entire passages that were organised into major themes, categories and case examples, specifically through content analysis (labuschagne 2003). data collection and analysis a total of 191 structured questionnaires were disseminated to the university leaders with 133 completed without any errors, generating a response rate of 70%. to ensure confidentiality, the questionnaires were distributed and collected by the researcher. the reliability of the questionnaires and results was tested and a reliability coefficient of 0.947 was found and accepted. the data gleaned from the structured questionnaires were analysed with statistical packages for social scientists (spss) version 24 for data capturing, presentation, analysis and interpretation. the qualitative findings were triangulated with structured interviews directed at the research participants between junior and middle leadership levels. nvivo software (version 10) was used for organising, analysing and sharing data. themes gleaned from in-depth interviews were categorised into nodes or themes. measuring instruments as the research participants were leaders and well educated, the questionnaires were filled without any assistance. items in the questionnaire were based on 10 leadership traits that may have an effect on transformation, namely: independent thinking (zide 2010), freedom of speech and open debates (heiaaf 2008), rewards for performance (mumford 1999; rowley 1996), avenues for personal growth (ngcamu & teferra 2015a or 2015b), business processes (aggarwal 1998; singh 2001), decision-making (mabelebele 2013; olayo 2005), meetings with outcomes (fourie 1999; murphy & curtis 2013), interventions of change (meyer & botha 2004) and administrative and academic staff relationship (kuo 2009; mcinnis 1998). the questionnaire had a five-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). both qualitative and quantitative data were collected between june and november 2015. results of the study the research findings show that there is no valid and reliable measurement of leadership traits (baas 2008) and there are contradictory perceptions regarding the effect of leadership traits on transformation in the university. the research findings presented and analysed in the following sections show that different facets of leadership traits from different authors have positive or negative effects on transformation at the university. leadership traits include the big 5 framework of leadership traits (mccrae & costa 1987), bass (2008) and stodgil’s (1948) eight leadership traits. in all, 132 respondents were sampled comprising 57% male respondents and 43% female respondents. there were 27% of participants with experience between 11 and 15 years, followed by 26% with 21 years and above, 14% with between 6 and 10 years and 14% with between 16 and 20 years of experience. the staff categories were divided into academic (51%), administrative (28%), academic support (8%), technical services staff (8%) and other (5%). the study participants comprised junior management team (64%) and middle management (36%). the research findings indicate that there is a need for improvement regarding the impact of leadership traits on transformation. this implies the need to prioritise when leadership development programmes are conducted on leadership traits that impact on transformation. a frequency and cross-tabulations analysis was undertaken to determine the exact areas where attention is needed. a more detailed quantitative and qualitative comparison is discussed in the next section. most of the research participants (45%) observed that independent thinking is promoted in the university. however, 31% of the participants had a different view, which is close to the number of ‘undecided’ respondents (25%). furthermore, findings of the study show that majority of respondents (48%) support the notion that freedom of speech is promoted in the university, with 29% holding the opposite view and 23% undecided. the data indicate comparable views between promotion of independent thinking and freedom of speech. the qualitative research findings are in agreement with the quantitative findings that the vice chancellor built trust with employees regarding the university’s direction through consultation, promotion of freedom of expression without fear, transparency and inclusiveness, integrity and caring for people, having his feet on the ground and hard work. this is exemplified by the following remarks by one academic head of department (hod): the vice chancellor (vc) allows transparency and people to speak or talk, inclusive whereby workshops were conducted where all stakeholders talk, integrity, honesty and caring for the people. the vc has sufficient passion and sufficient political will. the results indicated that 38% of the respondents felt that leaders do not create platforms for open debates, which is the greatest degree of disagreement found in the study, while 35% of the respondents had a positive opinion regarding this theme. this high disagreement is echoed by the low mean difference (2.962), displaying opposite views of the participants. the majority of the academics (41%), followed by administrative leaders (29%), disagreed with the view that leaders create platforms for open debates in the institution. the respondents highlighted excessive consultations at all levels, involvement in decision-making, participation, including all stakeholders, responsiveness to the needs of staff, openness to suggestions and communicating on council resolutions, which is contrary to the above findings. this was confirmed by the director: at dut, there have been lots of consultation, and people feel, on average, they are taking part and are involved in decision-making, what we need to see is implementation, monitoring and evaluation, which means you look at the impact of what is being done in terms of broader communities. table 1 shows that 43% of the respondents agreed rewards for performance are encouraged in the university, the same percentage as those who disagreed with the impact of open debates. table 1: leadership traits’ effects on transformation. table 2a and 2b show a perfect agreement between the statement that rewards for acceptable performance are encouraged and job categories at 0.002 level of significance (chi-square). respondents in both academic and administrative categories equally disagreed and agreed (59%) with this statement, respectively. while 59% of the junior management staff members agreed and middle management (36%) disagreed with the statement, the chi-square test (0.063) indicated no relationship. table 2a: cross-tabulations between ‘at my university rewards for acceptable performance are encouraged’ and job categories. table 2b: chi-square tests. table 1 shows that 46% of the subjects felt that leaders create avenues for personal growth in the university. a quarter of them had opposite views, which were supported by respondents through in-depth interviews. the view that a hierarchal academic structure does limit leadership opportunities within the university was expressed by the director: personal growth happens accidentally, there are no management development programmes and lack of succession planning in this university. number of initiatives that have been in place to attend skills development programmes under hesa, and there is training on leadership; hesa offers it with no direct effect, monitoring and evaluation tools are non-existent. internal training programmes were mentioned as contributing little to the transformation of the university. this sentiment was echoed by the academic hod: skills development is a waste of time and energy as in the past years we were asked to fill in our training needs, including quotations and costs but nothing was done. i’ve had staff members who wanted to do skills courses through unisa, but the skills development office declined it. the skills development office promotes academic staff to grow vertically, and administration staff is allowed to attend. trainings are accidental, and programmes i’ve attended, i sourced them myself through the skills development fund. people become fatigued in attending these trainings, and no-trainings must happen as routine and must be an integral part as managers. table 1 indicates that 43% of the subjects felt that decision-making was centralised. twenty-five per cent (25%) of the respondents had the opposite views. this finding was supported by a high mean difference of 3.323, indicating that most leaders were positive regarding this statement. the highest agreement in this finding was supported by the academic hod, who said: in this university, there is no devolution of power, and delegation of authority has become very weak as line managers cannot take decisions while too much power is vested on one person. table 1 shows that 43% of the study participants had a positive opinion regarding time for meetings with clear outcomes in the university. a little more than a quarter had the opposite perception, with 30% undecided. thirty-eight per cent of the respondents agreed that interventions of change were productive in the university. about 30% had different views and about the same percentage of respondents were undecided. the cross-tabulations (table 3a and 3b) between interventions of change as productive and tenure had the highest agreement (42%) amongst respondents with 6–10 year experience. however, 39% of those with 11–15 years of experience disagreed, but the chi-square test revealed no positive intercorrelations (0.056). table 3a: cross-tabulations between ‘at my university, interventions of change are productive’ and tenure. table 3b: chi-square tests. table 1 indicates that 45% of the respondents hold positive views on the perception of the relationship between administrative and academic staff. about a third, however, had contrary view. qualitative findings indicated that core administrative departments such as human resources, finance, maintenance and procurement have been inefficient and ineffective. dilapidated buildings are caused by poor or a lack of maintenance. this was echoed by the academic hod: you try to deal with finance, hr and maintenance – it is difficult, and the executive management must do something about these departments as you cannot see a decent thing done by these departments. buildings are old, dilapidated and falling apart. you do not get the job done by finance, hr (copies get lost), procurement (buying something from them takes decades). table 4a and 4b indicates strong significant intercorrelations between the statement that both administrative and academic work collectively and job categories at a significant value of 0.000 (chi-square). although the cross-tabulation table reveals that 40% of the academic staff members did not agree with the statement, 91% of academic support staff and 51% of administration supported it. table 4a: cross-tabulations between ‘administrative and academic staff work collectively’ and job categories. table 4b: chi-square tests. discussion of research results the objective of the study was to explore the impact of leadership traits on the realisation of the transformation agenda in a merged and incorporated university. this is evident in the disproportionately high percentage of respondents who supported the view that independent thinking and freedom of speech were promoted, which was overshadowed by a strong disagreement that leaders in the university create platforms for open debates. academic staff members, who constituted the highest proportion in the university, disagreed with the view that platforms for open debates were created. however, a number of leaders partly disputed the previous findings by stating that there was excessive consultation and involvement of stakeholders, while implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the impact were inconspicuous. the previous finding is in disagreement with ramphele (2008) who posits that open debates provide solutions facing universities in south africa and zide (2010), who claims open debates are an integral part of the transformation agenda. findings on the freedom of speech and independent thinking are contrary to those of mcgrath (2015) that freedom in universities has diminished in recent years. strong disagreement that leaders in the university create platforms for open debates is incongruent with thomas and thomas’s (2011) argument that leaders should utilise critical and constructive debates and think outside the box in order for universities to be successful. findings from the structured questionnaire supported the argument that leaders create avenues for personal development. this was disputed by a number of interviewees through in-depth interviews, who said personal growth happens accidentally and sporadically in the university, with no impact on the university’s performance as monitoring and evaluation of the impact was not conducted. this finding concurs with ngcamu and teferra’s (2015a:130) findings in the same university that skills development programmes were countertransformational, irrelevant, sporadic and irresponsive to the training needs of the university leaders. it is, however, intriguing that while independent thinking and freedom of speech scored high on the agreement dimension, the perception that decision-making was centralised in this university was also high (43%). this was supported by findings of the interviews, citing weak devolution and delegation of power by university leaders. centralised decision-making support is against the view held by several researchers (chen & silverthorne 2005; coates et al. 2010; mcgrath 2015) who are in favour of devolved, participative and transparent decision-making as this increases job satisfaction, morale, productivity and customer service. worth noting in this study is academic leaders’ dissatisfaction with the ineffectiveness and inefficiencies of administrative staff, which accords with researchers who claim academics bemoan the lack of support from administrators (holton & philiphs 1995): that there is an uneasy and ambivalent relationship (mcinnis 1998) and that administrative staff are stuck in slow motion and ignoring efficiency (kuo 2009). the study results show that leadership traits espoused by a number of authors (bass 2008; mccrae & costa 1987; stodgil 1948) are not available or little used by university leaders, which has adversely affected transformation in this university. conclusion this article observed that in this university, freedom of speech and independent thinking do not guarantee that the university leaders will permit open debates amongst the university leaders. the study found that some traits emanating from the leadership theory, including openness, were not encouraged by university leaders in effecting transformation. freedom of speech and independent thinking cannot be confirmed to be promoted in the university as implementation, monitoring and evaluation of employed inputs during excessive consultations cannot be measured and are not considered by the decision-making structures. this is similar to the skills development programmes, which were regarded as irresponsive to leaders’ training needs and cannot be regarded as valuable as monitoring and evaluation of the impacts were not conducted on the leader’s performance in the aftermath of these trainings. therefore, this study concludes that lack of monitoring and evaluation on leadership traits’ effect on transformation prevents institutions realising their transformation agenda. however, the fundamental constitutional rights of independent thinking, freedom of speech, open debates and decentralised decision-making had little effect on transformation, post merger and incorporation. this article concludes that open debates as a leadership trait are encouraged in this university for compliance purposes, with no intention to realise the transformation agenda. this study further concludes that in this university, decision-making is centralised which is a very important leadership trait, clearly corroborating the findings that freedom of speech, open debates and independence are not promoted and this impinges on leaders realising the institutional transformation agenda. finally, this article concludes that relationships between academics and administrative staff members were poor as they were at a lower level. this is clear sign that the university was not following the transformation trajectory. this study is pivotal as there is no scholarly study conducted in universities investigating the leadership traits’ effect on transformation. the limitations of this study are related to the literature and methodology. there is a dearth of published literature on leadership traits’ effects on transformation in heis in south africa. furthermore, literature on the role of meetings and productive interventions for change, as drivers of transformation, is scant. there is also paucity of published data on the biographical influence on transformation in heis. it is suggested that future researchers conduct studies using open-ended questions and focus group discussions in order to triangulate their findings. in order to address the identified gaps that have potential effects on the transformation in the university, the following recommendations are made: university leaders should learn, link and listen to younger employees and create robust debates on transformational issues with the aim to participate in and own transformation activities. university leaders should have an open door policy with a clear communication plan, which will increase the visibility and accessibility of the leaders for stakeholders to air their views, suggestions and uncertainties about transformation initiatives without any fear. the university should develop an internal management development programme for employees aspiring to occupy supervisory positions in the hei. the university should develop a three-layered leadership development programme for junior, middle and executive positions in order to effectively, efficiently and economically influence the transformation agenda. leaders’ performance should be monitored during and evaluated at the end of the programme. the human resources department should initiate and implement an all-inclusive performance management system with clearly spelt out pecuniary and non-pecuniary performance rewards for all staff. rigid bureaucratic business processes should be re-engineered by line managers and replaced by smooth, flexible and responsive ones that are aligned with the institutional policies, structures and the transformation agenda of the university and the country. change management interventions, including the use of the business process engineering or management principles, should be conducted by change agents with clear output or outcome measures which are based on the institutional and national transformation agenda. for the university to realise the transformation agenda, both experienced and inexperienced academic and administrative leaders should participate in making important decisions for their departments and faculties. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that 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international centre for nonviolence, durban university of technology, south africa citation hlatshwayo, m.n. & fomunyam, k.g., 2018, ‘genopolitics: the dormant niche in political science curriculum in south african universities’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a470. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.470 original research genopolitics: the dormant niche in political science curriculum in south african universities mlamuli n. hlatshwayo, kehdinga g. fomunyam received: 12 sept. 2017; accepted: 05 mar. 2018; published: 26 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract south african higher education institutions have been grappling with the challenges of transformation and decolonisation as a result of the 2015–2016 student protests calling into focus issue of access (both formal and epistemological), belonging, social justice, transformation and others. one of the key sites for this struggle for transformation has been curriculum and the notion of relevance in responding to the development of social reality. political science as a discipline has increasingly been confronted with an ‘existential crisis’ with scholars in the field asking critical questions on whether the discipline has reached a point of irrelevance to social reality. three key critiques of political science as a discipline are discussed in this article – firstly, the critique that political science is obsessed with what has been termed ‘methodological fetishism’ in being unable to embrace new knowledge. secondly, that political science tends to construct universal theories and concepts that assume global homogeneity and de-emphasise the importance of context and locality in knowledge, knowledge production and its experiences. thirdly, and the central point of this article, the social disconnection between political science as a field and its [in]ability to make a socio-economic contribution to society. this article suggests that genopolitics allows us to critically reflect on and respond to the above notions of relevance in political science by looking at the role of genes played in political behaviour and genetic dispositions to see and analyses how people, communities and societies behave in the ways that illuminate our understanding of social reality. introduction the emergence of the #mustfall movements in the beginning of 2015 after nearly 21 years of the post-apartheid democratic order has emerged as a critique at the slow pace of higher education (he) transformation in moving away from being epicentres of white supremacy to more inclusive and socially justice spaces. these calls for he transformations have ranged from critiquing the historically white higher education institutions (and slow pace of change; the lack of transformation within the professoriate and other university governance committees; the need for more black female academic staff members; the experiences of first-generation students at university; the marginalised experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer or questioning and allies (lgbtq) students, the often ignored experiences of students with disabilities in he and others who are increasingly being pushed to the periphery of he transformation discourses; the contested and deeply political role of he curriculum as an ‘institution’ that embodies the values, beliefs and thoughts of those who transmit and reproduce it; and others (badat 2009; 2010; boughey 2005; heleta 2016; ndelu 2017). the field of political science has come under scrutiny during these calls for transformation, in how the discipline has been accused of not teaching african or africana scholars and not speaking to the lived experiences of the students themselves. this article will argue that there is a gap in the south african he literature on the need of expanding the curriculum in general and the political science discipline in particular if transformation is to be achieved in all facets of the society. this article makes a case for the inclusion of genopolitics in the political science curriculum in south african he as well as research in the same to establish grounds for further political will and action in the transformation of the he landscape and the south african society as a whole. the state of south african higher education taking stock of he in the south african landscape, there are 11 traditional universities (fort hare, cape town, free state, kwazulu-natal [kzn], limpopo, north-west, pretoria, rhodes, stellenbosch, western cape and witwatersrand), 8 comprehensive universities (johannesburg, nelson mandela, walter sisulu, university of south africa, venda, zululand, sol plaatjie and mpumalanga), 6 universities of technology (cape peninsula, central, durban, tshwane, vaal and mangosuthu) and one health sciences university (sefako makgatho health sciences). as of 25 september 2015, there are approximately 124 private higher education institutions (heis) in the country (che 2015). the increasing numbers of heis have coincided with what has been termed as a ‘demographic revolution’ in the student enrolments in he (altbach, reisberg & rumbley 2010). between 2010 and 2015, this ‘demographic revolution’ seems to have affected only the african and mixed race student populations, as the enrolment trends seem to be declining for both the indian and white student populations. this is seen in how between 2010 and 2015 african student enrolment increased from 595 963 to 696 320 (14.4%); mixed race student enrolment increased from 58 219 to 62 186 (6.4%); the indian student enrolment decreased from 54 537 to about 53 378 (2.2%); and the white student enrolment similarly declined from 178 346 to 161 739 (10.3%) (che 2015:3). although there has been an increase in the formal access to he, there has been an increase in the calls for shift in moving away from conceptualising he transformation beyond the domain of the ‘demographical revolution’ as indicated by the proliferating student enrolment increases amongst the african and mixed race students, to meaningful transformation in relation to university structures, culture, architecture, curriculum, community engagement and the wider society. for this to happen, there need to be engagements with the academic programmes or curriculum (boughey 2010; scott 2009), improving academic literacy (mckenna 2004; 2010), improvement on assessment (shay 2008) and institutional culture (jansen 2004). however, this article focuses on curriculum and its responsiveness in the society. this is so because he needs to go beyond the confines of university to the economic, political and social stratosphere in the society. the field of political science one of the most contested fields that have come under intense scrutiny by the #mustfall movements (fees must fall and rhodes must fall) in the call for he transformation in general and he curriculum in particular is the field of political science. this article will argue that the field of political science has not been able to theorise sufficiently or address the political challenges in south africa to ensure transformation both at the government-societal level and through the he curricula. political science attempts to make sense of the fundamental and ethical questions that face human beings living in societies characterised by scarce resources and unequal power: these questions include ‘how do we live as human beings?’, ‘how is the nation governed?’, ‘what kind of political and social structures are the most conducive for nation building and national development?’, ‘what is political obligation?’, ‘what counts as illegitimacy in political society, and under what conditions can civil disobedience be justified in politics?’ (vincent 2012). the greek philosopher plato could, perhaps, be seen as the first scholar to think systemically about these questions and how the different forms of government often lead to different political outcomes (hix & whiting 2012). as plato began looking at the greek city-states, many scholars and early theorists such as aristotle, cicero, machiavelli, hobbes, locke, montesquieu, madison and others have all looked at questions of governance, democracy, political obligations, legitimacy and the role of the state in creating the conditions of possibility for what would count as the good life. for instance, hobbes’s state of nature begins a seminal intellectual trajectory in introducing the notion of the ‘leviathan’ in political sciences as a way of looking at the relationship between citizens and the state (hobbes 2006). according to hobbes, life in the state of nature is ‘short, nasty and brutish’ outside of the existence of the state that regulates behaviour and ensures that citizens sacrifice their rights to the state, which, in turn, creates the conditions of possibility for them to be protected. this, for hobbes, results in the social construction of the ‘social contract’ between the citizens and the state, in ceding some of their liberties to the state, and the state, in turn, giving citizens some rights. looking at the south african state, an argument can be made that the social contract between the state and the people is increasingly being challenged on its very foundation. this is as a result of underemployment or unemployment, rising poverty, lack of transformation in the south african economy, graduate unemployment, violent service delivery protests as well as the use of violence as a mode of engagement in the country, especially in places like mpumalanga and kzn. here political killings have significantly increased in recent times. this could be seen as the state ceding its monopoly on violence and the social contract being constantly challenged, renegotiated and contested regarding what is acceptable and unacceptable in the south african political order. in other words, the hobbesian leviathan, that is, the state itself, is responsible for ensuring that the state of nature (anarchy, violence, impunity, etc.) is kept away. one could similarly counterargue that the hobbesian state of nature could be employed as a means of reasserting the modern democratic order. for instance, the current protests in venezuela under the regime of president nicholas maduro could be seen as necessary for forcing the regime to reverse some of the dictatorial stances against the opposition and ensuring that venezuela goes back to its values of the ‘chavismo’. similarly, another interpretation could be that of the arab spring which erupted in the middle east when mohamed bouazizi, a street vendor in the tunisian streets, set himself on fire in response to his produce being confiscated by the municipal officials. it was seemly the collapse of the social contract in the middle east that ensured that the struggles for democracy being profoundly felt in tunisia, egypt, libya, syria, yemen, bahrain and iraq, needed the seeming ‘state of nature’ that hobbes warned us about, for modern democratic regimes to be reinforced. while an argument can be made that a large number of middle eastern states have not fundamentally changed into democratic and inclusive countries, they have nonetheless renegotiated the social contract between the citizens and the government, with some having been seen to be advancing towards government stability and others seeming to be near-failed states. for instance, authoritarian regimes in tunisia, egypt, libya and yemen were successfully removed, with some government reforms being initiated in iraq, jordan and bahrain, with some promises of changes being echoed from saudi arabia and algeria as well. tunisia could be seen as the most stable democratic country after the removal of the dictator zine el abidine ben ali, with some concerns for libya, yemen and iraq that are still crippled by a protracted violence, political instability and socio-economic destabilisations. of the 26 heis in south africa, only about 14 universities or universities of technology offer political science (see table 1). table 1: south african higher education institutions that offer political science as a discipline or course or module. looking across the different disciplines and universities, the field of political science in south africa is divided according to two major sub-discipline fields and themes – that is, political philosophy and international relations (irs). the focus on political philosophy tends to introduce students and give them a solid grounding in key theoretical and philosophical concepts that underpin the field, in particular, looking at the relationship between the state, government and citizens; how power, violence and marginality in society operate; political participation; freedom, justice and what the good life looks like in society. this tends to include courses or modules on electoral politics, looking at electoral democracy, its contested history as well as the philosophical underpinnings that legitimate it. this is seen with courses such as nature and scope of political science, basic politics, political processes and behaviour, political development, political theory, political thought, ideology and political theory, selected issues in contemporary politics and other similar courses. although different in scope of focus and tackling different theoretical areas in the field of political sciences, the courses are intended to introduce students to the field, giving them access to concepts such as liberty or freedom, justice, legitimacy, government, political obligations and other similar conceptual tools of the discipline. the second sub-discipline focuses on the field of irs. in this discipline, students begin to move from questions of justice, liberty, legitimacy and others into the domain of the international politics, looking at the various ways in which global politics work through power, trade, negotiations, diplomacy, contestations of power, the global village, unipolar and multi-polarity world and others. this is seen in the social construction of curriculum that seeks to respond to the struggles of unequal power distribution between the developing world and the so-called ‘post-industrial states’. this is seen with courses or modules such as comparative politics; introduction to world politics and global governance; globalisation and world politics; world politics; politics, law and international organisations; security and conflict studies; the emergence of modern african states; north africa and the middle east politics; international conflict and cooperation and others. genopolitics in political science political science has been criticised for lacking relevance in 21st century political society (jaschik 2010). scholars in the field have pondered about the role of political science in moving beyond the domain of looking at the narrow theoretical and critical role of the government, to engaging with the socio-political issues that concern the average citizen. questions include the following: ‘what impact has the field had post-20th century?’, ‘how has the field contributed to the reimagining of social policy?’, ‘what role does language play in the manner in which political scientists theorise and communicate our knowledge production to the broader society’ and ‘has political science become irrelevant for us and to society?’ (jaschik 2010). these fundamental questions raise several issues why the field of political science in most countries including south africa has failed to answer. the discipline has been alienated from the society making its impact less profound and meaningful in the governance and administration of the nation. alluding to this flinders (2015) argues that if political science is to grow and thrive in the 21st century, it urgently needs to rediscover its political imagination and start articulating vital issues in the society. rediscovering itself in south africa would be the practical engagement with the political landscape within the nation and theorising the way forward on a variety of fronts. trent (2011) articulates this challenge in political science most effectively when he states that there are a variety of challenges that political science is facing, amongst which are: the viability of research paradigms; tensions between objective and normative approaches; keeping up with global change; western and male predominance; making political theory reflect society; the fragmentation of the discipline; tendencies towards excessive specialisation; and relevance of politics, the media and the public. (pp. 194–195) these challenges necessitated this article and created the need for further theorising, as well as the opening up of the curriculum debate on how relevance and practical engagement can be addressed in political science. this article therefore articulates the expansion of the political science curriculum in south africa to include the sub-discipline of genopolitics as one way of addressing the socio-political realities and informing political and social policy on contemporary issues. biuso (2008) argues that the term ‘genopolitics’ was originally coined by james fowler in 2005 to describe how genetics shape political behaviour. however, this area of inquiry started in 1974 according to fomunyam (2017) who argues that genopolitics as an area of inquiry emerged in the limelight within the framework of scientific research with the publication of eaves and eysenck’s (1974) article on how genetics influences social attitude and political behaviour. this idea was further expanded upon by martin et al. (1986) who argues that social attitudes are transmitted from one person to another genetically. eaves, eysenck and martin (1989) further enhanced this discourse on how genetics enhance political behaviour. murray (2017) argues that genopolitics rests at the intersection of political science, molecular biology, genetics, psychology and statistics. it yields or offers a theory of political behaviour that can help explain the contemporary happenings in the society by generating testable hypotheses that are generally assessed with specialised genetic techniques. genopolitics is premised on behavioural genetics, which looks at the potential for causal relations between genes and behaviour. this therefore means that the study of genopolitics within the disciplines of political science will help explain why african politicians behave the way they do, thereby ensuring that policies are enacted in ways that correspond to political behaviour. hatemi and mcdermott (2012b) further argue that genetics does not only shape political behaviour, it also shapes or determines violence in politics. this is buttressed by hatemi and mcdermott (2012a) who argue that research in genopolitics indicated that: … genetic influences could be statistically equated across populations and measures. this suggests that the relative importance of genetic influences remains common across cultures, but the relative influence of family and personal environments varies greatly across societies, time, and measures in explaining the variance in attitudes. (p. 526) for political science to enhance relevance, the predisposition of political behaviour needs to be studied so that citizens can understand the kind of leaders they are voting into power, as well as helping politicians understand the citizens better so as to empower them for better leadership. furthermore, a critical look at this suggests that genes do not directly affect specific attitudes, but rather that genetic propensity influences the disposition and operation of an emotive condition, which then manifests towards many targets, including strangers and out-groups, when elicited. alford, funk and hibbing (2005:153) and smith et al. (2011) articulate a variety of ways by which genetics could ultimately connect to political attitudes and argue that central to this connection are chronic dispositional preferences for mass-scale social rules, order and conduct which they label as political ideology. to this end, the heritability of specific issue propensities could also be the result of the heritability of general orientations towards bedrock principles. this means that there is a link between genetics and ideology as well as the ideological dispositions of young adults and their parents (fomunyam 2017). the idea that ideology and political behaviour is further expanded on in a study conducted by hatemi et al. (2014) which involved more than 12 000 participants from five countries in europe bringing together nine different studies, conducted in five democracies, and sampled over the course of four decades. the findings of this study emphatically show that genetic factors play a role in the formation of political ideology, regardless of how ideology is constructed or measured, the place, era or the population sampled. the study, amongst other things, presents the findings of the first genome-wide association studies on political ideology using data from three samples: a 1990 australian sample involving 6894 individuals from 3516 families, a 2008 australian sample of 1160 related individuals from 635 families and a 2010 swedish sample involving 3334 individuals from 2607 families. these results indicate that political ideology and behaviour constitutes a fundamental aspect of one’s genetically informed psychological disposition. genopolitics and the curriculum discourse in political science segura (2016) argues that there are three key challenges that confront political science that are at the heart of the questions on relevance. these are methodological fetishism, the over concentration on the demographic homogeneity and the disconnection of political science from important social and political problems. for segura (2016), the preoccupation with methodology in political science over substantive, real-world research and its ability to contribute not only to knowledge production but also to the advancement of society has ensured that the discipline appears trapped within the methodological realm. this means that rather than attempting to come up with innovative and ground-breaking research on political behaviour and theorising on what this means for society, political science appears trapped in focusing on methodology and limiting the critical imagination of young and emerging political scientists in pushing the disciplinary boundaries of the field, in helping to think about society and its people differently, and possibly, counter-hegemonically to the ‘methodological fetishism’. in the south african context, this means inducting new scholars into the already-mentioned political sciences conceptualisation of justice, liberty, autonomy, equality and others without applying them in relation to the current political context that is characterised by the increasing decline of the governing african national congress (anc), rapid rise of unemployment within the youth, historical racial inequality all intersecting with state and private sector corruption that continue to shape and influence political behaviour within the population. political science will need to critically unpack these complex relationships while providing some theoretical and practical solutions on what is to be done to reimagine some of these challenges, as well as the possible solutions required by them. fomunyam (2017) further argues that the criticisms of genopolitics have mainly been methodological, whereby some political scientists focus on criticising the limitations of the methodology used, hence the discourse of methodological fetishism, rather than explore how to enhance this field of inquiry. this focus on seemingly methodological flaws downplays the central idea of the field on inquiry and the explanations it seeks to offer in the drive to enhance the relevance of political science. expanding the political science curriculum in south african heis to include genopolitics would be creating a leeway for knowledge construction on some of the socio-political happenings in the nation, as well as better understanding in the enactment of policy. this is supported by alford et al. (2005) who in their study articulate that political attitudes and behaviours are the results of genetic factors. they continue that: genetics plays an important role in shaping political attitudes and ideologies but a more modest role in forming party identification; as such, they call for finer distinctions in theorizing about the sources of political attitudes. (p. 153) they conclude that political scientists need to ‘incorporate genetic influences, specifically interactions between genetic heritability and social environment, into models of political attitude formation’. if political science is going to provide guidance on vital political issues within the nation, like voter apathy, political rigidity, state capture, political loyalty, voter behaviour and policy imperatives, amongst others, then there is a need for greater exploration within the framework of genopolitics to know and understand the predispositions of both politicians and those they are leading to ensure that political action is not misguided but targeted. rothstein (2015) argues that the causal link between how a state is governed and the well-being of citizens in most countries like south africa, china and united states of america has been neglected because of the failure of political science to succinctly engage the state’s administrative capacity and the quality of government and government officials in ferrying the nation to greener pastures. this can be exemplified with the current political landscape in south africa. the democratic alliance and other opposition parties have been moving several motions of no confidence against the president of south africa to no avail and have since then been making demands for early elections. the failures of such motions, as can be argued, do not reside on the merits of the motions (for even the constitutional court has ruled that the president violated his oath of office), but largely on the political behaviour of most anc parliamentarians and politicians, as well as some opposition party leaders. genopolitics offers a lens through which political behaviour can be studied and understood, amongst others. it offers an opportunity for the construction of new meaning on a variety of issues in political science and an alternative lens through which these issues or challenges can be better understood and theorised to enhance the discourse of relevance and impact. kitschelt and wilkinson (2007) argue that political scientists have focused on ‘clientelism’ or various forms of vote buying and have neglected what necessitates such behaviour or the mechanisms that have ensured that these challenges continue. this is supported by rothstein (2015) who states that political scientists have neglected the ‘detrimental effects of bad governance upon political legitimacy, prosperity and human well-being’. he adds that: most political scientists are uninterested in explaining what the ‘political machine’ can do for improving human well-being … and the lack of understanding that a very large part of human misery in today’s world is caused by the fact that a majority of the world’s population live under deeply dysfunctional government institutions. (p. 98) this lack of interest is because of the preoccupation on methodological fetishism and how such topical issues can be engaged. genopolitics is the gateway to such challenges but through teaching and learning and research as political scientists advance the discipline forward in south africa. segura (2016) further argues that the attempt by political science to socially construct universal theories and concepts that transcend time and space (although welcomed in advancing critical thought) has nonetheless wrongly assumed some level of global homogeneity and has tended to silence the differences in the lived experiences of citizens across the world. this has made the discipline to lose national and contextual relevance in most nations. peters, pierre and stoker (2015) argue that political science feels discomfort about the topic of relevance and this is because the political science profession is a fragmented one which brings to the fore a different set of divisions with competing sub-disciplinary foci and methodological preferences. this fragmentation, as well as the methodological preferences and sub-disciplinary foci, is different for each society. therefore, developing and applying universal theories to contextual challenges is what creates the challenge of relevance. ollman (2015) adding to this argues that political science as a discipline is: governed by five key myths: (1) that it studies politics; (2) that it is scientific; (3) that it is possible to study politics separated off from economics, sociology, psychology and history; (4) that the state in our democratic capitalist society is politically neutral, i.e. available as a set of institutions and mechanisms to whatever group wins the election; and (5) that political science, as a discipline, advances the cause of democracy. (p. 553) these myths are what brings to the forefront the questions of relevance and this can be addressed by the enhancement of the curriculum with genopolitics. ollman (2015) citing a 1964 study of 500 political scientists further argues: that two out of three of the political scientists who participated in the study ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that much scholarship in the discipline is ‘superficial and trivial’, and that concept formation and development is little more than hair splitting and jargon. (p. 553) genopolitics is one way of addressing these challenges because it engages the individuality of political behaviour, and how such behaviour is inherited by one generation from another. settle et al. (2017:3) support this by arguing that genopolitics and the growing body of research in this field of inquiry have shown that innate, individual differences affect the way people think and behave politically. so, universal political theories are worthless in this case. they continue that the role of personality in political behaviour and political participation broadly and voting specifically is heavily contextual and hereditary, making this process or phenomenon too complex to be understood from a universal perspective. researching and exploring this issue from a genopolitical perspective would shed more light on the political realities in south africa. to this end, ‘other behaviours and attitudes correlated with voting also have heritable components, such as strength of partisanship, a sense of civic duty, and political interest’ (settle et al. 2017). ksiazkiewicz, ludeke and krueger (2016) add that there is growing interest in how genes affect political beliefs, and for this to be understood, the role of genes in politics, the relationship between cognitive style (this is a set of personality traits that encompasses individual differences and this is often studied through need for cognition and need for cognitive closure) and various measures of political attitudes (issue-based ideology, identity-based ideology, social ideology, economic ideology, authoritarianism and egalitarianism) needs to be understood as hereditary. they add that the need for cognition and the need for cognitive closure are heritable and are linked to political ideology primarily, perhaps solely, because of shared genetic influences; and these links are stronger for social than for economic ideology. furthermore, findings provide a clearer understanding of the role of genes in politics. for example, in southern africa, the phenomenon of liberation movements or liberation parties staying in power after independence is under-theorised and not critically unpacked on what causes this phenomenon, its effects on society as well as some of the conceptual and practical tools required to begin to think beyond them. in zimbabwe, the zimbabwe african national union – patriotic front (hereafter zanu-pf), which assumed power since 1980 after taking over from the ian smith government of 1963, has maintained a firm grip on power and authority. zanu-pf, led by robert mugabe, has political, economic and military control of the country, with a fragmented and divided opposition challenging their hegemony over the zimbabwean political landscape. similarly, in angola, the people’s movement for the liberation of angola (mpla) has been in power since independence from portugal in 1975. the country’s president josé eduardo dos santos has been in power since 1979, and only stepped down on 23 august 2017 after a carefully orchestrated transition to his former defence minister joao lourenco. in mozambique, the mozambique liberation front (frelimo) has been in power since independence from portugal in june 1975. after a protracted civil society between frelimo and the mozambican national resistance (renamo), a multiparty system was enacted in 1994, and frelimo has continued its electoral dominance and power to this date. in south africa, the anc has been in power since the 1994 coalition government between the liberation movements and the then apartheid national party. although highly contested, the anc still enjoys mass appeal and support from the country, with emerging opposition parties, grass roots movements, civil society and other public interest groups beginning to challenge the hegemonic influence of the party over the south african political landscape. thus, political science needs to take cognisance of the above similarities in the liberation parties’ patterns in southern africa while noting the nuanced and at times complex differences seen through colonial histories, contemporary challenges and others. this continuous dominance can only be understood from a genopolitical perspective where the hereditary nature of these traits can be studied and explained. universal political theories cannot address this phenomenon which is unique within the southern african region. dulesh (2014) argues that the: central idea of genopolitics then is that there are genes (dna) directly shaping our innate moral foundations (intuitions), based on both individual and group levels of evolution, thus predestining our inherent socio-political preferences and moral capital. (p. 21) the history of southern africa in general and south africa in particular has ensured that some or most citizens have a genetic predisposition which goes with the desire to be free. curriculum review is therefore vital to ensure that genopolitics is imbedded in the curriculum and african politics or south african politics is understood from a south african perspective. finally, segura (2016) ponders on the need for political science to address the social and political problems confronting humanity in the present day. the political squabbles, economic inequality, gender-based violence, corruption, embezzlement, crime, state capture, political bastardisation and racial and identity politics warning on the south african landscape are not explicitly addressed by political science. its failure to effectively address these issues has brought to the limelight the question of relevance of political science within the nation. flinders (2015) argues that this lack of relevance is caused by three key issues: (1) a lack of focus on the bridging role of political science between politics ‘as theory’ and politics ‘as practice’; (2) the inability to write and speak about political science in a way that conveys the raw dimensions of the political phenomenon in terms of power, emotion and meaning; and (3) a lack of willingness to demonstrate the existence of a moral compass that may on some occasions demand that political scientists should play an active role in political debates or activities. to flinders (2015:2), political science therefore is a discipline in search of a soul because as a discipline, ‘it has lost its self-confidence and has, as a result become almost irrelevant and undoubtedly isolated from the day-to-day life it professes to study’. rothstein (2015) concurs to this as he uses the example of clientelism as symptomatic of structural corruption that cripples the functioning of the state, and comments on how studies within this field have only provided comparative analysis between different countries on the social formations and operations of clientelism in the society, without moving to the domain of asking how other countries have actually confronted such a phenomenon and moved past it. this shift, from diagnostic to offering solutions, would have re-introduced the analysis into contemporary society and allowed political sciences to be applicable to the lived experiences of people. seguro’s argument for the closer alignment between political science and society is at the heart of this article. fraga, givens and pinderhughes (2011) add to this report that: political science is often ill-equipped to address in a sustained way why many of the most marginal members of political communities around the world are often unable to have their needs effectively addressed by governments. just as importantly, political science is also ill-equipped to develop explanations for the social, political, and economic processes that lead to groups’ marginalization. this limits the extent to which political science is relevant to broader social and political discourse. (pp. 1–2) political science as a field has been unable to offer solutions to contemporary political societies on challenges that citizens are facing. this article attempts to fill this gap through the introduction of genopolitics in the political sciences curriculum in south african universities. genopolitics offers us the tools that political scientists need not only to theoretically and conceptually discuss the challenges that plague society – it also allows us to move to the domain of the actual, that is, it allows us to begin to offer some critical reflections on and solutions to some of the challenges that states and societies continue to grapple with. putnam (2003) argues that attending to the concerns of the people and the society is not only an optional add-on for political science, but also an obligation that is fundamental in the pursuit of scientific truth. dealing with local challenges and addressing them is one way of taking on this obligation in advancing the society forward. the inclusion of genopolitics in the political science curriculum would be one way of making it more responsive to the society. for example, fomunyam (2017) uses genopolitics as a lens to understand the culture of violence in student protest in african universities. the lens provides fresh insight into an endearing problem and one way of tackling it. similarly, the study of genopolitics would give political scientists the opportunity of understanding different societal challenges and crafting policy differently to address it. hatemi et al. (2014) aver that political ideology constitutes a fundamental aspect of one’s genetically informed psychological disposition, although genetic influences on complex traits will be composed of thousands of markers of very small effects and will require extremely large samples to have enough power in order to identify specific polymorphisms related to complex social traits. understanding the complex social traits in the south african society, as well as the traits exhibited by the people within the society, research and teaching in the field needs to encompass genopolitics to ensure that everything within this complex field is studied. hatemi (2013) adds that the role of ‘genes’ on political attitudes has gained attention across disciplines, but person-specific experiences have yet to be incorporated into models that consider genetic influences. furthermore, life events, such as losing one’s job or suffering a financial loss, influence economic policy attitudes. this therefore means that genetics and environmental variance go a long way to influence support for unions, immigration, capitalism, socialism and property tax as moderated by financial risks. researching how genes influence political behaviour as well as how the environment in which individuals find themselves like kzn or western cape in south africa influences and shapes their genetic predispositions and to what extent does this happen is vital for the transformation of the society. it is therefore not surprising that kzn and western cape have been dominated politically over the years by the anc and the democratic alliance, respectively. studying such dynamics from a genetic perspective would not only enlighten the politicians in particular and the society in general and what kind of policies to develop to ensure the discontinuity of such propensities, but also how to better govern such places. to this end, genetic influences add stability, while environment cues change, and both of them need to be studied to produce better understanding. ojeda (2016) confirms this by arguing that prior research on the antecedents of political trust often focused on its relationship with other attitudes, but goes further to demonstrate that trust in government is partially heritable. as such if one’s predecessors trust the political philosophy of a particular party, their offspring have the propensity to do the same. this suggests that in countries like south africa where political trust is gradually dissipating because of gross misappropriation of power and state capture, studies are needed in this area to better understand the populace and how to improve their well-being. what better way to do this than to include genopolitics into the political science curriculum? ojeda (2016:86) adds that heritability is dynamic and the influence of genes on attitudes is not static, but ‘can estimate change … and this is particularly true in political science, where gene-environment interactions have been limited to proximate life events or social interactions’. therefore, macro-level genetic interaction studies in south africa would be very useful for political scientists and the nation as a whole because they will ‘demonstrate how genetic underpinnings of behaviours change in response to political events or policy outputs’ (ojeda 2016). making genopolitics part of the political science curriculum therefore would be a step in the right direction in ensuring societal relevance and improving understanding and the transformation of the society. conclusion genopolitics studies the genetic basis of political behaviour and attitudes, which, in turn, informs government policy and actions of a nation. political behaviours and attitudes form the crust of politics because it informs what politicians do, how they do it and why they do it the way they do. understanding political behaviour in south africa from a genetic perspective would provide an added impetus and resonance on how to forge a new path for the nation. to this end, four key considerations can be drawn from this article to make three key recommendations for the advancement of scholarship in this area. firstly, genopolitics offers the discipline of political science in south africa the opportunity to breath new meaning and understanding unto an otherwise relatively ‘dormant’ (in terms of relevance) discipline in south african he. secondly, genopolitics offers the discipline of political science to decolonise the discipline through rigorous research and teaching in this area to ensure that the genetic propensities of the citizenry are understood and taken into consideration when talking about social policy. as genetic predisposition can only be understood from a contextual perspective, eurocentric views and understandings cannot be enforced on african students to keep them colonised. genopolitics offers an opportunity for the decolonising of the discipline. thirdly, political science curriculum can no longer afford to remain unresponsive to the society as well as remain obsessed with methodological fetishism, over concentration on the demographic homogeneity and the disconnection of political science from important social and political problems. reviewing the curriculum to include genopolitics would be the first step to ensuring that these obsessions become a thing of the past. fourthly, a genetic understanding of political behavioural patterns and genetic predispositions of individuals to perform certain actions like violence would not only be useful but also critical in shaping the existing political landscape of the nation, and providing foresight on future directions for the society as well as the actions and reactions of the people under certain circumstances. in the light of the above discussion, this article makes three key recommendations for action and scholarship in the discipline of political science. firstly, genopolitics is relatively a new area of inquiry and offers an opportunity for south african universities and research institutions to tap into it, and not only shape the debate going forward but also to understand its people better. secondly, the south african political landscape is plagued by a myriad of challenges, which has defiled other educational panacea. political scientists should explore these challenges using this lens to provide insights on glaring political issues and policies that remain largely non-transformational. more research is needed to expand the field, methodological rigour and relevance in the south african society within the discipline. lastly, universities such as the university of exeter, university of new york, university of california, university of oxford, duke university, harvard university, mcgill university, university of toronto and university of wisconsin, just to name a few, have already included genopolitics as part of the political science curriculum and are enhancing the discourse and discipline forward. political scientists in south africa should therefore pick up the challenge and expand their discipline so as not only to converge the curriculum but also to ensure curriculum divergence as well as the complete decolonisation of the discipline in the years ahead. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions m.n.h. has taught political science for a number of years and brings to the research project disciplinary knowledge and understanding of the field. m.n.h. focused on the conceptual understanding of political science and the historical and contemporary challenges that confront the discipline. k.g.f. has published on geopolitics, and brought to the critical analysis a disciplinary understanding of genopolitics, and how it could be incorporated in the south african higher education landscape in responding to some of the critiques levelled at political 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for south african students, van schaik, pretoria. abstract background towards a theoretical framework experiences of refugee children in primary schools in countries of residence understanding the social integration of refugee children into the primary school life discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) rasheedah o. adams-ojugbele department of early childhood education, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa nontokozo mashiya department of early childhood education, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation adams-ojugbele ro, mashiya n. interventions supporting the integration of refugee children in the primary school life: roles of the child’s contexts of development. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2020;16(1), a769. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.769 review article interventions supporting the integration of refugee children in the primary school life: roles of the child’s contexts of development rasheedah o. adams-ojugbele, nontokozo mashiya received: 17 oct. 2019; accepted: 08 july 2020; published: 05 nov. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the development of children in an atmosphere that supports and promotes their socio-emotional, physical and cognitive well-being is imperative for the realisation of the sustainable development goal 4 for 2030. the school environment constitutes an important context where children learn and acquire both social and academic skills, through their interaction with adults and peers, materials and objects in their immediate environment. the aim of this article was to advance the debate on studies focussing on intervention programmes that support the school adjustment of refugee children in primary schools in host countries. specifically, the article focussed on analysing the available school-based intervention programmes for refugee children in the primary school life. the article utilised the integration theory and the bioecological model of human development as lenses for analysis. the article picked on selected empirical articles and reviews for inclusion in the analysis. findings from the analysis indicate that the primary school experiences of refugee children in different parts of the world are complex and vary. whilst some refugee children enjoy inclusion in the primary school life, others are faced with varied challenges, which might impact negatively on their successful integration and adjustment into the school system. this article advocates for an inclusive intervention, where the different persons and contexts involved in the social and academic integration of refugee children interact in a manner that promotes and supports the specific social and developmental needs of refugee children for a favourable outcome. keywords: refugee children; school experience; intervention programmes; social interaction; integration; child development. background the high increase in the influx of asylum seekers and refugee population to different parts of the world is alarming. recent statistics indicated that more than 70.8 m people have been forced to flee their countries of residence, with almost 25.9 m constituting refugee population and over half of these population under the age of 18.1 on this basis, the international legal frameworks made provisions for the refugee’s right to basic primary education, health and housing, including social welfare support by government of the host countries.2 south africa is no exception. as a member of the southern african development community (sadc), the south african government signed the united nations 1951 convention on the status of refugees, and the 1969 africa refugee convention act as such is saddled with the responsibility of protecting anyone who, because of the fear of being persecuted or as a result of conflict, natural disaster or civil strife, flee their countries of residence to seek asylum in other countries.3,4 consequently, they are faced with the responsibility of ‘achieving development and economic growth, alleviating poverty, enhancing the standard and quality of life of the peoples of southern africa, and supporting the socially disadvantaged through regional integration’.3 in spite of this recognition and responsibilities placed on individual countries based on both the national and international legal frameworks, children from the refugee background tend to be on the margins of society, and because of difficulties around documentation and access to other services including education, social welfare and health, their successful integration into the host countries proves to be challenging.5,6 regardless of the reasons for migration, generally, the refugee population continue to experience a host of challenges and continue to struggle for survival in their countries of first asylum and/or host country.7,8,9 the challenges faced by these population continue to expose them to situations that are difficult and pose a host of risks to their survival including their children’s, in the alien environments. based on the foregoing, this article focusses on analysing the social intervention programmes, which assist refugee children to successfully adapt into the social life of the primary school. in this article, refugees will be referred to generally as a person/s who seeks asylum and awaiting his or her permit, which will give them a refugee status, as well as those who have been granted their refugee status to continue their stay in the country.2,10 the focus of this article is to examine the available intervention that supports the social integration of refugee children into the foundation phase school life, whilst paying attention to the role played by the child’s contexts of development. we present a background to refugee children’s life experience and the circumstances surrounding their stay in the host countries. then, we picked at random empirical studies that focus on the social and educational challenges combating the refugee children in public primary schools of their host countries. peer-reviewed articles across the united states and europe, including some from southern african countries, were included for review. there were no strict timelines for the publication of articles included but, effort was made to ensure that articles before the year 2010 were not included for review except in situations where no alternatives were available. the realities surrounding the social adaptation of refugee children in their various host countries across the globe are yet to be fully captured in literature and empirical studies. research evidence suggests that refugee children are at risk of not accessing quality educational programmes, including social and health services on their arrival in the host country and therefore face a host of challenges of integrating effectively into the life of their new environment.9,11,12,13 the past experiences and conditions of the refugee children in their countries before and during their migration have exposed them to such situations that serve as deterrent to their successful adaptation in their new environment. for the challenges stated here, the refugee population requires all necessary support and interventions for a successful adjustment in their new environment and beyond. as noted in the works of roxas,14 turrini et al.15 and skleparis,5 the majority of refugee children in host countries are faced with challenges relating to their academics, psychosocial and economic well-being. their separation from families, poor language proficiency, segregation, cultural dissonance, stress, different kinds of expectations between families and school management and limited financial means are some of the factors of concern.16 after their resettlement, the difficulties and challenges they encounter whilst navigating their new educational environment have a way of affecting their overall well-being.14 investigating this has also become necessary in spite of the poor experiences and social challenges children from low socio-economic contexts, including children from refugee background, encounter in the primary school life.7,17,18 studies and theories in the field of child development and child psychology suggest that the first few years of life for all children are critical for the development of the necessary skills including social skills needed to function well and be successful in school and beyond.19,20,21,22 thus, this analysis will be approached from the perspective of tinto’s23 integration framework and bronfenbrenner and morris’24 bioecological model of development. this implies that the analysis will consider multiple influences such as the contexts of development, individual characteristics, socioeconomic status, experience and the processes of development and interaction over time. according to tinto and bronfenbrenner, these factors determine how well children integrate socially and academically into any system where they learn and develop. presently, whilst there is a plethora of researches that focus on the psychosocial, emotional and health well-being of refugee children in host countries and schools,25,26,27,28 there is limited research focussing particularly on the social interventions and integration of refugee children in the foundation phase school life in countries of first asylum.7,9 thus, this article draws on the available research on refugee children’s school experience and research pertaining to the social adaptation and intervention programmes for refugee children in countries of asylum. towards a theoretical framework this article utilises tinto’s 1975 integration framework and bronfenbrenner and morris’,24 bioecological model of human development as a lens for its analysis. tinto sees effective social integration as that which occur when the conditions in the developing system is favourable and supportive of the individuals living in it. tinto noted that both social and academic integrations are two variables that are dependent on one another. thus, he asserts that, when a student is socially integrated into the life of the learning institution, their academic integration is enhanced and their performance is improved and vice versa.23 bronfenbrenner and morris,24 on the other hand, see an effective development as that which takes place in situations and contexts where different variables interact in a reciprocal manner for a positive outcome. thus, bronfenbrenner postulated that human development occurs because of the interaction between four essential elements, which are as follows: person, process, context and time (ppct). so, he called his model the ppct model. in this model, attention was paid to the daily interactions and inter-relatedness that occur between the developing person and others (the refugee children, their parents, teachers, peers and the community), the process of interaction and the context of the interaction (the school, the home and the community) over an extended period. this article is premised on the understanding that for refugee children to adjust and be adequately integrated into the social domain of the foundation phase school life and thrive therein, it is necessary that they are exposed to quality and inclusive intervention programmes in the host schools, which allows them to interact with others and materials, in manners that are favourable to their overall development. this in turn will assist them to acquire the necessary social skills needed to develop optimally. as noted by bronfenbrenner and morris,24 human active participation in an interactive process over an extended period results in the development of ability, motivation, skills and knowledge, which help them to succeed in any context they find themselves. adopting the bioecological model of human development to understand the most effective social intervention for refugee children in the foundation phase school life requires that one pays attention to the significant persons that the children interact with alongside the context where they spend time to develop as equal determining factor of learning and developmental outcome. in this article, the theory is used to understand and analyse how the different interactions refugee children experience serve to assist them to have a smooth integration in the social life of the school. the theory describes the relations and interactions that exist between the developing person (the child), other persons (parents, teachers, siblings and significant others), the contexts (school, home, community and parent’s place of work), objects and symbols (teaching, learning and play materials), taking into consideration the biological component of the developing person.11 tinto’s theoretical model on the other hand viewed the institution of learning as a social system encompassing its own value and social structure. thus, tinto asserted that, when students feel socially integrated into the life of the institution, their academic integration is enhanced which in turn leads to their academic success in the same institution.29 on the contrary, when students do not feel integrated into the academic life of the school system, their social integration is threatened and they eventually leave the institution.23 as mentioned earlier, tinto noted that factors such as student’s past experiences, ability, socio-economic background, race and individual institutional commitment, interaction with peers, teachers, the academic and social life on ground in the school have a great impact on students’ social and academic integration into the school system. thus, we posit that for refugee children to have a successful integration into the social domain of the foundation phase school life in host countries, consideration must be given to the factors listed here. experiences of refugee children in primary schools in countries of residence refugee families in various host countries around the world are faced with multidimensional risk problems before, during and after their migration. adjusting to their new environment and learning the local language is an ongoing challenge this group continues to combat with before its full integration into the new system. research evidence suggests that the high increase in migration and human mobility has resulted in a host of challenges in schools serving children from diverse backgrounds.30 the ceaseless inflow of asylum seekers and refugees from different parts of the world meant that schools serving these populations must find an effective way of addressing the daily and ongoing challenges faced by this population if the sustainable development goals plan for 2030 is to be achieved. studies around refugees’ resettlement and integration into their new countries of residence suggest that the refugee population are continuously faced with a host of barriers in terms of access to health, social and educational services which in turn pose multirisk problems to their overall well-being and survival.5,31,32 as pointed out by rousseau and guzder33 and vostanis,26 the high exposure of refugees and immigrant families to hardship meant that they require all the support and interventions they can get in schools, but this is underutilised. therefore, schools play a key role, both as mediators in the provisions of the needed services and helping children and youths adapt to their new environment and as the main access point for prevention and treatment services for mental health problems. evidence from research also indicated that refugee children’s experience varies, depending on the country, the education policies and programmes on ground in such country. for example, meda et al.,34 perumal35 and adams-ojugbele11 noted that the difficulties around documentation and other social economic inequalities made it tough for refugee families in south africa from securely accessing to the public schools for their children, including other services that support their resettlement process. this finding resonates with the findings from the work of kirkwood,36 which suggest that different aspects of the asylum seeker system in the united kingdom prevent effective integration of refugees and/or create barriers to their integration into school. furthermore, in the united states, research evidence suggests that the process of resettlement of refugee and asylum seeker families constitute a barrier to finding a suitable early childhood programme for their children.37 morland et al.38 pointed out that in spite of research evidence that indicates the importance of providing equal quality of education programme to all children from diverse backgrounds, refugee and immigrant children tend to have a lower probability of participating in these programmes when compared with children from us-born parents. in addition, findings from a study undertaken by adebanji et al.39 indicated that the zimbabwean immigrant children in the foundation phase in south africa were able to adapt and integrate successfully into the social and academic life of their new school through quality interaction with their teachers, their proficiency in the language of teaching and learning and their ability to devise a means of communication with other peers in their new context. they also noted that parental support was remarkable in the children’s school adjustment. parents ensured that they communicated with their children in english, which is the language of teaching in schools. this led to the children’s quick mastery of the language and in turn had a positive impact on the children’s school adjustment and academic performance. to support this finding, taylor and sidhu16 found that the practices of inclusiveness, acceptance, respect and giving a sense of responsibility were noteworthy in both social and academic adjustment of refugee children in school. the literature reviewed in this section indicated that the school experiences of refugee children are complex and varied. whilst some refugee children enjoy inclusion in the foundation phase school life, others are faced with varied challenges, which impact negatively on their effective integration into the school system. the practices and policies of different schools are significant factors in determining the nature and quality of experience children receive. countries globally devised different methods of inclusion and interventions to ensure effective adjustment and integration of refugee children into the school system.11 understanding the social integration of refugee children into the primary school life acquisition of social skills is important for all children irrespective of their socio-cultural and ethnic background. this skill along with other school readiness skills assists learners to integrate effectively into the school settings for optimal learning and developments.40,41,42 the incidences of children entering the formal school with poor or lack of social interactional skills remain a major discourse in the literature. compelling evidences have shown that children whose early years suffer in terms of the acquisition of social skills either from the home or designated preschools or early childhood centres find it difficult to cope with later schooling.40,41,43 children from resource-poor contexts, including refugee children, constitute a larger population of children who find themselves at the verge of the society. the unfortunate incidences experienced by these group make it difficult for them to cope in school and beyond. whilst many view the concept of integration as a one-way process, castles44 saw it as a two-way street where both the refugee and the host society are expected to put forward an equal amount of effort for a desired outcome. in other words, whilst the newly arrived refugees make effort to adapt to the status quo in the host country, members of the receiving society must also adapt to meet the needs of the new migrants.44 preparing an enabling environment that supports the needs of the refugee and asylum seeker population is a responsibility of the host country. failure to do so might impact negatively not only the refugee population, but also the overall economic system of such a country. for school-going refugee population, the school system serves as an important context where children acquire the necessary skills needed to survive in school and their new environment as a whole. tinto45 and karp et al.29 noted that individuals, generally in any system of learning, integrate effectively into the academic life of the institution when their social life in the same institution is positive. on the other hand, their academic life becomes threatened when they are uninvolved or do not participate in the social activities and life of the same institution.13,46 thus, social and academic skills are two skills that are intertwined. lack of effective integration in one domain might have a negative impact on the other.23,29 informed by this understanding, it is expected that children in the foundation phase school life experience and are equipped with the needed social skills that will assist them in coping with later schooling because the foundation phase serves to prepare all learners for the social challenges of later schooling. for effective integration into the social and academic life of the school, it is necessary that the student interact effectively with teachers, peers and significant others in the school environment. of major importance is the individual learner’s willingness to participate and be involved in the activities around the school. this is believed to have a positive impact on learners’ overall integration in the school system. thus, social integration as referred in this review relates to the interconnectedness between students and the social domain of the school system.11 findings from the work of adams-ojugbele,11 whilst investigating the grade r experiences and school readiness skills of a group of refugee learners, suggest that factors such as children’s socio-economic background, past and ongoing experience, the nature and quality of classroom interaction, teacher’s classroom management style and teacher’s professional development training all contributed to learner’s effective integration into the school system. the findings from this study resonate with tinto’s47 postulation, which suggests that positive teacher–child–peer interaction constitute an important variable impacting children’s social integration and overall school success. similarly, pather and chetty’s48 conceptual framework suggests that the social integration of students in the learning institution is influenced by their socio-economic status, their past school experience, their individual ability and skills. these factors according to tinto’s postulation constitute a major determinant of how well students integrate socially and academically into their school system.11 accordingly, block et al.49 noted that schools play an important role in supporting refugeeand asylum-seeking children’s resettlement in schools. they noted that the school’s ability to address issues relating to social exclusion, poor educational achievement, behavioural, mental and health problems is a viable means to tackle some of the problems faced by refugee children in schools. discussion the provisions of effective social intervention programmes that support the integration and adjustment of children in public primary schools are imperative for the actualisation of the sustainable development goal plan for 2030.19,50,51 although different countries, governments, communities and non-governmental organisations have approached the provision of educational and social intervention programmes in different ways, with the aim of assisting refugee children in public primary schools and community-based centres have a successful adaptation into their new environment, the incidences of poor and inadequate social supports recorded in some public primary schools call for a redress. the provision of quality social support for children requiring social needs, such as the refugees and the asylum-seeking children, is a complex responsibility requiring different stakeholders from diverse contexts coming together for effective implementation. the availability of developmentally appropriate resource materials, qualified educators and caregivers in a conducive and stimulating learning environment that targets the specific needs of this group becomes imminent. the increased level of research evidence on the incidences of mental disorders,15,52 in refugee children, including their risk factors, meant that a system has to be in place in all public schools and community based-centers serving children from refugee backgrounds. these systems are expected to assist refugee children in the acquisition of the needed social interactional skills41,53 and developing resilience skills, which assist them to cope and succeed in school and beyond.32 furthermore, the prevalence of studies from post-conflict areas, including countries with newly arrived (asylum seeking) or resettled (refugee) children and young people, is noted. most studies around the refugee population have focussed on post-traumatic stress disorder.2,26,40,54 there has been less attention so far paid to the role of the quality of attachment relationships, including those with extended family members. unaccompanied children have an elevated risk of psychopathology and lower service engagement when compared with children who were accompanied by a family member during their migration.55,56 thus, providing an inclusive social and academic environment that supports refugee children’s ability to express their emotions, interacts with adults who are responsive and shows love, respect and care and provision of learning materials and interventions that attend to their specific needs are probable ways of assisting refugee children adapt to the life of the school. as noted by tyrer and fazel,57 the focus of most of the intervention programmes for refugee children included in their review is on children’s posttraumatic experience, whilst noting that the schooland community-based interventions showed substantial improvements for cases of depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), functional disturbances and peer problems. in addition, they noted that interventions such as inclusive programmes that target a school and home environment that promotes refugee children’s school adjustment and adults who are responsive and supportive of children’s integration into the school system are a sure way of assisting the refugee population to have a successful adaptation into the social and academic life of the school system. in line with the studies reviewed here, successful adaptation of the refugee population into schools and their immediate community requires a joint effort of all stakeholders (government, community, teachers, the school management, school psychologists and parent or guardian) coming together to assist in the process of ensuring that like every other children, the refugee children are exposed to and experience relevant and specific intervention for holistic development and positive school outcome. for example, it is imperative that teachers understand the sensitivity surrounding the pre-migration experience of the refugee children in their care. they need to know and understand that some of the behaviour exhibited by these groups of children are potential outcomes of their past and ongoing experience as children from refugee background.27,58 to help mitigate the negative effect of the post-traumatic experience of the refugee children, the teachers along with the school management are expected to create a trauma-sensitive school community with the help of a school-based psychologist who promotes and supports good relationship based on love, care and trust amongst teachers and students. this will assist children to self-regulate their emotions and behaviour that result into their success and holistic development40,59 and also promote their physical and emotional health.60,61 as argued by bronfenbrenner and morris62 through their bioecological systems theory, the different systems where the child lives and thrives directly or indirectly influence his or her development. he added that children’s participation in an interactive process over time results in the child acquiring the ability, motivation, acquisition of knowledge and skills that assist them to participate and engage in different social and academic activities with themselves and others in their immediate and more remote environment.62 the school, the home and the community constitute the different systems that contribute to the holistic development of the child. thus, the school that plays a bigger role in terms of the integration of the refugee children is expected to be conducive and supportive of the children’s development. the roles played by different government policies and the prevailing culture in developing child’s immediate environment cannot be over-emphasised. as pointed out in bronfenbrenner’s earlier writing, the role played by the environmental factors in supporting a child’s development cannot be downplayed. it is imperative that the characteristics of child’s immediate environment must be favourable to the characteristics of the growing individual; otherwise, an anomaly in the environmental factors might set a limit to the quality of the developmental outcomes.63,64,65 conclusion the focus of this article is to analyse some of the different intervention programmes available for the social integration of refugee children in the primary school life, where children live, and examine the roles played by the contexts (host countries and schools) in supporting a successful adaptation into the primary school life. in our sojourn, we found that the situation in different countries and schools differ. whilst some countries and school management as well as teachers devised varied means to support the social and academic integration of refugee children in their schools, others do not have provisions to support the adjustment of these groups. the refugee legal frameworks that promote quality education and support the rights of the refugee children in some countries are poorly implemented or lacking. we also found that some schools do not have the system and personnel on ground to support the education and psychological well-being of the refugee population thereby exposing them to challenges that make it difficult for them to successfully integrate and adjust to the school systems in their host countries. our conclusions therefore are that a lot of actions still need to be taken to ensure that, like every other child, children from the refugee background are assisted to settle adequately into the school system with no hindrance. programmes such as specialised teacher training that will assist teachers to implement a good classroom practice that supports and promotes the specific needs of refugee children are highly important. the presence of a school psychologist in primary schools, who attends to such children’s psychosocial needs, becomes germane. an awareness programme to educate school management about the importance of creating a trauma-sensitive school community becomes imperative. it is believed that these analyses and suggestions will offer some guidance for governments and practitioners looking into supporting refugee children’s effective adjustment and integration into their new environment. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions r.o.a-o. was responsible for the conceptualisation and write-up of the article while n.m. author is the postdoc host and the critical reader. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for carrying out research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references unhcr. global trends: forced displacement in 2018. geneva: the un refugee agency; 2018. zimmermann a, dörschner 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accepted: 01 mar. 2019; published: 08 oct. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract globally, the topic of political party funding evokes strongly defended positions, partly because of the nasty dynamics that usually arise whenever money and politics cross paths. the primary issue in contention is whether to institute mandatory disclosure legislation, legally compelling parties to reveal their sources of funding, and the likely consequences of such disclosure. alternatively, a laissez-faire approach may be adopted to party funding, and to determine which parties to exclude from state or public funding. in south africa, these issues routinely raise public outcry and result in emotive debates pertaining to the expenditure of public finance and accountability. thus, this article explores contemporary issues on political party funding in south africa, focusing on recognised parties and examining their sources of funding. this article examines recent media reports on allegations of a lack of accountability on the part of political parties, particularly their apparent reluctance to disclose their sources of funding. it seeks to contribute to the debate on party funding in south africa, through the use of a qualitative research method using content analysis. the authors contend that officially recognised parties should be audited by a supreme audit institution (the auditor general south africa, locally) prior to tabling their annual reports in parliament. the article concludes that such audit responsibility should not be given to private audit firms in order to avoid possible conflicts of interest, as some audit firms and individual employees may also be funders of some of the political parties. keywords: political funding; public accountability; public interest; regulated funding; political parties. introduction since the advent of democracy in south africa in 1994, there has been ongoing debate on the issue of political party funding, and the campaigns for public accountability and transparency have become an increasingly prominent preoccupation in the country’s national discourse, especially during election campaigns. initially, both governing and opposition parties seemed to be in agreement on this issue in that they were reluctant to disclose the sources of their funding. whether this shared attitude was as a consequence of parties’ ignorance of existing legislation or because of a more sinister, blatant disregard for ethical issues concerning party funding was difficult to determine. however, the recent public tussle between the political parties and one civil society body, the institute for democracy in south africa (idasa, which no longer exists), over access to funding data strongly suggested an inexorably negative trend whereby political parties increasingly embraced unethical funding practices. despite this, since 2015 more parties seemed to be willing to disclose their sources of funding, possibly suggesting pressure from voters as south africa approached the 2016 local government and 2019 national and provincial elections. however, the continually revived public demands, that parties demonstrate financial transparency, have encouraged many civil formations and institutions to pressurise political parties to fully disclose their sources of funding. according to rowbottom (2016), political party financing should be reviewed from a multiplicity of viewpoints, most importantly, their ethics, accountability, transparency and accessibility of information. ethics plays a critical part in determining what political parties choose or choose not to do with respect to sourcing funding for their survival. in terms of transparency, in a democratic society such as south africa, the public expects parties to reveal their funding sources willingly and as a matter of course. not only does this information enable them to know who funds (and thus potentially influences) such parties but it also allows the electorate to make better-informed choices about which party to vote for during elections. among other viewpoints, transparency refers to the effort the public is required to make to gain access to information and records pertaining to such funding, should the information be required. in south africa, the public access to information act (paia) (republic of south africa [rsa] 2000) serves as an enabling mechanism for such access. ultimately, however, the positive aspects of the above factors depend on the degree to which public representatives such as parliamentarians believe they are accountable to party members and/or other interested individuals and organisations. they require someone to demonstrate the will and courage to promote their party’s accountability through regular reporting, and the implementation of appropriate operational checks and balances. this article therefore examines south africa’s present regulatory mechanisms governing political party funding. globally, many regulations advocate that political parties be legally established and provide full financial disclosure and accountability underpinned by formal auditing processes. nevertheless, within the limitations of the present south african regulations for establishing political parties, this article argues that the requirements regarding financial disclosure by political parties are inadequate. further, because it has become the subject of public interest, especially for civil society and public and private media, political party funding in south africa warrants systematic investigation. in south africa, there is a lack of effective and systematic control or regulation of the funding methods employed by political parties, and this remains sharply at odds with the country’s attempts to entrench democratisation. this uneasy status quo is maintained by the apparent reluctance of both the governing african national congress (anc) and the opposition parties, including the official opposition, the democratic alliance (da), to introduce effective controls over the funding of political parties. it must, however, be recorded that no empirical link has been demonstrated between the secrecy surrounding the funding of political parties and the presence of corruption (sarakinsky 2007; van biezen 2010). nevertheless, the lack of support for such measures on the part of government, which includes the smaller opposition parties, largely discourages civil society’s attempts to promote effective party funding regulations. past research by idasa on this subject has shown, ironically, that both the anc and the da were in agreement that there should be no disclosure of their particular sources of funding and that they actively opposed measures by civil society to force parties to become transparent (daily maverick 2017). this attitude suggested that parties wanted to operate without any controls or formal oversight, and largely below the radar of public scrutiny. yet, some parties made rather credible arguments that funders or prospective funders of the anc or opposition parties risked being targeted or penalised if their funding sources were to be disclosed. in addition, what complicates matters is the apparent reluctance on the part of the (mostly) silent party benefactors to reveal their identities, nor are they particularly forthcoming with assistance in efforts to effect checks and balances. in the absence of any voluntary transparency by the parties concerned (even from their benefactors), anecdotal evidence suggests that there are many business and other clandestine interests that support the big political parties financially, and speculation is rife as to the effects this has on south africa’s public policy formulation and implementation, and on corporate governance in general. in terms of structure, the remainder of this article is arranged as follows: the next section examines the debates around party funding, followed by discussion on the literature review focusing on full disclosure as an accountability mechanism, relevance to governance in south africa, public interest and regulated funding. the next section discusses the research method. thereafter, there is a presentation and discussion of the results. the final section draws conclusions from the literature and current results and presents recommendations for further studies. unpacking the debates on party funding at various south african institutions such as corruption watch and the right2know campaign, the debates on political party funding have been rekindled by society’s interest in the role of political parties and in their financial viability. however, within the recognised political parties, the members’ understanding of ‘accountability’ with respect to their finances is apparently different from that of the general public; one hopes, mainly because of ignorance of the tools of proper governance and thus their non-compliance with them. yet, owing to their unique nature, political parties cannot expect to be treated like non-profit organisations (npos), which are required simply to demonstrate their financial accountability in order to increase donations. the transparency and accountability of the organisations promote their reputations beyond their immediate operational spheres (rsa: non-profit organisations act 1997). for political parties, their only legal basis in south africa arises from provisions in the constitution (rsa 1997: section 19) that are supported by the electoral commission1 of south africa, which is the organisation tasked with managing political parties’ participation in the various elections identified in section 26 of the act. within the recurring debates about the state of funding of political parties, there is one question that citizens seem particularly interested in: ‘who are their private funders?’ (right2know 2015). this question has been (and continues to be) addressed in formal academic research in the field of politics, as part of ongoing attempts to discover and explain relations between political parties and their sources of funding (kotze 2004; pinto-duschinsky 2002; primo 2013; robinson & brummer 2006). these writers’ research findings are fundamentally similar and identify various means of corrupting the process; they also identify deficiencies in ethics and highlight transparency issues manifesting as discrepancies between disclosed party funding and their (parties’) spending patterns. literature review political party finances in a representative democratic system such as south africa’s, the cardinal principles of public finance apply. among these is the ‘… principle of responsibility and accountability of the elected political representatives to the taxpayers for the collection and spending of taxes and other income’ (gildenhuys 1993:55). the funding of established political parties is also covered by such principles, which serve as the bedrock of public finance. more than three decades ago, it was argued that public finance rested on administrative efficiency, among others (prest & barr 1985:147). in other words, public income and expenditure require administrative efficiency to enable a system of government to function optimally, and this applies in the allocation of funds to institutions such as political parties. thus, they are reasonably expected to account for the expenditure of the money allocated to them by parlement by producing annual statements and reports that national and provincial legislatures and other interested and affected bodies could then subject to rigorous scrutiny; this should be no different from the requirements enforced on other public entities that receive such allocations from national treasury. however, recent published research on party funding suggests that political parties’ finances are not far from scandalous (mataković & petak 2015). according to pinto-duschinsky (2002:69), political party finances include ‘money to be spent on direct political purposes such as campaign expenses, costs of maintaining research, engaging in political education, voter registration and other functions’. thus, in the past 5 years, the electoral commission of south africa (iec)’s allocations to all political parties represented in the national assembly and provincial legislatures have been increasing both in response to inflation and proportionally, reflecting changes in the number of parties in parlement. table 1 shows that the iec has distributed from the public purse in excess of r575 million (1 us dollar is approximately equal to 15 sa rands) in the last 5 years. this is a significant sum, fully justifying demands that its recipients be subject to an annual audit as a way of improving accountability in the broader public sector. of course, political parties are quick to champion the cause of transparency and good governance in the interest of democracy when someone else’s spending habits are being scrutinised. they are less keen to have their own finances subject to similar scrutiny. to emphasise the point: an audit should be done in all instances where funds are received or allocated from the public purse, as this would increase transparency and encourage public confidence in these institutions. it is also hoped that this disclosure and scrutiny of the way these public funds have been used may also encourage the parties to become more principled and ethical in their personal administration. table 1: depicts an increasing allocation per annum. agreeing with this view, primo (2013) emphasises that political parties should reveal their funding sources and how they have spent their monies. furthermore, the civil society group right2know campaign (2015) argues that if political parties’ finances are not fully shown, this promotes the use of the ‘secret space’ between politicians and their financiers, which undermines democracy. in south africa, the debate about who funds political parties has come to the fore because political parties have failed to reveal all the sources of their funds, encouraging ellis (2000:52) to state that this culture of secrecy needs to be counteracted with the implementation of far more transparent systems. however, this is easier said than done, as the country never experienced a democratically reviewed public financial system before 1994. when the country finally adopted democratic systems in 1994, there was very little time for the newly legalised parties to familiarise themselves with the principles of accountability in a democracy, principles that underpin effective public financial administration. this probably accounts for some of the post-democracy controversy the country has encountered whenever the idea of regulating political party funding has been raised. robinson and brummer (2006) stress that a lack of transparency in any government sector undermines the national government’s efforts to promote the implementation of sound governance principles; furthermore, it is fundamental to the south african systems of governance that any and all public organisations should be subject to public scrutiny. in a study conducted by rowbottom (2016) investigating corruption, transparency and reputation, it was found that there is an increasing level of concern about political parties’ finances and the exercise of undue influence on them. thus, the funding of political parties is a problem as this is beyond the jurisdiction of current regulations (kotze 2004; pinto-duschinsky 2002). of course, more specifically, the effective regulation of political funding might also uncover information that could compromise politicians’ credibility (gilbert 2012). thus, in compliance with regulation, political parties would be expected to regularly disclose and identify their sources of income and financial support received from legal (and illegal) dealings (gilbert & aiken 2015:153). as numerous scholars have argued: … one of the most cardinal values of democracy is that all activities regarding public financial management and administration must take place in public, and not under cover of secrecy or so-called confidentiality. (gildenhuys 1993:55–56) such transparency is intricately linked to accountability. in a more specific sense, accountability requires organisations to disclose their financial statements and include all pertinent data (li, song & zhang 2014). although the south african political parties do not fully disclose their financial information (maphunye 2017), kahl and belkaoui (1981) argue that disclosure serves as an important means of communication between the users of the funds and their suppliers or donors. the importance of financial disclosure is such that, in general, it is the one area that needs greater regulation (potter 2015). political party funding in south africa is largely free of regulation, and globally some argue that mandatory disclosure is an appropriate form of regulation to shape the organisation’s financial reporting (franke & zhang 2016). nevertheless, it remains only as a hope that mandatory disclosure might reduce corruption (potter 2015). whether this would be sufficient, however, is debatable and we need to tread with caution here, given relatively recent claims that ‘[m]any people believe that widespread political corruption exists in south africa’ (lodge 1998:157). such claims were based on an earlier institute for democracy in south africa (idasa) public opinion survey as well as figures from the world value survey. in the light of the more recent ‘state capture’ events, the situation has not apparently improved. full disclosure as an accountability mechanism full disclosure presupposes accountability and transparency, based on a widely shared code of ethics (jordan et al. 2017). disclosure increases efficiency (leuz & wysocki 2016), and it is essential to accountability as it reflects compromise-free adherence to the rules of governance (nelson 2001). according to zhang (2015), full disclosure is arguably one of the most important institutional features that shapes accountability, while a policy of radical disclosure encourages transparency (kasekende, abuka & sarr 2016). full financial disclosure requires that all material information has to be disclosed in the financial statements (ball, jayaraman & shivakumar 2012; leuz & wysocki 2016). in a study examining the value and relevance of international financial reporting standards’ (ifrs) mandatory disclosure requirements, tsalavoutas and dionysiou (2014) found that mandatory full disclosure encourages more transparent financial reporting patterns. further, wehner and de renzio (2013) found that there is a direct and significant relationship between budgetary disclosure and financial transparency. however, berliner (2014) maintains that politicians have many reasons to resist transparency and this has been particularly evident in the south african political environment. a key reason is the probability or fact that some funders demand anonymity as they are directly linked to and/or are beneficiaries of government expenditure projects. it is thus ‘difficult’ for south african political parties to adopt and maintain policies that advocate financial and operational transparency. similarly, as the country’s legislated requirements are somewhat deficient, and rarely enforced, opposition parties are also currently not obliged to reveal their sources of funding, and this calls into question as to their independence and objectivity. despite the widespread acceptance that political parties are autonomous organisations, exempt from running their affairs in accordance with the country’s legislated financial frameworks, there is nevertheless an enormous need for them to disclose their financial information. notwithstanding the annual reviews produced by the country’s electoral commission on political party funding, individual parties’ disclosure of their financials is still viewed by many interested users of financial statements as being of great importance to transparency and accountability, and far more informative than the limited information disclosed in the iec’s annual reports (iec 2016). compared with the probable costs of the actual activities and functions hosted by political parties during their electoral campaigns, the electoral commission’s annual reports reflect a substantially smaller financial turnover and thus a lower disclosure threshold on the part of registered parties. in order for any worthwhile information to emerge from these reports, full financial disclosure is necessary (schneider & scholze 2015). clearly, the preferred or best option is full financial disclosure because it provides all the information that is subject to audit. moreover, while a full audit might be ‘inconvenient’, the central purpose of an audit is to enhance the credibility and the public image of a political party by demonstrating their ability to comply with corporate governance frameworks in south africa. relevance to governance in south africa one of the main responsibilities of any public agency is to be accountable to the people whom it serves in terms of legislation governing public institutions in south africa. despite the apparently ubiquitous academic focus on governance within political parties (and the interest has spread way beyond academia), many of the debates about issues arising from political party funding stem from the discovery (or suspicion) of corruption (bryan & baer 2005). governance is seen from both a public perception and a business perspective in politics and policy studies as serving as a form of accountability and responsibility framework that has the authority arising from being enforceable under the country’s laws. over the past two decades, discourse on good governance in south africa has increasingly occurred in the party political and public spaces, especially since the governing party recalled former president thabo mbeki and replaced him with jacob zuma at the party’s 2007 national conference in polokwane. in the midst of the ongoing governance debates, public accountability has been acknowledged as a central issue, but it still remains an incomprehensible concept to the majority of rank and file members of political parties (van belle & mayhew 2016). thus, there is justification for the view held by supporters of good governance that politicians talk about the right things but prefer to do the opposite (daily maverick 2017). arguably, if appropriate legislation existed in terms of which political parties’ finances were managed and regulated in compliance with legislation similar to, say, the non-profit organisation act 71 of 1997 (which requires, in terms of section 17(1)(a) that ‘every registered non-profit organisation must, to the standards of generally accepted accounting practice – keep accounting records of its income, expenditure, assets and liabilities’), transparency and credibility would be significantly enhanced. such mandatory compliance would place a significant responsibility on the parties to account for all transactions and require the preservation of supporting vouchers, records of subscriptions or levies paid by its members, income and expenditure statements, balance sheets and accounting officer’s reports for the prescribed accounting periods (rsa 1997). the legal process for the establishment of political parties in south africa is described in section 19(1) of the constitution, under the bill of rights. accordingly, political parties are required to register with the electoral commission in order to operate and to participate in the elections (see the electoral commission act 51 of 1996, ss. 15–17). these provisions prescribe the electoral commission’s registration requirements and pre-conditions, which include divulging their names, symbols or emblems, abbreviations or acronyms, and constitutions, among others. only after these have been received and scrutinised will the political party be issued with a formal proof of registration certificate. according to o’regan (2010), in most circumstances political parties are viewed as voluntary associations in south african law. a voluntary association is characterised by separate legal personality, perpetual succession (where the changes in the identity of its members do not affect its existence), the ability to own property apart from its members and the lawful pursuit of gain or profit for itself or its members. however, political parties are obviously different from ordinary and apolitical voluntary associations: political parties are uniquely focused on maximising political influence and their operational methodologies are largely informed by their ideological underpinnings, politico-historical origins and present-day party political dynamics that are in turn heavily influenced by the political preferences of their (senior) members. public interest public interest in political parties stems from the notion that the public and political parties are interlinked and that they rely on each other for survival (norris & van es 2016). thus, on the platform of public interest, the importance of the audit (if clean) is that it offers confidence in the financial affairs of political parties. such confidence underpins and enables the development of trust and accountability between the public and political parties, and their policies and activities. admittedly, there is a tenuous link between these two variables, as can be seen in the recurring and often violent community flare-ups (usually labelled ‘service delivery protests’) and other public demonstrations during which community members vent their frustration and anger at unaccountable public representatives such as local government councillors. south africa’s proportional representative system may be responsible for this malaise as the public representatives are seen as accountable to their political parties, rather than to the communities whom they have been directed to serve. despite the importance that public interest places on it, accountability is hard to come by in such a political environment (chelimsky 2007). in the south african context, requiring that an audit be undertaken for accountability purposes and to increase the public’s confidence in a political party is often difficult to achieve, partly because of the quality of financial literacy among members of the political parties that would be subject to such audits. norris and van es (2016) state that political party finances worldwide vary greatly in quality and reflect the different national attitudes and levels of public interest in accountability. auditing political party finances might reduce public concerns and speculations regarding large and improper donations that the public often perceives to have been given for unethical and anti-democratic purposes. interestingly, there is not a single political party in south africa that has ever publicly discussed and/or disclosed its financial viability, nor have the results of an audit of a political party officially been made public, which is in stark contrast with the situation regarding audits of government departments and institutions. as a matter of speculation, it would be very interesting to see how political parties cope with a similar level of accountability and whether this would improve their accountability to their constituencies.2 political parties’ formally audited financial statements would add a degree of truth and transparency to the electoral process: there is nothing quite like making the audit reports and financial records of parties available to public scrutiny to change their behaviour. besides increasing the electorate’s confidence in political parties, such statements also facilitate decision-making as they demonstrate the levels of financial and fiduciary competence of the parties. based on this, the public could decide on a basis of fact whether to continue to entrust the political parties with the handling of the nation’s finances. indeed, in south africa legislation regulating the auditing profession and processes is robust enough to increase public confidence significantly. such legislation includes the public audit act 25 of 2004, which gives the supreme audit institution (the auditor general south africa [agsa]) the right and obligation to audit the finances of public entities and government departments, thereby ensuring the application of the principles of transparency (rsa 2004). again, passing legislation requiring political parties to comply with auditing legislation pertaining to government (political parties would be audited and required to fully disclose their finances) is one approach that could enhance public accountability and improve governance within political parties. the current state of affairs is such that only the portion of political party funding that comes from the electoral commission is audited by the agsa. political parties are thus complying with the letter of the electoral commission’s regulations by appointing a registered auditor to audit their books and records of account for monies allocated to them from the fund, in terms of the provision of the represented political parties’ fund act (act 103 of 1997, section 6.) overall, however, as is the case in trying to define and act in ‘the national interest’, the concept of ‘the public interest’ is equally difficult to quantify and act upon, especially in the case of political parties and their funding in south africa. regulated funding according to the independent electoral commission (2016), political parties may be funded by both public and private organisations and individuals. while the funding received from the iec is well regulated and easily defined, there are no regulations whatsoever guiding the private funding of political parties. it is obvious that regulation increases good governance, as it enhances transparency. gherghina and volintiru (2017) point out that healthy political finances, if strictly regulated, can be equally healthy for a political system. it is thus somewhat ironic that, while all political parties are able to comply with section 6 of the represented political parties act of 1997 (which requires political parties to act in an accountable and transparent manner with regard to the funds allocated to them by the iec), these political parties are unable to extend the process to cover their ‘private’ funding and its uses. research methodology content analysis the research methodology employed in this article includes content analysis and a review of recent literature on the topic. although content analysis is considerably different from other qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, its advantage is its ability to support various research methods. thus, content analysis may be used either in qualitative or quantitative research contexts (elo & kyngäs 2008). however, its strength is that it gives attention to the meaning (hsieh & shannon 2005) or interpretation of phenomena. it is a detailed method, and its procedures examine words and phrases and content meaning in most forms of communication (downe-wamboldt 1992; hsieh & shannon 2005). the objective of this article is to analyse the content of media reports during south africa’s past two election cycles (2014 and 2016) with respect to issues pertaining to party funding, in order to determine and examine the trends. south africa’s fifth post-apartheid national elections were held during 2014, and its fourth local government elections were held in 2016. during these two election cycles, much was said on the funding of parties by a variety of role players, political parties and members of the public. thus, this article tackles the following key questions: what is the central contentious issue about political party funding in south africa? how has the issue been tackled in the electronic, print other media platforms? what kind of solutions have been proffered to resolve the contentious aspects of political party funding in the country? given that all of the above issues have been addressed in media reports, newspaper articles and other formal media statements, the employment of the content analysis approach as a research method was deemed appropriate. the next section of this article examines the main themes identified in various media on political party funding in south africa. in one online media article, the question asked by political commentator judith february was: who is funding south africa’s political parties, and why do south africans not know about this? (daily maverick 2016). the implied statement was that most of the political parties’ expenses are not reflected in their public records. another recent article, this time in the national weekly, the mail & guardian (2015), appeared under the headline ‘sources of party funding to remain private – court rules’. it was reported that a local non-profit organisation, my vote counts (mvc), ‘has called on all political parties to start working on legislation that would force them to disclose information about their funding’. clearly, as this issue had already progressed through the court system, it suggests that civil society organisations are attempting to exert more pressure on political parties to reveal all their funding sources. however, in terms of current legislation this cannot be compelled, and as south africa’s political system is dominated by a single party, the governing anc, it is in their interest that the system remains unchanged, thus improving their results at each major election. thus, as long as the anc retains a convincing majority in parliament, it can continue to reject and defeat opposition votes to reform party funding practices and legislation. according to the anc’s former head of elections during the recent local government polls, nomvula mokonyane, the anc spent r1 billion on the 2016 local government elections (daily maverick 2016), an embarrassing revelation that the newspaper later denied. another civil society watchdog, corruption watch (2016), also recently raised concerns that financial information from political parties and individual candidates was not being disclosed to the public. this also indicates that pressure is mounting from civil society and is echoed by other role players in the greater election arena, who increasingly question the status of political party funding in south africa. whether, and to what extent, such pressure will actually disturb the status quo and result in tangible action from parliament is difficult to determine. however, the regular expression of such concerns in the country’s national discourse might also indicate a slowly maturing democracy in which individuals and civil society associations are seen to be participating in issues of national and/or public concern. discussion and analysis south african political parties are only publicly accounting for their income and expenditures with respect to the grant received from the electoral commission. of much greater significance is the requirement that political parties’ audited financial statements are supposed to form part of (or contribute data to) the annual reports prepared by the electoral commission. thus, a review of the reports emerging after the 2016 local government elections suggests that the spending trends of political parties were high. thus, table 2 presents the iec’s spending allocation per represented political party for the past 2 years (list is alphabetical). table 2: spending allocation per represented political party from independent electoral commission. while the above data reflect the official positions of parties with respect to their use of iec allocations, recent investigative journalist revelations show that the anc spent a reported r1bn (iec allocation for 2016: r75.6m) in the recent local government election campaign, the da spent r350m (iec allocation for 2016: r27.6m) and the eff spent just less than r10m (iec allocation for 2016: r10.3m) (news24 2016). the formula for calculating the percentage increase is as follows (tutorvista.com 2017): there was an increase of 4.17% in 2013, 6.07% in 2014, 5.47% in 2015 and 4.67% in 2016. the average annual increase is 5.10%. thus, these increases are approximately in line to cover the cost of target inflation set by the south african reserve bank at 6%. the increase in the amount spent was consistent with the increase of the represented parties from 2015. it remains our contention that full disclosure financial reporting enhances good governance, and by extension, it forms part of ongoing efforts to improve public governance and accountability in political party finances. obviously, a mandatory requirement of full financial reporting disclosure may affect political parties’ supporters’ preference for confidentiality, should they disclose their sources of funds. from the point of view of political parties, a possible negative outcome of such disclosure could be the loss of current or prospective support from influential members afraid of publicly endorsing one (or many) political parties. yet, such disclosures would further inform the wider voting public and prospective party members about the influence being exerted on parties’ activities and financial health by wealthy supporters; the outcome of such transparency on prospective supporters is difficult to predict with any certainty. thus, while full financial disclosure is undoubtedly highly informative (hassanein & hussainey 2015), the more formal but less informative disclosures under the iec’s present system offer very little insight into the workings of individual political parties (carvalho, rodrigues & ferreira 2016). on 28 march 2014, political analyst judith february told talk radio 702’s john robbie that ‘… the secrecy [surrounding] funding for political parties should be scrutinized as a matter of urgency to allow transparency …’. in another interview with the same radio station, maphunye noted: … it is interesting to see that these political parties were audited individually by different audit companies/firms. but what remains is that the auditor general has a legislative mandate to audit the iec as an organ of the state. whereas, the individual parties are not obliged to have their books and records reviewed or audited by the auditor general, because they are not accountable to the public as would be the case with government departments and public bodies. however, there is no piece of legislation in south africa that may cause the political parties to account for their finances. (maphunye 2018:n.p.) figure 1: spending allocation. figure 2: annual amounts allocated – percentage increases. notwithstanding the fact that many researchers hold similar views regarding party political funding, berkowitz (2013) argues that ‘it is crucial for political parties to receive money [from the state] to finance their campaign, policy research and general administration’. phosa (2012) warns that while political parties need funding to operate, they would not take money from the criminals as this may lead to corruption and abuse. conclusion and recommendations this article has analysed the state of financial affairs regarding political parties’ funding in south africa. the findings indicate that there is a need for more inclusive regulation of political parties’ finances. such regulations should obligate political parties to adhere to the good governance practices of accountability and transparency out of respect for their supporters and the country’s citizens in general. in particular, the article reveals that the subject of political parties’ sources of funding in south africa remains shrouded in secrecy, and it is cold comfort that the country is probably not be alone in this regard, as the issue of transparency in political party funding evokes similarly negative responses globally. the consequence is that citizens and voters remain essentially clueless about who donates to the parties; what their motives are; the degree to which such funding exerts any influence on the way parties behave; and whether they are in power or opposition. the heated debates centred on allegations of ‘state capture’ in south africa came to a head in 2016–2017. that the situation has arisen might well be associated with what we contend are party funding issues that have remained unresolved since the advent of the country’s democracy. it is our contention that because political parties have not been required or compelled to comply with disclosure requirements at least as stringent as those required by the public finance management act, the companies act and/or the provisions of the king reports on corporate governance, among others, an opportunity to improve political parties’ accountability to their donors and supporters has yet to be realised. nonetheless, disclosure is a critical aspect of any political party’s finances, largely because it encourages transparency and this assures the public that whatever funding is received by parties is legitimate and applied to legitimate programmes. in any public finance management system, legislation includes the requirement that proper audits are performed annually. however, in the case of south african political parties, the performance of ‘proper audits’ according to legislation is not sufficient, as this only covers monies received from the state. if the parties themselves prefer not to be transparent or accountable to anyone with respect to privately obtained funding, and do not institute corporate governance best practices, then any such audit that they do submit to is little more than a ‘tick-box’ compliance issue that defeats the purpose of an audit. addressing this situation, it is recommended, would require legislation that compels all political parties that are represented in parliament to table their complete annual reports in the national assembly and that the underlying financial statements should be audited by the agsa, the country’s supreme audit institution. retaining this oversight responsibility in government would eliminate the risk that occurs when private audit firms conduct audits of political parties, as they (both as business entities and through the individual preferences of their staff and directors) are also funders of the country’s political parties. since there is as yet no legislation that regulates the flow of private donations to fund political parties, this article recommends that such regulations be developed to manage the balance required between transparency and private donors’ fears of possible negative reactions to their political preferences becoming public knowledge. the authors also recommend that private donors should be incentivised to insist on transparency from their preferred political parties by the introduction of tax benefits arising from those donations. it is further suggested that the electoral commission reviews its funding model for political parties, perhaps by setting a higher minimum allocation that would enable particularly the smaller parties to enjoy greater popular exposure as a result of being able to afford more effective advertising campaigns and more extensive research. although legislation is already in place (political parties already submit their financial statements to the electoral commission), such financial statements only account for the monies granted to them by the commission. we again recommend that audits be performed on political parties’ entire sets of financial transactions, regardless of the source of funds, and that this audit should be performed by the agsa, thereby increasing the public’s and civil society’s confidence in such reports. although no comprehensive, mandatory audit requirements currently exist for south african political parties, this could change soon. there are apparently, at the time this article was being compiled, plans for parliament to debate the issue of party funding. thus, the opportunities exist for future research to examine other parameters that would come into play should the disclosure of voluntary donations become mandatory; in addition, as the intention of such legislation would be to boost ethical practices, good governance and transparency in relation to party funding in south africa, future research could examine the degree to which these objectives have been achieved. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of the electoral commission of south africa in obtaining the relevant information on political party funding on which this article is based. they also acknowledge the inputs and advice of the two anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments resulted in significant improvements in its quality. the authors are grateful for their comments. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions k.j.m. worked with the co-author to conceptualise and develop the final title, argument and layout of the article; verified and added literature on south africa’s elections; and relevant documentation by the electoral commission of south africa. k.n.m. collected and analysed finance-related documents and created all the figures and tables. he also developed arguments for and against current practice on the funding of political parties, supplied additional relevant legislation and assisted in the editing of the pre-submission version of this article. funding information the authors declare that this research was not funded by any 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september 2017, from http://www.tutorvista.com/content/math/how-to-calculate-percentage-increase/. footnotes 1. in terms of chapter 9 of the constitution, south africa’s election management body is formally known as the electoral commission, but it is popularly known as the ‘independent electoral commission’ (iec). these two names are used interchangeably in this article. 2. south africa’s proportional representation (pr) electoral system makes it easier for parties to avoid accounting to their ‘constituencies’ as the party list used by political parties usually makes public representatives more accountable to their own parties rather than the electorate. td journal desember 2006.p65 man and nature in the confucian tradition: some reflections in the twenty-first century chun-chieh huang * abstract: amidst the trend of globalisation, this paper is focused squarely on the most fundamental and urgent problem for the twenty-first century: the relationship between man and nature. it explores this question by analyzing traditional chinese confucian thinking regarding the relationship between man and nature in the hope of utilizing this traditional wisdom to show in what ways traditional chinese culture offers new insights into this and related twenty-first-century issues. keywords: globalisation, confucianism, daoism, man, nature, chinese culture, moral content. i. chinese thinking in the context of world civilization1 about 1000 bc, the civilizations in several parts of the world all underwent a development stage that the german philosopher karl jaspers (1883-1969) termed a ‘philosophic breakthrough’.2 this expression indicates a sort of spiritual leap that took place in several civilizations at the beginning of the first millennium b.c., when the human mind was no longer enamoured by unknown spiritual or supernatural powers. people started to observe and reflect upon their actual existence in the world. the major ancient civilizations, including the hindu, the chinese, the judeo-christian, and the greek civilizations, all went td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ * professor of history, national taiwan university and research fellow, academia sinica. 1 this paper was not read at the conference. the author was unable to attend the proceedings. however, in view of the important observations on humanism and nature, made in the paper from a chinese perspective, it was decided to have the paper peer reviewed, extended and then revised for publication – editor. 2 cf. karl jaspers, michael bullock tr., the origin and goal of history (new haven: yale university press, 1953). 312 through this development phase, in the course of which several paradigmatic personages appeared on the world stage, including confucius (551-479 bc) in china, siddhartha gautama (566-486 bc) in india, and socrates (469-399 bc) and plato (428-348 bc) in greece. however, the specific ‘philosophic breakthroughs’ that took place in the development of these ancient civilizations respectively, were not the same. for example, the ‘philosophic breakthroughs’ of the judeochristian and greek civilizations took forms and contents that differed significantly from that of chinese civilization. two major differences between them lay in the fact that in the ‘philosophic breakthroughs’ of the judeo-christian and greco-roman civilizations humanism were established on the basis of the tension between man and god. the christian concept of ‘original sin’ was an extension of the concept of ‘fallibility of man’, making man into a mere creature who seeks an eternal intimate relationship with god as the omniscient, omnipotent creator. thus, western humanism developed out of the opposition between man and god.3 because man and god were thought to have this intimate relationship, man had to ceaselessly manifest his servitude and confess his sins. as for ancient greek civilization, around 490 bc, the greeks under athenian leadership repelled the invading persians at the battle of marathon. after this victory, the greek city-states felt confident to expand their power militarily, and this confidence was manifested in their culture. consequently, during the sixth and fifth centuries bc, the glorious greek civilization was created. socrates, plato, aristotle (384-322 bc) and the greek playwrights sophocles (496-406 bc), euripides (480-406 bc) and aeschylus (525-456 bc) all appeared during this period. in the classical age of greek civilization, the spirit of humanism was also formed in the opposition between man and the gods as human destiny. for this conflict between man and god, scholars like to call this, be it the judeo-christian or the greco-roman tradition, a ‘civilization of rupture’.4 in contrast, ancient chinese civilization can best be characterized as a civilization of a ‘continuum’. the philosophic breakthrough of the chinese civilization came about because the minority of the nobility huang _______ 3 i do not refer to the more differentiated view on the roman origin of western humanism and the importance of the philosophical development of stoa. cf. hubert cancik, humanismus, in hubert cancik, burkhard gladigow eds., handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher grundbegriffe. vol. iii (stuttgart: kohlhammer, 1993), pp. 173-185. 4 cf. zhang guangzhi , ‘lianxu yu polie: yige wenming qiyuan xinshuo di caogao’ ³säò»p¯}µõ¡g¤@-ó¤å©ú°_·½ ·s»¡ªº¯(continuity and splintering: a new account of the origin of civilization), in zhongguo qingtong shidai dierji ¤¤°ê«c»é®é¥n²ä (the chinese bronze age, v. 2) (taipei: lianjing chuban shiyie gongsi, 1990), pp. 131143. 313 held political power to manage and control the vast majority of the empire’s resources, creating thereby the dazzling bronze civilization. because of this, china’s ‘philosophic breakthrough’ was relatively mild, which contributes to the continuity of chinese history, with a warm and rich intellectual heritage emerged. the most distinctive characteristic of this heritage, one that offers fresh insights for the contemporary world, is ‘correlative thinking’. this sort of thinking seeks to establish relationships between binary oppositions, interactive communications or exchanges, and finds its origin in the ancient confucian and daoist schools of thought, being mutually symbiotic. this sort of thinking has much to do with the ancient chinese cosmology together with their view of mind and human nature in forming a comprehensive holistic system. what is called ‘correlative thinking’? this is an approach to thinking in which person, world and cosmos form interconnected parts in a well-knit, mutually contained intellectual continuum. basically, it views the cosmos such that the relations among the parts and the relations between the parts and the whole manifest an organic, non-mechanistic system, in which to shake one tiny part is to move the totality. consequently, in the cosmos, every part interacts with and influences every other; these parts also serve as interactive causes and effects of each other. this sort of ‘correlative thinking’ bequeathed by the ancient chinese confucian and daoist intellectual traditions definitely offers some fresh indications to the contemporary world.5 the traditional chinese ‘correlative thinking’ is established upon three basic themes: first, the traditional chinese thinkers considered that all of the various phenomena in the cosmos share in a common substance. this conception appeared throughout the classics. the ‘great appendix’ to the book of changes points out that, underlying the different phenomena appearing among the myriad things in the cosmos, is an implicit common substance and operational logic.6 this common ground is referred to as ‘de ’ (virtue, power) and ‘qing ±¡’ (fact, feeling), which depend on mankind to decipher and explicate; so there are numerous analogies among different sorts of existences and phenomena. in the yizhoushu , inferences are drawn from observed natural phenomena, such as ‘the wind does not thaw the man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 5 i do not neglect, that in the western tradition we can find similar elements. cf. the famous book by arthur o. lovejoy, the great chain of being: a study of the history of ideas (cambridge: harvard university press, 1961). but this idea was definitely given up, when the western historical development definitely separated in the modernization process from other civilizations. 6 cf. richard wilhelm, cary f. baynes tr., the i ching or book of changes (princeton: princeton university press, 1950), pp. 280-324. 314 ice’, ‘the hibernating insects do not stir’, ‘the fish do not swim over the ice,’ to human phenomena, such as, ‘the command will not work’, ‘the yin-qi will seduce the yang-qi’, ‘armor for private stores’, etc.7 dong zhongshu ¸³¥òµî (179-104 bc) wrote in the chunqiu fanlu : honor, reward, crime and punishment’ ... (and) ... ‘spring, summer, autumn and winter’ are analogous and interactive.8 these examples reflect the deep faith of the ancient chinese that the cosmos, the myriad things and all phenomena, share a common substance, that they therefore are continuous and analogous. second, because of the deep faith of the ancient chinese that the cosmos and the myriad things share a common nature, they thought the cosmos is an organism in which a small influence can reverberate through the whole. the parts making up this cosmic organism are interpenetrating and interactive. for example, authors of the yizhuan (book of change with commentary) had indicated that the chaotic, confusing transformations of phenomena in the cosmos all interactively influence each other: therefore the eight trigrams succeed one another by turns, as the firm and the yielding displace each other.9 third, chinese thinkers considered that not only was there the interpenetration and interaction between part and part within the cosmos, there also was an analogy relationship between the parts and the whole. mencius (7a.4) said: all of the ten thousand things are there, within me. certainly, this sentence was uttered with respect to the self-realization that accompanies moral self-cultivation, but it can be read and interpreted from another angle: it expresses that the ‘i’, as a part of the cosmos, also partakes of the total substance that is shared among the ten thousand things. consequently, from the perspective of the ‘i’ (part), one can grasp the original substance (total substance) that is shared in common by the ten thousand things; while, from another perspective, the specific features of the ten thousand things (total substance) are reflected within the perceptions of the ‘i’ (part). therefore, the parts and the whole form a sort of interactive, interresponsive relationship. and, the parts and the whole within the huang _______ 7 jizhong zhoushu ¨ v-à©p® (ji tomb zhoushu) (i.e. yi zhoushu ¶h©p® [remaining zhou documents] ) (taipei: shangwu yinshuguan, 1975, sibu congkan chubian suoben edition), juan 6, chap. 52, p. 33b (a refers to the upper half of the page, b the lower). 8 su yu , chunqiu fanlu yizheng ¬k¬îácås¸q (interpretation of chunqiu fanlu) (taipei: heluo tushu chubanshe, 1974), juan 13, chap. 55, p.250. 9 the i ching or book of changes, p. 283. 315 cosmos also form a kind of revolving hermeneutical circular process. to sum up, correlative thinking interprets the cosmos as a great system; within this system, each part is interacting and thus forming together an indivisible whole. no matter whether we trace this correlative thinking to the ancient chinese view of a totalistic cosmogony, or to ancient chinese confucianism and daoism, a holistic outlook is manifested. additionally, this holistic cosmogony lets chinese culture do without any western styled creation myth.10 the correlative thinking of the chinese intellectual tradition is a connected, hierarchical intellectual approach that proceeds from theory of cosmos to theory of mind and human nature, to theory of society and rule, all clearly reflecting correlative thinking. as to cosmology or cosmogony, chapter 42 of the dao de jing , reads, tao [i.e. dao] produced the one. the one produced the two. the two produced the three. and the three produced the ten thousand things. the ten thousand things carry the yin and embrace the yang.11 this passage clearly manifests the characteristics of correlative thinking. as to confucian thought, in mencius’ theory of mind and human nature and theory of self-cultivation, the pathway of value and cultivation is summarized in the idea of ‘expanding upon’ the ‘mind’. mencius always stressed organic interactive relations among mind and body, self and society, and man and nature. besides cosmology and theory of mind and human nature, ancient chinese society and socio-political theories were established on the basis of a continuum approach. the most representative example of this is the ‘eight steps’ of the great learning chapter of the record of rites : to investigate, to extend or attain, to make sincere, to rectify, to cultivate, to straighten, to order and bring peace to the world. these cultivation steps form a continuous process in which they are mutually implicated.12 they form a well-ordered series, which develops into a closely-knit pattern. the steps in this holistic process connect and unify the spheres of society, politics and personal self-cultivation. man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 10 see f.w. mote, ‘the cosmological gulf between china and the west’, in d.c. buxbaum and f.w. mote ed., transition and permanence: chinese history and culture: a festschrift in honor of dr. hsiao kung-ch’uan (hong kong: cathay press ltd., 1972), pp. 3-22, and f.w. mote, intellectual foundations of china (cambridge, ma: the colonial press, 1971), ch. 2, pp. 13-28. 11 wing-tsit chan, ‘the natural way of lao tzu’, in a source book in chinese philosophy (princeton: princeton university press, 1963), p. 160. 12 cf. wing-tsit chan, ‘moral and social programs: the great learning’, in a source book in chinese philosophy, p. 86. 316 ii. the relationship between ‘man’ and ‘nature’ in confucian tradition (i): continuity based on the ‘correlative thinking’ in chinese culture, traditional chinese thinkers held that there was an intimate relationship between the natural order and the human order. the book of changes points out that, if the form of heaven is contemplated, the changes of time can be discovered. if the form of men are contemplated, one can shape the world.13 hence, they thought that changes in the natural order, and their implicit principles and rules, constitute the inherent structure of phenomena in human culture. chapter 23 of the dao de jing reads, (a) whirlwind does not last a whole morning, nor does a rainstorm day. what causes them? it is heaven and earth (nature). if even heaven and earth cannot make them last long, how much less can man? therefore he who follows tao is identified with tao.14 the ancient daoists considered that the myriad changes taking place in the natural world, such as whirlwind, rainstorm, etc., were instructive for thinking about phenomena in human culture. this sort of analogical thinking carries the supposition of correlations between human culture and nature. the swiss psychoanalyst, carl g. jung (1875-1961), formulated and used ‘the principle of synchronicity’ to describe the sort of correlation, interaction and interpenetration between culture and nature expressed in the ancient chinese thought. influenced by this correlative pattern of thinking, traditional chinese people always extrapolated significance in the cultural world from the natural phenomena. the relationship between man and nature in confucianism had two special features. the first was the continuum between culture and nature. the traditional confucians did not take nature as something apart from the self or as an ‘objective nature’, with which the self has nothing to do. rather, the traditional confucianists had always read cultural significances into nature. for example, confucius said, the human-hearted take pleasure in mountains; the wise take pleasure in rivers. hence, in the natural conditions of mountains and rivers, he read the huang _______ 13 the i ching or book of changes, p. 495. 14 wing-tsit chan, ‘the natural way of lao tzu’, in a source book in chinese philosophy, p. 151. 317 human virtues of human-heartedness and wisdom. and mencius 7a:24, reads into the natural phenomena of (water from an ample source) going forward only after all the hollows are filled’ the human cultural meaning that, ‘the gentleman in his pursuit of the way does not get there unless he achieves a beautiful pattern.15 the continuum relationship that holds between human culture and nature in confucian tradition is manifested in two main ways: 1) the fusion of man and nature; and 2) man adjusts to nature and improves his moral content.16 1. the fusion of man and mature in confucianism, there is a sort of developing continuum at work. when people roam at ease in nature and commune with nature, they become filled with feelings of adoration and respect for nature. one dialogue between confucius and his students (xi.26) is particularly worthy of our attention: when zilu, zengxi, ranyou, and gongxi hua were seated in attendance, the master said, ‘do not feel constrained simply because i am a little older than you are. now you are in the habit of saying, ‘my abilities are not appreciated,’ but if someone did appreciate your abilities, do tell me how you would go about things.’ zilu promptly replied, ‘if i were to administer a state of a thousand chariots, situated between powerful neighbors, troubled by armed invasions and by repeated famines, i could, within three years, give the people courage and a sense of direction.’ the master smiled at him. he then asked, ‘qiu, what about you?’ ‘if i were to administer an area measuring about sixty or seventy li square, or even fifty or sixty li square, i could, within three years, bring the size of the population up to an adequate level. as to the rites and music, i would leave that to abler gentlemen.’ ‘chi, how about you?’ ‘i do not say that i already have the ability, but i am ready to learn. on ceremonial occasions in the ancestral temple or in diplomatic gatherings, i should like to assist as a minor official in charge of protocol, properly dressed in my ceremonial cap and robes.’ ‘dian, how about you?’ after a few dying notes came the final chord, and then he stood up from his lute. ‘i differ from the other three in my choice.’ the master said, ‘what harm is there in that? after all, each man is stating what he has set his heart upon.’ man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 15 d.c. lau tr., mencius (hong kong: the chinese university press, 1979, 1984), bk vii: a, 24, p. 275. 16 d.c. lau tr.,the analects (hong kong: the chinese university press, 1992), bk xi: 26, p. 105-107. 318 ‘in late spring, after the spring clothes have been newly made, i should like, together with five or six adults and six or seven young boys, to go bathing in the river yi and enjoy the breeze on the rain alter, and then go home chanting poetry.’ the master sighed and said, ‘i am all in favor of dian.’ when the three had left, zeng xi stayed behind. he said, ‘what do you think of what the other three said?’ ‘they were only stating what their hearts were set upon.’ ‘why did you smile at yu?’ ‘it is by the rites that a state is administered, but in the way he spoke, yu showed a lack of modesty. that is why i smiled at him.’ ‘in the case of chi, was he not concerned with a state?’ ‘what can justify one in saying that sixty or seventy li square or indeed fifty or sixty li square do not deserve the name of ‘state’?’ ‘what are ceremonial occasions in the ancestral temple and diplomatic gatherings if not matters which concern rulers of feudal states? if qiu plays only a minor part, who would be able to play a major role?’ in this dialogue between the master and his students, confucius does not extend particular praise to the students for having their hearts set on administrative matters. but, as to dian’s account of his longing to enjoy the rites of spring by bathing with some friends and young boys in the river yi, then chanting poetry together on the way home, confucius expressed his full praise by saying he was ‘all in favor of dian’. this passage is the most beautiful expression of the fusion between man and nature in confucius’ analects. zeng dian ́ ¿âi (542?475? bc) here expressed a feeling for the natural sphere of human life, wherein the human is fused within the natural, and praised the exquisite beauty of nature. the immediate fusion between man and nature expressed in confucianism reflected the organic outlook of cosmos and nature of the confucian tradition. in the confucian outlook, man is a part of nature; man and the dynamic motions in nature – moving, growing, soaring and diving – form an organic, indivisible holistic totality. when observing the myriad things, the confucians had self-attainment. the confucians believed that four seasons flourish in succession together with humanity. in this way, the myriad things and humanity form integral parts of a seamless unity. this confucian attitude toward nature was deeply rooted in china’s time-honoured agrarian tradition. for millennia, chinese farmers ploughed, planted, cultivated, and harvested their crops together. they toiled and sweated together, and thereupon formed a collective economic system. on this economic basis, the social traditions of sharing labour, huang 319 balancing surplus and deficit, and ritual sharing developed. the chinese scholars across the centuries expressed adoration for this sort of rural society. the song dynasty scholars, such as zhu xi abc (1130-1200), and the korean choson dynasty (1392-1911) confucian scholars, like yi yulgok §õµ¯¨¦ (1536-1584), planned to use the ‘village contract’ model to improve life in the rural villages. in this sort of society, people enjoy amiable relations and man is filled with praise and admiration for nature.17 but, why was it that people never seemed to achieve a perfect harmony with nature in their daily life? confucian scholars, the songming neo-confucian scholars in particular, thought that the reason why people could not achieve a perfect harmony with nature was that people were obstructed by their own excessive selfish desires. zhu xi interpreted the analects ‘i am all in favor of dian’ passage quoted above, as follows: it could be said that because the master’s personal desires were completely subdued, the natural patterning operated through him and his responses were everywhere complete and without defect. consequently, in all of his conduct, he was natural and at ease like this. and, when they spoke of their ambitions, he viewed it from his present position, to take pleasure in the common course of daily life. he had no thought of giving up his self to impress others. his living body was at ease, operating together in unison with heaven, earth and the myriad things, so that each thing realized its function and he silently realized it without words. observing his three students’ narrow focus on peripheral matters, their atmosphere was unlike his. hence, he sighed and deeply praised dian’s sentiment. if students wanted to calculate the depth of their attainment, they could consider this to realize it.18 the song-ming neo-confucians always used the expressions ‘heavenly principle’ vis-á-vis ‘human desire’. inferring from zhu xi’s commentary here, we can know that zhu xi considered that people must shake off their excessive selfish desires in order to return to nature and attain to the sphere in which ‘heavenly principle operates through one’ and in which one ‘operates in unison with heaven, earth and the myriad things’. this was the sphere at which man and nature are fused in a single organic continuum. man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 17 the leading twentieth century new-confucian scholar, tang junyi -ð§g¼ (1908-1978), wrote surpassingly on the spontaneous spirit of the ‘roaming mind’ in chinese culture. see, for example, his book zhongguo renwen jingshen zhichongjian ¤¤°ê¤h¤åºë¯«¤§-««ø (reconstructing the humanist spirit) (taibei: zhonghua shuju, 1982), v. 6, p. 130. 18 zhu xi ¦¶¿q ed. and com., lunyu jizhu ½×»y¶°ª‘ (confucius’ analects with collected commentaries), in sishu zhangju jizhu ¥|®ñ³¹¥y¶°ª‘ (four books in chapter and verse with collected commentaries) (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1982), ch. 6, p. 130. 320 2. man adjusts to nature and improves his moral content we can explicate this point in light of mencius’ (2a.2) discussion on his vast ‘floodlike qi’. mencius had a dialogue with gongsun chou on ‘the heart that cannot be stirred’.19 [gongsun chou] asked, ‘i wonder if you could tell me something about the heart that cannot be stirred, in your case and in gaozi’s case?’ [mencius replied], ‘according to gaozi, ‘if you fail to understand words, do not worry about this in your heart; and if you fail to understand in your heart, do not seek satisfaction in your qi.’ it is right that one should not seek satisfaction in one’s qi when one fails to understand in one’s heart. but it is wrong to say that one should not worry about it in one’s heart when one fails to understand words. ‘the will is the commander over the qi while the qi is that which fills the body. where the will arrives, there the qi halts. hence, it is said, ‘take hold of your will and do not abuse your qi.’’ ‘as you have already said that where the will arrives, there the qi halts, what is the point of going on to say, ‘take hold of your will and do not abuse your qi’?’ ‘the will, when blocked, moves the qi. on the other hand, the qi, when blocked, also moves the will. now, stumbling and hurrying affect the qi, yet in fact palpitations of the heart are produced.’ ‘may i ask what your strong points are?’ [mencius replied,] ‘i have an insight into words. i am good at cultivating my ‘flood-like qi.’’ ‘may i ask what this ‘flood-like qi’ is?’ ‘it is difficult to explain. this is a qi which is, to the highest degree, vast and unyielding. nourish it with integrity and place no obstacle in its path and it will fill the space between heaven and earth. it is a qi which unites righteousness (appropriateness) with the way. deprive it of these, and it will collapse. it is borne of accumulated righteousness and cannot be appropriated by anyone through a sporadic show of rightness ... in this dialogue, mencius referred to the single substance that is shared in common by the myriad things in the cosmos-qi . as a part of the natural sphere, man just needs to cultivate the qi already being inside, without ‘daily chopping it down’ to make ‘ox mountain become denuded,’ in order to reach the sphere of the vast ‘flood-like qi’. then, on the basis of having cultivated this vast ‘flood-like qi’, one can reach the sphere of the mind-heart that cannot be stirred. because of this, when mencius faced the kings of the various states, he could ‘look with contempt when speaking with men of consequence,’ and remain unawed by the king’s eminence. the vast flood-like qi cultivated by mencius made him a resilient moral presence in the turbulent warring states period (403-222 bc). huang _______ 19 d.c. lau tr., mencius, ii: a, 2, p. 57. 321 what are the distinctive features of the vast ‘flood-like qi’ proposed by mencius? the concept of qi is part of the ‘common discourse’20 in the world of thought in ancient china. during the past several decades, it has been the subject of intense study by sinologists at home and overseas. ‘qi’ is an age-old concept of the chinese tradition; this concept appears mostly in documents written since the warring states period. if we survey the use of the term ‘qi’ in texts of the spring and autumn period (722-481 bc), including recently excavated texts, such as the medical text and the ‘wuxing pian ¤-¦æ ’ discovered at the mawangdui °¨¤ý°ï tomb in 1972, we can infer that prior to mencius there were four main kinds of theories about qi:21 first, there were theories concerning of the interaction between the two qi. the yizhuan expresses this idea clearly. this sort of theories recognizes that the cosmos was formed through the sympathetic intercourse between the two qi – yin and yang ³±¶§ ; here the cosmic significance was more prominent than the ethical significance. second, there were theories about qi for fortune-telling. this sort of theories was closely associated with the yin-yang and five phases theories22 that appeared during the warring states period. during the spring and autumn period people had started to forecast based on auspicious and inauspicious omens using expressions like ‘six qi’, ‘four seasons’, and ‘five phases’. people could even use the cloud-qi to divine and understand changes in human affairs. this was an important feature of ancient chinese astronomy. the third sort of theories about qi concerned ‘eating the qi.’ qi was recognized as an object of physical cultivation of the body. this sort of theories had a long history, originating in shamanistic culture and practices and influenced the idea of immortals in the warring states period. the descriptions of the art of longevity appear not only in the daoist texts but also in newly excavated texts, like the medical text excavated from the number three han tomb at the mawangdui site, which discusses food-qi in the context of the art of nurturing life in elaborate detail. the fourth sort of theories about qi was the contribution of the militarists school, who spoke of qi of high morale, cutting-qi, extending-qi, etc. these four types of established theories about qi demonstrate that, long before mencius, the chinese had elaborated basic notions of qi man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 20 b.i. schwartz, the world of thought in ancient china (cambridge: the belknap press of harvard university press, 1985), ch. 5, pp. 173-185. 21 on the ancient chinese notions of qi and mencius’ idea of the vast ‘flood-like qi’, see my mencian hermeneutics: a history of interpretations in china (new brunswick and london: transaction publishers, 2002), pp. 44-47. 22 the five phases or agents (wuxing, ¤-¦æ) including metal, wood, water, fire, and earth that rotate to succeed one another in the universe. zou yan ¹q-l (305-240 b.c.?) is often mentioned as the representative thinker of this school. cf. wing-tsit chan, a source book in chinese philosophy, pp. 244-245. 322 and developed the idea of cosmic qi. in mencius’ hands, he infused the idea of qi with moral significance. the turn from the archaic chinese discourses on qi to mencius’ expression of the vast ‘flood-like qi’ was the first major turning point in the history of the chinese conception of qi. from this turning point, we can see that mencius’ reflections on human life were deeply infused with historical meaning. mencius pointed out that human life can be divided in several levels, including ‘mind-heart’, ‘qi’, and ‘physical form’. indeed, mencius recognized that ‘mind-heart’ and ‘qi’ were mutually formed and related; but ‘mind’ played a more fundamental role in mencius’ philosophy of man. he saw the value consciousness of mind as universal, anyone who sees a baby about to crawl into a well will naturally feel alarm and concern. this is a key difference between humans and animals. although human ‘mind’ bears this sort of ‘innate knowledge of the good’ and ‘inborn capacity to do good’, it is inseparable from a person’s qi. without making efforts to nurture this qi, one’s apriori inborn inclination towards good will gradually atrophies and one’s conduct will become desire-driven. while ‘mind-heart’ was universal to everyone, it is prior to qi. one who steadily and continuously nurtures the mind-heart would refine the qi and transform the entire person. this would be most evident in the transforming of one’s bearing and attitude, which mencius referred to as ‘giving one’s body complete fulfilment’ (7a:38) manner or disposition. a virtuous scholar whose language and action were penetrated by the vast flood-like qi would display a transformation in his manner and disposition. mencius said that if you intend to observe a certain person, the best way would be to watch his eyes. a well-cultivated person just needs to read the spirit in a person’s eyes in order to determine the quality of that person’s character. mencius probed the content of human life deeply and precisely, and came up with a holistic perspective. mencius emphasized that the ‘mind-heart’ that has been transformed by penetrating the vast ‘flood-like qi’ can influence the person’s physical form; from this, he indicated his theory of ‘giving one’s body complete fulfilment.’ such theory was deeply related to the correlative thinking characteristic of chinese culture. mencius emphasized the continuity between man and nature. he considered that man and nature were neither opposed nor separated. there are ‘nature’ contained many implicit meanings, faiths and values in nature; in fact, they were all implicit in man’s mind-heart, so that the more a person conducts self-reflection the more he would be able to rise to commune with nature, and able to comprehend where the implicit meanings lie in the cosmos and nature. in saying, ‘for a huang 323 man to give full realization to his heart is for him to understand his own nature, and a man who knows his own nature will know heaven,’ (7a:1)23 mencius established the continuity and lack of separation between the sphere of culture and the sphere of nature. nonetheless, while stressing the ancient chinese view of the continuity between man and nature, there was one important confucian thinker we must not neglect: xunzi ¯û¤l (c.298-238 bc). xunzi regarded human nature as just natural appetites and strongly emphasized that the fruits of ‘culture’ are the result of overcoming ‘nature’ in that sense. xunzi’s cutting off of the continuum between man and nature espoused by traditional confucianism was a major twist in the ancient confucian view of nature. for xunzi, human nature meant that, ‘when hungry, one desires to eat; when cold, one desires warmth; when exhausted, one desires rest,’ hence he discarded the idea of a positive, general nature of man. in his essay, ‘of honor and disgrace,’ xunzi wrote: all men possess one and the same nature: when hungry, they desire food; when cold, they desire to be warm; when exhausted from toil, they desire rest; and they all desire benefit and hate harm. such is the nature that men are born possessing. they do not have to await development before they become so. it is the same in the case of a yu and in that of a jie. they eye distinguishes white from black, the beautiful from the ugly. the ear distinguishes sounds and tones as to their shrillness or sonority. the mouth distinguishes the sour and salty, the sweet and bitter. the nose distinguishes perfumes and fragrances, rancid and fetid odors. the bones, flesh, and skinlines distinguish hot and cold, pain and itching. these, too, are part of the nature that man is born possessing, that he does not have to develop, and that is true of both yu and jie.24 whether a man can become a yao or yu or be a jie or robber zhi, whether he becomes a workman or artisan, a farmer or merchant, lies entirely with the accumulated effect of circumstances, with what they concentrate on in laying their plans, and on the influence of habits and customs. if one becomes a yao or yu, one normally enjoys tranquility and honor; if one is a jie or robber zhi, one normally falls into peril and disgrace. if one becomes a yao or yu, one constantly finds enjoyment and ease; if one becomes a workman, artisan, farmer, or merchant, one must constantly toil and trouble oneself. though this is so, many men are like the latter, but only a few men are like the former. why should this be so? i say that it is because they remain uncultivated; even yao and yu were not born wholly what they became, but rose up by transforming their old selves, brought them to perfection man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 23 d.c. lau, tr., mencius, 7a:1, vol. 2, p. 265. 24 john knoblock, xunzi, a translation and study of the complete works (standford university press, 1990), vol. 1, bk4, ‘of honor and disgrace’, pp. 191-192. 324 through cultivation and conscious exertion, and only after first putting forth the utmost effort did they become complete.25 xunzi considered that man was born with a fondness for gain, with the desires of the eyes and ears, such that he required aposteriori refolding and reforming. xunzi’s essay, ‘man’s nature is evil,’ reads: human nature is evil, any good in human is acquired by conscious exertion. now, the nature of man is such that he is born with a love of profit. following this nature will cause its aggressiveness, and greedy tendencies to grow and courtesy and deference to disappear. human are born with feelings of envy and hatred. indulging these feelings causes violence, and crime to develop and loyalty and trustworthiness to perish. man is born possessing the desires of the ears and eyes (which are fond of sounds and colors). indulging these desires causes dissolute and wanton behavior to result and ritual and moral principles, precepts of good form, and the natural order of reason to perish.26 this being the case, when each person follows his inborn nature and indulges his natural inclinations, aggressiveness and greed are certain to develop. this is accompanied by violation of social class distinctions and throws the natural order into anarchy, resulting in a cruel tyranny. thus, it is necessary that man’s nature undergo the transforming influence of a teacher and the model and that he guided by ritual and moral principles. only after this has been accomplished do courtesy and deference develop. unite these qualities with precepts of good form and reason, and the result is an age of orderly government. if we consider the implications of these facts, it is plain that human nature is evil and that any good in humans is acquired by conscious exertion. in summary, xunzi strongly emphasized that ‘culture’ had to overcome and remold ‘nature’. man must use the aposteriori to reform the apriori in order to avoid the natural human from taking hold and conducing to evil. in the worlds of thought in confucius and mencius, ‘man’ and ‘nature’ formed a continuum. by xunzi’s hand, the continuity was splintered. iii. the relationship between ‘man’ and ‘nature’ in confucian thought: a monistic view the second special feature of the confucian view of man and nature is that ‘man’ and ‘nature’ form a unity. this sort of monistic view supposes that ‘man’ and ‘nature’ share a substance and pattern or principle in common: ren ¤¯ (benevolence). huang _______ 25 the legendary emperors yao ³ó, shun µï, yu ¬ê were mentioned in the confucian classics as the ‘sage-kings’ of the golden era in archaic china when everything was perfectly in order and flourished according to the seasons. it was the garden of eden in chinese history that aroused nostalgia of many confucianists. jie ®å and the robber zhi were the representative figures of evil personalities in that period. 26 john knoblock, xunzi,bk23, ‘man’s nature is evil’, pp. 150-151. 325 ever since early antiquity, the idea that ‘man’ was produced by ‘nature’ was no stranger to chinese culture. in the spring and autumn period text guanzi ºþ¤l, the ‘rivers and land’ chapter (shuidi ¤ô¦a) reads: ‘land is the origin of the myriad creatures, the fertile root of all the species. rivers are the blood-qi of the land, which flow through the sinews and channels (of the terrain).’27 this passage illustrates the notion of organic production in early chinese thought. the view that ‘man’ and ‘nature’ form a unity in classical confucianism was manifested clearly in mencius. mencius said, all the ten thousand things are there in me. there is no greater joy for me than to find, on self-examination, that i am true to myself. try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence. (7a:4)28 while mencius’ term ‘all things’ is open to several interpretations, there should be little dispute that it refers to the natural myriad things in the world. zhu xi explicated this passage from mencius as follows: this chapter affirms that the li (principles) of the myriad things are all contained within me. to realize this by embodying them is said to be ‘the great joy of examining oneself and being sincere.’ to practice it according to empathy then is beyond the capacity of the private but can be realized through jen.29 according to zhu xi’s interpretation, the reason that the myriad things can form a unity with one is because the li of the myriad things are contained within oneself, that is to say, ‘man’ and ‘nature’ share principle and substance in common. in the eleventh century, zhang zai ±i¸ü (hengqu ¾î´ë, 1020-77) gave an even more vivid account of the relationship between ‘man’ and ‘nature’ in his essay, ‘ximing ¦è»ê’ (western inscription): heaven is my father and earth is my mother, and such an small creature as i finds a place in their midst. therefore, that which fills the cosmos i regard as my own body andthat which guides the cosmos i regard as my original nature. all people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions. the emperor is the eldest son of my parents (heaven and earth), and the great ministers are his stewards. respect the aged – this is the way to treat them as elders should be treated. show deep love toward the orphaned and the weak – this is the way to treat them as the young should be treated. the sage identifies his character with that of heaven and earth, and the worthy is the most outstanding man. even those who are tired, infirm, crippled or sick, and those who have no brothers or children, wives or husbands, are all my brothers who are in distress and have no one to turn to.30 man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 27 ‘shuidi’ ¤ô¦a (water and land) in guan zi ºþ¤l (taipei: shangwu yinshuguan, 1975, sibu congkan chubian suoben edition), juan 14, chap. 39, p. 84a. 28 mencius, 7a:4, vol. 2, p. 265. 29 zhu xi, ‘mengzi jizhu’ in sishu zhangju jizhu (beijing: zhonghua, 1982), ch. 13, p. 350. 30 english translation adapted from wing-tsit chan trans. and comp., a source book in chinese philosophy (princeton: princeton university press, 1963), p. 497. 326 zhang zai followed along in mencius’ stream, pointing out that even things are also companions of man, such that a person, other people or even the natural myriad things form a unity with oneself. how is it possible for ‘man’ and ‘nature’ to form a unity? the brothers cheng hao µ{åv (mingdao ©ú¹ , 1032-85) and cheng yi µ{:à;[ (yichuan ¥ì¤t , 1033-1107) offered an answer to this question: ‘on understanding the nature of ren’ the student must first of all understand the nature of ren. the man of ren forms a unity with all things without any differentiation. appropriateness, ritual propriety, wisdom and fidelity are all expressions of ren. [one’s duty] is to understand this li (pattern, principle) and preserve ren with sincerity and reverence, that is all. there is no need for caution and control. nor is there any need for exhaustive search. caution is necessary when one is mentally negligent, but if one is not negligent, what is the necessity for caution? exhaustive search is necessary when one has not understood li, but if one preserves ren long enough, li will naturally dawn on him. why should he have to depend on exhaustive search? 31 nothing can equal to this way. it is so vast that nothing can adequately explain it. all of the operations in the cosmos are our operations. mencius said that, ‘all things are already complete within oneself’ and that ‘one must examine oneself and be sincere’ and only then will one experience great joy. if one examines oneself and finds that one is not yet sincere, it means that there is still an opposition between the two (self and nonself). even if one tries to identify the self with the none self, one will not achieve a unity. how then can one experience joy? the purpose of zhang zai’s ‘western inscription’ was to explain this substance (of complete unity) fully. if one preserves ren with this idea in mind, what more is there to be done? ‘always be doing something without expectation. let the mind not forget its objective, but let there be no artificial effort to help it to grow.’ not the slightest effort is exerted! this is precisely the way to preserve ren. when ren is preserved, self and other are identified. for our inborn discernment of goodness and inborn capacity to carry it out are originally not lost. however, because we have not gotten rid of the heart-mind dominated by habits, we must preserve and exercise our original mind, and in time old habits will be overcome. this matter is extremely simple: the only danger is that people will not be able to hold on to it. but if we practice it and enjoy it, there need be no worry of our being unable to hold it. in this passage, cheng hao pointed out clearly that the man of ren (benevolence, humanity) forms a unity with the myriad things without differentiation, stressing that appropriateness, ritual propriety, huang _______ 31 ibid., pp. 523f. 327 wisdom, fidelity, etc., as both moral conduct and value concepts are all expressions of ren. people just need to reflect deeply within to discern the content of ren and reach the sphere that mencius called becoming ‘sincere through self-reflection’. at this level, one comprehends that self and other are not opposed, not separate. the great synthesizer of the twelfth century, zhu xi (1130-1200) wrote in his essay ‘treatise on ren’ (renshuo ): the mind of heaven and earth is to produce things. 32 in the production of man and things, they receive the mind of heaven and earth as their own mind. therefore, with reference to the character of mind, although it embraces and penetrates all and leaves nothing to be desired, nevertheless, one word will cover all of it, namely, ren (humanity). on this account, the entire cosmos is filled through and through with a ceaselessly dynamic spirit, and ‘man’ and the ‘myriad things’ in the cosmos each receive their portion of the core value of ceaseless production and reproduction when they are produced and grow up. the common core value of this cosmos is none other than ren. in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries appeared the confucian philosopher, wang yangming ¤ý¶§© (shouren ¦u¤¯, 1472-1529). although he had differences with zhu xi in doctrine and approach, regarding the proposition that ‘self and other form a unity,’ he was in basic agreement with zhu. in the essay, ‘inquiry on the great learning’ (daxue wen ), wang wrote: question: the great learning was considered by a former scholar (zhu xi) to be the learning of a great man. i venture to ask why the learning of a great man should consist in ‘manifesting bright virtue’? master wang said: the great man regards heaven, earth and the myriad things as a unity. he regards the world as one family and the country as one person. as to those who make a division between things and distinguish between self and others, they are small men. that the great man can regard heaven, earth and the myriad things as a unity is not because he deliberately wants to do so, but it is natural to the benevolent nature of his mind to do so. forming a unity with heaven, earth and the myriad things is true not only of the great man. even the mind of the small man is no different. only he himself makes it small. therefore, when he sees an infant about to fall into a well, he cannot help but feel alarm and commiseration. this shows that his benevolence forms a unity with that infant. it might be objected that the infant belongs to the same species. again, when he observes the pitiful cries and frightened appearance of birds and beasts about to be slaughtered, he cannot help but feel an ‘inability to bear’ their suffering. this shows that his benevolence forms a unity with those birds and beasts. it might be objected that those birds and beasts are sentient beings as he is. but when he sees plants broken and destroyed, he cannot help but feel pity for them. man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. _______ 32 ibid., 593f. 328 this shows that his benevolence will form a unity with even plants. it might be said that plants are living beings as he is. yet even when he sees tiles and stones shattered and crushed. he cannot help but feel regret. this shows that his benevolence forms a unity with even those tiles and stones. this means that even the mind of a small man necessarily has the benevolence that forms a unity with all things. such a mind is rooted in his heavenlyendowed nature, and is naturally intelligent, clear and not beclouded. for this reason, it is called the ‘bright virtue’. although the mind of the small man is divided and narrow, yet his benevolence that forms a unity can remain free of darkness to this degree. this would be due to the fact that his mind has not yet been aroused by desires or obscured by excessive selfishness. when it is aroused by desires and obscured by excessive selfishness, compelled by greed for gain or fear of harm, and stirred by anger, he will destroy things, kill members of his own species, and will do anything. in extreme cases, he will slaughter even his own brothers, and the benevolence that forms a unity will disappear from him completely. hence, if it is not obscured by excessive selfish desires, even the mind of the small man has the benevolence that forms a unity with all things, just as does the mind of the great man. as soon it is obscured by excessive selfish desires, even the mind of the great man will become divided and narrow like the mind of the small man. thus, the learning of the great man consists entirely in getting rid of the obscuration of excessive selfish desires in order by his own efforts to make manifest his bright virtue, so as to restore the condition of forming a unity with heaven, earth and the myriad things, a condition that is originally so, that is all. it is not that outside of the original substance something else can be added.33 wang yangming took zhu xi’s opinion that the great learning was the learning of the great man one step further by asking, why should the learning of the great man consist in manifesting the bright virtue? wang pointed out that the great man is the one who ‘forms a unity with heaven, earth and the myriad things.’ and, the reason why the great man is able to form such a unity is because the mind of the great man takes ren as its essential substance. because of this, he experiences no separation from even the plant, trees, birds or beasts. moreover, people just need to get rid of their excessive selfish desires and be less self-centred, in order to fully release and develop their inner goodness (based on ren or bright virtue) and be able to reach the sphere of forming a unity with the myriad things. in confucius’ analects, zeng dian indicated a sphere in which ‘man’ and ‘nature’ are fused. from the eleventh century on, while zhang zai, the two cheng brothers, zhu xi and wang yangming all agreed about the sphere at which ‘man’ and ‘nature’ are fused as a unity, they also had subtle differences. as to zeng dian’s spiritual realm, he maintained that one who is free of the pressure of subjective oppositions will naturally experience the huang _______ 33 ibid., 659f. 329 man and nature in the confucian tradition td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 311-330. harmony of self and other forming a unity. for him, natural myriad things will no longer be objects of human intention, desire, knowledge or discrimination, and he will return to himself as a condition of his self-realization.34 the unity spoken of by the pre-qin confucians had a richer aesthetic flavour, so they would say that on a beautiful spring morning, self and object would both be forgotten, and one would spontaneously experience self-attainment.35 compared to the pre-qin view of the unity between self and object, the song-ming neo-confucians held that the unity of self and object contained deep moral content. in their accounts, the beauty of the unity of ‘man’ and ‘nature’ is based on the goodness of ‘ceaseless production and reproduction’ at the core.36 iv. conclusion the confucian tradition is the time-honoured mainstream of chinese culture, and in this mainstream man and nature are perceived as somehow fused and having an interactive symbiotic relationship. ‘nature’ is the creator of ‘man’, and ‘man’ is a participant in ‘nature’. the possibility of continuity and unity between man and nature is premised squarely on the ‘ceaseless production and reproduction’ of the ren that they share in common. ‘ren’ is inherent in the mind-heart of each person, and yet it transcends each specific individual person to form the common substance shared by heaven, earth and the myriad things. in confucian thinking, the establishment and development of the continuity and unity of man and nature are based on the selfrealization of each person’s heart-mind. the view that man and nature are continuous and form a unity in the confucian tradition, has a profound contemporary relevance. since the beginning of the industrial revolution, industrial civilization and the associated capitalist culture have been spreading around the world for the past two centuries, promoting what we might call a ‘civilization of rupture’. the splintering of modern civilization begins with the splintering off of individual man from the common substance of the cos_______ 34 zhang heng ±i¦ë, ‘lunyu zhong di yishoushi’ ¡m½×»y¡n¤¤ªº¤@-º¸ (a poem in the analects), in zhang heng, shiwen zhiji lunji ¸ö¤å¤§»ú½× (collected essays on thought and literature: a contemporary interpretation of confucianism and daoism) (taipei: yuncheng, 1997), p. 486. 35 cf. philip j. ivanhoe, ‘early confucianism and environmental ethics’, in mary evelyn tucker and john berthrong eds., confucianism and ecology: the interaction of heaven, earth, and humans (cambridge, mass.: harvard university center for the study of world religions, 1998), pp. 37-58. 36 cf. michael c. kalton, ‘extending the neo-confucian tradition: questions and reconceptualization for the twenty-first century’, in tucker and berthrong eds., op. cit., pp. 77-104. 330 huang mos. the faustian spirit, which johann wolfgang von goethe (17491832) described in his classic drama, faust, shows some characteristics of contemporary civilization by portraying man as seeking to be the master of the world, seeking to harness and exploit the energy and resources of the world for his own purposes. the contemporary realization of the faustian spirit has become increasingly fierce, but remains lacking in any sort of redeeming transcendent moorings. the second manifestation of the rupture in modern civilization lies in the division between man and nature. after the industrial revolution, the relationship between man and nature has become a divided, antagonistic relationship. man started to over-exploit the resources offered by nature, to produce all sorts of collateral environmental pollution of the air, the water, the land, etc. in the past several decades, nature’s counter-attacks have manifested warnings to humanity not to over-exploit natural resources and poison the springs of life. modern civilization, which is based on exploiting and using natural resources, stresses that growth is the fundamental strategy for prosperity; but mankind’s relentless application of this strategy is producing a series of major disasters – mankind is doing this almost unconsciously and thus remains largely unwilling to accept responsibility. the third manifestation of the rupture in modern civilization lies in the division between man and society. in modern society, the feelings of separation and alienation between people grow deeper by the day. individuals no longer draw upon shared values of their putative society. the subjective, isolated individual of contemporary society has an excessive sense of sovereign individualism, which makes him or her become ever more isolated and solitary. the addition of the feeling of alienation makes modern man not only ceaselessly feel depressed, but now when facing the ultimate questions of life he flounders ever more helplessly. the continuity and unity between man and nature held by the confucian tradition expresses the hope that, between man and cosmos, a harmonious relationship can be established; namely, surveying the transcendental substance that underlies man and nature alike, there is hope that an interactive symbiotic relationship can be established; working between the individual and society, there is hope that a shared sense of common esteem, common concern can be established. abstract introduction community engagement higher education and community engagement methodology findings evaluative remarks conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) lebogang sebeco quantify research (pty) ltd, potchefstroom, south africa johan zaaiman school of social studies, faculty of humanities, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation sebeco l, zaaiman j. well-being innovation platform projects of the north-west university: evaluative perceptions of community participants. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a950. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.950 original research well-being innovation platform projects of the north-west university: evaluative perceptions of community participants lebogang sebeco, johan zaaiman received: 06 sept. 2020; accepted: 04 mar. 2021; published: 28 apr. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract community engagement referred to approaches in which communities were involved in activities that positively impacted their lives. currently, higher education institutions have community engagement high on their agenda. this article focussed on how this engagement ought to be managed through the responses of community members to such an intervention. it presented community members’ evaluative perceptions on the north-west university’s (nwu) well-being innovation (win) platform projects in the vaalharts community. this research was qualitative and a case study design was followed. through interviews and focus groups, the perceptions of participants of the win platform projects were obtained. the data used stemmed from empirical research by the human sciences research council (hsrc) and the researchers. although this study could reach only a limited number of project participants, they provided valuable insights into the ways they had experienced the projects. guided by the context–focus–profile model, a comprehensive evaluation framework was constructed for the interview and focus groups’ schedules. the findings indicated that the community members had positive perceptions of the projects, which had contributed most especially to skills and self-development. however, as members of a poor community, such people are vulnerable. to ensure that they feel respected and that projects fit their needs to ensure long-lasting benefits, the way in which community engagement was conducted was important. recommendations for improvement emerging from this study focussed on collaboration, communication, monitoring and recruitment. this article thereby contributed to the debate about higher education institutions’ involvement in community engagement and demonstrated the value of using the context–focus–profile model for evaluation purposes. keywords: higher education institutions; north-west university; community engagement; collaboration; vaalharts; win platform projects; context–focus–profile model; silo, intersectional and infusion models. introduction the well-being innovation (win) platform was established in 2011 by the africa unit for transdisciplinary health research (auther) in the faculty of health sciences at the potchefstroom campus of the north-west university (nwu). the goal of the win platform was to improve rural health and well-being in the vaalharts region, which falls under the frances baard district municipality and the phokwane local municipality. income for citizens in the phokwane municipality depends largely on agriculture, community development projects and the informal economy. they are therefore vulnerable. the win platform implemented 18 projects, which were divided into three domains: (1) community engagement research, (2) service learning/work-integrated learning and (3) skills development projects. these domains focussed specifically on three aspects of well-being: (1) physical health (divided into sports and recreation), (2) socio-economic factors and (3) psychosocial well-being. a multidisciplinary approach was followed and other faculties at the nwu were also involved. this study forms part of an evaluation of the win platform conducted by auther. to build sustainable networks and partnerships further with the community, it was important to determine the community members’ perceptions of the nwu’s community engagement thus far. decision-making, in the original implementation of the projects, had mainly been located in the university’s win platform.1 this is not ideal for community engagement projects, however,2,3 as fuller collaboration is expected, especially those involving higher education environments.4,5 this point is also emphasised in the current nwu community engagement policy.6 to make sure that future projects would be characterised by reciprocity, respect, trust, collaboration and participation, feedback from the community was needed. the objective of this study, therefore, was to obtain evaluative perceptions of community members about their community engagement experiences of the win platform. in the sections of this article that follow, the concept of community engagement is explained, followed by a reflection on higher education community engagement, the research methodology of this study, a report on the findings and a conclusion. community engagement community engagement is an overarching term for various approaches in which communities are involved in activities that positively impact their lives.7 theoretically, different community engagement approaches yield different outcomes. however, a common expectation is that the involvement must be respectful, meaningful and fit-for-purpose in one or more phases of a project.8 as setswe and witthuhn9 stated, community engagement is founded on principles of equality and justice. engagement should acknowledge that barriers exist in providing certain services, which may be caused by a lack of understanding of local social and cultural processes.9 the assumption is that the more control community members are given in developing solutions to the problems they experience, the more likely it is that the standard of their lives will improve.7,10 the world bank refers to community engagement as: [t]he process by which citizens’ needs, concerns and values are incorporated into governmental decision-making; it is a two-way communication process with better overall goals of decision-making supported by the public.11 omerikwa12 defined community engagement as ‘the collaboration between institutions and their larger communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity’. such engagement allows institutions to plan more suitable interventions and collaborative decision-making makes it easier for institutions to provide relevant quality service.13,14 cristalli and dulmus15 stipulated that it refers to shared responsibility, advancing the community to give its members better opportunities or capacity to be active role players as changes occur within their community. schlake14 mentioned three principles for community engagement. the first principle ensures success in community engagement, it is important to involve the community in each stage of a project, from its development to its implementation. if people are not involved from the initial stages of the project, it is difficult to establish trust and the vulnerability of community members is further exposed.16 it is also important to include the key stakeholders or leaders of the community so as to understand their positions within the community and to remove any barriers to participation and future engagement. involving persons with authority (e.g. leaders of certain departments) in community projects will ensure that doors are open for future participation.14 according to glandon, paina, olonge, peters and bennett,8 this also ensures that power issues are addressed, that everyone is involved from the start and that there is equal distribution of power amongst the parties. the second principle emphasises self-determination. the community must have a platform for identifying the challenges they face and the causes and to develop solutions and action plans for tackling such issues. they must also be involved in the implementation of the strategies they have developed to address these issues.8 this is important because, if the community members feel that they are given a voice and the opportunity to be active participants in projects that affect their lives, they are more likely to participate positively. the third principle is that engagement must be reciprocal. janke and clayton17 defined reciprocity as ‘the recognition, respect and valuing of the knowledge, perspective and resources that each partner contributes to the collaboration’. this ensures that there is an exchange of knowledge and co-learning for both parties, which benefits everyone. schlake14 emphasised equal distribution of power, transparency and equal decision-making opportunities. collaboration is important for long-term partnerships to sustain progress, because high levels of collaboration develop the ability to address difficult challenges that communities face.14 the following section provides a discussion of community engagement in higher education institutions in south africa. higher education and community engagement south africa’s higher education system has been challenged to elevate the quality of teaching, learning and research in ways that encourage better engagement with the community.18 this challenge has given universities an interest in partnerships with communities that contribute to transfer of knowledge.19,20 these partnerships can foster an academic environment that is rooted in the real-life experience of such communities, thereby producing programmes that effectively address social issues faced by them.19,21 according to rowe,22 higher education institutions have for a long time been perceived as being detached from social issues prevalent in communities; their focus has been more on academic functions and less on socio-economic development. both luvalo23 and kruss24 stipulated that the slow rate of development in south africa has created a need for the government to challenge higher education institutions to take part in upliftment. this is because these institutions have the capacity to produce skills and research that meet the needs of the economy. boyer25 and shannon and wang20 concurred that institutions should extend their teaching and learning as well as research activities to deal critically with pressing issues communities face. although the contribution of higher education institutions to society is mainly educational, researchers/academics are focusing more on the potential role they could play in contributing to development and adhering to their social responsibility to the community.12 recently, community engagement became part of the mission statements of higher education institutions, mostly referred to as outreach, community service, service learning or community service teaching.26 the nwu decided to introduce community engagement into their core functions in 2014 after an indaba held by management and key stakeholders.6 it has developed a success model for 2025 to ensure that integration takes place between teaching, learning, research and community engagement. to achieve this goal for 2025, the university uses the approach of sharing expertise with the community for better-quality research, innovation and engagement. the sharing of expertise encourages reciprocity and community engagement. the nwu policy statement states that: [s]taff and students must engage with their respective communities when conducting activities related to research/innovation, teaching and learning, community service and outreach initiatives in an attempt to influence policy and address south africa’s developmental challenges and sustainability, thereby sharing its expertise.6 this policy is aligned with the education white paper 3: a programme for the transformation of higher education of 1997, published to encourage higher education institutions to be more committed to contributing to community development.24,27,28 they are tasked with shifting higher education institutions away from a racialised past towards a society driven by democracy and positive social relations. south africa’s higher education institutions are therefore tasked with contributing to economic transformation, producing a critical and vibrant society and eradicating social issues in the post-apartheid system.23 these institutions are to demonstrate social responsibility according to the needs of the community and by availing resources to the community.29 kitching30 highlighted the fact that, in response to the call for transformation of higher education, the joint education trust launched an initiative in 1999 called the community–higher education–service partnerships. the aim was to assist higher education institutions to conceptualise and implement community engagement as one of their core functions.30,31 the institutions were tasked to create a platform for encouraging social and civic commitment.29 with responsibility for being more engaged and available for societal benefit, they need to ensure that relevant and effective policies are developed to facilitate community engagement within higher education institutions. in the operationalisation of policies, community engagement should take place and the community’s voice be nurtured. penfold and goodman32 observed that several south african universities responded to the department of higher education’s call for transformation by compiling and publishing community engagement policies, outlining their definitions of community engagement and their approaches to it.32 bender33 presented three conceptual models that explain how south african higher education institutions perceive community engagement. all three conceptual models (silo, intersectional and infusion) address the concept of community engagement. the silo model regards community engagement as voluntary and separate from the core function of the university. the infusion model is based on the view that community engagement influences the three main functions of the university and that the main functions also influence community engagement. finally, the intersecting model believes that community engagement intersects with the three functions of research, teaching and learning and that they influence one another. these three models present the relationship between the higher education institutions and community engagement and how they view one another. however, the models do not refer specifically to participation, collaboration and reciprocity. by contrast, kearney’s34 context–focus–profile model focuses on participation, collaboration, reciprocity and how to encourage these in the community. this approach emphasises more engaged and participatory methods for community engagement, because engagement between higher education institutions and the community should be transparent and reciprocal. mutual trust and respect should also exist. this model reflects characteristics of an ‘engaged approach’ where there is more focus on and authority given to the people/communities.34 the proposed objective of the present study takes its cue from this engaged approach, because this research explores the community’s perceptions of community engagement in this higher education institution with reference to the nwu’s win. the context–focus–profile model specifically indicates three levels of engagement. the first focuses on the ‘workload profile’, which consists of research, service and teaching. this level focuses on the practicality of ‘engagement’.34 the second level focuses on the engagement itself, that is ‘working collaboratively with the community to enhance educational opportunities, which can be achieved when the context of engagement is understood, encouraged and valued’. the higher education approach should be to focus on the perceptions of the community in order to develop better strategies that will pave the way for better community engagement projects.34 the third level looks at the context of the engagement, which consists of mutuality, reciprocity, transparency, trust and respect and all of which are fundamental to engagement. it is important for higher education institutions to engage with communities on the third level. this model for higher education institution community engagement provides a theoretical background on how these institutions function, how they interact with communities and how they should interact with the community to encourage participation. this information guided the empirical research in this study. methodology the objective of this study was to explain the vaalharts community members’ perceptions of community engagement in the nwu win platform projects. for this purpose, a qualitative design was chosen. according to krathwohl,35 qualitative research is naturalistic and allows for the lived experiences of people to be explored. qualitative research focuses on the reporting of experiences and the description and interpretation of reality.36 the design took the form of a case study. yin37 defined a case as ‘a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries and context are not clear and the researcher has little control over the phenomenon and context’ (p. 1). a case study, therefore, is the empirical investigation of a case in which descriptive questions are addressed in terms of the phenomenon under investigation.37 according to yin,37 case study methods are advisable for use when a contemporary phenomenon relating to real-life experience/context is analysed. the population of this study comprised the community members of the vaalharts region (sekhing, pampierstad and jan kempdorp), who had experience of the projects. the study adopted purposive and snowball sampling as methods to generate participants. purposive sampling was used to select and identify people with knowledge and experience of the phenomena explored38 and to select members who had previously participated in the different win platform projects. in addition, using snowball sampling, fieldworkers and coordinators were asked for referrals to other members who they knew had participated in the projects. these samplings identified the interviewees for the data collection conducted in june 2017 and july 2018. all participants agreed to take part in the study and consented to recordings being made of both focus group discussions and individual interviews. the data for june 2017 were collected in collaboration with the human sciences research council (hsrc), because the win platform had been identified by the hsrc as a living lab, a concept used for centres that integrate research and innovation processes with public and private partnerships.39 the hsrc aimed to investigate the changes that the win platform projects had brought about in the community. owing to the similarities in research objectives, the hsrc agreed that data from their research could also be integrated in the present study. the hsrc data collection took place in mid-2017 and took the form of 6 individual interviews and two focus-group discussions with 27 participants. additional data were collected in july 2018. it was planned that the sample would consist of 40 participants in total, to be equally divided between individual interviews (20) and focus groups (20). although the expected sample size for the focus groups was reached, only 13 participants had individual interviews. the interview target of 20 was not met because many of those available for interviews had participated in just one of the projects (community healthcare workers) and the diversity of the win platform projects was not as fully represented as anticipated. (the difficulty was because of the fact that the projects had started in 2011 and many people who were involved earlier had moved out of the area.) as a result, the decision was taken to stop the individual interviews at 13 participants when saturation was reached. however, the data collection in july 2018 covered the following range of win projects: community health care, workers come dine with me, community healthcare workers, sustainable diets, programme to support pro-poor development (psppd), food security, consumer rights, recycling project, sewing project, home based care and life plan. the two rounds of data collection raised the validity of the data and ensured better understanding of the perceptions of community members. in both cases, semi-structured interview schedules were utilised. in the first round, the focus of the interviews was on the principles of community engagement, namely collaboration, empowerment and participation. in addition, the ways the projects were implemented were also evaluated. in the second round, the interviews took a broader scope in the collection of data. the themes of the context–focus–profile model were followed, meaning that a wider scope of perceptions on the community engagement was collected. in this round, the focus was on the community members’ perceptions of effective community engagement, implementation, evaluation, monitoring, collaboration, participation, mutuality and reciprocity. the interviews were conducted in tswana, because most people in vaalharts are tswana-speaking, but some responded in english. the fieldworkers’ mother tongue was tswana and they were also fluent in english. findings in this section, the findings of the two separate data collection sessions are presented in combination. the themes were taken from the context–focus–profile model and focussed on the community members’ perceptions on effective community engagement, implementation, evaluation, monitoring, collaboration, participation, mutuality and reciprocity. effectiveness of the well-being innovation platform projects in this subsection, the effectiveness of the win platform projects in the community is described. the projects were deemed beneficial to the community, with participants indicating that ‘it taught us good behaviour, respect and how to work together as different age groups’ (focus group 1, 2018) and that their project had: ‘… taught the youth how to communicate with older people.’ (focus group 1, 2018) similarly, another participant indicated that she: ‘… learned that i should know how to work together with younger people.’ (interviewee 10, 2018) this point is elaborated further in the next sections on learning skills, empowerment and meeting expectations. skills the community members reported on a variety of skills they acquired from the projects. for example, a participant from the consumer rights reported that: ‘… we learned customer care, how to deal with complaints from people.’ (focus group 3, 2018) others also learned: ‘… doing swot analysis.’ (focus group 2, 2018) the project on sustainable diets, specifically, helped the community with diets for rural and resource-poor communities and ‘eating healthy’ and participants also indicated that they: ‘… learned a lot of things because there were times where we just ate and were not aware of what we were eating, so we learned about measurement.’ (focus group 2, 2018) it seems that the community benefitted from dietary information, as one participant explained: ‘taking part in the project has really helped me with weight loss, because i have learned from the projects that i have to limit my food consumption.’ (interviewee 13, 2018) another indicated that the project: ‘… taught me how to eat properly … even if you do not have money for breakfast, you can find cheap substitutes for lunch and supper.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) in addition: ‘… they learned to do the gardens at home and benefit from the garden.’ (interviewee 10, 2018) a participant also indicated about the sewing project that: ‘i have improved sewing skills.’ (focus group 1, 2017) this project provided sewing skills and equipment as well as training manuals. another participant listed the benefits and/or skills that the life plan project had added to her life: ‘i am very informed; i know more about personal discipline; i have learned or acquired hygiene principles; budgeting and the project has built self-esteem.’ (interviewee 4, 2017) the life plan project focussed on health and life choices. human capital was also built through appropriate skills development. participants shared the view that the projects had taught them: ‘… how to pass down generational knowledge to the younger.’ (focus group 1, 2018) their project was able to create a platform for knowledge exchange, as one participant remarked: ‘the project reminded me of my culture and who i am, what my parents used to do.’ (focus group 1, 2018) it also: ‘… made me to interact more with the community. i learned a lot of things that i was unaware of.’ (focus group 1, 2018) this result was achieved because the project taught the participants to: ‘… learn to cook setswana cultural foods.’ (focus group 1, 2018) because the objective was to teach both young and old people about cultural foods. empowerment empowerment relates to benefits, skills or achievements that the community had gained from the win projects. the projects received positive feedback in this regard. the participants acknowledged the value of all the projects as tools to empower the society. one said: ‘i also like that they wanted to share knowledge with the community and did not keep everything to themselves.’ (focus group 2, 2018) a participant added that the project was helpful: ‘… because people are struggling with self-esteem, so when such projects come it gives them hope and excitement that at least they are also remembered.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) participants pointed out that the projects played a role in empowering the people. as a participant explained: ‘… these projects uplift them and show them that they are also important and should not give up just because they are in rural areas. so, these projects helped them to progress themselves.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) this view was confirmed by a participant whose life had been transformed: ‘it taught me life skills and how to live this life … because i was a person that was easily angered and i wanted to get physical, so now because of this project i can control my anger and i have self-esteem now and can now see the changes in my life and how this has been relevant in my life.’ (interviewee 5, 2018) some participants indicated that the community struggled with unemployment and suggested that the projects should encourage ‘job creation’, explaining further their desire for ‘economic changes to benefit everyone’ (focus group 1, 2017). the same point was made in an interview: ‘… the community needs to learn how to create their own employment.’ (interviewee 4, 2018) the projects themselves did not offer employment, but participants confirmed that the projects encouraged work-related skills and independence, stating that: ‘we were able to venture and start a cooperative in poultry production, gained knowledge and skills to open youth cooperative.’ (interviewee 3, 2017) a participant from the recycling project, who collected plastic bottles and other recyclable products, indicated that ‘i am able to budget the income from the recycled products and use it for household expenses’ (focus group 2, 2017). another participant felt: ‘… able to facilitate health work such as taking the bp (blood pressure) and door-to-door visitation to households who are taking treatment in the nearby clinics.’ (interviewee 6, 2017) participants gave examples of learning acquired, such as: ‘i gained knowledge in health issues or hygiene and how to be a principled health care worker.’ (focus group 1, 2017) the come dine with me project in the village of sekhing had encouraged the community members to create their own initiatives. one participant said: ‘after the project we then decided that we are going to ask the royal king to give a centre where we can practice cultural things.’ (interviewee 3, 2017) the findings indicated that the sustainable diets project, specifically, had positively influenced older people. this was because, as participants indicated, the projects had: ‘… improved healthy lifestyle of the community, with regular exercise, like older people playing soccer.’ (focus group 2, 2017) ‘… older people are able to do day-to-day chores without assistance from anyone due to healthy eating schedules.’ (focus group 2, 2017) the project was also said to have improved the well-being of community members because: ‘… it has increased activeness and reduced tiredness from participants above 50 years’ through the healthier diet that they had adopted. in addition, one participant observed: “healthy eating programmes decreased sickness.”’ (focus group 2, 2017) other examples of empowerment were also mentioned. a participant who was a motivational speaker said: ‘i have also acquired more information on dietary through the salt project; my self-esteem is boosted and assisted in being well-respected within the community.’ (interviewee 2, 2017) a participant from the consumer rights project said it had: ‘… opened my mind to the fact that i have rights to return the product if it has passed the “best before” date and actually take action against that.’ (interviewee 12, 2018) another participant added: ‘… when i now go to the shop i know what and how to check food and i know how to budget.’ (interviewee 11, 2018) a participant from the community healthcare workers project reported that: ‘… we have only one assistant nurse, and when she is sick or at training, they have to do everything themselves and that takes time. so, we came in and helped in that area, so that everything goes quicker.’ (interviewee 8, 2018) the sewing project had taught the participants business skills and provided them with additional booklets to take home. one participant pointed out the benefits of this approach: ‘… when we were attending the workshops they would give us books and information, so when i got home i would sit and read the books again and actually apply the knowledge in solving my own problems.’ (interviewee 12, 2018) another participant described practical advantages to the community: ‘i can help a lot of people, because people are struggling in our community. i want to make their lives easier, if they need their clothes to be sewed, they do not need to catch a taxi, and they can just bring it to me.’ (focus group 1, 2018) a need was expressed for youth in particular to be empowered further by win projects. participants said they wanted ‘to see the sesotho tradition being embraced by the youth wearing their sesotho clothes and dances’. young people in vaalharts – like many others in the country – abused alcohol and drugs. participants suggested that their community needed projects to address such problems and that it would: ‘… prohibit the use of alcohol and drugs [and bring about] control of late-night taverns.’ (focus group 2, 2017) the community felt they need more educated youth, which indicated a desire for more training, workshops, and libraries in the community to facilitate educational advancement (focus group 2, 2017). it seems, therefore, that the participants in general experienced the win platform projects or interventions as empowering, but would like to see a stronger focus on young people. expectations the participants expected the projects to benefit them. asked what could be improved regarding the win platform, a participant suggested that the projects should: ‘… establish something in the community that will last for a long term, for example a centre that the community can get involved in projects that the community has and projects that comes from the university. the centre will assist in that the skills that people acquire from the projects can be implemented and therefore be sustainable.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) the idea was that the participants would run the centre and allow people from the community to go there to acquire skills that the participants had already acquired from the win platform projects, such as cooking, sewing and basic life skills from the life plan projects. participants added that this centre should be open to anyone with skills who wants to teach the community something, such as welding (focus group 1, 2018). a further request was for community members to receive from the university a proof of completion or participation in the projects to indicate the skills and knowledge they had received. accredited certificates could be presented when applying for jobs (interviewees 8 and 10, 2018). this subsection revealed participants’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the win platform projects in developing skills, empowering community members and meeting expectations. although the projects developed skills and empowerment, they did not fully meet expectations. appreciation for the projects’ interventions was expressed, but in terms of setting goals, the projects seemed insufficiently focussed on the self-determination of community members. it was felt that a more equal distribution of authority may have given participants the platform to identify the challenges they faced and the roots thereof and greater encouragement to develop their own solutions and action plans on how to tackle these issues.8 implementation this subsection reflects on the participants’ positive and negative perceptions of the way the projects were implemented and managed. positive perceptions positive perceptions indicate that the win platform projects implemented the projects in ways that were satisfactory and relevant to the people and their environment. these perceptions were influenced according to whether the participants felt respected personally or whether the win platform respected their fields of work. the participants were asked to comment and one participant shared the view that: ‘… yes, the community was treated with respect, because when the projects began it was introduced at the royal council with the traditional leaders, it did not just come in without the consent of the leaders.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) such responses confirmed that the university had followed a formal procedure relevant to the sekhing community when implementing the project as, for example, in the come dine with me project presented in sekhing, a traditional village still under leadership of the royal council. participants from other projects indicated that they had the opportunity to take part in the planning phase of the project. one said: ‘yes, i had a chance to give my ideas for the project’ (interviewee 12, 2018). another indicated that: ‘… yes, i would suggest ideas to them for when they come into the community, and they would listen.’ (interviewee 12, 2018) the win platform thus allowed participants to share their ideas regarding how the projects could be implemented and offered assistance when required: ‘… if there was a problem, they would send one of the assistants to come and check up on us.’ (interviewee 1, 2018) negative perceptions some participants felt that the community had not been fully involved in the planning phase. one participant said: ‘… they should come to us and ask us which project we want, because we are the ones who are staying here.’ (interviewee 8, 2018) another indicated that: ‘… the project honestly came to the community up and running, there was no planning phase. we were just informed that there is a project that is coming and what it wanted to address.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) a further participant concurred: ‘… they came with the projects already developed, they just told us when they will be coming to the community. so, we would only sit down with them and agree with the project and proceed.’ (interviewee 12, 2018) some community members complained that the selection of participants was unfair (interviewee 12, 2018) and that project numbers were limited just to a certain number of people (interviewee 5, 2017, and interviewee 12, 2018). come dine with me, for example, was described as involving only a limited number of youths as mainly older people took part in the project, fewer young people could benefit from the skills taught. a participant suggested: ‘… the projects should always choose the same loyal people, as we were loyal in the first project, they should have chosen us for the second one as well. but they did not, so we felt like we were not good enough when they chose other people.’ (interviewee 3, 2018) in similar vein, it was indicated that: ‘… yes, they should involve the same people, because when they do not choose us, i started doubting myself thinking it is because i finished school in grade 8.’ (interviewee 3, 2018) a community member mentioned an instance in which a university student was disrespectful towards them (interviewee 3, 2018), but another expressed the opposite perception of the project: ‘it made us feel like we are wanted and needed as community health care workers.’ (interviewee 8, 2018) a few expectations emerged about how future projects should be implemented because some participants felt reluctant to join in on the grounds that projects were used by the stakeholders for their own personal gain. they suggested that there should be: ‘… no corruption … nepotism should be prohibited [and] the community must be comfortable in working with them through this project, so that poor participation can decrease.’ (focus group 2, 2017) these comments indicate that key objectives were not always clearly enough defined when participants could not outline how the projects were meant to benefit them, as participants and the community at large. most participants had believed that the projects would bring ‘job creation’ and they had expected to have ‘secured jobs’ and ‘poverty alleviated’ (focus group 1, 2017). perceptions about the implementation of the projects were diverse. some were positive and appreciative about the implementation process. others felt that the university could have consulted more and should have involved more people. evaluation and monitoring evaluation and monitoring are important aspects of a project. lack of these can lead to unhappiness and even project failure. one participant observed that: ‘… some objectives were not met due to lack of monitoring and evaluation.’ (interviewee 3, 2017) the community saw benefit in the close monitoring of the projects by the win platform team and one participant wanted: ‘… to have someone there who knows better, that can guide me through the process on what to do and what not to do.’ (focus group 1, 2018) another participant shared the thought that: ‘… for example, when we are busy with the activities, you guys can go with us, to monitor and evaluate us while we are busy. because when you are lenient, people tend to not take things serious and end not doing it well.’ (interviewee 11, 2018) another participant complained that the win platform did not keep to their schedule: ‘i think it was on the third or fourth day, when they were getting tired now because everything was going fast. they must learn to stick to their schedule, if they say five days for a workshop, it must be that full five days, they must not shorten the time because of other constraints because we need them.’ (interviewee 8, 2018) community members clearly valued the evaluation and monitoring of projects, as well as their implementation as planned. collaboration collaboration is the core of effective community engagement because it enhances the ethics of working together to achieve the task at hand.12 collaboration was indicated in terms of the partnerships and effective relationships that were encouraged by the win platform projects. two interviewees saw the university as capable and knowledgeable to develop projects for the community and, therefore, thought that the initiative must come from the university (interviewees 9, 13, 2018). others emphasised collaboration with the university: ‘i think when the university comes to the community we can group ourselves and give them our ideas and maybe they will love them and they might create a project from them.’ (interviewee 7, 2018) ‘i think both the community and university should come with ideas, collaborate and take it from there.’ (interviewee 7, 2018) collaboration between the community and the university was also requested at the practical level. for example, it was suggested that: ‘… the university could come and we do a walk around the community and do health awareness by taking bp and other health sciences. because the community recognises us because of the students from the university.’ (interviewee 4, 2018) the findings made it clear that collaboration was prized by the community members. of interest was the fact that participants were outspoken about the broader cooperation that they experienced in the projects. the community healthcare workers project, for instance, had helped them to improve their working relationships with their clients, as the projects: ‘… improved communication skills with patients during rounds in community health work and better relationships with clients.’ (interviewee 6, 2017) other participants perceived the projects as having encouraged participation with others in their personal lives, as the projects psppd and food security were able to: ‘… bring me into contact with other people who work in the same area, which encouraged participation in the workshop.’ (interviewee 1, 2017) ‘i learnt how to work with the community.’ (interviewee 1, 2017) participants advocated for collaboration within the community, indicating that there should be: ‘… togetherness of women and children to open community groups.’ (focus group 2, 2017) collaboration should also extend to government departments, as indicated by a participant from the come dine with me and sustainable diets projects who wanted the: ‘department of health to be more involved.’ (focus group 2, 2017) because they lacked money and resources, participants also asked for: ‘… funding from the stakeholders and ngos.’ (focus group 2, 2017) so that they could start: ‘… selling the sesotho traditional food [and] have small back-yard gardens.’ (focus group 2, 2017) some positive results emerged from feedback on collaboration. the projects were viewed as having brought the community together and taught them teamwork and interdependency. that being said, the community still wanted more involvement and support from other structures in the community such as the department of health, non-governmental organisations and community members. participation community participation has been defined as ‘the direct involvement of ordinary people in planning, governance and overall development programs at the grassroots level’.40 this had not been fully realised within the win platform projects because the goals and key objectives of the projects were not all clearly defined to the community at the initial stages. community members’ lack of participation in the initial stages caused some uncertainty about the main objectives of the win platform projects. participation issues are further described in the following subsections on communication, constraints in involvement and reasons for participation. communication communication was satisfactory for some participants: ‘yes, i felt comfortable and part of the project and there were no miscommunications.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) ‘i was given a chance to give my views at the win project workshop on which projects can be beneficial to the community.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) but others indicated gaps: ‘… not a lot of people know about the win platform, because i also did not know up until i was invited.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) ‘… the only project that they were familiarised with was the one of sustainable diets, so they thought it is only one project but i later discovered that there are many projects that the university is doing in the community.’ (interviewee 8, 2018) it is possible that the win platform did not use all formal channels of communication: ‘i would not want to answer that because the community should be informed by the municipal community councillors. so, i do not know if they knew of the projects or if they even participated.’ (interviewee 12, 2018) constraints in involvement participants were asked for constraints they faced in their communities to participate in the projects. the vaalharts community is poor, to which the participants attested, indicating that: ‘… the challenge is that in this community we are disadvantaged.’ (focus group 1, 2018) ‘… another issue is that we live in the villages and things are not as easy as they are in the locations and cities.’ (focus group 1, 2018) these conditions were given as a reason for poor participation, because: ‘… poverty hinders the project’s success.’ (interviewee 4, 2017) lack of rewards made people reluctant to participate. also, community members did not have the means to get to the facilities where the projects were hosted and they said: ‘… we expected transportation to the activities.’ (focus group 1, 2017) age and educational level were identified as common constraints for participants to understand the project fully reasons for participation people participated in the projects for different reasons. many hoped for employment or stipends, as was explained by a participant: ‘… with me i expected that the projects would give us job opportunities, not a permanent job but something; if not, i expected them to take people to workshops and training.’ (interviewee 7, 2018) another participant said: ‘… the thing is that in our community we struggle with unemployment and poverty.’ (interviewee 12, 2018) in general, the community had hoped that the win platform would improve their lives. a participant indicated appreciation: ‘… at some point these projects bring light to the rural areas.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) other participants agreed, saying that: ‘… because there are not a lot of people that have the skills to teach our people, even children in school i do not think they get taught these things.’ (interviewee 3, 2018) such projects: ‘… bring some sort of activity to the village because there are no jobs.’ (focus group 1, 2018) a participant elaborated further: ‘… some of us did not even go to university, so when the university comes to us people who are at a low level, we appreciate and we get uplifted.’ (interviewee 3, 2018) another person emphasised the gaps that had to be filled: ‘we need help from experts or those that have knowledge about such.’ (focus group 1, 2018) future participation the community was willing to participate in future projects of the win platform. participants were eager to continue: ‘yes, i would have interest, as long as i am alive.’ (focus group 1, 2018) ‘yes, because i love changing people’s lives and making an impact in the community.’ (focus group 3, 2018) the prospect of future participation was also associated with personal development: ‘i would, because in these projects we learn things we are not aware of and things that we sometimes not take into consideration. i have learned a lot of things, from health care to financial education.’ (focus group 3, 2018) in a poor community, participation creates specific challenges. communication is in such an environment very important and the win projects could improve in that respect. poverty was another factor that constrained participation. however, in general, the projects were viewed as advantageous for the community and participation was, therefore, valued. mutuality and reciprocity in community engagement projects, mutuality and reciprocity are important. mutuality is associated with commonality, shared feelings and activities in a partnership.41 janke and clayton17 defined reciprocity as ‘the recognition, respect and valuing of the knowledge, perspective and resources that each partner contributes to the collaboration’. one participant put it succinctly: ‘… the university came to help us with things we do not know so we also help them.’ (interviewee 5, 2018) the goals of the win platform matched some of the participants’ personal goals and interests, as was indicated in an interview: ‘i am a person who loves to learn, this project even found me busy with an npo. this is because i love working with the community and helping people.’ (interviewee 2, 2018) the community of vaalharts struggled with long queues at the clinic that caused stampedes and there was appreciation that through the healthcare workers project, these queues could be reduced: ‘… they wanted to cut down on the long queues at the clinics and address those people that stay very far.’ (interviewee 8, 2018) mutuality is associated with commonality and shared feelings that ensure beneficial relationships. participants recognised that effort came from both parties: ‘i think it is because they also want to learn more about culture, and it was so amazing because they came already dressed in traditional clothes.’ (interviewee 3, 2018) the community participants indicated in different ways the mutuality they experienced in terms of their personal goals or interests: ‘i enjoyed it because i have always wanted to be a nurse.’ (interviewee 4, 2018) ‘i love cooking and was interested.’ (interviewee 5, 2018) ‘it was very good, because sometimes if you do not do something practical and you just do theory, you seem to forget. so it was nice when she gave us a chance to take vitals and do practicals, for me it was like a refresher course.’ (interviewee 8, 2018) ‘we are very happy and wish that it would continue to teach us and our children to understand traditional ways of cooking. because this young generation does not understand ancient cultural ways as we do.’ (focus group 1, 2018) although the projects were initiated by the win platform and were largely conceptualised unilaterally, community members had experienced recognition and the valuing of their perspectives. this element can be improved in future projects. overall project satisfaction the community was asked to express their overall satisfaction with the projects through drawings. each of two focus groups drew a picture depicting the way in which the projects had impacted their lives. this activity was designed to allow participants to express their experience of the projects by other than just verbal means. the drawing42 in figure 1 came from the focus group in sekhing, which was involved in the come dine with me project. they drew two women holding hands and a pot on an open fire, which for them symbolised the teamwork that the project had encouraged. the development that had been experienced is depicted by the stick drawing of the two women turning into full body drawings. the sun and the heading leretlhabetse (which means ‘it has shone for us’) indicates the light that the project brought to the community through the opportunities and direction that had been experienced by its members. figure 1: sekhing focus group drawing. figure 2 was drawn by the focus group42 involved in the community healthcare workers project in jan kempdorp, which had included life plan, psppd and home-based care. the participants depicted the feelings that the win platform projects had evoked in them. they drew a flower and a smiley face, which indicate happiness. they also drew a butterfly, which symbolises the fact that that the projects gave them wings to fly through the new knowledge that they had provided to the community. the last indicator was the heart, which symbolises the love they had for the win platform team. figure 2: jan kempdorp focus group drawing. evaluative remarks the context–focus–profile model offers guidance for higher education engagement as they collaborate with communities and ensure mutuality, reciprocity, transparency, trust and respect in the relationship. did the win platform projects succeed? from the responses of the community members, as presented in this paper, it is clear that some of the goals were accomplished. community members acquired skills and applicable knowledge, through which empowerment did indeed take place, and members reported enhanced self-esteem and self-confidence. they also reported that the projects resonated with needs in the community and were therefore beneficial. the projects also attempted to keep communication channels open and success was to a certain extent achieved. in general, the community reported satisfaction with the projects. however, the projects could improve their engagement with the community. the vaalharts community is poor and vulnerable and its members therefore expect that projects will speak to those needs. for that reason, it is important to involve the community from the conceptualisation of the projects through their implementation and to preclude misunderstandings and erroneous expectations. it is also important for the community to feel respected and therefore comfortable about providing project input. of further importance is continuing monitoring and evaluation, designed to pick up any problems in the implementation of projects and to determine whether or not they meet their objectives, especially in terms of relationship with the community. this engagement was lacking in the projects presented thus far. for long-lasting interventions, the success of the projects must be assured and good communication is critical. the extent to which community members are involved in projects needs attention. according to the participants, only a limited number of community members were engaged in the projects and the youth, with their major needs for development, were not fully catered for. in general, the findings from this study showed that projects aimed at vulnerable people must be managed in such a way that the target group feels respected and that it collaborates fully in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the projects to ensure they match the people’s needs. this study confirms the value of using the context–focus–profile model to obtain an in-depth evaluation of higher education institutions’ engagement with communities. the study was limited in that participants from all the win platform projects could not contribute, so it could not offer a full evaluation of all the projects. nevertheless, it provides a sufficiently clear indication of the participants’ experiences of their own projects to suggest areas that could benefit from improvements in future and areas that community members perceived as having achieved success. conclusion this study reported on community members’ evaluative perceptions of the community engagement of the win platform. although a limited number of participants in the projects contributed to the research, they gave valuable insights into how the community perceived the projects. this information made it possible, using the context–focus–profile model, to evaluate different aspects of a higher education engagement with a community, in this case specifically with regard to the win platform projects. in general, the community members’ perceptions of the projects were positive. they were well received by the community and were seen to contribute in particular to improvement of skills and self-development. however, poverty made the people of the communities vulnerable. in such circumstances, to ensure enduring benefits, it is important to build a close engagement with the community – in this respect, there is room for improvement. this study identified specific areas for further development and it also demonstrated the value of using the context–focus–profile model for this kind of evaluation. community engagement is high on the agenda of higher education institutions. this study reports on ways in which a community experienced such engagement. in doing so, it also contributes to the larger debate about the role of higher education in the broader south african society. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the permission and support of the win platform of the africa unit for transdisciplinary health research in the faculty of health sciences at the potchefstroom campus of the nwu to conduct this research. the guidance and inputs in discussions with dr nicole claasen and dr gift mupambwa on this research are also acknowledged. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions this article was written by j.z. based on the research conducted by l.s. l.s. conducted this research towards a master’s degree under the supervision of j.z. ethical considerations ethics approval for this study was granted by the nwu research ethics regulatory committee, nwu-00433-18-a7. funding information the national research foundation’s financial support for this research is acknowledged with appreciation. data availability original data were collected and analysed in this study. although the data used in this study are available, both the hsrc data and the original data are confidential and therefore not generally available. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references auther: win platform. nrf proposal for funding 2017-2019. unpublished; 2017. mtawa nn, fongwa sm, wangenge-ouma g. the scholarship of university-community engagement: interrogating boyer’s model. int j educ dev. 2016;49(1):126–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2016.01.007 ramachandra a, 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institutions’ community engagement projects: the case of the win platform of the north-west university [unpublished dissertation]. potchefstroom: north-west university; 2018. td journal desember 2006.p65 einleitung: thema “humankind at the intersection of nature and culture” jörn rüsen * die beiträge dieses heftes stellen überarbeitete und ergänzte fassungen von vorträgen dar, die auf einer konferenz über das thema “humankind at the intersection of nature and culture” gehalten wurden. die konferenz fand vom 4. bis zum 6. september 2006 im krüger-park statt. sie wurde in kooperation der north-west-university mit dem kulturwissenschaftlichen institut in essen als teil eines umfassenden projektes über “der humanismus in der epoche der globalisierung – ein interkultureller dialog über kultur, menschheit und werte” veranstaltet. es geht in diesem projekt darum, im zeitalter der globalisierung ein verständnis vom menschen zu entwickeln, das alle kulturen übergreift und sie zugleich in ihrer eigenart und vielfalt zur geltung kommen lässt. ein dialog westlicher und nicht-westlicher kulturen über ihr verhältnis zueinander und ihr verständnis von grundlegenden werten und von kultureller identität und differenz ist von höchster dringlichkeit. das ist schon deshalb notwendig, weil alle länder und kulturen heute mit gemeinsamen problemen konfrontiert sind, die sie nur kooperativ lösen können. so haben z.b. die fortschritte der naturwissenschaften und der technik ein neues handlungspotential erschlossen, das im interkulturellen zusammenhang durchdacht werden muß. es bedarf kulturübergreifender normen zur umsetzung dieses potentials in die verschiedenen bereiche des menschlichen lebens. ein rekurs auf die in allen kulturen der menschen als menschen zugeschriebene normative qualität dürfte ein konsensfähiger ausgangspunkt für eine solche debatte sein. nötig ist ein übergreifendes konzept der td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 229-230. _______ * president kwi, essen, germany and extraordinary professor nwu, vaal triangle faculty. project leader and co-organiser of conference, kruger park, south africa. 230 verständigung, auf das sich die verschiedenen kulturellen traditionen und ihre geltungsansprüche in anerkennung der jeweils eigenen und das heißt von dem anderen eben unterschiedenen kulturellen identität beziehen. das humanismus-projekt will die interkulturelle debatte über die entwicklung eines neuen humanismus anstoßen und befördern. diese sehr anspruchsvolle themenstellung wird in verschiedene aspekte auseinandergelegt und dadurch konkretisiert. einer davon betrifft eine zeitgemäße anthropologie. die jüngsten erkenntnisfortschritte der lebenswissenschaften, die das wissen um das menschsein des menschen erheblich erweitert und vertieft haben, müssen im schnittfeld von natur und kultur thematisiert und reflektiert werden. die herausforderungen, die die gegenwärtige hirnforschung und genetik durch ihr spezifisches verständnis des menschseins darstellen, müssen aufgegriffen werden. ganz besonders aber wird ein neuer humanismus durch ein naturverständnis des menschen herausgefordert, das als kulturelle bedingung der menschlichen naturzerstörung im prozeß der modernisierung wirksam gewesen ist. welche folgerungen ergeben sich aus der gegenwärtigen erfahrung einer tiefgreifenden ökologischen krise, wenn nicht katastrophe, für unser verständnis vom menschsein des menschen und der damit verbundenen normativen orientierungen von politik, wirtschaft und gesellschaft? die konferenz im krüger-park hat diesen aspekt aufgegriffen und in einer ausgesprochen interdisziplinären und transdisziplinären weise erörtert. das menschliche naturverhältnisse erscheint im lichte höchst unterschiedlicher disziplinen, im schnittfeld interdisziplinärer konstellationen und im blick auf transdisziplinäre praktiken des umgangs mit der natur. die folgenden aufsätze demonstrieren daher an einer akuten weltumspannenden problematik notwendigkeit, eigenart und ausrichtung transdisziplinären denkens, mit dem die unterschiedlichsten wissenschaftsbereiche und disziplinen sich zur lösung eines gemeinsam stellenden problems zusammenschließen und zugleich transdisziplinär über sich hinaus in die bereiche der menschlichen lebenspraxis ausgreifen müssen. rüsen abstract introduction disaster risk management in south africa: a literature review research methodology and empirical findings conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) gideon j. wentink african centre for disaster studies, unit for environmental science and management, north-west university, south africa dewald van niekerk african centre for disaster studies, unit for environmental science and management, north-west university, south africa citation wentink, g.j. & van niekerk, d., 2017, ‘the capacity of personnel in disaster risk management in south african municipalities’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a427. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.427 original research the capacity of personnel in disaster risk management in south african municipalities gideon j. wentink, dewald van niekerk received: 06 mar. 2017; accepted: 09 mar. 2017; published: 19 may 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract since 1994, fundamental transformation in south africa in terms of disaster risk reduction taken place. the transformation process led to the promulgation of the disaster management act (57/2002) (dma) that introduced a new era of disaster risk management (drm) in south africa. the national disaster management framework (ndmf) that followed in 2005 put clear guidelines in place for implementing the dma and emphasised the importance of the integration and coordination of drm activities in all spheres of government. to adhere to the requirements of the dma regarding personnel, certain drm structures like interdepartmental committees, disaster management centres, disaster management frameworks and disaster management advisory forums must be in place. since the promulgation of the dma in 2003, south african municipalities have had ample time to get the structures in place. this article tries to evaluate the degree to which south african municipalities adhere to the requirements of the dma in terms of personnel. municipalities were selected per province, and the research is based on a 20% representative sample of all 279 municipalities in south africa. a mixed method of research was followed. the result of this research showed a clear lack of implementation in terms of the dma. a number of disaster management personnel work in other municipal departments, meaning that their attention cannot fully be focused on activities relating to drm. introduction it can be argued that disaster risk management (drm) has become increasingly important on the international agenda in the past decade. natural hazards like floods, droughts, earthquakes and epidemics have had an increasing impact on human lives (ford 2010). other aspects that have an influence on livelihoods are increasing global population, urbanisation, increasing poverty and global environmental change that includes climate change, erosion and deforestation (iisd 2007:1). practitioners and researchers acknowledge that conditions for vulnerability are created by said underlying factors, leading to insufficient capacity when the possible negative effects of hazards are addressed (iisd 2007:1). vulnerability may therefore add as much to the scope of disaster risks as the natural hazards themselves. most experts are of the opinion that it is necessary to take steps to strengthen the sustainable development process and to reach the millennium development goals (mdgs) (cannon 2007; dfid 2004; iisd 2007). in contrast to this suggestion, van riet and diedericks (2009) noted that drm in south africa evolved at a slow pace since the adoption of the disaster management act (dma) in 2002. a number of municipalities, especially district municipalities, have not succeeded in putting the most basic drm structures in place. along with that, there seems to be a high degree of ignorance in terms of the basic principles of drm within most governmental departments national disaster management centre (ndmc) (ndmc 2010:9; van riet & diedericks 2009). van riet and diedericks (2009) also found that disaster management centres (dmcs) have inadequate capacity and that lack of personnel, equipment and funding are common problems. since the promulgation of the dma, south african municipalities have had more than 10 years to comply with the legal requirements. the lack of basic drm structures in south african municipalities, together with the degree of ignorance regarding the basic principles of drm in governmental departments, is not conducive for drm in south africa (department of provincial and local government 2008; van niekerk 2011). economic, sustainable, efficient and effective implementing of the national disaster management framework (ndmf) and the strategic priorities, programmes and projects in the dma are essential to ensure social and economic growth and better service delivery, thereby reducing vulnerability in communities. according to hoogstad and kruger (2008) and van riet and diedericks (2009:11–12), this strategy is not implemented effectively and efficiently in practice. this article is based on a study that was based on a drm status assessment at municipalities in south africa. the research problem investigated in this article is the current status with regard to the implementation of the dma in the local sphere of government in south africa. a particular focus is placed on the capacity (in terms of level of training and number) of personnel. disaster risk management in south africa: a literature review for the purpose of this article, a disaster is defined as a progressive or sudden, wide-spread or localised, natural or human-made event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community causing human, material, economic and environmental losses that exceeds the coping capacity of a community in the use of resources to such a degree that help from outside parties is needed (cf. south africa 2003; unisdr 2009). quarantelli (1992), perry (2006:12) and café (2010) added a meaningful contribution by identifying themes within the study area. they are of the opinion that disasters are inherently a social phenomenon and that a disaster is rooted in the social structures of a society and, as such, it reflects the processes of social change. it is from the characteristics of the social structures of a community where the vulnerability to a certain source can be found (café 2010; hewitt 2013; perry 2006:12; quarantelli 1992). since the dawn of a new political era in south africa, much has changed; one aspect was to make drm a mainstream activity by drafting legislation and by integrating development initiatives on national, provincial and local levels (vermaak & van niekerk 2004). coordination of drm had to happen by aligning legislation with international standards and best practices, thereby prioritising drm in south africa (ndmc & reid 2008a:6; van niekerk 2010). pelling and holloway (2006:4) identified three phases in the historical development of south african drm legislation. the first phase (1994–1999) was characterised by policy formation and extended consultation with stakeholders. in 1998, a green paper on disaster management was compiled (south africa 1998) and was followed up in 1999 by a white paper on disaster management. this white paper defined the south african government’s drm policy for the first time (van niekerk 2005). the second phase (1999–2003) ensured that the discussions resulting from the development of the green and white papers was converted to a formal status for drm (pelling & holloway 2006:4). the white paper formed the basis for the drm bill put up for public debate. after the bill was published, the dma (53/2002) was promulgated in 2003 (ndmc & reid 2008a:4–5; pelling & holloway 2006:4). the dma was hailed internationally as a good example of national legislation promoting drm (pelling & holloway 2006:4). by integrating drm with development initiatives, the dma also placed statutory responsibility for disaster reduction on each sphere of government and set a mandate for the establishment of drm centres on national, provincial and local levels (south africa 2003; ndmc & reid 2008a:4–5). during the third phase (2003–2005), efforts were made to move the establishment of a legal framework to the creation and funding of a national implementation plan (pelling & holloway 2006:4). according to benson (2009), institutions in the three spheres of government have to apply their development planning so that drm is an integral part thereof. chen et al. (2003) and gopalakrishnan and okoda (2007) argued the merits of integrating drm into development planning. van niekerk and coetzee (2012) and benson (2009) also found that a community-based approach (cba) is necessary to get vulnerable communities involved in disaster risk reduction. disaster risk management has to be based on an effective institutional plan and framework that has to ensure that all segments of the community are involved (rahman 2002), and communities have to work with governments to ensure that risks are mitigated (shaw, matsuoka & tsunozaki 2010:10; unisdr 2010:3). this means that governments have to involve the community in the drm process to ensure that the community buys into the activities of the process (cf. kemp 2008:99; pelling 2007; pribadi & mariany 2007; unisdr 2004a:4). governments have to carry the primary responsibility for the well-being of communities by supplying them with a legal and institutional framework for drm and by defining clear responsibilities and ensuring that various agencies on national, provincial and local levels coordinate their efforts (briceño 2006:8). community participation is encouraged in a number of development areas, including drm (buckland & rahman 1999) and this is also the case in south africa (2003). in reality, practical guidance and the involvement of communities is limited and local organisations and people are the main role players in drm (gndr 2009:3; mercer et al. 2008:174; pelling 2011:394; twigg 2004:104). it is necessary that a meaningful link is created between the development of a national policy and the use of mechanisms that can convert drm principles in usable local-driven activities (unisdr 2004b:189). such a link can be achieved by ensuring that local governments and communities are encouraged and financed in order to minimise vulnerability and strengthen local capacity (unisdr 2004b:189). in this regard, existing community-based organisations ought to be strengthened (forbes-biggs & maartens 2012; maartens 2011). mechanisms like the governmental community participation programme (south africa. department of provincial and local government 2007), decision-making and resource management ought to be expanded in ways that include all community groups. even though governments are responsible for creating conducive environments where people can be empowered to reduce the impact of disasters, the community should not be involved in a way where information is trickled down. de dios (2002:13) confirms this by saying that people are too often left to their own devices thus increasing their vulnerability. the role of community participation and people’s general coping capacity is recognised as one of the key aspects in the study of disaster risk. the creative link between the negative circumstances in which people live and the positive aspects that are often forgotten underlines the importance of the socioeconomic dimensions of risk (unisdr 2004b:31). any system of community planning and safety should be integrated in the bigger administrative functions on national, provincial and local disaster planning or related risk reduction strategies. sustainable community-based disaster mitigation is dependent on a favourable political environment that understands the process of community participation (unisdr 2004b:178) and institutional structures that empower (van niekerk 2006). institutional arrangements for disaster risk management in south africa the historical development of drm in south africa shows that it shifted from a reactive to a proactive approach, probably because of the existence of insufficient structures and legal frameworks (van niekerk 2005:124). since 1994, the approach to drm in south africa has changed with the government’s decision to move away from the stance that disasters are unavoidable. for drm in south africa to be effective, institutional arrangements that deal with the issue of disaster risk reduction are necessary. after 1994, the government realised the importance of the establishments of such institutional arrangements. the green paper on disaster management (south africa 1998) was the first formal document on disaster management published by the south african government. this green paper (1998) identified several challenges that are still relevant today. some of these challenges that affect the implementation of drm policies, strategies and plans in south africa include: lack of funds for training and procurement and maintenance of equipment lack of significant support from national and provincial government different departments have different demarcations for the same operational area formal structures or coordinating mechanisms in certain areas are not in place lack of commitment from volunteers – volunteers ask for stipends lack of training for officials and communities the bureaucratic system when other national departments are approached for help lack of personnel or funding for full-time personnel lack of a proper communication system some municipalities do not regard drm as a priority and as a result have no budget for it. to address the above challenges, the dma made provisions for the establishment of drm structures in all spheres of government (van niekerk 2006:95). these drm structures will be discussed briefly in the next section. disaster risk management structures in south africa aspects like environmental and agricultural issues that are the responsibility of the national government are also a ‘simultaneous competence’ (jointly exercised by national and provincial bodies) in terms of the south african constitution (108/1996). for this reason, the role of provincial governments in certain fields is well established while others lag behind. according to the green paper, the provincial government may choose to appoint or establish their own coordinated structures to ensure an integrated approach to drm on provincial level. van niekerk (2006:107) refers to this by indicating that the structures developed at national level should also be developed at a provincial level in order to ensure continuity in drm procedures and principles. following this, van niekerk (2007:242) argued that the local government sphere is the most important for effectively implementing drm in south africa. unisdr (2004b:127) also referred to this by pointing out that municipal structures are positioned to reduce the loss of human lives and financial costs of disasters. the reason is that local governments are more directly linked to important community services. as such, local government should be organised in a way that the issue of drm is part of the broader development goals. in addition, the appropriate institutional arrangements for drm should ensure that the local government sphere and personnel working in drm are capable of implementing strategies, policies, programmes and projects in a way that it contributes to the reduction of vulnerability of households and communities (world bank 2005). capacity development for drm in south africa, as required by the dma and the first key performance area (kpa) (dealing with integrated institutional capacity for drm) will be discussed in the next section. capacity development for disaster risk management in south africa for drm in south africa to function effectively, capacity development needs to take place. capacity development implies that projects to strengthen capacities, be it individual, organisational or community capacities, are based on existing capacities that need to be identified and acknowledged. for the purpose of this article, capacity development is defined as ‘the process through which individuals, organisations and societies obtain, strengthen and maintain the capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time’ (undp 2008). as can be seen in section ‘research methodology and empirical findings’ of this article, capacity is still lacking in a number of municipalities. in designing a project for capacity development for disaster risk reduction, it is crucial to analyse and understand the local context (eriksson & gustafsson 2007), including general social, political, physical, cultural and environmental factors (unisdr 2004b). it is also essential to understand the relationships and dependencies between individuals, communities and organisations and that a solution that worked in one location will not necessarily succeed in another location. furthermore, hagelsteen and becker (2013) posited that ownership is one of the cornerstones for capacity development, meaning that the primary responsibility for capacity development rests with internal partners (the individual, organisation of community) and that external partners have supportive roles (unisdr 2005). hagelsteen and becker (2014:95) further mentioned that the sustainability of capacity development increases in direct relation to the level of participation and ownership of the internal partners. hagelsteen and burke (2016) identified eight elements for capacity development for disaster risk reduction, being terminology, local context, partnership, ownership, capacity development, roles and responsibilities, a mix (variety) of activities and methods, and monitoring, evaluating and learning. for capacity development to be effective within an organisation or community or for an individual, these eight elements must be taken into account. internal and external partners need to be on the same page regarding terminology of disaster risk reduction (drr) and the external partners must understand the basic political and institutional, social and cultural, physical and environmental, and economic setting of the capacity development project. capacity development projects must be needs driven (i.e. the internal partner must want to develop their capacities) and a capacity assessment needs to be conducted in order to understand risks from hazards and the current capacities that are available for drr. both internal and external partners must have a clear understanding as to their roles and responsibilities during the run of the capacity development project and lastly, continuous monitoring and timely evaluation of the actual results of capacity development initiatives must be ensured. developing capacities may take a lot of time and should preferably be integrated into development policies and planning (unisdr 2005). another drawback of capacity development projects is that they are often too short in duration due to the fact that drr is still primarily seen as a humanitarian issue and not as a development issue (hagelsteen & becker 2013:11). van niekerk and annandale (2013:173) found in concurrence that adequate time has to be allocated for capacity development. in terms of the dmcs in south african municipalities, capacity development can take place with external partners like institutions of higher learning, foreign development agencies and government institutions. the political forum for disaster risk management to ensure continuity in drm approaches and principles, structures should be established on provincial level and local level (van niekerk 2006:107). to ensure consistency with arrangements on provincial level, arrangements on local level should execute the same responsibilities. the ideal is that an inter-municipal committee is established on local level with the specific goal of drm that is consistent in goal and structure with the provincial committee (ndmc & reid 2008b:9). alternatively, existing structures that serve the same purpose at local level like the mayoral committee and the district interdepartmental forum can be used. according to botha et al. (2011), the role of the local municipality in dma activities is the assembly of a disaster management committee consisting of municipal managers, local businesses and volunteers, among others to: establish community partnerships that combine properties of all stakeholders in disaster resistance facilitate special training programmes for volunteers in which issues like reduction, prevention, vulnerability assessments and greater awareness of risks and hazards are addressed align the disaster management plans of local municipalities with those of district municipalities. it thus seems clear that personnel working in drm in municipalities should acquaint themselves with the provisions of the dma and they should keep abreast of the operations of the political forums at their disposal. the arrangement for the participation of stakeholders and the involvement of technical advice in drm planning and activities will be discussed next. the disaster management advisory forum according to twigg (2009:1), the scope, frequency and complexity of disasters can only be addressed by deploying a wide variety of skills and resources in development programmes and drm planning. drm initiatives should simultaneously be multidisciplinary partnerships that involve a range of stakeholders. as a result of the wide range of activities required like vulnerability and risk assessments, capacity building, establishment of social and economic infrastructure, and the use of early warning systems, drm cannot be controlled by a single government department or sub-section (van riet & diedericks 2009:2; vermaak & van niekerk 2004:556). there appears to be general agreement in south africa that it is important to establish a provincial disaster management advisory forum (pdmaf) with the aim of consistency and uniformity in terms of the requirements of the ndmf (ndmc & reid 2008b:28; south africa 2005:34; van niekerk 2006:107). advisory forums should not only be seen as structures for decision-making (van riet & diedericks 2009:5), and although it has no mandate to enforce management decisions, it can advise relevant government infrastructure regarding drm-related issues. the dma places no obligation on the local sphere of government to establish a municipal disaster management advisory forum (mdmaf) [see article 51(1)]. in other words, the dma leaves it to the discretion of a metropolitan or district municipality to compile formal structures like mdmaf. the mdmaf should, however, be established to offer interaction between personnel and external stakeholders on the issue of drm within the local government sphere (south africa 2005:35). the recommendation by the national education, training and research needs and resource analysis (netarnra) report (national education, training and research needs and resource analysis for disaster risk management in south africa) is that a mdmaf should be established to offer a platform where everybody that is involved in drm can be represented. that would be in line with international norms, and wilkinson (2009:2) and unisdr (2004b:137) argued that the partnership approach is the most efficient and effective manner to reduce disaster risks. because drm is a multi-sector policy domain and crosses sector interests there is a significant need for participation and coordination for all role players of whom personnel form an important part. in pursuit of the national goal, every province should establish and implement a policy framework for drm. according to van niekerk (2005:142), it should be aimed at the assurance of an integrated and uniform approach to drm through all provincial governmental institutions, provincial statutory functionaries, ngos and the private sector (see article 28 of the dma) (south africa 2003:34–35). a provincial disaster management framework (pdmf) should be in line with the provisions according to article 28 of the dma and the ndmf of 2005. this means that the structure of the pdmf should consist of four kpas and three enablers related to the provincial government sphere. to ensure integration and coordination of drm activities in the provincial governmental sphere the national governmental sphere, in accordance with the dma and the ndmf, should put mechanisms in place for the integrated implementation of drm policy. the disaster management centre the establishment of a dmc is required by article 43 of the dma. each metropolitan and district municipality must have a district disaster management centre (ddmc) in their area of authority (south africa 2003:51). the key responsibility of a ddmc is to provide support to the relevant pdmc. this includes ensuring the implementation of the local disaster management policy and that the goals and priorities of provincial and national disaster management is attainable. after consultation with local municipalities, a municipal disaster management centre (mdmc) should be established [see article 43(2)(a)] and operated jointly by the district and local municipalities [see article 43(2)(c)] (south africa 2003:51). mdmcs carry the responsibility of ensuring that the appropriate capacity for drm, which includes personnel issues, for the implementation of the dma is established (van niekerk 2005:148). mdmcs should also ensure that institutional arrangements are in line with those on provincial and national levels. in terms of article 44(a–j) of the dma, an mdmc should specialise in problems relating to disasters and drm in their municipal area. they should also promote an integrated and coordinated approach to drm in the municipal area with the focus on prevention and mitigation (south africa 2003:51). furthermore, an mdmc should store and provide information on disasters and disaster management relating to their municipal area. an mdmc should make recommendations on and try to provide funding for drm as well as promote recruitment, training and participation of volunteers. they should also promote formal and informal initiatives that encourage risk avoiding behaviour in state organs, the private sector, ngos, communities, households and individuals in the municipal area. to perform all these tasks, an mdmc should have enough personnel with proper knowledge of drm. the municipality can act as an advisory and consultative body on issues concerning disasters and drm in the municipal area. the mdmc may also make recommendations to any relevant organ of state of statutory functionary regarding draft legislation concerning the dma, ndmf or any other disaster management issue that could influence south africa (2003:52). an mdmc as proposed by article 51 of the dma is a structure in which metropolitan or district municipality and the relevant role players consult each other and coordinate their drm activities. a number of studies (botha et al. 2011; south africa 2005:35; van niekerk 2007:247) question the feasibility of the implementation of drm activities in the local sphere of government where an mdmc does not exist. van niekerk (2005:149) is therefore of the opinion that it is necessary for the local government sphere to establish such a structure. in the case where local governments choose not to establish an mdmc it is necessary to use alternative structures. furthermore, article 51 of the dma proposes the composition of an mdmc. the interdepartmental disaster management committee according to ndmc and reid (2008b:26), the biggest challenge in the implementation of the dma and the ndmf is to effect integrated and holistic planning and approaches in the departmental structures of the government. to bridge these challenges on a local level, a municipal interdepartmental disaster management committee (midmc) may be established by all municipal departments and public entities. the midmc provides the structure in which different municipal departments can coordinate and integrate their activities regarding drm and drr plans and strategies (van niekerk 2007:246). furthermore, the purpose of an midmc is to facilitate coordinated planning by providing a forum for cooperation on joint cross-departmental plans and programmes aimed at drm and the integration thereof into development planning. it also acts in a supportive way regarding ddmc and assists with supervision of the preparation, coordination, monitoring and review of drm plans and the integration thereof into the integrated development planning processes. in the case where a municipality decided not to establish these structures, appropriate alternative existing structures need to be identified to ensure that the principles of cooperative governance and community participation are applied in the context of the dma in accordance with the ndmf. in addition, municipalities should establish their own disaster management committees that will ensure the establishment of drm fora in their municipal wards takes place. from the above discussion, the critical importance for mdmcs to have an appointed head specifically tasked with promoting drm related activities is clear. when the functions and levels of responsibility of the appointed head and other personnel are reviewed, it is necessary that the personnel should be knowledgeable in the discipline they find themselves in. this expertise should be based on the kpas and the enablers explained in the ndmf. with the expertise in mind, this study will aim to determine whether there are sufficient personnel working in drm in south african municipalities and whether the personnel have the appropriate knowledge to effectively perform their duties. research methodology and empirical findings according to sale et al. (2002:46), a mixed method of research is advantageous because qualitative and quantitative research methods have the common goal of generating knowledge for the sake of practical knowledge. this combination offers the researcher the freedom to analyse the data from different perspectives, adding to the credibility of the study. the quantitative analysis of this study was done within the framework provided for by the qualitative analysis. this results in the quantitative results being rich in context without being only statistical in character. the design of the empirical study consists of a review of the relevant literature and regulations, telephonic interviews, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires that were disseminated via email, mail and fax. for the postal and faxed pieces, a questionnaire was compiled. in order to obtain information regarding the status of disaster management in all municipalities, the questionnaires were sent to officials in selected mdmcs (metropolitan and district), local municipalities and representatives of municipal departments in south africa. the nature and extent of this research relied on the full involvement of the target population. because of time constraints, the research was based on a representative sample of the total population. a simple random sample in which every element of the population gets the exact same chance of being drawn for the sample was used. in this case, the involvement of all provinces was ensured. data gathering began after the target population was identified. the total population consisted of 6 metropolitans, 46 districts and 231 local municipalities in south africa. from the total population, a 20% representative sample was identified. the sample thus consisted of 6 metropolitans, 17 districts and 55 local municipalities (as illustrated in table 1). table 2 gives an indication of how the sample is spread among south african provinces. table 1: breakdown of sample. table 2: simple random sample per province per municipality type. semi-structured interviews a semi-structured interview allows for detailed answers from the interviewee since the interviewer can ask follow-up questions if necessary (greeff 2007). this type of interview is used when the personal opinions or perceptions of the interviewee is required (greeff 2007). even though questions are prepared, the conversation should flow naturally. questions should also be asked in a way that encourages thorough and detailed answers (richards & morse 2007). semi-structured interviews were held with representatives from the department for cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta) and the south african local government association (salga) on a national level. telephonic interviews in the case where telephonic interviews were held, the interviewer asked questions from a predetermined questionnaire and wrote down the answers of the interviewee. telephonic interviews were held with the members of the executive committees (mecs) of three provinces and 17 councillors of 9 provinces in an effort to determine the political supervision and oversight of drm policies and strategies. each of the 20 respondents were responsible for drm in their various government domains. questionnaires the questionnaire that was used in this study consisted of a composition of closed (mainly likert scale) and open ended (where a motivation of a preceding likert scale question was asked) questions. the questions were divided into subdivisions (biographical information, institutional arrangement, implementation of legal frameworks, roles and responsibilities, and financial obligations) so that the different sections could be easily distinguishable. empirical findings and discussion for drm to be carried out as a legal mandate, it requires not only physical resources but also sufficient and well-trained personnel. the next section discusses the various issues regarding personnel and their level of involvement and training as it relates to local government in south africa. according to the collected data, 27.3% of mdmcs employ more than 10 people and 54.6% of respondents have between 1 and 10 employees. as can be expected, metropolitan municipalities, and to a certain extent some district municipalities, had more employees, partly because said municipalities are in most cases much bigger in an administrative sense than local municipalities, but also because those municipalities have the financial ability to employ more staff members. this means that there are many cases where dmcs function with a small number of people; this can negatively influence their ability to fulfil their duties. from the collected data, it was found that 73% of respondents felt that not enough staff were working in mdmcs to deliver an adequate service. in addition, in most centres there is a significant shortage of volunteers where 69.4% of centres have no volunteers and only 27.7% have more than 10 volunteers. furthermore, 65.8% of dmcs operate without temporary staff. a shortage in support staff causes problems with the implementation of drm activities and the daily functioning of centres. the presence of more support staff and volunteers can offer assistance in the performing of duties, especially at times of emergencies where manpower is crucial. qualifications of personnel range between mdmcs having two or fewer staff members with professional training (41.2%) and more than five with professional (tertiary) training (41.2%) (see figure 1). there is an inconsistency in capacity regarding disaster management staff. it seems that greater emphasis should be placed on training and capacity building to try and bridge this gap in training. a small majority of respondents at local government level (58.5%) indicated that their personnel is not adequately trained. on provincial level all respondents felt that training is lacking and that disaster management duties are neglected because of this. figure 1: personnel in disaster management centres with tertiary qualifications per type of municipality. in compliance with articles 15 and 20(2) of the dma, there is a recognised need for assurance of education, research and training in all fields relating to drm. in february 2010, a netarnra was done by the ndmc (2010) reflecting the need for better training and capacity development among employees in the field of drm. in netarnra, 41% of the respondents indicated that they could perform tasks that they chose themselves. 19% indicated that they need help completing tasks that they chose themselves and the remaining 40% said that they need training to allow them to perform tasks that they chose themselves (ndmc 2010). in reaction to this survey, respondents from local governments indicated a lack of skills in areas like development of contingency plans, disaster risk assessments, and disaster and incident management and assessment. table 3 gives an indication of the skills that respondents in this study identified as important for representatives of local government. of special interest is the need for training in the mentioned areas that are compatible with national standards like the south african qualification authority and the national curriculum framework. the importance of standardising and compatibility was also highlighted in the netarnra report (ndmc 2010). table 3: identified areas of skills shortages. within the drm structure, it is also clear that staff members are often responsible for multiple tasks like those associated with drm as well as the duties that fall in the sphere of emergency services. cases arise where drm staff and other officials share responsibilities in areas like fire services, traffic management, public safety, technical services, marketing and contingency planning. division of time between multiple responsibilities can lead to inadequate performing of duties. it places unfair pressure on available time and resources to meet the disaster management needs in the municipality. according to south africa (2005), each national organ of state must appoint an individual that can act as focus point for drm and that can represent the organ at the national disaster management advisory forum. this evidence discloses and explains the versatile nature of drm from which the interdisciplinary skills are drawn. this is especially the case in terms of emergency management and public safety. according to the findings, personnel that work in external sectors are often involved in drm. people working in the fields of firefighting, public safety and traffic services, parks and roads, strategic and electrical services, crisis control, corporate services and administration are also recruited for work that relates to drm. this can be advantageous since different and diverse skills are presented which can help to ensure that interdependent issues are addressed and recognised in drm. multisectoral involvement is highlighted and encouraged through leading international frameworks like the hyogo framework for action (hfa), the sendai framework for disaster risk reduction, the african regional strategy for drr and the drr strategy of the southern african development community. there is, however, an inherent need for research on the potential for funding of independent positions for disaster managers so that these managers can focus solely on tasks relating to drr. this allows the unbiased cooperation and coordination with external stakeholders to ensure public safety through reducing risks. from figure 2 it can be interpreted that only municipalities in gauteng and to a lesser extent the north west, eastern and western cape take the issue of personnel seriously. concerning municipalities in kwazulu-natal, limpopo, mpumalanga, the northern cape and the free state, things do not look as good, especially in the free state where municipalities have on average only two staff members in drm. figure 2: average number of staff members (full time and temporary) per municipality per province (as per data collected). regarding staff training the situation does not get better. municipalities were asked how many staff members received professional training (tertiary education) in drm or related areas like firefighting or incident management. figure 3 shows that all municipalities in gauteng had five or more staff members with professional training and that municipalities in the northern cape had two or less professionally trained staff members. one must also note that gauteng is the smallest province and is home to nearly 10 times more people than in the northern cape which is the biggest province. it is also mentionable that more than 50% of municipalities in limpopo and the eastern cape have five or more professionally trained staff members. figure 3: percentage of staff members per municipality that received tertiary education in disaster risk management or relevant area. in table 4, the average population density (of the sample population) per province per municipality is shown. from this table, in conjunction with figures 2 and 3, the deduction can be made that municipalities in provinces with more money (like gauteng and the western cape) naturally have better trained personnel; what is surprising, however, is that ‘poor’ municipalities like limpopo and the north west have a high number of personnel in disaster management with tertiary education in drm or a relevant area, in relation to the number of people living in the municipalities and the size of those municipalities. the eastern cape is another ‘poor’ province with a good ratio between trained personnel and the population density. in this instance, however, one must keep in mind that a metropolitan municipality forms part of the statistics for the eastern cape, which could lead to a misconception of the real situation. table 4: average population density per province per municipality. conclusion although the municipalities in this study predominantly have the necessary structures in place, it seems that the metropolitan municipalities (especially in gauteng and the western cape) stand out in terms of trained staff members. all the metropolitan municipalities that formed part of the study indicated more than five staff members with professional training in drm or related fields. it is also problematic that a number of staff members that work in drm are also involved in other departments. this leads to their attention being split between drm related activities and what they need to focus on elsewhere. when a staff member works in two departments, attention is inevitably divided to such a degree that work in either department is neglected. municipalities where the dmcs don’t function as they should because of personnel training, numbers etc. should make a concerted effort to appoint people and to have staff trained. a way in which this gap can be bridged is for municipalities to budget for 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accepted: 18 apr. 2018; published: 28 feb. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract accounting and mathematics are closely related. there is little mathematics content that a profound relationship exists between mathematics and accounting. there is, however, a limited understanding of the nature of this relationship and the extent to which mathematics influences the teaching and learning of accounting. accounting scholars perform a variety of calculations in accounting courses, making mathematics integral to the successful study of accounting. this investigative study is hinged on transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting in an undergraduate teacher education degree. the purpose of this article was to identify the mathematics topics required for the study of accounting in a bachelor of education (bed) degree curriculum. a detailed analysis of the bed accounting course content for accounting i, ii and iii regarding mathematical topics students encounter in their accounting modules was undertaken. a content analysis in the form documents was employed. accounting course packs were analysed for mathematics required in a bed curriculum. the analysis of accounting course packs revealed a range of mathematical content required for accounting. this finding confirmed the mathematical content needed for accounting, as identified under literature review. this article concludes with the implications for basic education, higher education, textbook writers, curriculum specialists and international policymakers. introduction mathematics is related to accounting but not as interlinked as people may believe or sometimes, that you should have a lot maths to take accounting (babalola & abiola 2013). accounting scholars perform a variety of calculations in accounting courses. this makes the understanding of mathematics integral to the successful study of accounting. there is a need for learning accounting from the perspective of mathematics (warsono, darmawan & ridha 2009). accounting is defined as a ‘process of collecting, measuring, analysing and communicating information to and decision making within the business and other organisations’ (university of glasgow 2014), whereas mathematics is defined as ‘the science that studies and explains numbers quantities, measurements, and the relations between them’ (webster 2018). the majority of accounting definitions assert that accounting requires numerical and analytical skills which are also integral elements of mathematics (shaftel & shaftel 2005). academics around the world report, lack of adequate mathematical knowledge and computational skills of beginning students (fedoryshyn et al. 2010; heck & van gastel 2006). the experiences of students at tertiary level, particularly during the first-year, are significantly informed by students’ experiences at school level (jacobs 2006). the dismal mathematical competence of south african high school learners is reflected in the world economic forum global competitiveness report 2012/2013 that ranks south africa last out of 148 countries in mathematics and science education (schwab, sala-i-martin & brende 2013). in south africa, mathematics is compulsory in general education and training (get) – grades r–9, but in further education and training (fet) – grades 10–12 learners enrol for mathematics or mathematical literacy. either mathematics or mathematical literacy is an entry requirement for a bachelor of education (bed) accounting degree at the higher education institution (hei) which is the setting for this study. the entry requirement into bed accounting degree in the school of education at this hei is grade 12 mathematics or mathematical literacy and grade 12 accounting (hei 2013). chantyl mulder, a senior executive of the south african institute of chartered accountants (2010), emphasises that mathematics is the key to a prosperous and fulfilling future and that the south african economy is crying out for the skills, which require learners to study mathematics, not mathematical literacy. purpose of the study the aim of this study was to investigate the transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting in a bed curriculum at the hei, with the aim of informing higher education pedagogy as it relates to teaching and learning in accounting. research question what mathematics topics are required for the study of accounting in a bed degree? literature review the disciplines of mathematics and accounting the disciplines of mathematics and accounting are discussed under two sub-categories: philosophy and similarities and differences between the disciplines of mathematics and accounting. philosophy the relationship between mathematics and accounting or bookkeeping is very old and the first published treatise on the double-entry principle appeared in 1494 in a book on mathematics by luca pacioli, entitled summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita (mattessich 2005; warsono et al. 2009). commenting on pacioli’s book, ellerman (2009) states that: the success in maintaining the two-sided accounting debits and credits, the double-entry principle, and the trial balance in both cases provide strong evidence that the formulation correctly captures the double-entry method in mathematical form. (p. 17) in short, the double-entry principle means that the financial transaction contains two or more entries – flow of money from one account to one or more other accounts. for every debit (credit) entry there is a corresponding credit (debit) entry, and the value of debits must be equal to the value of credits. this ensures arithmetical accuracy of the recordings of financial transactions (ellerman 2009; haiden 2009; myburgh, fouche & cloete 2011; warsono et al. 2009). for example, if the first account is credited (cr) with an amount, then the second account must be debited (dr) with the corresponding amount. if the first account is dr with an amount, then the second account must be cr with the corresponding amount. similarities and differences between the disciplines of mathematics and accounting accounting requires thinking that is careful and logical. from this logic, accounting has some similarity with mathematics and this probably why taking mathematics classes helps with accounting classes (babalola & abiola 2013). in addition, serai (2014) points out that mathematics and accounting both involve critical thinking, but are very different fields in different departments. at tertiary level, accounting degrees are found under the management or commerce discipline, while mathematics degrees are found under the science discipline. another study by tahir and abubakar (2007), exploring business students’ beliefs in learning mathematics in a university mathematics class, show that learning mathematics by way of accounting, finance, management, marketing and business in general not only builds students’ ability to think analytically but also develops skills of reasoning and problem-solving. budnick (1993) points out, moreover, that the objective, in improving the level of quantitative sophistication possessed by business, accounting, economics and social sciences students, is not to make these students mathematicians, but to make them as comfortable as possible in an environment which used quantitative analysis. mathematics required in learning accounting according to thomason (2013) and babalola and abiola (2013), the advantage of a strong mathematical background is that it improves an accountant’s cognitive ability. a variety of accounting activities require the employment of mathematics or mathematical principles. understanding what mathematics competences or skills are required can assist individuals in business processes in the following ways: mathematical calculations: it is vital to have basic mathematics and algebra skills to complete accounting tasks or activities as they are full of basic and advanced calculations and report accurate financial information. word problems: word problems that arise in accounting usually relate to essential mathematical concepts. therefore, reading skills are needed in addition to mathematical competence. time value of money concepts: problems occur in accounting in relationship to time value of money and require the use of various mathematical abilities. other skills: there are other important skills that go beyond mathematics and accounting abilities, such as communication skills. relatively little mathematics is required for studying accounting. as listed by mostyn (2008b), a chartered professional accountant, the mathematics knowledge essential for accounting includes topics such as place-value numerical system, arithmetic operations, decimals, percentages, positive and negative numbers, fractions, averages, the weighted average, linear equations and formulas. walton (2009) lists the required mathematics topics for accounting as basic numeracy, ratio and proportions, percentages and averages, and formulas. in addition, babalola and abiola (2013) note that some schools or disciplines may require more advanced mathematics topics such as linear programming or calculus for accounting majors (see table 1). table 1: summary of mathematical content needed for accounting. discussions on previous studies on the importance of mathematics in accounting and on the issue of mathematics, mathematical literacy and quantitative methods as a prerequisite follow next. previous studies on the importance of mathematics in accounting some research in several studies, mathematics knowledge positively influenced students’ achievement in accounting learning. gist, goedde and ward (1996) and pritchard, potter and saccucci (2004) examined the key factors that influence student choice of a business major and found that students who performed best in accounting had better calculation and algebra skills. rossman (2006) warned that students who try to memorise shortcut methods to work through accounting problems without grasping the essential concepts are more likely to experience mathematical anxiety. students may be able to perform a mathematical accounting problem in a contrived textbook context, but may have difficulty applying the knowledge in other accounting situations if essential mathematics principles involved are not mastered. chinn (2008) and naidoo (2012) reported that, in both mathematics and accounting, there is either a right or a wrong answer and that students are expected to work at a quick pace on exercises or assessments. fedoryshyn et al. (2010), who examined whether a student’s arithmetic reasoning ability had an effect on his or her performance in a first principles of an accounting course, found a high significant association between arithmetic reasoning skills and a student’s final accounting average mark in the entry-level course. they further revealed that mathematical reasoning ability alone is not a major determinant of a student’s final accounting course average mark. equally important, a study of 526 students in a 3-year accounting degree, by (koh & koh 1999), showed that students’ performance was positively related to academic aptitude, mathematics background and previous work experience. this study also found that male students outperformed female students and younger students outperformed mature-age entrants. shi and paucar-caceres (2011) investigated the impacts of learning mathematics on studying accounting and finance courses at heis in britain. in this investigation, lecturers reported that passion for learning mathematics on the part of accounting and finance students was gradually declining. students’ attitudes to learning mathematics suggested that they were unable to see the importance of learning mathematics for their courses and for their future professional life. the study also found that after they had succeeded on the first part of quantitative methods (mathematics) in finance in the first term, the students felt more confident at solving complex numerical computations and algorithm equations and plotting scatter graphs. in contrast, naser and peel (1998) argued that mathematics grades, gender, age and school english, together with the type of school attended (private or public), did not impact significantly student performance in the principles of the accounting course. instead, the university faculty originally attended was significantly associated with examination performance. research by barnes et al. (2009) on factors influencing success or failure in first-year accounting at a south african hei (central university of technology) found that performance in grade 12 mathematics was not significantly correlated with performance in first-year accounting (p = 0.152 > 0.05). they also found no significant relationship between age and performance in first-year accounting (p = 0.240 > 0.05) and no significant difference was found between the performance of female students and male students (p = 0.69 > 0.05). mathematics versus mathematical literacy: quantitative methods as accounting prerequisites a study by latief (2005) on throughput of university of western cape students who did at least one semester of third-year statistics suggested that in all quantitative subjects where mathematical calculations and abstract thinking are required, pure mathematics must be a prerequisite. consistent with this study, stainbank (2013), researching the impact of national senior certificate (nsc) mathematics on the performance of first-year commerce students, bachelor of commerce (bcom) accounting or general bcom, found that performance in each university subject (acc101, ecn101, istn101, mgnt101 and mat134) was most strongly related with school mathematics performance. she concluded her study by suggesting that the entrance requirement should be raised to mathematics level 5 for all commerce students. if the mathematics remains at level 4, then the university needs to provide academic support. she also noted that mathematical literacy was not accepted for bcom degrees. walton (2009) stressed that if mathematical literacy is accepted, it will need support in some areas of mathematics, especially algebra. correspondingly, a study by stenberg, varua and yong (2010) on mathematics aptitude, attitude, secondary schools and student success in quantitative methods for a business subject in an australian university found that commerce students, such as accounting and marketing students, require essential mathematical skills to successfully finish their degrees at a tertiary level. they suggested that student success in a core commerce subject is reliant on the student’s mathematical aptitude, attitude and the type of secondary schooling (whether government or non-government). tertiary institutions should recognise that high failure rates are because of inadequate mathematics exposure in secondary schooling, and corrective actions such as remedial lessons might not be sufficient. specifying a minimum mathematics requirement for entry, or providing bridging programmes to ensure students have the essential basic mathematical skills, would increase student success in quantitative modules. in another study by selesho (2000), investigating factors that influence the results of first-year accounting at technikon free state, respondents agreed that arithmetic or mathematics plays an important role in learning accounting and disclosed that even though mathematics was not a prerequisite for first-year accounting at the technikon, one had to have an insight into arithmetic in order to face the challenges of the subject. a key point suggested by yunker, yunker and krull (2009) is that a mathematics pretest could be used to identify students at risk in principles of accounting courses, especially for those with measured low arithmetical, percentages and proportions skills. in summary, studies recommend that mathematics should be a prerequisite for the study of accounting or a mathematics bridging programme. discussion on the problem-solving skills in accounting is presented next. problem-solving skills in accounting accounting is a subject based on mathematical word problems (babalola & abiola 2013; thomason 2013). polya (1957) suggested a set of practical rules for solving word problems so as to improve students’ performance (see figure 1). according to costello and darnley (2009:16), ‘polya recognised that mathematics teachers and students need interesting and generative problems, in order to keep the aspect of enquiry alive in the classroom’. figure 1: polya’s four steps for solving word problems. methodology a qualitative research design was adopted for this study in the form of content analysis using documents to examine the transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting. a detailed analysis of the bed accounting course packs for first-, secondand third-year accounting (table 2) was performed regarding mathematical topics that students encounter in their accounting modules. the main aim was to highlight specific aspects of mathematics required for the study of accounting in the bed curriculum at the hei. a method used by walton (2009:55) to analyse the accounting textbooks and study guides for the mathematical requirements of bcom students at nelson mandela metropolitan university was followed in this study. the list of topics identified was used as a basis for the analysis of the textbooks and study guides. every time a mathematical calculation was observed, it was compared to the topics in the list to determine where it would fit in. table 2: bachelor of education accounting curriculum at higher education institution. accounting calculations are presented using the department of basic education national curriculum statement mathematics topics: get phase mathematics – grades r–9 and fet phase mathematics – grades 10–12. the main topics in the get phase mathematics curriculum are as follows: number, operations and relationships; patterns, functions and algebra; space, shape (geometry); measurement; and data handling. the main topics in the fet phase mathematics curriculum are as follows: functions; number patterns, sequences, series; finance, growth and decay; algebra; differential calculus; probability; euclidean geometry and measurement; analytical geometry; trigonometry; and statistics (table 3). table 3: themes and sub-themes from content analysis of transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting. reliability, validity and trustworthiness a summary of the strategies and the criteria used to establish trustworthiness is as follows: feedback received from the reviewers – member checks and peer confirmation of interpretations (trustworthiness). confirmation of findings through triangulation: this provided evidence for validity. reliability ensured through reference to the supervisors of my study and their positive feedback on the data interpretation. ethical consideration ethical clearance was obtained from the human research ethics committee of the higher education institution (reference number: hss/0117/013d). results the objective of this section is to highlight specific parts of mathematics topics required for the study of accounting in the bed curriculum at the hei research setting. mathematics used in bed accounting: examples of specific topics to illustrate the transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting, examples were selected from the first-, secondand third-year hei bed accounting curriculum to identify specific topics in mathematics used in accounting. there was also an overlap in topics, but i have decided to present accounting calculations using the national curriculum statement mathematics topics (get phase and fet phase mathematics), selected examples and explanations illustrated below. number and operations place-value numerical system in accounting, students need to be able to arrange amounts in the correct order. they need to know that a line between rands and cents represents a decimal point. negative amounts are always reflected in brackets and positive amounts are reflected without brackets. accounting also requires ability to work with big numbers. consider the following example: extract from the statement of comprehensive income of edgewood traders for the year ended 31 december 2015, reflecting amounts in the place-value system (figure 2). figure 2: positioning numbers in a place-value numerical system. in analysing the accounting course packs, it became evident that bed accounting students need to be able to identify relevant amounts from a given information or write amounts in correct positions in a place-value numerical system. inability to identify or write amounts could have a negative effect on students’ performance. basic arithmetic operations and integers students need to have the knowledge of the four basic operations (+ − × ÷) because these operations are used in accounting. they need to read the question carefully and do as instructed. they need to know how to round off, because they may be required to round off to the nearest one decimal point, nearest two decimal points or nearest r1, r10 or r100, et cetera. therefore, they need to know that amounts ending in 4 or less are rounded down (i.e. 1.233 becomes 1.24) and amounts ending in five or more are rounded up (i.e. 1.235 becomes 1.24). they also need to know about addition and subtraction and zero and be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide integers. they need to understand the logic of calculations when preparing source documents as these require knowledge of basic mathematical operations, integers and percentages, and they need to be able to use a calculator. consider the following example from first-year accounting: on 01 february 2015, edgewood traders sold goods to s. khumalo on credit. issue invoice no x02 address 12, durban north road, five trays @ r25.99 and 10 sets cutlery @ r45.99 (figure 3). figure 3: credit invoice as an example of use of basic arithmetic operations. rational numbers (fractions, percentages and decimals) students need to understand percentages, fractions, and decimals to solve real-life accounting problems. they need to be able to convert or express percentage as a decimal (e.g. 90% = 0.90) by just moving the decimal point by two places to the left of the given number. they also need to be able to convert or express a percentage as a fraction by just dividing by 100 (e.g. and 0.10 could be expressed as ). students also need to be able to convert a mixed fraction into an improper fraction . in many accounting tasks or activities, students will be required to perform percentage calculations. consider the following example (second-year accounting): equipment bought on account from jeena wholesalers for r15 000 less 10% trade discount (see figure 4). figure 4: solution trade discount. students must understand percentages and basic operations when performing calculations involving a trade discount. in order to record the correct amount in the creditors journal, students need to calculate the correct amount of this equipment. they are encouraged to master table method algebra, as it shows how the formula is derived. they should be able to equate proportional fractions and solve for the variable or unknown (method 1). they should also be able to recognise that the formula method is derived from the last but one step of the table method algebra. knowledge of both methods will assist the student in verifying the answer if he or she has forgotten the formula or is not sure of the answer given by one method. the table method could assist in eradicating severe deficiencies in basic arithmetic skills. for calculating profit mark-up percentage, consider the following example: goods bought for r12 000 were sold for r17 400. calculate the profit percentage (figure 5). figure 5: solution profit percentage calculation. ratios, rates and proportions students must be able to differentiate between ratio, rate, and proportion. according to mostyn (2008b), a ratio is a comparison of quantities by division or comparison of values (e.g. 5 km: 2 l of petrol). a rate is a ratio with different units in the numerator and denominator (e.g. ). a proportion is a statement that two ratios are equivalent. if one ratio is equal to another ratio, then equation 1 is called a proportion, for example: students must be able to calculate ratios by extracting appropriate information from financial statements. financial statements analysis is conducted in the first-, secondand third-year modules. therefore, students need to know and understand ratios. for students to understand the formula, they must be able to perform ratio analysis. students must write a formula first, expand the formula (if there is a need), substitute the correct amounts and calculate. examples of financial ratios are shown in figure 6. students should understand the logic of the calculation underlying the name of each financial indicator or ratio or rate. students should not memorise the formulas as they can be easily forgotten if the underlying logic is not understood. figure 6: examples of financial ratios. students must be able to apportion insurance amount according to the percentages given for each of the given departments. students must demonstrate an understanding of the split of costs between the factory, sales and office departments. knowledge of fractions, ratios and percentages taught in grades 8 and 9 and get mathematics is essential for splitting the costs between departments. example taken from third-year accounting is presented below – production concerns: insurance r5600, electricity allocated between the factory, selling and distribution and administration as follows: factory sales office insurance 60% 20% 20% adjustment: r900 was paid in advance for insurance at the end of the year (figure 7). figure 7: allocation of amount according to given percentages. for ratios in distributing partners’ profit, students must be able to distribute profit according to a specified ratio as it appears in the partnership agreement, beginning capital balance ratio, closing capital balance ratio or average capital balance ratio in months. consider the following example (third-year accounting), average capital balance ratio in months: the financial year-end of edgewood traders is 31 december each year. capital: edge (31/12/2015), r120 000 and capital: wood (31/12/2015), r150 000. adjustment – additional capital by edge (1/7/2015), r20 000 and cash withdrawal of capital by wood (1/10/2015), r50 000. therefore, the profit sharing ratio according to average capital ratio is r110 000 : r137 500 (figure 8). figure 8: average capital balance ratio in months. for ratios in existing partners altering their profit sharing ratio (third-year accounting), students must be able to distribute profit according to the new ratio from the date of change (figure 9). consider the following example: mrs mthanti and mrs ngenywa, who share profits and losses in the ratio 3:2, decided to admit mr mtshali to the partnership on condition that he contributes one fourth of the partnership. calculate the new profit sharing ratio. figure 9: new profit sharing ratio. from third-year bed accounting. students must know that if the profit mark-up is on cost, then cost price represents 100%. if the profit mark-up is on sales, then the selling price represents 100%. students need to calculate the cost of sales first in order to record the amount under cost of sales column in the cash receipts journal. they need to know both methods so that in case they forget the formula, they can revert to the table method, equate proportional fractions and solve for the unknown. the last but one step of the table method shows the formula that the student must know and understand (figure 10). consider the following example: sold goods for cash, r9 000 (profit mark-up 25% on cost). figure 10: cost price calculation. proportional fractions involving mixed fractions. consider the following example from branch accounting: goods are supplied to the branch at selling price (cost price plus . goods delivered to the branch is r18 000. calculate the amount to be recorded in branch stock account, branch adjustment account and goods-sent-to-branch account (figure 11). figure 11: cost of sales calculation given a mixed fraction percentage. students need to calculate first, before recording the journal entries and posting to general ledger (see box 1). box 1: general ledger. patterns and algebra formulas (substituting and changing subject of formula) students must know that at break-even point there is no profit or loss. if the production is less (more) than break-even point, it means there is loss (profit). students must be able to work backwards to calculate the missing amount. it is also important that students first understand the calculation of unit costs and break-even point so that they can quote it to substantiate their comment when required. students must be able to substitute from the relevant formula and solve by making the unknown the subject of the formula. consider the following example from third-year accounting (figure 12): figure 12: break-even point in units and value calculation. as shown in figure 12, students must know each step and its formula. this will assist them to tackle a break-even point problem at any point of the steps indicated above. they must also know that they could be given the selling price per unit and each variable cost per unit (see step 2 above). the students must therefore use equation 2: students must also know that they could be given total variable costs. see step 3 above and equation 3: students could also be given contribution cost per unit. see step 4 above and the formula below. algebraic equations (linear) students’ understanding of linear equations is important. they need to be able to form linear equations and solve for the missing amount. they must be able to form two algebraic expressions and equate them. they must apply mathematical concepts such as distributive law; transposing constants, variables and changing signs (additive inverse); and multiplying by multiplicative inverse of the coefficient of variable. in addition, they must be able to check the solution by substituting the answer to the original equation. if the left-hand side is equal to the right-hand side, then the solution is correct or valid, provided the equation formed is correct. by the end of grade 9, students should have covered algebraic equations. the example in box 2 from third-year accounting illustrates what type of calculation students must be able to perform, given the relevant information. box 2: third-year accounting. partnership agreement: partner, j. james, is entitled to a commission of 20% of the net profit after his interest on capital and his own commission has been taken into account (figure 13). figure 13: commission calculation using linear equation method. accounting equation: i will set this out at length as i feel it is important and is often a challenge for students. equations in accounting are called accounting equations or balance sheet equations, where assets = owners’ equity + liabilities is a mathematical representation derived from the traditional balance sheet or statement of financial position, with assets on the left-hand side and owners’ equity and liabilities on the right-hand side. students must know the role of the equal sign on the equation. they must realise that this is part of a mathematical equation. therefore, they must be able to link between the mathematical equation covered in a mathematics class and the accounting equation covered in accounting. students must be able to transfer the knowledge and skills learnt in the mathematics class to the accounting class. they need to be able to derive, understand and apply basic accounting rules and be able to record the correct signs and amounts on the elements of the accounting equation (figure 14). figure 14: statement of financial position. in the basic accounting equation (eqn 4) or balance sheet equation: where a = assets, o = owners’ equity and l = liabilities. students must know that the original accounting equation, a = o + l, can also be written as follows: by making o the subject of the formula, o = a – l by making l the subject of the formula, l = a – o. students must know that the process of conceptualising and understanding the basic accounting equation rules requires the understanding of mathematical equations. from the equation a = o + l the basic accounting rules are derived (see box 3). box 3: basic accounting rules. mathematical explanation for derivation of the basic accounting equation rules: asset (a) rule. from the equation a = o + l, if you transpose a to the right-hand side, then the sign changes to negative. therefore, we get −a. owners’ equity (o) rule. from the equation a = o + l, if you transpose o to the left-hand side, then the sign changes to negative. therefore, we get −o. students must remember that final accounts or income statement items form part of owners’ equity. liabilities (l) rule. from the equation a = o + l, if you transpose l to the left-hand side, then the sign changes to negative. therefore, we get −l. without understanding the mathematical reasoning of basic accounting equation rules, students might find themselves simply memorising the rules. if they understand the mathematical reasoning of these rules, they are less likely to be intimidated by tasks or activities that require the application of these rules. consider the following example of basic accounting equation solution from first-year accounting. transaction 1: basic accounting equation, m. mkhize, edgewood traders owner deposited r 95 000 in the bank account of the business as his capital contribution. transaction 2: bought merchandise on account from jeena wholesalers, r 12 000 (figure 15). figure 15: basic accounting equation solution. mathematical modelling (creating mathematical formulas or equations from real-life context or word problem) students need a confident understanding of mathematical modelling. understanding will be gained if they have had a great deal of exposure to working with accounting activities involving mathematical modelling. students must not be intimidated by this type of adjustment, which requires an understanding of mathematical skills such as deriving timeline, forming and solving equations, checking answer from the original equation or using the formula to verify the answer. consider the following examples from first-year accounting. adjusting rent given a percentage increase. pre-adjustment trial balance on 31 december 2015 (extract): debit credit rent income 27 400 rent increased by 10% on 01 july 2015 and has been received for 13 months (figure 16, boxes 4, 5, 6, 7). figure 16: rent calculation, given increase in percentage. box 4: timeline for method 1: let the rent be y. box 5: timeline for method 2: let the rent before increase be p and let the rent after increase be q. box 6: timeline for method 1: let the rent be y. box 7: timeline for method 2: let the rent before decrease be p and let the rent after decrease be q. box 8: timeline: let the rent before increase be p and that after increase be p+200. students must be able to differentiate between a rent percentage decrease and increase. the example below involves adjusting rent given a percentage decrease. rent – given a percentage decrease: adjusting rent given a percentage decrease. pre-adjustment trial balance on 31 december 2014 (extract): debit credit rent income 6150 rent decreased by 10% on 01 july 2014 and has been received for 13 months. therefore, timelines are given a percentage decrease. by following the algebraic and algorithm methods shown in figure 16, students must be able to calculate that the rent before increase is r500 and the rent after decrease is r500 × r0.90 = r450. rent – given an increase by amount: students must be able to adjust rent amount if given an increase or decrease in amount. consider the following example from second-year accounting: pre-adjustment trial balance on 31 december 2015: debit credit rent income 27 400 rent increased on 01 july 2015 by r200 per month and has been received for 13 months (figure 17). figure 17: rent calculation given increase in amount. timeline and calculations, given increase by amount. rent – given a decrease by amount: students must be able to form an equation and solve it if rent decreased by an amount per month, and know that the algorithm or shortcut for the decrease in rent amount per month is (see equation 5): algebraic equations in value-added tax (vat) calculation students must be able to prepare or create a vat table and equate proportional fractions and solve for the unknown. they must also be able to derive the formula (method 2) from the last but one step of the algebraic equation (method 1). they need to know the algebraic method in order to verify the answer. if they have forgotten the formula, they need to consider the vat example. they should also understand the problem and apply the mathematical principles relevant to equations, percentages, fractions, proportions and basic operations. these are covered in get mathematics grades 8 and 9 levels before students select mathematics or mathematical literacy in grade 10. calculating vat in terms of the table method assists students in understanding when to use a calculation involving if given selling price excluding vat, and if given the selling price including credit sales (including vat) amount to r141 930. calculate vat (figure 18). figure 18: value-added tax calculation. number patterns (sequences and series) depreciation is the sum-of-the-digits method. consider the following example: debit credit plant (at cost) 110 000 accumulated depreciation on plant 38 000 adjustment and additional information: depreciation must be written off on plant in its third-year, over 10 years, using the sum-of-the-digits method (figure 19). figure 19: sum-of-the-years-digits method. students must be able to form a series in descending order and get the sum of all digits. to get the depreciation, they must know that one has to consider the year and divide by the sum-of-the-years digits and multiply by the cost of an asset without being confused when performing this type of depreciation method. tables students should be able to read financial information from given tables and follow instructions. they must also prepare tables and perform calculations as well as record amounts and details in the appropriate given table columns. financial mathematics in this section, i will show that in financial mathematics there is a clear link that transfers across to accounting, as in formulas, exponents and substitution. this aspect is also referred to as time value of money because money has value over time. if you invest, you must be compensated for waiting or taking risk. all bed accounting students must know financial mathematics formulas. they must remember each of these formulas and be able to substitute values into the formulas, and they must also know how to change the subject of the formula. they must use the calculator to perform the calculation and have knowledge of calculations involving exponents. they must know how to apply the brackets of multiplication, division, addition and subtraction (bomdas) or brackets of division, multiplication, addition and subtraction (bodmas) rule. students must also know the exponential rules, such as equation 6. simple and compound interest: students need to know the simple interest formula and substitute values as well as make p or r or i subject of the formula. as shown in figure 20, simple interest formulas used in mathematics are also used in accounting. figure 20: simple interest – mathematics versus accounting. simple interest: equation 7 is used for calculating simple interest. where i = interest, p = principal amount initially invested or loaned, r = rate of interest and t = term or time of the investment or loan in months. compound interest: equation 8 is used for calculating compound interest. where a = amount received at the end of investment period, p = principal, r = compounded annual interest rate and n = number of years. students need to know the compound interest formula and how to make the subject of the formula and apply the formula to relevant accounting problems. as shown in figure 21, in mathematics, future value (amount) of an investment could be calculated; so n could be 1 year or more. in accounting, the accrual concept says income and expenses must be recognised in the financial year (n = 1 year) in which they relate. figure 21: compound interest – mathematics versus accounting. students must know exponential rules. knowing and understanding exponential rules will help students in applying formulas with exponents. the student must know that the accounting period is 1 year. therefore, n = 1 (see example in table 4). they must be able to substitute from the formula, as shown in figure 22. figure 22: calculating rate of interest. table 4: extract from cash budget of edgewood ltd for january and february 2012. students must know and understand logarithms rules which will help them in using the formula involving logarithms. they must also know how to substitute from the formula and perform the calculation. figure 23 illustrates a step-by-step process of calculation that students must be able to perform. figure 23: date on which the loan was reduced. extract from the statement of financial position of edgewood traders. accounting period ends on 28 february each year: 2015 2014 non-current liabilities (15%) r50 000 r80 000 interest on loan 9 750 12 000 calculate the date on which the loan was reduced. using the formula involving logarithms (from compound interest formula, n made subject of the formula, as shown in figure 23). the equation 9 is used for calculating simple interest: where n = accounting period (1 year), p = principal amount initially invested or loaned, r = rate of interest and t = term or time of the investment or loan in months. simple versus compound depreciation: the purpose of this section is to show that simple and compound interest formulas are used to calculate depreciation, but the sign changes (positive to negative) when calculating depreciation. simple and compound depreciation methods are used for both cost price and diminishing balance methods. accounting students are required to know these formulas for cost price and diminishing depreciation methods in order to be able to perform depreciation calculation when given different values. students must be able to substitute into formulas and know how to change the subject of the formula. students must use a calculator to perform the calculation and have knowledge of calculations involving exponents. cost price (straight line or flat rate) method. simple depreciation: equation 10 is used for calculating simple depreciation: where d = depreciation for the financial year, cp = the cost price of an asset, r = the depreciation rate per year and t = term or time in months. compound depreciation: equation 11 is used for calculating compound depreciation: where n = 1 year (accounting period). students must be able to apply the above formulas to different depreciation calculations. they must also be able to calculate depreciation of tangible asset, if acquired, during the year. diminishing balance (reducing balance or book value or carrying value) method simple depreciation: equation 12 is used for calculating simple depreciation: where d = depreciation for the financial year, cp = the cost price of an asset, ad = accumulated depreciation of an asset, cp – ad = book value at the beginning of the year, r = depreciation rate per year and t = term or time in months. this formula is frequently used by students because it gives depreciation without performing a lot of steps. students must know that one has to first reduce accumulated depreciation from the cost price of an asset (book value of an asset beginning of the financial year) before multiplying by rate (r) and time (t). compound depreciation: students must employ mathematical reasoning when they calculate using different types of simple interest and compound formulas (see equations 12 and 13). to master these calculations they need a lot of practice, which will help to alleviate intimidation that may be caused by a lot of formulas. students must know that table method algebra could be used to solve simple and compound depreciation accounting problems: where: n = 1 year (accounting period) in equation 14, bvey= book value at the end of the financial year, cp = the cost price of an asset, ad = accumulated depreciation of an asset, cp – ad = book value at the beginning of the financial year, r = depreciation rate per year, t = term or time in months: in equation 13, d = depreciation, bvey= book value at the beginning of the financial year and bvey= book value at the end of the financial year. students must be able to use the above formulas for different depreciation calculation activities. they must also be able to calculate deprecation of fixed assets acquired during the financial year, as shown in figure 24: extract: pre-adjustment trial balance of edgewood traders on 28 february 2013 (edac210ec) debit credit vehicles (at cost) 210 000 accumulated depreciation on vehicles 17 100 figure 24: diminishing balance method – simple and compound interest. adjustment and additional information provide depreciation on vehicles at 15% per annum on the diminished balance method. (take into account that a new vehicle was bought on 01 december 2012 for r120 000). statistics (data handling and probability) average and weighted average in the case of the average, students need to understand how to calculate an average, an arithmetic mean (average = [r30 + r20] / 2 = r25), and weighted average, a method of computing a kind of an arithmetic mean of a set of numbers. students must know that, to calculate a weighted average price of shares available, they must divide the total value of shares available by the number of shares available. it is important that students know and understand that to calculate the weighted average, they do not have to divide by two because the answer will be wrong. therefore, they must know the difference between average and weighted average. in the case of weighted average price per share, students need to know that calculating weighted average price per share is a prerequisite for answering the buyback of shares question. consider the following example (from second-year accounting), where the buyback cost is higher than the average price per share: edgewood ltd was established with an authorised share capital of r600 000 ordinary shares. 200 000 shares were issued to the public as follows: 100 000 shares at r8 each and 100 000 shares at r12 each. transaction: 17 march 2013, edgewood ltd repurchased 10 000 shares at a price of r12.50 per share (figures 25 & 26). figure 25: method 1 formula – average price per share. figure 26: formula – weighted average price of inventory available. for the weighted average price of inventory available, students need to know how to calculate the weighted average price of inventory available. students must know the formula and substitute the values from the formula. students must know that the weighted average price of inventory available is multiplied by units on hand at the end of the financial year in order to get the value of closing inventory at the financial year if the business uses the periodic inventory system. the value of closing stock according to the weighted average method is: this amount will affect the calculation of gross profit in the trading account. for both the weighted average price per share and stock available, students must demonstrate a systematic way of thinking (mathematical reasoning) and organising amounts given in calculating the weighted average price. forecasting or projections mathematics concepts such as statistics are used to forecast future cash flows based on several different scenarios. in second-year accounting, data handling and probabilities are used when preparing cash budgets and projections or forecasts (see example in figure 27). students must be able to calculate the variance by comparing the actual and budgeted figures to identify positive or negative variances before expressing opinions on variances. students should be able to identify trends, for example to calculate percentage changes in the cash budget (figure 28). figure 27: consider the following example from second-year accounting. figure 28: cash budget solutions and workings. students should be able to do calculations relevant to specific amounts in the cash budget for the cash sales and cash collected from debtors and payment to creditors. therefore, debtors collection period and creditors payment schedule are important in knowing how to do workings or calculations. not knowing what amounts or percentages to use may prevent students from getting correct answers to record in the cash budget. the students must know and understand concepts like decrease and increase. from projected income statement and the cash budget, they should know how to calculate mark-up percentage, percentage increase or decrease (e.g. in salaries and wages). this means that mathematical reasoning is important and requires a great deal of practice. students not able to identify amounts and having mathematical deficiencies in performing percentage calculations may find this section challenging. the topics in accounting and mathematics compared to find a relationship table 3 and figure 29 show that in the analysis of the accounting course packs, each time a specific part of any transaction, adjustment or additional information under each accounting topic was noted or observed that involved mathematical calculations, calculation was then done and linked to the list of mathematics topics. figure 29: bachelor of education accounting curriculum: elements of mathematics knowledge and skills. i will illustrate the transdisciplinary relationship between mathematics and accounting with the specific topics in mathematics used in accounting. findings the analysis has revealed that basic mathematics skills are crucial to understanding accounting. it is evident that bed accounting students need to be confident of their ability to work with calculations, as many topics illustrated in the examples indicate that most of mathematics (about 90% of it) required in bed accounting should have been covered at get mathematics (grades r–9); this would include for instance, place-value numerical system, basic arithmetic operations, integers, ratios and proportions, formulas, linear equations, mathematical modelling and exponents. only a small part of fet mathematics, grades 10–12, is required for accounting, such as number patterns, averages and weighted averages, projections, logarithms and financial mathematics. the analysis of course packs confirmed that the mathematical content is needed for accounting, as indicated in the literature review. accounting examples provided under each mathematical topic showed that transforming accounting data, through mathematical processes and logic, into useful information for accounting decision-making requires students to understand polya’s (1957) practical rules for solving skills for word problems: understand the problem; devise a plan; carry out the plan; and finally, look back and check your answer. in accounting, students must be able to try other methods if they experience a mental block. it has been shown from the analysis of course packs that algebraic method is important in accounting as it applies to the majority of mathematical accounting problems, meaning that the algebraic method is important for students to know and understand. the algebraic method is also helpful for showing formula from each last but one step of the solution. if students are not happy about an answer they get using a formula, they can simply verify the answer by performing calculations using algebraic method. for students to master algebraic method, they must be familiar with proportional fractions and equations. the calculations performed during the analysis of course packs make it clear that students must show workings or provide or supply a detailed calculation to support their answers, as marks in accounting are awarded for what is shown. students must make sure that workings are cross-referenced to the final solution. conclusion the analysis of bed accounting course packs showed the importance of number operations: the place-value numerical system; basic arithmetic operations; rational numbers (e.g. percentages, fractions and decimals); integers, averages and weighted average; and ratios and proportions. these topics are covered in grades r–9 get mathematics. also apparent from the analysis of bed accounting course packs was the importance of patterns and algebra: formulas, substituting and changing subject of formula; linear equations; mathematical modelling; tables; time value of money and exponents. these topics are covered in grades r–9 get mathematics at school level. the mathematical topics that were found to be important were as follows: number patterns, when calculating depreciation using sum-of-the-digits method; exponents, when performing time value of money activities; and logarithms, when calculating date on which a loan or investment was reduced or increased. number patterns, exponents and logarithms are found in the grades 10–12 fet mathematics, as are time value of money formulas (e.g. simple and compound interest and simple and compound depreciation). time value of money is part of both grades 10–12 fet mathematics and grades 10–12 fet mathematical literacy (department of basic education 2003). for lecturers, in-service teachers and subject advisers, the results of this study will assist with the delivery of the accounting curriculum and provide learning approaches that might alleviate negative attitudes towards mathematics. the analysis of accounting course packs showed, for example that table method algebra is important in accounting as it assists in getting the answers in almost all mathematical accounting tasks in each accounting module and also indicates a formula that students can use as an algorithm. the formula is derived from the last but one step from the answer. to master the table method algebra, students must know proportional fractions and linear equations. because students are advised to show workings or supply a detailed calculation to support their answers as marks in accounting are awarded for what is shown, they need to make sure that workings are cross-referenced to the final solution. it was also found that transforming accounting data through a mathematical process, logic and application into useful information for accounting decision-making requires students to understand polya’s (1957) practical rules for solving word problems. implications for lecturers, in-service teachers and subject advisers lecturers, in-service teachers and subject advisers should follow the accounting calculation methods indicated in this study, as this will assist with the delivery of the accounting curriculum in higher education and basic education. the accounting calculation methods provide innovative learning approaches that might assist in alleviating negative attitudes towards mathematics. implications for textbook 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to teach accounting principles’, social science research network 1(2), 1–25. webster, m., 2018, definition of mathematics, viewed 28 august 2014, from www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/mathematics yunker, p.j., yunker, j.a. & krull, g.w., 2009, ‘the influence of mathematics ability on performance in principles of accounting’, the accounting educators’ journal xix, 1–20. abstract introduction literature research methodology results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) liezel cilliers department information systems, faculty of management and commerce, university of fort hare, east london, south africa citation cilliers l. perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying amongst university students in the eastern cape province, south africa. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a776. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.776 original research perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying amongst university students in the eastern cape province, south africa liezel cilliers received: 28 oct. 2019; accepted: 29 oct. 2020; published: 20 july 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract cyberbullying in south africa has become a problem in the recent past. however, there is a lack of research focusing on cyberbullying at the university level. this study investigates the perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying amongst tertiary students in the eastern cape province. the study used a quantitative survey approach to collect data from 150 students at a university in the eastern cape. the results indicated that one-third of the students had been victims of cyberbullying. overall, students considered cyberbullying as a serious issue, but less than one-third of the students could identify the indirect methods of cyberbullying. the topic has not been incorporated into policy or the university curriculum in south africa. this study recommends that the department of higher education must provide a standardised policy and curriculum on cyberbullying that universities can use to implement and enforce cyber safety behaviour at the university. keywords: curriculum; cyberbullying; eastern cape higher education; policy; students. introduction generation z has made social media a fundamental part of their lives.1 mander et al.2 found that, on average, generation z spends 163 min a day on social networks and messaging sites. this statistic can be attributed to the fact that this generation was the first to have grown up in a world with constant internet technology and connectivity1. generation z is a group of people who were born in the period 1995–2012. the youngsters in this group are comfortable with technology and use various social platforms to socialise with their friends and family.3 social media exposes the user to digital crimes such as identity theft, inappropriate material and cyberbullying.4 cyberbullying is defined as ‘any behaviour performed through electronic or digital media by individuals or groups that repeatedly communicates hostile or aggressive messages intended to inflict harm or discomfort on others’ (p. 278).5 according to the definition, technology must be used to bully, harass or threaten the victim. this type of harassment is very difficult to stop as technology is being used in all parts of our lives, thus creating a power imbalance.6,7 meyers et al.8 found that there is an increased interest in cyberbullying in students older than 16 years around the world, in countries such as canada, finland, the united states of america and the united kingdom. these studies found that the impact of cyberbullying may be as severe for the older population as amongst children. the negative effects of cyberbullying include long-term impact on psychosocial development, self-esteem, academic achievement and mental health problems such as depression and social anxiety. farhangpour et al.9 found that 55% of learners in limpopo had experienced some form of cyberbullying in the past, whilst the international mathematics and science study (timss) found that 17% of grade 9 students in south africa reported being exposed to some form of bullying on a weekly basis.10 these studies were conducted amongst school learners in south africa, but less attention has been given to tertiary students in the country.11,12,13 cilliers et al.14 reported that 45.5% of student teachers whom they surveyed had previously been victims of cyberbullying. young adults and university students, in particular, have increased access to social media, which is now unsupervised as they become independent adults and, thus, the impact of cyberbullying must be investigated within this cohort.13 kraft et al.15 reported that being a victim of cyberbullying in high school was a significant risk factor to be cyberbullied at university. this study attempts to fill this gap in the literature. the objective of the study is to investigate the perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying amongst tertiary students in the eastern cape province. the rest of the article will discuss the literature that supports cyberbullying in south african universities, followed by the research method that was used to collect data, the analysis and discussion of these results and finally the conclusion. literature the digital population in south africa consists of 31.18 million internet users, of which 28.99 million users access the internet on their mobile devices.16 generation z is considered the excessive users of the internet as they must have access to technology at all times. when the internet is not available, they experience ‘social phobia’ or ‘social anxiety disorders’ as they fear they may be missing out. furthermore, excessive use of social media can result in vision defects, impaired academic performance, attention problems, sleep disorders and behavioural problems amongst students.17 there are various types of cyberbullying that students can be subjected to in the digital environment. table 1 provides an overview of the different types of cyberbullying.5,18 table 1: types of cyberbullying. valcke et al.19 provided the ‘five cs’ as a framework for researchers to conceptualise online behaviour and cyberbullying. the first c refers to the context where students spend time online. the social media penetration rate in south africa is 40% of the population, with facebook being the most popular with a penetration rate of 53% of all users, followed by linkedin (18%), instagram (9%), twitter (4%) and snapchat (3%). cyberbullying can potentially impact these south african internet users.16 the second c stands for online contacts or social relationships that students have on social media. students prefer using social media to communicate and interact with friends and family; hence, they belong to at least one social network for this purpose, which makes cyberbullying a relevant issue amongst this group.1 the third and fourth cs refer to how students manage their confidentiality online and their general online conduct, which extends to technical skills and self-regulation. students are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they did in the past, but most reported high confidence in their ability to manage their privacy settings, whilst 60% said that they prefer to keep their facebook profiles private. however, cyberbullying can occur regardless of these countermeasures, and as the student is connected to the internet continuously, it becomes very difficult to avoid or stop cyberbullying.20 the last c refers to the content that the students are uploading, use and access, which can be used to perpetrate or become the victim of cyberbullying. social media has become an extension of the identity of the generation z users, which makes the impact of cyberbullying much more powerful.21 the bully can avoid confrontation as technology provides them with the means to stay anonymous. in addition, cyberbullying is often more aggressive than traditional bullying as the bully does not experience empathy and remorse towards their targets as they are not aware of the consequences of their behaviour.22 cyberbullies are more likely to have lower levels of guilt, shame and remorse when they engage in cyberbullying because of the anonymity that the internet provides.23,24 the amount of time that students spend online, and in particular on social media sites, has been shown to predict the likelihood of being involved in cyberbullying.8 social media, particularly facebook, is the most common medium used for cyberbullying amongst university students.13 lindsay et al.25 also found that owning a smartphone is a risk factor for cyberbullying amongst university students. additional risk factors include the status of the student, if they belong to a fraternity, political or other influential organisation, relationship difficulties and sexual orientation.8 the consequences of cyberbullying amongst students included depression, low self-esteem, poor academic performance and even suicide. little research has been conducted amongst students about coping strategies to deal with cyberbullying. some of the coping strategies that have been identified amongst high school students include ignoring or avoiding bullying, doing nothing or retaliation.13 schenk et al.26 reported similar results amongst students at an american university, which dealt with cyberbullying by telling someone to avoid friends or take revenge on the bully. typically, students prefer to speak to peers, then parents and lastly the university staff about cyberbullying. the most popular online coping strategy seems to be ‘blocking’ the cyberbully and staying away from the social media site where the bullying is taking place whilst offline coping strategy relies on seeking help from friends. these coping strategies point to university students engaging in autonomous and problem-focused coping strategies to deal with cyberbullying.27 there is a general lack of awareness and responsiveness about cyberbullying in south africa. there is no legislation in south africa that prohibits cyberbullying.24 schools do not include the topic in their curriculum and do not have a policy on how to prevent and deal with cyberbullying.4,28,29 at home, parents have a limited understanding of how their children interact with the internet and are not able to provide adequate education to their children about cyberbullying.4,23 many internet users do not know where to turn for assistance if they are the victim of cyberbullying. they lack awareness and knowledge of how to protect themselves and their personal information online. young people do not report cyberbullying because of these problems. the consequences of cyberbullying for the student have been reported in the literature to be low self-esteem, family problems, academic problems, school violence, delinquent behaviour and suicidal thoughts.6,24 research methodology this research study employed a positivistic paradigm with a quantitative approach. the study used a survey to collect data from 150 university students aged 19–30 years across all levels of study and the five faculties in the university (see table 3). the survey was based on the published work from molluzzo et al.,30 which compared the perceptions of cyberbullying amongst faculty and students. the instrument was adopted for this study and consisted of 5 sections and 24 items overall. section a (seven questions) solicited demographic information from respondents, whilst section b (three questions) measured the overall perception of cyberbullying. section c (four questions) measured the awareness about cyberbullying of the respondents, whilst section d (six questions) measured the perceived severity of cyberbullying. section e included four questions about the cyberbullying curriculum and policy issues at the university. section f tested the personal experience of the respondents with cyberbullying (two questions). sections c–f used a four-point likert scale (where 1 denotes strongly disagree and 4, strongly agree) to test the perceptions of students regarding cyberbullying. ethical clearance was obtained to conduct the study before the data collection. the questionnaire was randomly distributed to a convenience sample of respondents over 1 week. a total of 150 questionnaires were returned. statistical analyses were done using spss v24. cronbach’s alpha coefficient (α) was used to test for internal consistency of the instrument and found to be 0.730, which is deemed to be acceptable.31 ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for carrying out research. results descriptive analysis was conducted to examine the perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying amongst university students. table 2 presents the descriptive data for the study sample of 150 respondents. table 2: demographic information of respondents. almost two-thirds (65.3%) of the respondents were undergraduate, which is consistent with the composition of the student population of the university. the majority of the students (83.3%) indicated that they use social media daily, with facebook being the most popular social media site (51.3%). not surprising for generation z students, 86% indicated that their level of experience with social media is either excellent or good. the study population consisted of university students who were registered for various degrees across five faculties of a traditional university. table 3 provides an overview of the composition of the students per faculty. table 3: number of students per faculty. figure 1 presents the various methods that can be used to cyberbully an individual. the respondents in the study were asked to indicate which of these methods they considered to be associated with cyberbullying. the most recognised methods were sending or posting harassing messages or pictures on social media or instant messaging (im). sexting, exclusion and unauthorised access to emails and mobile phones were recognised as cyberbullying by less than one-third of the respondents. figure 1: methods that can be used to cyberbully. the respondents were asked whom they would report cyberbullying to if they were the victims of such an act. a small number of students (4.7%) stated that they would not tell anyone, whilst the majority told they would report it to a councillor at the university (63.3%) or the head of the department where they studied (50.7%). a total of 42% students stated that they would inform the police whilst 22.7% said they would inform the parents of the perpetrator. when asked about what they thought would be an appropriate penalty for cyberbullying, the majority of respondents reported that a warning letter (63.3%) or suspension (65.3%) would be an appropriate punitive measure, whilst 30.0% indicated that immediate expulsion was warranted. only 3.3% of the respondents indicated that no penalty should be given for cyberbullying. awareness this category tested the awareness of cyberbullying amongst the respondents in their local schools and in south africa. the majority of respondents (90.7%) have heard of cyberbullying, whilst 66% of respondents were aware of specific cyberbullying that occurred outside the university. a total of 70.0% of the respondents indicated that they were aware of cyberbullying that happened within the university. half of the respondents (54.7%) felt that they were knowledgeable about how the law addresses cyberbullying in south africa. the results are presented in table 4. table 4: awareness of cyberbullying among students. the seriousness of cyberbullying the prevalence of cyberbullying at the university was 36% amongst this group of respondents, whilst 17.3% of the respondents admitted that they have engaged in cyberbullying (table 5). slightly more respondents stated that cyberbullying was a problem for their friends than for themselves (69.3% vs. 62.0%). however, 74.6% of respondents felt that cyberbullying was a serious issue at the university in general. this is supported by the findings that 88.7% of the respondents felt that cyberbullying was an invasion of their privacy and 90% was wrong. table 5: perception of seriousness of cyberbullying. prevention of cyberbullying cyberbullying was not addressed within the various courses the respondents were registered for, as illustrated by 34% of respondents who agreed that cyberbullying was discussed in their classes and 73.3% of respondents who indicated that the topic should be included in the curriculum. at the university administrative level, only 28.7% of the respondents stated that they were aware of a cyberbullying policy at the university, whilst 87.4% felt the university could do more to promote awareness about cyberbullying amongst students (table 6). table 6: prevention of cyberbullying. pearson’s correlation coefficient is used to show the relationship or association between two continuous variables. the coefficient provides information about the magnitude and direction of the relationship.31 a pearson’s test revealed several significant differences for gender, year of study and which social media site the respondents used: undergraduate students were more aware of cyberbullying than postgraduate students (r = 0.170; p < 0.05). undergraduate students felt that cyberbullying was a serious issue at the university (r = 0.163; p < 0.05). female students indicated that cyberbullying was a serious issue for their friends (r = 0.166; p < 0.05). students who used facebook felt that cyberbullying was a serious issue at the university (r = 0.061; p < 0.05). discussion this study investigated the perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying amongst tertiary students in the eastern cape. cyberbullying is a prevalent issue, with most of the respondents (70.0%) indicating that they are knowledgeable about the issue. more female respondents felt that cyberbullying was a serious issue. punyanunt-carter32 reported that female students are more likely than their male counterparts to report cyberbullying as they have more relational interactions online and disclose more personal information online. more than one-third of the respondents (36.0%) indicated that they had previously been victims of cyberbullying themselves. this is in line with the results of studies conducted by de lange et al.,4 which reported a prevalence of 36% of cyberbullying amongst school learners in south africa, and kokkinos et al.,13 which reported that cyberbullying in higher education can range between 10% and 35%. of concern was that 17.3% of the respondents stated that they had previously been perpetrators of cyberbullying. meyer et al.8 reported that there is a continuation of cyberbullying from high school to university level, with about half of bullies and victims reporting that they were already perpetrators or victims of cyberbullying at school. bullies may view their behaviour as acceptable and ‘normal’ and as there are less accountability and consequences for their actions from parents or university management, the behaviour may escalate. it is thus no surprise that the majority of respondents (74.6%) stated that cyberbullying was a serious issue at the university. the coping mechanisms of the respondents were mostly to inform authority figures, such as the head of department or counsellor on the campus, of cyberbullying attempts. only a small proportion of respondents (4.7%) would not tell anyone that they were cyberbullied. meyer et al.8 found that university counselling services should play an important role to combat cyberbullying. the personnel should be aware of the seriousness of cyberbullying and provide screening tools to identify psychological issues, such as depression or anxiety, for students who report cyberbullying. authority figures at the university level should be familiar with strategies to mitigate cyberbullying, such as blocking and reporting mechanisms. most of the respondents identified direct cyberbullying behaviours, such as harassment of someone making use of pictures on facebook or harmful messages on instant messaging. however, very few respondents recognised indirect cyberbullying behaviour, such as unauthorised access to their email or cellphone, exclusion from social media or sexting as cyberbullying. indirect cyberbullying behaviour is tended to damage the reputation of the victim, interfere with relationships or exclude the victim from social media sites.13 to address cyberbullying at the university level, 73.3% of the respondents felt that the topic should be included in the curriculum of the various degrees, whilst 87.4% wanted the university to do more to promote awareness regarding the topic. this is probably because only one-third of the respondents (34%) were taught about cyberbullying in their classes.29 the university does not have a cyberbullying policy, which makes it surprising that 28% of the respondents indicated that they were familiar with such a policy. the respondents most likely confused the policy on the use of the information and communications technology (ict) infrastructure of the university with a policy that is dedicated to cyberbullying. south africa does not have any specific legal avenues for victims of cyberbullying to pursue and instead rely on the national cyber security policy framework for south africa, the child protection act and proposed cybercrimes and cybersecurity bill. meyers et al.8 reported that this is a global problem as many universities across the world lack policies on cyberbullying, whilst many countries do not recognise cyberbullying as a crime. conclusion this study investigated the perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying amongst tertiary students in the eastern cape province, south africa. cyberbullying has become an essential issue as generation z, representing students at university, has more access to technology and is connected to the internet all the time. however, not much has been done at national or university level to protect the students from the negative consequences of cyberbullying. the study found that students felt that cyberbullying was a serious issue, with one-third of the students being victims of cyberbullying. most students could identify direct cyberbullying methods, but lack insight into indirect cyberbullying. the most popular coping mechanism for cyberbullying was to report the matter to a councillor or the head of the department at the university. cyberbullying was included in the curriculum at the university but only in one-third of the classes. however, most students indicated that the university should do more to address cyberbullying, using curriculum content or policy. the limitations of the study are that the findings from populations at one university may not be generalised without caution. cyberbullying is a sensitive issue that needs to be addressed with caution, but more insight regarding the topic could be collected through interviews. this study collected data only through a survey that may not be enough to address the in-depth knowledge required for the topic. future opportunities for research in this area are essential because of the limited knowledge about cyberbullying in the university setting. acknowledgements competing interests the author has declared that no competing interest exists. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research article. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this 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i, skea b. teachers’ understanding of e-safety: an exploratory case in kzn south africa. electron j inf syst dev ctries. 2015;70(1):1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2015.tb00505.x kritzinger e. short-term initiatives for enhancing cyber-safety within south african schools. s afr comput j. 2016;28(1):1–17. https://doi.org/10.18489/sacj.v28i1.369 molluzzo jc, lawler jp. a comparison of faculty and students perceptions of cyberbullying. j inf syst educ. 2014;12(2):47–63. pallant j. a step by step guide to data analysis using ibm spss. sydney: allen & unwin; 2013. punyanunt-carter n. an analysis of college students’ self-disclosure behaviours on the internet. coll stud j. 2006;40:329–331. abstract opsomming inleiding die wêreldhandelnetwerk suid-afrika se veranderende posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk gevolgtrekking erkenning literatuurverwysings footnotes about the author(s) burgert a. senekal unit for language facilitation and empowerment, university of the free state, south africa citation senekal, b.a., 2017, ‘’n verkenning van suid-afrika se veranderende posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk 1948–1994’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a430. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.430 original research ’n verkenning van suid-afrika se veranderende posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk 1948–1994 burgert a. senekal received: 10 mar. 2017; accepted: 22 june 2017; published: 31 aug. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract an exploration of south africa’s changing position in the world trade network 1948–1994. the world trade network (wtn) has been studied as a network in numerous studies. however, countries with smaller economies are usually neglected in discussions of the wtn, and hence this article investigates the changing position of a much smaller country, south africa, under different leaders from 1948 to 1994. it is shown, in particular, how the widespread sanctions incurred under the leadership of p.w. botha (1978–1989) had a profound effect on south africa’s position in the wtn. using degree, closeness and betweenness centralities, as well as the country’s rankings on these centrality measures, it is shown that south africa started as a peripheral country while still a colony of britain, moved closer to the core of the wtn under h.f. verwoerd and b.j. vorster, but then sanctions pushed south africa to the periphery under p.w. botha, before south africa again moved closer to the core during f.w. de klerk’s presidency. opsomming die wêreldhandelnetwerk is in verskeie studies as ’n netwerk bestudeer, maar lande met kleiner ekonomieë word gewoonlik in die besprekings van die wêreldhandelnetwerk verwaarloos. daarom ondersoek hierdie artikel die veranderende posisie van ’n veel kleiner land, suid-afrika, onder verskillende leiers van 1948 tot 1994. daar word veral gewys hoe die wydverspreide sanksies wat ingestel is tydens die bewind van p.w. botha (1978–1989) ’n groot invloed op suid-afrika se posisie in die wtn gehad het. deur middel van graad-, nabyheiden tussenliggingsentraliteit, sowel as die land se ranglys ten opsigte van hierdie sentraliteitaanduiders, word aangetoon dat suid-afrika as ‘n randland begin het, terwyl dit nog ‘n kolonie van brittanje was, nader aan die kern van die wêreldhandelnetwerk onder h.f. verwoerd en b.j. vorster beweeg het, maar toe het sanksies suid-afrika onder p.w. botha na die periferie gedruk, voordat suid-afrika weer tydens die f.w. de klerk se presidentskap nader aan die kern beweeg het. inleiding die houding van die internasionale gemeenskap het ’n beduidende rol in suid-afrika se politieke transformasie in die laat tagtigeren vroeë negentigerjare gespeel (aucamp 2010:119). wessels en marx (2008:71) let daarop dat daar sedert republiekwording in 1961 reeds pogings was om die republiek van suid-afrika (rsa) internasionaal te isoleer, byvoorbeeld vn resolusies 181 en 182 van 1963, wat die verkope van wapens aan die rsa beperk het; resolusie 1775d van 1971 wat ’n beroep op lidlande gedoen het om suid-afrikaanse sport te boikot; resolusie 418 van 1977 wat ’n verpligte wapenboikot ingestel het, ensovoorts. teen die laat sewentigerjare merk vosloo (1978:126) die verskillende vorme van druk op die rsa om sy politieke stelsel te verander. sulke druk sluit in dié van die organisering van handelsboikotte, isolasieveldtogte en steun aan sogenaamde ‘bevrydingsbewegings’ deur die organisasie vir afrika eenheid (oae), propaganda, opleiding van terroriste en die infiltrering van politieke, kulturele en ekonomiese organisasies deur die sowjetunie en sy bondgenote, asook druk deur verskeie organisasies en regerings vanuit die weste. hierdie druk het deur die tagtigerjare toegeneem: na die noodtoestand in junie 1985 verklaar is, het frankryk ekonomiese sanksies teen die rsa ingestel, amerikaanse banke het hul lenings onttrek, buitelandse maatskappye het onttrek en die statebond het beperkinge op invoere vanaf die rsa ingestel. die verenigde state van amerika (vsa) het op sy beurt in 1986 die comprehensive anti-apartheid act ingestel wat verdere sanksies en boikotte meegebring het (van wyk en grobler 2007:44). na f.w. de klerk se aankondiging op 2 februarie 1990 dat apartheid afgeskaf sou word, het die rsa stelselmatig van sy isolasie herstel. die impak van sanksies word wyd gedebatteer. in ’n toespraak gelewer in 1986 by ’n kongres van die nasionale party, het die eertydse minister van finansies, b.j. du plessis, aangevoer dat sanksies in daardie stadium reeds ’n ‘voelbare invloed op die uitbreiding in ons internasionale handel begin uitoefen het’ (du plessis 1986a:3). giliomee (2012:409) let egter op hoe genuanseerd die impak was: sanksies kon die suid-afrikaanse staat nie tot ’n val bring nie en dit het die middelklas nie juis finansieel seergemaak nie. dikwels het buitelandse maatskappye wat onttrek het hul plaaslike belange goedkoop aan ’n suid-afrikaanse maatskappy verkoop. handelsbande met die weste het wel as gevolg van sanksies verswak, maar terselfdertyd het dié met asië verbeter. die totale buitelandse handel het gegroei. teen die einde van 1986 het die land ’n handelsoorskot van r15 miljard gehad. die verbod op nuwe buitelandse lenings en beleggings het sakevertroue egter wel kwaai geskaad. suid-afrika se ekonomiese groeikoers het toenemend gedaal, wat nog groter werkloosheid meegebring het. (kyk ook central intelligence agency 1989:37–38) daar is reeds ’n groot aantal studies gepubliseer wat die kwessie van sanksies ondersoek, onder andere dié van j.h. du plessis (1986b), lubbe (1990), le roux (1992), crawford en klotz (1999), stemmet (2002), wessels en marx (2008), aucamp (2010) en thomson (2012). die onderhawige artikel ondersoek die impak van sanksies op die rsa se handelsbetrekkinge vanuit ’n ander invalshoek: suid-afrika se veranderende posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk vanuit die perspektief van die netwerkteorie. met behulp van data saamgestel deur barbieri en keshk (2014)1, en vermeld in barbieri, keshk en pollins (2009), volg die huidige studie die diachroniese studie van die wêreldhandelnetwerk van de benedictis en tajoli’s (2011), deur ondersoek in te stel na suid-afrika se veranderende posisie in dié netwerk onder die bewind van die nasionale party (np) (1948 – 1994). in navolging van vicarelli et al. (2013) en de benedictis en tajoli (2011) – asook die studie van senekal, stemmet en stemmet (2015) van die internasionale wapenhandelnetwerk – konsentreer die onderhawige studie op die posisies van enkele lande eerder as op die struktuur van die hele netwerk, en onderneem dus ’n sogenaamde nodusvlakontleding (wat konsentreer op die posisie van ’n nodus in die netwerk). dié ontleding sluit in die aanwending van sentraliteitsaanduiders wat binne die netwerkteorie ontwikkel is, onder meer graadsentraliteit (‘degree centrality’), tussenliggingsentraliteit (‘betweenness centrality’), en nabyheidsentraliteit (‘closeness centrality’). die oogmerk van die huidige studie is om ondersoek in te stel na die mate waarin suid-afrika se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk onder die bewind van die np verander het, en tot watter mate die impak van sanksies uit hierdie veranderende posisies waargeneem kan word. die wêreldhandelnetwerk die netwerkteoretiese bestudering van ekonomiese interaksies tussen lande is ’n bekende benaderingswyse in makro-ekonomiese studies. francois quesnay (1758) se studie van finansiële netwerke word gesien as die eerste netwerkbenadering tot ekonomiese sisteme, en volg kort na die eerste eksperiment in die wiskundige grafiekteorie, leonard euler se königsberg-brugprobleem van 1736 (estrada 2012:400). die volkebond het in 1942 the network of world trade gepubliseer, waarin internasionale handel beskryf word as ‘much more than the exchange of goods between one country and another; it is an intricate network that cannot be rent without loss’ (league of nations 1942:7). na afloop van die sewentigerjare het snyder en kick (1979), asook steiber (1979), globale ekonomiese interaksies tussen lande as ’n sisteem of netwerk bestudeer, en dié benaderingswyse het toenemend veld gewen sedert die negentigerjare. ’n netwerkbenadering kan aangewend word om verbruikersnetwerke, aandeelhouersnetwerke tussen maatskappye of netwerke van maatskappydirekteure te bestudeer, maar dit kan ook aangewend word om die handelsverbintenisse tussen lande te ontleed, en squartini, fagiolo en garlaschelli (2011:0461171) beaam dat die wêreldhandelnetwerk onlangs hernude belangstelling vanuit die wetenskap ontvang het. schiavo, reyes en fagiolo (2010) voer ook aan: in the last decades, a large body of empirical contributions has increasingly addressed the study of socio-economic systems in the framework of complex network analysis. while the idea is not new, recent works have stressed the ability of this approach to capture the essential characteristics of interacting systems by investigating the whole structure of relations among agents while disregarding their detailed nature. (p. 389) terwyl die wêreldhandelnetwerk in verskeie onlangse studies binne die raamwerk van die netwerkteorie bestudeer is, byvoorbeeld deur serrano en boguna (2003); garlaschelli en loffredo (2005); fagiolo, schiavo en reyes (2008, 2009, 2010); schiavo, reyes en fagiolo (2010); de benedictis en tajoli (2011); squartini et al. (2011); fagiolo, squartini en garlaschelli (2013), asook vicarelli et al. (2013), word lande met kleiner ekonomieë gewoonlik in sulke studies oor die hoof gesien. suid-afrika het wel ’n baie kleiner ekonomie wat aansienlik minder belangrik is vir die funksionering van die wêreldhandelnetwerk as byvoorbeeld die vsa; en in de benedictis en tajoli (2011:1418) word suid-afrika slegs op ’n terloopse wyse in ’n voetnoot genoem. die huidige studie fokus dan spesifiek op suid-afrika se posisie in dié netwerk. ’n netwerk bestaan uit nodusse (‘nodes’ of ‘vertices’), en hul skakels (‘ties’ of ‘edges’, en in die geval waar rigting aangedui is, ‘arcs’) (vir ’n oorsig oor die netwerkteorie, kyk newman 2010). in die geval van die wêreldhandelnetwerk word lande met nodusse voorgestel en hul handelsbetrekkinge met skakels. in ’n netwerkontleding word die klem geplaas op die verhoudings tussen nodusse in die netwerk en op die netwerkstruktuur eerder as op die individuele eienskappe van die nodusse (de benedictis en tajoli 2011:1418). de benedictis en tajoli stel die netwerkbenadering tot internasionale handel eenvoudig: a natural way of representing the trade flow between two countries is by means of a straight line segment connecting two points representing the trading countries. the segment can be directed, like an arrow, if we knew that the flow originates from one of the two countries and is bound to the second one. we could also attach a value to it indicating the strength of the flow, or we can make the drawing even more complex, including additional information about the countries or the links. if we do the same for all countries in the world, our drawing of international trade flows becomes a graph and, including in the picture all supplementary information about vertices and links, the result would be a network: the world trade network. (p. 1417) in sommige netwerke is die rigting van skakels nie van belang nie, byvoorbeeld in ’n maatskappydirekteurnetwerk – soos byvoorbeeld deur durbach, katshunga en parker (2013) bestudeer – waar skakels bloot aandui dat twee direksielede saam op dieselfde maatskappy se direksie dien, en dit dus nie moontlik is vir een direksielid om saam met ’n ander op ’n direksie te dien sonder dat die omgekeerde ook waar is nie. in die geval van die wêreldhandelnetwerk is rigting egter belangrik: terwyl us$3.8 miljoen (in 2014 us$) vanaf suid-afrika na die sowjetunie gevloei het tydens die bewind van h.f. verwoerd en us$0.3 miljoen vanaf die sowjetunie na suid-afrika tydens dieselfde tydperk, maak die rigting van daardie vloei ’n beduidende verskil. omdat die rigting van skakels so belangrik in die wêreldhandelnetwerk is, word dit hier in navolging van onder andere fagiolo et al. (2013), asook de benedictis en tajoli (2011) aangedui. ’n netwerkontleding kan op ’n makro-, mesoen/of mikrovlak geskied (borge-holthoefer & arenas 2010; müller-linow 2008). tydens ’n makrovlakontleding word die struktuur van die hele netwerk bestudeer, en fasette soos die gemiddelde pad tussen nodusse (l), gemiddelde groepsvorming of oorganklikheid (‘clustering’ of ‘transitivity’ c [watts & strogatz 1998]), asook skakelverspreidingspatrone (barabási & albert 1999) word bestudeer. tydens ’n mesovlakontleding word ’n netwerk se gemeenskapstruktuur bestudeer, byvoorbeeld deur gebruik te maak van die konsep van modulariteit (newman 2006). tydens ’n mikrovlakontleding (nodusvlak) word die belangrikheid van individuele nodusse in die netwerk bestudeer, byvoorbeeld deur die aanwending van freeman (1977) se graad-, tussenliggingen nabyheidsentraliteit (onderskeidelik ‘degree’, ‘betweenness’ en ‘closeness centrality’). die huidige studie onderneem ’n mikrovlakontleding. alhoewel die fokus hier val op die individuele nodus, naamlik die rsa se posisie in die netwerk, word nie slegs plaaslike fasette van die rsa se handelsbetrekkinge in ag geneem nie. de benedictis en tajoli (2011:1423) skryf: … when analysing a country’s trade patterns, not only its individual characteristics should be taken into account but also its interactions with its actual or potential trade partners and its position in the network of trade flows. ten einde sulke verdere interaksies te bestudeer, word gebruik gemaak van wat squartini et al. (2011:0461171) ‘eienskappe van ’n hoër orde’ noem: ‘higher-order characteristics are more complicated structural properties that also involve indirect interactions, i.e., topological paths connecting a country to the neighbors of its neighbors, or to countries farther apart’. hoërorde-eienskappe word bestudeer met behulp van byvoorbeeld tussenliggingen nabyheidsentraliteit, terwyl plaaslike eienskappe bestudeer word met behulp van graadsentraliteit, soos vervolgens in meer besonderhede bespreek word. graadsentraliteit meet die getal direkte skakels wat ’n nodus het en is ’n aanduiding van hoe aktief ’n nodus by ’n netwerk betrokke is. in die huidige handelsnetwerk dui graadsentraliteit aan met hoeveel ander lande ’n land handel gedryf het, en lande met die hoogste graadsentraliteit is eenvoudig die lande wat die grootste getal handelsvennote het. meer formeel word graadsentraliteit (cd) met behulp van vergelyking 1 vir nodus i bereken (prell 2012:97). in vergelyking (1) dui xij die waarde aan van die skakel tussen nodus i en j (0 of 1), en n dui die getal nodusse in die netwerk aan. graadsentraliteit lig soms belangrike nodusse in ’n netwerk uit (müller-linow 2008:5), afhangende van die netwerk wat ondersoek word: in de benedictis en tajoli se studie (2011) het die verenigde koningryk (vk) byvoorbeeld die hoogste graadsentraliteit in 1980 gehad, en die vsa die hoogste in 2000. lande met ’n hoë graadsentraliteit, met ander woorde lande wat met ’n groot getal lande handel dryf, beklee uiteraard ’n belangrike posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk omdat hulle vir ’n groot deel van die vloei van hulpbronne verantwoordelik is. aangesien die rigting van skakels in die huidige ondersoek aangedui is, kan ook onderskei word tussen inen uitgraad. inen uitgraad dui dan op onderskeidelik die getal lande waarvandaan land a ingevoer het en die getal lande waarheen land a uitgevoer het. ingraad word met behulp van vergelyking 2 vir nodus i bereken (prell 2012:100), waar xij soos in vergelyking 1 die waarde van die skakel tussen nodus i en j (0 of 1) aandui, en n dui die getal nodusse in die netwerk. uitgraad word dan met behulp van vergelyking 3 vir nodus i bereken (prell 2012:100). graadsentraliteit meet egter net plaaslike eienskappe van die handelsnetwerk rondom ’n nodus, alhoewel dít steeds van belang is en aansluit by meer tradisionele ondersoeke na ’n land se handelsbetrekkinge: … the standard economic approach to the empirics of international trade has traditionally focused its analyses on the statistical properties of country-specific indicators like total trade, trade openness (ratio of total trade to gdp [gross domestic product]), number of trade partners, etc., that can be easily mapped to what, in the jargon of network analysis, one denotes as local properties or first-order node characteristics. (squartini et al. 2011:0461171) om die groter konteks van ’n land se handelsbetrekkinge te ondersoek en daardie land se posisie in die algehele netwerk te bepaal, kan beide tussenliggingsentraliteit as nabyheidsentraliteit aangewend word. tussenliggingsentraliteit meet tot hoe ’n mate kort paaie in die netwerk deur ’n enkele nodus loop en is gewoonlik ’n aanduider wat die belangrikste nodusse in ’n netwerk identifiseer (caldarelli 2013:253; prell 2012:107; vicarelli, et al. 2013:24). in de benedictis en tajoli (2011:1434) het die vk byvoorbeeld konsekwent ’n hoë tussenliggingsentraliteit sedert die sestigerjare gehad: in 1960 het dié land die tweede hoogste tussenliggingsentraliteit gehad, in 1980 was die vk eerste, en derde in 2000. die vsa was derde in 1960, sewende in 1980, en eerste in 2000 (saam met duitsland). tussenliggingsentraliteit word met behulp van vergelyking 4 vir nodus k bereken (prell 2012:105). in vergelyking (4) dui ∂ikj op die hoeveelheid kort paaie wat nodusse i en j verbind en wat deur nodus k loop, en ∂ij die getal kort paaie wat nodusse i en j verbind. nabyheidsentraliteit meet tot hoe ’n mate ’n nodus gemiddeld enige ander nodus met ’n kort pad kan bereik (vicarelli, et al. 2013:28), en is ’n aanduiding van watter nodusse binne die kern van ’n netwerk funksioneer (müller-linow 2008:17). nodusse wat binne die kern van ’n netwerk funksioneer, is gewoonlik meer gevestig en invloedryk as dié op die periferie. nabyheidsentraliteit (cc) word bereken met behulp van vergelyking 5 vir nodus i (prell 2012:108). in vergelyking (5) dui dij die afstand aan (ten opsigte van netwerkstruktuur, nie geografiese afstand nie) wat nodus i met nodus j verbind. al bogenoemde sentraliteitsaanduiders word in die volgende afdeling aangewend om suid-afrika se veranderende posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk te ondersoek. suid-afrika se veranderende posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk die np het in 1948 die algemene verkiesing gewen en was aan bewind totdat mag in 1994 aan die african national congress (anc) oorhandig is. tot 1984 was die uitvoerende mag van die land se leierskap in die amp van die eerste minister gesetel, maar daarna het p.w. botha die uitvoerende mag na die amp van die staatspresident geskuif. alhoewel daar staatspresidente voor 1984 was, was die werklike leier van die land dus die eerste minister tot 1984, en die staatspresident daarna. die leierskap van suid-afrika was daarom soos volg vanaf 1948 tot 1994 (sien tabel 1). tabel 1: leierskap van suid-afrika vanaf 1948 tot 1994. wanneer die wêreldhandelnetwerk vir dié tydperke ondersoek word, verander die getal lande wat handel gedryf het (nodusse n) en hul getal handelsbetrekkinge (skakels m) natuurlik oor tyd. tabel 2 verskaf die getal nodusse (n), getal skakels (m), en die gemiddelde getal skakels (<k>) vir die tydperke2 wat hier ondersoek word. tabel 2: makrovlakstatistieke van die wêreldhandelnetwerk vir die 6 periodes wat hier ondersoek word in tabel 2 kan gesien word dat die getal lande wat deelgeneem het aan die wêreldhandelnetwerk (n), sowel as hul getal handelsbetrekkinge (m) en die gemiddelde getal handelsbetrekkinge tussen lande (<k>), deurlopend toegeneem het. dít is natuurlik die gevolg van dekolonialisasie, aangesien die getal lande ná 1945 toegeneem het soos voormalige kolonies onafhanklikheid verkry het. wanneer na figuur 1 gekyk word, is dit egter duidelik dat suid-afrika se getal handelsvennote, soos gemeet met behulp van graadsentraliteit, nie dieselfde geleidelike toename toon nie. figuur 1: suid-afrika se veranderende graadsentraliteit in vergelyking met die gemiddelde graad in die wêreldhandelnetwerk. suid-afrika se getal handelsvennote het dus deurlopend vanaf 1948–1994 gestyg, met een belangrike uitsondering: onder die bewind van p.w. botha het suid-afrika se getal handelsvennote gedaal vanaf 208 (onder b.j. vorster) na 165. dít kan duidelik toegeskryf word aan sanksies: onder botha het daar veral sedert 1986 sterk verdoeming van suid-afrika se politieke stelsel ingetree, en verskeie lande (onder andere denemarke, swede en noorweë) het hul handelsbetrekkinge met suid-afrika opgeskort (central intelligence agency 1989:38). let egter daarop dat suid-afrika se getal handelsvennote altyd beduidend hoër as die gemiddeld in die wêreldhandelnetwerk was, wat daarop dui dat suid-afrika altyd ’n bogemiddelde rol in die wêreldhandelnetwerk gespeel het. figuur 2 verskaf ’n meer gedetailleerde uiteensetting van suid-afrika se veranderende graadsentraliteit, inen uitgraad, tussenliggingsentraliteit en nabyheidsentraliteit. dié figure is ook ter wille van vergelykingsdoeleindes vir die vsa en vk verskaf. figuur 2: sentraliteit van suid-afrika, die vsa en vk in die wêreldhandelnetwerk. suid-afrika se getal handelsvennote het dus deurlopend vanaf 1948–1994 gestyg, met een belangrike uitsondering: onder die bewind van p.w. botha het suid-afrika se getal handelsvennote gedaal vanaf 208 (onder b.j. vorster) na 165. dít kan duidelik toegeskryf word aan sanksies: onder botha het daar veral sedert 1986 sterk verdoeming van suid-afrika se politieke stelsel ingetree, en verskeie lande (onder andere denemarke, swede en noorweë) het hul handelsbetrekkinge met suid-afrika opgeskort (central intelligence agency 1989:38). let egter daarop dat suid-afrika se getal handelsvennote altyd beduidend hoër as die gemiddeld in die wêreldhandelnetwerk was, wat daarop dui dat suid-afrika altyd ’n bogemiddelde rol in die wêreldhandelnetwerk gespeel het. figuur 2 verskaf ’n meer gedetailleerde uiteensetting van suid-afrika se veranderende graadsentraliteit, inen uitgraad, tussenliggingsentraliteit en nabyheidsentraliteit. dié figure is ook ter wille van vergelykingsdoeleindes vir die vsa en vk verskaf. die getal lande waarheen suid-afrika uitgevoer het, soos uitgraad gemeet, het dus skerp gedaal onder botha vanaf 106 onder vorster tot 88 onder botha, maar onder de klerk weer gestyg na 140. ingraad meet in dié geval die getal lande van waar suid-afrika ingevoer het, en ook hier kan die impak van sanksies duidelik gesien word: die getal lande daal vanaf 102 onder vorster tot 77 onder botha, en styg na 139 onder de klerk. let ook daarop dat dié daling onder botha wel toegeskryf kan word aan sanksies en nie aan globale tendense nie, aangesien die vsa en vk nie dieselfde daling in hierdie tydperk toon nie. ten opsigte van tussenliggingsentraliteit daal die waarde vir suid-afrika wel onder botha, maar dit is ook die geval met die vsa en vk, wat dui daarop dat die dinamiek van die wêreldhandelnetwerk in hierdie tydperk verander het. tussenliggingsentraliteit dui op die mate waartoe kort paaie in ’n netwerk deur ’n enkele nodus loop, en dui in die wêreldhandelnetwerk op die vloei van hulpbronne deur die hele netwerk. die feit dat beide die vsa en vk se tussenliggingsentraliteit deurlopend afneem, beteken in hierdie geval dat, soos meer lande meer handelsbetrekkinge in opeenvolgende tydperke aangeknoop het, die belangrikheid van individuele lande deurlopend afgeneem het. dit is egter opvallend dat die tussenliggingsentraliteit-waarde vir suid-afrika weer onder de klerk styg, terwyl dié waarde vir die vsa en vk in elke tydperk daal, wat tog tot ’n mate daarop dui dat sanksies ’n effek op suid-afrika se tussenliggingsentraliteitswaarde kon gehad het. suid-afrika bereik ook sy hoogste tussenliggingsentraliteit-waarde onder verwoerd. nabyheidsentraliteit dui aan tot watter mate ’n nodus gemiddeld elke ander nodus met ’n kort pad kan bereik, en is ook ’n aanduiding van watter lande binne die kern van die netwerk funksioneer. die feit dat suid-afrika se nabyheidsentraliteit-waarde die laagste onder botha is, verras dus nie: suid-afrika het hiervolgens onder botha se bewind verder weg beweeg van die kern van die wêreldhandelnetwerk. teenoor suid-afrika se skerp daling onder botha, is die vsa en vk egter stabiel, wat daarop dui dat hierdie daling nie aan die algehele dinamiek van die wêreldhandelnetwerk toegeskryf kan word nie. figuur 2 en die daaropvolgende bespreking dui op die waardes van sentraliteitsaanduiders, maar dit is ook sinvol om lande se rangorde in berekening te bring. indien die vsa se tussenliggingsentraliteit-waarde byvoorbeeld van die een periode na die volgende daal, maar dié land steeds die land bly wat die hoogste tussenliggingsentraliteit-waarde het, dui die laer tussenliggingsentraliteit-waarde op ’n verandering wat in die netwerkstruktuur ingetree het, maar nie daarop dat dié land ’n minder belangrike land geword het nie. figuur 3 verskaf daarom suid-afrika se rangorde ten opsigte van bogenoemde sentraliteitaanduiders. figuur 3: suid-afrika se veranderende posisie ten opsigte van sentraliteitaanduiders. tydens die sestigerjare was die rsa se ekonomie een van die mees snelgroeiende ekonomieë in die wêreld (aucamp 2010:119): vanaf 1951–1960 het die bruto binnelandse produk (bbp) met ’n gemiddeld van 4.5% gegroei, terwyl bbp tussen 1961–1970 met ’n gemiddeld van 5.7% gegroei het. in 1963 het bbp met 7.4% gegroei, en die daaropvolgende jaar met 7.9% (verhoef 2012:466; kyk ook van wyk en grobler 2007:37). figuur 3 wys daarop dat suid-afrika nie alleen ’n sterk groei op ’n plaaslike vlak getoon het nie, maar ook het suid-afrika se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk verbeter: suid-afrika het die hoogste getal handelsvennote in vergelyking met die res van die wêreld onder verwoerd se bewind gehad (soos gemeet met behulp van graadsentraliteit), het tot die grootste mate binne die kern van die wêreldhandelnetwerk gefunksioneer (soos gemeet met behulp van nabyheidsentraliteit), en het een van die belangrikste posisies in dié netwerk beklee wat die land ooit sou beklee (soos gemeet met behulp van tussenliggingsentraliteit). ’n cia-verslag van 1966 is getiteld ‘on the crest of the wave’, en voer aan: south africa has made a phenomenal recovery in almost every important respect from the nadir that followed the 1960 sharpeville shootings. the security forces have become more efficient and, aided by draconian legislation, have harried the organized nonwhite opposition virtually out of existence. the economic boom continues, nourished to an ever-increasing extent by capital from inside the country. the few remaining areas in which south africa might be even slightly vulnerable to economic sanctions are being whittled away. while maintaining its close economic ties with britain, pretoria is broadening its suppliers and markets to include france, japan, and west germany, among others. the government has modernized and greatly enlarged its military establishment, turning to france and italy in the face of arms embargoes imposed by the us and (less fully) by britain, and has steadily increased the domestic production of military weapons. (central intelligence agency 1966:2) hierteenoor was p.w. botha se bewind ’n laagtepunt vir suid-afrika in die wêreldhandelnetwerk: die land bereik sy laagste posisie in vergelyking met al die ander lande ten opsigte van graad-, nabyheiden tussenliggingsentraliteit in hierdie tyd. soos gemeet met behulp van graadsentraliteit, was suid-afrika die land met die 23ste hoogste getal handelsvennote onder verwoerd, 61ste onder vorster, 114de onder botha, en 54ste onder de klerk. wat die getal lande betref waarvandaan suid-afrika ingevoer het (gemeet met behulp van ingraad), daal suid-afrika vanaf die land met die 24ste meeste invoerlande onder verwoerd na die land met die 57ste meeste invoerlande onder vorster; na die land met die 119de meeste invoervennote onder botha, voor die land weer onder de klerk styg na die 51ste posisie. dieselfde tendens kan gesien word in die getal lande waarheen suid-afrika uitgevoer het, soos gemeet met behulp van uitgraad: suid-afrika beklee die 25ste posisie onder verwoerd, 60ste onder vorster, 104de onder botha, en styg weer na die 54ste posisie onder de klerk. die impak van sanksies kan dus duidelik gesien word in suid-afrika se rangorde ten opsigte van graad, inen uitgraad: telkens bereik suid-afrika ’n laagtepunt onder botha, wat beteken dat die getal lande wat na suid-afrika uitgevoer het (ingraad), sowel as die getal lande wat vanaf suid-afrika ingevoer het (uitgraad), skerp daal onder botha se bewind. let ook daarop dat dié daling ’n voortsetting is van die daling wat onder vorster waargeneem kan word: soos in die inleiding genoem, het die rsa se isolasie reeds voor die bewind van botha begin, alhoewel dit op sy felste tydens die botha-regime was. ook hierdie isolasie kan met ander woorde uit die rsa se veranderende posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk waargeneem word. aan die ander kant dui die styging onder de klerk ten opsigte van inen uitgraad daarop dat die rsa se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk na de klerk se toespraak op 2 februarie 1990 beduidend verbeter het: in julie 1991 het die vsa die comprehensive anti-apartheid act opgehef, gevolg deur ander lande (aucamp 2010:137–138), en hierdie verbetering van handelbetrekkinge kan duidelik in figuur 3 waargeneem word. suid-afrika se nabyheiden tussenliggingsentraliteitposisie daal ook tot ’n laagtepunt onder botha: die land het die 29ste hoogste nabyheidsentraliteit in die wêreldhandelnetwerk onder verwoerd, 72ste onder vorster, 124ste onder botha en 54ste onder de klerk, wat beteken dat suid-afrika die beste binne die kern van die wêreldhandelnetwerk gefunksioneer het onder verwoerd, en die minste onder botha. let weereens daarop dat daar ’n skerp daling in die rsa se nabyheidsentraliteitposisie tussen die bewind van verwoerd en vorster is, wat die voorspel tot grootskaalse isolasie onder botha verteenwoordig, terwyl daar weer ’n skerp styging onder de klerk gesien kan word namate die sanksies opgehef word. tussenliggingsentraliteit identifiseer gewoonlik die belangrikste nodusse in ’n netwerk, en ook ten opsigte van hierdie sentraliteitaanduider beklee suid-afrika sy laagste posisie onder botha: suid-afrika bereik sy hoogste posisie (31ste) onder verwoerd, daal na 44ste onder vorster, 95ste onder botha en styg dan weer na die 56ste posisie onder de klerk. let ook daarop dat rangorde hier beteken dat die rsa in verhouding met ander lande ’n laagtepunt onder botha bereik het: die daling kan nie toegeskryf word aan die dinamiek van die hele wêreldhandelnetwerk nie omdat suid-afrika se belangrikheid in die netwerk in verhouding met ander lande skerp onder botha gedaal het. die feit dat suid-afrika ook sy laagste posisie volgens rangorde onder botha bereik, ondersteun bostaande gevolgtrekking dat sanksies ’n daadwerklike invloed op suid-afrika se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk gehad het: dit is nie bloot suid-afrika se graad-, tussenligging-en nabyheidsentraliteit-waarde wat ’n laagtepunt onder botha bereik het nie, maar ook wanneer dié waardes met alle ander lande in die wêreldhandelnetwerk vergelyk word, was dit ’n laagtepunt. die skerp styging in rangorde volgens graad-, tussenliggingen nabyheidsentraliteit onder de klerk ondersteun eweneens die gevolgtrekking dat sanksies vir hierdie laagtepunt verantwoordelik was. viljoen (1990) voer aan dat sanksies die suid-afrikaanse ekonomie en samelewing ’n daadwerklike knou toegedien het: sanksies deur die internasionale gemeenskap om suid-afrika te dwing om van apartheid af te sien, het grootliks bygedra tot werkloosheid. daar word bereken dat sanksies en disinvestering ’n direkte verlies van ongeveer r40 biljoen tot gevolg gehad het. die totale effek hiervan het egter ’n verbruikersbestedingsverlies van ongeveer r100 biljoen meegebring. ironies genoeg, is juis die swart bevolking die swaarste getref deur hierdie maatreëls […]. al sou sanksies as gevolg van toegewings van regeringskant onmiddellik opgehef word, sal dit nog ’n geruime tyd duur voordat die ekonomie sodanig sal herstel dat werkloosheid drasties verminder kan word. armoede sal dus vir die afsienbare tyd nog ’n wesentlike kenmerk van ’n groot gedeelte van die swart bevolking wees. (pp. 338–339) dié daadwerklike impak van sanksies is egter nie duidelik wanneer suid-afrika se inen uitvoere vergelyk word nie, soos in figuur 4 gesien kan word (data is hier verskaf deur die wêreldbank, beskikbaar by http://data.worldbank.org/country/south-africa?view=chart). figuur 4: suid-afrika se inen uitvoere vanaf 1961 tot 1994 in konstante 2005 us$. die waarde van ’n netwerkbenadering lê dan daarin dat dit die impak van sanksies beter kan uitwys as tradisionele statistiek. alhoewel suid-afrika se inen uitvoere nie ’n beduidende afname tydens die bewind van eers vorster en daarna botha toon nie, het suid-afrika se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk beduidend verswak. veral figuur 3 se skerp dalings wys duidelik hoe die rsa se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk onder botha se bewind verswak het. gevolgtrekking hierdie artikel het ’n ander perspektief op die impak van sanksies op suid-afrika gebied, en vanuit die netwerkteorie aangetoon dat sanksies suid-afrika se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk beduidend beïnvloed het. ongeag of graad-, tussenliggingof nabyheidsentraliteit gebruik word, en ongeag of waardes of rangorde benut word, kan daar aangedui word dat suid-afrika se posisie in die wêreldhandelnetwerk beduidend onder die bewind van eers vorster en daarna botha verswak het. hierdie impak op die rsa se handelsbetrekkinge is nie so duidelik sigbaar wanneer slegs inen uitvoere in ag geneem word nie, soos giliomee (2012:409) vantevore tereg opgemerk het. die vermoë van ’n netwerkbenadering om die impak van sanksies beter uit te wys as eenvoudige inen uitvoere, maak dit ’n bruikbare benadering in die evaluering of sanksies effektief is/was, al dan nie. soortgelyke studies sou onderneem kon word om te bepaal of sanksies teen ander lande effektief was/is, veral waar sanksies gevolg is deur beleidsveranderinge soos in die geval met die rsa. erkenning mededingende belange die outeur verklaar dat hy geen finansiële of persoonlike verbintenis het met enige party 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united nations mandatory arms embargo against south africa: a historical perspective after 30 years’, journal for contemporary history 33(1), 70–86. footnotes 1. die datastel sluit jaarlikse tweerigtinghandelsyfers tussen lande in, soos saamgestel as deel van die correlates of war project (cow), en dek die tydperk 1870–2009, maar in die geval van suid-afrika is betroubare data eers sedert 1945 beskikbaar. 2. leiers se termyne is hier afgerond, aangesien die data slegs jaarlikse handelstatistieke bevat. abstract introduction method results conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) preia motheeram meraka institute, council for scientific and industrial research, south africa marlien herselman meraka institute, council for scientific and industrial research, south africa school of computing, university of south africa, south africa adele botha meraka institute, council for scientific and industrial research, south africa school of computing, university of south africa, south africa citation motheeram, p., herselman, m. & botha, a., 2018, ‘a scoping review of digital open badge ecosystems in relation to resource-constrained environments’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a463. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.463 original research a scoping review of digital open badge ecosystems in relation to resource-constrained environments preia motheeram, marlien herselman, adele botha received: 07 aug. 2017; accepted: 19 jan. 2018; published: 26 mar. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article presents a scoping review of digital open badge ecosystems. a scoping review can be seen as a methodology for systematically assessing the breadth of available research literature. this article is aimed at identifying the nature, extent and current understanding of digital open badge ecosystems. scoping reviews follow many of the same methodological steps as systematic reviews where the reliability of results and the potential for replication remain essential. as such, this review follows the eight steps outlined by okoli and schabram. from the 1608 studies identified, 41 were considered relevant for inclusion criteria and thus included in a final sample. some relevant websites and the so-called grey literature were included. these were evaluated according to the inclusion criteria and were categorised. further subcategories were identified which include the notion of digital badges (n = 35) and open digital badges (n = 18), elements of a digital open badge ecosystem (n = 27) and reported implementations (n = 29). the scoping review presents a literature repository that can be used by practitioners and researchers interested in the application of digital open badges for the establishment of a digital open badge ecosystem. the review also serves to highlight the potential benefits this can have for resource-constrained environments. introduction the purpose of this article is to present a scoping review for systematically assessing the breadth of available research literature regarding the nature, extent and current understanding of digital open badge ecosystems. the results of the scoping review allow for a deeper understanding and better conceptualisation of implementation-specific valuable lessons which can be applied to a digital open badge ecosystem for a resource-constrained environment. the objectives are to (1) apply a scoping review for the literature study; (2) clarify the specific concepts: digital badges, open badges and digital open badge ecosystems; and (3) indicate how digital open badge ecosystem can be relevant to resource-constrained environments. the pursuit of knowledge and skills has steadily and vigorously expanded, forcing pedagogies to follow in its progressive footsteps (mayrath 2012). the learning environment is no longer limited to the classroom or governed by seat time (hess 2011; morrison & disalvo 2014). knowledge and skills are created, shared and valued in various different ways which continuously breach the context in which current education systems were developed and standardised. alternate learning opportunities include internet-based projects, self-directed tinkering, community participation and on-the-job training (the mozilla foundation 2012). the knowledge, achievements and skills earned outside the traditional formal education system are often either overlooked or not accredited (mudavanhu 2015; rooyen 2011). outcomes, such as achievements in after-school classes, extra-curricular activities, work-based experience and mentoring, to name but a few, are often not recognised in formal education accreditation and therefore seldom acknowledged as a valuable accomplishment. this article addressed the following research question: how can a scoping review on digital open badge ecosystems allow for the conceptualisation of such a system for resource-constrained environments? badges are often used to recognise learning (that which an individual knows), skill (that which an individual can do) or a role in an organisation or community (that which an individual has become) (randall, harrison & west 2013). gibson et al. (2015) argue that badges and badging systems are emerging phenomena used to incentivise learners to engage in positive learning behaviours, identify progress in learning and content trajectories as well as signify learning and achievement. digital badges are icons and image files which serve as visual metaphors for skills, roles, accomplishments, experiences and interests (gibson et al. 2015) and have been touted as a common currency to signify learning outcomes across all contexts (bowen & thomas 2014). in 2011, the mozilla foundation, with the support of the macarthur foundation, launched the open badges project (mozilla foundation 2011). mozilla open badges offers a free, open-source digital badge infrastructure to allow institutions, endorsers and learning providers to issue badges and for job seekers and learners to collect and display said badges (muilenburg & berge 2016). the open badges project provides an accreditation system which intends to unlock new career and educational opportunities by promoting the recognition of skills and achievements earned through formal and informal learning (knight et al. 2014). the following section offers an overview of the methodology followed. method brien et al. (2010), applying the argument of arksey and o’malley (2005), suggest that scoping reviews are a relatively new research tool through which domain-specific literature overviews can be performed. they posit that scoping reviews are similar to systematic reviews in some respects, as they provide a method through which a body of literature can be consolidated. brien et al. (2010) provide a number of distinguishing characteristics of scoping reviews in comparison to traditional systematic reviews (see table 1). table 1: a comparison of the characteristics of scoping and systematic reviews. table 1 indicates the differences between systematic and scoping reviews. brien et al. (2010) highlight the focused nature of the systematic review in that it mostly attempts to answer a clearly defined question through the use of explicit methodologies to assess the quality of included articles. scoping reviews, on the other hand, are by and large conducted to examine the extent, range and nature of research activity in a particular field brien et al. (2010:2). scoping reviews thus focus on the research findings (lambert 2006) and not on how the literature was obtained (arskey & o’malley 2005) or an assessment of its quality (sandelowski, docherty & emden 1997). scoping reviews follow many of the same methodological steps as systematic reviews including the essential tenets of result reliability and replication potential (glasziou et al. 2001; linde 2002; white & schmidt 2005). ellis and levy (2010) define a systematic literature review as a reproducible procedure performed to identify, evaluate and synthesise quality literature using an explicit algorithm. they argue that a systematic literature review, conducted with sufficient scientific rigour, can provide a solid grounding for a research area and the selection of a suitable research methodology. scoping review aims to review relevant literature for systematically assessing the breadth of available research literature whilst describing the nature, extent and current understanding of digital open badge ecosystems. it was operationalised through okoli and schabram’s (2010) eight steps: (1) identify the purpose, scope and goal; (2) develop a protocol with specific steps and procedures to be followed; (3) search and eliminate studies that do not meet the requirements; (4) screen the retrieved studies according to relevance and defined criteria; (5) screen the remaining studies according to the quality of the articles; (6) systematically extract applicable information; (7) aggregate, analyse, discuss and organise studies; and (8) report on the findings in detail to ensure that the systematic literature review can be independently reproducible. the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) (moher et al. 2009) guidelines, embodied in the four-phase flow diagram, were implemented to guide steps 2–5 of okoli and schabram’s (2010) eight-step model (see table 2). table 2: implementation adapted to okoli and schabram (2010) and preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. this was particularly relevant to address the purpose and objectives of this article. data sources after taking the purpose of the scoping review into consideration, search keywords were identified and used. these keywords were ‘digital badges’, ‘digital badge ecosystem’ and ‘open badges’. the keywords were traced using google trends (figure 1) to identify a search data range. the results displayed a shared spike in interest from april 2011 to january 2015. accordingly, the search was limited to studies, articles and books published between 2011 and 2016. the keyword search strategy used the following search terms: ‘digital badges’ or ‘badge ecosystem’ or ‘digital badges ecosystem’ or ‘open badges’ and ‘framework’ or ‘implementation’. the word ‘framework’ was used as a subcategory, as it was found that digital badge frameworks existed and this was also applied to refine the search. the word ‘environment’ was used as a subcategory and was only applicable to how digital badges were used in resource-constrained environments. an initial search of only educational databases educational resource information centre (eric) (via ebscohost), professional development collection, professional development collection and academic search premier rendered results with a pedagogical implementation in professional practice and was thus deemed outside the scope of the study. the search was consequently extended by not limiting it to specific discipline or database and using frequently cited publications as a measure of credibility. the keyword search was redone using harzing’s publish or perish software (harzing 2010), which offered a substantial set of publications as well as the number of citations per publications. a high number of citations suggest that a publication has impacted significantly the field. a low number of citations may, but not necessarily, suggest a limited current impact. a low citation per publication metric can be attributed to a limited or recently developed working field or a restricted audience as a result of the article having been published in a language other than english (harzing 2010). the use of harzing’s the publish or perish book (2010) allowed the research to assess the impact of the publication and thus the resultant conceptualisation of a domain understanding. the assumption made was that articles, which were cited more often, were inclined to influence this domain understanding. researcher bias is acknowledged in this step of the process, as the researcher had to make judgement calls regarding the perceived value of specific articles. this value call was guided by the h factor (harzing 2010) and the research purpose. the keyword search yielded 1586 results as shown in table 3. figure 1: google trends search results for keywords. table 3: search terms used in keyword search strategy and returned results. after removing duplicate studies, the remainder were screened for eligibility using a method similar to systematic review. studies were assessed for eligibility based on responses to the questions detailed in table 4. it was decided to limit the study language to english, as it is the home language of all three authors and the cost of translating the paper exceeded both budget and time constraints. if the publication was not written in english and the response to question 1 thus ‘no’, it was immediately excluded. if the response to any of questions 2–5 was ‘yes’, the publication was deemed relevant and shortlisted for quality appraisal as indicated in table 4. table 4: eligibility assessment questions. approximately 58% of the articles related to bio med central (bmc) public health, which presented limited relevance to the research purpose. hence, publications were excluded if they were not written in english, if they fell in the bmc public health field and if the content was not pertinent to the research purpose (see figure 2). figure 2: results of eligibility assessment. the remaining 167 eligible studies were examined in detail. the quality appraisal of the publication was not considered as an inclusion criterion; however, the publications were broadly assessed for relevance. after screening for duplicates and eligibility, the quality appraisal identified 41 publications which were then used in the final review. figure 3, the prisma four-phase flow diagram as relevant to this research, illustrates the flow of information through the phases of searching, evaluating and filtering. figure 3: preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses flow diagram. a standard coding template was used to extract data from each of the subsequent selected 41 publications. four subcategories emerged: digital badges, open digital badges, elements of a digital open badge ecosystem and reported implementations. in an effort to systematically assess the breadth of available research literature and to identify the nature, extent and current understanding of digital open badge ecosystems, a summary of the publications and their focus areas is presented in table 5 under the four subcategories that emerged. table 5: summary of publications and focus areas. a qualitative descriptive approach as described by sandelowski (2000) and applied by weeks and strudsholm (2008) was used to review the results, grouping together statements that linked to each of the identified subcategories (sandelowski, barroso & voils 2007). the outcome is presented and discussed in the following sections. results this section presents a synthesis of the statements linked to the identified subcategories: digital badges, open digital badges, elements of a digital open badge ecosystem and reported implementations. mind maps were used to organise and summarise the most important points and concepts. having met stricter inclusion criteria, the 41 publications were processed using the guidelines outlined by ellis and levy (2010:192), namely know the literature, comprehend the literature, apply, analyse, synthesise and evaluate. these mind maps are presented in figures 4 and 5 with literature linked through the article number as allocated in table 5. figure 4: overview of digital badges as extracted from the selected literature. figure 5: literature linked to case studies and implementations. digital badges devedžić and jovanović (2015) argue that a badge is an image that serves as an indicator of skills, competencies, interests, achievements or hierarchy acquired over time and across all contexts. the affordances of digital badges can be categorised into four key areas: motivation – to foster discovery, promote engagement, drive the acquisition of knowledge and incentivise learning (gibson et al. 2015; knight & mozilla foundation, 2012; muilenburg & berge 2016; randall et al. 2013; tran, schenke & hickey, 2014) recognition and credentialing – to validate, measure and accredit knowledge and skills gained across all contexts of learning, to build and formalise an identity and reputation, to symbolise an association with a community or group (davis & singh 2015; gibson et al. 2015; law et al. 2015; pedro et al. 2015) evidence of achievement – by linking a digital badge with metadata containing evidence of skills, accomplishment or knowledge, creating a granular representation of capabilities, to map an individual’s progress (hole 2014; ifenthaler et al. 2016; pedro et al. 2015) research – to form a pathway model for achievement, to make learning more transparent and accessible (davis & singh 2015; sullivan 2013; the mozilla foundation, 2012). digital badges can be embedded with metadata which provide information regarding the issuer, recipient and why the badge had been awarded, along with the associated evidence. the granularity associated with awarding badges for competencies creates a broader representation of an individual’s capabilities, thus allowing him or her the opportunity to present a more complete picture of his or her competencies by signalling specific critical skills. the value of the digital badge is backed by the issuing authority and the decided assessment of recognition. a competenceor educational-based assessment must be linked to evidence of activities, learning, experiences, artefacts and skills development (gibson et al. 2015:404; mayrath 2012:46). this is an important issue for resource-constrained environments as well (objectives 2 and 3 of the article). badges are issued in accordance with success criteria which vary in definition, level, weight, quality, rigour, motivation and reward. a single badge may be designed and issued by more than one authority, making the badge achievable via multiple paths and assessment options. in conclusion, this article will adopt the following definition for a digital badge: a digital badge is a validated representation or indicator of an accomplishment, competency, interest, affiliation, experience or skill that is visual and available online (gibson et al. 2015; jovanović & devedžić 2015). open badges building on the merits and potential of digital badges and the badging systems, mozilla and the macarthur foundation developed the open badges project. this badge system displays the following key elements: badges, assessment, collecting and sharing tools as well as criteria and evidence. mozilla open badges has refined the concept of the digital badge, as a static image, by hard-coding metadata on the badge which communicates the specific skill or achievement (knight & mozilla foundation 2012:8). this provides a level of security and reliability (randall et al. 2013). the metadata details, illustrated in figure 6, include: the badge name, issuer, endorser, competency statement, performance criteria, method of assessment, evidence of performance, date issued and standards with which the badge is aligned (badges/faqs – mozilla foundation 2014a). figure 6: open badges anatomy – badge metadata.1 although learning is similarly validated via standards, evaluation and evidence, in contrast to the current top-down and closed accreditation system, the open badges accreditation system uses a bottom-up, open and distributed approach (knight & mozilla foundation 2012). the open badges badging process is outlined below (mozilla foundation 2014b): a badge issuer creates a certifiable badge and makes it available online to their audience of earners. when an earner meets the defined criteria of a badge, the badge is awarded to an earner, and the earner can choose to store the badge in his or her backpack. the backpack is used to accumulate and manage badges, allowing earners to select privacy and publishing preferences (goligoski 2012; niehaus et al. 2017). earners can share and display authenticated badges publicly on social network sites, blogs, profiles and resumes. potential employers, recruiters, organisations and peers can view badges that are displayed publicly and click on the badges to view the badge metadata (crafford & matthee 2016; ifenthaler et al. 2016; jabbar, gasser & lodge 2016). the following definition is adopted for an open badge: open badges are standards-based badges that have hard-coding metadata on reliability and securely communicating a specific skill or achievement (knight & mozilla foundation 2012; randall et al. 2013). digital open badge ecosystem elements the literature documenting digital badge ecosystems is relatively scarce and, with the exception of the mozilla open badges ecosystem, consists mainly of single institutionally localised ecosystems. these seem to function within a single institution, enabling the use and application of open digital badges for institutional consumption. a digital badge ecosystem allows tertiary institutions and employers to bridge the identified skills shortage gap with badge ecosystems that are developed around higher education outcomes (pearson education 2013). the mozilla foundation, peer 2 peer university and macarthur (2012) have indicated that a definition of digital badge ecosystem has to include descriptions of badges, assessment and infrastructure. the infrastructure of a digital badge ecosystem needs to provide an online, open and decentralised vehicle to issue, collect and display badges online. this is operationalised as a badge backpack. universities and higher education institutions can leverage the connected learning outcomes to contextualise an individual’s achievements and readily demonstrate the return on investment and economic impact of their programmes (jovanović & devedžić 2015). universities and education providers who endorse badges will acknowledge and credit the learner’s soft skills and job-ready competencies, and therefore increase the transparency of learning pathways (glover & latif 2013). a badge ecosystem can help students make better-informed decisions through connected learning pathways between tertiary education providers and the career-specific skills required by employers (crafford & matthee 2016; itow & hickey 2013). for employers and advanced education providers, the required skills, competencies and outcomes, articulated through badges, will simplify the communication of changing needs to the learners, tertiary institutions and training providers (pearson education 2013). as a result, curricula can easily be tailored to suit the market needs and afford learners the opportunity to better equip themselves with a more market-responsive skill set. the infrastructure must accommodate the issuing of badges from all contexts of learning environments (e.g. schools, universities, online learning, professional bodies, employers, non-formal education and learning providers); the display and management of badges to afford the learner the power to control what badges are publicly displayed; the impact of metadata attached to a badge; the authentication of badges to verify their validity; the interface to external websites to support badge display and the endorsement of badges to signify the weight and value of a badge. the open badge infrastructure (obi) defines three user roles for the open badges ecosystem (mozilla foundation 2014b) as the badge earner, the badge issuer and the badge displayer. from the above literature overview, the following components are identified for an open badge ecosystem, which are regarded as the final components that should also be considered for resource-constrained environments as well when using digital badges (see the ‘digital open badges ecosystem for resource-constrained environments’ section): the badge issuer the badge (badge metadata) the badge earner the badging infrastructure (to facilitate the badging process) the badge displayer. existing implementations of digital badges internationally there are several small-scale, mostly institutional, initiatives which have already implemented open badges to incentivise learning and introduce micro-credentialing to increase the scope of learning recognition: makewaves is a safe, social learning platform for schools that provides social media for education to develop digital literacy skills, learn about internet safety and how to use social media responsibly. it has formed a community of thousands of schools sharing their creativity and raising achievement with badges (makewaves 2016). kent university has used badges to validate and capture competencies gained through workshops for faculty professional development (nestor 2014). aurora public schools (aps) are working with community colleges and regional employers in the state of colorado to award badges for 21st century skills and to gain endorsement for these badges (smore 2016). digitalme is using the open badges platform to work together with teachers, charities and employers to transform the learning landscape and prepare young people with skills and competencies to enable real-world opportunities. current badge programmes include ‘badge the uk’ which allows learners to showcase all achievements using digital badges, and ‘young carers in focus’ which empowers young carers to share stories and campaign for change (digitalme 2016). newport city (wales) homes provides community services to residents and has created a set of badges for key competencies that are linked to industry standards, thus developing and rewarding employee skills (price 2014). the university of california is aware that traditional testing and grading would not accurately reflect the outcomes of its agriculture and food systems curriculum, and linked competency badges to the outcomes defined in collaboration with targeted employers (muilenburg & berge 2016). the grading soft skills (grass) project develops innovative pedagogical approaches to support and represent the soft skills of learners. grass is investigating the idea of digital badges and open badges to formally measure, validate and recognise these skills (the grass project 2016). providence after school alliance (pasa 2016) launched a badge system targeted at the providence youth to expand and improve learning opportunities by motivating, tracking, recognising and validating learner interests to create connected learning pathways. badge europe! (2016) is an international initiative working towards promoting open badges as the infrastructure to provide formal and informal learning recognition, to increase the transparency and quality of learning outcomes and to create opportunities for learning, employment and social inclusion. digital open badges ecosystem for resource-constrained environments the experiences, merits and challenges documented, contain valuable lessons which can be applied to conceptualising a digital open badges ecosystem for a resource-constrained environment. resource-constrained environments in context are environments characterised by these economic, technological and cultural conditions: low-income communities where power and network connectivity are scarce and expensive with low bandwidth, and which also present unique cultural constraints where people are unfamiliar with technology or are technophobic (niehaus et al. 2017). the following should be considered: randall et al. (2013) stated that the use of expert assessment before a badge is awarded, albeit a reliable evaluation of high quality comes at a high price and financial sustainability should be treated as a major concern. rosewell (2012) proposed partnering with existing open educational resource (oer) providers and using existing evaluation models to obviate the cost implications of designing a robust validation and assessment rubric. the design of the digital open badges ecosystem needs to stimulate and sustain motivation in badge earners. haaranen et al. (2014) attested that a simple design reduced the learning curve for student badge earners and encouraged learning; however, providing more statistics for earners (e.g. leader boards and notifications about badges earned) might increase motivation. in a pilot test, pedro et al. (2015) discovered that users of the sapo campus (the major internet portal and isp in portugal) badging systems (developed at the university of aveiro, portugal) felt more engaged and motivated during participatory learning exercises as a group or community. learners embrace informal learning and the value paid for certification and recognition from a massive open online learning (mooc) provider. as experienced by law et al. (2015), a challenge exists with demonstrating digital badges as a currency of achievement and credibility and not just as a motivational tool. on the contrary, davis and singh (2015) reported that the credibility of badge metadata and the gaining of recognition for skills earned across contexts were met with enthusiasm and are a major drawcard for badge adoption. a shared challenge concerns the assessment element of a badging system, specifically the success criteria for conceptual learning, critical thinking, creativity and other soft skills (mewburn et al. 2014; myllymäki & hakala 2014; niehaus et al. 2017; randall et al. 2013; rosewell 2012). abramovich, schunn and higashi (2013) claimed that the ‘potential benefit of an assessment is determined by its ability to both maintain learning motivation and accurately communicate a student’s learning’. competency-based learning, which a badge will validate, has to reflect and validate the true meaning of the competence or skills gained. reputation is built on valid, verified and quality judgements – not only for badge earners but also for the badges themselves and the medium of exchange within which they have to have currency. the openness of such a system is regarded as essential to long-term sustainability so that exporting and importing of badges can be modified and adapted by the open source community (de villiers & sauls 2017; meyer & marais 2015; niehaus et al. 2017). it is also important that validating institutions and organisations are not attached to commercial constraints when doing validation. the validation process of badges should minimise the amount of data necessary for checking badges whilst also mapping progress, signalling reputation beyond the community where it was earned and incentivising learners to engage in pro-social behaviours (crafford & matthee 2016; jabbar et al. 2016; muilenburg & berge 2016). the ability to set an expiration date on a badge has been beneficial for badges that are awarded for the mastery of skills in a field that is rapidly changing. the badge expiration date, if not carefully determined, can result in a lack of interest, making earners less likely to collect this badge because of its lack of longevity (myllymäki & hakala 2014; randall et al. 2013). this section addressed the research question of this article. it is evident that a digital open badge ecosystem can meaningfully contribute to accreditation challenges in resource-constrained environments if the above issues are addressed appropriately. conclusion knight and mozilla foundation (2012:1), the senior director of learning at mozilla, describes our current accreditation systems as a ‘shared monopoly across education where you have to go down a very prescribed path to get learning that quote-unquote counts’ and that mozilla wants to ‘open that up’. digital badges can advance the reimagining of accreditation practices by measuring competencies accurately and with a finer granularity than seat time and formal degrees do. mozilla’s open badges offers the infrastructure to create and develop a digital badge ecosystem that incentivises and recognises accomplishments and experiences in all learning contexts. this is particularly relevant for resource-constrained environments as these badges can assist them to show their own credibility on social media. a digital open badges ecosystem can potentially create a connected learning environment where skills, achievements and competencies are fully recognised and accredited in specifically resource-constrained environments so that, once community members have a digital identity, their paper-based badges can be replaced with digital badges which acknowledge their competency learning. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions p.m. was the main author and mostly did the 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acknowledgements references about the author(s) thelma louw department of risk and compliance, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa renier steyn graduate school of business leadership, university of south africa, midrand, south africa citation louw t, steyn r. workplace engagement of south african millennials: a non-issue? j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021; 17(1), a938. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.938 original research workplace engagement of south african millennials: a non-issue? thelma louw, renier steyn received: 03 aug. 2020; accepted: 25 nov. 2020; published: 26 mar. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract although theories on generational issues abound, this research sought to explore whether millennial employees and employees from generation x responded differently to the south african work environment. the aim of the study was to assess whether south african millennials experience their work environment different to generation x employees, focusing specifically on engagement and identifying the differential activation of engagement across these generations. data from 1913 millennials and 1027 generation x employees, from an existing database representative of employees across the broad spectrum of south african organisations, were analysed. data on the age of employees and responses to the employee engagement questionnaire (uwes-9) were available across all cases. the reliability of the instrument was tested first, followed by measurement invariance testing across generations. this was followed by mean differences testing between the generations on the total scores, as well as subscale scores and items. the results reveal that the uwes-9 was reliable and measurement invariant across generations. it further revealed that no mean differences exist between generation x and y (millennials), as far as total engagement scores are concerned. this result is significant as it reveals that south african millennials respond similarly to the generation preceding them to workplace engagement initiatives. the findings also indicate that millennials respond well to interventions that help them build confidence and juggle multiple responsibilities. keywords: millennials; employee engagement; uwes-9; generation x; south africa. introduction the current workplace is unique in that it must accommodate the needs and expectations of four generations of employees. although there is some fluidity in the cut-off dates for the various generations, for the purposes of this study the following dates were used: baby boomers 1945–1964, generation x 1965–1979, generation y (millennials) 1980–1996, generation z from 1997. several researchers warn that the needs and expectations underlying the different generations will inevitably lead to an intergenerational struggle.1,2,3,4,5 it is argued that these underlying differences in the workplace are incompatible and impact negatively on employee engagement in general, but particularly the engagement of millennials. some argue that the present work environment does not accommodate millennials sufficiently to create circumstances, which ensure that millennials engage at work.4,6,7,8 a focus on millennials is important, as they constitute more than one-third of south african citizens9 and is a generation that has an increased prominence in the workplace. the concept of engagement is important in the work environment and is regarded as a chronic rather than a transient state10 that is related to professional efficacy. a lack of engagement manifests in low morale and even deviant behaviour,6 whilst engagement is accredited as an antecedent to many positive organisational outcomes, including the sought-after innovative work behaviour.8,11,12,13,14 most perceptions about millennials and how different they are is based on stereotypes. empirical data offer limited solutions for managers who have to make decisions in their interaction with different age groups and manage the perceived generational struggle. to contribute a possible solution, this research aims to present data contrasting millennials and generation x as the two largest age groups presently in the workplace, verify the stereotypes and offer management solutions. access to the results of this study will enable managers to take informed decisions, rather than relying on broad generalisations and stereotypes. as the data were collected in south africa, the results are applicable to local conditions, which may be different from what is reported in mainstream western literature. literature review millennials in south africa are sometimes referred to as ‘afrilennials’15 and account for more than a third of the country’s population.9 south africa provides a unique case study for the study of inter-generational relations in the workplace as its political transition from apartheid to a new inclusive democracy coincides with the millennial generation (generation y) epoch. the characteristics of generations can differ between developed and developing countries16 and combined with a significant political change it adds a unique dimension to the study of generational dynamics in the workplace, more specifically employee engagement. the characteristics of millennials millennials are generally characterised as entitled, narcissistic, self-interested, unfocused, shallow and lazy.1,4,5,7,13,14 it is furthermore indicated that they thrive on authenticity, individuality and unique experiences.15,17 millennials’ loyalty is self-directed,16 as a result they are more loyal to their own career than to any specific organisation. despite this self-centeredness, millennials have been found to have lower self-esteem than any other generation and lack the coping mechanisms to deal with stress.4 deloitte18 reports that millennials acknowledge that they lack confidence and interpersonal skills. this could be attributed to the fact that they have not had to build and sustain relationships in the ‘real world’ as they live in the artificial world of facebook and instagram, which is disadvantaging them in the workplace1. therefore, it may be suggested that the appropriate workplace interventions should help millennials build confidence, develop their teamwork, cooperation and soft skills, and build patience, perseverance and trust.19 having grown up in a world of instant gratification, millennials demand a workplace where they have a meaningful work that allows for quick career progression and promotion, pays well and gives opportunities for training, development and mentorship.5,13,15 although millennials demand constant feedback, they are good at handling multiple responsibilities and are less willing to sacrifice personal time for their career.3,5 their infatuation with technology may, however, threaten the work-life balance that is so important to them.19 in the united states, millennials spend less than 3 years in a job before moving on2 and in south africa this is ‘not more than 2 years’.7 a total of 73% of millennials who plan to stay with their employer for more than 5 years do so because of the education (training) opportunities such employer offers (deloitte18). millennials report that their formal education contributes only 23% to the skills, knowledge and experience they use in their job.18 as millennials are impatient with talk without action13 and focus on delivering on the value drivers of the organisation, it is not surprising that the commodification of employment, evident from the so-called ‘gig economy’ where employees have short stints at a number of employers either simultaneously or consecutively, is very attractive to millennials at all levels of the organisation.18 by pursuing the gig economy as a means to, or because of the need for a higher income, millennials may be their own worst enemy20 as the achievement of short-term goals do not necessarily result in long-term career gains. instant gratification does not necessarily equate to the job satisfaction, deep fulfilment or career advancement they so keenly want. employee engagement definitions of employee engagement abound, including ‘the emotional commitment the employee has to the organisation and its goals’,12 ‘the extent to which people are personally involved in the success of a business’21 and ‘a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind that is characterised by vigour, dedication and absorption’.9 vigour manifests in high levels of energy and investment in the work environment. dedication manifests in involvement in the work leading to feelings such as enthusiasm and pride, whilst absorption leads to full concentration and attachment to the work. these three concepts underlying employee engagement, that is, vigour, dedication and absorption form the basis of this study. employee engagement has been studied from a variety of angles. south african researchers22 found that a positive work-life balance impacted positively on employee engagement. they concluded that work-life balance and employees’ engagement impact positively on the bottom line. this link between work-life balance and employee engagement as a determinant of business success is confirmed by local researchers.6 vanover and ludolf identify four key requirements for employee engagement, namely the ability to work remotely, having a meaningful job, receiving timeous and consistent feedback and appropriate reward systems.8,14 bothma supports the notion of technology as an enabler to ensure an engaged workforce and improved productivity.12 schaufeli, a leader in the conceptualisation of engagement and his collaborators9 found that engaged workers feel more successful and productive in their jobs. these authors also found in their study that work engagement is related to perceptions of professional success and that work engagement increases with age. employee engagement has also been investigated from a leadership perspective. the harvard business review23 reports that executive and senior management have a far more optimistic perception of employee engagement than staff at other levels. this publication further indicates that high engagement results in less absenteeism, lower staff turnover and less safety issues, as well as more customer satisfaction, productivity and profitability. in fact, 71% of their respondents identified engagement as very important to achieving overall organisational goals. employee engagement is argued to be a result of engaged leadership where ‘leaders … lead in ways that engage employees’.24 this leadership style creates the climate for positive engagement, but if leaders put profit before people, micromanage and ignore staff feedback they would be on the right path to ‘killing’ employee engagement.21 leaders caution that the traditional hr approach of valuing tenure over impact will have a negative impact on employee engagement in what the author calls the ‘new world of work’.20 millennials are realistic about this world of work and generally expect industry 4.0 to have a dramatic, but generally positive, impact in the workplace by augmenting their job and allowing them to move away from the mundane aspects thereof.18 millennials and employee engagement given that millennials will form 50% of the global workforce by 2020,8 it is critical to business success to ensure that they engage in the workplace. ludolf urges employers to work with the strengths of millennials rather than emphasising their weaknesses as their impact on the world of work – and business – will continue to grow.14 as a perfect match rarely exist between an incumbent and his or her job description,25 adaptability is required both of the organisation and the individual, which may be a challenge to millennials. given south africa’s history of an unequal, and in some instances dysfunctional, education system a ‘more flexible’ approach to hiring and retention of millennials in this country is supported.16 however, baron-williamson cautions that employers should not, in their eagerness to hire skilled millennials, neglect key hr processes such as background screening.11 given the rise in cv fraud generally and specifically in an environment such as south africa where unemployment is at an all-time high, stringent hr processes is the only way to mitigate the risk of appointing candidates that are not appropriate – which will have a negative impact on employee engagement in general. recruiters should ensure that the millennials they consider have ‘curious minds’ and are flexible so that they fit both the specific role and the company.25 millennials are characterised by low self-esteem4 and a limited ability to accept constructive criticism.1 this manifests in a higher suicide, accidental death because of drug overdose and depression rates amongst millennials. however, this may also be as a result of their unrealistic career expectations, which underscores the necessity of relevant engagement programmes for this generation.4 particularly in the ‘ultra-marathon length’ career they face26 working into their seventies, they need to acquire an understanding that unlike the instant gratification they have become used to, competence and excellence take time – more for some and less for others. employee engagement programmes for millennials will have to focus on teaching them the skills to continuously reinvent themselves through continuous learning without becoming jack of all trades but master of none. there is much to be said in this regard for the so-called ‘lattice career path’27 that features both vertical and horizontal career moves for developing a diverse but well-rounded millennial workforce, but it requires career adaptability skills. given the fact that millennials are increasingly the leaders who implement and execute change26 and are facing the ‘ultramarathon length career’ mentioned earlier, these changing demands on engagement initiatives are relevant to consider for organisations that want to allow millennials sufficient opportunity to grow, learn and develop. are the best practice findings regarding the determinants of business success and employee engagement different for different generations? some contend that although millennials want to feel connected and committed to their role, they see it by and large as a stepping stone and growth opportunity.20 this means that millennials’ employee engagement initiatives need to be fast-tracked to ensure a meaningful contribution and impact in the shortest period of time, whilst retaining a focus on personal development. south african researchers19 identified a significant positive relationship between dimensions of career adaptability and employee engagement, which may indicate that millennials may be engaged even though they seem to job hop. from the aforementioned, it is clear that the impact of millennials on the south african and international work environment will only increase and that engagement initiatives will have to keep track of their changed demands in the work environment. methodology design a cross-sectional survey design was used. a cross-sectional design is well suited to describe a population and compare groups within that population. surveys allow for the relative quick and economical collection of data from large samples. the design suited the research well in both respects. population and sampling the target population was all employees in all sectors. however, because of practical constraints, data was collected from a convenient sample of south african organisations. access to organisations, which employed more than 60 employees (this was the only exclusion category), was gained via students enrolled for their master’s in business leadership at a south african business school. within each organisation, random samples of employees were drawn until a limit of 60 respondents per organisation was reached and completed the questionnaire. this permitted proportional coverage of all the generations. ethical considerations the original data collected in accordance with the prescribed guidelines of the graduate school of business leadership. the use of that data, as secondary data, was approved by the research permission sub-committee (rpsc) of the senate research, innovation, postgraduate degrees and commercialisation committee (sripcc) of the university of south africa (unisa). (ethical clearance number: 2018_prc_rew_012. measurement the utrecht work engagement scale (uwes-9) consisting of nine items was used to measure employee engagement. the utrecht work engagement scale-9 comprises three dimensions, namely vigour, dedication and absorption.10 three items measure each dimension, as set out in table 1. table 1: the items of the three dimensions of utrecht work engagement scale-9 that measure employee engagement. respondents were required to indicate the occurrence of each event on a seven-point scale, ranging from 0 (never), 1 (a few times a year or less), 2 (once a month or less), 3 (a few times a month), 4 (once a week), 5 (a few times a week) to 6 (every day). a high score on any of the items, or dimensions, or the total score would be indicative that the respondent experiences the particular aspect more often than those with lower scores. with regard to reliability, schaufeli and bakker28 reported that the cronbach’s α of all nine items varies from 0.85 to 0.94 (median = 0.91) across the nine national samples. the α-value for the total database is 0.90. in a south african sample29 a cronbach’s α of 0.780, 0.890 and 0.780 for vigour, dedication and absorption, respectively, was reported. in two other south african samples30 cronbach’s α of .908 and .911 was reported. schaufeli and bakker28 also reported that the suggested three-factor structure of engagement is confirmed (cross-samples from different countries) and that the construct is related to other constructs in an expected manner. within the south african context, a three-factor model of work engagement was confirmed,29 whilst another study31 could not replicate the three-factor structure and reported the presence of a very strong general factor and, in comparison, two weak group factors. however, in a meta-analysis the validity of employee engagement in the workplace was broadly confirmed.32 despite the aforementioned, measurement invariance was reported across gender30 and across race in south african samples.29 age was self-reported and generational differences were based on the following numbers: baby boomers – born between 1945 and 1964; generation x – born between 1965 and 1979; generation y (millennials) – born between 1980 and 1996; and lastly generation z – born after 1996. this study focused on the difference between the two largest groups in the sample, namely generation x and generation y (millennials). statistical analyses firstly, demographic statistics were calculated mostly to describe the sample and to verify the validity of the sample, comparing sample statistics with the statistics reported on the workforce composition of south africa. secondly, the reliability coefficient for the uwes-9 across the different generations was calculated. an acceptable cut-off score for acceptable reliability is 0.7033,34 and this was applied in the study. exploratory factor analyses were performed to gain insights into measurement invariance across the generations, and as such, the kaiser–meyer–olkin and the bartlett’s test of sphericity was conducted to sanction the suitability of the data for factor analysis. the kaiser–meyer–olkin measure of sampling adequacy is acceptable when above the minimum criterion of 0.5 is met, with the bartlett’s test of sphericity showing statistical significance (p < 0.05).35 these guidelines were also used in this study. it is acknowledged that the traditional three-factor solution is not always replicated in south africa,31 but it has been found to be valid across several cultures.10 with regard to measurement invariance,36,37 signs of invariance were firstly analysed comparing the factor structure of a one factor solution, for generation x and millennials, using the tucker’s phi-test. these calculated scores were interpreted similarly to what local researchers38 did, interpreting tucker’s phi-values greater than 0.90 as essential agreement and values above 0.95 as pointing to very high agreement. with regard to the theoretically sound three-factor solution, inspection of the exploratory factor analyses factor loadings was used as indicator of measurement invariance, focusing on the same items loading on the same factors and similarity with regard to the highest loadings per solution. next correlations between the independent variable (age) and the dependent variable (engagement) were calculated. these correlations were deemed statistically significant when the significance was smaller than or equal to 0.01, particularly as the sample size was relatively large. the practical significance was interpreted as the amount of variance explained, by interpreting the coefficient of determination as the percentage of variance explained in the dependent variable. the coefficient of determination was calculated by squaring r and multiplying it by 100.33,39 to gain insight into the relative importance of age, the correlation between tenure, management position, post level and engagement was also calculated. remaining with the theme of the relative importance of independent variables, age, tenure, management position, as well as post level were regressed to predict engagement. apart from aspiring for an appropriate model fit (statistically significant f-value), the interpretation of significant betas was important. significance (p < 0.05) was used to identify those variables, which uniquely and significantly predict engagement. if the beta was not statistically significant, it was interpreted that the variable does not contribute to the declared variance in the dependent variable. lastly, to explore whether the mean scores on engagement differed for generation x and millennials, t-tests were performed, focusing on the differences in the total engagement score, scores on the subscales, as well as mean differences at an item level. t-values with a p-value less than 0.05 was considered as an indication of a statistically significant difference between groups40 and a cohen’s d-value larger than 0.2 as evidence that the differences were of practical significance.41 cohen’s d was calculated using the following formula: cohen’s d = (mean y mean x) / ([s.d. x + s.d.y) / 2]). the cohen’s-d value presents the difference between mean values in terms of standard deviation units. results in table 2 descriptive statistics of the sample is reported. as there were some missing data, only valid percentages are reported, resulting in percentages not always adding up to 100. however, invalid data never amounted to more than 1.5% of the available data. table 2: demographic particulars of the total sample (n = 3124). data from 1913 millennials and 1027 generation x employees from an existing database representative of employees across a broad spectrum of south african organisations and a cross-section of races and genders, were analysed. the reliability statistics on the uwes-9 is reported in table 3. reliability coefficients higher than 0.70 was deemed as acceptable.33,34 table 3: uwes-9 reliability statistics. from table 3 we can observe that for all groups the threshold of 0.70 was reached. the uwes-9 thus seems to be reliable in the tested sample with an alpha of 0.900. age was an important variable in the study. in line with the utterances of jacobsen and jensen42 regarding gender, reporting on age should be reliable as it should generally be easy for respondents to answer and few people should lie about their age. the focus next shifted to the factorial validity of the uwes-9 across both generations of interest, requiring exploratory factor analyses. before this could proceed, some qualifying statistics were calculated, the results of which are presented in table 4. table 4: general statistics relevant to the factorial structure of utrecht work engagement scale-9 for both generation x and y. both the kaiser–meyer–olkin measure of adequacy and the bartlett’s test of sphericity were above the cut-off levels set for the study (kaiser–meyer–olkin measure of adequacy > 0.50; bartlett’s test of sphericity < 0.05). given these outcomes, factor analyses were performed. presented in table 5 is the factorial structure of uwes-9, for both generation x and millennials and for a one and three factor outcome. table 5: factorial structure of utrecht work engagement scale-9 for both generation x and millennials: item loadings. tuckers phi, tapping from the single factor structure of the total group and how the subgroups differ from that, is a congruence coefficient used to assess the similarity of factors. the value is very close to 1, larger than 0.999, suggesting a high similarity between the subgroup factors and the factors of the total group, as evident from the single factor item loadings in table 5. this suggests measurement invariance. inspection of the factorial structure on the three-factor solution also reveals a great deal of similarity between generation x and millennials in south africa in the way they respond to the items of the uwes-9. evidence of configural invariance (where the groups have similar factor loading patterns) and weak invariance (where the absolute values of factor loadings are similar) was observed. configural and metric measurement invariance37 was thus achieved, indicating that engagement is measured similarly for both generations. it was thus assumed that sufficient data on measurement invariance were collected to continue with higher level analyses. differences on engagement across the generations were tested for in two ways. the first was to assess whether age predicted engagement, using correlation and regression analyses. in table 6, the correlation between age and engagement is reported. this statistic is central to the research, and the last column (total) should be interpreted in this case. table 6: correlation analysis: the relationship between age, tenure, management position, post level and employee engagement. table 6 indicates that age correlates significantly with engagement (r = 0.045; p = 0.012). thus, the higher the age of the individual, the higher is his or her level of engagement. this significance should be seen against the background of a large sample (n > 3000). the coefficient of determination is the correlation squared times 100, which equates to 0.203, indicating 0.2% of the variance in engagement is explained by age. this is an infinitesimal number and suggests no practical significance. also, observable from table 6 is that management position is an important predictor of engagement (r = 0.154, p < 0.001, r2 × 100 = 2.370), accounting for almost 2.4% of the variance in engagement. this could be as a result of management bias.23 regression analyses were performed next to determine whether age is a unique and significant predictor of engagement, given the other demographical data collected. the results of these analyses are presented in table 7, where the focus should again be on the last (i.e. total) column. table 7: regressions analyses: age, tenure, management position and post level as predictors of engagement. the last column (total) in table 7 reveals that the model fit for the whole group, was acceptable (f[4, 3103] = 19.316, p < 0.001), declaring 2.30% of the variance in engagement. only the item ‘management or not’ contributed uniquely and significantly to the explanation of engagement. this was not the case for age or any of the other demographic variables. table 8 presents mean scores (with standard deviations provided in brackets), mean differences, t-statistics (and the significance of the statistic presented below that in brackets), as well as the practical significance of the difference (presented as cohen’s-d values). table 8: mean scores, mean differences, significance of difference (ny = 1913; nx =1.027). the levene’s test for equality of variances was never significant, thus revealed that the variance were homogeneous across the two groups.1 the degrees of freedom was 2, 938 across all comparisons. the results reveal that no mean differences exist between generation x and millennials, as far as total engagement scores are concerned. no difference was found at a subscale level either. with two items (item 5 and 6), related to dedication, millennials scored lower than generation x. at the item level, the differences were statistically significant (p < 0.05), however, practical significance was negligible, far below the 0.200 cohen’s d-value, which will indicate practical significance.41 discussion the sample was relatively large (n = 3124), with millennials making up 61.23% of the sample. the descriptive statistics on the sample, presented in table 1, affirm the validity of the sample. for instance, more generation x respondents report to be in management positions than baby boomers or millennials, and the tenure of baby boomer and generation x respondents was higher than that of millennials. considering the reliability of the measurement instrument, the results reveal that the uwes-9 was reliable with an alpha of 0.900. measurement invariance across the two generations of interest was tested in this study by means of exploratory factor analyses. the tuckers phi statistic revealed that the factual structure for generation x and millennials were very similar. the same was found when inspecting the three-factor solution (see table 5), where the items loaded almost on identical factors, and where the dominant items were identical across the factors. differences on engagement across the generations were tested for in two ways, namely age and tenure, management and post level. the correlation between age and engagement was statistically significant – r = 0.045, p = 0.012 – (last column in table 6), but at a practical level insignificant, declaring only 0.2% of the variance. when adding tenure, management and post level to age, age was not a significant predictor of engagement as indicated in the last column of table 7. correlation and regression analyses thus did not show a relationship between age and engagement. this finding contradicts a previous finding10 that work engagement increases with age – a finding that may be indicative of the uniqueness of the south african work environment. the result indicating that no mean differences exist between generation x and millennials as far as total engagement scores are concerned is significant as it reveals that south african millennials respond similarly to the generation preceding them to the workplace with regard to engagement. this finding challenges the perception, as reported by other authors1,4,5,7,13,14 that millennials are more self-interested, entitled and unfocused than generation x. it seems that the impatience of millennials with talk without action is more to the detriment of employers that are unable to structure their employee engagement initiatives to support the hunger of millennials to make a difference and move up the ladder than to the detriment of millennials themselves as they seem not to have any problem to spend less than 3 years in a job before moving on.2 as with employees of other generations employers can retain millennials by optimising educational (training) opportunities.18 considering previous research regarding millennials and engagement, the findings support the contentions of earlier researchers4,19 that millennials respond well to interventions that help them build confidence and juggle multiple responsibilities. as millennials will form 50% of the global workforce by 2020,8 accounting for more than a third of the south african population9 and increasingly fill management positions (see table 7), together with the sought-after innovative work behaviour of millennials,8,11,12,13,14 this finding is critical for business owners wishing to ensure the future success of their organisations. although millennials are generally criticised for their self-directed loyalty,16 this study seems to support the contention that other generations in the workplace have also benefited from the way in which millennials have redefined workspaces13 through their insistence on work-life balance, their reluctance to sacrifice personal time for their career,3,5 a company culture that values personal growth and development2 and reliable and seamless wi-fi and technology.8,43 the finding that only one demographic variable, namely ‘management or not’, contributed uniquely and significantly to the explanation of engagement, that is, that management position is an important predictor of engagement seems to confirm the harvard business review23 finding that executive and senior management have a far more optimistic perception of employee engagement than staff at other levels. ultimately the success of organisations depends on the ability of the different generations to work together. the earlier finding that millennials focus on short-term goals should point to the necessity for engagement interventions that will assist millennials to string together these short-term goals so that they contribute to the achievement of their long-term goals.20 conclusion as the study found a great deal of similarity between generation x and millennials in the way they respond to the items determining engagement, contact between millennials and generation xers should be encouraged in the workplace. this finding indicates that the contention8,14 that the key requirements for employee engagement, that is, the ability to work remotely, having a meaningful job, receiving timeous and consistent feedback and appropriate reward systems, will be applicable to both generation xers and millennials. ultimately the success of organisations depends on the ability of the different generations to work together. deloitte44 found that the majority of millennials do not expect to be happier than their parents and also fear that they will not succeed in an industry 4.0 environment. it can be argued that generation xers hold the key to whether millennials will succeed and fulfil their potential. the good workplace practices millennials demand, such as personal development plans and coaching and mentoring, provide older generations with the opportunity to shape these future leaders by developing their strengths. hopefully millennial managers will be the ‘engaged leaders’24 required for the new world of work. barrick1 points out that generation xers were originally made out to be just as ‘bad’ as millennials are now made out to be and they need to accept that millennials work differently than they do and mentor and coach them to ensure that their strengths are enhanced and their weaknesses mitigated. with millennials’ penchant for change, experimentation and innovation, generation xers can learn from them in the same way that baby boomers learnt from generation xers to embrace technology. this study indicates that the intergenerational struggle in a multi-generation workplace1,2,3,4,5 is not insurmountable in south africa. it can be overcome through appropriate workplace engagement initiatives, given the finding that millennial and generation x employees experience and engage very similarly in the south african work environment. future research may be undertaken to compare the findings of this study regarding south african millennials with african millennials or millennials internationally. research with a focus on different economic sectors and how generational matters manifest in a specific sector may also be interesting and useful. the primary limitations of this study are single source bias and the use of convenience sampling. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions t.l. and r.s. contributed equally to this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references barrick g. the loneliness of leading millennials. prof accountant. 2017;31:26–27. mccartney b. job hopping new normal for millennials. hr future. 2014. october; 32. available from: https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/ejc158961 okosi f. bridging the generation gap – learning from the millennials. without prejudice. 2017;17(7):22–23. sinek s. millennials in the workplace [homepage on the internet]. 2016 [cited 2019 july 22]. available from: http://www.insidequest.com; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=her0qp6qjnu smit d. are millennials as bad as everyone makes out? hr future. 2018. june; 32–33. available from: 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[cited 2019 july 22]. available from: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/deloitte/cz/documents/human-capital/cz-hc-trends-reinvent-with-human-focus.pdf abstract introduction the military training area methodology ecological importance of the langebaan lagoon challenges and looming threats recommendations military integrated environmental management conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) jan t. marx department of geography and environmental studies, stellenbosch university, south africa ian liebenberg centre for military studies and faculty of military science, university of stellenbosch, south africa citation marx, j.t. & liebenberg, i., 2019, ‘into the future: donkergat military training area and the langebaan ramsar site’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a566. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.566 original research into the future: donkergat military training area and the langebaan ramsar site jan t. marx, ian liebenberg received: 22 apr. 2018; accepted: 12 oct. 2018; published: 26 feb. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract militaries need natural areas for offensive and defensive combat-readiness programmes. here soldiers, war machinery and munitions are employed to prepare forces to execute warfighting tactics. integration of environmental considerations into military activities is a growing global challenge. this study is based on a qualitative approach underpinned by an extensive literature review. the potential for the contribution of the military to a sensitive and diminishing wetland on the west coast of south africa (sa) is addressed. donkergat military training area (dmta) in the western cape province, sa, provides diverse, seaborne training and warfighting facilities for the south african special forces (sasf), a specialist branch of the south african national defence force (sandf). this facility borders the atlantic ocean and langebaan lagoon, a ramsar site (no. 398). one of only 15 island ecosystems on the southern african coastline, lies within the boundaries of the area. saldanha bay was identified as an economic development node by the national government. the 4 special forces regiment (4 sfr) is thus obliged to contribute to the conservation of these environmental assets. industrial development includes operation phakisa by the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries (daff) that envisages expanded aquaculture practices in saldanha bay. developers of fish and bivalve farms are allowed up-scaling aquaculture operations. these result in the loss of ecological attributes of the langebaan lagoon wetland system. in the study, we recommend that parts of dmta should be incorporated in the ramsar definition for the langebaan lagoon wetland system. ecosystem indicators monitoring bird life, water and sediment quality, fish and rocky intertidal macrofauna in the dmta waters should be intensified. the dmta as a benchmark ecosystem in the saldanha bay area will facilitate environmentally sound planning amidst recent developments. integrating sections of the langebaan lagoon that is part of the dmta into the existing internationally recognised wetland area, the military can contribute significantly to wetland conservation. management of these areas should be formulated in a military integrated environmental management (miem) plan by incorporating international guidelines. introduction the military of any country needs natural areas for combat-readiness programmes where tactics in warfighting endeavours are rehearsed. the integration of environmental considerations into military activities is a growing global challenge, and in this study the possibility for the contribution of the military to a sensitive and diminishing wetland on the west coast of sa is addressed. a consideration of miem for south african national defence force (sandf) properties, including dmta, requires reflection on international environmental laws. south africa has signed and ratified virtually all the current environmental conventions and protocols (south africa 2001), and in cases, even played a leading role in the implementation and development of these international legal agreements. one important agreement that sa has ratified is the convention on wetlands of international importance especially as waterfowl habitat (ramsar convention).1 according to the criteria of the ramsar convention (established 1971), there are presently 23 wetlands of international importance in sa (ramsar sites information service 2017).2 langebaan lagoon in the western cape province was designated to this list (no. 398) on 25 april 1988 (cowan 1995), with the following depiction: the designated site is composed of the islands malgas, jutten, marcus and schaapen; langebaan lagoon (15 km long, 12,5 km wide) up to the high-water mark, including marshlands and precincts of the lagoon, and a section of sixteen–mile beach. (p. 16) the initial map with the allocated border of the ramsar site was drafted by de graaff and randall (1987) and is shown in figure 1. figure 1: original map of the designated langebaan ramsar wetland area. the first conservation measures aimed specifically at the langebaan lagoon were implemented in 1973 when this water system up to its high-water mark was proclaimed a reserve in terms of the sea fisheries act. the postberg/oude post nature reserve, that neighbours the lagoon, was proclaimed a private nature reserve in 1969 and is owned by a company that was previously known as ‘die oude post sindikaat’ pty ltd. postberg/oude post nature reserve is still presently owned by a number of influential individuals that own properties on this 1851 hectare (ha) of pristine land. adjacent to postberg is the west coast national park (wcnp) that was proclaimed on 30 august 1985 (government gazette 9904 1985) and is managed by the south african national parks (sanparks). in august 1987, postberg was included into the wcnp (government gazette 10789 1987), the first contractual national park in sa. situated next to postberg nature reserve is a sandf asset, namely the dmta, an exclusive south african special forces (sf) base (see figure 6). the military training area donkergat military training area originated from a need identified for a seaborne unit when sf started executing transborder operations in southern africa. the first sf base in sa, namely 1 reconnaissance commando, was established at the bluff in durban where a whaling station, initiated by a norwegian johan bryde, was operational from 1908 to 1953 (best & ross 1989). the same johan bryde built a whaling station at donkergat that commenced with operations in 1909 and closed down in 1967 because of an international ban on whale hunting3 (best & ross 1989). in 1972, during the south africa–angolan war, the first sf waterborne operation was launched from the bluff, resulting in the founding of c group, a water-orientated specialist grouping (sometimes referred to as ‘sea recces’) in 1975/1976. the need for a seaborne unit was recognised and subsequent to a detailed search around the coast of sa, the donkergat area was identified, because it is secluded and easily accessible by naval vessels. in 1978, the peninsula was allocated to the then south african army (saa) and 4 reconnaissance commando, now 4 sfr, came into being (south africa 1979a). donkergat military training area, bordering sections of the langebaan lagoon, was thus inaugurated as a sf seaborne facility 10 years before the langebaan lagoon obtained its international status. more land, including riet bay (south africa 1979b), was later added and the area that the dmta covers today was proclaimed (figure 6 shows the contemporary boundaries of dmta). in the same way that donkergat bay and salamander bay provided safe anchorage to ships during the whaling era and to flying boats during the second world war (spring 1995), these havens are ideal for accommodating the variety of seaborne activities required from 4 sfr today.4 the dmta hosts diverse preparations and rehearsals for national and foreign operations that comprise demolitions, shooting, parachuting, urban exercises, boating, surface swimming, survival, mountaineering and diving. the training area covers a terrestrial area of 1384 ha, with the borders stretching over waters of the atlantic ocean and langebaan lagoon. meeuw island, one of only 15 island ecosystems surrounding sa, is enclosed in the military area. as can be seen from figure 1, the border of the proclaimed ramsar area stretches from perlemoen point, south of riet bay, to leentjiesklip in langebaan, excluding the military area (figure 6). it is suggested that the present formulation of the wetland as described by cowan (1995) should be revised and specifically meeuw island and donkergat bay, riet bay and salamander bay should be so denoted. to include the island and bays, the ramsar area border should stretch from salamander point north of salamander bay to leentjiesklip (figure 6). methodology based on previous academic work conducted in this particular area (marx 2014), the article intends to inspire research possibilities for future studies. the study is both descriptive and exploratory in nature (mouton & marais 1996:43–46). it was undertaken against the broad theoretical framework of functionalism as a research approach.5 the literature review made use of general and scientific literature relevant to the dmta, providing important background. literature on existing administrative, historical, ecological and military use of the dmta was explored and, among other, a number of published sources between 1974 and 2016 were utilised. secondary sources as well as scientific publications were consulted, giving the project a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary character. by comparing the national environmental management act (nema) (south africa 1998), principles and regulations with the state of affairs of dmta, specific environmentally detrimental, inherited ecological disturbances and ongoing military activities with negative effects were identified. the current exclusion of sensitive areas where birds concentrate and invertebrates flourish in the langebaan lagoon wetland definition was identified as a serious shortcoming. the chosen research approach also reflects a qualitative angle. in the course of the research, the question arose whether mitigation measures could be implemented to lessen existing impacts of (potentially serious) environmental challenges. where needed, specialists from cape nature, iziko museum, the regional facilities interface manager (rfim), the south african heritage resource agency (sahra), the council of geoscience and other organisations were consulted. legislation and legal compliance were taken note of where applicable; among others, these investigations related to identifying harmful impacts on the environment chosen for this study. inclusion of areas of the dmta in the existing ramsar definition was investigated. recommendations flowing from the research process and findings were identified as possible feasible and cost-effective mitigation measures to reduce the negative environmental impact identified in the field of study. research question the military of any country, including south africa (sa), needs natural areas for training of offensive and defensive combat-readiness programmes. on these ‘sacrificed’ areas, soldiers, war machinery and munitions are employed to prepare forces to execute their core function, that is, warfighting. the present focus on environmental issues is a global concern and the integration of environmental considerations into military activities is a growing global challenge. in this case, a research question that addresses the dilemma of the contribution of the military presence to a sensitive and diminishing wetland on the west coast arises. the above discussion appeals to the obligation of the 4 special forces regiment (4 sfr) to contribute to the conservation of this delicate wetland system of international importance, especially in view of the growing industrial threat in the greater saldanha bay. one of these industrial threats, the proposed projects of expanded aquaculture practices in saldanha bay, is a matter of concern for the long-term ecological equilibrium of saldanha bay and the langebaan lagoon wetland system. can the military contribute significantly to the conservation of the wetland by incorporating sections of the lagoon that is part of the donkergat military training area (dmta) perimeter into the existing internationally recognised wetland area? if so, management of these areas can be formulated in a military integrated environmental management (miem) plan by incorporating internationally accepted guidelines. ecological importance of the langebaan lagoon on a national level, the conservation of the langebaan lagoon and the salt marshes up to its southern extreme is of utmost importance. the area is unique in that no river feeds them and at some 5700 ha the lagoon and marshes are by far the largest in sa, constituting 32% of salt marsh habitats in the country (o’callaghan 1990). langebaan lagoon is adjoined by 32 000 ha of the state-protected wcnp, creating an extensive area of biodiversity in the region. the lagoon is an inseparable part of the greater saldanha bay marine system and supports up to 55 000 water birds in summer, most of which are waders that include regular palaearctic migrants. to the north of the lagoon lie five islands that host nearly a quarter of a million sea birds, many of which are endemic to the nearshore regions of sa and namibia. the salt marshes and reed beds occurring in the lagoon act as essential filtration systems and provide nurseries for numerous endemic fish species. in 2011, wetlands were identified by the national biodiversity assessment (nba) as the most threatened ecosystem in sa and that conservation and management of these systems should be a priority (department of environmental affairs 2012). challenges and looming threats in contrast with the waters included within the borders of the dmta, the langebaan lagoon is accessible by the public and subject to activities such as water sport, fishing and lately proposals to intensify aquaculture practices in saldanha bay. pressures of recreational and industrial development undertakings are increasing, as langebaan is becoming a kite and windsurfing mecca, and saldanha bay has been identified as an economic development node by the national government.6 industrial ventures are poised (and have started) to commence. around saldanha bay transnet industrial projects started already with major upgrades to the general maintenance quay and rock quay in saldanha.7 transnet has also projected a phase 2 expansion of the iron ore terminal (big bay side) to increase its holding capacity. the latter activity will require sediment dredging and removal of hard material to make the channel more accessible near the proposed berth. according to clark et al. (2016), this movement of sediment has the potential to lead to negative side effects for the surrounding environment over the long term. further proposed developments include infrastructure to supply eskom and the industry with additional electricity in the form of a floating power plant (fpp), liquefied natural gas (lng) import facilities and a gas-fired independent power plant. additional possible industrial developments that are earmarked include the elandsfontein phosphate mine and transnet national port authority (tnpa) projects, that is, a vessel repair facility, mossgas jetty and a floating dry dock (clark et al. 2016). figures 2 and 3 show the current layout of saldanha bay and that what is planned for the medium term up to 2044. figure 2: current layout of transnet saldanha bay port. figure 3: transnet national port authority projected development in saldanha. a more detailed outlay of the areas proposed for aquaculture farming nearest to the ramsar area is shown for big bay–north of mykonos and big bay–south of mykonos in figures 4 and 5. figure 4: proposed aquaculture development zones in big bay – north of mykonos. figure 5: proposed aquaculture development zones in big bay – south of mykonos. the industrial development aquaculture practices in saldanha bay will expand significantly (figure 3). a basic assessment report (bar) for this venture (dea project number: 14/12/16/3/3/1/1728) was compiled by srk consulting and submitted in august 2017 to the national department of environmental affairs (dea), as well as to daff (srk consulting 2017). authorisation was granted on 08 january 2018 by the dea. in addition, the southern cross salmon production facility was also authorised on 08 january 2018, and during july 2017, a bar for a private enterprise, namely the molapong aquaculture project saldanha bay (dea & dp ref number: 16/3/3/1/f4/17/3014/17), was submitted by ecosense consultants (ecosense consultants 2017). the aquaculture ventures shown in figures 3, 4 and 5 (capmarine 2016) planned for saldanha bay have the potential to influence the delicate balance in the langebaan wetland system. it is generally acknowledged that intensive development of the aquaculture industry is accompanied by an increase in environmental impacts (ervik et al. 1997). from this perspective, the sustainability of intensive marine aquaculture near the langebaan wetland system is brought into question. the development of marine aquaculture has led to conflicting demands for coastal resources and it is widely accepted that coastal aquaculture should be developed within an integrated coastal zone management (iczm) framework (fernandes & read 2001; gesamp (imo/fao/unesco-ioc/wmo/who/iaea/un/unep joint group of experts on the scientific aspects of marine environmental protection 2001). it is clear from the above figures that the foreseen developments should take place over the next 5 years and thereafter the broad coastal and wetland environment and habitat will see substantial changes in favour of industrial and other profit-making ventures. the development of the saldanha bay port has significantly altered the physical structure and hydrodynamics of the bay, whilst all developments within the area (industrial, residential, tourism, etc.) have the potential to negatively impact ecosystem health.8 with the industrial developments around the lagoon and recreational activities increasing, the pressure on this ecosystem is escalating and changes are taking place. some negative influences have been ongoing for years and are unfortunately irreversible. one example is the mediterranean mussel (mytilus galloprovincialis), now the dominant low intertidal mussel on the west coast, that was introduced through shipping activities from europe in 1984 and even much earlier. the distribution of this exotic bivalve already extends over a large area stretching from the namibian border to port alfred (branch et al. 2005). negative ecological changes, through surveys executed over the last 30 years, provide important evidence, and examples include the long-term decreases in aquatic macrophytes (eelgrass and salt marshes) and certain bird species in saldanha bay and langebaan lagoon. this ramsar area with its sheltered waters and abundance of prey has been identified as the most important wetland refuge for waders on the west coast of south africa (clark et al. 2016). there are three distinct intertidal habitats that exist within langebaan lagoon, namely, seagrass beds (such as those of the eelgrass zostera capensis), salt marsh (dominated by cordgrass spartina maritime and sarcocornia perennis) and unvegetated sandflats (dominated by the sand prawn, callichirus kraussi and the mudprawn upogebia capensis). the environments that eelgrass and salt marsh beds create, are of utmost importance in the langebaan lagoon as they increase habitat diversity, act as an important food source, contribute to sediment stability and offer protection to juvenile fish and invertebrates from natural predators. in comparison with unvegetated areas, seagrass beds and salt marsh habitats support higher species richness, diversity, abundance and biomass of invertebrate fauna (clark et al. 2016). recent studies conducted by clark et al. (2016) have shown that the aerial extent of seagrass beds in langebaan lagoon has declined by an estimated 38% since the 1960s, this being more intense in some areas such as klein oesterwal where sea grass beds have declined by almost 99% over the same period. this decline in seagrass beds resulted in the associated benthic macrofauna becoming less abundant, whilst species that burrow primarily in unvegetated sand have increased in density. in contrast, little change occurred in the extent of salt marshes in langebaan lagoon, these having declined by no more than 8% since the 1960s. declines in seagrass beds also influence the population strengths of wading birds and clark et al. (2016) found a direct correlation between fluctuations in the abundance of the terek sandpiper (xenus cinereus) and the availability of zostera beds. these birds feed exclusively in zostera beds and their population declined drastically during periods of seagrass non-availability. other birds that have shown a downward trend in numbers since the 1980s are the african penguin (spheniscus demersus), bank cormorant (phalacrocorax neglectus) and palaearctic9 migratory birds. the african penguin breeding populations decreased at all four islands in saldanha bay from 2001, with 2156 breeding pairs, till 2014 when only 314 breeding pairs were noted (clark et al. 2016). there is no doubt that these developments are a great concern. immediate national conservation action is required to prevent these birds becoming extinct. bank cormorant numbers in saldanha bay have declined by approximately 80% since 1990. breeding pairs dropped to as low as 22 pairs in 2013 but have since increased to 50 in 2014 (clark et al. 2016). since 1980, there has been a drastic decline in the numbers of palaearctic visitors to the lagoon which is at least in part because of disturbances to their breeding grounds. more important, however, is that there has also been a dramatic decline in resident wader numbers, which is an indication of habitat changes and human influence that significantly disturb the ecological balance of the lagoon (clark et al. 2016). potential or real threats that major industrial developments generate need mentioning. an excellent example of an unforeseen threat caused by industrial development is the continuing red dust phenomenon caused by the arcellormittal iron-ore plant. unforeseen negative outcomes evolved into a major pollution problem with health risks for humans and animals and infrastructure damages (buildings and vehicles) alike. concerning the present planned projects, the following early warnings or red lights stemming from our research should be mentioned: suboptimal planning for security measures and safety for the public such as roads that stretch close to storage facilities, for example, the gas facilities constructed adjacent to the langebaan–saldanha connecting route the potential for real pollution caused by dredging and oil or gas spills in the engineering hub and the obstruction dangers that anchor buoys, as well as underwater pipelines and overland pipelines hold. concerning the 884 ha sited for the operation phakisa aquaculture development, the following threats come to mind: the environmental authorisations sanctioning the fish and bivalve farming have been granted to the developers by dea. this is the same government agency appointed as sa’s administrative authority responsible for the implementation of the ramsar treaty provisions. such a conflict of interest can conceivably negatively influence effective management and protection of the site as envisaged by the ramsar convention. the aquaculture developers plan to get operations to full production within a short 5 year period which is an insufficient window to respond to the accumulated impact and probable changes to the dynamics of the wetland. the complete impact may only manifest after the 10-year leases, which have been granted to aquaculture operators, have expired. langebaan lagoon is a shallow intertidal system that flushes out to sea only every 4 days. this poses a threat as accumulated waste matter can be transferred from the floating fish factories into the wetland system. the developers promote the aquaculture farms as an opportunity for job creation. however, the number of new jobs created by aquaculture over the next 5 to 10 years is insignificant in comparison with the current employment in the hospitality and tourism sectors of langebaan. both these areas of employment are likely to experience a severe collapse in the event of the lagoon being adversely impacted because of aquaculture activities. the welfare of the communities who live around these water systems is dependent on the health and sustainability of this valuable resource. recreational users of saldanha bay and langebaan lagoon will be influenced by the exclusion zones around the fish farms. among the reasons why tourists interested in water sports and appreciation of the environment (i.e. divers and birdwatchers) may decline could be because of visual pollution, no-access days because of industrial activities, real or potential toxic contamination and the declining availability of space. recommendations the only waters which are exclusively protected from human interference are situated within the military area borders. activities in the military area waters are limited and in certain areas, such as parts of riet bay, access is prohibited even to military personnel, rendering these sensitive ecological features distinct protection status. as seen from figure 1, the border of the proclaimed ramsar area, stretching from perlemoen point south of riet bay to leentjiesklip, excludes the military area. the present formulation of the wetland, as described by cowan (1995), should be revised and meeuw island, donkergat bay, riet bay and salamander bay should be so included. to embrace the island and bays, the ramsar area border must stretch from salamander point north of salamander bay (figure 6) to leentjiesklip. the dimensions in hectare that each of these entities comprises are shown in table 1. figure 6: donkergat military training area. table 1: area sizes of regions of donkergat military training area to be included in the langebaan ramsar site. the voluntary inclusion of these military areas into the formally recognised ramsar site is possible. an earlier example is the precedent-setting expansion of the de hoop nature reserve where a missile and weapons test range at the de hoop rocket-testing facility in the cape overberg region exists (cowan 1995). the present demarcation of langebaan lagoon as a wetland of international importance should be revised and the stipulation for the inclusion of the above-mentioned areas should be considered and so appended. the suggested inclusions will amplify the environmental responsibility of the military, but on the contrary, give dmta an international conservation status and add to the value of meeuw island and riet bay as ‘sacred’ areas. although the entire dmta coastline, from salamander bay in the north to perlemoen point in the south, borders on the designated langebaan lagoon wetland, the suggested functional inclusion of meeuw island (7 ha), donkergat bay (39 ha), riet bay (186 ha) and salamander bay (46 ha) will expand the existing ramsar area definition by a significant 278 ha (figure 7). in addition, the waters south–east of the newly proposed salamander leentjiesklip ramsar border, that was not part of the declared wetland, will be included. figure 7: proposed localities to be included in the langebaan ramsar site. according to the signatory criteria adopted at the conference of contracting parties held in montreux in 1990 (cowan 1995), no major objections can be raised to the proposed dmta area inclusion into the current ramsar site. such inclusion would compel the south african department of defence (dod) to shoulder an increasingly significant responsibility in the conservation of the natural environment entrusted to its care – essentially thus to counter increasing pressure being placed on natural domains occurring in training areas of the dod. military integrated environmental management the exclusive conservation value of dmta necessitated scientifically founded management that resulted in the implementation of a miem plan (marx 2014). one of the purposes of the plan is to dictate that military activities are kept within the constraints of this sensitive area with sensible utilisation as the aim. if the designated military areas are included in the existing wetland, the miem approach will contribute to the conservation of the langebaan lagoon system as an entity. by practising sound management principles, criticism from members of the public can be proactively mitigated. although dmta is a restricted area, it must be emphasised that it is not exempted from the critical eye of the outside world and mismanagement will not go unnoticed. conclusion a holistic approach in monitoring and assessing the overall health status of the saldanha bay must be implemented and regular monitoring of all parameters is essential. to date, most of the environmental impact studies have been localised without taking the entire saldanha bay, langebaan lagoon and donkergat ecosystem into account. at dmta, impact studies can be initiated by dod personnel for the monitoring of ecosystem indicators such as bird surveys, water quality, sediment features, benthic macrofauna, surf-zone fish and rocky intertidal macrofauna. by getting involved, the dmta can play an increasingly important role as a reference tool to influence public decision-makers of the saldanha bay area and become one of the ruling ecosystems against which development can be measured. the presence of absolute sacred areas with international conservation status, such as meeuw island and riet bay, will add to the value of dmta as an ecological frame of reference. to succeed in assuring the survival of donkergat, this military area must be managed and developed to act as the reference model for the bigger saldanha bay area and other dod assets in south africa. acknowledgements this article is based on the phd of dr j.t. marx. this is not a registered project per se. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contribution this article is based on research conducted by dr j.t. marx during the course of his phd. he completed the thesis at the stellenbosch university (su) in south africa. this article is a spin-off from this extensive research undertaking. the second author (i.l.) provided some insights on government policy, socio-economic attitudes and developments, brief notes on local (social and/or military) history of the saldanha bay area and public attitudes. the second author contributed between 15% and 20% of the work done for this article. references baradat, l.p., 2012, political ideologies: their origins and impact, longman, delhi. best, p.b., 2009, ‘the whalers of saldanha bay’, in g. athiros, l. athiros, n. athiros & m. turner (eds.), a west coast odyssey: a journey into the history of the cape’s west coast peninsula, pp. 129–130, historical media, tokai. best, p.b. & ross, j.b., 1989, ‘whales and whaling’, in a.i.l. payne & r.j.m. crawford (eds.), oceans of life, pp. 315–338, vlaeberg publishers, vlaeberg. branch, g.m., branch, m.l., griffiths, c.l. & beckley, l.e., 2005, two oceans. a guide to the marine life of southern africa, david phillip, claremont, ca. capmarine, 2016, feasibility assessment for a proposed sea-based aquaculture development zone in saldanha bay, saldanha adz key stakeholder workshop presentation, cape town, 16 september. clark, b.m., massie, v., hutchings, k., laird, m., biccard, a., brown, e. et al., 2016, the state of saldanha bay and langebaan lagoon 2016, (technical report. report no. aec 1691/1) prepared by anchor environmental consultants (pty) ltd for the saldanha bay water quality forum trust. cowan, g.i., 1995, ‘south africa and the ramsar convention’, in j. cowan (eds.), wetlands of south africa, pp. 1–20, department of environmental affairs and tourism, pretoria. deat, 2005, environmental assessment of international agreements, integrated environmental management information series 19, department of environmental affairs and tourism, pretoria. de graaff, g. & randall, r., 1987, langebaan lagoon ramsar designation, national parks board of trusters, pretoria, viewed 30 august 2017, from https://rsis.ramsar.org/398. department of environmental affairs, 2012, 2nd south africa environment outlook. a report on the state of the environment. executive summary, department of environmental affairs, pretoria. ecosense consultants, 2017, basic assessment report for the proposed molapong aquaculture project, saldanha bay. dea&dp reference no: 16/3/3/1/f4/17/3014/17, july 2017. ervik, a., hansen, p.a., aure, j., stigebrandt, a., johannessen, p. & jahnsen, t., 1997, ‘regulating the local environmental impact of intensive marine fish farming i. the concept of the mom system (modelling – on growing fish farms – monitoring)’, aquaculture 158, 85–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0044-8486(97)00186-5 fernandes, t.f. & read, p.a., 2001, ‘aquaculture and the management of coastal zones’, in p.a. read, t.f. fernandes, k.l. miller, a. eleftheriou, i.m. davies & g.k. rodger (eds.), the implications of directives, conventions and codes of practice on the monitoring and regulation of marine aquaculture in europe, proceedings of the second maraqua workshop 20–22 march, 2000, institute of marine biology, crete, scottish executive aberdeen, uk, pp. 75–83. gesamp (imo/fao/unesco-ioc/wmo/who/iaea/un/unep joint group of experts on the scientific aspects of marine environmental protection), 2001, planning and management for sustainable coastal aquaculture development, rep. stud. gesamp no. 68., rome, italy, 90 pp. heywood, a., 2007, political ideologies: an introduction, 4th edn., palgrave macmillan, hampshire. ‘latest on saldanha bay idz’, weslander, 28 september, 2017a, p. 7. marx, j.t., 2009, ‘the whaling timeline of the cape’, in g. athiros, l. athiros, n. athiros & m. turner, (eds.), a west coast odyssey: a journey into the history of the cape’s west coast peninsula, 135 p, historical media, tokai. marx, j.t., 2014, ‘military integrated environmental management at the donkergat military training area’, phd dissertation, stellenbosch university. mclean, s., 2009, ‘darling airfield in world war ii’, in g. athiros, l. athiros, n. athiros & m. turner (eds.), a west coast odyssey: a journey into the history of the cape’s west coast peninsula, pp. 145–146, historical media, tokai. mouton, j. & marais, h.c., 1996, basic concepts in the methodology of the social sciences, human sciences research council, pretoria. mulaudzi, m. & liebenberg, i., 2017, ‘planning and socio-economic intervention in a developmental state: the case of south africa’, journal of public administration 52(1), 29–34. o’callaghan, m., 1990, ‘salt marshes – a very specialised environment’, custos 18, 58–60. ramsar sites information service, 2017, annotated list of wetlands of international importance, south africa, viewed 30 august 2017, from http://www.ramsar.org/wetland/south-africa south africa (republic of), 1979a, government gazette, vol. 457, 9 march, no 4331, government printer, pretoria. south africa (republic of), 1979b, government gazette, vol. 6216, 17 november, no 2304, government printer, pretoria. south africa (republic of), 1985, langebaan lagoon, saldanha bay islands and atlantic shore proclaimed as national park i.t.o section 2 (2) of the national parks act 1976, government gazette, vol. 10035, 13 december, notice 2773, government printer, pretoria. south africa (republic of), 1987, postberg properties proclaimed a contractual park of the park i.t.o section 2b (1) (b) of the national parks act, 1976, government gazette, vol. 10789, 26 june, notice 1385, government printer, pretoria. south africa (republic of), 1998, national environmental management act, act 107 of 1998, government printer, pretoria. south africa (republic of), 2001, first edition environmental implementation plan for defence, government gazette, volume 22022, 16 february, notice 249. pretoria: government printer. spring, i., 1995, flying boat, henkos printers, pretoria. srk consulting, 2017, proposed sea-based aquaculture development zone in saldanha bay, final basic assessment report, report prepared for department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, cape town, report number 499020 / 05 august 2017. ‘sunrise energy: ’n nuwe era’, weslander, 28 september, 2017b, p. 3. the montreux record, 2011, list of wetlands of international importance included in the montreux record, viewed 02 october 2017, from http://archive.ramsar.org/cda/en/ramsar-documents-montreux-montreux-record/main/ramsar world bank, 1996, international agreements on environment and natural resources: relevance and application in environmental assessment, the world bank, washington, dc. footnotes 1. some other important agreements that south africa has ratified and that are applicable to a military area such as dmta are the bonn convention on migratory species (cms), the convention on biological diversity (cbd) and the unesco world heritage convention (whc). additional international conventions, treaties, agreements and protocols relating to the core business and the environmental responsibility of the dod are listed in south africa (2001). these agreements form part of international law and have limited application in south africa if not ratified by parliament, formulated in other legal imperatives and applied during assessments (deat 2005; world bank 1996). the above relates closely to the drafting, implementation and monitoring of miem plans as discussed here. 2. other ramsar designated wetlands in the western cape are the bot kleinmond estuarine system (1349 ha), de hoop vlei (750 ha), de mond (918 ha), false bay nature reserve (1542 ha), verlorenvlei (1500 ha) and wilderness lakes (1300 ha). the western cape hosts the most estuarine wetlands but in kwazulu-natal kosi bay (10 982 ha) and the st. lucia system (155 500 ha) also fall in this category. last mentioned designated on 02 october 1986, was downgraded and added to the montreux record on 04 july 1990 but 6 years later on 11 march 1996 received its elite status back (the montreux record 2011). there is already islands included in the ramsar list and site number 1688 is the prince edward islands (37 500 ha) also falling under the western cape province (ramsar sites information service 2017). in other provinces some wetlands designated of international importance have been shamefully downgraded and is included in the montreux record with no re-classification yet. these wetlands are blesbokspruit in gauteng and orange river mouth in northern cape. 3. the donkergat whaling station was operational from 1909–1920, 1922–1930, 1936–1937, 1947–1953 and 1957–1967. up to 1967 when the station finally closed, the region’s whaling concerns had killed about 100 000 whales, including 10 600 sperm (physeter macrocephalus), 10 000 fin (balaenoptera physalus), 69 300 sei (balaenoptera borealis) and 6600 blue (balaenoptera musculus) whales (best & ross 1989). 4. for more detail on the history of whaling in saldanha bay, consult best (2009). the whalers of saldanha, pp. 129, 130 and marx (2009:135). during world war ii catalina flying boats were also stationed at langebaan for patrolling purposes, among others, to guard against german submarines that threatened allied shipping convoys (mclean 2009:145). 5. this article moves beyond the conservation discourse. since ‘ecology’ as term that has been coined by the zoologist ernst haeckel, much has changed. the notion of ecologism entered the discourse; to see nature as an interconnected whole, embracing the human animal and non-human animal, as well as the inanimate world, thus habitus in its broadest sense (heywood 2007:277). environmental ethics likewise plays a role (heywood 2007:268). ecologism itself is linked to an awareness of a looming crisis for both nature and human as espoused by murray bookchin (see heywood 2007:277). sustainability was once used as part of the discourse but is now seen as an axiom. the authors, however, do not deploy (radical) critical theory here and hence this article finds itself in the realm of what some would describe as ‘shallow ecology’ or environmentalism and not within the theoretical paradigm of ‘deep ecology’ (heywood 2007:255ff 257, 259). the article does hold some elements of, or pointers to, the environmental debate or what leon baradat calls, environmentalism (baradat 2012). 6. the south african national development plan (ndp) was implemented in 2011 and as national plan aims to enhance the socio-economic situation in south africa. as an attempted inclusive programme it seeks the return to a sustainable development state and addressing economic and growth challenges (consult mulaudzi & liebenberg 2017). the plan affects both government and governance on all levels, namely national, provincial and local. this article, especially where industrial developments around saldanha bay are concerned, should be seen against this background. 7. current developments include investments in the saldanha bay industrial development zone (sbidz). projects currently completed or in the construction phase amount to r4.5 billion (2015–2018). these include an onshore supply base (osb), of which eventually three structures will be built, which will include a marine engineering services hub for oil rigs, support vessels and other services needed. the current liquid petroleum gas (lpg) construction programme will involve three escalating phases. sunrise energy claims that it will become the largest open access import and storage facility on the african continent. a multi-buoy anchor point and sea and overland pipelines form part of this construction plan which would eventually bring about an annual flow of 200 000 metric tonnes (weslander 28 september 2017a:7, and 2017b:3,). in the research here the potential ecological challenges and threats of such development need to be kept in mind. 8. the article had to take note of further developments such as operation phakisa and the marine spatial planning bill, 2017. south africa’s ocean jurisdiction including the continental shelf translates into an exclusive economic zone (eez) of 1.5 million square kilometres. land size accounts for 1.2 million square kilometres. in maritime spatial planning (msp) the new bill makes a distinction between (more) economically important areas such as oil and gas deposits, fishing grounds, transportation routes and other exploitable deposits. the msp bill 2017 acknowledges that habitats and species should be protected, reduced fishing and no-take areas should be facilitated and high risk activities such as mining should be controlled (briefing on the marine spatial bill, 2017 and activities of the portfolio committee, dial rock hall, saldanha, 22 march 2017). 9. the palearctic is one of the eight ecozones subdividing the earth’s surface and includes the terrestrial eco-regions of europe, asia north of the himalaya foothills, northern africa, and the northern and central parts of the arabian peninsula. abstract introduction overview of literature on transdisciplinary education cape peninsula university of technology’s attempts at transdisciplinary community service-learning conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) masilonyane mokhele department of town and regional planning, faculty of informatics and design, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa nicholas pinfold department of town and regional planning, faculty of informatics and design, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation mokhele, m. & pinfold, n., 2020, ‘foundation for transdisciplinary education at cape peninsula university of technology’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a749. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.749 original research foundation for transdisciplinary education at cape peninsula university of technology masilonyane mokhele, nicholas pinfold received: 16 aug. 2019; accepted: 28 jan. 2020; published: 08 june 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract south africa faces a multitude of social, economic and environmental challenges, which require well-considered planning efforts. however, the efficacy of the built environment professions to adequately plan for the current and future populations can to some extent be questioned. factors that are arguably responsible for the failure of the professions to achieve the desired outcomes include the following: (1) the inability of professionals to comprehensively analyse community problems and (2) although the various professions might work on the same issues, they largely fail to transcend disciplinary boundaries. this state of affairs can in part be linked to the role of higher education, which is in a good position to equip future professionals with the skills required for the analysis of diverse societal problems. in spite of the importance of education and training, there is a paucity of literature that explore ways in which the south african higher education sector instils transdisciplinary thinking and, accordingly, imparts the requisite soft skills to students. using the case study of cape peninsula university of technology in cape town, the aim of this article was to present efforts that are pursued towards instilling transdisciplinarity in students. the efforts revolve around community service-learning pedagogy, which grants students a platform to work in close collaboration with communities. in the process, students and community members develop an in-depth understanding of the community’s problems and how they could be collectively resolved. keywords: built environment; cape peninsula university of technology; community service-learning; transdisciplinarity; planning education; qualitative gis. introduction south africa is characterised by a myriad of social, economic and environmental challenges, which include, inter alia, high levels of unemployment, persistent inequality and the apartheid legacy of spatial segregation. such problems particularly require the built environment and allied professionals1 to be well equipped to deal with, among others, complexity, diversity and uncertainty. however, the efficacy of the aforesaid professions to successfully cater to the existing and future populations can, to some extent, be questioned. factors that could arguably be a stumbling block to the achievement of the desired social, economic and environmental outcomes include the following: (1) limited understanding of the nuances of pertinent societal issues (national planning commission 2012) and relatedly (2) although the various professions might work on the same issue, they largely work in silos and fail to transcend disciplinary boundaries. it is nonetheless important to acknowledge that the possible reasons for the relative ineffectiveness of the built environment and allied professions are complex and multifaceted, and the blame cannot be put solely on the professions concerned (see duminy, odendaal & watson 2014, with specific reference to urban and regional planning). the inability to achieve the intended objectives can, in part, be linked to the role of the higher education sector, which is entrusted with the responsibility of training professionals who can tackle multifaceted societal problems head-on. it therefore stands to reason that the sector is in a good position to equip future professionals with the skills required to analyse and appreciate the multidimensional societal problems. relatedly, the higher education sector is expected to train students in ways that instil collaborative thinking and practice. with specific reference to urban and regional planning, duminy et al. (2014) advance critical imperatives that could be addressed towards making planning more effective. relating primarily to the need for data, relevant skills and ethical awareness among the graduates, the imperatives include the following: (1) the production of accurate data to assist the planning process and (2) the development of relevant professional skills and competencies. in this regard, educational approaches need to groom planners who are innovative problem-solvers, capable of collaborating with various actors involved in the development process, particularly the communities (duminy et al. 2014). in spite of the undeniable importance of education and training, there is limited literature on ways in which the south african higher education sector instils transdisciplinarity, and accordingly imparts the requisite soft skills to students. this gap particularly exists in the context of the built environment and allied disciplines. using a case study of the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) in cape town, south africa, the aim of this article is to, at least in part, contribute towards filling that gap by presenting efforts that are currently undertaken to instil transdisciplinarity in students. as discussed herein, the efforts presented are not claimed to be the so-called best practice but are merely the beginning of a journey towards transdisciplinary teaching and learning. the article is specifically centred on community service-learning (henceforth used interchangeably with service-learning) as a vehicle for transdisciplinary education. transdisciplinarity is becoming a catchword that is increasingly difficult to define, constituting what nicolescu (2010) refers to as a war of definitions. given that they are often conflated, the concept of transdisciplinarity needs to be explored in contradistinction to the related concepts of disciplinary collaboration (gehlert et al. 2010), namely, interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity. multidisciplinarity entails the combination of insights from a number of disciplines towards resolving a particular problem or answering a given question. this approach brings together the insights of different disciplines without attempting to integrate them (leavy 2011; repko 2008; wall & shankar 2008). in interdisciplinarity, there is notably reliance on individual disciplines for their theories, concepts and methods towards understanding a particular problem. the methods are thus transferred from one discipline to another, although the ultimate process remains grounded in the framework of one discipline (leavy 2011; repko 2008). hadorn et al. (2008) reiterate that transdisciplinarity is ambiguous and is informed by different lines of thought. to add to the confusion of definition, there is no consistency in the literature in terms of when the concept was coined. it is typically recorded that transdisciplinarity can be traced to the first international conference on interdisciplinarity held in 1970 in france (see hoffman-riem et al. 2008; klein 2008). on the contrary, some commentators argue that the concept first appeared in the 1980s (see gehlert et al. 2010). it should also be noted that transdisciplinarity takes varying directions in different contexts and countries (du plessis, sehume & martin 2014; van breda & swilling 2018). in transdisciplinarity, members of different disciplines work together to contribute towards concepts (and even theories) and methods that integrate and transcend the perspectives of individual disciplines (stokols et al. 2010; wall & shankar 2008). in that process, cross-fertilisation of knowledge and skills occurs (du plessis et al. 2014). in a transdisciplinary approach, educators, professionals and/or researchers develop shared frameworks that extend discipline-specific theories, concepts and methods towards creating a new language to address a given situation or problem (stokols et al. 2010). as it could be argued with the other forms of disciplinary collaboration, the notion of transdisciplinarity acknowledges the complexity, interconnectedness and multidimensionality of reality; hence, it makes a call for the use of more than one discipline towards exploring reality (du plessis et al. 2014; martin 2017). transdisciplinarity is particularly important when the knowledge about a certain situation is uncertain and when the origin and nature of the problem is disputed (hadorn et al. 2008). although there is no consensus in the literature, the distinguishing characteristics of transdisciplinarity from the associated concepts are: (1) it integrates the disciplines with non-academic actors (see palmer, owens & sparks 2006). however, certain sections of the literature argue that multidisciplinarity also incorporates non-academic actors (e.g. see frodeman 2010). nonetheless, transdisciplinarity intends to close the gap between, on the one hand, research and education, and on the other hand, knowledge that is required towards solving societal problems (hoffman-riem et al. 2008). (2) in transdisciplinarity, as noted above, the theoretical, conceptual or methodological standpoints are not only taken from one discipline and applied to other disciplines, but rather transcend the disciplines and are thus applicable to numerous fields (repko 2008). notwithstanding these subtle differences, nicolescu (2010) maintains that transdisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity complement each other and should thus not be regarded as being in opposition. needless to say, all these approaches are anti a situation where only one discipline is involved towards addressing a particular problem, which could be termed monodisciplinarity (see gehlert et al. 2010) or unidisciplinarity (see stokols et al. 2010). typically occurring in the context of community–university partnerships, community service-learning affords students an opportunity to work with communities on projects. it familiarises students with socially contingent modes of knowledge generation (elwood 2004). scholars in various disciplines believe that community service-learning contextualises knowledge production by giving students an opportunity to become familiar with society’s problems (conner & erikson 2017; hall 2010; petersen & osman 2017; pinfold 2014a; thomson et al. 2011). the south african higher education system requires that higher education institutions (heis) incorporate community engagement as one of the pillars alongside teaching and learning, and research (hall 2010). however, progress in implementing community engagement in south african heis has been rather slow and arguably confused because of, among others, a lack of conceptual clarity. in fact, community service-learning at times receives a somewhat negative reaction across a range of heis in south africa (mouton & wildschut 2007). hall (2010:6) suggested that the resistance to community engagement and community service-learning is ‘an epistemological disjuncture in the way knowledge is structured and organised’. liu (1995) believes that community service-learning will continue to be questioned so long as an alternative pedagogy without an explanation of its underlying epistemology. liu (1995) is of the view that community service-learning should be centred in the epistemology of pragmatism, which is typically characterised by a positive attitude towards integrating practice. adopting a pragmatic epistemological framework has important pedagogical implications for teaching and learning. in response to liu’s view, some service-learning advocates concur that community service-learning pedagogy should be grounded in a specific epistemology, although they question the appropriateness of pragmatism (richman 1996; yoder 2016). others argue that community service-learning does not need a discrete epistemology (tucker 1999). mitchell (2008) contrasted the traditional approach to community service-learning with the critical approach. the traditional approach is seen as apolitical and involves individual change during student development, whereas a critical approach aligns student outcome with social change. critical community service-learning is aimed at addressing injustice by taking a political approach when pursuing social justice. this progressive way of teaching requires educators to focus on society at large as well as on critical issues (mitchell 2008). overview of literature on transdisciplinary education before discussing the community service-learning initiative, which is the subject of this article, it is pertinent to provide a snapshot of the literature on transdisciplinary education. although they are not easy to isolate, the overview focusses specifically on transdisciplinary education as opposed to transdisciplinary research. furthermore, the discussion focusses on heis as opposed to schools (e.g. woest 2018). as with the ambiguity regarding the definition of transdisciplinarity relative to the associated concepts, nash (2008) notes that the distinction between transdisciplinary training and other integrative training approaches is not clear-cut. it is often understood that in multidisciplinary training, students are taught the approach of a given discipline, while they also become familiar, and learn to work, with other disciplines. in interdisciplinary training, the intention is to groom professionals who possess knowledge of varying concepts, theories and methodological skills. in this way, transdisciplinary training aims to groom professionals who are able to synthesise the conceptual, methodological and/or theoretical aspects of various disciplines (aneas 2015; nash 2008). it stands to reason that there is a wide gap between the environment where students are trained and the contexts they are expected to work within upon qualifying. at university, training is typically geared towards discipline-specific qualifications under the guidance of mentors in given disciplines, although the students are ultimately required to understand and solve transdisciplinary problems (mcclam & flores-scott 2012; mcdaniels & skogsberg 2017). to fill that gap, klein (2008:406) makes a call for ‘disciplinary depth, multidisciplinary breadth, interdisciplinary integration and transdisciplinary competencies’. there are various approaches to transdisciplinary education that are advanced in the literature, while acknowledging that individual disciplines do not necessarily vanish (see the case of cput presented herein). the following approaches (which are also relevant to other modes of integrative training) can be highlighted: firstly, it is typically recommended that students enrol in courses or subjects in a wide range of disciplines, while developing a solid background in one (bradbeer 1999; klein 2008). secondly, students are encouraged to undertake projects, theses or dissertations under the supervision of staff from different disciplines (klein 2008; wall & shankar 2008). thirdly, and related to the above, novice investigators are encouraged to conduct research projects at a centre or department other than their own over a certain period. in the process, investigators collaborate on joint projects with colleagues in other institutions (stokols et al. 2010) or departments. fourthly, universities are encouraged to develop curricula that are aligned towards transdisciplinarity (eishof 2003; klein 2008). it cannot be claimed that the list of approaches above is exhaustive, and stokols et al. (2010) note that with the growing interest, transdisciplinary training approaches are likely to grow. fischer and derry (2005) cited in klein (2008) proposed the following transdisciplinary competencies, which, though are intended for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, could be widely applicable: (1) the ability to participate in communities and communicate effectively, as was performed in the goedverwacht service-learning project discussed herein; (2) possession of metacognitive skills, including critical thinking skills that enable lifelong learning and self-directed learning; (3) the ability to understand, develop and operate in innovative socio-technical environments; (4) the ability to develop and guide knowledge building, and understand communities as contexts of teaching and learning; and (5) concern about real-world needs and willingness to be engaged citizens (derry & fischer 2005 cited in klein 2008). mcdaniels and skogsberg (2017) add that the requisite competencies are at the cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal levels. these competencies would enable the students to perform in transdisciplinary contexts by being able to engage with diverse professionals (polkinghorne 2004 cited in mcdaniels & skogsberg 2017) and communities. obstacles to transdisciplinary education (and the associated modes of disciplinary collaboration) that are highlighted in the literature include the following: (1) challenges emerge when there is a clash between the natural learning of the students and the approaches used in various disciplines. (2) the learning of the values, culture, language and so on of various disciplines can be confusing and frustrating to students. (3) students have to learn to operate in the ambiguous environment between the disciplines, which is an unknown space that is overseen by the educator, who might also feel lost. (4) it can be frustrating for the students to engage with unfamiliar community members and counterparts from other disciplines. (5) the engagement in various disciplines can result in a fear of loss of disciplinary identity (bradbeer 1999; nash 2008). cape peninsula university of technology’s attempts at transdisciplinary community service-learning in light of the overview of concepts and literature presented above, this section delineates attempts towards transdisciplinary education at cput’s department of town and regional planning. it is important to note that the efforts presented herein were not strictly designed according to the prescripts of transdisciplinary training projects. similarly, the initiatives were not designed as research projects but were merely conceived as ways of training students through community engagement. community engagement at cput involves collaboration with individuals, groups and organisations, outside of cput, wherein particular economic and social objectives are pursued. engaged teaching and learning initiatives, volunteerism, research, cooperative education and community service-learning are employed in these interactions (scheepers 2014). in spite of community service-learning being practised in a number of departments at cput, a gap exists in the way academics perceive service-learning and how they integrate it into the curricula. in the department of town and regional planning, community service-learning projects are thus far integrated into selected first-, secondand third-year subjects of the national diploma in town and regional planning and diploma in urban and regional planning. it should be noted that currently, although the academic structure of cput allows students to enrol in subjects across academic departments, and even across faculties, such cross-fertilisation is not a common practice, and it is not promoted in earnest. this apparent lack of coordination creates a barrier to the implementation of various approaches to transdisciplinary education advanced by, among others, klein (2008). this is with particular reference to a call for students to enrol in subjects in various disciplines (refer to the overview of literature on transdisciplinary education section). as a point of entry into community service-learning, in 2010, the department of town and regional planning released five students to participate in the violence prevention through urban upgrading (vpuu) programme in khayelitsha, cape town. violence prevention through urban upgrading aims to develop safe, integrated and sustainable communities through area-based community development programmes. it is a partnership between the city of cape town municipality, international agencies and non-governmental organisations. notably, there was no written partnership agreement between the department, the community and other organisations involved in the project, so the participation of students was essentially voluntary. unfortunately, the apparent lack of support from other stakeholders (and confusion on the role of the university) resulted in the students becoming despondent and finally withdrawing from the project (pinfold 2014a). as a result of this failed initiative, the department took a stern position that it would no longer participate in volunteerism but would focus on building sustainable community engagement partnerships. in 2012, the department of town and regional planning participated in the flamingo crescent informal settlement upgrade in lansdowne, cape town (see pinfold 2014b), which was used as a baseline for implementing other community service-learning projects in the department. students and staff assisted with the coordination of a map compiled by the residents of flamingo crescent in anticipation of a re-blocking process.2 in line with the argument raised by bringle et al. (2004), the engagement developed education around learning outcomes and community partnerships that broadened the students’ disciplinary knowledge and a sense of civic responsibility. since 2014, the department has been involved in the goedverwacht moravian mission station community service-learning project, and also commenced work on st mark’s church (district six) baptismal records mapping project in 2018. the two projects integrate students and academic staff of different departments (across faculties) at cput. at some stage, the st mark’s church project also included students (enrolled in diverse courses) from the university of michigan, usa. goedverwacht and st mark’s projects are at least in part transdisciplinary in their approach given that a shared conceptual framework (which draws on the concepts and approaches of various disciplines) is used to analyse community dynamics. prefaced with a note on ethics, the goedverwacht moravian mission station project is presented hereunder. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for a research. service-learning activities at cput are administered through the policy and procedures for community engagement. if departments pursue research-specific community engagement activities, then formal ethical clearance approval is needed. as mentioned before, goedverwacht mission station initiative was not designed as a research project. as such, no research proposal was submitted to cput for ethical clearance. it should nonetheless be noted that the initiative was scrutinised by the relevant units of cput, and ultimately registered by the university as a service-learning project. the registration was followed by the signing of a memorandum of agreement by the various stakeholders. in light of a grey area on what constitutes ‘ethical clearance’ in this regard, the presentation below does not include details that may raise ethical questions, namely, names of community members, student names, photographs or any work that emanated from the project. the narrative merely reports on the teaching and learning methods used and processes followed. goedverwacht moravian mission station community service-learning project established in 1889, goedverwacht moravian mission station is a communal village located in bergriver local municipality, approximately 150 km north of cape town, in the western cape province (figure 1).3 consisting of about 500 households, this picturesque settlement is characterised by gardens of fertile soil along the platkloof river, with homesteads situated on the upper sides of the valley. the residents of goedverwacht do not hold individual title deeds to their residential plots. rather, the mission station is under the trusteeship of the minister of rural development and land reform in accordance with the rural areas act, no. 9 of 1987 (republic of south africa [rsa] 1987). this arrangement implies that goedverwacht does not fall in the jurisdiction of bergriver local municipality, which is consequently not legally responsible for development and specifically the provision of services in the area. however, the newly enacted western cape land use planning act [lupa], 2014 (province of the western cape, 2014), which repealed the rural areas act, 1987 (rsa 1987), requires that all land within a municipal boundary, which is not regulated by a zoning scheme or town planning scheme, be incorporated into an existing scheme as contemplated in section 33(1) of the act. this implies that goedverwacht moravian mission station would ultimately fall under the jurisdiction of the local municipality, and possibly cease to be a communal village. figure 1: location of goedverwacht moravian mission station. an official of the bergriver local municipality approached cput’s service-learning unit, requesting the university to assist the community of goedverwacht moravian mission station with planning-related matters. the community required assistance particularly because the bergriver municipal spatial development framework did not have concrete development proposals pertaining to goedverwacht. this was the case because, as noted above, goedverwacht is not under the jurisdiction of the municipality. at the time, the expectation was that cput would, among others, prepare a plan (i.e. spatial development framework) for the settlement. the service-learning unit then asked the department of town and regional planning and other departments at cput to step in and lend a helping hand. the goedverwacht project was thus envisaged to be an interdisciplinary initiative involving multiple faculties and departments. the intention was that the project would encourage a partnership between departments to explore issues and integrate disciplinary perspectives. it became evident that a transdisciplinary approach was emerging, which combined community’s wisdom with students’ elementary knowledge. engagement with non-academic communities requires breaking down of disciplinary boundaries to address the fragmented manner in which students favour their disciplines rather than learning beyond the university curricula. the community also developed a sense that they had control over the outcomes and processes followed by students. it is hoped that the project will have a long-term impact for the community, such as awareness of public policy, land reform and access to community services. the underlying core value of the project is social justice. the goedverwacht community service-learning project was inaugurated in july 2014, with a meeting between bergrivier local municipality, goedverwacht community (represented by the church) and a group of service-learning coordinators from various departments at cput. an official of the bergrivier municipality, who grew up on the goedverwacht mission station, arranged that meeting. instead of convening a community meeting, it was understood that the church leadership would subsequently apprise the community of cput’s anticipated role in the community. one of the crucial elements of community–university partnerships is a carefully crafted and co-signed agreement, which specifies activities to be conducted (see ball 2014). for the goedverwacht project, the service-learning cooperation was signed in 2014 between cput (the service-learning unit, town and regional planning, and construction management and quantity surveying departments) and the goedverwacht moravian mission station (represented by the moravian church). notably, because of the unforeseen circumstances, notwithstanding their crucial role in kick-starting the initiative, bergrivier municipality did not sign the agreement. the agreement specified the undertaking of the aforementioned parties, which cannot be disclosed herein because of a confidentiality clause that was agreed upon. nonetheless, it should be noted that in the line of the argument raised by ball (2014), the goedverwacht moravian mission station community was made aware that they would participate in the project without expecting instant (tangible) benefits. all in all, the partnership intended to promote a holistic and collaborative approach, which encouraged the participation of goedverwacht community, and had as its central focus the notion that the community shall determine its own development agenda. following preliminary conversations with the community, it was confirmed that goedverwacht mission station had no cadastral boundaries, which is a characteristic that acted as a stumbling block to development, particularly the installation of bulk infrastructural services (water, sewer, storm water and electricity). relatedly, it was also discovered that the community did not have a basic map that showed, among others, a layout of the settlement. given these revelations, and in consultation with the community, it was established that the immediate need was to compile a map towards determining the cadastral boundaries. notably, the immediate focus was no longer the preparation of a spatial development framework per the original expectation. a conventional way of addressing the problem of cadastral boundaries would be for the experts to use topographical maps and aerial photographs of the settlement (supplemented with other secondary material and site visits) to decide on the logical property boundaries that comply with the technical and legal requirements for formal land registration. however, as elaborated below, instead of the said technical exercise, the department of town and regional planning opted for what is arguably a transdisciplinary approach that involved community members and students enrolled in various courses. this approach had characteristics of qualitative geographic information system (gis), which incorporated various forms of knowledge, new practices and knowledge production through reflexive methods (elwood & cope 2009). in accordance with the service-learning agreement, the goedverwacht mission station initiative involved students and academic staff from the faculties of informatics and design (department of town and regional planning), and engineering and built environment (department of construction management and quantity surveying). under the supervision of academic staff, students collaborated with community members to better understand the status quo and collectively develop recommendations towards establishing cadastral boundaries. as a starting point, the settlement was divided into precincts wherein each group of students had about 10 properties to work with in terms of measuring the boundaries and engaging with community members. academic staff supervised the project and provided continuity with the community and students. lecturers therefore disseminated information before engagement, provided support during engagement and facilitated reflection sessions. it should be noted that instead of developing selection criteria and determining a number of community participants, it was decided that members of the community would collaborate with the students as and when required, that is, whenever the students were in particular ‘precincts’. in this way, all community members had a chance to participate. between 2014 and 2018, a total of 539 students participated in the initiative (see table 1), with the project connected to the respective disciplinary coursework. on average, approximately 30 third-year students per year (completing their national diploma in town and regional planning) were conscripted into the project as part of their training in the subject ‘geographic information systems’. a total of 370 first-year students from the department of construction management and quantity surveying in the engineering and built environment faculty participated over the years as part of the ‘site surveying’ subject (130 students in 2014, 220 in 2015 and 20 in 2018). although the business faculty was not part of the memorandum of agreement, in 2018, three students from that faculty participated in the project as part of their second-year ‘project management’ subject in the national diploma in management. table 1: number of students involved in the goedverwacht project between 2014 and 2018. students from the various departments (as noted above) worked together on the project in groups varying in size from 12 to 24 members wherein only one group per week visited the community. each group (including the academic staff) was bussed from cput’s district six and bellville campuses to goedverwacht mission station where they spent 1 day with the community. the average age of first-year students was 19 years, with most students beginning their tertiary education directly after high school. upon arrival at goedverwacht, students would congregate at the village centre referred to as the werf, which is conceived as a public place consisting of communal buildings and linkages to and from the village. a part of the village werf, the old granary mill, now a museum, has historically been a place where people meet. the church and its bell tower dominate the mill. this place of peaceful quietude is where students and academic staff congregated before dispersing into the village along the avenue of trees, gravel pathways, picket fences and hedges. the werf precinct is of particular importance to the community and has been identified as a future restoration project by the community members and students. with the input of community members, the project facilitated the gathering of geospatial information into a simple database and map, which can in the future be used by the community and other stakeholders for planning purposes. as noted earlier, the purpose of the mapping exercise was to establish cadastral boundaries at an accuracy that was not necessarily constrained by technical and legal requirements for formal land registration. property boundaries were determined based on a combination of the knowledge of the residents, visible physical topographies captured using mobile gis/global positioning systems (gpss), smartphone data-gathering and application software, and aerial photography captured with a drone. the geographic data were stored in an arcgis computer program’s geo-database where it could be readily accessed and updated by the students and/or staff. the intention was to ultimately equip and empower community representatives with elementary gis skills so that they could view and update the database themselves as well as pass the skill to other community members. during the aforesaid data collection process, students were exposed to a unique experience, which required a sense of responsibility towards the community. reflective sessions before, during and after engagement provided a means to measure changes in the students’ knowledge. it also granted the students time and space to critically reflect on their experience and understand the relevance of the project to their learning in the classroom. the main form of reflection was where students told stories (orally and pictorially) about their experience. during these sessions, students began to understand that impressions and ideas vary and that not everyone would necessarily have a positive feedback. individual reflective essays were also presented, outlining what students had performed and what they intended to do in the future. the final submission was a portfolio, which included maps (compiled in gis) accompanied by statistics, graphs and the associated analysis. in summary, the mapping process taught the students communication, collaboration and mapping skills. table 2 depicts how the monodisciplinary contribution was transformed into a richer outcome. this transdisciplinary, bottom-up approach to information collation was meant to provide an opportunity for the community to contribute towards developing their own solutions. table 2: a summary of expectations before and after transdisciplinary collaboration. conclusion given the apparent inability of the built environment and the allied disciplines to contribute meaningfully towards solving societal problems, it is believed that the higher education sector can play a significant role in grooming graduates who are able to tackle complex social, economic and environmental problems head-on. it stands to reason that transdisciplinarity is one of the skills that can be imparted in this regard. a number of approaches to transdisciplinary education are advanced in the literature, including a call for students to enrol in a variety of subjects that are beyond the ambit of one’s discipline. the article extends the literature by reflecting on how community service-learning can be used as a vehicle for instilling transdisciplinary skills in students. the article does not claim that the work presented herein is best practice; instead, it is a reflective, retrospective account of engaging transdisciplinary studies with the intention of instilling transdisciplinarity in higher education curriculum. the primary aim of the goedverwacht mission station community service-learning project was to produce a cadastral map of the settlement’s property boundaries. it was intended that the map would prepare the community for land tenure reform through a community-driven land rights enquiry. the map also provided residents with a visual account of community assets. students from different faculties and departments worked together and shared their disciplinary skills. town planning students responded to community challenges with particular reference to the social, economic and natural resources. their focus centred on community dynamics and community participation. students from the department of construction management and quantity surveying focussed more on the cost, procurement and management of construction projects and property development. students and community members were collectively able to identify a shared vision of engagement and empowerment. this transdisciplinary learning approach allowed students to collectively unravel the social undercurrents of communal life and share disciplinary perspectives to achieve co-production of analytical and problem-solving skills. in the post-apartheid era, south african heis are called upon to commit to community service-learning initiatives. cape peninsula university of technology academics have accordingly embarked on service-learning pedagogy in an attempt to provide students with an in-depth appreciation of social, economic, environmental and physical problems and aspirations of communities. however, the academics question the value of service-learning pedagogy in providing a service (with immediate tangible benefits) to a community during engaged scholarship learning. community service-learning projects at cput have provided evidence that service-learning provides an opportunity for students to learn practical skills, while community members benefit from the awareness created. people who live in communal settlements have a direct and immediate interest in their space and identify with the place they live in. the general assumption is that the mapping provides an approach, which empowers community members to realise their own development potential. knowledge production in this instance is socially constructed and mediated locally. university–community engagement should not only be seen as an opportunity for students to learn by contributing towards solving problems in a community but should also provide a more reflective scholarly approach where students are exposed to deeper issues than merely preconceived problems. the complexity of societal undercurrents requires a transdisciplinary approach to community service-learning where cooperation between disciplines results in co-production of knowledge and shared outcomes. co-constructed knowledge generated by university students and community partners provides perspectives that can be integrated to provide a holistic understanding of community dynamics. this project shows that community service-learning is flexible and can accommodate multiple disciplines and provide meaningful service to communities. the positive progress of the goedverwacht community service-learning project at cput indeed points to a pedagogy, which could encompass transdisciplinary learning to enrich scholarship and provide civic responsibility. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the 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‘adventures in transdisciplinary learning’, studies in higher education 33(5), 551–565. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070802373008 woest, y., 2018, ‘beginner teachers’ experiences of transdisciplinary demands of a school curriculum’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.488 yoder, s.d., 2016, ‘pragmatism, pedagogy, and community service learning’, michigan journal of community service learning 22(2), 5–15. footnotes 1. the built environment and allied professions include, among others, urban and regional planning, engineering, construction management, architecture and quantity surveying. 2. re-blocking is an in-situ upgrade of an informal settlement where existing structures are reorganised in a more structured way so that, among others, basic services can be provided (city of cape town 2013). 3. mission towns were established in south africa to provide housing for the marginalised in society where they could live under the guidance of the church. in the western cape province, mission stations provided a sheltered existence to people who were mainly former slaves and khoisan pastoralists deprived of their land (fransen 2006). abstract introduction literature review research methodology analysis and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) johan wassermann department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, south africa citation wassermann, j., 2018, ‘first-year history education students’ personal narratives of the history of south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a585. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.585 original research first-year history education students’ personal narratives of the history of south africa johan wassermann received: 02 july 2018; accepted: 14 aug. 2018; published: 27 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article is based on a free writing exercise given to 31 first-year history education students in which they were, asked to write ‘the history of south africa according to me’. using narrative enquiry, the stories of the students, who all had history at school up to their final year, were analysed. what emerged was that south africa as a political entity is focalised as a place where apartheid took place. post-apartheid south africa by contrast is narrated as a free and democratic place. it is focalised by the majority of students as a strong well-established country – a leading example to other nations. in line with this, the vast majority of students tended to limit their account of the history of south africa to the period prior to the achievement of democracy in 1994. the personal narratives spoke about race being the dominant factor in their historical discourses. introduction the genesis of this article lies in the many words uttered publically in the recent past about the imagined value and importance of school history in the south african context. in the process, it has been argued, on several occasions, by politicians (phakathi 2015) and educationists (south african democratic teachers union 2014) alike that south african learners do not know ‘their history’. ‘their history’ was taken to mean the history of south africa or at the very least some unspecified encyclopaedic national version thereof. such talk is not unique to south africa and similar pronouncements have been made elsewhere in the world about the youth not knowing their national history (wineburg 2001). unsurprisingly, across the world school history has been seen as a means for the construction of a national identity (barton 2009; seixas 2007; vansledright 2011). in south africa, however, this kind of thinking was taken a step further and the minister of basic education, angie motshekga, had announced in 2015 that a ministerial task team would investigate the possibility of making school history a compulsory subject up to grade 12. early this year, the ministerial task team handed their report to motshekga in which they recommended that school history becomes a compulsory subject up to grade 12 (ministerial task team 2018). in light of this announcement, this article will attempt to come to an understanding of the narratives on the history of south africa students who had history at school level up to grade 12. their narratives should have some roots in the official version of the history of south africa as found in curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) for history. with reference to the above, it must be remembered that any curriculum has a strong political agenda (ndlovu 2009) and that caps history is no exception. in proposing some answer to what first-year history education students regard as the history of south africa, it is envisaged that this article will contribute to the debate on young south africans and history, and more specifically how their own personally constructed narratives spoke to that. to propose a possible understanding to what first-year history education students regard as the history of south africa a narrative approach was used. connelly and clandinin (2000) argue that a narrative inquiry framework allows the inquirer to travel inward, outward, backward and forward while situated in place. the inward refers to internal conditions such as feelings, hopes, reactions and moral disposition. the outward looks at the existential conditions such as the environment. backward and forward refer to temporality, the past, present and future. narratives of the world that point simultaneously in these four ways are countless and are able to be carried by spoken or written language. moreover, narratives are present in every age, in every place and in every society and they express our way of experiencing, acting, living, making meaning and thinking (bal 1997). as such, it is a way of translating the knowing and experiencing into a telling. consequently, narratives should not be seen as separate from real life, but as a way of forming meaningful connections to life. in this article, the personal narratives of the participating students on ‘the history of south africa according to me’ were analysed by means of narrative enquiry so as to understand what they narrate the history of south africa to be. in terms of a way forward, a succinct review of the literature will follow. then, the research methodology used to analyse the personal narratives will be discussed. next, the findings from the data analysis will be presented and discussed. lastly, the concluding arguments will be presented. literature review an emerging field of research in history education relates to young people – this contested term can include amongst others, learners, students and adolescents – and their versions of national narratives. groundbreaking in this regard has been the london review of education 15(2), july 2017, special feature which engaged with ‘negotiating the nation: young people, national narratives and history education’. this follows in the wake of work performed in this regard across the world. however, for the purpose of this article, two publications stand out because of their african contexts. two afrocentric studies were used to benchmark this article. the first is by holmberg (2016; 2017) with the title: significant history and historical orientation – ugandan students narrate their past. in his research, holmberg explored 219 narratives created by 73 ugandan upper secondary students. the results showed that either prospective or retrospective approaches influenced student narratives. furthermore, region of origin tended to inform the national narratives produced. additionally, the narrative was informed by a meta-narrative of africa with students identifying equally as africans and ugandans. based on his research, holmberg (2016) argued that researchers should handle the nation concept with care. the second work is by angier (2017). in her study, angier reported on the knowledge and understanding of young south africans of their national history. this was based on the narrative accounts of 27 university students who had history at school level. two fundamental differences were reported by her – firstly, the emphasis assigned to periods and people, and secondly, agency in terms of who did and who was done to. these differences, angier argues, point to the continued importance of racial identity as a factor in the formation of a national historical consciousness in post-apartheid south africa. in the process, the south african past was used selectively, which served to highlight the importance of sociocultural factors in the development of young people’s historical consciousness. research methodology in this article, a qualitative approach rooted in the interpretivist paradigm was used to understand first-year personal students’ narratives of ‘the history of south africa according to me’. thirty-one first-year history education students took part in this study. to participate, they all needed to have done history at school up to grade 12, which implies that they knew some south african history on which they could draw in a reflective manner. the student participants were predominantly african but also included a substantial number of minority students, slightly more women than men, and came from a diverse range of schooling contexts. furthermore, it was assumed that the students, as prospective history teachers, had a vested interest in the subject. at the same time, the participants were willing to participate in the project. although by no means homogeneous, they were bound by a number of important links – they were all first-year students, all have done history at school and all were planning to teach history in the future. patton (1990) refers to the selection of a research population in this manner as criterion-based purposive sampling. data collection took place during the first week of university lectures. this was carried out so as to avoid the participants, who were fresh out of school, being tainted by their exposure to academic history. they were given 45 min to write, on a double-paged a4 sheet, their personal narratives of ‘the history of south africa according to me’. the topic purposefully suggested a point of view so as to elicit selective personalised narratives from the first-year students. the rationale for selecting this method was to allow the participants to divulge, in a historian-like manner, from their presentist position, their personal narratives in an uninhibited and unconstrained manner. in other words, a history from below. this was possible because reflective free writing lends itself to that and has the ability to yield rich and diverse data. furthermore, reflective free writing allows freedom of expression and permits participants to qualify their views in an in-depth manner. the thinking was also to permit first-year history students the opportunity to think and reflect on their version of the history of south africa before committing to a response. in so doing, it was hoped that rich, detailed, creative and expressive narratives would evolve. furthermore, no marks were involved which further served to entice free writing. in adopting the above method, it was hoped that the students would express their own meta-narratives of ‘the history of south africa according to me’ replete with the events, characters, happenings and settings that they wanted to foreground. the aim was not to see how much or how little the students knew or to measure their narrative against existing texts or curricula but to understand what they collectively viewed the history of south african to be. this is what is called focalisation – the anchoring of the narratives by means of foci, views, thoughts, reflections and knowledge. in other words, the historical orientation of what the students deemed important enough to include in their narratives (jahn 2005). narratives, such as the one written by the students, will always have certain views which are based on the choices made on what to include. this will, in turn, lead to the narratives differing when referring to the same events. such multiple focalisations are what i ended up working with. working with the different narratives meant engaging with 31 different mostly surprisingly systematic, coherent but sometimes naive texts that were generally 1.5 a4 pages in length. these were read, analysed and evaluated line-by-line, while at the same time questions were asked. the rationale behind this approach was to keep the focus on the various narratives on ‘the history of south africa according to me’ and its meaning at both a surface and a deeper level. in the words of tambling (1991:3), ‘to investigate narratives means investigating the everyday beliefs that operate through a culture’. however, as the researcher who read the narratives, i also became an active participant in constructing it, because receiving the story depends on how we construct it (abbott 2005). the analysis of the narratives took place by means of chatman’s (1978) components of a narrative (see figure 1). chatman (1978) conceptualises the necessary components of a narrative as twofold: the first is the story (histoire) or the ‘what’ and includes the chain of events that took place. the chain of events includes (actions and happenings) as well as what is called the existents (characters and settings). the second is the discourse (discourse), in other words, the expression or the means by which the content is communicated. the discourse is therefore the ‘how’. figure 1: the necessary components of a narrative. to chatman, the story is ‘the content of the narrative expression, while discourse is the form of that expression’ (chatman 1978:23). the constituent parts of narrative are represented in the model in figure 1. chatman’s model was used because it had the necessary components of a narrative that could be used in understanding the versions of the history of south africa as produced by the students. the extemporaneous writing tasks on ‘the history of south africa according to me’ were collected and typed up without editing. the approach followed during the analysis was to first read the 31 narratives in terms of what was said (the story in terms of events and existents) and then at how these stories were told – in other words, the discourse around the topic. the first level of analysis focused on coding the stories using chatman’s components of narrative – characters, settings (existents) and actions and happenings (events) as a guide. this meant reading and rereading the 31 narratives while creating codes related to events (actions and happenings) and existents (characters and settings). these were then further grouped by collapsing the very similar, such as, for example jail and prison, school and high school and bantustan and homeland. secondly, further themes were created by grouping, for example political leaders as characters together. the various themes created, for example race or ethnicity, historical individuals and positions of authority in the case of historical characters, were then analysed for what they would reveal about focalisation. this analytical engagement was then used to arrive at the discourses on ‘the history of south africa according to me’ emanating from the students personal narrative texts. at a second level of analysis, the discourses were brought into conversation with the existing literature. analysis and discussion historical characters the analysis of the student narratives revealed that, with reference to existents (chatman 1978), 648 historical characters were identified from the 31 ‘the history of south africa according to me’ texts (see table 1 for a list of the characters identified). table 1: historical characters and times referred to. unsurprisingly, considering south african history, the historical characters found in the personal narratives of the students were dominated by race and ethnicity. especially foregrounded was black people (76) white people (52) binary. race in this regard was used to refer to characteristics such as gender (e.g. white men), occupation (e.g. black labourers) and skin colour (e.g. white people and black people). these references did not keep to neat black or white racial boundaries with, for example ‘gender’ and the collective term ‘people’ used for both racial categories. considering that apartheid era racial designations (black people, white people, indian people, mixed race people) are currently still in use, indian people (13) and mixed race people (7) as labels for historical characters, were completely dwarfed by references to black and white historical ones. related to the racial binary of identifying historical characters as black people or white people were those identified by ethnicity such as, for example british (31), dutch (13), afrikaners (12) and africans (11). characterisation that transcended the narrow categories of race and ethnicity, such as nation (10) and south africans (17), were, however, overshadowed by race. furthermore, in the personal narratives, faceless historical characters not identifiable by race also came to the fore. this was carried out by the foregrounding of the broad designation of people (e.g. other, lots, communities) (59) as historical characters. all considered the most numerous historical characters in the narratives on south african history were collectives of racial and ethnic ones. on the opposite end of the scale, 93 individual historical characters were identified by name. completely dominant was nelson mandela with 34 references. this meant that, statistically speaking, each student referred to him at least once in their personal narratives. mandela thus stood head and shoulders above all other individual historical characters. other characters who received prominences as protagonists or antagonists were ‘big men’ such as fw de klerk (7), steve biko (5) and hf verwoerd (4). the remaining 28 individual historical characters were but bit players in ‘the history of south africa according to me’ narratives. what was striking though was that contemporary male historical characters dominated as only four women were identified by the 31 participating students. thinking about men as dominant historical characters was further reinforced by 31 references to ‘men’ (e.g. great, guys, his, him, father and forefathers) and only 11 to women (e.g. she, her and mother). furthermore, every single historical character mentioned by name can be, in one way or another, identified as a politician. this is supported by the fact that of the 44 references made to ‘positions of authority’ all was political in nature. unsurprisingly, considering the suggested view of the free writing piece, only three non-south africans, all african politicians, were mentioned as historical characters. a plethora of other individual historical fringe figures that could either be, for example identified by occupation (e.g. police and nurse) or actions (e.g. activist and tsotsi) were also referred to. these scattergun-like references are the closest the narratives ventured to linking historical characters to social and economic rather than only political history. considering the dominance of historical characters related to politics, it was not surprising that organisations identified as historical characters were dominated by politically orientated ones. in what was a discernible trend amongst the 31 narratives the collective unidentified, namely ‘parties’ (22) and ‘government’ (19), garnered the most references. this was closely followed by the ruling african national congress (anc) with 18. other parties, including the national party (np), were merely referred to in passing. historical settings in what historical settings, the second existent component of chatman’s narrative components, then did the historical chapters, as identified above, function? based on an analysis of the 31 first-year history education student narratives, 390 historical settings were identified (see table 2). table 2: historical settings and times referred to. unsurprisingly, considering the purposefully suggested point of view, the students had to work with their personalised narratives foregrounded south africa as the geopolitical setting for historical actions and happenings (162). closely related to the direct references to south africa were the slightly more oblique references to ‘country’ (50) as a historical setting. without fail the use of ‘country’ were related to the geopolitical setting of south africa. examples in this regard ranged from the personal ‘my country’ to the political ‘the apartheid country’. from the national, the narratives made a quantum leap to the personal, and specifically to public amenities such as hospitals, schools, parks, jails, toilets and streets as historical settings (49). these very personal settings, which invariably touch the private in a public manner, were for the most part related to the apartheid and post-apartheid eras and issues of privilege, racism and access. striking was the fact that jails (12) were the most prominent public amenity mentioned as a historical setting. this, in all probability, not only spoke to the imprisonment of prominent political activists but also to that of ordinary black people suffering under the plethora of apartheid era laws. underpinning the personal public were references to places of work (e.g. sugarcane plantations) as historical settings. related to the local were the abundant references to places of residence (e.g. shack, houses, urban areas and farmsteads) (28). places of residence are the most intimate and personal and private of spaces. here, individuals or families can feel safe and secure. as with public amnesties, residences as historical settings were very strongly linked to the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. the historical settings as gleaned from narratives then swung from the personal public and personal private to provinces (11) and towns and cities as local geopolitical settings (21). it is noteworthy that sharpeville, the setting of the 21 march 1960 protests against pass laws and subsequent police shootings, was by far the most prominent town (7). from the local, the students moved to continental africa (15) and europe (15) and the world (11) as settings for south african history. historical happenings and actions having gained an understanding of the historical characters and their settings, it was necessary to turn to what chatman (1978) termed events. events, as explained above, consist of two components: happenings (actual historical events in historical settings) and actions (people’s reactions to the actual historical events). the happenings and actions, as per the personal narratives of the students on ‘the history of south africa according to me’, are outlined in figure 2. the contents of figure 2 came about by collapsing the 31 personal narratives into a single collective meta-personal narrative. in the process, not all references to happenings and actions were used and selective choices were made on how to present a comprehensive and representative picture of ‘the history of south africa according to me’. figure 2: historical happenings and actions. the happenings and actions, as revealed by the analysis of the narratives, were grouped into five broad historical eras: before the arrival of white settlers under jan van riebeeck, the arrival of jan van riebeeck up to the end of the south african war (1902), the end of the south african war up to the start of apartheid (1948), the apartheid era (1948–1994) and the post-apartheid era (1994 to present). the outlined periodisation unfolded quite naturally from the personal narratives. this speaks to an innate-like sense of periodisation the students had of the history of south africa that is in all probability rooted in what they studied in school history. what was also clear at the outset was that the knowledge on happenings and actions in south african was not encyclopaedic in nature. it was instead partial to certain topics in certain eras. the proportions of the different eras as outlined in figure 2 bear testimony to that. in terms of happenings, the era before the arrival of white settlers almost went by unmentioned. the 250 years that followed (1652–1902) are punctuated by the arrival of white settlers and their dominant cultural and economic ways which spread systematically into the interior of south africa. this caused conflict between white people and black people. in the process, local labourers were exploited and augmented by slavery and indenture. at the same time, natural resources such as land and mineral wealth were claimed and squabbled over by white people. this process of colonisation left africans marginalised and only shaka are portrayed as a black historical character with historical agency. the era that follows (1902–1948) is treated even more miserly in the personal narratives on ‘the history of south africa according to me’. however, the portrayal of the era is very revealing as it speaks about constitutional change in favour of white people, the rule of white men and resistance to such rule by black people. this served to set the scene for the apartheid era that followed. quantitatively speaking the personal narratives spiked, as can be gleaned from figure 2, for the apartheid era (1948–1994). collectively, the personal narratives gave a general blow by blow account of the happenings under apartheid starting with white dominance under afrikaners which resulted in the legal institution of apartheid. this resulted in a systematic increase in the oppression of black people while simultaneously white people’s privileges were enhanced and legally enshrined. the result was a cruel and oppressive system that dehumanised and marginalised black people. what followed were various kinds of resistance to apartheid and white supremacy, both non-violent and violent, which resulted in even harsher oppression. systematically, black people moved from being victims to exhibiting increasingly more and more agency. in the end, because of internal and international pressure, white rule through apartheid was negotiated away and freedom arrived under mandela – the messianic figure of the liberation process. he was succeeded by other black leaders as south africa, still facing certain challenges, moved into the post-apartheid era (1994 to present), that are characterised by freedom, human rights, democracy and an afrocentric turn. this potted version of happenings (figure 2) as drawn from the personal narratives, was underpinned by clearly discernible actions. these actions took on a clear black–white binary. over a period of roughly 350 years (1652 to present), the actions of most white people were to squabble with black people and each other, dispose black people of land and culture, oppress them legally and physically, exploit their labour and destroy their cultural, structures and families. this left deep emotional scars. however, black people systematically moved beyond victimhood and fought back. this struggle gained momentum and over time evolved into a violent one that brought about a negotiated freedom, black rule and democracy. historical discourses based on the existents (characters and settings) and events (actions and happenings) as discussed above, what historical discourses emerged from the analysed narrative texts (chatman 1978:23)? at the outset, it became evident that being asked to write ‘the history of south africa according to me’ in a free writing manner, proved to be liberating as it allowed for a very personal discourse to emerge. this is borne out by the excessive use of the pronouns ‘me’, ‘my’ or ‘myself’ or ‘i’ and ‘us’ or ‘we’ in the personal narratives. on no less than 81 occasions, the aforementioned pronouns were used to personalise historical settings, characters, happenings and actions to which many students felt they belonged. examples include – ‘according to me’, ‘my grandmother told me’, ‘i find it hard to think …’, ‘us as black people’ and ‘we suffered under apartheid’. juxtaposed to the personal was the use of ‘they’, ‘their’ or, ‘them’ as a form of othering on no less than 94 times across the 31 personal narratives. such pronouns were used to exclude historical settings, characters, happenings and actions from truly belonging to ‘the history of south africa according to me’. of the many examples that exist in this regard, the following will serve as illustration: ‘to them [white people] apartheid was an advantage’, ‘they [white people] grabbed the natural resources of the country’: and ‘their [white people’s] culture were seen as superior’. racial identities were thus paramount in the construction of the personal narratives. a very personal discourse of ‘the history of south africa according to me’ could also be distinguished in the foregrounding of the faceless collective. across the 31 personal narratives, ‘people’, ‘us’, ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’ appear as nameless characters in public and private settings. amongst the faceless and nameless masses hides the personal for the students, for as ordinary historical characters in the present, they have roots, through their families and communities, to the past. this narration spoke to a history from below with the students giving a historical space to the voiceless and faceless. this also spoke to a very personal discourse that behind the big men were ordinary people whose histories played out in local public spaces and in private homes. such a personal discourse free of specifics did not mean that the students did not know history but signalled that they also knew it differently on a family and societal level outside of national history and the official versions found in caps history. however, considering that the setting was pre-given the narratives also focalised very strongly on south africa. unlike the ugandan students who partook in holmberg’s (2016; 2017) study, which identified equally as ugandans and africans, the students in this study embraced a certain exclusive south africanism. south africa is represented as a geopolitical entity only linked to the rest of the continent by a handful of reference to colonising or decolonising events. greater links were seen between south african history and parts of europe as the origin of the ‘whites’ found in the country. in turn, this served to promote a discourse that south africa as a place where apartheid, discrimination and oppression were perpetrated. considering the above a national history discourse played itself out in terms of a racialised blackor white-polarised representation of south african history. in this, clear roles were generally assigned, with white people for the most part being the oppressors and black people the oppressed. the sheer volume of references to black and white characters bears testimony to this. this is in line with what angier (2017) has found with a similar research sample what she referred to as who did and who was done to. in this study, the focalisation on a black or white binary in terms of selective happenings and actions was ballooned by references to the apartheid era (1948–1994), and its characters, settings, happenings and actions as an era of decline. at the same time, other eras were strongly downplayed. however, post-apartheid south africa is represented as a place of progress, freedom and a democratic place unlike its troubled past of slavery, colonialism and apartheid. south africa is focalised by the majority of students as a strong well-established country. the very dominant racial focalisation spilled over into the historical characters that were foregrounded with mandela towering above all others in almost the same messianic way that he is portrayed in school history textbooks (van niekerk 2013). in all of this, ‘big men’ dominated and women appeared as mere fringe figures. reasons for the foregrounding of the apartheid era can in all probability be attributed to the traumatic nature of the period, the fact that it is within living memory of the students and also a key focus area in caps history for grades 11 and 12 which they studied a couple of years before. in fact, as can be gleaned from the proportions in figure 2, it can be argued that, according to the narratives, south africa, outside of the apartheid era, has little history. but dominant across the 31 narratives is the race. historical characters, for example were strongly racially focalised as black people or white people. furthermore, at times these broad descriptions were further subdivided with ‘white people’, for example becoming the ‘british’, ‘english’, ‘europeans’, ‘dutch’ and ‘afrikaners’. the discourse on race and south african history did, however, also contain certain silences. observable in this regard was the marginalisation of mixed race people and indian people beyond being seen as part of the black people collective. the latter, for example tended to appear as either ‘ghandi people’ or indentured labourers working on sugarcane fields. ideas of race, ethnicity and the other in history are clearly deeply entrenched amongst young south africans living in a post-apartheid political dispensation and strongly coloured their personal historical narratives. the focalisation of race again served to foreground the importance of racial identity in the constructions of history. in brief, in a liberal historiographical tradition, race and racism were focalised as what drives south african history as a political discourse. in the process, class as a historical factor was almost completely silenced. conclusion in south africa, narrative inquiry has, according to nuttall and michael (2000), an important position: particularly since the political transition of 1994, personal disclosure has become part of a revisionary impulse, part of the pluralizing project of democracy itself. the individual, in this context, emerges as a key, newly legitimized concept … talking about their own lives, confessing, and constructing personal narratives … south africans translate their selves, their communities, into stories. (p. 298) in this article, first-year history education students told their personal narratives of the history of south africa. in the process, the personal and the national were deeply intertwined with race being the omnipresent glue keeping its characters, settings, happening and events together in a range of discourses. these discourses seemingly revealed a calcified historical culture and tradition that portrayed a black people or white people racial binary as a seemingly historical permanency. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references abbott, h.p., 2002, the cambridge introduction to narrative, cambridge university press, cambridge. angier, k., 2017, ‘in search of historical consciousness: an investigation into young south africans’ knowledge and understanding of “their” national histories’, london review of education 15(2), pp. 155–172. 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‘national history and beyond’, journal of curriculum studies 41 (special issue ‘national history and beyond’ part one), pp. 719–722. south african democratic teachers union (sadtu), 2014, the importance of teaching history as a compulsory subject, sadtu, johannesburg. tambling, j., 1991, narrative and ideology, open university press, milton keynes. van niekerk, a.l., 2013, ‘the representation of nelson mandela in selected grade 12 history textbooks’, med, university of kwazulu-natal. vansledright, b., 2011, the challenge of rethinking history education: on practices, theories and policy, routledge, new york. wineburg, s., 2001, historical thinking and other unnatural acts: charting the future of teaching the past temple university press, philadelphia, pennsylvania. microsoft word 01 naidoo fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: re-enchantment, pp. 1-12. beyond the academic’s dilemma: transdisciplinary and existential perspectives of re-enchantment r naidoo1 abstract the purpose of this article is to stimulate debate about the developing paradoxes and dilemmas facing the university academic. this article argues that academics are increasingly being steeped in an inauthentic existence due, at least partly to, egocentrism and sociocentrism. a modest transdisciplinaryexistential analytical framework is applied as an intellectual method to reflect on the prevailing monological perspectives stifling the role of academics, in working towards building a more sustainable future. using concepts such as the subject, facticity and transcendence, the article investigates the dialectical tensions between some of these monological perspectives and proposes avenues to create new possibilities to progress the role of the academic. the article argues that the multilogical perspectives of transdisciplinary thinking and the empowering perspectives of existential thinking can provide academics with the necessary conceptual tools to transcend egocentrism and sociocentrism. while it is likely that new contradictions will emerge as a result of this synthesis, open-minded academics are urged to ignite their imaginative powers and take up the challenge of creating and acting on new possibilities. a transdisciplinary-existential dialectical approach can provide a richer understanding of present dilemmas in academia and the world, and suggest more satisfying paths to a sustainable future. keywords: academic, education, egocentrism, existential philosophy, reenchantment, sociocentrism, transcendence, transdisciplinary, university. disciplines: social psychology, philosophy and critical thinking. 1. the problem: ‘fleeing’ from personal responsibility the modern academic plays an important role in shaping thought and action in broader society. through their teaching, they play a key role in developing the attitudes and behaviours of students – the future stewards of society and the planet. through their research, they are major influencers of the thinking of practitioners in the private sector, state policymakers, non-governmental organisations, research agencies, the media, the general community, and individual citizens. academics also play an important role in academic citizenship. they are involved in a number of different roles such as guest speakers, journalists, conference organizers, panel members and speakers, journal editors and reviewers, 1 . dr. rennie naidoo is a lecturer in informatics in the department of informatics at the university of pretoria, pretoria. email: rennie.naidoo@up.ac.za naidoo 2 members of community development projects, course developers and evaluators, and internal and external examiners of research reports and dissertations. they also play an important part in informal roles such as the mentoring of colleagues and in discourse with peers and other social groups. however, there is increasing anxiety among scholars about the mechanistic, cookie cutter, assembly line dogma that is dominating the intellectual life of the academic – a situation that is limiting the academic’s potency in these various roles – and thus contributing to their growing disenchantment. academics are at the forefront of witnessing extraordinary breakdowns and volatility in financial markets, climate change, race relations, religious relations, overpopulation, species extinctions, deforestation, and tense international relations, upheld by prevailing dogmas. as a result, widespread disenchantment, chronic helplessness and a crisis in meaning permeates members of academia’s outlook on the world. however, academics can no longer afford to ignore their complicity in propagating prevailing dogmas if they wish to transcend this state of disenchantment and advance a more sustainable future (de beer, 2014). this article argues that there is an urgent need for more academics to pay attention to the metaphysical significance of this anxiety and face up to it (yalom, 1980). taking refuge in short-term pressures or losing the self in everyday activities – in other words, choosing to ‘flee’ – is no longer an appropriate response (sartre, 1992:83). in this article, it is argued that the academic’s attitude and actions towards the oppressive and suffocating institutional and related pressures, either as hyper-conformity or hyper-cynicism, makes academics at least partly complicit in shaping and even perpetuating some of the complex and challenging crises facing the university and the world, and consequently, humanity’s hope of building a more sustainable future. an attempt will be made to connect two intellectual perspectives that may appear somewhat incompatible: existentialist philosophy and transdisciplinarity. it is shown that these perspectives share a similar conception as far as the human subject is concerned and may be useful in creating possibilities for academics to move beyond current dogmas. a fairly simplistic version of dialectical reasoning will be used as an intellectual method to reflect on the prevailing contradictions at the university. this article also draws on two sociopsychological concepts, egocentrism and sociocentrism (paul & elder, 2005), to understand why many academics are prone to acting in ‘bad faith’ (sartre, 1992:112). the tensions inherent in prevailing perspectives are examined with alternatives to create new possibilities to advance the role of the academic in the university. while it is likely that new contradictions will emerge as a result of any new synthesis, this article closes by urging academics to take up the challenge of inventing and enacting new possibilities. the rest of the article is organised as follows: section 2 elaborates on some of the key challenges facing the academic. section 3 introduces the notion of egocentrism and sociocentrism to describe the limited approach that many individual academics and academic groups are adopting to avoid or to respond to these key challenges. section 4 presents concepts from phenomenology and existential philosophy to further examine the inauthentic being of many academics. section 5 details how academics could dialectically face up to these challenges to arrive at a new transdisciplinary synthesis. section 6 argues why academics with a transdisciplinary mindset are more likely to transcend the dual problems of egocentrism and sociocentrism. section 7 caricatures the egocentric and sociocentric tendencies of ‘other’ academics to show the implications of the prevailing attitudes and behaviours of many academics. finally, section 8 (the conclusion) calls for academics to recreate and reinvent transdisciplinary and existential perspectives of re-enchantment td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 1-12. 3 themselves and their broader community by framing their challenges within a transdisciplinary-existential mindset. 2. academia’s dilemmas morin (1999:73) describes the current epoch as one that is facing a ‘polycrisis’ – that is a series of major overlapping and interconnected problems. yet, many of the areas academics research or teach have become so specialised and fragmented that these crises are being easily overlooked or glossed over. academics are detached from grappling with serious concerns such as global warming, race relations, religious relations, overpopulation, deforestation, and tense international relations. the present emphasis in the midst of this crisis is rather on market salvation: customers, competition, efficiency and value for money. these areas are elaborated on, next. first, a number of scholars continue to raise a number of concerns about the hegemonic role of the free market ideology in academia. gramsci (2012:237) used the term ‘hegemony’ to describe how a dominant group goes about producing and reproducing a network of institutions, social relations, and ideas. apple (2013) also expresses concerns about the manner in which cultural, political, and economic forces shape pedagogy and curriculum. he warns against a mono-disciplinary perspective that assumes that knowledge is ahistorical, apolitical and hierarchical. academics, gramsci (2012) maintains, have always played a major role in creating and sustaining such hegemonies. for example, during apartheid, major south african universities served as vehicles for the social and cultural reproduction of this regime of inequality (soudien, 2010). the veil of distortion and misrepresentation by this system provoked little response from the majority of academics. this legacy still weighs heavily on academics and students. south african academics need to recognise the complexity of transforming the learning experience by acknowledging their personal and their students’ different historical, political and social contexts. they need to use their privileged position and the power of freedom of expression to admit to past injustices and expose current injustices. classroom learning can be more meaningful if academics admit that disciplinary knowledge is never value free or absolute, but dialectic and contested. however, academics today are also aware that the more they dissent against orthodoxies, past and present, the more they can be expected to be demonized by members of the academy or administrators (furedi, 2004). for example, stengers (2011) describes how her colleague was sacked by a university for supporting public action against a genetically modified food. not surprisingly, a number of scholars argue that the purpose of a modern university is being limited to upholding the free market ideology (evans, 2004; giroux, 1983). academics’ dayto-day activities involve competing for contract research and consultancy, attracting corporate and research funding, meeting labour market needs, fostering entrepreneurship among students and colleagues, and developing relationships with their professional and business communities (nixon rowland & walker, 2010; ghoshal, 2005). the infiltration of market values is also shaping the priorities and values of universities. nussbaum (2012) has raised concerns about the closure of philosophy departments and the significant cuts made in the humanities. for example, many universities are seeking to distribute funding away from history, art and literature to areas such as science, economics and accounting. the rationale is that the research on the latter group of disciplines contributes directly to the economy. naidoo 4 second, research, a central part to academic life, is also under threat by a ‘research market’ ideology. the infiltration of the media culture has contributed to the growing importance of global university rankings, which are largely derived from research output. academics are being incentivised to publish in top-ranked journals to prop up the image of the university, their personal international profile, and for promotion purposes. academics are also being pressured into obtaining prestigious research grants. top-ranked journals and powerful research funders get to dictate what counts as rigorous and relevant research. as a result, academics find themselves acceding to approaches that limit and even impose their preferred modes of empirical enquiry and theorising. furthermore, in keeping with the market ideology, stengers (2011:2) argues that ‘fast, competitive, science’ – drawing a parallel with the fast food industry – is replacing ‘slow science’ as output is increasingly trumping merit and relevance. the research market is further intensifying specialisation and stifling cooperation between disciplines. third, a number of scholars are concerned about the increasing level of surveillance they face in an increasingly bureaucratic culture. ginsberg (2011) argues that a bureaucratic culture of audit and assessment is emerging. at the same time, research and teaching are being subjected to increasing standardisation (halffman and radder, 2015). virtues such as academic freedom are being displaced by the virtue of adhering to administrative bureaucracy. research is being subjected to targets and measurement. teaching is being subjected to elaborate student and performance appraisals. time once given to thought has been increasingly displaced with time spent completing forms. the increasing discipline and control may explain why many academics are hardly ever provoked to react to the crises mentioned above. fourth, many academics are concerned that the standards for student intake are being lowered. broadening access has meant that academics sometimes do not have the resources necessary to maintain standards. even so, furedi (2010:121) claims that academics are put under increasing ‘pressure’ to dumb-down the workload of students and to mark ‘positively’. technocratic and technophilic modes in pedagogical approaches are being used to try to accommodate growing student numbers. however little is known about whether these pedagogies can develop in students the mental habit and power to address the problems they will encounter. nevertheless, technique appears to be trumping the actual content of knowledge itself. giroux (2002:448) argues that: the consequence of the substitution of technology for pedagogy is that instrumental goals replace ethical and political considerations, result in a loss of classroom control by teachers, make greater demands on faculty time, and emphasize standardization and rationalization of course materials. freire (2007:34) argues more broadly that: education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. although it seems that academics are indoctrinated to use their learned skills and privileged positions as teachers and researchers to circulate received ideologies (hegemonic), it is not a given that they should become mere technicians and specialists of practical knowledge meant to serve domineering groups. section 3 introduces the notions of egocentrism and sociocentrism to demonstrate why current thinking about this problem space is limiting. transdisciplinary and existential perspectives of re-enchantment td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 1-12. 5 3. the obstacles: egocentrism and sociocentrism phenomenology and existential psychology perspectives maintain that the inner dimension (eigenwelt) of existence is shaped by our body, personality, history and future goals, while our social dimension (mitwelt) is shaped by those we most often interact with (van deurzen, 2002:62). einstein (2003:10) explains the tension between eigenwelt and mitwelt, as follows: a human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. he experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. this delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons close to us. our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all humanity and the whole of nature in its beauty. nobody is capable of achieving this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. summarising from einstein (2003), it appears that the self is a work-in-progress behaviourally and mentally oriented in two dominant modes of existence, namely the (a) egocentric and (b) the sociocentric modes. these two modes – egocentrism and sociocentrism – are seen here to be major contributors to the decline of the academic’s intellectual life. these modes of being can sometimes prevent academics from facing the possibility that their interpretation of reality and experiences might be selective, biased, or misleading. freud (1975) viewed egocentrism and sociocentrism as fulfilling important emotional ties that shape our being. these modes can serve to falsify, distort, misconceive, twist or deny reality in order to protect our sense of being (sumner, 1906). egocentric tendencies can limit academics’ awareness of their own prejudices and viewpoints (paul & elder, 2005). the ego can function self-deceptively, making academics intellectually pretentious, boastful and conceited. said (1996: 228) therefore challenges academics to look beyond themselves: you will have other things to think about and enjoy than merely yourself and your domain, and those other things are far more impressive, far more worthy of study and respect than self adulation and uncritical self appreciation. to join the academic world is therefore to enter a ceaseless quest for knowledge and freedom. sociocentrism lures academics into conforming to the prevailing views of their peer or social groups, with little or no conscious awareness of what it would be like to rationally decide upon alternative ways to conceptualise these perspectives. unfortunately, many academics are in awe and seduced by the rituals that promote social solidarity. they live their lives in the trappings of social authority, status and prestige. serres (1997:193) cautions academics about the danger of academic groupishness and dogma. sadly, the time has come when the sciences are letting themselves get trapped in the customary subservience of groups who are looking only to perpetuate themselves as a group. thought can only live free from these constraints. academics find themselves thrown into a world where they can barely recognise how the ideas promoted in their lessons or research endeavours are being shaped by history and dogmas perpetuated by dominant groups or their in-group. the implications are that academics are developing according to a dominant pattern of thinking – that is, whatever the prevailing orthodoxy expects. collectively, egocentrism and sociocentrism are serving to systematically objectify and impose limits on the role of the academic. academics face the urgent task of moving beyond these boundaries, if they intend to reclaim their individual consciousness and innate freedom, and create a sustainable future. the next section examines whether a transcendent mode of existence is possible within such a space. naidoo 6 4. disclosing being: facticity and transcendence phenomenology and existential philosophers in particular have examined our fundamental structures of existence and generally agree that human existence is unlike other forms of being. they believe that we are unique in the way that our own being is an issue for us. for heidegger, our basic way of being-in-the-world is to also “care” (sorge); that is, to have concern (besorge) for entities in the world and (fürsorge) for others (cited in johnson, 2000:18). however, our ‘dasein’ translated as ‘(t)here-being’ finds itself already thrown in the world; that is, we experience ourselves as already situated in the world, absorbed in relationships with others. heidegger (cited in wrathall, 2005:47) describes this absorption in the ‘they’ as follows: this being with one another dissolves one’s own dasein completely into the kind of being of ‘the others’, in such a way, indeed, that the others, as distinguishable and explicit, vanish more and more. in this inconspicuousness and unascertainability, the real dictatorship of the ‘they’ is unfolded. we take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure; we read, see, and judge about literature and art as they see and judge; likewise, we shrink back from the ‘great mass’ as they shrink back; we find shocking what they find shocking. heidegger argues that ‘dasein’ loses itself in the averageness of the ‘they’ where any authentic possibilities for it and the broader community are concealed (johnson, 2000). since ‘dasein’ cannot withdraw itself from the ontic reality of its existence with others, it must regain sight of the ontological by carefully reflecting on its disposition towards anxiety (van deurzen, 2002). anxiety for existentialists refers to a mood or feeling of unease that signals the absurdity of a particular situation. this mood of angst or dread should ideally pressure an individual to face up to their current way of being (johnson, 2000). according to sartre (2007), feeling ill at ease or insecure provides one with the impetus to act freely. anxiety discloses to ‘dasein’ how to set about the paradoxical task of understanding itself and its relationship to the broader community. for this, ‘dasein’ needs to cope with the factual realities outside of itself that are acting on the self. in the everyday being-in-the-world, academics catch glimpses of their inauthentic existence, but ignore these and quickly revert back to the ontic day-to-day activities. a move towards an ontological level of thinking through reflective analysis is required to enable them to face up to their anxiety and use these insights to be more authentic (van deurzen, 2002). in this reflective analysis, they need to recognise that their present relationships with their peers, students and the broader world community are based on presuppositions – that is, this life that they have taken for granted can change and should change. the task in contemporary society is an arduous one, though. fromm (2008:2) reminds academics that: the dream of being independent masters of our lives ended when we began awakening to the fact that we have all become cogs in the bureaucratic machine, with our thoughts, feelings, and tastes manipulated by government and industry and the mass communications that they control. sartre (1992:25) somewhat more optimistically expands this notion of personal freedom and argues that humans exist ‘for itself’ (‘pour soi’), and thus are not simply automatons determined by the facts imposed on it by others. (‘facticity’ refers to those properties that the other establishes and imposes on one’s being). the academic that accepts the level of objectification articulated by fromm (2008) becomes, according to sartre (1992:18), a thing (‘pure immanence’). following sartre (2007:22), ‘man’s existence precedes his essence’. this implies, among other things, that there is no pre-existing authentic self. the self constructed in academia – the conformist self for instance – was formed through accepting the norms of transdisciplinary and existential perspectives of re-enchantment td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 1-12. 7 influential others. the problem with this self is that the academic is reduced to the status of ‘the object’ in the other’s world. de beauvoir (1948:97) explains: reduced to pure facticity, congealed in his immanence, cut off from his future, deprived of his transcendence and of the world which that transcendence discloses, a man no longer appears as anything more than a thing among things which can be subtracted from the collectivity of other things without its leaving upon the earth any trace of its absence. dupuy (2000:xix) adds to this explanation the limits of a mechanistic worldview: because the same technological ambition that gives mankind such power to act upon the world also reduces mankind to the status of an object that can be fashioned and shaped at will; the conception of the mind as a machine — the very conception that allows us to imagine the possibility of (re)fabricating ourselves — prevents us from fulfilling these new responsibilities. for existentialists, accepting absolute objectivity is a form of ‘bad faith’ (self-deception). academics are seen to have a choice about how they respond to facticity. existential philosophers refer to this stance to open ourselves to new possibilities of being and bringing forth alternative meanings despite the current facticity as “transcendence.” one way to bring forth transcendence is by embracing existence as a ‘transdisciplinary subject’ (nicolescu, 2005:14). a transdisciplinary perspective can reveal projects that move academics beyond the given conditions in which they find themselves – away from the ‘objectified’ to gramsci’s (2005:49) ‘organic’ individual. 5. the return to prominence of the subject: finding spaces for change a transdisciplinary approach to the global polycrisis calls for a new relation between the subject and object. the old modernist science based on the cartesian-mechanistic and empiricist paradigms assumed a separation between the subject and object. these paradigms reduced a person to an object – like a tool, a mere instrument, whose significance is dictated to by others – while many postmodernist philosophers reduced a person to a mere ‘grammatical subject’ (nicolescu, 2010:21) – lacking agency power such as the freedom to act, insisting that a person is a subject that is socially constructed, and wholly determined by social and political forces. in contrast, the transdisciplinary view of the subject seems to be consistent with themes in phenomenology and existentialism. here a person is seen has having responsible agency. as in the philosophy of heidegger and sartre, the human condition becomes a key to reality where the subject, as an autonomous self, returns to prominence in grasping and shaping reality. nicolescu (2010) argues that the new science of quantum theory and biology also characterises reality as non-separability of subject and object. nicolescu (2010:22) states: for me “beyond disciplines” precisely signifies the subject, and, more precisely, the subject-object interaction. the transcendence inherent in transdisciplinarity is the transcendence of the subject. the subject cannot be captured in a disciplinary camp. nicolescu’s (2010:28) view of human beings as ‘homo sui transcendentalis’ (a person who is born again) has parallels with the existentialist’s notion of autonomy and authenticity. following sartre (1992:332) then, the authentic self is something all academics have to create for themselves. one way to get closer to achieving authenticity is by rejecting those sociocentric and egocentric tendencies alluded to earlier, which constitute the inauthentic part of the self, and taking responsibility for building a more sustainable future. section 6 argues that academics should dialectically face up to these conflicts and polarities to arrive at a naidoo 8 new synthesis, albeit temporary and provisional, to decide what it means to be a responsible academic. 6. a transdisciplinary dialectic balancing act reasoning dialectically requires that academics enter into a dialogue sympathetically and with an open mind with those that have opposing views. figure 1 shows the example of the current market dogma colonising the conceptions of students. the current orthodoxy is rather limiting, viewing students as consumers who pay for vocational training that fulfils corporate needs. in other words the balance of the task of the academic is increasingly being tilted in favour of developing a technician and the good employee. as corporate needs become more specialised the notion of a student and the notion of providing a more holistic education that prepares students for the broader needs of society – such as a citizen or a person – are being eroded. one of the major questions the university and academics face is whether they are preparing students adequately to cope with their life challenges? what kind of being does society need? what kind of being is society developing? f i g u r e 1 : t h e s t u d e n t – a p e r p e t u a l l y d e v e l o p i n g s y n t h e s i s if the education of students is viewed as a technical challenge best left to those in the field of education or economics to resolve, then a simple procedural solution offered by a single discipline may be appropriate. however, educating the student so as to tilt the balance appropriately is a complex problem involving multiple interpretations and calls for a transdisciplinary approach. a wide variety of disciplines from the social sciences, natural sciences, economics and humanities must be brought to bear on the ‘wholeness’ of this problem. when considering the various conflicting ideas, more than one line of thinking needs to be considered. given that disciplines in academia have a tendency to generate specialised sub-disciplines that are meant to tackle routine issues, these varied thoughts are likely to come into conflict with each other as soon as they are engaged in a discussion on their strengths and weaknesses. the language of each discipline is not capable of dealing with the multidimensional totality of the problem. therefore, mill (1999:22) states: transdisciplinary and existential perspectives of re-enchantment td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 1-12. 9 that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. no wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this. paul (1984:11) describes the transdisplinary nature of the dialectic process: we need emancipatory reason, the ability to reason “across”, “between”, and “beyond” the neatly marshalled data and narrowed, clear-cut concepts of any given technical domain. because it cannot presuppose or restrict itself to any one “system” or “technical language” or procedure, it must be dialectical. given the inherent complexity and transience of this problem on how a student should be defined, there appears to be no predictable endpoint. in other words, a transdisciplinary mindset appreciates that any synthesis of the notion of the student will always be temporary and provisional. however, a perpetually developing synthesis of the student offers much more hope for the future than the seemingly definable and completed essence of student, balanced in favour of the market or any other dogmatic terms. other issues within the polycrisis need to be entered into in the same way. academics must embrace their subjectivity, work towards authenticity, and make a conscious choice to help with this change. as shown, dialectical thinking within a transdisciplinary perspective can enable academics to reflect and test the presuppositions of factic properties, which, when academics are immersed in the world of the ‘they’, they take for granted. transdisciplinary dialectical thinking requires that they test these factic properties – the cause of their anxieties, against opposing views. similar to existentialism, it places the human being (the subject) at the centre of the making of the self and the discovery of knowledge (nicolescu, 2005). in addition, it emphasizes bridging the spaces between disciplines as opposed to traversing through a single discipline. the transdisciplinary view of the world is also multilogical as opposed to monological. as such, the transdisciplinary subject is more likely to transcend the problems of egocentrism and sociocentrism. their ‘internal world’ can transcend the tendency to view a concern as simply a matter that satisfies their personal desires, values and beliefs, or that of a particular social group. they are also more likely to dissent and doubt the views of their in-group, demonstrate intellectual humility, and create the personal space that can create a rich possibility of options, for dealing with complex problems that serve a broader world. section 7 caricatures the egocentric and sociocentric tendencies of ‘other’ academics to show the promise of transcending the problems of egocentrism and sociocentrism. 7. beyond the academic’s dilemma at various times we observe the susceptibility of ‘other’ academics to egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. these tendencies bring forth different realities for these academics. figure 2 shows a caricature called “a caricature of the ‘other’ academic’s dilemma”, that can help academics perceive their actions from different vantage points. the model plots academics against these two variables: egocentrism and sociocentrism. the exaggerated mentalities and behaviours here can be classified into four main types: naidoo 10 f i g u r e 2 : a c a r i c a t u r e o f t h e ‘ o t h e r ’ a c a d e m i c ’ s d i l e m m a the conformist finds himself high on sociocentrism and low on egocentrism. a follower, this academic is easily star struck by more so-called ‘acclaimed academics’. he is an obsequious and pandering individual. the politician finds himself high on sociocentrism and high on egocentrism. cunning and devious, this academic views others as a means to an end. the narcissist finds himself low on sociocentrism and high on egocentrism. he is excessively independent and works on projects that serve only him. (he loves no one but himself.) the ‘ideal type’ here is the transcendent. committed to making a better world and building a more sustainable future, the transcendent is low on sociocentrism and low on egocentrism. as close as it is humanly possible to be authentic, the transcendent has enormous courage and integrity, as well as a high degree of self-awareness. transcendents have demonstrated excellence in thought and action that they have deliberately cultivated over the years. they are critical, collaborative, reflective transdisciplinary thinkers. like us, physicist and environmentalist vandana shiva is a good example of a transcendent academic. working closely with farmers oppressed by the state and corporations, she dedicates her life to changing the practice and paradigms of agriculture and food. consider this profound statement by shiva (2013:9-10), which – not surprisingly – has a strong existential and transdisciplinary flavour: an ecological shift entails not seeing ourselves as outside the ecological web of life, it means seeing ourselves as members of the earth family, with the responsibility of caring for other species and life on earth in all its diversity. it creates the imperative to live, produce and consume within ecological limits and within our share of ecological space, without encroaching on the other species and people. it is a shift that recognises that science has already made a paradigm shift from separation to non-separability and interconnectedness, from the mechanistic and reductionist to the relational and holistic. it is unlikely that an academic can be wholly transcendent. it is more likely that given their all too human nature, academics will occupy multiple states at the same time, facing multiple paradoxes and dilemmas in each of these four quadrants. nevertheless, perhaps this gentle derision will prompt the core of their being to begin a shift from an overly fragmented and conflicted being towards a more holistic transcendent. transdisciplinary and existential perspectives of re-enchantment td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 1-12. 11 8. the transdisciplinary path to reenchantment: a personal responsibility academics seem to be caught in somewhat of a dilemma that is not perfectly resolvable. if they take a transdisciplinary approach to research and teaching and act by entering into an explicit value discussion, they are condemned by the orthodoxy for illegitimately imposing their ideals on others. if they refuse to embrace a transdisciplinary approach to deal with complex issues, they end up being charged with narrow mindedness and blindness to the injustices that their disciplinary conformity is helping to promote. so where to from here? academics cannot escape the fact that the role they play is a political one as defined by the research they publish and the manner in which they teach. they are either imprisoning or opening the hearts and minds of their colleagues and students. the ongoing project for academics is to transcend the limits of their personal levels of egocentrism and sociocentrism. for this, academics need to take personal responsiblility. they can elevate their thoughts beyond the strong downward pull of egocentric and sociocentric tendencies by thinking and acting anew. this will go a long way towards reclaiming their freedom and consciousness and the freedom of the other. academics will need to temper their disciplinary obsessions by balancing their parochial concerns with broader and interdependent concerns such as ethics, justice and sustainability. academics have the possibility to recreate and reinvent themselves and their broader community by framing their current projects within a transdisciplinaryexistential mindset. this – the project of becoming homo sui transcendentalis – offers the academic and humanity the best possibility for re-enchantment, and a sustainable future. bibliography apple, m. w. 2013. education and power. new york: routledge. de beauvoir, s. 1948. the ethics of ambiguity. ontario: citadel press. de beer, s. 2014. michel serres' multidisciplinary philosophy of information and knowledge. the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1):19-36. dupuy, j. p. 2000. the mechanization of the mind: on the origins of cognitive science. new jersey: princeton university press. einstein, a. 2003. bite-size einstein: quotations on just about everything from the greatest mind of the twentieth century. london: gramercy books. evans, m. 2004. killing thinking: death of the university. london: bloomsbury publishing. freire, p. 2007. pedagogy of the oppressed. london: bloomsbury publishing. freud, s. 1975. group psychology and the analysis of the ego. new york: ww norton & company. fromm, e. 2008. to have or to be? new york: continuum international publishing group. furedi, f. 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south african municipalities’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a409. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.409 original research monitoring and evaluation: the missing link in south african municipalities david m. mello received: 25 jan. 2017; accepted: 29 sept. 2017; published: 31 jan. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the auditor-general of south africa reports for the financial years 2012–2013, 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 paint a gloomy picture of local government performance in some provinces. many municipalities in south africa are not performing as expected because of a host of problems that include weaknesses in monitoring and evaluation systems. the study preceding this article was qualitative in nature and focused on the auditor-general’s reports for the 2012–2013, 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 financial years. main findings of the study are that municipalities that get clean audits have strong oversight systems and leadership. a further inference is that qualifications of councillors, training, time and remuneration are contributing factors to poor oversight by councillors and political structures. the main recommendations were directed at improving civic education in the nomination and election of councillors, pairing underperforming municipalities with best performing municipalities, improving continuing education for councillors and improving the monitoring of interventions and the transitions after interventions. introduction existing financial resources are seldom enough for municipalities to be able to fulfil their constitutional and legal mandates in south africa. it is the responsibility of any organ of state, including municipalities, to use their resources efficiently. to achieve this elusive goal, monitoring and evaluation need to be strengthened in all underperforming south african municipalities. this article argues that lack of capacity and poor oversight within and outside municipalities are some of the underlying reasons for poor performance of some municipalities. the article starts with an exposition of the methodology followed by an explanation of the analytical framework as well as an assessment of the state of municipalities in south africa. furthermore, the article provides insight into the capacity of municipal councillors to exercise their oversight roles and reflects on time as a critical factor in monitoring and evaluation. having discussed the capacity of councillors, the article in the penultimate assesses the role of audit and public accounts committees in monitoring and evaluation. finally, the article arrives at some conclusions and makes recommendations aimed at improving monitoring and evaluation in south african municipalities. research methodology researchers have a choice to adopt a variety of methods that include but are not limited to qualitative and quantitative methods in probing a specific problem or area of interest. the study that preceded the compilation of this article was qualitative. the design chosen for this study was the archival design that focuses on secondary data analysis. according to saunders, lewis and thornhill (2009:258–259), secondary data analysis could focus on databases, reports and websites. south african municipalities were the subject of the study. secondary data sources used in this study were the auditor-general’s reports for the 2012–2013, 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 financial years. figures from these reports were reanalysed to arrive at specific findings. analytical framework for the article bana (2014:640) rightly argues that ‘theory without practice is empty and practice without theory is blind’. bana’s statement may sound like a banal rhetoric. however, it is the author’s conviction that there should always be some symbiosis between theory and practice. it is for this reason that the discussion in this article is underpinned by public choice theory. public choice theory encourages one to be sceptical about decisions taken by individual politicians to join politics and the decisions they take while discharging duties in public office. the fundamental question within the context of this theory is whether politicians always act in the best interest of the public as they claim or their individual interest takes precedence in decision-making. state of municipalities in south africa a number of south african municipalities are not performing at the level required and expected by law and citizens who foot the bill for the administration of such municipalities. this view is shared by govender and reddy (2014:163). this parlous state of affairs is mainly because of a weak system of monitoring and evaluation, the incapacity of councillors and officials to monitor projects and finances. the non-existence of or poorly resourced monitoring and evaluation units adds salt to the wound. furthermore, this state of affairs becomes a perfect breeding ground for corruption and chronic underspending. a direct consequence has been the spread of service delivery protests that have been largely characterised by violence, loss of government and personal property and, in extreme cases, loss of lives. the republic of south africa is divided into 280 municipalities that constitute the local sphere of government (8 metropolitan municipalities, 44 districts and 228 local municipalities) (salga 2017:online). these municipalities are classified into categories a (metropolitan), b (district) and c (local). these municipalities differ in terms of their capacity to deliver municipal services. these municipalities are either urban (category a) or semi-urban or rural (mainly categories b and c). urban municipalities have the capacity to attract more qualified employees, whereas rural municipalities have a higher turnover of qualified employees. the inability to retain qualified employees impacts negatively on the ability of municipalities to retain essential skilled employees who are key to improving monitoring and evaluation services. according to auditor-general of south africa (2014:online), 30 municipalities received clean audits in the 2012–2013 financial year, and 13 of these municipalities sustained their clean audits. municipalities that received clean audits are good at record keeping and discipline and have strong oversight by mayors and local legislatures. of the municipalities that were audited in the 2012–2013 financial year, 41% of the auditees received unqualified opinion with findings, 25% received a qualified audit opinion, 2% received an adverse audit opinion and 18% received disclaimers. a major concern about the audit report is that 90% of auditees did not comply with laws and regulations. the r11. 6 billion that was classified as irregular expenditure is a consequence of non-compliance with laws and regulations. twenty-nine auditees (1 in the eastern cape, 1 in limpopo, 1 in mpumalanga, 5 in the free state, 11 in the northern cape and 10 in the north west provinces) received disclaimers for five consecutive years (auditor-general of south africa 2014:online). tables 1–3 provide a summary of clean audits and disclaimers per province. table 1: clean audits and persistent disclaimers per province (2012–2013 financial year). table 2: clean audits and persistent disclaimers per province (2013–2014 financial year). table 3: clean audits and persistent disclaimers per province (2014–2015 financial year). table 1 further provides a clearer picture regarding provinces that are performing well and those that are underperforming. the western cape province has 12 municipalities that received clean audits. this is the highest number in the country followed by kwazulu-natal at 7 municipalities. these two provinces do not have municipalities that have received disclaimers in five consecutive years. the figures provided in the three tables indicate which provinces are not performing well. the northern cape received only one clean audit and has the highest number of auditees (11) with consistent disclaimers over a period of 5 years. the north west province is one of the provinces that did not receive clean audits. the number of municipalities in the north west province that did not receive clean audits is 10. from a financial audit perspective, it can be inferred that limpopo and the north west provinces have some of the worst performing municipalities. these two provinces have not been able to register a single clean audit for three consecutive years. these two provinces are also amongst those that must be given preference with regard to capacity building as well as monitoring and evaluation. the inference made in the above paragraph may be correct from a financial audit perspective. however, a performance audit may reveal a totally different picture. the purpose of any research is not to apportion blame. research should find answers to existing problems. in the case of south african municipalities, the question that needs to be answered is: what can be done to turn the outcomes of negative audits on south african municipalities around? an answer to this question may be that monitoring and evaluation must be improved through training and that more performance audits need to be conducted to give a clearer picture regarding the performance of municipalities. however, simple and quick solutions seldom yield lasting solutions. south africa is a unitary state. however, politics and boundaries have turned the country into a pseudo-federal state fraught with localised municipal problems. the western cape province is a province that is under the political leadership of the democratic alliance, whereas all the other eight of the nine south african provinces are under the african national congress (anc). the democratic alliance could claim success in the western cape province, whereas kwazulu-natal province may be the only beacon of hope for the anc. it is in the nature of politicians to bask in the glory of small successes to attract more voters, but in this case the solo beacon under the anc flagship might be insufficient to recompense. it is the author’s contention that political squabbles and victories should not sidetrack the fact that south africa is a unitary state. in the broader scheme of municipal governance, an underperforming municipality becomes a burden to the tax payer-cum-voter as well as distorts the best performing municipalities. municipalities are not businesses and should not be seen to be competing against each other. instead of competition, there should be more cooperation and sharing of lessons learned from good and bad municipalities. pairing a well-performing municipality in the western cape province with an underperforming municipality in the north west province or elsewhere in the country would lead to sharing experiences and best practices. it is the author’s contention that a well-performing municipality could also learn from bad practices and avoid falling into the trap of being complacent and repeating the mistakes of other municipalities in future. in the following section, focus is on the capacity of municipal councillors to exercise their oversight roles. capacity of councillors to monitor and evaluate performance before one can assess the capacity of councillors regarding their monitoring and evaluation ability, the concept of capacity needs to be explained. capacity is explained by koma (2010:115) from three different perspectives, namely the individual, institutional and environmental. individual capacity is the competency and potential that exist in a person. institutional capacity takes a macro view of the organisation. it focuses on the organisation’s ability and potential from human capital, leadership, infrastructure and financial perspectives, amongst other important factors. environmental capacity refers to the competence found outside the municipality’s formal structures. this includes socio-economic composition of the municipality, political and social capital. maserumule as cited in koma (2010:116) is emphatic about the need for politicians and management of municipalities to have the requisite skills, competencies and knowledge. paradza, mokwena and richards (2010:48) argue that councillors who possess low academic and professional qualifications are ill equipped to interrogate officials, critique their work and hold them accountable for their actions and inactions. it is critical for councillors to be able to critically read and analyse reports (paradza et al 2010:64) and interpret legislation with the requisite fidelity. african peer review mechanism (2007:79) cited lack of capacity as a challenge facing municipalities in south africa. a convenient excuse at that time was that local governance structures were still evolving. disoloane and lenkonyane (mpehle & kanjere 2013:769) argue that municipalities are likely to fail because of a paucity in capacity, skills and leadership. a study conducted by mpehle and kanjere (2013:772) shows that 75% of respondents do not have a post high school qualification. only 25% of councillors have tertiary qualifications, and the inference is that this lack of qualifications ultimately affects the delivery capacity of councillors at the individual level. sections 47, 157 and 158 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 prescribe the criteria for a person to stand for election as a councillor. in terms of section 47, any south african citizen who is qualified to vote is eligible to be elected as a member of the national assembly and by extension a member of the provincial legislature as well as a municipal council. sections 157 and 158 emphasise registration as a voter on the local part of the national voters roll. although the constitution, 1996 prescribes the circumstances under which a person may not qualify to stand as a councillor, the supreme law is silent on the qualification that a prospective councillor must have. this silence could be viewed within the context of the bill of rights which makes all citizens equal before the law. a critical argument in this article is whether the right to equality should override quality service which the author submits would be a direct consequence of qualified councillors. a key question that this article attempts to answer is as follows: what should the minimum qualification be for a potential councillor to stand for election? before answering this question, the requirements for a person to function effectively as a councillor and also discharge his or her monitoring and evaluation responsibilities must be highlighted. the ability to read, understand and write must be a primary requirement. furthermore, having a critical mind would also come in handy for any councillor to be able to discharge his or her duties. although the author is tempted to be prescriptive, the constitution, 1996 overrides any attempt to tamper with the qualification of a person to become a councillor. it is therefore safe to argue that the onus lies with voters to nominate and elect people with a minimum of a grade 12 or post school qualification. the challenge is getting members of the public to do the right thing. educating the electorate about the quality of candidates appears to be one solution at this stage. time as a critical factor in monitoring and evaluation a study conducted by mpehle and kanjere (2013:772) shows that a corollary to the challenge of capacity is the time that part-time councillors have to do council work. a total of 87.7% of councillors at lepelle-nkupi local municipality depend on an annual stipend of approximately r132 000. the remaining councillors have full-time jobs elsewhere. in 2015, part-time councillors’ salaries were improved to range between r195 712 and r416 098, whereas full-time councillor’s salaries range between r457 210 and r832 197 per annum. paradza et al. (2010:32) also highlight that councillors in some municipalities took up positions as councillors while they retained their primary jobs. a direct consequence of serving two masters is that these councillors cannot balance their two jobs and they end up not attending some council meetings. if the full-time job salary is higher than the stipend given to a councillor, the loyalty of such a councillor to council work cannot be guaranteed. what complicates matters even further is the unpredictability of politics. the possibility that the councillor may not get a second term suggests that the full-time job provides security and peace of mind that a councillor would not want to lose in the case of any eventuality in his or her political life. from a public choice perspective, it can be argued that self-interest underpins every decision made by politicians. the time constraints that part-time councillors have to deal with raise the question whether councillors should still be allowed to hold two jobs. would full-time councillors exercise a better oversight role? holding two jobs may be avoided if legislation prescribe that all councillors must be full time. having all councillors focusing on council work on a full-time basis would require the salary to be improved significantly to be at the level of a provincial member of the legislature. better salaries would, in the author’s opinion, satisfy socio-economic needs of the councillors and their self-interests. by the same token, municipalities will also be able to attract other professionals out of their jobs to represent communities and make a difference. audit committees audit committees are established in terms of section 166 of the local government: municipal finance management act 2005. audit committees were from the inception meant to be independent statutory committees with a responsibility to advise the municipal council, councillors, the accounting officer of the municipality and the top management team. their scope regarding the advisory role includes, amongst others, performance management and evaluation, risk management, good governance as well as matters pertaining to financial control and internal audits. audit committees are made up of a minimum of three persons who have appropriate experience in municipal administration. the majority of members including the chairperson must not be employed by the municipality. to ensure independence and political neutrality of this committee, councillors are not allowed to be members. the primary responsibility of municipal audit committees is to maintain, improve standards and enforce financial accountability. george (2005:42) further emphasises the importance of independence and accountability. dlamini and migoro (2016:381) believe that to be able to analyse finance-related information, members of audit committees must have sound financial management and related skills. audit committees’ positions are advertised in the media to attract people with relevant skills. using this analytical framework of public choice theory, the following question can be asked: are applicants for such positions interested in financial incentives or in contributing to good oversight activities within municipalities? the majority of people who apply do so to augment their incomes. to augment the work done by audit committees, municipal councils can appoint committees that may add value to the improvement of the monitoring and evaluation function performed by councillors. these additional committees of municipal councils envisaged in sections 79 and 80 of the local government: municipal structures act 1998 are further discussed in the next section. role of public accounts committees municipal public accounts committees (mpacs) are established for each municipality in terms of section 79 of the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998. mpacs are statutory committees that differ from the audit committees in terms of their composition. mpacs are made up of councillors who are neither political office-bearers or charged with executive responsibilities. the chairperson of the committee should be a seasoned and experienced councillor who is a member of the ruling or opposition political party. the law does not prescribe the number of members who may serve on each committee. the terms of reference of mpac are wide-ranging and include the following: unforeseen and unavoidable expenditure unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure quarterly report of the mayor monthly budget statements mid-year budget and performance assessments submission and auditing of financial statements submission of annual reports oversight report on annual report issues raised by auditor-general of south africa in audit reports disciplinary action audit committee integrated development plans performance management plan monitoring of the budget paradza et al. (2010:12) argue that municipalities are under no obligation to establish section 79 committees. most municipalities prefer to establish section 80 committees that are primarily tasked with the responsibility to support the mayor. these researchers further submit that in municipalities dominated by section 80 committees, the role of ordinary councillors’ oversight is significantly curtailed because of their exclusion from key discussions. the dominance of section 80 committees further limits municipalities’ ability to co-opt experts who are not council members in accordance with section 79(2) (d) of the local government: municipal structures act 1998. it is the author’s submission that co-opting experts into committees in an advisory capacity may have positive spinoffs on the capacity of municipal councils to monitor and evaluate activities at different operational levels of the municipality. effectiveness of section 139 interventions the constitution, 1996 establishes government on the three spheres, namely the national, provincial and local spheres. the three spheres are distinctive, interrelated and interdependent. the distinctiveness of the spheres is curtailed by the provisions of section 139 of the constitution, 1996 which prescribe that the two upper spheres have power to intervene in the affairs of lower spheres if the latter is not capable of fulfilling its constitutional and legislative mandate. kahn, madue and kalema (2011:8) affirm that there are two schools of thought relating to the concept of interdependence. these two schools of thought are realism and pluralism. realists are sceptical and do not see any benefits in the interdependence between municipalities and upper spheres of government. proponents of the pluralism school of thought see some value in interdependence. it is the author’s view that municipalities could benefit from interdependence if the monitoring, evaluation and capacity-building functions are performed effectively at national and provincial spheres in relation to activities of municipalities. the failure of a municipality should be construed as the ineptness of provinces to build capacity and exercise the necessary oversight to avoid possible interventions. from the foregoing argument, an assertion is made that interventions are ineffective without capacity building. this assertion is supported by thornhill and cloete (2014:52) who recognise that interventions are ex post; hence, they are unable to prevent ineffective administration. any intervention should be preceded by effective monitoring, evaluation and capacity building of councillors and officials. interventions should only be considered when all efforts have failed but before service delivery standards are compromised to the detriment of communities and the municipality is no longer functional from a financial perspective. interventions in a municipality may take place in terms of section 139(1) (a), (b) or (c) of the constitution, 1996. section 139(1) (a) of the constitution, 1996 provides that intervention involves the issuing of a directive by the province to the local legislature. this type of intervention can be classified as a pseudo intervention. the directive must describe the nature of failure and then propose action that is necessary to rectify the existing or alleged anomaly. intervention in terms of subsection 1(b) of the constitution, 1996 involves taking the responsibility to fulfil the mandate of the municipality. this type of intervention was applied at ditsobotla, matlosana and maquassi hills local municipalities without achieving the desired results (section 139(1) (b) of the constitution, 1996 interventions in maquassi hills municipality, 2015:online). the third type of intervention invokes subsection 1(c) of the constitution, 1996. invoking this subsection leads to the dissolution of a municipal council and replacing it with an administrator until the election of a new council. this type of intervention is rarely applied and is only necessary in exceptional circumstances where a municipality cannot deliver services and fails to approve its budget. it is the author’s contention that not all interventions have been successful. there are municipalities in south africa that have been under different interventions as outlined above. these municipalities, after more than one interventions, still need to be in ‘intensive care’ because they barely meet the minimum requirements of their obligations. it is therefore not surprising to see an increasing number of service delivery protests in south africa. the failure of interventions could be ascribed to the lack of monitoring and evaluation of interventions and transitions when appointed administrators leave after interventions. conclusions this article has probed the role of monitoring and evaluation at a political level. from the arguments advanced in this article, it could be inferred that some municipalities in south africa are not effectively fulfilling their constitutional mandates. the failure of municipalities to fulfil their constitutional mandates is primarily because of the incapacity of councillors, ineffective interventions, ineffective monitoring of interventions and poor management of transitions after interventions, as well as outright avoidance of interventions for political expedience. intervention of the ruling party in a province in the affairs of an ailing municipality controlled by the same party may be seen as an admission of failure. consequently, municipalities that should be put under administration are not simply because political parties may want to ‘look good’ in the eyes of the electorate and other political parties. the result of this situation is the chronic underperformance of some municipalities. the article has provided a macro perspective on challenges relating to the monitoring and evaluation of performance in south african municipalities. it is suggested that future research focus on individual underperforming municipalities. recommendations a number of suggestions have already been made in the article regarding the solutions to some of the monitoring and evaluation challenges. the following are consolidated recommendations: communities need to be educated about the nomination and election of councillors who are literate and can make a contribution to the monitoring and evaluation functions performed by municipalities. councillor’s remuneration must be improved and legislation with regard their election ought to change to have full-time councillors. departments responsible for local government in each province must link best performing municipalities with underperforming municipalities. the suggested linkage could take the form of monthly political and technical meetings or workshops in areas where weaker municipalities are not performing well. these meetings or workshops can become catalysts in the sharing of variety of knowledge and skills relating to monitoring and evaluation functions. monitoring and evaluation of interventions must be strengthened by appointing people who would leave a functional municipality not dependent on their skills. education and training of councillors must be prioritised by all municipalities. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references african peer review mechanism (aprm), 2007, country review report no 5, republic of south africa, nepad, midrand. auditor-general of south africa, 2014, 2012–2013 mfma consolidated general report, viewed 30 may 2017, from http://www.agsa.org.za auditor-general of south africa, 2015, 2013–2014 mfma consolidated general report, viewed 30 may 2017, from http://www.agsa.org.za auditor-general of south africa, 2016, 2014–2015 mfma consolidated general report, viewed 30 may 2017, from http://www.agsa.org.za bana, b.a., 2014, ‘regulatory and oversight systems for revitalizing public administrations systems in africa’, journal of public administration 49(2.1), 637–652. dlamini, p.c. & migoro, s.o., 2016, ‘performance monitoring and evaluation systems in the south african local government’, journal of public administration 51(3), 376–390. george, n., 2005, ‘the role of audit committees in the public sector’, the cpa journal 75(8), 42–43. govender, i.g. & reddy, p.s., 2014, ‘monitoring and evaluation in municipalities: a case of kwazulu-natal province’, administratio publica 22(4), 160–177. kahn, s., madue, s.m. & kalema, r., 2011, intergovernmental relations in south africa, government printer, pretoria. koma, s.b., 2010, ‘the state of local government in south africa: issues, trends and options’, journal of public administration 45(1.1), 111–120. mpehle, z. & kanjere, m., 2013, ‘empowering women councilors through leadership development programme’, journal of public administration 48(4.1), 764–776. paradza, g., mokwena, l. & richards, r., 2010, assessing the role of councilors in service delivery at local government level in south africa: report 125, centre for policy studies, johannesburg. salga, 2017, about municipalities, viewed 07 june 2017, from https://www.salga.org.za saunders, m., lewis, p. & thornhill, a., 2009, research methods for business students, 5th edn., prentice hall, harlow. section 139 (1) (b) interventions in maquassi hills municipality, viewed 27 may 2017, from http://www.gov.za-1391-b-intervention republic of south africa, 1996, constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, government printers, pretoria. republic of south africa, 1998, local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998, government printers, pretoria. thornhill, c. & cloete, j.j.n., 2014, south african municipal government administration, 2nd edn., van schaik, pretoria. abstract introduction the international perspective the non-profit funding landscape in south africa methodology findings discussion recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references appendix 1 footnotes about the author(s) mmabatho maboya gordon institute of business science, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa tracey mckay department of environmental science, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation maboya, m. & mckay, t., 2019, ‘the financial sustainability challenges facing the south african non-profit sector’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a693. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.693 original research the financial sustainability challenges facing the south african non-profit sector mmabatho maboya, tracey mckay received: 04 apr. 2019; accepted: 17 sept. 2019; published: 19 nov. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract non-profit organisations (npos) operating in south africa are financially weak and the sustainability of their organisations is often at risk. post-2008, large numbers have ceased to operate, in part, because of the weak state of the south african economy. this study sought to determine the financial conditions npos operate under, to establish why they are so vulnerable and present recommendations as to how they can become more financially resilient. in-depth interviews with 10 senior managers in the sector, representing organisations working in education, health and social welfare, were conducted. the results indicate that the legislative environment-governing npos are restrictive and may be inhibiting their ability to raise funds. the results of the interviews showed that the npos under study rely heavily on a few large donors; placing them at great risk, should they lose this revenue stream. donor dependence is such that some even tailor their mandates to suit donors, whilst others dedicate a significant proportion of their resources to fundraising. consequently, donor relations management and finding new or additional donors preoccupy the minds of npo leadership. this is notably different to npos in the global north where many have embraced social enterprise and commercialisation. keywords: financial sustainability; donor relations; non-profit organisations; funding challenges; policy. introduction non-profit organisations (npos) are often viewed as leaders in addressing challenging environmental and social issues plaguing society, especially in countries where state-led development is weak (ilhan 2013; reith 2010). this is particularly true for developing nations, where many international aid organisations support local npos, rather than for-profit organisations or even national governments, because npos have less bureaucratic processes, are more flexible in terms of entering into contracts and are less likely to be partisan (abouassi 2013; hershey 2013; ilhan 2013). thus, npos in developing nations, often aid social transformation and assist in reducing inequality (patel 2012; salamon et al. 2013). many also work in the environmental space (liefferink & van eeden 2010). in addition to the crucial social role that npos play in developing nations, the sector itself also has a significant economic footprint. it is a significant provider of employment opportunities and contributor to the gross domestic product (gdp) of many countries. for example, in the 15 countries that the johns hopkins sector report covered, npos contribute, on average, 4.5% of the gdp and account for 7.4% of the total workforce (salamon et al. 2013). nevertheless, although npos play a vital role when governments are either unable or incapable of solving chronic social issues, they cannot alone fulfil all of society’s needs and must be supported by governments, as well as private sector donors (hershey 2013; lu 2015; warshawsky 2016). they also face a number of significant challenges, the most important of which is securing funding. the aim of the study then was to understand the factors that affect and influence the financial sustainability of npos in south africa. thus, the research sought to explore the npo revenue stream. as such it makes a contribution to the literature on the non-profit sector of the country, where academic studies are patchy (claeyé & jackson 2012; patel 2012; swilling & russel 2002). the international perspective despite the crucial role played by npos, they are not without criticism. not all national governments are supportive of them, raising concerns about their motives. some even argue that npos encourage citizen uprisings and regime change initiatives. others claim that npos are engaging in illegal activities that compromise national sovereignty (agence france-presse 2014; fraser 2005). therefore, the ruling elite often contest the legitimacy of npos (suleiman 2013). as a result, the non-profit funding landscape has evolved significantly since the 1980s (hershey 2013). initially, npos were viewed as a key conduit for developing and strengthening democracy and good governance in developing nations. to that end, funding, from international bodies, such as the world bank and the european union (eu), became significant (habib 2005; hershey 2013). later, the donor funding landscape took a directional shift and began to focus more on poverty alleviation instead of broad empowerment (banks & hulme 2012). in this regard, the world bank and international monetary fund, for example, came to view npos as efficient, flexible and reliable, and thus elevated them to mainstream partners (hershey 2013). in terms of developing nations, however, international financial support for local npos in the last decade has been scaled back. to a degree individual philanthropists, such as the bill and melinda gates foundation, have filled this gap but such philanthropists often bypass npos with significant ramifications for the npos in question (fowler 2016). furthermore, international donors now seldom fund local npos directly, rather channelling money via npos based in the global north. in addition, aschari-lincoln and jäger (2016) note that the funding landscape has changed with many funders demanding a high degree of financial transparency and adherence to good governance protocols. potential funders often want access to the npo’s financial data and many demand rigorous reporting regimes, making funding applications overly complex and administrative, and thus, discriminating against small-scale npos located in developing nations. consequently, such npos have suffered funding losses (fowler 2016). those who get funding find that they have to spend significant time, money and energy adhering to the bureaucratic reporting regimes required by donors. this renders them even more obliged to serve donor mandates (banks & hulme 2012; hershey 2013). another struggle for npos is that the sources of funding can also taint them in the eyes of local communities, who start to view them as agencies of the state or big business (banks & hulme 2012). this is because, in part, of the imposition of specific (and often onerous) funding conditions on npos by some funders. thus, over time, the activities of some npos become tailored to the demands of the donor. the npo may even become financially dependent on donors – not only for money, but also for a raison d’être. as such, they may no longer effectively assist local communities (reith 2010). consequently, it has been argued by reith (2010) and mckay, mbanda and lawton (2015) that in some cases, donors impose funding conditions that result in npos being forced to commit to the donor’s agenda, regardless of what is needed or wanted at the local level. this dependence on donors weakens npo legitimacy and opens npos up to criticism that they are merely self-serving (suleiman 2013). being dependent on donor funding renders npos especially vulnerable to donors’ whims (abouassi 2013; de andrés-alonso, garcia-rodriguez & romero-merino 2015; stecker 2014). for example, donors often revise their funding objectives independently of the npos they are working with, which can lead to a mismatch between the objectives of the donor and the npo. this may result in the donor terminating the relationship, often with catastrophic financial consequences for the npo (abouassi 2013). additionally, if the prevailing economic environment negatively affects donors, sometimes funding is withdrawn (aschari-lincoln & jäger 2016; de andrés-alonso et al. 2015; mayer et al. 2014; stecker 2014; unerman & o’dwyer 2010). thus, carroll and stater (2009), bowman (2011), abouassi (2013, 2015) and chikoto and neely (2014) all assert that high dependence on donor funding can make non-profits systemically vulnerable if the donor environment changes faster than the npos’ capability to adjust to the changes. this is worsened by the fact that many struggle to achieve financial sustainability as they seldom are in a position to accumulate capital (abouassi 2013; hershey 2013). thus, it is in the best interests of npos of the developing world to take financial sustainability, not just mission sustainability, into account when it comes to their planning and daily operations. this will include adopting a more business-like approach to survive. however, not all are willing, or able, to do this (julie 2010). in particular, leadership matters: npos need boards of directors made up of people with the skills necessary to adopt a business-like approach (hayman 2016). as lehner (2013) notes, however, most npos are established, and led, by people who do not have formal business or entrepreneurship experience. thus, npos struggle with finance in general, as their leaders focus almost entirely on social causes and often lack an entrepreneurial mindset (morris, webb & franklin 2011). this is in addition to many npos being unable to embark on strategic long-term financial planning as they are locked into donor-controlled funding cycles (lehner 2013). furthermore, most npos operate under hand-to-mouth conditions, surviving from one funding cycle to the next. most have not developed new cultures and capabilities to diversify their revenue streams. for these reasons, hailey and salway (2016) argue that sustainable npos must be able to adapt to a changing external environment, adjusting and revising their missions, as well as mobilising resources to meet new challenges. this includes a shift towards being more self-financing and self-reliant (gras & mendoza-abarca 2014; stecker 2014). accordingly, npos need to develop financial resourcing models that focus on revenue diversification (chikoto & neely 2014; stecker 2014). this includes creating alternative revenue streams (yang, lee & chang 2011). as a result, some npos, especially in the global north, have increased their commercial activities (kerlin & pollak 2011). it can, therefore, be posited that npos need to move into a position of financial strength and independence if they are to fully embrace their particular mandates (abouassi 2015; carroll & stater 2009; stecker 2014). in the light of this, some npos have developed alternative revenue streams (yang et al. 2011). that is, some npos have become more corporatised and are pursuing active fund raising (haltofová & štěpánková 2014). thus, yang et al. (2011) note a rise in commercialisation strategies by non-profits. for example, in 2002, npos based in the usa had a funding model split of: 54% commercial activities, 36% government subsidies and 10% public donations. this reflects attempts to develop an imperviousness to donor funding whims. this strategy is in line with mayer et al.’s (2014) argument that revenue diversification positively influences the revenue stability of npos. this may include adopting commercialisation strategies (julie 2010; yang et al. 2011). however, grimes (2010) and suleiman (2013) argue that this change may compromise the social mission of many npos; particularly when they take on a more entrepreneurial approach, as this can lead to the organisation drifting away from fulfilling their mandate and becoming self-serving. gras and mendoza-abarca (2014) and grasse, whaley and ihrke (2015) also warn that diversification could result in exposure to external risks which could negatively affect existing revenue sources, or crowd some of them out. accordingly, self-financing cannot be the holy grail of financial sustainability (yang et al. 2011). to that end, revenue diversification needs to be viewed as a strategy for managing pressure from external forces rather than an end in itself (grasse et al. 2015; hailey & salway 2016). the focus needs to be on diversification of income to minimise the impact of ‘external financial shocks’ and revenue volatility, as well as mitigate against the inherent social, political and economic risks of operating in the developing world (aschari-lincoln & jäger 2016; chikoto & neely 2014). however, grasse et al. (2015) maintain that a blanket approach towards diversification could lead to internal inefficiencies. therefore, revenue diversification is but one element of successful revenue management (bowman 2011). nonetheless, some npos simply cannot be self-financing because of their geographical location and the type of communities they serve (aschari-lincoln & jäger 2016). for example, npos in the developing world are far less able to adopt income-generating approaches, whilst those in the global north are more able to attract donor funding, regardless of the level of need (leonard 2014). that npos in developing nations are not able to diversify was highlighted by the 2008 global economic recession (akintola et al. 2016). the impact of this recession was especially hard on these npos, with many having to radically restructure, ration services to beneficiaries, reduce staff numbers and costs. some even closed down (grasse et al. 2015). unfortunately, these crisis-management type of coping strategies create a vicious circle, causing reputational damage and further weakening the sector; as an npo needs goodwill, a sound reputation, a strong public profile to attract resources, as well as good relations with both donors and communities (bowman 2011; de andrés-alonso et al. 2015; grasse et al. 2015). hence, building the internal capacity to learn and evolve is vital (hailey & salway 2016). the non-profit funding landscape in south africa in south africa, npos have a chequered history (patel 2012). in the 1980s and 1990s, international donor funds flooded into the country to support the anti-apartheid movement, and, as a result, the apartheid state regarded most of them with hostility. this money led to the expansion of the non-profit sector (akintola et al. 2016; leonard 2014; habib 2005; habib & taylor 1999). swilling and russell (2002) estimated that by the end of the 1990s, there were some 98 920 npos. at the time, as the (apartheid) government provided subpar social services to the marginalised black majority (most of whom were – and are – poor), most npos aimed (in part) to reduce poverty and inequality amongst the black population (habib 2005; habib & taylor 1999). in the early post-apartheid years, official donor aid from international donors grew substantially, such that it accounted for between 2.2% and 2.5% of the south african national budget between 1994 and 1998. as a result, many south african npos, especially those who work in the fields of human rights and social justice sector, became entirely dependent on foreign donors (ewing & guliwe 2008). because of their role in the anti-apartheid movement, the post-apartheid state initially lauded npos as ‘partners’ of the new government (habib 2005; kajiita & kang’ethe 2017; van pletzen et al. 2014). evidence can be seen in the various pieces of legislation passed, such as the national water act (act no 36 of 1998) and the national environmental management act (act no 107 of 1998) which both call for local communities and civil society to be involved in decision-making. additionally, the national development plan of 2030 calls for an ‘active citizenry and social activism … to raise the concerns of the voiceless and marginalised’ (south african government n.d.). at the same time, the government promulgated legislation to channel international donor funds to various state causes, such as the reconstruction and development programme (rdp). in 1996, ostensibly as part of this ‘partnership’, the newly elected south african state established the transitional national development trust (habib & taylor 1999). in this regard, the south african government pressurised international donors, through bilateral agreements, to shift towards funding government-to-government programmes (julie 2010). controlling the flow of funds to npos was subsequently formalised with the promulgation of the non-profit organisations act no. 71 of 1997 (husy & taback 2005; van pletzen et al. 2014). this act imposed much more state control over npos, such as mandating that they must be organisations established for the public benefit and ‘the income and property are not distributable to its members or office bearers except as reasonable compensation for services rendered’. additionally, regulations in the south african income tax act (no 58 of 1962) section 30 (which pertains to public benefit organisations such as npos) give npos the right to generate a taxable income, but state that profits must be reinvested to further their mission (department of social development 2009). the same act also requires approved public benefit organisations to have at least three persons, who are not connected persons (as defined) in relation to each other to accept fiduciary responsibility for the company.1 non-profit organisations also have to register themselves on a national database and submit annual audited financial reports to the state in order to continue to operate. by 2014, some 127 032 npos were officially registered, up from 85 478 in 2012. the majority (120 268 or 95%) of these registered npos are voluntary associations such as community-based organisations and professional associations, mostly small in size and finances (statistics south africa [statssa] 2012). notwithstanding the importance ascribed to civil society, and the extent to which the state controls them, the south african government’s financial support of npos is poor (patel 2012). as a result, most npos in south africa receive income from three sources, namely: government grants, donations and membership subscriptions. however, the reliance on government grants and corporate sponsorship has led many to adopt the burdensome king iv corporate governance code (cliffe dekker hofmeyr 2019), despite this code being, for the most part, inappropriate for npos. this may also be linked to the imposition of managerialism on the sector, as noted by claeyé and jackson (2012). post-2008 has been a significantly trying time for these organisations because of the effects of the global recession and south africa’s shrinking economy. donor funding and development aid declined sharply and have remained low (akintola et al. 2016; leonard 2014; van pletzen et al. 2014). additionally, many are struggling to get grants from the state-controlled national lottery (known as lotto).2 more recently, there have also been accusations of corruption in the lotto payments.3 this has serious ramifications for the npos, which, for the most part, cannot compete with the national lottery, which required permits issued by the state (national lotteries commission, 2019). consequently, many npos ceased to exist, with some 30 000 deregistered by 2018 (sangonet, 2018). others have had to restructure, ration services and reduce staff (akintola et al. 2016). the consequences were also felt nationally with reduced social services, education and health services as some npos do not offer their services anymore, or have scaled back (statssa 2012). the loss of jobs is also a problem, as most npos spend around 74% of their income on salaries, so job losses mean less money circulating in the local economy. those npos that had survived had to form networks and coalitions to support one another. it became clear that sustainability required organisational attributes such as credibility, recognition as legitimate in the regulatory and political space, as well as an ability to mobilise resources (hayman 2016). a few did launch income-generating programmes, and some realised that the concept of npos as purely non-profit had to change (julie 2010). methodology because of time and financial constraints, non-probability, convenience sampling was used to select 10 npos. the possibilities of having a near-homogeneous sample and its limitations were considered; hence, the diversity of selected npos (albeit in a smaller sample size) was important in qualifying the unlikeliness of a homogeneous approach to financial sustainability in a diversified sample. senior managers from metropolitan south african npos (operating in a range of areas such as education, environment and social justice), established for more than 5 years, were interviewed (see table 1). the average age of the npos that formed part of the study was 32 years. the selected npos varied in terms of organisational sizes (large, small, national and international). the total value of the 10 npos in terms of turnover was r366 million with 458 employees in total (ranging from four to 145 employees per npo). table 1: profile of participants. the research followed an inductive exploratory approach using qualitative in-depth interviews with an interpretivist approach (see appendix 1) (saunders & lewis 2012). the nature of the interviews was based on experienced survey principles that work well in interviews that do not require a representative probability sample (zikmund et al. 2013). the interviews were preceded by a short discussion on the background of the organisation and its most important milestones; this was to enable the interviewees to participate freely in the interviews. ethical clearance was granted from the gordon institute of business studies. the participants gave informed consent; the interviews were recorded and then transcribed for analysis in atlas.ti. after cleaning and validation, coding resulted in 53 primary codes. the codes were organised into code families. these themes were then aggregated into categories of best fit, and standard deviation was used to rank them in order of importance. the data fell into four categories: extremely important, very important, important and less important. findings it was possible to discern five key themes in order of importance: (1) donor relations, (2) identifying funding, (3) financial sustainability, (4) managing finances and (5) the role of the board. each of these factors are presented in table 2. these key themes will now be discussed. table 2: key themes and their order of importance. donor relations most participants indicated that as funding came from donors, they had to maintain good donor relations at all costs. p1 mentioned that over 90% of their funding comes from foreign donations and p2 qualified their position by saying: ‘as a npo we never going to be free of having to do fund raising’. thus, the relationship with donors emerged as extremely important. p2 elucidated that funding depended on their relationship with donors, and that trends in the donor environment influenced their financial sustainability. p3 felt that their relationship with donors was unequal, because of their financial dependence on donors, making them obliged to address every donor demand: ‘important to understand their needs and … satisfy their needs’. p7 also noted that despite spending a great amount of energy and resources trying to keep their international donor, the donor still elected to start their own npo. p2 also mentioned that: … you really have to nurture your big donors … when their strategy changes you need to talk to them and say is there any way we can adapt what we do to meet it. keeping donors happy and on board is then a top priority. although donor demands can easily overwhelm the administrative capacity of npos, they are ‘locked in’ to the relationship, needing to remain on good terms with their donors to survive, despite the strategic risk of relying too heavily on donors (p7). in addition, some of the participants indicated that sometimes their current donors referred them to other potential donors. p1 mentioned that ‘other donors would serve as pointers … donors would say that there is this new donor … so it would be nice for you to send in a proposal’. this is notwithstanding an environment where npos compete for donor funding. sourcing new funding as donors are so vital, finding new donor funding was very important. in this regard, participants were concerned about: (1) how to fund programmes and (2) how to identify new funding avenues and new donors. p8 substantiated that: as an npo we have been financially dependent on donors a lot. our skills are focused on writing proposals and sending proposals to donors, but with south africa having been declared middle income country, and the current economic climate, it has become difficult to find funding. p1, p6 and p10 all indicated that the identification of new donors was critical. in particular, because many npos faced challenges covering their overheads and other administrative costs. that is, donors are often reluctant to allocate funds for administration costs. thus, most organisations were in permanent pursuit of new donors to make up shortfalls between income and expenses. importantly, the dominance of donor relations and sourcing new funding indicates that these npos follow traditional npo business models. most have not attempted to generate alternative income sources; although some changed their business models to match donor behaviour and trends. for instance, p2 mentioned that on average donors ‘last between 3 and 5 years and then they move on, and their funding criteria changes’. there were also three themes ranked as important: (1) the human resources associated with planning and discussing financial sustainability, (2) analysis, review of financial position and managing finance and investments’ financial reporting and (3) the role of the board, board governance and oversight. these three are presented below. human resources associated with financial sustainability financial sustainability refers to an organisation’s ability to be in a positive financial position and has the financial means to implement their programmes. however, the results relating to financial sustainability were complex, showing that some senior employees do not grasp how their organisation can achieve long-term financial independence. part of this was because of a weak understanding of what financial sustainability is. for example, when asked to explain their understanding of financial sustainability, p2 said, ‘well, in the perfect world we would have a big enough reserve to just live off the interest’. thus, this manager wanted their npo to be a type of ‘trust-fund baby’. even worse was the response from p5, who said: a good npo spends [all] the money it gets each year, so we don’t store up huge amounts of reserves. the money goes the money’s given to us to spend on the work. financial sustainability is but one element, one element. thus, the value of having reserve funds for ‘rainy days’ was not a priority for this manager. p2, p4, p8 and p9 connected financial sustainability with their ability to fund their programmes, rather than as a specific goal to be achieved. in clear contrast, p7 and p8 both rated an understanding of financial position as more important than strategy development and monitoring. thus, some did understand financial sustainability. for example: financial sustainability is the ability to carry on as an organisation in a credible manner where you able to deliver programs and keep your promises to donors. whilst keeping the lights on and keeping the staff employed. so it’s basically the ability to continue. some of the participants highlighted the importance of adequate financial skills, as well as the continuous analysis and review of their organisation’s financial positions as important elements of financial sustainability. p9 strongly highlighted the weak financial environment of south africa as an ultimate threat to survival ‘what is happening in the economy is a concern’. this was different to most participants who disregarded the impact of the country’s policy changes and economic uncertainty on their financial sustainability. financial position the majority, participants 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7, did not attach a high value to the management of finances and investments. only a minority, participants 8 and 9, rated an understanding of finance as more important than strategy development and monitoring. key personnel – in terms of managing finances – were limited to the financial manager (who does the financial reporting), the board committee for finance and the chief executive officer (ceo). heavy reliance on the ceo to drive funding initiatives was particularly common. thus, few npo employees focused on this aspect of the organisation. participant 7 did, however, recognise that the financial position of the npo was important for general sustainability. role of the board whilst all the participants highlighted oversight by their board of directors as an important element of their financial affairs, some ranked accountability to their donors as more important. this is an indication of a resource dependency relationship. notably, those npos debating or implementing alternative revenue streams placed greater emphasis on board oversight than the rest (p5 and p10). in this regard, participants 3, 7 and 9 noted that boards seldomly had directors who could provide insight into broader financial sustainability, or who knew how to pursue alternative funding sources. this speaks to a need to seek out board members with these kinds of skills. for example, participant 3 specifically mentioned this skills gap, and went on to note that when new board members were appointed, this particular npo tried to select those who had the critical skills such as entrepreneurialism. lastly, there were themes that emerged as less important to the npos (see table 2). importantly, from the perspective of these npos, the following themes, which are actually key to long-term financial sustainabillity, were viewed as less important: (1) pursuing alternative funding options (35 mentions or 2.7% of all mentions) and (2) changing the npo business model (27 mentions or 2% of all mentions). most therefore are not paying attention to these critical issues. discussion overall, two chief concerns preoccupy the minds of the leadership of the npos under study. these are (1) donor relations management and (2) finding new or additional donors to fund their programmes. of lessor importance are fundraising, having the skills and capacity to adequately manage their finances (oversight, reporting to donors), managing finances and board oversight. thus, contrary to what kerlin and pollak (2011) indicate, there seems to be little effort by south african npos to increase their commercial activities as another income stream. this is validated by what the participants felt were less important. thus, responses to the changing funding landscape were more in line with what child (2010) described as an increased dependence on donor funding, making them even more vulnerable to financial ‘shocks’ and likely to lose their autonomy (chikoto & neely 2014; hillman 2009). it can be concluded that most of the npos under study are dependent on donor finance, making their relations with donors of paramount importance. as a result, most go to great lengths to appease and humour their respective donors and implementing partners. consequently, they felt that reputation management was crucial. in this regard, participants were keen to stress that their important need was to maintain an impeccable reputation. they felt that organisations with doubtful or tarnished reputations, or poor financial reporting, lost donors. to that end, following good governance principles and reporting standards, regardless of how onerous, were viewed as crucial to maintaining good donor relations. for those who had international donors and funders, who require arduous reporting processes, this was even more crucial. thus, the npos divert time, energy and expertise away from delivering on their mandates to managing donor relations. their dependence on donors meant that in some cases, npos even implemented programmes at the behest of donors, thus losing the ability to ‘steer their own ship’, becoming an implementing agent of the donor instead. in line with other findings, their strategies for engaging with their donors are directed by resource dependency, taking the form of a master–servant relationship (carroll & stater 2009; froelich 1999; grasse et al. 2015; reith 2010). trapped in this resource dependency paradigm, some posited that a solution was to have multiple donors rather than just one donor or secure long-term donors. this was despite some experiencing ‘near-death’ situations, when large donors suddenly withdrew their funding and the npo faced the real possibility of closing down. notwithstanding being fully aware of the challenges and risks involved in over-dependence on donors, most could not think beyond the old ‘tried and trusted’ ways of sustaining their npos. this attitude aligns to that of many npos in the developing world (hailey & salway 2016). in part, this was because of a limited understanding of what long-term financial sustainability is, not recognising the importance of having their own resource base to sustain their operations. most of the participants also did not realise that to develop alternative funding sources, the npo itself would have to invest money into the alternative. thus, rather simplistically, they planned to ask their current donors for the necessary financial support for this! in stark contrast to this, one npo indicated that their organisation borrowed money to participate in black economic empowerment deals. this strategy paid off, as returns were used to repay the loans and develop enough capital to make the npo independent of donor funding. to limit the risks associated with this, the npo had to establish a separate investment company (with the npo board providing oversight). this approach, however, is only possible if an organisation has assets that can be used as collateral for raising investment finance. very few were keen on developing self-generated income sources and even the ones who have explored the idea had not implemented it. therefore, although some recognised the importance of alternative revenue streams, most had not adopted practical strategies to pursue alternative approaches. some participants did not even prioritise being autonomous from donors, with no appetite for finding alternative sources of funding at all. some were worried that having self-generated sources of funding would jeopardise their status as npos, that their image would be negatively affected or that it would have tax implications. in this regard, it is clear that many do not understand the various pieces of legislation that govern the sector. others felt that challenges would arise regarding the management and expertise required to have self-generated sources of funding. the participants did, however, identify a possible range of revenue streams such as creating products for enterprises, endowment funds and cash reserves (of between 3 months and 3 years). one had set money aside and was currently looking for investment strategists to help them invest the money. another one said their organisation made finding alternative revenue sources paramount. recommendations in terms of long-term financial sustainability, it is imperative for south african npos to achieve a healthy balance between donor funding and independent financial resources. this would enable them to overcome donor pressures and retain autonomy with regard to their mandates (hershey 2013). it would also make them more resilient to changes in the donor and economic landscape. thus, npos could consider strategies such as investing in income-generating programmes, with the recruitment of collaborative partners or financial strategists to assist them in this endeavour. furthermore, multiyear and long-term donor funding may afford the organisations with an opportunity to plan for financial sustainability without the pressures of short-term fundraising targets. in addition, the npos should ensure that they pull together these strategies by raising the importance of strategic stakeholder relations within their organisation. this overarching strategy can provide the organisational assurance for managing the programme implementation and funding uncertainties (bowman 2011; grasse et al. 2015). it may, however, also be necessary to get donor permission to use some of the donor’s funds to invest in establishing income generation projects to assist the npos to achieve some modicum of financial independence in the long term. non-profit organisations can also consciously increase the utility of the goods and services they provide to their beneficiaries by positioning them into their income generation projects. for example, providing low-cost family counselling for those who can pay, then using the funds generated from this to cross-subsidise those who cannot pay. however, this would necessitate an entrepreneurial mindset and recognition of the income-generating potential of their existing programmes. more importantly, increasing their risk appetite, embracing the inherent investment risks associated with income-generating projects and a willingness to invest some of their reserves towards income generation is crucial. finally, there may also be a need to address the misunderstandings that seem to prevail about the legislative prescriptions on npos in south africa, as many npos seem to think that they are not allowed to carry money over from one financial year to the next, retain income or even have investments. conclusion the south african npos that formed part of this study focus primarily on developing and maintaining their donor base, and thus, to a large degree have not – and nor do they intend to – adopted alternative revenue streams or become more corporatised. therefore, the securing of long-term donors emerged as the most important issue for these npos, rather than trying to gain some independence from donors. they are overly reliant on a few large donors and this causes them to invest heavily (in terms of time, money and effort) in donor and stakeholder relations. this may compromise their ability to perform their mandates and hinder their autonomy. seemingly, large donors wield significant influence on the npos. these npos are vulnerable to changes in donor profiles, priorities or to losing donors altogether. the development of a more diverse financial strategy would enable them to handle financial uncertainties better. to that end, appointments at board level need to take into account the suite of skills needed to assist npos in this regard. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the npos which participated, as well as milton milaras, brij maharaj and richard ballard for their insightful comments. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions m.m. was deeply involved in the conception and design of the study, the acquisition of data, the analysis and interpretation thereof, as well as the write-up. the article flows from her mba. t.m. guided the conception and design of the study, informed and contributed to the data analysis and interpretation, as well as assisted with the crafting and editing of the article for submission. tracey was the supervisor of the mba from which the article flows. ethical consideration ethics clearance was received from gordon institute of business science (gibs), university of pretoria (ethical clearance number: temp2016-01798). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references abouassi, k., 2013, ‘hands in the pockets of mercurial donors: 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(2013). business research methods. cengage learning, mason, usa. appendix 1 semi-structured interview guide what are the organisation’s financial strengths and weaknesses? does the organisation have relevant and necessary capacity to be financially sustainable? who is responsible for ensuring that the organisation is financially sound and sustainable? what accountability systems are in place to ensure financial sustainability? is the organisation aware of what it needs in order to be financially sustainable or to maintain its good financial status into the future? how often does the organisation review and revise its funding and financial strategies? how would the organisation react to a withdrawal of support from a major donor? how does the organisation fund its programmes? briefly describe the funding and revenue sources (historical, current, future)? how does the organisation identify new opportunities for funding? how does the organisation measure, review and evaluate performance of its funding sources against its own objectives and overall strategy? what percentage of funds does the organisation receive from its main funding source (donor) of the organisation’s total funds? which alternative revenue sources has the organisation identified in the past 3 years? is the organisation in a position to develop new funding and revenue sources? what is the nature of the organisation’s relationship with its donors? footnotes 1. to comply with the law, some lawyers advise npos that they should: (1) ensure directors meet four times a year, (2) agendas circulated 2 weeks in advance, (3) board meetings must cover operations and governance aspects and (4) draft minutes containing action items should be produced within 7 days after the board meeting took place. these conditions are onerous for many npos because of financial and human resource capacity constraints. some who do not consult lawyers may even be unaware of their legal obligations. 2. non-profit organisations demand audit of lottery payments (news24, 2012). 3. lottery grants under investigation (lowvelder, 2018) abstract introduction teachers’ experiences of information and communication technology integration into the curriculum how teachers integrate information and communication technology across the curriculum conceptual framework methodology findings of the study conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) babalwa p. kafu-quvane department school of further and continuing education, faculty of education, university of fort hare, alice, south africa department of social science and humanities, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation kafu-quvane bp. chronicling teachers’ experiences on integrating information and communication technology across the curriculum. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a783. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.783 research project registration: project number: 215082419 original research chronicling teachers’ experiences on integrating information and communication technology across the curriculum babalwa p. kafu-quvane received: 11 nov. 2020; accepted: 05 oct. 2020; published: 23 mar. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the national curriculum in south africa demands that children in secondary schools become computer literate and that schools incorporate information and communication technology (ict) into the curriculum. this is not feasible, as computer equipment is not evenly distributed in schools across the country. drawing on the experiences of teachers from four high schools captured in focus group discussions, the researcher explores teachers’ experiences in managing teaching in an era of incorporating ict in teaching. the findings suggest that on all the management functions (planning, organising and leading) teachers had more negative than positive experiences with ict integration and largely negative experiences with training and organising. keywords: integration; information and communication technology; chronicling; experiences; curriculum. introduction the national curriculum in south africa demands that children in secondary school become computer literate and schools integrate information and communication technology (ict) across the curriculum.1 the doe’s ict policies underestimate the importance of preparing teachers for integrating such technologies into their classroom practice. the policies epitomise a one-size-fits-all approach and are not formulated in such a way as to cater for diverse school environments.2 the practicability of integrating ict is not practicable and it poses challenges in some south african schools, because the distribution of gadgets by the doe is uneven. the ‘one-laptop-per-teacher initiative’ has not materialised, as teachers are expected to secure personal finance to buy laptops before claiming from the doe – worryingly, many teachers are not considered creditworthy by the banks.3 research shows that governments around the world invest significant sums of money in ict to improve teaching in schools. in the united kingdom, for example, between 2008 and 2009, related expenditure amounted to £2.5 billion, the united states spent $600 million and new zealand invested nz410m in schools’ ict infrastructure.4 despite these massive investments in ict equipment and the significant benefits of integrating ict into the curriculum, there is little knowledge about what teachers are experiencing on the ground. there is thus a need to understand local teachers’ experiences in managing teaching using ict, as that will inform government’s efforts. having been a teacher at a secondary school, the researcher witnessed hands-on experience facing many of the challenges confronting teachers in integrating ict into their classroom practice. thus, for a complete picture, it was crucial to interrogate teachers’ experiences, revisit the policy statements and gather teachers’ own perceptions on ict integration. their knowledge and feedback will assist in encouraging others to develop innovative ways of teaching and will help to transform policy statements into reality. teachers’ experiences of information and communication technology integration into the curriculum according to ghavifekr et al.5 integrating ict into teaching requires input from teachers. once they understand how icts simplify their work, they can restructure the learning environments and adopt innovative teaching methods. teachers need time to discover that using computers does not mean extra work, but rather simplifies their work.6 ghavifekr et al.5 posit that effective ict integration in classroom practice includes teachers’ involvement in policymaking and practices, which consider the processes by which teachers learn technical skills, as well as the social, cultural and historical contexts of learning. the deputy principal working with heads of department is responsible for facilitating the integration of ict into teaching and learning, by establishing policy, which aligns with that of government, and nurturing positive relationships amongst teachers. the more teachers display teamwork fundamentals, the more opportunities there are for learners to learn skills related to collaboration and compromise.7 stakeholders involved in education must be motivated, and their attitudes and beliefs must be transformed so that they all work as one team with one vision. resistance to change is a challenge facing those attempting to integrate ict into the curriculum. change can generate resistance and scepticism in teachers, making it difficult (or impossible) to implement organisational improvements.8 similarly, ghavifekr and rosdy9 observed that employees tend to resist change within their organisation. how teachers integrate information and communication technology across the curriculum a study by du plessis10 on south african schools’ readiness for computer implementation reports that three types of ict integration are prevalent in our schools: the first focuses on implementation without integration, resulting in computer literacy that merely involves using technology without linking it to what is happening in the classroom. this occurs in schools where, instead of integrating ict into the classroom content, learners are taught computer skills. the second results in learning from the computer, where the computer becomes the tutor or transmitter of knowledge. the last refers to learning ‘with’ or ‘through’ the use of computers (i.e. generative use), where computers become cognitive, mediational or transformational tools. in most south african schools, the generative mode of integration is not the norm.10 integrating ict into the curriculum is not only about information processing, but it also involves the transmission of information for educational development. in addition, integrating ict across the curriculum makes the traditional teacher a facilitator in learning with and through ict. ghavifekr et al.5 are of the opinion that such integration differs from country to country, from one school to another and from resourced to under-resourced schools. information and communication technology integration differs depending on context, for example, between developed and developing countries and between rural and urban areas. information and communication technology must therefore be thoughtfully selected and integrated into educational planning and management to be effective. conceptual framework in the researcher’s view, in order to understand teachers’ experiences of ict integration across the curriculum, it is crucial to consider the notions of ‘management task’ and the context in which they operate on the other hand, the management area. an understanding of these notions would help in the analysis of management actions of teachers by distinguishing between actions on the one hand and the areas in which tasks are carried out on the other hand. management, as part of the process of achieving the set objectives, emphasises using the necessary people and resources as effectively as possible. in that sense, managing is a social activity involving the relationships between people.11 besides, management involves making the right decisions, fulfilling or achieving set goals. in a school, there must be a continuous understanding of and balance between conflicting interests to facilitate the achievement of goals through the coordination of different tasks. the first step in the management process entails the management task of planning, as it gives purpose and direction to the school. different people at different levels do planning, because no school exists in isolation.11 planning is thus an interrelated, interactive and interdependent process. according to bush,2 organising in the context of a school entails allocating work amongst the staff for teaching and learning to take place efficiently. research shows that organising involves creating a structure for the organisation that will work effectively to achieve and realise organisational outcomes, coordinate tasks and establish formal relationships between the people performing the tasks.2,12 management involves leading that entails influencing people in such a way that they willingly work and strive to achieve the goals of the group. leaders activate others in the quest to achieve set goals. leading gives direction to a common activity by ensuring that people execute specific tasks in working towards reaching predetermined goals. supportive actions of guidance are learned – certain skills are needed, such as the ability to build relationships, motivate and communicate. motivating teachers to carry out specific tasks requires purposeful communication. methodology this study is based on the interpretivist paradigm, which assumes that human life can only be studied from within.13 what drives research of this nature is the need to understand and describe meaningful social action. in chronicling teachers’ experiences in managing teaching in respect of ict curriculum integration, the research techniques used will give a great opportunity in understanding the perceptions they have of their own activities. the researcher adopted a qualitative exploratory case study. yin14 maintained that a case study involves an investigation into a present-day phenomenon occurring within a bounded, real-world situation, adding that contextual factors largely determine the nature of the situation within which the phenomenon manifests. the researcher chose a case study because it can provide in-depth, thick and rich descriptions of a particular case. it is also flexible in terms of what is studied, versatile and manageable in research situations.13 the researcher selected a familiar topic and a study sample she had access to. the study employs purposeful sampling for both the schools and the participants. this involved choosing people who, in the researcher’s view, could provide sufficient information that would be relevant to the study. in this instance, the participating schools made use of ict equipment, the researcher consulted teachers for first-hand information based on their expert knowledge and professional insights. these participants were selected appropriately and purposively not only for their knowledge but also for their potential impact on the study. the district schools and teachers who formed part of the study met the requirements, as the four schools selected were piloting ict integration and, to this end, had been supplied with equipment by the doe. the participating teachers taught different subjects at their respective schools. the selected secondary schools had well-resourced computer laboratories, laptops on trollies, tablets and wi-fi internet connectivity. the researcher used focus group interviews as a data-generation instrument, with a view to interrogating teachers’ experiences through shared interaction. in addition, focus group interviews can be useful in a school setting where teachers naturally form groups based on different subject departments, unions, religious beliefs, etc. this type of interview grants the participants an opportunity to clarify and modify their ideas during discussions with their fellow participants. members are free to disagree, thereby ensuring that the experiences and views of a group are articulated satisfactorily and comprehensively. using focus group interviews enabled the researcher to explore various opinions and generate insights into how ict is integrated into the curriculum in practice. the participants shared certain common characteristics, for example, they were all post level one teachers, and thus interaction happened at an optimum level without any individual being dominant. the two main research questions were put to the participants (in turn), who identified key areas and probed the topic. the researcher improvised the probing, to encourage open, interactive discussion, creating an atmosphere that put all the participants at ease, before asking questions in a conversational tone. the one-and-a-half-hour focus group revealed rich data on teachers’ experiences of integrating ict across the curriculum. the researcher used thematic analysis to analyse data, because it involves a careful, focused re-reading and review of the data. the researcher identified recurring themes, considered the context of their use and examined the strength of the feelings of the participants, before categorising the themes and sub-themes emerging from the analysed responses. to ensure that the voice of the participants would not be lost, the researcher used verbatim quotes in the data presentation, pseudonyms to identify the schools and abbreviated codes to identify the focus groups. ethical consideration the ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the university of kwazulu-natal (ethical clearance number: hss/0024/017m). findings of the study in this section, the findings of the study are presented as verbatim narrations. teachers’ experiences of integrating information and communication technology across the curriculum the researcher raised the challenges teachers faced with ict integration and they were discussed in detail. their experiences were shaped by the strategies they employed when planning. in this, the school management team (smt) and departmental officials guided them. experiences regarding planning the question the researcher asked the groups was how they planned to use ict in teaching and learning, more broadly as regards planning. a variety of levels of planning emerged: some participants referred to planning at the broader level of the school, others discussed it at an individual level. a participant from sango high school (shs) noted as given in the following section. the school never planned for the incorporation of information and communication technology in teaching a participant from tanga high school (ths) added: ‘[o]ur school did not plan for the incorporation of computers in teaching. we are not forced to use the equipment in teaching and learning. we do not have an ict policy and an ict committee as well. some teachers do not have access to the equipment. those who use the equipment work in isolation; we have technical and financial problems at times. most of us do not use the equipment because it is inaccessible. we are pulled away from integrating ict …’ (teacher a, ths) a participant from owam high school (ohs) stated: ‘[there is] no planning. we have an ict committee, on paper, [but] it is dysfunctional. the doe delivered the equipment; no planning was done at the school for its use. there is no cooperation on using ict equipment. nobody checks if everything occurs in confirmation with the plans. even when one deviates from his or her plans, she or he is not accountable. the computer laboratory is used as a classroom because of infrastructure problems. electricity and internet provision is not reliable. the tablets we had were not connecting to google; it was only thutong [south african education portal] and digital classrooms, which are not of much importance. our wi-fi is always offline, because the school cannot afford to pay for it.’ (teacher a, ohs) on the same matter, one participant from yethu high school (yhs) expressed the following view: ‘there is no school plan on using the equipment, we do planning as individual teachers for our classroom teaching, and for example, in life sciences we use the equipment to project experiments. we do not work as a team this, for example, the smt does not assist with time-tabling the use of the equipment, so we end up fighting amongst ourselves, that is why some of us end up with some kind of resistance.’ (teacher a, yhs) the researcher sought further information on why there was a lack of planning for ict integration at the school level. some participants stated that the smt members were unable to use the ict equipment, so it would be futile planning for them to use it. as one of the soe participants noted: ‘the smt members are all computer illiterate.’ (teacher b, soe) other participants mentioned that most teachers are computer illiterate; thus, there was no point in planning to use technology in teaching. a participant from ohs stated: ‘some of us are computer illiterate, we are afraid of using the equipment in front of learners, in case it fails.’ (teacher b, ohs) one participant from ths described planning at an individual level, reporting that he incorporated ict in his lesson planning: ‘lucky me, i incorporate ict in my lesson planning. in my lesson plan, i indicate the times that i set aside to show youtube videos to my learners.’ (teacher b, ths) when asked why individual departments (e.g. physical science) did not plan as a collaborative unit, one participant responded that integrating ict was forced on them: ‘it was imposed on us, the doe supply the computers, so we were never ready for the integration and we are not comfortable with using ict equipment.’ (teacher c, ths) the groups mentioned different planning issues, but overall it appears that no planning (not even scheduling the use of ict equipment) was being carried out. at all four schools, there was no planning for ict integration and development, which would involve providing administrative support for computer facilities, ordering supplies, maintaining software and hardware or collaborating with teachers to prepare hardware and software budgets, reports and proposals.1 those who integrated ict in their pedagogy did so whilst doing their own individual planning. as the study showed, a gap thus existed between what was happening in the researched schools and what the literature states about the importance of incorporating ict in planning. the purpose of planning for teachers and for the school is to make sure that the decisions taken on the use of resources are based on the school policy. the planning aspect of teaching is crucial, in that it alone may determine the success or failure of the educator as a manager. different stakeholders, at different levels and times, do planning – there is always an interaction between the school and the parents, officials from the provincial office and the national office. bush and glover11 claimed that, for plans to be successful, the concepts of vision, mission, aims and outcomes must be directed at achieving specific results in the future. the vision of the doe helps smts develop missions for their schools, which drive all stakeholders to formulate very specific related aims. these aims can only be achieved if they are specified and detailed. once all stakeholders accept an ict vision, it should become a shared vision, which can be translated into reality. participants’ experiences regarding organising the school, as an organisation, has many members. it is possible for an individual to lose track of the school’s aims if she or he works alone. under this sub-theme, the researcher investigated the organisational structure of the participating schools to determine how teachers organised their teaching and how ict resources were distributed. the participants gave a common perspective, reporting a top-down management approach in their schools. this is how one participant from yhs expressed as below: ‘in our school, we get all the orders from the principal. this does not assist us. we have staff members with good computer skills, but these are not put to good use, since they are not in the smt.’ (teacher b, yhs) a participant from ths added as given below: ‘management in our school is from the principal to the staff and from the staff to the learners. nobody is responsible for ict, we work as individual teachers and there are issues with using the ict equipment, but we ignore them.’ (teacher c, ths) as regards the second question about how teachers organised their teaching, one participant from ohs explained that it is difficult to use ict effectively in teaching because of a lack of cooperation amongst colleagues as mentioned below: ‘it is the survival of the fittest. it is first come, first served on using the resources. sometimes things do not go according to your plans.’ (teacher c, ohs) on the same matter, a participant from yhs explained that management did not provide sufficient administrative support as mentioned below: ‘the equipment (data projector, smart board) is mounted in the physical science classroom, so it is always available to the people teaching there. we have limited resources, only two laptops. there is always a power failure. you plan to use the laboratory and the electricity goes off. sometimes we need support on using the equipment, for example, when the computer does not communicate with the smart board, having planned to use it in class, it does not work, then you look like a fool in front of the learners. nobody is in control of ict resources.’ (teacher c, yhs) participants from soe stated that the lack of collaboration between teachers and smts in respect of the maintenance and preparation of hardware and software made it difficult for them to organise their teaching. as one participant noted as below: ‘the tablets that were stolen were not replaced, same with the broken equipment – it is not repaired. the same computer laboratory is used as a classroom. there is no scheduling or timetable on the use of the equipment. with the little time we get after hours, we use the little equipment the school has.’ (teacher c, soe) when asked how cooperation and effectiveness could be enhanced in the integration of ict in teaching, some teachers expressed the view that continuous support from the smts and departmental officials would be very helpful. this is how a participant from yhs responded as below: ‘the department officials must provide support once the ict equipment is delivered to our schools.’ (teacher d, yhs) a participant from ohs noted as below: ‘the school management must provide support, by making sure that all teachers are computer literate and are able to integrate ict in teaching and learning. there must be an ict policy to guide us.’ (teacher d, yhs) another view was that effective ict integration in practice largely depends on individual teachers as mentioned below: ‘as teachers, it is important that we upgrade ourselves in ict and assist each other with integrating ict in teaching and learning … it is our responsibility to keep up and blend our traditional teaching methods with ict.’ (teacher e, ohs) other participants argued that the effectiveness of ict integration depends on smts. as one participant explained as below: ‘the smt must be workshopped on using the ict. the hods [heads of department] are not well versed [in] ict, so it is hard for them to monitor teachers on integration.’ (teacher f, ohs) it appeared as if, in all the participating schools, responsibility, authority and accountability were not in balance: authority was vested in one figure, the principal, from whom staff received instructions and to whom they were accountable. the teachers seemed unable to organise their teaching using ict, as there was no ict coordinator. they received no guidance on the use of technology. those who integrated ict did so individually, thus only those who were skilled at related technologies, succeeded. the school’s organogram determines that, in order to work together effectively to achieve the outcomes of the organisation, tasks must be coordinated and formal relationships created between the people performing those tasks.12 as the participants stated, the smt must facilitate the integration, by establishing a policy, which aligns with that of government. this body must also ensure that a positive working relationship is established amongst teachers. to be optimally effective, teamwork must involve teachers, learners and parents. a lack of cooperation, which was evident in the researched schools, negates the advice of koontz and o’donnell,7 who aver that if teachers work as a team, their learners will learn from their example. to ensure an effective culture of teaching and learning, teachers should carry out their tasks effectively. the way in which tasks are handled and resources are distributed amongst teachers and departments should be based on organisational structures, divisions of work and established relationships.2 the clear division of work is important for maintaining order in schools, whilst organisational structures are helpful for analysing, grouping, dividing and controlling the planned outcomes of a school. establishing harmonious interpersonal relationships is significant if the aims and outcomes of the school are to be achieved. experiences regarding leading leading as a management task involves the execution of plans by putting all resources to work. that means making sure that teachers use the resources available to achieve the shortand long-term goals set during the planning stage. leading influences people so that they willingly work and strive to accomplish the goals. people have to be mobilised to achieve their desired goals. under this theme, the question was whether the teachers played a leading role in integrating ict in their classrooms. one participant from ths described how he went the extra mile to achieve the below: ‘when i teach literature in english, i organise videos for different books that are studied in a particular year. the students take turns watching them on my laptop, but the negative side is that i carry the costs alone for the data that i use when streaming videos. as a result, most teachers are not motivated to integrate ict into the curriculum.’ (teacher d, ths) another participant from yhs stated that the smt plays a leading role in motivating teachers to strive to integrate ict in their classrooms: ‘there is an smt member who is always willing to assist, he leads us but there are very few of us [teachers] who comply.’ (teacher e, yhs) the ohs participants were of the view that the leading role they played was not beneficial because of a lack of support from the smt. as one participants explained as below: ‘we push ourselves, at our own pace. if you do not want to integrate ict, you simply teach using traditional methods. there is no communication.’ (teacher g, ohs) the way teachers led the integration of ict in their classrooms was not uniform. in some schools, teachers had the support of the smt; few teachers led the integration process, claiming they did not receive guidance or motivation; there was little communication; and establishing relationships was not a priority. it is important for school management to consider the feelings of teachers, and to direct them towards effective teaching. therefore, motivating teachers will guide them to become effective leaders. motivating teachers to carry out specific tasks, such as using ict in their everyday teaching, requires purposeful communication. as building relationships in the school is vital, the principal should establish strong relationships with and between teachers, learners, administrative staff and other stakeholders. some of the challenges teachers faced could be related to a lack of planning on the part of the school. clearly, no planning (e.g. scheduling equipment usage) was carried out. at one school, the participants reported a lack of cooperation between the district and the school’s smt. some reported that vandals from the community destroyed school property. at another school, the participants reported having limited access to equipment, so they ended up using their own personal gadgets. they also complained about unreliable electricity supply and internet access, and the fact that stolen equipment was not replaced. the yhs participants stated that when something new was introduced into the system, there was resistance from certain staff members, because any form of change made them uncomfortable. as abrheim8 noted, change can generate resistance and scepticism amongst teachers, making it difficult or impossible to implement organisational improvements. in some instances, resistance to change stems from a lack of information. in addition, without a plan, there is nothing to organise, guide or control in the first place. conclusion and recommendations informed by the research journey, the author concluded that teachers had more negative experiences with ict integration than positive ones. these negatives included insufficient ict resources, timetable clashes in using equipment, a lack of ict skills, inadequate ict integration training, negative attitudes and a lack of confidence in using the gadgets. the few positive experiences reported included improved access to the required information and greater collaboration amongst teachers. currently, efforts to incorporate icts in the curriculum do not appear to be bearing fruit. the following recommendations can be made based on this study: strong, committed leadership is needed to support the goals of ict integration, through the establishment of ict committees and the election of ict lead teachers. the school management is encouraged to work with teachers in formulating an ict policy so that its implementation is binding on all staff. based on the finding that ict integration was poor because of limited training, each school is encouraged to provide teachers with computer training and make sure that they are able to integrate related technologies into their pedagogical activities. the school’s readiness to incorporate icts is of utmost importance. every school is different and should be given the autonomy to select the most necessary ict resources, given the needs of its teachers and learners. the smt should adopt strategies to increase teachers’ familiarity with ict. examples include using e-mail communication with staff or the intranet to download lesson plan templates for submission. as teachers become adept at using technology, integrating it into their teaching and learning will be a smooth process. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this research article. author’s contribution b.p.k.-q. is the sole author of this research article. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not for profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references department of education (doe). transforming learning and teaching through information and communication technology (icts). white paper 7 on e-education. pretoria: government press; 2004. bush t. organisation theory in education: how does it inform school leadership? j organisat theor educ. 2015;1(1):35–47. mail & guardian. training part of the teacher laptop initiative [serial online]. [cited 2010 aug 16]. available from: http://mg.co.za/article/2010-08-16-training-part-of-the-teacher-laptop-initiative buabeng-andoh c. factors influencing teachers’ adoption and integration of ict into teaching: a review of literature. int j educ dev. 2012;8(1):136–155. ghavifekr s, razak aza, ghani mfa, ran ny, meixi y, tengyue z. ict integration in education: incorporation for teaching & learning improvement. malays online j educ technol. 2014;2(2):22–45. hennessy s. teacher factors influencing classroom use of ict in sub-saharan africa. itupale online j afr stud. 2010;2(1):39–54. koontz h, o’donnell c. principles of management: an analysis of managerial functions. new york, ny: mcgraw hill; 2011. abrheim th. managing transformation and change for the business leader. bus manag rev. 2013;3(2):14–22. ghavifekr s, rosdy wa. teaching and learning with technology: effectiveness of ict integration in schools. int j res educ sci. 2015;1(2):175–191. du plessis a. teacher’s perceptions about their own and their schools readiness for computer implementation: a south african case study. turkish online j educ technol. 2012;11(3):1–15. bush t, glover d. school leadership and management in south africa: findings from a systematic literature review. int j educ manag. 2016;30(2):211–231. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem-07-2014-0101 marishane r, botha rj, du plessis p. school leadership in a changing context: a case for school-based management. pretoria: van schaik; 2011. creswell jw, creswell jd. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. thousand oaks, ca: sage; 2017. yin kr. case study research design and methods. thousand oaks, ca: sage; 2014. humankind and nature at the intersection of culture in this edition of td the first section features articles that have evolved out of an international conference humankind and nature at the intersection of culture in south africa’s kruger national park (knp) in september 2006. the conference marked the start of the african section of a comprehensive research project under the leadership of prof jörn rüsen, president of the institute for advanced studies in essen germany, in which the question is asked: how do we formulate a new humanism for a 21st century global society that is as culturally diverse as it is naturally human. the larger project, scheduled for completion in 2009-2010, is ambitious. scholars in all parts of the world have already joined up. also in south africa, and in some parts of africa, there have been good responses. the conference in the knp’s berg-en-dal camp was aimed at getting the ball rolling. a total of 13 of the almost 30 papers presented at the conference were peer reviewed and then prepared for publication in this edition of td. the articles have a strong philosophical inclination, but there are numerous indications of explorations across disciplinary boundaries into the fields of history, theology, agricultural economics, drama, theology, genetics, animism, neurobiology, paleontology, technology studies, future studies and environmental studies. some of the articles have also been earmarked for translation and publication in china where the humanism project has a strong base. now for the next frontier ... between 19 and 21 march 2007 the next conference will be held – this time more focused on transdisciplinary research. venue: tsitsikamma national park, on south africa’s garden route in the southern cape. title: exploring the potential of transdisciplinary research (tdr 2007). td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. ix xi. x transdisciplinary research is considered to be successor of interdisciplinarity, which in the second half of the twentieth century changed the nature of scientific activity in most disciplines. researchers in both the natural and human sciences have over the years, perhaps unknowingly, started working in the realm of transdisciplinary research, as they tried to find solutions to questions that transcended conventional scientific knowledge. one objective of the conference will be to get researchers in all disciplinary fields to articulate the problems and the solutions they have devised in the development of their respective research activities. it is important to share thoughts and ideas on the successes and the failure of research enterprise. by talking about some issues, answers may be forthcoming on endearing queries. therefore participants are asked to articulate what they understand and imagine to be transdisciplinary research and the methodologies they have employed. the objective is to metaphorically get feedback from the coalface of research practice. in literally all disciplines scientists are currently beginning to work together. above all, they are making use of ordinary people on all levels of society, especially outside academia, to help them formulate new forms of knowledge. they create this knowledge in collaboration with stakeholders at all levels and with parties that have a vested interest in research results. this trend, of creating new forms of knowledge, is destined to continue in the 21st century. the question is: what are we going to do about developing transdisciplinary partnerships in the field of research? the major goal of the conference is to get researchers to share their experience in transdisciplinary/interdisciplinary research. hopefully they can then start working towards strategies of constructive encounters in creative research. participants in the conference are requested to give a brief overview of the relevant research on which they are reporting and then share ideas on their methodology, theory and practice. themes: transdisciplinary and interdisciplinarity: what the difference? the potential strengths and weaknesses of transdisciplinarity (td) blending theory and practice in transdisciplinary research (tdr) the viability of collaboration between the humanities and natural science in the 21st century is there really knowledge at the grassroots level? editorial comment xi social versus natural science: a cosmetic divide? transdisciplinary scientific practice as chimera devising new research strategies for transdisciplinary science in the 21st century is there place for borderless scientific endeavor in academia? it is also possible for three or four researchers to collaborate in a group and make proposals for separate sessions. the objective is to get researchers to talk about the peculiarity of the transdisciplinary research in which they are active. by sharing their experiences, it is hoped, there could be an exchange of ideas that would be conducive to further transdisciplinary research. the conference will be held at the tsitsikamma national marine reserve in the eastern cape. more information is available at the conference website at: http:// vaal.puk.ac.za/sdu/conf e.html. it is hoped that the conference would generate sufficient interest amongst researchers to make it possible to establish a society for transdisciplinary research in southern africa. transdisciplinary research is still a young field of methodological activity. there is a definite need to get researchers to start grouping together, albeit only for exchanging their views and impressions of their approach to transdisciplinary research. moreover, it is of substantial importance to become organized within an institutional context in order to promote transdisciplinary research in academia and the research profession as a whole. editorial comment td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. ix xi. abstract introduction methodology local democratic participatory perspective the legal process of determining and redetermining municipal boundaries presentation and discussion of research findings conclusion the way forward acknowledgement references about the author(s) mavis m. netswera department of public administration and management, school for public and operations management, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa eric j. nealer department of public administration and management, school for public and operations management, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation netswera, m.m. & nealer, e.j., 2020, ‘municipal demarcation process in the establishment of the collins chabane local municipality and reasons for the eruption of vuwani, south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a674. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.674 original research municipal demarcation process in the establishment of the collins chabane local municipality and reasons for the eruption of vuwani, south africa mavis m. netswera, eric j. nealer received: 14 feb. 2019; accepted: 07 nov. 2019; published: 23 apr. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the demarcation of municipal boundaries in post-apartheid south africa is characterised by objections from affected communities. beyond polarising-affected communities, proposed redeterminations regularly elicit destruction of public infrastructure and even loss of life. hostilities over municipal boundaries which were drawn in the rural areas for the first time. this article is drawn from the highly publicised demarcation unrests experienced in the vuwani area as a result of the newly established collins chabane local municipality in the limpopo province. findings reflected in this article emanated from data collected through the questionnaire, interviews and secondary data sources. empirical evidence uncovers low levels of public participation in demarcation process by the residents. actually, more people in vuwani participated in the anti-demarcation protests in objection to the new municipality. the fact that violent protests regularly accompany municipal demarcation objections in south africa could reflect an urgent need to improve the facilitation of meaningful public participation in the municipal demarcation process. keywords: collins chabane local municipality; vuwani; malamulele; local government; demarcation process; protests; public participation challenges. introduction this article ascertains if local experiences confirm the assertions of scholarly literature in relation to the notion of participatory governance, specifically if community members in the collins chabane local municipality (cclm), who were directly affected by municipal redeterminations, participated actively in this process and how the municipal demarcation board (mdb) brought them on board. municipal boundaries in south africa are reviewed every 5 years in anticipation of the municipal electoral period. considerations like bringing together areas with functional linkages, assigning enough voters to various geographic areas, promotion of sharing of resources and the delivery of services, and municipal financial sustainability could all necessitate these adjustments (matemba 2000:2; napier 2007:180). these boundary adjustments range from minor technical alignments of the boundaries between municipalities to major changes, which could include amalgamation of some municipalities and the establishment of new municipal jurisdictions (mahlangu 2011:internet). it has become common for communities affected by municipal redemarcations to object these state-led demarcation efforts. these objections are often accompanied by violent protests from affected communities across the country. numerous disapprovals emerged during the first post-apartheid municipal demarcations in preparation for the first non-racial local government elections in 1995. similar redemarcation objections that were mostly accompanied by violent protests ensured in areas such as khutsong, matatiele, moutse, zamdela and malamulele, to name but a few. one of the key drivers of violent protests relates to the government’s failure to involve communities in the demarcation decision that directly affects them. residents’ objections to redemarcation proposals include a lack of transparency in the demarcation process and poor communication between the government, the mdb and communities (hornby 2004:27; matemba 2000:4; mavungu 2012:60–62; mokgosi 2013:internet; municipal iq 2013:1). for instance, the proposed merger of metsimaholo with ngwathe local municipalities in the free state province in 2013 witnessed the residents of zamdela community go on a rampage. the residents believed at the time that the neighbouring ngwathe was poorer, suffered from maladministration and would benefit from their municipal resources without contributing anything whatsoever. four lives were alleged to have been lost during these protest activities. it subsequently emerged that these protests might have been prevented if the residents had been adequately consulted about the proposed merger. thankfully, the mdb did not go ahead with the proposed merger (mokgosi 2013:internet; municipal iq 2013:1–2). at the beginning of 2015, the minister of the national department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta) requested the mdb in terms of section 22(2) of the local government: municipal demarcation act 27 of 1998 (hereafter referred to as the demarcation act) (republic of south africa [rsa] 1998) to reopen the determination of outer boundaries of specific municipalities to optimise the financial viability. this request came about 2 years after the finalisation of the redemarcation process for the 2016 local government elections. in addition, the request was a major departure from the usual criteria for local government demarcations because municipal financial viability, amongst other factors, was placed at the core of boundary changes (cogta 2015:25; khumalo & ncube 2016:1). the question that has risen out of this proposal was whether financial viability should be the key driver of these redeterminations. what appears to be a gap in the demarcation act is its silence on how the mdb should go about ensuring that all of the demarcation factors are indeed complied with. failure to apply all factors correctly may create municipalities that are unable to fulfil their constitutional mandate (bekink 2006:220; khumalo & ncube 2016:1; mzakwe 2016:1–2). accordingly, the mdb proceeded with the redetermination of 19 local municipalities in seven provinces, including the new local municipality (now named the cclm in the limpopo province [16 on figure 1]). figure 1: final reconfiguration of municipal boundaries in 2015. in this case, the minister requested the mdb to redetermine the municipal boundaries of thulamela, makhado and musina local municipalities by disestablishing the mutale local municipality (lm) in the vhembe district municipality (dm). the aim was to optimise the financial viability of all the municipalities in the district. furthermore, this proposal formed part of the ‘back to basics’ policy agenda for local government, which is a plan of action to ensure that municipalities realise their constitutional mandate by putting people first, ensuring delivery of basic services, good governance and sound financial management whilst building strong institutions (municipal demarcation board [mdb] 2015a:1, 11). instead of redetermining the municipal boundaries of the vhembe dm as requested by the minister, the mdb decided to disestablish the mutale lm and to establish a new municipality comprising portions of the municipal areas of makhado and thulamela, that is, vuwani and malamulele, respectively (mdb 2015a:1–2). this decision was indeed a victory to the xitsonga people of malamulele, who had been demanding a separate municipality from the thulamela lm through violent demonstrations since 2000. fuelling the demand was the claim that the tshivenda-dominated thulamela lm was channelling services to tshivenda-speaking areas (especially thohoyandou where the municipal council seats) to the detriment of the malamulele community. unlikely, a feasibility study conducted by the mdb found that the area did not meet all the demarcation criteria (mdb 2015b:9,18; rasila & musitha 2017:4). the reminder of the article is structured as follows: firstly, the methodology is presented, followed by the theoretical basis on which public participation in the municipal demarcation is based, the legal process of determining and redetermining municipal boundaries and the research findings. then the discussion is presented and finally the article concludes with a conclusion and the way forward. methodology this article adopted a mixed-method approach consisting of a questionnaire, personal interviews, focus group discussion and document analysis. purposeful sampling facilitated the selection of two municipal officials – one from the cclm and the other from the vhembe dm – who were subjected to semi-structured interviews. systematic random sampling involved the selection of representatives of 100 households from 10 villages in the cclm for questionnaire administration. five villages belonged to malamulele area and another five were selected from vuwani area. there was an even spread in the number of participants, with an average of five per village. while 15% and 11% of the participants were from hatshikonelo and hamashau-mukhoro respectively, approximately 60% came from the villages of hamasia (10%), ramukhuba (10%), tshino (10%), basani (10%), tshigalo (10%) and malamulele (10%). the remainder spreads out as follows: hamashau-misebe b (9%) and mukhoni (5%). a focus group discussion took place with five mdb officials who are knowledgeable about and responsible for delimitations and determinations of the municipalities in south africa. secondary data analysis came from municipal official documents, reports of the legal proceedings involving court cases by residents who opposed the mdb’s decision to incorporate their area into new local municipality and formal investigation reports that were requested and obtained from the mdb. local democratic participatory perspective it is widely accepted that local government provides a platform for citizens to involve themselves in local decisions that affect their lives. this viewpoint has been corroborated by different authors who assert that local government exists to promote local democracy, which is a political system based on representative government, citizen participation in the political process, basic freedoms of citizens and transparency of political processes in general (eremenko 2014:internet; finn 2008:13–14; pillay, reddy & sayeed 2015:46–48). the history of this view dates back to philosopher jean jacques rousseau, who laid the foundation for theories on participatory democracy by insisting that the participation of each citizen in political decision-making is vital to the functioning of the state (michels & de graaf 2010:479). concurring with the perspective that local government exists in order to allow the local populace to actively participate in affairs directly affecting them, reddy (1999:13) goes on to list the functions of local government as: involving citizens in the performance of local public duties strengthening the restrictions and controls of political power, which are indispensable to a democracy widening the basis of political participation safeguarding pluralism at various levels and different local administrative units facilitating problem-oriented grassroots approaches which citizens appreciate. public participation is also regarded as a contributor to citizens’ feeling of being public citizens. through their involvement in the political process, citizens feel that they are part of their communities and more personally responsible for public decisions (michels & de graaf 2010:480). when people participate in government affairs, sikander (2015:175) adds that government powers do not remain concentrated at the centre but are obviously shared by the people at the local level. moreover, citizen participation forms the basic feature of a functional and effective civil society. in this manner, civil society is viewed as a product of democracy because democracy is the system that provides all the necessary terms and conditions for civil society to prosper (eremenko 2011:1). other authors contend that local democracy is pivotal to a better distribution of resources, as well as to the acceleration of social and economic development in general (scott 2004:287, 303; sikander 2015:171). recent research by tommasoli (2013:13) revealed that development goals are most often achieved under two conditions: (1) where democratic institutions provide opportunities for all citizens to express their demands and to hold elected officials to account for their actions and (2) where the capacity of government is so strengthened that the state can manage the provision of public services. unfortunately, local government is not universally shared as an instrument that brings participatory democracy. critics point to the relatively low level of interest in municipal politics, which manifest in voter apathy, as proof of local government unpopularity. current evidence suggests that in many democracies, voter turnout at local government has been much lower than that at national government, and it is on the decline. the main causes of voter apathy appear to be citizens’ lack of interest and trust in local government (de visser 2009:12; hajnal & lewis 2003:645–646). another impediment associated with participatory democracy relates to local government being inundated with political interference to the extent that citizens are not consulted adequately. central government is simply blamed for handing down laws and regulations without consulting the general populace. desired citizen participation is further constrained by the lack of good living conditions, accountable and trustworthy leadership, vibrant community organisations and involvement of disadvantaged groups. in addition, citizen participation in developing countries has also been criticised for being about trivial issues (such as village politics) instead of being about vital issues (such as developmental priorities). communities feel insecure and find solace in the formation of civic society organisations (csos) in the end (daemane 2012:208; mapuva 2014:10–12). the principles of participatory governance and transparency discussed in this section are at the centre of public participation in the municipal demarcation process. these principles form the basis on which the research findings are based. the legal process of determining and redetermining municipal boundaries the demarcation act provides a detailed process for the determination and redetermination of municipal boundaries in south africa. during this process, the mdb receives a request, tests public opinion, considers the public inputs, conducts investigations and holds public meetings. this process is meant to ensure that all the different views are considered and those who are affected have the opportunity to participate. the mdb publishes its intention to consider the proposals in newspapers circulating in the area, and any other reasonable means of communication in terms of section 26, inviting members of the public to submit their views and representations in writing (mdb 2016:10). public meetings may be held and formal investigation may be conducted. following such an extensive process, the mdb proceeds to confirm, vary or withdraw its determination or redetermination, and publishes its decision in the relevant provincial gazette. the onus then falls on any aggrieved person to submit written objections to the mdb within 30 days (mdb 2013:35–36). generally, the motivation behind redetermination should speak about the criteria outlined in sections 24 and 25 of the demarcation act. section 24 lists demarcation objectives in line with section 152 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996. the main objective when the mdb considers redetermining a municipal boundary should be to enable the municipality for that area to fulfil its constitutional obligation. section 25 further requires careful consideration of factors such as the interdependence of people, integrated and un-fragmented areas, the financial viability and administrative capacity of the municipality, existing functional boundaries, existing land use planning and physical characteristics of the area (republic of south africa 1998:18). presentation and discussion of research findings it became important to determine whether community members in the cclm, and specifically vuwani residents who rose up against the incorporation of their area into a new municipality, were involved in the demarcation process, and how they came to know about the mdb’s intention to change boundaries. the findings are presented in five parts: participants’ awareness of the mdb’s existence and its responsibilities, participants’ involvement in the municipal demarcation meetings and protests, public submissions in response to section 26 notice, formal investigation in terms of section 29 and reasons for the eruption of vuwani. participants’ knowledge of the municipal demarcation board and its responsibility in order to test participants’ knowledge of the mdb and its role, participants were asked if they knew the mdb and its responsibilities and whether the reasons behind the mdb’s decision to change the boundaries were politically motivated, in the interest of better service delivery or ethnically motivated. astonishingly, the majority of participants in the entire municipality (91%) did not know about the mdb. because the majority of the participants were unaware of the mdb, it could not be established if a significant section of them understood the role of the mdb. a lack of the mdb visibility at regional and local levels is thus regarded as one of the reasons why the entity appears disconnected from the public. in its 2013 briefing on the demarcation process and challenges to the select committee on the cogta in parliament, the mdb emphasised the need to maintain and improve public participation in demarcation process. this includes extending the net of stakeholders much wider than just the directly affected municipalities and communities (mdb 2013:51). participants’ involvement in the municipal demarcation meetings and protests table 1 reflects participants’ views drawn from the questionnaire about their involvement in the demarcation process meetings as well as in the demarcation protests. the objective here was to determine whether residents affected by boundary changes were involved in the demarcation process to ensure that their views are considered. table 1: participants’ involvement in the municipal demarcation meetings and protests whilst an overwhelming majority (96%) claimed to have never participated in any municipal demarcation meetings, there was some marginal participation of 30% in the municipal demarcation protests in vuwani in objection to the newly proposed municipality. furthermore, one-third (36%) of participants confirmed that their family members had participated in the demarcation protests, and the majority were from vuwani. with only a few exceptions, the majority of participants in both areas did not think that protesting violently was justifiable. significant differences (c2 = 0.00) were found between the respondents of vuwani and malamulele when it relates to their participation in the post-demarcation protests. findings suggest that not a single participant from malamulele protested in objection to a new municipality, whilst more than half of vuwani participants participated in objection protests. equally so, significant differences (c2 = 0.00) were also found between the respondents of vuwani and malamulele regarding the participation of their household members in the municipal demarcation protests. more than half of the vuwani participants agreed that their household members participated in the demarcation protests, whilst more than two-thirds of the malamuele participants were not aware of their household members’ participation in the protests. a focus group discussion with mdb officials about the question of public participation in the demarcation process in the cclm revealed that this was a matter that was brought before the court: ‘perhaps if i could just state one thing. the question you have just raised now was the matter before the court. the high court has made a ruling. in the case of vuwani, the matter was brought by a number of traditional leaders. i would suggest that you look at the court judgement, because it answers the questions of why it was raised by the applicants to the case saying that there was not adequate consultation and they were not part of it. they were, i think, around one thousand people who participated in the mdb’s public meeting held in vuwani.’ (mdb focus group discussion [three male and two female mdb officials, older than 18 years, knowledgeable about and responsible for delimitations and determinations of the country’s municipalities]) the public meeting referred to in the mdb focus group discussion was held at thohoyandou indoor sports center in the thulamela lm in april 2015. the meeting in question was about to ensure that different views are considered in the redetermination of the municipal boundaries in the entire vhembe dm (see figure 1, numbers 13, 14, 15 and16). the representatives from the vhembe dm, local municipalities, political parties, traditional leadership and the public were in attendance. whilst all those who were able to speak were in favour of the disestablishment of the mutale lm as it was not financially viable, the majority of them were also in favour of the establishment of the new municipality. the malamulele task team, a structure made up of community representatives who represent the views of the residents of malamulele, had this to say: malamulele people are currently not paying for municipal rates because they are not getting services from thulamela municipality, but will not happen on a new municipality that will be providing them with services. this shows that the new municipality is a response to service delivery challenges and will help bring service delivery closer to the people and enhance social cohesion between venda and shangaan speaking people. there will be sustainable land development as the issue of proclamation will not be a challenge because the traditional leaders are in agreement of the new municipality. (mdb 2015a:6) of course, their support was not surprising, as the community of malamulele had previously placed pressure on the mdb through violent protests action demanding their own municipality. some representatives from communities and structural groupings such as vuwani demarcation task team also supported the establishment of the new municipality. they claimed that since 1994 the town has not been developed, there are no sewer systems in place and roads are being swept away every time it rains. the new municipality is seen as a solution to the economic and development backlog in the two areas (mdb 2015a:12–13). those who were opposing the establishment of the new municipality included the tshikonelo and masia traditional councils. on the one hand, the tshikonelo traditional council did not want the area to be incorporated into the new municipality, but remain under the thulamela lm. on the other hand, chief masia indicated that if the new municipality was desired by the people, his community, masia, davhana and tshimbupfe communities would not want to be part of it (makgoba 2016): thank you chair, i would like to thank the chairperson. i will be short and say a few paragraphs. i am paramount chief masia and i speak on behalf of masia traditional council. i had been sent here by tshimbupfe traditional council, nesengani, davhana traditional council, tshikonelo as well sent me and the mulenzhe too sent me. no one is supposed to speak on our behalf. the abovementioned communities want to remain in makhado, and the two mentioned communities who are under thulamela to remain under thulamela. we wrote a submission that we submitted in line with said criteria for demarcation. i will end there. there is no one in the vuwani area who should represent us. we have not sent any person to speak on our behalf. (pp. 21–22) in the political fraternity, some supported the disestablishment of the mutale lm but questioned the viability of the proposed municipality. they argued that the country has been struggling with the trial and error system of municipal structures since 1995, adding that the motive underpinning the establishment of the new municipality should be about whether changes in municipal boundaries would result in functional municipalities capable of fulfilling their constitutional mandate of providing basic services to the people (mdb 2015a:12–13). public submissions in response to section 26 notice in response to a section 26 notice (see figure 2), the mdb received 16 submissions in total on the proposed municipality. two of the submissions were not in support, one was not clear and the rest were in support of the new municipality (mdb 2015a:3). the following are some of the objections put forward, which the mdb received, and which urged the mdb to reconsider the incorporation of vuwani and malamulele to form a new municipality: the mdb’s prescribed period of redetermination had already lapsed when the minister of cogta made the request for boundary changes. section 25(c) of the demarcation act obliges the mdb to consider financial viability for a municipality to be able to perform its functions effectively and efficiently. the new municipality falls under the same category as the mutale lm, which was disestablished because it had an 80% grant dependency. the new municipality would have grant dependency of more than 90%, making it one of the most grant-dependent municipalities in the limpopo province. the thulamela lm generates most of its rates and taxes from the thohoyandou area because of high levels of commercial and titled residential development as compared to rural communities such as malamulele. therefore, the new municipality will have no tax base. this will result in the area being poorer with lack of development, high rate of unemployment and inequality. funds required to establish the new municipality could be utilised to capacitate the makhado and the thulamela lms and their satellite offices. the high concentration of the tsonga community in the proposed new municipality area and the high number of vendas in the remainder of the thulamele and makhado local municipalities will perpetuate spatial fragmentation, separate communities along ethnicity and re-introduce apartheid boundaries. this is patently against section 25(b) of the demarcation act (mdb 2015a:60–66). figure 2: municipal boundary redetermination process. formal investigation: section 29 because of the magnitude of the proposed boundary changes in the entire vhembe dm, a formal investigation was conducted using an evaluation matrix tested against four categories of demarcation criterion, namely, the interdependence of people, communities and economics, spatial development and planning, governance and functionality, and financial and administrative factors. a formal investigation were carried out by the mdb in terms of the municipal demarcation act. there are also strong functional linkages between rural communities to the south of thulamela and east of makhado local municipalities. furthermore, the investigation claimed that the new boundary configurations in the vhembe dm would promote social cohesion by bringing back together the majority of homeland people who were divided along ethnic lines by the apartheid government. on governance and financial and administrative factors, it was found that the reconfiguration of the vhembe dm would lead to opportunities for the employment of capable and competent management, a spread of revenue base and economies of scale across municipalities in the region (mdb 2015a:43, 47,54, 56). the process followed in this case demonstrates various participatory mechanisms provided for in the demarcation act. how the municipal demarcation process in the cclm unfolded revealed three different points of view: one view expressed by those who were in favour of the disestablishment of the mutale lm; one view expressed by those who were in favour of the new municipality, including the government, the mdb and the malamulele; and one view expressed by those who opposed the establishment of the new municipality by vuwani residents. following inputs received from the submissions on the proposal, together with inputs made at public meeting and results from the investigation, the mdb indeed disestablished the mutale lm. secondly, the mdb went further and incorporated the two areas of malamulele and vuwani to form a new municipality against the wishes of vuwani residents. subsequently, the vuwani service delivery and development forum, representing community members together with eight chiefs, made an application to the polokwane high court for a revision of the decision. the applicants’ main complaint alleged a failure by the mdb to consult them with respect to the decision to incorporate the communities of mashau and masakona into a new municipality and out of makhado lm (makgoba 2016:14). reasons for the eruption of vuwani the application to set aside the mdb decision on the establishment of the new municipality was dismissed by the limpopo high court in april 2016. in his ruling, judge makgoba dismissed the case on the ground that the applicants have not been able to show that the mdb’s decision was lacking in rationality (makgoba 2016:4,31–35). he stated that it could not be correct for the applicants to allege that there was never any consultation, citing the quotation made by chief masia, who participated in the mdb’s public meeting. the judge also emphasised that the chief talked of the ‘submission that we submitted’; therefore, it could not be correct where the applicants alleged that there was never any consultation. from the quoted words of chief masia, the judge concluded that almost all the applicants in this case took part in the consultations and deliberations leading to the final demarcation decision. however, the judge further acknowledged in his ruling that it was also clear from the contribution by chief masia that the applicants wanted to remain where they were (makgoba 2016:22,32). nevertheless, the vuwani service delivery and development forum mobilised residents through protests aimed at raising their concerns and at putting pressure on the government and the mdb to reconsider the demarcation decision. demonstrations degenerated into damage of public property, especially public schools in 2016 (rasila & musitha 2017:4). residents of vuwani continue to reject the new municipality. they are appealing to the mdb to reverse its decision, or they would continue with protests until they are incorporated back to the makhado lm under which they previously fell. pending a permanent solution to this demarcation crisis, the limpopo province and the vhembe dm are providing vuwani residents with municipal services (phakgadi 2018:internet). besides the alleged failure by the mdb to consult adequately, the findings from the questionnaire revealed reasons as to why vuwani erupted. figure 3 captures participants’ views regarding the intentions of the mdb to change municipal boundaries. figure 3: reasons for the municipal demarcation board’s decision to change boundaries. when asked what they thought were the reasons behind municipal boundary changes in the area, 10% of both malamulele and vuwani participants replied the changes were politically motivated. although it could not be established through the questionnaire why participants thought that way, a key interviewee in the human sciences research council (hsrc) survey questioned the rationale of the boundary redetermination and argued that there was too much political interference in the decision that led to the redetermination of the new municipality (human sciences research council [hsrc] 2017): why add another municipality instead of reducing them? instead of just expanding another municipality that existed then why add another one called lim345? we used to watch tv and see them debating in parliament about the merger of the municipalities. but the ruling party seems to have made its mind. (pp. 39–40) this finding has serious implications for the credibility of the mdb whose responsibility is to define boundaries for effective local government without political interference. as an entity established by the country’s constitution to be independent of political machinations, the mdb clearly has to be transparent regarding how it reaches its decisions. more than one-third (42%) of the participants in malamulele believed that changes in municipal boundaries were in the interest of better service delivery and as little as 2% of vuwani participants thought so. to determine participants’ attitudes towards mergers, they were asked if there was a difference in the delivery of municipal services since the merger. as a response, a high proportion of the participants stated that the merger did not make any difference. this response could have much to do with the fact that the merger is recent, and it might thus be too early to tell whether any change has occurred. in some of the municipal boundary protests that ensued in the past in areas such as khutsong and matatiele, residents were convinced that service delivery would be severely compromised under a new demarcated area. others did not want to be incorporated into poorer neighbouring municipalities whose residents would benefit from their resources (mavungu 2012:60–61; municipal iq 2008:1). for vuwani participants, ethnic reasons were the most important factor behind boundary redeterminations, and more than 85% of the participants were convinced regarding this. essentially, the tshivenda-speaking participants accused the mdb for manipulating the boundaries to the advantage of the tsongas. they felt that the government is trying to solve malamulele demarcation problem at their expense (nicolson 2017:internet). the then head of state, mr jacob zuma, received special blame for imposing undue influence on the mdb by the community of vuwani. back in 2015, he had suggested at the funeral service of the late minister of the department of public service and administration (dpsa), mr collins chabane, who was from malamulele, that the area should get its own municipality. subsequently, malamulele got its own municipality, expectably named after the former minister (rasila & musitha 2017:4). finally, the participants were asked the open-ended question: ‘what are your main concerns regarding changes of municipal boundaries?’ this question was aimed at establishing some of the reasons for opinions expressed in response to the close-ended questions, thereby enriching some of the views expressed in numbers. a number of concerns were raised about the poor delivery of municipal services in both areas. almost 80% of participants from malamulele were concerned that boundary changes would have a negative effect on access to basic services. on the other hand, 53% of participants from vuwani felt the same way. a further 20% of vuwani participants did not want to be part of new municipality because they did not ask for it. a good number of vuwani participants felt that the municipal offices would be too far away. participants from both areas felt that the new municipality would fuel tribalism and hatred (see figure 4 ). figure 4: main concerns raised by participants regarding changes of municipal boundaries. some of the views raised above correlate with some uncertainties raised by the residents of vuwani in the south african police service’s survey regarding the new municipality (hsrc 2017): fear of the unknown – contesting for positions, fear of being led by tsonga-speaking people, community service delivery programmes and developments, anticipation of losing business opportunities, minimum job opportunities for venda people, lack of proper consultation by the mdb, the new municipality situated in malamulele, tsonga people will take charge of the new municipality, no services will be taken to venda people. (pp. 35–36) in light of the above discussion, conflicting views are palpable between the authorities on the one hand and society on the other hand. residents who belong to different ethnic groups confront each other about their inclusion under a local municipality dominated by a certain ethnic group. such dominance evokes fears of being discriminated against or simply overlooked in relation to services and other developmental opportunities (hornby 2004:31; mukwevho 2016:internet). whilst it is accepted and indeed imperative that those affected by demarcation decisions have a say, their participation in this case did not seem to have any influence on demarcation decisions. this development raises a number of questions regarding the functioning of local participatory democracy. if the mdb has the final say on demarcation decisions irrespective of the views of those who are affected by the demarcation changes, is there a need for them to participate in the first place? judge makgoba dismissed the vuwani case, but he also acknowledged that the applicants wanted to remain where they were. in this case and other cases referred to in this article, the residents are accusing the mbd for not listening to their views and not considering their objections. conclusion this article uncovered low levels of public participation in the demarcation process in the cclm. the majority of participants indicated that they have never taken part in any meetings to talk about municipal boundary changes. indeed, more people participated in the anti-demarcation protests in vuwani than in the municipal demarcation meetings. those who had participated through submissions and attended the public meetings felt that their views were not sufficiently acknowledged. besides the alleged failure by the mdb to consult adequately, vuwani residents’ objection to demarcation changes seemed to be emanated from other reasons such as fear of unknown, poor service delivery by the new municipality, loss of ethnic dominance and lack of job opportunities. the consultative process that unfolded, which included the circulation of notice to change municipal boundaries, written submissions and public meetings, seemed to fail to advance the theoretical assumptions of democratic principles of transparency. generally, demarcation protests may be a reflection of a weakness in legal process prescribed by legislation. residents seem to hold a different view of what public participation in the demarcation process should involve versus what the mdb believes is provided by legislation. in conclusion, this article contends that wherever adequate consultations about proposed demarcation take place, violent objections are unlikely to occur. the way forward there is a need for improvement in the current legal process of determining and redetermining municipal boundaries. firstly, the publication of the intention to change municipal boundaries through newspapers and other means of communication by the mdb to invite public views on the matter does not seem to be effective. only 16 submissions in total on the proposed municipality were received by the mdb. secondly, the participation of traditional leaders in the public hearings on behalf of their communities does not amount to adequate consultation. it is, however, encouraging to note that the current mdb leadership has proposed a number of initiatives, including the development of a public participation framework to address impediments to mdb’s approach to public participation. a wide dissemination of the resource booklet entitled municipal boundary demarcation process: a process map for the determination and redetermination of municipal boundaries (mdb 2017) is urgent in order to empower members of the public to play a meaningful role in these matters. the proposed regionalisation of the mdb offices to ensure that it is closer to the communities is a positive step. acknowledgement competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions both authors contributed equally to this work. this article is based on the phd thesis of m.m. netswera entitled ‘the effects of municipal demarcation on service delivery and social integration in collins chabane and jb marks local municipalities’ submitted to the university of south africa in fulfilment of the degree of doctor of public administration. ethical consideration ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from the public administration and management research ethics review committee at the university of south africa (unisa) on 10 may 2017 (clearance number: pam/2017/009). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is applicable to this article as new data were created or analysed in this study, and can be shared upon reasonable request to the authors. disclaimer the views and 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(ed.), 2013, democracy and development: the role of the un, discussion paper, united nations – international idea, new york, ny. abstract introduction ‘the’ scientific method climate wars and fat wars conclusion: law, politics and science acknowledgements references about the author(s) irma j. kroeze department of jurisprudence, college of law, university of south africa, south africa citation kroeze, i.j., 2017, ‘climate wars and fat wars: a new role for law’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a419. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.419 original research climate wars and fat wars: a new role for law irma j. kroeze received: 20 feb. 2017; accepted: 24 aug. 2017; published: 31 oct. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract public trust in science is eroding because of a number of conflicts. in the sphere of climate science and of nutrition science, a basic methodological difference between scientists has escalated into what can be called wars. these wars are the result of influences such as personalities of leading scientists and powerful commercial and political interests. the wars have escalated to such an extent that leading scientists are being threatened with legal action and disciplinary procedures for advocating divergent views. these legal processes are not primarily about the procedural aspects of their actions, but are couched as being ‘about the science’. this means that legal processes are being used to ‘settle’ the science – something that the law has never been required to do. this new role for law has implications for legal education and requires that lawyers become more capable to understand empirical research. introduction it is no secret that science is in trouble. more precisely, science is in trouble in terms of the public’s perception of science. the faith in science that was such a characteristic of the enlightenment has been seriously compromised and public mistrust of scientific findings is particularly noticeable (saltelli 2016). this distrust comes to the fore in public debates, but specifically on social media and in popular science writing (olson 2009). it is partly the result of false or misleading reporting on scientific findings in the media where they are represented as contradictory or short-lived (brown et al. 2014:563–565). for example, not a week goes by without some reports on which foods are good or bad for you (hingston 2016). this results in people rejecting all findings on the basis of ‘oh, they’ll just change their minds again’. this is frustrating but it is not the main focus of this article. the main focus of this paper is on the intersection between climate science, nutrition science and law. dealing with this intersection requires a multidisciplinary approach. in fact, as will become clear in this article, climate science and nutrition science are unavoidably multidisciplinary. and, as has been argued elsewhere, legal practice and research are also multidisciplinary: multidisciplinarity is not only possible in law, it is something legal researchers regularly do, have done and will continue to do. because law is a social artefact, the consideration of legal issues and problems will always and necessarily require looking at socio-political and economic factors, for example. this is a conscious or unconscious mirroring of what courts do. (kroeze 2013:35–65) this multidisciplinarity inevitably results in methodological differences between the various scientists and disciplines in this type of research. these differences in research methodology will briefly be discussed in the next section of this article. and, usually, these differences will result in debates that most people outside the discipline will be unaware of. however, as the ‘climate wars and fat wars’ section of this article will explain, certain events in the domain of climate science and nutrition have resulted in the debates taking on the appearance of wars. and the further developments following on these developments have now made it inevitable that lawyers will have to become more up to date on the complexities of these debates or wars. if the developments discussed below become widespread, lawyers acting in these cases will not be able to fall back on familiar, black-letter law concepts and constructs. inevitably, their involvement will be not only about the law, but also about climate science and nutrition science. it is this connection that will be explained in this section. finally, the ‘conclusion: law, politics and science’ section will draw some conclusions from the above regarding the way law is viewed and will explore the new role law and lawyers will play in these conflicts. ‘the’ scientific method many attempts have been made to account for the differences between disciplines and the distinctions between sciences, namely the natural, social and human sciences. these attempts are sometimes based on historical explanations, sometimes on the subject matter of the different sciences and sometimes merely ascribed to convention (anderson 2003:219–234; collini 2012:23–26; frühwald et al. 1996). however, it has been argued elsewhere that the differences can best be ascribed to the methodological approaches of these sciences (kroeze 2013:42). this argument will not be repeated here. generally speaking, methodological approaches in science can broadly be divided into two groups: rationalism (or deduction) and empiricism (or induction) (gorham 2009:55; tarnas 1991:59). rationalism starts from the idea that empirical observation alone cannot be the foundation of knowledge and therefore scientific knowledge comes from rational thinking and logic. this is sometimes followed by observation but not always. empiricism takes the opposite view and requires physical observation as the basis for knowledge. in brief, rationalists argue that knowledge is prior (a priori) to observation and empiricists argue that knowledge flows from observation and is therefore the result (a posteriori). despite kant’s insistence that knowledge must be a combination of rationalism and empiricism (kant 1997:22, 31), it is mainly empiricism that, with the advent of modern science, came to be seen as ‘the’ scientific method. this method is the idea that scientists develop theories and hypotheses and then test them against observation and by replicable experimentation. it should be clear that many disagreements in science flow from methodological differences. for an empiricist, rationalist arguments may indeed sound unscientific and, on the contrary, insistence on empirical research would be incomprehensible to a rationalist researcher (such as in law). to this explanation should be added the observation that most disciplines exist on a continuum between rationalism and empiricism. at one end of the spectrum are the most empirical sciences (e.g. geology, astronomy and chemistry), while the humanities (e.g. language, history and mathematics) are at the other end. as kant states: ‘mathematical propositions are always judgements a priori, and not empirical, because they carry with them necessity, which cannot be obtained from experience’ (kant 1997:13). most sciences (e.g. medicine, nutrition and computer science) fall somewhere in the middle, with law being more rationalist than empiricist. this alone explains why lawyers (and philosophers) often have a hard time understanding empirical research. the point of departure in this article is that seemingly contradictory findings in science are often the result of methodological differences and not necessarily of sloppy scientific work or fraud (although that is also sometimes present). scientists can and do come to totally opposite findings, sometimes based on the same sets of data. how and why that happens is interesting as a background to the more important point that needs to be made. this more important point is that when some or other version of scientific findings is declared the ‘settled’ science or the ‘authoritative’ version, science loses its credibility. and it is interesting that in sciences where this has happened, the course of events has been very similar. it is hoped that a study of two examples below will provide proof of this. the further interesting aspect of these events for present purposes is the involvement of law and legal processes in how these events are being played out. climate wars and fat wars traditionally people refrain from discussing things that they know will cause conflict in a social setting. these usually include topics like politics, religion and how to raise children. but recently two other topics have become as likely to cause arguments, especially if there are sceptics present. these are climate change (or global warming) and nutrition (especially discussions about fat). the problem becomes particularly acute when certain positions are accepted as ‘settled science’ and someone questions the scientific validity of that position. it should be pointed out that science is never ‘settled’. it is the job of scientists to try to falsify their own and others’ findings, but more on this later. climate wars the first thing to realise in discussions on human-induced or anthropogenic global warming is that there is no such thing as ‘climate science’. scientists from various disciplines study specific aspects of climate and they include meteorologists, atmospheric physicists, chemists, geologists, historians, literary scholars, mathematicians, computer scientists, statisticians, engineers, economists, sociologists and lawyers (carter 2010:317). it is therefore a group that includes the whole spectrum from empiricists to rationalists. this simple fact is the reason why methodology becomes such a major factor in disagreements. it also makes a multidisciplinary approach inevitable. the climate change debate revolves around two questions: (1) whether there has been unprecedented global warming, especially in the previous century, and (2) if so, is this because of human activity, namely the burning of fossil fuels? the problem with the first question is: how would anyone know? after all, reliable thermometer readings are only available for certain, very small, parts of the world and then only for about the last 150 years. the answer is proxies – scientists use other things as stand-ins for thermometer readings. proxies for temperature range from tree rings to δd, δ18o, oxygen isotopes, fossilised plants, ice wedges, changes in glacier terminus and even narwhals. and that is where things start to get interesting. scientists have known from about the 1950s more or less what the past climate and temperature looked like. very simply, it can be represented by the graph from the 1990 first assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc). the ipcc was established in 1988 by two united nations organisations, the world meteorological organization and the united nations environment programme to assess ‘the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change’ (ipcc n.d.b). this original graph showed a medieval warm period between 1000 and 1500 ad (when it was warmer than today), followed by a little ice age (ipcc n.d.a:202). but from about that time perceptions started to change because of a number of conferences organised by the united nations. note that the changes were not the result of scientific doubt but were as a result of the mandate of the ipcc. the whole impetus behind the emerging climate science was therefore political from the start (kroeze 2015:817–828; west 2017). however, in 1998 a paper (mbh98) was published that seemed to overturn the accepted climate science and history and show catastrophic global warming in the late 20th century (mann, bradley & hughes 1998:779–787). it also somehow managed to erase the medieval warm period and the little ice age. this paper produced a different graph that was also used in a popular film (guggenheim 2006). the authors of mbh98 used proxies ranging from tree rings (steyn 2015:177 for criticism) to real temperature recordings to rainfall reports. these data were then combined and analysed using a specific computer algorithm to reproduce past temperatures and forecast future patterns. it is therefore a mixture of empirical data (the proxies) and rationalist methodology (computer science and statistical methods). the ipcc’s alarmist projections of global warming are almost entirely based on this methodology. there are huge problems with this study as was pointed out by various authors and their criticisms are too long to repeat here (steyn 2015), but it makes for interesting reading (mcintyre & mckintrick 2003:751–771; montford 2010:55–87). since the mbh98 paper was released, a number of other graphs have surfaced, showing up to 400 000 years of geological reconstruction of past temperatures, based on ice cores taken from antarctica and greenland (murdoc n.d.). these confirm the medieval warm period and the little ice age as well as high temperatures in eras long before humans started burning fossil fuels. it should be apparent that there are vastly differing opinions on the two questions stated at the beginning. there are many reports and articles stating that 97% of scientists agree that man-made global warming is real. the disagreement sketched out above shows that this is not true. there is literally no consensus on whether there has been unprecedented global warming given the past geological history. there is also no consensus on whether human activity causes global warming based on high levels of warming long before humans started burning fossil fuels. and that is how science should work (popper 1989, 2002) – consensus is the language of politics, not of science: let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. consensus is the business of politics. science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. (watts 2010) more importantly, in the disagreement between the two sides, the methodological differences loom large. the position of the ‘alarmists’ is based on data sets and computer modelling (balling 2005:50–71; christy 2005:72–105; von storch et al. 2013) – a decidedly rationalist methodology. in contrast, the ‘denialists’ base their position on geology and observed temperatures rather than models (douglass et al. 2007; hartman 2002:811–812; wild 1999:27361–27371), which of course is an empiricist methodology. what is more interesting than the lack of consensus is what happened after this paper was published. instead of responding to criticisms in a scientific way, the authors of mbh98 resorted to tactics more typically seen in the cut-throat world of politics. they started off by refusing to make their data and computer code available, and then descended into interference with peer review and editorial policies (roux & de beer 2016 on general problems with peer review), blocking contrary positions (morano 2016), influencing grant decisions, ad hominem attacks and even downright fraud (delingpole 2011; isaac 2012). this is known because these tactics were revealed in emails that were either leaked or hacked from the climate research unit in a scandal that would become known as climategate (montford 2010:402–449). these were personal emails of the authors of mbh98 and showed them discussing a series of dirty tricks. these are too long to repeat here, but well worth reading (bell 2016). all of this would have remained in the realm of a local skirmish had it not been for the role of the ipcc. it is important to note that the ipcc was established to study the extent of ‘human-induced climate change’ and not whether humans cause global warming (ipcc n.d.c, section 2 of the principles governing ipcc work). in other words, the idea of human-induced global warming was accepted as a priori fact, which provided the ipcc with its raison d’être. any attempt to falsify that paper or anthropogenic global warming would threaten the existence of the ipcc and its vast bureaucracy, not to mention its power to determine policies and treaties, set targets and prescribe to national governments. that is why principle 15 of the rio declaration actually states that ‘lack of full scientific certainty’ is no reason for postponing the onerous measures proposed (united nations n.d.). this is the ‘precautionary principle’ in action. of course, scientists equally have a vested interest in keeping the grant-generating machine running, so they are not particularly interested in rocking the boat either. in the usa alone, government funding for anthropogenic global warming research in the years 1993–2003 reached $2 billion (hinderaker 2014; rose 2016). on the other end of the scale, climate change ‘deniers’ were being vilified, not invited to or disinvited from conferences, personally attacked and so forth. foremost scientists lost their funding and found it hard to get their papers published (montford 2010:107–175). governments meanwhile were using the bogus co2 targets to subsidise costly wind and solar power plants and to extract more taxes from citizens to meet the ‘targets’ (national committee on climate change 1998; treasury 2013; treasury 2011 for south african targets). how these taxes are being used to ‘fight’ global warming is never explained. from a legal perspective, however, there are two developments that are far more interesting. the most extreme of these is the call in america to prosecute scientists sceptical of anthropogenic global warming under the racketeer influenced and corrupt organisations act (legal resources n.d.; delingpole 2011; von spakovsky 2016). this is the act that was eventually used to prosecute al capone for racketeering which has as its goal ‘the prosecution and defence of individuals who engage in organised crime’. in south africa, the prevention of organised crime act 121 of 1998 fulfils the same function. so far this is only a theoretical possibility and no one has actually been prosecuted yet, but it is indicative of a mindset where to disagree with the ‘settled science’ is regarded as criminal. the second development is much more real and practical. in 2012, mann (one of the authors of mbh98) sued journalist mark steyn and other parties for ‘defamation of a nobel peace recipient’ (mann 2012). steyn had, in a blog post, poked fun at the hockey stick graph, calling it ‘fraudulent’, and the defamation suit was the result (steyn 2012). mann has since withdrawn his claim that he was awarded the nobel prize (because clearly he wasn’t) but still insists that the blog was defamatory (carvin & dick 2017). it is interesting that american courts have generally taken the position that ‘merely rhetorical hyperbole’ or ‘vigorous epithets’ must be regarded as statements of opinion and not statements of fact (letter carriers v austin, 418 u.s. 264, 284–286 [1974]; milkovich v lorain journal co., 497 u.s. 1, 17 [1990]). it seems likely that steyn’s remarks will fall into that category and it seems unlikely that the claim will succeed. but mann has taken the position that what this is really about is him ‘taking a stand for science’ against ‘climate deniers’ who are, presumably, not scientific (banerjee 2013). and while the case has now become bogged down in legal technicalities (popehat 2014), it seems inevitable that the case will not be so much about defamation, but rather about whose version of ‘the science’ is more reliable and should be accepted (steyn 2015:184). this presents a fairly unique challenge in that lawyers for both sides will have to engage with scientific concepts and disagreements. seeing that law is primarily a rationalist science (kroeze 2013:44–45), the implication is that lawyers will be required to engage with empiricist sciences and studies. therefore, in climate science, the debate has gone from being one about simple and small methodological differences to a situation where to voice a dissenting opinion might land a scientist in jail or sued for defamation, with all the cost and potential consequences attached. and this has huge implications for the role of law. disagreements between scientists are nothing new. what is new is scientists are using legal processes to attempt to ‘settle’ the science. fat wars the climate debate is fairly recent, but the debate in nutrition is old (howick 2016). as is the case in the climate wars, scientists from various disciplines study nutrition and they include medical doctors, nutritionists, statisticians, exercise specialists and analysts. it therefore also requires a multidisciplinary approach. the contemporary debate in nutrition is the result of the rise of cardiovascular disease in the west and the attempt to discover what food, if any, is responsible for the disease. as with the climate war, the nutrition debate is, broadly speaking, between two sides. one side argues that the most dangerous macronutrient in food for disease is saturated fat. it must be pointed out that when speaking of fat (and saturated fat), it refers only to natural fats that come from animals and plants. it does not include industrial seed oils or trans-fats. it should also be pointed out that all natural fats contain all three kinds of fat (saturated, mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fat). there is not a single natural fat that only contains saturated fat (harcombe, baker & davies 2013:240–244). the other side argues that the bad guy is not fat but carbohydrates (joseph 2016). and once again the differences started out as methodological arguments. there are two kinds of approaches in nutrition research: clinical trials (empiricist) and epidemiological studies (more rationalist than empiricist). in nutrition research, as in medical research, the gold standard is the randomised controlled trial. this research methodology is mostly used for testing of drugs and there are basically five requirements. in the first place, there must be two groups of test subjects: intervention group (where medicine is changed or introduced) and control group (where a placebo is administered). in the second place, the test subjects must suffer from the same disease but they are randomly allocated to the two groups. in the third place, the test must be double-blind so that neither the test subjects nor the researchers know who is in which group to exclude the placebo effect. in the fourth place, the test group must be large enough so that the results are not just chance. and in the fifth place it must last for long enough that side effects and so forth will have time to come to the fore. it is emphatically empiricist. however, it is clear that this type of research is not always possible in nutrition research. the problem is that you would have to tightly control what people eat for a long time and it cannot really be blind. people tend to notice if they are eating butter rather than margarine, beef rather than soya and cheese rather than tofu. and it really cannot go on for very long, because you would have to lock people up and force them to eat what you gave them and it will not be long before boredom sets in. although there have been some trials of this kind on mental patients (frantz et al. 1989:129–135; miettinen et al. 1972:1266–1267), they were probably unethical. furthermore, these kinds of studies did not even establish a correlation between saturated fat and disease and can probably not establish causation (teicholz 2014). the most interesting trials of human nutrition that come close to randomised controlled trials are the ones that were undertaken during the first half of the 20th century. these are not really clinical trials but are studies where researchers lived with peoples or tribes who were still eating traditional diets. in the studies of stefansson (1969), shaper (1962), mann, shaffer and anderson (1964), mann et al. (1972), mcgarrison (1936), hrdlička (1908), prentice (1923), malhotra (1967) and the roseta community (stout et al. 1964:845–849), the conclusion was the same: a diet consisting of up to 80% saturated fat was either protective against heart disease, cancer and stroke or neutral. these studies are the kinds of studies that are now probably no longer possible as very few communities still eat these traditional diets. given that clinical trials of the kind described above are very expensive and probably unethical (as in the case of the mental patients), this leaves nutrition scientists with two other clinical or empiricist options. the first is animal trials, mostly done on rats or rabbits in very small numbers for a short time. and, as fung (2016a:214) states: ‘we are not mice. we are not rats. we are not chimpanzees or spider monkeys. we are human beings and therefore we should consider only human studies’. there are two examples of this from history. the first is the ‘experiment’ that started the whole cholesterol scare in which russian researchers fed rabbits (whom they had previously poisoned) a diet rich in saturated fat (anitschkow & chalatow 1913:1–9). not surprisingly, they died and had lesions in their arteries. obviously not only do rabbits not normally eat saturated fat, but one would assume that poisoning them first is a bad idea that would skew the results. the second is recent newspaper headlines that trumpeted that the paleo diet makes you fat (dold 2016). it should be pointed out that the headline was based on a study that was done on only nine mice and they became fat when fed a diet that was not even remotely paleo (lamont, waters & andrikopulos 2016). this leaves the last option, namely an epidemiological study or a case study (aschwanden 2017). this is a mixed methodology, but it is more rationalist, as will become clear. originally developed to discover the source of epidemics (such as cholera), in nutrition research it is used to look for specific foods that are linked to ‘hard end-points’, that is, death. that is why these studies are usually done on older populations – they tend to die quicker – but what that says for a healthier, younger population is less clear. there are two famous examples of this from the history of nutrition research. the first is the famous seven countries study of keys (1980). keys’s hypothesis was that saturated fat in food would lead to cholesterol in the blood and this would lead to coronary heart disease. and he produced the famous, and much-quoted, graph that showed a perfect correlation between diets high in saturated fat and heart disease in seven countries (keys 1953:118–139). there are two problems with this. in the first place, he cherry-picked the seven countries used in his study. when the data from all the countries he had data for were added, there was no correlation (yerushalmy & hilleboe 1957:2343–2354). in the second place, the data were as strong (or as weak) for a correlation between heart disease and consumption of sugar (yudkin 2016). the second example comes from framingham, a small town in massachusetts. based on the same hypothesis, this study included a large number of people from the town. they are now on the second or third generation of test subjects and people are subjected to what is known as food-recall questionnaires and blood tests every few years. after 1 year, the directors of the study confidently concluded that total cholesterol came from fatty food and this was a reliable predictor of heart disease. in the 30-year follow-up, when more people had died, the authors however stated: ‘for every 1% mg/dl drop of cholesterol there was an 11% increase in coronary and total mortality’ (anderson, castelli & levi 1987:2176–2180). more damning is that one of the study leaders in 1992 had to admit: ‘in framingham, mass, the more saturated fat one ate …. the lower the person’s serum cholesterol … and (they) weighed the least’ (castelli 1992:1371–1372). this is in line with other larger studies – in fact, not a single study has found a link between consumption of dietary fat and heart disease (fung 2016a:3353). but the biggest problem with the methodology in all these epidemiological studies is that it can mostly only establish correlation, not causation, unless it meets the bradford-hill criteria (hill 1965:295–300). for present purposes, however, it is more interesting to look at what happened with these studies. keys had, by all accounts, a very forceful personality, to put it mildly. he and a group of like-minded scientists simply took over and literally shouted down the opposition (champ 2014:chapter 1; kendrick n.d.:chapter 5; teicholz 2014:2–5). then the same pattern emerged as when the climate debate was declared ‘settled’. dissenters had trouble getting their papers published (sboros 2016b), were denied appointments and grants, were not invited to or disinvited from conferences and panels, and so on (boudreau 2016; moore 1989:37; teicholz 2014:93, 1153). and then, through the efforts of the us department of agriculture and based on keys’s flawed study, the government started telling americans what to eat and this advice has been adopted by most other countries. in this way, keys’s flawed findings were institutionalised. the emphasis on avoiding fat (because of keys’s influence) meant that the ‘food pyramid’ was based on carbohydrates (minger 2013). and that left room for giant food corporations to step in and produce low-fat foods and make huge profits (anonyms n.d.). these foods are then endorsed by the heart foundation as ‘heart healthy’ – something for which food companies pay the heart foundation handsomely (nader 2007). as with the climate wars, there was a strong movement that we have to act now and that the health of the people demanded that this happens before there was full scientific proof that this diet is in actual fact healthy. as the us committee on nutrition and human needs stated: ‘we cannot afford to await the ultimate truth before correcting trends we believe to be detrimental’ (us senate committee on nutrition and human needs 1976). as with the climate wars the conflict escalated when legal action started to be taken against dissenters. in south africa, this has resulted in a complaint being laid against cape town doctor t. noakes with the medical council (greene 2017; sboros 2016a). the decision in this matter will only be announced in 2017, but the possible consequences for the individual doctor (and a1-rated scientist) could be dire. his legal team acted pro bono, otherwise the cost would have been prohibitive. in australia, the orthopaedic surgeon gary fettke has been instructed by their medical council not to give nutritional advice to his diabetic patients in perpetuity even if the official position changed (fung 2016b). should he not comply, his medical licence will be revoked. this matter has now become part of the senate enquiry into the australian health practitioner regulation agency complaints processes. an australian dietitian (jennifer elliot) has been de-registered from her professional body for the same reason (harcombe 2015). all these professionals argue that their advice is given on the basis of sound scientific findings. their detractors argue that their findings are not based on the conventional advice given and they should therefore be silenced (sboros 2017). it should be clear that the fat wars started off as methodological differences. whether one regards the clinical (empiricist) evidence as convincing or is convinced by the epidemiological (rationalist) evidence will depend on one’s methodological preference. it is also instructive to note that, as in the case of the climate wars, these cases are often not about the technical infringement of some or other code of conduct. as the noakes hearing showed, it is and must also be about the science. after all, if the complaint is that someone’s dietary advice is ‘dangerous’, then evidence needs to be produced that it is indeed dangerous (harcombe & noakes 2016:1179–1182). and that opens the door for a debate about the scientific correctness of a position – something very new in law and legal proceedings. summary the remarkable similarity between the history of the climate wars and that of the fat wars should be obvious. it starts out as a methodological difference – or even a difference within the same methodology, something that should be normal in science. but then some event (a forceful personality, political or industry interests, professional organisations or ambitions) leads to one side being declared the ‘winner’ and the science is declared to be ‘settled’. and when that happens, the inevitable result seems to be silencing of the opposition in what teicholz calls the ‘surprising lack of oxygen for alternative viewpoints’ (teicholz 2014:779). science turns into a ‘political battlefield’. and when the silencing is no longer effective, the ‘consensus view’ turns to legal processes and procedures to silence the dissenters. conclusion: law, politics and science it is surprising, but what began as fairly esoteric methodological debates have had far-reaching real-life consequences. these are consequences that should worry us as private citizens, as members of the broader scientific community and as legal practitioners, law academics and researchers. as private citizens, the climate wars sketched above have resulted in higher taxes that directly affect everyone’s pockets (sars 2017; treasury 2013). but the broader implications of ipcc restrictions on emerging economies can be equally devastating for the country as a whole (lawson 2009:65–81). the direct result of the fat wars has been the acceptance of dietary guidelines by the association of dietetics of south africa (vorster, badham & venter 2013:1–164). these guidelines closely mirror the american and british guidelines even though their scientific validity has been questioned (harcombe 2016), but their introduction has not managed to stem the rising tide of obesity and diabetics in south africa. and that does not even address the question of whether any government anywhere should be in the business of telling people what to eat. as members of the broader scientific community, legal academics should be worried about the damage that has been done to scientific credibility through these wars (de ruiter 2014). it has been shown that interference with the peer review system determines what the public (and other scientists) do not get to read. and this is why so many scientists choose not to publish in accredited journals any more, but post their findings online. corporate sponsorship, industry grants for research projects and personal affiliations all serve to taint research results (weeks 2017). the noakes ‘trial’ in south africa has led to an investigation of links between his accusers and the sugar industry (nombembe 2017). in the legal sphere, the reward system for publication has resulted in academics publishing papers that are ‘safe’ or in line with universities’ ‘niche areas’ to the detriment of robust and rigorous engagement with innovative ideas and approaches. it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that science, and specifically peer review, has become thoroughly politicised. in the same way that critical legal studies claim that ‘law is politics’ (fraser 1993; gabel 2001–2002:1141–1170; schlag 1991:439–453), it is now possible to argue that ‘science is politics’. the reasons for this are complex. to start with, lyotard has pointed out that the meta-narrative for the presumed infallibility of science has been present since the enlightenment (lyotard 1984). and this scientific meta-narrative is underpinned by a political narrative. in addition, once companies figured out that they can make money by appealing to scientific claims, the die was cast. as the examples from mbh98 and keys show, certain ‘scientific’ findings can confer power and wealth on the originators. if these findings are also compatible with political or corporate interests, it becomes almost impossible to counter or deny them: my skepticism is driven by the knowledge that most research is far from a dispassionate search for truth. it is usually being done for a purpose, by researchers who already have a clear end in sight. (kendrick 2014:23) as law teachers, researchers and practitioners we need to be aware of the new role law is supposed to play. in terms of how we teach law, we might have to rethink balkin’s statement that not only are lawyers not taught how to think empirically, they are deliberately taught how not to think like that (balkin 1996:949–970). but in all the cases referred to above, one or both of the parties have insisted that the hearings or cases are not about procedural or legal matters – it is about the science. and that means that lawyers who were taught a rationalist methodology must now engage with empiricist studies and research. if they have no grounding in this, these legal proceedings will require a rethink of legal education, research and practice. more importantly, scientific disputes are increasingly couched in the language of law and of rights. this has implications for how we see science – as if it is something that can be ‘settled’ whether in a court of law or not. but it also has implications for how we see law – as if it is capable of settling scientific disputes. and why people think the law can do this has everything to with how law is constructed. because the scientific debate (especially the peer review process) is so compromised, the normal self-correcting scientific process cannot work. so law is being used for a purpose it was never designed for – to determine ‘the truth’ in science. as spencer points out, science gives you facts, it does not give you the truth (spencer n.d.:chapter 2). law is being used to settle an argument arising from scientific disagreement about the facts. as argued above, this is a new role for the law. and while lawyers are used to leading expert evidence, it is usually in well-established fields like medical negligence or compensation. the fat or carbs debate and the computer models for climate change are completely new. however, that very neatly illustrates the popular perception of law – a perception that lawyers work very hard to maintain. it is what pierre schlag calls ‘the standard-issue formalist dream’ (1997:427–440). law is perceived (and projected) as a neutral and value-free enterprise where formal rules and formal argumentation lead to ‘correct’ answers – in fact, it provides ‘the truth’ that science cannot. it is the carefully constructed facade of law. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. references anderson, k.m., castelli, w.p. & levi, d., 1987, ‘cholesterol and mortality: 30 years of follow-up from the framingham study’, journal of the american medical association 257(16), 2176–2180. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1987.03390160062027 anderson, r.l., 2003, ‘the debate over the geisteswissenschaft in german philosophy’, in t. baldwin (ed.), the cambridge history of philosophy, pp. 219–234, cambridge university press, cambridge. anitschkow, n.n. 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in the vaal triangle the groundwork report 2006: poisoned spaces manufacturing wealth, producing poverty dawid hallowes and victor munnik groundwork, pietermaritzburg, october 2006 isbn 0620374527 reviewed by johann tempelhoff north-west university since the beginning of the twentieth century the vaal triangle epitomised the janus-face of south africa’s industrial revolution. on the one hand the coalmining town of vereeniging (founded 1892) was home to one of the environmentally friendly infrastructure industries of the bustling and booming witwatersrand. the rand water board had an impressive purification plant here, that was used to provide the greater part of what is gauteng today, with ample supplies of potable water. on the other hand there was south africa’s first iron and steel factory, the union steel corporation of south africa (usco) that had been founded in 1911, also in verreeniging. in close proximity of the local coalfields and abundant water supplies a number of power stations started generating electricity that was relayed up to the witwatersrand, some 70 km away. in the 1940s vanderbijlpark, the home of parastatal iron and steel corporation of south africa (iscor) brought a period of rapid growth to the vaal triangle. in 1950 followed the fuel from coal plant of sasol on the other side of the vaal river at the newly founded town of sasolburg. somehow the environmental beauty (the vaal river) and the beast (industries responsible for toxic pollution in the air and the river’s water) have existed side by side ever since. apart from becoming an important hub in south africa’s industrial development, the vaal triangle, comprising the urban settlements of meyerton, vereeniging, vanderbijlpark and sasolburg also boasted td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 497 498. 498 the questionable reputation of being one of the most polluted regions of south africa. the prevailing state of affairs has given rise to a commitment by the non-governmental organisation (ngo) groundwork in the form of its annual report for 2006 to shed some light on the manner in which the environmental conditions are affecting the everyday lives of society in the region. as the title outlines, the objective is to explain how exploitative industrial activities have been the major cause of producing wealth, for some and abject poverty for the majority of the region’s residents. a number of activist organisations joined forces and provided victor munnik and his fellow author david hallowes with some haunting insights of life in the vaal triangle. the study has a strong social historical inclination. apart from a number of very firmly entrenched peoples’ history perspectives on the evolution of industrial development in the region, there is also a firm accent on the environmental history of industrialisation. the work does a new south african approach to societal problems justice in that the reader is provided with substantial information on how people in the informal settlements and the former apartheid townships of the region eke out a living. many of the theories of exploitation and pollution are based on international theories that have proliferated in environmental struggles in many parts of the developing world. there are some interesting insights on the way in which the energy industry tends to exploit locally and then invest externally. perhaps the more important part of the study is a comprehensive overview of the mittal iron and steel factory at vanderbijlpark, and its history of polluting the waters of the vaal river. comprehensive attention is given to the steel valley crisis that saw a truly ‘international’ protest against the then iscor at the time of the world summit on sustainable development that was held in johannesburg in 2002. it is a courageous study. no stone is left untouched to explain how the interaction of factors of capital and injustice have historically contributed to a state of affairs that has left the texture or human dignity faltering in a south africa where democracy is celebrated from political platforms and all too often elementary aspects of human rights ignored in the processes of industrial production. the ngo groundwork, and its partners deserve brownie points for relating the story of an environmental crisis and its implications in such a forthright manner. book reviews ekonomie en die bestudering van fratse freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything steven d levitt and stephen j dubner isbn-13: 978-0-06-114330 isbn-10: 0-06-114330-8 harpertorch publishers, new york, 2006. resensie deur johann tempelhoff noordwes-universiteit freakonomics is ’n boek waarin die benaderingswyse tot ekonomie van steven d levitt ’n jong amerikaanse ekonoom deur die joernalis en skrywer stephen j dubner uiteengesit word. levitt (voorgraads harvard en ’n phd van mit) het opgang gemaak nadat hy in 2003 die gesogte john bates clark-medalje (’n toekenning aan die top-ekonoom, onder die ouderdom van 40 jaar, in die verenigde state van amerika) gewen het. levitt beskik, onder andere, oor die uitsonderlike vermoë om die uitsonderlike gegewens in lang statistiese tabelle te identifiseer en dan op ’n uitsonderlike manier te interpreteer. nog meer, deur die gebruikmaking van ekonomiese teorie het hy ten doel om sosio-ekonomiese knelpunte (onder meer veral kriminologiese verskynsels) in die samelewing te identifiseer. hy vra interessante vrae aan die werklikheid en kom dan met merkwaardige resultate na vore. voorbeelde van die tipe vrae wat hy geneig is om te stel, sluit in: wat het onderwysers en sumostoeiers gemeen? hoekom is die klu klux klan soos eiendomsagente? waarom woon dwelmhandelaars by hul ma’s? wat het van al die misdadigers geword? wat maak die perfekte ouer? hoe moet te werk gegaan word om by harvard uit te kom? levitt se benaderingswyse is om statistiese gegewens te soek wat onregstreeks op sy ondersoekveld van toepassing is. deur die afwykings te identifiseer soek hy, letterlik soos ’n speurder, na die onderliggende td: die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider afrika, vol. 2 nr. 2, desember 2006, pp. 503 505. 504 oorsake van die tendens. soms maak hy gebruik van vergelykende metodoes uit oënskynlik kontrasterende sosiale verskynsels om by analises uit te kom, byvoorbeeld, die geskiedenis van die klu klux klan (kkk) word beskou vanuit die perspektief van die onderliggende ekonomiese dryfkragte wat hierdie organisasie so ’n belangrike rol laat speel het in die twintigste eeuse amerikaanse suide. die allesomvattende benaderingswyse van ’n rassebenadering tot die werklikheid, het ook sy invloed op die ekonomiese handelinge van die mense wat die ideologie van die kkk onderskryf. deur bloot op die geskiedenis in te gaan, stel levitt vas, hoe lede van die kkk se leierskap, deur middel van die verhandeling in sekuriteit en versekering eintlik ’n misdaadonderneming geword het. deur aspekte van die kkk se strategieë te vergelyk met die wyse waarop eiendomsagente te werk gaan om hulself deur die proses van selektiewe verhandeling van vaste eiendom verryk wys hy op die fyn skeiding tussen misdaad en sakepraktyk. ’n ander voorbeeld van levitt se benaderingswyse is ’n ondersoek na die afname van misdaad in new york. tradisioneel is aanvaar dat die beleid van ‘zero tolerance’ van burgemeester rudolph guliani daartoe meegewerk het om misdaad drasties in die negentigerjare te laat afneem. ofskoon levitt dit gedeeltelik aanvaar, is hy geneig om, aan die hand van ander navorsers, daarop te wys dat sterk optrede teen misdaad in new york, eintlik reeds deur giulini se voorgangers, in samewerking met die polisie beplan is. die sukses van die veldtog het daartoe gelei dat die insidensie van moord van 2 245 in 1990 tot 596 in 2003 afgeneem het. levitt soek die verklaring vir die afname in die demografiese siklustendense van die vsa. die antwoord is gesetel in die deurslaggewende 1973-hofbeslissing rondom norma mccorvey (alias me roe) wat daartoe aanleiding gegee het dat aborsie in sommige deelstate wettiglik uitgevoer kon word. daardeur, verduidelik levitt, het die onbeperkte geboortes van mense in die armoedige lae van die samelewing aansienlik afgeneem. teen die negentigerjare het vrywillige asborsies spreekwoordelik soos die skoenlapper, wie se vlerkklap op die een kontinent plaasvind en dan op ’n ander kontinent die uitwerking laat geld, die gevolg gehad dat ’n misdadige jeugelement uit die samelewing begin verdwyn het. daarmee saam is ongeletterdheid, dwelmgebruik en misdaad, in ’n groot mate hok geslaan. ofskoon heelwat van levitt se aannames oorlede jeremy bentham kinderlik gelukkig sou maak, het sy benaderingswyse ook ’n sagter kant. veral waar dit gaan oor ouerskap en die gesin, die traumatiese boekresensies 505 verlies van kindersterftes. dit is ’n trauma wat levitt en sy vrou in hul persoonlike lewe deurgemaak het. later het dit die onderwerp van sy navorsing geword. freakonomics is ’n leesbare boek. daar is verwysings in die werk. ook is daar interessante teoretiese uitgangspunte, wat op ’n hoogs verstaanbare manier oorgedra word. die joernalistiese inslag van levitt se skyfvennoot, steven j dubner, wat onder meer ook vir die new york times skryf, kom duidelik in die werk na vore. vir die ekonoom wat oor ’n baie breër spektrum na die dinge van die wêreld wil kyk, is hierdie boek gepaste leesstof. boekresensies td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 503 505. microsoft word 10 mzini.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. 273286. non-profit organisations and government’s pro-poor spending: the case of health and development in gauteng lb mzini1 abstract globally, there is growing recognition of participatory public expenditure management (ppem). ppem is seen as the process whereby citizens and civil society organisations participate in the management of public expenditures. the adoption of ppem is aimed at ensuring greater transparency, better targeting and tracking of resources, and increased overall responsiveness. the gauteng department of health and social development (gdhsd) is committed to co-operative governance; this includes working with different spheres of government and civil society or non-profit organisations (npos). npos are required to have a governing committee to manage funds allocated by gdhsd. the committee has the capacity to hold the npo management accountable for the resources (financial and material) entrusted to it by the gdhsd. the effectiveness of npos is challenged by poor attendance of board members at meetings, poor understanding of the board’s mandate and responsibilities and lack of experience amongst members. the paradigm of ppem is still faced with challenges to ensure that significant flows of revenue are accounted for and used effectively for growth and poverty reduction. this study is divided into three components. the first section focuses on the background, the introduction and the conceptual framework. the second part focuses on the empirical study for deriving a benchmark for the south african npo sector. the third section highlights good practices as well as governance-related challenges. finally, for further consideration by the gdhsd, a series of recommendations is provided, focusing on how key domestic stakeholders can better contribute to successful participatory budgeting programmes. keywords: participatory public expenditure management, non-profit organisations, propoor spending, public finance, public financial management, early childhood development. disciplines: public management and administration, public financial management introduction globally, public participation is receiving increasing attention in the execution of public affairs, especially in developmental issues. african countries have put in place various arrangements to improve pro-poor spending discipline. participation in public expenditure management is still a new frontier for policy making. the participation process plays a vital 1 . dr lb mzini is a senior lecturer in the subject group public management and administration, school of basic sciences, north-west university (vaal triangle campus), email: tumi.mzini@nwu.ac.za. this article is based on a paper presented at the 4th annual spma international conference on public administration by the school of public management and administration (spma), university of pretoria: south africa, up conference centre. 17-18 february 2010. mzini 274 role in integrating functions of government, donors, civil society organisations, the private sector and ordinary individuals, to end mass poverty in developing countries. the main concern of public financial management is how to utilise public resources efficiently and effectively to meet the needs of the community in an equitable manner. participatory public expenditure management (ppem) in this study focuses on efficient and effective delivery of social welfare services aimed at reducing poverty, a function of the gauteng department of health and social development (gdhsd). the focus is on the role of citizen participation in public expenditure management and social accountability and outlines the importance of ppem in improving pro-poor spending in the gdhsd. research methods the concept of ppem is still a new endeavour which is aimed at alleviating poverty in south africa especially in the townships occupied by low-income households. the research undertaken examined the national and institutional experience based on a review of written material. in addition, structured interviews were conducted at sebokeng and evaton, two townships in the emfuleni local municipality. four ecd centres were visited in december 2010. formal discussion administered by questionnaires took place. the aim was to share experiences from the npos managers (4) and their board members/committees (8) relating to the execution of government activities, especially on public finance. informal interviews were also conducted with the non-board members (parents). government allocates funds to the ecds and it was important to establish the relationship between the non-board members (parents); npos managers and board members/committees with regards to the management of funds allocated to them. the interviews were also aimed to determine the role of parents in the management of the funds allocated to their centres. it also aimed at discovering the practices of managing the funds allocated to the respective centres. background poverty is an interlocking, multidimensional phenomenon. poor people lack access to basic infrastructure (education, roads, transportation, housing and clean water). the illiteracy rate among poor people is high; they also suffer from poor health and high levels of illness (ishikawa, 2006: 7). meeting the abovementioned needs for the poor requires skilled personnel and institutions to provide adequate services. ishikawa (2006: 7) points out that the state has been largely ineffective in reaching the poor, due to capacity constraints. since the 1980s, advocacy groups all over the world have begun examining public resources after realising that their governments have not spent enough to address poverty issues (dulger and justice, 2007: 1). there is growing recognition among governments, donors and civil society, that citizens and communities have an important role to play with regard to enhancing accountability of public officials (world bank, 2005: 2). accountability is believed to serve as a tool to reduce corruption and leakage of funds and to improve public service delivery. the world bank (2010: 2) indicates that over the last decade, numerous examples have emerged that demonstrate how citizens can make their voice heard and effectively engage in making the participatory public expenditure management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 273286. 275 public sector more responsive and accountable. this can be accomplished through social accountability. social accountability as an approach, serves to improve governance processes, service delivery outcomes and resource allocation decisions (world bank, 2010: 2). the construction of accountability relies on public participation, which is a key principle of democracy and is undoubtedly a crucial determinant of the nature of democracy (kabemba, 2003: 2). participation in public expenditure management by society or by civil society organisations is emerging as a major new arena for political activity and economic policymaking in developing countries at all levels of government (heimans, 2002: 5). participatory public expenditure management transparency and effective public participation in governance functions are presumed to be an important means to enhance government accountability and responsiveness, in part by remedying or preventing government failures that may result from information constraints, capacity constraints, and incentive problems (dulger and justice, 2007: 2). the constitution of south africa (1996) establishes a platform to promote ownership of resources and empowers the public to utilise resources more sustainably. governments at all levels (national, provincial and local government) are currently supporting more active forms of citizenship (burton, 2009: 263). these departments are challenged to ensure that significant flows of revenue are accounted for and are used effectively for growth and poverty reduction. ppem strives to enforce accountability, which is vested in stakeholders and encompasses three basic aims – to create good governance, development and empowerment (sirker, 2006: 6). the emergence of ppem is acknowledged globally as an important means of involving citizens and npos in public expenditure management. the role of npos in the lives of the poor is limited, and they depend primarily on their own informal networks (dulger and justice, 2007: 1). the ppem process influences the management of public expenditures (world bank, 2010: 6). social welfare services the south african government is structured in three spheres (national, provincial and local). national departments are responsible for supporting policy development. in this regard, the department of social development (dsd) provides social grants and subsidies to registered early childhood development (ecd) sites as well as the provision of psychosocial programmes where needed. the department of health provides free care to all young children, while the office on the rights of the child, located in the presidency, is responsible for monitoring the implementation of government programmes (dsd, 2009a: 9). above all, the dsd strives to ensure the provision of comprehensive social protection services against vulnerability and poverty within the constitutional and legislative framework, and creates an enabling environment for sustainable development. the dsd further aims to deliver integrated, sustainable and quality services, in partnership with all those committed to building a caring society (dsd, 2009a: 11). at provincial level, the gauteng department of health and social development (gdhsd) have the responsibility to fund and implement the abovementioned programmes and to monitor service delivery. local government has an environmental health responsibility and is involved in inspection of facilities for young children (with the exception of schools) and may operate primary health services on behalf of the province (biersteker, 2010: 4). mzini 276 non-profit organisations south africa faces a shortage of social service professionals (department of social development, 2009a: 4). in order to strengthen civil society and communities, the department has deepened the registration and maintenance of non-profit organisations (npos) (dsd, 2009a:18). the npo is an associated term for civil society organisations that range from faith based organisations (fbos) and community based organisations (cbos), charities (welfare organisations), traditional organisations like social and sports clubs, and a host of other development and social forms of organisations, which work tirelessly on the social fabric of society (dsd, 2010: 4). npos act as intermediaries between citizens and governments at all levels (heimans, 2002: 5). there are registered and unregistered npos. registered npos are grouped, informed by their founding documents’ mission and objectives as guided by the international classification of non-profit organisations (icnpo) (dsd, 2010: 4). in south africa, there are 11 npo sectors. the most popular npo sectors are: development and housing; education and research; environmental health; human rights advocacy; religion; and social services. in gauteng, there are 3 386 registered npos. the sedibeng district municipality (the author’s residential area) has 238 registered npos (dsd, 2010: 10, 39). the largest proportion of npos falls in the social services sector. the range of social services covered in the sample includes crèches, rural development projects, youth development projects and small income generation projects (dsd, 2009b: 14–15). the interest in this effort is the active promotion of citizen involvement in the process of budget design and management (heimans, 2002: 2). civil society joins with the organs of government and legislatures to set and monitor public spending targets to ensure greater transparency, better targeting and tracking of resources, and increased overall responsiveness (heimans, 2002: 2; world bank, 2010: 6). the world bank (2010: 7) indicates that the application of ppem is likely to contribute not only to greater development effectiveness, but also to increased accountability for the use of public resources. increased legitimacy and transparency of public spending also has the potential to improve tax collection and stimulate private business (world bank, 2010: 7). early childhood development: a programme for participatory public expenditure management the south african government has increasingly recognised the significance of investment in early childhood development services of different kinds to help address the rights and needs of all children. in south africa, early childhood development (ecd) refers to “the processes by which children from birth to nine years grow and thrive, physically, mentally, emotionally, morally and socially” (biersteker, 2010: 4). south africa uses three significant programmes that affect young children, namely free primary health care, social assistance in the form of the child support grant and the introduction of grade r (biersteker, 2010: 11). servicing for young children in south africa has in recent years received increased levels of political commitment and higher budgetary allocations than in the past, and is currently at what is possibly its highest level (biersteker, 2010: 4). the gdhsd plays the coordinating role in this ecd programme. civil societies, through cbos, fbos and ngos, have played a major role in the provision of ecd services over a number of decades in south africa. integrating the skills, experience, participatory public expenditure management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 273286. 277 knowledge and systems developed by these civil society structures into the national integrated plan for ecd is an important element of its success. there are two important ways in which government can work in partnership with civil society. firstly, it can do so by building capacity and resources to support the implementation of the plan, and secondly, it can play a meaningful role in the upgrading of skills. each of the institutional arrangements and structures has a critical role to play to ensure that the national integrated plan for ecd can be realised. it is important to acknowledge the complexity of integrating all spheres of government as well as civil society into a seamless service delivery system (republic of south africa, 2007: 10). south africa’s pubic financial management system in south africa, strong legal frameworks exist for utilising public finances. it is essential not to underestimate the importance of strengthening existing accountability measures internal to government and of improving the overall legal framework. without an enabling legal and political environment, many ppem initiatives will not be initiated, much less survive. to enhance the effects and the sustainability of civil society initiatives aimed at improving government accountability, the focus must also be on the supply side (government) and on the government’s ability to respond to such demands (world bank, 2010: 7). the basic premise for public financial management is laid down in the constitution of south africa (1996); the public finance management act (1 of 1999); and the local government: municipal finance management act (56 of 2003). the public finance management act details the responsibilities of, and the relationship between, the political and administrative heads of departments. the constitution of 1996 stipulates that the state guides the development of the economy and ensures the rational and efficient use of all productive capacity and national resources. furthermore, it states that the national assembly is responsible for review and approval of the national plan and of the general state budget, as well as of reports of their execution. south africa’s expenditure execution system is coordinated by the national treasury department. the south african public financial management system is led and managed by key institutions that insist on accountability, transparency and proper use of public funds. such institutions include the legislature and its committees; the auditor general; the public protector; members of the executive authority; members of the administrative authority; and the reserve bank (nsingo, 2007: 42). these individuals and institutions are managed by practitioners who: manage resource scarcity; make budget allocations; ensure efficiency; provide advice; and control financial activities (nsingo, 2007: 41). south africa is a well-functioning democracy, and has an excellent constitution that includes rights to basic services. there is also reasonable economic growth and fiscal space that has allowed large increases in pro-poor spending on, for example, social grants, health, education and housing. in addition to this, there is a sound decentralisation framework with an advanced inter-governmental fiscal framework which allocates funds both on the basis of population and poverty. it also provides conditional grants and there is the option of subnational borrowing. despite all these achievements, the pace and quality of service delivery to poor people continues to be a major challenge (van den brink, 2007: 49). african countries have put in place various arrangements to improve budgetary discipline. for example, a more ambitious and comprehensive scheme used to ensure consistency in mzini 278 budgetary discipline is the medium-term expenditure framework (mtef), which has been embraced in several african countries (united nations [un], 2005: 57). mtef is linked to policymaking, planning and budgeting, thereby allowing expenditure to be driven by policy priorities and disciplined by budgetary realities (un, 2005: 57). mtef includes improved macroeconomic stability through fiscal discipline; better intraand inter-sectoral resource allocation; effective prioritisation of expenditure on the basis of clearly articulated socioeconomic programmes; greater budgetary predictability; more efficient use of public finances; improved accountability for the outcomes of expenditure; and greater credibility in budgetary decision-making (un, 2005: 57). introduction of the mtef enhances the participation of civil society in public financial management in south africa (un, 2005: 57). early childhood development funding these services are locally-based and there are no large provider networks. in 2000, some 83% of ecd service centres were community-based, including those run from homes (biersteker, 2010: 10). the funding model used by gdhsd is to subsidise npos to provide services. other government departments contract ngos to provide specific services, training, materials development and, in particular, research. corporate and donor funding also support ngos for direct service provision to young children, as well as grants for training, capacity building and resourcing (biersteker, 2010: 10). additionally, the government receives support from some donors to address imbalances in ecd provision (unesco international bureau of education [ibe], 2006: 5). international initiatives to strengthen fiscal transparency many international initiatives have been taken to ensure that countries abide by internationally recognised standards of good fiscal practice. these are designed to enhance the prudent, efficient and accountable management of public expenditures. one such initiative is the international monetary fund (imf)’s code of good practices on fiscal transparency, which comprises four key elements: • the responsibilities of government should be clear and publicly disclosed. • comprehensive and reliable information on fiscal activities should be made available to the public. • the process of preparing, executing and reporting on the budget should be open and widely publicised. • independent arrangements and procedures must exist to confirm the integrity of the information made available to the public (un, 2005: 63). however, several african countries have made progress in introducing greater transparency in their fiscal systems (un, 2005: 63). in botswana, an open and systematic procedure for consulting stakeholders is used to ensure that all relevant interests and views are considered when formulating effective, equitable and transparent policy and legislation (un, 2005: 63). in angola, the public expenditure management and financial accountability review (pemfar) is applied to enhance effective use of public funds. participatory public expenditure management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 273286. 279 participatory public expenditure management and non-profit organisations safeguarding public money is a complex endeavour. it requires technical expertise and it is often a politically-charged and even delicate issue to address. globally, countries are increasingly adopting the process in an effort to ensure greater accountability and transparency. it also aims to target and track resources, and increase overall responsiveness (world bank, 2010: 6). investing in measures aimed at increasing the accountability of public expenditure management for the benefit of civil society makes good economic sense for governments (world bank, 2010: 7). the importance of ppem is evident in public participation in the integration of functions, approaches and institutional arrangements. participatory public expenditure management approaches efficiency in the management of the ppem system is important for enabling the public sector to mobilise the resources required for economic development. it also engenders confidence and trust in public financial management, which is an important component of good governance (un, 2005: 63). advocates of popular participation in the budget process argue that participatory activities in governance empower citizens and promote public learning (heimans, 2002: 8). the ppem system reflects the state’s progress towards achieving its developmental targets. in south africa, these targets are based on the electoral mandate the government received in 2004 (fowler, 2007: 26). the state’s developmental agenda uses the medium term strategic framework (mtsf) to achieve its developmental goals. the mtsf is the tool to bring coherence to the state’s developmental agenda and includes the expansion of the economy, eradicating poverty, meeting basic needs, nation building, deepening democracy and creating a better world and a better africa (fowler, 2007: 26). integrated financial management system democratic principles involve relationships of accountability between three sets of actors, namely, policy makers/politicians; clients; and service providers (npos). the challenge for this relationship to succeed is to improve the organisational capacity of the state at all levels. the actors work together to meet the developmental goals, and to succeed in meeting the common objectives that have been set by policy makers. in these relationships, all actors must be accountable to one another (van den brink, 2007: 49). involving civil society, business and government employees in monitoring the probity of ppem can be an effective and often cost-efficient complement to official, institutional anti-corruption measures (foster, 2002: 23). a brief descriptive role for partnership in public finance is provided below. the public sector steers the implementation of public policy and is required to evaluate its effectiveness on a continuous basis. the sector engages with the public in the decisionmaking process and accepts new responsibilities that arise because community needs are variable and by no means constant. this new public service must seize the opportunity to help make south africa a leader in participatory government within the confines of a developmental state (fowler, 2007: 28). legislatures have a critical role to play at all stages of the ppem process (heimans, 2002: 28). their functions include the formulation of spending priorities for specific sectors or policy areas before the budget is submitted to the sector; analysis of the budget submitted by various departments; and tracking and performance mzini 280 evaluation to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of public spending (heimans, 2002: 29). it is said that civil participation in public expenditure management promises to improve social and economic outcomes while increasing confidence in public institutions (heimans, 2002: 1).various mechanisms are used to ensure accountability. these include citizen report cards; empowering communities to exercise decision-making in service delivery planning and implementation; introducing payment or co-payment for service vouchers; information and transparency; constitutional guarantees; and recourse to the law (van den brink, 2007: 49). in this particular study, the ‘public’ relates to the board members (parents of the learners) at the early childhood development (ecd) centres. each ecd centre has such a committee. at primary and high schools (junior, intermediate and senior phase) there are school governing bodies (sgbs). the sgbs and ecd committees represent the needs of the learners and those of their parents. findings financial management is an important part of planning and implementation. the most critical aspect of this process is that the plan needs to clearly articulate what each department is expected to contribute. the starting point is the identification of one outcome/output and should then move to the role of the departments. the world bank’s framework for ppem recommends a model in which civil society organisations influence resource allocation in four broad phases of the budget cycle: formulation, analysis, expenditure tracking, and evaluation (dulger and justice, 2007: 2). allocating a more pro-poor budget is only the first stage in making government expenditure a tool of poverty reduction (foster et al, 2002: 22). the following findings are based on theoretical and empirical surveys conducted in sebokeng and evaton. the aim of the study was to ascertain the effectiveness of the systems in place to monitor public funds in the npos. institutional arrangements for non-profit organisations as indicated above, npos serve as a link between the state and beneficiaries. details on how stakeholders execute public funds are discussed below. npos are organised like the three spheres of government, since they are mandated by the constitution towards pro-poor service delivery. each of the four centres/sites visited comprises caregivers, educators and support staff (unesco ibe, 2006). there are also board members/committees in each centre. the governing body is selected at the annual general meeting attended by parents. the centres are allocated funds to implement government services and the committee plays a role to ensure that these public funds are used appropriately. the committee consists of at least three members, who serve as signatories at the bank. respondents at each of the four sites indicated that they have an approved strategic plan that assists them to formulate clear goals and objectives, map the way forward as far as expenditure is concerned, and to monitor and evaluate these plans. allocation of funds and procurement a budget is allocated for every registered npo and they are required to have a bank account where funds are transferred on a monthly basis. a cheque book is issued to each centre/site, participatory public expenditure management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 273286. 281 which is used to procure goods and services according to the planned activities. the signatories are required to monitor expenditure and raise funds for the site in order to meet the institution’s monthly requirements. such requirements include food and non-food (stationery, toiletries) items. the respondents indicated that there are strict measures in place to ensure that only allocated funds are spent. in this regard, budget formulation, review and analysis are important to decide how resources are to be allocated (sirker, 2006: 14). the legislative framework on public finance encourages npos to establish an effective purchasing system and an effective contracting or tendering system that complies with the requirements of procurement legislation, and is open and fair. period of registration the ppem process in the four sites visited is still in its infant stage. respondents at the sites indicated that they have been registered with the gdhsd for less than year. capacity for implementation there are several aspects of implementation for which capacity still needs to be developed once the project has moved beyond the pilot stage. significant investments were required for learner support material; teacher training; increases in the number of educators at national and provincial levels; and improvements to physical infrastructure (biersteker, 2010: 37). the stakeholders indicated that the gdhsd provides the necessary training to enable them to use public funds effectively. accountability and financial management (internal finance controls) respondents at the sites indicated that they have a budget for their undertakings. there is also a designated finance person who advises them on the appropriate use of public funds. guidelines are issued and centres have to comply with these. authorisation procedures are in place to prepare, sign and issue cheques. reporting the gdhsd requires that entities registered in terms of the npo act should submit two reports; an annual narrative report and the annual financial report. an annual narrative report provides a description of the npo’s main activities during the preceding 12 months, its main achievements, details of important meetings and any changes to the constitution. the annual financial report that is completed by a registered accounting officer or auditor. the annual financial report provides basic information on income and accounting details. this must be accompanied by the most recent annual financial statements (dsd, 2009b: 20). such reports must be submitted together within nine (9) months of the organisation’s financial year end. annual reporting is an important vehicle through which the npo makes itself transparent and accountable to beneficiaries, donors, other stakeholders and members of the public, as set out in the cgp (dsd, 2009b: 20). npos registered with the gdhsd are expected to provide complete financial statements that include the following: • a statement detailing revenue and expenditure • details of assets and liabilities • a statement of changes in equity • a statement of cash flow mzini 282 • notes to the financial statement in accordance with the npo act, the financial statements are required to be approved and signed by an accounting officer (dsd, 2009b: 26). the public sector uses an internal audit to verify whether government transactions and activities are in compliance with the law, as well as with the internal control checks and balances and the procurement regulations (world bank, 2010: 58). these financial statements are then audited by an independent auditor or suitably qualified accountant (dsd, 2009b: 27). the key issues to be examined in assessing the quality of the pro-poor spending process are: • degree of discipline, • control of corruption, • efficiency in revenue mobilisation and extent of transparency, • accountability and • control in the tax system (un, 2005: 56). challenges public financial management make use of institutional framework, systems, and procedures to govern the preparation, execution, and reporting of the budget. weaknesses in ppem systems can undermine budgetary planning, execution and reporting. it also reduces fiscal transparency and results in leakage of scarce public resources. the reform of the public sector and the transition to the democratic era had brought opportunities for south africans at large. despite these developments, civil society has not fully utilised these new resources consistently enough (wildeman, 2007: 52). the ppem process is also confronted with problems related to weak internal controls within the expenditure cycle. for example, there is ineffective budget management that undermines the ability to redirect spending towards the poor. this stems from political reluctance to recognise the need for tough choices and for budget discipline (foster, fozzard, naschold and conway, 2002: viii). several critical factors and enabling conditions influence the opportunity for civil society engagement in the budget process as well as the likely success of such initiatives (world bank, 2010: 27). the accountability initiatives are not equally feasible or applicable to committee members. furthermore, suitably qualified financial professionals are not readily available and npos face challenges to access such people to audit their reports. respondents also indicated that hiring the services of these professionals is expensive. recommendations van den brink (2007: 51) reveals the international evidence that service delivery can improve dramatically if we empower poor people to monitor and discipline service provision. involvement of the voice of the poor in public expenditure management will also strengthen incentives for service providers to serve these communities. participatory public expenditure management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 273286. 283 prioritisation and allocation of public resources african countries need to increase the efficiency of their resource mobilisation in order to finance their ambitious economic development programmes. the author’s experience (public service and academic experience) reveals that the notion of expenditure management has not reached the peak of demand-driven outcomes. there is an imbalance of funds allocated to institutions. there is also a tendency to focus on spending funds allocated instead of the objectives planned for. therefore, politically-determined visions and directions for development play the role of prioritising the efficient distribution of scarce public resources among competing policies and programmes. line ministries are responsible for deciding which policies and programmes to pursue and for providing individual costing, output and outcome information. the efficient distribution of public resources depends on the standardisation of information, or information and accounting systems. other requirements will be discussed below (ishikawa, 2006: 26). participatory public expenditure management cycle a first critical area is to establish a coherent and well-integrated approach to strategic planning and budgeting. the ppem cycle is not integrated; some phases are left out during the process and as a result, institutions tend to forget the intentions of the budget (allen and last, 2007: 170). serving the poor more effectively through public expenditure requires a medium-term process for budget allocation (to plan changes in strategic priorities), and a public expenditure management capacity (to ensure they are executed) (foster et al, 2002: x). reforms should include strengthening the relationship between the planning and budgeting cycles. strengthening these areas is of critical importance to the effective and efficient utilisation of funds. finally, the mtef should become a comprehensive document covering all sources of revenue and all public sector expenditures. capacity building a second important area is to build capacity in budget execution and reporting to ensure the efficient, effective and transparent use of public resources. such reforms should initially focus on upgrading the classification of expenditures and revenues and the accounting, internal control, and fiscal reporting systems. nevertheless, on budget execution, frequently encountered problems such as spending arrears and weak control of expenditure commitments need to be contained. special attention should be paid to tracking poverty-reducing public spending to ensure that it reaches the intended recipients. techniques such as the use of public expenditure tracking surveys (pets) and audit reports can help identify persistent weaknesses in the expenditure chain (allen and last, 2007: 171). furthermore, governments should work more closely with civil society to leverage additional knowledge and capacity. budget orientation trends of under-expenditure are witnessed in south africa. institutions should take initial steps to give the budget a results orientation (allen and last, 2007: 171). budget orientation may enable institutions to plan for required activities and items. this will allow them to mzini 284 achieve economic and social outcomes. in this regard, a poverty policy needs to be informed by good analysis, and this analysis needs to be reflected in expenditure priorities and budget allocations (foster et al, 2002: ix). budget orientation can contribute to evidence-based planning and performance management in institutions. policy-makers and planners are then able to review how effectively ngos/government expenditure meets the needs of the poor. fiscal discipline fiscal discipline aims to enhance efficient resource allocation and effective management of public funds. this requires a budgetary system that determines sustainable total expenditure over a period of several fiscal years. conclusion the paradigm of ppem has the potential to improve the effectiveness of nationally driven development strategies. achieving broadened involvement by the society is complex and difficult but progress has been made to enhance ppem systems in south africa. the npo sector has played an important role in including welfare programmes in government plans, although this trend was stronger previously than it is at present. ppem creates possibilities to give communities access to decision making. furthermore, the success of ppem application requires goodwill and active co-operation from all partners if it is to be successful. successful pro-poor spending depends in large part on the efficiency, integrity, and effectiveness with which the state raises, manages, and expends public resources. ppem extends over the full budget cycle, from initial formulation through final audit and evaluation. bibiography allen, a. and last, d. 2007. low-income countries need to upgrade financial management. international monetary fund (imf) magazine, vol. 36, no. 11, september 2007. washington, dc: international monetary fund. biersteker, l. 2010. scaling-up early child development in south africa. introducing a reception year (grade r) for children aged five years as the first year of schooling. working paper no. 17, april 2010. south africa: the brookings global economy and development. burton, p. 2009. conceptual, theoretical and practical issues in measuring the benefits of public participation. evaluation, vol. 15, no. 3, 2009: 263–284. los angeles, london, new delhi, singapore and washington dc: sage publications. department of social development. 2009a. annual report 2008/2009. republic of south africa: department of social development. department of social development. 2009b. developing good governance practices within the south african npo sector: benchmark study report. republic of south africa: department of social development. department of social development. 2010. 2009/10 state of south african registered nonprofit organisations issued in terms of the non-profit organisations act 71 of participatory public expenditure management td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 273286. 285 1997. a report from the national npo database. republic of south africa: department of social development. dulger, c. and justice, j. 2007. fiscal transparency for citizen empowerment: the case of disha. accessed from www.cviog.uga.edu (accessed 29-11-2010). foster, m., fozzard, a., naschold, f. and conway, t. 2002. how, when and why does poverty get budget priority? poverty reduction strategy and public expenditure in five african countries. synthesis paper. working paper no. 168. results of odi research presented in preliminary form for discussion and critical comment. london: overseas development institute. fowler, t. 2007. a reflection on the state’s developmental targets and citizen participation. service delivery review (sdr) journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2007: 26-27. johannesburg: ste publishers. heimans, j. 2002. strengthening participation in public expenditure management: policy recommendations for key stakeholders. oecd development centre. policy brief no. 22. paris: oecd. human sciences research council. 2005. national study of service delivery in district management areas (dmas). study undertaken for the south african local government association and the department of provincial and local government, final draft: april 2005. pretoria: human sciences research council. ishikawa, s. 2006. the “poverty trap” and “public expenditure management”. in pursuit of a new development model. discussion paper on development assistance no. 2. japan: the international development research institute of the foundation for advanced studies on international development. kabemba, c. 2003. the impact of democracy on public participation in the sadc region, realising effective and sustainable democratic governance in southern africa and beyond. eisa occasional paper no. 13, october 2003. south africa: electoral institute of south africa. nsingo, s. 2007. role players in public financial management. public finance fundamentals. cape town: juta. potter, b.h. and diamond, j. 1999. guidelines for public expenditure management. in world bank. 2005. angola public expenditure management and financial accountability. report no. 29036-ao, 16 february 2005. africa region. prem1. washington, dc: the world bank. republic of south africa. 1996. the constitution of south africa, 1996. pretoria: government printer. republic of south africa. 2007. guidelines for the implementation of the national integrated plan for early childhood development. march 2007. south africa: government gazette. sirker, k. 2006. general social accountability concepts and tools. washington, dc: world bank institute. unesco international bureau of education. 2006. south africa: early childhood care and education programmes. country profile prepared for education for all global monitoring report, 2007. strong foundations: early childhood care and mzini 286 education. ibe/2006/efa/gmr/cp/78. geneva: unesco international bureau of education. united nations. 2005. economic governance and public financial management. accessed from www.uneca.org (accessed 29-11-2010). van den brink, r. 2007. expenditure tracking. service delivery review (sdr) journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2007: 49-51. johannesburg: ste publishers. world bank. 2005. angola: public expenditure management and financial accountability. report no. 29036-ao, 16 february 2005. africa region. prem1. washington, dc: the world bank. world bank. 2010. participatory public expenditure management. social accountability sourcebook. washington, dc: the world bank. accessed from www.worldbank.org (accessed 29-11-2010). td journal desember 2006.p65 humanism and nature – some reflections on a complex relationship jörn rüsen* abstract: the paper starts with a systematical analysis of the interrelationship of humanism and nature. it proceeds to a historical reconstruction of this relationship in the development of western humanism from ancient rome via renaissance till the enlightenment of the 18th century. in both respects the result of the analysis is the same: the western tradition of humanism is characterised by a gap between an emphasis on the cultural quality of human life on the one hand and nature on the other one. men are entitled to dominate and govern nature and use it for their purpose. this fits into an idea of a progressing destructive relationship between man and nature in the west. on the other the tradition of humanism has put the gap between man and nature into a harmonising cosmological or theological context. in this context a simple destructive relationship between man and nature is not possible. the humanism of today has to pick up the challenge of the ecological crisis and to refer to its tradition where man and nature are mediated into a meaningful and sense-bearing interrelationship. instead of simply referring to the traditional cosmology a convincing idea of this mediation or even synthesis can only be made plausible by referring to the already pre-given synthesis between nature and culture, the human body. keywords: humanism, nature, humanity, kant, herder, subjugating nature, human dignity, bildung, culture, aesthetisation of nature, renaturalisation of human culture, transcultural universalism. unter allen tieren ist das geschöpf der feinsten organe, der mensch, der größte mörder ... im menschenreich ... herrscht die größte mannigfaltigkeit von neigungen und anlagen, die wir oft als wunderbar und widernatürlich anstaunen ... da nun auch diese nicht ohne organische gründe sein können, so ließe sich ... das menschengeschlecht als der große zusammenfluß niederer organischer kräfte ansehen, die in ihm zur bildung der humanität kommen sollten ... der größste teil der menschen ist tier; zur humanität hat er bloß die fähigkeit auf die welt gebracht und sie muß ihm durch mühe und fleiß erst angebildet werden. herder1 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 265-276. _______ * president of the institute for advancved studies in the humanities (kwi), essen, germany and extraordinary professor nwu, vaal triangle faculty. leader of the new humanism project and co-organiser of the conference humankind and nature at the intersection of culture, kruger national park, south africa. 1 translation: among all animals man, the creature with the most elaborate organs, is the biggest murderer ... in the realm of humankind there is the biggest variety of incli-nations and potentials which we often marvel at as ... wonderful and unnatural ... since even these can’t exist without organic reasons, we may look at the human race as a great confluence of minor organic powers which are supposed to develop into humanity within it ... the largest part of man is animal; he was only born with the ability for humanity, and it has to be developed within him by hard educational work. jg herder, ideen zur philosophie der geschichte der menschheit werke, vol. iii/1, ([ed. wolfgang pross] wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft darmstadt, 2002), pp. 164, 166, 180. 266 i. what has humanism to do with nature? what has humanism to do with nature or even with ecology? in order to answer this question i would like to start with some remarks about what humanism is2: humanism is an idea of the cultural nature of human beings, an attitude of intersubjectivity and a historical tradition mainly in the west referring to certain values and forms of discourse. as an idea it emphasizes specific values which are ascribed to all humans in all times and spaces. at the core of these values there is a high esteem of the simple fact that somebody is human. in the west we call that core value human dignity. in his philosophy of morality immanuel kant expressed it in the following way: each human being should not only be considered as a means for purposes of somebody else, but as a purpose in himor herself.3 evidently, in this description of humanism ‘nature’ does not occur. on the contrary: humanism exclusively refers to all those attributes and qualities of man by which he or she essentially differ from nature. but nevertheless, this difference is a reference, and it has a lot of consequences for human self-understanding and the attitude of man towards nature. thus, the first reference of humanism to nature is owed to the humanistic idea of what it means to be a human being. here the difference made between nature and culture is decisive: the special values ascribed to the humans are an essential cultural matter and not a natural one. in the older idea of humanism it might be given to man by nature, but with their culture humans transgress the realm of nature and become a species of its own, essentially being different from all other natural beings. this repeats and confirms the first reference. a second reference to nature can be detected in the topical discussion about humanism. here humanism is defined as the opposite of naturalism, which means that we cannot understand what humans are by simply referring to their biological qualities. a third reference to nature occurs in the discussion about humanism, as soon as the ecological crisis of today comes up. here we can find arguments pointing at an inbuilt destructive element in the western tradition of humanism. it says that in this tradition man are put into a relationship to nature which is defined by exploitation and destruction. humanism is accused of being a cultural reason for the rüsen _______ 2 h cancik, “humanismus”, in h cancik, b gladigow, h-k kohl, (eds): handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher grundbegriffe. bd. iii. (kohlhammer, stuttgart, 1993), pp. 173-185. 3 i kant: metaphysik der sitten, (akademie-ausgabe), vol. vi, p. 434 sq. 267 disastrous form in which the culture of modernity refers to nature. it is said to have brought about the crisis or even the catastrophe of our ecological situation. by emphasizing the dignity of man humanism renounces an acceptable relationship of man and nature. descartes’ idea that man is ‘master and owner of nature’ (maitre et posesseur de la nature) expresses this relationship. it robs human life of its natural quality as being part of an overall encompassing nature. fourth and finally nature becomes an issue of discussion when we look for principles and rules to which we can and must refer when we want to heal the disturbed relationship to nature striving for an order which guarantees the physical survival of humankind. in my following argumentation i will tackle these four points of reference. by doing so, i hope that i can sketch an idea of humanism which may reconcile humankind and humanity as a key issue of our cultural self-understanding and orientation of our lives. ii. nature and culture in humanism in the modern understanding of humanism nature is a counter-concept of humanity. by speaking of ‘humanity’ as a principle of human self-understanding and as a guideline of human practical life, humanism emphasizes the cultural quality of men by which it essentially differs from nature, let alone from all other species in the visible world. herder expressed this trans-natural ‘nature’ of humankind by addressing men as “freigelassene der schöpfung” (released slaves of the creation). this has to be understood as being liberated from the constraints of nature, from the submission to the commands of its laws. man has brought about another order of life with new laws, namely the laws of reason and morality, the commitment to that which defines the humanity of humans. different from all other natural beings which were thrown into a pre-given order of life men, have created this order themselves facilitated by the competence of generating the sense criteria of their lives themselves. realizing this competence in the manifold manifestations of culture, human life has to be understood as a process of bringing about one’s own human character. humanity is a process of self-empowerment of humans which goes beyond all natural limits and leads to the world of culture. culture is the contrary of nature. it is constituted by a set of values and norms which have to be ascribed to every single member of the human race. this set of values has changed in the course of time, but some common features nevertheless can be enumerated: the idea of equality, the entitlement to basic rights, social solidarity as a consequence of the fragility of human life, and the general moral rule that reflections on a complex relationship td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 265-276. 268 the values and norms, which a person or social group feels entitled to or committed to should be valid for each other person and social group as well. this emphasis on culture humanism can be characterized as transnatural understanding of man. the ability to follow rules generates the moral character which originates in cultural processes of sense generation. iii. the challenge of naturalism it is this emphasis on a normative concept of the ‘cultural nature of man’ which puts humanism in a strict contrast and opposition to all tendencies of naturalizing human nature. for naturalism the human world is exclusively defined with reference to the biological attributes of the human race. today humanism is challenged by a powerful biological determinism in understanding the human world which refers to the genetic conditions of human life and its regulation by the physiological procedures of the human brain. in this respect humanism can be understood and actually presents itself as a critique of such a concept of human nature.4 it claims a non-natural character of human life in so far as it is pursued in forms of practical life and social relationship, where all participants refer to cultural orientations. by this reference they can understand each other and give reason for what they are doing, suffering and failing. humanism makes human life understandable by referring to (subjective) reasons for what the people do and not to (objective) the causes of their doing. humanism emphasizes human subjectivity as a constitutive element for the understanding of the human world, whereas naturalism refers to conditions and determinations of human life, which have an external relationship to human subjectivity. humanism insists on the values, norms and rules of human culture which cannot be replaced by scientific knowledge. humanism insists on the principal difference between cultural knowledge humans always use in giving their lives meaning and significance on the one hand and the logic of scientific knowledge and its rational explanation by referring to causal laws. iv. is humanism an attitude of subjugating nature? in this respect humanism emphasizes the difference between man and nature. by doing so it creates, or at least, supports cultural rüsen _______ 4 cf. d sturma (ed.), philosophie und neurowissenschaften, (suhrkamp, frankfurt am main, 2006). 269 attitudes by which man refer to nature as a matter of domination and possession, as a matter of subjugation. is humanism therefore nothing but an ideology of human mastery over nature which finally ends in the ecological catastrophe of today? this simple question demands a rather complex answer. first of all, one has to emphasize that in the world-view of pre-modern times it was nature itself in its divine dimension which shaped human life and gave it a constitutive cultural feature characterized by general norms of dignity, benevolence, and solidarity. in this understanding nature has a divine quality by which it brings about culture. in its deepest ground nature is already culture, but nevertheless it is a separation from nature which defines the specificity of humanity. the strong emphasis on education as a form of self-creation or selfcultivation of every human being may serve as evidence for this separation. because of the effects of this cultivation man has a higher value then all other natural beings. wild animals are cruel by nature. humans can be humane by means of their culture. in the philosophical context of ancient roman humanism non-human nature was made for the sake of the gods and humans. animals are created for the benefit of man. he can eat them. men share with the animals the force of drives, but the human ability of reason separates them from them and the rest of nature. reason has to govern the natural drives. “all dominion ... over the resources of the earth belongs to man.”5 and it is this superiority which constitutes human dignity according to cicero.6 so already in its antique origins western humanism included the idea that man subjugates and dominates nature.7 this way of thinking reflects the urban civilization of a city where human life is no longer close to nature though its original base was grounded on agriculture. this attitude did not change in early modern history, when the humanists referred to the idea of creation. here god put humans in the centre of the world and enabled them to relate the whole of creation for themselves since in humankind the cosmos reflects itself in its sense-bearing order. at the same time humans are entitled to create the order of their world on their own. we can find this idea in pico reflections on a complex relationship _______ 5 cicero, de natura deorum (on the nature of the gods), (trans. francis brooks, methuen, london, 1896), pp. ii, 60, 152. 6 h cancik, “entrohung und barmherzigkeit, herrschaft und würde. antike grundlagen von humanismus” in r faber (ed.), streit um den humanismus, (königshausen und neumann, würzburg, 2003), pp. 23-41, quotation p. 33. 7 ibid., p. 30. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 265-276. 270 della mirandola’s famous “oration on the dignity of man” (1486/87), where god says to his creation, man: the nature of all creatures is defined and restricted within laws which we have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to those whose custody we have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. i have placed you at the very center of the world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance round about you on all that the world contains ... you may with greater erase glance round about you on all that the world contains ... you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. it will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.8 within a pre-given religious order governed by divine law, men form the centre of the cosmos, not only reflecting its order in their own physical, mental and spiritual structure; but at the same time they can create the order of their lives on their own. this concept continues the human self-empowerment which started in antiquity. does it consequently lead to the modern idea that humans are entitled to be the masters and owners of nature? the early modern humanism still put human empowerment into the limits of divine cosmological order where every being has its proper place. only if this (in our eyes) ‘nonnatural’ or divine order is dissolved, the extraordinary position of man in nature gets the character of unlimited domination. only then man becomes entitled to dominate nature by calculation, by means of the methodological rationality of knowledge and its technological application, or – in the words of max weber “that one can in principle master all things by calculation”?9 in a historical perspective of this kind the world of modernity appears as a world of human domination over nature, in which nature is only a matter of appropriation. i would like to illustrate it by a slogan which qualifies the basic cultural value system for modern societies: it’s the threefold values of liberty, equality and property. this holy trinity of the modern secular world expresses the guidelines of human agency as follows: all humans are equal in the liberty to acquire property. property is the result by appropriating nature. appropriating nature is done by exploiting it as means to realize human purposes. in this cultural context nature is an object of exploitation. it becomes rüsen _______ 8 g pico della mirandola, oratio de hominis dignitate. rede über die würde des menschen. (lateinisch-deutsch. edited and translated by g von der gönna, reclam, stuttgart. 1997), p. 9; for an electronic version see g pico della mirandola, oration on the dignity of man at http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/mirandola/ (accessed 2006.11.27). 9 m weber, “science as a vocation” in hm gerth, cw mills (eds), from max weber: essays in sociology (london 5th ed. 1964), p. 139; [max weber, wissenschaft als beruf 1917/ 1919 – politik als beruf 1919 (studienausgabe der max-weber-gesamtausgabe, bd. i/ 17).tübingen: mohr/siebeck 1994, p. 87. 271 exploited in three dimensions: cognitively by science, practically by technology and socially by economy. nature has lost its internal divinity, its quality to include cultural-like elements of meaning and significance for the human world. in this radically naturalized form nature has become a raw material which has to be formed only by man. it has no inbuilt values. it is silent and has to obey the human language. is this the hidden core of humanism? the anti-humanist philosophy of the 20th century answers this question positively. it criticizes humanism as an ideology, which covers the real forces of human selfempowerment, namely the naked and brute will of power with a veil of morality and norms. karl marx, for instance, criticized the idea of human rights as a simple ideology which allows a capitalistic exploitation of man by man.10 human and civil rights are only rules of law which entitle the members of civil society to pursue their brute interests in gaining property. (by the way: the declared anti-marxist intellectual of civil society, max weber, has a very similar understanding of human rights.11) is humanism therefore nothing but an ideology of human self-empowerment to govern the world, to exploit nature and to rule the human world according to its own purposes? the answer to this question depends upon the understanding of these purposes. nietzsche presented a very radical and simple understanding: the purpose of human self-empowerment in its relationship to nature and the human world as well is the empowerment itself. the will to power, which inspires all cultural procedures of human empowerment, has only one purpose: its own self, its growth. values and norms are only the means towards this increase, but not the end result. arguing in this way the fundamental humanistic argumentation is given up, to the effect that human life cannot be pursued without the validity of values, norms and rules. the driving force of human selfempowerment is then given a natural or at least a quasi-natural quality. but is that plausible? is the will to power in human life really blind and only related to itself? a simple look at practical life can problematize this presupposition: the mental forces driving human activity are always shaped or influenced by purposes, intentions and culturally articulated needs. what is the specific human character of the action driving will? it’s not at all its blindness; on the contrary: it is its intentionality which – so to speak – eyes its object and cannot be reflections on a complex relationship _______ 10 k marx, “zur judenfrage” in k marx and f engels, werke, band 1, (dietz , berlin, 1972), pp. 347-377. 11 m weber, wirtschaft und gesellschaft. grundriß der verstehenden soziologie. studienausgabe (ed. von johannes winckelmann. 2 bde. kiepenheuer&witsch, köln, 1964), pp. 921 sp. 0. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 265-276. 272 described without a reference to normative elements of cultural orientation. humanism is an elaborated and historically deeply rooted form of this cultural orientation. it emphasizes the competence of every human being to bring about its competence for this orientation by a special activity. we call this activity by a german name: bildung, which i would like to translate not as ‘education’, but as ‘self-cultivation’. this ‘bildung’ means indeed self-empowerment, but an empowerment to receive the power of value-guided activity. and the basic value of this guidance is humanness in itself. it bears that already mentioned quality of being a human being, which immanuel kant described in such a logical clarity: in all cultural life-forms every human being has to be treated as a purpose in itself and not only a means for the benefit of others. v. humanism and environment – back to nature or forward to culture? has this humanism any impact on the environmental problems of today? at first glance we could answer ‘no’. there are two reasons for this ‘no’. one is the fact that humanism as i have presented it here is a typical western cultural development, whereas the ecological problems of today are global. in its own understanding western humanism is universalistic, but whether this universalistic approach is valid in respect to cultural otherness is an open question.12 the second ‘no’ refers to the non-natural quality humanism attributes to the human life form. humanism fundamentally distinguishes human life from nature. this distinction can be understood as one of the main cultural causes for the disturbed relationship between man and nature in the ecological crisis of today. as much as non-western cultures refer to a different understanding of humanity without this gap between humankind and nature, this second ‘no’ confirms the first one. referring to such a different cultural tradition, humanism is out of the game of ecology. this indeed is an issue in the current discussion about our understanding of the relationship of humankind and rüsen _______ 12 without any doubt there are humanistic traditions in other cultures as well. even more: some intellectuals are convinced, that there is a universal element of humanism in all cultures. wole soyinka e.g. speaks of a “simple humanism, which is the common denominator of all civilizations”. he finds it expressed in the words of jeremy cronin: to live close to every tree, which you ever have planted. our century has been its greatest destroyer.” w soyinka, “die angst, das unersetzliche zu verlieren” im blätter für deutsche und internationale politik, 3, 2006, pp. 337-344 (cit. p. 344) [my translation from the german text]. 273 nature. many intellectuals look for paradigms to which they can refer if they want to replace the western gap between humankind and nature (creating the human attitude of dominating, subjugating and exploiting nature). in doing so, they rather often refer to non-western paradigms which emphasize a balanced relationship or even a harmony between humankind and nature. a typical example of this replacement of the western understanding of humankind can be found in huang chun-chiehs paper on confucianism for this conference.13 another example is the new emphasis on so-called ‘indigenous knowledge’ of the people who have been colonized by the west and understand themselves as victims of this attitude of subjugation and exploitation. should we then give up our claims for humanity in favour of a new vision of the nature of humankind as an integrative part of an encompassing natural order of our lives? there is a lot of sympathy for this tendency of a fundamental return to nature in understanding the environmental or ecological dimension of human life as a fundamental condition for the survival of humankind in general. should we give up our attitudes of self-empowerment in favour of another logic of the human relationship to nature – the relationship of harmony and brother – or sisterhood or even the relationship which refers to the general motherhood of nature? i think that all these tendencies are sympathetic and heart-warming romanticisms with an inbuilt failure. the failure is rather simple, and because of its simplicity it’s even fundamental: there has never been a human relationship to nature without elements of technologically mastering the natural conditions for human life. every so-called indigenous knowledge is full of the techniques of this approach of mastering. magic for instance is such a technology; and human life in general can’t be lead without appropriating nature to the human world by labour, and labour means to change nature into a means for human purposes. additionally, the criteria of balance and harmony run against elementary experiences of humankind in all places and times: nature is a challenge and a potential danger for man. it is full of catastrophes, it is the permanent challenge of contingency which has to be brought into an idea of order by cultural processes of human sense generation. finally, all sympathetic romanticism fails vis-à-vis the simple fact, that we cannot solve any ecological problem of today without referring to natural science and modern technology. this, however, reflections on a complex relationship _______ 13 see chun-chieh huang, see man and nature in the confucian tradition: some reflections in the twenty-first century, in this journal. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 265-276. 274 means to confirm their inbuilt relationship to nature. in the realm of natural sciences and modern technology, nature has no meaning and does not give any hint of an order which can orientate related human activity. the idea of an order of nature is an essentially cultural input. the most prominent form of imposing order on nature after its disenchantment by modern cognitive rationality is the aesthetisation of nature. but can an aesthetisised nature play a role in a frame of reference for our practical relationship to nature in economy for instance? that is an open question. traditionally aesthetisation is a compensation for the loss of meaning and sense in the modernizing process of disenchantment brought about by the increasing importance of methodical rationality in science and technology. i do not see that such compensation can really fill the place of order which it only compensates. but on the other hand i think that an aesthetisised order of nature may give us a hint at the direction we have to follow when we speak about environment and ecology. indeed, we can experience nature as being beautiful. (this is evident here in the kruger park.) kant in his “critique of judgment” already looked at this beauty as a hint to a non-cognitive and nontechnological relationship between man and nature. by aesthetisation nature gains a humane quality, and with this quality it even can fulfil practical functions in human life. man has to destroy nature in order to life by it. this is evident in daily life. eating is such a destruction. but not all human use of nature is destructive. nature can be preserved and function as an element of human culture. again the kruger park is a good example. it pays to preserve nature for a genuine human experience. whale watching can substitute whale-killing.14 but such aesthetic relationships to nature cannot replace the other one where man has to appropriate nature for his or her biological life. it only shows that the human relationship to nature in modern times is not necessarily destructive. but in order to find a convincing idea of how to orient our activities in the ecological dimension of our lives we have to take up this hint and at the same time we have to transcend the limits of aesthetics. traditionally the category of fiction indicates these limits. the order of nature is a fiction if it runs against the experience of its unbalanced contingent and challenging character in human life. what we need is a trans-aesthetic idea of the human relationship to nature, in which the human nature is seen as a synthesis of nature and culture, as a bridge combining both into a coherent life form, namely our human life form. this is the most important challenge to rüsen _______ 14 cf. the paper by elise tempelhoff, presented at this conference. (will be submitted for peer review en possible publication in a later issue of td – editor.) 275 our interpretation of nature and of ourselves. we should no longer emphasize the gap between humanity and nature, but its togetherness, its interrelatedness. we should start from the elementary human life form which always has already integrated nature simply by the human body. our body is the natural place of manifesting culture; it is a necessary condition of bringing it into existence, of coining a human face onto nature. by the body pre-given natural circumstances of human life are transformed into an appropriated ones. this transformation has a temporal perspective. thematizing this temporality or historicity, we have to ask anew for the evolutionary process which combines human history and natural history into one encompassing procedure. doing this we follow the track of argumentation, one of the leading german humanists in the axial time of modernity, the 18th century, johann gottfried herder has left to us.15 but this argumentation leads us to an open question and an unsolved problem. till now the evolutionary process as a matter of the history of nature has been interpreted without any reference to elements of sense, meaning and significance as they are effective in human life.16 the biological idea of evolution does not include any element of meaning which can be picked up and introduced into the cultural framework of human world view, of understanding nature and the human world. on the other hand the usual patterns of human history refer to criteria of historical sense, which exclude nature, at least in its reference to the non-natural character of the constitutive factors of human culture. a renaturalisation of human culture is no solution, because it excludes convincing sense criteria as long as we take seriously our scientific and technological relationship to nature. on the other side a culturalization of nature is no solution as well. it would put the whole realm of nature under the category of culture which has been developed to indicate the difference between the natural world and the human world with its values and norms and patterns of meaning, sense and significance. so at the end of my argumentation i present an intellectual embarrassment. but that should not lead us into despair and intellectual escapism (like pseudo-natural romanticism or a culturalism in understanding nature). instead, it should encourage us to look at reflections on a complex relationship _______ 15 cf. p hanns reill, ritalising nature in the enlightenment. (university of california press, berkeley, 2005.) 16 a remarkable exemption is g hüther, die evolution der liebe: was darwin bereits ahnte und die darwinisten nicht wahrhaben wollen, (3. aufl., vandenhoeck & ruprecht, göttingen, 2003). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 265-276. 276 rüsen human nature as an already achieved synthesis of nature and culture. i understand this argument as a plea for a humanism which may overcome the distinction between humankind and nature not by ignoring their difference, but by looking at their synthesis in an encompassing temporal perspective. within such a perspective humanism becomes mediated if not reconciled with nature. when coping with this task humanism enters a new epoch of its development. it can keep up its traditional reference to nature as a potential for the cultural achievements of humankind. at the same time humanism gets a new future perspective within which it gains a new transcultural universalism. since nature, which has to be re-integrated into culture, is shared by all human beings it is fundamental that ‘culturalization’ has to be understood as being transculturally universalistic. we humans start our lives as cultural beings in the same way. before we become culturally different (mainly by language) we are already the same cultural beings. we share the constitutive abilities of the human mind which distinguishes us from animals.17 on the level of intercultural discourse today this common ground has not yet sufficiently explicated. we may and we should find ourselves as humans again by sharing common humanity not beyond but within our cultural diversity and plurality. this new humanism is a necessary cultural condition for solving the ecological problems we all are endangered by. _______ 17 cf. m tomasello, die kulturelle entwicklung des menschlichen denkens: zur evolution der kognition, (suhrkamp, frankfurt am main, 2002). abstract introduction theoretical and conceptual framework methods results implications and recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) agnetha arendse department of educational studies, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa juliana smith department of educational studies, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa citation arendse, a. & smith, j., 2019, ‘the role of parliament in promoting active citizenship in relation to the grade 11 life orientation in the south african curriculum’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a629. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.629 original research the role of parliament in promoting active citizenship in relation to the grade 11 life orientation in the south african curriculum agnetha arendse, juliana smith received: 02 nov. 2018; accepted: 01 july 2019; published: 22 nov. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the parliament of the republic of south africa plays a pivotal role in promoting active citizenship to ensure the deepening of democracy. this article, as based on the study by arendse, explored the extent to which parliament as a key participatory institution promotes active citizenship in relation to the grade 11 life orientation (lo) curriculum in south africa. a qualitative, interpretive approach was employed. however, data were gathered through the crystallisation approach using different methods of gathering data such as document study, questionnaires and focus group interviews, which involved 461 grade 12 lo learners who had completed the grade 11 lo curriculum during 2012 and seven lo educators. the findings suggest that there is: (1) lack of exposure, knowledge and understanding about parliament; (2) lack of public education programmes and initiatives about parliament; and (3) limited information about parliament in the lo curriculum. keywords: active citizenship; citizenship education; life orientation; parliament of the republic of south africa; public participation. introduction this article focuses on the extent to which parliament as a key participatory institution promotes active citizenship in relation to the life orientation (lo) curriculum. south africa has undergone radical transformation from an apartheid system to a democracy, and new policies and mechanisms were put in place to address the inequalities of the past (smith & arendse 2016). since 1994, all sectors embarked on this transition with its aim of instilling a culture of democracy in south africa. a system of co-operative governance emerged which includes the three arms of state, namely legislature (parliament), executive (government) and the judiciary (courts). as one of the arms of state, parliament is regarded as one of the key participatory institutions to promote active citizenship in a democracy. in response to radical transformation from apartheid to democracy, the education department initiated curriculum changes to embrace the notion of a democratic south africa. the curriculum is thus based on principles that were inspired by the constitution, including transformation, human rights, inclusivity and social justice. in essence, the curriculum aims to equip learners with the necessary knowledge, values and skills in order to promote active citizenship in a democracy (department of basic education [dbe] 2010:4). furthermore, parliament initiated various mechanisms to provide the public with an opportunity to participate actively in its processes such as law-making and oversight (parliament of the republic of south africa [rsa] 2010). in order to participate optimally and meaningfully in democratic processes, it is thus essential to be informed and educated about the relevant processes. however, the study revealed that there is a lack of education programmes and initiatives about parliament and its processes. this implies that the public are not well informed enough to make meaningful contributions to democratic processes. furthermore, the results confirm the reason for apathy about parliament amongst learners and educators. since 1994, south africa embarked on a democracy. democracy has many meanings to different people, which implies that its definition is broad and contextual. for example, democracy is about freedom, respect, liberties and having your voice heard (honohan 2005; sen 1999). there are different types of democracies, namely direct, representative and participatory democracy. in the south african context, a representative participatory democracy approach was employed. in a representative democracy, the elected representatives solely represent the views of the people (calland 1999), whilst in a participatory democracy the public is actively involved in the decision-making of the government (de villiers 2001). it therefore becomes imperative for citizens to be informed and educated about democratic processes to participate optimally in participatory structures. education plays a vital role in promoting active citizenship, yet many educators lack substantial knowledge and understanding about a key democratic institution such as parliament. there have been various education initiatives aiming to promote active citizenship. for example, the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) is based on principles such as social transformation, human rights, inclusivity and social justice, which were built on the values inspired by the constitution (dbe 2011b:4). more specifically, the lo curriculum addresses skills; knowledge; and values about the self, the environment, responsible citizenship; a healthy and productive life; social engagement; recreation and physical activity, careers and career choices; with an emphasis on the importance of the application of skills and values in real-life situations; and participation in physical activity, in community organisations and initiatives (dbe 2010:9). furthermore, parliament, as one of the key participatory institutions, has many public participation initiatives, with the intention of increasing active citizenship in a democratic south africa. these initiatives include annual events such as taking parliament to the people, women’s parliament, youth parliament and the state of the nation address (parliament of rsa 2010). in addition, parliament has structured processes for active participation including making submissions, petitions, lobbying, representation and contacting a member of parliament (mp). sections 56 (d) and 69 (d) of the south african constitution make provision for public participation by enabling the national assembly and the national council of provinces to receive petitions and submissions from individuals or institutions (constitution of the republic of south africa [rsa] 1996). the department of education plays a pivotal role in educating learners about active participation in democratic processes with the intention to create learners who will become active and responsible citizens. however, this article shows that grade 12 learners were ill-informed about the aspects relating to active citizenship, which may be indicative of a mismatch between the intention of the curriculum and the reality of its implementation. in both instances, there are intentions to equip and empower the public to become active citizens. however, the lack of knowledge and understanding of democratic processes implies that there is a disjuncture between intention and implementation. theoretical and conceptual framework theoretical framework the study by arendse was guided by the teachings of paulo freire, a critical theorist and education philosopher who argues strongly for political education (mccowan 2006). he believes that individuals are not naturally ready to participate in politics but have to be educated in democratic politics (torres & teodoro 2007). freire’s work revolves around a concept called ‘praxis’, which is about analysis, discussion and action to change a situation in order to create a new situation and for true learning to occur (harmon 1975). in other words, ‘praxis’ is about an integration of reflection and action, practice and theory, critical thinking and doing. critical theorists, including paulo freire not only describe a situation from a specific point of view but rather aim to change the situation as critical theory tends to create a sense of awareness about social issues, and it has the potential to critique and initiate transformation through action (ewert 1991; wright 2007). critical thinking, action and consciousness are very important and imperative to the democratic process as they promote dialogue, which is the key to democracies. freire firmly believes that schools are agents of change and should be responsible for educating learners about the aspects of democracy and for teaching learners how to become critical thinkers in society (freire 1971). it can thus be said that education for active citizenship including democracy and human rights should be about critical thinking, self-reflection and emancipation through education and empowerment (arendse 2014). conceptual framework the conceptual framework that formed part of the literature, together with the theoretical framework that underpinned the study, guided the study (vaughn 2008). it provided an ‘understanding of active citizenship’, ‘education for active citizenship’, ‘parliament and active citizenship’ and ‘life orientation curriculum and active citizenship’. it discussed parliament and the south african curriculum in relation to active citizenship in a democracy. understanding active citizenship active citizenship has different meanings in diverse contexts (european commission 2007). for example, in germany the focus is on political education, whilst in france it is on civic knowledge, and in england, it is on citizenship education. countries such as estonia, sweden and portugal emphasise social education, values-based education or personal and social development (nelson & kerr 2005:10). active citizenship not only allows citizens to access rights and obligations but inherently it entails education, practice and involvement in democratic processes (european commission 2007). citizens should thus understand that they have the power to influence decision-making in political processes through participation in processes such as voting, petitions and joining political parties and volunteer organisations. being an active citizen can result in social transformation and the eradication of inequality (mccloskey 2017), which equips learners with the skills, values, knowledge and understanding needed to analyse problems critically and devise actions to address them. active citizenship develops an awareness of interdependence, an attitude of civic self-restraint and openness to deliberative engagement. active citizenship, regardless of the various contexts, revolves around the notion of action, of involvement, education and practice (european commission 2007). active citizenship involves values, knowledge, skills, attitude and context. an active citizen can therefore be defined as a citizen who strives to build a better society democratically by being respectful of the opinions of others, one who is committed and who openly challenges the status quo for the good of all. active citizenry and social activism are necessary for democracy and development to flourish (national development plan 2030 [ndp] 2012). this implies that the state cannot merely act on behalf of the people through representation only; it must act with the people, working together with other institutions to provide opportunities for the advancement of all communities. the government therefore needs to provide the channels for ordinary citizens to influence decision-making and resource allocation for the future of their communities, towns and cities. education for citizenship citizens need to be empowered to become actively involved in democratic processes. a means of empowerment could be through various civic education programmes. it is noteworthy that the nature of civic education programmes relies heavily on the context within which they may be applied. for example, citizenship education programmes may include aspects such as status, identity, civic virtue and agency, or they may address various perspectives on citizenship such as liberal, communitarian and civic republican perspectives. regardless of the context, however, it is argued that citizenship education programmes should prepare learners to become active citizens by ensuring that they acquire the necessary skills and attitudes to contribute to the development and well-being of the society in which they live (european commission 2012). the value of education for citizenship is embedded in the notion that every society ideally needs citizens who positively contribute to the well-being and existence of its nation. furthermore, nurturing active citizenship enhances the growth of a democratic nation, promoting citizen participation in democratic processes. education allows citizens to become aware of their environment and the social and economic options available to them (kuye 2007). it is also vital for citizens to know and understand their rights as stipulated in the constitution. the bill of rights in chapter 2 of the constitution (constitution of rsa 1996) highlights all the rights and responsibilities that all citizens can exercise. however, the study by arendse suggests that the public is not well informed about the rights that they can access. there is a need, therefore, for an education in citizenship, which ideally entails aspects relating to democracy, human rights, inclusivity and public participation. parliament and active citizenship public participation and involvement in participatory processes is crucial for the success of a democracy (institute for democracy association in south africa [idasa] 2012). there are different ways in which the public can actively engage with parliament to influence decision-making processes (parliament of rsa 2010). parliament promotes public participation in its processes through public education activities or initiatives (parliamentary communication services [pcs] 2007). a public education office was thus established to provide information and ongoing curriculum development and education about the processes, roles and structures of parliament to communities; to conduct a visitors-to-parliament programme; and to facilitate meaningful interface sessions between mps for visitors (pcs 2007). south africa has a multi-party democracy that provides citizens aged 18 years and older the opportunity to vote for a political party of their choice to represent them in decision-making processes in parliament. the number of seats a political party gets, in proportion to the number of votes, is called proportional representation (parliament of rsa 2010). proportional representation means that a political party obtains a specific number of seats in parliament according to the number of votes it receives during elections. political parties have constituencies within the communities where mps become a direct link between the community and government to ensure government by the people under the constitution. citizens have a right to raise concerns at their constituencies and the mps in turn raise these issues on behalf of the community in parliament for further debates and discussions. however, in theory, the public can participate in parliament in this one way, yet in practice, it is apparent that the constituencies are not very visible, and people may not know where their constituencies are situated. the facilitation of public participation and involvement in its processes thus remain central to the mandate of parliament within the context of a participatory and representative democracy. sections 59 and 72 of the constitution thus compel parliament to facilitate public involvement in its legislative and other processes (constitution of rsa 1996). life orientation curriculum and active citizenship the lo curriculum is regarded as the main vehicle for the development of knowledge, values and skills about active citizenship. the curriculum is based on principles including transformation, social justice, human rights and inclusivity. the lo curriculum addresses skills relating to responsible citizenship including the application of these skills in real-life situations (dbe 2011b). the inclusion of these skills suggests that the national curriculum promotes active citizenship in a democracy. it is thus evident in the policy statements that the vision expressed in the curriculum is to equip learners with the necessary knowledge and skills to become active citizens making meaningful contributions to society (dbe 2010). human rights concepts have thus been infused into subjects such as life orientation with a focus on responsible citizenship. human rights and citizenship education have become integral to the aims of the lo curriculum (keet et al. 2001). however, many challenges have emerged with the introduction of citizenship education in the lo curriculum, especially as it relates to integration across subjects and lack of resources. integration across disciplines may minimise the relevant content knowledge (department of education [doe] 1997; gillespie 2002; rooth & schlebusch 2000), which implies that it may lose the essence of the concept or topic. methods this study was conducted within a qualitative research paradigm with the aim of obtaining an in-depth understanding of the extent to which parliament promotes active citizenship in a democracy. research design: case study a qualitative case study was conducted to explore the extent to which learners are prepared for active citizenship in relation to parliament and the lo curriculum in context, using a variety of data sources (baxter & jack 2008). an interpretivist approach was conducted as it considered the lo learners’ and educators’ experiences and reality (terre blanche & durrheim 2006), and it sought to capture their everyday lives in order to interpret the meaning and get a deeper understanding of their perceptions about democratic structures (henning, van rensburg & smit 2004). five schools were selected as a case from the metro south education district in the western cape, which made it possible to explore the perceptions and understanding of grade 12 learners and lo educators about parliament as a democratic structure which generated rich descriptions where many views and numerous quotations from different voices are provided. data collection methods and instruments questionnaires were administered to establish the level of both learners and educators’ knowledge about parliament and active citizenship as well as their understanding of the concept ‘public participation’. this informed the interview schedule for follow-up focus group interviews. focus group interviews with a sample of 40 grade 12 learners, who completed the grade 11 lo curriculum in 2012 and six lo educators, were conducted. the focus group interviews were conducted to provide an in-depth understanding of participants’ perceptions about relevant concepts. they also sought to provide a rich description of the phenomenon (schostak 2002). in addition to questionnaires and focus group interviews, document study was conducted. document study can be described as an examination of written materials that contain information about the topic under investigation (strydom & delport 2005). various parliamentary documents were studied such as business plans, policy imperatives and information publications, as well as well as curriculum policy documents of the doe. the data were crystallised as information was collected from different sources and by using different instruments, which thus validated the responses in relation to the research question (babbie & mouton 2001). procedure for data collection ethical clearance was obtained from the university of the western cape senate research ethics committee. permission to conduct research was also granted by the western cape education department (wced), metro south education district (msed) office and the schools. informed consent from lo educators and consent from the parents of grade 12 learners was obtained for participation in the administration of the questionnaires as well as the focus group interviews. schools were representative in terms of race, age, socio-economic status and levels of resources. ethical principles were adhered to whereby participants were assured of privacy, confidentiality and anonymity, and participants had the right to withdraw at any stage of the research process. data analysis as this study referred to in this article explored the knowledge about and understanding of active citizenship on the part of grade 12 learners, and explored various concepts relating to active citizenship in a democracy, thematic and document analyses were used (coolican 1999). data from the questionnaires were captured and coded on an excel spreadsheet only, and it was not statistically analysed through statistical methods and techniques. document analysis included an examination of various policy and institutional texts from the national curriculum and parliament, with the aim of searching for connections with the research questions as well as examining patterns and inconsistencies that may have emerged in this regard. focus group interviews were conducted with grade 12 learners and lo educators, from which various categories and themes emerged, and these themes were categorised for in-depth discussion. research participants and context the participants included 461 grade 12 learners and seven lo educators from five schools in msed in the wced. a purposive sampling method was used which ensured that the participants selected were information-rich relating to the purpose of the study (gall, borg & gall 1996). in total, 757 grade 12 learners were invited to participate, 461 learners of whom completed and returned the questionnaire. in addition, 40 learners participated in the focus group interviews. seven educators were invited to participate, four educators of whom returned the questionnaire and six of whom participated in the focus group interviews. ethical consideration all participants were treated with respect and sensitivity. as noted earlier before conducting the research, permission to conduct research was requested from the wced, msed office and schools; informed consent from lo educators and consent from the parents of grade 12 learners was obtained. it should be noted that most research projects conform to widely accepted principles such as obtaining informed consent, ensuring voluntary participation and preserving confidentiality and privacy. the wced and the msed offices granted permission to conduct research in the schools. all participants received a formal letter of consent requesting to participate in the research. the letter provided information about the nature of the study and the conditions for participation. it also included an attached reply slip which required signatures as consent from both the lo educators and the relevant principals of the schools represented. parental consent for minors was required and obtained from grade 12 lo learners. results the results of the data presented below reflect the views and perceptions of the participants, including the documents studied, as these relate to the way in which parliament promotes active citizenship and how these views feature in the curriculum. questionnaires the questionnaires generated mainly quantitative data through the crystallisation approach, using different methods of gathering data. the research instruments included semi-structured focus group interviews and questionnaires. the questionnaire response rate was generally good for learners (61%) and educators (67%). the purpose of the questionnaire was to determine: (1) the level of knowledge about parliament, (2) the extent to which participants were exposed to aspects relating to parliament and (3) to what the extent of participation in the processes of parliament. learners’ responses to the questionnaires learners are generally uninformed about parliament. for example, 62% did not know the number of houses of parliament and 70% did not know how to participate in parliament. in addition, 67% did not know who makes the laws in the country. fifty per cent of the learners were never informed about the structures and functions of parliament and 50% indicated that they were informed to a certain extent mainly through the media. eighty-two per cent of the learners noted that they had never visited parliament. in relation to the way in which parliament features in the lo curriculum, 68% indicated that the lo curriculum does not teach them about parliament. however, the majority of the learners (96%) knew that 18 is the voting age. educators’ responses to the questionnaires educators demonstrated basic knowledge about parliament. seventy-five per cent knew there is a difference between parliament and government, and 75% knew parliament makes laws. however, none of the educators (100%) had visited parliament prior to the study. the majority of the educators indicated that they were informed about parliament through the media. seventy-five per cent of the educators had an idea of ways to participate in parliament but had never actively participated themselves; for example, they had never made a submission to parliament or attended a public hearing. in relation to the way in which parliament is featured in the lo curriculum, the majority of educators stated that the curriculum provides content about parliament. focus group interviews grade 12 learners had limited knowledge about parliament and did not know ways to participate and how to get involved in parliamentary processes: ‘the only thing i know about parliament is what i see on the news, with like jacob zuma and all [sic].’ (school b, learner 13, grade 12) ‘i think the function of parliament is to acknowledge people of what is going on in the country and try to make it better, like the housing, education, schooling system, water, all of these problems, to solve this problems for the community or the country [sic].’ (school d, learner 38, grade 12) educators had very limited understanding of parliament and how to participate in parliamentary processes. educators are aware that they can participate but had never participated before. however, they were more knowledgeable about participation at local government level: ‘i think it starts in your community where you have got different wards and if there’s a local ward and there’s something affecting your local area and i think from there you can have input and i think from there it goes up [sic].’ (school c, educator c1, female) with regard to the difference between parliament and government, educators understood that there is a difference. however, they do not understand the different roles and functions of each arm of state: ‘just in terms of parliament making the laws, it’s actually the legislature that implements them isn’t it? from here it goes up to pretoria, that’s how they make sure that the laws that are made here are implemented [sic].’ (school e, educator e1, female) document study various documents were studied relating to parliament and the curriculum. the documents revealed that parliament has a range of public participation mechanisms in place that promote active citizenship. the establishment of civic education and outreach programmes in parliament suggest that, at the onset of a new democratic parliament, the aim was to ensure that the public has a voice by influencing decision-making through political representatives in parliament. this information was expressed as follows: parliament provides access, as well as civic education and outreach programmes where needed, to build the relationship between parliament and the people (parliament of rsa 2006:113). parliament, as a participatory institution, has developed numerous programmes and projects to educate citizens about its role and processes and has undertaken initiatives to bring parliament closer to citizens. the following statement emphasises the significance of public participation: the participation of the public in the processes of parliament, their access to the institution and its members, and information provided to the public remain a vital focus of parliament. (parliament of rsa 2012:13) since 1994, it has become possible for all citizens to become involved in parliament through various public participation activities including public hearings, outreach programmes, radio programmes and broadcasts, television broadcasts, publications, newsletters, promotional material and the website. in addition, parliament’s sectoral programmes for public participation include the people’s assembly, taking parliament to the people, the women’s parliament and the youth parliament (parliament of rsa 2012). furthermore, the public education office in parliament has initiated the development of a parliamentary curriculum that can be useful for educators to use as resources when teaching content relating to active citizenship and parliament. the publication, understanding parliament – a teacher’s guide (parliament of rsa 2011b), discusses various topics including democracy, nation building, the constitution, the three arms of state, law-making and committees, amongst others. the grade 11 life orientation curriculum includes content about democratic participation in life, democratic participation and democratic structures. this suggests that educators may choose any democratic structure to teach the content and parliament may not be the democratic structure of choice for the teacher. however, the lo curriculum provides limited information about democratic structures such as parliament, which is one of the highest institutions of the country with democratic or participatory mechanisms in place (arendse 2014). this may be the reason for the gap in the curriculum relating to active citizenship and related concepts such as democracy, human rights, citizenship, inclusivity and public participation. in summary, the document study reveals that there have been many initiatives by parliament and the department of education to promote active citizenship. however, there seems to be a mismatch with the implementation of such initiatives as much more is required to inform, educate and empower citizens to be able to participate and make meaningful contributions in democratic processes such as law-making and oversight. this is evident from the lack of knowledge and understanding amongst teachers to deliver knowledge about the role of parliament effectively. implications and recommendations this article explored the extent to which parliament promotes active citizenship in relation to the lo curriculum. the results demonstrate that grade 12 learners were not aware of how parliament functions, which could be the cause of apathy towards parliament. furthermore, they were not aware that the public can influence decision-making in parliament. grade 12 learners were also not aware that parliament is the national law-making body. this was evident because they had not been exposed to parliament in any way. for example, they had never visited parliament, they were not informed about parliament, they did not know how to participate in the processes and activities of parliament, and the lo curriculum does not provide adequate content to equip educators to teach about the role and work of parliament. however, it is worth noting that parliament as a key participatory institution is mandated by the constitution to facilitate public access and involvement in its processes in order to promote public participation and active citizenship (constitution of rsa 1996). this mandate compels parliament to ensure that members of the public are informed and equipped to participate in the processes of the institution. citizens need to be equipped to manage their lives in the maze-like cultural and political environments in which they find themselves. by acquiring an education and developing skills, citizens young and old would be enhancing their economic competitiveness. every citizen can do something useful for the development of their country and to live in better conditions (shakaia 2016). the study therefore suggests that active citizenship should be taught in school, including teaching about parliament as it relates to active citizenship. teaching active citizenry in schools is necessary as it empowers citizens from a young age to be able to make meaningful contributions to society and thus become responsible and active citizens. the study highlights that learners have not been prepared effectively to participate in democratic processes and structures. this finding is thus inconsistent with the intentions expressed in the national curriculum to equip learners with the knowledge, skills and values to become responsible and active citizens (dbe 2011b). in addition, educators lack substantial knowledge and understanding about parliament. the lack of understanding of roles of arms of state is an indicator either of apathy towards political processes or and they are just not well informed about democratic processes. educators in this study had never participated in any process or activity of parliament. the study therefore suggests that learners have not been well informed about parliament, be it through the curriculum or parliamentary educational programmes and initiatives. the curriculum does not teach learners about parliament as it merely focuses on democratic structures in general. it is quite clear that there is a lack of knowledge and understanding about parliament amongst learners and educators at school level. evidently, there has been limited exposure to parliament, yet educating members of the public about the processes of parliament is a prerequisite for meaningful public participation (parliament of rsa 2007). the findings indicate that the impact of existing parliamentary education programmes may not necessarily increase participation in participatory institutions such as parliament. reaching many citizens is one thing; however, the extent to which communities are able to utilise the information to participate optimally in democratic processes is debatable. information does not necessarily lead to active citizenship because citizens should first believe that they have the power either as an individual or in a group to make a difference in their community (liberman, posner & tsai 2014). conversely, the parliamentary curriculum thus presents opportunities to learn about democracy, responsible citizenship, public participation and the structure, roles and functions of parliament (parliament of rsa 2011a). the lo curriculum neither provides adequate content specifically about parliament nor does restricts information about participation in one institution such as parliament; however, it provides some content on democratic structures through public participation activities (dbe 2011a). it is therefore the schools’ prerogative to select a democratic structure for teaching and learning, hence placing a huge responsibility on parliament to educate the public about its processes. the primary challenges pertaining to effective public participation range from lack of sufficient information and lack of educational materials that may be regarded as leading factors to a lack of strong civil society interest and participation in democratic processes (scott 2009). parliament has, indeed, since 1994 initiated programmes to promote public participation in its processes and activities. one of parliament’s strategic objectives focuses on promoting public participation in its legislative processes (parliament of rsa 2013). furthermore, there are existing public education programmes in place such as public education workshops, publications, electronic-based media and parliament’s curriculum (parliament of rsa 2012). these programmes encourage the public to participate actively in and influence decision-making in democratic structures such as parliament. many authors agree that education is a prerequisite for active and meaningful participation in democratic processes (cecchini 2003; european commission 2007; honohan 2005; hooper 2013; houtzager & acharya 2010; kisby & sloam 2012; mckenzie 1993; meyer 1995; nelson & kerr 2005; unesco 1998, 2005). the lo curriculum content could be enhanced through educational partnerships with democratic structures such as parliament. learners from grades r to 12, especially from senior phase, and educators would benefit from extensive exposure to information and education relating to democratic processes within a structure like parliament. conclusion in light of the findings suggesting that there is a lack of understanding and knowledge about parliament, it is imperative to increase the level of awareness and education about parliament as a key participatory institution. parliament should continue developing active citizenship curricula that could be made available as a resource for formal, informal and non-formal education programmes. there should be an attempt by parliament to become more visible and accessible to the public by integrating their programmes across the various sectors, including all spheres of government and organs of state. furthermore, the lo curriculum could explore enhancing the citizenship education component with extensive information on the work of parliament and explore various ways to increase access to information on democratic processes. the focus of one of the strategic objectives of parliament’s is on strengthening public participation in its processes and activities, including law-making and oversight. as a key participatory institution that plays a vital role in promoting active citizenship in south africa, parliament and the department of education are thus obliged to ensure that citizens should be optimally informed, educated and empowered to be able to make meaningful contributions to democratic processes such as the law-making processes. the challenge thus remains that public education programmes and initiatives at parliament require much work and development in order to enhance active citizenship programmes. in addition, democratic structures should find strategic ways to inform and educate members of the public optimally. adequate funding should therefore be made available to educate and inform the south african population. it is worth noting that a healthy democracy requires each citizen to know his or her rights and enables them to exercise their rights in a democratic society by influencing political decision-making. education for citizenship should be regarded as being central to active citizenship. it should thus become a tool for educating children from an early age to become informed citizens in order to be able to participate actively in and contribute meaningfully to society (unesco 1998). the national curriculum could benefit from educating children from an early age about active citizenship by strengthening the existing infusion of citizenship education. acknowledgements the authors thank the western cape education department for granting permission to conduct the case study by agnetha arendse. they also thank the metro south education district and the participating schools (including principals, educators, learners and parents) that co-operated to make this study possible. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions a.a. conducted the research and contributed mainly to the literature and methodology. j.s. supervised the research, proofread and contributed mainly to the discussion and conclusion. both authors conceptualised the study. funding information the university of the western cape will fund this article. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors references arendse, a., 2014, ‘the grade 11 life orientation curriculum: towards preparation for active 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presentation by professor roger vaughn, bournemouth university, london. wright, e.o., 2007, ‘the tasks of emancipatory social science’, in e.o. wright (ed.), envisioning real utopias, pp. 11–29, verso, london. abstract introduction literature review: absence of workers’ voices and views research methodology findings discussion and conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) mondli s. hlatshwayo centre for education rights and transformation, university of johannesburg, south africa citation hlatshwayo, m.s., 2017, ‘the expanded public works programme: perspectives of direct beneficiaries’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a439. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.439 original research the expanded public works programme: perspectives of direct beneficiaries mondli s. hlatshwayo received: 07 apr. 2017; accepted: 01 aug. 2017; published: 12 sept. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract scholarship on the expanded public works programme (epwp) in south africa tends to focus on quantitative evaluation to measure the progress made in the implementation of epwp projects. the number of employment opportunities created by epwp, demographic profiling, skills acquired by beneficiaries and training opportunities related to the programme form the basis of typical statistical evaluations of it, but exclude comment by the workers who participate in its projects. based on primary sources, including in-depth interviews, newspaper reports and internet sources, this article seeks to provide a qualitative review of the epwp from the perspective of the beneficiaries of municipal epwp projects. various south african government sectors hire epwp workers to provide local services such as cleaning and maintaining infrastructure, but the employment of these workers can still be regarded as precarious, in the sense that they have no job security, earn low wages and have no benefits such as medical aid or pension fund. the interviewees indicated that, although they appreciate the temporary employment opportunities provided by the epwp, they also experience health and safety risks and lack the advantages of organised labour groupings. their main disadvantage, however, is that they cannot access permanent employment, which offers better wages and concomitant benefits. introduction by presenting and analysing the views and perspectives of workers employed in the expanded public works programme (epwp), this article highlights key issues related to the ways in which the programme and other government projects address the social and economic challenges facing south africa. these issues should be debated by policymakers and investigated by researchers so they can help to view the epwp beneficiaries as social agents, capable of playing a major role in an impartial assessment of government initiatives such as the epwp. in the south african context, especially in the post-apartheid era, those involved in the social sciences have initiated a number of projects to advance the development and expansion of research regarding the impact of government policies on various sections of the south african public, especially the economically disadvantaged (bruce 2015; langa 2015). the purpose of this article is to capture the voices of workers directly involved in epwp projects. because it is based on qualitative research, it is hoped that this study will be of use to policymakers in reviewing the implementation of the epwp in order to improve the conditions of its workers. there is already some recognition by the south african government that the epwp requires such policy reforms (department of public works 2015). the epwp workers interviewed as part of this research pointed out that that they provided vital services to local, provincial and national government, mainly by cleaning and maintaining premises and infrastructure. the income they earned helped them to survive; they used their wages to purchase food and electricity and could begin to deal with other challenges that they and their families faced. however, they were of the opinion that the temporary nature of their jobs, the low wages they earned and the poor working conditions they were subjected to were issues that should be addressed by the government. before presenting the views and perspectives of the interviewees in more detail, this article reviews the existing literature on the epwp, emphasising the need to include the voices and views of epwp workers in the scholarly domain. this is followed by an account of how the relevant data were collected and analysed. this article then summarises responses to interview questions, in which epwp workers express their views and perspectives regarding their conditions of work, wages and benefits. this is followed by a discussion of the themes that emerged from the interviews, from which conclusions are then drawn. this section also examines ways in which government policy has, indirectly, already responded to the problems described by the epwp workers. literature review: absence of workers’ voices and views formally introduced in 2003, the epwp can be traced back to the reconstruction and development programme (rdp) implemented by south africa’s governing party, the african national congress (anc). the rdp viewed the epwp as ‘the key area where special measures to create jobs can link to building the economy and meeting basic needs … in redressing apartheid-created infrastructural disparities’ (anc 1994:22). the epwp thus had three functions: job creation, developing local infrastructure and the provision of basic services (anc 1994). the epwp’s job creation function had a double purpose: to create short-term employment and to alleviate poverty in the context of generalised unemployment among disadvantaged and marginalised citizens (altman & hemson 2007; mkhatshwa-ngwenya 2016; moeti 2014). altman and hemson (2007:5) further state that the epwp ‘aimed to provide work opportunities, training and a launch-pad for trainees into the labour market’. in reviewing the literature on the epwp, it is necessary to highlight its strengths and the notable gaps in scholarship relating to it. the literature can be divided into two main strands. the first stream of the literature tends to emphasise discussion of the targets, focusing on the number of workers absorbed by epwp projects, as well as the training and demographics of epwp workers (altman & hemson 2007; mkhatshwa-ngwenya 2016; moeti 2014). although this quantitative aspect of the epwp is crucial in assisting social scientists in understanding the reach of the epwp, a limitation of this literature is that it tends to exclude the voices of epwp workers, although these workers are the backbone of the epwp as they do the actual work. the second stream of the literature seeks to highlight the conditions of epwp workers without providing a platform for them to articulate their views and issues (samson 2007; theron 2014), in spite of the fact that they have an important role to play in shaping policy and practice relating to their working conditions. the south african government’s national development plan (ndp) seeks to improve the living conditions of people of south africa and to create a more equitable society by 2030. the ndp further states that the ‘triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality’ (national planning commission 2012:29) requires urgent attention if the fruits of democracy are to be enjoyed by all south africans. the document emphasises the statistics pertaining to the epwp. among many other proposals, the ndp calls upon the government to ‘broaden the expanded public works programme to cover 2 million fulltime equivalent jobs by 2020’ (national planning commission 2012:29). in assessing the epwps quantitatively, altman and hemson (2007) assert: the epwp is not far off its job creation target as originally framed. it has generated approximately 716,400 work opportunities in three years, as against a target of one million over five years. (p. 10) in spite of this, these authors express the following reservation: however, these are very short-term opportunities: if the jobs are translated into the equivalent of a full-time job (that is, 230 hours per year), the five-year target would be stated as 650,000 jobs versus 220,000 generated over three years. if compared to the larger unemployment problem, the targets were set at a low level and the overall contribution to reducing unemployment is small. (altman & hemson 2007:5) according to samson (2015), who has conducted one of the most recent evaluations of the epwp in the social sector, the minimum wage or stipend received by epwp workers was supposed to be r70.59 per day in 2014. however, the epwp of the western cape government paid r3000 per month, an amount that is r500 lower than the proposed national minimum wage. however, workers in the western cape were better paid than those in other provinces. samson (2015) also notes progress with regard to compliance with the sectoral determination of the minister of labour: by 2013/2014 most programmes were compliant with these features of the md (ministerial determination), as demonstrated by the average minimum wages reported in each programme. … this represents important progress in providing income support to participants, many of whom were volunteers before the introduction of epwp-ss (social sector). (p. 26) samson’s research does not provide epwp workers with a space to air their views and perceptions on the epwp; instead, it relies on statistics. however, his contribution is valuable in the sense that it indicates that some progress has been made regarding a gradual improvement in compliance with the sectoral determination. it is necessary to acknowledge here the sterling contribution he and various other researchers have made to understanding the role and the impact of epwps statistically or quantitatively (altman & hemson 2007; phillips 2004; samson 2015; theron 2014). in their examination of the epwp, these researchers raise a number of critical issues, ranging from the social and economic targets of the epwp to labour relations. however, the quantitative literature on the epwp tends to focus exclusively on targets, incomes earned by epwp workers and the social and economic impact of the programmes (altman & hemson 2007; phillips 2004; samson 2015). although the quantitative data employed in these studies shed light on the impact of a policy on the workers, its target audience, social scientists, should also examine the impact of policy by listening to and engaging with those who benefit from programmes like the epwp. the second strand of the literature is critical of the epwp and views them as part of the state’s austerity measures, which leads to the creation of a two-tier labour system in the public sector, comprising a tiny minority of permanent state employees with benefits and decent wages, and another layer, like the epwp beneficiaries, who work under precarious conditions and earn very low wages (jacobs 2015; moyo 2013; plaatjies & nicolaou-manias 2005; samson 2007). theron (2014) concurs that epwp projects have created the work opportunities envisaged by those who conceptualised the programme. for example, theron (2014:10) states that: ‘between 1 april and 30 september 2012, the epwp reported that it created 577 575 work opportunities’. ‘work opportunities’ are generally defined as ‘temporary employment of between four to six month’s duration’. theron (2014) notes that community care workers operating in the cape town municipality established a forum that began to challenge the precarious nature of their employment and their working conditions. theron (2014:20) continues: ‘apart from job security, the issues affecting workers in non-standard employment in the public sector are as various as those affecting any other category of vulnerable employee’. these issues include health and safety problems, low wages and a dearth of benefits like medical insurance and a pension fund. although theron (2014) has tried to introduce the voices of epwp workers and their organisational responses in his work, the literature on epwps has tended not to examine conditions of work under the epwps by focusing on the views and voices of epwp workers (hemson 2015; samson 2015). because the workers have not been consulted, issues around their conditions of employment have remained unresolved to a large extent. in fact, chakwizira (2010) argues that the analysis and interrogation of the results of epwp projects should go beyond quantitative data measuring the number of roads constructed and jobs created; it also requires a qualitative examination of the conditions of the workers involved in it. this is because, as this article argues, the south african constitution and labour legislation are intended to progressively improve the lives of workers and of poor people in general, and to address and gradually eliminate social and economic inequalities (bendix 2010). in their research-based article entitled listen to those who matter the most, the beneficiaries, twersky et al. (2013) contend: in bypassing the beneficiary as a source of information and experience, we deprive ourselves of insights into how we might do better—insights that are uniquely grounded in the day-to-day experiences of the very people the programs are created for. (p. 41) the scholarly contribution of this article is therefore to go beyond the statistics and generalised impact assessments of the epwp by engaging directly with the beneficiaries who perform the epwp work that is implemented by the government at the grassroots level. this article is based on direct discussions with epwp workers, who confirmed that violations of workers’ rights occur, but also highlighted some economic benefits of epwp employment. to be more specific, the research presented here sought to solicit the views of epwp workers, who were interviewed on the nature and form of their work, and their working conditions. the workers were also asked to articulate their views on how these could be improved in the future. the aim of asking these two related questions was to contribute to the literature on the epwp by focusing on the working conditions of epwp workers, from their own perspective. research methodology the findings presented in this article are part of a wider research project on vulnerable workers, also referred to as ‘precarious workers’: those who earn low wages and have no security of employment, in five metropolitan and urban areas of south africa. twenty interviews were conducted with epwp workers in buffalo city, ekurhuleni, johannesburg, vanderbijlpark and mangaung. the data were then collated and analysed. to make sure that the interviewees were able to discuss issues freely, they were given the assurance that their names would not be revealed. an interview schedule was used that required interviewees to reflect broadly on their biographical details, work histories, experiences of working in the epwp, and their views and perspectives on epwp work. this was the main research tool for collecting their testimonies. although in-depth interviews are useful in giving interviewees a space to articulate their views and are commonly used in qualitative research (cassell 2005), they cannot provide a complete account of the topic. this is because the interviewees might not wish to reveal all the details of their personal circumstances, or because of a fear of possible embarrassment or victimisation. in any case, it is not in the nature of human beings to remember every detail: memories are fallible. however, the interviews provided valuable information about the lived experiences of epwp workers and addressed the lacunae in the literature which have been discussed. according to alsaawi (2014), combining different data-collection methods can help to overcome the limitations of interviews alone. in assembling relevant material, newspaper articles were useful sources of accurate data on events and on the views of epwp workers, municipal authorities and government officials. newspaper articles and internet sources confirmed that epwp workers earned low wages in parts of south africa. besides the issues that were targeted, they also discussed the central question of the lack of job security in epwp work. newspapers and internet sources were not cited in this article, the aim of which was to highlight the voices of the interviewees, but such sources contributed towards an understanding of the environment in which epwp workers operate and informed the formulation of the interview questions. a theme-based approach was employed in analysing the data: this involved a close reading of the interview transcripts in order to identify common themes relating to the research questions (fereday & muir-cochrane 2006). the main question addressed by the research was as follows: ‘what are the views, experiences, and perceptions of epwp workers on their recruitment, wages and working conditions?’ the study sought to understand the working conditions of epwp workers through the lens of the actual epwp employees. findings the themes that emerged from the interviews included the process of recruiting workers for epwp projects in the interviewees’ home areas, their reflections on the wages and benefits of epwp workers and the aspirations of epwp workers, which entailed advocating for permanent employment with job security and benefits. the recruitment process based on the interviews, it appeared that being a member of the anc, participating in its political activities and in ward committees was rewarded with access to work opportunities in the form of employment in epwp projects. however, not all epwp workers ascribed their employment to political activism and membership of the anc. a single parent who has always worked as a precarious worker described how she was recruited into an epwp project in bloemfontein: ‘i was recruited by a ward committee member. we used to attend anc meetings and were part of the anc’s door-to-door campaigns. … the anc has taught me a lot and it has helped me.’ (interviewee 1, bloemfontein, 04 june 2016) another respondent, who recruited the first interviewee and her sister, is an anc member and a member of the ward committee. he said: ‘in terms of my political affiliation, i am a member of anc. i joined it eight or nine years ago. before that i was a member of the south african civic organisation (sanco). … i am a ward committee member.’ (interviewee 2, bloemfontein, 04 june 2016) interviewee 2 indicated that after he was retrenched by his company, which relocated to durban, he was unemployed for five years. he joined the epwp as a general worker in 2016 and later became a supervisor, which gave him the authority to recruit and supervise other workers employed in the same project. another epwp worker, a single parent of two children, who was based in east london’s duncan village, was an anc cadre involved in campaigning for the party in the 2016 local government elections. her sister, who helped her find an employment opportunity in the epwp, is another anc cadre and a councillor in the area. when asked about how she became employed in the epwp, she responded: ‘my sister asked me if i wanted an epwp job. i said yes and i got the job. besides working as an epwp worker, i also do campaigning for the anc. we won this ward.’ (interviewee 3, east london, 04 august 2016) these interviews reveal what can be regarded as localised cadre deployment in the context of epwp work. being part of the local anc and participating in campaigns that advance its interests in these instances led to being rewarded with epwp employment opportunities. the deployment of cadres as a reward for loyalty to the anc does not occur only in the upper echelons of the government and state entities, but is also practised when placing people in poorly paid positions in the epwp. based on the interviews conducted with epwp workers, it can be concluded that this ‘cadre deployment from below’ involves awarding jobs to those who are part of local anc structures. unlike other forms of cadre deployment, it involves low wages and no employment benefits. however, such workers do earn minimal income, which is crucial in the context of high unemployment and poverty in their communities. the nature of the expanded public works programme work one of the interview questions sought to develop an understanding of the nature and forms of epwp work. the aim was to understand whether or not there were safety concerns involved in epwp work. the respondent from duncan village (quoted earlier) spoke about the difficulties of the work they are doing as employees of an epwp project in east london: ‘we clean the drainage system, sweep and clean venues of national and provincial events. this work is hard. sometimes we work in bushy areas, and one of our fellow workers was bitten by an insect. she had to go to a clinic, and had to pay for medical treatment out of her own pocket.’(interviewee 3, east london, 04 august 2016) however, the same worker indicated that a new project, initiated in the buffalo city in 2016, did take some health and safety issues into consideration. the worker said: ‘this new project takes care our health care issues. we do get safety boots, overalls, and gloves. there is an improvement regarding health and safety issues.’ (interviewee 3, east london, 04 august 2016) a female epwp employee working for the ‘clean city’ project in the ekurhuleni municipality commented: ‘we make sure that the city is clean. we sweep and pick up waste.’ (interviewee 4, germiston, 20 september 2016) she elaborated on the difficulties involved in her work and on issues of health and safety: ‘we do not have always have health and safety clothing. this then exposes us to sicknesses and diseases.’ (interviewee 4, germiston, 20 september 2016) a male epwp worker who maintains roads in johannesburg was also concerned about health and safety issues. he said: ‘we do not have enough protective clothing and tools. the employers do not respect our rights as workers. health and safety is one of our major concerns.’ (interviewee 5, johannesburg, 18 september 2016) besides the type of work and health and safety issues, epwp workers were also asked about the number of days they were employed. this was relevant in the sense that epwp work tends to be irregular and workers do not always have a five-day working week like other permanent workers. unlike the conditions in east london, where the interviewee claimed they worked five days a week doing intense manual work, epwp workers in bloemfontein worked for only two days a week. one of the epwp workers explained: ‘i started working in the epwp project in 2016. we work from 8 am to 4 pm. …we sweep the streets and we have to make sure that the township is clean.’ (interviewee 6, bloemfontein, 04 june 2016) based on these accounts by epwp workers, it can be argued that the interviewees provided crucial public services, ranging from cleaning the parks, streets and public buildings to maintaining road infrastructure. however, in the case of east london and germiston, health and safety concerns seem to have been neglected by the authorities managing the epwp work. this increased the vulnerability of the workers as they were exposed to injuries and infections. the number of working days was not standardised: some interviewees worked for five days and others for two days a week. there was also variation in the intensity of the work, with some workers complaining about carrying huge workloads for five days a week. wages and benefits wages are obviously crucial to epwp workers, enabling them to purchase essentials such as food and electricity. the testimonies of the workers revealed two interesting trends. first, the epwp workers appreciated the fact that they were earning an income from the state, which enabled them to start meeting livelihood challenges and support their households. in some households, epwp wages helped to supplement other sources of income, including social grants and wages earned by other family members. the money the epwp workers earned made a huge difference in the context of unemployment and generalised poverty. second, in some cases, workers felt strongly that the wages for epwp work were much too low, as they had to deal with the rising cost of living. an epwp worker in bloemfontein remarked: ‘we were told that we would work two days per week. we were earning r697 after uif deductions per month. my sister is also an epwp worker and we also receive a state grant. this has helped me a lot and we were able to build a room and renovate a house.’ (interviewee 5, bloemfontein, 04 june 2016) the interviewee quoted above worked in an epwp project with her sister, and they also receive state grants for single parents. both these sources of income helped them meet basic needs such as food, water and electricity, and they were also able to add a room to their two-roomed house. their combined incomes, although small, enabled this family to survive in an environment characterised by generalised poverty. it is therefore clear that the state made provision for this family in the form of epwp work and state grants. according to another interviewee who is 25 years old and lives with his mother in a township in germiston, epwp work has helped him deal with his financial problems. the interviewee commented: ‘i come from a family of four and we live with just our mother. i matriculated last year, but couldn’t further my studies. there was no money for tertiary education. i am a street sweeper working under the local municipality. the working conditions are okay. i get paid r2 200 monthly. before that, things financially were bad. i used to borrow money from a mashonisa (loan shark). i am now able to contribute to sustaining my family. i help my mother. i am doing just fine and that has to with my epwp job.’ (interviewee 6, germiston, 20 september 2016) another worker also employed working on the ‘clean city’ campaign in germiston lives in a shack in an informal settlement. he spoke about earning a low wage and having to deal with service delivery problems such as access to electricity and water. the worker reflected: ‘i live in a shack and i earn r500 a week. life is hard. we are earning very low wages. i have been part of been part of community protests which sought to deal with service delivery problems my community. these protests help us access electricity. i also supplement my income by selling recycled waste.’ (interview 7, germiston, 20 september 2016) an epwp worker in orange farm, a township south of johannesburg, was employed by the city of johannesburg to clean a local school. she raised the issue of the lack of benefits as a problem inherent in epwp employment: ‘as i’m saying that we work here we don’t have benefits but there are people who work here doing the work we are doing. they have benefits but at the end of the day you find that people who work hard it’s us. other workers who look after schools tend to have better wages and benefits, but those employed under epwp have none of that. the people who work here at school don’t do any work at all; we are the ones who work.’ (interviewee 8, johannesburg, 13 january 2017) based on these testimonies, it can be argued that the epwp workers used their wages to supplement the total incomes of their households. other sources of income included social grants and selling recycled material. in these instances, epwp work became crucial for maintaining and sustaining families, especially in the context of generalised poverty and unemployment. these positive aspects do not eliminate the fact that work conducted by epwp workers was devalued and that, by their own accounts, they earned low wages and had no other benefits. their situation was complicated by the fact that they did not have job security. the epwp workers did not have a sense of belonging as they were exposed to bad working conditions and lacked recognition for their labours. they did not participate in the same activities as permanent workers, confirming the notion of a two-tier labour market in the public sector. it should also be noted that in the past, these epwp jobs were performed by permanent workers who had benefits and were employed by municipalities. organisational rights south african workers are supposed to enjoy the right to belong to a union that advances their collective rights as workers. unions are important in the sense that they can help workers improve their working conditions and wages. in this study, epwp employees were asked whether they belonged to unions. the worker based in germiston said: ‘we have too many problems. i am a casual worker. i have not job security. health and safety is compromised. we do not have a union. no union has approached us. i guess that has to do with the fact that we are not permanent workers.’ (interviewee 7, germiston, 20 september 2016) although all workers have the right to organise and form unions and associations that advance their interests, fear of victimisation seemed to be one of the factors contributing to epwp workers’ lack of unionisation. the epwp worker in orange farm quoted earlier, voiced concerns about intimidation, which took place when she and her co-workers attempted to organise themselves. she commented: ‘we have nothing. we have no shop stewards who are supposed to represent us. the shop stewards are supposed to help us get paid decent wages. whenever workers start having meetings to discuss such things, there is someone who goes and tells our supervisor and no one wants to get fired.’ (interviewee 8, johannesburg, 13 january 2017) despite fear of victimisation, workers in orange farm went on a strike last year, demanding re-employment. one informant said: ‘it was during the time that they had stopped us; it was during the time that others went out to fight for us to come back when the employer was saying they would hire other people. the people here said you cannot hire other people when you have fired other people for no reason. they have to come back first and then you can add more people.’ (interviewee 9, johannesburg, 11 january 2017) epwp workers tended to be caught between a rock and a hard place: trade unions did not recruit them; they were not seen as part of the workforce as they were not permanent employees and were easily got rid of, yet they performed work such as cleaning buildings, which helped to maintain government institutions and infrastructure. this indicates that the current union model is currently too rigid and does not take into account the existence of precarious workers, who have flexible employment but need protection so as to advance their rights and interests. in order to fulfil its role of representing the interests of all citizens, government needs to create platforms within its workplaces where epwp workers can air their concerns without fear of harassment or victimisation. the desire for permanent employment although the epwp projects helped workers earn some income to support themselves and their families, the uncertainties of this form of employment were a source of concern. in some instances, projects were halted because of budgetary problems within local municipalities. in others, local elections led to the cancellation or delay of projects, as incoming councillors implemented different plans based on the promises they had made to supporters; this was a common occurrence in 2016. in such situations, epwp workers were left in limbo. the epwp worker in bloemfontein (quoted earlier) reflected on the uncertainties faced by epwp workers: ‘the project was stopped because they said that they were still waiting for the money from the municipality, and this is now happening for the second time, because in 2015 in november they stopped it and in january 2016 we were not operational, and this had posed huge challenges because of my wife not working. the frustration is that one is not sure whether the incoming ward councillor will ensure that the project continues or not.’ (interviewee 1, bloemfontein, 04 june 2016) another female epwp worker from bloemfontein also expressed uncertainty about the future of her work. she said: ‘i am not sure about my future, because the contract comes to an end at the end of august [2016]. we can see that the places are dirty and there is a need for permanent employees who can clean all these facilities. i do not understand why they are not employing us. i started working in the epwp since march 2016 and my contract will end in august 2016.’ (interviewee 3, east london, 04 august 2016) an epwp worker employed by the vanderbijlpark municipality expressed a sense of insecurity associated with the fact that jobs often depended on relationships with a local councillor. the worker commented: ‘i am not sure whether my contract will be renewed or not. it should come to an end at the end of march 2017. that is what i signed for. i am really not sure if i’ll get another contract again. i also heard that our councillor seems to be the one causing this uncertainty. the councillor wants to get rid of some epwp workers. our coordinator indicated that we could sign new contracts, just like the other epwp workers, but our councillor has other plans that are not being shared with us. we signed three-month contracts which were extended to another three months. they told us that this is not a permanent job, and we should give others a chance. i do not think i can apply for credit because i do not have a permanent job.’ (interview 10, vanderbijlpark, 03 march 2017) the short-term nature of epwp jobs was a source of anxiety among the epwp workers interviewed for this research. the worker above also mentioned her inability to get credit because of her low income and job insecurity, which was a common experience among these workers. epwp workers were unable to get even very small amounts of credit, so in some instances they were forced to turn to loan sharks, who charged them exorbitant interest, thus increasing their vulnerability and their financial problems. to address the insecurity and vulnerability associated with the short-term nature of ewp contracts, another epwp worker based in orange farm suggested the following: ‘what needs to be done is that we must be permanent, we must have clock cards and then we must have … that which says what you supposed to do during your working day.’ (interviewee 11, johannesburg, 13 january 2017) an epwp worker in bloemfontein (quoted earlier) spoke about her desire for permanent employment: ‘finally, i wish i can get a better job. it is my wish. my colleagues in the epwp desire a decent wage increase. we are about forty workers of which only seven are males. they [epwp workers] also want permanent jobs and benefits.’ (interviewee 1, bloemfontein, 04 june 2016) discussion and conclusion one of the first issues raised by this research is the party-based selection process for epwp projects. the interviewees indicated that being active in the local anc branch or party structure translated into being part of the epwp. this is unacceptable as these employment opportunities are supposed to be available for all south africans. during a parliamentary debate on the epwps in 2016, the deputy minister of public works, jeremy cronin, suggested that a lottery system, as used in the western cape, should be used to select epwp workers. the need for community monitoring and evaluation was also emphasised by the deputy minister (bega 2014). in response to complaints about nepotism in the recruitment processes of the epwp, as well as its working hours and working conditions, the department of public works in 2015 issued guidelines for the regulation of epwp projects. they included the following: ‘workers are recruited through a fair and transparent process. the selection of each worker must be done based on a clear set of criteria and should follow a fair and transparent process to minimize patronage and abuse.’ (department of public works 2015:2) according to the deputy minister, communities are meant to take charge and be able to influence the running of the epwp projects. it is hoped that this article will add another critical voice with regard to the workings of the epwp and that communities where epwp workers are engaged can make sure that the projects help to facilitate the development envisaged by the rdp. this article in intended to fill the gap in literature concerned with implementation of the epwp, which often fails to take into account the voices and views of the beneficiaries who carry out the actual work. the article has demonstrated that there are three related problems implicit in the epwp, namely the short-term nature of the projects, the health and safety concerns associated with them, and the low incomes earned by workers. the perspectives expressed by the epwp workers indicated that the workers wanted security in the form of permanent employment, which would entitle them to the benefits enjoyed by permanent workers. it could be argued that their aspirations were consistent with the ndp, which calls for permanent employment of epwp workers in the long term and argues that epwp jobs should be converted into full-time employment to minimise the high unemployment rate (national planning commission 2012). the epwp workers’ desire for permanent jobs was also in keeping with the rdp, which states that the epwp ought not ‘abuse labour standards nor create unfair competition within sectors of the economy’ (anc 1994:23). although the ndp plans to convert epwp ‘work opportunities’ into permanent jobs, it seems that the current temporary nature of epwp opportunities will not change in the foreseeable future. in his medium-term budget speech, the former minister of finance, pravin gordhan, stated that about 25 000 jobs would have to be cut to contain the expenditure of state departments. this would be done through attrition, meaning that staff shortages would continue to be one of the challenges facing local government and the state in general. the minister further indicated that the government planned to raise revenue through tax, by reducing the number of state employees and by reducing the budgets of municipalities and provincial governments (paton 2016). the measures that will be introduced by the new finance minister, malusi gigaba, regarding fiscal policy remain to be seen. from the interviews, it can be inferred that what complicated matters for the epwp workers canvassed for this study was that they did not have a voice in the workplace. this had to do with fear of victimisation: their concern was that if they started organising workers’ associations or forming committees or unions, management might dismiss them. the problem was compounded by the fact that there were divisions between permanent workers, who tended to belong to unions, and epwp employees who were not unionised. this finding indicates that managers in the public sector and in local government need to find ways of making sure there are platforms for epwp workers to air their views with regard to workplace issues and working conditions. concerns around health and safety could then be resolved quickly, as they do not require large expenditure. one of the main contributions of this research has been to give epwp workers a voice that tended to be absent in the evaluations of the epwp. clearly, epwp workers cannot be treated as a monolithic group: there were interviewees who accepted their conditions of work and felt that the epwp has contributed immensely to their livelihoods, but there were also those who voiced their concerns about working conditions and unfair treatment in the workplace, and who expressed their desire for permanent employment, which would help to reduce their social and economic vulnerability by providing them with job security, better wages and employee benefits. consistent with the findings of this study, according to hemson (2015:22), the international experience of epwp structures points to the fact that these programmes are ‘only effective as a temporary safety net’. this statement could be interpreted as calling for mediumand long-term strategies to deal with poverty and unemployment. the current epwp will have to be supported with permanent budgets and other government measures, and should also be directly involved in adding value creation and generating income if it is to be a permanent option. these concluding remarks now relate more directly to the topic and to beneficiaries’ statements which propose to make epwp to be sustainable as a mechanism for job creation. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references african national congress (anc), 1994, the reconstruction and development programme: a policy framework, umanyano publications, johannesburg. alsaawi, a., 2014, ‘a critical review of qualitative interviews’, european journal of business and social sciences 3(4), 149–156. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2819536 altman, m., & hemson, d., 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http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/13634/dissertation_moeti_l.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y moyo, m., 2013, how effective is epwp employment in enhancing the employability of participants once they exit these programmes? the case of the modimola integrated expanded public works programme (epwp), north west province, department of sociology research report, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, viewed 03 june 2017, from http://146.141.12.21/bitstream/handle/10539/12993/ma%20thesis_final%20%20submission_18%20june_2013.pdf?sequence=1 national planning commission, 2012, national development plan 2030: our future–make it work, national planning commission, pretoria. paton, c., 2016, ‘south africa budget – higher taxes and public sector job cuts on cards’, business day live, viewed 03 june 2017, from https://africajournalismtheworld.com/2016/10/27/south-africa-budget-higher-taxes-and-public-sector-job-cuts-on-cards/ phillips, s., 2004, ‘the expanded public works programme: 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office, geneva, viewed 03 june 2017, from http://ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_dialogue/---sector/documents/publication/wcms_310221.pdf twersky, f., buchanan, p. & threlfall, v., 2013, listening to those who matter most, the beneficiaries, stanford social innovation review, viewed 03 june 2017, from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/listening_to_those_who_matter_most_the_beneficiaries would it be inconvenient to ask: ‘what if ... ’? johann tempelhoff north west university film: an inconvenient truth. directed by davis guggenheim (2006). contemplating history from a counterfactual perspective does have a number of advantages. it is possible to glimpse at the past in the manner that derrida deconstructed reality. by taking note of what happened and what did in fact not happen, it is possible to form a picture of what could have been. had al gore been elected as president of the united states of america in 2000 the usa, almost certainly, would have signed the kyoto protocol. the world’s leading capitalist society would most certainly have been more environmentally conscious. the usa’s environmental protection agency (epa), one of the first governmental institutions of its kind in the world, would have played a far more significant role than it does at present. perhaps there might also have been a different route (away) from conflict in the middle east. instead we have today in al gore a former us vice-president who travels all over the world with an impressive slide show explaining the intricacies of global warming and the environmental change. it is true that we have been faced with similar crises in the past. there was a time when we were concerned about the earth’s ozone layer that was being depleted. there was also the famous outburst in europe in the 1970s of acid rain and its implications on forests. fear, it seems, is something that drives humanity to become aware of what we are doing to the environment. an inconvenient truth is gore’s take on making us aware of the implications of greenhouse gases on the environment. he is not a td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 517 518. 518 newcomer to environmental politics. neither is he inclined to put a fear of god into all and sundry. instead, he argues from a very convincing perspective, scientific findings, on one of the major climatic issues that we currently face. most of all, he is sincere in expressing his concerns over the climate change that is currently evident. it is no longer a political issue, he argues. we have a moral responsibility to address the issue. opponents of climate change tend to argue that the climatic history of the world tells us that we did have extreme climatic conditions in the distant past. they then also argue that we should simply accept what is happening. although this is true, we have to bear in mind that it is primarily humans who are responsible for the current process of climate change. generating electricity from coal, using more fuel-hungry vehicles and releasing toxic gases into the atmosphere are some of the most notable examples of the way in which humankind is currently changing the climate. in south africa, the major culprit of carbon emissions in africa, annually some 700 000 new cars take to the road. manufacturers are now focussing on hitting a million new vehicles per annum. our cities are becoming atmospheric danger zones as single passenger vehicles daily find their way between suburbia and the corporate zone of activity in the country’s cities. although the south african government is committed to the kyoto protocol and accepts that we need to take steps against climate change, the issue has not yet reached society at the grassroots level. for middle class south africa, an inconvenient truth could just be a very good introduction to a complex problem. gore effectively outlines the primary issues in a simple eloquent way. it’s a lot easier and more immediate than reading one of the mountains of books on climate change that currently fill bookshop shelves. what makes the movie a milestone is the fact that it has been a hit with audiences that traditionally are more accustomed to discursive masterpieces of fiction? gore, on the other hand, offers us charts and convincing arguments from the realm of natural science. maybe it is not after all a strange world we are living in. maybe, we are now approaching a point in time when the environment – after the events of hurricane katrina in the usa, last year, and this year’s floods in the southern cape – have dropped a penny, making us sit up and take note of what is happening. film reviews microsoft word 04 devroop.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 47-56. performing arts medicine: a research model for south africa k devroop1 abstract. performing arts medicine has developed into a highly specialised field over the past three decades. the performing arts medical association (pama) has been the leading proponent of this unique and innovative field with ground-breaking research studies, symposia, conferences and journals dedicated specifically to the medical problems of performing artists. similar to sports medicine, performing arts medicine caters specifically for the medical problems of performing artists including musicians and dancers. in south africa there is a tremendous lack of knowledge of the field and unlike our international counterparts, we do not have specialised clinical settings that cater for the medical problems of performing artists. there is also a tremendous lack of research on performance-related medical problems of performing artists in south africa. accordingly the purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the field of performing arts medicine, highlight some of the significant findings from recent research studies and present a model for conducting research into the field of performing arts medicine. it is hoped that this research model will lead to increased research on the medical problems of performing artists in south africa. keywords. performing, arts, medicine, south africa, musicians, research, music education. introduction over the past 30 years, performing arts medicine has evolved into a highly specialised field and followed a developmental path similar to sports medicine. the origins of this unique interdisciplinary field can be traced back to the early 1970s by dr alice branfonbrener (branfonbrener, 1991; tubiana & amadio, 2000), a pianist and medical practitioner who founded the medical programme for performing artists at northwestern university (palac, 2008). in 1983 dr branfonbrener initiated the first research symposium in aspen, colorado, entitled the medical problems of musicians (pama, 2013). this symposium eventually became known as the medical problems of musicians and dancers and led to the establishment of the performing arts medical association (pama) in 1988 (pama, 2013). accordingly, pama became the first organisation dedicated to identifying the medical problems of performing artists, recommending appropriate treatment, fostering research and 1 karendra devroop is a professor of music at unisa and nrf rated researcher. he is a widely published researcher with publications and conference presentations across north america, europe, asia and south africa. kdevroop@unisa.ac.za devroop 48 promoting educational awareness internationally (palac, 2008). to date, there are specialised clinics, research laboratories, educational institutions and a large body of medical practitioners, performers (music and dance), educators and administrators all dedicated to the promotion of performing arts medicine across the world. over the past few decades, pama and several other international performing arts medical organisations (ifpam, 2014; bapam, 2014) have heightened the awareness of the unique medical problems experienced by performing artists (devroop & chesky, 2002). one of the leading organizations that spearheaded this drive through research and education has been the texas centre for music and medicine which was founded by dr kris chesky. according to palac (2008), in 2004 dr chesky and his colleagues at the texas centre for music and medicine hosted a ground-breaking conference entitled the health promotion in schools of music. this multidisciplinary conference which was supported by the grammy foundation brought together professionals from the fields of music, medicine, audiology, engineering, education and several national organisations such as the national endowment for the arts, the grammy foundation and the national association for schools of music together with several industry professionals (hpsm, 2004). the conference resulted in a clear delineation of the various categories of medical problems experienced by musicians, a white paper on recommendations for educational institutions that was adopted by the national association for schools of music and international awareness of the field of performing arts medicine. the medical problems of musicians musicians may be at high risk for injury by virtue of their chosen profession (dommerholt, 2009). these injuries include musculoskeletal pain, overuse injuries, entrapment, peripheral neuropathies and focal dystonia. devroop & chesky (2002) also point out that the physical demands of performing a musical instrument coupled with long hours of practice could result in medical problems that impact performance and the overall health of musicians. in a series of studies conducted at the texas centre for music and medicine (devroop & chesky, 2002; chesky & devroop, 2003; chesky, devroop & ford, 2002; chesky, corns & devroop, 2000; thrasher & chesky, 1998) researchers determined that some of the performancerelated medical problems of musicians included: site-specific musculoskeletal disorders, fatigue, stage fright, headache, dizziness, blackout, eye-strain, loss of lip, sleep disturbance and hearing loss. at the health promotion in schools of music conference (hpsm, 2004), the medical problems of musicians were placed into 4 overall categories: (1) neuromusculoskeletal health, (2) vocal health, (3) hearing health and (4) psychological health. neuromusculoskeletal health deals primarily with physical injury to the human body and includes site-specific problems such as pain and/or injury to the fingers, hands, wrists, elbow, shoulder, neck, upper back and lower back. focal and embouchure dystonia commonly referred to as a “computer hard drive crash” also fall into this category (chesky, devroop & ford, 2002). vocal health includes medical problems typically associated with the voice and includes problems such as overuse of the larynx, vocal nodules and polyps, gastroesophageal reflux disorder (the pooling of reflux in the vocal folds) and post-nasal drip (abrupt throat clearing which results in glottal attack on the vocal folds). hearing health deals with noise-induced hearing loss while psychological health deals with issues such as stage fright, anxiety, depression, drug and alcohol abuse. performing arts medicine td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 47-56. 49 ground-breaking studies in performing arts medicine there currently exists a large yet continuously expanding body of literature that addresses the medical problems of musicians. the bulk of these quantitative studies (descriptive, correlational and experimental) were conducted by researchers in the field of performing arts medicine on specific populations (chesky, corns & devroop, 2000; fishbein et. al., 1988). however there also exists a large volume of case studies that were reported by medical practitioners in the medical journals. these case studies resulted due to medical practitioners treating musicians with performance-related injuries. accordingly a large body of quantitative and qualitative studies has emerged. due to the broad interdisciplinary nature of this filed, these studies are not confined to any one specific type of journal. while many studies can be found in performing arts medical journals such as medical problems of performing artists, most studies are published in journals in various fields including but not limited to medicine, psychology, sociology, education, teacher training, music and music education. one of the first large scale studies ever conducted on performing artists was done by martin fishbein (fishbein, 1988) on the population of musicians in the international conference of symphony and orchestral musicians (icsom). over 4000 professional musicians from the 48 icsom orchestras were surveyed. a total of 2212, representing 50% of the musicians responded to the self-completed questionnaire. results indicated that 82% of the orchestral musicians surveyed experienced a medical problem and 76% experienced a performancerelated medical problem that affected their playing. the study reports on site-specific performance related medical problems such as 52% of female clarinet players experiencing severe pain in the right hand, musician’s use of beta-blockers and reports on nonmusculoskeletal problems such as fatigue, headache, dizziness and sleep disturbance. the university of north texas musician health survey (unt-mhs) was one of the first national surveys in the us to investigate the medical problems of musicians across genre (chesky, corns & devroop, 2000). the 4017 respondents included classical, jazz, hip-hop, country, pop, folk, rhythm and blues, rap and church musicians. the responding group was diversified by age, gender, ethnicity, level (amateur to professional) and training (self-taught to university trained). unlike the icsom study, the unt-mhs also investigated the medical problems of non-classical musicians and sought to be more specific by identifying the performance-related medical problems of subgroups such as brass musicians, woodwind musicians, keyboardists, string and percussion musicians. site-specific medical problems of subgroups such as the wrist problems of female clarinet players were investigated. this study resulted in one most comprehensive investigations into the medical problems of musicians and led to a large volume of follow-up studies being conducted internationally. important research findings musicians that expose themselves to performance-related medical problems could jeopardise their careers by inflicting injury that could negatively affect their performance and accordingly prevent them from reaching their career goals. one of the key outcomes of the health promotion in schools of music conference (hpsm, 2004) was the adoption of an aggressive education and awareness agenda for all educational institutions. following the conference, the national association of schools of music (nasm) adopted the recommendation by the hpsm and now recommends that all university music schools provide educational coursework on the health and safety, including performance-related medical problems of devroop 50 musicians (nasm, 2014). it is critically important that musicians and other performing artists execute their craft in the safest possible manner. while the literature contains a very large volume of research studies, those studies that could potentially impact large populations of musicians warrant further discussion. a survey of professional orchestral musicians found that approximately 76% experienced at least one performance-related medical problem severe enough to impact their playing (fishbein, 1988). bejjani (1996) indicated that prevalence rates for performance-related medical problems could be as high as 80%. in a study of musicians at brigham young university, it was found that 87% of students surveyed indicated they experienced performance-related pain (pratt, jessop & niemann, 1992). the australian orthopedic surgeon hunter fry was one of the first researchers to investigate the prevalence rates of medical problems among musicians. some of his earliest studies were conducted on high school musicians and in 1987 he determined that 56% of high school music students experienced pain when playing (fry, 1987). clearly, musicians ranging from high school to university to professional experience medical problems related to music performance. additional neuromusculoskeletal problems identified in the literature include: respiratory problems (sataloff, spiegel & hawkshaw, 1990), glaucomatous damage as a result of high intraocular pressure (schuman et al, 200), cardiac arrhythmias (tucker, faulkner & hovarth, 1971), injury to the obicularis oris muscle (papsin, maaske & mcgrail, 1996), lip pain (brevig, 1991) and overuse syndrome (fry, 1986). borchers (1995) and his colleagues indicated that there may also be long-term and permanent injury to instrumental musicians. in a study on mouthpiece force, he determined that permanent tooth displacement had occurred in brass musicians as a result of excessive mouthpiece force (borchers, gebert & jung, 1995). clearly, without timely intervention and educational awareness, musicians could be at risk for serious and potentially long-term neuromusculoskeletal injury. several researchers in music, medicine, psychology and audiology have conducted studies on the psychological and hearing health of musicians. many of these studies focused on nonmusculoskeletal problems such as stage fright, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, beta-blocker use and depression. key findings indicate that there were high prevalence rates for headache (46%), blackout/dizziness (43%) and eyestrain (41%) in high pitched instruments such as trumpet and french horn (devroop & chesky, 2002). according to chesky & hipple (1999), the use of beta-blockers in preventing anxiety and stage fright by professional musicians was determined to be as high as 50%. they also found that musician’s perceptions of drug use among fellow musicians were estimated to be as high as 30%. hearing health and noise-induced hearing loss has garnered much attention in recent years. according to henoch (2004), noise dose levels experienced by performing musicians exceeded the occupational safety and health administration (osha) guidelines thereby putting musicians at risk for hearing loss. additionally, sound pressure levels in performing ensembles were found to be high enough to result in temporary threshold shift. the need for research on south african musicians much of the research on performing arts medicine has been conducted by researchers in primarily developed western countries including but not limited to the usa, australia, germany and the uk. few if any studies were conducted by researchers in developing performing arts medicine td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 47-56. 51 nations. a review of the literature indicates that no studies were conducted on south african musicians. in fact, at the recent music and well-being conference that was hosted at the school of music at north-west university (nwu, 2013), there were no sessions on performing arts medicine except for one keynote address. there was also a general lack of knowledge and awareness of the field of performing arts medicine at the conference. other than a lack of baseline data on the medical problems of south african musicians, the need for such research is compounded when one considers that in south africa, many professional musicians supplement their incomes with non-music jobs. accordingly they are put at additional risk for injury by virtue of the demands of these non-musical jobs which could place additional stress on their bodies. the lack of specialised clinical settings designed to address the medical problems of performing artists coupled with the general lack of knowledge by medical practitioners on the biomechanics of instrumental music performance could result in inaccurate diagnosis of performance-related medical problems of musicians. within south africa, there is a need for research, education (at university level), general public awareness and clinical settings to cater for the needs of performance-related medical problems of performing artists. a research model for performing arts medicine in south africa due to the unique nature of this field, it is proposed that south africa follow a similar path of research and development of the field of performing arts medicine as practiced in the usa, europe and australia. the research model should include: (1) the establishment of research teams, (2) determination of prevalence rates of medical problems, (3) the identification of risk factors and, (4) education. 1. research teams the nature of research in performing arts medicine is such that interdisciplinary collaboration is essential. it is very rare that a single individual will have all the necessary skills such as being a trained medical professional, a performing artist (music and/or dance) and experienced researcher. although some individuals such as dr. alice branfonbrener (who had all these skills) do exist, in most instances research in performing arts medicine is conducted by teams of professionals including but not limited to musicians, medical practitioners, engineers, psychologists and audiologists. research teams could be comprised of various individuals depending on the purpose of the study. in a study that investigated the biomechanics of trumpet performance (devroop & chesky, 2002), the research team was comprised of a medical practitioner based at the medical school of the host university, a professor of mechanical engineering based at a partner university, a music educator from the host university and a professional trumpet player from the local symphony. the collective knowledge and training of these individuals ensured that the research study adequately addressed the purpose of the study. similarly in a study on hearing loss on musicians, a team comprised of a professor of music education, an audiologist and two doctoral students (in music and audiology) successfully initiated and conducted the study. devroop 52 2. identification of prevalence rates within south africa, we have little to no baseline data on prevalence rates of performancerelated medical problems among musicians. this could be due to the lack of quantitative studies focusing on the performing arts in general. in order to identify specific problems and develop interventions, researchers would first need to obtain prevalence rates of medical problems across large populations. accordingly studies similar to the icsom and untmhs would need to be undertaken on various populations of musicians within the country. such studies would provide patterns of medical problems such as medical problems of vocalists and instrumentalists. these studies could target more specific groups such as brass musicians versus woodwind musicians, males versus females, amateur musicians versus professional musicians. such studies would provide researchers, educators and performing musicians with sufficient baseline data upon which to conduct follow-up research. the unt-mhs initially surveyed a large population of musicians across genres, gender, age and performance level. accordingly initial data enabled researchers to identify patterns across populations such as hearing loss being more prevalent among non-classical musicians than classical musicians and female classical musicians experiencing greater degrees of performance-related pain than their male counterparts. when patterns were identified such as medical problems of brass musicians being significantly higher than woodwind musicians, follow-up studies began focusing on more directed issues such as high brass musicians versus low brass musicians. in this manner, researchers were able to identify specific problems such as high pressure brass instrumentalists such as trumpet and french horn experiencing more pain, dizziness and loss of lip than low brass instrumentalists such as trombone and tuba. similarly, follow-up studies pointed to specific problems such as female clarinet players experiencing greater pain in the right hand than male clarinet players (chesky, kondraske & rubin, 2000). internationally, several studies have been conducted in order to determine prevalence rates of performance-related medical problems (fry, 1987; fishbein et. al., 1988). these studies have identified trends among musicians such as site-specific medical problems, hearing loss, drug and alcohol abuse and psychological problems such as stress, anxiety and depression among specific groups of musicians. given the diversity of musical styles that exist in south africa which includes but is not limited to classical music, jazz, indian music, african music, pop, kwaito and rap, there is a dire need to determine prevalence rates of medical problems among these musicians. 3. identification of risk factors the identification of risk factors is a critical step in the investigation of performance-related medical problems because they form the basis for intervention and preventative strategies. risk factors could be due to a number of predisposing factors, some of which may be controlled and others not. these include but are not limited to: instrument type, instrument size, amount of practice and performance time, posture, performance literature, performance environment (jazz night club versus concert hall), performer’s physical attributes and the biomechanics of performing on a specific instrument for example oboe performance requires a certain amount of force and inter-oral pressure in order to produce a sound while bassoon performance requires hyperextension of the fingers in the right hand. specific instruments performing arts medicine td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 47-56. 53 will require specific demands on the performer such as the physical weight of large instruments and force and pressure for higher pitched instruments. one of the many findings from the unt-mhs study (chesky, corns & devroop, 2000) was that brass performers, specifically high pitched instrumentalists such as trumpet and french horn experienced higher rates of embouchure pain, embouchure dystonia and nonmusculoskeletal problems such as headache and dizziness. accordingly, they were at greater risk for injury. a follow-up study was done in order to determine the risk factors for trumpet performance. two risk factors were identified: mouthpiece force and inter-oral pressure. the series of follow-up studies from this point forward set out to determine the amount of force and pressure utilised by amateur and professional trumpet players. results indicated that some trumpet players were using excessive force in order to perform on their instruments. the excessive force was high enough to contribute to injury. when risk factors such as these are identified and investigated, the focus should then shift to developing preventative strategies. while it is not always possible to change the biomechanics of performing on a specific instrument it is possible to identify ways of reducing the risk. in the above series of studies the challenge would be to identify ways of performing on the trumpet by minimising the amount of force exerted on the lip and reducing the amount of inter-oral pressure utilised by trumpet players. reducing the impact of the risk factors on the performer will ultimately result in reducing the potential risk for injury, thereby enabling the performer to continue executing his/her art-form in a safe environment. 4. education education is critically important to both performing artists and teachers. in fact it could be argued that short of an aggressive and sustained education campaign, the medical problems of performing artists will continue to permeate throughout our profession. if the cycle of performance-related medical problems is to be broken, then education becomes imperative. several professional organizations such as the national association for music education in the us have embraced the importance of educating musicians, teachers and students by mandating university coursework include information on performing arts medicine and musician health. while research findings and preventative strategies are filtering through to the youngest of musicians, much more still needs to be done in order to create greater awareness. responsibility also rests with instrument manufacturers. some companies have embraced the findings from researchers and opted to include informational brochures in their instruments alerting musicians to the potential injuries that could result. unfortunately only a small number of instrument manufacturers have opted to inform potential customers. if awareness in south africa is to be heightened then greater opportunities should be granted to researchers to present their findings at regional and national conferences. researchers and educators should also be encouraged to present more workshops and symposia while also including readings in their university coursework. a sustained educational focus can only help our profession. discussion the field of performing arts medicine, although relatively young, is clearly an innovative devroop 54 and emerging field that is breaking new ground in the areas of research and performing arts. over the past three decades there has been growing international interest and an expanding body of literature addressing the concerns of performing artists. this has been coupled with an increase in clinical settings in several countries that are dedicated to addressing the medical problems of performing artists. while the boundaries of research have been expanded, the concepts of interdisciplinary and collaborative research have become firmly entrenched in the field of performing arts medicine. within south africa there is clearly a need to embrace this new and fascinating field. south african musicians, amateur and professional are faced with the same professional and environmental challenges as their international counterparts. it could be argued that south african musicians face additional challenges since many of them hold down additional nonmusic employment in order to supplement their incomes. accordingly the physical demands of non-music related jobs could adversely affect the health of professional musicians. amateur south african musicians also face social and psychological challenges that their international counterparts may not be exposed to, including lack of parental support due to high mortality rates as a result of hiv/aids, poverty, crime, drug abuse and high unemployment rates in the country. these social and psychological challenges could place undue burden on amateur musicians thereby impacting their health as performing artists. university researchers are making tremendous strides in expanding the base of research fields in south africa. researchers are attempting to take on topics that include music therapy, music and cognition and music and health. there appears to be a growing number of published articles dealing with such topics in music and non-music related journals within the country. several universities have also incorporated coursework at the undergraduate levels that attempts to expose students to fields such as music therapy. the major challenge facing future potential researchers is that the majority of south african music students are trained primarily in qualitative research methodology. research coursework would need to embrace quantitative research in order for researchers to be fully equipped with the research tools to address research into fields such as performing arts medicine. there is also a greater need in south africa for more professional development opportunities. we currently have a very small number of conferences dedicated purely to music. unlike our colleagues in the us and europe, we do not have a major national music conference where sessions on performing arts medicine could be scheduled. additionally, there are a very small number of music symposia that allows for the dissemination for research findings and sharing of knowledge among researchers and educators. in order to move our profession forward, greater effort needs to be made in order to bring our colleagues together for the mutual sharing of new and innovative fields such as performing arts medicine. conclusion south africa is well positioned to take a leading role in addressing and stimulating research into the field of performing arts medicine given its robust focus on research in general, its ability to drive this research agenda with partner countries on the african continent and its ability to work with its more economically and technologically developed partners in the brics group. within the country, there already exists a solid platform upon which to build and 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(eds.). 2000. medical problems of the instrumentalist musician. london: martin dunitz. tucker, a., faulkner, m. & horvath, s. 1971.electrocardiography and lung function in brass instrument players. archives of environmental health, 23: 327-334. microsoft word 01 20160208 rehwinkel and gouws fin (2).docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2015, pp. 149-170. towards the conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory a rehwinkel1 and dg gouws2 the flux of time is the reality itself, and the things which we study are the things which flow. henri bergson (1911:363) abstract developments in science, technology and sophisticated interconnected social networks increase the speed and volatility of the flow of economic-related energies, such as financial and intellectual capital. these developments require an information theory on corporate financial reporting that is stable at a fundamental level and focused on the disclosure of those systemic attributes that are pivotal to the sustenance of business entities operating in the global economy, or in economies with similar traits. the limited success in attaining stability is caused by, among others, the application of diverse, restricted and even opposing perspectives, resulting in random theoretical development, often unaligned with economic reality. the main aim of the article is to investigate whether the introduction of an underlying concept, principle or theorem, founded on the phenomenon of flow, to generalpurpose corporate financial reporting theory could contribute to rendering stable guidance for coherent theoretical development while simultaneously enhancing alignment with the current global economy. as the study was conducted at conceptual level, a qualitative, transdisciplinary theoretical research methodology was applied by taking into account related basic concepts of philosophy, corporate financial reporting theory, economics, management accounting, physics and complexity. the study suggests that the conceptualisation of flow in general-purpose corporate financial reporting theory could contribute to rendering stable guidance for further coherent theoretical development, and improve on the alignment of the theory with the dynamics of the current global economy. this finding creates the opportunity to explore a variety of new reporting approaches from a scientific perspective, which could aid to enhance the disclosure of useful financial information. keywords: complexity, corporate financial reporting theory, energy, entropy, flow 1. introduction this study was inspired by the individual projects of the international accounting standards board (iasb) and the us financial accounting standards board (fasb), commencing in 2001 with the objective of enhancing the usefulness of the then generally titled “income 1 . ms antoinette rehwinkel is a senior lecturer in the department of financial accounting, university of south africa (unisa), pretoria, south africa. email: rehwia@unisa.ac.za 2 . professor daniël g gouws is a research professor in the department of financial management, university of pretoria (up), pretoria, south africa. email: daan.gouws@up.ac.za rehwinkel & gouws 150 statement” by rethinking the interpretation of the concept “financial performance”. given that performance relates to the activities of a business entity, and that the conduct and outcome of business activities are represented by the disclosure of flows of discrete values in financial statements, the relationship between financial performance and the occurrence of flow was noted. concerning the abovementioned projects, the boards each developed a conceptual model for reporting on income and expenses and conducted preliminary testing. neither of these models was approved as they were significantly different. during april 2004, in recognition of financial performance being too broad in scope to be presented by a single financial statement or earnings figure, the iasb and fasb enlarged their “income statement” projects by commencing a joint research project on financial statement presentation in its entirety. from this inclusive approach, it can be inferred that financial performance relates to all the corporate financial statements. hereby flow disclosure from an integrated perspective is encouraged in that performance-related information is threaded throughout an entire set of corporate financial statements, vertically within each statement, and horizontally across the statements. apart from ascribing such a holistic scope to the interpretation of corporate financial performance, the problem remains that a clear description of the concept is not available and hence the disclosure thereof is compromised. with financial performance viewed as a pillar of corporate financial reporting theory, the financial reporting faculty of the institute of chartered accountants in england and wales (icaew 2012:7) states: the iasb should review how company performance is reported as a priority. a definite view on what is meant by performance ... is long overdue. ... [u]ntil this issue is satisfactorily resolved, there will remain prima facie grounds for continued criticism of ifrs [international financial reporting standards] reporting. assuming that corporate financial reporting theory (hereafter also referred to as reporting theory) is developed with scientific rigour, it is questionable why the aforementioned research projects, at such a fundamental level, were undertaken at an advanced stage of theoretical development – given that the fundamentals in theory ought to be secured prior to specialisation. in view of the lack of such methodology, the development of reporting theory often leads to making adjustments at a fundamental level. this compromises a prime function of fundamental theory, namely to render stable orientation. consider, for example, that the 2010 conceptual framework is explicitly viewed as secondary to the international accounting standards (south african institute of chartered accountants (saica) 2010: conceptual framework – 3), while adherence to scientific development procedures should have resulted in this hierarchy of prominence being arranged the other way around. arguments in favour of developing theory according to the flow of energy are ample in the socio-scientific field, including that of corporate financial reporting (csikszentmihalyi 2002; gaffikin 2006:4; rockefeller 2011; clyde 2014). these arguments support the viewpoint that the flow of energy is fundamental to the disclosure of reality, since reality is all about continuous change, a concept “far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose” (bergson 1911:1). this study addresses the research problem, the research objective and methodology, and then discusses i) observations of flow in reality; ii) the origin of and prerequisites for flow; iii) the socio-scientific application of flow; iv) the impact of the flow traits of the fourth economy on the dynamics of individual business entities; and v) the relativity of the value of time caused by changing flows of energy. in conclusion, an overview is given of the main envisaged conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 151 contributions that the conceptualisation of flow in reporting theory could make to enhance the scientific standing and usefulness thereof. 2. research problem corporate financial reporting theory lacks a stable and reality-related orientation as it does not have a simple, overarching and realistic basis on which to found i) the conceptual framework for financial reporting; ii) the framework for the preparation and presentation of financial statements; and iii) international accounting standard (ias) 1: presentation of financial statements, as issued by the iasb. this compromises the scientific stature and usefulness of reporting theory. to indicate the significance of this problem, consider the joint project undertaken during 2004 by the iasb and the fasb on financial statement presentation. one of the aims of the project was to address the disadvantages of the fragmented disclosure of financial information by suggesting the introduction of a principle of cohesiveness (fasb 2010:12). since the iasb and the fasb view cohesive reports as disclosing information by “story lines”, whereby the relationship between items across the financial statements is made clear, and the statements therefore complement one another (fasb 2010:10), this suggestion was actually a step towards reporting according to a theory of flow. however, the motivation given by the boards for introducing the principle, namely to increase the usefulness of corporate financial reports (hereafter also referred to as reports), was from a practical rather than a scientific perspective. ideally, the development of reporting theory ought to be guided also from a scientifically and theoretically sound perspective. sterling (1967:99, 107) supports scientific guidance by arguing that a major problem in accounting is developing a basic information system because accounting change is driven from practice to theory, and that if accounting theory could be developed the other way around, it would be the most significant development since pacioli3. coetsee (2010:2) likewise states that a “crucial dilemma in accounting research is that there is currently no comprehensive theory of accounting on which accounting research can be based”. complementary to a positional orientation, we posit that by introducing an underlying concept of flow, coherent development in reporting theory could be supported, both in terms of methodology and contents. this viewpoint agrees with that of largay and weaver (2009:37), who argue that the proposals of the international financial reporting standards foundation and the fasb can motivate the disaggregation of accounting and business performance data in order to arrive at improved integrated disclosure: for example, by measuring and disclosing assets at different points in time within various contexts (barth 2013:[n.p.]). from the perception that all in reality is in flow (bergson 1911:363), positions do not exist. they are merely assumed points in time that are incorporated into observation schemes to ease 3 . fra luca pacioli, an italian monk and lecturer in mathematics, authored a book on arithmetic in 1494 titled summa de arithmetica geometria proportioni et proportionalita (all of arithmetic, geometry and proportion). this book contains a section called de computis et scripturis (of reckonings and writings), which includes pacioli’s description of the double-entry bookkeeping system as applied at the time. pacioli wrote this section to standardise the recording procedures of business transactions, thereby formally introducing double-entry bookkeeping in the field of accounting practice (green 1930:91). rehwinkel & gouws 152 comprehension at the expense of rendering truthful representation. for example, einstein introduced a cosmological constant to his general theory of relativity to yield a simplified unchanging model of the universe, which he later considered the biggest mistake of his scientific career (bryson 2004:167). likewise, nicolis and prigogine (1977:1) argue that: classical physics has emphasized stability and permanence. [but] we now see that, at best, such a qualification applies only to very limited aspects. wherever we look, we discover evolutionary processes leading to diversification and increasing complexity. based on bergson’s philosophical reasoning, it is deduced that the two pillars of corporate financial reporting theory, namely financial performance and financial position, ought not to be equal in prominence because positions actually do not exist. in line with bergson’s reasoning, emphasis is currently frequently placed on the disclosure of financial performance rather than on position. for example, it is asserted that “a reporting entity’s financial performance as represented by comprehensive income and its components is the most important information” (saica 2010: conceptual framework – 28). similarly, johnsson and kihlstedt (2005:33) argue that it is the analysis of business performance that is of prime significance. nonetheless, it is important to recognise that financial performance and position are indivisibly connected because the financial position of a business entity serves as a primary initial condition that drives financial performance, and in turn, the affected financial performance changes the entity’s financial position. the integrated disclosure of financial performance and position has the potential advantage that the ability and efficiency of self-regulation are more clearly disclosed, which could contribute to indicate the future sustainability of a business entity. rockefeller (2011:564), in favour of considering integrated flow-structure relationships, argues against those flow theories that disregard stasis in its entirety. in view of the complementarity of financial performance and position, we posit that the prominence of financial performance is lacking because the disclosure of performance according to flow is limited, resulting in financial statements that claim or give the impression that flow is disclosed while only summative values are given. as such, summative values do not represent flow, neither does the difference between two values at the beginning and end of a financial year. what does reflect flow is, among others, the disclosure of a less discrete series of events or changes. the disclosure of flow becomes more important when a throughput of energy is required to sustain a system. isolated or closed systems conserve energy, but open systems such as business entities have to create and sustain energy throughput to survive.4 therefore, if a system is open, different sustenance attributes come into play than those required for closed systems. since business entities are open, these other attributes ought to be identified and reported on. from a flow-based perspective, the annual or bi-annual disclosure of financial information is too discrete and therefore such information could ease the smoothing of volatile financial values, legitimately or otherwise, which in turn impedes truthful representation. since smoothed information is repetitive, it is less useful because it adds limited information value. a decrease in the usefulness of smoothed or excessively discrete information is particularly notable in fast-changing, highly interactive environments, as financial information could lose 4 . an isolated system is viewed as a system that does not exchange (typically) energy, matter and information with its environment, while an open system does (jantsch 1980:32). a closed system is one that to a good approximation is cut off from its environment, in such a way that the system cannot interact with it (lockwood 2007:189). conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 153 its relevance substantially over very short time spans. consider that during the period 1998 to 2003, no less than 100 of the fortune 1000 companies lost at least 55 per cent of their market capital within approximately 30 days (johnsson & kihlstedt 2005:145). the positional disclosure of financial values in corporate financial statements is vested in the main source from where the data for the preparation of the statements is obtained, namely a trial balance at the end of a financial period. a trial balance discloses i) the balances of nominal accounts, these are summated financial values that have accumulated during a financial period under review – related to financial performance; and ii) the balances of existing asset, equity and liability accounts, being financial values at the end of a financial period that could have originated during financial periods prior to the period under review – related to financial position. since a trial balance is merely prepared at a specific date, it does not indicate the differing timeframes of reporting on financial performance and position. hereby the presentation of the dynamics of business entities in financial statements is restricted to balances of accounts at single points in time. for example, the timeframes of reporting on nominal accounts differ and can be shorter than that of financial position accounts. the reason for this is that the balances of nominal accounts represent the result of the flow of financial values occurring within a single financial period, while the balances of financial position accounts could have originated from values that were accumulated over periods longer than the period under review. the summated disclosure of values that have accumulated over too long a period of time, for example the sum of the sales or purchases of trading inventory for an entire year, impedes the accuracy of forecasts because the flow of the related transactions has been compressed into a single point in time, thereby largely removing the use of dynamics from forecasting procedures. bollt and sun (2014:1) emphasise the importance of disclosing the dynamics of complex systems such as economies according to information contents, flow and causality. similarly, in the event of conceptualising flow in reporting theory at base level, the disclosure of the flow of financial values ought to be addressed in terms of type, contents and context. in all three of these cases, the effectiveness of reporting theory is limited. for example, in terms of type, the disclosure of the core dynamics of a business entity is inadequate because financial statements are not presented per core activities. in terms of contents, reporting theory allows the disparate disclosure of transactions and events in that the flow thereof is not required to be presented coherently in and across the financial statements. in terms of context, the authors concur with the viewpoint of saica (2010: conceptual framework – 29) that “a reporting entity cannot provide reasonably complete information about its financial performance … without identifying and measuring its economic resources and the claims”, since activities and the results thereof cannot be clearly understood when viewed in disaggregation, as is currently the case. to provide flow-based information requires disclosure in line with the traits of the economic environments within which business entities function, as well as the different financial values that can be assigned to a given asset or liability – depending on the frames of reference applied by the presenters and the users of the information. some of these flow-based requirements have – unintentionally – been met. for example, discussion paper dp/2014/1, concerning accounting for dynamic risk management, proposes the application of a portfolio revaluation rehwinkel & gouws 154 approach (ifrs foundation 2014: [n.p.]), but the motivation for the approach is not based on attempts to found reporting theory on flow. the traditional research method of breaking an assumed stationary system into parts contributes to the fragmented representation of the dynamics of business entities. this methodology, in the view of hawking and mlodinow (2008:15), is completely wrong; they argue that if everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full representation by independently investigating parts of the problem. likewise, rudolph and valsiner (in rudolph 2013:5) show that integrated wholes rather than disaggregated stimuli are experienced in reality, yet what is usually available to our analytic schemes are tools with which to break down the wholes into elementary constituents, resulting in losing precisely the qualities of the phenomena that are important to portray. 3. research objective and methodology the main aim of this study is to complement the research conducted by the iasb and the fasb on financial performance and financial statement presentation by investigating the potential of introducing an overarching principle, concept or theorem of flow to serve as a stable basis for the development of coherent general-purpose corporate financial reporting theory. in addition, the aim is to assess reporting theory in terms of the core dynamics and traits of the global economy and of the business entities successfully functioning in it. given the fundamentality of the research problem, the research methodology applied in this study is conducting an introductory theoretical transdisciplinary investigation to arrive at a conclusion concerning the application of a flow-based founding principle, concept or theorem by which to guide theoretical development. the relevance of applying hypothetical-deductivist reasoning at this level of research is supported by, among others, gaffikin (1988:18, 32; 2006:7) and cincotti, sornette, treleaven, battiston, caldarelli, hommes and kirman (2012:366). the main fields of investigation are corporate financial reporting theory, philosophy, economics, management accounting, complexity and physics. philosophy was selected as a starting point from a broad, conceptual and flow-based perspective. in early greek philosophy, for example, the original motion of the universe was viewed as that out of which all things arose. motion is thus given the primary place in the order of existence; it is the originating activity, and all other things have their source or genesis in this motion (wartofsky 1968:427). the study fields of economics and management accounting were selected because they are related to corporate financial reporting, in that economists and management accountants use general-purpose corporate financial reports in fulfilling various facets of their responsibilities. in order for corporate financial reports to be useful within this context, they need to adequately supply the information required by these stakeholders, including information on the dynamics – the performance – of business entities. to enhance the usefulness of an existing framework often requires the consideration of other perspectives concerning sustainable systems that apply similar frameworks. the application of the theories of complexity is a method of achieving such an aim, as these theories collectively form a transdisciplinary study field viewed by complex systems researchers as essential for progress on the most important scientific problems concerning the dynamics of the complex systems of our day (mitchell 2009:300). since economies are viewed as complex systems, comprising among others trading business entities, one finds that economists attempt to conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 155 explain market behaviour in terms similar to those used in the description of complex systems: for example, dynamic patterns in global behaviour and the processing of signals and information (mitchell 2009:9–10). the application of certain basic concepts of physics, being a natural science in contrast with the social sciences, is motivated briefly below. • physics “can be said to be the most fundamental and general of all the sciences” (kragh 2002:447) and, similar to the research objective of this study, such fundamentality is sought by physicists seeking basic principles, ideas and mathematical formulations on which all further understanding can be based (kadanoff 1993:401, 403). • there is a growing natural-social alliance in science. for example, einstein (in calaprice 2005:234) notes that scientific research is based on the assumption that all events, including the actions of mankind, are determined by the laws of nature. wheatley (1999:8) likewise infers that “intentionally or not, we work from a world view that is strongly anchored in the natural sciences”, and goldratt (1990:27) states that the phenomena witnessed daily in any organisation are part of nature, waiting for a science to be developed. • physics includes studies on the motion of energy, which also forms part of the objective of this study. • since information is viewed as a physical property (gleick 2012:355), the concept of “information” is addressed in fundamental physics (brenner 2014:396), and currently there is a growing tendency in physics to study information (zurek 1990:vii). similarly, in chapter 1 (ob2) of the 2010 conceptual framework for financial reporting, the disclosure of useful financial information to existing and potential investors, lenders and other creditors in making decisions about providing resources to the entity, is stated as the objective of general-purpose corporate financial reporting (saica 2010:[n.p.]). • as reporting theory addresses the disclosure of financial position and performance, so physics, by analogy, is similarly “concerned with the properties of matter [stocks/position] and energy [flows/performance] and the relationships between them” (dardo 2004:488). • prigogine and stengers (1984:xv) argue that attempts to understand open social systems in pure classical terms are doomed to failure. progressing from the classical viewpoint of certainty, theories in physics introduced concepts such as complementarity and indeterminability (uncertainty) in measurement. these concepts are also evident in principle-based reporting theory. • as theoretical physics advances, integrated theories arise such as string theory, which aims to merge two extreme theories in physics, namely general relativity, by which things that are huge and heavy are studied, with quantum mechanics, by which things that are small and light are studied (greene 2003:3–4). by similarly using a cohesive corporate financial reporting principle such as flow, reporting theory could likewise advance towards integrated theoretical concepts. • the consideration of empirically based laws, theories and principles could enhance the scientific standing of general-purpose corporate financial reporting theory. rehwinkel & gouws 156 4. flow 4.1 the relevance of flow in reality examples of energy flowing through and within natural and social systems, and of attempts to comprehend such flow, abound – mainly since the sustenance of various systems is dependent on the throughput and transformation of energy. time as an artefact was created specifically to orientate human perception according to flow. einstein (in martin & ott 2013:8) deduces: “i feel myself so much a part of everything living that i am not in the least concerned with the beginning or ending of the concrete existence of any one person in this eternal flow.” from a philosophical perspective, bergson (1911:196) reasons that matter “looked at as an undivided whole, must be a flux rather than a thing” and therefore he reconciled the inert (stationary/position) with the living (flow). in the field of physics, bohm (1980:ix, xi) observes that the nature of reality forms a coherent whole, which is never static or complete, but … an unending process of movement and unfoldment … science itself is demanding a new, non-fragmentary world view, in the sense that the present approach of analysis of the world into independently existent parts does not work very well in modern physics. from a socio-natural viewpoint, emoto (2005:xvi) argues that “moving, changing, flowing … is what life is all about”. from the perspective of reporting, hubbard (1998:90) asserts that nobody likes the succession of points since they are jarring, and that physicists prefer images constructed by the disclosure of continuous transformations, so that these images correspond to something that they can grasp. 4.2 the origin of and prerequisites for flow 4.2.1 origin of flow in attempts to grasp the flow of energy, studies from differing perspectives on the origin of flow were conducted. from the stance of astronomy and physics, when hubble in 1929 found proof that the universe is expanding, it was deduced that the universe and therefore the flow of its energy had a beginning, typically referred to as the “big bang” (hawking 1989:9–10). this reference is important since it indicates that time has a starting point and measures the duration or experience of change. accordingly, to suggest a theoretical departure point for the conceptualisation of flow in reporting theory, we assert that the flow of the financial energy of a business entity commences at the time of the incorporation of the entity. 4.2.2 prerequisites for flow for the flow of energy to occur, we posit that at least three basic constituents are required, namely useful energy, disequilibrium (imbalance) and networks. 4.2.2.1 useful energy any active system, whether natural or social, has energy in various forms. without an inventory of free and useful energy, no flow of energy can occur within or through a system. in the case of an open, dynamic system such as a business entity, the flow of energy is caused by the application of intellectual and other energies such as assets, to achieve a financial goal within an economic environment. conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 157 in the field of social dynamics, conceptualising reporting theory according to the flow of “useful energy” could be considered as too intangible. this was also the case during the development of physics, when energy was initially viewed as being too abstract to be introduced into an empirically based science. at the time, reference was made to matter rather than to the energy within the matter. it took almost a century from newton’s death in 1727 to arrive at the scientific acceptance of the term “energy” in the natural sciences, when in 1807 young (in atkins 2003:84) stated that this term could be applied with great propriety. once recognised, it was argued that energy, and not matter, is the essence of reality, and that mechanics ought to fall under the general laws of energetics (kragh 2002:7–10). by acknowledging energy as a universal natural phenomenon, atkins (2003:97) describes it as the “currency of cosmic accountancy”. brenner (2014:396) similarly assigns such fundamentality to energy by stating that although the relationship between energy and information is inseparable, energy is more fundamental than information because information emerges from it. based on the viewpoints of atkins and brenner, financial statements ought to account for the dynamics of corporaterelated energies, complementary to financial positions. 4.2.2.2 disequilibrium in the distribution of energy without an imbalance in the distribution of useful energy within a system and/or between a system and its environment, the flow of energy cannot occur. when the distribution of energy within a natural system is sufficiently uneven, the system is typically described as being in disequilibrium. from this perspective, a sufficient measure of disequilibrium is viewed as an essential trait to ensure the sustenance of a system because it causes flow, and flow is related to life. two laws in physics that explain the flow of energy because of such disequilibrium are the first and second laws of thermodynamics, combined referred to as the law of entropy. the first law states that the total energy of a thermodynamic system, assumed to be isolated, is conserved (penrose 2005:690) because an isolated system cannot absorb or transfer energy from or to its environment. accordingly, the law of entropy states that the total amount of energy in an isolated thermodynamic system is constant because it cannot be destroyed or created. in elementary terms, the second law states that in an isolated thermodynamic system, heat flows from hotter to colder particles until, most likely, an equal temperature, on average, in the system is reached (penrose 2005:689). the law of entropy, asserting that a thermodynamic system is isolated, states that this equalisation process is irreversible, hence the forward-pointing arrow associated with time. the measure of converted energy within an isolated thermodynamic system is called entropy, and the conversion process of the useful energy is called entropy production. the higher the entropy of such a system, the lesser its entropy production rate, and the closer to thermal equilibrium, a stationary-like form of existence, the energy of the system is. once the energy distribution of an isolated thermodynamic system reaches equilibrium, small deviations from such equilibrium may occur, but not significant ones. contrary to an isolated system, an open system can absorb or transmit energy from or to its environment, deeming the conversion process of energy and the outcome thereof reversible and less predictable. since the first and second laws of thermodynamics apply only to isolated thermodynamic systems, the rote application thereof to represent the dynamics of open systems rehwinkel & gouws 158 would be incorrect. in the case of business entities this would be more specifically so since they are driven to financially enrich stakeholders, while isolated thermodynamic systems simply act according to the law of entropy, with no gain as aim. to disclose and analyse the energy distribution of a wide range of non-thermodynamic open systems, derivatives of the law of entropy were developed by means of statistical mechanics (kapur & kesavan 1992:1; gribbin 2005:122–23; mitchell 2009:48, 49 & 52). similar to isolated systems, the conversion of energy by open systems is referred to as entropy production. the decrease of entropy produced by open systems is referred to as negative entropy (negentropy in short) production. open systems either dissipate or adjust when the energy distribution thereof is in or close to equilibrium over too long a period. in such cases, equilibrium points serve as transformation points, indicating imminent change for the better or the worse. negentropy production is sustained by the networks of a system that allow for the flow of energy through the system. hence, the core financial inand outflows via the networks of a business entity determine its entropy or negentropy production. by analysing these flows, the sustainability of business entities and consequently the risk of investing in them, can be estimated. in terms of corporate financial reporting, it is important to note the difference between newtonian and entropic equilibrium. book entries made according to the double-entry principle, whereby a cause equals an effect, result in the disclosure of information congruent with “balanced” newtonian equilibrium. this reporting method ensures mathematical accuracy to a degree, but does not focus on the disclosure of continuance, thereby comprising the truthful representation of flow. on the other hand, because profiteering business entities are averse to arriving at entropic equilibrium, entropy or entropy production rate disclosures contribute to forecasting sustainability. reporting according to newtonian equilibrium is thus position-like, whereas reporting on the aversion of entropic equilibrium is flow-oriented, deeming these two forms of reporting complementary. in the fields of economics and commerce, mccauley (2004:xi) argues that there is no empirical evidence for the existence of any form of economic equilibrium – of adam smith’s so-called stabilising invisible hand. ball (2012:34) is in agreement: traditional economic theory makes several fundamental assumptions that seem now to be excessively simplistic. the first is to imagine that the economy is an equilibrium system. ... this assumption stems from the origins of microeconomic theory as an analogue of theories of equilibrium physical systems such as gases, which have stable, unchanging states. the physical sciences have long since moved on to describe non-equilibrium processes ... but economics has not. the implications are huge. the ‘equilibrium paradigm’ explains why the so-called dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models prevalent in economic forecasting ignore the potential for major fluctuations such as slumps or crashes. arthur (2013:3) emphasises that a theory of equilibrium must be bypassed regarding anything in an economy that changes. therefore, arthur (2013:1) shows that over the last 25 years a new form of economics, named complexity economics, has emerged. this form has a complementary framework to that of classical economics, in that classical economics is based on equilibrium while complexity economics is based on attributes pertaining to disequilibrium, including strategies and actions, the relativity of time and changing structures. farmer, gallegati, hommes, kirman, ormerod, cincotti, sanchez and helbing (2012:309) state that conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 159 an equilibrium-efficient market paradigm cannot aid the explanation of phase transitions, since it prohibits the studying of dynamics within different timescales and neglects assessing friction, without which it is difficult to understand entropy and other path-dependent effects. cincotti et al (2012:366), convinced of the necessity of maintaining a measure of disequilibrium in the distribution of energy in economic systems in order for them to survive, propose the introduction of the phenomenon of disequilibrium – to allow for flow – as a theoretical default. rudolph and valsiner (in rudolph 2013:1–2) state that images of stability are created and presented as being perpetual, and that this is probably the greatest fiction produced. in line with this viewpoint, we argue that corporate financial reporting theory, rooted in classical newtonian equilibrium theorems, requires new models by which to portray current business dynamics. the development of such models will require re-addressing the theory, starting at fundamental level, by reconsidering for instance the accounting assumption of “going concern”, given the continuous attraction of business entities to dissolution, according to the law of entropy. to represent and analyse entropic fluctuation, a fluctuation theorem applicable to diverse systems in disequilibrium has been developed (dewar 2003:632). this theorem acknowledges that the most effective dynamics of open systems occur at levels where energy throughputs are far from equilibrium – in other words high in volatility (nicolis & prigogine 1977:24). therefore, the fluctuation theorem merits investigation into the possibility that financial values, such as earnings, have been artificially smoothed when the values are inexplicably similar in trend over a too extended period in time, or when the values lack correlation with the dynamics of the economic environment within which is functioned over too many periods in time. 4.2.2.3 networks since open systems require effective networks by which to transfer energy (for example, energy vested in assets or information), network studies is a prominent research topic in the field of analysing complex systems (mitchell 2006:1196) such as cities, social networks and economies. due to the diversity of complex systems, no universally accepted definitions of the terms “complexity” and “complex systems” exist. similar to the term “flow”, these concepts are described in context, relative to an area under review. a crude description of a complex system entails that i) the dynamics of the components of the system are relatively simple – compared to those of the entire system (gribbin 2005:136); ii) the system is decentralised and selforganising because the components thereof spontaneously interrelate to function as an organised whole; iii) the system displays emergent behaviour because the interactions of the components thereof “lead to coherent collective phenomena, ... [where] the whole is more than the sum of its components” (coveney & highfield 1996:7); and iv) the system achieves goals by developing a great number of pathways (prigogine, nicolis & babloyantz 1972:24). the more complex a system, the more integrated it is, and the more energy throughput it requires to sustain itself (rifkin 1980:244–45). the emphasis placed on the dynamics of complex systems indicates that complexity theories are mainly concerned with the representation of the flow of energies by means of networks, and that the disclosure of business interaction by means of networks could improve the truthful representation of business dynamics. rehwinkel & gouws 160 while social scientists had already developed network theories by the middle of the 20th century, it is the sophisticated globalised networks that emphasise the importance of network theories (lima 2011:11). one finds for example that there is a central difference between the old and the new economies: the old industrial economy was driven by economies of scale: the new information economy is driven by the economies of networks (shapiro & varian 1998:173). network theories that are currently emerging, such as complexity theories, differ from earlier developed network theories such as graph theory, in that greater emphasis is placed on the cohesive disclosure of the dynamics of systems by incorporating network theory at a fundamental level in related reporting frameworks, so that the understanding of the nature of these systems can be improved (newman, barabási & watts 2006:4). assessed against complexity, the proposed principle of cohesive financial statement presentation (fasb 2010:12) is viewed as a step in the right direction if one is endeavouring to conceptualise flow in corporate financial reporting theory. viewed holistically, complexity theories pertain not only to the single facet of financial statement presentation, but to the entire financial reporting spectrum of observing, measuring, recording, presenting and analysing the dynamics of business entities within the context of the traits of the economic environments within which the entities operate. 4.3 the socio-scientific application and interpretation of flow 4.3.1 socio-scientific application the incorporation of flow in the socio-scientific scene commenced centuries ago. for instance, in 1629 hobbes aspired to develop a theory of social governance for which he needed a fundamental axiom about human behaviour, rooted in the deepest soil of science. by observing the continuity of motion around him, he became convinced that the law of inertia, in that it confirms that all in existence, including people, is in constant flow, was the axiom that he was seeking (ball 2005:14–17). similarly, emmeche (1994:18) infers that “life is a process, and it is the form of this process, not the matter, that is the essence of life. one can therefore ignore the material, and instead abstract from it the logic that governs the process, taking it out of the concrete material form of the life we know”, and goertzel (in robertson & combs 1995:135, 136) suggests that the mind and brain are networks of interacting processes, governed by a law of motion. rockefeller (2011:557) observes that flow is one of the most crucial aspects of a new socioscientific perspective in terms of scale, agency, locality and mobility on the global scene, especially when related to the networks of systems. rockefeller’s observation agrees with findings in the fields of economic and business management, where prechter (1996:11) refers to a wave principle, which he views as the most valuable tool ever developed for interpreting market actions and forecasting future events. in the field of business management, nonaka, toyama and hirata (2008:xix) suggest that managers focus on the processes by which a firm and its environment evolve, since all things flow in continuous interaction and in relation to each other, and that this applies to human beings, firms and the larger environment. they argue that all firms face the contradictory requirement of having to be both stable and flexible to survive, and that firms overcome this conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 161 contradiction by managing flow. likewise, zhang (2009:355) argues in favour of industrial business entities forming complex transportation networks to optimise product flows. zak and waddell5 (2011:51,56) indicate that flow-driven management is at the heart of excellent manufacturing, since all the really big leaps in manufacturing have been big improvements on flow, and that high flow in manufacturing means low cost. ohno (1988:128), founder of the toyota production system, advises that the first aspect to consider in the creation of a manufacturing system is putting the correct flow of energy into the process. ohno (1988:129–130) describes work flow as the value added to a product while the product flows along; he identifies seven categories of production waste produced by a manufacturing system, namely overproduction, waiting, the transportation of goods, over-processing, stationary inventories, the excessive moving of personnel and the manufacturing of defective parts and products. all these categories constrain the flow of energy in some way. womack and jones (2003:7, 15, 24) assert that breakthroughs come from addressing entire value streams rather than from disconnected processes, and therefore they include the flow of energy as one of the five principles of lean theory – a theory asserting that value creation is optimised when activities are arranged in such sequence that interruption is limited to achieve more with less. goldratt’s (1990:ix, 7, 9) theory of constraints has a similar aim, namely to remove all the main constraints deterring the achievement of an entity’s goals by implementing a ceaseless process of ongoing improvement. since the quality of the flow of energy relates to the frequency of events (broken symmetry 2009b), such frequency ought to be represented in financial statements. waddell (in broken symmetry 2009a) argues that because frequency averages for each account are not disclosed in financial statements, we have blinded ourselves by excluding information about flow, and as a result accountants can manipulate information without leaving a trace. 4.3.2 interpretation within context the significance of the term “flow” lies in its multiplicity, although this complicates efforts to render a single description thereof (rockefeller 2011:557). therefore, it is necessary to interpret “flow” within a specific context. to comprehend flow first requires recognising its dualistic nature. linguistically the term “flow” can be used as a verb, for example water that flows, or as a noun, when it is viewed as an act of flowing or movement. one could relate such dualism to the interdependent relationship between financial performance and position. in physical terms, it suffices to note that the term “flow” emerged from employing a fluid perspective in the literal sense, showing flow to “move steadily and continuously” (paperback oxford english dictionary 2006:288). from a psychological perspective, csikszentmihalyi (2002:xi) developed a theory of flow in which it is viewed as a person being totally involved with life. such an optimised state of being is “characterised by high concentration and a sense 5 . waddell has spent over 30 years in virtually all facets of manufacturing, including accounting, industrial engineering, supply chain production and quality management. he has consulted hundreds of companies in a wide variety of industries, including multibillion-dollar global organisations (zak & waddell 2011:xii). rehwinkel & gouws 162 of control, which are facilitators of performance” (eklund in engeser 2012:78). in that csikszentmihalyi’s theory distinctly relates flow to performance, the initiative is supported to research flow in reporting theory with specific reference to financial performance. the relationship between mutual fund flows and past financial performance was researched by ferreira, keswani, miguel and ramos (2012:1759) to determine how the economic, financial and mutual fund industries impact on the sensitivity of the relationship. their findings show that the flow–performance relationship is influenced by the degree of economic development of a country, pointing to reporting in congruence with the dynamics of economic markets when reporting according to flow. within the scope of this study, flow is viewed as any movement or transformation of financial energy types, such as materials or cash, through and within a business entity. hence the focus is placed on i) financial performance as it relates to the core activities – the areas of high concentration and control – of a business entity, ii) financial performance–position relationships, and iii) the environment within which entities function. 4.4 flow traits of the fourth economy brenner (2014:393) argues that it is impossible to address the disclosure of any information without first considering the properties of the environment in which the informational phenomena unfold. this requirement points to the necessity of aligning the traits of relevant economic environments and business dynamics with reporting theory. table 1: distinctive attributes of the third and fourth economies third economy fourth economy period mainly 19th century mainly 21st century technology industrial, focusing on physical processes such as the use of machinery and the flow of financial capital post-industrial, focusing on mind-based processes such as the development and application of intellectual capital, and on information technology market changes slow and predictable fast and unpredictable production predetermined and mass production flexible and lean networks local and simple global and complex, viewed as interdependent, effective relationships stands key to survival competitive edge size: the big eats the small speed: the fast eats the slow competitive alliance isolated merged key scarce resource financial capital intellectual capital and time operational focus supplier-driven customer-driven main financial performance indicators financial corporate reports market capitalisation management bureaucratic, centralised decentralised time focus on absolute time and the past focus on relative and real time conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 163 source: compiled by the authors, based on research conducted by johnsson and kihlstedt (2005) johnsson and kihlstedt (2005:15, 42, 86) refer to the current global economy as the fourth economy and explain that it adds an additional layer of prominent dynamics to that of the third, industrial-driven economy (see table 1, which shows the distinctive attributes of the third and fourth economies). the flows of economic-related energies usually increase in speed as an economy progresses from one level to the next, emphasising the importance of flow disclosure by entities functioning in the fourth economy. concerning the fourth economy, emphasis is placed on intellectual processes, speed, uncertainty, networks, holism, customer focus, decentralisation and real time. the creation of networks is viewed as so significant by johnsson and kihlstedt (2005:46, 82) that they infer that interaction, and not tangible assets, is the catalyst of growth in the fourth economy and that: it would be amazing, indeed, if a reporting system developed in the days of columbus and copernicus were still adequate in our times. ... [w]e have presented abundant examples to show that the reliability of accounting is severely limited. the characteristics of the fourth economy cut deep into the relevance of accounting. similar observations caused accounting standard-setters to rethink the direction that financial reporting ought to take in the fourth economic era (nehmer 2011:73). table 2 shows that the attributes of the fourth economy relate more to the characteristics of evolving than to those of structure-preserving systems. table 2: characteristics of structure-preserving and evolving systems characteristic structure-preserving systems evolving systems total system dynamics static (no dynamics) conservative selforganization dissipative selforganization (evolution) structure equilibrium structure, permanent devolution toward equilibrium structure dissipative structure (far from equilibrium) evolving function no function or allopoiesis reference to equilibrium state autopoiesis (selfreference) logical organization statistical oscillations in reversible processes irreversible processes in direction of equilibrium state cyclical (hypercycle), irreversible sense of cycle rotation internal state equilibrium near equilibrium non-equilibrium relationship with environment isolated or open (growth possible) open (continuous balanced exchange) source: jantsch (1980:34) it is therefore asserted that reporting theory ought to relate to the characteristics of evolving systems, requiring the introduction of reporting elements such as networking, self-reference ability, entropy and the cycles of flow. rehwinkel & gouws 164 the fourth economy is characterised by the compression of time (gleick 2000:6-7, 9) causing the value of time to increase when more events occur within absolute time spans such as a solar calendar year. consider for instance that the growth rate of knowledge, a main compressor of time, doubled over 1 500 years (from a.d. 1 to a.d. 1500), and has consecutively doubled again over 300, 100, 20, 7 and 2 years. the estimation is that by 2020 our collective body of knowledge will double within 72 days (biech 2007:4). the value of labour also increases under the compression of time, leading to compromised measurement when disclosed in absolute temporal terms. 4.5 the impact of flow on the relativity of time bergson (1911:362) argues that reality ought to be represented according to changes that occur over time; he suggests that we should no longer be asking where a moving body will be, what shape a system will take, through what state a change will pass at a given moment: the moments of time, which are only arrests of our attention, would no longer exist; it is the flow of time ... that we should be trying to follow. in science the measurement of the flow of energy is done mainly from the perspective of absolute or relative time. in physics, the relativity of time is validated by einstein’s special theory of relativity, showing that the flow of time through space is not constant; that it varies according to a spatial frame of reference since space and time merge into a unified variable called space-time. he explained: in order to be able to describe at all that which fills up space and is dependent on the coordinates, space-time ... must be thought of at once as existing, for otherwise the description of ‘that which fills up space’ would have no meaning” (einstein 2014:156). upon the realisation of the impact that different timeframes have on the outcome of observations, the powerful mechanistic paradigm of absolutism in science started to crumble, leading prigogine (1980:xvi) to conclude that time is not a boundary, fixed in periods, but an operator within systems. for the sake of simplicity, scientists often base their theories on absolute rather than relative time. for example, newton (in capra 1983:51) narrowed down his classical laws of motion by assuming that time is absolute. he hypothesised: “absolute, true, and mechanical time … of itself and by its own nature, flows uniformly, without regard to anything external”. the impracticality of such an assertion is clear when studying the dynamics of interconnected, open systems. currently, the relativity of time is recognised from various perspectives (callender 2011:1). for example, prigogine (1980:xvii) shows that any person studying time cannot avoid taking into account the cultural and social changes that impact on it. ijsseling (1992:409–410) concludes that “all human relationships change, not the least important of which is the relationship to time and space … in this new era, almost all fundamental notions from traditional philosophy receive a different meaning. … time and space in particular, … change fundamentally”, and bell (1999:42) states that the changing nature of knowledge and technology has a direct influence on the pace of change, and that the real effect thereof is visible in the tightening of social networks. in the fourth economy the value of time is influenced by the volatility and increase of economic activities. since substantial volatility is often associated with high investment risk, the disclosure of volatile financial values is often veiled by value smoothing conceptualisation of flow in corporate financial reporting theory td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 293-309. 165 and the application of absolute time units. taleb (2007:xliii) warns that faked stability is misleading. similarly, tweedie (2008:116,119) notes that volatility is not invented and when companies report volatility that volatility is real. the change in the value of assets and liabilities is an economic event and all businesses are exposed to economic volatility. therefore, what ought to be investigated by users of financial reports are any unexplained deviations of the dynamics of a business entity from the dynamics of the market within which it functions. the disclosure of corporate financial information according to relative time is done by means of fair value or inflationary reporting, among other methods. for practical reasons, and to aid the comparability of financial statements, the application of relative time remains restricted since the length of a financial year is viewed as an absolute unit of time, namely 12 solar calendar months – independent of the value of time as influenced by the flow of financially related energies through business entities. to unify financial performance and related changing financial structures within a relative temporal framework would be challenging, but considering the notable contribution made to the development of theoretical physics by introducing a unified concept of space-time, it is envisaged that the introduction of relative time to reporting theory could similarly enhance the usefulness of reports prepared accordingly. 5. conclusion in discipline after discipline, stasis is losing the battle to movement, process and contingency (phipps 2012:26), with the pursuit of the mystery of motion being regarded as one of the greatest stories of civilisation (mazur 2007:9). we are in agreement, and suggest that the introduction of a flow perspective to corporate financial reporting theory could improve the compliance thereof to the basic requirements of theory-setting in science. according to habermas (1984:39) these include rightness, appropriateness and comprehensibility. based on these aspects, we assert that the conceptualisation of flow in reporting theory could enhance the scientific standing of the theory and improve the usefulness of financial reports prepared accordingly in a number of fundamental ways, such as: • rendering a stable and relevant orientation for coherent theoretical development founded on the overarching concept of flow; • introducing universal theories of systemic dynamics to corporate financial reporting theory; • disclosing activity-based information that shows the quantitative and qualitative flow of transactions and events; • aligning corporate financial reporting theory to the dynamics of sustainable business entities and the fourth economy; • cohesively disclosing financial information; • restricting the manipulation of financial information; • enhancing the transparency of corporate financial reports; and • disclosing large volumes of financial data by means of patterns to ease understanding (haken 1988:5; card, mackinlay & shneiderman 1999:6). new reporting methodologies that could represent large amounts of data in a more statistical and comprehensive way ought to be explored. rehwinkel & gouws 166 in overview, the conceptualisation and disclosure of flow from a transdisciplinary perspective in the field of corporate financial reporting theory merits further investigation. if we pursue this challenge, a revolutionary journey in the development of reporting theory could be awaiting us. as wheeler states: (t)here must be, at the bottom of it all, not an equation, but an utterly simple idea. and … that idea, when we finally discover 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university hosted a first international conference on music and well-being. delegates from all over the world came to the school of music at the potchefstroom campus to share their experiences of the relationship between music and states of physical, emotional, social, psychological and spiritual/religious well-being. this issue comprises seventeen articles that discuss these states. the majority of them discuss more than one type of well-being and i will highlight only a few. david elliott and marissa silverman argue that when we do not only teach people in and about music, but also through music – we achieve what aristotle and many other philosophers consider the highest human value – eudaimonia – which is a multidimensional concept, whilst john habron discusses implications for future training, practice and research in dalcroze eurhythmics. this article takes a transdisciplinary approach, making conceptual connections. ewie erasmus writes about children diagnosed with williams syndrome and the intense affinity they show towards music listening and music making. diane thram shares her field research in south africa and points out how individuals benefit in all aspects of their being – physical, mental and emotional – from engaging in the act of making music. in her essay about trauma and well-being, inette swart concludes that the healing journey can lead to wholeness, transformation and growth. many authors also highlight spiritual well-being that can be experienced through musical experience. june boyce-tillman in turn of the opinion that spirituality is to be found in the doing, not in what you produce, which is encapsulated in these lyrics by american song writer berton bradley: oh, you gotta get a glory in the work you do; a hallelujah chorus in the heart of you. paint, or tell (write) a story, sing, or shovel coal, but you gotta get a glory or the job lacks soul. musicians are known for their creativity. as such, we have chosen dandelions as a symbol of the conference: the ritual and mystery of blowing dandelion seed was taught to me by a young child. as scholars, we dream further about dandelions and their symbolic potential: the dandelion in seed is a depiction of individuality within a perfect totality. this totality may be interpreted as the cosmos (comprising society, nature and spirituality), within which wellbeing is rooted. the seeds that are blown about by the wind are symbolic of questing humanity. the softness and lightness of the seeds manifest the mobility and randomness of thought that seeks meaning and coherence. i thank the dean of the faculty of arts, prof jan swanepoel for financial support to host this music and well-being conference. we are indebted to prof johann tempelhoff who invited editorial comment iv the presenters to re-work their conferences papers and publish them in the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa. the editorial members (peer-reviewers) for this edition made a huge contribution. peer-reviewing took place from october 2013 to august 2014, and thirty-seven international and national reviewers were involved in the selection process. i also thank the international advisory board and editorial board for their advice and assistance. all the authors have made a unique contribution to this edition thus i have decided to arrange the papers in alphabetical order. hetta potgieter (edition editor) abstract introduction the research literature on work-readiness training theoretical framework: legitimation code theory evaluation research methodology the research findings: evaluating the employability improvement programme against social relation codes discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) fundiswa r. nofemela co-operative education, mangosuthu university of technology, durban, south africa christine winberg professional education research institute, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation nofemela, f.r. & winberg, c., 2020, ‘the relevance of kaizen-based work-readiness training for south african university of technology students, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a729. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.729 original research the relevance of kaizen-based work-readiness training for south african university of technology students fundiswa r. nofemela, christine winberg received: 01 sept. 2019; accepted: 10 feb. 2020; published: 13 may 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract kaizen-based work-readiness training originated in japan and is based on the ‘lean’ production methods taught in toyota factories in japan and abroad. kaizen-based training is rooted in the kaizen principles of respect for others, the elimination of waste, continuous improvement, collaboration as the key to productivity and innovation as incremental in work processes. the employability improvement programme (eip), an initiative between the south african department of higher education and training, the japan international cooperation agency and south african universities of technology, is a kaizen-based short training programme that was introduced in 2011 with the intention to enhance south african university of technology students’ work-readiness. the research question guiding the study is: how could a short kaizen-based intervention contribute to south african university of technology students’ work-readiness? the data for the study comprise curriculum documents, teaching and learning media, video footage and interviews with participants of the kaizen events over the period 2016–2018. the study found that the eip supported students’ acquisition of interpersonal skills and personal dispositions towards work-readiness, but skills that were related to workplace relations in context, professional values and a sense of a broader contribution to society were largely absent. the study recommends that longer term, more integrated and better contextualised forms of training are necessary in attaining work-readiness in the complex south african work context. keywords: kaizen; lean education; work-readiness; universities of technology; vocational training. introduction graduate unemployment is a concern for higher education internationally (chan 2015; tomlinson 2017) and also in south africa (kraak 2015; van broekhuizen 2016). it is a particular concern for the universities of technology as most of the programmes offered are diploma-level qualifications that prepare students for direct entry into labour markets, supported by practice-oriented curricula, internships and other forms of work-integrated learning. diploma programmes educate technicians, technologists and practitioners whose skills contribute to developing economies. although most qualifications are designed for specific professions or occupations, and are accredited by professional bodies, there is a need to improve students’ work-readiness in order to facilitate students’ transition into the world of work (ahmad, zainal & rahmat 2012). in the past, and particularly because of the work experience obtained through the consistent practice of cooperative education, 60% of university of technology graduates had secured employment in their field on graduation (moleke 2005). this trend has reversed, and many universities of technology students currently struggle to find appropriate employment in the fields in which they are qualified. recent annual graduate surveys conducted at the research sites of this study indicate that, on average, only 40% of university of technology graduates had secured employment at the time of graduation (kraak 2015:100). of particular concern with regard to the graduate unemployment figures is the reproduction of social inequalities with regard to who gains and who does not gain employment (fongwa, marshall & case 2018). while there are many factors that affect the employment of graduates, the mismatch between the skills that graduates develop through their university studies and those that employers require from graduates in the 21st century has been highlighted as a contributing factor (kraak 2015). this skills’ mismatch has adversely affected the employment prospects of university of technology graduates more than other higher education cohorts (kraak 2015:101–102). as part of their commitment to student employability, south african universities of technology offer a number of work-readiness programmes. the employability improvement programme (eip), which is the focus of this study, is based on the kaizen principles of continuous improvement, the provision of value or quality at all points of the training process, including eliminating waste, respect for others and innovation as the end point of an iterative process (alves et al. 2017). the manner in which these kaizen principles are evaluated in work-readiness training will be demonstrated later in the study. kaizen-based training, also known as ‘lean education’; ‘six sigma’; or ‘conceive, design, implement and operate’ (cdio) (murman, mcmanus & weigel 2014), was developed in japan for industry training, most notably at toyota vehicle assembly plants. these industry-based training programmes for lean manufacture were adapted for work-readiness training at universities (murman et al. 2014); thus, a programme such as the eip can be recognised as having similarities with other forms of kaizen-based training. the eip was developed in japan and its implementation in south africa is supported by the japan international cooperation agency (jica) through a bilateral agreement with the south african department of higher education and training (dhet). the dhet found the eip training to be suitable for universities of technology students in professional and vocational programmes. the eip is a short campus-based intervention intended to prepare students for the work placements that are part of their formal programmes. the eip is intended to help south african students develop work-readiness skills, such as time management, project management, understanding the work environment and working in teams. the training programme is offered in two phases: (1) a half-day workshop on the principles of kaizen as applied to workplaces (such as ‘the seven wastes’ and an orientation towards delivery of quality products at appropriate cost) and (2) two-and-a-half days of hands-on practical training that simulates a truck assembly plant in which students assume various roles that typically exist in workplaces, and receive feedback on their performance. the assembly plant runs are repeated several times to enable students to reflect on and improve their performance, and, in the process, internalise the kaizen principles. the contexts for work-readiness training in japan and south africa could not be more different. japan is a highly developed country; its economy is currently ranked as the third largest globally. currently, the number of people in work in japan is 66.64 million, the most since comparable data became available in 1953 (japanese ministry of internal affairs and communications 2019). in the same time period, the south african economy went into technical recession, with 6.2 million (27%) of south africans unemployed and actively seeking work (statistics south africa 2019). several studies have suggested that unemployment figures of 35% are more probable, given the many south africans who have given up and are no longer actively seeking formal employment (van broekhuizen 2016). against the background of unemployment and social inequality, it is hardly surprising that labour relations in south african workplaces are complex and challenging, with labour relations linked to low levels of trust between employers and employees (jordaan & cillié 2016). the eip represents a considerable investment for universities of technology, the dhet and the jica, not only in terms of financial support but also in terms of the time and commitment to the programme by the japanese and south african facilitators, participating academic departments, the workplace supervisors who attend the eip training sessions and provide feedback, and the student participants who enrol for the programme in the hope of enhancing their prospects of finding work in their field. preparation for the implementation of the eip at the south african universities of technology occurred in 2011 in japan. the first iteration of the eip was offered at two universities of technology in 2012 and grew annually to include all six south african universities of technology, one comprehensive university and one neighbouring country’s institution by 2016. over the period of implementation, the japanese facilitators handed over the training to south african facilitators who made various changes to the eip in line with feedback and institutional needs. between 2012 and the current time, eight universities, three japanese facilitators and 11 south african facilitators have been involved in the implementation of the eip. over the same period, approximately 3000 students have undergone training and approximately 100 workplace supervisors have participated. in spite of the significant resources invested in the eip, it has not been evaluated. an evaluation of the eip is thus timely. the particular problem that this study addresses is the extent to which the kaizen-based training intervention might address the skills mismatch (kraak 2015) and contribute towards students’ work-readiness. the research question that guides the study is: how could a short kaizen-based intervention contribute to south african university of technology students’ work-readiness? the research study addresses this question by applying a researchand theory-informed instrument to evaluate the eip. the research literature on work-readiness training this review of the literature addresses key differences between ‘employability’ and ‘work-readiness’, provides an overview of work-readiness training in higher education and analyses gaps in the work-readiness literature. employability and work-readiness it is important to differentiate between ‘employability’ and ‘work-readiness’; employability is about acquiring ‘a confluence of understanding, subject-specific and generic social practices (or skills), meta cognition (reflection or strategic thinking) and … incremental self-theories’ (knight & yorke 2003:8), while work-readiness has been more narrowly defined as the ‘extent to which graduates are perceived to possess the attitudes and attributes that make them prepared or ready for success in the work environment’ (caballero, walker & fuller-tyszkiewicz 2011:41–42). in other words, employability includes both the technical knowledge and personal and interpersonal skills required for employment, while work-readiness focusses more narrowly on the personal and interpersonal skills valued by employers. work-readiness can thus be understood as a subset of employability. work-readiness training is usually offered to students as a short pre-employment programme (cavanagh et al. 2015), while employability needs to be addressed more consistently across the curriculum as a whole (knight & yorke 2003). work-readiness in higher education the literature on work-readiness is less extensive than the literature on employability. work-readiness studies have a particular focus on the qualities that enable a student to obtain employment (rosenberg, heimler & morote 2012). personal qualities, problem-solving, decision-making, relationships with others, communication, maturity, health and safety habits as well as commitment to the job are the core competencies of work-readiness (rosenberg et al. 2012:8–10; smith & krüger 2008:134–135). stone’s (2012) systematic review of the literature on work-readiness studies confirms that communication, self-discipline, time management, interpersonal skills and teamwork, problem-solving skills and a positive work ethic are important generic skills for securing employment (stone 2012:130–131). there are often the differences between the skills that employers and students (as jobseekers) consider important. for example, in the banking sector, employers value numeracy skills and motivation, whereas graduate jobseekers tend to believe that confidence and leadership skills are important in securing work (raftopoulos, coetzee & visser 2009). in contexts of socio-economic challenge, such as south africa, ‘hardiness’ (van dyk 2015:80) and ‘resilience’ (walker et al. 2013:117) have been identified as contributing to work-readiness. the literature addresses work-readiness in a number of different fields – from engineering (murman et al. 2014) to business sciences (carenys & moya 2016) – claiming that graduates require generic transferable personal and interpersonal skills in order to be able to adapt to changing market circumstances and organisational needs. gaps in the literature on work-readiness training the first gap in the literature on work-readiness is the lack of a knowledge base. the absence of a body of underpinning knowledge for work-readiness is evident in the lack of detail in the studies, and the absence of codified curricula. work-readiness training could thus be said to be ‘knowledge blind’ (maton 2014:3–4). while there is agreement in the literature that personal and interpersonal skills are central to work-readiness, these are non-specific skills. this is the second gap identified in the literature. many studies produce ‘wish lists’ of generic skills, without identifying the specific attributes. the ‘work readiness scale’ (caballero et al. 2011) identified a range of work-readiness indicators for graduates, but the list of work-readiness factors is not clearly categorised and there is no theoretical support for the indicators. thus, a third gap is the lack of an educational theory of work-readiness training. basing educational training on management principles is contentious: while alves et al. (2017:149) and murman et al. (2014:220) defended the educational value of ‘continuous improvement’ and ‘elimination of waste’, sears (2003) and vidal (2007) pointed to the potential pitfalls for student learning in conflating management principles and training principles. the lack of a guiding theory can be seen in the descriptive, rather than the analytic, nature of many studies. related to the theory gap is the tendency of many authors to uncritically accept kaizen-based approaches. a fourth weakness identified is the absence of empirical research to support many of the claims on the effectiveness of work-readiness training interventions. many of the studies of kaizen-based or lean training are descriptions of interventions that lack a clear research or evaluation process (e.g. alves et al. 2017; murman 2017). the gaps in the literature on work-readiness training that this study intends to address are: (1) the absence of the knowledge base, (2) the non-specificity of work-readiness factors, (3) the lack of educational theory and (4) the missing empirical data. theoretical framework: legitimation code theory a gap that was pointed out in the literature reviewed is that much of the literature does not theorise work-readiness training or explain how it might enable or foster the emergence of capable and employable graduates but rather focuses on issues of disciplinary curricula learning (shay & steyn 2015). for this reason, the specialisation dimension of legitimation code theory (lct) (maton 2014:30–33) was drawn on to identify the specialist knowledge structures and knower dispositions in work-readiness training. the wide application of lct in technical and vocational education is largely because of its usefulness and effectiveness in opening up knowledge, and knowledge practices and dispositions, to increasing numbers of teachers and students. while lct has not been applied to a study of work-readiness training, its propensity to make the ‘rules of the game’ (maton 2014:11) visible is central to this research study. the examples cited above provide evidence of the suitability and appropriateness of a framework such as lct to explore concerns related to graduates’ work-readiness. the specialisation dimension of lct explains what makes a programme and its participants worthy of distinction, and is based on the premise that ‘practices and beliefs are about or oriented to something and made by someone’ (maton 2014:29). in some fields (such as in engineering), epistemic relations (ers) are stronger, while in other vocational fields (such as marketing), social relations (srs) may be more dominant. both ers and srs will be present in all fields; what is important is the relative strengths of their emphases. thus, a claim to legitimacy can be viewed as specialised by its ers, by its srs, by both or by neither. emphasis on the er suggests that the possession of specialised knowledge, skills or procedures is important as the basis of achievement, while the social dispositions of the subjects, although not unimportant, are not central. on the other hand, an emphasis on srs implies that technical knowledge or skills are less significant; instead, it is the dispositions of the subject as a knower, which is the measure of achievement. in some fields (in vocational education, these would be typified by the health sciences), possessing both specialist knowledge (e.g. anatomy and pharmacology) and being the right kind of knower (e.g. a caring practitioner) is important. finally, there are fields (and these would typically be new or emerging fields, such as web design), where neither specialist knowledge nor specific dispositions have been found to characterise the programme. the specialisation dimension of lct can be represented as a cartesian plane in which the y-axis represents a continuum of stronger (+) and weaker (-) ers to practices and objects; while the x-axis represents a continuum of stronger (+) and weaker (-) srs to practices and their subjects (figure 1). figure 1: the specialisation plane. together, the relative strengths of the ers and srs give rise to a series of specialisation codes that encapsulate the basis of legitimation and achievement in a particular field. technical programmes are typified by ‘knowledge codes’ (er+, sr−) where the object and method of study are strongly underpinned by scientific knowledge and the scientific method. marketing or hospitality is typified by ‘knower codes’ (er−, sr+), where legitimacy is derived from the unique attributes and dispositions of the knower. an elite code (er+, sr+) implies that both possessing specialist knowledge and being the right kind of knower is important. (‘elite’ does not mean ‘socially exclusive’ but rather highlights the necessity of possessing both legitimate knowledge and legitimate dispositions.) finally, a relativist code (er−, sr−) suggests that neither specialist knowledge nor specific dispositions characterise the programme. specialisation has been commonly used to distinguish the particular characteristics of different disciplines and fields, but the lens of specialisation can also be focussed on a specific field – in this case technical and vocational education – for the purpose of uncovering both ers and srs in these fields. the particular configurations of the ers and srs in technical and vocational disciplines and fields will vary along a continuum, with many possible combinations and hybrids. the specialisation dimension renders visible a range of positions that academics and practitioners might see as legitimate forms of training in the field. instead of forcing false dichotomies such as a technical field having only a ‘knowledge code’ and not having a ‘knower code’, specialisation makes visible the presence of both. most of the programmes offered by universities of technology would tend to cluster in the ‘knowledge’ quadrant of the specialisation plane (quadrant 1 of figure 2). thus, they would be distinguished by stronger ers (er+) and weaker srs (sr−) – always with exceptions to this general rule. many of the business courses, such as marketing, public management and public relations, would have weaker ers (er−) and stronger srs (sr+). a university of technology does however tend to be typified by its strong technical programmes, such as the wide variety of engineering technician courses, courses in the applied sciences and business courses with a stronger er, such as accountancy and internal auditing. work-readiness, because of its emphasis on personal and interpersonal skills, is located in the ‘knower’ quadrant (quadrant 3 in figure 2). figure 2: the specialisation plane in this study. to address the issue of what kind of knowledge would typify work-ready knowers, it is necessary to develop a ‘translation device’ to address the ‘discursive gap’ between the high-level lct concept and the application context (maton & chen 2016:28). the review of the literature identified work-readiness to be largely located in the sr to knowledge; thus, work-readiness training intends to cultivate work-ready dispositions, rather than training involving disciplinary or field knowledge. it is to be expected that work-readiness training would therefore largely focus on strengthening srs and building students as ‘knowers’, in this case building personal and interpersonal skills. social relations to knowledge involve a re-orientation to the world of work. in this world, ers to knowledge matter less than srs. in terms of work-readiness, srs are exemplified by ‘ideal knower’s attributes that serve as a basis for professional identity within a field’ (maton 2014:32). social relations are multiple, operate at different levels, are interconnected and develop cumulatively over time. training a work-ready knower would thus involve an sr to the self (sr1), to others (sr2), to the workplace (company and/or industry) (sr3), to the profession (sr4) and to the broader society (sr5). these srs could be identified along a continuum, as in table 1. table 1: the work-ready knower: social relations in technical and vocational education. social relations might be similar or different across disciplines. for example, many practitioners may have similar aspirations to make broader social contributions (sr5), such as improving the quality of life in developing countries, but would have developed different understandings of how these might be achieved in their different disciplinary areas. building a professional identity would involve an sr to the field or profession (sr4). while respect for others (sr3) would cut across many practices, the specifics of srs to others in a workplace would be different – some might focus on managing others’ work (e.g. in corporate environment), others might focus on patient care (e.g. in a clinical environment), while others might be part of a technical team (e.g. in an engineering company). a more generic version of srs to others (sr2) would be the ability to get along with co-workers, to contribute to teamwork and to be supportive. finally, there is an sr to the self (sr1), which involves building one’s own values and ethical position. evaluation research methodology the evaluation framework, developed from both the research literature and theoretical framework (table 1), was used to assess the extent to which the eip was able to strengthen srs to the world of work. the research design comprised a ‘theory-driven evaluation’ (chen 2006). in their classic study, chen and rossi (1980) pointed out that a major problem in programme evaluation is the adoption of ‘conventional, common sense understandings of social problems and their treatments, without considering the appropriate social science theory’ (67). coryn et al. (2011), in a meta-analysis of theory-driven research, found that theoretical approaches were the key to designing rigorous evaluation projects. for this study, a qualitative approach, including document study, observation, video ethnography and interviews, was followed. video recording of the simulated production is an inherent feature of the eip. the programme also allows the students to reflect on and improve their practice through repeated runs of the simulated production. during the pilot phase (2016–2018), full training sessions (i.e. including the theoretical sessions) of the chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering; information technology; office management and technology; as well as public management sessions were videographed for reporting purposes to the dhet and jica. these videos as well as the reflective reports served as key data sources. it would be expected that the eip would include a range of practices that are strongly underpinned by the principles of social interactions. this evaluation research study sought to reveal that the srs were foregrounded or backgrounded, which codes tend to dominate in the eip and what this might mean for the enhancement of students’ work-readiness. research sites the research sites included two higher educational institutions that offered eip training, and 10 workplace sites. each of the workplace sites accepted five (or more) interns, some of whom had completed the eip and some of whom had not participated in the eip. the two higher educational sites that were selected for this study were two universities of technology that implemented the eip during the period 2016–2018. the two participating institutions are based in two different provinces of south africa, have different ‘profiles’, but draw their students from similar socio-economic backgrounds, and make use of similar workplaces for the training of their students. only workplace sites with a minimum of five interns were included in the study. participants the study population comprised four groups: (1) eip students, (2) interns (both those who had completed the eip training and those who had not attended the eip), (3) eip facilitators and (4) workplace supervisors. the first group comprised students who enrolled for eip training between 2016 and 2018. the rationale for this group was to capture their more immediate perceptions of, and responses to, the eip. the second group, the interns, were students who had been placed in workplaces by the institution’s cooperative education department (or equivalent unit). the rationale for choosing interns who had undergone the training was to find out the extent to which they were able to transfer the skills that were taught in the training to a workplace. the rationale for the inclusion of interns who had not attended the eip was to compare their responses and attitudes to the workplace. the third group of study participants comprised facilitators who conducted the training across 2016–2018. the rationale for their inclusion was to obtain both the south african and japanese perspectives on the training. the fourth group of participants comprised the workplace supervisors who supervised and mentored interns over the period 2017–2018. the rationale for the selection of the supervisors was to include those who had had the opportunity to supervise a minimum of five interns, and compare the behaviours and attitudes of the eip students against behaviours and attitudes of past student cohorts who had not had the same training. purposive sampling (miles & huberman 1994) was used to ensure that the participants had experienced the programme either as students, interns, workplace supervisors of student interns or facilitators in order to obtain first-hand information about the programme and its impact. the study sample included approximately 200 eip students from the disciplines of chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, information management, public management, as well as office management and technology, 50 interns, five facilitators (four south african and one japanese facilitator) and 10 workplace supervisors. the research findings: evaluating the employability improvement programme against social relation codes the eip is a 3-day training programme that includes an introductory theoretical element and hands-on practical sessions (with several iterations between the theory and practice, such as drawing on kaizen concepts to reflect on practice). the hands-on practical sessions are the main focus of the training and require students to assume various roles as ‘workers’ in a simulated truck assembly plant. through the work in this simulated plant, the students learn the implications of poor planning, inadequate problem-solving skills, poor inventory management, how to eliminate waste in the workplace and the consequences of poor teamwork and supervision. the concepts are taken from a world of work that has a focus on manufacture and production. the simulated production process is reduced and simplified to lessen the cognitive load (in lct terms to weaken the er) and enable a focus on the sr. the tasks allow the students to reflect on and improve their practice through repeated runs of the simulated production line. each run is preceded by planning (drawing on the kaizen tools) and ends with reflection towards improvement and innovation (drawing on kaizen concepts). the theoretical content of the eip is designed to enable students to develop and demonstrate their understanding through a series of short exercises. the theoretical content is presented in the form of powerpoint slides on the first day of the programme, but these media resources are drawn on throughout the 3-day programme for reflection and planning. the students initially engage with the kaizen concepts through exercises that are either scenarios given to students for group work or video clips of work activities that students analyse. once the practical training starts, the kaizen concepts become more fully integrated into practice. the intended outcomes of the eip are: (1) to understand lean manufacturing principles and how they can impact daily work; (2) to understand organisational roles; (3) to plan and organise work; (4) to identify and solve problems; (5) to manage time; (6) to work in teams; and (7) to identify and avoid waste. these outcomes can be broadly clustered into srs to the self (sr1), such as the development of values and dispositions (e.g. lean principles, time management and eliminating waste), srs to others (sr2), such as effective teamwork, and srs to a company (sr3), such as understanding work processes and appreciating organisational roles. the core learning activities, intended to meet these outcomes, are clustered into four modules. basic concepts were introduced and then applied in a production simulation game in which student teams were given materials to build simple model trucks over several iterations, each time attempting to improve on their processes and outputs. lean terms and concepts, such as eliminating waste, were emphasised throughout the short course, supported by active learning exercises that helped the students to grasp these concepts. the modules had minimal theoretical content, but emphasised application and practice, always integrating previous concepts and actions. in the subsections below, the evaluation findings with regard to the five levels of sr to work-readiness are presented. social relations to the self (sr1) the first module on ‘productivity’ foregrounded the sr to the self (sr1) and the sr to others (sr2), both which are strongly present in kaizen principles. the key value that the training instilled in the students was the elimination of waste. the concept of waste elimination was introduced in order to help students reconceptualise ‘waste’ in an industry context. one of the ‘seven wastes’ is time wastage; thus, time management was an important personal skill taught on the eip. while viewing the video footage of their operation, the students were prompted to identify areas where time was wasted during their operation. many students were able to identify time-wasting activities in their process, and understood how these impacted their ability to deliver the required number of trucks within the allocated time. in focus group interviews, many interns attributed their improved time management skills to their learning experiences on the eip. a chemical engineering intern, showing that he had internalised the kaizen principle, explained: ‘in our company, we deal with optimisation a lot, meaning that i must establish what i could do to achieve the same result using less.’ (intern 7, chemical engineering graduate, male placed in water utility company) the student refers to the company where he was placed as ‘our’ company, suggesting that he experienced a sense of belonging or identification with the company (in lct terms strengthening the sr to the workplace (sr3) through practising the foundation kaizen principle of eliminating waste). social relations to others (sr2) the second module on ‘implementation’ introduced teamwork using video clips to demonstrate the extent to which goals are achieved when individuals work together. the first production run began in module 2. the simulated assembly plant and the tools and equipment that students used in the practical training were introduced. teams and roles were allocated, and students started to assemble the ‘trucks’. the teams in the simulated workspace were allocated a certain number of trucks to assemble within a specific time period, along with the specifications and parts’ lists. the intention was that students would learn from one another in their teams, and learn the value of cooperation and good communication in teamwork. teamwork was embedded throughout the truck assembly operation, and it was intended that the students learn from their own experience as to how good teamwork enhanced productivity. the teams were required to work together as they planned their operation and assembled the trucks. through reflection and constructive criticism of one another’s actions, the students identified how working or not working as a team affected their productivity. in their reflections, students appreciated how the eip had taught them ‘to work with different people and to always be in one’s best behaviour in the working environment’ (student 7). one of the engineering students linked the benefit directly to the engineering field: ‘in engineering they need a person that can work in a team and this course gives us practice in that regard.’ (student 10, eip participant, male, mechanical engineering) from the focus group interviews with interns and workplace supervisors, it seemed that the teamwork skills that they learnt on the eip were, at least in some cases, transferred to the workplace. through working in teams in the eip, students were prepared for work environments in which they would need to communicate with diverse groups, and listen to their views. chemical engineering interns at a water utility in pietermaritzburg felt that the practice of working in teams on the eip had helped them to ‘adjust in the workplace and to work with different personalities’ (intern 8). an office management intern working at service department shared how her experience on the eip had helped her deal with a peer who had made her feel unworthy of her internship: ‘i eventually had realised that it was her personality and nothing wrong with me, and that just as we had learned in the eip, there will always be different personalities in the work environment, mine is to find a way to work effectively with them.’ (intern 9, office management and technology graduate, working in a service department) in a focus group interview, a chemical engineering student felt that the teamwork on the eip had taught her that ‘everybody in a team has an opinion and that communication was key’ (intern 10). a mechanical engineering intern who was placed at a company in richards bay said that the eip had helped him to develop the confidence to work in different teams: ‘i work with five people in my team but we also work with other teams. so i am interacting with various teams and the eip had helped me with the confidence to deal with these teams.’ (intern 11, mechanical engineering graduate, male working in a manufacturing company) a workplace supervisor at the same company compared intern 11 to one who had not undergone the eip and said: ‘i usually pair students with others from different institutions … [student 11] is quite forthcoming and manages team dynamics … in contrast … the other one from the same institution will wait to be coerced and struggles to work with the team.’ (workplace supervisor 7, male; mechanical engineer working in a manufacturing company) it also seemed from the interviews that the fact that the students in a team are further grouped into sub-teams to work on different areas on the truck assembly had had an unexpected outcome in that it had taught the students about benchmarking: ‘when we did the training, we worked in small teams and when you were having a problem with a certain part assembly … we identified a team that was not having a problem and studied what they were doing right … this is the same here at work … when we find that we are having a problem with a certain part we go to another department and use the information we get there to improve our work.’ (intern 12, mechanical engineering graduate, male, working in a manufacturing company) generally, there was agreement that the eip had prepared the students for working with different people and, in contrast to their peers who had not undergone the eip training, they had come into the workplace with a level of confidence. social relations to a company or industry (sr3) the third module, ‘improvement’, delved more deeply into work processes: inputs, outputs, workflow, project cycles, productivity calculations, work breakdown structures and so on. the module also introduced some of the tools that students would use in the simulation. for example, students learnt problem identification and solving using the ‘logic tree’ as a tool. planning and organising work was introduced in a contextualised way, as students initially started working without a clear plan. learning the importance of planning and organising happened as they reflected on their actions. the intention of the problem-based strategy was to guide students in the process of diagnosing a problem and implementing a solution. through reflective practice and diagnosing problems in their operation, the students applied workflow concepts to their own practices (figure 3). this process helped the students to develop improvement plans for subsequent runs of operation. reflecting on problem-solving, an electrical engineering student reflected: ‘i have learnt that in the workplace, i must try to solve a problem and not call the supervisor all the time’ (student 5); another wrote: ‘i learnt to take initiative and attempt to solve a problem’ (student 6). the workplace supervisor of an office management intern commented: ‘i noticed that the intern was able to attend to smaller issues without referring them to a senior … for an example she would pick up why a claim would potentially not be payable and immediately contact the claimant … this has helped us to reduce our turn-around times.’ (workplace supervisor 2, male, accountant, working in a finance department) figure 3: concepts into practice (a) powerpoint slide depicting work done and team work (slide 8); (b) photograph of students’ activity on workflow. sometimes, however, workplace supervisor 6’s intern was not able to distinguish between what he could attend to and what he should refer to the supervisor: ‘in the training … perhaps there needs to be some emphasis on proactivity and decision making to be able to discern between what the intern can handle and what needs to be referred.’ (workplace supervisor 3, female, office manager in an operations department) from the perspective of the interns, it seemed as though the application of workflow and other problem-solving skills depended on the readiness of the work environment to allow the intern space to act autonomously. this seemed to have been the case for a public management intern who was placed at a clinic and found that, as a junior intern, she did not have the confidence to suggest solutions to a problem. another intern explained that although the reception had been good at his place of work, he had found in the first year that a: ‘[p]latform was not made available to make suggestions.’ (intern 5, female, office management and technology graduate working in a clinic) although not addressing the issue of whether or not an intern had been granted a platform, a supervisor indicated that workplaces also need to be prepared for students and made to understand that interns are there to: ‘[a]dd value and somehow reduce one’s workload while learning.’ (workplace supervisor 5, female, office manager in a service department). workplace supervisor 8 agreed: ‘sometimes the mentors do not give the intern opportunity to grow … they are somehow scared to give them responsibility and tend to treat them as if they are incapable of making decisions or they will make mistakes.’ (workplace supervisor 8, male, office manager in a procurement department) workplace supervisor 9 concurred, explaining that had he known about the eip and what it teaches the student, he would have created more opportunities for the interns to demonstrate their capabilities. he suggested that host employers be given an orientation of the training programme as well. social relations to a field or profession (sr4) in module 4, ‘innovation’, students were introduced to the idea of innovation, in particular the kaizen understanding of innovation as evolving through continuous improvement. the fourth module defined innovation for the students and provided its examples. it also showed archived videos of previous training sessions to illustrate how creativity could be brought into vehicle assembly. innovation, in alignment with the kaizen idea that innovation emerges from practices that follow kaizen principles, was understood as part of the production run. central to innovation in the eip are the ‘jigs’ that were introduced for the purpose of improving work practices. students were given the freedom to use whatever was in the room to improve their efficiency. the module encouraged the students to work together to conceptualise and test the ‘jigs’. following each run, and following reflection towards improvement, students actively engaged with one another to create and test the ‘jig’. in the eip, innovation is expected to emerge from teamwork, openness around the identification of errors, planning for improvement, working as a stronger team that is more aware of its own strengths and weakness and then innovating – seeing opportunities for potential and change. innovation is not restricted to module 4; it can happen whenever the teams innovate, but more activity is encouraged towards the end of the programme. figure 4 shows how students used innovation to improve the workspace from an untidy space to an improved one. figure 4: improving the workspace: (a) students working at an untidy workspace; (b) students developing ‘jigs’ to tidy the workspace; (c) a much neater workspace as a result of improvements. the literature on lean education suggests that artefacts that are produced in the production runs (or other simulation) should be meaningful to the professional context, otherwise academically experienced faculty members may lack the confidence to approach the material (murman et al. 2014). given this assertion, it can be expected that the non-engineering students who had undergone the eip would have found the use of the miniature trucks in the eip problematic, particularly at the beginning of the training as they would find it difficult to make the connection between truck assembly and their own disciplines and fields. for example, an electrical engineering student felt that the truck was a mechanical engineering tool and as such was not suited to his discipline: ‘although i learnt to work in teams, i feel that this training is for mechanical engineering students and has no link with electrical engineering.’ (student 3, male, eip participant, electrical engineering) similarly, during the interviews, a public management intern commented: ‘when we were given the instructions to work on the truck, i could not understand how this relates to my qualification.’ (intern 1, male, public management graduate working in a maintenance department) a chemical engineering intern commented: ‘[the eip] does not do much for me in industry as the environment is different. it might help to adapt it to other industries.’ (intern 2, male, chemical engineering graduate working in a water utility company) despite these views, the majority of the interns from chemistry, office management and technology, public management, and even most of the students from chemical engineering, were able to link the trucks and related tools to work processes more generally. for example, the majority of the chemical engineering interns indicated that they could link elements of the eip, such as continuous improvement, housekeeping and so on, to plant optimisation in which they were required to improve processes in order to achieve the best result with less inputs. the management interns, in their focus group interviews, also said that they understood that the truck was merely a tool and of importance were the learning outcomes that prepared them for workplaces. they added that perhaps the use of an artefact that was unrelated to the field was exactly what was needed to create adaptability skills. a similar view was held by facilitators. an eip facilitator in the health sciences suggested that limiting students’ work-readiness training to their own field would not enhance students’ readiness for life. other eip facilitators agreed, indicating that in their experience, the use of the trucks had not negatively affected students’ learning but suggested a need for the facilitator to provide a ‘rounding-off’ of the training by providing space for the students to apply the concepts in their own field of study. an eip facilitator claimed that while there was no need to use tools other than the trucks, she believed that the facilitator had to ensure that the students understood the purpose of the training at the beginning. she commented on her experience with offering the eip training to non-engineering students: ‘[non engineering students] have this belief that engineering students are smarter and are therefore apprehensive of the use of trucks in the beginning, but once, as the facilitator, i lay the foundation by explaining that the truck is merely a teaching and learning tool and i explain the expected outcomes of the training, they loosen up and achieve excellent learning.’ (facilitator 3, female facilitator, research site 2) the facilitators felt that while there was no need to change the miniature truck as a teaching tool, the simulated environment could become more authentic by including different portfolios such as training and development as an element of human resources management, cost analysis as an element of finance, ergonomics as an element of environmental health and so on: ‘all these different elements would give the student something close to a comprehensive picture of the workplace.’ (facilitator 3, male facilitator, research site 1) the facilitators suggested that the use of the trucks for non-engineering students could orientate the students towards being adaptable. adaptability is the key work-readiness indicator (caballero et al. 2011:45). social relations to broader society (sr5) to encourage the students to think about innovation in the context of societal contribution, the case of the q-drum was presented. the q-drum was developed in south africa and is an innovation designed to help rural women who carry water on their heads. the q-drum can be filled with water and then be pulled, instead of being carried on the head. the students were taken through the process of innovation from problem, conceptualisation, research and development, market research and finished product (figure 5). as a group exercise, the students were encouraged to discuss possible further improvements to the q-drum. figure 5: process of creating innovation: (a) rural women carrying water on their heads; (b) q-drum as a solution for carrying water. the south african context did not feature strongly in the eip. there was thus a missed opportunity to show how work leading to innovations, such as the q-drum, could benefit society beyond its benefit to the company that produced this product. there were many more examples taken from the japanese context, particularly with regard to manufacture, in spite of there being many examples of japanese factories in south africa (zondo 2018). discussion the focus of the eip is on srs to the self (sr1) and to others (sr2). in spite of it being such a short course, the eip made curricular space for considerable teamwork, for several iterations of the production runs and for reflective practice in the forms of debriefings after each production run. in the video clips of the practical training (from modules 2 to 4), one can see the impact that the iterative pedagogy had on how students organised their workplaces more effectively (see figure 4). while the eip cannot be expected to meet multiple demands and requirements, and it might be unrealistic to expect the eip to have achieved more than the strengthening of srs to the self (sr1) and to others (sr2), there are notable gaps in the macro-level srs (sr3, sr4 and sr5), as well as very obvious relevance to the south african context. the most obviously missing element in the eip – and which is strongly present in most examples of lean education towards work-readiness (candido, murman & mcmanus 2007; mansur, leite & bastos 2017:28–29) – is a sense of the broader contribution that students will be able to make to their workplaces, their professions or even the national economy through their practice (sr5). in other words, the training needed a clearer sense of purpose and meaning. there are opportunities for kaizen-based training ‘to transcend the conventional applications of lean’ (sawhney & de anda 2017:111). a strong part of students’ motivation, across a wide range of disciplines, is that their education will allow them to improve the lives of others. this is particularly the case for south african students, many of whom are strongly driven by the need to ‘make a difference’ through their education (nell 2014). the eip has not been adapted for the south african university of technology sector where the majority of students are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and where many of the qualifications offered by this sector are the key to south africa’s development (wedekind & mutereko 2016). while going into depth on a particular contribution to the national economy would be beyond the scope of a short course, it is an oversight of the eip not to make some attempt to contextualise work-readiness and the kaizen concepts of respect for others’ increased productivity and the elimination of waste in relation to larger national and local needs. a second missing curricular element in the eip is srs to the field or profession (sr4). an sr to the field, in the form of an emerging professional identity, is difficult to achieve when the programme is as generic as the eip. in many of the work-readiness programmes described in the literature, there is a clear adaption of the simulated production ‘game’, which tends to have a natural ‘fit’ with engineering disciplines (alves et al. 2017), and to other disciplines and fields, such as avionics (murman et al. 2014), health sciences (sawhney & de anda 2016) or business sciences (carenys & moya 2016). key to the success of a lean short course for work-readiness is the alignment of its values with those of professional practice in different fields. sawhney and de anda (2016:103) explained that a work-readiness short course ‘has to be in line with traditions and norms of the culture where the implementation is taking place’ … because that ‘environment (with its cultural values) determine[s] the success of the initiative’. it is also important that the artefacts that are produced in the production runs (or other simulation) are meaningful to the professional context, although simplified. in the aerospace short course, aeroplane parts are assembled (murman et al. 2014); in the university of tennessee’s health sciences work-readiness short course, a hospital emergency reception ward is simulated (sawhney & de anda 2016); and in an online business work-readiness course, there are virtual artefacts associated with office environments (carenys & moya 2016). the reduction of high-level complex artefacts or machines (in the language of lct, the reduction of the ers) is a key feature of lean work-readiness short courses; this is performed to enable a focus on the multiple srs in practice. however, the weakening of the er should not involve complete de-contextualisation, as this defeats the purpose of work-readiness training by making the social concepts and practices learnt considerably more difficult to transfer to relevant workplaces (de vin, jacobsson & odhe 2018). the use of vehicle simulation in the south african eip derives directly from the origins of lean production in the toyota manufacturing plant. motor manufacture has an extremely positive symbolic meaning in japan, related to national pride in manufacture (fujino & konno 2016). this is not the case in south africa, where motor assembly has different symbolic meanings. the south african automotive industry includes a range of practitioners ‘from very low-skilled manual labour to high-skilled engineering and management’ (wedekind & mutereko 2015: 22–23), with difficult employer relationships, and low levels of trust typifying work in the industry. the point is that vehicle parts are not neutral artefacts but are highly symbolically charged; in the south african context, this needs to be a consideration. the above relates to the final missing curricular component of the eip, that is, srs to practices in organisations and companies (sr3). this is a key component in the south african context where labour relations are complex and difficult. in their report on south african industries, wedekind and mutereko (2015) found a recurring theme across case studies to be the issue of trust between parties and within the organisation. there is thus a lost opportunity in the eip to use the kaizen tools in order to make a contribution towards improved workplace relations. simulations have proven to be beneficial in enabling participants from various backgrounds to meaningfully engage in learning from experience, and interactive simulations can play a role in improving relationships in a multi-stakeholder setting (proches & bodhanya 2012). in spite of the eip’s stated outcome ‘to understand organisational roles’, this is only addressed in the theoretical training and not extended into the practical training – at least not to the same extent of, for example, teamwork in the production process. thus, in terms of the srs to organisations or companies, there is insufficient strengthening of the srs. the evaluation criteria comprise five types of srs: srs to the broader society (sr5); srs to a field or profession (sr4); srs to a company or industry (sr3); srs to others (sr2); and srs to the self (sr1). while many studies of work-readiness training explain that intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are needed for work-readiness (e.g. kaider, hains-wesson & young 2017:158–9; mohamad et al. 2016:3401) and some studies are more specific with regard to lists or dimensions of interpersonal and intrapersonal competences and abilities (e.g. caballero et al. 2011), this study has provided a theoretically consistent framework within which the many descriptions of skills and lists of attributes that have been empirically studied and reported on in the research literature could be theoretically located. the theoretical framework has thus provided an insight into the underpinning principles and logic of work-readiness training. drawing on this framework enables a theory-based evaluation of programme in support of students’ work-readiness. this was the intention of a realistic, theory-based evaluation of the eip. conclusion the knowledge contribution that the eip curriculum evaluation makes is the development of a theory-driven evaluation instrument, which has an application beyond the eip to a work-readiness programme in general. the research has shown that srs to the wider society (sr5) are supported when examples from the local context are used. the use of foreign contexts and examples limits students’ ability to develop srs to the local social and economic context. thus, local examples and local illustrations create meaning for students in ways in which foreign contexts and examples cannot achieve. somewhere between the criticisms of kaizen-based work-readiness training as ‘instruments for the oppression of the workforce’ (sears 2003) and the praise heaped on them as courses where students ‘learned more … than [in] any course they had taken in college’ (murman 2017:vi) is a middle ground that recognises their shortcomings and acknowledges their potential. the shortcomings of the eip have been pointed out in the evaluation process – in particular, the need for the eip to take into account students’ professional identification with the field of practice, the south african labour relations context and the greater societal contribution that can be made through the exercise of professional and ethical work practices. the strength of the eip, which was shown in the evaluation, emanates from the nature of kaizen itself: continuous improvement. continuous improvement is translated into pedagogy as iteration towards improvement and innovation. this pedagogy is highly innovative – indeed academic departments might consider the use of iterative cycles towards improvement in student projects, for example. such iterative pedagogies are unusual in higher education, where there is always a rush to complete the curriculum before the end of the academic year. kaizen teaches a ‘slow pedagogy’ (berg & seeber 2016) : the importance of planning and the time that this takes, and the importance of re-doing something, and re-doing it again, in order to make it better. it is hoped that the recommendations arising from this study will be implemented in the spirit of kaizen – continuous improvement towards innovation. as small changes are implemented across the eip, it is hoped that it will become an effective programme in support of south african higher education students’ work-readiness for the south african world of work. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the support of the students, interns, facilitators and workplace supervisors who were participants in this research project. competing interests the authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest. authors’ contributions the first author undertook all the research activities; both authors contributed equally to the conceptualisation and the writing of this article. ethical consideration ethical clearance for the study was obtained from the cape peninsula university of technology’s education faculty ethics committee (ethical clearance number: efec 3-9/2017). funding information the research presented in 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fundamental argument is that the single inimitable characteristic of human consciousness is an ability to encompass non-dual thought and that this capacity can a priori not be copied, scanned or uploaded into an informational matrix that operates through bi-polar antimonies. keywords: non-dualism, technology, bi-polar antimonies, posthuman, cyborgs, transhumanism, linear logic, virtual reality, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. most of my life has been spent in the field of drama and theatre studies. more recently i moved to the vaal university of technology to a principal lectureship in visual arts and design. all of my academic life then has been in the humanities and human sciences and my personal stance was that of a liberal humanist. however, confronting the implications of possible and apparently imminent posthumanism, i have had pause to reconsider my position. what follows is an attempt to trace that journey. i begin with katherine hayles who, in her book how we became posthuman, articulates her understanding of the term ‘posthuman’ as follows: i understand human and posthuman to be historically specific constructions that emerge from different configurations of embodiment, technology, and culture. my reference point for human is the tradition of liberal humanism; the posthuman appears when computation rather than possessive individualism is taken as the ground of being, a move that allows the posthuman to be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines.1 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 379-390. _______ * prof. dennis schauffer is an emeritus professor of drama and theatre studies at the university of kwazulu natal and is currently principal lecturer in visual arts and design at the vaal university of technology, gauteng, south africa. 1 k hayles, how we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics, (university of chicago press, london, 1999), pp. 33-34. 380 in answer to the moral and ethical concerns that are being anticipated by this possible fundamental shift in mankind’s ontology, academics such as verner vinge point out that this would be no more than the natural and historical human tendency to entropy; the propensity to push the boundaries of human possibilities for complexity of order and enhancement of intellectual capacity. in 1993 he wrote in a web article: within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. shortly after, the human era will be ended.2 what then, one might ask, supersedes humans? dualists of course will regard this entire discussion as absurd because human consciousness, they aver, is socially constructed. in addition the ‘spirit’, ‘soul’, or ‘life force’ are of supernatural origin and not ‘embodied’ in the human brain. it would, in consequence, be impossible for man to transplant or replicate human consciousness. vitalists would say that uploading was a priori impossible. the original cyborg (cybernetic organism) anticipated by heidegger involved a human being with bodily functions enhanced and controlled by technological devices. already we are familiar with pacemakers (artificial heart valve pumps) and at many centres experiments with and research into the use of nanotechnology has commenced. the race is on to produce a nanobot (a microscopic robot built by means of nanotechnology)3 to undertake simple internal operations within animal and then human bodies. of course the scale of the prototypes at the moment is far from being ‘nano’ (one billionth of a meter in size) and it will require the achievement of practically applied nanotechnology in molecular manufacturing in order for molecule-by-molecule manufacture of nanobots small enough to be injected into the human body, there to replicate themselves in sufficient numbers to maintain, repair, diagnose, cure and even enhance bodily features and functions. some commentators have begun to ring alarm bells by asking what would happen if the process of self-replication went out of control? if this led to the destruction of the human host this would be referred to as the ‘grey goo’ scenario. if the process led to the take-over of the natural ecology, then reference would be made to the ‘black goo’ scenario. alan goldstein in a very readable posting in a blog on the i, schauffer _______ 2 v vinge,. the coming technological singularity: how to survive in the post-human (sic.) era. paper presented at vision-21 symposium sponsored by nasa lewis research center and the ohio aerospace institute, march 30-31, 1993 1993 [online]. available at http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html. (accessed 2006.06.14.) 3 see massachusetts institute of technology as an important example. 381 nanobot – new scientist – tribe.net refutes the idea of tiny robots being used for the above purposes. it is surmised: (t)hey will not be tiny robots. that mechanical fantasy, promulgated by proponents of “drexlerian” nanotechnology who appear devoid of even the most rudimentary knowledge of chemistry, has been decisively refuted by people who actually build the components for nanobiotechnology systems. people like the late nobel prize-winning chemist richard e. smalley and the great harvard bioorganic chemist george whitesides ... what will really go into our bodies, or out into the environment, will be hybrid molecular devices composed of both synthetic and biological components. these ‘devices’ will have been fabricated to specifically exchange chemical information with biological or ecological systems, they will not be nanobots, they will be nanobiobotsand those three letters make all the difference.4 another version of the cyborg more familiar perhaps to my 18-year old son daniel and to my 10-year old son devan (and only slightly less familiar to my three daughters) and to sci-fi readers and film-goers is that which sees human consciousness in control of almost entirely replaced and enhanced electronic or mechanical body parts. this is the so-called transhuman, (e.g. darth vader). the difference between a transhuman and a posthuman viewed from a technological perspective would be an entity that has undergone such a degree of modification of inherited physical being as to preclude a classification under the term homo sapiens. which raises a key corollary to which i shall return: what unique quality qualifies an entity to be classified as homo sapiens? before considering this, however, we need to note a more exciting or more frightening scenario, depending on one’s point of view, that has gained impetus through the successful sequencing of the human genome. some now entertain the possibility of ‘uploading’ the consciousness and mental structure of a human brain for downloading into an electronic or informational matrixin other words the dawn of sentient machines. apart from the dualist objections mentioned above there are other sceptics who feel that the task of uploading a human brain is of such a complex order as to place this forever beyond human technology. whilst no one can be certain that this task will ever be achieved the possibility does seem to gain credibility from steps in this direction either already taken, or envisaged. in 1954 vladimir demikhov grafted the head and upper body of a puppy onto the neck of a fully grown dog. the world was shocked and morally outraged, but the us government was also concerned that america should stay ahead of the we know what we are _______ 4 a goldstein, “i nanobot: scientists are on the verge of breaking the carbon barrier” in new scientist – tribe.net, 2006.03.09 at http://tribes.tribe.net/newscientist/thread/ af5c4f53-f81d-4ed2-a31e-cd6c3b144b4c. (accessed 2006.06.26. re-accessed 2006.12.05.) td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 379-390. 382 game in all scientific endeavour. dr. r white studied to be a brain surgeon at harvard medical school and in 1960 he obtained government funding to establish a brain research centre at county hospital in cleveland, ohio. in 1964 he transplanted a dog’s brain into the neck of a second dog connecting it to the blood supply of the host animal. on 4 march 1970 white successfully transplanted the head of a decapitated rhesus monkey onto the body of another decapitated monkey. the head soon regained consciousness and attempted to bite the finger of the experimenter (an action that most people i think would applaud as being both understandable and justifiable). the spinal cord could not be attached and so the animal was in effect a paraplegic. ray kurzweil in live forever – uploading the human brain ... closer than you think5 makes reference to a condemned killer who in 1993 gave permission for his brain to be invasively scanned and that you can now access all ten billion bytes of him on the internet. whilst you can see every neuron and every neurotransmitter concentration in each synapse-thin layer, the scan is not yet at a high enough resolution for a re-creation to take place. further experiments in 1997 enabled white to achieve respiration in the receptor monkey, but the problem of attaching nerve tissue to the spinal cord remains. recent research at the wistar institute of the university of pennsylvania could point the way towards resolution of this problem.6 on 27 january 1999 a successful hand transplant from a cadaver was carried out at the louisville medical centre.7 the transplantation of a human brain and human consciousness was first promoted by marvin minsky8 and since then it appears to be envisaged in three stages. the human head transplant would be the first step. a human brain transplant to another human host, conducted in such a way as to scan in the exact state, level, and position of every neurotransmitter, synapse, and neural connection, would be the next step. then with the dawn of molecular manufacturing would come the atom by atom replication of a human brain for installation either in a human or robotic host, or into an schauffer _______ 5 see r kurzweil “live forever – uploading the human brain ... closer than you think” in psychologytoday.com. published in kurzweilai.net, 2001.04.07 at http:// www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0157.html. (accessed 2006.09.09. re-accessed 2006.12.05.) 6 anon., “regeneration in the mammalian heart demonstrated by wistar researchers” in science daily, at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010807080356.htm; anonm., “recovery from spinal cord injury seen in mice when scarring is minimized” in sciencedaily, 2002.01.24 at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/ 020123080522.html. (accessed 12/09/06. re-accessed 2006.12.05.) 7 anon., “scientists give man a ‘new’ hand” in discoverychannel.ca, 1999.01.27 at http:/ /www.exn.net/templates/story.asp?id=1999012756. (accessed 9/11/2006.11.09. reaccessed 2006.12.05.) 8 ‘conscious machines’ in machinery of consciousness, proceedings, national research council of canada. 75th anniversary symposium on science in society. june 1991. 383 informational matrix such as a super neural computer. to date the most advanced research seems to be taking place at mcgill university where randal koene, a doctoral student in psychology is working on the neurological reconstruction of the hippocampus. koene and other proponents of mind uploading (or whole brain emulation) believe it to be possible to recreate a human life in a computer. ray kurzweil, in an article for wired magazine, remarks: one approach to designing intelligent computers will be to copy the human brain, so these machines will seem very human. and through nanotechnology, which is the ability to create physical objects atom by atom, they will have human-like – albeit greatly enhanced – bodies as well. having human origins they will claim to be human, and to have human feelings. and being immensely intelligent, they’ll be very convincing when they tell us these things.9 it seems inevitable that artificial intelligence will soon outstrip human intelligence (if intelligence is the capacity to assimilate, order, react to, compute, and forecast data) and it is certainly possible to conceive of machines capable of reading and understanding printed hard-copy. personally i could, even if grudgingly, entertain the possibility of a machine with uploaded human intelligence displaying, in its way, human-like feelings. machines that play music are hardly a new phenomenon and with a set of musical parameters and definitions, why should future machines not be capable of producing entirely original works? the same goes for drama, fine art, and even (when robotics reaches that stage) a dancing robot. this raises the question: is there anything that a machine could not ultimately take over from human consciousness? i imagine a robot playing hamlet. i have no doubt that the robot ‘performer’ would be word perfect. the emotional expression revealed through tone of voice, focus, gestural and postural semiotic signs etc. could conceivably be programmed randomly to select subtle differences of interpretation ensuring that no two performances of the same role would ever be the same. audience reception, both audible and visible, could be factored in to provide a causal link to variations of mood, pitch, pace, projection, emphasis, and so on. performing and visual artists, however, know instinctively that there is another level of involvement not covered by the above. i say instinctively because we are speaking in a western language that has no adequate equivalent to the eastern concept of rasa, which makes talking about the issue very problematic. the nearest i can get to interpreting this concept is to say that rasa is the inspired feeling that an artist imbeds in we know what we are _______ 9 r kurzweil, “brave new world: the evolution of mind in the twenty-first century” in wired magazine, 1999.10.02. located at http://www.ghandchi.com/iranscope/ anthology/kurzweil-bnw.htm. (accessed 2006.09.11. re-accessed 2006.12.05.) td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 379-390. 384 an artefact in such a way that it is communicated intuitively to the informed, sensitive individual that experiences the particular artefact through the emotions. from a different mindset one could pose such questions as: how could a robot access the swadharma of hamlet? (i.e. what he is compelled to do by virtue of his fate.) access could only be via the gunas which rustom bharucha defines as ‘the innate psychobiological traits which are the heritage of an individual’s previous lives’ (bharucha 1993:71). of course in a humanist debate (as i understand humanism) such esoteric considerations are out of order, unless the concept of humanism is revisited to incorporate the metaphysical. at the end of this paper i hope to suggest an alternative way to address the problem that might be more acceptable. rasa theory aside then, it would appear that there is an inexorable march towards humans being partially fused with or totally subsumed by machines. hayles opposes this view and reminds us that: although some current versions of the posthuman point towards the antihuman and the apocalyptic, we can craft others that will be conducive to the long-range survival of humans and of the other life-forms, biological and artificial, with whom we share the planet and ourselves (1999:291). whilst this may be a comforting rejoinder, there remains a sense of unease reflected in films such as star wars (1983 and later), the fly (1986), robocop (1987 and later) and so on. it is no longer a case of boy meets girl and after suitable dramatic complications boy gets girl. now it is a case of man makes machine and after suitable dramatic battles man conquers machines, or vice versa, or even having fallen in love the machine seeks humanity status through the acquisition of human emotion etc. not that the concept of human bodies fusing with non-human forms is new. the concept is as ancient as the myths and legends of our earliest civilizations. ganesha has the head of an elephant, pan was half man and half goat, centaurs are fusions of man with horse, a mermaid is the fusion of woman with fish, and so on. transmographication in literature is reasonably common with dracula’s ability to become a bat, and renfield’s ability to become a werewolf. the dracula tale is interesting from another point of view in that, as a vampire, he is described as being un-dead. would ‘un-dead’ be a suitable term to apply to those machines with uploaded human consciousness, and would they only be regarded as ‘dead’ if the system crashes without a backup? it is significant to note that in myth, legend, and in literary works that precede the concept of the cyborg, the humans fuse with other living entities in the main (some with trees, the sea, mountains etc.), but not with machines created by human technology. it is not in my view schauffer 385 the prospect of men fusing with machines per se that is the cause for the current unease but with the threat of alienation and displacement of the human being from a position of control and a violation of human dignity. when galileo in the seventeenth century (1632) proposed that the earth moved around the sun and was therefore not at the centre of the universe, religious order was immediately outraged. copernicus, some ninety years earlier, had proposed that the world was round, not flat, and that it revolved around the sun. his writings were predictably banned by the all-powerful catholic church and were only unbanned in 1835. others who agreed with copernicus were either silenced (brahe) or arrested and burned at the stake for heresy (giordano bruno).the prospect of god’s finest creation, man, not being at the centre was as much a challenge to orthodox belief of it’s time as darwin’s origin of the species (1859) proved to be later. with modernism and humanism man was firmly in charge and responsible for the godless world. even the transhuman retains control, but in posthumanism, at least in one interpretation of the term, humans seemingly capitulate and vest effective control to machines. the overarching question arises again from all of this: what qualities are unique to human beings (if any)? in other words: what distinguishes human beings from all other entities?10 without going through all the discounted definitions involving ‘tool using animals’, ‘opposable thumbs and non-opposable big toes’, ‘language users’, ‘creatures of compassion’ etc. and without a redefinition of humanism in general or a reversion to something like kierkegardian christian humanism, one cannot seek a metaphysical answer to the question in terms of ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’. these scientifically un-provable concepts aside, i do believe that a possible alternative answer could be found in the non-western mindset. to have to fuse with a machine in order to achieve immortality or heightened intelligence would make no sense to a person with the kind of traditional african mindset which has already collapsed the duality of individual and society. this is captured in the expression umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu11 and the connotation ‘an individual is an individual in relation to their contribution to the social good’. compare this to the individualist ideology embedded in descartes’ cogito ergo sum.12 the duality of life and death has also been collapsed in the notion of the amadlozi (ancestors). the so-called death of a person in such bewe know what we are _______ 10 in all of this discussion the term ‘man’ and ‘mankind’ are used. the implicit sexism in the use of such terms could derive from the establishment of the bible and christianity with the council of nicaea in 325 a.d. the nicene creed did not accept that women had souls. the church only accepted that women had souls in 1545. 11 a person is a person because of people. 12 i think therefore i am. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 379-390. 386 lief is simply a point of transition between being a person and being an ancestor. in an animist way the ancestors inhabit trees, or rivers, rocks etc. as far as heightened intelligence is concerned this can be acquired by direct reference to the ancestors via prayer, sacrifice, trance, or through dreams, or drugs. the idea would be equally illogical to anyone who believes in reincarnation as distinct from resurrection in a christian sense. the western mindset is characterized by linear logic grounded in dualism and western religion is equally linear in the sense that it proceeds from a notion of creation to apocalyptic eschatology.13 the eastern mindset by contrast is cyclical and nondualistic in nature. in his criticism of peter brook’s nine hour film of the great hindu epic the mahabharata, bharucha comments: if brook had given some importance to the cyclical nature of time that pervades the mahabharata, he would have rejected the validity of dramatizing the epic in a predominantly linear narrative. nothing could be more foreign to the mahabharata than linearity ... 14 what one misses ... is the sense of time that transcends chronology, time that stretches to infinity ... [in brook’s film] time is truncated into blocks of action, acts and scenes that have definite beginnings and ends (bharucha, r. 1993:75).15 this suggestion further illustrates the difference between linear and cyclical mindsets because for the linear mind the whole is the sum of its parts, but for the cyclical mind the part is microcosm of the whole. this differentiation of mindsets is dealt with extensively by marimba ani in yurugu. of the western mindset she writes: linearity was fundamental to the system of ‘logic’ that aristotle introduced, which was thereafter equated with truth (ani, m. 1994:68). she then quotes vernon dixon ‘ ... [who] characterizes european schauffer _______ 13 whilst the phrase ‘apocalyptic eschatology’ is used here in the sense of ‘catastrophic end of the world’, and in some religions the destruction of the planet (or of all life on earth) is in some way or another predicted, this does not necessarily imply that the human race will not survive in some new form. 14 the objection could be raised of course that the mahabharata also has a beginning and an end and, within the work there are narratives that are linear, but this is to miss the point. it confuses the pointing finger with the direction indicated. the same kind of objection is sometimes raised to ionesco’s attempt to deal with linguistic absurdity in a play such as rhinoceros. the play script employs meaningful words in meaningful linguistic structures. the reflection of linguistic absurdity is never-the-less conveyed if one doesn’t prioritize form over content. the play script should be read as a metaabsurd document in the same way as the mahabharata should be read as a metacyclical document. 15 earlier bharucha suggests: ‘if brook had been concerned with the context of the mahabharata, he might not have attempted to summarize the entire ‘story’ within nine hours. for an epic that is fifteen times longer than the bible, nine hours is really not that long; in fact, it is pitifully short. to attempt an encapsulation of the mahabharata in its entirety is a hubris of sorts, but to limit that encapsulation to nine hours is the reduction ad absurdum of theatrical adaptation. it would have been better for brook to focus on a few scenes.’ (bharucha, r. 1993:74.) 387 (aristotelian) logic as “either/or logic” which is based on the laws of absolute contradiction, and on the exclusion of the middle ground. he says that “either/or logic has become so ingrained in western thought that it is felt to be natural and self-evident.” he contrasts european logic with what he calls the “diunital logic” of the african world-view, in which things can be “apart and united at the same time.” according to this logic, something is both in one category and not in that category at the same time [umuntu, ngumuntu, ngabantu], this circumstance is unthinkable given the european world-view.’ (op. cit. p. 68). earlier she quotes de lubicz in his description of the rational european search for universal truth as ‘ ... “research without illumination.” for him the basis of all scientific knowledge or universal knowledge is intuition. intellectual analysis is secondary and will always be, at best, inconclusive’ (op. cit. p. 67). my point is that a human being has a choice and is capable of both linear and cyclical thought. the kind of advanced intelligence in a super-computer that is envisioned as a download site for possible attempts to upload human consciousness would still operate through a fundamental dualism of bi-polar antimonies (opposites). in essence a computer recognizes 0 and 1. instruct a computer to collapse the duality and it would freeze. how then would it be possible for a computer operating on on/off signals to become non-dual in thought? my assertion is then that the human being is the only entity known currently with the capacity for non-dual, cyclical perception and thought. i believe this to be true despite john mccarthy’s challenge to hubert dreyfus to put money on him not being able to write logical formulas for ambiguity tolerance.16 the point is that this has not as yet been achieved. when it is we are definitely in trouble! the same applies to non-linear mathematics and science because the fields still rely upon cleverly conceived computer-based numeral simulations giving insights into problems that are at present intractable. whether uploading will ever become a reality remains for the moment an open question, but with the example before us of wilbur wright, who once declared that man would never fly, we would be wise to keep an open mind on the subject. considering also that the time between the wright brother’s famous flight and man setting foot on the moon was a mere sixty years, and the fact that technology is advancing at a demonstrably exponential rate, who knows where we will be in 2066. i know i will be dead – whatever that means, but i, for one, will not be asking any ‘scotty’ to ‘beam me up’. we know what we are _______ 16 j mccarthy, “the degenerating research program” 2000.01.13 at http://wwwformal.stanford.edu/jmc/reviews/dreyfus/node4.html. (accessed 2006.-6.15. reaccessed 2006.12.05.) td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 379-390. 388 in conclusion: having placed faith and trust in the assertion that linear logic, western science, and technology can in the end explain all things western, humanists are fast approaching the position in which a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer will have to be given to the question: is there any unique, inimitable quality possessed by homo sapiens alone? a capacity for non-dual thought is what i propose ironically enough to back up a positive answer to this essentially ‘dualist’ question. the implications of this however are profound and, if accepted, there would be need to re-define humanism. a negative response will have equally profound implications for, with no apparent claim to any unique quality, humankind might very well be logically advised to follow the yellow brick road to the mechanical wizard that will make it possible for us to leave our human bodies to live forever an idyllic, super-intelligent, disease-free life in hedonistic virtual reality. in the dark days of man’s ignorance this condition used to be referred to as heaven, moksha, nirvana, or some other culture-specific term. the posthuman version though will be a god-less existence without transmographied humans with wings. it is also useful to bear in mind that this ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer will only be required of those with linear mindsets. the rest will be left to carry on in their non-linear, cyclical way, pursuing strangely similar though radically different ends; an entirely appropriate position to be in for a non-dualist ... myself now among that number until the inexorable tide of changing insights and awareness sweeps me away to welcome new perspectives. i wonder what a post posthuman perspective will involve? bibliography published sources (hard copy) ani, m. 1994. yurugu: an african-centered critique of european cultural thought and behavior. new jersey: africa world press. bharucha, r. 1993. theatre and the world, performance and the politics of culture. london: routledge. hawkins, s. 1988. a brief history of time. london: bantam. hayles, k. 1999. how we became posthuman virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. london: university of chicago press. kurzweil, r. 1999. the age of spiritual machines. new york: viking. overton, w.f. 2004. “embodied development: ending the nativismempiricism debate” in coll, c., bearer, e., and lerner, r. 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[online] creation, evolution, and the human genome. available at http//www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/ units/1990/6/90.06.09.x.html. accessed 2006.06.11. schauffer abstract introduction epistemic justice and epistemological diversity heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy and the ‘in-between’ conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) renate schepen department of philosophy, university of vienna, vienna, austria anke graness department of philosophy, university of vienna, vienna, austria citation schepen, r. & graness, a., 2019, ‘heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy and the quest for epistemic justice’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a554. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.554 original research heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy and the quest for epistemic justice renate schepen, anke graness received: 19 feb. 2018; accepted: 22 mar. 2019; published: 28 may 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract since the 1990s epistemic (in)justice has been a central issue of post-colonial and feminist studies. but only during the last decade the term has become paradigmatic and new aspects of the issue have been addressed – particularly because of the works of de sousa santos (2012, 2014) and fricker (2007). one of the pioneers of an intercultural approach to philosophy is the german philosopher heinz kimmerle (1930–2016), who in the 1980s began to focus his research on african philosophies. intercultural philosophy aimed for more epistemic justice in the academy long before the term epistemic or cognitive injustice was coined and became a new paradigm in the social sciences and humanities. kimmerle, for example, was one of the main proponents of a radical reform of the eurocentric curricula in academic philosophy, and he called for the inclusion of philosophical traditions from various regions of the world. similarities in the starting point of research and research questions in philosophy and postor decolonial studies, and proposed solutions to epistemic injustice in these disciplines, give enough reason to combine the social sciences’ theories of epistemic justice with the methods of intercultural philosophy for a reciprocal cultural enrichment between these disciplines. this article shows that theories of ‘epistemic justice’ could benefit from heinz kimmerle’s method of dialogue and reflective listening. similarly, insights derived from post-colonial, decolonial and feminist theory could strengthen an awareness of structural power inequalities in intercultural philosophy. therefore, we explore how theories of epistemic justice and intercultural philosophy can complement each other. keywords: intercultural philosophy; epistemic injustice; heinz kimmerle; feminist theory; difference. introduction currently, in the academic discipline of philosophy, ‘western’1 epistemologies are, undoubtedly, dominant. although marginalised groups are occasionally the object of studies, their knowledge is hardly recognised as a contribution to – or even included in – academic philosophy, nor is this knowledge considered by policy-makers in dealing with global problems. however, in an increasingly globalised world, the realisation dawns that approaching global problems purely from a ‘western’ perspective is neither effective nor justified. a key task of intercultural philosophy is to challenge the dominant anglo-american and eurocentric paradigm of philosophy. an intercultural perspective presupposes that, regardless of the asymmetries of power in the world and in the academy, every tradition or school of thought is equally entitled to introduce ideas, concepts and questions to philosophical discourse, and that no force except that of the better argument should be exerted. by incorporating non-‘western’ traditions into teaching and research, intercultural philosophy attempts to balance the present-day philosophical canon dominated by texts written by ‘white men’. thus, an intercultural perspective is characterised by a sincere effort to recognise the equality of theoretical contributions from different regions and traditions of the world and integrate them into an open discourse on various theoretical issues. it goes beyond a comparative juxtaposition, where the other is taken as an exotic extra or a nice supplement to the ‘true’ theory or considered an object of study outside the main stream of philosophical thought. therefore, the intercultural approach contributes to an open, plural discourse. however, to date, intercultural approaches to philosophy have received hardly any attention. ‘of the top 50 philosophy doctoral programs in the english-speaking world, only 15 percent have any regular faculty members who teach any non-“western” philosophy’ (garfield & van norden 2016). a study of 20 randomly selected universities in german-speaking countries found that the curricula of only a fifth of bachelor’s programmes in philosophy proved to provide a firm foundation in the intercultural dimension of philosophy (schirilla 2011). a recent study of curricula of departments of philosophy in africa shows that very few of the continent’s departments of philosophy offer courses on african philosophy (etieyibo & chimakonam 2018). but, as boaventura de sousa santos warns, persistent denial of the validity of epistemologies from ‘the south’ and failure to acknowledge marginalised voices could lead to the disappearance of such epistemologies and ultimately even epistemicide, the murder of knowledge, caused by unequal exchanges among cultures (de sousa santos 2014:92). feminist and post-colonial studies have offered critiques of such tendencies and their dangers, as has intercultural philosophy. in this article, we will first offer a brief introduction to the recent debate on epistemic justice (de sousa santos 2014; fricker 2007), and then examine issues of epistemic justice through the lens of african philosophers such as mogobe ramose (1999), sophie oluwole (2014) and henry odera oruka (1990). next, we will elaborate on heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy, focussing on the period between 2006 and 2016. although his former work has been extensively researched (de schipper 2013; oosterling 1993, 2005; oosterling & jong 1990), to date this latter period has rarely been studied. we will delineate his main motivations and method, and then describe the new perspectives offered by his theory, which, we argue, will enhance intercultural philosophy and dialogue. finally, we will explore how intercultural philosophy and theories of epistemic justice complement each other, and conclude that even though kimmerle did not use the term ‘epistemic justice’, his theory inherently demands epistemological diversity and justice. an intercultural perspective presupposes that every tradition or school of thought is equally entitled to introduce ideas, concepts and questions to the global philosophical discourse, and that all the participants in such discussions are motivated only by a concern for the better argument. this means that we, european female scholars, should be aware of our own contextuality, and how it is reflected in our thinking, even though we cannot (and do not want to) escape our location and rootedness in the ‘western’ academy. being female philosophers also offers an epistemic privilege, by providing the ability to reflect from a marginalised position in the ‘western’ academic discourse on this very discourse. for example, it must be questioned whether the given form of academic publication does not restrict or even render impossible the presentation of previously marginalised traditions. the injustice done, when epistemologies are omitted from academic discourse, already starts with the established scientific forms of presentation. we hope that this article promotes openness to different epistemologies and related methods of philosophising. epistemic justice and epistemological diversity the works of de sousa santos (2012, 2014) and miranda fricker (2007, 2013), which have contributed to the development of a new paradigm in social sciences, have particularly been influential in the discourse on epistemic justice. although de sousa santos approaches the issue from the point of view of the neglected epistemologies of the south, fricker’s approach originates in political philosophy and feminist theory. fricker considers epistemic injustice a distinctive type of injustice, which she theorises as ‘consisting, most fundamentally, in a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower’ (fricker 2007:1). she distinguishes two types of epistemic injustice, both discriminatory and driven by a form of prejudice. testimonial injustice is related to a broader pattern of injustice in which a collective social imagination creates social identities considered to have less credibility, for example, the idea that women are irrational and black people are intellectually inferior (fricker 2007:23). hermeneutical injustice concerns the notion that, from an epistemological point of view, the powerful have an unfair advantage in structuring collective understanding and creating collective social meanings. this occurs predominantly in professions such as journalism, politics, academics and law. to correct these two forms of epistemic injustice, fricker suggests a reflexive awareness on the part of the hearer (fricker 2007:169). for this, the role of dialogue is vital, as it will enable the virtuous hearer to create a more inclusive hermeneutical micro-climate. this type of dialogue involves a more proactive and socially aware kind of listening, in which one not only listens to what is said, but also to what is not said. if the speaker and hearer share little relevant social experience, this might be very difficult; it might demand more effort from the hearer to find ways to understand the immanent meaning in the message of the speaker. if this is not possible, the virtue of hermeneutical justice may simply lie in the reservation of judgement and keeping an open mind as to credibility (fricker 2007:171–172). fricker is aware that hermeneutical marginalisation is mostly caused by unequal power relationships; however, in her book epistemic injustice (2007), her prime concern is the individual’s virtue of hermeneutical justice, which could mitigate the negative effect of hermeneutical injustice on a speaker (fricker 2007:175). in the case of inequalities of social power, the justice referred to is structural, but fricker suggests corrective measures based on individual virtues. furthermore, her main concern here is discriminatory injustice and not distributive injustice, which is related to the distribution of epistemic goods such as education or information. she does not consider distributive injustice as distinctly epistemic injustice because distributive justice is about everybody getting a fair share of goods. that it concerns epistemic goods in this case is only incidental (fricker 2007:1). in her critique of fricker, nancy fraser argues that, if epistemic injustice is structural, more than individual virtues are needed to correct epistemic injustice; there is a need for social and institutional change. fraser suggests both changing institutions that are relevant for shaping epistemologies and also creating counter-discourses and alternative ways of knowledge formation. the institutions she refers to are political institutions, the media and the educational system (fraser 2008). in her later work, fricker too considers addressing distributive injustice to be as relevant as addressing discriminatory injustice to correcting epistemic injustice (fricker 2013:1317–1332). she argues that there is not only a need for individual virtues of epistemic justice, but that these virtues need to be practised at an institutional level. although de sousa santos and fricker both address injustice related to epistemic practices, they do not refer to one another’s works. fricker places the focus on the knower who is not recognised as such; de sousa santos’ approach is slightly different. he uses the term cognitive injustice to refer to situations in which whole cultures or traditions of knowledge are marginalised or disregarded, to the point of disappearance. he criticises the unequal distribution of scientific knowledge based on colonisation and neo-colonialism, which granted disproportionate access to knowledge to certain social groups. moreover, cognitive injustice does not refer only to scientific injustice, but also to the recognition of alternative forms of knowledge and to engagement with these forms of knowledge on an equal basis. cognitive justice can be achieved by making plural epistemologies of scientific practices visible and promoting interdependence between scientific and non-scientific forms of knowledge (de sousa santos 2012:57). de sousa santos (2012) makes a plea for epistemological diversity, and argues that: … the theories produced in the global north are best equipped to account for the social, political and cultural realities of the global north and that in order adequately to account for the realities of the global south other theories must be developed and anchored in other epistemologies. (p. 45) de sousa santos’ assertion implies that intercultural dialogues comprise other kinds of knowledge: ‘as conversations and partners in conversation change, the character of both changes as well, which may lead to infinite discursive and non-discursive exchanges’ (de sousa santos 2014:15). moreover, de sousa santos states that global social justice is not possible without global cognitive justice, a dimension rarely acknowledged in the discourse on global justice today (see graness 2015). de sousa santos (2014) strongly criticises the failure to recognise that, in this world, people have different ways of knowing and of giving meaning to their existence. predecessors who advocated such an approach include michel foucault (1966), gayatri chakravorty spivak (1988) and chandra talpade mohanty (1984). foucault has shown that there have been radical breaks within the dominant ‘western’ episteme (foucault 1966). for him, episteme refers to that which ‘knowledge’ and ‘science’ (savoir) entail in a certain time frame, and to the manner in which things are seen in their amalgamation (leezenberg & de vries 2001). de sousa santos (2012) states that: foucault’s great merit was to have shown the opacities and silences produced by modern science, granting credibility to alternative ‘regimes of truth’, other ways of knowing that had been marginalised, suppressed and discredited by modern science. (p. 63) however, even though foucault contributed immensely to disarming the imperial north epistemologically, he was not aware of other knowledges and experiences in the south (de sousa santos 2012:63). in 1988, spivak offered a critique of foucault, where she claims that the 1972 conversation between foucault and gilles deleuze regarding intellectuals and power hides an essentialist agenda, which denies the heterogeneity of the subaltern (spivak 1988:67–111). based on a case study of african philosophy, de sousa santos distinguishes between internal plurality of knowledges, which are variations within the same general kind of knowledges, and external plurality of knowledges: a plurality among different kinds of knowledges (de sousa santos 2014:202). african philosophy is so different from conventional philosophy that de sousa santos considers this as an instance of external plurality (de sousa santos 2014:204). he illustrates it with the examples of kwasi wiredu (1990, 1996), who claims that descartes’ concept of cogito ergo sum cannot be translated into his mother tongue twi, and odera oruka’s sage philosophy (odera oruka 1990:203–204). odera oruka has demonstrated in his sage philosophy project that oral traditions can be philosophical and rational (odera oruka 1990). a similar example, not mentioned by de sousa santos, is sophie oluwole’s comparative study of socrates and orunmila, which shows the philosophical relevance of oral knowledge traditions (oluwole 2014). oluwole argues that the translation of orally transmitted texts of orunmila, according to the worldview and in the language of the coloniser, resulted in the transformation of the philosopher orunmila into a mythical figure and the denial of the philosophical argumentation in his orally transmitted works. the south african philosopher mogobe b. ramose distinguishes between philosophy as practised in academia and ‘philosophy as rational and critical engagement with the prevailing reality’, and considers both approaches to philosophy equally valid (ramose 2015:551–558). moreover, ramose underlines that the denial of african epistemologies is not merely a ‘western’ academic practice, but that the ‘western’ epistemological paradigm underlies the current educational system in africa, too. philosophy taught at african universities was (and still is in many universities) decontextualised and therefore not relevant to the ‘experience of being-an-african in africa’ (ramose 2005:28). ramose also refers in his argument to feminist epistemologies, which previously demonstrated that so-called objectivity is in reality a universalisation of the subjective experience of men. hence, the struggle in africa should aim to both demasculinise and deracialise intellectual discourse (ramose 2005:10). this struggle continues today, as evidenced by the ‘rhodes must fall’ movement, which started in 2015 in cape town, and attempts to address the unequal vision of the world that is manifested within universities (chaudhuri 2016). heinz kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy and the ‘in-between’ the german philosopher heinz kimmerle (1930–2016) contributed tremendously to the quest for epistemic justice, even though he did not use the term. from 1988, he focussed especially on african philosophy and visited the african continent yearly till 2005, and stayed there for several months at a time to conduct long-term research and deliver guest lectures at various universities. as one of the few ‘western’ philosophers of his time who demonstrated respect for the value of african philosophy, he was very familiar with the works of modern african philosophers, as is well documented in various of his publications (see e.g. kimmerle 1994, 2005a). he referred frequently to the sage philosophy project of the kenyan philosopher henry odera oruka (1990), wrote the foreword for philosophy and oral tradition by the nigerian philosopher sophie oluwole (1999) and had many dialogues with the south african philosopher mogobe b. ramose. kimmerle was a strong critic of the eurocentric discourse in academic philosophy. as early as 1978, kimmerle stated that the method of philosophy and its production of values and norms are determined by a community of researchers, subject to geographical and temporal limitations (kimmerle 1978:92). for him, the relation between cultures2, which has been determined from a eurocentric perspective since the enlightenment, has to be readjusted. he considers this ‘one of the main problems of our time on which the possibility of a humane and dignified life partly depends’, and states that ‘in today’s world philosophy will be intercultural or it will be nothing else than an academic activity without social relevance’ (kimmerle 1994:131). kimmerle’s intercultural approach to philosophy draws from gadamers’ and schleiermacher’s hermeneutics; the dialectics of hegel, marx and ernst bloch; and the theory of différance developed by derrida and luce irigaray (oosterling 2005; oosterling & schepen 2016). in contrast to intracultural dialogues (i.e. dialogues within one’s own philosophical tradition), in which gadamer sees a fusion of horizons, in intercultural dialogues such a fusion is neither possible nor desirable. here, philosophical traditions other than one’s own will always remain ‘different’. but even philosophies from one’s own tradition can never be completely known. the work of philosophers of difference, especially that of derrida and irigaray, forms an important stepping stone for kimmerle’s acknowledgement of ‘the otherness of the other’ in his intercultural philosophy (kimmerle 2000:48–49). for kimmerle, there is an affinity between the philosophy of (sexual) différance and intercultural philosophy, for example, with regard to irigaray’s philosophy of difference, where mutual respect between the sexes is central, even though the sexes remain insurmountably different. kimmerle considers postmodern and feminist thinkers’ concept of différance to be a foundational concept for intercultural philosophy (kimmerle 2011:137–151). during his first phase of studying african philosophy, kimmerle mainly focussed on listening to, learning from and understanding the philosophies of that continent. the year 2006 marks a turning point; it is a moment of ‘return to one’s own’, as he calls it (rückkehr ins eigene is the title of his book in german). in the book rückkehr ins eigene, he started to reflect on the way his own thinking changed after he studied the philosophies of another continent. these studies inspired him to read european philosophical works from an intercultural perspective and to rethink certain aspects in the work of hegel, kant (kimmerle 2010) and derrida (kimmerle 2005b). thus, kimmerle, a hegel specialist and editor of volumes 5 through 9 of the historical–critical edition of hegel’s collected works, became a critic of hegel’s denial of african history and philosophy (hegel 2001:110–111, 117). moreover, kimmerle addresses the need ‘for a dynamic reservoir of possibilities of thinking that we can refer to for the solution of future problems not yet known to us’ (kimmerle 2006a:51). parallels can be drawn between this ‘dynamic reservoir of possibilities of thinking’ and the present-day quest for ‘epistemological diversity’. kimmerle concluded that the concept of philosophy in itself has to change to become more intercultural. the method kimmerle suggests for intercultural philosophy is dialogue between equal partners. he argues that ‘intercultural philosophical dialogues presuppose that the philosophies of all cultures are equivalent in rank and different in style as well as in content’ (kimmerle 2011:137–162). in addition to dialogues where ‘western’ and non-’western’ traditions of philosophy are considered to have equal weight, kimmerle also suggests specific dialogues to counter eurocentric discourse, such as south-south-dialogues or dialogues between chinese and african philosophies (kimmerle & van rappard 2011). however, the geographic reference remains problematic, as europe is still the obvious centre from which the location of the dialogue partners is determined (schepen & van rappard 2019). in 2006, kimmerle published an article in the journal of transdisciplinary research on the importance of animism, particularly for an ecological ethics, that demonstrates the inclusion of different epistemic paradigms in philosophical discourse (kimmerle 2006b). in that article, kimmerle, referring particularly to the works of appiah (1992) and oluwole (1991), shows that the quest to determine the existence and nature of a reality not perceivable by the human senses (like spirits) is omnipresent in african philosophies. oluwole argues that ‘western’ epistemological conceptions do not accept an explanation as reliable if it is not underpinned by sense data. however, she points out, in advanced sciences, such as quantum mechanics, the criteria by which knowledge is judged to be reliable have changed. oluwole concludes that, in light of modern european science, belief in phenomena that cannot be perceived by the senses might more likely reflect truth than an epistemology based on materialism or empiricism. kimmerle argues in his article that the belief in spirits has not completely disappeared in the ‘west’, but that it still plays an important role in the subconscious. however, it seems that ‘for western people the organ has become stunted by which the reality of spirits can be perceived’ (kimmerle 2006b:250). referring to such concepts as derrida’s ‘spectrology’ (1993), kimmerle demonstrates that in ‘western’ philosophy spirits play an important role. as he states, his motivation for writing this article was a conversation with derrida in 1994 in amsterdam. when he confronted derrida with the idea that derrida’s spectrology excludes those spirits present in nature, derrida admitted that his theory needed to account for those spirits, and he challenged kimmerle to extend spectrology to include them (kimmerle 2006b:257). kimmerle tries to prove that a certain type of rationality in mainstream philosophy pushed the intrinsic value of nature to the background. by relating what he learned from african philosophers (workineh kelbessa and wangari maathai, among others) to his own tradition of philosophy, kimmerle extrapolates derrida’s formulation of ‘absently present’ spirits (derrida located such ‘absently present’ spirits in philosophy, art and literature by referring to marx’s communist manifesto and the spectre of communism or shakespeare’s hamlet; their presence can be felt only in their absence) to spirits dwelling in nature (kimmerle 2006b:256–257), and he concludes that the belief that all natural phenomena can be a dwelling place of spirits can be an important resource for environmental protection. conclusion the potential of relating epistemic justice and intercultural philosophy discussions about epistemic justice share with discussions about intercultural approaches to philosophy the need to give the epistemological and philosophical contributions of all the world’s cultures and traditions equal attention. considering works discussing epistemic justice and works concerning intercultural approaches to philosophy alongside one another could enrich the understanding of both discussions and contribute to their common goal of promoting the recognition that the contributions of all cultures and traditions should be given equal weight in all intellectual discourse. we argue that relating works from two different approaches, such as decolonial or post-colonial theory and intercultural philosophy, could not only elucidate and enrich the content of both, but also reveal the limitations of those discussions. for example, a critical re-reading of kimmerle’s approach to african and intercultural philosophy (as set forth, e.g., in kimmerle 2006a, 2007) through the lenses of fricker’s critique of epistemic injustice (2007, 2013) and de sousa santos’ concept of cognitive injustice (2012, 2014) reveals that, although kimmerle does not explicitly name these forms of injustice, his theory anticipates the concepts and takes them into account. fricker’s and de sousa santos’ discussions present ideas that make explicit the implications present, but not named in kimmerle’s work. they draw attention to the role of academia and the privileged position of ‘western’ philosophers by showing how the powerful have an unfair advantage in structuring the collective understanding and creating collective social meanings. by considering kimmerle’s, fricker’s and de sousa santos’ works alongside one another, ‘western’ philosophers might grasp that a critique of the dominant ‘western’ discourse has to start with reflection on our own dominant position in the academy and an awareness of the need for counter-hegemonic strategies. another example of the way works on intercultural philosophy and epistemic justice may augment each other may be found in their use of dialogue. dialogue holds a key role in both heinz kimmerle’s work on intercultural approaches to philosophy and miranda fricker’s work on epistemic justice (fricker 2007:171; kimmerle & schepen 2014). heinz kimmerle considers dialogue the most suitable method for intercultural philosophy (kimmerle & schepen 2014). for fricker too, the appropriate kind of dialogue can contribute to a more inclusive hermeneutical micro-climate (2007:171). a comparison of kimmerle’s and fricker’s arguments can offer new perspectives on the method of dialogue in intercultural philosophy. in her later work, fricker addresses structural power inequalities that cannot be resolved merely through the individual virtue of a careful listener (fricker 2013). kimmerle’s dialogic method does not account for institutional and historical power relationships, so fricker’s work on epistemic justice could enrich kimmerle’s intercultural approach to philosophy by contributing an enhanced understanding of the pre-existing structural power inequalities, which provide the material and framework of any dialogue, and by pointing out the need for ongoing awareness of them. part of such an awareness involves critiquing the role of educational institutions in knowledge production and questioning which narratives will be reproduced. in his work, kimmerle addresses the nature of a just dialogue, which, he holds, has to start with both parties carefully listening to each other. in describing what an effective dialogue entails, kimmerle’s intercultural approach to philosophy offers a critical hermeneutical method of understanding and hearing, which allows for the difference and plurality of the ‘other’, a method that may be applied when addressing the structural epistemic injustice fricker’s theory describes. a final example of the benefits of connecting theories of intercultural philosophy with theories of epistemic justice shows that doing so not only offers possibilities for exploring the intersection of systems of exclusion, but also guides us to possible alliances (schepen 2018). kimmerle’s cooperation with luce irigaray made him aware of a strong affinity between philosophies of difference and intercultural philosophy. likewise, in his work de sousa santos demonstrates how the alliance between different social movements can deepen the counter-hegemonic potential of both; as an example, he refers to the zapatista movement’s tendency to choose female rather than male leaders (de sousa santos 2012:43–47). in doing so, he makes a connection that escaped kimmerle’s notice; while kimmerle addressed the marginalisation of african philosophy, he did not address the marginalisation of women in african philosophy (about the role of women in african philosophy see chimakonam & du toit 2018). according to kimmerle, for the discipline of philosophy to become intercultural, other forms of knowledge, such as oral traditions or spirituality, should be acknowledged as valid contributions to philosophical discussions. furthermore, he relates what he learned from african philosophies to his own philosophical tradition. thereby, he brings hidden aspects of ‘western’ philosophies to the foreground, and elucidates what was obscured during the enlightenment, but always remained present. in this way, kimmerle makes us aware of the exclusion of other epistemologies during the enlightenment period. this does not only do justice to epistemologies of the south, but also to the plurality in ‘western’ philosophies. recognising this plurality within philosophical traditions could promote both a deeper understanding of one’s own philosophical tradition and openness to difference and plurality in ‘others’. acknowledgements open access funding provided by university of vienna. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. author’s contributions the idea and structure of the article is based on the work of r.s. the text was written in close exchange with dr a.g., who is the supervisor of the phd research project of r.s. references appiah, k., 1992, in my father’s house: africa in the philosophy of culture, oxford university press, new york. chaudhuri, a., 2016, ‘the meaning of rhodes must fall,’ the guardian, 16 march. chimakonam, j.o. & du toit, l. 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schirilla, n., 2011, ‘interkulturelles philosophieren im studium der philosophie’, polylog. zeitschrift für interkulturelles philosophieren 25, 31–38. spivak, g.c., 1988, ‘can the subaltern speak?’ in c. nelson & l. grossberg (eds.), marxism and the interpretation of culture, pp. 67–111, macmillan, london. wiredu, k., 1990, ‘are there cultural universals?’, quest 4(2), 5–19. https://doi.org/10.5840/monist199578110 wiredu, k., 1996, cultural universals and particulars: an african perspective, indiana university press, bloomington, in. footnotes 1. the ‘west’ is first of all one of the four cardinal directions. but beyond that the term ‘west’ is often used to denote asymmetric power relations between europe and anglophone north america on the one hand, and the ‘rest’ of the world on the other hand. we use the term to mean the following: ‘western’ denotes europe and anglophone north america, while ‘non-western’ refers to all other parts of the world, today also called the ‘global south’. we are quite aware that such a usage is a reduction of the enormous heterogeneity of the ‘non-western’ world in respect to culture, religion, history, language and, of course, the history of ideas. at the same time, it is a reduction of the ‘west’ as well. see, among others, chandra mohanty’s discussion of the terms ‘west’ and ‘third world’ or ‘north’ and ‘south’ (mohanty 2003:505–507). 2. for the purposes of this article, ‘culture’ is defined as a web of symbols which overlap with other webs, and as a continuous process of exchange. cultures are understood to be distinct but not closed entities. microsoft word 03 cilliers.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 34-46. sounding salvation: theological perspectives on music as articulation of life j cilliers1 abstract. this paper proposes some theological perspectives on the phenomenon of sound (i.e. music), linking it to the gospel of salvation (i.e. well-being). possible links between sound and music; sound and life; sound and silence; and sound and salvation are indicated. some differences between the western and african understandings of sound, music and life are highlighted; followed by suggestions concerning the connections between salvation, well-being, and the healing of life. a theological understanding of music as an expression of transcendence and anticipation is given, profiling it as a distinct form of hope. the paper concludes by comparing two iconic paintings that depict sound: the scream by edvard munch and the tortured christ by guido rocha. keywords. sound, music, silence, life 1. sound beginnings the father of psycho-analysis, sigmund freud, once told the story of a little girl who was afraid of the dark. it was bed-time and she was alone in her room, with the nanny sitting in the room next door. the girl cried out: “auntie, talk to me, i’m frightened”, whereupon the nanny answered: “but what good will that do? you can’t see me.” the child replied: “if someone talks, it gets lighter.”2 words create worlds; voices form spaces of comfort and grace, but also chaos and darkness. sound – the sensation produced in the ear or other organ of hearing by the vibration of the surrounding air or other medium – is a multi-layered concept that can manifest in various 1. johan cilliers is professor in homiletics and liturgy at the faculty of theology, stellenbosch university. jcilliers@sun.ac.za 2. sigmund freud, a general introduction to psychoanalysis (new york: boni and liveright, 1920), 17. sounding salvation td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 34-46. 35 ways and be analysed as a phenomenon within a broad spectrum of scientific fields. research on “the sound of worship” still seems to be in its infant stages.3 the sound of the voice has always played an important role in african culture.4 as a matter of fact, in the south african language isixhosa the same word is used for “word” and “voice” (ilizwi). in africa words are not primarily meant to be put on paper, but to live in the air, the space between people. it in fact creates these spaces between people. it has been noted that sounds like calls, cries, and shouts were used by african americans in the plantations (where they were forced to work as slaves) to convey warnings, to break monotony, to summon help, to encourage; in fact to express deeply felt emotional and physical experiences, such as loneliness, homesickness, and hunger and thirst.5 in short, the sense of sound should not be underestimated; the vitality of the voice not trivialized. the most intimate moments of life cannot be articulated only in words; they must be expressed – and heard – in sounds. when a mother in africa sings a lullaby to her infant (tula tu tula baba, tula sana tul’umam ‘uzobuya ekuseni) the words are not the dominant factor in comforting the child (although the words are not unimportant), the sound of her voice is.6 the words form the vehicle that carries the sounds of soothing; that facilitates the tones of nurturing. the words take a step back behind the sounds, they rather work sub-consciously. the oral and acoustic dimensions of the lullaby create intimacy, an intimacy that celebrates and fosters the life embodied in the baby. the meaning of (this) life is acknowledged and created in the expression of the song in sound. the sound of the voice ties the significances, the spectrum of meanings together, long before words are understood. indeed: in the beginning was… ilizwi, the word that is the voice.7 2. singing life life is seldom better expressed than in music. words alone are not enough. music is needed – as an intensified form of words; as concentrated meaning. in short: music is one of the most existential expressions of life in sound. the most intimate moments of life cannot be articulated only in words; they must be expressed – and heard – in sounds. it is clear that there are fundamental links between singing and life. as a matter of fact, singing is (a mode of) life, an expression of the existential dimension of life. this fundamental link entails, inter alia, the following: singing as immediacy of experience; singing as hermeneutics, i.e. as mode of giving meaning; singing as acoustic expression of meaning; 3. cf. the excellent work done by the dutch liturgist mirella klomp, the sound of worship. liturgical performance by surinamese lutherans and ghanaian methodists in amsterdam (leuven: peeters press, 2011). 4. actually one cannot speak of african culture in the singular. africa is a vast continent, incorporating a wide variety of cultures and ethnic groups. northern africa differs totally from southern africa. the term “africa” does not denote one homogenous group. 5. klomp, the sound of worship, 54-55. 6. music was called “sound-speech” (klangrede) as far back as 1739, for instance by johann mattheson, der vollkommene capellmeister (hamburg, 1739), 17, 25. 7. cf. johan cilliers, faith in search of sound: the interaction between religion, culture and hymnology. vir die musiekleier 2011; 31: 3-19. cilliers 36 singing as language and articulation (verbalization; verbal expression); singing as symbolization (giving symbolic meaning to convictions); singing as worship and confession; singing as ritual (liturgical dimension); singing as lament (voicing of suffering); singing as joy and gratitude (mystical unification with the transcendent); singing as spirituality (and therefore: shaping of god-images), etc. because singing is a spiritual exercise it relates human beings to the sacramental dimension of life; life being the metaphor and symbol of god’s presence within the events of daily life. singing is clearly linked to religious experience and expression. in both the lutheran and reformed traditions – to name but two – music plays an important part in worship. luther accepted music as part of the true church, and as an expression of faith itself.8 calvin referred to music as “sung prayers”.9 3. an icon of sound we tend to think that an icon exclusively implies an image, but sound was also understood as an icon, as early as the byzantine era.10 a sacred space like the hagia sophia is a striking 8. there are many delightful references to music by luther, for instance: “next to the word of god, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world! the riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever i attempt to discuss and describe them…. i most heartily desire that music, that divine and precious gift, be praised and extolled before all people.…experience proves that, next to the word of god, only music deserves being extolled as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart… a greater praise than this we cannot imagine… i truly desire that all christians come to love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given to mankind by god… it controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits… it is not without reason that our dear fathers and prophets desired that music always be used in churches. hence we have so many songs and psalms. there are undoubtedly many seed-grains of virtue in the human heart which are stirred up by music. i regard those with whom this is not the case as blockheads and senseless stones. for we know that the devil’s music is something altogether hateful and unbearable. i am not ashamed to confess publicly that next to theology there is no art which is the equal of music. for it alone can do what otherwise only theology can accomplish, namely quieten and cheer up the soul of man – clear evidence that the devil, the originator of depressing worries and troubled thoughts, flees from the voice of music just as he flees from the words of theology. for this very reason the prophets cultivated no art as much as music in that they attached their theology not to geometry, nor to arithmetic, nor to astronomy, but to music, speaking the truth through psalms and hymns.” cf. foreword to georg rhau’s collection, symphoniae iucundae. quoted in walter e. buszin’s essay, entitled “luther on music,” published in the january 1946 issue of the musical quarterly, g. schirmer publisher; luther’s saemmtliche schriften, st. louis edition, xiv, 428-31 (w.e. buszin); anton, karl, luther und die musik (zwickau, 1928) 50-53 (w.e. buszin); st. louis edition, xxia, 1574 (w.e. buszin). 9. john calvin, institutes of the christian religion, ed. john t. mcneill, trans. ford lewis battles, 2 vols., library of christian classics (philadelphia: westminster press, 1960), 3/14. 10. icons should be distinguished from idols. idols are images that pretend to be absolute images of god. the biblical ban on images is on this, i.e. that people do not create images under the impression that they have now made an absolute image of god. because we are sinfully inclined to want to be god ourselves, the result of such a creation is usually the misconception that we can now exercise control over this imaged, compacted god. according to adorno the biblical ban on images does not want to veil god, but rather to reveal our sinful inclination. he also points out that the jewish understanding of the image ban is not a total negation of all images, but of those that presume to be absolute sounding salvation td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 34-46. 37 example of such an icon of sound. the hagia sophia is a justinian church which was built during 532-537, and repaired and re-consecrated in 562 after the devastating earthquake of 557.11 the architecture of this church is truly remarkable: it creates a space for multi-sensory experience of worshipping of the transcendent. this sacred space (also called chora) is constructed to encourage circular movement of the senses (also called choros). the idea is that the senses move forwards, upwards, following this circular environment. sight (light shining through strategically placed windows), smell (burning incense), the touching of holy objects, and the tasting of the eucharist, but also the reverberating of sound follow this circular pattern in the hagia sophia. the effect of entering this holy space is receiving the gift of wisdom (sophia), which in turn is a gift of grace (charis). within this holy space, you receive life, new life, as you enter the breathing space of the spirit (pneuma), and therefore receive new breath for life.12 within this holy space, christ comes to you through the living voice of his word; his spirit rides the waves of sound; and salvation lurks in sonic spheres. in short: when entering this church, worshippers experience a type of iconographic interplay between spirit (pneuma), wisdom (sophia), space (choros), movement (choros), and grace (charis). in this sense the icon indicates breath (sound, pneuma) that is emptied into space, constituting it as holy space, as a chora being created in the circular movement of choros. in all of this, sound plays a fundamental role. it has even been noted that sound emerges as the major factor in this movement, “forming and opening through voice a space of divine presence, of encounter and exchange: the choros of charis (circle of grace).”13 what the eyes cannot perceive, sound offers: a densely layered iconographic expression of salvation.14 it is indeed sounding salvation, in the double sense of the phrase: it is salvation that takes on human form; that grants, through grace, the kenotic experience of salvation via the paradoxical, temporal, mortal, delicate, and vulnerable instability of human voice – it is the expressions of god. cf. e.a. pritchard, bilderverbot meets body in theodor w adorno’s inverse theology. harvard theological review (95:3) july 2002, 302. icons, on the other hand, are expressions of the god who decided to become human, who corporeally intermingled with our existence, and in his inexpressible goodness accepted the nature, density, form and colour of the body. icons are images of god in the flesh and as such a paradigm of, and window on, eternity. in icons there is always the paradox: they cannot portray god, and yet they portray god according to the paradox (wonder) of christ – truly god and man. they can function as signs that point to bigger realities and can thus bring about awe for the invisible, and they can mediate the transition of faith between the visible and the invisible. cf. m. zibawi, die ikone. bedeutung und geschichte (solothurn und düsseldorf: benziger, 1994), 25-33. 11. still to be seen in present-day istanbul. 12. cf. bissera v. pentcheva, the sensual icon. space, ritual, and the senses in byzantium (university park, pennsylvania: the pennsylvania state university press, 2010), 43-56. 13. pentcheva, the sensual icon, 48. 14. cf. the words of mcluhan and powers: “speech, before the age of plato, was the glorious depository of memory. acoustic space is a dwelling place for anyone who has not been conquered by the one-at-atime, uniform ethos of the alphabet. (…) there are no boundaries to sound. we hear from all directions at once.” marshall mcluhan/ bruce r. powers, the global village: transformations in world, life and media in the 21st century (new york, 1989), 36f. cilliers 38 spirit breathing upon us; but it is also the call to our spirit to breath with the spirit, literally sounding salvation through our vocal chords and human capacities. the word thus becomes sound; divine presence reverberates as sounding salvation in our midst, taking on human vulnerability and frailty, but also using these human conditions as medium of life. pneuma is imparted to matter; life is breathed into dust. the spirit breathes out, taking our breath away, but also giving it back, amplified, sanctified. but then the sound of the spirit’s breath also fades away, back into silence and stillness. the sounding of salvation is not just about a never-ending, uninterrupted monotony of sound; it is life-giving within the pulsating and reverberating spaces between sound and silence. 4. the sounds of silence sound without silence is monotonous and therefore boring; silence without sound is the abyss of nothingness. sound needs silence, and silence calls for sound. silence without sound is deaf; sound without silence is deafening. we need the sounds of the tick-tock of the clock to make sense of silence (i.e. that we are living within the co-ordinates of time and space); but the tick-tock of the clock must also be separated by pauses, by silences, for the same reason – to make sense of the contingencies of our existence. it is clear that musicians know about this intrinsic connection between silences and sounds (music). empty bars or parts of bars occur in virtually every musical composition; rests are an inseparable part of any piece. on a more modest and subtle level, silences mark the transition from one musical sentence to the next by way of caesura. silence demarcates the beginning and the end of a piece of music. “to focus on the phenomenon of musical silence is analogous to deliberately studying the spaces between trees in a forest: somewhat perverse at first, until one realizes that these spaces contribute to the perceived character of the forest itself, and enable us to speak coherently of “dense” growth or “sparse” vegetation. in other words, silence is not nothing. it is not the null set. silence is experienced both as meaningful and as adhering to the sounding position of the musical object.”15 in musical theory, silence is not always referred to as the point where musical sounds actually cease to exist. moments of silence are experienced during sustained fermates, extreme pianissimos, or when a complex harmony dissipates into a sparing use of the tone material. one becomes aware of silence in music that “sounds from afar”, usually indicated by the instruction “come da lontano”. a great number of compositions by russian composer alfred schnittke for instance open and close with scarcely audible sounds. his music resonates between the not-yet-audible and the no-longer-audible. it gives the impression that his music is there long before the listener can hear it and continues to resound long after the listener has registered the last tones. through this “non-ceasing” music, which resounds beyond the limits of its audibility, silence acquires a different form of musical dasein.16 15 . thomas clifton, “the poetics of musical silence”. the musical quarterly 62 (2), april 1976, 163. 16 . clifton, “the poetics of musical silence”, 163. sounding salvation td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 34-46. 39 5. african rhythm africa has its own rhythms of sounds and silences, its own rhythms of life. interestingly, western traditions with their ocular and linear approaches are more orientated towards music as melody (individual steps and parts harmoniously combined into a finished performance piece), whilst in african oral cultures it is rhythmical and even poly-rhythmical structures that create discontinuity in the musical score.17 the intention of african rhythm is however not (as the word “discontinuity” may suggest) to “disrupt” the flow of the music; rather it means that the emphasis is not necessarily on melodious coherence, but on the impetus for life that rhythm can provide. in african spirituality singing is all about bringing people back to the rhythms of life. singing expresses and underscores the life-cycle – therefore africans sing from the cradle to the grave. music condenses time; it brings those who sing back to their origins, but also gives meaning to the present as sacred time.18 in this sense, music is not a thing, an object, it is an action. perhaps we should follow the cue of the dutch liturgist mirella klomp and not use a noun to refer to music, but rather a form of verb: musicking.19 music is performed – not only on a stage by professional musicians, but by ordinary people, in everyday life. in africa, where we do not have such a clear distinction between the sacred and the secular, sound is inherently spiritual, the sacred is inherently sonic – “both sound and the divine permeate every imaginable part of life.”20 the power of sound lies not only in its ability to give meaning to life, but also in that it represents one of the major african responses to the impact of life as a whole. music – sound – is a social happening par excellence. sound performance is as important, and normal, as eating and sleeping, as walking and talking. sound is not so much performed for an audience, but rather with a community – as an expression of the rhythms of life.21 well-being resides inter alia in finding one’s place within these rhythms, in entering these acoustic spaces of rhythmic well-being. on the contrary, it would seem that in some western traditions the social aspect of “musicking” carries less weight than its technical or aesthetic aspects. religion, and consequently sacred music, is normally performed at appointed times and in designated places – contrary to african “musicking” of life as a whole. it has been said that late modern music culture is basically auditive in nature, and although music seems to be omnipresent (ipods, mp3-players, web radio, cell phones, etc.), it still represents a culture of “easy listening” as an individualised activity. although music has become more accessible to the general western 17. archwells m. katani, traditional malawian choral music: a liturgical-critical study within the church of central africa presbyterian (ccap) – nkhoma synod. unpublished dth. university of stellenbosch, 2008: 115. 18. m.e. eliade, the myth of the eternal return: cosmos and history (princeton: princeton university press, 1971), 151-152. 19. klomp, the sound of worship, 42. 20. klomp, the sound of worship, 48. although klomp is referring to research done amongst west africans, the trends are applicable to a general african understanding of music. 21. klomp, the sound of worship, 49. cilliers 40 public by means of sound pictures of music (as opposed to score sheets), the socializing power of music seems to be fading; sound has become a solo show. 22 it is this socializing power of sound that is brilliantly depicted in the swedish film by kay pollak as it is in heaven in which in one scene the pastor’s wife accuses the church of inventing and sustaining a specific understanding of sin for the sake of “staying in business”. in a moment of long overdue honesty she confronts and profoundly shocks her husband by openly stating her secret belief that the liturgy of the church has become a tool to manipulate the concept of sin and consequently people’s constant feelings of guilt in order to remain in control, and so-doing exert power over them. in effect she protests against the way in which the liturgy enslaves, instead of frees; the way in which it muzzles life, instead of affirming and gratefully celebrating it. in a sense she cries out for a fundamental reshaping and reframing of the liturgy into a liturgy that celebrates the gift of life and freedom, incorporating all of humanity – “as it is in heaven”.23 a liturgy (or: music, sound) “as it is in heaven” does not imply that we are separated from this world and whisked away to heaven. it is not an abstraction from real life, but articulates metaphorically that this life should be viewed from a radically different perspective. after all, liturgy means to enter, with god, the streets and market-places, and consequently to be repositioned within the rhythms of existential reality.24 in the film as it is in heaven the network of relationships (as represented in the community of the choir), as well as the understanding of the church (ecclesiology) and its practices of liturgy, are fundamentally challenged. established god-images are transformed. this takes place via the body (singing, breathing, movement), in other words within the context of a leitourgia that is fully situated in this life. clearly sound carries fundamental religious (and theological) weight. this understanding of sound however operates on more than merely a cognitive level. in the african lullaby (tula tu tula baba…) the words (as bearers of cognitive contents) are important, but they are also primarily the vehicle that bears the sounds of soothing; that facilitates the tones of nurturing. although the baby does not cognitively comprehend the “meaning” of the words, the “meaning” of the song is understood. this is not only true for infants: in the hagia sophia the so-called “brightness” of sound comes with the concomitant blurring of the sung words. “the reverberations oscillating in space created delayed echoes, which in turn eroded the clarity of the original expression. yet they also gave an otherworldly experience of a mellifluous resounding sound. it is not intelligibility that is given priority in the byzantine chant, but radiance, the presence of intensified reverberations.”25 22. klomp, the sound of worship, 65-66. 23. cf. johan cilliers, as it is in heaven? reflections on liturgical reframing. scriptura. international journal of bible, religion and theology in southern africa. 102 (3), 2009: 509-517. 24. c. plantinga; s.a. rozeboom, (eds.). discerning the spirits. a guide to thinking about christian worship today (grand rapids, michigan/ cambridge, u.k.: eerdmans, 2003), 3. 25. pentcheva, the sensual icon. 52. sounding salvation td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 34-46. 41 5. fides quaerens sonum (faith in search of sound) this “acoustical sounding of salvation”, corresponds with an understanding of faith seeking sound (fides quaerens sonum). it is about acoustics as a spiritual (pneumatological) expression of life; acoustics as beautification of life; acoustics as the existential expression and articulation of a belief system through sound. the specific rhythms of a culture, in other words cultural sounds grouped together and separated by silences, by acoustic spaces and pauses, become a medium of salvation; in other words a medium of life and well-being.26 salvation and well-being are related to one another in a dynamic manner. this relationship could be called the healing of life. although the notions are not identical, they cannot be separated either. salvation is a theological concept, referring to the act of god’s grace. healing and well-being can be understood in psychological and physical terms, but it must also be said that salvation can and does have implications for healing and well-being, i.e. psychological and physical categories. perhaps it is best to state here, in theological terms, that the tensions between these notions are eschatological in nature.27 this eschatological tension entails that the healing of life follows when seemingly irreconcilable realities are connected in such a way that these realities are in fact transcended, and something new is anticipated. however this anticipated reality already influences the present realities, and in fact creates a “new” reality, a novum, which is far more than just a restoration of the old; it is something new that takes the place of the old. in theological (eschatological) terms we could call this hope.28 musicking as an articulation of life, and evaluated theologically, could indeed be called a performance of hope. music has this remarkable ability to transcend, and to anticipate a novum. many of the negro spirituals achieved exactly this: they transcended stark realities in such a manner that a utopian spirit was created, a spirit that did not flee or escape from those stark realities in a superficial or sentimental manner, but faced them, and in doing so, transcended them in anticipation of new and better realities. consider for instance the well-known song swing low, sweet chariot, a historic american negro spiritual, composed by wallis willis.29 the chorus and first verse speak of a future (“home”), but also of the band of angels that are (already) “coming for to carry me home.” swing low, sweet chariot coming for to carry me home, swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home. i looked over jordan, and what did i see coming for to carry me home? 26. cilliers, faith in search of sound, 24. 27. cf. for a detailed discussion, daniël louw, cura vitae. illness and the healing of life (wellington: lux verbi.bm, 2008), 85f. 28. cf. johan cilliers, liturgy as space for anticipation. hts theological studies/teologiese studies 2011; 67 (2): 1-7. 29. the earliest known recording was in 1909, by the fisk jubilee singers of fisk university. cilliers 42 a band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home. the rest of the song articulates the burdens of life –“sometimes i’m up and sometimes i’m down” – while living with the hope, with the knowledge that: “still my soul feels heavenly bound.” why? because the angels are “coming for to carry me home!” this is sounding, and re-sounding salvation within the in-between (eschatological) spaces of journeying and coming home. this is hope in action within reality par excellence. the same can be said of many examples of music, for instance the iconic works of beethoven. in his famous opera fidelio (10) we hear these words about the liberation of florestan sung by different characters: don fernando: du schlossest auf des edlen grab, jetzt nimm ihm seine ketten ab; doch halt, euch, edle frau, allein, euch ziemt es, ganz ihn zu befrein. leonore: o gott, o gott, welch ein augenblick. florestan: o unaussprechlich süsses glück! this liberation from chains signifies a decisive moment of liberation, and consequently a moment of restored human dignity. like the negro spirituals, beethoven’s music does not try to escape from the screams and cries of life; it does not fear the anxieties and chains of our existence. on the contrary, it faces it, opens it up, reveals it, in order to transcend it in anticipatory celebration of the novum. this music does not represent a false romanticising of life, neither is it a-romantic; it does not articulate sentimentalism, but rather transcends, anticipates, and celebrates. it is a musical performance of the prolepsis that is already present as a novum. again, theologically speaking, this is what we call hope.30 nowhere are the connections between music and hopeful anticipation expressed more movingly than in the writings of victor frankl. he recalls how the most terrible moments in auschwitz were made bearable by sporadic aesthetic31 experiences, like for instance the 30. the comments of ernst bloch on the final scenes of beethoven’s fidelio are interesting. bloch evaluated the music of beethoven, and this piece in particular, as an iconic expression of the hope for freedom. according to him, this opera transcends its historical settings to communicate freedom and hope across the ages. he states: “every future storming of the bastille is implicitly expressed in fidelio.” ernst bloch, essays on the philosophy of music, trans. peter palmer (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1985), 243. paul robinson formulates this connection between freedom, hope, and the music of beethoven as follows: “at the ideological centre of fidelio stands the abstract idea of freedom. it is not expressly connected with any particular political movement or social group, nor is it elaborated into particular freedoms such as freedom of speech, religion or the press. rather it is freedom tout court.” paul robinson, ludwig van beethoven: fidelio (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1996), 75. 31. the notion of aesthetics should not be misunderstood as only pertaining to the superficiality of prettiness and inoffensiveness. there is something like “a beautiful representation of ugliness.” aesthetics also include what nietzsche called “the beautiful chaos of being.” this is particularly true of faith and theological aesthetics. the beauty of god is often revealed under circumstances of chaotic disproportionateness, which can be viewed as disturbing ugliness. but they can also be viewed as a different kind of “beauty”. romanticised notions of harmonious proportion cannot for instance be used to describe the cross. the cross can only be understood as “beauty” within the paradoxical and tentative space and tension between chaos and order. only in a theological sense – or: through faith (fides) – can “ugly” be seen as “beautiful”, or as chaos that is en route to a healed, i.e. radically different, form of proportion. as a matter of fact, the ugliness of the cross is the strange “beauty” of god par excellence, sounding salvation td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 34-46. 43 second night that he was in auschwitz, and was woken up by the sound of a violin playing a mournful tango. he thought of someone who had to celebrate her birthday in a cell block a few hundred metres away from him – his wife. in his imagination he stood up and danced with her ... and the rhythm of life and hope infiltrated even auschwitz.32 it is quite amazing that we have a word in africa that signifies the transcendental feeling induced by music – a word that has no equivalent in the english language. it is the isixhosa word ihlombe, which expresses the ability of music to transport people to a state of overwhelming joy in which they become so acutely moved that they are compelled to stand up and participate – through dancing or otherwise. in the zulu language ihlombe translates into applause. this is truly the “magic of musicking” – it faces reality to change reality, to applaud (a new) reality. the magic of musicking prompts applauding and dancing the novum. salvation comes to us in the rhythms of our lives, i.e. in the liminal spaces between the sounds and the silences that make up these rhythms. it is precisely thanks to this in-between (i.e. eschatological) character of salvation, that it comforts us – because it corresponds with the realities of our fragmented existences. the word becomes sound, seeking out the media of vulnerable bodies and vocal chords, and in doing so, soothes us. we hear human sounds, but these sounds transcend and are transcended to become divine sounds through the iconic enablement of the spirit. these transcended and transcending sounds anticipate the new, the unthought-of possibilities or alternatives. in this way even the destructive sounds that often surround us, lose their demonic disposition. let me illustrate the latter by means of two art works: firstly, the famous painting by edvard munch entitled the scream (sometimes also called the cry).33 the norwegian word for “scream” – also the original title of the painting – is “skrik”. this is an even stronger expression than “scream” or “cry”. it denotes the overwhelming fear of threat, the devastating emotions of an uprooted existence, and the immediacy of the impact of terror. obviously, there is no sound, but the visual depiction is so strong that you can actually “hear” the sound in the mind’s ear, so to speak. in the painting it is not the soothing sounds of salvation that you “hear”, but the anguished cry of despair and death. we tend to think that seeing is the major sense. but you cannot actually “see” this painting before you have heard a scream – an incessant scream filled with terror and despondency. visual perception only takes place via an acoustic one. because this ugliness lives within the tension and paradox of cross and resurrection. cf. the discussions by renate reschke, schön/schönheit, ästhetische grundbefriffe 5 (stuttgart, weimar: j.b. metzler, 2010), 416f; friedrich nietzsche, die fröhliche wissenschaft (1882), in: nietzsche (kga), abt. 5, bd. 2 (1973), 201; johan cilliers, fides quaerens pulchrum: practical theological perspectives on the desire for beauty. scriptura: international journal for bible, religion and theology in southern africa 2011; 3 (108): 257-268; paul evdokimov, the art of the icon: a theology of beauty (new york: oakwood publications, 1996), 309f. 32. victor e. frankl, ein psycholog erlebt das konzentrationslager. zweite auflage. (wien: verlag für jugend und volk, 1947), 56-60. 33. this image was originally displayed in berlin in 1893 as part of a series of six paintings, called: “study for a series entitled ‘love’”. the original version of the scream is now located in norway’s national gallery in oslo. cilliers 44 the brush strokes in the tempestuous background cause the scene to appear to swirl, giving it a sense of motion. we also have a feeling of sensory movement, a type of choros if you wish, in which the eye is forced to move restlessly, in keeping with the mood of the painting. the auditive aspect, the rising and swelling of the sound seems to be the strongest impulse, but in this particular circular sound, this circular scream, there is no charis, no grace. it is widely held that in this painting munch expressed the inner anxiety he experienced as an individual due to circumstances like bouts of depression, his failing health, his loss of belief, etc. therefore the painting has been labelled as existentialist in nature, even as one of the first true expressionist paintings.34 in keeping with this genre of art, the painting depicts the expression of inner experience rather than a realistic portrayal, seeks to express the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in the artist rather than an “objective” 34. cf. adam butler, claire van cleave, susan stirling, the art book (london: phaidon, 1996), 331. sounding salvation td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 34-46. 45 reality. munch’s painting does not show a realistic visual interpretation of reality; it is an abstract image, based on his inner, troubled feelings, and attempts to convey his most intimate and terrifying emotions. the emotive distortions and exaggerated colours are used to achieve maximum expressiveness.35 in january 1892 munch wrote the following in his diary – a description of his feelings which seems to fit the depiction of the scream: “i was walking along the road with two friends. the sun was setting. i felt a breath of melancholy – suddenly the sky turned blood-red. i stopped, and leaned against the railing, deathly tired – looking out across the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black fjord and town. my friends walked on – i stood there, trembling with fear. and i sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature.”36 however one wishes to interpret this iconic painting, it does seem to scream out, figuratively, the anguish of a tormented world. it is a sound that does not save, but shatters; that does not heal, but hurts; that does not sooth, but suffers. it reminds one of another sound, illustrated in the disturbing and shocking sculpture by the brazilian artist guido rocha, entitled the tortured christ (1975). at first glance, no, at first hear, it sounds like exactly the same scream as the one coming from munch’s tortured figure on the bridge. this sculpture by rocha could just as well have been called the scream.37 35. butler, van cleave, stirling, the art book, 331. 36. the private journals of edvard munch. we are flames which pour out of the earth. edited and translated by j. gill holland (madison, winsconsin: the university of winsconsin press, 2005), entry: nice 22.01.1892. 37. cf. hans-ruedi weber, und kreuzigten ihn. meditationen und bilder aus zwei jahrtausenden (göttingen: vandenhoeck und rupprecht, 1980), 40-41. cilliers 46 but it is, in fact, a different kind of scream; a different sound that we hear here. at certain levels it does reverberate with munch’s cry, being a sound unsanitized by layers of euphemistic theology, unvarnished with coats of sentimentalism, not muffled by centuries of pietism. it is – like that of munch – the crude sound of death – coming from the vulnerability of a human vocal cord: my god, my god – why have you forsaken me…?38 in munch’s scream we hear no literal words; we are left with our imaginations, with “hearing” in our mind’s ear. in the crucified’s cry, the words are intelligible – they were reported in scripture – but the sound also extends far beyond cognitive contents. at first hear the two screams sound the same, and yet there are fundamental differences. the cry from the crucified’s mouth is the sound of salvation – because this cry also articulates other words: it is completed (tetelesthai, from the root word telos).39 the crucified dies, cries out loud, and breathes out his last breath (pneuma).40 this last breath grants us breath; graces us with the gift of (new) life. this last breath does not deny the scream of munch, in fact, it amplifies it. the scream from the cross takes up the scream of munch – and all other cries of terror and trial – into the choros of charis, the circle of grace. no longer is the circle one of eternal chaos; it now becomes the life-giving circle of grace, reverberating on the threshold (munch’s bridge) between heaven and earth, indeed, between heaven and the hell of all godforsaken spaces. it may not sound like a soothing lullaby, but it is music to our ears. 38. matthew 27:46. 39. john 19:30. 40. matthew 27:50. on this continent one is well advised to practice the methodology of listening murray hofmeyr university of venda conference: international conference on humankind at the intersection of nature and culture, 4-6 september 2006, held in berg-en-dal, kruger national park – organised by north-west university vaal triangle campus in partnership with the kulturwissenschafliches institut essen, north-rhine westphalia, germany. the new humanism project recognises that today’s problems can only be solved together. this is a togetherness of others that constitute humanity. this realisation makes the intended humanism new. the project is about negotiating rules and procedures for a culture of difference. and one of today’s gravest problems is the construction or destruction of nature. the conference was informed on the (south) african experience pertaining to: • witchcraft and healing; • the environmental history of africa; • the ecological disasters caused by gold mining; • the cultural history of the vaal river; • the problem of shrinking space (physical and cultural); and • theatre for development and communities bordering the kruger park wider problems have also been addressed. they include: • continued whale hunting suggests that destruction comes natural to us; • the dialectics of reason and sustainable agriculture; • maps and control. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 507 508. 508 the latter topic brought about the one major controversy of the conference: what is culture? do birds have culture? how are we to distinguish between human culture and animal culture while insisting that we are part of nature, bipedal animals with big brains? the mediator in this controversy did the same in the first great opposition that defined the conference: optimism in its extreme form pitted against provocative, misogynous pessimism. nothing clears the mind like having extreme positions defended with intelligence. can we be trusted to change our nature? or will we mess that up just as we have everything else, all of the rest of nature? the possibility of a new answer comes from the new view of the brain that says we are not determined by our rodent or crocodile lymphoid system. we can and do shape our brain. we can choose to breed less and be a gentler species, more humane, realising the enigmatic universals of care and love, if we work at it, if we want to, if we practice, if we know ourselves, if we connect with and learn from children. genetic engineering is another fad, another refusal to face up to the real question and the consequences of its answer. if you want the best for your children as a responsible parent, connect, face to face, and see what happens – before you start tinkering with the genes. they are overrated anyway. when dealing with the african other, we are tempted to immediately find positions on the western ‘map’. on this continent one is well advised to practice the methodology of listening, to keep one’s own terms in suspension while one allows the other to say something that one has never heard before. do we have time? there will be no shortcuts. ‘together’ entails the nitty-gritty work of inclusion. conference & symposium reviews microsoft word 05 van dyk & van dyk.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(2) december 2010, pp. 379 – 394. psychological debriefing (pd) of trauma: a proposed model for africa el van dyk and gaj van dyk* abstract africa is a continent with severe trauma. traumatic events include experiences of child soldiers, people living in war and conflict zones, and people struggling with the hiv/aids pandemic. these events cause high levels of trauma. the trauma causes psychological disorders like post traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder and combat stress reaction, specific in the military environment. this article focuses on a better understanding of the implications of trauma for military people and civilians. it discusses the different theories and models of psychological debriefing. lastly the article discusses psychological debriefing models for military forces and the civilian population to prevent severe psychopathology after traumatic incidents in africa. keywords: psychological debriefing, community health, social work, model for africa. disciplines: community health, social work, psychology, education, nursing introduction africa is a continent with severe trauma. according to the human development report (2005), 40% of the world’s conflict is in africa. notably, child soldiers have been used throughout africa. in uganda up to 2000 women and children were captured by the lord’s resistance army (lra). the lra was responsible for the killing, torture, rape, mutilation and abduction of thousands of adults and children until late 2005. on the other hand the united people’s defence force (updf) used child soldiers to gather intelligence from the lra. in sudan thousands of child soldiers were recruited and used by armed forces, government backed militias and armed opposition groups. the youngest was 9 and the average age was 16 years old. in zimbabwe, the national youth training programme for people between 10 and 30 years old, was used up until 2007 to train people for political intimidation, attacks on the opposition, forced displacement, killings, torture, rape and the destruction of property (the coalition to stop the use of child soldiers, 2008). * department of industrial psychology, faculty of military science, stellenbosch university, saldanha, email: vdyk@ma2.sun.ac.za van  dyk  &  van  dyk   380 in africa there are 2,2 million refugees. new armed conflict in central african republic, chad, democratic republic of congo (drc), somalia and sudan led to refugee outflows into kenya (25 000), cameroon (25 000), sudan (22 500) and uganda (9400) (the un refugee agency, 2007). it could be argued that sexualised violence perpetrated by soldiers in wartime does more than harm the physical and mental health of women. many victims have struggled with lasting consequences both physical and psychological. in war, rape is a deliberate strategy. after mass rapes of women and girls, perpetrators can share a feeling of omnipotence, and leaders may want exactly that to happen as a way of boosting cohesion in the troops, while traumatising the enemy. it can also contribute to the spreading of the hiv/aids pandemic in africa: subsaharan africa remains the region most affected by aids, with more than two thirds (68%) of all people infected with hiv living there. women are disproportionately affected, representing 61% of people living with hiv in the region (unaids, 2007). in the military environment in africa other traumatic stressors are involved. the well known wars in burundi, drc and sudan for example caused high levels of trauma for the soldiers involved. dhladhla (2008, p 68) did research on ex-combatants and wrote: “participation in war or armed conflict is a recognised pathogenic stressor which often results in psychological dysfunction”, if the trauma is not treated. bruwer and van dyk (2005) wrote that in peacekeeping operations in africa, soldiers often experienced the following stressors as traumatic: separation from the family, isolation and frustration during the operation, harsh environmental conditions, child soldiers and causalities of the population like pregnant women. these are some statistics illustrating the extent to which trauma in africa has the potential to destroy the mental health of people, their future, relationships and reason for existence. this article will look at psychological debriefing (pd), as an intervention, after a traumatic event or a traumatic phase of life with the aim of preventing psychological complications, healing pain and creating future orientation. trauma and some common consequences of trauma will be discussed so that one can understand why pd can play an important role after traumatic events. this paper will also focus on the different models of pd, the role of pd during military operations, as well as in traumatic circumstances in countries in africa. a proposed pd model for military forces in africa, as well as for the civilian populations will be discussed. this paper will contribute to disciplines like community health, military science, psychology and social work on knowledge and skills. what is trauma in order to understand pd one must first understand trauma. according to perry (2006, p.1), “trauma is a psychologically distressing event that is outside the range of usual human experience”. he continues to say that trauma often involves a sense of fear, terror and helplessness, and that trauma is an experience that induces an abnormally intense and prolonged stress response (perry, 2006). in such circumstances it can destroy the health levels of a community, for example, after a disaster. trauma can also be seen as the influx of violent and urgent events which exceeds the defensive capacity of the person, such that the person can not master these events through normal adjustment processes (crocq, & crocq, 1987). trauma is most often the result of a critical incident (rape), series of incidents (disasters) or a situation like war. psychological  debriefing  for  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 379 – 394. 381 lewis (2001) writes a critical incident is described as any unplanned, unexpected or unpleasant situation faced that causes individuals to experience unusually strong emotional reactions and which have the potential to interfere with their ability to function either immediately or later. war is an ongoing destructive process, where the population and soldiers experience trauma, losses, helplessness, feel out of control, struggle with feelings of anger, hate, resentment and sadness. the underlying assumption of pd is that reactions due to trauma are normal expected reactions being experienced by a normal person in response to an abnormally challenging situation (lewis, 2001). consequences of trauma trauma affects every part of a person’s being – their thoughts, emotions, behaviour and physical reactions. trauma also refers to overwhelming, uncontrollable experiences that psychologically impact on victims by creating in them feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, loss of safety and loss of control. these traumatic results can result in psychological disorders such as ‘post traumatic stress disorder’, ‘acute stress disorder’ and ‘combat stress reaction’ in military operations. post traumatic stress prior to 1980 there was no formal diagnosis for post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). people who showed symptomatic behaviour as a result of a traumatic event were described as having a character defect (carll, 2007). ptsd was first recognised as a psychiatric disorder in the third edition of the american psychiatric association’s diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-iii) (mcnally, bryant, & ehlers, 2003). ptsd is a psychiatric disorder that can occur in soldiers and other people who have experienced or witnessed life-threatening events such as natural disasters, terrorist incidents, war or violent personal assaults. people suffering from ptsd often re-live the experience through nightmares or flashbacks of the incident. they may also have difficulty sleeping and can feel detached from their environment. ptsd can lead to the development of other related disorders such as depression (american psychiatric association (apa), 2005). people who suffer from a traumatic event may have a range of different reactions including anger, self-blame, fear and anxiety. the question, however, is what qualifies as a traumatic event? according to the dsm (apa, 2005), to qualify as being exposed to trauma, an individual no longer needs to be a direct victim. as long as the person is confronted with a situation that involves threat to the physical integrity of that person or others and experiences the emotions of fear, horror or helplessness, then the experience counts as exposure to a ptsd-qualifying stressor (apa, 2005). usually, ptsd will appear within three months of the traumatic incident, but it may at times only appear later (baumann, 1998). according to baumann (1998) factors that influence the vulnerability of the individual to the development of ptsd include the following: • psychological difficulties present before the traumatic event. • the trauma is severe and/or persisting. • the age of the person. • absence of a social support system. van  dyk  &  van  dyk   382 • previous exposure to trauma. • lack of safety in their environment. • the trauma was initiated by people rather than nature. the more factors that are present, the more likely it will be that the person will be vulnerable to trauma. ptsd symptoms are grouped into three categories: 1) intrusion or the re-experiencing of the event, 2) avoidance of associated stimuli and emotional numbing and 3) hyperarousal (baumann, 1998). intrusion is when people complain that memories of the traumatic incident come back to them unexpectedly. these flashbacks of the events intrude into their lives and cause discomfort. these sudden, vivid memories will normally be accompanied by strong painful emotions associated with the traumatic event. these flashbacks can sometimes be so strong that the person feels that he/she is experiencing the traumatic event all over again (apa, 2005). avoidance symptoms tend to affect relationships with others. the person may try to avoid close emotional ties with family, colleagues and friends. at first, the person may feel numb and only complete routine, mechanical activities. then, when re-living the traumatic event, the individual may alternate between a flood of emotions caused by the flashbacks of the events and an inability to feel or express emotions at all. a person with ptsd may try to avoid situations that are reminders of the original traumatic event (baumann, 1998). ptsd can cause individuals to act as if they are constantly threatened by the trauma that caused their disorder. this hyperarousal can cause them to become suddenly irritable or explosive, even when unprovoked. they may have trouble concentrating or remembering current information and, because of terrifying nightmares, may develop insomnia. many people with ptsd also attempt to rid themselves of painful flashbacks, loneliness and anxiety by abusing alcohol or other drugs to help them dull or forget the pain and trauma temporarily. this tendency can lead to further problems in their personal lives (baumann, 1998). acute stress disorder the definition of acute stress disorder (asd) requires that the individual has experienced or witnessed an event that has been threatening to either him/herself or another person and that the person’s response to this event must involve fear, helplessness or horror (bryant, & harvey, 2002). the symptom cluster that distinguishes asd from ptsd is the emphasis on dissociative symptoms. a person must display at least three of the following symptoms in order to satisfy the criteria: 1) a subjective sense of numbing or detachment, 2) reduced awareness of his/her surroundings, 3) derealisation, 4) depersonalisation and 5) dissociative amnesia (bryant, & harvey, 2002). numbing refers to a detachment from expected emotional reactions. the individual tends to show no emotions regarding the traumatic event. reduced awareness of his/her surrounding refers to the person being less aware of what is happening around him/her during the traumatic event or immediately after it. derealisation is when the person perceives his/her environment to be unreal or dreamlike. depersonalisation refers to the sense that one’s body is detached or a person is seeing himself or herself from another’s perspective. dissociative amnesia refers to the person’s inability to recall specific parts of the traumatic event (bryant, & harvey, 2002). psychological  debriefing  for  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 379 – 394. 383 the only other significant difference between asd and ptsd is the time frame given for diagnosis. the time frame for asd requires that the symptoms be present two days after the event and not persist for more than one month. persons suffering from asd will receive treatment much earlier due to this time period (bryant, & harvey, 2002). combat stress reaction combat stress reaction (csr) is also known as battle fatigue, shell shock and combat neurosis. generally, csr is characterised by a reduction in the person’s capacity to function as a soldier and the subjective experience of overwhelming distress and inescapable anxiety (freedy, & hobfoll, 1995). according to noy (1987), csr consists of three stages: 1) immediate, 2) acute and 3) chronic. the immediate stage is characterised by anxiety, hyperactivity and panic after, for example, an artillery bombardment. intense emotional turmoil, in the form of rage, crying and terror or extreme unresponsiveness can be observed. these extreme reactions can start suddenly at a breaking point or they can gradually build up to a point. during this stage, it may still be possible to prevent the disorder with psychological debriefing from developing to the next stage. during the acute stage, the soldier may try to use defense mechanisms like repression, dissociation or denial. pd alone will no longer be effective during this stage. the soldier will need more treatment then pd, which can include removal from the battlefield, sometimes hospitalised with medication and a more detailed long term treatment approach (nathan, 2005). during the chronic phase functional efficiency is reduced and the soldier will suffer from exaggerated startle response, explosive anger, disruptive sleep and persistent battle dreams. this phase is very similar to ptsd and may persist indefinitely (noy, 1987). normally, the soldier also needs more than pd. the principle indicators of csr includes: 1) strong enough emotions that interfere with task accomplishments, 2) tension that is out of the control of the soldier and that does not decrease during times of relief, 3) distress that is significantly more intense than that of other soldiers that are experiencing the same conditions and 4) behaviour that is different to that of the soldier’s normal behaviour (freedy, & hobfoll, 1995). if this disorder is left untreated it can ultimately lead to the development of ptsd (noy, 1987). trauma experienced during military operations and disasters although each war and each deployment is different, there are however some fundamental aspects that are the same. freedy and hobfoll (1995) discuss some dimensions of war–zone stress. the biggest stressor for any soldier is the possibility that he/she may lose his/her life or he/she may lose a close friend. other stressors that can lead to ptsd and csr include demands on physical and emotional resources, levels of combat exposure, witnessing abusive violence, participation in abusive violence and subjective or perceived threats. demands on emotional resources can take the form of threats of personal injury or engaging in hostile destructive activities whereas demands on physical resources can take the form of inadequate supply of food, water and shelter as well as physical exertion. levels of combat exposure can take many forms for example being on the receiving end of a fire fight, firing a weapon at an enemy and being exposed to wounded, dying or dead people (freedy, & hobfoll, 1995). van  dyk  &  van  dyk   384 during peacekeeping missions, soldiers are not often actively involved in fire fights and are exposed to situations where they witness the aftermath of brutal attacks on civilians or the attack itself and they are not allowed to intervene. this can create feelings of powerlessness and also contribute to ptsd and csr (freedy, & hobfoll, 1995). during disasters in africa like the flood in mozambique, the drought in ethiopia, bomb blasts in uganda or with personal disasters like rape, communities or individuals can experience shock, overwhelmed by emotions, can feel traumatised and helpless without a vision for the future. such a situation can destroy the community’s health and can be characterised by the anxiety, depression, anger and conflict. this paper wants to empower community health workers, social workers, community leaders and psychologists to help with pd. defining psychological debriefing pd has been defined as “a brief, short-term intervention aimed at mitigating long-term distress and preventing the emergence of post traumatic stress” (devilly, gist, & cotton, 2006, p.318). pd has also been defined as a “planned structured group activity, organised to review in detail the facts, thoughts, impressions and reactions following a critical incident” (dyregrov, 1997, p.589). pd is implemented within three days after a traumatic event and is predominantly done in terms of group interventions facilitated by trained peers or mental health professionals (foy, eriksson, & trice, 2001). pd is a single session, semi-structured crises intervention designed to reduce unwanted psychological problems following a traumatic event by promoting emotional processing through the ventilation and normalisation of reactions (bisson, mcfarlane, & rose, 2000). however, it must be made clear that pd is not psychotherapy or counselling, but only an intervention (van dyk, 2000). the aim of psychological debriefing pd aims to prevent the development of abnormal stress responses and tries to promote normal stress responses (deahl, 2000). furthermore, pd aims to prevent the after effects of trauma, such as ptsd and csr, stimulate group cohesion, normalise reactions, accelerate normal recovery, stimulate emotional ventilation and promote a cognitive grip on the situation (dyregrov, 1997). van dyk (1999) writes that after the emotions are debriefed it is most important to empower or better still, “ego-power” the victim. the ego represents the centre of our decisions, plans, actions and reactions. if the ego is developed, it is well able to deal with many difficult situations and master the future in a more competent way, instead of getting under severe pressure of anxiety. pd is also used as a screening function to determine whether or not a person who experienced trauma should be referred for treatment or not (arendt, & elklit, 2001). a brief history of psyhological debriefing pd dates as far back as world war i. during this war, a model that was based on three principles, namely proximity, immediacy and expectancy (pie) was utilised. the focus of this model was to treat soldiers close to the battlefield (proximity) as soon as possible (immediacy) with a strong prospect that they would return to the battlefield for active duty (expectancy). during world war ii, brigadier general samuel marshall was the chief historian of the us army. he coincidentally discovered that during the collection of his data for his records, which consisted primarily of group discussions with troops, that these discussions influenced troops’ emotions for the better (mirzamani, 2006). this was known as historical group debriefing (hgd) (adler, castro, & mcgurk, 2009). in the early 1980’s mitchell developed a model psychological  debriefing  for  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 379 – 394. 385 named critical incident stress management (cism) for the emergency medical services in the united states of america (usa). part of the cism programme was a model called critical incident stress debriefing (cisd). a lot of attention has since been placed on this one aspect of cism because it was believed that cisd can be used to prevent the development of ptsd. then, in 1989, a norwegian psychologist by the name of dyregrov adopted the term pd but maintained that pd and cisd were essentially the same thing. ever since, the two terms have become interchangeable and serve the same meaning (regel, 2007). the past couple of years different models on pd were developed. following is a discussion of those models mitchell’s model mitchell developed one of the first pd models in 1983. his original model consisted of a “comprehensive, systematic and integrated multi-component crises intervention package” (regel, 2007, p.411). this package was developed for the use of individual as well as group interventions. this model was known as the cism model (regel, 2007). the cism model comprised of many elements including pre-crisis education, assessment, defusing, cisd and specialist follow up (regel, 2007). for the purpose of this paper, only cisd will be discussed as it is the element that has received the most focus during the past few years. cisd is a structured approach that consists of seven phases. these phases include the following: 1) the introductory phase, 2) the fact phase, 3) the thoughts phase, 4) the reaction phase, 5) the symptom assessment phase, 6) the information phase and 7) the re-entry phase (devilly, & cotton, 2003). during the introductory phase, the participants are introduced to the cisd model and its components. they are also informed that confidentiality applies to the entire session and that they should feel free to say whatever they want. it is also emphasised that they will not be forced to say more than they want to, but they are encouraged to participate in the discussions. one of the most important parts of the introduction is to make it clear to the participants that pd is not counselling or psychotherapy, but a discussion of psychological elements (mirzamani, 2006). during the fact phase, the aim is to establish the facts of the particular incident. this is done by asking specific questions, for example, ‘where were you deployed?’ and ‘what happened when you made contact with the enemy?’ during this stage their emotions will also come to the fore. these emotions are openly acknowledged and judged as normal reactions to the traumatic event (rose, & tehrani, 2002). during the third phase, the participants’ initial thoughts regarding the event are discussed. here participants are encouraged to discuss the personal meaning the event has for them (rose, & tehrani, 2002). during the fourth phase, which is the reaction phase, the participants discuss the emotional, physical and behavioural reactions that result from the traumatic event. this phase usually takes the majority of the session and is the deepest phase of the pd session. the facilitator will ask questions such as ‘what is the worst part of this event for you?’ during this phase, participants are urged to speak freely and openly about their fears and emotions associated with the event. the fifth phase is the symptom assessment phase. during this phase the facilitator will look for physical, emotional, cognitive or behavioural symptoms of ptsd and other psychological disorders associated with traumatic events (mirzamani, 2006). van  dyk  &  van  dyk   386 the next phase of the intervention is the information and teaching phase. during this phase general information is given regarding the stress reaction and the normal nature of these reactions. the facilitator gives specific advice regarding the reactions the individuals can expect as a result of the stressor (mirzamani, 2006). the facilitator also gives the participants advice regarding alcohol consumption, relationships and other relevant factors (rose, & tehrani, 2002). the last phase of this model consists of the re-entry phase. during this phase, all the issues that were discussed are summarised and further attention is given to certain issues if needed (mirzamani, 2006). it is also during this phase that referral information is provided for future follow ups (devilly, & cotton, 2003). individuals who show symptoms of ptsd or other psychological disorders associated with trauma must be refered to qualified professionals so that they can receive help as soon as possible (rose, & tehrani, 2002). dyregrov’s model dyregrov based his pd model on the work of mitchell, although there are some differences between the two models (mirzamani, 2006). for the purpose of this paper, only the differences will be discussed seeing that the models are relatively similar. there are three main differences between the two models. firstly, where mitchell’s model starts the discussion with where the traumatic event started, dyregrov starts his discussion of the event at what happened before the event occurred. he does this by asking questions such as ‘how did you find out about this event?’ (rose, & tehrani, 2002).secondly, dyregrov also focused on the cognitive decision making process of the individual during the event. this is done by asking questions such as ‘why did you decide to do that?’ it is suggested that these questions reduce the tendency of individuals to blame themselves for what has happened. a third difference between the two models is that dyregrov also focused on sensory information by asking questions such as ‘what did you hear, smell, taste and see?’ dyregrov’s model placed more emphasis on the reaction and responses of the individuals than mitchell’s model does and it is therefore suggested to be safer for the participants (rose, & tehrani, 2002). the controversy on pd as illustrated by van wyk and edwards (2005) is that “debriefing” is a military term referring to interviews in which critical incidents are examined by those involved in them and those in authority. everly and mitchell (2000) wrote critical incident stress debriefing (cisd) refers to one form or model of group crisis intervention, sometimes generally referred to as group psychological debriefing (pd). cigrang, peterson and schobity (2005) wrote that there are a number of factors that have made pd especially appealing to a military population. pd deemphasizes psychotherapy and pathology, while emphasising normalization of reactions and returning members of the military to duty. the authors are aware of the academic discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of pd, but this is not the focus of this article. the authors want to use the advantages of pd, but agree with edwards, sakasa and van wyk (2005), petronko (2005) and nathan (2005) that a once off pd session is not the most effective method to deal with ptsd. pd will be part of the proposed model with the function that members can get psychological closure after a traumatic event. further it can be used as a psychological triage by clinical psychologists on members who are psychologically fit to go back to the operational environment (dhladhla & van dyk, 2009). psychological  debriefing  for  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 379 – 394. 387 raphael’s model raphael starts the debriefing process by focusing on factors prior to the traumatic event. however, her focus was more on the training and preparation the individuals received prior to the incident. her model also suggested some areas that may be useful during the intervention. according to rose and tehrani (2002), these include the following: • the stressors that the person experiences personally, such as death and survivor conflict. • frustrations that may increase the stressors. for example, inadequate skills, training or equipment that could have helped prevent the incident. • special relationships with friends and colleagues who experienced the same incident. it is suggested that these topics are discussed in a systematic manner to ensure that the participants can work through the emotions that may be evoked. raphael’s model makes use of more straight forward questions such as ‘was your life directly in danger?’ this model also focuses on positive aspects of the incident by asking questions such as ‘do you feel good about something you did?’ raphael also suggested that the participants analyse the feelings of people who went through the same incident. these aspects are not present in the previous two models (rose, & tehrani, 2002). lastly, the model focused on what was learnt from the experience of the incident, feelings around going back to duty and the problems that can arise from returning to the battlefield (rose, & tehrani, 2002). the multiple stressor debriefing model according to mirzamani (2006), the multiple stressor debriefing (msd) model consists of four stages. during the first stage, the participants are introduced to debriefing and ground rules are laid down for the duration of the intervention. the participants are then asked to describe what it is about the incident that troubles them the most. during the second phase of this model, participants are asked to describe their feelings and reactions they experienced as a result of the incident. the third phase of this model emphasised the coping strategies that the participants will need and they are also given information regarding normal and abnormal reactions to stress. participants are asked about their previous coping skills in the past as well as how they are coping with the current stress. the facilitator will use coping strategies identified within the group and where possible not introduce new strategies. during the last stage of this model, the participants are asked to give their views on how they feel about leaving the disaster site. the emphasis of the discussion then moves to separating from coworkers and preparing them to terminate the pd session. before leaving, it is emphasised that the participants must continue talking with their colleagues and their partners. by the time they leave, any remaining questions are answered and referrals are made if necessary (mirzamani, 2006). frontline treatment frontline treatment has been used for many years in different militaries around the world. it is considered that the closer to the frontlines individuals are debriefed the quicker they will return van  dyk  &  van  dyk   388 to active duty. it has been suggested that soldiers must only be removed from the battlefield if there is no improvement in their abnormal behaviour (freedy, & hobfoll, 1995). the intervention of trauma usually starts by providing the soldier with temporary relief from stress and seeing to his/her biological and social needs (freedy, & hobfoll, 1995). this model is based on the principles of proximity, immediacy and expectancy where the expectancy is that soldiers will return to active duty as soon as possible. according to freedy and hobfoll (1995), this model follows the following guidelines: • meet the individuals’ physiological needs first. • treat the individuals as soon as possible. • temporary relief from the stressor is provided. • use human contact to reassure, clarify and share emotions. • humanise and legitimise fears. • allow expressions of grief, guilt and shame, but challenge self-depreciation. • convey to the individual expectation of full recovery and return to duty. • promote social support that will allow reintegration of the casualty in his/her unit. • do not change the soldier’s status as a member of the combat team until appropriate efforts to reverse the traumatic effects of the stress have been made and have been proven unsuccessful. it is important to prevent isolation during the first stages of the treatment as this may worsen the traumatic experience. based on the three principles of this model, proximity, immediacy and expectancy, it is suggested that the individual is treated as close as possible to the battlefield as soon as possible, with the expectation that he will return to the battlefield. this is the bases of the model and is believed to contribute to the success of pd (freedy, & hobfoll, 1995). battlemind psychological debirefing battlemind psychological debriefing is one of the newest models of pd. according to adler et al. (2009), three types of battlemind psychological debriefing have been developed. two of these are ‘in-theatre’ models and the third one occurs at post deployment. for the purpose of this paper, only the in-theatre models will be discussed. these two models are namely the ‘time-driven battlemind psychological debriefing’ and the ‘event-driven battlemind psychological debriefing’. time-driven battlemind psychological debriefing is designed to be implemented at intervals during deployment whereas event-driven battlemind psychological debriefing has been designed to be implemented when support is requested after a traumatic event. due to the fact that units may be deployed in remote areas for long periods of time, it is not always possible to provide them immediately with professionals to facilitate pd when such a request is made. for this reason, time-driven battlemind psychological debriefing is favoured above event-driven battlemind psychological debriefing. psychological  debriefing  for  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 379 – 394. 389 the time-driven battlemind psychological debriefing model consists of 5 phases which includes the 1) introduction phase, 2) event phase, 3) reactions phase, 4) self and buddy-aid phase and 5) the battlemind focus phase. during the introduction phase, the facilitator briefly gives the participants some information about him/herself and his/her experience. he then introduces the program and its aims and gives positive expectations for the program. during this phase the ground rules for the session are also laid down. it is important for the facilitator to make it clear to the participants that they will have to return to duty after the session is complete. during the second phase, the events phase, the facilitator establishes the events that have placed the unit under strain. the facilitator asks the members to discuss one or two specific events that may have happened during the deployment that may be difficult for them to think about. the facilitator must gather as much information about the incident from the group as possible, but must not allow the group to get over-involved on one point (adler et al., 2009). the goal of the next phase, the reaction phase, is to have the participants share their reactions in order to normalise their reactions. this phase commences by focusing on the cognitive responses of the members and continues on to their emotional responses. before the facilitator transitions to the next phase, he/she must summarise what was said and include reactions that may occur that might have been left out by the members. it is also important for the facilitator to address issues of self blame and doubt that the members might have regarding their actions. the fourth phase focuses on the identification of three major symptoms: anger, withdrawal and sleep problems. the goal is to normalise these symptoms and explain to the soldiers what they can do for themselves as well as their buddies. during the discussion of anger, it is important to explain to the participants that it is normal to develop a short temper and that feelings of revenge are normal, but it must be emphasised that they need to remain professional and be able to return home with a story that they “can live with”. when discussing withdrawal, it is important for the members to discuss the signs of withdrawal as well as the importance of keeping an eye on each other to ensure that a fellow member receives the necessary support and professional help when needed (adler et al., 2009). lastly, when discussing the problems, it is important for the facilitator to once again normalise sleep problems and discuss solutions for sleep disturbances. the last phase of this model focuses on helping the group become psychologically ready to continue with their deployment (adler et al., 2009). facilitators ask questions to extract ways in which members have maintained perspective, focused on positive adaptation, identified coping strategies and recognised similarities and differences in their adjustment. this is done in order for participants to learn how to cope with the stressor through sharing it with each other. participants must be reminded that they must 1) trust their military training and personal decisions, 2) watch out for one another 3) listen to their leaders and 4) inform their leaders if there are any problems. in closing, the facilitator should inform participants where they can receive further help if they should need it, and must emphasise that seeking help when in need of it is a sign of strength and leadership (adler et al., 2009). proposed pd model for military forces in africa it has been suggested that high-risk organisations such as the military and police force should make use of models that do not only include an intervention model, but other tactics and strategies as well. one such model is the cism model which consists of the following methods, in addition to cisd (everly, & mitchell, 1999, pp. 71–92): van  dyk  &  van  dyk   390 • pre-incident preparedness training: this refers to educating soldiers in high-risk occupations about the kinds of stressors they are likely to encounter on the job, about common stress reactions and about stress-management techniques. this can be given to soldiers prior to deployment so that they can know what to expect. • one-on-one individual crisis support: this refers to attempts to mitigate acute stress reactions, often at the scene of the trauma. the counsellor attempts to provide psychological distance between the scene and the soldier in distress by having the person take a walk or withdraw for a couple of hours from the battle field. this may not always be possible immediately during military operations, but necessary when possible. • demobilisation: this refers to providing food, rest and information about coping with stress reactions to large groups of soldiers as they rotate off duty. this method includes group informational briefing, which refers to providing facts about a critical incident to a large group of individuals indirectly affected, as well as providing information about common psychological dynamics (e.g. grief, anger) and about how to access psychological services. these tactics are only relevant to the military in terms of providing food and rest to the individual for a couple of hours. • debriefing: this refers to a small-group intervention that usually takes place within twelve hours of the traumatic event. it involves having participants explore and discuss the incident and their emotional reactions to it. it is the practise in the canadian defence force (rosebush, 1998) and in the armed forces of the united states of america (keller, 2005) to sensitise and empower military leaders with knowledge of pd for the management and early referral of soldiers in operations. • family support: this refers to debriefing family members of the soldiers involved in the crisis. for example, giving support to spouses of soldiers in the military. • referral mechanisms: this is concerned with procedures for referring individuals for psychiatric or psychological services. the facilitator must provide the individuals with information on where and how to get help from trained specialists if needed. if a model such as cism is considered for the military forces in africa then certain limitations may arise, such as problems with regards to having enough debriefers available to implement the program as needed. a possible solution to this problem would be to train platoon commanders and company commanders to be able to do pd in their platoons or companies as needed. this can be the first line of defence against the development of psychological problems. however, this would mean that they would also have to be trained to recognise the signs and symptoms of ptsd, csr and asr so that the affected individual can be referred to the field hospital when needed. another solution will be to train medics in pd so that the medic in the combat situation is not only trained to treat physical injuries, but also to prevent psychological disorders. proposed model for traumatised communities in africa the models above are more applied in the military which is a more structured environment than rural communities in africa. on the other side, there is also a need to apply a debriefing model for communities in africa for example in mozimbique (flood), ethiopia (drought), kenya (political unrest), uganda (bomb blast) and zimbabwe (political unrest). it is important to be psychological  debriefing  for  africa   td, 6(2), december 2010, pp. 379 – 394. 391 aware of some of the specific characteristics of african communities in the management of pd. sefotho (2005) wrote that psychological services, to do debriefing is not common practice in the communities in africa. on the other hand there is high levels of trauma in the african rural communities around hiv/aids (bakunda, 2009), annual victims of abortions (temu, 2006), single parenthood and hiv/aids orphans (nakkazi, 2008). a high percentage of the population have low levels of education and a limited mental health service to support them with trauma or psychological debriefing. this paper wants to propose out of the above models of pd a simple model for african communities which will be suitable for people with a low education level, possible to implement without modern infrastructure and be applicable with simple resources specifically for children. van dyk (1999) developed an adjusted model for africa, consisting out of three phases: cognitive phase, where people can tell their story in terms of what they saw, heard and experienced in a group of ten people, in a half circle. affective phase, this is where people start to vent/share their deepest, most painful and traumatic experiences and specific emotions. it is where people work through feelings of guilt, fear, resentment and anger. african communities, with a more collectivistic approach, are doing better in a group situation where they feel together, cry together and support each other.during this phase the following techniques are available to help children (van dyk, 2000): • telephone game – children phone a family member to tell their story and share their emotions. • sunglasses – children hide behind dark glasses when sharing their emotions. • puppet play – children use puppets to project their emotions to the puppets. empowerment phase, here the debriefer use the potential and creativity of the group to facilitate solutions for their helpless and powerless situations. doing so to create a future and to empower their ego power. it is important to use games, play and role modelling to empower the children of africa. psychologists can train teachers, nurses, sisters, and community leaders to become debriefers in the african communities for the better mental health of our people. summary and concluding remarks pd has evolved a lot since world war i, but the aim and ways of implementation of pd has mostly stayed the same. there are a number of different models of pd, but they all essentially have the same structure and only differ in terms of their focus. the proposed pd model for the military forces in africa can hopefully be helpful in preventing ptsd as well as to facilitate a higher level of mental health in soldiers. the model for the traumatised communities in africa can be implemented through hospitals, schools, as well as the ministers of health and education in africa. it is believed that the implementation of these models can potentially bring relief to the traumatised people in africa. van  dyk  &  van  dyk   392 references adler, a.b., castro, c.a., & mcgurk, d. 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(2005). from trauma debriefing to trauma support. a south african experience of responding to individuals and communities in the aftermath of traumatising events. journal of psychology in africa, 152, 135142. reference about the author(s) johann tempelhoff school of basic sciences, north-west university, south africa citation tempelhoff, j., 2017, ‘a coalescent space for bio-cultural knowledge to flourish’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a531. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.531 editorial a coalescent space for bio-cultural knowledge to flourish johann tempelhoff copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. at the end of its second year as open access journal in the aosis stable, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa is clearly in the process of acquiring a more nuanced identity. for one, the editorial content suggests that there is a greater tendency towards diversity and explorative encounters beyond the confines of singular disciplines. another interesting development is more material from neighbouring southern african states. muphoshi and dhurup report on consumer attitudes to ethanol-blended fuel in zimbabwe, while chari and ngcamu explore collaborative strategies in disaster risk reduction in the zimbabwe dairy supply chain. nyandoro and muzorewa focus on the transition from growth point policy to liberal urban development in the case of the town of ruwa in zimbabwe. tunamisifu discusses the ezulwini consensus in the early 2010s when the african great lakes region was affected by violence in the eastern democratic republic of congo. the study forms part of the continental work conducted at the institute for dispute resolution in africa at the university of south africa. for readers with an appetite for the debate between science and society, there is also food for thought. kroeze provocatively argues that science is in serious trouble as a result of clashes between interests of people and those of influential corporate and political role players. this has cast a shadow of doubt on science and its methodologies. society, at large, is becoming critical of science and its ‘groundbreaking’ findings. kroeze’s argument is informed by two apparently contested areas: climate change and new trends in dietary sciences. in the scientific realm, where induction or empiricism and deduction or rationalism are dominant foci, the conflict areas between science and politics are critical thinking in legal studies. she argues that the apparent conundrum has reached the point where law is equated with politics. the readers are therefore left to grapple with intellectual spaces where ‘science is politics’. while multidisciplinary practice maintains a strong presence in most research output, there remains a growing need for transdisciplinarity. given the rapid rate of development in a large number of fields, transdisciplinarity is singled out in some circles as tertiary education’s development route for the next decade (murday 2013). there has been convergence in the fields of nanotechnology, biology and information communications systems. american futurists now suggest that there are indications of new emergent trends. there is a high degree of integration of some substantially greater knowledge sets in new spaces of intellectual activity. the process requires attention in an environment in which the physical infrastructure will increasingly make more complex demands on society. data analytics and comprehensive digital data sets are bound to become more important in the fields of social sciences and humanities. relying on statistical inferences is increasingly becoming more pervasive in the fields of cognition and emotion and our understanding of human behaviours. in our own backyard, southern africa, there is much promise. although we may not yet be at the forefront of the latest developments in the politics and economics of private enterprise’s artificial intelligence and robotics research breakthroughs, we are getting there – albeit it on a different development pathway. currently the disciplines of public management and governance as well as disaster studies amongst the avant-garde social science-related disciplines have made significant inroads into transdisciplinary spaces of engagement. in this issue, there is evidence that our researchers are broadening their vistas and are becoming more literate and familiar with the challenges of the local, national and international environments. other contributions in this edition blend sports studies and music, while educational thinking is extended to the aesthetics of architecture and spatial planning. in history, there is a focus on international economics in the second half of the 20th century. it is material that deserves the attention of serious economists. similar contributions of geography, politics and economics are represented in this issue. there are promising signs of a broadening knowledge gaze. these initiatives deserve support. on the african continent – potentially one of the last underdeveloped regions of the world – there is a distinct need for the production of knowledge that explores fields of importance for development and the continent’s growth. there is good reason for practitioners of transdisciplinarity to take pride in their successes in working towards resolving complex problems. africa still has many issues that need to be addressed. for one, we have to explore international and exogenous knowledge with a view to working towards its greater integration with our indigenous african knowledge systems. it is necessary to create a coalescent space for integrated bio-cultural knowledge to coexist and flourish. transdisciplinary research can make a valuable contribution in this respect. reference murday, j., bell, l., heath, j., kong, c., chang, r., fonash, s. et al., 2013, ‘implications: people and physical infrastructure’, in m.c. roco et al. (eds.), convergence of knowledge, technology and society: beyond convergence of nano-bio-info-cognitive technologies, pp. 295–297, springer, cham. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 287-289. book review being san in a developing and water-stressed botswana james g workman: heart of dryness: how the last bushmen can help us endure the coming age of permanent drought (walker and company, new york, 2009). isbn 978-0-8027-1558-6 price $27. pp. 321. paperback, illustrations, index and bibliography. referenced text. much of southern africa’s contemporary cultural history has a direct bearing on the manner in which natural resources have been exploited to secure a standing place for modernising states aspiring to sound governance on a continent that is, for many reasons, still reeling under the consequences of post-colonial positioning in a globalising world. in the title of this book the american journalist and writer, james g workman, reminds us of the seminal novel of joseph conrad (1857-1924), the heart of darkness (1899) that defined the nature of colonialism in africa. he takes it a step further and underlines, along with the current evolving post-colonial state of mind the major environmental crisis of the 21st century – global warming. the study is highly readable. although it tends to border on popular journalism (aimed primarily at an american reading public) heart of dryness is based on sound research on botswana and the san (bushman) people at a time when the country is still one of the exemplary and most successful democracies of africa. the book deals with a contemporary history of a group of san (workman prefers to use the more familiar term ‘bushmen’) in the kalahari who were forced by the government of former president, festus mogae, to move out of the central kalahari nature reserve. they had been resident in the reserve since the 1960s – ironically also as a result of a relocation strategy devised by officials of the former british bechuanaland protectorate. the government’s motivation for the more recent relocation plan has an ominous ring to it. it wanted to prepare the way for diamond mining operations in a highly water-stressed region –a long battle that the san have recently lost. the heroine of workman’s history is the mater familia, qoroxloo duxee, whose life story is a primary source of the historical consciousness of a community of san. they are representative of some of the last living remnants of indigenous people who have been resident in southern africa since the late stone age. when government officials started applying pressure to relocate the san to an area outside the reserve, qoroxloo was at the helm of a group who refused to leave. she then took them further into one of the most arid parts of southern africa’s kalahari desert. she was instrumental in helping the community rediscover some of their ancient strategies of surviving under waterstressed circumstances. the plan was simply: revert back to customs devised by the ancestors over the past 10 000 years when the region’s copious surface water supplies started drying up. 288 workman, operating in a modernist mode, is well aware of current global trends in climate change. he looks at the san’s way of life and sees that there are lessons to learn. these people were able to adjust to conditions that would typically be adverse to modern humans in the developed countries of the world. how the san could take the leap into the risky business of eking out an existence with boreholes no longer accessible, is of cardinal importance to the author. ultimately he suggests san character and the will to maintain personal freedom in an environment with which they are historically familiar, are some of the attributes that made it possible. at times the narrative is sentimental – perhaps with good reason. the san are people who have been persecuted by representatives and leaders of modern, and more recently also of modernising societies, in southern africa. it has been an ongoing struggle for these often-misunderstood people since the 17th century. little wonder then that workman resorts to a philosophical discourse on genocide when he discusses a human being’s basic right to water as an extension of universal human rights. he convincingly argues that the botswana government was at fault in its actions against the san. botswana’s development syndrome gained momentum in the 1960s when the government of president seretse khama opted for mining and responsible governance with the objective to modernise one of africa’s newly independent states. the country had a small population. they could therefore be ruled effectively. one shortcoming in the development equation was the absence of sufficient water supplies. in an effort to satisfy the demand of the farming and mining industry for water, the government started using the latest in borehole drilling technology. it also invested in petroleum-powered water pumping technology. the source? ancient subterranean lakes under the sands of the kalahari had to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for one of southern africa’s finite natural resources. by the 1990s it was evident that the system was running awry. large modern surface water storage dams constantly experienced problems with evaporation. over-used boreholes started drying up. furthermore, the cost of pumping the fossil water to the surface increased as a result of the energy crisis. at the same time the government had to contend with a growing socio-economic demand for more water to support the country’s development. interestingly, workman explains, it was under these circumstances that the san actually excelled. they were resilient and knew how to operate effectively under dry conditions. they could survive on food from the veld. their technological arsenal of indigenous knowledge included the use of desert plants with a high water content, which they effectively used to still hunger and thirst. the author discusses some of the plants and their applications. apart from also discursively contemplating the dietary qualities value of wild animal flesh, ‘illegally’ hunted by the san, he also describes the san’s strategies of extracting subterranean supplies of water in what appears to be barren desert. the dietary habits of the san, the author suggests, can inform modern society in search of finding solutions to some if its ills. what is clear is that they are more than aware of the value of water. they would go to great lengths to procure supplies. they are also more than able to maintain their inherent resilience when the authorities intervene and prevent them from access to water they fetched over distances of several hundred kilometres. although he is supposedly an independent journalist, workman, is clearly sucked into the san’s struggle for survival. from the outset it is evident that he actively tries to win their confidence. he wants to know more about them. then, he gradually drifts into becoming an activist. this is evident in his strategies to subvert the botswana government’s discourses aimed at legitimising its actions against the san. workman draws comparisons between the past and the present. he boekresensies/ book reviews td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 287 289. 289 reads and communicates with the leading experts on botswana and its oldest residents. simultaneously he is absorbed in the approaching global water crisis that is unfolding as a result of climate change. it is in this context he brings some of the most up to date perspectives of issues in the global water sector to southern africa. it is as if the stone age meets global warming, with modernity and its virtual sense of reality as a catalyst. this approach is informative and provides a familiar and comfortable framework for readers who are less informed on the contemporary history of the subcontinent. the author deals with the complexity of maintaining democratic governance in a modernising state. botswana’s government, under mogae, he explains, tended to resort to certain totalitarian strategies of governance. this was evident in its dealing with the san. workman clearly points this out and discusses the issue in a variety of dimensions. he spells out an important principle: “we don’t govern water; water governs us” (p. 242). the san, in their struggle with the government of botswana, were aware of this principle. the government only learnt that lesson when the trappings of modern technology proved to be futile in their quest to satisfy the growing demand for water. workman’s narrative strategies are cunning. he explains how the ancient technologies of the san – from water storage to sanitation – can be of relevance to some of the water-related problems we currently try to address with a myriad of futile experimental strategies. the reader is also challenged to reconsider some of the material values of modern society. for example, how do you compare the value of diamond jewellery (because diamonds will last forever), with beads made of fragments of ostrich egg-shell (by a threatened people)? or, how necessary are some of the everyday uses of water in modern society? the author is clearly informed on botswana’s politics. he is also aware of some critical issues of the country’s economy and the importance of responsible approaches to development. with these insights and other insights, he eloquently informs us about a small unique society – probably one of the last of its kind – representative of africa’s early culture. johann tempelhoff north-west university (vaal) microsoft word 01 auerbach delport.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 1-11. the power of musical sound and its implications for primary education in south africa: an experiential discussion c auerbach1 and a delport2 abstract in this article, the power of musical sound and its transformative effects on human beings are explored, as perceived since ancient times and discussed in recent literature. an evolving research project is then reviewed, with a group of primary school children from disadvantaged backgrounds with no prior formal musical training. in essence, the aim of the study in progress is to determine how musical sound can be used to facilitate mindfulness, develop wholeness and facilitate the holistic growth of young south african learners, especially those from deprived backgrounds. initial findings suggest that when musical sound experiences are included in everyday education of young learners, there are moments of joy, spontaneity, a sense of unity and well-being. the listening capacity of the children in the group has refined and performance levels at school have improved. keywords: musical sound, music education, mindfulness, healing, wholeness, south africa introduction in his phaedrus (see jowett, 1999, p. 805), plato’s dialogue of socrates (from 400 years bc) likens the soul to a chariot with a charioteer and two horses. the divine soul, according to plato, has a noble charioteer and two noble horses. this allows ‘the gods’ to soar aloft, as they have well-ordered chariots. the human chariot, on the other hand, comprises a pair of horses, one of noble breed and one ignoble. consequently, the human chariot is more difficult to manage, and often ends up sinking to the ground. hence, learning to ‘manage the soul’, according to plato, is the challenge of the human embodiment. before the ignoble 1 christina auerbach works as a healing therapist and through teaching and her healing practice, has spent many years exploring the power of pure sound and beneficial effects of singing and chant. she is currently working on a master of education degree on the power of sound and its implications on the education of primary school children in south africa through nelson mandela metropolitan university, port elizabeth, eastern cape, south africa. christina@rainman.co.za 2 alette delport is associate professor and director of the school for initial teacher education, faculty of education, nelson mandela metropolitan university, in port elizabeth. she is involved in research projects focussing on educational transformation, as well as arts and music education for the nonspecialist teacher. aletta.delport@nmmu.ac.za auerbach and delport 2 horse will come under the dominion of a disciplined and reasonable mind, titanic struggles may take place between wilful wild desires and the dictates of clarity and reason. plato thus held that, in order to soar upward, the human soul requires mindfulness and connection with that which is ‘best in the world’ (jowett, 1999, p. 808). in the twentieth century, world renowned psychiatrist and psychotherapist carl jung asserted that ‘sickness of the soul’ was caused by the sense of a meaningless life. jung contended that society did not comprehend the full extent and full import of ‘the sickness of the soul’ (see hassed, 2012). today, in the 21st century, incidences of mental ailments such as depression are on a steady rise, affecting many people in all walks of life. the need for individuals to experience life as meaningful is nowadays seen as a critical requisite for good physical and psychological health. hence, regular physical exercise, good nutrition, connectedness, favourable environments, proper education, and an ability to manage stress, are generally regarded as key determinants of healthy living (hassed, 2008). hassed, however, highlights ‘spirituality’ in particular, as giving specific meaning to life, hence its potential to heal the ‘sickness of the soul’. hassed’s postulation (2008) subsequently led medical educators at monash university in australia to include ‘mindfulness training’ in their curriculum for general practice, as it has been shown to assist medical trainees integrating complex medical theory through its calming and illuminating effects. stanford university in california, united states of america, also has a centre for compassion and altruism research and education that offers mindfulness training. ‘mindfulness’ in this context is defined as the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally to the unfolding of experience, moment to moment (kabat-zinn, 2003, cited in feldman et al., 2007, p. 177). in essence, mindfulness thus implies connecting with one’s senses. unfortunately, presentday society is characterised by an overload of sensory stimulation and instant gratification. moreover, due to technological and multimedia advances, sensations are artificially heightened, subjecting individuals to emotional manipulation (menuhin & davis, 2000). the ability to listen is particularly compromised. berendt (1983, p. 139) for example, argues that nowadays, people “use their ears only when their eyes are insufficient”. goldman (1993, p. 81) accordingly distinguishes between ‘hearing’ and ‘listening’, defining hearing as a passive experience, whereas listening implies active, focussed immersion. listening thus requires a measure of quiet in the head and a presence of mind that will allow connection with sounds picked up by one’s senses. listening with full attention enables us to be fully present in the moment, connecting with what is really happening. it allows us the possibility of responding fully to what is present, rather than filtering our response through a veil of belief systems and conditioning. the ability to listen naturally and optimally can be restored through simple exercises of sounding and listening. musical sound and toning train the ear and develop listening skills. listening to musical sounds thus facilitates ‘mindfulness’, as it enables attentive awareness, and generous, indulgent engagement with the present moment (kabat-zinn, 2003, cited in feldman 2007, p. 177). the power of sound to influence thoughts and actions has been understood since ancient times (bicknell, 2010). almost all ancient cultures and indigenous peoples regarded sound as the generative force which created the universe. cutting across historical, religious and power of musical sound and primary education in sa td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 1-11. 3 political lines, egyptians, hebrews, native americans, celts, chinese and christians all have spoken of sound as a divine principle (tame, 1984, p. 206). the gospel of john starts: ‘in the beginning was the word, and the word was with god and the word was god’. the vedic scriptures refer to this word or sound as om, calling it the pranawa shabda or original sound. in ancient egypt it was ‘the word of words’, and to the pythagoreans of greece, sound was the ‘music of the spheres’. ihde (2007, p. 3) accordingly holds that the “beginning of man is in the midst of word. and the centre of word is in breath and sound, in listening and speaking”. in ancient china, three thousand years before christ, great care was thus taken to ensure that the fundamental tone, called huang chung or ‘divine will’, was in perfect tune as the earthly rendering of the word. it was assumed that any deviation would lead to eventual instability in society. the major effect of musical sound in particular, was understood to be its moral influence. the chinese emperors therefore believed that they needed to control musical sound. emperor shun would visit all the local areas under his care in the second month of every year to ensure that the tuning of the instruments was correct. such practices continued for four and a half millennia until the chi’ng dynasty of 1644 (tame, 1984, p. 40, 41). in the 18th century, ernst chladne (1756-1827, cited in campbell, 1997) finally managed to demonstrate the effect of musical sound vibration on matter. when a violin bow was drawn over the edge of the plate and a pure sound created, sand grains or poppy seeds loosely spread over a flat plate took on symmetrical forms. berendt (1983, p. 91) describes this phenomenon as “sound calling the particles to order”. during the 1960s, the study on the effects of vibration on matter was taken further by hans jenny and referred to as ‘cymatics’. in his introduction to the book cymatics (jenny, 2001), the publisher (volk, 2001, p. 8) describes how through the use of a tonoscope, jenny made visible spoken sound and demonstrated the different patterns created by different vowel sounds. jenny captured extraordinary images that mirrored biological forms, created through sound vibration in liquid glycerine photographically. for example, one image was of a snake-like form, stripped down to its vertebrae, slowly undulating on the screen. other images also resembled biological forms and natural processes such as flowers, intricate geometric shapes and honeycomb (jenny, 2004). volk (2001, p.8) thus argues that jenny’s experiments revealed ‘the hidden nature of creation’ and the very principle through which matter coalesces into form. similarly powerful are the subtle vibrations of musical sound produced by the human voice. chant, by its very nature, consists of prolonged vowel sounds. since ancient times, sacred traditions throughout the world have thus been using chant to instil a sense of presence and connectedness (goldman, 2002; campbell, 1997; le mee, 1994). d’angelo (2000, p. 19) subsequently believes that the act of chanting enhances integration of ‘body, mind and spirit’. it stimulates, purifies and balances the energies that generate ‘wholeness’. past civilisations clearly held music sacred and it consequently gave man a sense of beauty and perfection that could be aspired to. beauty and truth are combined in music, and as such, music cultivates “greater maturity, awareness and equilibrium in our civilization” (menuhin & davis, 2001, p. 43). in recent years, interest in the power of musical sound re-emerged. in 1997, campbell proposed the so-called mozart effect, suggesting that when one listens to wolfgang amadeus mozart’s (1756 – 1791) music, brainwaves are slowed down and equalised. since beta waves subsequently change to alpha waves, a heightened state of calm and awareness is experienced auerbach and delport 4 by the listener. the respirations also deepen and slow down. the immune system is strengthened and digestion stimulated. memory is also strengthened and the ability to learn is heightened. campbell (1997) furthermore held that music can change one’s perception of space, since one’s immediate environment is experienced as more spacious, lighter, elegant, efficient and ordered. ultimately, stress is reduced and productivity increased. although initially met with scepticism, campbell’s postulations (1997) have since been supported and expanded by numerous recent interdisciplinary research studies, confirming the beneficial impacts of musical encounters on human beings (see kokotsaki & hallam, 2011; leeds, 2010). some of these findings are as follows: • costa-giomi (1999) found that engagement with music improves self-esteem. • catterall and rauscher (2008) detected gains in visual-spatial intelligence of learners who engaged with music (see kokotsaki & hallam, 2011). • southgate and roscigno (2009) as well as anvari et al. (2002), found that music involvement leads to increased reading ability. it also improves phonemic awareness and spelling abilities (overy 2003, 2000). • music encounters improve mathematical performance (southgate & roscigno, 2009; cheek & smith, 1999). • music also improves verbal memory (ho, cheung & chan, 2003), as well as auditory and audio-visual processing (musacchia et al., 2007). • ings, jones and randell (2000, cited in kokotsaki & hallam, 2011) in addition allude to music’s social benefits, arguing that group music activities enhance awareness of others and improve social skills. music enables self-expression and builds confidence in performance. it also improves group work, hence improving social inclusion. • ultimately, wise, hartmann and fisher (1992) conclude that involvement in music cultivates mental well-being, good health and improved quality of life. despite music’s evident multi-faceted and multi-layered benefits as outlined above, menuhin and davis (2007) strongly believe that at present, music has largely lost this curative and remedial role in society. instead, it has become “part of the ubiquitous process of exploitation” associated with neo-liberal societies (menuhin & davis, 2000, p. 271). general education today is thus characterised by a pre-occupation with ‘intelligence’, where ‘aptitudes’ are measured largely in terms of reading, writing and computer literacy competence (campbell, 1997, p. 43). rationality supersedes creativity and sensitivity, with linear leftbrained thinking being emphasised at the expense of development of listening and speaking skills. campbell (1997) subsequently warns that deficient listening ability may hamper the development of learners’ higher-level learning skills. school education in the 21st century should be conceived as more than mere accumulation of knowledge. it should also help children to think creatively and analytically, enabling them to become creative and innovative problem-solvers (zuber-skerritt, 2011). education needs to be holistic, developing and involving all the senses so that auditory, visual and kinaesthetic learning styles are fully integrated and utilised. in this regard, maxine greene (1995) holds that the arts should be central in school curricula especially since encounters with the arts have a unique power to release the imagination. greene sees the role of the imagination as awakening and disclosing the ordinarily unseen, unheard and unexpected. she thus argues that to “conceive the arts in relation to curriculum, power of musical sound and primary education in sa td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 1-11. 5 is to think of a deepening and expanding mode of tuning in” (greene, 1995, p. 104). the arts are essential in developing brain pathways and connections that will produce society’s much needed mathematicians, scientists and engineers, as well as developing well-rounded individuals who are socially, culturally and intellectually balanced (wanyama, 2006). given that the majority of south african learners grow up in socially deprived contexts, the curative, transformative attributes of musical sound through meaningful music encounters clearly require further investigation. our opinion is reinforced byjose antonio abreu’s faith in music’s potential to heal the emotional and spiritual depredations of poverty, especially in developing countries. abreu, a contemporary venezuelan economist and musician, sees poverty as not just the lack of a roof or bread but also as a spiritual dearth, a loneliness and lack of recognition (tunstall, 2012). abreu believes that, when arts education takes the place in our society that it deserves, we will have much less delinquency and violence, and much more motivation towards noble achievement. my struggle is for a society in which art is not just an aesthetic dimension of life. it is a primary instrument for the development of individuals and societies (cited in tunstell, 2012, p. xi). in 1975, abreu founded a nationally-funded music education project in venezuala, called el sistema. today, el sistema is known particularly for rescuing many young children living in extremely impoverished circumstances from the environment of drug abuse and crime, into which they would likely otherwise have been drawn. at present, venezuela has at least 31 symphony orchestras with 300 main nucleos or centres, each also having several orchestras. currently 370,000 children attend el sistema music schools around the country. these children are mostly from poor socio-economic backgrounds. several research studies clearly link participation in the programme to improved school attendance and decline in juvenile delinquency. hence, supported by the government, the el sistema programme has since been introduced into the public school curriculum, aiming to be in every school by 2015 (tunstell, 2012). our belief in the curative and transformative potential of meaningful music involvement is also reinforced by research conducted in first-world european countries. studies for example conducted in switzerland by spychiger and zulauf (1993, cited in kokotsaki & hallam, 2011) indicated that increased music activities in the general classroom led to improved social cohesion within the class. according to hanshumaker (1980, cited in kokotsaki & hallam, 2011), this also resulted in greater self-reliance, better social adjustment and more positive attitudes, especially of low ability, disaffected learners. most significantly, it was found that despite time being taken away from more academic lessons such as mathematics and english, to allow more time for music lessons, the children performed just as well, if not better, in the more academic subjects. this is an important finding since music, from our personal observations in schools, is often moved to the periphery of the school timetable to provide more time for reading, writing and arithmetic. menuhin and davis (2000) accordingly argue that music education for all learners should also be justified for its extra-musical benefits such as its ability to enhance listening, intuition, criticality and open-mindedness. they furthermore hold that the way human beings perceive and process sounds is as important as the inherent quality of the sounds themselves. yet teaching a child how to listen, pay attention to inflection and put sounds and speech into context, has largely been neglected by modern society. auerbach and delport 6 the south african situation the attributes of music education, as discussed above, have also been acknowledged by policy makers in post-apartheid south africa. at present, music education constitutes an integral component of the national school curriculum (known as the curriculum and assessment policy statement or caps), for the general education and training (get) phase. this phase is subdivided into three phases, namely foundation phase (grade r – 3), intermediate phase (grade 4 – 6) and senior phase (grade 7 – 9), with 2 hours, 1.5 hours and 2 hours per week respectively allocated to creative arts in total (caps, 2014, p.6-7). however, despite policy endorsement, the quality of music education in most south african schools, and in particular schools in poverty-stricken areas, is questionable (wentink, 2013; browne, 2010; vermeulen, 2009; herbst, de wet & rijsdijk, 2005). generalist non-music specialist teachers, with little or no prior music training are expected to teach music at these underresourced schools. the musical training and background of these generalist teachers is completely inadequate (wentink, 2013). economic constraints furthermore lead school managers to reduce financial support for meaningful arts activities, creating a poorlyunderstood educational impoverishment (tallal, 2013, cited in o’brien, 2013). in light of the above, further investigation into the influences of regular musical sound experiences on south african children from impoverished backgrounds seemed appropriate. in particular, we wanted to ascertain how regular involvement in music activities can cultivate a sense of wholeness and mindfulness, integrating ‘body, mind and spirit’, and thus helping these children to develop holistically, despite challenging social circumstances. research methodology greene (1995) believes that, when the arts are included in everyday experiences of young learners, this supports life, hope, the prospects of discovery, light, and ultimately wholeness. the dire need for young south african learners to be afforded an opportunity to transcend often impoverished circumstances, through attentive engagement with musical sound prompted our study. converted into a research question, it is formulated as follows: how can musical sound be utilised to facilitate mindfulness, develop wholeness and thereby, facilitate the holistic growth of young south african learners, especially those from deprived social backgrounds? the aim of the study is thus to pilot and explore a particular approach to music education, in order to determine its applicability for similar contexts, not only in south africa, but also elsewhere where young children grow up in poverty-stricken and hopeless conditions. for the purposes of the study, zuber-skerritt’s (2011) participatory action learning and action research (palar) was adopted as the most appropriate approach. palar combines research with learning and action. it has a transformative aim, as it strives to improve life by not only focussing on the generation of new knowledge but also its application in society. as such, palar is inclusive, holistic, always participative and collective (zuber-skerritt, 2011). the empirical component of the study is conducted by christina auerbach, who has been working since february 2013 with a group of children between the ages of ten and fourteen after informed ethical consent was obtained from parents, care-givers and the children themselves. the programme is piloted at a community aftercare facility, located in the southern cape, south africa. it is a non-profit organisation and entirely dependent on donations. the main objective is to improve the circumstances for young children living in local socio-economically deprived areas. power of musical sound and primary education in sa td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 1-11. 7 this is done through the provision of a safe environment where children can be supervised, receive food, have fun and learn. parents are also encouraged to become involved. the longterm goals are to keep children in school, encourage a culture of learning, broaden horizons and prevent children becoming involved in cycles of crime, early pregnancy, drug addiction and substance abuse. working with the children’s parents has been vital in achieving these objectives. at present, the aftercare facility is located in a house owned by a local church. the house has been divided into different areas for different classes and through the dedication of volunteer teachers, the children now have an educational and supportive structure to study in, rather than being on the street or in a house with no desk and little space or light. a sound awareness approach the study is premised on the transformative potential of musical sound, as discussed earlier in this article. as such, the music programme focuses primarily on facilitating awareness of and engagement with musical sound. in the programme, the aim is to enhance the development of the children’s mindfulness. this happens through sounding and listening activities that enable them to connect with their senses, refining their auditory awareness. each session begins with a ‘falling still’ exercise where the children are encouraged to follow a set of simple instructions in order to connect with their senses. these instructions include for example: sitting balanced and upright, become aware of the connection between your feet and the floor… [pause]. feel the weight of the body on the chair… [pause]. be aware of the touch of clothes on the skin and the movement of air on the face and hands… [pause] experience the sense of taste in the mouth… [pause] be aware of smell… [pause] … and the movement of breath in and out of the body… [pause] listen to all the sounds in the room, extend that listening to sounds outside of the room and outside of the building… this is then followed by a few moments of just sitting still. the children are also encouraged to practise this exercise and observe the effect it has on their being. the following exercises focus on sounding and harmony. the children are encouraged to sound prolonged vowel sounds for the length of the breath on any note that feels comfortable. we then practise harmony work, collectively producing a major chord, sustaining the sound for the length of the breath. auerbach and delport 8 a ‘talking stick’ is then passed from child to child, affording the stick-holder the opportunity to share whatever is on his or her mind. everyone is encouraged to listen carefully to what is being said and only the one holding the stick is encouraged to speak. response is entirely voluntary and the stick is simply passed on if someone does not want to say anything. according to the palar approach, the researcher is a co-participant, hence also taking a turn. the next activity is in the form of finger exercises. the fingers are moved to different rhythms and rhymes, strengthening the finger muscles and improving co-ordination, in preparation for recorder work. the researcher and the children would each hold their hands in a loose fist, opening up the thumb pointing straight to the sky, closing back into a fist, moving thumbs pointing to each other in a horizontal position and then repeating with remaining digits while reciting certain words, such as: we must do our exercises, exercises, exercises, we must do our exercises early in the morning.3 another exercise involves placing all the fingertips and thumb tips together. one by one, they are then moved away and placed back together again. this exercise is also done to a rhyme, for example, tick-tock, tick-tock, rickety, pickety, clickety clock, the tick, the tock, the rock, the knock, put the keys inside the lock. to the final part of the rhyme, the fingers are interlocked and gently stretched. this is followed by a recorder session where the children are learning different note positions, learning to play simple songs and encouraged to recognise the notes they play on a music stave. the recorder was selected as the instrument of choice because it is light and easy to handle, develops finger co-ordination, lends itself to group playing and the researcher has a high level of competency with it. percussion instruments and voice are also used to practise rhythms and to enrich the recorder sound. the session concludes with a story with questions and answers in discussion format. the main aim of this activity is to encourage listening. at the same time, the children’s thinking, learning and language skills in english, which is not their mother tongue, are also developed. some of the stories have been selected from stories for thinking (fisher, 1996). care is also taken to share stories representative of a variety of cultures. the questions are designed to challenge and extend the child’s thinking in relation to the story in order to enhance the development of their deeper, philosophical thinking skills. the questions thus aim to stimulate thinking on issues such as truth, justice, friendship, service and courage, among others and children are encouraged to share their honest views. care is taken to create a safe space conducive to philosophical thinking, hence the children are constantly reassured that there is no right or wrong answer. they are not allowed to criticise the views of others. they need to listen to others without interrupting. they are encouraged 3 these rhymes come from the waldorf steiner education music syllabus. power of musical sound and primary education in sa td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 1-11. 9 to exercise patience, waiting their turn to speak. they are also encouraged to justify their views and responses (cassidy, 2009). initial observations although this research project is still in progress, our initial observations, feedback from caregivers and field notes reveal noticeable changes in the children in terms of academic performance, self-confidence and their enthusiasm. at first, the exercise connecting with the senses was met with much giggling. recent verbal feedback from the children has however been very positive as they relate these experiences to peacefulness, quiet and rest. as far as the sounding and harmony work are concerned, the general trend has been towards finer listening and more harmonious sounds. these are often met with general applause, indicating recognition of quality of sound. the children have taken to the finger exercises readily and willingly and love practising them. they are gradually developing music literacy and composing simple tunes with the notes they know, much to their enjoyment. the person in charge of the aftercare facility has observed that the children’s school marks have improved considerably and where children were failing last year they are now passing and passing well. the idea that they may in fact continue in school to complete grade 12 is now a reality. a year ago it was not even in the children’s consciousness. changes in their postures and how they carry themselves are also observable. when we first started working together they slouched and drooped over the table and were unable or unwilling to listen to each other. both their listening and the posture have now improved, reflecting enthusiasm and eagerness to participate. initial observations clearly confirm research findings regarding music’s benefits as discussed earlier in this article. these also endorse advocacy for more prominence of musical arts education in the national school curriculum. focused exposure to and education in music and sound should clearly be available to all young south african learners conclusion by consulting seminal literature, this article examined the power of sound, its nature and its potential transformative effects, especially for young children. it also reported on an existing research project in progress, exploring how sound can be utilised to facilitate mindfulness, wholeness, a sense of meaning and connectedness for young children. the incorporation of a well-conceived musical arts programme, focusing in particular on enabling young learners to gain from the power of musical sound, will contribute in a unique manner towards achieving an education system that enhances the holistic development of the south african child. references anvari, s.h., trainor, l.j., woodside, j. & levy b. z. 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(2011) action leadership: towards a participatory paradigm. new york: springer. td journal desember 2006.p65 neurobiological approaches to a better understanding of human nature and human values gerald hüther * abstract: the most important finding made in the field of neurobiological research during the last decade is the discovery of the enormous experience-dependent plasticity of the human brain. the elaboration and stabilization of synaptic connectivity, and therefore, the complexity of neuronal networks in the higher brain centres depend to a far greater extent than previously believed on how – or rather, for which purpose – an individual uses his brain, the goals pursued, the experiences made in the course of his life, the models used for orientation, the values providing stability and eliciting a sense of commitment. the transmission and internalization of culture-specific abilities and of culture-specific values is achieved primarily during childhood by nonverbal communication (mirror neuron system, imitation learning) as well as by implicit and explicit experiences (reward system, avoidance and reinforcement learning). therefore the structural and functional organization of the human brain is crucially determined by social and cultural factors. especially the frontal cortex with its highly complex neuronal networks involved in executive functions, evaluation an decision making must be conceptualized as a social, culturally shaped construct. the most important prerequisites for the transgenerational transmission of human values and their deep implementation into the higher frontocortical networks of the brains of subsequent generations are secure affectional relationships and a broad spectrum of different challenges. only under such conditions, children are able to stabilize sufficiently complex networks and internal representations for metacognitive competences in their brains. this delicate process of experience-dependent organization of neuronal connectivity is seriously and often also persistently hampered or prematurely terminated by uncontrollable stress experiences. this danger ought be minimized by education programs aiming at the implementation of values of connectedness to others and to nature during the period of brain maturation. keywords: neurobiology, synaptic connectivity, human nature, human values, transgenerational transmission, frontocortical networks, metacognitive competences. 1. the unique plasticity of the human brain by far the most significant finding in the field of neurobiological research in recent years is what we refer to today as experiencetd: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 331-343. _______ * gerald hüther is professor and head of the neurobiological research unit at the psychiatric clinic of the university of göttingen, germany. 332 dependent or use-dependent plasticity: it is the discovery that the neuronal and synaptic connections in the human brain can be altered. the complexity of these connections and their stabilization depend to a far greater extent than previously believed on how – or rather, for which purpose – an individual uses his brain, the goals pursued, the experiences made in the course of his life, the models used for orientation, the factors which provide emotional stability and a sense of commitment. all this is shaped by an individual’s family relationships, the abilities passed on to him and the guiding ideals and the goals conveyed by the thoughts and aims, by the myths, legends and belief systems of the particular culture in which a person grows up. the neuronal connectivity patterns in the human brain are continuously adjusted to these social and cultural factors, at least in all those areas which are shaped and structured postnatally. in other words, the individual human brain in its mature state is a social construct. therefore, it is not astonishing that neuroscientists by their modern imaging techniques are able to identify numerous differences between the brains of differently encultured and socialized subjects at both, the structural and the functional level. these differences are most pronounced in the very slowly developing higher cortical association areas. examples of such use dependent adaptive modifications and reorganizations of neuronal connectivity have been observed throughout lifetime, even in the brains of elderly subjects. the degree of brain plasticity is of course highest at younger ages, but the networks and connections between nerve cells can apparently be restructured and adjusted to new demands throughout lifetime. a prerequisite for such experience-dependent changes is the activation of the emotional centres (limbic system). this leads to the release of trophic, hormone-like substances, which stimulate the growth and the reorganization of nerve cell contacts and connections. such emotional activation, i.e. situations which ‘go deeply under the skin’, are most often experimented during childhood and adolescence, but much less frequently during adulthood, when a person has learned to master almost all challenges of daily life as a routine. the most important triggers for the adaptive modification and reorganization of neuronal networks and synaptic circuitry at any age are the problems encountered and the experiences made by an individual in the course of the so called stress-response. therefore, the first part of this contribution will focus on the adaptive self-organization of neuronal connectivity through the mastery of challenges and of stressful experiences. in the second part, the influences of early affective relationships and of a culture of peace and non-violence on the developing brain will be somewhat closer examined. hüther 333 2. stress and the experience-dependent organization of neuronal connectivity current stress research is characterized by fascinating insights into the mechanisms involved in the activation and the regulation of the neuroendocrine stress response and the consequences of this activation on the body and the brain. this progress is contrasted by a considerable degree of conceptual confusion. until now, a generally accepted concept of stress is still elusive. initially the term “stress” was used synonymous to “stressor” and no clear distinction was made between this stimulus and the reaction to it, the “stress-response”. this concept has now been replaced by the recognition that stimulus and response can not regarded as two independent, stable entities but rather represent two closely linked components mutually affecting each other in the course of the stress-reaction-process. this conceptualization explicitly implies important aspects, such as the character of the strain, the appraisal and the psychological as well as the emotional changes which occur in the course of this process. it implies that, if an individual is able to terminate a certain stressor by his own efforts, a controllable stress response is elicited, whereas an uncontrollable stress response is initiated when no adequate coping strategies are available or can be applied to terminate the stressor. a controllable stress response is typically elicited when an individual has the subjective feeling that a certain demand or challenge can be met in principle by its own action but when this action is not (yet) ready, efficient or adequate enough to avoid the activation of his central stress responsive systems. the initial stages of the controllable and the uncontrollable stress response are identical. both start with the recognition of a novel, unexpected, challenging or threatening stimulus which causes the generation of a non-specific pattern of arousal in the associative cortex and in the limbic structures. through descending excitatory efferences, this activation is propagated to lower brain structures, especially to the central noradrenergic system. if the stressor is felt to be uncontrollable, the arousal of the higher cortical and limbic brain structures will not only persist but is even potentiated by the increased firing of noradrenergic afferences. above a certain threshold, the sum of excitatory cortical and limbic, as well as of noradrenergic inputs to the neurosecretory hypothalamic nuclei will ultimately stimulate the release of corticotrophin releasing hormone and vasopressin, and thus, activate the hpa-system and stimulate adrenal glucocorticoid secretion. however, if the stressor is felt to be controllable, the non-specific pattern of arousal in the associative cortex will be funnelled into a specific activation of those neuronal pathways and circuits which are involved in the behavioural response to that stressor. under these conditions, the enhanced noradrenergic output acts to facilitate the neuronal pathways activated in the course neurobiology of human nature and values td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 331-343. 334 of this response. the reverbatory stimulation of the central stress responsive systems is no longer propagated, and the hpa-system is not at all or only slightly stimulated. therefore, the controllable stress response may be regarded as an incompletely built up activation of the central stress responsive systems. it is characterized by a preferential activation of the central and the peripheral noradrenergic system. due to its extensive projections and the fact that adrenergic receptors are expressed not only by neurons but also by glial and endothelial cells, the central noradrenergic system is capable of modulating a great number of different brain functions: stimulation of neuronal adrenoreceptors increases the signal-to-noise ratio of cortical information processing, and contributes to the gating and to the facilitation of neuronal output patterns. stimulation of adrenergic receptors of cerebral blood vessels leads to enhanced perfusion, increased brain glucose uptake and elevated energy metabolism. activation of astrocytic adrenoreceptors stimulates glycogenolysis and the release of glucose and lactate as well as the formation and the release of various neurotrophic factors. through these different effects, the increased noradrenergic output in the course of a controllable stress response contributes to the stabilization and facilitation of those neuronal pathways and connections which are activated in response to a certain controllable stressor. repeated exposure to one and the same controllable stressor will thus lead to the successive facilitation of the neuronal circuitry involved in the behavioural responding. the noradrenaline-mediated stimulation of the synthesis and the release of neurotrophic factors by astrocytes will additionally favour structural adaptations through experience-dependent plasticity. such stepwise adaptive modifications of the neuronal circuitry will automatically be triggered in the course of the controllable stress response until the original stressor can be adequately met by an efficient response. to some extent, this adaptive modification of associative cortical networks is comparable to catecholamine-mediated, peripheral structural adaptation processes, such as the increase of fur density in mammals upon repeated exposure to cold. the particular importance of the repeated activation of noradrenergic neurons in the course of the response to controllable stress for central adaptation processes is further supported by the fact that specific mechanisms evolved in mammals which increase the output efficacy of the noradrenergic system in the course of future stress responses in individuals exposed to different kinds of controllable stressors. this up-regulation of noradrenergic activity upon exposure to different controllable stressors is seen at several levels: the firing rate of noradrenergic neurons increases, the synthesis, storage, and release of noradrenaline by noradrenergic nerve endings rises, and even axonal hüther 335 sprouting and intensification of noradrenergic innervation in certain brain areas, e.g. in the cortex, have been observed. evidently, controllable stress of very complex and diverse character is a prerequisite for the optimal expression of the individual’s genetic potential and for the elaboration of a very complex neuronal circuitry in the brain. an impressive illustration of the complex and persistent effects of multiple experiences of many different controllable stress responses on brain structure and brain function are the influences of “enriched environments” on the development of the cortex of young experimental animals. enriched environments provide many different stimuli which are novel and which can be explored. rats which had grown up under such complex stimulatory environments show a thicker cortex, enhanced vascularization, elevated number of glial cells, enlarged dendritic trees of pyramidal neurons, and an increased density of synapses in the cortex. additionally, in adulthood, they show diminished anxiety in novel environments and an increased response of their hpa-system under conditions of severe stress. an uncontrollable stress response is elicited when the activation of the central stress sensitive systems cannot be terminated by an individual’s own efforts, because his previously acquired strategies of appraisal and coping are not appropriate or can not be employed. under such conditions, the initial arousal of cortical and limbic structures will persist and contribute to escalate the reverbatory activation of the central stress responsive systems culminating in the activation of the hpa-system and adrenal glucocorticoid secretion. because of their lipophilicity, circulating glucocorticoids can easily enter the brain and bind to the glucocorticoid receptors expressed by neurons and glial cells. as in the periphery, it is their main function to attenuate the activation of immediate stress responsive systems and to prevent these initial reactions from overshooting. however, glucocorticoids do not directly suppress the immediate central responses in the course of the stress response , e.g., the release of excitatory amino acids or of monoamines. instead, most actions of glucocorticoids in the brain are delayed and involve changes at the level of gene expression. these alterations have longer-lasting consequences on neuronal and glial cell function and metabolism. certain functions will be affected in a way such that the targets of the immediate stress response are better protected against the potential damage caused by an overshooting future activation. this is achieved at several different levels: through the suppression of c-amp formation in response to adrenergic stimulation, through compromising cerebral energy mobilization or through the reduced formation of neurotrophic factors, growth of processes and synaptogenesis. glucocorticoids have been shown to potentiate the glutamate-induced damage to neurons and their dendrites and are therefore able to interrupt the neurobiology of human nature and values td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 331-343. 336 neuronal circuits involved in the initiation and propagation of the central stress response. the hippocampal pyramidal neurons are endowed with the highest density of glucocorticoid receptors and are therefore especially vulnerable to long-lasting elevations of circulating glucocorticoids caused by the uncontrollable stress. also the noradrenergic axons and nerve terminals in the cortex appear to be particularly susceptible under such conditions and tend to retract and to degenerate. at the behavioral level, high concentrations of circulating glucocorticoids have been shown to facilitate the extinction of previously acquired reactions. the common feature of all these different effects caused by the activation of the hpa-system in the course of the uncontrollable stress response is their destabilizing influence on the previously established neuronal connectivity. the facilitation and stabilization of neuronal circuitry triggered in the course of previous controllable stress response is thus opposed, attenuated or even reversed in the course of an long-lasting uncontrollable stress. the destabilization of the previously established neuronal connectivity in cortical and limbic brain structures may lead to fundamental changes in cognition, emotion and behavior and, at least in the adult brain, may be a prerequisite for the acquisition of novel patterns of appraisal and coping and for the reorganization of the neuronal connectivity in cortical and limbic associative networks. throughout life, the repeated experience of the controllability of stressors is normally alternated by feelings of loss of control. the central adaptations resulting from the repeated exposure to controllable stressors are thus at least partly destabilized during periods when the loss of control is experienced. the activation of the central stress responsive systems by repeated experiences of controllable stress facilitates neuronal circuits and synaptic connections mainly through the activation of the central noradrenergic system. the neuroendocrine changes associated with the experience of uncontrollable stress, on the other hand, favour synaptic regression and the destabilization of previously established synaptic pathways and neuronal circuits. as long as the activation of the central stress system can be terminated by a cognitive, emotional or behavioural reaction, the neuronal circuits involved in this response become facilitated. if no cognitive, emotional or behavioural responses are available to terminate the activation of the central stress response system, the underlying neuronal networks become destabilized. this may provide novel opportunities for the reorganization of neuronal circuits and the acquisition of novel coping strategies for a more efficient control of the novel environmental demands. but more often such destabilization processes pave the way into the manifestation of various kinds of psychopathologies. the nature of what an individual considers life threatening, stressful hüther 337 challenges changes together with, and as a result of his improving sensory cognitive and intellectual realization of, and interaction with, the outside world. in infants, a stress response is initially only elicited in situations that demand the satisfaction of a basic need. later, the central stress-responsive systems are most frequently activated by the recognition of certain social and cultural rules which prohibit the satisfaction of such a need. in the course of their socialization, individuals develop additional needs which are no longer basic but culturally acquired. the strategies which are chosen by an individual to meet each one of these challenges are strictly dependent on his previous experiences. ‘successful’ behavioural strategies, i.e. the neuronal networks involved in the activation and execution of certain cognitive, emotional or behavioural reactions which make a certain type of stressor subjectively controllable, become increasingly reinforced and facilitated. inadequate strategies which repeatedly fail to suppress and to silence the central stress responsive systems will either be eliminated or will become a constant source of dysregulation. by this self-optimization process, the cognitive, behavioural and emotional reactivity of an individual is fitted in a stepwise, trial-and-error manner to its changing environmental demands. all newborns possess a certain repertoire of behavioural reactions which are activated in the course of, or together with, the activation of the central stress responsive systems when their homeostasis is threatened by cold, hunger, thirst etc. thus, they all make the repeated early experience that their reactions are suited to terminate the central responses elicited by stressful experiences. this early recognition of the controllability of a stressor by an own action is one of the earliest associative learning experiences of a child and it has a strong imprinting impact on the developing brain. it is the prerequisite for the acquisition of an ever increasing repertoire of more and more specific and refined behavioural strategies for the control of stressors. this repeated experience of the controllability of stress is a prerequisite for the acquisition of behavioural strategies which allow an individual to act and not simply to react. the more successful these actions are, the more will the neuronal pathways and synaptic connections involved in a certain type of adaptive behaviour become strengthened and efficient coping skills for certain types of stressors be developed. the ability to deal successfully with stressors strengthens the selfesteem and feelings of self-efficacy as much as the range of problemsolving skills of an individual. consequently, the experience of the controllability of stress is the predominating experience and the driving force for the later development of those individuals of a social group which, within the socio-cultural and age-specific context of this neurobiology of human nature and values td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 331-343. 338 group, will become the most successful, the most clever, but not necessarily the most flexible and the most stable ones. such personal qualities emerge already at rather young ages. they can only be developed on the basis of secure stable affectional relationships during early childhood and favourable temperamental attributes. it is important, that stressful experiences are encountered at a time and in a way that allows the feeling of the controllability of stress to increase through appropriate responses. reinforcing interactions with and responses from other people are important prerequisites for the promotion of self-confidence and self-esteem. a child’s ability to cope successfully with stress is therefore never due to the buffering effect of some supportive factor. rather it is determined by the chain of sequential experiences made under the prevailing conditions of a given familial and socio-cultural context. 3. the influence of early affectional relationships on brain development and behaviour secure emotional relationships between the child and its caregivers are of uttermost importance for the integration of novel experiences into the already existing patterns of neuronal connectivity in the developing brain. when a new stimulus reaches the brain, it will elicit a certain kind of arousal in the associative networks. if this arousal pattern is identical with the pattern of arousal formed by the activation of already established neuronal connections (founded by earlier experiences), the new stimulus will be reorganized as already known and responded as usual, i.e., routineously. if the novel arousal pattern is at least a bit similar to the already existing patterns formed by earlier experiences, it may be integrated into these old patterns and will thus become stabilized as an extended, more complex pattern of neuronal activity. this is the way, how children (and adults) learn. if this integration is impossible, because the novel arousal pattern is too strange and cannot be associated with any already existing pattern, the child may either neglect the challenge or – if the stimulus or the problem is large enough and does not disappear – activate an emergency reaction. all mammals process such very old, genetically programmed emergency reactions: fight, flight – and if neither the activation of one or the other does solve the problem – freezing. the latter is associated with a so-called uncontrollable stress response, which causes a massive and long-lasting release of stress hormones which may cause destabilization of already existing neuronal connections and hamper the formation of new ones. under such condition of helplessness, nothing can be learned and already stored knowledge cannot be activated and the respective neuronal connectivity patterns may even get lost permanently. hüther 339 secure emotional relationships provide the most potent protection against such overload and its consequences on the brain. they act to resilience the stress-system under conditions of massive arousal by too strange experiences or too strong stimulation. in the other extreme, when the novel stimulus is not very strong, secure emotional relationships act as ‘emotional enhancers of arousal’. the child is thus encouraged and motivated in its attempts to realize and integrate a novel (otherwise too weak) stimulus. if such support by secure attachment relationships are not available to a child, it is easily either flooded by an overload of stimuli (no stable activation patterns can then be formed and integrated in the brain structures) or it is insufficiently aroused (and therefore no sufficiently strong activation patterns are build up and can be integrated in the brain). therefore, the quality of the relationship to its caregivers my either favour or hamper the acquisition of own knowledge and competence by the child and affect the complexity of the structural maturation of its brain in a beneficial or detrimental manner. it is during the first three years of life when the vast majority of synapses is produced. the number of synapses increases with astonishing rapidity until about the age three years and then holds steady throughout the first decade of life. a child’s brain becomes superdense, with twice as many synapses as it will eventually need. brain development is, then, a process of pruning, i.e. use-dependent structuring. this is why early experience is so crucial: those neuronal networks and synaptic pathways that have been stabilized by virtue of repeated early experience tend to become permanent; the synapses that are not used often enough tend to be eliminated. in this way early experiences – positive or negative – have a decisive impact on how the brain is wired. compared to other primates, the maturation of the human brain, especially of the higher frontocortical brain regions is enormously prolonged in our species. it reaches a much higher degree of complexity and is much more affected by early experiences, by useand disusedependent plasticity. the most delicate neuronal networks of the frontal cortex are the sites where the most complex, most sophisticated and the most human-specific brain functions will be generated: goal-oriented behavior and motivation, self-concept and self-efficacy, impulsecontrol, consciousness and the ability to transcend own thoughts and intentions into larger contexts. also the ability to feel what others feel, and to experience feelings of connectedness, peace and love are generated by the most intricate neuronal networks located in the frontal (frontoorbital) cortex. these networks and the abilities mediated by them are not preformed by an inherited genetic program. they all must be acquired, stabilized and facilitated by experience dependent plasticity, i.e., by education, socialization and enculturation. neurobiology of human nature and values td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 331-343. 340 genetically driven are only the enormous offerings made in individual brain areas (including the frontal cortex) at certain periods in the form of an overproduction of neuronal dendritic and axonal processes and an overabundance of synaptic contacts (critical periods). how many and which of these offerings can be maintained and become integrated into larger functional networks is dependent on their stabilizing inputs, i.e. the complexity of experiences made by a child during these early critical periods of brain development. but the most complex and most slowly developing neuronal networks in the frontal cortex are not only vulnerable to the lack of stabilizing inputs. they are at least as vulnerable to overstimulation and to the destabilizing influences mediated by ascending projections from subcortical (limbic, hypothalamic and brain stem) stress-sensitive systems. the enduring activation of an uncontrollable stress response will seriously hamper and suppress the elaboration and stabilization of the complex neuronal and synaptic connections in higher cortical association areas. if a child experiences constant stress and anxiety, e.g. from not being able to structure and understand the world around it, or from the absence of grown-ups relieving the anxiety, the structuring of the brain risk be destabilized and regressing. instead of structures enabling problem solving, the experience of own inability and incompetence is then structurally anchored in the developing brain. the part of the brain that is particularly open to the outside influences is the frontal cortex in which the experineces of learning and socialisation are structured. 4. a neurobiological view on the prerequisites for a culture of peace and non-violence the development of the human brain is much less (pre-)determined by genes than previously thought. our brain is a self-organizing, open system, characterized by an enormous degree of experience-dependent plasticity. especially in the higher brain regions, the connections between nerve cells are structured by use and disuse, i.e. by activity patterns which are generated in the brain by sensory inputs. the more complex the situations we learn to deal with, the more sophisticated are the experiences we make, and the larger will be the degree of connectivity formed between the nerve cells in our higher brain centres. when novel demands cannot properly responded by the activation of an already established pattern of connectivity in the higher brain regions, emotional centres in the midbrain become activated. without this activation new experiences cannot be made and anchored in the brain structures. the stronger the activation, the more firm the structure. e.g. when parents play ‘hide and seek’ with their baby, the baby hüther 341 feels anxiety because the parent disappear and it does not know how to rectify the situation. when the parent reappears the anxiety is relieved. when the baby experiences this again and again a firm structure is formed from the experience that ‘my parent is able to relieve my anxiety and i will be fine’. this structure is stored in the brain enabling the child to face future situations with anxiety with the experience that ‘if i involve my parent the anxiety disappears’, i.e. a problem solving skill is learned, enabled by brain structures. it is paramount for the development of the brain (and thus for the ability to internalize emotional, social and intellectual knowledge) that the child is surrounded by grown-ups that help it relieve anxiety and stress by teaching it how to master problem solving in challenging situations thus creating new experiences. since the brain cannot stimulate itself to develop the needed functionality, and the child wont know how to, the child depends on the grown-ups around it to provide the stimuli. secure emotional relations with the primary care takers are therefore so important. animal experiments have shown that even newborn rats, raised by a ‘bad’ or less ‘competent’ mother, will themselves become ‘poorly gifted’ mothers, even if they were born by a ‘good’ mother. parental competence is obviously not inherited but acquired already in rats and definitely even more so in humans. here, parents must provide almost every competence, skill and cultural achievement to their children. without their example, children would not even learn to stand upright or to speak. the better the competences of the parents, the greater the chance that they will be transmitted from one generation to the next. however, this process is only efficient if the parents are also able to engage emotionally in their relation to the child. this ability is also largely determined by their personal experiences with emotional relationships during early childhood. during early childhood, aversive or insecure attachment relationships are the most important trigger for the activation of uncontrollable stress-responses. therefore, insecurely attached children are unable to develop a highly complex neuronal and synaptic connectivity in their brain, especially in the frontal cortex. they have difficulties to acquire a broad spectrum of different coping strategies, to maintain a high level of creativity and curiosity, to constructively interact with others, and to develop feelings of connectedness, love and peace. instead such emotionally labile children will tend to use and facilitate various less sophisticated, pseudo-autonomous, egocentric and even autistic behavioural strategies. they have difficulties to feel what others feel and to accept social rules. they are unable to control their impulses and they tend to various forms of violent destructive behaviour. because of their poorly developed self-concept and their lack of self-efficacy, such children can easily be manipulated by ‘strong neurobiology of human nature and values td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 331-343. 342 others’, e.g. a ‘führer’. therefore all totalitarian regimes have always made special affords to systematically disrupt the formation of secure early attachment relationships between mothers and their children. in order to prevent such negative effects of aversive early childhood experiences on later individual life and on the society, and to pave the way to a culture of peace and non-violence, particular efforts must be made to strengthen the relationship between parents and their children as early as possible, i.e. already during pregnancy, and to protect children against insecurity, anxiety and stress during early childhood. since most parents are not aware of the sculpturing influences of their own relationships on the developing brains of their children, education programs may help and should be installed to overcome this deficit. these programs should aim to strengthen the affectional relationship between parents and their children, to inform the public about the negative influence of psychosocial and other stressors on brain development, and to help to prevent distortions of the relationship between parents and their children by aversive, traumatic or neglecting experiences. particular efforts must be made to support secure attachment relationships and the feeling of emotional stability in our children, if we want to create a more peaceful world. only then human subjects will have a chance to unfold their full potential. thus, modern brain research confirms an old indian proverb: putting on pressure and inducing fear are not only unsuitable strategies for improving performance; they also strangle curiosity and creativity in schools, businesses and civil administration. it’s high time to think about a new relationship culture. and slowly but surely, this is starting to be implemented as a successful leadership concept everywhere. this concept is called “supportive leadership”, and it aims at the promotion of the readiness to achieve through support, recognition and encouragement. what should grow better has to be adequately watered and fertilised. unfortunately, the strange notion has set in the minds of many people that it is or indeed must be tiring to achieve, whether to learn a lot in school or to work successfully later. therefore in school or at work, it is all too often attempted to improve achievement through reward and if this doesn’t work, by threat of punishment. these learning by rote methods appear at first glance to work quite well. but on closer examination and particularly in the long term, they turn out to be extremely problematical. through these forced methods, the achiever senses a feeling: he or she feels that they are being put under pressure. neuronal patterns thus activated in the brain are then coupled and connected with all that required to attain the achievement concerned. who goes through this once or even repeatedly, always feels, even at a hüther 343 later date, this same unpleasant feeling in his stomach, whenever he faces a similar challenge. in order to get rid of this, one can only try to keep well clear of the work or even to seek an even bigger reward. the enthusiasm for achievement, the enthusiasm for learning and to do it your way is usually gone forever. the seedling shrivels, because it has been pulled instead of being watered. bibliography and notes note: this contribution is a comprehension and a framework constructed on the basis of numerous original articles that have been publishes in the field of brain research, developmental neurobiology and psychology in recent years. my theory is outlined in g hüther, the compassionate brain, (shambhala publ. boston, 2006). for the sake of clarity, citations of original work and references to related articles are not included here. the following reviews may serve as a guidelines to original references: eisenberg, l.: the social construction of the human brain. am. j. psychiatry 152 (1995), 1563-1575. giedd, j.n., blumenthal, j., jeffries, n.o. et al.: brain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal mrt study. nature neuroscience 2(10)= (1999), 861-863. hüther, g.: the central adaptation syndrome. progress in neurobiology 48 (1996), 569-612. hüther, g.: stress and the adaptive self-organization of neuronal connectivity during early childhood. int. j. devl. neuroscience, 16 (1998), 297-306. hüther, g., doering, s., rüger, u., rüther, e., schüssler, g.: the stress reaction process and the adaptive modification and reorganization of neuronal networks. psychiatry research (1999), 83-95. liu, d., diorio, j., day, j.c., francis, d.d., meaney, m.j.: maternal care, hippocampal synaptogenesis and cognitive development in rats. nature neurosci, 3 (2000), 799-806. neurobiology of human nature and values td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 331-343. t � � � � editorial comment a brief history of transdisciplinary encounters transdisciplinary science has been a favourite topic of discussion in the theoretical circles of academia for some time. in fact, the concept of transdisciplinarity was mooted for the first time in 1970 by the austrian astrophysicist, erich jantsch. he was supported by jean piaget, who indicated that it was the direction in which science would move in the future.� at first there were indications of a reticence. after all, interdisciplinary research was a well-established practice and served functional objectives. transdisciplinarity, it seemed, was merely interdisciplinarity by another name. it took more than two decades for the idea of interdisciplinarity to properly sink in. it was at a time, after the collapse of the east-west ideological divide, when rapidly globalising processes required new strategies of comprehension in coping with the problems of reality in a world that had apparently reached the end of history.2 the future was perceived as a maze of transformations towards liberal democracy that societies in all parts of the globe were expected to follow. in the philosophical field of science transdisciplinarity now started making more sense. as a methodological strategy, it seemed to fit in well with the proposals for the development of mode 2-knowledge proposed by gibbons, limofes and nowotny in a collective study that caused a stir in the management circles of universities in many parts of the world.� it became a key component in the proposals for the transformation of university teaching and research in a globalising world. one requirement was that knowledge had to be relevant. it had to meet the multifarious demands of the societies in which the information was generated. behind the scenes governments, in all parts of the world, were actively soliciting support for the new knowledge society that was envisaged. the private sector was a prime target. it was � t horlick-jones en j sime, “living on the border: knowledge, risk and transdisciplinarity” in futures, �6, 2004, pp. 44�-442; j thompson klein, “prospects for transdisciplinarity” in futures, �6, 2004, p. 5�6. 2 f fukuyama, the end of history and the last man, (penguin books, harmondsworth, 1992). � m gibbons, c limoges en h nowotny (reds.), the new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies, (sage publications/ thousand oaks, london and nieu-delhi, 1994). td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. � nr. �, december 2005 pp. �-4 2 required of entrepreneurs to become partners in the process of generating and effectively using the new knowledge. mode �-knowledge, at the time, was described as that knowledge that had previously formed the basis of classical disciplines of sciences, such as history, philosophy, mathematics, and chemistry and many more. the findings of classical science were seldom required to be applicable to everyday life. in the new dispensation ‘science for science’s sake’ was frowned upon. this ‘esoteric’-type of knowledge generation was considered to be a less than appropriate route of scientific pursuit to follow. transdisciplinarity, on the other hand, was perceived as the cornerstone of mode 2-knowledge.4 it was particularly in the environmental sciences, where interdisciplinary methodologies had already made substantial inroads, that the first breakthroughs were made. the problem with (traditional) interdisciplinarity was that it basically panned out in two hierarchical levels in which coordination was required to make the progression from lower to higher levels of knowledge.5 in contrast transdisciplinary research, according to the practitioners, has aspired to set an epistemological challenge to knowledge that is located between, beyond, below or above existing disciplines.6 this has become the new breeding ground for knowledge of the mode 2-type. the new knowledge is more than a mere luxury. nicolescu explains that the complexity of the demands for knowledge in everyday life have increased substantially in recent times. consequently it is necessary to create a more direct link between different types of expertise located in a broad spectrum of disciplines.7 another important consideration, in the framing of strategies for generating mode 2-knowledge, has been the ideal of bringing more role players into the process of generating knowledge. the participation of society, at large, is essential. for example, the knowledge of workers on the factory floor is considered to be just as important as the theoretical knowledge of the researcher. the same can be said for the cultural traditions of any given society and also the manner in which the machinery of states function. these are the areas in which empirical fieldwork need to be conducted in the process of generating new knowledge. previously researchers seldom considered the avenues.� the new strategy, in essence, is aimed at bringing scientists and non-scientists together in the process of creating knowledge. it thus seems as if the challenge of transdisciplinarity is for research4 pw balsiger, “supradisciplinary research practices: history, ovbjectives and rationale” in futures, 36, 2004, p. 407. � ma max-neef, “foundations of transdisciplinarity” in ecological economics, 5�, 2005, p. 7. 6 c pohl, “transdisciplinary collaboration in environmental research” in futures, 20, 2005, pp. �-2. 7 j thompson klein, “prospects for transdisciplinarity” in futures, �6, 2004, p. 5�6. � ibid., p. 520; m van de kerkhof en p leroy, “recent environmental research in the netherlands: towards post-normal science?” in futures, 32, 2000, p. 908. editorial comment � td, � (�), december 2005, pp.�-4 ers to forge new partnerships, devise new strategies and locate sources of knowledge that can make new disclosures that would be of benefit to society. this sounds like a tall order. some scientists would say it is even utopian, or just another way of doing what they have been doing all along. moreover, many would rightfully point out, it is foolish and short-sighted to summarily relegate classical science to the proverbial intellectual dustbin. there are many arguments in favour of continuing on the old familiar paths of knowledge. at the same time it is perhaps also worth pointing out that the endeavour of science in all its multifarious contexts is to be a journey of exploration in which new frontiers are constantly opened. part of its attraction is the prospect of finding out something new. believe it or not, this still happens in this day and age – and particularly in the field of science. in south africa there have been plans afoot to transform the tertiary education sector. in line with what was happening elsewhere in the world, the national commission on higher education reported in 1996: there is a strong inclination towards closed-system disciplinary approaches and programmes that has led to inadequately contextualised teaching and research. the content of the knowledge produced and disseminated is insufficiently responsive to the problems and needs of the african continent, the southern african region, or the vast numbers of poor and rural people in our society. similarly, teaching strategies and modes of delivery have not been adapted to meet the needs of larger student intakes and the diversity of lifelong learners.9 considerable progress has been made since then. about td the primary objective of td, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, is to open up new avenues for looking at things differently. there would undoubtedly be space to become reflective, also in the realm of classical science. without it the future of any knowledge landscape would be bleak. this journal has the further objective of aspiring to creating a public platform where researchers can share their scientific findings and creative ideas with an academic community, interested in advancing the type of information that can lead us into the future. it should also be an intellectual space where constructive debate can lead to new perspectives and understanding. although the focus is primarily on southern africa, and africa as a whole, articles on other geographical areas will also be considered for publica9 national commission on higher education, an overview of a new policy framework for higher education transformation, 22 august 1996 by http://www.polity.org.za/html/ govdocs/policy/educ.html 4 tion. it is important to take note of scholarship in other parts of the world. it would be appreciated it readers if this edition would be so kind as to forward comments and ideas on the content to gskjwnt@puknet.ac.za. we are open for proposals and suggestions, aimed at improving the quality of the journal. the editorial policy is outlined in a section of the journal. it should be evident that our approach is one of disciplinary tolerance. for example, the reference system used by authors in different disciplines is respected. it would be precocious to urge researchers to work together and not allow them to use a logical reference style of their choice. we will try and respect it for as long as there is consensus on this element of editorial diversity. we also have a distinct linguistic tolerance. a dedicated group of people have participated in preparing this edition of the journal. they have helped us overcome many of the teething problems associated with an undertaking of this nature. we thank them for their support. we trust that you as reader would also become an active participant in the adventure of exploring new frontiers of learning. enjoy! jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 25-40. thinking processes used by high-performing students in a computer programming task m havenga,1 r de villiers2 and e mentz3 abstract computer programmers must be able to understand programming source code and write programs that execute complex tasks to solve real-world problems. this article is a transdisciplinary study at the intersection of computer programming, education and psychology. it outlines the role of mental processes in the process of programming and indicates how successful thinking processes can support computer science students in writing correct and well-defined programs. a mixed methods approach was used to better understand the thinking activities and programming processes of participating students. data collection involved both computer programs and students’ reflective thinking processes recorded in their journals. this enabled analysis of psychological dimensions of participants’ thinking processes and their problem-solving activities as they considered a programming problem. findings indicate that the cognitive, reflective and psychological processes used by high-performing programmers contributed to their success in solving a complex programming problem. based on the thinking processes of high performers, we propose a model of integrated thinking processes, which can support computer programming students. keywords: computer programming, education, mixed methods research, thinking processes. disciplines: computer programming, education, psychology. 1. introduction the research described in this article lies at the intersection of computer programming, education and psychology. it is an inter-disciplinary study that investigates how the thinking processes and strategies used by high-performing student programmers foster the development of correct computer programs. the primary aim of a computer programmer is to write correct, high quality computer programs that solve real-world problems effectively and efficiently. a computer program is a human artefact comprising language-specific rules, formulated in the so-called source code of a particular programming language. this coded language communicates functionality that the computer hardware can ‘understand’. by ‘syntax’ of a program, we refer to expressions, statements and program units, whereas ‘semantics’ refer to the meaning of those expressions, statements and program units (sebesta, 2008). syntax and semantics are closely related, and the specific way in which programming 1 . faculty of education sciences, north-west university, private bag x6001, potchefstroom, +27 18 299 4281, marietjie.havenga@nwu.ac.za 2 . school of computing, university of south africa, p o box 392, unisa, 0003, south africa, +27 12 429 2 . school of computing, university of south africa, p o box 392, unisa, 0003, south africa, +27 12 429 6559, dvillmr@unisa.ac.za. 3 . faculty of education sciences, north-west university, private bag x6001, potchefstroom, +27 18 299 4281, elsa.mentz@nwu.ac.za +27 18 299 4238(f). havenga, de villiers & mentz 26 statements, expressions and constructs are organised and combined, reflects the meaning and purpose of a program. a programmer’s approach, knowledge and thinking shapes the structure, logic, and flow of the program. student programmers undergo the process of learning detailed programming knowledge and skills. some are particularly competent in applying a variety of skills, forms of knowledge, and thinking processes in their programming. in order to understand the mental activities and strategies of such students, we investigated their approaches to a particular programming task, along with their underlying thoughts and reasoning, documented during the programming process. in previous papers we discussed the differences between successful and unsuccessful programming students (havenga, mentz & de villiers, 2008) and suggested how average programming students could improve on their performance (havenga, de villiers & mentz, 2010). these publications came from different perspectives, while the aim of the present research was specifically to determine in what ways the thinking processes used by highly competent student programmers, support their programming performance. the research question addressed in this study was: how can the specific thinking processes used by high-performing computer science students, support them in writing correct and well-defined programs? to answer this, we overview relevant literature in section 2, and set out the research design and methodology in section 3. sections 4 and 5 describe the respective qualitative and quantitative methods used, while section 6 consolidates the results and presents a diagrammatic representation of integrated thinking processes in the context of programming. section 7 briefly concludes the study. 2. literature overview this paper describes an integration of the domains of computer programming, psychology and education by inter-relating the thinking processes of computer science students with the actual outcomes of their computer programming tasks. to this end, we address relevant literature on, first, the role of the human mind in the activities required in the programming process and, second, the particular forms of knowledge and regulatory mental strategies applied while undertaking programming. 2.1 involvement of the human mind in programming programmers must be able to understand the syntax and semantics of source code, and write programs that execute complex tasks to solve the problem in hand. the way in which this is done, is based on the programmer’s underlying thinking and decision-making processes. various mental activities are involved in solving programming problems. according to parnin (2010), the memory used to program syntax, is retained by means of abstracted perceptual patterns or visual sketches. an example of this is the use of indented and highlighted text to display the iterative patterns of a ‘for’ loop construct, which is a programming mechanism used to repeat a statement or set of statements. the semantic meanings of programming statements are retained by using auto-associative support from the hippocampal formation (parnin, 2010). the hippocampus in the brain is involved in the encoding and retrieval of memory processes (chen, chuah, sim & chee, 2010). working memory refers to the temporary storage and maintenance of information required in various types of cognitive and complex tasks (klingberg, 2010; unsworth, redick, heitz, broadway & engle, 2009). working memory is involved in high-level thinking processes such as comprehension, reasoning, problem solving and the use of language (unsworth et al., 2009). it integrates acoustic and visual information, organises it meaningfully, and links new information to existing knowledge in long-term memory (sternberg, 2006). however, in order to complete complex tasks successfully, information must be actively maintained in working memory. effective teaching of mental strategies and extended training might support maintenance of working memory by improving its capacity, resulting in associated change in brain activity in various sections (klingberg, 2010). thinking processes used by high-performing students td, 6(1), july 2011, pp. 25-40. 27 2.2 knowledge and strategies used in the programming process programmers need to maintain and recall different types of knowledge as they proceed through the process of computer programming. in order to write programs that execute effectively and that produce correct output, declarative, procedural and metacognitive knowledge are required (ismail, ngah & umar, 2010). declarative knowledge is the knowledge of facts that can be stated (sternberg, 2006), for example, knowledge of the syntax of the ‘for’ construct mentioned in the previous section. procedural knowledge refers to the implementation of knowledge, that is, knowing how and when to conduct certain processes or activities (gunter, estes & mintz, 2010), such as the execution of a particular segment of programming code. metacognitive knowledge relates to an individual’s explicit knowledge about his/her own cognitive learning processes, strengths and weaknesses (gravill, compeau & marcolin, 2002; gunter et al., 2010), for example, knowledge regarding how to use particular strategies in the process of solving programming problems. the effective use of all three forms of knowledge, namely: declarative, procedural and metacognitive knowledge, directs a programmer’s mental processes and can enhance the use of the associated cognitive, metacognitive and problem-solving skills and strategies, which are addressed in the next paragraphs. in order to apply assimilated knowledge effectively, various supportive strategies and activities can be used. cognitive activities refer to the mental processes used in the acquisition, storage, transformation and application of appropriate content knowledge (sternberg, 2006). the relative complexity of the content can be managed cognitively by using different types of knowledge in different ways. various schemes exist to represent such dimensions. some schemes are taxonomical, while others emphasise varying categories (webb, 2002). we used the classic bloom’s taxonomy, which has been applied in computer science education (börstler & schulte, 2005), to analyse the different types of knowledge used and applied by programming students. this taxonomy presents six levels of cognitive activities: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation (bloom, krathwohl & masia, 1973). gravill et al. (2002) indicate that metacognitive activities play a critical role in successful programming. metacognitive strategies include planning, monitoring and self-regulation that affect reflection and memory performance (bergin, reilly, & traynor, 2005; flavell, 1979). the use or non-use of these practical activities, impacts both on the programming process and the resulting product. furthermore, programmers use different types of problem-solving activities when initially considering a programming problem, examples being the top-down, bottom-up and integrated strategies. the top-down approach addresses the ‘big picture’ and subsequently decomposes it into smaller subproblems (storey, 2006). by contrast, when using the bottom-up strategy, programmers focus initially on details of the individual parts that are combined into higher-level abstractions (storey, 2006). the integrated strategy combines top-down and bottom-up strategies in different levels of abstraction. in their interactive learning model, tennyson and nielsen (1998) expound the relationship between the cognitive and affective domains with regard to interaction of content knowledge and cognitive strategies for higher-order thinking processes such as problem solving, creativity, decision making and trouble shooting. the concepts mentioned in this section are examples of knowledge, skills and strategies that might support students in computer programming. in the sections following, we describe empirical research relating to high-performing students who implemented such mental activities while undertaking a programming task. 3. research paradigm and methodology 3.1 research approach the research described in this paper employs a mixed approach (creswell, 2008; creswell, 2009), whereby qualitative and quantitative methods, associated with interpretivism and postpositivism havenga, de villiers & mentz 28 respectively, are applied in tandem. we used both interpretivist and postpositivist approaches, so as to holistically analyse programming students’ interpretations of the problem, as well as to grade their programming performance (havenga, 2008) and to determine why some students succeed. the interpretivist paradigm relates to knowledge and deep insight that are intentionally obtained by the interpretation of constructs through the lived experience of human beings (de villiers, 2005; klein & myers, 1999). this approach uses mainly qualitative methods that rely on non-statistical techniques of data collection and analysis. we applied grounded theory (glaser & strauss, 1967; strauss & corbin, 1998; creswell, 2008) as a method (matavire & brown, 2008) to focus on the psychological dimensions of the students’ thinking processes and problem-solving activities as they considered a programming problem. postpositivism is a quantitative-based approach that involves quantitative and, on occasions, qualitative methods (onwuegbuzie, johnson & collins, 2009). based on postpositivism, we assigned quantitative scores to defined criteria, including measurement of some qualitative aspects, based on the use of the grounded theory method (gtm). as indicated in section 3.2, the participants in this study were the high-performing students from two cohorts of programming students. figure 1 shows a diagram of a mixed methods approach, in which a variety of processes are applied. in the general context, these include data collection and analysis, structural organisation of qualitative data, and the systematic investigation of quantitative data. in the specific context of the present study, it comprises firstly the collection and analysis of students’ recorded thinking processes and their programs; the organisation and categorisation of qualitative data; the identification of themes and patterns that emerge and the subsequent generation of theory. these processes are displayed in an upward progression in the left quadrilateral of figure 1. the generation of theory is an abstract, inductive process (creswell, 2008; gibbs, 2010), progressing from detailed thinking processes and programs to general themes and the induction of a theory—hence the vertical broadening of the quadrilateral towards its culmination at the top. secondly, we analysed empirical data by using quantitative methods such as descriptive and inferential statistics. the upward broadening of the quadrilateral on the right indicates the generalisation of results. finally the two sets of results were integrated for interpretation as shown at the top of figure 1. figure 1: application of a mixed methods approach the rationale for integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in this research is to emphasise completeness or the “notion that the researcher can bring together a more comprehensive account of thinking processes used by high-performing students td, 6(1), july 2011, pp. 25-40. 29 the area of enquiry” (bryman, 2006, p. 106). it implies that qualitative and quantitative methods, as separated instruments, do not completely explain why some programmers are successful. 3.2 participants and the programming problem participants the participants in the overarching research venture, which was conducted over a period of two years, were third-year, exit-level students taking computer science or information technology as a major subject. the participants (n=48) came from two cohorts; the first cohort consisted of 11 bed and 17 bsc third-year students and the second cohort comprised three bed and 17 bsc third-year students. the group of participants was not a sample; it was the population of students doing computer programming as part of their degree studies. participation was entirely voluntary and all students completed informed consent forms. the present study focuses not on the performance of the full set of 48 participants, but on 11 high performers, so-called ‘successful programmers’, as explained in section 5.1. programming problem the programming problem involved designing and writing a computer program to perform complex calculations with dates, as well as a test program to check the output of the ‘date’ program. the students had two weeks to complete the programming task, as it was not part of their class assignments. an initial task framework, in the form of an open-ended programming question, was given to guide the data collection process. at the very least, participants were expected to write a computer program called date class to determine which years are leap years and to calculate the difference in days between any two dates in the range 1 january 1800 to any later date up till the present. they were also required to write a second program called test class to determine whether the output of the date class was correct. these programs could be written in either the delphi or java programming language, both of which are object-oriented languages. during the process of interpreting the question and writing these object-oriented programs (oop), participants had to reflect on their experiences of programming and write descriptive textual documents to record their associated thinking and problem-solving processes. this reflective journaling exercise provided descriptive data to be analysed by qualitative processes. to ensure uniformity in the structure and content of the text documents, the task description gave precise instructions as to what aspects should be covered and how they should be set out (havenga, 2008). data collection therefore involved both the computer programs and the written thinking processes 4. qualitative data collection and analysis 4.1 collection and analysis processes the grounded theory method was applied to analyse students’ thinking processes recorded in their journals. gtm involves a sequence of actions such as coding; theoretical sampling and constant comparative analysis; defining and refining properties and categories; and identifying their relevant contexts. in this way, recursive collection and analysis of data proceed towards the identification of themes and the generation of theory regarding participants’ thinking processes. the cyclic left and right open arrows in the qualitative section of figure 1 represent this recursive process. atlas.ti (muhr, 2004) was selected as a powerful software knowledge workbench, to optimise the coding and analysis processes. within atlas.ti the textual information from each individual’s thinking processes was assigned to a primary document. all primary documents were integrated into a single hermeneutic unit. specific codes were awarded to selected sections of text in each primary document, to represent explicit ideas or meanings. saturation of data did not occur until near the very end. the codes in the hermeneutic unit were organised into possible groups of related codes or coded ‘families’. havenga, de villiers & mentz 30 three months later, further analyses were repeated on the same data, to refine the coded families and to increase trustworthiness of the emergent themes and patterns. 4.2 qualitative findings and the development of a grounded theory themes that emerged from the data as part of the inductive generation of emergent theory, the following five themes emerged, representing characteristics of the students’ programming processes: • use of cognitive knowledge, skills and strategies; • use of metacognitive thinking processes; • application of problem-solving strategies; • handling of errors and problems that occurred in the development of the computer programs; and • additional forms of support used. with regard to the first three, the strategies concerned were used to a greater or lesser extent by different participants. this study, however, investigates the performances of the most successful students, so as to determine whether successful thought processes and reflection support students in similarly attaining success in their programming activities. the formal definition of a ‘successful programmer’ is related to quantitative scores and is given in section 5.1 on quantitative data analysis. we now provide examples of occurrences of the five themes as indicated in the journaling of the successful programmers. clear evidence of cognitive activities emerged from analysis of the data of these high-performing students. a list follows of quotations from their textual thinking processes, linked to associated levels of bloom’s taxonomy (in parentheses). [p29] refers to participant 29, etc. i begin with the class and constructor [p15] (knowledge); i determined the days of each month [p12] (comprehension); i think about the screen layout [p29] (application); determine the difference between two dates [p42] (analysis); subtract 1800 from [the] date and also determine leap years [p38] (synthesis); the program is now working 100% [p40] (evaluation). knowledge is required about the class construct [p15] and comprehension skills are used to determine the number of days in a relevant month [p12]. the examples above illustrate that the participants who are quoted, recalled facts and interpreted the programming problem. p29 used application skills when he considered, and later designed, a user-friendly interactive screen layout to determine leap years, and when he decided on the associated input and output. whilst analysing the programming problem, decisions should be made about the time range of a given set of two dates [p42]. in writing a computer program, there are usually several different ways to operationalise the requirements. during synthesis, therefore, participants applied appropriate formulae, then used a variety of programming constructs and code syntax to write the program, for example, methods to determine the leap years [p38]. evaluation should be used to determine whether the complete program works, as did p40, who self-reviewed, noting that he made the necessary changes and that his program executed correctly thereafter. the use of metacognitive activities was clearly evident in most participants’ thinking processes. prior knowledge acquired from previous programming tasks can ease planning for a new task. p29 asked thinking processes used by high-performing students td, 6(1), july 2011, pp. 25-40. 31 many rhetorical questions to support his comprehension of the new task, while p32 monitored and reflected on his own thinking in the context of a complex task. p23 continuously self-questioned and reviewed his approach as he considered the general cases in his program: what are the specifications? [p29] (planning); create a framework for the date class and test class [p32] (planning); i ask myself frequently what are the general cases in each situation? [p23] (monitoring); this method is difficult and i should provide for many exceptions, especially for leap years [p32] (monitoring, regulation). the type of problem-solving strategies used by participants in the early stages of programming also emerged as a major factor impacting on success in the final program. in most cases, participants did not state explicitly which strategy they had used; however, they recorded the steps they used during the problem-solving process and the strategy could be inferred. it is notable that different high performers used different strategies. for example, p48 used a bottom-up strategy, while p32 indicated use of a top-down strategy: i create the class and declare methods [p48] (bottom-up strategy); i will start with the … date class and test class, headings, import given methods, etc. [p32] (top-down strategy). the theme, handling of errors and problems, refers to problems and complexities that participants encountered in the development of their programs. the spontaneous comments below (which were not of a type specifically requested in the specification for the thinking-processes document) made it clear that the nature and extent of errors, as well as approaches to solving them, were crucial elements. participants interpreted their problems and learned from their mistakes: my ‘if’-structure is incorrect [p48]; i should make many exceptions for problems [p32]. the additional support theme unveiled the fact that successful students used a variety of sources and supplementary forms of support—textbooks, completed assignments; and the internet—in their efforts to design programs, to write programming code, and to solve their problems independently. i have used previous java assignments [p44]; i used a textbook [p32]; i used wikipedia and previous assignments [p29]. an integrated theory of the themes that emerged the development of a grounded theory is based on the conceptual clarity that occurs as it becomes increasingly possible to identify emergent patterns and theory. figure 2 presents a final thematic pattern that was constructed from overall analysis of the participants’ programs and thinking processes. this diagram can be considered as an integrated representation of the mental concepts and activities that contribute to the process of successful computer programming. certain themes relate to the core activities involved in programming and can be viewed as the foundation of the structure, namely the use of cognitive knowledge, skills and strategies; metacognitive thinking processes; and problemsolving expertise. the other two themes that emerged, namely, handling of errors and problems, and additional forms of support, are shown as scaffolding on the side. the propositions in figure 2, namely, ‘address’ and ‘facilitate’, represent relationships that occur as scaffolding supports the programming process. these propositions indicate that the high-performing participants were able to solve their problems independently, using reflection and additional sources of information to support their efforts. havenga, de villiers & mentz 32 cognitive knowledge, skills and strategie metacognitive thinking processes problem-solving expertise programming process address facilitate handling of additional forms errors and problems of support serve as foundations figure 2: an integrated theory of the themes that emerged from high-performing participants’ thinking processes 4.3 examples of students’ mental activities during programming various examples of human thought, knowledge, recall and reflection are shown in table 1, which maps concepts from the literature of sections 2.1 and 2.2, against mental activities of the participants. these incidences of mental activity emerged from textual data in the students’ journals, which was transferred by the primary researcher to coded primary documents as described in section 4.1. they illustrate ways in which the high performers recalled relevant factors and reasoned about the problem. the activities supported them in planning, managing and regulating their actions and enabled them to successfully design and implement their computer programs table 1: the mental activities of successful students during programming concepts from literature study: human mind in programming mental activities of participants: examples from journals and programs patterns or visual sketches (syntax) (parnin, 2010). programming syntax: if (yearleap == true) days = 29; else days = 28; [p32]. semantic meaning of statements (parnin, 2010). [days of ] the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th and 12th month should be smaller than 32. the 2nd month should be smaller than 29 (except for leap years) else it [days in each month] should be smaller than 31 [p48]. reasoning (sternberg, 2006). i. test the year. determine if it is a leap year (february). ii. then test the months. use arrays. iii. now test the days. if all the above are positive then the value is true [it is a leap year] [p32]. decision-making (simon, 1955; sternberg, 2006). i think about the screen layout [p29]. thinking processes used by high-performing students td, 6(1), july 2011, pp. 25-40. 33 concepts from literature study: human mind in programming mental activities of participants: examples from journals and programs recall, memory and forgetting (chen et al., 2010; unsworth et al., 2009). …when i realised that i should use a nested ‘if’ statement [to test for leap years], it was very easy [p32]. i cannot believe that i forgot how to create a [programming] class. i quickly looked in my textbook and recalled the knowledge [p48]. attention and comprehension (sternberg, 2006) i read the question with attention and get an overview of what was been asked [p42]. declarative knowledge (ismail et al., 2010). the input format [for dates] is : yyyymmdd [p23]. i have written two methods: one to determine leap years and the other to determine the difference between two dates [p15]. procedural knowledge and problem solving (ismail et al., 2010). you require a method to copy from the date [yyyymmdd] the day, month and year…i therefore require three methods: one for getday, getmonth en getyear respectively [p23]. metacognitive knowledge (ismail et al., 2010). i read the question carefully and determined what was being asked? [p29]. finally my program is working. it was a challenge. i should do it more regularly [p48]. 5. quantitative analysis both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. 5.1 quantitative data analysis the right side of figure 1 in section 3.1 displays the systematic investigation by which standard statistical measurements were applied during quantitative data analysis. as explained in section 3.1, the postpositivist approach can on occasions involve both quantitative and qualitative data. we assigned scores to quantitative aspects, by rating participants’ performance in the programming task in the same way we would mark (score) it for a semester mark. similarly, the thinking processes of students, as established by the gtm analysis of section 4.2, were analysed according to measurement criteria generated from a theoretical literature study (havenga, 2008; section 2.2). table 2 shows the quantitative data, classified under four conceptual categories of criteria with 24 more specific subcriteria. twenty-three of the criteria (left column in table 2) were measured on a 4-point scale, where 1 indicates poor performance and 4 an excellent performance. for the problem-solving category, with a single criterion, a score out of 8 was allocated. the 24 criteria thus score a total of 100. to be classified as ‘successful’ in programming, participants had to obtain 3 or 4 for the ‘correctness of output’ subcategory (3rd last row in table 2), demonstrating accurate program output and appropriate test data to test the program. using this requirement, there were 11 successful and 37 unsuccessful programmers among the 48 participants (havenga et al., 2008). the data of the former 11 was used in this study. 5.2 findings from the quantitative analysis descriptive statistics the scores were analysed by descriptive statistics to determine the means and standard deviations of the scores of high performers for all subcategories and for the overall categories as shown in table 2. havenga, de villiers & mentz 34 table 2: means and standard deviations of successful programmers’ results category participant number 12 15 23 28 29 32 38 40 42 44 48 x cognition x =3.85 s=0.20 knowledge 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4.00 comprehension 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4.00 application 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4.00 analysis 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3.82 synthesis 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 3 3.73 evaluation 4 3 3 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 3 3.55 metacognition x =3.33 s=0.54 planning 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 3.91 monitoring 4 3 4 4 4 4 2 3 2 3 3 3.27 regulation 4 2 3 3 3 4 2 2 2 3 3 2.82 problem solving 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8.00 oop activities x =3.62 s=0.29 program requirements analysis 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4.00 programming techniques 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4.00 programming statements 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3.91 user-friendliness 3 3 2 3 4 4 3 2 2 4 3 3.00 classes and objects 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3.82 method application 4 3 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 3 3.64 access control 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 3.91 parameter passing 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4.00 reasoning and logic 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 3 3.73 exception handling 3 0 3 3 3 4 2 1 3 4 2 2.55 program structure and scope 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3.73 solution of problem 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 3 3.73 program evaluation 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 3 3.55 correctness of output 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3.18 total (%) 95 82 94 96 97 100 90 85 90 97 84 91.82 *problem-solving strategy b u t d ig b u ig t d b u b u b u b u b u *bu = bottom-up; td = top-down; ig = integrated strategy. the table shows that in the problem-solving category, with its single row, all the high-performing participants obtained the maximum score of 8. for cognition, metacognition and oop activities, thinking processes used by high-performing students td, 6(1), july 2011, pp. 25-40. 35 they obtained more than 3 on a 4-point scale across the board, except for the ‘regulation’ and ‘exception handling’ subcategories, where a few defaulted, particularly in the latter where some imperfect performances occurred. correlation furthermore, we investigated statistical correlations between cognition, metacognition and oop constructs respectively to determine the relationship between scores assigned to the qualitative mental activities of computer science students and scores in their programming tasks. the spearman correlations between these pairs of variables are shown in table 3. table 3: correlations between cognition, metacognition and oop knowledge and skills of successful participants construct r cognition oop knowledge and skills 0.80* metacognition oop knowledge and skills 0.55* practically significant (steyn, 2002). the cognition/oop correlation is considerably larger than 0.5 namely 0.80. the metacognition/oop correlation is 0.55. however, both are relevant in practice (ellis & steyn, 2003), indicating a highly significant relationship between the mental construct of cognition and the oop programming construct, and a significant relationship between the mental construct of metacognition and the programming construct of oop. 6. discussion 6.1 overview of the findings analyses of the qualitative and quantitative data revealed that high-performing computer science students employed various thinking processes to support their computer programming performance (section 4, tables 1 and 2). with regard to their expertise in programming, these students demonstrated high levels of knowledge with regard to the object-oriented programming approach and constructs of the programming language (declarative knowledge). they were skilled in using syntax and semantics, and knew how and when to apply the input, output and calculations involved in the program (procedural knowledge). the application of various strategies enhanced their programming performances. the high performers effectively used cognitive, metacognitive and problem-solving skills and strategies to direct their thinking processes (figure 2). they applied all the levels of bloom’s taxonomy and organised their thinking processes to address the programming problem (cognitive strategies). metacognition was demonstrated by journal entries that indicated reflection on the tasks, and explained their actions and decisions on the use of specific programming statements. they employed self-management and selfevaluation strategies. results indicate that the high-performing students regulated their thinking processes more effectively than the other students. havenga, de villiers & mentz 36 furthermore, the successful programmers used various processes emanating from psychology, such as attention; comprehension; step-wise reasoning; problem-solving; decision-making; memory strategies; and recall techniques (table 1), to express themselves in semantically correct programming code and thus to enhance their programming performance. table 1 also gives an example of the use of visual patterns to facilitate correct syntax. the high performers were able to reflect on their errors and handle them with appropriate trouble-shooting and recovery techniques. in addition, they fostered their programming prowess by independently consulting supplementary media and forms of support. as indicated in table 2, these participants obtained the maximum score of 8 for problem-solving strategies and none of them used the trial-and-error approach. most of the successful participants (7) used a bottom-up problem-solving strategy, two used top-down and two applied the integrated strategy (last row of table 2). successful participants applied various programming skills and gave evidence of correct output and appropriate test data. the relationships between the constructs show that cognitive and metacognitive thinking processes impacted on programming performance (table 3). in particular, the positive correlation between cognition and oop (r = 0.80) allows us to predict that these two variables are related. the relationship between metacognition and oop is r = 0.55, indicating that the application of metacognitive processes and reflection can support problem solving in object-oriented programming. 6.2 research question revisited this study addressed the research question: how can the specific thinking processes used by high-performing computer science students, support them in writing correct and well-defined programs? it is clear from the findings that the high-performers explicitly applied a variety of thinking processes and strategies, which helped them, produce correct and well-defined programs. a concise summary follows: • mental activities during the programming process were directed by declarative-, procedural and metacognitive knowledge and skills; • strategy formulation and execution enabled participants to plan a high-level strategy on how to approach and solve the problem; • the use of analysis, synthesis and evaluation skills enabled participants to decompose the problem into manageable sections; to determine solution strategies for each; and to elaborate, organise and integrate their programming statements in ways that solved the problem successfully; • planning, monitoring, and self-regulation strategies supported independent reviewing, selfevaluation, diagnosis and error handling—for both logic errors and programming errors; • supplementary forms of support were consulted; and • a range of psychological modalities and activities enabled participants to represent, design, code and execute correct and well-defined oop programs (modalities refer to form and to the use of visual and spatial senses, which play an important role in representing and designing programs). this study with its focus area of thinking processes in the application area of computer science education, has made a contribution in the realm of inter-disciplinary studies. we inter-related psychological dimensions — in the form of students’ reflective thinking processes — with the actual outcomes of computer programming tasks. the high-performing participants orchestrated their thinking processes in a comprehensive way and demonstrated a uniformity in performance, yet with variations in techniques. the study has provided new insights regarding the efforts lying behind a complete operational computer program. thinking processes used by high-performing students td, 6(1), july 2011, pp. 25-40. 37 6.3 integrated thinking processes model for learning programming figure 3 presents a model based on the findings of this study. anti-clockwise, its three components are educational activities, programming performance and psychological processes—from the three disciplines respectively. the representation integrates the thinking processes, knowledge, skills, mental activities and strategies used by high-performing student programmers as they undertake a complex programming task. figure 3: an integrated thinking processes model for learning programming. the outer arrows represent interactions between the three components. the inner dotted arrows, converging on the shaded intersection, emphasise the dynamic integration of processes and activities that support high performance in learning object-oriented programming. the explicit use of supportive skills and strategies, over and above content knowledge can facilitate learning to program, as shown at the right vertex of the model. klingberg (2010) points out that extensive teaching of strategies leads to the improved performance of working memory tasks (section 2.1 and 2.2). in a previous paper, we (havenga et al., 2010) described how the successful use of supportive knowledge and activities can be ‘actionable’ in practice, and gave examples. in their interactive learning model, tennyson and nielsen (1998) (section 2.2) suggest that the interaction of content knowledge with cognitive strategies can be learned. furthermore, a sound knowledge of problem-solving processes for both welland ill-structured programming problems should form a foundation for writing programs that execute correctly. finally, programmers must be able to selfhavenga, de villiers & mentz 38 evaluate the accuracy and correctness of their programs to demonstrate how ‘well’ they have solved the problem. the psychological processes and modalities at the left vertex should support and direct programmers’ thinking as they understand, represent, design, code and test a program to solve a real-world problem. the process of computer programming involves various mental activities and qualities. for example selective attention is closely linked to working memory performance (klingberg, 2010). when writing programs, programmers need to think on a high level of abstraction. many student programmers have a reasonable grasp of syntax, but struggle to holistically combine code to produce a program that executes correctly. programming, positioned at the top vertex — with specific reference in this study to object-oriented programming — requires structured thinking on the part of the programmer to organise and sequence the segments of programming code within the program units, or so-called ‘classes’. sound detailed specification of the overall program and design activities supports the organisation of such classes. logical and rigorous thinking is required to direct the integration of programming statements into so-called ‘methods’ that specify the required behaviour of the ‘objects’ in the program. the employment of supportive learning techniques and psychological activities assists the programmer in writing correct and well-defined computer programs. 7. conclusion this trans-disciplinary study investigated an integration of the domains of computer programming, education and psychology. psychological dimensions of computer science students—in the form of the reflective thinking processes of high-performing programmers during the programming process— were related to the actual outcomes of their computer programs. findings indicated that highperforming programmers used a range of mental activities and supportive strategies, applying various cognitive, reflective and psychological processes and activities. they employed sound thinking processes and orchestrated their activities in a comprehensive way, which contributed to successful completion of their programming tasks. based on the findings, we propose a model of integrated thinking processes to support problem solving in complex tasks. this study provides insights regarding the multi-disciplinary efforts underlying a complete computer program that executes correctly. the questions arise: can learning strategies and higher-order thinking skills be taught and learned? is there a place in education for the explicit teaching of supportive skills and cognitive strategies, over and above content instruction? future research should focus on teaching practices that incorporate such strategies to facilitate learning to program. 8. references bergin, s., reilly, r., & traynor, d. 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(2002). alignment study in language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies of state standards and assessments for four states. washington, dc: council of chief state school officers. about the author(s) janet jarvis discipline of life orientation education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa sarina de jager department of humanities, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation jarvis j, de jager s. editorial comment. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1141. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1141 editorial editorial comment janet jarvis, sarina de jager copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. this special issue of the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa is dedicated to ‘life (dis)orientation’ and presents the work of academics in higher education institutions (heis) who teach life orientation (lo). the two guest editors, dr janet jarvis (academic leader and senior lecturer at the university of kwazulunatal, school of education) and dr sarina de jager (lecturer in life orientation at the university of pretoria), facilitated a virtual national colloquium for lo lecturers in 2020. this special issue has come into being as a result of this colloquium. the guest editors thank the contributors to this special issue, and also the reviewers and editorial team. this special issue begins with an article by jarvis and de jager, who argue for the importance of collaborative conversations across heis. the authors contend that meaningful boundary talk can be transformative in nature and provide the platform for research ventures. this collaboration, which commenced as a community of two in conversation, led to a community of many in conversation in the form of a national colloquium that focused on lo in the higher education space. focusing on human rights in lo, and in particular, the right to religious freedom, jarvis argues that currently held narratives of lived experience require dialogical exploration. integrally linked to any such exploration is the identity of the explorer. her article focuses on teacher identity and, in particular, teacher religious identity, with a view to transformed religion education. in their article, de jager and delport de villiers maintain that it is crucial to interrogate the lo teachers’ lived experiences of facilitating courageous conversations in the lo classroom. they speak of the courage required of teachers to challenge and be challenged, and that this can result in teacher vulnerability. concerned about higher education undergraduate drop-out rates, makola, saliwe, dube, tabane and mudau advocate for sound career guidance within the lo high school programme. this should include the dissemination of information on diverse careers and work experiences, and the inclusion of role models who have been successful in various careers. mouton and morelli present a conceptual study that creates a theoretical framework for the integration of music and the social and personal well-being of lo learners in the intermediate phase. they contend that this integration cultivates ‘moral and cultural education, emotional intelligence and psychological well-being’. jarvis’s second article presents a teaching-learning strategy that creates the opportunity for teachers to re-story previously held narratives. this strategy serves a decolonisation agenda and adopts a transdisciplinary approach. it encourages reflection and reflexivity that can potentially transform lo classroom practice into classroom praxis. in a similar vein, khau uses intergroup dialogue in lo as an innovative pedagogical tool to disrupt heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent, in the context of gender-based violence. this dialogue led to a greater understanding of sexual consent and the role played by ‘shaming, blaming and silencing of victims in perpetuating gender-based violence’. she argues for intergroup dialogue as an important pedagogical tool for facilitating critical reflection and awareness. comprehensive sexuality education (cse) within lo aims to contribute positively to holistic adolescent sexual health. koch and weymeyer, in their systematic review, consider the development and delivery of cse. they contend that teaching methods should take into consideration the importance of learner’s voices and cultural contexts. physical education (pe), located within the lo curriculum, has been recognised as an essential tool for education. jones and roux argue for values-based pe that has the potential ‘to transcend diversity and achieve cohesion, promote tolerance and trust, and affirm respect between individuals and communities’. the guest editors are hopeful that conversations can continue in the future, possibly at a second national colloquium focusing on how lo can serve a decolonisation agenda. editorial comment td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(1) july 2012, pp. iii – iv. the way forward in the era of open access publishing as we enter our eighth year of publication td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa clearly is on track to become a well-established journal, not only on the subcontinent, but also in other parts of the world. our journal has many friends who firmly support all initiatives aimed at promoting multiinterand transdisciplinary research in all parts of the world. one of the notable features of the current edition is that we received almost 50 articles from authors. this is indeed an accomplishment and the editorial board can justifiably be satisfied with the fact that academic authors are increasingly taking note of our journal as a platform for publishing relevant research. we thank all the authors who submitted manuscripts and trust that we can build on relationship that are constructive and promote high standards of academic publishing. almost half of the articles received were not approved for publication in td. it is clear that especially our reviewers are discerning and aware of the fact that the journal needs to focus on attracting material that tends to be multi-, interor transdisciplinary in nature. therefore authors aspiring to publish in td should take note of the growing sense of commitment of reviewers for material that transcends conventional disciplinary boundaries. the editorial board underwrites the approach of taking note of how and why authors choose to use multiple disciplines in their research and writing. there is also, it appears, growing pressure on academics to publish more. often it happens that the material received is not of a good quality. peer reviewers take note and tend to respond accordingly. we try to facilitate the process in favour of our authors. where an article has good content and is clearly of significant importance for research academics, we walk the proverbial extra mile with authors to help them in the long process to publish their articles. especially where young academics are making their first contributions we are prepared to help all the way. the only requirement is that the manuscripts we receive are of a good quality. peer reviewing remains a difficult process. academics lead busy lives. to peer review an article for a journal is a valuable service rendered. there is no financial gain for the hard work of an academic, sometimes spending longer than a day, to properly work through a manuscript. essentially, the academic performs a service of love to his or her academic field of investigation. therefore we are deeply appreciative of our peer reviewers. we thank them for their unstinting support and assistance. currently there is a strong international move in favour of open access academic periodical publications. in the united states of american and in the united kingdom there have been public voices going up against the high cost of civil society has to pay for academic work at universities and research institutions, which they in actual fact fund with the taxes the man on the street pays to the state. the argument is interesting. there seems to be an under current that suggests academic publishing houses are the culprits. they charge high editorial comment: open access publishing iv subscription rates and copies of single articles are even more expensive. this is particularly the case with electronic periodicals. it seems as if in the knowledge commons the call is now for free access to academic journals. when universities, such as harvard and stanford in the usa, give notice that they are no longer prepared to annually pay millions of dollars annually in subscriptions for some periodical publications, one needs to take note. moreover, at many ivy league universities in the usa there are now even moves now to open learning materials electronically for interested individuals all over the world. eventually, it seems, it will only be required of the prospective student in any part of the world, to pay the registration and class fees to study and be evaluated at the end of any of thousands of open access courses. in the southern climes of africa there are many academics supporting the initiative of open access – especially people who are interested in studying further at institutions of higher learning. td has been fairly open and freely available since its establishment in 2005. however, it is only in the past two years that the (complete) journal has been available on the open access boloka website of north-west university. since its inception td has been available electronically via sabinet. we have thus reached the relevant academic quarters. we also are aware of the need to further open the journal. however, there needs to be sufficient contemplation and constructive debates amongst academics, managers, publishing companies and society at large. we need to contemplate the manner in which payments are made. we also cannot afford deteriorating standards of publication. in principle td supports all initiatives aimed at opening up knowledge in the interest of science and society in an equitable and constructive manner. microsoft word 03 lotriet fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(2) november 2015, special edition: reenchantment, pp. 29-42. does the engagement between science and society pose risks for intelligent scientific practice? h lotriet1 abstract this paper examines the interaction between science and society. society considers these interactions as vital to understand and reduce the uncertainty of the impact of scientific activity on society. the purpose of this paper is to investigate the converse situation – whether the engagement of society with scientific activity creates uncertainty (or perceived risks) in terms of scientific practice, and whether there is potential for this engagement to create tensions in terms of the intelligent nature of scientific practice. in order to achieve this, a cultural-historical, activity-based conceptualisation of intelligence is applied to scientific activity and its implications are discussed in terms of sciencesociety interactions. keywords: science, society, engagement, activity theory, intelligent scientific practice 1. introduction the engagements between scientists and stakeholders from society go by many names – these include the “democratization of science”, the “socialization of science” and even sometimes “postnormal science” (turnpenny et al., 2011). these engagements have become commonplace in many parts of the developed world, for example the usa (kleinman, 1998), the uk (te kulve and rip, 2011), belgium (van oudheusden, 2011), and the netherlands (petersen et al., 2011). the engagements have mainly centred on contentious scientific and technological issues, such as nanotechnology (swierstra et al., 2011), environmental protection (peterson et al., 2011), recombinant dna, epidemiology and aids treatment (kleinman, 1998), and energy policy and micro-electronics (van est, 2008). the need for these engagements is rooted in society’s concern that the products of science and technology that are largely ubiquitous in various aspects of societal life, are putting society at risk. these risks are not always communicated by scientists to society. society therefore does not necessarily understand these risks, even though it has in a sense become the “object” of scientific endeavour. societal concerns touch on a number of issues – obviously concerns for health and safety, but also socio-economic impact, environmental impact, and the ethical basis of research activity (swierstra et al., 2011). society’s main concern is therefore the risks associated with scientific activity. the nature and conceptualisation of these risks are complex. this emerging complexity challenges traditional views that science is predicable, controllable and calculable (lövbrand et al., 2010). the complexity also relates to the diversity of values, contexts and perceptions in society. the 1 . prof hugo lotriet is the head research and graduate studies in the college of science engineering and technology at the university of south africa, johannesburg. email: lotrihh@unisa.ac.za lotriet 30 assessment of the implications of these risks therefore cannot simply be left to the judgment of scientists (bijker et al., 2010). concurrent with these societal concerns, is the loss of credibility of science in society (lövbrand et al., 2010). society now exhibits an attitude of “sceptical wait-and-see” rather than enthusiasm in terms of scientific endeavour (swierstra et al., 2011). this has led to society’s growing expectation that scientists should “justify their knowledge claims” to a wider audience (lövbrand et al., 2010). engagements between science and society have mainly been initiated in order to enable society to understand the societal risks involved in the development of science and technological artefacts, and to collaboratively develop ethical guidelines to ensure that science does not expose society to risks that it is not willing to tolerate (see for example bijker et al., 2007). the ideal is that these engagements will lead (at least) to expressions of the diversity of values, arguments, assumptions and meanings emanating from society that should inform science and its governance (lövbrand et al., 2010). this expectation is partly reflected in the metaphors mentioned at the start of the paper that have science as their object. the recent national debate about nanotechnology in the netherlands is interesting in terms of the scale on which it was undertaken. the intention was literally to engage with as large a part of the dutch population as possible at a national level. a brief discussion of this debate as a case study serves as a point of departure for this paper. with the dutch debate on nanotechnology as a point of departure, this paper examines the interaction between scientists and society in literature in order to understand how it could be conceptualised, what the associated challenges are that need to be addressed, and what the implications are for intelligent scientific activity. the involvement of society in shaping scientific activity has become a given. this is evident from the current state of development and evolution of societal dynamics mentioned in this paper. latour (2004) argues that the political power associated with the notion of science as accessible only by scientists (he uses the analogy of the platonic cave) while society languishes in ignorance, does not apply anymore. there still is some evidence of scientific stakeholders clinging to the outdated conception, sometimes referred to as the “information deficit model” (van est, 2008). in terms of the metaphor of plato’s cave as used by latour, anyone can exit the cave and become enlightened and no one would languish in the darkness of the cave by choice. there is therefore no justification or need for society to rely on scientists as sole intermediaries for access to the sciences. this conceptualisation of public access to the sciences creates various uncertainties (risks) in terms of understanding its implications for and impact on scientific activity. from a sociotechnical perspective it would be expected that in any interaction of substance between two domains (such as science and society), the outcome will be that both domains will be affected (and would undergo changes) as a result of the interaction. in this instance it could be expected that both society and science would change as a result of their engagement. literature reports quite extensively on how improved risk evaluation frameworks have enabled society to make more intelligent and informed decisions about the risks related to scientific work (see for instance bijker 2009a and 2009b). however, it is less clear on the impact of societal engagement on scientists and their activities. this paper, written by an author who is situated within a scientific context therefore focuses on this more neglected side by reflecting on the potential implications of science-society engagement for risk of the engagement between science and society td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 29-42. 31 science and scientific activity. specifically, the paper reflects on the notion of intelligence and intelligent scientific activity and whether interaction between science and society has the potential to create risks (or uncertainties) related to such intelligent scientific activity. this focus relates to the theme that constitutes the context of this paper, i.e. the 2014 miniconference held around the concern that “human intelligence” is under siege and is becoming a scarce resource in academic institutions. within this broader concern the paper specifically focuses on scientific activity (a significant part of the activity at academic institutions) and what tensions (i.e. battles) the engagement with society could create in terms of intelligent scientific activity. battle metaphors have indeed been used to describe science-society interactions. for example kleinman (1998) refers to the heated debates in the nineties (especially in the usa) on who legitimately can make pronouncements on science, as the “science wars”. the paper therefore does not focus on the nature of the boundaries and boundary-crossing for the scientific domain, but on conceptualising this relatively new, but seemingly permanent arrangement of societal engagement with science. the aim is to enable a better understanding of what constitutes intelligent science-society interaction and by implication intelligent scientific activity as well as a better understanding of the potential uncertainties (i.e. risks) involved that could create tensions and conflicts. in this regard the paper proposes a culturalhistorical framework for intelligent action as a conceptual basis for intelligent scientific activity. this framework provides a lens to identify specific areas of potential conflict (battlefields) that could manifest in science-society interactions. the paper therefore proposes conceptions of science, its role in society and a culturalhistorical notion of intelligence that enable the visualisation of tensions related to sciencesociety interactions and scientific activity. in order to do this, the paper proposes a conceptualisation that draws mainly on discourses from two disciplines – firstly, sociotechnical literature to provide a conceptualisation of science-technology interaction and secondly activity theory literature essentially a continuation of russian social psychology that has its roots in the ideas of vygotsky (1980). the structure of the paper is as follows. as a point of departure the paper provides a brief description of the recent national dutch nanotechnology debate as an example of sciencesociety interaction. the paper then proceeds to discuss concepts and issues reported on in literature that relate to science-society interactions. after this, the paper focusses specifically on scientific activity and discusses how science is becoming re-conceptualised as a result of science-society interaction. the extent of potential involvement and associated modes of interaction available to society are investigated. the author proposes a cultural-historical (activity-based) notion of intelligence for use to visualise potential areas of tension and conflicts related to science-society interaction and by implication related to scientific activity. a number of limitations to this paper need to be stated at the outset. firstly, for the purpose of this paper the notion of science is the “harder” notion of natural sciences, engineering and technology. the paper does not attempt to engage with the interesting discourses on the narrowing of the gap between natural sciences and social sciences and humanities, although the perspectives provided by the author are mostly social and socio-technical in nature. this is because the researcher’s own background is in information systems, which is essentially a social discipline. secondly, the paper does not attempt to provide an exhaustive list or discussion of all instances of science-society interaction. as previously stated, the single case reported on serves only as a point of departure to arrive at a more conceptual discussion on lotriet 32 the nature of science-society interaction, scientific activity and intelligence. it is recognised that much richness could be added by examining other instances of science-society interaction in future research. the paper does not attempt to provide any holistic picture of either the battles for intelligence in academic institutions or contributing factors to the bigger discourses on the nature of “good” science. 2. point of departure: the dutch national debate on nanotechnology the dutch has a history of experimentation with social engagement with science. some notable examples include a nuclear technology debate and a subsequent discussion around energy policy, in addition to discourses on genetic engineering and micro-electronics (van est, 2008). the commissie maatschappelijke dialoog nanotechnologie (ciemdn) was created in 2009 as an independent commission with a mandate to facilitate national discourse in the netherlands around nanotechnology. interestingly five of the nine members (including both the chair and the vice-chair) of the commission were from dutch universities (commissie maatschappelike dialoog nanotechnologie, 2011). although government initiated ciemdn on the advice of other institutions (notably the dutch “gezondheidsraad”), it was structured to be independent of government mainly in order to ensure a good public reputation for the body (bijker et al., 2010). the commission started off with a completely open agenda in terms of expected outcomes (bijker et al. 2010, op. cit.), after which it consulted widely to establish the themes of the dialogue. an open invitation was sent to stakeholders in society for project proposals on ways to mediate the dialogue (the ciemdn did not do this themselves) (ciemdn, 2011). as resources were limited, prioritisation between projects had to be implemented in order to stay within the budget (bijker et al., 2010). the process could not assume informed opinions due to the early phase of development of nanotechnology. therefore, the project was deliberately executed in phases – i.e. provision of information, awareness activities and finally discourses on nanotechnology, with the first two being considered conditions for successful execution of the third phase (bijker et al., 2010, op. cit.). the project that took place from march 2009 to december 2010 ultimately involved a large diversity of interest groups and used a significant variety of methods to engage with these interest groups. these included “old and new media”, teaching materials for school children, theatre, art, television, exhibitions, mobile nanotechnology labs allowing citizens to interact with nanotechnology, youtube animations, general use of the internet for interaction (e.g. through games for the young) as well as philosophical “vignettes”, debates, focus groups and workshops. the purpose of the engagements was both to inform and to get opinions of citizens (bijker et al., 2010, op. cit.). a core finding on the basis of this dialogue is that society is not against science, but requires science to proceed with care (ciemdn, 2011). risk of the engagement between science and society td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 29-42. 33 3. conceptualisation of science-society interactions 3.1 assumptions and historical developments elements of the conceptualisation of the relationship between scientists and society derive from the ancient greeks. nowotny (2003) points out that plato held strong views on the contrast between those who understand science (to be held in esteem as aristocracy) and the process of the formation of public opinion which he considered to be “mob-based” and irrational, thus by implication advocating a strong boundary between the domains of science and public opinion. bijker (2010) departs from the assumption that the mutual interactions between science, technology and society mean that current day societies are “thoroughly technological” and that present day technology is “pervasively cultural”. he traces the notion of technological culture as the (necessary) culmination in the evolution of notions around the interaction of technology with society (starting with a single technological artefact as unit of analysis and progressing through “technological systems” and “sociotechnical ensembles” to “technological culture”) (bijker, 2010). society has to become aware that science and technology changes the core fabric of society – practices, values, goals, etc. (swierstra et al., 2011). interestingly bijker et al. (2010) even provide the example that science and technology impacts on metaphors in poetry and literature. the notion that current society is technological is also supported by barry (2001) who argues that this should be mainly understood as society’s preoccupation with technology-related challenges. the notion of the technological society and its implications for various aspects of societal activity have indeed become a widely researched topic – see for examples winner (1992) on democracy in a technological society, or de raath (1997) on the humane management of organisations in a technological society. if the nature of current societal culture is assumed to be inherently technological, it would consequently be subject to science and technology mediated vulnerability (bijker et al., 2010). this vulnerability should not necessarily be construed as negative, but rather as inevitable and the vulnerability could refer to either society and humanity or technological systems. indeed, vulnerability is a pre-condition for creativity and innovation (bijker, 2009). 3.2 reflections on the process of engagement: pre-conditions for a successful societal dialogue it is important to prepare stakeholders prior to engagement in order to enable a meaningful engagement (te kulve and rip, 2011). this would counter any claims that the public would be unable to participate in the engagement because members of the public are uninformed (as was claimed by scientists in the past) (kleinman, 1998). this is situated within the greater context of a general realization by many governments of a need for scientifically “empowered” citizens (mohr, 2011). mohr also points out that the conceptualisation of the notion of science-interaction by the mediators of these interactions would produce different “versions” of the public – e.g. actively engaged partners in dialogue vs. passive future users. from this perspective the openness and diversity of mediation projects deliberately employed by the dutch nanotechnology debate are interesting. conley (2011) extends the concept by arguing that scientists should also be prepared in order to become good “engagement agents”. a significant part of the dutch nano-debate revolved around enabling imagination (or visualisation) in order to enable society to understand in concrete ways the impact of science lotriet 34 and technology on their lives. indeed, in the instance of the dutch debate, public reaction became more nuanced after the provision of information and the preparation for the debate (swierstra et al., 2011). in the case of a developing field of science or technology, preparation for a meaningful interaction with society becomes challenging, as the science/technology itself is still only manifest in “expectations, plans and promises” of stakeholders such as scientists, government, investors and others (swierstra et al., 2011, op. cit.). 3.3 reflections on aspects of the organisation of participation there is inevitably a need for organisations to act as intermediaries and to facilitate these dialogues, thereby providing havens of confidentiality for scientists to engage without bearing the burden of the representation of interests (bijker et al., 2010). a brief discussion of these intermediaries follows. 3.3.1 intermediary organisations the nature and role of intermediary organisations are considered significant and the role of the ciemdn has been described in section 2 of this paper. interestingly, in the instances studied for this paper, the organisations identified or created to be the intermediaries are not universities (although the ciemdn was governed by a majority of academics). the outputs of these organisations are actionable rather than scholarly, i.e. advisory reports rather than journal or conference papers. such advisory reports are considered useful for policy formulation and can serve as a basis for discussions in a political context (bijker et al., 2010). the notion of reason as the ultimate basis for selecting views or arguments remains central to the notion of deliberative democracy. in this regard a risk that needs to be managed is the potential impact of unspoken expectations of sponsors (i.e. significant stakeholders that play roles in defining the structure and processes of the interactions) such as government or large players in industry (lövbrand et al., 2010). an important aspect of the role played by the mediating organisation is the preservation of ambiguity. the future direction of science and technology, being a social construct, is not pre-determined and can only be expressed as a series of imagined scenarios. these need to be managed not to go to extremes (“hype” vs. “horror”) (swierstra et al., 2011). in this regard an example of undemocratic behaviour in these mediating organisations is provided by volonté (in bijker et al., 2010) who recounts that ciemdn orchestrated aspects of the dutch nanodebate by sourcing opposing expert scientific opinions in instances where there was a feeling that contributions by scientific experts in a certain area were unbalanced. the mediating body’s implied imposition of values and norms regarding public participation has been argued to be problematic, as it could impact on the whole notion of public participation (van oudheusden, 2011). 3.3.2 sponsoring organisations: the example of the “gezondheidsraad” i want to pause briefly to reflect on the gezondheidsraad, because it is central to the interactions between scientists and society in the netherlands. it is the body that by law is mandated to provide scientific advice to government, and in fact it is largely because of the recommendation of the gezondheidsraad amongst others that the nanodebate was undertaken in the netherlands. it does its work through committees that largely consist of academics from the netherlands and abroad. bijker et al. (2009b) go to pains to explain the complex nature of the dutch gezondheidsraad. the organisation varies in focus, composition, size of network involved, risk of the engagement between science and society td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 29-42. 35 boundaries and temporality of the scientific information collated and provided to stakeholders. it is independent of government and allows for confidentiality in scientific discourse. it makes scientific knowledge accessible for social engagement and use (ibid.) above all, the authors stress that it has retained scientific authority in an era where this authority has become eroded. its role is mainly to imbue its societal initiatives with authority – something that bijker et al. (2009b, op. cit.) consider to be an interesting paradox in an age where scientific organisations have largely lost authority within society. a comparative organisation exists in the usa – the us national academy of sciences. an important aspect of these organisations is space they provide for debate amongst scientists and other experts. notable in this regard is the premium placed on the confidentiality of these deliberations (bijker et al., 2010; bijker et al., 2009b). the confidentiality is intended to allow robust debates around scientific controversies without the need to publicly represent any established interests. it also aims to allow for a suitable translation of science in a way that makes it accessible for society. (in a sense this renders these organisations effectively undemocratic). this adherence to confidentiality could be contrasted to the many voices in literature calling for a complete openness to all of science, scientific objects and structures (bijker et al., 2010). 3.3.3 the role of government government inevitably plays a significant role in science-society interaction. the nature of the involvement of government includes the legislation that brings into being organising bodies and sponsoring organisations such as the gezondheidsraad or the us national academy of sciences (bijker et al., 2009b), even though care is taken to ensure that these ultimately operate independently. government ultimately creates the policies that govern responsible use of science and technology. similarly, policy is seen as one of the main instruments to regulate the outcomes of the negotiations between science and society (bijker et al., 2010) and to govern the responsible use of science and technology. society inevitably expects government to play a significant role in managing risk. one of the recommendations emanating from the dutch nanotechnology dialogue was that government should show visible commitment to society to enforce the “agreement” between society and science (swierstra et al., 2011). 3.3.4 specific risks and issues in the process of participation that need to be managed if the processes followed in science-society interactions are completely divergent with no standard to evaluate the legitimacy of the responses to these interactions, there is no guarantee that the outcomes of these processes are better than it would have been if any other process (or indeed no process) had been followed (lövbrand et al., 2010). there is a potential impact of unspoken expectations of sponsors such as government or large players in industry that needs to be managed (lövbrand et al., 2010). the need for rational argument and collaborative participation is therefore not necessarily universally shared by participants in the reality of science-society engagement. personal expression of power, modes of communication and structural cultural and other constricting factors may indeed play a significant role (van oudheusden, 2011). lotriet 36 4. the impact of science-society interaction on science and scientific activity 4.1 the re-conceptualisation of scientific activity the “standard view of science” (bijker et al., 2009b) (or information deficit model, as previously mentioned) is not compatible with the socialization of science. this essentially binary view entails that method is everything and that good science can be clearly distinguished from bad science (and concurrently that scientists are clearly separated and distinguishable from non-scientists) (ibid.). essentially, as facts are “indisputable”, it implies a “one-way” engagement between science and society, with science providing the solid factual basis on which society can proceed. furthermore this view does not require science to be normative, as facts (with nature as the impartial judge of their accuracy) are neutral. the traditional view assumes that only scientists can make pronouncements regarding scientific matters (kleinman, 1998). instead, scientific activity has become recognised as being socially constructed. this has been one of the core arguments of the science and technology studies (sts) discourses amongst sociologists of science (bijker et al., 2010) for a number of decades. in fact, stengers (2011) implies that science is not only socially constructed, but there is even space for the course of science to be influenced by social advocacy. recognizing the social construction of science and technology raises the argument that there would be little to distinguish scientific knowledge from other socially constructed types of knowledge, and that therefore the importance of scientific knowledge has become downgraded (bijker et al., 2010). issues regarding the cornerstones of scientific knowledge (such as its peer review processes) create further concerns about the nature of scientific knowledge even within the scientific community (de beer and roux, 2010) and contribute to the dilemma of how to distinguish scientific knowledge from other types of knowledge. recognizing the social nature of science also means that the conceptualisation of a binary relation between the scientist and the member of society is replaced with a notion of a social network of actors involved in the activities of science and influencing its direction and outcomes see for instance latour (2004). the functionality of boundaries is also redefined. instead of being seen as a separation, a boundary becomes a zone of co-ordination (e.g. between science and politics) (bijker, 2009 on the role of scientific advising) resulting in “linking up various domains” (bijker et al., 2009b). bijker (2009, op. cit.) argues strongly for a conceptualisation of science as a societal enterprise. he indicates that such a conceptual shift would result in the adoption of more useful metaphors than those currently employed in the discussion of interaction between scientists and society. the example he provides, is that there should be a shift from the notions of “quantification, optimization and management” to, for instance, the notion of “vulnerability”, which resonates more closely with the human condition. furthermore, as facts are no longer indisputable but instead are social constructs (bijker et al., 2010), and scientists are correspondingly no longer undisputed authorities on science in society, science inevitably needs to become normative and has to reflect on the ethics of its activities that produce the knowledge constituting its outcomes. this is arguably a relatively uncontroversial outcome of the engagement between science and society (potentially more controversial outcomes are pointed out in sections 4.2 and 5 of this paper). risk of the engagement between science and society td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 29-42. 37 4.2 the potential extent of societal interaction with scientific activity and the modes of interaction available to society the outcome of the engagement processes in terms of impacting on scientific activity appears to be indirect, rather than direct – for instance, through impacting on policy formulation that regulates scientific behaviour (kleinman, 1998). however, kleinman (op. cit.) provides evidence of a spectrum of potential levels of engagement by society with science. for instance, engagement on ethics, values and priorities as “soft issues” are fairly widely accepted and practiced in various countries. engagement by society on scientific methods, the production of scientific knowledge and the evaluation of this knowledge could be considered contentious and could well meet with some resistance by scientists. however, it might hold more significant potential in terms of the reform of scientific knowledge argued for by for instance de beer and roux (2010). these potential areas of engagement are summarised in table 1. direct influence by the society on scientific activity indirect influence by society on scientific activity potential “hard” involvement [more drastic and possibly more controversial] examples: prescriptions to scientists regarding methods participation in knowledge creation participation in the evaluation of knowledge through more extensive peer review processes citizen-initiated science projects societal participation in setting the agendas for core scientific activity examples: policies on methods and knowledge generation statutory requirements for scientific methods, practitioners, access to the scientific domain creation of expert organisations/bodies that contribute to and influence science and scientific practice potential “soft” involvement [less drastic and more socially acceptable] examples: citizen participation in scientific boards deliberating on ethics, values and social impact of science on society citizen participation in scientific boards providing requirements and priorities of society that science needs to meet society-involved participation in setting the agenda for soft issues related to scientific activity examples: policies on ethics and values structures of mediation between science and society agency related to structures of mediation t a b l e 1 : s c h e m a t i z e d v i e w o f p o t e n t i a l s o c i e t a l i n v o l v e m e n t i n s c i e n c e ( a d o p t e d a n d e x p a n d e d o n t h e b a s i s o f t h e b a s i c c a t e g o r i e s o f k l e i n m a n , 1 9 9 8 ) 5. intelligence as a cultural-historical phenomenon what remains, is to consider the notion of intelligence and its potential tension points (battle fields), as these relate to science-society interaction and to scientific activity. i would argue that a conceptualisation of intelligence that is compatible with the notion of a socially constructed scientific enterprise should be the point of departure. in addition, i would argue for a notion of intelligence that is more than simply a metaphoric transfer of the notion of individual cognitive capability to a societal level. such a notion should allow for a lotriet 38 systemic consideration of intelligence in relation to the interaction between science and society. i propose that the notion of a distributed intelligence (also sometimes referred to as distributed cognition) embedded in cultural-historical activity approaches, offers such an option. this notion of distributed intelligence has been applied mainly in educational context to conceptualise, for instance, education design (pea, 1993) and distributed leadership in education (spillane et. al., 2004). engeström et al. (1995) have applied this notion to the work and activity of experts in settings such as local government and factories. by applying the notion of distributed work-based intelligence to scientific activity and its interaction with society, a conceptualisation can be created of potential tension points and uncertainties (risks) associated with societal interaction with the work of scientists. this is set out in the following paragraphs. cole and engeström (1993) argue that intelligence has always been considered by psychologists to be distributed/collective in nature (since wundt). they point out that even wundt argued that the cognitive functioning of individuals can only be understood in the context of “historical contingent phenomena” that are not amenable to scientific experimentation (cole and engeström, op. cit.; mischel, 1970). this is in contrast to the widely held conception of intelligence as residing primarily in the minds of individuals (pea, 1993). the notions regarding human activity systems and cognition were originally developed by russian social psychologists (see vygotsky, 1980; leont’ev, 1978) as part of understanding human activity systems in the context of historical cultural activity. ultimately activity theorists argue that the loci of human cognition are visible only in human activity (pea, 1993). the diagram in figure 1 shows a schematic representation of a human activity system. f i g u r e 1 : c o n c e p t u a l i s a t i o n o f t h e s t r u c t u r e o f h u m a n a c t i v i t y ( a d o p t e d f r o m e n g e s t r ö m , 2 0 0 1 ) the schematic representation in figure 1 shows the main elements of any human activity system. these include the traditional main elements in the vygotskian tradition of a subject interacting with an object through mediating artefacts in order to achieve an outcome, which inevitably is some transformation of the object. later additions by activity theorists relate to an enabling context for these main elements. the elements of the enabling context constitute outcome division of labour community rules mediating artefacts subject object risk of the engagement between science and society td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 29-42. 39 the rules, communities and division of labour that support the activities taking place. cultural-historical activity theory assumes a large-scale stability or slow evolution of activity systems (engeström, 2001) through the resolution of tensions and stresses inherent in the activity system. in terms of the conceptualisation of science-society interaction (and of science itself) as socially constructed, it can be argued that this conceptualisation of an activity system would also be applicable to these areas of human activity. this conceptualisation assumes intelligence to be expressed as action, rather than as a “state of being” (pea, 1993). pea (op. cit.) describes this type of intelligence as follows: the focus in thinking about distributed intelligence is not on intelligence as an abstract property or quantity residing in the minds, organizations or objects. in its primary sense here, intelligence is manifest in activity that connects means and ends through achievements (pea, 1993: 50). the various elements of the activity system may be considered to be stabilised expressions of intelligence, demonstrating activity-based “patterns of distributed intelligence” (ibid.). the person does not disappear, but the boundaries between the person and human activity are more diffuse. this representation highlights external expressions of intelligence within the human activity system. similarly, intelligence-related tensions could be associated with any of the elements or between elements that would obstruct the manifestation of intelligent connections between means and ends – these typically constitute the manifestation of intelligence-related “battles” over the interaction between science and society (and ultimately also reflecting on scientific activity) referred to in the introductory paragraphs of this paper. some examples of potential intelligence-related tensions in science-society engagement becoming visible in terms of an activity system are listed in table 2. element of human activity system for science-society engagement example of potential tensions in science-society interaction (drawn from earlier arguments in this paper) object and its transformation discourses around priorities, objectives and risks of scientific endeavour for society tools diversity vs. non-diversity of engagement mechanisms subject credibility of organisations initiating society-science interactions rules role of experts transparency of deliberations vs. confidentiality final decision on validity of outcomes of science-society interaction division of labour final arbiter on validity of outcomes of science-society interaction communities vested interests and power bases of selected communities involved in sciencesociety interaction representativeness vs. non-representativeness of participatory groups from society t a b l e 2 : e x a m p l e s o f p o t e n t i a l t e n s i o n s i n a h u m a n a c t i v i t y s y s t e m f o r s c i e n c e s o c i e t y e n g a g e m e n t examples of intelligence-related tensions externally expressed in the considered human activity system for scientific activity resulting from science-society engagement, are listed in table 3. lotriet 40 element of human activity system for scientific activity example of potential tensions in scientific activity (drawn from previous arguments in this paper) object and its transformation society and science may differ on the objectives, priorities and direction of science, which would then need to be debated. tools traditional tools of scientific knowledge production vs. new tools (e.g. expanded peer review mechanisms) subject traditional scientists engaging with scientific knowledge creation vs. expanded notions of the subjects of scientific knowledge creation rules managing science as a business vs. managing science as a societal project establishing of stable “rules” governing science-society interactions as well as rules regarding the evaluation of quality of interactions. confidentiality of scientific discourse vs. transparency of all engagements division of labour society having a share in the evaluation of scientific knowledge communities exponents of the traditional view of science vs. novel views communities with vested interests t a b l e 3 : e x a m p l e s o f p o t e n t i a l t e n s i o n s i n a h u m a n a c t i v i t y s y s t e m f o r s c i e n c e s o c i e t y i n t e r a c t i o n 6. conclusions engagement between science and society holds the potential for science to expand its base and context, and for society to reduce the uncertainties associated with the impact of scientific activity on society. the intrusion of public participants into spheres which until fairly recently have been considered the exclusive domain of scientists (kleinman, 1998), does not in itself pose a threat to intelligent scientific practice. in fact, it allows science to exit stenger’s (2011) “groove” by widening the scientific discourse from one limited to participation by scientists and like-minded parties elsewhere in society, to one that involves diverse societal participation (which has the beneficial potential of slowing down science). science-society interaction could support the initiation of some of the mechanisms proposed by de beer and roux (2010) for improving the evaluation of scientific knowledge. for instance, it could allow for more extensive peer evaluation of scientific results than simply evaluation by other like-minded scientists and interest groups thus moving closer to the notion of an “ecology of peer review”. in addition, science-society interaction resonates strongly with the notion of discursive practices at an early stage of scientific endeavour. finally, it has the potential to make scientific activity more visible and transparent. a cultural-historical perspective of intelligence allows for a systematic envisioning of the manifestation of tensions in the human activity systems that comprise science-society interaction and socially constructed scientific activity – thus allowing for a systematic understanding of the “battles for intelligence” that would potentially be involved in the evolution of these systems. risk of the engagement between science and society td, 11(2), november 2015, special edition, pp. 29-42. 41 references barry, a. 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(1992). democracy in a technological society. springer science & business media, vol. 9. abstract introduction aim and objectives literature review methodology results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) sizakele a. ngidi department of communication science, faculty of humanities, central university of technology, bloemfontein, south africa elliot m. mncwango department of general linguistics, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of zululand, kwa-dlangezwa, south africa citation ngidi sa, mncwango em. university students’ perspectives on an english-only language policy in higher education. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1189. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1189 original research university students’ perspectives on an english-only language policy in higher education sizakele a. ngidi, elliot m. mncwango received: 19 dec. 2021; accepted: 03 june 2022; published: 01 nov. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the study aimed to determine students’ perspectives on a shift from a dual-medium (english and afrikaans) language policy to a monolingual (english-only) language policy at a university of technology in south africa and to establish whether the shift had any impact on student learning at the institution. the study used a quantitative method of inquiry, with a questionnaire used for data collection. the findings revealed that language-related challenges vary amongst students, and these can be categorised as low, medium and high language learning problems. the article concludes that the language policy shift does not reflect the multilingual nature of the c ountry, student demographics or their language needs at the institution. instead of addressing the real challenge facing the majority of students who speak sesotho, it merely dropped a second medium of instruction (moi), afrikaans, instead of developing a dominant indigenous language (sesotho) for educational use alongside english and afrikaans. transdisciplinarity contribution: the article lays bare the access paradox in higher education owing to the misalignment between the country’s progressive language policies and learning institutions’ language policies. the students’ perspectives bring a much-needed dimension to the ongoing debate on the use of the learners’ home languages as languages of learning and teaching. keywords: language policy shift; english; indigenous languages; monolingual language policy; language rights. introduction when apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, new laws and policies regarding education in south africa came into effect. in education, one of the major changes was the change in language policy, as prescribed in section 27 (2) of the higher education act of south africa.1 under the act, the language policy for higher education was introduced in 2002. the act noted that: ‘[t]he role of language and access to language skills is critical to ensure the right of individuals to realise their full potential to participate and contribute to the social, cultural, intellectual, economic, academic and political life of south african society.’2 (p. 10) however, the reality is that the majority of indigenous languages have been and still are marginalised, which does not promote multilingualism. myers-scotton3 found that speaking more than one language in one conversation in one day is the rule rather than the exception in africa. therefore, universities, like other educational institutions, are expected to reflect this diversity in their language policies. this would accommodate students who must struggle with english as a medium of instruction (moi) and yet are expected to compete against those whose first language (l1) is english. the insistence on english moi at south african universities undermines the right of the majority of black students to receive tuition in their home language (hl), a right enjoyed by english l1 students. this makes learning an uphill battle for second language (l2) speakers of english, especially those from rural areas where exposure to the language is limited. as banda4 puts it: ‘[a]ny model that champions a single language as language of instruction would not be in sync with the linguistic situation and the frame of social networks of language usage in africa.’ (p. 5) therefore, in promoting multilingualism, institutions in different regions in south africa ought to formulate their policies in line with the guidelines contained in the policy framework, considering their regional circumstances and the needs and preferences of communities, as stated in the constitution.5 the university of technology, where the research was conducted, was established in 1981 as a technikon, and it catered for afrikaans and english-speaking students only, using a dual-medium policy (afrikaans and english). in 2004, during the restructuring by the government, its technikon status was elevated to that of a university of technology. following the restructuring, in 2009 the institution’s language policy shifted in favour of an english-only moi. the authors argue in this article that, whilst the language policy shift at the university of technology was intended to accommodate black students who were in the majority, according to the institution, dropping afrikaans was of no consequence in achieving this objective, as its continued presence as a second moi presented no barrier to learning for black students unless they were compelled to learn through the language, which was not the case. the argument is that there is merit in developing a majority indigenous language, like sesotho in this case, as another possible language of learning. this would mitigate the learning challenges presented by l2 instruction to the majority of students who speak an indigenous language as their hl. aim and objectives the objective of the study was to evaluate students’ perspectives on the university of technology’s shift from a dual-medium language policy (english and afrikaans) to a monolingual (english-only) language policy and to establish whether the shift had any impact on their learning. the study sought to answer the following questions: what are the students’ perspectives regarding the language policy shift? did the language policy shift have any impact on student learning? literature review the hegemony of english in higher education in south africa english has dominated and continues to dominate as an moi both in basic education (be) and in higher education (he), thereby affecting the majority of learners who speak it as l2, especially those from schools where exposure to the language is limited to the classroom.6 ruiz7 is of the opinion that language touches on many aspects of social life and also found that linguistic discrimination is tantamount to discrimination in other aspects of social life touched by language. banga and suri8 support this view, claiming that ‘the limit of my language is the limit of my world’. language rights issues date back to the 1976 protest against instruction in afrikaans, which went down in history as a catastrophe that was unparalleled. as some of the highlights in this regard, webb9 mentions the large number of complaints submitted to pansalb about the perceived violation of language rights and the establishment of a committee for marginalised languages. according to kamwangamalu,10 one of the reasons in favour of the english language policy is that indigenous languages were subjected to years of discrimination of mother tongue education. roodt11 opines that the design of a proper language policy and framework for the development of multilingualism is defeated by the fact that south africa seems to be in favour of an english language policy. the evidence of this is that to date, a paucity of universities in south africa offer tuition in indigenous languages in some of their programmes, whilst the rest only offer indigenous languages as elective modules or as major subjects within degree programmes that are offered mainly in english, with others offering some of their modules in indigenous languages. this practice is in contrast with section 29(2) of the bill of rights,12 which stipulates that everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public education at institutions where the education is reasonably practicable. the ‘reasonably practicable’ part of the section is problematic in that educational institutions simply invoke it to cover their reluctance to implement its stipulations. mutasa13 agrees that african languages appear to be under siege in tertiary institutions in spite of the commitment demonstrated by universities in their language policies. this clearly indicates that in south african universities, english is still a dominant language, and so far, it does not have competition. the role of language in education the role played by language in a person’s self-esteem cannot be underscored enough. language is at the centre of teaching and learning, as every student wants to access education, to succeed and (most importantly) to be able to compete favourably against other graduates. manyike and lemmer14 have observed that the majority of learners whose hl is not the moi continue to experience academic underachievement as hl education is largely ignored by the education authorities in spite of rhetoric to the contrary. the question then becomes: how should language policies be formulated, and what will it take to implement them successfully to ensure that every student can access education without there being a language barrier to their learning? in may 2018, a move by the north-west university to change its language policy from afrikaans to english moi at its potchefstroom campus was met with resistance from afrikaans-speaking students who preferred afrikaans, whilst non-afrikaans students preferred english, and the university decided to invite students ‘to sign a petition to express their language preferences before the matter is taken to a full council for ratification and approval’.15 interestingly, the language policy matter was confined to the choice between the two languages, without opening it up to discuss other alternatives, given that there were majority languages as well at the institution. preference for english in this case, therefore, should not be misconstrued – it is merely a better choice, especially for students who come from schools where afrikaans is not offered even as a subject. several south african universities in the country are grappling with language-related protests, some of which turn violent. these, according to mavunga,16 are attributable to the unity amongst different student formations that are affiliated with different political parties. although it is not possible to determine the reasons why the south african government allows non-implementation of the country’s constitutional language stipulation in official places, including institutions of higher learning, five types of reasons for poor language management in south africa have been distinguished by mwaniki.17 these are political and bureaucratic factors, economic factors, sociolinguistic factors, theoretical factors and cultural factors. however, even where good language policies exist, they lack implementation, as observed by mncwango.18 mother tongue instruction for a long time, issues of language in education have been raised because of poor performance of learners, especially in contexts where the language of learning and teaching (lolt) is not the learners’ hl. learner competence in the language of instruction is key to the learner’s success, as incomprehension of learning materials inevitably leads to failure in most cases. as spolsky19 puts it, ‘[i]t must be obvious to all that incomprehensible education is immoral’. stoop20 has attributed poor school performance and other literacy difficulties to a lack of mother-tongue education, as most learners in south africa learn through a l2 medium, english, in most schools and institutions of higher learning. learning in one’s hl not only removes the learning barrier presented by l2 instruction but also increases participation and engagement.21 whilst hl instruction is advocated by authors such as alexander22 for early childhood, hay23 is of the view that hl instruction should continue for as long as possible, as it is associated with high academic achievement. this is in line with bourdieu’s24 argument that language is a capital which, if learners lack it, may result in them (learners) being constrained or even silenced by specific expectations of discourse. methodology a quantitative approach was used. data were collected quantitatively using a questionnaire as a tool for data collection from students. kabir25 recommends the use of quantitative methods as they produce results that are ‘easy to summarize, compare, and generalize’. the first section of the questionnaire (section a) consisted of the biographical information of the respondents (gender, age, year of study, hl and faculty), whilst the second section (section b) consisted of items on language-related learning challenges (speaking problems (items 1–8), listening problems (items 9–15), reading problems (items 16–21) and writing problems (items 22–28). with regard to section b of the questionnaire, a likert scale with four response alternatives or categories was used, namely: strongly agree (sa), agree (a), disagree (d) and strongly disagree (sd). ngidi26 has identified two major advantages of such four categories. firstly, they have been tested in many different situations and have worked successfully. secondly, they have a wide applicability because they can fit almost any subject matter. a total of 480 students participated. these were drawn from all the four faculties: a, b, c and d (see table 1 – findings) for a complete distribution. table 1: biographical variables and students’ language learning problems. a stratified random sampling design was used to select students as participants for this study. according to acharya et al.,27 in stratified random sampling, data are divided into various subgroups (strata) showing common characteristics. as the purpose was to draw a manageable stratified sample of 480 students using equal allocation, 120 students were selected from each of the four faculties, resulting in a total sample of 480 student participants. fox, hunn and mathers28 suggest an approximate sample size of 384 in a population of 500 000; therefore, 480 was deemed appropriate for this study. the idea of a sample size is, however, downplayed by noordzij et al.29 as just an insignificant consideration as the random selection of participants on its own ensures representativeness. ethical considerations ethical clearance was applied for and granted by the university of the free state’s ethics committee (ref. no. ufs-hsd2015/0671). the purpose of the study was explained to the student respondents before the study could be conducted. participants’ rights were explained fully, and all the participants were assured that they would remain anonymous. all sources consulted were acknowledged and referenced accordingly. results and discussion table 1 shows that there are three groups of students that emerged: (1) a low language learning problem level (lllpl) group, (2) a moderate language learning problem level (mllpl) group and (3) a high language learning problem level (hllpl) group. the results above show that there were only 3.75% of students in the lllpl group and that these were all speakers of indigenous languages (without breaking them down into language groups). amongst those in the mllpl group, 63.75% were speakers of indigenous languages; 10.63% were afrikaans-speaking and 3.75% were english-speaking, and amongst those in the hllpl group, 11.87% were speakers of indigenous languages, 4.38% were afrikaans-speaking and 1.88% were english-speaking. these findings confirm that the university of technology is dominated by black students, with sesotho being the language of the majority, and that language learning problems vary amongst students who speak indigenous languages. the finding that some students are in the lllpl group may be because of the support that is provided to those who are l2 speakers of english through the academic language proficiency course that is compulsory to all first-year students. this is possible because academic literacy, which encompasses reading, writing, listening and speaking, has been determined in studies to be a main reason for success or lack of academic success. a study by van dyk et al.30 found that many students are inadequately equipped to engage successfully in the academic discourse. another study by butler and van dyk31 had found that tertiary education students struggle to cope with the demands placed on them in terms of reading and writing expectations for coursework. in fact, most of these demands are presented by instruction in a language other than the students’ hl. there may be a misconception that prolonged exposure to a language of instruction may result in the mastery of the language and subsequent disappearance of discomfort presented by it. this, however, does not mean unanimity amongst speakers of other languages, including indigenous languages, that hl is a panacea for all learning challenges either. alexander32 notes that black people had and continued to mistrust the value of hl education that they associated with tenets of bantu education. by accommodating black students in the english moi, the institution merely offered them a better alternative to afrikaans, as most students were not familiar with the language (according to the institution), but this does not fully address the challenges presented by academic instruction in a student’s l2. introducing the majority students’ hl as a lolt would ensure that students enjoy the right to learn in a language that they understand better, on the one hand, and also ensure that the institution complies with the language policy framework for public higher education institutions,33 on the other hand. merely dropping afrikaans in order to accommodate black students in the english medium does not do much to resolve language problems at the institution, but merely takes away the right of students who prefer tuition in afrikaans, a right also enshrined in the bill of rights,12 without addressing the main language issue that the institution is faced with. as seen in the results, 10.63% and 4.38% of afrikaans-speaking students were in the mllpl and hllpl groups, respectively, which shows that the shift in language policy adversely affected them as well. in fact, the existence of afrikaans as an moi alongside english presented no challenges to the students for whom it was not compulsory. a better option for the institution would have been to add to the two mois (english and afrikaans) a majority indigenous language to mitigate the learning challenges presented by l2 instruction, especially to the majority of black students, a group that has always been marginalised. such a change in the institution’s language policy would address the real needs of students and ensure that the language of instruction ceases to be a barrier to their learning. conclusion the objectives of the article were to determine students’ perspectives on the university of technology’s shift from a dual-medium (english and afrikaans) language policy to a monolingual (english-only) language policy and to establish whether the shift had any impact on their (students’) learning. although students’ perspectives varied to some degree, perhaps, in line with the language learning challenges that they experience, it was found that a monolingual language policy is no solution to the language barrier at the institution. the multilingual nature of the country (although institutions of higher learning also attract students from other countries) needs to be reflected in and accommodated by policies of academic institutions. this would resolve issues of access and success in he whilst addressing injustice at the same time by ensuring that indigenous languages also have a role to play in the education of the majority of marginalised speakers of these languages who may prefer to learn through them. acknowledgements no other author contributed to the paper. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contribution s.a.n. was responsible for the study’s conceptualisation, investigation, methodology, project administration and funding. e.m.m. was responsible for the original draft, review and editing. funding information funding was received from the national institute for humanities & social sciences (ref. no. sds14/1053). data availability data were collected for a bigger project and stored safely. this paper is only part of the project. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references republic of south africa. higher education act 101 of 1997. pretoria: government printer; 1997. republic of south africa. department of education. language policy for higher education. pretoria: government printer; 2002. myers-scotton c. duelling languages. new york, ny: oxford university press; 1993. banda f. critical perspectives on language planning and policy in africa: accounting for the notion of multilingualism. stellenbosch pap linguist plus. 2009;38:1–11. https://doi.org/10.5842/38-0-50 republic of south africa. department of education. 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oktober 2006, wnnr-konferensiesentrum, lynnwood, pretoria. die simposium is geopen deur dr. willem cruywagen, die voorsitter van die erfenisstiging se direksie. hy het die nagenoeg 150 simposiumgangers daarop gewys dat dit noodsaaklik geword het dat die afrikanergesinde ook moet kennis neem van ander bevolkingsgroepe se kulture en hul sieninge en interpretasie van historiese gebeure . dit beteken nie noodwendig dat die afrikanergesinde sy eie sieninge moet prysgee nie. die eerste referaat is gelewer deur dr. jan visagie, (stellenbosch), waarin hy na enkele perspektiewe op die oorsprong en oorsake van die groot trek verwys het. hierna het prof. h.c. (jatti) bredekamp (hub iziko museums) ’n terugblik gegee ten opsigte van die slawevrystellingskwessie en die groot trek. prof. marius swart (port elizabeth) het ’n referaat van die gebeure in natal voor die slag van bloedrivier, insluitende die bestaan en impak van die retief-dingane-traktaat, gelewer. hy het hoofsaaklik die afrikanerperspektief gestel. dr. jackie grobler (up) het ’n oorsig van die verloop van die slag van bloedrivier gegee waarin hy hoofsaaklik die afkikanerperspektief gegee het, maar aangesien prof. mathenjwa, voorsitter van die voortrekkermuseumraad (pmb), nie vir die simposium opgedaag het nie het hy ook oorsigtelik verwys na die zulu-perspektiek oor die aanloop tot en slag van bloedrivier, en die verloop en gevolge van die slag. td: die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider afrika, vol. 2 nr. 2, desember 2006, pp. 509 512. 510 na middagete het prof. piet strauss (uovs) gepraat oor die aflegging van die gelofte; inhoud en bindingskrag daarvan en oor die saak rakende goddelike ingryping tydens die slag. dr. j. jacobs (direktoraat pta), krygshistorikus het gewys op hoedanig strategiese en taktiese beslissings die slag van bloedrivier bepaal het. me alana bailey, (sa vereniging vir kultuurgeskiedenis), het insigte weergegee waarin sy verwys het na hoe en deur wie geloftedag deur die jare gevier is. sy het veral ook verwys na die anderskleuriges se benadering. saterdagoggend het die dekaan van die fakulteit krygskunde (us) by saldanha, prof. edna van harte in die plek van dr. wally serote (freedom park trust), ’n referaat gelewer oor die plek van 16 desember as deel van ons nasionale erfenis, en veral gewys op versoening wat bewerkstellig moet word. mnr. flip buys (solidariteit) het verwys na die deelname van verskillende groepe aan die nasiebouen versoeningsaktiwiteite en redes gegee waarom gesamentlike deelname nie spontaan plaasvind nie. hy het dit onomwonde gestel dat die huidige regering in die geskiedenis sal moet verantwoording doen deurdat hulle dikwels nie demokraties optree teenoor minderheidsgroepe in die land nie. hierna het verskeie jongmense, skoliere sowel as studente, hul indrukke gegee van die jeug se sieninge rakende die groot trek en die slag van bloedrivier. hulle bydrae was baie positief deur die simposiumgangers ontvang. na afloop van die simposium het generaal gert opperman hoof uitvoerende beampte, voortrekkermonument of erfenisstigting, indrukke rakende die simposium sy indrukke van die samesprekings weergegee.1 na my mening is die volgende aspekte waarna opperman verwys het van belang. 1. dat daar nie noodwendig konsensus oor alle aspekte bereik is nie, maar dat die simposium nietemin allerweë as ’n uiters tydige en suksesvolle simposium beskou is. 2. opperman beweer dat dit inderdaad die bedoeling was dat daar tydens die simposium van verskillende sieninge kennis geneem sou word, dat verskille genoteer kon word, dit deurgepraat kon word, en, waar nodig, wedersydse vasklou aan mites en dwalings uitgewys kon word. daarom is dit baie jammer dat van die swart sprekers op ’n baie laat stadium onttrek het en ook nie hulle 1 hierdie inligting is hoofsaaklik verkry van ’n dokument wat van generaal gert opperman ontvang is na afloop van die simposium. konferensieen simposiumresensies 511 referate vir voordrag beskikbaar gestel het nie. hulle teenwoordigheid en deelname sou waarskynlik nog groter legitimiteit en relevansie aan die simposium verleen het. aspekte waaroor daar volgens opperman wel redelike konsensus tydens die simposium verkry is, is onder andere; 1. dat daar in ’n land soos suid-afrika, wat ’n groot verskeidenheid kultuurgroepe verteenwoordig, ’n verskeidenheid van interpretasies en weergawes van ons geskiedenis sal wees. 2. daar moet altyd binne die geskiedskrywing ruimte gelaat word vir verskillende perspektiewe. behoorlike navorsing, wat aan die basiese beginsels van die historiese metode voldoen, moet die grondslag hiervan wees. hierdie perspektiewe moet egter altyd volgens die korrekte tydgees beoordeel word. opperman wys tereg daarop dat daar tydens die besprekingsessies gedurende die simposium groot klem daarop gelê is dat daarteen gewaak moet word dat persone met hul eie agendas nie die geskiedenis vir eie gewin probeer rekonstrueer nie en dat oordrewe, ongefundeerde regstellende sieninge, nie op ’n ongegronde wyse tot selfs groter verdraaiings en onwaarhede lei nie. 3. bestaande paradigmas moet aan die hand van nuwe feite en perspektiewe getoets word. dit is egter baie belangrik dat dit deel van ’n voortdurende proses moet wees. eie standpunte moet aangepas word en waar nodig moet meer standpunte, ook in eie geledere, geakkommodeer word. opperman beklemtoon dat daar by die skryf van die geskiedenis van die groot trek reg moet geskied aan alle groepe en is van mening dat die gees van samewerking wat in piet retief se manifes voorkom, opnuut aandag verdien. hy wys ook daarop dat retief se manifes ’n belangrike dokument vir versoening verteenwoordig. 4. ’n volgende aspek wat na my mening baie belangrik is, en waarna opperman ook verwys, is dat gebeure in die konteks van die tyd beoordeel moet word. om huidiglik, na afloop van meer as 170 jaar, die hedendaagse norme (byvoorbeeld t.o.v menseregte) in isolasie en buite verband te gebruik vir die beoordeling van die destydse situasie, sal nie realisties en billik wees nie. opperman wys daarop dat daar nietemin gepoog moet word om sodanige gebeure in die hede te kontekstualiseer. sodoende kan ’n sinvolle projeksie gemaak word van hoe daar in die toekoms te werk gegaan behoort te word. hy beklemtoon dat die opkomende geslagte ’n deurslaggewende rol hierin sal moet vertolk. 5. ’n volgende belangrike konsensuspunt wat bereik is en waarna opperman tereg verwys, is dat in die beoordeling van die gebeure rakende die slag van bloedrivier ons moet aanvaar dat daar beide konferensieen simposiumresensies td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 509 512. 512 ’n objektiewe (feitelike) en subjektiewe (persepsiële en geloofskomponent teenwoordig is. die eerste kan aan die hand van wetenskaplike navorsing redelik bewys word. die kwessie van goddelike ingryping kan op geloofsgronde aanvaar word maar dit kan beswaarlik op menslike grondslag bewys of op ander afgedwing word. daarteenoor is dit die goeie reg van almal wat dit in die geloof aanvaar en daarmee wil assosieer, om dit ook in die praktyk só te betuig en te gedenk. 6. opperman verwys na kolonel jakes jacobs se aanbieding en is korrek in sy siening dat benewens die kwessie van moontlike goddelike ingryping, daar ook goeie gronde is om die uitslag van die slag van bloedrivier aan die hand van normale krygsnorme te verduidelik, waaronder die keuse van die slagveld, die gebruik van meerderwaardige wapentuig, vuurkrag en beweeglikheid, die staat van sielkundige voorbereiding, gesindheid, dissipline en geduld van die opponerende gevegsmagte en die effek van klimatologiese toestande ens. 7. daar is in die verlede misbruik gemaak van dingaansen geloftefeeste om ander doeleindes te bereik, maar ons moet waak om foute van die verlede nie te herhaal nie. dit is aanvaarbaar dat die herdenking van 16 desember as ’n sabbatdag gevier word, mits dit op die beginsel van vrywillige deelname geskied. dit mag ook ’n dag wees waartydens daar gewerk word aan nasiebou en versoeningsaktiwiteite. politieke en ideologiese motiewe mag egter nooit ter sprake wees nie, aangesien daar dan eerder spanning en onverdraagsaamheid bewerkstellig sal word. 8. nasiebou moet konstruktief nagestreef word en daar moet voortdurend pogings aangewend moet word om versoening te bewerkstellig tot voordeel van opkomende geslagte. 9. die jeug se bydrae is van kardinale belang en hulle sal met oortuiging en entoesiasme moet deel raak van hul eie geskiedenis. 10. by die simposium kon daar nie tot ’n finale slotsom gekom word nie aangesien daar deurgaans met ’n voortgesette en dinamiese proses gewerk word. verdere besinning en dialoog is noodsaaklik in die toekoms. die simposium was tog ’n belangrike stap in die regte rigting. konferensieen simposiumresensies abstract introduction context literature review research objectives methodology results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) progress hove-sibanda department of transport economics and logistics management, north-west university, south africa kin sibanda department of economics, university of fort hare, south africa peter mukarumbwa department of agricultural economics and extension, university of fort hare, south africa citation hove-sibanda, p., sibanda, k. & mukarumbwa, p., 2018, ‘greening up in logistics: managerial perceptions of small and medium-sized enterprises on sustainability in zimbabwe’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a559. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.559 original research greening up in logistics: managerial perceptions of small and medium-sized enterprises on sustainability in zimbabwe progress hove-sibanda, kin sibanda, peter mukarumbwa received: 07 mar. 2018; accepted: 01 aug. 2018; published: 27 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract ‘sustainability’ and ‘going green’ have become buzzwords in today’s business world. in logistics, greening up in a sustainable way in the future suggests the need to identify innovative measures that go beyond merely reducing carbon emissions. the purpose of this article was to explore managerial perceptions on green logistics barriers, applications and the importance of green logistics in zimbabwean small and medium-sized enterprises (smes). a qualitative research approach that utilised semi-structured interviews to collect data from five sme managers and one government official was used. using a thematic deductive line-by-line content analysis approach, this article principally found that internal barriers such as costs, lack of resources and knowledge are major barriers impeding the adoption and application of green logistics in zimbabwean smes. poor infrastructure and roads were reported to be the common external barriers of green logistics adoption in smes. the article also found that most of the participant smes in zimbabwe were not yet applying green logistics, although some were striving towards practising packaging optimisation, warehousing, inventory management optimisation, along with transport optimisation and efficiency (particularly, route optimisation and fuel efficiency). from the themes, the study found that green logistics is important to the few environmentally conscious smes. the importance of green logistics identified were the creation of brand loyalty, good brand image, the possibility of attracting government support, cost saving, as well as improving the firm’s profitability in the long run. conclusions were drawn and recommendations to both firms and government were made. introduction given the highly competitive environment that companies now operate in, green logistics issues have become important for the sustainability of enterprises (chhabra, garg & singh 2018; el-berishy, rügge & scholz-reiter 2013; ubeda, arcelus & faulin 2011; xuezhong, linlin & chengbo 2011). such issues are even more paramount to small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) because their viability is constantly threatened by fierce competition from sizeable corporate entities. however, studies focusing on green logistics, particularly in the case of smes, are limited. according to srivastava (2007) studies in green logistics only started gaining prominence in the literature as an important economic and social subject in the 1990s. this emanated from environmental regulations as well as consumer demands that emerged in the early 1990s, prompting companies to attach an environmental component to their supply chain management (srivastava 2007; wu & dunn 1995). environmental issues are intertwined with logistical decisions leading to complexities in supply chain processes, such as transport planning, sourcing of raw material, modal selection and location inter alia (ebinger, goldbach & schneidewind 2006; wu & dunn 1995). since then numerous attempts have been made towards examining green logistics using different theories and perspectives. nevertheless, there is a dearth of literature on case studies in general and specifically those that scrutinise the importance of green logistics focusing on managerial perceptions of smes. studies that connect logistical issues such as packaging, distribution, procurement and reserve logistics to averting environmental harm are present, yet literature that specifically captures theoretical concepts of green logistics management is scarce (lai & wong 2012). therefore, according to chhabra et al. (2018) green logistics research is still in its initial stages, particularly in zimbabwe. meanwhile, the discourse on environmental damages emanating from increased industrial activities has gained momentum in the international arena (economy & lieberthal 2007; kolk & pinkse 2008). thus, the importance of green logistics management for averting environmental harm springing from manufacturing products and distribution activities has become more urgent because of globalisation (chhabra et al. 2018; dekker, bloemhof & mallidis 2012; lai & wong 2012). the implementation of green logistics management is regarded as an opportunity by manufacturing companies to align their operations to international good practices on resource conservation and to attain environmental profitability (abduaziz et al. 2015; jedliński 2014; lai & wong 2012). moreover, interest from companies, government and the general public in adopting green logistics is increasing because of the fact that traditional logistics are failing to satisfy the needs of modern society, resulting in massive environmental impacts (denisa & zdenka 2015; seroka-stolka 2014). hence, new ways need to be found to overcome these environmental challenges and to attain the desired goal of market competition. the need to attain an economic competitive advantage in the global market places pressure on companies to operate in a more efficient and effective manner (speranza 2018). this view is true particularly for smes because of their need to remain viable, expand and withstand competition from large companies through taking advantage of business opportunities and harnessing technological advances. adoption of green logistics is envisaged as one way that can offer such sustainability and provide smes with positive business reputations (denisa & zdenka 2015; mangla, kumar & barua 2015). consequently, benefits accruing from implementing green practices by smes can lead to increased market share and ultimately higher profits (chhabra et al. 2018; rao & holt 2005; šatanová & sedliačiková 2014). enterprises with managers who support green logistics are deemed to be more ‘proactive and eco-innovative’ (seroka-stolka 2016). additionally, these companies tend to have a competitive advantage and attain a leading role in their businesses (seroka-stolka 2016). however, in the smes’ logistics processes the development of environmental issues is still viewed as being in the preliminary stages. moreover, within the zimbabwean context, little is known about managerial perceptions on green logistics particularly in the sme fraternity. from the foregoing, it is not surprising that in 2016, zimbabwe’s logistics performance index was ranked at 151 out of 160 countries (arvis et al. 2016). the draft strengthening national capacity for climate change report (2013) revealed that the transport sector emitted 12% of greenhouse gases in 2013 (which was expected to grow with time as the sector grew). the same report also called for: ‘… transport policies to be amended to encourage low-carbon transport, for the redefinition of emissions standards for vehicles, for strengthening capacity to monitor and measure vehicle emissions and to enforce emissions standards, for promotion of vehicle maintenance and for the promotion of ‘cleaner’ fuels such as ethanol and natural gas’. (government of zimbabwe ministry of environment, water and climate 2018: 115) in september 2017, zimbabwe’s minister of energy, samuel undenge changed the cap from 500 parts per million to a cap of: ‘50 parts per million maximum sulfur content in diesel fuel which is in line with the country’s national energy policy in terms of reducing vehicle emissions and improving air quality’. (ministry of energy and power development, national energy policy 2017: 11) the changes were to apply as from 01 november 2017. whilst all these caps and modifications continue to be made to policy, the main problem in zimbabwe lies with the efficacy in implementation and enforcement of these policies, such as the national energy policy, along with the environmental management act (ema). further, the ema is not as visible in urban areas as it is in rural regions. as such, a detailed study is warranted on the barriers that hinder green logistics in urban smes, as well as the application and importance of green logistics. small and medium-sized enterprises play a vital role in the economic development of many countries around the world, and the situation is no different for zimbabwe. however, definitions for smes differ from country to country (huang, tan & ding 2015; makanyeza & dzvuke 2015). small and medium-sized enterprises in this study refers to any formal or informal small and medium enterprise concerned with any economic business activity employing fewer than 100 employees on a full-time basis (small enterprise development cooperation 2011). this study uses sanchez and lafuente’s (2010:736–737) definition of ‘environmental consciousness’, which refers to the ‘expression of feelings’ by sme owners or managers ‘of their moral obligation combined with their willingness along with their capability to protect the environment’. in other words, environmentally conscious sme owners or managers proactively concern themselves with their willingness and ability to protect and improve the environment in all their day-to-day running of the business and in all logistics activities. on the one hand, environmentally conscious sme owners or managers are concerned with attaining a differential competitive advantage through going green in all logistics and business activities. on the other hand, cost-conscious sme owners or managers assume a rather passive role when it comes to protecting the environment because they prefer to externalise the responsibility and cost to improve the environment. their concern is primarily on achieving cost advantages by minimising operational costs, and they are unwilling to pay for any extra costs, especially when it comes to going green in logistics activities. small and medium-sized enterprises contribute significantly to the zimbabwean economy, accounting for approximately 90% of employment (makanyeza & dzvuke 2015; manyani et al. 2014). it is estimated that smes contribute towards 60% of carbon dioxide and 70% of all industrial pollution globally (parker, redmond & simpson 2009). nevertheless, because smes mainly perceive themselves as causing negligible environmental impacts in relation to large firms, they generally lag behind in the adoption of sustainability as an important issue (battisti & perry 2011; masurel 2007). hence, most smes focus on daily survival, which trumps the adoption of green practices (ashton, russell & futch 2017). however, because of the large number of sme firms in zimbabwe and the pivotal influence that they exert on the environment, attention needs to be paid to their impact. hence, smes are highly significant in green logistics as they cause extensive environmental degradation. currently, literature on large companies and green logistics is beginning to emerge, yet little is known about smes and green logistics globally and specifically in zimbabwe. minimal studies focusing on smes and green logistics have been undertaken (see, e.g., denisa & zdenka 2015; huang et al. 2015; piaralal et al. 2015). this scarcity in research concentrating on the adoption of green practices by smes warrants undertaking such an analysis. the rest of the article is structured as follows. firstly, it provides the context of the study and then provides a review of the relevant literature explaining the adoption of green logistics. this is followed by research objectives. following the research objectives is a discussion pertaining to the qualitative research approach used in this study. this is followed by the presentation of results of the survey. finally, conclusions and policy implications are offered. context green logistics and management of small and medium-sized enterprises in zimbabwe literature on sme adoption of green logistics in zimbabwe is limited. however, deficiencies in the managerial skills of smes in zimbabwe have been attributed as one of the factors derailing the successful embracement of green logistics in operations. numerous scholars support the notion that smes in zimbabwe lack basic managerial functions such as leading, planning, organising and controlling (dumbu & chadamoyo 2012; karedza et al. 2014; musanzikwa 2014). additionally, another facet considered deficient is financial management. these scholars have noted that most smes in zimbabwe fail to adhere to professional and commercial practices in business management operations. for example, manual, rather than electronic, accounting records are maintained. such constraints lead to poor performance and stifle the growth of smes in the country. notwithstanding these challenges, the government through the small enterprise development corporation has created initiatives that aim to develop the human capital base among smes that are specifically targeted at owners or managers (chigwenya & mudzengerere 2013). a wide range of courses such as management, cooperative governance, record keeping, production skills and stock taking are offered. affiliations have also been created by the zimbabwean government between the standards association of zimbabwe and smes to try and assure the competitiveness and quality of goods produced by smes. it should however be noted that these efforts are still in their infancy and as a result not many smes have yet managed to tap into and benefit from these initiatives. furthermore, aspects specifically focused on equipping sme managers with environmental management techniques (such as green logistics) are presently minimal to non-existent. this is exacerbated by the fact that smes in zimbabwe generally lack appreciation for green management as a branding tool (chigora & zvavahera 2015). moreover, in a study carried out among tourism smes in gweru by nyahunzvi (2014), results revealed that smes lacked formal environmental policies and that managers had limited awareness regarding green logistics. sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises in zimbabwe many smes in zimbabwe exhibit limited business sustainability and upward mobility. this situation emanates from unfriendly regulation and policy environments, the harsh macroeconomic domain as well as poor managerial skills. as such, the majority of smes in zimbabwe are categorised as being in a survivalist business mode (research continental-fonkom and finmark trust 2012). using a sample of 282 sme employees (obtained from harare), chinomona and dhurup (2014) found a positive association between the quality of work life and job commitment, employee job satisfaction and ultimately tenure intention. it is envisaged that green logistics can assist sme sustainability in zimbabwe by increasing employee job commitment, job satisfaction and tenure. the majority of smes in zimbabwe operate in working conditions that are far below government-stipulated safety standards (chinomona et al. 2010). this both threatens viability and dampens employee morale and job satisfaction. failure to adopt appropriate technologies (such as green logistics) was identified by chipangura (2012) as one of the major factors constraining sme growth in zimbabwe. again, the sustainability of smes in zimbabwe is threatened by financial exclusion and the cumbersome process of obtaining licences and permits. similarly, product and organisational innovation were also found to have a positive bearing on sme development in zimbabwe (makanyeza & dzvuke 2015). against this backdrop, it is suggested that the adoption of green management practices by zimbabwe’s smes can go a long way towards enhancing sustainable development. furthermore, the training of sme managers and other employees on green logistics can be an important focal point towards improving sustainability. literature review green logistics can be viewed as one of the most important subcomponents of green supply chain activities (zaman & shamsuddin 2017). recently it has taken centre stage because of the need to expand to new markets, globalisation, customer demands and market competition (isaksson et al. 2011). green logistics is still regarded as a relatively new concept and its meaning is ever evolving. there are numerous definitions of the concept of green logistics, with many variations. green logistics is defined as the study of practices that endeavour to attain a sustainable balance between environmental, economic and social objectives by decreasing environmental externalities such as noise and accidents, as well as greenhouse gas emissions (chhabra et al. 2018; dekker et al. 2012; zhang & zhao 2012). sustainability development can only be attained in a business if a balance is achieved between these three components, as illustrated in figure 1. the diagram shows the interaction between different factors and that sustainability can only be attained in the middle as a common result. figure 1: relationship between green logistics and socio-economic environmental factors. according to chang and qin (2008), ‘green logistics’ is geared towards reducing environmental harm by undertaking activities such as implementing current logistics techniques and planning and controlling the flow of logistics. this flow must satisfy customer needs and reduce environmental damage. thus, green logistics entail the capability of an institution to offer products and services that both attain economic efficiency and are environmentally friendly (chhabra et al. 2018). ‘green logistics’ can also refer to the ability of an organisation to meet the social needs of ecological preservation through increased work efficiency, decreasing waste and conserving resources (lai & wong 2012). hence, green logistics concentrate on reducing environmental hazards such as noise, accidents and greenhouse gas emissions (chhabra et al. 2018). sbihi and eglese (2010) add to this dimension by defining green logistics as a sustainable way to produce and distribute products and services, taking into consideration social and environmental factors. despite these variations there seems to be a general consensus that green logistics is mainly concerned with business activities that minimise costs whilst upholding environmental, social and economic goals. as a result, from a business perspective, if adopted by smes the benefits that can accrue are numerous. relationship between green logistics and sustainability enterprises are driven to adopt green practices by various factors, which include, but are not limited to, increasing competitive advantage, enhancing customer relationships and reducing business costs (el-berishy et al. 2013). hence, sustainable development can only be achieved if there is a balance between the environment, society and the economy as illustrated in figure 1. green logistics enable coordination of activities so that a balance is attained by enterprises between the three priorities of environmental, economic and social concerns (jedliński 2014). therefore, implementation of green logistics enables enterprises to become sustainable. sustainability is concerned with smes being able to operate profitably in the long run. thus, sustainable economic growth can be achieved through environmentally friendly use of renewable resources and proper management of natural resources to attain business objectives using green technologies (jedliński 2014). challenges and barriers in implementation of green logistics by small and medium-sized enterprises perceptions and responses of managers towards green logistics initiatives occupy an important role in enterprise environmental policies (seroka-stolka 2016). managers who lack commitment to taking up green logistics practices will resultantly observe such behaviour being transmitted to employees, thus also discouraging workers from implementing these initiatives (seroka-stolka 2016). therefore, a lack of managerial support concerning the adoption of green logistics can be one of the major implementation challenges facing smes. additionally, denisa and zdenka (2015) offer the following as some of the main barriers that hinder smes from successfully implementing green logistic activities, based on a study conducted in slovakia: finance and economic factors customers who are unwilling to pay for green logistic initiatives and whose requirements are not clear. the above factors are also supported by the findings of chan (2008), who identified that managers who lacked the following act as barriers to implementation of green logistics practices: knowledge and skills professional advice resources. these findings were based on an exploratory analysis from a sample of 83 hotel managers. nevertheless, to the authors’ best knowledge empirical studies that specifically focus on barriers to implementation of green logistics by smes in zimbabwe are minimal to non-existent. notwithstanding the aforementioned challenges, pressure has recently been mounting for smes to implement ethical codes, which can enhance the surrounding business environment (šatanová & sedliačiková 2014). according to denisa and zdenka (2015), as well as seroka-stolka (2016), for smes to attain environmental sustainability, green logistics initiatives need to be factored into corporate strategies earlier on, which might enable implementation towards the whole enterprise. equally important, the development of green logistics in enterprises requires that managers actively promote international organisation for standardization (iso) 14000 international standards (zhang & zhao 2012). research findings from chinese logistics companies reiterated the importance of state legal regulations, human resource quality and organisational support in positively influencing the adoption of green practices (lin & ho 2010). similarly, compliance with iso 14001 standards, which are recognised worldwide, is regarded as one of the drivers for the adoption of green practices within enterprises (diabat & govindan 2011; hasan & chan 2014; seroka-stolka 2016). for example, huang et al. (2015) stated that chinese manufacturing smes are increasingly under pressure from both local and foreign customers to comply with iso 14001 standards. ultimately, this will improve products and services offered. more importantly, human resource development regarding green logistics at all sme levels needs to be a top priority. this can assist smes in obtaining a competitive advantage, gaining customer loyalty and satisfying corporate needs (denisa & zdenka 2015). environmental legislative framework of small and medium-sized enterprises in zimbabwe environmental regulatory legislations are important if enterprise products are to withstand competition in markets that are regulated (gunasekaran, lai & edwin cheng 2008; lai & wong 2012). such environmental regulatory legislation, enacted by both local and international bodies, is mainly aimed at controlling environmental damages emanating from company activities such as production, transportation and disposal of the product (lai & wong 2012). zimbabwe enforces environmental sustainability for the activities of both large firms and smes through the ema (chapter 20:27) (parliament of zimbabwe 2002). thus, for example, all smes involved in projects that are categorised as first schedule under the ema (chapter 20:27), namely ore processing, housing development and mining, are required to conduct an environmental impact assessment (eia). an eia is a process that assists in identifying environmental impacts of a development project and clearly outlines measures to mitigate these negative effects during the project’s life cycle. thus firms, regardless of size, are obliged to work in accordance with the ema statutes, which are aligned with the iso statutes that encourage enterprises to go green. however, as noted earlier the problem in zimbabwe mostly lies with enforcement of the ema. further, the ema is not as visible in urban areas compared to rural regions. this therefore justifies the need for a detailed study on the barriers that hinder green logistics in urban smes, the application of and the importance of green logistics. research objectives this article explored the following: small and medium-sized enterprises’ managerial perceptions as well as their opinions on barriers that hinder adoption and implementation of green logistics activities managerial perceptions on the green logistics activities practised, if any, by smes in zimbabwe managerial perceptions of smes on the importance of green logistics in zimbabwe. to the authors’ best knowledge, no such study has yet been undertaken in zimbabwe. hence, the findings of this study will assist in expanding the literature on the subject matter as well as policymaking on decreasing the environmental impact from logistical activities of smes in the country. methodology this study followed a qualitative research approach, as this enabled the researchers to aptly seek answers to research questions posed through examining the various social settings (the zimbabwean sme sector) and the perceptions of managers who occupy the sme sector in zimbabwe. more specifically, the qualitative research methodology permitted the researchers to explore managerial perceptions and gain insight into the barriers of green logistics, the application of green logistics activities among zimbabwean smes and the importance of green logistics to the smes’ clients. the current study thus tapped into the strengths of qualitative research such as naturalism, flexibility of use and the fact that findings are more reliable, though this comes with the shortfall of non-generalisability of results obtained (cooper & schindler 2006; kumar 2011). data according to maree (2016): sample sizes in qualitative research depends [sic] on what the researcher(s) wants to know, the purpose of the inquiry, what is at stake, what will be useful, what will have credibility, and what can be done with available time and resources. (p. 84) maree (2016) further stipulates that for homogeneous samples, eight participants will yield credible results, provided that the saturation point has been reached. previous qualitative studies on green logistics such as that by göransson, gustafsson and lindbergh (2014), as well as hijaz et al. (2015), used sample sizes of five and six, respectively, with both studies yielding credible results. in the current study, initially, 20 smes in the logistics industry based in the chegutu and harare urban areas were contacted by email and telephonically to schedule interview appointments. however, only 10 of these smes responded favourably and allowed for interviews to be scheduled. two of these smes thereafter cancelled the scheduled interviews for business-related reasons. all in all, five sme managers and one government official were interviewed. this is because after evaluating the data collection process, it was recognised that the saturation point was reached for the smes at the fifth interview. thus, at this point (i.e. at interview number 5) it was perceived that there was nothing new or significant that could be obtained from orchestrating any further interviews with the remaining sme managers. however, an additional interview with a government official was then conducted to ensure credibility and trustworthiness of the collected data from the smes. as shown in table 1, interviewees comprised sme managers (five in total). experience ranged from 6 to 15 years, whilst educational qualifications were in agriculture, agricultural business, auto-mechanics, marketing and economics. the lowest qualification discerned was a national certificate, with the highest being a master of commerce. as shown in table 1, the sme managers interviewed all possessed more than 5 years of experience and held post-secondary school qualifications. this suggests all the interviewees selected were both competent and fit for the purposes of this study. table 1: small and medium-sized enterprises and interviewee profile. data collection and interviewing data in this study was collected through semi-structured interviews. using semi-structured interviews enabled the right balance between uniformity in questions asked (which ensured that there was order during all interviews) and freedom for the interviewer and interviewee (creswell 2014). further, as argued by creswell (2009, 2014), using semi-structured interviews enabled exploration of green logistics issues in smes, a problem that is fairly new, particularly in zimbabwe, where less research has been conducted in this regard. on average, the interviews took 30–45 min each and were carried out in english. an interview guide was created with open-ended questions structured into three main categories: (1) green logistics barriers; (2) green logistics activities application; and (3) importance of green logistics. where necessary, additional (follow-up) questions were asked, especially when it was realised that the responses given were too vague for discerning what the interviewee’s intended reply was. before each interview, each sme was thoroughly researched. this enabled the assurance of quality in the data collected. consent to record the interviews from each interviewee was also sought. notes were taken during interviews to supplement and complement transcribed texts. transcribing all the interviews were recorded and transcribed. in cases where notes and the transcribed text were too vague, raised questions or posed the possibility of misinterpretation, interviewees were contacted for clarity by either email or telephone. data analysis a thematic, deductive, line-by-line content analysis approach was followed to analyse data in this study. the data analysis was in four stages. firstly, themes derived from previous relevant literature on green logistics were created. as earlier noted, three main themes were created, namely barriers to green logistics, green logistics activities application and the importance of green logistics. secondly, because a deductive approach to analyse data was followed, the transcribed interview text was separated into sentences and paragraphs. this allowed for a line-by-line content analysis of the data. thirdly, each sentence or paragraph was allocated a close code from the list of themes derived from literature. because a word document was utilised, different colours were used to highlight the various themes accordingly. for instance, for the green logistics barriers the following was used: bright green = costs; red = lack of knowledge on green logistics; yellow = red tape or absence of a green logistics framework or legislation to enforce compliance; pink = lack of resources; blue = technological challenges; grey = lack of political will; teal = poor infrastructure or poor roads; violet = customers’ unwillingness to pay for green activities; and turquoise = lack of incentives. this was followed by cutting and pasting all the quotes for each theme and bringing them together. in this fourth stage, the themes and subthemes that emerged were examined, with the aim of assessing how each of these subthemes and themes related to one another. this process was repeated and checked for new emerging themes. it was at this stage that network diagrams were used to show the hierarchical relationships between the different ideas, themes and emerging subthemes. use of a radial or spider diagram was also incorporated to show how each item or topic (barrier) linked to the central item (green logistics barriers among smes). verification, credibility and trustworthiness to ensure authenticity, credibility and trustworthiness of the results in this study, interviewees were consulted during member checking (maree 2016). specifically, the interviewees were asked to read and review the draft of the transcribed text and the first draft of the report, so that they could further elaborate on, change or confirm the analysis conducted. further, to ensure credibility and dependability of the results, a government official who works with smes and environmental issues was interviewed and corroborated the responses obtained from the smes. results and discussion the findings in this study are presented in three sections, as informed by the research objectives: barriers to green logistics in smes, green logistics activities application and the importance of green logistics. barriers to green logistics in small and medium-sized enterprises the first objective in this article sought to ascertain the managerial perceptions on the barriers that hinder the adoption and application of green logistics activities in zimbabwe. to achieve this objective, the following question was asked: from a managerial point of view, what barriers hinder smes from adopting and applying green logistics in zimbabwe? despite the economic role played by smes in zimbabwe, particularly through job creation and poverty alleviation, such entities still lag behind when it comes to environmental consciousness in activities. figures 2 and 3 present the barriers inhibiting smes in zimbabwe from adopting and applying green logistic activities in the day-to-day running of businesses. figure 2: a green logistics barrier web diagram. figure 3: a hierarchical analysis of green logistics barriers. figure 3 provides a hierarchical analysis of these barriers. as shown in figure 3, analysis of the logistics barriers resulted in two subcategories, namely key and secondary barriers. these were further subdivided into major internal barriers, common internal and external barriers, as well as other secondary internal and external barriers to green logistics in smes. most of the interviewees (four sme managers and one government official) unequivocally and strongly emphasised that costs, ranging from investment costs to operating and certification costs (key internal barriers), were a major hindrance in the adoption and application of green logistics in business activities. in addition, half (three out of six) of the interviewees cited lack of resources, lack of knowledge on green logistics and its importance, along with technology challenges, as common internal barriers. poor infrastructure was cited as a common external barrier to green logistics application in smes. one male small firm manager, with eight years of experience in the logistics industry, specifically stated: ‘poor infrastructure and very poor roads are a major hindrance. bad roads result in low speed, more fuel consumption and increased logistics costs’. another male interviewed product medium firm manager with six years of experience in the logistics industry further elaborated: ‘most roads in zimbabwe are in a bad state, currently full of potholes and motorists are forced to drive at slower speed. this results in higher fuel consumption and high carbon emissions into the environment. at this rate, transportation can only concern themselves about the operational costs such as maintaining the damaged vehicles and fuel costs, while ignoring the need to go green’. (participant 3, male, 52 years old, product manager) in a way, costs are a key barrier to green logistics application caused by poor infrastructure or roads. thus, in line with the above quotes, poor roads lead to fuel inefficiency and traffic congestion because of low speeds, which ultimately leads to higher carbon emissions. of the three subcategories of green logistics barriers, the barriers least cited by the sme managers interviewed included other secondary internal barriers (the absence of a green logistics framework) and external barriers (namely, red tape, no legislation to enforce compliance, no incentives, no political will and customers’ unwillingness to pay extra costs for greening up). these findings corroborate previous studies such as those by chan (2008), göransson et al. (2014), denisa and zdenka (2015), as well as piaralal et al. (2015), who found investment costs, customers’ priorities and unwillingness to pay extra to be the barriers to green logistics in firms. application of green logistics activities the second objective in this article sought to explore managerial perceptions on the green logistics activities, if any, practised by smes in zimbabwe. to achieve this objective, the following questions were asked: from a managerial point of view, do smes apply any green logistics activities? if so, why? if not, why? and which logistics activities are practised in these smes? tables 2 and 3 present the findings on whether green logistics activities are applied by smes in daily operations and the specific green logistics being applied. table 2: application and reasons for green logistics application in small and medium-sized enterprises. table 3: green logistics activities practised by zimbabwean small and medium-sized enterprises. as shown in table 2, green logistics is not yet applied by most zimbabwean smes. from the responses given by the sme managers interviewed, one thing is clear: there are those that are not yet applying it, whilst there are some sme managers that are not sure if their firms are indeed applying green logistics. for instance, two of the sme managers interviewed stated: ‘green logistics is not really applied in their firms’. such responses could mean that these managers were not sure whether green logistics activities were applied in their firm; they could mean that these managers were not directly involved with the operations incorporating green logistics; it could be that their firms were at an advanced stage of planning to apply them or that the firm was not aware of what green logistics was all about. from the interviews conducted, one of the reasons given by a male auto-mechanic, who has managed a small firm for the past 15 years in the logistics industry, to support the response provided was: ‘uhmm … i have mixed feelings about this. most of us are not well educated about green logistics and what good it can bring to our businesses. you know what, though some might be aware of green logistics but they are without a sound understanding of the concept and its benefits’. (participant 4, male, 40 years old, auto-mechanic) given the economic hardships in zimbabwe, the chances are that even the government’s priorities are on other issues that could help improve the financial crisis, which explains the laxity when it comes to emphasising and enforcing the environmental responsibilities of firms, irrespective of their size. after having consulted literature on some of the green logistics activities applied by firms and comparing it with the actual meaning of green logistics, sme managers included in the study then were asked about the activities currently applied in their firm. the activities were grouped into transport optimisation and efficiency (which consisted of the following sub-activities: fuel efficiency, route optimisation, load optimisation, measuring and reducing carbon emissions), reverse logistics, packaging optimisation, procurement, warehousing and inventory management (see tables 3 and 4). as shown in tables 3 and 4, some of the smes are striving towards practising green logistics, particularly in transport route optimisation and fuel efficiency, as well as optimisation of packaging, warehousing and inventory management. table 4: green logistics activities practised. most of the sme managers interviewed believed that reverse logistics was not practised and half of these felt that little or no effort was put towards load optimisation nor towards measuring and reducing carbon emissions. for instance, one male medium firm product manager who holds a postgraduate qualification in economics, with six years of experience in the logistics industry, pointed out: ‘no, we are not yet practising green logistics. as we speak there are still old model cars that are allowed to make unnecessary trips, more often these vehicles are usually overloaded, which pollutes the environment the more and consumes more fuel. most companies do not service their vehicles’. (participant 3, male, 52 years old, product manager) from this it can be deduced that indeed load optimisation, fuel efficiency, along with measuring and reducing carbon emissions, are still not practised. another male marketing manager of a medium-sized logistics firm with 10 years of experience in the logistics industry stated: ‘well, as i have earlier said, due to economic hardships companies are cutting costs and compromising on green activities. some companies, for instance, are using cheaper fuels, unsustainable packaging, and their waste management is very poor. i think we have a very long way to go before companies could fully implement green logistics’. (participant 1, male, 37 years old, marketing manager) likewise, a male, auto-mechanic by profession, small firm manager with 15 years of experience in the logistics industry also stated: ‘you see, some companies might be striving to comply with most of these activities, but carbon emission measurement might not be applied in most companies if not all due to lack of the proper technology and its cost implications’. (participant 4, male, 40 years old, auto-mechanic) from the two preceding quotes, it seems smes are blaming lagging behind in green logistics implementation on economic hardships, lack of proper technology and the cost implications thereof. this makes sense, given that in 2016 the logistics performance index ranked zimbabwe 151 out of 160 countries (arvis et al. 2016). this alone indicates that zimbabwean companies are lagging behind in terms of various logistical aspects. given that green logistics is a fairly new concept, countries that are poor performers, such as zimbabwe, are expected to be found still lagging behind in this regard. the importance of green logistics the last objective in this article sought to ascertain the managerial perceptions of smes on the importance of green logistics in zimbabwe. to achieve this objective, the interviewees were asked the following questions: of what importance is green logistics to you and your clients? why? figure 4 provides a hierarchical analysis of the importance of green logistics. figure 4: a hierarchical analysis of the importance of green logistics. as can be discerned from figure 4, green logistics is important to the few elite who understand it. however, to the majority, green logistics is regarded as ‘not important’. two subcategories emerged from the responses given by the interviewees: (1) the environmentally conscious and (2) the cost-conscious. the cost-conscious believe that green logistics is not important as it tends to increase extra and unnecessary costs and that the technology and cleaner fuels required may increase operational costs. as one male small firm manager, with an agricultural business qualification, who has six years of experience in the logistics industry opined: ‘green logistics is not important. the larger scale firms in logistics are also not doing enough. they are also part of the companies who procure second-hand vehicles from japan, which increases the carbon emission levels. rarely can you find a company in zimbabwe that goes for cleaner fuels such as the jatrofa, as they claim that jatrofa is too weak for their vehicles’. (participant 2, male, 36 years old, manager). taking into consideration the above quote, it is possible to state that the reason cleaner fuels are perceived to be weak, and increasing costs, is because vehicles are not well maintained and most are old, second-hand vehicles. moreover, considering that the roads in zimbabwe are in a very poor state, the cost-conscious are bound to view green logistics as an unnecessary cost, and as attracting the free rider problem. in other words, to the cost-conscious, companies are not willing to incur the expense of going green but want to enjoy the benefits at the expense of the few who are environmentally conscious. this defeats the whole purpose of going green in logistics. cost-conscious firms believe that the economic hardships experienced in the country are the root cause of the negative light in which green logistics are viewed. contrary to what cost-conscious firms believe, envi-ronmentally conscious firms are of the view that green logistics is important both in the short and long-term. key to note is the fact that environmentally conscious firms believe that green logistics application can create brand loyalty among clients. this will lead to the creation of a good brand image for environmentally conscious firms, which can ultimately attract government support, serve as a cost-saver and improve profits in the long run. in other words, cost saving is not a priority to environmentally conscious firms. rather, a competitive advantage lies in caring for the environment. as such, cost saving is just an added advantage. conclusion the current study explored managerial perceptions on the major themes and barriers that hinder smes from adopting and applying green logistics, the application of green logistics activities and the importance of green logistics to smes and clients. the major conclusion of this article is that costs, lack of resources and knowledge are the key internal barriers, whilst poor infrastructure and roads are common external barriers to green logistics adoption by smes in zimbabwe. the article also concluded that whilst most smes are not yet applying green logistics activities, there are some that are striving towards practising packaging optimisation, warehousing, inventory management optimisation, along with transport optimisation and efficiency (particularly route optimisation and fuel efficiency). the study further concludes that the creation of brand loyalty, good brand image, the possibility of attracting government support and cost saving, as well as improving the firm’s profitability in the long run, constitute the importance of green logistics to the few environmentally conscious smes. recommendations in light of the above findings and conclusions, this article recommends the following: to the zimbabwean firms (small and medium-sized enterprises) in order to mitigate the barriers to green logistics adoptions, the smes need to: provide education and training: firms should send employees to formal and informal courses to keep abreast of best practices of green logistics implemented by other companies globally. benchmarking is still an effective tool. firms also need to see what other companies are excelling at and challenge themselves to improve in such areas, especially green transportation. in order for the smes to appreciate the benefits and importance of green logistics, smes need to: cultivate an organisational culture of going green conduct awareness campaigns that reveal the environmental importance and benefits of green logistics. in order for green logistics practices to evolve further in zimbabwe, the smes need to: go green in terms of all logistical activities, regardless of firm size. firms should be encouraged to procure vehicles that use cleaner fuels, such as jatrofa, a tried-and-tested, cleaner fuel in zimbabwe. firms also need to be well informed on the benefits of using cleaner fuels. this will help reduce carbon emissions and even cut down on the costs in the long run because jatrofa fuel is relatively cheaper. small and medium-sized enterprises are also advised to avoid buying second-hand vehicles, as these tend to do more harm than good to the environment. additionally, firms also need to maintain vehicles better and get these serviced frequently. firms should use recommended load size for vehicles properly, use shorter routes, use experienced drivers and cut down on unnecessary trips. small and medium-sized enterprises need to cut down on the number of trips by ensuring that no half-load trips are made but instead come up with ways to encourage full-load trips, whilst finding alternative routes and using jatrofa, as it is a cleaner yet cost-effective fuel available in zimbabwe. firms should also avoid overloading vehicles, as this leads to increased carbon emissions. firms need to use disposable and reusable packaging. develop a green logistics framework that can serve as a guideline in green logistics application in the firm. form collaborations and long-term partnerships with larger firms that are already implementing green logistics activities successfully, be it locally or globally. companies should have internal policies that emphasise green logistics at every angle and should not think in the short term as this will discourage entities from going green. instead, companies should reflect on the long-term benefits that they stand to gain should green logistic activities be implemented. further, companies should incorporate green logistics in policies and goals as part of corporate social responsibilities. engage all stakeholders: there is need for an all-stakeholder engagement from the suppliers, manufacturers, transporters, retailers down to the final customer. to the zimbabwean government in order for green logistics to evolve further in zimbabwe, the government of zimbabwe needs to: benchmark: the government should benchmark and constantly revise environmental laws and also enforce these in the form of fines to the non-compliant. although benchmarking is currently administered, perhaps as a once-off thing, there is need for the government to constantly benchmark with the best-performing countries across the globe and to revise laws respectively. incentivise: the government needs to incentivise those who comply and punish offenders for green logistics to be a success. precisely, the government should cut taxes and provide tax breaks to firms that comply with green logistics as an incentive. in addition, the government should also subsidise and have education programmes (be they formal or informal) on green logistics. enforce green logistics policies: based on the findings of this study, the enforcement of policies in zimbabwe appears to be problematic. as such, there is a need to ensure that green logistics policies in place are effectively enforced. for instance, the zimbabwean government can start with enforcing the scrapping of old second-hand gasoline cars. this will help the country to reduce emissions. whilst infrastructural differences are acknowledged, it is still imperative that the zimbabwean government enforce the scrapping of old gasoline cars and perhaps shift the cut-off year to 2000. this will complement the recent cap of 50 parts per million for diesel placed by the zimbabwean minister of energy. acknowledgements the authors wish to thank the govan mbeki research development centre, university of fort hare and the north-west university research department for financial assistance. they would like to extend a word of appreciation to all the participants in this study for availing themselves and for all their contributions. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions p.h.s., k.s. and p.m. contributed equally to this work. p.h.s., k.s. and p.m. conceptualised and designed the study. p.h.s. and k.s. 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transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 287 296. reincarnation of winds of change in africa: an african union impotence? ep ababio1 abstract the emergence of african states as independent by 1970 had brought hope and expectations to nationals that the winds of change were to be equated with good life and freedom. yet, no sooner had political freedom been gained than expectations turned elusive. the causes were bad political governance that soon burdened many states, military interventions of one-party states, abuse of rule of law, mass corruption and nations disintegrating. also, the quest for freedom and dignity was not helped by a continental union that focused solely on political liberation of africa and ignored any concerted effort towards integration and promotion of socio-economic lives of people. this article examines the political tremors that had engulfed some states in africa and the resultant intervention by foreign powers. it is argued, that a major cause of the political ruffle in tunisia, the cote d’ivoire, egypt and libya had been the inability of the african union to be pro-active in enforcing norms of good governance among member-states through its inspecting agency, the african peer review. the apparent political paralysis is therefore a function of an african union impotence that needs to be resolved underlying the tremors are issues of democracy, good governance, and public service reform for which a theoretical discourse is engaged. key words: african union, democracy, governance, revolution, impotence. aprm, civil war disciplines: public management, african studies, political studies introduction in 1960, no less than 22 african states were granted independence by the british and french colonial masters. this sweeping event prompted the then british prime minister, harold mcmillan to warn the then apartheid south african government, in a scathing speech in parliament in cape town, with the euphemistic expression, “the winds of change” are sweeping across africa. the winds of change, together with the political thoughts of pan africanists kwame nkrumah, modibo keita, nnamdi azikiwe, and haile sellasie, amongst others, precipitated 1 . professor ernest p ababio, is the subject head for public management and administration, northwest university (vaal), ernest.ababio@nwu.ac.za ababio 288 the founding of the continental union, the organization of african unity (oau) in may 1963. the prime objective of the oau was the political liberation of africa, an objective that ignored any concerted effort towards nation-building and promotion of socio-economic lives of africans. sixty years after harold mcmillan, winds of change have resurfaced in africa, not against former colonial bourgeoisie, but in different forms namely, popular uprising by the mass to overthrow despotic leaders. at the heart of the reincarnation of the winds of change are issues of democracy and governance. democracy and governance democracy as a concept appears elusive in definition, yet specific issues that the concept embodies can be identified. tenets of a developed, democratic state involve the existence of a system with freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly, as is the right to stand for office, a free press and a secret ballot. further, these tenets are strengthened by the presence of a credible opposition, pluralism based on a strong civil society, a strong economy, and a distinction between the state and the ruling party (thomson, 2000: 216-218). such tenets as outlined are a function of good governance which is equally a multi-faceted concept outlined as follows (maserumule 2005: 194-212): • the act or manner of governing, of exercising control or authority over the actions of subjects; • the use of political authority and exercise of control in society in relation to the management of resources for social and economic development; • the use of political, economic and administrative authority and resources to manage affairs of a nation; and • the acquisition of and accountability for the application of political authority to the direction of public affairs and management of public resources. currently the concept good governance has become very popular and its definition varies from one organisation (or people) to the other (agere 2000: 3). good governance is a social management process, which could maximise the public interest, that is, what policies improve majority of the populace (hanekom, 1987: 53). the substantive characteristic of good governance is that it is a co-management of public life operated by both government and citizens, and establishes a new relationship between government and civil society (yuanfang et al 2009: 1) for the purpose of this article governance is seen as the acquisition of political power by a political party through democratic process and the judicious allocation of resources for the improved well-being of a citizenry. the lack of these governance ingredients, which the au has not been able to pro-actively promote, is the heart of the reincarnated winds of change in some african states. achieving these democratic tenets in developing states is a function of public service reform, which is the reason for the establishment of the african peer review mechanism (aprm). yet, almost a decade after its inception, graca machel, a prominent member of the aprm, laments the “worrisome trend of coups d’état and post-election conflicts in africa” (machel 2009: 10). these, together with issues such as limited membership, tend to prompt the question: the aprm process – quo vadis? it is argued that the aprm is africa’s trump card for public service reform, yet, as will be explained later, its effectiveness varies positively with restructure in membership and of the aprm itself. reincarnation of winds of change in africa td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 287 296. 289 the concept of public service reform public service reform as a concept may be seen as “a change in the direction of greater economic or political equality, and a broadening of participation in society and policy.”, and, in addition, as “the devolution of responsibilities away from centralized bureaucracy” (huttington, in kuye, 2006: 291). a common theme in these definitions is that a process of public service reform has as its objective the involvement of civil society in the art of government, and the enhancement of service delivery through devolution and decentralization. such is the summary of the mission of the aprm. analysis of the concept public service reform would involve the following functions, amongst others (mutahaba 2006: 274): • restructuring and rationalisation of government operations. • control of employment and size of the public service. • good governance. • decentralisation and local government. • privatization and private sector development. • legal/judicial service reform. • reforms related to improving performance of specific sectors the african peer review mechanism peer review refers to the systematic examination and assessment of the performance of a state by other states (peers), by designated institutions, or by a combination of states and designated institutions. thus, a number of intergovernmental and international organizations such as the european union, un bodies and the imf use peer review to monitor and assess national policies and performance in several sectors (hope, 2005: 290). in academia, peer review is undertaken when an editor of academic repute makes an initial assessment of the suitability of a paper for a journal and then sends it to a number of referees to adjudicate suitability for publication (kanbur, 2004: 158). the peer review process of africa, however, is largely political in that it covers the entire fabric of the functioning of governments. the african peer review mechanism (aprm) is an african-led innovation that represents a bold approach to reform for building capable states with enduring good governance and sustainable development. the aprm is designed to monitor and assess progress made by african countries in meeting their commitment toward achieving good governance, social reforms and sustainable development (hope, 2005: 289). it is an instrument voluntarily acceded to by member states of the african union as an african self-monitoring mechanism (though the voluntary membership notion is a weakness of the process). the mandate of the aprm is to ensure that the policies and practices of participating states conform to the agreed political, economic and corporate governance values, codes and standards contained in a declaration on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance (hope, 2005: 289). structural functioning of the aprm the overall responsibility for the aprm lies with the committee of participating heads of state and government of the member states of the aprm, titled the apr forum. the mandates of the apr forum are, amongst others (www.nepad.org), ababio 290 • appointing the apr panel of eminent persons, considering the country review reports, making appropriate recommendations to the reviewed countries and exercising constructive peer dialogue and persuasion; • ensuring that the apr process is fully funded; and • persuading development partners to provide technical and financial assistance to support the implementation of the programme of action of the reviewed countries. a further constructive process of engaging africa involves the composition of the review panel. a panel of eminent persons (apr panel) depicting regional and gender diversity is appointed by the heads of state to oversee the aprm process and ensure its integrity. the apr secretariat, which provides the secretarial, technical, co-ordinating and administrative support services for the aprm assist the apr panel. the aprm secretariat is currently housed in the secretariat of the new partnership for africa’s development (nepad) in midrand, south africa. the candidature of an apr panel member is dependent on criteria such as africans who have distinguished themselves in careers considered relevant to the work of the aprm, namely expertise in the areas of political governance, macro-economic management, public financial management and corporate governance. further, appointees should be persons of high moral stature and with demonstrated commitment to the ideals of pan africanism. thus, quality in candidature provides a strong basis for the aprm process. candidates for appointment are nominated by participating countries, short-listed by a committee of ministers and appointed by heads of state and governments of participating countries. the modus operandi of the aprm serves as a further strong need of the process. the panel exercises oversight functions over the review process, in particular to ensure the integrity of the process. the apr charter secures the independence, objectivity and integrity of the panel. the panel is supported by a competent secretariat that has the technical capacity to undertake the analytical work that underpins the peer review process and conforms to the principles of the aprm. the functions of the secretariat include maintenance of extensive database information on political and economic developments in all participating countries, preparation of background documents for the peer review teams, proposing performance indicators and tracking performance of individual countries (www.nepad.org). participation in the aprm is voluntary and open to all member states of the african union. as pointed out by kuye (2006: 292), voluntary participation departs from the principle of sovereignty of states and recognizes that a state cannot be compelled to follow any prescribed model of governance. instead, the aprm seeks to help willing countries improve governance as a precondition for integration and development, and acknowledges that each country is unique in terms of the socio-political, economic and cultural environment and that these selfcharacteristics should inform recommendations for improvement. what makes engagement by aprm quite constructive is that the mechanism of peer review is a non-adversarial and non-punitive process in which trust among participating countries is crucial for its success. the argument for voluntary participation is an anomaly. invariably the decision not to belong to the aprm process is a prerogative of a small elite of political bureaux in states whose agenda is the continued maintenance of policies that oppress the wider mass. it is submitted that states that belong to a common union must be reviewed under a common denominator. currently, thirty one countries have acceded by signing the memorandum of understanding. these are algeria, angola, benin, burkina faso, cameroon, djibouti, the republic of the congo, egypt, ethiopia, equatorial guinea gabon, mali, mauritania, mauritius, senegal, reincarnation of winds of change in africa td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 287 296. 291 tanzania, lesotho, sierra leone, malawi, ghana, kenya, liberia mozambique, nigeria, rwanda, sao tome & principe, togo, south africa, sudan, uganda and zambia. thus, as a clear departure from the mood and position of non-interference in 2000, about half of the african states sincerely open their governance systems for constructive territorial review. matrix for promoting public service reforms the aprm process involves scientifically worked-out objectives and stages. at the time of acceding to the peer review process, each state should clearly define a time-bound programme of action for implementing the declaration on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance, including periodic reviews. to facilitate the process, it has become a norm for reviewing a state to designate or create an institution as focal point for review. thus, ghana created a new ministry of regional co-operation and nepad, with former minister kk apraku in charge, and in south africa, the then president allocated minister geraldine fraser-moleketi of public service and administration with the coordinating responsibility for the aprm process (www.aprm.org.za). in an attempt to facilitate public service reform, the apr process involves four types of reviews (www.nepad.org): • the base review carried out within eighteen months of a country becoming a member of the aprm process; • a periodic review takes place every two to four years; • for its own reasons, a member country can ask for a review that is not part of the periodically mandated reviews; and • early signs of an impending political or economic crisis in a member country would also be sufficient cause for instituting a review. such a review can be called by participating heads of state and government “in a spirit of helpfulness” to the government concerned. the apr process involves specific stages. stage one entails a study of the political, economic and corporate governance and development environment in the country for review. the study is based on current documentation prepared by the aprm secretariat and material provided by national and international institutions. in stage two, the review team visits the country concerned to carry out the widest range of consultation with the government, officials, political parties, parliamentarians and representatives of civil society organizations including the media, academia, trade unions, business and professional bodies. in stage three, the team prepares its report, which is based on information from the secretariat and the consultation briefings held. the report is first given to the government for comment, giving it the opportunity to decide how the identified shortcomings may be addressed. stage four begins when the aprm secretariat submits the team’s report to the participating heads of state and government. after the fourth stage, participating heads continue to engage the reviewed state by means of assistance in the form of dialogue, technical advice and a collective intention to proceed with appropriate measures by a given date. six months after the report has been considered by participating heads of state and government, the report is tabled in key regional structures such as the pan african parliament and the peace and security council. this constitutes the fifth and final stage of the process. ababio 292 specific public service reforms in engaging a process of public service reform in africa, commonalities exist in states. further, a primary element of good governance that needs reform in africa is ensuring that citizens have a say in how they are governed (kuye, 2006: 291). consequently, mutahaba (2006:274) outlines the following commonalities for reform: • re-examination of the role of government, that is. what government should do and not do. • re-examination of the costs of running business of government • decentralisation and devolution of authority within a government. • consideration of more cost-effective ways of service delivery, including privatisation or corporatisation of activities. • partnership between the government and the private sector in providing services. the specific reforms that mark the peer review agenda follow key objectives in regard to, as outlined above. the key objective of the aprm process is to identify the extent of development or weaknesses in specific public service functions in the context of the four peer review areas. the key objectives for democracy and political governance, as rightly observed by maloka (2004: 10), draws strongly from the declaration on unconstitutional changes of government. the objectives are (www.aprm.org.za): • to prevent and reduce conflict within and between countries; • the consolidation of constitutional democracy that includes periodic political competition, the rule of law and the supremacy of the firm establishment of the constitution • upholding tenets of separation of powers including the protection of the independence of the judiciary and of an effective parliament; • ensuring accountable, efficient and effective public office holders and civil servants; • fighting corruption in the political arena; and • promotion and protection of the rights of vulnerable groups including women, children, the disabled and displaced persons. the above are essentially quality indices that promote democracy, accountability and, ultimately, good governance. the key objectives for economic governance and management include • promoting macroeconomic policies that support sustainable development; • implementing transparent, predictable and credible government economic policies; • promoting sound public finance management; • fighting corruption and money laundering; and • accelerating regional integration by participating in harmonization of monetary, trade and investment policies among participating states. as was pointed out earlier, a major factor in promoting and sustaining democracy is existence of a strong economy. the above objectives of the aprm are, therefore meant to fulfil that tenet and, by implication, as a way of promoting political stability in african states. equally laudable key objectives are outlined in the key areas of corporate governance and socioeconomic development. thus far, the matrix has been used to review seven states, reincarnation of winds of change in africa td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 287 296. 293 namely ghana, rwanda, kenya, south africa, algeria, benin and uganda (www.aprmdocuments) the winds of change between december 2010 and september 2011, there had been political crises in some african states mentioned earlier that had been engulfed in political rioting that led to regime change in respective states. such has been the case in tunisia, cote d’ivoire, egypt and in libya. the irony of governance is that in all these crises, resolution was by foreign power intervention, a situation which contradicts the charter of the au to resolve crises in africa by africans and which has exposed authority of the au to impotence. the tunisian revolution was an intensive campaign of civil resistance that began in december 2010 and led to the ousting of long time president zine el abidine ben ali in january 2011. the demonstrations were precipitated by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, a lack of freedom of speech and poor living conditions (cole 2011: 15) these give credence to the absence of democratic values espoused earlier and which could have been prevented had tunisia gone through the aprm process. the ivorian crises began after incumbent president laurent gbagbo claimed he had won elections, the first in 10 years! the opposition candidate, alassane ouattara, and a number of countries, organizations and leaders worldwide claimed that ouattara had won. after hectic violence and deaths, the au appointed former south african president thabo mbeki on 5 december 2010 as mediator. mbeki left the following day without a deal on 11 april 2011, gbagbo was captured by pro-ouattara forces, backed by french troops! (cohen, 2011: 1-16) the egyptian revolution began on 25 january 2011 and continued in the year. grievances of egyptian protesters focused on governance issues of legal and political matters namely: police brutality, state of emergency laws, lack of free elections and freedom of speech, uncontrollable corruption, high unemployment, food price inflation, and an end to the regime of hosni mubarak who had ruled egypt since 1981! (ashton, 2011: 1-41). like the tunisian crises, the egyptian revolt borders on issues of governance, which could have been pre-empted by a review by the aprm. the libyan civil war from 15 february marks a test of paralysis or strength of the au. president muammar gaddafi had been the ruler of libya since 1969, when he led a military coup that overthrew king idris 1. gaddafi’s governance style was nepotism, placing relatives and loyal tribe members in central military and government positions. despite a per capita income of $14878, 21% of libyans were unemployed; and one-third lived below poverty line. the popularity of the mass uprising had been demonstrated by its composition namely: teachers, students, lawyers, oil workers and a contingent of professional soldiers that defected from the libyan army ( lamb, 2011: 57-73). intervention in the libyan crisis for resolution had been by heavy foreign presence: of un security council resolutions, of nato operations by the usa, french, norway and italian bombings, and of the arab league suspension of libya for crimes against popular protesters. on the contrary, au intervention had been insignificant namely, of despatching president zuma of south africa to arrange a ceasefire (which didn’t materialise) and by constructed a veiled roadmap which had no impact, and which had to be amended to recognize the interim government of the protesters (rossouw 2011: 16). ababio 294 wither thou, the peer review process then? the catalogue of events outlined by the winds of change urgently requires that the au transform its agenda on issues of governance in africa by empowering the aprm. given the international experience with peer reviews, the aprm has the potential to provide a number of benefits to reviewed states (hope, 2005: 295). as african countries seek to improve their governance through public service reforms, the aprm provides the basis for policy changes to meet commitments and to observe the agreed upon standards and codes. the process facilitates the monitoring of compliance with agreements entered into, and states are much more inclined to comply within oversight functions of the aprm. african political history is replete with corruption and resultant disastrous effects of bad governance that precipitated coups d’état in states like ghana, nigeria and togo given such historical record, the review process represents a change in the thinking of african leaders and a major milestone in the political development of the continent. the south african government adds that the aprm country review will enhance efforts by south africa to meet challenges of the next decade, help build institutions involved in the promotion of democracy and relationships between these institutions and individuals, help address the challenges raised by the second economy and will help south africa’s efforts in job creation and improved service areas such as health, education, housing and other basic services (www.aprm.org.za). in addition, the peer review process lends credibility to africa at a time of growing donor dryness and deep external cynicism. more crucially, the aprm represents the legitimization of a reform process that wards off the external pressure that is usually associated with imposed conditions from external lending institutions (juma, 2004:178). an african union impotence? a number of factors tend to reduce the authority of the african union as a continental body. the issue of voluntary membership of the aprm stands tallest. .years after its inception, membership of the aprm comprises a meagre 55 per cent of african states. thus, while good governance is being relatively promoted in participating states, political and economic turmoil are potential in 45 per cent of the states. worse still is that a number of non-member states have authoritarian or totalitarian systems such as it was in libya. it was even more ironic that in 2009 the chair of the au, namely libya, was a nonmember, a situation that undermines the legitimacy and credibility of the process. this is an anomaly that suggests that membership of the aprm process can no longer be voluntary. the potential of the au to take charge of its affairs is constrained by financial incapacity as exposed by the following scenario (maru 2011: 12) • the eu, together with china and the usa are to contribute over r1billion to the au budget of 2011. • germany is to fund a new building for the peace and security council in addis ababa for r100million. • libya paid the dues of states like niger and togo; and often hosted the second au summit for the year, and wanted the au to formalise that tradition. • as pointed out by le roux (2009:25) the impotence of the au is further exposed by libya’s hand in oil production in several african states which gave libya virtual management control of the states. reincarnation of winds of change in africa td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 287 296. 295 the process for engagement needs further attention. currently, engagement by the forum of participating heads of state with a reviewed state occurs only at the fourth stage of the process. yet, political flashpoints abound in africa, particularly in non-participating states. there is an imperative need to include in the aprm process a group of elderly statesmen whose function would be timeous engagement with potentially troubled states to ameliorate tensions and incidences of underdevelopment. in africa, elderly statesmen of such reputable functional diplomatic experience include former un general secretary kofi annan in kenya, former south african president thabo mbeki in zimbabwe, former nigerian president olusegun obasanjo in the drc, and former mozambican president joachim chisano in madagascar. kuye and kakumba (2008:156-168) call them “political ombuds”. therefore, it is submitted that there is an urgent need to restructure the current establishment of the aprm for purposes of promoting proactive political and economic intervention in potentially troubled african states. such a restructured institution will be the african peer review ombuds (apro). conclusion the concern in the article is the apparent denial of some african citizenry of basic tenet of democracy and good governance that should lead to reform of public services. it is the lack of these that is at the heart of mass uprising and revolt in some states the promotion of such reforms, it was argued, could stem such political upheavals and put african states on the road to development. the institution for stability promotion is the inspection agency of the african union, the aprm. african states and leaders have welcomed the african peer review mechanism. the initiative holds much hope for promotion of political stability, economic growth and ultimate improved living standards. it is a worthwhile institution that can help promote and achieve the admonition by us president barack obama that “africa does not need strong men. it needs strong institutions” (pelser, 2009: 2). bibliography ashton c 2011. international reaction to egyptian protests www.reuters.com/article2011/01/29 retrieved 2011/08/18 african union (2004). african union in a nutshell. retrieved 24 july 2004 from www.africanunion.org agere s 2000. promoting good government: principles and perspectives. london: management and training service division of the commonwealth secretariat aprm south africa (2007). african peer review mechanism. retrieved 04 may 2007 from www.aprm.org.za aprm (2009). country reports. retrieved 21 september 2009 from www.aprm-documents. ababio 296 cohen m 2011. ivory coast ouattara presidency claim opposed by army. www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-11 cole j. 2011. tunisian uprising is a populist revolution www.democracynow.org/2011/1/18 hanekom, sx. 1987. public policy: framework and instrument for action. johannesburg: mcmillan hope, k.r. 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(2009). africa’s future is up to africans. city press, 12 july. rossouw m 2011. libya: sa, au u-turn driven by desire to reconstruct. city press 25 september thomson, a..(2000). an introduction to african politics. london: routledge. yuanfang p, lei x & ka w. 2009. the conceptual transformation from government to governance and its representations: a case study on the innovations in city management of ganzhou. http:/newurbanquestion.ifou.org/full papers/fo501 accessed 20110831. abstract introduction and background literature review materials and methods results and discussions conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) kaitano dube department of ecotourism management, faculty of human science, vaal university of technology, vanderbijlpark, south africa godwell nhamo institute of corporate citizenship, faculty of economic management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation dube, k. & nhamo, g., 2020, ‘tourism business operators’ perceptions, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change at victoria falls’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a778. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.778 original research tourism business operators’ perceptions, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change at victoria falls kaitano dube, godwell nhamo received: 30 oct. 2019; accepted: 27 may 2020; published: 27 july 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract climate change remains one of the biggest challenges facing the world today and is characterised by extreme weather events such as heatwaves, extreme droughts and floods. regardless of the threat posed by climate change to the tourism business, there are still gaps in tourism business perceptions and knowledge of climate change. this research investigated tourism business operators’ perceptions, knowledge and attitude towards climate change at victoria falls. in this study that took a multidisciplinary approach, primary data were gathered using an online questionpro survey instrument and interviews. the survey was administered door-to-door to the identified 122 potential tourism business operators and other key stakeholders. a sample of 77 completed surveys (a 63% response rate) was realised. the study found that there was a general understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change on the tourism business operators, even though the tourism industry was not taking full responsibility for its role in causing climate change. the respondents also cited challenges and barriers in dealing with climate change, including the lack of knowledge and finance, ignorance and a lack of technical capacity. climate change was deemed to have caused disruption in tourism activities at victoria falls because of reduced water flow levels at the waterfall and the destruction of tourism infrastructure during extreme weather events. the research recommended improvement in climate change knowledge, climate financing and build capacity to help the tourism industry meet both the sustainable development goals and commitments to the paris agreement. keywords: tourism business; perceptions; knowledge; climate change; victoria falls. introduction and background tourism is a significant economic sector globally and contributes to growth, employment and poverty reduction, especially in developing countries (seetanah 2011:291). however, there are fears that the tourism industry is constantly under threat from climate change (becken 2018:332). tourism and climate change have a two-way relationship where the tourism industry is dependent on ideal climate conditions to allow for certain tourist activities to take place. yet, tourism activities in the value chain result in harmful greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions that lead to climate change (dube & nhamo 2019a:5). most tourism activities would require an ideal temperature, certain wind conditions, cloud cover conditions and general fair-weather conditions. activities such as beach going and game drives would require sunny weather conditions to take place (georgopoulou et al. 2019:667; matthews, scott & andrey 2019:1). winter olympics, for example, would require sub-zero temperatures (scott et al. 2019:1301). of critical concern in recent years has been the contribution of tourism to climate change and, indeed, the vulnerability of many tourism activities and tourism properties to climate variability and change. scott (2011:17) argued that the tourism industry is ill-prepared to tackle the challenges posed by climate change, even though tourism is touted to have the most significant potential for climate change action in line with the dictates of sustainable development goal 13 (dube 2020:94). it is not clear why the tourism industry is lagging in meeting its climate change targets. this is particularly concerning as the industry’s perceptions and knowledge of climate change remain scant, especially in the global south, where research in this area is still growing. in recent years, few more perception studies have emerged to gauge how the various stakeholders understand climate change in this diverse industry with its many subsectors and role players. of note, in southern africa, the following studies focused on various tourism stakeholders. gössling et al. (2006:419) conducted a perception study on the impact of climate change on international travelling patterns. hambira et al. (2013:19) and mushawemhuka, rogerson and saarinen (2018:115) investigated nature-based tourism operators’ perceptions on climate change impact and climate change adaptation. on the contrary, hoogendoorn, grant and fitchett (2016:59) focused their perception study on the impact of climate change on two coastal areas of south africa. another perception study was conducted by pandy and rogerson (2018:104) focusing on tourism risk segments in south africa. dube et al. (2018:1) focused on tourist perceptions and how knowledge and attitudes shape travel and tourism behaviour in the okavango delta. regardless of the importance of perception studies, there are very few such studies in the diverse tourism industry (mushawemhuka et al. 2018:117). it is our view that perceptions studies are essential in the climate change debate, more so in the tourism industry where there is a two-way relationship as indicated herein. the perception studies are essential in gauging knowledge on climate change and to help in evaluating the success of various initiatives being taken by the industry and its subsectors in addressing it. mushawemhuka et al. (2018:118) argued that ‘tourism operators’ perceptions, preferences and decision-making has been noted as important in creating an understanding of how the tourism industry could aim to adapt to climate change impacts’. this view is also shared by hambira et al. (2013:19) and (becken 2013:55) who underscored the importance of perceptions studies in shaping policy, practice and knowledge of the impacts of climate change on the sector. byg and salick (2009) noted that: [i]n order to effectively address climate change impacts at the local scale and to enable the process of adaptation, it is necessary to address a combination of perceptions, local variations, moral and spiritual interpretations, and locally relevant solutions. (p. 156) pandy and rogerson (2018:104) reiterate that even though it is difficult for the tourism industry to conduct such studies, it will assist in informing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies into the future. given the two-way relationship between tourism and climate change, gómez, armesto and cors (2017:651) noted that perceptions and knowledge studies in the tourism climate space are important catalysts or barriers to climate action. this sentiment is also echoed by pandy (2017) who indicated that: [t]ourism-based perceptions remain a pivotal part of the decision-making process in the actions and plan surrounding adaptation to climate change. such studies have, however, come to be dominated by research in developed countries in the global north, with relatively few studies investigating the perceptions of tourism businesses in the african tourism developmental context. (p. 8) the tourism industry is often criticised for lacking the seriousness and technical capacity to tackle climate change and of being too focused on profit at the expense of the environment (scott, hall & gössling 2016b:13). although this may be true, it is critical to note that regardless of the increase in the quantity and even quality of research into climate change in the academic space, such knowledge and insights may not be trickling down to an industry where it is utilised for decision-making. therefore, this study examines tourism business operators and other role players’ perceptions, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change at the victoria falls in zimbabwe. literature review there is an increasing consciousness of the strong link between tourism development and climate change (byg & salick 2009:165). michailidou, vlachokostas and moussiopoulos (2016:1) pointed out that tourism is a victim and a perpetrator of climate change. tourism causes climate change through the emissions of ghgs. yet, tourism is also affected by the impact of climate change through extreme weather events resulting from the changing climate, as highlighted earlier. the tourism industry produces significant ghg emissions from the hospitality industry, mainly through heating and cooling. other significant ghg emissions are from the travel sector, which burns fossil fuels (dube & nhamo 2019a:5; tang, zhong & ng 2017:704). under the business-as-usual scenario, the 2005 levels of ghg (interchanged with carbon) emissions from the tourism industry are set to grow by 130% by the year 2035 (friedlingstein et al. 2014:711). this led some academics blaming tourism businesses for not doing enough to tackle climate change. fears are that such growth in carbon emissions will exacerbate global warming and, consequently, the climate change challenge. scott, hall and gössling (2016a:933) blame the growth in carbon emissions on the industry’s lack of transparency and seriousness in dealing with climate change. carbon emissions from the industry are expected to continuously increase at an annual rate of 3.2% compared with a required emission reduction of between 3% and 6% to achieve carbon-neutral growth (peeters & dubois 2010:447). such a trend could be attributed to several factors, amongst which is the lack of understanding of the dynamics of climate change (pandy 2017:3). gössling, scott and hall (2013:535) argued that the tourism sector is failing to monitor progress in its emissions targets, which makes it challenging to account or set industry targets. the growth in carbon emissions is worrying, given the evidence that the tourism industry is particularly sensitive and vulnerable to climate change. this is so, specifically in southern africa where the industry is mostly dependent on right environmental conditions and ecotourism (becken & wilson 2013:621; dube & nhamo 2018:113). extreme events, such as severe droughts, have been found to undermine ecosystem services disrupting wildlife tourism (dube & nhamo 2020a:8; mukwada & manatsa 2018:173). other extreme weather events driven by climate change (gössling et al. 2010:120), such as flooding, coastal inundation because of rising sea levels and severe rainfall events, have been found to damage tourism infrastructure and disrupt tourism activities and tourist movement globally (perry & morgan 2017:6; wilbanks, fernandez & allen 2015:7). in southern africa, there have been concerns about the impact of climate change-induced droughts, which has disrupted the water flow. this has diminished the aesthetic values of the waterfalls at the iconic victoria falls during years of increasing extreme droughts (dube & nhamo 2020b:41). in another study by dube and nhamo (2020c), drought emerged as having devastating effects on water-based tourism activities at the kariba dam. droughts resulted in power interruptions for hospitality establishments, which have turned kariba town into a ghost town during drought years. kilungu et al. (2017:375) and dube and nhamo (2020a:1) found that droughts and flooding were increasing costs of running the serengeti (kenya) and kruger (south africa) national parks, respectively. fitchett, grant and hoogendoorn (2016:112) noted that in the coastal eastern cape of south africa, fears of rising sea levels were worrying tourism property owners. snow tourism on mount kilimanjaro was also reported to be seriously under threat as global warming had caused severe snow declines which threatened slope stability, aesthetics and vegetation in the area (hemp 2005:1013; kilungu et al. 2019:235). materials and methods victoria falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and a united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco). it is also a ramsar convention site that is located between the north-western tip of zimbabwe and the southern border of zambia along the zambezi river. the victoria falls is an iconic global feature, which draws tourists from across the world. the rich biodiversity of this area has significant links with the tourist attractions of five different countries in the region, namely, angola, botswana, namibia, zambia and zimbabwe. this eco-sensitive region is under threat of climate change, which can undermine the tourism product (dube & nhamo 2019b:2027). the threat of increased incidence of climate change-induced droughts, reduced water flow along the zambezi river and increases in temperature are worrying from a tourism perspective (dube & nhamo 2019b:2027). a mixed-method approach was used in this case. the case study allowed space for users to study the real-life phenomenon in their context (norander & brandhorst 2017:117). a door-to-door questionnaire uploaded online on the questionpro platform was administered by the researchers targeting all tourism businesses operators in the resort town. the survey was conducted between april and december 2017. the researchers asked questions and completed the online survey tool that was developed before fieldwork. the questionnaire survey was administered using a tablet. other tourism role players such as tourism experts, traditional and political leadership, civic organisations, government agencies and the united nations (un) agencies formed part of the survey, as tabulated in figure 1. these critical stakeholders were involved because they provide a supportive role to the tourism industry, and some are involved in bylaws and climate policies that have a bearing on the tourism industry. questions centred around their observations on the impact of climate change and observed response of the industry as part of triangulation of data. participation in the research was voluntary and through informed consent. key informant-guided interviews were used to complement and triangulate data (marshall 1996:92). figure 1: respondents by sector (n = 77). the survey questionnaire was pretested with field experts in the community, and it was administered with internal consistency and inter-rater reliability of instrument scores (kimberlin & winterstein 2008:2277). the questionnaire comprised a mixture of 18 open and closed questions. the questions were on selected and relevant demographic aspects; questions which tested knowledge on climate change, perceptions of causes of climate change and the impact it has on victoria falls tourism products; and the outlook of tourism, considering the impact of climate change. the respondents were given a chance to reread the recorded response to ensure the credibility of the findings (noble & smith 2015:34). the researchers identified 122 potential respondents, which included 100 registered tourism businesses in victoria falls. forty-five respondents opted out during the survey, with 77 respondents realised as the final sample (63% response rate). the questionpro was used to analyse all questions. a total of 33 interviews were granted. interview data were transcribed and prepared for thematic analysis following the dictates of the qualitative data analysis. further analysis of data was done using microsoft excel analysis toolpak. ethical consideration ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the university of south africa (ethical clearance number: 2016/caes/107) on 04 november 2016. results and discussions this results section is divided into two main subsections. the first subsection covers the perceptions and attitudes of respondents towards climate change. the second subsection focuses on the perceived evidence and the impact of climate change on victoria falls. perceptions and attitudes towards climate change climate change concern is believed to be a factor of experience, beliefs and perceived knowledge and is a central predictor of action (prokopy et al. 2016:211; shi et al. 2016:759). as such, the respondents were asked to rank their level of concern regarding climate change. it emerged that most respondents were concerned about climate change (figure 2). an estimated 94% of the respondents were concerned about climate change to a certain extent, with only 6% indicating otherwise. the high levels of concern can be attributed to numerous extreme weather events such as droughts and increased incidences of heatwaves in the area over the past few years as observed by dube and nhamo (2019b:118). this means that most of the respondents are conscious of the challenges and unusual weather events attributed to climate change. the business community in the town believes that climate change is a real threat to the town’s way of life. as such, there is potential to translate that into climate action. figure 2: climate change level of concern (n = 77). in order to drive climate change action, it is imperative to review the views of the respondents regarding their perceptions of the causes of climate change. as such, the business community was asked to explain what they perceive to be the causes of climate change. it emerged that the majority of respondents (69%) believe that climate change is anthropogenically driven. the findings show that the opinion is much higher than compared with global statistics. according to schandl and walker (2017:1), only 46% of the global population believes that climate change is caused by human beings. the results from victoria falls may be attributed to the high levels of consciousness and concern for climate change as reported earlier. eighteen per cent of the respondents believe that climate change is a consequence of natural processes. most of those who indicated other causes (14%) believe that climate change is caused by a combination of human and natural processes. the understanding that climate change is caused by human activities is critical for ascertaining accountability, addressing climate change, and drafting adaptation and mitigation strategies. it could be argued that the green tourism accreditation of 13 tourism businesses operating in and around victoria falls in 2016 was not a coincidence. rather, this is an acknowledgement and understanding by the tourism industry that it is a contributor to the problem of climate change. realisation and understanding are critical in fostering climate change action by the industry in line with the dictates of sustainable development goal 13 (un 2015). this argument resonates with the arguments by gómez et al. (2017:287) on perception shaping climate action. it is not possible to wish away the contribution of the increased occurrence of extreme droughts and heatwaves in the area that have led to a severe reduction of water flow at the waterfall in some years. the tourism business on both sides of the victoria falls was negatively affected by the extreme droughts and heatwaves that affected the resort from 2014 to 2016 (dube & nhamo 2019b:115). given the wide circulation and panic amongst tourists and ordinary citizens in 2014/2015 over the perceived drying of the waterfall, respondents were asked to give their opinion on the matter and prospects of the victoria falls drying up in the foreseeable future. about 54% said that the victoria falls would not dry up. however, 26% indicated that they believe the waterfall is drying up. this could be because of the 2015 drought, which led to a significant drop in water flow at the waterfall, especially in october and november between 2014 and 2017. the decline in the water flow could result in the waterfall drying up in those months if the trend continues in the near future or during the extreme drought period, according to findings by dube and nhamo (2018:117). one of four respondents indicated that they were not sure it would dry up because, in the absence of scientific data, it was challenging to state with accuracy. however, they had seen a growing trend of unusual water flow at the waterfall. some years were punctuated by extremely high water flows, whereas in other years extremely low water flows were recorded. respondents also indicated that this water flow pattern could be cyclic and called for scientific research to answer this question. it can be argued that the figure of 54% of respondents believing that the victoria falls will not dry up is still a low figure regarding confidence and the perceived level of threat to the victoria falls. the fact that slightly more than half the respondents believe that the victoria falls is safe from drying up is a matter of concern and reveals the level of threat the world heritage site is exposed to. as such one can argue that the perception and level of threat from climate change are significant as seen from other world heritage sites of similar stature such as the great barrier reef in australia as noted by wolff et al. (2018:1978). arguably, the high level of fear of extreme weather events could be one of the driving factors behind the increased diversification and increased tourism activity offered in the resort town. these include activities that are not necessarily dependent on water, such as special events, sporting activities, shopping experience, conferences and other adventure activities. this array of activities helps to act as buffers in years of extreme weather events in the vulnerable resort town. the respondents were further asked to identify the top three organs they felt are central in dealing with the problem of climate change. forty-five per cent (figure 3) expected the government to play a leading role in addressing climate change. whilst respecting the fact that climate change requires a combined effort, there is an expectation that local and national government should play a central role in the climate change space because they provide the policy and legal framework for dealing with climate change. in many settings, governments are responsible for downscaling climate change information and playing a central role in capacity building and building resilience and adaption for climate change (nalau, handmer & dalesa 2017). figure 3: ranking of organs to deal with the problem of climate change (n = 77). governments can assist in allocating funds for climate change, research funding and identification of areas of vulnerability. this gives credibility to the fact that dealing with climate change requires strong governance at the national and local levels. be that as it may, business still needs to have more appreciation of its role in climate action if the fight against climate change is to be won. business is the ultimate implementer of policies and can fund research and innovation in the quest against climate action. the lack of a clear policy on climate change by the zimbabwean government for the tourism industry is, therefore, regrettable as it reduces movement in climate change action. almost a fifth of the respondents indicated those in business and industry as the second option in dealing with climate change. business and industry have an essential role to play in climate change as part of the multi-stakeholder group that plays a central role in implementing mechanisms and mitigation strategies. the rules and ethos of globalisation that demand closer interaction between state actors and the private sector in the climate change debate and intervention remain valid. there is a need for the private sector to embrace ethical business practices, which are not detrimental to the environment. many accounting standards require the inclusion of sustainability plans that respond to social and environmental issues (kourula, pisani & kolk 2017). because most respondents are business owners and managers, there is an understanding that, as a business, they have a crucial role to play in tackling climate change to ensure that mitigation and adaptation strategies are put in place. this could explain why some businesses in the resort town have embraced a green tourism initiative. the number of such businesses is still low, given the urgency that is required to address climate change by the tourism sector. curtailing climate change will require every business entity in the resort town to be on board for significant contribution to mitigation and adaption. however, only 4% of the respondents do not see tourists as critical players in addressing climate change. this may be as a consequence of a lack of knowledge or ignorance of the significant role of tourists in this regard. this is contrary to global calls that tourists should be major stakeholders in addressing climate change (hindley & font 2018). as major stakeholders, tourists need to be included in carbon reduction and adaptation measures for climate change. the limited understanding of the role of tourists in dealing with climate change issues is demonstrated by the absence of initiatives targeted at tourists to participate in carbon-reduction initiatives in almost all establishments at victoria falls. the door-to-door survey revealed that only a handful of accommodation establishments are retrofitted buildings with energy and water-saving gadgets, and there were also no guidelines for tourists on responsible tourism practice. when asked which three significant challenges were encountered in addressing the climate change issue, the respondents identified a lack of knowledge, followed by a lack of appropriate technology and the third challenge of ignorance and a lack of finance (figure 4). a lack of networks and partnerships was identified as the least problematic in addressing climate change. the findings are not unique to the victoria falls community because studies elsewhere have found that knowledge gaps are a stumbling block in dealing with climate change efficiently (liu et al. 2016:41). in the absence of climate change knowledge, it will be impossible for the tourism industry to meet its commitment under the paris agreement of carbon reduction of 70% by 2050 (gössling & scott 2018:525). it is equally unlikely that the tourism industry will be able to meet sustainable development goal 13 commitments (to take action to address climate change), which could prove to be dire. the tourism industry is blamed for contributing 5% of total global carbon emissions which drive climate change. this means that carbon emissions from the industry may continue to increase in the resort area confirming concerns that the industry will likely see a tripling of carbon emissions under business as usual (gössling & scott 2018:2071). dube and nhamo (2019a) cast doubts on the capacity of the aviation industry on the victoria falls route to reduce its carbon emissions in the near future. there is, therefore, a greater need to close this knowledge gap by intensifying research and knowledge-sharing efforts through environmental education, workshops, campaigns and climate change roadshows. figure 4: challenges faced by tourism role players in dealing with climate change (n = 75). technological innovation and transfer play a central role in dealing with the climate change problem. to deal with climate change effectively, countries have to invest and conduct research and embrace local relevant technology that abates and reduces carbon emissions and assist with adaptation efforts. as a developing country with competing demands, it would appear that zimbabwe and the business sector are struggling to innovate their business to an ecologically friendly technology that assists in either reducing their carbon footprint or adapting to the vagaries of climate change. jiang et al. (2017:21) and nishijima (2017:340) argue that dealing with climate change requires technological innovation. such innovation must be tailored and designed around the notion of ecological civilisation and energy efficiency in a manner that reduces the carbon footprint. scott et al. (2016a:9) noted that the tourism business lacks the technical capacity to address climate change as players in the industry have no technical capacity to measure their emissions, which makes it difficult for them to reduce their emissions. it is not surprising that the lack of finance was cited as the second most significant obstacle in dealing with climate change. climate financing is critical in enhancing both adaption and mitigation strategies, as noted by scholars such as pandy (2017:104). because of vulnerabilities and poor access to finance, there will be a need by global financiers to extend funding that is easy to assess and whose conditions do not inhibit uptake to finance climate initiatives such as green technology and retrofitting of buildings to make them more climate-smart to match the current and anticipated future climates. some old tourism businesses could benefit from cheaper climate finances to ensure migration towards smart or green tourism. perceived implications of climate change on the victoria falls the victoria falls community pays specific attention to the environment because it is the most significant source of livelihood for the resort town, either directly or indirectly. changes in the biophysical environment affect life in the resort town in various ways. in the following paragraphs, discussions are presented on the impact of climate change on temperature, rainfall, the zambezi river flow regime and wildlife. impact of climate change on temperature and rainfall temperature is a crucial weather element in victoria falls because it has a direct and indirect bearing on activities and tourism operations. most respondents (76%) were of the opinion that the victoria falls area had experienced some increase in temperature over the years (figure 5), with october unusually hot. this confirms findings by dube and nhamo (2018:120) who observed a temperature increase of about 1 °c in the last four decades. the research found that, because of increasing temperatures, activities such as elephant rides were now restricted to early mornings and evening hours to limit dehydration of visitors during hot afternoons. there is, therefore, an expected reduction in revenue from this activity because of shortened periods. however, respondents noted that during the day, tourists tend to participate in water activities such as white water rafting, fishing and swimming, which have a cooling effect on the human body. notably, water activities are encouraged in the afternoon and early evening hours. the study also found that depending on the season, walking trails in the rainforest can be undertaken as well as adventure swimming in the devil’s pool at the top edge of the victoria falls. figure 5: perceptions of temperature changes (n = 67). some businesses indicated that because of increased temperatures, they were forced to buy expensive air conditioners, fans, swimming pools and water fountains, thereby increasing business running costs because of increased water and energy use, especially during the summer months. it was common for hospitality establishments to ensure the comfort of guests, especially during the hot, humid summer months. the hoteliers and other hospitality players indicated that the demand for air conditioning was costly as it increased capital expenditure and operating costs at a time they were seeking to cut costs. regardless of the challenges of electricity supply in zimbabwe, the growing demand for electricity because of increased temperatures from climate change remains an opportunity to green power producers and the indirect employment in a country that is energy and job starved. they may have to re-engineer the buildings to make them heatproof and to reduce cooling needs. the study also revealed that the demand for water during the peak dry and the hot season had gone up in recent years, which was attributed to increased evaporation rates from increased temperatures for animal and human-related activities. this resulted in increased water bills for companies and increased infrastructure development demands. furthermore, it was reported that an increase in the demand for beverages and water was characteristic of hot days. the potential winners from this phenomenon were noted as local and international suppliers and vendors of bottled water and other cold beverages because of an increased demand associated with such weather conditions. the summer temperatures were reported to be much warmer than before, which adversely affected most businesses in the area. the attraction sector indicated that an increase in temperature was problematic for animals in several ways. firstly, tour operators and national park officials reported that, because of high temperatures, animals were staying in the shade for longer hours which made it difficult for tourists to see them when taken for game drives. this has the potential of affecting tourist satisfaction levels during the hot summer months. national park officials and private game owners further indicated that an increase in temperature meant an increase in animal water demand and fast drying of animal watering points. this increased their operating costs because they had to put extra measures in place to provide water for animals. park officials and tour guides noted that the high temperatures made it difficult to work outdoors because of the intense heat. they reported that even morning hours were now becoming increasingly hot, humid and uncomfortable. tour operators indicated that some tourists were not keen to participate in activities when it was scorching hot and would cancel activities to stay in cool areas. a few respondents had experienced sunburn, and the fear was that this could affect the repeat visit plans for tourists. two of the three prominent helicopter companies complained that the ever-increasing temperatures in the area were disruptive to their operations of providing helicopter views of the victoria falls to tourists. helicopter engineers and helicopter pilots indicated that they experience difficulties in the operational efficiency of the helicopters when temperatures rise above 35 °c, which has recently become a trend in summer. the respondents were also asked to give their opinion on rainfall trends in the area over the years. about 59% indicated that they had noticed a general decrease in the rainfall amount in the area over the years (figure 6). the considerable uncertainty could be a consequence of extremes of drought and heavy precipitation in the area, which makes it challenging to articulate what could be happening. the tourism players noted that this had varying impacts on tourism activities and products in the area. the respondents noted that a decline in rainfall over the years has resulted in a reduction in available food for animals and human beings in the area. reduced food availability for animals was partly to blame for the reduced animal population in other areas. reduced rainfall also triggered food inflation, and the operators reported that food shortages often led to increases in food prices for hotels, and this had a knock-on effect on the tourism value chain. the findings resonate with earlier studies, which found that climate change often led to food inflation (cammaran & tian 2018:109). figure 6: perceptions of climate change impact on rainfall pattern. other findings were that reduced rainfall activity and amounts had positive effects. for example, the reduced water flow at the waterfall prolonged the seasons of specific activities such as white water rafting and swimming at the devil’s cataract, which are popular amongst tourists. these findings were also confirmed in a study by dube and nhamo (2019b:2036). on the contrary, the observed increase in rainfall activity in 2017 shortened the white water rafting activities at the waterfall. increased rainfall activity also adversely affected game drives because roads in the national parks become inaccessible. respondents pointed out that severe rainfall that has become characteristic of the rainy seasons in some years tends to damage roads, which makes it challenging to access some of the areas by road. other activities that were cited to be averse to intense rainfall activities included helicopter flights over the waterfall. in a broader sense, there was a consensus that good rains mean good ‘thunder’ water flow at the waterfall, which naturally attracts more tourist visits to the area. river flow regime half of the respondents indicated that they had witnessed a recession in the zambezi river flow pattern regime of the river. successive droughts in the zambezi basin in the recent past led to some tourists arguing that the victoria falls are drying up in 2014–2015 and part of 2016. about 19% of respondents (figure 7) noted that they had witnessed an increase in water flow with flooding. this can be attributed to extreme rainfall events witnessed in the area during recent years. significant rainfall variations of water flow have been observed along the zambezi river over the years (dube & nhamo 2019b:2025). ten per cent of the respondents said they had not witnessed any changes in the river flow pattern. from the fieldwork, it emerged that the victoria falls tourism business community is aware of climate change and is genuinely concerned about the impact of climate change on the resort town. figure 7: observed changes in water flow patterns at victoria falls (n = 77). the respondents were further asked to rate the three pictures of the waterfall from three phases of the waterfall, namely, peak discharge (figure 8c), mid-peak discharge (figure 8b) and off-peak discharge (figure 8a). the results indicated that the respondents preferred to see the waterfall at its peak discharge, which is synonymous with full water flow ‘the smoke that thunders’. this finding confirms earlier perceptions from the tourists (dube & nhamo 2019b:2037). figure 8: respondents’ perceptions on the scene they like to see most at victoria falls (a–c). from figure 9, the majority of the tourism role players enjoy seeing victoria falls at its peak and mid-peak discharge. that period offers a beautiful spectacle of the waterfall and its associated rainbow. the spray of the water during that period is at its highest with sprays reaching most parts of the victoria falls rainforest. in a testament to this, many establishments have lookout points where tourists can view the water spray from a distance and take pictures. interviews with key stakeholders in the victoria falls town confirmed the results by noting that peak water discharge was the most desired state of the waterfall because tourists enjoy walking in the rainforest and hearing the thunder. the local name, mosi oa tunya, means the smoke that thunders, which further confirms the connection of the peak discharge and the local people. figure 9: the anticipated and least anticipated picture of victoria falls (n = 77). a small portion indicated that they enjoy seeing the waterfall during the dry season. the argument was that during that period it is easy for tourists to swim, take pictures and enjoy the famous white water rafting along the zambezi rapids. the stakeholders also noted that during low season animals concentrate on the river banks, making cruises a more attractive and appealing activity for tourists. low season is also the period water-rafting companies make more money. conclusion the study examined the tourism business operators’ perceptions, knowledge and attitude towards climate change at the victoria falls in zimbabwe. there is a growing concern amongst respondents about the impact of repeated extreme weather events caused by climate change. in as much as there is a consciousness of the adverse impact of climate change on the tourism industry, there are still knowledge gaps on how to adapt and mitigate climate change. to this end, increased awareness and capacity building by governments, civil society and international bodies can go a long way in empowering businesses to mitigate against and adapt to climate change in the resort town. given the frequency of the droughts and the impact it has on resort reputation, it is recommended that key stakeholders in the resort come up with a clear way of reporting and responding to challenges that occur. making climate financing available in the tourism industry is critical. this will allow the industry to move to cleaner technology, which has multiple benefits. these benefits range from savings, to use of efficient technology and a reduction in the carbon footprint of the tourism sector. streamlining budgets for climate mitigation is also central today in tourism financing to ensure business sustainability. with the growing disruptions from extreme weather events as a consequence of climate change, there is a need to redesign and re-engineer infrastructure with a view of improving tourism resilience. relooking into insurances can also assist tourism businesses to buffer themselves against the impact of climate change. diversification of tourism resorts is a must to ensure viability in cases of severe weather events. governments need to actively support the industry to ensure its viability, given tourism’s centrality to economic development and forex earnings. policies that ensure the promotion of green tourism will go a long way in reducing the carbon footprint of the tourism industry as self-regulation may not be ideal. the tourism industry needs to assist in research and innovation to keep abreast of international best practice in the sector. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the victoria falls business community and the victoria falls town council for availing themselves for this research and all the invaluable insights. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions the two authors 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on the premise that there is a “need for a new kind of humanism, the aim is to create an understanding of humankind in an era of globalisation that encompasses all civilisations while at the same time emphasising their particularity and diversity”. among the problems of an intercultural hermeneutics that have been in discussion, and that we should regard as essential to the understanding of humanism demanded here, there belongs the basic intuition that there needs to be universally valid norms and values that are based upon mutual recognition of cultural diversity. in order to establish such basic norms, humanism has to appeal to basic anthropological principles that can make a claim to cross-cultural legitimacy. on the one hand, the justificatory ground discerned in these principles must be unconditional and universalisable. on the other hand, these basic anthropological principles have to be evident and intelligible within each culture’s horizon of understanding. the determining ground of the will, through which each human being can endorse this set of norms, has to be compatible with his, or her, free consent. keywords: norms, values, natural law, stoa, spanish scholasticism, bartolomé de las casas, slavery, humanism, intercultural hermeneutics, aporetics, modern natural law. the theme of our conference, offered us the opportunity to bring to mind a philosophical and theological theory, in which the questions that i have raised, were contemplated with remarkable perspicacity and clarity. i am referring to natural law theory, which will be the focus of my discussion. in selecting this theme i thus deviate from the td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 277-288. _______ * georg essen is chair of dogmatic theology and chair of theory of religion and culture, faculty of theology and faculty of religious studies, radboud university nijmegen, the netherlands. also research fellow at the institute for advanced study in the humanities, essen, germany. 278 theme i originally proposed. in taking this course i hope to broaden the spectrum of our discussion and introduce new emphases that, in my opinion, should be absolutely central to a conference on the concept of nature. at the centre of my discussion is a short reminiscence on an early modern conception of natural law. with reference to the position of bartolomé de las casas, i hope to throw light on two exemplary features of natural law theory. on the one hand, natural law ought to be introduced as a fundamental anthropology serving as the basis of a universalistic moral and legal order. i have not selected a representative of spanish late scholasticism without reason! with recourse to natural law las casas attempts to deal with the experiences of globalisation that accompanied the ‘discovery’ of new worlds and the bloody conquest and suppression of the indians. on the other hand, i want to explore the foundational logic of ethical and legal norms that is peculiar to modernity. with reference to spanish late scholasticism i would like to illustrate how the natural law theory, anchored in the christian idea of creation, can be employed in the service of a universal hermeneutics of recognition that deliberately seeks to break through the religious and cultural limits that have prevailed to date. 1. introductory remarks on the european natural law tradition before turning to las casas it will be useful to define the term natural law in at least some short phrases and to delineate in broad strokes its guiding idea of nature.1 traditionally the term ‘natural law’ signifies a system of ethical and legal norms that are binding for all human beings everywhere and at all times. since the early days of european antiquity we can discern the idea of a moral and legal order that does not appeal to a human authority, but is rather discharged from all decrees and conventions, which is unconditionally binding on every legal and governmental authority, especially the legislator and author of the constitution. broadly speaking, natural law is understood as the epitome of all those obligations of human praxis that transcend convention, as the basis of positive law. the totality of what is binding for law and the state in this pre-positivist and supra-positivist sense was known by the greeks as ‘that which is right according to nature’. with a view to las casas, it is important to note that the natural law essen _______ 1 cf. e. wolf et al., naturrecht: historisches wörterbuch der philosophie, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft vol. 6 (1984), pp. 560-623; k.-h. ilting, naturrecht: geschichtliche grundbegriffe. historisches lexikon zur politisch-sozialen sprache in deutschland, stuttgart: klett-cotta vol. 4 (1978), pp. 245-313; o. höffe et al., naturrecht: staatslexikon. recht – wirtschaft – gesellschaft, freiburg et al: herder-verlag, vol. 3 (7th edition, 1987), pp. 1296-1318. 279 of philosophical antiquity has undergone a broad reception by christianity. since god, according to the foundational idea, has created nature and endowed it with his unswerving will to salvation, the christian tradition can identify the natural order with that of creation. thus, for example the stoic idea of the equality of all human beings, which is based upon one nature common to all, received the substantiation of a creation theology: equality is rooted in the likeness of all human beings to the image of god. ‘nature’ as an anthropological fundamental idea, which is understood in traditional natural law theories, includes a threefold meaning: firstly nature is considered to be a normative concept, as far as nature is held to be the morally guiding principle of human conduct. it is then assumed that nature is endowed with a teleological end, which the stoa attributes to logos and the christian tradition to the will of the creator. at this point it becomes apparent that the idea of nature, on which the natural law is based, is a metaphysical category that ought not to be confused with the modern scientifically defined idea of nature. the traditional interpretation of nature subdues nature to a teleological perspective, because the advocates of natural law have primarily been convinced that nature as such is nothing but the order discernable in natural entities. normative and reasonable structures are immanent in nature as such. secondly the idea of nature claimed upon by natural law functions as a counter concept to the concept of culture, as far as and because it does not indicate that which human beings create, but the given; that what we humans did not create. thus, the conception of nature entails not only the condition of possibility of human making and dominion, but also their limitation. consequently in nature, as something being and given from itself, those norms, which are merely deprived of human access, are rooted. they are not in one’s dominion by virtue of their very ‘naturality’. thirdly the idea of nature claimed by natural law refers to human nature, therefore to that which is common to all human beings. thus, a concept of nature understood in this way assures the universalisability of the norms anchored in it. furthermore, the idea of nature functions as a hermeneutical principal. the fact that the human being, on this view, participates in a human nature common to all, guarantees the self-evidence of the moral ought. because it derives its norms from a nature that is considered to be rational, natural law is accessible for each human being of ‘good will’. the rationality claim of the natural law identifies itself as a hermeneutical principle of universal communication: clear and comprehensible for all rational beings! if one inquires further with regard to the material definition of natural law and thus for what is actually – anthropologically, ethically and natural law td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 277-288. 280 legally – the content of the natural moral and legal order, tradition offers the following answer (i limit myself to a short enumeration without listing the concerned positions of reference separately): already in the stoa human nature justifies the equality of all human beings. for the christian tradition usually the golden rule as well as the decalogue, the ten commandments, are rooted in natural law. beyond this, both in the philosophical and theological traditions, the idea is found that sociality, the dependence of humans on one another, is grounded in human nature. however, occasionally the capacity and disposition of humans to harm each other is mentioned. rousseau on the other hand mentions the interest in the well-being as well as compassion with all other sensitive beings. the reference of thomas aquinas to the ‘natural inclinations’ (inclinationes naturales) of the human being, which predetermine an immutable framework of action for him, is well known. one special and last note is directed at two qualities particular to human nature, which should especially gain importance for the modern transformation of natural law and from here finally for the enlightenment at large: reason and autonomous freedom. 2. bartolomé de las casas as an exemplary position of modern natural law the reasons, why i allow us a small detour to bartolomé de las casas,2 is directly concerned with our movements of search for a new humanism. in the spanish late scholasticism of the waning 15th and 16th century the traditional doctrine of natural law was actually treated on the methodological level of the contemporary humanism and applied to problems posed by the conquest of the new world and the related political and economical upheaval. las casas accepted, like fransisco de vitoria, before him, the challenge that emerged from the occupation and conquest of great parts of america by the spanish crown, which were associated with the ‘discovery of new worlds’, and from the inner european power and faith struggles as a product of the reformation. las casas was born in 1484 in seville, from where columbus set off in 1492 for his discovery voyage. shortly afterwards las casas left for america as well, where he initially became a great landowner respectively in haiti and the dominican republic. he also had himself ordained as a priest, became field chaplain during the conquest of cuba and thereby gained experience with the brutal dark sides of the conquista-politics of the spanish crown. this led to his essen _______ 2 cf. e.-w. böckenförde, geschichte der rechtsund staatsphilosophie. antike und mittelalter, tübingen: mohr siebeck 2002, 339-351; j. meier, a. langenhorst (ed.), bartolomé de las casas, frankfurt/m.: j. knecht 1992. cf. werkauswahl – bartolomé de las casas, ed. by m. delgado, vol. 1-4, paderborn/münchen 1994. 281 ‘conversion’, which eventually motivated him to plead for the rights and the freedom of the indians. he attained the theoretical approach to his political fight by adopting the ancient and medieval doctrine of natural law. from the beginnings of the stoa the one nature common to all avouches the equality of all human beings and moreover establishes the unity of mankind. furthermore, a legal system is derived from nature, which functions as a normative condition for a societas generis humana. las casas links in with this tradition. thereby it becomes apparent that the freedom and reasoning capacity of humans are for him those inalienable qualities of human nature, on which his doctrine of natural law rests. beyond this natural law foundation they are grounded in the likeness of all human beings to the image of god. both – the natural law as well as the divine order of creation – again are valid for all humans. i quote: all nations of the world consist of human beings, and for all humans and each individual there is only one definition, and this is, that they are reasonable beings; all have their own rationality and freedom of decision, because they have been created in the image of god ... 3 before i descend to the consequences with regards to content, which las casas associates with this statement, i would like to call attention to an epistemological problem that las casas is compelled to discuss. if the natural law is based on the christian god, immediately the question arises, if a natural law substantiated in this way is also binding for pagans and infidels. is, in other words, the obligation of the natural law attached to the antecedent recognition of the god grounding it? is thereby the embedding of humans into a concrete, correctly speaking: a particular religious-cultural horizon of understanding the a priori, which the legality and validity of the natural law depends upon? is the natural moral order recognisable only for those who believe in this god? these questions raised sound nowadays less spectacular then at time of las casas, when they enjoyed actual political relevance. in the background is the subject position of the people living in the ‘west indies’, the indians, who did not belong to the orbus christianus. on which basis are the indians bestowed with rights? at question is the idea of right that refers to the individual as a bearer of rights and as a subject. the revolution in the philosophy of law, which takes place in the spanish updating of natural law, consists in the fact that natural law even regardless of its objective validity has a subjective character, which includes a subjective right of consumption to which every single human being can lay claim. natural law _______ 3 b. de las casas, principia quaedam, tertium principium: id., obras completas, edición dirigida por paulino castañeda delgado, vol. 10, madrid: alianza, d.l. 1992, p. 562 (translated by the author). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 277-288. 282 admittedly, the problem remains that also in las casas’ works natural right is substantiated theonomically. he demolishes the thereinimplicit limits by the following argument: creation is the release of the human being into an autonomy, which is unconditionally recognized by god. god has entrusted it to the free will of each human being, if he wants to adopt the christian faith or not. for the freedom is the most precious and highest good of all temporal goods. what is astonishing about this structure of substantiation is the fact that las casas on one hand does not deviate from the traditional embedding of natural law into creation theology. on the other however, he is able to derive from it maxims aiming at universal recognition, which leave all exclusivity behind. the recourse to natural law breaches the singular validity of the christian moral and legal system. the participation of the indians in the orbus christianum does not belong to the antecedent conditions for granting them human rights. concerning the statements with regards to content on political order and the law of nations, which las casas wants to derive from the natural law doctrine, a few hints should suffice. we have seen that natural law is aggravated with an anthropological intention to the reasoning and autonomy capacity of the human. from this starting point it is self-evident for him that: firstly ‘slaves by nature’ cannot exist, because this would be inconsistent with the natural equality of all humans and would be in contradiction with the initial freedom of all human beings. secondly by virtue of nature every nation is a free nation from the very beginning. even so-called ‘infidels’ – meaning the indians – have a right to autocracy and independence due to natural law. qua natural law the indians hold their principalities and kingdoms, their ranks, titles, their jurisdictions and sovereignties.4 a community of states is a natural community of commerce and trade over certain goods that are common to all nations due to natural law. efforts to achieve a trans-national legal system are derived from this. on this background las casas can – thirdly – turn to the question to which extent the spanish rule in america is an injustice in violation of natural law. since the jurisdiction of the rulers is tied to natural law, natural law leads to a critical limitation of worldly claims to power. amongst other conclusions it follows that christian rulers have no claim to the subjugation of non-christian nations; a missionary intention is not a reason for war. fourthly las casas can reject papal-churchly claims for universality essen _______ 4 cf böckenförde, geschichte, 343-348 (s. footnote 2). 283 with reference to natural law. this concretely aims against the famous bulla of pope alexander vi.,5 inter cetera, with which he authorized the spanish crown to subjugate the inhabitants of america and to convert them to the catholic faith.6 this entrusting is nullified by las casas. the last two aspects, the natural law dismissal of worldly as well as of papal claims to sovereignty over the ‘new world’, deserves special attention. the reference to natural law breaks with the christian salvational-historical idea of ordo. it is supposed to be replaced by the foundation of a community based on the law of nations as a community of independent, coequal politically constituted nations. 5. conclusive reflections on the aporetics of the idea of nature together with a prospect it might not be of minor importance to emphasize that i am naturally not a representative of whatever type of doctrine of natural law. due to reasons that i am going to mention immediately, it cannot be restored nowadays. i was rather concerned with a historical case study, which had a fundamental importance for the modern period of the formation of european humanism. in the framework of the deliberations at the conference i would like to remind you about a concept of nature, with which european thinking on natural law is associated. in particular attention needs to be given to certain epistemological and hermeneutical achievements. the recourse to nature served the derivation of fundamental anthropological statements about the world and the human being. on this basis a normative moral and legal order was established, which was independent of any human authority. the concept of nature was supposed to establish a universalistic ethics, which is not tied to religious and cultural particularity. in turn the participation of all humans in nature guarantees the trans-cultural self-evidence and by that the obligation of the set of norms founded in it as well. the example of las casas stands for an appeal to the universalisable demands of natural law, with which religious ideas of values are transcended anthropologically and liberated culturally. we can summarize the main argument as follows. the criteria, if an action and accordingly its maxim is also allowed, is its universalisability and thereby the capacity to regulate the co-existence of free and equal, responsibly acting persons in a normative system. the universalisability natural law _______ 5 i was surprised by the fact that this document seems to be not published in one of the source-books of the roman-catholic creeds. 6 cf. böckenförde, geschichte, 349-350 (s. footnote 2). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 277-288. 284 is determined by the fact that the relevant fundamental norms can be derived from nature. the participation of all humans in one nature, common to all avouches, their equality and establishes the unity of mankind. thereby nature functions as a principle of unlimited communication, which is supposed to enable a comprehensive core asset. with that the recourse to nature allows the formulation of anthropological fundamental theorems, which standardise cultural assumptions and religious claims to truth. concluding now some rather general remarks on the aporetics of natural law, which are mainly concerned with the incisive transformations in the concept of nature.7 my first remark serves the aim to prevent a wrong idealisation of natural law thinking. a reference to human nature could definitely take place with an ideological intention. for example for aristotle existed ‘slaves by nature’. in general the reference to nature had to serve as a justification of inequality: between races and nations and between male and female. the argumentative figure ‘forbidden, because unnatural’ was and is drawn on to discriminate against homosexuals. the roman-catholic church refers to this maxim for its ban of so-called artificial contraception. obviously the reference to ‘nature’ can serve emancipatory as well as restorative ends. my second remark is aimed at calling attention to the fact that the reference to nature for the justification of moral judgements is encumbered with intricate epistemological and logical problems.8 at first it stands out that nature is by no means consistently considered as a morally guiding principle for human conduct. not everybody was as consistent as epictetus,9 who praises the male beard growth like the mane of the lion as a distinguishing feature between man and woman and derives a ban to shave from the fact that man grows a beard naturally.10 but also women are not spared, at least in the work of the father of the church tertullian,11 who makes reference to the order of nature and creation in order to curse against the use of cosmetics. these women ‘dislike the image of god’; they ‘rebuke the creator of all things’. essen _______ 7 cf. f.p. hager et al., natur: historisches wörterbuch der philosophie, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft vol. 6 (1984), pp. 421-478; h. schippers, natur: geschichtliche grundbegriffe. historisches lexikon zur politisch-sozialen sprache in deutschland, stuttgart: klett-cotta vol. 4 (1978), 215-244. 8 cf. b. schüller, die begründung sittlicher urteile. typen ethischer argumentation in der moraltheologie, düsseldorf: patmos 21980, 216-235. 9 cf. schüller, begründung, 216 (s. footnote 7). 10 schüller refers to epictetus and tertullian without mentioning the sources. 11 cf. schüller, begründung, 217 (s. footnote 7). 285 already in such amusing cases it becomes apparent that tradition obviously only makes reference to nature, when it is convinced in an antecendently12 of the existential importance of the matter at stake. one example of this is the donation of organs. opponents and supporters occasionally argue about the natural purpose of two kidneys. obviously the reference to nature takes place within a hermeneutical circle. thereby it becomes completely evident that an antecedent normative criterion has to be named, on which a possible reference to nature depends. in addition, we have no other access to the alleged purpose of nature but the teleological interpretation of the actuality of nature. if this interpretation is changed, we also have to change our assumptions about the ‘intentions of nature’. a third note is to call attention to a far-reaching transformation of the idea of nature. we have noted that the normativity of the doctrine of natural law is based upon the metaphysical assumption that nature is structured intrinsically teleological. already within nominalism the possibility of a theoretical cognition of such teleology was philosophically questioned. the rise of our modern understanding of science led to a groundbreaking new understanding of the idea of nature. from antiquity until the beginnings of modernity scientific knowledge of nature was informed by the conviction that there is an immutable, inherently determined nature. it was the task of science to comprehend the structure immanent to nature, but this is its essence. in contrast with this, modern science refrains from being an interpretation of the being of ‘nature as a whole’. the question of the essence becomes indifferent. its place takes the methodologically directed appeal to empiricism, which admittedly does not undertake to explain the sensuously given in its naked presence. the empiricism is driven by the scientific interest to explore nature as a field of experiences that are not isolated, and that can be controlled in a lawful and causally structured way. consequently modern science conceives itself in a new way as research: it does not consider its field of exploration to be an inherently existing (that is: a pre-given) reality anymore. science first and foremost creates its own object of exploration, which is constituted as a dialectical unity of objective things and the knowledge of these things. thus, the cognition of nature is always already mediated by the knowledge, which science has offered and can provide. for example by dissolving the conception of a world as a given totality kant declares the world to be an infinite field of exploration.13 however, thereby the idea natural law _______ 12 i used this word in the meaning of ‘earlier’ or ‘before’ (timely spoken); in german: ‘vorangehend’ or ‘vorausgehend’. 13 cf. i. kant, kritik der reinen vernunft: id., werke in sechs bänden, ed. by w. weischedel, vol. 2, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 1998, pp. 399-419. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 277-288. 286 of a ‘pre-giveness’ of nature becomes questionable and with it every theological or metaphysical foundation of science by a recourse to ‘god’ or ‘nature’. in other words: the processes of a natural scientific-technical mastery of nature, initiated particularly by francis bacon14 , makes the recourse to the idea of nature formerly claimed to by the traditional doctrine of natural law impossible. as is well known bacon propagated a natural science, which makes nature ‘submissive to it and enslaves it’. since, according to him, there is no room for the mysterious and holy in nature, it can completely be explored. and since nature is no longer the objectively given, but the objectively feasible, an experimental approach to nature is legitimate. therefore, an intervention with nature is appropriate, which forces it to answer the questions that the researcher raises. permitted is the exploration and exploitation of nature in order to – ‘knowledge is power’ – use the resources of nature for practical ends. this instrumental approach to nature was supposed to have far-reaching consequences for the modern conception of nature. the scientifictechnical development in general and specifically in the field of medicine was essentially driven from its very beginnings by the fight against ‘externally’ caused dangers, for example child mortality, diseases, epidemics and so forth. on this note science and technology reacted to the ‘given’ world of nature, human being and society. in the progressive and – to tell the truth – by all means successful process of the medical-technical combat of evils that are to a certain extent natural, we have nowadays reached a point, where this elementary constellation of scientific-technological development has annulled itself. most of all in the area of intensive and reproductive medicine the possibilities of intervention advance to thresholds, which were effectuated by the achievements of the scientific-medical progress in the first place. however, this means: we have to evaluate medical possibilities of action ethically, whose historically new quality of limits is based upon their scientific construction. the scientific-technical development has thereby reached a reflexive period,15 in which medicine is confronted with its own resulting problems, products and shortcomings. this imposes – let us for instance look to genetic engineering – the perspective that mankind soon starts to take biological evolution into its essen _______ 14 f. bacon, neues organon vol. 1-2, ed. and introduced by w. krohn, hamburg: felixmeiner-verlag 2nd ed. 1999 15 cf. u. beck, risikogesellschaft. auf dem weg in eine andere moderne, frankfurt/m.: suhrkamp 1986; u. beck, a. giddens, s. lash, reflexive modernisierung. eine kontroverse, frankfurt/m.: suhrkamp 1996. 287 natural law own hands. more and more the boundary between the nature, which we are, and the physical endowment we give ourselves, becomes blurred. in other words: at the thresholds that we have to judge ethically nowadays, we encounter a ‘second nature’, which is the product of the practice of civilisation. this leads to questions, which natural law cannot answer anymore: how do we evaluate for example the emerging possibilities of a biotechnical intervention? does this form of mechanisation of human nature merely continue the up to now familiar tendency of an ongoing putting-at-our-disposal of the natural environment? at least medically speaking the mechanisation of human nature is connected with the expectation of a healthier and longer life! these developments finally pose theological questions as well, which even appear when the traditional unity of natural and creational order has long been given up. to what extent do the prevalent premises of the extension of the idea of creation and with it the differentiation of world and creator come under pressure at the impression of natural scientific formation of theories about the concepts of world, cosmos and nature? more emphasized: what becomes of our familiar theological idea of createdness, if the human is capable to manipulate predispositions genetically and thereby to intervene with the biological foundations of personal identity? would this ‘new human’ be a creature of god as well, although he is altogether the creature of a technically experienced team of reproduction physicians? and since such a team would take the place of god: does the absolute difference of creator and creature vanish here? what consequences does it have for the long-term cultural consciousness of mankind, if this difference that is preserved in the biblical idea of creation is destroyed? however, these are questions that i cannot and do not have to answer here and now. in the last remarks i have left the topic of my presentation anyway. nevertheless, it should by now be evident that the problems mentioned here cannot any longer be discussed in the paradigm of natural law. however, what could take its place? in the framework of our humanism project it should precisely be rewarding to discuss the possible universalisability of a formal differentiation, which was, after all, elaborated within the horizon of the traditional doctrine of natural law, namely by samuel pufendorf16: actually the difference between the entia physica and the entia moralia. since the metaphysical idea of nature can no longer fulfil the end to assign mankind as a whole a position in the order of being and thereby to bestow the human with an orientation for his action, only the _______ 16 cf. .ilting, naturrecht, 286-292 (s. footnote 1). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 277-288. 288 motive of a moral world order elaborated by immanuel kant and johann gottlieb fichte remains, that we humans have to effectuate concretely. thereby these epistemological and hermeneutical questions17 certainly return, which i have raised in the beginning. also a moral world order, orientating and standardising our humanity, needs anthropological fundamental theorems, which can establish the universalisability of such a moral world order. with the tradition of natural law european humanism has always been convinced that at least fundamental anthropological concepts exist, which are crossculturally universalisable: reason and autonomous freedom. _______ 17 cf. g. essen, m. striet (ed.), kant und die theologie, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 2005. essen abstract introduction understanding the ebola virus disease in relation to corruption conceptualising kleptoafronia in contemporary african philosophy individualistic perception and the fight of anti-corruption limitations of the study conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) emeka a. ndaguba institute of development assistance management, university of fort hare, south africa onyinye j. ndaguba ola hospital, nigeria michel m. tshiyoyo school of public management and administration, university of pretoria, south africa kgothatso b. shai department of political science and philosophy, university of limpopo, south africa citation ndaguba, e.a., ndaguba, o.j., tshiyoyo, m.m. & shai, k.b., 2018, ‘rethinking corruption in contemporary african philosophy: old wine cannot fit’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a465. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.465 original research rethinking corruption in contemporary african philosophy: old wine cannot fit emeka a. ndaguba, onyinye j. ndaguba, michel m. tshiyoyo, kgothatso b. shai received: 28 oct. 2017; accepted: 28 mar. 2018; published: 18 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract to conceive the notion of corruption presupposes the existence of corrupt individuals, groups or organisations. the existence of corrupt individuals, groups or organisations you might say presupposes the presence of an entity. every entity (i.e. state or corporate) has laid down procedures, processes and methods of doings and functioning. when these procedures and processes are negated, one could be accused of subversion. subversion is an element in the definition of administrative corruption and is the unwillingness to follow stipulated plans of actions. an action that negates procedures falls under corrupt practice. this article will answer the following research questions: how has corruption been framed and perceived and what are the underlining consequences in africa? in what ways, if any, has the prevailing perception of corruption undermined and understated the notion of corruption in africa? in what ways can a remedial be conceived in the fight to make africa free of corruption? and finally: how can kleptoafronia be conceived as a panacea for corruption in the continent? this article uses themes and narrative analysis in the qualitative realm to provide answers to the research questions. over 500 scholarly materials were read and scanned from journal articles, internet sources, textbooks and several academic indexes to provide evidence for the arguments in this article from five disciplinary standpoints: political science, public administration, criminology, psychology and medical sciences. this article is a conceptual article that tends to demonstrate that corruption in africa is a psych-administrative disorder termed – kleptoafronia. introduction … corruption goes with power … therefore to hold any useful discussion of corruption; we must first locate it where it properly belongs – in the ranks of the powerful. (achebe 1983:na; okere 2012:114; smith 2007:55) corruption over the years is argued as africa’s worst undoing (hanson 2009). international organisations, academia, practitioners and government institutions have thus far failed to produce a remedy to the widespread enigma – corruption.1 this article seeks to interrogate the notion of corruption in africa from a transdisciplinary approach using public administration, psychology and medical science. hence, it conceptualises corruption as both a terminal disease and a mental disorder. this article also seeks to demonstrate that corruption is a disorder, a disorder which we termed kleptoafronia. the formulation of this objective is informed by this article’s well-considered observation that scholars and professionals in corruption studies and its cognate academic disciplines around the globe (fisman & svensson 2007; olken & pande 2012; ouédraogo 2017; rodriguez, uhlenbruck & eden 2005; rose & heywood 2013; rose-ackerman 1999; thompson 1995) and the continent have not given a clear picture and sustainable solution for this scourge, disease and disorder. rather, most scholars and practitioners in the field have provided justification, or what others call reasons for the increasing trend of the disease (dimant & tosato 2017; enste & heldman 2017; rose-ackerman 1999). this article is one in a series of studies that endeavour in changing the direction of the discourse – corruption in africa. it does not merely seek to neither confirm the known, nor conform to status quo. rather, it proffers an alternative perspective to the discourse of corruption in africa. it rethinks the idea and notion of corruption, thereby introducing a new thinking on how corruption is to be seen, viewed and understood in africa in the 21st century. this is premised against the backdrop that several academic findings (heinemann & heimann 2006; lopez-claros 2014; rose-ackerman 1998; van rijckeghem & weder 2001) have argued that strengthening institutions and governance frameworks and systems are the panacea to corruption in africa and beyond, whereas others (acemoglu & robinson 2015; rose-ackerman 1998) have dismissed the notion of corruption, as ever being a disease but a symptom of a larger disease. worthy of note is that psychology is concerned with the two main features: the individual in the society and the collective or a group. in creating an understanding for explaining psychological behaviour among individuals and groups, it tends to emphasise three things: firstly, psychology focuses on the individual. secondly, it looks for pathologies in the individual (i.e. what is wrong or what sickness does the individual have). thirdly, it tries to develop a solution, cure or treatment for this pathology. this article begins with the known ideology of corruption. it conceptualises corruption from three facets: psychology – the urge to steal; medical science – the nature of contagion; and administration – the substandardisation and subversion of policies, processes and procedures. thus, the article is organised in the following manner. in the next section we explore the logic of what is known about corruption in greater detail, showing the nature of the arguments and debates on corruption and corrupt practices. thereafter, we try to understand what constitutes disease and symptom, showing their meaning and differences and also provide some useful discourse on the ebola virus disease (evd) and kleptomania. following this, we rethink corruption on the basis of kleptomania, while taking some elements of evd in making the analysis for kleptoafronia in africa. after providing a summarised introduction to the concept of kleptoafronia in africa, we conclude this conceptual article. symptoms versus disease disease disease is an abnormality of the body or mind that causes discomfort or dysfunction. by extension, it is any abnormal or harmful condition, as of society, people’s attitudes, way of living, et cetera. symptoms perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance of a person that indicates a disease or disorder such as fever, headache or rash. anything that indicates a disease, or is characteristic of the presence of something else, especially of something undesirable. symptoms are what the patient experiences. a symptom can be defined as one of the characteristics of a disease. ebola the ebola virus disease causes an acute, serious illness, which is often fatal if untreated. the ebola virus disease first appeared in 1976 in two locations simultaneously, one of the outbreaks in a location now called nzara in south sudan and the other in tambuku in the democratic republic of the congo. the latter occurred in a village near the ebola river, hence its name. the ebola virus disease, formerly known as ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severely fatal illness in humans. the virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. the average evd case fatality rate is around 50%, and case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks. the first evd outbreak occurred in remote villages in central africa, near tropical rainforests. that the 2014–2016 outbreaks in west africa largely occurred in the urban areas was a misnomer from status quo. in the fight towards wiping off the scourge in west africa, community engagement was seen as a key role player. hence, every outbreak without a counter-interventionist strategy in place will largely result in a failed attempt to wipe such a scourge. a good interventionist strategy is dependent on case management, infection prevention and control practices, surveillance, contact tracing, sophisticated laboratory equipment and services, safe burials and social mobilisation. early supportive care with rehydration and symptomatic treatment improves survival. there is as yet no licensed treatment proven to neutralise the virus but a range of blood, immunological and drug therapies are under development. however, the use of quarantine in the affected countries has been able to prevent the spread of this disease from one individual to another. symptoms of the ebola virus disease the incubation period, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to the onset of symptoms, is 2–21 days. humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms. the first symptoms are sudden onset of fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, and symptoms of impaired kidney, liver function, or internal and external bleeding is often the case. examples may include oozing from the gums and blood in the stools. laboratory findings include low white blood cells, platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes. transmission it is a general belief that fruit bats of the pteropodidae family are natural evd hosts. the ebola virus was introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead in the rainforest. the ebola virus spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact through broken skin or mucous membranes with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons and with surfaces and materials, for instance bedding and clothing contaminated with these fluids. hence, healthcare workers were frequently infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed evd. this has occurred through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practiced. burial ceremonies that involve direct contact with the bodily fluid of the deceased can also contribute in the transmission of the ebola virus. people remain infectious as long as their blood contains the virus, implying that evd can still get transmitted when the (infected) host sheds blood or bodily fluids. sexual transmission more surveillance data and research are needed on the risks of several ways of transmissions and particularly on the prevalence of viable and transmissible virus in semen over time in the interim and based on present evidence. who (2014a) recommends thus: all ebola survivors and their sexual partners should receive counselling to ensure safe sexual practices until their semen has twice tested negative. survivors should be provided with condoms. male ebola survivors should be offered semen testing at 3 months after onset of disease and then for those who test positive, every month thereafter until their semen tests negative for the virus twice by reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction, with an interval of 1 week between tests. ebola survivors and their sexual partners should either abstain from all types of sexual intercourse or practice safe sex through correct and consistent condom use until their semen has twice been tested negative. understanding the ebola virus disease in relation to corruption one would wonder what or where the relationships exist between these two different phenomena but both are problematic and terrifying to say the least. others would suggest, why trivialise evd by comparing it to corruption. it will be helpful to state that both are contagious, because when one associates oneself to evd there is a high tendency of being infected. so also, exposing or associating oneself with corrupt individuals and organisations exposes one to be corrupt as well. hence, corruption is a vicious circle, which continues to spread even without the presence of the host like evd. corruption penetrates a system as a result of weak interventionist strategies, poor defensive mechanism, poor warning systems and inadequate audit alarm mechanisms, as well as poorly managed case (cases without consequence, ineffective anti-corruption strategies among others) of individuals, organisations or governments in africa. where there are weak or poor interventionist strategies to curb evd, people suffer similar faith. early supportive care is an essential criterion for curbing evd. this is also the case with corruption because corruption is not tackled from its base. it tends to create a breakdown in the entire system leading to institutional failure and maladministration. hence, our argument that corruption is a disease based on the fact that it causes dysfunctionality in a system resulting in poorly equipped institutions of learning and economic downgrade as seen in nigeria and south africa, maladministration, eroded justice system, poorly delivered services resulting in mass protest actions across the continent and poor governance framework. this creates a system of dependence on the rich within a polity. more worrisome is that in some cases the carriers of evd have nothing to gain by infecting another with this disease. kleptomania kleptomania is the inability to resist a desperate urge to steal and is usually done for financial gains or personal use.2 this disease was first diagnosed in 1816, classified in psychiatry as an impulse control disorder (shulman 2004). according to grant (2004), patients suffering from kleptomania are typically aggressive. elsewhere, kleptomania is described as the intermittent failure to resist the urge to steal what belongs to others. according to kohn (2006:553), kleptomania is a severe mental disorder that affects a smaller proportion of the general population but a higher per cent of the clinical populace. the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders published by the american psychiatric association (2000), classifies kleptomania as an impulse control disorder in which the essential feature is a recurring failure to resist impulses to steal items, even though those items are not needed for personal use or their monetary value (criterion a). the individual experiences an increasing sense of tension just prior to the theft (criterion b) and feels pleasure, gratification or relief when committing the theft (criterion c). the stealing is not committed in order to express anger or vengeance, is not done in response to a delusion or hallucination (criterion d) and is not better accounted for by conduct disorder, a manic episode or antisocial personality disorder (criterion e). it is imperative to demystify the notion expressed herein. the manual classifies kleptomania into five categories. criterion a deals with the notion that what is stolen is or is not for personal gain or monetary value. hence, it is done to satisfy an urge that one cannot control. the idea for criterion b is that the patient suffers from a certain compulsion, which is uncontrollable by the individual, to steal right before the act is committed, whereas without the urge, the act could have been avoided. hence, stealing is much like a getaway from the feel of pressure. the idea shared in criterion c is that this stealing is done for pleasure rather than to harm anyone. the issue of stealing by its very nature harms the victim. much glaring is that the nature of this form of stealing is not to express vengeance or anger, delusion or hallucination (criterion d). the idea shared in criterion e is that people who suffer from kleptomania are not principally suffering from antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder or a maniac episode. according to research (abelson 1989; goldman 1991; grant & kim 2002a; 2002b; kohn 2006:553; mcelroy et al. 1991; sarasalo, bergman & toth (1996), kleptomania is a ‘disorder seen mainly in white, upperand upper middle-class women’, although, with a few exceptions where men suffer from this disease (kohn & antonuccio 2002; wiedemann 1998). linkages between obsessive-compulsive disorders kleptomania belongs to a group of disorders that has strong compulsive and impulsive qualities. the latter are at variance with the obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, composed of compulsive buying, pyromania, pathological gambling, trichotillomania and nail biting (matsunaga et al. 2005). according to baylé et al. (2003), there exists a relationship between mood swings, eating disorders, anxiety, substance abuse and alcohol. according to grant (2003), there is a linkage between depression and kleptomania in that some patients attribute relief from unhappiness after stealing. the basis for stealing in this regard is not totally in sync with conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder and a manic episode of bipolar disorder as stated ab initio. but it creates an understanding for kleptoafronia as a disease that is carried out by impulse. hence, we shall underscore what several scholars have termed as causes of corruption to the triviality of corruption. this argument is built on the basis that corruption is a recurring urge to steal. concept and notion of kleptomania the idea of the concept of corruption from the anti-corruption internet database (2013) argues that corruption is a breakaway (meaning subversion) from a norm or a tradition of doing things. another argument in the definition as seen elsewhere is that it tends to destroy. hence, the argument is that corruption is one of the reasons for the economic downgrade in south africa and nigeria. it also accounts for the increase in the number of the poor as a result of poorly implemented policies and non-provision of services to those in rural areas. we have also acknowledged in the same definition presented above that corruption erodes moral, ethics, principles, value, honesty, conventions and regulations among others. the essence for the proposition of the concept of kleptoafronia is in view to provide a possible cure for the disease called corruption in the next article. this article sets the precedence for the proposition of a panacea to the concept and notion of corruption in africa premised on the same assumptions. the underlining assumptions of kleptoafronia include the following: corruption is a disease and not a symptom in africa. corruption is contagious. institutional failures, bribery and kickbacks among others are not the major causes of corruption in africa, rather they are forms of corruption under subversion.3 where there is a high prevalence of corrupt practitioners, there are usually legal anti-corrupt practitioners in africa. corrupt practitioners practice within an entity, a body or corporate as an individual or for a government or corporate organisation in africa. corruption frustrates or compromises institutional efficiency, productivity and effectiveness in africa. corruption hampers institutional development that manifests in dysfunctional systems or institutional failure in africa. hence, corruption is not a symptom but a disease. in most cases, institutional failures are a result of rampant or heightened gravitational corruption levels in africa. trivialising corruption corruption and corrupt practices account for over 600 million africans without electricity in sub-saharan africa (parke 2016). corruption is the reason for the increasing number of unemployed youth in the continent (apergis, dincer & payne 2010; buehn & schneider 2009; habib & zurawick 2002). it is also blameable for the junk status in south africa and the recession in nigeria (national association of seadogs 2017; ngolina 2016; payi 2017; van zyl 2017). corruption is answerable for the dwindling markets and foreign investment (dumludag 2012; ohlsson 2007). the lacklustre attitudes of governments in power, the african union (au) and its regional commissions and several academics are disheartening in their fight against corruption in africa. hence, they have treated and continued to take the issue of corruption lightly, due to benefit accruing to them. the foregoing assertion acknowledges the existence of regional, continental and international anti-corruption legal instruments. but, this article is seriously concerned with the inability or lack of political goodwill for those concerned with law enforcement. this reality has created a situation whereby the existing regional and international cooperation frameworks’ efforts in the fight against corruption are reduced to empty rhetoric. while corruption continues to individually and collectively maim the african states in the eyes of international organisations, investment by industrialised countries is equally scared away from the continent as a result of compromised governance institutions and systems. it is worth noting that corruption manifests in several ways including capital flight and deplorable service delivery in the continent, among others, resulting in the death of several millions of individuals and cost. yet, academics and practitioners (as mentioned before) have been limited to finding the reason for the existence of this disease, than an actual cure to this disease. one may ignorantly dismiss this assertion by asking how have academics and professionals trivialised corruption over the years. there is no gainsaying that corruption has led to war, agitation, sectionalism, separatist movement, marginalisation, increasing poverty and inequality gap in the continent. considering that ebola being one of the deadliest disease to ever hit west africa, was curbed in less than two months in nigeria, it is disheartening to say the least that corruption, which has done much harm to the continent, its regions and its member states, is still treated with laxity. if an institution is failing, does it mean that individuals, organisations or governments must take advantage of it? this is like an individual taking advantage of a partner probably because of his or her financial bondage with the abuser. therefore, our notion is that corruption is basically the urge of an individual, group or organisation to steal, to subvert laid down procedures and to substandardise goods and services in terms of distribution and manufacturing of inferior and outdated products at the cost of the original product or services. these actions are totally abnormal, dishonest and amoral, so it is seen as corruption. our philosophy is that corruption and corrupt practitioners in africa are an abnormality, hence, a disorder, and a misnomer. therefore, we argue that such an individual or organisation is suffering from a psych-administrative disorder called kleptoafronia. kleptoafronia as stated ab initio is a disorder that prompts an individual, group or organisation to take for themselves or not for themselves what does not belong to them. in other words, it is a mental anxiety that prompts people to pervert principle, norms, standards, procedures and processes for personal benefit, gratification or otherwise (see oecd 2003a). several authors, practitioners and commentators in the corruption discourse have actually reiterated the reason for corruption as institutional failures, poor remuneration, and low level of integration, political will and commitment among others as the bane in the fight against corruption in the continent. this is both ridiculous and mundane because even institutions with strong and vibrant systems, structures and framework have also been indicted of corrupt practices over the years (see siemens, bp, innospec and bae systems among others). and most worrisome is the argument by scholars that poor remuneration is a catalyst for corrupt practices. such claims cannot be fathomed; therefore, the problem is not and cannot be poor remuneration whatsoever, rather it is the inability of an individual, organisation or a body corporate to refrain from being kleptoafronic. thus, presidents, parliamentarians, ministers, commissioners, governors, director generals, premiers, local government chairmen and councillors constitute a category of well-remunerated officials in any given country in africa; but it is not rare for them to be caught for being involved in illegal activities including corruption. reasons and rationale to rethink of corruption in africa according to wolfensohn, corruption is cancerous. corruption is the greatest eroding factor in a society. corruption is the largest impediment to investment. and it is not just a theoretical concept. it is a concept whose real implications become clear when children have to pay three times the price that they should for lunches and other basic needs. it becomes clear when people die from being given bad drugs because the good drugs have been sold under the table. it becomes clear when farmers are robbed of their livelihood (2005:138–140). the president of the world bank in his remarks on international corruption illustrates the nature and complexity of corruption in the context of fragmenting or crumbing a nation’s ability to function. in that, corruption has the potential to destabilise governance and governance frameworks, resulting in corrupt practices as a result of undermining governance policies and programmes. corruption though seen as a cancer by james wolfensohn, is likened to evd in this study, based on the spiralling rate of infection. where cancer only spreads to the body of an individual, evd spreads by contact with another individual and so does corruption also spread. the reason why the study sought to rethink corruption is also attributed to the fact that this study is the first to clearly posit that corruption is infectious and transmitted from one individual to the next. nonetheless, others have argued that it is a disease in the nature of cancer that spreads, but in this study we liken corruption to a terminal disease as ebola to fully understand the nature, extent and elements of corruption in order to proffer a cure in subsequent articles. the main contention for rethinking corruption in this light leans on the fact that no terminal disease or illness in world history has been left unattended and then disappears as a result of its inattention. in the same way, no parent of a kleptomaniac is contempt that the child is out without watchful eyes (to avoid embarrassment). so, hoping that when corruption is not treated or left unattended will lead to its extinction is delusional. every government in africa (without exception) has continued to pamper this disease. hence, it has both continued to grow and spread. for several years of academic discourse, no cure has been proffered because governments in the continent are seeing corruption as a discourse or philosophy rather than a disease. this is mainly as a result of how the disease was conceptualised and its sentiments have led to its triviality. hence, corruption has over the years gained momentum because of its deep roots, resulting in failed experiments that have not produced intended consequence. for corruption to be eradicated, it must be seen, measured and understood from the prism of a disease in stature and class of ebola in the medical science and from a psychological perspective with such watchful eyes as when a kleptomaniac is around one’s vicinity. both ebolism and kleptomania are curable diseases and disorders, respectively. yet, over the years researchers have failed to address the issue of corruption from either the standpoint of a disease or a disorder. studies of scott (1972), oecd (2007), amundsen (1999:1), nutting (1996), carl friedrich, cited in bratsis (2003:11), buchan and hill (2014) and heywood and rose (2015:106–107) have portrayed corruption as a disease in the form of a cancer. hence, amundsen (1999:1) posits that ‘corruption is a disease, a cancer that eats into the cultural, political and economic fabric of society, and destroys the functioning of vital organs’. wolfensohn (2005) corroborated the assertion of amundsen (ibid) thus, ‘let’s not mince words: we need to deal with the cancer of corruption’ (nutting 1996). the ideology of corruption by amundsen and wolfensohn demonstrate the assertion that corruption is a disease and not a symptom. however, these scholars limited the disease to cancer, possibly because of the nature of its expansionary ability (spread in an individual) within a body polity that erodes both the social and intellectual fabric of society. however, with the recent spate of ebola in west africa and the nature of its spread, one is tempted to rather link corruption with ebola than cancer, the reason being that the contemporary nature and complexity of this disease in the continent calls for quick action that could bring about a possible solution within the nearest future; and probably because measures or treatment plan used in providing cure for ebola could also be applied in reducing the incidence of corruption in africa. also another major reason why this article opted for ebola to cancer is premised on using the methodologies used in proffering a cure for evd to also find a cure for corruption in africa as stated ab initio. one must admit that if the same attention placed on evd cure and prevention is repeated in the fight for the elimination of corruption in the continent, africa would have long found a cure for this disease. despite the argument pursued by the authors mentioned above, others have continued to trivialise the notion and philosophy of the concept, thereby belittling the nature and complexity in ensuring that corruption can make a government or system non-functional. these scholars have therefore reduced this disease rather to a symptom of a larger disease. rose-ackerman (1996:3) in the paper political economy of corruption – causes and consequence acknowledges that corruption is a mere symptom to a larger disease (a larger disease which was not mentioned), despite stating that corruption and corrupt practices account for illegal payoffs that reduce the quality and increase the cost of public works to be projected as between 30% and 50%. also with a survey suggesting that: where corruption is endemic, it imposes a disproportionately high burden on the smallest firms. but, importantly, the most severe costs are often not the bribes themselves, but the underlying distortions they reveal. (rose-ackerman 1996) the argument presented by rose-ackerman is therefore conflicting, while it is a symptom of an unidentified disease, it accounts for 30%–50% of illegal payoffs and 175 billion dollars that escape the african continent. these have devastating consequence in both growth and development of the country, its regions and the continent at large. because it destroys the notion of free enterprise in a continent, it triples the prices of goods and services, and it creates an avenue for the production and distribution of substandard products within the african markets and kills ultimately the dignity of an individual. therefore, to argue that corruption is merely a symptom to a larger unidentified disease might be misleading, why several millions of citizens on the african continent are meant to live in penury and other dehumanising situation, while some nations are at the brink of total collapse as a result of corruption. examples are bound in several countries within the sub-saharan region of the continent, where the absences of essential service such as water, housing, healthcare, sanitation and electricity are lacking. notwithstanding, the economically savvy postures manifest in the following ways: shortage of jobs; job loss; rising unemployment; rising inequalities; rising poverty; poor sanitation; unhealthy consumption; lack of productive capital and capacity; lack of access to the wealth of nations; lack of inner, conscious or subjective well-being among others. this article notes with concern the position of other scholars who conceive of corruption as a symptom of a larger disease. it, however, argues that such arguments trivialise the power and effect of the disease in the 21st century in africa. consequently, there are several underlying questions that might suffice: hardly is it ever stated that a patient died of symptoms, rather it is said that a patient died of symptoms in relation to a certain disease. it becomes imperative to present certain scenarios in which we believe corruption must have been trivialised. scenario 1: in a case where an individual finds an open garage with groceries or cars parked with keys that the individual in question must make all necessary means to steal it for oneself. this is at the backdrop that most scholars have consistently argued that weak institutions are a reason why people are corrupt. the issue in question is hardly about the institution. it is primarily about the corrupt practitioner who functions effectively in a skewed location. hence, it could further be argued that an individual’s values and ethics determine in the short and long run their actions in relation to certain circumstances. conceptualising kleptoafronia in contemporary african philosophy many theorists argue that the propagation of corruption is contagious and that the level of corruption in a given country is largely dependent on the level of corruption in neighbouring nations. an empirical study focused on the united states added merit to this theory and found that an increase in the levels of corruption in neighbouring states of 10% led to increased levels of corruption in a state by 4%–11%, seemingly confirming the contagious (effect) nature of corruption (goel & nelson 2007). similarly, a 2008 multi-country study found that corruption can be viewed as a regional phenomenon and that any attempts at decreasing corruption in one nation will lead to decreased levels of corruption in neighbouring countries (becker, egger & seidel 2009). in arguing for kleptoafronia as a concept in the understanding of corruption in africa, two postulations were made. the first being that corruption is contagion (in line with becker et al. 2009; dimant & tasota 2017; goel & nelson 2007), and the other, corruption is simply the urge to steal for oneself or not for oneself (some authors such as lumumba plo have argued in terms of thievery in a series of conferences in africa and beyond; also see jonathan’s statement in 2015 on corruption (okafor 2015).4 the following two scenarios provide varying contexts under which corruption manifests itself in both the industrialised and developing world. scenario 2: ‘on a tram in zagreb (croatia) in 2005, a young man inquired what i did and when i told him i was writing on corruption and inequality, he responded: “yes, we all know about that. if you steal a video recorder, you’re a criminal. if a politician steals $100 million, he’s a respected citizen”. a young itinerant trader in lagos told new yorker writer george packer (2006)’ (uslaner 2015:120). scenario 3: ‘most of the people who lead us embezzle instead of using that money to create factories …. our parents’ generation was ok. but this generation is a wasted generation – unless god comes to the aid. because we know there is money in nigeria’ (uslaner 2015:120). this notion portrayed by the croatian and nigerian incidents is one of the reasons we argue that corruption is but a calculated intention of an individual to commit a criminal act; hence, it is not haphazard. therefore, it is imperative that africans begin to retrace their footsteps in embracing african traditional values, which could restore dignity and discipline in the continent. this notion depicts that corruption is not just a mere act of abuse but a demonstration of a gross lack of discipline. where indiscipline is largely appreciated and mediocrity honourable, corruption soars. this is the reason why it is important to understand corruption in its entirety before proffering recommendations; as corruption is multidimensional, a solution must be transdisciplinary rooted within the african traditional value system. otherwise, the emergence of the african continent will be a wishful thinking. in that, for industrialisation to lead growth and the market economy, new techniques for addressing corruption must be proffered, possibly because the known methodologies for addressing corruption have become accustomed to corrupt practitioners both locally and globally. this brings to notice the reason the youths in the 21st century behave in a certain way: lacking morale, self-control and dignity. these tendencies have resulted in moral debauchery in the continent. hence, we argue that fighting corruption is a fight to restore sanctity and credibility in a situation where it does not exist. individualistic perception and the fight of anti-corruption it is now common knowledge that corruption fights back in times of resistance. it is also a truism that institutions designated to fight corruption in most instance are tools of the central government to suppress unpopular interest and views against their government. this notion has a tendency of ridiculing the sterling job done by anti-graft agencies in the fight to purge the continent of corrupt practitioners before 2030 as designated under the au. there are several individuals whom the continent had perceived as incorruptible (muhammadu buhari, thomas shankara, magnufuli, julius nyerere and several others). among these individuals mentioned only muhammadu buhari is yet alive and is the sitting president of the federal republic of nigeria. major general muhammadu buhari’s past regime restored sanity, integrity and cost-cutting measures that not only reduced the debt of nigeria but also improved the well-being of the nation though military. however, for him to return to power in 2016 as an elected president, he had to associate with men and women with economic power and rigging abilities. more worrisome was the fact that these men and women were renowned individuals and groups of questionable character, revered and notorious for corruption in nigeria.5,6,7,8 his gestures, tune and ability to counter the corrupt changed, and plunder the economy of nigeria into greater financial, social and cultural tsunami. this resulted in the plundering of the infrastructure in the country, which has made foreign companies to leave the shores of the country. poor healthcare, poverty, inequality and hunger are widespread while the president receives treatment in london for over 100 days in counting. the assertion therefore is, corruption is contagion, and any individual or corporate or nation that exposes itself to such will be contaminated, thereby, bringing about feasibly signs as bribery among others. premised on these, we choose to consider corruption from the standpoint of a disease and a disorder, which we refer to as kleptoafronia as a result of the study’s location – africa. limitations of the study although this article was carefully thought out, it still has several limitations, one of which is that it is limited to the african continent and within the african context. another limitation is that lack of data and that it does give a limited scope to corruption in the african continent. however, it sought to rethink the concept of corruption and proffer an alternative paradigm in the understanding of corruption in the continent. it argues that corruption is a disease, but not in standing with a cancer. its invocation is that corruption is in stature and status like evd. more so, literature from medical sciences and psychology were harnessed to make this argument that corruption is simply the urge to steal. the study is also limited based on the unit of analysis adopted; it utilises the individual as the unit of analysis rather than a collective. it is a truism that while african psychology is premised upon group dynamics, there is no theory or construct that has warned against the use of individual analysis, especially in contemporary africa, where westernisation and incidences of individualism have taken centre stage in africa. the exposition for this study must be understood within the context of the conversation (afrocentricism), in that in building an analogy for evd and kleptomania, the study did not conduct any practical medical examination in making the assertion in this article. however, it must be understood based on the contagion effect for the evd, and kleptomania in terms of the individual’s inability to desist from the urge of stealing. conclusion by justice a king gives a country stability, but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down. (proverbs 29:4 niv) in this conceptual article, we have re-conceptualised corruption from the standpoint of both medical science and psychology. we have also proved that corruption is not a mere symptom but a disease in itself in stature and class with evd. in providing a roadmap for future research, we have likened corruption to ebola in the medical science and kleptomania in psychology. in doing so, we have framed a concept in the discourse for understanding corruption from premise of a psych-administrative disorder in africa called kleptoafronia, which we defined from a psych-administrative perspective as simply a recurring urge to steal, and from a medical science perspective as an infectious and fatal disease marked by severe institutional failures, lack of political will, deficiencies in government agencies among others spread through contact with an infested individual, organisation or body polity by greed, whose host species is residual in indiscipline. leaning on literature from the medical science with regard to ebola and kleptomania in psychology, we argue that corruption from a psychological perspective is a mental disorder that induces an individual, organisation or a body polity to steal for self or not for self what rightfully belongs to another. we also argue in this conceptual article that corruption is in the same stature and status with (≥) evd with regard to death toll and rate of infections. we did not dwell much on medical area and its spread in this conceptual article. furthermore, we did not provide a solution for curing corruption in this article, as that was not the goal of this study. we, however, have linked corruption to kleptomania and found other obsessive-compulsive disorders such as pyromania and pathological gambling among others. this is to show that riding corruption of the african continent requires more than a uni-philosophical or interdisciplinary perspective but a transdisciplinary approach, in providing cure for africa’s most dreaded disease – corruption. our argument is that corruption does not only subvert structures and ridicules institutions but corruption is as contagious as evd. this stance is also reiterated by heywood and rose (2015), hence their (heywood & rose 2015) argument that corruption is frequently seen as a disease or physical illness (buchan & hill 2014), which is understood according to carl friedrich (cited in bratsis 2003:11) as ‘a general disease of the body politic’. corruption is a disease, a cancer that eats into the cultural, political and economic fabric of society, and destroys the functioning of vital organs (amundsen 1999:1). corruption is a result of poor administration or governance which arises when an individual or organisation has monopoly power over a good or service, discretion over making decision, limited accountability and integrity and high pressure (hanapiyah, daud & abdullah 2016). lastly, in the subsequent article the forms, types and causes of kleptoafronia will be discussed, as this article only facilitates the argument for kleptoafronia as a concept in understanding or for conceptualising corruption in contemporary african literature. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to nebo godwin and chungag anye, both doctoral students at the university of fort hare, for their insightful and productive engagement on issues related to the topic, and also to the anonymous reviewers for the sterling job in providing direction for this study. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions e.a.n. was the project leader and coordinator for the research, o.j.n. was responsible for the medical perspective, while k.b.s. was responsible for the afrocentric perspective and m.m.t. performed the proofreading and public policy perspectives of this research article. references abelson, e.s., 1989, ‘the invention of 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http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/alleviate-corruption/ 2. http://phrontistery.info/mania.html 3. this will be fully dealt with in the next article. 4. corruption is simply stealing. 5. http://www.femiaribisala.com/the-worst-government-in-the-history-of-nigeria-2/ 6. http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/204253-buhari-fails-keep-promise-release-details-looters-recovered-assets.html 7. https://guardian.ng/news/buharis-success-claim-insult-to-intelligence-of-nigerians-says-pdp/ 8. https://politics.naij.com/653065-hidden-truth-behind-president-buharis-failed-promises-american-lawyer.html abstract introduction service-learning pedagogy in south african universities the cape peninsula university of technology as an engaged university planning and developing a service-learning project for construction managers and quantity surveyors discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) laura f. pinfold department of construction management and quantity surveying, faculty of engineering and the built environment, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation pinfold lf. transdisciplinary service-learning for construction management and quantity surveying students. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a993. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.993 original research transdisciplinary service-learning for construction management and quantity surveying students laura f. pinfold received: 02 dec. 2020; accepted: 21 june 2021; published: 16 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the transformation of higher education in south africa has seen higher education institutions become more responsive to community matters by providing institutional support for service-learning projects. despite service-learning being practised in many departments at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput), there is a significant difference in the way service-learning is perceived by academics and the way in which it should be supported within the curriculum. this article reflects on a collaborative transdisciplinary service-learning project at cput that included the department of construction management and quantity surveying and the department of urban and regional planning. the aim of the transdisciplinary service-learning project was for students to participate in an asset-mapping exercise in a rural communal settlement in the bergrivier municipality in the western cape province of south africa. in so doing students from the two departments were gradually inducted into the community. once inducted, students were able to identify the community’s most urgent needs. during community engagement students from each department were paired together. this allowed transdisciplinary learning to happen with the exploration of ideas from the perspectives of both engineering and urban planning students. students were able to construct meaning beyond their discipline. cooperation and synergy between the departments allowed mutual, interchangeable, cooperative interaction with community members. outcomes for the transdisciplinary service-learning project and the required commitment from students are discussed. keywords: service-learning; community engagement; asset mapping; transdisciplinary; built environment; construction education; qualitative gis. introduction community engagement within higher education has historically been considered a voluntary service to communities, rather than a core function along with teaching, learning and research. the transformation of higher education in south africa has seen higher education institutions become more responsive to community matters by providing services and infrastructure for service-learning programmes.1 even though community engagement and service-learning policies are in place at higher education institutions, the implementation of community engagement in the curriculum has been sluggish. community engagement projects tend to be ‘add on’ rather than credit-bearing components of the curriculum.2 despite service-learning being practised in many departments at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput), there is a significant difference in the way service-learning is perceived by academics and the way in which it should be supported within the curriculum.3 this article presents a transdisciplinary service-learning project undertaken by the department of construction management and quantity surveying (cm&qs) at cput. service-learning pedagogy was used to teach first-year diploma students a section of the course in site surveying. the service-learning project included third-year diploma students from the department of urban and regional planning doing a course in geographic information systems. using a problem-based approach allows students to spend a sufficient amount of time in the community to benefit from the experience. the article begins by briefly outlining service-learning pedagogy in south african universities, followed by a review of the department of cm&qs’s approach to community engagement. the transdisciplinary service-learning project is then briefly outlined. empirical evidence of transdisciplinary learning is drawn upon to demonstrate the effectiveness of collaborative service-learning for construction managers and quantity surveyors. the last section is a discussion, which briefly highlights the success of the transdisciplinary service-learning project in the department of cm&qs at cput followed by a summary of the article. service-learning pedagogy in south african universities the three core functions of a university in south africa are teaching and learning, research and community engagement.4 community engagement is seen as part of the academic workload of staff members. community engagement informs students about communities through participation where problems are explored and contributions to solutions are made.1 community engagement has the potential to influence students in becoming socially responsive in their careers after graduating.5 the notion of mode 1 and mode 2 knowledge at universities was highlighted by gibbons6 and his co-authors in their 1994 book, the new production of knowledge. mode 1 knowledge is knowledge validated by logic and measurement within academic communities, whilst mode 2 knowledge is a local form of knowledge that is socially useful, collaborative and transdisciplinary.7 mode 2 knowledge suggests open, exploratory networks rather than the confined traditional institutional-structured knowledge creation.8 the debate regarding these two forms of knowledge at universities continues. some favour local forms of knowledge over traditional knowledge, whilst others feel that traditional knowledge is being undermined.9 the applied sciences tend towards traditional knowledge; however, there has been a surge in community engagement efforts in engineering education. it is true to say that contemporary society demands that universities engage with society in a quest to integrate tacit knowledge with other forms of knowledge in the knowledge economy. community engagement in south african universities is distinctly concerned with the government agenda to transform and become responsive to the socio-economic issues that face the country.1 auf der heyde10 believed that there needs to be a common concept of community engagement so that it can be assessed together with teaching and learning and research. slamat11 and nongxa12 point out that a common concept of community engagement for all universities is not necessary at this point as community engagement is defined by scholarship through funding and the mission and vision statement of the individual university. the cape peninsula university of technology as an engaged university a university’s civic identity and public purpose depend on strategies of engagement.13 an engaged university promotes social justice by adopting pedagogies such as service-learning that allow student and academics to work with communities.14 the cput policy on community engagement ensures that knowledge obtained during service-learning activities is academically accredited and that tacit knowledge is integrated with course content through reflective practice. the cput intentions are to integrate institutional aims and goals with community needs responsively and appropriately. at cput academics are encouraged to include community engagement in their teaching programmes and to include service-learning pedagogy in course modules. the service-learning unit at cput was established to coordinate community engagement and work-integrated learning across all faculties. this unit is responsible for initiating partnerships and ensuring appropriate student placements. the service-learning unit also coordinates the flow of communication to and from external partners. the level at which students engage with communities on a project is not determined by the service-learning unit but by the respective departments. all logistical arrangements for the implementation of service-learning projects take place within the academic departments involved. the assessment of service-learning projects is carried out along the broad guidelines as set out by the council for higher education. the service-learning unit in collaboration with the cput quality office monitors and evaluates the role of the service-learning programme and makes recommendations for improvements. internal resource allocation is limited, mainly providing money for transporting students to and from the site. for further funding, project proposals need to be submitted to the service-learning unit. this includes securing external resource and allocation funding available for communities to access resources on campus. availability of financial resources is crucial for the quality implementation of service-learning. the institution ensures that each academic department is well resourced to carry out service-learning functions. despite institutional support for community engagement, service-learning projects do not attract the interest of academic staff. this is because of a lack of incentive. furthermore, many academics are experts in their disciplines but not in community engagement. a recent study conducted at cput found that, despite there being institutional support for community engagement, there is little encouragement at the departmental level. the study found a lack of communication between faculties and departments regarding community engagement projects. this has created a fragmented and uncoordinated approach to service-learning projects.15 this is consistent with nongxa12 who identifies poor management as a key concern for ensuring community engagement activities at the departmental level. the difficulty of identifying what is an appropriate community for engagement is another factor that favish16 believes distracts from a departmental enthusiasm in implementing community engagement projects. planning and developing a service-learning project for construction managers and quantity surveyors despite cput being an engaged university with a multitude of service-learning projects across all faculties, cm&qs has lagged behind most other disciplines in the use of this pedagogy. the changing face of engineering education requires students to engage with communities. they are required to work in multicultural environments, in multidisciplinary teams and to compete in the global market. implementing a service-learning project has many challenges such as crammed timetables and a demanding curriculum. to encourage more widespread adoption of service-learning in engineering qualifications this article presents a transdisciplinary learning approach to service-learning that enables engineering students to participate in a generic service. the first-year course in site surveying contains a project component that is suitable for community engagement. undergraduate students require more than a compacted technical background in site surveying. to do this component of the curriculum students are expected to co-operate with community members of different social and educational backgrounds. these soft skills are important in establishing the growing needs for engineering solutions in community projects. the first challenge was to find a suitable service-learning design. design consideration service-learning is seen as an unconventional teaching method. the development of service-learning in the curriculum depends largely on an individual’s commitment. it requires a good understanding and knowledge of institutional policy and guidelines that govern service-learning. conceptual frameworks need to be put into practice to ensure that this form of teaching is successful and ethically executed. service-learning demands much more flexibility from lecturers as the course material is not fully controllable because of student learning in the community. lecturers need to accept that students become a resource of knowledge that needs to be extracted in reflective sessions. theory and experience become integrated, resulting in the need to ensure that academic standards are strictly upheld. learning goals must be achieved through well-structured assignments that facilitate student learning from the service experience. the lecturer has the added responsibility of ensuring that students can engage with partners to harvest knowledge during their experience. classroom teaching and community engagement is distinctly different and requires consistency between the two environments to provide equal opportunities for student learning. lecturers must therefore disseminate information before engagement, provide support during engagement and then facilitate and guide in reflection after engagement. the design of a service-learning module has several variables that the lecturer needs to be aware of. the first variable is the formulation of module outcomes. module outcomes differ depending on the developmental needs of the community. a situational analysis of the community is needed beforehand to ensure that the students can work within the parameters of the community’s operation. this requires careful planning to ensure that the academic programme is not compromised in a bid to accommodate the community’s needs. module design can only be determined once a memorandum of understanding has been finalised and signed with the respective partners. the second variable relates to the time spent in the community. the community will determine when engagement can happen and the amount of time available for student activities. this has implications for timetabling of academic work. provision must be made in the academic timetable to accommodate students on-site so that the required knowledge is gained from the engagement experience. twenty to forty hours of community engagement is recommended by the council for higher education resource manual.17 the third variable relates to the challenges of placing students in the community. these include community readiness to host students, the student’s readiness to engage with the community, weather conditions and logistical arrangements such as transport and safety. furthermore, care must be taken not to demoralise or frustrate students in their placement within the community. selecting a community engagement partner an effective method of finding a community partner is the ‘shopfront’ model. the ‘shopfront’ model is a university-wide programme where each faculty advertises themselves in a bid to attract community engagement. this model acts as a gateway for communities to access the university’s knowledge and resources in a bottom-up approach that ensures community-led rather than institutional-dominated projects. communities can approach all faculties rather than just one proactive faculty or department. this model is collaborative and multidisciplinary where community groups, academics and students work together in all facets of a community engagement project, within an innovative and supportive environment. widespread participation is an important part of ensuring that the community engagement project is sustainable.18 the project outcomes become multidisciplinary, shaped by the community and institution together rather than by the community and individual faculties and departments. this multidisciplinary approach can involve many subjects, supervised by academics and spanning over several semesters, or it can involve small projects requiring only a few students. the strength of this model is in the central control and coordination of projects rather than a fragmented individualistic and uncoordinated approach to projects at the departmental level. this multidisciplinary approach ensures a uniform way of dealing with community groups.19 furthermore, a community’s willingness and agency to form a partnership with the university demonstrates that the community has the vitality, which is key to a successful partnership.20 another model that has been successful for postgraduate students is the ‘science shop’ model, developed in europe in the 1970s. this model encourages community-based organisations, local and central government and labour unions to submit community engagement proposals to the central research office. the central research office serves all faculties and matches the proposal with appropriate faculty or department. the project output is research-based and is presented in the form of a thesis at honours or master’s level. this model ensures that the designated student is matched to the particular community’s needs and therefore ensures a productive partnership.21 the service-learning unit at cput encourages a transdisciplinary approach to service-learning. the department of urban and regional planning in the faculty of informatics and design decided to establish a service-learning project for their course in geographic information system (gis). the ‘shop front’ method for attracting a potential community partner was used. a rural community within the jurisdiction of the bergrivier local municipality in the west coast region of the western cape province approached the department to assist them with spatial planning guidelines for their community. the community is located on a farm with no cadastral information or services. it was decided that the first service to the community would be a gis to document, map and benchmark social assets within the community. the gis is used to capture the quantity and quality of community assets for future development work in the community.22 the emphasis was on infrastructure availability for different types of asset and activities. furthermore, the geographic information gathered would allow the community to lobby the local government for much-needed assistance and services. the service-learning project is ongoing with students adding and improving the gis each year. as a result of the transdisciplinary nature of community mapping, it was agreed that first-year cm&qs students would join the planning students. asset mapping is a valid component of the cm&qs course and specifically the site surveying module. the contribution engineering students offer in building a gis is the planning and operational aspect of infrastructure, whilst the planning students focus on the future development and overall use of infrastructure. organising the project upfront organisation of logistics was critical to the success of the transdisciplinary service-learning project. the inclusion of the engineering students was negotiated with community members involved. the timetabling of student fieldtrips was carefully planned to suit both departments and the community participants. only 24 students were allowed in the community each week. the number of students involved varied year by year (engineering students – 130 in 2014, 220 in 2015 and 20 in 2018). approximately 50 urban and regional planning students participated each year. field trips were arranged from july to november. students from each department were grouped and assigned to a neighbourhood in the community. each group was accompanied by a community member. transport to and from the community was arranged by the service-learning unit. students were supervised by a lecturer from one of the departments on each fieldtrip. the service-learning unit provided student induction training regarding service-learning protocols. analysis and reflection the pedagogy of service-learning is grounded in reflection, which enables learning to occur. feedback in the form of reflection sessions was critical to assess the outcomes of the experience. reflective sessions were conducted before, during and after site visits. the reflection beforehand highlighted the student’s anticipation and expectations. strict procedural skills onsite allowed students to gain self-confidence, self-esteem and personal growth. students were able to assess each other’s proficiency in acting independently and making decisions on their own as well as their ability to work together within their multidisciplinary groups. importantly students could contextualise their experience with the theory learnt in the classroom. students were encouraged to ask questions and derive new meaning to what they had learnt. the lecturer’s responsibility was to develop a meaningful connection between the experience and course content as well as to encourage students to explore issues more deeply. reflection afterwards provided students with an opportunity to consolidate their learning experience. the reflection activities took on various forms. these included presentations to classmates, student journal submission and a qualitative questionnaire about their experience. students were able to reveal their expectations before, experiences during and perception after the engagement. assessing student performance students were assessed on their agency and academic outcomes rather than the service itself. assessment measures included traditional assessment tools and reflection presentations, student journals, logs and a final portfolio, which were all peer-evaluated. the community deliverable was a gis map that was added to and improved upon year by year. the community partners had an opportunity to evaluate student performance through a feedback mechanism set up by the service-learning unit. this included visits to partners and the community. ethical considerations the cput policy and procedures for service-learning directs all service-learning projects. proposed service-learning projects are initiated at the departmental level, then submitted to the faculty for approval and finally registered as a service-learning project with the service-learning unit. all sites for service-learning projects are visited and approved by cput and service partners before the commencement of the placement of students and academics to enhance the chance of a favourable learning environment. ethical approval for service-learning projects is not required from the faculty research ethics committee unless there is a research component attached to the service-learning project. the service-learning project discussed in this article was solely a teaching and learning experience. consent amongst stakeholders was obtained in the form of a memorandum of understanding. the memorandum of understanding outlines the purpose of the partnership, nature of the partnership, responsibilities of all parties in the partnership and dispute resolution. guiding principles set out include: the benefit to the community; commitment to a community-led process; work produced should further the aims and identified priorities of the community; and once the students leave, the community must be left with something the community can follow up on that leads to implementation. the transdisciplinary service-learning project the transdisciplinary service-learning project discussed is a participatory asset-mapping exercise. participatory asset mapping is a process of documenting the existing resources in a community. community members collectively identify their assets and represent them on a map. the map is then used for future development work in the community. university departments from different disciplines can take part in this task. the mapping exercise serves as a vehicle to gradually induct students into communities and allow partnership building. once this has been achieved the task of identifying the community’s most urgent needs can be realised. the department of cm&qs participated in the participatory asset-mapping exercise in the hope that students gain an insider perspective of the community. the transdisciplinary service-learning project steering committee was made up of specific community interest groups who wanted to participate in the service-learning activities. these interest groups defined their outcomes to ensure a bottom-up approach to the development of the community. the academics at cput were responsible for ensuring that a clear connection existed between the community’s defined outcomes and the relevant academic module outcomes. this mixing of outcomes strengthened the prospect of reciprocity of knowledge during the project. service-learning projects generally take on three different forms: discipline-based, problem-based and capstone-based.17 discipline-based service-learning projects require that students have a continuous presence in the community throughout the project. the capstone approach involves postgraduate students. postgraduate students are selected because they can conduct themselves more professionally and require less supervision; they also offer more knowledge, skills and value to the project and are therefore more effective at finding a solution. furthermore, postgraduate students can gather personal experience that can be useful to them in practice. problem-based service-learning requires that students work with community residents to understand a specific problem. the transdisciplinary service-learning project is problem-based requiring students to gather and disseminate information during site visits. the transdisciplinary service-learning project achieved certain cross-field outcomes. these included skills such as critical and creative thinking, being able to work in groups and communicate across languages. students were required to work with people at varying academic levels, with different home languages and with expectations that sometimes exceeded the brief of the project. the problems confronting students were not simple and were in some instances unsolvable. this problem-based exercise required students to think critically, be strategic and communicate their ideas in creative ways. students needed to be tolerant and sensitive to the culture of the community and make sure they did not offend anyone. furthermore, students had to act in a socially responsible way when confronted with the problems facing the community. at the same time, students had to relate their experiences to the outcomes of their academic module and ensure that the collective objectives of the project were achieved. empirical evidence of transdisciplinary service-learning the aim of the service-learning project was for students to put forward innovative ideas that would empower the community to lobby local government for better services and support. student groups were multidisciplinary and were required to collectively come up with ideas. this created transdisciplinary learning that crossed disciplinary boundaries incorporating ideas, feelings and facts provided by the community. transdisciplinary learning allowed the exploration of ideas from the perspectives of both engineering and urban planning students. new knowledge was constructed, giving the students a deeper understanding of development issues within the community. the lecturer’s rapport with students allowed shared ideas that resulted in meaningful and enduring understanding for students. the project exposed students to real-life scenarios with open-ended problems, sometimes with no obvious solution. transdisciplinary learning provides a wider understanding of the muddled problems engineers are faced within their professional lives. engineering, urban planning and environmental problems are all interconnected in complex ways. during reflective sessions many students contributed outside their disciplinary backgrounds, which is a clear indication that transdisciplinary learning happened, developing knowledge beyond the student’s disciplinary awareness. the outcomes required from the transdisciplinary service-learning project: understand others through observation and participation. become adequately versed in disciplines and fields other than one’s own. create a shared conceptual framework for community engagement. integrate dissimilar concepts through collaboration. address complex problems at the intersection of one’s discipline. engage in cross-disciplinary knowledge building to understand and address community matters. the equitable contribution required of students: participate continuously. contribute to problem-solving. adapt to various communication types and skills. relate the community engagement experience to theoretical work taught in the classroom. discussion education at university is about learning new values and ways of understanding the world, a world that is becoming increasingly complex, more unequal and diverse. service-learning is embedded within academic classes and requires students to learn through participating in community engagement activities. it is intended to help students achieve their academic goals and to develop a sense of citizenship. there are two forms of service-learning, charitable and social change.23 the transdisciplinary service-learning project described in this article is transformative rather than philanthropic where the development of agency and social capital encourages community development and thus social change. the reason for actively choosing social change over charity is that charity creates certain expectations that cannot always be achieved. the community in which the service-learning project resides has limited services. as a result, residents see community development through a negative lens. community asset mapping is a strength-based approach to encourage community development by empowering residents to recognise their strengths and capacities. a simple definition of transdisciplinary is unitary knowledge by joining, combining and transcending skills of disciplines in understanding a concept, issue or problem.24 some argue that transdisciplinary should exclude a methodology altogether to facilitate joint problem solving.6 transdisciplinary education is creating new knowledge of real-life experiences from the perspectives of multiple disciplines. transdisciplinary research is creating new theory by integrating the approaches of multiple disciplines. transdisciplinary pedagogy is a way of teaching the curriculum through collaboration and interaction. it is the understanding and development of collective and distributed knowledge.25 the collaboration consists of multiple opportunities with people who have different experiences and knowledge. the site surveying course in which the service-learning project resides is aimed at equipping students with setting out skills on a construction site. service-learning and transdisciplinary pedagogy in site surveying were introduced to develop the students’ relationship with the communities they serve. the reason for choosing site surveying as a host for the service-learning project was the connection between setting out (the location of points for columns and other necessary structural parts) and coordinating as-built features (such as sewerage, power lines and buildings). transdisciplinary pedagogy facilitates community engagement where students from multiple disciplines and the community collaborate with a different understanding of the same complex issues. students develop their way of thinking by seeing things from multiple perspectives. this environment of learning is intended to provide a more engaged and motivated student who considers the impact on specific groups of people, the environment and society more broadly. the academic relevance of the service-learning project is the sharing of knowledge where both student and community experiences contribute to knowledge production. this is very unlike traditional models of learning in the university context where theory is taught in the classroom and practicals are carried out in the field. experiential activities such as site-based experience in construction education are important for undergraduates to understand the necessary issues associated with construction. the idea behind experiential learning is to experience how theory can be seen in practice. experiential service-learning provides a way for students to learn from the experience they acquire working with community members. it is argued in this article that engineers tend to see service-learning too objectively. the service described in the service-learning project and discussed in this article is creating shared values, agency and social capital whilst the learning is understanding the complex and often confusing nature of communities. this enables an engineer to better plan and design his or her work. students were asked to consider what influence their discipline has on specific groups of people through interactions with them. this was performed through community-led asset mapping as described in this article. asset mapping is information about the strengths of the community. the aim is to reach a point of appreciative knowledge together, recognising local expertise with a sincere willingness to learn from each other. a factor that complicates setting up a service-learning project is accommodating field trips in the department timetable. clashes in the timetable had to be negotiated with other lectures. the solution was to reserve 1 day a week for practicals and community field trips. students were put into groups of 13. each group was given a schedule of practical dates. the remaining time was available for community field trips. at least two community field trips were required in the semester, which amounted to approximately 18 h. in the last week of the semester, all students were bussed into the community for a 1-day final presentation and reflection. a community field trip involves leaving the university at 8 o’clock in the morning and returning at 5:30 in the evening. on arrival in the community, students were divided into groups consisting of a mix of urban and regional planning students and cm&qs students. each group was allocated an area in one of the neighbourhoods and were assisted by community residents. together, by using mobile gis equipment, they gathered geographic information of community assets and associated attribute data. although academically, as well as practically, the gap in experience between first-year and third-year students is broad, the intention is to encourage student agency in a real-life situation. this should not be dependent on academic skills or experience. community members contribute to shared knowledge through their understanding of the social dimension of their society. the perspectives of students from different disciplines necessitate critical thinking and an interpersonal understanding of community needs. conclusion the transdisciplinary service-learning project provided students with a transdisciplinary learning experience by using the service-learning pedagogy. during the project, students were able to apply academic theory taught in the classroom within a community setting. student’s knowledge, skills and educational thinking were stimulated through ‘knowledge by acquaintance’, inspiring a higher order of thinking through real-life experience. the pedagogy of service-learning is grounded in reflection, which enables learning to occur. the connection between theory and practice is achieved through reflection sessions prepared in the classroom before, during and after engagement. reflection sessions are critical in assessing the outcomes of the experience. students were able to discuss the effectiveness of their role as agents in the community. importantly students needed to contextualise the experience with the theory learnt in the classroom. the ultimate goal was to gain knowledge of the module content and understand it in the context of a community setting. asset mapping is an innovative way of visualising the needs and potential of a community. once it is performed, development can be based on the strengths and resources of the community. members from all sectors of the community should participate. the mapping exercise can be simple, by using multiple tools, methods and sources. this ensures a wide range of participation. departments across faculties in the university can partake regardless of differing disciplines. the purpose of asset mapping is (1) to allow students to experience community engagement and (2) provide the community with a gis map that can be used to lobby local government for much-needed services and support. when departments and community work together a transdisciplinary learning experience is created where disciplinary boundaries are dissolved and blended with community knowledge. the hope is that this transdisciplinary service-learning project will encourage academics who normally shy away from service-learning to reconsider. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions l.f.p. is the sole author of this research article. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references thomson a, smith-tolken a, naidoo t, bringle r. service learning and community engagement: a comparison of three national contexts. int soc third–sector res john’s hopkins univ. 2011;22(2):214–237. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-010-9133-9 lazarus j, 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multimodal learning findings and discussion looking at yesterday and tomorrow model for teaching multimodal music education conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) sonja cruywagen school of the arts: music, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa hetta potgieter school of music, faculty of arts, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation cruywagen, s. & potgieter, h., 2020, ‘the world we live in: a perspective on blended learning and music education in higher education’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a696. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.696 original research the world we live in: a perspective on blended learning and music education in higher education sonja cruywagen, hetta potgieter received: 12 apr. 2019; accepted: 23 jan. 2020; published: 26 mar. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article investigates the incorporation of picciano’s blending with purpose multimodal model into an undergraduate music education module. this multimodal model advocates that teachers and instructional designers should use multiple approaches to meet the needs of a wide spectrum of students. the purpose of this intrinsic case study was to understand how the blending with purpose multimodal model can be applied to facilitate teaching and learning of music education for bachelor of music (bmus) and bachelor of arts (ba) music students. the initial reason for conducting this research was to restructure the music education curriculum, which, until 2013, had mostly focused on face-to-face teaching and learning approaches. the use of digital media, which initiated e-learning technologies, changed teaching and learning experiences. blended learning as the teaching model proved to be a useful and appropriate method in the striving to develop new approaches to teaching and learning in music education. from the interpretation of research findings, a teaching and learning model was created that could be implemented in teaching music in a higher education context. keywords: multimodal learning model; hybrid learning; blended learning; music education; tertiary institutions; undergraduate music curriculum; south africa. vignette: evacuate! it is the end of january 2016. staff members are prepared for the new academic year. they have fresh energy after the december holiday and creative new ideas for presenting lectures. suddenly a whatsapp message appears on our cell phones: ‘student protesters attempted to disrupt first-year welcoming. safety remains the priority. please leave the campus immediately’. during the following days more and more phone messages of this type were sent by management. the university comes to a standstill for a few days. no first-year welcoming, no classes, no teaching … for how long? students are shouting out their frustrations, singing their demands: ‘amalungelo, thina silwela amalungelo wethu’ (we are fighting for our rights for… education, food, accommodation etc.). ‘#feesmustfall!’ why this research? the reality of the disruptions at south african tertiary education institutions from 2015 was not the initial motivation for the research, but the findings of this study may now be more relevant and significant after the experiences of tertiary institutions during the #feesmustfall campaign. the research question initially posed for this study was, ‘how can the blending with purpose multimodal model be applied to the teaching and learning of music education (me)?’. the answer to this question could lead to an understanding that informs the redesigning of me curricula in national as well as international contexts. for the purpose of this article, the focus was on understanding how the blending with purpose multimodal model could be applied to complement and supplement the teaching and learning experiences of students in undergraduate me. the case studies by bell-robertson (2014) and naughton (2012), as well as a narrative-informed case study by partti (2014), in which the authors explored musical experiences and creativity in an online community, prompted the idea to delve deeper into this topic. examples of ethnographical case studies include those by brändström, wiklund and lundström (2012), who examined distance me, and waldron (2013), who explained the value of user-generated content in music teaching and learning. partti (2014) investigated collaborative composing in an online music community using an instrumental case study. our study complements these studies with research that investigated multiple approaches to online teaching and learning for pre-service music educators. the international relevance of and interest in this issue made it evident that research conducted in south africa can contribute towards advancing international skilfulness. the process of this research was presented at two international conferences of me – international society for music education (isme) 2014 (porto alegre, brazil) and isme 2016 (glasgow, scotland) at the research commission for me. methodology full-time undergraduate music students who enrolled for me modules at the university of pretoria (up) in 2014 and 2015 were selected as participants. the music students in the me modules came from different cultural groups. most students were south african, but there was also one korean student, a student from botswana (tswana) and a student from malawi (chewa). the south african students were from sotho, tsonga, afrikaans, english, greek and turkish ethnic groups. this study was conducted during the full academic year of 2014 up to mid-2015, involving all first-year me students (22 students – 50-min contact time per week) and all secondand third-year me students (23 students in total – 100-min contact time per week). permission was obtained from the research ethics committee of the faculty of humanities, up, to perform qualitative research involving individuals and groups at the research site for this study. inviting students to participate in a qualitative interview process was facilitated by the existing relationship of trust (creswell 2013:ch. 7) between the interviewer (in this case s.c.) and the interviewees (first-year, second-year and third-year me students). open-ended focus group interviews were conducted for data collection. the interviews focused on how participants experienced the blended teaching and learning in me at up to optimise the facilitation of me at the university in the future. direct participant observation formed part of the case study (yin 2009). the participant observer (in this case s.c.) looked at how the participants behaved in multimodal (blended learning) activities to facilitate teaching and learning in me. documents, audio-visual material and evidence of student online teaching and learning activities were also used for data collection with participation of all students. these documents included up course study guides, examples of wikis, discussion board activities and online journal entries. in order to complete the case analysis, the data were examined through the theoretical lens of picciano’s multimodal model (figure 1). the relevant theoretical concepts informed the process of coding and theme development (clarke, braun & hayfield 2015). there were six phases in the thematic analysis: familiarisation, coding, identifying themes, revising themes, naming themes and writing the report (braun & clarke 2006). data were organised and visually presented in atlas.ti 7.1.6 software. figure 1: blending with purpose multimodal model. the qualitative strategy for data analysis was thematic analysis. a teaching and learning model was created on the basis of the findings, that is, planning a music education curriculum (figure 4). the findings of the research are of particular interest for music educators, me students, research students and curriculum planners in higher education who are exploring different teaching and learning strategies for the future use. the key challenge1 currently, approaches to teaching and learning are being challenged by several new philosophies, methodologies (barell 2010:174–199; dunbar-hall 2011:14; wiggins 2015:1–74) and innovations in learning technologies (liaw, huang & chen 2007:1066; long 2005:60; paechter & maier 2010:292; picciano 2014:35–43). educators who are educating the first generation of students who have grown up with the products of modern information technologies are challenged to design courses that could develop cognitive skills through technology enhanced pedagogical approaches. academic programmes need to transfer the 21st-century skills (carpenter & pease 2012:36–41) into the classroom to prepare students to be able to demonstrate their skills in a professional environment. students need to engage with the environment to construct new understandings through problem-solving experiences (wiggins 2015:19). professional environments require skills such as teamwork, self-direction, critical thinking, problem-solving and literacy in the 21st-century information and communications technology (ict) (barell 2010:176; carpenter & pease 2012:36–41). music educators have to prepare music students to be able to demonstrate these skills in a professional musical environment and to relate to their situation in order to construct new understandings in a holistic context. garrison and kanuka (2004:96) refer to the ‘thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences’ as blended learning.2 rovai and jordan (2004:1) explain that ‘blended learning is a hybrid of classroom and online learning that includes some of the conveniences of online courses without the complete loss of face-to-face contact’. picciano (2009:4) recommends that educators should use multiple approaches that include face-to-face learning as well as online technologies. traditional approaches to curriculum design are still adopted in numerous undergraduate music programmes (kimpton 2005:11; morford 2007:80). most undergraduate music programmes include modules such as musicology, theory and analysis, composition, musical performance (harper-scott & samson 2009:97–218; morford 2007:75–83) and me pedagogy (morford 2007:80). these courses are structured in such a way that the interaction with music occurs through the development of the student’s performing and academic abilities, but they do not integrate creative processes to develop competent music educators. the constituent elements of musicology, music theory and performance should intersect in a natural way with what students learn in me to ensure an integrated view necessary for music educators. understanding these connections enables students to apply musical understanding to music teaching and learning (wiggins 2007:36–42). the application of blended learning as a creative teaching strategy to develop technical skills, performance techniques and musical skills are relevant to the world in which students live. garrison and kanuka (2004:99) advise that the instructor who plans to accommodate blended learning in a curriculum needs to reconsider and redesign the teaching and learning relationship in a cohesive approach. these challenges are of critical importance and cannot be ignored: ‘we are forced, as a result, to consider, once more, the issue of comprehensiveness in education, its meaning and its promise’ (reimer 2007:1). multimodal or blended learning faces certain challenges in developing countries that cannot be ignored. colleagues from the department of music and dance at kenyatta university in kenya highlighted some issues that are also applicable to the south african context (digolo 2012). these include the resistance of lecturers to change from traditional well-known methods of teaching and learning to developing an online pedagogy, a sphere in which they lack experience, confidence, teaching material and assessment criteria; the lack of availability of personal computers with appropriate software programs for lecturers and students; the absence of stable internet connectivity, which means that slow dial-up speed will hamper3 the teaching and learning process. hence, our curiosity and creative impulses urged us (the authors of this article) to investigate online methodologies that could be implemented at tertiary institutions.4 student-centred pedagogical approaches located within the different ways of knowing (luckett 2001a:55) are characteristic of south african higher education level descriptors. preparing higher education students for the realities of the working environment is challenging because students come not only from underprivileged educational backgrounds but also from privileged ones (howie & pietersen 2001:7–9; jaffer, ng’ambi & czerniewicz 2007:134) as well as from higherand lower-income groups. the school-leaving requirements for admission to first-year university studies have been standardised nationally, but there are many inconsistencies in the standards of basic education in schools (modisaotsile 2012:1–7). these diverse schooling backgrounds also mean that some music students from private music teaching environments sign up for undergraduate music programme, but they have not studied music as a subject at school. in the light of the above conditions, luckett (2001b:31) describes four ways of knowing and learning in a proposed epistemically diverse curriculum for south african higher education in the 21st century. these four types develop four fundamental kinds of knowledge of academic disciplines into effective and cohesive reflexive competence: propositional knowledge focuses on foundational competence. practical knowledge focuses on knowing how and learning by doing. experiential knowledge learning takes place through engaging personally and thinking reflectively. epistemic knowledge develops meta-cognition, thinking epistemically, contextually and systemically (luckett 2001a:55). implementation of multimodal learning to enrich the integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences (i.e. blended learning), le rossignol (2014:1–16) propose that specific application combinations should characterise blended learning: integration of any online and traditional (face-to-face) learning (graham 2005:4) pedagogical approaches – grounded in learner-centredness (not reliant on learning technologies), for example, constructivism (scott 2012:191–198; wiggins 2015:1–41), problem-based learning (barell 2010:174–199; wiggins 2007:39) different focal points for learning: skills-driven, attitude-driven and competency-driven learning (valiathan 2002:1–4) connections between instructional technologies (media) with different methods of face-to-face learning (graham 2005:4) different web-based technologies in an e-learning environment. several researchers (merritt 2002; oblinger & oblinger 2005; salajan, schönwetter & cleghorn 2010; singh 2014) have studied the characteristics of ‘digital natives’ (persons brought up with digital technologies who are familiar with computers and the internet from an early age) and described the values and behaviours of an information-age mindset. the current student generation (generation z) grew up in a more technologically advanced environment than the immediately prior generations (generation x and generation y). emerging generation z characteristics are, for example, risk adverse, prematurely mature, pampered and protected (singh 2014:59). komarraju et al. (2011:472) explain that the way in which higher education students relate to new learning information reflect their learning styles and the quality of their thinking, which is critical to learning and could possibly determine their academic success. pedagogical approaches to undergraduate students (the theory and practice of learning) should incorporate the findings of cognitive scientists on learning styles. these studies have taken into account a number of dimensions of the learning process, including incentives for learning, personality types and the pace of instruction (picciano 2009:11). the indications are that multiple approaches that include the adoption of online technology may challenge and stimulate music lecturers and students to experience learning in innovative ways. we realise that scheduled teaching and learning on campuses in south africa are nowadays often interrupted and education curricula should be restructured to accommodate any change in teaching and learning conditions. picciano’s (2009:11) multimodal model for educators entails the use of multiple approaches, including face-to-face and online technologies. picciano’s (2009:4–14) multimodal model incorporates multiple perspectives to meet the needs of a wide spectrum of students: the sharing of content (e.g. text documents, the internet links to websites and mashups) social/emotional support (e.g. oral communication) dialectic/questioning activities (e.g. online discussion boards) reflection as pedagogical strategy (e.g. online journals) student collaboration to generate content that could be shared (e.g. wikis) synthesising, evaluating and assessing learning as objectives. jaffer et al. (2007:136) explain that educators have to understand which educational technologies are appropriate for which learning situations. hybrid learning tools could be used in music classroom to accommodate the collaborative constructivist perspective on me. multimodal activities are suitable for text-based research, collaborative learning as well as dialectical/questioning and reflective assignments. the real-life problem-solving learning approaches of creating, listening and performing in me (wiggins 2015:57–89) occur primarily in face-to-face sessions. students take more responsibility for their own learning (carpenter & pease 2012:37) and develop as learners and individuals by means of participating in a learning community. as active participants in their own learning, students acquire a deeper understanding of content and its meaning (biggs 1991:27–39; crosling, heagney & thomas 2009:13; wiggins 2015:2), participate more effectively in dynamic communication and learn more academic and life skills that could be of their advantage beyond the classroom. constructivist principles that infuse practice are changing music learning and teaching (scott 2012), because constructivist learning environments imply that collaborative knowledge and problem-solving outcomes are built on a social level (jonassen 1999:215–239; wiggins 2015:24). inductive approaches that originate in constructivism include inquiry-based and problem-based learning. inductive methods of teaching adopt a student-centred approach; they require active learning and develop self-directed learning skills (barell 2010:174–199; spronken-smith 2007:2; vajoczki et al. 2011:2). multimodal learning in undergraduate me is described, understood and interpreted within a social constructivist worldview. in this intrinsic, single-site case study, the pedagogical objectives and activities of blending with purpose multimodal model (picciano 2009:4–14) provided the theoretical framework to analyse the data in a context that elucidates the teaching and learning experiences of pre-service music educators in south african higher education. ethical consideration ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the ethics committees of the north-west university and university of pretoria. findings and discussion from the data collected, three main themes (figure 2) emerged, which contributed to the proposed model for creating an undergraduate me curriculum: (1) participants’ experiences, (2) picciano’s blending with purpose multimodal model and (3) me curriculum. figure 2: emergent themes. the following sections discuss these three themes that emerge from data analysis: (1) the participants’ comments on how they experienced multimodal teaching and learning; (2) the student-centred pedagogical approaches of me curriculum; and (3) the way picciano’s blending with purpose multimodal model connects with the me curriculum’s goals and objectives. theme 1: participants’ experiences the music students responded to activities that indicated their learning preferences and learning style. thuli5 mentioned that ‘we write out what we study’. lizette reported that ‘with typed notes everything is beautifully organised’. katherine said: ‘i have to study with colours, so instead of wasting four hours with colour pens, i just do it on the computer’. kim explained that the classroom must be ‘calm and very informative’. alexis indicated that a learning environment should in some sort of way accommodate all students who do learn in different ways. aileen felt: ‘i hate reading with a passion; if i can’t see something or hear it, i’m not interested. i get bored so quickly and i miss everything’. all the students were part of the discipline of me and the data indicated that, within their diverse learning styles, they also have specific views on teaching and learning through the use of online technologies. their comments may be related to research conducted by krätzig and arbuthnott (2006:241, 242), who supported the idea that each individual uses a diverse ‘blend’ of learning modalities to learn efficiently and effectively. jason explained in the following manner: ‘[a]n effective learning environment must be balanced, combined with today’s various technologies, through interaction with teachers in class and also a more practical online search in class – online activities like research.’ (jason, male, 19 years old) clara indicated that learning styles differ from one person to another: ‘i prefer to learn in an interactive sort of way. if i was sitting in class and was asked to contribute to a discussion, even though it might not be correct, i might have thought about it more and formulate an answer in my head without the information. for me that would stick more than just researching the answer and putting it on the discussion board.’ (clara, female,18 years old). although the participants represented several cultures, their specific culture made no difference to the way they approached multimodal teaching and learning. they grew up with computers, the internet and information technologies that are always available (salajan et al. 2010:1393). according to krause (2007:138), the ‘socio-economic background, age and gender’ differences are reflected in their individual experiences of their technological skills and practices. this statement was confirmed by a student from botswana who had never used a computer before she came to university and struggled to do online assignments at the beginning of her first year. however, she soon developed enough technological skills to work alone and with other class members on online assignments. multimodal pedagogy also focuses on learning and learner-centred strategies. the incorporation of blended learning in assignments encouraged students to take more responsibility for their own learning. some music students did not recognise the value of online technology to enrich their teaching and learning in me. a few of them were not even concerned about taking responsibility for their own learning of the subject content and skills. they did not even bother to visit the online me page to locate course information and assignments. the music students who were serious about studying on their own valued instructions without the lecturer’s face-to-face assistance. these students navigated the online module page effortlessly, joined in discussion boards and found working in wikis stimulating. most music student participants felt that online technology embodies the way they live their lives. however, some students struggled to use online learning activities and they experienced themselves as not really ‘technologically advanced’. jason mentioned that: ‘[a]n effective learning environment must be balanced, combined with today’s various technologies, through interaction with teachers in class and also a more practical online search in class – online activities like research.’ (jason, male, 19 years old) theme 2: music education curriculum the analysis of the up’s course study guides indicated that the me curriculum categories unfolded with student-centred pedagogical approaches placed within the different ‘ways of learning’ (luckett 2001b:31). in the first year, students applied propositional knowledge to carry out challenging new learning activities. practical competence was embodied throughout the course by creating, performing and listening – students understood the processes of teaching music through practical experiences. experiential knowledge developed when music students took responsibility of their own learning. they started to engage personally with course outcomes and were able to reflect on music and its significance through understanding music as an approach to give meaning to life experiences. at this level music students started to bridge the gap between just knowing and becoming successful music educators. epistemic knowledge engaged music students in deep, critical thinking about their future as musicians and music teachers. on this level they started to apply constructivist learning principles by planning music learning experiences and so creating a model of musicianship and musical thinking processes. students mentioned that new knowledge (propositional knowledge) could be constructed with online activities. lebogang felt: ‘i learned a lot about the topic’; aileen said that the wiki helped to ‘create a reliable source of information’; and clara explained that the wiki contained ‘all the music styles that we learnt about, correctly summarised and all in one area which made it convenient, quick and easy to use’. these experiences signified that problem-solving activities in class allowed students to use different media to realise creative projects. an example of practical knowledge was illustrated when different groups in the class had to do a composing activity – one of the groups decided to use a mobile app to compose a short song. another group wrote their song on a white board and another one used colourful sticky notes to indicate different tonic solfa levels. practical proficiency led to the successful application of musical understanding using different learning tools. the undergraduate me curriculum also accommodated experiential learning to prepare music students for their future careers. christelle mentioned that online activities allowed the students to ‘actually (apply) what we learned (from me) in class. we have to incorporate (this) knowledge into a project like teaching examples and stuff’. the third-year music students observed and evaluated teaching and learning in the field. some of the learning outcomes focused on understanding learning and contexts for learning in order to teach for developing musical understanding. the learning outcomes also concentrated on finding a balance between theoretical and practical information through research. the way of knowing in an epistemic knowledge approach requires students to rethink their assumptions about morals, beliefs and social responsibility. students need to understand the integrated nature of human learning and knowing, consider the importance of a sociocultural, constructive learning process, engage in musical thinking and reflect on the pedagogical strategies they are going to use as music teachers. when students think in systemic and transdisciplinary manner, they see connections between different disciplines and evaluate different theories of knowledge. online learning tools allow students to work and communicate during holidays. roland indicated that students ‘can be in separate places and different contexts’ to use online tools. kim mentioned that online interaction could happen ‘at their own time’, whilst corlise said: ‘it can be done over an extended period of time and can be done anywhere with an internet connection’. noah felt that the study material could ‘be revisited to study for exams’. an me course design should embrace the diversity of music students to create an environment within which they could find their own distinctive learning paths to succeed in their quest to become creative and successful music educators. figure 3 illustrates current activities that were included in the me curriculum processes of learning and blending with purpose. figure 3: music education curriculum learning activities. the synthesis of categories that were combined to implement a successful curriculum design was derived from data analysis. the experienced musical life worlds of music students were the point of departure for constructing music curriculum, whilst a holistic teaching philosophy directed course goals and objectives, which were assessed accordingly. the me curriculum was infused with online technology. theme 3: picciano’s blending with purpose multimodal model music education course goals and objectives determine how the six basic pedagogical objectives/activities of the blending with purpose multimodal model (content, support, questioning activities, reflection, collaboration and synthesis) support the incorporation of online technologies. content: the music students agreed that it was valuable for their learning process to find all course notes online. thuli stated that students ‘don’t need to take notes in class and can take in what the lecturer says’. social and emotional support: music students commented that online educational communication cannot give students the one-on-one attention that they may need. christelle indicated that ‘if you are online and you are logged in to someone’s lecture, you cannot ask if you have no idea what a word means – you lose that personal touch’. morgan explained as follows: ‘[w]hen you put students in a social situation rather than learning online, we have to perform to prove that we can do what we are supposed to do – if we have online interaction we work at our own pace and might slack down a bit’. dialectic/questioning: aileen had the following experience: ‘[i]n class you don’t have time to research and think about a reply or answer. but online i could calmly reply, get my thoughts together and post a collaborative answer – in class it can quickly turn out into an argument’. reflection: online assignments allow students to reflect on the assignments already completed. during the online discussion board in class, some students went back to all the posts and read through the contributions. the journal and blog tools are appropriate collaborative tools for students to reflect upon. collaboration/wiki: the wiki is an interactive environment. alexis mentioned the following: ‘[g]enrally, in music, we do our individual instruments where we are only one person. but especially in terms of the wiki, … you get an idea of what other people think and you gain other information that you probably haven’t thought about and it adds to your information and what you know and broadens your general knowledge of music by seeing what you’ve posted and what others have posted – getting the opportunity to see other’s opinions – broadens your knowledge as you read it’. synthesis/evaluation: students realised that their research papers and powerpoint presentations were successfully uploaded online, and that the marks with added comments were available as soon as marking was completed. thuli said, ‘i immediately can see my marks and know exactly what i have done right and where i needed more support’. looking at yesterday and tomorrow not much research has been published to establish the outcomes of structuring an entire music curriculum on the values and principles of multimodal teaching and learning. most studies focus on student opinions on the use of online tools in a learning environment, the implication of single online activities, particular online me developments, and improvements in the use of online modalities for professional practice. to expand and support the me community of inquiry, further research could include the following: multimodal experiences of different higher education institutions compared in a multiple case study to identify and propose useful methods of preparing future music educators in south africa a study over an extended period to identify the nature of a sustained practical and effective curriculum the integration of online technologies to assist learning in postgraduate modules investigating how multimodality could add value to practical music subjects; this research could explore ideas about increasing the learning potential of students and identify online teaching resources from which both students and educators could benefit. although designing a new curriculum and experimenting with online activities have had an impact on lecturers’ teaching schedules, this endeavour has added value to the me curriculum. the course goals and objectives were revised and the technologies to enhance multimodal learning were selected more purposefully. the music students were challenged to make use of online modalities to enhance their learning experiences by using new approaches to construct a fuller understanding through multimodal activities in me. model for teaching multimodal music education one of the responsibilities of an undergraduate music educator is to structure a curriculum that could support music students in shaping their own identities as musicians and music educators. figure 4 graphically displays our teaching philosophy which could equip future music teachers to make a difference in south african communities. this could be performed by promoting a lifelong engagement with music by bringing together course learning experiences and musical experiences outside the university, and enabling students to find their own routes into teaching music most effectively. figure 4: planning a music education curriculum. pedagogical approaches that affirm this philosophy concentrate on learning and learner-centred strategies. the constructive process of learning (duffy & cunningham 1996:5) is pragmatic and embedded in the previous life experiences of every music student (wiggins 2015:21). the point of departure for the me curriculum was students’ individual and personal musical understanding formed through diverse lived musical experiences. biggs (1991:29) explains that students, influenced by their motives for attending a course, create their own learning approach to solve learning problems. students who experience university as a necessary career opportunity adopt a surface approach to learning. a deep approach focuses on the students’ interest in the details of the task. learning based on the achievement approach concentrates on the self-pride stemming from achieving high grades (biggs1991:29). a teaching and learning model, planning a music education curriculum (figure 4) was created on the basis of these dynamics to illustrate the diversity of considerations when planning an me curriculum. conclusion picciano’s (2009:4–14) blending with purpose multimodal model outlines the requirements to implement hybrid learning successfully in me. this conceptual model is flexible and recognises that the learning needs of a wide spectrum of students should be met. critical to this model is the recommendation that course goals and objectives should be the driving force to determine which pedagogical approaches and technologies should be used. using this multimodal model also benefits students by encouraging them to use the online technologies that they are familiar with in the course of their everyday lives. acknowledgements the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exist. author’s contributions this research was conducted by s.c. with h.p. as the supervisor and co-author. this article is based on a doctoral research conducted by s.c. funding information this research was supported by the national research foundation of south africa (unique grant no.: 93160). data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this research are those of the authors and the national research foundation accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard. references barell, j., 2010, ‘problem-based learning: the foundation for 21st century skills’, in j.a. bellanca & r.s. brandt (eds.), 21st century skills: rethinking how students learn, pp. 174–199, corwin press, thousand oaks, ca. bell-robertson, c.g., 2014, ‘staying on our feet: novice music teachers’ sharing of emotions and experiences within an online community’, journal of research in music education 61(4), 431–451. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429413508410 biggs, j.b., 1991, ‘approaches to learning in secondary and tertiary students in hong kong: some comparative 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struggling with internet connectivity and up-to-date computers and software programs. 4. the research was conducted by cruywagen (2015) at the department of music, university of pretoria. documents for data analysis included online assignments presented to discussion boards and in journals, research essays and wikis. lecturers from different subject fields at the school of music at north-west university were also involved with online teaching strategies. 5. pseudonyms are used to protect the identity of the participants. abstract introduction comparative drought case studies ignoring the warnings of ‘water prophets’ a chronology of the cape town drought the political fallout of the drought – who is to blame? conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) wessel p. visser department of history, university of stellenbosch, south africa citation visser, w.p., 2018, ‘a perfect storm: the ramifications of cape town’s drought crisis’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a567. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.567 original research a perfect storm: the ramifications of cape town’s drought crisis wessel p. visser received: 24 apr. 2018; accepted: 28 aug. 2018; published: 28 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract by 2018, the city of cape town (cct) suffered a third consecutive year of serious drought. this article investigates the chronology of the drought and the various measures imposed by the city council to preserve dwindling water supplies in an effort to stave off the so-called ‘day zero’ scenario when its water reserves would apparently dry up. by means of contemporary sources, water governance sources and other relevant documentation, the trajectory of cape town’s water crisis and the political ramifications for its citizens is being investigated. finally, lessons to be learnt from cape town’s dealing with its drought crisis, and other cities that found themselves in similar situations, will be discussed. an analysis of the political fallout and blaming of who should be held responsible for cape town’s precarious water situation is also presented. it seems that a combination of factors was responsible for the city’s relative unpreparedness in dealing with the drought: the politically fractured nature of south african multi-tiered government agencies and the lack of an integrated government approach to the drought; the cct mayor’s unclear and negative communication to rate payers and ineffective water-saving proposals; a fallout between the cct mayor and her political superiors over the effectiveness of her drought management plans; a dysfunctional, bankrupt and inert national department of water and sanitation; and the expectation that the city’s expenditure on water supply schemes could be put on hold simply by saving the existing supply in the belief that it would remain stable. introduction a recent bbc report, quoted by heymans (2018), identified 11 cities – cape town, london, cairo, são paolo, mexico city, bangalore, beijing, moscow, tokyo, miami and jakarta, which ‘could run out of water’ in the next decade or so. by 2018, the citizens of cape town, south africa, who had been suffering a persistent drought since 2015, found themselves in a proverbial ‘perfect storm’1: the most severe drought within the city’s living memory, a dysfunctional national department of water and sanitation (dws), which was supposed to serve as custodian of all water affairs in south africa and political infighting and disunity within the cape town city council in dealing with the crisis. with a population of 3.7 million, the city of cape town (cct) enjoys a mediterranean climate, the average summer temperature is 26°c and the average winter temperature is 16°c. the average annual precipitation is 520 mm, the wettest months being june to august (world weather & climate information 2018). the city’s water is transferred from several catchment areas through an intricate system of dams and pipelines managed either by the cct or the national dws. the collective capacity of the city’s 14 dams is approximately 900 000 ml. most of this capacity is provided by six large dams: the steenbras upper and lower dams (city-controlled), wemmershoek (city-controlled) and the voëlvlei, theewaterskloof (see figure 1) and berg river dams (all state-controlled). the state-controlled dams also provide water for agricultural and irrigation purposes. the city’s and the state’s integral water scheme in the western cape also provides potable water to towns adjacent to and on the periphery of the greater cape town metropolitan area, with the result that in total approximately 8 million people are dependent on the overarching water supply system (city of cape town 2011). figure 1: theewaterskloof dam levels in january 2018. comparative drought case studies the cape town drought seems to be following a pattern similar to those of melbourne, barcelona and são paolo. from 1997 to 2009, australia faced the worst drought in the country’s recorded history, the so-called ‘millennium drought’. melbourne, a city of 4.3 million people located in south-eastern australia, was worst hit. water levels dropped to an all-time low capacity of 25.6% before the drought eased in 2010. the city was successful in reducing water demand per capita by almost 50% by implementing various policy and infrastructure innovations. legislation was passed that allowed the federal government to provide funding to melbourne and to set the groundwork for an integrated government response to the drought. initiatives implemented to combat the drought included water restrictions and a complete ban on outdoor use of municipal water; the fixing of water pipe leakages and the implementation of flow control devices, the construction of a water pipeline to deliver water from a river basin and a treatment plant for recycled water to augment melbourne’s water supply; rebate programmes for residential greywater systems, washing machines, toilet and showerhead replacement services, hot water re-circulators and rainwater tank installations; storm water harvesting; the installation of water-efficient evaporative coolers for air conditioners; the reduction of water flowing to rivers, as well as electronic billboard and media advertising campaigns to promote water conservation, education and awareness especially in primary and secondary schools (low et al. 2015; patterson 2015; tam 2016; slaughter & mantel 2018). in 2008, the 5.5 million inhabitants of the mediterranean city of barcelona, capital of catalonia in spain, experienced its worst drought in 70 years: a warming up and drying out of the regional climate, failing winter rains, dwindling reservoir water levels and increasing water demands, increased housing development because of rapid population expansion, unpopular emergency water-saving measures and extreme short-term measures similar to those of melbourne, a lack of foresight on the side of the authorities, political battles and controversy and differences in strategy to deal with the crisis, as well as negative publicity (goodman 2008; nash 2008). barcelona’s long-term solution to the problem was the construction of a seawater desalination plant at a cost of 230 million euros. it has a drinking water output of 200 000 m3 per day which caters to 1.3 million people in the region or 20% of the population of catalonia (van zyl 2018). the 2014–2017 brazilian drought affected the southeast of brazil and especially the metropolitan areas of são paolo with its 20 million inhabitants where it has been described as ‘the worst drought in 80 years’. warnings about the coming drought by scientists, environmentalists and technical experts were overridden by real estate developers and industrial and agricultural interests. the drought was characterised by water rationalisation, low-pressure flow in pipes and dry taps sometimes for days on end, with residents turning to drilling private wells, recycling water, harvesting rainwater, hoarding potable water and buying expensive private water from tank trucks to avoid relying on the city’s water network. direct water allocations to agriculture and industry were also suspended and punitive tariffs imposed on users, but still the levels of the city’s main reservoirs dropped below 17%. citizens’ protests soon followed and as the drought worsened by 2016, a state of emergency was declared across the state. long-term solutions included the transfer of more water from additional river basins (gerberg 2015; nikolau 2015; rigby 2015; stauffer 2016). however, unlike melbourne, são paolo and barcelona, where water-saving measures were introduced and the droughts eventually broken, cape town could become the first world city to virtually run out of water as a so-called ‘day zero’ was set originally for july 2018 by the city council, should most water supplies be exhausted and when 75% of the city’s taps will be turned off (may 2018; theron & brits 2018). by means of contemporary sources, water governance sources and other relevant documentation, this article investigates the trajectory of cape town’s water crisis and the political ramifications for its citizens. finally, lessons to be learnt from cape town’s dealing with its drought crisis and other cities that found themselves in similar situations will be discussed. ignoring the warnings of ‘water prophets’ water awareness was highlighted as early as 1970 when fa venter, a prominent afrikaans writer, was commissioned by the then minister of water affairs to write a report on water in south africa. the 568 pages report stated that drastic measures were needed to prevent the country from running out of water by the year 2000 (ismail 2018). twenty years later, in 1990, the south african water research commission (streek 1990) predicted that cape town’s water supplies were expected to dry up by 2007 as the city’s fresh water supplies would by then be fully committed. in the post-2007 period, the feasibility of reclaiming purified sewage effluent to augment supplies would have to be investigated. in the late 1990s, two university of cape town zoologists, davies and day (1998), warned in their book vanishing waters that south africa was rapidly running out of water because the demand was rapidly outstripping supply. the hugely increasing human population required more and more water and many people were competing for too little available water. south africa had close to the lowest conversion of rainfall to usable runoff from rivers of all countries in the world, but still the demand for water was increasing exponentially. they predicted that the country had between 10 and 15 years left before a situation of ‘permanent drought’ would have been reached – the stage at which the resource simply cannot provide for further increases in demand. davies and day advocated for the immediate implementation of a public education programme and the initiation of demand management rather than water supply management strategies. barnes (2016) argues that the 2015–2018 cape town drought had been expected by meteorologists for at least a decade and that the government had been alerted to this risk for many years. similar sentiments were echoed by turton (2015), he referred to the 1970 report of the commission of enquiry into water matters which warned of: serious shortages…somewhere before the close of the century unless essential steps were taken to plan the exploitation and augmentation or our water resources, to conserve and re-use our available supplies, and to manage and control our resources in the most efficient manner (turton p5). but according to turton, the ruling african national congress (anc) ‘seemed to regard the commission’s report as an apartheid instrument which should simply be jettisoned’. a chronology of the cape town drought the city’s current water crisis followed after three consecutive years of below average rainfall in the city’s catchment areas, coupled with a strongly developed el niño weather pattern and an urban population growing by 4% each year (sadc 2016). since 2015, the press began to report more regularly about the continued drop of water levels of cape town’s six major dams even during the traditional rain season of june to august (janse van rensburg 2015). although the municipal council initially stated that there was ‘no concern’ over the city’s water content, level 2 water restrictions were imposed since january 2016. agriculture, however, was exempted from the restrictions. a 20% saving of water among residential and business customers was being promoted but a daily basic allowance of 6 kl free water was still granted to poorer households, although punitive measures were introduced for serious offenders of the restrictions. the water shortfall in the catchment areas was seen as evidence that the climate was becoming increasingly unpredictable. by november 2016, level 3 restrictions were imposed prohibiting inter alia the outdoor use of domestic hosepipes (muller 2017a). by february 2017, the drought took a turn for the worse when the levels of theewaterskloof, the city’s largest supply dam, dropped to 34%. consequently, level 3b water restrictions were imposed, targeting a 30% reduction in use. the highest 20 000 water users were to be targeted with punitive measures such as fines for transgressions or the installation of water restriction devices unless they reduced their consumption by 20%. gardens, sports fields and parks could be watered only twice a week, using a bucket or watering can. a media campaign was launched to inform capetonians about the gravity of the drought and to encourage continuous water preservation. the cct also began to launch a ‘name and shame’ media campaign to expose repeat water restriction offenders. at that stage, the city council still deemed the construction of desalination plants to replenish the dwindling water supply too expensive in terms of its impact on water tariffs for the citizens (muller 2017a). in march 2017 the western cape provincial government declared the province a disaster area to avoid a so-called ‘day zero’. the water management strategy changed from water supply management to water demand management. most of cape town’s municipal swimming pools were closed and water pressure was decreased in the reticulation system in order to diminish water consumption (nienaber 2017a). in june, level 4 water restrictions were introduced and executive mayor patricia de lille referred to water shortage as the ‘new normal’ in cape town. municipal water for outdoor use and domestic garden irrigation was prohibited and could be utilised only for drinking, cooking and essential washing. greywater toilet flushing was encouraged and commercial waterless car wash products were introduced (felix 2017). when a disappointing 2017 low winter rainfall season became apparent, level 4b restrictions were implemented. citizens were encouraged to limit their personal water usage to 87 l per day and the city council attempted to curtail the metropole’s water usage to 500 million litres per day. the city’s basic allowance of 6 kl free water was terminated except for registered poor families (nienaber 2017b). contributing to the problem is the fact that since 1995, cape town’s population has grown by 55%, but over the same period, dam storage has increased by only 15% (anonymous 2017a). by september 2017, the usable water levels of the city’s storage dams dropped to 27.8% and level 5 restrictions were introduced. the city council demanded that water usage of commercial properties be lowered by another 20%, while domestic households were restricted to 20 kl per day. mayor patricia de lille also encouraged citizens to store potable water (see figure 2) ‘should their municipal supply be interrupted’. although water consumption had been reduced by 27%, it was still 137 million litres more than the targeted 500 million litres per day (breytenbach 2017a). by october 2017, large-scale emergency water augmentation plans, announced 2 months earlier to provide between 200 and 450 million litres potable water daily, such as drilling into aquifers and the construction of temporary desalination plans, had still not been commissioned. at that stage, the city was still consuming 610 million litres daily instead of a targeted 500 million litres. figure 2: residential hoarding of potable water for a possible ‘day zero’. furthermore, it came to light that the envisioned alternative sources would actually produce only between 150 and 250 million litres per day and city officials were accused of ‘not doing their homework properly’ (may 2018). plans to provide 200 water points which would be established all over the city where its 3.7 million inhabitants could collect a daily water ration of 25 l per person from ‘day zero’ onwards were also revealed to the media. the ‘day zero plan’ would be the point where a disaster risk management centre introduces phase 2 of its plan, to be triggered when the city’s six major dams supplying cape town reach a storage level of 13.5%. water restrictions would move from level 6b to level 7 and 75% of the city’s taps would be turned off, leaving just enough water to supply critical services such as hospitals, old age homes, certain schools and the designated collection sites across the city (may 2018; winter 2018). although aerial surveys and mapping for potential groundwater sources as well as drilling operations into aquifers in cape town’s mountainous catchment areas finally commenced in november 2017 (brits 2017), the city’s water situation became dire when the summer heatwaves hit the western cape. since the beginning of december, level 6 water restrictions came into being. non-residential properties had to decrease their quota from the city’s dams further by 45% and the dws cut agriculture’s allocation from these dams by 60%. commercial car wash concerns were prohibited from using any potable water in their operations and had to revert to non-potable water or waterless detergents. no new landscape projects or sports fields were permitted unless irrigated by non-potable water. borehole water for outdoor residential usage was discouraged in order to preserve groundwater levels. even the tourist industry was affected by the austere new water measures. low flow shower heads and greywater systems were installed in guesthouses and hotels and international tourists were sensitised about the city’s dire water situation. the hospitality industry experienced a slight drop in tourist numbers during the high summer season. the sale of potable water to ships in the port of cape town was rescinded and shipping agents were advised to fill their vessels elsewhere or to use their own desalination machines (kloppers 2018). at the end of january 2018, the city council’s disaster risk management centre became operational (meyer 2018). private water entrepreneurs selling non-potable borehole water to an apparently insatiable number of clients also began to emerge (schoeman & marais 2018). rumours about a complete dry up of water after the ushering in of ‘day zero’ led to public panic sales of 5 l potable water cans in shopping centres (brand-jonker 2018). level 6b water restrictions were introduced on 1 february. in order to avoid ‘day zero’, capetonians were requested to limit their consumption to 50 l per person per day and the city council set its target at an aggregated daily consumption of 450 instead of the current 600 million litres. restaurants began to charge for a glass of water previously served complimentary with meals. the cricket season for clubs and schools in the cape town metropolitan area was shortened by 2 months because the level 6b water restrictions prohibited even the use of borehole water to irrigate sports fields. at the same time, the water crisis was beginning to affect the lucrative cape real estate market negatively. a 5.5% drop in property values was reported (barnard 2018; nel 2018). nevertheless, the domestic quest for more water continued unabated. between january and december 2017, the number of newly drilled private boreholes in the cape metropolitan area registered by the city council rose from 1500 to 23 000 (de kock 2018). amidst the water crisis, mayor patricia de lille, who increasingly began to manage the threatening disaster in her personal capacity, aroused the ire of cape town’s ratepayers. because of a drastic drop in water consumption as a result of the accumulated water-saving measures, the city’s revenues dropped accordingly. the cct’s estimated water budget deficit ballooned to r1.7 billion for the 2017–2018 financial year, based on consumption figures for october 2017. the mayor proposed that an additional ‘drought charge’ be levied on certain properties. the proposed levy would be based on property values and calculated at between 10% and 11% of the rates portion of the municipal account to pay for the shortfall and the costs incurred by the council for providing alternative sources of water. however, citizens perceived the proposed levy to be nothing but an ironic ‘punitive tax’ for adhering to the council’s water preservation campaign. many capetonians incurred huge costs by installing water-efficient devices, grey water solutions and rainwater harvesting tanks – all at their own expense while no tax savings or rebates were offered by the city council. enraged taxpayers even hinted that the implementation of such measure could cost the ruling party in the city council, the democratic alliance (da), dearly in the next municipal elections due in 2019 (steenkamp 2018). although de lille explained that the drought charge would provide an income of r1bn per annum over the next 3 years to finance emergency water projects, water delivery and sanitation services, public outcry against these proposals mounted. influential civic organisations such as the greater cape town civic association and the organisation undoing tax abuse accused the city council of ignoring a process of public participation to debate the validity of a drought charge. according to these organisations, an ‘utterly faulty’ method, based on property values only instead of water consumption, was used to appraise properties on which the drought charge would be made applicable. the cape town chamber of commerce argued that 4 years prior to the proposed drought charge, the council had already increased water tariffs to twice that of consumer’s inflation. even the da-controlled western cape provincial government officially objected to the city council’s proposed drought charge (brits 2018; steenkamp 2018). a new civic initiative specifically to protest the mayor’s proposed drought charge, stop cct, saw the light (breytenbach 2017b). by january 2018, the city council had already received more than 45 000 comments on the proposed drought levy and it became clear that the overtly negative response of cape town residents to the proposals did not augur well for the popularity of the da-controlled city council. at the end of january, da leader mmusi maimane took political control of the city’s drought management because he was ‘not fully satisfied with how the city has responded to the water crisis’ and because communication on the issue ‘has in some instances fallen short’. the mayor, patricia de lille, was stripped of responsibility for responding to the water crisis, and control was transferred to a new drought management team consisting of deputy mayor, ian neilson, and mayoral committee member for water and waste services, xanthea limberg. according to neilson, the da mayoral committee was not part of the decision-making process regarding the drought, the latter which rested ‘solely in the hands of the mayor’ (pieterse 2018). finally, as late as 13 march 2018, the national government classified the drought in the western cape a national disaster, which gave the provincial government access to emergency funds of r165 million for drought relief projects (essop 2018; meyer 2018; nienaber 2018). a welcome reprieve for the cct’s water dilemma also came from the groenland water users association (gwua) in the elgin-grabouw valley. at the end of their harvest season, deciduous fruit farmers from this area donated surplus water to the city from the gwua’s private dams. for a period of 60 days, about 10 billion litres were released from gwua dams and relayed to the city’s upper steenbras dam. because of this replenishment of the city’s dwindling water supply, as well as good compliance by capetonians to decrease their water consumption according to water restriction regulations, ‘day zero’ could be postponed indefinitely beyond july 2018. only if no rains fell during the winter of 2018 would a ‘day zero’ be set for 27 august. by march 2018, da leader maimane declared that the cct’s water use had dropped to between 510 million and 520 million litres per day, or about 60%, in comparison to the 1.2 billion litres consumed daily in february 2015 (theron & brits 2018). simultaneously, the metro made available an additional 10 million litres of treated waste water for industrial use and toilet flushing (anonymous 2018). nevertheless, the drought wrought havoc on western cape agriculture because of many farmers’ water quotas from the city’s dams being cut by 60% by the dws. in the financial year of 2017–2018, production in the agricultural sector fell by 20.4% putting 30 230 farm labourers out of work. economic losses were estimated to be in the vicinity of r5.9bn and the agricultural damages about r14bn as a result of the drought (boonzaaier 2018; theron & brits 2018). the political fallout of the drought – who is to blame? given the characteristics and structure of south african politics, and western cape politics in particular, it came as no surprise that the cct’s water shortages eventually degenerated into a huge political fallout and fierce finger pointing across various levels of government about who is to blame for the crisis. in 2014, de lille’s independent democrats (id) merged into the da and per agreement she became cape town’s new executive mayor after the municipal elections of 2011. since the 2016 municipal elections, the da controlled the city council with a majority of 66.7%. the anc forms the largest opposition party in the council with 24.7%. like the cct, the western cape is controlled politically by the da. this means that the relationship between the national government and the western cape is complicated, as the water crisis has shown (bourblanc 2018; olivier 2017a). a fractured political control of water management structures during desperate times such as the cct drought obviously holds a potential problem of how to solve the crisis and criticism could be launched at all three tiers of government in dealing with the issue. the nature of south african water legislation contributes to this lack of collaboration dilemma. the south african constitution created separate responsibilities for water resource management and water services. the raw water infrastructure (surface and ground water) is the national government’s responsibility, while water services (water treatment, distribution, etc.) are local governments’ responsibility. there are different legal mandates and primary roles related to water infrastructure. the dws is governed by the national water act and the water services act. municipalities are governed by the water services act and municipal legislation. in essence, the three spheres of government sent out different messages about the seriousness of the drought (parliamentary monitoring group 2017a). it also transpired that political expedience and opportunism were significant obstructive factors to efficient inter-governmental coordination and intervention in dealing with the disaster. a major problem in dealing with the cct drought lies within the dws controlled by the anc government. the dws seemed to have become dysfunctional and to have fallen into disarray. as early as 2015, an organisation for the agricultural sector, agri western cape, warned the national government about a looming disaster in the province should it not intervene timely. however, by 2016, the then minister for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, senzeni zokwana, was still of the opinion that it would be ‘premature’ to declare the drought a national disaster. when the drought began to take its toll on provincial dam levels in the western cape, the dws took no action to curtail agricultural water use in 2015/2016 but actually allocated too much water to agriculture in the province. this pushed the demand for water beyond the capacity of the supply system and consumed cape town’s safety buffer of 28 000 megalitres. in response to low winter rainfalls in 2015, the western cape provincial government took preventative action and applied to the national government for r35m to increase water supplies by drilling boreholes and recycling water, but the request was rejected, possibly because dams were still 75% full. the following year, the national government agreed to recognise only five of the 30 western cape municipalities as drought disaster areas but significantly cape town was not included. however, by october 2017, the national government had still not released the promised funds. cape town mayor patricia de lille appealed directly to the dws for disaster relief funding, but the request was rejected by the dws regional director who believed that the situation was ‘not yet at crisis level’. in the light of the dws’s refusal to declare the drought, a national disaster western cape da premier helen zille accused the anc national government of ‘leaving the western cape in the lurch’. the national government still seemed to be focused largely on remedial action rather than on preventive mechanisms (anonymous 2017b; brits 2018; olivier 2017a). but eventually, it came to light that the dws was in financial dire straits as the western cape was with water. a civil society group, the south african water caucus, revealed that the national government’s reluctance to release drought relief funding stemmed from spiralling debt, mismanagement, maladministration and corruption in the dws. in 2017, the department was r1.463bn in arrears with contractors and by the end of that year, it had exceeded its budget by r110.8m. by 2018, the dws had a r2.675bn overdraft with the south african reserve bank, which had been frozen by the treasury department. as a result, the then dws minister, nomvula mokonyane, was unsuccessful in drawing private investors into the department’s water provision schemes and no financiers were willing to lend them any money. furthermore, there was no stability, and a lack of capacity in the department, poor decision-making, wasteful and irregular over-expenditure and lack of transparency were concerns and planning was based on old data. three deputy director-generals were suspended and there were 900 vacancies in the dws (bourblanc 2018; brits 2018; olivier 2017a; parliamentary monitoring group 2017a, 2017b). according to turton (2015), many experienced and highly qualified dws specialists (e.g. hydraulic engineers) were being placed under great pressure to leave, long before they reached retirement age, because of transformation imperatives. many have succumbed to the pressure and resigned. these individuals were replaced by people with fewer skills and who rarely had the same qualifications and experience, thereby creating a vacuum in professional expertise. this also rendered the department heavily dependent on consultants for the delivery of critical services, including data collection and analysis. commercial consultants quickly learnt that data equated to money, and began recycling much of the same data every time a new consulting report needed to be produced. this resulted in multiple billings for the same data, but this had to be accepted as a necessary evil as the state’s own capacity had declined. the level of politicisation in the dws became so high that decision-making was no longer rooted in hydrological realities. this situation had the effect of infrastructure not being maintained or repaired. maintenance negligence by the department caused silt to fill one of the feeding channels to the voëlvlei dam, one of cape town’s major reservoirs, and 7.5 million m3 water was lost in 2016. because of the dws’s budget restraints, the western cape provincial government used r3.5m of its own funds to complete essential repairs to the voëlvlei feeding channels (barnard 2017). the eventual indefinite postponement of ‘day zero’ also reverberated in the political fallout over the cape town drought crisis. on the one hand, opposition parties accused the da-controlled city council of ignoring constant timely warnings about changing rainfall patterns, climate change and an increasing population (diko 2018). on the other hand, the council’s constant postponement of ‘day zero’ could easily have rendered some plausible credence to the anc opposition’s accusations of deliberate scaremongering tactics, ‘creating’ a water crisis and of sowing confusion among capetonians by the da in order to benefit its preferred private water contractors. although director of water and sanitation: cct, peter flower, denied such tactics by the council and claimed that the term had been created in the social media, he conceded that increased tariffs, the lowering of water pressure, plus the potential of a ‘day zero’, were attempts to make citizens and businesses of the cct reduce water usage. because of the public response and declined usage, such a day could be moved beyond july 2018, he claimed (prince 2018). daily maverick columnist rebecca davis (2018) argued that the ‘day zero’ concept was largely a communications tool designed to focus capetonians’ minds on the severity of the water crisis. she divides the city’s communications on the crisis into three periods: ineffectual, punitive and congratulatory. during the ‘ineffectual’ phase, the slogan ‘care a little. save a lot’ was used, but many people who had easy access to water took it and its availability for granted. consequently, the cct contracted former da leader tony leon’s communications agency, resolve communications, which offered specific skills and vast experience in government crisis communication strategies and behaviour change. resolve communications thus ushered in the ‘punitive’ phase and suggested the term ‘day zero’ as a means to induce capetonians to change their attitudes towards the water crisis. with mayor de lille’s ‘point of no return’ statement, announcing that ‘day zero’ was virtually certain, things took a decidedly dramatic turn as it changed the momentum to communicate the message about the drought situation. this approach led to the intervention of the da party leadership. significantly, resolve communication’s contract with the cct did not extend beyond the revocation of de lille’s water management powers. even western cape premier helen zille (2018) conceded that the ‘day zero’ messaging helped the city council to achieve its water-saving targets, but also acknowledged that as a concept, it was becoming a destructive strategy with some seriously negative consequences, especially for the economy. she highlighted the fact that water consumption dropped significantly, from over 600 million litres per day to around 520 million litres. this was driven by a combination of tight new restrictions, significant tariff increases, a deliberate drop in water pressure, and residents’ compliance with water-saving measures. in addition, at the end of their irrigation season, three agricultural irrigation boards around grabouw and elgin agreed to having their surplus water cut entirely. the gwua donated 10 billion litres of water to the city and augmentation began to come on stream by the targeted dates. talk of ‘day zero’ appeared to have been receding in the city’s communications strategy. therefore, davis (2018) claims that the da then was stepping into a situation which was guaranteed to look much more positive and rosier and from february 2018 onwards, communications from both the cct and the da started to reflect a ‘congratulatory’ phase. a tone of pride began to creep into communications suggesting that cape town would not only prevail, but also set an example to the rest of the world. but apart from finger pointing by the opposition, the political fallout resulting from the water crisis had much to do with factionalism, turf wars and possible witch hunts within the da-controlled city council as well. central in this fracas is the position and personality of cct executive mayor patricia de lille. her leadership style has been described as ‘autocratic and divisive’, ‘legendary opportunistic and brusque’ as well as ‘utterly problematic for the successful functioning of her administration and caucus’. she also ‘acted unreasonably in ways that bedevilled internal party cooperation and rejected decisions of the party structures’ (rooi 2018). it transpired that de lille was steadily creating a bureaucracy controlled by faithful former id followers which created resentment among the da caucus in the city council. besides being blamed for confusing communication with the public, she was also accused of ‘chaotic’ crisis management, poor decision-making, ‘unrealistic’ and ‘hopelessly inadequate’ drought plans and time frames implementation in dealing with the drought situation. the da executive thus lost its confidence in the mayor’s ability to deal with the drought crisis. the executive also instructed its city councillors to vote against de lille’s proposed drought levy. newspapers speculated that the da’s support in the western cape had decreased sharply and that the water crisis affected da support even more than the crisis surrounding the mayor (steenkamp 2018). in addition to these accusations, the da laid criminal charges against de lille for bribery and corruption with regard to compensation, personal home improvements and financial mismanagement. she also had to face a disciplinary hearing in terms of ‘corrupt’ staff appointments, nepotism and interference in the allocation of contracts, all which allegedly led to the withdrawal of the city council’s clean audit status by the auditor-general (meyer & barnard 2018). clearly, the da and de lille had fallen out and the cct drought issue played a major role.2 de lille’s disciplinary hearing and corruption charges had another negative impact on the city’s water crisis. for 3 months, from october to december 2017, the da’s efforts to depose the mayor of cape town also brought the programme for water augmentation projects to a standstill. no decisions were made and the technical managers responsible for the installation of desalination plants could not get permission to go ahead, causing these water augmentation projects to run behind schedule (burger 2017; gosling 2018). besides the political factors, the cape town city council also stands to be blamed for lack of proper planning decisions by its water officials in terms of its share in the drought crisis. according to mike muller (2017a), former director-general of the then department of water affairs (dwa), increased water consumption had been tracked systematically and reported by the strategy steering committee responsible for overseeing the implementation of the department’s western cape water supply system reconciliation strategy. the study did not make a single projection of future demand, but provided a range of high and low estimates. if the cct had been successful in implementing its 8-year western cape water demand management strategy, the next reconciliation intervention could have been delayed until 2015. back in 2007, the choice, among various other options, appeared to be between using the table mountain group of aquifers or an augmentation of the supply into the voëlvlei dam from the berg river. at the end of the above-average 2013 rainy season, the outlook still seemed to be encouraging. on the basis of the apparent progress, it was suggested that the programme of interventions should be revised to ‘try to keep the future growth in water requirements below two percent’. the cct argued that there was enough time to make decisions regarding the next intervention. by 2014, the status report was confident that since 2010, there had been a decline in total domestic use for the western cape water supply scheme (wcwss), ‘which was a direct result of the decreasing consumption by the cct’. the report concluded that because of the good 2014 winter rains and the fact that most of the dams of the wcwss were nearly full, ‘there was no need for implementing restrictions’. not only did the cct estimate that there was no need for restrictions, but neither was there any immediate need to start with augmentations. it had been agreed that the voëlvlei augmentation would be the first to be implemented, but this was stalled pending the conduct of an environmental impact assessment by the dwa. the warning system thus failed to raise the alarm because the people concerned did not have a clear mandate to spell out the consequences of stalling the voëlvlei augmentation scheme (muller 2017b). although there was no sense of urgency yet, the problems had already begun. an april 2015 strategy meeting reported that ‘the dam levels are lower than normal at this time of the year, but the rain season will hopefully bring relief for the current dry situation’. as that did not occur, it rapidly became clear that the predictions of 2014 were hopelessly optimistic. muller (2017a) argues that the fatal mistake the cct made was to believe that its water demand management campaign had been successful. the cct was of the opinion that the slowdown and subsequent reduction in growth of water requirement in the years 2011–2014 was mainly because of the effect of implementing water demand management measures. the city believed that it could be expected that those reductions would be maintained. the report suggested that no new water would be required until 2019 at the earliest, and more likely 2024. although it was becoming clear that the desalination and water reuse options would be too expensive, no immediate decision was taken to proceed with voëlvlei, which was now the obvious first option. the situation was aggravated by the then dwa’s failure to impose restrictions on agricultural water use in 2015/2016, because the summer irrigation season had already started. muller (2017a) thus concurs with observations by olivier (2017a) and brits (2018) that apparently there was some over-allocation of water to agriculture. but for muller, the key was the increase in cape town’s consumption, hardly unexpected given the continued increase in the urban population and three seasons of hot, dry weather. conclusion by the time of writing this article, the cape town water crisis was not over yet. nevertheless, the following question can be asked: what have capetonians learnt thus far from their drought experience? in a number of ways, the cct’s response to dealing with its water crisis resembles more or less the experiences of melbourne, barcelona and são paolo: population expansion; a lack of foresight by the authorities to heed warnings about looming water scarcities in favour of real estate developments, industrial and agricultural considerations; political battles and controversy; differences in strategy of dealing with the crisis (melbourne being the exception) as well as negative publicity. there are also similarities with regard to practical solutions to decrease water usage. without implementing similar water-saving strategies such as these, the cct’s reservoirs probably would have been empty before the 2018 winter rainy season (olivier 2017c; slaughter & mantel 2018). also, in australia, the queensland water commission began showing residents how dam levels were dropping. it was able to convince customers that intensified water restrictions were absolutely necessary (olivier 2017b). although urban water efficiency was the quiet achiever in australia, white, turner and chong (2016), bourblanc (2018), muller (2017a) and olivier (2017c) argue that human behaviour is difficult to predict and that it would be perilous to assume as a basis for future planning that 100% continuance of ‘good behaviour’ among capetonians will be achieved. while the water-saving the city has achieved can be applauded, the risk is that residential use will bounce back to old habits as soon as the obvious threat passes. therefore, cape town’s water culture must be changed to avoid stressful water crises because water restrictions are not popular decisions and politicians are often reluctant to impose them. there are, of course, differences as well between these cities and cape town’s handling of its own drought. cape town could learn from the example of the victorian state government’s funding of water rebate and exchange programmes with regard to water reduction devices, grey water systems and rainwater harvesting for business and residential water users (low et al. 2015; steenkamp 2018). such rebates could only encourage more capetonians, especially among poorer socio-economic households, to consider the implementation of water-saving devices (slaughter & mantel 2018). on the other hand, the crisis has positioned cape town at the forefront of water resilience and its water-reducing strategies seem to be even more effective than those of melbourne and other cities. cape town succeeded in reducing its water usage by about 57% within 3 years but it took melbourne about 12 years to reach more or less the same levels. between 2012 and 2017, california could only manage to reduce its water usage by 27% and são paolo by 21% (breytenbach 2018). the cct should avoid constructing costly large-scale, permanent desalination plants until all other water augmentation options such as recycling, storm water harvesting and underground sources are exhausted. melbourne and barcelona have shown that large-scale desalinations plants are extremely expensive to maintain on a permanent basis and could, once a severe water crisis has passed, become white elephants (low et al. 2015; nash 2008; olivier 2017d; rodina 2017; tam 2016; van zyl 2018). punitive tariffs, as measures to discourage excessive domestic and commercial water overuse, proved to be quite effective in são paolo and cape town. however, negative publicity regarding a water crisis, as transpired in barcelona and cape town, tends to create political backlash. in cape town, executive mayor de lille’s proposed additional ‘drought charge’ to augment a water budget deficit was perceived by citizens as a ‘punitive tax’ for adhering to the council’s water preservation campaign and as a discriminatory measure to target a specific socio-economic group of rate-paying households. it had a huge negative backlash for the popularity of the da-controlled city government and led to the rise of influential civic organisations which successfully opposed the implementation of the drought levy. these initiatives by the mayor, too many confusing messages on the city’s progress to deal with the drought and the negative and scaremongering effect on capetonians of the possible introduction of a so-called ‘day zero’ scenario, even if ironically it might have contributed to public adherence to austere water-saving measures, eventually led to a political fallout between de lille and her own party. not only has she been stripped of responsibility for responding to the water crisis by her own party but she still has to face a disciplinary hearing by the da which could lead to her expulsion from the party. de lille enjoys a substantial personal political following among certain sections of the cape town electorate and an expulsion could have major negative repercussions for the da-controlled city council in the next municipal elections (harris, zhao & visser 2018; steenkamp 2018; winter 2017). on the other hand, the melbourne example has shown that clear, credible communication and government and utility programmes that rally community support and maximise public participation for lowering household water demand are of vital importance during a drought crisis (white et al. 2016). finally, according to bourblanc (2018), the main problem in dealing effectively with cape town’s drought crisis is the politically fractured multi-tiered management which is also affecting the entire country’s water system. the cape town situation has laid bare the inadequacies in the country’s water management regimes and the city’s misfortune could be a wake-up call for the whole country’s water infrastructure inadequacies. in comparison, australia responded with an integrated government approach to the millennium drought which forced cooperation between the various tiers of government and water management agencies (low et al. 2015; slaughter & mantel 2018). the key to future water security for cape town, or any other south african city for that matter, is competent and adequate long-term planning. cape town’s water supply system should be made even more resilient by expanding to water resources that are less drought-prone. a serious lesson of the present cape town drought is that it should never again be presumed that the city’s expenditure on water supply schemes could be put on hold simply by 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https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-03-12-from-the-inside-four-change…. footnotes 1. a detrimental or calamitous situation or event arising from the powerful combined effect of a unique set of circumstances. 2. at the time of writing this article, the criminal charges and the disciplinary hearing against de lille had not yet taken effect. td journal desember 2006.p65 from genogram to genograph: using narrative means to contextualize social reality in the counselling session pjm van niekerk, rl van niekerk, h mushonga and a dogger* abstract: this article addresses a process that occurs when applying narrative therapy during a counselling session, namely moving away from the genogram towards the more effective genograph. narrative therapy implies that we often talk and share stories about ourselves and that these stories are usually within a social context, whether it is our families, personal relationships or work. stories are an important aspect in narrative therapy and therefore the counsellor must be aware of a family’s different contexts both as a family system, and as a group of individual members. the article takes as point of departure the thoughts of charles horton cooley and george herbert mead and their influence on the development of the ‘self’ and the construction of our social reality within this process. it further argues in favour of the use of a genograph as a symbolic representation of the personal meanings of a family member’s experience of the dominant and alternative stories with which they live. keywords: narrative therapy, counselling, family counselling, genograph, genogram, symbolism, social reality, social self, self, family history. 1. introduction to understand counselling from the approach of the genogram (a tool which allows the counsellor and the family to examine the family in its intergenerational context) to the approach of the genograph (a visual display of the social context of the client), means to gain insight into one’s own story. the process further depicts the diachronic axis, which concerns the history of the clients and/or those close to them, and the synchronic axis, which concerns the present circumstances confronting them, in order to manage or change relations which clients maintain, at a particular moment, with those around them. to do that, one must take note of and try to understand the self and the td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 473-490. _______ * pjm van niekerk, school of behavioural sciences, north-west university; rl van niekerk, department of psychology, university of johannesburg; h mushonga, anthropology and development studies, university of johannesburg; a dogger, school of behavioural sciences, north-west university. 474 complex systems that are part of your life as well as the process of counselling. this is where the contribution of charles horton cooley and george herbert mead in their work on symbolic interactionism becomes relevant. hubert blumer (1969:1) states that the term symbolic interactionism has come into use as ‘a label for a relatively distinctive approach to the study of human group life and human conduct’. symbolic interactionism can thus be seen as one explanation of the way in which the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ shape and influence one another in various life contexts. within the african context, religion and culture are probably the most influential determinants of meaning in people’s lives. people, to a considerable extent, interpret experiences of the most intimate and the most public events according to their religion and/or culture. by their very nature, religion and culture give meaning to events and experiences worldwide. religions and cultures carry within them history, beliefs, ways of doing things, and processes of communication. religion informs a narrative in which there is a continuous movement towards a valued goal (gergen 2001:105). in this regard a renewed and deepened appreciation for the diversity of human spirituality leads to a re-evaluation by many mainstream mental health professionals of the role of religion and spirituality in counselling (richards & bergin, 1999). genia (2000) refers to research suggesting that a strong religious commitment is associated with positive mental health. consequently, the need for a spiritual strategy emerges (richards & bergin, 1999) in a context where many forms of psychotherapy do not address religious issues (genia, 2000). richards and bergin (1999) refer to literature reports suggesting that many clients can be successfully treated only if their religious issues are addressed sensitively and proficiently. their treatment would not have been completely successful if their counsellors had not addressed their beliefs appropriately. many therapists now consider spiritual beliefs and behavior as possible resources for promoting therapeutic change. genia (2000) indicates that these are clients for whom conventional religious beliefs and practices are important. however, few counsellors are adequately trained or prepared to deal effectively with such issues (richards & bergin, 1999). the challenge would be to conceive of religion sufficiently and in broad enough terms to encompass the diverse expression of today’s religious pluralism (wulff, 1997) and the multiplicity of possible meanings generated in people’s lives. several boundaries and borders exist around each individual. these include the various ways through which we attempt to give meaning to our lives. these boundaries and borders are usually linked to our thoughts or cognitions, feelings or emotions, deeds or behaviour, biological or physical and religious or spiritual spheres of life, as well as the survival mode, dr. walter b cannon’s fight or flight response (backus, 1986:77). van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 475 these elements, especially the interaction between the five interdependent contexts, are important for counselling and are discussed in detail as part of the process from genogram to genograph by using narrative means to contextualize social reality in counselling it is important to mention that ‘narrative means’ and ‘storytelling’ are the same thing. when we make use of narrative, we are actually using storytelling as a method of counselling. therefore this article will refer to both narrative and story where applicable. before we start with the self or social self, we need to explain what a genogram is. 2. what is a genogram? murray bowen’s model and views on self-differentiation gave rise to the genogram; a tool that allows the counsellor and the family to examine the family in its intergenerational context. the genogram also provides a well-defined structure and method for gathering information about the family (becvar and becvar, 1996:155). a genogram is therefore a map that provides a graphic picture of the family structure over several generations and gives a schematic representation of the main stages in the family lifecycle together with the attendant emotional processes. in this regard, the genogram functions as a metaphor during counselling in which the family members can take a metaperspective (a bird’s-eye view) on the family and how every member is positioned within the family as a whole. the standard repertoire of symbols was established by bowen (carter and mcgoldrick, 1980) and includes: • names and ages of all family members; • exact dates of birth, marriage, separation, divorce, death and other significant events; • notations, with dates, about occupation, places of residence, illness, and changes in life course, on the genogram itself; and • information on three or more generations. the genogram therefore represents the story of the family members involved. when evaluating a family’s place in the lifecycle, we have found genograms and family chronologies to be useful tools. they provide (at a glance) a three-generational picture of a family and its motion through the lifecycle. genograms can elucidate the family lifecycle framework and provide an understanding of the lifecycle. the family lifecycle is a complex phenomenon. it is a spiral of family evolution as generations move through time in their development from birth to death (carter and mcgoldrick, 1989:164). one can compare this family process to music or sport. in music, the meaning of individual notes depends on their rhythms in relation to from genogram to genograph td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 476 one another and with the memories of past melodies, as well as the anticipation of those yet to come. in sport, the decisions one makes influence the flow of the game that might contribute to the successes or failures of the team as a whole. genograms are graphic pictures of the family history and pattern, showing the basic structure, demographics, functioning, and relationships. they are shorthand used to depict the family patterns at a glance. figure 1 shows a simplistic example of such a genogram. figure 1. a visual representation of the family story of nigel and jane ford. 3. the self/social self modernist approaches to the study of the self are based on the assumption that the self exists as something that can be discovered and described in the same way as any other object (crossley, 2000). in reaction to such a stance, a social constructionist approach indicates that the experience of self exists in the continuous interchange with others whose narratives are woven into reciprocal relationships with others (weingarten, 1991). ‘who i am’ and the nature of one’s actions are negotiated and defined within relationships (gergen, 1999). the idea nigel (29) jane (33) m. 1972 kathy b. 1976 serena b. 1981 peter died age 2 van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 477 of self is formed through social interaction within particular cultural contexts, which means that there could be no essential self. the self is rather described as a process or activity that occurs in the spaces between people. selves are socially constructed through language and maintained in narrative. different selves come forth in different contexts and no one self is truer than the other. however, one self is preferred in a specific context rather than the other. these preferred selves grow and develop to constitute the experience of self (freedman & combs, 1996). one real self may indeed generate multiple self-constructions, a concept that is crossing the bridge from singularity (referring to the modernist approach of a single self or personality) to poly-vocality (gergen, 2001). the extent of this article, with the genogram in mind, allows the authors to focus on the social context and its dynamics within the construction of the reality of the individual. symbolic interactionism allows us the opportunity in sociology to focus on the construction of the self in terms of the relevant contexts. charles horton cooley (1902:207) was one of the first sociologists to study socialization and the sense of self. cooley is curious about how human beings come to think of themselves as an ‘i’ or ‘me’. he is also concerned with what kind of person one thinks one is. cooley eventually decided that people come to think of themselves as a ‘self’ through a combination of biological and social processes. he believes that even a newborn infant has a consciousness, as well as desires or needs which he called acquisitiveness. from the beginning, children experience desires and needs. as they grow, they see other people expressing similar desires and needs by saying ‘mine’ or ‘i want’. children learn that ‘mine’ is associated with things a person either possesses or wants to possess. cooley argues that objects that a person labels as ‘mine’, are those that society defines as ‘theirs’. a person’s self consists of thoughts, emotions, and actions a person sees as integral to their sense of identity (wallace & wallace, 1989:80). people see themselves as being the way they are, in part, because others reflect their selves to them. wallace and wallace elaborate on this statement by adding that (p)eople look into the mirror to see what they look like physically and look to other people to see what they are like as persons (1989:80). cooley called this phenomenon the looking-glass self, or the image of self reflected by others and he states that: as we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours ... so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds ... and are variously affected by it (1902:17). from genogram to genograph td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 478 mead adds that (a)s a mirror reflects your physical appearance, so symbolic interaction provides a mirror in which the self is constructed and reflected (jordaan & jordaan, 1998:621). the looking-glass self develops when an individual imagines how he or she appears to others, imagines his or her response, and responds to that by creating a sense of self, modified by his or her reaction. according to cooley (a) self of this sort seems to have three principal elements: the imagination of our appearance to the other person; the imagination of his judgment of that appearance, and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification ... we always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind. a man will boast to one person of an action ... which he would be ashamed of to another (1902:17-18). mead (wallace & wallace, 1989:81) also agrees with cooley’s idea that there must be a link between the individual and his/her social context. in this regard, mead (1934) describes the self within the context of dialogue, and conceptualized the self within a process where dialogue between the self and others leads to a reflexive self. according to hermans (1999), mead indicates that the self does not just constitute a slavish experience and reflection of social influence, but is an innovative agent in a process of inspiration to take action. mead is especially concerned with how social and human qualities of mind and self originate and he defines the self as a reflective process – i.e. ‘it is an object to itself’ (mead, 1934:136). he believes that the self has two parts which he calls the ‘i’ and the ‘me’. the ‘i’ is the conscious, spontaneous, and creative part of the self: the part that experiences pleasure, pain and spontaneous impulses. whereas the ‘i’ is inborn, the ‘me’ is other people’s definition of who one is. it includes the internal controls taught by society. the ‘i’ accounts for what people want to do, and the ‘me’ accounts for what people feel they should do. the ‘me’ makes people aware of how they appear to others and how they fit into a social setting. mead (1934:197) also defines the ‘me’ as a ‘conventional habitual individual’ and the ‘i’ as the ‘novel reply’ of the individual to the generalized other.’ both cooley and mead believe that the self arises only through social interaction and also that every individual must develop a self. because the ‘i’ is inborn, the developmental process is one of establishing the ‘me’. according to mead (wallace & wallace, 1989:81) this development proceeds through three basic stages. in stage 1 an infant is exclusively ‘i’. they are impulsive and know nothing of the social environment or the internalized controls of the ‘me’, which will allow them to enter social life as an active participant. in stage 2 the ‘me’ begins to develop through play. when this playing merely involves throwing the ball or hitting it with a bat, the child is, van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 479 in mead’s terms, taking on the role of the other, the ‘other’ being the sibling. according to mead, childhood socialization largely depends on significant others; persons with whom an individual has intimate and long-term contact. in other words, new members of society become what society wants them to become because they strive to please significant others who are already members of that society and who already follow its norms (wallace & wallace, 1989:81). in stage 3 the ‘me’ fully develops as the child learns to respond to the generalized ‘other’. this means that the child takes into account the broader social community – the community beyond the significant others. as children develop the ‘me’ through play and other social interactions, they learn to function in complex social structures. mead and others believe individual self-consciousness is necessary for organized human society to exist. wallace and wallace state that: in one sense, society is like a machine, and when individuals interact, they do so as parts of the machine (1989:81). with this in mind the symbolic interactionists ask: how do people define reality and social reality? according to symbolic interactionists, symbols play a central role in social interaction. a symbol is any kind of physical phenomenon, for instance a word, object, colour, sound, feeling, odor, movement or taste to which people assign a meaning or value. however, the meaning or value is not evident from the physical phenomenon alone and people must share a system of symbols if they are to communicate with one another. without some degree of mutual understanding, encounters with others would be ambiguous and confusing (ferrante, 1998:50-53). 4. symbols taking the abovementioned into account, mead (1934) focuses on how we use symbols, including language, and how our use of symbols influences our social development and social life. everyday events, in which at least two people communicate and respond through language and symbolic gestures, to affect one another’s behaviour and thinking, are proof that social context is present. sociologists also assume that any social interaction reflects forces beyond the obvious and the immediate. hence, they strive to locate the interaction according to time or history, and place or culture. when sociologists study social interaction, they seek to understand and explain the forces of context and content (ferrante, 1998:160-161). social constructionist theorists see ideas, concepts and memories as being co-constructed or co-created (anderson & goolishian, 1988) with social interchange (kotze & kotze, 1997) and mediated through language (hoffman, 1992). language is seen as more than just a way of from genogram to genograph td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 480 connecting people; people exist in language, where meaning and understanding are derived from the logic of symbols, signs and the grammatical structure of language (kotze & kotze, 1997). meaning and understanding come about in language (anderson & goolishian, 1988). from a social constructionist point of view the focus is not on the individual person but on ‘the social interaction, in which language is generated, sustained and abandoned’ (gergen & gergen, 1991). language constitutes people’s lives, which they understand through socially constructed narrative realities that give meaning and organization to their experience (anderson & goolishian, 1992). kotze & kotze (1997) indicate that language, discourse and narrative are intertwined concepts. narratives refer to the stories of people’s lives and white & epston (1990) describe them as the experiences of events in sequences across time. it is experienced in such a way as to arrive at a coherent account of themselves and the world around them. dominant narratives in society (stories society tells and lives over and over) could become part of a person’s life, shaping and constituting it, while others (alternative stories) become a part of a person’s life, but never become part of a shaping narrative. in understanding context and content, language is essential to the individual in order to construct his own social reality. written and spoken words represent objects or ideas and are essential when we construct our reality or social reality. therefore we need to discuss social contexts with regard to the social self, social reality, and the family being part of a social structure. 5. social contexts defining the self and the family within a social context (a social constructionist view to reality) does not provide a theory in the sense of a body of laws or causal process theory, but must be regarded as an approach (launer, 1996), a lens (hoffman, 1992), or a stance (anderson, 1992). in this regard all ideas, concepts and memories arise from social interchange and are mediated through language (hoffman 1992:8). thus, knowledge is socially constructed (rather than discovered) and its validity in counselling is measured by congruence with shared understanding (bohan, 1990). kuhn (in bruffee, 1986) agrees with this description, saying that entities normally referred to as ‘real’, knowledge, thought, facts, texts, selves, and so on are communitygenerated and community-maintained linguistic or symbolic entities. such knowledge is inevitably influenced by the social context from which it derives. clyde kluckhohn (1985:124) writes that every language is also a special way of looking at the world and interpreting experiences. people van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 481 explain what they understand through language and stories. this reflects their reality in terms of the contexts involved. when sociologists say that reality is constructed, they refer to the fact that people assign meaning to interaction or to certain events. when people assign meaning, they almost always emphasize certain aspects of an event and ignore others. by doing so they create a unique story of their own that is distinct from any other. this unique story incorporates the self, the social self and the social contexts involved in the individual’s life. with this in mind the reality involves the self, the social self and the way the unique individual sees his or her own story which seems real. this corresponds with william and dorothy thomas: if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequence (thomas & thomas, 1928:572). humankind thus interprets their social situation in their own way, influenced both by what they have internalized in the course of their primary and secondary socialization and by their own creative imaginative effort. in short, an individual’s typification, constructions and interpretations of reality becomes a guide to everyday action, and when these are reciprocally shared by many others, institutionalization may be said to have taken place. as stated by cortazzi (1994:157-170), stories of personal experiences crop up repeatedly in, for example, informal conversations, doctorpatient talk, in the proceedings of courts, in psychotherapy sessions, newspapers articles and in social science research interviews. stories are, of course, an important genre in their own right. it is probably the first to be acquired at home and the most exploited in the early stages of learning in schools. it has certainly been the most studied and it is increasingly recognized as a major role player in the reproduction of culture and society. to broaden our view of social context, we need to discuss stories, together with narrative, in order to understand why they are part of our social contexts. according to several authors mentioned in cortazzi (1994:161), we use stories to (a) translate knowing into telling, (b) distance ourselves reflectively from the events (moore and carling, 1988), (c) (re)interpret our experiences, (re)evaluate them and (re)position ourselves vis-à-vis story content and social values (mckay, 1993), and (d) endow our lives with meaning across time (gergen & gergen, 1993). however, all these narrative functions are socially situated and narrative itself is constitutive of them, according to current social constructivist perspectives. mumby states that narrative is a socially symbolic act in the double sense that (a) it takes on meaning only in a social context and (b) it plays a role in the construction of that social context as a site of meaning within which social actors are implicated (cortazzi 1994:161). from genogram to genograph td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 482 goffman (cortazzi, 1994:162) sees personal narratives as ‘strips of personal experiences’ from the teller’s past, which is ‘replayed’, not as a mere reporting, but rather as a re-experiencing, directly for the teller, vicariously for the audience. tannen’s research also supports the point that narrative is influenced by context and culture. there is also the possibility, supported by middelton and edwards as well as by tonkin that narrative form and the context of recall, shape story memories as much as memories shape stories (cortazzi, 1994:162). the self is continuously constructed actively. what is constructed is, according to connell (1987), the coherence, understanding and reality of a person’s social relations over time. while people are living their lives, they are continuously shaping themselves as characters or personalities, in the way in which they reconcile and work the raw material of their social contexts. the narrative approach to the self understands that people’s ability to express themselves in narratives starts with the telling of their experiences. in striving to make sense of life, white and epston (1990) indicate that a person has the task of organizing these experiences and events in sequence over time, in such a way that it ends in a coherent representation of themselves and the world around them. such a representation is described as a story or self narrative (gergen en gergen, 1984). burger (2004) indicates that ricoeur constructed the term ‘narrative identity’ to express our experience of identity as a continuous story, in which our actions and experiences are connected as a series of events. a few remarks should be made regarding the social context of the narrative identity. in this theory of personal narratives, there is a strong emphasis on the individual interpretation and attribution of meaning to situations and events. however, it is not an individualistic approach, because we do not write the personal narrative in a relational vacuum. for every individual there is a range of relationships within the social context. the personal narrative of one touches the narratives or stories of others. the way this social context influences the personal narrative may be understood in terms of a narrative public, which we address in telling our stories. this public can also include a total society with all its contexts. the personal narrative is the central story in which events and situations are being told and interpreted. relational theories such as symbolic interactionism stress the fact that the interpretational process is a highly social phenomenon. such frameworks are helpful when examining the kinds of complex teller-audience roles and narrative purposes, such as those found in therapeutic narrative dialogues. in these instances, a therapist and client (re)construct the client’s life story together, often out of chronological sequence. according to schachter and hoffman as well as peseschkian (cortazzi, 1994), traditional religious stories or personal narratives may be told by the therapist so that clients identify with van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 483 story characters, or the situations, and reflect on and solve their own problems. clients usually tell their stories, in part, to themselves as well as to the counsellor. the narrated self is ‘a mutual interpretation of past and present’ (cortazzi, 1994:162). the latter coincides with gregory bateson’s (1979) views regarding mind and nature. according to bateson there is a larger mind of which the individual’s mind is only a subsystem [ ... ] in total interconnected social system and planetary ecology (1979:14). further, we must think in terms of stories that are shared by all minds. such stories establish the connections between parts, ‘the very root of what it is to be alive’ (bateson, 1979:14). the concept of mind and nature is simple, yet profound in its implications for our experience of self, of other humans, and of a storied reality. the forms of our relationships with self, others, and creatures and things necessarily take the form of the way we story others and ourselves. it is important for us to mention first-order cybernetics and secondorder cybernetics since aspects of cybernetics are relevant to our discussion of stories. first-order cybernetics has to do with the observer observing an object. this order relies on information, control and feedback. first-order cybernetics is therefore consistent with the previous statement that the form of our relationships with self, others, creatures and things necessarily take form in the way we story others and ourselves. we rely on information and feedback when we story our experiences. second-order cybernetics is when the observer becomes part of what is being observed. in other words, what is being observed has an influence on the observer and therefore we become participants in the construction of stories. second-order cybernetics is therefore consistent with bateson’s perspective that stories establish the connections between parts, the very root of what it is to be alive. second-order cybernetics is the stories we tell ourselves and that which we perform in the theatre of life, which is often our experienced reality. according to mair: (s)tories are habitations. we live in and through stories. they conjure worlds. we do not know the world other than as a story world. stories inform life. they hold us together but can keep us apart. we inhabit the great stories of our culture. we live through stories. we live by the stories of our race and place. it is important to grasp this enveloping and constituting function of stories. we are locations where the stories of our place and time become partially tell-able (1988:127). howard makes the following statement: (o)ur stories are the houses, the families, the communities, cultures, nations, and cosmos in which we live (becvar & becvar, 1996:348-349). thus, to deny the existence of the social reality in one’s story is nothing from genogram to genograph td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 484 less than to underestimate the power of that story and the reality constructed in time and space. in counselling, the counsellor should take note of not only the self, but also the social context of the client. this enables the counsellor to understand his/her client, and the clients on the other hand learn to understand themselves. considering all the points of view stated in this article, it becomes evident that all aspects must be taken into account when discussing the shift from genogram to genograph. the author therefore wishes to stress that he acknowledges and underwrites these statements and thoughts, but also finds it crucial to emphasize that the genogram, or the family story, has to develop into a visual representation, or picture, which is referred to as the genograph which visually displays the social contexts of the client. this visual representation enables both client and counsellor to come to an understanding of the client’s contextual reality that is, the reality clients perceive within their social contexts. the following discussion will focus on the question, ‘what is a genograph?’ 6. what is a genograph? since the family is structured within several contexts and each family has a dominant story. a new concept namely the genograph makes an attempt to place the family within its dominant context. the genograph can be seen as a photograph of the family structure; it becomes a visual representation of what the family context looks like. such a visual representation can be seen as an expression of constructed meaning about the family. atwood and seifer (1997) indicate that the process of socialization leads to the internalization of socially constructed meanings. a person’s reality is maintained by the development of a personal sense of self that is congruent with his/her social constructions and applied symbolically to the family. people attempt to match or reject their own personal constructs against the dominant social constructions. a dialectical (paradoxical) relationship develops at times between the individual realities and the socially constructed meaning if the constructs are incongruent with one another. hare-mustin and marecek (1988) indicate that these paradoxes arise because every representation conceals and reveals at the same time. these paradoxes in constructions, called difference by derrida (atwood, 1997), challenges people’s conventional thought, revealing meanings that are present but obscured in the dominant social view. atwood (1997) calls these obscured views the ‘ever present but lurking shadow scripts of a family’, while white & epston (1990) refer to it as ‘subjugated knowledge’. this is where the most opportunity for change during counselling can be found. a genograph tends to capture these shadow scripts and present the counsellor with the van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 485 projected meaning it has for the family member in his/her family story. individuals are part of a family story but also part of a social story. to understand the contexts involved in the individual’s life that make up part of the genograph, one must give a visual representation or a social picture to understand the involvement. becvar and becvar (1996:155) state that the following individual and family characteristics should be included in the genograph: cultural and ethical origins, socio-economic status, religious affiliation, physical location, and the frequency and type of contact between the systems. the following visual representation, as portrayed in figure 2 is an example of a genograph describing the social contexts of a family and its members. figure 2: genograph of nigel and jane ford: a visual representation of the dominant context (education) in the story of nigel and jane ford it is necessary to place the family structure within its dominant context; that is the prominent function or story of the family. if the family’s dominant context is education, as in the case of the ford family, a from genogram to genograph nigel (29) jane (33) m. 1972 kathy b. 1976 serena b. 1981 peter died age 2 td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 486 symbol would be placed inside the genograph representing education. the dominant context tells us that the family functions within an educational context, and their story is based on educational grounds. the following symbol illustrates the ford family’s dominant context: education when we look at each individual within the family structure, each member also forms part of the family’s social context. each member’s individual context will differ from the next. nigel ford is used as an example, portrayed in figure 3 of such a genograph. figure 3. a visual representation of the dominant stories involved in nigel ford’s life (the other members of the ford family and their stories can be constructed in the same manner.) previously discussed in this article is the fact that symbols become part of our everyday action and interaction with others. symbols prove that we are part of a social context. various symbols can be used, and the counsellor and client can creatively develop their own set of symbols to suit the counselling session with regard to their dominant and alternative stories. the symbols chosen should represent the client’s reality of their dominant stories and the counsellor should respect that. it is also important that the counsellor respect and accept symbols, chosen by family members, that represent alternative stories. other family members may not accept these alternative stories or their social context and could lead to conflict and rejection in a family. the counsellor should also try to grasp the full meaning of the symbols van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 487 and use it as the client perceives it. the following are examples of symbols that can be used: 7. conclusion as with any counselling action that is effective, the handling of the genograph, within the dynamics of a family counselling or training group, presuppose a nuanced appreciation of the points where the persons and group in question are fragile. this also emphasizes the genograph’s use in intercultural counselling. the genogram and genograph provide the counsellor with sufficient information about the family structure and its social contexts. it is therefore necessary that they discuss the client as a social being as well as the client’s social reality. the information obtained from this can provide the counsellor with the client’s personal narrative or story. it provides the counsellor and the family with symbolic representations of their individual sense of meaning and experience living their family stories. it becomes the catalyst for discussion about difference and understanding of diverse experience in the family. both the genogram and genograph focuses on the counselling process on collaborative, agreed upon outcomes to enhance the co-construction. this will rewrite the negative dominant stories and create new positive dominant stories that will develop a life of its own and establish preferred family outcomes. the client’s family context and individual stories can thus be discussed under the visual representation of the genograph. bibliography anderson, t. 1992. reflections on reflecting with families. (in mcnamee, s & gergen, k.j. eds. therapy as social construction. london: sage publications.) from genogram to genograph td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 488 anderson, h. & goolishian, h.a. 1988. human systems as linguistic systems: preliminary and evolving ideas about the implications for clinical theory. family process, 27(4):371-393. anderson, h. & goolishian, h.a. 1992. the client is the expert: a not knowing approach to therapy. (in mcnamee, s. & gergen, k.j. eds. therapy as social construction. london: sage publications.) atwood, j.d. 1997. social construction theory and therapy. (in atwood, j.d. ed. challenging family therapy situations: perspectives in social construction. new york: springer .) atwood, j.d. & seifer, m. 1997. extramarital affairs and constructed meanings: a social constructionist therapeutic approach. the american journal of family therapy, 25(1):55-75. backus, w. 1996. the healing power of a christian mind: how biblical truth can keep you healthy. minneapolis: bethany house. bateson, g. 1997. mind and nature. new york: dutton. becvar, d.s & becvar, r.j. 1996. family therapy: a systematic integration. boston: allyn and bacon. bohan, j.s. 1990. social constructionism and contextual history: an expanding approach to the history of psychology. teaching of psychology, 17(2):82-89. bruffee, k.a. 1986. social construction, language, and the authority of knowledge: a bibliographical essay. college english, 48:773790. burger, w.d. 2004. fiksie en identiteitskonstruksie: ’n beskouing van selfnarratiewe. johannesburg: rand afrikaanse university. (unpublished ma. dissertation.) carter, e.a & mcgoldrick, m. 1980. the changing family life cycle: a framework for family therapy. new york: gardner. (———.) 1989. the changing family life cycle: a framework for family therapy. boston: allyn & bacon. connell, r. 1987. gender and power. cambridge: polity. cooley, c.h. 1902. human nature and the social order. new york: scribner. cortazzi, m. 1994. narrative analysis in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. crossley, m.l. 2000. introducing narrative psychology: self, trauma and the construction of meaning. buckingham: open university press. van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger 489 ferrante, f. 1998. sociology: a global perspective. new york: wadsworth. freedman, j. & combs, g. 1996. narrative therapy: the social construction of preferred realities. new york: w.w. norton & company. gergen, k.j. 1999. an invitation to social construction. london: sage. gergen, k.j. & gergen, m.m. 1984. the social construction of narrative accounts. (in gergen, k.j. & gergen, m.m. eds. historical social psychology. hillsdale: lawrence erlbaum.) (———.) 1991. toward reflexive methodologies. (in steier, f. ed. research and reflexivity. london: sage) hare-mustin, r.t. & marecek, j. 1988. the meaning of difference: gender theory post-modernism and psychology. american psychologist, 43:455-464. hermans, h.j.m. 1999. dialogical thinking and self-innovation. culture and psychology, 5(1):67-87. hoffman, l. 1992 a reflexive stance for family therapy. (in mcnamee, s & gergen, k.j. eds. therapy as social construction. london: sage.) jordaan, w & jordaan, j. 1998. people in context. johannesburg: heinemann. kluckholm, c. 1985. mirror for man: the relationship of anthropology to modern life. tucson: university of arizona press. kotze, e. & kotze, d.j. 1997. social construction as a post-modern discourse: an epistemology for conversational therapeutic practice. acta theologica, 1:27-50. launer, j. 1996. you’re the doctor, doctor! is social constructionism a helpful stance in the general practice consultations? journal of family therapy, 18(3):255-267. mair, m. 1988. psychology as storytelling. international journal of personal construct psychology, 1:125-138. mead, g.h. 1934. mind, self and society. chicago: university of chicago press. moore, t & carling, c. 1988. the limitations of language. london: macmillan. richards, p.s. & bergin, a.e. 1999. a spiritual strategy for counseling and psychotherapy. washington: american psychological association. from genogram to genograph td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 473-490. 490 thomas, w.i & thomas, d.s. 1928. the child in america. new york: knopf. wallace, r.c & wallace, w.d. 1989. sociology. london: allyn and bacon. weingarten, k. 1991. the discourses of intimacy: adding a social constructionist and feminist view. family process, 30:285-305. white, m. & epston, d. 1990. narrative means to therapeutic ends. new york: norton. wulff, d.m. 1997. psychology of religion: classic and contemporary. new york: john wiley & sons. van niekerk, van niekerk, mushonga and dogger abstract introduction literature review theoretical framework methodology findings limitations of interactive qualitative analysis methodology as experienced in this study discussion acknowledgements references about the author(s) anisha ananth department of statistics, faculty of applied sciences, durban university of technology, durban, south africa suriamurthee maistry school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation ananth a, maistry s. invoking interactive qualitative analysis as a methodology in statistics education research. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2020;16(1), a786. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.786 review article invoking interactive qualitative analysis as a methodology in statistics education research anisha ananth, suriamurthee maistry received: 19 nov. 2019; accepted: 13 aug. 2020; published: 04 nov. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this study investigated the use of interactive qualitative analysis (iqa), as a research methodology, to develop an understanding of students’ experiences of learning statistics in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. interactive qualitative analysis methodology offered a systematic, rigorous and accountable approach to conducting qualitative research. the participants constructed their own meaning of reality from their experiences of interacting with the phenomenon in context and, in its refutation of traditional qualitative norms of enquiry that casts the role of the researcher as the expert, iqa stands out – entrusting participants with data generation, analysis and interpretation. participants’ reflections of their experiences of the phenomenon under study are classified according to variously identified emergent themes called ‘affinities’. relationships between these affinities are extricated and characterised in a visual representation of the phenomenon called a systems influence diagram. thus, the researcher’s role was purely facilitative, greatly limiting the potential for skewed power relations and bias which is often hazardous in qualitative research. the paramount value of this article was that it offered a practical methodological approach to using iqa in qualitative statistics education research, in particular, and mathematical sciences education research, in general. a summarised account of the main findings of the broader study was also presented. keywords: affinities; interactive; qualitative; analysis; systems; influence; diagram. introduction in today’s data-driven technocratic society, data and statistics form the bedrock for informed decision making.1,2 as such, almost all disciplines have incorporated an introductory statistics course into their academic programme structure. students majoring in other disciplines often make for very reluctant learners of statistics. this may be attributable to statistics often being described as a difficult subject to learn, because of the abstract nature of some of its concepts, the distinct way of thinking and analysis of problems that it requires, or the way in which it is traditionally taught. these issues manifest in high failure and dropout rates, and in concerns about the quality of learning (and teaching) in introductory statistics courses.3,4 this study was motivated by unanswered questions about statistics students’ learning at a south african university of technology. observations imply that some students seem to struggle to grasp fundamental disciplinary concepts and practices. this holds back their learning and affects progression in the discipline. even among those who have passed the introductory statistics course, some appear unable to transfer their knowledge to their specific research domain or to apply it meaningfully to interpret real-world events. in south africa, features of this country’s higher education context may intensify the challenges faced by both students and teachers of statistics, with research reflecting concerns around poor academic performance and low throughput in introductory statistics classes across higher education institutions. this literature is dominated by quantitative studies determining the impact on performance because of students’ characteristics and prior academic attainment, behaviour and motivation, or educational interventions, in terms of pedagogical or teacher-focused interventions.5,6,7,8,9,10,11 for students, learning statistics can be viewed as requiring a mastery of essential concepts and modelling techniques that are associated with developing a new way of thinking, as they move through introductory modules and application to individual research interests – that is, a form of ‘transnumerative-thinking’ whereby students possess the skill to make sense of different representations of data to make sense of the world around them and their place in it.12 students often experience this conceptual crossing or transformation as a difficult process, and many struggle to develop statistics understanding and acquire the necessary statistical ways of thinking and practice. whilst this difficulty is widely acknowledged in statistics education research, its sources and the processes by which students reach conceptual mastery are diverse and are often characterised in the research literature as being either cognitive or affective in nature.13 furthermore, in this view, disciplinary features interact with individual and contextual aspects in affecting the course of learning. there is clearly a need to deepen the understanding of students’ learning and explore the potential ways in which it may be more effectively supported and facilitated, in introductory statistics in the south african context. unanswered questions that emerge are broader than the focus of the existing body of quantitative research: contemplating the experiences and processes of students’ learning and the sources of difficulty they encounter implies a holistic and deep exploration of learning. difficulty in itself has strong connotations of personal experiences and affective responses, which are not accounted for in the predominant quantitative approach14 and seem to require a more encompassing framing that can account for individual learners and their personal context in interaction with the discipline.15,16 little or no qualitative or conceptual enquiry has been undertaken, and the understanding of how students learn statistics in south african higher education is superficial. questions around the processes and experiences of learning statistics, and the sources and nature of difficulty encountered by students, remain largely unexplored. consequently, teachers’ knowledge of how to support or facilitate learning is not supported by qualitative research, specifically research findings arising from qualitative studies that investigate learners’ experiences of disciplinary learning. qualitative research aims at generating a deep understanding of a specific phenomenon under study by weaving together an ‘explicit rendering of the structure, order and broad patterns found among a group of participants’.17 qualitative researchers focus on the socially constructed nature of reality and how social experience is created and given meaning.18 this type of research offers a holistic perspective of the phenomenon by understanding that the phenomenon is a complex system of dynamic inter-dependencies and that these complex, multi-layered systems often cannot be reduced to simplistic systems. this is because of the phenomenon being subjected to a multitude of idiosyncratic interpretations and perspectives.19 thus, in the interest of authenticity, qualitative research entails an interpretive, naturalistic approach, wherein the phenomenon is observed in its natural setting and interpreted using ‘thick descriptions representing the complexity of situations’,20 in the words of the individuals who are part of the phenomenon. thus, this research approach makes meaning of the phenomenon from the standpoint of the individuals who are active participants of the phenomenon.20,21 however, qualitative research methodology is beset with issues arising from its supposed lack of rigour,22 credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability, validity and reliability – the qualitative research criteria advocated over the positivist research criteria of validity and reliability.21 interactive qualitative analysis (iqa)23 is a ground-breaking approach to qualitative research, offering a panacea to the issues of power relations and biases traditionally associated with the qualitative research approach.24 interactive qualitative analysis methodology supports the ‘constructs such as credibility, transferability and dependability, while highlighting the concepts of validity and reliability’.23 interactive qualitative analysis has built-in features promoting rigour in both data generation and analysis,25,26 which are evident in the design of the research. the research design is: (1) public and non-idiosyncratic, (2) replicable within reasonable bounds and (3) not dependent (especially for analysis) on the nature of the elements themselves.23 as such, with the iqa research design, the issues commonly associated with qualitative research such as researcher bias, reflexivity or trustworthiness are eliminated, by having a transparent audit trail of the steps followed according to rigorous, reliable and replicable rules.26 this article offers a practical methodological approach to using iqa in a qualitative statistics education study exploring students’ experiences of learning statistics in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. the study participants were enrolled in an introductory statistics course – business statistics ii (bsts 201) – at the durban university of technology. the detailed description of the iqa methodological process used in the study and presented in this article could be applied to other studies in the areas of mathematical science research. literature review interactive qualitative analysis23 is a systematic, rigorous, accountable framework for the analysis of qualitative data.24 winston27 describes iqa as a systematic, protocol-driven research method that combines the quantitative rigour of data analysis with the qualitative depth of descriptive interviews. the method involves generating data through two phases – conducting a focus group session with participants (or constituents in iqa terminology) and semi-structured individual interviews of participants. ‘constituents’ is the favoured term in iqa to reflect the ‘knowledge and power’ influence. whilst noting the aptness of this term, the word ‘participant’ was chosen to be used interchangeably with ‘constituent’ because it reflects students’ participation in the tutorial programme over the semester and the focus group and individual interviews. in the first phase – the focus group session (and the focus of this article) – participants write down their thoughts, feelings, reflections and experiences of the phenomenon under study, which they then classify according to various themes called ‘affinities’. the participants then suggest a system of influence that exists between these affinities, which results in a unified systems influence diagram (sid). the sid is a graphical presentation of the phenomenon under study. the iqa method is congruent with a social constructivist approach to data generation and analysis,26 as it lends itself to the precept that knowledge (of the phenomenon) is socially constructed from human experiences. the participants construct their own meaning of reality from their experiences of interacting with the phenomenon in context and in its refutation of traditional qualitative norms of enquiry that casts the role of the researcher as the expert, iqa stands out, entrusting participants with data generation, analysis and interpretation. thus, the researcher’s role is purely facilitative, greatly limiting the potential for skewed power relations and bias often hazardous issues in qualitative research. theoretical framework in this section, the philosophical assumptions of iqa, as they informed the study’s method and design, are described. the epistemological and ontological stance of iqa is captioned as the ‘beliefs and values redux’ of iqa and is presented as a series of points by northcutt and mccoy,23 which will be briefly explained, as it relates to this study, in the following paragraphs. ontological perspective ‘iqa presumes that knowledge and power are largely dependent, that power influences which knowledge is determined to be relevant and irrelevant, important and unimportant’.23 one of the iqa criteria for constituent (participant) selection is the degree of power that the constituency has over the phenomenon. this assumption is reflected in this study by selecting constituents from among the participants in the threshold concepts-enriched tutorial group to participate in the iqa focus group. because these students were inextricably linked to the phenomenon under study – experience of learning statistics in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme – they had the power and knowledge to reflect on their experiences of learning statistics. ‘iqa presumes that the observer and the observed are dependent (or … interdependent)’.23 qualitative research methods that may adopt the notion that data collection and analysis are separate and distinct processes and only the researcher is capable of interpreting the data are eschewed by iqa methodology. interactive qualitative analysis methods involve the participants in generating, analysing and interpreting the data, whereas the researcher’s role is that of facilitator. in this study, the participants generated data by reflecting on their experiences of learning statistics, in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme during the focus group sessions and in the follow-up semi-structured individual interviews. participants analysed the data by grouping their reflections, thoughts and experiences various themes (affinities). participants interpreted these data by suggesting a system of influence between the affinities. an sid is the final, visual representation of the phenomenon under study ‘prepared according to the rigorous and replicable rules for the purpose of achieving complexity, simplicity, comprehensiveness and interpretability’.23 ‘the object of research in iqa is clearly reality in consciousness’.23 the second criterion of iqa for constituent selection is that of distance from (or closeness to) the phenomenon. the participants in the tutorial programme were chosen because they were closest to the phenomenon and, therefore, had the experience and authority to represent and dissect their reality of learning statistics in the threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. their group realities were initially socially constructed and expressed in the focus group sessions, followed by an elaboration on their individual realities in the individual interviews. epistemological perspective ‘iqa insists that both deduction and induction are necessary to the investigation of meaning’.23 during the focus group session, participants were required to categorise the generated data into categories of meaning (affinities) using induction, then to refine and define these affinities using both induction and deduction and then to finally, deductively, identify relationships of influence among the affinities: these three stages of data roduction/analysis – correspond to the three formal classes of analysis of coding: emergent, axial and theoretical … iqa contends that econtextualized descriptions are useful and possible as long as they are backed up or grounded by highly contextualised ones, and as long as the process by which the text was decontextualized is public, accessible and accountable.23(p. 17) this article endeavours to provide the reader with the broader context within which this research situates itself by weaving this study’s findings into the expansive quilt of statistics education research.23 interactive qualitative analysis allows the constituents to weave together an interpretive quilt of their reality of experience of the phenomenon.26 ‘iqa is clearly favourable to theory, both from the point of view of inducing theory and of testing it’.23 the sid – being the final product of iqa – is a visual representation of a mind-map of the group’s reality of the phenomenon under study, rather than a model imposed by previous research findings or theorists.23 the mental model produced by the participants in this study is their theory of their conscious reality of their lived experiences of learning statistics, in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme.23 methodology the first phase of the iqa process entails the selection of constituents to participate in the focus group session that results in the generation of a visual representation of the dynamics of the phenomenon. the second phase of the iqa process involves conducting semi-structured individual interviews with the constituents. the aim of these interviews is to further probe individual meanings of the affinities generated in the focus group session and provide an opportunity for constituents to theorise and rationalise their understanding about the relationship between affinities. the main processes of the first phase of the iqa process will be outlined below in relation to the study of students’ experiences of learning statistics, in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. identifying constituents (participants) the first phase of iqa is the creation of the focus group. the task of the focus group participants is to represent their reality of the phenomenon in terms of its components of meaning and to propose their hypotheses of the relationships amongst these components.28 this is in harmony with the guiding principle of social constructivism that meaning making is socially constructed. the iqa’s criteria for the selection of constituents are as follows: (1) extent of power over the phenomenon and (2) distance from, or the extent to which, the constituent experienced the phenomenon.23 in keeping with these criteria, the constituents for this study’s focus group were 17 participants who voluntarily participated in the semester-long threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. the participants in the tutorial programme were chosen because they were closest to the phenomenon, and therefore had the experience and authority to represent and dissect their reality of learning statistics. furthermore, these participants shared a collective, zoomed-in experience of the phenomenon. the interactive qualitative analysis focus group: a collective reality focus groups are considered a key data collection method in qualitative research.29 northcutt and mccoy23 recommend a 12to 20-member participation in the focus group, and the iqa prescribed format does not centre on verbal discussion, so as to reduce the possibility of bias being introduced by domineering personalities during the coding phase. the iqa focus group data collection techniques assist participants ‘in articulating perceived relationships among these experiences to produce a theory in perception or a conceptual map’.23 in this study, the participants in the focus group generated responses to issue statements (see ananth30) that would capture the essence of and shed light on the participants’ experiences of learning statistics in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. the participants then engaged in approximately 45 min of silent brainstorming, during which they recorded all their individual, spontaneous responses on index cards, writing one thought or experience per card using words, phrases, sentences or drawings. once it was apparent that most participants had captured all their responses on index cards, these were collected and randomly affixed to the wall. in all, 217 responses were generated (see ananth30). the researcher’s role was strictly facilitative – guiding the group through the iqa procedures – being conscious of not imposing one’s interpretation of the emergent data or influencing data generation with one’s perceptions of the phenomenon of students’ learning experiences of statistics. the following paragraphs contain an outline of the iqa focus group procedure as it related to this study. generating and naming affinities at the commencement of the session, the participants were presented with index cards and issue statements. the issue statements were designed to probe and elicit answers to the research questions. the first task for the focus group participants was silent brainstorming. northcutt and mccoy23 suggest using guided imagery to help participants relax and clear their minds for the session. a silent brainstorming session ensued, allowing participants to engage with the issue statements. participants recorded all their responses to individual problem statements on index cards, writing one thought/experience per card using words, phrases, sentences or imagery. after the brainstorming session – approximately 45 min – the index cards were randomly taped along a wall. the clarification of meaning stage followed: the facilitator read each card out loud to achieve clarity and consensus on the meaning of the card – this lay the foundation for constructing a shared reality in the group.31 next, in the stage known as inductive coding,23 participants were requested to silently organise the cards into groups of meaning or themes, known as affinities. the next stage was axial coding, a deductive process that required the participants (as a group) to decide on a name to give to each cluster of response (affinity naming) and to sort any cards that might have been miscategorised into the appropriate group. the concept of affinities is akin to cogs turning a wheel – a minor but necessary component in the workings of the system. this entire session took approximately 4 h to complete. although iqa calls for a single focus group session, in this study two sessions were scheduled, 5 days apart, which allowed the write-up of the affinity meanings – a consolidated description of the meaning of the affinity, grounded in specific responses or examples – after the first session, for the group to check and confirm at the second session. the affinity write-ups as confirmed by the participants provided thick, detailed reflections of their experience with the phenomenon under study and are provided in boxes 1–4. box 1: tut group. box 2: journey of understanding. box 3: emotions. box 4: personal journey. the affinities described above may be considered as the system building blocks or components of the group’s shared reality of their experiences of learning statistics and participating in the threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. these affinities were used to draw up the affinity relationship table (art), the next task that students had to complete in the follow-up focus group session. participants had to fill in the art to explain how they perceive these affinities to relate to each other. this task is completed through a deductive process, according to iqa protocol. identifying relationships among factors this process entailed theoretical coding and was conducted in the second focus group session. once the participants checked and confirmed the description of the affinities that were prepared, they were asked to analyse the nature of the relationships of influence between each of the affinities, which were recorded in a matrix called an art. for any pair of affinities (a and b), participants had to decide whether: a influences b (a → b), b influences a (a ← b) or no relationship of influence existed. participants were also asked to provide a specific example, in everyday language, or as an ‘if … then’ hypothesis, to indicate how they saw the directionality. the arts were analysed at a group level to create a composite inter-relationship diagram (ird) – a matrix of all the perceived relationships in the system23 – aggregating the responses for each relationship pair in the completed arts from 17 participants. interactive qualitative analysis adopts the pareto principle (named after economist vilfredo pareto who developed the concept in the context of the distribution of income and wealth among the italian population) to statistically determine which of the inter-relationships should be included in the ird. the pareto principle or 80/20 rule observes that 20% of the variables in a system will account for 80% of the total variation in outcomes in the system.23 northcutt and mccoy23 encourage a parsimonious representation of the system (the law of parsimony or occam’s razor advocates that an explanation of a natural phenomenon should be portrayed with economical descriptions reflecting simple but evocative models) – the optimal number of relationships to be included in the model of the system is also ‘the fewest number of relationships … that represents the greatest amount of variation (for the sake of comprehensiveness and richness)’.23 in applying this principle, the steps prescribed by iqa were followed. the process and its outcomes are displayed in table 1.30 table 1: affinities in descending order of frequency with pareto and power analyses. the first step is to conduct a frequency tally – the ‘votes’ for each of the 12 affinity pair relationships were counted and then recorded in an excel spreadsheet. in total, the participants cast 100 votes for relationships of influence. no participant voted for ‘no relationship’ between any of the affinity pairs. the relationships were sorted in descending order of votes (frequency) and then the cumulative frequency was calculated (columns 1–4 in table 1). as each additional affinity pair was considered, the cumulative percentage of total possible relationships was calculated (column 5). each additional relationship added 1/12 or 8.33% of the total (thus, the first three relationships, cumulatively, accounted for 25% or 3/12 of all possible relationships, whereas all 12 relationships accounted for 100%). the sixth column shows the cumulative percentage of frequency, that is, of votes cast (based on the total of 100 votes) for the successive affinity pairs. thus, the first relationship drew 17 of the 100 votes or 17%; the first four relationships accounted for 58% or 58/100 votes. in other words, the entries in this column reflected how much of the total variation in the system (= 100 votes) was accounted for by the cumulative relationship pairs. the final column, power, was calculated as cumulative percentage frequency, less cumulative percentage relationships. interactive qualitative analysis applies the minmax criterion in deciding which relationships should be included in the group ird. minmax is a statistics decision rule used in game theory to minimise loss in the face of a maximum loss scenario. in iqa, it is used to determine the minimum number of relationships needed to be analysed, which accounts for the maximum variation in the system.23 the decision involves optimizing a trade-off between two criteria: the composite should account for maximizing variation in the system (cumulative percentage based upon frequency) while minimizing the number of relationships in the interest of parsimony (cumulative percentage based on relations).23 in line with the pareto principle, in this study, although the proportions were not exactly 80/20, it was still clear from table 1 that a relatively smaller proportion of the relationships accounted for most of the variation – six relationships (50% of the total) account for 81% of the variation in the system. power reached a maximum value at six relationships, which accounts for of the variation in the system. therefore, six relationships would be a justifiable choice for inclusion in the group ird because it was the optimal number in the sense of the minmax criterion. constructing the inter-relationship diagram during the process of ‘rationalizing the system’,23 the first step is to display a summary of the optimal number of perceived relationships in the system in the form of a matrix called the ird. the ird is created by placing arrows in the table, thus showing the direction of influence (cause or effect) in an affinity pair relationship. arrows point only left or up and each relationship is recorded twice in the ird. for example, in table 2,30 in row one, the up arrow in the column headed 2 indicated that affinity 1 (tut group) influenced affinity 2 (journey of understanding). the same relationship was captured in the second entry for that affinity pair, in row two, where the left arrow in the column headed 1 showed that that affinity was influenced by affinity 1. in both instances, the arrows point away from 1 towards 2. (in a typical ird constructed according to iqa protocol, the affinity names are omitted. the names are included here purely for explanatory purposes.) the six relationship pairs identified for inclusion using the minmax criterion were recorded in table 2. table 2: tabular inter-relationship diagram. table 3: tabular inter-relationship diagram sorted in descending order of δ. the value of delta is used to designate the relative position of an affinity within the system. with reference to this study, affinities with positive δs such as tut group and journey of understanding were relative drivers or causes in the system, whilst those with negative δs such as emotions and personal journey were relative outcomes or effects in the system. those relative positions might be classified further. a driver that had many ‘out’ arrows and no ‘in’ arrows might be called a primary driver (tut group). ‘primary driver has a high positive delta and is a major cause that affects many other affinities but is not affected by others’.23 a secondary driver is distinguished as having more ‘outs’ than ‘ins’ (journey of understanding). it had a relative cause or influence on affinities in the system. the primary outcome is characterised by a high negative delta resulting from many ‘ins’ but no ‘outs’ (emotions). thus, the primary outcome was a significant outcome that was affected by many of the affinities in the system. a secondary outcome revealed a relative effect and was identified as having more ‘ins’ than ‘outs’ (personal journey). often affinities might have equal numbers of ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ – these affinities are referred to as circulator or pivot in the final representation of the system. in this study, there were no affinities that fit this description; thus, there were no circulator/pivot in this system. the tentative assignment of affinities in the system is shown in table 4.30 table 4: focus group: tentative systems influence diagram assignment. this activity is called theoretical coding and creates an extended reality for the group through further discourse. the goal of this stage is ‘to identify the skeleton of a “theory in perception”’.23 constructing the systems influence diagram the information presented in the ird is graphically represented in the form of the sid. the sid is a graphical presentation of the entire system of influences and outcomes – a visual system of affinities and relationships among them.23 the cluttered systems influence diagram in developing the sid, all the affinities are arranged according to the tentative sid assignment table in topological zones: primary drivers to the left and primary outcomes to the right. secondary drivers and secondary outcomes should be placed in-between the primaries. in zones that contain more than one affinity, these affinities should be placed vertically in descending order of delta. arrows are then drawn, as connections between each affinity pair, in the direction of the relationship as represented in the ird. this version of the sid is referred to as the cluttered sid as it is ‘saturated’ with each link present in the ird.23 figure 1 shows the cluttered sid, which is a vivid representation of the system dynamics. the cluttered sid is the visual culmination of the findings from the focus group.30 figure 1: cluttered systems influence diagram. uncluttered systems influence diagram the cluttered sid serves the purpose of offering a comprehensive and rich description of the system but lacks in the objective of parsimony of an sid.23 in other words, the detailed comprehensiveness of the cluttered sid, saturated with the many links, can dilute the explanatory power of the sid as the system becomes ‘boggled down by the details of the relationships’.23 to reconcile the ‘richness-parsimony dialectic’ of the sid,23 iqa proposes the removal of redundant links, i.e. remove direct links which instead can be facilitated by mediating affinities. redundant links are removed by considering affinities at the extreme left (highest δ) and the extreme right (lowest δ). if there are alternate paths between the two deltas other than the direct link, then that direct link can be removed. to illustrate the point, in the cluttered sid for this study, link 1→3 would be considered redundant because 1→2 and 2→3, and thus the direct 1→3 link could be removed. by eliminating the redundant links from the cluttered sid, the system is said to be ‘rationalized’,23 thus yielding the uncluttered sid: ‘a simpler, more interpretable mental model – one that has optimum explanatory power’.23 the uncluttered sid representing the participants’ experiences of learning statistics in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme is presented in figure 2.30 figure 2: uncluttered systems influence diagram. because of its simplicity, the uncluttered sid paradoxically has the most explanatory power offering a visual composite mind map or mental model of the participants’ experiences in its rationalised form.23 the visual representation may be expressed through language as follows. the dynamics of participating in the tut group drove participants’ learning in statistics by influencing their journey of understanding in the discipline. their disciplinary journey of understanding brought about a shift in the way students think about statistics and in the way they think about learning, in general. this shift in thinking about learning impacted on students’ personal journey, which culminated in an influence on their emotions. feedback loops, zooming and naming a feedback loop comprises a system of at least three affinities wherein each affinity influences the other either directly or indirectly. for example, consider an arbitrary system, the links (a→b; b→c; c→a) comprises a feedback loop in which each of the three affinities, a, b and c, influences each other. thus, in a feedback loop, the distinction between drivers and outcomes is blurred. a, b and c have individual, independent meanings but through their interconnectedness they have a collective meaning as a dynamic set of affinities. zooming refers to naming feedback loops with a name that succinctly captures the essence of the individual components comprising the feedback loop. by zooming out, simpler views of the sid are constructed. northcutt and mccoy23 explain that ‘zooming is actually just another form of affinity analysis conducted by the investigator for interpretive purposes’. in this study, the sid featured no feedback loops. the uncluttered sid featured a simple, although evocative, linear system with no branching. however, the sequential interaction of tut group, journey of understanding and personal journey evoked connotations of a spiritual journey or pilgrimage of sorts. it was spiritual in the sense that participation in the tut group impacted on students’ understanding in the discipline (journey of the mind), which ultimately had bearing on students’ personal journey of self-discovery (spiritual journey). this pilgrimage captured the essence of a mind–soul connection – students initially embarked on a cognitive journey of the mind by participating in a threshold concepts-enriched tut group (a pedagogical tool) and ended in a personal journey of enlightenment and awareness of oneself. thus, the sequential interaction between tut group, journey of understanding and personal journey was named ‘a pedagogical pilgrimage’ (figure 3). figure 3: a pedagogical pilgrimage. this minimised linear view of the system cannot be simplified further and comprises only two elements, ‘the bare minimum for a system’.23 students’ pedagogical pilgrimage ultimately impacts their emotions. interactive qualitative analysis interviews – individual meaning making the second phase of iqa entails conducting semi-structured individual interviews that serve a twofold purpose23: axial interview is an open-ended design to capture rich descriptions of the affinities from the participants, and the interviewer (researcher) probes the participants’ meaning of the affinities. the structured, theoretical interview design probes participants’ meanings of relationships between affinities. the interview protocol is only drafted after the focus group and art phase, because participants are expected to elaborate on their interpretation of the meaning of the affinities and the relationships between them. whereas the focus group dealt with the generation of data that was socially constructed, representing the participants’ shared experience of the reality presented by the issue statements,23 the individual interview stage created an opportunity to explore ‘individual differences in meanings vis-à-vis the issue’.23 the composite interview mind-maps (the outcome of the individual interview stage) served as a source of data triangulation in the sense that if the participant ‘is representative of the constituency from which the group sid was derived, then the composite of all such interviews should be similar to the focus group sid’.23 interactive qualitative analysis relies on composite quotes, woven together from individual sources to sound like a single voice, to elaborate the affinities. this practice presents a trade-off, where, whilst a holistic and nuanced picture is created for the group, individual voices are not reflected or tracked in these aggregated quotes. findings the focus group identified four affinities – themes or components of meaning of their learning in the tutorial programme – and the iqa processes led to the construction of the sid above, which captures how the group theorised the inter-relationships among these affinities. the features of the sid as a whole suggest some insights regarding the group’s understanding of their learning, which were substantiated by the thicker descriptive data from the reflective writings of the focus group brainstorming session, interviews and written journal reflections. the primary driver of the system was tut group, which impacted on every other affinity. the journey of understanding was a secondary driver and personal journey was a secondary outcome, whilst emotions was analysed to be a primary outcome. tut group – the group interactions and processes arising through the multiplicity of pedagogical approaches adopted (small group cooperative learning, activities involving the analysis of real data, keeping of reflective journals, being provided with the solution to tasks, and instructor immediacy) in the tutorial programme – enabled and supported cognitive, metacognitive and affective aspects of learning. through processes of discussion and articulation within the group, students constructed an understanding of statistics concepts. they recognised this understanding based on ‘knowing why’ as being quite different to the mechanistic analysis they had tended to resort to in response to traditional lectured delivery. however, the progression in their understanding was difficult, and impasse was commonplace, where their primary source seemed to be in the abstract nature of many statistics concepts. seeing their use through relatable applications facilitated understanding, and enhanced agency as students felt they were gaining worthwhile, empowering knowledge. comprehending particular concepts and techniques was often experienced as a breakthrough that enabled the understanding of related ideas. cumulatively, these understandings constituted the development of students’ journey of understanding – a statistics point of view, which afforded them a changed perspective on real-world events. their changing conceptions of knowledge were reflected in deeper approaches to learning and were accompanied by a sense of empowerment and capability, where before, many had felt self-doubt. these new conceptions of knowledge and learning, and of themselves as capable learners, were important metacognitive shifts that made up personal journey. emotions – affective responses, both positive and negative, emanated from learning and engaging with content, from assessment, and from the learning environment. persisting and progressing in learning made demands on students’ psychological resources, such as self-awareness, self-belief, hope and resilience. tut group had a significant influence on emotions: the sense of belonging, comfort and safety among peers and a sense of the teacher’s immediacy in the tutorial group encouraged students to express themselves freely, and for many, facilitated the emergence of a clearer sense of self in relation to the discipline. student’s predominant feelings and emotions of their experiences of learning in statistics was one of the senses of achievement and accomplishment that translated into joy and love for the subject. these summarised key findings of the larger study30 highlight that learning has strongly affective aspects entwined with the cognitive; that it might entail periods of stuckness and liminality32; that particular concepts are likely to be both troublesome and – once mastered – transformative33 and that disciplinary learning has implications for students’ worldview and identity. additional insights are suggested by participants’ portrayal of the influential role of tut group in their learning. peers, teacher immediacy and the blending of multiple learning processes appear to hold significant potential for supporting cognitive, metacognitive and affective aspects of learning, and facilitating the emergence of a new sense of self in relation to the discipline. adapting northcutt and mccoy’s interactive qualitative analysis framework for the south african higher education context interactive qualitative analysis is a novel method, which, as far as could be determined, has not been used in the extant statistics education research literature. in south africa, iqa has been applied in the fields of educational psychology.24,25 in a context similar to that of the current study, in students’ learning of economic threshold concepts, goebel31 draws a comparison with the iqa methodology and the ‘transactional curriculum inquiry’ feature of the threshold concepts framework. this is done because in iqa methodology, researcher and students work together iteratively to explore the dynamics of the phenomenon, which is similar to the collective efforts of academics, students and curriculum developers in threshold concepts research.34 issues of trustworthiness, dependability and confirmability are significantly reduced in the iqa methodology,25 as the participants are solely responsible for generating, analysing and interpreting the data. the written reflections requested of participants were an addition to standard iqa practice, wherein it was hoped that it might offset some of the concerns around silence or conflict noted above, as a less focused and more private medium, reflective writing, might be a channel for insights students would not mention in the focus groups or interviews. confidence in the affinities was increased when it was found that the reflective writing could be accounted for within those categories of meaning. this modification to iqa may also have enhanced the quality of the data by predisposing the participants to think more widely or introspectively during the focus group phase, because they would have reflected regularly on their learning over the preceding weeks. limitations of interactive qualitative analysis methodology as experienced in this study the use of iqa revealed some limitations and possible hazards, as well as the advantages noted in describing the approach above. many of the concerns relate to the pivotal role of the focus group, on which the rest of the approach may be seen to depend. firstly, the communal nature of the focus group and its emphasis on group reality seem to reflect an assumption that there exists a single, albeit complex, group reality that can be satisfactorily captured in the sid. the iqa guidelines23 do not offer steps to follow if participants cannot reach complete agreement before time and energy run out. in the focus groups, the researcher’s observations suggested that the participants reached consensus relatively smoothly, and therefore did not have to respond to this type of dilemma. a concern remains, however, that in seeking consensus, the focus group processes might simply be masking conflict and attaining compromise – the appearance of agreement. the silent nature of brainstorming and clustering in iqa, whilst offering advantages, may not reveal unresolved conflicts of meaning among participants. the interviews may address some of the concerns around consensus and silence, by offering an opportunity to explore individual variations in the meaning of affinities. however, the interviews are themselves bounded and structured by the affinities, which inform the interview protocol and therefore largely determine the issues to be discussed. thus, whilst the grounded, participant-driven nature of affinities (and their inter-relationships as depicted in the sid) is one of the iqa’s key strengths, this may be a double-edged sword: once confirmed, the affinities are set, and the researcher and readers are called on to trust that they are a fair representation of the participants’ reality. whilst northcutt and mccoy23 point out that the interviews can act as a check of the affinities and influences, they do not offer comment on the possibility that the affinities and system produced by the focus group in the first place may be flawed. again, this underlines the critical importance of the execution and functioning of the focus group. although iqa calls for a single focus group session, in this study had two scheduled sessions, 5 days apart, which allowed the time to write up the affinity meanings (as described above) after the first session, for the group to check and confirm at the second. their agreement would subsequently affect the sid, the interviews and ultimately the findings of the study. in short, iqa protocol is not self-driving: the focus group phase needs careful planning and management, because all the phases that follow hang on the credibility of the affinities. practical considerations should not be overlooked, given the importance of this phase. the focus group sessions were found to be more time-consuming than anticipated, and at times logistically challenging, with 17 participants ranging back and forth along the array of cards attached to a wall. allowing for two consecutive sessions might be an advisable adjustment to the iqa prescriptions, although it also increases the demands made on participants. it is believed that the willingness of the participants in this study to commit so much of their time to the focus group sessions and subsequent individual interviews was because of several factors, including the relationship established between the researcher with the group over the semester; their relationships with one another, their understanding and support of the purpose of the research; an appreciation of having their views heard and last, but certainly not least, the general improvement in understanding of content knowledge that they experienced in their working through of the tutorial activities. the level of commitment of the participants was essential to obtaining the depth of data that were generated in these phases of iqa. discussion together, the iqa processes of: (1) focus group and (2) semi-structured individual interviews enabled the generation of socially constructed descriptions of students’ experiences of learning statistics. the affinities (the elements of meaning of the phenomenon) and their perceived cause-and-effect interactions were grounded in the thick, rich descriptions in the words of the participants. in this manner, iqa methodology attempts to reveal ‘truth’ as constructed by an individual or group by deliberately incorporating concepts from the following three important understandings of the meaning or theories of truth: correspondence theory of truth (ctt), coherence theory of truth (cott) and constructive theory of truth.23 the ctt interprets truth as a correspondence with facts or reality as described through participants’ experiences. in this study, findings corresponded with participants’ lived reality of their experiences in learning statistics in the threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme, as observed through the data sources.26,31 the cott sees truth as being consistent with other true statements. the cott has three criteria: structural coherence – coherence between ‘elements’ and ‘relationships’ that make-up a meaningful structure. in this study, this interpretation of truth would be reflected among the affinities and affinity relationships. referential coherence – the study fits into a larger system with other studies – such as broader theoretical perspectives in this case. dramatic coherence – where the characters are relatable and resonate with our own experience. this may be construed as participants’ individual meanings/interpretations of affinities and relationships of influence amongst affinities. the constructivist theory of truth conveys the value of truth as being ‘useful’ or ‘pragmatic’ and that the ‘real’ truth of a proposition ‘lies in its potential for solving a problem’.23 this study’s findings offer vivid descriptions of the phenomenon – insights into students’ learning in statistics – with implications for practical interventions in the statistics classroom and potential for further research. this article set out to offer an exposition of iqa23 and an example of its practical application. it drew attention to its particular merits, especially as it relates to affording voice and participation of research participants. interactive qualitative analysis has special appeal in that it proposes a highly systematic research protocol that offers a very clear audit trail, as it relates to data collection, analysis and the development of research themes or findings in a study. as such issues of rigour, validity and reliability become transparent, making the assertions and insights gained more credible. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions both authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the humanities and social sciences research ethics committee at the university of kwazulu-natal (ethical clearance number: hss/1057/017d, 17 july 2017). funding information this research article is based on the research findings supported in part by the teaching development grant national collaborative project – strengthening academic staff development in mathematical and statistical sciences in south africa (reference no: app-tdg-037). data availability statement data remain the intellectual property of ukzn but are 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2017. meyer jhf, land r. threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines [homepage on the internet]. occasional report 4, 2003. 2003 [cited 2020 jul 20]. available from: http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/etlreport4.pdf meyer jhf, land r. threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. high educ. 2005;49(3):373–388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5 cousin g. neither teacher-centred nor student-centred: threshold concepts and research partnerships. j learn dev high educ. 2010;1(2):1–2. microsoft word 08 van wyk .docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2014, pp. 133-151. the militarisation of the platfontein san (!xun and khwe): the initial years 1966–1974 as van wyk1 abstract the resettlement of 372 san (bushmen) soldiers with dependents from 31/201 and 203 battalions in namibia to schmidtsdrift in the northern cape during march 1990 was the last chapter in the process of militarisation of the !xun and khwe communities. however, there is a popular perception that the south african defence force (sadf) was primarily responsible for the militarisation of this particular san community, with the founding of 31 battalion during 1974. this ignores the fact that the !xun and khwe originated in angola, where they were actively involved with the portuguese security forces. with one exception, only superficial mention is made in the literature about the role of the san soldiers in angola before independence in november 1975. this article shows that the militarisation of the san actually started in 1966, when members of the !xun were recruited by the portuguese security police (pide) and successfully used against the angolan liberation movements mpla, fnla and unita. the lifestyle of the san before the pide era is discussed, as is the period in which they were raised to a superior status as flecha fighters. this period of military prowess ended with the independence of angola and resulted in the !xun and khwe seeking refuge with the sadf. these geo-political events led to the founding of 31 battalion, situated in the western caprivi, where former flecha soldiers were retrained and incorporated into sadf structures. in closing, brief mention is made of the resettlement of the !xun and khwe to schmidtsdrift in south africa. keywords: !xun, khwe, san, platfontein, border war, namibia, angola, portuguese, caprivi, south african defence force (sadf), 31 batallion. introduction “the san of platfontein” is the collective name for the !xun2 and khwe3 bushman communities4 currently residing in a settlement on the farm platfontein, approximately 10 kilometres north-west of kimberley. the community of about 5 500, now living a precarious life in the northern cape, is the remainder of 31 battalion, which was disbanded on 7 march 1993 with the final laying up of the unit colours. the unit colours and other military 1 lt. col. (ret.) scholtz van wyk is an ma candidate in history at stellenbosch university. email: vanpost@netactive.co.za 2 !xun: angola !khu (kung), also referred to as "vasekela" and part of larger "bushman 2 !xun: angola !khu (kung), also referred to as "vasekela" and part of larger "bushman proper" (!khu-san) group. 3 khwe: also referred to as khoe, kwe or "mbarakwengo" and part of nama-speaking groups, from west caprivi and kavango districts, also extreme south-eastern angola. 4 the terms “bushman”, originally “bosjesman” (dutch for “the man from the bush”, capturing the idea of elusiveness) and “san”, which derived from the khoekhoegowab term sa, meaning “to gather”, are both used in documents and literature to refer to the !xun and khwe collectively. for the purposes of this article the term “san” will suffice. van wyk 134 memorabilia of the battalion form part of an exhibition at the mcgregor museum at wildebeestkuil and depict the history of these two communities over the last 50 years. the relocation of 372 !xun and khwe soldiers and their dependants, a total of 3 919 people, during march 1990 from omega in the western caprivi (the zambezi region of namibia) and mangetti dune in bushmanland, namibia, to schmidtsdrift in the republic of south africa at an estimated cost of r3 165 500, was the last chapter in the militarisation of the platfontein san – a process during which they were subjected to several forms of militarisation over a period of about 16 years.5 these soldiers were part of 31/201 battalion at omega and 203 battalion in bushmanland which served actively in counter-insurgency operations (coinops) during the border war. this war between the south african defence force (sadf), in alliance with the south-west africa territory force (swatf), and the people’s liberation army of namibia (plan), the active military wing of swapo,6 stretched over a long period, from 1966 to 1989. it mainly took place in the vicinity of the border between namibia and angola. about half of the san soldiers of both battalions, together with their dependants, chose voluntarily to remain in namibia after intense negotiations between the san, the south african government and delegations of the designated swapo government, the organisation of african unity (oau)7 and the united nations transition assistance group (untag), who all tried to convince the san not to relocate to south africa.8 the exodus by the san of platfontein from namibia to south africa was their second major move. the !xun and khwe originated in the south-east of angola and then fled to the kavango and caprivi regions of namibia during 1974–1975, where they were initially merged as project alpha (later known as 31 battalion) under the leadership of cmdt. delville linford.9 although existing sources refer incidentally to the previous military involvement of the san in portuguese-controlled angola, the popular perception is that the sadf started the process of the militarisation10 of the !xun and khwe in 1974.11 cann makes a valuable contribution in 5 south african national defence force (sandf) documentation centre 31 battalion archives group c army / d ops / 509 / 1, report op mattress relocation of the bushmen at schmidtsdrift, 27 march 1990, p. 3. 6 the south west african people’s organisation, established in 1959 and main organiser of resistance against occupation by south africa. l scholtz, the sadf in the border war 1966– 1989 (tafelberg, cape town, 2013) p. 3. 7 the oau was the predecessor of the african union, which was established on 26 may 2001. 8 the author and his colleague from omega, cmdt. callie sanders, personally led a san deputation to mr sam nujoma in windhoek on 7 february 1990, where the president-elect gave them the assurance that the san were welcome in namibia and that they would enjoy the same rights as the other groups. s van wyk, commanding officer’s diary (unpublished, 7 february 1990) p. 4. 9 d linford (founder of 31 battalion), my bushmen experience, unpublished manuscript in the author’s possession. 10 khwe: also referred to as khoe, kwe or "mbarakwengo" and part of nama-speaking groups, from west caprivi and kavango districts, also extreme south-eastern angola. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 135 his study the flechas, in which he describes how the angolan san were involved in the portuguese anti-revolutionary warfare, but it is written mainly from a portuguese perspective and does not fully establish the relations between the san of 31 battalion and what happened in angola.12 this article will show that the militarisation of the san of platfontein started as early as 1966, when elements of the !xun, at that stage residing in the cuando cubango province in the vicinity of serpa pinto (menongue) in angola, were recruited by pide13 (the portuguese international police for defence of the state) and utilised with great success in counter-insurgency against the angolan freedom movements, the mpla, fnla and unita.14 the article initially focuses on the !xun and khwe prior to the pide era. this context is important in understanding the san’s willingness to co-operate in the process of their militarisation at a later stage. this is followed by an indication of how the san were militarised during the pide era, involving their “loss of innocence”, their compelled flight from angola after the country became independent in 1975, and the incorporation of the san by the sadf as project alpha. the continuation and extension of the process of militarisation in south-west africa/namibia is illustrated briefly and the article ends with a discussion of the relocation of the san in south africa. life before boots, steel and salazar15 in the 1960s angola was a thinly-populated country, with a total population of a little under 5 million, consisting of 95,3% black, 3,6% white and 1,1% mestiço or coloured people.16 according to a census conducted under difficult conditions during warfare in 1970, the population density was 4,53 people per square kilometre. this figure, however, does not reflect the uneven distribution of people in angola, as only 16% of the population inhabited about 52% of the country, which is geographically sprawling and difficult terrain.17 this massive stretch of country, referred to by henrique galvão as “the lands at the end of the earth”, is situated in the south-east of angola and includes the provinces of moxico and cuando cubango.18 in sharp contrast, the rest of the population inhabited the central plateau and the provinces of huíla, huambo, malanje and bié and the coastal provinces of luanda, benguela, moçamedes and urban centres. 11 s du preez, avontuur in angola (van schaik, pretoria, 1989); r lee & s hurlich, from foragers to fighters. sa’s militarisation of the namibian san (cambridge university press, cambridge, 1982); i uys, bushman soldiers, their alpha and omega (fortress publications, germiston, 1993); rj gordon and ss douglas, the bushman myth (westview press, oxford, 2000); d robbins, on the bridge of goodbye (jonathan ball, johannesburg, 2007); soldier of fortune, sadf’s bushman battalion, march 1984. 12 jp cann, the flechas – insurgent hunting in eastern angola, 1965–1974 (helion & co., england, 2013). 13 ws van der waals, portugal’s war in angola (protea book house, pretoria, 2011), p. ix. polícia internacional de defesa do estado or international police for the defence of the state. 14 interview with óscar cardoso, senior inspector of pide, 28 november 2014. 15 dr antónio de oliveira salazar was portugal’s prime minister from 1932–1968. 16 van der waals, p. 28. 17 ibid., p. 30. 18 aj venter, portugal’s guerrilla wars in africa (helion & company, england, 2013), p. 354. van wyk 136 concealed in these statistics is the size of the san population, on which there is apparently no general consensus. the san of angola were, according to prof. phillip tobias, the thirdbiggest remaining san grouping in 1960 and only the numbers in botswana and namibia were greater.19 on the basis of research done in this regard by prof. antonio de almeida in the 1950s, tobias calculated the angolan san to number 4 000 people.20 but a study undertaken by the director of military intelligence in 1965 set the numbers of the san at 7 000,21 whereas cann calculated that the san in eastern angola numbered 4 700 in 1966.22 despite the differences of opinion, the numbers of the san were minuscule in the larger context of their being only 0,1% of the total angolan population and about 10% of all san in southern africa by the mid-1960s. de almeida refers to “yellow and black bushmen” in his lectures of 1959, which dealt with the bushmen and other non-bantu peoples of angola. the yellow san consisted of kwankhala and sekela, who called themselves !xun, while the black san were referred to as zama or kwengo, but they called themselves khwe or kweri.23 these names are given in accordance with robert gordon’s “nama-speaking groups”, which include the khwe and “bushmen proper”, of whom the angolan !khu (kung) form part.24 according to de almeida, the !xun lived mainly in the provinces of bié, huíla and cuando cubango, whilst the khwe lived in the south-eastern cuando cubango province, adjacent to the mbukushu in the kavango. the !xun and to a lesser degree the khwe led a nomadic life of hunting and gathering before the angolans started their freedom struggle in 1961. they had few possessions and lived in camps of 20 to 25 people, usually representing the nucleus of the family. when there was sufficient food in the area, the family built huts from branches, grass and leaves as shelter against the elements. necessities such as implements, bows and arrows and clothing, though scanty, were manufactured from natural materials in the environment. the men typically wore only loin-cloths made from animal skin, various types of wrist-band, tobacco-pouches, knives, bows and arrows. san women, on the other hand, preferred ornaments and jewellery, complementing their small leather aprons and the fur backpacks in which the babies were carried.25 de almeida observes that the san presented “a clear case of semi-starvation, or food pathology”, which becomes evident when their eating habits and lifestyle are studied. in an interview i conducted with mario mahongo and other former !xun members of 31 battalion, they confirmed that they lived in the vicinity of the villages serpa pinto (menongue), cuito cuanavale, mavinga, luengué, cuchi and neriquinha; they lived off the land from things 19 a. de almeida, bushmen and other non-bantu peoples of angola (university of the witwatersrand press, johannesburg, 1965). preface by phillip v tobias. 20 prof. antonio de almeida was the leader of the anthropobiological study of angola and gave a series of lectures in 1959 at the institute for the study of man in africa at the university of the witwatersrand. 21 sandf documentation centre, hsi/ami archives group 3, container 371, evaluation study, p. 3. 22 cann, p. 29. 23 de almeida, pp. 1, 14. 24 gordon & douglas, p. 7. 25 de almeida, p. 7. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 137 such as wild oranges, seasonal fruit, roots and honey and they also hunted.26 this corresponds with research by de almeida, who mentions, among other things, a very juicy and nutritious fruit, resembling oranges, known as maboques (strychnos spinosa). the san also prepared porridge from a kind of flour, called massango, in clay pans made by black women. meat in almost any form was an important part of their diet and its availability depended on the hunting skills of the san. matoka mattheus said that his father taught him as a young man how to hunt and to set traps. “do not trot behind a buck; only follow its spoor cautiously until it becomes tired. then stalk the buck and shoot it with a poison-tipped arrow and follow the spoor until the animal becomes weakened, when you will have the opportunity to kill it”.27 what happens after that indicates both the san’s frugality and their generosity. the animal is immediately skinned, the meat chopped up and shared amongst the family. nothing goes to waste – not even the intestines! this feast of meat is accompanied by dance and music and lasts until late at night. 28 kamamma makua, a khwe who currently resides at platfontein and is originally from a place called katjata in the far south-east of angola, was one of the original san leaders of 31 battalion. other khwe lived in the regions of the villages of neriquinha, luiana and mucusso; they also led a nomadic lifestyle like that of the !xun and spoke a language with typical “clicks”. the !xun and khwe differed in personal appearance, as the khwe showed more of the features of the neighbouring mbukushu black people. the khwe relied more on subsistence farming than the !xun did, illustrated by kamamma makua when he explained how as a young man in the 1950s he joined his father in farming with maize, mahango, pumpkins and cattle.29 makua also worked in various mines around the witwatersrand region over a period of three years. this is an indication of the freedom of movement and mobility possible in the 1950s between angola, zambia, south-west africa/namibia’s caprivi strip and botswana and the region where the khwe lived. makua was recruited at sepupa in botswana, about 120 kilometres south of the angolan border, by the recruitment organisation of the mines and transported from shakawe to the mines by aeroplane.30 the existence of the !xun and khwe in angola, however, was far from the easy-going and free romanticised life of hunters and gatherers as depicted in sir laurens van der post’s the lost world of the kalahari. especially at the start of the 20th century, great pressure was placed on their traditional way of life and, according to de almeida, a process of “bantuisation” was taking place. the vocabulary of the black languages was used more, clothing made from animal skins was replaced by western dress including shoes and peaked caps, and the san started building their own huts and became involved in farming with chickens and goats. mario mahongo put it frankly: “before 1940 we had no tamed animals except our dogs, until we met with the black people.”31 he also mentioned that many !xun were used as slaves by the black groups and that others worked for white portuguese farmers on coffee plantations in the north of angola. óscar cardoso, associated with pide during 26 interview with rev. mario mahongo, 02 february 2015. 27 interview by col. d linford with sgt. matoka mattheus, 28 march 2000. 28 the author’s personal observations as commanding officer of 203 battalion. 29 interview with sgt. kamamma makua, 16 march 2015. 30 l van der post, the lost world of the kalahari (hogarth press, london, 1958) p. 122. 31 interview with rev. mario mahongo, 28 november 2014. van wyk 138 the 1960s, confirms that the san were used as slaves by black people and that some of them were also used as trackers by portuguese professional hunters.32 up to 1960 the san received no formal schooling, after which, according to mario mahongo, they began to attend portuguese schools in towns such as cuito cuanavale, serpa pinto (menongue) and mavinga. these sentiments were echoed by 60-year-olds kavanda beneditu and pinto kongo, when they explained that the san were taught by black portuguese-speaking teachers, only after the liberation struggle had started. it was also clear from an interview with katombera mutama, an elderly !xun from cuito, that the san were becoming economically active in the 1950s, which resulted in greater freedom of movement and exposure to other cultures. he mentioned “working with fish” at the harbour of benguela, at the age of 17, while some of his friends went to work on coffee plantations near the capital city luanda.33 de almeida regards the san as “an intelligent, bright people, perhaps even more so than the neighbouring bantu, they learn quickly”, but he adds nevertheless that they are always hungry and appear untidy, are despised by the blacks and estranged from the portuguese, live a precarious life and are always looking for a place in the sun.34 he refers specifically to the san’s social dependence on the black people for whom they had to hunt and perform tasks. furthermore, the san were not allowed to leave their residential areas without the consent of the black people in charge. this view was also shared by the bantu affairs commissioner of rundu in a letter to the general officer commanding joint combat forces in pretoria. he refers, amongst other things, to the san along the kavango river and their dependence on the black people for whom they looked after livestock, cultivated land and gathered “veldkos” in exchange for tobacco and clothes. he states in the letter that it is unlikely that the san would escape from this enslavement by the black people, because the latter regarded the san as an inferior race. he believed this to apply to the !xun and khwe as well.35 this state of affairs and the effect it had on the san would have an important influence on their future. from bow and arrow to flechas36 the militarisation of the !xun and khwe must be viewed against the background of the escalating conflict situation in angola since 1930. by 1961 it had extended to a full-scale liberation war that would last for 13 years. although the war formed part of the larger process of decolonisation in africa after the world war ii, its specific character and duration were precipitated and determined by trends in portugal, specifically regarding its colonial policies. dr antónio salazar, portugal’s prime minister, reigned with a firm grip over continental portugal (metrópole) and its colonies (ultramar). angola, once considered the jewel of the portuguese colonial empire, had become a “festering pit of socio-economic and political 32 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 33 interview with rfn. kavanda beneditu, rfn. pinto kongo and rfn. katombera mutama, 17 march 2015. 34 de almeida, p. 11. 35 sandf documentation centre fraser collection archives group; letter of mr dj maree to lt. genl. ca (pop) fraser, 20 december 1968. 36 flechas : portuguese for “arrows” and name given to indigenous troops, initially bushmen from south-eastern angola. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 139 grievances” by 1961 because of salazar’s strict policies.37 according to cann, the angolan freedom movements that began to challenge the colonial reign started in the 1930s when salazar’s new state (estado novo) policy was implemented and any form of political dissent was suppressed.38 this revolutionary climate consequently prompted the development of three angolan freedom movements, two of which ultimately played a crucial role in the struggle to become independent. the mpla (movimento popular de libertação de angola) was started in 1956 by mainly radical, urban intellectuals in luanda. their rural support base was found mainly amongst the mbundu and chokwe people in the eastern parts of angola. the movement was mainly conducted by mestiços and assimilados39 like agostinho neto, in later years the leader, who adhered to marxist ideas and looked for ways to implement them in an african context.40 the second movement, the upa (união das populações de angola), was formed by barros nekaka in the mid-1950s and consisted mainly of the rural bakongo tribe of northern angola, adjacent to the belgian congo and the french congo. the leadership of this movement was transferred to holden roberto in 1958, who in 1962 agreed to include other groupings and renamed the movement fnla (frente nacional de libertação de angola).41 a third movement arose from the upa/fnla when a frustrated jonas savimbi, who was at that time roberto’s “minister of foreign affairs”, formally broke with upa/fnla and formed unita (união nacional para a independência total de angola) in 1964. unita relied predominantly on ovimbundu support in central angola.42 pide, the security police, played a major part in suppressing any form of subversion and arrested several leaders of the mpla during 1960, including agostinho neto, after which the arrested leaders served long-term prison sentences. on 4 february 1961 the spark in the proverbial tinder-box was the attacks on a police station and the military detention barracks in luanda, amongst other sites, in an unsuccessful mission to release these mpla prisoners. in the process 40 rebels were killed, wounded or captured. this day is regarded by the mpla as the start of its “national revolution”.43 van der waals divides the revolutionary war in angola broadly into three phases, with the uprisings of 1961 marking the beginning, followed by a limited revolutionary struggle from 1962 to 1966 and then the extended war from 1967 which ended with the military coup d’état in portugal on 25 april 197444. the events of 1961 compelled the portuguese government to send military reinforcements to angola, which augmented the troop strength there from 6 500 to 33 477 within six months, with a further gradual escalation from 40 000 in 1962 to 60 000 in 1967. these numbers were supplemented by a limited number of pide members, 10 000 police in uniform and an 37 van der waals, p. 47. 38 cann, p. 5. 39 “assimilado” status was awarded to an angolan who was not of portuguese origin and who was 18 years old, could speak portuguese fluently, earned an acceptable salary and was in possession of a birth certificate, as well as two references confirming loyalty to portugal. 40 cann, p. 6. 41 ibid., p. 6. 42 cann, p. 8. 43 van der waals, p. 77. 44 ibid., p. 75. van wyk 140 estimated 8 000 members of the black militia.45 by 1973 the total army strength stood at 60 500, of which 37 500 came from portugal and 23 000 from angola.46 furthermore, the military realised that specially trained elite forces were needed as the revolutionary struggle progressed and so formed the centre of instruction for special operations in portugal. eight months later the initial three companies of the battalion, about 480 men, were deployed to angola. as the phases of the war became more intense, it became evident that additional specially trained troops were needed urgently to neutralise the rebels, and col. josé bettencourt rodrigues received orders to establish the training of commandos about 140 kilometres north-east of luanda. in september 1964 the first company of commandos (grupos de comandos) began operations from belo horizonte in the north of angola.47 gaining local intelligence is of cardinal importance in any military operation to neutralise or defeat the enemy. in the case of a counter-revolutionary strategy, where the enemy has infiltrated the local population, it was even more difficult to form a clear overall picture of the situation. prior to the conflict in angola this local intelligence was gained and interpreted by the army as well as the local and national police forces, but it was fragmented and poorly coordinated. in march 1961, however, a “service of centralisation and coordination of intelligence” (scci) was created that coordinated the activities of all intelligence-gathering agents, including pide.48 pide was succeeded in 1969 by the dgs (direcção geral de segurança); their functions remained primarily the same, but the dgs had less authority. pide used to attract the best talent and was seen as being on the same professional level as the british mi6, american fbi and south africa’s bureau of state security (boss), with which it had links.49 from 1967 the pide and the portuguese security forces faced bigger challenges, as the mpla posed a new threat from the east and the south-east.50 the aldeamento51 programme for the concentration of the local population into controlled settlements was intensified, command and control structures were improved, and socioeconomic reforms were actively applied.52 mario mahongo confirmed this and revealed how “the government legislated and forced them to live closer to each other” and also “gave them bags of seeds of various beans, maize and mahangu to plant”.53 óscar cardoso was transferred to angola in 1966 as senior inspector of the pide and after he had visited all police stations to ascertain the revolutionary situation, he was placed in command of the pide station at serpa pinto (menongue) in the cuando cubango province. earlier in 1965, while on a visit to angola, he had met manuel pontes, an administrator in cuando cubango, who had a profound understanding of the terrain and people of south 45 cann, p. 16. 46 van der waals, p. 212. 47 cann, p. 17. 48 cann, p. 26. 49 ibid., p. 26. 50 fj du t spies, operasie savannah, angola, 1975–1976 (perskor, pretoria, 1989) p. 19. 51 aldeamento: the concentration by the angolan portuguese authorities of the rural local population into controlled settlements. 52 van der waals, p. 159. 53 interview with rev. mario mahongo, 2 february 2015. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 141 eastern angola. pontes had lived most of his life in the bush and dedicated his professional career to the upliftment of the san (bosquímanos). he was respected and adored by the san to such an extent that they called him “tata k’hum” (father of the khum)54 and he could use this confidence in him to introduce cardoso to the san. cardoso realised the potential of using the san in the hunt against “terrorists” and he shared this view with the director of pide in luanda, dr são josé lopes.55 it was one of cardoso’s colleagues, jorge malheiro, who suggested the term flecha (poison-tipped arrow) as a name for the san soldiers during a special pide meeting in luanda. the recruitment of the san was authorised and so cardoso’s initial bushman unit was established, consisting of eight men. at first the san were only used as trackers and were armed only with their bows and poisonous arrows, and were therefore not to be engaged in fighting the enemy, unless in self-defence and when it was clear that they would prevail. in this way hostile encampments and arms caches were identified, which were then attacked and neutralised by the formal military forces. a further huge benefit was that the san could operate for long periods without logistical support, and that suited cardoso’s concept of the flechas perfectly, namely “to oppose the insurgents with a force of men who were comfortable with the wild and could live off the land”.56 this modus operandi was confirmed by lt. genl. pop fraser in his reference to the pide bushmen who were sent to clear the area between coutada mucusso and bambangando in the south-east of angola from insurgents: “they will be let loose, as it were, from mucusso on foot and they will live off the land until they have accomplished their mission.”57 earlier attempts to involve the san in counter-insurgency operations were not successful because they distrusted all strangers. cardoso, however, used his friendship with manuel pontes and the respect that the san had for pontes to gain their trust. in addition he used a more cynical kind of motivation, namely the animosity that the san felt for the black people, the result of years of prosecution and enslavement: “i used hate motivation with success; not against black people in general, but only against ruthless terrorists”.58 later, however, reports by south african liaison officers in angola showed that the flechas did not understand this distinction made by cardoso, or they chose not to understand, and indiscriminately killed any black person suspected of being involved in terrorist activities.59 the benefits for the san of joining the flechas were freedom, a homeland and being treated with human dignity. “besides these principles, everybody likes money and material possessions”, according to cardoso.60 the san volunteered to join the pide, but could also leave voluntarily. there were hardly ever desertions from the flechas and when the soldiers became too old, they would request retirement and were never refused. mario mahongo and kamamma makua confirmed that 54 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 55 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 56 cann, p. 30. 57 sandf documentation centre fraser collection archives group, letter of lt. genl. ca fraser to genl. rc hiemstra (csadf), 19 february 1969. 58 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 59 sandf documentation centre fraser collection archives group, report on visit to angola by the general officer commanding joint combat forces, 23 july 1968, p. 2; brutalities and excesses by pide. 60 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. van wyk 142 they were told they would be independent after joining pide and that they would not be enslaved by the black people any more.61 during a later interview and discussion, mahongo was however particularly cautious about the voluntary nature of san joining the flechas and explained that it often was a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.62 formal military training of the flechas started in the middle of 1967 at “the practical school of flechas” in valombo (balombe). training focused primarily on handling weaponry, including the g-3 portuguese assault rifle and the ak-47, and developing shooting proficiency.63 cardoso emphasised that he never attempted to turn the san into soldiers or police officers as there were, according to him, already enough of those in angola. the san flechas were guerrilla fighters in an area which they knew well and where they could “read and feel” the terrain; they were also much better than the black freedom fighters, who had to operate on foreign terrain and were used to the luxury of towns and cities. “the flechas had a very good silent argument, the poisoned arrow, which paralysed the nervous system of the quarry, leaving it conscious. these virtues kept the terrorists in permanent stress and fear, mainly during the night. they could not sleep nor make a fire, because there was always a poisoned arrow looking for them.”64 therefore cardoso deemed cuando cubango not a “healthy” place for freedom fighters65 – a credible assertion, taking into consideration that by 1968 about 600 flechas were operating in the province, 100 stationed at the pide headquarters in serpa pinto (menongue) and 50 flechas each at the pide stations, namely caiundu, cuangar, calai, dirico, mucusso, rivungu, mavinga and cuito cuanavale.66 new status for the san flechas mario mahongo was part of the august 1969 intake of flechas. according to him, the training took three to four months and, in spite of cardoso’s declared intent not to turn the san into conventional soldiers, it comprised more than just training in weaponry and shooting. they were issued with uniforms and took part in regimental training, including learning to drill and salute, and were accorded military honours.67 the flechas also received training in map reading, navigation and radio procedures, because proper communications are of cardinal importance in counter-insurgency operations. cann claims that the exposure of the san flechas to the ways and habits of the portuguese soldiers created a compelling desire to be like the portuguese troops and to dress like them. this led to the wearing of uniforms, boots and even sunglasses around the base and during off-duty periods, but on combat missions shoes and sunglasses were never worn.68 the recruitment of a san flecha inevitably included accommodation and supplies, such as food, for his family. to the flechas the 61 interviews with rev. mario mahongo and sgt. kamamma makua, 16 march 2015. 62 interview with rev. mario mahongo, 19 june 2015. 63 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 64 ibid. 65 ibid. 66 ibid. 67 interview with rev. mario mahongo, rfn. beneditu, rfn. kongo and rfn. mutama, 17 march 2015. 68 cann, p. 33. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 143 wellbeing of their families was very important and, according to cardoso, this affected their performance during missions. they were therefore allowed to live apart in their own enclaves with their families and in addition received small allowances for their families. the training and upliftment of the community extended beyond the merely military, for a primary school was established in missombo, while adult education in agriculture, hygiene, motor mechanics and joinery was offered.69 even san boys of 12 years and older were exposed to the militarisation process when they were employed as base guards. cann states that portugal had dignified the san people and protected their families, and that the flechas in return gave their unqualified loyalty to portugal, as symbolised by the portuguese flags that they flew in front of their enclaves.70 the san were acknowledged at formal passing-out ceremonies after completion of their training. at their ceremonial induction as flechas, each candidate was presented with a distinctive camouflage beret, a portuguese flag and a weapon taken from the enemy.71 the increase in insurgency by mainly the mpla in the cuando cubango province in the late 1960s resulted in the portuguese increasing their military presence and consequently recruiting more flechas; the result was a flecha force consisting of 31 groups and approximately 1 665 members by december 1971.72 this shift of hostilities closer to the angolan border with south-west africa also caused the south african government concern, and more specifically the sadf, as it could create a fertile environment for swapo infiltration to the caprivi and kavango. this led to a senior liaison officer (senlo), cmdt. ben de wet roos, being stationed in serpa pinto during august 1968, “in an effort to have at least some influence upon operations in south-eastern angola”.73 there was liaison between the local portuguese governor, the military officer in command and pide, and hence military intelligence was exchanged mutually and requests were conveyed for aerial support from south africa to the portuguese forces. in doing that, the sadf gained a better knowledge of flechas’ missions and they could start working closer with inspector óscar cardoso. the flechas were a small but extremely formidable force which was successfully utilised by the pide/dgs in operations that ranged in purpose from mere gathering of intelligence along with reconnaissance patrols, to capturing insurgents and informants to be interrogated, to pathfinding or scouting for bigger and more conventional types of military unit. strategically the role of the flechas was to disrupt the long logistics lines of communication and supplies of the enemy, especially because the mpla had to infiltrate the regions traditionally inhabited by the san. typically the flechas would locate and destroy the supplies stored in caches by the enemy, or they would simply remove them for their own use. the flechas were engaged in many lethal contacts with the insurgents and could operate extremely well, as revealed in a situation report by senlo to the goc jcf on 22 january 1969, which mentions that “militia led by bushmen killed 41 unita members. despite deplorable slaughter, this was a 69 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 70 cann, p. 35. 71 ibid., p. 35. 72 ibid., p. 38. 73 sandf documentation centre fraser collection archives group; report on visit to angola by goc jcf 15–20 july 1968, p. 7. van wyk 144 successful operation and the bushmen claim nobody escaped.”74 another typical example of flecha bravery was operation chirva (goat) in august 1971, when 50 flechas were encircled by a force of about 200 mpla insurgents; after intense fire from mortars and bazookas by the flechas, the mpla insurgents withdrew.75 san flechas also contributed to stopping swapo insurgents moving through cuando cubango to south-west africa.76 according to cardoso, the flechas operating in collaboration with the south african police (sap), south african air force (saaf) and portuguese troops stationed on neriquinha “cleared” the islands in the cuando river of swapo and unita insurgents.77 the continuous flecha operations from 1966 to 1974 were especially effective in the cuando cubango province, where the constant pressure they exerted on the enemy frustrated and defeated the insurgents’ ability to penetrate the angolan heartland. efforts to utilise san flechas in the provinces of moxico, lunda and bié were less successful, as they were not at home in that environment. consequently the recruiting and training of local militia and turned former insurgents began.78 the san flecha doctrine was applied with great success. with the appointment of the new director of the pide/dgs, dr aníbal são josé lopes, flechas were introduced in mozambique under the leadership of maj. alvaro manuel alves cardoso during 1973. inspector óscar cardoso regarded maj. alves cardoso as an excellent commando officer, who in 1972 had initiated a more conventional method of training the non-san local people which differed from óscar cardoso’s guerrilla approach.79 the commander-in-chief of the armed forces in angola, genl. costa gomes, had the highest admiration for the flechas. this admiration was based on the fact that at a certain stage during the war they accounted for 60% of all enemies killed in action and that by april 1974 there was little, if any, insurgency activity in the south-east of angola.80 the south african goc jcf, lt. genl. pop fraser, describes the military esteem and higher status that the flechas acquired through this in the angolan colonial community as follows: “the bushmen who have always been hereditary slaves of the bantu, have now been raised to a status superior to the bantu by being organised into fighting patrols by pide.”81 this new status of the san flechas and their dependants, however, lasted only for about eight years, until events beyond their control changed it. the military coup d’état in portugal on 25 april 1974 initiated a process which led to the granting of independence to angola on 11 november 1975 and the withdrawal of portuguese military forces and civilians on a large scale. these events were bad news for the san flechas, who had supported the portuguese 74 sandf documentation centre senlo archives group, secret signal report of senlo to goc jcf, 22 january 1969. 75 cann, p. 52. 76 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 77 according to cardoso, four armed san flechas could fit into the back seat of an saaf alouette helicopter, compared to three white soldiers. 78 cann, p. 46. 79 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 80 cann, p. 57. 81 sandf documentation centre fraser collection archives group, a review of the campaign in east and south east angola 1968 to end january 1970, p. 10. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 145 forces. this was confirmed by a very sinister message written in a unita propaganda pamphlet that had been confiscated: “collaborators with the white portuguese people go and bury yourselves. the black should not be a traitor to his country!”82 flee or fight spring announced the arrival of the revolution of carnations (carnation revolution)83 in portugal, but also, in spite of the liberation from colonial rule, heralded the autumn and winter seasons in angola. a period of transition followed between april 1974 and november 1975, marked by uncertainty, a political power struggle and rejoicing but also fear for the future. inevitably the authorities in south africa also observed the events in the neighbouring countries closely, as was revealed in an assessment by the director of military intelligence in may 1974 in which the potential political, economic and military consequences of the portuguese coup d’état were spelled out.84 the white people of angola in particular were uncertain about the future, because angolan independence was coupled with an inclination towards racial polarisation. the release of political prisoners and the cease-fire with the freedom fighters increased the tension and the potential for chaos. portuguese troops were not eager to continue with the armed struggle and maintained only partial control over certain key installations, radio and media.85 in august 1974 the “red admiral”, rosa coutinho, was appointed in luanda and launched stern actions against disloyal white resistance to change; under his leadership the white factor in angolan politics was neutralised. at the same time the three liberation movements were persuaded to participate in an interim government, which led to the signing of the alvor agreement between portugal, the mpla, fnla and unita on 15 january 1975. the alvor agreement acknowledged these three liberation movements as the only legitimate representatives of the angolan people.86 although this agreement officially marked the end of the war between portugal and the revolutionary movements, van der waals describes it as a “recipe for chaos given the open enmity between the three nationalist groups and the weakness of a colonial power that had already abdicated”.87 it soon became apparent that any angolan who had been a loyal portuguese soldier, particularly former members of the elite forces and the flechas, could face revenge actions from the new authorities. although the number of san flechas who remained in angola after the cessation of hostilities in 1974 is not clear, cann estimates that there were only about 1 700 flechas in the east and south-east of angola and a further 456 in the north of angola.88 these numbers agree with 82 sandf documentation centre senlo archives group, unita propaganda material, “letter found at the site of an ambush south of luanda, 4 february 1969.” 83 so called because carnations were handed out and were placed in the barrels of the rifles of marching soldiers during the bloodless military coup d’état of 25 april 1974. 84 sandf documentation centre diverse archives group 2, container 88, effects of the portuguese coup on the military threat to south africa, 22 may 1974. 85 ibid., p. 5. 86 van der waals, p. 273. 87 ibid., p. 274. 88 cann, p. 36. van wyk 146 óscar cardoso’s estimation of a total of about 2 000 flechas.89 assuming that the san flechas were mainly utilised in their traditional habitat, as explained above, the total number of !xun and khwe flechas can be calculated at a conservative 1 000. mario mahongo says that pide informed the flechas of any trouble and that their background of gathering intelligence also helped to avoid conflict situations. they were, however, very concerned about a propaganda message by the liberation movements which indicated that “the battle against the big lion (portuguese colonial rulers) first had to be won before they would extinguish the small lion (san flechas), that was only tolerated for the time being.”90 cardoso was convinced, though, that the san were clever enough to go back to the bush, or to look for safety in south-west africa, to avoid being caught. some of the flechas, for instance mario mahongo, chose to join the fnla, although for only a short while.91 on 13 march 1975 the south african viceconsul in luanda requested the sadf, on behalf of the governor of luso, to relocate 300 flechas with their families to south africa. this emphasises the distressing position in which the flechas found themselves. the vice-consul declared “that the future of the flechas after independence became gloomy and that the portuguese, who had a moral responsibility towards these people, could think of no other solution.” he also stressed the “military competence of the flechas under command of the ex-dgs”.92 by august 1975 angola fell into a spiral of disorder, as became clear from a secret letter written by the south african military attaché in lisbon. he quotes an angolan from serpa pinto (menongue): “30 000 blacks have been killed during the past year. there is absolutely no order whatsoever in angola. nobody works, food is very scarce and most shops are closed. robbery is a way of life for most people. the ex-flechas are fleeing the country – mostly to south-west africa.”93 col. jan breytenbach probably best describes the flecha circumstances in southern angola during the attainment of independence: “hundreds of flechas – former black or bushmen portuguese soldiers – were drifting aimlessly across the countryside trying to find a home with one of the three movements. most of them ended up in chipenda’s fnla.”94 project alpha at that stage the sadf was fully aware of the refugee situation developing between angola and south-west africa, as well as of the dilemma which the san flechas faced. on top of that, the withdrawal of the portuguese forces left a gap that would be filled by angolan liberation movements that favoured swapo. especially in the early 1970s this posed a real threat to the caprivi and kavango regions of south-west africa/namibia and thus countermeasures had to be taken. it was from these circumstances that project alpha originated. 89 interview with óscar cardoso, 28 november 2014. 90 interview with rev. mario mahongo, 28 february 2015. 91 ibid. 92 sandf documentation centre hsi archives group, letter of vice-consul to chief of staff intelligence, sk/201/1, 13 march 1975. 93 sandf documentation centre hsi archives group, letter of military attaché in lisbon to the chief of staff intelligence, 5 august 1975. 94 j breytenbach, forged in battle (protea book house, pretoria, 2014) p. 12. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 147 cmdt. delville linford was the last senlo of the sadf in serpa pinto (menongue) (from april 1973 to july 1974) and during this time he learnt a lot about the role of the san flechas under control of the local dgs. shortly after his return to pretoria, he was summoned by brig. constand viljoen and given the task of “build[ing] a base in the west caprivi to accommodate the refugee flechas, to recruit and train them, in order to use them to safeguard the south-west africa border against swapo.”95 linford and six national servicemen together with 39 black soldiers started to build the base, later known as camp alpha, in the west caprivi in september 1974, and on 2 november 1974 the first flechas under the leadership of kamamma makua arrived. this group consisted of !xun and khwe, and was accompanied by the portuguese leaders perreira, costa dias and padua. mario mahongo’s group of about 80 !xun arrived on 7 july 1975 at alpha and later two more groups followed: one under the leadership of matoka mattheus during november 1975, and the last group of tango naka on 17 february 1976.96 because camp alpha became too small to accommodate the growing numbers, the building of the well-known omega base began and it was formally opened in september 1977 by the chief of the sadf.97 from october 1975 to january 1976 battle group alpha took part with great success in operation savannah, after which it had a name change and continued to operate as 31 battalion against swapo in south-east angola and zambia. omega to schmitsdrift 31 battalion, later known as 201 battalion, started small and grew into a formidable combat unit consisting of four infantry rifle companies98 and a reconnaissance wing. the unit participated in most big operations and continuously in smaller border control operations over the length and breadth of the border with angola. some of the expeditions even took the san soldiers back into angolan territory. during the 1980s omega developed into an autonomous settlement and community, with a primary school, clinic, church and supermarket. an adult education centre was gradually established and san women were trained in home industries and needlework. the !xun and khwe lived apart from each other and were also divided into separate rifle companies. law and order were maintained according to a typical military command structure, although provision was made for a “bushman council”, consisting of self-appointed leaders of the san. the council met regularly with the unit commander and mentors, and tried to solve social problems and conflicts in a more traditional manner. 203 battalion was established in bushmanland, namibia, in 1978 under leadership of cmdt. pinkie coetzee and consisted of a nucleus of !xun soldiers initially from omega, as well as san who lived in bushmanland.99 this unit had three infantry rifle companies that mainly 95 interview with genl. cl viljoen on 11 april 2015; d. linford, unpublished manuscript, p. 5. 96 uys, p. 20. 97 according to col. (ret.) daan slabbert, who served as a junior officer from 1975 at camp alpha, the unit consisted of 450 san soldiers by march 1976. interview in kimberley on 18 march 2015. 98 a rifle company typically consisted of three to five platoons of 35 men each and a headquarters element. 99 uys, p. 81. van wyk 148 guarded the swapo infiltration routes from angola across ovambo to the kavango. when the san soldiers were not deployed operationally, they lived in scattered settlements with limited military infrastructure. the conditions in bushmanland offered more freedom of movement and a more traditional lifestyle, which suited them better than conditions in omega. provision was also made for a “bushman council” to assist the unit commander with conflict management and the solving of social problems.100 during 1989 the san of 201 and 203 battalions faced a crossroads in their lives again with the implementation of the united nations resolution 435, which required the demobilisation of all sadf and swatf units. namibia would subsequently become independent on 21 march 1990. everything possible was done to accommodate the san soldiers with their dependants in an independent namibia, but the option to relocate to south africa was always kept open.101 after an intense negotiation process, 372 of the !xun and khwe soldiers, with their dependants, chose to relocate in south africa, a process that was completed on 17 march 1990. at schmidtsdrift a new era began under very difficult circumstances for 31 battalion and about 4 000 san people. the nature of the task at hand was twofold, namely the establishment of an infantry battalion, which would include the retraining of the san soldiers, as well as the establishment of the community with the accompanying social issues and problems. a temporary tent town was laid out and all infrastructure had to be established anew in the harsh northern cape climate and arid environment. an integrated development programme was followed which included adult education, courses in literacy, training in basic medical care, economic and social development, as well as formal education up to secondary school level. surveys to construct permanent houses and supply proper infrastructure were conducted, but the project was abandoned when it came to light that a land claim had been made by the original inhabitants of schmidtsdrift as part of the local resistance to the resettlement. furthermore, the cabinet’s decision during july 1992 that 31 battalion had to disband and integrate with the rest of the sadf caused projects to be suspended and introduced a period of major uncertainty for an already traumatised san community.102 the new environment in which the san found themselves, seen against the background of continuous uncertainty, led to higher tensions within the community and contributed to a feeling of despair. consequently it became more difficult for the community to deal with domestic conflicts in a traditional manner and, with the final disbandment of the battalion on 7 march 1993, they also lost the military structure to which they had become accustomed over 20 years. conclusion the militarisation of the platfontein san was not primarily the result of their incorporation into the sadf in the middle 1970s. as indicated, the process had already started in 1966 in angola, when they were deployed in the portuguese angolan military forces. the san’s initially low-profile involvement, with limited prospects, developed into a significant and 100 van wyk, p. 10. 101 ibid. 102 van wyk, p. 34. militarisation of the platfontein san td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 133-150. 149 important factor in the angolan military forces’ battle against the liberation movements, because of their unique skills and their knowledge of the natural habitat in which they were utilised. these developments brought them an unprecedented “higher status” in the angolan colonial community and that prompted the san’s own motivation for their voluntary acceptance of becoming militarised. in this process their existence was dignified by the value that other people accorded them. this rise in stature, however, did not last long and it came at a high price, as it was later estimated that fully 25% of the san in angola were killed in the seven-month period after the revolution in april 1974.103 for a short while the platfontein san could escape from their precarious position in the angolan community through their militarisation, but by 1975 the fraught geopolitical developments in the portuguese colonial empire had caught up with them. they had few alternative options and their best chance of survival lay in their continued militarisation. this time they were in a foreign land as part of the sadf – which followed the portuguese model in accommodating the !xun and khwe in project alpha and later 31 battalion. the militarisation of the san gained further momentum for about 16 years in omega and to a lesser degree in bushmanland, after which militarisation made way for a drastic process of urbanisation,104 with the relocation of approximately 50% of the !xun and khwe san to schmidtsdrift and eventually to the farm platfontein, near kimberley. although the !xun and khwe communities benefitted from their militarisation, they paid a heavy toll after their relocation to south africa and the final disbandment of 31 battalion, because of the subsequent increased potential for conflict between the two groups and their loss of traditional mechanisms to defuse such conflict. bibliography published documents bothma, lj. vang ‘n boer, lj bothma, bloemfontein, 2012. breytenbach, j. forged in battle, protea book house, pretoria, 2014. cann, jp. the flechas – insurgent hunting in eastern angola, 1965–1974, helion & co., england, 2013. de almeida, a. bushmen and other non-bantu peoples of angola, edited by p v tobias and j blacking, witwatersrand university press, johannesburg, 1965. du preez, s. avontuur in angola, van schaik, pretoria, 1989. gordon, rj and ss douglas. the bushman myth, westview press, oxford, 2000. lee r & hurlich s. from foragers to fighters. sa’s militarisation of the namibian san, politics and history in band societies, edited by eleanor leacock and richard lee, cambridge university press, cambridge, 1982. norval, m. sadf’s bushman battalion. soldier of fortune 9(3), 1984/03. 103 cann, p. 61. 104 the term “urbanisation” is used here to indicate the social and cultural leap from living in the remote rural regions in namibia to living close to towns and the city of kimberley, with accompanying social and socio-economic consequences. van wyk 150 robbins, d. a san journey – the story of the !xun and khwe of platfontein, the sol plaatje educational trust, kimberley, 2007. robbins, d. on the bridge of goodbye, jonathan ball, johannesburg, 2007. scholtz, l. the sadf in the border war, 1966–1989, tafelberg, cape town, 2013. spies, fj du t. operasie savannah, angola, 1975–1976, perskor, pretoria, 1989. uys, i. bushman soldiers – their alpha and omega, fortress publishers, germiston, 1993. van der post, l. the lost world of the kalahari, hogarth press, london, 1958. van der waals, ws. portugal’s war in angola, 1961–1974, protea book house, pretoria, 2011. venter, aj. portugal’s guerrilla wars in africa, helion & co., england, 2013. unpublished documents linford, d. my bushmen experience (manuscript by the founder of 31 battalion) van wyk, as. 31 battalion commanding officer’s diary, 1989–1993. sandf documentation centre, pretoria 31 battalion archives group, report op mattress hsi/ami archives group 3, container 371 fraser collection archives group senlo archives group diverse archives group 2, container 88 personal interviews genl. c. l. viljoen, pretoria col. d. linford, wolseley col. d. slabbert, kimberley rev. m. mahongo, platfontein and cape town sgt. k. makua, platfontein. rfn. k. beneditu, platfontein rfn. p. kongo, platfontein rfn. k. mutama, platfontein rfn. k. likorro, platfontein. rfn. a. fatinio, platfontein rfn. m. kanguya, platfontein interview by e-mail cardoso, o. inspector, policia internacional e de defesa do estado (pide), portugal abstract introduction part 1: mapping the context research design and methodology ethical consideration part 2: data analysis and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) mlamuli n. hlatshwayo education and curriculum studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa kehdinga g. fomunyam discipline of curriculum and education studies and higher education, durban university of technology, durban, south africa citation hlatshwayo, m.n. & fomunyam, k.g., 2019, ‘views from the margins: theorising the experiences of black working-class students in academic development in a historically white south african university’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a591. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.591 original research views from the margins: theorising the experiences of black working-class students in academic development in a historically white south african university mlamuli n. hlatshwayo, kehdinga g. fomunyam received: 14 july 2018; accepted: 18 apr. 2019; published: 23 july 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract a significant amount of south african literature on academic development often focuses on the ideological and theoretical shifts that have occurred within the academic development field across different periods in the country – tracing different phases within the field, broadly termed, ‘academic support’, ‘academic development’ and ‘higher education development’. one of the gaps that have been identified in this literature is often the silence regarding the experiences of the black students themselves in academic development, and to what extent being in the programme has made a difference to their university experiences. this article attempts to fill this gap by critically exploring and theorising the complex experiences of black working-class south african students in an academic development programme in a historically white higher education institution. to effectively make sense of their experiences, french philosopher pierre bourdieu’s theory on capital was employed in this article. participants were purposely recruited using snowball sampling and 32 black working-class students participated in the study. the findings of this study suggest that academic development in a historically white university is a complex field of forces that require further critical interrogation and theorisation. students’ experiences of academic development are often complex and at times contradictory with some seeing the value of the programme, and others rejecting it and looking at it as an extension of their marginality in a historically white higher education institution. keywords: academic development; higher education; black students; historically white university; bourdieu; capital. introduction the emergence of the 2015–2016 student movement in south african higher education was a critical moment in the south african higher education landscape. critical issues that students brought to the forefront include, but are not limited to, the urgent demands for decolonisation or africanisation of higher education (hereafter referred to as he) system, the issues of curricular, or what jansen and motala (2017) refer to, as ‘curriculum as an institution’, the transformation of pedagogical practices of teaching and learning, the re-presentation of blackness and black1 identities in the physical spaces and architecture of the institution themselves and others (see badat 2016; muller 2014; prinsloo 2016). we should note that since the collapse of the apartheid regime and the coming in of the new democratic dispensation, historically black universities have never really transitioned to the ‘post’ in terms of stability as they have been consistently mired in violence, protests and disruptions in the academic programme (see, e.g. badat 2009, 2016). other issues have ranged from being placed under administration, systemic corruption, staff workers’ protests, labour bargaining issues and others (badat 2009; fourie 1999; marx 1998). we have specifically chosen to look at the marginalised experiences of black students in a historically white south african university as these are the universities that, the literature suggests: (1) have come under intensive scrutiny in terms of the above demands for transformation and decolonisation, and that the (2) black working-class students in these institutions are often marginalised, struggle to adjust to the academic and social demands of the institution (see, e.g. sennett et al. 2003; vincent 2008; vincent & hlatshwayo 2018). however, lacking in this literature is the role that academic development (hereafter referred to as ad) plays in helping black working-class students negotiate the challenge of he in a historically white university in south africa. it is against the above-identified gaps that this article seeks to contribute to. in addition, one of the fields that do not feature prominently in these calls for transformation and decolonisation is the ad or as they are often referred to in other universities, ‘extended studies programme’, ‘foundation phase’, ‘access programmes’. the current study explores the students’ experiences in these programmes and to what extent they are able to negotiate their marginality in university and cope both socially and academically. the absence of the ads in the broader calls for critical reflection and decolonisation2 ensures that we hope to continue to shine a spotlight on the field of ads in south africa, and the critical role they play in bridging the gap between he and public schooling. this article is divided into two sections. firstly, we begin by arguing that before looking at ads, it is important that we contextualise and historicise the emergence of the field of ad in south african he, and to what extent it differs from its international counterparts. secondly, we then locate the emergence of ads to the historically fragmented south african he, shedding a spotlight on the institutional differentiation that was happening between historically black universities and historically white universities, and to what extent the social dislocation, marginality, pain and alienation experienced currently by black working-class students in the ad programme could be located and shaped by this history. this section will end with bringing in the theoretical and methodological lenses of the study, that is, introducing bourdieu in arguing that at the heart of bourdieu’s theoretical contributions is his commitment at exposing he as playing a significant role in reproducing inequality in society. his notions of habitus, existing within a particular field (economic, social and cultural), will be useful in looking at ad as a field in a historically white university and the experiences of black working-class students in it as they compete for symbolic capital that will allow them to negotiate their marginality and succeed in he (bourdieu 2003, 2011; naidoo 2004). the second section of this article will combine both the data analysis and the findings in offering theoretical discussions on the emerging and critical experiences of black working-class students, as they navigate, struggle, succeed, fail and persist in the ad programme in a historically white south african university. we end the article with recommendations and suggestion both at the theoretical level and practically on how to improve black working-class conditions in a historically white university in general and in strengthening the critical work of the ad programme in particular. we now turn to historicising ad programmes and institutional differentiation in the south african he landscape. part 1: mapping the context academic development in south african higher education: phases, discourses the field of ad, or what boughey (2007:2) terms the ‘academic development movement’, can be traced between the three critical phases: ‘academic support’, ‘academic development’ and ‘higher education development’.3 the first phase, the academic support, dates back to the early initiatives that intended to provide support to the small and emerging group of black students who were entering historically white liberal institutions in the early 1980s as a result of the apartheid regime’s relaxation of the laws (boughey 2007; pavlich & orkin 1993). the second phase, the academic development, beginning in the early 1990s, was characterised by the ideological shift whereby ad was now focusing on preparing itself and its teaching and learning practices for the expected proliferating ‘demographic revolution’4 in student enrolments that was happening in he with the black majority (akoojee & nkomo 2007; badat 2009; boughey 2003, 2007). rather than centring student support, ad was focusing on the development of teaching and learning material and curricular developments that would meet the needs of the incoming black majority. in the third and final phase, the higher education development focuses on the social construction of offices and support systems in he. it should be noted that the above phases of ad should not be treated as separate ‘epistemic breaks’ (foucault 2013) that are designed to demarcate continuity and discontinuity in the literature. rather, and this forms one of our key arguments in the article, these discourses serve as careful analytical frames that show the contested nature of the field of ad in the south african he landscape. this is particularly seen in how, as recent as 2014, dhunpath and vithal (2014) argue against the still prevalent notions of ‘student under-preparedness’ found in the first phase of ad – in how he institutions in south africa attempt to frustrate transformation through looking at students as ‘decontextualized learners’ (mckenna 2004) who need to be prescribed with ‘language’, ‘literacy skills’, ‘computer skills’ and others, instead of looking at the institution itself as needing to transform. thus, as our findings and discussion will show in how students’ experiences of ad in a historically white university are complex, contradictory and, at times, seem to reflect earlier debates on ad as found in the first and second phases, respectively. it is generally accepted that the negotiated settlement which brought about the african national congress (anc) into power in the early 1990s had a profound impact on the policy and discourses on ad (see boughey 2007; kraak 2001; oldfield 2001). this was seen in how before the anc came into power, the then discourse of the liberation movement was largely socialist and left-leaning. however post-1994, a new discourse remerged that could best be characterised ‘neoliberal’ and ‘social democratic’, which resulted in the introduction of stringent macroeconomic framework and a general acceptance of the role that the market plays in he educational policy. academic development was largely implicated in all these debates as was seen in the curriculum development, delivery and the management of he institutions (boughey 2007). we provided the above background because it is critical to understand the contested history of ad in south african he. we cannot foreground historically white institutions and the experiences of black students, without first looking at what is ad, where it comes from and the different discourses that continue to shape its work. we now turn to looking at a brief and yet fragmented history of south african he and the emergence of the historically white universities as a deeply contested space in he. institutional differentiation: on the structural inequality of south african higher education south african he is profoundly shaped and structurally influenced by the history of colonisation and apartheid (akoojee & nkomo 2007; badat & sayed 2014). the apartheid regime’s racial segregation and colonial assumptions of white supremacy were also reinforced and implemented in he institutions, as the institutions were seen as intellectual, epistemic and linguistic tools necessary for the needs of the apartheid state. during the apartheid period, we had, firstly, those in the dominant tier, then we had those who were in the intermediary tier and finally, we had universities that were in the subordinate tier (naidoo 2004). in the dominant tier, these were the universities that were established under the colonial period and whose primary function was the extension of the english values, ethics and beliefs in the colony. when the apartheid regime introduced stringent he laws in 1959, these universities became exclusively for the white students. these universities were, and to a large extent still continue to be, research intensive and enjoy favourable international reputations and ranking, coupled with well-established infrastructures. our current study is located in one of the universities on this tier in looking at the experiences of black working-class students in negotiating their marginality in the ad programme. the history of these universities being exclusively for white students, and the classism and elitism that often characterises such institution, offers an opportunity to look at those on the margins of this university, that is, those who could be seen as ‘space invaders’ (puwar 2004), on their experiences in the ad programme, and to what extent the ad could be enabling them to successfully cope both socially and academically in the dominant tier. in the intermediary tier, we had the afrikaans-speaking universities that were established with the purpose of countering the hegemonic influences of the dominant tier universities, and to serve as a benefit to the afrikaans community. the primary function of these universities in this tier was to serve as a socio-economic and linguistic resource in producing and maintaining afrikaner national identity, together with the production of the afrikaner elites who would play a critical role in the apartheid state. in the third and final tier, we had the subordinate tier. these universities were characterised by, and to some extent still continue to experience poor funding, lack of adequate infrastructural development, chronic and systemic protest action on campus and social upheaval. it is on the above institutional differentiation and structural inequality in the south african he landscape that we chose to foreground the experiences of black working students in a historically white university in the ad programme. the fragmented and contested history of south african he terrain offers us an exciting opportunity to look at the extent to which history plays a role in their marginality, isolation and lack of throughput and retention of black working-class students in such spaces. we now turn to outlining the theoretical and methodological lenses that were adopted in this article. theoretical lenses: bringing in bourdieu to south african higher education at the heart of bourdieu’s theoretical contributions is his commitment to expose he as a powerful contributor to maintaining and reproducing social inequality (bourdieu 1993; naidoo 2004). this focus has led to the significant theoretical and empirical contributions to our sociological understanding of the relationship between universities and society (naidoo 2004). naidoo (2004) argues that this overreaching focus and commitment have resulted in the introduction of key conceptual tools of ‘field’, ‘capital’ and ‘habitus’. these concepts relate and function with one another. in this article, two (capital and habitus) of these three conceptual lenses are engaged to theorise the experiences of black working-class students in ad. before critically discussing the notion of capital, it is important to first outline field because for bourdieu, the logic of capital operates within the domain of a particular field (bourdieu 1993; naidoo 2004; shawa 2015). drawing on weber’s sociology of religion, bourdieu conceptualises society as differentiated into a number of semi-autonomous fields (such as the fields of economics, religion, cultural production and others), which are all governed by their own ‘rules of the game’, with their own economies of exchange, rewards and sanction systems (benson 1999; bourdieu & johnson 1993). bourdieu and wacquant (1974) conceive a field as a: … network or configuration, or objective relations between positions… these positions are objectively defined in their existence and in the determinations they impose upon their occupants, agents or institutions…as well as their objective relations to other positions. (p. 97) in other words, a field can be said to refer to a ‘structured space of positions in which the positions and their interactions are determined by the distribution of different kinds of resources or capitals’ (ihlen 2005:493). a field should thus be understood as a space in which people compete for resources with one another (shawa 2015). these binaries and oppositions could be said to be reflections and refractions of the overall class divisions in society, these seen between the dominant and the dominated. we also see the split within the dominant class, between the dominant economic and political power on the one hand, and the dominated cultural power on the other hand (benson 1999:464). this means that society is structured around basic oppositions between the ‘economic’ and ‘cultural power’, with the latter being regarded to be weaker, but, as suggested by weber, influential to the extent that it legitimates and masks economic wealth. using bourdieu’s concept of the field in this article enables the conceptualisation of a historically white he institution and ads to be seen as a field that compromises competing actors who have oppositional interests, and all competing for symbolic resources. this means that ads in historically white he institution could be conceived as a relatively autonomous sphere of activities that operates according to its own rules and logic (benson 1999; giloi 2015; maton 2013). as mentioned above, a field comprises of agents who are relationally positioned and who attempt to maximise their position in the field in the struggle over resources (i.e. capital) that confer status and authority (arbee 2012:37–38). this means that in the field there is economic, cultural and social capital. economic capital refers to money, that is, economic resources that one has access to and possesses (bourdieu 2011). cultural capital for bourdieu exists in three key forms: firstly, it exists in the embodied state, that is, the personal dispositions, habits, tastes and others. secondly, they exist through cultural goods, that is, the books, theories, music and others that one listens to, consumes and continues to accept and legitimate. thirdly, cultural capital exists through the institutionalised state, that is, the schooling, qualifications, association and others that confer cultural capital and belong to the field (bourdieu 2011). social capital refers to the ‘aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (bourdieu 2011:83). this is seen in how social capital refers to the networks, connections and associations, both formal and informal, an agent has and belongs to. it should be emphasised that in the bourdieuan sense, social capital is the only capital if an agent not only has access to the networks and connections, but can actually withdraw from them (bourdieu 2011; bourdieu & johnson 1993; putnam 1995, 2000). simply put, knowing someone alone may constitute the social, but not the capital. social capital denotes the ability to withdraw from the connection through the ability to gain something whether it is information, employment, advice or any ‘withdrawal’ that may be required. the relations between the agents and their contestations over the resources give the structure of the field. both the type of capital (i.e. economic, cultural, social) and the amount of capital are significant for conferring status within the field. this means that it is not how much capital you have in the field, but rather whether you have the right type of capital (arbee 2012:38–39). thus, the struggles in the field that black working-class students find themselves in and need to negotiate in ad are not only about the amassing of more capital, but also about the type of capital that should be considered as the ‘dominant measure of achievement’ in the field (maton 2005). habitus can be understood as ‘the semi-conscious dispositions that people, particularly in their early lives, acquire through social or material interaction with their habitat and through the social relations in their part of the social field’ (fairclough, jessop & sayer 2002:9). bourdieu defines habitus as a ‘set of assumptions, habits, taken-for-granted ideas and ways of being that are vehicles through which agents engage with, understand and move on through the world’ (bourdieu 1977 in bebbington 2007:155–156). this means that for bourdieu, habitus explains our beliefs, thoughts, tastes and interests that tend to influence our understanding of the world. this is seen in how habitus is formed primarily through socialisation through family, schooling, culture and the milieu of education (bourdieu 2011; bourdieu & johnson 1993; bourdieu & wacquant 1974). in relation to this article, habitus offers an opportunity to look at the dispositions, beliefs, thoughts and behaviour of black working-class students in the ad programme and how they use their dispositions, tastes, values, beliefs and others to negotiate their marginality and succeed in he. while we employ bourdieu’s conception of ad as a field of competing forces over symbolic capital, it should also be noted that within the field of ad in general and historically white universities in particular, academics and university management could be re-conceptualised as agents operating within such structures that continue to look at black working-class students as a ‘problem people’ (du bois 2008). as mentioned, this has resulted in ad discourses that have adopted an approach of looking at student as ‘decontextualized learners’ (mckenna 2004) who need to be ‘fixed’, either with the ‘correct’ language, literacy practices, institutional culture or others. thus, our conceptual discussions of ad as a bourdieuan field of forces do not de-emphasise the importance that agents themselves in historically white universities and in the ad programme play, in constructing, maintaining and, at times, interrupting the marginality that black students experience. the outlined conceptual and theoretical tools from bourdieu will be employed in the study, to theorise the complex experiences of black working-class students in ad. research design and methodology in this article, we employed qualitative research methods of data generation and analysis, located within the interpretivist paradigm. palys (2008:xxix) suggests that qualitative research is designed to ‘explore the human elements of a given topic’ in allowing us to see how ‘individuals see and experience the world’. this means that qualitative research assumes that individuals play a significant role in the social construction of their own social reality, and that the role of researchers is thus to interpret the various ways in which individuals make sense of their reality. operating within the interpretivist paradigm, the central aim of this article is to attempt to understand the complex experiences of black working-class south african students in negotiating ad that ranges from institutional culture, language, curriculum access and success, among others, in a historically white he institution. rather than focusing only on interpreting their success or social experiences, this article goes a step further in looking specifically at the interesting ways in which black working-class students negotiate this marginality, which enables them to ‘survive’ the he terrain. neuman (2010:102) suggests that interpretivism focuses on the need to understand social reality and the various ways in which people construct meaning-making in their own settings. the use of qualitative research methods in this article provided the necessary insight into black working-class students as they construct their experiences and the strategies they employ in negotiating their entry and academic success in a historically white institution (hwi) historically white university faugier and sargeant (1997:792) argue that snowballing techniques are particularly useful for hidden populations, or at least when attempting to research around a sensitive topic. the research on black working-class students and some of the challenges they face in historically white universitites in general and in the ad in particular is a sensitive topic as it exposes the socio-economic backgrounds that they come from and some of the difficulties they have to overcome. semi-structured interviews were employed in an effort to gain in-depth understanding of the lives and experiences of research participants. seidman (2006:9) argues that the use of in-depth interviews helps the researcher understand not only the lived experiences of the other people, but it also enables him or her to understand how those people make meaning of their lives. semi-structured interviews enabled providing a platform to understand, interpret and theorise black working-class students’ experiences in ad. we now turn to the second part of this article, where we combine both the data analysis and the findings, in offering theoretical discussions on the emerging and critical experiences of black working-class students, as they navigate, struggle, succeed, fail and persist in the ad programme in a historically white university. ethical consideration all ethical considerations were adhered to and the study did obtain the necessary ethical permission from rhodes university’s humanities research higher degrees committee. part 2: data analysis and discussion the data generated were coded and categorised in line with the lens theorised in the early parts of this article. the two lenses used in this analysis are capital and habitus. this section of the article theorises the experiences of students and uses the theoretical lens to make meaning of the experiences. capital, as already pointed out, can be understood from three different perspectives: cultural, social and economic capital. and because habitus is the strategy-generating principle enabling agents to cope with unforeseen and ever-changing situations, it becomes critical to understand how habitus in line with capital can provide direction to student experiences. capital and habitus therefore inform this part of the article. the development of capital o’brien and o’fathaigh (2005) argue that capital is a gauge of a student’s position in the social field, seeing capital as a strategic resource in achieving or maintaining position in a field. economic capital refers to material assets and income available to a student. social capital refers to the student’s capability to use social connections (informal and institutionalised, such as belonging to associations) as a potential pool of resources to act and achieve his or her goals or to improve a position in a social field. cultural capital refers to both formal education and the embodied skills and knowledge. if cultural capital is primarily an individual’s feature or capacity, social capital is shared among individuals. the combination of these three forms of capital denotes social prestige and dignity associated with a certain position. harker, mahar and wilkes (2016) add that when students shift or switch from one social field to another (leaving home or local community to the university as is the case with most of the students), they may experience difficulties transferring capitals between fields. this was the case for some of the participants of this study as they strived to develop more capital to tap into in the knowledge construction process. elaborating on this, bontle points out that: ‘my first test in zoo [zoology] so i got like 13%! do you know how painful it is when you know that in high school you did so well and you come here and your first test you get 13%. because you didn’t hear a thing, okay they were talking about dinosaurs, people who are from backgrounds where you exposed to world war stuff then you would get it. i didn’t get it.’ (bontle, black female) in the above quotation, bontle reflects in her first test in zoology, she got a mark of 13%. for her, this mark signals an academic disconnection between her performances in school where she was doing well academically and at the university where she was initially struggling. this is seen in how she lacks what may be seen as the right kind of capital in having access to the curriculum. decolonial scholars have offered a critique at this ‘right kind’ of capital in how it presents itself as an ‘adjustment’ challenge and only needs students to adapt. however, it tends to do two things: firstly, it mainly seeks to posit on students as ‘deficient’ and needing to be ‘fixed’ to cope with the challenges of he. secondly, it removes the epistemic and institutional responsibilities of transformation away from the institution itself and passes it to students. speaking about her experiences in the ad programme, bontle comments that: ‘it’s nice [mentoring]! i think it’s really nice. because we not only speaking about school life, we also speak about life, they didn’t cope with a lot of, you know like workload. we used to it by now, we like okay bring it on. and now they’re not handling it well. so i was just giving them pointers here and there because they are not attending some of the sessions so i only have a few girls instead of everyone. and then we also have the whatsapp group, we communicate then people just come in, and see what can we do with us and then some of the girls have the same degrees, if they need help, they go to the same tutor together. like, i help them when i can and if they do ask for help. but i’m like, my door is always open. but it’s a great experience, i see them grow to be being varsity girls. and, that’s nice to watch. i think it’s really nice. i love mentoring people. and i like being like motivational kind of speaker because i think, for the things that i have went through, and the knowledge that i’ve acquired now like everything, it’s easier to do that. to the first years, and to anyone actually to be a motivational speaker kind of person to them. so yeah it’s really nice seeing them and we laugh through everything.’ (bontle, black female) in the above quotation, bontle reflects bourdieu’s notion of social capital in how her previous experiences of negotiating marginality in a historically white university, she sees herself as a useful network for those other students who are coming in and still struggling to adjust to the demands of he. shammas and sandberg (2016) argue that capital is an asset, which enables holders to mobilise or develop competencies in education, intellect, style of speech, dress or physical appearance. the mentoring programmes become a strand for the development of capital, which in itself becomes social assets (education, intellect, style of speech and dress, etc.) in the hands of the students used in the construction and reconstruction of knowledge as they make their academic progress. this is supported by yang (2014) who argues that capital functions as a social relation within an economy of practices (in this case the university), and comprises all of the material and symbolic artefacts. this process of ad becomes critical in the academic progress and progression of black working-class students as programmes like mentoring aims at assisting them in navigating the he terrain. one of the strengths of the different forms of capital is not only how they influence one another, but actually how they produce each other (bourdieu 1984, 2003, 2011). this too is seen in how black working-class students in the ad programme tend to rely on other external connections and networks to be able to navigate the financial pressures of being in he. lungile, for instance, reflects the international literature on how first-generation black students tend to have one or more jobs at university to financially survive the challenges – he comments that: ‘i’ve done quite a number of jobs, i used to be a news reporter at radio grahamstown, i wrote for grocott’s mail, i wrote for activate, i’ve been a bar tender at oldies but in terms of being employed by the university no … i got it via mathew mphahlwa, and he was doing his final year in journalism but towards the end of the year we used to sit together for seconds (meals), i would do voice overs because he used to give a story and i would google it and write something about it then go on air and read it out loud but i think he ended up having problems with the manager of radio grahamstown he stopped reading those news and i actually went to the manager to ask for the job of being a news presenter and i was given it … mathew is from mthatha as well, he used to sit in the same table in the dining hall we arrived the same time and we all ate seconds together that’s how it all started but as time went by we started discussing other issues.’ (lungile, black male) the networks created and experiences gleaned from these engagements gave the student the opportunity to develop capital at all three levels and be able to improve themselves within the he sector. yang (2014) confirms this by adding that the economic capital can easily be converted to cultural and social capital. emphasising the network between these three forms of capital and how they mutually enforce one another, lungile continues: ‘i heard about it [university] at a career fair we were at school and we collected the applications forms from the various institutions, i filled in the form and consulted my teacher mr. adams who was teaching me mathematical literacy in high school and we were a bit close and we would sit together even through lunch time, he used to give me his lunch box and stuff he used to call me when he needed his car washed and i would actually do it for him, he’s there one who assisted when it came to proof reading and editing the essay which one had to fill in because when i went back at home, they couldn’t assist that much because they don’t have that experience of university of what was necessary to include and not include on the application form and stuff i mostly relied on mr. adams for advice on what exactly to include in the essay.’ (lungile, black male) in the above quotations, lungile comments on the challenges of receiving career guidance advice in a predominately township or rural school. bourdieu (2003) argues that cultural capital is especially transferred by family and education, be it formal or informal and may be institutionalised or engaged with nominally like group meetings, mentoring programmes, extended programmes, foundation programmes, among others. capital is the primary cause for educational status and relative positions within the educational ladder. levina and arriaga (2014) add that cultural capital can exist or be incorporated in three forms: the embodied, the objectified and the institutionalised state, of which objectified and the institutionalised indicate the possession of cultural artefacts and educational credentials. the embodied state is critical to an individual because it involves an ability to decipher the ‘cultural codes’ that are composed of material cultural objects, for example, writings, paintings and monuments. academic development in this context involves the embodied, objectified and institutionalised as both the university and the students work together for better student experiences and the enhancement of academic performance. acar (2011) and o’brien and o’fathaigh (2005), adding to this, argue that the … differences in student or academic success can be attributed to different levels of existing social capital which is produced in the networks and connections of families that the school serves … social capital supports success and education in the form of the disciplinary and academic climate at school, and also the cultural norms and values that motivate students to achieve higher goals. (p. 458) in the absence of economic and cultural capital, they resort to diligence and social capital networks to ‘make up’ this stock and ensure that they navigate and succeed in he. it is important to note that social capital is not the merely knowing and being familiar with someone one needs to actually have access to the network and also the option to withdraw from it. the importance of mutual networks and connections for black working-class students’ success in a historically white university cannot be overemphasised. lundi and mariah, below, comment on how forming study groups and having mutual friends around, who could have access to and give clarity regarding the study material, made a significant difference in their university life and success: ‘we were in study groups. by study groups i do not necessarily mean that people will sit together and study together. what i mean is you are at the library, i am at the library. me seeing you there sort of also motivates me to study… i felt like the people in the library had read all the books in the library and i hadn’t so i had to catch up so that for me is why i kept on reading stuff. i read and study continuously. by talking to these people once in a while, i learn a lot and know that i must keep studying if i must succeed.’ (lundi, black male) another participant, mariah, added that: ‘i found it [university] very intense. and to an extent that i couldn’t stop working. i remember this so many times within the first term that i used to just cry and called home and all of that, especially with the pressure is off things like computer science… but after that i will sit down to study again. so yeah when we go to class i would always be that one who was asking things. like what is these, and people who did it [information technology] and have been using it would have an understanding of what it is. so they will explain to me and i would continue studying.’ (mariah, black female) capital at all levels, be it cultural, social or economic, is vital for ad, and this becomes more critical for black working-class students in a previously white south african trying to carve a path for themselves. capital is a durable system of dispositions and represents one’s entirety of intellectual competencies and one’s culture or cultivation that presupposes a process of embodiment as it implies a time-intensive labour of inculcation and assimilation (putnam 2000). bourdieu and johnson (1993) add that the acquisition of capital cannot be delegated, but rather the student must work for the acquisition of the same by themselves. the various ad programmes within the university, therefore, and the different infrastructure or offices being put in place to enhance ad, without personal engagement by students’ capital, cannot be developed. the relations between the students and their contestations over the resources within the university give structure to their drive to develop capital. both the type of capital (i.e. economic/cultural/social) and the amount of capital are significant for ad for the student, and this means that it is not how much capital you possess, but rather whether you have the right type of capital at every given point in time (arbee 2012:38–39). thus, the struggles in the field that black working-class students find themselves in and need to negotiate in ad are not only about the amassing of more capital, but also about the type of capital that should be considered as the ‘dominant measure of achievement’ in the field (maton 2005). there were also complexities and differences among the research participants, with some seeing the value of ad in a historically white university as giving them an opportunity to socially construct valuable capital for themselves in negotiating the space, while others felt being part of the programme serve as an epistemic reminder of their marginality and exclusion at university. for instance, one of the participants cautioned us during the interview that ad is not ‘extended studies’; it is a ‘bcomm family’: ‘extended studies, is not extended studies, it’s bcomm family, which is the f comes from bcomm foundation but we say it’s bcomm family, because i started meeting up with different people from different backgrounds. from different backgrounds. there’s like two groups – group a and group b, we started to be very close, as like class. like we are that close. sometimes at the soc [sociology] department they would complain because we making noise, being in a meeting with those people because sort of a, it reminded me of the class that i had in grade 12. in grade 12 i started getting close to the whole class. so like crazy stuff. if you would search for me on youtube you’d find a video of my class, singing in front of the class, just during the free period. yeah and then we got here in extended studies which was like [laughing]. it was amazing. i like the people that end up studying to sit with, like different cultures, from different backgrounds and stuff. cause like before i would normally talk with xhosa people, am used to xhosa people, and here we met you with people from different, zulus, tswana, even rahim, he normally called himself kindian. his mother is a coloured and his father is an indian. so he called himself kindian [laughing]. i became kinda close with him to what’s the end of the year.’ (khusta, black male) for khusta above, the ad programme became an alternatively socially constructed space that allows them to identify one another as marginalised students and to offer support to each other. this is seen in how the ‘bcomm family’ allows them to have access to and to bond with one another as a social capital network. although scholars such as perri 6 (1997:6) refer to khusta’s network as a ‘networks of poverty’, we argue that such networks are important to the entry and the possibilities of surviving he for black students as they rely upon one another for familiarity, care and understanding. for other participants, the ad programme was a spatial institution that constantly othered them and reminded them that they were black and were ‘historically disadvantaged’ compared to other ‘traditional students’ at the university. lolo reflects on her time in the ad programme: ‘i hated it [ad programme]. i used to hate it i never understood. i didn’t get it why i was in foundation they gave us the lecture and said it’s not a bridging course but a foundation course. giving it a fancy name does not help and i got 38 point and i need 40 points for mainstream. foundation is for black people. i’ve never seen a white person in foundation phase. and i hate the term for ‘previously disadvantaged people’. who said i was previously disadvantaged? what makes me disadvantaged? because it’s nothing but the colour of my skin because i was never disadvantaged. i don’t know how apartheid feels because i wasn’t there. the foundation programme was tedious. i got bored very quickly. i had a fixed timetable for the whole year. i got bored in three months and i had to stick it through.’ (lolo, black female) lolo, in the above quote, offers a sharp critique at the epistemological foundations for ad as a platform that serves to reinforce their marginality, exclusion and separateness from the broader university community. she asks why the ad programme in her historically white university does not have white students, and is only composed of black students. in her critique of the ad programme, lolo goes beyond just the epistemological foundations for the programme, to problematise the notion of ‘previously disadvantaged’ as epistemically collapsed to refer to black students only. in other words, are there no white students who are also previously disadvantaged and who too could benefit from having access to the ad programme? thus, while the ad programme was a useful space for students to identify with one another and establish each other as resourceful forms of capital to each other, for other it was a painful space that raised critical racial questions regarding who belongs in ad, how they are selected and to what extent they help students or reinforce their institutional marginality. development or negotiation of habitus maton (2008) argues that the notion of habitus transcends the dichotomies existing between past, present and future, between mind and body, between the social and the individual, between the objective and the subjective and between the voluntarist and the determinist. this means that habitus is a set of assumptions, habits, taken-for-granted ideas and ways of being that students engage with, understand and move on through their academic journey. the development and negotiation or engagement of habitus is the development of an ‘endless capacity’ to generate thoughts, perceptions, expressions and actions that drive education and enhance performance. it is not the student doing what he or she wants to do, rather he or she is acting according to the level or order of habitus possessed which in itself is a perpetuated and repeated structure inherited or developed from the past and internalised from the objective conditions (adams 2006). the experiences of the participants of the study best illustrate the workings of habitus and it manifests the presence in ad. speaking in relation to this, one of the participants pointed out that: ‘i remember leaving home i was so nervous because i couldn’t come with my parents because of financial reasons. so it was my first time coming to the eastern cape, passing gauteng for that matter. but it was my first time embarking on a longer journey, so i was, i was happy, i was scared you know. and also i needed, even the buses were coming here, people i knew had families with them, they had their parents, so with me it was all sad and all alone. but when i got here, ummm i just felt overwhelmed by everything. i just felt like, i don’t belong, you know when you, ummm i had no interaction with anyone by the time. just looking at the environment and you look at where you come from and who you are, you just feel like, like this can’t be me that isn’t really me. so it was just that reflective thing that, i just felt like, i didn’t belong before i even interacted with anyone else. and not so much because of the negative idea but because i felt so privileged that i just felt like it’s not real.’ (mariah, black female) in the above quotation, mariah reflects on her fears, frustrations and insecurities when she first came to university. she articulates the anguish of the lack of support that black working-class students often experience when they come to a historically white university and have to negotiate an alienating and marginalising institutional culture (see, e.g. tabensky & matthews 2015; vincent 2013). vincent (2013) suggests that in order for us to understand the institutional culture of a university and its effect on those on the margins of he, we can do so at two levels: at the discursive and at the material level. at the discursive level, these are the ‘story stock’ that indicate the narrative life and show the habitus of students at the university. mariah’s story above indicates the ‘story stock’ in feeling overwhelmed ‘like i don’t belong’ indicates the extent to which historically white universities are deeply alienating and marginalising spaces, and programmes such as ad are there, at least in their formulations, to alleviate that marginality. another student, lungile, credits his close relationship and association with skey, also in the ad, which enabled him to cope with the challenges at university: ‘skey was also from the bushes when he came here in 2010 both of us had a bit of a connection and we were saying in the same corridor, doing the same subjects. we were pretty much close he was my friend the first person i went to in the morning, we went together to breakfast, lunch, supper in the dining hall, he was someone i able to speak my xhosa with because you would find other people are zimbabweans, the white people who spoke english and won’t be able to understand xhosa … firstly i saw his attire which meant he was straight out the mountain and that’s where i asked him what’s happening then he opened up that he’s right from the bush and stuff, it was a light conversation and on the same night we went out and that where we actually had a few drinks.’ (lungile, black male) in the above quotation, we see an interesting yet complex interplay between social capital and ethnic identity, in how for lungile and his friend skey the basis of their social capital network and connection was that that they both had been to the ‘mountains’. this refers to the amaxhosa tradition of ulwaluko, that is, male initiation in which young men are inducted into adulthood (see siswana 2016; siswana & kiguwa 2018). language also plays a complex role in the social construction of social capital, in how one’s habitus, that is, thoughts, beliefs and identity, can be used through language to reach out and access other connections. this is seen in how for black working-class students in a historically white university, language constitutes a key arena to which the struggle for belonging and identity resides. this is seen with khusta below, reflecting on such challenges of ‘sounding’ and speaking english: ‘mdantsane is a place where the only xhosa people so you would normally communicate in xhosa and stuff. i’m to express myself in english, which i’m not fluent, in english. yeah i’m not fluent in english and sometimes, i will chill with people, but i won’t talk that much because i’m afraid if i say something wrong people might laugh at me or something. yeah even in my class because i was accepted in bcomm accounting. if i question i will not ask in class. i would ask after the lecture and engage and stuff. i won’t want ummm english and stuff … ummm, it was only that thing with, with the english part, like speaking english all the time that was the most uncomfortable thing cause i was afraid of making mistakes and stuff.’ (khusta, black male) in the above quotations, khusta grapples with the challenges of sounding and speaking english, and being afraid of ‘making mistakes’ in the language. we argue that it is more than language. english becomes the institutional signifier of the university’s institutional culture, being and identity, and is one of those spaces that demarcate for black working-class students who belong here, and who do not. khusta grapples with his challenges by limiting the amount of time he spent speaking the language or associating himself with students who are fluent in the language. this, it could be argued, limits the possibilities for access to richer and much more well-resourced networks and connections. conclusion south african he is grappling with the challenges of transformation and decolonisation. while issues of curricula, institutional culture, teaching and learning and others have been theorised and critically engaged with post-2015–2016 student movements, the role that ad plays in helping black working-class students negotiate the terrain of a historically white university remains under-theorised and not sufficiently explored. black students in a historically white south african university often go through the ad programme to succeed in these universities. the experiences they have in these universities are unique in themselves and provide insight into the practices of ad in south african he and how they navigate the he landscape. from being on the margins of historically white universities to navigating their way to mainstream universities programmes, these students become accustomed and acculturated with the happenings in the he setting through the development of different forms of capital and habitus. this acculturation comes at a cost, as it means adopting an assimilationist approach so as to ensure that they not only negotiate the challenges of a historically white university, but that they actually succeed in such an alienating space. bourdieu’s different forms of capital were useful in helping us think through and conceptualise a historically white university in general and ad in particular, as a field constituting of different actors and agents. while black working-class students’ experiences of ad in a white university are complex and contradictory, what was useful about illuminating and shining a spotlight on their experiences, is that it enables the field of ad to move beyond the focus on discourses, phases and logics, and to begin to see the students themselves and how they experience the work of ad. lolo’s insight in questioning the epistemological assumptions of ad work, particularly in racial terms, and also in how students feel secluded and isolated from the broader university community, needs further interrogation and problematising for future research. we thus recommend the following: the work of ad in historically white universities needs to be careful in how classes, modules, curriculum, lecture halls and others are established so as to ensure that students in the ad programme do not feel marginalised and separated from the broader university community. careful institutional planning needs to be devised regarding how to tap into the social capital networks and connections that students have formed with one another and the university community, as that is proving critical to how they negotiate their entry, survival and success at university both in ad and at a historically white university. the role of language in general and english in particular as a eurocentric tool designed to undermine indigenous languages and cultural beliefs is well documented and the critique expansive. perhaps careful planning within the university management and committees regarding to what extent, following the university of kwazulu-natal’s approach in moving to a bilingual stance (i.e. isizulu and english as pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning), could assist black students in the ad programme in historically white universities negotiate the curriculum and understand the material. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank university students who took part in this study for their assistance in conducting this research. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author’s contributions m.n.h. generated the data and wrote the abstract, introduction and literature review. he was also highly engaged in responding to the peer review feedback. k.g.f. helped analyse the data and wrote the theory and conclusion sections. funding this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article 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phases do not represent clear well-ordered ‘epistemic boundaries’ in the field of ad. rather, it represents the different shifts and patterns in the literature. in reality, the field is much messier and complex, and transcends these boundaries that are ‘drawn’ here (dhunpath & vithal 2014). 4. it should be noted that this ‘demographic revolution’ that was happening in south african higher education beginning of the early 1990s was largely occurring in the historically white universities rather than in historically black universities (jansen 2004). enrolment rates and demand for he in historically black universities largely remained the same in terms of race and class. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 41-52. the expenditure patterns of households receiving the state’s oldage pension (soap) grant in kwakwatsi township tj sekhampu1 and w grobler2 abstract the study on which this article is based investigated the expenditure patterns of households receiving the state’s old-age pension grant. the old-age pension grant is the second-largest social grant in terms of the number of recipients and the largest when it comes to the monetary cost for the national government. the study looked at households in kwakwatsi township receiving an old-age pension grant as the main source of income. the state’s old-age pension grant is used only for sustenance, and for buying basic household necessities. food is the biggest household expenditure for pension grant recipients. the pension grant is also used to support additional family members, thereby reducing its distributional impact. households spend the grant mainly on products that support the daily functioning of the household. keywords: social grants, poverty, development economics, household expenditure, welfare economics, social development, household income, expenditure patterns. disciplines: economics, poverty studies, development studies, policy studies, public economics, social sciences, health sciences. introduction post-apartheid south africa has achieved significant political transformation and incremental improvements in basic social services. at the same time, poverty and economic inequality have increased, making pro-poor socio-economic growth one of the greatest challenges facing south africa (de swardt, 2004). over the past decade, the south african government has implemented numerous poverty-alleviation measures, with social assistance being one of them. the social assistance programme was not designed with specific exit strategies for beneficiaries, other than a change in their living circumstances and the income levels of recipients. social assistance is a non-contributory system also called social grants, financed entirely from government revenue. the scheme is means-tested and the onus is on individuals to prove that they are destitute (sassa, 2008). there are currently five main types of social grant. the first is the state old-age pension (soap), which provides support to men from the age of 62 and upwards, and to women aged 60 and upwards. the second is the disability grant (dg), which provides support to adults with disabilities. the third is the child support grant (csg), which provides support to families with children under the age of 15. the fourth is the foster child grant, which provides support to families with children below the 1 . corresponding author: dr tj sekhampu, senior lecturer, economics, school of economics, northwest university (vaal), joseph.sekhampu@nwu.ac.za, tel: +27 16 910 3408. 2 . dr w grobler, director, school of economics, north-­‐west university (vaal), wynand.grobler@nwu.ac.za tel: +27 16 910 3365. sekhampu & grobler 42 age of 18 in foster care. the fifth is the care dependency grant, which provides additional support to families with children below the age of 18 with disabilities (stats sa, 2009). the effectiveness of south africa’s social security system, in terms of targeting and benefiting poor households, is widely recognised (meth, 2002; duflo, 2000). a number of complementary factors have contributed to this success. duflo (2000) found significantly higher weight-for-height indicators for girls in households eligible for an old-age pension grant. previous studies have also shown that households that receive pension grants have higher expenditure shares on food and education, and lower expenditure shares on alcohol, tobacco and entertainment than other households (maitra and ray, 2003). social assistance through a direct transfer of national revenue to the vulnerable and needy has increased incrementally since 1994 and amounts to more than 3 per cent of the gross domestic product (gdp) (sassa, 2008). south africa is ranked as an upper-middle-income country based on average income, but some of the nation’s social indicators are comparable to those of the poorest countries in the world. in this context of rooted poverty and unemployment, social grants have become an important source of income to millions of poor people (samson et al., 2005). it is expected that the demand for social grants will continue to increase. this necessitates an investigation into how the grants are spent. the purpose of the study on which this article is based was to investigate the expenditure patterns of households in the township of kwakwatsi in the free state province of south africa receiving the state’s old-age pension grant. the findings reported here are based on an empirical study conducted in kwakwatsi. information on households’ expenditure forms an important part of the development planning process as such information can be used to prepare demand projections for social grants. the results of the study will assist the government in formulating policies to reduce poverty, inequality, diseases and malnutrition related to households receiving social grants. the next section of the article provides justification for the study from a policy perspective. thereafter the research methodology is outlined and the local community chosen for the analysis is discussed. the research findings are then presented and the article closes with a discussion on the findings of the study and the conclusions drawn. policy context of social grants a considerable number of the south african population live and work in urban areas, which are said to be growing at approximately 5 per cent per annum. this has resulted in the mushrooming of informal settlements in all major centres of the country (news 24, 2008). after more than a decade of democracy, south africa is still a country with high levels of poverty and income inequality (larrson, 2006:6). the dysfunctional structure of south africa’s urban areas is an outcome of a number of factors, among them the now-defunct apartheid policy and associated planning approaches and economic forces, which have influenced city, town and township development for many years (aliber, 2001:5). the correct identification of the dynamics that perpetuate poverty and inequality, and the introduction of corrective policies have been singled out as priorities by both the government and civil society. the importance of reducing poverty and inequality has been a consistent theme of the postapartheid south africa. statements made by the government have recognised that all efforts need to be focused on the objectives of reducing poverty and inequality, and the barriers that limit participation in the economy. in an attempt to alleviate the scourge of poverty, the south african government has adopted a multipronged approach, focusing on building institutions and organisations. at the heart of the povertyalleviation strategy has been the adoption of social assistance as a policy imperative (galbraith, 2005). the argument is that social security is essential for healthy economic development, particularly in a the state’s old-age pension grant (soap) in kwakwatsi td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 4152. 43 rapidly changing economy, and will contribute actively to the development process (dosd, 1997:53). the main objective of social security is to reduce poverty among groups that are not expected to participate fully in the labour market, and which are therefore vulnerable to low income: the elderly, those with disabilities and children. it also aims to increase investment in health, education and nutrition so as to increase economic growth and development (samson et al., 2005). social security in south africa has traditionally been characterised by a system of state social assistance in the form of direct cash transfers to poor people, the disabled, the elderly and a limited number of women and children (lund, 2008). the system of social assistance for whites was started in the twentieth century. social security for the elderly began with the old-age pensions act of 1928, which explicitly excluded most black south africans. in 1937, a disability grant was extended on the same racial basis. in the late 1930s and 1940s, the social security system was broadened, but with racially differentiated benefit levels. even by 1987, child support grants to blacks remained a small fraction of the size of those awarded to whites (samson et al., 2005). the state’s old-age pension was initially intended to provide a social safety net for the aged poor, who were vulnerable in the household because of a decline in job opportunities, increased vulnerability to poor health, limited mobility, discrimination in access to credit and financial markets, and changes in household composition and status (harding, 1993). after 1994 the new government was determined to eliminate any racial disparities in the allocation of social assistance. the aim was gradually to remove any racial discrimination at the level of benefits by rapidly increasing the amounts granted to african people, less rapidly increasing the amounts granted to indian and coloured recipients, and letting whites’ levels gradually erode (lund, 2008). section 27(1)(c) of the constitution of south africa states that everyone has the right to have access to social security. those who are unable to support themselves and their dependants are entitled to appropriate social assistance (rsa, 1996). the social assistance act (no. 59 of 1992) and the social security agency act (no. 9 of 2004) were signed into law. these acts provided for the establishment of the south african social security agency (sassa). the social assistance act of 2004 defines the role of sassa as that of ensuring the administration and payment of social assistance transfers to eligible poor and vulnerable adults and children (rsa, 2004). the state’s old-age pension grant is the second-largest social grant in terms of the number of recipients, but it is the largest grant when it comes to the monetary cost. the number of beneficiaries increased from 1.8 million in 2000 to 2.3 million in 2009. consolidated expenditure on social protection has increased from r72.3 billion in 2005/06 (4.6 per cent of the gdp) to a projected r118.1 billion in 2009/10 (4.8 per cent of the gdp). in 2009/10, spending on the state’s old-age pension grant is expected to be r28.5 billion (national treasury, 2009). the state’s old-age pension grant plays an important role in old-age support systems through its potential to reach vulnerable individuals. pension income helps to sustain households affected by extreme poverty and vulnerability, and facilitates economic and social development (ardington and lund, 1995). case and deaton (1998) conclude that the state’s old-age pension is well targeted at the poorest households and households with children. in their study, ardington and lund (1995) found that pension income does reach poor households, does benefit the poorest children economically and does improve the health of all household members. ferreira (2006) found that the vulnerability of households with one or more state old-age pension grant recipients was reduced by the pension benefits – there was greater financial stability and a lower probability of experiencing a decline in living standards in these households compared with those without pension income. the study also found a lower incidence of deprivation in households receiving pension grants than in non-pensioner households. sekhampu & grobler 44 the above studies have all concentrated on the impact of the pension grant on household income and on the probability of being poor. however, there is limited understanding of the dynamics of old-age pension grant recipients and their expenditure patterns. to obtain such information, a survey was undertaken to collect expenditure information from households in kwakwatsi who rely on the state’s old-age pension grant as their main source of income. the study, which is being reported here, provided a breakdown of the structures of households and their circumstances – information that can serve as a reference for further analysis and be utilised during policy development. the population of kwakwatsi is estimated at 15 095. the estimates are based on the municipality’s integrated development plan. there are 3 443 official residential sites, of which 3 019 are occupied. of the occupied sites, 1 233 have permanent structures and 1 786 have temporary structures or shacks. the area is a former black residential township located approximately 70 km south of sasolburg and 280 km north of bloemfontein in the free state province of south africa. the area is part of the ngwathe local municipality, with its head office in parys (ngwathe municipality, 2007). research methodology the aim of the study was to investigate the expenditure patterns of households in kwakwatsi receiving the state’s old-age pension grant. for the first stage of the study a survey was undertaken, based on the use of a questionnaire and personal interviews, in order to compile an economic profile of the township. maps were obtained for the different areas of kwakwatsi and a stratified sample was compiled by taking into account the geographical distribution and concentration of people in different areas of the township. the areas were divided into different extensions and the questionnaires were distributed evenly among the inhabited sites. a total of 180 households were interviewed by two fieldworkers. all households approached were willing to take part in the study. to obtain a sample size that would supply statistically reliable results and be representative of the population of the area, the researcher relied on the experience and convention regarding similar surveys conducted in similar locations in south african townships (slabbert & pelupessy, 2001). the second stage of the study involved follow-up interviews with the 80 households identified from the first stage of the research as being dependent on the state old-age pension grant as the main source of income. a second questionnaire was then developed to collect household expenditure information, providing the information on which this article is based. during this second phase of empirical work, the respondents were asked to list the items that they buy on a weekly or monthly basis. both questionnaires included structural questions relating to demographic information and open-ended questions to capture the views of the respondents on their socioeconomic status. the reliability of the results depended on the ability of the respondents to provide accurate information and not what they think the interviewer would like to hear. to address this problem, two trained fieldworkers were used. they had to emphasise to the respondents the importance of providing accurate information. the covering letter attached to the questionnaire explained the rationale of the study and the importance of co-operation from each household. contact details were also provided on the covering letter in case the respondents doubted the credibility of the fieldworkers. ethical clearance for the project was obtained beforehand from the research ethics committee of the faculty of economic and management sciences of the north-west university. empirical results this section presents the findings of the study. the information obtained is at household level and is meant to the trends among receivers of the state’s old-age pension grants. first the demographic information is described, followed by a discussion on the expenditure patterns of the sample population. sekhampu & grobler 50 a small percentage of the population (1.3 per cent) said that they buy some items on credit from local convenience stores. they stated that it is easier to get household items on credit as store owners rely on the fact that a pension grant recipient’s remittance is guaranteed. family members also offer assistance to 5.2 per cent of the households. some respondents said that they have family members working in big cities who sporadically send them money. other households (5.2 per cent) said that they maintain a small backyard vegetable garden where they can plant some basic vegetables. these include onions, cabbage and wild spinach (“morogo”), which they can eat with their porridge if they run out of options. table 6 lists all the responses to the question on the coping strategies employed by households. households are stuck in a daily struggle to ensure that the old-age pension grant serves the needs of the family. the common thread was limited sources of income, the inability to earn income due to age, high unemployment and the difficulty of providing for the needs of the family from the old-age pension grant. the state’s old-age pension grant plays an important role in the sustenance of many households. it does not, however, cover much more than the basic survival needs of these households. the expenditure patterns of the households suggest an increase in the proportion of the grant spent on the overall needs of the different members of each household. household expenditure is skewed towards products that support the daily functioning of the household, namely food and energy. conclusions the main aim of the study on which this article is based was to investigate the expenditure patterns of households in kwakwatsi township in the free state receiving the state’s old-age pension grant as the main source of income. the old-age pension grant is used mainly for the maintenance of the household on a day-to-day basis. the households have limited options on what to spend their income due to the need for subsistence. many of the recipients of pension grants have the added burden of taking on the role of caregiver to other household members as a result of the high rate of unemployment. the expenditure items of these households show that the pension grant is used as a survival income, mainly for basic household items, and that 32.3 per cent of the grant is used to buy food. different mechanisms are employed to alleviate the burden of increased prices. the pension grant forms an integral part of the government’s development mandate and assists in reducing hunger and malnutrition among the poor. the increased average household size of pension grant recipients and the age distribution of members of these households show that pension income reaches poor households, benefits children economically and has the potential to improve the health of all household members. the old-age pension grant enables pensioners to support their extended family members, including grandchildren and unemployed adults. further research could focus on: • the need to incorporate other social assistance programmes with the state’s old-age pension grant and an assessment of its overall impact on the level of household spending • the potential impact of giving additional assistance to pension grant recipients in the form of food vouchers to relieve them of the burden of increased spending on basic necessities; this could be based on a national guideline on staple foods for pension grant recipients • the viability of targeted small-scale programmes aimed at assisting female household members based on their skills (the majority of members in these households are female) • the potential impact of the death of a pension grant recipient on the socio-economic indicators of households containing such a member the state’s old-age pension grant plays an important role in the sustenance of many households. however, the grant does not serve the needs of the members beyond basic survival. the expenditure patterns of the households surveyed suggest increased spending of the grant on the overall needs of the state’s old-age pension grant (soap) in kwakwatsi td, 7(1), july 2011, pp. 4152. 51 different members in each household. household expenditure is mostly on products that support the daily functioning of the household, such as food and energy costs. references alcock, p., 1997. understanding poverty, second edition. london: macmillan press. aliber, m., 2001. study of the incidence and nature of chronic poverty and development policy in south africa: an overview. pretoria: southern african regional poverty network. ardington, e. & lund, f., 1995. pensions and development: social security as complementary to programmes of reconstruction and development. development southern africa, 12. case, a. & deaton, a., 1998. large-scale transfers to the elderly in south africa. economic journal, 108. dbsa (development bank of southern africa), 2006. regional socio-economic analysis. midrand: dbsa. deaton, a., 1997. the analysis of household surveys: micro-economic approach to development policy. princeton, nj: princeton university. de swardt, c., 2004. cape town’s african poor. programme for land and agrarian studies. cape town: university of the western cape. dosd (department of social development), 1997. white paper on social welfare. pretoria: dosd. duflo, e. 2000. grandmothers and granddaughters: old age pension and intra-household allocation in south africa. national bureau of economic research working paper no. 8061. epri (economic policy research institute), 2004. the social and economic impact of south africa’s social security system. pretoria: government printer. ferreira, m., 2006. the differential impact of social pension income on household poverty alleviation in three south african ethnic groups. london: cambridge university press. galbraith, j.k., 2002. a perfect crime: global inequality. daedalus, 1(1): 12–25. harding, a. (ed), 1993. micro-simulation and public policy. selected papers from the iarlw special conference on micro-simulation and public policy, canberra, 5–9 december 1993. larsson, a., 2006. government response to poverty and unemployment in south africa: a micro-level evaluation of the expanded public works programme. bachelor’s thesis, sweden: uppsala university. lalthapersad-pillay, p., 2007. the poverty alleviation impetus of the social security system in south africa. africa insight, (37):4. lund, f., 2008. changing social policy: the child support grant in south africa. cape town: hsrc press. maitra, p. & ray, r., 2003. the effect of transfers on household expenditure patterns and poverty in south africa. journal of development economics, 71(1): 23–49. sekhampu & grobler 52 meth, c., 2002. poverty relief through social grants in south africa: is there an alternative? paper presented at the dpru conference, 22–24 october 2002, johannesburg. national treasury, 2009. the 2009 budget review. pretoria: government printer. news 24, 2008. urbanisation a big problem. http://www.news24.com/content/southafrica/news/1059/e44a0f7ebef948a380d500c7af5aa81f/2508-2008-06-04/urbanisation_a_big_problem. ngwathe local municipality, 2007. integrated development plan 2007-2012. parys: ngwathe municipality. rsa (republic of south africa), 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa, (act no. 108 of 1996). pretoria: government printer. rsa (republic of south africa) ministry for welfare and population development, 1997. white paper on social welfare, vol. 386 (no. 18166), pretoria: government printer. rsa (republic of south africa), 2004. south african social security agency act (no. 9 of 2004). pretoria: government printer. samson, m., lee u., ndlebe, a., quene, k.m., van niekerk, i., gandgi, v., harigaya, t. & abrahams, c., 2004. the social and economic impact of south africa’s social security system. pretoria: government printer. samson, m., macqueen, k. & van niekerk, i., 2005. social grants – policy brief 1. london: overseas development institute. sassa (south african social security agency), 2006. linking social grants beneficiaries to poverty alleviation and economic activity. pretoria: government printer. sassa (south african social security agency), 2008. strategic plan 2008/09–2010/11. pretoria: government printer. slabbert, t.j.c. & pelupessy, w., 2001. towards employment generation in south african townships: a case of emfuleni municipality area. africa insight, 31(4): 35–42. stats sa see statistics south africa statistics south africa, 2000. october household survey. statistical release p0137, pretoria: government printer. statistics south africa, 2007. community survey 2007. statistical release p0301, pretoria: government printer. statistics south africa, 2008. income and expenditure of households. statistical release p0100, pretoria: government printer. statistics south africa, 2009. social grants: in-depth analysis of the general household survey data 2003– 2007. ghs series vol. 1, pretoria: government printer. van driel, m., 2009. the social grants and black women in south africa: a case of bophelong township in gauteng. journal of international women’s studies, 10(4). microsoft word 00 b editorial comment fin.doc conference  notice   vi c o n f e r e n c e n o t i c e the faculty of education at the university of the free state announces the colloquium on social justice and the creation of sustainable learning environments: a transdisciplinary approach on 29 31 october 2013 colloquium [no registration fee required] abstract due june 30, 2013 and full papers august 31, 2013 sustainable development goals (sdgs) are supposed to build onto the achievements of the millennium developments goals (2015 – 2030) as they focus on ensuring environmental sustainability, economic development and social inclusivity for all. these goals suggest a transdisciplinary approach, encompassing the natural sciences, economic and management sciences as well as human and social sciences. this implied transdisciplinarity is not limited to different subject matter handled in an integrated manner or similar subject content handled differently, but research methodologies covering this wide spectrum of specialisms crossing the boundaries of disciplinary divide. this colloquium will thus focus on these intersections and thus invites theorists, researchers and practitioners of ‘knowledge work’ and beyond to interrogate the relationship(s) that exist(s) between sustainable learning environments on the one hand and social justice on the other because there seems to be ways in which the two though different refer to the same processes or are embedded within one another. sustainable learning environments, taking their cue from the united nations’ sdgs refer to ways in which settings, from the cradle to retirement advance the agenda for equity, social justice, freedom, peace and hope. sustainable learning environments aim at enabling all human beings to explore and exploit their potentialities to the fullest so that they can become contributing members of a democracy. it is only when this possibility exists that inequality; unemployment and poverty that still plague our nation can be addressed. sustainable learning environments and social justice challenge hegemony in social policies and natural sciences practices, advocates educational reform and societal structures that move towards equity rather than marginalisation. the colloquium welcomes submissions of abstracts and papers on which authors could map out the intersection between sustainable learning environments and social justice related topics, which include, but are not limited to the following streams: 1. how sustainable learning environments and social justice interact to inform curriculum, teaching and learning? 2. intersection of sustainable learning environments and social justice in the choice of transformatory and emancipatory research approaches in the natural sciences, economic and management sciences as well as the social and human sciences. 3. the intersection in understanding and theorising issues of geographic spaces like rurality versus urban. 4. theorising and understanding gender, socio-economic status, disability, creed, sexuality and hiv/aids education etc.? while it is preferred that papers are related to the theme of the colloquium, we encourage the submission of papers that consider other important perspectives that are relevant to sustainable learning environments and social justice across the wide knowledge spectrum. call for abstracts: abstract due july 30, 2013 and full papers august 31, 2013 guidelines and instructions: • all authors interested in presenting papers are invited to submit an abstract as an e-mail attachment. • all abstracts should be in ms-word format, and should include a name (s) of the author(s), e-mail address(es), contact details, and institutional affiliation (s). • please also indicate, if there are multiple authors, who will be presenting. • the maximum length is 300 words including keyword(s). • please indicate the stream of the presentation. submission electronically mail to: ms christa duvenhage <duvenhagecs@ufs.ac.za> die reikwydte van 11 september in die filmmedia pieter de klerk noordwes universiteit films: united 93, regisseur paul greengrass, 2006. world trade center, regisseur oliver stone, 2006. vyf jaar na die gebeure op 11 september 2001 begin die gevolge daarvan al duideliker word. amerika se buitelandse beleid, maar ook die amerikaners se lewensuitkyk is ingrypend daardeur beïnvloed. oor die reeks gebeurtenisse wat so ’n belangrike invloed op amerika en die wêreld gehad het, het daar reeds ’n hele aantal dokumentêre films verskyn, maar nou ook twee films wat as gedramatiseerde weergawes beskou kan word en wat wêreldwyd in bioskope vertoon is. daar is reeds talle resensies oor die twee films geskryf. in hierdie kort bespreking word slegs gepoog om die vraag te beantwoord in hoeverre die films daartoe bydra om ons kennis van die gebeurtenisse van 11 september te verruim. in united 93 word die verhaal vertel van die vliegtuig waarmee die skakers waarskynlik in washington se capitol wou vasvlieg, maar wat nie sy teiken bereik het nie en in die staat pennsylvania neergestort het. greengrass het baie navorsing gedoen en onder meer inligting van familielede van die passasiers en bemanning ingewin. aangesien die mense in die vliegtuig tot in die laaste minute telefonies met familie en vriende in verbinding kon bly, is redelik baie bekend van wat in die vliegtuig gebeur het. greengrass bied ’n geheelbeeld van die gebeure rakende die rampvlug waarby hy binne die raamwerk van die gegewens skets hoe sake moontlik kon verloop het. hy gebruik nie bekende akteurs nie en fokus ook nie op enkele persone wat deel van die drama was nie. tonele binne die vliegtuig word afgewissel met tonele in die amerikaanse national traffic control center, ander lugbeheertorings en ’n militêre beheerkamer. td: die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider afrika, vol. 2 nr. 2, desember 2006, pp. 513 515. 514 greengrass slaag goed daarin om die verwarring en chaos in hierdie sentrums uit te beeld nadat daar gerapporteer is dat een en daarna ook ander vlugte van hulle normale koers begin afwyk. dit blyk ook goed uit die film dat, toe dit begin duidelik word dat die kapers die vliegtuie as missiele wou gebruik om bepaalde teikens te tref, die militêre struktuur glad nie voorbereid was om so ’n bedreiging die hoof te bied nie. die pogings om akkuraat weer te gee wat in die beheersentrums gebeur het (en waarby enkele persone wat daardie dag op diens was self in die film optree), bring mee dat dit nie altyd maklik is om te begryp wat daar aan die gang is nie. vir die gewone filmkyker is die prosedures wat by sulke beheersentrums gevolg word taamlik onbekend en vereenvoudiging asook groter konsentrasie op enkele fasette sou waarskynlik kon help om ’n duideliker beeld te vorm van die gebeure op daardie besondere oggend. daarenteen is dit maklik om te volg wat in die vliegtuig gebeur. die meeste mense wat na hierdie film kyk, het waarskynlik ’n goeie idee van hoe dit binne ’n passasiersvliegtuig lyk en van die roetine wat gewoonlik op ’n vlug gevolg word. met hierdie agtergrondskennis is dit nie moeilik om ’n beeld te vorm nie van hoe die skakers te werk gegaan het en wat die reaksie van die bemanning en die passasiers was. kykers wat self al vliegtuigpassasiers was, sal hulle met hierdie mense kan identifiseer en sien dat hulle optree soos wat hulle self waarskynlik in so ’n situasie sou optree. soos algemeen bekend het ’n groepie passasiers daarin geslaag om die skakers te oorrompel en die stuurkajuit binne te dring. dit is nie seker of die vliegtuig wel sy teiken sou getref het as die passasiers nie tot hierdie daad oorgegaan het nie. greengrass probeer ook nie voorgee dat dit die geval sou gewees het nie; hy dui juis aan dat die skakers foute gemaak het en dalk te lank gewag het om tot aksie oor te gaan. sy weergawe van die passasiers se verset teen die skakers dui ook nie daarop dat dit ’n heroïese daad was om te verhoed dat die kapers hul teiken tref nie, maar eerder dat hul gehoop het om, deur beheer oor die vliegtuig oor te neem, dalk nog hul eie lewens te red. die beskikbare gegewens is nie voldoende om te weet presies wat in die vliegtuig gebeur het nie, maar dit is duidelik dat greengrass probeer het om ’n beeld te bied wat die beste met die feite klop. ook die optrede van die skakers word baie geloofwaardig uitgebeeld. hy probeer hul geensins demoniseer nie, maar beeld hulle uit as gelowige moslems wat sterk toegewyd was aan die uitvoering van hul opdrag. united 93 kan dus gesien word as ’n film waar dramatisering versigtig en oordeelkundig aangewend word sonder om belangrike gegewens te verdraai, en die kyker se kennis en begrip van die besondere historiese gebeure word beslis daardeur verruim. tegelykertyd bied dit ’n allesbehalwe vervelige kykervaring. al is dit van die begin af bekend wat die lot van almal aan boord van die vliegtuig gaan wees, laat greengrass die gebeure op die vliegtuig soos ’n spannende drama ontvou waarby die kyker steeds nou betrokke voel. filmresensies 515 terwyl united 93 oor die algemeen baie positief deur die resensente ontvang is, was die meeste resensies van world trade center minder vleiend. die film handel hoofsaaklik oor die lotgevalle van twee polisiemanne wat, nadat die vliegtuie die twee torings van die world trade center getref het, een van die geboue binne gegaan het in ’n poging om lewens te red, maar, toe die gebou in mekaar stort onder die puin beland het, en eers na 14 uur deur ’n reddingspan gevind is. die eerste deel van die film bied ’n geloofwaardige weergawe van sommige van die gebeure wat hul by die world trade center afgespeel het, maar in die grootste deel van die film word gefokus op die twee polisiemanne wat onder die puin begrawe lê. hoewel hulle onbenydenswaardige lot aangrypend uitgebeeld word, verskil dit nie baie van mense wat byvoorbeeld as gevolg van ’n aardbewing in ineengestorte geboue vasgekeer is nie. daar is ook verskeie tonele waarin ons die twee hoofkarakters se familielede te sien kry, maar dit wat hulle moet deurmaak lyk nie juis anders as dit wat met talle mense in soortgelyke omstandighede, soos byvoorbeeld tydens ’n mynramp, gebeur het nie. deur die film toe te spits op twee persone wat die ramp van 11 september oorleef het en min aandag te gee aan die duisende wat omgekom het, kom die tragiese gevolge van die ineenstorting van die world trade center in die film nie goed na vore nie. vir die kykers wat reeds ’n basiese kennis van die gebeure van 11 september het, bied stone se film dus nie veel nuwe kennis of insig nie. eintlik is die titel van die film misleidend; dit gee geensins ’n geheelbeeld van die gebeure rondom die aanval op die world trade center nie. in hierdie geval het die dramatisering van gebeure dus nie gelei tot groter historiese kennis en insig nie. filmresensies td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 513 515. abstract introduction methodology ethical consideration results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) eben swanepoel school of education studies, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa christa beyers school of education studies, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa citation swanepoel, e. & beyers, c., 2019, ‘investigating sexuality education in south african schools: a matter of space, place and culture’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a612. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.612 original research investigating sexuality education in south african schools: a matter of space, place and culture eben swanepoel, christa beyers received: 19 sept. 2018; accepted: 11 mar. 2019; published: 23 may 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract sexuality education has faced various challenges in being successfully implemented within secondary schools in south africa. research points towards barriers thereto, which include teacher bias and limited knowledge as core mediators to socially-just education. research in the subject of life orientation, specifically the theme of sexuality education, has largely focused on teacher responses and challenges within the teaching of sexuality. scant research, however, exists on how schools as a systemic whole manifest and sustain sexuality education. this research article is guided by the primary question: how do schools, from a systemic level, mediate sexuality education in relation to space, place and culture? as such, the research reported in this article encompasses a systemic approach to understand how sexuality education is maintained within schools. through purposive sampling, 12 participants from 6 schools in the free state province were chosen to take part in semi-structured interviews. the sample of participants comprised life orientation teachers and school principals and co-managerial staff. through the framework of cybernetics, it was found that schools face different challenges in relation to their geographical place, as well as the space within which they reside socio-economically. core themes that emerged from the data include curriculum boundaries and teacher knowledge. we further found that culture influences how sexuality education manifests within a specific context. keywords: cybernetics; sexuality education; spaces; place; social justice. introduction south african culture has become increasingly complex, with multicultural norms and indigenous knowledge systems having to abide by a uniform benchmark of constitutional rights based on inclusivity and acceptance of diversity (the bill of rights 1996). this plurality of culture implicates teaching practices as many educational spaces are faced with the need to transfer knowledge flexible to societal norms and values (weeks 2012). this need for the flexibility of adaptable knowledge to the 21st century paradigm to shift from static knowledge is further intensified by globalisation (jonck & swanepoel 2015). this requires a multicultural space where knowledge is mediated, which is not only curriculum and policy-based standardisation, but also culturally acceptable across the spectrum of culturally diverse learners characteristic of south african educational spaces (swanepoel & beyers 2015). the classroom is thus highly underpinned by south africa’s sociopolitical context, and this complicates the manner in which content is taught, as knowledge should, ideally, be dynamic and continuously re-constructed in such a rapid manner that educators need to constantly re-imagine the space and place within which their pedagogical practice takes place (depalma & fancis 2014). the topic of sexuality within school spaces has become the main focus in recent south african research and is, in conjunction with cultural purity, an equally difficult concept to dynamically construct and act upon within the classroom setting. in a further effort to curb issues related to unsafe sexual practices, schools have become the cornerstone in implementing programmes to readdress past injustices which still remain rife at present. post-apartheid south africa is still troubled with racial and sexual inequalities, implicating the manner in which educators adapt and tailor pedagogies to fit the needs of learners, not only within classrooms but also to mediate teachings to the relevance of learners’ sociopolitical backgrounds (department of basic education 2011; msibi 2012). schools have thus become key spaces within which the construction of identities can emerge and be constructed (woolley 2017). however, south african school spaces have not shown the desired influence in creating and shaping learner identities, but rather often still dictate rules and boundaries related to sex and gender, which are obstacles to the ideals of social justice and inclusivity (swanepoel, beyers & de wet 2017). there has, however, been a global shift in creating curriculum spaces that are indicative of inclusivity of gender and sexuality (haberland & rogow 2015). while school spaces may also be better aligned with policies and mission statements of inclusivity, teachers face ongoing challenges in aligning teaching to critically engage and intervene in issues related to sexuality (vavrus 2009). as core facilitators to programmes implemented at educational levels, teachers are increasingly being positioned in spaces of negotiating pedagogies, which align with the ideals of comprehensive and socially-just education (ahmed et al. 2009) as a means to establish past inequalities and instill values of inclusivity and acceptance within places of learning. schools as spaces and places of culture and sexuality fields and payne (2016) draw on ‘place’ as the material construct of the school itself, in a tangible respect of visibility. it is within certain places, such as schools, that meaning is constructed by learners and their actions; thus, ‘schools become schooling’ and ultimately become ‘actions’ rather than just a place within a certain location. in conjunction with the need to curb risks of unsafe sexual practices, it is important to acknowledge the importance of changing core values and destructive gender norms within classroom spaces (cobbett-ondiek 2016), and thus not to place sole focus on changing places as prime focuses of intervention. a contextual approach to such an understanding is needed as teaching about sex and sexuality is not limited to the classroom as a place of learning, but also towards the outside place of the school setting and community as a whole (haberland & rogow 2015; mthatyana & vincent 2015 thus,). thus, depalma and francis (2014) argue the need for intercultural dialogues to enter school spaces as a means to establish critical sexuality education that engages multiple levels of the learners’ contexts and consequently a multi-stakeholder approach thereto. however, school spaces often neutralise gender and sexuality, desexualising learners, and in turn create perceptions of retaining learner innocence through silencing the topic of sex and sexuality (shefer & ngabaza 2015). vavrus (2009) reflects on the argument that school spaces are dictated by social norms, which is to the disadvantage of teaching the content aimed at national policy benchmarks. sociological order and normative discourses have established the dichotomy of ‘male’ and ‘female’ as the culturally accepted norm by which masculinity and femininity are compared, learnt and subsequently acted upon (depalma 2013). educational spaces are salient spaces of socialised gender expectations and gender-specific triggers. this is visible in the division of single-sex-based schools and mixed-gender schools (swanepoel & beyers 2015), each carrying specific challenges and norms by which school ethos is realised. gender and sexuality serve as strong regulators of how power manifests and is exerted within educational spaces (carrera, depalma & lameiras 2012), especially at secondary schooling level, with the onset of adolescent puberty and sexual exploration and experimentation. however, sexuality and gender already manifest as strong socialised structures in primary school spaces, which are often overlooked and mistakenly classified as spaces where sex and gender evade the need for teaching, mistakenly classifying primary schools a zones of sexual comfort, innocence and adult-based exclusivity of knowledge (depalma & janette 2010). drawing extensively on the emotional underpinning of teacher discomfort, reygan and francis (2015) refer to heteronormative attitudes within which sexuality pedagogies are situated. francis (2016) further echoes the work of beyers (2013) in the discomfort of teachers in responding to, or acknowledging, these relations of hegemonic control in the classroom by either complete silence surrounding sexuality or by playing it ‘safe’ as a means to eliminate emotional triggers and stay within safe socially accepted spaces of gender and sexuality when teaching about what is healthy sexual behaviour (beyers 2013). it is clear that, whether explicitly or implicitly, teachers approach sexuality, frustration and fear with messages which often manifest situational knowledge within spaces that promote the marginalisation of sexuality and gender. research aim and questions there is an urgent need to gain understanding as to how educators utilise schools and classrooms as spaces of social change during sexuality education (cobbett-ondiek 2016). this study aims to understand how schools within the same contextual space of the free state province manifest and mediate sexuality education. as schools are contextually different, it is understandable that there will be contextual factors which differentiate different schools in their approach to sexuality education. the main question guiding this study is thus: how do schools, at a systemic level, mediate sexuality education in relation to space, place and culture? theoretical framework: firstand second-order cybernetics the underpinning for this article’s theoretical framework arises from the work of systemic thinking, more specifically cybernetics from a firstand second-order perspective. banathy and jenlink (2003) draw on cybernetics in the self-regulator manner in which systems manifest and sustain order at structural level. more specifically, systems are continuously influenced by feedback processes and the manner in which systems subsequently respond thereto and regulate themselves as a means to maintain structural integrity and homeostasis. at first-order level, emphasis is not on the meaning of such feedback, or noise, and subjectivity thereto is thus not relevant. focus is placed on the ‘what’ counterpart of how systemic structure is maintained, as opposed to ‘why’ the components of the system behave as they do. through a first-order cybernetic perspective, the patterns that underlie systemic structure are investigated, and the patterns of interactions are explored, which subsequently create rules and boundaries (becvar & becver 2012). this theoretical perspective is valuable from a first-order perspective in understanding what components of sociopolitical space and geographical place influence schools’ systemic boundaries. it is furthermore useful to establish and investigate boundaries and interactional feedback patterns within schools and community systems that underlie sexuality education within unique contexts. however, hoffman (1985) argued against the control exercised through acting as mere observer of a system and explaining interactional patterns without considering the role of the self within the system, and in turn the influence of the self as a stakeholder and researcher within the process as well. for this reason, the qualitative research investigation of this study will further be underpinned by the perspective of the researcher as a part of the systemic interaction and not merely an ‘objective’ observer (heylighen & joslyn 2001), with reflexivity and feedback also being incorporated at systemic level of the narratives. the researcher will thus co-construct narratives with participants and will form an integral part in constructing data that are contextual to the realities of the participants’ contexts and the manner in which the researcher, as both a participant in narrative construction and as an observer, understands and explains the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of sexuality education within specific settings. the use of both these theoretical underpinnings provides the researcher the opportunity to first, through a literature analysis, establish the core stakeholders and components of sexuality education in south africa. a broad view can be gained about how the south african system is structured and what current feedback processes and disruptions to the systems have been found to influence sexuality education. while the aforementioned use of first-order cybernetics can account for the system in such a way that the use of second-order cybernetics provides the researcher with the opportunity to become a part of the system, and thus be immersed into the context where semi-structured interviews and conversation with participants become the focus. during this process, the researcher may gain a broad systemic view of sexuality education while also gaining a deeper, more contextualised, point of view. methodology a qualitative paradigm was adopted as a means to understand the contextual underpinning of how schools manifest sexuality education. as the aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of how schools uniquely respond to and face boundaries regarding sexuality education, a qualitative approach proved valuable. it furthermore provides participants with an opportunity to reflect more deeply on their practices, while allowing for conversation and probing which sheds light on how sexuality education is located within a specific place and space, especially in relation to the cultural underpinning of space and place that is unique across the schools (blanche, durrheim & painter 2006). this narrative can then be discussed against the literature from a first-order systemic perspective as a means to better understand how contextual factors and larger national factors that may inhibit sexuality education interact and influence one another. participants a total of 12 stakeholders within the primary context of education and schools were purposively sampled. non-probability sampling was utilised, and schools were specifically chosen on the contextual differences underlying them, as well as the culturally diverse places (blanche et al. 2006). as such, schools were sampled and approached for gatekeeper consent (the principal being the primary gatekeeper), and permission was then granted to conduct research within the school at managerial level and teacher levels. while eight schools were initially approached as a means to provide an equal distribution between rural and urban schools, only six of the schools consented to participate. participants are thus spread through the sampled schools. the total number of participants (n = 12) are thus spread across urban (8) and rural (4) schools. the demographics of the participants are as follows (see table 1): eight were males and six were females, seven participants were life orientation teachers, while the remainder of the participants subsumed managerial roles within the school at various levels (n = 6). table 1: demographics of the study participants. data gathering and analysis data gathering was done through semi-structured interviews with participants. each interview lasted between 30 and 45 min. the study primarily comprised individual interviews; however, because of time constraints, schools 1 and 6 requested a focus group interview. the researcher assisted in creating a dialogue within which the participants provided contextual information regarding their perceptions and experiences of sexuality education. knowledge is, from a contextual and qualitative approach, a co-constructed concept. as such, the first-order cybernetics primarily informed the desktop review of literature and aspects within the results and discussion section through looking at the ‘what’ counterpart of systemic patterns. however, at a second-order cybernetic level, the researcher was active in the construction of knowledge, and as such stimulated the debate as a means to better understand the contexts the participants face in relation to sexuality education (becvar & becvar 2012; blanche et al. 2006). there is thus a complimentary manner in which the researcher stimulates the information and probes from various sides, and the subsequent analysis to determine patterns and themes that emerge. this study was accordingly guided through tesch’s (1992) method of data analysis. interviews were transcribed and similar patterns were identified and coded. certain themes emerged from these codes, with this article specifically focusing on the theme of space, place and culture. while the data were viewed in their entirety at the end of data collection and transcription, it is important to note that the data analysis was already initiated during the interviews, providing the researcher with the opportunity to better stimulate contextual factors and patterns that emerged during the other interviews. what about the focus groups for schools 1 and 6? ethical consideration this study was primarily registered with the host institution to perform research in the free state schools. gatekeeper consent and briefing were done, with the open acknowledgement that participation in the study is not mandatory and that participants could withdraw from the study at any time. no deception took place, and each participant was fully briefed about the scope and aims of the study. all narratives were coded and any references which may be indicative of the school were removed. the coded data are presented in the report through participant numbers, with no references alluding to the specific school on any level. results and discussion the qualitative analysis of the data indicated that there is a strong thematic link which is established through participant narratives related to space, place and culture. the coding and thematic categorisation of the data established various aspects of subthemes related to space, place and culture as central themes explored in this article. these subcategories include the curriculum, religious boundaries and geographical contexts (see table 2). the discussion of these categories will be based as one cohesive discussion, commencing with the curriculum boundaries established and moving towards broader geographical boundaries related to sexuality education. the themes will thus not be discussed under separate categories. this is indicative of the mutual role all of these factors play within schooling systems within one set of boundaries, as apart to being separate components working in isolation. table 2: themes extracted. space and place within the curriculum and beyond through the data analysis, it became clear from participant narratives that the space provided from the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) for life orientation bids either to closed or too open boundaries during the teaching of life orientation and its counterpart of sexuality education. participant 4 illustrated the boundary of time and the curriculum as a closed boundary to optimal sexuality education in her school, as reflected through the below narrative: if i look at the caps [curriculum and assessment policies] curriculum and what is required and what is required time-wise for lo…what we do have, or the time that we do have is way less than what we are supposed to. which makes it quite difficult to incorporate things like sexual and sexual orientation or education. because you are only working with the books of course, so there is not really time. you have to incorporate everything into your schedule. she then further elaborates on the manner in which this closed boundary leads to learner attitudes, further restricting the space within which sexuality education is taught: ‘it’s also very difficult when you are sitting with children who think that life orientation is a waste of time. so even though you are teaching important content, they don’t necessarily feel it’s important. what they take out of here, i don’t always know if it is positive or if it is something that they deem as important for them to carry on with life.’ (participant 4, male, rural school demographic) participant 5 (female, urban school demographic) also reflected on the limitations of the caps, as seen through the following narrative between them and the researcher: researcher: ‘what is your opinion the way it (caps) explains and stipulates sex and sexuality that you have to teach?’ participant 5: ‘okay…i think it is very superficial. you cover it…you do it a lot, instead of going deeper into the issues and what the learners are experiencing, for example, if they are gay…the judgment from others, how they exert themselves in their communities. instead of talking about that, it is always about sex before marriage, stds [sexually transmitted diseases], and that i have a problem with.’ researcher: ‘and is that specifically the caps, or would you say the textbooks as well?’ participant 5: ‘i think it is all round still, i don’t think that caps and being teachers go deep into the subject matter.’ participant 5 reflects a narrative of critical reflection as to the limited space of content of the caps and the boundaries thereto within which teachers teach sexuality education. her narrative reflects the manner in which the, often too open, space teachers have to interpret content can lead to open or closed boundaries depending on the teachers’ perspectives of content relevance and personal choice. research into sexuality education and its implementation within south african spaces has shown that emphasis is largely placed on the physical aspect of sexuality, thus placing importance on aspects such as hiv and aids, condom usage and abstinence versus safe sex practices. this emphasis deflects from the overall aim of holistic development in limiting the space within which sexuality education is mediated to not include aspects of sensuality, pleasure and the emotional underpinnings of relationships and sexual practices (francis 2010). the boundaries which mediate the type of sexuality education that teachers deliver, as deduced from the narrative extracts of participants, are twofold. firstly, the personal backgrounds of teachers implicate the manner in which content is interpreted and presented, and secondly, the aspect of school place and location further plays a critical role therein. it is again evident from the following extracts and discussion that sexuality education in south africa is highly entrenched in the sociopolitical climate, which is contextuality-based. what is important through the discussion hereof, especially from a cybernetic perspective, is the manner in which teachers are not solely responsible and accountable for what content is taught. the caps thus provides contextual space to accommodate the sociopolitical climates of different schools and takes into account the needs of different spaces and places depending on province and overall geographical location in accordance with other schools. there is thus a space within which the teacher can provide and interpret different messages to learners, depending on their own personal beliefs and experiences (francis 2017), or ideally can tailor messages relevant to learners’ backgrounds. the teacher is merely one counterpart in a larger system, encompassing not only the curriculum, but he or she is also placed within a space where the larger suprasystem of place and culture comes into being, playing equally mediating roles. the role of culture and teacher background knowledge, for example, is drawn upon by participants 9 and 10. this lack of background knowledge often leads to misinformed teaching, causing teachers to draw on information which is not applicable to the needs of the learners (swanepoel et al. 2017). this is seen through the following narratives: ‘we work with different cultures at this school, like sutu, xhosa, zulu, et cetera, coloured people, and i don’t necessarily think the teacher that presents the class always understands the cultures when it comes to sexuality… sometimes i feel we are trying to force down a western culture on some of the children, and when they leave here they step into another world.’ (participant 10, female, urban school demographic) ‘lo (life orientation) mainly, most of the teachers are old. so it becomes difficult for them to teach most of the things because they feel squirmish, others because of their cultural background they think they are too old to speak to children … and if it is a graphic issue, sometimes it tends to be too graphic for them. and sometimes they do not have the background of psychology, so their approach is the main issue.’ (participant 9, female, school demographic) in analysing the system within a ‘what’ first-order cybernetic perspective, the first level of the system, which dictates the space within which sexuality education is taught, accounts for the personal background of the educator, specifically religion: participant 10: ‘we discuss stds, what would you do to prevent it, what behaviour … so the behaviour is rather important, what will the risky behaviour, the main headings of the …’ researcher: ‘would you advocate condom usage or abstinence?’ participant 10: ‘for me, abstinence.’ researcher: ‘why?’ participant 10: ‘for me, christian beliefs. for me as a christian it is often difficult to put my point across when i know there are others who do not have the same belief system that i have.’ while participant 10 takes on a very direct approach of abstinence because of christian beliefs, participant 6 (female, urban school demographic) illustrates a more contextual approach that accommodates diversity of views and religion. this once again links with the manner in which the caps opens space for debate and critical conversation, or as in the previous participant’s narrative, a space for the personal interpretation in how sexuality content is addressed at practical level within the classroom: researcher: ‘and how do you bypass this personal bias? we all have a past. we all have experiences that have shaped our beliefs about homosexuality, about teenage pregnancies, abortion, sensitive issues. how do you bypass your own bias, your own religion that dictates certain things, and enter a classroom and then objectively start speaking about these sexual issues?’ participant 6: ‘it’s probably the hardest thing, but you have to tell them from the start if they ask you what your opinion is, tell them this is my opinion, my beliefs, not to influence you in any way, and many times they would ask me “what is your opinion ma’m?” and i would say this is my beliefs. i’m a christian and i believe this, and this, and this, and it’s not judging what you believe and that’s a big thing. they want to know that you do not judge them in how they think life should be or situation should be, or lifestyle should be.’ participants 6 and 10 are situated within the same school; however, both reflect different manners of approaching sexuality education from the vantage point of their own backgrounds and culture. probing further into how participant 10 teaches from the positioning of a perspective based on abstinence only, it becomes evident that the broader community and system are directly linked to the manner in which educators approach subjects during classroom practice, as well as the perception of educators as to their spatial movement and freedom to mediate content freely. consider, for instance, the below narrative in which the educator reflects on spatial limitations to her approaching sexuality education to include community level boundaries, specifically the geographical context between urban and rural spaces, as well as parental level boundaries that mediate the space within which her content is positioned: ‘for us it is definitely the environment the (learners) grow up in, you cannot compare the education we would do here to the education you would do in a township school. the (learners) here are informed. i think what also influences me is that i’m the parent of two teenagers and i know the issues and i understand how they see things, and then also, keeping in mind that if i as a parent would agree or like when my daughter comes home that this is what the teacher did discuss. a simple example, for instance, we had a discussion in the grade 10 class; there was a case study in the book about oral sex and after class two girls came to me and said they don’t know what oral sex is, can i please explain it to them. and i was quite careful because i don’t know if the parents would want them to know that yet. although when i thought about it again, i was wondering if they really didn’t know, and if they did that to get me to feel uncomfortable. it was a confusing situation. i don’t know if your parents would be comfortable with their kids learning these things from someone else.’ (participant 6, female, urban school demographic) the above narrative from participant 6 in an urban setting is confirmed by the narrative between participant 8 (male, rural school demographic) and the researcher, a school principal within a rural setting in the free state province. the below narrative reflects how the positioning of sexuality education is specific to the setting where the school is located, thus creating specific contextual boundaries to the type of content and approach to teaching that is undertaken during life orientation: participant 8: ‘well it’s a lot on reproduction, reproduction in terms of how we need to conduct ourselves, especially the learners … the information that need to be disseminated, the safety in terms of what would be the repercussions if you indulge in unsafe sex. these are the things we focus on.’ researcher: ‘so is that what your life orientations focus on?’ participant 8: ‘yes’ researcher: ‘so if i would ask you abstinence versus comprehensive sexuality education, would you lean more towards the abstinence counterpart?’ participant 8: ‘yes, it plays a crucial role. but given the time and age we are living in now, it is so difficult to control it. most of our learners are teenagers. they become sexually active at a very early age. i am not really sure whether it is because of the family backgrounds or what. some of them are child-headed children and no parents.’ participant 6 earlier referred to the informed nature of the learners within her class, stipulating that the education at the school where she teaches will differ from that in townships and rural settings. through a second-order cybernetic perspective, and adopting a ‘why’ lens, i question whether learners in different settings are truly more or less informed in comparison, and whether the information and relevance thereof are rather different and contextually applicable. this once again indicates that knowledge is contextual, and that schools are contextually different in both place and space, thus forming different boundaries to sexuality education. however, all schools fall under the broader boundaries of the free state and south africa as a whole. this is clear from the narrative between participant 4 (male, rural school demographic) and the researcher, specifically stating that there are geographical boundaries to the teaching of sexuality education: participant 4: ‘the community was having an influence on the school, based on my observation and experience. it was far east of the free state. it is a rural place, it is one secondary and one primary. the learners, they are not exposed to maybe to…what is happening. so you realise that they are stuck to change. so the school tried to bring change, but they are resistant to that change.’ researcher: ‘can you give me an example perhaps?’ participant 4: ‘let me make a practical example. for example, in that place there is a culture amongst the black community, the initiation culture. and they will tell you that you must go there in order for you to be a man, and now these learners when they get to school, they don’t want to accept the authority of teachers because culture has given them a view that they have the authority, they are men.’ culture once again becomes evident as a strong mediator as to how sexuality education is introduced within the classroom. the above narrative had convinced me to further probe into how gender differences of teachers may cause limitations to sexuality education. participant 9 (female, rural school demographic) articulated this to the researcher when asked about how the initiation culture influences her classroom practice. it is also important to note that a new stakeholder is introduced, namely, the community leader; this is a specific strategy employed by the school within a rural area. this lends validity to how different systems manifest and sustain sexuality education, and in turn that teachers are merely one of a myriad of stakeholders in the process. this was valuable in understanding how boys react to a female teacher teaching about sex and sexuality after they have undergone initiation, as well as their response to a female teacher: researcher: ‘have you had a specific situation that you can speak about how it implicated your classroom practice?’ participant 9: ‘in the other class i tried to introduce the issue and they just stood up and left. and then we had to talk to the community leader who is a male and then you invite them and talk to them and explain that this is in the curriculum, these are the things we need to talk about, they are not gender-based, they are more like trying to help the kids, it’s a life skills things.’ researcher: ‘and how receptive were the community leaders about this, and how open were they to adjusting their values?’ participant 9: ‘it’s how you approach them, like the one that we work with has an open mind, very flexible. i even invited him to one of the lessons as well and then i showed him what was in the book and, i am not trying to question what they are doing there. i am trying to give the learners the skills to be able to cope with all of the challenges facing them.’ from the above-mentioned narrative, it is noticeable that a multi-stakeholder approach is implemented in the process of sexuality education. the managerial aspect of opening the fluidity of boundaries between the school and the community becomes clear. this aligns with cybernetics in that new information can lead to systemic change, thus allowing for feedback that allows the system to adapt to expected standards. while participant 8 (male, rural school demographic) early indicated to the researcher that, as school principal, he advocates abstinence, this does not cause the school system to remain unchanged. the principal drew on external sources which proved valuable, allowing for positive feedback to occur within the school: participant 8: ‘the main focus was on grade 8, and the objective thereof was to try and demonstrate to the learners the difficulty of having a child. what they did was to provide them with cell phones and dolls. and this approach, i mean, it was for communication. even at night, when they were at home, they called these learners to say feed the child. it was like a role play. when a child cries, what to do, such things. feed the child; take the child to the doctor, the financial implications involved regarding raising the child.’ researcher: ‘in order to curb them from initiating sex, and then just at community level, how receptive has the community been because the school resides in a specific community and what you implement here would not always work in other schools? how did the community respond?’ participant 8: ‘it was positive because we started with the parents. we have to involve the parents. actually, we invited all the parents who were going to be involved. we gave them the reasons as to the main purpose of the research and all the parents agreed and pledged their support for the programme. and i must confess in the beginning it yielded results, but since we stopped it … it was on the side of the university … the initiators, there is a very high level of pregnancy as we speak. on average here, per term, we have about five learners who fall pregnant. this is very high in my view. and i am talking about not only higher grades, from grade 9 or even grade 8 we do have those who are pregnant now.’ these narratives are indicative of the need to expand the space within which sexuality education takes place. it is therefore needed to not isolate the process to the classroom itself, but to involve stakeholders, such as parents and intuitions, in the process in order to allow for successful teachings to manifest. the dominant discourse of the teachers within rural areas emphasised the need to include the community and external sources. it is interesting to note from the following narrative that an urban school managerial team sustains the system internally, and that the school has a multi-stakeholder account of the dynamics within the school itself: ‘the school governing body governs by means of approving policies. they govern by determining the curriculum and extracurricular activities offered by the school, so the school policy is the first way governing content, where you must understand that the senior management team, or first the executive team including myself and the two deputies, then communicate to the senior management team, and then we also have grade heads in place for different grades, because of the different developmental stages of the girls, and then we have the subject teachers, so, even though the governors determine an approve policy, the practical implementation happens on educator level.’ (participant 1, female, urban school demographic) participant 10, a school principal within an urban context, also draws on the limitations of the teacher in teaching sexuality education. the participant reflects on broadening the space within which sexuality education is taught, encompassing community-based interventions to bridge the gaps of the teachers’ limited knowledge: ‘in classes … i see in life orientation it does cause the educator … the educators of life orientation cannot do that section, because of their personality and the way they feel about it, but what we’ve done before is you’ve got the groups together and you talk to them. the boys together and the girls together, separated. so you get people to come talk about that. i think the biggest drawback in class at this stage is the educator having to conduct that lesson on sexuality and that’s where you get a roadblock, always, because you got a mixed class. (participant 10, female, urban school demographic) i, however, question the approach undertaken by the school in separating boys and girls. the principal reflects on the limitations of the teacher in approaching a mixed class of boys and girls, and thus to intervene with programmes that create separate spaces where male and female learners are educated. this itself creates little space for learners to converse and learn about differences, and further dichotomises gender as only being male or female. i challenge this method of separation, in line with francis (2017), in that schools are often places of gender categorisation, thus suggesting that gender diversity beyond the spectrum of male and female falls silent (swanepoel & beyers 2015). the contextual manner of different schools also becomes clear through the following narratives. while i have argued the difference in sexuality education between different schools, it becomes evident that the contextual space of the province also plays an important role. consider, for example, how participants 9 and 10 reflect on the contextual differences related to provinces: ‘i would feel that the national department would allow the provincial department to interact and involve the community leaders in the different provinces based on how they feel. eastern cape it is okay, we are allowed, we know we have the head man, the chief, if you have permission from that you can go ahead with everything. but here in the free state it is a different story.’ (participant 9, female, rural school demographic) ‘with the majority sotho in the free state, so the majority in the free state. western cape is xhosa and coloured people. so when you come to the free state, you’ve got a sotho dominant population and this will differ from other cultures, definitely.’ (participant 10, female, urban school demographic) participant 6 referred to her previous teaching experience, drawing on how the differences in contexts mediate her teachings. she compares the type of teachings in johannesburg to her current context of the free state: ‘it’s very open, liberal, accepted, rough, and out there, whereas here it’s very narrow minded. it’s like kids live in a box.’ (participant 6, female, urban school demographic) from the above narratives and discussion, it becomes clear that the context of schools largely influences how sexuality education manifests and ultimately how the teacher responds to both the curriculum and learners. this context is shaped by the geographical underpinning of the school, which in turn reflects individual challenges, within the school and outside, specifically reminiscent of cybernetics and how the schools system is constantly responding to community-based input, as well as wider scale influences, such as the sociopolitical and historical influences from the province and the country as a whole. each school, whether within the same province or same country, will be uniquely situated within a context that elicits different challenges with different systems responding thereto with different boundaries and reactions which either influence new information to enter the system or cause rejection thereof to retain systemic integrity. conclusion the aim of this article was to investigate the question ‘how do schools, from a systemic level, mediate sexuality education in relation to space, place and culture?’ through the use of firstand second-order cybernetics, it was found that place, space and culture are core themes that create boundaries for sexuality education. within the themes of space, place and culture, there are various factors that further influence sexuality education, specifically the background knowledge and culture of teachers, religious underpinning of learners and teachers, and the contextual geographic of the place within which schools are located. space and place are interrelated concepts, and thus sexuality education must be understood as a contextually based concept that is located within specific spaces. such spaces are governed by south african benchmark expectations of social justice and inclusivity source. however, at practical level, it is not feasible to standardise the type of sexuality education that is taught. the study further found that sexuality education is not located solely within the life orientation classroom, but extends to the school system and beyond for a systemic multi-stakeholder space where stakeholders such as parents and the community become integral role players in attaining systemic stability and providing sexuality education that is contextually relevant while upholding democratic national policies and curricular expectations. this study reflects the necessity of contextuality-based research that supports the individual challenges of schools within the wider suprasystem of south africa, with more researches needed to better understand how schools in different cities and provinces respond to challenges in unique ways. furthermore, the need for educators to be aware of how their own background and context influence their classroom practice is also important, which calls on teachers and stakeholders to concisely interact in order to maintain open system boundaries that lead to positive change, as well as to identify the negative processes that the school system faces and realise the need to consider the broader system (community, city and provincial) factors that influence sexuality education at individual level. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions e.s. contributed 51% of the article and c.b. contributed 49%. dr c. beyers was the supervisor of e.s. references ahmed, n., flisher, a.j., mathews, c., mukoma, w. & jansen, s., 2009, ‘hiv education in south african schools: the dilemma and conflicts of educators’, scandinavian journal of 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(no. 17678). vavrus, m., 2009, ‘sexuality, schooling, and teacher identity formation: a critical pedagogy for teacher education’, teaching and teacher education 25(3), 383–390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2008.09.002 weeks, f.h., 2012, ‘the quest for a culture of learning: a south african schools perspective’, south african journal of education 32(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v32n1a565 woolley, s.w., 2017, ‘contesting silence, claiming space: gender and sexuality in the neo-liberal public high school’, gender and education 29(1), 84–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1197384 abstract introduction contextualisation of the study methodological aspects sample and data collection discussion of results theoretical contributions practical implications limitations and directions for future research acknowledgements references about the author(s) eugine t. maziriri department of business management, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa citation maziriri, e.t., 2020, ‘the big five personality traits influencing habitual facebook usage, life satisfaction and psychological well-being of generation y students’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a751. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.751 original research the big five personality traits influencing habitual facebook usage, life satisfaction and psychological well-being of generation y students eugine t. maziriri received: 19 aug. 2019; accepted: 28 may 2020; published: 28 july 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this research determined five big personality traits that influenced south african generation y students’ habitual use of facebook, life satisfaction and psychological well-being. the research embraced a quantitative approach, and a structured questionnaire was used to obtain information from generation y students. the data were analysed using smart pls software version 3.2.7 for partial least square structural equation modelling (pls-sem). neuroticism, extraversion, openness and agreeableness had positive and significant influences on habitual facebook usage (hfu). however, conscientiousness seemed to have a positive yet insignificant relationship with hfu. habitual use of facebook has been found to have a positive and significant impact on life satisfaction and psychological well-being. it was also determined that life satisfaction positively and significantly influences psychological well-being. the exogenous-to-endogenous outcomes from the structural model coincided with most of prior study’s findings. therefore, in the light of the associated literature, the findings were discussed. this study is intended to add a fresh understanding to the current body of africa’s personality, psychology and social media literature – a context that has received little research attention in developing nations. keywords: neuroticism; extraversion; openness; agreeableness; conscientiousness; habitual facebook usage; life satisfaction; psychological well-being. introduction individuals can be categorised based on various parameters, such as their height, weight, gender, age, generation and level of education, as well as their character (naude et al. 2016). furthermore, bergh (2009) confirmed that personality is probably one of the most significant fields to be regarded in the research on human nature and differences, as well as similarities between individuals. the best personality domain can be best defined by the five factor model (ffm) using the big five personality dimensions (acopio & bance 2016). this model conceptualises the hierarchy of personality traits in a series of five simple dimensions, namely, neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness (ali 2019; mhlanga 2019; szcześniak, sopińska & kroplewski 2019). as this model has identified its utility for both clinical methods and empirical research projects (costa & mccrae 1992), this study aims to use it as a theoretical basis for generating projections among the above-mentioned variables. precisely, this research explains how the ownership of certain personality traits by generation y facebook users will affect their usual use of facebook as well as the extent to which its use affects the fulfilment of their lives and their psychological well-being as students. johnson (2015) argued that it is worth exploring how the characteristics of an individual can contribute to facebook habits because of the interactivity available in today’s media. in spite of the ability to provide important insights into personality traits, it is essential to note that there is still a shortage of empirical evidence of relationships between neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, habitual facebook usage (hfu), life satisfaction and psychological well-being. consequently, further scholarly introspections are considered necessary. much of what is written on the subject is based on samples from developed countries such as india, malaysia, turkey, norway, finland and canada, among others. for example, among students enrolled for the bachelor of technology (b.tech) degree in india, murugesan and jayavelu (2017) examined the influence of big five personality traits and self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intention (murugesan & jayavelu 2017). furthermore, lotfi et al. (2016) explored the impact of personality traits (extraversion, openness, awareness, agreeability and neuroticism) on knowledge-sharing conduct among students at a malaysian public university. furthermore, in 10 smalland medium-sized hotels located in turkey, yesil and sozbilir (2013) determined the impact of personality features on the individual innovation conduct of 215 staff. in addition, vaag, sund and bjerkeset (2018) determined five-factor personality profiles among norwegian musicians, compared with the general workforce. furthermore, heinström (2003) also performed a survey focussed on the connection between five dimensions of personality and their impact on finnish students’ data behaviour. in addition, oyibo, orji and vassileva (2017) examined the impact of personality traits among a sample of 216 canadians on cialdini’s persuasive approaches. in spite of the increasing body of personality trait research, there is still a lack of comprehension of the effect of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness on hfu, life satisfaction, as well as psychological well-being of south african generation y students. previous academics have performed their research in different environments within the south african context, by concentrating on the role of the five major variables in predicting job creation propensities among administrative staff in a south african tertiary institution (bell & njoli 2016); the connection between personality dimensions and work performance of staff of a corporate pharmacy group in the north west province, the free state, mpumalanga and gauteng (rothmann & coetzer 2003); the connection between the five major personality characteristics and burnout in south african college learners (morgan & de bruin 2010); assessment of personality characteristics connected with work satisfaction among south african anaesthetists using the big five inventory (kisten & kluyts 2018); exploration of personality characteristics, carefulness and feeling of consistency among females in greater schooling south africa (mayer, surtee & visser 2016); and personality characteristics and resilience as predictors of work pressure and burnout among call centre workers (lamb 2009). while these studies are informative, they did not examine how neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness influence hfu, life satisfaction and psychological well-being of generation y students in south africa. this article therefore helps to tackle the gap by using a sample of generation y students from a context in a developing country. very few (if any) researchers have used structural equation modelling (sem) to test the relationships of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, hfu, life satisfaction and psychological well-being of south african generation y students. with regard to the conceptual model proposed in this study, it can be noted that it is one of a kind, as no previous study has tested the variables in the proposed model in relation to the south african context to the best knowledge of the researcher. this article is organised as follows: firstly, a study context is given, followed by a theoretical model and a creation of the hypothesis. the research design and methodology are then presented, followed by a presentation of the results and the discussion. the final sections of the article discuss the implications, limitations and future research directions. contextualisation of the study facebook facebook exists as a virtual community that enables users to belong to different communities created on the network to enable social requirements to be met (viljoen, dube & murisi 2016). according to bevan-dye and akpojivi (2016), facebook has experienced phenomenal development, and in south africa, the site is particularly popular among young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are part of the generation y cohort (persons born between 1986 and 2005). in 2019, facebook reported almost 1.58 billion daily active users, and there were more than 2 billion monthly active users in july 2019 (statista 2019). hence, there has been a rapid expansion in the use of facebook, and it has become an international phenomenon (foroughi et al. 2019). facebook is of great importance in young consumers’ decision-making (chininga et al. 2019). in addition, chakraborty (2016) confirmed the positive influences of using facebook on individuals’ social lives, such as forming new relationships, bonding, social capital, and improving and maintaining real friendship networks. moreover, houghton, pressey and istanbulluoglu (2019) found facebook use drives satisfaction with life based on connections with other users – akin to the need of belonging – again suggesting that satisfaction is achieved on the fulfilment of needs. the motivation and significance of choosing generation y students jariangprasert et al. (2019) stated that generation y is technology savvy and a visually advanced generation, making it easy for them to adapt to the advent of new technology and use it from a very young age. as this generation grew up in the digital era, technology has always played a key role in their lives (van deventer & lues 2019). therefore, it is not surprising that generation y spends a significant amount of time shopping on the internet, interacting with social networking sites (snss), staying up to date on the latest news and trends, and having fun (van deventer & lues 2019). in addition, participation of generation y students is essential for social networking studies, given that chu and kim (2011:58) claimed that students constitute the majority of users of snss, with facebook being reported as the most common online snss among higher education institution (hei) students (cheung, chiu & lee 2011). moreover, bevan-dye and akpojivi (2015) asserted that the generation y cohort uses facebook as a platform to interact with friends and family, to discover and connect with colleagues and to express their views and opinions. the above-mentioned contention offers evidence that it is essential to examine the generation y cohort. theoretical model and hypotheses formulation drawing on the above, the study’s research model was developed (figure 1). the theoretical model illustrates the suggested interconnection of eight constructs, namely, neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, habitual facebook use, life satisfaction and psychological well-being. the relationships between the proposed constructs in the theoretical model are as follows: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness provide the starting point of the model and directly affect habitual facebook use which, in turn, induces life satisfaction and psychological well-being. finally, the theoretical model proposes that life satisfaction will lead to psychological well-being. the following sections will review the literature on the study’s main variables. moreover, the hypothesised connections between the study variables are discussed in the subsequent sections based on past studies and logically deriving from prior results. figure 1: theoretical model. neuroticism and habitual facebook usage neuroticism, or low emotional stability, refers to the tendency to experience negative emotions and the behaviours that accompany them (peral & geldenhuys 2020). neurotic people have an anxious general predisposition and a tendency to worry (mehroof & griffiths 2010). previous empirical studies have shown substantial evidence of the positive relationship between neuroticism and electronic word-of-mouth of social media advertisements (dodoo & padovano 2020), welfare state attitudes (tepe & vanhuysse 2020) and online video ads sharing intention (choi 2020). however, within the context of this study, it is important to understand how neuroticism influences hfu among generation y students. hence, this study will close this gap by empirically testing the relationship of these two variables. neuroticism is central to and a predictor of snss’ use and engagement (blackwell et al. 2017; ul islam et al. 2017). facebook users with a high level of neuroticism regularly use the site, typically revisiting it frequently, but staying linked for a short time (correa et al. 2013). this behavioural pattern may lead from elevated rates of anxiety in people with greater neuroticism characteristics, which may be explained by an enhanced need for social support (ross et al. 2009). indeed, highly neurotic people are more likely to use the web to decrease solitude (butt & phillips 2008). drawing from the preceding theoretical discussion and also in line with the empirical evidence on neuroticism and hfu, this study hypothesises that: h1: neuroticism positively and significantly impacts habitual facebook usage among generation y students. extraversion and habitual facebook usage extraversion is described as a person’s propensity to seek stimulation and enjoy other people’s connection (ruzungunde & mjoli 2020). extraverts are energised by social interactions and are seen as outgoing, sociable and friendly people (peral & geldenhuys 2020). previous scholars have discovered extraversion as an antecedent or predictor of mutual investment decision (bindu 2020), self-reported competitiveness (fong, zhao & smillie 2020), customer engagement and relationship duration (itani, el haddad & kalra 2020). deducing from the aforementioned research studies, it can be noted that there is scant evidence in studies that have examined how extraversion would influence hfu. hence, this study will close this lacuna by empirically testing the nexus between extraversion and hfu. extraverts are also discovered using facebook to interact with friends and contacts as a means of social expansion (ryan & xenos 2011). extraverts are more likely to be frequent users of social media and display higher engagement with facebook (dodoo & padovano 2020). furthermore, moore and mcelroy (2012) also discovered a favourable connection in their research between the use of one’s facebook and the extraversion trait. extraverts are more likely to reach out and communicate on facebook with individuals; they are more involved in sharing their whereabouts, their emotions with others and letting others react to them (sharma & jaswal 2015). extraverts are more involved in political problems by exchanging pictures with others via facebook (quintelier & theocharis 2013). consequently, drawing from the above discussion and past empirical evidence, the current study hypothesises that: h2: extraversion positively and significantly impacts habitual facebook usage among generation y students. openness and habitual facebook usage openness is a trait that describes outgoing, excited and daring individuals who love challenges (jeronimus et al. 2014). it defines people who are open to changing their own outlook and what they want from others (mondak 2010). previous empirical studies of different contexts have shown a positive association between openness and individuals’ willingness to pay for organic food (gustavsen & hegnes 2020), visitor’s experience, emotional stimulation and behaviour (leri & theodoridis 2020), and attitudes towards homosexuality (metin-orta & metin-camgöz 2020). against the aforementioned background, within the context of this study, it is important to understand how openness would influence hfu among generation y students. hence, there is a need to close this gap by assessing the association between openness and hfu. openness to experience has been found to be associated with sns use (muscanell & guadagno 2012), as it entices people who are open to experiences (correa, hinsley & zúñiga 2010). sharma and jaswal (2015) discovered a beneficial connection between experience openness and use of facebook. highly open-minded individuals prefer internet interaction, likely because of facebook’s characteristic of meeting fresh individuals with distinct interests and who are geographically dispersed (correa et al. 2010). in addition, quercia et al. (2012) found openness as related to the use of facebook facilities. as a result, the current study hypothesises that: h3: openness positively and significantly impacts habitual facebook usage among generation y students. agreeableness and habitual facebook usage agreeableness places people on a continuum regarding their concern for social harmony (ruzungunde & mjoli 2020). previous research, which has been conducted in different contexts, has shown substantial evidence of the positive relationship between agreeableness and students’ preferred learning styles at higher education (akbar, khanam & manzoor 2020); entrepreneurial intention (kristanto & pratama 2020); and coachability, athletic ability, game performance, team playerness, work ethic and overall sports performance among university athletes (habib, waris & afzal 2020). however, within the context of this study, it is important to understand how agreeableness influences hfu among generation y students. hence, this study will close this gap by empirically testing the relationship of these two variables. according to sharma and jaswal (2015), individuals who are highly agreeable will also be more willing to use internet, particularly facebook, through which one can communicate with others. it is discovered that pleasant people are more driven to keep beneficial interactions with others (campbell & graziano 2004). facebook’s sns is about maintaining healthy relationships with others, interacting with them and maintaining a positive attitude towards them (sharma & jaswal 2015). in addition, amichai-hamburger and vinitzky (2010) discovered that agreeableness is positively related to making comments on facebook. drawing from the aforementioned elucidations and empirical evidence, it can be hypothesised that: h4: agreeableness positively and significantly impacts habitual facebook usage among generation y students. conscientiousness and habitual facebook usage conscientiousness is described as an individual’s inclination to demonstrate self-discipline and strive for skill and accomplishment (greenberg 2011). conscientiousness categorises people into those who are rational, informed and consider themselves to be competent (terblanche & heyns 2020). this personality dimension is clarified by limited characteristics such as being well organised, cautious, self-disciplined, accountable and accurate at the high end and being disorganised, impulsive, careless and undependable at the low end (bell & njoli 2016). previous scholars have discovered conscientiousness as an antecedent or predictor of academic performance (mccredie & kurtz 2020), motivation for academic goals (werner et al. 2019) and as a symptom of insomnia (akram et al. 2019). deducing from the aforementioned research studies, it can be noted that there is scant evidence in studies that have examined how conscientiousness would influence hfu. hence, this study will close this lacuna empirically testing the nexus between conscientiousness and hfu. conscientiousness has been discovered to be substantially linked to the quality and amount of interpersonal relationships, indicating that conscientious people may use facebook to search for and retain social associations (sediman 2013). ross et al. (2009), however, failed to provide empirical assistance for such proposals, finding no important correlation between awareness and the use of facebook. in addition, wehrli (2008) noted that extremely conscientious individuals are not going to devote intense attention or much time to snss like facebook. the present study therefore hypothesised the following: h5: conscientiousness negatively and insignificantly impacts habitual facebook usage among generation y students. habitual facebook usage and life satisfaction habitual facebook use is described as the automatic consumption and use of the said social media platform, which grows as people constantly and routinely access, communicate and use facebook because of the gratification it provide (vishwanath 2014). this definition is consistent with the present thinking about habitual media use from the view point of media participation, wherein habits are seen to be acquired by repeating media consumption in stable conditions (larose 2010). previous empirical studies of different contexts have shown positive association between hfu and academic distraction of college students (feng et al. 2019); knowledge sharing, habit and obligation (shava & chinyamurindi 2018); and social support (pornsakulvanich 2020). against the aforementioned background, within the context of this study, it is important to understand how hfu would influence life satisfaction usage among generation y students. hence, there is a need to close this gap by assessing the association between hfu and life satisfaction. ellison, steinfield and lampe (2007) found that using facebook has a positive influence on the overall life satisfaction of college students. indian and grieve (2014) reported that social support received from facebook positively predicted life satisfaction among people with high social anxiety levels. similarly, the research by ong and lin (2015) showed that facebook use has a valuable connection with life satisfaction. the following hypothesis has therefore been developed: h6: habitual facebook usage positively and significantly impacts life satisfaction of generation y students. habitual facebook usage and psychological well-being farrington (2017) defined psychological well-being as the ‘perception of addressing the existential problems of life’, while winefield et al. (2012) defined it as a mixture of favourable affective states such as happiness and functioning with ideal effectiveness in individual and social life. levels of psychological well-being are likely to rely on an individual’s internal conditions and the resources and difficulties they face (farrington 2017). wright and cropanzano (2000) pointed out that the advantages of psychological well-being include a rise in the cognitive functioning and health of an individual, and eventually the happy functioning of society. past empirical studies, which have been conducted in various contexts, provide substantial evidence of positive relationship between psychological well-being and perceived organisational support, career goal development and empowering leadership (maziriri, chuchu & madinga 2019); experiencing love in everyday life (oravecz et al. 2020); and social capital among university students (abbas et al. 2020). however, within the context of this study, it is important to understand how hfu influences the psychological well-being of generation y students. hence, this study will close this gap by empirically testing the relationship of these two variables. in the context of this research, it may be observed that when satisfied with their lives, generation y students show favourable psychological well-being. in their research aimed at determining the connection between facebook use and psychological well-being for baccalaureate nursing students at benha university (zaki, sayed and elattar 2018), they discovered an extremely statistically important connection between psychological well-being and facebook usage. for this reason, it can be posited that: h7: habitual facebook usage positively and significantly impacts the psychological well-being of generation y students. life satisfaction and psychological well-being life satisfaction is the mental assessment of the distances between what people want to accomplish and the hedonic profits they have (çikrıkci 2016). life satisfaction has been associated with many beneficial results. more favourable academic expectations enhanced academic self-efficacy, ensured higher perceived progress towards objectives and less academic stress, all of which were associated with life satisfaction (o’sullivan 2011). in terms of its attributions, buetell (2006) linked life satisfaction to an array of personality, genetic and social-cognitive influences, such as goal-directed behaviour. however, lucas-carrasco and salvador-carulla (2012) attributed life satisfaction to self-efficacy, while bastug and duman (2010) associated it with outcome expectations and support from the environment, and koohsar and bonab (2011) related it to intellectual skills. life satisfaction can also focus on specific life areas such as physical health, wealth, mental health, social relationships and a general sense of achievement (ye, yu & li 2012). referring to its effect, life satisfaction has been reported to be linked to a number of personal and organisational factors, such as self-esteem (rode 2004), personality traits (zhang & howell 2011), work and family roles (zhao, qu & ghiselli 2011) and job satisfaction (mafini & dlodlo 2014). this study postulates that the life satisfaction is associated with psychological well-being. this view is in line with rathore, kumar and gautam (2015) who determined the effect of life satisfaction on the psychological well-being of physicians working at sawai man singh (sms) medical college and jaipur dental college in india, and their findings showed that life satisfaction was an important predictor of physicians’ psychological well-being. in addition, the connection between life satisfaction and well-being was examined by leung, cheung and liu (2011), and life satisfaction appears to be linked to well-being. nonetheless, when drawing from the above-mentioned arguments, which are grounded on empirical evidence, this study hypothesises that: h8: life satisfaction positively and significantly impacts the psychological well-being of generation y students. methodological aspects for this study, the research philosophy was positivism. a quantitative research method has therefore been used for this study. the design was appropriate for requesting the necessary data on neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, hfu, life satisfaction and psychological well-being. furthermore, the strategy allows one to investigate the causal relationships with the constructs used in the research. sample and data collection this research was conducted among generation y students from the south african business and technology institute in braamfontein, johannesburg, which is within the gauteng province of south africa. this research used generation y students as the sample, as this generation is considered to be the most technically knowledgeable population group, and college students are recognised as the early adopters of any new technology (hwang 2017). at the time of data collection, the students included in the sample had to be active, registered students. a primary identifier of this criterion was the student card with the name and year of enrolment of each student. a list of the registered students has been used as a sampling frame in the database of the institute. this study therefore used a simple random sampling technique because each element of the population had an equal and known chance of being selected as part of the sample (weideman 2014); for example, each name in the list of students registered in the database of the institute had an equal chance of being selected. the questionnaires made it clear that the respondents’ anonymity would be assured and that the research was for educational purposes only. the sample size raosoft calculator was used to calculate the sample size (raosoft inc. 2004). the calculation considered the total student population enrolment of approximately 450, a 5% margin of error, 90% interval of confidence and the recommended 50% distribution, and returned a minimum sample size of 208 respondents. of the 208 questionnaires distributed, 200 questionnaires returned were usable, resulting in a response rate of 96.1%. measurement instrument and questionnaire design the variables under investigation were operationalised from previous studies. modifications to the scales were made to reflect the study context of facebook usage. the measurement scales, items used, sources and the cronbach’s alpha values for the scales are indicated in table 1. the scale indicators were affixed to a strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) likert-scale continuum. table 1: measurement scales and their sources. respondent profile table 2 shows participant representation. the respondents were asked to report their demographic information, including age, gender and year of study. most of the respondents were aged between 18 and 22 years (46.5%), followed by those aged between 23 and 27 years (32.5%) and aged between 28 and 33 years (21%), the smallest group. table 2 also shows respondents’ gender. most respondents were female, representing 50% of the total population of the study, followed by 37.5% male respondents and 12.5% of the respondents who did not disclose their gender. table 1 also illustrates respondents’ year of study. most respondents were second-year students (39%), followed by third-year students (29%), first-year students (22%) and postgraduate students (10%). table 2: sample demographic characteristics. statistical analysis procedure the investigator used the statistical package for social science (spss) version 25 to evaluate the data pertaining to the geographical profile of the respondents, while, on the contrary, the latest software version of smart-pls 3.2.7 was used to analyse the data captured, as pls-sem was preferred to covariance-based sem because of its improved statistical power in parameter estimates and the maximisation of understood variance (tajvidi et al. 2018); less compatible than competitive relatives are pls-sem and cb-sem (rigdon, ringle & sarstedt 2010; sarstedt, ringle & hair 2014). nevertheless, pls-sem was originally known for its higher prediction over cb-sem (hair et al. 2017), although the approximate gaps between the two techniques are quite different. pls-sem is analogous to multiple regression analysis and is considered suitable for simultaneous estimation of relationships between one or more independent and dependent variables. this feature makes pls-sem especially valuable for research purposes in exploration (henseler 2017). pls-sem incorporates path coefficients, multi-linear regression and confirmatory factor analysis (cfa), which is a multivariate research technique of the second generation. this describes the variability in dependent variables by using structural template analysis (hair et al. 2010, 2017). partial least squares structural equation modelling works for complex models involving moderation, small samples and are less prone to ordinary multivariate data (vlajčić et al. 2018). this research study adopted a reflective measurement model in which measurements represent latent variables and the direction of the connection is from the construct or latent variable to the measure (diamantopoulos & winklhofer 2001). the statistical analysis performed in this study includes measures such as: (1) measurement model – testing of reliability analysis and validity analysis, and (2) structural model analysis – examining the path coefficients between observed coefficients. reliability analysis table 3 specifies the different measures that were used to assess the reliability and validity of the constructs for the study. table 3: scale accuracy analysis. measurement model assessment the outer model was assessed first by values of composite reliability (cr) (to assess internal consistency), outer loadings (to assess indicator reliability) and average variance extracted (to assess convergent validity). composite reliability is an appropriate measure of internal consistency reliability because it accounts for the different outer loadings of the indicator variables, whereas cronbach’s alpha assumes all indicators to be equally reliable (hair et al. 2016). it is vital to indicate that on extraversion, one item was deleted, which is ex1, and on conscientiousness, one item was also deleted, which is co1, because of the fact that the outer loadings were less than 0.5 (anderson & gerbing 1988). it is imperative to mention that the indicator items from the aforementioned variables that were dropped resulted in improved reliability and validity of those variables. for the other research constructs, the lowest value for each respective item load was 0.698. the recommended value of 0.5 (anderson & gerbing 1988) was consequently surpassed by all individual item loadings. this shows that all measuring instruments are satisfactory and reliable, as all items met the convergent validity thresholds and with more than 50% of the variance of each item shared with their respective constructs (fraering & minor 2006). as shown in table 2, the cronbach’s alpha test results ranged between 0.701 and 0.927, which is above the 0.70 benchmark for acceptable internal consistency reliability (field 2013). as revealed in table 3, the lowest cr value of 0.811 is well above the suggested value of 0.6 (hulland 1999), while the lowest obtained average variance extracted (ave) value of 0.670 is also above the recommended value of 0.4 (anderson & gerbing 1988). this shows the accomplishment of convergent validity, and this further confirms the excellent internal consistency and reliability of the measuring instruments used. as such, a sufficient level of discriminating validity was revealed by all the variables. these results have generally provided evidence of acceptable levels of reliability of the research scale (chinomona & chinomona 2013). according to field (2013), discriminant validity refers to items measuring different concepts. table 4 presents the results of the discriminant validity analysis. table 4: discriminant validity (hetero-trait-monotrait-ratio). in terms of discriminant validity, all the correlation coefficients of this study fell below 0.70, thereby confirming the theoretical uniqueness of each variable in this research (field 2013). in addition, discriminant validity was evaluated using the hetero-trait-monotrait ratio (htmt) criterion (table 2), in spite of recommendations from previous studies (henseler, hubona & ray 2016; verkijika & de wet 2018), indicating that htmt is more suitable to evaluate discriminant validity than fornell–larcker’s commonly used criteria. when taking a more conservative position, discriminant validity is reached when the htmt value is below 0.9 or 0.85 (neneh 2019; verkijika & de wet 2018). table 2 reveals that the highest obtained htmt value is 0.645, which is below the conservative value of 0.85. as such, all the constructs meet the criteria for discriminant validity. structural model assessment inner model (structural model) (figure 2) was assessed to test the relationship between the endogenous and exogenous variables. the path coefficients were obtained by applying a non-parametric, boot-strapping routine (vinzi et al. 2010), with 261 cases and 5000 samples for the non-return model (two-tailed; 0.05 significance level; no sign changes). the fitness of the model was assessed using the standardised root mean square residual (srmr) based on the criteria that a good model should have an srmr value < 0.08 (henseler et al. 2016). the structural model in figure 2 had an srmr of 0.057, thus suggesting an adequate level of model fitness. in the model, the three endogenous variables (facebook usage, life satisfaction and psychological well-being) had r2 values of 0.831, 0.753 and 0.874, respectively, suggesting sufficient predictive accuracy of the structural model (figure 2). figure 2: structural model. outcome of hypotheses testing in this study, testing of hypotheses was conducted by path coefficient values, as well as the t-values for the structural model obtained from the bootstrapping algorithm. according to beneke and blampied (2012), t-values indicate whether a significant relationship exists between variables in the model and path coefficients, demonstrating the strength of the relationships in the model. figure 2 and table 4 show the standardised path coefficients and their corresponding t-values. a statistically significant relationship is expected to have a t-value that exceeds 1.96 at a 5% level of significance (chin 1998). outcome of testing hypothesis 1: neuroticism and habitual facebook usage the primary hypothesis expresses that neuroticism positively and significantly impacts hfu among generation y students; in this examination, this assumption was reinforced. it can be seen in figure 2 and table 4 that neuroticism had a positive impact (β = 0.451) and was statistically significant (t = 3.137) in predicting hfu. this outcome proposes that the higher the level of neuroticism, the higher the level of hfu among generation y students. along these lines, this examination fails to dismiss h1. outcome of testing hypothesis 2: extraversion and habitual facebook usage the second hypothesis states that extraversion positively and significantly impacts hfu among generation y students. in this study, this supposition is upheld. it can be seen in figure 2 and table 4 that extraversion exerts a positive influence (β = 0.129) and was measurably significant (t = 1.973) in predicting hfu. this outcome endorses that the higher the level of extraversion, the higher the level of hfu among generation y students. subsequently, this investigation supports h2. outcome of testing hypothesis 3: openness and habitual facebook usage the third hypothesis states that openness positively and significantly impacts hfu among generation y students. in this examination, this hypothesis is upheld. figure 2 and table 4 indicate that openness exerts a positive impact (β = 0.331) and is significant (t = 5.984) in influencing hfu. this outcome acclaims that the higher the level of openness, the higher the level of hfu among generation y students. thus, this examination supports h3. outcome of testing hypothesis 4: agreeableness and habitual facebook usage the fourth hypothesis states that agreeableness positively and significantly impacts hfu among generation y students. this study supports this hypothesis. it can be observed in figure 2 and table 4 that agreeableness exerts a positive influence (β = 0.156) and is statistically significant (t = 1.994) in predicting hfu. this result suggests that the higher the level of agreeableness, the higher the level of hfu among generation y students. table 5: results of structural equation model analysis. outcome of testing hypothesis 5: conscientiousness and habitual facebook usage the fifth hypothesis states that conscientiousness negatively and insignificantly impacts hfu among generation y students. in this study, this hypothesis is supported. it can be observed in figure 2 and table 4 that conscientiousness exerts a weak positive influence (β = 0.056) and was statistically insignificant (t = 0.803) in predicting hfu. outcome of testing hypothesis 6: habitual facebook usage and life satisfaction the sixth hypothesis states that hfu positively and significantly impacts life satisfaction. in this study, this hypothesis is supported. it can be observed in figure 2 and table 4 that hfu exerts a positive influence (β = 0.868) and was statistically significant (t = 15.195) in predicting life satisfaction. outcome of testing hypothesis 7: habitual facebook usage and psychological well-being the seventh hypothesis states that hfu positively and significantly impacts psychological well-being. in this study, this hypothesis is supported. it can be observed in figure 2 and table 4 that hfu exerts a positive influence (β = 0.423) and was statistically significant (t = 4.394) in predicting psychological well-being. this result suggests that hfu is instrumental in determining the psychological well-being of generation y students. outcome of testing hypothesis 8: life satisfaction and psychological well-being the eighth hypothesis states that life satisfaction positively and significantly impacts psychological well-being. in this study, this hypothesis is supported. it can be observed in figure 2 and table 4 that life satisfaction exerts a positive influence (β = 0.544) and was statistically significant (t = 6.736) in predicting psychological well-being. this result suggests that when generation y students are satisfied with their university life, it then enhances their psychological well-being. ethical consideration permission was obtained from the administration of the south african business and technology institute. the researcher acquired the letter of permission, which allowed him to collect information from the generation y students. the approval of ethical clearance was sincerely affirmed, and this study was conducted in compliance with the ethical standards of scholastic science, including, in addition to other issues, the protection of participants’ identities and the assurance of the confidentiality of collected data obtained from the participants. discussion of results the statistical analysis exposed that neuroticism positively and significantly impacts hfu among generation y students. this finding has ample support from previous empirical research studies, such as that conducted by hwang (2017), who discovered that college students with high neuroticism scores predicted facebook activities including sharing photos with others and updating their profiles. the findings of this study also authenticate the existence of a positive connection between extraversion and hfu. the results obtained in the current study are also not without empirical support. for instance, koseoglu (2015) found that extraversion was associated with the urge to use facebook to communicate with others. empirical evidence was also found in this research that confirmed that there is a positive association between openness and hfu. these results are in line with the works of bachrach et al. (2012) who discovered that openness is positively correlated with number of users’ likes, group associations and status updates on facebook, which paralleled to the openness characteristics such as seeking new things and ideas and sharing with their friends. it was also discovered that agreeableness positively and significantly impacts hfu among generation y students. the results obtained in the current study coincide with the works of sharma and jaswal (2015) who asserted that people with the agreeableness personality trait are more inclined towards the usage of the internet facilities, especially facebook through which one can interact with others. in this study, it was also discovered that conscientiousness negatively and insignificantly impacts hfu among generation y students. this result suggests that generation y students with a conscientiousness personality trait are not interested in using facebook. a plausible reason might be that conscientious individuals tend to keep away from social network sites (facebook) because these sites encourage procrastination and are considered a source of distraction from important tasks (butt & phillips 2008). the statistical analysis also exposed that hfu positively and significantly impacts life satisfaction. this result suggests that hfu is instrumental in determining the life satisfaction of generation y students. these findings mirror the work of valenzuela, park and kee (2009) who found a positive association between intensity of facebook use and students’ life satisfaction. the results of the analysis suggest that significant relationships can be found between hfu and psychological well-being. these results were like those reported by jung, pawlowski and kim (2017) who explored associations between young adults’ facebook use and psychological well-being. their findings explained the significant association of facebook use with well-being (jung et al. 2017). moreover, the results provide evidence that life satisfaction could predict psychological well-being. these results corroborate findings of a study conducted by guney (2009) that provided evidence that life satisfaction is strongly associated with psychological well-being. theoretical contributions as a result of the beneficial impact of personality traits on the hfu, the findings of this research would further help psychology academics who examine personality and its variations among people. in particular, within the framework of social media sites such as facebook, their knowledge of generation y personalities will be improved. for instance, this research has shown that students of the generation y cohort with a personality characteristic of conscientiousness are not interested in using facebook. therefore, further scholarly introspection should be performed by academics of personality psychology to find out what other aspects trigger the personality traits of generation y students with conscientiousness personality traits. in addition, the findings of the present research revealed that hfu is seen as having the greatest impact on life satisfaction as stated by a path coefficient value of 0.868. therefore, for academicians in the field of social media usage, this finding enhances their understanding of the relationship between hfu and life satisfaction, and this is a useful contribution to the existing literature on these two variables. practical implications on the practitioners’ side, the findings of this study provided the significant impact of life satisfaction on generation y students’ psychological well-being. therefore, this research argues that campus psychologists as well as campus counselling psychology interns who are accountable for providing psychological assistance to students can benefit from the consequences of these results by comprehensively understanding that facebook use brings on board satisfaction among students and ultimately enhances their psychological well-being. furthermore, the findings of the present research revealed that hfu is seen as having the greatest impact on life satisfaction as stated by a path coefficient value of 0.868, suggesting that campus or university leadership should provide facebook access to encourage socialisation among generation y students, as this eventually enhances their life satisfaction. limitations and directions for future research in spite of this study’s interesting results, its constraints are worthy of notice. firstly, the findings are not generalisable to non-student samples because students constituted the sample for gathering data. future study therefore requires considering non-students to generalise the outcomes. in addition, the present research was restricted to the province of gauteng in south africa, with the other provinces being excluded. this research should be replicated in other south african provinces and other developing countries for comparative outcomes. as other insightful results can be obtained, it is also vital to test the model with other generational cohorts like the generation z, generation x and baby boomers, which are less likely to be as techno-savvy as the generation y. in conclusion, the quantitative nature of the examination may have produced more illuminating and extravagant information, if a qualitative methodology was considered in this investigation. future examinations may, as necessary, explore indistinguishable points from the current examination using a blended process technique to improve the expansiveness of the outcomes of the examination. in addition, it was discovered that conscientiousness negatively and insignificantly impacts hfu among generation y students. this result suggests that generation y students with a conscientiousness personality trait are not interested in using facebook. a plausible reason might be that conscientious individuals tend to keep away from social network sites (facebook) because these sites encourage procrastination and are considered a source of distraction from important tasks (butt & phillips 2008). acknowledgements the author would like to thank the editor and all the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and feedback. the author is also thankful to the students who participated in this study. competing interests the author pronounces that he has no monetary or individual relationship that may have affected him improperly in composing this article. author’s contributions e.t.m. is the sole author of this research article. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article, as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references abbas, 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science, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa louise postma edu-h right research unit, faculty of education science, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa louisemarie combrink department of art history, faculty of humanities, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation dziwa, d.d., postma, l. & combrink, l., 2020, ‘gender conversations in zimbabwe: a precursor of male gaze in visual art practices’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a768. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.768 original research gender conversations in zimbabwe: a precursor of male gaze in visual art practices dairai d. dziwa, louise postma, louisemarie combrink received: 13 oct. 2019; accepted: 07 aug. 2020; published: 25 nov. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract masculine hegemonic predisposition dominates the gender culture in zimbabwe. from this perspective, the notion of the male gaze entails that visual interpretation, amongst other things, at encoding and decoding levels is consequently performed with a specific hegemonic ‘lens’. it follows that much of visual art, films and advertisements are created to please and reinforce a male-biased perspective which renders women powerless and subordinate. in the visual arts, this is particularly evident in the manner that the representation of space reflect this bias. guided by critical phenomenology, this study adopted an interpretive methodology informed by decolonial views to explore and challenge gender identity constructions in visual culture. engagement with gender literature and visual discourse analysis revealed the demeaning effects of patriarchy and also coloniality on women in much of zimbabwean art. the discourse of decolonial activist art opposes the male gaze and aims to disrupt the power dynamics which position women to be inferior or less visible in the public art space. this type of activist art is concerned with the possible critical transformative impact of the visual arts in contesting and resisting gender dichotomy, imbalances and inequality. keywords: male gaze; masculinity; hegemony; heteronormativity; gender construction; decoloniality; activist art. introduction the dominance of the male gaze or the androcentric view in art is an embodiment of a patriarchal ideology. the ideology of male privilege and domination is predicated on biased perceptions that artists and viewers bring to the interpretation of visual artworks. studies attest that zimbabwean gender constructions ascribe to patriarchy (chabaya, rembe & wadesango 2009; gordon 1994; gudhlanga, chirimuuta & bhukuvhani 2012; kamabarami 2006; parpart 1995). this article first peruses the prevalence of masculine hegemony, concomitant with discrimination and injustices perpetuated against women. secondly, visual discourse analysis of selected artworks demonstrates the rise of (de)colonial visual culture in zimbabwe, whether it is or it is not entrapped in a hegemonic male gaze. according to mulvey (1999), the notion of the male gaze suggests that male dominance and supremacy inherent in visual culture are reflections of the patriarchal ideologies held in that society (mulvey 1999). some reviews of visual culture in zimbabwe by mugambi (2008), samwanda (2013) and winter-irving (1994) concur with her views and reveal evidence of heteronormative power relations. this article demonstrates that patriarchal gender ideology influences the male gaze in visual art practices. however, the dichotomous and asymmetrical patriarchal gender constructions are challenged and contested in discourse and some artistic productions. the aims of this article are to create awareness of unequal gender constructions and representations to explore the inherent paradox of power discourse and multiple masculinities in visual culture and to critically engage with visuality in a decolonial context aimed at gender equality. artworks inevitably reflect the sentiments, desires and experiences of the culture in which they are produced and can, therefore, be agents of critical conscientisation and change (barnet 2010). conceptual and theoretical framework the conceptual and theoretical framework for this study is informed by cultural hegemonic theory (gramsci 1994; connell & messerschmidt 2005) and the male gaze (mulvey 1999) in visual interpretation. gender role stereotyping can be defined as the cultural association of men with strength, aggression and dominance and women with passivity, nurturing and subordination (bourdieu 2001; diamond 2002). related to this is the concept of heteronormativity, which butler (1991) problematises as the belief that people can be divided into distinct and complementary genders (masculinity and femininity) with ‘natural’ and biological determinist gender roles. heteronormativity, in this sense, is a form of gender stereotyping indexed by biological sex. gender constructions in the context of this article refer to dichotomous masculine and feminine roles and norms that concern hegemonic (superior) and challenging (concomitant subordinately represented) views. patriarchy and related cultural-hegemonic practices inform the asymmetrical power imbalances between men and women as embodiments of patriarchal gender culture (mutekwe & mobida 2014). ‘cultural hegemony’ describes the domination of societal practices by the dominant players in a culture who shape the pervasive beliefs, explanations, perceptions and values of that society (connell & messerschmidt 2005). the initial theoretical application of cultural domination was in the form of a marxist analysis of economic class (gramsci comes to mind in this regard) (gramsci 1994). cultural hegemony, in the context of the present article, describes a dominant social group, namely men, as the controller of the economy and other societal structures and refers to forms of supremacy obtained by some social, political, economic and religious groups (males) primarily by consent (thus naturalising hegemony) rather than coercion, and by moral and intellectual leadership rather than by domination. every social structure has its own common sense and its own good sense, and these are agreed upon in society (gramsci 1994). given such cultural hegemony, the girls and boys are predisposed to particular asymmetrical positions of power divisions that become entrenched as ‘knowledge’ and beliefs that have a bearing on perceptions and/or the interpretation of culture and its artefacts. masculinity, as a construct, is historically situated in conquest, domination and exploitation of foreign territories by higher powers, and is thus profoundly related to colonial practices of domination, as the colonial project and its aftermath highlight the presumed political, economic and cultural superiority of the colonisers over the colonised. there are multiple masculinities and power relations at play in a given society (connell & messerschmidt 2005). power is not solely conceptualised in terms of sexual differences because class difference, race and cultural capital and gender identity are also forms of masculine power (freud 1995). connell and messerchmidt (2005) maintain that ‘the hierarchy of masculinities is a pattern of hegemony, not a pattern of simple domination based on force’. there are, consequently, multiple hierarchies that can be discerned in societal structures such as schools, work places and communities, and therefore hegemony implies dominance in terms of culture, various social contexts as well as institutions and persuasions. the notion of ‘male gaze’ was coined by laura mulvey in 1975 in an essay on cinematography entitled visual pleasure and narrative cinema. in her discussion on the role of women in films, she argued that women are often portrayed as objects and subordinates mainly because their representation in films favours a masculine vantage point. women’s role in visuality tends to reflect an inferior position to men, according to mulvey, thus favouring male spectatorship (mulvey 1999). consequently, from a masculine perspective, women tend to be regarded as the bearer[s] of meaning and not the maker[s] of meaning. mulvey (1999) argued that this inequality enforced the notion that ‘men do the looking and women are to be looked at’. the male gaze also refers to social, economic and political advantages or rights in visual practices availed to men because of their hegemonic status, heteronormativity and gender identity, which this article argues have similar effects on perceptions of males and females in the context of producing and viewing artworks (mulvey 1999). arguably, many artistic outputs and also interpretative practices reinforce entrenched gender identities predicated on male dominance emanating from cultural practices informed by masculinity (dziwa 2016; goffman 1987; gramsci 1994). in this vein, goffman (1987) has demonstrated a clear dichotomy in the portrayal of men and women in advertisements where their representations confirm culturally constructed and essentialist gender roles. barnet (2010) concurs that artworks carry culturally embedded ideological meanings in their creation and consumption. according to goffman (1987), much visual art practice ascribes to a heteronormative narrative that suggests a ritualised subordination where feminine representations are deliberately postured as subordinate to what is defined as masculine. connell and messerchmidt (2005) criticise this perception of hegemonic masculinities on the premise of problematic reification, as many practices tend to render unequal power relations as fixed. masculinity can, however, neither be judged on the basis of women’s subordination nor on men’s dominance only. the exercising of power and the experience of subordination are not fixed. activist art that addresses such practices heightens conscientisation and hopes to contribute towards liberation from oppression in this context. gender conversations in zimbabwe whilst there are several studies and publications on gender constructs in zimbabwe, we engage with authors who discuss gender ideologies that characterise the general zimbabwean population. the studies referred to, in this article, peruse gender conversations taking place over 18 years (1994–2012) focusing on different population samples and nuances of gender identity. gordon (1994) reveals a patriarchal system in the gender asymmetry and dichotomy enacted in education policy, enrolments and school curriculum implementation: the selection and allocation of subjects at the school level were sexually indexed (e.g. girls were taught cooking and typing, they had lower enrolments at all grade levels and were under-enrolled in technical and vocational institutions) gudhlanga et al. (2012). secondary schools’ enrolment ratio for girls (at 42%) was also significantly lower than that of boys (58%) (mutekwe & mobida 2014). parpart (1995) investigated the impact of economic changes in zimbabwe on women’s employment and education and the degree to which patriarchal structures have restricted women’s opportunities in economic and political spheres. the women and law in southern africa (wlsa) report indicates that patriarchal practices dominated inheritance disputes and prohibited women from achieving economic and political independence. kamabarami (2006) revealed how female subordination is entrenched through home socialisation which shapes and perpetuates patriarchal imbalances and denies women control over their sexuality and income. interviews with widowed women who visited the central hospital social work department in harare revealed their dependence on males for food, finances and shelter. these women’s only hope was the provision by the social work department because they could not imagine themselves as being employable or as breadwinners. zimstat (2016) indicates that men are dominant in most employment sectors: mining (89.2%), construction (96.5%), public administration and defense (73.6%), manufacturing (77.5%), finance and insurance (65%) as well as transport and storage (91.2%). chabaya et al. (2009) studied the persistence of gender inequality and perceptions as factors that impede the advancement of women to leadership positions in primary schools. patriarchal ideologies relegating women to positions of submissiveness, docility and passiveness led to the persistent under-representation of women, especially in primary school leadership and administration. the influence of gender role stereotypes manifests in low self-esteem, lack of confidence and engraved subordination. the same authors chabaya et al. (2009) evaluated the response of the school curriculum to the call for gender equality and sensitivity and found that the curriculum disadvantaged women through patriarchal customary law and, also, the colonial legacy. textbooks also leaned towards gender insensitivity, the dominance of male content and a limited inclusion of heroines. chabaya and gudhlanga (2007) indicated that textbooks in history and literature have more heroes than heroines, thus pervading the perception supported by dudu et al. (2008) that women have lower social significance as they are excluded from discourses on the heroic acts. chabaya and gudhlanga (2007) reiterate that most textbooks hold that men are the only inventors in the world. however, they noted some shifts towards the inclusion of gender equality aiming at subverting patriarchal ideologies. connell and messerchmidt (2005) hold that patterns of gender relations are, indeed, flawed when assuming that the dominance of men and the subordination by women are natural. these ideas may give rise to change and can contribute towards the liberation of women. research methodology and design the present study is guided by critical phenomenology and adopts an interpretive paradigm as we sought to find meaning and gain understanding of visual art practices in zimbabwe. de vos et al. (2011) and creswell (2013) indicate that a phenomenological study describes the meaning of lived experiences by the participants. selected visual artworks were analysed using a critical visual discourse interpretation model (cvdim) (dziwa 2016) to deconstruct the visual content and to explore the prevalence of the male gaze as embedded in these works. visual images are key to this study to explore the meanings that participants demonstrate of lived and perceived gender experiences in visual iconography. the cvdim is a way to facilitate the interpretation of visual content and nuances of power relations (dziwa 2016). it is a synthesis of interpretative frameworks gleaned from social semiotics (kress 2010), deconstructionism (derrida 1982) and intertextuality (kristeva 1980). the artworks that have been perused are informed by culture and context, bearing testimony to how power relationships are portrayed by the artists. the viewer, also, comes to an image with her or his own engraved cultural perceptions and knowledge. to explore these issues, we used framing as the initial stage of the interpretation process to identify and describe the social scene represented in the visual images prior to analysing them. framing an analysis focuses on the extrapolation of multiple interpretations of evidence in the frame(s). the intertextual approach (kristeva 1980) was also an important visual analysis strategy to interpret and relate contextual issues to other visual experiences. intertextuality helped to construct discursive meanings within the historical and cultural context of gender and patriarchy. inferences were made from various forms of knowledge available to the viewers who were not bound to visual experiences only but also to entrenched cultural experiences and perceptions of masculinity. derrida (1982) holds that visuals contain an infinite amount of information which is not static over time and cultural situatedness. the cvdim has both dynamic and transformative characteristics that suit this methodological approach to explore the meanings and reception of visual images. ethical issues pertaining to gatekeeper’s permission and ethical clearance were given less consideration because visual artworks as the main source of information are available in the public domain, galleries and public sites. male gaze in zimbabwe visual art practices the portrayal of men as dominant in visual images, suggesting a privileged male gaze, is pervasive in zimbabwe’s visual culture. for example, only males were selected to represent zimbabwe at the venice biennale art exhibition (2015), namely chiko chazunguza, masimba hwati and gareth nyandoro (kaboy 2015). masimba hwati explores the transformation and evolution of knowledge systems that are indigenous to his background whilst experimenting with the symbolism and perceptions attached to cultural objects, expressed as an art movement known as ‘the energy of objects’. some of his artworks are masculine in content (see figures 1 and 2), whilst all his portraits represent men who are wearing dark glasses with popular brand logos such as facebook (a social media platform), kentucky fried chicken (kfc) (a fast food franchise), amstel (a beer) and coca-cola (a soft drink). figure 1: curator’s black 2015, masimba hwati: (a) coca cola; (b) facebook. figure 2: pajoji electricals 2019 by gareth nyandoro. sunglasses create a barrier between the eyes and the dangerous ultraviolet rays. thus, sunglasses protect the eyes, prevent cataracts, muscular degeneration and cancer. our critical interpretation of these artworks is guided by the question: why did hwati portray only men in glasses? also, why would hwati affix these logos on the spectacles of male figures (figure 1)? these leading brands have a global economic impact and therefore need no introduction. one may argue that the branded sunglasses are suggested as blinding devices, removing one’s ability to see beyond hegemonic popular brands as desirable. what, then, is the significance of these products to viewers? which practices of looking are hinted at? the presence of the male face and the straight assertive gaze suggest assertive dominance of the masculine. in conjunction with the branded sunglasses, these images undoubtedly show the influence of the male gaze as men are presumed to be the bearers of standard in a hegemonic popular cultural context reflected by the brands. the artworks, therefore, carry the message of discriminatory social classes (messerschmidt 2019). pajoji electricals (figure 2) by gareth nyandoro, a graduate male artist from chinhoyi university of technology represents an open market selling electrical wares, solar panels, lights and accessories. very few women are involved in the business opportunities in these fields. as gordon (1994) notes with reference to career choices in technical colleges, the electrical field is, therefore, dominated by males. nyandoro suggests that this is a stereotype that associates men only with the industry of electrical wares. the title pajoji electricals is a trade name translated as ‘at george’s electrical’. george is masculine, denoting the business as a male enterprise. in turn, restaurants or open-air kitchens which provide braai facilities and take-away meals are often branded by feminine trade names such as ‘kwa mai daisy’ or ‘kwa mai anna’ (at daisy’s mother or at anna’s mother restaurant). the artwork can provoke a critical recognition that women are excluded from spheres associated with men and are instead associated with food-related industries that point to segregation based on stereotyped gender roles. as previously noted, art often carries and expresses ideologies held by the culture in which it is produced (barnet 2010). women artists in zimbabwe, interestingly, are also seen to portray themes with stereotyped gender roles, often portraying women in stereotypical domestic roles (figure 3). figure 3: weya women. the image of weya women shows many instances where women are in a domestic context, sweeping, carrying firewood and pounding grain, thereby reinforcing role stereotypes in visual representation (dziwa 2016). although women dominate the image, there are no heroines, but humble and sentimental domestic subjects. it is also notable that many sculptures by males as well as females that represent women show them doing domestic chores, carrying babies, giving birth and thus serving as images of entrenched gender roles (mugambi 2008). the sculpture titled first lady stone (figure 4) by agness nyanhongo depicts the narrative of gender stereotyping by showing a female in the frame in her role of rearing and caring for children. in addition to the stereotyped act of child carrying, the face of the woman in the sculpture is tilted away from the viewers as a sign of subordination. according to goffman (1987), this ‘licensed withdrawal’ is artistically created to show submission and the absence of confrontational assertiveness in a manner that hints at female submissiveness. figure 4: first lady stone, agness nyanhongo. eighty per cent of the sculptors in zimbabwe of the first generation are male (winter-irving 1994), whilst agness nyanhongo and letwin mugavazi are amongst the few women sculptors. they celebrate womanhood with double figures in most of their works such as sharing strength and stronger together. one can infer from the titles and sculptures that feminine weakness, dependency and a lack of individual strength or power are quite prevalent. the heroes’ acre in harare is a significant public artwork which was curated and designed by a male artist, david mutasa, which portrays strong masculine presences (samwanda 2013). although some female characters are visible, male domination is clear. in a relief mural placed just below the tomb of the unknown soldiers, women are carved in their domesticated roles carrying babies and food, whilst men are shown carrying guns, doing heavy manual work in the fields and working as ironsmiths. the mural also shows more males than females, which can be seen as another feature that diminishes the role of women in the grand narrative of the liberation struggle. this male-dominated narrative is extended further at the main tomb of the unknown soldiers. the heights of male and female statues also demonstrate their inequality (goffman 1987) where a male figure towers high above the figure of a female soldier in the three-figure statue. female icons in the form of heroic statues and sculptures are practically absent from public art. the public sculptures around zimbabwe mostly represent and worship masculine dominance, for example, cecil john rhodes (matopos), farmer (hurudza house), joshua m. nkomo (main street, bulawayo) and construction workers (construction house). dr joshua nyongolo mqabuko nkomo died during his tenure as the vice-president of zimbabwe in 1999 after an illustrious political career. he was one of the main leaders to sign the lancaster peace agreement for the independence of the country whilst leading the zimbabwe african people’s union (zapu) political party. as a national icon, he was nicknamed father zimbabwe. a bronze statue of 5 m (inclusive of the pedestal) in his native city bulawayo speaks volumes of nkomo’s domineering honour, political power and social status. this statue was re-erected on a pedestal 3 m high after initial attempts on a lower pedestal had been met with public rejection and was consequently removed a day after its erection (ndlovu 2017). the lower pedestal was felt to diminish the hegemonic power which was congruent with dr nkomo. the statue was then placed in the same location where the north-facing statue of cecil john rhodes stood. it is well-known that rhodes had the ambition to rule africa from cape to cairo. the placement of dr nkomo’s statue in his stead resembles his political power and intention to rule the whole of zimbabwe which extends to the north of bulawayo. the knobkerrie (induku) in his right hand (figure 5) was used for fighting and also served as a symbol of leadership. figure 5: dr joshua nyongolo mqabuko nkomo, north korea. a public sculpture installation, construction workers (1992) by adam madebe, predominantly demonstrates gender stereotypes, role segregation and masculine hegemonic views. in 1985, madebe created a controversial 3.5 m high sculpture titled looking into the future depicting a nude man as a visionary leader. in 1992, madebe was commissioned to create construction workers (figure 6). this monumental work, which is 4 m high, is displayed in an open courtyard in central harare. three men are represented doing various construction chores such as bricklaying, pushing a wheelbarrow and digging with a pick, thereby defining and segregating construction work as a male domain. in addition, the size of the statues is intimidating and the muscular male bodies typify the masculine form as suitable for these endeavours. figure 6: construction workers, adam madebe. art practices in zimbabwe, therefore, often reflect patriarchal power relations which prevail in the culture. however, these expressions do not go without contestation. the following section testifies to this. exiting the mire questioning the male gaze seeks to avert the gendered social prejudices, inequalities and injustices that diminish the visibility and power of women in art practice. thus, erasure of patriarchal associations, stigmatisation of gender roles, inequity, abuses and other social discriminating practices are contested in some visual spaces. this departure from the stereotypical norm is also associated with a decolonialist thrust that contests hegemonic ideologies and practices, rather applying a critical lense which propound and embrace inclusivity, pluralism, equality and the reversal of gender stereotypes (quijano 2000). it may be seen that women have grudgingly tolerated their diminished visibility in social, political, gender and visual spaces. however, these feelings or emotions of resentment, discontentment and displeasure have not always remained suppressed. women have generated resistant activism through various means, violence, demonstrations, uprising and activist art (nordlund et al. 2011; packer 2011). art in this sense serves as a vehicle to challenge and provoke patriarchy as well as coloniality (dewhurst 2014; olga 2011; thistlewood 1991). activist artworks such as the liberation of aunt jemima (1972) by betye saar, the dinner party (1979) by judy chicago, woman series (1952) by william de kooning, the blue bra girls (2012) by amer ghada, sophie (2009), black female body series by mary sibande and love in the time of afrophobia (2015) by sthembile msezane have emerged over the years to contest male domination and to reverse stereotypical female identities. mary sibande, a south african-based artist, uses a mythical domestic servant ‘sophie’ to question the notion of inferiority and to challenge injustices and prejudices in the gender, social and political arenas. she transforms her identity from a domestic worker into a victorian queen or spiderman (figure 7) within the post-apartheid era. with spiderman, sophie deconstructs a submissive, docile identity to an aggressive heroine breaking the canons of heteronormativity. figure 7: spiderman – sophie, mary sibande. the national gallery of zimbabwe has hosted several exhibitions such as in praise of women (2004, 2006), women on top (2014), out of darkness (2015), discoloured margins (2017) and the equality of women (2018) to promote the visibility of women and to challenge the colonial narratives of females in society. several zimbabwean female artists have collectively challenged cultural suppression, patriarchy, physical and emotional abuse, lack of empowerment and marginalisation. these artists include doris kamupira, agness mupariwa, charmaine chitate, agnes nyanhongo, colleen madamombe, locardia ndandarika, letwin mugavazi, netsayi mukomberanwa, estelle mbefura, zanele anne mutema and kressiah mukwazhi. the colonial narrative of the african women tended to prevent them from producing art for public spaces. women were relegated to the making of crafts, beadwork, pottery and other ritual and ceremonial objects (mugambi 2008). the exposure to gallery spaces enables women to raise their voices and enhances their visibility through different mediums, including multi-media, painting, photography and sculpture. the female art activist photographer annie mpalume has used the female image to explore and challenge women’s roles and to develop critical consciousness. in the above photographs (figure 8) exhibited at the national gallery of zimbabwe, mpalume challenges the patriarchal tradition which prioritises marriage for girls over education. images, such as these, contest patriarchal beliefs that the destiny of a girl is marriage; hence there is no need to invest in her education (kamabarami 2006). the colonial narrative that prevented women from voicing their grievances, concerns and voting powers is also openly challenged and contested. inscriptions on t-shirts stand out as voices of their resistance. mpalume also photographed a woman showing her red-inked finger after casting a vote in zimbabwe, thereby celebrating her inclusion, democratisation and participation in the voting process. figure 8: photography: (a) child marriages; (b) human rights. zimbabwean artist doris kamupira creates feminine visual perspectives in a series of works themed muonevisualarts (translated seehervisualarts) to question the invisibility of women in social, political and religious spheres. also, tashinga gondo who exhibited in the women on top (2014) exhibition interrogates the stereotyped female position by challenging societal norms and patriarchal narratives which diminished women’s visibility in her paintings, mixed-media and installations. some zimbabwean art practices, therefore, do challenge patriarchy through the exposure and inclusion of women participating in public art. recommendations the significance of one’s gender and socio-political location and its embodiment in visuality need to be taken seriously. visual representations that challenge the status quo are salient in the context of the decolonial project that seeks to contest social injustice, inequality, exclusions and oppression based on race, gender, class, sexuality and culture. the interpretation of artworks suggests that the problem of gender stereotyping may be addressed during the formative years, and therefore working with the youth may help to question and challenge problematic and entrenched views of women. we recommend that engaging in feminist pedagogy at all levels of education can, certainly, contribute to solving unequal relations and discriminatory structures and practices in society and, in doing so, create socially equitable environments. critical dialogue should continue to find solutions to issues such as pedagogical approaches that could be used to create conditions that enable women artists to transform from passive positions to active critical engagement. teachers can be used as agents to promote social change through their teaching practices. the classroom provides a conducive environment for sensitisation on gender injustices, awareness and activities about gender equality. teachers are re-contextualising agents and can function as transformative, intellectual role-models who can exercise influence over content and curriculum transformation and shifts in pedagogic practice and choices about which or whose knowledge(s) are privileged. in encoding and decoding art, we propose visual analysis models that embrace diversity, inclusion and neutrality which inherently challenge segregation, erasure and oppression. we should seek to imagine and probe forms of collegiality, knowledge sharing and creative engagement fostered within exhibition spaces open for all genders and sexes on national and international levels. this involves continued efforts in deliberately creating and providing more favourable and safe spaces for women artists to express their viewpoints, protests and resistance without fear and intimidation in formal gallery environments. women’s voices, experiences, challenges and needs can be rendered worthy of scholarly engagement, in particular a society that tends to marginalise and exclude them from certain spheres. conclusion this article engaged with the notions of patriarchy and colonial vestiges present in society and visual production, highlighting these issues together with exploring efforts at decoloniality and gender liberation that women can bring to works of art, films and advertisements. patriarchal beliefs are fundamental to cultural hegemony and the notion of the male gaze. zimbabwe’s patriarchal society is known to privilege men and subordinate women. this entrenched gender polarisation has a bearing on the production of reception of visual representations that need to be challenged. this article, therefore, explored a number of prejudices associated with zimbabwe’s patriarchal society that can be gaged from visual interpretations by artists, actors and the viewers privileging the male gender in zimbabwe. however, the decolonial project is subverting these art practices by providing spaces for women to challenge colonial vestiges as well as patriarchy. the oppressive, diminishing, abusive and marginalising narrative can be altered, subverted and reconstructed with the aim of achieving equality. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for carrying out research. funding information the research received no specific grant from any research agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement 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tradition in stone, viewed n.d., from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sculpture_of_zimbabwe zimstat, 2016, facts and figures, zimstat main publications, harare, viewed 19 june 2019, from http://www.zimstat.co.zw/sites/default/files/img/publications/facts%20and%20figures/fact_figures2016.pdf. abstract introduction coastal and marine tourism, a global perspective coastal and marine tourism, the south african perspective profile of coastal and marine tourism visitors research methods and design results discussion implications conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) nolwazi mabaleka department of tourism and events management, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa ncedo j. ntloko school of tourism management, tourism research in economic environs and society (trees), north-west university, mahikeng, south africa kamilla swart department of sport management, college of business administration, american university in the emirates, dubai, united arab emirates citation mabaleka, n., ntloko, n.j. & swart, k., 2020, ‘profiles of tourists participating in shark cage diving in gansbaai, south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a772. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.772 original research profiles of tourists participating in shark cage diving in gansbaai, south africa nolwazi mabaleka, ncedo j. ntloko, kamilla swart received: 24 oct. 2019; accepted: 02 july 2020; published: 02 dec. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract coastal and marine tourism is a sector that draws visitors from around the globe to south africa. this is largely because of an array of marine wildlife resources found in the country. despite this strong pull factor, there is limited information on the economic value of the marine environment. this article focuses on establishing the profiles of visitors taking part in shark cage diving in gansbaai. such profiling will facilitate the understanding of the potential target market of cmt visitors to gansbaai, whilst contributing towards targeted developments in the area aimed at capturing the economic value of such visitors through the provision of a range of visitor-specific activities to make the destination more appealing. it will also contribute to further developments in the area, in providing a wide range of activities to make the destination more appealing. in ascertaining the profile of visitors, a quantitative research design was adopted. a total of n = 378 self-administered questionnaires were collected from visitors taking part in shark cage diving using a face-to-face proportionate sampling technique. the results revealed that a majority of visitors were drawn to gansbaai because of shark cage diving and that a large portion travelled to gansbaai for holiday purposes. there was a challenge in the ability of the destination to attract overnight visitors because of a limited product offering in the area. as a result, minimal spending occurs in gansbaai as an overwhelming majority of the visitors are day visitors. these results have implications for tourists, tourism destination planners, tour operators and tourism establishments in gansbaai. keywords: tourists profile; coastal and marine tourism; shark cage diving; operation phakisa; marine protected areas. introduction the tourism industry has been globally recognised as an important driver of change and a key to economic prosperity for developing nations. as stated by statistics south africa (2018), 96.2% of foreign arrivals into the country were for leisure purposes. this emphasises the significance of south africa as a major holiday destination with an immense opportunity for growth. according to grant thornton (2018), the aim of the government is to strengthen the contribution of tourism to the gross domestic product (gdp) of south africa to r499 billion by 2020. as stated by aguiló perez and juaneda (2000:627) and vainikka (2013:270), a tourist would normally choose a destination where there is a sea-side venue for his or her holiday. this further highlights south africa as a strong player in this regard as the country boasts 3000 km coastline with an array of marine wildlife (operation phakisa 2014). coastal and marine tourism (cmt) is ranked amongst the top four sub-sectors of the maritime sector, with a contribution of r19 b in the year 2013 to the country’s gdp (south african maritime safety authority – samsa 2016). this emphasises the phenomenal potential which could be achieved by this sector and a justification for further development. for most communities, particularly in disadvantaged countries, coastal and marine ecosystems have played a significant role as a means of survival (lange & jiddawi 2009:251). south africa is no exception. falling within non-urban coastal areas, gansbaai is a small town along the whale coast in the western cape with a large concentration of southern right whales and great white sharks (sa venues 2016). gansbaai has also been labelled as ‘the great white capital of the world’ and attracts a large number of tourists to the area (gansbaai info 2016). according to mograbi and rogerson (2007:91), diving has been considered as a type of niche activity in south africa. shark cage diving, therefore, falls within this category and is a well-recognised water-based activity in the country (cape town magazine 2016). the profiling of tourists is important where sustainable tourism is concerned, as this assists the operators to have a clear understanding of their clients and the services they desire (moscardo, woods & saltzer 2004:232). having a clear understanding of the profile of visitors, thus, leads to designing operators’ packages that meet or even exceed customer expectations. as alluded to by marques, reis and menezes (2010:973), the profiling of visitors is a complex task because of the forever changing social settings. this, therefore, suggests that operators have to constantly study their visitors in order to keep up with such changes and keep their clients satisfied. according to mihajlovic and koncul (2016:920), various models have been implemented and changed throughout history in order to adapt to changes in consumer behaviours. stynes (1997:15) noted an increase in curiosity regarding the economic impacts of tourism from businesses and public organisations. this indicated that economic analyses could influence decision-making in tourism. thus, the models and approaches discussed in this article form the basis of the conceptual framework of the study, which looks at visitor spending patterns to determine the motivation and profile of the visitors. frechtling (1994:430) indicates that in order to measure economic impacts, secondary data from economic base models, input–output (i–o) model multipliers, government economic statistics and visitor spending surveys should be analysed. the i–o model provides multipliers which can be utilised to estimate economic efforts of an economy (bess & ambargis 2011:2). when estimating economic impacts using the i–o model, three categories are considered namely, direct, indirect and induced impacts thus providing ways to estimate the changes in activity in a particular economy (stynes 1997:11). although the i–o model has been widely used across the globe, it is also well known for its limitations such being too expensive to carry and being demand-driven (fernando et al. 2015:3). in order to overcome these limitations, a more sophisticated model known as the computable general model (cge) was adopted. what makes the cge more suitable than the i–o model is its ability to model markets for goods and services, factor consumer spending as well as to recognise resource limitations. tourism satellite accounts (tsa) and cost benefit analysis (cba) are models designed to also measure the goods and services associated with the economic impact of tourism to economies (european commission 2015:25; frechtling 2013:7; frentt & frechtling 2015:546). the models discussed above present other methods in which economic impacts in tourism activities can be quantified. for the purposes of this study, visitor spending surveys were used to determine the economic impact of shark cage diving in gansbaai. frechtling (2006:5) confirms that the findings from questions on spending surveys can present relative estimates on visitor expenditure, thus allowing visitor behaviour and profiling to be drawn. gansbaai is globally recognised for its exceptional shark cage diving opportunities with the majority of its visitors comprising international visitors (marine dynamics 2018). this article looks at the profiles of visitors who take part in shark cage diving in gansbaai. the findings also have implications for shark cage diving operators as well as other stakeholders involved in contributing to a sustainable shark cage diving economy in gansbaai. studies that have been conducted in gansbaai mainly focus on the conservation and the possible changes in shark behaviour because of human involvement (dyer island conservation trust 2018; johnson & kock 2006:42; south african shark conservancy 2018). because of the lack of data which focuses on the economic impact of shark cage diving in gansbaai, this study becomes significant as such profiling of visitors will assist in a greater understanding of contribution of shark cage diving in the area and how the destination should prepare itself to meet the needs, wants and demands related to the profile. coastal and marine tourism, a global perspective orams (1999:7) suggests that as the oceans are still considered unexplored territories in comparison to land, a growing number of activities and usage were identified. hall (2001:604) adds that because of technological advances, it has become easier to reach the marine space as well as construct-resistant infrastructure and facilities in the oceans in order to develop several activities for economic gain. coastal and marine tourism is a part of nature-based tourism. orams and lück (2014:482) state that nature-based tourism contributes to the coastal economy of many tropical marine systems around the world. biggs et al. (2015:67) support this statement by noting that it is mostly around coral reefs and unique marine species such as sharks and whales where nature-based tourism is seemingly centred in. such regions are, therefore, presented with opportunities to serve tourists with coastal and marine-related offerings for tourism. coastal and marine tourism, the south african perspective the marine space, with a coastline stretching of over 3000 km serves as an integral part of the south african environment (south africa department of environmental affairs 2017). it is regarded as the country’s assets and presents as well as sustains a wide range of social, ecological and economic services which form the foundation of income for millions of individuals in the country (south africa department of environmental affairs 2017). despite this fact, research such as operation phakisa (2016) has identified opportunities for further utilisation of the coastal and marine environment. operation phakisa (2014) is an initiative developed by the south african government to focus on the marine space of the country as a means of economic gain, particularly for previously disadvantaged communities. the aim was to unlock the potential of country’s oceans that are currently underutilised as a venue for tourism activities at a ‘fast’ pace (operation phakisa 2014). operation phakisa (2014) predicts that south africa’s oceans are capable of generating an estimated r177 b contribution to the gdp by the year 2033. this highlights the economic potential of the south african marine space. the institute of global dialogue (2016) also notes that there are 250 000 jobs directly linked to various maritime regimes locally, but with operation phakisa (2014), this number could be up-scaled to a million jobs. an understanding of tourists’ profile visiting gansbaai will contribute to a better understanding of tourism activities linked to the marine environment. profile of coastal and marine tourism visitors moscardo et al. (2004:168) stress that it is of utmost importance for sustainable wildlife tourism to have a clear understanding of its visitors. understanding the visitors will assist in designing programmes which can influence visitor behaviour and help improve the quality of their experience. the authors add that understanding their visitors will result in financial gain for operators. however, lotter, geldenhuys and potgieter (2014) argue that understanding visitors and their motivations is not an easy task. the emergence of new tourist profiles continues to be a forever changing and ongoing process which stems from dynamics and changes in society (custódio santos, veiga & águas 2016:656), further highlighting difficulty in this task. custódio santos et al. (2016:656) note that implications for service providers are structured by what is known to be the three phases of the consumption process which are: pre-travel, during travel and post-travel. custódio santos et al. (2016:660) focus on two segments which service providers should look into as visitor profiles, namely, the senior segment and the millennials. they note that the senior segment relies on more traditional methods to access information whilst the millennials have shifted towards a more digital space. they also highlight that the millennials present a more educated group with higher income, with a quest to know more and increasingly showing interest in tourism which is in harmony with the environment (custódio santos et al. (2016:662). therefore, operators need to be more environmentally conscious in their approach in order to satisfy the needs of their visitors. the authors further note that although these segments have not yet been thoroughly profiled, the data available are sufficient for service providers to draft better strategies for implementation. furthermore, the academic industry needs to produce more studies which will contribute to a better understanding of these segments. it is from this perspective that the profiles of the tourists who visit gansbaai are explored. research methods and design study area the study was conducted in gansbaai, an area situated in the overberg district municipality region, in the western cape province, south africa. the town of gansbaai lies between hermanus and pearly beach and is approximately 170 km from cape town (cape town magazine 2016). gansbaai is regarded as the capital of great white sharks with an estimated population of 1500 sharks (the roundhouse 2013). currently, there are eight licensed shark cage diving operators who offer shark cage diving experiences in gansbaai and the study was strictly limited to visitors who took part in shark cage diving. tourism is the main economic activity in the area and the majority of visitors come to gansbaai for holiday purposes (lonely planet 2018). moreover, the community of gansbaai relies heavily on marine resources in order to make a living and to provide employment in the region (overberg-info 2018). the shark cage diving industry of gansbaai is only for observation of great white sharks in their natural habitat to generate money for the tourism industry (south africa department of environmental affairs 2017). this practice is governed by strict legislative policies of the south african government as the great white shark is an endangered species and gansbaai lies within the marine protected areas (mpas) of the country (south africa department of environmental affairs 2017). gansbaai is the only region in the world where great white sharks are viewed all year round with no seasonal restrictions (xplorio 2017). in addition, gansbaai also has the shortest travel distance from shore to the viewing area in the world, with a boat ride of only 15–20 min (marine dynamics 2016). population and sampling a questionnaire is generally the first tool people consider when conducting research (research connections 2016). a self-administered close-ended questionnaire was distributed to visitors on a face to face basis. according to siniscalco and auriat (2005:23), the main advantage of close-ended questionnaires is that participants are restricted to a fixed set of questions that are relatively easy to answer. in achieving the objectives of this study, a total of n = 378 surveys were collected, using proportionate sampling – reflecting international and domestic visitors. this method is used when the population consists of various subgroups that are largely different in number and the number of subjects from each subgroup is determined by their number relative to the population (hassan, schattner & mazza 2006:70). this sampling method was useful for this study as it excluded local residents within gansbaai from the sampling, thus randomly selecting visitors from outside the gansbaai region. the data collection process was scheduled over a period of 3 months from a number of scheduled trips to gansbaai. questionnaire the questionnaire focused on the profile of visitors and respondents were asked about their origin, purpose of travel and group dynamics. the questionnaire also had questions relating to demographics, where respondents indicated their age, income, education and employment status. prior to the data collection process, a pilot study was conducted to test the viability of the research instruments. hassan et al. (2006:70) endorse the pilot study as one of the most important steps in a research project and is conducted to discover potential problem areas and possible errors in the research instruments prior to implementation of the actual study. the instrument was adjusted in order to collect more meaningful data. a well trained assistant fieldworker assisted in the collection and quality checks of the questionnaires. in analysing the data, the statistical package for social studies (spss) version 24.0 was used. ethical consideration at a meeting of the research ethics committee on 21 november 2016, ethics approval was granted to nolwazi mabaleka (211267104) for research activities related to m.tech: master of technology in tourism and hospitality at the cape peninsula university of technology. ethical consideration that were adhered to during the data collection process included institutional (cput) consent (ref no.: 2016fbrec401) which was obtained to carry out the study as well as permission from the participating tour operators in gansbaai. the ethical consideration mentioned above included permission from participating tour operators in gansbaai for data collection, as well as provided anonymity and voluntary participation for the visitors. this included ensuring that there will be no harm to the participants and that the data will be treated with honesty and integrity. results as indicated in table 1, the study revealed that an overwhelming majority of the respondents (82%) taking part in shark cage diving in gansbaai are day visitors and 18% of them are overnight visitors. these results suggest that there was no strong motivation for overnight visits in the area. the study also revealed that an overwhelming majority (89.4%) was international visitors and 10.6% of the visitors were domestic, strongly suggesting that this activity attracts the international market the most. out of the international visitors, most came from europe (42.7%) followed by north america (21.2%) and south america (9.4%). these results reveal europe as the largest market attracted to shark cage diving in gansbaai. national visitors mainly came from gauteng (45%) followed by free state (22.5%) and kwazulu-natal (17.5%) – covering 85% of the respondents in the national visitor’s category. as the highest number of the national visitors came from gauteng and free state, this brings forth an argument that shark cage diving mostly attracts visitors that come from non-coastal areas. table 1: geographic profile. as presented in table 2, the study revealed that most visitors who took part in shark cage diving were males (55.6%) followed by females (44.4%). the majority were single (53.3%) followed by those who were married (46.7%). the study also revealed that most shark cage divers were between the ages of 31 and 40 (34.3%) followed by those between the ages of 21 and 30 (32.7%). this shows a strong interest from the millennials group. most visitors travelled with friends (31%) and family (24%). the majority (65%) travelled to gansbaai for holiday purposes, with a large number of the respondents taking part in a guided tour (57.7%) followed by 41.8% who used a hired car. this projects gansbaai as a good self-drive destination. most respondents were new to marine wildlife activity meaning that they have never participated in marine-based activities prior to the current shark cage diving experience. this indicates that shark cage diving does not need past experience. just above half of the respondents (53%) indicated that shark cage diving was their first marine wildlife activity. table 2: demographic profile. table 3 indicates that most of the visitors were well educated as the majority of the respondents hold a university degree (56.2%) followed by a postgraduate degree (31.5%) and the least with secondary or primary school education (12.2%). these results give an indication that shark cage diving attracts the educated group of individuals. the majority of the respondents were employed full time (70.2%), followed by self-employed (11.3%) with the least being unemployed (0.3%). just over half of the respondents earned between r40 001 and r50 000 (52%) followed by r30 001 and r40 000 (19.4%). table 3: socio-economic profile. table 4 depicts the reasons why people take part in shark cage diving. this assists in understanding the motivation of participating in this activity. there was a general agreement with the given statements to why people take part in shark cage diving. visitors generally want to learn more about sharks as well as the marine environment. other visitors generally want to experience something new and escape their usual routine whilst others want to overcome fear. table 4: reasons why visitors take part in shark cage diving (in %). discussion the study revealed that a majority of shark cage divers in gansbaai are international visitors who were mainly in south africa for holiday purposes. this is in line with stats sa (2018) that 96.6% of visitors to the country are here for holiday purposes. the study also revealed that of the domestic visitors, the majority come from gauteng and free state which suggests that shark cage diving is mainly drawing visitors that come from non-coastal regions. an overwhelming majority of visitors to gansbaai were day visitors with only a few overnight visitors. this is, therefore, a reflection that the potential of spending in the area is limited as more economic spending would be larger if overnight visits were greater. in addition, this suggests that gansbaai is not strongly recognised as an overnight destination, thus compromising maximum potential of the area. furthermore, visitors mainly make use of a guided tour to gansbaai, which suggests that visitors make use of accommodation mostly in cape town or other areas in the western cape. the number of male visitors was only slightly larger than female visitors, which suggests that female participation is increasing in activities that were perceived as male-dominated. doran (2016:59) supports this statement indicating that women are increasingly participating in adventure tourism as a tool to empower themselves. the majority of the visitors were single with the millennials group being the dominant group. the visitors mainly travelled in groups of family and friends. most shark cage diving participants had a university degree and were employed full time, which coincides with the price of shark cage diving being relatively high. the majority of the visitors earned between r40 001 and r50 000 per month, which depicts the relationship with employment and the affordability of shark cage diving. with regard to motivation, visitors agreed to statements which portrayed support to shark cage diving as an activity to seek for new experiences. visitors also agreed that shark cage diving gave them the opportunity to learn about an endangered species, to overcome fear, to learn about sharks as well as to fulfil their personal desires. this suggests interest in shark cage diving as well as its relationship with personal motivation. implications in south africa, there is currently limited information related to the contribution of cmt to the gdp of the country. there is also limited research focusing on the types of tourists who take part in coastal and marine related activities in order to fully design programs dedicated to their interests. this study provides an indication of the type of tourists who take part in cmt as well as their characteristics in order for operators and gansbaai as a tourist destination to satisfy their interests. this anticipated approach may lead to an increased demand of the area and the development of new products. this will also expose other areas such as accommodation and dining for development leading to more economic benefits for the communities involved. conclusion the potential of cmt in south africa remains large and needs further research for maximum utilisation. a continuous study on profiles as well as the economic impact of cmt in other parts of the country will assist in this quest. there is a strong interest in marine-based activities, particularly from the international market and gansbaai remains amongst the areas offering unique experiences. shark cage diving mostly attracts the millennials group, which are highly educated and well-paid earners. this, therefore, is an implication for service providers to match or even exceed their expectations in order to generate more demand. the study highlights certain recommendations such as the need to develop a more diverse offering to complement shark cage diving in order to encourage more overnight visits in gansbaai. this may also result in more economic activity in the area which could benefit the local businesses as well as the local community in the area due in terms of creation and tourism receipts. acknowledgements the researchers would like to acknowledge the national 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analyse technology integration in teaching dw govender1 abstract contrary to the more traditional scenario of instructor-focused presentation, contemporary education allows individuals to embrace modern technological advances such as computers to concur with, conceptualize and substantiate matters presented before them. transition from instructor-focused to student-centred presentation is prone to dissension and strife, motivating educators to assess elements of learner-centred teaching in conjunction with traditional teaching mechanisms and how individuals perceive and comprehend information (andersson, 2008; kiboss, 2010; united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco), 2004). computers can assist when used in the traditional teacher-student interface, but consideration must be given to teaching method variations and the students embracing these learning applications. if learner-centred teaching is to become accepted certain elements need to be introduced: revision of educators’ learning and teaching applications, time to facilitate knowledge and use of applicable contemporary technologies, and methods compatible with various technologies (kiboss, 2010). change is often not easy – while acknowledging the need to alter and revise methods they were taught to instil, educators may fail to embrace incorporation of technology into their teaching platform. why are educators, who are quite knowledgeable and competent in computer applications and their merits, failing to embrace the benefits of technology in the classroom? a critical assessment of this mandates a transdisciplinary disposition in order to come to an amenable resolution. perception, inhibition, ignorance and goals are just some reasons why educators are reluctant to incorporate technology despite their proficiency. perceptual control theory (pct) will be implemented to assess these reasons as a means towards achieving change and assessing how to move forward. issues associated with educators’ shortand long-term goals as well as their perceptions – and hence the essential need to comprehend pct – are addressed. keywords: computer technology, teaching, student-teacher interface, learner-centered teaching, perceptual control theory, perceptions. disciplines: computer science, education. introduction contrary to the more traditional scenario of instructor-focused presentations, contemporary education allows individuals to embrace modern technological advances such as computers to concur with, conceptualize and substantiate matters (chitiyo & chitiyo, 2007). transition 1 . dr desmond w govender teaches computer science education at the university of kwazulu-natal. email: govenderd50@ukzn.ac.za perceptual control theory, technology and teaching integration td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 171 – 181. 171 from an instructor-focused presentation to a student-centred embodiment is prone to dissension and strife. this scenario is motivating educators to assess elements of learnercentred teaching in conjunction with traditional teaching mechanisms, along with how individuals perceive and comprehend information (andersson, 2008; kiboss, 2010; unesco, 2004). in all subjects computers can serve as an instrumental tool in conjunction with the traditional teacher-student interface, but consideration must be given to variations in teaching methods and the students embracing these applications (chitiyo & chitiyo, 2007; tanui, kiboss, walaba & nassiuma, 2008). if learner-centred teaching is to become accepted socially or by the mainstream, certain elements need to be introduced. these include revision of educators’ learning and teaching applications, allowance of time to facilitate knowledge and use of applicable contemporary technologies, and methods compatible with various technologies (kiboss, 2010). the embracing of contemporary technology in conjunction with user acceptance is a saturated research topic under the auspices of information systems literature (hu, chau, sheng & tam, 1999). results from this abundance of research are theoretical models with substantiation in psychology, sociology and information systems, which address a beyond 40% variation in an individual’s own volition to incorporate technology (davis, 1989; taylor & todd, 1995; venkatesh & davis, 2000). the matter presented is why do educators, who are quite knowledgeable and competent in computer applications and their merits, fail to embrace the benefits of such technology in the classroom? a critical assessment of this statement mandates a transdisciplinary disposition in order to come to an amenable resolution. a need exists to assess the motivation towards educators subsidising expenditure on computers for use in the classroom, while others refrain from accepting computers, whether subsidised or provided by outside sources (swain, 2006). the need for a transdisciplinary approach is warranted when sources such as various technology adoption models prove inadequate in providing the needed justifications. in an information systems environment the transdisciplinary approach is viewed by the author as an atypical means of assessing value with regard to technology integration. as to why an educator would decline use of an instrument such as the computer in the classroom, consideration must be given to the mind-set of an educator. the proceeding argument focuses on the integration of technology from the inner circle of an educator and is premised on perceptual control theory (pct) (powers, 1973; powers, 1989). this stance is supported by research conducted by zhao and cziko (2001). the following serves as an analysis of their research work and its application to the respondents of this study. status quo of computer use in schools questions guiding the study were as follows: • to what extent are educators using computers for general administrative use and/or in their teaching? • what are the reasons for this use or non-usage? the target population in this study was secondary school educators in the ethekwini region of kwazulu-natal. a list of educators was extracted from the department of education’s govender 172 education management and information systems (emis) list, which is maintained and updated annually by the provincial education management and information systems department. the total number of secondary schools in the ethekwini region on the emis list was 403. of these schools, 382 have staff numbers ranging from 2 to 60, and the balance of 21 schools showed no staff members. leedy and ormrod (2005) suggest that if the population size is around 500, one should sample at least 50% of them. from the population of 382 schools a random selection of every alternate school was made, giving a sample of 191 schools. this sample is representative because every alternate school in the district was chosen, representing 50% of secondary schools in ethekweni region. questionnaires were distributed to the selected 191 schools, an average of 20 questionnaires to each school. of the 191 schools in the sample, 18 indicated that they did not receive the questionnaires, 2 that they had misplaced them, and another 3 declined to participate. returns from 93 schools were received, giving a 55.4% rate of return. the questionnaire was created with items validated in previous research (abdulkafi, 2006; venkatesh, morris, davis & davis, 2003; venkatesh & davis, 2000; vannatta & o’bannon, 2002; davis, 1989) and adapted for this study. a five-point scale was used for all of the constructs, with 1 being the strongly negative end of the scale and 5 being the strongly positive end. development of the questionnaire was guided by an extensive review of the literature. the data were analyzed using statistical package spss®. the data were split into respondents in schools with computer rooms for teaching and those in schools without computer rooms for teaching. first an analysis of all respondents’ general computer use was performed, irrespective of whether they were in a school with a computer room or not. general computer use means that a respondent uses a computer for simple word processing, for example creating worksheets or keeping track of learners’ marks electronically. f i g u r e 1 : e d u c a t o r s ’ g e n e r a l c o m p u t e r u s a g e at least 47% of educators from this study sample do not use the computer at all for any general use, including simple word processing (figure 1). fifty three per cent (53%) of educators are using the computer in a general capacity, which could include simple word processing and email. however, only 9% use a computer daily (figure 1). educators who use 47%   13%   13%   18%   9%   0%   5%   10%   15%   20%   25%   30%   35%   40%   45%   50%   never   less  than   once  a   month   once  or   twice  a   month   once  or   twice  a   week     daily   educator  general   computer  usage     perceptual control theory, technology and teaching integration td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 171 – 181. 173 the computers daily indicated that they use their personal computers to “prepare worksheets” as well as “keep track of learner grades”. those educators who are using computers once or twice a week or month indicated that access to computers is a problem, and that they only use computers when they are available at school. when the data were analysed according to schools with computer rooms and those without, it was found that in schools with no computer rooms for teaching a much higher percentage (66%) of educators are not using a computer for simple word processing (figure 2). this could be attributed to lack of core proficiency as well as lack of access; 25% of respondents indicated that access to computers is a problem and that they use computers when they are available at school. however, it should be noted that there are at least 50% of respondents in schools with computer rooms who are not using computers for simple word processing. f i g u r e 2 : e d u c a t o r s ’ c o m p u t e r u s a g e i n s c h o o l s w i t h o r w i t h o u t c o m p u t e r r o o m s the data in this study are being used simply to show that there are a fair percentage of educators not using computers either for general use or for teaching and learning in the classroom. what is also shown is that even though some educators have computer competence and access to computers, they are not using computers for teaching. the author uses this as a basis for presenting an argument as to why educators choose not to use computers in their teaching and learning even though access and competence are not an issue. review of research databases indicates insufficient research with regard to the association of educators and use of contemporary technologies in the classroom. of available research studies, most are premised on the influence of computers, calculators and accessories on students. the few that do address the association of educators and technology focus on a unique or unorthodox application not generally aligned with mainstream applications or those familiar with such technologies (sheingold & hadley, 1990). there are core beliefs with regard to advancing technologies such as computers and the hesitation of educators to incorporate them into the lesson plan. these misguided beliefs serve as the foundation for reversing the mind-set of these reluctant educators. these 66%   7%   6%   11%   9%   29%   22%   17%   22%   8%   0%   10%   20%   30%   40%   50%   60%   70%   never   less  than   once  a   month   once  or   twice  a   month   once  or   twice  a   week     daily   no  computer  room   computer  room   govender 174 misguided (and even, in some cases, fictitious) notions include, but are not limited to: insufficient amount of hands-on-training; lack of proper and communicative technical and administrative support; traditional instructional beliefs; the belief that technology will replace educators; and inherent resistance to change (office of technology assessment, 1995). to eradicate these beliefs, thoughts and notions, educational institutions are making tangible investments by providing their educators with opportunities for professional development in order to master required skills and broadening available resources to further enhance educators’ ability in the classroom. although the argument against integration of technology due to insufficient training has some merit, concern still exists among many educators that once it has its ‘foot in the door’, technology will continue to grow and become an obstacle and hindrance to an educator's plan and vision in the classroom. further to the data illustrated in figures 1 and 2, an analysis of the data for respondents who have computer competence and are in schools with computer rooms shows that even though computers are available for teaching, only a maximum of 16% of these educators are using them in their teaching (figure 3). the question to ask is why are 84% of these educators not using computers in their teaching even though access and competence are not an issue?   f i g u r e 3 : e d u c a t o r c o m p u t e r u s e i n c l a s s r o o m as mentioned earlier, often overlooked and not given due consideration in these assumptions is the fact that most educators are goal-oriented, proactive, and passionate, dedicated professionals (zhao & cziko, 2001). although much of the mentioned assumptions take into account the instructional beliefs of most educators, as well as their ‘grasping’ of what the technology is, the logic supporting these assumptions is cast in a deficiency of conducive environments to transition into or within the comfort level of the educator (mumtaz, 2000). with a well laid out plan and programme of technical integration of tangible investments in conjunction with educators, the crossing of the proverbial ‘continental divide’ will be made; thus teachers will become knowledgeable about the concept after comprehending the ideology of the modern day and embrace and promote it (friedman & friedman, 2011). the ‘continental divide’ approach, as good as it is, does have its detractors; approximately 20% of 84%   8%   5%   2%   1%   0%   10%   20%   30%   40%   50%   60%   70%   80%   90%   never   less   than   once  a   month   once  or   twice  a   month   once  or   twice  a   week     daily   educator  computer  use  in   classroom   perceptual control theory, technology and teaching integration td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 171 – 181. 175 educators responding to a particular statement in the survey indicated that they had a preference to continue to ‘do business’ in the old-fashioned way, with a hands-on approach in lieu of computer-aided means. the following is a brief introduction to pct, along with an outline of a conceptual framework to comprehend educator integration of technology from the perspective of this theory. it must be emphasised that the empirical work above only addresses the status quo – the rest of the paper is conceptual. the suggested conceptual framework has not been validated, and is a proposal that needs to be tested in follow-up work. understanding purposeful behaviour: pct hirschi (1969, p 3) defines control theory as follows: control theory is the view that people refrain from deviant behaviour because diverse factors control their impulses to break social norms. control theory explains why people often do not act on deviant impulses. some controls are internal, such as a person's conscience and motivation to succeed; others are external, such as one's parents, friends, and legal codes. for example, fear of potential embarrassment and store security might quell a person's desire to steal. control theory links non-deviant behaviour to socialization and social bonds: those who are more socialized as children and maintain stronger bonds with others are less likely to behave in deviant ways. as a criterion for behavioural activity, the pct contends that human beings and all other living organisms control perceptual input, or reference conditions, not motor output. the living elements seek to achieve goals, with individuals’ actions aligned with reference conditions that are coordinated with their consciousness. perceptions are arrived at when reactive responses interact with prevalent environmental agitation. human beings’ mind-sets are designed to have achievement attained in a hierarchical manner, with low-level goals manipulated to attain a more focused end result (powers, 1989). understanding the theory that all living organisms, including educators, interact with life based on a set of hierarchical goals is critical to comprehending the basic concept of pct. as an adjunct, contemporary technological advances are deemed an asset towards enhancing the learning experience. what elements or concepts influence whether an educator introduces or refrains from utilising said technology? possible answers to such a scenario are addressed in the following three views as to how educators perceive technology in conjunction with their personal framework of hierarchical goals. effectiveness of technology in maintaining higher-level goals individuals are consistently responding and altering their means towards achieving their goals, according to specific elements of pct. when a conflict or contradiction appears between the reference condition (sometimes referred to as the goal) and the position of the controlled variable, variation of the means becomes apparent as an element to minimize the perceived issue and re-establish control once again. a response is not necessary if an issue of concern is not present. there is a universal assumption that educators have an obligation and goal to create and present practical and applicable information to their students. govender 176 the hesitancy of educators to embrace contemporary technology can be seen as an invisible monitor overseeing the educators’ work, making them feel that their current teaching must be elevated and in some cases comparable to information presented by contemporary technology. hence the educator feels as if they are being scrutinized in addition to their career security being threatened. if the perception is that their instruction is up to par, the perceived input concurs with their reference condition (goal), and therefore will not alter the current plan set in action. a cause for concern is a result of assessment of both the reference condition and the perception of the input, whereby a deviation in either of the two as a result of environmental agitation produces a deviation. the possibility exists of a discrepancy occurring when the standards of an educator are elevated as a result of their participating in professional development. to the contrary, the discrepancy may also appear as a result of students not paying full attention to the subject matter or the students’ assessments seeming overly negative, as well as if administration decides to implement curriculum revision. as uncontrollable factors encroach, educators must accept the realisation that how they were trained, educated and interned years ago have proven to be insufficient as a tool to maintain and achieve their goals. change is imminent and present at the moment and must be evaluated and embraced (budin & meier, 1998). a myriad of choices is available to educators in an attempt to refine and enhance their professional skills according to their goals (zhao & cziko, 2001). case in point: an educator reads a publication that addresses the trend of students becoming more adept in subject matter taught as a result of the class instructor interjecting information gathered from the internet to emphasise his lesson plan. as a result of this scenario the educator, hesitant at first about the introduction of contemporary technology in the classroom, comes to the realisation that this type of technology can prove to be a valuable asset, and that it will enhance teaching presentations. their old, dated perception of being a proficient educator has been altered to where they now embrace available tools to engage students in a collaborative learning effort. in order to stay the course with this revelation, educators must concede that their current ways must be cast aside to embrace and endure this reference condition. there are many available options to engage students in collaborative efforts, such as engaging students with others from different educational institutions to work on varied assignments (luke & sawyer, 1998). paramount to this model is the effectiveness of a low-level control system, for it has a twofold ability: (a) to choose a goal at a higher level; and (b) to initiate agitation, therefore permitting an individual to change. in most cases more than one lower-level system is eligible to be altered to sustain high-level goals, in accordance with the hierarchy of control. variation exists towards achieving a high-level goal as a result of influences such as overall quality as well as speed. when change is present, as in the case of a more effective lower-level control system, a higherlevel system seeks to take control of the situation. as a result, contemporary technology is able to sustain a current reference condition which can create a cause for concern within. options abound; an educator may consider the benefit of email, not as a result of his mind-set but because he has become enlightened to the fact of the convenience perceptual control theory, technology and teaching integration td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 171 – 181. 177 and time element associated with interfacing with students. many educators now concede that this assists in sustaining their path towards achieving their goal in a far more efficient and effective manner (anderson, 2008). more and more educators are coming to the realisation of having to adapt to contemporary technology due to the fact it is on the low end of the goal hierarchy, which permits variation in contrast to refusing to alter the instilled educator beliefs (anderson, 2008; stockley, 2003; bryant & hunton, 2000). although this position has raised the ire of many in the educational community (mumtaz, 2000), consideration must be given to this approach if it serves as an effective or only means of introduction of contemporary technology into the classroom. in this study the data show that respondents were positive towards the following statements: ‘computers can enhance a learner’s learning’, ‘using computers in the classroom will make the subject matter more interesting’ and ‘computer use fits well with my curriculum goals’. this realisation of adapting to modern-day technology allows the educator to up his/her standards, thus supporting a higher-level goal of creating and presenting practical and applicable information to their students. potential disturbances to other goals crossing the threshold and embracing contemporary technology can be influenced by factors such as anticipated effectiveness of the application and envisioned agitation towards one’s goal, with elements of the control system having an impact on the environment. in addition, said technology can initiate agitation of goals higher up the chain, without association with the intended goal. a hypothetical scenario portrays an educator pondering the thought of altering or revising their method of teaching in collaboration with the fact that they must use a form of contemporary technology. they are faced with three choices: (a) use of email, (b) incorporating use of the internet in the classroom; and (c) student collaboration. after careful assessment of the pros and cons, the educator chooses to go with student collaboration. the question is then posed as to why the educator made that choice. a possible answer may be that student collaboration is easier to manage and has been utilized before, requires fewer resources and does not infringe or create issues with other goals. although perceived by many as the ultimate goal of an educator – ‘to present useful and relevant information’ in the classroom – there are other essential goals an educator strives to maintain as well as control. most educators want to be viewed not as a ‘geek’, knowledgeable in only one topic, but as an influential individual who is authoritative and compassionate. making the transition into a realm that an educator is not familiar with exposes them (they feel) to arenas of knowledge that in most cases they should be familiar with. yet they choose to veil themselves in the cloak of tradition. if such fear or deficiency were exposed at a greater level with students, students may feel they are being deprived of the education they are entitled to. the educator evaluates all available possibilities and settles for the least confrontational one: teaching with the assistance of contemporary technology. due to a multitude of excuses, anderson (2008) contends that contemporary technology will present more issues than by avoiding them altogether. the anchor to the excuses and false justifications that educators have with regard to contemporary technology is that it will toss to the winds the years of education, classroom experience and professional development they govender 178 have accrued. this ‘new’ approach creates issues and takes full control and knowledge of the classroom learners away from the educator (chitiyo & chitiyo, 2007). while this may not seem a ‘big deal’ to most, many educators feel genuinely threatened by the encroachment of technology. research has revealed that new-age ‘high-tech’ educators subscribe to a learner-centred method of learning (nicolle & lou, 2008; kalinga, burchard & trojer, 2007; swain, 2006; bryant & hunton, 2000). this is because the high-tech educator who implements contemporary technology does not see issues arising that would interfere with other goals; they see it as an adjunct that can only enhance their performance in the classroom. in this study the construct ‘perceived behavioural control’ was defined as “reflects perceptions of internal and external constraints on behaviour and encompasses self-efficacy, resource facilitating conditions, and technology facilitating conditions” (govender, 2008). data from the study showed that only 28% of respondents were positive towards this construct; it seems that the majority of respondents were not overly confident with aspects of ‘perceived behavioural control’. steps need to be taken to address the issue of interference with the goal of ‘being in control’ when adoption of technology is being considered. ability to control the ability to embrace contemporary technology by educators is largely contingent on the sense of being in control. an element of pct suggests that while the goal or reference condition is delivered to the low-level systems from the upper levels, the direction or handling of the goal is not provided to the low-level systems. the need to react to environmental factors is essential with low-level control systems in order solely to achieve the goal. an educator having the ability to control means two things: 1. present is a structure which allows for perceiving, comparison and action when required. 2. accessibility to required resources which enable ability to act and control. when confronted with technology an educator may not have a functioning control system. to facilitate email applications students must convey an interaction with the educator as to the value of such technology. continuing advances in computer technology mean computers have become more user-friendly. personal computer-specific control systems are not essential in order to use technology; an educator can couple with another educator’s control system to resolve the issue or task at hand, thus relieving them of any associated fear and burden. external influences have a significant impact on an educator’s ability to control from within. with certain tools needed, the educator perceives the necessity for him, while traditional beliefs can either expand or hinder an educator’s use of contemporary technologies. such concerns are not of primary importance, as they are not deemed essential to the overall effectiveness, potential and financial impact of the technologies. as a result, the perception from a pct view is that ability to control a form of technology is much lower in the goal’s hierarchy to an educator than the use of technology is, and lowerlevel systems can be altered to sustain a high-level goal. an educator’s goal can be attained if the educator determines that such technology can bring about the goal of beneficial teaching; they can adjust other low-level goals to bring fruition to the intended goal. data from this study revealed that educators agreed that the ‘facilitating conditions’ were lacking for technology integration to take place; such conditions are “objective factors in the perceptual control theory, technology and teaching integration td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 171 – 181. 179 environment that observers agree make an act easy to perform, including the provision of computer support” (thompson, 1991, p. 124). concluding remarks educators may express a reluctance to incorporate contemporary technology due to a perceived conflict with their goals at a higher level (lawless & pellegrino, 2007; stockley, 2003; bryant & hunton, 2000). one must eventually come to the realization that technology can only be of benefit and does not act detrimentally, as many educators are led to believe. case studies and true-life testimonials can serve to advance eradication of myths associated with technology in the classroom. erasure of traditional teaching methods in education should not be excluded when incorporating new technologies. as with other elements of society, change does not come easily – it needs to be gradually and gently eased into the mind-set of educators (mumtaz, 2000). tools and accompanying technical support for the benefit of educators can put control back into their hands and reduce or eliminate potential anxiety. several elements and criteria of a pct-based framework for comprehending issues associated with educator adoption of technology have been addressed in this paper. it contends that to seek resolution one must take the perspective of educators as the lead in the issue at hand, instead of just attempting to address a solution to a problem. the framework discussed here views technology as a possible way for educators to achieve their higher-level goals. however, the goal of using technology needs to be maintained by varying lower-level systems. three conditions are required to ensure use of technology by an educator: • the educator must believe that technology can sustain higher-level goals; • the educator must believe that using technology will not initiate agitation of higherlevel goals other than the one being sustained; and • the educator must believe that they have or will be empowered to master the technology. it is the opinion of the author that for an educator to use technology all three conditions must be exercised, otherwise it is unlikely that they will implement contemporary technology in the classroom. as stated earlier, a transdisciplinary approach was necessary to try and understand why educators are not using technology even though they have the competence and access. pct and its concepts, which have their foundations in psychology, were used to suggest a conceptual framework to explain non-use of technology by educators. the author attempted to integrate perspectives from different disciplines centred around one problem, which is technology adoption. references abdulkafi, a. 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(2001). teacher adoption of technology: a perceptual control theory perspective. journal of technology and teacher education, 9(1), 5-30. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 241 270 architectural traditions of mapungubwe and bambandyanalo (k2) a meyer and ce cloete * abstract this article is concerned with the identification of culturally significant architectural structures and features on the archaeological sites mapungubwe and k2, two 11th to 13th century ad african capitals in the current mapungubwe cultural landscape world heritage site in the limpopo province, south africa. the objective of the article is to identify the typical architectural structures and features of the two sites, based on the original archaeological field research reports of the university of pretoria (up) as a primary source of information, for the purposes of architectural reconstruction and educational presentation. the archaeological field reports in the mapungubwe archive at up are briefly reviewed as primary sources of information. previous archaeological research of the university on mapungubwe and k2 since 1933 resulted in the establishment of the mapungubwe museum and archive at up in 2000 where the field records are kept, and in the current reconstruction, interpretation and presentation of the architecture of mapungubwe and k2 for the educational displays of the museum. observed remains of architectural structures and features on mapungubwe include single free-standing stonewalls; terrace stonewalls, some of which are constructed with steps; stone platforms; stone mortar blocks and mortar hollows on exposed sandstone surfaces; circular stone structures; sets of game-hollows in rock surfaces; and on both sites the remains of circular pole and daub structures varying from small granaries to larger veranda type structures; as well as evidence of palisades and stockade type kraal structures. these architectural structures and features will be reconstructed and their cultural significance explained with the application of transdisciplinary methodology in further research. keywords keywords: african, architecture, bahananwa, circular pole and daub structures, cone on cylinder, granary, k2, limpopo, maleboho, mapungubwe cultural landscape, world heritage site, mapungubwe hill, mapungubwe museum, mortar block, rondavel, southern terrace, stonewall, terrace, tshivhase, verandah hut, vhavenda. disciplines: archaeology, anthropology, architecture, environmental economics mapungubwe and k2: from excavation to conservation, interpretation and presentation introduction this article is an early report of a current research project that is concerned with the reconstruction, interpretation and presentation of the architectural structures and features of the archaeological sites mapungubwe and k2 in the mapungubwe national park (cf. figure 1). this * proff andrie meyer and chris cloete are attached to the department of construction economics at the university of pretoria. meyer  and  cloete   242 basically interpretative new project is intended to reconstruct and explain the excavated architectural remains and their stratigraphic context that were recorded in the previous descriptive stratigraphic field report that was published by the university of pretoria in 1998 (meyer 1998), and on which many of the mapungubwe museum displays at up are currently based. while the archaeological sites mapungubwe and k2 are now managed as part of the mapungubwe national park by sa national parks, and information on these sites is presented to visitors at mapungubwe, the archaeological excavation records of the sites and a substantial collection of related cultural artefacts are curated and displayed at the publicly accessible mapungubwe museum at up. consequently, the project records in the mapungubwe archive at up are the basic source of information on the architecture of the sites. an objective of the current project is to first identify from those archive records the typical architectural structures and features of mapungubwe and bambandyanalo (generally also known as k2) to then supplement this existing archaeological information with comparable new ethnographic information on similar architecture of living local communities. the resulting data synthesis is expected to provide a trans-disciplinary basis for the reconstruction and educational requirements of the mapungubwe museum at the university of pretoria and the mapungubwe national park. figure 1. aerial view of the mapungubwe landscape from the south-west, with the site k2 situated on the raised valley floor in the foreground, the flat-topped bambanyanalo hill in the middle, and mapungubwe hill in the valley in the middle background beyond bambandyanalo. (meyer 1998:figure 1.2). mapungubwe and k2 as research and heritage sites when the african royal settlements known as mapungubwe and k2 on the current farm greefswald 37 ms (cf. figure 1) in the central limpopo river valley were abandoned by their inhabitants after approximately three hundred years of occupation from approximately ad 1000 to 1300, these settlements remained deserted for seven centuries before their discovery and architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 243 rediscovery by local inhabitants between ca. 1900 and 1932. during the following seven decades from 1933 to 2003, a series of extensive and intensive archaeological excavations by the university of pretoria and trans-disciplinary research on the human and cultural remains from the sites culminated in the proclamation of k2 and mapungubwe as national monuments in 1983 and 1984 respectively by the then national monuments council, predecessor of the current south african heritage resources agency; and again as national heritage sites by the south african heritage resources agency in 2001. in 2003 unesco proclaimed the settlement complex of mapungubwe and k2 and nearby archaeological sites the mapungubwe cultural landscape world heritage site; and in 2004 sa national parks established the new mapungubwe national park that includes the mapungubwe cultural landscape world heritage site. this national park is expected to be developed into one of southern africa’s trans-frontier parks across the boundaries of south africa, zimbabwe and botswana. an important implication of these developments is that the mapungubwe cultural landscape, including the architectural remains in the layers of human settlement of mapungubwe and k2, is considered to be of particular local and international heritage value within the broader context of the southern african history, and an equally valued source of research and education information. the mapungubwe museum and archive at the university of pretoria the primary involvement of the university of pretoria with the greefswald sites since 1933 resulted in a substantial collection of cultural objects and materials from k2 and mapungubwe and of research project documents. in 1997 a selection of cultural objects from mapungubwe and k2, that is conserved and researched at up, were proclaimed a national treasure under the auspices of the then national monuments council. a full-scale artefact collection management programme in the department of anthropology and archaeology of the university from 1998 to 1999 was followed by the transfer of the mapungubwe archaeological collection and archive to the department of cultural affairs of the university, to be presented on permanent display as the sasol africa heritage exhibition, when funding for the mapungubwe project by the department of anthropology and archaeology was discontinued. the public mapungubwe museum that was established at up in 2001 then took responsibility for the mapungubwe archaeological collection and archive; and in 2002 the mapungubwe museum registered the archive as an official repository that is recognized by the national archives and records service of south africa. the educational theme of mapungubwe that was introduced into the national curriculum in 1997 was implemented into the full-time school and public education facility at the mapungubwe museum.the displays at the mapungubwe museum are currently largely based on the artefacts excavated on mapungubwe and k2 and on the archaeological field report that was published in 1998. the department of cultural affairs of the university funded and managed the mapungubwe collection and archive under the mapungubwe museum from 2000 to 2007. since then, the department of up arts that was established in 2008, took responsibility for the mapungubwe museum with its mapungubwe collection and archive, together with all the other art and heritage collections of the university. an important implication of these developments is that the up mapungubwe museum and archive curates the research documentation of the architecture of mapungubwe and k2, which is available for further research and is a significant source of educational information to the general public. meyer  and  cloete   244 a critique and synthesis of archaeological archive records and oral traditions the reconstruction of the architectural structures and features of mapungubwe and k2 is based on the archaeological field records as the primary sources of information, subject to criteria of scientific critique, as some vague and contradictory archaeological field records are problematic. the stratification of mapungubwe and k2 as recorded during the various excavations should be fully integrated into a comparative diagram with the use of techniques such as the harris matrix (sinclair 2007). an essential source of comparative information for the reconstruction of the architecture is ethnographic analogy of which the potential is referred to in this article for research applications within the broader project. with the publication of the greefswald archaeological field report in 1998 and the subsequent development of the displays of the mapungubwe museum at up, it became clear that supplementary ethnographic information on indigenous architecture comparable to the architecture of the mapungubwe settlement complex could be acquired from local traditions in the limpopo region (meyer 2007). for this purpose, the king of the tshivhase kingdom of the vhavenda at sibasa, thovhele m.p.k. tshivhase and his royal council, and the king of the bahananwa of blouberg, kgosi t.j. maleboho and his royal council are actively supporting this ethno-archaeological interpretation of the mapungubwe settlement complex in conjunction with the recording of their own traditions. resourcing the mapungubwe archive and local oral traditions trans-disciplinary criteria for assessment of the primary resources of information as it is considered necessary to identify the typical architectural structures and features of mapungubwe and k2 as they are recorded in different original archaeological field reports, these reports are briefly reviewed according to a selection of archaeological considerations, conditions of ethnographic analogy and internal and external critique of the information. archaeological considerations as the architecture on the archaeological sites could only be investigated on-site, the relevant fieldwork records are currently the only primary sources of information for research. for the purposes of this study the use of the information in these reports are subject to the following: 1. which field reports, that are available in the archive, contain information on the architecture of the specific sites. 2. the extent to which the architectural features as cultural remains were cleared, recorded, dated, and related to other features and cultural artefacts within the stratigraphic context during the excavation processes. 3. the extent to which the architectural structures and features in the sites were reconstructed and interpreted to understand what they actually may have looked like and what their cultural significance may have been. 4. the extent to which the archaeological remains of the architecture on the excavated sites were systematically compared to those of other sites and of the traditional architecture of living communities in the regions for the purposes of identification, reconstruction and interpretation. architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 245 5. what the intended outcomes or uses of the information on the recorded, reconstructed and interpreted site architecture would be. as the tangible remains of the architectural structures and features on the deserted settlement sites are the incomplete evidence of the architectural traditions of the once living inhabitants, it is necessary to supplement the archaeological records with comparable and more complete ethnographic records of similar, living peoples and their cultural traditions. oral traditions and ethnographic analogy oral traditions as a source of history are statements about remembered information from the past, that are passed on by word of mouth from one generation to the next; that as evidence from the past are for the use of historians and as such are subject to critique on aspects such as authenticity, authorship, locality and dating (vansina 1997:12-13, 27-29, 31, 36, 54, 147). ethnographic analogy is regarded as the use of the traditions of a living population group as an example to demonstrate the way a people may have lived in the past, subject to specific conditions according to the following criteria (hole and heizer 1973:311-312): • the course of time in history is an important factor in continuity and comparison. the shorter the time lapse between the archaeological site and the living community, the better the potential for comparison. • the socio-cultural level or structure of the inhabitants of the archaeological site and that of the living community must be fairly comparable or matched. • the type of subsistence economy of the inhabitants of the archaeological site and of the living community should be relatively similar. • the location of the archaeological site and of the comparable living community should not be too widely separated from each other in geographic space. • in making inferences, language affiliation should be given low priority, as languages may differ but material aspects of culture not necessarily so. • the level of conservatism of a community with regard to the shared cultural tradition of its members should be considered. critique of sources of information critique of oral traditions or written documents as practiced in history studies (tosh 2006:93103) that could be applicable to reconstructing and interpreting the archaeological sites involve the following:  external critique of the authenticity of the records.  internal critique of the records that is the interpretation of the record’s content, including: o reliability of the records; meyer  and  cloete   246 o influences on the author; o presence of bias; and o reading sources in their context. different descriptions and interpretations of traditional settlements and architecture guidoni (1987) views architecture globally within its contexts of territory, clan, lineage, myth and power; in relation to the particular social, economic and ritual needs and activities of different societies; and within the role of architecture as political and social instrument that is subject to changes during the course of history. similarly, the traditional architecture of african rural settlements, towns and states is considered by denyer (1978) according to functionality including sacred, ceremonial and community buildings, defensive structures, and according to a taxonomy of house forms as well as building processes, materials and decoration. descriptions and interpretations of the settlement sites of farming communities in southern africa vary significantly, from an overview of southern african types of stonewall structures such as ‘simple terraces and huts’ and ‘terrace complexes’ (summers 1971), to the interpretation of k2 and mapungubwe in terms of state formation and the development of the zimbabwe culture (pikirayi 2001), and culture signature and spatial manifestations of rain-control that are developing into centralized rain-control by the ruling elite on mapungubwe hill (schoeman 2006). on a different level, the current project at the department of construction economics at up is focused on the detailed reconstruction of the architectural structures and features of mapungubwe and k2; the site-specific associations between architectural structures and features, portable cultural objects and stratigraphic sequence; and the social significance and construction economics of the architecture as well as its significance with regard to community subsistence economy. mapungubwe and k2 from excavation to conservation and presentation project research, conservation and presentation during the extensive and intensive excavations on k2 and mapungubwe and studies on the excavated artefacts and materials by specialist researchers over the past 75 years, different general trends in archaeology significantly influenced the focus and method of research on mapungubwe and k2, with results of varying quality and often diverse conclusions, which in turn affected the documentation and interpretation of the architectural remains on the sites. improved research methodology in time developed into systematic excavation and stratigraphic site recording and radiocarbon dating; and studies in physical anthropology, archaeo-zoology, archaeo-botany, metallurgy and ceramic typology; all of which eventually contributed significantly to the archaeological archive records of these sites. the excavations on mapungubwe and k2 in time revealed evidence of numerous architectural structures and elements or features, yet relatively little attention had been given to their explicit reconstruction and interpretation. a sequence of different project periods or phases can be described as early exploratory and then large-scale excavations from 1933 to 1940; limited small-scale excavations from 1950 to 1970; periodic detailed stratigraphic studies from 1970 to 1995; dedicated site and collection management, conservation and presentation to the public from ca. 1998 to current; and the current reconstruction and interpretation of the architecture of the sites and their construction economics as an integral part of the broader traditional culture systems of the inhabitants. early exploratory and large-scale excavations from 1933 to 1940 architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 247 the fieldwork on mapungubwe was initiated by l. fouché and his colleagues at up in 1933, and was continued on behalf of up by n. jones and j.f. schofield in 1934 (fouché 1937). three project objectives were then formulated (jones 1937:10) as follows: 1. the discovery of such evidence as should enable us to arrive at a certain, if probable, date for the occupation of mapungubwe. 2. the sifting of evidence for the establishment of cultural contacts with other contemporary peoples, whether indigenous or foreign. 3. the collection of such material as would help us to know what manner of people lived there, and to note such cultural features or peculiarities as might reveal themselves. the fieldwork of 1933 to 1934 included exploratory excavations with the use of contemporary archaeological excavation techniques by fouché and his team; an area survey of stone wall ruin sites in the area by jones; a brief ethnographic survey of traditional villages and traditional customs of local communities by g.p. lestrade (1937) and various specialist reports on human and cultural remains at mapungubwe and k2 and stone ruins in the area (fouché 1937). fouché concluded in his report (1937) that the sites were inhabited by bantu-speaking people, apparently as the settlement remains and cultural artefacts at mapungubwe and k2 appeared to them to be similar to the traditional settlements and personal possessions of living communities in the area at the time of their investigation. fouché did not pursue the investigations any further as he then left the university, and jones and schofield withdrew from the project towards the end of 1934. during the initial investigations of mapungubwe by fouché and his companions in 1933, a number of site features were noted and trial excavations were made (fouché 1937:6-7; plate ii, iii). three access routes to the summit of mapungubwe were noted, some of which have supporting climbing hollows cut into the cliff walls. free-standing stonewalls that were observed above the western ascent (fouché 1937:diagram 1) and the eastern ascent (cf. figure 2) were interpreted as possible defensive walls. it may be noted that the western ascent is referred to as the southern ascent by gardner (gardner 1963:diagram 5). architectural structures and features on the southern terrace below the southern ascent included substantial terrace stonewalls, a passageway, stone steps and a sequence of gravel floors that were observed and exposed in the trial excavation numbered tb1. (cf. figure 3 and 4). further records of architecture on the summit of mapungubwe were made by jones during general site observations and excavations in 1934 (jones 1937). he made several fairly large test trenches in the central deposits on the summit of mapungubwe hill (jones 1937:13-15; diagram 1, 2). in his trench js 1, jones encountered a stratified sequence of what he called cement pavements, midden material, occupation floor remains of red shale rubble, ash, two stone circles in an extension of the trench, and a retaining wall (jones 1937:plate vii, 4) that according to him was built without foundation on midden material towards the end of the occupation of the site. it should be noted that a substantial layer of habitation deposit eventually covered at least part of this terrace wall on mapungubwe hill. this wall is similar to the terrace stonewalls on the southern terrace. the deposits of trench js 4 is recorded by jones to consist of the same material, and also two hut floors, one of which was structured with what jones called a cement bench. in trench js 5 he found substantial midden material and a sequence of superimposed cement floors and a fireplace containing meyer  and  cloete   248 ash and charred marula pips. in trench js 6, jones found what he described as a section of a retaining wall that did not go far in either direction and that belonged to an occupation layer just above an older cement floor. this wall may, however, be part of a circular terrace stonewall of which another section was exposed in trench js 1. during the summer of 1934 to 1935, the assistant van tonder continued with excavations in the grave area where he uncovered numerous graves, and possibly also architectural remains that were not recorded. on the southern terrace, excavation tb1 by fouché in 1933 was extended in 1934 by jones with his trench js 2(a) through the width of the southern terrace, in which he found sections of terrace stonewalls, and trench js 2(b) behind the large boulders and stonewalls where jones uncovered substantial remains of a settlement unit consisting of different circular pole and daub type structures, stone platforms and mortar stones (jones 1937:15-18, diagram 1, 3). trench js 3 was excavated into occupation deposits above a terrace stonewall in an occupation area described as the mahobe site below what was called in the report the mahobe ascent, and of which the occupant was reputed to be mahobe, a daughter of the last king of mapungubwe (jones 1937:18-19, diagram 4). during the excavations on mapungubwe in 1934, explorations of the surrounding landscape resulted in the discovery of some extensive stonewalls on the hill south of mapungubwe, named bambandyanalo after a large, legendary rock on its slope. the field team then discovered the large midden site in a small valley to the south of bambandyanalo hill, also naming this site bambandyanalo; but the site was later renamed k2 by gardner who excavated on it from 1935 to 1940. jones and the field team first made trial excavations in middens on k2 where they found childrens’ graves. on the southern slope of bambanyanalo hill they also observed the remains of a solid gravel floor that could be the remains of a domestic architectural structure (fouché 1937:19-20). in 1935, g.a. gardner was contracted to undertake the excavations on mapungubwe and k2 on behalf of the university of pretoria, which he continued during the winter months till 1940 when he was called away for military duty in world war ii (cf. gardner 1955, 1956, 1963). during 1935 to 1940 gardner removed most of the western half of the deposits on the summit of mapungubwe hill in excavation blocks that were subdivided into sections. in the diary-style field-notes of his report, gardner refers to floors and stone granary platforms, without any further description except for three general photographs of hut floors (gardner 1963:plate vi). of particular interest however is his reference to and a drawing and photographs of a burnt veranda type hut, situated adjacent to the charred remains of a wooden door in a section of another structure, as well as a number of ceramic vessels (gardner 1963:20-21; plate viii and ix). gardner’s excavations on k2 from 1935 to 1940 (gardner 1963) were basically concentrated in five areas. firstly, gardner made trial trenches in a smaller, separate midden that was labelled k1 and that is situated near the south-eastern side of k2, which he interpreted as midden material that had been washed down-slope from the main site. secondly, he made several test pits on the north-eastern part of k2 where he found layers of red gravel, which he explained as hill-wash that was deposited during rain downpours. thirdly, he made a large trial trench through the main midden of k2, where he found human skeletal remains which he considered to be the remains of bush-boskop (khoi) people, apparently basing his view on the osteological identification of the human remains from the site as bush-boskop by galloway (1937; 1959). gardner recovered a architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 249 wealth of cultural material, including potsherds, glass beads, animal bone fragments, ceramic figurines of humans and animals, all of which he considered to be part of the khoi material culture. fourthly, gardner completely removed the site deposits in arbitrary excavation layers in a large excavation grid in the south-western part of k2. in this part of the site he found numerous graves containing human skeletons which he considered to be remains of khoi people, together with numerous pits which he identified as kilns and cooking hearths of the khoi. according to gardner, these inhabitants of k2 lived in flimsy shelters. fifthly, gardner made a trial trench, trench 2, towards the north-east of the main midden below the southern slope of bambandyanalo, where he found abundant stratified settlement and cultural remains that he identified as settlement remains of bantu-speaking people. in his field report (1963), gardner, however, provided few descriptions, drawings or photographs of any architectural features on k2; but included in his report a photograph of a floor (gardner 1963: plate vii, 2). it may be noted that gardner’s identification of the human remains and the surrounding part of k2 as a khoi settlement, was later disproved by the findings of other researchers. excavations on the southern terrace and k2, 1950 to 1970. a second period or phase of excavations between 1950 and 1970 were undertaken by the then department of anthropology of the university of pretoria, described in an unpublished field report by the fieldworker at the department, h.f. sentker (sentker 1969) and in unpublished annual reports to the national monuments council at that time. during 1953 to 1954, sentker (1969) undertook limited, detailed excavations in a new excavation grid on a part of the southern terrace. with the assistance of staff members and students of the department of anthropology, he meticulously recorded and removed the upper occupation layers in several adjacent twelve feet by twelve feet excavation squares. the remains of a number of gravel floors as well as a section of a stonewall and stone platforms were uncovered and recorded in his report (sentker 1969). during the winter seasons of 1968 to 1970, professor h. eloff and his students of the then new department of archaeology at the university of pretoria continued with the excavation of one of the squares, e2, where they found similar gravel floors, evidence of rondavel type structures, stone platforms and stone mortar blocks. during 1968, eloff and a team of his students excavated a small section in the wall of gardner’s excavation at k2 (cf. figure 17) where they cut into the deposits of the large midden and the underlying dung deposits of what is believed to be the remains of a large cattle kraal (meyer 1998: 62). it is assumed that the kraal fence had originally been a wooden stockade type of structure. excavations at mapungubwe and k2, 1970 to 1995 from 1970 to 1995, a series of detailed excavations and stratigraphic studies by the department of archaeology that later became the department of anthropology and archaeology at up, resulted in specialist studies on the various artefacts and materials, an unpublished field report of five volumes (eloff 1979) and various published specialist articles and post-graduate studies. during 1971 to 1973, a research grant by the human sciences research council enabled the department of archaeology to undertake substantial fieldwork on mapungubwe and k2. the objectives of these excavations (meyer 1998:29-30) were: 1. cultural identification according to typical cultural traits, pottery typology and chronology. 2. reconstruction of the economy, technology and aspects of settlement. meyer  and  cloete   250 3. physical features and relationships of the k2 and mapungubwe people. 4. description of site stratification and site features; artefacts and ecofacts including metal objects, beads, artefacts of bone and ivory, stone artefacts; ceramic typology and sequence; animal remains and animal husbandry; hunting and snaring; plant remains and agriculture; collecting of food and raw materials; and the age and chronology of the greefswald sites. during a series of excavations undertaken by eloff and meyer on behalf of the university of pretoria from 1971 to 1984, the focus of the fieldwork included detailed stratigraphic recording of the settlement deposits at mapungubwe and k2. the fieldwork resulted in the excavation of square f4, h5 and k8 on the southern terrace; excavation mk 1 and mk 3 on mapungubwe hill; and excavation ts 1 to ts 6 and excavation rn 2 on k2. a detailed unpublished report on this fieldwork and the subsequent analysis of artefacts and other archaeological materials were submitted to the human sciences research council who funded this phase of the project (eloff 1979). a report of these excavations with some additional fieldwork was later published (meyer 1998). these reports contain detailed records of the excavated stratification and architectural features of mapungubwe and k2, together with a diagram illustrating the stratified sequence of radiocarbon dates (eloff 1979; meyer 1998). the site settlement chronology that was reconstructed from the archaeological evidence (eloff 1979; meyer 1998; vogel 1998) was summarized as four phases of occupation regarding k2 and mapungubwe, as follows (cf. table 1 to 3 below): phase i: settlement by an early farming community of which the only evidence is a small number of potsherds typologically older than ad 1000. phase ii: the occupation of k2 and the lower layers of occupation at mapungubwe dated ca. ad 1030 to 1220, containing the typical circular pole and daub structures and pottery tradition of k2, and successions of red and light yellow siltstone gravel floors. phase iii: the continued occupation of mapungubwe dated ad 1220 to 1250, containing a variety of circular pole and daub structures, the prominent transition from floors made of compacted siltstone gravel to dolerite gravel floors, numerous stone platforms, sunken stone mortar blocks, and an apparent mixture of k2 pottery with an increasing quantity of a new style of pottery closely associated with the mapungubwe cultural tradition. the terrace stonewalls on mapungubwe hill and the southern terrace can also be linked to this phase due to their stratigraphic position within the sequence of dolerite gravel floors. phase iv: the final occupation of mapungubwe dated ad 1250 to 1290, containing a succession of thin dolerite floors and cultural artefacts similar to those of phase iii, but with the addition of numerous san type bone arrowheads and arrow linkshafts in phase iv. the occupation layers of phase iv seem to cover or overlap at least some of the terrace stonewalling; and no circular pole and daub structures have as yet been found in phase iv, indicating that there had been a marked decline in architectural construction at mapungubwe at that time. the apparent stratigraphic position of at least some of the graves of humans found on mapungubwe hill indicate that these burials could be associated with phase iv or alternatively with a time after mapungubwe had been abandoned. architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 251 during the 1990s the department of anatomy of the university undertook limited excavations on k2 and mapungubwe, together with specialized studies on the human remains from these sites until the archaeological field research programme of up regarding mapungubwe and k2 was terminated towards 2000. architectural structures and features at mapungubwe and k2 the architectural structures and features noted in the archaeological field reports on mapungubwe and k2 can be categorized into different types (cf. their descriptions and figure 2 to 18 below) that can also be linked to dated settlement deposits (cf. table 1 to 3 below). free-standing stonewalls small, isolated free-standing walls are constructed of dry-stacked stone (figure 2). these walls are present on the summit of mapungubwe hill above the steep access routes to the hilltop (fouché 1937). they presumably had a different function to that of the large free-standing enclosure stonewalls that are typical of traditional villages such as mukumbani, the royal village, musanda, of the tshivhase dynasty of the vhavenda (van der waal 1977; tshikosi 2009) near sibasa. figure 2. free-standing stonewall above the western (southern) ascent to the summit of mapungubwe hill (fouché 1937:plate viii, 3). terrace or retaining stonewalls the terrace walls consist of a dry-stacked stonewall face with backfilling of stones and soil (figure 3, 4). the early excavations exposed a series of straight to curved terrace stonewalls, some with meyer  and  cloete   252 steps, on the southern terrace and a terrace stonewall on the summit of mapungubwe hill (fouché 1937). similar walls are typical of some venda villages (van der waal 1977; tshikosi 2009). figure 3. a series of terrace stonewalls on the southern terrace at mapungubwe, exposed during the excavations of 1934 (fouché 1937:plate x,1). architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 253 figure 4. a terrace stonewall, constructed above a dolerite gravel floor that overlaps an underlying terrace stonewall (left); and stone steps (right) apparently belonging to a later terrace construction that was eventually partly crushed by a fallen section of the adjacent sandstone boulder (cf. similar photograph in fouché 1937:plate x,2). circular stonewall bases the circular stonewall base type of structure consists of a double row of stones with a sandstone mortar block embedded in the wall base (cf. figure 5). such structures had been observed in the current site surface on the eastern part of the summit of mapungubwe hill, and below at the eastern foot of the hill (meyer 1998: 174-175). subject to further research, this type of construction could be interpreted as the stone base of a low wall surrounding a threshing floor, and is constructed against a stone mortar block. threshing floors are widely known, for example the bahananwa traditionally threshed sorghum and millet on a threshing floor, seotlo, before storing the seeds in a granary basket, sešego or silo, in a granary storage hut, mothopa (morata 2009). meyer  and  cloete   254 figure 5. a semi-circular double row of stones, interpreted as the base of a low wall surrounding a possible threshing floor built against a large mortar rock, situated in the valley near the eastern foot of mapungubwe hill (meyer 1998:figure 3.107). stone platforms stone platforms are relatively small, usually circular structures that typically consist of irregular or column-shaped rocks positioned vertically in the ground, supporting flat stones (figure 6, 7; table 3: “stone platform”). in some cases, vertical successions of at least two stone platforms in situ were observed in layers of occupation (fouché 1937:plate ix, 3; meyer 1998:123, 164). in the past, the storage basket, tshisenga, of the vhavenda that was woven of grass and used for the storage of finger millet (eleusine), mufhoho, and beans, nawa, or various seeds was kept on a base of stones below the roof overhang or veranda of a hut (van der waal 1977; tshikosi 2009). the bahananwa traditionally use a wooden granary platform, seboya, to dry harvested grains and beans (maleboho 2009). architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 255 figure 6. succession of stone platforms in layer 5 (top) and layer 7 (below) in excavation k8 on the southern terrace, as excavated in 1971 (cf. meyer 1998:165, figure 3.96). meyer  and  cloete   256 figure 7. stone platform consisting of columnar stones positioned vertically in a circle, some of which support a remaining flat stone (meyer 1998:146, figure 3.77). stone circles this type of stone structure consists of a circular concentration of stones (figure 8), two of which had been uncovered on the summit of mapungubwe hill in 1933 (fouché 1937:13), one with a ceramic pot positioned on top in its middle (van riet lowe 1933). architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 257 figure 8. stone circle observed and exposed on mapungubwe hill in 1933 (fouché 1937:plate vii,2). vertical stones and small monoliths this type of structure varies from vertically positioned columnar stones typically arranged in a circle, to single monoliths (cf. figure 9; table 2: “vertical stone columns”). these may be similar to the tshinari, of the vhavenda, a small structure consisting of several sacred stones that are embedded in the floor or in a low platform, where beer or water is sacrificed to the ancestors, and where they often keep a flower known by them as thidigwane in the centre of the stone circles (tshikhosi 2009; cf. van der waal 1977). the bahananwa have similar structures (morata 2009). meyer  and  cloete   258 figure 9. architectural features in the occupation area exposed in excavation js 2(b) in 1934 (fouché 1937:13; plate viii, 6), including the floor and wall base remains of a veranda type circular pole and daub structure, a stone circle consisting of stone columns in vertical position, and nearby small monoliths. stone mortar blocks, mortar hollows and stone lined pits sunken stone mortar blocks are typically positioned in small stone lined pits, often surrounded by or adjacent to gravel floors; as well as stone lined pits that may once have contained stone or wooden mortar blocks (cf. figure 10; table 3: “sunken mortar block”, and “mortar pit stone lining”). during earlier times the vhavenda used a similar type of sunken cereal stamping block, mutuli, made of wood or stone, and that was embedded in the floor of the cooking hut, tshitanga (van der waal 1977; tshikosi 2009). architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 259 figure 10. sunken stone mortar blocks positioned in small, stone lined pits, exposed in layer 9(i) in excavation mk1 on mapungubwe hill. note the clay rim surrounding the stamping hollow of the nearest mortar block that is embedded in a gravel floor; the sunken mortar block still mounted in the stone lined pit to the left at the back; and the stone lining including a cracked, flat bottom stone to the right at the back (cf. also meyer 1998:123, figure 3.57). stone structures with sunken clay pots it is a large, storage type of ceramic vessel, found buried in possible association with vertically arranged stones (cf. figure 11). several large ceramic vessels were found in situ, embedded in the ground close to architectural structures elsewhere (fouché 1937; meyer 1979, 1998). meyer  and  cloete   260 figure 11. a large ceramic pot, apparently a storage vessel, sunken into the ground between or close to vertically positioned columnar stones, exposed during initial excavations on mapungubwe hill in 1933 or 1934 (meyer 1998: 43). architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 261 game hollows in stone rows of hollows, usually consisting of sets of four rows with eight hollows each, are common features on the exposed sandstone surfaces of mapungubwe hill. at least two portable stones with sets of these game hollows were found on mapungubwe hill (cf. figure 12). similar game boards are used for games by the bahananwa (morata 2009) and the vhavenda (tshikosi 2009; van der waal 1977). figure 12. a portable stone game-board from mapungubwe hill, with a set of game hollows, consisting of four rows of six to eight hollows cut into the surface of a flat sandstone block. it is currently on display in the mapungubwe museum at the university of pretoria. climbing hollows vertical sets of hollows, cut into the steep cliff access routes to the summit of mapungubwe hill, are interpreted as climbing hollows. in the case of the southern ascent to mapungubwe hill these hollows are thought to have possibly supported wooden steps inserted into the hollows (fouché 1937). circular pole and daub structures the wall base and floor remains of numerous circular pole and daub structures are typical of both mapungubwe and k2 (cf. fouché (1937); gardner (1963); meyer (1979; 1998). the remains of these structures consist of circular wall base trenches often containing embedded charred wooden post remains or post holes, or simply circular trenches or circular rows of post holes made into underlying deposits or in the rocky surface of mapungubwe hill. the hut structures vary from meyer  and  cloete   262 small, storage type structures to medium sized single-wall structures, and large double walled veranda type structures. typical features of these structures are floors inside and around them, made of compacted sand or gravel. in layers of burnt hut rubble, many chunks of the sandy mud wall plaster still have post marks imprinted on them. in some cases the burnt wall clay rubble of small huts contains charred seeds of sorghum, millet and beans, evidence of the use of the huts as granaries. (cf. figure 12 to 15). small circular pole and daub wall base without floor small circular pole and daub hut type wall bases without compacted floors may have had raised wooden floors and were probably used as storage huts (cf. figure 13; table 2: “1. small hut without floor”), similar to the typical venda granary hut, dulu, that is traditionally built on a platform of stones and wood (van der waal 1977; tshikosi 2009). figure 13. two small circular pole and daub wall bases without floors in layer 9(i) in excavation f4 on the southern terrace at mapungubwe (meyer 1998:148, figure 3.80). small circular pole and daub hut wall bases with floors the remains of several circular pole and daub structures have floors made of compacted sand or gravel (cf. figure 14; table 2: “2. small hut with floor”). architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 263 figure 14. the circular row of wall post holes of a small hut enclosing a well compacted gravel floor, surrounded by a vertical sequence of outside or open-air gravel floors, situated adjacent to several parallel palisade type wall remains that consist of post holes in straight or slightly curved wall trenches (meyer 1998:156, figure 3.88). medium sized single-wall bases with floors the remains of medium sized circular pole and daub type huts consist of floors made of compacted sand or gravel, surrounded by a single wall base trench, often with remains of posts or post holes (cf. figure 15; table 2: “3. medium hut with floor”). meyer  and  cloete   264 figure 15. excavation h5 on the southern terrace, showing an excavation witness section diagonally across the excavation; and remaining architectural remains of different layers left in situ, including a mortar stone in a stone-lined pit embedded in a gravel floor (to the rear left) in layer 6(i), but probably belonging to layer 5; a gravel patch in the middle; the remains of a medium-sized circular pole and daub structure (rear right) consisting of a compacted sand floor and a single row of wall post holes in a wall trench in layer 6(iii); and a ceramic pot in a small pit in the sterile bottom deposit (meyer 1998:157, figure 3.90). veranda type wall bases with floors the most prominent circular pole and daub structures are the remains of veranda type structures (cf. figure 16; table 2: “4. veranda hut with wall posts”, and “4. veranda hut with wall trenches). these structures consist of two concentric, circular hut wall base trenches that are in some cases surrounded by a third wall or veranda base, sometimes with remains of a door entrance, or with a partition between the inner and outer wall. these structures were constructed with well compacted gravel floors, sometimes constructed with modelled hollows, steps and curbs (fouché 1937:plate viii,6; plate ix 2, 5; diagram 4; gardner 1963:plate viii; meyer 1998: 83, 124, 155). in the traditions of the vhavenda such a structure is the guvhagoha, a man’s living or sleeping hut, constructed with storage space and in earlier times with a supported roof overhang or veranda, guda (tshikosi 2009). architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 265 figure 16. a veranda type circular pole and daub structure consisting of an inner wall, an outer wall, gravel floors with modelled hollows in the inner floor, and a doorway with a low step in the outer wall, in excavation ts 4, k2. (meyer 1998:83, figure 3.21, 3.27). outside floors outside floors are common on the sites and are often surrounding the circular pole and daub structures (cf. figure 13). their plan-forms are usually irregular and they are made of compacted gravel. palisade wall bases wall base remains of palisades (figure 14) are in some cases present, typically close to or connected at right angles to circular pole and daub wall bases, often adjacent to or cutting through gravel floors (cf. meyer 1998:137, 156). kraals for domestic stock concentrated dung deposits are believed to be evidence of domestic stock such as cattle, goats and sheep that were kept in wooden stockade type kraals for domestic stock, for example the large dung deposit on k2 (cf. figure 17). amongst the vhavenda, cattle are kept in a stockade type kraal, danga, at night. similar kraals are used by the bahananwa. meyer  and  cloete   266 figure 17. excavation ts 1968 on k2, showing the dung deposit of the large kraal for domestic stock in the lower layers as indicated by the photographic scale marked in feet, covered by overlapping ash deposits of the large central midden on k2 (meyer 1998:62, figure 3.3). gravel floors and stratigraphic context numerous layers of gravel and compacted gravel floors served as outdoor living surfaces, often adjacent to circular pole and daub type hut structures, are typical site features on mapungubwe and k2. they are frequently referred to by the authors of the field reports (cf. figure 18). the gravel floors are important indicators of specific layers of occupation on the settlement sites. architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 267 figure 18. a vertical sequence of gravel floors visible in the wall profile of excavation mk 3 in the deposits between the grave area and the terrace stonewall on mapungubwe hill, in 1973 (meyer 1998: 139-141). conclusions 1. in the field reports of the exploratory and large scale excavations at mapungubwe and k2 from 1933 to 1940, relatively little information is available on the architecture of the sites. the only architectural features that were actually recorded during this period are those at mapungubwe. the recorded single free-standing stonewalls, sections of terrace stonewalls and a small settlement complex consisting of the remains of an arrangement of circular pole and daub type structures and stone structures at mapungubwe (fouché (1937) and jones (1937), however, seem to be representative of mapungubwe architecture. although these features were not directly dated, nor related to other site features in stratigraphic context and not compared with the ethnographic observations by lestrade (1937) of traditional village architecture in the region at the time, and not interpreted as a functional village settlement unit, they are nevertheless a critically important record for the application of ethnographic analogy and settlement reconstruction. gardner (1963) produced during his fieldwork a plan drawing that is a meyer  and  cloete   268 valuable record of a veranda type hut structure on mapungubwe hill. gardner’s interpretation of k2 as a khoi settlement with late intrusions of different bantu-speaking peoples was disproved by later research, and no significant archaeological records of the architecture of k2 were produced at this time. the methods and results of the research programme of the 1930s should, however, be understood against the relatively undeveloped scientific status of archaeology and anthropology as well as the particular trends in scientific theory at the time. 2. the more systematic stratigraphic reports of the excavations at mapungubwe and k2 between 1950 and 1995 (sentker 1969; eloff 1979; meyer 1979, 1998) contain numerous detailed descriptions of carefully excavated and recorded stone structures and the base remains of different circular pole and daub type structures in dated stratigraphic context, some of which are similar to those that had been uncovered earlier. 3. the above list of architectural structures and features is presented as a synthesis of relevant data from the different field reports in the archive; and provides an indication of the types of architectural structures of k2 and mapungubwe. the stonewalls, stone platforms and sunken stone mortar blocks that appear to be particularly typical of the middle layers of mapungubwe that are dated around ad 1220 to 1250. the circular pole and daub structures are typical of both mapungubwe and k2, but small circular pole and daub granaries with compacted sand floors are particularly evident in layers of burnt hut rubble at k2. the architectural features together with associated artefact data and radiocarbon dates as related to the stratification of mapungubwe and k2 during the various excavations should be fully integrated into a comparative diagram with the use of the harris matrix. 4. to date, the types of architectural structures and features in the sites were not reconstructed or interpreted in any of the field research reports, nor were they systematically compared to similar, traditional architecture of living communities in the region for the purposes of reconstruction and interpretation for presentations in publications, or in educational or museum displays. 5. the cultural objects and materials found in stratigraphic context with the architectural remains of mapungubwe and k2 indicate that the inhabitants of these settlements practised an agro-pastoral economy and associated artefact technology that are relatively comparable to the subsistence and settlement traditions of existing sotho and venda speaking communities in the region. in spite of the time lapse of approximately seven hundred years between the settlement of mapungubwe and the current kingdoms in the limpopo region, and in spite of the diversity of languages spoken in the region, the apparent similarities between some observed tangible aspects of their cultural traditions and that of the inhabitants of mapungubwe and k2 can be useful for the application of ethnographic analogy for the reconstruction of the architectural traditions of the past millennium in the area. 6. a relevant further research theme within the current project will be a systematic ethnoarchaeological comparison of the architectural remains of mapungubwe and k2 with the traditional architecture of traditional communities with comparable socio-economic systems, within the contexts of their settlement traditions and construction economics and in interaction with their surrounding natural landscapes. ta bl e 1. s tr at ig ra ph ic c or re la tio n of si te s, ex ca va tio ns , s tr at ig ra ph ic p ha se s, la ye r g ro up s, la ye rs a nd c al ib ra te d ra di oc ar bo n da te s p h as e k 2 m ap u n gu bw e so u th er n t er ra ce m ap u n gu bw e h il l t g 1 96 8 t s 1 t s3 t s 4 r n 2 f4 h 5 k 8 m st i m k 1 m k 3 iv a d 12 50 12 90 l1 l2 l1 l2 (i i) a d 1 41 4 l1 (i ii) a d 1 28 4 l2 (i i) a d 1 27 7 l3 a d 1 23 4 l1 l2 l3 l1 l2 l3 1 2 3 4 5 ii i a d 12 20 12 50 l3 l3 l4 l4 l5 l6 l7 l4 l5 l6 6 7 l4 l5 l6 l5 l6 l7 (i ) l7 (i i) l4 (i ) l4 (i i) l7 l8 l8 l9 l1 0 l7 l8 l7 (i ii) l5 (i ) l9 l1 1 l9 (i ) l7 a d 1 13 0 l7 (i v) l8 (i ) l8 (i i) l5 (i i) l5 (i ii) l5 (i v) l1 0 l1 1 l1 2 l1 3 l9 (i i) l8 (i ii) l6 (i ) l1 2 l1 0 l8 (i v) a d 1 11 0 l6 (i i) l1 3 l1 4 l1 5 a d 1 23 4 ii a d 10 30 12 20 l1 -2 l3 a d 1 22 0 l6 a d 1 21 3 l8 b a d 1 24 3 l1 1 a d 1 17 3 l1 l2 a d 1 22 0; a d 10 46 o r 11 03 o r 11 14 l3 -5 l1 -5 l6 a d 1 05 2 or 1 08 7 or 11 50 l7 -1 4 l1 5 a d 1 16 3 l1 623 l2 4 a d 1 16 3 l1 l2 l3 l4 a d 1 18 0 l5 l1 l2 l3 l4 l5 l9 l6 (i ii) l1 6 l1 4 l1 1 l1 0 a d 1 02 6 l6 (i ii) a d 1 17 3 l1 6 a d 1 02 6 l1 1 a d 1 24 3 l1 1 a d 1 22 5 l1 5 i p re a d 90 0 l1 7 b as e l1 1 b as e b ur nt h ut ru bb le l l ay er ta bl e 2. s tr at ig ra p h ic c or re la ti on o f si te s, e xc av at io n s, s tr at ig ra p h ic p h as es , m ai n la ye rs , l ay er s an d ro n da ve l h u ts p h as e k 2 m ap u n gu bw e so u th er n t er ra ce m ap u n gu bw e h il l t g 1 98 6 t s 1 t s3 t s 4 r n 2 f4 h 5 k 8 m st i m k 1 m k 3 iv 1. 2. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. ii i 3. 4. 5. 6. 3. 4. 5. 6. 4. 5. 6. 7. 4. 5. 6. 6. 7. (i ) 7. ( ii) 7. (i ) 4. ( ii) 4. 7. 8. 8. 9. 10 . 7. 8. (i ii) 7. ( iv ) 7. ( i) 8. ( ii) 8. (i ) 5. ( ii) 5. ( iii ) 5. ( iv ) 5. 9. 10 . 11 . 11 . 12 . 13 . (i ) 9. (i i) 9. (i ii) 8. ( iv ) 8. (i ) 6. ( ii) 6. 12 . 13 . 14 . 10 . ii 1. 2. 5 3. 7 6. 10 8. 11 . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 5 2. 6. 14 7. 15 . -2 3 16 . 24 . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 9. 10 . (i ii) 6. 15 . 16 . 14 . (i ) 14 . 11 . 15 . i b as e 17 . b as e 11 . b ur nt h ut r ub bl e sm al l g ra na ry h ut w ith ou t fl oo r sm al l g ra na ry h ut w ith flo or m ed iu m h ut w ith fl oo r m ed iu m h ut w ith w al l tr en ch v er an da h ut w ith w al l p os ts v er an da h ut w ith w al l t re nc he s ta bl e 3. s tr at ig ra p h ic c or re la ti on o f si te s, e xc av at io n s, s tr at ig ra p h ic p h as es , m ai n la ye rs , l ay er s an d st on e st ru ct u re s p h as e k 2 m ap u n gu bw e so u th er n t er ra ce m ap u n gu bw e h il l t g 1 98 6 t s 1 t s3 t s 4 r n 2 f4 h 5 k 8 m st i m k 1 m k 3 iv 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. ii i 3. 4. 5. 6. 3. 4. 5. 6. 4. 5. 6. 7. 4. 5. 6. 6. 7. (i ) 7. ( ii) 7. (i ) 4. ( ii) 4. 7. 8. 8. 9. 10 . 7. 8. (i ii) 7. ( iv ) 7. ( i) 8. ( ii) 8. (i ) 5. ( ii) 5. ( iii ) 5. ( iv ) 5. 9. 11 . 12 . 13 . (i ) 9. ( ii) 9. 10 . 11 . 8( iii ) 8( iv ) (i ) 6. ( ii) 6. 12 . 13 . 14 . 10 ii 1. 2. 5 3. 7 6. 10 8. 11 . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 5 2. 6. 14 7. 15 . -2 3 16 . 24 . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 9. 10 . (i ii) 6. 15 . 16 . 14 . (i ) 14 . 11 . 15 . i b as e 17 . b as e 11 . b ur nt h ut w al l r ub bl e su nk en m or ta r bl oc k m or ta r bl oc k m ou nt in g m ul tip le m or ta r bl oc k m or ta r ho llo w s in r oc k st on e pl at fo rm u pr ig ht s to ne s architectural  traditions:  mapungubwe  and  k2   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 241 – 270. 269 aknowledgements the following are credited and thanked for research and administrative support: department of construction economics, university of pretoria. department of up arts and the mapungubwe museum and archive, university of pretoria. kgosi t. j. maleboho; mr. p. morata, chairperson of the blouberg tourism association and manager of development in the office of kgosi maleboho; and the bahananwa royal council. thovhele m.p.k. tshivhase and the tshivhase royal family; and mr. g. tshikosi, spokesperson of thovhele tshivhase. references denyer, s.1978. african traditional architecture. london: heinemann eloff, j.f. 1979. die kulture van greefswald. volume 1-5. universiteit van pretoria: ongepubliseerde verslag aan the raad vir geesteswetenskaplike navorsing. fouché, l. 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(ed.) mapungubwe: ancient bantu civilization on the limpopo. cambridge: cambridge university press. lestrade, g.p. 1937. ‘report on certain ethnological investigations in connection with the archaeological discoveries at mapungubwe’. in: fouche, l. (ed.) mapungubwe: ancient bantu civilization on the limpopo. cambridge: cambridge university press. meyer  and  cloete   270 maleboho, t.j. 2009. personal comment. blouberg, limpopo province, south africa. meyer, a. 1979. ‘stratigrafie van die greefswaldterreine’. in: eloff, j.f. 1979. die kulture van greefswald. deel 1, 4, 5. universiteit van pretoria: ongepubliseerde verslag aan the raad vir geesteswetenskaplike navorsing. meyer, a. 1998.the iron age sites of greefswald: stratigraphy and chronology of the sites and a history of investigations. pretoria: university of pretoria. meyer, a. 2007. ‘a king behind a stone wall? a synthesis of architecture, artefacts and social memories’. shashe-limpopo research symposium, university of pretoria, 26 – 27 september. morata, p. 2009. personal comment. blouberg, limpopo province, south africa. pikirayi, i. 2001. the zimbabwe culture. oxford: rowman and littlefield publishers. schoeman, m. h. 2006. ‘imagining rain-places: rain-control and changing ritual landscapes in the shashe-limpopo confluence area, south africa’. the south african archaeological bulletin, vol. 61, no. 184 (dec.,), pp. 152-165. sentker, h.f. 1969. ‘mapungubwe 1953 – 1954’. ongepubliseerde verslag. pretoria: universiteit van pretoria. sinclair, p. 2007. personal comment. department of archaeology and ancient history, uppsala university. summers, r. 1971. ancient ruins and vanished civilizations of southern afdrica. cape town: t.v. bulpin. tosh, j. 2006. the pursuit of history. harlow, england: pearson. fourth edition. tshikosi, g. 2009. personal comment. sibasa, limpopo province, south africa. van der waal, c.s. 1977. die woning en woonwyse onder die venda. ongepubliseerde magisterverhandeling, universiteit van pretoria. van riet lowe, c. 1933. ‘mapungubwe contoured plan of summit’. unpublished map, mapungubwe archive, university of pretoria. vansina, j. 1997. oral tradition as history. oxford: james currey. reprint of first edition 1985. vogel , j.c. 1998. ‘radiocarbon dating of the iron age sites on greefswald’. in: meyer, a. 1998. the iron age sites of greefswald: stratigraphy and chronology of the sites and a history of investigations. pretoria: university of pretoria. abstract introduction and the southern african water context contemporary water historiography and its genesis in southern africa southern africa: water and its shifting historiographical terrain bottom-up historiography of water in southern africa: 20th and 21st centuries conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) mark nyandoro department of economic history, university of zimbabwe, harare, zimbabwe school of social sciences, history group, north-west university, vanderbijlpark, south africa citation nyandoro, m., 2019, ‘water and the environment in southern africa: a review of the literature since 1990’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a679. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.679 review article water and the environment in southern africa: a review of the literature since 1990 mark nyandoro received: 03 mar. 2019; accepted: 02 aug. 2019; published: 13 nov. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article is a review of the dominant literature on water issues, water rights and the environment in southern africa. being the first in a series of reviews of different regions, it is framed through a survey of national literature that has emerged since the 1990s, with a particular focus on south africa, zimbabwe and botswana. its central objective and/or purpose is to review select publications in which i foreground significant historiographical tendencies as they relate to my topic on water and the environment. the major tendencies or trends define the content of the article about these countries that form an important part of the sadc region. it traces how water history (a subdivision of environmental history) in southern africa has developed and evolved, and outlines how scholarly debates have changed over time. to achieve this, i track the major themes of water-history focusing on who produced the works cited, when were they produced, and critically surveying their tenors, themes or intention. what motivated this write-up and assessment of the source material is that several works on this topic have been produced by multiple scholars from diverse academic disciplines: water experts and/or practitioners, ecologists and/or environmentalists, historians, economists, social scientists, hydrologists and policy makers. but not much work has been conducted in the social sciences domain to highlight major water rights and environmental benchmarks from an economic history perspective – a perspective that combines the social and economic analysis of events without disregarding the impact of politics on life and society. keywords: water; water pollution; environment; hydro-politics; rural and urban water; irrigation; agriculture; conservation; water rights; water governance; water historiography; southern africa. introduction and the southern african water context with special reference to south africa, zimbabwe and botswana, this review of southern african literature on water and the environment since the 1990s is essential. it reveals the importance not only of water and the environment as key elements in the development of these societies, but also the fact that this is a vast subject. because it is vast, i address only the major topics and themes using the three countries as examples that are reflective of the bigger southern african water and environmental landscape. for readers unfamiliar with scholars and the scholarship on water policy and water history in southern africa, the review helps to illuminate the major issues or themes of this rich scholarship. it helps readers of water and environmental history as related disciplines in the region to understand better the different thematic approaches and debates about water. furthermore, it is clear that the region is arid and that scholarship or water literature tends to focus on particular issues – irrigation, water provisioning, water policy history and health – within a national framework. however, scholars may need to expand their frame of reference to include water systems and their place in sustainability and economic development1 studies. as an economic historian with an interest in how societies are organised, looking at the broad literature on water in the region helps me to understand how societies are ordered around water for livelihoods, sustainable development and economic growth. a review of the key literature on the subject, premised on clear discussion signposts, illustrates that the 1990s and 2000s generated works based on water delivery and water conservation issues (development and management) that, in the wake of droughts caused by changes in climate, attempted to balance water supply and demand for various sectoral interests. important works that make up this core of the water supply and demand historiography and the historiography on livelihoods in the three specific countries of the southern african development community (sadc) region include those written by cleophas (1997), ginster et al. (2010), manzungu (2004), musemwa (2010), nyandoro (2018), steenkamp (1991), swatuk and rahm (2004), tempelhoff et al. (2009), tlou and campbell (1997) and turton (1999a, 1999b). in these and others, water, as a natural resource, is portrayed as critically essential to many sectors of the economy such as agriculture (irrigation), industry, mining, livestock, wildlife, trade, transport, tourism, energy or hydroelectric power (hep) generation and household use. it is also a key element in water supply and sanitation (wss) provision. the works illustrate that diverse water discourses and historiographies have emerged in the region, with changing interpretations over time. in the literature on urban areas, hydro-politics frequently centre on water shortages, the impact of polluted water environments and their ramifications on human or public health. major debates on the aquatic environment in the region have whetted the appetite of some scholars, but have escaped the attention of others who largely focus on different aspects. water is diversely portrayed as a basic necessity for all forms of life on earth, a fundamental human right and a vehicle for socio-economic development. its shortage and contamination, therefore, compromise life, agro-industrial and other activities. in the historiography of scarcity (turton 1999a; turton & ohlsson 1999), water shortage is one of the peculiarities of the sadc region. tempelhoff (2018:1) has aptly observed that ‘water has a long history as a notoriously scarce resource in the greater part of southern africa’. its shortage is a major cause of local, national and international anxieties. examining the role of water in light of its scarcity is vital, as it hits at the heart of a number of growth issues. the function and availability of water in the development of southern africa are taken to be given, and the scarcity of water is an overlooked but fiercely contested issue requiring further study and explication. this was one major justification for the construction of large dams, which, in multiple ways, were linked to the rainwater harvesting technologies that have evolved in the region. wide-ranging debates on water by attwell (1970:189–196), ginster et al. (2010:1–24), isaacman and isaacman (2013:1–324) and nyandoro (2014), for example, focus not only on the constructive and positive elements of this commodity, but also on the role of these large impoundments (dams or reservoirs) and their positive and baneful impacts on the environment and ecosystems. less intensive research has, however, been conducted regarding the significant increase in the human and economic impacts of water disasters that have been witnessed in recent years. such disasters include the crippling drought that affected the sahel in africa from 1972 to 1984 and the sporadic, but sometimes endemic, floods or cyclones2 that have afflicted the region between the late 1990s and the turn of the 21st century. this article specifically reviews three regional cases, focusing on the literature of key regional scholars on water such as ginster et al. (2010), nyandoro (2019a), tempelhoff et al. (2009), turton (1999a), and so on. in the process, the implications for water resource scarcity of decrepit water infrastructure in these countries are noted as some of the major trends in these scholars’ writing. however, the attempt, as the literature demonstrates, is not to assume that water supply, development and management are homogeneous processes in these three countries. the homogeneity of water discourse in these regional countries, while apparent in certain instances, cannot be said to outweigh its heterogeneity. there are, thus, decisive similarities and differences in the perceptions of the delivery of water and how water governance is ordered and implemented in each of these respective countries as portrayed in the literature. broadly, the way water supply and management are organised in many parts of the world ranges from traditional co-operative models to socially involved and government-supported institutional systems. however, southern african models, while they conform to all these styles, are predominantly state-initiated as some states perceive water as a public good or public commodity over which they have a social responsibility. in this vein, south africa and its two regional neighbours subscribed to the principles of the 1992 dublin statement, which emerged from the international conference on water and sustainable development of that year. this forum was to influence water demand and water resources management historiography for more than two decades afterwards. the dublin conference, among other things, emphasised the commodification of water as an economic good, and in the decade after 1992 was to inform south africa’s water governance structures and their alignment with international trends (tempelhoff 2018:445; see also tempelhoff 2005:123–146). the alignment was carried out by its state agency, the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), previously known as the department of water affairs (dwa). as per the dublin principles, the vulnerability of fresh water as a finite and vulnerable source, the principle of integrated water resources management (iwrm),3 and better understanding of the role of women in the procurement and management of domestic water were also emphasised by states. in zimbabwe, the state adopted the iwrm paradigm and formulated new legislation (the water act and the zimbabwe national water authority act or zinwa act of 1998) or water policy frameworks that encouraged the participation of all stakeholders, especially users of water in the decision-making process through consultative water catchment management structures (pazvakavambwa 2002). these state water-sector reforms were prompted by calls from both international organisations and forces within the country. in botswana, while the state had a role to play in water delivery and management through state or public water enterprises such as the water utilities corporation (wuc) of 1970, it also decentralised water services by giving autonomous power to non-governmental organisations (ngos), water user associations and private institutions. such an approach strengthened the government of botswana’s central theme of good governance for water preservation and utilisation whose merits were the enhancement of water policy formulation, legislation and the creation of democratic space in the country (nyandoro 2018:102–103). the role of the state in ensuring that water was both a social and economic good and its role in stimulating stakeholder participation in the water sector then came to dominate the works by kujinga and manzungu (2004:67–91), manzungu (2001), manzungu and dzingirai (2012:85–109), nyandoro (2018), swatuk and rahm (2004) and tempelhoff (2018). several works that have emerged mainly since the 1990s make up the dominant and, to a certain extent, the marginal southern african historiographies on water and the environment. the dominant narratives include water shortages, water contamination or pollution and their impact on the environment. with reference to the three selected countries of southern africa, the review essay contextualises water and environmental management narratives within multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary studies of the region. scholarly discourse on hydro-politics and the general aquatic environment covers a broad range of different, albeit connected, topical and thematic questions that are not exhaustive (cannot be exhausted) for a brief regional review like this one. in the period after the 1990s, it is true that the hydro-political and historical landscape of the three countries under discussion has been shaped, in a major way, by discussions of water, its scarcity, quantity and the impact of a polluted aquatic environment on life or livelihoods, while other aspects that are subsumed under pollution, such as water quality, have not necessarily been denigrated to a marginal or secondary position, but have been covered by a few scholars (nyandoro 2019a). by contrast, water historiography in the preceding decades was dominated by agro-irrigation studies by scholars, such as roder (1965), who emphasised the colonial white fascination with water largely for the development of the european commercial agricultural sector and not the peasant smallholder sector. notwithstanding this unsurpassed colonial fascination with the water and water resources development paradigm of the 1920s–1960s, there was a clear paradigm shift particularly from the 1990s onwards by major regional scholars such as musemwa (2010, 2014), tempelhoff (2009) and nyandoro (2011:154–174). this shift entailed encouraging pristine aquatic environments (interacting systems of resources such as water and biota) as major sources of water and food to millions of people across the region. the chief proponents of this recent scholarship emphasising clean water that is free of disease in line with global and regional wash4 considerations, although challengeable in certain respects, have therefore been responsible for pioneering the existing and domineering transdisciplinary water research landscape that is likely to transcend the new millennium. this multidisciplinary southern african water and environmental historiography or water history scholarship with a trajectory dating back to the 1990s, and which is informed by topical and thematic perspectives of a wide-ranging nature, is polarised between works that advance certain disciplinary aspects and those that marginalise such aspects. it is, in this regard, important to recognise polarisation depending on who influences the dominant water sector paradigms and their associated shifts at given periods in time. the contending parties in this are the state, academics and other institutional bases. despite the problems wrought by aridity, water historiography seems to have been static in the pre-colonial and colonial periods. however, the situation has, since the end of the 20th century, increasingly assumed a more progressive and proactive dynamism than hitherto known. a major argument for this historiographical article relates to how the contending scholars have addressed issues of aridity, limited water resources and the availability of potential sites for water resources development. arguments by ginster et al. (2010), cleophas (1997) and swatuk and rahm (2004) are impelled by the desire to understand how different water authorities coped with the difficulties they faced in managing scarce water resources, and how their responses to the difficulties have influenced water policy formulation. important lessons for africa can be drawn from countries within southern africa such as botswana and others that are emerging from a colonial structure with no major investment in water (nyandoro 2013, 2018). this review of the extensive local and international literature that exists on water and its environmental context in southern africa contends that access to water and its control are central to economic transformation as well as the improvement of southern african peoples’ standards of living. in this regard, the importance of water (as reflected through the major topics and themes) and its far-reaching social and economic implications on the selected developing countries of the region is a critical issue for scholars who have made pertinent observations leading to the building of a southern african historiography on water. it can be argued that regional and global water history has over time been subjected to discussions of a sundry nature. the major debates about water and the environment in southern africa, similar to other regions of the world, as noted, pit the wits of economic historians, environmental historians, ecologists, social scientists, engineers, hydrologists, economists, rural and urban planners, international agencies, state policy-makers and civic society, to name but a few. debates on water, among other things, have characteristically looked at questions about water politics and conflicts, water and environmentalism, water as a social or economic good, water service delivery, transboundary water and legislation or policy, water and sustainable economic development, and water and food security. the works cited and the time they were produced illuminate the major issues or themes contained in the rich southern african scholarship on water. this historiography traces how water history in southern africa developed and evolved across time and space to its contemporary state in each of the three countries. contemporary water historiography and its genesis in southern africa a fascination with water – the rhodesian or zimbabwean scenario the origins of contemporary regional water history narratives in southern africa can be traced to the post-independence era in south africa, zimbabwe and botswana. for the colonial period, euro-centric approaches tended to dominate afro-centric water, land and natural resource discourses because issues of rights around the two resources were not only inseparable, but also vital and contentious in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. in the years prior to independence, such literature mainly showing a racial segregationist slant by white rhodesians (white people who lived in modern-day zimbabwe) was not uncommon, as portrayed by palmer (1977) in his recent work, land and racial domination in rhodesia. scholarly work by palmer, among others, analyses racial legislation such as the land apportionment act (laa) of 1930/31 – an act that certainly stirred up antagonism and conflict because of the displacement and dispossession it engendered – also because it tended to be prescriptive and enforced top-down, not bottom-up, strategies discussed in the last segment of this essay. under the terms of the laa, the rights of the africans to landownership and, to a major extent, water anywhere in the colony, were rescinded (moyana 1984:58). nonetheless, as reflected in the morris carter commission or the lands commission of 1925, the rhodesian settlers had argued against a complete segregation of africans and europeans simply because they knew that the europeans were dependent on the agricultural labour provided by the africans residing on european-controlled land (moyana 1984:58; nyandoro 2012:306). invariably, agriculture depended on sufficient and efficient water supply. because agriculture has been declared the mainstay of the country’s economy, rhodesian historiography during the 1920s and after the 1960s thus portrays a clear white obsession with water. this has been testified by the works of roder (1965), which demonstrate that government intervention in smallholder irrigation agriculture began in the late 1920s alongside peasant farmer-established irrigation schemes of the early 20th century. this obsession with water did not wane in the 1960s especially after the 1965 unilateral declaration of independence (udi), but continued in the 2000s, as illustrated through the works of david hughes (2010) and joost fontein (2017). hughes emphasises the theme of belonging using white identity and water, while fontein focuses on the grandiose lake kariba which was important for the provision or supply of water, electricity (light) and power. the book by hughes is a focused commentary on zimbabwean whiteness. divided into two parts, the first part of the book focuses on the zambezi and the imaginaries constructed around the river and the kariba dam. the second and last part focuses on the farms near the town of marondera in mashonaland east province, situated east of the capital harare. in whiteness in zimbabwe, hughes (2010) offers a fascinating analysis of how white farmers constructed and understood their role in the country before, during and after the contentious agrarian reforms of 2000. the book – a critical exposition of the connections between the white group’s environmental conservation and its ‘racial’ identity – is an ethnographical study epitomising colonisation processes or procedure. hughes, clearly influenced by a distinguished novelist, coetzee’s (1988) white writing, alludes to the ‘dream topographies’ of the country (zimbabwe) that white people have created through a combination of imagination and engineering. quite contentiously, he argues: to feel at home, ‘euro-africans’, these ‘children of the glaciers’ accustomed to wordsworthian landscapes [britons and other northern europeans who appreciated a well-watered topography], transformed the african vistas: zimbabwe had no lakes, so they built them. (pp. 5, 29, 30, 86, 129) he thus describes the massive project that spawned the kariba dam and its lake. with an incisive exegesis of scientific and fictional works featuring the lake, he shows through literature and photography how this artificial body of water has become, in european folklore (mythology), the myth of the african wilderness. dams of this nature explain and show how the white settler government of rhodesia, just like their south african counterparts, shouldered the responsibility of ensuring that adequate water storage facilities and the necessary infrastructure were created to supply sufficient water to farming operations, industrial activities in the mining sector and the growing conurbations. hughes further describes how, after zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, investing in major farm projects, such as irrigation was also an investment in identity, giving the farmers a legitimate role in the ‘new’ country while they continued their drive to transform its space through dam construction and installation of water infrastructure. in the historiography on zimbabwe water, this white obsession with the commodity (water) – an obsession that dominated most colonial and post-colonial euro-centric writings – can be summed up in the words of one rhodesian colonial official, h.r. hack. contributing to debate in parliament on the introduction of estate agriculture, the formation of the agricultural development authority (ada)5 in zimbabwe and its functions, powers and organisation, h.r. hack, the chief planning officer of the sabi-limpopo authority (sla), emphasised the importance of understanding the role of water in the economy. the sla act [chapter 156] 1975 governed, with the approval of the minister of energy and water resources development, the construction, establishment, acquisition, maintenance and operation of dams, canals and hydroelectric power (hep) stations. hack presented and developed his argument on agriculture and water by saying: in the phillips report [1962]6 – and several other reports that have been written on agriculture – it is stated emphatically that agriculture will continue to be our main industry for a considerable time to come by virtue of the [three basic elements] resources of land, water and labour [also capital and markets] which we have …7 as far as water is concerned, he believed rhodesia was well endowed with this resource. however, the big question was ‘… where and how to harness these [water] resources to best advantage, and having harnessed them, how best to utilize them?’ continuing his argument, he insisted that, ‘… water harnessed now will double, treble and quadruple in value over the next twenty-five years’. hence, any commodity that had the capacity to do that was a ‘sound investment by anybody’s standards’. therefore, according to hack, who had been sent by conex8 to the united states to do a specialised course on farm planning and land utilisation: if we set up an ada, hit the single weakest point in agriculture – assuming agriculture is our biggest resource – what is the single weakest point in agriculture – water – and do it exactly within the frame of our act [sla act]. hit the water, harness the water for a purpose, project the purpose, finance it with sufficient capital. [that is the trick] (naz, formation of ada, ada’s extract of parliamentary debates:6–7).9 water resource development therefore occupied an important place in the white rhodesians’ efforts to develop not only agriculture but also the entire national economy. the same applied to south africa as revealed in the literature by prominent water historians. racial division and water development in south africa the following brief colonial water historiography of south africa and botswana demonstrates race history at one of its peak forms in southern africa. racial division emerged in south africa (rhodesia’s southern neighbour) as early as the 1600s because of dutch settlement. it began with the europeans maintaining segregation and hierarchy between themselves, their labourers or ‘slaves’, most of whom were from asia, and local african populations. segregation became more apparent than ever before when cape town (commonly referred to as the ‘mother city’ in the republic) was founded by the dutch east india company or the vereenigde oostindische compagnie (voc) in 1652 as a refreshment outpost. the outpost was intended to supply voc ships on their way to asia with fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and to enable sailors wearied by the sea to recuperate. the location of the town in the table bay area was influenced by the availability of fresh water, which was difficult to find in other parts of the cape. this means that although cape town remained dry, it was primarily founded (prior to the formation of any formal water department) because of its favourable environment and the copious water supplies which flowed from streams and aquifers nestled in the table mountain system (tempelhoff 2018:1). in south africa’s water historiography, it was not until after the formation of the union of south africa in 1910 that the government department of irrigation responsible for water governance in terms of the irrigation and conservation of water act, no. 8 of 1912 was launched. in 1956, when the water act, no. 54 was passed, that the name of the department changed to the department of water affairs or dwa in short (tempelhoff 2017:189). one of the works of a prominent southern african water historian, tempelhoff (2017:189), has portrayed the new legislation as marking the beginning of a new era in south africa’s water governance because the focus of the department shifted from irrigation infrastructure and bulk water governance responsibilities to making an important contribution to the country’s social and economic development. the priorities of the day included the need for more comprehensive water infrastructure for industrial development; meeting the greater demand for water in the country’s rapidly growing urban areas; and taking steps against the increasing threat of water pollution (tempelhoff 2017:189). however, most preand apartheid literature is silent about the lack of equitable or fair distribution of water. in this respect, tempelhoff (2017:189) is an exception by observing that the department of irrigation, in terms of the water act of 1956, responded to the policy of separate development (apartheid), but at the same time took a deeper and long-term view of the development of water infrastructure to be of value for the country and its people, beyond the shorter temporal view of the political leaders of the day. the first phase of apartheid (1948–1960) was therefore notable for the initial emergence of significant opposition among the country’s indigenous african people to the white minority government’s segregationist policies, but their struggle was subdued. it is clear from the literature that this phase came to an end at a time (after the 1960s) when the rest of africa was engaged in rapid decolonisation and south africa became politically ostracised in the international arena until full democracy was achieved in 1994. despite having no equity in the water sector in the apartheid era, what is apparent in the literature is that the emergent or nascent hydraulic mission of industrialisation promoted unsurpassed development that was destined to have a marked effect on south africa’s status as a modern industrial state on the african continent (tempelhoff 2017:189). debates on the hydraulic mission are behind the emergence of a new and unique historiography on water studies. it is important to note that at the university of london school of oriental and african studies (soas) in 1999, south africa featured prominently in talks and research on the hydraulic mission (tempelhoff 2018). the prominent south african political scientist and water expert, anthony turton, who had close ties at the time with soas, was instrumental in transferring (based on his works in the 1960s and 1970s) a number of current theoretical terms, such as hydro-politics and hydraulic mission, into the political and governance discourse on african water. turton concentrated extensively on theories of water politics (turton 1999b, 1999c). in much of his works, the theoretical underpinnings of the hydraulic mission were present (turton 2000, 2001; turton & warner 2002). the hydraulic mission formed part of a comprehensive theoretical reference framework in which he focused on hydro-politics and transboundary water resource governance, to fit in with the discourse on water governance in south africa from the advent of european colonialism in the 17th century to date (turton 1999b). regional water bodies play a vital role in transboundary water management and in the development of sustainable water resources. apart from turton’s statements about the 1960s and 1970s, when the state was said to take a more assertive stand on water control and management (turton, patrick & rascher 2008:324), tempelhoff (2018) argues that there has thus far not been a sensible historical categorisation of the evolution of south africa’s hydraulic mission in the 20th century. this therefore influenced him in his 2018 book to work towards a reasonable understanding of the comprehensive evolution of the hydraulic mission as it evolved in the south african state (tempelhoff 2018). thus tempelhoff, like turton, has, to a large extent, influenced perception of water in south africa and the region. in contrast to the early pieces of legislation of 1912 and 1956 already alluded to, and apartheid historical narratives that had become official history since 1948, the changing interpretations of water and environmental discourse over time are attested to by the most recently introduced legislative measures like the water services act, no. 109 of 1997 (republic of south africa [rsa] 1997) and the national water act, no. 36 of 1998 (rsa 1998; tempelhoff 2017:190). both were passed after south africa’s transition in 1994 to a multiracial democracy (dwaf 2006; tempelhoff 2017:190–191). a major discernible change, though, was that the content and intent of the new acts, as shown in the literature, were significantly different from all previous (or colonial) water legislation in that the prime principles were now equity (fairness and beneficiation) for all water users and the need for the government to act as custodian of the resource on behalf of all the country’s people (tempelhoff 2017:191). the result was the emergence of a clearly defined social hydraulic mission. at its core and over the longer term, the new water legislation then introduced the basic principle of balancing resource use with the counterpoint of resource protection hitherto or previously unknown. there were preliminary indications of a move towards sustainable development, but not in itself a sustainable practice (tempelhoff 2017:191). a notable feature of south africa’s water legislation (or emerging legislative historiography), however, has been its consistency as exemplified by the fact that in the course of the 20th century only four primary pieces of legislation relating to water governance were passed by parliament. each of these pieces of legislation laid down a primary definition of how the water resources of the country would be developed. at the same time, each was representative of a ground-breaking shift in the way the state was governed as well as a shift in the historiography on sustained industrialisation (tempelhoff 2017:190). clearly, the industrialisation drive by the government of south africa, since the 1940s (including the 1950s development of sasol10 and the late 19th-century mineral discoveries), to promote growth through mining and industrial manufacturing, positioned the country’s water sector to meet the demand for more resources (tempelhoff 2017:207). it is also clear that politically the old dwa was not an active role player in securing water supplies for urban african townships and the relocated people to so-called separate ‘homelands’ under apartheid or what the government chose to call bantustans like the transkei, bophuthatswana, venda and ciskei (tbvc states) created under the natives (abolition of passes and coordination of documents) act of 1952 and the promotion of self-government act of 1959. for the most part, the responsibility for water supplies was transferred to local authorities. one consequence was the notably inferior water and sanitation services in the african townships from the 1960s onwards. this issue was addressed in some measure only after the soweto uprising of 1976, when additional steps were taken at local and regional government level for authorities to improve water supply and sanitation in the urban african townships (tempelhoff 2003). ‘bantustans’ had even entered into ‘international’ agreements with ‘mainland’ south africa on transboundary water management in terms of the helsinki rules of 1966 (tempelhoff 2017:199). on this basis, water history by tempelhoff is therefore not necessarily just history, but a mirror of the relatively unbiased or impartial assessment of how water was perceived in the past and how it can be perceived now from multidisciplinary angles not only in south africa but also in the southern african region. these collectively negative and positive water development aspects in south africa, let alone rhodesia, in many respects resonate with botswana’s development trajectory in the water sector. botswana – scholarly perceptions of water with respect to botswana, historiography that portrays scholarly perceptions of water in the past and in the present includes works by cleophas (1997:43–53), nyandoro (2018:97–111), steenkamp (1991:292–308) and tlou and campbell (1997). following one of the pioneering works on botswana water by peters (1984) in the 1980s, entitled struggles over water: struggles over meaning: cattle, water and the state in botswana, the portrayal of the history of struggle over water in an arid terrain has assumed perennial proportions among scholars. the history illustrates the convergence of minds of state players and the corporate sector over water use and demand by groups of people for a diverse range of purposes (nyandoro 2018:97–111). for example, water supply services personnel were mostly tasked or preoccupied with providing water within the agricultural sector for livestock (especially cattle, and to a certain extent crops), potable and mining needs in the broad context of a country beset by aridity. many works on the history of water in botswana since the 1990s thus emphasise the already affirmed arid status of the country, escalating demand for water and efforts to overcome the challenge of water paucity to achieve growth and sustainable development. tlou and campbell (1997) illustrate in their book that the paucity of water supply in botswana had been inherited from the colonial power, britain, whose neglect of water development meant that the post-colonial government was constantly and persistently faced by insurmountable water challenges. such post-colonial historiographical discourses in southern africa resonate with the underdevelopment theories propounded by andre gunder frank (1967) for latin america and walter rodney (1973) for africa. the resonance comes in that europe siphoned developing world resources for its benefit. in a similar way, the colonial administration’s reluctance, because of the costs involved to develop the water sector significantly beyond the precincts of the isolated white enclaves dotted in some parts of the country, was detrimental to botswana’s development. this lack of water development observed by tlou and campbell (1997) can be explained in that the colonial enterprise was never meant to benefit the colonised, but to exploit them for the benefit of a small white settler community or european metropole. however, tlou and campbell’s argument about the colonial neglect of water resource development has generated enormous debate within botswana colonial water supply and demand historiography as it has been refuted and considered a matter of perception by steenkamp (1991).11 focusing on colonial botswana’s development policy, steenkamp rejects the conventional characterisation especially of the 1930s as either one of unremitting neglect or deliberate underdevelopment by providing a totally different perspective regarding the cattle industry. he, for instance, categorically pays tribute to charles rey, the resident commissioner at the time, for responding to the needs of the country’s economy with a comprehensive development strategy focusing on water resources and the revival of the cattle industry. steenkamp’s argument that cattle and water were inextricably linked in colonial botswana nevertheless cannot be interpreted to mean that there were absolutely no challenges or impediments. the challenges that afflicted the economy were a result of undeveloped water resources and the fact that water security in the early colonial times was restricted mainly to a reliance on oases (in particular the world’s largest inland delta, the okavango delta in the middle of the kalahari desert, which is botswana’s major freshwater oasis for people and wildlife), boreholes and wells for potable and agricultural water, including water for watering livestock (nyandoro 2018:97–111; peters 1984, 1994). this reliance on oases and colonially implemented sources of water, such as boreholes in the face of rising post-colonial demand for water influenced the government of botswana, which was committed to rectifying water provision and management problems of the past, to facilitate modern water resource development projects. the projects included the establishment of dams (e.g. the gaborone dam) and a public water enterprise, the water utilities corporation (wuc), established in 1970, to boost water supply because of water’s political, socio-economic and strategic significance for growth. similar to south africa, this is therefore a pointer that since botswana’s independence in 1966 as portrayed in the historiography of water supply and demand by fontein (2008:737–756), makgala (2012:787–806), nyandoro (2018:97–111) and swatuk and rahm (2004:1357–1364), rising local demand for water in the growing towns (especially the capital city, gaborone) and surrounding and distant villages strengthened government’s resolve to develop national supplies to meet demand in this predominantly desert and water-scarce nation. hence, although the politics of scarcity and underdevelopment had dominated water historiography in botswana since the protectorate times (1885–1965), by the new millennium the state was able to turn the challenges into opportunities despite escalating climate change-induced dryness, its own capacity weaknesses and implementation inefficiencies. for botswana, this emphasised the point that water insecurity wrought by desert conditions did not always mean lack of development (nyandoro 2018). why and how post-colonial state officials played a vital role in securing equitable distribution of water for development against the backdrop of water shortages (the scarcity factor) and funding challenges helps to mark a clear transition from the historiography of scarcity to one not necessarily of abundance, but of efficient and sustainable provision of water. this shift characterises water scholarship throughout the region, more so in the face of endemic droughts besetting southern africa. southern africa: water and its shifting historiographical terrain water has had a long history of being a notoriously scarce resource in the greater southern african region, but water historiography has expanded its scope or horizons since the 1990s by embracing vital water sector reforms and initiatives. this includes the amendment or repeal of old water laws that have been replaced by new ones. since the early 1900s, as a result of constant innovation and modernisation in the fields of water engineering, natural science, management studies and environmental studies, there has been a growing awareness by the state and citizens of the intrinsic interaction between humankind and the environment. the 1990s and 2000s reflect an era of profound thinking by economic historians writing on water history, geologists, physicists and ecologists (environmentalists) in promoting the idea of a post-holocene epoch – the anthropocene. this shift in focus by an increasing number of scholars shows that the way citizens respond to the call for greater societal responsibility is not confined to dealing with greenhouse gaseous and carbon emissions into the atmosphere, but human societies in all parts of the globe generally and southern africa in particular have demonstrated an even greater responsibility to take care of our finite freshwater resources. this then means that the responsibility for water and the environment is a collective phenomenon not unique to southern africa. with reference to different parts of southern africa, it cannot be denied that water is a vital commodity for many sectors of the economy. for instance, the agro-industrial, manufacturing, mining and domestic consumptive sectors are largely dependent on water. in the southern african literature on rural and urban settings, while water, sanitation and hygiene (wash) need to be prioritised as a human right, not many scholars, notwithstanding several un who reports (e.g. who 2015) and international scholars such as lane (2008:323–331) and brown et al. (2012:11–29), have written on this crucial sub-sector of water. access to wash includes safe water, adequate sanitation and hygiene education. mainly wash services provide for water availability and quality, the presence of sanitation facilities and availability of soap and water for hand washing. in the world in which we live today, adequate water, sanitation and hygiene are essential components of providing basic health services to citizens. the provision of wash in healthcare facilities serves to prevent infections and spread of disease, protect people and uphold the dignity of vulnerable populations, including pregnant women and the disabled. many healthcare facilities in low-resource settings (low-income countries) have no wash services, severely compromising the ability to provide safe and people-centred care and presenting serious health risks to both healthcare providers (staff) and those seeking treatment (patients). contributing to the historiography on health and sanitation, lane (2008) has brought up the debate of a dysfunctional world consisting of two halves: ‘half have good sanitation, and half don’t even have basic sanitation’. hence, in the latter case, the accusation by lane is that ‘donors, governments and organizations have virtually orphaned sanitation by placing it as an add-on to water programmes’. similarly, brown et al. advocate committed or dedicated wash interventions by suggesting that ‘water, sanitation and hygiene interventions can interrupt diarrhoeal disease transmission and reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality associated with faecal-oral infections’. conformity to wash procedures can therefore reduce illness and death from such diseases afflicting some southern african countries like zimbabwe as cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and also reduce poverty and improve socio-economic development. an analysis of rural water delivery as well as water supply and sanitation (wss) infrastructure and its general condition in the cities is as essential as are more scholarly works on it. since the last decade of the 20th century, a significant body of work has attempted to explore the importance of water in cities (see nyandoro 2019a). in this study, the organic linkages between water supply and sanitation, environmentalism and urban development are emphasised. several scholars have noted that wss infrastructure is invisible, but represents a vital part of any well-working city. many researchers refer to these systems as the ‘invisible city’. with regard to south africa in particular, water-related governance processes of the early 20th century continued to manifest themselves in the 21st century, thereby assisting water historians in distilling emergent long-term trends in the water sector that are major influences on contemporary water history. evidently, at the end of the thabo mbeki presidency (1999–2008), the social, economic and political landscape of south africa was subject to significant change. seen against the backdrop of the water–energy–food (wef) nexus security theory perspective that features prominently in tempelhoff’s (2018) study, the countrywide electricity outages in the first half of 2008 were a seminal manifestation of emergent ‘panarchy’ states of creative destruction and recovery in the infrastructural system feeding into the nexus of water, energy and food. the wef nexus theory is an integrative approach towards the achievement of sustainable use and security of the three wef nexus resources (water–energy–food). by focusing on the wef nexus, tempelhoff (2018) has amply assessed to what extent the country (contemplated as a social ecological system) has been able to adapt resiliently to challenges and opportunities, specifically in matters related to the available water resources in south africa. apart from south africa, zimbabwe and botswana have also been forced to contend with scarce or finite water resources. water is a scarce commodity that is also linked to both unnatural and natural disasters12 such as water contamination and diseases on the one hand and droughts and floods on the other. contaminated underground water resources that were an alternative source of supply given the scarcity of surface water were a major challenge for some regional countries, such as zimbabwe, hence the frequent outbreaks of water-borne diseases, such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery. pollution thus led to the aggravation of the acute water shortages besetting some countries of the region. scarcity literature therefore exists among novel efforts by scholars to proffer longer-term solutions to the water shortages (water crises) that frequently plague southern africa as a result of endemic climate change-induced droughts and disease. one solution proffered by conflict historiography is effective management of local water and transboundary sources in an effort to prevent water conflicts. water management, its evolution and the efficacy of the institutions that are responsible for the delivery and management of this critical and vulnerable natural resource to inform water policy and water sector reforms relevant to contemporary botswana are emphasised by nyandoro (in press). nyandoro (in press) contends that in the colonial and post-colonial epochs, water conflicts continued to operate at an internal level, but at times they assumed a transboundary dimension. in his 2004 publication, mbaiwa postulates that southern africa faces prospects for violent struggles over water resources use among the okavango river basin (orb) states, particularly those states that are affiliate members of the okavango river basin commission (okacom), namely, botswana, angola and namibia. given the current and future water demands,13 there is therefore a need for formal institutional steps by global and regional actors to facilitate sustainable development, natural resources management and peaceful cooperation in the basin (mbaiwa 2004). contrary to trends in much of the literature, there is great scope for enhanced inter-state cooperation in the basin provided an integrated management plan for the entire basin is developed and each basin member state observes and respects international and regional conventions and treaties governing the use of transboundary water resources when designing national water development projects that require the use of such water. in boelens, getches and guevara-gil’s (2010) view, water is not the subject of experts, but the source of power, conflicting interests and identity battles. throughout history, struggles over the control of water resources have existed, but they have not been so pronounced as to lead to serious foreign wars. water and the environment in southern africa may be regarded as a security issue considering that it can be a source of conflict between states. at the international level, the problems that are affecting the world can be analysed in this way. however, at the local southern african level, the following bottom-up water strategies and solutions to water problems may have greater appeal. bottom-up historiography of water in southern africa: 20th and 21st centuries top-down approaches have been a common feature in southern africa, and have dominated previous literature on water compared to bottom-up approaches mainly covered by international scholars such as boelens et al. (2010) and critiqued by ingram (2010:595–596). twentiethand 21st-century scholarly works on bottom-up water sector approaches compared to top-down approaches have dominated recent literal narratives about the perceived beneficial effects of the former versus the detrimental effects on society of the latter. like the works of boelens et al. and ingram, works by mapira (2011:258–267), nhapi, siebel and gijzen (2006:101–108) and nyandoro (2019a) cover critical thematic issues such as water and wastewater management, liquid waste management, water governance, formal (top-down governance) and informal (bottom-up democracy) spaces in urban waterscapes. other studies, for example, merrey (2008:899–905) and van der waldt (2015:35–50), emphasise city council and state intervention in the water sector to facilitate supply through provision of delivery infrastructure and subsidies, but do not emphasise the role communities, civic society, human rights groups and ngos play as boelens et al. (2010), ingram (2010), mapira (2011), nhapi et al. (2006) and nyandoro (2019a) do. civil society groups help advance water rights perspectives. policy formulation in the water sector can be focused on novel civic society ideals or ethical principles around which a new historiography can be constructed. allowing civil society and other agencies to devise multiple strategies for defending and asserting indigenous and grass-roots control over water can play a complementary role to state legislative planning. conclusion a review of the southern african literature about water and the environment produced since the 1990s shows that an assortment of historiographies depicts major trends, themes, debates and a wide array of topical indulgencies. as illustrated in the article, clear historiographical benchmarks have been set based on the water scarcity paradigm, the wef security nexus theory and the linkages between water, the environment and society. for people who are interested in learning the main debates and arguments and the general trend of the literature, various interdisciplinary water and environment historiographies in southern africa are invariably being shaped, albeit with changing interpretations over time. these debates are being formed through topical issues whose major benchmark is the emergence of a historiography that popularises sustainable socio-economic, cultural and hydro-political paradigms. on the whole, water and the environment constitute a vast field of study, and this article has basically addressed the common and different themes from the country examples that are reflective of the bigger southern african regional landscape and water historiography. there are clear lessons to be learnt by others (not only those who are familiar with southern africa but also those who have familiarity with water history, albeit from a broad global perspective) from this analysis of the wide and pre-eminent literature on water and the environment. water clearly provides unique foundations for the study of socio-economic, hydro-political and environmental development in the selected southern african countries, with obvious implications for the african continent as a whole. the works of scholars point to the major topics, themes and trends that have characterised the contemporary water and environmental situation in these southern african countries, especially since the 1990s. overall, not much dedicated research has been conducted on water in these sadc states, emphasising various aspects of the water sector’s history such as irrigation, municipal water supply, sanitation and waste management issues. works dealing with histories or economic histories of human engagement with the water realm in southern africa are sparse. the foregoing, to a large extent, demonstrates that the existing historiography on southern africa, emphasises a sectoral approach that, among other things, includes topics on water and agriculture; water and sanitation; water supply and demand; transboundary water; water and the environment; water and climate change; water conflicts; large dams, displacement and their environmental impact; water legislation in historical perspective; water and rural development; rural and urban aspects of water; and water and aridity. in other words, because the region is arid, scholarship tends to focus on particular issues – water shortage, irrigation, provisioning, policy history and health – within a national framework. while this is useful, a more thematic perspective than currently exists could be embraced in an effort to understand crosscutting and common themes across the regional countries studied in this essay. a consideration of such themes as water and wastewater management (under different governance systems); changes in policy and the legal framework; the intersections of race, class and gender in historical perspectives; migration, settlement and production; religion, culture; science and technology, together with damming and irrigation, would add an interesting dimension to the historiography and study of water in southern africa. scholars can expand their frame of reference to include water systems. it should be noted, however, that this historiographical review is by no means exhaustive, but it opens avenues for further or new comparisons and analyses on water and the environment as crucial components of development in the region and elsewhere. acknowledgements the author would like to thank prof. derek catsam of the university of texas of the permian basin (utpb) for reading the drafts of this article and providing incisive commentary. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in presenting this article. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding this 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social stability: towards a deeper understanding of key concepts needed to manage water scarcity in developing countries, school of oriental and african studies (soas), london. turton, a.r., patrick, m.j. & rascher, j., 2008, ‘editorial: setting the scene – hydropolitics and the development of the south african economy’, international journal of water resources development 24(3), 323–327. https://doi.org/10.1080/07900620802127309 turton, a.r. & warner, j.f., 2002, ‘exploring the population/water resources nexus in the developing world’, finding the source: the linkages between population and water, 52–81. un water, 2009, the united nations world water development report 3: water in a changing world, unesco, paris. van der waldt, g., 2015, ‘government interventionism and sustainable development: the case of south africa’, african journal of public affairs 8(3), 35–50. white, c., 2013, integrated water resources management: what is it and why is it used? urs, london, viewed 22 may 2019, from http://www.globalwaterforum.org/2013/06/10/integrated-water-resources-management-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-used/. world health organization (who), 2015, water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities: status in low and middle income countries and way forward, who & unicef report, who, geneva. footnotes 1. in this essay, sustainable development is economic development that is conducted without wantonly depleting natural resources. in a un brief for the global sustainable development report (gsdr), emas (2015) calls it development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. the gsdr is a united nations publication aiming to strengthen the science-policy interface at the high level political forum (hlpf) on sustainable development. in september 2015, un member states adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, which gives the gsdr a role in the follow-up and review of the new agenda. the 2030 agenda for sustainable development has replaced the new millennium development goals (mdgs). 2. a rare three-day spell of cyclone idai-related rain in march 2019 was a tragic disaster that ranks as one of the worst natural-disasters ever experienced in the southern african region in many years. the cyclone, comprising heavy and violent winds, rain and mudslides had devastating consequences for zimbabwe’s chimanimani and chipinge areas in manicaland province, mozambique (especially beira) and malawi. these countries were still counting their losses in both human and material terms. people died from serious storms and floods. some are still missing (their bodies may never be found), and infrastructure (houses, roads, bridges, schools, clinics, service-centres, fields, irrigation equipment etc) has been destroyed. the magnitude of disaster displacement and how to manage the risk and impact for the affected peoples/communities is beyond imagination. agricultural fields, livestock (mainly cattle and goats), beehives and other sources of livelihood were washed away by the floods or were blown away by the severe or ravaging storms. in trying to conceptualise how tragic it was, official statistics may be an under-estimation of what actually happened during that cyclone in terms of human loss (victims), infrastructure destruction and the impact not only on victims’ remaining relatives but also the country. its impact was particularly bad for people living in poverty (the very poor). it was an emergency requiring huge humanitarian assistance; hence it prompted donations to come through the red cross, the united nations children’s fund (unicef), the world health organization (who), oxfam, the international rescue committee (irc) and other local and international humanitarian organisations. in a statement, the zimbabwe agriculture minister, perrance shiri, said the situation and the damaged infrastructure and facilities ‘resemble[d] an aftermath of a full-scale war, whereby bridges [were washed away] and the infrastructure [was] destroyed to the extent we did not expect’. the situation also forced a renowned international academic research institution, the african studies association (asa), to issue a statement on cyclone idai: ‘we at the african studies association are full of sorrow over the massive human toll exacted by cyclone idai on the peoples of mozambique, malawi, and zimbabwe. as we write 750 people across southern africa have been reported dead; more than a half million people have been displaced by flooding and landslides; and 110,000 people are living in reception camps. mozambique’s fourth-largest city, beira, is largely destroyed. relief efforts coordinated by local and international groups are beginning to have a positive effect, but there are huge challenges ahead’. 3. iwrm is a framework designed to improve the management of water resources based on four key principles adopted at the january 1992 dublin international conference on water and the environment (icwe) and the rio de janeiro summit on sustainable development. these principles state that: (1) fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource essential to sustain life, development, and the environment; (2) water development and management should be based on a participatory-approach, involving users, planners, and policy-makers at all levels; (3) women play a central part in the provision, management, and safeguarding of water; and (4) water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognised as an economic good. iwrm is, therefore, not a prescriptive description of how water should be managed, but it is a broad framework in which decision makers can collaboratively decide the goals of water-management and co-ordinate the use of different instruments to achieve them. given that each country differs in terms of history, socio-economic conditions, cultural and political context, and environmental characteristics, there is no single blueprint for iwrm and it can be adapted to resolve the problems faced in each local context. the iwrm concept is the flagship project of supranational global water bodies or institutions such as the global water partnership (gwp) and the world water council (wwc). for detail, see gwp (2011); icwe (1992); lenton and muller (2009); pahl-wostl, jeffrey and sendzimir (2011); white (2013). 4. a detailed discussion of water, sanitation and hygiene (wash) appears later in this review under the sub-section: ‘southern africa: water and its shifting historiographical terrain’. 5. the agricultural development authority (ada) was renamed the agricultural and rural development authority (arda) after independence in 1980. 6. see also roder (1964). 7. national archives of zimbabwe records centre (hereafter) naz (rc), arda, box 348063, location r24.9.6.4f, file: ada/pol/1 part 1: formation of ada, ada’s extract of parliamentary debates, s.a., 1–2. 8. the department of conservation and extension (conex) was respon-sible for providing extension services in the white commercial farming sector in rhodesia. 9. national archives of zimbabwe records centre (hereafter) naz (rc), arda, box 348063, location r24.9.6.4f, file: ada/pol/1 part 1: formation of ada, ada’s extract of parliamentary debates, s.a., 6–7. see also government of rhodesia, sabi-limpopo authority act [chapter 156], salisbury, government printers, 1975; naz (rc), arda, box 348063, location r24.9.6.4f, file: ada/pol/1 part 1: formation of ada, ‘agricultural development authority act/sabi-limpopo authority act’, g.b. thorpe for secretary for agriculture to controller, agricultural development authority, causeway, salisbury, 1 december, 1977. 10. industrialisation continued to progress when sasol, formerly the south african coal, oil and gas corporation, started manufacturing synthetic motor fuels (petroleum) from coal on a commercial-scale for the domestic, regional and international market from 1955. 11. see also nyandoro (2018:97–111). 12. for another perspective on the deleterious impact of natural disasters see gopalakrishnan (2013:250–271). this outstanding scholarly work focuses on the significant increase in the human and economic impacts of water disasters. the article and other sources attest to the colossal destructive potential of water disasters, but very limited detailed research has been conducted on global water disasters in general and southern africa in particular. 13. ‘water demand’ represents the ‘volume of water needed for a given activity. if supply is unconstrained, water demand is equal to water withdrawal’. oestigaard (2012:23) and un water (2009:98). abstract introduction situating the study within the literature research design and method data presentation discussion significance and implications conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) rinelle evans department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, south africa ipfani nthulana department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, south africa citation evans, r. & nthulana, i., 2018, ‘linguistic challenges faced by rural tshivenda-speaking teachers when grade 4 learners transition to english’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a545. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.545 original research linguistic challenges faced by rural tshivenda-speaking teachers when grade 4 learners transition to english rinelle evans, ipfani nthulana received: 23 jan. 2018; accepted: 15 june 2018; published: 24 oct. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the general complaint of teachers in rural monolingual communities is that teaching becomes problematic after learners are promoted to grade 4. while the transition to a next academic phase places new cognitive demands on the learners, they must also adjust to being taught in english after 3 years of mother tongue education. this qualitative case study was underpinned by krashen’s theory of second-language acquisition which emphasises the importance of exposure to and interaction in the target language. six grade 4 teachers who are mother tongue speakers of tshivenda and two curriculum advisors participated in the study. data were collected through individual interviews and classroom observations. initially, it was assumed that the transition was problematic, because learners’ english proficiency was inadequate, but teachers too struggled to impart academic content to grade 4 learners and relied heavily on code switching. this strategy contributed to learners’ understanding of content, but militated against any improvement in their english. the remoteness of this rural monolingual community implies a limited exposure to the target language, but ought not to be reckoned an excuse. means to build teachers’ linguistic confidence and improve their oral proficiency during initial teacher preparation as well as greater in-service support should ameliorate the transition for learners. a revision of the mother tongue foundation phase curriculum and monitored implementation is advisable. introduction many former colonies have grappled with decisions related to which language of instruction ought to be used at the inception of formal schooling, and perhaps none more so than south africa. since the dawn of democracy in 1994, various south african (sa) policies have worked towards establishing a citizenry based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights – in short, a society that embraces a diversity of views and languages. the sa constitution (1996) promotes multilingualism and cultural diversity underpinned by respect for all languages, while acknowledging the maintenance of home languages. the sa schools act (1996) allows for the medium of instruction to be the mother tongue in the foundation phase (grade r to grade 3), with a switch to english or afrikaans as the language of learning and teaching (lolt) from grade 4 for those learners whose mother tongue is neither english nor afrikaans (department of basic education [dbe] 2011a; 2011b). in urban schools where the racial and linguistic composition is diverse, it has commonly been accepted that english will serve as a medium of instruction right from the first school day, as the range of learners attending is too great to isolate a single common home language to use as the lolt (alexander 2002; bamgbose 2005; dbe 2010; evans & cleghorn 2012; heugh 2002; pretorius 2014). teaching a young child using an unfamiliar language gives rise to many complex classroom encounters (alexander 2002; alexander & bloch 2004; alidou et al. 2006; evans & cleghorn 2012; fleisch 2008; heugh 2002; 2009; pitman, majhanovich & brock-utne 2010; wolff 2016). learners in rural sa communities are largely taught in a monolingual context for the first 4 years of formal schooling, seemingly providing a solid conceptual foundation (dbe 2010). the advantages of mother tongue education are well documented. rural learners are, however, apparently not linguistically better off, as both teachers and learners experience a unique problématique which will be illuminated in this article. drawing on interview and observational data, we attempt to answer why tshivenda-speaking content teachers in the deep rural area of the limpopo province find that teaching becomes challenging after learners have been promoted to grade 4. we describe the various changes learners face when moving from foundation phase to intermediate phase. we also describe the linguistic challenges that the teachers face and how these are addressed in the instructional context. we dispel the belief that it is primarily the young learners who struggle after the abrupt transition from their mother tongue to english as the new lolt. furthermore, we draw attention to a hidden aspect of rural education in south africa, that is, the lack of exposure to english that both teachers and learners have, but the assumption is that both role players are sufficiently proficient to guarantee a satisfying school experience. situating the study within the literature our conceptual framework guided the literature reviewed to present a synopsis of the research that has been conducted on transitioning from one phase to the next, and how rurality may exacerbate learning through a foreign language. we also allude to the sa language-in-education policy (1997) and its flawed implementation. in keeping with the tenets of qualitative inquiry, we have merged the literature review with contextual factors as will be discussed in the data analysis. the concept transitioning suggests a discontinuation and a new beginning (alidou 2003; amest & rojas 2010) and bringing about a change in behaviour or routine (giallo et al. 2010). it may be considered a rite of passage, a crossover to another stage, but also implies a process that is ongoing, requires adjustment and is accompanied by many expectations (arnold et al. 2008). in our study, transitioning refers to an academic shift from the foundation phase to the intermediate phase. we forthwith offer an overview of the sa context. after a mere 6-weeks’ summer break, 10-year-old learners return in mid-january and, without any orientation, transitioned as grade 4 learners into a new academic phase very dissimilar to their initial school experiences. firstly, accustomed to having been taught all day by a single teacher, they now have multiple teachers – each with a unique instructional and management style, and each offering new but compartmentalised content every 40 min. in many cases, the learners also move physically from class to class rather than remaining in a fixed, familiar venue for an entire day. secondly, having mastered only simple learning tasks in the foundation phase, learners now experience a rich and demanding curriculum; the volume of work mushrooms, and content knowledge becomes diverse and must be applied in a complex manner. thirdly, oral proficiency is no longer sufficient for responding to academic demands. learners have already learnt to read in their mother tongue and are now supposedly ready to ‘read for learning’, that is, they need to demonstrate ‘… a growing reliance on literate practices for transmitting, acquiring and transforming knowledge’ using these decoding skills (pretorius 2014:53). the foremost change for many sa learners as proposed by policy documents (dbe 2011a; hirsch 2003; holmarsdottir 2005; pretorius 2014) is, however, from learning through the mother tongue to learning through the medium of english. in addition to the shift in how knowledge is accessed, the learning experience for rural learners associated with this study is compounded by the dramatic change in the lolt. a high level of competency is anticipated by the end of grade 3, as learners are expected to respond in english, constructing meaning from complex syntactic structures as manifest in written text – despite less than 4 h per week having been spent on learning english in the foundation phase (dbe 2011a; 2011b). at the schools involved in this study, a major cognitive shift was required, as tshivenda – the lolt since starting school formally – does not share many characteristics with english and an entire new set of coding needs to be learnt and applied. unlike english that has germanic roots, tshivenda belongs to the bantu language family (a sub-category of the niger-congo family) and emerged as a distinct dialect in the 16th century, although speakers today consider themselves a marginalised language group (webb & sure 2000). as a result of the genetic relationship that exists among bantu languages, tshivenda shares similar linguistic features, for example, specific noun classes, an open syllable structure and an extensive agreement system. it has vocabulary similar to sesotho, but grammatical structures are closer to chishona as spoken in zimbabwe. furthermore, tshivenda is a tonal language and acoustic prominence is awarded to the penultimate syllable of the last word in a sentence. tshivenda is an agglutinative code with a very complex morphology and its orthography makes extensive use of diacritic symbols for the representation of speech sounds foreign to english (ammon 2006; meshtri 2002; van wyk 1966). these salient features differ distinctly from english and, although not the focus of this study, may account for some of the challenges faced by learners. furthermore, cummins (1979; 2000) claims that it takes at least two years to acquire basic interpersonal communication skills (bics) in an additional language, although perhaps less when there is more exposure to the target language, while it takes seven years to master cognitive academic language proficiency (calp). many grade 4 learners thus face challenges in english, as they have barely mastered calp in their home language, but are expected to cope with academic demands in a new medium of instruction. phatudi (2007) asserts that such an abrupt transition with so many changes not only affects academic performance, but also brings about disparity and reorganisation of the inner feelings and emotions of those that undergo it. this unsettledness is exacerbated by the fact that this linguistic transition is expressly made on behalf of the learners and possibly even parents without their being actively involved in the decision-making (evans 2017; evans & cleghorn 2012; heugh et al. 2007). finally, although in no way explored in this study, the grade 4 slump needs mention as an internationally known phrase coined by chall, jacobs and baldwin (1990). this baffling phenomenon occurs around the age of nine, just before sa learners would be transitioned transition to the intermediate phase. in terms of vocabulary, this academic slump relates to learners progressing from high-frequency words to more complex idiomatic structures. being faced with text, which requires sophisticated decoding skills and a broad vocabulary, learners may be faced with ‘a previously undetected lack of fluency and automaticity’ (goodwin 2011:88) and an overtaxed working memory (torrance 1967). chall et al.’s research (1990), moreover, found that the vocabulary of learners from low-income backgrounds was limited to basic words used in their immediate environment. by contrast, those learners whose environment exposed them to more variety and depth in terms of lived experiences had a richer vocabulary. a simple transposition of this premise to deep rural african contexts would not be invalid: the mother tongue would, no doubt, account for a richness of oral expression, while the english vocabulary would be very limited. turning attention now to rurality: we refrain from providing a blanket definition. yet, in most contexts, this concept is generally defined in terms of low population density and remote geographic location, that is, isolation because of distance from modern infrastructure, facilities, services and technological connectivity. lack of transport to the nearest towns implies high costs and infrequent contact with such destinations. often these small settlements also subsist under harsh climatic conditions (nthulana 2016; rousseau 1995; sher 1981). rural regions are also defined in terms of socio-economic growth and sustainability, and tend to be among the poorest in a country, as those living there are generally deprived of job opportunities and thus cannot rely on a steady income. in the sa context, such areas are primarily inhabited by the elderly and minors (balfour 2010; stats sa 2011). the inequalities, produced by colonisation and apartheid, have further worsened the plight of such communities. even post-apartheid policy frameworks, designed by middle-class professionals, have been insensitive to rural expressions and have favoured the urban elite (chigbu 2013; nelson mandela foundation & human science research council 2005). rural communities, possibly owing to their isolation from mainstream culture, generally display a strong group cohesion and unique culture. their close relationship with each other and nature is more than neighbourliness and has been described as gemeinschaft (tönnies 1963), suggesting personalised fellowship and ‘a sharing of responsibilities, and a furthering of mutual good through familiarity and understanding’ (robinson 1990:37). these settlements in south africa are particularly vulnerable, as traditional leaders control most aspects of life and supposedly represent their community’s interests. parents, too, are often marginalised and trapped, as their own schooling usually does not extend beyond primary level (balfour 2010). despite the apparent collective decision-making and reaching of consensus in rural communities, poorly educated parents are inclined to accept the opinions of community leaders and do not question policies even when not comprehended. teaching in rural contexts has its own challenges (balfour 2010; chigbu 2013; heugh 2014; robinson 1990; sher 1981). rural schools, although generally smaller in terms of learner size and with a relatively homogeneous learner profile, are often obliged to combine classes, serving learners across age groups. learners travel long distances to reach schools, mostly on foot as transportation is non-existent, infrequent or expensive. south africans, living in deep rural areas, are generally monolingual, as their isolation also implies that they do not need to use even other regional languages, let alone the one widely associated with white speakers. interaction with authentic speakers of english is very rare and seldom goes beyond an initial exchange of greetings. overall, there are very few opportunities to practise communicating in english, implying inadequate english exposure for an entire community. however, caregivers, represented by the school governing body, also have the right to decide on the medium of instruction. as english is currently viewed as the language of power and prosperity (evans & cleghorn 2010, 2012; nomlomo 2010; oliver & reschley 2007; van der walt & evans 2017), many of them insist on english despite the young children’s lack of proficiency in this language. commonly for learners in our study, the only chance of hearing and using english happens at school where textbooks, learning support material and examination papers are prepared in english, presenting unfamiliar content in foreign words. often these materials carry a strong eurocentric, middle-class bias that emphasises the division between social literacy and the literacy required and acknowledged by the school (bloch 2009; chimbutane 2011; dbe 2010; galabawa 2010; heugh 2014; pretorius 2014). more often too, the materials are shared and not permitted to be taken home. aural english input is limited to hearing a non-native speaker with doubtful proficiency in the classroom. the only exposure that these rural teachers have to english is through the media. yet, even these possibilities fail to allow for practising the target language, as paper and technology do not interact in an authentic, bidirectional way. our study was conducted in three government-funded primary schools situated in the vhembe district – the epitome of rurality – approximately 90 km from the nearest town and 140 km from the zimbabwean border. the tshikondeni coal mine employs about 770 locals, while others in the community are subsistence farmers or traders of firewood and mopani worms – a rich source of protein seasonally abundant in this area. this site experiences very low rainfall, especially in winter. electricity and limited solar power is available, but most families still prefer to prepare food using an open fire. most schools in the area have new classrooms, but owing to increased learner enrolment, the old ones are also still in use. although water pipelines have been laid, they are usually dry and schools thus depend on boreholes and pit toilets for sanitation. most learners travel more than 3 km on foot to get to school. in addition, they perform domestic chores after school, for example, collecting firewood from the forest, taking care of the herds until sunset, cutting grass for thatching a homestead or fetching water in 25 l drums transported on a wheelbarrow from some distance away. these routines are performed regardless of the weather and with little regard for the age of the child. teachers in these areas reside in the local communities where interacting in tshivenda only creates singularly monolingual spaces. research design and method this case study was designed as a qualitative research project underpinned by krashen’s theory (1982) of second-language acquisition which stresses the significance of oral interaction in enhancing acquisition and fluency. data were collected by means of interviews and non-participant classroom observation. the sites and possible teacher participants were assigned to us by the district office based on our selection criteria for purposive sampling which required more than three years’ teaching experience in a rural environment, a minimum of three years’ experience teaching grade 4 learners and having a relevant professional qualification. the teachers should also have attended at least 70% of the professional development programmes on offer. six teachers aged between 35 and 55 years, three males and three females, agreed to participate in this study. all teachers were mother tongue speakers of tshivenda, spoke multiple languages, but considered their english proficiency mediocre, as they did not use it outside the classroom. only one stayed within walking distance of the school, while the others travelled between 20 km and 30 km daily to reach their workplace. although they complained about too many changes in the curriculum, overcrowded classrooms, lack of textbooks and not earning enough, participants all seemed passionate about teaching and enjoyed being with their learners. two intermediate phase curriculum advisors (cas) (also identified by the circuit manager) were interviewed to establish whether they were aware of any challenges that grade 4 teachers faced and to find out what initiatives they took to support teachers. data collection commenced once ethical clearance had been obtained from the relevant authorities and participants. interview questions were first piloted with rural teachers elsewhere in limpopo in order to establish whether they would elicit the data we required. thirty-five predetermined questions were arranged in five sections. six questions sought to ascertain biographical information, eight focussed on teaching experience, while seven dealt with teaching methodology. the remaining questions gleaned data related to classroom interactions and the support channels available. we conducted a single, in-depth, face-to-face interview with each of the participants in the second term of the school year. the 60-min teacher interview was site-based, semi-structured and audio-recorded. the questions were posed in english, but all participants chose to respond in tshivenda, as they could express themselves better. a similar process was followed when interviewing the cas, although they only had 18 questions and were interviewed for 45 min. participants’ anonymity was protected by giving them pseudonyms. interviews were transcribed verbatim and translated by the co-author, and then combed for themes in several iterations. the interview data, sets per participant, presented in the main study as a narrative, were tabulated for ease of comparison and later triangulated with the observational data. the primary researcher conducted non-participant observations of authentic lessons in situ presented by three participating teachers from the same school. this verified data, obtained by class visits, helped us to fully comprehend the complexities of teaching in a rural classroom and highlighted discrepancies between what the participants said they did and the reality witnessed. behavioural patterns that teachers were unaware of were also revealed. distance affected visits to the other two research sites. mindful of the ‘hawthorne effect’, that is, the possibility of both learners and teachers changing their behaviour in the researcher’s presence (kumar 2011:141), we effectively managed this through a pre-observation visit to establish rapport with teachers and to explain to the learners the planned chain of events. learners were also familiarised with the equipment and the assistant who would be helping with the recordings. both a phone for audio recordings and a video camera were used in case technical errors arose. an observation frequency schedule was designed to focus on how the teacher conducted the lessons and how the learners responded. there was a specific focus on the language used in the various exchanges. each observation lasted approximately 2 h, permitting the primary researcher to observe teachers’ strategies when introducing a lesson and explaining the new content as well as gauge the learners’ reactions and level of understanding. data presentation drawing on the data sets, we now offer a consolidated account of five key patterns pertinent to the intersecting of language proficiency for academic purposes and rural education. pattern #1: teachers’ inadequate proficiency in the language of learning and teaching the six teacher participants self-identified strongly with their deep rural monolingual tshivenda-speaking community. although multilingual in terms of other sa languages, they admitted that they had very limited exposure to english as a language of communication. they claimed to have only really encountered it while studying at the local teachers’ training college many years ago or at university where english had been used as a medium of instruction. they had never had an opportunity to socialise in english, because the majority of their fellow students had also been tshivenda speakers. one of the teachers had completed her academic qualifications at secondary and tertiary level via correspondence and thus only had exposure to english in written form through her study material and examination papers. none of the teachers used english outside the classroom. some participants lacked confidence when speaking english and felt embarrassed when making a mistake. mukondeleli admitted her inadequacy unashamedly: truly speaking i feel that i cannot speak it (english) because i cannot say exactly where i ever stood in front of anyone and speak in english … when teaching them through english i could see that my english is not much perfect as compared to some children that i teach. but unlike when i am reading, i will understand but it is so hard to say in english what i have been reading. (participant 2, female, teaches maths) it appeared that the only time that these teachers used any english was when they taught and, even then, it was limited to giving basic instructions and lean explanations, while much code switching also took place. four teachers rated their english ability as five out of ten; another felt that some learners spoke english better than herself, referring to those whose parents had taken them to private preschools, while only maswoi rated himself six out of ten. when asked how well teachers speak english, one ca made a vague statement that ‘some are good and some are not good’. the other was also reluctant to express an opinion about teachers’ linguistic prowess in english, because ‘they may report you to their unions’. pattern #2: learners’ linguistic underpreparedness learners in our study generally only speak tshivenda at home and the classroom is the only context in which they encounter english. a ca explained this as follows: ‘… the only exposure that i know of is that of a television but eh … a television does not communicate. it’s only characters [who don’t talk to the viewer]’. advisors justified their detached stance by claiming that learners should use english outside the classroom, but admitted that ‘this is a rural area where they will never meet a white person’. curriculum advisors also recognised that learners transitioned with less than an elementary knowledge of english, implying a seriously underdeveloped calp, but did not question the abrupt switch to a new lolt that impacted learning. the introduction of english in earlier grades by means of simple songs and chanting without purposeful language development was not questioned either. they also indicated that more english should be introduced gradually in the foundation phase, but without suggesting how: instead of going on with the grade 4 curriculum, they must first teach the elementary part of the curriculum (a e i o u), that is, sounds and the alphabet, to help learners cope. (participant 1, male, teaches maths) furthermore, the cas did not elaborate on why teachers complained about following the official curriculum and assessment policy, but believed that code switching helped learners understand the content thus endorsing the continued use of tshivenda after transitioning. the cas also paid lip service to the support they were expected to offer and blamed the remote location for the learners’ struggle. classroom observations confirmed that learners did not understand when instructed in english and teachers reverted to explanations in tshivenda. as learners had a limited vocabulary, they could not comfortably provide well-constructed answers to questions and battled to give logical responses, but could do so in their mother tongue. when asked to give their answers in english, a few learners responded immediately. however, when permitted to answer in tshivenda, almost the whole class would raise their hands. there were also learners who could not read any english meaningfully. learners’ self-esteem faded visibly whenever they struggled to express themselves. they kept quiet when called upon in english, but responded eagerly once teachers rephrased the same question in tshivenda. five of the six participants also taught in upper grades and averred that most of the older learners coped better with the demands of english even though they did not meet them fully. three teachers stated that they referred learners who were not coping in grade 4 back to a lower grade teacher so that they could be helped (‘we revert to a fp teacher to minimise the problem’). it was unclear whether this was for support in linguistic or academic skills and we pondered why an intermediate phase teacher might not be better equipped to solve such problems. pattern #3: code switching as a means of coping in class teachers endeavour to address their learners’ struggle to understand new content by code switching between english and tshivenda. participant teachers spoke about ‘translating’ and ‘interpreting’ and were not aware that this behaviour had a linguistic label nor that it was a conventional and accepted strategy. official documents permit code switching (dbe 2011a), but the teachers expressed misguided guilt doing so as they believed that they were breaching policy and prescribed methodology. as claimed by a participant: ‘we know we are supposed to teach them in english but we are forced by circumstances to do so [code switch] because they [learners] must understand’ (participant 5, female, teaches maths). participant teachers had no knowledge of implementing code switching strategically and responsibly (van der walt 2009). participants merely repeated whatever they had said in english in tshivenda again. they intuitively knew that doing so would build up learners’ confidence and understanding by bridging the conceptual gap: we use both because when you start speaking in english you will see when children are unable to understand and is then that you will be able to explain in tshivenda that they will understand and when they have understood it then you go back to english. (participant 1, male, teaches maths) this echoes what brock-utne et al. (2010:84) experienced in tanzania where teachers complained that if they used english throughout a lesson, it was like ‘teaching dead stones’. all participants, however, agreed that code switching was time-consuming ‘because you have to go back to tshivenda and it means one thing will be taught twice’ and it thus ‘made lessons become slower’. observation and interview data suggested that, at the commencement of a lesson, the phatic communication was conducted in english, but that explanations of content as well as behaviour management were executed in tshivenda and, probably to salve feelings of guilt or for the sake of the observer, often repeated again in english. the relevance of alternating languages in this order was not clear, but presumably it was an attempt to adhere to the lolt policy. both cas seemed unaware of the extent to which teachers code switched, but felt that it was justified to translate the instructions for learners whenever they were given a formal assessment: because they don’t understand english, they should be helped whenever they are given a formal assessment; teachers must first read the instructions and interpret into the mother tongue to make them understand. (participant 1a, male, 5 years experience) none of the participants admitted to using tshivenda because they were more comfortable teaching in this language. their lack of linguistic confidence in english, however, manifested in that they preferred to conduct their interviews in their mother tongue. pattern #4: perceptions related to english as a language of instruction despite participants’ inability to adequately engage with content exposition in english, they still considered english an appropriate medium of instruction and were positive about the move from tshivenda to english in grade 4. all six teachers regarded english as important, because it is spoken internationally and that offers many opportunities, for instance when learners travel. maseo felt ‘i want the children to know other languages in today’s world’, supporting mutshinya’s opinion that being taught in english ‘is helpful when learners are furthering their studies, they won’t find it difficult’. when asked whether they would prefer teaching in tshivenda exclusively if permitted, two opposing views were evident. some teachers felt that concepts in mathematics and science could not be explained well in english: ‘if the learner knows fractions in tshivenda, it will be easy for the learner to know them in english’, while others felt ‘it will be difficult because some [concepts] do not have names in tshivenda’ and ‘there is little maths vocabulary in tshivenda language’ or as mutshinya declared: ha! can it work? what will we call some of the things? this will be laughable during the first time! some of the words we don’t know them in tshivenda. (participant 6, male, teaches english) makhadzi believed that teaching in english ‘… is also helpful to us as teachers because we will also be practising to speak english’. participants felt that despite learners’ struggle to understand when taught in english, they were positive about the language and showed an interest in learning it. when asked what concerns they had about english as lolt, cas focussed with false logic on the learners as the problem, stating that ‘learners do not come with adequate elementary knowledge of english because educators are forced to teach in grade 3 in the mother tongue so that these learners understand’. pattern #5: perceived lack of support from district officials teacher participants felt that not enough was being performed by ‘the government’ to prepare both teachers and learners for transitioning in the medium of instruction. curriculum advisors agreed that this was a challenge, especially for rural teachers and learners. although the cas offered some help in the form of workshops, it was insufficient, as maseo declares: ‘no, it is not useful! things that we should be taught in 3 years we are taught in two days.’ participants attended workshops on how to teach particular content subjects, but were emphatic about receiving no help from the department on how to teach through the medium of english, let alone how to improve their classroom english (willis 1985). the following caustic remark suggests that – rather than the cooperative and supportive rapport which ought to exist among cas and teachers – there was a strained power-based relationship: ‘… they become more advanced in salary; they also pass you by the road driving those big cars. the way they change these curriculums, they don’t give us time.’ teachers voiced their complaints, but felt that they were not heard. teachers termed cas ‘fault finders’ and ‘witch hunters’, while the cas experienced a decided lack of trust on the part of the teachers. one advisor considered the teachers in his district as equals, while the other person claimed that ‘the problem is of attitudes, and those who will be acting on what their unions are saying and even misinterpret what their unions have said’. both government officials made many excuses for not hosting more professional development opportunities, stating that the teachers ‘get learning support materials and departmental workbooks and their own teaching plan to guide them on what to teach each week’. this they considered sufficient and had no plans to initiate any special programmes to support language transitioning or further development of english. the following remark is an indictment in terms of shirking responsibility: ‘due to the fact that xxx is far, and i am just assisting because there is a shortage. i do not often go there but i try…’ discussion although the adult participants in this study unashamedly blamed the learners’ lack of english for the linguistic challenges teachers faced with grade 4 learners, the findings overwhelmingly suggest that it is the teachers ‘inadequate english which results in complex classroom encounters’ (evans & cleghorn 2012). as the lolt is the means by which knowledge is imparted and the intellectual potential of learners developed, such a language should be understood and used comfortably by both teachers and learners. the linguistic transition from grade 3 to 4 implies that learners at this stage ought to have at least sufficient aural skills in english to understand simple content exposition. teachers should likewise be sufficiently fluent in the lolt and have the necessary subject jargon and classroom english to confidently and effectively explain concepts and manage the learning event. it is understandable that grade 4 learners may still be acquiring the lolt, but the expectation is that teachers would be more capable of leading in english at this level. code switching minimises the language barrier in the classroom, but overt linguistic inadequacies in the lolt cause ‘confusion, frustration or discomfort’ (evans & cleghorn 2012:78). jegede (2012:43) suggests that teachers code switch as a means to cope with the challenges they face when using an unfamiliar language as a medium of instruction, supporting our notion that the tshivenda-speaking teachers did so primarily because of their own inadequate proficiency. this dependence on code switching as the sole strategy to support learners, may improve understanding of content, but not english proficiency. pollard (2002) again discourages code switching, as it tends to be detrimental to the development of both languages. learners may also not heed english explanations, as they know that the entire lesson will be repeated in tshivenda. this practice further limits rural learners’ exposure to english (duran 1994; nel & muller 2010; oyeomoni 2006; pollard 2002). a lengthier and less obtrusive means of observation may have allowed us to gauge just how much english was, in fact, being used. as the school is the only site at which rural learners encounter english, their teachers serve as role models. one of the tenets of krashen’s language acquisition theory (1982) is that teachers ought to offer comprehensible input in the target language at a slightly higher level than the learners would be able to produce. an environment, rich in second-language input, increases exposure, but in our study, the opportunity for the school to serve as a place to practise english for both teachers and learners was never fully utilised. this was unusual, especially as english was afforded high status being perceived as the key to fulfilling adult aspirations for the younger generation. the rural and monolingual setting of this remote community has been used as an excuse for infrequent exposure to english. although rural parents cannot support learners as they might in urban areas with social encounters in the lolt, personal tutors and broad exposure to technology through which to access content and english, rural learners do have the ability to acquire bics through sufficient exposure to english. yet, the professionals responsible for the education of the grade 4 learners are inert about taking responsibility for the level of readiness and seem to shift the blame. although they acknowledged limitations in their own oral expression, participants did not question how to improve their own english proficiency with specific reference to the classroom discourse required to scaffold tasks and foster learning (alexander 2008; probyn 2001, 2009; uys et al. 2007; walsh 2013). learners’ underpreparedness could be improved by more frequent listening and speaking tasks (arnold et al. 2008). our findings further point to a disjuncture in terms of policy implementation and the provision of professional interventions. rural teachers feel hampered by an ‘us-them’ relationship with cas on whom they rely for pedagogical support. curriculum advisors blamed the remoteness of the school communities for the teachers’ and learners’ poor proficiency and displayed an exculpatory attitude towards their role in improving teachers’ ability to use the lolt effectively. officials also feared retaliation from unions and their glib opinions reveal a lack of insight into what language proficiency entails let alone how to develop proficiency in an lolt. one wonders about their own english proficiency as well as their ability to identify which aspects of instructional communication and classroom english required attention. or was their command of english being used to strengthen the power dynamics? adult participants knew that not enough was being done, but seemed not to know how to address the key problem: the vicious circle of poor english input by teachers resulting in poor output by learners. significance and implications our findings contribute accumulatively to the broader narrative about rural education and the systemic ills that do not acknowledge the challenges and consequences of insufficient linguistic prowess for both teachers and learners. although small scale and localised, this study has drawn attention to the linguistic predicament that rural communities experience when teachers are required to teach through the medium of english when neither they nor their learners have sound mastery of it (evans & cleghorn 2010, 2012; mohanty et al. 2009; moyo, beukes & van rensburg 2009; murali 2009). it also highlights the imperative for teachers to grasp the role they play in learners’ language development by ensuring increased quality exposure to the target language. implications arising from this study relate to national policymakers and local policy implementers as well as institutions responsible for teacher education, making concerted efforts to provide official support to both teachers and learners to prepare them for the shift to a new medium of instruction in grade 4. the education ministry ought to display the necessary political will to design and implement measures that will support 21st century teachers to use english with ease, especially those teaching in rural areas. large-scale application is required, as it is not only rural teachers (and learners) who require language support. language development is a complex and longitudinal process requiring appropriate input and practice. all role players involved in education may need to be re-skilled in this respect. policymakers also need to reflect on a more gradual switch to english-only with greater and needs-driven exposure to the lolt in the first years of schooling. curriculum planners ought to revise the scope, content and means of teaching english in the foundation phase, emphasising goal-oriented vocabulary extension and introducing english phonics in a culturally appropriate manner. currently, periods assigned for learning english are limited and lean. increasing liaison between teachers of the different phases could also alleviate overall transitional challenges. school leadership ought to consider induction sessions during which official policy and procedures are discussed. this might prompt teachers to reflect on their own classroom practices and responsibilities should they have a close knowledge of policy documents. the current scope of subject methodology training at institutions of higher learning is insufficient, while professional development initiatives, offered by the education ministry, seem unable to minimise teachers’ challenges. teacher education programmes need to include practical means of dramatically improving teachers’ inadequate command of the lolt prior to entering the classroom as a qualified teacher. the reintroduction of a standardised form of assessment to ensure adequate proficiency in at least two official languages would serve to ensure that instructional dissonance is limited (evans & cleghorn 2010, 2012; moyo et al. 2009; nel & muller 2010). teachers also require a solid understanding of language development in the first and additional languages as well as knowing how to adapt to rural education, as it differs from that in better resourced schools. conclusion rural teachers and learners still have a long, dusty road to run towards improving their level of english in order to alleviate the linguistic and transitional stress in grade 4. yet, their geographical isolation should not debar them from acquiring the lolt adequately to ensure successful academic progress. in view of the many changes that these learners are exposed to when moving to grade 4 in particular, the linguistic demands they and their teachers face they are in urgent need of governmental intervention to master what one participant accurately called ‘this language [english] that came by ship’. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions i.n. was a master’s student and contributed 15% of the article. r.e. was the supervisor of i.n. and contributed 85% of the article. r.e. conceptualised, wrote and edited the final manuscript using findings from i.n.’s dissertation. references alexander, n., 2002, ‘linguistic rights, language planning and democracy in post-apartheid south africa’, in s. baker (ed.), language policy: lessons from global models, pp. 116–129, monterey institute of international studies, monterey, ca. alexander, n. & bloch, c., 2004, ‘feeling at home with literacy in the mother tongue’, paper presented at the ibby conference, september, cape town. alexander, r.j., 2008, towards dialogic teaching: rethinking classroom talk, 4th edn., dialogos, york. alidou, h., 2003, ‘medium of instruction in post-colonial africa’, in j.w. tollefson & a. tsui (eds.), medium of instruction policies: which agenda? whose agenda? pp. 195–214, lawrence erlbaum associates, mahwah, nj. alidou, h., aliou, h., brock-utne, b., diallo, y.s., heugh, k. & wolff, h.e. 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1-594481-52-0 reviewed by steve finbow in the bio on the inside page of his first collection of short stories civilwarland in bad decline it states that mr saunders “is a geo-physical engineer in rochester, n.y.” that is apt for a writer like george saunders. geophysics is the study of “the physics of the earth”. physics is the “branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy” or “the physical properties and phenomena of something”. the engineered fictional worlds of civilwarland in bad decline explore the physical properties and phenomena of a narrative earth slightly out of kilter; something is not quite right, but everything is oddly familiar. saunders subtly undermines and transfigures td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 491 495. 492 the way we see ourselves, america, history, the world. from the opening paragraph of the title story: we’ve got a good ninety feet of actual canal out there and a well researched dioramic of a coolie campsite. were our faces ever red when we found out it was actually the irish who built the canal. we’ve got no budget to correct, so every fifteen minutes or so a device in the bunkhouse gives off the ap proximate aroma of an oriental meal. saunders gently refreshes our view of reality. nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, and nothing is solid. he provides an approximation of the known world, one brought to us by manufactured essences, and lifelike images. kurt vonnegut (a natural precursor) remarked on being called a “science-fiction” writer that he was merely writing about schenectady and not describing imaginary worlds. saunders could easily be tagged with the sci-fi label. “bounty”, the novella concluding this collection, is speculative fiction at its best; a look into a possible future in which the population of a ravaged usa is separated into normals and flaws (a flaw being any physical divergence from the norm – such as having no teeth), the narrative is replete with echoes of auschwitz, the slave trade, and owes a passing nod, in subject matter and style, to the work of mark leyner. both leyner and saunders view the world comically. leyner’s comedy is relenting and his prose experimental. saunders’s style owes more to the pared-down short stories of raymond carver and tobias wolfe (who saunders studied under). the story “isabelle” is closer to carver’s “popular mechanics” in its poignancy, compassion, and composition than it is to anything by vonnegut, pynchon, and heller. this is not to say that saunders isn’t a superb satirist. the title story is a hilarious take on amusement parks – think max appel’s the propheteers crossed with the medieval theme park in the cable guy. the park is a take on america’s history and america’s present – almost bankrupt, traumatised by teen gangs, employing misfit and incompetent workers, and protected by a vietnam war criminal. saunders’s comedy lulls the reader into a false sense of innocence. his language – he uses words like “flaky” and “floozy” – leads us through the narrative in wonder until he plunges us into the history of violence and the violence of history, into america’s legacy of hate and mistrust, and he does so without using the visceral prose of james ellroy or elmore leonard. saunders writes with humour and with enviable (even more so than elmore leonard) economy. saunders’s america, peopled by post-modern carnies, celebrity jell-o wrestlers, alcoholic babysitters, child killers, and 400-pound ceos, mirrors and simulates the media’s obsession with outsiders – the woman swamped by her own skin, the man with the 200 lb tumour, etc. while saunders’s corporations are absurd – civilwarland, the book reviews 493 center for wayward nuns, humane raccoon alternatives – are they any more absurd than enron or mcdonald’s? his world of gentle paranoia is reminiscent of philip k dick, but the dick of confessions of a crap artist and in milton lumky territory rather than that of a scanner darkly and the three stigmata of palmer eldritch; although the iliana evermore fairy castle in the short story “downtrodden mary’s failed campaign of terror” has its precursor in dick’s perky pat. if saunders is the lighter side of dick, he is the darker side of tim robbins of whom the story “the wavemaker falters” is reminiscent. at noon the next day a muscleman shows up with four beehives on a dolly. this is leon’s stroke of genius for the kiper wedding. the kipers are the natural type. they don’t want to eat anything that ever lived or buy any product that even vaguely supports notorious third world regimes. they asked that we run a check on the ultimate source of the tomatoes in our ketchup and the union status of the group that makes our floaties. they’ve opted to recite their vows in the waterfall grove. they’ve hired a blind trumpeter to canoe by and a couple of illegal aliens to retrieve the rice so no birds will choke. a slight shift in emphasis occurs from “bounty”, the last story in civilwarland in bad decline, to the title story of pastoralia, saunders’s second collection. this time, the theme/amusement park is cavemanbased, disgruntled employees scrabbling and scratching for food and meaning. the paranoia here is gentle, the comedy an admixture of freud and benny hill. this morning is the morning i empty our human refuse bags and the trash bags from the bottom of the sleek metal hole where janet puts her used feminine items. for this i get an extra sixty a month. plus it’s always nice to get out of the cave. i knock on the door of her separate area. saunders’s language is more controlled, the hysteria hypodermic rather than armorial, the dialogue sparklingly crystallised. the characters in pastoralia, constantly assessed, reviewed, and monitored, are docile subjects inhabiting sentences and paragraphs that move from truth to emotion via humour and humility. we’re all sitting on our log waiting for the goat to be dropped in the big slot. saunders’s characters are ordinary. very ordinary. their dialogue is human. very human. martin amis has written about the history of literature and how literature’s earliest texts were about gods, then about kings and other royalty, then courtiers, and then landowners, and then the middle class, and then tradesmen, and then the working class, and then the underclass – thieves and murderers. saunders writes about the losers, the lost, and the lonely. if martin amis has his keiths and johns, saunders has his lens and phils – the dispossessed, the not-ever-possessed, possessed with making their lives better, fuller, more meaningful. language and character strive to be different but are fundamentally simple. book reviews td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 491 495. 494 saunders has written: certain kinds of language walk hand in hand with falseness: vague lan guage, humourless language, sloppy language, language that strings to gether code words, language that eliminates the doer and the done to, that shuns people and things in favour of the abstract. “the doer and the done to” are saunders’ characters. “that shuns people.” saunders never shuns people. he writes about the disabled, the abled, the unable. he writes about people who spend the best years of their lives swearing at photocopiers. in “winky” conventioneers, labelled with their own shortcomings, reify being and identity with the (small) world. saunders reifies our hopes, our disasters, our dreams. he writes with humour about subjects that other writers would treat with pathos. min and jade put down the babies and light cigarettes and pace the room while studying aloud for their geds. it doesn’t look good. jade says “regicide” is a virus. min locates biafra one planet from saturn. i offer to help and they start yelling at me for condescending. he even makes bad jokes. auntie bernie has returned from the grave and is rotting away in the parlour: “what a nice day we’ve had,” aunt bernie says once we’ve got thebabies in bed. “man, what an optometrist,” says jade. he is also sometimes blissfully unaware of his humour. this is from “the barber’s unhappiness” and the barber is attempting to achieve and sustain an erection. it wouldn’t be easy. it would take hard work. he knew a little about hard work, having made a barbershop out of a former pet store. tearing out a counter he’d found a dead mouse. from a sump pump he’d pulled three hardened snakes. empathy and sympathy. emancipation and seduction. eros and sloth. entertainment and seriousness. saunders’s characters are fully dimensional and are so within the space (fourteen pages) and time (immemorial) of the story. observe the indecisive decisiveness of morse and cummings in “the falls”, a masterful short story, similar to t.c. boyle’s “heart of a champion”. saunders makes the happy man feel uncomfortable and the uncomfortable man feel happy. although marketed as a children’s book, the very persistent gappers of frip is an extraordinary prose work, documenting prejudice, outbreaks of nimbyism, snobbishness, falsity, and hypocrisy in a political fable in the mode of swift, rabelais, and pynchon. the very persistent gappers of frip shows saunders at his most playful and compassionate. here’s capable – the heroine of the story. book reviews 495 and she soon found that it was not all that much fun being the sort of person who eats a big dinner in a warm house while others shiver on their roofs in the dark. and here the gappers are deciding what next to love: so the gappers took a vote. and though they were not in perfect agreement one believed they should begin loving wadded up pieces of paper, another believed they should begin loving turtles, particularly turtles who were dy ing, particularly dying turtles who nevertheless kept a positive attitude the gappers still very much admired and trusted that less stupid gapper, and voted to begin madly loving fences. if gappers is a moral fable aimed at children, then the brief and frightening reign of phil is a political allegory for our century. set in the lands of inner horner, outer horner, and greater keller, phil satirises democracy, war, and the media, drawing from saunders’s previous themes of longing and loss. the prose is hard, clear, and proximal – by which i mean that it creates within its 130 pages a world as approximate to ours as is possible – the same but other. is phil (later phil monster) george bush? this is phil after his brain has fallen out. actually, phil felt, he wasn’t feeling all that well. he was feeling totally devanced in terms of how good he could think. where was that stupid brain? where dud he left it? that thing had been offen a long time. no wonder no salvation thoughts were come winging out of him. he wanted to communerate tothese idiotic circle walking invaders they couldn’t know how it was like, forced to lived close to a national of unhuman puny coveting your wide open, claiming to be just as human, giving those hostility look just because you lived in a spacious total bounty of righteous plenty. only suddenly he couldn’t seem to speak so super. is the mirror-faced advisor donald rumsfeld or ‘phil’s special friends’ tony blair and gordon brown? this is satire at its most incisive, cutting, and unlike some satire phil is very funny. here are a few headlines from outer horner’s media: air continues to float around, being breathed by many! sky remains dark as night proceeds! dog pees on shrub, looks askance at own rear! neighbor lady draws blinds with crabby look on face! in an interview with ben marcus in the believer book of writers talking to writers, saunders says, “but one could argue that america has ghettoized itself by insisting on a self-reifying view (humanist/materialist) ... ” ben marcus teases out other saunders’ sound bites – “realism is nonsense when you think about it.” if finnegans wake is the most realistic book ever written and therefore unreadable because it would mirror our realism and create a double world in the reader’s mind, then saunders uses naturalism tinged with the fantastic – like his natural precursors donald barthelme and richard brautigan – to shadow that world, to create a mirrored ethics, and so “all good fiction is moral” and “nothing is true and everything is true.” book reviews td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 491 495. microsoft word 00 b editorial comment fin.doc td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(1) july 2013, p. v. e d i t o r i a l c o m m e n t c o n s t r u c t i n g a d i v e r s e i n s t i t u t i o n a l b i n d i n g this issue of td highlights a new direction for the journal. there are now two assistant editors who have volunteered to participate in the process of editing the journal. prof. jan kroeze, an it specialist of unisa, has now been active in the field for more than three years. he has been instrumental in soliciting material in the field of computer science where transdisciplinarity and complexity studies have made rapid strides forward in recent years. in the course of 2013 prof. sechaba mahlomaholo (ufs) offered his services. as educationist his contribution will focus increasingly on securing material for the journal in fields related to educational studies. moreover, at the university of the free state there will be a gathering of educational experts towards the end of the year. if all goes well a special issue of td will be forthcoming dealing with: social justice and the creation of learning environments: a transdisciplinary approach. in an effort to promote transdisciplinary research we at td would like to collaborate more with academics interested in developing interest groups across a broad spectrum of disciplines. one of the major problems we currently experience is the paucity of academics to help with peer reviews of articles that sometimes tend to transcend disciplines. it is a pity when an editor is aware of ground-breaking work in a manuscript, but able reviewers are not readily available to evaluate the material. it is because of this situation that we welcome collaboration from academics offering their services in editorial activities. of particular importance in this edition of the journal is an article by coletto dealing with philosophical issues related to our understanding of the sciences and the locations in which transdisciplinarity need to be sought and understood. carr, van der walt, wayson and linda, in turn, make a contribution towards a better understanding of how to maintain research collaboration in an international research group. burman et al., have taken a complexity route towards understanding the south african development landscape. beart & lessing share the perceptions of parents and teachers when learners with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder participate in yoga activities to remedy their conditions. the work of young academics in this edition of td comes highly recommended. the work of swart on traumatised music learners in south africa; van vuuren’s work on south africa’s engineers and their environmentally-friendly approach towards dam construction in the postworld war 2 era; and heyns and jearey’s work on interpersonal trust and innovativeness, deserve mention. mature researchers such as govender, mäki respectively in the fields of education and water history also ply their trade with distinction and have some interesting insights to share with readers. td journal desember 2006.p65 some human actions in the destruction and construction of culture and nature – the merafong region as a case study elize s van eeden * abstract: for at least the past 180 years the merafong municipal region in the gauteng province of south africa, (of which the wonderfontein catchment forms a part) has strongly relied on the primary sector for its economic existence and development. in the process some human actions, also related to serious water contamination/pollution, have resulted in phases of constructions1 as well as economic and health destructions. differences over whose environment and whose nature it is spontaneously developed, with sometimes less friendly outcomes. the ‘end result’ up to 2006 is a complicated scenario experience, similar to that of many other regions or local areas, but also very unique and somewhat frightening. the long term focus of this article is to exchange knowledge2 on the region with the objective to contribute towards creating a sustainable environment by ensuring closer co-operation between the various economic active cultures operating or functioning in the merafong municipal region. in this article four aspects are covered. keywords: merafong municipality, wonderfontein, north-west province, water-related health, water pollution, gold mining, sinkholes, uranium pollution. introduction it probably can be said that the wonderfontein catchment in merafong is one of the most well-documented, well-researched areas in south africa. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 409-430. _______ * school of basic sciences, north-west university. 1 construction in this article reflects the act of constructing, or manner in which something is constructed. see collins english dictionary, 1st edition (glasgow: scotland, 2004), p. 364. 2 transdisciplinary knowledge in this context implies scientific contact or exchange among disciplines to produce outcomes on issues beyond or above disciplines. compare grolier, the new book of knowledge dictionary, vol. 1, a-7l, p. 683. 410 iilustration 1: geographical location of merafong (carletonville) in the west wits gold line area especially as far as certain aspects of the environment is concerned. one of the major reasons for this is because of the rich gold bearing ores lying deep below the dolomitic aquifers, discovered in the late 1800s. these were protected until the cementation process – used from in 1934 in the area and which allowed mine shafts to penetrate through the water bearing geology – irrevocably changed the ecosystem. the lure of vast tax profits moved government to permit the dewatering of four dolomitic aquifers since the 1950’s to exploit the gold and uranium ores. this by the eighties and currently appeared to have been a short-sighted undertaking. the discussion that follows only sketches some of the developments to the present, but mainly highlight some human actions – related to serious water contamination or pollution – that apparently have resulted in phases of constructions3 as well as economic and health destructions. van eeden _______ 3 contstruction in this article reflects the act of constructing, or manner in which something is constructed. see collins english dictionary, 1st edition (glasgow: scotland, 2004), p. 364. 411 illustration 2: historical and geological features of the wonderfontein catchment nature and culture4 in merafong – a short historical perspective merafong as study area has been explored by many scientists from a variety of disciplines. amongst others, thery have contemplated the topographical, geographical, geological and historical features before and after human interference have been recorded. these, however, will not be the key discussion for this article as indicated in the introduction.5 in essence the catchment of the wonderfonteinspruit in the present-day merafong municipal district (formerly carletonville), also merafong – destruction and construction _______ 4 culture (from the latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning ‘to cultivate‘), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. different definitions of ‘culture‘ reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. in this discussion culture simply implies an appreciation and understanding of the customs and civilisation of groups of people in the community and the economic sector. definition obtained from www.wikipedia.org.za (8 dec. 2006). 5 the features as referred to in the article has been covered in e.s. van eeden, a.b. de villiers, a.h. strydom, & e.j. stoch, ‘mines, people and sinkholes – an analysis of the carletonville municipal area in south africa as case study regarding politics of secrecy’ historia 47(1), may 2003; e.s. van eeden, ‘nederlandse emigrante op wonderfontein 1928-1969 – ’n suksesvolle mislukking onder die vaandel van stamverwantskapsen ekonomiese motiewe’, historia, 46(1), may 2001. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 412 sources the mooi river (that runs through potchefstroom) east of the boskop dam. it is a dolomite area that formerly featured natural springs with unique fauna and flora. this region, currently known as the merafong municipal region,6 existed long before recorded history. however, it was human actions and activities as a consequence of migration, environmental utilisation and exploitation since the 19th century that eventually resulted in the civilised settlement of a variety of cultures over decades.7 in the process the environment was transformed to accommodate especially mining activities. from a 2006 perspective this exciting economic boost of the time turned out to be one of the most destructive economic choices of the 20th century as far as the natural habitat and inhabitants (especially those relying on the farming potential of the area) are concerned. economic activity in the merafong region is recorded since the 1850s.8 the digoya or leghoya is regarded as one of the first tribes to have been in the area for some time.9 furthermore rasmussen’s research brought him to an account that the ndebele of mzilikazi lived at the vaal.10 w.c. scully11 also reported some movement by mzilikazi who had built his ‘great place’, ezinyosini (‘the place of the bees’), near the site of present potchefstroom on the mooi river, about fifty miles west of the suikerbosrand. though this prominent leader’s stay in the mooi river was short, traces of human destruction, as a result of war during the difaqane movement, were recorded by some european hunters and explorers in the interior. during ca. 1825-1878 it was the bakwena ba molotšwane12 – who eventually settled at thaba ’nchu – that were partly visible in the gatsrand or ‘gatsrandberg’.13 van eeden _______ 6 merafong was previously known as the carletonville municipal area since the 1960s and earlier (approx. 1840-1959) known as the gatsrand area/ward. 7 compare e.s. van eeden, ‘land tenure and reform in south africa: its history and the role of history with regard to land claims as officially proposed: a case study on the farm deelkraal iq 142, north west province’. (article presented for the sahj, 2006 to be peer reviewed). 8 e.s. van eeden, ‘die geskiedenis van die gatsrand vanaf die vestiging van die trekkergemeenskap omstreeks 1839 tot die proklamering van carletonville in 1948’ (ma. pu vir cho, 1988). 9 a. anderson in j. walton, j. walton, early ghoya settlement in the orange free state, memoir 2, 23, 26. 10 r. kent rasmussen, migrant kingdom: mzilikazi’s ndebele in south africa, 46-47. 11 r. kent rasmussen, migrant kingdom: mzilikazi’s ndebele in south africa, 48. 12 davenport refers to one of the three subordinates of moshweshwe as moletsane among the tlokwa. see t.r.h. davenport, south africa. a modern history, fourth edition, pp. 134-135. this group is a younger splintering of the older bakwena ba molepole. 13 p.l. breutz, die stamme van die distrik ventersdorp, 103-105; dept. of native affairs, anon., ‘a short history of the native tribes in the transvaal (1905)’, 26. 413 white settlers from the cape colony also migrated to the northwestern parts14 of the later zuid-afrikaansche republiek. these parts ultimately became known as the gatsrand ward15 and were mainly utilised for farming purposes before the 1930s. while a dutch settlement on the farm wonderfontein in the late twenties further revived the local economic activities into much more than merely farming, active mining accelerated from 1934.16 the establishment of the first three gold mines, blyvooruitzicht (1937), westdriefontein (1945) and doornfontein (1947),17 raised the expectations of entrepreneurs. several towns were founded in the area. they were west wits (1937), oberholzer (1939), bank (1940), welverdiend (1942), blybank (1947) and carletonville (1948).18 carletonville, which was proclaimed on 20 january 1948, was the sixth town to develop in the mining area in less than one decade.19 it was within this setting that the economic development of the carletonville area (as part of the oberholzer district) in the far west rand (nowadays the merafong area as part of the gauteng province) took place.20 2. aspects of human involvement in the construction or destruction of culture and nature in merafong since the start of gold mining activities in the past century mining in the west rand, amongst others, are accused of serious water contamination or pollution. their presence merafong – destruction and construction _______ 14 p.j. van der merwe, die noordwaartse beweging van die boere voor die groot trek, 1770-1842 (kaapstad: burger boekhandel, 1957), pp. 180, 205, 208, 282. 15 e.s. van eeden, ‘’n historiese perspektief op die herkoms van die naam gatsrand’, nomina africana, (1996). 16 e.s. van eeden, ‘nederlandse emigrante op wonderfontein 1928-1969 – ’n suksesvolle mislukking onder die vaandel van stamverwantskapsen ekonomiese motiewe’, historia, 46(1), may 2001, pp. 54-91; r. macnab, gold their touchstone: goldfields of south africa, 1887-1987 – a centenary story, (johannesburg: johathan ball, 1987), pp. 121.124. 17 r. macnab, gold their touchstone: gold fields of south africa, 1887-1987, a centenary story (johannesburg, 1987), pp. 64-161. 18 unie van suid-afrika, departement van handel en nywerheid, jaarverslag no. 3, raad vir die ontwikkeling van natuurlike hulpbronne, 1 januarie-31 desember 1950, pretoria, 1950, pp. 34-35; jaarverslag no. 6, ... , 1 januarie-31 desember 1953, pretoria, 1953, p. 19 and carletonville munisipaliteit, cm, titelvoorwaardes, 1937-1960. 19 interim archive [ia], carletonville municipality [mcv], file 22/1(b)(2), dorpe: memorandum i.v.m. die verskynsel van sinkgate en grondbeweging in dolomitiese gebiede en die uitwerking wat dit vir die toekomstige ontwikkeling van carletonville inhou, 17.4.1976, p. 6. 20 e.s. van eeden, ‘so long gold mines – long live industries ? : a case study of carletonville‘s battle for economic survival’, (paper presented at the economic history society conference, 5-6 september 1996, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 414 and water related activities have apparently resulted in phases of constructions21 as well as economic and health destructions. 22 some of these are discussed: 2.1 construction before gold mining became the primary economic activity in the merafong region since the 1930s only a few trading stores did business in the area. by 1951 the number of businesses in the immediate surroundings of the gold mines had more than doubled.23 on 1 july 1959 the local or west wits area committee‘s dream was realised when carletonville became an independent municipality.24 the newly demarcated area that extended from the towns welverdiend towards bank in the east and up to the gatsrand hills in the south also included the areas leased by the gold mines doornfontein, blyvooruitzicht and west-driefontein, as well as the later east driefontein, elandsrand, deelkraal and a part of the western deep levels mining area.25 merafong (carletonville), as recorded in 1952, had already proclaimed three town extensions and one extension in the neighbouring town of oberholzer.26 by 1995 the number of extensions had more than quadrupled.27 this high expansion rate, however, did not necessarily imply or guarantee a balanced economic sector. mining activities became the dominant sector (also see diagram 1 for labour statistics) and also changed the face of an environment that has always been known for its natural springs and cave features. van eeden _______ 21 contstruction in this article reflects the act of constructing, or manner in which something is constructed. see collins english dictionary, 1st edition (glasgow: scotland, 2004), p. 364. 22 e.s. van eeden, ‘aspects of cultural life on the west rand, with specific focus on the effect of mining development on the cultural experience of the carletonville community’ (reworked version of a paper presented at the south african society for cultural history, transvaal regional branch, 7 march 1997, public library of springs, springs). 23 e.s. van eeden, ‘ekonomiese ontwikkeling en die invloed daarvan op carletonville, 1948-1988. ’n historiese studie’ (ph.d. thesis, pu for che), p. 210 diagram. 24 rand daily mail, 2.7.1959, p. 6. also compare with the manuscript of w. hagan-watson, ‘down memory lane: blyvoor‘s first 20 years’, pp. 1-10. 25 unie van suid-afrika, die provinsie van transvaal, offisiële koerant, clxix, 24.6.1959, kolomme 11-14; and carletonville (municipality), local area committee (lac), minutes: minute, 18.6.1959, pp. 6-7. [all these mines adopted new names for themselves after the beginning of the new political dispensation of 1994.] 26 carletonville (municipality) local area committee (lac) file t6/13(2), town and regional planning: west wits local area committee, dec. 1952, p. 26. 27 carletonville herald, 6.11.1987; urban dynamics, greater carletonville/fochville subregional structure plan, march 1995. 415 through all the years its economic links with merafong were associated with a labour need in the various economic sectors of this region. another black township, wedela, has also developed since 1978 after the elandsrand gold mine started its activities.28 in many ways these developments within the structures of the relatively young local municipality(ies) could be rated as economically and socio-culturally constructive because in the short term it produced prosperity to a steadily growing, culturally diverse, economically active population. diagram one extent and distribution of formal sector employment opportunities,1995 no formal figures available another positive reflection of constructive development within the merafong cultural setting was the prominent featuring of the local gold mines in the south african economy and the world market.29 merafong – destruction and construction merafong employment % of regional region employment opportunities khutsong * carletonville 5 712 6.5 wedela * welverdiend 155 0.2 mines 78 791 89.8 rural 1 761 2.0 total 87 763 100.0 _______ 28 carletonville (municipality), [lac] minutes: minute, ondersoek ingevolge die wet op groepsgebiede 1950, wesrand-streek, 24.9.1957; 20.6.1957; 11.2.1958. urban dynamics, greater carletonville ... , 1995. 29 carletonville (municipality), [lac] minutes: minute, ondersoek ingevolge die wet op groepsgebiede 1950, wesrand-streek, 24.9.1957; 20.6.1957; 11.2.1958. carletonville (municipality), cm, council minutes; vergadering van die bestuurskomitee, 9.1.1989; south african institute of race relations, race relations survey, 1988/89, p. 419. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 416 not only did it secure millions for the state treasury,30 but it also revolutionised the local town infrastructure. gold mine companies also took it on them to supply not only funds, but also to make available expertise to assist in improving the local infrastructure. the building of supply roads, the provision of water and electricity as well as the development of school buildings, sporting grounds, cultural and recreation activities together with the financial and administrative liabilities that went along with it 31 commenced virtually problem free. the black township wedela, situated between elandsrand and western deep levels gold-mines, for example, is a typical success story for which anglo american was mainly responsible.32 in 1996 the formal population figure of the district was said to be 204 000.33 this is an increase of approximately 30 000 since 1991.34 more than ever before the community structure changed into having a cosmopolitan character. for older inhabitants the presence of english-speaking whites as well as the variety and number of black ethnical groups, of whom some squatted due to a lack of houses, were necessary changes to which they had to adapt.35 as a consequence, the economic advantages and opportunities the exploration of gold created apparently outweighed any emotional distress suffered in response to change that may have occurred.36 by 1996 the 23.58% contribution of the carletonville gold mining industry to the total gold production of south african mines undoubtedly had proved its strength. 37 (see diagram 2 for the output of the gold mines). van eeden _______ 30 e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , pp. 191-192; e.s. van eeden, carletonville ... , p. 237. 31 e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , chapter four. 32 e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ..., chapters two, four, five and seven. 33 compare republic of south africa, central statistical services, population census 1991, report 03-01-02, geoghraphical distribution of population; carletonville munisipaliteit, urban dynamics, greater carletonville ... , 1995. 34 compare with union of south africa, department of commerce and industries, annual report no. 8, council for the development of natural resources, 1 january-1 december 1955, p. 9; pu vir cho, voortgesette streekopname van beheerde gebied no. 2 ... , verslag no. 3, 1956/57, p. iii. 35 e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , compare with pp. 44 and chapter seven; cm, lac, file n9/7/149 nad, komitee wes witwatersrand naturellesake: vergadering naturellesake onderkomitee, 21.3.1958; file n79/10/149, west wits plaaslike gebiedskomitee, huisvesting van naturelle op privaateiendom, 1956. 36 compare with e.s. van eeden, carletonville ... , pp. 172-173, 237. 37 see e.s. van eeden, carletonville ... , pp. 7-10. 417 diagram two contribution of carletonville‘s gold mines to gold production in south africa by january 1996 (in kg. fine gold) in looking thus at the infrastructure in general it appears as if the gold mining industry has done its part to ensure that the carletonville area attracts investors and newcomers. an accusation might be that the industry mainly stimulated and initiated town development for their benefit and to meet their own needs. as far as a healthy framework for economic development was concerned it was left to local government to initiate. for years a partial absence of mutual co-operation and exchange of ideas between the local government of carletonville and the local mining industry also contributed to the maintenance of the economic status quo.38 the de-proclamation of local territory brought an end to this silence in 1994.39 2.2 destruction it is unfortunate that the mines as the dominant constructive party in the merafong area also are the dominant destructor. merafong – destruction and construction _______ 38 compare the attitude between council and the mines in e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , pp. 22-42 and chapter five. 39 compare with interview, mr d.o. ndzeku/e.s. van eeden, 20.8.1996; interview, mr b. strydom (chief town planner, carletonville)/e.s. van eeden, 16.8.1996. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 418 illustration 3: the sinkhole on blyvooruitzicht, august 1963. dewatering and cementation for years the presence of underground water in the wonderfontein catchment not only destructed gold mine development, but it also caused fear that water depositories might endanger the lives of mineworkers underground. the economically inspired decision to pump out the surplus water gradually, destroyed the local water resources. sinkholes, related to dewatering, were manifested in the venterspost area by 1940. in the 1950s the link between a drop in the water table in the oberholzer compartment also decreased the flow of the springs and triggered ground movement. for decades this geological fact was denied by the affected members of the mining industry. the venterspost eye already stopped flowing during 1947. these events alarmed the members of the oberholzer irrigation board. in 1948 they petitioned the then secretary of water affairs with concerns in respect of the possible consequences of injecting cement to curtail the flow of water in the dolomitic fissures and the resulting failure of the springs. as a defined ‘public stream’ (water act no. 54 of 1956), the full responsibility for water was placed under the minister of water affairs, who appointed an inter-departmental committee under the chairmanship of the secretary for van eeden 419 water affairs to investigate the dolomitic water problems. in a confidential study in 1957 by the council for scientific and industrial research (csir), on behalf of new consolidated gold fields limited, the conclusion reached was that ‘within a period of three months, about 30% of the water pumped into the sinkhole by blyvooruitzicht returns to west driefontein, about 35% returns to blyvooruitzicht, and only 15% leaves the dyke system through the oberholzer eye.’ so confidential was this report that it took considerable effort on the part of dr g. j. stander, the director of the national institute for water research, to obtain a copy which was only ‘lent’ to him and had to be returned.40 on 10 february 1964, dr stander submitted a confidential response to the final report of the inter-departmental committee in which he complimented the committee for the detailed work done, but pointed out that his institute was not consulted. in the view of dr stander the following aspects needed attention: • the danger of pollution; • the quality of the water that would reach the different communities; • the protection of a national asset (the dolomitic compartments should not be used as dustbins); and • a need for pollution-prevention planning. the advice of dr stander appears to have been ignored by the state co-ordinating technical committee and the subsequently established far west rand dolomitic water association.41 the first permit authorising the disposal of the surplus mine water outside the dolomitic compartment from which the water was drawn was issued in november 1964 whereas springs had already failed during 1947 and 1959, respectively. the flood event at west driefontein 196842 changed the situation dramatically. the bank compartment which was considered to hold a volume of water too large to pump stopped flowing approximately four days after the rupture of the so-called big boy fault. this event triggered a spate of sinkholes in the bank compartment, which also dispelled any lingering doubts that there was a connection between the drop of the water table and accelerated ground movement. the dewatering of the bank compartment necessitated moving the water pumped by the venterspost mine across two dewatered compartments to the merafong – destruction and construction _______ 40 manuscript, memories, dr e.j. stoch, jul. 2006; e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , chapters two & four. 41 manuscript, memories, dr e.j. stoch, jul. 2006. 42 e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , chapter four. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 420 boskop or turffontein compartment. this was achieved by constructing a 610 mm aqueduct that debouched into the west driefontein canal at bank.43 the consequences of dewatering, followed by sinkholes, were catastrophic.44 not only was destruction experienced in every sphere of community life, but the impact on the environment was also felt because of the pumping of slimes into the sinkholes.45 as far as the disastrous effect on environment is concerned, examples can be provided ad infinitum. for example, minister haak informed newspapers in 1966 that 1 393 039 tons of cement had already been pumped into boreholes alone. the cementation process continued to assure the survival of gold mines. this probably was millions and millions of tons.46 socio-economic destruction it is said that the media went overboard reporting on the rarity of sinkholes in the late sixties and seventies. in the process they disturbed the future of the general economy for a considerable time, especially after cracks and damages to buildings had been discovered and builders exposed subterranean caves during construction work.47 an article with the significant title transvaal town becomes lopsided was published, which undoubtedly drew negative attention to the young mining town.48 however, no attempts by the council to promote positive publicity49 prevented the so-called invisible giant from gnawing on the carletonville area.50 as far as fatal incidences of sink-holes on mine property are concerned, several occurred after 1962 and in some cases caused a loss of lives, of which the grave death of the oosthuizen family is probably the best known. despite much criticism and a heavy financial burden as a result of this ecological disaster, mining authorities pulled it van eeden _______ 43 memories, dr e.j. stoch, jul. 2006. 44 compare with e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , all chapters. 45 examples giving evidence of destruction are, amongst others, the so-called green belt in the urban area, the bank town and farming area and farming areas on westdriefontein such as that of the brink family. compare with e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , all chapters and oral interview, me. m. liefferink, 21 oct 2006. 46 see e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... 47 union of south africa, department of commerce and industries, annual report no. 12, raad van die ontwikkeling van natuurlike hulpbronne, 1 januarie 1959-1 desember 1959, pp. 5; unie van suid-afrika, die provinsie van transvaal, offisiële koerant, clxix, 24.6.1959, kolomme 14-16. 48 die vaderland, 13.12.1962, p. 1; dagbreek en sondagnuus, 20.5.1962, p. 1; 16.12.1962, p. 2; the star, 10.4.1963, p. 2; die transvaler, 11.4.1963, p. 1. 49 k. steytler, ‘transvaalse dorp trek windskeef‘, die huisgenoot, 22.2.1963, pp. 8-13. 50 the star, 23.1.1963, p. 1; 10.4.1963, p. 2. 421 through and laid down a normalising pattern. as a result three of the gold mines mentioned earlier started with production, namely eastdriefontein (1968), deelkraal (1974) and elandsrand (1974).51 as far as town development is concerned, the picture appeared gloomier. the towns of bank (after a drawback earlier in its history),52 blybank and west-wits were not as fortunate as carletonville (to some extent) to survive this economic experiment. in january 1970, for example, occupants of bank were advised to evacuate the town permanently because of the unstable surface caused by intense ground movement.53 in the years that followed extensive demolition of town dwellings in especially carletonville extensions 5 and 8 took place.54 by the 1980s the bank area had not shared in the same process of recovery with carletonville and oberholzer. some said that the gold which had ‘attracted’ these activities in the first place, was the cause of their ‘exodus’.55 environmental destruction, water and farming since the sixties most irrigation farmers in the merafong area have been totally dependent on the water discharged by the mines for their livelihood. the first signs of crop failure were recorded during the 1964-1965 season in the irrigated wheat crop. by the next season a dramatic and widespread decrease in yields was only experienced on fields fed by the lower irrigation canal that relied on the surplus water discharged by the mines. the mysterious appearance of a white efflorescence was associated with the crop failures.56 merafong – destruction and construction _______ 51 e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ... , chapter four. 52 in 1958 the small bank community was dissatisfied because carletonville‘s development was favoured more by the gold mine authorities than that of bank. one business person experienced the disapproval of a second town extension as follows: ‘at one stroke of a pencil virtually the whole of our future developments, the proposed township, not to mention the substantial expense to which we have been put, is to be ruled out and nullified‘. see carletonville (munisipaliteit), lac, lêer 61/1/239, bank extension no. two; requests for foundation: letter, g. fine and i.g. slonimsky/secretary peri urban areas health board, 15.11.1958. 53 die transvaler, 29.4.1970; republic of south africa, debates by the house of assembly, 24.5.1973, column 7633; carletonville herald, 30.1.1970. 54 transvaal archive, mcv, volume 43, file 70/2/1(1), beplanning en ontwikkeling: vergadering, bestuurskomitee, 4.1.1966. 55 carletonville herald, 24.1.1969, p. 1; tbp, argief van die departement bantoeadministrasie en -ontwikkeling (bao), band 3038, lêer c39/28/1108, arbeidsburo carletonville: brief, vener, mosdell, suttners stores, spilkins outfitters/dept. bantu administration and development, 24.4.1970; carletonville (pu vir cho), verw. 3: onderhoud, e. twaits (ex-businessman of the towns of bank and carletonville), 20.4.1989. 56 manuscript, dr les stoch, jul. 2006; e.s. van eeden, economic development ... , chapter three. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 422 some farmers who had not been as drastically affected by the water contamination as those in the bank area experienced scattered incidents of subsurface hydro extraction on their farms. the water that was pumped out by the west driefontein mine was then channelled to the local irrigation board to relieve the farmers’ shortage of water due to hydro extraction at two points. the fact that farmers were dependent on the goodwill of the mining sector had further weakened the economic position of farmers by 1966. mines in the region were already supplying water to more than 30 farmers whose bore-holes had dried up. after the sixties nothing remained visible of the once wellwatered wonderfontein and the eye of wonderfontein, once a spot of scenic beauty. a network of irrigation canals was laid on by the mines to provide for the water needs of the farmers.57 complaints from farmers that the west driefontein mine had dumped polluted water with harmful mineral elements like boron and aluminium into the irrigation canals evoked widespread reaction. some claimed that this affected the vegetation and animal life of the area. examples of abnormal absence of seed during the harvest of buckwheat, maize and corn, the serious pigmentation of grass and clover planted for feeding purposes and the abnormal number of deaths, miscarriages and deformities that occurred in fish, goats and pigs were mentioned.58 despite the diversity of soil types, planted crops and management systems the common factor was a disturbance of the calcium metabolism of the plants. the calcium depletion in the irrigated area was unexpected given the components in dolomitic water. the pathology in animals was found in sheep, goats, cattle and swine. the possible influence of contagious abortion and fibrosis had to be eliminated before a link between the symptoms and water quality could be suggested. the symptoms were joint problems in adult animals, abortions and deformities at rates previously not encountered in the area. joints were more affected than the rest of the body which manifested as a stiffness of gait. scour in a variety of animals was commonplace and massive internal bleeding in pigs occurred occasionally. blood did not coagulate, while milk curdled. both these events are related to calcium metabolism. given the knowledge that both the blyvooruitzicht and driefontein mines had active uranium extraction plants, ‘it was no great stretch of the imagination to link water quality to the problem as a generalisation and to suspect the presence of radio-isotopes van eeden _______ 57 compare e.s. van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling ..., chapter three. 58 e.s. van eeden, the impact of economic logic on the environment: a case study on the effect of subsidences, hydro extraction and hydro pollution on the agricultural industry of the oberholzer district (carletonville area), 1959-1972, electronic journal monitors, h-africa network, 1996. 423 in the water’. based on scientific research it was known that lead, zinc, strontium, barium, boron and a variety of radio-active isotopes could have an effect on the metabolism and that high doses of calcium alleviated some of the symptoms.59 continuous allegations between a dissatisfied farming community and the mines probably led to the deputy minister’s announcement in november 1967 that the concerns raised by the farmers would be investigated. dr nico stutterheim of the csir chaired this process. during the same time the farmers union (fu) compiled a memorandum on the impact on animals and crops that was presented to the then deputy minister of water affairs, mr herman martins. 60 in this memorandum the presentation of ‘an x-ray of a pig’s hipbone was recorded: the osseous tissue had been eroded by astrochemical sarcoma, a type of cancer.’ dr jerry retief, a veterinarian who assisted in the compilation of the memorandum, made it clear that while ‘the element responsible for the ... phenomena had not yet been traced’ there was ‘some or other element present that excreted the calcium from the osseous tissue’ and that there was ‘a possibility that radioactive isotopes could be responsible’ but that ‘this had not been proved’. in this memorandum retief also amplified the following phenomena: • massive internal bleeding in pigs. • birth deformities, at least 50% higher than before 1966. • radioactive isotopes such as sr and u that have a severe impact on the body. it was said that the body has an affinity for these isotopes. radioactive isotopes replace calcium in the body and calcium in the milk gets eliminated rapidly. • one or more elements are present which replace calcium in the bone tissue. • it is possible that a radioactive isotope could be responsible, but that this has not yet been proved. • the above phenomena are all factors that can point to radioactive isotope contamination from the uranium ores of the witwatersrand ... 61 by the eighties the mines had become the prime ‘manager’ of the agricultural areas in the oberholzer district.62 insufficient remuneration (if at all) to those individuals, farmers and local business men who experienced losses as a result of water (causing sinkholes or being merafong – destruction and construction _______ 59 memories dr e.j. stoch based on his own compilation of sources, jul. 2006. 60 compare retief and stoch, 1967 as in circular no. 28/67, letter, chairman of the far west rand dolomitic water association, 1967. 61 obtained from e.j. stoch, memorandum, krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2, 13 may 2005, p. 4. 62 compare e.g. the figures as presented by urban dynamics in 1995, p. 8. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 424 polluted) became another point of the complicated debate. despite many efforts by several concerned environmental experts and human activists to address these accusations, they, are still falling on ignorant or clever, strategic mining management ears now in 2006.63 the debate about water pollution by the mines, and the effects on the farming community as well as the local community in general (especially in informal settlement areas and further west to potchefstroom) is also continuing. water-related health issues after 1990 in this section a number of issues related to water pollution will be referred to as examples of why ordinary people wanted to have proper answers from mining authorities and water expertise on the mining payroll. some of these are scientifically tested, others are based on speculation because of difficulties to prove scientific results on the spot or date that an event occurred, or even a long-term destruction that is not easily traceable. they are: possible radiogenic impact. this can range from impaired mental capacity, through somatic changes, to genetic defects. this makes a direct linkage between cause and effect, tenuous in the extreme. thus, if the potential source of future ills is hidden in the mist of time, those responsible for finding effective treatments will be searching in the dark for the causal agent(s) (thus dr stoch, 2006). in the early seventies the committee regarding the quality of water in the far west rand issued a final report under the chairmanship of dr van der merwe brink of the csir. by 2006 this still was embargoed as confidential. as member of this committee dr e.j. stoch did not approve of the final draft and prepared a minority report which brink did not accept. dr stoch eventually agreed to sign a specific part, but on condition that the part he did not agree with will appear after his signature. his regards the outcome of this request as follows: a final document was re-arranged over coffee and petit fours and was not signed by me. it was only recently that i managed to obtain a copy of the document and was rather dismayed at the content. although it is stated in the final report that the radium values were at the limit of the maximum allowable level, new light had been shed on the matter in terms of maximum concentration of radium in water ... 64 van eeden _______ 63 compare efforts from the agricultural unions in the area since the sixties, the efforts by business expert j. van rooyen and me. m. liefferink since the nineties. see previous sources as indicated as well as j. van rooyen, claim for damages, as a result of dewatering of the oberholzer water compartment during the period 1957 to 1964 against the far west rand dolomitic water association, west driefontein gold mining company limited, and the state, claim 11 november 1997. 64 dr. e.j. stoch, memorandum, krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2, 13 may 2005, pp. 5-6. 425 merafong – destruction and construction much later, in circular no. 26/95, the chamber of mines refers to the report on radioactivity in water sources of the department of water affairs, a phase 1 report produced in 1995. wymer (1995) advised the affected members ‘that we have little choice but to accept that some of the radioactivity levels measured may indeed be cause for some concern. it (was) recommended that the mining industry should establish a proactive and open strategy for addressing the issue. it is only a matter of time before these results become public knowledge’. mr henk coetzee of the council for geoscience investigated the relative radio-isotope composition of the sediment as well as the inflorescence around the turffontein eye in about 1996 and concluded that there was an elevated level of radioactivity and that the source was most likely the mines (coetzee, personal communication dr les stoch).65 possible uranium impact. back in time, in 1965, the chamber of mines instituted a study on the ‘in situ leaching of uranium from slimes dams and dumps’.66 also based on the findings of matic and mrost (1964) it was concluded that ‘pyrite-bearing slime is amenable to bacterially-assisted oxidation resulting in the production of ferric sulphate which is a lixivium for uranium’. between 70%80% uranium was recovered in laboratory tests. d. van as, the head of the sub-division: radioactivity of the atomic energy board, also reported to the department of mines that in comparison with the water from the crocodile river, with the exception of the bank eye water, all the water from the oberholzer area showed levels of alphaand betaactivity that were much higher. the one sample had a ra226 activity content of 27 pcit that exceeded the recommended permissible limit. the mining authorities, though sufficiently equipped with the necessary expertise and technology, were somehow seldom able to come up with clear results from their investigation into the quality of water in the process of distribution over a distance of 60 to 80 kilometres. however, they were always quick to reject assumptions, even those based on scientific research.67 possible sediment impact. on 28 september 1992 at a meeting of irrigators to discuss their problems representatives of gold fields denied that the sediment came from the mines. according to their _______ 65 coetzee was also part of the controversial 2006 wrc report 1214/0/06. 66 (nbri project 5033/95026), as previously been reported on by matic and mrost (1964). 67 compare wrc, h. coetzee, f. winde & p.w. wade, ‘an assessment of sources, pathways, mechanisms and risks of current and potential future pollution of water and sediments in gold-mining areas of the wonderfontein catchment‘, wrc , report no. 1214/1/06. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 426 van eeden delegate, the source of the problem was the dust from bekkersdal informal settlement. a meeting with the then manager of the west driefontein mine, mr syd caddy followed and the denial was repeated. the farmers were even warned that the mine had ‘deep pockets’ and would keep them in court for ‘60 years’.68 a problem experienced was that the discharge of the mine was not being passed through any settling ponds, with the result that the silt settled in the canals and had to be removed on a regular basis. when the farmers had convinced the minister of water affairs that they were entitled to better quality water, a member of dwaf indicated that he would oppose any change in the status quo as, according to him, the water was of a suitable quality. in order to alleviate the problem, the oberholzer irrigation board was obliged to construct a number of scour sluices in the canal which were used to divert the sediment into the wonderfonteinspruit.69 the possible overdose of a large sulphate content. dairy farmers in the oberholzer area were the first to notice problems with the fertility of their animals, sometimes associated with birth defects that could not be linked to specific infections. amongst others, problems were evident in the sanrus dairy herd and the rooipoort herd of mr nortje. a diagnosis of blood samples indicated a deficiency of selenium. eventually the conclusion was reached that a large sulphate content in water could induce a selenium deficiency. from a veterinarian examination of cows it was also orally exchanged that most of the cows of mr hennie viljoen had enlarged livers. the same scenario played off regarding the chickens on the farm of mr jan nel and the occurrence of an extensive infertility rate of koi fish on the farm of a mr wiid close to the turffontein spring (just outside merafong’s eastern border). 70 the possible impact of contaminated water on humans in the wonderfontein mining area. though the majority of inhabitants of merafong receive water from the rand water board for their daily consumption, people from informal settlements and some farming communities don’t. they mostly rely on the water distributed by the mines into several dams. as far as the impact on humans was concerned, discussion with a number of medical specialists gave rise to concern that, in time, humans could be affected in the same way as the animals and that the matter deserved attention. by 2006 this matter had neither been addressed on a macro scale, nor on a micro scale. assumptions and observations still prevailed with no _______ 68 a comment made by dr e.j. stoch, 2006. 69 minutes, oberholzer irrigation board, ca 1992. 70 dr. e.j. stoch, memorandum, krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2, 13 may 2005, pp. 8-10. 427 merafong – destruction and construction funds and insufficient expertise available to scientifically follow up these accusations before the mines decided to purchase the properties. amongst others, the following observations – with water pollution as a key detriment – were made over decades: in the blyvooruitzicht mining area, for example, the community were dependent on ground water for their daily needs. a teacher from the former goudwes school in carletonville that caters for academic under-achievers, noticed that a disproportionate number of children at the school lived at blyvooruitzicht.71 scientific references point to the fact that radioactivity in drinking water could lead to impaired intelligence in children and other haematological abnormalities.72 bain and co-authors refer to the vulnerability of communities exposed to radioactivity in mine discharge, and the relatively high cost of analyses. radioactivity is not solely linked to water, but can also enter the human body through digestion or inhalation.73 bain and authors were not the first to link communities to radioactivity in the surrounding areas of mines. in 1990 already funke, in another wrc report, said the extent of the exposure of miners to radioactive materials in gold and uranium mines should be measured and countermeasures taken, if necessary. the extent of the exposure to the effects of radon gas ands its radioactive daughter products of the public living near tailings dumps also warrants investigation.74 findings by the kempster committee to investigate the background of radioactivity in south african water were never shared with the general public: • the daughter of a farmer, mr hennie viljoen, suffered from severe stomach cramps when she ate beetroot salad made from beets grown in their own garden. • south of the gatsrand (close to the kloof mine) the berry family experienced severe medical problems. _______ 71 dr. e.j. stoch, memorandum, krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2, 13 may 2005, p. 4. 72 compare wrc, c.a.r. bain, h.j. schoonbee, l.p.d. de wet, & j.j. hancke, ‘investigations into the concentration ratios of selected radionuclides in aquatic ecosystems affected by mine drainage effluents with reference to the study of potential pathways to man‘ wrc report no 313/1/94. also compare the report by herman martins in 1967 which to a large extent focused on radioactivity. see memorandum, krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2, 13 may 2005, p. 11, obtained from e.j. stoch. 73 wrc, report no. 313/94, bain et al. 74 wrc, kv9/90, pretoria, j.w. funke, ‘the water requirements and pollution potential of south african gold and uranium mines‘, p. 153. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 428 van eeden • in the late nineties dr veldsman of potchefstroom expressed his concern about the incidence of pancreatic cancer in his patients, as five of the six cases came from the carletonville-fochville area (the latter a town a few kilometres south-west of carletonville). pancreatic cancer and radioactivity was positively linked by a medical specialist in nashville, tennessee – professor martin sandler.75 because of so many historical silences (a lack of reliable and substantial documents as well as solid evidence) on especially the part of government and the gold mining sector on water issues in the merafong area it remains difficult – from a perspective formulated in 2006 – to gain a balanced perspective of the past. community members felt that government and mining authorities had, in fact, made decisions that gave an impression that they regarded themselves as being above the law. the economic advantages of exploring for gold in a very vulnerable geological environment far outweighed the well-being of the local people, many of whom had settled in the area because of possibilities offered by the gold mining activities. no ethical code was followed before and during the process of dewatering. the only tenet that was strictly observed was that of secrecy. conclusion of particular interest in this discussion on merafong were the possible construction and destruction by the mines regarding the wonderfontein environment, its water status and how it possibly affected its inhabitants and environment. though the position of the state and the mining houses with regard to this construction and destruction of the merafong area since 1935 were not explicitly debated in length, accusations are well-recorded. some refer to the role of the mines and government as a ‘from need to greed’ process. others feel that the public were bluntly mislead about the nature of the environmental and other pollution to which they were and still are victims. this secrecy is most probably financially related, and possible elements of corruption can certainly not be excluded. short-term economic gain has often left the general public badly off. merafong’s history mainly pointed out the mobilisation of the farming community against the mines and the national government. however, insufficient funds and limited acceptable opportunities to proof their _______ 75 obtained from e.j. stoch, memorandum, krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2, 13 may 2005, pp. 12-13. also compare, wrc, report no. 313/94, bain et al ... 429 merafong – destruction and construction experience of water contamination have resulted a mode of regarding their speculations as relative and scientifically dissatisfactory. it was only recently that individuals as caretakers of justice, and members of the academic community, queried the status quo in some research findings of the area.76 the powerless-like attitude of the local authority and the general public (the business community included) all mainly relates to financial reasons. on the one hand the will and need to survive as local government on behalf of several towns in the area, and on the other hand the undisputable need to have job security. those individuals who have tried to declare a dispute in the long term were not effective in their efforts.77 rumours about polluted water in 2006 were a still ongoing debate, and should not be ignored. occasional complaints about the effect of water on man and especially animals and the environment still continued.78 in the past some members of the community who were dissatisfied did not see any other choice but to pack up and explore other options to recover financially or overcome the trauma. in 2000 water was still pumped from the dewatered compartments of e.g. bank and oberholzer, and by then it was estimated to consist of the natural groundwater recharge and water imported from rand water. with the exception of minor quantities, the mine reused the water and also supplied certain irrigation boards and individuals on a contractual basis.79 from a national point of view the question of ethics and the human rights of those affected became insignificant issues. it appears that the state elected not to be accountable for the serious psychological and economic setbacks suffered by inhabitants of the area. the _______ 76 compare wrc, h. coetzee, f. winde & p.w. wade, ‘an assessment of sources, pathways, mechanisms and risks of current and potential future pollution of water and sediments in gold-mining areas of the wonderfontein catchment‘, wrc , report no. 1214/1/06; oral interview, me. m. liefferink (social justice activist), 21 oct. 2006. 77 compare j. van rooyen, claim for damages, as a result of dewatering of the oberholzer water compartment during the period 1957 to 1964 against the far west rand dolomitic water association, west driefontein gold mining company limited, and the state, claim 11 november 1997; oral interview, me. m. liefferink, 21 oct. 2006. 78 compare j.c. mc millen, ‘better for it: how people benefit from adversity,‘ social work, 44(5),september 1999, pp. 455-468; s. brander, ‘practice issues: understanding aged holocaust survivors‘, families in society, 81(1), january-february 2000, pp. 66-75. 79 difficulty in ensuring that farmers in the area benefited from the eye to water their crops in the late 1890’s are known. compare j. shorten, die verhaal van johannesburg, (voortrekkerpers; johannesburg), pp. 53; 167-168; also see the rand water board’s first minute book in 1903 covering the wonderfontein water issue; e.s. van eeden, ‘so long gold mines – long live industries. carletonville’s battle for economic survival,‘ south african economic history journal, november 1997. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 409-430. 430 substantial cost that resulted from the exercise required to reverse the damage runs into millions of rand. with regard to these events the financial drawbacks suffered by gold mines, specifically as a result of damage caused to the mining infrastructure and property as well as loss of lives of employees and their families, aroused concern. farmers and some businessmen from time to time raised serious objections to the dewatering of compartments, and to the consequences of polluted water due to mining activity. according to frank winde no investigation aimed at establishing possible health implications in affected communities has been conducted in the wonderfonteinspruit area. an effort to assess associated health risks is further complicated by a number of facts including the lack of reliable data on effects of long-term low-dose exposure of humans to uranium in drinking water and limited understanding of the complex mechanisms and dynamics of uranium pollution and uranium transport in the aquatic environment. uranium pollution, it is said, is not exclusively caused by historical mining activities but also by current operations.80 with the mines as the dominant economic sector in a process of moving out, the wonderfontein catchment may be irreversibly destroyed if there is no constructive plan to properly manage the development of the area regarding concerns raised: this concerns a question mark regarding the future of people, the possibilities for farming, as well as for cultural and environmental sustainability (though some concerns may be bound to speculation). the role capitalism, racism and nationalism have played in this process then can be debated but this will never bring back what once was. constructive global discussions on many similar examples worldwide should be explored and possible long term solutions posed by all stakeholders to apply to this unique micro community scenario of merafong. _______ 80 compare f. winde, interactions between groundwater and surface water in dolomitic areas affected by deep-level gold mining – examples from the far west rand goldfield (south africa), csir, ‘abstracts of the biennial ground water conference 2005, 7-9 march, 2005, pp. 1-2; f. winde, ‘challenges for sustainable water use in dolomitic mining regions of south africa – a case study of uranium pollution. part 1: sources and pathways [ca. 2006. source personally supplied by the author f. winde to e.s. van eeden]; dept. of water affairs and forestry, the determination and management of interaction between the surface and groundwater resources in the far west rand area, phase 1: situation assessment, vol. 1: text, feb. 2006. the quality of this document is seriously questioned by dr. e.j. stoch, especially the topographic part (interview dr e.j. stoch, 3 nov. 2006). van eeden abstract introduction methodology results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnote about the author(s) sokfa f. john sarchi in sustainable local livelihoods, school of management, it and governance, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa haruna maama department of management accounting, durban university of technology, durban, south africa oluwaseun t. ojogiwa school of management, it and governance, college of law and management studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa betty c. mubangizi school of management, it and governance, college of law and management studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation john sf, maama h, ojogiwa ot, mubangizi bc. government communication in times of crisis: the priorities and trends in south africa’s response to covid-19. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1146. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1146 original research government communication in times of crisis: the priorities and trends in south africa’s response to covid-19 sokfa f. john, haruna maama, oluwaseun t. ojogiwa, betty c. mubangizi received: 21 sept. 2021; accepted: 28 mar. 2022; published: 15 july 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the effectiveness of a government’s communication, especially in times of crisis, is crucial to its legitimacy, reputation, disaster management and its ability to ensure the wellbeing of its people. this paper examines the focus and trends in press statements published on south africa’s official coronavirus website during the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic. government decisions, successes and challenges were frequently communicated to the public through these statements. the study aimed to understand what was communicated regarding government’s priorities and the factors that shaped them. data were extracted from 483 press statements published between 05 march 2020 and 15 january 2021. thematic analysis and mean scores were used to identify the focus and trends in the messages, while the wilcoxon signed rank test (wsrt) was used to identify the significance of the changes in the mean scores. the results showed a coordinated and persistent effort to inform the public with credible, accurate, timely and empowering information. the most persistent priority of the government was to control the spread of the virus, while several issues relating to the socio-economic wellbeing of the people were prioritised at different stages of the pandemic. there was a parallel movement between the trajectory of the disease and government decisions, suggesting that government response was mostly reactive to the behaviour of the pandemic. the south african government needs to be more proactive in its disaster response and demonstrate a nuanced understanding of its citizens and their challenges. keywords: government communication; covid-19 pandemic; disaster; press releases; crisis communication; information. introduction overcoming the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic and minimising its impact on lives and livelihoods rest heavily on the government’s ability to communicate effectively in a digital landscape of ubiquitous speculation, jeopardising information and growing distrust in government. among the steps taken by the south african government at the onset of the pandemic was the creation of an official website for all covid-19 related information. the website is comprehensive, frequently updated, aiming to inform and educate the public with accurate and credible information while providing health and safety guidance in various languages, and contact information for those who may have further queries or need access to covid-19 related healthcare support. this paper is concerned with the content of the press releases and notices (prn) category of the news and updates section of the website (https://sacoronavirus.co.za). this is the section where regular updates on infection rates, disaster management and other government decisions were posted. the content of this section offered a window into how the government is responding to the pandemic, what or who were its priorities and how this was communicated to the public. the study, therefore, examined 483 press statements (press releases and notices) posted between 05 march 2020 and 15 january 2021 to understand these dynamics within the context of government communication during disasters. communication models are generally either linear, interactional or transactional, reflecting different types of relationships between the sender of a message and its receiver, whereby meaning is created, interpreted and negotiated.1 the aspect of communication examined in this paper is the linear, unidirectional communication of the government to its citizens through press statements. the interest of the study was not in the technical dynamics of communication, but in what the content revealed about the focus and priorities of government during the pandemic, the fluctuations or trends in these and the factors that shaped them. the message is the largest unit of communication.2 thus, recognising communication as a domain of creating and negotiating meaning, the press statements themselves are carriers or transmitters of different types of messages and meanings, with specific focus and targets, while being insightful about the situational changes that shaped them. thus, the units of analysis were the focus of the message (fom) and the intended target of the message (tom). the fom identified government priorities and the intended purpose of messages. the intended tom identified not only intended receivers but those for whom the message was relevant, and the alignment of the messages to the unique needs of population categories. government communication government communication is variously understood and represented.3,4,5 in the context of public governance, howlett6 proposed that government communication should be understood as a policy instrument or tool through which policy goals are effected. this makes government communication a generic term for many specific types or categories of governance instruments that utilise informational resources to ‘influence and direct policy actions through the provision or withholding of information or knowledge from social actors’.6 government communication is central to the success of any democracy or government. fairbanks et al.7 observed that a public that is adequately informed about the actions of government is essential to a successful democracy. government communication is the essential system through which citizens are kept informed and decisions are explained. however, citizens are increasingly becoming autonomous because of the ubiquity of digital technologies and sources.8 thus, they independently research and exchange information that competes with (and may contradict) communication from the government.8 this contributes to a more critical or sceptical reception of messages from the government and the flow of disinformation and misinformation. given the increasing distrust of citizens in governments, the governmental communication needs to prioritise effective communication and values such as transparency to minimise fears and mistrust.7 this includes clarifying doubts and ensuring that the information is easily accessible and trustworthy, given citizens’ easy access to alternative information, autonomy and an increasingly competitive information landscape. effective communication improves trust and helps maintain the political legitimacy of government.9 effective communication refers to a communication process in which the intended message is clearly and precisely received, and the purpose of the communication fulfilled in the best way possible.10 it is efficient and implemented in a way that circumvents any barriers to the message being received as intended. it can improve the quality and positivity associated with media coverage of government, which in turn shapes the trusts of citizens, especially when delivered in a way that is appropriate and timely. liu et al.9 note that government communication is often about life and death issues such as disasters, and issues such as taxes, public policies and elections, all of which affect citizens directly. thus, governments need to communicate frequently, and the quality of the communication about their performance can immensely improve their relationship with citizens and the media that transmits their messages to the public.3 an effective government communication also pays close attention to the channels and interfaces that mediate government interaction with citizens. as vivier et al.11 observe, the right interface can strengthen the responsiveness of the government and improve citizen engagement. these considerations appear to have been incorporated into the government communication system in south africa. government communication and information system the government communication and information system (gcis) provides the framework and protocols for government communication in south africa. it sees such communication as strategic to service delivery and the functioning of the south african government.12 it argues that ‘government’s ability to deliver optimally transparent, productive, communication and interaction at all levels is key to a nation’s future success’.12 in other words, effective and efficient communication is essential to the progress of any nation. in contextualising government communications, the gcis highlights key elements such as, ensuring that all information is made available at all times to the public, and that effective communication is upheld to shape public opinion and maintain the legitimacy of government. also, that the focus of government communications should be continuous dialogue that is citizen-focused, and strategic. this means moving beyond simply delivering ‘the right message to the right people’ to ensuring that the objectives of both the government and the public are met in the process of communication. thus, the communication needs to be comprehensive, coherent, accessible to individuals and communities, and empower them to utilise the information to improve their lives and participation in governance. the gcis generally encourages the use of hybrid models of communication that utilises both traditional and new media technologies and platforms. it offers guidelines for developing and maintaining websites by government departments and units. it also highlights the importance of ensuring that website information is accurate, current, factual, accessible, credible and free of editorial and grammatical errors. government communication during disasters effective communication is both a necessity and a challenge during a crisis. the heightening of suffering and fears during crises creates a hunger for empowering and assuring information and makes people susceptible to incorrect and dangerous messages as has been witnessed with the covid-19 pandemic and previous disasters. these messages spread rapidly on social media, competing with official messages, aggravating fears and undermining official efforts.13 as diaz et al.14 observe, people tend to respond subjectively to crisis and their emotions play a major role in the mental process that the crisis activates. thus, government communication during disasters needs to be sensitive to the feelings of the people. the precise meanings of disaster, crisis and emergency are persistently debated. these terms can be complex or simple, depending on the context, time and sometimes the specific events concerned.15 however, their meanings overlap and the lines between them are blurry, resulting in their being used interchangeably in mainstream literature.15 in this paper, a disaster is defined as a sudden catastrophe, accident or serious disruption that results in high levels of damage or loss of life or uncertainty in the short or long term, and leading to material, environmental, socio-economic or human losses that the affected community cannot cope with using its resources alone.16 a crisis is an event that creates instability or endangers people, communities or a society.17 emergency refers to a public event or incident that puts infrastructure, wellbeing and life at risk.17 these could be natural or a result of human activities. both crises and disasters are, therefore, emergencies. this paper uses these terms as overlapping concepts. the covid-19 pandemic is at once a crisis, disaster and emergency. being first, right and credible are indispensable principles of effective crisis communication.16 this allows governments to control the situation and gain trust.13 the effectiveness of good crisis communication is exemplified in the work of chang,18 which revealed that, in taiwan, the exposure of the public to effective communication created a chain reaction beginning with the perception of government as empowering which triggered intrapersonal empowerment, resulting in preventive behaviour, thereby, reducing vulnerability and worry. other studies also show how communication shaped vulnerability and wellbeing during the pandemic.19,20 the key legislative frameworks for disaster management in south africa are the south african disaster management act (dma) 57 of 2002, amended act 16, 201521,22 and the national disaster management framework (ndmf) of 2005.23 the dma, supported by the ndmf, required the establishment of a national disaster management centre, which will operate in collaboration with disaster management centres at the provincial and municipal levels to proactively manage disaster risks, mitigate the impact of disasters and assist communities in recovering post disasters. the documents emphasise the importance of proper and adequate information and communication management systems in the effective management of disasters. in the dma, for example, the national centre is supposed to act as the repository and conduit for information on disasters in south africa and their management. it must collect all relevant information, process and analyse them, develop and maintain an electronic database and disseminate information, especially to vulnerable communities.21,23 it is against the background of this legislation that the gcis provides the basic framework and guidelines for crisis communication and encourages all government departments to have a detailed crisis communication plan. the gcis understands a crisis to be a situation that threatens the government’s integrity and reputation, and its ability to safely deliver services.12 the gcis appears to be too focused on reputation and impression management. however, it requires that crisis communication plans be created ahead of time, in anticipation of crisis and protocols established. during a crisis, the guide urges that all stakeholders be notified, messages should be empathetic, victims assisted, uncertainties avoided, concerns proactively and rapidly addressed, lying or withholding information or ‘unofficial’ comment or speaking off the record avoided, among other things.12 methodology the study analysed all 483 press releases of the south african government and public institutions on covid-19 from the beginning of the pandemic (05 march 2020) to 15 january 2021. all accessible statements during this period were analysed in order to achieve greater rigour and richness compared to what a selected sample would have offered. being official public statements, they reveal the official position of the government on relevant issues. the statements were collected from the prn sub-section of the official coronavirus website of the south african government (https://sacoronavirus.co.za). these statements were released by different government departments, but predominantly, by the department of health (doh) which provided regular infection figures quantifying infection rate and spread. this is followed by the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta). some press statements were released by the department of basic education, department of finance and the department of government communication and information systems (gcis), among others, all addressing covid-19 and lockdown issues relating to their respective mandates. the paper analysed all as ‘government’ communication. besides making the analysis easier, the coronavirus website was interpreted as symbolising the effort of the government to respond to the covid-19 crisis as a unified voice in keeping with the provisions of the gcis and in line with the principles of effective crisis communication.12,13 additionally, the website demonstrates the coordinated and integrated response to covid-19 adapted by the government in its establishment of the national coronavirus command council. this website has emerged as a primary source and reference for covid-19 information in south africa. data were extracted using an evaluation matrix. analysis aimed at eliciting the fom and the intended tom. these parameters made the data more accessible considering the nature of these statements and the need to develop a more nuanced understanding of government’s response to the covid-19 pandemic amid popular criticism. although the press statements constitute a linear unidirectional communication from the government to the public, the framing of the focus of this study allows it to analyse the data more comprehensively beyond a simple sender–receiver model. thus, the fom identified government priorities, the purpose of messages and how these are communicated. the tom allowed us to identify intended receivers and those affected by the messages. content analysis was conducted on a sample of the collected press statements to identify the key themes used as items on the observational matrix. the themes were generated by coding frequently emerging phrases and expressions in the dataset, in line with the broader tom and fom. the items for the fom include updates on coronavirus, containment measures, saving or supporting livelihoods, challenges in handling the pandemic, economic policies and strategies, decrease tension and fear, information on government successes, communicating directives and rules, addressing concerns of workers’ unions, partnering with nongovernmental organizations and private organisations and impact of the pandemic on food security. the categories used for the tom were the general public, civil society, traditional leaders, rural communities and vulnerable groups,1 health professionals, workers’ unions, the international community and investors (local and international). while some of these themes overlap, they also capture unique aspects of government messages during the pandemic. consistent with studies such as those by van zyl,24 reimsbach et al.25 and casonato et al.,26 a 5-point likert scale was used to score the items based on whether, and the degree to which, they were evident (mentioned) in the press statements. a measure of central tendency (mean score) was used to examine the focus and trends in the press statements. this assisted in identifying changes and developments in government communication. the wilcoxon signed rank test (wsrt) was then used to spot differences in the mean ranks. the various data points were expressed as mean scores, which permitted comparison among them. wilcoxon signed rank test was the most appropriate tool for this process because of its usefulness when data are non-parametric and subjected to paired difference test of repeated measurements to assess variations between mean ranks.27 the wsrt is also helpful in estimating the difference between pairs of data that are non-normally distributed.27 moreover, and as is the case in this study, wsrt is most appropriate when working with data that comprise finite scores.28 validity and reliability to ensure validity and reliability, an intercoder validity and reliability test was conducted.29,30 three of the authors met to discuss selected literature (such as van zyl24; reimsbach et al.25; casonato et al.26) to deepen their understanding and agree on coding guidelines. the authors then coded three press statements and compared the results to arrive at final decisions. the authors also ensured consistency and adherence to the guidelines by assessing each other’s work. another scholar coded three of the initially coded statements and the intercoder reliability rate was calculated using the kappa intercoder agreement test, which measures the level of agreement among two or more independent coders or raters. a kappa coefficient of 0.8 is considered to be excellent, while 0.6 and 0.7 are considered to be good and very good, respectively.31 an intercoder reliability coefficient of 0.96 was achieved for this study, which is significantly above the 0.8 threshold value embraced by researchers and indicates a high level of reliability and validity. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. results distribution of statements the monthly distribution of the press releases from march 2020 to january 2021 is chronologically presented in table 1. the table shows that may saw the highest rate of communication by the government (54) followed by april (53), and the months with the least number of statements were november (34) and january (33). the average number of statements released during the period reviewed is 43.9. this shows a high volume of communication during this period (march 2020 – january 2021), with at least one communication released each day, and at least two for 15 days of most months. table 1: monthly distribution of press releases. focus of government messages during the pandemic table 2 presents the content and trend demonstrating the fom during the pandemic and table 3 employs wsrt to show the changes in the fom. table 2: the focus of the message. table 3: the trends in the focus of the government message. the result shows that government priority in the first 3 months was to control infection and mortality rates. thus, as table 2 shows, the items (themes) that scored the highest in terms of the focus of government messaging during the first 3 months of the pandemic (march to may 2020) were update on the coronavirus pandemic (3.91; 3.98; 3.43 respectively) and covid-19 containment measures (2.55; 3.15; 2.22). this is followed by the comparatively high scores of communicating government’s directives and rules (1.83; 2.34; 1.98), decreasing tension and fear (1.91; 2.66; 2.15) and communicating government’s challenges in handling the pandemic (1.83; 2.49; 1.98). the next set of items with considerable scores were saving and supporting livelihoods (2.23; 2.72; 2.15) and partnership with ngos and private organisations (1.64; 1.36; 1.44). other areas such as macro and micro-economic policies and strategies (1.30; 1.42; 1.78), the concerns of workers’ unions (1.36; 1.34; 159) and the impact of the pandemic on food security (1.32; 1.21; 1.24) received little attention from the government in the first 3 months of the pandemic as indicated by their low scores. however, the scores of all the information items generally increased over the first 3 months into the pandemic. the wsrt results (table 3) indicate that the level of increment was significant (p < 0.05) in the second and third months for all the information items except for government’s macro and micro-economic policies and strategies, addressing concerns of workers’ unions, partnership with ngos and private organisations and impact of covid-19 on food security. the focus of the government changed in the fourth month (jun’20). besides updates on the coronavirus pandemic which remained higher (mean score = 4.04), the other items experienced a change in trends. for instance, in june 2020, the government’s focus shifted towards providing information on its successes in handling the pandemic (mean score = 2.15). other notable shifts in the fom were on items such as the covid-19 containment measures (mean score = 1.61), saving and supporting livelihoods (mean score = 1.83), government’s macro and micro-economic policies and strategies (mean score = 1.43) and decrease in tension and fears (mean score = 1.50) which received less attention in june than the preceding 3 months. other information items that were generally given less attention in the fourth month included communicating government’s directives and rules (mean score = 1.50), addressing the concerns of workers’ unions (mean score = 1.02), partnership with ngos and private organisations (mean score = 1.20) and the impact of covid-19 on food security (mean score = 1.00). nonetheless, the wsrt results show that information items such as decrease tension and fear or encourage citizens (p = 0.006), communicating government’s directives and rules (p = 0.014) and addressing concerns of workers’ unions (p = 0.001) increased significantly in the fourth month. from the fifth (july 2020) to the sixth month (august 2020), the government’s attention was focussed on updates on the coronavirus pandemic, covid-19 containment measures, saving lives and supporting livelihoods and government’s challenges in handling the coronavirus pandemic, increased considerably. other information items that received increased attention from the government from july to august 2020 were decrease tension and fear or encourage citizens, communicating government’s directives and rules and addressing the concerns of workers’ unions. furthermore, items such as governments’ macro and micro-economic policies and strategies, government’s successes in handling the pandemic and highlights on the impact of covid-19 on food security also increased during this period. the wsrt results (table 3) show that some information items witnessed significant (p < 0.05) increments during this period. these include an update on the coronavirus pandemic, decrease tension and fear or encourage citizens, communicating government’s directives and rules, address concerns of worker unions and partnership with ngos and private organisations. in addition, information on the government’s successes in handling the pandemic increased significantly from august to october. table 2 further shows additional interesting trends. for example, the government reduced the disclosure level on all the information items in september and october 2020. however, the results show that the government upped its public engagement from november 2020 and the fom scores increased consistently until january 2021. the wsrt results further demonstrate that the increment level for most of the information items was significant in september and october. however, in november, apart from information on the containment measures of the pandemic, none of the information items recorded a significant increment. the increase observed in table 2 from november was sustained in december 2020 and january 2021. the wsrt (table 3) result shows that government attention to key message themes increased significantly in january 2021. thus, the p-value of less than 0.05 was achieved for items such as update on coronavirus pandemic (p = 0.002), containment measures of the pandemic (p = 0.006), saving and supporting livelihoods (p = 0.000) and governments’ macro and micro-economic policies and strategies (p = 0.033). target of the message the tom result and trends are presented in table 4 and the monthly changes in the tom during the study period are presented in table 5 using a wsrt. table 4 shows that the primary target audience of the south african government during the first 3 months was the general public. apart from june 2020, this population group recorded a high average score of more than 2.50 each month, although its mean score changed over the months. however, the wsrt results (table 5) demonstrate that the levels of change in the mean score were only statistically significant from may to june (p = 0.000), june to july (p = 0.014), august to september (p = 0.007) and september to october (p = 0.004). the general public scored more than 3.0 in each of the first 3 months of the pandemic. table 4: the intended target audience or population of the message. table 5: trend of the intended target population of the message. the second most affected or targeted population category is health professionals, followed by workers’ unions. however, the scores for health professionals and workers’ unions decreased over the months, indicating that these audiences were no longer the primary target of government communication. they achieved mean scores of less than 2.5 in each of the months. the wsrt results show that none of the changes observed in these categories of tom was statistically significant (p > 0.05), except from december 2020 to january 2021 with respect to other workers union (p = 0.046). during the period reviewed, the result shows that rural communities and vulnerable groups were not a major focus or priority of government during the pandemic (the mean scores for 9 out of 11 months is below 2.00). there is an indication that at the initial stage of the pandemic, the government might have attempted to communicate to vulnerable groups and rural communities. however, a mean score of less than 2.5 throughout the period examined suggests that these population groups were not the main target of the press statements or the issues therein. the level of disclosure changed over the months, albeit insignificantly except for may to june (p = 0.029), august to september(p = 0.004), september to october (p = 0.003) and october to november (p = 0.006). the press statements in the first 3 months of the pandemic were marginally targeted at the international community or local and international investors. these categories scored less than 2.5 each. this trend persisted for the rest of the study period. as evidenced in table 5, the scores of these categories sporadically changed over the period reviewed, although not significantly (p > 0.05). the changes in the scores of these items were significant from may to june (p < 0.05), june to july (p < 0.05) and september to october (p < 0.05). here, the government mostly used its press statements to highlight global solidarity and also to provide information on its partnership with foreign countries and international organisations. civic society and the traditional leaders received minimal attention in these press statements with respective mean scores of less than 2.0 in each of the months examined. discussion the results of this study indicate a high volume of information flow from the government to the public during the pandemic. the 43.9 average monthly distribution of press statements also indicates that communication was frequent and consistent. this shows a concerted effort towards taking the leadership in ensuring that the public is exposed to the right information in a timely manner. this ensures an informed public and encourages confidence in the government for being in control of the situation and ensuring that citizens are equipped to understand government policies and make the right decisions. this is consistent with the provisions of the gcis and literature.12,13 the results also demonstrate a degree of responsiveness and flexibility in relation to the uncertainties and changing trajectories of the pandemic. this is visible in the shifts in the focus of government at different stages of the pandemic. this is not interpreted here as an indication of efficiency or effectiveness in how the pandemic was handled. it merely shows what the government prioritised and who these priorities targeted or affected at different periods as communicated in press statements. it was clear in this study that the priority of the government in the first 3 months of the pandemic (march to may 2020) was to manage the spread of covid-19. to a lesser degree, the government also tried to ease tensions and reduce fears during this initial period, while highlighting some of the challenges it encountered. thus, during this time, government decisions primarily served epidemiological purposes. this was consistent with global trends as the perceived immediate threat of the disease was health and mortality. the study suggests that the government was not entirely blind to the potential impact of the pandemic and the respective lockdown on livelihoods early in the pandemic. it also shows that government strengthened partnerships that were directed towards managing infections at this initial stage. several organisations in the private and non-profit sectors collaborated with, and complemented government’s efforts. this ranged from support with medical equipment by soccer organisations to major infrastructural contributions such as the speedy building of hospitals and establishment of affordable testing centres by the gift of the givers foundation, or the partnership with cuba that saw 200 cuban doctors arriving in south africa to assist with handling the pandemic.32,33,34 the overwhelming nature of the shock of the pandemic, the unpreparedness of the state and a less than ideal pace of response could be possible explanations for why themes such as economic policies, addressing the concerns of workers’ unions and food security did not emerge as priorities in the early months of the pandemic. several sources demonstrate that the initial focus of governments and others in responses to the pandemic was to save lives by controlling the spread of the disease and ensuring that relevant health facilities were rapidly made available.35,36 the government response event dataset, for example, tracks government policies in response to covid-19.37 an initial analysis37 in 2020 of over 13 000 policies from 195 countries revealed that the most implemented policies were related to health resource, such as availability of health infrastructure, material and personnel, such as hospitals, masks and doctors, to address the pandemic. the second most implemented were policies imposing lockdown and the restrictions on movement of non-essential works. these were also primarily about controlling the pandemic. these, and policies such as border restrictions and awareness campaigns came earlier in the pandemic, and were relatively easier to implement, while policies that were more difficult to implement came later in the pandemic.37 despite shifts and changes in other priorities, disease management and control remained a top priority of government throughout the period examined, although with some fluctuations. each wave of the pandemic divided popular opinion on the effectiveness of government’s handling of the pandemic. however, the results show a coordinated and consistent effort in this regard, and in the fourth month of the pandemic, there was a celebratory shift to highlight successes. this was probably encouraged by the commendation that south africa received from the world health organisation for its actions in reducing the spread of the virus at that time.38 the who director highlighted efforts such as enhanced surveillance, lockdown, mobile lab units, training of thousands of health workers in disease detection and the completion of 120 000 tests, which he described as incredible.39 this presented an opportunity for the government to score some positive reputation points with the public, which is a goal of crisis communication according to the gcis.12 it also confirms that government action at that time was aligned to the provisions of the dma21,22 in terms of mitigating the risk and severity of the pandemic as well as rapid and effective response, among other things. the downside of this self-confidence in the fourth month, was a downward trend in communicating containment measures, support for livelihoods, economic policies and decreasing tensions and fears, among others. this was likely because of the sense of control that the government had developed over the virus and the fact that the society was beginning to recover from the shock phase of the pandemic. nonetheless, the upward trend observed in several of these issues in the 4 months that followed suggests that the government did not become relaxed about the pandemic generally. the appearance of the same patterns of reduction in disclosure level in september and october 2020, and the upping of public engagement in november 2020 through january 2021 indicates that the behaviour of the pandemic, with reference to infection rates significantly shaped government communication response and priorities. for example, active infection rates decreased by more than 50% in september and october 2020, while november 2020 marked the emergence of the second wave of the pandemic in south africa.40 november 2020 to january 2021 marked the peak of the infection with active cases rising to 237 799 and fatalities nearing 50 000 by mid-january 2020. hence, the government’s return to prioritising epidemiological concerns during this period. the behaviour of the pandemic, however, could have been informed by social behaviour, as the behaviours of people and other entities can immensely shape the trajectory, behaviour and impact of disasters.41 the peak observed (november 2020 to january 2021), for example, was likely because of the period being a festive and holiday season when the people were less alert, with fewer restrictions. social gatherings and interactions increased as people spent time with family and celebrated christmas and new year. yet, the government was conscious of the potential arrival of the second wave and the risk posed by the festive season. therefore, the government continued with its awareness campaigns and other measures to minimise infection during the holiday season. for example, in december 2020, the government tightened lockdown restrictions without raising the alert level. the parallel movements observed between infection rates and government communication priorities could also be telling of a weakness in the government’s response to the pandemic in terms of hastiness to relax its safety measures without sufficient guarantee of safety. the relaxation of safety measures was also likely because of the persistent pressure from various sectors of the economy. the economy was suffering immensely, businesses were forced to shut down and hundreds of jobs and other means of livelihoods were being lost. thus, the government was caught between saving the economy and livelihoods while saving lives. in terms of the population targeted, the general public stood out as the primary focus of the government throughout the period. the study suggests that the government took steps to ensure a regularly and timeously informed public and to reduce panic. despite fluctuations in this targeting, the general public consistently remained the primary target audience of the messages. this may suggest that the government cared for the safety and wellbeing of its people and took steps to ensure that these were met. however, this may be undermined by the amount of corruption, incompetence and criticisms involving government officials in the crisis and livelihoods management.42,43,44 the emergence of health professionals and workers as the second major focus of government communication during the pandemic was anticipated. this was because health workers are at the centre of efforts to control the pandemic, and their challenges were widely broadcasted in the early stages of the pandemic. challenges affecting health workers directly impacted government’s ability to control the pandemic and to meet the health needs of citizens. however, this audience gradually ceased to be a primary target of government communication, especially towards the end of the study period (january 2021), after showing statistically significant wsrt scores in december 2020. this may have meant that their challenges were addressed. the increased societal support and celebration of health workers that became the trend around the world during this time, may have also contributed to fewer concerns being publicly raised by health workers, and thereby, fewer directed responses by government. the issues addressed in these communications also affected rural communities and vulnerable groups, but there is no indication that significant efforts were made to specifically address them as a unique group whose pre-pandemic vulnerabilities may have warranted a more focused attention to the pandemic-related challenges faced by them. government communication took a more blanket and non-dynamic approach in this regard. it simply focused on the general public while overlooking the specific needs of the different sections of the public in most cases. the minimal attention received by civil society and traditional leaders as a population group was also unexpected given the expectation that government would explore every partnership available to it in times of crisis. conclusion during the period reviewed, the south african government took necessary steps to provide the public with regular, consistent, credible and empowering information to minimise the impact of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods. press releases were a central strategy of government communication during this time. they communicated the government’s priorities, successes and struggles, showing how the government adjusted at different stages of the pandemic. overall, the government appears to have been responsive to the situation in a reactive rather than proactive manner. this contradicts the provisions of the dma21 which emphasises disaster risk management in the sense of anticipation and proactive preparedness at all levels. the reactive response also appears to be the dominant character of government response globally, especially in the early stages of the pandemic, as no government appeared to have been fully prepared for a disaster of that magnitude and nature, as well as the sense of urgency that came with it.35,45 the trends in south african government’s response do not communicate a control of the overall situation but suggest that its strategy was led by the behaviour of the diseases. this also indicates a need for a more comprehensive communication strategy that is incorporated into disaster planning as a critical component. the government also needs to be more dynamic in its targeting of messages. it needs to be sensitive to the fact that different population groups are affected differently and ensure that its crisis communication is based on a nuanced understanding of its citizenry and its challenges, rather than merely based on a need to react to the crisis. this is particularly important, given that studies have shown socio-cultural and contextual factors to significantly affect how communities experience disasters and the effectiveness of disaster management efforts.46 acknowledgements competing interest the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions s.f.j. conceptualised the project, collected and interpreted the data and formulated the discussions and conclusions of the study. h.m. collected, analysed and interpreted the data. o.t.o. was involved in the conceptualisation of the project, collected data and participated in data analysis and interpretation. b.c.m. participated in the conceptualisation of the project and reviewed the initial draft. all authors took part in finalising the first draft and also in all revisions of the manuscript. funding information s.f.j. acknowledges the support of the national research foundation through the sarchi chair in sustainable local (rural) livelihoods. data availability the study was based on publicly available press statements on the south african official coronavirus website https://sacoronavirus.co.za. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency or institution of the authors. references corey am. chapter 1: introducing communication. in: pierce t, editor. the evolution of human communication: from theory to practice. canada, city of publication is ontario: etrepress, 2009; p. 1–28. callow k, callow jc. text as purposive communication: a meaning-based analysis. in: mann wc, thompso sa, editors. discourse description: diverse linguistics analysis of a fund-raising text. amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company, 1992; p. 5–38. liu bf, horsley js, levenshus ab. government and corporate communication practices: do the differences matter? j appl commun res. 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stakeholders in disaster risk management. int j disaster risk reduct. 2017;21:35–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2016.10.017 kasdan do. considering socio-cultural factors of disaster risk management. disaster prev manag. 2016;25(4):464–477. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm-03-2016-0055 footnote 1. as defined in the vulnerable groups policy include individuals under the age of 18 years, persons with disabilities, persons aged 60 years and older, vulnerable women and orphans (vulnerable groups policy, no. 12399a, 2013). abstract introduction a theoretical framework for identity formation methodology of the critical review results of the critical review: how laboratories shape engineering identities synthesis conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) christine winberg professional education research institute, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa simon l. winberg department of electrical engineering, faculty of engineering, university of cape town, cape town, south africa citation winberg c, winberg sl. the role of undergraduate laboratories in the formation of engineering identities: a critical review of the literature. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a962. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.962 original research the role of undergraduate laboratories in the formation of engineering identities: a critical review of the literature christine winberg, simon l. winberg received: 21 sept. 2020; accepted: 20 jan. 2021; published: 26 apr. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: there was growing recognition worldwide by professional engineering bodies, engineering faculties and researchers on the need to pay attention to engineering students’ emerging identities and how they were formed across the trajectory of undergraduate engineering programmes. an increasing number of research studies focused on engineering identity, including systematic reviews of the research literature. aim: engineering laboratories were key learning spaces in undergraduate engineering programmes. in the laboratory, students learned to integrate theory and practice, engaged in problem-solving and applied experimental methods. the purpose of this critical review of the literature was to interrogate the impact that learning in engineering laboratories had on emerging professional identities across engineering disciplines and fields. method: this review built on and extended previous systematic reviews on engineering identity by studying pedagogies in the engineering laboratory through the lens of identity formation. search terms were consistently applied to eight databases, which yielded 57 empirical studies, after the application of relevance and quality appraisal criteria. two reviewers independently applied a socio-materialist theoretical framework of identify formation to each study and coded each of the studies into categories aligned with the theoretical framework. results: the findings of the critical review revealed the temporal, spatial, material, performative and discursive dimensions in engineering identity formation and showed that students’ emerging identities could be affirmed and supported by appropriate laboratory pedagogies. conclusion: the critical review of the literature concluded that curricular and pedagogical interventions that were better aligned with the dimensions of identity formation were more likely to enhance students’ identification with engineering. keywords: engineering; undergraduate laboratories; identity; ontological formation; socio-materialism; critical review of the literature; curriculum; pedagogy. introduction identity formation in the engineering laboratory undergraduate engineering programmes pose a range of challenges to students; as a result, much research in engineering education has focused on enhancing curricula, pedagogies and assessment in support of student success.1 whilst engineering studies are demanding and many students leave programmes where they have little chance of success, it is increasingly understood that many students choose to leave engineering programmes, not because of the high levels of challenge, but because they feel excluded and disengaged.2,3 considerably fewer studies have addressed issues of institutional or departmental cultures1 or interrogated the role that these may play in student attrition.4 supporting emerging engineering identities has been understood as a proxy for inclusive forms of engineering education and retention across engineering programmes,5 and there is growing recognition worldwide by professional engineering bodies, engineering faculties and researchers of the need to pay closer attention to the engineering cultures that underpin curricular and pedagogical practices and their impact on student identities.4,5 it is the intention of this critical review of the literature to synthesise previous work through the lens of identity formation in order to understand how engineering identities emerge in undergraduate engineering laboratories. why the undergraduate laboratory? engineering laboratories are key spaces for identity formation; they bridge the ‘theory/practice divide’,6 enabling theory to be applied to engineering problem-solving and design,7 as well as revealing the scientific basis of engineering artefacts8 – whilst engaging students in experiments and active learning.9 learning in an engineering laboratory tends to be more active than in classrooms and lecture halls and includes consolidating scientific and engineering concepts,10 developing engineering design abilities11 and nurturing professional and social skills.12 the undergraduate laboratory is important in preparing students for engineering practice beyond the university, as ‘a sustainable society needs engineers who are familiar with experimenting and laboratory work’.13 skills learned in the engineering laboratory, such as conducting experiments and tests, solving problems, designing and innovating, are key skills for professional practice. as the student’s familiarity with the engineering laboratory develops, the values underpinning engineering identities emerge. the pedagogical value of engineering laboratories is well-supported by the literature,5 but the literature also warns that the engineering laboratory poses challenges.4,14 whilst engineering laboratories are generally understood to be engaging and supportive spaces in which engineering identities can develop, they can also be unwelcoming and hostile environments in which some students feel excluded and isolated.2,15 from a socio-materialist perspective, the engineering laboratory is the site where future engineers are socialised, whilst the material practices of the laboratory community and what these enable or constrain are important to future engineers’ sense of themselves as engineers. despite evidence of the important role of the undergraduate engineering laboratory in the development of an engineering identity, laboratories have been understudied in the research literature.16 it is this gap that this critical review addresses. why identity? early studies understood engineering identity as self-evident, but more recent studies have paid attention to how engineering identities are enabled or constrained across engineering programmes. identity is multiple, complex and layered; thus, students (and professional engineers) have personal and social identities as well as engineering identities.1 early identification with their profession is crucial for persistence amongst engineering students17; students who do not develop a sense of belonging, identify with an engineering field or perceive themselves as engineers are more likely to abandon their studies.4,14,18 identification, or how students identify with engineering and are identified by others as an engineer, is ‘formed out of a double-sided process of positioning ourselves and being positioned by others’.19 imagining future jobs in an engineering field is a key part of students’ identification with engineering.17 the development of an engineering identity is further supported when students see the relevance of their studies for their future career.9 professional identities are built through shared experience and traditions, enabling a sense of membership, attachment and contribution.3 in their review of the literature on engineering identity, patrick and borrego claim that the concept of an engineering identity has not been theorised or measured and that the concept of an engineering identity has been conflated with other attributes such as an engineering ‘mind-set’, ‘self-concept’ or even with ‘soft skills’ more generally.1 definitions of identity in the literature can be summarised as ‘seeing oneself as, or feeling like, an engineer’.16 this narrow definition does not take into account the cultural and material factors that shape how students become engineers. indeed, despite recent understandings of identity as distributed and developing from participation in collective activities, the literature has not focused on the processes of acquiring an engineering identity. identity formation is generally accepted as a central part of learning; identity emerges from the interrelationship between individual agency and the social organisation (or culture) in which individual actions are performed.20 however, little is known about the ways in which engineering students construct professional identities in tandem with their learning, how they come to take on engineering values and how engineering identities emerge across the trajectory of undergraduate study. whilst it is understood that identity is fundamental to membership of a professional community,21 most research studies with a focus on engineering identity have not traced the trajectory of becoming an engineer.1,21,22 this is precisely the issue that this review of the literature addresses and in order to do this, we appropriate the analytical lens of ‘ontological formation’23,24,25 to examine engineering identity formation in the undergraduate laboratory. a theoretical framework for identity formation this study draws on socio-material understandings of identity formation in the engineering laboratory.25 socio-material approaches foreground the interplay between the material and social in the development of agency and identity.24 applying a socio-material interpretation to the current study suggests that the materiality of laboratories and their associated tools and technologies would enable certain practices and constrain others. students coming into engineering disciplines and fields, particularly if they have not been introduced to engineering through family membership, schooling or other previous studies, will initially require guidance and support in laboratory practice,4 but are likely to become more proficient and expert as they become familiar with the routines of the laboratory.19 as new students engage in laboratory activities, eventually participating more fully as members of a community, shifts in their identity would be expected. it is the particulars of students’ entry into, and development within, engineering laboratories that are of interest in this review of the literature, which necessitates a brief discussion on ontological formation. ontological formation identity develops across the fundamental categories of existence: time, space, materiality, performance and communication.24 these ontological categories are foundational to being human and can be relatively stable or, notably in formative years, volatile.25 being human means undergoing change over many trajectories. the ontological categories point to the different ways in which individuals and communities live in different temporal, spatial and material contexts, how they perform and communicate in relation to others and in relation to natural and human-made environments and how they make sense of their existence and identities.24 ontological formations are not standalone formations; they are iterative and co-exist.25 identity formations can also be prospective, that is, they can be influenced by new ideas and activities, so that new ways of being in the world can be imagined.24 thus, ontological formations are layered and intersecting rather than singular and distinct.23 ontological formations are impacted by ‘a host of material-discursive forces’.23 the process of learning to become a professional involves more than learning new knowledge; what is also important is ‘all the crucial interactions’ that students will experience that often ‘fly in the face of any specific set of disciplinary concerns’.23 these ‘crucial interactions’ are of importance in engineering identity formation and should be supportive and inclusive. pickering describes ontological formations as ‘dances of agency’ that academic disciplines will ‘seek to organise … in a peculiar and distinctive way’.25 pickering argues that it is necessary to ensure ‘islands of stability in the flux of becoming; configurations, socio-material set-ups, where some sort of reliable regularity in our relations … is to be found’.25 to understand students coming into engineering as a social encounter, barad’s call for a re-thinking of the social through the scientific is pertinent: what often appears as separate entities (and separate sets of concerns) with sharp edges does not actually entail a relation of absolute exteriority at all. like the diffraction patterns illuminating the indefinite nature of boundaries – displaying shadows in ‘light’ regions and bright spots in ‘dark’ regions.23(p. 803) the philosophical concept of ontological formation can be drawn on to understand how engineering laboratories might enable students with diverse social and personal identities to attain an engineering identity. describing urban spaces that facilitate encounters across differences, james describes how ‘locals and strangers should rub shoulders, sometimes painfully, as they move through in locally defined places’.24 in an engineering laboratory, supporting students’ ontological formations would entail planning activities that acknowledge the presence of different ontological orientations and their different trajectories of development. accommodating multiple identities is not a strong feature of engineering education, although promising studies that affirm a diversity of engineering identities are emerging.3,14 more immediately, useful tools for planning the kind of laboratory spaces and practices that a university might want to cultivate are necessary. it is proposed that tools to define and measure emerging engineering identities can be developed in terms of temporal, spatial, material, performative and discursive elements. the temporal dimension of identity formation temporality is fundamental to the development of identity; at the most basic level, students’ knowledge and skills develop with time and experience.24 constructive encounters between novice and more senior engineering students can facilitate the temporal dimension of identity formation.26 the temporal trajectory is dynamic and iterative and not without challenges. in the flow of activity within an engineering laboratory, newcomers can be ‘caught in the tensions between past histories that have settled in them and the present discourses and images that attract them or somehow impinge on them’.5 the spatial dimension of identity formation engineering laboratories are the ‘persistent backdrop’5 against which students become engineers. they have thus been described as key socio-cultural spaces for engineering identity formation.5 the engineering laboratory is a context with a particular culture and taken-for-granted ways of being, doing and belonging. the ‘micro-climates’ of engineering laboratories can convey warmth, supportiveness and care or they can symbolically replicate ‘forms of social segregation and devaluation that repeat legacies of racism in miniature’.2 the material dimension of identity formation there is an abundance of tools, artefacts and devices in engineering laboratories for carrying out engineering work. becoming proficient in the use of these tools has been identified as an indicator of professional identification.17 students in engineering laboratories are engaged in ‘forming relationships both with people and with the technological artefacts they design and build’.27 the performative dimension of identity formation identity is formed and shaped by practice and by the context of practice.21 for engineering educators, competent practice in an engineering laboratory predicts successful professional practice.10 competence in the laboratory and identification with the norms of laboratory practices consequently determine who is considered to be an engineer.14 the discursive dimension of identity formation the final key element in the process of identity formation concerns the tacit and explicit communication of engineering knowledge and values. engineering communication is formally taught,19 but communication is also acquired as messages subtly embedded in everyday interactions.28 access to disciplinary discourses influences identity, particularly if the student is encouraged to engage with that discourse and gain mastery over its use.8 the above dimensions are presented in figure 1 as a linear process for analytical purposes; the actual process is more complex, multi-layered and iterative.24 figure 1: ontological formation of engineering identity. figure 1 shows that the ontological trajectory impacts individual agency and the individual’s relationship with the community, that is, how a person is able to act in the world, in this case, within a professional community. identity (whether positive or negative with regard to the engineering profession) emerges from how agency is enacted and how the community affirms or denies the enacted agency. methodology of the critical review in this section, the approach to the critical review is explained, including the search strategy and search terms, the inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as how the studies selected were critically analysed. we followed the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma)methodology for critically reviewing the literature.29 in common with all systematic reviews of the literature, a critical review presents a ‘synthesis of a variety of literatures, identifies knowledge that is well established, highlights gaps in understanding and provides some guidance regarding what remains to be understood’.30 a critical review is particularly apposite when scholars hold different views, as is the case in identify formation. the particular contribution of a critical review is to ‘give a new perspective of an old problem, rather than simply paraphrasing what all other researchers and scholars in the field have shown or said in the past’.30 the prisma critical review methodology comprises four steps: (1) identification of studies via a transparent and replicable search strategy, (2) justification of the inclusion criteria, (3) screening of the studies and data extraction and (4) a critical analysis of the studies.29 it is the last step, the critical analysis of the studies, which distinguishes a critical review from a systematic review. in a critical review, the data extracted are coded and thematically analysed, drawing on a theoretical framework to provide a new perspective and theoretically informed insights into the studies reviewed. identification studies and reports use a variety of synonyms for identity, such as ‘habits of mind’,31 ‘self-efficacy’,32 ‘professional identity’,11 ‘engineering roles’33 and so on. the authors piloted different terms before the final search terms were selected (see table 1). eight academic databases were searched and the search was cross-checked within journals, academic books and published conference proceedings, yielding 476 studies. additional sources were found by searching the reference lists of the studies and a further 35 studies were added. duplicates were removed, resulting in 391 articles, book chapters and conference proceedings. table 1 shows a schematic representation of the search strategy. table 1: the search strategy. screening for the second step, screening, inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to the 391 records (see figure 2).29 the abstracts were read by both authors in order to determine the relevance of the study to the research question, that is, whether the paper addressed the role of the undergraduate laboratory in engineering identity formation. articles that were not relevant to the shaping of engineering identities through engagements in the laboratory were excluded from the study. articles were also excluded if they were position papers, reviews of the literature, work-in-progress conference papers or very short papers (i.e. shorter than two pages). the screening process resulted in the exclusion of 308 studies and the inclusion of 83 studies. figure 2: preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses flow chart for the critical review of the literature. eligibility the initial screening was based on a reading of the abstracts, which yielded 83 studies. the full texts of the 83 records that passed the initial screening process were then studied to determine their findings on the role of undergraduate engineering laboratories in students’ emerging identities. in the process of close reading, it was found that some studies had been incorrectly included as they were not relevant to the research question. this resulted in the exclusion of a further 23 texts, resulting in 60 texts that addressed identify formation in the engineering laboratory. critical analysis the 60 research studies selected for inclusion in the database addressed a range of issues with regard to the role of undergraduate engineering laboratories (both physical and virtual) in the formation of engineering identities. following the in-depth critical analysis, three additional studies were removed because, upon closer examination, their focus was not on engineering identity formation. the final database for the critical review therefore comprised 57 studies. an excel file was used for the database, which had the following column headings: (1) field (i.e. the area of engineering such as chemical, computer, etc.), (2) the names of the authors, (3) the date of the study, (4) the title of the study, (5) the abstract, (6) the context (i.e. the authors’ affiliations and countries), (7) the research methodology, (8) the findings and (9) the full citation of the study. the researchers used the ontological formation framework (figure 1) to code the findings into categories that broadly indicated whether the study explicitly or implicitly referred to temporal, spatial, material, performative or discursive elements of identity. for example, the study by butterworth and branch26 on collaborations between ‘seniors and freshmen on senior capstone projects’ was coded as ‘temporal’ because it focused on ‘multigenerational’ collaboration and the role of senior engineering students in inducting first-year students into laboratory practices. in contrast, craig’s study9 focused on the spatial affordances for ‘personal discovery learning’ in the laboratory and its impact on engineering identity formation; craig’s study was thus coded as ‘spatial’. the researchers worked independently to code the studies as described above, achieving approximately 70% consensus following the first coding. the authors then jointly re-coded all the studies and negotiated the final categories by consensus. in the context of the study, consensus required agreement on the key findings of the study by both authors. it should be noted that most of the articles reviewed included more than a single element of identity formation: for example, articles that discussed the impact of spatial features (e.g. spatial arrangements for group work) usually addressed material dimensions (e.g. tools and artefacts) as well. however, articles tended to emphasise a particular dimension (either spatial or material) and were coded according to the more prominent dimension. following the close reading and coding of the articles, key concepts were identified and their connections were mapped across the studies in the database. this synthesis of the findings was conducted by comparing, contrasting, interpreting and drawing conclusions. thus, the broad categories of time, space, materiality, performance and discourse that were initially identified across the studies were further developed. the final step of the synthesis was to find patterns of identity formation, to add depth and detail to the theoretical categories of ontological formation in the engineering laboratory and to extract common pedagogical practices in support of emergent engineering identities. the research studies were conducted across a wide variety of contexts: australia, canada, china, denmark, india, ireland, italy, japan, malaysia, romania, south africa, sweden, the united kingdom and the united states. most of the studies were evaluation studies (28/57) in which a laboratory intervention intended to promote identification with engineering was assessed. there were five case studies, most of which focused on a single student or small group. there were eight interview-based studies and seven surveys. nine of the research articles drew on ethnographic and observational methods. ethical considerations fundani research ethics committee (frec), fundani centre for higher education development, cape peninsula university of technology, frec:ref: 23/19. results of the critical review: how laboratories shape engineering identities the theoretical framework identified five dimensions of identity formation: temporal, spatial, material, performative and discursive; these categories were used to structure the findings of the review. past, present and future: co-temporal identities in the engineering laboratory of the 57 studies, eight (14%) emphasised temporality, showing how students’ engineering identities changed over the course of an engineering programme. several studies discussed issues of orientation and induction into laboratory practices, as well as students’ future aspirations and how these laid the foundation of an engineering identity.12,17 studies found that involving first-year students in engineering communities was key to early identification with engineering. for example, ‘vertical mentoring’, a process whereby more senior students provided ‘laboratory tours and technique training, and social events’,18 was found to be effective for early identification with engineering, whilst collaboration with more senior students on laboratory projects was associated with commitment to an engineering career.26,31 conversely, students’ inability to relate to the engineering profession and take on an emerging professional identity over time was exacerbated when there was a lack of interaction between novice and senior students.32 the presence of students at different levels in engineering laboratories was important in inducting students into laboratory spaces and practices. first-year students viewed more senior students in the laboratory as peer role models, repositories of engineering knowledge and usually more approachable than lecturers.31 in bioengineering, ‘building’ was a common activity that inducted new students into laboratory practices, affording ‘new students with opportunities for rapid participation and the build-up of requisite knowledge’.27 senior students provided access to research experience, mentoring and involvement in an engineering community.33 the studies noted a gap between engineering students’ expectations about what an engineering course might involve and the actual subjects taught. studies noted that students had idealised understandings of the everyday work of a professional engineer and thus needed support ‘to make sense of what they meet’.34 the temporary deferment of a professional identity is not uncommon in professional programmes; students’ engineering identities are future projections that relate to potential jobs.12 the difficulty for many engineering students was that the construction of an engineering identity could be: [a] vulnerable process whereby students, even if they join the programme, determined to complete it, experience difficulties in constructing a viable narrative and therefore often need to consider leaving the course.34(p. 784) when students felt isolated from each other, from their teachers and the greater engineering community, they were unlikely to develop an engineering identity over time.31 the literature reported on a range of pedagogical practices that were shown to strengthen emerging engineering identities by accommodating both beginners and more experienced students and researchers in laboratories to establish a supportive engineering community within a department or faculty,32 promoting teamwork to fast-track skills and knowledge33 and linking laboratory practices to engineering career paths.17 spatial affordances for the development of engineering identities sixteen of the studies (28%) addressed spatio-cultural dimensions of identity formation in the laboratory. a key aspect of laboratories is their affordance for engaged learning, through dedicated social spaces where laboratory teams can interact, both formally and informally.6 engineering laboratories, by their nature, are spaces for experimenting, discovery and meaning-making, thus tending to embody active learning pedagogical principles. enabling students’ access to particular laboratories had ‘an influence on identity development by allowing the students to recognise their admission to a specific community’.19 the positive contribution of active learning in laboratories to engaging students’ interest in engineering subject matter and in identity formation was recognised in a number of studies,7,18 but many studies also pointed to negative experiences in engineering laboratories. women students and underrepresented groups described themselves as ‘isolated’,14 ‘side-lined’35 or ‘not participating fully’.4 students who came into engineering laboratories without previous experience or knowledge of engineering laboratories often struggled to gain acceptance.3 invisibility, isolation, misrecognition and marginalisation were common themes in the literature on engineering identity.1,5,21,22 shifting from physical to virtual engineering laboratories impacted emergent engineering identities. tibbits and colleagues pointed out that ‘innovative learning spaces can influence the norms of long-established disciplines’6; in this sense, the virtual laboratory was found to be a more inclusive space for rehearsing an engineering identity. in the virtual laboratory, students were able to immerse themselves in laboratory-based learning, provided that the virtual laboratory afforded an appropriate ‘presence’, that is, the extent to which students felt that they were physically present in the virtual laboratory. ‘hands-on’ work in laboratories is increasingly replaced by ‘mouse-pointer-on’ work,13 and the literature suggests that there is little difference in learning outcomes whether students engage in physical or virtual laboratories.11,13 in several cases, virtual laboratories were shown to be more effective for immersing students in engineering studies than physical laboratories.11,36 this was particularly the case when assistive technologies were available to students with disabilities.37,38 when gaming was used as a laboratory simulation (and defence games in particular), students were provided with ‘multiple ways to engage in the classroom and contribute whilst promoting their critical thinking and collaboration skills, encouraging consistent student participation throughout the semester’.39 the use of narrative and character creation enhanced students’ identification with engineering by making them feel that their engineering abilities could influence social or environmental outcomes. even where physical engineering laboratories remain an integral part of the engineering curriculum, many laboratory activities have been adapted for virtual tools.40 in this regard, a number of studies argued that augmenting engineering laboratories with a wide variety of virtual technologies closely simulated industry laboratories and supported identification with the engineering profession.12 augmented laboratories could respond more quickly to changes in the real world, enabling engineering programmes to react to new trends and face changes caused by new technologies, changing industry needs and new educational paradigms.13 engineers ‘investigate real-world phenomena through simulation models, physical or computational’,41 and the use of virtual tools in a physical space supported this identification. the laboratory space is often extended into field testing under conditions that are more authentic to real-world engineering contexts. field testing that emphasised ‘iterative socio-technical design’ had the potential to change engineering identities, enabling students to see themselves ‘as responsible agents who react to possibilities, who shape new technology … and who themselves are continually experiencing, negotiating and developing’.42 field testing implied a shift to sustainable forms of engineering that required a broadening of the engineering identity.43 anchoring laboratory experiments in ‘realistic challenges’ was found to enable students to understand the practical applications of concepts and principles covered in different laboratory practicals.18 marshall and colleagues highlight ‘the critical element of authenticity’44 in engineering identity formation. thus, laboratory projects that were aligned to appropriate industry projects were valuable in promoting a professional identity. social interactions in the laboratory impact the kind of engineers that students will become; thus, laboratory pedagogies should be attentive to how negative cultures might be reproduced.5 the literature provided many examples of how pedagogies that facilitated experimental discovery and active engagement and were authentic enabled the emergence of diverse engineering identities.45 materialising an engineering identity with artefacts and tools twelve studies on engineering tools and artefacts (22%) proposed that the materiality of the engineering laboratory was central to cultivating a professional identity. many initial experiences in the laboratory developed around mentoring newcomers in the use of the tools, artefacts and devices that were key to engineering work.41,46 in her ethnographic research in biomedical engineering laboratories, nersessian found that professional identities were, in part, created through ‘person-to-artefact cognitive partnering’.41 engaging with engineering tools, such as ‘building a robot from start to finish [was] an intensely engrossing experience that motivate[d] the students to learn about many of the less glamorous theoretical aspects [of engineering]’.47 as an engineering identity matured, laboratory artefacts came to represent familiar and trusted methods. specialised engineering laboratories contained what nersessian called ‘signature artifacts’,41 that is, specialised laboratory tools that further defined an engineering identity. specialisation in engineering was associated with the proficient use of specialised tools48 and engineering students tended to identify more closely with specialised tools as they progress in their studies. in an electrical engineering context, for example, students self-identified as ‘analog guys’ or ‘digital guys’49 as they began to specialise in their discipline. interdisciplinary awareness, in particular, understanding the links between the science subjects that underpinned engineering disciplines and real-world problem-solving, was particularly important in enabling students to identify the presence of mathematical tools in real-world problem-solving: ‘this recognition encourage[d] the development of identity as a novice engineer’.9 as students gained greater proficiency in the application of specialised tools, they were better able to contribute to interdisciplinary teams, which strengthened their professional identities as they gained insights into engineers’ contributions towards solving complex problems.50 several research studies suggested that generic engineering tools,46 a ‘makerspace’50 or a ‘student managed sandbox,’45 were effective in enabling an innovative engineering identity. morocz and colleagues46 argued that in order to express an engineering identity, students needed to: [s]imply mess about with, design-build projects, tools, materials, and mentoring within a community of their own management, independent of curricular requirements, classroom projects, or hierarchical structure of coursework.46(p. 3) in this study, students were provided with ‘3d printers, laser cutters, waterjet cutter, injection moulding, thermoforming, milling and others, along with lounge, meeting, assembly and testing space’.46 providing students with free access to hands-on state-of-the-art technologies, encouraging collaboration between diverse teams of students from all years and majors and welcoming all types of projects excited students and strengthened their identities as future engineers. when resources were more constrained, virtual laboratories could similarly provide innovative and authentic engineering tasks and tools.11 as engineering students advanced in their studies, they valued laboratories as dedicated spaces in which to work on design projects.20 recommended pedagogies included drawing on undergraduate students’ fascination with materiality to familiarise students with the engineering tools of their disciplines and building on this interest to engage students more deeply with engineering tools and devices. socio-material relations in engineering laboratories were found to be complex and evolving. the challenge was to select appropriate forms of mentoring students towards understanding and using appropriate laboratory equipment at different levels of study.20 performing engineering: developing competence in the laboratory fifteen studies (26%) foregrounded the importance of competence, particularly in experimentation, problem-solving and design, for engineering identity formation.32,33 as students engaged in laboratory work, over time, they learned ‘to participate in the practices of the community they have entered’.51 ‘belonging’ in engineering required students to acquire the necessary skills and competence required for their field, which usually combined ‘problem-solving, people skills and technical skills’.13 without competence in laboratory work, students were likely to become ‘isolated, overlooked and unheard’.14 undergraduate students’ participation in research projects involving senior or postgraduate students built a laboratory-based community of practice that enabled them to become ‘active participants in the construction of both knowledge and community in engineering labs’.28 undergraduate research experiences were important for ‘how students develop a researcher identity and transform their epistemic beliefs’.33 studies noted an improvement in retention when undergraduates were provided with immersive research experiences32 or ‘challenge-inspired undergraduate experiences’.18 in general, the more ‘structured problem sets’, typical of early laboratory practicals, became more ‘open-ended problems’ in advanced laboratory work.19 authenticity and a ‘realistic local context’ supported emerging engineering identities.44 the literature suggests that students more clearly take on engineering identities in design laboratories.8,10 predominantly, it was students’ performance in the laboratory that showed whether or not they were engineers.45 in the study by beaudoin and llis, for example, teams of two or three first-year engineering students explored engineered products or processes ‘by playing the successive roles of user, assembler, and engineering analyst’.8 the role-play format provided a hands-on, collaborative learning environment to improve students’ manipulative, problem-solving and creative thinking skills, thus promoting an early identification with engineering. performance and roles in the laboratory are particularly susceptible to the reproduction of stereotypes. a difficulty in laboratory group work was found in how roles were allocated to group members, based on gender, social, or academic group stereotyping. for example, female students tended to assume more organisational roles, attributed to women’s better organisational skills.14 as a result of gendered roles in group work, women students participated less and lost confidence in comparison with male students who appeared to be confident and competent.15 in his study, johri emphasised the socio-material nature of laboratory demonstrations (‘demos’). he defined ‘demos’ as: [p]erformances wherein the product had a major role and was presented to the audience with a specific purpose in mind … [using] the right mix of verbal, visual, and interactive elements to persuade the audience of the value of the designed artifact.51(p. 7) evaluating laboratory performance is important in identity building and is one of the main ways in which engineering educators can affirm or deny a student’s emerging engineering identity. marshall and colleagues argued that the full range of laboratory performance, including ‘research skills, conceptual understanding, application of techniques, preparing a report, team working abilities and the communication skills needed to interact with peers and demonstrators effectively’44 could not be adequately assessed through traditional engineering reports; thus, more innovation methods were required. naim and colleagues similarly argued that laboratory assessment should include ‘cognition, psychomotor and affective domains of knowledge’48 and that paying attention to ethics in the laboratory was important for constructing strong professional identities. creative thinking and innovation are at the heart of engineering problem-solving and design and the literature shows the importance of innovative pedagogies and assessment approaches in support of this. developing professional skills alongside technical knowledge in engineering performance was found to be important in supporting emerging engineering identities. laboratory pedagogies that represented the engineering profession, such as problem-based learning, were more likely to support students’ emerging identities than ‘traditional version[s]’ of laboratory instruction.44 innovative forms of assessment, such as portfolio assessment, were aligned to professional skills and the dual nature of engineering identity – both recognising oneself as an engineer and receiving recognition from the engineering community. the literature warns that a lack of full participation in undergraduate laboratory experiences can ‘chip away’3 at students’ identity, ultimately pushing students out of engineering. communicating engineering identities: discursive practices in the laboratory six studies (10%) showed how discursive elements impact emerging identities. discursive elements of identity formation were found to be related both to the messages that students received in the communication of others4 and their growing mastery of technical discourse.49 students were strongly attuned to the messages that they received about what counts as engineering and what makes an engineer.52 technical communication, such as laboratory reporting, was more effectively acquired in the laboratory than formally taught in communication courses.52 setting written assignments that were integrated into core engineering courses signalled to students that writing mattered in engineering. when engineering students worked with both communication and engineering lecturers, their motivation and identification with engineering increased.52 embedding the process of writing in a laboratory setting provided a structured opportunity for students to review their own and others’ work critically, thus being guided towards improving their technical writing.53 jocuns and stevens proposed a ‘trajectory of identification’ in the ability of engineering students to ‘talk engineering’,49 arguing that spoken technical communication was a significant part of the development of an engineering student’s identity. presentation skills, particularly in laboratory demonstrations, were identified as a key oral communication genre in engineering, entailing the development of a ‘socio-scientific argumentation [that] includes the application of moral and ethical values and personal identity’.54 whilst reporting and other forms of technical communication imply communication within an engineering community, ‘translation’ refers to communicating engineering to non-specialist audiences, including interdisciplinary and interprofessional forms of communication.55 translating required students to define the nature of the audience for effective communication with non-engineering or interprofessional collaborators.55 collegial discourse styles influenced undergraduates’ sense of belonging. as a powerful tool of socialisation, engineering ‘disaster stories’ contain messages of self-deprecation, humility, teamwork and mutual learning.28 they offered novices the opportunity to learn from more experienced engineers’ errors. disaster stories reduced the hierarchy, normalised learning through mistakes and built relationships amongst undergraduates and more experienced students and academics. it was found that engineering narratives had the potential ‘to promote collaboration, a sense of belonging, and the value of continuous learning for all lab members’, whilst also addressing students’ perceptions that engineering studies have a ‘lack of real-world application and lack of meaning’.3 synthesis the findings of the critical review with regard to the temporal, spatial, material, performative and discursive elements in engineering identity formation, the ways in which the literature expanded and developed these categories in the laboratory context and the ways in which the emerging identities were affirmed and supported by appropriate laboratory pedagogies are synthesised in table 2. table 2: synthesis of results: the impact of laboratory spaces and practices on emergent engineering identities. table 2 shows that by contextualising identity formation within the engineering laboratory, the critical review was able to provide depth and detail to the fundamentals of time, space, material, performance and discourse. the theoretical framework that guided the study was consequently expanded, providing subcategories of each dimension: orientation, inclusion, induction and aspiration in the temporal dimension; engagement, modelling, simulation and field testing in the spatial dimension; familiarisation, specialisation, contribution and innovation in the material dimension; experimenting, problem-solving, designing, demonstrating and assessment in the performative dimension and narrating, reporting, translating and presenting in the discursive dimension. figure 3 shows how the findings of the critical review expanded the theoretical framework (figure 1) to create a more detailed and contextualised understanding of the elements of identity formation in engineering education. figure 3: dimensions of identity formation in engineering laboratories. conclusion this critical review of the literature analysed the impact that engineering laboratories have on emerging professional identities across a range of engineering disciplines and fields. the analysis appropriated the lens of ‘ontological formation’23,24,25 to understand how engineering identities were enabled or constrained by laboratory spaces and practices. whilst there are many studies of engineering identity, including systematic reviews of the literature,1,21,22 the contribution to knowledge that this critical review offers is a synthesis of relevant studies through a focus on identity formation in the engineering laboratory that shows the connection between categories of identity formation and supportive laboratory pedagogies. implications for practice: pedagogies for identity formation recommendations for identity-affirming pedagogical interventions arise from the results of the critical review and are based on a theorised understanding of engineering identity formation. the critical review of the literature proposes pedagogical changes that better align education interventions with the dimensions of engineering identity, including effective practices for orientation, inclusion, induction and so on. the literature points to a number of ‘critical incidents’ that strengthen the engineering identity, such as peer-mentoring, building multi-generational laboratory communities, undertaking undergraduate research projects, authentic problems and industry linkages, field testing beyond the laboratory, demonstrating and assessing competent performance and many others. similar identity-building pedagogies could intentionally be infused into the design of undergraduate laboratory programmes in order to support the early emergence of an engineering identity and enhance retention across engineering programmes. implications for further research: developing the identity formation framework this critical review pointed to the need for future research to advance our understanding of how engineering identities are formed, such as using the identity formation framework to implement a laboratory programme and empirically study its impact and testing the ontological formation model in other learning contexts, for example, in the classroom-based teaching of engineering sciences. as we advance in our understanding of how students identify with engineering and how students receive external recognition of their engineering identity, more students, and particularly students from under-represented groups, are likely to be retained in engineering programmes and the engineering profession. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge the contributions of participants in the ‘work-integrated laboratory learning’ project. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing 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20160202 visser calitzdorp fin .docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(3) december 2015, pp. 186-207. water contestations in the little karoo: liaisons between the calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp (kannaland) municipality, 191220131 wp visser2 abstract although a good agricultural-yielding region when adequate rainfall is available the little karoo is plagued by regular, recurring and sometimes devastating droughts. in a rural town like calitzdorp, where the same water resources are being shared by agricultural and domestic users, acute shortages over time have contributed to a history of water disputes and contestations between the calitzdorp irrigation board (cib) and the local municipality. the study focuses on the period between 1912, when the calitzdorp irrigation board was established, and the beginning of the 21st century. drought conditions and water shortages, also due to further municipal needs, were main determinants in relations between the cib and the municipality between the 1950s and the early 1990s. although this relationship had been abrasive at times up to 1994, issues regarding municipal water allocation and usage and payment of water tariffs had usually been settled in a practical way and to the mutual satisfaction of all stakeholders. the interests of the all-white cib and town council were intertwined in a community whose existence depended on an agricultural economy supported predominantly by irrigation. however, when new district municipalities were created in 1998 the calitzdorp municipality was dissolved after 88 years and all executive and administrative municipal powers shifted to the neighbouring town of ladismith. as a result of political instability, mismanagement and inefficient administration occurred. the new kannaland municipality not only demanded more water from the cib, but also started paying its water bills in an erratic manner to the board. this situation led to the souring of relations between the two entities. key words: water contestations, droughts, calitzdorp irrigation board, nelsriver dam, kannaland district municipality introduction according to the world economic forum, quoted by hedden and cilliers, water scarcity now ranks as the third most concerning global risk. the national development plan notes that since south africa is already a water-scarce country, greater attention will have to be paid to the management and use of water. the agricultural sector is the largest user of water, 1 research for this article was made possible by the national research foundation. i am also indebted to the department of water and sanitation and the calitzdorp irrigation board for allowing me access to their archives and documents. 2 . prof. wessel visser is attached to the department of history, university of stellenbosch. email: wpv@sun.ac.za. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 187 accounting for 57% of total water usage, while municipal demand accounts for 35% of water usage. irrigated agriculture is the largest single consumer of water in south africa, with around 1,6 million hectare equipped for irrigation. although the 2014 hedden and cilliers report forecasted that the largest increase in water demand by 2035 would come from the municipal sector,3 the drought of 2015-2016 called for a re-focus on the vital importance of agriculture. as a result of the drought agricultural production and food security is under threat which could also lead to the collapse of the south african rural economy. according to grain sa, only 48% of the normal annual grain crop was planted during the 2015 planting season. annually, about 200 000 hectares of grain are irrigated but also in this sector the drought had a negative impact as water quotas were already diminished in certain irrigation districts.4 this dire situation underlines the importance of agricultural irrigation on the parched south african landscape. in the preface of his seminal work on the rise of conservation in the country beinart noted that the development of water management, inter alia, constitutes a major but neglected element in the history of knowledge and intellectual life in south africa.5 gouws echoes this sentiment by arguing that management of natural resources, such as water, demands an understanding of the complex connection of global, national and local management regimes within rapidly developing economic, political and institutional transformation.6 internationally, the contestation and appropriation of water is not new and several studies focus on this aspect.7 although a number of south african scholars since the 2000s began focusing on studies such as water management, the dynamics of water provision and water usage, the socio-environmental history of water, water user’s associations and the construction of dams, to name but a few8, surprisingly little attention was paid hitherto to 3 s hedden and j cilliers, “parched prospects. the emerging water crisis in south africa”, african futures paper 11, institute for security studies, september 2014, pp. 1-2, 4-5. 4 see e.g. a van der walt, “op die rand van ‘n tragedie”, die burger, 23.12.2015, p. 4. 5 w beinart, the rise of conservation in south africa. settlers, livestock, and the environment 1770-1950, oxford university press, oxford, 2003, p. xv. 6 cm gouws, “the tragedy of the water commons: the case of the lower orange water management area”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4, no. 1, july 2008, p. 256. 7 see e.g. j franco, l mehta and gj veldwisch, “the global politics of water grabbing”, third world quarterly, vol. 34, no. 9, pp. 1651-1675. 8 see e.g. a lumby, m matete and j rwelamira, “the management of south africa’s water resources with particular reference of the period 1956-1998”, south african journal of economic history, vol. 20, no. 2, september 2005, pp. 83-108; jwn tempelhoff, “water and the human culture of appropriation: the vaal river up to 1956”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol.2, no. 2, december 2006, pp. 431-452; jwn tempelhoff, v munnik and m viljoen, “the vaal river barrage, south africa’s hardest working water way: an historical contemplation”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 3, no. 1, july 2007, pp. 107-133; m orne-gliemann, “water users’ associations from the users’ perspective: local water management at thabina irrigation scheme, limpopo, south africa”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4, no. 1, july 2008, pp. 1-29; m ginster, c gouws, cm gouws, h mäki, r mathipa, s motloung, m nyandoro and jwn tempelhoff, “views on unlawful water abstractions along the liebenbergsvlei river, south africa”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 6, no. 1, july 2010, pp. 1-24; l van vuuren, “together we can do more – environmental consciousness in the south african dam construction sector (1945-1980)”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 9, no. 1, july 2013, pp. 51-80; n kruger, “a socio-environmental history of water in the visser 188 aspects such as the hydro-politics of water contestations between water suppliers and water users in both rural and urban areas. however, musemwa’s pioneering study, water, history and politics in zimbabwe, focuses on water provision to the town of bulawayo between 1894 and 2008. musemwa investigated aspects such as perennial aridity, water scarcity as an anthropogenic phenomenon, water as a mechanism of social control and the fact that the control of water is crucial not only as an earner of revenue but also in affirming power in urban or rural governance.9 quoting from work by gandy and swyngedou, musemwa also argues that the close relationship between urban water infrastructure and the development of municipal governance appears to be one of the critical dynamics in the emergence of modern towns. furthermore, he asserts that controlling the flow of water implies controlling a city or town, because without the uninterrupted flow of water, the city or town’s metabolism would come to a halt.10 this article investigates the control and provision of, and contestation over water in the rural town of calitzdorp situated in a semi-arid region of south africa. the study focuses on the period between 1912, when the calitzdorp irrigation board was established, and the beginning of the 21st century. researching the topic the author also drew extensively on the archives of the calitzdorp irrigation board between 1912 and 2006, as well as the archives of the kannaland municipality (previously known as the calitzdorp municipality) preserved in the western cape archives and records service in cape town.11 the historical development of calitzdorp and the geographical features of its surroundings the rural town of calitzdorp is situated in the foothills of the swartberg mountains in the semi-arid to arid little karoo and approximately 400 km east of cape town. the little karoo region lies in a broad east-west oriented valley between the langeberg-outeniqua karoo c. 1762-2012, with specific focus on prince albert and williston”, unpublished ma thesis, university of stellenbosch, 2013. 9 m musemwa, water, history and politics in zimbabwe. bulawayo’s struggles with the environment, 18942008, africa world press, trenton, 2014. see also m musemwa, “disciplining a ‘dissident city’: hydropolitics in the city of bulawayo, matabeleland, zimbabwe, 1980-1994”, journal of southern african studies, vol. 32, no. 2, june 2006, pp. 239-254; m musemwa, “coping with water scarcity: the social and environmental impact of the 1982-1992 droughts on makokoba township, bulawayo, zimbabwe”, in f locatelli and p nugent (eds.), african cities. competing claims on urban spaces, brill, leiden and london, 2009, pp. 157-185; m musemwa, “perpetuating colonial legacies: the postcolonial state, water crisis and the outbreak of disease in harare, zimbabwe, 1980-2009”, in s chiumbu and m musemwa (eds.), crisis! what crisis? the multiple dimensions of the zimbabwean crisis, hsrc press, cape town, 2012, pp. 3-41; m musemwa, “water scarcity and the colonial state. the emergence of a hydraulic bureaucracy in south-western matabeleland, zimbabwe, 1964-1972”, in lm harris, ja goldin and c sneddon, contemporary water governance in the global south. scarcity, marketization and participation, routledge, 2013, pp. 79-94. 10 see m musemwa, “early struggles over water: from private to public utility in the city of bulawayo, zimbabwe, 1894-1924”, journal of southern african studies, vol. 34, no. 4, december 2008, p. 882; musemwa, water, history and politics in zimbabwe, pp. xxiii-xxiv. 11 unfortunately only incomplete archival records of the calitzdorp municipality could be traced. the minutes of the calitzdorp irrigation board between 1917 and 1932 are also missing. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 189 mountains in the south and the witteberg-swartberg mountains in the north.12 the first white settlers moved into the vicinity of modern day calitzdorp by the middle of the eighteenth century where one louis fourie obtained the loan-farm buffelsvlei by 1748. by 1757 this farm was granted to jacobus pretorius and by 1761 to jacobus van zijl. in 1813 the british colonial administration replaced the loan-farm system with the perpetual quitrent system and by 1821 the farm buffelsvlei was registered in the names of the brothers jj and mc calitz. it was thus on buffelsvlei, the farm of the calitzses, that the town of calitzdorp as it became known by 1845, eventually developed on the banks of the nels river.13 illustration 1 calitzdorp dam. the spillway appears on the right end of the dam wall (source: author’s private collection) three morgen of buffelsvlei were sold for religious purposes in 1856. in 1857 a church was built on this land and plots were also sold by the church to members of the congregation. the first school building was erected in 1858. in 1873 the calitzdorp dutch reformed congregation was established independently from the oudtshoorn congregation. since 1896 a village management board existed and in june 1909 the farm buffelsvlei was officially declared a municipal area, although full municipal status was granted to calitzdorp only in 12 d le maitre, c colvin and a maherry, “water resources in the klein karoo: the challenge of sustainable development in a water-scarce area”, south african journal of science, 105, january/february 2009, p. 39. 13 hc hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp 1873-1913, nasionale boekdrukkery beperk, elsiesrivier, 1973, pp. 10-18; jw momberg, “regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp”, ongepubliseerde matesis, universiteit van stellenbosch, 1948, pp. 85-88; m roux, huisvriend. ‘n informele ondersoek, calitzdorp museum, calitzdorp, 2013, pp. 28, 30, 34, 246, 312. visser 190 1913. a railway line was extended from oudtshoorn to calitzdorp in 1924 and in 1937 the town was electrified.14 much of the water used in the little karoo is sourced from catchments which are situated to the north of the witteberg-swartberg mountain ranges. the little karoo is characterised by marked orographic rainfall gradients and rain shadow effects. most of the low-lying central valley between the langeberg-outeniqua and the witteberg-swartberg mountain ranges, where calitzdorp is situated, receives 100-300 mm per annum. the little karoo has a quasi 10-12 year cycle: roughly five years with more and five years with less rainfall and a range of 10-30% on either side of the long-term mean. the mean summer daily temperature in february is ˃30 ͦc in the low lands. in addition, the potential evaporation is more than 2 000 mm per year and exceeds 2 250 mm per year in the dry central region.15 momberg correctly observed that without irrigation agriculture would have been impossible in an arid district such as calitzdorp.16 this article focuses on the nels river (also known as the cango river)17, in which the calitzdorp dam is situated, and its irrigation district. it is a perennial mountain river which sprouts from the swartberg mountains north of calitzdorp. in general the soil in the calitzdorp district is fertile although of divergent quality in places. rich loamy and alluvial soils are found in the valleys of the nels river and in the vicinity of the confluence of the nels and gamka rivers south of calitzdorp. tobacco, lucerne, lucerne seed, wheat, maize, barley, oats, walnuts, citrus, vegetables and deciduous fruit such as apricots, figs, pears, plums and quinces and especially alberta peaches, are produced in this irrigation district. the cultivation of vineyards, however, represents the largest agricultural activity and wines are being produced. in recent years some farmers have also begun to cultivate olives. in terms of stock ostriches form the largest component while cattle, sheep, goat, pig and bee farming, as well as small-scale dairy farming also take place.18 a perusal of the historical literature on calitzdorp reveals striking references to recurring droughts in the district since the nineteenth century: 1862, 1865-1866, 1868-1869, 1885, 1896, 1900, 1914-1915, 1923-1927, 1932-1933, 1937-1942, 1945-1947, 1950, 1954, 19591960, 1967 and 1999.19 mention was also made of water restrictions in calitzdorp during 14 hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, pp. 18, 34, 37, 39, 41-42, 134-135; momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, pp. 85-86, 91; a appel, “die distrik oudtshoorn tot die tagtigerjare van die 19de eeu: ‘n sosio-ekonomiese studie”, argiefjaarboek vir suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis, vol. 51, deel ii, staatsdrukker, pretoria, 1988, pp. 138, 222-223, 226; roux, huisvriend, pp. 36, 81, 113, 132, 168, 187, 188; m roux, piet strydom. die wêreld en nalatenskap van ‘n calitzdorpse bouer, private publication, calitzdorp, 2012, pp. 28, 62, 67, 80-82. 15 le maitre, et al., water resources in the klein karoo, pp. 39-41; momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, p. 36. 16 momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, pp. 16, 48. 17 hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 13; roux, huisvriend, p. 440. 18 momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, pp. 9-10, 13, 23-24, 49-52, 54-55, 60-73; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, pp. 128-129; appel, “die distrik oudtshoorn”, pp. 161, 190; roux, piet strydom, pp. 69, 81; roux, huisvriend, pp. 182, 260. 19 see jc brown, water supply of south africa and facilities for the storage of it, oliver & boyd, edinburgh, 1877, pp. 389-390; momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, pp. 49, 53, 60, 77-78, 62; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, pp. 65, 71, 78, 81, 126, 128; roux, piet strydom, pp. 16, 69, 80, 82, 87; roux, huisvriend, pp. 47, 50, 176, 182, 187-188, 247, 252, 258, 282, 284, 377. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 191 some of these droughts.20 according to hopkins and momberg the serious periodic droughts determined the fate of the calitzdorp community. agricultural harvests were destroyed which led to poverty among farmers.21 the standard bank report on conditions during the 1915 drought elucidates: “…farmers have had to contend with one of the worst droughts experienced for many years, the rainfall for the past 6 months having been only 1.9 inches [4.826 cm] … reliance has to some extent to be placed on storm water. this year the usual summer floods did not come down the rivers and lucerne lands were badly affected. farmers having sold their reserve stocks of dry lucerne to government early in the year, have been left without feeding for their ostriches which are being kept alive on prickly pear, maize, etc. …there has been heavy mortality among the birds here… owing to the drought the orange crop has been poor… prices for tobacco have ruled low… at present time there is no doubt that a good portion of the farmers in the district is practically insolvent”.22 in 1906 already acutt and yorke worthington concluded that in the then cape colony the growth of lucerne was not possible without irrigation.23 in november 1924, during the drought of 1923-1927, the oudtshoorn courant vividly reported about “…a terrific drought which has [calitzdorp] in its grip. the drought is being severely felt in the area which forms the actual municipality of calitzdorp; but just below the township those broad fertile lands of gamka are a dreadful sight to behold. what should be smiling lands of lucerne carrying hundreds of stock, ostriches and cattle, are today drier and barer than a road. so terrific in fact is the drought that when the wind blows clouds of dust are raised from these lucerne lands…the drought has already robbed the district of thousands upon thousands of lbs [pounds] of grain and tobacco and will be the cause of the loss of many thousands of lbs of grapes and other grand fruit of the earth…the vines of most of which in the gamka area have not even yet sprouted, and many on which in the calitzdorp area the young grapes are dropping off”.24 and in 1947, during the drought period of 1945-1947, the grape harvest was torched by the sun and a great deal consequently lost due to a lack of sufficient irrigation water.25 indeed, the south african weather service’s rainfall statistics for the calitzdorp dam rainwater measurement station, kept between 1923 and 2004, more or less corroborate on the observations about periodic drought in the literature mentioned. the average monthly rainfall figure over this whole period amounts to 16.11 mm and affirms the climatological vulnerability of the calitzdorp district.26 according to le maitre, colvin and maherry’s calculations, most of the flow of the calitzdorp dam indicates extended periods (between 20 momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, p. 91; roux, huisvriend, pp. 252, 255, 284, 292. 21 hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 98; momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, pp. 77-78. 22 quoted by roux, huisvriend, p. 69. 23 l acutt and r yorke worthington, “report on visit to cape colony of mr. leonard acutt, member of natal land board, and mr. r yorke worthington, weenen”, natal agricultural journal, january 1906, p. 223. 24 quoted by roux, huisvriend, p. 80. see also hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 78. 25 momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, p. 68. 26 statistics provided by the south african weather service, pretoria, 9 june 2015. visser 192 1940 and 1974) of below-average runoff.27 thus df kokot, chief engineer (planning) of the former department of irrigation by the mid-twentieth century, remarked that irrigation (e.g. in calitzdorp) was necessitated by the inadequacy and uncertainty of the rainfall.28 the establishment of the calitzdorp irrigation board and the construction of the calitzdorp dam the first settlers who owned riparian properties along the banks of the nels river utilized its waters for irrigation by constructing weirs of earth and stone, and even concrete, in order to divert floodwater onto their lands.29 the cape irrigation act of 1906 was concerned mainly with defining and determining the exact nature of riparian rights as it consolidated the rules of regulating the use of streams.30 for instance, the deeds of transfer of several calitzdorp farms were subject to certain servitudes. in dry seasons those farmers could irrigate their lands only for four consecutive days according to water use turns with their downstream neighbours.31 according to ertsen, water development programmes in africa included dams for electricity production and flood control, purification facilities for drinking water, the construction of piped supplies and extensive irrigation projects. whether designed by engineers working for a colonial power or the post-colonial state, all of these projects sought to control the flow of water for the purpose of economic and agricultural development.32 the year 1912 signalled the beginning of large-scale state investment in water storage infrastructure and the start of south africa’s first dam-construction boom on a national scale. molle, et al., argue that internationally by the beginning of the 20th century there was a general craze for irrigation development.33 indeed, during the first half of that century the south african irrigation authority concerned itself with the agricultural use of water. the union irrigation and conservation of water act, no. 9, was promulgated in 1912, resulting in the creation of the union irrigation department with fe kanthack as its first director. the act provided the national law regulating the use of water in public streams. special judicial machinery was created in the form of water courts for dealing with the definition of water-rights along public streams, the settlement of disputes, granting of servitudes and permits, the establishment of river and irrigation districts and boards, as well as the granting of loans to boards and individuals for the purposes of constructing irrigation works. 27 le maitre, et al., water resources in the klein karoo, p. 42. 28 df kokot, irrigation department memoir. an investigation into the evidence bearing on recent climatic changes over southern africa, government printer, pretoria, 1948, p. 42. 29 l van vuuren, in the footsteps of giants – exploring the history of south africa’s large dams, water research commission of south africa, pretoria, 2012, p. 30; momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, pp. 49-50; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 129. 30 colony of the cape of good hope, acts of parliament. session of 1906, being the third session of the eleventh parliament, cape times limited, cape town, 1906, pp. 5138-5177; h thompson, water law. a practical approach to resource management and the provision of services, juta & co ltd, cape town, 2006, p. 52. 31 hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 13. 32 w ertsen, “controlling the farmer: colonial and post-colonial irrigation interventions in africa”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4, no. 1, july 2008, p. 210. 33 quoted by musemwa, water scarcity and the colonial state, p. 81. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 193 importantly, the act underlined government policy to foster private and cooperative enterprise rather than to undertake extensive state schemes. it also confirmed the government’s almost exclusive focus on water for agricultural use. riparian owners (i.e. farmers) would be encouraged to establish an irrigation district under the 1912 act for the purpose of undertaking the scheme as a cooperative work financed under an irrigation loan. these loans were granted for up to thirty years and could only be obtained from the irrigation department. the objective of this act was the catalyst for much of the later irrigation development and agricultural prosperity in south africa.34 during the 1890s the member of parliament for oudtshoorn, mr gc olivier, began to lobby for the establishment of the nels river irrigation scheme at calitzdorp in order to protect the local fruit farms against possible water shortages. in 1893 the first trial pits were dug to test bedrock stability and water flow measurements were done for constructing a dam, but the local farmers were not prepared to pay more than £2 10s per morgen for water tariffs. it was envisaged that the proposed dam would irrigate 1 800 morgen (1540.80 ha) of which 1 200 morgen (1027.20 ha) was earmarked for the gamka plains south of the town. according to the draft bill it was estimated that the whole scheme would cost in the vicinity of £50 000 which was apparently approved by the cape parliament. however, the outbreak of the anglo boer war in 1899 and the subsequent economic depression led to a postponement of the proposed project. by 1912 a petition was signed by bl saayman and 67 other riparian farmers, requesting the union parliament to declare land along the nels river as an irrigation district under the new act. on 11 june 1912 about sixty farmers met with mr te scaife, the hydraulic circle engineer for the region, in the coronation hall in calitzdorp, to discuss the issue. according to a 1911 report by fe kanthack, the director of the irrigation department, the proposed dam with two main canals, one on each side of the river, would bring about 700 morgen (599.20 ha) under irrigation and also increase the existing water supply of the 450 morgen (385.20 ha) already under river irrigation. the calitzdorp irrigation board (cib) was finally proclaimed in august 1912. on 1 november 1912 the following persons were elected as the first members of the cib: bl saayman (chairperson), mj fouché, jj geyser, djj nel, js olivier and jn pretorius. the cib thus became one of the first irrigation boards to be established under the new irrigation act of 1912.35 on 1 december 1912 cc brink was appointed as the first cib secretary at £6 per month.36 34 aw carruthers, official year book of the union of south africa and of basutoland, bechuanaland protectorate, and swaziland, no. 14, 1931-1932, the government printing and stationery office, pretoria, 1933, p. 339; van vuuren, in the footsteps of giants, pp.66, 68; ld hobbs and rf phélines, water 75, erudita publications (pty) ltd, johannesburg, 1975, pp. 31,33, 39. 35 archives of the department of water and sanitation, government gazette, 19.11.1912, p. 1200 (notice no. 1787 of 1912, calitzdorp irrigation board, cape); archives of the calitzdorp irrigation board (hereafter cib), minutes of meeting held in the court room, calitzdorp, 1.11.1912; ibid., notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op den 29ste november 1912; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 129; pa taylor, “calitzdorp dam”, sa irrigation magazine, 15 september 1914, p. 156; anon., “calitzdorpdam – sa se eerste beton besproeiingsdam”, the civil engineer in south africa, vol. 28. no. 11, november 1986, p. 449; fa venter, water, afrikaanse pers-boekhandel, n.p., 1970, p. 313. 36 cib, notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op den 13de december 1912. visser 194 1913 was an eventful year for calitzdorp. not only did the town receive full municipal status, but a suitable bedrock foundation was found at besemkop, 4 km north of the town. therefore the construction of the nels river dam, or calitzdorp dam as it is generally being referred to in the literature, commenced on 1 november 1913. mr. rj garratt from britstown was appointed as resident engineer at £700 per annum and the cib applied for an initial government loan of £65 000 to finance the building of the dam and the irrigation works. construction hours on the dam site were from 6am until 6pm on weekdays, with half an hour breakfast and an hour lunch break, and from 6am until 2pm on saturdays but at times had to be altered as a result of the serious midday heat in summer. the dam was designed by the union irrigation department and its features, such as the aesthetic arches and cornices, show a remarkable resemblance to the architectural design of the kamanassie dam east of oudtshoorn, which was completed in 1923.37 because of the first world war and the resultant economic depression which brought the collapse of the ostrich feather industry, many problems were experienced in the construction of the nels river dam. cement deliveries were at times so infrequent as to cause serious delays. from 1915 onwards, the supplier of dam materials, prince vincent co. of oudtshoorn, could not obtain sufficient supplies of cement from abroad anymore and had to turn to pretoria portland cement co. other construction material became more expensive than the original prices tendered for and construction wood became almost unattainable, which also caused construction delays. the water supply to the works was often precariously low. faults were discovered in the foundation rock and the foundation excavation eventually cost far more than estimated. consequently, the cib was forced to apply for an additional government loan of £25 000 and in september 1916 for another £30 000. another difficulty was the refusal of the calitzdorp divisional council to take over the road deviation constructed by the cib as a substitute for that portion of the calitzdorp-groenfontein road eventually submerged by the dam. this refusal created great inconvenience to construction methods, as the public road in use prior to being submerged, passed through the busiest spot on the construction works.38 at least a number of sub-contractors were contracted to transport supplies such as sand, stone and cement and the circulation of money due to the 37 cib, notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op 14 februari 1913; ibid., notulen van eene buitengewone vergadering gehouden op 7 augustus 1913; ibid., notulen eene speciale vergadering gehouden op 26 september 1913; ibid., notulen van eenen gewone vergadering gehouden op 13 october 1913; ibid., notulen van eene speciale vergadering gehouden op 4 november 1914; taylor, “calitzdorp dam”, pp. 156, 160; anon., “calitzdorpdam”, p. 449; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, pp. 130, 135; roux, piet strydom, p. 67; roux, huisvriend, p. 168; venter, water, p. 313. hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 132 and roux, huisvriend, p. 132 erroneously indicate the commencement of construction on the nels river dam as 1912. with regard to the construction of the kamanassie dam, see van vuuren, in the footsteps of giants, pp. 83-85; venter, water, pp. 315-316 and jm jordaan (ed.), large dams and water systems in south africa, sancold, n.p., 1994, p. 38 cib, notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op 9 februari 1914; ibid., notulen eenen vergadering gehouden op 10 mei 1915; ibid., notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op 31 january 1916; ibid., notulen van eene buitengewone vergadering gehouden op 22 februari 1916; notulen eenen vergadering gehouden op 13 maart 1916; ibid., notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op 11 september 1916; ibid., notulen eenen vergadering gehouden op 13 november 1916; western cape archives and records service (hereafter wcars), archives of the provincial administration (hereafter pas), vol. no.4/439, ref. a10; taylor, “calitzdorp dam”, p. 160. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 195 dam construction contributed to alleviate the dire socio-economic circumstances which had developed in calitzdorp as a result of the prevailing economic depression.39 the calitzdorp dam was completed in 1918 and overflowed for the first time on 19 march 1922. the dam is constructed as a mass concrete gravity wall containing about 110 000 mᶟ tons of concrete. its maximum thickness at the bottom is 22.6 m and its top thickness is 2.5 m. the length of the wall is 213m and its height 34.1 m. at full supply the capacity of the dam is 5.9 million m³ and covers a surface of 58 ha while its catchment converge a surface area of 170 km². according to various sources, the still operational calitzdorp dam was the first, and therefore oldest mass concrete storage dam in south africa built for irrigation purposes.40 although construction was successful, financially it was a gross miscalculation. the final costs soared from the initial estimate of £65 000 to £168 053 eventually, which was way above the cib’s financial ability to repay; this compelled the government to reduce the repayment and interest rates.41 in 1934 the minister for agriculture and forestry apparently put the irrigation scheme under the administrative control of a select committee on irrigation matters for some time.42 the cib and the provision of water to the calitzdorp municipality to c. 1950 since the town’s founding, the source of calitzdorp’s drinking water had been a furrow diverted from the nels river, and rain water was also harvested through sink or cement tanks.43 and as early as 1908 the village management board declared “that a serious and dangerous pollution of the water in the nels river takes place”, e.g. as a result of night soil pits and closets being erected too close to the river. the washing of clothes in the river also contributed to the pollution problem.44 in addition, the unhealthy situation of an open furrow 39 taylor, “calitzdorp dam”, p. 163; roux, piet strydom, pp. 67, 69; cib, notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op 10 juli 1916. 40 taylor, “calitzdorp dam”, pp.155-156, 158; anon., “calitzdorpdam”, pp. 449, 452; venter, water, p. 313; roux, piet strydom, p. 82; roux, huisvriend, p. 180. although other similar dams were built before the calitzdorp dam such as the woodhead dam (1897) and the hely-hutchinson dam (1904) on table mountain, sand river dam (1905), the bulk river dam (1907), the bongolo dam (1908) near queenstown and the hell’s gate dam (1910) near uitenhage, they were either reservoirs for drinking water or stone masonry dams. see jordaan, large dams and water systems, pp. 128-129, 220, 234 and van vuuren, in the footsteps of giants, pp. 48, 51-54, 59-60; hobbs and phélines, water 75, p. 201 and communiqué from l van vuuren, 18.6. 2015. 41 union of south africa, s.c. 3a-’34, second report of the select committee on irrigation matters, cape times limited, cape town, 21 may 1914, pp. 8-9; unie van suid-afrika, s.c. 3 – ’35, verslag van die gekose komitee oor besproeiingsake, cape times beperk, kaapstad, 28 maart 1935, p. xxxvi; cdh braine, “irrigation problems in south africa. the case for small schemes”, the sun & agricultural journal of sa, august 1914, p. 53; taylor, “calitzdorp dam”, p. 164; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, pp. 130-131; roux, piet strydom, p. 84. see also wcars, archives of the calitzdorp divisional council (hereafter 3 or 4/cdp), 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/1, spesiale vergadering gehou op 2 februarie 1934, p. 249. 42 see cib, notule van vergadering gehou op 8 desember 1934; ibid., notule van die eerste vergadering van die raad gehou op die 18de desember 1934. 43 roux, huisvriend, p. 188; momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, p. 90. 44 wcars, pas, vol. no. 2/319, ref. l73c, correspondence: medical officer of health – village management board calitzdorp, april 1908; ibid., pas, vol. no.2/319, ref. l73a, memorandum: medical officer of health, 15 june 1908; ibid., 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/1, notulen eenen vergadering gehouden c. mei 1913, p. 190. visser 196 conveying water for domestic purposes to the town of calitzdorp was prone to harmful organisms causing periodical epidemics such as enteric and typhoid fever within the municipal boundaries from 1915 onwards.45 illustration 2 the dam wall stabilised in 1991 (source: author’s private collection) not surprisingly, therefore, the town clerk of the calitzdorp municipality approached the cib about the possibility of providing water from the dam to the town in january 1914 already, in order to improve the undesirable water supply system.46 in may 1915 the cib secretary inquired from the director of irrigation whether the board was warranted to provide water for domestic purposes from the irrigation scheme to the municipality. the cib farmers also had be consulted about the municipal request.47 the cib agreed and was prepared to act as a water company to provide water to municipality at an average of 45 000 gallons (204 545.45 litre) per day at 6d per 1000 gallons (4545.45 litre), but made it clear that 45 see wcars, 3/cdp, vo. no. 1/1/1/2, notulen van een vergadering gehouden op 4 april 1918; ibid., wad, vol. 617, no. 925/mi, correspondence: e fincham – director of irrigation, 4 september 1929, pp. 2, 7-8, 18; ibid., pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: hh hudson – assistant medical officer of health, 30 january 1915, pp. 1-3; ibid., pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: acting secretary for the interior – provincial secretary, 16 february 1916; ibid., pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: provincial secretary – calitzdorp mayor, c. march 1915. 46 cib, notulen eenen vergadering gehouden op 19 januari 1914; ibid., notulen eenen vergadering gehouden op 14 juni 1915; wcars, pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: jwk maree – secretary cib, 27 april 1915; ibid., 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/1, speciale vergadering gehouden op 17 april 1915, p. 331. 47 cib, notulen van eene buitengewone vergadering gehouden op 17 mei 1915. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 197 water would only be provided if available. these resolutions were also approved by the irrigation department, although kanthack, the director of irrigation, explained that under the provisions of the 1912 irrigation act the cib could not serve as a water company and undertook the construction of a water reticulation system on behalf of the municipality.48 however, a long and unsavoury dispute developed between the cib and the calitzdorp municipality over the water tariffs to be paid by the latter. the municipality maintained that it was also riparian to the nels river. it was argued that the owners of the farm buffelsvlei (on which the town of calitzdorp was established), and therefore also the municipal council, were entitled to “the normal flow” of the nels river. according to the council the cib had no right to sell water to the municipality but the latter would be prepared to pay for the storage costs of its portion of nels river water in the calitzdorp dam. based on its own calculations the council was prepared to pay 2d per 1000 gallons (4545.45 litre) of water.49 by march 1918 the dispute seemed to have been stalled into a deadlock between the two parties concerned and in correspondence between government officials arbitration on the matter was suggested.50 by 1920 the municipality considered purchasing the uppermost portion of the farm matjiesgoedvlei. the farm was situated on the smits river, a tributary of the nels river north of the calitzdorp dam. it was entitled to a scheduled turn of 69 hours every fourteen days of access to water in the full stream.51 the matter was still pending by 1929. although the municipality was of the opinion that by obtaining riparian rights in the smits river it could “strengthen [its] position in any negotiations with the irrigation board with regard to the storage of water in the calitzdorp dam”, government officials doubted whether it would be legal under the 1912 irrigation act.52 unfortunately the cib minute books for the period 1917-1932, as well as other relevant municipal documents, seem to have been lost, rendering it impossible to ascertain the outcome of the cib-calitzdorp municipality water dispute of that period. according to roux the municipality’s drinking water furrow, which diverted water from the nels river below the dam, existed until 1935. in that year the cib decided to allocate 100 000 free gallons (455 m³) of water per day from the dam to the municipality for domestic purposes, subject to approval by the director of irrigation. again it was clearly stipulated that the 48 ibid., notulen eenen speciale vergadering gehouden op 17 mei 1916; ibid., notulen van eene vergadering gehouden op 10 juli 1916; wcars, 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/1, notule van gewone maandelikse vergadering op 4 augustus 1916, pp. 370-371; ibid., archives of the water affairs department (hereafter wad), vol. 617, no. 925/mi, correspondence: circle engineer – local government inspector, 22 august 1929, p. 4; ibid., wad, vol. 617, no. 925/mi, correspondence: e fincham – director of irrigation, 4 september 1929, p. 18. 49 wcars, pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: town clerk – chief local government inspector, 26 october 1917. 50 ibid., pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: magistrate –chief local government inspector, 13 march 1918. 51 ibid., pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: town clerk – chief local government inspector, 16 february 1920. 52 wcars, pas, vol. no. 2/473, correspondence: town clerk – provincial secretary, 23 april 1915; ibid., pas, vol. no. 2/473, unidentified handwritten memo, calitzdorp municipality purchase farm matjiesgoedvlei water supply, 28 april 1925; ibid., wad, vol. 617, no. 925/mi, correspondence: circle engineer – local government inspector, 22 august 1929, p. 3; ibid., correspondence e fincham – director of irrigation, 4 september 1929, p. 18. visser 198 municipal water allocation should under no circumstances interrupt any turn to use water by the board’s irrigators.53 in 1937 the firm of cb uys from heidelberg, cape province, installed a water scheme for calitzdorp to the amount of £8 000.54 however, even the new scheme to the town was not without problems. until 1992 the municipality’s water allocation was channelled rather ineffectively through an open furrow which was partly cemented and partly earthen, to a purification plant. this practice caused water losses of up to 30% per month and the municipality decided to replace it with piped water distribution between the dam and the municipal purification plant.55 during the drought periods of 1923-1927 and 1946-1947 the calitzdorp dam was almost empty with no water available for irrigation56 and which would also have a detrimental effect on the town’s water supply. this illustrates how dependent the municipality had become of cib water since the board had consented to allocate a water quota to the town for domestic use. in 1924, with less than 3.716 m of water in the dam, the newly-constructed railway line from oudtshoorn also served calitzdorp as a water lifeline when tanks with water were supplied gratis from the neighbouring town.57 the oudtshoorn municipality also supplied calitzdorp with free water in december 1927 because the water quality from the dam was very poor.58 municipal water restrictions were imposed during the drought period of 1942 and 1943.59 and during the serious drought of 1945-1947 the situation became critical again. in 1946 the calitzdorp dam was virtually empty again and placards were put up in town urging people to conserve water. the medical officer of health requested that the cib should not allocate water turns for the municipal quota below a level of 2.323 m in the dam as it would release foul water for domestic use.60 in 1947 the municipality declared a water emergency and it was decreed that all municipal water was to be used for household purposes only. pits were dug in the bed of the nels river below the dam, in efforts to obtain water usable by animals while the municipality also considered acquiring a chloride gas device for water purification.61 another water contestation between the cib and the calitzdorp municipality seems to have arisen in the aftermath of the 1945-1947 drought. the municipality obtained an advocate’s 53 roux, huisvriend, p. 188; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, p. 131; cib, notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou 12 november 1935. 54 momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, p. 90; hopkins, ned geref kerk calitzdorp, pp. 135-136; roux, piet strydom, p. 76; roux, huisvriend, p. 188. see also wcars, 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/1, notule van ‘n belastingbetalersvergadering gehou op 11 februarie 1936, p. 322; ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 4 augustus 1936, pp. 333, 349. 55 cib, correspondence: stadsklerk – sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad, 7 julie 1992. 56 momberg, regionale studie van die distrik calitzdorp, p. 53. 57 roux, piet strydom, pp. 82, 86. 58 wcars, 3cdp/1/1/1/3, gewone vergadering gehou op 1 maart 1928, p. 64; ibid., spesiale vergadering gehou op 31 desember 1927, p. 56. 59 ibid., 3/cdp), vol. no. 1/1/1/4, gewone vergadering gehou op 20 augustus 1942; ibid., 3/cpd, vol. no. 1/1/1/4, gewone vergadering gehou op 18 november 1943. 60 ibid., 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/4, gewone vergadering gehou op 21 februarie 1946; ibid., 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/4, spesiale vergadering gehou op 12 desember 1946. 61 ibid., 3/cdp, 1/1/1/4, gewone vergadering gehou op 20 februarie 1947. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 199 opinion as to the town’s riparian rights to extract water from the nels river above the calitzdorp dam. this would have been in the river’s catchment area that fell under the servitude and control of the cib.62 increasing pressure on the cib for municipal water provision, c. 1950 1994 drought conditions and water shortages, also due to further municipal needs, were main determinants in relations between the cib and the municipality between the 1950s and the early 1990s. in 1952 the municipality requested the cib for a bigger water allocation to irrigate its sports fields but this was denied.63 some impatience from the board becomes apparent in 1955 when through negligence municipal water officials did not close the sluices to the municipal reservoir during its water turn to prevent water spillage. 64 but in 1960 the municipality inaugurated the town’s public swimming pool which would use 4000 gallons (18 181.82 litre) of water monthly from the domestic water allocation. in the same year, however, drought conditions prevailed and strict water restrictions had to be imposed.65 another drought period hit the little karoo in 1966-1967 which forced the municipality to introduce water restrictions.66 the cib minutes refer to the municipality approaching the board with regard to a “gentleman’s agreement” regarding water usage for domestic purposes, which was probably a request for more leniency in terms of the municipal water allocation. but once again this request was turned down because the cib was also imposing water restrictions on agricultural irrigators since september 1966.67 indeed, on 22 december the board declared an emergency in terms of water turns.68 a very serious drought returned to calitzdorp in 1970 and the cib minutes refer to the “desperate” drought conditions of the “most serious drought in living memory” which was of deep concern to the irrigation farmers. according to the circle engineer of the department of water affairs (as the former irrigation department was renamed in 1956) the remaining water in the dam was “in a state of neglect”. the calitzdorp farmer’s association wrote to the mp for oudtshoorn to obtain a government loan of r10 000 to cement the walls of more stretches of its canals, which would save more than 30% of the water that was oozing away through earthen furrows.69 in conjunction with these water saving measures the cib proposed that the calitzdorp municipality apply for a loan from the western cape 62 wcars, 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/4, gewone vergadering gehou op 20 maart 1947; ibid., 3/cdp, vol. no. 1/1/1/4, gewone vergadering gehou op 17 maart 1948. the outcome of the advocate’s opinion could not be obtained in the archives. 63 cib, notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 12 augustus 1952. 64 ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 13 september 1955. 65 roux, huisvriend, pp. 258, 264-268, 282. 66 ibid., p. 284. 67 cib, notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 6 desember 1966. 68 ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 22 desember 1966. 69 ibid., corresondence: calitzdorp boerevereniging – pmk le roux, 17 augustus 1970; ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 2 maart 1971. visser 200 provincial administration to lay a pipeline between the dam and the town’s water purification works.70 after the dry spell of 1974 consulting engineers submitted the following report to the town clerk with regard to the municipal water scheme: although it was entitled to 455 m³ of water the municipality utilised 365 m³ during that summer. as a result, the calitzdorp dam’s water supply almost dried up, therefore the municipality was forced to impose water restrictions. it was expected in any case that peak municipal water use would exceed the maximum of 455 m³. it became imperative that the water supply should be improved. the most important recommendation therefore was that all water turns of domestic water for the irrigation of town gardens as a portion of the municipality’s 455 m³ water allocation be terminated. this would be the most economic water saving measure.71 in november 1975 the municipality approached the cib with another request to increase its 455 m³ daily water allocation, which was refused.72 although several meetings were held between the calitzdorp municipality and the cib regarding the agreed upon daily water allocation no satisfactorily arrangement could be reached. during the 1970s it became clear that the municipal water demand increased steadily and that its quota was exceeded on almost a daily basis. relations between the two authorities became strained over the issue and the cib contemplated legal advice and even consulting the department of water affairs with regard to the continuous over-use of the municipal water quota.73 for example, where the average monthly supply of water to the municipality amounted to 25 hours in march 1953, it had increased to 54 hours by april 1978.74 some reasons remained for calitzdorp’s increasing domestic water needs. since 1978 the cib became aware of plans by the department of community development to build new homes and extend the coloured township of calitzdorp for which no extra provision had been made for water supply.75 the town’s coloured community grew from 1050 in 1951 to 2140 by 1980 – an increase of almost 100%. the daily municipal water use by 1980 was 509 m³ which exceeded its allocation from the cib by 11%. at peak periods during summer the daily water use was even as high as 727 m³. and since the 1920s five fruit processing plants, four wine-cellars and two fresh food packing stores were established in town, adding pressure on the available potable water supply. 70 new homes were built in the coloured township 70 ibid., correspondence: voorsitter calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – streeksingenieur dept. van waterwese, 1 oktober 1973. 71 ibid., correspondence: ninham shand en vennote – stadsklerk calitzdorp, 25 maart 1975. see also roux, huisvriend, p. 292. 72 cib, notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 4 november 1975. see also ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 3 februarie 1976. 73 see e.g. ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 27 julie 1976; ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 14 januarie 1977; ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 2 februarie 1978; ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 4 april 1978; ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 2 mei 1978; ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 16 junie 1978. 74 ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 10 maart 1953 and ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 4 april 1978. 75 ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 7 februarie 1978; ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 7 november 1978; ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 5 desember 1978. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 201 since the 1980s and the municipality made 50 new plots available for white dwellings. because of a lack of adequate water supply to meet these increasing demands 150 ha of irrigation land could not be utilised.76 another problem was that silt deposits were also beginning to diminish the calitzdorp dam’s capacity.77 illustration 3 section of the cemented canal 1km from the dam wall (source: author’s private collection) 76 cib, memorandum ter aanvulling van mondelingse besprekings met sy edele, sas hayward, minister van omgewingsake en visserye, 18 junie 1984; ibid., correspondence: sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – direkteur-generaal departement van waterwese, 27 januarie 1986. 77 ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 22 oktober 1980; ibid., correspondence: sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – seksie-ingenieur departement omgewingsake, 15 november 1982. visser 202 in the light of the town’s growing population, coupled with the increasing water needs and the board’s constant struggle to meet these demands, especially during the summer months, as well as recurring droughts which made the agricultural and economic position of its irrigators extremely vulnerable, the cib began to consider alternative measures to augment its limited water supply.78 apart from the above-mentioned 1973 proposal that a municipal pipeline should be laid between the dam and the town’s water purification works to maximise efficient water delivery and minimise wastage, the cib discussed as early as 1959 the possibility of raising the calitzdorp dam’s spillway to counter the silt deposits.79 alternatively, if the cost of raising the spillway would be too high, the possibility of constructing a second dam in the nels river south of the calitzdorp dam was to be considered.80 a third option was to upgrade the cib’s ageing canal system to the amount of r101 600 (1975 estimates) which should save water and minimise water losses.81 the question of upgrading the wall of the calitzdorp dam was expedited in correspondence between the department of environment affairs (responsible for dam safety), the department of water affairs and the cib. the dam’s 1912 design failed to meet modern design criteria and would probably not withstand a hundred year flood. should the wall yield under the pressure of such a flood the consequences would imply a possible loss of life. it would also be an economic disaster for calitzdorp because agriculture and related industries provided employment to more than 90% of the community. not only was the dam the only source of water for the local municipality but a disastrous flood would displace the community which would have to be resettled elsewhere. flood damage claims against the cib could be as high as r24 million. it was therefore imperative that the structural integrity of the dam wall be stabilised and secured. if the dam wall or spillway could be raised simultaneously, a larger water supply could be ensured, also for future needs, and if the unutilised 150 ha irrigation land could be cultivated through the use of water additional job opportunities would be created.82 however, the cib’s hopes for increasing the calitzdorp dam’s capacity, subsidised by the department of water affairs, were soon dashed. the department would stabilise the wall and improve the dam’s spillway to deal with abnormal floods but to raise the wall would also entail a structural strengthening at high costs. the cib already utilised more than 60% of the nels river’s annual run-off. any economic benefits to be gained by raising the dam wall would be minimal in relation to costs of doing so. the estimates for raising the dam wall by 4 m was r20 million (1990 figures) which would cost r18.7 million more than securing it. only 0.5 m³ or 12% more water would be harnessed annually. in the light of these calculations water affairs could not justify such a huge expenditure because the cost of 78 ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 7 oktober 1980. 79 ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 30 julie 1959. 80 ibid., correspondence: voorsitter calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – streeksingenieur departement van waterwese, 1 oktober 1973; ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 22 oktober 1980. 81 ibid., rt hooper, “voorlopige verslag van voorgestelde verbeterings aan die voorstelsels van die calitzdorp besproeiingsraad”, 18 februarie 1975. 82 ibid., correspondence: direkteur-generaal departement van waterwese – sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad, 11 mei 1984; ibid., correspondence: sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – direkteur-generaal departement van waterwese, 27 januarie 1986; calitzdorp museum archives, newspaper clipping: oudtshoorn courant, 29.6.1984 (damwal kan breek, hoor minister). calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 203 irrigation water would become ten times higher than any agricultural gains to be made from it. it was also clear that the cib would not be able to carry the costs of raising the dam wall. therefore water affairs saw its way open to ensure its integrity on state costs by increasing only the spillway.83 the department of water affairs’ resolve did not solve the cib’s water predicament. the cib complained that in the period 1984-1990 the calitzdorp municipality exceeded its water allocation on average by 117.270 m³ which put extra pressure on the board’s irrigators. the department acknowledged that calitzdorp, as elsewhere in the little karoo, had excellent irrigation land available but not enough water. however, water affairs somewhat annoyingly made it clear that the cib had been bickering fruitlessly for more than 40 years about improving the canal system below the dam to diminish water losses, without actually resolving the issue. the state had long since withdrawn from involvement in such work and the whole enterprise had to be planned, designed and executed by the board through a government subsidy.84 by may 1991 the department’s construction activities to improve the security of the calitzdorp dam had been completed.85 in the meantime the 1975 estimates of r101 600 to upgrade the cib canal system had risen to r1.5 million by 1992. perusal of the available archival documents reveals that there was doubt whether the cib’s irrigators would be able to pay the increased water tariffs to finance such a loan and whether an upgraded system would actually realise the availability of 25% more water. a loan to the amount of r1.5 million was secured from the land bank in 1992 but by 1997 the board struggled indeed to pay back the bonds.86 after a period of fairly abrasive correspondence between the cib and the calitzdorp municipality regarding outstanding payments for exceeding its water allocation since 1990, an amicable settlement was reached between the two entities by 1992 regarding the municipal water supply. as explained earlier, a 150 mm municipal pipeline was constructed between the dam and the town’s purifications works to replace the ineffective open furrow which caused water losses of up to 30% per month. thus, it became unnecessary to restrict municipal water according to turns of access to water as all water obtained from the calitzdorp dam would be checked by meters.87 however, the pipeline did not end the municipality’s exceeding its water allocation.88 83 cib, correspondence: direkteur-generaal departement van waterwese – voorsitter calitzdorp besproeiingsraad, 15 mei 1990. 84 ibid., correspondence: calitzdorp beproeiingsraad – stadsklerk calitzdorp munisipaliteit, c. 1990; ibid., correspondence: jg geyser – streeksdirekteur departement van waterwese, 4 julie 1990; ibid., corrrespondence: streeksdirekteur departement van waterwese – voorsitter calitzdorp besproeiingsraad, 19 julie 1990. 85 ibid., correspondence: direkteur-generaal waterwese and bosbou – voorsitter calitzdorp besproeiingsraad, 28 mei 1991. 86 see ibid., notule van ‘n algemene vergadering gehou op 16 maart 1992; ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 16 maart 1992; ibid., correspondence: streekdirekteur departement van waterwese – voorsitter bak, 26 maart 1991, pp. 1-7; ibid., notule van ‘n spesiale vergadering gehou op 21 oktober 1992; ibid., notule van die jaarvergadering gehou op 3 maart 1997; ibid., notule van die jaarvergadering gehou op 19 november 1998. 87 ibid., notule van ’n maandvergadering gehou op 7 julie 1992; ibid., correspondence: stadsklerk calitzdorp munisipaliteit – sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad, 7 julie 1992; ibid., visser 204 changed relations: the cib and municipal liaisons in the post-apartheid era the year 1994 brought an end to discriminatory practices and white rule in south africa which would profoundly affect local governance as well. henceforth local government representation and municipal councils would be multi-racial. but local government reforms had mixed successes. service delivery deteriorated on a large scale and many smaller rural town councils began to face bankruptcy.89 these developments would also imply a change in the relationship between die cib and local government in calitzdorp. although this relationship had been abrasive at times up to 1994, issues regarding municipal water allocation and usage and payment of water tariffs had usually been settled in a practical way and to mutual agreement. the interests of the all-white cib and town council were intertwined in a community whose existence depended on agricultural economy supported predominantly by irrigation. as a rule many cib members actually stay in the town, and were at times simultaneously members of the municipal council as well, and were also dependent on the municipal water provided by their own board.90 thus, with regard to the municipal water allocation mr jm geyser, a former cib chairperson, stated in 1993 that people were entitled to water first, then irrigators.91 however, due to the administrative problems experienced by rural town councils in particular, new district municipalities and municipal boundaries were demarcated through the local government transition act, no. 209 of 1993 and the local government municipal demarcation act of 1998.92 after the municipal elections of 2000, 843 municipal councils were replaced by 6 metropolitan, 241 local and 52 district councils.93 the calitzdorp municipality was dissolved after 88 years and all executive and administrative municipal powers shifted to ladismith. this town is situated 50 km west of calitzdorp and became the seat of the new kannaland district municipality under which calitzdorp would resort henceforth. however, since its inception the kannaland district municipality was marred by political instability. a succession of single political party and coalition rule, which involved the democratic alliance, the african national congress (anc) and the independent civic organisation of south africa, led to inefficient administration and even corruption charges.94 correspondence: sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – stadsklerk calitzdorp munisipaliteit, 8 julie 1992; ibid., memorandum van ‘n ooreenkoms, 3 september 1992. 88 see e.g. cib, notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 1 junie 1993. 89 f pretorius (red.), geskiedenis van suid-afrika. van voortye tot vandag, tafelberg, kaapstad, 2012, p. 566. see also roux, huisvriend, pp. 264, 268. 90 private interview: j fourie, chairperson cib – w visser, 30 october 2013. see also wcars, wad, vol. 617, no. 925/mi, correspondence: e fincham – director of irrigation, 4 september 1929, pp. 18-19; ibid., pas. vol no. 2/473, correspondence: fe kanthack – provincial secretary, 14 july 1915; ibid., pas, vol. 2/473, correspondence: jwk maree – provincial secretary, 28 july 1915. 91 cib, notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 1 junie 1993. 92 information provided by dr d brand, extraordinary senior lector, school for public leadership, university of stellenbosch, 24 june 2015. 93 pretorius, geskiedenis van suid-afrika, p. 566. 94 see roux, huisvriend, p. 378 and https://wikipedia.org/wiki/kannaland_local_municipality [accessed on 24.6.2015]. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 205 these changes had a profound impact on the community of calitzdorp and the cib. way back in april 1985 already the cib informed the then calitzdorp municipality that its supply would be cut off unless the water account were settled.95 this threat was reiterated in 2006.96 a greater demand for cib water was also created when the national anc government erected new homes for the coloured community of calitzdorp according to its reconstruction and development programme. however, these homes were built between 1994 and 1997 without doing a proper environmental impact assessment or consulting with the cib about the availability of water supplies. the municipal pipeline between the calitzdorp dam and the town continued to be problematic after 1994 despite meter monitoring. although 1000 kl may be measured at the dam at times, only 900 kl reach the municipal purification works due to pipe leakages which could be ascribed to lack of proper maintenance.97 at present, because of inefficient administration in the kannaland municipality and its poor communication to the cib, water bills are being paid erratically to the board.98 a lack of mutual trust and understanding developed and relations between the two institutions became even more strained. because of the lack of any institutional knowledge about the history of the cib and the historical water agreements between the board and the former calitzdorp municipality, kannaland municipality officials began to question the validity of these arrangements. since 2013 the two institutions began to communicate to one another through their respective attorneys, while the kannaland municipality began to refuse to pay for irrigation-water from the calitzdorp dam.99 conclusion according to franco, et al., land and water are interconnected. in many parts of sub-saharan africa, such as the little karoo, rainfall is too erratic for high investment in agricultural production without securing access to reliable water.100 the existence of calitzdorp and its agricultural district was always determined by the availability of water or the lack thereof and its vulnerability to recurring droughts – a salient feature of the region. the cib and the calitzdorp dam played a pivotal part in the town and the agricultural community’s survival and economic development. until the end of apartheid the cib was the sole controller of water distribution from the calitzdorp dam. legally the dam is in the unique situation of being one of probably only a few of its kind in south africa. it belongs entirely to the scheduled farmers of the cib, the latter also being a corporate body. in addition, some 95 cib, notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 18 april 1995; ibid., correspondence: sekretaris calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – hoof uitvoerende beampte calitzdorp munisipaliteit, 26 april 1995. 96 ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 9 maart 2006. 97 see ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 25 mei 1994; ibid., notule van ‘n gewone vergadering gehou op 21 junie 1995; ibid., correspondence: jo fourie – m hoogbaard, 28 november 2012; roux, huisvriend, p. 377; private interview: p van rensburg, former town clerk calitzdorp municipality – w visser, 31 october 2013. 98 private interview: n bailey, cib administrator – w visser, 31 october 2013. 99 see cib, correspondence: m hoogbaard – n bailey, 22 mei 2013; ibid., correspondence: n bailey – m hoogbaard, 19 junie 2013; ibid., correspondence: m hoogbaard – g whitehead, 27 julie 2013; ibid., correspondence: m hoogbaard – calitzdorp besproeiingsraad, 16 augustus 2013. 100 franco, et al., “the global politics of water grabbing”, pp. 1652-1653. visser 206 farmers have a perpetual servitude on 400 000 acre-feet (493200000 mᶟ) of water in the dam for irrigation purposes.101 however, post-apartheid legislation has changed the nature of water ownership in south africa which also affects the nature of water contestations between the cib and the calitzdorp and kannaland municipalities. under the water act, no. 54 of 1956, a policy of water supply management was established but under the national water act (nwa), no. 36 of 1998, there was a shift from supply management to demand management.102 illustration 4 irrigated lands on the gamka plains south of calitzdorp (source: author’s private collection) through the nwa the roman dutch and english common-law base of the south african water law dispensation, linking water-use rights inextricably to land access, had been wiped out. water as a natural resource was removed from the sphere of private property.103 the nwa establishes an all-inclusive principle for all water resources on the need to protect basic human and ecological needs. olowu explains that to this end, the nwa creates a “reserve” which is meant to implement the right to access to water guaranteed in the 1996 south 101 see cib, correspondence: voorsitter calitzdorp besproeiingsraad – voorsitter calitzdorp inwonersverening, 5 april 2005 and wcars, wad, vol. 617, no. 925/mi, correspondence: town clerk calitzdorp municipality – director of irrigation, 2 july 1934. 102 lumby, et al., “the management of south africa’s water resources”, p. 83. 103 e van der schyff and g viljoen, “water and the public trust doctrine – a south african perspective”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4, no. 2, december 2008, pp. 340341. calitzdorp irrigation board and the calitzdorp municipality, 19122013 td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 186-207. 207 african constitution. this reserve primarily creates a basic human needs reserve, which provides for the essential needs of individuals served by the water resource in question and includes water for drinking and other domestic purposes. this established right by the nwa regime supersedes all other uses of water. in other words, the amount of water required for the reserve must be guaranteed before water resources are allocated to other water users,104 such as irrigators. the prognosis by le maitre, et al., is that the projected trends of water balance for the little karoo will lead to increasing deficits by 2025.105 and according to hedden and cilliers, south africans currently use 27% more municipal water than could be expected given the size of the country’s urban population. this could imply that more water from may be reallocated from irrigation to other (urban) use in certain areas in future.106 although van der schyff and viljoen state that legal title to water as public property now vests in the state, they also argue that the government’s title to the country’s water resources is severely restricted.107 the cib, which obtained rights to the water in the calitzdorp dam as proclaimed by the irrigation act of 1912, had no statutory obligations to provide water to the calitzdorp municipality or to its successor, the kannaland municipality. the board granted a free water allocation voluntarily on request by the municipality in 1916. according to cib estimates this means that each calitzdorp inhabitant (2015 census) receives about 55 kl free water on a daily basis.108 this article has emphasised the crucial importance of the calitzdorp dam as the only sustainable water source to the town109 and as a prerequisite for a viable agricultural economy in the district. however, in july 2015 the parliamentary portfolio committee on water and sanitation declared its intention that a national water master plan should be completed as “a tool to remedy the largely skewed history in relations to water rights in the country which remains the basis for most problems within the sector”. the committee also stated that it was its “considered view that despite various interventions through policy and legislation the country’s water rights regime remains largely skewed leaving government at the mercy of private owners of this resource.” the committee is of the view that there is a need for a speedy review of the national water act and services act to address the issues of inequity within the sector “to be in line with the constitutional requirement of water being a human right”.110 should local government claim a larger water allocation from the cib by statutory means in future, due to population growth and the hydrological insecurity of the region, the contestations over ownership of this water source could well be tested in the constitutional court, which could probably be the first of its kind. 104 d olowu, “privatisation and water governance in africa: implications of a rights-based approach”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4, no. 1, july 2008, p. 79. 105 le maitre, et al., “water resources in the klein karoo”, p. 47. 106 hedden and cilliers, “parched prospects”, pp. 8, 11. 107 van der schyff and viljoen, “water and the public trust doctrine”, pp. 344, 346. 108 communique from mrs n bailey, cib administrator, 25.6.2015. 109 see wcars, wad, vol. 617, no. 925/mi, correspondence: town clerk calitzdorp municipality – director of irrigation, 2 july 1934. 110 south africa: skewed water rights the real challenge. http://allafrica.com/stories/201507160586.html [accessed on 20.7.2015]. abstract introduction research design results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) pieter h. du toit department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa lumbani tshotetsi department of family medicine, faculty of health sciences, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa sabatine carvalio-zongo department of family medicine, faculty of health sciences, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa melissa olifant department of family medicine, faculty of health sciences, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa bonolo mpholo department of family medicine, faculty of health sciences, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa murray louw department of family medicine, faculty of health sciences, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation du toit ph, tshotetsi l, carvalio-zongo s, olifant m, mpholo b, louw m. formation of professionalism: a courtship between academic staff and prospective clinical associates. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1174. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1174 original research formation of professionalism: a courtship between academic staff and prospective clinical associates pieter h. du toit, lumbani tshotetsi, sabatine carvalio-zongo, melissa olifant, bonolo mpholo, murray louw received: 15 nov. 2021; accepted: 08 mar. 2022; published: 28 apr. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: the study was conducted to the background of a qualification in medical clinical practice offered at a faculty of health sciences at a university in south africa. aim: the aim of the study was to determine how the theory of whole brain® thinking informed our professionalism and its relevance to transforming self and practice. setting: the study was conducted in the context of a higher education institution, the university of pretoria. the focus is specifically on the bachelor of clinical medical practice (bcmp). it has been offered since 2009. methods: participatory action research was the design of choice. the participatory part culminated in working as a collective in a scholarly community of practice. what is reported is the use of the herrmann brain dominance instrument® (hbdi®) as a research instrument. it was used to determine the thinking preferences of the lecturers. each lecturer obtained their brain profile that served as baseline data for self-study in the future. the profiling revealed their strengths and areas that they needed to work on – as individuals and as a team. results: the theory of whole brain® thinking was identified as an enabler towards transforming self and practice. this transformation involved both lecturers and prospective clinical associates. conclusion: the value of the study mainly lies in the development of the professionalism of the lecturers. linked to professionalism is the value of using the theory of whole brain® thinking that primarily informed the teaching practice of the lecturers. and secondary to this, the students’ authentic clinical practice, which included patients and simulated practice where peers act as patients. the study contributed to the scholarship of teaching and learning in a medical clinical context and to participatory action research – both interrogated from a whole brain® perspective for the first time in the context in question. keywords: clinical associates; early-career academics; participatory action research; professionalism; scholarly community of practice; scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl); self-study; thinking preferences; whole brain® thinking. introduction this article has been written from a value perspective. what we value as academic staff in relation to our lecturer and scholar identity formation resonates with values stipulated by the university of pretoria.1 three layers of value can be identified.1 firstly, the social value of the study that is called the ethnographic2,3 value, constitutes a scholarly community of practice with continuous professional development as aim. the idea of a community of practice was initiated by a group of lecturers teaching first-year students enrolled in the bachelor of clinical medical practice (bcmp). the programme resides in the department of family medicine in the faculty of health sciences at the university of pretoria. members of the department of family medicine responsible for first-year modules decided to engage with educational professional development opportunities they have initiated themselves.4 different initiatives have been given life since the introduction of the qualification in 2009. communities of practice were formed to respond to some of the initiatives. for our sub-projects that form part of an overarching project, the authors opted for using the construct ‘scholarly community of practice’ as suggested by fringe5 instead of community of practice that is commonly used. our projects are initiative driven opposed to problem driven. secondly, the social/ethnographic value relates to the reciprocal learning that enriches the professionalism of both the prospective clinical associates and lecturers. it entails learning from one another. as lecturers we learn from one another and from our students. our students learn from us and their peers. our scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) – so-called scientific value – extends to authentic real-life settings. the authors follow a scholarly approach to our teaching practice. by using a scholarly lens to investigate practice, they are able continuously to construct living theory, following whitehead6 and huxtable and whitehead.7 the action research design is aligned with our approach to scholarship development. our aim was to act as role models of being transformational when it concerns our teaching practice – thus creating exemplary practices. more often than not scholars use constructs such as best-practice and evidence-based practice. fitting our article and context best is the reference to evidence-based practice in both teacher education and the health care sector by diery et al.8 they highlighted the importance of improving patients’ well-being by integrating clinical expertise with the best available clinical evidence. this is extrapolated to our context with the first-year students and their clinical skills practice. moreover, it is extrapolated to our teaching practice: teaching expertise has been integrated with the best evidence of student well-being. creating a culture of well-being includes lecturer well-being. part of well-being is self-awareness. we used a single questionnaire – the herrmann brain dominance instrument® (hbdi®)9 – as a research method and a means to identify a single aspect of wellness. the instrument identifies an individual’s preferences for modes of thinking. being aware of one’s thinking preferences is emancipatory. being aware of the thinking preferences of members of a team such as a scholarly community of practice enriches one’s sotl. thinking preferences are integral to well-being and well-being integral to lecturer-identity and clinical associate-identity formation. we question the insight the higher education community, including ourselves, have about the use of the principles of contemporary learning theories in our teaching practice. for example, the notion of best practice in teaching in higher education is continually under scrutiny by scholars such as zabalza beraza10 and fook.11 these scholars seem to have a constructivist view of what best teaching practice entails. however, other scholars of higher education such as bidabadi et al.12 sketch a very faded picture of what best practice means. they advocate using learning theories that will promote self-regulated and independent students, following a student-centred approach. amongst other constructs that complement being and becoming an independent thinker, they refer to metacognition. this essential construct, metacognition, is then blurred when they add the construct training – metacognitive training. how would one train a one-sided lecturer-centred approach, to have students become knowlegable about metacognition and have them use the principles if the principles of metacognition are negated within the learning process? at face value, this paradox shouts betrayal. furthermore, bidabadi, isfahani, rouhollahi and khalili12 referred to using conceptual maps to promote student centredness and quote an interviewee who was open to making public his or her (best) practice, stating that he or she always first gives a ‘5 to 10 min summary of the last topic to students if possible, and then build up the new lesson upon the previous one’. the authors consider the construct lecture as appropriate to university teaching instead of lesson. they would think that a constructivist approach should complement metacognition. this revelation by the interviewee indicated that a lecturer-centred approach was followed – what could have been done by the students themselves was now being done on their behalf. in this way, the value of metacognition becomes redundant. in our view, this is a perfect example of what best practice is not, cannot and should not be. furthermore, the question arises: is the construct best practice the best? should we not agree with the given discourse, the question is: what is our stance? what is reported is only a fraction of the sub-project on the thinking preferences of the lecturers. the theory on whole brain® thinking®9,13,14,15 is briefly introduced. the instrument that complements the research is the hbdi®.9 apart from other learning theories this theory forms the epicentre of most of the sub-projects we are currently conducting or projects that are being conceptualised or planned. whole brain® thinking is one of the learning theories used in our teaching practice and research and is included in the construct frame. the purpose of conducting this research is consequently briefly highlighted. aim it is common in traditional research that a research problem that serves as a point of departure for a research project is identified. the authors opted for a different way of commencing with conducting research projects. they came across innovative ideas that they wanted to ‘try out’, as mcniff16 suggested. instead of engaging a research problem as a point of departure, we engaged an ‘innovative research idea’.17 as a group of scholars they engage with an innovative idea and experiment with the idea. action research16,18 fits this way of thinking. as implementing a new idea is experimental and more often than not intuitive, it was realised that our research design would complement our stance. participatory action research creates a sense of allowing for spontaneity and fluidness that mcniff and whitehead19 refer to. in order to activate our enquiry minds, the authors opted for formulating inquiry statements instead of research questions. what the authors wanted to explore from the commencement of this project is stated next. this study provides an insight into different modes of thinking, using the hbdi®9 as diagnostic means can be used to enrich and sustain our transformational teaching practice construct frame. consequently, the construct frame that pertains to teaching and learning has been outlined. however, the outline is not rigid, boxing in our thoughts and insight, but rather streams throughout our scholarly discourse, allowing the reader to construct their own frame of mind. construct frame it is common to find reference to theoretical or conceptual frameworks in traditional research. the epistemological grounding of our discourse is constructivism. therefore, using construct frame as sub-heading makes sense. the construct whole brain® thinking9,13,14,15 forms the epicentre of our study and discourse. the new meaning that has been constructed, thus far and the daily meaning making are in line with the thinking of de boer and her co-workers15 and smit20 who use the construct whole brain® constructivism. the authors have added epistemology to this construct. it is rich in meaning: whole brain® constructivist epistemology. other constructs are derived from the respective learning theories. important constructs pertaining to our developing professionalism are self-regulated professional learning,20 modes of thinking,9,13,14,15 self-empowerment17 and living theory.6,7 the authors construct meaning where insight or new meaning is absent in discourse on transforming teaching practice or transforming educational research. the absence is apparent in relevant discourse platforms such as conferences and scholarly publications. action learning21,22 is employed by the students whilst we conduct action research. action learning promotes attributes such as confidence, resilience, conflict resolution, team work, self-empowerment, leadership skills, self-efficacy, critical thinking and problem solving. these attributes that masango-muzindutsi et al.22 advocated are in alignment with our discourse. this alignment accentuates the alignment between, inter alia, action learning, metacognition, self-regulated learning and reflexivity that is visible in the use of principles that are closely related. all of these notions of quality learning expect students and/or professionals to plan, execute the plan, observe what is happening and reflect on the process and the outcome. in this way, individuals enable themselves to re-plan for innovation and transformation. as we advocate transformational practice as part of our professionalism, we expect our students to become transformational clinical associates – professionals in their own right and own context. as we promote a student-centred approach in our authentic teaching practice, we expect our students to advance a patient-centred approach in authentic clinical settings. moreover, we advocate a whole brain® approach9,13,14,15 to both student and patient contexts. this study is the first of its kind in a clinical associate professional development setting at national and international levels. it is innovative in its use of the principles of preferences for different modes of thinking to transform both teaching and clinical practice. the transformation is established as whole brain® teaching practice and whole brain® clinical practice. moreover, the study is innovative insofar as the same principles enrich action research and participatory action research. new meaning making gave birth to constructs coined by du toit (cited in smit),20 such as whole brain® action research (wbar) and whole brain® participatory action research (wbpar). the authors have constructed a new meaning of best practice, based on new insight gained whilst engaging with literature, taking part in discourse on the subject and contemplating their practice. during our deliberations the authors came to realise that best is not good enough. we contemplated constructs such as whole brain® facilitating of learning and whole brain® assessment. these constructs suggested innovative and transformational thinking about teaching practice. our living theory6,7 lens allowed us continuously to construct new meaning. a dynamic process of meaning making emerged based on our lived, authentic experiences. constructs such as cutting-edge started to surface. it was soon realised that the authors cannot claim to be cutting-edge academics because the infrastructure such as the laboratories used for the purpose of mastering clinical skills may not complement such a view of self. our meaning making became a whole brain® process in itself – in our view a transformational process. our teaching practice gradually was transformed by using the principles of whole brain® thinking. similarly, the authors expect their students to become whole brain® meaning makers. as prospective professionals they have to make meaning of what a transformed clinical practice entails. as the authors form an integral part of their teaching practice and students of their clinical practice, the transformational intent is focused on an intra-, inter-personal and a structural dimension. the latter includes managerial and administrative dimensions of practice that are distinct to teaching or clinical practice. the intrapersonal dimension refers to the self – the one that needs to be transformed.23 the interpersonal relates to the members of the community of practice who are equally responsible for one another’s transformation. as individual professionals, the authors transformed their own practice – what one does when being on one’s own with students. students transform the self and own practice – when being on their own with patients and being part of a multidisciplinary team. as scholars of teaching and learning, the authors form a community of practice; as a group of ‘clinical associates’, students form communities of practice as li et al.24 highlighted and as a collective, they transform the curriculum with the input of the students and based on what they learn from them. our insight into what curriculum entails is beyond the traditional view of curriculum as being a structured content-driven plan. in our view, a content-focused curriculum is an oversimplification of a complex construct. therefore, we appreciate the work performed by hicks.25 from this study, we learn that our meaning making of what curriculum constitutes is neither simple nor complex. our view of curriculum is holistic. it includes infrastructure, including educational media and platforms for online and virtual modes of learning; study material in different formats compiled by ourselves and students, such as readers and power point slides; methods of facilitating and assessing learning, including peer teaching and peer and self-assessment; strategies for ensuring the well-being of self and students; and, unavoidable, content (what) and the how and related-learning outcomes. the how of learning undeniably includes learning theories such as learning-centred approaches, constructivism, self-regulated learning, whole brain® thinking – all touched on by smit.20 it includes human capital – assets such as the lecturer and students and many more – all aspects that constitute learning environments with distinct learning cultures. as an overarching umbrella the construct whole brain® curriculum resonates with what we are, what we intend to be – our becoming as slabbert, de kock, hattingh26 put it – and what we do with what we have. to ensure the sustainability of our transformational practice the scholarly community of practice convenes by means of in-person or online meetings, attending one another’s learning opportunities, whether in the form of contact sessions such as clinical skills mastery in the laboratories or joining online sessions. in this way, we build professionalism of which reflexivity is an essential ingredient and attribute of 21st century learning.27 this attribute of a professional, namely to become a reflexive clinical associate should be instilled into our students. this is especially of the essence in interprofessional workplace contexts that baerheim, ness and raaheim28 wrote about. in clinical practice context, reference is made to interdisciplinary teams – for example, teams consisting of a nurse, a clinical associate, a surgeon and a dietition. the overarching goal is to improve treatment efficiency and patient care in a holistic fashion. phrabo et al.29 highlighted the role of reflexivity in team dynamics and leadership development, an attribute that is indespensable in our students’ clinical practice and our community of practice. this community of practice is constituted by six academics. four are early-career academics, specialising in medical clinical practice. two are established academics: one specialising in the educational professional development of academic staff and the other the coordinator of the bcmp programme. in our context professionalism is a two-sided synchronistic endeavour that the authors had to pursue – metaphorically referred to as a courtship. students’ enactment of what professionalism in clinical settings entails, is demonstrated whilst on authentic clinical practice experience at public hospitals that serve as clinical learning centres (clcs) – also referred to as work-integrated learning (wil) – under the supervision of clinical mentors and facilitators. or, in simulated environments, such as clinical skills laboratories where peers act as ‘patients’ to one another. as a number of the students are familiar with the public hospital and clinic settings in rural areas, our learning from them is invaluable. these students have a wealth of knowledge built on real-life experiences.26 such real-life experiences more often than not are enriched by indigenous knowledge30 that deepens our insight into the real world with its challenges that we need to address in real-life educational settings; challenges the prospective clinical assistants need to address in clinical practice settings and will address in future. by being open to reciprocal professional learning, both our lecturer identity and their clinical associate identity are enriched, through role modelling, reciprocal professional learning and professionalism – all attributes of education of the 21st century that need to be part of the identity of any professional. in addition, another attribute involves competence in contributing as a member of a team. as lecturers, we are members of the scholarly community that was established. for example, in the case of students, learning tasks often have to be performed by small groups in a clinical skills laboratory. this execution of tasks as a collective prepares them for the authentic world of work. in work settings as clinical associates, they will become members of a multidisciplinary team consisting of an array of health science practitioners as alluded to here. they will form their distinct communities of practice as naidoo and vernillo31 suggested it be carried out. their study was conducted in a health sciences context and therefore serves as a well-contextualised exemplar. further to this discourse about what a construct frame entails, the authors offer the following view: to us a conceptual framework is not a loose standing entity within a scientific document, but gives flow to the scholarship demonstrated in our text from the very first sentence. however, this study offers a framework built from the cornerstones – work of leading scholars – found in relevant and recent literature. where sources seem to be outdated it simply means that it is a seminal work. as constructivists, the authors prefer using construct frame instead of conceptual framework. our construct frame is offered as the epicentre of the theories around which our study revolves. citing sources throughout the text shows the fluidness of our thinking and insights and putting it into words. whilst putting their thoughts into words the authors came to realise that they create new meaning during writing. the authors came to the conclusion that the entire article is a construct frame in itself; the construct frame changes continuously as we reflect before writing, whilst writing and after writing, imitating schön’s32 idea of three dimensions of reflection: reflecting before action, in action and after action, echoed by bothelo and bhuyan.33 the latter is more specific to clinical practice, although in dentistry. furthermore, the reflexivity in interprofessional workplace contexts that baerheim, ness and raaheim28 refer to, is especially of the essence in the workplace of the clinical associate. and the work by phrabo29 on team reflexivity speaks to both the community of practice of the lecturers and the clinical practice of the students. whilst we conduct action research, action learning21 is employed by the students. action learning, as with action research, promotes attributes such as ‘confidence, resilience, conflict resolution, teamwork, empowerment, leadership skills, self-efficacy, critical thinking and problem solving’ – all in alignment with our discourse, which masango-muzindutsi et al.22 advocate. this alignment accentuates the alignment between, inter alia, action learning, metacognition, self-regulated learning, reflexivity which is visible in the use of principles that are closely related. all of these notions of quality learning expect the student/professional to plan, execute the plan, observe what is happening and reflecting on the process and the outcome. the quality of our professional learning enriches our professionalism. distinct traits of professionalism is to act independently and to take responsibility for self-empowerment.17 as lecturers, we cannot empower students. moreover, no individual can empower another. in our workplace context, early-career academics can only empower themselves. similarly, it is only the self that can maximise own potential as slabbert and his co-workers26 assert. integral to our professionalism as lecturers and our students as prospective clinical associates are leader qualities. as any profession is multi-dimensional – and the lecturer profession and clinical associate profession are no different – leader qualities are integral to our maximising26 own potential and self-empowerment. we all have latent leader potential, which should be exploited by the self. leadership competencies should be made visible – through our lecturer persona and actions and through students’ practising leadership skills that will be of the essence in their future clinical world of work. when analysing the profession of the lecturer and the profession of the clinical associate, it becomes clear that leader-identity formation34 inevitably forms part of both our lecturer identity and our students’ clinical associate identity. peer mentoring resonates with self-exploring of own leader potential. peer mentoring is yet another role lecturers and clinical associates need to fulfil. peer mentoring, in our context, is activated when a scholarly community of practice is formed. the formation of such communities of practice is common in education contexts but is used in other contexts such as the corporate world and any health sciences35 contexts, such as the clinical practice of the clinical associates. peer mentoring is reciprocal in nature and is built on the principles of socio-constructivism. some scholars refer to reversed mentoring.36 this means that the early-career academics take the position of the facilitator of professional learning – they facilitate one another’s professional learning and from time to time the professional learning of the established academics. this became evident because the established academics learnt from their early-career counterparts, especially in terms of using educational technology in general and the online learning platform the university uses. what we derived from the peer mentoring that took place is that it contributes to developing professionalism – professionalism of both the academics and the prospective clinical associates. the context-specific educational professional development of the members of the scholarly community of practice in question was self-initiated. our approach to educational professional development regards transformation as an overarching developmental process for all involved. our aim with transforming self and practice, as advocated by du toit,23 is to be custodians of transformational teaching practice and transformational clinical practice. our ontological stance complements our epistemological view. through a lens of whole brain® constructivist thinking, we constantly look at the self and practice – what we do daily. using the whole brain® lens, activates self-study, and this offers us the opportunity to zoom in on the actions of the self – the ‘i’ and as a collective, we look into the actions of the community of practice – the ‘we’. these actions pertain to what we do in our teaching practice and what we do in terms of research. it is about self-empowerment and self-regulated professional development – becoming a well-rounded independent academic who takes ownership of maximising own potential.26 looking constantly at self and practice is what clinical associates should do. their observations, using a whole brain® constructivist thinking lens, activates the study of themselves as prospective clinical associates. they are expected to take responsibility for own self-regulated learning – becoming a well-rounded independent clinical associate. the notion of maximising potential is enriched by the values the university1 holds. the values of excellence, innovative thought and inquiring mind, for example, allow for new meaning making. the qualities that the values embody are integral to scholarly communities of practice; they are the educational ingredients we use for sustaining our transformational teaching practice claim. these values are to be instilled into our students: as clinical associates they need to pursue excellence in clinical practice, should become innovate thinkers and develop an inquiring mind. as alluded to here, any best practice, cutting-edge practice, evidence-based practice has transformation as its foundation. any transformation, although, starts with the self as du toit23 points out. the notion of starting with the self-holds that self-awareness is imperative. for the purpose of in-depth insight into the self, we opted for using a scholarly and validated means of determining how we think differently – the different modes of thinking we prefer. for this purpose, we draw on the seminal work of herrmann9,13 and the extensive studies by de boer et al.37 the theory of whole brain® thinking informs our entire ontological existence: who we are; what we do; how we do it; our mindset that includes willingness to be innovative; how we think; our becoming, as slabbert et al.26 accentuate, as lecturers and clinical associates. we, as a collective, consider ourselves to be part of a professional development trajectory that reflects each individual’s signature practice and professional branding. the latter refers to our branding as lecturers and our students’ branding as clinical associates. the essence of our preference for different modes of thinking is that it informs what we do; it informs the way we facilitate and assess learning; our communication; our problem solving; execution of tasks; how we approach conducting research; how we contribute to the actions of a scholarly community of practice – all dimensions of the dynamics of our becoming. our becoming26 as a dynamic process is juxtaposed with a stagnant state of being. as we have preferences for different modes of thinking, so do our students. what is outlined for us in the previous sentence applies to our students. herrmann9 ‘calls these actions cognitive preferences or preferred modes of knowing’. herrmann9 based his four-quadrant model (figure 1) on the principle of ‘interconnected clusters of specialised mental processing modes that function together situationally and iteratively, making up a whole brain® in which one or more parts naturally’ take dominancy.15 figure 1: simple representation of the metaphoric whole brain® model.38 the model (figure 1) represents herrmann’s9 insight into the function of the brain. he distinguishes ‘four distinct modes of thinking’. in brief, the a-quadrant mainly represents a fact-based mind – also referred to as the intellectual self. this quadrant focuses on ‘logic and analytical thinking that revolves around, for example, quantitative measures’. the b-quadrant represents a mindset that thrives on sequential thinking – referred to as the safekeeping self. thinking in this quadrant is, inter alia, about ‘being organised, detailed and planned when executing a task. the c-quadrant is about emotive thinking’ – the emotional self. this quadrant is about thinking where interpersonal ‘relations are prominent and feeling-based thinking and kinaesthetic movement, for example, contribute to one’s thinking’ when executing tasks. the d-quadrant represents an experimental mindset – experimental self. it is about ‘thinking in a holistic way’ that may ‘include synthesising’, integration, ‘visuals, thinking intuitively’, etc. these modes of thinking inform, amongst others, one’s approach to solving problems, communication and teaching. embarking on a trajectory of professional development requires reflecting on self. our professional learning includes reflective practice.20 so does the professional development of the clinical-associates-to-be. reflection is intrapersonal and interpersonal for our students and us. for students, it is enacted at an intrapersonal level during action learning as revans (cited in cho and egan39) asserts. new meaning is constructed through a process of critical reflection. for our students, action learning is complemented by the principles of self-regulated professional learning. as lecturers, our professional learning is intrapersonal when action research is the design of choice and interpersonal when we opt for participatory action research.40 in action research the focus is on the ‘i’; in participatory action research the focus is on the ‘we’. the ontological means of being, or rather becoming as slabbert et al.26 asserted, which is intraor interpersonal, is derived from our insight into the notion of multiple intelligence.41 our choice of participatory action research is discussed next. research design our research design of choice is both action research and participatory action research. however, the latter is the focus in this article. the authors opted for using randewijk’s model.40 it fits our lecturer professional development in a health science context. figure 2 is a representation of the model. figure 2: participatory action research model.40 what intrigued us about the model is its metaphoric value. the authors consider their tight community of practice a rope consisting of a number of strands. to fit our context we have made some minor changes to explain the different phases. however, the phases do not follow one another in a sequential manner as can be derived from our discussion that follows. the point of departure for our participatory action research is our distinct bcmp context and making meaning of it. the context includes all assets, such as human capital – lecturers and students – facilities, learning theories, teaching and learning practice. in phase 1 we use existing theories and create our own, based on lived experiences. the latter are part of the notion of living theory.6,7 as a scholarly community of practice, consisting of six academics, each has its personal and individual reflective cycle – phase 2 and phase 3. emanating from phase 2 and phase 3 is our collaborative reflection. we learn from one another in a reciprocal fashion. this reflection ties in with what has been alluded to here – enacting the attribute of reflection16,18,21 as part of our professionalism. our vision is to transform our practice continually, phase 5, by strengthening our competence in offering quality teaching with a view to ensuring quality learning and strengthening our sotl. within phase 6 continual acting to transform becomes evident. however, all six phases are executed continually and simultaneously. it is typical of the fluid nature action research and participatory action research take as mcniff16 asserted. each individual’s transforming of self and practice strengthens their professionalism, here shown as strands of rope, alluded to here but also contributes to the strengthening of the community of practice, indicated as the rope itself. in our meaning making of how our participatory action research could be enriched, we integrate participatory action research with the principles of thinking preferences. this integration makes sense in our context as wbpar becomes integral to our practice. we consider our conducting of wbpar as transformational scholarship. our differences in ways of thinking become evident in the data presented here. as individuals the authors have strengths that might be lacking in others; as a group they are positioned to determine where we are lacking in terms of modes of thinking. this is touched on next. complementing our participatory action research is evidence gathered to justify our claims of using the principles of whole brain® thinking in practice. using the principles of whole brain® thinking relates to multiple relationships: firstly, the relationship with self. it assists in insight into how one executes tasks. secondly, the relationship with others – peers and students. this relationship relates to accommodating as the other have their own thinking preferences. it is the self who needs to adapt. one needs to adapt in terms of facilitating and assessing learning, communicating with others, etc. in the same way, students need to master the skills of adapting to others’ modes of thinking. this is essential when working as a member of a team. this is essential as this will have a bearing on one’s entire demeanour as a clinical associate in the future. ethical considerations the study is based on the principles of self-study. the authors are the participants. they report on themselves. the study was approved by faculty of health sciences, university of pretoria, reference number: 56/2011. results the research method explained next-generated baseline data applicable to all the sub-projects we are conducting and will be conducting in the future – strands of rope. in identifying thinking preferences, the hbdi® was employed to generate essential data. the questionnaire was developed around 1995/1996 by the father of whole brain® learning, ned herrmann. the hbdi® consists of 120 items.42 it has been identified as an instrument that has significance for education. validity of the instrument was determined based on analyses of the different categories by bunderson and ho, cited by coffield et al.42 and as reported by clayton and kimbrell.43 the data reported in this article is valid with respect to the following: factorial, construct and face validity. up to date more than 2 million people have completed it across the globe.42 the way in which qualitative data are generated is discussed next. it gives an overview of what brain profiling is about. the brain profile displayed is that of one of the lecturers. figure 3 indicates the extent to which one has a preference for a specific mode of thinking. it is indicated by separate quadrants, identified by means of symbols a, b, c and d as mentioned earlier. the extent to which an individual has a preference for a particular mode of thinking is shown in the circles within circles. the closer the end of the plotted line on the diagonal axes to the perimeter, the greater the preference. the further the end of the line from the perimeter, the lesser the preference. figure 3: determining thinking preferences.38 when an individual has a very strong or strong preference for modes of thinking that fit a specific quadrant it is indicated in the two circles closest to the perimeter. this is referred to as a primary choice. if the choice is indicated in the second inner circle, it means that the individual has an intermediate preference (choice) for the specific quadrant. a low or very low choice would fall in the inner circle, closest to the centre. this is referred to as a tertiary choice. a primary choice is indicated by 1; an intermediate choice by 2 and a low or very low (tertiary) choice by 3. using these numbers in sequence, for example, 3>2>1>1, indicates a preference code. the exemplary profile used is the profile of one of the established academics. it indicates that the academic with this profile has a tertiary preference for quadrant a, indicated by 3; a secondary choice for quadrant b (2); a high preference for quadrant c (1) and the highest for d (1). such a profile, with two first choices (primary) is referred to as being double dominant. based on preference codes, different types of profile are distinguished. double dominant profiles are the most common. double dominancy means that two quadrants are most preferred, whilst other quadrants may be secondary or tertiary choices. it may be the case that three quadrants are chosen as most preferred. in this case, the profile is triple dominant. quadruple profiles, where all quadrants are chosen as most preferred, are rare. the results from the hbdis®44,45,46,47,48,49 that we have completed are visually presented in figure 4. it constitutes sets of qualitative data. the qualitative data includes a visual representation of the thinking preference profile (commonly referred to as a brain profile) for each lecturer. the solid line indicates the individual’s preferred modes of thinking. the dotted line indicates how one’s profile may shift when under stress. a narrative description forms part of each data set. the sets of quantitative data are not reported accept for an indication of the preference code and profile score. in figure 4, the six profiles serve as exemplars showing how we as a group of lecturers differ in the way we think. this, as alluded to here, inevitably has implications for the way we facilitate and assess learning, communicate, do research, execute tasks in general, etc. figure 4: thinking preference profiles of members of the scholarly community of practice.44,45,46,47,48,49 the preference code is an indication of the quadrant each individual has a high preference for, indicated by 1; which one is intermediate or secondary, indicated by 2, and which one is tertiary, indicated by 3. in case of the latter, 3 is an indication of avoidance or aversion of the specific quadrant. it should be observed that the theory is simply about preferences and not abilities. should one indicate a 2 or a 3 for a specific quadrant, it does not suggest that one would not be able to execute tasks that require modes of thinking within this quadrant. the profile of lecturer 5 indicates that he does not have an affinity for quadrant a that has fact-based thinking as focus. fact-based thinking aligns with research. therefore, it does not mean that the lecturer cannot conduct research. this is where maximising one’s potential features. the profile works like a rubber band – indicating one’s comfort zone. one can, as for lecturer 5, stretch oneself – out of one’s comfort zone – to work within quadrant a. but, as soon as the task of conducting research is performed, the rubber band comes back to its original resting place. one might have the ability to do something, but should one be offered a choice, one may prefer to avoid becoming involved in tasks of which the nature is such that one’s preferred modes of thinking are not accommodated. the brain profile of each lecturer is explained next. it comes in narrative format. it is taken from the feedback report, with some sentences changed – it is not a verbatim report and therefore cannot be put in quotation marks. putting only a few words in each sentence in quotation marks would be superfluous. as most of the profiles across the globe are similar and discussed in the same manner by using the same descriptive words, it becomes quite general. similarities are unavoidable. lecturer 1 (herrmann global) the interpretation of the profile of lecturer 144 comes in a narrative format. it offers qualitative data about this member of our scholarly community of practice. her most preferred quadrant is d. key descriptors she selected are intuitive, creative and synthesiser. the one most descriptive of her is intuitive. work elements she strongly relates to are innovating, conceptualising and creative. the next preferred quadrant is c. descriptors selected are emotional and intuitive. the descriptor indicated as most descriptive of her work is intuitive. work elements she strongly relates to are expressing ideas and interpersonal aspects. in the b-quadrant, which is the next preferred, the one key descriptor is conservative. the work element she strongly relates to is planning. ‘a’ is the less preferred quadrant. key descriptors selected are logical, critical and analytical. work elements are analytical and problem solving. under pressure there is a shift: moving away from the preferred quadrant whilst c becomes the highest. lecturer 2 (herrmann global) the description of the profile of lecturer 245 reads as follows: the c-quadrant is the most preferred. descriptors selected are musical, emotional, spiritual and reader. these descriptors represent a general overview of her mental preferences in day-to-day life. work elements she strongly relates to in this quadrant are teaching and writing. these elements reflect mental preferences at work. by only a slight margin, her next most preferred is the b-quadrant. she selected conservative and reader as descriptors. work elements she does well include implementation. next is the a-quadrant. mathematical and analytical are descriptors selected with analytical being her key descriptor – the one most descriptive of her. work elements include analytical and problem solving. the least preferred quadrant is d. holistic was selected as a characteristic. her stress profile suggests that she can contain herself under pressure. it is only the d-quadrant that recedes into the background. lecturer 3 (herrmann international) the narrative for lecturer 346 as a set of qualitative data are briefly explained next. the quadrant most preferred is a. descriptors in this style are logical, analytical, critical and quantitative. rational is her key descriptor. these descriptors represent a general overview of her mental preferences in day-to-day life. work elements she strongly relates to in this quadrant include analytical, technical and problem solving. these elements reflect her mental preferences at work. her next most preferred quadrant is b. as descriptor, she selected conservative. work elements identified as ones she does well include planning, administrative and implementation. next preferred quadrant is the d-quadrant. descriptors selected are holistic and intuitive. work elements she does well include creative. her least preferred quadrant is c. she selected intuitive as a characteristic of her. under pressure her profile may shift to a being the second most preferred quadrant, with b the third, then c as the lowest and d becoming more dominant. lecturer 4 (herrmann international) the profile of lecturer 447 can be interpreted as follows: quadrant a and b are both selected as the most preferred. next is c with d as the least preferred. under pressure, the lecturer may focus more on modes of thinking that fit the c-quadrant with this quadrant becoming more dominant and the d-quadrant receding into the background. lecturer 5 (herrmann international) the profile of lecturer 548 is built up by the following: the most preferred quadrant is d. descriptors selected are imaginative, synthesiser, artistic, holistic and intuitive – representative of mental preferences in day-to-day life. work elements include integration, creative and innovating. the next most preferred quadrant for this lecturer is c. descriptors selected are musical, talker and intuitive with emotional as the most descriptive. work elements include teaching, writing and interpersonal. b is the next preferred quadrant. talker was selected as descriptor; work elements identified include implementation. the least preferred quadrant is a. no descriptors were selected. when under pressure this lecturer’s profile does not shift much, except for the c-quadrant that becomes more dominant. lecturer 6 (herrmann international) the quadrant most preferred, based upon this lecturer’s49 responses is the a-quadrant. descriptors in this mode of thinking selected are analytical, rational and mathematical. these descriptors represent a general overview of the lecturer’s preferences in day-to-day life. work elements the lecturer strongly relates to in this quadrant include analytical and problem solving. these elements reflect the lecturer’s mental preferences at work. work preferences may align completely with general preferences or they may stem from situations unique to the working environment. in the d-quadrant the lecturer selected imaginitive and synthesiser with holistic as key descriptor. work elements identified as ones the lecturer does well include conceptualising, creative and innovating. the next most preferred is the b-quadrant. in this quadrant detailed was selected as descriptor. the least preferred quadrant, based on the lecturer’s responses, is quadrant c. in this quadrant, spiritual was selected as characteristic of the lecturer. responses to items that indicate one’s preferences under pressure may or may not be consistent with the general behaviour of the lecturer. when under pressure this lecturer’s profile shifts to the less-preferred quadrant, namely c that becomes more dominant, with generally preferred ones, such as quadrants a and b, receding into the background. the mean preference code of the group is 1 > 1 > 1 > 1. this indicates that the group of lecturers as a collective form a composite whole group. however, as the group is quite small, a closer look into the highest scores on the respective quadrants is needed. the highest score is for quadrant b with a total of 474; second is the score of 434 for the a-quadrant. the total score for the c-quadrant is 424 and for d it is 400. the data sets are discussed in the next section. discussion when the scores of the profiles are studied more closely, it becomes clear to what extent the scores for the different quadrants per individual differ. an exemplar of comparing the profiles of two lecturers when they have to work together on a task is offered next. it is of note that for lecturer 6 the score for quadrant a and d is the same (84), whilst quadrant c is lowest at 47. for lecturer 1, the highest score is for quadrant d (94) and the lowest for quadrant b at 51. if lecturer 6 and lecturer 1 were to work together as a team, it can be deducted that they will complement one another to some extent. however, what they need to work on is quadrant b as they both have a low score of 51. it may most probably be the case that the low score (47) of lecturer 1 for quadrant c will be compensated for by lecturer 1 owing to the higher score of 72. these scores will influence both their teaching practice and research. lecturer 6 might struggle with working on the curriculum as part of a curriculum development team or doing research as part of a team. this lecturer most probably prefers working as an individual. another exemplar of having two lecturers working together is in the case of lecturers 4 and 5. the score for quadrant a (30) – the lowest for all the quadrants of the entire group – shows almost an aversion for this quadrant by lecturer 5. this is in contrast to the high score of 80 for a by lecturer 4. it can be said that the low score of lecturer 5 will be compensated for by the high score of lecturer 4. the same is to be observed in the case of quadrant b: lecturer 5 displays a low score of 39 whilst the score for lecturer 4 is a high of 80. opposed to this, it is of note that the high score of lecturer 5 on quadrant c (108) may compensate for the lower score (62) of lecturer 4. the same counts for quadrant d: the score for lecturer 5 is 128, whilst for lecturer 4 it is 45. it must be reiterated that whole brain® thinking is not about abilities but preferences. it is of note that lecturer 5 is the principal researcher. it does not mean that, whilst struggling with doing research (mainly quadrant a) he does not have the ability to conduct research. it, however, is significant that the research is performed by a community of practice – the profile score for quadrant c is 108. and, as this lecturer’s score for quadrant d is very high (128) it is evident that many of the creative ideas when it comes to conducting research, or to transform teaching practice is initiated by lecturer 5. the high score of 108 on quadrant c and the low score for quadrant a (30) may indicate that he has a preference for doing action research and being included in participatory action research and not so much for quantitative, empirical studies. lecturer 4, for example, needs to work on becoming more creative when facilitating and assessing learning. and she might need to keep attributes of the c-quadrant in mind as her teaching practice and research are most probably very structured and focused on facts. although there are some indications of compensation where two individuals work together, one should keep in mind that each individual has to attend to quadrants with low scores with a view to becoming a whole brain® lecturer, whole brain® researcher and to maximising own potential. for the group of six, there is evidence that the community of practice will be able to come up with constructive solutions to problems as the members will contribute from different perspectives. what the group will need to work on is quadrant d. this is true for their teaching practice and their research. action research and participatory action research are c-quadrant dominant. as these research designs are focused on intrapersonal aspects (the ‘i’) and interpersonal aspects (the ‘we’), the group as a collective need to work on attributes of the c-quadrant with a lowest group profile score of 400. for example, individuals, especially those with a low score for quadrant c, need to work on expanding their repertoire of aspects related to working with others. one has to keep in mind that these data sets on the profiles of the lecturers are exemplars of what we can expect in the first-year cohort. to accommodate all the differences in preferences for specific modes of thinking, we have to be adaptable. for example, students need to perform learning tasks in the laboratories for mastering clinical skills; these tasks need to accommodate students with preferences for different modes of thinking. what the tasks require includes all modes of thinking. when working in small groups, or performing a head-to-toe examination on a peer who acts as a patient, the dominant quadrant is c, accommodating students who prefer working with others, sharing ideas, etc. it also accommodates d-quadrant thinking as students may be challenged to come up with visual representations. new meaning is constructed that fits the a-quadrant that includes fact-based thinking. students have to organise themselves and devise a plan that they need to follow and execute with a view to achieving the envisaged final outcome and monitor the execution of the plan in terms of steps to be taken, typical of the b-quadrant. similarly, prospective clinical associates have to keep in mind that their profiles are exemplars of what they can expect in clinical practice – be it authentic real-life settings or simulated settings, such as clinical skills laboratories. to accommodate the differences in preferences for specific modes of thinking that peers in class contexts, patients and other health professionals may have, they need to be adaptable. for example, students need to perform learning tasks in the clinical laboratories, execute tasks in authentic real-life settings, such as hospitals and work with multidisciplinary teams and with patients. these tasks need to accommodate students with an array of different thinking preferences. what completing the tasks requires includes all modes of thinking. when working in small groups or performing a head-to-toe examination on a peer who acts as a patient the dominant quadrant is c, accommodating students who prefer working with others, sharing ideas, etc. it also accommodates d-quadrant thinking as students may be challenged to come up with visual representations. new meaning is constructed that fits the a-quadrant that includes fact-based thinking. students have to organise themselves and devise a plan that they need to follow and execute with a view to achieving the envisaged final outcome and monitor the execution of the plan in terms of steps to be taken – attributes of the b-quadrant. in essence, what the courtship comes to is the following: we have to demonstrate to students how the principles of whole brain® thinking are used to transform our teaching practice in whole brain® facilitating and assessing learning and in other roles we have. students as prospective clinical associates need to use the principles of whole brain® thinking with a view to adapting their learning to become whole brain® professionals and transforming practice to ensure whole brain® patient care, whole brain® communication with members of a multidisciplinary team and other roles they have to enact. the two groups of professionals appreciating the courtship are students as prospective whole brain® clinical associates and whole brain® lecturers. transformational clinical practice and transformational teaching practice are only possible when the professionals take responsibility for transforming self and practice – whole brain® transformational practice. any courtship can last only as long as the two parties involved nourish each other. in the context of our study, a scholarly courtship may be the means to achieve a designated and sustainable professionalism. conclusion our claim to transformational practice and transformational participatory action research is justified by implementing the principles of whole brain® thinking. our claim that our practice is transformational because it uses reciprocal professional learning is justified by evidence of learning from one another in that our preferences of modes of thinking are different. this is also evidence of how our respective modes of thinking inform our lecturer identity. in view of the fact that our practice is learning centred, reciprocal learning is extended to what the authors can learn from our students. by demonstrating attributes to be enacted in an authentic place of work, the authors act as role models for our students who should enact the same attributes in their future clinical world of work. the authors advocate that the notion of empowering others is a misnomer. one can only empower the self. this highlights the fact that self-empowerment and self-regulated professional learning are approaches that would help monitor one’s professional development trajectory. these acts of taking responsibility feed into both lecturer-identity formation and clinical associate-identity formation. in essence, professionalism takes centre stage. in our meaning making, staying true to our constructivist epistemology, the authors would like to add to the current body of knowledge on professionalism the construct whole brain® professionalism. this distinct attribute of professionalism is true for all professions, but in the context of this article specifically the profession of university teachers and the profession of clinical associates. this is the insight the authors bring into the domain of sotl and the scholarship of professional development of clinical associates. the authors would like to contribute to scholarship of participatory action research by adding the constructs whole brain® participatory action research and whole brain® action learning. do we dare leave the reader with the following: what about a whole brain® scholarly courtship? acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the following: the department of family medicine, faculty of health sciences, university of pretoria for the advancement of scholarship of teaching and learning; the head of the department, professor jannie hugo, for initiating projects concerning the educational professional development of academic staff; and professor tinus kühn for meticulous language editing of the manuscript. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions p.h.d.t. was responsible for research leadership, conceptualising of the study, literature review, writing of manuscript, data gathering and management, editing; l.t., s.c-z., m.o. and b.m. were involved in co-conceptualising of study, literature review, acting as educational practitioners they generated self-knowledge as data; m.l. was involved in co-conceptualising of study. he acted as a critical reader, monitored and evaluated the study as coordinator of the bcmp programme and generated self-knowledge as data. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sets contain confidential information per individual participant that is not accessible to any other person as it is coded. it is the prerogative of each participant to share own data on request. the data sets are kept in the data verification and analysis system of herrmann international and/or herrmann global. although the company and the registered hbdi practitioner have access to the data, the data cannot be revealed. this provision is in line with the popi act with a view to honouring integrity and ethics practice. disclaimer the views expressed in this article are that of the authors and do not constitute the official position of the university. references 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on the internet]. lake lure, nc: herrmann international 2006 [cited 2021 sept 20]. available from: www.hbdi.com (unpublished). herrmann international. johan fick (pseudonym), confidential information, coded [homepage on the internet]. lake lure, nc: herrmann international; 2014 [cited 2021 sept 20]. available from: www.hbdi.com (unpublished). td journal desember 2006.p65 the quest for sustainable agriculture peter simon * abstract: since the brundtland commission on environment and development published its report in 1983 the idea of sustainable development has become popular. although many definitions of sustainable development have been proposed, the concept is not easily implemented in a world which believes that high rates of economic growth are essential and in which economic systems are run on the basis of money flows in a setting of private property. environmental degradation is seen as external to the system. the article discusses the concepts of technicism and economism as the dominant features of western culture, meaning that all problems can be solved by technical and economic means. this is followed by an analysis of technicistic and economistic concepts of sustainability. in order to develop a concept of sustainability that is not marred by technicism and economism, key features of reformational philosophy, as represented by d.h.th. vollenhoven are summarized, especially concepts of time. this leads to an idea of sustainability that seeks to maintain the integrity of the kingdoms of things, plants and animals through a human culture inspired by wisdom and careful stewardship. keywords: sustainable development, world commission on environment and development (brundtland commission), rational agriculture, technicism and economism, price mechanism, determination, reformational philosophy, stewardship. introduction in 1987 the world commission on environment and development (brundtland commission), defined sustainable development, as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.1 this idea has become very popular in public discourse. this popularity td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 345-367. _______ * petrus simons has been working as an economist in wellington new zealand since 1972. he has had positions with the new zealand employers federation, and the bank of new zealand. from 1988-2002 he was a consulting economist in a partnership. he is a ph. d student at north-west university on the subject: tilling the good earth; the impact of technicism and economism on agriculture. 1 world commission on environment and development, our common future, (‘the brundtland report’), (oxford university press, oxford, 1987), p. 43. 346 notwithstanding, the definition is not easily implemented when high rates of economic growth are believed to be important. yet, since 1987 problems of climate change, pollution, epidemics and a threatening depletion of key resources such as oil, water and phosphate have become much more widespread and urgent. the expected increase in the world’s population, from six billion to nine billion by 2050 and beyond would further worsen the problems, especially if the living standards of the richest countries were to become the universal standard. nevertheless, optimists argue that anticipated growth would provide the means to clean up the environment and prevent further degradation. biotechnical innovations, amongst others, might make it feasible to feed nine billion people properly.2 this article discusses, first, the concepts of technicism and economism as the predominate features of western, now globalising, culture, second, the abstractions to which technicism and economism have given rise, third, a technicistic and economistic concept of sustainability, followed, fourth, by a brief outline of d.h.th. vollenhoven’s ontology, especially, his view on time, in relation to sustainability, whilst a final section sketches a road towards finding ‘true’ sustainability. 1. technicism and economism various philosophers have argued that western culture bears the imprint of a strong belief in science and scientific technology. hans sachsse sees its beginning in the time of the renaissance, when accurate machine tools were developed and used to advance science.3 in turn, science has fostered new technologies, which have helped to advance science. from rené descartes (1596-1650) onward philosophers have had a technicistic bent. since his work on methods, the mathematical/technical method of problem solving has been widely adopted, i.e. break a problem down into its smallest part, solve these and then put all the partial solutions together. thus, reality becomes a manipulated reality, subject to a never-ending process of construction and re-construction. descartes’ view that there are two substances, a human rationally thinking one and the material substance of extension has fostered technicism through the human scientist/engineer who analyses and re-fashions the rest of the world. the rationality involved is truly instrumental rationality. simon _______ 2 one such optimist is historian paul kennedy, preparing for the twenty-first century, (harper collins, london, 1993). 3 h sachsse, anthropologie der technik; ein beitrag zur stellung des menschen in der welt, (friedrich vierweg, braunschweig, 1978), p. 180 ff. 347 schuurman sums it up, as follows: technical thinking, once dominant, is unstoppable-it refuses to acknowledge the impenetrable mysteries that most deeply characterize reality as creation. once in gear, the tireless process of constructing and reconstructing all of reality ensues. what is there that cannot be measured, weighed, counted, and thus controlled? reality is just one big machine or, to use more modern technology, just one huge information-processing system.4 this method of constructing and re-constructing can be found in just about all modern cultural endeavours. in europe one has tried on a number of occasions to construct and reconstruct the political map of nation states. biotechnology seeks to find out how genomes are constructed in order to reconstruct them to develop organisms that function more optimally. in the business sector companies and groups of companies are constructed and reconstructed. whenever a problem emerges, scientists will analyse it into its smallest components and, then, by means of technical innovation prepare solutions. the various partial solutions are then put together and applied, even though the effects of the application might be worse than the original problem. if the world is seen as a scientific or technical world, that is as a world which should be transformed according to the methods of science and scientific technology, then, how can it be also seen as an economistic world, that is as one in which everything is reduced to commercial and financial values? the answer lies in the power acquired by the modern business corporation over our society. there are few areas of life that are not colonised or overwhelmed by commercial interests (notable examples are television and other modern communications media, sports, arts, education, agriculture and food, politics). scientific technology has become a servant of the corporation in its search for new markets and/or larger market shares in a continual competition with powerful competitors. however, one can also argue that the corporation exists in order to advance scientific technology.5 history provides abundant examples of this two-way relationship. since the 15th century a symbiosis developed between emerging nation states, commerce and technology, known as mercantilism. states felt that they should be able to prevail in any contest with others. in sustainable agriculture _______ 4 e schuurman, the technological world picture and an ethics of responsibility, ([2002], trans. john h. kok, (dordt college press, sioux center, 2005), p. 15. 5 recent analyses of the corporation outline admirably how the modern corporation commercialises life, but without paying much attention to the role of science and technology in this process. see dc korten, when corporations rule the world, (kumarian press, west hartford, 1995) and j bakan, the corporation; the pathological pursuit of profit and power, (constable, london, 2004). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 348 order to attain such end they controlled their industries and commerce and sought to accumulate reserves of money by exporting and curtailing imports. colonies were a key part of this system, not only as an outlet for domestic industry but also as a source of exotic and much sought after goods (sugar, spices, gold, silver). a state would stimulate technical development by fostering and protecting its industries so as to gain competitive advantages in its external commerce and pursuit of new colonies.6 thus, the dutch were able to capture the lucrative trade with the baltic countries in the 17th century as well as the spice trade with the east indies on the basis of bigger and faster ships.7 when modern nation states were established, tax payments and accounting systems were required to keep track of how their economies were performing. in a macro-economic sense william petty (1623-1687) extended this system to the accounts of a whole nation. in his view money was the measuring rod of economic life. he reduced people to ‘labour’, valued in money terms as 20 years of wages and land to twenty years of rent.8 this effort would have been unthinkable without the invention of double-entry accounting by fra pacioli (born around 1445), which encouraged the development of economic theory as a set of equations. tax revenue and the ability to borrow money enabled nation-states to equip armies and navies to protect and expand their commercial interests. the advent of the industrial revolution marked the end of mercantilism as a formal system of protecting and fostering industry and commerce. instead, an all-round system of markets took shape, including markets for labour, land and money. enterprises that were specialised in manufacturing production had to purchase land, labour and capital. polanyi called this the ‘great transformation’.9 gradually, many industrial enterprises became very large-scale and reliant on technology to conquer new markets. since the industrial revolution, technicism and economism have become inseparable, exerting their influence particularly through the business corporation. simon _______ 6 ja schumpeter surveys these trends in: history of economic analysis ii, (george allen & unwin, london, 1954), pp.143-378. 7 jt lindblad, nederland en de oostzee 1600-1850, in goud uit graan; nederland en het oostzeegebied 1600-1850, (waanders, zwolle, 1998); g milton, nathaniel’s nutmeg; how one man’s courage changed the course of history, (hodder & stoughton, london, 1999). 8 p strathern, dr strangelove’s game; a brief history of economic genius, (penguin books, london, 2001), pp. 11-40. 9 k polanyi, la grande transformation; aux origins politiques et économiques de notre temps, ([1944] trans. c.malamoud, éditions gallimard, 1983). 349 during the last twenty years consumer behaviour, especially in anglosaxon countries, has changed from observing a budget constraint to borrowing and buying, almost regardless of income or interest charges. banks encourage them to use credit cards to the full and to take high mortgages. the more people borrow for the purpose of purchasing real estate, the higher are the prices thereof and the safer the mortgages for the banks. rising prices enable borrowers to increase their mortgages to finance higher spending. in a globalised economy, a growing part of consumption consists of imports from countries with abundant labour, and hence low wages, and low environmental standards. i agree with gréau that globalisation through an elimination of import barriers under wto is really a way of reducing the costs of labour everywhere, so as to raise profitability.10 debt-financed consumption must rate as a major contributor to environmental degradation. consumers in the us or europe have little or no idea what the production of their consumption goods costs in china, india or latin america in terms of environmental impact and human misery. in fact, the eu and the usa have been subsidising their agricultural industries to the extent that surpluses have to be dumped on world markets to the detriment of localor traditional farmers, forcing them off their land. they have no option but to work in towns at extremely low wages in order to produce consumer goods for the rich countries. however, in the rich western countries farmers, especially those involved in intensive farming, suffer too, as witnessed, for instance, by camille guillou, a french farmer from brittany who wrote a litany on the professional and personal problems experienced by industrialised poultry farmers.11 the link between technicism and economism is seen too in a reduction of time to mechanical time.12 speed, measured in units of clock time, is essential in battles for commercial supremacy. technicism and economism may, therefore, also be considered as ways of speeding up processes in clock time. thus, industrial agriculture has been under constant pressure to produce more by raising its productivity. since most of a farmer’s costs are fixed, higher production results in higher net income. unfortunately, since all farmers are doing this simultaneously, increasingly on a world-wide scale, prices tend to fall, given that demand for food increases but slowly. this has led to the development of highly intensive industrialised agriculture in all parts of the world. inputs include sustainable agriculture _______ 10 j-l gréau, l’avenir du capitalisme, (gallimard, paris, 2005), pp. 75-124. 11 camille guillou, les saigneurs de la terre, (albin michel, paris, 1997). 12 a vlot, tijd voor de eeuwigheid: de techniek staat voor iets, (de vuurbaak, barneveld, 2002), has analysed this phenomenon. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 350 chemical fertilisers and sprays that tend to lessen the quality of soil and water as well as anti-biotics and growth hormones to speed up natural growth. plants as well as animals are bred so as to fit in with the requirements of mechanical processing. indeed, farm animals have become completely dependent on the technology and science applied by agriculture. the world has been put into the mould of a highly destructive technological/economic system. 2. abstraction the discipline of economics arose during the 17th and 18th centuries, along with the development of natural science. rationalism focussed on an examination of cause and effect. ‘nature’ was seen as the only authority. although both quesnay and adam smith believed that there was a natural tendency in the world towards a pre-established natural harmony, they differed in terms of their interpretation of ‘natural’. for quesnay nature was a biological organism, which could suffer from sickness. for adam smith it was a mechanical system. anyhow, both thinkers believed that the economic system of supply and demand would work best, that is would produce a harmony of economic interests, in a laissez-faire system.13 during the 19th century karl marx introduced another interpretation of natural law by arguing that: at the basis of all historical change there is the logic of an autonomous gradual economic development, of progress in the methods and the organization of production.14 one may either accept the results of this process or withstand them, at the risk of revolution. modern neo-liberalism represents a similar deterministic view of historic economic development. unless one accepts free trade and private property and limits government involvement to balanced budgets and processes to ensure that business can thrive, one is bound to have sub-optimal economic outcomes. no matter how the natural order is conceived, it involves a set of abstractions. one abstracts from the human interactions between people and business and between people and nature. in neo-classical theory one also abstracts from technical change. however, if economic action is understood as part of an abstract natural system, governed by an automatically working price system, one removes the responsibility of human actors for their economic actions, simon _______ 13 see e heimann, history of economic doctrines; an introduction to economic theory, ([1945] oxford university press, new york, 1972), pp.16-19. 14 ibid., p.142. 351 except in the sense of managing their balance sheet to the satisfaction of the providers of capital. the human suffering associated with the industrial revolution owes much to this theoretical removal of human responsibility. it was a revolution as the combination of science, technology and capital transformed societies. e. hanzig-bätzing and w. bätzing argue that ten independent developments from the 14th to the 19th century came together in this revolution, namely: • a strong increase in agricultural productivity; • removing people from the land (enclosures); • the emergence of a financial system; • specialisation of labour; • a bureaucratic absolutist state, with independent police, army and judiciary; • abstract notions of human dignity, freedom, fraternity and equality; • a protestant work ethic (max weber); • disciplined people (work houses, military); • modern science; • energy (coal or steam).15 although i agree that these ten factors do explain the dynamic changes brought about by the first and following industrial revolutions, i am not convinced that they are truly independent. in each of the ten developments there is a strong scientific/technical element. what is true, however, is that in this process of general technicisation, nature has become a resource or a piece of material that can be formed and transformed for human ends.16 this fits in with the authors’ general thesis that the present world is characterised by a limitless delusion that everything can be made and remade, a delusion which, paradoxically, also affects humankind.17 another way of putting this is suggested by goethe’s faust, part ii, when mephistopheles suggests to the emperor that he might fill his empty state coffers by issuing paper money, secured against all the (unknown) treasures that people have hidden in the ground.18 for treasures we might refer to oil, gold, copper, iron ore, uranium, plants, animals, life-forms and the like. the overarching significance of technicism has been elaborated in many sustainable agriculture _______ 15 e hanzig-bätzing and w bätzing, entgrenzte welten; die verdrängung des menschen durch globalisierung von fortschritt und freiheit, (rotpunktverlag, zürich, 2005), pp. 30-38. 16 ibid., pp. 50,51. 17 ibid., p. 11. 18 jw von goethe, faust ii, ([1832], trans. david luke, oxford university press, oxford, 1994), par. 4930. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 352 ways by egbert schuurman. he has drawn attention to four key abstractions in our world picture, namely: • one function out of a pattern of functions; • within this functional framework one abstracts from concrete entities; • from visible observable reality to concentrate on the laws applying to selected fields; and • from private interests.19 i suggest that we should also add the monetary abstraction as touched upon above, even though it is actually part of the economic function. as a technical object money is destined to function as an economic instrument. it is made from ink, electronic signals and paper and can be multiplied at will and spent in whatever way seems lucrative, regardless of environmental or human consequences. a few notes on each to highlight technicism and economism may suffice. 2.1 functional abstraction policy-makers believe that they should encourage economic growth by promoting technical innovation. they also believe that they should encourage people to save by combating inflation (raising interest rates) or suitable tax rates so that the economy is able to accumulate capital sufficient to raise productivity and output. the government itself will invest in infrastructure as well as in education and health to ensure that there are enough healthy workers, scientists and technologists. thus, in modern societies the scientific, technical and economic functions loom large. one does not inquire too deeply how an over-emphasis on these functions affects other important functions such as the lingual, social, aesthetic and juridical ones. 2.2 monetary abstraction during the early middle ages and lasting until the industrial revolution, the church had a battle with merchants and commerce, especially by a prohibition of lending money at interest. this was founded on scripture and seen as buttressed by aristotle’s saying that money does not beget money.20 eventually, the merchants won this battle. economic life became very much an autonomous way of life (‘business is business’). simon _______ 19 e schuurman, faith and hope in technology, ([1998], trans. john vriend, clements publishing, toronto, 2003) pp. 96 ff. 20 b. grandia, zeven maal zeven; over sabbatjaar en jubeljaar als gods bevrijdende economie, (ten have, baarn, 1998), pp. 186-211. 353 money rules in the business world. all transactions involving money are recorded in profit and loss accounts and balance sheets. everything else affected by these transactions is external to profit-making and, therefore, not accounted for. the importance of the rate of interest illustrates the pervasive nature of monetary abstraction. at present, monetary authorities are only able to influence short-term interest rates. they tend to do so without worrying about the consequences, other than the effect on the rate of inflation and often the need to prevent capital flight. consequently, interest rates adjusted for expected inflation have become positive and as such are often higher than the growth rate of real gross domestic product (gdp), leading to an explosion of debt. yet, the rate of interest is not a price like the price of goods, such as, for example, butter. it is a price to be paid for the future (a sum of capital) from incomes earned in the present. in practice, this is only possible if the present system keeps expanding. a business which hires capital at interest to process wool produced by farmers will be able to pay the wool and wages if the workers and the farmers buy the wool. in order to earn the extra income to pay the interest, there should be other people employed by other firms that want to buy woollen garments. more importantly, the circulation of money does not extend to people who, for whatever reason, have no access to monetary sources of income. in all parts of the world millions of people depend on subsistence farming, or industry (such as fishing), barter, government or foreign donors and other forms of charity. 2.3 abstraction from concrete people and entities as policy is directed and informed by the narrative of economic growth, its abstract functional nature is projected onto reality where it affects the actors in the real world and, therefore, the kingdoms of things, plants, animals, people and the webs of relationships between them. although on-going exponential economic growth may inflict irreversible and irreparable damage on the natural world, there is no systematic monitoring of such effects. some argue that as long as the system provides employment and income, this is not so important. indeed, ecological damage should be considered an incentive for innovation and investment. since environmentalists concentrate on the harmful environmental effects of the current economic monetary system, their policy-making ideas emphasise regulations and standards. they seek to broaden the nation’s accounting base by including environmental stocks and flows. in practice, as concerns mount about the state of the environment, sustainable agriculture td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 354 government policy will incorporate elements from both the functional and the regulatory approach. schemes are being set up to enable trading in pollution quota in the hope that the costs of pollution so imposed will stimulate the search for cleaner technologies, i.e. pollution can make money. at the same time, new developments, such as irrigation schemes and the construction of roads, will require resource consents. they tend to spark legal battles between business corporations and ‘greens’. in fact, a legal function is substituted for an economic one. if policy-making largely abstracts from that which is concrete, then, how can sustainability in the sense of the brundtland definition be ensured? since the definition is in terms of concrete things such as needs and generations of people, an approach which abstracts from what is concrete, cannot be very informative. present generations live in an environment that is increasingly dominated by corporate powers that seek to turn wants into needs, suggesting that we should try to live life to the full by, amongst other things, consuming as much as we are able to. 2.4 the abstraction of objectivity since government policy is by nature prescriptive due to the state being a judicially qualified entity, it easily falls under the spell of the scientific abstraction of objectivity. the laws of economics (the price mechanism), usually formulated by neo-classical mechanistic economic theory, are easily adopted by politicians. they are promised optimal economic welfare if they allow all markets to come into equilibrium by giving free rein to the interplay of demand and supply, similar to the equilibrium that prevails in the realm of heavenly bodies under the working of gravity. it is rarely appreciated that in this way they impose an abstraction on a real world dominated by concrete powerful entities such as business corporations. 2.5 abstraction from private interests the prevalence of these corporations is such that the abstraction of private interests i.e. that scientists are only interested in seeking the truth is honoured more in the breach than in the observance, because they are supposed to serve the interests of their employers. should universities be dependent on corporate money to finance their research, then, this abstraction becomes pretty well meaningless. the conclusion must be that an approach to sustainability that features a crisp definition such as the one proposed by brundtland has little chance of success. given the power of the current ideology of growth other definitions would fare little better. simon 355 3. technicistic and economistic sustainability the concept of sustainability tends to be defined in terms of the brundtland definition, as quoted above. being a definition focussed on people, i.e. on current and future generations and their needs, it is very anthropocentric. by being silent about the kingdoms of things, plants and animals, it suggests that these exist, merely to serve human needs. in a sense this is true. as humans we are called upon to open up the meaning of these kingdoms, but without impairing their integrity and their cohesiveness. under brundtland, however, we could still have large heaps of waste products, contaminated rivers or cows bred into milking machines, as long as future generations would be able to satisfy their needs, whatever these might be. to overcome some of these problems, dauncey and mazza have proposed an amended definition, as follows: sustainable development meets the needs of the present generation of humans and other species without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, while restoring local and global ecosystems.21 this alteration makes it even more important to know what needs are and over what time frame local and global ecosystems should be restored and how. would a cow bred into a giant udder be allowed under this definition?22 one could argue that her need of food, water and medicine might be satisfied and that she would have an enhanced ability to meet the needs of people. whether it would be right to breed such an animal is another matter altogether. such a cow would be completely dependent on human technology to survive and to deliver calves, being bred technicistically for material profit (economism). therefore, the amended definition could be interpreted and acted upon in terms of technicism and economism. indeed, since, as argued above, our world is subject to technicism and economism, we should suspect that what is known or advocated as sustainability might be a reflection of these two cultural powers. 3.1 dialectics one hint in this respect is that there are mainstream and dissident voices about sustainability. the former would argue that economic growth is called for to provide the means (tax revenue, surplus income) to clean up the environment. this is expressed, for instance, in the kuznets curve. it has two axes. the vertical one indicates the degree of environmental damage, whilst the horizontal one sets out sustainable agriculture _______ 21 g dauncey and p mazza, stormy weather: 101 solutions to global climate change, (new society publishers, gabriola island, canada, 2001), p.195. 22 c tudge, so shall we reap, (allen lane, penguin books, 2003), p. 257. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 356 income. the lower the income, the greater the environmental damage caused by production and consumption. those who accept this curve as a normative statement, argue that as economic growth proceeds, means become available to clean up the environment. however, the damage has been caused by the same process of production and consumption. china and india are low-income countries with a large surplus of labour. they appear to care little for their environment, for the preservation of their natural resources or for the health of their people. they spend a great deal of money improving technical and scientific education. in addition, china and other asian countries have been building up some of the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves. when would they have sufficient to start cleaning up their pollution, waste of water and soil, improve health provision etc.? the richer they become the more wasteful they become, as they simply adopt american or european standards of living. food will increasingly be imported. as noted, there is (growing) opposition to practices that bring about environmental degradation. with regard to agriculture, the division is between those favouring industrial agriculture and those who wish to strive for organic or biological farming. the various streams advocating biological farming all recognise that modern standard industrial agricultural practices, which rely on chemical fertilisers and sprays, as well as on botanical and zoological re-engineering, are unsatisfactory. often one calls for a return to nature, to organic practices, to going slow and even to animistic type rituals. in turn, such calls may result in ‘official’ practices being adjusted, for instance, to integrated pest management. however, prevailing attitudes in the scientific/research community are that environmental problems as well as problems of food security for a growing world population should be solved on the basis of serious science that is capable of being translated into scientific technology. currently, that means a continued development of biotechnology in conjunction with information technology. truly biological agriculture gets very little research attention by comparison. biological agriculture is seen either as a hobby or as a new field for biotechnology. this can only mean that the dialectic between industrial and biological agriculture will remain active. it is unlikely to become to a satisfactory solution. indeed, when biological agricultural ventures do well, corporations move in to re-capture markets they could lose.23 alternative ways of practising agriculture are not easily implemented in a world that has been following a different road for so long. this is seen also in a number of modern institutions that make the achievement of true sustainability exceedingly difficult. they appear to be simon _______ 23 a baddock, “editorial” in organic new zealand, 65 (4), (july/august 2006, p. 5). 357 key elements in technicistic and economistic practices. hence, a brief review may be in order. 3.2 modern mercantilism despite growing globalisation, representing a greater intertwinement of production, logistics, financial and consumer networks world-wide, mercantilism has remained a key policy. as the rules of the world trade organisation (wto) require member countries to remove import protection, exposing them to vigorous competition, many governments promote exports. countries such as brazil and new zealand aim their research and technology at improving the efficiency and quality of their export sectors. bioand information-technology will be deployed to this end. at the same time, they become major importers of processed foods. such imports put pressure on the export sector to improve productivity. efforts to make agriculture more sustainable, take place within this framework. issues relating to social rural development, the overall ecology, bio-diversity and animal welfare issues take second place. part of production may be put on a biological footing, whilst technicistic practices such as artificial insemination with long-term risks of genetic erosion continue. sometimes, biological production uses soils that have not yet been restored to health after long years of treatment with chemical fertilisers.24 3.3 private property and money without the institution of private property, modern globalisation would be very different if not outright impossible. business corporations operate globally in search of profits from which dividends can be paid to shareholders, salaries and wages to executives and workers, interest to bankers and as little tax as possible to governments. since the late 1970s neo-liberalism as ideology was used to justify this pursuit. john locke’s labour theory of property has been invoked in defence of private property as that part of the world that has been improved by one’s labour and which should be defended by the state. the state itself should divest itself of any property that may be looked after and developed by private interests, because it would never have the same drive and commitment as those who need to make a profit from their own property.25 sustainable agriculture _______ 24 g harvey, we want real food, (constable, london, 2006). 25 a good overview is given by u duchrow & fj hinkelammert, property for people, not for profit: alternatives to the global tyranny of capital, (trans. e. griffiths et al., zed books, london, 2004). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 358 historically, john locke (1632-1704) lived during the time of the british agricultural improvers. he even personally had vested interests in land. hence, his labour theory of property put him on the side of those who wanted to enclose the commons.26 this theory is flawed in a number of ways. first, it fails to recognise that the ability to labour is not just the result of private efforts. without the contributions of teachers, parents, friends, neighbours and the common heritage of the traditions and knowledge of humankind, nobody would be able to gain the skills and knowledge to develop a plot of land. second, as henry george pointed out, plots of land, whether large or small, must be made accessible by the infrastructure as well as by the protection offered by the state through its various agencies.27 thirdly, the produce grown or made on the land must be sold or otherwise disposed of. this requires the use not only of the infrastructure just referred to, but also of the private property owned by others such as traders, processors and distributors. fourthly, in the modern world, the flows and transformations involved in the production process have their counterpart in money flows. money is an institution that is common to all economic and social agents. without a banking system, whether privately or publicly owned, economic activity, let alone capital investment, would be constrained to a very low level. 3.4 externalities the emphasis on private property, in conjunction with the modern banking and monetary system, means that anything not denominated in money falls outside the production and consumption system. a factory might pollute the water and the soil on the privately owned plot of land on which it is located, but its accounts would not show such things. nor would the prices charged include the costs of such pollution. 3.5 the price mechanism as long as prices are set as units of money (currency) per unit of a good or service, the so-called ‘price mechanism’ can only ensure equilibrium between demand and supply in markets that are part of the monetary system. in recent years, the kyoto-protocol provides for an extension of this system to trade in pollution rights. firms get a quota of pollution rights. if they pollute more than they should, they are able to buy credits from those who pollute less. this should provide an incentive for the implementation of a cleaner production system. simon _______ 26 n wood, john locke and agrarian capitalism, (university of california press, 1984). 27 aw madsen, ed., henry george’s progress and poverty, (the hogarth press, london, 1953 (1879)). 359 in a future round the quotas are scheduled for reduction. eventually, it is hoped, pollution would cease. in terms of the kyoto protocol, the quotas are set on the basis of the emissions recorded in 1990, with the goal being to reduce new emissions to less than 5 per cent of the 1990 baseline by 2012. since the problem of greenhouse gas emissions has been developing since the 1800s the target is exceedingly modest. its attainment would have little impact on the total volume emitted and its effects on the world’s climate. in fact, under the impact of rising oil prices, modern machinery has become much more energy-efficient, emitting less greenhouse gases. however, because of a strong increase in demand and production, the use of fossil energy and the emissions of greenhouse gases have been increasing. 3.6 time as noted above business reduces time to mechanical time. the more we can produce per unit of mechanical time, the higher our productivity. this is achieved more likely by automated machinery than by human labour. the use of machinery has allowed a very refined division of ‘labour’ across countries and continents, with a concomitant increase in transport flows. since suppliers of industrialised agriculture have set up large-scale specialised production processes for fertilisers, sprays, implements, medicines and of throughput of farm animals and supplies, agriculture too has become dependent on major transport flows across the globe. to play their role in this system agricultural practices have also become mechanised. animals and plants have been bred so as to fit in with this high production per unit of time model. 3.7 rational agriculture estelle deléage has contrasted rational agriculture and sustainable agriculture.28 the former means that the problems caused by too high an application of chemical inputs should be resolved technically and scientifically. one should as far as possible minimise the impact of industrial agriculture on the natural environment. one seeks solutions in terms of new devices such as gps (ground positioning system), new fertilisers, new pesticides and genetically modified organisms (gmos) and hopes, in the process, to maintain monetary profitability. thus, farmers remain part of the industrial chain from suppliers to sustainable agriculture _______ 28 e deléage, paysans de la parcelle à la planète; socio-athropologie du réseau agriculture durable, (syllepse, paris, 2004), p. 142. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 360 processors, without being able to establish a truly biological agriculture (one that seeks to maintain the integrity of plants and animals by using, amongst other things, biological ways of eliminating pests). the sustainability sought by rational agriculture is a technicistic/ economistic sustainability. 4. an ontological interlude most definitions of sustainability involve a concept of time. brundtland’s refers to the needs of present and future generations. it should be possible, therefore, to look at the idea of sustainability entirely in terms of time. in vollenhoven’s systematics, time is not an agent of change, but rather a necessary condition for change.29 vollenhoven looks at reality as being subject to the law issued by the creator. this subjectity has three dimensions: concrete entities (ontic determination), general functions (ontological determination) and genesis (genetic determination). each of these dimensions is present in all that is subject to the law. each involves a different expression of time and each contributes something special to our understanding of reality that is not given by the others. 4.1 entities we notice time by observing differences between before and after when we are dealing with concrete entities. important in this respect is how the entities cohere and are connected to each other. in general, connectedness requires a relationship, such as friendship. in matters economic companies and their customers cohere through the relationship of seller-buyer. this relationship has many variants. they vary from very ephemeral (somebody buys a train ticket) to very complex, as in many rhizoid structures (chains of suppliers and customers). one may compare the state of a company or industry before an investment has taken place with the state after it has been fully implemented. in agriculture one could draw a comparison between the state of farms prior to the general use of chemical fertilisers and the one after their introduction over a period of time. what happened to the availability and quality of the food produced, the health of soil and animals? simon _______ 29 jh kok and a tol (eds), d h th vollenhoven, isagogè philosophiae; introduction to philosophy, (dordt college press, sioux center, 2005) and a tol, “time and change in vollenhoven” in philosophia reformata,vereniging voor reformatorische wijsbegeerte, vol. 60(2), 1995, pp. 99-120. 361 studies on climate warming have shown the intricate interconnections between accumulations of greenhouse gases and their effects on climate, the world’s ice cover, oceans, weather, plants and animal life. flannery shows a clear delineation of time periods, before and after 1800 and more recently before and after 1976.30 entities occur in the kingdoms of things (inorganic), plants, animals and people. in each there is a vast multitude of them. moreover, in the kingdom of people, objects are designed and made from entities originating in the other three kingdoms. when we don’t need them anymore, they are disposed of in the natural environment. our technical processes of production and consumption have a major bearing on the state of the other three kingdoms. it is here that the concept of sustainability must begin. how do we relate to the other kingdoms with our technology and economics? before we start with a process, there may be a rich diversified landscape. after we have finished it might have been transformed to a bare desert full of slag heaps. farming is an activity through which soils, plants, animals, technical objects and people cohere. in industrial farming this activity has become abstract and dominating, without respect for the integrity of animals, plants and landscapes. animals and plants are manipulated through scientific technology, so that they become dependent on technology. the caring or nurturing relationship of the farmer is displaced by a scientific or technological relationship. this is argued in terms of the need to ‘make money’. 4.2 functions the ontological determination concerns the modalities in which an entity presents itself. when entities are functioning they are realising modal possibilities. everything functions in all modalities. since they are inherent in a thing, the functions belong to its structure and the structure consists of all the analogies, both retrocipations and anticipations.31 the many functional differences cohere through the analogical structure. time is expressed in the rhythmic periodicity of functioning, especially by observing retrocipations. thus, the rhythm of economic life is expressed in the movements of the business cycle, in periods of growth and stagnation, of prosperity and poverty, in styles sustainable agriculture _______ 30 t flannery, the weathermakers; the history and future impact of climate change, (the text publishing company, melbourne, 2005). 31 functions are ordered from lower to higher and are closely related to each other by retrocipations and anticipations. a higher function refers back to lower ones. it retrocipates on them. lower functions anticipate higher ones. thus, the economic function retrocipates on the functions of space and biotic growth (economic space and economic growth) and anticipates the juridical and ethical functions (a just distribution of income). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 362 of fashions and in the succession of technologies (they follow a pattern of introduction, maturing and declining). a rhythmic periodicity obtains also in the functioning of the planet earth with respect to the sun with significant consequences for the state of the climate on earth over long periods of time.32 a farm functions primarily economically, inasmuch as it seeks to produce an abundance of goods that are useful for humans and animals. there is a rhythm of sowing, nurturing and harvesting. the economic function is exercised along with the ethical (caring), juridical (ensuring every animal and staff member gets his or her rightful due), social (maintaining good contacts with neighbours, suppliers, customers), lingual (animals are properly named), technical (farm implements are working optimally), analytical (determining the right times for sowing etc.), aesthetic (farming evokes images of fruitfulness, peace, abundance) etc. i note here that the core idea of economics used here differs from the neo-classical one of allocating scarce means to satisfy human wants or needs. in industrial farming the production process becomes dominated by the technology imposed by suppliers, processors and scientists. this disrupts the normal web of anticipations and retrocipations. this is shown in particular stark tones in intensive industrial farming (pigs, beef-lot and poultry) where the natural rhythm is replaced by a continuous system of production aided by flows of inputs from outside agriculture (feed, chemicals, energy) in order to produce maximum outputs. accumulating heaps of waste and manure causes significant pollution of air, water and soil. in dairying, automatic milking around the clock is another case in point. 4.3 genesis in the kingdoms (things, plants, animals and people) subjects trace a life-line, so that we can distinguish past and future, earlier and later. each kingdom imposes limits as to the type of events that are possible. soils cannot grow, but may become drier or wetter over time, richer or poorer in mineral content. forests may die; animals become extinct or may proliferate and become a plague. biographies of people describe lifelines in terms of achievements, failures, views etc. similarly, one may write company histories. greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, remain in the atmosphere over long periods, making it difficult to deal with the problem of climate warming. in industrial farming systems the normal lifeline of animals is economistically reduced to their productive years. simon _______ 32 ibid., p. 63ff. 363 5. towards a true concept of sustainability the previous section indicates that sustainability should be considered in terms of the three basic dimensions or determinations (ontic, ontological and genetic) and especially with respect to the passing of time in each of these determinations. in practice such consideration involves the systematic gathering of data, the patient modelling of processes and the preparation of human action. 5.1 the gathering of data 5.1.1 occurrence in ontic determination it should be possible to set up a database of what has been happening to subjects in the kingdoms of things, plants and animals in a particular area. often we become concerned about sustainability by noticing problems such as the pollution of water, the disappearance of insects, birds and fish, or their migration to cooler latitudes, the odour of ammonia or the lack of animal welfare. even if we are dealing with a pristine area, we need to compile an inventory of subjects, asking which subjects (things, plants, animals, people) occur in it and how these occurrences are changing over time. such an inventory will include entities such as farms, manufacturing plants, roads, railways, houses and other structures and how they are connected with each other and with entities in other regions. 5.1.2 occasions in ontological determination the next step is to inquire how processes and interactions are shaping the patterns identified. this will also necessitate an examination of human involvement. the investigation may discover that factories upstream are occasioning a pollution of the rivers flowing through the area. sometimes factories or power stations in other countries may occasion flows of sulphuric acid that kills trees. volcanoes may occasion flows of ash, fertile lava and sulphur. farmers might occasion a run-off of nitrates into streams as they apply more nitrogen fertiliser than the soil is able to absorb. flannery has outlined how climate warming has been caused, in all probability, by the industrial revolution and the consequent need to fuel machines, houses, cars, ships etc by means of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.33 in his view, the process may be halted by means of a series of technical steps that everybody is able to take. sustainable agriculture _______ 33 ibid., pp. 69ff. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 364 5.1.3 lifelines in genetic determination as the stocktaking continues, the interaction of occurrences and occasioning will make it possible to model the lifelines of subjects. the pollution of streams may shorten the normal lifelines of fish species, causing their untimely death. modern dairying and sheep and beef production systems require that cows are slaughtered before they are five years old. if forestry industries cut a certain number of mature trees, the effects on the duration of the forest over a period of time can be assessed. it stands to reason that deliberate efforts to lengthen the lifelines of subjects in all kingdoms would slow down not only the rate of economic growth, but also pollution. there is wisdom in the ‘slow growth’ movement. quality would become more important than quantity. 5.2 patient modelling once the data are assembled, modelling would have to be undertaken to get a precise idea of how technical/economic transformations occasion flows and how flows are again transformed into other flows. a dairy factory will collect milk from farms for transformation into flows of milk powders, cheese, butter and casein. the flow of whey may be transformed into vodka in another plant. of course, the dairy farms will have transformed flows of sunshine, rain and grass via cows into milk, producing flows of effluent that is stowed in ponds. the flow of milk from farms to factory will cause flows of exhaust gases. by drawing a map of all important flows, stows and transformations, it should be possible to identify those factors that would harm the future capability of the area to yield beneficial flows and those that would enhance it. in agriculture one would have to model the current trend towards ever larger-scale farms based on manufactured inputs such as chemical fertilisers in contrast to diversified, mixed, small but self-sustaining family farms. 5.3 human action given the database and the dynamics resulting from the modelling, office-bearers will have to judge whether existing controls are adequate or whether intervention is called for to stop or modify some or all of the processes that appear to be harmful from a longer-term perspective. they will call upon scientific advisers, study results from other areas, consult those responsible for the economicor technical transformation processes, etc. it will indeed be important that they do not act as enlightened despots. the views of all who have a stake in the future of the area will be important. simon 365 deléage discusses the approach to sustainability developed by groups of farmers in the brittany area of france.34 they have been using a grid of 24 criteria to evaluate agricultural practices, divided into three groups of eight (economic, social, environmental). technical matters are included in the economic criteria. the practical effect has been that modern industrial intensive farming practices have been rejected in favour of long-term biological farming. i would accept this approach, but would prefer to extend it much more along the lines suggested above. there should also be ethical, juridical, technical and aesthetic criteria. furthermore, the diagnosis could be improved by the suggested modelling based upon the three concepts of time. even so, the attempts of the groups as described are an impressive start towards true sustainability. perhaps, in agriculture sustainability is easier to achieve than in other sectors. if the same approach were applied to industrial manufacturing, urban areas would have to introduce a drastically different lifestyle. in general, it is important to start with small ecologically distinct areas where actors can support each other. agriculture has the advantage that it involves all kingdoms in a very visible manner. it is also an activity through which a number of independent farmers exercise stewardship over large tracts of land and water. the example of cuba shows that production of vegetables may be increased significantly on a biological basis by a better stewardship of available land.35 in order to underpin such stewardship it would be appropriate to vest the ownership of land in a fund from which farmers (and others) lease land on the basis of pre-determined criteria of stewardship. the fund should regularly consult with leaseholders as to the appropriateness of such criteria.36 6. conclusion the idea of sustainability has been conceptualised mainly in a technicistic and economistic fashion. modern abstractions prevail. this approach results in a minimal and partial alleviation of environmental problems. an attempt to approach true sustainability would involve drastic changes in lifestyle. however, lifelines of soils, plants and animals would be sustainable agriculture _______ 34 ibid., pp.144ff. 35 j hannover, “das ökoparadies im hinterhof” in die zeit, 17/08/06, p. 28. 36 a granott describes such a system in his account of the jewish national fund in agrarian reform and the record of israel, (eyre and spottishwoode, london, 1956). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. 366 simon extended towards their natural limits. agriculture would cohere socially in distinct areas, with farmers being able to play a constructive role in their wider communities. technically, agriculture would become much more a craft than an industrial practice. economically, prevention of waste and the attainment of healthy harvests that may be sustained without environmental harm would be key criteria. 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israel (eyre & spottiswoode, london, 1956). j-luc gréau, l’avenir du capitalisme (gallimard, paris, 2005). c guillou, les saigneurs de la terre (albin michel, paris, 1997). e hanzig-bätzing and w bätzing, entgrenzte welten; die verdrängung des menschen durch globalisierung von fortschritt und freiheit (rotpunktverlag, zürich, 2005). g harvey, we want real food; why our food is deficient in minerals and nutrients-and what we can do about it (constable, london, 2006). j hannover, “das ökoparadies im hinterhof”, die zeit, no. 34, 17 august 2006, p. 28. e heimann, history of economic doctrines (oup, new york, 1964 (1945)). 367 sustainable agriculture h george, progress and poverty (condensed) (the hogarth press, london, 1953 (original published 1879)). p kennedy, preparing for the twenty-first century (harper collins, london, 1993). d c korten, when corporations rule the world (kumarian press, west hartford, 1995). th j lindblad, nederland en de oostzee 1600-1850 in goud uit graan: 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vollenhoven, philosophia reformata, vol. 60 (1995), pp. 95-120 (vereniging voor reformatorische wijsbegeerte, utrecht). c tudge, so shall we reap (allen lane, london, 2003). a vlot, tijd voor de eeuwigheid; de techniek staat voor iets (de vuurbaak, barneveld, 2002). d h th vollenhoven, isagôgè philosophiae; introduction to philosophy, eds j h kok & a tol (dordt college press, sioux center, 2005). n wood, john locke & agrarian capitalism (university of california press, berkeley and los angeles, 1984). world commission on environment and development., our common future, (the ‘brundtland report’) (oxford university press, oxford, 1987). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 345-367. microsoft word 02 nkoane.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 393= 400. creating sustainable postgraduate supervision learning environments through critical emancipatory research mm nkoane1 abstract this article articulates pedagogic praxis for postgraduate supervision couched within sustainable learning environments with emancipatory aims. the paper probes the discourses of hegemony as a form of power that relies on non-coercive control by supervisors over students (master-apprentice model). furthermore, it proposes a counter-hegemonic pedagogic praxis informed by critical emancipatory research. i amplify how postgraduate supervision could be a liberating experience, drawing from my own experiences as part of a supervisory team of 15 academics and cohort of 28 doctoral and 22 master’s students. the article interrogates the struggles on the continuum of power formations between supervisor and students. it proposes an alternative, liberating postgraduate supervision as a pedagogic praxis to counter the dominant discourse. it concludes by emphasising the importance of creating enabling sustainable learning environments with a promise of a counter-hegemonic praxis that requires rearranging master-apprentice relations. key words: sustainable learning environments, social justice, emancipation, pedagogic praxis, critical emancipatory research. introduction considerable ink has flowed on a ‘hot’ topic on the postgraduate research agenda in recent years and the discourses on supervision, in particular, but there have been few debates on how to create sustainable learning environments in which students might reclaim freedom in knowledge production. according to petersen (2007), much research has explored the features of ‘effective’ supervision, guidelines about supervision, and supervisory arrangements and practices (see craswell, 1996; dinham & scott, 1999; humphrey & mccarthy, 1999; golde, 2000; kiley & mullins, 2001; de valero, 2001; ives & rowley, 2005). in this article, i wish to contribute to the debate by highlighting and condensing pedagogic praxis for supervision located within sustainable learning environments with emancipatory aims, and probing discourses or challenges of the hegemony that manifests itself in power relations between supervisor and student. petersen (2007) further argues that postgraduate pedagogic praxis is a field that tends to be ‘radically under-theorised’. postgraduate supervision is seen as relations between the supervisor and the supervisee and privileged discourses or knowledge economy. this relationship is about respect for the other 1 molebatsi milton nkoane (phd), senior lecturer in the faculty of education at the university of the free state and founding member of the nrf sponsored sustainable learning environments research project. email:nkoanemm@ufs.ac.za nkoane 394 person and ensuring that there is fairness in all interactions and sensitivity towards manifestation of power, thus meaning how the parties involved in this intellectual journey handle issues of power and generation of knowledge. social justice becomes a norm in this kind of relationship because it is about respect and addresses issues of equity, freedom, peace and hope. social justice in postgraduate pedagogic praxis challenges hegemony in postgraduate supervision and advocates respect that drives towards equity rather than marginalisation. postgraduate pedagogic praxis as intersect in this light, i argue that the supervisor and supervisee on this intellectual journey have to negotiate the boundaries of what it means to conduct research at postgraduate level. this is where confusion and overlaps become a challenge, because the supervisor has to oversee the successful appropriation of the power relations while boundaries are reconstructed and challenged. waghid (2006) argues that this new relationship between the supervisor and students should not be mistaken for that between a customer and a supplier. this new relationship ought to be constituted by freedom and friendship, which can hopefully take place in dialogical spaces or relationships with others through which possibilities are opened up toward what might be, should be, is not yet. the parties ought to open a platform to communicate and construct alternative possibilities to establish new relation that is neither a relation of supplier and consumer nor of master and apprentice. this should be a pedagogic relationship that transforms and empowers both parties and enhances the principles of democracy. this ought to be blended within freire’s transformative and emancipatory pedagogic praxis. through this kind of pedagogic relationships values such a democracy, social justice, empowerment and sustainable learning environments could be realised. it is about the understanding of the world experiences of both parties involved. i could conceptualise the supervisory relationship as one in which boundaries are negotiated. nkoane (2009) asserts that power relations could be eliminated and changed within dialogical spaces. we can understand that power is not given, but individually and collaboratively created within the emerging praxis in which the supervisor and supervisee are engaged. within social justice postgraduate pedagogic praxis, empowerment becomes the core justification of liberty. the supervisor does not treat the student as an object or a means towards an end. importantly, both supervisor and supervisee have an important role to play in the construction of new forms of knowledge. if we think of dialogical spaces as a negotiated settlement that empowers both parties, then we understand that empowerment is not the gift of the powerful. it is important to note that the postgraduate pedagogic praxis as intersect should be rooted in the enlightenment of social justice and bring about emancipation, rationality and liberation. i argue that this approach could bring empowerment and see postgraduate students as thinking, rational and complex human beings that are able to produce knowledge. we need to go beyond the limits of traditional and create sustainable learning environments for postgraduate students that would empower, enlighten and emancipate. green (1988) argues for freedom as a form of human consciousness whereby supervisors can rouse postgraduate students ‘to go in search of their own’, meaning to provoke them to reach beyond themselves, to wonder, to imagine and to pose their own questions. this is empowerment, because students are able to think about what they are doing, and they are given a platform to share their meanings and to conceptualise and make sense of their world-life experiences. postgraduate supervision through critical emancipatory research td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 393-400. 395 it becomes interesting to explore how students construct knowledge and draw upon resources in this intellectual journey, instead of directing them to reproduce the master’s own knowledge. if we take the languages, histories, experiences and voices of the students seriously and integrate that with our knowledge, postgraduate research becomes a dynamic experience. this pedagogic praxis at postgraduate level creates possibilities for new makings of reality, and the new possibilities for being that emerge from these intersections of relationships between supervisor and supervisee. what i find particularly interesting in this pedagogic praxis is the liberating effect on supervisors, because they move away from being technicist and assume a new role, becoming co-constructors and co-learners in the knowledge constructed by their postgraduate students. in a sustainable learning environment a supervisor is critical about how knowledge is constructed and advocates the importance of human interactions and relations, and sees students as able, speaking and interpreting beings who have to be approached differently (see wuthnow, hunter, bergesen & kurzwell, 1985; mahlomaholo & matobako, 2006; nkoane, 2009). counter-hegemony discourse an alternative for postgraduate supervision as fairclough (2003) suggests, discourse is not only about words or texts, but rather about discursive formations and practices that exist and operate among social practices. discourse as practice systematically forms the objects that are spoken of. discourses are made of words or signs, but they involve more than just the use of those signs to refer to pre-existing praxis (hongwane, 2009). an interesting aspect, which seems to feature power relations and dominance is how discursive praxis is produced through and reflected in language and in practices. postgraduate supervision has residuals of the dominant discourses prevalent in society. discourses are both informative and instructive; that is, they tell us how the world is arranged and how we should interact with the social order. humankind has gone through many struggles against imperialism, ranging from colonisation, marginalisation, superiority, claims of being custodians or bearers of knowledge, and expertise in a discipline area or knowledge that is fluid and dynamic in nature. all these discourses and claims might be leaving the arenas of academia through the front door and reentering from through the back door, unless we start changing our own pedagogic praxis. postgraduate students might be unable to articulate or construct their knowledge, to unite their life experiences and those of their societies without resorting to the ‘master’ with a ‘super-vision’. this kind of practice creates cycles of reproduction of knowledge from the know-all expert or ‘master’. in this article i am referring to this pedagogic praxis as a hegemonic intellectual order that protects the master’s intellectual tradition of how knowledge is constructed. antonio gramsci (1971) asserts that hegemony is non-coercive control, but that it does not rule out the possibility of using force. a sustainable learning environment adopts a revolutionary intellectual stance that could reveal the weakness of the existing postgraduate pedagogic praxis to advance an alternative intellectual praxis. i propose a counter-discourse, located within critical theory and informed by sustainable learning environments and critical emancipatory research practice. this intellectual revolution is a counter-hegemonic pedagogic praxis that requires re-arranging or deconstructing power-relationships between ‘master and apprentice’ (i.e. supervisor and nkoane 396 student) and changing the state of mind between the two. postgraduate supervision should be seen as creating enabling, sustainable learning environments to support students. according to nulty, kiley and meyers (2009), supervisors or promoters are expected to coach and mentor, teach, guide and advise students. waghid (2006) offers a counter-discourse by asserting that there should be a higher level of freedom and friendship for postgraduate students’ supervision in order to cultivate a culture of ‘authentic’ learning different from one that advocates a consumer market-driven ‘logic’. this kind of supervisory pedagogic praxis offers a particular conceptualisation which counter-hegemony with broad lens through which postgraduate supervision could be transformed. this conceptualisation has a social justice agenda as its central focus and the intent of challenging or disrupting inequities in the traditional postgraduate supervision praxis where necessary. it is informed by the discourse that knowledge is socially constructed and dynamic, thus indicating that the notion of an expert holds no water. this praxis challenges the silencing of postgraduate students’ voices and interrogates the notion of ‘whose knowledge is it anyway?’ to use foucault’s theoretical lens on social justice education and critical emancipatory research is to challenge the power wielded by the strong over the weak. he maintains that to remain committed to the struggle of those on the periphery, you need to engage in the ‘games of truth’ on societal and educational hegemony by challenging power relations that subjugate people, and by maintaining democracy, freedom, peace and hope. i regard foucault’s discourse as relevant in postgraduate pedagogic praxis, where both the supervisor and supervisee need to challenge hegemony. countering dominant discourses by levelling the playing fields for those assumed to be without power, voices, skills, and knowledge (in these instance postgraduate students) must be able to take centre-stage. in this light, i argue that dominant discourse and power is not a property of powerful supervisors as discursive formations and practices have purported them to be (see foucault, 1997; nkoane, 2012). struggles on the continuum of power formations i am part of a team of 15 academics drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines within the faculty of education at the university of the free state. we are supervising a cohort of 28 doctoral and 22 master’s students using critical emancipatory research as a theoretical framework for addressing diverse research problems. the use of a cohort enables group work and sharing ideas and literature sources. it is built into the workshops that are continued throughout the period of research. we encourage groups to form working cells and critical reader groups to provide support during the intellectual journey; this seems to reduce isolation and builds a community of practice. the cohort provides motivation for supervisors and students alike, as they share progress and provide critique of each other. this eclectic supervisory team helps us to navigate the intellectual journey, moving from one theoretical or conceptual stance to another with ease. what makes us humble is the intersections between us as supervisors and our students; perhaps our varied or subjective interpretations of realities become important to consider and negotiate in the process. the steel rod that holds us together is critical emancipatory research, which requires us (in this instance students and supervisor) to become totally immersed as equal partners in this intellectual journey. through this approach of informed eclecticism we value principles of democracy, social justice, sustained livelihood and empowerment of all. in this light, i argue that student and supervisory relations are harnessed, and students’ varied or subjective interpretations and understanding of realities are respected and acknowledged in the process postgraduate supervision through critical emancipatory research td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 393-400. 397 of knowledge construction. supervision in this fashion is sensitive to the plight of students, is democratic, is open to a myriad of contradictions and respects students as knowing people who assume the identity of students. we are conscious that student formations are informed by people of different genders, classes, ages, ethnic groups, religions and sexual orientations, who enact the role of a student. consequently we have to respect them as equals. we have to be empathetic, courageous, and compassionate in making meaning of their research work and seeing the world through their eyes (see mahlomaholo & nkoane, 2002; nkoane 2012). waghid’s conceptualisation of how as supervisors we could navigate struggles on the continuum of power formations and harness friendship in order to achieve ‘authentic’ learning is a powerful example. he writes: if i supervise students, then i must first declare myself a ‘friend-who-loves’, since i would not be loved in return … loving relationship is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to other in the context in which they find themselves … loving relationships are ‘brotherly’/’sisterly’ because they invoke a sense of responsibility, care and respect towards others … as a supervisor i should create conditions whereby students learn … to be caring towards students; democratizing interactions … students take the initiatives to imagine the possibilities and to be respectful towards students (waghid, 2006: 434). the power of his conceptualisation of caring and love is revealed when one locates it within the ambit of sustainable learning environments and social justice. for instance, a sustainable learning environment is socially just and empowering when supervisors are caring, loving and showing respect. this gives both the supervisor and students power to perform and cognitively navigate their way in this intellectual journey of constructing and producing knowledge. the point about the notion of power formations between supervisor and students is that the traditional supervisory pedagogy has bestowed on the supervisor the role of a knowing authority, who is in a position of power and has the task of overseeing the students’ work. this creates tensions because students are perceived as tabulae rasae or clean slates, as individuals who cannot make meaning of their histories and/or lifeworld experiences. we can certainly understand the persona that is unconsciously or consciously engraved on the minds of supervisors to qualify in differentially constructed power formations and elevate them to the status of a ‘superman or superwoman in a telephone booth’. this kind of hegemony is bestowed in the minds of supervisors or promoters by the university or faculty, denoting: experience, successful researcher, expert in knowledge area, overseer of student, source of knowledge and examiner (see boud & lee, 2005; johnson, lee & green, 2000; petersen, 2007). in this light, i see a hegemonic relation between supervisor and students, because students are marginalised, relegated and pushed to the periphery as not knowing, inexperienced and products of a supervisor, what waghid (2006) refers to as relationship of customer and supplier. in these struggles of power formations the central question is: whose knowledge is constructed, that of supervisor or students? grant points out (2005) that students’ knowledge is usually examined according to criteria that are often not clear to the student. what i find particularly interesting and disturbing in the struggles of power formations is: whose voice should be heard? nkoane 398 a promise to counter-hegemonic pedagogic praxis in this paper, i have offered a particular conceptualisation of pedagogic praxis for postgraduate supervision, understanding it from foucault’s theory of archaeology and genealogy. this means studying power and knowledge in the context of the supervision process. foucault (1977) states clearly that individuals should resist power or dominance exercise over them. the two theoretical stances of archaeology and genealogy may prove useful for reflection on the dominant discourse relegating postgraduate students, and on counter-hegemonic discourses and promises of emancipation, liberation, empowerment, democracy, equity, hope, peace, social justice and the grwoing chorus of voices of postgraduate students demanding to be heard, respected and acknowledged (nkoane, 2010). it is important to undertake to counter hegemonic discourse, as it will allow us to reflect on discourse that contests silencing the voices and bodies of knowledge and experience that postgraduate students possess. this represents the critique of our own postgraduate supervision or pedagogic praxis at universities and critique on the persona bestowed upon us, and draws our attention to being sensitive, human and respectful, and working towards creating sustainable learning environments that are socially and academically just. mahlomaholo (1998) states clearly that the dominant discourses ‘seldom reign without some challenge from the dominated’. what is interesting about the promise to counter the dominant discourses discussed above is the way it is informed by theoretical positions that strive for emancipation and social justice. the discourses clearly demystify labelling theories that are created and sometimes packaged in a covert manner (in this instance students who know less). in the history of humankind, markers and labels were created by misogyny to relegate, marginalise and downgrade women. in this article, i offered a particular theoretical lens to rethink and look again at postgraduate supervision and understand it as opposing the dominant discourse that sees postgraduate student as ‘customers’ and supervisors as ‘suppliers’. seeing students as different from supervisors disempowers students, because it relegates and marginalises them to a particular social station, where they are described as less rigorous, incompetent and less assertive. in essence, this is what this article has to offer: a particular conceptualisation of how we could understand postgraduate supervision so that students may be empowered (see foucault, 1977; duncan, 1993; glough, 1998; mahlomaholo, 1998; nkoane, 2010). conclusion in this article, i have attempted to demonstrate how privileged or dominant discourses can advance power by elevating supervisors or ‘masters’ to the position of ‘superiority’ and downgrade or marginalise students or ‘apprentices’ to an inferior social station. interrogating and probing discursive formations and practices that exist in postgraduate supervision will be liberating not only for students, but for the supervisor as well. i took a stance to diffuse the notion of the power of the ‘master’ in this article, because it would imply that the supervisor is a master of knowledge. this is a problematic view, because knowledge is dynamic and fluid as it has no distinctive boundaries. herein lies the difficulty of any supervisor or ‘master’ who claims to be a knowledge expert. the question at the heart of the ‘master and apprentice’ model is, who is the holder of power and authority? the implication is that the master is more powerful and knowledgeable than the other. in our cohort team, we have noticed how important it is to create a sustainable learning environment that is empowering and upholds the values of democracy and social justice. however, we are conscious that this postgraduate postgraduate supervision through critical emancipatory research td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 393-400. 399 pedagogic praxis is not natural; it is an artifice that must always be negotiated, elaborated and adjusted anew. references boud, d. & lee, a. 2005. peer learning as pedagogic discourse for research education. journal of studies in higher education, 30(5): 501–515. craswell, g. 1996. this unfathomable thing called supervision: negotiating better working relationships with supervisors, in quality postgraduate research: is it happening? conference proceedings 18–19 april 1996 – quality in postgraduate research. adelaide. de valero, y.f. 2001. department factors affecting time-to-degree and completion rates of doctoral students at one land-grant research institution. journal of higher education. 72(3): 341-367. dinham, s. & scott, c. 1999. the doctorate: talking about the degree. nepean: university of western sydney. duncan, n.t.f. 1993. discourse and racism. unpublished ph.d. thesis. south africa: university of western cape. fairclough, n. 2003. analysis 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journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 180-192. scarce skills expatriates in south african universities: rhetoric and realities of the “messianic” academics mp sebola1 abstract this article investigates the reason for the continued scarce skills shortage, despite the recruitment of expatriates in academic institutions as an intervention measure. it argues that while the human resources departments in south african universities motivate for the appointment of expatriates in the development of scarce skills, little monitoring is done to determine the effectiveness of this objective and, often, no performance instrument exists for such personnel. as such, the scarce skills to be developed continue to be wanting in the country. this article is conceptual and uses literature to argue about the hypothetical relation between the lack of a monitoring tool for expatriates and the continued scarce skills problems that universities cannot address. it concludes that the continued lack of a performance-monitoring instrument in south african universities for contracted expatriates will not solve the skills shortage problem experienced in south africa. keywords: expatriates, scarce skills, performance monitoring, universities, south africa introduction the reasons for the migration of skilled employees to foreign countries may differ from one employee to the other; however, dayton-johnson, pfeiffer, schutler & schwinn (2009) listed the political, economic and environmental problems as major causes. of the utmost significance is that it is noted that individuals develop their skills using their country’s resources to contribute to the economic growth of own country and to compete with other neighbouring countries and continents in that regard. the migration of skilled employees of both developing and developed countries is a cross path and with different perceptions of those interested in factors influencing it. the immigration of skilled employees from developing countries to better countries may be influenced by the push and pull factors, while those migrating from developed countries to developing countries are mostly influenced by the desire to explore and learn cultural differences. on the other hand, the receiving country regulates the entrance and employment of the immigrant employee to ensure that their presence would bring about development of scarce skills in the local community. in the south african academia, this is a precondition of employment in which human resources departments have to convince the department of home affairs that the employee’s skills are indeed necessary and can make a significant contribution to the local skills required. a major research question raised in this article is: do south african universities have a performance 1 school of economics & management, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: mokoko.sebola@ul.ac.za scarce skills expatriates in south african universities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 180-192. 181 instrument with which to measure the performance of such individuals and the effect of the skills transferred to locals? conception of expatriate the concept of expatriate currently has no common meaning and application in literature. vogel, van vuuren & millard (2008) and gupta, dasari & dasari (2012) define it as a term that refers to people who move across the national border(s) to another country to pursue their professional, economic and financial goals. however, it can be argued that the economic and financial goals of expatriates in foreign countries supersede other intentions. most literature associates the task of expatriates with failure and not with the achievement of positive results. while the application of this concept may differ significantly from being a parent country national, a third country national or an inpatriate, the most common understanding is that it is a concept referring to a skilled professional from another country using his or her skills in a foreign country. in the context of this article, the concept is used to refer to the use of foreign academic experts in universities in an attempt to solve skills shortage and transfer of skills to the locals so that they can sustain themselves after the departure of the service provider. however, the concept has been used commonly by the multinational companies that sent people from their own country to further business interests on foreign soil. gafhoor, khan, idress, javed & ahmed (2011) use the term “expatriate” to refer to a highly skilled worker with unique expertise who is sent to work in another unit of the company located in a foreign country. the reference to expatriates as high skilled is also a contested matter since harvey (n.d.: 1-11) argues that a variety of high-skilled categories and interpretations thereof exist in migration literature. the use of the term “high-skilled category” may differ from one country to the other. harvey (n.d.: 10) used it to refer to a british citizen holder of a three-year qualification and three years of paid or unpaid work after obtaining such qualification. from a business literature perspective, it is argued that skilled expatriates are indeed able to transfer knowledge and skills to the local beneficiaries. however, thus far such theory is not shared equally by those in the south african academic circles about the role of academic expatriates in local skills transfer and development. scarce skills and causes of shortage in south africa the concept of scarce skills is defined as those occupations in which there is a scarcity of qualified and experienced people, currently or anticipated in the future, either (a) because such skilled people are not available or (b) they are available but do not meet employment criteria (isset seta, 2011: 48; south africa, 2014: 8). the scarce skills 2014 list compiled by the department of education in south africa showed the specific skills in the categories of engineering, medical and health sciences, maths and science teaching, ict, retail, agriculture, finance, technicians as well as urban and regional planners. in south africa, such problems are still agued to be closely linked to the past education system that was deeply rooted in apartheid policies, which promoted better education benefits to the white minority than the benefits for the majority of the african populace. it is the injustices of the past education system that hamper the present education from playing a meaningful role in the economic growth of the country. south africa’s gross domestic product (gdp) is below potential when compared to the global economies reported between 2008 and 2012 (oecd, 2013: 11). according to sebola 182 trading economics (2014), its gdp value represent 0.62 % of the world economy, however, some economic predictions see the prospects of increase in both gdp and income in the near future. the teaching quality and produce of the teaching products are a matter of concern for economic growth in the country. the global competitive report of 2013 ranked south africa at position 140 out of the 144 listed countries in terms of the quality of the educational system of the country (world economic forum, 2013: 1–5). this questions the quality of the education system, which is responsible for scarce skills in the employment sector of the country. this forces the country to rely on academic labour supply from the global community. on the other hand, it is acknowledged in the educational discourses that teacher development in south africa has always been considered a critical matter of debate in and before the post-apartheid south africa (rubichund & steyn, 2014). south africa’s education system is characterised by poor schooling and poor performance in english, maths, science, life skills, ict skills and business acumen (isett seta, 2011: 48). davids (2009), on the other hand, argued that the quality of education does not match the international standards and is even lower than some less developed countries in africa. to this extent, south africa’s education system continued to be regarded as being of poorer quality than those of zimbabwe, zambia or tanzania, even though these countries are experiencing economic slowdown. gaidzanwa (n.d.) indicated that in 1991, 25% of highly skilled zimbabwean academics and professionals emigrated to south africa, canada, usa and australia to evade the scourge of economic decline in their country. the quality of education, on the other hand, cannot be dissociated from the ability and skills obtained by the teachers to perform the honourable task of teaching, which is often considered a calling. it is argued that it is indeed the quality of the training received by teachers that determines the quality of the products to be produced by those teachers. as late as in 2001, south africa still had approximately 85 000 teachers with professional training of less than three years, which threatened the provision of quality education to the post-apartheid south african children needing it. recruitment and appointment of academic expatriates south africa as a country in africa is said to be experiencing serious challenges in terms of recruitment, selection and retention of academics (bernard, 2012); therefore, there is a need to employ academic expatriates to close the gap of its national human resources challenge. dumont & lemaitre (2005: 15) revealed that, despite the shortages of skills by other african countries, including south africa, africa experiences the highest brain-drain of highly skilled people in the globe. on the other hand, it is believed that it is the shortage of skills in south africa that threatens the country’s potential to achieve the 6% growth rate (breier, 2009: 1). the skills shortage is blamed on poor quality education provided by the former apartheid government to blacks. in south africa, expatriates in academia are said to be welcomed with open arms in order to close the skills shortage gaps in human resources. according to del rey & mignin (2010: 49–52), the employment and recruitment of expatriates is governed in terms of the immigration act, 2002 (act no. 13 of 2002) which regulates the foreign nationals’ admission to and employment in the country. in terms of this act, employers are expected to implement the provisions. this affirms to government that the employment of the foreign nationals is in accordance with the skills category shortage in the country. the south african employers are by law expected to enforce the provisions of the immigration act without compromise, failing which they would be open to prosecution. however, that has never proven to be real scarce skills expatriates in south african universities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 180-192. 183 in the employment of foreign expatriates, either in the academic world or in other sectors of the labour market in south africa. most south african managers in academia have considered foreign expatriates in the academic world to be more cooperative and manageable than the locals who can compete for managerial positions in these institutions. this is mostly influenced by the fact that most of these expatriates in academia are mainly from africa and not even from countries that are doing better in the continent; and, those include ghana, zambia, zimbabwe, nigeria and cameroon. an academic expatriate of asian, european or mongolian origin is likely to be treated better than those from ghana, zambia or zimbabwe because of the associated economic status of the immigrant. the selection and appointment of expatriates, especially from africa, are not only a problem for south african citizens who often treat these expatriates in an uncivilised manner because of their feeling of remorse for lost positional opportunities, but are also a problem for the expatriates who often take lower salaries despite the significance of the position they have opted to occupy. according to tati (2008), this may insinuate the perception of cheap labour and abuse of defenceless academics from other parts of africa by the south african labour market. that, on the other hand, may create a problem for the south african government as appointed academic expatriates are likely to make no positive impact on the education system and they need to be assisted. on the other hand, from a legal perspective, the foreign nationals are not easily favoured by the south african laws when it comes to recruitment and appointment to employment positions. despite the harsh realities that they can only be appointed in positions where there is a critical shortage of skill, south africa still faces its own ghosts of satisfying the objectives of the employment equity act, 1998 (act no. 55 of 1998) which are far from being achieved. often an academic expatriate might not even qualify to make it in the preliminary shortlisting because he or she does not belong to the category of a designated group. some criticism of the south african policies of equity offered by mulenga & van lill (2007), is that such policies do not promote the chances of employment and recruitment of foreign nationals and therefore are not geared towards the alleviation of the skills shortage in the country. this is also in line with the observations that the verifications done by the department of home affairs before employing a foreign national are quite difficult. to a particular extent, even academic expatriates who are favoured by the appointment panels are often disappointed when the department of home affairs is not satisfied with the necessity to appoint the preferred candidate. authors like voicu & vlase (2014) indicated that immigrants should accept the reality of facing both subjective and objective barriers based on individual and labour-market characteristics. however, from a global perspective there is a general perception that countries are having difficulty to attract good and right talents to perform in their organisations (tarique & schuler, 2012: 12). such perception may be exaggerated to a particular extent in some countries’ statistics and often for political sympathy or to justify unnecessary expatriate appointments. there are often some exaggerated skills shortage in south africa, which cannot be empirically verified other than from perceptive studies whose methodological frameworks cannot even be justified. in 2010, the higher education information management system (hemis) of south africa released statistics of the distribution of foreign staff academics in south african universities (figure 1). sebola 184 the figure above demonstrates a highest proportion of academic expatriates in south africa that come from african countries (50%). the second largest chunk of the expatriates comes from european countries (42%) with the smallest percentage of 2% from australia and 6% from asia. the biggest portion of the european expatriates is concentrated in universities such as witwatersrand, rhodes, university of the western cape and university of pretoria. the highest percentage of academic expatriates from africa is likely to be attracted in former bantustan universities. the latter, however, trying their best to promote excellent academic research and teaching as required by the country, are often not succeeding in that regard because of a skills shortage. to a certain extent, even the academic expatriates they attract are not the best in their field as compared to those attracted by the former advantaged south african universities. such limitation becomes more visible in a situation where such employed expatriates’ performance is not measured and in this way, the status quo of skills shortage in the country is maintained. it is often argued that since the start of south africa’s recruitment drive of scarce skills little seems to have changed in the human resources advancement of academic institutions in the 20 years after apartheid. the expatriates that retired from such academic institutions often do that without having left or developed the locals to take over the programmes on their own. performance management of academic expatriates in south african universities the concept of performance management (which replaced performance appraisal in many organisations because of the fact that the latter was process-oriented) adopted because it is mostly results-oriented and seeks for operational effectiveness through better use of resources and results (toppo & prusty, 2012; mbua & sasisar, 2013; swanepoel, botha & mangonyane, 2014). more than that, performance management in universities is required for public accountability, responsiveness, effectiveness and efficiency (mapesela & strydom, 2012: 1–4) which should satisfy government and the public. the management and measurement of performance of academics in south african universities rarely exist or does not exist at all as far as performance practices are concerned. the minor performance appraisal systems that exist in some south african universities are not believed to be well zimbabwe 20 % asian 6 % australian 2% other african countries 30 % european 42 % figure 1: distribution of foreign staff across regions, 2005-2008 scarce skills expatriates in south african universities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 180-192. 185 executed and satisfactory to employees (molefe, 2012; toppo & prusty, 2012; reguri & lakko, 2012). the non-existence of or the improper use of such tools in the academic arena of south african universities is a weakness which benefits the performance of academic expatriates that are appointed solely to ensure transference of skills for a particular time frame. thus far, the issue of academics’ performance in south african higher education institutions received less attention from government and policy makers (molefe, 2011), and as such it remained ignored as a popular practice in academic institutions. performance management in south africa is a contested academic discourse that is very critical and has not been easy to implement in either the public service or private sector. several pieces of literature on performance management suggested that the initiative of performance management in south african organisations relate it more to monetary incentive for employees than a developmental tool as envisaged by human resources scholars and practitioners. therefore, it can be argued that where it is said to have been applied in south african organisations, they would have incurred expenditure that does not tie with the development expected from employees. the resultant effects have always been to create legitimate expectations of undeserved incentives by particular employees in the organisation. several studies conducted in south africa have proven that performance management is a concept that is highly challenging in implementation (manyaka, 2012) to the extent that organisations feel that it is better dumped as an organisational mission than practice. in south africa, the concept is very difficult to implement in the public sector and service. in most government departments, it is implemented, but the success thereof is contested by many implementers and beneficiaries alike. in south african municipalities, the concept is so difficult that municipalities only apply it to senior management officials who are also not happy about its implementation. performance management is probably not used for developmental purposes but rather for performance evaluation and should the expatriate be found wanting, the manager concerned should not have the contract renewed for continued service in the organisation. is performance management of academic expatriates possible? reguri & lako (2012: 3) indicated that the deployment of academic expatriates has become a significant aspect of international human resources development after world war 11. the establishment of universities in such countries has created a need for expatriates to provide skills development in those countries. most countries have preferred the contractual agreements over those academic expatriates without necessarily looking at the long-term effects, and some academic expatriates have also identified such flaws and used their international mission for other purposes than local skills development. local universities have little control over the situation because, as the saying goes: “beggars can’t be choosers”. to this extent it is becoming increasingly difficult for local universities to even think of entering into performance-related contracts with expatriates because there is no competition for available positions in the skills shortage category. there is a dire need for such positions to be filled urgently, with no locals available to compete in the category. these positions are mostly in the field of accounting sciences, artisans and other engineering-related fields. fadel & miller (n.d.: 6–8) argued that there is, similarly, a good relation between economic growth and education, and therefore an investment in education is a requirement for a developing country such as south africa. such investment is only possible if the country is capable of attracting good academic expatriates who will produce a crop of young south africans that would contribute to the economic performance of the country. however, it may seem like sebola 186 there is a limitation in the country to achieve such objectives. this happens to the extent that performance management of academic expatriates becomes highly impossible to enforce. there are rhetorical questions and environmental realities that inhibit the universities’ capacity to put academic expatriates on performance-related contracts that will force them to account for what they did differently in their period of employment. in most instances, south african universities advise them to stay until they qualify to apply for permanent residency so that they can permanently close the skills gap as local residents and not as expatriates. that ultimately releases them of their international assignments to contribute in the development of local economies. rhetoric and realities of south african university environment it is very clear that the nature of the problem of academic expatriates in developing local skills in south africa is full of rhetoric that is not in accordance with the realities of operations in the university environment. such rhetoric includes, but is not limited to the following questions: are the academic expatriates really needed to solve the skills problem? does south africa really have skills shortages? are the academic expatriates interested in resolving skills shortages in south africa? is performance of academic expatriates necessary while on contract? does south africa really have skills shortages? literature on this subject revealed that south africa indeed has skills shortage in various areas (breier, 2009: 1–6; erasmus, 2009: 22–29) of the occupational categories. this skills shortage as identified and elaborated on has to be solved through an international recruitment drive in which academics from places other than south africa can be encouraged to immigrate. what is interesting about this solution is that the messianic academics are mostly from other parts of africa known for chronic economic, political and social problems. hemis (2010) reported that as in the year 2010, 50% of academic expatriates in south african universities came from the african region. despite the political rhetoric of apartheid, education and issues of poverty and inequality dominate all talks about the south african education system. even during the apartheid era, south africa had a well-developed educational infrastructural system consisting of 21 public universities, 15 technikons, 120 colleges of education, 24 nursing colleges and 11 agricultural colleges (badat, n.d.: 11). with the post-1994 democratic south africa and its rationalisation agenda of higher educational institutions, the process resulted in 11 “traditional universities”, six universities of technology and six “comprehensive universities” (department of higher education & training, 2014: 4), resulting in 23 universities in total. three additional universities have been added to the family of south african tertiary educational institutions recently, namely: the university of mbombela in mpumalanga province, the university of the northern cape and the sefako makgatho allied health university (a result of the de-merger of medunsa from the university of limpopo). comparatively speaking, no country in africa had a better public educational infrastructural development than south africa. many universities that exist in african countries are of recent origin as compared to south africa, with most of them mushrooming after 2000. scarce skills expatriates in south african universities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 180-192. 187 are the academic expatriates really needed to resolve skills problem? literature on expatriates’ assignments revealed that they are always doomed to be a failure in any given international mandate (selmer, 2006; tahir & ismael, 2007; vogel & van vuuren, 2008) due to internal and external factors. with those limitations of expatriates being confirmed through various scientific studies on international migration, one may often ask a rhetorical question as to whether the academic expatriates are needed to solve the shortage of skills problem in south africa? one can say yes, because literature confirms that there are shortages in specific skills, which dictate that due to insufficient interest by locals in that specific skills category an expatriate could be the solution. however, upon considering how well resourced the south african universities were during and after apartheid in comparison with those from other parts of africa, it is impossible to agree on the messianic mission of academic expatriates from other parts of africa. hemis (2010) showed that of the academic expatriates who were in south africa in 2010, 20% were from zimbabwe and 30% were from other parts of africa. the 20% zimbabwean academic expatriates might be in south africa because of the geographical proximity. however, even though the zimbabwean government invested much in education since independence, their educational infrastructure development never competed with that of south africa before and after apartheid. answersafrica (2014: 1) revealed that of the top ten universities in africa, seven are south african universities (university of cape town, rhodes, university of the western cape, university of south africa, university of pretoria, university of kwazulu-natal, stellenbosch university and university of the witwatersrand). the majority of the messianic academic expatriates do not come from universities that are listed in the top 100 african universities. are the academic expatriates interested in skills shortages in south africa? the intention to assist the host country by an academic expatriate is dependent on his or her reasons to seek employment in a foreign country in the first place. literature confirms that their reasons differ; however, most of them are influenced by economic conditions and attractive offers of the host country. while academic expatriates of european origin might be attracted to south africa because they want to explore, those from other parts of africa might be attracted to south africa by economic conditions that are better than those in their own country (sebola, 2008). harvey (n.d.: 17) reported that most high-skilled expatriates are likely not to go back home if they feel that the host country is providing better working conditions and incentives than their own. it is unlikely that the primary objective of academic expatriates from other countries is to put an end to the skills shortage in south africa, because they regard it as a “canaan”. their primary goal is to achieve economic gain and compete with the locals in the occupational categories mentioned as scarce skills. is performance management of academic expatriates necessary while on contract? for a country that wants to solve a skills problem by using expatriates, performance management is deemed necessary. south africa’s school education and higher education system had numerous problems associated with the apartheid policy that seemed to have affected both the quality and quantity in some occupational skills (odhav, 2009). it is true that the unequal and skewed educational opportunities provided by racist architects like dr hendrik verwoerd, caused an irreparable disparity of shortage of skills in black south africans. it can be argued that judging by the status of resourceful predominantly white universities in south africa and the less-resourced black universities, the skills problem was sebola 188 arguably perpetuated in black universities. like all other african countries, south africa does not have a pool of academics that can use research to solve economic and social problems in the country (mapesela & strydom, n.d.: 1-7). an engagement of expatriates that would be able to assist the south african society to solve that problem becomes a necessity. such engagement can only be made effective if there is an appropriate performance measurement in place. without an appropriate performance measurement of those engaged in closing the skills gap, the status quo is likely to remain. the messianic realities the concept of messianic as used in this article refers to academic expatriates attracted by working conditions in south african universities for purposes of assisting to reduce the problem of shortage of skills. while the purpose of the task is clear, south africa remains a common village for everyone. currently, it is not easy to assess whether the use of expatriates is absolutely positive for the local recipients. the most common problems were, developing own for own advantage, abuse of academic expatriates by local universities’ management, utilised academic expatriates are not necessarily the best, academic expatriates are merely “fugitives” and not messianic. developing own for own advantage the south african employment environment creates a competitive equal opportunity and advantage for everyone; however, mulenga & van ill (2007) view such advantage as limiting the potential of expatriates to participate fully in the human resources structure of the country. to a certain extent, this equal opportunity platform is exploited and ultimately benefits the wrong beneficiaries. academic expatriates are said to produce research and publications when so required and when queried by local university authorities with respect to their worth. it is argued that, in response to such queries, they ultimately recruit students from their own countries and use the local resources to make a legitimate claim for their productivity, which ultimately does less to empower the locals, while benefiting individuals from their own countries. volumes of research publications are produced and co-authored with scientists from their own countries and not with locals. local universities may fail to see the growth of expatriates’ academic selfish interests. on numerous occasions most of their publications concentrate on problems in their own countries. post-graduate output in south africa continues to be weak (mapesela & strydom, n.d.: 2) and therefore the subsidy system introduced by the government is mostly research performance related (ministry of higher education, 2004: 1–20; wangege-ouma & cloete, 2008; odhav, 2009; steyn & de villiers, n.d.: 11–51), which implies that the better the throughput rate, the better the funding at universities. this funding model is meant to improve research and to produce individuals that would assist with the socioeconomic development of the country. in this instance, the duty to develop locals is seen as a threat to an expatriate’s position in the university and therefore local skills development remains a challenge. abuse of academic expatriates by local university management the internationalisation of academia is currently a worldwide phenomenon and south africa is not excluded from this. currently, most of south africa’s recruits are sourced from africa (ghafoor, faroog-khan, idrees, javed & ahmed, 2011; maharaj, 2011). these academic expatriates that are earmarked to assists with excellent teaching and research, are facing some scarce skills expatriates in south african universities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 180-192. 189 challenges in the host country. some of those challenges hinder their primary purpose for being in the host country. reguri & lako (2012: 1-33) noted with concern the abuse and harassment of academic expatriates by local universities and used the south pacific higher education as a case study in this instance. this problem as reflected in the south pacific higher education university may be a reflection of the experience of academic expatriates at the global scale. this means that although academic expatriates are on an international mission of assisting in academic excellence, which should be done by means of teaching and research in host countries, they ultimately engage themselves in local universities’ administrative politics, which leads to them suffering discrimination and harassments by opposing locals. in some host universities, expatriates are appointed in administrative positions that are meant for the locals because of their lack of bargaining power. sebola & ngomane (2011) also noted this limitation by immigrants who say that they accept local offers with big salaries because the local people themselves cannot accept these jobs. this often leads to them being regarded as betrayers of the local citizens. some local universities see them as easy to use objects in management because they would not query any decisions which a local manager would have queried if in administrative positions of a university. “fugitives” and not “messianic” it is acknowledged that expatriates’ failure rate is real in the foreign country (qi & lange, 2005: 2) and international companies have experienced an eminent return with incomplete assignments at own home. the expatriates travel to provide services in foreign countries, mostly influenced by the desire to experience a different environment from their own home environment. south africa is a unique country (bentley, habib & morrow, 2006: 10) based on its history, economy and the unusual composition of its population. these are some of the features making south africa attractive to academic expatriates from africa and other related continents. as such, not all academic expatriates come to south africa because they have specific special skills to offer. in south african universities, the messianic mission is not believable because, in some cases, academic expatriates are appointed in positions that are not classified as scarce skills. they are often dominating in the universities’ faculties of arts in which there are no scarce skills. many times, this is the case because the country provides a peaceful fugitive home to expatriates. it is often clear that most academic expatriates in south african universities are not the best from their own country. therefore, their messianic mission does not make a significant impact. despite the engagements of academic expatriates in this assignment, skills shortage continues to be evidenced socially and economically in south africa (matteus, allen-ille & iwu, 2014) giving evidence that there is no justification of the messianic mission of the academic expatriates. without a performance management contract, most academic expatriates stay in local universities until retirement age, leaving the status quo as it had been decades before they were given permanent citizenship. therefore, the problem of skills shortage continues in the areas they were employed. uncaring universities continue to employ them even after retirement to continue the legacy of nondevelopment of the locals. conclusion this article has argued that there is a need for south african universities to appoint academic expatriates on performance-related contracts. such contracts will assist in ensuring that sebola 190 academic expatriates work towards improving the knowledge-base for local university students and transfer the skills at the same time. the performance-related contracts will assist in closing the skills shortage gap in south africa, which the academic expatriates are rarely able to solve currently. if well managed, the engagements of academic expatriates will help to improve teaching and research and the development of knowledge production that would produce individuals 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if feedback on learner performance is to be effectively used by schools, then it is important to understand what the informational needs of the schools are and whether schools can access the information. thus, one research question is posed in this article namely: how can the current presentation of performance data captured in the school reports and feedback sessions be improved? the conceptual framework for the study draws on evaluation studies focusing on the use and usefulness of information. methodologically, design research using mixed methods was employed. a needs analysis of what information was essential was undertaken. six primary and secondary schools were purposively sampled to participate in the needs analysis from which the first prototype of the report and feedback sessions was developed. this needs analysis was comprised of interviews. the second phase included a sample of 22 primary and 21 secondary schools. data for this phase was collected by means of delphi questionnaires. the data was analysed using content analysis using a variety of coding strategies. one of the significant findings speaks to the view that schools felt the current content was appropriate but that individual school information could be included for the schools requesting additional information. keywords: use, feedback, design research, nominal group technique, delphi questionnaires, reports, feedback sessions, support. disciplines: education studies, further education studies, information studies. introduction the quality of education has been a recurrent theme in the educational landscape. part of the debate is the role of principals and teachers in making adequate decisions based on performance data of learners (coe & visscher, 2002; dunn, airola, lo & garrison, 2012; van petegem & vanhoof, 2005). while different monitoring systems on learner performance may exist within the school, there may also be systems which are external to the school which could be used as a resource. school performance feedback systems (spfs) are information 1 . vanessa scherman, is a senior lecturer in the department of educational psychology, university of pretoria, tel: + 27 12 420 2498, vanessa.scherman@up.ac.za 2 . professor brigitte smit, is attached to the department of further teacher education, university of south africa, tel: +27 12 991 3033, smitb@unisa.ac.za. 3 . elizabeth archer is a researcher in the department of information and strategic analysis, university of south africa, tel: +27 12 429 2035, archee@unisa.up.ac.za scherman, smit & archer 82 systems, developed external to the school that provide schools with information learner performance. the goal of such feedback systems is to maintain and improve the quality of education by identifying patterns of learner performance in terms of strengths and weaknesses so that revisions to current teaching programmes can be made (dunn, et al., 2012). with this in mind, the objective of the research reported in this article was to explore whether the reporting format and feedback sessions within the primary and secondary school monitoring system is appropriate and whether improvements can be made. contextual background of research project in 2003, the centre for evaluation and assessment (cea), at the university of pretoria, south africa, in collaboration with the centre for evaluation and monitoring (cem), at the university of durham, united kingdom embarked on this research project. the national research foundation (nrf), in south africa, funded this project in order to investigate the possibility of adapting existing monitoring systems established in the united kingdom to the south african context. the aim of adapting such monitoring systems was to provide information about the quality of education that learners receive, and more specifically, the extent of academic gains made to intervene timeously and effectively in learner development, through an effective feedback system. the british cem research centre has developed a number of monitoring systems for various stages of the united kingdom’s schooling system, of which the cea chose two: pips (performance indicators in primary schools), implemented at the beginning of primary school, and midyis (middle years information system) implemented at the beginning of the secondary school. pips and midyis were chosen because of the lack of monitoring systems in south africa that focused specifically on the beginning of the primary and secondary school. pips was renamed the south african monitoring system for primary schools project (samp) for the south african context and midyis, the south african secondary school information system (sassis). the initial funding was earmarked for validation of the monitoring systems, which took place over a period of four years. by 2007, additional funding was obtained and the research questions were refined to include suggestions for improvement of the feedback received by the schools. to this end, the following research question was posed: how can the current presentation of performance data captured in the school reports and feedback sessions be improved? literature review the notion of what constitutes educational quality has been researched by many scholars. in the context of the developing world, educational quality presents more complex issues given the increasing access to education and the associated demands that go hand-in-hand with an increasing inflow of learners into the schooling system. the call for educational quality is therefore a serious one. the monitoring process aims to lead to informed decision-making and improvement strategies, given the complex embeddedness of societal systems such economics and politics (gawe & heyns, 2004; unicef 2000). generally, educational quality can be thought of in the following terms: schools being able to transform inputs into outputs (oecd, 2005), that the objectives identified have national and societal relevance (scheerens, glas & thomas, academic performance and feedback to schools 83 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 81-93. 2003, unicef, 2000), fairness in the distribution of resources, as well as the value of the certificates received which verify that knowledge and skills have been mastered (scheerens et al., 2003; unicef, 2000; van der werf, brandsma, cremers-van wees & lubbers, 1999). the need for informed decision-making has been on the increase especially in light of the fact that schools are becoming more autonomous (bosker, branderhorst & visscher, 2007). furthermore, research on the use of performance data of learners has shown that this can be an effective mechanism to improve learner outcomes (dunn, airola, lo & garrison, 2013). apart from the relevance on the classroom-level, data-driven decision making is proving to be an effective management tool on the school-level and beyond. the reason for this is that data-driven decision making implies the collection, analysis and interpretation of data to inform practice and policy within educational settings (mandinach, 2012). the aim of monitoring and providing information based on a monitoring system is to improve teaching and learning. van petegem, vanhoof, daems and mahieu (2005) are of the opinion that there are a number of reasons for gathering performance data, namely, for information needs in terms of functioning and learner performance so that adequate decisions can be made, for accountability purposes and to stimulate discussions with stakeholders. here a distinction is drawn between what data is, namely, objective facts with no meaning attached or information where the data is interpreted (davenport & prusak, 1998; light, wexler, & heinze, 2004; mandinach, honey, & light, 2006). if schools and teachers are to use the data they receive as part of monitoring systems, they need to transform the data into information with which they can work effectively. feedbacks of research results, and the use thereof, are not new concepts and researchers have been grappling with these concepts for decades, especially in the field of evaluation (kirkhart, 2000). feedback on learner performance should be about particular qualities of learners (strengths and weaknesses), learners’ work and how the learner can improve (black & wiliam, 1998). for feedback of performance data to be effective, both positive and negative aspects need to be highlighted (duke, 2002) in order to motivate recipients of feedback to fulfil educational purposes (siebörger & macintosh, 2004). evidence suggests that feedback can be as harmful almost as often as it can be helpful, which can have a substantial effect on the improvement of task performance (coe & visscher, 2002). very often it is not the information itself that is of importance, but instead the manner in which such information is mediated and conveyed (brinko, 1993). in sum, the impact of feedback depends on the interaction between the feedback message, the nature of the task performed and situational variables (coe & visscher, 2002). put differently, the type of information and how that information is presented plays a significant role in the manner that the information is firstly received, and secondly, utilised or used and then implemented. visscher (2002) includes this component of ‘use’ as a central concept in the way in which he theoretically articulates school performance feedback systems. here, use can be defined as the process of applying knowledge received toward either the solution of a problem or alternatively the attainment of a predetermined goal (love, 1985). furthermore, utilisation is thought of in terms of a continuum from direct use to mere informational purposes without resulting in actual use (weiss, 1981). utilisation in the context of this research refers to the process of applying received knowledge and information with the aim of finding a solution to a problem or the attainment of a predetermined goal (love, 1985). the application of the information may include direct use (instrumental use), delayed use or diffused conceptual use (beyer, 1997, estabrooks, 1999, love, 1985). scherman, smit & archer 84 the various notions of ‘use’ appropriate for this research are instrumental use, conceptual use and symbolic use. instrument use is the concrete application of the research information in a specific and directed way (such as decision-making) (love, 1985, harnar & preskill, 2007). conceptual use is about using the information for general enlightenment, which means that thinking about the feedback information may be changed, but does not result in action. finally, symbolic use is when information is used to legitimise practice or defend a position and to persuade to lobby for resources (beyer, 1997, estabrooks, 1999, harnar & preskill, 2007; visscher, 2002). in sum, regardless of how the information is used, weiss (1981) suggests that use should be studied in terms of what is used, who uses it, how immediate the use is and the effect of the use. research design and methodology for this research, design research was employed which focuses on designing and exploring innovations to test particular interventions in order to support specific theoretical claims. the aim of design research is to understand the complex interplay between theory, designed artefacts and practice (the design-based research collective, 2003). design research is iterative in nature (as reflected in figure 1, adapted from nieveen, 2009), with the aim of improving the reporting format and feedback sessions, in addition to improving the design principles (nieveen, 2009). f i g u r e 1 d e s i g n r e s e a r c h m o d e l the prototype, in the context of this discussion, is the report provided to schools, based on the performance data and the feedback sessions. the feedback sessions were arranged in consultation with the participating schools. the sessions normally took one and a half to two hours and included a presentation of the project, the assessment and the results overall. the academic performance and feedback to schools 85 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 81-93. schools were given an opportunity to discuss the research and ask questions, which is seen as a participatory process. because of the rich information received, the sessions were recorded. at the feedback session, the schools were also provided with comprehensive reports which are tailored to their specific school. given the nature of the overarching project, the research was approached with an open mind in terms of using complementary methods. both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to answer the identified questions. the typology chosen for the broader research project is qual → quan. the overall theoretical thrust to this design is inductive and was chosen due to the fact that a model of feedback is being developed. both the qualitative and quantitative components of this study were kept distinct and methodologically independent, which implies that each is true to its own methodological assumptions (morse, 2003). however, this article focuses specifically on the qual component of the study. sample several schools were purposefully selected to participate in this project for maximum variation in their characteristics and background. as the aim of the research is to develop a monitoring system, which would be appropriate for south african schools regardless of the variation in schools, it was imperative to include schools from various backgrounds. due to financial constraints, a limited number of schools were accommodated in the sample, as discussed below. the samp project sampled 22 schools, of which eight were english medium school, six schools were afrikaans medium schools, seven sepedi medium schools and one was a dual medium english/afrikaans school. two grade 1 classes in each school undertook the baseline assessment. all 22 principals and selected heads of department and teachers were included in the study. while this article reports on the 22 schools that participated in the study, at the time there were schools who decided to withdraw. for sassis, 21 schools were included. instead of selecting schools according to language groups, sassis schools were selected according to previous department of education dispensation. the breakdown per previous dispensation was eight former model c schools and department of education and training, three former house of delegates and two house of representatives. two classes from every school were randomly selected4 by means of winw3s. all 21 principals and selected heads of department and teachers were included in the study. instruments in the main study, assessment instruments were used to assess the level of literacy and numeracy, but in this phase of the study only the feedback report, which contains the results is of relevance. for this phase, information was required on the current presentation and feedback sessions and thus drew on the interviews and delphi questionnaires. 4 . winw3s was used and it is a within-in school sampling package developed by the data processing centre of the international association for the evaluation of educational achievement (iea). special permission was obtained to use the program as it is normally only used in iea studies. scherman, smit & archer 86 interview schedules the aim of conducting interviews with principals was to collect data on what information related to the project that they felt was needed, as well as to probe how the reporting format and feedback sessions could be improved upon. the interview schedule was semi-structured in that although the questions had been formulated and the order determined, the order as well as the questions was able to be modified during the interview, as deemed appropriate. working hand-in-hand individual interviews were the delphi technique. delphi questionnaires technique the delphi technique is a group problem-solving and decision-making tool (michighan state university extension, 1994). the technique is initiated by the posing of a specific problem to which participants anonymously make contributions. this phase is followed up by a series of carefully designed questionnaires which incorporate summaries and comments from the previous rounds to generate and clarify ideas. the process concludes with a voting process through which participants indicate the priorities for the specific project (michighan state university extension, 1994; williams & webb, 1994; dunham, 1996; illinois institute of technology, nd). data collection this project started with a needs analysis of what information schools felt was essential to capture in the report and feedback sessions. six primary and secondary schools participated in the first phase from which the first prototype of the report and feedback session was developed. the needs analysis comprised interviews with the principal, head of department and selected teachers from grade 1 and grade 8. twenty primary and 21 secondary were then included in the next phase of development. the grades 1 and 8 learners completed the assessments, as part of samp and sassis in english, afrikaans and sepedi, depending on the language of instruction of the school. for both primary schools and secondary schools, a prototype report was generated and a feedback session held. during this session, schools received their reports, had the opportunity to ask questions and engage with the research team and the other schools. as the primary school feedback sessions took place first, a nominal group interview was arranged. however, due to difficulties experienced with the nominal groups in terms of attendance, a different method, the delphi technique, was used which essentially provided the opportunity to capture the same information as a nominal group. the question posed to the samp and sassis project schools was: how can the feedback (reports and feedback sessions) from the samp/sassis project be improved? this question refers specifically to the following two aspects: the report and the feedback sessions, in terms of logistics and additional support provided so that the data could be interpreted and used effectively by the schools. however, schools were invited to also offer any other ideas pertaining to the programme. the delphi technique was conducted through faxes to and from schools. the technique proved more appropriate than the nominal group technique with at least a third of schools in the sample contributing to each round of questioning. a great diversity of ideas was generated and discussed in relation to the feedback sessions, reporting and support for the projects. academic performance and feedback to schools 87 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 81-93. data analysis thematic content analysis is an analytical method that makes use of a set of procedures to draw valid inferences from text (weber, 1985) or to analyse the content of text where the content refers to words, meanings and themes and where text refers to anything written, visual or spoken (neuman, 1997). in this research, thematic content analysis was chosen for the analysis of curriculum documents and interviews because it provides the tools necessary for the chunking and synthesising of data for the creation of a new whole. through this process, interviews and delphi questionnaire data that had been captured verbatim were coded according to different units of meaning (henning, smit & van rensburg, 2004). the analysis was facilitated through the use of a computer-aided qualitative data analysis programme, atlas.ti (scientific software development, 1997). atlas.ti allows for the analysis of textual, graphical and audio data (willig, 2001, p. 151) and facilitates the use of direct quotations to enrich the data representation. the use of computer-aided qualitative data analysis is specifically indicated when dealing with large amounts of unstructured textual material, which could cause serious data management problems (henning et al., 2004, p.129). the tool also provides a platform for making the raw data, audit trail and process notes available, which facilitates trustworthiness of the data. trustworthiness validity in qualitative research is described in terms of the trustworthiness, relevance, plausibility, credibility, or representativeness of the research (babbie & mouton, 1998; lincoln & guba, 1985; trochim, 2001). the validity of the research is located with the representation of the participants, the purpose of the research and the appropriateness of the processes employed (winter, 2000). validity for the qualitative component of this research has to do with the adequacy of the researcher to understand as well as represent the participants’ meaning. thus, validity becomes a quality of the knower in his/her relation to the data, enhancing different vantage points and forms of knowing (tindall, 1990). credibility is similar to the concept of internal validity (lincoln & guba, 1985). it refers to procedures aimed at ascertaining whether the interpretations of the data are compatible with the constructed realities of the participants (babbie & mouton, 1998). peer debriefing and member checking (by means of the delphi process), is used in the process of this research. validity in qualitative research is personal, relational, as well as contextual in nature. how the research was conducted was of importance in terms of whether the researcher was aware of her own perspective, processes, and the influence of these on the research (marshall, 1986). reflexivity, which is the examination of how one’s own truth influences the research process, is also an important component of this research (tindall, 1990). findings one of the significant findings of this research speaks to how feedback can be used as a management tool. the reports provide a management tool as well as an opportunity in which discussion between heads of departments and teachers could take place at classroom level. the participants highlighted that the school’s task is made more difficult due to combining special needs and mainstream schooling. participants also indicated that the amount of information provided in the reports was overwhelming; for example, gender and class comparisons. they suggested that if this information is needed, it should be requested on a scherman, smit & archer 88 school-by-school basis. principals suggested that feedback of school information should be clustered by school type as this would provide a more realistic picture and perhaps reflect more equally the demographics of the schools. however, as a positive, the participants indicated that they found the way in which data was shared with the school was empowering and would feed into their practice. schools indicated that the current content of the feedback session was applicable, but offered suggestions for further improvement. schools who had been participants in the project for a number of years expressed a concern that they were familiar with much of the content of the presentation and that accommodation should be made for such schools. the schools expressed a need for more information on the assessment items so that educators would be better equipped to focus on learner preparation. the idea was mooted with a concern that such action would lead to teaching to the test behaviour. on the other hand the test would not be successful as learners will be prepared [specifically for the test]. (school 23, english, round 2). a key concern from the researchers was that teaching to the test would take place and thus distort the purpose of the monitoring system. however, the aspect of understanding what would be expected of learner is important and thus materials linked to the content covered by the items were developed and given to schools. the next finding focuses on the process, namely that feedback sessions be open to educators involved in the preparation of learners for primary and secondary schooling in the feeder areas. this will help [the previous years] educators to evaluate strength and weak areas in their teaching when looking at [preparing] the foundation [for primary and secondary] school (school 4, english, round 2). other schools expressed a preference for conveying information to the feeder schools and educators themselves as the feeder areas are often diverse. some schools proposed a more interactive format for the feedback sessions. this would mean schools would facilitate some of the presentations themselves. this idea was acceptable to some schools, while others stated that the current discussion sessions allowed for valuable interactions. a third group of schools expressed concern that school facilitation would increase their workload. feedback session logistics also emerged as an important finding. the majority of participants expressed satisfaction with the current arrangements in terms of the timing of the feedback sessions, the venue and the directions to the venue. whilst some principals indicated that they would like feedback sessions to occur earlier in the day, educators expressed concern that such a move would mean educators would not be able to attend. no [do not move feedback sessions earlier], we as educators cannot be there so early, our first responsibility is to the children in our classes. this may be possible for the principal to attend. (school 19, afrikaans, round 2). although most schools were comfortable with the centrality of the current venue at the university of pretoria for feedback, some indicated that it was a long journey. suggestions were made for having more than one session focusing on the particular regions, possibly hosted by the participating schools. individual feedback for each school was also suggested. reports are currently provided to each school and school level results are presented in comparative graphs where schools are represented anonymously. schools with the same medium of instruction are thus able to make a comparison of results with other participating schools. however, concern was raised by one of the schools about these comparisons as it was felt allowing comparison could lead to friction. the overwhelming response to this aspect was that the comparison allows for an examination of the school level overall and provides academic performance and feedback to schools 89 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 81-93. valuable information. more than 80% of the schools supported the idea that schools be subgrouped during the comparisons in terms of district or area to inform comparison with information about the environment and resource availability. [this grouping] will offer a better comparison of result due to influences of environment, expertise and distribution of resources [which] differs from area to area. (school 4, english, round 2). it was also suggested that the reports note the revised national curriculum outcomes to show the link between the curriculum and the skills assessed. additional information could also be included in the reports higlighting trends across the various schools as well as additional demographic characteristics of schools such as number of home-language learners, pre-school attendance of learners and number of repeating learners. currently, reports are only produced in english. some schools suggested that the reports be provided in both afrikaans and english. this raised the issue of reports being made available in sepedi. the cost and labour implications of reports in all three languages are however large and schools indicated that while this would be good, it is not a main priority in terms of improvement. a consideration of reporting through the use of electronic reports which allows the schools to perform their own further analysis, was proposed by a secondary school. reports should be in cd form (school 1, english, round 1). an idea was put forward that multiple copies of the reports be provided to schools so both the principal and educators would have copies readily available. a few schools indicated this would be useful, while the majority of schools indicated it was not necessary. some schools expressed concern that educators might think that the two reports supplied differ which would cloud the process with doubt. one school indicated that the principal would prefer controlling the data and decide what information should be provided to educators. this is a school management issue. (school 4, english, round 2). half of the schools indicated that they felt the reports were relevant and appropriate for their needs. a request was made to ensure the turn-around time for the reports be shortened, to allow educators more time to alter their planning and practices according to the results. several recommendations related to the improvement of support to schools were made. many schools have difficulty with consent from parents for the assessments as learners often do not convey the messages, or the parents are not accessible. to ensure consent, it was suggested that the consent letters for assessment be sent out to educators the year before testing. then when parents register learners for schooling, they sign the forms. many learners have to be reminded all the time. this would be a faster way of getting forms back. (school 23, english, round 2). the idea enjoyed great support and schools added that it would have the additional benefit of informing the planning of the school calendar which can take testing dates into consideration. schools across the board agreed with the idea of giving information and supporting preschools and schools for preparing learners for the move into primary or secondary education. the idea of providing workshops for educators already involved in the project met with some ambivalence as some welcomed the suggestion, but others did not feel the need. some schools, however, expressed the need for intervention materials to help support individual atrisk learners identified in reports. intervention methods for individuals-both problematic [learners] and [for] stimulating gifted learners. will this be available sometime? (school 12, english/afrikaans, round 1) scherman, smit & archer 90 it was suggested that educators be allowed to observe fieldwork. schools noted that this would allow educators to build confidence in the assessment and see how well the fieldworkers build rapport with the children. educators will be able to judge learner’s reaction towards an unknown person as some learners don’t simply respond to a strange face as learner is familiar to educator. (school 23, english, round 2) it was also mentioned that the educator presence may have a reassuring effect on learners, especially those new to schooling. whilst schools advocated for observations of assessments, they added that this should be an opportunity to be extended, but not a requirement as it may be time consuming for educators. a useful conceptualisation on how data should be provided is that the data has to speak to a measurable attribute, and different reference levels need to be included for stakeholders to make sense of the data. information on different levels and years of administration need to be provided to the stakeholders and should be followed by a discussion on the discrepancies in years of administration which may be present. what is clear is that there has to be an additional step for researchers to engage in and this step entails what interventions can be put in place. it is important to identify strengths and weaknesses in learner abilities but it is vital to provide information and guidance on how the weaknesses can be addressed and how the strengths can be built upon. the impact of the data provided to schools and the use thereof is dependent on the ability to engage in complex behaviour tasks and this has to be facilitated with care in order to obtain the buy-in of stakeholders as well as their commitment and collaboration. conclusions perhaps the expectation of instrumental use as part of the data-driven decision making process is unrealistic as the effective use of performance information is a gradual process especially within the context of south africa. therefore, it is important for researchers to uncover obvious and less obvious examples of use. to this end, methods should be used which distinguish between partial and complete use and therefore deeper exploration and understanding of the behaviour of participants in terms of the complex process behind data use is needed (beyer & trice, 1982). the needs analysis, incorporating interviews, and the dephi technique elicited rich data with similar ideas emerging from both primary and secondary schools, probably because the focus was on transition periods of schooling. overall, schools felt the process of feedback implemented was fit for the purpose intended. however, some schools felt that additional information could be provided. this suggestion is contrary to the expert review and findings from literature, which suggest streamlining and focusing information. there is evidence that schools are engaging with the information; however, the extent of actual usage of the information, and associated factors, in terms of instrumental, symbolic and conceptual use, still needs to be investigated. references babbie, e., & mouton, j. (2001). the practice of social research. cape town: oxford university press. beyer, j. m. (1997). research utilization: bridging the gap between communities. journal of management inquiry, 6, 17–22. academic performance and feedback to schools 91 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 81-93. beyer, j. m., & trice, h. m. (1982). the utilization process: a conceptual framework and synthesis of empirical findings. administrative science quarterly, 27 (4), 591-622 bosker, r. j., branderhorst; e. m., & visscher, a. j. (2007). improving the utilisation of management information systems in secondary schools. school effectiveness and school improvement, http://0www.informaworld.com.innopac.up.ac.za/smpp/title~content=t714592801~db=all~ta b=issueslist~branches=18 v1818 (4), 451 – 467. brinko, k. t. (1993). the practice of giving feedback to improve teaching: what is effective? the journal of higher education, 64 (5), 574-593. coe, r., & visscher, a. j. (2002). introduction. in a. j. visscher & r. coe (eds.), school improvement through performance feedback (pp. 1-3). lisse: swets & zeitlinger publishers. davenport, t. h., & prusak, l. (1998). working knowledge: how organizations manage what they know. boston: harvard business school press. dunham, b.r. (1995). the delphi technique. retrieved may 5, 2008 from http://www.medsch.wisc.edu/adminmed/2002/orgbehav/delphi.pdf. dunn, k. e., airola, d. t., lo, w., & garrison, m. (2012). what teachers think they can do with data: development and validation of the data-driven decision making efficacy and anxiety inventory. contemporary educational psychology, 38 (1), 87-98. dunn, k. e., airola, d. t., lo, w., & garrison, m. (2013). becoming data-driven: the influence of the teachers’ efficacy on concerns related to data-driven decision making. the journal of experimental education, 81 (2), 222-241. estabrooks, c. a. 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(2001). improving parental involvement in primary education in indonesia: implications, effects and costs. school effectiveness and school improvement, 12(4), 447-466. van petegem, p., & vanhoof, j. (2005). feedback of performance indicators: a tool for school improvement? flemish case studies as a starting point for constructing a modle for school feedback. revista eletronca iberoamericana sobre calidad, eficacia y cambio en educación, 3(1), 222-234. retrieved january 30, 2007, from http://www.ice.deusto.es/rinace/reice/vol3n1_e/vanpetegemvanhoof.pdf. academic performance and feedback to schools 93 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 81-93. visscher, a. j. (2002). a framework for studying school performance feedback systems. in a. j. visscher and r. coe (eds.), school improvement through performance feedback (pp. 41–72). lisse: swets & zeitlinger publishers. weber, r. p. (1985). basic content analysis. london: sage publications. williams, k. (1999). mixed quantitative and qualitative evaluation tools: a pragmatic approach. retrieved march 17, 2003, from http://www.cemcentre.org/documents/cem%20extra/ebe/ebe1999/kevin%20 williams.pdf. williams, p.l., & webb, c. (1994). the delphi technique: a methodological discussion. journal of advanced nursing,19, 180-186. willig, c. (2001). introducing qualitative research in psychology: adventures in theory and method. philadelphia: open university press. microsoft word 11 gouws resensie.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(1) july 2013, pp. 182 184. resensie: kreatiewe momente van die mooirivier in beeld en klank saamgevat resensie: foto-uitstalling, “mooirivier: weerspieëling en weerklank” plek: die galery, noordwes-universiteit, potchefstroomkampus. kunstenaar: franci greyling ’n interdissiplinêre groepuitstalling, is vanaf 9 mei tot 20 junie 2013 in die noordwesuniversiteit se kunsgalery op die potchefstroomkampus vertoon. die mooirivierfoto-projek van prof. franci greyling (vakgroep skryfkuns in die skool vir tale aan die nwu potchefstroomkampus) “mooirivier: weerspieëling en weerklank” het deel van die uitstalling gevorm. figuur 1. twee fotobeelde van die moorivier se water in die kunswerk van franci greyling. foto: jwn tempelhoff. twee konsertinaboeke met foto-indrukke van die weerkaatsings in die loop van die mooirivier wat op verskillende tye van die dag geneem is, het ’n verrassende aanwendig van resensie: mooirivier in beeld en klank td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 182 – 184. 183 die wisseling van lig op water tot gevolg. volgens greyling is hierdie visuele indrukke die uitbeelding van die wyse waarop die rivier oor die tydperk 1840 tot 2012 deur die mens benut, verlê en versaak is. spieëlbeelde en rippelings is deur die oog van haar lens vasgevang. dit bestaan uit syfergate, poele, vlakstrome en damme wat strek vanaf klipgat se droë rivierbedding en die kristalhelderwater van die “bovenste oog” in die noorde tot by die samevloeiing van die mooimet die vaalrivier by kromdraai in die suide. beskawings oor die eeue is aangetrek en het hulle in omgewings waar daar water is om oorlewingsdoeleindes gevestig en weggetrek indien daar ’n tekort ontstaan het. gedurende die 1840’s het die vestiging van die emigrant-boere in die boererepublieke, in ’n groot mate om die teenwoordigheid van die mooirivier en vaalrivier en die beskikbaarheid van water en weiding gewentel. die vestigingspatrone en boerdery-aktiwiteite in hierdie water-omgewing strek oor ’n tydperk van meer as 170 jaar. die foto-indrukke van greyling word belig deur tekste rakende die mens se ingrepe op en veranderings aan die rivier. die gees of sin van plek wat ’n religieuse oorsprong in die romeinse mitologie het, kom hier hoofsaaklik in twee dimensies sterk na vore. enersyds die objektiewe dimensie, visuele kwaliteit of karakter (wat dokumente, topografiese verwysings, gps-koördinate) geskiedkundige plekke en foto’s wat deel is van die kultuurlandskap, insluit; en andersyds die subjektiewe gevoel en belewenis van die omgewing (in die vorm van die verhale en mites oor die ou dae wat nog van geslag tot geslag oorvertel word), wat meer simbolies of sielkundig van aard is. die “gees” van die mooirivier is suksesvol geïnkorporeer met ’n kulturele reis wat strek oor die tydperk van 1840 tot 2012. ’n ingrepe-kant is vir dié doel geskep. koerantberigte en geskrewe inligting rakende fisiese bakens soos onder andere klerkskraal, gehard minnebron, bosbokdam, oudedorp, meulstraat, noordburg en mooirivier mall, asook historiese gebeure soos die eerste vryheidsoorlog (1880-1) word hier belig. aan die indrukke-kant is daar toepaslike multi-kulturele teksgedeeltes. hier is die inspirasie van die rivierlandskap vanaf 1840 tot 2012 verweef met die kunstenaar se indrukke van die mense wat sy langs die rivier ontmoet het, hoe die mense die rivier gesien het in stories wat oorvertel is, memoires, en reisindrukke. sy noem dit “kultuurgeraamtes”. die kunstenaar het daarby woordbeelde in verskillende groottes en rigtings volgens prominensie met photoshopsagteware aanmekaar gevoeg om ’n “woordrivier” visueel uit te beeld. ’n letterlike rivier van woorde. die keuse van hierdie indrukke is ’n doelbewuste poging om die gedeelde geskiedenis van verskillende kultuuren etniese groepe wat in die mooiriviergebied gewoon het, vas te vang. verskillende tale en kulture is betrek by die geskiedenis van die omliggende streke, in besonder die sotho-tswana, die bruinmense van rysmierbult, portugese reisigers, joodse handelaars, engelssprekendes en afrikaners. deel van die uitstalling is ’n klankopname wat tot aanvulling van die visuele indrukke strek. ’n unieke “woordrivier” of klankstroom is geskep deur ’n kreatiewe kombinasie van genoemde multi-kulturele tekste, prosa en poësie oor die mooirivier wat aan die indrukke-kant vertoon is. die gelaagdheid van greyling se werk het verskillende betekenisvlakke wat deur haar kombinasie van diverse media tot uitdrukking kom. musiek vorm deel van haar klankstroom. die geluid van 'n waterdruppel wat val in water het die harmoniese taal geinspireer vir ’n klavierstuk "mooirivier fragment" wat deur die orrelis, gerrit jordaan, spesifiek vir dié projek gekomponeer is. volgens jordaan is sy komposisie 'n fragment (musikale lus) wat 'n paar keer herhaal om iets van die kontinuïteit van die stroom aan te dui. die energieke “golf-geriffel” van 'n bewegende stroom wat heeltyd van gedaante gouws 184 wissel word tussen die pianis se twee hande uitgespeel. die liefdesliedjie “my sarie marais” wat deel is van ons volkskultuur, se bekende motief “sy het in die wyk van die mooirivier gewoon” is die weerspieëling van die oorkoepelende tema. dit is in die duskant-deel van die klavierstuk opgeneem, en omgekeerd in die bas gebruik. ’n sogenaamde “waterspieël” wat meer sê, meer vra as wat op die oppervlak sigbaar is. die komponis wou met die donker en gevoelvolle bas betekenis gee aan die mens se drome en "ongehoorde dinge" wat praat as daar in die stroom gekyk word, asook die onbekende toekoms van die rivier. daar is ironie in greyling se retoriese vraag: wat gaan van ons ‘mooi’ rivier word wat so onbeskaamd besoedel word? die lotgevalle van die stroomaf watergebruiker is een van die oudste knelpunte in die bestuur van water, die watergebruikers in die mooirivier-omgewing is tans weens ’n unieke sameloop van omstandighede ook uitgelewer. sedert die laat-1880’s is in die witwatersrand vir goud gedelf, en het ’n “kolonialistiese” geneigdheid tot die eksploitering van die bo-stroomse mynbou-aktiwiteite posgevat. goudmyne wat sedert 1886 hier in bedryf was, sluit en mynwater word nie meer oordeelkundig bestuur nie. die ondergrondse vlakke van suurmynwater, gevul met soute, swaar metale (waarvan sommiges radio-aktief is) in die uitgewerkte verlate goudmyne styg progressief en besoedel reeds die bestaande riviere aan die wesrand. die wonderfonteinspruit1 hou tans ’n gevaar in terme van watergehalte vir die mooirivier in. beide die hoë uraanvlakke in die gerhard minnebron en die huidige mynplanne om yster bostoom te myn, is ’n bekommernis vir die boorlinge al langs die mooirivier. die benutbaarheid van landbougrond word hierdeur nadelig beïnvloed. die laaste jare word die drinkbaarheid van potchefstroom se kraanwater deur dorpenaars bevraagteken. die vernietiging van die rivier as gevolg van mynbouaktiwiteite en besoedeling is ’n moontlikheid. claudia gouws noordwes-universiteit (vaal) 1 f. winde & e.j. stoch, “threats and opportunities for post closure development in dolomitic gold mining area of the west rand and far west rand (south africa) – a hydraulic view (2): opportunities” in water sa, 26(1), january 2010, pp. 75-82. new perspectives on learning distance experiential education practices: sharing and cross-pollination of traditional university-type and former techikon-type work-integrated learning practices keith richmond (editor) university of south africa, 2006 isbn 1-86888-383-3 reviewed by mary grosser north-west university this volume contains papers delivered at an internal seminar held at unisa. the focus is on the importance of work-integrated or distance experiential learning, an important criterion identified by the higher education quality committee (heqc) of the council on higher education (che) for institutional audits and programme accreditation. the collection shares a variety of experiences and current practices from different fields of study at unisa, namely human sciences, health sciences, social sciences, education sciences, library and information studies, economic and management sciences, information technology, engineering, animal health and horticulture. the papers offer readers exposure to various forms of work-based learning education practices. all the papers highlight the importance of a well-managed system of features crucial to the success of work-based learning. in essence, the following aspects are highlighted. the curriculum design should be carefully constructed around outcomes and should consist of theoretical and practical components. in order to guarantee the success of work-based learning student support, in the form of audio-conferencing, e-mail, cd-rom, interactive television, tutorial letters, study guides and workbooks providing detailed instructions, should not be neglected. all the contributions highlight the value of suitable supervisors, mentors or preceptors at the site of learning. these should be experienced people who should take active roles in accompanying learners to integrate knowledge and practice, keep in constant communication with the university lecturer td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 499 501. 500 regarding learner progress, and act as co-evaluators of learners’ work. the authors are in accord that continuous assessment (formative and summative) as well as interactive assessment of learner progress during work-based learning is of vital importance. the presentations are clear about the fact that work-based learning poses numerous challenges and barriers. among others, finding appropriately trained supervisors, travelling to the sites of learning, appropriate learner support, commitment of supervisors, stimulating learners’ self-activities and constantly reviewing and adjusting the curricula to meet current and future needs are mentioned. for certain models of work-based learning (laboratory sessions, practical sessions and group work) students are often unprepared, do not turn up for their sessions or sometimes delay group work and feedback. this obstructs the effectiveness of the work-based learning. apart from the challenges and barriers, advantages of work-based learning are also addressed. advantages of work-based learning are evident in all the mentioned fields of learning. establishing the link between theory and practice, exposure to the working environment, career relevance, inculcation of professional values and work ethics, developing confidence and skills, and establishing partnerships with business and industry are but a few mentioned. this is a coherent set of presentations in which the practice, relevance, limitations and advantages of work-based learning in a variety of contexts are considered. the more closely one looks at the headline concepts in this book the more transparent it becomes that this is the way in which learning should take place. learning is widely acknowledged to have social, affective and cognitive aspects, and work-based learning supports this notion of learning. for readers interested in knowing what it is like to conduct workbased learning, some useful snippets of information may be gleaned from the relevant presentations. however, in each case, one is left wondering how successful the particular approach is. the book might have been improved by an additional evaluation of the various workbased learning models discussed, based on a measurement of learning gains achieved by a work-based model in comparison to the learning gains achieved by the previous classroom-based models. only one model, namely that of library and information studies, evaluates the learning gains achieved by work-based learning. although the outcome was in favour of work-based learning, it is not clear whether the desired link between theory and practice had been established and whether professional values and ethics had been inculcated. it would be interesting to see whether the link between theory and practice, and the inculcation of professional values and ethics, which are obviously some of the main outcomes of work-based book reviews 501 learning, could be achieved with the other models. furthermore, the volume may have benefited from a discussion of some international perspectives on the field, to provide the reader with an opportunity to appreciate the breadth and scope of interest in this field. nonetheless, the volume offers the reader a rich and varied taste of the field of current work-based education practices at unisa as well as expertise from which to draw on. book reviews td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 499 501. microsoft word 03 twala.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(2) december 2012, pp. 200-216. an analysis of the declining support for the anc during the 2011 south african local government elections c twala1 abstract local government elections are notorious for low voter turnout, but the may 2011 elections in south africa showed a record 58 percent of the 24 million registered voters. in south africa, local government matters and not just because it provides a pointer to what might happen in the provincial and national elections due in 2014, but helps in determining the readiness of the african nation congress in providing basic services to the different communities. interestingly, these elections were preceded by service delivery protests against the anc. the article is an analysis of the decreased support for the anc during the 2011 local government elections. the multifaceted reasons behind the boiling cauldron of this decline in support for the anc are scrutinised. underpinning this decline in support often lie deep and complex factors which can be uncovered through a careful analysis of the anc’s campaigning strategies ahead of these elections; the media which has been accused of rampant sensationalism; service delivery protests and mudslinging from other political parties. however, it is not the author’s intention in this article to deal with how other parties fared during these elections, but to highlight their impact on the declined support received by the anc in the elections. the discussion is presented in four parts: the first presents an exploratory discussion on the theory of local government in the sphere of governance. the second part discusses some key strategies and tactics used by the anc in attempts to galvanise support, as well as the challenges encountered. the third deals with the opposition parties’ machinery in preventing the anc from getting a majority vote during the election. lastly, the article concludes by highlighting the lessons learnt by the anc during these elections within the framework of electoral politics in south africa. keywords: local election 2011, african national cxongress (anc), local government. disciplines: history, political science, electoral studies. introduction the narrative about the anc’s decline, which had gained much traction among certain sections of the media which painted the party as venally corrupt, wholly inefficient and lacking the political will to chart a different path, did not resonate with the majority of anc members, nor with the party’s key constituencies among the rural and urban poor. despite 1 . history department, university of the free state, south africa. sa local elections, 2011 and anc support td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 200-216. 201 this, the elections were preceded by a series of unprecedented events. with the service delivery protests experienced prior to the elections, the anc faced a stiff challenge from the democratic alliance (da) as the official opposition. according to tsheola (2012: 163), the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs attributes the failure of local government service delivery to “political parties that undermine the integrity and functioning of municipal councils through intraand inter-party conflicts and inappropriate interference in councils and administration”. in order to weaken the anc, in the main, other political parties aimed at extracting support from its base. the anc’s patchy performance in government also risked greater voter apathy and a withdrawal from politics among the marginalised, as many communities did not bother to vote in the face of service delivery deficits. the 2011 local government elections again upended most of the contrary speculation that had preceded it. pertinent questions asked in this article about these elections are: how does a political party such as the anc that presides over one of the most unequal societies in the world, where one in three workers is jobless, and nearly half the citizens live in poverty manage to triumph despite a decline in support? why, in the face of dozens of community service delivery protests attesting to widespread disgruntlement at the government’s performance and the indifferent conduct of many local politicians and officials, would the electorate continue voting for a party that they claim has failed to deliver services? is it true that the decline in support for the anc was engineered by its members, particularly those who felt disgruntled about some of the councillors’ conduct? attesting to the above, gwede mantashe, general secretary of the anc stated: you find that in the majority of cases a march is led by members of the anc. the anc carried out its own study of recent protests, so it probably has good evidence for this statement. moreover, our own investigations tend to confirm its validity (alexander, 2010: 34). the article attempts to analyse the reasons for the decline of the anc’s support after the may 2011 local government elections. in doing so, a surge of violent service delivery protests in poor constituencies against inept council performance will be scrutinised as one of the contributing factors; another is the collapse of 20 anc councils in the north west province; and governance paralysis in the eastern cape province resulting from bitter infighting between elements of the anc and its allies. furthermore, the study investigates a contested argument on the role played by opposition parties in their attempts to make inroads into the anc’s support. here i refer to the decline in the proportional share of the entire pool of registered voters. this does not indicate a decline in the absolute number of votes cast in favour of the anc. theoretical framework underpinning municipal governance in south africa the policy of separate development in apartheid south africa was entrenched by the establishment of local government legislation in which categories of municipalities were designated as black or white local authorities. the group areas act 41 of 1950 (later amended to act 36 of 1996) made provision for blacks/non-whites (i.e. africans, coloureds, and indians) to live separately, with africans being confined to the ‘native reserves’. furthermore, one of the main reasons for the establishment of the three bantustans of twala 202 transkei, bophuthatswana and venda in 1976 and 1977 was to spread propaganda about providing homelands for africans (adams, et al., 1999). however, despite the above, the democratisation of south africa which began during the early 1990s with the release of political prisoners and the unbanning of liberation movements, led to a negotiated settlement regarding several issues pertaining to local government (netswera & phago, 2011: 131). the issues included: enforcing the new demarcation of municipalities; the training of local government officials; and the provision of new local government acts for the effective administration of the different municipalities which were initially seen as apartheid structures. prior to the may 2011 local government elections, the south african institute of race relations (sairr) in its 2010 annual survey provided an overview of municipality byelection results since south africa’s last nation-wide local government elections in 2006. during that period the anc won 17 municipal by-elections but lost 55, meaning that it suffered a net loss of 38 wards. over the same period the da lost 5 municipal by-elections but won 29, meaning that it made a net gain of 24 seats (sairr, south africa survey 2009/2010: politics and government). even allowing for the da’s caution about which byelections it contested, its superior winning record was self-evidently an auspicious sign of its chances of improving on its 2006 performance when it won 14.9% of the votes cast, against the anc’s ability to amass 66.3% or just under two-thirds of the vote. the net position of the anc and the da after their losses and gains was that the anc controlled 306 local government seats against the 61 held by the da. therefore, the anc controlled five times as many municipal councils as the da (louw, 2011a). the above summary paints a picture of a steady decline in support as experienced by the anc as early as 2006. an analysis shows that although this decline occurred on a small scale during the by-elections, there were dire long-term consequences for the anc in future local government elections. such consequences also became evident during the 2011 local government elections in south africa. this situation is endorsed by kimmie (2012: 115-131) who indicates that a low voter turnout was the result of poor candidate screenings. furthermore, anc community participation faltered in many instances due to candidate rivalry, the application of gender, youth and race quotas and, in particular, the imposition by higher anc structures of candidates who would aid strategic positioning for mangaung 2012. the anc’s strategies and tactics ahead of the elections in order to gain support and avoid the envisaged decline in its support base during the may 2011 local government elections, the anc embarked on using some of the below mentioned strategies and tactics. it is argued in this section that some of these purported strategies and tactics contributed to the anc’s declining support ahead of, and during the voting period. the anc’s slogan of a ‘better life for all’ in order to understand the anc’s strategies and tactics ahead of the may 2011 local government elections, it is important to highlight the fact that its manifesto essentially reiterated and reaffirmed the existing promises made during past elections, rather than providing an innovatory programme of action pertinent to the problems of municipal sa local elections, 2011 and anc support td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 200-216. 203 misgovernment in south africa. the party even repeated the promise of creating a ‘better life for all south africans’, though more than 16 years had lapsed since that slogan was first used in its election campaign for the watershed 1994 elections (louw, 2011: 5). it is interesting to note that this slogan appealed to other voters, but the decline in the electorate persisted, despite the organisation’s manifesto which was said to be relevant to both the local and national government elections. the use of nelson mandela’s legacy during the may 2011 local government elections, the anc was tempted to deploy identity politics. for example, in the run-up to these elections, it raised the very sensitive issue of the ownership of national symbols and liberation songs. in the meantime, the legacy of former president nelson mandela was exploited by both the anc and the da. to justify the above, the secretary general of the anc, gwede mantashe argued in the justice malala e-tv programme called the justice factor that the leaders of the da, such as helen zille, should refrain from employing opportunistic tactics by using mandela’s legacy to project an image of the da. he accused the da as a party which, in its attempts to galvanise support, purported to adhere to mandela’s ideals. he went on to suggest that zille should confine herself to using the names and legacies of helen suzman and colin eglin, former leaders of the democratic party (forerunner of the da). this suggestion by mantashe raised the serious danger of identity politics. ironically, suzman as a politician in her own right played a significant role in challenging the apartheid government when long-term political prisoners were inhumanely treated in prisons. furthermore, she played a critical role in ensuring the access of all political prisoners, who were eligible, to distance learning and academic development. therefore, the quality of her political contribution should not be limited only to opposition party politics. mamphela ramphela, former vice chancellor of the university of cape town (uct) argued that mantashe’s statement echoed those of a few anc members who publicly expressed concerns that the anc leadership was allowing zille to use mandela as an icon. according to ramphela, mandela was not just the president of the anc, but also of south africa. moreover, mandela, the icon, belonged to all south africans as the ‘father of the nation’. he worked tirelessly to project himself as reaching out to those who opposed the political settlement he championed. it is clear from ramphela’s statement that mandela could not be appropriated by any sector of south africa’s population (sunday times, 29 may 2011: 5). it may be argued that the anc should be more generous in acknowledging the contributions of both anc and non-anc members to the struggle for freedom in south africa. the above was, in one way or another, an indication that the anc was trapped in a situation of using its past struggle credentials to gain support. it is argued in this article that there was nothing wrong with the anc’s using its past struggle credentials in positioning itself amongst the electorate, but that the party should, at the same time, re-position itself as a political party of the future. the attempts used by the anc to solely ‘monopolise’ the legacy of mandela for its gain during the may 2011 local elections elicited more criticisms from non-anc members, as was the case with ramphela. twala 204 the cleansing of the solomon mahlangu statue during the run-up to the local government elections, there were some activities which showed how intolerant the political parties could be. as a strategy and an attempt to discredit the da, the anc also took the extraordinary step of commissioning a cleansing ceremony of the solomon mahlangu statue in tshwane (mamelodi) on 5 may 2011, after the da had held a freedom day rally there ahead of the local government elections. the anc in the city enlisted the services of sangomas (traditional healers) to cleanse the statue (sowetan, 9 may 2011: 3). this was another attempt by the anc to focus on personalising politics and it was unclear as to why the anc felt so threatened by the hegemony of its own ideas and legacy, when these were embraced by the da during the election campaign. perhaps this could have been that some in the anc recognised the possibility of other political parties succeeding in appropriating its space of their struggle heritage. a ‘tea girl’ humiliation saga the former president of the african national congress youth league (ancyl), julius malema spurned the opportunity to debate political issues with lindiwe mazibuko, the former da spokesperson ahead of the local government elections when he stated: she’s a nobody; she’s a tea girl of the madam. i’m not debating with the service of the madam’ although malema became more popular with such utterances, this had negative consequences for the anc’s electorate because the so-called ‘tea girls’ also constitute anc voters. it was unjustifiable of malema to equate mazibuko with a ‘tea girl’; thus showing how insensitive he was to other electorates. the anc was aware that the profiling of mazibuko by the da in its electioneering team attempted to penetrate the mass of black voters, particularly the same section of the population such as the ‘tea girls’ who were devalued and humiliated by malema’s utterances. according to maserumule and mathekga (2011: 11821197), featuring mazibuko in its electioneering team was the da’s political strategy to placate black voters and shrug off the perception that it is a white party. some contributing factors to the decline of the anc’s support dealing with the da’s machinery it is interesting to note that the election manifestoes of both the anc and the da were, in essence, not all that different from each other. as could be expected, they were for the most part vague, non-committal and full of generalisations. the buzz word for the may 2011 local government elections was ‘service delivery’ to communities. the essence of the promise was that in future, voters who had not experienced adequate services by both the anc and the da in their respective provinces would have these services provided. an increase in the number of votes by the da in the may 2011 local government elections in one way or another suggests that the party is gradually becoming acceptable to african voters. owing to a service delivery backlog under the anc government in many of the african townships during the run-up to the elections, it was common to hear people saying: sa local elections, 2011 and anc support td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 200-216. 205 i will vote da locally for delivery in my municipality and anc nationally for its history in my country (business day, 20 may 2011: 1). without doubt, such statements are an indication that a change of leadership at municipal level is necessary. although it is clear that the da made some inroads into the anc’s support base which could have contributed to its decline in support, the latter quickly dispelled these arguments and stated that the former’s growth was being exaggerated by the media. it is argued in this article that while the votes received by the da in the townships were not enough to change the anc’s control, they are an indication of a significant shift in the country’s voting patterns. for example, in an upset, the da won ward 32 in johannesburg from the anc which included buccleuch and part of alexandra, an anc stronghold (business day, 20 may 2011: 1). in the eastern cape, the da increased its number of councillors in the nelson mandela bay metro, where the anc scraped through with 51 percent of the vote. this translates into the anc’s having 61 seats out of 120 in the metro. this means that if only one anc councillor is absent from a council meeting, the party will not be able to pass by-laws without opposition support. a key result for the da was also its retention of control of the midvaal council in gauteng with an increased majority, after the anc threw almost everything into winning back the municipality (daily maverick, 19 may 2011: 1). in dealing with the da’s electioneering campaign, the anc criticised its principal poster which featured photos of three women; namely, helen zille in the centre, patricia de lille to her right, and lindiwe mazibuko, a black da mp to her left. this photo allegedly presented the message that the party was for all colours. to the anc’s annoyance, zille also took the fight right into its (anc’s) territory, interspersing her english and afrikaans with isixhosa. according to southern and southall, zille annoyed the anc leadership when she sang reworked ‘struggle songs’ and danced toyi-toyi, leading to malema saying that she was dancing like a monkey. even more annoying to the anc was her claim that, while the anc had become increasingly racialised, the da had become the party of non-racialism, embodying the vision and values of mandela (southern & southall, 2011: 78). by doing so, the da wanted to occupy the traditional political space of the anc and legitimise its relevance to the black populace. the malema factor and the ‘white thieves’ remarks after the announcement of the election results, it was not surprising that the anc’s support had declined in many of the country’s provinces. the anc managed to get 62 per cent, a drop of 4 percent from 66 percent in the 2006 elections. in giving an explanation as to why there was a decline in the votes, mantashe said certain remarks by malema had been detrimental to the party. for example, malema had made a comment at a rally in the northern cape province about ‘white thieves’ (sunday independent, 29 may 2011: 16). in this rally, malema stated that the whites in south africa were not to be reimbursed for the purchase of land which he argued was ‘stole’ from the black people. ironically, although zuma and other senior members of the anc were present at the rally, not a single leader of the party or zuma as the president, reprimanded malema. therefore, the remarks made by malema in front of the senior leaders of the anc could have been interpreted as an endorsement by the party; something that mantashe regarded as having been detrimental to the anc electorate. twala 206 the issue of whether malema cost or benefited the anc was not new and appeared rather complex. it was also not clear as to why mantashe waited until after the election results to tell the nation of their disapproval of malema’s comments. zuma, who took the platform after malema, did not rebuke malema or state that such remarks were not part of the anc’s collective thinking and traditions. possibly, anc supporters expected the leaders of the party to take corrective measures in time, in order to minimise the damage that such statements could have caused. although mantashe distanced the anc from malema’s statement that white people should be treated as ‘criminals’ for ‘stealing’ land from black people, the damage had already been done (business day, 25 may 2011: 3). the above stigmatisation of legitimate dissent as ‘racist’ became a routine response of the zuma administration during the elections under discussion and was not free of this contagion. zuma denounced criticism of the government and the anc in the media as ‘unpatriotic’ (business day, 21 june 2011). mantashe was correct in echoing the statement that the malema factor had alienated minority groups. yet in the same vein, i opine that the malema factor attracted many young voters, particularly those at tertiary level, to the anc. one needs to examine malema’s poise and charm, and the warmth with which he was received whenever he visited such campuses to address students. it should be noted that during the 1994 election campaign, winnie mandela and peter mokaba were very discreetly withdrawn from the campaign due to the racial statements they had uttered (barnard, 1994: 121). however, it was not the case this time with malema; his inflammatory speeches and actions might have motivated the youth, but they had a very negative effect on the image of the party that zuma wished to project. undermining the coloured voters prior to the elections besides the above remarks by malema, another senior member of the anc and chief government spokesperson jimmy manyi declared that there was an overconcentration of coloureds in the western cape and that they should be spread over the entire interior of the country if they were to access government basic services. this was however, interpreted as one way of undermining the coloured voters who reside in the western cape. subsequently, he was rebuked by another anc heavyweight, trevor manuel and referred to as a ‘racist’. this mudslinging from senior anc members had, to a certain extent, a negative impact on the coloured voters in the western cape who might have wanted to vote for the party. the anc’s mayoral candidate tony ehrenreich conceded that manyi’s comments exposed the anc to criticism that it was a racist party (business day, 20 may 2011: 1). in the western cape province the anc failed to convince the coloured communities to vote for it. the da’s victory in the area can be explained in different ways; namely, that the anc had failed to deal with the growing gap between the political interests of black and coloured working-class communities, and a stronger convergence between the political interests of affluent and poor areas. the candidacy of tony ehrenreich who was a workingclass hero proved to be a blunt weapon against the above-mentioned dynamics (dikeni, 2011: 1199-1209). exploiting the ‘white rich’ and ‘black poor’ scenario within the emerging discourse of governance in south africa’s provinces, the fact that the western cape is the only province which is not under the jurisdiction of the anc posed some serious challenges for the ruling party. for propaganda purposes, the anc tried to classify cape town into the ‘white rich’ and the ‘black poor’ categories. during its sa local elections, 2011 and anc support td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 200-216. 207 electioneering period, the anc argued that the da’s provincial government perpetrated the imbalances which existed between the ‘white rich’ and the ‘poor black’. some of the national and provincial leaders of the anc implied in their speeches that the ‘poor blacks’ live in health-hazard places because the taxes that they pay are used to benefit the whites in the province. by so doing, the anc implanted a notion of entitlement by telling its members that the cape town city council under the da’s administration owed them houses, free water and free electricity (cape argus, 25 may 2011: 16). in the main, these utterances by the anc’s leaders and the deployment of senior party members to canvass support in the western cape did not yield any positive results, as the da became victorious in most municipalities in the province. it was clear that dividing people in terms of social stratification of ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ failed to appeal to most voters in the western cape where the da dominated. the impact of the late commencement of campaigning by the anc the anc started campaigning for these elections at a very late stage. the late entry in the electioneering race had an impact on the election results of the party. however, it should be noted that the campaign intensified two months before the elections. the party should have rejoiced in gaining 62 per cent of the votes during the elections, because the stakes were high in terms of the strategies and tactics employed during the electioneering period. part of the 4 per cent the anc lost, can possibly be traced to several party activists who registered as independents in protest against unpopular candidates who were forced on communities. one other party which capitalised on the shortcomings of the anc in governance was the congress of the people (cope). this party which started as a force to be reckoned with during the 2009 national elections when it won enough votes to form opposition coalitions in municipalities, also cost the anc (twala, 2010; maserumule & mathekga, 2011). booysen (2012: 311) states that voters who had become unhappy with the anc largely abstained in 2011, rather than switching to an opposition party. this indicated that there was a slight decline in support for the anc that could not be attributed to the strong campaigning strategies of opposition parties. despite these shortcomings, immediate qualitative and quantitative research show that the anc’s performance was, in fact, in line with international trends of electorates gradually abandoning self-assured ruling parties. however, for the anc, a party that has won every election since the dawn of democracy in 1994, the results were unacceptable. the anc, being the oldest liberation movement in africa, could not afford to flaunt its struggle credentials and expect that the party’s rich history to be a permanent magnet to draw voters. giving an analysis of the above, abbey makoe, the founder and editor-in-chief of royal services wrote the following: even at its peak the anc, while led by the phenomenally popular nelson mandela, walter sisulu, govan mbeki, former rivonia trialists and robben islanders and prominent returned exiles, the anc could not muster a 100 percent election victory. this was in spite of the vast majority of south africans, including all the minority groups, hailing mandela and the anc’s humane policy of reconciliation in a country scarred by decades of racial strife. now, if mandela himself, the man virtually regarded as our living political saint, could not succeed in rallying the entire electorate, why would the lesser mortals in today’s anc believe they could secure every voter’s faith? (daily news, 26 may 2011: 18). twala 208 strategies and tactics employed by the anc as mentioned previously, the anc began its electioneering campaign hardly 2 months before the elections. in his address at the launch of the manifesto, at the royal bafokeng stadium in rustenburg in the north west province, zuma admitted, in what might legitimately be described as a calculated understatement, that there were some municipalities that were “not performing well”, as manifested by the rising number of service delivery protests (louw, 2011c). in many of the wards which were contested, all the political parties put up posters bearing the faces and names of their local candidates. some of the candidates on the posters, including those of the anc, were not known to the voters or the constituencies. except for being paraded during the election rallies, in most cases these candidates failed to vigorously embark on campaigns that helped the anc to win the previous elections, such as door-to-door campaigns. instead the electorate received pamphlets stuffed in their postboxes with prattle about the services provided by the ruling party. in february 2011, in a rally held in mthatha in the eastern cape, zuma told an audience that an anc membership card provided an automatic pass to heaven and that when jesus fetches us, he will find wearing black, green, and gold being the only ones belonging to the anc. during this rally, zuma defined members of the anc as the chosen people who were assured of a place in heaven when they die, unlike those who supported the opposition parties. he stated: when you are carrying an anc membership card you are blessed. when you get there, different cards are used, but if you have an anc card you will be let through (louw, 2011b). he further added that those who desert the anc would mean that the ancestors of this land … hintsa, ngqika and shaka will all turn their backs on you (hamill & hoffman, 2011: 57). zuma also said that the anc will rule until jesus comes again (city press, 10 april 2011: 4). in saying the above, zuma was not straying too far from the theme of anc members enjoying preferential treatment from god, as ancestor worship is an important element in the religious beliefs of many african people. it was not the first time that zuma had presented the anc as the movement that is favoured by god. in the run-up to the 2009 national and provincial elections, zuma asserted that the anc would rule until ‘jesus comes again’, a clear manifestation of the ‘divine right’ mindset. the implication of this declaration was that only jesus could replace the anc, and this, in turn, invested the anc with a special status (louw, 2011b). however, it was not clear as to whether zuma’s inclination to trespass into the field of religious eschatology was merely an attempt to exploit the intellectual vulnerabilities of the less educated people or whether he genuinely believed that the anc had the blessing of god in their exercise of political power; notwithstanding the vulnerability of many of its leaders to the temptations of corruption. the religious leaders described these statements by zuma as sa local elections, 2011 and anc support td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 200-216. 209 ‘blasphemous’ and a serious transgression; that of zuma’s depiction of heaven as a sanctuary for people dressed in the colours of the anc. reacting to zuma’s remarks from a political rather than from a religious perspective, zille said: if zuma has been quoted correctly, his words combine blasphemy, intimidation and blackmail. it is unbelievable that the president of a constitutional democracy can threaten voters with such untruths (louw, 2011b). the anc, however, dismissed the whole saga over zuma’s remarks, describing them as ‘figurative’ and ‘metaphorical’ expressions which should not have been taken literally. it likened them to everyday expression such as ‘a marriage made in heaven’ and ‘a heavenly voice’ (louw, 2011b). however, the above expressions were innocuous compared with zuma’s presentation of the anc as an elected body which is guaranteed a place in heaven. simply, people’s membership of a political party which is stained with corruption and contaminated with greed, being promised a place in the heavenly realms, defies explanation. the manner in which anc had run its election campaigns revealed the gaps that continued to exist between the commitment to implement the strategy and the political desire to win over voters, through public relations and politicking. cunningly, the party did not send zuma to hotspot areas such as ficksburg2, balfour, ermelo and zandspruit where its candidates were randomly chosen (tsheola, 2012: 174; booysen, 2011: 151-152). this, despite the presentation of zuma as an accessible, down-to-earth and listening president compared to his predecessors. during the campaigning period, it was also noticeable that government ministers, premiers and mecs used rallies to galvanise people to vote for the anc. the message spread by these politicians was that voters should change the councillors and other local government officials who were not providing quality service to them. therefore, they had to vote for the anc as the party with the power to deal with such problems. ironically, in most cases the service delivery protests happened in the areas governed by the anc. in south africa the provision of services to communities is viewed as the prerogative of the local sphere of government (hemson et al., 2009; mclennan, 2009; gumede, 2009; andrews & shah, 2005). therefore, it is not surprising to find that most of the rallies were turned into music festivals and places where food parcels were distributed to communities in need. it may be argued that this was done in order to divert communities’ attention from failing service delivery projects. as happened during the 2009 national elections, in kwazulu-natal (kzn), zuma’s home province, the anc, to a certain extent successfully used the royal family to gain votes in the so-called ifp strongholds (twala, 2010: 66-83). this was the same strategy used by the ifp for many years when garnering votes in the province. on 22 february 2011, kzn premier, 2 perhaps the most memorable event of the pre-2011 local government polls was the killing by the police of andries tatane from ficksburg during the service protest march in the area on 13 april 2011. unable to subdue tatane by their severe blows to his naked upper torso, the police resorted to shooting him. it was widely reported and shown in the media that rubber bullets were pumped into his chest at close-range killing him instantly. he was killed while residents of ficksburg were registering their discontent over the pace and quality of municipal services. ficksburg was not peculiar in that regard. protests had erupted throughout the country, in what had become a common feature on the eve of local polling. twala 210 zweli mkhize, in the state of the province address, announced projects and finances around the royal family (state of the province address, 22 february 2011). although the above-mentioned strategies and tactics helped the anc win votes, there was to a degree, some negative implications. for example, when zuma told a small farming community in the north west province that they would have to explain themselves to their ancestors should they not vote for the anc, he did not expect a fierce backlash to his threat. five days later, for the first time since 1994, the anc lost ward 6 in vrischgewacht, one of its long-time strongholds in tswaing, to the da. residents said they were fed-up with the anc’s empty promises, its arrogant leadership and lack of service delivery. what made the defeat even more bitter for the anc was that the da did not campaign in the area and had not fielded a candidate for councillor until two weeks before local elections (sunday independent, 29 may 2011: 8). when the anc leadership in the region put up a candidate not popularly elected by the community, david malo, a member of the party at the time, approached the da and promised to win them the ward. this heralded a two-week door-to-door campaign which won the da the ward and highlighted the anc’s election list process which the party had promised to investigate and deal with cases of manipulation. with the anc in the doldrums and refusing to grant the community its preferred leaders despite protests, the da staged a coup (sunday independent, 29 may 2011: 8). zille’s officials parachuted into the area, among them kathleen oosthuizen and nicky vos, two women respectively known as ‘mapule’ and ‘palesa’ to capitalise on the fallout between the community and the anc, and the former’s discontent with poor service delivery in the area (sunday independent, 29 may 2011: 8). the above strategies and tactics of the anc were, in one way or another, successful in winning votes. opportunistically, the anc evoked nelson mandela, oliver tambo, hector pieterson and chris hani to emotionalise the election. at the anc siyanqoba rally at the fnb stadium in johannesburg, a large portion of zuma’s speech was about the past legacy of the anc. it was also at this rally that the da was dubbed a dangerous organisation and insinuations were made that it was trying to take the country back to apartheid. zuma spoke of the brutality of the apartheid system and the attempt in 1976 to impose afrikaans on black people. he called on anc members to “forgive but never forget” (sowetan, 19 may 2011: 11). conveniently, the anc presented its successes since 1994. it was during the siyanqoba rally that zuma outlined the party’s strategy known as the local government turnaround strategy to redress the problems experienced by the municipalities. according to the plan, among other things, the anc planned to build systems to accelerate quality service delivery in municipalities; deal with corruption and maladministration; ensure that councillors were more accountable to communities; professionalise municipalities through employing qualified and experienced personnel; improve national and provincial policy, support and oversight to local government; and strengthen partnerships between local government, communities and civil society (sowetan, 19 may 2011: 11). complaints about the election lists a political analyst, ndletyana, argued that it was during these elections that the anc found itself vulnerable because the threat was not only posed by the da or the service delivery protests, but also stemmed from within. members protested against regional and provincial leadership over the nomination of candidates. they charged that the leadership flouted the rules, overlooking individuals who had been nominated by members at the branches, and sa local elections, 2011 and anc support td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 200-216. 211 were endorsed by their communities (ndletyana, 2011: 1117-1119). in order to allay the fears and any imminent revolts by voters, particularly those from the anc, a week before the elections zuma announced that his party would order an investigation into irregular candidate nominations and remove candidates who had irregularly been placed on the party’s election lists. this was an oversight by the anc because it came at a late stage with the verification of the candidates’ lists. after the elections the anc appointed a team to investigate irregularities in the compilation of the party’s lists of candidates. announcing the names of the seven-member investigative team led by minister of home affairs nkosazana dlamini-zuma, mantashe said their work would not be influenced by the cries of those who purported to be members of the anc, but reacted against it. he stated: we’re not going to work on the basis of who protested. the team will take its time, do a thorough job, and make good recommendations based on the information collected and not on voices that are very loud and disruptive of the work” (the times, 25 may 2011: 4). however, mantashe further committed the anc to rooting out members placed irregularly on the candidates’ lists. the toilet saga it is interesting to note that the campaign was enlivened by two new stories, which revealed much about political discourse and practice in south africa. the da, which controls the city of cape town and is the main rival of the anc at national level, campaigned on a platform of efficient and effective service delivery, including the provision of waterborne sewerage in low income housing areas. subsequently, in december 2009, the da was taken to court by the ancyl for failing to construct the superstructure, namely, the four walls and a roof above 1 316 toilets that had been installed in makhaza, part of khayelitsha township in cape town (sairr, south africa survey 2009/2010: politics and government; tempelhoff, 2012: 82-102).3 the western cape high court ruled that the city council was violating the residents’ constitutional right to dignity and its own duty to provide for the basic needs of the poor 3 the background to this toilet saga is as follows: in 2004, the cape town municipality decided to upgrade the informal settlement at silvertown in khayelitsha in terms of the housing act’s upgrading of the informal settlement programme (uisp). as part of this project, one communal toilet was to be provided for every five households (the 1:5 ratio). in july 2007, the community expressed unhappiness with communal toilets and demanded that an individual toilet be provided for each household. the municipality held a meeting with the community in late november, at which it was agreed that, in addition to the communal toilets that were already in use, each of the erven would be provided with an individual toilet. however, the community would have to enclose the individual toilets themselves, as the municipality would be providing 1 316 unenclosed toilets. a tender for the individual toilets was issued in 2009 and completed by the end of that year. these toilets were enclosed by the residents themselves, except in makhaza. at this point the ancyl approached the south african human rights commission (sahrc), filing a complaint that it was a violation of human dignity that the residents of makhaza had to use these unenclosed toilets and cover themselves with blankets in full view of the public. twala 212 (ntliziywana & de visser, 2001: 3-4). the story was splashed all over the media by the anc, only for an identical example to be unearthed in a poorly performing anc-run municipality, moqhaka in the free state, where 1 620 toilets built as far back as 2003 had never been enclosed. the media reported that the contractor responsible for building these toilets was the husband of the mayor of the town of viljoenskroon in the moqhaka municipality and who happened to be an anc member. suddenly the issue was no longer just about inadequate service delivery, but was also one of nepotism. it threatened to undercut the ruling party’s message of being a caring government, illuminating an already existing pathology of the self-indulgent political elite who perceived political office as an opportunity to ‘eat’, rather than to provide a public service (ndletyana, 2011: 1117-1119). the pictures of unused toilets situated in the middle of residential plots appealed to the media, but the issue was also emblematic of wider problems in the local government elections. the above mudslinging by the anc and the da over the toilet saga highlighted that for these two political parties, their election campaigns were more about berating each other for the failings of which they were equally guilty, than of making new commitments to improving the lives of the electorate. it may be argued that the anc knew about the ‘toilet saga’ in its own free state municipality, moqhaka, but kept quiet about it. a perspective on future local government elections and lessons learnt the results of the may 2011 general elections were fascinating. although there was a decline in the anc’s support, the elections reflected a consistent partisan loyalty phenomenon. the majority of voters had not yet deviated from the post-apartheid voting patterns wherein voting was facilitated along racial lines. overall, power did not actually change hands, and the country at present is still dominated by two major parties namely, the anc and the da, with just a weak voice from the other 120 smaller parties. nationally, the anc performed steadily, obtaining 62 percent, with the da showing an impressive improvement of 24 percent. although there was a decline in support for the anc, smaller parties as in the past, failed to take advantage of this by attracting anc dissenters. this served as a lesson to these smaller parties that fragmentation of the opposition comes perilously close to decimating them. their dwindling support had, unfortunately, boosted the two behemoths as voters lost confidence in the smaller parties thereby boosting the two main contenders. this was also the case with the breakaway parties, mostly formed during electoral seasons by disgruntled members of the older, more established parties. breakaways usually make a small but significant showing at their beginnings, and subsequently trudge on thereafter. this is evident from the performance of the united democratic movement (udm) in 2000; the independent democrats (id) in 2006; and cope in 2009. as a new party during the may 2011 local government elections, the national freedom party (nfp) which broke away from the inkatha freedom party (ifp) also did not perform as expected (sithole, 2011). these elections also had serious implications for anc president, jacob zuma, because under his stewardship, the ruling party had steadily lost support in both the 2009 national election and in the may 2011 local government elections (business day, 23 may 2011: 2). furthermore, it is interesting to note that disgruntled anc supporters stayed away, rather than switching their voting allegiance. the challenge for the anc in may 2011 was thus not major losses to the opposition, but a low turnout from its constituencies. the anc attempted to arrest the situation by amending its candidate selection process for this election, sa local elections, 2011 and anc support td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 200-216. 213 so as to facilitate greater public and community participation; a move intended to encourage alienated supporters back into the voting booths (brown, 2011: 3). tim cohen commented in business day that the election results for the anc as a ruling party showed a “glass half full, half empty” characteristic. the anc had won convincingly, but nevertheless, had lost some support. the party lost ground in all provinces except in kzn compared to the previous local government elections, and declined everywhere compared to the general election (business day, 23 may 2011: 10). justin sylvester, a political researcher at the political information and monitoring service programme at idasa wrote in the cape times that the promises made by the anc politicians in exchange for votes had also involved threats that delivery on some socioeconomic rights, as provided for in the constitution, would not happen unless community members ‘voted correctly’. a perception was created by the anc that the assistance and the rights that citizens have to social grants, for example, must be rewarded with electoral support (cape times, 17 may 2011: 9). any such impression was a cruel distortion of the social contract in a rights-based constitutional state such as south africa. allowing or creating such an impression in the minds of voters entirely undermines the fundamental political rights of citizens and further disproportionately marginalises the poor. conclusions without doubt, the fierce challenge launched by the da on the anc during the may 2011 local government elections sent a clear message to the ruling party to keep its house in order. with this contest, the anc is expected to make a clean break with the qualitative decline of the last decade of its century. it must bridge the gap between its electoral successes and the capacity to lead society. in order to continue being a majority party in south africa, the anc should emerge with an agenda to re-engineer its moral content, leadership, intellectual and strategic capacity and internal political consciousness in a manner that seeks to reverse the current conditions of its internal decline. the cause of the anc’s decreased support at the polls is not hard to fathom. the plurality of voices throughout the entire anc family, which often resulted in conflicting messages and public spats between prominent leaders of the tripartite alliance, were the first symptoms of the battle for space in the highest echelons of the party. there is nothing wrong with vociferous internal discourse in accordance with the party’s constitution; however, when that spills out into the open, the sympathetic voter can only feel confused, bewildered and disappointed, as well as disaffected. in analysing the 2011 elections, it is clear that the community service delivery protest did not automatically imply condemnation of the ideals and even of the leaders of the anc; rather, it may be seen as an appeal for intervention to uphold those values and ideals and call to order individuals and structures seen to be damaging the party and its history. paradoxically, a protest could also be a backhanded vote of confidence in the anc, as long as the party is prepared to address grievances and act to resolve them. although the anc won the elections, it is evident that there was a shift away from the predominantly african party towards the traditionally white but in fact, non-racial opposition. therefore, it is clear from the above analysis that the may 2011 elections disputed the widely held view that the anc is a permanent magnet attracting voters in south africa. twala 214 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(johannesburg: wits university press), p. 78. sowetan, 9 may 2011. sowetan, 19 may 2011. sunday independent, 29 may 2011. sunday times, 29 may 2011. tempelhoff, j.w.n. (2012) from makhaza to rammulotsi: reflections on south africa’s “toilet election” of 2011, historia, 57, 1, may, pp. 82-102. the times, 25 may 2011. tsheola, j.p. (2012) theorising a democratic developmental state: issues of public service delivery planning and violent protests in south africa, journal of public administration, 47, 1, march, pp. 163-173. twala, c. (2010) jacob zuma’s ‘zuluness’ appeal during the april 2009 elections in south africa: an attempt to break the ifp’s grip on zulu social and political structures?, journal for contemporary history, 35, 2, pp. 66-83. twala 216 twala, c. (2010) the congress of the people (cope): a new political dynamic during the april 2009 campaign and election?, journal for contemporary history, 35, 3, pp. 89111. microsoft word 01 craffert nde.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(1) july 2015, pp. 1-20. do out-of-body and near-death experiences point towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? a critical evaluation pf craffert1 abstract in recent years there was a steady flow of academic studies claiming that the mind or consciousness can function independently from a working brain. such research is presented with great confidence as a scientific breakthrough and one that will alter received views on both humanity and the meaning of life as well as medical science in general and neuroscience in particular. in this article the three major streams of evidence for the existence of nonlocal consciousness are critically evaluated. neither the testimonies of thousands of experients nor research on cardiac arrest patients or experimental research on veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at this stage provide sufficient evidence for such claims about nonlocal consciousness. extraordinary claims about paradigm chances in the scientific world should be supported by uncontroversial and high quality evidence, which is currently not available. keywords: consciousness, nonlocal consciousness, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, life after death, veridical perception, clinical death. disciplines: anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, consciousness studies, religious studies 1. introduction the british telegraph of 7 october 2014 carried the following story: first hint of “life after death” in biggest ever scientific study. the newsworthy claim of the article was: “southampton university scientists have found evidence that awareness can continue for at least several minutes after clinical death.” reporting on the same study, the german spiegel online of 9 october 2014 suggests that awareness continued in cases where there was no longer any brain activity possible. both reports refer to a recently published study, aware — awareness during resuscitation — a prospective study led by sam parnia, currently professor in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the state university of new york, claiming the reality of nonlocal consciousness during clinical death (2014). this follows on a study of near-death experiences (ndes) just more than a decade earlier when a group of dutch 1 . prof. pieter f craffert is a research professor, college of human sciences, p o box 392, unisa, pretoria, south africa. email: craffpf@unisa.ac.za craffert 2 scholars led by cardiologist pim van lommel (see 2001) made a similar claim. scientists are asking: is death really the end? raymond moody, who popularised the term near-death experience (nde) some 40 years ago and half-heartedly denied that ndes provide scientific proof for an afterlife, adds that it does mean that a major step has been taken that puts the idea “on a more secure footing” (moody [1975] 2001:171). it is noteworthy that in a forward to his book, elizabeth kübler-ross (2001:xxi) writes: “it is research such as dr. moody presents in his book that will ... confirm what we have been taught for two thousand years — that there is life after death.” there is little doubt that, if corroborated and scientifically affirmed, this research has far-reaching implications even beyond the claims advanced here. on the one hand, claims about the reality of nonlocal consciousness, i.e. the existence of consciousness independent of the body and brain, indeed touch upon essential questions of our existence, the meaning of life, and human destiny (see french 2001:2010; engmann 2014:7). life after death, an immortal soul and a heavenly realm are all in one way or another implicated in the arguments that ndes provide evidence for nonlocal consciousness. and as sam harris points out, what one believes happens after death “dictates much of what one believes about life” (2004:38). on the other hand, research on ndes impacts on medical science in general and neuroscience in particular. van lommel, for example, says: “nde pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation” (van lommel, et al. 2001:2044). in his explanation: the inevitable conclusion that consciousness can be experienced independently of brain function might well induce a huge change in the scientific paradigm in western medicine, and could have practical implications in actual medical and ethical problems such as the care for comatose or dying patients, euthanasia, abortion, and the removal of organs for transplantation from somebody in the dying process with a beating heart in a warm body but with a diagnosis of brain death. such understanding also fundamentally changes one’s opinion about death (van lommel 2006:148). also bruce greyson and colleagues suggest that ndes call into question the “common assumption in neuroscience ... that consciousness is the product of brain processes or that the mind is merely the subjective concomitant of neurological events” (2009:loc 2995; see also holden 2009:loc 2668). nde research, as some suggests, genuinely represents an instance of a paradigm change in many regards (see parnia 2013:196–8). in summary, questions about our humanity, as well as fundamental beliefs in the biomedical paradigm in general and the neurosciences in particular are at stake in ndes research. profound claims such as these, however, invite critical analysis. 2. clarifying concepts for the sake of this article the term out-of-body experiences (obes) refers to the experiences in which a person has the impression that consciousness or the self has been separated from the body (see craffert 2015:21), while ndes refer to composite experiences that contain, among others, obes (also elements like travelling through a tunnel, a life review, encounters with deceased relatives, and the like), but which take place during severe bodily trauma or at the brink of death. a general rule of thumb is that most ndes contain an obe as one of its constituting features while most obes do not necessarily take place during circumstances of closeness to death. while the term nde originated to describe experiences in a brush with towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 1-20. 3 death (see moody [1975] 2001:8), in most studies nowadays it is used as an umbrella term for near-death, fear-death and even experiences without any element of closeness to death (see van lommel 2011:20). in fact, many use it synonymously with obe (see, e.g., holden 2009:loc 2624). this study will look at both obes and ndes as providing support for nonlocal consciousness. after all, it is the experience of out-of-bodiness (whether during closeness to death or not) that primarily serves as evidence for the notion of nonlocal consciousness and consequently, for arguments about life after death. nonlocal consciousness is the term used to describe the possibility that the self, mind, consciousness or soul can exist independently from the brain and body. 3. a scientific breakthrough? recently a flood of publications promoted the idea that ndes confirm that consciousness can exist independently from the body or brain. for example, mario beauregard, research professor in psychology and radiology and the neuroscience research center, university of montreal states: the scientific nde studies performed over the past decade indicate that heightened mental functions can be experienced independently of the body at a time when brain activity is greatly impaired or seemingly absent (during cardiac arrest)... these findings strongly challenge the mainstream neuroscientific view that mind and consciousness result solely from brain activity... nde studies also suggest that after physical death, mind and consciousness may continue in a transcendental level of reality that is normally not accessible to our senses and awareness (2012:181). a major voice in these circles is van lommel: by studying people who have experienced an nde, we found, to our surprise, that a persistent and unaltered self-identity can be experienced independently from the lifeless body at a moment the brain does not function during cardiac arrest, even with a flatline eeg, and so consciousness or self does not reside in our brain, nor is it limited to our brain, which proves that the self cannot be the product of brain function. without a body, we still can have conscious experiences (2011:27). jeffrey long, a radiation oncologist, also advocates this viewpoint: ndes confirm that “life continues after bodily death” (2010:47). in a recent publication sam parnia claims that the viewpoint coming out more and more from nde research and insights from resuscitation science is that consciousness, the self or the soul, does not come to an end after death (see 2013:217). the study mentioned at the beginning of this article is the most recent in this stream of claims. it is important to pay attention to it because it was co-authored by 31 scholars (including two of the major voices in this field of research, peter fenwick and bruce greyson). the aim of the study was to investigate the incidence of awareness and a broad range of other cognitive and mental experiences during resuscitation after cardiac arrest. the principal author himself promotes this study as an instance affirming veridical perception; that is, perceptions that were independently corroborated (see parnia 2014:86). therefore, it is important to get some perspective on this study before evaluating the general scientific claims. data was collected from 15 hospitals in the uk, usa and austria over a four-year period. a total of 2060 cases were included, of which only 330 patients actually survived to be discharged. of these, 140 were found eligible for interviews but only 101 could actually be interviewed. only 55 had memories or awareness of the resuscitation of which only nine had craffert 4 experiences compatible with ndes and only two had specific auditory or visual awareness. only one of them could describe his perceptions during the resuscitation. the non-nde persons reported themes such as fear, animals and plants, seeing their family and bright lights (see parnia, et al. 2014:3–4). what the team calls a “verified case of va [visual awareness]” (parnia, et al. 2014:5) consists of the single individual, a 57-year-old patient who described his perception of the resuscitation from the top of the room. “he accurately described people, sounds and activities from his resuscitation,” they claim. he heard the beep sound of an automated external defibrillator, reported that a nurse and a bald man (although he did not see his face and could not see whether the man was bald because he was wearing a “blue hat”), who he later identified as the doctor who attended to him the next day, and described some of the resuscitation activities, like his blood pressure being taken and the doctor putting something down his throat. since this resuscitation did not take place in a room where one of the more than 1 000 images are displayed on shelves visible only from the ceiling, no accurate visual perception of an image could be corroborated. the gist of this article is to suggest that visual awareness took place (or consciousness was registered) when there was no brain activity (possible). the reader is led to the conclusion that consciousness existed independently from brain activity based on no concrete data or evidence, but on a number of vague inferences. one is that this patient had no brain activity because “typically” there is no measurable brain function during cardiac arrest and it is assumed that during cpr there “typically” remains insufficient blood flow to meet cerebral metabolic requirements. without sufficient evidence that this patient had no brain activity, it is suggested that it is unlikely that this patient could normally perceive any of the reported activities. it is unlikely that the patient could have remembered any of the cpr procedures because normally such patients suffer from delirium and are incapable of accurate reports, it is claimed. if the additional assumptions (which unfortunately are not substantiated evidence) of “it was estimated that our patient maintained awareness for a number of minutes into ca [cardiac arrest]” and “the experience likely occurred during ca rather than after recovery from ca or before ca” (parnia, et al. 2014:5), are accepted, one is left with at least two plausible explanations. one, that there was no brain activity and therefore visual awareness resulted from nonlocal consciousness or, two, that during cardiac arrest this patient actually recorded and remembered what was going on during the cpr (see further below). the second explanation is not even considered by the authors. while the authors claim that his medical records corroborated his account, no evidence is given of how and in which way they support it. if standard cpr procedures were performed and the patient was aware of some things that were happening to and with his body, it is to be expected that he would report about the kind of things happening during cpr. this study and the endless stream of claims about nonlocal consciousness (see trent-von haesler and beauregard 2013:199) beg the question about the actual evidence for claims about nonlocal consciousness. extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; “a radical view ... would ideally require radical evidence of high quality” (braithwaite 2008:1). thus the question: what is the nature and quality of the evidence for nonlocal consciousness provided over the last 40 years of nde-research? towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 1-20. 5 4. the case for nonlocal consciousness the three main lines of argument in support of the existence of consciousness independent of the brain will be evaluated here. one is the testimony of thousands of people who have had ndes, the second is that many ndes take place during cardiac arrest when there allegedly is no brain activity, and the third is arguments about veridical perception during out-of-body experiences. 4.1 the abundance of nde-reports near-death experiencers (nders) are normally convinced that their experiences as well as what they experienced are genuinely real. in fact, one of the features of such reports is that experients consider the nde as even more real than ordinary experiences and convinced them that death is merely a transition rather than an end. for this reason it is not surprising that many nders do not question their experiences, but advocate them as life-altering experiences and proof of life after death. the explanatory hypothesis endorsed by most neardeath experients is that during the experience “some part of them separated from their physical bodies and experienced an introduction to the afterlife” (greyson 2000:338). in some instances experients are also researchers who not only present their experiences, but reflect on them and defend them within the framework of near-death research. eben alexander, the neurosurgeon who wrote a book about his nde, is a case in point (see alexander 2012). advocacy scholarship supports, if not promotes, this type of first-person explanation. for some scholars the ubiquity of nde reports and the content of their testimonies provide the first line of argument for the reality of consciousness independent of the brain (see stevenson and greyson 1996:204). the aim of the scientific method as practised in such studies is first and foremost to corroborate the truth and content of experients’ claims. it is clearly explained by long who manages the largest database of ndes available today: “by studying thousands of accounts of nders, i found the evidence” (long 2010:48). this is evident from the main pillar of this “scientific” methodology, namely to gather as many “reliable” accounts as possible and the more reports that can be amassed, the stronger the case becomes for the reality of ndes. and according to the “scientific evidence” provided by the more than 1 300 reports studied, long concludes that “it is reasonable to accept the existence of an afterlife” (long 2010:48). in other words, more accounts of ndes confirm the claims made by experients. others are more tentative in concluding that evidence for nonlocal consciousness only suggests that consciousness or the “soul” “may survive the death of the body” (cook, greyson and stevenson 1998:401). the reason, as they point out, is that ndes take place when persons are still alive and therefore it is not conclusive evidence of what may happen when the brain and body are no longer revivable. but the scientific logic is widespread: the large number of people claiming ndes confirms the reality of what they experienced. in the words of van lommel: “more and more experiences are being reported by serious and reliable people who, to their own surprise and confusion, have experienced, independent of their physical body, an enhanced consciousness with a persistent experience of self” (2011:25). for them the conviction of multiple testimonies of nonlocal consciousness supports the conclusion that consciousness can exist independently from the brain. it should be noted that while claiming ndes, most of these people suffered from noncritical medical conditions and were not close to death (see parnia 2014:84). craffert 6 but the fundamental problem with this way of conceptualising the research problem is that it is seen as a case of enough data instead of how to interpret and understand the data. the assumption is that more cases of ndes can confirm the claims made by nders. however, the content of experiences cannot be the evidence for the hypothesis because more cases merely provide more examples in need of interpretation (see irwin 2002:21). whether ten or a thousand accounts of nders perceiving things during the experience does not matter if what they claim to have perceived cannot be verified and independently corroborated. in the words of robert kastenbaum: “ten thousand reports are no better than ten reports if they are offered simply as further examples of the fact that some people believed they had died and come back to life” (1996:260). 4.2 nonlocal consciousness during clinical death the second line of evidence for nonlocal consciousness is a very general one claiming that extraordinary perceptions (such as, being out of one’s own body and seeing it from the outside) take place during phases of clinical death when there is no brain function. summarising this line of research, trent-von haesler and beauregard suggest that nders experience vivid and complex thoughts, and acquire veridical information about objects or events remote from their bodies precisely “while their hearts are stopped and brain activity is seemingly absent” (2013:200). the conclusion is that consciousness is not generated by the brain, and is not confined to the brain and body. in many instances an even stronger rhetorical claim is made. parnia, for example, says a nde “is better renamed an actual-death experience” at least for cardiac arrest patients, “since they are not near death but have actually died” (2013:219). moody already started this trend when claiming that several doctors told him that they were baffled by the detailed description of many patients regarding resuscitation procedures “even though the events took place while the doctors know the patients involved to be ‘dead’” ([1975] 2001:93). either way the rhetoric is clear: actually the person or brain is dead; the implication follows: it is not the brain but nonlocal consciousness that perceives during such obes. and from the existing literature it is apparent that arguments for nonlocal consciousness strongly depend on research conducted with patients who have had obes during cardiac arrest. the reason is that cardiac arrest is the closest model we have to the dying process. two arguments (or assumptions) play a role in advancing the idea of nonlocal consciousness during cardiac arrest. one is that during cardiac arrest and the subsequent resuscitation there is no brain function. secondly, the obes actually take place when there is no brain function possible. sam parnia and peter fenwick, for example, say that extensive animal and human studies during cardiac arrest show that during cardiac arrest cerebral blood flow is severely impaired which leads to a lack of electrophysiological activity in the cortex. therefore, the question is how can, during a phase when cerebral functions are severely impaired if not absent, such lucid perceptions which include reasoning, attention and memory recalls as nders testify about, take place (see 2002:6–8)? this is also the view of the dutch study: “how could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death and flat eeg” (van lommel, et al. 2001:2044). french cogently summarises the state of this research: “it is clear that the argument that recent findings present a major challenge to modern neuroscience hinges upon the claim that the nde is actually experienced ‘during a period of clinical death with flat eeg’ as claimed, with the implication that no cortical activity is taking place during this period” (2005:362). towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 1-20. 7 the three crucial issues here are what is meant by clinical death, whether there is any brain function during cardiac arrest, and when the nde (or obe) actually takes place. 4.2.1 death, clinical death and brain death a great deal of the confusion in this debate has to do with linguistic matters. and it is this confusion that is exploited in order to make extravagant claims about ndes. therefore it is important to ask: what is meant by the terms death, clinical death and brain death? unfortunately, there is some linguistic confusion over the term clinical death. clinical death, according to birk engman “is defined by complete circulatory arrest, and hence a lack of pulse, and breathing arrest, but still reversible by means of reanimation” (2014:48). this happens, for example, after acute myocardial infarction where breathing and blood circulation is terminated. it is widely accepted that if such patients are not resuscitated, they will die (see van lommel, et al. 2001:2040; van lommel 2011:20). the problem with this definition, nelson points out, is that even syncope then counts as clinical death (see 2014:112). therefore he maintains that to a neurologist, clinical death means “your brain is dead ... there’s no coming back from clinical death” (in paulson, et al. 2014:41). all of this is probably an over-reaction in the context of nde research where, as seen above, scholars in some nde circles take ndes as death. on a clinical and neurophysiological level, there is actually a great deal of agreement about death since most scholars agree that death is a process. under normal conditions the brain receives 15% of cardiac output and 40–50% of total cerebral blood flow is required to supply enough glucose and oxygen to maintain cellular integrity in the brain, while 50–60% blood flow is needed to maintain electrophysiological activity (see french 2005:362). circulatory and breathing arrest leads to a decrease in the supply of nutrients and oxygen to the organs. ganglion cells in the brain can survive eight to ten minutes, after which mental damage takes place; other organs can overcome clinical death that lasts much longer, for example, the heart 30 minutes, the lungs 60 minutes and the liver two hours (see engmann 2014:49–50; parnia 2013:20–1). under special circumstances, such as hypothermia and resuscitation medical care, reanimation can still be successful after much longer periods (see nelson 2011:loc 1867; parnia 2013:10–11). after successful reanimation when nutrient and oxygen supply is restored, it takes a certain period of time for the brain to get back “online.” if reanimation fails during clinical death, it passes over to what is called brain or biological death (see engmann 2014:9). this is important: when brain death occurs, a patient is declared dead. although the exact time of irreversible cell damage and brain death in the process of dying is still unknown, there is agreement that beyond a certain threshold neurons begin to die and beyond a certain number of dead neurons, life can no longer be sustained. however, even the death of neurons is not a clear indication of the time of death, but merely refers to a continuum where active life can be either severely impeded (such as in a vegetative state) or be terminated (brain or biological death) (see nelson 2014:112–113; parnia 2014:77). in summary, in the process of dying, clinical death is a transitory state of short duration (see engmann 2014:94) which can either be turned around or end in impeded existence or brain death. in this process it is not easy to say what “near-death” would mean because it is not a clinical term. when and where in this process is someone near death? in view of the fact that scholars more or less agree on the clinical profile of death as a process, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is something cynical in the rhetorical ploy to call ndes death or actual death experiences. nowhere in all the literature is a case made that the phase of death where craffert 8 life can be turned around by means of cpr or reanimation, should be seen as actual death. most critical scholars agree that the brain during clinical death and ndes, “is nowhere near physically dead... it is alive and conscious” (nelson 2011:loc 1856); during clinical death the brain is not dead but merely in “a state of severe dysfunction” (engmann 2014:62). even if there is sufficient evidence for exteriorisation of the self during an obe, it is important to remember that obes take place when people are physically alive (see irwin 2002:21). thus, near-death is “not a return from death” (nelson 2014:112). 4.2.2 cardiac arrest, eeg and brain functions the notion that a nde is an actual death is supported by often repeated claims in nde research that ndes take place when there is ostensibly no brain function or when the eeg is flat. in fact, claims about a flat eeg during cardiac arrest serve as another rhetorical ploy to support the idea that ndes take place when the brain is not functioning. while it is true that a flat eeg points towards a lack of cortical (not necessarily brain) activity, it is much more complicated. even before that point is considered, it is important to note that not a single nde study contains actual eeg data in support of the general claim about cortical activity (see braithwaite 2008:3). the reason probably is that no one ever measures the eeg of patients undergoing resuscitation for sudden cardiac arrest (see woerlee 2008) and it is obviously not done with any other unannounced obe. but even if there were data, the accuracy of eeg measurement should be considered. how many electrodes should be used for an accurate measure and for how long should an eeg be recorded (see chrislip 2008:14–15; engmann 2014:62)? the claim that a flat eeg means no brain activity in itself is problematic because nonmeasurable eeg activity does not necessarily mean complete loss of brain activity. even in the case of brain death, the loss of eeg activity alone is not sufficient to declare someone brain dead. another question is whether during resuscitation after cardiac arrest, is there enough blood flow to sustain consciousness? as indicated above, if a functional heartbeat is not restored within a few minutes, increasing degrees of brain damage will set in. but the purpose of cardiac massage is precisely to restore heartbeat and research shows that manual or external cardiac message provide sufficient blood flow for a significant number of patients (more than 40%) to maintain consciousness (see woerlee 2013:298–301). not only does a host of studies show that efficient cardiac massage can restore cardiac output, blood pressure, brain oxygenation and brain nerve activity as detected by an eeg, but also that some patients can regain consciousness (see woerlee 2013:302–305). but it is becoming apparent that brain activity during cardiac arrest is even more complex. two recent studies independently suggest that what is called “end-of-life electrical surges” might explain the vivid brain functions experienced during ndes. in one study eeg activity was measured by means of sophisticated equipment in critically ill patients where life support was withdrawn. at a time where there was no blood pressure and the brain was reaching a critical level of hypoxia, they could measure a cascade of electrical activity (see chawla, et al. 2009). in another study measuring both eeg and deep brain activity, a group of scholars studied brain activity in healthy rats during wakefulness, anesthesia and cardiac arrest. in their own words: these data demonstrate that cardiac arrest stimulates a transient and global surge of synchronized gamma oscillations, which display high levels of interregional coherence and feedback connectivity as well as crossfrequency coupling with both theta and alpha waves. each of these properties of gamma oscillations indicates a highly aroused brain, and collectively, the data suggest that the mammalian brain has the towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 1-20. 9 potential for high levels of internal information processing during clinical death. the neural correlates of conscious brain activity identified in this investigation strongly parallel characteristics of human conscious information processing (borjigin, et al. 2013:4–5). both studies suggest that vivid and lucid conscious experiences are indeed possible during cardiac arrest and clinical death. viewed from this perspective, much of the nde data are evidence for some remarkable brain functions precisely during the process of dying. 4.2.3 when does a nde take place? even if it is granted that eeg measurement indicates no activity in the cerebral cortex (what eeg measures), the question remains: when does an nde take place? the short answer is, nobody really knows because there is no evidence that the two events occur at the same time (see french 2001:2010; braithwaite 2008:7). was it during the flat eeg or when they entered or recovered from the state of clinical death? the common but erroneous assumption in some nde circles that certain cognitive activities are impossible to perform when the brain is supposedly dead, was turned on its head by michael marsh when he showed that many of the nde features makes sense as the result of rapidly and vigorously reawakening brains (see marsh 2010:88–91). one part of his argument which takes seriously the fact that most obes are componential, is to show that the combination of perception and misperception of bodily sensation together with the perceptions created by the recovering brain reported by nders “could not occur if that consciousness resided outwith the body, and more importantly, outside its disordered brain” (marsh 2010:87). the second part is to show that often reported features of ndes are possible once it is recognised that “such coherent cognitive functioning does occur (and could only occur) during that terminal revitalizing process” (marsh 2010:91). add to this the question of how long a nde lasts? the swiss geologist albert heim had a nde while falling on a ski trip. his fall lasted not more than 10 seconds during which he experienced a life-review and other elements, which he claims will take a very long time to describe. this is confirmed by the few survivors jumping from the golden gate bridge who experienced ndes — a fall of about four seconds (see marsh 2010:74; woerlee 2013:306), as well as the syncope induced in healthy subjects under experimental conditions which lasted no longer than 22 seconds. during this short period 83% of the subjects had profound experiences, including obes, entering other worlds, meeting other beings, life reviews and visual perceptions (see lempert, bauer and schmidt 1994). it should be obvious that there is not a correlation between the length of the experience and the length of the experienced content, as can be seen by the example of life reviews which are truncated into short time periods of experience (see marsh 2010:xix; swaab 2014:310). what in narrative time is experienced as hours, can in experiential time take place in a few seconds and to date nobody knows when that moment occurs. in summary, it is not necessarily the case that obes take place when there is no brain function or function possible, because nobody really knows when obes and the other elements of the ndes actually take place. secondly during cardiac arrest patients are not actually (brain) dead and it is not the case that no brain function and activity is possible. it is merely a rhetorical ploy, if not outright misleading, to claim that nders were actually dead. exaggerated and unfounded arguments are offered in support of claims that require exceptional evidence and that evidence is actually not forthcoming. on the other hand, the body of data on ndes during cardiac arrest is evidence of remarkable features taking place in the human brain during the process of death. craffert 10 4.3 veridical perception during obes encounters with ancestors or the perception of a tunnel or lights during a nde remain subjective experiences, while rhetorically and substantially by far the strongest claims for nonlocal consciousness come from veridical perceptions during obes. beauregard quite correctly points out that obes are quite important from a scientific point of view because it is the only feature of the nde that can be independently corroborated (see 2012:162). there are two potential sources of empirical data on veridical perception that need to be taken into account here: anecdotes or reports by nders and field studies or designed studies testing perceptual ability during obes. the latter refers to studies that are set up to determine whether persons experiencing out-of-bodiness actually produce verifiable perceptions. just one verified account, as laws and perry (2010:145) point out, would already be a breakthrough. thus, what is the evidence showing at this stage? 4.3.1 claims about veridical perceptions when looking at scholarly publications one can easily come to the conclusion that veridical perception during ndes is firmly established. sometimes it is formulated rather tentatively: “some patients do appear to have obtained information which they could not have obtained during unconsciousness” (parnia, et al. 2001:154). most often claims are much stronger. in several publications greyson claims that there are “numerous examples” of veridical out-ofbody perceptions (see 2000:341). in fact, he says that “near-death-related obes include accurate perceptions from an extracorporeal visual perspective in more than 90% of documented cases” (greyson 2011:469; and see greyson 2013:477). similar claims are repeated in many publications (see e.g., van lommel 2004; gibbs 2010:309; fracasso and friedman 2011:48) — most of which rely on a single publication: sometimes patients even reported that, while out of the body, they became aware of events occurring at a distance beyond the reach of their ordinary senses. in a recent review of more than 90 reports of potentially verifiable out-of-body perceptions during ndes, holden (2009) found that a large amount of them had been subsequently corroborated by an independent informant (agrillo 2011:7). relying on the same study of janice holden, david rousseau claims that “90% of nde reports of perceptual experiences during cardiac arrest or prolonged respiratory arrest contain no errors” and “35% of these reports have been independently corroborated” (2012:54). based on this study, van lommel makes the following claim: “in a recent review of 93 corroborated reports of potentially verifiable out-of-body perceptions during an nde, about 90% were found to be completely accurate, 8% contained some minor error, and only 2% were completely erroneous” (2011:22–23). if true, this evidence cannot lightly be dismissed. for that reason it is important to evaluate holden’s report. in probably the most often quoted study in this regard, holden investigated all the data about veridical perception during the last century. she found 107 anecdotal reported cases of nders in 39 different publications that claim veridical perceptions ranging from detail about the rescue or resuscitation to other events during the ndes. ninety three of these contain reports about material aspects (as opposed to accounts about trans-material aspects, such as deceased relatives). in a publication with greyson and van lommel, referring to this study, she does not hesitate to state: “among 107 published cases of such perceptions during ndes, approximately 91% were completely accurate” (greyson, holden and van lommel 2012:445). that is despite the fact that in the original study, she says that of the total of 107 reports 19% contained errors and only “38 percent ... involved complete accuracy of perception” (holden 2009:loc 2778). but how true is this claim of “accurate perception”? towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 1-20. 11 in her evaluation, the objectively corroborated perceptions vary “from somewhat weak to extremely strong” (holden 2009:loc 2774). she does not give any indication of what is meant by “extremely strong” or how many accounts that are presented as accurate actually depend on “weak” evidence. it is also not clear how many fall into each category. furthermore, how can claims about accurate (not to say, completely accurate) perceptions be based on somewhat weak evidence? a number of features should put her claim of complete accuracy of perception into perspective. most cases she says (she fails to tell us how many), did not involve cardiac arrest which means it is difficult to rule out healthy working brains during the nde. secondly, only 18 of the 107 interviews were conducted within two days after the experience — some were many years later. thirdly, none of the studies cited in her overview used “empirical ‘gold standard’ techniques” (mobbs 2012:446). fourth, contrary to the claims above, holden makes it perfectly clear that 51 of these “accurate” accounts were corroborated only by the experients themselves. finally, she approvingly cites ring and valarino who say that “although no single instance may be conclusive in itself, the cumulative weight of these narratives is sufficient [emphasis original]”. despite these problems, she claims the “sheer volume” of anecdotes collected over the past 150 years suggests veridical perception “is real” (2009:loc 2788). does this not say it all? 4.3.2 strong evidence for out-of-body perceptions? in order to be fair in one’s evaluation, it is necessary to look at the instances that are most often cited as constituting the “strong evidence” for out-of-body perception. let me start with the case of pam reynolds, which is recognised as containing to date the “most detailed and objectively corroborated content” (holden 2009:loc 2743). reynolds suffered a life-threatening aneurysm close to the brain stem and was operated on in a complex procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest during which her body temperature was lowered to 16 degrees, heart beat and breathing is flattened and the blood drained from the head in order to remove the aneurysm (greyson 2000:339–40; french 2005:363; holden 2009:loc 2712–2743). she allegedly described the 20 medical personnel involved in her operation, the bone saw as the saw thing that looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, and later claimed to remember that she heard a female voice (that of the assistant surgeon) which said: “we have a problem. her arteries are too small.” in some nde circles this is the prime example of corroborated veridical perception (see greyson 2000:339–340; beauregard 2012:157) and often cited as providing proof that veridical perception takes place during a period of a flat eeg (see e.g., van lommel, et al. 2001:2043). but the evidence is far from strong. michael sabom who documented this case eight years after the event makes it clear in his time line that she was awake when taken into theatre and was under general anaesthesia when she heard and saw certain things (see kelly, greyson and stevenson 1999–2000:517; holden 2009). in what valerie laws and elaine perry (laws and perry 2010:149) calls a perfect illustration of the chinese whispers effect in action, numerous publications claim that it took place during her nde while her eeg was flat. but as they point out, there is no evidence that this is the case. in fact, sabom’s own account reveals that her nde took place a full two hours and five minutes before her body was cooled down during the operation (see augustine 2008:22). marsh, who made a thorough analysis of the verbal account of her report, points out the inaccurate and vague aspects of the account — an account of a mere 325 words for a period of events stretching over a period of more than two hours (see 2010:19–23). since she was having elective surgery, much of the craffert 12 information that is ascribed to her obe could have been available even before the operation (such as the shaving of her head and the kind of saw that was used). based on this fact, this account would not pass the first step of a thorough scientific investigation (see laws and perry 2010:150). even if it is accepted that she did not know anything about the saw that was used during the operation, keith augustine remarks that it is telling that the one visual observation that she could have obtained during the obe, was the very detail that was not accurate, namely, the shape of the saw used to open her skull (2008:29). if the prime example of veridical perception raises so many questions, how can it be called strong evidence? another example in holden’s list was first promoted by the dutch group of scholars and remains one of the frequently cited examples of veridical perception during an obe. in 2001 van lommel reports that, during the pilot phase of their study, a coronary-care unit nurse reported an incident where it was discovered that a comatose patient who was brought into the unit had dentures in his mouth when they wanted to intubate him. the nurse removed the dentures and placed them onto the “crash car”. a week later, on seeing the nurse for the first time in the cardiac ward, the patient remarked that the nurse would know where his dentures are. he also remembered what had happened to him during the resuscitation in the small room where he was kept (see van lommel, et al. 2001:2041; smit 2008). they failed to report that this incident actually took place 22 years earlier in 1979, that the patient died soon after the event, that it was reported in a dutch magazine in 1991 by a nurse who had learned about it second-hand, and that the cardiology nurse himself revealed his side in an interview only in 1994 and in detail in 2008 (29 years after the event). in a transcript of the latter interview the nurse is asked about his peculiar husky voice that people remark on (see woerlee 2010). the astonishing fact about this case is that the patient who recovered in the intensive care unit after the incident did not know where his dentures were, but only when the nurse from the cardiac unit came into the ward a week later, did the patient remark that this nurse knows where his dentures are (see smit 2008:54–55). he probably recognised the peculiar voice of the person who resuscitated him and remembered what happened to his dentures. hardly strong evidence for veridical perception. the third example, which kenneth ring and madelaine lawrence present as “supported by independent corroboration of witnesses” (1993:225), is that reported by a social worker, kimberly clark, who visited a patient, maria, who was admitted to the harborview hospital in seattle after a heart attack. maria told her that during an obe she was outside the hospital and saw a tennis shoe on the ledge on the outside of the building (see long 2010:79; beauregard 2012:171). clark’s version that the shoe could not be seen from inside or outside the hospital did not pass the test of examiners simulating the case (see augustine 2008:18ff; wiseman 2011:67-70). perhaps it is significant that even nde sympathisers dismiss this story as hearsay rather than fact (see marsh 2010:63). a final example is that of al sullivan, a 56-year-old taxi driver who was rushed to hartford hospital in connecticut with an irregular heartbeat when one of his arteries became obstructed during the examination. he had an emergency bypass operation and following the operation remarked about the cardiothoracic surgeon’s flapping of his elbows as if trying to fly. when interviewed nine years later the surgeon could not confirm that he flapped his elbows during that operation, but admitted it to be a regular habit of his when scrubbing in (see cook, greyson and stevenson 1998:399ff). critics are not convinced about the corroboration of this account (see augustine 2008:118). it is rather amazing that the time line of this account does not bother believers. in his own account, sullivan claimed that towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 1-20. 13 during the operation he had an obe, but if the surgeon performing the operation flapped his elbows before scrubbing in so as not to touch the operating field with ungloved hands, this must have taken place before the obe. logically, what sullivan “saw” during his obe must have taken place before his obe and thus been produced by memory. the investigators realised there were inconsistencies in his report, but think that he later just “confused the order of events” (cook, greyson and stevenson 1998:400). hardly what one would consider strong evidence. one searches in vain for “strong evidence” in nde literature. in addition to these examples that are cited over and over in some circles, only two more actual cases are presented in a recent publication by parnia (see 2014:86). one is his own aware project mentioned at the beginning of this article, where a single instance out of more than 2 000 patients is presented as proof of veridical perception during an obe. from the little evidence that is given, it can, for example, be deduced that the patient did not actually see the doctors or nurse, but a day later identified the caring physician with the mental image (“looking down at me, the nurse, and another man who had a bald head ... i couldn’t see his face but i could see the back of his body. he was quite a chunky fella ... he had blue scrubs on, and he had a blue hat, but i could tell he didn’t have any hair, because of where the hat was ... i know who (the man with the blue hat was) ... i (didn’t) know his full name, but ... he was the man that ... (i saw) the next day ... i saw this man [come to visit me] and i knew who i had seen the day before”; parnia, et al. 2014:5). from his own account he identified the doctor who attended to him the day after the operation, as the one he saw during the nde. granted, it was no hallucination; the interesting question begging to be answered from this data is how much and what kind of neural activities remain during some cases of cardiac arrest. but this option is not considered. the second example mentioned by parnia is a letter to the editor of a journal in which a group of scholars report that during deep hypothermic cardiocirculatory arrest a patient “apparently ‘saw’ a nurse passing surgical instruments to the cardiothoriac surgeon” and perceived anesthesia and echography machines that were located behind her head (beauregard, et al. 2012:e19). this is the evidence! can it really serve as evidence for such a profound claim of nonlocal consciousness? while the strong cases are at best problematic, if not dismissible, the most remarkable feature of the strong evidence for nonlocal consciousness (the bone saw, the dentures, the tennis shoe and the flapping elbows) is the generality, if not triviality of these examples. one would expect that with so many instances of reported ndes or obes, there would be some remarkable and uncontroversial pieces of evidence of veridical perception where the sense organs and brain are not involved. unfortunately, that is not the case. 4.3.3 field studies on obe perceptions besides anecdotal accounts of obe perceptions, field studies of two different kinds were conducted in order to test such perceptions. on the one hand, experimental tests with subjects who can voluntarily enter obes aim at the identification of objects or places during the obe (see alvarado 1982). a recent example includes the german philosopher, thomas metzinger, who unsuccessfully by means of self-experimenting tried to obtain a single verifiable observation (see 2009:84). the best known are the studies conducted by charles tart over a period of more than a decade (see 1998). he tested more than a dozen subjects who could enter obes under hypnosis or during sleep experiences on six occasions. some of his subjects were tested more than ten times and others experienced out-of-bodiness on at craffert 14 least three occasions. during all these experiments only one subject correctly identified a fivedigit number, 25132, during an obe. it should be noted that she spent a night alone in the sleep laboratory where the number was placed. years later he laconically remarked that one would expect the scientific community to jump at such results in order to refine them (see tart 1996:324). while the odds of guessing the digits correctly by chance is indeed a hundred thousand to one, the fact that he had to investigate the laboratory the next morning in order to exclude the possibility that she could have read the numbers in some physical way, says everything for the experimental design. could scholars be excused for not accepting the evidence? on the other hand, many prospective studies in hospitals with cardiac wards where it is to be expected that people might experience ndes have been conducted. in the study mentioned at the beginning of this article, between 50 and 100 shelves with images visible only from above the shelves were installed in acute medical wards in each of the 15 hospitals. more than 1 000 target images were displayed in these hospitals but over a period of four years not a single identification took place (see parnia, et al. 2014:6). the same zero result characterises all other known studies with hidden targets (see trent-von haesler and beauregard 2013:199). the remark by ring a nde sympathiser says it all: “but isn’t it true that in all this time, there hasn’t been a single case of a veridical perception reported by an nder under controlled conditions? i mean, thirty years later, it’s still a null case” (in holden 2009:loc 2970). the problem with these studies, as blackmore pointed out more than a decade ago, is that there “are many claims from case studies that people can really see at a distance during obes but the experimental evidence does not substantiate them” (2005:191). 5. obes and false negatives when making extraordinary claims, as found in some nde circles, that the very fabric of science, the foundation of neuroscience and the basic view of humanity are at stake in the results of nde research, one would expect that all the loose ends are tied up. while the present article primarily looks at the nature and quality of the evidence provided for the case of nonlocal consciousness, a number of features that form part of the case also need to be highlighted. the first feature is that the data on out-of-body perception do not only contain positive claims, but also numerous accounts of false or inaccurate perceptions. it has already been mentioned that less than 50% of the reports verified by holden contained accurate perceptions (while those dubbed “strong” also turned out to be uncorroborated). what should one, for example, make of an obe where the patient gives the physician a rave review for the skill with which that doctor had orchestrated the resuscitating group but it turned out the physician team leader was nine hospital floors away during the experience (see schnaper and panitz 1990:102)? many more examples of what dietrich calls “false-alarm rates ... details that do not match” (2007:272) can be given (see gabbard and twemlow 1991:43; augustine 2008:4). false negatives include not only mistaken facts and features about earthly venues visited, but also the numerous extraordinary places, creatures and features encountered in transcendental realms. sympathisers, however, are quick to admit that not all of these can be taken literally (see gibbs 2010:332). the large number of false negatives — claims made based on obes — are part of the data in need of explanation. an adequate theory of obes and out-of-body towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? td 11(1), july 20915, pp. 1-20. 15 perception has to account for both the positive and the negative events — something the proponents of the theory of nonlocal consciousness do not even address. secondly, while much more can be said about the theory and practice of science as displayed in nde research, one feature can be highlighted here. mention has already been made of the practice that even where no single report proves veracity, the cumulative weight of many reports does. in an attempt to show that anecdotes can be used to confirm the veracity of outof-body perceptions, it is suggested that the convergence of three features in such testimonies provide cumulative evidence. the three features are normal or enhanced mentation when the physical body is ostensibly unconscious, seeing the physical body from a different position in space, and perceiving events beyond the normal range of the physical senses. seeing one’s own body as in autoscopy or as in many other obes is in itself not evidence that anything was outside the body but merely that there was an experience of being out of one’s body i.e. it is data, not evidence. perceiving events beyond the range of the physical body is not evidence of nonlocal consciousness unless independently corroborated. while admitting that individually they are open to alternative explanations, together “they provide convergent evidence” suggesting consciousness can function independently from the brain, advocates maintain (cook, greyson and stevenson 1998:401; kelly, greyson and stevenson 1999– 2000:514; kelly 2001:231). independent corroboration of perceived events is unfortunately not a criterion here. but more important, three instances of unconvincing evidence cannot together be more powerful than their original force; three tests of non-pregnancy do not constitute one instance of being pregnant. thirdly, it is remarkable that most of the evidence for nonlocal consciousness is associated with ndes and obes. that is, with experiences which occur in most instances under conditions where the brain is under (perceived) pressure or threat. why, if consciousness can exist independently from the brain, do actual departures mostly take place when the brain is under severe pressure? given the fact that billions of people supposedly possess consciousness that can potentially exist independently from the body, is it not surprising that no accounts exist of consciousness floating around. if consciousness can exist independently from a brain, why does my and your consciousness not travel to distant places on a regular basis? finally, a logical problem for the nonlocal consciousness position is that a brain that apparently is unable to record any meaningful perceptions, is claimed to remember the paranormal content of the “soul’s” or “consciousness’” perceptions during the experience. in short, consciousness which took all the perceptual apparatus along when leaving the body, is capable of downloading its content back onto the human brain for memory and recall purposes when re-entering the body. it is less of a leap of faith to agree with braithwaite when he argues: once it is realised that normal perception itself can be viewed, to some degree, as a stable and successful hallucination, it is hardly a leap to view ndes as an extension of this natural process. the nde then is merely a greater fiction that serves a temporary purpose for consciousness in that, for a short while, it represents reality in the absence of the more usual and stable reality provided by the senses (2008:6). 6. concluding remarks adequate evidence for the reality of nonlocal consciousness will indeed revolutionise the way we think about human beings in general, and about medical and neurosciences in particular. it is also likely that some hard-nosed scientists will resist such a paradigm change, once its implications for current views become visible. it is, however, in the nature of the scientific craffert 16 enterprise to question and correct itself and given sufficient and adequate evidence, no real scientist will or can resist genuine changes. in fact, most scholars will give an arm and a leg (and receive a nobel prize) if it can be shown incontrovertibly that consciousness can be identified independently from a brain. therefore, it is unfortunate to create the impression that the main reason for resistance to the idea of nonlocal consciousness is merely ideological. in view of the above discussion a number of remarks can be made about the state of the question. the first remark is that given the current state of the evidence in the three lines of argument, there is no reason to believe that consciousness can exist independently from a living brain. it is likely that the existing number of testimonies of people experiencing out-of-bodiness will grow and increase, but more accounts are not evidence for what is experienced unless adequately proved. the same applies to the increase in patients suffering from serious illness or cardiac arrest who have ndes. arguments cannot be based on assumptions and unfounded notions about what happens during the process of dying. as for the evidence of veridical perception, the score has not changed over the past four decades. indeed, a single verified account (not even of spectacular content) will be a breakthrough. the second remark is that extraordinary scientific claims require from all involved to increase the level of scholarship and to raise the bar for accepting scientific claims. it is embarrassing when scholars magnify results by repeating the same unfounded set of evidence. the problem is that when subjected to critical examination, there is no adequate evidence of independently corroborated cases of veridical perception by people who had no level of brain function. unless that changes it will not advance this case to republish the same “evidence” over and over. finally, it is not necessary to blame the journalists for the sensationalist claims made in the media about scientific proof of nonlocal consciousness and life after death. a great number of researchers themselves make similar claims and continue to suggest that an abundance of evidence in support of it is actually available. it might be the case but to date evidence that can withstand critical scrutiny has not been produced. bibliography agrillo, christian. 2011. near-death experience: out-of-body and out-of-brain. review of general psychology 15, no. 1:1–10. alexander, e. 2012. proof of heaven: a neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife. london: hachette digital. alvarado, c s. 1982. esp during out-of-body experiences: a review of experimental studies. journal of parapsychology 46:209–30. augustine, keith. 2008. hallucinatory near-death experiences. http://infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/hndes.html; accessed 2014-1106 beauregard, mario. 2012. brain wars: the scientific battle over the existence of the mind and the proof that will change the way we live our lives. san francisco: harper one. towards the reality of nonlocal consciousness? 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(retrieved from http://www.neardeath.woerlee.org/, accessed: 2012-07-21). ———. 2010. comment. (retrieved from http://www.skeptiko.com/94-jeffrey-long-neardeath-experience-research/., accessed 2015-04-08) ———. 2013. illusory souls. leiden: g m woerlee. july 2008 inside book colour .p65 237 conceptualisation of the consequences of land use decisions on water resources in the central region of south africa: an agent based modelling perspective ye woyessa, wa welderufael and jdm kinyua* abstract over the past few decades, numerous researchers have improved measurements of land use change through representation of much more complex processes of land use and its impact on water resources. understanding the causes of land use change has moved from a simplistic representation of a few driving forces to a much more detailed understanding that involves situation-specific interactions among a large number of factors at different spatial and temporal scales using agent-based models. the agentbased perspective is centred on the general nature and rules of land use decision making by individuals and represents the motivations behind decisions and the external factors that influence decisions about land use. in this paper, an attempt is made to conceptualise the social and biophysical interactions as the driving forces that lead to decisions of land use, and its potential impact on water resource, including factors such as interventions and technologies that influence the decision of land use change in rural agricultural areas. the development of the conceptual model was done through a series of meetings and workshops and by visualising the relationships between the different factors, such as biophysical and socio-economic factors, using a brain mapping technique. the resulting conceptual model illustrates the main domains of the environment, the socioeconomic factors, and captures all the factors and their interaction that lead to decision in land use change. the socio-economic factors and their interaction will be captured by the abm module while the biophysical factors that have direct impact on runoff and stream flow could be handled by the hydrologic module which will then be integrated into the abm model. this, however, is a primary effort in the development of an abm within the modder river basin system and needs continues refinement for optimum functionality and simulation of the real world. keywords: agent-based model, agent, conceptual model, land use, water disciplines: soil science, management studies, engineering, geography td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 237-250. * y.e. woyessa and w.a. welderufael are from the school of civil engineering and built environment at the central university of technology, free state j.d.m. kinyua is from the school of information and communication technology at the central university of technology, free state. 238 1. introduction the planning and management of water resources at a catchment level is becoming a widely adopted approach (becu et al., 2003; jewitt et al., 2004). this approach enables one to monitor the water balance of a hydrologically isolated catchment (calder, 2003; jewitt et al., 2004). the delineated surface environment helps to reconcile the input and output of water in the system. in addition, the different biophysical and social interactions and processes that are taking place and that have a significant effect on water resources can be spatially identified (woyessa et al., 2006a). this also makes it possible to rationally conceptualize impacts on water resources, such as rivers, lakes, springs and communal irrigation canal systems located on a catchment and which are considered communal properties and known as common pool resources (cpr) (ostrom et al., 1994; deadman, 1999). ostrom et al. (1994) defines cpr as natural or man-made resource systems that are sufficiently large so as to make it costly (but not impossible) to exclude potential beneficiaries from obtaining benefits from its use. in a given catchment the natural resource in general and the water resource in particular can be affected by several factors, such as biophysical (precipitation, temperature, ground water flow, vegetation, soil type and topography) and socio-economic factors (institutions, technological developments, market, etc.). these in turn have a combined effect on land use and impacts on the water resource. the change in land use takes place as a result of decisions by land users which in itself is a consequence of the interactions between the socioeconomics and biophysical factors. different land types and associated contrasting soils contribute to differences in runoff, surface evaporation and recharge that take place on a catchment scale. the direct response of a rainfall event which is runoff may route the natural canal system and discharges at the outlet of a catchment or harnessed by a reservoir for different uses. the volume of water stored in a reservoir is therefore partly dependent on the runoff generated from the different land uses. a change in land use could, therefore, affect the proportion of runoff produced from the different land use practises. however, a change in land use depends on the decisions taken by the land manager (feuillette et al., 2003). individual land owners operating in a catchment undertake complex processes of interaction between the natural environment and the socio-economic situation. the biophysical input largely relates to the climate and soil properties; and they are largely beyond human control. thus, the final decision to change land use can only be woyessa, welderufael, kinyua 239 reached after a complex interaction of socioeconomic and environmental factors have been considered. for a given catchment, the detailed process of these interactions can be rationally conceptualised in a multidisciplinary way. interventions such as rainwater harvesting (rwh) could be one such decision of land use which is brought about through a complex process of interactions between agents (researcher/extension worker and the farmer), and as a consequence of soil type (environment) and accepted land use practices. thus, change of land use to rwh will result in a decrease in rainfall runoff to rivers and to dams. similarly, an increase in irrigated land results in increased withdrawals of water from the river system which in turn results in decreased amount of water entering into storage dams. such decisions by farm managers to change land use are attained after a process of complex deliberations that take into account current farming practices, socioeconomics factors and the environment. the new paradigm in land use decision making requires greater consideration of the complex human (agents) and environment interactions. in the broader sense, land use and cover change is a result of a human decision that emerges from the interactions of agents, biophysical inputs and the environment (lambin et al., 2003). couclelis (2001) acknowledges that human decision making plays a major role in land use change. land use change can bring about a significant effect on a catchment water resource. for instance, woyessa et al. (2006b) demonstrated, using an empirical model, that a decrease in runoff contribution of 25.3% would occur if all suitable lands for rwh is put under cultivation in c52a (one of the quaternary catchments in the modder river basin) which would most likely affect the downstream water supply. over the past few decades, numerous researchers have improved measurements of land use change using predictive models that can describe significantly more complex processes of land use and its impact on water resources (feuillette, et al., 2003; lambin et al., 2003). understanding the causes of land use change has moved from simplistic representations of few driving forces to a much more profound understanding that involves situation-specific interactions among a large number of factors at different spatial and temporal scales. these models have modules for the socioeconomic as well as for the biophysical inputs (feuillette et al., 2003). agent-based models developed for land use/cover change are equipped with two important key components (berger et al., 2002): the cellular model that represents the landscape under study; and an agent based model (abm) that represents human decision making and interactions. land use decisions on water resources in south africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 237-250. 240 according to berger et al. (2002) abm consists of autonomous decision making entities (agents), an environment through which agents interact, rules that define the relationship between agents and their environment, and rules that determine sequence of actions in the model. furthermore, feuillette et al. (2003) identifies three classes of models that deal with common pool resources (cpr), namely: (1) physical models centred on the dynamics of resources and that consider demand as a given parameter; (2) agronomic, economic or agro-economic models centred on demand and that attempt to adapt water demand to a fixed amount of resource; and (3) mixed models that represent interaction between the functioning of physical and socio-economic systems through a single mathematical language. this is done through the coupling of several models or through multi-agent systems (mas). abms integrate the first two models and are represented by the third type of models. several researchers have constructed land use scenarios and estimated discharge from a catchment by using hydrological or agro-economic models (e.g. legesse et al., 2003; narendra et al., 2003; jewitt et al., 2004). in an abm perspective different scenarios of land use and land use change decisions are made by the agents (farm managers) in the virtual laboratory of the abm model that mimics the actual situation through the rules and communication system conceptualised by multidisciplinary scientists based on the real situation of the environment. among the different land use scenarios that are simulated, one is able to identify the scenario which is the most environmentally sustainable including the one that realises the most optimum water productivity. thus, the aim of this study was to conceptualise the agents and their interaction with the biophysical and socio-economic factors in the modder river basin which will contribute towards the development of an agent-based model. 2. materials and methods 2.1 the modder river basin the modder river basin is located within the upper orange water management area to the north and east of the city of bloemfontein in central south africa. it has a total area of approximately 1.7 million ha and is divided into three reaches, namely the upper, the middle and the lower modder river (figure 1). the modder river basin is characterised by low and erratic seasonal rainfall with annual average amount of about 550 mm. in this basin irrigated agriculture is the main sector with the highest water requirement. woyessa, welderufael, kinyua 241 the total water requirement for both irrigation and urban use in the three reaches of the modder river basin is given in figure 2. given the limited availability of water resources in the catchment it appears that only a portion of the irrigation demand, estimated at 55.5 per cent, can be met by the existing water supply (see figure 3), whereas 97.7 per cent of the urban water requirement does seem to be met, as indicated in figure 3. it is also estimated that 74 per cent of the total water requirement is for irrigation purpose compared with 26 per cent for urban water need. water requirements for irrigation place a large demand and pressure on water resources of the catchment. irrigation farming in the catchment is mainly practiced in the lower reaches of the river. most of the land use in the upper and middle modder river is dominated by degraded grassland. due to the low rainfall and soil type which is prone to crusting, farmers frequently encounter scarcity of soil water which results in low crop yields and rainwater productivity. these climatic and environmental situations are believed to be discouraging small scale farmers to produce their own food. figure 1 the topography of the modder river basin and its three reaches. land use decisions on water resources in south africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 237-250. 242 figure 2 water requirements for irrigation and urban use in the modder river catchment (based on data from rossouw, 2005). figure 3 water requirement and supply for irrigation and urban use in the modder river catchment (based on data from rossouw, 2005). woyessa, welderufael, kinyua 243 2.2 development of the conceptual model the importance of a conceptual model has been described as “to state the model’s objectives, bound the system of interest, categorize its components, identify relationships, and to describe the expected patterns of the model‘s behaviour” (purnomo & guizol, 2006). the conceptualisation of the impact of land use/cover change includes identifying relations between socio-economic, biophysical and environmental factors within the framework of agent-based modelling and multi-agent systems for natural resource management. creation of the conceptual model was done through series of meetings and workshops held among the team members of the project. these meetings and workshops were used to visualize, u s i n g a b r a i n m a p p i n g t e c h n i q u e , t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p s a n d interactions between the different factors, namely socio-economic, biophysical and environmental factors. 2.2.1 biophysical factors biophysical factors, such as climate, soil, topography and vegetation are some of the major factors that greatly affect runoff that would be produced from a specific catchment (peugeot et al., 1997; manoj et al., 2004). rainfall and evapotranspiration (et) are the main components of the climate that have a significant influence on the water balance of a catchment. high rainfall generally contributes to increased stream flow while in contrary high et reduces the amount of overland water considered as blue water (jewitt et al., 2004). soil physical and chemical properties such as soil texture and infiltration rate affect the amount of surface water run-off considerably. soils which are fine textured and prone to surface crusting and soils with low infiltration rate contribute to high surface runoff. on the other hand, sandy soils and soils with high infiltration rate reduce runoff and thereby stream flows. different vegetations and land use types also affect the overland water in different ways. vegetations mainly affect the evapotranspiration and runoff. land uses for varying crop types on different slopes result in varying runoff amounts. for instance, in arid zones where rainfall is insufficient for crop production, water conservation techniques used for improving moisture deficiency may be responsible for decreased stream flow. 2.2.2 socio-economic factors socio-economic factors, such as income, market opportunity, land use decisions on water resources in south africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 237-250. 244 education level, access to labour and land; and intensity and frequency of interaction with other agents greatly influence the behaviour of agents to make a decision on land use (lambin et al., 2003). besides the behavioural change, a farmer (an agent) requires sufficient income, know-how, market opportunity and enough labour (depending on the need of the new enrolment) to make a decision on the land use. age, sex and cultural taboos and beliefs also contribute a great deal to the behaviour of an agent. thus, all those social factors that would contribute to the change in land use consequently affect the water resource of a specific catchment including downstream affects. 3. results and discussion 3.1. conceptualisation of the interactions various interactions between the different factors within the catchment were identified and are given in figure 4. major actors/ agents and their relationships and interactions, their interest of interaction, methods of interactions as well as the impact of the interactions on land use/land cover change should be thoroughly investigated and described. interactions between agents and the environment should also be investigated, as well as agents’ behaviour, i.e. their reactive action to make decision. here it was assumed that agent’s reactive action is built from knowledge acquired by the interactions. f i n a l l y , m u l t i d i s c i p l i n a r y s c i e n t i s t s , t h r o u g h d i s c u s s i o n , constructed the conceptual model that helps to develop abm of land use/land cover change for the catchment. the conceptual model given in figure 4 shows the basic research questions and goals, the elements of the system (i.e. agents and other features), the relevant behaviours of the agents, and the measurable outcomes of interest. 3.2 description of the conceptual model figure 4 presents the conceptual model for the quaternary catchment of c25a. it can be seen from the figure that the environment encompasses all biophysical resources, agents and socioeconomic activities taking place in the catchment. in this catchment external as well as internal agents are said to exist and interact with each other. the external agents are represented by those agents coming into the catchment from outside of the boundary of the catchment such as researchers, extension workers, and government and non-government agents. agents located inside the catchment are mostly represented by woyessa, welderufael, kinyua 245 households and individual farmers or farm mangers. some agents like traders and casual workers can exist internally as well as externally. in our case agents like agricultural researchers and agricultural extension workers have goals to improve the livelihood of small scale farmers through improved technologies that improve rainwater productivity and/or irrigation water productivity. these agents interact with the farmers through training, workshops and demonstration experiments. similarly other agents, such as environmentalist and nature conservationist have goals to protect the natural resource of the environment and ensure its sustainable utilisations by applying policy and law. on the upstream side of catchment the conceptual model shows the influential agent types and attributes. it also shows the catchment demography, agent’s social status and economical and labour capacity. these all have a significant effect on land use/ cover changes. agents represented by farmers or farm managers, after a complex interaction with similar agents and/or other agents and with the environment will be assumed to undergo a behavioural change. these agents who acquired an immense knowledge from the interaction and the environment can react individually or else as a group. a reaction may lead to a decision towards changing of land use, for instance adoption of rw (see figure 5). land use changes could occur spatially as well as temporally within the environment. the environment contains spatially different soil types and topographic features which can be considered static for a considerable period. these in combination with the climatic factors which are assumed to be homogenous over the catchment can contribute for the generation of different amounts of runoff depending on the land use, soil type and topography of the explicitly situated land/farmland. thus, the model was conceptualised to capture all the above mentioned processes. the socioeconomic factors and their interaction that lead to decision in land use change could be captured by the abm module while the biophysical factors that have direct impact on runoff and stream flow could be handled by the hydrologic module which will be integrated in the model. the analysis for the downstream catchment has similarity with the upstream one. but for the downstream part the model flow is the inverse of the upstream one. all land use decisions taking place in the downstream catchment emanates from the availability of water in the rustfontein dam and the amount of water discharged from it. thus, the complete analysis for the downstream catchment depends on the results of the upstream catchment. land use decisions on water resources in south africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 237-250. 246 figure 4 conceptual model of land use decision and its impact on water resources. woyessa, welderufael, kinyua 247 figure 5 flow chart showing agent to agent interactions in the process of infield rain water harvesting (irwh) adoption. as indicated in figures 4 and 5, interactions can occur between agents (agent–agent interaction) and between agents and their environment. in this study, it was assumed that there is an interaction between agents, agents and social rules, and between agents and environment. for example, agent to agent interactions and rule of communications in adapting irwh, as shown in figure 5, can be described as follows. land use decisions on water resources in south africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 237-250. 248 researcher/extension worker with farmer these agents mainly interact and communicate through field days, demonstration experiments, workshops and through trainings organised by the research and extension institutions. the training includes teaching with models and field practical works on irwh. farmers then participate in the mentioned interactions and adopt irwh. farmer to farmer in this type of interaction, the communication mainly takes place in different forms, such as observation, especially from neighbouring farmers; and hearing about the benefits from friends and relative farmers. this method includes only those farmers neighbouring a farmer who practices irwh one year or season ahead of them. the farmers who decide to change their traditional farming to irwh should be at least in near proximity to the irwh practicing farmer’s field or else be a friend/relative to him. in both cases, farmers need not only to change their behaviour but also need to fulfil the initial conditions in order to adopt irwh, such as sufficient monthly income to run the enterprise, basic technical know-how in practical crop husbandry, own suitable land for irwh, have sufficient labour force, possibly not involved in other agriculture enterprises such as livestock husbandry. 4. conclusion the scarcity of available water resources and the variability of rainfall in south africa pose a number of challenges in the country’s need for economic growth and development. typical challenges include the increased population growth and subsequent increasing demand and competition for water in both urban and rural areas. traditional irrigated agriculture is the largest user of water resources. in the modder river basin, small scale farmers are being introduced to improved surface water management practices by collecting rainwater onsite as well as storing it and diverting it to crop fields. the increasing cost of irrigation water and associated agricultural inputs will also put pressure on commercial farmers to seek alternative and cheaper water sources, such as rainwater, as a supplement to water obtained from rivers. this will bring about land use changes in the catchment which would, most likely, affect the amount of inflow into dams and reservoirs. the conceptual model presented in this paper was an effort towards the understanding of the different factors that are the driving forces woyessa, welderufael, kinyua 249 and their interactions in the decision of land use and its impact on water resources of the modder river basin. the model illustrates the main domains of the environment, the socioeconomic factors and the agents that are interacting and making decisions on land use changes. this model will help us to develop the ontological model which is the prerequisite in the development of the abm, which will consist of a hydrological module and a socio-economic module. this, however, is a primary effort in the development of an abm within the modder river basin system and needs continues refinement for optimum functionality and simulation of the real world. 4. references becu, n., perez, p., walker, a., barreteau o. and le page, c. 2003. agent based simulation of a small catchment water management in northern thailand. description of the catchscape model. ecological modelling 170:319-331. berger, t., couclelis, h., manson s.m. and parker, d. c. 2002. agentbased models of lucc. in: agent-based models of land use and land-cover change. eds. d. c. parker, t. berger and s. m. manson. report and review of an international workshop, irvine, california, usa, october 4-7, 2001, pp 1-6. calder, i.r. 2003. assessing the water use of vegetation and forests: development of the hydrological land use change (hyluc) model. water resources research 39:1318. couclelis, h. 2001. why i no longer work with agents: a challenge for abms of human environment interactions. eds. d.c. parker, t. berger and s.m. manson. proceedings of an international workshop, october 4-7, 2001, irvine, california, usa. deadman, p.j. 1999. modelling individual behaviour and group performance in an intelligent agent-based simulation of the tragedy of the commons. journal of environmental management 56:159-172. feuillette, s., bousquet f. and le goulven, p. 2003. sinuse: a multiagent model to negotiate water demand management on a free access water table. environmental modelling & software 18:413427. jewitt, g.p.w., garratt, j.a., calder, i.r. and fuller, l.2004. water resource planning and modelling tools for the assessment of land use change in the luvuvhu catchment, south 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1994. rules, games and common-pool resources. ann arbor: university of michigan press. peugeot, c., m. esteves, s. galle, rajot. j.l. and vandervaere, j.p. 1997. runoff generation processes: results and analysis of field data collected at the east central supersite of the hapex-sahel experiment. journal of hydrology, 188-189:179-202. purnomo, h. and guizol, p. 2006. simulating forest plantation comanagement with multi-agent system. mathematical & computer modelling 44:535-552. rossouw, j. 2005. development of catchment management strategy (cms) for the modder and riet rivers in the upper orange catchment management area: water balance analysis. first draft report. bks pty ltd. woyessa, y.e., pretorius, e., van heerden, p.s., hensley, m. and van rensburg, l.d. 2006a. impact of land use on river basin water balance: a case study of the modder river basin, south africa. comprehensive assessment research report 12. colombo, sri lanka: comprehensive assessment secretariat. abstract introduction and background to the study characterisation of e-cigarettes contextual setting of the study problem statement research methodology data analysis discussion of results implications of study findings limitations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) asphat muposhi department of marketing and sport management, vaal university of technology, south africa manilall dhurup faculty of management sciences, vaal university of technology, south africa citation muposhi, a. & dhurup, m., 2018, ‘a content analysis of e-cigarettes selling propositions on south african retail websites’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a552. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.552 original research a content analysis of e-cigarettes selling propositions on south african retail websites asphat muposhi, manilall dhurup received: 16 feb. 2018; accepted: 22 aug. 2018; published: 19 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract electronic cigarettes remain unregulated in south africa, yet their marketing and sale is proliferating on online platforms such as websites. until now, little was known regarding the nature of selling propositions used on such platforms. against this background, this study provides the findings of a content analysis of 17 websites dedicated to the marketing and selling of electronic cigarettes in south africa. with the aid of a website search research methodology, a detailed search and analysis of websites marketing electronic cigarettes in south africa was performed from july to october 2017. the study identified smoking cessation, environmental friendliness, healthiness, cost-effectiveness, hedonic value, convenience and safety as the main selling propositions used to market electronic cigarettes in south africa. the study provides important insights to consumers who intend to use electronic cigarettes and policymakers who intend to monitor and regulate the consumption of electronic cigarettes in south africa. introduction and background to the study globally, the consumption of tobacco cigarettes is associated with high levels of morbidity and mortality (kaisar et al. 2016). for this reason, for decades, the public health fraternity has grappled with the search for a safe alternative to tobacco cigarettes (hajek et al. 2014). as part of efforts to address this challenge, in 2003, hon lik, a chinese pharmacist, invented the electronic cigarette (kaisar et al. 2016). the electronic cigarette, which was subsequently patented as electronic atomisation cigarette (us20070267031a1) in 2007, was introduced in the market as a potential substitute to tobacco cigarettes (kaisar et al. 2016). in the marketplace, e-cigarettes are positioned as nicotine reduction therapies as well as smoking cessation aids (dinakar & o’connor 2016; wasowicz, feleszko & goniewicz 2015). the global market of e-cigarettes has grown tremendously since their commercialisation. goldsmith (2016) estimates that by 2021 the global e-cigarette market will be worth $32 billion. characterisation of e-cigarettes electronic cigarettes, hereafter referred to as e-cigarettes, are defined as battery-enabled devices that allow users to inhale nicotine in vaporised form (pisinger & dossing 2014). e-cigarettes are consumed by inhaling a vapour which is formed from a heated flavoured electronic liquid (pokhrel et al. 2015). the act of inhaling the e-cigarette vapour is referred to as ‘vaping’ and users of e-cigarettes are commonly known as ‘vapers’ (pokhrel et al. 2015). the prime target market for e-cigarettes include users of conventional cigarettes who intent to quit and those who want a safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes (dinakar & o’connor 2016). e-cigarettes have evolved significantly since their market entry. there are three distinct cohorts of e-cigarettes in the marketplace. the first generation of e-cigarettes was designed in a manner that resembles conventional tobacco cigarettes (clarke & lusher 2017). this design was done to promote ease of identification and speed up adoption rate (mcqueen, tower & sumner 2011). the second-generation e-cigarettes are aesthetically improved and have a distinct design (clarke & lusher 2017). they are also accompanied by a wide array of flavours coupled with variations in nicotine strength (dawkins et al. 2013). the third-generation of e-cigarettes, also known as modified e-cigarettes, are customised to suit user requirements and they also include a wide range of flavours such as vanilla, chocolate, fruit and mint-menthol amongst others (clarke & lusher 2017; west & brown 2014). the utility of secondand third-generation e-cigarettes stems from the ability of users to alter the voltage of batteries to either increase or decrease nicotine levels and the thickness of vapour inhaled (clarke & lusher 2017). e-cigarettes in their various forms have been characterised as controversial products (dinakar & o’connor 2016). the public health fraternity is deeply worried about the claims used to market e-cigarettes (kim & shin 2013). this is because the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes are not known (west & brown 2014). there is also a growing concern that e-cigarettes may entice young consumers to initiate using other tobacco products (grana 2013). in most instances, electronic cigarettes are being used to circumvent conventional tobacco controls (paek et al. 2014). as a result of the foregoing concerns, countries such as canada, brazil, uruguay, norway and seychelles have banned the marketing and use of e-cigarettes (fox 2013). in spite of the controversy associated with e-cigarettes, they are growing in popularity aided by a surge in retail websites. for example, www.e-cigarette-forum.com, commonly known as the e-cigarette forum, is one of the biggest global e-cigarette retail websites. contextual setting of the study consistent with the global trend, the use of e-cigarettes is also escalating in south africa (van rensburg & moodley 2017). the growth in demand of e-cigarettes has resulted in the formation of advocacy bodies such as the electronic cigarettes association in south africa and vapour product association. e-cigarettes are still not regulated under the tobacco products control act of 1993 (visagie 2017). although the amended medicines and related substances act of 1965 directs e-cigarettes to be registered with the medicines control council for lawful sale, visagie (2017) notes that e-cigarettes are currently promoted as consumer products and thus fall away from the ambit of tobacco laws. additionally, mixed views are prevalent amongst public health regulators, researchers and e-cigarettes marketers regarding the health benefits of e-cigarettes (van rensburg & moodley 2017). moreover, there is also lack of consensus on how to define and characterise e-cigarettes (caruana 2016). in the midst of these contestations, there is a significant increase in the number of websites marketing e-cigarettes in south africa. as of 2016, caruana (2016) reports that an estimated 70 franchises were marketing e-cigarettes in south africa, mostly using online platforms. this study therefore provides a content analysis of selling propositions used to market e-cigarettes on south african websites. problem statement in spite of rapid adoption and use, e-cigarettes continue to generate much debate. this debate, amongst health practitioners, researchers and the smoking public, is stirred by the existence of mixed views related to the safety and health benefits of e-cigarettes (dufort & owila 2014; muposhi & dhurup 2016; pardun, mckeever & bedingfield 2017). in particular, the public health fraternity across the globe is deeply worried about unsubstantiated health claims used to market e-cigarettes, more so on online platforms (kim & shin 2013; zhu et al. 2014). proponents of e-cigarettes on the other hand herald them as novel products that have radically changed the smoking experience, with the ability to assist smokers to quit use of tobacco cigarettes (barbeau, burda & siegel 2013). of paramount concern to public health practitioners is the proliferation of unregulated online platforms that promote and sell e-cigarettes (zhu et al. 2014). additionally, there is a growing concern that such online platforms may entice young consumers to initiate using e-cigarettes (paek et al. 2014). whilst studies have been conducted in other jurisdictions to assess the marketing claims used to market e-cigarettes on online platforms (e.g. grana & lingh 2014; paek et al. 2014), there is no known south african study that has sought to provide content analysis of online e-cigarettes marketing claims. such a study is considered to be of critical importance because, as noted by paek et al. (2014), information conveyed on online platforms is influential in shaping the perceptions and attitudes of prospective and regular users of e-cigarettes. as the popularity of e-cigarettes on online platforms grows, zhu et al. (2014) emphasised the importance of monitoring the nature of marketing messages used to market them. against this background, the research question that directed this study was: what are the selling propositions used to promote e-cigarettes on south african retail websites? research methodology research method, target population and sampling the study was underpinned by the constructivism research paradigm because the primary objective was to analyse and interpret the selling propositions used to market e-cigarettes on south africa websites. the study employed a web search research methodology. the target population was purposively sampled from a 70-member listing of the electronic cigarettes association in south africa. consistent with the tenets of purposive sampling, a website inclusion criterion was established as follows: (1) website should be in english language, (2) only active websites were selected and (3) the website needed to be registered in south africa and dedicated to the marketing of e-cigarettes. franchise websites selling e-cigarettes not registered in south africa were excluded from the study. other online platforms used to market e-cigarettes were not considered in this study. seventeen websites met the inclusion criterion and were considered for analysis. data collection document analysis was utilised to collect data in this study. prior to data collection, the search question was defined as recommended by best et al. (2014). the data collection protocol involved the collection of data independently by two researchers from july to october 2017 by browsing, clicking and transcribing the marketing claims used on e-cigarette retail websites pages. data were also collected from hyperlinks, videos and adverts that were used to provide detailed information to users of e-cigarettes. to address the challenge associated with instability of data collected on websites because of regular updates, researchers followed the advice of jansen and pooch (2001) who suggested the need to collect data for a clearly defined period. in this study, data were collected for a period of 4 months and during that period no major updates were noted on surveyed websites that affected the integrity of the data collected. a two-stage process was followed with the objective of noting the changes in value propositions used to sell e-cigarettes on identified websites. the first search and analysis was conducted in july 2017 followed by the second search and analysis in october 2017. the search period of 4 months provided reasonably longitudinal data set that have the potential to capture the majority of selling propositions used to market e-cigarettes on websites in south africa. data analysis in accordance with constructivist tenets, the method of data analysis followed in this study involved a content analysis of websites’ text. websites’ content was analysed by following a three-stage approach recommended by corbin and strauss (1990) which involves open coding, axial coding and integration. there was consensus by the two researchers on the themes that emerged from the content that was gleaned and analysed from south african e-cigarettes retail websites. representative excerpts and themes that emanated from content analyses of e-cigarettes retail websites in south africa are summarised in table 1. table 1: content analysis of e-cigarettes retail websites. discussion of results the themes that emerged from content analysis are discussed as follows. healthiness health benefit is one of the most frequently used value propositions on e-cigarettes retail websites in south africa. this is despite the fact that there is no conclusive scientific evidence that confirms that e-cigarettes are healthier than conventional cigarettes (dufort & owila 2014; etter & bullen 2011; kaisar et al. 2016). although e-cigarettes are positioned as low in nicotine, hajek et al. (2014) note that, in practice, the uptake of nicotine tends to increase with increased vaping behaviour and the type of e-liquids used. this view holds in the case of third-generation e-cigarettes which are associated with high levels of nicotine (etter & bullen 2011). although there is an option to reduce the nicotine concentration by diluting, mcqueen et al. (2011) note that not all consumers of e-cigarettes make an effort to do so. apart from nicotine, the flavours used to manufacture e-liquids such as glycerine and propylene glycol are known to have side effects. for example, grana, benowitz and glantz (2014) report that continuous exposure to propylene glycol potentially results in respiratory irritation and its inhalation is associated with nervous system–related ailments. given the adverse health effects of e-cigarettes, dufort and owila (2014) contend that the use of health claims to market e-cigarettes is misleading and should be discouraged. smoking cessation aid on retail websites, e-cigarettes are also positioned as aids that assist users to quit smoking conventional cigarettes. additionally, such quitting claims are accompanied by testimonials of users of e-cigarettes who have successfully quit smoking tobacco cigarettes. in spite of the prevalence of this proposition on e-cigarette retail websites, grana et al. (2014) note that empirical evidence supporting this view is limited. contrary to the quitting aid proposition, longitudinal studies conducted by chen (2013) as well as etter and bullen (2014) refute the claim that e-cigarettes are effective as smoking cessation aids. in fact, emerging evidence suggests that users of e-cigarettes are stopping using them as a result of respiratory problems, headaches, poor quality and throat ailments (etter & bullen 2011). owing to the lack of conclusive evidence regarding the efficacy of e-cigarettes as smoking cessation aids, dufort and owila (2014) cautioned against the use of this proposition without concrete empirical scientific evidence. convenience another dominant selling proposition used by e-cigarette retail websites is the convenience associated with using e-cigarettes relative to tobacco cigarettes. as indicated by website excerpts in table 1, e-cigarettes are positioned as having a comparable advantage of being used in indoor environments and tobacco free zones. however, researchers such as dufort and owila (2014) caution against regarding e-cigarette use as convenient warning that, similar to conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes also pose the danger of passive smoking to non-users. this view is supported by a chemical analysis of the e-cigarette vapour, which showed that it also contains toxicants and carcinogens found in tobacco cigarettes (besaratinia & tommasi 2014; goniewicz et al. 2013). when used indoors, dufort and owila (2014) found that vapour from e-cigarettes adversely affects air quality and exposes non-users to traces of metals such as lead and cadmium which have the potential of causing cardiac diseases. as a result of the threat posed by the vapour of e-cigarettes on air quality, dufort and owila (2014) warned that the convenience tag attached to e-cigarette use comes with a significant public health threat. environment friendliness environmental friendliness is one of the prevalent value propositions used to promote e-cigarettes on south africa retail websites. as shown in table 1, analysed websites use this proposition with e-cigarettes touted as a ‘cleaner smoking alternative without the harmful effects of burning tobacco, smoke, tar and carbon monoxide’. additionally, a number of websites were marketing what was dubbed the ‘green smoke variety pack’. whilst there is consensus that conventional tobacco cigarettes are associated with veld fires and contamination of marine environments as a result of discarded tobacco butts (chang 2014), e-cigarettes are not entirely environmentally friendly. for example, krause and townsend (2015) note that improper disposal of lithium batteries and cartridges with nicotine residues also pose significant threats to environmental sustainability. for this reason, chang (2014) argues that unless proper education programmes on proper disposal of e-cigarette hardware are done, the claim that e-cigarettes are environmental friendly is misleading. hedonic value the recreational attribute associated with e-cigarettes is one of the major value propositions used to market e-cigarettes. as indicated by websites excerpts in table 1, e-cigarette flavours afford users a sensational smoking experience. it is apparent from website excerpts that flavours play a central role in attracting users and encouraging them to switch from conventional cigarettes. additionally, website excerpts applaud the use of flavours for enhancing the social acceptance of users because of pleasant smell and taste. researchers vardavas, filippidis and agaku (2015) warned that the use of flavours has the potential to entice the youth to use e-cigarettes. this view is supported by the findings of a study conducted by carpenter et al. (2005), which showed that youths are attracted to flavoured cigarettes. additionally, the use of flavours in alcoholic beverages has been attributed to the high levels of alcohol abuse amongst the youth (akre & suris 2015; jones & reis 2011). there are also concerns related to the side effects associated with e-cigarette flavours. for instance, farsalinos and stimson (2014) report that e-cigarette flavours such as propionyl and caramel contain diacetyl and acetyl, which are associated with bronchiolitis obliterans. cost-effectiveness another recurring value proposition used to market e-cigarettes on south africa retail websites is cost-effectiveness. to entice first-time price-sensitive consumers, a discounted ‘starter kit’ is used. additionally, promotions which include free delivery, contests and raffles amongst others are used to promote e-cigarette sales. however, researchers such as farsalinos and stimson (2014) cautioned against the cost-effectiveness tag attached to e-cigarettes. pisinger and dossing (2014) argued that the starter kit acts as bait to entice consumers to initiate using e-cigarettes and thereafter recruit them into premium e-cigarette brands that are expensive compared to conventional cigarettes. moreover, dutra and glantz (2014) blamed the use of cheaper starter kits for acting as a gateway for non-smokers to initiate smoking. other researchers such as chen (2013) also alluded to the hidden costs associated with the use of e-cigarettes such as replacing e-cigarette hardware such as cartridges, nicotine refills and flavours. safety safety is another value proposition used to market e-cigarettes. as shown in table 1, the websites analysed depict e-cigarettes as being safer than tobacco cigarettes. although this claim was overwhelmingly used on e-cigarette retail websites, limitations were apparent in e-cigarettes labelling. for instance, nicotine content, manufacturing standards, quality controls and side effects of e-cigarettes were not fully disclosed. lack of accurate disclosure of nicotine is a significant concern for public health practitioners because as noted by mcqueen et al. (2011), it results in variations in the chemical composition of vapour inhaled and concentration of toxins. because of an unregulated manufacturing process, lu et al. (2015) raised a concern about the possibility of a mismatch between the actual e-cigarette nicotine with that declared on the label. additionally, kaisar et al. (2016) and williams and talbot (2011) note that lithium batteries used in e-cigarettes are susceptible to overheating, explosion and leakage, which heightens the risk profile of e-cigarettes. moreover, goniewicz et al. (2013) note that the risk profile of e-cigarettes is heightened by the variation in enforcement of quality controls in the manufacturing process. implications of study findings the findings of this study have a number of implications for public health practitioners, e-cigarette marketers and consumers. firstly, the proliferation of e-cigarette retail websites in south africa calls for regulators to expedite the promulgation and enforcement of regulations necessary to monitor the production, marketing and use of e-cigarettes. in particular, quality controls and standardisation of the manufacturing process are important in order to address e-cigarette safety concerns. such regulations also need to address inadequacies in e-cigarette labelling in order to minimise the use of unsubstantiated marketing claims. secondly, there is an urgent need for public health practitioners to conduct a comprehensive, longitudinal conclusive scientific study in order to test the prevailing claim that e-cigarettes are safer than conventional cigarettes and that they are effective as smoking cessation aids. thirdly, the findings of the study suggest the need for potential end-users of e-cigarettes to seek adequate information about the benefits and risks associated with e-cigarettes. because the majority of young consumers in south africa rely on online platforms to buy e-cigarettes, there is also a need to extend smoking-related regulations to also cover online platforms. limitations this study has inherent limitations that are worth mentioning. the study was limited to retail websites dedicated to the marketing and sale of e-cigarettes. other online platforms used to market e-cigarettes were not captured by the study. future studies may focus on analysing marketing messages that are used to market e-cigarettes on other online platforms such as facebook and youtube. the e-cigarette market is rapidly changing; thus, the findings of this study may not be generalised to current websites’ marketing messages. owing to the content analysis nature of the study, it is not possible to predict the influence of e-cigarette marketing claims on consumer buyer behaviour. future studies may seek to understand the influence of e-cigarette marketing claims on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. notwithstanding the aforementioned limitations, the findings of this study still provide valuable insights to consumers of e-cigarettes and policymakers. conclusion the primary objective of this study was to analyse the selling propositions used to market e-cigarettes on south african retail websites. the main marketing claims utilised to market e-cigarettes include healthiness, cost-effectiveness, smoking cessation aid, environmental friendliness and hedonic value. it is important to state though that the risk profile of e-cigarettes is not comprehensively documented on south african retail websites. also of greatest concern is that the majority of e-cigarette selling propositions on retail websites are based on unsubstantiated claims. this points to the urgent need for the promulgation and enforcement of e-cigarettes legislation in south africa. such legislation needs to be focused on regulating the manufacturing process, labelling, marketing, consumption and disposal of e-cigarettes. aspects of the manufacturing process that require regulation include the chemical composition of flavours and nicotine content. labelling regulations will play a central role in stamping out misleading marketing claims, especially inadequate disclosure of nicotine content and side effects of e-cigarettes. in order to address the uncertainties associated with the use of e-cigarettes, there is an urgent need for comprehensive scientific studies in order to understand the benefits and risks of e-cigarettes. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in 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bonnevie, e., cummins, s.e., gamst, a., yin, l. et al., 2014, ‘four hundred and sixty brands of e-cigarettes and counting: implications for product regulation’, tobacco control 23(3), 3–9. https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2014-051670 abstract introduction conceptualisation of geographic information system geographic information system implementation in schools conceptual framework methodology findings of this study additional observations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) thabile a. zondi geography education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa kudzayi s. tarisayi geography education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation zondi, t.a. & tarisayi, k.s., 2020, ‘a learner perspective on the implementation of geographic information systems in selected schools in kwazulu-natal province’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a752. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.752 original research a learner perspective on the implementation of geographic information systems in selected schools in kwazulu-natal province thabile a. zondi, kudzayi s. tarisayi received: 20 aug. 2019; accepted: 28 jan. 2020; published: 14 may 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract contemporary literature reveals a plethora of studies on the implementation of geographic information system (gis) in south africa. however, these studies provide an educator’s perspective while neglecting the learner’s perspective, which is provided in this study. the researchers used a qualitative collective case study in the interpretivist paradigm. a purposive sample of five schools and 50 grade 12 learners was used in this study. the data were generated using observations, five focus group discussions and 10 interviews. this study established that the learners lacked fundamental knowledge of gis and that gis was not being properly taught. keywords: geographic information systems; learners’ perspective; kwazulu-natal; educators’ perspectives. introduction in contemporary years, there has been widespread and renewed attention by academics in general and geographers in particular in enhancing geographic information system (gis) implementation in schools (breetzke, elsteen & pretorious 2011; kerski 2003; tarisayi 2018). an academic focus on gis in schools stems from the recognition that the information communications technology (ict) integration is at the very core of educational innovation. in addition, gis in schools is informed by the broad field of geographic information science (giscience). wilson and fotheringham (2007) state that giscience is theoretically interrelated to geography, information science, computer science, geomatics and geoinformatics. it is against this background of ict integration and giscience that gis is being implemented in schools in south africa. this article begins by providing a background to this study which defines gis and reviews literature on gis implementation. the authors present a conceptual framework justifying an understanding of the learner’s perspective of doing gis in geography. the next section chronicles the research methodology used in this study. findings of this study are presented before the concluding remarks. conceptualisation of geographic information system a number of studies have explored the concept of gis in recent years. the origin of gis is traced to the canadian land inventory system developed in the 1960s (kerski, demirci & milson 2013). innes (2012:92) reveals that ‘we are in the early phase of geographic information system (gis) development in south africa, where the majority of users are utilities such as municipalities and water and electricity suppliers’. geographic information system has been viewed by many geographers as an outcome of computerisation (ozgen 2009; palladino 1994; tarisayi 2018). thus, gis stems from endeavours to computerise the manipulation of geographical data. generally, ‘gis is a computer-based platform that integrates a multiplicity of data sets to digitally represent and analyse the geographic features present on the earth’s surface and the events’ (tarisayi 2018:186). another view suggests that gis is ‘a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyse, manage and present all types of geographical data’ (peuralahti 2014:8). johansson (2003:1) holds the view that gis is ‘a tool to collect regional data and produce thematic maps’. hence, in contemporary literature, there is an apparent consensus among scholars on the fact that gis is a computer-based tool utilised in processing geographical data. musa et al. (2013) state: gis have been used in a wide variety of fields, including the natural, social, engineering, and particularly the medical sciences because of their ability to incorporate physical, biological, cultural, demographic, or economic information. (p. 112) macdevette, fincham and forsyth (2005) reveal that gis is utilised in south africa by the private sector, local governments, departments, national parastatals and national government. another equally important concept in understanding gis implementation in geography is the giscience. giscience is broader than gis, which are essentially software tools. according to goodchild (2006), giscience is broader than gis because of its inclusion of spatial analysis, visualisation and the representation of uncertainty. fleming (2016) suggests that a number of core gis competencies feed into the geoscience industry. geographic information system implementation in schools the gis implementation in schools has a relatively shorter history as compared to gis implementation in other sectors of the economy. the gis implementation in schools has been a topical issue in recent years globally. countries such as the united states and finland are among the countries that have adopted gis into their secondary school geography curriculum (johansson 2003; kerski 2003). goodchild and kemp (1990) reveal that gis use in secondary schools began in the early 1990s. however, in south africa, gis implementation in schools was introduced as part of the national curriculum statement (ncs) in 2006 (breetzke et al. 2011). however, some south african schools, mainly private schools, had introduced gis prior to ncs (innes 2012). ramsaroop (2018) states that in south africa gis is a compulsory component of geography curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) in grades 10–12. grange and ontong (2018) note that despite challenges such as lack of resources and inadequate teacher training in many schools, the inclusion of gis in the curriculum in south africa is a step in the right direction. geographic information system is recognised globally as promoting inquiry-based learning environment (kerski et al. 2013). geographic information system facilitates problem-based learning (pbl) and inquiry-based learning in the secondary school curriculum (johansson 2003; kerski et al. 2013). because of its facilitation of pbl and inquiry-based learning, gis essentially supports the constructivist learning approach (kerski 2008; kerski et al. 2013). johansson (2003:2) states that ‘problem-based learning (pbl) and inquiry-based learning are instructional methods, which are based on constructivism and are challenging the customary methods used in secondary schools’. in addition, innes (2012) holds the view that the route to being a gis professional begins with acquisition of map skills in a geography secondary school classroom. hence, we argue that gis in schools provides a foundation for learners to pursue careers in gis and giscience professions. studies have further acknowledged the pedagogical benefits of gis implementation in schools. goodchild and kemp (1990) state that gis inspires learners to pursue careers in science and engineering. equally important is the role of gis in motivating learners to learn geography (akinyemi 2015). geographic information system is also reportedly vital in the learning of geographical principles (akinyemi 2015). hence, we argue that gis implementation in schools has both classroom benefits (motivating learners to learn geography) and future career benefits (motivating learners to pursue careers in science and engineering). however, it is apparent that schools in south africa in their endeavour to implement gis are being curtailed by a number of challenges. studies indicate that the majority of schools in south africa are teaching a basic introduction to gis and thus the latter is not taught well because learners are not given the opportunity to engage in practical (ahiaku & mncube 2018; dube 2012; malatji & singh 2018). in addition, tarisayi (2018) notes that the teaching of gis in south africa is hindered by a lack of funding and time constraints (see also fleming 2016; nxele 2007; zuma 2016). innes (2012:102) argues that despite the promotion of information technology in south african education, ‘there is still no national roll-out of resources that makes use of gis in geography education available to all learners’. the lack of the necessary hardware and software in schools in south african schools affects the implementation of gis (carolissen, mcpherson & kleyn-magolie 2006; innes 2012). hong (2014) and fleischmann and van der westhuizen (2016) state that there is a low adoption of gis technology in schools because teachers lack knowledge of the practical gis integration. studies by ahiaku and mcube (2018), dube (2012), malatji and singh (2018), mzuza and van der westhuizen (2019) and tarisayi (2018) were all focused on the views of the educators with respect to gis in schools. resultantly, fleming (2016) noted that in 2014 and 2015, respectively, gis questions in the matric geography paper 2 were often not attempted by the candidates. mzuza and van der westhuizen (2019) sum the challenges in teaching of gis in southern africa as: [t]he absence of gis education in secondary school curricula, the shortage of experienced teachers, the lack of knowledge and technical expertise, the unwillingness of teachers to change their mode of teaching, a shortage of funds and inadequate resources. (p. 1) hence, it can be argued that a multiplicity of challenges curtail the teaching of gis in schools. conceptual framework in order to reveal learners’ understanding of gis as well as how they link gis concepts with a real-life situation, we frame this article using a derivative from robert chambers’ (2012) treatise ‘whose reality counts’. as described by chambers (2012), in the context of development and addressing social issues, there are multiple realities to the poverty phenomena. chambers (1995) explains that the poor hold realities which are different from those of professionals and development experts. the realities of the professionals are informed by their positionality. chambers argues that often than not in the arena of poverty alleviation interventions, the realities of professionals are prioritised while neglecting the views of the poor. therefore, this article stems from our realisation that there are multiple realities regarding gis implementation in secondary schools in south africa. however, worrisome is the fact that discourse on gis implementation has tended to be informed by an educator perspective while oblivious to the fact that there are multiple realities. subsequently, guided by chambers’ argument, we advocate and prioritise the learners’ perspective in the implementation of gis in secondary schools. furthermore, we argue that the realities of the learners should be valued as compared to those of teachers because these are the ultimate beneficiaries of the gis implementation. guided by chambers’ treatise, this study prioritises the learners’ realities which are apparently consistent with learner-centred pedagogy. learner-centred pedagogy advocates that learners should be active participants in their own learning (weimer 2012). resultantly, it follows that the views of learners should take precedence in seeking to understand the implementation of gis in secondary schools in south africa. methodology the researchers adopted a qualitative collective case study approach. in order to gain an insight into the learners’ perspective on gis implementation, this study falls in the interpretivist paradigm. cohen, manion and morrison (2018:9) stated that interpretivism entails ‘existential understanding and meaning-making’. qualitative research is naturalist enquiry and it is focused on meaning-making (neuman 2013) in order to understand people’s lived experiences. in this case, learners’ understanding of gis as well as how they link gis concepts with real-life situations is explored. creswell and poth (2018) identified three types of case studies: single instrumental case study, collective case study and intrinsic case study. for this study we adopted a collective case study because in this study we focused on pursuing the learners’ perspective of gis implementation by selecting the case of kwazulu-natal province. data were generated using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, allowing us flexibility to probe for clarity (creswell 2014). there is no consensus on the appropriate sample size in qualitative research. however, creswell (1998) recommended 5–25 and morse (1994) suggested at least 6, whereas crouch and mckenzie (2006) proposed that fewer than 20 participants in a qualitative study aid the researcher to maintain a close relationship with the participants and thus increase the ‘open’ and ‘frank’ exchange of information. thus, a group of 50 learners (10 learners per school) were purposively selected to participate in this study. the learners were selected on the basis that they performed well, obtaining more than 60% in their geography examinations. also, these learners had been taught gis over a 3-year period, starting from grade 10 to grade 12; therefore, they were in a better position to reflect about secondary school gis implementation that the study aimed at exploring. all the selected learners voluntarily availed themselves for the focus group discussions. the researchers utilised semi-structured interviews to probe themes that emerged from the focus group discussions. parents gave assent for their children to be interviewed and tape-recorded. furthermore, the learners also gave consent to be interviewed and tape-recorded. the audio-recorded discussions were transcribed verbatim. thematic analysis was used to analyse data, whereby we familiarised ourselves with data by identifying recurring themes which helped us to categorise data in order to report findings (clarke & braun 2013). the themes inform the analysis which is presented below. in this article, for ethical reasons, the names of the participants were not used. the researchers used ellipses such as: letter and numbers, such as l1 for learner 1, l2 for learner 2, l8 for learner 8 and l4 for learner 4, to identify interview participants. this study adhered to the research ethics stipulated by the university that granted permission for this study to be conducted. findings of this study the findings of this study are presented in this section as verbatim narrations. in initial conversations with the learners, questions were posed on their understanding of gis and the teaching of gis at the participant school. lack of proper understanding of geographic information system this study established that there was a compelling argument that there was a lack of proper understanding of gis among the participants. l1 revealed that: ‘i had always wondered how gis worked as in the definition it is said that it is a computerized system that stores data. i had to use my father’s laptop to get to it but there was no indication of gis there and also once i got a chance to use a computer at school which is a rare case, i opened it with the aim of finding gis but there was also no sign of it. it was then that i realized that a program or software should be installed which took me back and made me understand the components of gis and software is one of the components of gis.’ (l1, female, 17 years, grade 12) hence, it can be noted from the above-mentioned verbatim narration that there was a lack of proper appreciation of gis among the grade 12 learners who participated in this study. there was a tacit admission by the grade 12 learners who participated in the focus group discussions that they did not understand the concept of gis. lack of proper understanding of gis was evident in the initial assumption among the grade 12 learners who participated that every computer has gis. l1 admitted that he initially checked his father’s laptop and computers at his school for gis in vain. the lack of proper understanding of gis by the grade 12 learners was evident by failure to relate global positioning system (gps) to gis. while it was apparent that all the grade 12 learners who participated in the focus group discussion knew about gps and its use, there was failure to understand the role of gis in gps. in the focus group discussion, the grade 12 learners were asked how drivers navigate and locate place in big cities and they all identified gps. l10 indicated: ‘drivers in south africa use gps on their cell phones or inbuilt gps in their cars in order to avoid being lost.’ (l10, male, 18 years, grade 12) it was obvious from the way the grade 12 learners who participated in this study that gps used by drivers in south africa was common, but surprisingly the learners failed to appreciate the connection between gps and gis. the failure by the grade 12 learners to link the gis concepts taught in class with gps, which they later admitted to be in daily use in south africa, further reinforces our argument that there is lack of proper understanding of gis among grade 12 learners in kwazulu-natal province. therefore, we argue in this study that grade 12 learners lack fundamental knowledge of gis. these findings concur with wilmot and dube (2013), who found that grade 12 learners in south africa lack fundamental knowledge of gis. in addition, these findings buttress chambers’ (2012) treatise that the realities of the intended beneficiaries (in this article learners) are essential when implementing and evaluating an intervention or innovation. the participants in this study further revealed their lack of proper understanding of gis when they were asked to identify the real-world uses of gis. only two of the participants were able to identify the uses of gis and their verbatim narrations are captured as follows. l7 stated: ‘gis can be used by the department of safety and security, saps when tracking the paths taken by the car hijackers taking cars out of the country.’ (l7, female, 18 years, grade 12) therefore, l7 managed to identify gis use in story-mapping and trail identification by the police. l2 indicated: ‘the department of health uses the numbers from the clinics to find out about the numbers of people who suffer from tb [tuberculosis] then when they look at the numbers they then see the need to have fixed and permanent clinics.’ (l2, male, 17 years, grade 12) l2 identified the role of gis in disease surveillance as a public health tool. however, it can be noted that both contributions by l7 and l2 seemed to have identified two different uses of gis, which on closer scrutiny are in actual fact both classified under mapping. in addition, it also emerged from the focus group discussion that the learners were only able to relate gis to mapping. different professions utilise gis to provide visual interpretations of their profession-related data as in the cases of police and health identified by l7 and l2, respectively. musa et al. (2013) state that because of its ability to incorporate varying information, gis is utilised in different fields. contemporary literature enumerates numerous uses of gis in different fields, but surprisingly the grade 12 learners who participated in this study only managed to highlight gis use in mapping. thus, we argue that the failure by the grade 12 learners to identify the multiplicity of gis uses in all government departments of south africa as well as private sector aptly buttresses the notion that there is a lack of proper understanding of gis. therefore, it can be argued that the learners who participated in this study lacked a proper understanding of gis. geographic information system was poorly taught in addition, this study also established a host of factors that cumulatively are utilised to explain the lack of proper understanding of gis by grade 12 learners already discussed in the previous section: ‘i have no idea at all of what gis is, in grade 10 i had to memorize the concepts in order to answer the question or at times not to answer it at all as i could pass map work without gis.’ (l2, male, 17 years, grade 12) ‘i memorized the concepts of gis in grade 10 but in grade 11 i came to understand one thing clearly, that of resolution.’ (l3, female, 18 years, grade 12) l2 and l3 admitted that because of failure to grasp the concept of gis, they resorted to memorising the concepts. learners in the focus group discussion concurred that they learnt gis through memorising the concepts. hence, we argue that gis was being poorly taught at the school that participated in this study resulting in learners resorting to memorising (without conceptual understanding). this finding concurs with conclusions proffered by other scholars (ahiaku & mncube 2018; dube 2012; malatji & singh 2018) that gis was not being properly taught in the south african classroom. geographic information system concepts that should be taught as practical aspects of geography are thus being taught as through rote learning which leads learners to memorising concepts instead of properly grasping the concepts. in addition, it was evident that the grade 12 learners who participated in this study only managed to identify gis use in mapping when asked to identify gis use by government departments and the private sector in south africa. it also emerged from the focus group discussions that gis was not taught properly in schools that participated in this study. the failure by the learners who participated in this study to identify gis uses suggests further that gis was not being properly taught. felix (2013) prescribes that in the teaching of geography the educator should strive to provide examples in the learner’s known environment moving outward to the unknown. however, that was not the apparent situation as revealed by the views of the learners in the focus group discussions. therefore, we argue that grade 12 learners should have been able to identify gis uses by the local municipality of ethekwini if gis was being properly taught in schools in kwazulu-natal. resultantly, we reason that failure to identify uses of gis in the real world by the grade 12 learners feeds into the growing discourse which argues that gis is not being properly taught in south african schools (ahiaku & mncube 2018; dube 2012; malatji & singh 2018). in addition, it was noted from this study that gis was not being allocated adequate time on the timetable: ‘the teacher only teaches us for a few times in a year so i cannot get it clearly how all these concepts are associated with gis.’ (l2, male, 17 years, grade 12) l2 revealed that gis was rarely taught throughout the year. the inadequacy of the time allocated to teaching gis was compounded by rare opportunity accorded learners to use computers as revealed by l1, who stated: ‘… [a]lso once i got a chance to use a computer at school which is a rare case.’ (l1, female, 17 years, grade 12) it was noted from participant (l1) that there was limited use of computers at their school. this was contrary to the fact that gis requires a hands-on approach entailing taking practical lessons. in addition, the department of basic education (2011:7) advocates in the caps for ‘promoting the use of new technologies, such as information communication technology (ict) and geographical information systems (gis)’ among grades 10, 11 and 12 learners. thus, the way gis was being taught in schools was contrary to the caps promotion because teachers were teaching gis a few times. we further argue that there is evidently a gap between the caps prescriptions and the situation in the geography classroom in kwazulu-natal province as far as the teaching of gis is concerned. we argue that the lack of proper understanding of the concept of gis established in this study can be attributed to time constraints in the teaching of gis. additional observations this study further established that there were challenges in the assessment of gis in the geography grade 12 curriculum. the learners who participated in the focus group discussions revealed that despite their poor understanding of gis, they still passed the examinations. l6 indicated: ‘i am still in the dark but i pass gis, only god knows how.’ (l6, female, 17 years, grade 12) l6 admitted that she had a vague understanding of gis, but somehow surprisingly she passed the gis questions in the examinations. therefore, there was an admission by the participants that they were not well versed with gis, but passed geography examinations all the same which included questions on gis. consequently, we noted that it was evidently possible to pass the geography examination without a good grasp of gis. in addition, the fact that learners managed to pass the geography examination which includes a section on gis brings to the fore questions on the validity of the geography examination as a vehicle for assessing the teaching of gis to a certain extent. hence, we noted that despite the grade 12 learners’ lack of fundamental knowledge of gis, they somehow passed examinations. in addition, questions on the validity of geography examinations in relation to gis are strengthened by grade 12 learners’ choice of gis they preferred. l5 revealed: ‘i like the questions on the uses of gis in a farming area because this question is similar to the questions that are asked in map interpretation in map work.’ (l5, male, 18 years, grade 12) a closer scrutiny of the preferred type of gis question revealed that grade 12 learners were being asked data recall questions. this aptly reveals that grade 12 learners were being asked data recall questions which can be used to explain why learners were passing geography examinations without a proper understanding of gis. data recall questions mostly require learners to remember information without necessarily putting it into use. hence, we reasoned that grade 12 learners passed their geography examinations despite an apparent lack of fundamental gis knowledge because of the posing of data recall questions which call for the memorising of concepts. in addition, data recall questions, which were preferred by the participants in this study, can be classified as knowledge questions according to bloom’s taxonomy of thinking (adams 2015). knowledge questions seek to assess the learner’s ability to remember information previously learned material. conclusion this study concludes that there was a lack of fundamental knowledge of gis amongst the grade 12 learners who participated in this study. the themes that emerged to support the view that grade 12 learners lacked fundamental knowledge of gis are shown in figure 1. among the themes identified are the assumptions that all computers have gis, failure to relate gps with gis, struggling to identify gis use by government departments and private sector and memorising gis concepts. figure 1: themes on lack of fundamental knowledge of geographic information system. furthermore, the learners’ perspective on gis implementation established in this study converged with the educators’ perspectives submitted by malatji and singh (2018), ahiaku and mncube (2018) and dube (2012). this study was in agreement with contemporary research on gis implementation in south africa that grade 12 learners lacked fundamental knowledge of gis. this study established that gis was not being properly taught at the schools which participated in this study. it was also evident that grade 12 learners were mainly asked data recall questions in the examination of gis. consequently, there was a convergence of views between the educators’ and learners’ perspectives on gis implementation in kwazulu-natal province. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical consideration ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from the university of kwazulu-natal 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(eds.), 2007, the handbook of geographic information science, blackwell publishing, malden, ma. zuma, s., 2016, ‘teachers’ reflections of teaching geographical information system (gis) at grade 11 within caps in a township school in the umhlathuze circuit’, master’s thesis, department of geography education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban. microsoft word 11 bester & cronje csr welverdiend.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 201-18. the importance of a people-centred approach for corporate social responsibility: a case study of welverdiend and the surrounding community v bester1 & f cronjé2 abstract despite the contribution of mining to the south african economy, this industry has impacted negatively on the environment and society for many decades. these negative impacts are mostly evidence of poor corporate actions. instead of contributing to society, it seems that mining companies, more often than not, neglect their corporate social responsibilities (csr) mostly in the pursuit of financial profit. it has been well documented that it is mostly local populations, living close to mining operations, that pay the price of social and environmental damages and degradation, while the industry’s benefits are measured in economic and political terms. such an imbalance between the economic, environmental and social factors makes sustainable development impossible to achieve. welverdiend, on the far west rand of johannesburg, south africa, is a community paying a dear price in terms of social problems caused by mining operations. the aim of this study was to assess the impact of mining on the social wellbeing of welverdiend and the surrounding community’s residents. in the light of these findings on different social issues, the research aimed to confirm the importance of a people-centred approach to corporate social responsibility. keywords: corporate social responsibility (csr), economical contributions, environmental impacts, people-centred approach, social impacts, social licence to operate (slo), sustainable development (sd), welverdiend 1. inroduction the gold reef, discovered by george harrison in 1886 on the farm langlaagte on the witwatersrand, changed south africa for ever. in this regard, callinicos (2007:199) states that the discovery of gold transformed the country and became a ruler of south africa’s economy for decades to come. however, despite the economic contributions of mining, this industry has impacted on the environment and society over many decades. in accordance with this, warhust (1998:3) is of the opinion that although mining companies have positively contributed to social development, they have also been associated with some negative impacts, for example, deepening disparities in wealth, creating poor labour conditions, participating in corruption, polluting, failing both health and safety standards and disrespecting human rights. these negative impacts are, in most instances, evidence of poor corporate actions. instead of 1 . ms vidette bester holds a masters degree in csr from the north-west university. email: videtteb@gmail.com 2 . prof. freek cronjé is the director of the bench mark centre for csr at the potchefstroom campus of the north-west university. email: freek.cronje@nwu.ac.za bester & cronjé 202 contributing to society, it seems that mining companies, more often than not, are escaping their corporate social responsibilities (csr). kapelus (2002:275) rightly remarks that these companies have long had a dubious reputation of mostly neglecting their social responsibility in the pursuit of economic development. with regard to this, middleton (2003:331) states that a problem might occur when those who benefit from mining do not coincide with those who pay the cost of it. banks (1993), cited in middleton (2003:331), is of the opinion that those who pay the price in terms of social and environmental damage and degradation are mostly local populations, living in proximity to mining operations, while the industry’s benefits are measured in economic and political terms. the urgency for responsible and ethical business actions, where the economy is not favoured over society and the environment, brings the issue of corporate social responsibility (csr) strongly to the fore. a variety of definitions of csr exists within its field. the european commission (2002:3) defines csr in a consised but striking way as a concept whereby companies voluntarily incorporate social and environmental concerns into their business operations and transactions with their stakeholders. three key concepts can be identified in this definition, namely: social, environmental and economical. of course, these concepts also form the basis of sustainability and when viewed in this light, csr and sustainability go hand in hand. companies that adhere to sound csr practices will most probably augment the whole question of sustainability, whilst sustainable development, on the other hand, will inevitably reflect sound csr practices in terms of the social, environmental and economical dimensions. the now classic definition of the concept of sustainable development (sd) is found in the 1987 report of the world commission on environment and development (wced), named “our common future”. the wced defined sd as follows: “sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (wced, 1987:41). blowfield and murray (2008:27) state that this ability to sustain a high quality of life for current and future generations underlines the importance of companies rethinking what they produce and how they do so. the above-mentioned conceptualisation of csr and sd reiterates the reciprocal relationship that exists between these two concepts. in summary, blowfield and murray (2008:231) explain that sustainability issues lie at the theoretical heart of csr; in addition, the international institute for sustainable development (issd, 2010) confirms that csr is an evolution in the approach to sustainable development. in order to achieve sound csr practices and to create a sustainable milieu, the article argues that a human or people-centred approach must be the underlying approach of any company that operates in the vicinity of local communities. seeing that the far west rand has been greatly impacted upon by mining activities, the researchers identified the town of welverdiend on the far west rand and the surrounding community to reflect on the csr practices of mining companies. the following section serves as an overview on welverdiend and the surrounding community. a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 203 2. background and orientation gold mining activities in the witwatersrand area initially started in 1886 (naicker et al., 2002; winde & stoch, 2010). the mining area known as the witwatersrand was home to a vast number of mines extracting, among others, gold and uranium. today only a few of those mines are still in operation. however, the witwatersrand is still being regarded as the world’s largest mining basin (liefferink, 2009). after mining commenced in 1886, gold mining extended to 30 km west of johannesburg; this newly established gold field became known as the “west rand”. attempts to move mining activities further to the south of the west rand initially failed due to large volumes of water that flooded the newly sunken shafts (winde & stoch, 2010). as stated by winde and stoch (2010), it was only in 1934 that new cementation technology allowed mines to sink shafts through water-bearing dolomite. together with this new technology and the riches of a new gold field, an area known as the far west rand was recognised. welverdiend, a town that is part of the far west rand of south africa, was founded in 1838 when settlers from the cape colony, who were farmers, migrated up to what was named the mooi river and wonderfonteinspruit area, of which welverdiend and the surrounding farms are a part (van eeden, 2006:413) and agriculture was the initial primary economic activity in this region (van eeden, 2006:413). in 1899 a railway running from johannesburg to cape town passed through welverdiend. consequently businesses and infrastructure developed. in 1899 a station and post office were built, subsequently activity in welverdiend became central by the access to the newly built infrastructure (mr stoch, 2014, pers.comm, may). f i g u r e 1 : m a p i n d i c a t i n g w e l v e r d i e n d ( a : w e l v e r d i e n d ) (source: ©2011 google – map data ©2011 afrigis (pty) ltd google) the first mines to operate in the far west rand were blyvooruitzicht and west driefontein. both these mines enjoyed wealth and prosperity in their operating days, and were renowned for their gold mine riches (winde & stoch, 2010). welverdiend housed workers from nearby mine blyvooruitzicht whilst the mining village west driefontein was built in 1937. bester & cronjé 204 taken from the above-mentioned, welverdiend consequently developed from agricultural activities and infrastructure, thus dividing the community of welverdiend in two; those who practiced agriculture, being severely impacted by the regional mines, and those who worked for the mine and benefited from the mining activities (mr stoch, 2014, pers.comm, may). since the very start of the mining industry in this region, environmental as well as social issues arose; however, some attention was given to environmental problems by focusing on the conservation of the environment (see bezuidenhout et al., 2007). the social problems were, however, ignored or kept from the public (see van eeden, 2006:427). however, later on, some historical social issues were documented. seeing that environmental and social issues are inseparable, a list of historical environmental aspects that occurred due to mining in the far west rand will be presented briefly: • the formation of sinkholes since the mid-1950s because of dewatering activities by the mines (swart et al., 2003:751; van niekerk & van der walt, 2006:442; coetzee et al., 2006:iii; van eeden et al., 2008:41; van eeden et al., 2009:53); • since the 1960s, the filling of sinkholes with contaminated slime, thus posing serious human and animal health risks (coetzee et al., 2006:30; van eeden et al., 2008:46); • the decline of farming activities in favour of mining activities since the 1960s, which resulted in a loss of livelihood (van eeden, 2006:421; van eeden, 2007:59; van eeden et al., 2008:45; coetzee et al., 2006:iii); • the discovery of high levels of radioactivity from as early as the 1970s (van eeden, 2006:424-27); • the pollution of ground and surface water since the mid-20th century (van eeden, 2006:424-27; winde & stoch, 2010:72); and • the decrease in water levels since the early 20th century (van eeden, 2008:470). seeing that mining activities have had a profound environmental impact on the far west rand, it is most probably likely that they have also had a social impact, leaving the town of welverdiend and the surrounding community affected by them. in terms of social impact, the mining industry has, most probably, affected the welfare of the residents of welverdiend and the surrounding community, making sustainable development hard to achieve. 3. research objectives based on the above background, the objectives of this research article are divided into general and specific objectives and are as follows: 3.1 general objective this study aims to determine the social problems faced by the residents of welverdiend and the surrounding community in order to reflect on the importance of sound csr actions, and, more importantly, to confirm the importance of a people-centred approach to csr. 3.2 specific objectives the following specific research objectives have been identified: a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 205 1. to put forward a theoretical argument on the importance of a people-centred approach towards development in mining communities. 2. to contextualise the concepts of csr and sd within mining communities. 3. to assess the impact of mining operations on the social wellbeing of residents of welverdiend and the surrounding community. 4. to empirically confirm the importance of a people-centred approach as regards csr. 5. to make recommendations for developing and improving the wellbeing of communities affected by mining, based on a people-centred approach to development. 4. methodology in order to accomplish the stated research objectives, information was obtained by means of two main procedures, namely a literature study and a thorough survey. the literature study, or literature review, focused on the conceptualisation of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development, the importance of a people-centred approach for development and the importance of communities for development and csr. the literature study was also used to contextualise the findings. in order to ensure the thoroughness of the literature study, the researchers used the following databases: • the internet, specifically, google and google scholar; • journal articles, retrieved from databases such as ebsco, jstor and sciencedirect as well as from the ferdinand postma library (potchefstroom campus); • newspaper articles; • textbooks; and • research studies, conference proceedings and related scientific reports. the survey was conducted in and around the town of welverdiend, located in the gauteng province of south africa. besides the literature study, data were collected during 2011 by using the following data collection techniques: semi-structured interviews, focus-group discussions, key informant discussions and personal observations. the survey adhered to the qualitative research paradigm. according to henning (2005:3), qualitative research gives the researcher the chance to understand and explain the phenomena investigated, without any predetermined boundaries, by making use of data and literature. for these mainly inductive enquiry, interviews, focus-group discussions and key informants were used. neuman (2003:390) states that the field interview is a joint production by the field researcher and research subject. this conversational nature of the interview allows the researcher to explore the participant’s experiences, feelings and beliefs. the field research interviews also make space for the mutual sharing of experiences in order to build trust (neuman, 2003:391). a focus-group discussion is a special type of interview wherein the participants of the research project get together to converse under the guidance of a supervisor or researcher (neuman, 2003:396). such focus-group interviews are of great value, since they create the opportunity for the participants to freely air their opinions, ideas, perceptions and concerns. patton (2002) describes key informants as participants who are particular knowledgeable about the inquiry setting, who can provide insight in helping the observer understand the situation. bester & cronjé 206 in order to provide trustworthy findings within the qualitative research paradigm, the research was directed according to and mirrored against the elements as implemented by cronjé and chenga (2007:213), and documented in their work. to increase trustworthiness in qualitative research, these authors (cronjé & chenga) specifically dealt with the following four elements in their project (health issues in mining communities): • truth value (confidence in the truth of the findings and the context in which the study was undertaken); • applicability (the degree to which the findings can be applied to other contexts and settings, or to other groups); • consistency (whether the findings would be consistent if the inquiry was replicated with the same subjects or in a similar context); and • neutrality (the degree to which the findings are a function solely of the informants and conditions of research, and not of other biases). the aim of the questions posed to communities and farmers in interviews and focus groups – in line with the objectives – were two-fold. the first was to determine the social impact of the mines’ activities on the communities, considering factors such as the environment and economy. secondary, the researchers aimed to uncover the participants’ views on development and human wellbeing and the importance they hold for csr. the focus-group discussions as well as semi-structured interviews were used therefore to determine the residents of welverdiend and the surrounding community’s experiences of the mining operations and their impact on their society as well as how development is viewed by the participants. enquiry into the issues of human wellbeing and development also provided the researchers the link to verify the importance of a people-centred approach in such a setting. the total study population consisted of approximately twenty-five (25) participants and was selected from the local community, farmers, ngos, academics, community and environmental activists, and participants from the mining context (managers and mine workers). to congregate the different research subjects, snowball sampling was used. according to neuman (2003:214), snowball sampling is a method to identify the cases in a network. the research started with an initial group discussion and from that discussion, other contacts, referrals and networks resulted in more appointments. neuman (2003:214) states that snowball sampling begins with one person or a few people, and spreads out on the basis of links and initial cases, making it a multi-stage technique. one preset condition (for interviewing) was that the participants should be able to express themselves verbally. during the data collection, the participants chose the research setting, adding to their comfort with the research. neuman (2003:395) states that a whole interview’s meaning is shaped by its gestalt or whole interaction between a researcher and a participant in a specific context. the qualitative data analysis entailed the recording, transcribing and translating (some of the obtained data was in afrikaans) of the interviews. the content of the interviews was then analysed by means of thematic (conception) analysis. neuman (2003:441) indicates that concept formation and theme identification are integral parts of data analysis and the researchers followed that process exactly. more specifically, the research was directed in accordance with the following eight steps during the process of conceptual analysis, as identified by palmquist et al. (2005): 1. deciding on the level of analysis; a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 207 2. deciding how many concepts to code for; 3. deciding whether to code for the existence or frequency of a concept; 4. deciding how to distinguish between the concepts; 5. developing rules for the coding of texts; 6. deciding what to do with irrelevant information; 7. coding texts; and 8. analysing results. consequently, the theoretical argument for a people-centred approach (objective 1), will be presented. 5. central theoretical argument: a people-centred approach as stated in the introduction, the eminent definition of sustainable development was defined by the world commission on environment and development (wced) in 1987. this definition is widely recognised and used world-wide to define sustainable development. however, in 2001, the organisation for economic cooperation and development’s (oecd) policy brief defined sustainable development, in technical terms, as a …development path along which the maximisation of human wellbeing for today’s generations does not lead to declines in future wellbeing. attaining this path requires eliminating those negative externalities that are responsible for natural resource depletion and environment degradation. it also requires securing those public goods that are essential for economic development to last, such as those provided by well-functioning ecosystems, a healthy environment and a cohesive society. sustainable development also stresses the importance of retaining the flexibility to respond to future shocks even when their probability, and the size and location of their effects cannot be assessed with certainty. taking a look at the above definition, sd has a sound focus on human welfare. human welfare, according to the definition, can be achieved and attained in an environment where natural resource depletion and environmental degradation are not visible whilst facing (and achieving) economic goals. clearly the focus should be on human beings and their welfare for development. in the past, development, in the theoretical sense, was analysed from a macro perspective. more specifically, development was initially framed by the modernisation, dependency and world system theories. payne and phillips (2010:56) explain that these development theories developed after world war ii in 1945 and were driven by the end of european colonialism, which also led to the creation of new states in asia and africa; it was only later that a people-centred approach from the micro level was added. the micro-foundation of development is based on a people-centred approach. nayyar and chang (2005:1) are of the opinion that development should bring about the improvements in the living conditions of people. basic needs such as shelter, food, health care provision, etc, not only need to be provided, but also the right to live a meaningful life (coetzee, 2001:119). the micro-foundation towards development explains that meaningful experiences of reality are the basis of development (coetzee, 2001:119). coetzee (2001:120) accentuates that this viewpoint of development differs greatly from the traditional and macro-theoretical theorems. in the past, development was viewed as the result of certain characteristics such as industrialisation, new agricultural techniques, urbanisation, large-scale education and bester & cronjé 208 specialisation. this view of development, from the angle of modernisation theory, implies that the world is changeable and that people can control the movement from underdevelopment to development by introducing certain characteristics (coetzee, 2001:120). however, contemporary developmental views indicate that the traditional standpoint of development (especially modernisation theory) lacks insight in the process of change from underdevelopment to development (coetzee, 2001:120). with regard to the dependency theory, it has been well noted that it is a top-down approach, assuming that the local communities do not have the capacity to oppose their impoverished circumstances (matunhu, 2011). viewed against the above-mentioned critique, the concern here is that the deeper dimensions of underdevelopment are overlooked. this introduces the call for a different view on development entailing the realisation that economic growth and development are not related as such (coetzee, 2001:122). as early as 1990, the united nations accentuated the need for a new approach towards development by remarking that its single goal is to put people back in the development process (undp, 1990). the following six principles, as presented by coetzee (2001:122-126), will serve as the starting point towards a different definition of development, namely the micro-foundation. people can be more than they are development is based on human wellbeing and can be used as a mechanism for people to become more than they are, through increasing humanness. increased humanness implies the striving for the following: social justice, comprehensive consultation and joint decision making, the lessening of suffering by satisfying basic needs, respect for the local ecosystem, local social and cultural patterns and the freedom of expression and impression. the striving for increased humanness does not essentially mean an increase in material welfare. although development projects from the micro perspective also aim to bring material benefits, the main focus is on the increase of human wellbeing. meaning developmental programmes and plans should stress that progress relies on two factors: the first is on the continuous confirmation of meaning and secondly, progress relies on the will to create a meaningful life. the following are prerequisites for a new interpretation of growth, progress and development: • a desire among individuals and groups to work towards a specific goal and ideas of reality, the establishment of a political will and general human wellbeing; • to use existing economic and social structures calculatedly in order to promote individual development; and • to highlight the distribution of benefits of innovation, knowledge, material investments and general creativity. the centre of this analysis highlights that meaning and the specific circumstances within which action should take place are most important. with regard to this, a clear understanding of the level of operation is necessary. the following goals give direction regarding how ground-level developmental operations should take place: the provision of a sphere for meaningful existence, community development for social reconstruction, the acknowledgment of social justice, education in the broader sense of the word and the eradication of poverty and inequality. a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 209 the emphasis on the experience of the life-world as stated previously (principle one), a development programme or plan accentuating that people can be more than they are does not necessarily entail an increase in material welfare. instead, development is more likely to succeed when people integrate their life-world meaning into their yearning for developed situations. to incorporate people’s life-world meaning, developmental plans are more likely to succeed. people feel they can relate and associate themselves with the programme because it reflects their everyday living or social life-world. the idea of a total social life-world is strongly associated with the concept of culture (coetzee, 2001:124). unesco’s (1995) report, our creative diversity, marks the united nations’ view on culture and its relationship with development. wright (1998:12) states that the report presents two definitions of culture. the first definition views culture as not just one domain of life, but is ‘constructive, constitutive and creative’ of all life’s aspects, entailing both the economy and development. according to the second definition, the world is made up of separated ‘cultures’ of people situated within these cultures. the importance of culture for development becomes clear when the report explains that past neglect of people’s ‘cultures’ within the setting of broader ‘cultures’ has led to the failure of developmental plans (wright, 1998:12). viewed from the micro-perspective, life-world refers to the micro-social reality between individuals. as indicated under the methodology section (point 4), the experience of the lifeworld plays a critical role in this research with regard to data collection. some of the research participants, for example, described in detail their perceived life-world during the interviews and focus groups, which was of course extremely insightful, and essential in order to ‘build the research picture’ within the setting (also see findings – point 7). desirable direction for desirable direction, meaning and the specific circumstances of where action takes place are at the core of analysis. the departure points of this approach are individual decisions and the processes of interaction, which are related to the process of giving meaning. this implies that it is not a top-down approach but a bottom-up approach. this bottom-up approach stresses that development must be based on human wellbeing, and this should be defined by the people themselves, uncovering their own definition thereof. consciousness the micro approach towards development is also based on the principle that those who are affected by development must be involved in the development process. this principle is based on the belief that all people have the right to live in a life-world that is meaningful to them. to understand this life-world of people, development should be grounded in the consciousness of people in order to grasp the social reality within which people live. this grounded consciousness implies the existence of a dialogue between society and the individual. this dialectal relationship implies that people have the right to make their own decisions and also have the opportunity to reject any development programme. therefore, development actions should require the participation of people in the design of any development programme. participation and self-reliance participation and self-reliance may be viewed as the two most important aspects of responsible well-being. in the context of development, participation and self-reliance imply bester & cronjé 210 the necessity to involve the people who are the supposed beneficiaries of development. participation means doing away with a domination structure, implying that the focus should be at the bottom. wellbeing, ranging from spiritual, psychological, social and material human experiences is the ultimate end of development. chambers (2006:193) coined the term ‘responsible wellbeing’ and according to him, when wellbeing is qualified by equity and sustainability it becomes responsible wellbeing. therefore, it can be said that the basics of wellbeing are livelihood, security, equity and sustainability. coming out clearly from the discussed principles is that development is for people. people should define their own social reality as well as describe their view of the developmental process. taken against the above central theoretical argument, the importance of development and, more specifically, development based on a people-centred approach becomes indispensable for sustainable progress. furthermore, it has become clear that commitment towards the wellbeing of society holds the key to sustainable development. sriramesh and verèiè (2009:844) view the role of business in society as follows: … a company’s involvement in communities is not a new phenomenon, what is new however, is a company’s commitment towards communities. this commitment, if true to the triple bottom line, will result in sustainable communities. the next section will give a detailed account of the relationship that needs to exist between csr and sd for communities; in this case, the mining community of welverdiend, in order to achieve sustainable development (objective 2). 6. contextualisation of the concepts csr and sd within mining communities mining has played, and is still playing an important part in societal development. as middleton (2003) expresses it, the history of the stone, iron and bronze ages portrays this. society’s dependence upon mining has not ceased since then; in fact, it has got bigger. very few products worldwide are not produced from minerals. there are some countries whose economy is totally dependent on the extraction industry. in south africa, the situation is not any different. according to the chamber of mine’s annual report 2009/10, the mining sector remains a pillar of the south african economy. to illustrate this, the mining sector in south africa contributes the following: 19% of the gross domestic product (gdp), about one million jobs, 18% of gross investment, about 93% of the country’s electricity-generating capacity and about 30% of the country’s liquid fuel supply (chamber of mines, 2009/10). due to the fact that the mining industry fuels job creation, generates electricity supply and adds to the economy of the country, it automatically plays a part in the socio-economic development and welfare of south africa. the opposite side of the coin: the recent decline and stagnation in the economic growth rate of the country were to a huge extent the result of the continuous strike on the platinum belt since the beginning of 2014. by affecting the social dimension of the country, the mining industries are also capable of promoting a move towards sd. this move is only possible through sound csr practices. jenkins and obara (2008) are of the opinion that for mining companies, csr is the manifestation of a move towards greater sustainability. the chamber of mines (2010) a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 211 reports that the values and aims of sustainable development go hand in hand with the values and aims of the mining industry. mining companies can achieve progress through the basic dimensions of development, namely: economic development, environmental protection and social cohesion, all three in the course of csr. focusing on the social dimension, a way through which mining companies can achieve progress in sd is by considering the interests of all the stakeholders. key stakeholders, and ones that are closely tied to the social welfare of the country, are, of course, mining communities (jenkins & obara, 2008). not only are communities important because of the impact they have to face from mining, but they also play a critical role in terms of consenting to mining operations. the importance of communities is visible in the authority they have in the process of ‘issuing’ social rights to mines, granting them approval to mine in an area. these social rights that communities can ‘issue’ are reflected in what is called a social licence to operate (slo). lassonde (2003) defines a social licence as ... the acceptance and belief by society, and specifically our local communities, in the value creation of our activities, such as we are allowed to access and extract mineral resources. … you don’t get your social licence by going to a government ministry and making an application or simply paying a fee. … it requires far more than money to truly become part of the communities in which you operate. an slo gives the mines an opportunity to invest in the local community and, as nelsen and scoble (2006) point out, it grants the mines an opportunity to transform and promote the economic and social development of the community, adding to sustainable development. veige et al. (2001:192) affirm that the global environment in which mines operate is becoming more and more visible. this global spotlight forces mines to be more socially responsible. in order for mines to be successful in social responsibility action within surrounding communities, the following may be considered (veige et al., 2001:192): • environmental impacts should not present any risk to associated communities; • mine development must be perceived to bring a net benefit to the community; to just lessen impacts is not sufficient. through community diversification that is part of mine planning, development, operation and post-closure, a net benefit would be accomplished; and • transparent and effective communication between the mining company and the community is necessary; citizens should be encouraged to share in decisions that directly affect their future. this active participation will help mining companies avoid risks to the sustainability of the mine’s operations as well as that of the community. operating in accordance with these considerations, mining companies will also function as socially responsible in a given area, and will therefore gain the consent of communities to operate in a specific area. additional ways to acquire a social licence from communities, as identified by nelsen (2005), are as follows: • understanding culture, language and history; • educating local stakeholders about the project, e.g. mining processes and environment impacts; • guaranteeing open stakeholder communication; • sustaining a sound track record as well as a positive corporate reputation; bester & cronjé 212 • training the work-force; • creating a business partnership with communities for economic development; • employing innovation and technology in order to avoid unnecessary impacts; • seeking the support of the community and aiming to build capacity; • enabling corporate transparency; and • collaborating with communities to answer their infrastructure needs. the above-mentioned section outlined the importance and inter-relatedness of csr and sd in mining communities, as well as the critical social licence to operate. unfortunately, as documented in the findings, mining companies do not always adhere to the prescribed csr and sd principles, especially regarding the social dimension of development. in doing so, human wellbeing and sustainability will stay a faraway illusion. 7. findings as discussed earlier in the article (see point 5) the people-centred approach stresses that human well-being should be the starting point of development and that people should define and voice the experiences of their own social reality. the findings, as obtained through the research, voice the social reality of people living in an area where mining has had, and still has a significant environmental impact. alongside these social aspects, the participants also discussed their views on csr and development. first, the social aspects prevalent in the area, in line with objective 3, will be put forward. 7.1 social aspects from the interviews and focus-group discussions held in the specific community, a number of social aspects were identified and these give an in-depth description of how communities, living in and around welverdiend, are being affected by mining operations. the broad identified themes were as follows: • health • hazards • livelihood • economic wealth versus human wellbeing • transparency • government health according to swart et al. (2003:635), the wonderfonteinspruit, part of the far west rand and found just outside of welverdiend, was described as a natural jewel during the nineteenth century. unfortunately, the mining industry did not leave the spruit and its surroundings untouched. the formation of sinkholes, the drop in the groundwater table and even water pollution were some of the mining impacts that affected the spruit and surrounding areas (swart et al., 2003:635) (see point 2 – background on welverdiend). supportive of this, a main social issue in the studied community is that of personal health. the participants feel that their health is at risk due to environmental degradation, mainly due to the pollution of water. what is also of concern is that the downstream lying town, potchefstroom, may also be at a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 213 risk. this is due to the fact that the wonderfonteinspruit runs into the mooi river, from where it flows to boskop dam, which is the main water supplier for potchefstroom. another critical issue concerning health, which came to the fore during the research, was that of hiv/aids in the farming community. the concern relates to the poor water quality in the region. it is well known that an hiv sufferer needs a healthy diet (unaids, 2008), and since the farm workers use the contaminated water in their diet, it puts them at a higher health risk. the following quotations reflect some views of respondents and are reproduced here verbatim. “we had 6 workers that died of aids in the last 6 years, just on this farm; you have the same scenario elsewhere. give an aids sufferer poor food, poor quality water and you have an aids accelerator. it is like going for genocide.” farmer another water-related problem identified in the area, has to do with farming activities. numerous farmers stress their concern regarding their land, crops and water use. the following give voice to some concerns in this regard. “a canal that flows from two upstream mining operations flows into the wonderfonteinspruit just outside welverdiend. that may be why the people living downstream of welverdiend are having more trouble [with farming activities] than those living upstream.” sustainable development manager from mine “i bought some goats years ago outside carletonville, the grazing is very bad there. and the water is also not suitable for irrigation.” farmer south africa is rich in diversity, hosting a variety of different religions and languages. being a multi-cultural country, respect and conservation towards religious and cultural practices are essential. however, this is not always the case and as kapelus (2008:280) supportively states, traditional cultural customs are seen as a stumbling block by the mining industry for its activities. the following response from an interviewee clearly portrays the disrespect towards cultural and religious customs in this regard in the welverdiend area. “religious groups came to the gerhard minnebron to collect water for their sacred ceremonies. a priest wrote a letter to government about his concerns about the quality of the gerhard minnebron and their traditions, but didn’t get a response.” farmer hazards geological hazards were identified in the welverdiend area during the research. a geological hazard can be defined as a threat with the potential to cause harm to people, including death, injury, disease and stress, disruption in human activity, property and the environment (international strategy of disaster reduction, 2010). two main hazards in the area, according to the interviewees, are that of sinkholes and sinkhole formation. apart from environmental problems and land degradation, sinkholes put animals and humans at serious risk. welverdiend lies adjacent to a mining area and therefore a risk of sinkhole formation exists. the residents of welverdiend and surrounding communities have accounted the following with regard to sinkholes. bester & cronjé 214 “another problem is that of sinkholes. the krugersdorp road, which is not far from here [welverdiend], sank away three to four years ago, because of sinkholes.” resident of welverdiend “a few years ago, a sinkhole formed at the town’s reservoirs and welverdiend was without water for some time.” farmer livelihood chambers and conwey (1992:6) propose a working definition of livelihood based on the world commission on environment and management’s definition of this concept. according to these authors, livelihood may be defined as follows: a livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. a livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks; maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base. the following portrays the risks the community is facing in terms of livelihood and the natural resources they are dependent on: “we do have calf abortions from time to time, but that can also be due to the fact that we move the cows. we have problems due to the mining operations; we have problems with access control, field fires, erosion as well as cattle theft. over a 1 000 ha burned down, because of field fires recently.” farmer “our business is completely closed down. we can’t sell the farm, and can’t drink the water, but we are not bankrupt, but others are not so lucky… if you lose all your cattle and cannot sell, what do you do, you become like a pensioner sitting in a stingy room eating dog food.” farmer economic wealth versus human wellbeing the relationship between business and society has been debated extensively over the past decades (see carrol & buchholtz, 2006:4-28; bakan, 2004:66-168; hamann, 2008:1-35). a central argument of this discussion is the position a business has to portray in a society; and that the relationship should not foster the one in terms of economic development, and neglect the other in terms of societal and environmental degradation. the overall view from the participants was that the mines are completely economically orientated. wealth creation is put at the centre of the mining industry’s operations, and in the process, environmental and social problems are created. therefore, the interviewees feel that economic welfare is mostly generated at the expense of the wellbeing of communities. the following are views on how the community experiences the mine’s position in society. “i don’t believe that the mines show any respect for the eco-system or the people, they do everything for their own benefit….” resident of welverdiend “sinkholes do happen, and it is because of mining. we [the mine] do what we can in terms of solving the social problems with regard to the formation of sinkholes. sinkholes cannot be prevented. we [the mine] take responsibility from 1997 when we bought the mine over. not earlier.” sustainable development manager of a mine a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 215 “there are a lot of social and environmental issues because of the mining and the root of the problem is money.” academic “since the 20th century, the attitude was: let’s make money. research shows that the government was also very supportive towards mines.” historian “it is true, the groundwater table did drop in some places, but it [mining] benefited the country’s economy.” mine worker transparency it was no surprise that the question of transparency was very strongly raised by the research subjects, seeing that ethical and responsible behaviour is supposed to underlie corporate citizenship. respondents felt that to keep information from them regarding pollution, rehabilitation and economic deals and transactions, is nothing less than a corporate crime. people have, of course, the right to access information, and the issue of free prior and informed consent (fpic) also comes into play at this point. the following are views on transparency regarding the essence of this study as seen by the community of welverdiend. “some farmers were bought out by mines. they are not allowed to speak to the public and they are not allowed to make any future health claims.” farmer “[a mine] is busy building a new tailings dam, but farmers were not considered and the building started suddenly. the dam is over the 400 ha.” resident of welverdiend government historically the national party, who ruled south africa from 1948 to 1994, played an essential part in the mining industry. turton (2008:1) states that an alliance was formed between the government and the gold mines. this alliance entailed that the mines supported the government during the apartheid era in the country, and when sanctions were put on south africa, the mines served as an economic safety net. in return, the government allowed the mining companies to make substantial profits by externalising their costs onto society. in this regard, adler et al. (2007:33) supportively argue that “…the early gold-economy was simply an extractive industry with little consideration given to possibly adverse long-term effects”. the relationship between the current government and the extractive industry is similar to that of the past (apartheid era). the participants feel that the relationship between these two parties is benefiting both. the government is turning a blind eye to social and environmental issues because of the economic value created by the mining industry and, in return, the mines are granted complete freedom in their operations (harming the environment, mine without water licenses, etc). political interference and questionable involvement in the sector are also being observed more and more over the last few years. whilst giving the mining industry full authority, the government is, at the same time, neglecting its own responsibility towards society. presumably, the government should play a central part in sound csr practices. it is not merely corporations’ responsibility to be socially responsible, but social responsibility stretches beyond corporate borders, also to the government. the united nations (2010) reports that the role of government in terms of social responsibility is four-fold, namely the regulating, facilitating, warranting and brokering of csr agendas. bester & cronjé 216 derived from the above, it is clear that the government should take an active stance towards social responsibility. unfortunately, as seen in the findings below, government fails this duty from time to time, for various reasons. “the big problem is that there are always politics involved in the mining industry.” resident of welverdiend “the government wants to make money out of the environmental problem. they get bee companies to do rehabilitation work, where we [the mine] can do it for less. the government uses the environmental issues as a whip to get to the mines, because they [the government] don’t want to take responsibility.” mine worker “complaints from oppositional parties were documented from as early as the 70s. stating that the government is polluting the environment and that sinkholes are a problem, and that the people are being affected. but government had another vision. money talks harder…” historian derived from the above findings on relevant social issues in the area, it is obvious that the mining industry has not left the residents of welverdiend and the surrounding community untouched. it is against these negative social findings that the position of development becomes uncertain. the people-centred approach insists that development can only be defined by those living in an underdeveloped situation (see point 5). in accordance with this, the following findings display how development is viewed by the research participants (objective 4). 7.2 views on development in support of the people-centred approach as acknowledged (see point 6), csr and sd are inseparable. sound csr actions by corporations will foster sd, making csr a perfect fit for sd and vice versa. when referring to the social wellbeing of people, the social dimension comes strongly to the fore; development is for people. derived from the above-mentioned, a developmental approach with a strong people focus seems like the ideal approach for sound csr practices. as already mentioned, such an approach is the micro-foundation towards development, also known as the people-centred approach (see point 5). people thus form the essence of this developmental approach; therefore, it is appropriate to take note of the opinions of different people on these important issues. it must also be noted that the evaluation in this study of the importance of the peoplecentred approach within the framework of csr and development rests on the perceptions of the study population. the findings, as obtained from the interviewees, will consequently be presented. the following quote hints towards the educational role of corporations. “the power of a corporate institution can also educate people. there should not only be looked at how the people are affected, but [corporations] should accommodate and educate people to become environmental conscious. corporations should invest in the living spaces of the people. corporations have enormous power in their operating space to educate its employees.” academic in line with the micro-foundation towards development, people should form the basis of any development programme. the following quotes by some of the participants display the a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 217 importance of people in the development process and the change that is needed in the mindsets of people for csr to be successful. “people are the basis of any development. macro development is driven by the government and one could question their competence. poverty is the biggest problem, because we cannot get enough people in the system so that they can have a job. when you have a job, you also become disciplined and develop thereafter. social grants are a big problem, because we are creating a back log and the pressure on society is getting bigger and bigger.” mine worker “we [people] have a mindset on how the environment may be used and abused; csr needs to change that, a mind shift needs to be concluded. with csr, there is definitely a change for the better compared to when there was no such structure, but we still have the baggage of wrong thinking and an environment that is shattered.” historian “there needs to be a change of framework and a move towards a socialcapitalistic system. in the past there was not something like sustainable development or csr; now that it is getting to be more in the foreground, some change for the better is taking place, but we sit with problems because of the neglect of csr in the past. the focus was on the economy.” mine worker “you have to go back to the basics. in society there are certain risks; societal risks, and in south africa, what are the big things? poverty, unemployment and crime. all those are linked. and when you have a business considering development you need to take into account the impact of your development, and that it should be positive. yes, we as goldfields go into a community and put up a casino, some people might go and work there, but what are you doing actually? degrading the moral fibre, so you need to take that into account. based on what i just said, one thing that holds us back as a country is education. so you need to tap into that: building of schools, getting better education, so we have kids coming out that are engineers, scientists, etc. that is the baseline. when you are dealing with our illiteracy rate, you are dealing with a set of people, although there are jobs out there, they don’t fill them because they don’t have the skills. they don’t have the basics to get the skills. so development starts with building capacity and it starts with education. the second part that ties in with that is health. if the community is literate and unhealthy, that doesn’t help either. so we focus on getting the baseline right. the other aspect with poverty is hunger. so we need to develop our agriculture; it is important for development. so when we do projects, we focus on education, health and agriculture.” mine manager when looking at the above-mentioned findings, it is clear that the underlying golden thread to a people-centred approach boils down to business ethics. business ethics is concerned with the behaviours of individuals in a business as well as in the broader society (blowfield & murray, 2008:18). the challenge is clearly to integrate business ethics and other core values, such as respect, honesty, trust and fairness into the day-to-day practices of the company; thus striving towards the business case for csr. taken against the findings that have been discussed so far in the article, business ethics in the mining industry is not that easily accomplished and the following quote, coming from a mine manager, captured the essence perfectly of how csr should be conducted. bester & cronjé 218 “ultimately, i would like to see that sustainable development should totally disappear, because sustainable development is the way you do business. so when people do things, they should think automatically how it is going to be better for the environment and development.” sustainable development manager from mine to conclude, the following quote by a participant sums up the importance of a peoplecentred approach for sustainable development: “people are the building blocks of society and wellbeing is the most important thing. not only physical wellbeing, but also psychological wellbeing. if we don’t get development right, the real losers are the next generation.” farmer derived from the findings of the study and viewpoints of the respondents, personal observations by the researchers, basic concepts related to the theoretical argument, as well as some relevant suggestions from the literature, the following general recommendations (objective 5) can provide mining companies with some direction towards sound csr practices, especially with surrounding communities in view. 8. recommendations • education should be placed at the centre of a company’s csr programmes. the focus here is on the building of human capital. in terms of education, the whole spectrum can be considered by a company for possible involvement and support, i.e. from abet (adult basic education and training), primary and secondary schooling (building of schools, special education programmes for children in this educational range, etc) and bursaries and internships for learners who finish school. by fostering human wellbeing through education, the social development of south africa will be positively influenced. • given the socio-economic context of south africa, poverty eradication should form an integral part of any mining company’s csr agenda. this could be achieved through the difficult and contentious process of employment creation, directly by sourcing jobs from the neighbouring communities, but also indirectly through the provision of portable skills through training programmes and the establishing and strengthening of a talent pool in communities. job creation will also be the foundation for other facets of human development, such as individual growth, selfreliance and self-actualisation. these human resource development initiatives are, anyway, implied by the social and labour plans (slps) that mining companies must submit to the department of mineral resources (dmr) and required by legislation (section 100 of the mineral and petroleum resources development act, 2004). • economic growth, social development and environmental protection should be incorporated and synchronised (triple bottom line) within a company’s csr programme and developmental agenda, and also be managed in a real, sustainable manner. local economic development (led) is also one of the ‘departments’ that needs to be addressed by the slps of mining companies. developmental projects must be established in local communities in line with needs and priorities indicated by integrated development plans (idps) and local economic development plans (ledps) of local governments. in this regard, proper consultation and the issue of free, prior, and informed consent (fpic) with communities must be the starting a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 219 point of any potential project. in terms of the sustainability regarding these issues, provision and a plan for mine closure are another very important aspect (also required by the social and labour plan); a prerequisite that is definitely not adhered to in the context of welverdiend and its people. the same applies, of course, to environmental responsibility; policies stipulated by (hopefully!) approved environmental impact assessments (eias) and practice on the ground are two different ‘things’, as are seen in welverdiend. • proper engagement with and consent of the community (fpic) are crucial to the success of mining activities, csr programmes and policies, and ultimately, sustainable development (see 7.1). when companies are serious regarding the ‘requirements’ of the social license to operate (slo) in an area, csr practices will be developed that will probably respond to the need(s) that exist in a community, adding to the welfare of people. • transparency should form a fundamental part of a mining company’s csr practice. public and community members have the right to be informed of any impact, negative or positive. by having access to information, communities have the privilege to make informed decisions in terms of their personal wellbeing and development in a wider context. • people’s livelihood should, by all means, be safeguarded instead of being destroyed or negatively impacted on by the mines. poverty and unemployment are critical social issues in south africa; therefore, csr practices and programmes should be aimed at the protection of people’s livelihoods. • together with the private sector (e.g. mining companies), the government’s role in terms of development should be defined. social responsibility is not just the responsibility of mining companies, the government, too, should play an integral part in overseeing the implementation of the regulatory frameworks. the mineral and petroleum resources development act (mpra – 2002/2004) and the broad-based socio-economic charter for the mining industry (the mining charter, 2002 & 2010) have a clear focus on people and development; it is therefore the government’s responsibility to ensure compliance with these frameworks by the industry. through the research it has been found that the communities in and around welverdiend are faced with certain social issues due to poor csr practices. these social aspects may not only be attributed to the current mines operating in the area, but can also be traced back to former mining companies. through the exploration of the community’s people, mine employees as well as academics’ views on csr, it has become clear that a people-centred approach towards development is the answer to sound csr practices and sustainable development. however, a mind change or change of framework needs to take place. this approach will not only lead to development but will also, most importantly, minimise the social issues that communities have to face due to a lack of proper csr actions. the last section (conclusion) discusses the change of framework that needs to take place in order for a people-centred approach to fit into the csr practices of a company. 9. conclusion in light of the findings (see point 7), sound csr practices from companies and responsible governments turned out to be the most important answer for a community like welverdiend. unfortunately, some of the mining operations and origins of accompanying consequences could be dated back to more than seventy years. the question about who is literally going to bester & cronjé 220 take responsibility can thus rightly be asked. opinions and visions from mining companies currently in operation in the area seem hopeful; however, policy and practice are two different concepts. the welverdiend situation reflects much similarity with the contentious situation found on the south african west coast, where de beers drastically scaled down its operations at kleinzee and left most communities in dire straits (see cronjé et al., 2009). the result regarding this study is that residents and surrounding communities in the welverdiend area are at the receiving end of irresponsible corporate actions (past and present) and in a state of despair. in worst-case scenarios, even basic human health is at risk. based on this, it is hard to imagine that such a community would be in the position to grow and develop. regarding these implied issues and aligned with the article’s objectives (see point 3), the views of the study population on a human-centred approach, csr practices and development can be summarised as follows: according to the participants, the wellbeing of people forms the basis of development. most importantly, it has been found in this study that a change in the mindsets of people is necessary for sound csr practices. this change is needed in order to protect and develop human wellbeing through sound csr practices. it has been mentioned in some of the focus groups that the investment in people is crucial for development; this investment should mostly aim at education in the broad sense of the word, involving literacy to basic labour skills (also see recommendations), which will also lead to the eradication of poverty. the lack of acknowledgement of communities by companies is really a sad state of affairs; even the world bank iterates this important dimension. the world bank described csr as …the commitment that businesses have to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve the quality of life, in ways that are both good for business and development (blowfield, 2005:515). unfortunately, in light of the findings of this research, it is evident that economic wealth is favoured over human wellbeing, making it the root cause of the social issues identified. respondents were of the opinion that the ruling ‘capitalist nature’ is posing a test for sound csr practises. as previously stated, a change of framework needs to take place for sound csr practices; unfortunately capitalism serves as a great challenge for this shift of framework to take place. blowfield (2005:520) supportively argues that the greatest challenge and limitations for csr are related to the fundamental values and beliefs of the capitalist enterprise. a capitalist enterprise involves the right to make profit, free trade, the freedom of capital, the supremacy of private property, the commoditisation of all sorts of things including labour, the domination of market in the determining of price and value and the privilege of companies to act as citizens and moral entities (blowfield, 2005:520). these capitalist notions are not new, and are documented in the work of adam smith, karl marx, john maynard keynes and milton friedman, to mention a few. a farmer expressed the view that “people are nothing for the mine, only a number. the mine is only there to make money”. this viewpoint corresponds with the famous statement made by friedman, namely that “…there is one, and only one social responsibility for business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase profits” (friedman, 1970:6). the aim at this point is not to argue the importance of csr; this has been done throughout the research article and is also evident from the findings. an important focus to be stressed here is rather the milieu in which csr is taking place, i.e. capitalism, and the fact that a change of framework is needed for csr to result in sustainable development. against this reality, nayyar and chang (2005:2) a people-centred approach to csr td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 201224. 221 recognised this leading ideology of economic wealth creation, and respond by identifying the following three points of departure for development: • the first point of departure states that the wellbeing of humankind serves as the essence of development. according to nayyar and chang (2005:3), this point tends to be forgotten because of the dominant discourse, where ‘economic freedom’ gets more attention than individual well-being; • the second point states that a distinction between the means and ends should be established. economic growth and efficiency are means while economic development and social progress are ends (nayyar & chang, 2005:3); and • the third point stipulates that economic growth is necessary but not sufficient in the eradication of poverty. the outcomes of economic policies should not be moderated by social policies. the dichotomy between economic and social development is inadequate, so is the dichotomy between economic and social policies (nayyar & chang, 2005:3). against these points of departure, nayyar and chang (2005:3) conclude that a need for integrative social and economic policies exists, and that it is time to explore alternatives in development. examining the above three focus points, it is clear that human wellbeing and society play an essential part in development. these points of departure are, of course, also entwined with the people-centred approach for development (see point 5). such an argument marks the micro approach not only as an essential approach for development, but also as the most important approach for development in terms of sound csr practices. bibliography adler, ra, claassen, m, godfrey, l & turton, ar 2007. water, mining, and waste: an historical and economic perspective on conflict management in south africa. the economics of peace and security journal, 2(2):33-41. bakan, j 2004. the corporation. london: constable & robinson. bezuidenhout, a, fig, d, hamann, r & omar, r 2007. political economy. 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conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) yakubu a. yakubu graduate centre for management, faculty of business management and sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa de wet schutte department of environmental and occupational studies, faculty of applied sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation yakubu ya, schutte dw. predictors of female caregivers’ burden: an estimated conceptual model in low income settings. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1159. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1159 original research predictors of female caregivers’ burden: an estimated conceptual model in low income settings yakubu a. yakubu, de wet schutte received: 14 oct. 2021; accepted: 15 aug. 2022; published: 26 jan. 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract globally, there has been increasing interest in the study of caregiving. female caregiver predictors or mediators and a multidimensional female caregiver burden (fcg burden) model that incorporates environmental hygiene factors such as toilet hygiene and kitchen are lacking, particularly in lowand middle-income countries. this study evaluates caregiver burden predictors and provides a multidimensional model of unremunerated care burden for family practice and policy in two different population group communities in cape town, south africa. a systematic random sampling (srs) procedure was employed, and 100 black or african and 100 mixed race female caregivers in two different cultural communities were selected for a reliable cross-section. a questionnaire was used to solicit caregiver burden information. the average age of the female caregivers was 47.9 years (standard deviation [sd] = 11.7 years). about 49.0% of the selected participants were older than 50 years. there was a significant relationship between environmental health (kitchen hygiene and toilet hygiene). social grant receipt and physical health status of care recipients were predictors of caregiver burden. the overall model explained the largest variation (43.4%) in caregiver burden. this study recommends an increase in the social grants given to caregivers. national health policies should reflect female caregivers’ circumstances. transdisciplinarity contribution: this article contributes to the improvement in community health. keywords: caregiver burden; burden mediators; regression analysis; modelling; government policies. introduction the ageing of the population is an increasing phenomenon, particularly in the lowand middle-income countries.1,2 for many of the aged and frail elderly persons and the children, who are dependent on others for their daily activities of living is the only way to live. the provision of care for these care recipients living in the community mostly come with some inherent challenges perceived as negative or a burden on those involved in the care giving.3,4 the negative effects or burden are multifaceted and mostly influenced by a variety of both caregiver and recipient attributes and available social support.5,6 as in many african countries, caregiving in south africa seems to have become more burdensome with the effects of the prevalence of multiple factors, including the effects of diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (hiv), acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (aids) and coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19), which still remains a major health challenge.7,8,9 other major challenges in the burden experience include the psychological and physical functional status of the recipient, the need for support in instrumental activities of daily need, a lack of financial support and the basic knowledge about prevention of infection of primary caregivers and other family members.5,10,11 it is important to comprehend the interaction of the multifaceted domains of influence in the conceptualisation of caregiving in an all-inclusive manner with an in-depth understanding of elements specific to the south african context. the typical south african perspective involves the need for a broader comprehension of the contextual effects of caregiving and how female caregivers may in turn influence their environment. limited financial and material resources, together with other spheres of the environment, may further compound the female caregiver burden (fcg burden).12,13,14 about 32% of the south african, in 2021, population live in rural areas,15 and a large proportion of the rural dwellers are said to be poor.16 the underlying factors of burden are those related to poverty and powerlessness, and these are particularly endemic among the nonwhite citizens. in the low-income settlements where poverty is widespread, the main sources of compensation in the form of food and/or transportation costs are significant predictors of participation in palliative care. therefore, for some the caregiving role manifests as a source of livelihood that cannot be ignored and an important factor in a country that has high rates of insufficiency and dispossession.17,18,19 clearly, this phenomenon would have major implications regarding an individual’s inspiration to become a caregiver. but in most poor communities, caregiving is not a choice. in such situations, caregivers are at a greater health risk regarding obligation and a sense of distress that is concomitant with their caregiving role.20 therefore, circumstantial factors could permeate the emotional impact within the broader caregiving context and knowledge. these factors can have a negative effect on the consideration of the caregiver’s involvement and the nature of the caregiving, especially among less affluent families. in this research, a caregiver (irrespective of age and sex) refers to any person who takes care of a nonbiological child, physically impaired person or a person who needs assistance in activities of daily living. the focus of this research is the informal caregivers, usually women, who play an important role in their dependents’ well-being (i.e. care recipients such as children and aged persons) living in the household. several studies21,22,23 have reported on an experience of burden in executing this role, with few studies24 contending that the caregiving role is beneficial. moreover, a majority of the research on caregiver burden seems to involve meta-analysis of qualitative studies, with little quantitative research. this research will be largely quantitative to identify the predictors of caregiver burden within the study population to aid the statistical modelling in the estimation of a multidimensional model in the selected different cultural low-income settlements in cape town. the extant literature focuses only on a subsection of the group of concepts, and the measure of these concepts is limited to a few variables only. this study takes all of these spheres or contexts into account for an in-depth understanding of the burden processes in the study setting. it is against this backdrop that this work takes the lazarus and folkman model into account,25 which is consistent with stress process model26 that generally provides a basis to explain the processes when a person has to make an effort to cope with a stressful event such as caregiving. research methods and design from each of the two different cultural settlements (i.e. black or african and mixed race communities), a total of 100 female caregivers were selected through a systematic random sampling (srs) procedure; thus, there was a total of 200 participants in this study. data were collected on each construct emanating from the literature. however, two additional constructs of interest were included, namely: (1) environmental factors and (2) some selected health outcomes of care recipients, to allow for a more complete assessment of their effects on caregiver burden. the data were collected using structured interviews with the primary female caregiver in each household. two study areas chosen for the study included a predominantly black (new rest in gugulethu) and a predominantly mixed race (new woodlands in mitchells plain) settlement that consists of mainly subsidised housing in cape town. a pilot survey was used to test the validity and consistency in the questions. inclusion criteria were the primary female caregivers who were present during the interview and willing and able to give informed consent. the study defined caregiver as someone having an elderly person and/or a nonbiological child under her care and living in a formal settlement within a defined boundary of the settlement. further, dwelling units that formed part of the pilot study were not included in the main study. outcome variables and measurement consistent with the main effects of social research in caregiver studies, the main interest was related to fcg burden or strain. this effect was measured as either being burdened or feeling no burden, using the applicable inventory variables in the study settings. data analysis the fully structured instrument assessed the caregiving burden and used both objective and subjective measures. caregiver burden was measured with the aid of self-report information from the recipients. the study used eight questions in the assessment, including: (1) financial strain, (2) insufficient level of funds, (3) a lack of privacy, (4) physical strain, (5) change in lifestyle, (6) difficulties with social life, (7) sleep disturbance and (8) a lack of control over one’s life. function of the care recipients was examined by using the activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living. the former included difficulties the participants experienced with feeding, cooking, dressing, bathing and washing the clothes of care recipients. the latter included the user needs of care recipients (i.e. wheelchair, spectacles, walking stick and transport). descriptive statistics were used to depict the sociodemographics of the data and caregiving burden mediators, and the regression method was used to determine predictors of caregiver burden in the study. all statistical analyses were done using statistical package for the social sciences (spss) version 22 (ibm corporation, armonk, new york, united states). ethical consideration the ethical committee of the faculty of applied sciences of the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) gave the ethical clearance for the study (ref. no. 07/2013), and all participants had to complete a consent form. results the reliability test was conducted and the results showed that the cronbach’s alpha for items of activities of daily living was 0.909, and that of instrumental activities of daily living was 0.836. the caregiving burden mediators and regression analysis were preceded by a brief description of the sociodemographic attributes or characteristics of the sample and burden evaluation. sociodemographic characteristics of the sample the sample comprised 50.0% black african and 50.0% mixed race respondents. the mean age of the participants was 47.9 years (standard deviation [sd] = 11.7 years) and about one-third (35.5%) of the caregivers were educated. a total of 61% of the respondents were not in a spousal relationship. only 2.6% earned r2000.00 or above per month. almost half (i.e. 49.5%) of the respondents were in the caregiving role, providing care for 30 h or more per week. and only a small percentage (1.6%) indicated using some sort of caregiving burden–alleviating programme associated with the caregiving tasks. female caregiver burden evaluation from the eight caregiver‑strain or burden‑inventory questions, fcg burden was computed using a composite score with a mean after a reliability test (cronbach’s alpha = 0.819). the mean fcg burden was 27.04 (sd = 5.46), with minimum and maximum scores of 13 and 40, respectively. the percentage of people below the mean caregiving burden was 45.7%, and the percentage of those above the mean score was 54.3%. caregivers with a score above the mean were presumed to be burdened. the score indicates that the higher the score, the higher the caregiver burden. female caregiver burden mediators table 1 presents the socio-economic characteristics, the caregiving contexts and female caregiving burden mediators. the results show that, the average burden score was 27.04% (sd = 5.46), with minimum and maximum scores of 13.0% and 40.0%, respectively. table 1: female caregiving burden mediators (n = 200). in terms of a caregiver approach when something goes wrong with the care recipients, a majority of the caregivers reported a spiritual approach (contacting a pastor, 14.5%, and praying over it, 37.0%). a small proportion (12.5%) made use of other approaches. about 20.0% of the caregivers reported approaching their family and/or neighbours, and 13.5% of caregivers reported contacting the care recipient’s parents directly. only 2.5% reported taking a walk to relax as an approach. for reliability on family support, 64.0% reported that they can rely on their family for support, whereas 36.0% reported that they cannot rely on their family for the necessary support. regarding receipt of any financial reward or pay for the caregiving task, 26.0% reported yes and 74.0% reported no to the question. with respect to receiving social grants for care recipients under their care, a significant proportion of caregivers (72.1%) reported receiving a form of social grant on behalf of the care recipients, while 27.9% reported that they do not receive any form of social grant on behalf of the care recipients. the question was asked because in cape town there do exist safety nets such as child support grants. as informal caregiving takes place in the community, this study explored whether the caregivers could rely on the social networks within their community to give quality care. interestingly, larger proportions of caregivers (69.0%) reported that they could rely on their settlements for support, whereas 31.0% reported that they could not rely on their settlements for support if and when needed. for the childcare recipients’ health, it is quite striking that as countries seek to achieve full universal coverage of immunisation against childhood diseases in an effort to eradicate both infant mortality and child mortality, some settlements in parts of africa are sadly reporting low coverage levels. a large proportion of the caregivers (95.9%) in this study reported that they have a ‘road-to-health card’ for the children under their care. it is to be mentioned that a caregiver (respondent) who responded ‘yes’ to having a health card for the child was asked by the interviewer to show it before it was noted as such. in terms of care recipients’ health evaluation, chronic condition status was used as the health outcome in this study. the caregiver was probed to learn whether any of the care recipients lived with a chronic condition. about one-third of the respondents (33.5%) mentioned that the care recipient has some or other chronic condition, with the remainder (66.5%) reporting that the care recipient has no chronic condition. for verification, those who responded ‘yes’ on this question were further probed to learn if the care recipients who live with the chronic condition were taking chronic medication. an overwhelming majority (98.4%) of this group indicated that those living with these conditions were on some type of chronic medication. for further verification for this information, the caregiver was asked to show the container of the chronic medication. regression analysis with caregiving burden as the dependent variable – an estimated model the results of the individual constructs with the set of predictors in five blocks using fcg burden as the dependent variable are presented in table 2, and the regression model effect on caregiver burden is given in table 3. table 2: results of multiple regression analysis of mediators, environmental and physical health factors (model 5). table 3: constructs and regression model effect on caregiver burden. in table 2, model 1, the results showed that 15.8% of the variation in caregiver burden (adj. r2 = 0.158) was explained by female caregivers’ age, population group or race, education, income and marital and employment status. in this model, population group statistically predicts fcg burden (β = 4.805, p < 0.05). further, in table 2, about 25.0% of the variation in caregiver burden (adj. r2 = 0.25) in model 2 was explained by the background characteristics of respondents and the stressor variables, such as duration in the care role, number of hours care provided, the daily living activities, instrumental activities of daily living, chronic diseases and diarrhoea. in model 2, the caregiving burden for those who provided care for recipients living with chronic disease was 2.7 points higher than that of those providing care for recipients with no chronic disease (β = 2.733, p < 0.05). in table 2, models 3, 4 and 5, controls for constructs 1 and 2, stress mediator variables such as family support, social grants, coping strategies and programme use were introduced. furthermore, 34.5% of the variation in caregiver burden (adj. r2 = 0.345) in model 3 was explained by the three constructs. in this case, receipt of social grants was the only significant predictor of caregiver burden. specifically, the caregiving burden for those who received social grants was higher than those with no social grants (β = 4.487, p < 0.05). in model 4, the environmental factors such as kitchen hygiene and toilet hygiene were added to model 3. also, 35.3% of the variation in caregiver burden (adj. r2 = 0.353) in model 4 was explained by the model, and social grants were still the only significant predictor of caregiver burden (β = 4.355, p < 0.001). the final or overall model (model 5), adjusting for models 1–4, is the proposed estimated model (an estimated model of caregiver burden in the study) of fcg burden, with the set of predictors that were statistically significant and jointly explained approximately at 43.4% of the variance in caregiver burden (adj. r2 = 43.4%, p < 0.05). considering the four estimated models that preceded model 5, the results showed that in the models, the variation in caregiver burden was explained by significant variables of the constructs. these variations were as follows: 15.8% for model 1, 25.0% for model 2, 34.5% for model 3 and 35.3% for model 4. in each of the models, there were additional predictors of fcg burden, with the exception of model 4, in which the hypothesised construct (environmental health – kitchen hygiene and toilet hygiene) did not show any effect but slightly increased the variation in caregiver burden from 34.5% to 35.3%. the effect of environmental health factors could be nested in key socio-economic factors such as education and income status. model 1, the population group of caregivers; model 2, availability of social support in the form of grants; model 3, chronic disease status of care recipients; and model 5, social support and physical health or function of care recipients all significantly predict caregiving burden in the study population. discussion the majority of the researches on caregiver burden involves the meta-analyses of qualitative studies with little quantitative research. this research was largely quantitative and evaluated caregiving burden with prediction possibility constructs. female caregiver burden was reported among the participants. the study showed a significant statistical relationship between the posited constructs in the study, environmental health (kitchen hygiene and toilet hygiene) in the physical home environment and the care recipients’ physical health. further, this study aided in providing female caregiving burden predictors and estimated a multidimensional model that showed: (1) social grant receipt as a form of safety net and (2) the physical health status of the care recipient being key predictors of female caregiver strain (burden) and explained the largest variation (approximately 43.4%) in caregiver strain in the selected different cultural low-income settlements in cape town. this study evaluated caregiving burden with the aid of the lazarus and folkman model25 and stress process models26 for their wide acceptance in the caregiving burden literatures. two important constructs – that is, environmental health and care recipients’ physical health – were incorporated towards estimation of a multidimensional model of caregiver burden in the two low-income but different cultural settlements in cape town. the findings of the study indicate that the number of hours of care, daily living activities, instrumental activities of daily living and the chronic disease status of the care recipients were all significantly related to caregiving burden. thus, female caregivers who spent more hours in care tended to experience less care burden (r = -0.248, p < 0.01). this finding concurs with other studies27,28,29 that suggest that the caregiving role is rewarding rather than being viewed as negative to the mental health of the caregiver. however, care recipient stressors such as duration of care, the daily living instrumental activities and diarrhoea were not significantly related (p > 0.05) to caregiving burden. in the case of the care recipient’s needs for activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living, important care‑recipient characteristics were associated with caregiver mental health, such as depression, including problem behaviour and higher dependence in activities of daily living.30,31,32 when the female caregiver participates in instrumental activities in her effort to give care to the dependent recipient, such activities can obstruct other aspects of her life, such as relationships with other family members and even personal privacy, which could potentially result in stress or burden.11,18,25,26 other works posit a positive relationship between time in assisting with activities of daily living and objective burden.26 this study established that the more impaired a care recipient was in reference to activities of daily living, the greater the burden of the caregiver’s experience (r = 0.153, p < 0.05). this corroborates the findings that care recipients’ dependence for using the toilet is burdensome.1 these associations suggest that age, cultural differences, differences in education and income levels are important factors regarding experience of infectious or noninfectious diarrhoea in care recipients in the caregiving environment. these findings are supported by studies of the experiences of caregiver burden among asian-american caregivers,33 as well as research regarding caregiver strain among black and white daughter caregivers34 and a meta-analysis of ethnic differences in stressors, resources and psychological outcomes of family caregiving.32 in the selected areas for this study, this was not the case for marital status, probably because marital status determines transmission of infection. the study showed a statistically significant relationship between environmental health (kitchen hygiene and toilet hygiene) of the home and the physical health of care recipients. it is shown that a majority of the caregivers have a basic education and therefore read and understand basic health information. this means that the caregivers could have access to hygiene‑sensitive information. thus, one would expect that in these homes, if the kitchen were clean, the toilet too would be hygienically clean. however, it is expected that with a bad home hygiene status, especially if the toilet is not kept clean and regularly disinfected, the care recipients would be exposed to bacterial infections. a preliminary analysis using the chi-square test (bivariate analysis) for environmental factors such as kitchen hygiene and toilet hygiene status found a statistically significant relationship between these factors and the physical health of care recipients. this finding suffices for a conclusion that there is an association between environmental health status and the physical health of care recipients. this was supported by the results of the pearson correlation analysis.30 therefore, the possibility of ‘formalising’ the ‘informal caregiving’ sector in society, especially in lower socio-economic status communities, could alleviate the need for caregiving facilities and caregivers by the state, in which case the informal caregiving households could be registered as such, and the households could be subjected to regular health and hygiene inspections by environmental health practitioners. the estimated model presented by this study, model 5, showed that only two variables: (1) social grant receipt as a form of safety net and (2) physical health status of care recipient, predicted female caregiver strain (burden) and explained the largest variation (approximately 43.4%) in caregiver strain. the caregiver strain or burden was reported by caregivers who did not receive social grants on behalf of their care recipients. categorically, only these two predictor variables made a difference in caregiver strain in the study areas in cape town. thus, social grants and care recipients’ physical health status are important community policy factors. limitations a major limitation experienced was that it was not possible to determine the specific or chronic disease for which caregivers were providing care. soliciting such information would have infringed upon the respondents’ privacy, but such data could have helped to determine the effect of each disease on the burden. because of the complexity of the caregiving situations encountered during the interviews, further probing was not carried out to learn who else was present to provide care in the absence of the main caregiver, nor if there were detergents such as toilet soap in the house. information on hygiene practices such as washing hands after toileting were not probed for or directly captured in the questions. adding this element would have allowed for a better understanding of the difference between knowledge and practice among caregivers in the study settings. also, with the small number of caregivers in the sample, it was not possible to infer the findings to all caregivers in cape town. more low-income settlements should be included in future studies on modelling caregiver burden to aid an estimation of national burden model. conclusion on the basis of the current work, future research and healthcare policies by government to help ameliorate fcg burden at the household level should consider the estimated model proposed (model 5) as a benchmark. the key factors of caregiver burden were the number of hours in the care role, daily living activities, instrumental daily living activities and care recipients’ chronic disease status. families are recommended to support caregivers by providing the needed instrumental support and socio-economic support. the results of the analyses of the relationships between the constructs provided a critical basis for making recommendations for both policy and future research. the inclusion of the care recipient’s physical health status and the environmental health factors such as kitchen and toilet hygiene statuses in the stress process model26 could have improved the model. the work of lazarus and folkman25 has given this postulation an impetus by buttressing the importance of caregivers’ appraisal of the caregiving environment. it is, in this view, supporting the statistical model presented from this study that the model proposed (model 5), should suffice for the need for a robust model of caregiving burden in designing healthcare intervention for both caregivers and care recipients in less affluent settlements in the developing world. findings from the study shed light on important aspects of informal carers’ circumstances, particularly in the low-income settlements in cape town. it would make a significant contribution to the realm of public health, specifically on issues of informal caregivers’ literature for family practice and policy. the study recommends government recognition of the increasing importance of care recipients’ physical health and thus increase the amount of the social grants given to the caregivers, because it could improve the circumstances of both the caregivers and the care recipients. also, it could reduce the burden on the government to provide more formal care institutions for care recipients, while it could assist with improving the standard of living of the female caregivers in the population. acknowledgements competing interest the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions y.a.y. is the lead researcher who led the conception and design, collection and analysis of data, interpretation of results and manuscript write-up. d.w.s. substantially contributed to the conception and design of the study and also provided guidance in the manuscript write-up. funding information the university research fund of the cape peninsula university of technology (cput) funded the study. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, y.a.y., upon reasonable request. disclaimer the views expressed in the article are solely of the authors and not an official position of the affiliated institution or the publisher. references james k, thompson c, holder nevins d, et al. socio-demographic, health and functional status correlates of caregiver burden among care recipients age 60 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distinguish between users of different ages. to determine the extent of the gap, this article compares the ways in which two user groups, adults and children, learn how to use an unfamiliar software application. in doing this, we bring together the research areas of human-computer interaction (hci), adult and child learning, learning theories and strategies, usability evaluation and interaction design. a literature survey conducted on learnability and learning processes considered the meaning of learnability of software applications across generations. in an empirical investigation, users aged from 9 to 12 and from 35 to 50 were observed in a usability laboratory while learning to use educational software applications. insights that emerged from data analysis showed different tactics and approaches that children and adults use when learning unfamiliar software. eye tracking data was also recorded. findings indicated that subtle reinterpretation of the learnability principle and its associated sub-principles was required. an additional sub-principle, namely engageability was proposed to incorporate aspects of learnability that are not covered by the existing sub-principles. our re-interpretation of the learnability principle and the resulting design recommendations should help designers to fulfill the varying needs of different-aged users, and improve the learnability of their designs. keywords: child computer interaction, design principles, eye tracking, generational differences, human-computer interaction, learning theories, learnability, engageability, software applications, usability disciplines: human-computer interaction (hci) studies, computer science, observational studies. 1. introduction the classic principles and guidelines for software design were aimed at improving work performance and productivity, aspects relevant mainly to adult users. many of these principles cannot be applied to children’s products, since their needs, skills and expectations differ greatly from those of adult users (chiasson and gutwin, 2005). it is generally known that 1 . b chimbo, j h gelderblom and m r de villiers are members of the academic staff in the school of computing, university of south africa, pretoria, their respective contact details are: chimbb@unisa.ac.za, gelderjh@unisa.ac.za and dvillmr@unisa.ac.za chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 384 adults and children learn differently, and our assumption is that this has not been taken sufficiently into consideration in software design. children are a major user group and software aimed at them is mainly designed by adults. if these adult designers want to adequately address the needs of child users, they need a clear understanding of the differences between the requirements of child and adult users. guidelines that distinguish between users of different age groups will support this. this study is a trans-disciplinary venture that crosses boundaries between domains to create a more holistic approach. trans-disciplinarity implies the integrated application of various scientific theories, as is done in this research, which combines the disciplines of software design, learning and human-computer interaction. we explore frontiers of knowledge as we compare how children and adults learn to use software applications and, in particular, identify the value of engageability as an attribute that enhances learning by children. various human-computer interaction (hci) researchers have proposed guidelines aimed at design for children (fishel, 2001; baumgarten, 2003; and gelderblom, 2008). this study attempts to augment these ventures. it does so by applying the literature and integrating research methodologies from various disciplines, including hci, adult and child learning, learning theories and strategies, usability evaluation, and interaction design. in an innovative approach, we investigated learning experiences by observing peer-teaching activities using both live observation and technological observation with usability testing equipment. in peer teaching, a participant who was familiar with an application taught a novice participant how to use it. self-teaching activities were also observed and for these we added eye tracking recordings to our observations. dix, finlay, abowd and beale (2004) provide designers of software interfaces with a comprehensive set of high-level directing principles with the aim of improving the usability of systems. they divide their principles into three categories, namely learnability, flexibility and robustness. learnability is one of the quality components of usability; it refers to a measure of the degree to which a user interface can be learnt quickly and effectively. in their definition of learnability, dix et al. (2004) include five sub-principles, namely predictability, familiarity, synthesisability, generalisability and consistency. these aspects are discussed further in sections 2.2 and 5.1 to 5.5. the focus of the research on which this article is based, was to investigate the learnability principle to establish whether it should be applied differently to software for varying age groups, thereby supporting designers in meeting different generational needs. the results culminated in the reformulation of the learnability principle to distinguish between its meaning for adult and child users. in pursuit of our goal, we compared the way in which children (aged 9 to 12) and adults (aged 35 to 50) learn to use unfamiliar software applications. we set out to achieve the following: • identify interface aspects which are complex for adults, but not for children, as well as those which are complex for children, but not for adults; • identify patterns in the learning behaviour of adults and children, respectively; and • use the above to compare how children and adults learn to use software, thereby broadening the definition of the learnability principle. the formal research questions that underlie the study are presented in section 3. a series of empirical studies was conducted with child and adult participants, using software aimed at engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 385 children and software aimed at adults respectively. data was collected through interviews, observations, video recordings and eye tracking.2 a comparative analysis of the meaning of the learnability principle for adults and children, based on their use of four software applications – timez attack, story book weaver, ms outlook and ms powerpoint – indicated that there are differences in the way adults and children learn. (the four applications are described in section 3.1.) notable differences were observed. for example, adults read instructions during initial stages of using the software, whereas children start to explore the software in a trial-and-error manner, without consulting instructions. the differences revealed aspects of software interfaces that adults and children approach differently, which has implications for the interpretations of the learnability principle. there are differences that are not covered by the current definition of the principle. this gap led to the proposal of an additional sub-principle, namely engageability that incorporates aspects of learnability that are not covered by the five existing sub-principles. engagement is crucial for learnability. what makes a product engaging for children is different from what would make it engaging for adults. the re-interpretation and expansion of the learnability principle and the design recommendations are intended to help designers of computer software address the varying needs of different-aged users, thereby improving the learnability of their designs. we next provide a review of relevant research and theory, covering work from different disciplines including theories of learning, adult learning, hci and interaction design. the research design and methodology are explained followed by a discussion of the research results. the latter include a discussion of the meaning of learnability for children and adults and a reformulation of the learnability principle. the findings from the research are summarised and conclusions are drawn. finally, we explain the contribution of the research, some limitations and aspects that require further investigation. 2. literature review as explained in the introduction, there is need to augment and refine the existing principles for the design of technology specifically targeted at children. our focus is on principles to improve the learnability of software applications. this section gives a brief introduction to the fields of hci and interaction design and then explores existing research concerning the learnability principle and, more generally, the research and theory related to how children and adults learn. 2.1 hci, interaction design and child-computer interaction the term hci was adopted in the mid-1980s to denote a new field of study concerned with studying and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of computer use (kotzé and johnson, 2004). hci is concerned with the design, implementation and evaluation of interactive systems, with specific consideration of what a user needs to accomplish when using the 2 . eye tracking is a technique which determines eye movement and eye-fixation patterns. a full definition is given in section 3.2. chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 386 system (dix et al., 2004). hci is a multi-disciplinary subject with computer science, psychology and cognitive science at its core (dix et al., 2004). closely related to hci is interaction design, which preece, rogers, and sharp (2007:8) define as ‘designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives’. the focus is on how to design user experiences using a variety of methods. interaction design places emphasis on user participation in the design process, but according to preece et al. (2007), it is equally important to understand how people act and interact with one another, with information and with technology; and their abilities, emotions, needs and interests. historically, computers and computer applications have been designed for use by adults for assistance in work-related pursuits. in many accepted definitions of hci and interaction design, there is a hidden assumption that the users are adults. there are, for example, references to users’ ‘everyday working lives’ (preece et al., 2007) or the ‘organization’ they belong to (dix et al., 2004). children, however, make up a substantial part of the larger user population. whereas products for adult users usually aim to improve productivity and enhance performance, products for children are aimed more at providing entertainment or engaging educational experiences. child-computer interaction has emerged in recent years as a specialised research field within human-computer interaction. this is manifested in the annual interaction design and children conference that has been held since 2002. until recently, only developmental psychologists, educationists, and market researchers were interested in children as users of interactive technology. currently however, numerous researchers in the field of hci are focusing their attention on design of children’s technology. technology has become an important element of the context to which contemporary children belong and it is important to understand its impact on children. the development of any technology can be successful only if the designers truly understand the target user group. the present research contributes towards that understanding, by specifically investigating what learnability of software interfaces means for users of different ages. 2.2 the learnability principle the aim of design guidelines, standards and design principles is to help designers to improve the usability of their products by giving them rules according to which they can make design decisions (dix et al., 2004). these rules restrict the range of design options and prevent the designer from making choices which are likely to harm the usability of the product. learnability is related to the time it takes users to learn to use the commands for a task or the effort of a typical user in performing a set of tasks on an interactive system (nielsen, 1994; santos and badre, 1995; shneiderman, 1997; dix et al., 2004; senapathi, 2005). learnability comprises specific measurable attributes and can be evaluated by measuring them in a real-life context. it deals with the initial understanding of the system by the novice user, as well as the attainment of maximum performance once users have learnt how to use it (preece et al., 2007). in the hci context, learnability relates to interactive features that help novice users learn quickly and that expedite steady progression to expertise. various sub-principles that affect learnability have been identified (preece et al., 2007; dix et al., 2004; senapathi, 2005; aspinall, 2007). as mentioned before, dix et al.’s classic set of engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 387 principles are predictability, synthesisability, familiarity, generalisability and consistency. predictability refers to the ease with which users determine the result of future interface interactions, based on the past interaction history (dix et al., 2004). a predictable system is easy to learn. synthesisability is the system’s ability to provide an observable and informative notification about its internal changes of state (aspinall, 2007). when a system is synthesisable, users can assess consequences of their actions. the familiarity principle relates to the ability of an interactive system to support the mapping of prior experiences onto a new system (dix et al., 2004). familiarity impacts on novices’ initial perception and whether they can determine the required actions from their own prior experience. generalisability supports users in extending their knowledge of interaction in and across other applications, to new, but similar, situations. to support generalisability, consistency is essential, with systems offering similar functionality in comparable situations (dix et al., 2004; preece et al., 2007; nielsen, 1994). 2.3 learning theories and definitions of learning learning is the process of transforming experience, skills and attitudes and involves various sub-processes (siemens, 2006). it is broader than education and can occur outside educational settings. learning theories describe ways in which people learn, providing conceptual frameworks for interpreting the learning process (siemens, 2006). three major learning theories are behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism. behaviourists see learning as a black-box approach (driscoll, 2000). behaviourism focuses on observable behaviour, influenced by rewards and punishment as stimuli, and views behavioural changes as a learning result (venezky and osin, 1991). cognitivism relates to cognitive processes such as the formation of mental models, metacognition, and self-regulation. cognitivists view learning as internal human information processing (driscoll, 2000). according to de villiers (2005), constructivism relates to personal knowledge construction and interpretation, active learning, anchored instruction, and multiple perspectives on an issue. the constructivist approach proposes that understanding and learning are constructed by personal reflection (driscoll, 2000). none of these is exclusively right or wrong, although constructivism is presently accepted as the most relevant, and many current educational policies, models and practices focus primarily on constructivist learning. learning, whether deliberate or incidental, cognitive or practical, involves a change in knowledge, skills or attitudes. it occurs by using prior knowledge, conditions, and mental understanding to synthesize the skill or concept being acquired. learning is flexible, occurring via different routes and learners do not always know exactly where they will end up (rushton, eitelgeorge and zickafoose, 2003; goffree and stroomberg, 1989; jarvis, 2006). furthermore, learning can be enhanced by the development of specific skills. cotton (1995) distinguishes between three types of skills: psycho-motor skills that become automatic after repeated performance, perceptual skills controlled and conducted by the senses, and cognitive skills used in the process of acquiring knowledge. using software applications is a composite skill that requires all three of these skills. 2.4 comparison of adult and child learning learning in adults and children is qualitatively different, due to the maturation of the brain’s learning capacity and to different life situations (illeris, 2006). in childhood, learning is chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 388 typically uncensored and trusting. children develop their thinking abilities by interacting with other children, adults and the physical world. in adulthood, learning is fundamentally selective. adults concentrate on learning things that concern work, careers, family and interests. learning is motivated by a need to become more self-directed. another important difference is that children have not completely developed cognitively, emotionally or physically. children learn best when learning is initiated by their inquisitiveness and interests, rather than imposed (woolley, 1997). they naturally seek to make sense of experiences and to find order and patterns in their environment. they should know which forms of behaviour produce desirable effects and eliminate those that do not (ramey and ramey, 2004). children are keen observers of other people and can mimic behaviour (thornton, 2002). they learn by peer-interaction, playing or solving problems together. play provides opportunities for exploration and trial-and-error in safe and enjoyable settings (ramey and ramey, 2004). when emotions are engaged, events and ideas are more strongly committed to memory. children also learn a great deal from involvement with activities conducted by adults or more experienced children (thornton, 2002). adults are more successful at developing a skill when they understand why they should acquire it (knowles, 1998). an adult’s ability and willingness to learn is largely affected by the value they place on the task at hand (knowles, 1998; merriam, caffarella and baumgartner, 2007). in order to motivate an adult, whatever they learn should be relevant to everyday life. they are driven to learn by the desire to know more, provided that it is clearly relevant or useful. adults enter learning with a large quantity of experience that varies from individual to individual (gravett, 2001). in the learning process, they draw on the resources they already have (illeris, 2006). as people mature, they become less dependent and more self-directed; thus, they develop a need to be recognized, and treated, by others as self-directed human beings (merriam et al., 2007). adults employ self-directed learning, taking responsibility for how they set their learning goals, locate appropriate resources, decide on which learning methods to use, and how they evaluate their progress (brookfield, 1995). adults who have decided to learn something, generally wish to see rapid results on their efforts. according to brookfield (1995) there is a form of competitiveness in the way adults approach learning. learning, for them, is linked to quality of life and self-esteem. many adults judge themselves according to how learned they are. the differences between the learning of adults and children that are particularly relevant to our research are: 1. children often depend on adults for material and psychological support during learning, while adults depend upon themselves (cave, lamaster and white, 2006). 2. adults are largely self-directed in that they are responsible for deciding what, when, and how learning will occur. this difference is relative and varies according to context (leberman et al., 2006). 3. children perceive learning to be explicitly one of their major roles in life, while adults perceive themselves as doers who use learning to achieve success (ference and vockell, 1994). adults learn best when they perceive the outcomes of the learning process as valuable and contributing to their own development and success. engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 389 4. adults have more life experience than children, which provides a good foundation for learning. however, it can also be a hindrance and a child’s lesser experiences can occasionally prove more beneficial. adults can be less willing to explore new ways of doing things (durham, 2010). having established the theoretical context of the research reported here, we next give a detailed account of how the research was conducted. 3. research design and methodology following terre blanche and kelly’s (1999) classification of a research approach, our research can be described as descriptive, basic and qualitative. it is descriptive in the sense that it represents a picture of the specific details of a situation, social setting or relationship (neuman, 2003; terre blanche and kelly, 1999) – in this case the relationship between users and software applications. rich descriptions of the behaviour of participants at the interface provided the starting point for data analysis. the research is basic as it seeks to improve understanding of basic principles – here, the principles of interaction design. qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used, but the analysis was mainly qualitative. the analysis resulted in the interpretation of observed differences as a series of insights into the different meanings of learnability. the research was guided by the following questions: 1. does the learnability of software interfaces have a different meaning for child and adult users? 2. should the learnability principle be adapted or interpreted differently to be applicable to software applications aimed at users from different age groups? the participants in this research were children between the ages of 9 and 12 years and adults aged from 35 to 50. by the age of 9, children are able to complete a task by following specific directions and they have an adequate attention span (hanna, risden and alexander, 1997). a total of 28 participants were involved – 12 children and 16 adults. table 1 shows the participant profile. eight of the participants were experts in one or more of the software applications and twenty were novices. five of the participants acted as both experts and novices, as there were software applications with which they were familiar and other applications which they had not used before. the children came from two primary schools in pretoria, south africa and the adults were employees from one university in pretoria, south africa. all participants were volunteers who responded to an invitation to participate. table 1 participant profile age range gender computer experience c hi ld re n 9 to 12 5 male 7 female 1 low 4 moderate 6 moderately high 1 high a du lts 35 to 50 8 male 8 female 2 low 2 moderate 7 moderately high 5 high chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 390 3.1 software used in this research the four software applications used in our experiments are described below: 1. timez attack is an educational software application, cleverly disguised as a captivating computer game. timez attack teaches the multiplication tables. users navigate an avatar (a little green alien) through dungeons in search of golden keys to open doors. the keys take the form of multiplication problems. when a key is found, the program takes the user through a sequence of events that helps to systematically build up the answer to the problem. 2. storybook weaver deluxe 2004 is a software application for creating stories. users can choose from a large selection of backgrounds to create scenes on the pages of their electronic storybook. they can also select from thousands of story characters and objects to create illustrations. 3. microsoft outlook manages e-mail, calendars, contacts, tasks, to-do lists and documents or files on the hard drive. 4. microsoft powerpoint is a software product used to create computer-based presentations typically used when presenting a conference paper, teaching a class, introducing a product to sell, or explaining an organisational structure. 3.2 experimental procedure (data collection) a series of experiments was conducted in a formal usability laboratory. each experiment involved a user learning a new application, either on his or her own, or with the help of an expert. the following eight combinations of participants were observed: 1. a child learning a new child product with the help of a child expert. 2. an adult learning a new child product with the help of a child expert. 3. an adult learning a new adult product with the help of an adult expert. 4. a child learning a new adult product with the help of an adult expert. 5. an adult learning a new adult product on his/her own. 6. an adult learning a new child product on his/her own. 7. a child learning a new adult product on his/her own. 8. a child learning a new child product on his/her own. data was collected through observation, eye tracking, video recordings and interviews. observations took place in the usability laboratory where all sessions were video recorded. the advantage of video recording is permanence as it allows us to experience an event repeatedly by re-viewing it (grimshaw, 1982). with each repeated viewing, we could adjust our focus somewhat and notice behaviours that were overlooked during previous viewings (erickson, 1982; fetterman, 1998). replaying the recordings also allowed the researchers engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 391 more time to contemplate the data before drawing conclusions. the repeated re-viewings were accompanied by extensive note taking. this yielded a rich set of data that was analysed qualitatively. usability testing is a usability evaluation method that measures performance as users do specified tasks on a target system. it is conducted in specialised usability laboratories with one-way glass, so that researchers can observe participants’ interactions with a system, without participants being aware of them. the sessions are video-recorded so that researchers can re-view them. eye tracking was another method used to collect data while single participants taught themselves to use software applications. eye tracking is a technique used to determine eye movement and eye-fixation patterns. it is the process of measuring the point of gaze, where the subject is looking, or the motion of an eye relative to the user’s head (pretorius, calitz and van greunen, 2005). in this research we used a tobii 1720 eye tracker, which was installed in the usability laboratory. informal, semi-structured interviews were held at the end of each session. the purpose of these short interviews with both the novice and expert participants after the experiment, was to discuss issues concerning: • how they felt during the experiment when they were observed and recorded, • whether the software was easy or difficult to learn, • parts of the software applications they enjoyed and those they did not enjoy, and • whether they were able to master all the required activities. 3.3 data analysis in analysing the observation and interview data, we followed the five step process proposed by terre blanche and kelly (1999): 1. familiarisation and immersion: this step involved immersing ourselves in the material gathered, by reading it repeatedly, taking notes and drawing diagrams, with the objective of obtaining complete comprehension of the collected data. the outcome was textual descriptions of the specific observed behaviours that relate to learnability of the software interfaces. 2. inducing themes: induction is the inference of general rules or classes from specific cases (terre blanche and kelly, 1999). through this process we identified themes that emerged from the data, using a bottom-up approach. these themes formed the basis from which descriptions of the observations were refined and reorganised. examples of themes identified are ‘[i]nterface aspects that adults struggle with but children do not’ and ‘differences in reactions to usability problems’. 3. coding: in our research, coding overlapped with the process of inducing themes. it involved ongoing dissection of the data and linking pieces of information to the identified themes. during this process themes were sometimes expanded or combined in the light of new discoveries. 4. elaboration: elaboration involved exploring the newly organised material to identify similarities and differences in the data that may lead to new insights. in this case, insights related to the difference between adults’ and children’s ways of learning a new software application. we reorganised the accrued material resulting from analysis and chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 392 coding into a coherent discussion of insights that would inform the reformulation of learnability. 5. interpretation and checking: in this phase, the final account of the study was compiled. it was necessary to ensure that no weak points, contradictions or gaps existed in the proposed framework. the result of the thorough data analysis process was a list of insights into aspects of interaction with unfamiliar software interfaces that reveal differences in how children and adults approach these applications. patterns that emerged from eye tracking studies were analysed by comparing the fixation paths and gaze plots of children and adults. these patterns served as further evidence for some of the insights that emerged from the analysis process described above. we elaborate on this in the subsequent discussion of the research results. the next section describes these insights. the insights led us to the final outcome of the study, namely a reformulated definition of learnability. 4. research results ten insights emerged regarding differences between adult and child participants’ experience at the interface. this section is structured around these insights. each insight is discussed with its justifying evidence, as well as the implications it has for software design. insight 1: children are more accepting and accommodating of usability problems than adults. we saw evidence of this in both the educational games, where there were clear usability problems. for example, in timez attack, a congratulatory message incorrectly appears on the screen before the player had actually achieved any milestone in the game. all the children ignored the message. the adults were taken aback or questioned why they were being congratulated before completing a task. in storybook weaver the buttons for selecting and adding objects to a story page do not follow general interface conventions. children, however, were unperturbed when they had to select and add an object by clicking on the + button instead of the expected ü button, as shown in figure 1 below. . figure 1 buttons for selecting and adding objects engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 393 children clicked on both buttons in an attempt to figure out the right one. adults, on the other hand, generally appeared irritated when they did not get the desired outcome by clicking a tick (ü). some of the comments from adults were: ‘i am completely baffled and whatever this is, it is non-intuitive…. ‘oh good grief! what must i do with this thing?’ ‘what must i do now?’ we learn from this that designers should not assume that a child’s impression of usability is valid. they can be very forgiving and may not comment on obvious problems when asked their opinions. it may be a good idea for designers to use adults to test products intended for children in order to discover potential usability problems that may be overlooked when testing with children. insight 2: children and adults use different learning techniques when playing an unfamiliar game. adults rely on instructions and are more systematic than children in how they approach learning a new application. children are more willing than adults to use trial-anderror to achieve an objective. children displayed fearlessness when confronted with a new application. they just wanted to get on with it, while most adults first consulted the instructions or tutorials. eye tracking results revealed that when the application was a game, children immediately searched for the button that would activate the game. in timez attack, for example, the longest fixations of child novices were on the play button at top left on the screen (see figure 2). adult participants, by contrast, fixated on the instructions at the bottom of the screen. this particular adult did not look at the play top left button at all, as shown in figure 3. figure 2 fixations of a child novice on the opening screen chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 394 figure 3 fixations of an adult novice on the opening screen further eye tracking results, as well as results from the observations, confirmed this. adults had considerably more fixations on the instructions during the first 20 seconds of playing timez attack, as previously mentioned, and as indicated by the concentration of fixations at the bottom of figure 3 in the area where the instructions were located. the average number of fixations on instructions during this 20 second period was 9.75 for children and 33.25 for adults. children ignored most of the on-screen instructions and seldom asked the available expert for help. adults were much more prone to seeking guidance. we learn from this that designers of software intended for children should not rely on written instructions to inform children how to use the software. they should use elements of predictability to make the software easy to use without instructional guidance. children learn through trial-and-error and are not afraid to experiment. this means that children’s products must be more robust and fault tolerant. designers should also make the instructions clearly detectable and well positioned on the screen, so that users (especially adults) can easily find and read them. insight 3: the life experiences of adults are much greater and more ingrained than those of children. adults tend to have fixed patterns as a result of their life experiences and can be less open-minded during learning than children. when playing a game that involved a combination of keyboard and mouse navigation, adult novices had difficulty, because they were accustomed to using the mouse for clicking buttons on menus rather than moving objects from one place to the other. they struggled to adjust to using the mouse for anything else (e.g. as a steering device). moreover, when adults had engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 395 already attached a meaning to an interface element, it was more difficult for them to accept a different use of the element, as in the case of the + and ü buttons discussed in insight 1. this insight was also supported by the way adult experts helped the novices, saying things that refer to prior life experiences, for example: “an e-mail carries the same principle as ... writing and posting a letter via the post office. the only difference is that this is done electronically”. we learn from this that software designers should thus design applications to accommodate the different learning styles of different age groups. there is a need to accommodate the more flexible approach of children, allowing them to achieve their goals in different ways. designers should accommodate the varying life experiences of users and encourage all age groups to explore and discover other ways of doing things, but they should bear in mind that adults may want to follow a path that corresponds to their deep-rooted ways of doing things. insight 4: children learn to use a new software application more independently than adults. child novices rarely asked for assistance. they discovered things independently without any need for guidance. their natural curiosity drove them to make new discoveries. they were also quick learners. if they were not sure what to do they just clicked randomly and went ahead. adult novices were hesitant to try anything independently and frequently asked for help. this included asking questions such as “what must i do now?”; “what do i write now?”; “what am i going to say?”; “do i still not give the answer?”; “how did you throw the creatures?”; “when i choose the font size, how do i know that i have chosen the right font size?”, and “can we do it together again, then l can later do it on my own”. software intended for children should facilitate independent learning. software designed for adults, on the other hand, should provide detailed instructions on use of the application or should provide easy access to a “help” facility. insight 5: child novices are faster than adult novices in gaining and mastering mouse and keyboard navigation skills during game play. as mentioned earlier, in timez attack, all the adults struggled to use the mouse/keyboard combination to navigate the avatar through the dungeons. examples of the emotional expressions of adult novices in reaction to mouse/keyboard navigation difficulties included: “ooooohmmmm!! what now?”; “oh man, what is the mouse doing?”; “oh good grief! what must l do with this thing?”; and “i give up!!”. out of the seven child novices who learnt how to play timez attack, only one experienced difficulty navigating characters with the mouse during the initial stages of the game, but improved at the end. designers of software applications should match the user interface controls to the ages of the users. for example, if adults find it difficult to coordinate the simultaneous operation of the mouse and the keyboard, software designers should provide additional support in assisting adults lerning to navigate. furthermore, designers should not assume that because adults generally have better hand-eye coordination than children, that they will be better than (or just as good as) children at navigation. chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 396 insight 6: adults want to have a clear picture of the entire software application before they start using the application, whereas children just start using the application. this is evident by the systematic way in which adult experts taught novices. the adult expert would begin by asking the novice if they knew anything about the application. depending on the outcome the expert would then provide an overview of the purpose and working of the complete product. only then would the expert start giving instructions for using the application and demonstrating it practically. whilst demonstrating, the expert would ask the novice questions to check whether they understood the demonstration. child experts did not give an overview before instructing novices on how to use the software applications for the first time. the child expert allowed the novice to learn the applications by participating from the start. all the adult participants began by reading the tutorials of timez attack and storybook weaver, while only one child participant read the timez attack tutorials. this confirms that adults want a clear and comprehensive picture of what is coming. if a product is designed for use by both children and adults, designers should provide customisable guided tours of the application in order to accommodate the requirements of both types of users. if there is a chance that adults will use a product, tutorials that give a product overview should be provided, as adults prefer to read instructions before using the application for the first time. children should have the option to omit instructions unless it is absolutely necessary for them to take note of them. insight 7: children do not expect things to go wrong. adults are more cautious, and tend to be more self-critical than children. evidence of the above insight is derived from the questions asked by the children. for example, “does it matter which numbers i use on the keyboard?”; “can i go the wrong way and see what happens?” and “i want to see what happens if i do not catch one of the snails?” adult novices hesitated to make any moves that they were unsure about. with all the applications demonstrated, adult novices often asked for reassurance. for example, “what if i click the wrong door?”; “how do i make the avatar walk to the left without making a mistake?”; “what if i make a mistake and fall in a dungeon?” this means that applications designed for children should show greater tolerance for incorrect operation than applications designed for adults. designers may work through a risk assessment to ensure the applications and their implementations do not expose children to unacceptable risks. if an application requires a very specific sequence of actions, the interface should make this clear so that children do not follow the wrong trail. insight 8: when learning to use a new software application, children are more comfortable learning from their peers than from adults. adults, on the other hand, are not affected by the age of the person who teaches them, as long as the person demonstrates clear knowledge of what he/she is doing. child novices appeared very relaxed when they were being taught by a child expert. they would frequently communicate with the child expert during a demonstration. when an adult expert was demonstrating, the children showed signs of intimidation by failing to ask engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 397 questions as they did when they were being taught by a child expert. this was confirmed during the interviews. when developing training materials for software applications, designers should be aware of the effectiveness of peer tutoring for children. for example, where voice-overs are used in automated demonstrations of software designed for children, it would be advisable for software application designers to use a child’s voice. when applications are developed for use in a school laboratory or in any situation where adult supervision will be present, the design should not presume that an adult will provide help when required. when struggling, the children may not ask for help spontaneously. they may rather try to get by on their own or ask their peers. insight 9: children appreciate interactive demonstrations, especially if the expert teaching them is a child, as opposed to one-way demonstrations with which adults seem comfortable. in the child-to-child demonstrations, novices were engaged from start to finish. child experts let the child novices interact and participate in decisions right from the start of a session. adult experts would give an overview of the application before starting a demonstration, and tended to explain their own choices in the beginning rather than letting the novice participate in the choices. designers are encouraged to develop instructional demonstrations that take full advantage of the needs and preferences of a particular user group. where voice-overs are used in demonstrations, children appreciate listening to another child’s voice, in line with this user group’s preference for peer tutoring. designers are also encouraged to embrace elements of interactivity that allow children to actively take part in the demonstration and to control the pace and progress of the demonstration. insight 10: children accept what they are learning regardless of its purpose. adults find learning to be purposeful if it has meaning and adds value to their lives. children and adults get more involved if they are using software that relates to them. adults connect their learning of new software applications to life experiences that may include workrelated activities, family responsibilities and even previous educational experiences. adult experts communicated a great deal of information on software applications such as outlook and powerpoint, because they were more well-versed with this software than with educational games such as timez attack and storybook weaver. adult novices showed great enthusiasm learning the former applications, since they knew that these would help them in their day-to-day work. child novices enjoyed the experience of using all of the software applications that they were taught. adult novices were more eager to learn powerpoint presentations and outlook than they were to learn educational games. whilst the experts were demonstrating the two games, child novices paid intense attention to how the game was played. adults showed more emotional engagement than children during their encounters with the software applications. adults became easily frustrated when they were using an application that was not meaningful to them. application designers should include elements of user interface design that reinforce positive emotions in the user. chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 398 to conclude this discussion on the insights, we highlight certain findings. adult learning is value-driven. adult learners need to know why they should learn something before undertaking to learn it. given the rationale for learning something, they will often invest considerable energy in investigating the increased benefits to be gained from the learning experience and the consequences of not learning it. adults appreciate learning concepts that are relevant to their everday life and that they can use afterwards. designers of software applications for adults should therefore make the value of learning a new application clearly apparent. our results thus show that the differences in how adults and children learn in general do not always apply when they are learning to use a new software application: • whereas adults usually rely on themselves in the learning process, when they learned to use the software games in this research, they depended more on the support of instructions and external assistance than children did. • adults were not noticeably more self-directed in learning these games than children. • adults’ broader life experience did not have a clear effect on their learning of the games. in some instances it hindered, rather than helped, them. children were more confident to learn through trial-and-error, while adults preferred to read instructions. section 2.3 introduced three major current learning theories. the way in which the adults in the study approached the teaching and learning of software applications indicated that they applied principles of cognitive learning. they developed mental models to guide their actions and used a self-regulated, systematic and holistic style as they sought fixed interaction patterns. children, by contrast, demonstrated constructivist learning as they taught and learned independently, actively, and interactively. they obtained their knowledge by personal exploration and construction rather than from an overview and instructions. the insights on the differences between the learning styles of children and adults serve as basis for our proposal in the next section regarding the definition of the learnability principle. 5. implications for interpretation of the learnability principle the research question addressed in this article relates to the possibility that learnability has different meanings for users of different ages. in the discussion that follows, we relate the sub-principles of learnability to the insights gained through this research, making suggestions for changes to accommodate users of different age groups. we end this section with the proposal of an additional sub-principle, namely, ‘engageability’. in our discussion of the engageability sub-principle we do not only provide support from our results – we also consult literature on the role of engagement in human-computer interaction as well as in learning to strengthen our case for including it in the definition of learnability. the way in which the subprinciples of learnability (dix et al., 2004) are represented in our insights is now discussed in detail. 5.1 predictability predictability allows users to know beforehand what will happen when they click on a menu item or press a key. insight 1 shows that children do not consider the meanings of interface engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 399 elements as critically as adults. they merely try out options until one works. adults, on the other hand, experienced confusion if a button or other function did not operate as they had expected. elements relating to predictability were also evident from insight 2. children used trial-anderror in learning, whilst adults read instructions first. this implies that children do not feel the need to predict the next step in interaction. however, predictability is also important for children because, if they use trial-and-error and do not succeed, they may lose interest. adults are more systematic than children in the way they learn to use a new software application. therefore user interface designers should be particularly aware of elements of predictability in user interfaces of applications designed for adults. insight 3 also refers to elements of predictability with regard to the way that adult novices use prior experience to predict future actions, whilst child novices are not necessarily guided by previous experiences. 5.2 synthesisability synthesisability is the ability of the user interface to allow the user to construct a predictive mental model of how it operates (hinze-hoare, 2007). a synthesisable interface allows the user to understand which actions have led to the current state, what the system did to get there, and what the user should expect next. insight 3 relates to synthesisability. it refers to the life experiences of adult novices that are greater and more diverse than those of children and that allow them to develop fixed life patterns or mental models that may enable them to overcome the difficulties of learning to use a new software application. however, at other times, these fixed mental models may be detrimental to learning an unfamiliar software application. fixed patterns as a result of prior experiences can make them less open-minded than children to new learning. insight 2 also relates to synthesisability in the sense that child novices, without much life experience to guide them in unfamiliar circumstances, work in a trial-and-error manner. they use what they learn in this way to construct cognitive maps of the operation of unfamiliar software. 5.3 familiarity familiarity is the degree to which the user’s experience and knowledge can be drawn upon to understand the operation of an unfamiliar system. familiarity impacts on the novice user’s initial perception of the system and on whether users can determine required actions from their own prior experience. when the new system is familiar, the user will relate it to similar systems or real-world situations, thereby reducing the cognitive burden involved in becoming adept in its use. the link between insight 3 and familiarity is obvious and the implication is that familiarity is more important for adult users than for children. insight 10 also relates to familiarity, indicating how both child and adult novices get involved in learning a new software application if it relates to some tasks or activities that they encounter in real life. users with previous experience of software applications in general will experience similar functionality while using the new software and will find it easier to learn than users with no prior chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 400 experience. the experiments showed that children mastered games faster than adults, probably because they had played such games or watched them being played. 5.4 generalisability an interface is generalisable if users are able to use what they have already learnt to carry out new tasks. insight 5 relates to generalisability, suggesting that child novices were faster than adult novices in mastering mouse and keyboard navigation skills. besides youthful dexterity, as opposed to the general slowdown of motor co-ordination with age, the main source of performance advantage in mouse and keyboard mastery by child novices over adult novices could be found in the generalisability of mouse and keyboard skills mastered in the prior use of applications. user interface standards and guidelines promote generalisability. a user who knows how to use specific icons in one application should be able to apply this knowledge in a different application. insight 1 exemplifies this point. 5.5 consistency kristoffersen (2008) states that generalisability is sometimes described as a form of consistency, except that it applies more broadly to situations, rather than just operations. insights 2 and 7 support nielsen’s (1994) assertion that consistent user interfaces encourage exploratory learning strategies. the propensity of child novices to use the trial-and-error approach to learning a new software application relates to the principle of consistency in the sense that consistent system feedback and responses to user action allows the child novice to learn how to play in this way. if system feedback and responses are consistent, child novices will have more success in their exploratory approach to learning. 6. reformulation of the learnability principle it is evident from the above discussion of the findings of this study that the sub-principles of learnability can be applied differently for children and adults. to summarise: predictability is more crucial in adult products than in those aimed at age group 9 to 12. adults prefer a predictable system, since they like to be sure of what will happen next and what they are able to do next, while children are more willing to try out different actions and just explore. children are less concerned about the effects of their actions than adults. synthesisability has a different meaning for the two user groups since their differing levels of experience influence the way they form mental models about the operation of a system. when designing for children, designers should thus be aware that children may construct different mental models from what they (the adult designers) would expect. a system that adheres to the principle of familiarity for adults may include elements with which children are not familiar. on the other hand, the fact that children are exposed to technology from early on, may mean that new input mechanisms that they have been exposed to through computer games may be unfamiliar to older people. the consequences of generalisability and consistency on learnability may be different for each user group, but there is no indication from the derived insights that the two user groups understand the meanings of the two principles differently. engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 401 the major contribution of this research is a suggested extension to the learnability principle. below, we present engageability as an additional sub-principle. 6.1 engageability engagement has been described from different perspectives: in the hci context, engagement is a goal of interface design; it is also the main focus in the well-established frameworks of flow theory and play theory (o’brien and toms, 2008). engageability occurs when a person loses himself or herself in an activity, losing all track of time and not noticing anything outside of the activity. engageability is thus associated with flow (csikszentmihalyi, 1990), which occurs when individuals are so engrossed in an activity that they do not want to stop. furthermore, it is related to intrinsic motivation, which is motivation that is internal to a learner. in contrast with extrinsic motivation, such as marks and rewards, intrinsic motivation is inherent in the learning process, and occurs when learning is found to be fun (alessi and trollip, 2001). in hci, engagement has been referred to in a number of different ways: “as a process; a stage in a process, or the overall process; as an experience; as a cognitive state of mind .....” (peters, castellano and freitas, 2009:1). van greunen, van der merwe and kotze (2010) view engagement as a user experience goal that is required for positive interaction with a system. engaging the user at the interface has been the topic of hci research, and engagement is also a familiar concept in learning. in as much as researchers have written on engagement in learning, the ability to engage – or ‘engageability’ – has never been explicitly considered as a learnability principle in hci. we define engageability as the extent to which a software application can fully engage the user by providing a complete and satisfying user experience. depending on relevance and context of use, a user interface that adheres to the engageability principle will enable users to be self-regulated, to define their own learning goals and to evaluate their own achievements. an engaging software application will naturally support users in knowing how to learn and transfer knowledge. engageability also promotes collaborative use, supporting the possibility of users sharing the experience. support for engageability can be found in a number of insights discussed in section 4. insight 9, for example, relates to children appreciating interactive demonstrations, as opposed to the more direct demonstrations that adults appreciate. to make an application engaging for a child, they should not be expected to passively watch a demonstration before they can start using the system. adults, on the other hand, may lose interest if they are unable to form a clear and holistic view of the system before they start to use it (insight 6). insight 10 is about children and adults engaging with the system and becoming more engaged and involved as they use software that relates to them. adults connect their learning of new software applications to life experiences and knowledge that may include work-related activities, family responsibilities and even previous education. the relevance of a system for the child or adult user respectively is thus an important aspect of engageability. insight 8 demonstrates that learning with peers makes children more active participants in the learning process – that is, they are more engaged when learning with another child. insights 2 and 4 imply that if children are forced to rely on instructions or tutorials to use an application they may well lose interest, while the opposite is true for adults. thus, engageability has very different meanings for children and adults. chimbo, gelderblom and de villiers 402 table 2 is a matrix which links the sub-principles and the insights. it indicates relationships between the ten insights and the six sub-principles. five are the original sub-principles proposed by dix et al. (2004), while the sixth is the sub-principle of engageability suggested in the present study to describe situations where users are fully engaged in the environment. it is notable in table 2 that engageability relates to five of the insights, more than the number to which any other sub-principle relates. table 2: matrix of insights and sub-principles insights 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 sub-principle a ccepting and accom m odating r elying on instructions l ife experiences c hildren m ore independent than adults g aining and m astering of skill h aving a clear picture a dults are m ore cautious c hildren learn from peers a ppreciating interactive dem onstrations a ccepting w hat is being learnt predictability √ √ √ synthesisability √ √ familiarity √ √ generalisability √ consistency √ √ engageability √ √ √ √ √ 7. conclusion the objective of the overarching research – to compare the meaning of learnability for child and adult users – was achieved. the lack of relevant information in the literature dealing specifically with the learnability principle suggested a gap in the body of knowledge. this research was an attempt to fill this gap and improve the granularity in the description of the learnability sub-principles. the comparison of the meaning of the learnability principle for children and adults using an unfamiliar software application yielded significant results for software designers and hci practictioners in general. the end result ultimately aided in the reformulation of the learnability principle in a way that distinguishes between the needs of adults and children. the way in which learnability and its sub-principles are currently defined, makes it difficult to clearly separate its application to different age groups. a new sub-principle, engageability, was proposed to incorporate aspects of learnability that were not covered by the existing definition. none of the existing sub-principles captures the importance of the engagement factor in the learnability of software applications. the more users are captivated by an application, the more committed they will be to master it. we have also shown that children and adults are captivated (that is, engaged) by different, and sometimes even opposite, characteristics of a user interface. however, further research is necessary to get further support for this principle, for example, to determine what the impact of context of use would be on its effectiveness or applicability. engageability as sub-principle in human-computer interaction td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 383 406. 403 we conclude this article on a practical level by providing some recommendations for software design as drawn from the results of this research: 1. software should be designed so that, even if instructions are available, users can use the software without instructional guidance. software intended for children should not rely on written instructions only, but should allow for trial-and-error techniques to be followed. software for adults, on the other hand, should provide detailed instructions and “help” facilities. 2. designers should make instructions clearly detectable and well-positioned on the user interface so that users are more likely to read them when it is essential for successful interaction. if adults will use the product, tutorials with product overviews should be provided. 3. designers should consider the coordination of mouse and keyboard use by both children and adults. it can take time to develop an understanding of the connection between moving a mouse and movement on a computer screen. adults may also require help to master the motor control required when input devices are used for actions to which they are unaccustomed. 4. applications designed for children should show greater tolerance for incorrect operation than applications designed for adults (that is, there should be flexibility for a trial-and-error approach to learning). 5. designers of software applications intended for adults 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accepted: 30 apr. 2020; published: 17 aug. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the concept of diaspora is phenomena. however, it is discussed conservatively by scholars in the fields of economics, spatial geography, politics, development studies, sociology and social anthropology. this article discusses the african diaspora as a tool for fostering the african renaissance. most, if not all, african countries were once colonies of western states, which imply that both people and economies were deprived of freedom of movement and freedom of association both within africa and beyond. they were therefore recipients of the so-called renaissance of the colonial masters, who were themselves diasporas of their mother nations. in fact, the western states themselves obtained some form of renaissance from africa, although they allegedly propose themselves to be the torchbearers of the african renaissance. the term ‘renaissance’ refers to an endless process of systematic transformation, systematic change and systematic reformation and is thought to be contagious. accordingly, the african diaspora is contributing to an african renaissance in all domains of life, that is, economically, socially, politically and technologically. those who have left africa are facing what this article would refer to as ‘payback time’ – repatriating resources to the african continent in order to pay back. the diaspora is thus playing a distributive role, transferring resources from regions of higher concentration to regions of lower concentration through ‘impermeable membranes’ (country borders) that are never porous. this article seeks to conceptualise the role of the african diaspora, examining and/or defining who forms part of the diaspora, by outlining the challenges of such a role in the continent. the respective governments of the country in which the member of the diaspora is now residing and the government of the homeland in africa should be involved in the way forward towards facilitating the contribution of the diaspora in terms of the revival of africans’ humanity and afrikology. moreover, they should be pushing for the creation of a united states of africa. keywords: diaspora; renaissance; systematic reformation; border jumper; alien; migration; transnationalism. ‘we must redouble our efforts to involve the diaspora and the migrants in the development process in order to widen our constituency, gain more support and increase our knowledge about development.’ (agnes van ardenne, minister for development, the netherlands, speaking in january 2003 to the national community development organization[ncdo]). introduction the concept diaspora is dynamic in nature and it is studied from a wide range of perspectives. geographically, diaspora is studied from within the african continent looking at africans moving from their home countries to other african countries or is studied from external boundaries. historically, the issues pertaining to the history of migration are included in this discussion. a diaspora can be defined as people who have migrated and their descendants who maintain a connection with their homeland. the issue of migration has taken centre stage in african economics, politics and sociology. some proponents argue that migration destructs the existing systems of a host country; on the other hand, supporters of migration purport that it is a fundamental element of the world system. globalisation facilitates movement across various regions (through regional integration) (ellerman 2003) and is thus a major topic in the 21st century, posing social, economic and political challenges for policy-makers in the future management of migration for the betterment of african societies. makina (2009) proposes that free trade economics treats labour, goods and capital as the factors of production that should be allowed to move freely to maximise welfare gains on both personal and global levels. international borders and constraints on migration tend to be treated as market failures. cross-border migration refers to migration between states that share a common border. this has generated a number of offensive terms directed at immigrant groups, dubbing them ‘border jumpers’, ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘illegal aliens’ amongst others (mcdonald et al. 1998). cross-border migration remains a controversial issue especially in government circles. in south africa, cross-border migration takes various forms and is both formalised and non-formalised. crush (2000:13) observed that whilst there is a highly formalised and regulated contract system in relation to the mines and farms, there is also informal, unregulated or clandestine movements across borders. from a closer scrutiny of the issue pertaining to the african diaspora and the renaissance of the african continent, one may perceive that the role of the diaspora in african renaissance is a highly contested terrain. if the diaspora is not treated with the respect it deserves, it may result in an uproar amongst politicians and economists, social commentators and neoliberalists. the following news headlines from various broadcast media highlight both a pessimistic and an optimistic historical view of africa: hundreds of illegal immigrants on hunger strike in zambian jails. (melvis dzisah, deutsche presse-agentur, 26 september 1998) immigration law draws criticism from neighbors. (panafrican news agency, 22 september 1998) south africa: immigrants are creating work – not taking our jobs. (chiara carder and ferial haffajee, africa news, 11 september 1998) southern africa: sadc protocol stirs hornet’s nest. (tabby moyo, africa news, 11 september 1998) african leadership is ambivalent on the issue of migration and its contribution to the betterment of humanity. zimbabwean leaders, for example, late president cde r.g. mugabe, pessimistically believed that migration cannot give birth to an african renaissance; hence, they allowed issues like xenophobia to go unchallenged especially during the zimbabwean land grabbing of the 2000s. however, some leaders like those in south africa, for example, former president t. mbeki, are optimistic when it comes to a renaissance. methodology the research methodology applied in this study is critical discourse analysis (cda). it is agreed upon that any explicit method in discourse studies, the humanities and social sciences may be used in cda research, as long as it is able to adequately and relevantly produce insights into the way discourse reproduces (or resists) social and political inequality, power abuse or domination. this method was used because it does not limit its analysis to specific structures of text or talk, but systematically relates these to structures of the sociopolitical context. critical discourse analysis has been used to examine political speech acts, to highlight the rhetoric behind these, and any forms of speech that may be used to manipulate the impression given to the audience. migration and renaissance: the double-edged catalysts of humanity’s evolutionary continuum there have been many black or african or africoid renaissances since the earliest period of human history and culture. homosapiens in the form of medium to tall, dark-skinned, smooth-skinned (no body hair), cloth-wearing (other materials) people existed as early as 40 000 bc (choi 2014). however, fully human people migrated from africa as early as 100 000 bc. in addition, an advanced culture also migrated from africa about 60 000–50 000 bc (grenville 1997). one group migrated to various parts of africa, particularly the sahara and west africa, in countries stretching from around sudan, somalia and eritria to mention just a few. another group migrated to southern europe and the middle east (grimaldi negroids), while another went to india. many migrated to the southern regions of east asia and to australia and melanesia (barton 2001). the group that migrated to india comprised completely black negroids from the eastern part of africa. in fact, people from africa were resident in india 70 000 bc, and many people in india today (at least 600 million), who have africoid features, curly to straight hair and brown to black skin, are, in fact, related to african black people and are called indonegroids (zlotnik 1998). these particular groups of africoids were the first people to move into europe after the ice age began to diminish and europe’s ice sheets began to melt about 20 000 years ago. the black people of india, who originally migrated from africa, continued to migrate into central asia and then europe from the indian subcontinent. however, before the indian black people moved into europe, an earlier group of africans moved into spain, armenia, russia and europe from the egypt-arabia region. in addition, many sailed along the coastline all the way to melanesia and australia, beginning with the negritos and then the taller black people similar in appearance to east africans and south indians. a very ancient group of africoids arrived in brazil about 30 000 bc according to brazilian scientists, who have found negroid skulls in the north-eastern part of brazil (tannenbaum 1946). this humanity’s evolutionary continuum history includes many african or black renaissances in africa, the americas, europe, east asia and india. these renaissances, which have taken place since 20 000 bc, include the first renaissance that took place in prehistoric sahara, the zingh empire, which was the world’s earliest culture and civilisation. unfortunately, the term ‘zingh’ is known by very few people today and is often used as a pejorative term by some middle eastern people to refer to black or african people. similarly, the term ‘kushim’, which originates from the great kushite civilisation, is used by people of middle eastern origins to refer to black people. cultural inventions such as mummification, red or black pottery, governance, education, fishing nets, the boomerang, the bow and arrow, clothing, boats and many cultural artefacts found as far afield as new guinea, china and the americas emerged from the prehistoric zingh empire and were spread by the diaspora mobility (jefferson 1944:355–362) from the above discussion, it can be noted that migration played a pivotal role in the dispersion and mixing of people in previously unoccupied regions of the world. some schools of thought, for example, mbeki (1998), mbeki (1999), makgoba (1999) and hammar, mcgregor and landau (2010), argue that there is widespread hope that two factors might produce an african renaissance in the 21st century: (1) changed external circumstances, such as an end to the cold war and its proxy conflicts in africa; and (2) changes in africa, including the emergence of democracy in many countries, the market penetration in and out of africa and a new generation of leaders who must justify their power on the basis of what they can do for their people rather than their role in winning independence. african union (au) and southern african development community (sadc) support movement of people and products within and outside africa. the diaspora and the renaissance function the global diaspora relates to the study of migration, although the term ‘diaspora’ technically serves as an umbrella term that covers all types of migration. interest in the link between diaspora and transnational migration has grown significantly in recent years, and more studies on globalisation, global economics, international relations, global politics, international conflict resolution and foreign diplomacy have been produced (campagnon 2011). the design of transnational migration is not new; however, its influence and form have expanded dramatically over the years. levitt (2001) notes: the assumption that people will live their lives in one place, according to one set of national and cultural norms, in countries with impermeable national borders, no longer holds. rather, in the 21st century, more and more people will belong to two or more societies at the same time. (p. 4) this diaspora and renaissance function is possible because of advanced technologies in modern transportation and communications. castles (2010:44) explains that ‘some people develop a transnational consciousness, and maintain economic, cultural and social relationships in several places’. blakewell (2010) echoes levitt’s (2001) assertion by connecting the diaspora peoples with migrants and transnationals. accordingly, diaspora becomes a ‘social form’ that emphasises ‘an identified group characterised by their relationship-despite-dispersal’. he says that the ‘set transnationals do not necessarily consist exclusively of migrants and many migrants may not maintain transnational activities’. blakewell (2010) perceives diaspora ‘as a subset of transnationals, and both the sets of transnationals and diasporas intersect with the set of migrants’. defining diasporas by their ‘transnational character’, he asserts that the term ‘diaspora’ can be ‘reserved for particular people living in distinctive relationships with each other and a homeland’. indeed, according blakewell (2010:3–4): not all migrants become diasporas and not all diasporas can be considered as migrants (although their ancestors may have been so). likewise, not all those who engage in transnational practices are necessarily diasporic; they may simply be operating as networks of people with limited relationships to any place (real or imaginary). echoing blakewell’s point, levitt (2010:5) proposes: … [m]oreover, not all migrants are transnational migrants, and not all who take part in transnational practices do so all the time … most migrants are occasional transnational activists. at some stages in their lives [,] they are more focused on their countries of origin while at others they are more involved in their countries of reception. similarly, they climb two different social ladders, moving up, remaining steady, or experiencing downward mobility, in various combinations, with respect to both sites. broadly speaking, diaspora refers to the global phenomenon of the dispersion or scattering of people in various parts of the world, occurring either by a voluntary act or coerced conditions in both domestic and global contexts. migration facilitates geographical or demographic mobility that eventually results in diasporic conditions. migration basically involves geographic and demographic flows of people or individuals, taking both internal and international directions. it is important to view the inherent connection between diaspora and migration because of their symbiotic relationship. iroegbu (2010:1) argues that: … [m]igration or diasporism is substantially a human capital issue involving an individual or group. it is also structural in terms of forces that push people around for safety and income as the dual market theory suggests. that is, people move with the hope to be better off than they were before. staying at home maintains their current living conditions, where chances of progress are more likely in another place. however, moving brings about a change, a change hoped to be better – therefore security, empowerment, and opportunities will be filled with choices. however, whilst both are complementary, they are not identical or interchangeable. iroegbu (2010:1) insightfully remarks: diasporism makes sense because it may forge stronger ties between the homeland and outside individuals. diaspora communities show that diaspora issues are an important category to initiate and seek out ideas and accommodation of ways and forms in which intercultural and international relations between homeland and settled ethnic nationalities can strengthen one another. as a fact, it can help in sustaining new democratic nation states with the flow of ideas and social obligations in agreement with the home-inward and the home-outward. the meaning of diaspora therefore resonates with, but is not limited to, the connection and feeling of asking those in diaspora how and when they would go back home and be relevant. diaspora in theological and cultural contexts and the resultant renaissance five major theological considerations can be stated in this theological and cultural context resulting in african renaissance. firstly, the global diaspora phenomenon situates adam and eve in the garden of eden and their eventual departure from their ‘original homeland’. disobedience caused this permanent departure and catapulted adam and eve to the apex of irreversible exilic migration. in this sense, the diaspora may be perceived as a form of divine retribution. wan and tira (2008) sombrely note that ‘adam and eve’s expulsion from the garden because of sin is the first recorded involuntary migration’. secondly, the breadth of global diaspora links historically to extreme jewish nationalism. with israel’s perennial exclusivist tendency as the backdrop, the jewish diaspora may be construed as a form of hermeneutical corrective to check nationalistic particularism. they thought yahweh was ‘located’ with them, but not with other nations outside their borders. yahweh’s redemptive plan for all nations was supplanted by the jews who stubbornly localised his presence within the boundaries of israel and judah. thirdly, the global diaspora phenomenon accentuates the reality of divine justice. in this strict sense, the dispersal of the jews in particular and the scattering of people in general may be interpreted as a form of divine judgement. people were scattered in many places, going in many directions after the confusion of languages at the tower of babel. nevertheless, the exilic presence of the jews in an environment of dispersion paved the way for cross-cultural engagement, multiculturalism in the host country and, eventually, cultural transformation. fourthly, the global diaspora phenomenon signifies the grand redemptive plan of god for all nations. here, diaspora functions as a form of divine strategy to fulfil the universal missionary mandate. again, god’s sovereignty encompasses the scattering of people from various quarters of the world for an expressed missionary intention. doors of opportunities for evangelism open up as people move. given the emerging realities of transnational migration, people in dispersion can have direct access to the gospel without losing their ethnic identity (lewis 2005:673–675). finally, according to zaretsky (2006), global diaspora is a central theological frame for interpreting god’s redemptive acts in the world based on the triune god’s revelatory nature. the diaspora ‘has shaped jewish identity and history’. in a similar vein, if christian identity and history can be viewed as diasporic, then the rest of human identity and history could follow. in other words, diasporas cannot be monopolised by the jews or christians because the rest of humanity also belongs to global diaspora communities. to state precisely, global diaspora is best construed as a ‘theological form’ that accentuates god’s missionary intention for people on the move and the redemptive acts that go along with it, both domestically and globally. however, wettstein (2002:47–59) considers diaspora as a political idea that suggests a geopolitical dispersion. wettstein perceives diaspora as a business movement instead of a theological position: the diasporas started colonising africa. according to wan and tira (2008:44), evidently, all efforts to define diaspora missiology point to the fact that the global diaspora phenomenon both embraces and transcends sociology, demographics, law, economics, anthropology, migration and labour. global diaspora missiology integrates many related disciplines on how god’smission is accomplished through the diaspora peoples. with this movement of theological and cultural message as the word was being spreaded by missionaries, the concepts of african renaissance were also being imparted in the communities. missionary diaspora came with the establishment of many schools, hospitals and churches. theological and cultural movements also improved people’s morality and identity. diaspora in afrikological contexts and the resultant renaissance in africa, diaspora movements have existed since the great trek of the likes of nyatsimba mutota, who moved from great zimbabwe to the north in search of salt reserves, and lobengula and the great exodus from south africa to matabeleland in zimbabwe (beach 1994). these movements were later modified by colonialisation by the british, who had a wrong perception of africa; they considered africa to be the ‘dark continent’. therefore, they considered their portioning up of africa to be a blessing. a case in point is the discovery of things even when there were already people there. for example, david livingstone is said to be the one who discovered the victoria falls. the question which then comes in mind is, how can one be attributed with the discovery of a place which was already occupied by africans before the person arrived? according to the oxford english dictionary, ‘discovering’ is defined as finding the existence of something for the first time. ratha and mohapatra (2011) argued that diasporas are one of the contemporary global forces shaping directions and trends in the 21st-century african renaissance. this makes it important to partner and join forces with them in the development efforts in their respective homelands. accordingly, policy seminars have been organised to contribute to the ongoing policy dialogue on migration and development from the perspective of the diaspora – a point of view that has not been sufficiently heard. the objective is to stimulate the active participation of the diaspora in the dialogue and in the generation of ideas and policy insights so as to make their critical voices count in discussions related to migration and development matters at different policy levels (mohamoud 2008:4). this constitutes the renaissance part of africa by africans themselves, not by external forces. diasporas are the most important strategic stakeholders in the migration and development field and it is therefore essential that they should be involved in policy discussions, because the practical implementation of any policy proposal requires migrants to play a leading role in the process. more importantly, migrants are the chief agents in the establishment of linkages between migration and development, and without their strategic interventions, it is unikely that initiatives on development and migration can succeed or achieve the expected results. this reality makes it impossible to design appropriate policy instruments without tapping creatively into the input and intellectual resources of the diasporas, whose wealth of knowledge and practical experiences are largely undercapitalised. the contemporary african diaspora from the continent now living in the european union (eu) countries alone is estimated to be around 3.3 million people of whom 1 million is from sub-saharan africa (united nations population division 2002). currently, it is around 8.7 million in north africa and around 21.8 million in sub-saharan africa (ratha & mohapatra 2011). the numbers of the african diaspora would probably be high if they are added to those living in other countries in europe. in this regard, the diaspora is the greatest offshore asset of africa because of the potential of its considerable human and financial capital that needs to be exploited for the benefit of africa. the african diaspora now occupies an indispensable strategic position that links the developed north with africa in a more connected manner. for example, the african diaspora is now in a unique strategic position in this ever-globalising world as it is scattered in different economic and power centres around the globe. the huge presence of the african diaspora in powerful political centres, such as london, paris, new york and washington, where global policy decisions are made, has an especially important strategic significance. yet, in comparison with asia, africa has not taken full advantage of the vast untapped potential of its diaspora overseas. the activities of the african diaspora promote trade and enterprise links and other social and political ties between their adopted countries and their countries of origin. this is why diaspora-initiated projects are now referred to as the ‘fourth development aid’ (mohamoud 2008) after international organisations, governments and mainstream development organisations. in zimbabwe, the diaspora sustained the economy for more than 10 years and organisations like homelink-kumusha-ekhaya were established to harness this bounty from zimbabwean nationals abroad. mohan and zack-williams (2002:211–236) assert that the african diaspora frequently adopts ingenious strategies to maximise the advantages that the contemporary globalisation process has presented them. for example, the african diaspora, like others elsewhere, forges innovative patterns of ‘globalisation from below’ in which individual and group players, rather than mega-corporations, benefit from and make use of the opportunities offered by globalisation. a number of african diasporas in the west are realising that they are obliged to contribute towards the rejuvenation of their continent in terms of politics, socialisation and economic status. they hold the view that this strategic position enables them to channel information, innovative ideas, intellectual capacities, new technological skills, smart and innovative business and trade practices, peace-making tools and techniques and democratic political habits and practices from the west to africa. mohamoud (2003) highlights: egypt considers its diaspora as its treasures kept abroad. it is vital to affirm that these unclaimed treasures can potentially serve as another window to the industrialised world, as another bridge in knowledge transmission and exchange, and as another catalyst in fostering knowledge creation and utilisation. it is apt to remark, therefore, that the diaspora is a vital and influential community of ‘undercover’ ambassadors – of their home countries and regions – without a formally designated portfolio. actors in diaspora networks can be crucial bridges between global state of the art in policy, technological and managerial expertise and local conditions in their home countries. public sector reform, innovations in education and social services and promotion of a knowledge-based private sector are just a few areas where diaspora members could team up with developing countries’ governments and external funding agencies to promote a shared agenda of poverty reduction. the success of the chinese diaspora grew out of – although it is no longer limited to – the traditional investment behaviour of emigrant families that made their fortunes overseas. on the other hand, the success of the indian diaspora is much more closely linked to recent changes in supply chain organisation and the emergence of transnational innovation networks than to the investments of fixed capital of indian diaspora members in india. although a decade ago the success of the armenian diaspora seemed nearly certain, it has failed to contribute substantially to domestic development (at least relative to its potential). the political divisions between the diaspora and the post-soviet political class in armenia, combined with the philanthropic generosity of overseas armenians, thwarted development and buffered domestic actors from the costs of their actions (world bank 2005). this kind of diasporic trend is appearing in african diaspora activity, which is why africa is failing to benefit from the diasporic treasures. africa’s hope is that diaspora networks can overcome obstacles to in-depth integration by serving as an entry point into new markets. diaspora networks mesh so well with the architecture of the modern knowledge society that they are coming to be seen as one of its natural building blocks. studying diaspora networks helps uncover the partial solutions that are working. it helps formalise the networks, rendering them more effective as incubators for new programmes and as governance structures for new projects. it also reveals potential win-win dynamics benefiting both sending and receiving countries. diaspora and the south african renaissance in the 21st century at the beginning of the 21st century, it was possible to claim that ‘africa and the african diaspora stand fused in ways that have immense political, economic, and social possibilities for the new millennium’ (akyeampong 2000:214). despite the perception that emigration is dominated by skilled white south africans, research has shown that there is no difference across racial groups in the desire to emigrate. skilled south africans began emigrating in large numbers before the end of apartheid and the turn to democracy in 1994. the data do not permit an accurate estimate of the skills lost, as the south african department of home affairs and statistics of south africa takes into account only emigrants who report themselves as such. the actual number of emigrants could be as much as three times the official figures. nonetheless, it is widely agreed that skilled workers continue to leave south africa. about two-thirds of workers with the potential to emigrate have considered doing so and the highly skilled – of all races – are most likely to be drawn abroad. these categories of people are forging relationships with international organisations, inviting them into the south african business scenario. most countires in africa, seeing south africa as an economic hub in southern africa, do not expect its nationals to move out of the country. there has been a limited response from the south african government in addressing the migration of skilled south africans. government support has been offered to the homecoming revolution, a non-profit organisation aimed at encouraging south africans living abroad to return. the campaign consists largely of advertising and media-based efforts, with no formal structure in place, apart from a website, to promote and publicise south africa. efforts are being made to provide knowledge support (passport and visa queries, job opportunities and so forth) through the website (lundy & visser 2003). however, the limited response to this issue may be in part because of the former president of south africa, thabo mbeki, who stated that having more emigrants is an advantage when it comes to the adjustment of levels of employment opportunities. the respondents of a south african quantitative research survey conducted by the researcher indicated that they maintain contact with their home country through a variety of means. thirty-one per cent stayed abreast of events in south africa through the media, 22% had ongoing business contact with the country, 20% maintained contact through academic exchanges and relationships and 7% used conferences and other professional activities to stay in touch. these data support the hypothesis that skilled south africans living in the diaspora wish to remain in contact with their homeland. all overseas diaspora members who are south africans, either by birth or through naturalisation, joined the diaspora network through their linkage with the south african business club (magocha 2014). south africans have power and influence in their host countries. one-third of respondents stated that they had considerable or major influence over the investment decisions of their organisations. about 40% reported that their organisations were engaged in some international and developing market activities, with 35% of organisations having business activities in south africa. fifty-four per cent of respondents reported that they had worked in organisations of 1000 people or less, while 13% said to have worked in organisations with more than 1000 employees and had considerable influence over their company’s investment decisions. mobilising diaspora towards african change mbeki’s african renaissance initiatives and its call to all the peoples of africa include those of the diaspora, ‘to make their contribution to the regeneration of their mother continent’ (mbeki 2003 has echoes of ghana’s first president kwame nkrumah’s exhortations to ‘[s]eek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added onto you’). this momentum has been sustained by certain state leaders and intellectuals from across the continent and diaspora through a series of conferences under the auspices of the au which have echoed pan-africanist rhetoric in ‘the search for african rebirth or renaissance’ (african union 2006). the african diaspora is already playing an important role in african development, remitting an estimated $45 billion each year. the funds coming from the african diaspora overseas are financing african development projects of the countries of origin. this mobilises the diaspora to explore how these funds could be better structured to promote sustainable development on the continent. the transfer of intellectual resources and creative business practices by the african diaspora is also considered to be stimulating. there are four broad areas for diasporas’ engagement in development and change which are emergent in development practice. first and foremost are initiatives to improve and strengthen the flow of remittances. this includes working with the financial services industry to reduce the transaction costs for remittances and encourage migrants to send more funds through the formal banking system. some have advocated for the provision of tax relief in industrialised states for remittances to developing countries and some developing countries have considered how to tax remittance income to raise funds for development (ratha 2007:7). as the potential contribution of diasporas to development is being recognised, there has been a general shift in attitude towards emigrants amongst the governments of many developing countries (castles & delgado wise 2008). whilst some countries, such as morocco, had little interest in those who had left, today they are ‘courting the diaspora’ (de haas 2006) in a variety of ways. diaspora-based networks are a potential asset for individual business owners who exploit them in two primary ways: accessing resources unavailable or more expensive to acquire from other sources and providing a market for goods and services. transnational diaspora-based linkages might enable access to different types of resources and/or markets. utilisation of transnational diaspora-based networks may be seen as a transitional phase in the development of migrant businesses on the road to full assimilation into the host society, and therefore, a feature of newly arrived migrants’ enterprises. conversely, the maintenance and development of transnational networks might be a major, and permanent, contributor to minority business development and more likely therefore to be used by those who have established a secure foothold in the host country (portes, haller & guarnizo 2002). a major theory explaining the concept of diaspora in africa theories are crucial in shading light on what other scholars have highlighted in their researches concrning the issue under discussion. in this note, the socio-economic geographic unifying transnationalism theory formulated by magocha (2014) explains how social, economic, geographic and unifying factors influence transnationalism. robinson (1998) states that transnationalism refers to the diffusion and extension of social, political, and economic processes in between and beyond the sovereign jurisdictional boundaries of nation states. international processes are increasingly governed by non-state actors and international organisations. socio-economic geographic unifying transnationalism theory socio-economic geographic unifying transnationalism theoryis a combined theory that the research proposes for the promotion and support of migration dynamics and the making of diasporic business communities (magocha 2014). the theory postulates that for business to be well established within the diaspora community, there is a need to consider social, economic, geographic, unifying and transnational issues. in fact, this theory argues that migration theories have to be combined in order for african migrants to effectively operate in business and form transnational businesses or companies. migration theories concentrate on the push–pull factors; however, these are not sufficient to give a full explanation of migration dynamics and diasporic business processes, as they ignore the political facet of migration. political relations also explain why people migrate to certain countries. socio-economic theories analyse the extent to which local government is responsible for ensuring the basic human rights or socio-economic rights spelt out in the south african constitution of 1996, sections 26–29; local government also has a duty to foreigners who are legally in the country. more broadly, metros must be ‘developmental’, and developmental objectives are difficult to achieve amidst fragmented communities. according to the south african local government white paper of 1998, municipalities must ‘work with groups in the community to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic, and material needs and improve the quality of their lives’. this means thinking beyond the narrow confines a set of delinked service sectors. one reason for this is that much of the research on southern africa’s human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) and/or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (aids) epidemic has neglected important socio-economic, legal and cultural dynamics of migration that may be contributing to the spread of the virus. as decosas and adrien (1997) pointed out, the association between migration and hiv is more likely to be a result of ‘the conditions and structure of the migration process than the actual dissemination of the virus along the corridors of migration’ as currently assumed. we have also only just begun to realise that hiv itself is a cause of migration, as people move to access better healthcare or, as the macabre phrase suggests, ‘return home to die’. these have negative effects on diasporic business communities, as people are demoralised by the hiv/aids levels of southern africa. the other issue relating to migration lies in the fact that with an illegal alien population estimated to be between 2.5 million and 5 million in south africa, it is obvious that the socio-economic resources of the country, which are under severe strain as it is, are further being burdened by the presence of illegal aliens. the cost implication of maintaining an illegal allien becomes even clearer when one makes a calculation, suggesting that if every illegal costs the south african infrastructure, say, r1000 per annum, then multiplied with whatever number you wish, it becomes obvious that the cost becomes billions of rands per year. this has ripple effects on the south african economy in terms of fiscal policies and the administration of social amenities. on the other hand, if the immigrants become productive, they will have a positive effect on the gross national product and the gross domestic product, which will raise the status of the economy on global economic measures. migration policies should be incorporated in a structured manner into policies on health, education and human capital, and into social and economic development strategies. migration and development policies should also focus much more on economic reform and job creation and on improving the working conditions and the socio-economic situation in low-income and middle-income countries, and in regions characterised by high emigration pressures. this would include promoting access to quality education for all, the development and improvement of vocational training and the reinforcement of management skills, and further developing the role of the formal labour markets. the international organization for migration (iom) (2003) asserts that a number of countries have various strategies in place to assist with the socio-economic integration of migrants, regardless of whether they are permanent. these include language training, translation services, information referral, migrant resource centres, access to healthcare, employment possibilities for spouses and the right of family members to accompany the migrant. this allows the immigrants to contribute to the development of the host country. migration simultaneously reshapes the socio-economic ‘development’ context at both the origin and the destination, which in their turn are likely to influence subsequent migration patterns. for example, remittances sent back to family members could alter the social and economic context in the areas of origin and encourage subsequent migration (van dalen, groenewold & fokkema 2005). levitt (1998) stresses the importance of ‘social remittances’, which she interprets as a local-level, migration-driven form of cultural diffusion. this flow back consisting of ideas, behaviours and identities not only plays an important role in potentially promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, family formation and political integration, but also affects the perceptions, feelings of relative deprivation and aspirations of people, which are also likely to affect subsequent migration patterns. at the meso and micro level, migration was supposed to lead to the economic improvement of migrants and greater freedom from local socio-economic barriers and constraints. remittances would ‘improve income distribution and quality of life beyond what other available development approaches could deliver’ (keely & tran 1989:500). as it is already the better-off who tend to migrate, socio-economic inequalities within communities will increase because the remittances and other benefits of migration go disproportionally to the better-off (lipton 1980). therefore, migration will not contribute to the alleviation of the poverty of the worst-off. instead, the gradual undermining of traditional economies may even increase the deprivation of non-migrants. in south european countries such as spain, italy and greece, and east asian countries such as malaysia and south korea, remittances have played a significant positive role in their – successful – national economic development, and in reaction to sustained socio-economic development in their countries of origin, many international migrants have, in fact, invested significantly in private enterprises (de haas 2008:33). in many socio-economic settings, the household was recognised as the most relevant socio-economic group and hence the most appropriate unit of analysis, acknowledging that the forms of households vary across time, space and socio-economic groups (mcdowell & de haan 1997:3). this reflects the idea that migration starts from the individual household, and then spreads to national levels. this theoretical construction is based on the proposition that migration is an evolutionary process that contributes to institutional and socio-economic change both at origin and destination through various feedback mechanisms. examples of the latter include the redistribution of income of the households involved in migration, both in absolute and relative terms, as well as the redistribution of land and capital. these processes ultimately result in changes in the social hierarchy (massey et al. 1993:451–454). as one of the consequences, because return migrants usually possess more human capital than the immobile population, the non-migrant group increasingly aspires to a privileged position in the community. south africa and the sadc have committed to an ongoing process of greater regional integration. although the regularisation of movement between south africa and zimbabwe is partly a response to the current socio-economic crisis, it is also an opportunity to forge longer term relations between the countries towards regional integration. these endeavours have inspired friendly and positive socio-economic relationships between sister cities, and by proxy, within local and immigrant communities. sister city relationships provide another example of the increasing importance of transnational networks in establishing multifaceted ties between two countries. as karen fog olwig (2003:787) affirms, ‘transnational theory has successfully highlighted the significance of migrants’ attachments to people and places transcending the confines of nation-states’. the au has also committed to formally recognising the african diaspora as a sixth regional bloc alongside the economic communities of southern, central, west, east and saharan regions of the continent. within the au’s economic, social and cultural council (ecosocc), 20 of the 150 seats are reserved for diaspora organisations that represent the ‘first institutional interface between the union and its constituents in the diaspora’ (oladeinde 2006). these efforts to ‘mainstream’ the diaspora in the activities of the au are also apparent in the plans of the au commission to launch diaspora forums in europe and the western hemisphere, with the latter first convened during december 2002 (african union 2003). a series of regional conferences and the first au diaspora ministerial conferences held in south africa during november 2007, as well as an african diaspora summit in may 2008, have also highlighted the importance of this policy shift. most recently, the au has called for a ‘paradigm shift in the way migration is managed’ given its ‘increased importance and untapped potential’ as an ‘engine for regional co-operation and integration as well as [the] socio-economic development of the continent’ (african union 2006:4–6). the new partnership for africa’s development (nepad) is a socio-economic development programme, and one of its main objectives is economic integration and interstate trade. the projects cited in the document drawn up by the african development bank, nepad short-term action plan: infrastructure (nepad 2002), embody a vision to develop the continent. these include power systems, gas or oil transmissions, regional capacity-building, water and sanitation projects, the development of trade corridors, better and safer roads ‘to bring africa together’, ports, railways and telecommunications (reitzes 2004:343). all these projects require trans-border cooperation and collaboration, as all will require the cross-border movement of skills, capital, goods and labour. the recent socio-economic literature on the role of diasporas argues that trade, technology diffusion and capital formation are facilitated by migrants. the argument is that migrants facilitate host and source country bilateral trade and investment because they help to overcome information asymmetries and other market imperfections (black, king & tiemoko 2003). through the exposure to migrants’ (perceived) relative success, wealth and status symbols (international), migration has almost become an obsession, as it is perceived as the main or only avenue for upward socio-economic mobility (epstein 2008), and in which ambitions, life projects and dreams of people are generally situated elsewhere. the fact that migrants often have a tendency to present themselves as successful and to conceal their economic and social problems would further fuel this culture of migration. in general, massey (2002) perceives international migration in post-industrial countries as an outcome of socio-economic development and integration processes. nonetheless, at the current stage of development, these ideas are far from constituting an all-inclusive theory of migration, and it would seem that their operationalisation in practical applications is unlikely. this idea supports world systems and transnationalism theory that holds that there has to be an open system which connects business activities across the regions or the world. in countries like zimbabwe and south africa, migration dynamics and the making of diasporic business communities are exacerbated by the countries’ geographic position, relative lack of capacity regarding border control and immigration services generally, current complex nation-building redefinition and, paradoxically, a historical legacy of absolute control of populations’ movements. the distribution of immigrants amongst the different economic activities is conditioned by several factors: the sectoral composition of the economies, the immigrants’ skills, the reservation wages of the foreign population compared to those of the native population and the behaviour of entrepreneurs. orłowski (2000), in explaining emigration rates, adds the population size and unemployment rates of the destination region as well as geographic distance. boeri and brücker (2001) found a significant effect of such variables as employment rates, institutional restrictions on migration, presence of migrant networks, cultural (language) proximity as well as standard of living on the stocks of central and eastern european migrants residing in the ‘old’ eu-15 countries. alecke, huber and untiedt (2001) used unemployment rates in both the sending and receiving countries, along with country-specific dummies, to model the origin–destination emigration rates. many geographic models, despite being based on stochastic processes (notably, markov chains), and thus having large potential for simulation-based uncertainty assessment, do not, to date, seem to have been widely explored in this context. moreover, the judgemental scenarios that often form the input to the models of population dynamics often assume the constancy of migratory flows starting from a given period of time. although such an approach is understandable, given the lack of specific knowledge of the researcher about the more distant future, the constancy assumption seems to be the neutral option; it is also likely to generate very high ex-post forecast errors. nevertheless, as international migration will most probably continue to be a dynamic process, this approach cannot be expected to produce reasonable results in the long term. a series of econometric models, including the so-called differences-in-differences estimations, were used to examine this question, while controlling for several standard determinants of foreign investment flows, such as country size, geographic distance and cultural similarities (magocha 2014). the story of the post-second world war chinese diaspora is one of geographic mobility and economic diversification: the construction of a ‘bamboo network’ linking hong kong (china), indonesia, malaysia, the philippines, singapore, taiwan (china) and thailand to one another and to china through meshed webs of family firms operating first in traditional trading and manufacturing, and then in high-tech and finance. for many refugees, the years following the communist victory in 1949 were a time of testing, relieved – some would say redeemed – by rags-to-riches stories. in the conventional telling, frugal, canny traders, often with nothing but the clothes on their back, worked their way up from factory floor to great wealth (kuznetsov 2006:13–14). soon, the overseas chinese held key positions in real estate development, component manufacturing and construction, sectors that put a premium on the ability to combine trading and productive skills. at the same time, taiwan (china) was developing a distinctive style of business organisation that fused elements of the traditional, small chinese firm and the silicon valley start-up. with the start of deng xiaping’s open door policy in 1978, china turned away from isolation and autarky and welcomed the successful overseas chinese as investors. the influx from hong kong (china) and taiwan (china) was particularly great because of proximity and historical ties. multinational firms flocked to the mainland, partly to decentralise existing operations to a low-cost location, partly to participate in the widely anticipated growth of a huge market, and partly because partnering with key members of the chinese diaspora was often regarded as indispensable to navigating an opaque political environment. today, traditional lines of business are increasingly being abandoned in favour of the most modern sectors of the economy. having helped transform china, the chinese diaspora is now being transformed by the development it encouraged (kuznetsov 2006). the uneven and fractured class, racial, gender, generational, geographic, ethnic and even linguistic awareness which characterises these diasporas has fluctuated considerably over time, making it complicated to map not only their changing boundaries but also their changing connections with their countries of origin, as well as with the african continent itself. indeed, any investigation of diaspora politics and activities must be sensitive to the fact that diasporas comprise an integral and distinctive part of the globalised political economy (davies 2007). secondly, such an investigation would need to incorporate mobility and transnational engagement as a fundamental aspect of peoples’ lives. this means that it cannot be constrained within specific geographic boundaries. clemens and pritchett (2008) take this to its logical extreme by arguing that development should be assessed with reference to people rather than places. the spatial and geographic distribution of labour, as well as economic competition, resulted in the emergence of regional economic blocs in central and western europe (the european union); north america, canada and mexico; the asian-pacific rim; the middle east; west africa; east africa; and parts of south america. such regional focus is in keeping with the objectives of nepad and the impact of globalisation (reitzes 2004). in the case of mozambique, the geographic situation facilitates the crossing of borders as well as human trafficking, because south africa is being targeted as the destination for migrants, and as the place for cross-border traders because of its links to the rest of the world through its well-established infrastructure (raimundo 2009:97). it has to be noted that the presented survey of migration theories is by no means complete, and that a much more comprehensive discussion is offered by massey et al. (1993), zlotnik (1998) and jennissen (2004:31–57). for example, the distinction between theories explaining the initiation of international migration, and the ones related to the perpetuation of population movements introduced by massey et al. (1993), is not considered in the current study. such a division might be potentially useful if forecasters were to make an attempt to distinguish migration continuing under unchanging external circumstances from that related to system shocks (political or economic), the latter explained by the theories of initiation of population flows. many theories attempting to explain population movements refer to internal migration. nevertheless, they are included in the discussion because contemporarily, given the globalisation processes, the complexity of migratory phenomena increases, whilst the diversity between the mechanisms driving internal and international migration becomes less and less obvious. unifying theories of migration are difficult to formulate; however, ways have to be found because one theory alone is not sufficient to explain the migration dynamics and diasporic business communities therein. business has to be transnationalised, as shown in figure 1. figure 1: the process of immigrant transnationalism. although transnationalism and globalisation overlap, global processes are typically ‘decentred’ from national territories and occur in a global space, whilst transnational processes are ‘anchored in and transcend one or more nation-states’ (kearney 1995:548). perhaps, the earliest example of migrant transnationalism is found in the concept of diaspora, which initially referred to the forcible dispersal of jews from their original homeland (cohen 1997:1–29). ratha and mohapatra (2011) assert that diaspora is conceived as a process of transition ‘constituted as much in difference and division as it is in commonality and solidarity’ in anthias (1998:564). diasporic communities are characterised by a profoundly different articulation of territory and belonging; these new loyalties contain both transnational and sub-national links, as well as ‘nonnational identities and aspirations’. thus, ‘diaspora’ includes a comprehensive representation of ‘community members who are dispersed to many diverse regions of the world, and who yet retain a myth of their uniqueness and an interest in their homeland’ (kearney 1995:559). diasporas should be distinguished from other patterns of migration across time and space and are constituted by three core elements: dispersion across or within state borders; orientation to a ‘homeland’ as a source of value, identity and loyalty; and boundary maintenance, involving the preservation of a distinctive identity vis-à-vis a host society over an extended time period (brubaker 2005:5). much of the debate in the literature has treated the diaspora as a homogeneous grouping. important questions about the depth and power of diasporic identifications – external categorisation and self-understanding, objective commonality and subjective groupness (brubaker & cooper 2000:27) – about the complex process by which class, gender and other alignments subvert and even supersede diasporic ideologies, as well as about the advent of ‘new’ and changing diasporic groups and identifications, are often absent from this scholarship. similarly, it is contended that the relatively recent body of work concerned with the concepts of transnationalism and diaspora has not properly challenged traditional analytical categories. set against the structural backdrop of the global political economy, it is evident that diasporic communities can be varied and complex both in their structure and character. indeed, the available evidence suggests that a variety of fragmented and diverse links with homeland are maintained by the many disparate elements of africa’s expatriate populations and global diaspora (akyeampong 2005; zeleza 2005). reis (2004:46) distinguishes between two groups of diaspora theorists. firstly, there are those who focus on ‘classical’ diaspora based on the jewish archetype; secondly, there are those who co-mingle contemporary diaspora with issues of transnationalism and globalisation. conclusion from a conceptual perspective alone, the preceding discussion suggests that there is a real need to reposition the debate towards a conceptualisation of diaspora that is cognisant of the complexity of the phenomena in what has been termed the ‘age of migration’ (castles & miller 2003). perhaps, the earliest example of migrant transnationalism is found in the concept of diaspora, which initially referred to the forcible dispersal of jews from their original homeland (cohen 1997:1–29). today diaspora is conceived as a process of transition ‘constituted as much in difference and division as it is in commonality and solidarity’ (anthias 1998:564). diasporic communities are characterised by a profoundly different articulation of territory and belonging, these new loyalties containing both transnational and sub-national links as well as ‘nonnational identities and aspirations’. zimbabwe is one of africa’s great ancient civilisations, establishing itself as a major culture and region of trade as early as 3000 bc. the zimbabweans were mainly of bantu stock and practised cattle keeping and agriculture. in fact, zimbabweans were probably known by the ancient egyptians and the chinese. buildings in zimbabwe, especially the stone cities covering an area of the size of france, seem to have been built hundreds of years before christ to as recently as the 10th century ad. by about 500 bc, the zimbabweans were engaged in trade with parts of asia and yemen. as early as 1000 bc, black people called lemvo who were of the jewish faith migrated to zimbabwe from the ethiopian empire. zimbabwe was also one of the world’s greatest producers of rice, cloth, iron utensils and gold adornments. zimbabwe’s renaissance may have taken place from as early as 300 bc and continued to about 1200 ad. whist much of zimbabwe’s great art, its gold work and its great buildings have been plundered or almost destroyed, the ancient buildings built in zimbabwe are so widespread and so huge that most still exist. the great west african renaissances, which took place between 400 bc and 1600 ad, involved three of the world’s greatest and wealthiest kingdoms and empires: ghana (400 bc–1200 ad), mali (1200–1500 ad) and songhai (1500–1700 ad). from the above discussion, one may justifiably say that migration and renaissance are the double-edged catalysts of humanity’s evolutionary continuum. the diaspora and the renaissance function is crucial in the development of the global world. diaspora in afrikological contexts and the resultant renaissance are the key to african prosperity. therefore, african diaspora and the government systems should support the movement of people and resources. diaspora gave rise to south african renaissance in the 21st century. it is the plight of this article that african governments should mobilise diaspora towards african change. the major theory explaining the concept of diaspora in africa is known as socio-economic geographic unifying transnationalism theory. socio-economic geographic unifying transnatioalism theory came with elements of social development, economic development and geographic development that were all meant to unify the world and coming up with transnational concepts of renaissance of the african economies leading to the formation of united states of africa. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research article. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, m.m., upon reasonable request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author 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our eyes’: collaboration and hiv and aids curriculum integration in south african higher education pt tanga,1 n de lange2 and l van laren3 abstract integrating hiv and aids into the academic curriculum is not engaged with vigorously enough in south african higher education institutions, for several reasons, ranging from lack of interest to complaints of belabouring the issue of hiv and aids, especially from the biomedical perspective. through such integration the academic curriculum could be a key space and engine for persuading change and abating the effects of hiv and aids in higher education as well as in the communities served by the universities. we reflect on our three-year research project engagement and explore how collaboration facilitated integration of hiv and aids issues in our academic curriculum. working from a critical paradigm and using a collaborative self-study approach, we utilised drawings and responses from questions which we compiled for ourselves. textual and visual data generated were thematically analysed. the findings revealed that collaboration counteracts isolation; enables capacity development in integration for the collaborating researchers; and permits engaging with participatory visual methodologies to encourage integration. we conclude that collaboration is key in facilitating integration of hiv and aids in the higher education curriculum, and that collaboration using participatory visual methodologies enhances entry-points in engaging with hiv and aids in south africa and beyond. this work has implications for integrating hiv and aids issues into the higher education curriculum. keywords: academic curriculum; collaboration; higher education; hiv and aids integration; participatory visual methodology introduction the title ‘listening with our eyes’ picks up on the power of persuasion of the visual. in this article we show how we utilised the power of the visual to enable and enhance collaboration and hiv and aids curriculum integration in higher education. an example of the power of the visual and ‘listening with our eyes’ is provided by gladwell (2005) in his book blink. gladwell (2005) portrays the power of the visual where an orchestra required a trombone player and held auditions – with the trombone players playing behind a screen to ensure that there was no bias in selecting the player. thirty-three trombone players were invited to the 1 . pius t. tanga, university of fort hare, alice. email: ptangwe@ufh.ac.za 2 . naydene de lange, nelson mandela metropolitan university, email: naydene.delange@nmmu.ac.za 3 . corresponding author: dr linda van laren, edgewood campus, university of kwazulunatal. email: vanlarenl@ukzn.ac.za acknowledgement: this work is based on a research project supported by the national research foundation (south africa). any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and therefore the national research foundation does not accept any liability in regard thereto. tanga, de lange and van laren 170 audition, but the selection committee unanimously found that the sixteenth player was the perfect choice, exclaiming that no one else could play more beautifully, and sending the other seventeen, who were still waiting to be auditioned, home. however, when the trombone player appeared from behind the screen, the men were astonished at what they saw – a woman trombone player! they believed that no woman trombone player could play so well, and immediately revoked their decision, overriding what they had heard, and choosing to “listen with their eyes” (gladwell, 2005). this, for us, clearly points to the power of persuasion of the visual, the methodology we used, which has helped us in our collaboration and integration of hiv and aids into our curriculum. at a time when both academics and students at higher education institutions (heis) are “sick of aids” (mitchell & smith, 2003, p. 513) – sick of listening to the biomedical facts, alarm tactics, and to what the drivers of the pandemic are – we have found it refreshing to work with each other using participatory visual methodologies (pvms) and to show how we might ‘listen with our eyes’ to hear differently and in a way we have not heard before so as to expedite us to hear afresh ‘with our eyes’. burns (2010), in her keynote address paper putting us in the picture: persuasion and plausibility argues that in spite of knowing what we as south africans know about hiv and aids (for example, the statistics of the high prevalence rate of hiv, the research on prevention, the positive prognosis when taking antiretroviral medication, the drivers of the epidemic), the behaviour of people has not changed and hiv transmission continues to spread. so, what are other possibilities for persuasion and plausibility? she argues that heis are critical spaces for persuading change, and suggests that academics should acknowledge the situated nature of learning and draw on pedagogies which are powerful and can persuade. she suggests that pvms can help academics draw on the lived experiences of the students in a persuasive way, and in so doing contribute to changing the trajectory of the epidemic. in this article we explore how collaboration facilitates integration of hiv and aids issues into higher education academic curricula. we used pvms to do so, which simultaneously enhanced our teaching and research as academics in higher education. we first offer the background to the study, and then the conceptual framework we developed, and situate ourselves as researchers in the area of hiv and aids. this is followed by an explanation of the methodology, the unfolding of the findings and discussion, and finally our conclusion. background to the study we decided to work together in a particular area of research that was of interest to each of us as we are committed to ‘do something’ to respond to the hiv and aids epidemic in south africa. however, prior to our collaborative project each of us had already been engaged in teaching and conducting research in the field of hiv and aids. our individual efforts therefore inform our collaborative work in making a difference in the area of hiv and aids curriculum integration in higher education. over the three-year duration of the project we had seven face to face meetings. each meeting took place at one of three heis where we are academics. furthermore, we constantly communicated via electronic mail. although one of the higher education academics was the ‘leader’ and grant holder for the research project, the team members operated as equal partners. there were no power issues in the team, yet the leader did communicate, via electronic mail, when meeting dates were to be finalised and also prepared the reports for each of the seven meetings. research decisions were always taken jointly when the team met hiv/aids curriculum integration in sa higher education td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 169-186. 171 face to face. as a research team we did not experience any obvious tensions within our team and our learning over the three-year term of the project contributed to knowledge related to processes and gains accrued through working within a professional collaborative community making use of participatory visual research methods. the phenomenon our inquiry focused on was hiv and aids curriculum integration at each of our institutions, to understand the ‘what, why and how’ of integrating hiv and aids as experienced by our colleagues in particular disciplines. we commenced by investigating integration of hiv and aids in disciplines at our respective heis, and conducted interviews with colleagues to learn more about integration initiatives at our respective institutions (van laren, de lange & tanga, 2013). in addition, we made use of pvms to encourage our colleagues to explain more fully how they perceived themselves in relation to hiv and aids in the teaching of their academic disciplines (de lange, van laren, tanga, in press). furthermore, we wished to encourage and extend the knowledge and skills of our colleagues to further integration of hiv and aids initiatives across higher education disciplines. we also wanted to understand more deeply our collaborative involvement and learning through our use of pvms. as our three years of project work drew to a close, we wanted to explore how we, as three collaborating academics, researched, learnt and acquired further knowledge, skills and attitudes in relation to hiv and aids integration as a collaborative team to enhance our research and teaching. we therefore sought to answer the following research question: how can collaboration facilitate hiv and aids curriculum integration in higher education? based on our research team’s collaboration experiences, we developed our own conceptual framework, which we present next. conceptual framework in recent years there has been a rise in interest in the use of pvms in the social sciences, in particular in education. our conceptual framework shows the relationship between us as academics, collaboration, and the use of pvms in our research related to enhancing integration of hiv and aids. using a diagram, we summarise and explain how these conceptual relationships evolved into a cyclic process. the following sub-sections provide a brief discussion of important concepts that assisted us in theorising our collaborative study. collaboration although there have been many names and definitions associated with professional learning through collaboration, it was dewey (1938) who developed the concept of ‘communities of inquirers’. according to clausen, aquino and wideman (2009) collaboration occurs when a group of professionals undertake to work together on a particular area of research in a cooperative, cohesive and self-reflecting group who respect each other’s perspectives and values when working towards a common objective. clausen et al. (2009, p. 445) indicate that the benefits of collaboration include allowing peers to “bring meaning, motivation and accessibility to professional development” to facilitate improvement in teaching and researching practices. understanding the meanings and experiences of particular individuals in a group where collaboration is required thus provides insight into the complex landscape of collaboration. according to tuval, barak and gidron (2011, p. 202) it is common knowledge that “some of the most powerful professional learning occurs when individuals become part of an inquirytanga, de lange and van laren 172 driven learning community.” furthermore, wenger and snyder (2000) provide a framework that facilitates analysis of professional learning that takes place when a group of people work towards a shared initiative (in this instance, encouraging hiv and aids curriculum integration in higher education disciplines). three frames are suggested by wenger and snyder (2000, p. 144) as necessary to ensure that sustainable communities of practice are developed: identifying potential communities that enhance capabilities; providing infrastructure to support the communities; and making use of non-traditional methods to assess the value of the community of practice. much research in the area of collaboration has focused on communities of practice (wenger, 1998), but according to tuval et al. (2011) deep research into how individuals in a community have developed and benefitted from the collaboration has not been fully explored. this study therefore seeks to explore this research gap by interrogating our own collaborative research efforts. participatory visual methodology craig (2009) argues that a project can only be considered truly participatory if the values which underpin it are about involving research participants (including the researchers themselves) in as many stages of the research as possible. furthermore, offering opportunities to direct and take charge of the research process also influences the participants. visual methodologies, categorised as those which use hand-made work, digital media, and performance-based work (de lange, mitchell & moletsane, (2012),   enables participation, because images are often more accessible to people than solid academic text. visual methodologies also have a novelty factor which is likely to sustain engagement in the research process for longer. in addition, when technology (such as digital cameras) is combined with innovative participatory and visual methods that are accessible to participants in an exciting and fascinating way, then there is an increase in effectiveness of the research approach (milne, mitchell & de lange, 2012). our study included making use of drawing (handmade) as a visual method to explore how our collaboration facilitated integration of hiv and aids in the higher education curriculum. integration there is a variety of terms and meanings associated with the inclusion of concepts from one discipline in another discipline. in this study the definition provided by imbimbo and knopf (2009, p.1) is selected as an appropriate understanding of the meaning of integration: integrative curriculum focuses on a theme or themes upon which two or more disciplines are organized. curriculum integration has been proposed as a way of organizing the life skills, or ‘common learnings’ considered essential for citizens in a democracy. the curriculum is organized around real-life problems and issues significant to adolescents and adults, applying pertinent content and skills from various subject areas or disciplines. the goal is to reflect the interdependent real world and provide greater understanding than could be obtained by looking at the parts separately. according to imbimbo and knopf’s (2009) definition, themes that incorporate aspects of hiv and aids in other academic disciplines can be considered as integration. furthermore, the issues related to hiv and aids are indeed real-life problems for more than five million south africans (unaids, 2014). it is also estimated that of the two million students in higher education in south africa, 3.4% are hiv positive (heywood, 2011; higher education hiv/aids curriculum integration in sa higher education td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 169-186. 173 hiv/aids programme (heaids), 2010). given the magnitude of the hiv and aids pandemic, concerted research efforts on the part of heis should involve focusing on hiv and aids integration into the curriculum. figure 1 illustrates how this can be done through collaboration that makes use of pvms. f i g u r e 1 : t h e c y c l i c a l p r o c e s s o f w o r k i n g c o l l a b o r a t i v e l y u s i n g p v m d u r i n g t h e h i v a n d a i d s c u r r i c u l u m i n t e g r a t i o n p r o j e c t figure 1 shows each of us as an individual ‘i’, placed at the centre of the framework. each i is an academic because each of us is a practicing professional at a hei. the diagram illustrates that, during the research project, the three ‘i’s’ come together to form a collaborative team. we researched collaboratively using pvms in order to integrate hiv and aids into the higher education curriculum. the diagram indicates our continuous or cyclical use of pvms during research initiatives while we develop and become a collaborative team in the area of hiv and aids curriculum integration in higher education. methodology: collaborative self-study according to laboskey (2004; 2006) self-study methodology is characterised by research that is self-initiated and self-focused and improvement-aimed. in addition, data generation usually involves making use of multiple, qualitative methods and validation of self-study research occurs through making findings public for open scrutiny. samaras (2011, p. 10) believes that the succinct essence of self-study research is that it is “a personal, systematic inquiry situated within one’s own teaching context that requires critical and collaborative reflection in order to generate knowledge as well as inform the broader educational field”. for more than two decades self-study research has been used for knowledge production and for improving teaching in higher education (louie, drevdahl, purdy & stackman, 2003). it is the academic herself/himself who is in the best position to ascertain which research strategies are best suited to explore and extend her/his own existing capabilities to generate pragmatic knowledge. self-study methodology is often selected by researchers who wish to ‘make a tanga, de lange and van laren 174 difference’ or bring about social change (pithouse, mitchell & weber, 2009) in an identified area of their practice. self-study acts as a method but also as a phenomenon being investigated. furthermore, selfstudy requires researchers to be reflective practitioners who intend to become reflexive in taking up the necessary changes that the practitioners themselves identify as necessary. the overview of existing self-study literature by louie et al. (2003, p. 152) led them to note that “collaboration is vital to encouraging faculty from a variety of disciplines to undertake self-study research for the purpose of moving beyond teaching improvement to knowledge creation.” the next section explains how this collaborative self-study was conducted. data generation this research satisfies all the requirements specified by laboskey (2004. 2006) for self-study methodology. first, our research aimed at improving the manner in which hiv and aids curriculum integration occurs at heis. second, our research was self-focused and self initiated through the coming together of ‘i’s to form a collaborative self-study team. third, throughout the cyclic research process we interacted collaboratively. fourth, we disseminated our research findings in journal publications (van laren, de lange & tanga, 2013; de lange, van laren, tanga, in press) to facilitate public scrutiny of our research. fifth, we employed multiple qualitative methods to generate data. in order to generate data we used a set of open-ended questions and a drawing prompt to facilitate our reflections. after revisiting our research proposal each team member drafted a set of questions that were directly linked to what we set out to explore collaboratively in terms of hiv and aids integration. we developed a list of possible questions, and after intense discussion we selected a set of ‘most appropriate’ questions to assist us in reflecting on our learning collaboratively to integrate hiv and aids into the academic curriculum. we devised the following set of questions as prompts for our reflections: reflect on your experiences of gaining knowledge, skills and attitudes over the past three years of collaborative research in the national research foundation hiv and aids integration project and answer each of the following questions: 1. how has collaboration, whilst working in the hiv and aids integration project, built, extended and influenced your knowledge, skills and attitudes in relation to hiv and aids issues? 2. how has collaboration counteracted isolation from developments at other institutions to allow you to gain extensive understanding of issues related to hiv and aids? 3. how has collaboration and interaction across institutions allowed for gaining knowledge, skills and attitudes from diverse points of view? 4. how has collaboration fostered opportunities for ‘like-minded’ colleagues to extend and develop integration practices by developing a community of practice (wenger, 1998)? 5. how can collaboration develop capacity to achieve integration of hiv and aids in the curriculum? 6. how can pvms facilitate collaboration to encourage integration of hiv and aids issues in the academic curriculum? 7. how did collaboration allow for capacity development to further hiv and aids integration? hiv/aids curriculum integration in sa higher education td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 169-186. 175 8. what was the catalyst for you to start researching in the area of hiv and aids? 9. explain your interest in integration of hiv and aids in the academic curriculum. in addition to the questions, we made use of a visual method to further explore our interest in the research area. literat (2013, p. 12) draws attention to the fact that “participatory visual communications, such as drawing … hold inherent potential of painting a more nuanced depiction of lived realities, while simultaneously empowering the research participant and placing the agency literally in their own hands.” literat (2013) considers the use of drawing to be advantageous in research because the participants are usually given the opportunity to conceptualise and contemplate their responses, and this allows for deeper reflective responses. in addition, the method of participatory drawing also facilitates crystallisation (richardson, 1994) when complemented by other reflective research methods. our prompt for making a drawing to facilitate reflection in collaborative research was formulated in the following way: on a sheet of a4 paper, use a black pen to draw how you see how collaboration, using pvms, helped (or not) to further integration of hiv and aids in your research. in your drawing show how you think hiv and aids ought to be integrated in your research. in your drawing you should be able to identify yourself, hiv and aids and your collaborative research. below your drawing indicate: i am represented in the diagram as … ; hiv and aids is represented by… ; my research is represented by … give your drawing an appropriate title. the set of open-ended questions and the drawing activity allowed us to ‘evaluate’ our achievements in terms of the aims and objectives that we proposed for our collaborative project. our responses to these questions and drawing prompt became our primary data sets for our qualitative self-study. when we generated our data we were careful not to confer with each other whilst answering the questions in writing. we did not read each other’s reflective responses to the set of questions or look at each other’s drawings until each of us had completed his/her reflection. subsequently, through collaborative self-study we analysed and discussed the data we generated to evaluate our collaborative efforts related to the hiv and aids integration project. data analysis responses to our reflections formed three themes generated from the set of questions that we developed as reflection prompts. we used a deductive process for identifying themes by combining responses to questions. in order to situate ourselves as collaborating researchers we mainly used our reflection responses to the prompt questions “what was the catalyst for you to start researching in the area of hiv and aids?” and “explain your interest in integration of hiv and aids in the academic curriculum.”. for theme one we used our reflection responses to the questions “how has collaboration, whilst working in the hiv and aids integration project, built, extended and influenced your knowledge, skills and attitudes in relation to hiv and aids issues?”, “how has collaboration counteracted isolation from developments at other institutions to allow you to gain extensive understanding of issues related to hiv and aids?” and “how has collaboration and interaction across institutions allowed for gaining knowledge, skills and attitudes from diverse points of view?”. for theme two we selected responses from the questions “how has collaboration fostered opportunities for ‘like-minded’ colleagues to extend and develop integration practices by developing a community of practice (wenger, 1998)?” and “how can collaboration develop capacity to tanga, de lange and van laren 176 achieve integration of hiv and aids in the curriculum?”. for theme three we used responses from the questions “how can pvms facilitate collaboration to encourage integration of hiv and aids issues in the academic curriculum?” and “how did collaboration allow for capacity development to further hiv and aids integration?”. thereafter we examined our drawings and realised that there were links between our themes and our drawings. the drawings were allocated to the themes according to links between concepts depicted in the drawings and key ideas conveyed in the particular theme. trustworthiness and ethical clearance to ensure trustworthiness of our work, we drew on guba and lincoln’s (1994) constructs of credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. we constructed the tools for analysing data generated in a systematic way. we each independently analysed sections of the data and conducted email discussions as well as face to face meetings to reach consensus. furthermore, we thoroughly interrogated our reflection responses and drawings to verify the credibility of the findings. we also provided thick descriptions of the research process. these descriptions provide opportunities for other researchers to replicate the study. we thus attended to ensuring transferability. we also provided direct quotations from our data as evidence to support the findings and assist with confirmability. university of kwazulu-natal provided ethical clearance for the study and the two deans of the other two universities’ faculties/schools [nelson mandela metropolitan university and university of fort hare] provided permission for conducting the research within our faculty/school. findings in reporting on the findings we first situate ourselves as collaborating researchers, and then explain the three themes we identified using the data generated from our responses to the set of questions. situating ourselves as collaborating researchers two members of the collaborative team are academics in faculties/schools of education and the third is in a department of social work and social development in the faculty of social sciences and humanities. although we work in different academic disciplines, each of us predominantly considers hiv and aids social issues in our research and teaching. there are a variety of catalysts for our commencing collaborative research and also for integrating hiv and aids into a curriculum (de lange, van laren & tanga, in press). these catalysts relate to professional and personal experiences. two of the collaborating researchers indicated that one of the professional catalysts was becoming aware of unexplained student deaths at their particular hei; for example: since the year 2000 i have become aware of the untimely death of a number of pre-service teachers. the first young pre-service mathematics teacher who i knew well, and probably died of an aids-related disease, was siyabonga [pseudonym]. he died mysteriously and suddenly… (linda) another professional catalyst was the need to take action by engaging in research in the area of hiv and aids: … two colleagues … invited me … to be a co-researcher with them in an hiv and aids project ... (naydene) hiv/aids curriculum integration in sa higher education td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 169-186. 177 the personal catalyst, mentioned by one of the team members related to a close family member being diagnosed as hiv positive, together with the subsequent suffering of this relative. the family feared that she would die, but “… she is fortunate that she is still alive having been on antiretroviral treatment.” further catalysts to commence knowledge production in the area of integration of hiv and aids reflected on by the team members included: the limited understanding of pedagogies and methodologies for engaging with students; the need to encourage other higher education academics to also engage in lecture discussions with students; and the obligation to ‘make a difference’ through taking action. in an attempt to take action and produce new knowledge to enhance integration of hiv and aids issues in the academic curriculum, we now present our findings. in reporting on the findings we first explain our themes and provide verbatim responses from the set of questions that illustrate each theme. where applicable we explain how particular drawings connect to the theme. theme 1: counteracting isolation there are opportunities to network available for south african academics who teach at heis that are involved in teaching and researching around hiv and aids issues. network opportunities are offered through, for example, attendance at annual meetings of the heaids hiv and aids education community of practice (see nelson mandela metropolitan university hiv and aids education research chair, 2013). these meetings are attended by teacher educators from 23 south african heis, and counteract some isolation through facilitating academic discussions in the area of hiv and aids integration. however, this counteraction initiative through this community of practice takes place on a broad, general platform. our small ‘community of practice’, consisting of three researchers who have been collaborating for three years, has strong linkages with the heaids community of practice. the following reflections are examples of how we moved towards developing our own community of practice, and linkages to becoming or being part of a community of practice: … collaboration is a first step in extending and developing a community of practice … (pius) … a community of practice grows when there is a common need to work, discuss and engage with a particular topic. (naydene) the manner in which our collaborative project facilitates linking with our wider community is best illustrated by the drawing titled ‘participatory research enables both the participants and researcher’ (see figure 2). tanga, de lange and van laren 178 f i g u r e 2 : ‘ p a r t i c i p a t o r y r e s e a r c h e n a b l e s b o t h t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s a n d r e s e a r c h e r ’ in her drawing naydene depicts herself as part of the participants interconnected with each other through participatory research. together with research participants, naydene sees herself as forming a larger community of youth, teachers, health workers and students. she represents herself as the dark square and considers all the squares to be ‘equal’. the outermost circle represents hiv and aids as the epidemic surrounds everyone and affects all people. her research is represented as the interconnected arrowed lines. her participatory research includes participants from various communities. this ‘from the ground up’ research approach commences with the participants and binds her and her participants together to form a network. from our reflections it is clear that we initiated development of our own small community of practice for hiv and aids curriculum integration. we collaboratively learnt from each other to extend our knowledge and skills about integration at heis using pvms. each researcher noted the importance of pvms as a means of extending and influencing her/his development of hiv and aids integration during the project. here is an example of a reflection where knowledge and skills were gained using drawings and/or photo-voice: my knowledge about integration has in particular been influenced by one of the co-researcher’s creativity in integrating hiv and aids into mathematics education using drawing and metaphor. for me this demonstrates the porous boundary between hard sciences and soft sciences… (naydene) the collaboration also allowed for extended and more intense networking through regular interactions. evidence of the counteraction of isolation is provided in the following reflection on his integration experiences before we became a collaborating research team: hiv/aids curriculum integration in sa higher education td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 169-186. 179 i was simply doing this integration on an individual basis and at a low level without any collaboration either from colleagues from the same or other university. (pius) we used pvms (de lange, van laren & tanga, in press) to learn more about our colleagues’ integration initiatives and how each of us considers that hiv and aids ought to be integrated in our research and teaching. we selected the drawing by linda as best illustrating how our collaboration counteracted isolation. figure 3, titled ‘my research journey: collaboration for stepping in the right direction’, shows three researchers meeting up to walk on the same path. f i g u r e 3 : ‘ m y r e s e a r c h j o u r n e y : c o l l a b o r a t i o n f o r s t e p p i n g i n t h e r i g h t d i r e c t i o n ’ in the drawing the character on the left represents linda walking along a path which represents her research. the other two characters also join in and walk along the same research path, these two representing the two other collaborators in the hiv and aids curriculum integration project. the path behind linda represents her previous research in other areas, mainly related to mathematics teacher education. the paths behind the collaborators represent research in the other collaborators’ other areas of interest. the path ahead of linda has a broken line running through it, which represents the hiv and aids research which she has integrated into her mathematics education. it is a broken line because her knowledge of hiv and aids integration is not fully developed, but continues as an important element throughout her research path. after the two collaborators join her on this research path, the ‘gaps’ between the broken lines are shown as diminishing, indicating that through collaboration as a research team we have been able to extend knowledge about hiv and aids integration in disciplines. this means that initially linda was researching hiv and aids integration in isolation, but collaboration with two other academics has allowed her to extend her research by gaining new insights through collaborative team efforts. through commencing with studying hiv and aids integration initiatives at our own heis and following up with a collaborative investigation of these initiatives across heis we were tanga, de lange and van laren 180 able to counteract the possible limitation of isolation, as aptly described by stobbe (1993). our collaborative inquiry also provided us with a means of validating our own work in the area of hiv and aids integration, in line with the suggestion of clausen et al. (2009). the collaborative inquiry brought about merging of knowledge that facilitated exchange of ideas and knowledge. theme 2: deepening understanding of hiv and aids integration we reflected on how collaboration deepened our understanding of hiv and aids integration in the higher education curriculum, and realised that it was the pvms which opened up new ways of enhancing integration. in our responses we all maintained that collaboration during our three years of collaborative research actually deepened our understanding of how we can integrate hiv and aids in our teaching and research. hence collaboration has many benefits vis-à-vis individual action. the following reflection highlights the benefits of collaboration: no one knows everything, therefore collaboration will enhance learning from each other’s experiences and sharing of ideas… i … learnt something i have never dreamt of ever using in my hiv and aids teaching and research. (pius) this reflection by pius shows that as a collaborating team member he was mentored by his more experienced colleagues, who are experts in visual methodologies; this spurred his interest in the use of these methods towards the goal of contributing in the fight against the pandemic in different ways. similarly, we stressed that through collaboration much can be learned. one of the points emphasised was that through collaboration we gained deeper understanding of the use of pvms and techniques of teaching and researching hiv and aids. funding emerged as an important tool to enhance teaching and researching hiv and aids integration, since there would be provision of necessary equipment. further, through collaborative research we extended our knowledge about hiv and aids integration. our study equipped us with pragmatic knowledge of how to encourage curriculum integration, and developed our own professional capacity in hiv and aids curriculum integration. also, our research project objectives were to locate and interview ‘champions’ of integration at our heis, and through learning about the experiences of our hei colleagues we deepened our understanding of hiv and aids curriculum integration. theme 3: engaging pvms for integration the use of pvms facilitated collaboration and integration of hiv and aids issues in the academic curriculum, therefore simultaneously benefitting our teaching and research. in spite of us three teaching and researching in the field of hiv and aids, we are aware of the challenges identified in integrating hiv and aids, in particular “aids fatigue” (shefer, strebel & jacobs, 2012, p.113) of colleagues and students. this is highlighted in a reflection: the challenge of integrating hiv and aids often lies in the ‘being sick’ (and tired) of hiv and aids; that it has nothing to do with me; that it is too sensitive a topic to address and that one already knows enough or all. (naydene) however, pvms seem to be effective in overcoming this challenge and therefore can be used as an effective tool in tackling this difficult and overwhelming topic. this concurs with the work of de lange, mitchell, moletsane, stuart and buthelezi (2006), who worked with hiv/aids curriculum integration in sa higher education td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 169-186. 181 academics, introducing them to photo-voice and noting their interest and enthusiasm at trying out something new. the work of moletsane, mitchell, smith and chisholm (2008) about using visual methodologies as entry-points into researching sensitive topics with girls in southern africa opens up the possibility of using contextand culture-sensitive methodologies also in the context of hiv and aids. pvms include drawing, collage, photo voice, participatory video and so on, and we found that because of its participatory nature our challenging research focus of integration of hiv and aids into the academic curriculum became more doable and understandable. several researchers in the area of hiv and aids have successfully used drawing with learners (beyers, 2012), students (van laren, 2007) and teachers (de lange, mitchell & stuart, 2011; wood, de lange & mkumbo, 2013), and academics such as theron, mitchell, stuart and smith (2011) have found making use of drawings engaging. using visual methodologies draws researchers and their participants close to reality and creates the space for real experiences and real-life stories not only to be elicited, but also to be heard, representing their lived realities of hiv and aids, as the following reflection shows: over the years of my working with the visual one ‘image’ that still lingers is where a community worker in our video documentary tells about the ill friends she had looked after, how she had written down their last wishes, and then she tilts her head, and says “they have all died now”. this for me is powerful, making the reality of aids deeply felt. (naydene) although sharing a poignant moment in the reflection is powerful, the power of visual methodologies can only be experienced in actively trying it out. in the collaborative project we therefore engaged in drawing and also in photo-voice, and in so doing came to experience and understand the power of pvms. we considered the application of pvms in other disciplines and how it could facilitate integrating hiv and aids into the academic curriculum. we also wanted other academics to understand the value of pvms, and conducted a visual methodology workshop with academics from nelson mandela metropolitan university and the university of fort hare, and provided them an opportunity to work with digital cameras to generate photographic data. in this workshop (in which we also participated), our photographs served as a medium through which our own meaning of hiv and aids integration could be developed, clarified and exposed to other workshop members. this allowed for exploration and encouraged interrogation of integration of hiv and aids issues in the curriculum. we also found that by using drawings as data we were able to explore more deeply the catalysts that sparked off the integration initiatives of integrators of hiv and aids in disciplines: it is important to understand these catalysts so that it is possible to structure opportunities for other academics to initiate integration of hiv and aids in their own disciplines. (linda) the simplicity of using some of the visual methods, for example drawing, encouraged us to share this with other academics to use in enhancing integration of hiv and aids into the academic curriculum. pius illustrates (see figure 4) how the use of visual methods allows researchers to see the community through ‘a different lens’. he represented himself as the researcher taking photographs and placed himself on the left-hand side of the figure. the drawing shows the tanga, de lange and van laren 182 ‘ugly face of hiv and aids’ rearing its head in the research setting where the researcher is using photo-voice as a participatory visual method. his research takes place through working within the community and is illustrated as a group of people on the right-hand side of his drawing. some of these community members are shown as being hiv positive. f i g u r e 4 : ‘ r e s e a r c h i n g h i v / a i d s i n c o m m u n i t i e s ’ it is clear to us that using pvms not only enabled our collaboration but also opened up possibilities for finding innovative ways of integrating hiv and aids into our curriculum. working with the visual, we found that it not only opens up a space for sharing the lived realities of academics teaching and researching hiv and aids, but also enabled us to use these methodologies to provide additional ways of exploring issues of hiv and aids with our hei students. discussion to make meaning of the three themes that emerged from our reflective self-study, reference is now made to our conceptual framework. these themes reveal how we as collaborative researchers in our own small ‘community of practice’ came together, starting with ourselves, to work on a collaborative research project on hiv and aids integration into the higher education academic curriculum. for us the importance of starting with ourselves should not be underestimated, as it is only when we understand where we are coming from that we can consider improving how we are integrating hiv and aids into the higher education curriculum. it is in this regard that collaboration in a collegiate way has been helpful, as we learnt from each other. in the view of tural et al. (2011) the most powerful professional learning occurs during collaboration, and it also leads to improvement in learning and researching practices (clausen et al., 2009). we developed a sustainable community of practice (wenger & snyder, 2000) by working with each other – three academics from different heis – focused on a particular domain, eager to collaborate, and in so doing improving our practice and capabilities. first, the different disciplinary knowledge of us three academics allowed for complementing of each hiv/aids curriculum integration in sa higher education td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 169-186. 183 other’s professional and personal experiences in the area of hiv and aids. second, by working together and making use of infrastructural and funding support, we sustained our interest in making a difference in hiv and aids curriculum integration. infrastructural support was provided by the three heis’ physical facilities that we used while we worked as a community of practice. these physical facilities include the use of hei venues for project meetings as well as other communication services (internet, electronic mail and telephones) made available to each collaborating academic at his/her hei. the funding support was achieved through successfully gaining financial support from the national research foundation. third, we made use of non-traditional methods in assessing the value of the community of practice. the non-traditional methods included making use of self-study methodology where we reflected on our own experiences during the collaborative project and used a visual method to explore our own involvement in the research project. rather than individual researchers working independently, our findings have shown that pvms in our collaborative project counter our isolation of researching and teaching hiv and aids in our different disciplines. it has also deepened our understanding of ways in which to integrate hiv and aids into the curriculum, through our sharing of ideas and experiences in this domain. the visual methodologies that were chosen proved to be effective and efficient as they were accessible in exciting and fascinating ways which, according to milne et al. (2012), led to increased effectiveness of our research approach. similarly, pvms not only enhanced our learning environment, as mitchell (2008) holds, but also stimulated interest in the process of hiv and aids integration into our academic curriculum. our goal as hiv and aids integrators was to reflect the interdependent real world of hiv and aids integration so as to provide a greater understanding that could be obtained, instead of looking at it separately (imbimbo & knopf, 2009) or in isolation. using pvms in order to fight the aids fatigue which characterises the current teaching and researching of hiv and aids we reaped the benefits of collaborative research, which include a mapping of a coherent hiv and aids integration in our teaching and research, as reflected in our themes. apart from our self-reflections, the drawings which we used to explore teaching and research in hiv and aids in higher education served as a means of persuading (burns, 2010). the power of the visuals permitted exploration of the experiences of our higher education colleagues who integrate hiv and aids in their disciplines, as well as our own experiences as a collaborative team which works in the area of hiv and aids education research. this led us to conclude that pvms could be used by academics in teaching and researching hiv and aids in south african heis to counteract aids fatigue. during our collaborative efforts in higher education the visuals facilitated vigorous, active engagement in curriculum integration. conclusion returning to tuval et al.’s (2011) concern raised earlier – that deep research into how individuals in a community of scholars develop and benefit from collaboration has not been fully explored – our paper’s objective was to ascertain how collaboration could facilitate integration of hiv and aids in higher education. research has shown (mitchell & smith, 2003; shefer et al., 2012) that many academics and students in higher education are ‘tired’ of hearing and listening about what action is required by others to stem the tide of the pandemic – hence the necessity to bring in new methods of teaching and researching hiv and aids. instead of hearing and listening to what ‘experts’ advocate as the solutions for changing behaviour in relation to hiv and aids, ‘listening by seeing for oneself’ is an alternative tanga, de lange and van laren 184 strategy to confront aids. furthermore, exploring this ‘seeing’ of the pandemic collaboratively using pvms is more likely to enable ‘listening’. this listening may, in turn, bring about behaviour or attitude change. the words in our title, ‘listening with our eyes’ were thus tactfully chosen to show the power of persuasion and where ‘seeing is believing’ to facilitate ‘listening’. in addition, the importance of ‘seeing for ourselves’ through our own teaching and research experiences in higher education contexts in south africa was a starting point for persuading our team of three collaborators to take action in the area of hiv and aids. our own reflections of professional and personal experiences led us to ‘listen with our eyes’ to do research to address the limited understanding of the necessary teaching/research pedagogies. in responding to the hiv and aids policy framework for higher education (higher education south africa, 2008; heaids, 2012) and the concerns of tuval et al. (2011), working in collegiality on hiv and aids collaborative research, we decided to use the power of the visual and visual methodologies (‘listening with the eyes’) to show how academics can address the current complaint of fatigue in teaching and researching hiv and aids (shefer et al., 2012). the 3.4% hiv and aids prevalence rate of higher education students (heywood, 2011) should be taken seriously by all higher education academics and researchers. our research shows how the coming together of a ‘small’ community of academics whose goal is to address the epidemic through collaboration, used visual methodologies to further collaboration in hiv and aids curriculum integration in heis. the study points to the possibilities for other academics and researchers to consider collaboration, sharing their knowledge and expertise, to find innovative ways of hiv and aids curriculum integration. furthermore, if the research collaboration makes use of visual methods, then opportunities are created for hiv and aids to be ‘listened to with the eyes’. references (a) primary sourcesde lange, n., van laren, l., tanga, p.t. 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(2013). drawing aids: tanzanian teachers picture the pandemic implications for re-curriculation of teacher education programmes. perspectives in education, 31(2), 1-13. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(1) july 2011, pp. 73-92. developing an environmental performance index (epi): a focus on impacts of information and communication technology use c mbohwa1 and j agwa-ejon2 abstract there is a growing need for environmental performance measures that can be used by all stakeholders like surrounding communities, customers, suppliers and shareholders to gauge the environmental performance of organizations. the environmental performance measures that are used worldwide are normally not suitable for benchmarking organizations. this paper develops an environmental performance index using indicator and weight matrices of the full life cycle phases of an organization’s energy use for environmental management system activities. this work is transdisciplinary in nature and applies mathematical matrices and environmental productivity approaches, and borrows from the development of quality indices to consider a variety of impacts that cut across various phases of a product life cycle and different functions within an organization. the focus is on information and communication technology use in these systems. the model is applied to the japanese automotive industry and the findings show that it is feasible and effective for comparing the environmental performance of companies in the same sector using the same weight matrices and indicators agreed to. the work informs decision making on the development of environmental performance measures that have worldwide applications, across many disciplines, in situations where suitable data are recorded. it also contributes to efforts on economic and social sustainability. research efforts in similar areas in southern africa can benefit from the development and improvement of the proposed methodology. keywords: environmental performance index, indicator and weight matrices, benchmarking disciplines: information and communications technology studies (ict), environmental studies, economics, sustainability studies. 1. introduction international certification standards have been developed for environmental management systems. these are certified for set requirements as international standards organization (iso) 14001 (iso 14001, 2004). these systems do not specify any environmental performance measures. empirical work has been done which suggests that firms with high environmental performance tend to be profitable (king and lenox, 2001). however, the nature of this relationship is still unknown and is a subject of further inquiry. more important 1 . dr c mbohwa is the corresponding author. he is attached to the department of quality and operations management, university of johannesburg, auckland park bunting road campus, p.o. box 524, auckland park 2006, johannesburg, south africa. e-mail address: cmbohwa@uj.ac.za 2 . department of quality and operations management, university of johannesburg, auckland park bunting road campus, p.o. box 524, auckland park 2006, johannesburg, south africa. e-mail address: jagwa-ejon@uj.ac.za . mbohwa & agwa-ejohn 74 still, the methods that can be used to measure environmental performance are still a subject of debate (kuhre, 1998). the demands on companies to measure, document and disclose information about environmental performance are becoming more insistent due to pressures from employees, neighbours, the general public, environmental groups and regulatory agencies, making it become as important as the financial results (tyteca et al., 2002). while it is important for organizations to improve environmental management and performance, industries also seek economic efficiency and profitability. they would never adopt any environmental measures that violate this. the aim should therefore be to build a sustainable socio-economic system that ensures economic development while minimizing environmental burdens. the effectiveness of an environmental management system and the level to which it will satisfy the affected society and other stakeholders will require that organizations go beyond implementing systems according to iso 14001 requirements to the measurement of real environmental performance using universally accepted methods. the overarching objective of an organization should be the improvement of both internal and external transparency about effects on the environment and responses to mitigate them. it should be able to measure the environmental impacts of its activities in ways acceptable to the stakeholders (pun et al., 2003). environmental impact assessment (eia) aims to identify, measure and evaluate the environmental aspects of activities, products and services that can have environmental effects like resource depletion, land use, waste and emissions to the atmosphere and effluents to water. there is a direct relationship between eia and iso 14000 series and the tools and systems that link them (pun et al., 2003). the tools include life cycle assessment (lca), environmental auditing, environmental performance evaluation and environmental labelling. this paper develops an index using a transdisciplinary approach. transdisciplinary research aims to get researchers from different fields to collaborate, so as to achieve an integrated view of a subject that goes beyond the viewpoints offered by any particular discipline. similarly, different methodologies from different disciplines are integrated to address a problem. one of the ways of conducting transdisciplinary research is to integrate the use of the quantitative and qualitative sciences in a research effort, which is done in this case. research of this nature offers opportunities for methods that can solve problems more effectively and enables attempts of previously avoided problems. knowledge packaged in particular disciplines is repackaged to make it useful and meaningful in solving a particular problem (pohl, 2005). the developed index measures environmental impacts of an organization using energy indicator and indicator weight matrices within an lca framework and focusing on applications in the japanese automotive industry. it develops matrix mathematical formulations, which are applied to the lca methodology used in environmental science, engineering and management in order to create an index which can be used for assessing business, organization and industrial environmental performance, with possible extensions to the development of other sustainability indices. it focuses on environmental performance assessment by using an environmental performance index (epi) to represent the impacts of the use of information and communication technology (ict) in an environmental management system (ems). a framework is developed for the determination of the epi of ict usage for any given organization. in this case, the index is defined as a number between 0 and 100 that measures the environmental performance of an organization, related to its use of ict in a typical iso 14001 certified environmental management system. it measures the an environmental performance index (epi) td, 7(1), july 2010, pp. 73-92. 75 level to which the use of ict in the system contributes to improved or to more adverse environmental performance, depending on the particular and unique situation of the organization. a generic framework is proposed, which can be slightly modified for specific applications other than ict use and can be modified if necessary and applied to specific organizations. many companies can use this main framework in its normal state for general environmental performance measurement. the next section reviews environmental performance literature. this is followed by the methodology and model development of the epi. the model is applied to all nine japanese automotive manufacturers without identifying them. the evaluated index for each company shows that some form of benchmarking based on environmental performance is possible. this is followed by a discussion and it is concluded that data collection would need to be improved if the full potential of using this methodology is to be realized. 2. review of environmental performance measurement developing a single indicator for an organization involves measures that are from different fields. this problem is therefore complex and multifaceted and requires complex solutions which necessitate transdisciplinary approaches. this is in line with recent findings that useful knowledge generation for the benefit of society is increasingly demanding transdisciplinary approaches to problem solving and this signals a bright future for transdisciplinary research (wickson et al., 2006). the main characteristics of transdisciplinary research are problem focus, evolving methodology and collaboration, making it the natural choice for such problems (wickson et al., 2006). transdisciplinary research is also a useful means of bridging science and policy and can go beyond informing public agencies, the private sector, or civil society of the results of research. it can be used to reorganize knowledge according to the interest of the audience and/or can initiate a co-production of knowledge during which the different policy cultures interact (pohl, 2007). on the other hand, the terms ‘sustainable development’ and ‘transdisciplinarity’ are closely related in the discipline of ecological economics. this is because sustainable development research is issue oriented and reflects the diversity, complexity and dynamics of the processes involved as well as their variability between specific problem situations. the different disciplines can be integrated to attend to environmental issues or problem fields using inputs and perspectives from societal practices (hadorn et al., 2006). this paper reflects that one aspect of sustainability, environmental impacts, are measured using transdisciplinary approaches. an index has been developed that simultaneously accounts for resources used, good outputs produced and pollutants or undesirable outputs emitted computed using data envelopment analysis techniques. the best performance gives the highest ratio of good to bad outputs. the index measures the degree to which a firm, plant, industry or country has succeeded in producing good output while simultaneously accounting for reductions in bad outputs. it measures the ratio of a quantity index of good output to a quantity index of bad output and can be regarded as an environmental productivity index (färe et al., 2004). environmental performance evaluation involves the use of indicators to quantify and qualify the effects of an organization’s activities on the environment. the need for harmonization and standardization of the performance indicators has resulted in the formation of a variety of mbohwa & agwa-ejohn 76 initiatives, like the measuring environmental performance of industry (mepi) project (tyteca et al, 2002), the global reporting initiative (white, 1999; mullins, 2000), the iso 14031 standard (iso 14031, 1999), dow jones sustainability group index (djsgi) (knoepfel, 2001), which is used for investment screening purposes, and the eco-efficiency initiative led by the world business council for sustainable development (verfaillie and bidwell, 2000). an environmental indicator is concerned with measuring and tracking a firm’s output to the physical environment. the derivation of critical environmental indicators is an important aspect in performance evaluation. in general a plan-do-check-act business process improvement model is used in environmental performance evaluation (iso 14031, 1999). 2.1 developing performance indicators environmental aspect indicators are used because of the unavailability of environmental impact data, which indicate or identify changes in the environmental quality of the system, and because of the complexities of attributing an organization’s contribution to a complex and adaptive ecosystem such as the earth’s environment. an environmental aspect is defined as an element of an organization’s activities, products or services that can interact with the environment. usually the term ‘impact’ describes changes in the environment and related socio-economic implications (olsthoorn et al., 2001). however, most systems just end up measuring environmental aspects and these are then considered as environmental indicators. using aspect indicators is also not easy due to lack of data in most organizations. there is thus a need to improve data collection so that recorded and published data track relevant aspects for sustainability as opposed to simple statistics of normally available data which are obtained using the old, often uninformative traditional data collection systems. the data can be presented as absolute or relative indicators to provide total performance and performance per production output. the types of indicators are as follows (jasch, 2000): o absolute indicators like tons of raw materials, emissions or wastes o relative indicators, for example energy use per square metre, emissions/us$100,000 net sales o indexed indicators expressed as a percentage of a total or percentage change from last year o aggregated depictions of indicators of the same unit summed over a number of production steps or throughout a product’s life cycle o weighted evaluations depicting figures of varying importance using conversion factors the principles for the derivation of environmental indicators laid down in iso 14031 (1999) are: o comparability: indicators must be comparable and reflect changes in environmental performance o target-oriented: indicators must be chosen that can act towards goals within the capability of the organization o balanced: they must reflect environmental performance in a concise manner, displaying problems and benefits appropriately o continuity: they must be derived using the same criteria relative to each other through corresponding time series and units an environmental performance index (epi) td, 7(1), july 2010, pp. 73-92. 77 o frequency: indicators must be derived at an appropriate frequency so that timely intervention can be taken o comprehensibility: they must be understandable for users and correspond to user information needs 2.2 role of environmental indicators and benchmarking according to a number of authors (olsthoorn et al., 2001; jasch, 2000; yim and lee, 2002), the objectives of environmental benchmarking and the role of indicators are as shown in table 1. table 1: role of environmental performance indicators and benchmarking role of environmental performance indicator/benchmarking 1 improve organization’s efficiency, hence better environmental performance, by constant comparison with previous indicators and with competitors (benchmarking) 2 create customer awareness of a product’s environmental performance and defend market positions 3 satisfy green customers through design for the environment 4 improve profitability through better resource efficiency and highlighting of optimization potentials particularly in cost reduction 5 enable continuous monitoring and improvements in environmental performance and enable regulatory and permit compliance 6 promote better understanding of environmental performance by stakeholders through better and focused communication particularly in environmental reports 7 enable commitment to specific goals through qualitative and quantitative monitoring, particularly at top management level. base for deriving targets, objectives and goals for back-casting 8 identify the most harmful emissions and wastes 9 make it easy to create a database that can be used for developing and implementing environmental policies at various levels including government level 10 provide a feedback instrument for the information and motivation of the workforce 11 provide technical support for eu-emas regulation and iso 14001 sources: (olsthoorn et al., 2001; jasch, 2000; yim and lee, 2002) 2.3 efforts in environmental performance evaluation there have been many efforts to evaluate environmental performance using indicators. recent efforts on environmental indicators are (iso 14031, 1999; iso 14032, 1999; white, 1999; mullins, 2000; jasch, 2000; verfaillie and bidwell, 2000; king and lenox, 2001; knoepfel, 2001; olsthoorn et al., 2001; yim and lee, 2002; tyteca et al., 2002): o association of chartered and certified accountants (acca) report on environment-related performance measurement o global reporting initiative (gri) o eu eco-management and audit scheme (emas) o national round table on the environment and the economy (nrtee) o world business council on sustainable development (wbcsd) report ecoefficiency metrics o world resources institute (wri) report o eea working paper on eco-efficiency indicators o iso 14031environmental performance evaluation mbohwa & agwa-ejohn 78 o guide to corporate environmental indicators by the german federal environmental agency these efforts emphasize different multidisciplinary approaches to environmental performance measurements that can be applied in financial accounting, environmental accounting, environmental management, global measuring and business reporting, and in demonstrating corporate social responsibility. while emas, iso, wbcsd and german federal environmental agency initiatives are aimed more at internally oriented performance management, others like wri, nrtee, acca and gri are more focused on external performance measurement. there is little standardization of the indicators and benchmarking is impossible. there is therefore a need for more standardization, measurement of ecoefficiency and sustainability, life cycle focus and benchmarking indexing. standardization refers to efforts to increase data comparability between years, sites, functional units, products, resource users and organizations. this can be done through normalization, which is the transformation of data into compatible and comparable forms. the data is then aggregated, that is, transformed to give summary indicators giving an overview of total resource use, emissions and waste. potency factors like ozone depletion potential and global warming potential are used for such aggregation. 2.4 types and proper usage of indicators the environmental performance indicators are divided into operational performance indicators, management performance indicators and environmental condition indicators, and examples are as shown in table 2 (putnam, 2002). table 2: classification of typical environmental performance indicators operational performance indicator management performance indicator environmental condition indicator raw material use/unit product kg/unit environmental costs/budget per year contaminant in air µg/m3 annual use per unit mj/product % environmental targets achieved/yr photochemical smog frequency/year energy conserved (mj) no. or % of employees trained/year water contaminants mg/l no. of emergencies or shutdowns no. of audit findings per year change in groundwater level (m) hours/year preventive maintenance no. of audit findings addressed/year no. of coliform bacterial/litre water average fuel litres/km of vehicles time/person-hours for corrections/yr soil contamination mg/kg % of product content recycled no. of environmental incidents/year land area rehabilitated (ha/per year) hazardous waste kg/unit made person-hours attending to incidents contaminant in tissue of specific local species (µg/kg) specific emission-kg/co2/year number of complaints received/year specific species population no./m2 noise at specific receptor (db) no. of fines/violations per year increase in algae blooms (%) wastewater discharged/unit product suppliers consulted about ems/yr asthma admissions in smog season hazardous waste eliminated through pollution prevention (kg/year) cost of pollution prevention projects per given year number of fish deaths in a specific watercourse days per year pollution limits exceeded management levels with specific environmental responsibilities employee blood lead levels (µg/100 mℓ) adapted from putnam (2002) some indicators, like those using turnover, can be effective for the entire group, while production quantity is more suitable for a plant. indicators can be given for specific products. an environmental performance index (epi) td, 7(1), july 2010, pp. 73-92. 79 examples of indicators that can be used are amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit turnover and amount of energy consumed per unit ton produced. the other types of environmental indicators measure the product or service value per unit environmental burden, which is a measure of eco-efficiency. this shows the improvement of economic value relative to environmental improvements. the indicators are also presented together with absolute values to ensure that there is no increase in total burden. common core indicators like total amount of material input, energy consumption, greenhouse gases emitted, volume drained and waste produced need to be measured. examples of eco-efficiency indicators are turnover per unit energy consumption, product function (e.g. fuel cost, distance covered) per unit energy consumption and products or services per unit input in tons. these are aimed at specific targets. 2.5 environmental performance models review an overview of the development of environmental performance evaluation models and typologies has been done to analyze their characteristics, strengths and weaknesses (kolk and mauser, 2002). these have consisted of stage or phase models describing the increasing integration over time of environmental factors and concerns into the business policy and strategy on one hand, and continuum models on the other. simultaneously, typologies that merely characterize a company’s position without assuming growing responsiveness over time have also evolved (kolk and mauser, 2002). a continuum in this case is regarded as a linear classification scheme that identifies a development in time, while a typology consists of conceptually derived interrelated sets of ideal types of models. fifty models have been analyzed to identify the current status and the contribution that these models and performance instruments can make (kolk and mauser, 2002). however, comprehensive performance assessments are still unavailable even though the tenets of such systems can be delineated. furthermore, the models cannot be applied easily to the actual behaviour of organizations. this poor fit with reality suggests that there is room for more specialized models that can suit particular aspects that are being modelled, like ict applications; hence this effort to develop an epi. the index mentioned previously that measures the ratio of a quantity index of good output to a quantity index of bad output and that can be regarded as an environmental productivity index (färe et al., 2004) is different from the index that is being developed here, which combines the bad outputs and good outputs. the best output has a score closer to 10 and the worst output has a score closer to 0. performance-based environmental index weights have also been developed. these measure environmental performance and provide the marginal performance for each metric by using a metric weighting scheme that incorporates each metric's marginal contribution to performance, at each site (bellenger and herlihy, 2010). a weighted version of the original index is obtained and this provides a similar measure of overall performance while also adding new information on the relative importance of each of the index metrics. the index can be used for benchmarking (bellenger and herlihy, 2010). data from the toxic release inventory of electric power plants has also been used to construct an epi. this index simplifies to the ratio of good to bad output for multiple bad outputs (färe et al., 2010). an environmental performance index (epi) td, 7(1), july 2010, pp. 73-92. 83 the company’s emss, development and design activities, its internal material procurement, production and logistics and internal recycling services. the use and maintenance of the vehicles and the disposal of the vehicles after their useful life phases are considered as being downstream activities. the main phases used in the lca formulation are therefore upstream, internal inputs, internal outputs and the downstream activities. the operational environmental performance indicators were the only ones considered in this case and they are discussed in the following sections with a focus on the japanese automotive industry applications. while the lca method of eia is applied, the nature of the data collected naturally forms a matrix that is manipulated to give a single number, which is taken as the index. 3.1 operational performance indicators (opis) of inputs in upstream sectors green purchasing or preferential purchase of environment-conscious products and services has a positive effect on the environment. for example, in japan, environment-conscious products and services are defined in clause 1 of article 2 of the aw regarding promotion and procurement of environmental articles by country etc. these include use of recycled resources, recycled components, reduction of pollutants, low energy consumption, reuse and use of vehicles that emit low levels of exhaust gases (ministry of the environment, japan, 2009). prior assessment of materials used in vehicle production can be done to determine environmental impacts upstream (toyota, 2008). the analysis of these upstream aspects is the first step and involves the identification of the various environmental aspects in the organization concerned. these have to be identified exhaustively. any operational procedures, factors and practices that can have a negative or positive effect on the environment should be listed and these can be represented as aij, for i = 1…i and j = 1…j, where i is the index of the environmental aspect and j is the index of the sub-factor of the aspect for the upstream sector. typical environmental aspects and their sub-factors related to ict use in an ems in the production phase of the report are shown in table 3. table 3: typical environmental aspects of ict and the related sub-factors for the operational phase factor or aspect sub-factors of the environmental aspect paper use weight of paper per annual environmental report, weight of ems and communication documentation, operational records, document control procedures and ems records health aspects hazards ict-generated hazardous chemicals releases/mobile communication capacity per sales volume. classified by type of chemical energy consumption ict energy use/unit output, ict contribution to energy efficiency of products/unit measurement, emission of pollutants/mj consumed, renewable energy used/total energy used, improved energy efficiency/unit output due to ict-based energy management system, information technology hardware and software electricity consumption and telecommunications equipment consumption of power/shipment value logistics ict-induced energy savings/net sales, other environmental impact reductions/net sales; consider aspects like intelligent transportation systems, electronic logistics, telecommuting, e-mails, electronic auditing, telephone and videoconferences, distance education and training and travel replacement through e-commerce indicators. consider energy use, emissions and other environmental aspects. ict load factor, ton-km/net sales, route planning, digital maps, b2b and b2c systems integration, travel reduction/employee. enabling jit material use and waste reduction ict recycling %, ict-enabled green purchasing and internet auctions %, ict-induced co2 reductions from recycling, ict-induced waste reduction as % of total inputs, ict-based improvement in material conversion efficiency, total ict equipment/net sales, ict assistance to optimize factors of safety as % material used reduction. resource efficiency light weighting, fuel consumption/net sales, material substitution, packaging indicators mbohwa & agwa-ejohn 84 dematerialization/ immaterialization indicators for e-mails, electronic documents, electronic/traditional training and education, digital photography, video downloading, paper use volume, immaterial products development, manual, bills, invoices, receipts, lan, groupware, web, file transfer, services as % of net sales electronic media video and teleconferencing indicators for energy use reduction, co2 emission reduction, waste from related hardware and software, number of people trained by system, transport reduction, reduced accommodation needs, impacts of electronic auditing; all measured per set net sales, training and education indictors all/net sales ict green design design simulation impacts, prototype impacts, ict controls of motors, lca design effect, reduction/elimination of packaging, recycle material use, specifications for green procurement, ict take-back systems, design for reuse and disposability all per unit of net sales process control microprocessor effects for better engine performance or less emissions, litres/km, co2, co, so2 and nox released, energy from brakes, transmission optimization, reduced energy consumption, process management and monitoring, process optimization and process design benefits per net sales (jantzen, 2001) buildings energy intensity/m2 for lighting, heating, powering ict equipment, impact of smart windows, intelligent controls, elevator optimization systems, intelligent houses, ozone-friendly refrigerants for air conditioning and office space reduction due to ict use m2/net sales, land area saved, extra space and land requirements for servers, computers, ict equipment/net sales rebound effect % energy increase from rebound effect, resources, material, paper, ict equipment, increase in person-km and ton-km, air transportation use impacts all/net sales this spans a range of activities and disciplines including paper use impacts, chemical and pollution effects on health, usage of renewable and fossil energy, performance of logistics systems, material use and substitution, waste, electronic and process control systems and the rebound effect, which has to do with worsening environmental performance as a result of easy affordability and higher volume usage. all these aspects are attended to from the perspective of how ict is applied in these disciplines. similar aspects and sub-aspects are applied to the inputs and outputs within an organization and to the downstream sector as well. aij is assigned a value score between 1 and 10, which indicates its importance in either increasing or reducing the potential environmental impacts of ict in the organization. the environmental impact is simply any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organization’s activities, products or services. a very positive environmental impact or environmental benefit attracts a high score, while an extremely negative impact or environmental burden is allocated a very low score. most models tend to use a negative score for negative impacts on the environmental burden. however, this is not feasible when developing an index reflected as a number between 0 and 100. on the other hand a rule of thumb can be developed that scores of 0 to 5 are reserved for negative impacts on the environment and scores of 6 to 10 for positive impacts. this enables easier modelling. this can be benchmarked against best practice. the real impact is not measured, however; the aspect is measured and a reduction of its concentration or volume is assumed to have a positive effect on the environment. 3.2 opis of inputs within an organization the basic opis are given by the total input of materials and amount of sustainable use of materials into the ems in tons. current exploitation of large quantities of resources releases many substances harmful to the environment beyond its restorative ability. drastic solutions such as resource conservation, reutilization, recycling and thermal cycling are therefore needed. the input material includes raw materials, products, parts, components, facilities, equipment and operational sites. the material is classified by chemical elements and compounds and material type, and can be measured by volume instead of weight, such as the an environmental performance index (epi) td, 7(1), july 2010, pp. 73-92. 85 case with wood. new investment, rebuilding and replacement of equipment and facilities are part of the inputs. these aspects are considered for ict use in the ems only, in this case. substances used cyclically are not considered as part of the material input. energy input is an important opi. this can be classified into total energy consumed and renewable energy consumed by the ems. fossil fuels are a major contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, causing global warming. there is a need to improve energy consumption efficiency and to increase the usage of renewable energy to reduce this impact. a breakdown of how electricity or each fuel is used is to be given. energy consumption by own transportation systems in traditional systems is included to allow for comparisons with the electronic system. water input opis are very important. the amount of water used or reused for the ems, measured in cubic metres, is given. excessive use of water has to be avoided and pumping of too much groundwater can cause land subsidence. water conservation and recycling are the key. recycled water is not included when the indicators are computed. the second step involves the same procedure as in section 3.1 for inputs to the organization. the factors and sub-factors can be similar to those in the first step and table 2 represents the relationships. the environmental factors of the inputs into the company are denoted by bkl for k = 1…k and for l = 1,………l, where k represents the environmental aspect of the ems inputs within the company and l is the index of the sub-factor of the aspect. the sub-stages would have to be identified bearing in mind they are being assessed for ict usage in this case and its impacts on the environment. 3.3 opi of outputs within an organization the main output opi is based on emissions to the air. greenhouse gas emissions related to the ems are measured in tons or equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (ministry of the environment, japan, 2009). in japan, for example, carbon dioxide accounts for 88.9% of greenhouse gases emitted mainly from fossil fuels. in 1998, 1 188 million tons of carbon dioxide were emitted in japan, about 9.39 tons per capita. this is 5.6% more than in 1990 and represents a 3.2% per capita increase over the same period. therefore co2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are critical and any way of reducing them is a step in the right direction. there is therefore a need for good indicators of the emission of greenhouse gases to enable effective monitoring and inform decisionmaking. the other output indicators measure the amount of ozone depleting substances released by an organization due to the use of ict in the ems in tons. amounts from discarded air conditioners, refrigerators and other products are included in the calculations. opis of emissions from emss to water and soil depend on the total amount of drainage to these systems. the drainage water needs to be recycled otherwise water pollution by chemical oxygen demand, phosphorus, nitrogen, heavy metals and toxic chemicals as well as by eutrophication of lakes, marshes and sea areas would occur. the amount of rainwater not recycled or reused is not considered as drainage. the opis for waste generated should be monitored. another indicator is the measurement of recyclable resources from emss that are thermally recycled. some waste might be difficult to recycle due to technological and economic limitations. one way of using such waste is thermal recycle, methane formation through anaerobic fermentation and use in coke and blast mbohwa & agwa-ejohn 86 furnaces. cogeneration systems can be set up to maximize energy recovery. measurements can be made of the ict waste incinerated and of the final waste disposed (landfill etc.) in tons. incineration processing is when waste is burnt without thermal recycle. waste that is difficult to dispose of, such as radioactive and hazardous waste, is monitored and assessed separately. the analysis of environmental aspects of the outputs from an organization is the third step and similarly yields the variables cmn for m = 1…….m for outputs from the organization and n = 1……..n, where m denotes the environmental aspect and n is the index of the sub-factor of the aspect. 3.4 opi of outputs in downstream sectors the characteristics of a product or service can indicate whether or not it promotes more environmental burdens or preservation. the use phase of the product or service and its disposal are often in the downstream of the company. the other indicators in the downstream of an organization are in transportation. the co2 emissions from transportation are increasing in japan. in 1998, transportation emissions were 21.1% above those in 1990 and accounted for 21.7% of all emissions (ministry of the environment, japan, 2009). transportation efficiencies can be achieved through higher capacity utilization, joint transportation and delivery, back-loading of vehicles and avoiding the rejection of goods, which would have to be transported back. some of these systems require the use of ict systems, and environmental management of the downstream activities lends itself to the use of ict as well. in addition, more efficient vehicle engines can use ict-based systems to reduce the environmental burdens. it is necessary to have another indicator that measures actual co2 emissions from transportation in tons. a modal shift from vehicles and aeroplanes to rail and marine transportation systems is recommended whenever possible. it offers environmental benefits, when ict systems are compared with traditional systems in environmental management. this analysis is the fourth step and the variable dop for o = 1…..o and p = 1…..p is used for the downstream aspects, where o denotes the environmental aspect and p the sub-factor of the aspect. 3.5 definition of the epi there are four main aspects that are considered in developing the index, namely the upstream, internal input, internal output and the downstream environmental aspects, which have been described in the last sections. these cover the operational environmental performance of an organization within an lca framework. it is noted that the performance indicators are in the form of matrices, rendering them amenable to matrix and array manipulation programming. the assignment of the values aij, bkl, cmn and dop are based on the method of assigning indicators as derived from the model of jaggi and freedman (1992). this is modified to reflect variables that measure the environmental impact of ict use in an ems. every selected variable is first normalized. dividing it by the level of output production does this: output variable v = (1) v is the normalized environmental indicator. a minimum possible normalized value of the variable indicators vmin is identified. this can be the minimum within the company or an environmental performance index (epi) td, 7(1), july 2010, pp. 73-92. 87 sector for the given system. where possible, the best practice variable is chosen. this is also normalized: )/min(min outputvariablev = (2) the contribution of that variable to the environmental impact is then given by: vvvcont min/*10= (3) vcont in this case represents the various values of aij, bkl, cmn and dop and is deliberately maintained between the values of 0 and 10. the indicators have to be manipulated in such a way that a higher value always indicates better environmental performance and a lower value a poor environmental performance. the final step involves the assessment of functions within the company to identify the applications that are critical in influencing the impacts of ict on the environment when applied in an ems. to understand this matrix, algebra and relevant matlab aspects are presented. an array multiply (times) of two matrices x and y is given as x.*y, which denotes an element by element multiplication in the matlab environment. this is provided that x and y have the same dimensions or that at least one of them is a scalar. in formulating the index, an indicator matrix undergoes array multiplication with a weight matrix of its weights. it should be emphasized that this is not normal matrix multiplication, which would have resulted in a more complex formulation. normal matrix addition is then applied to the products of the array multiplication. it is necessary to ensure that all the matrices have the same dimensions. zeros are applied where the dimensions are different to bring them to the same dimensions. the weights of the ems environmental indicators are denoted by wij, wkl, wmn and wop and applied to respective indicators that share similar indices. they are used to signify the importance of the factor in causing environmental impacts. the allocation of these weights has to be done carefully, since they affect the final value of the index. experts are needed in assigning them. once the weights are assigned, comparative analysis between organizations becomes more objective. the formula below is when all the multiplication is array multiplication of each element of the indicator matrix with an equivalent element of the weight matrix. summation is that of a normal matrix done until a single figure is obtained. ∑∑ ∑∑ ∑∑∑∑ ∑∑ ∑∑ ∑ ∑∑∑ = = = = = == = = = = = = = == +++ +++ = i i j j k k l l o o p p op m m mn n n klij i i j j k k l l m m o o p p opopmnmn n n klklijij ict dcba dwcwbwaw epi 1 1 1 1 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 )(10 (4) the formula was applied to indicators estimated based on data gathered from the nine japanese automotive manufacturing companies, which are referred to as a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h and i to maintain anonymity. some of the indices were estimated from their annual environmental management reports. while the indicators were not accurately derived, the mbohwa & agwa-ejohn 88 main idea was to test the feasibility of the formulation, rather than accurately benchmark the companies. 4. results and discussion table 3 was used as a framework for the assessment. paper use was classified under material use and waste reduction. when it was completely replaced, it was considered as immaterialization. in this case the indicator matrices were limited to a dimension of ten columns by five rows. the five most important sub-aspects were used in cases where more existed. if less existed, a value of 0 was used, nullifying the effect in both the numerator and denominator, even though the same weight matrices were used for the nine companies. the results of applying the epi model to the japanese vehicle manufacturing companies are shown in table 4. the names of the companies are replaced with letters for anonymity. table 4: evaluation of the epi for japanese automotive manufacturers company a b c d e f g h i numerator value 71,028 58,435 83,126 68,364 75,846 62,695 56,039 78,293 65,348 denominator value 993 883 1,004 984 1,026 873 821 986 842 epi 72 66 83 69 74 72 68 79 78 the results show that the model can be used to benchmark the environmental performance of the ems in companies based on the criteria set. the epi of ict usage in the ems, epiict, is a number between 0 and 100. this wide range makes it possible to detect small changes in the performance measure. a higher value reflects better environmental performance. the way this number is interpreted will have to be done carefully. it is intended to represent how the organization is doing in terms of the environmental performance of usage of it in meeting environmental management objectives. the usefulness of the number will depend on the assessment of the factors, which can make this interpretation inaccurate. the inaccuracies can arise from a number of sources, including the following: o the other dimensions of environmental performance may be confounded in the index. for example, paper use reduction due to ict use can result in energy use reduction even though these are treated as separate environmental aspects. similar issues can also be at play when transport optimization is considered separately from transport substitution issues. thus the net effect of the environmental impact can be directly or indirectly influenced by a variety of factors that have related dimensions. these can also affect other areas like costs, even though for this purpose they are limited to environmental impacts only. o another source of inaccuracy can be the use of ict factors that remotely affect the environment. the allocation of weights to signify the importance of a factor helps to reduce this error. the level of effect on the environment is given on the same scale and is either weakened or strengthened by the weighting given. nevertheless some impacts will be overemphasized and others underemphasized. furthermore, the allocation of weights could be subjective, resulting in different results when different people do the assessment. an environmental performance index (epi) td, 7(1), july 2010, pp. 73-92. 89 the epi can be a reliable measure of the environmental performance of ict usage in the ems in organizations. it is noted that this can be extended to cover other indicators beyond ems application and ict use. however, the current model has been limited to ict usage in the ems to reduce its complexity and to demonstrate that the formulation can provide a very useful tool for gauging the environmental performance for particular applications. the environmental issues differ across industries; hence the epi proposed can be a reliable measure when used within an industrial sector, making it useful for intra-industry comparison. similar issues should be compared; the application here is therefore limited to ict environmental performance in ems. the value of the index is determined by the factor quantities and factor weights that are used in the formula. experts with a good understanding of the environmental factors and the related impacts must determine the weights. they would need to be tested through extensive empirical experimentation. this is the most difficult part, which would involve experiments in many industries using this methodology; hence the need to further refine the proposed framework. the values that reflect the degree of environmental impact must be chosen carefully. the results in general reflected the environmental and sustainability awareness and practice in the different companies. company c has produced annual environmental reports and sustainability reports since 1999. its activities also included development of energy-efficient cars, hybrid vehicles and fuel cell cars. the top score obtained is justified. on the other hand, company b lagged behind in environmental awareness and reporting, with the first comprehensive corporate environmental effort being reflected in 2002. it was the last company to adopt improved emss and to report on its environmental performance. however, it is noted that more work needs to be done to fully validate the model developed. 5. conclusion this paper has made significant attempts to develop an index for environmental performances of individual organizations. although the focus is only on ict usage in this case, such indices can be extended to cover other organizational activities, such as transport and manufacturing, with possible application in southern africa and other countries worldwide. given that environmental awareness is mounting all over the world, it can be expected that organizations will be subject to increasing pressure in future to reduce their carbon footprints. additionally, although there are sophisticated calculation methods for greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries — the emission mitigation measures being subject to heated debate — it is unacceptable to assume that individual organizations are not bounded by such concerns. thus, comparable performance measures need to be developed and this article has done that. this has been done using a transdisciplinary approach that sourced for ict environmental impacts data across disciplines and across organizational functions. data manipulation with matrices using matlab is normally a mathematics, operations research or engineering analysis methodology. this has been applied to environmental science methods within the developing field of lca. through weighting and analysis, this has been reduced to a number that tries to capture the overall environmental performance of an organization. mbohwa & agwa-ejohn 90 a framework has been laid out that constitutes an important tool for companies that want to determine an epi that can be used for benchmarking organizations in the same sector. the index that reflects their environmental performance when using ict in an ems has been developed. the formulation involved the use of an lca methodology that generated aspects and sub-aspects that were manipulated in the form of mathematical matrices using matlab software. the developed index can be used to rank organizations in the same sector based on their environmental performance within the set system boundaries. the process of the identification of the environmental aspects or factors and the use of weights by an organization also creates useful intelligence on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organization in terms of environmental and sustainability issues. this will assist in providing a foundation for long-term sustainability since it can be used as a tool for back-casting by designing the necessary data collection systems and methods so that all useful data are captured. back-casting is thus a way of constructing a desirable future as opposed to forecasting, which is a way of predicting a likely future state of affairs. the limitation of the use of the epi is the fact that data on many variables that are considered are scarce. in this case estimates were made based on available data and annual environmental report results that depend on ict use in the ems. the interpretation of the results, which are synthesized using the model, should therefore be done with care. the need for a systematic collection of data on the most significant variables is identified. there is more value in collecting data on a regular basis on less but most significant variables as opposed to collection on general data that are not used at all. attention must be drawn to supplement and standardize the information about the variables. this would provide a useful tool to improve environmental management and performance. as indicated earlier, immediate future research efforts can be applied to more comprehensive validation of the model. the most important contribution of this index and its methodology is that it presents data and results in such a format that they can be applied to company strategy development. it also overcomes the two main problems confronted when benchmarking between companies, namely the lack of consensus regarding what to compare on one hand, and varying system boundaries on the other. the method developed can be applied universally and can contribute to similar research work in the context of the southern african situation. this can contribute to efforts in development studies, sustainability assessment and indexing and in the broader field of life cycle management in transport, mining, automotive production and other sectors, since all performance data can be 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21. putnam d., 2002, iso 14031: environmental performance evaluation, draft submitted to the confederation of indian industry journal, september 2002. 22. toyota, 2008, toyota motor corporation: environmental report 2001, august 2001, toyota motor corporation environmental affairs division, tokyo 23. tyteca d., carlens j., berkout f., hertin j., wehrmeyer w., and wagner m., 2002, “corporate environmental performance evaluation: evidence from the mepi project”, business strategy and the environment, 11, 1-13. 24. verfaillie h. a., and bidwell r., 2000, measuring eco-efficiency – a guide to reporting company performance. world business council for sustainable development, conches-geneva 25. white a. l., 1999, “sustainability and the accountable corporation: society’s rising expectations of business”. environment 41 (8) 30-43 26. wickson f., carew a. l., and russell a. w., 2006, “transdisciplinary research: characteristics, quandaries and quality”, futures 38 (2006) 1046–1059 27. yim h., and lee k., 2002, environmental benchmarking methodology for the identification of key environmental aspects of a product, ieee international symposium on electronics & the environment, 6-9 may 2002, san francisco, ca, usa microsoft word 09 van eeden.doc td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. 253-272. a practical exploration of the feasibility of integrative multidisciplinary research from a broad ecohealth perspective in south africa es van eeden1 science is not only an intellectual and practical activity; it is a social one. the social, intellectual, and practical aspects of science are interlocking and help to characterize the enterprise of science collier's encyclopedia (1994 edition) the intellectual’s task: to attempt to discern what the phenomenon is; to attempt to discern what were its origins; to attempt to discern what are its links with other phenomena; to attempt to discern what has been its trajectory; to attempt to discern what we may anticipate its future trajectory to be. (wallerstein)2 abstract this discussion is a deliberation on the progress towards the possibility of carrying out feasible research according to an integrative multidisciplinary (imd) research methodology (theoretically and practically). to explore the imd research methodology, a group of researchers from several disciplines started discussions in early february 2011 to plan a pilot research process in the bekkersdal township of the municipal region of westonaria (gauteng, south africa). it was decided that the focus of research would be on exploring a broad definition of ecohealth to accommodate several disciplines and to attempt to produce a “package” of research results from many disciplinary angles. these results will eventually be discussed and refined through interdisciplinary (id) and transdisciplinary (td) research phases to “contain” consolidated reflections of the status of the well-being of the bekkersdal community. however, the primary research question remains: whether it is possible to do research using imd methodology, and whether this proposed methodology is more promising and constructive as an aid to understanding and disseminating research from various disciplinary angles than other methodologies. keywords: integrative multidisciplinary research; ecohealth; bekkersdal township; westonaria; gauteng; environment; humanities; social sciences. disciplines: hitsory, ecohealth, multidisciplinarity introduction interdisciplinary (id) and transdisciplinary (td) research co-operations in south africa within the humanities and social sciences over the past decades can be traced through intervals of time up to 2009.3 id cooperation is more common in the natural and agricultural sciences. numerous educational changes since the mid-1990s supported a debate on the 1 . prof. es van eeden, subject group history, north-west university (vaal), elize.vaneeden@nwu.ac.za 2 see wallerstein’s discussion on “the ecology and the economy: what is rational?”, a hornborg, jr mcneill and j martinez-alier, rethinking environmental history. world-system history and global environmental change, pp. 379-380. 3 compare a goebel et al., “transdisciplinarity in urban south africa”, futures, doi:10.1016/j.futures. 2009.11.032, pp. 1-9. van eeden 252 status and value of integrated forms of research by disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences.4 for example, as long ago as 1997 the centre for science development (csd) conducted an audit on social science research methodology training in south africa at universities and universities of technology. the audit covered approximately 15–20 disciplines categorised as part of the humanities and the social sciences. a key objective of the audit was to promote an adjustment in tertiary research methodology in the social sciences which would involve more interdisciplinary co-operation (probably more among the social and human sciences) and inter-institutional cooperation (again, probably more among the social and human sciences). the authors of the report argue that if this were done, it would allow more effective use of resources and that inter-institutional collaboration would also facilitate the sharing of best practice in research methodology teaching. from the csd audit another valuable comment was made in favour of integrated forms of disciplinary research and teaching, namely that the whole area of interdisciplinary training is an important focus for closer attention to also overcome unnecessarily narrow disciplinary boundaries in line with international trends in, for example, the social sciences. the authors continue:5 discipline-specific skills in many areas have only a short life and what will be needed even in the medium term cannot be predicted with any great precision. as part of the justification for id research ventures, the td focus was also raised as a key element of a “knowledge society” [sic] with the intention of solving problems. although covered by the audit, no in-depth questions on this form of research were raised. some general recommendations reflecting both forms of research emerged from the csd audit, namely that the csd:6 • should consider facilitating the development of a generic research methodology module at postgraduate level; • should involve other relevant stakeholders (including, for example, students, employers and ngos) in developing its programmes in research methodology; • should recognise the value of inter-institutional exchanges in promoting the development of a vibrant research culture; 4 compare ej hollingsworth, “a multidisciplinary review of the study of innovation ....”, a transdisciplinary research program for the twenty-first century, public, south africa, july 7. 1995; also see eb.mit.edu/annualreports/pres08/2008.03.00.pdf; es van eeden, didactical guidelines for teaching history in a changing south africa, november 1999, (keurkopie, potchefstroom, 1999), chapters 8-10. 5 see higher education council, nbeet, “achieving quality” (canberra, agps), 1992 as quoted by centre for science development (csd), human sciences research council, report, “social science research methodology teaching at south african tertiary institutions” (compiled by a tothill & c crothers), november 1997, p. 9. 6 csd, human sciences research council, report, “social science research methodology teaching at south african tertiary institutions” (compiled by a tothill & c crothers), november 1997, pp. 4-6, 33-34. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 253 • should recognise the growing importance of multidisciplinary research, and should continue to develop and expand programmes which promote such research and address the accompanying organisational and philosophical challenges. the last recommendation given above, namely the growing importance of integrative multidisciplinary (imd) co-operation in research and the expansion of educational programmes, do indeed require more focused thinking, even 12 years after the csd audit was published. as was positively outlined in the audit report, varying degrees of integration are possible, but, “multiand transdisciplinary research are best viewed on the continuum”.7 south africa’s higher education white paper of 1997 also endorses an integrative disciplinary approach to research8 as suggested in imd research: the accountability processes that flow from the changing nature of the research enterprise are much wider than those associated with traditional research in the higher education system. the outcomes of research are not only measured by traditional tools such as peer reviews, but also by a broader range of indicators such as national development needs, industrial innovation and community development. i have been involved for years with most types of regional history based particularly on the skipp model and some adapted versions the model, and experience over time has shaped my historical thinking.9 i am convinced that historians (my discipline is history) can deal effectively with id and td10 research in an integrative way (imd) without forgetting or ignoring their valuable historical (disciplinary) roots. regional and local history covers a variety of themes in which human involvement and human interaction, specifically with the environment, is stressed. history’s breadth of research field and knowledge at all levels of community also allow the discipline to take the lead in integrative research processes of an id and td nature within the human and social sciences, as well as with (and among) other non-related sciences. in the process much is gained. if approached wisely and meaningfully, the fundamental qualities of the discipline will remain the most valuable point of departure in conducting and thinking about research. environment-related research within the research methodology focus should be appreciated 7 csd, human sciences research council, report, “social science research methodology teaching at south african tertiary institutions” (compiled by a tothill & c crothers), november 1997, pp. 33-34. 8 csd, human sciences research council, report, “social science research methodology teaching at south african tertiary institutions” (compiled by a tothill and c crothers), november 1997, p. 35. 9 i campbell and k van rijsbergen, “the ostensive model of developing information needs”, accepted to colis-2, copenhagen, october 1996, pp. 1-14; h joho, j urban, r villa, jm jose, cj van rijsbergen (eds.), jana urban (booklet editor), first international workshop on adaptive information retrieval (air), university of glasgow scotland, uk, 14th october 2006, pp. 1-43; see also es van eeden, “ekonomiese ontwikkeling en die invloed daarvan op carletonville, 1948-1988: ’n historiese studie”, (ph.d., pu vir cho [nwu], 1992). 10 jt klein, w grossenbacher-mansuy, r häberli, a bill, rw scholz,& m welti, m.(eds.), transdisciplinarity: joint problem solving among science, technology and society, birkhäuser, basel, 2001, pp. 81-93; 118; jwn tempelhoff, oral discussion with es van eeden, january 2010; s baumgärtner, c becker, k frank, m müller & f quaas, “relating to the philosophy and practice of ecological economics: the role of concepts, models, and case studies in interand transdisciplinary sustainability research”, ecological economics, 67(3), october, 2008, pp. 384-393. van eeden 254 as additional to the heuristic and methodological features of the discipline. it can be appreciated as a discipline in its “applied” mode in a current context.11 the discussion to follow is a deliberation on the progress that has been made towards the possibility of doing feasible research according to an integrative multidisciplinary (imd) research methodology (theoretically and practically). to explore the imd research methodology a group of researchers from several disciplines started discussions in early february 2011 to plan a pilot research process in the bekkersdal township of the municipal region of westonaria (gauteng, south africa). the focus of research that was decided on was the exploration of a broad definition of ecohealth to accommodate several disciplines and to attempt to produce a “package” of research results from many disciplinary angles. the results that will eventually be discussed and refined through interdisciplinary (id) and transdisciplinary (td) research phases and will “contain” consolidated reflections on the status of the well-being of the bekkersdal community. however, the primary research question remains: whether it is possible to do research using imd methodology, and whether this proposed methodology is more promising and constructive as an aid to understanding and disseminating research from various disciplinary angles than other methodologies. understanding the concepts “integrative multidisciplinary” (imd) research and “ecohealth” research from a broader angle by integrative multidisciplinary (environmental) research, the conceptual understanding is that it is research that transcends the boundary of being only disciplinary, or of relying only on traditional ways of dealing with multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary research opportunities.12 the ideal is to join together all parts of research that features more than one related or unrelated discipline, and which includes professionals, consultants and community members doing research on a specific local community and its environment. the different “jackets” of science then, as researched in a localised context, must bring about an as “complete” or inclusive informative research outcome as possible so as to contribute meaningfully to the understanding of a specific environment, as well as to critically explore the past, present and future of humankind in that particular environment. it is in, for example, so-called area studies13 that opportunities for crossing disciplinary boundaries become apparent, as well as examination and intellectual collaboration of 11 es van eeden, “the 21st value of history and the history educator revised – a motivational discourse”, new contree, 51, may 2006; es van eeden, “history as silent formative force in all careers with specific reference to history training and its career receptiveness”, new contree, november 1997. 12 compare with the views in a hornborg, “introduction: environmental history as political ecology”, in a hornborg, jr mcneill and j martinez-alier, rethinking environmental history. world-system history and global environmental change (altamira press, united kingdom, 2007), pp. 1-2. 13 h ritvo, “discipline and indiscipline”, environmental history, 10(1), january, 2005, pp. 75-76. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 255 transnational aspects within regional studies.14 the quest for proper training to accommodate new research trends is repeatedly pursued. in 2004, katz et al. remarked:15 as historians become increasingly spatial in their analysis, area studies theorists and programs may be helpful partners, while history departments can offer area studies programs, many of which have historical foundations, [as] historical training for their students. and, like history, many area studies programs are moving toward the humanistic disciplines. in integrative multidisciplinary studies, one should always embrace one’s academic roots and accommodate its research tools in, for example, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research environments. ignorance of disciplinary roots will lead nowhere.16 after a group of disciplines in a research project have identified their core focus and locus (including the core research questions), research can commence by making use of an imd approach. the imd approach can be visualised as follows (see diagram 1):17 14 rq grafton, l robin, & r wasson, understanding the environment: bridging the disciplinary divides. sydney, australia: university of new south wales, 2005, pp. 1-220. this collection of essays refers to multiple researchers at the centre for resource and environmental studies, australia. it is regarded as the southern hemisphere's biggest and oldest interdisciplinary environmental research centre. 15 see katz in the publication of the committee on graduate education of the american historical association (compilers: t. bender, p.m. katz, c. palmer), the education of historians for the twenty-first century, pp. 1-222; je de steiguer, the origins of modern environmental thought. university of arizona press: tucson usa, 2006, p. 202. 16 s pyne, “environmental history without historians”, environmental history, 10(1), january, 2005, pp. 72-74; p. sabin, “the ultimate environmental dilemma: making a place for historians in the climate change and energy debates”, environmental history, 15(1), 2010, pp. 76-93. 17 diagram 1 should also be understood with the visual and explanation of diagram 2. van eeden 256 conducting research into ecohealth-related matters, and reporting on this kind of research according to id and td research methodologies, are relatively new in south africa and thus not yet well explored. therefore these methodologies appear to be totally absent in imd research, especially in the humanities and social sciences. according to the south african department of health’s environmental health impact assessment (ehia) guideline of 2010, environmental health can be defined as comprising:18 ...those aspects of human health, including quality of life, that are determined by physical, biological, social and psychosocial factors in the environment. it is also related to the theory and practice of assessing, correcting, controlling, and preventing those factors in the environment that can potentially affect the health of present and future generations... though this definition appears all-inclusive, it has not yet been used in an integrative way in research efforts in south africa. the importance therefore of considering an imd research approach that, for example, includes environmental impact assessments19 as well as social science impact assessments, are not defined in the ehia guideline. as a result the research process and methodology of inclusively involving the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences in research projects are limited and even ignored. as far as health research and specifically the humanities are concerned, john eyeles, susan elliott, jacques grondin, karen smoyer, ralph matthews and dan krewski reported in “new directions – new dimensions for environmental health research in canada”20 that the meaning of “health” has evolved from the absence of disease to a broader, more complete concept incorporating physical, social and emotional factors. this has set the stage for revisiting the biomedical paradigm and developing new models of health and well-being. these pioneering canadian models emphasise the numerous determinants of health (physical, social, cultural, political and economic). the canadian institute of environmental health research (ciehr) has also developed a useful heuristic tool for understanding the role of the social sciences and humanities in environmental and health research which could be considered for inclusion in an imd research project. an imd impact assessment on the environmental health21 status of a specific local area should thus depart from the scope of a broader health model. so far in research and 18 republic of south africa, department of health, environmental health impact assessment (ehia) in south africa, guidelines, may 2010, p. 6. 19 environmental health impact assessments are seen as a multidisciplinary activity, crossing boundaries of disciplines such as public health, healthcare, environment, the social sciences and in some contexts history, law and psychology (as part of the humanities). the social sciences include: business administration; economics; education; geography; political science; sociology; linguistics; international relations; communication; anthropology; archaeology and criminology. see department of health, environmental health impact assessment (ehia) in south africa, guidelines, may 2010, pp. 8-9. 20 see this article refered to in ecohealth, october 1999, pp.11-18. canadadian researchers are regarded as leaders in considering health assessment in impact assessment criteria. 21 canada is regarded as a leader in considering health assessment in impact assessments. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 257 assessment this suggested focus appears very limited. as recently as may 2011 morgan reported that:22 the existing emphasis on environmental health and health protection looked increasingly inadequate to meet the needs of those looking for more complex analyses of health impacts in terms of social (and other) determinants. if ecohealth research could be done inclusively by disciplines across the spectrum, then wellthought-through results, as a consequence of extensive deliberations, could and should lead to solutions or more appropriate local environmental management that may provide constructive positive outcomes. the local environment/area, imd research and history an icon of south african history practice, fa van jaarsveld,23 supported disciplinary cooperation between history and other disciplines in the 1970s as an addition to the development of history’s expanding focus and fields of research. the then emerging fields of social history24 and local history25 in south africa,26 for example, paved the way for history researchers to become more aware of regional social trends that allow closer interdisciplinary and even td research opportunities because of the varieties of knowledge and insight required to conduct quality research in local history, which also includes environmental issues. from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, local history research developed alongside the ideas of the methodological approach of “history from below”,27 constructed by the history workshop group of the university of the witwatersrand (wits). in essence, the research approach by this group was to emphasise a history from below, which meant that the role, input and knowledge of communities in certain environments and/or activities should be utilised and/or acknowledged in the scientific research process. in many ways this is partly what integrative research is all about if practiced within a broader integrative 22 richard k morgan, “health and impact assessment: are we seeing closer integration?”, environmental impact assessment review, 31, 2011, pp. 405-406. 23 fa van jaarsveld,“geskiedenis en relevansie”, historia, 24(1), 1979, pp. 14-18; fa van jaarsveld, “south africa as an industrial society”. historia, 34(1), 1989, pp. 95-99. 24 kyk fa van jaarsveld, “oor die opleiding van geskiedkundiges deel 1”, historia, 16(2) 1971, pp. 7488; fa van jaarsveld, “oor die opleiding van geskiedkundiges, deel 2”, historia, 16(3) 1971, pp. 146160; dj van zyl, “geskiedenis as vak en wetenskap: nuwe uitdagings”, south african historical journal,19(1), 1987, pp. 1-5. 25 compare wm macmillan’s “complex south africa, an economic footnote to history (london, 1930) in which macmillan has pointed out the lack of social history in south africa as quoted by fa van jaarsveld, “oor die onderrig van sosiale geskiedenis en riglyne vir sy metodiek”, historia, 17(2), 1972, pp. 118-133. van jaarsveld also has mentioned several examples of social history like pj van der merwe’s die noordwaartse beweging van die boere voor die groot trek, 1770-1842. 26 c eloff, “history from below…”, paper, 13th saha conference, unisa, 22-25 january, 1991, p. 12. 27 compare for example this approach to history with p j blok, “geschiedenis van het nederlandsche volk” [seven volumes] as discussed in his inaugural lecture in 1894 in leiden titled: de geschiedenis als sociale wetenschap. blok interpreted the social history as:. "de geschiedenis der menschelijke maatschappij". as quoted in fa van jaarsveld, “oor die onderrig van sosiale geskiedenis en riglyne vir sy metodiek”, historia, 17(2), 1972, p. 119. van eeden 258 multidisciplinary (imd) approach to research (see discussion below on a pilot study in progress in the bekkersdal area). views on contemporary id and td28 research methodologies could to a greater or lesser extent be associated with some of the historiographical trends of the wits history workshop.29 historians, archaeologists, educators, political scientists, geographers and sociologists were key professionals associated with the academic activities of the wits history workshop group. in local environmental history research, the use of a “td research approach” also became readily applicable because of its inevitable connections with communities, their local environmental experiences and the wealth of oral history about their area. the many voices, debates and differences in statistical data, together with intellectuals’ thinking and debating on environmental ethics, justice, human and legal rights, environmental pollution, environmental crime and hydrosolidarity,30 allow environmental history research from a broader td angle. at least in south africa carruthers noted that:31 there is …an overall absence of active collaboration between historians and other disciplines” in the human and social sciences who also at least make use of chronology in their research methodology... a special plea should be made around the need for greater indigenous knowledge…in southern african environmental history…‘scholarly expertise should not subordinate the experiences and knowledge of ordinary people’…understanding the social history of the communities that lived in them is imperative. active collaboration with other disciplines is also imperative. the environmental and agricultural sciences are obvious partners, but archaeology and explorations into even deeper time with the assistance of climatologists or paleoanthropologists and the like would add immeasurably to the stature of environmental historians as mediators and bridge-builders between knowledge areas. as is the case with disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, the td research methodology requires fundamental and structured research inputs to develop towards a representative and 28 a conceptual discussion on the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research methodologies is not covered in this discussion. for a conversation and references related to these concepts see es van eeden, impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in south africa – a historian’s perspective (inaugural lecture 07/2010, platinum press, nwu, vaal triangle campus (isbn: 978-1-86822-588-3), march 2010; rh roberts and jmm good (eds.), the recovery of rhetoric. persuasive discourse and disciplinarity in the human sciences (bristol classical press, london, 1993), pp. 1-22. these authors , amongst others, discuss the territorial boundaries and rhetorics of interdisciplinarity. 29 k smith, k. the changing past. trends in south african historical writing (johannesburg, southern book publishers, 1988), pp. 165-167; 185-187; es van eeden, “the 21st value of history and the history educator revised – a motivational discourse”, new contree, 51, may, 2006. 30 n jacobs, environment, power, and injustice: a south african history (cambridge, cambridge university press, 2003); es van eeden, “debating the role of history within an extensive transdisciplinary research methodology on environmental crisis research: the former far west rand region of south africa as example”, paper, south african historical society conference, grahamstown, 5-9 july 2008. 31 j carruthers, “transnational and transdisciplinary aspects of the environmental history of africa”, keynote address, international conference on humankind at the intersection of nature and culture, kruger national park, 4-6 september 2006, p. 5; s dovers, “on the contribution of environmental history to current debate and policy”, environment and history, 6(2), 2000, pp. 130-152. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 259 holistic, as well as useable, form of research reporting. in south africa and abroad a few history-related publications on integrative research possibilities have so far caught the eye. three examples worth mentioning are that of anne stahl,32 virginia berridge33 and alan jeeves.34 stahl relied on a case study of ghana to view an opinion that the “coming to know” understanding in history through an inclusive engagement of empirical and narrative data in the understanding of past socio-historical processes helps to produce effective histories known as “total history”. in many ways “route work through alternative archives” is not a choice for historians engaging in local history but an obligation. local history issues, such as environmental pollution and its possible impact on the health of local communities, also allow historians to further engage with alternative sources and “archives” and research methodologies. in the contribution of health historian virginia berridge, she debated the impact of history in public discussion and policy making, with a specific emphasis on health policy. it was revealed that the research reports that health history historians have produced were used on government and other podiums without their actual presence or influence. in this regard it was found and suggested that: • policy makers have a need for clear narratives in many fields of communities (which historians do well according to the respondents berridge has approached). • informal networks (such as in the case of social scientists who often deal with governing bodies) should be used; seminars (or forums) bring different networks together and therefore should be organised. • by utilising a rational model in the development of formal mechanisms:35 …history should begin to find its place in the health industry of systematic review, which is part of the rational model of research and policy making and the evidence-based movement… indeed, a search for human truths and social science generalisms which carry over into geography and time, and which will benefit users such as policy makers, should be considered in historical research into local environment-related health (ecohealth). this includes clear, systematic reviews and interaction as well as communicative opportunities on health. berridge also remarked that the role of health in local governments is one of the under-exploited historical areas.36 32 ab stahl, “‘route work’ through alternative archives: reflections on cross-disciplinary practice”, south african historical journal, 62(2), 2010, pp. 252-267. 33 v berridge, “history matters? history’s role in health policy making”, journal for medical history, 52(3), july 2008, pp. 311-326. 34 a jeeves, “public health in the era of south africa’s syphilis epidemic of the 1930’s and 1940’s”, south african historical journal, 45(1), 2001, pp. 79-102. 35 v berridge, “history matters? history’s role in health policy making”, journal for medical history, 52(3), july 2008, p. 324. 36 v berridge, “history matters? history’s role in health policy making”, journal for medical history, 52(3), july 2008, pp. 324-326; v berridge and m gorsky, “the importance of the past in public health”, journal of epidemiol community health, 58, 2004, pp. 728-729. van eeden 260 in turn, alan jeeves’s (historian) argument goes back in time and refers to local history scenarios in mining areas in the days of south africa’s department of public health (dph) which worked under the public health act of 1919 and has since operated as a subdepartment under the department of the interior. the 1919 act held municipal departments responsible for safeguarding local public health. notable in the historical discussion by jeeves37 (considering the pilot study of bekkersdal’s history discussed in the next section) are his observations from research that: ...throughout the interwar period [in south africa], the goldmines were in the midst of a slow, grudging and long-overdue reform of their medical system... it remained policy to repatriate workers who became sick or disabled when ‘fit to travel’. this tactic reduced the need for expensive hospital treatment and removed such workers from the official statistics of accident, disease and death that the state required the mines to maintain. the so-called “mine medical rejects” which jeeves refers to were apparently simply “ejected” from the compounds, and had to find other ways to earn a living. numbers of miners apparently died along the public roads and in railway stations and carriages. as large employers of labour, most mines had health departments. in the past several of these mines launched or requested scientific research projects to be undertaken to determine the incidences of some diseases and illnesses such as tuberculosis. unfortunately, most mines were not good at recording sufficient data (or perhaps they were deliberately “good” at not doing so), so research was mostly not sound or was not possible at all. apart from the value of history when it comes to local environmental health research dissemination (the plea by berridge) and the value of a form of “total history” (stahl’s thinking) i have also learned from the research by jeeves that, due to a lack of integrative research by the mid-1920s in south africa (so by the way at the time of the department of public health’s existence, and researchers simultaneously noting the interdisciplinary-like annale school of thought) very few researchers and other members of community recognised the close relationship of environmental factors to the health status of local people. no researchers in the humanities carried out integrative research.38 though many academics explore the possibilities of integrative research, extensive debate and structured thinking about feasible research methodologies in integrative research contexts are still required in the early part of the 21st century. this applies to all disciplines locally and world-wide. identifying a research team, a geographical setting and a research focus for imd starting somewhere normally, in semi-parastatal research contexts, research needs are provided and any research done appears to be based on the needs of communities. in this regard, research done for local governments by the council for scientific and industrial research (csir) or higher 37 a jeeves, “public health in the era of south africa’s syphilis epidemic of the 1930’s and 1940’s”, south african historical journal, 45(1), 2001, pp. 80,85. 38 compare es van eeden, ej nealer & m liefferink, “a historiography on past scientific research and references to environmental health concerns in the merafong [city] gold mining region of south africa”, new contree, 58, november, 2009. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 261 educational research institutions are typical examples. the outcome of this research is either informative, the purpose of which is to develop national/internal policies to amend or develop acts, or it simply records some specifics in a particular environment or area. in this case researchers rely on existing models and theories to guide them in external research needs. in extraordinary circumstances researchers may pioneer new research ideas. this could happen, and is more likely to happen, in research environments where research needs are identified by the researchers themselves (for example in south africa through the funding structures of the national research foundation (nrf). to develop or explore new pathways for integrative research methodologies, the researchers involved should lead the research focus by observing, creating and revitalising current research thinking. the imd research is intended to be a “revitalised” methodological framework (outlined in the previous sections). the aim was therefore that the identified imd pilot project on the broader ecohealth status of informal and formal settlements in the bekkersdal (westonaria) municipal region of south africa would be financially motivated by the need of researchers from various disciplines to explore a marginalised local area for the feasibility of imd research. the outcome from the bekkersdal pilot study, which was launched in february 2011, was that two research questions and two aims were developed to form the core focus for the team of disciplines involved. baseline information about bekkersdal was made available to all the research participants on an internal repository link of the north-west university’s website. from the core questions and aims, more explicit research objectives had to be developed from a disciplinary angle which should eventually be absorbed or transformed into the id and td phases (see diagram 1). the core questions and aims for the imd bekkersdal pilot study as finally determined by june 2011 are the following: research questions: i. is it possible to do integrative multidisciplinary research on ecohealth issues from a multidisciplinary perspective (which would include the humanities and the social sciences)? ii. what could be the broader ecohealth status of the bekkersdal community in westonaria, as researched on the structural basis of the imd research methodology (namely progressing from the d to the id and then the td)? research aims: i. to provide opportunity for the humanities, the social sciences and (occasionally) other related and unrelated environmental and health sciences to cooperate and to progress towards developing and refining a workable research methodology which is efficient in ecohealth research of an imd nature within the broader human experience as a focus. ii. to conduct imd research to obtain research data on human health and well-being in bekkersdal from a broader conceptual angle that will make it possible to offer solutions from an integrative multidisciplinary angle. van eeden 262 recent international research reports refer to an imd-like combination of research according to approaches dealing with human health and well-being as sustainable livelihoods (sl) or ecosystem health (esh).39 no integrated multidisciplinary research on ecohealth risk from a human perspective has been done to date on the impact of industrial pollution in formal and informal communities in south africa. nor can local communities and local and provincial governments rely on any integrated research information or view regarding the effects and impacts of economic activities on the environmental ecology and its possible wide range of effects on the human health status of their regions. studies to complement an integrative research methodology on broader ecohealth risks among local communities such as the bekkersdal community were regarded as due, and it could be of immense value to address and understand ecohealth issues from a broader perspective. this research approach in the pilot study in bekkersdal (to be completed by 2014 as a project having progressed from a pilot study to in-depth research) could serve as a research framework example to be applied elsewhere in south africa, and even internationally as part of current debates.40 research partners from a broad disciplinary spectrum in south africa (but mostly from the north-west university) were invited to participate in the bekkersdal pilot study. several showed an interest to invest time in the bekkersdal pilot study because they either had a need to explore the feasibility of integrative research and/or a need to explore the broader definition of ecohealth in a demarcated local context through the inputs of several disciplines. some spatial and historical information was distributed to allow researchers to familiarise themselves with the context and to propose some ideas for the framework (and also to suggest ways of refining it). after a one-day workshop in early june 2011, a group of 25 people (representing 10 different disciplines or constituencies) met near bekkersdal. this group decided, among other things, to devote more time to deliberating on their role in the process of integrating knowledge and the specific disciplinary-based research objective(s) they would want to address (see diagram 1). to support the research participants with a practical understanding of the imd research methodology intended, speculations were formulated of possibilities regarding the research objective(s) as options for the initial research input(s) by each discipline and distributed by the project leader for response and reformulation if needed (see these speculations in diagram 3).41 the involvement of disciplines is depicted visually in diagram 2: 39 compare this intentional research with recent research foci abroad such as editorial, ecohealth, 8 january 2011, pp. 1-3. 40 see sources referenced later on in the proposal and rj quigly and lc taylor, “evaluating health impact assessment”, public health, 118, 2004, pp. 544-552; d porter, “being fit to live in the twentyfirst century: health bodies and somatic maps”, in health, civilization and the state. a history of public health from ancient to modern times (routledge, london, 1999), pp. 147-196; 281-313; gj andrews & ra kearns, “everyday health histories and the making of place: the case of an english coastal town”, social science & medicine, 60, 2005, pp. 2697-2713. 41 some research objectives may appear to be too broad in a disciplinary context. obviously it will not be able to all be covered in-depth in the bekkersdal pilot study. however, if the participants that represent each discipline, accept these objectives (even after refining them to be more focused), an in-depth research will only commence from 2012 in an extended post-pilot research opportunity. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 263 diagram 2: disciplines involved in ecohealth research themes in an imd context – bekkersdal pilot study, 2011–201442 the visual of the three circles should be understood as follows: the research theme is explored, for example by the human sciences and social sciences in the core as the major participants and the group leading the bekkersdal project. it should gradually expand with research needs “outwards” to involve more disciplines in this integrative multidisciplinary research possibility. opportunities to be enriched or guided with ideas from other disciplines also involve the “applied sciences” (such as sociology, law, economy, public administration and geography), and are reflected in the middle circle. other applied sciences that also regard themselves as functioning in interdisciplinary ways have been accommodated (such as risk and disaster management, social work and ecotourism). currently most of the disciplines/groups involved view themselves as disciplines dealing with aspects of ecohealth in an indirect way. it is therefore considered important to involve additional research participants from disciplines/groups in 2012 that will be able to add value to the bekkersdal pilot study due to their direct involvement with ecohealth matters and from their respective angles of research (see suggestions of disciplines/groups in outer green circle in yellow). disciplines in the health sciences and the natural sciences will be approached as the pilot study progresses and the need to do so is suggested by the bekkersdal research participants in the interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary phases. it may be that absences or gaps in the td research report information/data might require another round of disciplinary research input by some or all of the participants, and new disciplines or groups need to be involved (see the research flow indications in diagram 1). 42 the skeleton structure for this visual was borrowed from the discussion by cira.ornl.gov, “human health risk assessment (hhra)”, oak ridge national laboratory (as accessed on http://cira.ornl.gov/hhra.html on 23 june 2011). van eeden 264 philosophy: research objective: an ethical view on the current ecohealth scenario in bekkersdal research objective: sustainability and tensions between nature and culture history: research objective: to record and historically analyse information and published research that should reveal the health history status of the bekkersdal community since 1945 research objective: to record oral and written information (the latter in popular and scientific writing) on the responses/impressions of the bekkersdal community members regarding their (polluted) environment. law: research objective: mapping the bekkersdal community’s perspectives and knowledge on environmental law policies research objective: deliberating on legal issues regarding the impact of environmental pollution on the health of children with a focus on bekkersdal geography: research objective: geographically and demographically positioning bekkersdal in the pilot study research objective: a gis approach towards environmental risks that may have health impacts on the bekkersdal community risk and disaster studies: research objective: risk assessments/baseline risk assessments (such as the bekkersdal community’s perceptions of environmental hazards) research objective: support the identification of criteria in doing imd impact assessments that complement ecohealth research. sociology: research objective: analysing the social structure (including family and other institutions as well as cultural aspects (values, norms, customs, beliefs, etc.) of the bekkersdal community. research objective: exploring theoretical models and following development plans to target different social issues (e.g. health, deviant behaviour, family disorganisation, migration, etc,) in the community. social work: research objective: identifying the factors affecting the psycho-social well-being of the bekkersdal households. research objective: determining the role the environment plays in the psycho-social well-being of bekkersdal households. public administration: research objective: identify the local municipality’s/government’s service delivery obligations and difficulties experienced regarding bekkersdal research objective: identifying shortcomings perceived regarding local government of local environmental issues (including health issues) economy:43 research objective: provide statistical information on the bekkersdal community’s perspective of their well-being (population demography, income/jobs, food intake; illness in households, perspectives of the/their polluted environment) research objective: providing perspectives on implementing possible economic practices in bekkersdal to improve community well-being and future sustainability ecotourism: research objective: to identify the tourism potential of bekkersdal and its environment to improve the well-being of the local community. other possibilities of research cooperation in the humanities, education and the health sciences to include in the ecohealth studies from a humanities and social sciences angle in the bekkersdal imd pilot study psychology: the environmental resilience (flexibility/toughness) of local communities language: exploring possible communication difficulties by communities in expressing/understanding (environmental) health concerns in their local environment environmental education: mapping the status/expansion of informal (economic) activities that complement the environmental needs for environmental awareness and implementing, among others, the re-culture (such as remediate, recover, recycle, etc.) children’s health/well-being: assessing the ecohealth status of children with the intention of suggesting solutions in revised policy aimed at the protection of children toxicological and epidemiological studies by environmental health and discipline-specific experts to address the validity of anecdotal evidence and to provide/suggest solutions to address any negative outcome and/or to report any anecdotal truths and/or/flaws diagram 3: possibilities for research objective(s) in phase 1 by discipline44 43 the contribution of economists may be part of the neoclassical economics that claims to be holistic and not to engage in methodological individualism. see je harford, “economics and public health: an exploration”, phd thesis, university of adelaide australia, 2006. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 265 from diagram 3 some unavoidable overlapping foci in the research objectives are noticeable (but this is regarded as a positive feature which allows baseline research from multiperspectives, which should be refined in the clustering process during the id phase, known as phase 2, as outlined in diagram 1). also noticeable from diagram 3 is the focus on providing information that will support the development of solutions to enhance the local community’s well-being despite possible ecohealth destructions. it was also decided by the group of research participants of the bekkersdal pilot study that any other discipline that does promote an ecohealth focus in its research and supports the research protocol (as outlined in diagram 1) that has been developed for imd research in the preliminary stages of the bekkersdal pilot study, may also become involved. from the defined research protocol, a group of people of high integrity and legitimacy drawn from specific constituencies have been (and should be) identified to become involved in the third phase of the research report (“td phase”). during this phase this group, specifically for bekkersdal, should include at least one or two people with adequate knowledge and experience of, for example, the mining industry, government, local government, area, national and local non-government bodies, a national person of influence (a person representing a national-level special interest group that has a high moral foundation) and a local person of influence. the availability of an international expert with extensive experience in imd-like research will be of benefit to expand the group’s research vision in the form of ecohealthrelated integrative research. familiarisation with concepts, the context and other “how’s” of the bekkersdal pilot study area to be able to commence with the imd pilot research of bekkersdal on an informed and healthy footing, a few other aspects of preparation that were required are explained in a question and answer form. what is a pilot study and why bekkersdal? the locality of bekkersdal (in the westonaria municipal region) was specifically chosen as the pilot study focus to record imd research so as to allow all the research participants to depart from the same research background while being unfamiliar with this specific environment and to apply their disciplinary skills and knowledge obtained from research in other areas to make their first phase contribution to this study (see diagram 1). a pilot study, also called a pilot experiment, is defined as a small-scale preliminary study which is conducted before the main research to check the feasibility or to improve the design of the research. pilot studies, therefore, may not be appropriate for case studies. they are frequently carried out before any large-scale qualitative and quantitative research, in an attempt to avoid time and money being wasted on an inadequately designed project. this is the narrow focus, although the outcome should certainly be of value for decision makers. a pilot study is usually carried out on members of the relevant population, but not on those who will form part of the final sample. this is because it may influence the later behaviour of research subjects if they have already been involved in the research. 44 see diagram one for the core phase one inputs by disciplines as suggested. van eeden 266 therefore the research support and input of the imd research participants in the pilot study of bekkersdal will include, for example, the community’s economic status, the environmental pollution status, and the possible health effects of the visible acid mine drainage in this and surrounding areas that may affect locals. also foci such as how to improve the well-being of the community in a destructed environment and/or an economic environment that has enhanced the creation of a destructed, helpless and perhaps futureless community, form part and parcel of the broader research focus. in this regard it is foreseen that, after such a pilot research, more in-depth studies on aspects of the broader research focus will or could be selected to steer the imd research to specific research needs as a result of the pilot study outcomes. on a larger scale of research (eventually the post-pilot phase), more qualitative and quantitative research on the broader environmental health status of communities could surface, and the imd research methodology that was eventually developed to observe its feasibility in the bekkersdal pilot study, could be further refined and applied in researching other areas. where is bekkersdal and what is known? bekkersdal is currently part of greater westonaria and its population of 153 614 people45 forms part of the inhabitants of the west rand district municipality.46 bekkersdal’s history47 still needs to be extensively researched, so currently we are relying on snippets of information from westonaria’s past.48 bekkersdal township is situated 7 km east of westonaria and 14 km south of randfontein in gauteng. bekkersdal was established in 1945 to house africans who worked in the surrounding towns and gold mines (see map below): 45 the municipal 2008-2009 report relied on the draft economic growth and development strategy for the west rand, october 2005 (data provided by global insight data). 46 westonaria local government, annual report, 2008-2009, as accessed from http://mfma.treasury.gov.za/documents/06.%20annual%20reports/200809/02.%20local%20municipalities/gt483%20westonaria/gt483%20westonaria%20annual%20re port%202008-09.pdf. 47 see for this info westonaria, 1948–1992: preface: this project on the history of westonaria has as its starting point, the initiative taken by the westonaria town council, ...www.westonaria.gov.za/gbwrite.asp?writecontent=y&rid...1995. 48 a draft history of westonaria, done by the university of johannesburg, as available on the internet. it appears to be a very disappointing history, loaded with factual errors. see westonaria, 1948–1992: preface: this project on the history of westonaria has as its starting point the initiative taken by the westonaria town council, ...www.westonaria.gov.za/gbwrite.asp?writecontent=y&rid...1995. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 267 locality of beckersdal source: http://www.routes.co.za/maps/gp/westonaria/westonaria.jpg on 27 october 1948 the status of town council was granted to westonaria and much later, in 1983, the bekkersdal township was established with full municipal status. by 2009 bekkersdal’s population was approximately 89 400, of whom 30 000 lived in backyard shacks, 9 000 in formal settlements and 50 400 in informal settlements.49 four mining houses serve the area (goldfields ltd as kloof goldmine, harmony gold, south deep and first uranium). this is the most important economic activity. the local 49 westonaria local government, annual report, 2008-2009, as accessed at http://mfma.treasury.gov.za/documents/06.%20annual%20reports/200809/02.%20local%20municipalities/gt483%20westonaria/gt483%20westonaria%20annual%20re port%202008-09.pdf. bekkersdal van eeden 268 community relies heavily on the goldmines to boost the local economy. however, declining production and retrenchments have recently negatively impacted on the well-being of the broader westonaria community, especially the bekkersdal inhabitants, of whom some former mineworkers are now jobless while living under environmentally polluted conditions for which the industry and the bekkersdal people themselves should be accountable. when the western areas limited gold mine was active in this particular environment in the 1930s they managed, as part of their obligations to their employees, the administration of the area. with the peri-urban health board active at the time and health committees being founded all over the area, western areas limited applied for a health committee to take over the control of the westonaria management. for some unknown reason the randfontein town council took exception to this, so the application was delayed. after a petition and re-application, a health committee for the area was approved in 1942.50 under the supervision of the initially small health commission, sewage works and black townships were established such as bekkersdal. very limited local service delivery concerns are recorded. among others there is the bucket system in use for decades up to 1987, after which sewage works were built in bekkersdal worth r18 million. a health clinic only operated from 1991 – many years after bekkersdal became a town. since 1991 malnutrition was seen as the most serious condition treated by the personnel of the health clinic.51 recently air pollution concerns have been mentioned.52 it is speculated that, with many temporary inhabitants from other countries in southern africa working on the mines, the bekkersdal area was only seen as a temporary area to maintain. so of the 820 formal houses initially built all were owned by the westonaria municipality. as reflected in the population statistics, the bekkersdal community actually outnumbered the rest of the population of westonaria. the dire need for housing caused informal settlements to expand in a disorderly way. housing development was also affected by the geological composition of the area (it is dolomite area with the tendency to form sinkholes due to dewatering caused by mining activity). population growth has put a heavy burden on the provision of water. for example, in the 1980s one tap for every 100–150 families was provided. recent sources in the literature also speculate on the possible effects of acid mine drainage decanting on bekkersdal in close-by areas.53 the inhabitants are also close to the donaldson dam54 (a source of the wonderfonteinspruit which is a tributary to the vaal river system), which is known for its high radioactivity levels in the sediment. people from the bekkersdal community use this dam extensively for baptising their children and 50 a history by the university of johannesburg is very disappointing and loaded with factual errors. see westonaria, 1948–1992. preface: this project on the history of westonaria has as its starting point, the initiative taken by the westonaria town council, ... www.westonaria.gov.za/gbwrite.asp?writecontent=y&rid...1995, chapter one. 51 see westonaria, 1948 1992. preface: this project on the history of westonaria has as its starting point, the initiative taken by the westonaria town council, ... www.westonaria.gov.za/gbwrite.asp?writecontent=y&rid...1995, chapter nine. 52 the westonaria municipal report, 2009-2010. 53 see www.environment.co.za on “radio-active rivers – the brenk report – environment south africa, 22 may 2010. 54 the donaldson dam receives polluted decant water from the cook construction of rand uranium. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 269 catching fish to eat which they should not actually do. they sell food close by, and allow animals to drink from the dam.55 how will the research reporting and methodology look? apart from heavily relying on diagram 1 (while being willing to refine the various research phases if required), a few decisions were made in the past four months: • a group requires a project leader and a project advisor (a key research role player from each of the disciplines that participate). • most research participants (representing researchers from all the disciplines involved) will operate as field team members. because the researchers will initially operate from a disciplinary viewpoint, no research methodology differences among disciplines will have to be discussed in phase 1 of the research process. this may have to be discussed in phases 2 and 3 (see diagram one). from phase 2, the research approach should be to integrate, as far as possible, the research method of each discipline or group of disciplines. monthly communication between the project leader and project advisor is seen as an inevitable and necessary requirement to ensure dissemination of information on the project further along to the field team. in the bekkersdal pilot study the pa team (five research participants selected as leaders from the original group of 25 research participants) have also suggested that the imd pilot study group should create a virtual archive in which any information about bekkersdal is deposited in one central “repository” on the nwu website known as bekkersdal home. it is intended that all research participants should use this information in their respective disciplinary research objective(s) and also themselves make research inputs into the bekkersdal home website which all research participants could explore. tolerance, encouragement and patience are part of the package in research of any integrative nature. in this regard researchers, especially in the humanities, can feel very uncomfortable as they are accustomed to feeling, and act “alone”56 when doing research. what may every discipline as a research participant grapple with? each discipline, represented by a research participant or a number of research participants, may have to scrutinise their own disciplinary environment for historiographical, theoretical and methodological directions or ideas on how to deal with local ecohealth research from a disciplinary or broader context.57 55 compare nnr report – tr-rrd-07-0006 – “radiological impacts of the mining activities to the public in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area.” 12 july 2007 as obtained in federation for a sustainable environment, hearings, 21-22 june 2011: environmental reliability, pp. 7-8. 56 compare j holmes, a lehman, e hade, a ferketich, s gehlert, g rauscher, j abrams and c bird, “challenges for multilevel health disparaties research in a transdisciplinary environment”, american journal of preventative medicine, 35(2), supplement 1, august 2008, pp. s182-s192. 57 compare j eyeles, s elliott, j grondin, k smoyer, r matthews and d krewski, report: “new directions – new dimensions for environmental health research in canada”, october 1999, pp. 1-38 . this research was research funded by the social sciences and humanities research council as well as the canadian health services research foundation. in this research the canadian group strongly suggested comparative and historical humanities investigations. see p. 13; lm anderson, sc scrimshaw and je fielding, “the community guide’s model for linking the social environment to health”, american journal of preventative medicine, 24(3s), 2003, pp. 12-20. van eeden 270 as for the discipline of history (the discipline represented by the author), it appears that very few contributions to ecohealth exist, especially from a local point of view. whereas historical studies internationally on public health and some health histories (globally and nationally) feature prominently as a baseline for departure in research of this nature, ecohealth-related contributions by historians range from limited to absent.58 so far contributions by historians of south africa to the country’s health history, according to health historian howard phillips, have revolved around disease, the patient and the healer.59 health histories in the wider context as embedded in themes such as poverty, death demographics, urbanisation and the impact of environmental pollution on humans have not yet been explored with health as the focus.60 however, local histories, with the multidisciplinary possibilities of their methodology, do sometimes cover health histories from the perspective of town development due to rapidly increasing economic activity. none of these contributions61 to local history were developed specifically to record deteriorating environments, which cause crises in the ecohealth status of environments, and impact on communities. a lack of sufficient research on the socio-economic and local histories of south africa, which also incorporate environment and health histories rather than an over-emphasis on political history, has after many decades allowed a serious knowledge gap to develop, for example in 58 compare a yankauer, “public health then and now”, american journal of public health, 69(2), 1979, p. 122; v berridge and m gorsky, “the importance of the past in public health”, journal of epidemiol community health, 58, 2004, p. 728; v berridge, “teaching history in a medical school”, wellcome history, 1997, pp. 23-35; gj andrews & ra kearns, “everyday health histories and the making of place: the case of an english coastal town”, social science & medicine, 60, 2005, pp. 2697-2713; g rosen, a history of public health, expanded edition, (john hopkins university press, baltimore and london), 1993, pp. 1-530; d porter, health, civilization and the state. a history of public health from ancient to modern times (routledge, new york), 1999, pp. 1-365. 59 h phillips, “report on health”, manuscript prepared for the cambridge history of south africa, ca 2011, p.3. also see the following for some early examples of the health histories as mentioned by phillips: dj van zyl, “phylloxera vastatrix in die kaapkolonie, 1886-1900: voorkoms, verspreiding en ekonomiese gevolge”, sahj, 16, 1984, pp. 26-49; norman etherington, “missionary doctors and african healers in mid-victorian south africa”, sahj, 19, 1987. pp. 77-91;hj van aswegen, “myntering en die goudmynwerkers aan die witwatersrand 1886-1920”, sahj, 21, 1989, pp. 55-71; e van heyningen, “poverty, self-help and community: the survival of the poor in cape town, 18801910”, sahj, 24, 1991, pp. 128-143 and e van heyningen, “recent research on the social history of medicine in south africa”, sahj, 45(1), 2001, pp. 178-190. 60 see for example j mathew, “environment and empire’, south african historical journal 61 (3) 2009, pp. 639-654, that focuses only on the environment with no health aspects referred to. a typical narrow definition of health by the government of the day is accentuated in susanne klausen’s, “‘poor whiteism’, white maternal mortality, and the promotion of public health in south africa: the department of public health’s endorsement of contraceptive services, 1930-1938”, south african historical journal, 45, november 2001, pp. 53-78. 61 compare for example j nauright, “‘an experiment in native self-government’: the alexandra health committee, the state and local politics, 1916-1933”, south african historical journal, 43, november, 2000, pp. 223-243; gh vahed, “a ‘public health nuisance’: the victoria street early morning squatters market, 1910-1934”, south african historical journal, 40, may 1999, pp. 130153; t maloka, “‘white death’ and ‘africa disease’: silicosis on the witwatersrand gold mines”, south african historical journal 34 (may 1996), pp. 249-254. only once did this author refer to the health of the mineworkers, so the economic impacts was emphasised much more than the health. integrative multidisciplinary research from an ecohealth perspective td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. 251 372. 271 local environmental health histories. the south african historical journal (sahj)62 and the national historical journal historia have published a few articles on environmental themes. perhaps the very first article on local environmental health (although still from a narrow angle) which mainly looked at the health impacts of disease, water provision and racial trends, was by a finnish researcher, harri mäki, entitled: “comparing developments in water supply, sanitation and environmental health in four south african cities, 1840–1920”.63 it may be of some value to produce dissertations and theses on the health status in certain regions, but it is my opinion that historians dealing with ecohealth research issues still have a long way to go in south africa to effectively contribute to imd-focused discussions. many years ago south africa, in groundbreaking ways, pioneered epidemiological studies in public health research when the department of health (dph) in the 1940s experimented with clinics as a health service in impoverished areas. for example, an epidemiological study was carried out in the pholela reserve in kwazulu-natal with the aim of determining how infectious diseases such as syphilis could be prevented. in this epidemiological study the focus was on the social, economic and cultural dimensions of disease causation. close monitoring of family health by trained black health assistants became a system, and was key to addressing the health needs of a community such as pholela. these needs included health education, monitoring of the state of health of families, administering their health progress and providing first aid. this was the vision of dr sidney kark and his wife emily, who took responsibility for the pholela “health experiment”. they worked towards a scenario where people would take responsibility for their own health.64 the then young world health organisation leaned much from the pholela experiment, but south africa did not. a lack of funding, economic dreams, ideologies and racial preferences had always been hurdles to overcome in efficiently carrying out public health research, which should include several disciplines supporting an all-inclusive view for sustainable actions, among others the need for epidemiological studies in communities. historian alan jeeves65 stated that by 2001 south africa barely had any health districts with access to useable or sufficient data on their communities. the health history of the bekkersdal community reveals that, apart from a lack of adequate health services since 1945, the dominant economic activity at the time, namely the surrounding goldmines, did not take great care of employees and families who were socio-economically and culturally disrupted. the present-day impact and possible effects of polluted environments on the health status of the bekkersdal inhabitants can also be added to the list of ecohealth concerns from a broader angle. 62 to make this statement exemplary by pointing out the south african historical journal (spontaneously regarded to be the leading historical journal in south africa) a total of only 31 articles from the sahj was traced that directly or indirectly cover health histories of south africa since the foundation of the journal in the 1960’s. 63 see h mäki, “comparing developments in water supply, sanitation and environmental health in four south african cities, 1840–1920”, historia 55(1), mei/may 2010, pp. 90-109. 64 a jeeves, “public health in the era of south africa’s syphilis epidemic of the 1930’s and 1940’s”, south african historical journal, 45(1), 2001, p. 92. 65 a jeeves, “public health in the era of south africa’s syphilis epidemic of the 1930’s and 1940’s”, south african historical journal, 45(1), 2001, pp. 79-102. van eeden 272 conclusion the purpose of sharing information in this discussion was to provide, among others, methodological direction to a broader academic community (especially the human and social sciences) on ways to implement integrative multidisciplinary research. a pilot study was started in early 2011, and impressions on its progress so far were discussed. one observation so far is that it was realised that integrative forms of research (from the disciplinary to the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary) cannot exist automatically, nor all at once. also both the id and td approaches to research are not possible without solid disciplinary research. it also appears that an imd way of thinking about research will rather emerge from a longer process of planning for implementation to be accomplished in phases, than being put into practice in short-term or hot-spot research. research should eventually also include the insights and approval of the community on which the research is being done. the inputs and distribution of the final report should ensure progress towards an integrated form of scientific dissemination that will be a longer-term investment. although the pilot study of bekkersdal to determine the efficiency of imd has not yet been completed, progress so far has been very satisfactory. it should allow others to benefit, and if considered and adapted, should bring about revitalised methodological insights. abstract introduction demographic information definitions of poverty civil society organisations land and food security methodology results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnote about the author(s) xolisile g. ngumbela centre for transdisciplinary studies, university of fort hare, east london, south africa thozamile r. mle faculty of management and commerce, school of public management and development, university of fort hare, bisho, south africa citation ngumbela, x.g. & mle, t.r., 2019, ‘assessing the role of civil society in poverty alleviation: a case study of amathole district in the eastern cape province of south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a547. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.547 original research assessing the role of civil society in poverty alleviation: a case study of amathole district in the eastern cape province of south africa xolisile g. ngumbela, thozamile r. mle received: 08 feb. 2018; accepted: 22 mar. 2019; published: 30 sept. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the purpose of this study was to conduct an assessment of the role of civil society organisations (csos) in poverty alleviation, with a particular focus on three csos operating in the amathole district of the eastern cape province. the csos were located in the local municipalities of amahlathi (ikhwezi women support centre), mbhashe (nyhwarha home-based care) and mnquma (we care hiv/aids ministries). a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used. data were collected from 14 people either working for or associated with the csos using semi-structured interviews, structured interviews in which a questionnaire was administered and focus groups. document analysis supplemented these data collection methods. the findings showed that different interventions by the csos played an important role in improving the well-being of community members but that the interventions did not necessarily focus directly on poverty alleviation. where the csos made a direct contribution to poverty eradication, it was done by employing community members in their projects. the challenges that they experienced largely concerned funding and insufficiently skilled human resources. the csos were able to plan and monitor their performance, but the logical framework they used failed to prepare them for unexpected changes in their projects. focused management support from the department of social development will assist the csos to become sustainable. keywords: poverty; civil society organisations; poverty eradication; poverty alleviation; strategy. introduction it is almost two decades since independence from the shackles of apartheid and south africa is still plunged into a series of challenges, like incessant poverty of the majority of its citizens. post-apartheid policies and legislation that have been passed seeking to address this catastrophe have long been in place; however, research, and continued violent and non-violent service delivery protests against government institutions by the poor, indicates that progress in eradicating poverty and dealing with racial inequality has been extremely slow and challenging. while many factors can be blamed for the slow progress in reducing poverty, contradictions in policy and practice within government are part of the problem. the post-apartheid constitution (constitution of the republic of south africa, act 108 of 1996), for example, contains clauses that seek to address poverty reduction and other racial inequalities. section 27 (subsection 1b) of the constitution states that ‘everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water’ and that ‘the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realization of these rights’ (subsection 3). this effectively enshrines food security and poverty reduction as constitutional rights. section 25 of the constitution addresses not only land reform but also existing property rights. through its three components (restitution, redistribution and tenure reform), land reform aims to reverse skewed land distribution, which is the legacy of segregation and apartheid. its goal is to return land or offer alternative redress to people who unfairly lost their land, make land available for productive and residential purpose to the landless and provide secure land tenure rights where they did not exist. however, these two sections of the constitution, when taken together, have a complicated relationship. food security is broadly defined as access by all households at all times to adequate, safe and nutritious food for a healthy and productive life. although its more than two decades into democracy, the eastern cape province has not been able to run away from the trappings of structural poverty. this is seen in all aspects of its demographic, health and socio-economic profiles. methods, measurements and statistics vary; however, from the various studies and data sets one can estimate that between 20% and 60% of the population in the eastern cape live in poverty. table 1 shows the human development index (hdi)1 and poverty indictors for all districts, the province and south africa in 2014 and 2017 table 1: human development index and poverty. as shown in table 1, the urban, metropolitan municipalities of buffalo city and nelson mandela bay have the highest hdis in the eastern cape at 0.66 and 0.68, respectively. the amathole district has a lower hdi at 0.59 but shows an improvement of 0.16% between 2000 and 2012, indicating that social assistance and public services have had a positive influence on households in the district in the democratic period. while poverty rates declined by 7% – 24% between 2000 and 2012 in the eastern cape districts, as table 1 shows, 42.2% of the provincial population still live in poverty, with a poverty rate of 41.1% in the amathole district. in terms of income, table 1 shows a wide spatial disparity, with highest incomes in the two metropolitan areas and cacadu district. alfred nzo has the lowest average income, followed by amathole, chris hani and or tambo. apart from nelson mandela bay, all the districts have lower-than-national-average annual income, which shows the marginality of the province in terms of income. according to baiyegunhi and fraser’s (2014) writing as on the human ecology journal on income, assets and poverty in the eastern cape, amatole district accounts for 26% of the poverty gap. as revealed by the percentages shown in table 1, most people who reside in amathole district are vulnerable to poverty and the growth of their vulnerability increases the spread of poverty in their societies. abject poverty is present among the amathole people, which emanates from illiteracy, unemployment and lack of access to infrastructure, as well as economic and social vulnerability. south africa is a largely divided society. people are divided in terms of their class, gender, race and location and their opportunities are, to a large extent, determined by their social position and networks. social fragmentation manifests itself in various ways, including high levels of domestic violence, substance abuse, criminality, teenage pregnancies, hostility towards people of foreign origin and low levels of mutual respect, social solidarity and other behaviours that reflect a spirit of community, as well as a culture of irresponsibility. high levels of unemployment among youth and women also serve to perpetuate social fragmentation. while these manifestations of social fragmentation occur in all sectors of society, there is a general consensus that they are largely prevalent in those communities that are predominantly poor. demographic information population population pyramid in 2017, it was estimated that 6.5 million people are residing in the province, where 52.8% (3.4 million) were men and 47.2% (3.1 million) were women. the population of the province constitutes 11.5% of the south african population (figure 1). figure 1: the 2017 population pyramid (n = 6.5 million). the eastern cape province is predominantly composed of the young people. these estimates show that 40.1% of the population are between the age of 15 and 34 years. this has significant implications about the provision of basic health services (e.g. health and education) for these young people. access to food in most of the households remains one of the serious challenges in the province. some of the contributing factors relate to socio-economic status, such as lack of job opportunities and low levels of education (figure 2). figure 2: food security indicators for the eastern cape, 2016. access to water for household use is one of the developmental indicators that has significant impact on the health status of the population. from 2009 to 2013, access to piped water by households increased from 74.7% to 80.5%. however, there is a noted decline from 80.5% in 2013 to 75.7% in 2016 (figure 3). figure 3: per cent of households with access to piped water in eastern cape province, 2009–2016. water sources by district figure 4 shows that 73.6% of the households in the eastern cape province have access to piped water. more than 90% of the households from buffalo city metro, nelson mandela metro and sarah baartman had access to piped water, with low percentage of those households using unsafe water sources. figure 4: water sources for use by households in the eastern cape province, 2016. however, 25% of the households still get water for household use from unsafe water supplies like rivers, streams, wells and springs. the lowest access to piped water was seen in alfred nzo and or tambo, with more than 50% of their households getting water from unsafe water supplies. in response to the high rates of poverty across the country, the government has developed several anti-poverty measures, with social grants as the most important measure. social grants have contributed to poverty reduction in the eastern cape province, as shown in table 1. households often survive on old age and child support grants if there is no other income. in 2012, a total of 2 655 831 beneficiaries in the eastern cape received social grants. the province has the highest percentage of people receiving social grants, at 40.5%, compared to the national average of 30%. while grants have a positive impact, there is a need to couple social assistance with access to basic services and other public social services, and to create jobs for sustained impact over time. for this reason, other government anti-poverty measures include economic interventions to expand opportunities for employment, and self-employment in particular, to provide communityand public-works programmes, to provide quality education and skills and healthcare, to promote access to assets including social capital, and to promote social cohesion. an example of an anti-poverty measure that operates in the eastern cape is the anti-poverty strategy of 2012. this strategy emanated from the eastern cape’s provincial growth and development plan (pgdp), which was developed for 2004–2014, which highlighted ‘poverty eradication’ as a priority and gave the department of social development the responsibility of coordinating and launching the ‘war on poverty’ from 2006. the anti-poverty strategy used the strengths and opportunities that emanated from the experiences of both the government and civil society, with strategic goals to: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; promote sustainable community livelihoods and self-reliant households; and ensure well targeted, joined-up implementation and service delivery by government and its social partners. (eastern cape provincial anti-poverty strategy 2012:8) in line with the goals of the anti-poverty strategy, both the departments of social development and health have funded a large number of sustainable livelihood projects and youth development projects within the amathole district municipality. while most of the civil society organisations (csos) involved in these projects are reportedly doing well, some are reported to be struggling to remain afloat using the grant contracts entered into between the csos and the government departments funding them. other reports are that these organisations face challenges as a result of poor alignment within the municipalities’ strategic plans or integrated development plans, that there is no coordination and proper mapping of these organisations, that they are poorly managed, and that government monitoring and evaluation of these organisations within their jurisdictions is not visible. in light of these reported problems, this study aimed to assess the role of csos in poverty eradication strategies in the amathole district municipality and to establish the challenges and obstacles faced by state interventions with respect to poverty alleviation. on the basis of these findings, a third aim was to suggest remedial action to promote poverty alleviation strategies in the municipality. this study is an attempt to contribute to the debate about the important role of civil society in poverty alleviation strategies in the local government setting. definitions of poverty the definition of poverty is important for the development of this article’s argument on fighting food insecurity. definitions, and thus the measurement, of poverty are subject to debate and academic study. the studies in poverty and inequality institute (spii 2007:31) argues that one can adopt ‘more than one’ definition of poverty, as different definitions and their associated measures focus attention on and quantify different aspects or dimensions of poverty. both international and south african literature and policy documents highlight the fact that the key elements of poverty are economic, social and spatial issues. this article recognises the multidimensional nature of poverty and seeks to address the distinct challenges of the geo-space of the province. the 2008 eastern cape poverty summit adopted the following definition of poverty: poverty is defined as an inability of individuals, households or communities to command sufficient resources to satisfy a socially acceptable minimum standard of living. it is more than merely income insufficiency. it includes lack of opportunity, lack of access to assets as well as social exclusion. (p.14) taking cognisance of the eastern cape province’s conceptualisation in addressing poverty, inequality and its various social manifestations, not only technical planning and delivery solutions but also a process of mobilisation and conscientisation of all in society is required. the definitions of and discourses around poverty are ‘multifarious and highly extensive;’ however, the concept ‘poverty’ is commonly used to refer to the absence of the basic necessities of life, such as income, good health, education, security and self-confidence (emmanuel 2012:43). according to sen (1992, 2001) as quoted by van der berg (2010:1), poverty is not only the absence of financial resources but also the insufficient capability to function in society. sen’s definition broadens the comprehension of the concept of poverty as a condition that results in a deficiency of freedom to choose, which arises from a lack of capability to choose and function effectively in one’s society. within the international context, poverty is often defined in terms of monetary income (viewed from 23 march 2015, www.westerncape.gov.za capegateway.gov.za). following this definition, poor people are those who fall below an income threshold and/or a particular amount of expenditure that is necessary for consumption purposes. however, within the south african context, poverty is viewed from the broader perspective as the denial of opportunities and choices that are assumed to be essential for human development. these are the opportunities and choices that result in a long life that is characterised by the feeling of being healthy and creative and that provide one with the opportunity to enjoy a decent standard of living, ‘freedom, dignity, self-esteem and respect from others’ (statistics south africa [statssa] 2009). the poverty and inequality report prepared for the presidency in 1998 describes poverty as a sense of alienation from one’s community, ‘food insecurity, crowded homes, usage of unsafe and inefficient forms of energy, lack of adequately paid and secure jobs and fragmentation of the family’ (poverty and inequality report for the presidency 1998). all of these definitions were used in the consideration of poverty in this study. civil society organisations poverty alleviation and its eventual elimination are the main objective of development. matenga (2001) argues that governments alone are not managing to cater for the welfare of their people. in pursuit of developmental solutions to developmental problems besetting the african continent, the international donor community increasingly regards csos as an important partner in empowering people in their quest for efficient, effective and sustainable developmental services. the term ‘civil society’ refers to a diversity of interest groups that are created for a specific purpose. these interest groups could be ratepayers’ associations, farmers’ associations, civic associations, non-governmental organisations (ngos) or community-based organisations (cbos), among others (craythorne 2003 cited in mavee & cloete 2011:65). for the purpose of this discussion, the term ‘civil society’ is used interchangeably with csos as interest groups are a form of organisation. civil society may be viewed as a space that exists between government and its citizens (prestegard 2005:24). in other words, civil society symbolises a collaboration of the intermediary groupings that operate within the social and political space between (1) the primary units of society (individuals, families [nuclear and extended] and village units) and (2) the government and its agencies (mavee & cloete 2011:68, 69). civil society organisations coordinate collaboration between the government and citizens. on the contrary, as much as they create this collaboration, their priority is to represent the interests of the citizens. civil society organisations have a huge role to play in campaigns of poverty alleviation. their value lies in the fact that they mobilise people to participate in strategic plans and diverse activities of government while fighting against poverty. mavee and cloete (2011:68, 69) state that csos organise people to form powerful groups as a means of influencing public policies by becoming active participants in policy formulation and implementation. csos also organise people to make public resources accessible to the people (especially underprivileged people), rather than being monopolised by government officers. this makes the contribution of csos important to the ordinary citizens of a nation. while civil society plays an important role in poverty alleviation, it has its own challenges. firstly, csos tend to compete for donor funds even where they operate in the same space and with the same purpose (mavee & cloete 2011:68, 69). according to prestegard (2005:30), those with more organisational resources (e.g. large ngos) stand better chances of establishing contacts with potential funders and maximising their opportunities to receive funding. such a situation could lead to the development of the already established csos, while smaller ones remain underdeveloped and under-resourced. secondly, as prestegard (2005:28, 29) points out, while development discourse often portrays the civil society sphere as working in consensus, in fact, this sphere is characterised by power relations, inequality and conflict. civil society constitutes a diversity of interest groups. this diversity of interests inhibits a civil society from achieving its common purpose, which is poverty alleviation in this instance. the millennium development goals country report of 2010 states that the majority of south africans are still living under unequal and poverty-stricken conditions despite a series of poverty alleviation strategies employed by the south african government in partnership with organised civil societies. this makes the assessment of the role of csos in poverty alleviation important. land and food security as the focus of this article is to critically appraise the role of csos in poverty alleviation, it is imperative to revisit the issue of land and food security. from the data presented in this article so far, it is clear that the respondents are almost entirely dependent on grants from the government’s social assistance programme to complement their low salaries. little or no interest is shown in agriculture or small household food gardens. a debate on land should not only concentrate on sustainable livelihoods and reduced poverty and inequality, but also relate to the production of food and land redistribution for agricultural development. high food prices because of the incessant provincial drought are seriously worsening the living standards of workers and the poor and are thus a major cause of concern. the main issue for the province is land lying fallow vis-à-vis food production. the disregard of land reform is a key contributor to increases in food prices, among other imperatives. fields that used to produce plenty of food are now lying fallow. hence, the vast majority of poor people and rural communities are still trapped in poverty, hunger and starvation, especially in the eastern part of the province. however, land ownership does not necessarily mean one will become food-secured. this is because of the noted lack, or unavailability, of household food gardens. it has generally been agreed that the pace of the rollout of the land reform programme, on which the realisation of land as a right and a resource rests, has been very slow. a mere 3% of the land had been transferred into black african hands by 2004 (ntsebeza 2006), a far cry from government’s own targets and people’s expectations (hall & chennels 2011). ntsebeza outlines two streams of thought that seek to understand this slow pace: one argument has it that the necessary policies are in place, but lack of political will is frustrating the process. the other argument points to the fact that there are problems with the policy itself, [i]n particular the entrenchment of the property clause (protection of existing rights in particular) in the constitution, as well as the endorsement in the policy of the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle. (section 25 of the bill of rights of our constitution) ntsebeza further endorses the latter argument as a key contributor to the slow pace and argues that even the expropriation act, which is embedded in the existing land reform policy, has made very little impact, given that it weighs heavily in favour of land-owning white commercial farming interests, and uses a formula that allows the market to determine the amount of compensation. ntsebeza’s argument suggests that, in view of the plethora of land-related needs, the overall land reform programme will continue at a snail’s pace if these issues are not openly debated and addressed. of particular concern is the land redistribution programme and its sub-programmes, which potentially limit the development of other sectors of the economy; however, the lack of progress with regard to the restitution and tenure reform pillars are similarly causes for concern. as a way forward, this research study proposes that serious note should be taken of the following: there is an urgent need for clarity on who owns the land, and the suitability thereof, for productive uses in order to make land available to all those who might need it for farming. communities should be consulted and agree on how land should be utilised, particularly land that is lying fallow. the state should play a regulatory role in ensuring that land is not underutilised. in cases where land is insufficient for food security and there are clear signs of members of the community being interested in working the land for food production, land should be made available through land reform programmes. the state needs to support agricultural institutions, both to encourage agricultural entrepreneurship and to benefit those farmers who are without formal education. the state should step up its agrarian reform programmes to support productive utilisation of the land. agricultural extension officers must be made available and should be based in the local municipalities, rather than in head offices or boardrooms, and should be assisted by the department of social development in profiling poor households who should be priorities in these programmes. the state should ensure participation of producers in the market through incentive schemes and not let the markets be an end-to-all, determining prices without taking into consideration the means of productions and the salaries in the country. this study strongly considers the twin issues outlined above in its approach, namely, land as a right and land as a resource, if we are serious about addressing the question of land and food security for the downtrodden of our country. methodology the study was conducted on three csos that had been contracted by the department of social development to carry out poverty alleviation projects in the amathole district municipal area of the eastern cape province. these csos were chosen as the study sample using a purposive sampling method. they were the ikhwezi women support centre, which operated in the amahlathi local municipality; nyhwarha home-based care, which operated in the mbhashe local municipality; and we care hiv/aids ministries, which operated in the mnquma local municipality. a total of 14 people who occupied different job positions in these csos or were associated with the csos were selected as study participants. the participants comprised board members, care givers, community development workers and a project manager. a client of one of the csos was also interviewed. the study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. data were collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. each interview lasted for 45 min and was conducted in the mother tongue (isixhosa) of the research participants to facilitate the collection of as much information as possible. the data collected were translated into english as the researcher wrote up field notes. structured interviews were also conducted in which the participants were supplied with a questionnaire to answer and given standardised instructions on how to fill it in. focus group interviews were conducted as a way of encouraging participants’ views on topics of interest to the researcher. the researcher sensitised the focus group members to respect the confidentiality of the other participants’ views and information shared during the session. the researcher used a structured open-ended set of questions that was posed to the participants to guide and facilitate a free-flowing process in which participants felt free to air and share their opinions without being interrupted by the researcher. document analysis supplemented the other data collection methods. annual reports, quarterly performance reports, monthly reports, minutes of meetings and the financial reports of the selected csos and the department of social development were scrutinised. these sources of evidence were used to provide more information and points of clarity that might not have been properly captured during the face-to-face interviews or during the focus group sessions. ethical consideration ethical clearance was obtained from the university of fort hare research centre (mle071sngu01). results and discussion types of intervention conducted by the civil society organisations the findings of this study revealed that the csos played an important role in making improvements to the general well-being of people at community level but that their areas of intervention were not necessarily focused directly on poverty alleviation strategies. the csos worked in four areas: gender-based violence, community or home-based care, health awareness campaigns and education, and income generation. any poverty alleviation initiatives undertaken by these csos formed part of their projects – for instance, combining an hiv and aids project with a job creation project to support people living with hiv and aids. the goals of the csos that dealt with gender-based violence were to provide counselling and paralegal support to women and girls who had experienced this type of violence or lived with hiv and/or aids, to empower organisations and community members to get involved in programmes to address aspects of gender-based violence and hiv and aids, and to lobby for policy change on women’s issues related to gender-based violence and hiv and aids. a further goal was to ensure that women and girls received effective assistance from the police and judiciary. the goals of the projects that dealt with home-based or community care were to provide home-based care to the sick; to run community-based support centres to help people living with hiv and aids, disabled people, orphans, people with social problems and people with tuberculosis (tb) and chronic illnesses; and to identify and provide psychosocial support for child-headed families, orphans and vulnerable community members. the health awareness and education campaigns of the csos aimed to improve the health status of community members by encouraging them to adhere to the treatment for hiv and aids and tb and to improve the health awareness and awareness about issues concerned with gender-based violence and hiv and aids. the csos worked to collaborate with government and private-sector stakeholders on the implementation of ongoing education and awareness programmes to combat ignorance and discrimination in the broader community and the workplace. a last aim was to work in partnership with and promote organisations involved in community-based hiv and aids initiative and advocacy. the csos had goals for the establishment of income generation projects as a way of fighting poverty for their intended beneficiaries – people living with hiv and aids and community members – and the creation of job opportunities for unemployed community members. from the above discussion, it is clear that some of the objectives of the csos addressed the basic living conditions of the intended beneficiaries, particularly underprivileged people. within the south african context, poverty alleviation strategies need to address the basic needs of local people, create opportunities for self-employment, develop human resources and skills, and ensure that people live in an environment that is safe and secure (ababio & meyer 2012:7). in this way, it can be said that the csos indirectly contribute to poverty alleviation. poverty eradication strategies the findings of this study indicate that the csos made a direct contribution to poverty eradication through the creation of employment opportunities. the three organisations observed created employment opportunities for 331 people, although most of the people (64%) were employed on a part-time basis. the creation of job opportunities took place in addition to the purpose of providing assistance to their beneficiaries held by some organisations, which involved them in diverse methods of alleviating poverty. some of these methods were: educating beneficiaries (of the interventions) on how to plough vegetables in their gardens. adopting this approach would provide them with necessary skills and the knowledge regarding how to take care of their gardens and thus assist in alleviating poverty at the community level. mobilising community members to become engaged in income generation projects, which included poultry farming, sewing and gardening. the intended beneficiaries were hiv-positive people and those affected by hiv and aids. creating employment by making use of the government’s expanded public-works programmes and food projects from the vegetable gardens. establishing cooperative projects for women in rural communities. facilitating community participation in development projects. facilitating the establishment of various poverty alleviation projects within the identified communities. mavee and cloete (2011) argue that csos play a vital role in organising people to form influential groups. the value of these groups lies in the fact that they become the means of influencing public policies in order to pursue the interests of ordinary community members. they do this by participating in policy formulation and implementation, while organising people to make public resources accessible to the people. moreover, government and csos work together to assess the needs of the intended beneficiaries as a precondition for the effective implementation of programmes. challenges experienced by the civil society organisations the insufficiency of funding was one of the key challenges that was highlighted by the csos. insufficient funding inhibited the csos from executing their activities optimally. as prestegard (2005:30) reports, csos tend to compete with each other for donor funds, which results in competition between them rather than collaboration. inadequate collaboration minimises the chance of csos working as a team towards solving societal problems. a second challenge was that the human resources of these organisations did not have the knowledge and skills necessary for effectively conducting the duties and executing the activities of the organisations. the strength of an organisation is determined by its human resources. without well-trained staff, an organisation has to rely on the services of outside expert consultants. this is a disadvantage to such an organisation as it has to spend financial resources on consultants, which could have been spent on other projects. a third challenge is that insufficient knowledge and skills on the part of an organisation’s human resources means that such an organisation is unable to deal with project implementation complexities. a fourth challenge was the problem of high defaulter rates for organisations that provided treatment to patients living with hiv and aids. this situation was attributed to several challenges, such as healthcare facilities located far away from the residential areas of patients and poverty that made it difficult for patients to consume medication on empty stomachs. the manifestation of high levels of defaulter rates indicates that an intervention is not being delivered adequately to the intended beneficiaries. babbie and mouton (2001:374) discuss the concept ‘coverage’, which is defined as the extent to which participation by intended beneficiaries achieves the levels specified in programme design. in other words, the delivery of the services ought to take place as specified in the plans of the intervention and beneficiaries should receive the service as intended. tools used by the civil society organisations the findings of the study revealed that among the tools that were used regularly by the csos was the logical framework analysis (lfa). the lfa is a graphical presentation of how a programme’s objectives and activities fit together to produce the desired outcomes. it is a tool that is used to create congruence between what has been planned and what was actually done (vingilis & state 2011). this means that it is a tool that can be used in executing performance assessment and planning at the same time. the lfa tool has some disadvantages, however. it can lead planners of development projects to believe that there is a direct link between the concepts presented in plans and the way in which these plans are realised (cernea 2006:46). in other words, they expect to achieve the intended outcomes in terms of their plans. the adoption of such an approach is not realistic because the relationship between inputs and outputs is not linear; the responses as a result of certain inputs are sometimes non-proportional. it is necessary, therefore, for these organisations to plan for the unexpected changes that arise as a consequence of their activities. additional tools that were used were from the department of social development, the department of trade and industry and the department of health. these tools included attendance registers, referral systems, leave forms, contracts of employment and evaluation forms. performance management food security was disclosed as one of the sector programmes or projects of focus by the csos. in relation to the goal of providing food security to beneficiaries, one of the organisations reported two indicators of success in their efforts towards poverty alleviation: the existence of the food security garden project in the community of beneficiaries, on the premises of the local hospital as a manifestation of the output of the intervention a positive response from the beneficiaries of the intervention, that is, a diversity of community members confirmed that they were receiving fresh vegetables from the project. among the objectives raised by the csos was, firstly, to make improvements to the health status of community members by encouraging them to adhere to their treatment for hiv and aids and tb and, secondly, to conduct health awareness campaigns as part of improving the health status of community members, especially with regard to hiv and aids and tb. the indicator of success with regard to these objectives was the manifestation of positive changes among the intended beneficiaries of the interventions, in other words, the community members that were infected by hiv. the organisation’s clients (beneficiaries) that were hiv-positive were complying with their hiv treatments and consequently there were many cases of improvements in their health status. unfortunately, adherence to treatment was undermined by the challenge of poverty in many households in the communities. there were many instances where individual community members did not have the food required to be taken before hiv medication. such a situation inhibited the chances of treatment adherence by clients. the study found that hosting health awareness campaigns was also an appropriate example of outputs. the question that needs to follow is ‘do the outputs result in a positive change for the intended beneficiaries?’ in this instance: ‘does hosting health awareness campaigns result in compliance with hiv treatments by hiv-positive clients?’ if the answer is ‘yes’, the implication is that the outputs lead to the intended outcomes. it is a common phenomenon that csos host workshops for their employees with the aim of capacitating them with the knowledge about a particular area. interestingly, while ongoing workshops take place, it appears that these employees remain without that knowledge. in terms of measuring performance, the organisations would count the workshops as indicators of success with regard to their performance, even if the workshops (outputs) did not lead to gained knowledge (outcomes) about that particular subject. this suggests that csos must make efforts to gain a better understanding of performance measures as a part of making improvements to their performance. conclusion the contribution of the csos to the welfare of the communities in which they work is indispensable. the findings of the study revealed the interventions executed by the csos to be interventions on issues of gender-based violence, community or home-based care, health awareness campaigns and education, and income generation. civil society organisations were found to contribute by creating opportunities for self-employment, addressing food security issues and raising awareness regarding health and safety issues. civil society organisations also have an essential role to play with regard to mitigating the challenge of poverty in communities by creating employment opportunities and providing food security for impoverished communities. the challenges that csos face include insufficient funding as a necessary resource for executing the activities of the organisations and insufficient knowledge and skills of the human resources of the csos. civil society organisations use the lfa tool to plan and monitor their projects. this is a useful tool in that it provides a graphic presentation about the diverse components of an intervention, such as the relationship between an intervention’s objectives, activities and intended outcomes. however, the lfa encourages planners to treat projects as predictable and does not prepare them to encounter unexpected changes as implementation of the projects takes place. in light of the usefulness of csos in supplementing government’s poverty eradication strategies, it would be useful for the department of social development to attend to the challenges faced by the csos, for example, by putting financial management controls and record-keeping systems in place. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the civil society organisations that provided data for analysis. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author’s contributions t.r.m. was the supervisor of x.g.n. (student) at the university of fort hare, bhisho campus. funding this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references ababio, e.p. & meyer, d.f., 2012, ‘local economic development (led): building blocks, strategy and implementation for local government in south africa’, administratio publica 20(4), 6–27. babbie, e. & mouton, j., 2001, the practice of social research, oxford university press southern africa, cape town. baiyegunhi, l.j.s. & fraser, g.c.g., 2014, ‘poverty incidence among smallholder in farmers in the amathole’, journal of human ecology 46(3), 261–273. bussey, e., 2005, ‘constitutional 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research domains, mcgill-queen’s university press, montreal. united nations development programme (undp), 2019, human development indices and indicators: 2018 statistical update, united nations development programme, new york, ny. footnote 1. the human development index (hdi) provides an indication of human development based on life expectancy, health, education and income of a country or region. a ranking of 1 signals a high hdi score and 0 signals a low hdi score. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. constructing an xml database of linguistics data1 jh kroeze,* tjd bothma** and mc matthee** abstract a language-oriented, multi-dimensional database of the linguistic characteristics of the hebrew text of the old testament can enable researchers to do ad hoc queries. xml is a suitable technology to transform free text into a database. a clause’s word order can be kept intact while other features such as syntactic and semantic functions can be marked as elements or attributes. the elements or attributes from the xml “database” can be accessed and processed by a 4th generation programming language, such as visual basic. xml is explored as an option to build an exploitable database of linguistic data by representing inherently multi-dimensional data, including syntactic and semantic analyses of free text. keywords: xml, database, morphology, morpho-syntax, syntax, semantics, hebrew. disciplines: information systems, linguistics 1. introduction the text of the hebrew bible is analysed from different linguistic disciplines, such as phonology, morphology, morpho-syntax, syntax, semantics, etc. it is even possible, and very helpful, to integrate these contributions using an interlinear format or table structure. a whole bible book can, for example, be analysed clause by clause, indicating the various analyses in a collection of interlinear tables. although this makes perfect sense for someone who studies the work in a linear fashion, it does not facilitate advanced research into linguistic structures and other phenomena. if the data could be transferred into a proper electronic database, one could create a database management system to view and manipulate the data according to the needs of linguists and exegetes. although the interlinear tables already resemble the tables in a relational database very closely, there is one important difference: each record or clause is represented by a unique table while records in a relational database table are similar rows in one table, all with the same structure. a 1 this article is an edited version of a chapter in a doctoral thesis (kroeze, 2008: 85-122). an earlier version was read as a paper at the israeli seminar on computational linguistics (iscol), haifa, israel, 29 june 2006. * north-west university (vaal triangle campus). ** university of pretoria. kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   140 typical relational database table for capturing linguistic analyses could use syntactic functions as the names of attributes or fields. each clause could then be a row and its elements rearranged and categorised accordingly. however, one will need a large number of columns to capture all possible syntactic functions, many of which will contain null values because the structures of sentences vary significantly. furthermore, for every language module that is added to the data store one will have to add another set of columns, aggravating the sparsity problem even further. alternatively, one could use a parallel table linked by unique keys or references. to extract the related data one would have to use joins to collect the data from the various tables. this implementation will also lead to much redundancy, since the words or phrases will have to be repeated in each table. if one takes the word groups of the clauses as a starting point to structure the database and store data such as np, subject, agent, etc. as attribute values, the structure problem is solved to a large extent, since each clause contains only a limited number of phrases (a maximum of five per clause in genesis 1:1-2:3). the problem of redundancy and sparsity is minimised by using a threedimensional data cube instead of a simple twodimensional table. all the records or clauses and their linguistic analyses can then be combined into this single data structure containing more than two dimensions or a “clause cube”. such a language-oriented, multidimensional database of the linguistic characteristics of the hebrew text of the old testament can enable researchers to do ad hoc queries. for example, a researcher may want to do a specific search in order to find good examples of a certain syntactic structure, or to explore the mapping of semantic functions onto syntactic functions. once the data is stored in a properly structured database, this type of query becomes executable. xml, a subset of sgml, is a suitable technology for transforming free text into a database. “there is a growing need to annotate a text or a whole corpus according to multiple information levels, especially in the field of linguistics. language data are provided with sgml-based markup encoding phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic structure analyses” (witt et al., 2005: 103). in such an xml implementation a clause’s word order can be kept intact, while other features such as syntactic and semantic functions can be marked as elements or attributes. the elements or attributes from the xml “database” can be accessed and processed by a third generation programming language, such as visual basic 6 (vb6). a threedimensional array is probably the most effective programming tool for processing the data. an alternative option could be the use of an xml query language (cf. bourret, 2003; deutsch et al., 1999). this article focuses on the following aspects: • why should xml be explored as an option to build an exploitable database of linguistic data? • how can xml be used to build an exploitable linguistic data cube? • how can xml represent the syntactic and semantic analyses of free text? • how can xml represent inherently multidimensional data? however, before these questions can be answered, it is necessary to provide some background on linguistic databases and computational linguistics in general, as well as on the various linguistic layers that could be analysed and the basic building blocks that form the backbone of such a database. an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 141 2. linguistic databases and computational linguistics researchers who study natural language processing (nlp) may wonder if a project that studies the use of xml to develop a database of linguistic data should be regarded as proper computational linguistics since it cannot understand, create or translate human language. however, it should be remembered that, according to wintner (2004: 113), computational linguistics do not only include “the application of various techniques and results from linguistics to computer science” (nlp), but also “the application of various techniques and results from computer science to linguistics, in order to investigate such fundamental problems as what people know when they know a natural language, what they do when they use this knowledge, and how they acquire this knowledge in the first place”. this research field is, therefore, per definition transdisciplinary, since it combines insights from the natural and human sciences (cf. hoppers, 2009: 12). a linguistic database2 captures and manipulates human knowledge of language, thus focusing on the first one of these basic issues in the second category (what people know about a language). this part of computational linguistics could perhaps be called natural language information systems (nlis) because it is similar to the application of information technology to business data, studied in the information systems discipline, of which databases form an integral part. nlis can improve the storage, extraction, manipulation and exploration of linguistic data. it is, however, not only an end in itself, since tagged corpora are also needed as tools to train natural language processing systems (wintner, 2004: 131). knowledge representation of human language, of which the tagging of documents is a part, is an interdisciplinary methodology that combines the logic and ontology of linguistics with computation (unsworth, 2001).3 like databases, mark-up is a substitute or surrogate of something else (in this case the covertly structured text)4, which enables the researcher to make his/her assumptions explicit, to test these hypotheses and to derive conclusions from it (cf. ibid.). the names of the tags, attributes and elements used for the mark-up reflect the researcher’s “set of ontological commitments” (cf. ibid.). since any knowledge representation is a fragmentary theory of intelligent reasoning, it should be accepted that no knowledge representation system can capture all the forms of “intelligent reasoning about a literary text” (cf. ibid.). this study is limited to the study of word groups, syntactic and semantic functions, excluding other perspectives such as morphology and pragmatics. a simplified version of the semantic functions, according to the functional grammar theory of sc dik (1997a, 1997b) was used for the semantic analysis. equally simple systems, compiled by the author, were used for the word 2 the adjective linguistic in the term linguistic database here refers to the linguistic content of the database. jeong & yoon (2001) use the same term, but apparently refer to the textual design of the database itself, regardless of the content. however, they do not supply a clear definition for the term. it could also refer to their proposed manipulation language. other authors, such as buneman et al. (2002: 480), use the term to refer to the content of the database as it is done in this article. petersen (1999: 10) uses the term “text databases” for databases that store texts together with linguistic analyses of it (that is, expounded text vs. text-dominated databases that are composed mainly by means of characters). 3 compare huitfeldt’s (2004) opinion that the semantic web lies “at the intersection of markup technology and knowledge representation”. 4 “semiotic and linguistic forms are incoherent because they have to be marked in order to be perceived at all” (mcgann, 2003: 5). kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   142 group and syntactic analyses (see kroeze, 2008: addenda c, d and e; kroeze 2009). the reader’s own views may differ from the analyses given here, but it should be kept in mind that the main focus of this project is not defining a linguistic theory, but rather illustrating the digital storage and processing of text analyses. any other linguistic system may be used as the theory underlying the analysis and tagging. 3. linguistic layers witt (2002) suggests that various levels of linguistic data could be annotated in separate document grammars, which can be integrated via computer programs. he proposes i.a. morphology, syntax and semantics as levels to be annotated: for the annotation of linguistic data this [i.e. a single level of annotation jhk] could be e.g. the level of morphology, the level of syllable structures, a level of syntactic categories (e.g. noun, verb), a level of syntactic functions (e.g. subject, object), or a level of semantic roles (e.g. agent, instrument), (witt, 2002). in a later article, witt (2005: 57) differentiates between linguistic levels and layers. levels refer to divergent logical units such as text layout versus linguistic analyses, and layers or tiers refer to the various possibilities on one level (for example, syntactic and semantic functions, which are structures that order the text hierarchically). in this study the terms layers or modules are also used to refer to the various perspectives of syntax, semantics, etc. however, the distinction between level and layer is not strictly maintained in references to other authors’ work, where the terms are used as synonyms. t. sasaki (2004: 22), for example, uses the term level to refer to various linguistic annotations of text, i.e. syntactic, morpho-syntactic, lexical and morphological annotation. it should, however, not cause much misunderstanding, since this study focuses only on one “logical unit”, the linguistic analyses, while the verse numbers are only used for primary keys and referencing. furthermore, the reader should note that linguists do not necessarily use the names of language modules in exactly the same way. for example, witt’s syntactic categories are the same as sasaki’s morpho-syntactic categories (part-of-speech tagging), while morpho-syntax is used in the current study to refer to word groups. the use of these terms is theory-bound and the user of a linguistic database should make sure that he/she knows the specific definitions used in a particular implementation. 4. the phrase as basic building block of the database structure the problems of redundancy and sparsity were discussed above and it was indicated that using the phrase as the basic building block of structure for a clause cube may minimise these problems. this solution is discussed in more detail in this section. witt (2002) proposes that linguistic database creators use the basic written text as a link, which he calls the primary data, between the layers: “… when designing the document grammar it is necessary to consider that the primary data is the link between all layers of annotation”. the simplest way to deal with such an implementation is to mark up the various layers of linguistic analysis in separate documents, using the primary data to interrelate the information contained in these documents. even if the information of all analysed layers are merged into one data an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 143 structure, such as a data cube, it is still logical to use the basic text (divided into words or phrases), as the basic elements to which all other layers are related. depending on the characteristics of the layers to be annotated one should decide whether to use letters, words, phrases, etc., as the reference units. compare witt (2005: 65, 70, 72): “… in larger text single words could serve as the reference units” (as opposed to single letters in smaller text). for example, in a project that aims to study morphological analysis it would be necessary to use characters as the smallest units (bayerl et al., 2003: 165). in this project phrases or word groups are used as the unit of reference. it is, however, important to note that annotations that use different units of reference cannot easily be integrated if the text is used as the primary data (the “implicit link” between the layers). this could be solved by numbering the smallest units to be analysed and by referring to the various combinations of these numbers for the divergent layers of analysis (compare petersen, 1999: 13-14).5 although different solutions were researched for the representation of divergent linguistic analyses, [t]he annotation of multiple hierarchies with sgml-based markup systems is still one of the fundamental problems of text-technological research (witt et al., 2005:103). although this is not a problem in the experiment of this project, it should be researched if one would have to integrate a word group-based analysis with other studies based on letters, morphemes, words or other different units of structure. compare, for example, petersen (2004) who uses words in their original order as the basic units of reference in his textual database. he does, however, add a numbering system to facilitate the mapping of non-congruent linguistic layers. 5. why should xml be explored as an option to build an exploitable database of linguistic data? the sections above have clearly indicated why it is desirable to build a linguistic database for capturing data regarding the various linguistic layers of text using the phrase as a basic unit of structure. the ideal solution is to keep the database separate and independent from the program(s) that operate on it in order to avoid structural dependence and data dependence. structural dependence refers to the situation where changing the structure of the database necessitates all access programs to be adapted, while data dependence refers to a “condition in which data representation and manipulation are dependent on the physical data storage characteristics” (rob & coronel, 2007: 15, 640, 652). therefore, it is not ideal to implement the database as a module within a vb6 program. this section focuses on the choice of xml to implement a structure-independent and dataindepedent solution. storing the clause-cube data in a separate, platform-independent, xml file, will make the data available to be used and reused by various access programs. if the structure or content of either the progam or database changes, only the interface between the two needs to be adapted to read the data to and from the threedimensional array. the research question in the heading of this section (“why should xml be explored as an option to build an exploitable database of linguistic data?”) can be broken down into four subquestions, which will be discussed below: 5 the basic elements (for example, letters or words) are numbered in order of appearance using integers called monads (petersen, 1999: 13). kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   144 • why is xml suitable for implementing a database? • why is xml suitable for linguistic data? • why is xml suitable for data exploration? • what are the disadvantages of xml? 5.1 why is xml suitable for implementing a database? the idea for this study originated while working on an earlier project about the use of html to represent linguistic data in a table format (kroeze, 2002). the tables used in html prompted the idea to capture the data in a database, but also showed the limitations of html because the tags are only used for formatting and do not contain any semantic information which can be used for structuring purposes.6 xml, on the other hand, allows the designer of the software to define his/her own tags which may be organised in a hierarchical manner to structure the data.7 this built-in structure can be used, not only to visualise the data in a way similar to the html tables referred to above, but also to process the data for more advanced functionality. the hierarchical nature of xml is a major benefit in comparison to simple relational database management systems that make use of collections of flat, twodimensional tables. use of this technology would lead to sparsity and redundancy problems (see above).8 although more complex types of relational database technology exist that do facilitate multidimensional tables, which could provide alternative solutions for multidimensional linguistic data, this study is limited to the investigation of the use of xml as a solution. the database facilities of xml can be ascribed to its features of allowing the design of unique tag sets and the separation of formatting and structure. a unique set of tags (schema), which fits the relevant data set in a natural way (flynn, 2002: 56), can be compiled to be the equivalent of a database structure. the structuring is built into a well-designed mark-up schema, but the formatting is covered by separated style sheets. while the schema of a relational database management system exists separately from the data, in xml it coexists with the data as element names or “tags” (deutsch et al., 1999: 1156). other benefits of “the deferral of formatting choices” are the facilitation of consistent formatting and the avoidance of many opportunities for data corruption (derose et al., 1990: 15, 17). although xml is very suitable for storing data, it should, however, be remembered that the crud functions (create, retrieve, update, delete) are actually not done by the xml document itself but by another program that operates on the data in the xml file. maybe one should even consider the possibility of rather using the term xml databank rather than database: an xml document is a database only in the strictest sense of the term because it is essentially only a simple file containing data, organised in a linear fashion (bourret, 2003). combined with its surrounding technologies xml may be regarded as a database system, albeit in the “looser sense of the term” because it does provide some of the typical functionalities 6 as is the case with unstructured web data, the lack of structure facilitated by html causes serious limitations on information access (xyleme, 2001: 3). 7 relational databases use tables or flat structures while xml uses a hierarchical structure that is “arbitrarily deep and almost unrestrictedly interrelated” (smiljanić et al., 2002: 9). 8 storing xml data in conventional databases is not ideal since it “artificially creates lots of tuples/objects for even medium-sized documents” (xyleme, 2001: 3). an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 145 of “real databases” but also lacks others (ibid.). in conventional database terminology, database refers to the collection of tables containing related data,9 database management system refers to the program that enables creation, reading, updating and deletion of data in the database, and database system is the combination of a database and the software used to manage it (smiljanić et al., 2002: 8). in a database approach one may consider an xml document to be a database and a dtd to be a database schema (deutsch et al., 1999: 1155). therefore, in this experiment the xml document refers to the database, the vb6 program may be regarded as a (simple) database management system, and the combination as a database system. although it is not implemented in this experiment, using xml to structure the data in the clause cube could facilitate the request and delivery of information through the world wide web in a similar way as is the case with business data. huang & su (2002), for example, combine xml technology and push and pull strategies to provide users via the internet only with information relevant to them. because an xml document is text-based it is ideal for storage and delivery of business data via the web, which requires a one-dimensional stream of characters for efficient transfer. this text-based property of xml also renders it quite suitable for the storage and transfer of linguistic data over the internet. 5.2 why is xml suitable for linguistic data? since xml itself is text based, it follows that it should provide a suitable way to capture textual data. the source text can be kept intact while additional information is added by means of semantic mark-up. since humanities scholars do not only use texts to transmit information about other phenomena, but also study the texts themselves, it is important to preserve these texts in a form that will facilitate future research. xml provides a way to store both the original text and the results of research on it for future reuse (huitfeldt, 2004). due to its widespread use and adaptability to other software packages, flynn (2002: 59) regards xml as the future “lingua franca for structured text in the humanities and elsewhere”. xml was also recommended by the e-meld project as a mark-up language in order to create a common standard for and sharing of digital linguistic data (bird et al., 2002: 432). xml uses terms to describe texts that are not linked to a specific formatter and, therefore, makes documents transportable (platform-independent) (derose et al., 1990: 15). “it is a nonpropriety public standard independent of any commercial factor and interest” (t. sasaki, 2004: 19). according to t. sasaki (2004:18) researchers of hebrew linguistics “can benefit enormously” from the use of xml as a medium to store and interchange their research data. an xml database that captures human linguistic analyses and facilitates data warehousing and data mining procedures10 on this data, for example, could be very helpful to fill the gaps that cannot yet be covered by algorithms that simulate the complex processes of human language. due to the ambiguity of human language on various layers of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and 9 or static database – a database without crud facilities (cf. petersen, 1999: 11). 10 “data warehousing and knowledge discovery technologies are emerging as key technologies to improve data analysis ... and automatic extraction of knowledge from data” (wang & dong, 2001: 48). kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   146 pragmatics, natural language processing systems are not satisfactorily successful, especially on the higher layers of language understanding (wintner, 2004: 114-118).11 in fact, such a database can also provide more basic data that can be used to improve nlp systems. xml is a very scalable medium for storing linguistic data. it is very easy to embed another layer into the hierarchical structure to capture additional information. besides capturing data that pertains to the text itself, information about parallel texts can be represented in the same manner, thus enabling textual criticism (the process of comparing various editions of a text in order to reconstruct the original text).12 in this regard, aarseth (s.a.) is very positive about the prospects of hypertext technology: not only does hypertext promise a tool for critical annotation and the representation of intertextuality, as well as a useful method for representing complex editions of variorum texts, it also has become, for many, an incarnation of the post-structural concept of text. word order is an important and often essential characteristic of language. in a database that captures linguistic analyses according to logically organised attributes (for example, subject, object, indirect object), the word order is lost and another field is needed for every word to register its word order position. however, xml’s simple linear file characteristic makes it very suitable for textual databases since text is also ordered in a linear fashion. it allows the designer to keep the word order intact and to capture the analytical data by means of mark-up. not only does this eliminate the need for a word-order field, but it also reduces processing to rebuild the original text for output purposes. like sgml,13 xml can be used to annotate either more text-oriented documents or more data-oriented documents.14 it is therefore very suitable for a linguistic data cube, which is something in between. on the one hand, the text and word order is preserved,15 and on the other hand, the database is structured to such an extent that it can be represented by a threedimensional array in vb6. this could, therefore, serve as an example where the boundaries between document-centric and data-centric xml documents are blurred (cf. t. sasaki, 2004: 19).16 11 even using semantic information in a dictionary does not guarantee the correct interpretation because a machine’s interpretation “does not [always] fit conditions in the real world” (ornan, 2004). 12 due to the stability of the text of the hebrew bible it is not necessary to consider the use of change-centric management of the xml clause cube, which only contains analyses of a single version of the text. however, in text-critical projects of the text such an approach could be useful for users to obtain snapshots of the text’s history (cf. marian et al., 2001). 13 cf. derose et al. (1990: 12): “it [sgml – jhk] does not prejudice whether a document is to be treated as a database, a word-processing file, or something completely different”. 14 a dictionary is a typical example of a data-oriented linguistic document (cf. bird et al., 2002). 15 this statement has to be qualified somewhat. embedded phrases and clauses challenged the ideal to exactly reproduce the original word order. a compromise was to refer to these embedded elements by using square brackets where they do occur and to analyse them separately afterwards as individual phrases or clauses. 16 document-centric documents are also called narrative-centric or text-centric documents. they “are not so well structured and are meant more for human consumption, while data-centric documents ... are more rigidly structured and meant mainly for machine consumption” (t. sasaki, 2004: 19). an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 147 the characteristics of xml discussed above make it very suitable to record linguistic data, for example in a data cube. in combination with a suitable program this data can be read, updated and deleted in various combinations. a data mart could be built to summarise subsets of the data, thus enabling advanced processing and retrieval. the following section will discuss the data exploration facilities in more detail. 5.3 why is xml suitable for data exploration? an xml database facilitates complex searches, for example where two or more conditions are to be true (derose et al., 1990: 17). without a proper database these are done partly manually: the researcher finds all texts that satisfy one condition and then searches within that data for the other conditions. a good program or query language could automate the process of searching for data on more than one parameter within an xml document. it could also facilitate text comparison and the display and correlation of various translations of a text, provided that this data are captured in the xml database (derose et al., 1990: 18). this will make the task of a translator or exegete a lot easier by integrating the data from various texts and translations into a single tool. data integration from various sources is a typical data warehousing activity. data marts and data warehouses are often used to integrate and aggregate business data. xml schemas can also be used to interoperate legacy databases when migrating and integrating them into newer databases (thuraisingham, 2002: 190). xml and its surrounding technology can provide similar benefits for humanistic studies since it facilitates the integration of a wide variety of different types of data or media into a ‘compound document’ (derose et al., 1990: 17). the suitability of xml to integrate data from various sources has been demonstrated over and over again. mangisengi et al. (2001: 337) go one step further in their project to virtually colocate data warehouse islands using xml as a basis to realise the interoperability of these sources.17 by not having to physically replicate data into a new enormous data warehouse they ensure an efficient load balance. this demonstrates the scalability of projects built on xml technology. having a data warehouse is an important step towards efficient data exploration or data mining. data mining is the process of discovering hidden patterns within large datasets. the ohco model treats documents and related files as a database of text elements that can be systematically manipulated …. full-text searches in textbases can specify structural conditions on patterns searched for and text to be retrieved (derose et al., 1990: 17). the location of patterns is the essence of humanistic inquiry which presumes an openness on the side of the researcher, and “databases are perhaps the most well suited to facilitating and exploiting” this enterprise (ramsay, s.a.). it should be noted that data mining is not a coincidental process of discovery, but rather a deliberate process of knowledge invention and construction (cf. du plooy, 1998: 54, 59). 17 according to wang & dong (2001: 51) a data warehouse is “a finite set of documents (or data cubes) conforming to one of the xml schema definitions in meta data.” a data warehouse is actually a collection of data marts that contain aggregated data. kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   148 5.4 what are the disadvantages of xml? in comparison to all these benefits of xml there are only a few disadvantages (cf. t. sasaki, 2004: 19). the xml documents can become rather large since the tags are repeated over and over again for each element. in the clause cube experiment of this project, not only the tags but also the character data is used repetitively because the word groups, syntactic functions and semantic functions are encoded as text elements. this design is, however, very suitable for the eventual conversion to an array structure in vb6. according to buneman et al. (2002: 475) an xml document may be regarded as a hierarchical structure of elements, attributes and text nodes, of which only “[t]ext and element children are held in what is essentially an array”. in a later version of this project the size of the xml document(s) may be reduced dramatically by defining the names of syntactic and semantic functions as entities (for example, <!entity ben “beneficiary”>) and using repetitive entity references in the database (for example, &ben;) instead (cf. burnard, 2004). this provides a viable alternative to compressing techniques to reduce the size of an xml document since “lossy” compression techniques are more suitable for database-like documents, and “lossless” compression techniques are not nearly as efficient as “lossy” techniques (cannataro et al., 2001: 3).18 besides the verbosity and repetitiveness, “access to the data is slow due to parsing and text conversion” (bourret, 2003). on the other hand, in the case of text databases, an xml implementation can actually be quite fast since whole documents are stored together and logical joins are not needed (ibid.). if the xml code is typed using a basic text editor such as notepad, it can be annoying and error-prone to type repetitive tags and elements, but if the file is created by electronic means, or by using special xml editors, this problem can be avoided. the separation of data and formatting provides certain benefits as discussed above, but necessitates the creation of a separate style sheet to inform a web browser, such as opera or firefox,19 how to display the text in the xml document (flynn, 2002: 57). this is, however, a small price to pay for the database-like benefits provided by the same characteristic and the option to design different formats to suit unique requirements. in addition, huitfeldt (2004) mentions the following weaknesses of xml: poor support for documents enriched by multimedia, absence of well-defined semantics, and the inherent inadequacy to express overlapping hierarchies which have to be bypassed by artificial means. since xml itself does not contain semantics, it is important to add semantic content to markup in order to enable the study of the ontology it reflects (cf. f. sasaki, 2004: 3).20 in comparison to the advantages, the disadvantages of xml are rather restricted. thus, one may conclude that it provides suitable technology to build a linguistic database which can be explored to construct new knowledge. 18 during “lossy” compression the document structure is changed and the original document cannot be reproduced by reversing the process. if the compression is lossless the compressed data can be decoded to provide a document that is identical to the original (cannataro et al., 2001: 2). 19 internet explorer does not render the tables, defined in this project’s xml style sheet, correctly. 20 mark-up semantics studies “the formal description of the meaning of document grammars and instance documents”, while semantic markup “is the addition of semantic information to markup” (f. sasaki, 2004: 3). an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 149 6. how can xml be used to build an exploitable linguistic data cube? xml is not restricted to a predefined set of static mark-up formulas. the user may define his/her own tags to mark up the relevant text in a suitable way. therefore, tags, elements and attributes can be designed according to the linguistic paradigm within which the researcher works. xml is also very flexible: it is possible and acceptable to map all properties to elements and child elements (bourret, 2003), and in this experiment it was actually better to code all the linguistic information as primary data (most basic textual elements) to properly implement the threedimensional data cube concept.21 primary data is “simple element types” (bourret, 2003), which is usually used exclusively for the basic text itself,22 but xml allows the user to creatively design the structure of the database using the various building blocks available. this is called a tag-based approach versus an attribution-based one. while the attribution-based approach is more readable, the tag-based approach is more expandable and suitable for the representation of multidimensional and hierarchical data (jeong & yoon, 2001: 834). using a tag-based approach to build a linguistic data cube in combination with a vb6 access program will provide a custommade, but flexible and expandable database management system that is both efficient and userfriendly. it is, of course, very important to use these constructs in a consistent manner. the need to reuse data intelligently (for example, for text mining) depends on a “well-planned tagging scheme” (derose et al., 1990: 18). to facilitate this process, schema languages are available to define the structure of the database and to test the contents of the database to ensure that all entries satisfy the schema rules (cf. t. sasaki, 2004: 18). 7. how can xml represent the syntactic and semantic analyses of free text? the designer has to think about the data structure as a threedimensional object having one row for each clause; five (in the case of genesis 1:1-2:3) columns per clause, one for each phrase; and various layers of analysis, i.a. one to capture syntactic information and another to record semantic functions. if a phrase does not have a semantic function, for example in the case of conjunctions, an empty value (-) is inserted into the relevant field. null values would also indicate the absence of a function, but could cause problems during sorting and importing and exporting the xml file to and from a program (round-tripping23 ). in xml the data cube is represented by a hierarchical structure (see below). it is important to validate the recorded data to ensure the consistent use of terminology. a proper xml schema enforces consistency and the proper organization of stored text which is necessary because [n]o hardware improvements or programming ingenuity can completely overcome a flawed representation (derose et al., 1990: 4). 21 compare t. sasaki’s (2004: 42) example of an entry in a data-centric lexical database of modern hebrew where all the mark-up is also done as elements and child elements, without using attribute values. according to deutsch et al. (1999: 1156) “[s]tructured values are called elements”. 22 compare, for example, t. sasaki (2004: 29-30). see huitfeldt (2004): “an sgml document therefore has a natural representation as a tree whose nodes represent elements and whose leaves represent the characters of the document.” 23 round-tripping of the xml database is discussed in detail in kroeze (2007b). kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   150 the creation and use of an xml schema will be discussed in more detail below. in addition, validation of syntactic and semantic functions can also be facilitated by a vb6 program to ensure clean data before advanced processing is done (see kroeze, 2007a). a schema is actually a knowledge representation or an ontology24 that is formulated, consciously or unconsciously, based on a specific theory of language.25 if you want a computer to be able to process the materials you work on, whether for search and retrieval, analysis, or transformation—then those materials have to be constructed according to some explicit rules, and with an explicit model of their ontology in view (unsworth, 2001). various ontologies in linguistic projects reflect the various underlying theoretical paradigms, and one can only hope that these will converge to more standardised systems in future. divergent ontologies are not optimised to play the role of a “key factor for enabling interoperability in the semantic web” (ibid.) however, one will have to accept that linguistic ontologies are phenomena that evolve in parallel to the underlying philosophies that they reflect; since it is a humanistic field of study, it will never be as rigorous as the natural sciences. xml could at least help the comparison of the various approaches. with reference to literary analysis, mcgann (2003: 5) says: textuality is, like light, fundamentally incoherent. to bring coherence to either text or to light requires great effort and ingenuity, and in neither case can the goal of perfect coherence be attained. although “any philosophy is destined to be incomplete”, ontologies are important because [w]ithout it, there is no hope of merging and integrating the ever expanding and multiplying databases and knowledge bases around the world (sowa, 2003). 8. how can xml represent inherently multidimensional data? according to witt (2002) using separate annotated document grammars for the various linguistic layers allows “an unlimited number of concurrent annotations”. it would indeed be easier to annotate each layer in a separate xml document, but the use would be very limited. in order to study the mappings of the linguistic layers, for example, one needs an integrated structure because separate annotations do not allow for establishing relations between the annotation tiers (witt, 2002).26 even witt et al. (2005: 105) acknowledge the need to integrate multiple notations into a single xml representation. one could, of course, use a system of primary and foreign keys to join the 24 “an ontology is a formal conceptualization of a domain that is usable by a computer. ontologies ... allow applications to agree on the terms that they use when communicating” (euzenat, 2001: 21). 25 the xml schema may be regarded as the blueprint for a linguistic ontology since it provides the framework for “a catalog of the types of things that are assumed to exist in a domain of interest” (sowa, 2003). because the types are defined only in human language, it should be regarded as an “informal ontology”. 26 also see witt et al. (2005: 112). an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 151 various annotation tiers of separate documents, but it will cause a lot of overhead. using a threedimensional data structure instead can eliminate a lot of conversion and programming to merge various xml databases into one. there is a natural similarity between data cubes and xml databases since both are multidimensional and hierarchical in character (wang & dong, 2001: 50). a data cube merges all data in one structure, eliminating a lot of overhead in terms of programming needed for the comparison of separate files and the inference of relations between their elements (cf. witt, 2005: 56), because the various layers are already interrelated by the threedimensional data structure. it is also unlimited since more layers can be added on the depth axis to capture additional layers of analysis. in this experiment one annotation level (the third dimension) serves several linguistic modules (cf. bayerl et al., 2003: 164): phonology, translation, word groups, syntax and semantics. the three dimensions of the clause cube may be illustrated using a simplified version of the database containing only three clauses (see figure 1). the three dimensions are the original hebrew text, divided in clauses (rows) and phrases (columns), analysed in terms of various linguistic layers (word group, syntax, semantics) on the third dimension. this data cube may be implemented by using a threedimensional array in any advanced programming language (see kroeze, 2004). figure 1. a clause cube containing real linguistic data of three biblical hebrew clauses, gen. 1:1a, 4c and 5a. kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   152 an xml database is of course a text-based document which is essentially onedimensional because text represents a stream of language utterances. therefore, one should “collapse” the (conceptual) threedimensional data cube into a onedimensional stream of tags and primary data. the tagging structure should represent a consistent hierarchy which can be interpreted by a program to convert the stream of text into a data cube. the structure used in this experiment will be discussed in the next section. round-tripping is used to “pitch” the flat xml structure into a threedimensional array for processing and mining, and to collapse the array back into xml text for storage (kroeze, 2007b). 9. the structure of the genesis 1:1-2:3 database in xml as discussed above, it is very important to design a proper structure for an xml database. like relational databases, there is nothing in native xml databases that forces you to normalize your data. that is, you can design bad data storage with a native xml database just as easily as you can with a relational database. thus, it is important to consider the structure of your documents before you store them in a native xml database (bourret, 2003). the hierarchy of the genesis 1:1-2:3 database is shown in figure 2. hebrew bible not used in this study bible book not used in this study pericope27 root element in this study: <genesis1v1-2v3> clause each clause represented by one table: <clause> clause number each clause’s id: <clauseno> table headers headings for each column: <headers><header> language levels 1-5 the various modules of analysis: <level1> ... level description description of module per row: <leveldesc> phrases 1-5 the word groups in a clause: <phrase1> ... figure 2. the hierarchy of the genesis 1:1-2:3 database as reflected by its xml implementation. this hierarchy actually represents various levels and layers. although other documents could be used to mark up other versions of analyses and the various documents connected by means of the 27 in this experiment genesis 1:1-2:3, the first pericope of the hebrew bible, is used as the basic text and root element. although it could be argued that genesis 2:4a also belongs to this pericope, it was decided not to include this clause, following the masoretic division. if a longer text were used as corpus, one would have to decide whether the segmentations on this level should be done by chapter or pericope. an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 153 identical textual content, these analyses may also often be combined in a single document compare witt et al. (2005: 104, 105): sometimes, the single hierarchy restriction is not perceived as a drawback because annotations with concepts from different information levels can often be integrated in a single hierarchy. in the genesis 1:1-2:3 database the structure of the text (book, pericope, clause, phrase) is mixed in a single hierarchy with the concepts of the linguistic modules (phonology, morphosyntax, syntax, semantics) since the vb6 management program will use the tag structure to convert the rather flat xml file to build the threedimensional clause cube as a threedimensional array. the xml schema which describes the structure of the xml database is based on the logical hierarchical structure. an example of an xml schema to annotate text, focusing only on the structure of the text, can be found in witt et al. (2005: 105). it contains the hierarchy shown in figure 3.28 <article> <section> <title> ... </title> <paragraph> ... </paragraph> <itemizedlist> <listitem> ... </listitem> </itemizedlist> </section> </article> figure 3. an example of an xml schema used to annotate text (witt et al., 2005: 105). this concept can be expanded to cover more than one level of analysis by using the hierarchy of structural and analytical elements above in the design of the structure of the xml database of genesis 1:1-2:3, as shown in figure 4 below. the five phrases per clause that have been used as the structuring backbone are sufficient for genesis 1:1-2:3, but may have to be extended for other texts. the five linguistic layers that have been chosen here, are sufficient to illustrate the inherent multidimensionality of the data structure and may be extended to cover other needs. 28 compare t. sasaki (2004: 23) for a similar, but different schema of mark-up for a modern hebrew corpus. see also petersen (2004) and buneman et al. (2002: 481). kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   154 <?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“utf-8” standalone=“yes”?> <genesis1v1-2v3> <clause> <clauseno></clauseno> <headers>29 <header>level</header> <header>phrase1</header> <header>phrase2</header> <header>phrase3</header> <header>phrase4</header> <header>phrase5</header> </headers> <level1> <leveldesc>phon:</leveldesc> <phrase1></phrase1> <phrase2></phrase2> <phrase3></phrase3> <phrase4></phrase4> <phrase5></phrase5> </level1> <level2> <leveldesc>translation:</leveldesc> <phrase1></phrase1> <phrase2></phrase2> <phrase3></phrase3> <phrase4></phrase4> <phrase5></phrase5> </level2> <level3> <leveldesc>phrase type:</leveldesc> 29 one could argue that the repetitive tagging of structural information, such as “level”, “phrase1”, “phon:”, etc., is superfluous. however, it does help to keep the xml file human-readable. an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 155 <phrase1></phrase1> <phrase2></phrase2> <phrase3></phrase3> <phrase4></phrase4> <phrase5></phrase5> </level3> <level4> <leveldesc>synf:</leveldesc> <phrase1></phrase1> <phrase2></phrase2> <phrase3></phrase3> <phrase4></phrase4> <phrase5></phrase5> </level4> <level5> <leveldesc>semf:</leveldesc> <phrase1></phrase1> <phrase2></phrase2> <phrase3></phrase3> <phrase4></phrase4> <phrase5></phrase5> </level5> </clause> <clause> ... </clause> <clause> ... </clause> <clause> ... </clause> etc. </genesis1v1-2v3> figure 4. the basic structure of the xml database of genesis 1:1-2:3. when this scheme is populated with linguistic data from genesis 1:1-2:3, it looks as shown in figure 5 (only the first two clauses are shown below as an example). kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   156 <?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“utf-8” standalone=“yes”?> <genesis1v1-2v3> <clause> <clauseno>gen01v01a</clauseno> <headers> <header>level</header> <header>phrase1</header> <header>phrase2</header> <header>phrase3</header> <header>phrase4</header> <header>phrase5</header> </headers> <level1> <leveldesc>phon:</leveldesc> <phrase1>bre$it</phrase1> <phrase2>bara</phrase2> <phrase3>elohim</phrase3> <phrase4>et ha$amayim ve’et ha’arets</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level1> <level2> <leveldesc>translation:</leveldesc> <phrase1>in the beginning</phrase1> <phrase2>he created</phrase2> <phrase3>god</phrase3> <phrase4>the heaven and the earth</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level2> <level3> <leveldesc>phrase type:</leveldesc> <phrase1>pp</phrase1> <phrase2>vp</phrase2> an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 157 <phrase3>np</phrase3> <phrase4>np</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level3> <level4> <leveldesc>synf:</leveldesc> <phrase1>adjunct</phrase1> <phrase2>main verb</phrase2> <phrase3>subject</phrase3> <phrase4>object</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level4> <level5> <leveldesc>semf:</leveldesc> <phrase1>time</phrase1> <phrase2>action</phrase2> <phrase3>agent</phrase3> <phrase4>product</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level5> </clause> <clause> <clauseno>gen01v02a</clauseno> <headers> <header>level</header> <header>phrase1</header> <header>phrase2</header> <header>phrase3</header> <header>phrase4</header> <header>phrase5</header> </headers> <level1> <leveldesc>phon:</leveldesc> kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   158 <phrase1>veha’arets</phrase1> <phrase2>hayta</phrase2> <phrase3>tohu vavohu</phrase3> <phrase4>-</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level1> <level2> <leveldesc>translation:</leveldesc> <phrase1>and the earth</phrase1> <phrase2>was</phrase2> <phrase3>an emptiness and void</phrase3> <phrase4>-</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level2> <level3> <leveldesc>phrase type:</leveldesc> <phrase1>np</phrase1> <phrase2>vp</phrase2> <phrase3>np</phrase3> <phrase4>-</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level3> <level4> <leveldesc>synf:</leveldesc> <phrase1>subject</phrase1> <phrase2>copulative verb</phrase2> <phrase3>copula-predicate</phrase3> <phrase4>-</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level4> <level5> <leveldesc>semf:</leveldesc> <phrase1>zero</phrase1> an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 159 <phrase2>state</phrase2> <phrase3>classification</phrase3> <phrase4>-</phrase4> <phrase5>-</phrase5> </level5> </clause> etc. </genesis1v1-2v3> figure 5. two populated clause elements in the xml database. 10. critical discussion of the xml database implementation the threedimensional cube structure implemented (“collapsed”) in xml above provides an easy way to resolve identity conflicts, i.e. where elements on the various layers span the same range of words of the basic text (witt et al., 2005: 107),30 for example the exact same phrase et ha$amayim ve’et ha’arec in genesis 1:1, which is analysed on the various levels as np, object and product. the genesis 1:1-2:3 experiment has many identity conflicts since the basic unit of reference is the phrase (word group). actually, the whole clause cube structure is built on identity conflicts – in each clause exactly the same phrases are analysed on the various levels. by ignoring conjunctions which are parts of other words (a commonly found phenomenon in hebrew) it was possible to use exactly the same demarcations for the linguistic modules that were annotated. this structure facilitates the study of mapping between the chosen linguistic modules. the implication of this implementation is that more detailed information, such as morphological analyses (for example, bre$it = preposition be+ noun re$it) cannot be stored by only adding another level on the depth dimension. in order to facilitate functions like these the structure of the clause cube will have to be changed into a more complex structure where words and/or morphemes are numbered, using ranges of the numbers to demarcate phrases on the higher levels of analysis. (cf. witt, 2005: 70, for an example of a textual stream where each character has its own, unique identification.) this, however, falls outside the scope of this study. in a twodimensional representation identity conflicts have to be resolved either by marking up the same texts in various xml files, or by nesting one layer’s elements in another layer’s elements (cf. witt et al., 2005: 107).31 in this project’s threedimensional structure, however, the layers are described in parallel structures. in xml these parallel structures are implemented using various collections of elements which are hierarchically on the same layer but separated by descriptive tags. the various collections of sibling and child elements are grouped into units and 30 “an identity conflict exists when two element instances from the two annotation layers span an identical portion of the text” (witt et al., 2005: 112). 31 compare witt et al. (2005: 109-114) for a discussion of other types of relations (mappings) between various annotated layers, such as inclusion and overlap conflicts (that is, where the parts of the text that are analysed are not exactly the same). since these types do not occur in this case study they are not discussed further. kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   160 subunits by wrapper tags.32 this is a direct representation of the inherently threedimensional data underlying the implementation and avoids the necessity to define some layers as attributes of elements on another layer. therefore, one could regard the xml data structure as threedimensional; yet, this is hidden by its onedimensional string of characters and its twodimensional hierarchal structure. although one may argue that this is a counter-intuitive implementation of inherently hierarchical linguistic data, it is typical of data-oriented xml files (cf. t. sasaki, 2004: 31-42).33 if one implemented the linguistic modules as attributes of the phrases, it would become much more difficult (or even impossible) to represent a threedimensional cube in xml, since attributes cannot be used for document-structuring purposes, while elements can (holzner, 2004: 6768).34 lack of structure will have detrimental effects on the advanced processing of the linguistic data (for example studying the mapping of linguistic modules). according to witt (2005: 55-56), the layers of phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics “are (relatively) independent of each other” – this supports the idea to treat them as separate elements and not as attributes of other elements, a concept which is also mirrored by the threedimensional cube consisting of an array of cells of variables organised according to rows, cell and levels (depth dimensions). in the xml schema the legitimate possibilities of the linguistic levels of morpho-syntax, syntax and semantics are defined as enumerations35 of element values (see the section on validation below). the transcription system used in this experiment is purely phonetic and similar to that of t. sasaki (2004: 34). no differentiation is made between kaf and qof, between waw and fricative bet, between samekh and sin, and between plosive alef and ayin. a complete list of the symbols is appended to kroeze (2008). lists of word groups,36 syntactic and semantic functions used can be found there too. these concepts constitute the enumerations37 of legitimate values of the morpho-syntactic, syntactic and semantic elements in the data cube. one may conclude that the hierarchy of an xml document structure does not, and does not have to, reflect the inherent clause structure. although the phrases do have syntactic and semantic characteristics or attributes, speaking from a linguistic perspective, these may be 32 compare t. sasaki (2004: 32) who also uses a wrapper tag <entry> to organise the various child elements of each lexeme into a unit of a data-centric xml lexical database. a wrapper element is a higher level element used to store multiple “entities” in one xml “table” or various “tables” in one xml database (cf. bourret, 2003). 33 compare t. sasaki’s (2004) example of a data-oriented lexicographical implementation with his example of a document-centric annotation in which the syntactic role is defined as an attribute of a phrase. 34 since both attributes and elements hold data, one could use holzner’s (2004: 67) guideline (i.e. using elements to structure the file, and attributes for additional information) to choose which one should be used. another reason for using elements rather than attributes is that “using too many attributes can make a document hard to read” (holzner, 2004: 68). 35 “an enumeration is a set of labels with values”, for example the enumeration syntactic function which has the labels of subject, direct object, indirect object, etc. (cf. petersen, 2004). 36 compare t. sasaki’s (2004: 25) word groups: nc = noun clause; adjc = adjective clause; advp = adverb clause; np = noun phrase; adjp = adjective phrase; advp = adverb phrase; vp = verb phrase; prepp = prepositional phrase. 37 “an enumeration is a set of labels with values”, for example the enumeration syntactic function which has the labels of subject, direct object, indirect object, etc. (cf. petersen, 2004). an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 161 implemented in xml as elements for the sake of threedimensional structuring and processing. to define these linguistic attributes as xml elements is, therefore, a pragmatic decision, facilitating the database functionalities needed. this “data-centric application of xml” may be quite different from the more conventional “document-centric” applications – data-centric files, which are usually processed by machines, are much more structured (cf. t. sasaki, 2004: 19). since the original hebrew text is not marked up using the hebrew alphabet, one would need another mechanism to link this product to, for example, the biblia hebraica stuttgartensia (bhs), should the need arise. one solution could be to use standoff mark-up,38 a way of separating mark-up from the original text to be annotated. this would require the original text (bhs) to contain basic mark-up identifying each word with a unique primary key, which could be referenced in the standoff annotation (cf. thompson & mckelvie, 1997). for example, the phrases in genesis 1:1 could be numbered in the bhs as follows: gen1v1a1: bre$it, gen1v1a2: bara, gen1v1a3: elohim, gen1v1a4: et-ha$amayim ve’et ha’arets. these identifiers may then be used to link the original hebrew text (in the hebrew alphabet) with the phonological representation used in the database, in this way making explicit the inherent links between the two texts. similar to the procedure in t. sasaki (2004: 24), only the verbal core is marked as vp.39 petersen (2004) follows a similar approach: in the clause “the door was blue” only the copulative verb is marked as vp.40 including other phrases such as complements, direct objects and adverbials in the verb phrase would necessitate another layer of analysis and the distinction of inclusive relationships, which fall outside the scope of this study. however, in this study, preposition phrases are regarded as the combination of the preposition and its complement – this is different from t. sasaki who regards the preposition phrase as a linking unit between the verb and its satellite (which actually is more consistent and in line with the vp scenario). in this experiment the names of word groups, syntactic functions and semantic functions could be regarded as foreign keys – these could be used as primary keys in other “tables” or documents where definitions are supplied. this is, however, not implemented in this study. if these documents were created, one would have to ensure referential integrity between the foreign keys and primary keys. textual child elements referring to word groups, syntactic functions and semantic functions are primary data that must be regarded as external pointers (or foreign keys) which point to valid document fragments in the related documents (cf. bourret, 2003). one should therefore ensure that the names of these features are used absolutely consistently: it would, for example, be unacceptable to use both subj and subject to tag the subject of a clause. although these foreign key elements will be used over and over again, redundancy is acceptable in the case of foreign keys. the verse number elements in xml (e.g., <clauseno>gen01v01a</clauseno>) may be regarded as primary (or candidate) keys that uniquely identify every clause. these keys facilitate searches and references to specific clauses. 38 standoff annotation is necessary when the original text is read-only, copyright protected or prompts overlapping hierarchies (thompson & mckelvie, 1997). 39 in functional grammar a clause (or “predication”) is regarded as a combination of a verb with its arguments and satellites (see dik, 1997a: 77). this is similar to t. sasaki’s principle: “this scheme proposes to annotate syntactic argument structure with verbs as the core and other phrases as their satellites”. 40 also cf. ornan (2004). kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   162 if xml documents are to do double duty as databases, then we shall need keys for them (buneman et al., 2002: 473). when the clause number is used as a reference to an embedded clause, it functions as a foreign key. it may be coded as part of another phrase and one should be able to find it using a “fuzzy” search (where a query searches for a part of a string appearing within a bigger attribute value). in this case, the verse numbers are considered as internal pointers since they refer to another section of the same document. relative clauses, for example, are regarded as embedded clauses (ec). the whole clause is referred to in the main clause, and the relative clause is then analysed separately. other ecs and embedded clause clusters (ecc), such as direct speech, are treated in the same way. the ecs and eccs are similar to the “gaps” used by petersen (2004) in his emdros project. it may therefore be concluded that the database would have been normalised.41 11. validating the xml document a schema42 was created using the built-in functionality of visual studio.net 2003 (vs.net 2003).43 although the basic schema was automatically created, three simple types and enumerations of phrases tags, as well as syntactic and semantic function tags, were coded manually and added to the schema. a simple type is a user-defined type, which enables the programmer to create custom-made types that reflect his/her exact requirements (deitel & deitel, 2006: 919-921); for example, one may create types to define lists (enumerations) of possible values of phrases (word groups) and syntactic and semantic functions. an enumeration is “a set of values that a data item can select from” (holzner, 2004: 213). the schema (in the xsd file type44 )is shown in figure 6 below. the xml database itself (in the xml file type) was created by converting a databank module in vb6 programmatically into a text file. the schema was then used to test the xml database of genesis 1:1-2:3, and this procedure revealed some inconsistencies in the tagging, for example with regard to the use of square brackets to indicate embedded clauses. after correcting these tagging errors the validation was successful. <?xml version=“1.0”?> <xs:schema id=“genesis1v1-2v3” targetnamespace=“http://tempuri.org45/gen1_inputv15.xsd” xmlns:mstns=“http://tempuri.org/gen1_inputv15.xsd” xmlns=“http://tempuri.org/gen1_inputv15.xsd” xmlns:xs=“http://www.w3.org/2001/xmlschema” xmlns:msdata=“urn:schemasmicrosoft-com:xml-msdata” attributeformdefault=“qualified” elementformdefault=“qualified”> 41 normalisation is the process of minimising redundant data in a database (connolly & begg, 2005: 390). 42 the structure of an xml document is represented by its schema. an “xml schema with a lower case ‘s’ refers to any xml schema – such as a dtd, an xml schema document, or a relax ng schema” (bourret, 2003). 43 vs2003.net was used because the xml functionality is not available in vb6. vs2005.net allows one to automatically create an xml schema, but not to use it directly to validate xml databases. vs2003.net, however, facilitates both automatic creation and direct validation (using an option on the xml menu). 44 the xsd and xml files can be opened and viewed with notepad. an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 163 <xs:simpletype name=“wgenum”> <xs:restriction base=“xs:string”> <xs:enumeration value=“advp”/> <xs:enumeration value=“ap”/> <xs:enumeration value=“conjp”/> <xs:enumeration value=“ec”/> <xs:enumeration value=“ecc”/> <xs:enumeration value=“np”/> <xs:enumeration value=“particlep”/> <xs:enumeration value=“pp”/> <xs:enumeration value=“rp”/> <xs:enumeration value=“vp”/> <xs:enumeration value=“-”/> </xs:restriction> </xs:simpletype> <xs:simpletype name=“synfenum”> <xs:restriction base=“xs:string”> <xs:enumeration value=“subject”/> <xs:enumeration value=“predicate”/> <xs:enumeration value=“main verb”/> <xs:enumeration value=“transitive verb”/> <xs:enumeration value=“intransitive verb”/> <xs:enumeration value=“preposition verb”/> <xs:enumeration value=“copulative verb”/> <xs:enumeration value=“copula”/> <xs:enumeration value=“copula-predicate”/> 45 “tempuri.org is the default namespace uri used by microsoft development products, like visual studio. ‘tempuri’ is short for temporary uniform resource identifier” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tempuri). namespaces are essential to avoid conflicting sets of tags (holzner, 2004: 92). enumeration of phrase types as possible elements of a simple type (“wgenum”) enumeration of syntactic functions as possible elements of a simple type (“synfenum”) kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   164 <xs:enumeration value=“complement”/> <xs:enumeration value=“object”/> <xs:enumeration value=“object clause”/> <xs:enumeration value=“object cluster”/> <xs:enumeration value=“indobj”/> <xs:enumeration value=“copula-predicate”/> <xs:enumeration value=“adjunct”/> <xs:enumeration value=“attribute”/> <xs:enumeration value=“disjunct”/> <xs:enumeration value=“interjection”/> <xs:enumeration value=“modal word”/> <xs:enumeration value=“discourse marker”/> <xs:enumeration value=“dislocative”/> <xs:enumeration value=“addressee”/> <xs:enumeration value=“conj”/> <xs:enumeration value=“co-ordinate conjunction”/> <xs:enumeration value=“subordinate conjuction”/> <xs:enumeration value=“relative particle”/> <xs:enumeration value=“-”/> </xs:restriction> </xs:simpletype> <xs:simpletype name=“semfenum”> <xs:restriction base=“xs:string”> <xs:enumeration value=“action”/> <xs:enumeration value=“position”/> <xs:enumeration value=“process”/> <xs:enumeration value=“state”/> <xs:enumeration value=“agent”/> <xs:enumeration value=“positioner”/> <xs:enumeration value=“force”/> <xs:enumeration value=“processed”/> enumeration of semantic functions as possible elements of a simple type (“semfenum”) an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 165 <xs:enumeration value=“zero”/> <xs:enumeration value=“patient”/> <xs:enumeration value=“product”/> <xs:enumeration value=“receiver”/> <xs:enumeration value=“location”/> <xs:enumeration value=“direction”/> <xs:enumeration value=“source”/> <xs:enumeration value=“reference”/> <xs:enumeration value=“beneficiary”/> <xs:enumeration value=“company”/> <xs:enumeration value=“instrument”/> <xs:enumeration value=“manner”/> <xs:enumeration value=“speed”/> <xs:enumeration value=“role”/> <xs:enumeration value=“path”/> <xs:enumeration value=“time”/> <xs:enumeration value=“circumstance”/> <xs:enumeration value=“result”/> <xs:enumeration value=“purpose”/> <xs:enumeration value=“reason”/> <xs:enumeration value=“cause”/> <xs:enumeration value=“existence”/> <xs:enumeration value=“identification”/> <xs:enumeration value=“classification”/> <xs:enumeration value=“quality”/> <xs:enumeration value=“posessor”/> <xs:enumeration value=“-”/> </xs:restriction> </xs:simpletype> <xs:element name=“genesis1v1-2v3” msdata:isdataset=“true” msdata:locale=“en-za” msdata:enforceconstraints=“false”> <xs:complextype> kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   166 <xs:choice maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:element name=“clause”> <xs:complextype> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“clauseno” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“headers” minoccurs=“0” maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:complextype> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“header” nillable=“true” minoccurs=“0” maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:complextype> <xs:simplecontent msdata:columnname=“header_text” msdata:ordinal=“0”> <xs:extension base=“xs:string”> </xs:extension> </xs:simplecontent> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> </xs:sequence> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> <xs:element name=“level1” minoccurs=“0” maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:complextype> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“leveldesc” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase1” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase2” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase3” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase4” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase5” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> </xs:sequence> </xs:complextype> an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 167 </xs:element> <xs:element name=“level2” minoccurs=“0” maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:complextype> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“leveldesc” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase1” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase2” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase3” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase4” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase5” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> </xs:sequence> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> <xs:element name=“level3” minoccurs=“0” maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:complextype> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“leveldesc” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase1” type=“mstns:wgenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase2” type=“mstns:wgenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase3” type=“mstns:wgenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase4” type=“mstns:wgenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase5” type=“mstns:wgenum” minoccurs=“0” /> </xs:sequence> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> <xs:element name=“level4” minoccurs=“0” maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:complextype> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“leveldesc” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase1” type=“mstns:synfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> using simple type genum to validate phrase elements using simple type synfenum to validate syntactic function elements kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   168 <xs:element name=“phrase2” type=“mstns:synfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase3” type=“mstns:synfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase4” type=“mstns:synfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase5” type=“mstns:synfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> </xs:sequence> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> <xs:element name=“level5” minoccurs=“0” maxoccurs=“unbounded”> <xs:complextype> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“leveldesc” type=“xs:string” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase1” type=“mstns:semfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase2” type=“mstns:semfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase3” type=“mstns:semfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase4” type=“mstns:semfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> <xs:element name=“phrase5” type=“mstns:semfenum” minoccurs=“0” /> </xs:sequence> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> </xs:sequence> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> </xs:choice> </xs:complextype> </xs:element> </xs:schema> figure 6. the xml schema used to validate the xml database of genesis 1:1-2:3. using simple type semfenum to validate semantic function elements an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 169 12. viewing the xml file in a web browser the data in the xml data cube can be visualised in a web browser as a series of twodimensional tables using the style sheet shown in figure 7. clause {display:table; border-style:solid; margin-top:20; margin-left:20; padding:10px} clauseno {display:table-caption; font-size: 20pt} headers {display:table-header-group} header {display:table-cell; padding:6px; background-color:lightblue; border-style:solid} level1 {display:table-row} level2 {display:table-row} level3 {display:table-row} level4 {display:table-row} level5 {display:table-row} leveldesc{display:table-cell; background-color:lightblue; borderstyle:solid; border-top-width:medium; border-bottom-width:medium; border-left-width:medium; border-right-width:medium; padding:6px;} phrase1 {display:table-cell; border-style:solid; border-top-width:thin; border-bottom-width:thin; border-left-width:thin; border-rightwidth:thin; padding:6px;} phrase2 {display:table-cell; border-style:solid; border-top-width:thin; border-bottom-width:thin; border-left-width:thin; border-rightwidth:thin; padding:6px;} phrase3 {display:table-cell; border-style:solid; border-top-width:thin; border-bottom-width:thin; border-left-width:thin; border-rightwidth:thin; padding:6px;} phrase4 {display:table-cell; border-style:solid; border-top-width:thin; border-bottom-width:thin; border-left-width:thin; border-rightwidth:thin; padding:6px;} phrase5 {display:table-cell; border-style:solid; border-top-width:thin; border-bottom-width:thin; border-left-width:thin; border-rightwidth:thin; padding:6px;} figure 7. the xml style sheet used to display the xml database as a series of twodimensional tables in the firefox or opera web browser. kroeze,  bothma  and  matthee   170 when the xml database of genesis 1:1-2:3 is displayed in the firefox web browser using the style sheet above, the results look as shown in figure 8 (only the first two clauses are shown). figure 8. the first two clauses of the xml database as displayed in the firefox web browser as two twodimensional tables. this presentation of the xml database as a series of twodimensional tables, viewed in an internet browser, may be regarded as a simple visualisation of the data. the format and appearance of the file could be changed relatively easy by changing the style sheet. this representation only allows simple searches using the browser’s built-in functionalities, but does not present the required data clause by clause because the formatted data is presented as one long web page. this limitation could become quite problematic in huge data sets. furthermore, users cannot search the data specifically on clause numbers or verse numbers; neither can they slice off required linguistic modules or expect any new requirements to be fulfilled. the browser interface is, therefore, only suitable for simple uses and cannot facilitate advanced processing of the data. using third generation programming languages to slice and dice an  xml  database  of  linguistics  data   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 139 – 174. 171 the cube has been implemented in related research outputs to overcome these limitations. create, read and update functionalities have also been added. data mining and visualising the xml data in custom-made ways have been utilised to look for interesting patterns in and across the various linguistic modules (kroeze, 2007a; kroeze et al., 2008, 2009a, 2009b). 13. conclusion the empirical exercise proved to be quite successful. it showed that xml can be used to build a multidimensional database of linguistic data, which can be visualised as a series of twodimensional tables by using a style sheet and web browser. it showed that a database approach to capture and manipulate linguistic data is a viable venture in computational linguistics and an example of natural language information systems. various layers of linguistic data were captured in an xml document using the phrase as the basic building block of the data cube. the data may also be imported by a vb6 program for user-friendly viewing or editing purposes and rewritten to xml for storage. the integration of data in the data cube also facilitates data exploration using, inter alia, more complex visualisations of subsets of the data. 14. bibliography aarseth, e. s.a. the field of humanistic informatics and its relations to the humanities. essays in humanities computing. 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of a series of mergers between traditionally white and black universities and former technikons (currently universities of technology). this process has caused intense debate at the level of leadership and among policy makers in these institutions, but little is known of how this ideological battle over educational development has affected daily academic practice. this paper gives a first, somewhat tentative discussion on the current effects of the changes in higher education in south africa, and in particular at one of the institutions affected: the newly merged north-west university (nwu). the article is based on documentary research and three personal visits to the university; in the process a joint research project was initiated between the vu university of amsterdam (vuua) and nwu. this paper attempts to shed some early light on how efficiency and social equity goals are met within nwu’s institutional merger, beginning from a cultural perspective that focuses on the construction of ‘merger narratives’. the paper also gives a voice to critical reactions, narratives of resistance that have emerged from the university shop floor. keywords: south african tertiary education, north-west university, historically white institutions (hwi, or h advantaged i) and historically black institutions (hbi, or h disadvantaged i); mergers; council on higher education (che). disciplines: anthropology; management studies; organisation studies; higher education studies. introduction in terms of developmental goals, south africa has long claimed a special position in international politics and policies. as in other cases of politically sanctioned regimes the western world expended most of its developmental effort on supporting groups, organizations, * dr frans kamsteeg, an anthropologist with extensive experience in the field of university management and research in organisational studies, is attached to the faculty of social sciences, department of culture, organization & management, vu university amsterdam (vuua). email: fh.kamsteeg@fsw.vu.nl. this study is a position paper on a proposed internationally funded project dealing with the merger process at nwu. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 431-451. 432 and individuals struggling to liberate themselves from their oppressors. with the demise of the apartheid regime after 1990, support for societal reconstruction in what became known as the ‘rainbow nation’ meant a new step in development cooperation. the peaceful transition and the relative wealth of the country quickly fostered the assumption that in the post-apartheid period the government would be capable of handling the formidable task of restructuring a new south african society largely unaided, without major external developmental interventions. ending social inequality – the principal target being the legacy of apartheid – and establishing a politically democratic attitude and practice among a divided population have for the last 14 years been the prime objective of the central government in this transition period. subsequent elections have put this task in the hands of a single political party, the african national congress (anc) that came to power in 1994 with the support of the south african communist party (sacp) and the congress of south african trade unions (cosatu). since then, the government has focused on the issue of how to expand the economic modernization project started by the previous regime, and simultaneously effect ‘societal transformation’, redressing the institutionalized and practical inequalities created by successive apartheid governments. this transformation endeavour has even been labelled the anc national democratic revolution (duvenhage 2007). education has from the outset been envisioned as an important vehicle in the project. huge differences in access to education and imbalanced teaching levels are but two of the many obstacles that currently hamper education, preventing it from playing a significant role in the transformation process. this study is based on documentary source material and information collected at the time of three visits to north-west university (nwu) between february and november 2008. it should be noted that nwu acquired its current form in 2004 after the campuses at mafikeng, potchefstroom and vaal triangle were merged within the framework of policy guidelines laid down by the government. the study focuses on one particular aspect of the transformation of the south african educational system, namely the state’s restructuring of the institutional landscape of higher education (he) by implementing a vast project to merge universities from 2002 onwards. the nwu merger has had a marked impact on the three nwu campuses. each campus has its own historical background and educational approach, and each, in turn, has responded in a unique manner, impacting on the particular ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ surroundings and the ethnic and class complexities of its specific learning environment. additionally, the way the institutions were centralized, how their values were revised, and how the trajectory of integration was shaped (whether in specific programmes or not) have all affected the quality of academic teaching and research; the administration of the campuses; and the nature of community service. i shall begin with a section on government policies on the merging of kamsteeg 433 universities and then turn to the specific case of the north-west university merger. i will present the nwu case as an ambivalent merging process with significant post-merger integration challenges. i shall then pay brief attention to recent work in similar endeavours, before dealing with post-merger integration processes played out at the shop-floor level at nwu. both at the institutional-structural level and the life-world level, some narratives of success and failure (vaara 2002, 2003) are analysed, drawing on different experiences and ways of reasoning. i will also sketch some important themes that emerge from the discussion. four years into the merger, the north-west university still appears to be in search of an institutional identity that will unify the three campuses and be shared by the university in its entirety. although nwu is currently concluding a process of academic alignment, there remain significant differences between the various campuses with regard to teaching, research performance, and institutional culture. these impact on the prospects for a merged identity, which is one of the principal goals to be pursued. this article is a first contribution to a longitudinal research project that aims at the assessment of the south african merger policy on the basis of an extended, in-depth (multiple) case study of one specific university, nwu. nwu brought together traditionally black disadvantaged and white advantaged universities, with huge differences in institutional cultures and identities. the study aims to trace the complexities arising when this higher educational institution had to undergo rapid change, most evidently because of the fact that three geographically-separate and culturally-distant campuses were brought together under one central institutional management – as a result of government-led policy. with its focus on the examination of culture and identity processes in the form of sensemaking through narratives the study claims to add value to dominant managerial perspectives on higher education mergers. with the choice of such a perspective the study will also link up to recent debates on identity and change at higher education institutions. 1. from the white paper to the merging reality south africa’s higher education history, after a relatively quiet period in the early twentieth century with the foundation of the university of cape town (uct) in 1918, entered an era of turmoil in the early 1990s (jansen 2003). the newly established government and its successive ministers charged with the education portfolio considered (higher) education a major vehicle of societal transformation, one that they hoped would go some way towards redressing the legacy of apartheid. the national commission on higher education initiated a programme of change in 1996, and by 1997 this culminated in a policy milestone: the white paper on higher education (1997; see also che 2004, 2007; jansen 2002). during the apartheid period, higher education had developed into a markedly unequal system, td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 434 with disproportionately scattered institutions varying a great deal in size, student enrolment, research capacity, funding, quality of management, etc. the major divide was between historically white institutions (hwi, or hadvantaged i) and historically black institutions (hbi, or hdisadvantagedi). this was in line with the previous regime’s policy of racial separation. prior to 1994 no government had attempted to bring about a fairer balance; instead the situation was the outcome of deliberate discriminatory policies and a curious laissez-faire policy on tertiary education. from the outset the anc government adopted an interventionist approach, directed specifically at educational change. this was the driving force behind the white paper which gave one single actor, the government, comprehensive power to plan, control and fund the entire sector. the white paper defined the ‘size and shape’ of the new system, emphasizing programme-based planning and collaboration; implementation was to be via regional co-ordination and partnerships. quality assessment, monitored by the council on higher education (che), was the third major policy strategy developed in the document and was to provide a sound basis for decisions on structural rearrangements. mergers did not receive much attention in this document, nor had they done so in the previous national commission on higher education report (jansen 2003: 3). the issue only came to the fore in the term of the second minister of education, kader asmal, in 1999. in 2000 he received a report compiled by the che team, entitled towards a new higher education landscape: meeting the equity, quality and social development imperatives of south africa in the 21st century. however, this document still did not give a clear indication on how the number of institutions could be reduced by judicious merging. it did however proclaim that ‘bedrock’ teaching universities should become separated from comprehensive research universities and it promised the end of the binary system. the university sector as a whole, reacted by organising a number of effective protests. this temporally halted far-reaching restructuring (balintulo 2003: 454ff). nevertheless, the idea of linking institutional and social redress did not disappear for long. in 2001, the restructuring of the higher education system in south africa, saw the light of day, presenting a far-reaching programme of mergers as the most appropriate mechanism to bring about transformation, equity, sustainability and productivity (balintulo 2003: 457). the document also provided a list of merger goals and a fairly concrete number of institutions that had to be merged. the development in subsequent policy documents demonstrates that the ends of the reorganization of higher education were believed achievable through a deliberately interventionist merging mechanism, i.e. reducing the number of institutions of higher learning. these ends were defined in terms of social development, equity, and quality – in line with the general transformative agenda of the post-apartheid government. close reading of the 2001 document shows that in addition to its development ends (enhancing access kamsteeg 435 and equity for staff and students; and the building of new institutions with cultures and identities transformed beyond the racial and ethnic past), other important economic and efficiency goals were pursued, such as creating economies of scale, and the improvement of the sector’s manageability (jansen 2003: 9). both the hwis and the hbis felt threatened by the proposed top-down operation announced by the ministry. despite these reservations, once agreed at the ministry (in december 2002), the policy was implemented. by 2004 the government-mandated merger programme had reduced 36 institutions of higher education to 23: there were to be 11 traditional universities, six universities of technology and six comprehensive universities (see table below). in this operation the former technikons disappeared, either becoming part of one of the comprehensive universities, or transforming into universities of technology. among the primarily academic ‘traditional’ universities several of the higher ranked hwu were exempted from merging. the general goals of transformation remained as a set of prerequisites for all institutions. scheme of the most important merged institutions since 2004 td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 436 the fairly generally formulated, transformative character of the educational policy intervention had radical implications. it was designed – and implemented – in a context of political transition, which made it a (probably) unique and a highly hazardous operation. indeed, tertiary education in post-apartheid south africa presented itself as a potentially explosive situation. jansen (2003: 157-159) lists four major transitional conditions, namely: 1. a system deeply marked by racial inequalities (among both staff and students); 2. hbis (universities and technikons) that suffered severe governance and management crises; 3. declining student enrolment, as a consequence of which the better (white) institutions received the good students and the formerly black institutions the poor students; and 4. a chronic fragmentation and huge imbalances countrywide that reflected the former apartheid government’s goals and strategies, the black institutions mainly being located in marginal rural areas. it was conditions such as these that were targeted for government intervention. simultaneously, these circumstances were also serious obstacles to success within the confines of tight time schedules. moreover, the transition process had a twin logic: it was not just the kamsteeg 437 legacy of apartheid that was to be overcome, because incorporating south africa into the globalised world – through education – was equally important. the objective of the asmal administration that of a single interventionist move, focused on reducing inequality and fostering internationalisation – the latter without having much idea of the implications this might have in terms of substance and organization. although understandable as an attempt to correct the effects of many years of political and economic repression, the policy chosen underestimated not only the material, but also the social and cultural effects of the past, where – despite the weakness of the system as a whole – particular groups and institutions had vested interests to defend. it was only logical that the government’s explicit steering role in the merging process would produce resistance. it is these macro-conditions that determined much of what has been happening at the micro level, and that to some extent was reproduced at the local level, where university management often played a comparatively strong steering role. these circumstances will be discussed in greater detail below. 2. a merger case: into the north-west university arena in the wake of the world-wide stream of mergers and acquisitions of the last decades there have been a substantial number of publications in the field of organization studies. merging as an organizational change phenomenon has been studied from many angles: strategically oriented studies, human resource-oriented perspectives and cultural perspectives. the latter approach emerged following the discovery of culture as a metaphor for organizational processes in the 1980s. as mergers were intended to improve corporate performance, it was only logical that studies on merging often reflected a normative (e.g. ‘synergy’), and managerial orientation, which tends to downplay the complexity of the phenomenon (for an overview of the literature, see vaara 2002; angwin & vaara 2005). an important sub-theme in the merger literature is (the level of) postmerger integration, which is often described in terms of ‘success’ and ‘failure’, but generally these studies – despite their cultural focus – pay little attention to the stories of the actors involved, or to the specific contexts in which actor perspectives are framed. even in cultural perspectives, stressing the importance of the variance in norms, values, and beliefs of merging organizations often ignores the complex interplay between culture and the daily social and political manoeuvring of protagonists involved in merging processes. as angwin & vaara (2005) argue in a special issue of organization studies, we need empirically better documented, refined, and embedded research that goes beyond the myopia of many of the prevailing cultural perspectives, in which culture is often predicated as either favourable or adverse to merging success. a study of the institutional merger of south africa’s north-west university aims to td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 438 take up this challenge by reconstructing ‘merger narratives’ that can substantiate the (often ambiguous) imperatives involved in a merger. the new nwu came into being on 1 january 2004 after a brief but intensive preparatory period under the chairmanship of theuns eloff (now the university’s vice-chancellor). the process involved a merger of the former potchefstroom university for christian higher education (pu for che), located in potchefstroom, as well as its vanderbijlpark campus, some 90km further to the east; the former university of the north-west (located in mafikeng); and the former homeland university of bophuthatswana, some 200km to the west on the botswana border. this was followed by the incorporation of the staff and students of the sebokeng campus of vista university – an apartheid-styled correspondence university. officially the university now has three campuses, each with a separate governing body and administration: potchefstroom, mafikeng, and the vaal triangle (vanderbijlpark). the three geographically separated campuses are different in size and character. potchefstroom’s staff and student population is predominantly white. the former university had some academic standing and, despite its location in a rural area, attracted students from different parts of the country. mafikeng is the capital of north west province, and houses an almost totally black campus that predominantly attracts students from the surrounding rural area; it has a limited academic tradition and in earlier days the university attracted many students from botswana. the smallest of the three nwu campuses, based in the vaal triangle (a highly industrial area), has a mixed staff and student population and has long been a potchefstroom satellite. in 2004, much to its own surprise, it was assigned independence from potchefstroom. the latter remains in many ways still nwu’s dominant campus, if only because it hosts the hub of administration, known as the institutional office. the research of which this text is the first outcome, was born from a suggestion by the present rector of the potchefstroom campus to start a collaborative research project between the vu university amsterdam and nwu on the impact of the merger a project that falls under the existing memorandum of understanding between the two universities and those of other international multi-university collaborative agreements. it is also in accordance with an internal call (until now unanswered) by the university’s vice-chancellor, theuns eloff, for a research project to be undertaken on the outcomes of the merger. the reasons for the initial lack of response are as yet unclear, but this present project has taken up the challenge. the feasibility of conducting a longitudinal multi-site ethnographic study of the nwu merger was in general received favourably at all three university campuses as well as at the institutional office by staff members, academic researchers, and students alike. this implies that an assessment can be made of the extent to which the development goals of the institutional merger operation have been reached. to glean results of this wide-ranging nature calls for the (re)construction of the needs, experience and behavioural patterns of all institutional kamsteeg 439 actors. in other words the project calls for a collaborative research effort by experienced and junior researchers (from both vuua and nwu) as well as students from various disciplines and backgrounds. giving shape to such a collaborative project is in itself complicated; one might venture to say that in a certain sense it is impossible to fully organize and manage the project in a top-down manner. the design for this study as a multi-researcher effort will be built on the idea of doing research ‘with the organization’, rather than making a study ‘of the organization’ from the outside (neyland 2007). the multi-site ethnographic research design is a complex endeavour, yet turning it into a joint research process including both insiders and outsiders requires further reflection and agreement on role definitions and the scope of the fieldwork. this will be further elaborated following bartunek and louis’ insider-outsider conceptualization (1992), combined with moeran’s implementation of the observant participation position (moeran 2006). such an approach has many advantages (such as broad support of the organization) but it also implies a joint social responsibility. for example, collaboration aimed at improving research capacity, and on a wider scale contributing to nwu’s role in social development of the country, is envisioned as a possible additional benefit of the joint project. yet there are obvious risks. in a situation where the external political context is of crucial importance, any changes in the situation may have a direct impact, while a variety of local interests (within and outside of the university) will also require a great deal of political sensibility on the part of the researchers involved. 3. a theoretical framework: narrating the merger1 the scope and depth of organization theory requires that the researchers provide justified choices on the approaches to be utilized for the project. organizational research has predominantly been quantitative in nature, with a strong managerial perspective when it comes to governance questions. yet organizations are more than structures, they are socially constructed spaces, life worlds, inhabited by real people, who in their meaning-giving activities constantly change organizational reality (see alvesson 2002, bate 1997, watson, 2001). this sensemaking always takes place in an environment where meaning has to be negotiated (czarniawska 1997). capturing these sensemaking processes requires a specific approach that is sensitive to their complexities. retrieving cultural meanings on a merged institution that has drawn together a wide variety of people with 1 parts of this theoretical section have been taken from an unpublished text prepared during a three-day workshop at mafikeng, november 2008. this text is the fruit of an intense co-constructed effort on the way towards a fully-fledged research design for the longitudinal project. i wish to thank gideon rossouw and kiran odhav in particular for their contribution. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 440 experiences, identities, and expectations that are markedly varied can be fruitfully carried out by carefully reconstructing the ‘narratives of change,’ drawn from what john van maanen (1988) calls ‘tales from the field’. some of these ‘tales’ on higher education mergers in south africa have been collated by janssen (2002, janssen et al 2000). although these inspiring studies on the ‘micro-politics’ of university change (gibbon, et al 2000) are empirically well informed and highly illuminating. they only do partial justice to the richness of experience, and ambiguous attitudes of those involved in the merger. moreover, these studies have mainly focused on college mergers; the merging of universities since 2004 is still largely unrecorded. the present study, and its projected continuation, positions itself as following this line of research. specific research in organization theory and models on mergers is often bifurcated in a failure-success perspective. the work of finnish organizational theorist vaara is useful in pointing to the limitations of “rationalistic explanations for the difficulties in post-acquisition integration” (2003: 859) and shows that little is known on the role of ‘irrational’ features which can impede organizational integration. the ‘success rhetoric’ of the rational model leads to a superficial categorization, which does not recognize the role of ambiguity inherent in complex social processes. acknowledging this complexity creates the opportunity for utilizing different perspectives to develop an understanding of the processes that follow from a merger. while vaara’s work focuses on business organization perspectives, this approach can also be applied in the context of mergers of academic institutions in the tertiary sector. this approach is located in recognizing the importance of language, and vaara relies on cziarnawska (1997) to reflect on the role of narratives as central to an understanding of the social construction of organizational phenomena. the standard approaches in organizational theory can be typified as ‘managerialist’, but vaara points out that these do not pay attention to the narratives through which the organizational outcomes of mergers are constructed, and that the ‘managerialist’ approach does not recognize the role of these narratives in the social construction of outcomes and the decision making processes which role players adopt in post-merger integration. the narrative approach, in short, allows for a perspective that provides for a sequential account, locates intentionality, and sees discursiveness linked to subject positions and identity (vaara 2002: 215-217). this acknowledges the identity-building processes at work for individuals, including their location within the organizational context. scapegoating strategies and conspiracy theories can be linked to particular discourses and one of the conclusions that vaara’s analysis makes, is that both the success and failure versions of narratives can be overly optimistic or pessimistic, depending on their slant. they kamsteeg 441 reveal and exemplify “discursive elements through which these phenomena are socially constructed and through which managerial actions are legitimized and naturalized” (2002: 237). this means that actors are able to re-frame the question of failure/success, and that there is not a monolithic, fixed construction placed on their interpretations (ibid.: 239). vaara also describes “four interrelated tendencies that illuminate why the frequent problem of slow progress during post-acquisition integration occurs”, on the basis of “focusing on sensemaking processes surrounding the integration issues” (2003: 1). these tendencies are: inherent ambiguity on integration issues; cultural confusion in social interactions and communication; organizational hypocrisy in integration decision-making; and the politicization of integration issues. some of these become visible in the following section, which discusses some of the early, as yet tentative merger narratives. the corroboration of their relevance requires more systematic research. 4. some initial narrative assertions: on goals, challenges, and distrust in its institutional plan 2008-2010 nwu claims to have “achieved most of the objectives set out in the merger and incorporation guidelines of the department of education” (p. 1). the mission focuses on six areas: high quality teaching and research; implementation of expertise (both commercially and community directed); values; sound (financial) management; and transformation. apart from the goals set for internal purposes, there is a clear awareness of the role that the outside world expects universities to play under the new higher education regime. nwu will transform continually in terms of positioning, academic profile, unity, equity and redress. in doing this, it will contribute to the transformation of the south african higher education system to help meet the country’s social, economic, developmental and environmental needs (p. 6; my italics). throughout the document there is an outspoken consciousness of the wider political relevance of complying with these demands (“supplying innovative solutions to challenges faced by the scholarly community, the country, the continent and the world”). each element of the mission from the document has been translated into an elaborate set of concrete targets. nwu is projecting itself as a value-driven university. the potchefstroom campus entrance, for example, conveys this message in neon letters to the personnel and students who enter the campus (“value-driven we make a difference”), although at the other campuses this is not so openly communicated. this focus on values is translated in terms of a single institutional culture for the university which stresses community, tolerance, respect, and human rights. these are to be understood as key values (integrity, commitment, accountability and td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 442 responsibility) to be captured in a code of ethics and conduct that should be debated at all university levels and taken up in individual performance agreements. two issues are given prominence among the themes defining nwu’s specific culture: diversity and human rights. responsibility for the university’s implementation of these issues (plus that of equity) has been assigned to a specific department. religion is only mentioned in passing, which is remarkable given the fact that historically potchefstroom is nationally known as a protestant university. in fact religions (emphatically plural) are only named as possible sources that contribute to university values. the culture theme does have a prominent place in the values discourse as it is given shape at the university’s institutional office. in december 2007 the results of a nwu culture and climate study were published (although not widely spread); the implementation of its outcomes (“relevant issues raised by staff”) is one of the targets formulated in the institutional plan, which also announces additional research (position papers and a student survey) to promote development and to spread the nwu values on diversity. this process is to be closely linked to the branding of nwu’s corporate identity, a process that began in 2004. the branding project is organized from the corporate communications office, which has spent much effort, time, and money on building the image of a solid, but dynamic organization that meets the demands made by its environment in a creative and distinctive manner. it is in the brand products that an effort is made to show the specific quality of the university as a merger outcome. i give three examples: � after a long process of discussion and deliberation the corporate logo has recently been finalised. it is to consist of three carefully interwoven “u’s”, each in the colour of the original university/ campus before the merger (blue, green, and maroon). these colours are used (separately or together) in all corporate publications and on the website. �· an additional symbol is being used to link the merged institution to south african society. wherever possible publications show a multi-coloured ribbon (the three university colours merging) clearly referring to south africa as a rainbow nation. merging diversity at the university is suggested to have broader societal meaning. � the nwu website shows the same ‘diversity in unity’ suggested in the mix of colour. website texts are, moreover, written in the three relevant languages (english, afrikaans and setswana). the university’s language policy is officially multi-lingual – there is even a programme that provides simultaneous class-room translations, which is heavily promoted nationally and has won several prizes. these are only a few examples of nwu’s corporate branding strategy kamsteeg 443 to convey its message of a successful institutional merger. without going into detail all corporate expressions over the period 2004-2007 have spread this same message (see for example, the annual report 2006, 2007; profile, pocket statistics 2007). the list of successes is long and maintains among other things, that: � student enrolment is increasing; � the number of undergraduate and honours diplomas continues to rise; � the racial composition of contact students shows a representative balance; � female students now outnumber males; � staff numbers have grown (those of professionals more than nonprofessionals); � white staff members still outnumber blacks, but the balance is changing (particularly among male staff); � the university’s financial viability is rising; � external (research) funding is increasing; � weighted research output continues to increase (to sixth position nationally); and � the income from industry, science councils and state departments for contract research and development is rising. to a certain extent this can be interpreted as an example of what goffman (1959) called front-stage identity-building. significant figures indicate that progress is indeed being made. this does not, however, mean that feelings of success are shared by all at each of the campuses. at the management and support staff level, both at the institutional office and at the campuses, this is generally the case, but among researchers and teachers at the faculties there are mixed feelings. particularly at the mafikeng campus there are signs of a distinct critique of the way the new institution is governed and presented to the outside world. this is of course a well-known phenomenon, particularly in mergers where one partner is dominant. post-merger integration then often shows evidence of feelings of powerlessness and mistrust among the weaker partners (see e.g. buono and bowditch 1989). at shop-floor level in the mafikeng departments, and even among some of the managers, there are critical voices of being ‘overpowered’ by potchefstroom change managers and scientists. these critics are reluctant to speak of the merger; they talk instead of ‘acquisition’ and incorporation in local terms ‘potchefication’. the mafikeng ‘narrative of resistance’,2 gleaned from respondents, can be paraphrased as follows: 2 merger narratives at vaal triangle campus are notoriously less outspoken. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 444 ‘potch’ has always been politically a very conservative university, dominated by a white protestant elite that has long been supportive to the apartheid ideology and the regime built on it. they see mafikeng as a place for black rural students, and it serves them well to have a substantial number of them. the new nwu institution is a kind of apartheid in disguise, but presented as a successful attempt to transform the university landscape (and potchefstroom) away from its apartheid past. the institutional office, still situated on the potchefstroom campus, is developing and implementing plans like a bulldozer, without listening to the periphery. research is concentrated at potch – the other campuses are for teaching only. the dominant language at potchefstroom is still afrikaans, which excludes most black students from the better programmes. there is hardly any teacher mobility between the campuses either. the official language policy does not recognize the real language problems most black students have. procedural streamlining has been done according to the potch model. the academic programme alignment is now going to follow the same path. income-generating projects also largely benefit the potch campus, which has, moreover, the better research and teaching facilities. although the university is presented as a single institution, which represents the new equity and redress ideology designed by the government, at best it is a federal organization, with one centre dominating the periphery. we have been the product of apartheid, and now we are used again as a loincloth of post-apartheid transformation. it is clear that imagery plays a dominant role in this strong narrative ‘from the margins’, as much as it does in the narratives of success and progress expressed by nwu’s institutional management. in fact, all shades between black and white are to be found in the images they contain. these narratives are weapons from what could be called an arena where different players – with different power positions – struggle over meaning. all figures and events, their interpretation, and subsequent presentation then become contested. the current general management, and the vice-chancellor, theuns eloff in particular, do acknowledge that the merger is still fragile in term of its culture and identity. there are shortcomings eloff sees as challenges that have to been taken seriously while continuing along the chosen path. eish!, (2008) a student quarterly, has a telling interview with the vice-chancellor, in which he summarises the present situation and the priorities for the future as follows (emphasis is mine), thus providing a totally different narrative: nwu has done very well as a merged university during the last few years… recent achievements include… an improved throughput rate, strongly improved research outputs, financial success, and general student stability on all three campuses. we have maintained the balance between unity and diversity, made good progress with employment equity, and have made a constructive start with academic alignment. there is a special focus on quality and unity. the 2008 quality drive will be directed … at the … heqc audit and the unity drive … at alignment, synergy kamsteeg 445 and building a sense of unity. unity … falls into three aspects … the academic alignment process must gather even stronger momentum, and i implore especially our academics to throw themselves into this with passion; synergy … the nwu must be more than the sum of its parts; building a sense of unity is difficult and costly, but also unavoidable and desirable. the success of the intercampus social days … bears testimony to this. the balance between unity and diversity should be carefully managed.3 however, social meetings, including sports events, are only the first – and probably the easiest – means to contribute to better integration. attempts at academic encounter and exchange that might lead to integration, are most probably more difficult to become effective (eish! 2008). a similar urge for unity was expressed by prof. annette combrink, the campus rector at potchefstroom, on the occasion of the official opening of the academic year 2008. she mentioned nwu’s values, new governance structure and the transformative efforts designed to facilitate the move towards institutional cohesion. comparable messages were conveyed by the respective campus rectors in their opening ceremony speeches at mafikeng and vaal triangle (combrink 2008). to sum up: what has been achieved at nwu in the first four years of its existence as a merged institution? the institution has been restyled, the multi-campus structure being the most prominent outcome, creating a single operational management centre and separate campus administrations. nwu has even been awarded the prize for the best governed university in sa. the university – at least the potchefstroom campus – has become pro-active as a business partner that sells knowledge. and there are more organizational improvements that could be mentioned. as far as the societal goals are concerned less progress appears to have been made, despite the fact that in a comparative south african perspective, nwu has probably made more progress than other merged universities. although the merger has created a more representative and diverse student population when the institution as a whole is taken into consideration, overall ethnic representation among students and staff (administrative and academic) is still highly uneven between the campuses. academic programmes are currently being aligned, a process that does not always run smoothly between campuses and faculties; this adds to existing critical narratives, with respondents indicating that nwu’s reality is still a place of contested meaningmaking. institutional identity discourses constructed by its administrators are regularly questioned at shop-floor level; evidently, 3 the back cover of the magazine has some pictures of the social event eloff mentions, showing a relaxed setting in which employees from the various campuses, are taking part in various activities together, wearing clothes with the respective campus colours. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 446 perspectives diverge most frequently between employees at the potchefstroom and mafikeng campuses, while the vaal triangle campus generally takes a less outspoken middle position. 5. some tentative interpretations and concluding remarks in present-day south africa social and economic development is the outcome of a neo-liberal free market policy combined with and/or restricted by certain government measures. these measures are basically driven by the desire to establish equity and redress the inequalities of the apartheid era. black empowerment and the corresponding affirmative action are the main pillars of this policy of redress. the restructuring of the system of (higher) education is one of the government’s interventions made to enhance the speed of the developmental process. increasing the level of education among (black) south africans is viewed as a pivotal means of providing society, and the private sector in particular, with educated people to achieve the projected economic growth. to reach this goal, the government has enforced the policy of merging institutions of higher education. the ideology behind this project is to target social redress (establishing equity of access, and ethnically/racially representative institutions). another goal is to create better integrated, wellorganized and financially sound institutions of higher education. the present south african higher education field can thus be seen as a developmental ‘laboratory’ in which the general policy of combined neo-liberalism and state intervention is played out. yet, although the general path of the restructuring of the sector has been government imposed (e.g. the list of merged institutions is a political decision, not the outcome of a free discussion), the process and progress in each merged institution has not yet been strictly monitored. assessment of the outcomes of the merger process is a recent step. and indeed there are major differences to be observed, not only in terms of the route each institution chose to follow, but also in the extent to which institutions have managed to meet their targets – those set by the government and those they themselves have defined. nwu management is conveying a fairly self-confident image of success. the governance structure is in place; administrative procedures (including tuition fees and staff salaries) have been ‘aligned’, and financial indicators are positive. integrating culture and identity, although on the agenda from the beginning, is a goal that still has a long way to go. as an anonymous informant, one of the architects of the merger, once told me: ‘it is received wisdom that culture follows structure’. yet the critique described above does not only come from the departments of the ‘outer’ campuses at vaal triangle and mafikeng. on a recent visit to the university, the minister of education, naledi pandor, indicated that she was impressed by the statistics provided, but expressed doubts about whether nwu was really a merged kamsteeg 447 institution, given the three distanced campuses. she thus not only echoed a concern experienced by many at the campuses of vaal triangle and more particularly at mafikeng – it would seem that other merged institutions in the country have similar issues that need to be addressed. the minister’s comments sounded a warning, and demonstrated that she felt that nwu’s merger structure was a ‘federal’ structure, which might not be appropriate in the anc’s ‘democratic revolution’ and its demands of redress, despite the official picture emanating from the available statistics. although the minister only made these remarks in passing and amidst other more eulogising comments (e.g. on nwu’s entrepreneurial spirit)4 a recent analysis of institutional culture(s) in south africa by higgins (2007), published by the council on higher education, suggests that they might not be without wider significance. higgins argues that one of the major obstacles for redressing (ethnic/racial) inequality in higher education institutions is the dominant culture of whiteness, understood as the dominance of anglo-saxon values and attitudes. taking on bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital he further refines the ‘whiteness critique’ by broadening this category (following steyn & van zyl 2001) to include euro-american worldview, english-speaking as mother-tongue, maleness, heterosexuality, able-bodiedness, (upper) middle-classness, south african nationality, urban background, etc., (higgins 2007: 110). the dominance of this complex of values and practices (or in short, cultural capital), he continues, is responsible for the experience of alienation and anomie of the subordinated, or, in south african terms, under-privileged black people. in a situation with three separate campuses, of which the dominant campus clearly represents the culture of whiteness (in the sense of cultural capital described by higgins), it is doubtful, or at least questionable, whether the social ends of the government’s ‘merger project’ can really be achieved in the immediate future. critical voices from academics at the various nwu campuses reflect a persistent mistrust of the potchefstroom administrators; this has tended to dominate institutional reorganisation. this also points to another critique on the present university culture, an issue that higgins describes as the ‘dominance of new managerialism’ (ibid.: 112). the south african higher education project to merge institutions is a political project par excellence. it is an expression of the anc government’s perspective on national development, their ‘national democratic revolution’ ideology. at a general level the government has opted to support neo-liberal economic policies, while in the 4 it would be an interesting sub-theme to this research project to study whether this entrepreneurial spirit can be linked (in the weberian sense) to the markedly protestant background of the potchefstroom campus. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity 448 domain of government institutions preferential treatment (black empowerment) is chosen as the major strategy of the social transformation agenda. in education – generally considered a powerful vehicle of development – we see a similar dual strategy of a liberal market policy on the one hand and top-down managerial intervention and control on the other. in the higher education sector that is most clearly visible in the merger operation. institutions are merged for efficiency reasons and obliged to display an entrepreneurial spirit to augment their financial resources. apart from ‘solving’ some of the economic problems of the higher education sector, the merged institutions are designed as vehicles to tackle the equity problem in its broadest sense. the nwu merger is an example of how this governance model unfolds: a mix of market logic and moral politics, based on the genuine belief that both will, in the end, contribute to improving the standard of living and quality of life for the majority of previously disadvantaged south africans. despite the strong moral drive of government, religion does not play a public role in underpinning political decision-making and ensuing government policy measures. as such, it might perhaps be considered a case of secular political theology. nwu has conformed to this ideology by adopting an explicit defence of value pluriformity and diversity. despite the fact that the vast majority of staff on all three campuses have a christian orientation, and manifestations of this regularly occur, explicit references to the university’s christian character have disappeared from university policy documents. attempts to bring about change in culture and identity processes must take into account that these attempts are never uncontested, certainly not in merging situations. further study is required to identify the various arenas of conflict and cooperation. this will hopefully ensure development and future sustainability of an institutional identity that will be conducive to real communication, mutual understanding, exchange of ideas and cooperation. the leading question in such research on nwu post-merger processes of organizational integration and identity-building, might well be how these are being reflected in, culturally constructed, narrative discourses, because these can be retrieved from experiences and opinion of the relevant university constituencies: students, staff, and management. to enable scientific as well as political dialogue on these issues, it would be highly productive to create joint interpretative spaces (rynes, bartunek, daft 2001) in which researchers, lecturers, managers and students from various disciplines can share, in an integrated manner, their experiences and opinions. references alvesson, mats. 2002. understanding organizational culture. thousand oaks: sage. angwin, duncan and eero vaara. 2005. introduction to the special kamsteeg 449 issue. ‘connectivity in merging organizations: beyond traditional cultural perspectives’. organization studies 26 (10): 1445–1453. balintulo, marcus. 2003. the role of the state in the transformation of south african higher education, 1994-2002: equity and redress revisited. in paul tiyambe zeleza and adebayo olukoshi, african universities in the twenty-first century, vol. ii knowledge and society, dakar: codesria, pp. 441–458. 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managerial work. london.: international thomson business press. what works strategic. 2007. nwu culture and climate study 2007. analysis of results. interpretive report. allen’s nek: what works kamsteeg 451 strategic. yu, jisu, rhonda m. engleman and andrew h. van de ven. 2005. ‘the integration journey: an attention-based view of the merger and acquisition integration process’. organization studies 26 (10): 1501-1528. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 431-451. nwu’s merged identity microsoft word 14 hlalele .docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 561580. sustainable rural learning ecologiesa prolegomenon traversing transcendence of discursive notions of sustainability, social justice, development and food sovereignty d hlalele1 abstract this paper contributes, through traversing contested notions of sustainability, social justice, development and food sovereignty, to discourses around creation of sustainable rural learning ecologies. there has always been at least in the realm of scientific discourse, an attempt to dissociate the natural or physical environment from the social and human environment. this trend did not only affect the two spheres of existence only. it is further imbued and spawned fragmented and pervasive terminology, practices and human thought. drawing from the ‘creating sustainable rural learning ecologies’ research project that commenced in 2011, i challenge and contest the use of such discourses and argue for the transcendence of such. this would, in my opinion, create space for harmonious and fluid co-existence between nature and humanity, such that the contribution of learning practices exudes and expedites sustainability in rural ecologies. keywords: sustainable learning environments, rural ecologies, and social justice introduction in his commentary on millenium development goals (may 30, 2013) david braun laments the inadequacies of the millennium development goals (mdgs) as the united nations secretary general presents a report that seeks to chart a new course for sustainable development. in braun’s opinion, the post-2015 “sustainable development goals” (sdgs) must break from failed convention by integrating environmental and social dimensions into the pursuit of economic development aims, acknowledging that our future economic health will critically depend on our planet’s ecological health. one of the fundamental, indispensable 1 dipane hlalele (phd) is the programme coordinator in the faculty of education at the university of the free state, qwaqwa campus. his area of specialization is rural ecologies and email: hlaleledj@qwa.ufs.ac.za. acknowledgements: the author acknowledges the nordic africa institute for the generous african guest scholarship awarded for the period 3 april to 28 june 2013 under the cluster: rural and agrarian change. the funding for the purchase of research equipment and travelling collection in south africa by the research cluster: sustainable development and poverty alleviation at the university of the free state is also acknowledged. the ideas and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and may not necessarily be those of the organisations acknowledged. hlalele 562 and most important facets of sustainable development is learningwhich according to the learning ecology framework, over and above acknowledging the existence of lifelong learning, appreciates the fact that individuals learn through participation in different contexts. this paper begins by highlighting the paradigm which guides the critique of the discursive notions addressed, followed by an attempt to crystallize the concept ‘rurality’ and later provides a prolegomenon traversing transcendence of discursive notions of sustainability, social justice, development and food sovereignty. paradigm the paper draws from the critical emancipatory research (cer) paradigm. the quote by fals borda later in this paragraph signifies a paradigm shift from a conventional and positivistic one that places the ‘powerful’ researcher at the centre of the research, to one that seeks to present collective research ownership. in my opinion, these notions of power which may have been constructed over time and continue to enjoy some support in some quarters may be deconstructed due to their, in my opinion, cosmetic nature. the quote by fals borda (1995:11) below provides an eulogy to and epitomizes such deconstruction: do not monopolise your knowledge nor impose arrogantly your techniques, but respect and combine your skills with the knowledge of the researched or grassroots communities, taking them as full partners and co-researchers. do not trust elitist versions of history and science which respond to dominant interests, but be receptive to counter-narratives and try to recapture them. do not depend solely on your culture to interpret facts, but recover local values, traits, beliefs, and arts for action by and with the research organisations. do not impose your own ponderous scientific style for communicating results, but diffuse and share what you have learned together with the people, in a manner that is wholly understandable and even literary and pleasant, for science should not be necessarily a mystery nor a monopoly of experts and intellectuals. cosmetic conceptions of power are neither natural nor inevitable, but are, as dworski-riggs and langhout (2010:215) correctly point out, “merely political mechanisms, which could be arranged in other ways”. hayward (2000:78) affirms that the mutable nature of power can lead to political freedom whilst lybeck (2010:94) deplores the inability of scientists to deconstruct the dynamic social reality that is in front of them because this inhibits the actual study of that reality. according to horkheimer (1982:47) such scientists/researchers …experience everything only within the conventional framework of concepts. any object is comprised under the accepted schemata even before it is perceived. this, and not the convictions of men constitutes the false consciousness of today. today the ideological incorporation of men into society takes place through their biological preformation for the controlled collectivity. even the unique becomes a function and appendage of the centralized economy. the choice is informed by cer’s objective to engage the marginalised so that their voices can be heard and respected (dold and chapman 2011:512). furthermore, cer advances the agenda of human emancipation regardless of status and strives for the attainment of peace, freedom, hope, social justice and equity in its all forms (mcgregor 2003:4). cer’s engaging nature which allows for a deeper meaning and for multiple perspectives to be considered (mahlomaholo 2009:34) will help the citizens to better understand the challenges they face in sustainable rural learning ecologies td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 561-580. 563 creating sustainable rural learning ecologies. its empowering and transformative agenda (nkoane 2012:99), affords the people an opportunity to own the problem and process, and to provide solution(s) to the challenge and also to provide the conditions that will make the solution work. rurality from a nordic and/or european frame of reference, the absence of a formal definition of ‘rural’ led researchers to using ‘small’ rather than ‘rural’ (kalaoja and pietarinen 2009:109; hargreaves 2009:117). kalaoja and pietarinen (2009:110) note a queer attribute which influence the learning environment. both teachers and learners experienced a home-like atmosphere and informal personal-relationships. evidence further suggests that small rural schools offer an effective social context (an ecology) in which learner-centred teaching and meaningful learning processes can be accomplished (korpinen cited kalaoja and pietarinen (2009:114). most importantly, rural communities in finland for example, rely on the local school to engage itself in local community events and to cooperate with other public sectors, organisations and people. not only is the school expected to function as a social agent and to support the social cohesion of the village, but also emphasis is placed on encouraging learners to choose responsible, action-oriented strategies which will solve concrete problems in the local area (kalaoja and pietarinen 2002:4). earlier work by marsden (1998:107-117) noted the existence of activities aimed at redefining the roles and development trajectories of different rural areas. there seemed to emerge a trend where rurality-what was termed the 'post-productivist' countryside, or more generally a rural world where the certainties of agricultural production as the traditional 'rural hub' are giving way to a much more polyvalent rural scene and regulatory structure. marsden’s recent work traverses notions of multi-functionality in rural areas. emerging in the last two decades, the post-productivist paradigm challenges the agro-industrial paradigm through an emphasis on planning for local environmental protection and amenity enhancement. here agriculture begins to lose its centrality in society, and nature is conceived mostly in terms of landscape value (as a consumption good). under this model, then, the farm-based approach to the multifunctionality of agriculture is replaced by a land-based approach that emphasizes the different (and demarcated) functions of agricultural land (marsden and sonnino 2008: 423). a further transcendence may be observed in instances where rurality was regarded as a concept which was understood with reference to rural, areas as natural or geo-physical spaces. the government of south africa view “rurality” to mean “a way of life, a state of mind and a culture which revolves around land, livestock cropping and community”. rural areas include all traditional communal areas, farmland, peri-urban areas, informal settlements and small rural towns where people have a number of possibilities to live from the land. rural development is about enabling rural people to take control of their destiny, thereby dealing effectively with rural poverty through the optimal use and management of natural resources. it is a participatory process through which rural people learn over time, through their own experiences and initiatives, how to adapt their indigenous knowledge to their changing world (department of rural development and land reform 2010:12). it is clear that more emphasis in this discourse is on the people (i.e., the social space) as it is complemented by the geo-physical space. hlalele 564 rural occupation in south africa (sa) is directly linked to apartheid and the colonial policies of dispossession, resettlement and a systematic exclusion from opportunities and sa is characterised by diverse rural areas. key features of a rural profile in south africa include: long distances to towns; the poor conditions of roads and bridges to schools; a lack of or limited access to information communications technologies (icts); a lack of services such as running water, electricity, sanitation, health and educational facilities; low economic status and little access to lifelong learning opportunities. one of the most pervasive features of rural communities is poverty (department of education, 2005:7). food security and the cost of education are also major problems. furthermore, rural communities are characterised by high illiteracy levels. continued under-resourcing of schools relative to need further compounds the problems of rurality. the government’s commitment to equal and fair treatment unfortunately has yielded meagre change for rural schools. in relation to education, lack of basic services (water, sanitation, etc.) affects access to and the quality of education, such as inadequate infrastructure in schools (buildings, icts, etc.) and the long distances learners must travel to schools. the attributes of rurality that adversely affect the quality of education include: a lack of qualified teachers, multigrade teaching, unreasonable teacher-learner ratios, irrelevant curricula, and competing priorities between accessing education and domestic chores, while the teaching staff seem to be imbued with poor morale and motivation. teachers may be unwilling to move to rural areas where social and cultural opportunities are limited and salaries may not contain an enticement peg. even when teachers are willing to work in rural areas, working conditions are likely to make them reluctant to stay for the long term (mollenkopf 2009:xiii). the discussion above sharply verifies the deficiency approach with which the rural areas have come to be almost synonymous. hlalele (2012:112) challenges the deficiency approach by providing an asset-based picture of what may have sustained education in rural contexts over time. according to malhoit (2005:21), the school is the most important public institution in a rural community and also represents the economic lifeblood of the economy. a few other attributes (doe 2005:7; malhoit 2005:21; ludlow and brannan 2010:4). a learning ecology framework there have been some disputes around the notion of confining the learning process to time and space. however, some dissenting discourses were also noted. i subscribe to barron’s (2004, 2006) notion of learning as an activity that takes place within, between and across contexts (constituting a learning ecology). an ecology, therefore, may be construed as an environment that fosters and supports the creation of communities. it is further defined as an open system, dynamic and interdependent, diverse, partially self-organizing, adaptive, and fragile (looi 2001: 14). there exists a learning ecology which is an environment that is consistent with how learners learn. barron (2006: 195) defines a learning ecology as a set of contexts found in physical or virtual spaces that provide opportunities for learning. it encompasses different activities, material resources, relationships, and the interactions that emerge from them. the ecology is extended to include the following characteristics of a learning ecology; a collection of overlapping communities of interest; cross pollinating with each other; constantly evolving; and largely self-organizing. in more formal education environments, the concept of self-organizing gives way to a more structured process for knowledge transmission where the role of an educator is to facilitate (siemens 2003:5). visser (1999, cited in siemens 2003:6) adds that the learning ecology involves a setting in which learning communities come into being, evolve, die, regenerate and transform. we may not sustainable rural learning ecologies td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 561-580. 565 deny the fact that the notion of learning ecology as is depicted in this chapter, presuppose the observance and most importantly, transcendence of the well-known geo-physical space. for a learning society, interpreting, understanding and assessing its learning ecology first begins with contextual vision-building. in each ecology, individuals and collectives would come together to co-create their vision of how they want to live and learn together, both in the present and in the future. this vision would be based on the unique contexts of that ecology, the unique personalities of the people, and the unique energy and spirit that emerges when they come together in relationships. the questions asked would be more like: “who are we?”; “what values are important to us?”; “where are we going and why?; what kind of world do we want for our children and grandchildren? and later, “how do we get there?” (williams, karousou and mackness 2011:22). drawing on the authors’ (williams et al) illumination of the learning ecology, our understanding of the concept of learning is underpinned by the following key elements: • learning is rarely linear or planned; it is messy, organic and often spontaneous; • learning occurs in authentic interactions and partnerships, which emerge through varied self-organizing processes; • learning is unique to the person and the context; it cannot be replicated, because no two learning spaces or relationships are alike; • unlearning, self-learning, co-learning are all vital and integrated aspects of a learning ecology; • learning grows from a dialogue between meaningful questions and practical mistakes using an ecological metaphor, the learning environment is likened to the biosphere, and the learning ecology is to learning what the biosphere is to life. therefore, it should be comprehensible to assume that learning generates and builds upon complex and diverse networks/webs of human existence. to sum up, seepe (2004:9) reminds us of the african social philosophies such as ubuntu. ubuntu presupposes not only a conscious, deliberate, internalized, and pervasive focus on the self in the environment, and the self in the community from an african perspective, but to the extent to which these develop an ecological awareness, or self-as-part-of-environment. learning for sustainability “we live in turbulent times; our world is changing at accelerating speed. information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key interrelated challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. living in such times has implications for education and learning” (wals and corcoran 2012). drawing from one of the latest books on education and learning in the context of sustainable development – learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change (wals and corcoran 2012) – it can be observed that the speed of change, physically, socially and culturally, is accelerating. continued globalization and digitalization are not only affecting how we think, what we know, who to believe, how we act, they also affect the role of education in society. the role of science in society, for example, is also changing drastically. science is no longer the authority of truth, if it ever was. it just represents one point of view or an opinion in the public debate of controversial and/or ambiguous issues. whilst globalization and hlalele 566 digitalization continue to flood (and maybe drown) humanity with information at an alarming rate, wilson (1998:99) cautions that the enormous amount of information does not automatically lead to wisdom. when we try to address the key challenges of our time, it is above all ‘wisdom’ that we need. there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that in some of the poorest communities, people spend the little income they have (…maybe from government grants) on ‘feeding’ the phone. the cell phone has become a prestigious status symbol that feeding the phone comes before feeding the children. this discussion in this paragraph evokes some desire to explore the possibilities of (re)designing, strengthening and facilitating change-based learning and transitions towards sustainability. examples of such learning include learning by doing, social learning, transformative learning, cross-boundary learning, service learning, learning from and with nature, etc. thinking anew (transcendence of…) the status quo implies: • reflecting on what it means to educate and learn for sustainabilityconsidering the kinds of personal and collective qualities that need to be strengthened in order to our learners and the wider society to contribute to a more sustainable world. • challenging the concept of ‘sustainability competence’ by referring to qualities like: thinking in a forward manner (anticipatory thinking), seeing relationships and interdependencies (systems thinking), the ability to put yourself in the minds of others (empathy and open mindedness), utilizing diversity towards creativity, and coping with uncertainty. • suggesting how we can re-orient, re-connect, and re-imagine learning processes in a manner that both expedites and exudes sustainability. sustainable development involves processes of change in society that contain at least these three dimensions. systems thinking – seeing connections, relating functions to one another, making use of diversity and creating synergy – may offer support in realizing a society that is more sustainable than is presently the case or that we currently anticipate. apparently it is very important that we understand systems of communities and that we begin to think (again) in terms of relations and connections. we can learn a lot from eco-systems in our quest for sustainability. eco-systems are based on networks, mutual dependency, flexibility, resilience and, if we add it all up: sustainability (wals, van der hoeven and blanken 2009:7). chilisa, mafela and preece (2003:76) posit that sustainable development is commonly associated with environmental sustainability and the sciences. yet education is the means by which we learn about our cultural heritage and our values. it is the means by which we transform all forms of knowledge through generations. the authors (chilisa et al.) conclude that it is time therefore, to raise the profile of education to sustainable development. according to hansom (2003:37) attention needs to be paid to different discourses about sustainability: the distinction between the discourses associated with a weak and strong conceptualization of sustainability. the two were once referred to as ‘technological’ versus ‘ecological’ respectively (orr 1992, cited in hansom 2003:11). drawing from the strong conceptualization, development is said to be sustainable as long as the ‘natural capital’, i.e., the biophysical basis for the production of goods and services, is not declining. on the contrary, the weak conceptualization implies that ‘human capital’ (scientific knowhow, industrial infrastructure and human prowess) may substitute the loss of natural capital. however, eclectic philosophies would propose the harmonious co-existence, complementarity as well as recognition of the added value of each of the role players. within this harmonious co-existence, i would like to illuminate the process of acquisition of the scientific knowhow sustainable rural learning ecologies td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 561-580. 567 which has, as its indispensable and rudimentary antecedent, the process of sustainable learning. according to halsey (2009:3) there is diversity of thinking about the concept of sustainability. john halsey sees exploring new relationships between rural education and sustainability as having the potential to arrest, or at least influence, the continuing marginalisation of rural education in relation to contributing to the future of a country. rural education, in his (john halsey), view working with other essential human services like health and local government and the private sector to address the challenges of sustainability and, through this, reinvigorate rural education. following her analysis of the possibility of "'ordinary' landscapes or communities within which we live, work and educate" to reinvigorate ways of shaping the future, allison (n.d., cited in halsey 2009:4) concludes that "sustainability immediately shifts the perception of 'ordinariness' of these ... landscapes" and opens the way to new possibilities. it has been noted that many rural areas are struggling to remain viable in relation to essential human services like education and health, in the face of rising costs per unit of services required (as defined by certain views of economic costing and benefits), and the pervasive impacts of globalization on rural economies, amongst the most visible of which is a steep decline in the demand for traditional labour (mcswan 2003, in halsey 2009:6). "globalization and the power differentials it creates have had a significant social and economic impact on rural areas, while major cities have benefited from the focus on the knowledge-based production that global capitalism demands, drawing in capital, people and resources" (alston and kent 2003:5, cited in halsey 2009:6). next, sustainable rural learning ecologies are interrogated from a social justice perspective. social justice as an indispensable facet of sustainable rural learning ecologies kose (2009:631) opines that some scholars argue against a definitive and universal conceptualisation of social justice, whilst many argue that social justice has to do with “recultivating individual and institutionalised practices rooted in low expectations, deficit thinking, marginalisation and cultural imperialism” (p.630). it can therefore be accepted that a general definition of social justice is hard to arrive at and even harder to implement. in essence, social justice is concerned with equal justice, not just in the courts, but in all aspects of society. this concept demands that people have equal rights and opportunities; everyone, from the poorest person on the margins of society to the wealthiest, deserves an even playing field. according to gerwitz, ball and bowe (1995:129), theories of social justice advocate adequate mechanisms used to regulate social arrangements in the fairest way for the benefit of all. for the purpose of this chapter, conceptualisation of social justice hinges on nancy fraser’s definition. she defines justice as “parity of participation” (tikly 2010:6). fraser (2008:16) elucidates that “overcoming injustice means dismantling institutionalised obstacles that prevent some people from participating on a par with others as full partners in social interaction”. gerwitz (1998:469) maintains that social justice is premised on the discourse of disrupting and subverting arrangements that promote marginalisation and exclusionary processes. social justice supports a process built on respect, care, recognition and empathy. the presence of words, such as ‘demands, mechanisms, disrupting, subverting’ in the definitions above, suggest concerted action and seem to elicit revolutionary overtones. hlalele 568 similarly, calderwood (2003:309) also adopts a revolutionary approach to social justice. she posits that it works to undo socially created and maintained differences in material conditions of living, so as to reduce and eventually eliminate the perpetuation of the privileging of some at the expense of others. frey, pearce, pollock, artz and murphy (1996:111) raise concern about sensibility toward social justice. the authors (frey et al.) claim that sensibility should forego ethical concerns, commit to structural analyses of ethical concerns, adopt an activist orientation and seek identification with others. regarding the promotion of social justice, calderwood (2003:308) is of the view that people need to act to reduce and eradicate oppression, however distant we may feel from the personal culpability of its enactment. the view is further emphasised by former british prime minister, gordon brown, who, quoting an unknown greek philosopher, said: “when will there be justice in athens? it will be when those that do not suffer are as angry as those that do”. undoubtedly, there seems to be an agreement that injustice is not only an issue that concerns those at its receiving end, but also those members of society that do not seem to be affected. the situation seems to further call for alertness or what we may call thinking beyond the visible and the ordinary. calderwood (2003:311) cites an unfortunate reality about social justice. she states that the mechanisms of injustice are largely invisible, even to those who strive to live their lives and carry out their work ethically. the question that may arise from the ensuing debates above is whether or not and to what extent providers (policy makers and administrators) are aware of the practices, processes, rules and regulations that perpetrate and perpetuate acts of social injustice and thus consider themselves as culpable. summarily, social justice can be construed as “the exercise of altering institutional and organisational arrangements by actively engaging in reclaiming, appropriating, sustaining, and advancing inherent human rights of equity, and fairness in social, economic, educational, and personal dimensions” (goldfarb and grinberg 2002:162). questions relating to the proper distribution of benefits and burdens among sites have always posed a challenge for education institutions. fraser’s perspectival dualist framework troubles the disparate distribution of goods and services and/or social structures that enable material inequality (north 2006:509). fraser (1997:28) asserts that the increasing stress on sectoral politics undermines redistributive efforts that seek to improve the well-being of marginalised citizens. her perspectival dualist framework views recognition and redistribution as the cofundamental and mutually irreducible dimensions of justice. social justice works to undo socially created and maintained differences in material conditions of living, so as to reduce and eventually eliminate the perpetuation of the privileging of some at the expense of others (calderwood 2003:307) in order to promote social justice, we must act to reduce and eradicate oppression, however distant we may feel from personal culpability for its enactment. unfortunately, the mechanisms of oppression are largely invisible, even to those of us who strive to live our lives and carry out our work ethically (solomon and murphy 2000:44). sabbagh (2003:263) indicates that distributive justice includes at least three major components: the normative patterns that regulate resource distribution (i.e., justice principles and their derivative rules); the classes of social resources that are being allocated; and the valence-positive or negativeof the expected distribution outcomes. arguments in this paper adopt a moral community perspective, viewing responsibility and care among members as central to social justice. social activists advocate the need for social change in rural areas which is linked to social justice, using a process that is consultative, collective, participative and empowering. connectedness and responsibility enrich the notions of fairness, and equality, thus extending the baseline of ethical practice (lloyd 2000:97). sustainable rural learning ecologies td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 561-580. 569 according to frattura and tropinka (2006:327) critical theory integrates the value of social justice into the practice of research for reform. how injustice and subjugation shape people’s experiences and understanding of the world constitutes the focus of critical theory. a critical theory perspective concerns itself with issues of power and justice and the ways that the economy, matters of race, class and gender, ideologies, discourse, education, religion, and other social institutions interact to construct a social system. inquiry that is critical should be connected to an attempt to confront the injustices of society. kellner (cited in frattura and tropinka 2006:332) comments that what makes critical theory critical is not just the study and understanding of society, but also critiquing and changing it. no social arrangements are viewed as neutral, but rather as artificial constructs structured to benefit one segment of society over another. conventions, constitutional obligations, and requisite rights around education rights often permit individuals and groups to hold governments accountable for the progressive realisation of rights (spreen and vally 2006:356). keet (cited in spreen and vally 2006:357) examines the contradictions in the human rights discourse of education rights as a public good in ‘an age of markets’. focusing on south africa, he shows (1) how ‘educationas-a-human-right’ remains elusive and (2) why it has failed to prevent the increasing commodification of education and the attainment of social, economic and environmental justice. the failure of education policies and laws to ensure the attainment of education rights for the majority of south africans, including the rural inhabitants is an immediate challenge. bryant (2010:55) asserts that one of the primary obstacles of rural education is wilful ignorance, particularly on the part of governments, of the conditions in rural areas and schools. wide disparities in access to quality education continue to plague rural areas (mcquaide 2009:17). malhoit (2005:22) posits that society’s obligation to educate learners should not depend on a child’s demographic good or bad fortune; nor should geography dictate a child’s educational destiny. despite all the efforts deployed by countries of the world and the vigorous mobilisation of international communities, rural people lag far behind in education and are particularly hard hit by poverty and hunger. poverty, hunger and underdevelopment are holding back educational development (sauvageot and da gra�a 2007:47) and the creation of sustainable rural learning ecologies. from an ecological perspective, i would argue that unsustainable educational endeavours in rural ecologies lead to poverty, hunger and underdevelopment. development in sustainable rural learning ecologies the advent of democracy in south africa created new thinking around issues of rural development and the provision of education in rural areas. a new political regime with its new policies clearly requires some new strategies to begin to solve the immense rural development challenges and also to understand better the dynamics and needs of rural communities. such an approach is clearly informed by the experience of other african countries and the failure of many rural development strategies within them. there is great urgency in south africa to implement policies leading to empowerment of the people, whilst promoting rural development and establishing a basis for the sustainable use of available human and natural resources. this would represent a major departure from earlier approaches and would hopefully strengthen the ideals of democracy and transparency which are gradually developing in the ‘new’ south africa. marianne solberg (2012, cited in arnason 2013:1) states that educational provision needs to embrace flexibility and focus on serving the rural hlalele 570 areas. such education programmes are likely to contribute by supplying a skilled workforce ready to contribute to the development of rural areas, slowing down emigration, increasing innovation, circumventing social and geographic inequality, supporting democratic participation, as well as spurring personal development. solberg’ (2012) contention on the provision of education geared at rural development may be seen as a lifeline for both sustainability and development in rural ecologies. to assist with this transformation process and to incorporate rural people fully, it is believed that participatory tendencies provide a vital approach in appreciating the views and skills of rural people and in formulating locally appropriate development strategies. thus far, however, relatively little has been written about the current and potential application of rural participation in the context of rural development in south africa. rural development strategies therefore need to factor in issues of social mobilisation of rural communities to ensure that they take centre stage in the improvement of their own quality of life. in order to ensure that all social mobilisation initiatives consider the dynamics of particular communities, a detailed household profiling precedes any initiative. profiling of households needs to be followed by the mapping of assets in an ecological setting. from food security to food sovereignty one, probably the most pressing issue, according to halsey, is food security. the choices we make about food affect both us, intrinsically, and nature, extrinsically. in effect, we eat the view and consume the landscape. ensuring that a country attains and remains food secure is something which cannot be ignored. changes over time and the impacts of climate change may lead to the emergence of new problems. these changes, and others that food production and distribution are reliant on require the re-alignment of program offerings for rural education, rural educators and rural communities (halsey 2009:9). for continued existence (sustainability), rural ecologies need to ‘mutate’. depletion of fossil-based energy sources, for example, provides a relevant example of diversification for the sake of sustainability. some rural (and other) schools/colleges/institutions are already embracing solar technology, and the scope for a greater role nationally in terms of direct contributions to the nation’s energy requirements. this includes rural schools taking a leading role in developing curriculum and certification to ensure there is expertise available where and when it is needed to help grow and drive the green revolution. assuring fresh water supplies which have their headwaters in rural locations and traverse substantial rural landscapes entails ongoing investment, human intervention and management. drought experienced in many parts of the world, coupled with existing arid areas, pose a threat to continued existence of rural ecologies. it would therefore not be unwise to link learning and water sustainability. improving the viability (sustainability) of rural learning ecologies by increasing enrolments from sources outside of usual catchment areas and increasing the pool of youth positively disposed to a career/ employment in rural areas through first-hand experience of them. to sum up, learning in rural areas needs to ground itself on the notions of ‘national food security, sustainability and economic efficiency’ (du toit 2013). a conventional idea of a sustainable fishery is that it is one that is harvested at a sustainable rate, where the fish population does not decline over time because of fishing practices. sustainable rural learning ecologies td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 561-580. 571 sustainability in fisheries combines theoretical disciplines, such as the population dynamics of fisheries, with practical strategies, such as avoiding overfishing through techniques such as individual fishing quotas, curtailing destructive and illegal fishing practices by lobbying for appropriate law and policy, setting up protected areas, restoring collapsed fisheries, incorporating all externalities involved in harvesting marine ecosystems into fishery economics, educating stakeholders and the wider public, and developing independent certification programs. some primary concerns around sustainability are that heavy fishing pressures, such as overexploitation and growth or recruitment overfishing, will result in the loss of significant potential yield; that stock structure will erode to the point where it loses diversity and resilience to environmental fluctuations; that ecosystems and their economic infrastructures will cycle between collapse and recovery; with each cycle less productive than its predecessor; and that changes will occur in the trophic balance. there is an emerging desire amongst scholars and rural dwellers alike, for transcendence from the notion of food security to that of food sovereignty. according to the international planning committee for food security (2007) and lee (2007) food sovereignty is the: right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. it puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. it defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. it offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers and users. food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just incomes to all peoples as well as the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. it ensures that the rights to use and manage lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social and economic classes and generations. transcendence of the discourses of food security to those of food sovereignty depicts a remarkable shift as it, amongst others, relocates power in the hand of the rural inhabitants and further challenge their conscience and resolve in dealing with the ecology such that harmonious, mutual and reciprocal co-existence obtains. according to reem saad, an egyptian professor of anthropology and a researcher, “we seem to be talking a lot about food security without really paying enough attention to the crucial factor of food sovereignty, which is an even more crucial matter.” food sovereignty invariably provides space for learning for sustainability and it builds and promotes local knowledge and skills that conserve, develop, and manage localizing food systems is supported. hlalele 572 discussion the outmigration from rural areas has not abated. many rural areas continue to experience a decline in inhabitants (alliance for excellence in education 2010). the majority of the rural emigrants are generally the working group with a fairly higher level of education and who were most likely, to contribute a lot more than the youth and aged. the aged were found to have strong links with the place and space and therefore less likely to move. in some cases the youth move, some returning over weekends, in search of better education. the fact that many rural learning ecologies do not have secondary schools, mainly as a result of fewer learners, was also confirmed. one of the parents said: “unlike me, my children deserve a better education so that they can have a better future. i will do everything in my power in order for them to realize their dreams. however, i am worried that they may not come back to stay here. the way i see it, the education they get here does not prepare them for meaningful contribution to rural development. they are not taught how to milk…. and plough… read and write …they can”. in many districts, schools with a lower number of learners are either closed down or amalgamated. the "ideal" rural teacher can teach multiple grades or subjects, organize extracurricular activities, and adjust well to the environment and the community (brown 2003). changes of having such a situation are better in areas where the teachers stay in the particular rural ecology (personal observation in one rural swedish ecology). it is extremely difficult to find teachers who fit in with the rural community and will stay for a long period of time because of this. usually the teachers who end up staying are either from a rural background or have previous experience with rural communities. bull, warner, yellin, robinson and neuberger noted over two and a half decades ago (1989) that disciplines such as law, medicine and architecture introduced changes in the programmes to address the availability of staff that will service and impact the rural areas. to their (bull et al.) surprise, only the education profession had resisted such changes. in my observation, that status quo largely continues to prevails. for multi-campus teacher education programmes, it is expected that the student who did a course on any of the campuses should be subjected to the same course content, leaving very little or no room at all, for flexibility and diversification in respect of a particular learning ecology. exposure of student teachers to rural learning ecologies appear as ‘funded projects’, for example the rural teacher education project at the university of kwazulu natal. as with rural teachers, rural learners should be in a position to make decisive contribution to sustainability and development in the community in order to get accustomed to the environment and feel a sense of shared wealth. families and communities are crucial to the educational progress of rural youth (brown 2003). in order for rural communities to succeed, they must allow members to have good paying jobs, access to health care, quality education, and strong community ties. additionally, rural communities need programs to build a stronger sense of togetherness. social interaction affects the behavior and development of relationships among groups of people with the same territory. shamah and mac tarvish (2009) observed that rural residents often see the skills necessary for their own success as unique from the skills that are valued in urban environments. in learning to leave, corbett (2007) describes the ways this disconnect emerges in nova scotia and why it is a critical issue that must be given greater attention. his work reveals that rural schools generally teach students in ways that build an urban skill set through emphasizing mastery of academic skills necessary in structured office professions. sustainable rural learning ecologies td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 561-580. 573 responsive curricula: here the notion of content versus context comes to the fore. in some instances there is a match between the two whilst instances of mismatches have also been recorded. one example was provided by a community member and teacher in one of the swedish rural ecologies who stated that “…there was a stage where many learners in one of the high schools in my area had a predetermined goal of perpetuation the family farming legacy and school programme was not responsive to that. the learners concerned indicated how irrelevant the content they were learning at school was. the content did not only address the glaring need of the local economy at the time, but was also oblivious to their intended careers and wishes” (pers. comm. 29 may 2013). internal versus external locus of control: locus of control is a social psychology concept that refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control the events that affect them. whilst external locus of control attributes outcomes of events to external circumstances, internal tends to attribute outcomes of events to their own control. there is also evidence in clinical research that internality correlates negatively with anxiety, and that internals may be less prone to depression than externals, as well as less prone to learned helplessness. whilst these concepts were originally meant for understanding individual behavior, they also apply to collective behavior (judge, erez, bono and thoresen 2002:694). for example, in the village of muyexe [one of the inter-agency development project the south african government has embarked upon] the community resorted to their own wisdom and innovation when the bakery faltered on delivering bread for learners. the community resorted to their traditional furnaces/ovens to provide bread for the children. these furnaces/ovens are made out of mud and they have a space/compartment for fire. limited knowledge/awareness about rural realities: historically, rurality and rural education have been marginalised bodies of knowledge in south africa and little is known of the focus of the various studies and the state of rural education and rural education research (nkambule, balfour, pillay and moletsane 2011:341). over and above what nkambule et al (2011) suggest, i.e., little is known about rural research, the little knowledge that authorities have seem to take a long time to be acted upon. one of the problem areas in rural education is multigrade teaching. ms tsakani chaka, researcher at the centre for education policy development (cepd), presented a study into teaching literacy and numeracy in multigrade classes in rural and farm schools in south africa to the parliamentary monitoring group on 6 march 2012. she noted that in 2005, the ministry of education released a report on rural education which specifically noted multigrade teaching as a challenge in rural and farm schools. this research followed up on the position at the moment, and analysed data as well as carrying out six case studies, in the north west province, using interviews with principals, interviews with teachers, lesson observation, documentary analysis (work schedules, lesson plans, time-tables, learners’ work), interviews with , the interview with provincial and district officials, as well as with teacher trainers. about 27% of schools had multigrade classes, and this involved about 4% of the learners. the multigrade system, although in fairly widespread use, was not actually formally recognised. most of the schools that had these classes were poorly resourced. there was no curriculum adaptation, and the planning requirements were the same as those of the monograde classes. teachers’ exposure to suitable teaching strategies was limited, there was no specific teacher training on multigrade teaching, and no specific support was offered to these teachers. the teachers faced high workloads owing to planning and assessment requirements. the learning materials were not always available in the mother tongue, and were not suitable for self-study. the continued neglect of the multigrade hlalele 574 problems contributed to ongoing marginalisation of the poor, for whom multigrade schools were a reality. prospects mapping and maximizing inherent assets in rural learning ecologies: according to solomon (2012:11-14), the inherent assets of rural schools and communities provide a strong foundation for progress. these advantages include increasing access to innovative technology, distance-learning and place-based learning opportunities, and high levels of volunteer support from parents as well as members of the ecology. along with appropriate and adequate backing from state and national leaders, rural schools have tremendous potential to ensure that all of their students graduate ready to succeed in college and careers [including in rural ecologies]. it is thus possible to simultaneously utilize and enhance various resources/asserts. this also helps to minimize dependence on external resources and institutions. interactions among stakeholders can be guided by the ‘internal logic’ and priorities of the learning ecology rather than these being externally determined. the learning processes will strengthen local institutions and civic capacity for collective action, ideally to move forward together toward a shared vision. collective participation can facilitate local management of the shared vision, thereby strengthening civil society and increasing active involvement. collectives that articulate and pursue their own goals and priorities are more likely to expand livelihood opportunities, and do so in a sustainable manner. mapesela, hlalele and alexander (2012:95) concur with sentiments of proponents who strongly advocate the enhancement of selfreliance. internal challenges to the success of a self-reliance strategy stem from violations of the assumptions that: members share common interests and consensus is central to sustainability; inclusive participation and democratic decision-making within the community are necessary and possible; and sufficient autonomy exists for people to influence their learning ecology’s future. providing responsive and demanding educational programmes: many rural schools are already setting high expectations for every student and ensuring that all standards, assessments, and accountability systems reflect the high-level skills and knowledge all students need. to help meet these standards, an increasing number of rural schools are employing cutting edge technologies and other distance-learning opportunities to expand the availability and choice of rigorous programmes. rural schools are pioneers in the expansion of local place-based learning, rigorous, hands-on learning opportunities that provide real-world relevance to improve academic performance. despite these innovations, however, too many rural high schools still lack the funding, personnel, and technological infrastructure to provide students with rigorous high-level coursework, a vital prerequisite for career success (solomon 2012:15). recruiting and retaining highly effective teachers (grow-your-own-timber!): successful rural high schools are able to ensure an adequate number of high-quality teachers to boost academic success. unfortunately, too many rural communities struggle to find and keep effective teachers. even though rural teachers generally report a higher level of job satisfaction than their urban and suburban counterparts, rural communities have a higher number of lessqualified teachers and often lose their most experienced employees to higher-paying posts in nearby suburban and urban areas. despite these ongoing challenges, however, an increasing number of rural communities are addressing these difficulties head-on with advanced technologies and distance learning that allow teachers to expand their professional sustainable rural learning ecologies td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 561-580. 575 development opportunities, as well as “grow-your-own-timber” programs that encourage talented young people to stay and teach in their home communities (see unisa 2011). building viable models of community support and partnerships: rural communities play a vital role in the success or failure of their local schools. high-performing schools tend to depend on local community-based services, businesses, and other non-academic partners to stretch limited resources and support a common vision for change. rural high schools often have the benefit of small, tight-knit communities to help guide school improvement efforts and participate regularly in school activities. unprecedented and widespread reliance on technology may also allow rural schools to engage local stakeholders in educational goals and outcomes more broadly than ever (solomon 2012:47). unfortunately, some rural ecologies may still lack the tax base, stable local economy, and sufficient social and community capital to invest adequately in sustainable endeavours. in areas that have lost a large number of young people and highly educated professionals to better paying jobs in nearby cities, retaining broad-based community support is also an ongoing challenge. provide space for appreciation and better understanding of rurality: in my opinion, there seems to be a reasonable expectation that rurality as a way of life has not, at least in some quarters, been fully understood, valued and appreciated. this may be evident in the notion of thinking that one’s life is complete if it is in an urban area. eppley (2009:9) states that rural teachers have a special obligation to awaken students to the concept of sustainability and to help them develop and nurture a sense of place. this is an urgent requirement of the rural highly qualified teacher and has little to do with test scores and certifications, and everything to do with nurturing students and sustaining communities. creating and sustaining learner support networks: strong rural schools ensure that all learners have access to rigorous and option-based courses of study and connect young people with a broader range of social supports to address problems inside and outside of the classroom. the establishment and perpetuation of multi-modal, multi-sectoral networks and partnerships for learners in rural ecologies are more likely to contribute to the development of such ecologies. in many rural ecologies the absence of career and lifestyle information may impact negative on demands of sustainability and development (solomon 2012:49). harmonizing content and context: robinson et al. (2004:3) found that localised curriculum of the rural schools that utilised local environment as curriculum, lead to positive motivation, interest and participation. shibeshi (2006:12) suggested that policies and strategies addressing the education needs of rural people should accommodate the needs of rural people in their diversity (agro-ecological, geographical as well as socio-economic and cultural) through a range of modalitites. these include distance education; non-formal education programmes; school feeding programmes; strengthening early childhood care and education; establishing feeder school clusters; promoting multigrade classroom learning; rethinking teacher education, development, recruitment and retention strategies; and promoting vocational education for rural development and sustainable livelihoods. building rural community resilience and capital: wright (2012:49) states that communities must be resilient to be sustainable. resilience results as relationships among community members develop. it is the “bridging social capital” between heterogeneous groups, referred to by putman (1995, cited in wright 2012:50). it may be reasonable to expect that close interpersonal connections usually develop in smaller and rural communities because they are places where individuals know, share with, and care for one another. rural schools mirror hlalele 576 these qualities, and have a responsibility to help develop these healthy relationships through getting to know the groups and individuals within their community, and sharing with them a collective sense of purpose. at this stage, it may be worthwhile to mention the gratifying instance where the muyexe community resorted to their own capital when bread was not delivered for the children at school. conclusion in this article i critically looked at the sustainable rural learning ecologies in relation to conventional discourses of sustainability, social justice, development and food sovereignty and suggested that such notions no longer hold as they were initially conceptualised. i showed how each of these may be transcended. appreciation of rural learning ecologies (recognition of its wealth/assets) may be what is required to circumvent notions of human completeness or self-actualization only when one is in an urban area. the paper further alluded to the fact that rural may not necessarily be conceived as ‘un-urban’ and vice versa. it may further be concluded that the voice, wisdom and capabilities of rural inhabitants need to be respected. in the course of history, seldom has the greatness of a nation long survived the disintegration of its rural life. for untold ages man by nature has been a villager and has not long survived in other environments. many studies of the subject which has been made in europe and america have revealed that as rule city families survive for only a few generations. cities continue to grow and thrive only as they are constantly replenished from the rural population. 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leadership, curriculum, and community. unpublished doctoral thesis. university of otago: otago. microsoft word 04a kahlo & bayas.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2014, pp. 340-354. underlying factors related to errors in financial mathematics due to incorrect or rigidity of thinking x khalo1 and a bayaga2 abstract the main aim of the study was (1) to identify the underlying factors related to errors due to incorrect association, and (2) to understand why learners continue to make such errors so that mechanisms to avoid such errors could be devised. the study was conducted by means of a case study guided by the positivists’ paradigm where the research sample comprised of 105 grade 10 mathematics literacy learners as respondents. having used polya’s problem-solving techniques, threshold concept and newman’s error analysis as the theoretical frameworks for the study, a four-point likert scale and a content-based structure-interview questionnaire were developed to address the research question. four sets of structured-interview questionnaires were used for collecting data, aimed at addressing the main objective of the study. in order to test the reliability and consistency of the questionnaires for this study, cronbach’s alpha was tested for standardised items (α = 0.705). once the data was collected, it was analysed through content and correlation analysis. based on the frequency table which summarises learner responses, it could be ascertained that the majority (n =63, 60%) of learners admitted to sometimes confusing addition with multiplication. the relationship between learners forgetting to write units and learners writing down an incorrect number/figure revealed a significance where p = .04 (r = +.17) illustrated a weak correlation between the afore-stated variables. keywords: errors; financial mathematics; incorrect association; rigidity of thinking introduction surprisingly, learners who seem to follow the trend of the lessons, commit errors when working out the tasks assigned. that stimulated the researchers to critique, understand and do research to try and find answers as to what type of errors are common among grade 10 mathematical literacy (ml) learners in financial mathematics. financial mathematics accounts for 35% weighting of the topics in the examination, which indicates that it is more valuable in ml studies. it encompasses a number of basic mathematical skills such as: interpreting, communicating answers and calculating, and calculations with numbers. this is where learners lose marks in their assessment tasks. financial mathematics is categorised as the application topic which, according to doe (2011: 13), “contain[s] the contexts related to scenarios involving daily life, workplace and business environment, and wider social, 1 . this article is based on mr xolani khalo’s master of education studies in the field of error analysis in mathematical literacy: case of financial mathematics. email: x.khalo@gmail.com 2 . prof. anass bayaga, of the university of zululand, has published widely both locally and internationally and has managed and coordinated both local and international projects across africa, europe, asia and us in information systems risk and mathematics. email: bayagaa@unizulu.ac.za error factors in financial mathematics td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 340-354. 341 national and global issues that learners are expected to make sense of content and context”. it includes: financial documents, tariff systems, income, expenditure, profit/loss, income-andexpenditure statements, budget, interest, banking, loans and investments. problem statement the above-mentioned synopsis suggests that learners continue to commit similar errors in their work when they are assessed even with the best teaching and learning strategies. according to heinze & reiss (2007: 4), “in mathematics classroom errors and particularly the error management may play different role, depending on the mathematical activities”. the researcher sought to uncover the underlying factors related to errors due to the incorrect association or rigidity of thinking. learners are sometimes not even aware of the errors they commit. there is also a repetitive error in most of their assessment tasks throughout the year. however, there is a negligible number of south african studies on the technical know-how of error analysis in particular with regard to grade10 mathematical literacy (ml). aim of research the main objective of the study was (1) to explore errors that learners commit when confronted by financial mathematics questions in different forms of assessment, and (2) to develop an understanding of the reasons why learners continue to make such errors so that mechanisms to avoid such errors could be devised. specific objective in light of the afore-statement, the current research sought to explore (1) the underlying factors that relate to the errors due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking, (2) bring about the findings and the recommendation of the methods to eliminate those errors to the attention of educators as well as learners. research question the study sought to answer the following research question: what is/are the underlying factor(s) related to the errors due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking? research hypothesis h0: errors committed by learners in financial mathematics are due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking. h1: errors committed by learners in financial mathematics are not due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking. literature review the error analysis in the education of mathematics error analysis is more diagnostic to determine learners’ procedural effectiveness; it also allows for determining learners’ lack of basic conceptual understanding. peng (2009: 1) contends that “mathematical errors are a common phenomenon in learners’ learning of mathematics. learners of any age irrespective of the performance in mathematics have experienced getting mathematics wrong”. it is essential to consider that analyzing learners’ mathematical errors is khalo & bayaga 342 a fundamental aspect of teaching for mathematics teachers as it will allow them to develop corrective and preventative measures. according to murray (2012: 55), “many teachers complain that learners find word problems in mathematics more difficult than straight computation and that many learners dislike and even fear word problems”. mathematical literacy is contextual based; therefore it consists mostly of word problems in its nature; which explains the existence of persisting learner errors therein. ryan and mccrae as cited by sheinuk (2010: 12) state that “pre-service teachers who confront own mathematical errors, misconceptions and strategies in order to recognize their subject matter knowledge, have an opportunity to develop rich context knowledge”. radatz (1979: 170) provides a good definition of ‘error’. firstly, errors in the learning of mathematics are not simply the absence of correct answers or the result of unfortunate accidents, they are the consequences of definite processes whose nature must be discovered. secondly, it seems to be possible to analyze the nature and underlying causes of errors in terms of the individuals’ information-processing mechanisms. thirdly, the analysis of errors offers a variety of points of departure for research into processes by which children learn mathematics. mathematical literacy is also based on the same principles as mathematics, only different in purpose and nature from mathematics. error analysis in mathematical literacy is based on the same principles as in mathematics; therefore the afore-stated radatz definitions of errors are applicable to mathematical literacy. according to radatz (1979:163), “error analysis in mathematics education has a long history that dates as far as 1925 by buswell and judd who cited more than 30 studies dealing explicitly with the diagnosis of arithmetical errors”. error analysis is of vital importance in addressing the careless errors that learners commit through their learning process. errors are an important part of any practice because they illuminate what mechanisms need to be put in place to give access to the practice. errors point to the demand of practice; while at the same time they are the points of leverage for opening access to the practice. to understand learner errors, one has to look at the methods or strategies that the learners use to arrive at the incorrect solutions. if teachers search for the ways to understand why learners may have made errors, they may come to value their thinking and find ways to work it into classroom conversations and bring preventative measures. errors can be the result of carelessness; misinterpretation of symbols or text; lack of relevant experience or knowledge related to the mathematical literacy topic/concepts; a lack of awareness or inability to check the answers given, or the result of a misconception. by pinpointing learner errors in mathematical literacy, the teacher can provide instruction targeted to the learners’ area of need. in general, learners who have difficulty learning mathematical literacy typically lack important conceptual knowledge for a number of reasons, including an inability to process information at the rate of the instructional pace; lack of adequate opportunities to respond, and the lack of specific feedback from the teacher regarding the misunderstanding cited. hodes adapted the following table from nolting (1998:1) which illustrates five types of errors for word problems. error factors in financial mathematics td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 340-354. 343 t a b l e 1 : t y p e s o f e r r o r s f o r w o r d p r o b l e m s 1. read errors the learner cannot read a key word or symbol correctly. 2. comprehension errors the learner reads all the words in the problem accurately but does not understand the overall problem or specific terms within the problem. 3. transformation errors the learner understands what the problem requires but is unable to identify the operation or the sequence of operations needed to solve the problem. 4. procedural errors these include: • placement errors which is incorrect sequencing of digits or alignment of algorithms. • incorrect steps which is use of steps that are not associated with any operations. • missing steps where steps necessary to complete a procedure are missing. 5. encoding errors a learner solves the problem but does not write the solution in an appropriate form. (adapted from nolting, 1998: 1) the aforementioned types of errors have been used in the identification of learner errors in the content analysis of the three research questionnaires which forms part of data analysis. brodie (2005: 2-179) brought into the debate of learner errors “situative” perspectives: situative perspectives argue that what a learner says and does in the classroom make sense from the perspective of his/her current ways of knowing and being, his/her developing identity in relation to mathematics, and to his/her previous experiences of learning mathematics, both in and out of school. after engaging with learners in class discussions of a particular topic, brodie developed a coding scheme to categorize learners’ contribution (brodie as cited in khan & chishti, 2011:656). t a b l e 2 : b r o d i e ’ s c o d i n g s c h e m e t o c a t e g o r i z e l e a r n e r s ’ c o n t r i b u t i o n ( b r o d i e , 2 0 0 5 : 1 7 7 ) basic error an error not expected at the particular grade level, indicates that the learner is not struggling with the concepts that the task is intended to develop, but rather with the other concepts that are necessary for completing the task and have been taught in previous years. appropriate error an incorrect contribution expected at the particular grade level in relation to the task. missing information correct but incomplete and occurs when the learner presents some of the information required by the task but not all of it. partial insight learner is grappling with an important idea which is not quite complete nor correct, but shows insight into the task. complete correct provides an adequate answer to the task or question. beyond task related to the task or topic of the lesson but go beyond the immediate task and/or make some interesting connections between ideas. khalo & bayaga 344 riccomini (2005: 233) brought into perspective (1) unsystematic errors: unintended, nonrecurring wrong answers which learners can readily correct by themselves; (2) systematic errors: though they are recurring wrong response methodologically constructed and produced across space and time, they are symptomatic of a faulty line of thinking that causes them to be referred to as misconceptions. elbrink (2008: 2) categorizes learners’ mathematical errors into three main categories: calculation errors, procedural errors and symbolic errors. she elaborated on each of the categories: (1) as an error of numbers which she attributes to carelessness and lack of attention and further suggestes the possible solution to the calculating error is incorporation of an error checklist into a regular classroom routine and procedures. this will allow learners to assess themselves and identify repeated errors and mistakes in their work. (2) learners are usually taught in drill and practice and automated to carry out specific mathematical tasks rapidly and effectively and can confuse that with conceptual understanding. therefore they cannot recognize the importance of applying procedures correctly. procedural errors suggest that learners do not understand the concepts related to the procedure and are unable to build procedure from conceptual knowledge. she suggested the introduction of the concepts before the procedure, concrete manipulation and real-life application. in her elaborate discussion of procedural errors, she brought up the importance of the threshold concept which forms part of the theoretical framework of this study. finally, (3) learners try to create meaning in the patterns of mathematical symbols and signs that they see in front of them rather than trying to understand. the identification of errors in the content analysis was based on the aforementioned errors. the errors described in table 1 have been utilised to categorize the identified errors in this study. the procedural errors which were identified during content analysis could be eradicated from learners through teaching embedded on the threshold concept. one should, of course, acknowledge that errors are also a function of other variables in the education process which classifies errors according to information processing. inadequate flexibility in decoding and encoding new information involves incorrect interaction between single elements. radatz (1979: 167) states: experience with similar problems will lead to a habit of rigid thinking; learners continue to use the cognitive operation they have developed even if the mathematical tasks have changed. difficulties due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking are also common areas of errors in mathematics. pippig as cited in radatz (1979) further classified this type of error into: 1) errors of perseveration, which is described as an error in which single elements of a task or problem predominates. examples include: 9 × 60 = 560; 7 × 50000 = 35000. 2) errors of association, involving incorrect interactions between single elements. examples include: 56 + 12 = 67; 6 × 4 = 18. 3) errors of interference, in which different operations or concepts interfere with each other. the example that follows displays interference between the algorithms for addition and subtraction: 6845 + 372 + 35437 + 561 30375 error factors in financial mathematics td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 340-354. 345 here the learner added the digits in the units column, getting 15; added all but the top tens and hundreds column, getting 17 and 13 respectively and then subtracted to get the remaining two digits in the answer. 4) errors of assimilation, in which incorrect hearing is attributed to the causes of reading and writing. those errors are a result of lack of attention and concentration (random or careless errors). 5) errors of negative transfer from the previous tasks, in which effects of erroneous impression from a set of exercises or word problems is visible. the errors elaborated on above can be classified into four groups as in accordance with the previous studies. figure 1 summarises the errors inferred from the previous literature above: f i g u r e 1 : i d e n t i f i e d t y p e s o f e r r o r s r e l a t e d t o i n c o r r e c t a s s o c i a t i o n a n d r i g i d i t y o f t h i n k i n g the aforementioned classification of errors summarises the types of errors related to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking which was drawn from the previous studies. theoretical framework the researchers were guided by three theoretical frameworks: polya’s problem-solving techniques, threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge of meyer and land (2006), and newman’s error analysis in deconstructing the concept of error analysis. polya’s problem-solving techniques polya developed four basic principles that need to be considered during problem solving. based on the principles, the four steps that need to be followed during problem solving were developed later. the researchers identified a problem which sought to solve that particular problem; namely that learners continue to commit errors in financial mathematics. this might be attributed to the learners’ problem-solving techniques; therefore understanding of the aforementioned theory can assist in eliminating the errors. polya’s theory of problemprocedural error (elbrink, 2008)) partial insight (brodie, 2005) encoding error (nolting, 1998) transformation error (nolting, 1998) • learners applied procedure/ incorrect steps • learners grappled with an incorrect idea but showed insight • solved the problem but the answer in an inapproprate form • learners understand the problem but unable to identify the correct sequence of oparations khalo & bayaga 346 solving techniques describes four steps to be followed during problem-solving in mathematics education. these steps seem to be relevant also to the learning of mathematical literacy. according to polya (1945), the following are the principles to be considered during problem solving: first principle: understand the problem learners might seem incompetent but maybe they did not fully understand the question. second principle: devise a plan there are many reasonable strategies to be employed in order to solve a particular problem. polya states that the skill of choosing an appropriate strategy is best learnt through solving many problems. third principle: carry out the plan this is considered to be easier than devising a plan as it only needs the patience of executing the devised plan. this will include, for instance, correct substitution if the chosen strategy was the use of a formula. consistency throughout the algorithms employed to arrive to the final answer is of utmost importance. if the devised plan does not work, you will have to discard it and use another one until you arrive at the correct answer. fourth principle: look back taking time to reflect on your work enables you to predict the relevant strategy for solving a future problem. the study sought answers as to why learners commit errors in financial mathematics and the underlying factors related to the type of errors they commit. the objectives of the study are based on polya’s theory on problem-solving techniques. if the teaching and learning process at schools could be influenced by the above-stated theory, both teacher and learners guided by the four-step principle, could dedicate more time to learners’ work and thus reduce errors committed. threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge meyer and land (2006: 1) argue that: threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. it represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. it changes the way learners perceive learning, and the level of understanding of concepts is also improved. the acquisition of knowledge occurs through a process of gathering key concepts per particular subject. the concepts that are entrenched in learners’ conceptual understanding therefore assist in problem solving. according to meyer and land (2006: 4) a core concept is a conceptual ‘building block’ that progresses understanding of the subject; it has to be understood but it does not necessarily lead to a qualitative view of subject matter. error factors in financial mathematics td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 340-354. 347 as in the aforementioned discussion of polya’s problem-solving techniques, problem solving does not solely depend on the acquisition of concepts, but also depends on the choice of the relevant problem-solving technique. after discussions with practitioners in a range of disciplinary areas, they came up with the following characteristics: threshold concepts are transformative, irreversible, integrative, bounded and troublesome (meyer & land 2006: 5). if threshold concepts could be developed in learners, that could build their confidence and therefore reduce the level of errors committed in problem solving. newman’s error analysis the researchers were guided by newman’s error analysis technique in the error analysis of learners’ work. newman’s error analysis (nea) provided a framework for considering the reasons that underlay the difficulties students experienced with mathematical word problems and a process that assisted teachers to determine where misunderstandings occurred. nea also provided directions for where teachers could target effective teaching strategies to overcome them (white, 2010: 129-148). in search for underlying factors for learners committing errors and finding the suitable strategies to overcome them, the researchers were guided by nea. by pinpointing the errors committed by learners in financial mathematics, teaching can be directed towards the correct procedure of solving the identified problem. newman’s error analysis and follow-up strategies have helped learners with their problemsolving skills, and teachers developed a much more consistent approach to the teaching of problem solving. according to white (2009:37), not only has it raised awareness of the language demands of problem solving, but through its systematic approach, teachers can focus on teaching for deeper understanding. the afore-stated theory was also used in content analysis of the content-based questionnaire. nctm (2006:60) states that students who have opportunities, encouragement, and support for speaking, writing, reading, and listening in mathematics classes reap dual benefits: they learn to communicate mathematically. various studies have been published on learner errors; the following section of the study will investigate learner errors identified from the review of other studies. research methodology a positivist paradigm which included a quantitative approach was used for the measurement of data in order to discover and confirm causes and effects. the selection of the case purposively included one east london district school; however, the respondents were selected using a simple random sample technique. case study research was conducted with learners in grade 10 ml from a secondary school which the researchers conveniently chose in the east london district of the eastern cape province in khalo & bayaga 348 south africa. the researchers considered the accessibility, travel costs and the time frame when choosing this particular school. sample size (n) and justification the school had 5 grade 10 ml classes with 186 learners that is population (n) of grade 10 ml. there are 104 girls and 82 boys with ages ranging from 14 to 18 years. the researcher adopted the simplified formula by yamane (as cited by israel, 2009) for proportions to determine the sample size (n). hence the sample size was nearly 105 where, n is the population size and assuming that confidence level is 95% and the level of precision is .5. according to cohen, manion & morrison (2007: 97), determining the size of the sample will have to take account of attribution and respondent mortality, i.e. that some participants will leave the research or fail to return questionnaires. israel (2009: 2) states that (b)ecause a proportion of .5 indicates the maximum variability in a population, this is often used in determining a more conservative sample size, that is, the sample size may be larger than the true variability of the population attribute were used. after the sample size was determined, the respondents were selected by a simple random selection method. data-collection methods data was collected by means of structured-interview questionnaires with 4 likert type questions and content based. these sought to uncover the underlying factors related to errors due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking. oppenheim (as cited in cohen et al., 2007: 247) states that highly structured questionnaires and closed questions are useful in that they can generate frequencies of response amenable to statistical treatment and analysis. data-collection instruments two sets of structured-interview questionnaires were used; the first set was a content-based questionnaire where respondents were expected to work out financial mathematics problems, and the other set includes the possible underlying factors related to the different types of errors learners commit. the second questionnaire contained 4 likert scale type of questions and was used as a follow-up questionnaire. this questionnaire was based on uncovering the underlying factors related to the errors due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking. data analysis in the first questionnaire which is content based, the researchers were guided by the newman’s error analysis in content analysis and identification of errors committed. quantitative analysis with descriptive statistics which describe the distribution, the relationship among variables and variability through the use of frequencies was used to analyse the second questionnaire. statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 21 was used for correlation coefficient analysis to measure the relationship between variables of error factors in financial mathematics td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 340-354. 349 each of the afore-stated research questions. corrolation analysis (anova) was used for testing the hypotheses of the study. management of type i and type ii errors in data analysis the researchers were mindful of the place and significance of test, not forgetting the problem of the hawthorne effect operating negatively or positively on students who have to undertake the tests (cohen et al., 2007: 116). the hawthorne effect is the phenomenon in which participants alter their behaviour as a result of being part of the study. the researchers ensured standardized procedures in administering the test. in the data-analysis stage, the researchers avoided type i and / or type ii errors by presenting the data without misrepresenting its meaning. by a pilot study the researchers ensured the invalidity is minimized as much as possible throughout the study. that shows that validity of the study cannot be achieved through tests only, but when the results of different tools (i.e. tests and questionnaires) used should be analysed concurrently. according to cohen et al. (2007:117), for research to be reliable it must be carried out on a similar group of respondents in a similar context (however defined), then similar results would be found. to test the reliability and validity of the instruments, the questionnaires will be developed and administered as a pilot study. correlation analysis results table 3 below illustrates the pearson correlation (r) and significance (p-value) of the four variables of this particular research question. t a b l e 3 : s u m m a r y o f t h e c o r r e l a t i o n a n a l y s i s o f e a c h v a r i a b l e a b c a pearson correlation 1 .045 .069 sig. (1-tailed) .325 .242 b pearson correlation .045 1 .171 sig. (1-tailed) .325 .040 c pearson correlation .069 .171 1 sig. (1-tailed) .242 .040 note: the variables of research question 2 were labelled a c for the writer’s convenience in constructing the following table which summarises the correlation and the significance of the stated variables. a – i confuse addition with multiplication b – i forget to write units c– i write down an incorrect number the correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between learners forgetting to write units (b) and learners writing down an incorrect number/figure (c).the analysis was significant, p = .04 (r = +.17) which illustrated a weak correlation between the afore-stated variables. learners confusing addition with multiplication (a) and learners writing down an incorrect number (c) illustrated non-significance and weak correlation, as p = .242 (r = +.07). khalo & bayaga 350 the correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between learners confusing addition with multiplication (a) and learners forgetting to write units (b) was not significant, p = .325, (r = +.05) which illustrated a weak correlation. t a b l e 4 : d e s c r i p t i v e s t a t i s t i c a l a n a l y s i s n std. deviation skewness statistic statistic statistic std. error i confuse addition with multiplication 105 .908 -.648 .236 i forget to write units 105 .978 -.101 .236 i write down an incorrect number 105 .944 .812 .236 valid n (listwise) 105 according to garson (2012: 17), a common rule-of-thumb test for normality is to run descriptive statistics to get skewness and kurtosis. skewness should be within +1 to -1. normality: all the sub-variables of the incorrect association or rigidity of thinking have met the normality assumption as all the skewness statistic value are within the range of -1 and +1. homogeneity: the afore-stated research question has met the homogeneity assumption as the highest value of the standard deviation 0.978 ÷ 0.908 = 1.077092511 which is not greater than 2. based on the analysis of second questionnaire which sought to answer the research question “what are the underlying factors related to errors due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking?”, it revealed that 63.8% of the respondents admitted to confusing the addition sign with the multiplication sign, but 60% only did that occasionally as against 3.8% who admitted to always making that error. from 105 respondents, 50.5% forgot to write units whereas only 7.6% always committed such an error, and 42.9% admitted to occasionally committing such an error. learners would write an incorrect number or digit when transcribing from their rough work, 29.5% of the respondents attested to sometimes committing this type of error, with 1.9% always doing that. discussion the afore-mentioned results illustrated a weak relationship between learners forgetting to write units and those writing down an incorrect number when transcribing from the rough paper, and a significance p<.05, which represent only a third (33.3%) of the variables of the underlying factors related to errors due to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking. all the other variables illustrated no significance, but a weak correlation cannot be generalized to a broader population. the fact that the correlation of variables in this research question accounted for 33.3% indicated that they have no significant effect on the research question. according to radatz (1979: 167), error factors in financial mathematics td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 340-354. 351 inadequate flexibility in decoding and encoding new information often means that experience with similar problems will lead to habitual rigidity of thinking. learners develop cognitive operations and continue to use them even if those are no longer relevant. respondents were given questionnaire 1 which consisted of five simple or compound interest questions, which was analyzed through marking and content analysis. when given simple and compound interest problems, 83% of the respondents applied a formula which was either relevant or irrelevant. drawing from the theoretical framework of the study; threshold concept is known to be irreversible. once a learner understands the concept it is unlikely to be forgotten. the use of formula, even if not taught, is the result of the afore-stated characteristic of threshold concept. they may have drawn the formulae from grade 9 knowledge, without noticing that in this case they were expected to apply a multi-step procedure to find the correct answer. radatz (1979) describes this as related to incorrect association or rigidity of thinking. some errors identified in the content analysis, where a learner would confuse addition with multiplication, are classified by nolting (1998) as transformation error. some would add instead of multiply even though they followed the correct steps and that, according to nolting (1998) and elbrink (2008), is classified as procedural error. the researcher classifies this type of error as an error due to incorrect association as the respondents demonstrated error of assimilation because they knew the correct algorithms, but confused the multiplication sign with the addition sign. based on the frequency table which summarises learner responses, it could be ascertained that the majority (n =63, 60%) of learners admitted to sometimes confusing addition with multiplication. this was also evident in their responses analysed through content analysis where a number of errors related to the afore-stated factor were identified. only 7.6% admitted to always forgetting to write the units in their final answers whereas 42.9% sometimes made that error. based on the correlation analysis previously illustrated, learners forgetting to write units was significant but with a weak correlation to writing an incorrect value. it is the only variable out of three (33.3%) of the variables for the stated research question that was revealed to be significant. forgetting to write units in the final answer in financial mathematics is a common error committed and is evidently supported by the frequency tables. content analysis revealed that learners were introduced to the use of simple and compound interest formula in the previous grades. in their attempts to work-out simple and compound interest problems, they would use the formula. the majority of learners (n = 89, 84.8%) used formulae to answer the simple and compound interest problems. in using the formula, others would use an incorrect formula and that, according to brodie (2005), is partial insight described as the learners demonstrating that they grappled with an idea but showed insight in the task. the respondents strongly disagreed with writing down an incorrect value or digit when working out financial mathematics problems. only a few (n = 2, 1.9%) admitted to always committing that error and it was not related to any of the variables indicated. the following is the summary of the errors identified from content analysis: o use of formula even though it was not appropriate. learners were supposed to follow a multi-step procedure without the use of the formula when working out the final khalo & bayaga 352 amount in simple and compound interest. as discussed in the previous sections, this was attributed to the irreversible characteristic of threshold concept. o use of an incorrect formula, where learners used a formula for calculating the final amount (a) with simple interest instead of using only the simple interest (si) formula. o incorrect substitution in the formula. according to nolting (1998) that is regarded as transformation error and he describes it as occurring when a learner understands what is required but is unable to employ the sequence of operations needed to solve the problem. the majority of the learners substituted the value of i (interest rate) incorrectly not taking into account that i is a percentage. o learners converted the period and the interest rate to months even if one of them was already given in months. that is also attributed to the drill and practise method used by educators where “you divide i (interest rate) by 12 and multiply n (period) by 12 if the interest is compounded monthly”. learners apply the rules entrenched in the drill and practise method in class. in elaborating on the phenomenon soendergaard and cachaper (2008) brought into perspective a concept instrumental understanding which they describe as demonstrated by someone who uses rules without understanding. o even though some employed the correct algorithms, they incorrectly rounded off the final answer. the researcher classifies that type of error as a placement error which is a particular type of procedural error. nolting (1998) describes this type of error as incorrect sequencing of digits or alignment of algorithms. the following are the errors identified through correlation analysis of questionnaire 2: ø learners forgetting to write units and writing down incorrect digits showed significance and a weak correlation between the two variables. ø learners forgot to write units in the final answer. ø learners wrote down incorrect values when transcribing their rough work. this could be attributed to the fact that they panicked and felt rushed. out of 3 variables in the afore-stated research question, only the above proved to be significant (33.3% significant) and illustrated a weak correlation. research implications theoretical implication of the study the study was guided by three theoretical frameworks: 1) polya’s problem-solving techniques which guided the researcher in identifying, planning, execution of the plan and reviewing the identified factors related to learner errors. 2) the threshold concept forms a fundamental part of error analysis as most of the errors were associated with entrenched knowledge from the previous grades. this was evident in the content analysis. 3) newman’s error analysis guided the researcher in the content analysis of questionnaires 1 and 2 that sought to identify the type of errors committed by learners and the underlying factors related to those errors. it gave learners an opportunity to reflect on the errors. error factors in financial mathematics td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 340-354. 353 conclusions error analysis may be incorporated in the teacher training curriculum as it will assist in reducing or eliminating learner errors. it will assist educators to be able to identify learner errors, assist learners in eliminating those errors and encourage learners to review the work before submission. understanding learners’ rationale when going through their work can also assist teachers to institute remedial lessons. educators need to incorporate error analysis in their lesson designs, as knowledge of why learners commit errors is valuable to the educators as it will help in selecting the relevant strategies. learners should be taught to apply polya’s problem-solving techniques. that will train them in applying the techniques to make sure they understand the question before attempting to answer it; to plan before answering; to answer and then review what was written to make sure that they reduce the errors committed. recommendations of further research in financial mathematics error analysis further research studies could be conducted in error analysis in financial mathematics, but the focus should be on grades 11 and 12 as learners continue to commit these kinds of errors, even in these grades. the study population could be increased to a number of schools (5 or more schools) to increase the reliability and validity of the research findings. error analysis is a topic that has not yet been exhausted in south africa in both mathematics and mathematical literacy. more studies need to be conducted so it can provide recommendations to assist educators in their lesson designs in order to assist learners in avoiding the identified errors. that could improve the learner performance in mathematics and mathematical literacy. further research study should be conducted on the use of formula in working out financial mathematics problems in mathematical literacy. educators and learners still perceive the use of formula relevant and convenient when working out simple and compound interest problems. the study should be focused on grades 10 and/or 11. the educators’ understanding of the curriculum assessment programme statement (caps) in mathematical literacy needs to be interrogated further as some of learner errors could be attributed to educators’ lack of understanding of the curriculum. most educators seem not to understand the curriculum assessment programme statements, even though this has already been rolled out in grades 10, 11 and 12. educator training has been rolled out in the past three years (2010 – 2013) throughout the provinces, but teachers do not appear to understand the content entailed and its purpose. references brodie, k. (2005). using cognitive situative perspective to understand teacher interaction with learner error. proceedings’ of the 29th conference of the international group for the psychology of mathematics education, 2, 177-184. cohen, l., manion l., & morrison k. (2007).research methods in education,(6thed.). new york: routledge falmer. department of basic education republic of south africa. (2011). curriculum and assessment policy statements (caps). khalo & bayaga 354 eibrink, m. (2008). analyzing and addressing common mathematical errors in secondary education. b. s undergraduate mathematical exchange, 5(1), 2-4. garson, g. d. (2012). testing statistical assumptions. g. david garson and statistical associates publishing. florida: usa. heinze, a & reiss, k. (2007). mistake-handling activities in mathematics classroom: effects of an in-service teacher training on students’ perfomance in geometry. institute of mathematics. university of murnich, germany. israel, g. d. (2009). determining the sample size. program evaluation and organisational development. ifas, university of florida. peod-6. khan, s. b. & chishti, s. (2011). learners’ errors: supporting learners for participating in mathematics classroom, international journal of academic research, 3(1) part ii: 655658. meyer, j.h.f.& land, r. (2006). threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge 1 – linkages to ways of thinking and practising’ in improving student learning – ten years on. c. rust (ed), ocsld, oxford. murray, h. (2012). problems with word problems in mathematics. learning and teaching mathematics, 13, 55-58. national council of teachers of mathematics. (2000). principles and standards for school mathematics. reston, va: nctm, 2000. nolting, p. d. (1998). the invertiture controversy. 28(4). 22 – 30. peng, a. (2009). teacher knowledge of students’ mathematical errors. sweden: umea mathematics education research centre, umea university. polya, g. (1945). the four-step problem-solving process. [on-line]: available url: http://home.comcast.net/~mrtwhs/mash/polya.pdf.accessed: 24 may, 2012. radatz, h. (1979). journal for research in mathematics education,national council of teachers of mathematics. [on-line]: available url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/748804. accessed: 20 july, 2011. riccomini, p. j. (2005). identification and remediation of systematic error partterns in subtraction. learning disability quarterly. 28(3). 1 -10. sheinuk, l.c. (2010). intermediate phase mathematics teachers reasoning about learners’ mathematical thinking. unpublished master of education thesis, wits school of education, johannesburg, south africa. soendergaard, b. d. and cachaper, c. (2008). teaching mathematics effectively to primary studentsin developing countries: insights of neuroscience and psychology of mathematics. gpe working paper series on learning. 2(5) 11 – 18. white, a.l. (2010). numeracy, literacy and newman’s error analysis: journal of science and mathematics education in southeast asia, 33(2), 129-148. white, a. l. (2009). newman’s error analysis’ impact upon numeracy and literacy. university of western sydney: al.white@uws.edu.au. accessed: 20 july, 2012. microsoft word 03 khau et al.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 401 412. using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies to promote sustainable teaching and learning ecologies: through the eyes of preservice teachers m khau,1 n de lange2 & l athiemoolam3 abstract the national framework for quality education in rural areas (doe, 2006) draws attention to education in rural ecologies and scrutinises the role of heis in developing teachers who understand the diverse contexts and who are able to facilitate quality teaching and learning in such contexts. drawing from the project ‘new teachers for new times: visual methodologies for social change in rural education in the age of aids’, this article explores how the use of participatory and visual arts-based methodologies at a rural school can lead to sustainable teaching and learning environments that promote transformative and emancipatory classrooms. we draw on the focus group discussions held at the end of each school day as debriefing sessions with the six intermediate phase pre-service teachers4 reflecting on their experiences of professional development and what was learnt about using ‘new’ methodologies in a rural farm school. we argue that when a cohort of pre-service teachers work together with in-service teachers using emancipatory pedagogies in a rural context, classrooms can get transformed into enabling and democratic spaces conducive for teaching and learning for all. key words: emancipatory pedagogies, rural school, rural ecology, student teachers, visual methodologies issues of gender, sexualities, sexual health and reproductive rights, teacher identities and hiv and aids in education. introduction the eastern cape, with vast sprawling rural areas, is one of the poorest provinces in south africa. many learners experience challenges created by a host of social issues including hiv and aids, as well as educational factors such as a lack of resources and learning materials, unskilled and de-motivated teachers and parents who find it difficult to be involved in the education of their children (nelson mandela foundation, 2005). the national framework 1 mathabo khau (phd) is senior lecturer at the nelson mandela metropolitan university and she researches on issues of gender and sexuality in education. 2 naydene de lange (phd) is professor and chair of hiv/aids education at nelson mandela metropolitan university 3 logamurthie athiemoolam (phd) is senior lecturer and head of the ace llt programme at the nelson mandela metropolitan university. corresponding author email: mathabo.khau@nmmu.ac.za 4 . the pre-service teachers preferred to be called teachers in training, and hence in this paper, trainee teachers is used interchangeably with pre-service teachers. khau, de lange & athiemoolan 402 for quality education in rural areas (doe, 2006: 2) calls on “all education role players to sharpen their focus towards the delivery of quality education in rural and farm schools”. this framework recognizes the limited capacity of a single unit to effectively address the multifaceted challenges facing rural education. as such the framework proposes the involvement of a broad spectrum of role players, such as the education system at all levels; all components of the education system (ecd, get, fet, and higher education institutions); institutions; communities (parents, land owners, governance structures, community based organisations, religious organisations and traditional leadership structures); and government departments (doe, 2006). thus we initiated our project ‘new teachers for new times: visual methodologies for social change in rural education in the age of aids’ in the eastern cape as a response to the challenges arising from ever-growing hiv and aids infection rates in rural areas and their interaction with other social challenges such as poverty, and the impact they have on teaching and learning. we worked with ipreand in-service teachers in a rural context, to try out visual arts-based participatory methodologies in addressing hiv and aids with the youth. our intention was to get the participants to teach in ‘new’ ways which might make a difference while at the same time exposing the trainee teachers to a rural school context. the trainee teachers’ engagement with the learners during their teaching practice was focussed specifically on their professional development and not on the assessment of their lessons. this created an environment in which the preand in-service teachers could relax and try out the ‘new’ methodologies with the learners. this paper, therefore, presents our experiences and learning from engaging preand inservice teachers with visual arts-based participatory methodologies in a rural context. in this paper we answer the question “what are pre-service teachers’ experiences of using visual participatory methodologies in a farm school?” we first discuss the concept ‘rural’ and what it means for us as teacher-educators. we then discuss how we prepared the teachers to work with visual participatory methodologies, followed by the findings from the study. we finally discuss what the findings mean for teacher education and education in rural communities, for social change. rural ecologies and education ‘rural’ remains an elusive concept dependent on either place-based conceptions (chikoko, 2008; graham & healy, 1999) or methodological considerations (arnold, newman, gaddy & dean, 2005) that drive knowledge production in this regard. in considering the notion of rurality, marsden (2006) understands rurality as a signifier which is transformative, capable of changing behaviour and affecting the motivation of teachers, community workers, and learners. research from projects located in rural areas and from projects focusing on the challenges associated with rurality demonstrates that the very generative and transformative nature of rurality serves both to inform and to delimit the effectiveness of intervention programmes designed for education and poverty alleviation. however, it remains a startling and disturbing fact that nineteen years after south africa’s first democratic elections, very little has changed in rural areas. as has been noted in the emerging voices report (2005:141), “…there is a nagging feeling that unless the real differences between urban and rural areas are appreciated and given using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401412. 403 special attention, inequalities will persist and come to haunt future generations”. this suggests that education initiatives in general and teacher education in particular remain mostly ineffective since they do not address these systemic challenges. the fact is that ‘ruralities’ are core to the identity of many rural community-based professionals. thus an education that does not speak to their inner being as people does not serve them fully as it does not promote their fullest capabilities. it is perhaps not surprising then, given the urbanfocused, middle-class teacher education curricula of the past two decades; that education in south africa’s rural areas remains inundated with problems and challenges. people living in marginalised contexts, especially in rural and peri-urban contexts and, to a lesser extent, in township contexts, continue to be denied access to basic human rights, including the right to basic education, health and nutrition. this is despite south africa having a constitution that is informed by the bill of rights, as well as being signatory to the millennium development goals. reasons for this include the research and development paradigms that scholars adopt in doing research on/about/for them as well as in the teaching and learning ecologies in basic and tertiary institutions (moletsane, 2012). research on rurality is mostly concerned with “…space, isolation, community, poverty, disease, neglect, backwardness, marginalization, depopulation, conservatism, tribalism, racism, resettlement, corruption, entropy, and exclusion” (balfour et al., 2008:101). however, such research tends to utilise these only as contexts for measuring under-performance in some aspect of development, for example, poverty, education, food security and other social ills (see baro & deubel, 2006; schroeder & nichola, 2006). research seldom focuses on the dynamic interactions of the people who live, learn and work in these communities, nor on the ways in which they engage with and shape their lives in their environments. therefore, odora-hoppers (2004) writes that the theoretical constructs we use to study rurality tend to focus on the space rather than the people, and tend to treat the space as homogenous, ignoring and simplifying the variations and complexities in identity, behaviour and degree. rurality is also understood in its relation to and in comparison with urbanity and urban contexts, ignoring the fact that rurality is dynamic, and that it has value and strength independent of urbanity and urban influences (balfour et al., 2008). in other words, studies on rurality and the interventions intended to address the many ‘deficiencies’ identified tend to disregard the peculiarities of the local (see budge, 2005) and fail to develop place-conscious and context-specific strategies (gallagher, 1993; gruenewald, 2003) for addressing the educational and social needs of these communities. these studies also ignore the agency of rural communities and people, as well as the assets that are available therein and that can be harnessed in developing and implementing relevant and effective interventions. cloke (2006) concedes that numerous understandings of rurality exist. coladarci (2007) explains that, because of these multiple views of rurality, a clear description of contextuality places theory and methodology in research in a space of shared understanding and facilitates transferability of findings related to rurality. as such, space plays out as significant variable when contemplating rurality (halfacree, 2006). we prefer viewing ‘rural’ as dynamic, shaped by a variety of systems and especially by individuals who populate the rural environment (balfour et al., 2008; graham & healy, 1999). in this we embrace the generative theory of rurality provided by balfour et al. waghid’s (2011: 1174) argument drawn from nussbaum’s notion of a politics of humanity, namely that all people should be acknowledged and respected and that showing disgust and khau, de lange & athiemoolan 404 shaming people does not have place in a humane society, can be applied to rural people and rurality. he further argues that “if one shows disgust, one becomes discontented with and disengaged from others in society – that is, disgust rules out the possibility of ‘constructive engagement’” (2011: 1174). waghid (2011) puts forward nussbaum’s point that the “the core idea of disgust is that of contamination to the self; the emotion expresses a rejection of a possible contaminant” (nussbaum 2004: 99) and that shame is “potentially linked to denigrating others” (nussbaum 2004: 209). thus lacking a politics of humanity could translate into teachers avoiding teaching in rural areas out of fear of being ‘contaminated’ or to escape the shame and disgust levelled at them by teachers who work in urban areas. keeping a politics of humanity in mind, we wanted pre-service teachers to have first-hand experience of teaching in a rural context. we wanted to support them to reflect on their experiences such that they can deconstruct their understanding of rurality and rural schooling and to assist them to “uncover critical consequences of their activity” (horn 2004: 175). in order to achieve this, we had to prepare the teachers accordingly. preparatory workshop we organised a preparatory workshop and invited the six trainee teachers and six in-service teachers, from the farm school, who served as the mentor teachers. the purpose of this workshop was to address hiv and aids, to make both groups feel prepared and supported, and to negotiate the logistics of the two week programme. the workshop served several aims. it served as a platform for the two groups to meet and to get to know each other and to pair each trainee teacher with a class teacher. we also wanted to hear what their expectations were regarding the collaboration and to enable the student teachers to learn about the rural context and school from the in-service teachers in order to allay their fears. we introduced and provided hands-on experience in the use of visual participatory methodologies (e.g. drawing, collage, photo-voice and image theatre). the sessions were recorded and transcribed. methodology guided by schratz and walker’s (1995) belief in research as social change, we conducted this qualitative and participatory research project in a rural context. we engaged preand inservice teachers in using collages, drawings, image theatre, and photo-voice with youth in a farm school. these methods should be used in a participatory way such that participants are enabled to reflect on their knowledge of life and their circumstances (chambers, 1994), thus generating their own solutions for taking action and getting their voices heard. the trainee teachers worked with in-service teachers in a farm school for two weeks. at the end of each day we had a two hour long debriefing. each member of the research team was afforded an opportunity to facilitate the debriefing session which revolved around the students responding to carefully considered open-ended questions, requiring reflection and leading to further discussion. highlighting the importance of reflection and reflexive practice is palmer (1998) and skerrett (2008) who argue that good teaching cannot be reduced to technique only but also derives from the identity and integrity of the teacher. despite their passion for teaching, the trainee teachers knew that they had not yet mastered the courage to teach as stipulated by palmer (1998). thus in our desire to improve our teaching as well as theirs, we borrowed palmer’s (1998: 7) question “who is the self that teaches?” we wanted the trainee teachers to reflect on who they were as teachers and what shapes their teaching identities in relation to teaching in a farm school. using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401412. 405 some examples of the questions that guided the reflections are: what are your first impressions after the first day at the school? what are your impressions of the children who attend the farm school? do you think your teacher training prepared you for teaching in this context? what would you want to say to your fellow students back at university? this structured and systematic reflection on each day’s experiences was useful for us as well as the students to interrogate their understanding of professional development and rural teaching ecologies. the debriefing sessions were recorded and transcribed. data analysis the data was analysed using thematic inductive analysis, whereby themes are generated from the data and coded for meaning (patton, 2002). we familiarised ourselves with the data through verbatim transcription of the discussions. the transcribing was followed by what marshall and rossman (2006) describe as immersion in the data, which involved reading and re-reading through the data. then we generated codes using open or data-driven coding (braun & clarke, 2006) where the data are opened for categories, patterns or themes emerging from the manifest content and then organised into meaningful groups. this was followed by generating themes through axial or second-level coding (sarantakos, 2005) which involves identifying relationships between and among the generated codes. the themes were then reviewed and refined so that the “data within the themes should cohere together meaningfully, while there should be identifiable distinctions between themes” (braun & clarke, 2006:91). we then analysed the data within these themes to ensure the internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity of themes. the participants’ words have been used verbatim when presenting the findings. trustworthiness lincoln and guba (1985) refer to the trustworthiness of findings in qualitative research as findings which can be trusted and are worth paying attention to. while he uses four constructs, i.e. credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability to ensure trustworthiness of the findings (de vos 2005, 346), we draw on merriam’s constructs (as put forward in jansen 2007: 38) of crystallization, using several sources and methods to develop the findings, and member checks with the data being verified by others than those initially involved in the study, to ensure the trustworthiness. ethical issues the study was granted ethical clearance by the university research committee, and permission to do research in the school was granted by the department of education. we sought permission from the principal to undertake the project in the school, and consent was obtained from each student teacher and each in-service teacher. confidentiality and anonymity were assured and it was made clear that any participant could leave the project without any penalty. findings: using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies in a farm school the research team worked together with the trainee teachers to produce lesson plans that incorporated participatory and visual methodologies. these lesson plans included activities around drawings, collages, photo-voice, and image theatre. for each activity there was a prompt for the learners which guided them. for example, the drawing prompt was “make a khau, de lange & athiemoolan 406 drawing of what makes you feel safe and unsafe at school”; while for the collage the prompt was “using the magazines provided, cut out pictures and words to create a collage of what makes you feel good about yourself.” each of the trainee teachers had to try out the different methodologies in their respective lessons and at the end of the day reflect on their experiences. from their reflections, the trainee teachers argued that using the new methodologies helps to transcend language barriers, creates spaces for them to learn from each other and work together, and allows learners to take action and produce knowledge. these arguments have been used as themes to present the findings. transcending language barriers the trainee teachers argued that they faced several language barriers when they had to interact with the leaners. many of the leaners in the school speak isixhosa as their first language, with a few that speak afrikaans, while five of the trainee teachers speak afrikaans as their first language and only one speaks isixhosa. the use of english as a language of teaching and learning created challenges for the trainee teachers, especially when they could not use any of the first languages of the learners to explain concepts: zelda: the process was a bit slow today but it was understandable because we had to explain every step to the children and also the language was a barrier… rene: i wrote the instruction on the board in english and isixhosa, they enjoyed that, and they actually laughed when i actually spoke…they said they like me speaking their language basil: you have to give instructions carefully with the photo-voice lwazi: to them english is very difficult and they are using their hands to express themselves…and what i’ve learnt is that when you are giving learners instructions make sure that the instructions are very clear more especially with this image theatre thing. the following discussion ensued when the trainee teachers and the research team discussed the challenges posed by language in teaching and learning. the group reflected on their experiences in the classroom and how it made them feel: jacque: can i ask lwazi this: was it easier for you to explain the instructions in isixhosa? lwazi: yah, because i first speak english then if i see that they don’t understand then i speak isixhosa jacque: i think what’s my problem at the moment is, i think, the drawings…like i couldn’t feel that i got these children in my hands now just because of the language athie: you can see that glazed expression in their eyes jacque: yes. they were looking, ‘what must i draw now?’, because it takes time explaining over and over and over again and i realised i am not getting anywhere using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401412. 407 athie: but it is a good learning experience for us to experience how it feels for someone who is speaking a different language…now you are teaching a xhosa child through the medium of english, imagine how that child struggles… rene: what really makes me feel bad is when i ask a learner a question…and then they speak isixhosa and i can’t understand and i feel bad not being able to understand them however, the trainee teachers argued that trying out the ‘new’ methodologies assisted them in transcending the language barriers: zelda: i did the drawing today with my grade 4s and i think the drawing is a very interesting way to do your teaching and also then you will get the children…they will draw something instead of saying it rene: i think the drawing is a very important tool in helping you get whatever you want to teach across jenny: i did the drawing…and there was basically that whole interaction between the whole class and i… they really enjoyed it, they thought it was fun. basil: as the lesson progressed, they came up with these ideas and the [photographs] showed that at least they knew what they were doing lwazi: i had two lessons today, the drawing and the collage one. based on the drawing…they answered the question better in their drawing about what makes them feel safe at school. rene and lwazi argue that when learners are given a chance to express themselves differently without having to use language, then they come alive and enjoy the lesson. rene: my class was not responding at first…but when knowing that they can draw what they feel then the lesson took shape lwazi: they were very active as compared to the lessons i that i did before with them…maybe it was their first time to do an activity like the drawings and the collage, but as time goes by i think they will get it. learning from each other and working together the trainee teachers also felt that using the new methodologies in their classrooms assisted them in working together and being able to learn from each other. because all of them were new to the use of participatory visual methods in their teaching, they felt comfortable working as a team. rene: i had the privilege to observe zelda’s lesson first which helped me by identifying the areas that i would also have problems with… jenny: i also observed lwazi’s lesson before i did the drawing…so i changed it a bit and asked them to think about where they feel unsafe at school. zelda: i had the opportunity to observe lwazi’s image theatre and his role play…and i got some ideas on how to do it rene: i observed lwazi’s lesson to see because it’s nice to see how others do it so that you can get the feel of how things are supposed to be done. khau, de lange & athiemoolan 408 these discussions show that the trainee teachers had to work together and learn from each other so that they could give their learners the best when engaging the new methodologies. while they were at first scared to try out the methodologies, they felt at ease to carry out their own lessons once they observed other lessons. learners taking action the trainee teachers found that using participatory visual methodologies in the classroom allowed the learners to think critically about what they know and what they can do about their knowledge. the learners were afforded a chance to identify challenges they were facing at school and how they could change things for the better. jenny: they said they would actually tell the other teachers that many kids bully, and the gates are always open at school that is why they feel unsafe…they would do those things so that they can feel safe at school. jacque: the thing that happened that was nice was that there was interaction, but there’s all the bad stud that’s coming out, bad experiences about themselves…they were asking difficult questions the learners had to come up with solutions for whatever problems they had identified about themselves and their school. they had to present these using the new methodologies as well. for example, the learners had identified lack of knowledge regarding their sexuality and pregnancy as one of the challenges they faced. they dramatized a scene where a girl had had sex with her boyfriend and got pregnant. the solution they played out in the drama showed several options that the girl had access to, such as talking to her parents, or a trusted teacher. they also showed the girl going to the clinic to ask the nurses what her options were. thus, without the trainee teachers giving them information, the leaners produced knowledge by themselves and interrogated issues that are pertinent in their lives. the trainee teachers argue that the learners had underestimated their abilities because they had never been given an opportunity to do the kinds of activities that they had involved them in. they argued that the learners were surprised to find that learning could be fun. discussion the trainee teachers who took part in this project were very sceptical at the beginning of the project in terms of how they were going to manage the challenges they envisaged for working in a rural farm school. some of the issues that had worried them were the lack of educational resources in the school, poverty of parents and learners, crime and violence, and the language of teaching and learning which is not the first language for many of the learners. however, they were able to transcend many of these possible barriers to learning through the use of the participatory and visual methodologies. the learners were able to either make visuals to express themselves or perform their ideas. the learners were not limited in terms of how they could communicate their ideas with the trainee teachers and therefore the classrooms became lively spaces of teaching and learning. this is in line with what has been argued by scholars that using visual and participatory methodologies allows for otherwise silenced voices to be heard (see de lange et al., 2006; mitchell et al., 2005; olivier, wood & de lange, 2009). using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401412. 409 according to olivier et al (2009: 13) using participatory and visual methodologies encourages active participation and helps participants to identify and talk about their experiences and generate ways of dealing with them, thus promoting social action. samuel (1998) contends that teacher education, especially pre-service teacher education, has to have a wider collaboration between teacher preparation institutions and the learning sites such as schools; not only to equip teachers with the required tools, but also to provide the needed skills to teacher educators so that they can challenge their apartheid-dominated ideologies, culture and history. barasa and mattson (1998) also noted that most south african teachers who were trained in the apartheid era lack the values, commitment and competencies to improve their professional development. one way to improve teachers’ commitments towards their professional development is to provide them space for selfreflection and self-reflexivity; and one of the best places to provide such space is in the schools themselves. hence, getting preand in-service teachers to work together with learners using participatory and visual methodologies allowed for the in-service teachers to interrogate their own teaching styles. this created a situation in which both sets of teachers learnt from each other in terms of how best they can serve the learners in their care. according to anderson and stillman (2012:3), studies that have been done on teaching practice programmes report on “structural and logistical dimensions … but not its contributions to learning among pre-service teachers”. while the trainee teachers in our study were encouraged to reflect on their experiences every day, we were mostly interested in how they immersed themselves in the experience and drew on their theoretical learning at the university, on their practical knowledge gained in the project, and their experiential knowledge in order to shift and change how they approached and viewed their teaching to enable them engage effectively in a different context to what they were accustomed to. this for us, pointed to how leaving safe and known teaching contexts can facilitate teachers to think differently about their work and their teacher selves. thus, through their reflections on engaging participatory and visual methodologies in a farm school, the trainee teachers in our project disrupted their understandings of teaching in general, rural schooling and rural children in particular. they also had a chance to reflect on their teaching and what difference they could make. budge (2005: 3) confirms the notion of a context in which the “peculiarities of the local … must be understood”. seldom is rurality conceptualised as “dynamic, or as a set of preferences that have value that is independent of urban influences” (odora-hoppers, 2004: 111). we therefore ensured that the trainee teachers understood the context of the school and the backgrounds of the leaners so that they could not necessarily compare them to urban leaners. hence, despite the deficiencies that they identified within the school and learners, they were hopeful and willing to take action for social change (vally, 2007: 17). they saw the new methodologies as a way of challenging the taken for granted stereotypes about rurality and education, and engaging leaners in knowledge production. what also became clear is that the experience enabled them to see how they, through their “pedagogical actions” (waghid 2011: 1477) in the rural context, could contribute to the good of the learners, community, and society. khau, de lange & athiemoolan 410 conclusion this paper has presented how we implemented our project ‘new teachers for new times: visual methodologies for social change in rural education in the age of aids’ in the eastern cape as a response to the challenges arising from ever-growing hiv and aids infection rates in rural areas and their interaction with other social challenges such as poverty, and the impact they have on teaching and learning. we have discussed how we prepared trainee teachers as well as in-service teachers on the use of participatory and visual methodologies with leaners. then we discussed the trainee teachers’ experiences of using the new methodologies in their teaching and the meanings they made of their experiences. we therefore argue that working in a rural farm school using participatory and visual methodologies allowed us as teacher educators, the trainee teachers as well as the in-service teachers to realise that any classroom can be transformed into a democratic space where every learner can voice their opinions irrespective of their proficiency in the language of teaching and learning. we experienced the thrill of seeing every child excited to go into a classroom because they wanted to not because they had to. thus we realised that we can make a difference in the lives of the children that we interact with daily. we can make a difference in how they construct their learner identities, such that they see themselves as people who have something to contribute to knowledge and that they do, indeed, know something. we, therefore, posit that when a cohort of pre-service teachers work together with in-service teachers using participatory methodologies, such as the ones employed in this study, classrooms can get transformed into enabling and democratic spaces conducive for teaching and learning for all. references anderson lm and ja stillman 2012. student teaching’s contribution to pre-service teacher development: a review of research focused on the preparation of teachers for urban and high-needs contexts. review of educational research, 83(1): 3-69. arnold ml, newman jh, gaddy bb & dean cb 2005. a look at the condition of rural education research: setting a direction for future research. journal of research in rural education, 20(6):1-25. balfour r 2012. rurality research and rural 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to sketch what in philosophy of science is called a “demarcation criterion” to distinguish between scientific and nonscientific activities. secondly, does it make sense to recognise groups of sciences and which disciplines should be placed in each group? does it make sense to use categories like social, hard, soft, exact, applied sciences and so forth? to answer these questions it is necessary to assess the plausibility of some of the categories traditionally used to classify the sciences. the purpose of the article is to provide an initial (yet philosophically grounded) orientation in an area in which many academics seem to wander, and sometimes to accept simplistic answers. keywords: demarcation criterion, groups of sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, human sciences, groups of sciences, general sciences, special sciences, transdisciplinarity, (theory of) modal aspects, multi-modal sciences disciplines: philosophy, philosophy of science, (basically, all sciences are interested) 1. introduction recently, a colleague from the same faculty came to my office. he was trying to sort out what he considered a rather intriguing puzzle. he had to sketch an overview of the place of his field of study among other disciplines. he knew that his subject needs to “borrow” from several other sciences. he was told that we have science only when we have an accepted paradigm. but he could not see such a paradigm in his newly emerging discipline. was his discipline a real science? if so, in which “recognised” group would it fit? a few weeks later, another young colleague wrote to the school of philosophy asking similar questions. it was in those circumstances that i realised that issues concerning scientific status, the paradigms, inter-disciplinary dialogue and so forth constitute a big question mark for many academics. this is not surprising: such issues cannot be solved from inside any particular discipline2. on the one hand, issues of demarcation and classification of the sciences are typical philosophical tasks. on the other hand, as stoker (1971:41) puts it, when it comes to 1 . prof. renato coletto is an associate professor in the school of philosophy, north-west university (potchefstroom). email: renato.coletto@nwu.ac.za 2 in this article i use the terms science(s), discipline(s) and scientific discipline(s) as synonyms. coletto 2 such issues, all the parties involved should have a say. philosophy should not try to impose decisions, but should listen to the other sciences. this topic might therefore be regarded as one inviting to transdisciplinary research or at least as a preparation to discuss transdisciplinarity more directly in a next step. the present article is an attempt at clarifying some background issues about transdisciplinarity and at giving them philosophical foundations. any discussion about transdisciplinarity presupposes an identification of the scientific disciplines. it also presupposes some agreement on how these disciplines are or should be (distinguished and then) grouped. this article, therefore, 1) supplies a demarcation criterion to distinguish between science and non-science and 2) discusses the way the scientific disciplines should be classified in groups. admittedly, one might think of many other “preliminary issues” to be discussed in relation to transdisciplinarity, but i will have to limit my scope to these two. i will not be able even to answer all the possible questions related to these two topics, but i would like to try and construct something useful for an introductory orientation. the questions are many: when can we say with confidence that we are busy with scientific work? how many disciplines can be regarded as scientific? what do they have in common? is there also something unique and different for each “science”? to which broader group of sciences does my field of study belong? is there an accepted “paradigm” in each science, or do we simply have different “schools” competing with each other? do we find competing paradigms in all the sciences or especially in the social and human sciences? to answer this type of questions, i will also need to criticize ideas, definitions or prejudices that may be very familiar to us but that still need to be re-considered critically. i hope this exercise will provide a useful introduction to these topics and perhaps even show that philosophy does have some “practical” value (something which is not often taken for granted!). it is also fair to anticipate that my philosophical point of view is a reformational and dooyeweerdian one. our inquiry starts, in the next section, from the issue of the criterion of demarcation to distinguish between science and non(or pre-) science. when can one say that a certain discipline is scientific? in philosophy of science this is known as the problem of finding a “criterion of demarcation between science and non-science”. it is important to notice that the question is not which disciplines can be regarded as natural sciences. we are asking which disciplines (or ways of thinking, research or activities) can be regarded as scientific, in distinction from non-scientific activities, research and so forth. the debate has of course a long history, but not a very successful one, in the sense that not much consensus has been achieved. some have even reached the point of considering abandoning the problem, after noticing that 2.400 years of attempts have not brought about any solution (cf. laudan, 1980:275). the easiest shortcut, at this point, is often to avoid asking questions about the scientific status of one’s discipline. after all, if it is taught at universities it surely must be scientific? yet is a discipline supposed to be scientific because it is taught at university, or is it supposed to be taught at university because it is scientific? how can an academic institution discern between proper scientific work and what storkey (1981) calls “the surrogate sciences”? in the next section a historical survey will be presented to evaluate several demarcation criteria proposed in philosophy of science to answer these questions. their lack of tenability should transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 1-16. 3 lead the reader to understand why certain answers should not be accepted too quickly. a more positive proposal is provided in section 3. 2. how many sciences do you count? 2.1. the experimental criterion i once asked a colleague and friend from the department of physics how many disciplines he could regard as scientific. he answered: “only physics, but not all of it”! he explained that we deal with science wherever there is experiment, and some parts of physics are not experimental. this does not always mean that what is not regarded as scientific is considered useless. but the risk of over(or under-) estimating certain fields of study is obviously present. at universities, all this is linked to important decisions concerning for example funding, the appointment of lecturers and so on. what about my friend’s idea that we have scientific studies when we have experiments? first of all, one should realise that if this is true, experiments are not possible only in physics. there are psychological experiments concerning perception, memory and so on. there are sociological experiments, dealing for example with people’s reactions under certain pressures. galileo’s famous law of inertia was based on a logical experiment, often called a “thought experiment”. one can devise a pedagogical experiment to test the validity of a teaching method. if we adopt an experimental criterion to identify the sciences, we should count more sciences than just physics. however, we should also notice that, apart from the experiments mentioned above, there may be gastronomic experiments, investment experiments, photographic experiments and so on. in other words, there are both scientific and non-scientific types of experiments. one might reply that science is characterised by scientific experiment. but as long as we do not know what precisely “scientific” means, we will not be able to identify what exactly distinguishes a scientific experiment from a non-scientific one. we have only shifted the question from “what is science?” to “what is a scientific experiment?” to this objection one might reply that experiments are only one part of the scientific method. could we broaden the picture and say that disciplines are scientific when they follow the scientific method? let us analyse this possibility in the next section. 2.2. the methodological criterion “you have science whenever the scientific method is used”. this seems to be a conviction of many academics. this idea often implies that only the natural sciences are “proper” sciences and in fact the scientific method is the method of those sciences. the other “fields” may become scientific by adopting the one and only scientific method. the history of philosophy of science shows a tendency to “sanctify” one method and to downplay all the others. not even feyerabend, in his against method (1975), escapes the temptation to absolutise one method. in fact, while he pretends that all methods (scientific or not!) are valid, he ends up saying that only one method is superior to all, namely the “anthropological method” (1975:26, 66, 190, 252). so the motto “anything goes” is just a pretext to promote one specific method. coletto 4 (un)fortunately there is no scientific method which is applicable to all sciences (natural, social, human etcetera). in addition, even the method of the natural sciences undergoes change. it is sufficient to consult brief essays (e.g. hatfield, 2005) on the topic to realize the big transformations which occurred from antiquity, through the middle ages and still during the modern age. of course we will always have someone arguing that all past methodological developments lead linearly to the present method. but is this “cumulative” view credible? and what precisely is the present scientific method? some of the procedures or characteristics of this method, like repeatability, can be attributed to non-scientific activities as well. experiments, as we have seen, can be scientific or nonscientific. the consistency-condition has been successfully criticized (e.g. by feyerabend, 1975:35ff.). as one scratches the surface of descriptions and definitions of the scientific method one notices all sorts of empiricist, rationalist and pragmatist “axioms”, conflicting with the supposed objectivity and neutrality of the method. someone might argue that not only the method of the natural sciences but all scientific methods together show the difference between science and non-science. in this case, however, we end up with a maze of demarcation criteria, differing from field to field. so-called quantitative, qualitative, hermeneutical, exegetical, immanent, transcendent and transcendental methods would then be lumped together. yet they would not help us identifying what distinguishes science from non-science but only what partially distinguishes certain sciences from others. as a matter of fact, philosophers of science have rarely proposed “method” as a demarcation criterion: the strategy is more “popular” than academic. however, two specific methods have been proposed as demarcation criteria: verification and falsification. 2.3 verification (or falsification?) for some there is science wherever there is verified knowledge. the criterion of verification was popular in positivism. science is different from opinion because science can verify its claims. however, the history of this idea shows that it was gradually abandoned. can one verify something hundred percent? the answer had to be negative and gradually the verification concept had to become more and more “modest”. in carnap’s article testability and meaning, for example, verification was gradually “reduced” to confirmation (carnap, 1936; 1937). later on, confirmation was gradually toned down to probability (carnap, 1951). in addition, the problem is similar to the experiment-issue: there are both scientific and nonscientific types of verification. an official verifies the identity of an applicant, a judge verifies the proofs supplied by the defence and similar operations occur every day in parliaments, churches or families. as long as we do not know how to distinguish between scientific and non-scientific, verification will be a flimsy criterion to use. popper (1963:42 ff.) tried the opposite road: science does not try to verify but to falsify. scientific theories and statements can be falsified (i.e. proven false), while non-scientific theories cannot. for example, astronomical statements can be refuted, but astrological predictions can always be “saved” by one or the other justification. however, kuhn (1970:1415) pointed out that it is impossible to achieve “conclusive disproof” (complete falsification). is falsification, then, not a relative tool, exactly like verification? and, one might add, are there not again two types of falsification, a scientific and a nonscientific one? yes, just like verification, falsification is used every day in professional transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 1-16. 5 meetings, police cases and family discussions. in other words, falsification may lead to the formulation of both scientific and non-scientific theories, statements or solutions. a sound criterion for demarcation should be sought elsewhere. 2.4 puzzle-solving and the checklist-criterion some may remember that kuhn’s (1970:7) own proposal was that one has science when there are “puzzles” to be solved (a pragmatic approach). so for example astronomy generates continuous puzzles while astrology does not. or even if the latter generates some occasional puzzles they never constitute the type of problem that can lead to a revolutionary reconstruction of astrology itself. feyerabend (1970:200), however, noticed that even a gang of robbers can be faced by “puzzles” to solve, and may decide to solve them in “revolutionary” ways for example to accomplish a robbery! in other words, feyerabend noticed that there can be both scientific and non-scientific types of puzzles to be solved. each new proposed criterion of demarcation demolished the previous one and then was quickly refuted in its turn. some propose a list of characteristics of science and think that we have science when a number of those characteristic traits are present (stoker, 2008:9). this seems to offer a more nuanced approach. we have science when we have verification, plus systematised knowledge, plus objective recording of data, disclosure of methodologies and so forth. but instead of providing a more refined criterion, usually this approach produces considerable confusion. for example, in a list of seven crucial characteristics of science, how many of them should be met, to know that we are dealing with science? all of them or only a majority of them? perhaps just a few of them? in addition: how systematised, verified and so on must a theory be, in order to be considered scientific? obviously verification, systematisation and so forth can be achieved to different degrees. to what extent, then, should a theory be “systematised” before it can be called scientific? should we decide on a percentage? in addition, if we have already observed that criteria like “being verified”, or “based on observation” and so forth, can be both scientific and pre-scientific, can we solve the problem by simply adding them together? the sum of several untenable criteria cannot create a sound criterion. in my opinion, this approach achieves only uncertainty because in practice one will always be confronted with theories, ideas, programmes which meet only in part the requirements of the list. at this point one is likely to hear several erudite suggestions concerning the “graduality” of the border, the grey areas, the fog surrounding the bridge between science and nonscience.3 but personally, i regard them as ad hoc adjustments to evade the problem. i can accept that there is graduality between science and non-science, but this should not prevent anybody from proposing a reliable criterion of demarcation. 2.5 paradigms in the sciences after the appearance of kuhn’s work the structure of scientific revolutions (orig. 1962) the paradigm concept became very popular in academic circles. it is however not easy to use it properly. generally speaking, academics know that there are different views among scholars, 3 see van woudenberg (2011:182), who does not propose or endorse any specific demarcation criterion but is sure that “the science/non-science divide is vague and blurry”. coletto 6 even in the same discipline. however, some detect such differences especially outside of the natural sciences. on the contrary, in the natural sciences there would be “maturity”, which is due to the acquisition of a unifying paradigm. maturity, some suggest, is measured precisely by this unifying factor (cf. lowenstein, 2004). in this, they are in line with kuhn. yet, together with kuhn, they are wrong.4 confronted with the question whether paradigms could be present outside of the natural sciences kuhn did not deny the possibility that one day e.g. sociology could reach the paradigmatic phase, which would bring to an end the dissensions over fundamentals which are so evident in its present phase. yet the presence of several schools within sociology (and many other sciences) was to kuhn the proof that a common paradigm was missing and therefore the “mature” (i.e. “normal”) phase of science had not yet been reached.5 nevertheless, feyerabend (19870:207-208) correctly observed that, for example, if one looks at physics during the 19th century, at least three different paradigms are present within the discipline. let us be straightforward: the idea of a single paradigm reigning undisturbed over a scientific community for a period is simply not in tune with the history of science. in all disciplines, at all times (not only during revolutions) there are different approaches, paradigms and schools fighting over fundamentals and sometimes even struggling to communicate with each other. strauss (2009:5-7) has compiled a basic list of a few schools operating at present within the main disciplines, from mathematics to theology. he makes evident that in all the sciences competing paradigms and schools are present without exception. in addition, paradigms have never caused the end of debates over “fundamentals”, as the case of franklin’s paradigm for electrical studies demonstrates, and they have never created general consensus (stafleu, 1979:26). they have rarely ever achieved a period of uncontested dominion. the usual situation is that one paradigm is adopted by the majority of scholars in a certain field, but normally there are minority views as well, and these views can be sometimes compatible, sometimes rival, sometimes conflicting with the majority’s view. this situation should not be surprising. actually the very opposite (i.e. total consensus) would be surprising. if one considers that, according to kuhn (1996:41), paradigms imply “quasi-ontological commitments” and that such commitments, i would add, are prompted by worldviews and deeper types of commitments, it would be very surprising that a huge variety of positions may lead to uniform consensus. no, in this case feyerabend was right: paradigms tend to proliferate. i would not agree with his idea that it is necessary to support their proliferation. i would however say that it would be futile not to recognise it once it occurs. the situation is aptly described by dooyeweerd (e.g. 1959:20-63; 1979; 1984, 1:169-495). although he does not use the paradigm concept, he deals with the different ground motives directing the development of science and culture in the west. in a sense, they can be regarded as macro-paradigms or “macro-motives” (visagie, 1996). dooyeweerd saw quite 4 popper too cultivated the illusion that “dogmas and fashions” are characteristic of disciplines like sociology, psychology or theology, which he could even call the “lunatic fringe” (1970:57-58). 5 later on kuhn modified his view by saying that paradigms are also present in the phase preceding mature science (1996:178-179). the phase of paradigm-acquisition would then concern the acquisition of a certain type of paradigm. in any case the human and social sciences would lack the broad consensus produced by such special paradigms. transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 1-16. 7 clearly that ground motives capture the commitment of the majority of people in a certain context. yet an older “paradigm” does not always gradually disappear after a new one emerges. on the contrary, different ground motives usually co-exist in a certain epoch and in a certain context. summing up, a variety of paradigms are present in all disciplines, most often simultaneously. their presence does not indicate that a science is still immature or that it is degenerating, on the contrary it may indicate its vitality. it would take too long to consult the whole list of attempted solutions to the problem of the demarcation criterion, which frequently has led to disillusion. in the next section i will rather propose a criterion that seems to hold water. 3. a plausible demarcation criterion? 3.1 what is unique about science? to find a credible demarcation criterion we have to find out what all the scientific disciplines have in common and what distinguishes them from non-scientific activities, knowledge, research, and so on. together with strauss (e.g. 2001:29-30; 2009:145), i would argue that we should consider modal abstraction. let us start from introducing the theory of modal aspects elaborated by dooyeweerd and vollenhoven since the 1920s. the basic ontological ingredients of our world (hart, 1984:201; 203-210) are entities and modalities (in relation). the modalities are the fundamental modes of existing and also the ways of observing the world in which we live. according to present research (which is always open to improvement) the modal aspects are fifteen. in the following scheme they are placed in ascending order of complexity and their fundamental “core” is defined. f i g u r e 1 : m o d a l a s p e c t s r e l a t e d t o s c i e n t i f i c d i s c i p l i n e s aspects: core-meanings: special sciences: certitudinal belief, commitment theology ethical care, love ethics legal justice law aesthetic harmony aesthetics economic management of resources economics social social relations sociology lingual symbolic signification linguistics historical formative power history logical rational distinction logic sensory feeling, sensation psychology biotic life biology physical energy physics kinematic movement phoronomy spatial space geometry numeric quantity mathematics source: adapted from dooyeweerd, 1979:214 ff.; strauss, 2009:82-102. what characterizes scientific thought is that it chooses one (or a few) of these modalities as “gateways” to a field of study. this modal aspect is then “abstracted” (lifted up) from the coherence in which it is normally situated and the researcher follows that particular “channel” coletto 8 to study some concrete reality. for example, the biologist may be interested in plants, but not particularly in their cost, their beauty and so on. in his research, he normally follows the biotic aspect. the mathematician follows the numerical aspect, while the economist follows the economic aspect. this provides us also with a rough sketch to see the difference between scientific and nonscientific attitude of thought. in our non-scientific attitude, we do not think along one particular modality, but we “keep them together”. when i think that it is late and i must catch the bus in five minutes i “keep together” spatial, social, economic considerations, and ethical, juridical, numerical and more aspects. is there not abstraction even in pre-scientific thinking? yes, but it is not modal abstraction. it is another type of abstraction which can be called entitary abstraction and is in fact linked to entities. a small girl combing a doll can learn to abstract the different parts of the “body”: the hair, the face, the legs and so on. in this way she can “lift up” different parts of the body, focus on them and distinguish them from other parts and entities. in this case, however, no particular modal aspect is detached from the others as is the case with modal abstraction. only different entities are identified and abstracted. i understand that this is just a brief sketch and many questions might arise. we will have to leave most of them unanswered and just be content with this brief introduction. nevertheless, we can start noticing a few implications of our approach. 4. a few implications of this approach the first implication is that, according to this approach, the status of “science” is not restricted to the natural sciences, perhaps with the appendix of the (“softer”) social sciences and the even more impalpable humanities. all the disciplines abstracting one aspect or a combination of aspects as their “gateway” for the study of reality can be regarded as scientific. a second implication is that most of the time it is inadequate to define the field of study of a science by indicating an “object” of study, or a “part” of our experience (for examples plants, animals, human behaviour, banks, society, the churches or the bible). as soon as we define, for example, psychology as “the study of human behaviour”, we are confronted with the problem that several other sciences could be said to study human behaviour as well. what about history, which studies the events generated by human behaviour in the past? what about ethics or sociology, studying the behaviour of individuals or groups? economics too studies human behaviour, at least in relation to money, resources and so forth. the definition of a scientific field of study should identify the unique field of a specific discipline, not something which is in common with other disciplines. the same problem is encountered when we say that sociology studies “society”, or that biologists study the environment or that theologians study the bible. there are several other disciplines which are interested in society (e.g. history, politics, ethics) or in the environment (e.g. economics, theology, law, physics) or in the bible (virtually all the disciplines, when conducted from a christian perspective). one might reply that while for example economics might occasionally study the exploitation of natural resources and thus the environment, biology has in the environment its constant transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 1-16. 9 object of investigation. it should be observed, however, that such a focus of biology does not involve all the modal aspects. when studying the environment, biologists are not interested in its economic aspect, or in its legal, certitudinal or numerical aspects. biology studies the plants (or the brain, or genes, or whatever else) from the biotic point of view. to make it simpler we can say that it studies “reality” or “the world” through that modal aspect. theology studies the world (be it the environment, history or social institutions) via the certitudinal point of view. economics studies the world (e.g. minerals, families, laws) via the economic point of view. the impression that certain sciences are about certain “things” derives from the fact that things (entities, institutions, events etcetera) are usually qualified by certain modal aspects. this is quite a complicated topic,6 but to keep it simple we can make a few examples. works of art are qualified by the aesthetic aspect, a church is qualified by the certitudinal aspect and animals are qualified by the sensory aspect. now, certain sciences will more often insist on objects which are qualified by the particular aspect which is their “point of entry” to the world. it should be remembered, however, 1) that no science is limited to those specific objects. in addition, as already observed, 2) those objects are never studied in all their modes of existence by a single science. as a consequence 3) other sciences study the same objects from other points of view, and they are not, therefore, an exclusive field of study. the only exclusive trait of a science is the specific modal aspect (or the selection/combination of aspects) through which it observes the world. finally, it is important to note that 4) sciences do not only study “objects” or “facts” but need to include the laws, the norms, the orderliness characterising and holding for the specific objects. modal aspects include this normative side in their law-side. it is by contrast simplistic to refer to a field of study as being constituted by “things” or objects. 7 having said this, we should however grant that some sciences are particularly focused on certain entities, processes or phenomena and at the same time seem to amplify the range of modal aspects that they need to “access” for their particular purposes. in some cases the focus on entities seems particularly intense and the modal perspectives “used” by certain sciences seem to increase. this introduces a discussion on the groups of sciences (e.g. natural and social sciences) to be undertaken in the next section. 5. different groups of sciences 5.1 colloquial yet problematic distinctions we are familiar with several types of distinctions between and classifications of scientific disciplines. we hear that there are natural sciences, exact, hard, soft, practical disciplines and 6 for a useful introduction see clouser (2005:260ff). a qualifying aspect is usually the highest aspect (see figure 1) in which an entity functions as a “subject”. for example, for plants this aspect is the biotic (they have biotic properties, they grow etc.). in the following aspects plants do not function as subjects (e.g. they do not think or socialize) although they function as objects (they can be objects of thought and are used in social life as presents, for celebrations etcetera). 7 for one more example, it is not plausible to say that history has “the past” as its object of study. in fact, history does not study whatever happened in the past but only what is significant according to a historic-cultural perspective (i.e. modality). coletto 10 so forth. some of these categories are colloquially acceptable, but they often contain disputable implications or may suggest wrong connotations. for example, what is so hard about the so-called “hard sciences”? the terminology seems to suggest that this group is more “reliable” than the “soft” sciences. this sounds like a positivist prejudice which considers empirical experience as more reliable than (e.g.) rational investigation. another problematic distinction is the one between theoretical and practical (or pure and applied) sciences. sometimes the distinction is drawn within the same discipline. for example “practical theology” includes disciplines like pastoral counselling and homiletics, while church history and dogmatics would be part of the theoretical side of theology. while sciences like theology would be both practical and theoretical, there would be sciences which are only theoretical or only practical. this time, the prejudice seems to come from the pragmatist party: theory and practice must be clearly distinguished. yet a possible disputable implication might be that theoretical disciplines are less “practical” (therefore less useful?). the distinction between theory and practice needs to be considered carefully. the contrary of “practical” is not “theoretical” but unpractical. in fact, a theoretical elaboration is something to be achieved in practice (after hard work) and might have very practical (i.e. useful) consequences. upon further reflection, one should realise that there is no science which is not “practical”, and no science which is not theoretical. finally, a third problematic type of distinction is the one devised by rickert: untenable but (i suspect) still very much in use on our campuses. according to rickert (1986) one should distinguish between the sciences studying something universal and the sciences studying the individual. for example, physics and biology are busy with universal phenomena: water always boils at a certain temperature, animals grow by following certain fixed phases and so on. history, on the contrary, is busy with unique individuals like julius caesar or with unique events like the american revolution. rickert’s intentions were commendable: he wanted to supply an alternative to the positivist view, thus creating a space for the humanities and social sciences. he attempted to do this by showing that the social sciences follow a different method (compared to the natural sciences) but they are nevertheless sciences. the problem, however, is that ever since aristotle (1961:981a, 30; 1003a, 15) it was clear that scientific knowledge can only deal with the universal. there is no science of “this cow” or “this plant”. no science would be interested in emperor nero or the french revolution if they could not fit in (historically relevant) categories like “dictators”, “roman emperors” or “revolutions”. science is of course not entirely cut off from the individual, but only in so far as it points towards the universal or typical. the distinctions and groups mentioned above are rather “informal”, in the sense that they are used colloquially, without big ambitions. we should now pay some attention to the more traditionally academic distinctions: are they acceptable? 5.2 traditional groups of sciences the most traditional classification contains categories like: natural sciences social sciences humanities applied sciences we all know what these terms mean and it is not blasphemous to refer to these categories. yet the following remarks are necessary to be(come) aware of the problematic sides of such transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 1-16. 11 definitions. for example, the distinction between natural sciences and humanities might aim at proving that different methods may be used in the different fields and in this sense it would be acceptable. however, if its aim is contrasting “proper” science with “pseudo” science it is untenable, at least according to our criterion of demarcation. we may start by noticing that the above scheme is based on a rather sharp distinction between nature and humankind (or culture). based on our previous discussion, one might ask: are the natural sciences really about “nature” in distinction from humankind? is genetics not about human beings? is chemistry not about human nature as well? then why should this sharp distinction between natural and human be fundamental for classifying the sciences? a second question concerns the extension of the groups of sciences. should mathematics and geometry be regarded or not as natural sciences? if the answer is “yes”, why do they use theoretical rather than empirical approaches? if the answer is “no”, how is it possible that the sciences of the first two modal aspects of “nature” (see figure 1 above) are not considered natural sciences? in addition, should psychology be included in the natural sciences or not? should it be included even if it looks beyond “nature” to study human (individual or social) emotional life? or should it be excluded even though it includes animal behaviour in its scope? moving to the second group, do we speak of social sciences because they are supposed to study “society”? is this the common denominator of (e.g.) history, economics or law? do they really focus on social relationships? should one rather say that they “support” (the quality of) social life? but then is not pharmacy doing the same? what distinguishes the social sciences from the human sciences? a rapid journey to the internet shows that some sciences (e.g. history) are classified as “social” and as “human” at the same time. the term “sciences” tends to disappear when we move to the third group, the “humanities”: does it mean that only nature and “society” can be studied objectively while in philosophy or theology we deal with subjective interpretation? are the social sciences not busy with “human” phenomena, products, events and so forth? does the difference lie in method? but then, should not the adjectives “social” and “human” be replaced by others, referring to the specific methods rather than to the field of study? concerning the category of “applied” sciences, we can ask the same question formulated above in connection with the category of the “practical” sciences. namely: does anybody know of a science which is not applied or applicable to something at least in some sense? the purpose of these questions are to highlight the fact that such classifications are questionable, lack precision and are based on several prejudices. this is probably why we hear so many “judicious” admissions that in some cases “the categories overlap”. neuro-biology is said to be part of the natural and social sciences at the same time. mathematics is an exact science but not a hard science. psychology can be defined as a social, cognitive and behavioural science at the same time. the categories seem to multiply as the cultural, cognitive, information or cultural sciences may be added to the list. in the end, each discipline seems to create a category in itself and each category seems to contain only one science with its sub-disciplines. detached from any structural order (like the modalities above) the sciences seem to proliferate ad infinitum, under the impetus of “industrial needs” or the constructivist freedom of the postmodern man. is it possible to look for more reliable distinctions and groups? a few categories are sketched in the next section. coletto 12 6. more acceptable distinctions? 6.1 special sciences keeping in mind the theory of modal aspects we can start by distinguishing between two categories: special and general sciences. the special sciences are those that study reality through a particular point of view constituted, as we have seen, by a specific model aspect. from the list of modal aspects above, it is easy to recognise the modalities referring to mathematics, physics, biology, logic, law, economics, and so on. it might be less obvious to “place” disciplines like the agricultural or engineering sciences. on this point hart (among others -1984:177) shows that such sciences are related to the historical or cultural modal aspect. such sciences are related to cultural formation. one should not imagine that the special sciences are enclosed within the walls of a single perspective on reality. on the contrary, there are frequent contacts with other perspectives and other disciplines. there remains however a guiding thread, a fundamental trajectory while input from other disciplines/modalities is received. for example, mathematics is very important for physics and input from other modalities (and sciences) can lead to new discoveries and even new paradigms. yet mathematics remains a side-perspective for physics. this point can be illustrated by referring to dooyeweerd’s theory of modal aspects (dooyeweerd, 1984, 2:79-330). each modal aspect is irreducible to others, yet it can be identified only in connection with all the others. these connections between modal aspects are called “analogies”. for example when we speak of the growth of economy, we borrow from the biotic aspect the idea of growth and we analogically “transfer” it in the domain of economics. there “growth” has a new and specific meaning, which is “shaped” by the economic modality. in a sense the boundaries between the two modalities might be “crossed”, but it does not mean that those aspects are blurred, combined or unified. stoker even used to speak of “intermediary sciences” (1971:42). he suggested that, depending on the emphasis, one may speak for example of social-psychology or psychological-sociology; theological-philosophy or philosophical-theology (1971:42-43).it might be argued that these sciences, although accessing several modalities, always retain a primary perspective. for example, education might look at psychology but only in so far as it serves educational purposes. there would therefore remain a central perspective accompanied by some sideperspectives. do we also have disciplines which “combine” more than one aspectual perspective without adopting a “leading” modality? the difference would then be that these sciences access several “gateways” without distinguishing between a primary perspective and several secondary ones. in this case one might speak of “multi-modal sciences”. for example, could we say that in the discipline of governance (related to disaster risk management van der waldt, 2013), the perspectives of law, economics and sociology are equally needed? the same might be true of political studies, where state-relations are studied from several (modal) points of view. skillen (1988:48) calls politics a “multifunctional” discipline. the question is obviously important for transdisciplinary studies. although it may not be easy to give a clear answer to the above question, i think the possibility of a multi-modal approach is confirmed when we consider the general sciences. transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 1-16. 13 6.2 general sciences the general sciences are normally philosophical disciplines. philosophy is the science that is supposed to provide a sort of over-arching perspective both by informing and by listening from the special sciences. the core disciplines of philosophy should especially be regarded as “general”: ontology, epistemology and philosophical anthropology are in this category. philosophy of art, of language and so forth can be regarded as “special philosophy”. this means that philosophy has virtually at its disposal all the modal aspects as points of entry to its fields of investigation. this is not surprising if we consider the breadth of the field of study of this discipline, think for example of philosophy of history, of art, of science, of economics and so on. this does not mean that the modal perspectives are explored all together, at the same time by a single philosopher. this would be impossible or equivalent to pre-scientific knowledge. philosophers abstract these perspectives according to their needs and particular interests, not simultaneously. this would bring them back to pre-scientific thinking. nevertheless, in philosophy several modal perspectives are added to each other. each modal aspect should not be reduced to another aspect, incorporated by or “blended” with another aspect. the coremeaning of each aspect (see figure 1) does not allow for such operations. yet the different modal perspectives can be abstracted (i.e. selected and “lifted up”) and subsequently “added” to each other. if this is possible for philosophy i would say that it should be possible for the special sciences as well. storkey (1993:48) argues that, from a reformational point of view, transdisciplinary cooperation is welcome and necessary. in fact, if each science can only provide a perspective on a certain phenomenon, problem or entity, such cooperation becomes indispensable. this topic would lead to discussing transdisciplinarity more directly. but as far as our reflections on “preliminary issues” are concerned, we can stop here. 6.3 further proposal: nomic and normative sciences? two other categories correspond more or less to the distinction between natural sciences and humanities. in fact, although according to strauss it would be futile to create a big gulf between the two, he himself points out one basic difference (strauss, 2001:33). in this sense, a distinction (not a separation) looks plausible. although both groups of sciences deal with universal forms of normativity, the natural sciences deal with laws while the humanities deal with norms. the difference is the following: laws do not require human positivization, while norms do. for example “justice” is a norm that must be implemented in a society. just policies do not just “occur” automatically but need human positive formation. the law of gravity, by contrast, does not need human implementation: if i jump from a roof i have no other option than falling down. laws cannot be ignored, bypassed or disobeyed, while norms can be twisted, “emptied”, transgressed. on this basis, it is therefore possible to speak of the first five aspects as related to the nomic sciences while the post-physical aspects can be related to the normative sciences. the difference is not about the universality or individuality of the object of study.8 both laws and norms are universal in scope, in the sense that they apply to all the subjects within a certain domain. it is possible, however, to note that modal laws and norms have a broader domain than entitary laws and norms. the former apply to all the subjects functioning within a modal 8 see the discussion on rickert in section 5.2 above. coletto 14 aspect, while the latter apply to all the entities for which they are valid. in other words, the modal law of non-contradiction applies to all prepositions (discourses, texts and so forth) while the laws regulating the reproduction of reptiles apply only to reptiles. 6.4 other groups? can one imagine further groups of disciplines? i can recall a couple of attempts performed in reformational philosophy, based on the fact that each aspect is foundational to the successive ones. van der laan (1966:25) speaks of “mathematical sciences” (those related to the first five aspects) because the numeric aspect is foundational to the others. then he proposed the label “cultural sciences” (from history upwards). it seems awkward, however, to call biology a “mathematical science” and one should also notice that in this scheme the logic aspect (science) is completely left out. much more recently basden (2011:5) suggests grouping the fifteen modal aspects in groups of three. admittedly, he is neither trying to create a fixed order nor to propose new groups of sciences. nevertheless, one might ask what the consequences of this procedure would be for the classification of sciences. once again, i do not think one can be satisfied with the scheme. basden argues, for example, that while the “social, economic and aesthetic are aspects of our living together, the final three aspects juridical, ethical and pistic/faith are especially important in the health of society” (2011:5). in this case the difference does not seem to be particularly relevant or useful for our topic. the difficulty of grouping together sciences referring to various/different modal aspects (already noticed in section 5.2) lies in the fact that each aspect is “primitive”, irreducible to others and there is no “common denominator” between (groups of) modal aspects. i am therefore skeptical about the possibility of creating formally correct and precise groups of sciences within the categories already discussed in section 6. i remain open to the possibility but i suspect we will have to be happy with a few colloquial definitions and categories, without big ambitions. 7. conclusion with this, an orientative answer has been supplied to several questions concerning the possibility of a demarcation criterion and the groups of sciences. although not all the possible questions arising from these issues can be answered in a single article, i trust i have sketched an introduction to these problems, a simple “map” which is however philosophically supported. i hope such insights will be of some help to fellow academics who might have struggled with the problems discussed in this article. i trust it is by now quite clear that this preliminary discussion naturally leads to the theme of transdisciplinarity. but this must be the topic of another article. references aristotle. 1961. metaphysics. edited and translated by john warrington. london: dent. transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 1-16. 15 basden, a. 2011. a presentation of herman dooyeweerd’s aspects of temporal reality. international journal of multi aspectual practice 1(1):1-28. carnap, r. 1936. testability and meaning. philosophy of science, 3(2):419-471. carnap, r. 1937. testability and meaning. philosophy of science, 4(3):1-40. carnap, r. 1951. logical foundations of probability. chicago, ill.: university of chicago press. clouser, r.a. 2005. the myth of religious neutrality: an essay on the hidden role of religious belief in theories. revised edition. notre dame, in.: university of notre dame press. dooyeweerd, h. 1959. cinq conferences. la revue réformée, 10(3):3-76. dooyeweerd, h. 1979. roots of western culture: pagan, secular and christian options. toronto: wedge. dooyeweerd, h. 1984. a new critique of theoretical thought. 4 volumes. jordan station: paideia press. feyerabend, p.k. 1970. consolations for the specialist. (in lakatos i. & musgrave a., eds. criticism and the growth of knowledge. cambridge: cambridge university press. p. 197-230.) feyerabend, p.k. 1975. against method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge. london: nlb. hatfield, g. 2005. “method” and “science”. in: routledge encyclopaedia of philosophy. london; new york: routledge. kuhn, t.s. 1970. logic of discovery or psychology of research? (in lakatos i. and musgrave a., eds. criticism and the growth of knowledge. cambridge: cambridge university press. p. 1-23.) kuhn, t.s. 1996. the structure of scientific revolutions. chicago, ill.: the university of chicago press. laudan, l. 1980. views of progress: separating the pilgrims from the rakes. philosophy of the social sciences, 10(sept.):273-286. lowenstein, a. 2004. gerontology coming of age: the transformation of social gerontology into a distinct academic discipline. educational gerontology, 30(1):129– 141. popper, k.r. 1963. conjectures and refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge. london: routledge & kegan paul. popper, k.r. 1970. normal science and its dangers. (in lakatos i. & musgrave a., eds. criticism and the growth of knowledge. cambridge: cambridge university press. p. 51-58.) rickert, h. 1986. [orig. 1896-1902], the limits of concept-formation in natural science: a logical introduction to the historical sciences. 2 volumes. cambridge: cambridge university press. coletto 16 skillen, j. 1988. towards a comprehensive science of politics. philosophia reformata, 53(1):33-58. stafleu, m.d. 1979. the isolation of a field of science. philosophia reformata, 44(1):1527. stafleu. m.d. 1987. theories at work: on the structure and functioning of theories in science, in particular during the copernican revolution. lanham, md.: university press of america. stoker, h.g. 1971. reconnoitring the theory of knowledge of prof. dr. cornelius van til. (in gehaan, e.r., ed. jerusalem and athens. nutley, n.j.: presbyterian and reformed publ. company. p. 25-71.) stoker, h.g. 2008. the philosophy of the creation idea. translation of chapter 6 (volume 2, p. 202331) of stoker, h.g. 1970. oorsprong en rigting. kaapstad: tafelberg uitgevers. translated by j.l. van der walt, under the auspices of the school of philosophy, potchefstroom campus, north-west university. storkey, a. 1986. the surrogate sciences. philosophia reformata, 51(1):110-116. storkey, a. 1993. foundational epistemologies in consumption theory. amsterdam: free university (m. thesis). strauss, d.f.m. 2001. does it make sense to distinguish between the natural sciences and the humanities? tydskrif vir christelike wetenskap, 37(1-2):25-36. strauss, d.f.m. 2009. philosophy: the discipline of the disciplines. grand rapids: paideia reformational project. van der laan, h. 1966. a christian appreciation of physical science. christian perspectives series. hamilton, on.: association for reformed scientific studies. van der waldt, g. 2013. disaster risk management: disciplinary status and prospects for a unifying theory. jamba: journal of disaster risk studies, 5(2):11 pages online. http:// dx.doi.org/10.4102/jamba. v5i2.76 van woudenberg, r. 2011. truths that science cannot touch. philosophia reformata, 76(2):169-186. visagie, j. 1996. a theory of macromotives. koers, 61(2):129-151. abstract introduction literature review methodology discussion recommendations for future research conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) clavis n. fubah department of business management, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa menisha n. moos department of business management, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation fubah cn, moos mn. immigrant entrepreneurship in south africa: a review and research agenda. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1160. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1160 note: additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article as online appendix 1. review article immigrant entrepreneurship in south africa: a review and research agenda clavis n. fubah, menisha n. moos received: 20 oct. 2021; accepted: 27 june 2022; published: 29 sept. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract immigrant entrepreneurship is a global phenomenon that has recently attracted the interest of south african academics. the goal of this article was to conduct a systematic review of the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship in south african (sa) between 2009 and 2021. this systematic review was especially important because it synthesised the current literature on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa as well as proposing new avenues for research. the review included 48 articles, with an emphasis on publication trends, methodological and theoretical approaches, provincial focus, networks used by immigrant entrepreneurs and the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa. the findings indicate that scholarly interest in the concept has increased in sa since 2016–2018, which recorded the highest number of publications (16). the majority of studies in the review employed a quantitative approach; thus, further theorisation of the concept is required, and immigrant entrepreneurs are encouraged to explore other networks such as family, business, managerial and interorganisational networks. this article contributes to immigrant entrepreneurship literature in the south african context by synthesising the findings on immigrant entrepreneurship published within the designated timeframe. in addition, the article also identifies areas of future research on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. keywords: entrepreneurship; immigrant entrepreneurs; immigrant entrepreneurship; systematic literature review; south africa. introduction international migration has become a global phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing. several scholars share a similar view,1,2,3 asserting that globally, millions of people are on the move, attempting to settle down in foreign countries. international migration is driven by socio-economic and political factors, such as conflict, labour market demand and income disparities.3,4 there have been considerable movements in sub-saharan africa within the past two decades.1,5 skinner and hunter1 noted that this continuous and increasing migration in sub-saharan africa is because of ethnic conflicts and political instability that has plagued some african countries, such as rwanda, angola, the democratic republic of congo, somalia and burundi, among others. these movements are usually a result of people trying to look for greater job opportunities. south africa (sa), which is generally regarded as having a vibrant and developed economy, is typically a destination for the majority of the displaced population from other african countries.1,4,6 the majority of these migrants, mostly from neighbouring countries, typically settle in south african cities such as cape town, durban, tshwane and johannesburg, where they engage in informal street trading for a living. they may seek employment in sa’s informal sector because of the lack of entry barriers in the informal sector,7 while others engage in entrepreneurial activities (immigrant entrepreneurship). the last decades have recorded an increase in the influx of african immigrants into the different provinces in sa,8 as well as a surge in research focusing on immigrant entrepreneurs in the developing world, especially in sa.9,10,11,12,13,14 evidence suggests that most immigrants arrive in sa unskilled, while skilled immigrants lack proper documentation, making it difficult for them to find work in the south african economy.4 because of a lack of proper documentation and high unemployment in sa, the majority of migrants usually resort to entrepreneurship for survival, with the most common starting point being informal street vending.7,15,16,17 street vending (trading) is a global phenomenon that is not limited to developing countries, as it exists in developed economies as well. south african street traders (including immigrants) sell everything from clothing, shoes and crafts to perishables (e.g. vegetables). street trading is particularly prevalent in immigrant populations because, according to moyo et al.,18 several challenges prevent immigrant workers from gaining formal employment. however, these challenges do not merely pertain to those who would seek formal employment. street vendors are often harassed by government officials, such as police officers who frequently conduct arrests, confiscate goods and demand bribes.15 conflicts and tensions often arise between south african citizens and immigrant street traders who compete for space on the streets, with locals referring to immigrants as ‘illegal foreigners’.17 while immigrant entrepreneurship plays a vital role in the south african economy (it fosters innovation, produces wealth and creates jobs),11,13 these entrepreneurs are hounded by xenophobic attacks,13,14 a lack of local networks11,19 and a lack of access to financial resources.8 immigrant entrepreneurship is the pursuit of entrepreneurial activities by immigrants just after arrival in their host country through personal initiatives or with assistance from acquaintances.20,21,22 the businesses managed by the immigrants are called immigrant-owned businesses.8 immigrant entrepreneurs are people who have established a business in their host country as a source of income. though there has been a surge in research focusing on immigrant entrepreneurship, the concept remains an under-researched area in the management field. south africa has attracted a large number of immigrant entrepreneurs over the years. as there has been a decrease in the number of south african citizens who were involved in entrepreneurship, immigrant entrepreneurs have continuously tried to fill this vacuum.19 approximately 80% of african immigrant entrepreneurs involve south african citizens in their business ventures.23 despite all these efforts, the south african government has failed to validate the role played by the immigrant entrepreneurs. for instance, a survey conducted by torrington et al.24 outlined that immigrant entrepreneurs were excluded from applying for the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) relief funds for businesses, even though they employ citizens. a similar view is shared by muchineripi et al.,19 who cited a report that was conducted by the gordon institute of business science (gibs) in 2015, which states that: [t]he government has not fully recognised the impact that the growth being offered by immigrant entrepreneurship can have on the unemployed youth of sa, especially given the necessary support required. as a result, immigrant entrepreneurs face numerous challenges in the south african economy, which may have a negative impact on their growth. the past years have recorded an increase in publications on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa; however, much less has been done in synthesising the findings of these publications. fatoki25 made an effort to synthesise these findings; however, the author focused on motivations and obstacles, networking, competencies and performance, ethics and gender. since fatoki’s25 first attempt, much less has been done to synthesise the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. it is critical to comprehend how research on a global phenomenon such as immigrant entrepreneurship has evolved over time and in different contexts (such as sa and its provinces). it is also critical to examine the methodologies and theoretical frameworks that have been used to study immigrant entrepreneurship, as this can inform and direct future research. furthermore, it is also critical to investigate the networks used by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa, as networking is important for the success of all businesses. in this article, the researchers intend to systematically review prior research on immigrant entrepreneurship and contribute to the available body of literature on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa between 2009 and 2021. the review will be guided by the following questions: rq1: how has immigrant entrepreneurship research in sa evolved? rq2: which methodologies and theoretical frameworks are employed in the study of immigrant entrepreneurship in sa? rq3: which provinces have been studied in terms of immigrant entrepreneurship in sa? rq4: what types of networks are used by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa? rq5: what are the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa? the following section presents a review of the literature on immigrant entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, barriers to immigrant entrepreneurship, networking and immigrant entrepreneurship, as well as the methodologies and theories used in immigrant entrepreneurship. this will be followed by the methodology, the findings, discussions of the findings and the conclusion. literature review immigrant entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship as previously stated, an immigrant entrepreneur is a person who has moved to a new country and started a business, with the primary goal of making money. specifically, ‘an entrepreneur is an individual who establishes and manages a business for profit and growth’.26 entrepreneurship plays an important role in the economic development of nations in both the developing and developed world.19,27,28,29 scholars have advanced various definitions for the concept, implying that a clear and unified definition of entrepreneurship does not exist. according to ezennia et al.,30 who support this view, the search for a unified and acceptable definition of entrepreneurship has been very difficult, leading researchers to adopt or define entrepreneurship based on the focus of their study. therefore, entrepreneurship is a wider concept which examines how, by whom and with what effects opportuni-ties are sought, assessed and exploited to create future goods and services.31,32 immigrant entrepreneurship, as with mainstream entrepreneurship, lacks a unified definition. this is because of the different views and the multiplicity of definitions that have been proposed by scholars.21,33 immigrant entrepreneurship has been recognised as an important socio-economic phenomenon that contributes to economic growth and development.34 this is motivated by immigrant entrepreneurs’ ability to create jobs, which reduces high unemployment rates in host countries such as sa.25,35,36 despite the important role that immigrant entrepreneurs play in their host countries, research indicates that they face challenges that have a negative impact on their businesses in these host countries, as will be reviewed in the next section. challenges faced by immigrant entrepreneurs several studies have focused on the challenges, difficulties and barriers faced by entrepreneurs (both male and female entrepreneurs), including immigrants.37,38,39,40,41,42 research suggests that female entrepreneurs face challenges that may result from internal or external factors.37 while the internal challenges can easily be addressed by the entrepreneurs themselves, it is often very challenging to manage the external challenges (such as lack of access to markets). the challenges which affect women entrepreneurs in emergent economies include gender discrimination (entrepreneurship being perceived to be a man’s career), work and family conflicts, financial difficulties, lack of necessary entrepreneurial skills, lack of family support and support from male counterparts and lack of access to supportive infrastructure.37,40 cho et al.,38 who shared a similar view, also pointed out that compared to male entrepreneurs who have entrepreneurial skills, female entrepreneurs are less educated, which accounts for fewer chances of success in entrepreneurial journeys. prior evidence also suggests that women, particularly those from developing countries, have very little or no human capital as a result of cultural beliefs and influences. for example, muslim female entrepreneurs face such challenges (such as insufficient financial support, gender inequality and fear of risk) as a result of their traditional and cultural beliefs.42 while panda37 posited that the challenges (as previously mentioned) may affect women entrepreneurs in the emerging economies, it is important to note that such challenges can be attributed to every entrepreneur, including youths, men and immigrants. another strand of literature asserts that the challenges that immigrant entrepreneurs face include unemployment, cultural and language barriers, lack of work experience and lack of required qualifications.22,43,44 in terms of unemployment, gautam43 claimed that immigrants who are unable to find formal employment or are dissatisfied with their current jobs usually turn to entrepreneurship in the host country. this dissatisfaction can be attributed to the low wages typically offered to immigrants, which can lead to conflict with the locals. finding work for immigrants can be difficult at times because of high unemployment rates, which are becoming a common feature of all economies. lack of required qualifications and language barriers, coupled with the fact that some qualifications may not be recognised in the host country, are also major challenges. examples include the case of indian (and african) immigrant entrepreneurs in new zealand who face english language difficulties while their qualifications are often undervalued.45,46 migrant entrepreneurs, particularly women, also face internal and external challenges explained by their lack of capital (human and financial).39 other challenges faced by immigrant entrepreneurs, particularly in the south african economy, are xenophobic attacks, afrophobia (in the south african context: hatred and negative attitudes towards african immigrants in south africa), lack of local networks, policy and government regulations, criminality and lack of funding opportunities, among others.1,14,19,25 the xenophobic attacks which took place in 2008 and 2015 stand out as one of the main barriers that are unique to immigrant entrepreneurs in sa.14,47,48 in support of this assertion, tevera49 added that xenophobia is a cause for concern because it generates rhetoric that sometimes serves as justification for denying foreign nationals access to basic services such as shelter, public health and education. xenophobic attacks in sa have mainly been on african immigrants, who are often referred to by black south african citizens as ‘makwerekwere’.50 mothibi et al.47 posited that xenophobia takes the form of looting and destruction of the properties and belongings of immigrants, mentioning the shops owned by somalians and chinese nationals that were destroyed in limpopo in march 2014, leaving them stranded and forced to seek refuge elsewhere. according to khosa and kalitanyi48 and ngota et al.,14 xenophobic attacks in the south african economy have forced immigrants who own small businesses to stop temporarily, while others have had to close their doors permanently. networking and immigrant entrepreneurship scholars have highlighted the important role of networks in the business success of entrepreneurs, including immigrants.11,25,51,52 networking refers to the beneficial relationship which exists between a business owner and the other parties in the network. fatoki25 posited that networking is simply the exchange of information and benefits. networking is regarded as a critical mechanism that encourages cooperation, thereby promoting the achievement of common goals.53 several scholars have noted that business owners mainly engage in networking to exchange information on possible resources which can assist them in running their ventures successfully.54,55,56 networking is especially important for immigrant entrepreneurs because they rely heavily on locals in their host countries to understand how the host country’s economy works.53 individuals such as managers of businesses also use networking to source and exploit opportunities.25 different types of networks have been identified in prior literature; these include social, managerial, business, ethnic, family and interorganisational networks, among others.51,53,57,58 social networks are relationships with friends, family members and other acquaintances.57 managerial networks refer to the relationships that managers of firms have with other individuals who are directly or indirectly related to the firm59; they can also be described as relationships that firms have with their suppliers and similar firms. business networking is the exchange relationship which exists between two or more businesses.51 ethnic networks refer to the beneficial relationships that exist between individuals from the same ethnic background.51 family networks are relationships with close and extended family members.60,61 finally, interorganisational networks are mutually beneficial relationships that exist between two or more legally operating entities.62 prior research indicates that, while networks play a role in the business success of entrepreneurs, immigrant entrepreneurs in sa limit themselves to co-ethnic networks and do not move to other networks.11 methodologies and theoretical frameworks in immigrant entrepreneurship research scholars have used various methodologies to study immigrant entrepreneurship. these studies ranged from commentaries to conceptual write-ups and empirical studies (adopting a qualitative or a quantitative research method).21,63 in addition, different theories have been used in immigrant entrepreneurship research. most of these theories arise from the field of sociology64; aliaga-isla and rialp63 posited that although these sociological theories are used in immigrant entrepreneurship, some of the theories need to be used in specific scenarios. some of the theories used in immigrant entrepreneurship have been classical theories, for instance, the human and social capital theories, which are frequently used in other fields of study. well-structured systematic literature reviews in immigrant entrepreneurship, such as those conducted by aliaga-isla and rialp63 and dabić et al.,21 identified some of the frequently used theories in immigrant entrepreneurship as capital theory, embeddedness theory, intersectionality theory, institutional theory, culture frameworks and immigration theories. the human capital theory and the disadvantage theory are discussed in this study with regard to how they relate to immigrant entrepreneurship research. the human capital theory emphasises how value can be created for the individual through education and training.65 according to nafukho et al.,66 this perspective emphasises education and training as deliberate investments that prepare the labour force in an economy and may increase productivity as well as international growth. this could imply that human capital (education, skills and training) is extremely important in the formation of any business. another line of reasoning from the preceding discussion is that people who lack human capital (education and training) may struggle to start and manage their businesses. furthermore, prior research indicates that human capital (skills and knowledge) acquired by an entrepreneur through formal education and training is an important resource that can enable immigrants to engage in employment and entrepreneurial activities in the host country.41 dabić et al.21 shared a similar view, adding that the human capital theory has also been widely used in studies focusing on immigration to explain educational qualifications, skills, experience and immigrants’ engagement in entrepreneurial activities in their host countries. as a result, this theory could be used to explain why some immigrants succeed while others struggle in their host countries. the disadvantage theory suggests that immigrants (upon arrival in their host countries) are usually faced with significant difficulties which sometimes influence their behaviours.64 these difficulties are what drive immigrants to start businesses to survive.67 immigrant entrepreneurs in host countries may face difficulties such as unemployment, a lack of understanding of the local language, undervaluation of their qualifications and a lack of prior experience.21,43,63 these typically make it difficult for immigrants to integrate into the host country’s labour market, and as a result, they turn to entrepreneurship (with most starting as informal street traders). methodology this study used a systematic review method to answer the research questions and tables to synthesise the information related to the research questions. according to snyder,68 a systematic review aims to ‘identify, appraise and synthesise all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a given research question’. the goal of systematic reviews is to identify, access and synthesise findings from individual articles on a specific topic to enable informed decision-making.69 using a systematic literature review method, a reliable account of the current state of immigrant entrepreneurship research in the south african context was provided. the next section focuses on the eligibility criteria that were used. eligibility criteria the first step in the systematic literature review was deciding upon the eligibility criteria and selecting the relevant material. the inclusion criteria evidence suggests that immigrants are more likely than locals to engage in entrepreneurial activities in countries such as the united states of america, the united kingdom and australia;70,71 the same can be said in the case of sa. since the xenophobic attacks on immigrants in sa in 2008, there have been numerous debates, with academics and policymakers unsure of what caused the attacks. some scholars believe it was because of poverty and the fact that foreign nationals were taking south african jobs, while others accept low wages, causing friction with locals.72 prior research also holds that small to medium enterprises (smes) belonging to foreign nationals were destroyed by locals. for instance, stores and tuck shops that belonged to migrants were looted and destroyed, causing psychological trauma to the survivors.72 the attack also had and continues to have a disproportionate effect on immigrant entrepreneurs and their businesses in sa. since these attacks, there have been many debates on immigrant entrepreneurs and their role in sa,13,19 which motivated the researchers’ decision to focus on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa from january 2009 to august 2021 (the date when the search for papers ended). to be included in the review, the article had to be on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. all articles had to be peer-reviewed, full text and written in the english language, and the article could either be empirical or conceptual. exclusion criteria articles that were not written in english or peer-reviewed were excluded from the review. in addition, articles not published within the designated period (january 2009 and august 2021) were excluded from the review. the review also excluded theses, dissertations, reports and conference papers. similar systematic reviews in the same context were also excluded from this review. the keywords and databases searched an initial search was conducted to identify possible systematic reviews that have been published on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. the rationale was to ensure that there was a need for a systematic review on the topic. only one systematic literature review25 was found, and it was eliminated from the final set of articles that were reviewed. the keywords included in the search were ‘immigrant entrepreneurship*’ or ‘immigrant entrepreneurs*’ or ‘immigrant small and medium-sized enterprises*’ or ‘immigrant enterprises*’ or ‘immigrant-owned smes*’ and south africa. the boolean ‘or’ was used in the search since the words (in italics) are often used interchangeably by scholars, and ‘and’ was then used, since the focus of the search was on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. the search was conducted on the scopus database and google scholar between july and august 2021. scopus and google scholar were chosen for the search as they have been widely used as search databases in academic research73,74,75 and on immigrant entrepreneurship research.76 scopus was also used because it provides a more diverse range (data) of scientific and peer-reviewed journal articles.77 the search strategy and data extraction following moher et al.78 and snyder,68 during the initial search, articles were selected for inclusion in the review based on the relevance of their titles to the topic. the abstract, introduction and conclusion of all relevant literature were read and screened by the researchers. material that was closely related to the topic under review was downloaded. the downloaded material was then read critically while making notes on relevant and important points. the authors extracted the data from the 48 articles that met the inclusion criteria. to ensure the integrity of this article, the review was based on the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) guide by moher et al.78 the prisma statement consists of a checklist of 27 items and a four-phase diagram designed to assist authors in reporting the systematic review process. figure 1 is formulated based on the prisma guidelines by moher et al.78 figure 1: summary of the search process used in the review. as indicated in figure 1, an initial search on scopus yielded 54 articles, while a search on google scholar yielded 38 articles, for a total of 89 articles. after comparing the results, duplicates were removed, with 63 articles left for screening. during the screening process, 11 articles did not meet the inclusion criteria and were therefore excluded from the review. a total of 52 articles were then assessed for eligibility, and because the researchers were unable to locate four articles, the final review only included 48 articles. data analysis data analysis for this article is presented in the following sections (see table 1 and online appendix 1). the analysis is based on the guiding research questions, namely (1) what is the publication trend, (2) what research methods or theories have been explored, (3) which provinces in sa have received much scholarly attention, (4) what types of networks are used by immigrant entrepreneurs and (5) what are the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa? table 1: data analysis of the systematic literature review. table 1 is organised according to the research questions and the number of articles (48) that were included in the review. the authors indicated the statistics based on the 48 articles by using numbers and the letter ‘x’. in addition, some articles mentioned more than one network and multiple barriers. as a result, the authors decided to use the letter ‘x’ for repetition and instead separated the articles based on those that mentioned theories, networks or barriers and those that did not. for example, 25 articles specified which theories they employed, whereas 23 articles did not employ any theory at all. there were six articles that mentioned networks, while the remaining 42 articles did not. in addition, five articles focused on barriers, while the remaining 43 had nothing to do with barriers. publication trend table 1 shows that immigrant entrepreneurship was still in its infancy in sa between 2009 and 2012, with only four publications.11,23,79,80 this changed dramatically between 2013 and 2015, with a total of 13 journal articles.9,12,13,15,16,48,58,81,82,83,84,85,86 from 2016 to 2018, sa had the most (16) articles published on immigrant entrepreneurs.14,34,35,36,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98 between 2019 and 2021, this number decreased to 15 articles.19,30,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111 methodological approaches table 1 shows the various methodological approaches used in the review articles. according to the findings, the majority of studies on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa conducted between 2009 and 2021 used a quantitative research method (25 articles).9,11,14,15,16,30,79,81,83,85,87,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,98,104,105,106,107,108,109 this was followed by 10 articles that used a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods (mixed methods).12,34,35,36,48,79,85,97,110,111 only seven articles used qualitative research,13,19,58,81,88,96,102 while six used other research methods (e.g. systematic review, grounded theory and desk methodology).23,83,100,101,102,103 theoretical approaches table 1 summarises the various theories that were used in the review articles. the review identified 25 articles that based their research on theories, and some of them mentioned more than one theory; however, 23 of the articles in the review did not specify any theory. the analysis indicated that the ethnic enclave theory was used to underpin the majority of research on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa.34,79,83,84,89,90,92,101,110 market disadvantage theory,11,12,92,94,96,108 middle man minority theory,12,85,89,94,108 ethnic market niche theory,80,85,89,90,101 resource dependence theory,58,82,83 cultural theory11,94,108 and blocked mobility theory79,83,90 were identified as other theories that have been used widely in grounding immigrant entrepreneurship research in sa. other theories which received far less attention were social capital theory,104 role theory and social identity theory,93 agency and pecking order theory,92 cognitive moral development and stakeholder theory,79 motivational theory and human capital theory,96 power and economic theory13 and skills acquisition theory.111 provincial focus the majority of the articles in the review focused on a specific province in sa, while five of the articles did not;89,90,91,99,101 rather, they focused on the country as a whole. the majority (15) of the studies on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa were conducted in the western cape province, specifically in the cape town area. this was followed by the eastern cape, which had 12 studies, gauteng (11), kwazulu-natal (2), limpopo (2) and north west (1). networking the review identified some networks which are frequently mentioned in immigrant entrepreneurship research in sa by scholars. from table 1, it is evident that the networks included social networks,88,90,104 ethnic networks,79 co-ethnic networks,11 business, official and general networks,58 innovation networks and solidarity networks.104 these networks can assist immigrant entrepreneurs in acquiring scarce resources needed for operating their businesses in the host country. barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in south africa the analysis in table 1 indicates that some articles on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa focused specifically on barriers, challenges and obstacles faced by immigrant entrepreneurs. these challenges and barriers include lack of access to finance, afrophobia and xenophobic attacks,12,14,19,48 lack of networks,11,19,58 language barriers,11,48 lack of skills14 and lack of government support.11 discussion publication trends according to the review, immigrant entrepreneurship in sa is rapidly evolving, as evidenced by a significant increase in the number of peer-reviewed articles published between 2009 and 2012 and again between 2013 and 2021. it is important to note, however, that there is room to increase the number of publications on immigrant entrepreneurship on an annual basis as this would enable researchers to uncover new findings on the global phenomenon in the south african context. methodological focus the review suggests that the majority of research on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa conducted between 2009 and 2021 deployed a quantitative research method, with the rest focusing on mixed methods, qualitative and other research methodologies. these various methodologies have been used depending on the scope, objective and parameters being tested in the research. in this light, scholars are constantly urging future research to use a different research method to confirm the findings of prior research. as a result, more research on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa is required, and any of the above research methods will provide additional insights into the global phenomenon. more specifically, chimucheka et al.104 investigated the extent to which social networks affect the performance of immigrant entrepreneurs. their study used a nonprobability sampling method and a quantitative research method, foregoing the benefit of a qualitative method in the process. they accomplished their goal; however, they recommended that future research in this area should use a qualitative research method to gain more insights into the use of social networks by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa. other research methods, such as mixed-methods and longitudinal methods, can be used in exploring the same phenomenon. theoretical approaches underpinning research on theories is important and gives a clear viewpoint on what the researcher is focusing on. numerous theories can be used for understanding immigrant entrepreneurship research, such as those listed in table 1. other theories (e.g. agency theory, network theory and institutional theory) can also be borrowed from different fields and used in immigrant entrepreneurship research. however, there is a need for more research to focus on identifying the relevant theories that can be used to underpin immigrant entrepreneurship research in the south african context. asoba et al.101 made an effort in this regard; however, they focused only on four such theories (blocked opportunity theory, ethnic market niche theory, educated migrant pull factor theory and ethnic enclave theory). therefore, future research can focus on presenting an overview of other relevant theories of immigrant entrepreneurship in sa, as this will inform and direct further application and theorisation of immigrant entrepreneurship in the south african context. in addition, the analysis indicated that some studies79,89,91,108 mentioned about four to five theories. these multiple theories are used in one study because the study is made up of different constructs that are best explained by different theories. the use of multiple theories in one study generates new perspectives and research agendas to further the development of new knowledge on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. multiple theories are also used as contradictory – in which the insights of the theories on immigrant entrepreneurship are compared before choosing one over the other.112 this shows how important it is to anchor research on supporting and relevant theories. therefore, future research should endeavour to anchor their studies on relevant or pre-acknowledged theories. provincial focus migration has become an important economic phenomenon, particularly in countries with enticing factors such as democracy, guaranteed human rights and favourable economic conditions.85 south africa is one of the african countries with favourable conditions that has attracted an influx of immigrant entrepreneurs into its various provinces. the findings in table 1 indicate that out of the nine provinces in sa, some (western cape, eastern cape and gauteng provinces) have received much attention from immigrant entrepreneurship scholars, while others have received little (kwazulu-natal, limpopo and north west provinces) or no attention (mpumalanga, northern cape and free state). networking fatoki and oni58 reported that entrepreneurs usually need finances, skills and other resources to start business ventures. however, having access to such crucial resources is usually a major challenge for nascent entrepreneurs, including immigrant entrepreneurs in sa. some entrepreneurs might have some of the resources (human capital) but may also lack access to some of the crucial resources (e.g. information and finance). as such, entrepreneurs need to network with others to have access to such resources. therefore, the personal networks of an entrepreneur are, in itself, a resource.83 different networks have been identified which can have a positive impact on the business operations of entrepreneurs, including ethnic networks,79 official networks, general and business networks,58 as well as social networks.104 despite the role that networks play in providing accessibility to scarce resources, which are vital for the business operations of immigrant entrepreneurs, fatoki and patswawairi11 found that african immigrant entrepreneurs in sa rely primarily on co-ethnic networks for business support and do not move to other networks. immigrant entrepreneurs in sa also frequently lament the lack of local networks.19 more recently, chimucheka et al.104 also discovered that the use of social networks has a positive effect on the performance of immigrant-owned businesses operating in sa’s eastern cape province. fatoki and oni58 noted that social networking can be dominant during the start-up phase of the business, while business networks could be dominant during the established stage of the business – implying that both social and business networks could play an important role for immigrant entrepreneurs. barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in south africa many studies in this review on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa have focused on or mentioned the barriers that are faced by immigrant entrepreneurs.8,14,19 these barriers prevent immigrant entrepreneurs, especially those from other african countries, from succeeding in the south african economy.14 these barriers and challenges could be the reason for the low survival rates of immigrant-owned businesses. financial difficulties have been identified as the major challenge that is faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa.8,10,35,48 more specifically, immigrant entrepreneurs do not have access to credit facilities in sa.8 in support of this point, ngota et al.14 surveyed 75 african immigrant entrepreneurs in the o.r. tambo municipality and found that only 2% of them received funding from banks, while 98% sourced funding from other sources such as family and friends in sa and back home.84 muchineripi et al.19 posited that because of the lack of access to credit facilities, the business ideas of immigrant entrepreneurs stagnate at an embryonic stage. this could be because of a lack of required documents, such as a south african national identity card and business permits, a lack of collateral required to apply for loans from financial institutions or because of information asymmetry.11 as a result of this fact, immigrant entrepreneurs cannot apply for any support from the government or financial institutions and credit facilities aimed at small businesses. the lack of relationships and networks has also been identified by several scholars as a challenge that is faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa.11,19 in support of this, ngota et al.14 found that insufficient relationships and networks with financial institutions are a major disadvantage for immigrant businesses in mthatha (eastern cape). this implies that having relationships or networking with financial institutions may provide credit access to immigrant entrepreneurs, thereby addressing the lack of credit facilities. managerial and financial skills are also crucial in running businesses – something which immigrant entrepreneurs may lack.14 in cases where such skills are absent, entrepreneurs could outsource the service to people who possess such abilities. however, this is not the case with african immigrant-owned businesses because they are typically one-man operations, or they lack the resources, such as finances, to outsource such services. afrophobia, xenophobia and crime have also been identified by several scholars12,14,19,48 in the review as major challenges that african immigrant entrepreneurs face in the south african economy. ngota et al.14 found out that these afrophobic attacks towards immigrant entrepreneurs could be attributed to jealousy, unemployment and corruption. scholars14,48 contend that xenophobia is one of the most well-known challenges that immigrant entrepreneurs, particularly those from other african countries, face in the south african economy. this challenge has led to the closure of many businesses owned by african immigrant entrepreneurs and thus their loss of income and livelihood.14,48,95 muchineripi et al.,19 however, also found (through interviews with participants) that although xenophobia is a notorious challenge faced by immigrant entrepreneurs, it is not rampant (in the eastern cape, as compared to other provinces) in every province. other minor challenges which are faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa are language barriers11,12 and legislation.19 concerning language barriers, khosa et al.48 found that apart from english, xhosa and afrikaans are the two main languages spoken in cape town. this implies that an african immigrant entrepreneur who does not speak these two languages will struggle to operate their business in cape town. relating to legislation, muchineripi et al.19 posited that participants in their study lamented the bureaucratic procedures that must be followed for their businesses to be legalised in sa. these bureaucratic processes force immigrant entrepreneurs who do not have their required documents to apply for business permits to ultimately operate their businesses illegally.19 recommendations for future research methodological focus the review indicates that chinomona et al.13 used a qualitative research method to review the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship, ubuntu and xenophobia in sa. although they achieved their research goal, they proposed that future research should use a mixed methods approach for more robust results. mouelle et al.96 used a qualitative research method to investigate the key success factors of female immigrant entrepreneurs, and as such, their findings cannot be generalised; therefore, it encourages future research in the same regard to employing a quantitative or mixed methods approach to enable generalisability of the results. future studies on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa can also employ case study research designs, because a case study research design can provide concrete, contextual and in-depth knowledge regarding immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. as shown in table 1, immigrant entrepreneurship research in sa was still in infancy between 2009 and 2012, but this is gradually growing, evidenced by the increase in the number of publications on the concept between 2013 and 2021. as the majority of research on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa has been quantitative, more research on immigrant entrepreneurship using a qualitative research method is encouraged. qualitative methods like grounded theory are also encouraged as only one study100 in the review used a grounded theory approach. this is because grounded theory advances the conceptual analysis of qualitative data while also providing explicit and sequential guidance for conducting qualitative research.113 theoretical focus from the review, it is evident that immigrant entrepreneurship in sa has attracted the attention of scholars;25,30,82,100,102 however, it remains under-theorised. most of the theories (e.g. social capital and social network theories) that are used have been borrowed from sociology and other fields of study such as psychology and anthropology. there is a need for a theory of immigrant entrepreneurship, particularly in the african context. future research should build on existing theories, but it should also focus on developing a theory of immigrant entrepreneurship in the south african context. to that end, scholars can continually engage with a community of immigrant entrepreneurs to better understand the various characteristics and factors that motivate each individual to migrate to a host country and start a business there. although there may be similar factors that lead individuals to migrate to another country and start a business there, the authors believe that there may also be individual factors that, if thoroughly investigated, can lead to discoveries (theory formation). future studies are also encouraged to use a migration network theory in underpinning immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. the migration network theory focuses on the underlying causes of migration, which can be social, economic or emotional.114 as a result, the migration network plays an important role in providing resources and encouraging entrepreneurship among such migrants. provincial focus based on the fact that none of the studies in the review was conducted in mpumalanga, northern cape and free state, future studies on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa should focus on these three provinces. also, research is encouraged in provinces like kwazulu-natal, limpopo and north west that received much less attention from scholars. this is because scholars continually call on research conducted in one province to be replicated in the context of another province to confirm previous findings. in this direction, chimucheka et al.104 focused their research on the use of social networks by immigrant entrepreneurs only in the eastern cape province, and as such this makes it difficult for their findings to be applied in the other provinces in sa. future research can therefore investigate the same phenomenon in the different provinces of sa to confirm their findings. fatoki,107 who examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and immigrant entrepreneurs in sa, limited the research to johannesburg and pretoria in the gauteng province. he cautioned, however, that care should be exercised in generalising the findings to all immigrant businesses in sa. therefore, further research in the same regard could be conducted in the other provinces to confirm or contradict his findings. chimucheka et al.,105 who investigated the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of immigrant-owned businesses, focused their research on the eastern cape province, and they considered only businesses with less than 200 employees. therefore, to generalise their findings, future research should replicate their studies in the different provinces of sa and include immigrant businesses with more than 200 employees. furthermore, immigrant entrepreneurs from other regions such as asia, europe, oceania, and north and south america should be included. this is because the majority of research on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa has focused on african immigrant entrepreneurs, particularly those from western and southern africa. involving all immigrant entrepreneurs in research could provide invaluable insights that are not yet widely known in sa. networking despite their lack of resources, immigrant entrepreneurs do not use official networks to obtain such resources;58 they mainly limit themselves to co-ethnic networking. as such, fatoki et al.58 suggested that immigrant entrepreneurs in sa should network with accountants and lawyers. future research should therefore focus on determining whether other networks, such as family networks, business networks, managerial networks and interorganisational networks, can have an impact on the performance of immigrant entrepreneurs in sa, given the efforts already expended on ethnic and social networks. individually, these networks can be investigated to gain a thorough understanding of the impact they can have on immigrant entrepreneurs in sa. finally, mankgele et al.94 recommend that future research should focus on how to improve networking and teamwork between immigrant and local entrepreneurs in sa. figure 2 summarises the above-mentioned future research suggestions on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. figure 2: future research suggestions on immigrant entrepreneurship in south africa. barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs muchineripi et al.,19 who researched the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs, focused on small businesses; as their research excluded businesses operating on a much bigger scale, they suggested that future research in the same direction should include large businesses in their sample. future research could also focus on the barriers, individually; if these barriers were better understood, they would be easier to circumvent. most of the studies that focus on barriers and challenges faced by immigrant entrepreneurs focus on african immigrant entrepreneurs;11,14,19 this is despite the fact that sa has immigrant entrepreneurs from other continents such as europe, asia and oceania. future research can therefore focus on investigating the barriers that are faced by immigrant entrepreneurs who come from these other continents to conclude whether they all face the same problems or not. additionally, many of the studies on barriers and challenges faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa have focused on the western and eastern cape provinces. perhaps future research could investigate the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in the other provinces to confirm previous findings or to provide new insights. limitations of the review this study, like most other studies, has its limitations. the study focused on the publication trends, methodological and theoretical approaches employed in immigrant entrepreneurship in sa, the provincial distribution of immigrant entrepreneurship research, the network types used by immigrant entrepreneurs and the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs in sa. not all aspects of methodologies and research methods were considered; for example, sampling methods, measurement variables and data collection methods are interesting aspects that future research can focus on. in addition, work in progress, conference proceedings and edited books were not considered in the review. these sources could also have provided additional useful information. furthermore, despite the authors’ exhaustive internet search, some studies regarding immigrant entrepreneurship may have been missed. this review only focused on publication trends, methodological and theoretical approaches, provincial focus, networking and the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs. there are other aspects, such as industry focus, that were not captured in the review. it is also reasonable to conclude that the search method and key terms used may have excluded relevant articles that could have provided additional insights into the review. conclusion immigrant entrepreneurship is a global phenomenon, but it is a new and emerging concept in developing countries, including sa. this article presented a systematic review of immigrant entrepreneurship research in sa between 2009 and 2021. the article concentrated on publication trends, research methods, theoretical approaches, provincial focus, networking and the barriers faced by immigrant entrepreneurs; in addition, the article discussed and proposed areas of future research on the emergent concept. according to the findings, the concept drew more attention from academics between 2016 and 2018. although the majority of the papers in the review based their research on theories, some studies did not mention any supporting theories. as a result, all research should be based on supporting theories. most of the articles in the review adopted a quantitative research method. some provinces have received extraordinarily little or no scholarly attention. moreover, immigrant entrepreneurs limit themselves to co-ethnic networks and lament the lack of local networks. the researchers are confident that the future research avenues identified above will spark additional research on immigrant entrepreneurship in sa. a wide variety of studies have contributed to the available body of knowledge on immigrant entrepreneurship. this article attempted to contribute to immigrant entrepreneurship literature in the south african context by synthesising the findings on immigrant entrepreneurship published between 2009 and 2021. the article offers a summary of immigrant entrepreneurship literature in sa that has been published in academic journals. acknowledgements competing interest the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions c.n.f. conceptualised the idea and wrote the first draft of the article. m.n.m. reviewed the first and final drafts of the article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information the authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jc8x9sjeao7hwmmhkd70x5dwzqjw_y3x/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104353174978392330220&rtpof=true&sd=true disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references skinner c, hunter n. foreigners working on the streets of durban: local government policy challenges. urban forum. 2003;14(4):301–319. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-003-0016-7 chamie j. international migration amid a world in crisis. j migr hum secur. 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2013, pp. 241-276. a grammar of business rules in information systems p joubert,1 jh kroeze2 and c de villiers,3 abstract there are many situations during information system development (isd) where there is a need to do modelling on a business level before more detailed and robust modelling are done on the technical system level. most business level modelling uses some form of natural language constructs which are, on the one hand, easy to use by untrained users, but which are too vague and ambiguous to be used in subsequent systems level modelling by systems analysts, on the other hand. the goal of this article is to suggest a subset of morphology, syntax and semantics concepts that may be used to analyse texts containing business rules during information systems analysis and design. the contribution of this research is to provide a better understanding of the fundamental entities in business and isd modelling and their relationships in order to improve informal, mostly textual, business modelling. keywords: business rules, modelling, grammar, morphology, syntax, semantics disciplines: information systems, information systems development, information systems analysis and design, linguistics acknowledgement this article is based on a chapter from a phd thesis by pieter joubert (towards an integrative modelling technique between business and information systems development) who graduated posthumously in the department of informatics at the university of pretoria on 4 september 2013. 1. introduction there are many situations during information system development (isd) where there is a need to do modelling on a business level before more detailed and robust modelling are done on the technical system level. most business level modelling uses some form of natural language constructs which are, on the one hand, easy to use by untrained users, but which are too vague and ambiguous to be used in subsequent systems level modelling by systems analysts, on the other hand. the goal of this article is to suggest a subset of linguistic concepts that may be used to analyse texts containing business rules during information 1 . this article is based on part of the phd study of the late dr. pieter joubert (1958 2013), who was a member of staff in the department of informatics, university of pretoria. 2 . prof. jan h kroeze is chair of department of the school of computing, university of south africa, pretoria. corresponding author: email kroezjh@unisa.ac.za 3 . prof. carina de villiers is attached to the department of informatics, university of pretoria. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 242 systems analysis and design. although references are to other linguistic modules, the main focus is on following three levels of modelling entities and their relationships: • base entities (corresponding to the morphological level in linguistics); • structure entities (corresponding to the syntactical level in linguistics); and • role entities (corresponding to the semantic level in linguistics). 2. background one of the problems hampering information systems development (isd) is the lack of a truly integrated modelling technique or set of techniques. truly integrated modelling techniques will support modelling during all the phases of the isd life cycle, from business analysis and systems design to development, and ultimately the maintenance of the resultant system. integration does not pose such a huge problem during the later phases of system design and development. techniques such as the unified modelling language (uml) provide for modelling integration during the later phases of the isd life cycle adequately. the problem underlying this research is specifically the integration between modelling for business and modelling for isd. for example, how can we model business rules for an organisation so that business users can easily understand and use it, while at the same time that model has enough expressive power to create a design enabling programmers to implement those same business rules in an information system? the integration problem has another side to it. not only is there an integration problem between the business side and isd, but also between different aspects of business modelling. zur, muehlen and indulska (2010:39) refer to research that point to representational weaknesses in process modelling languages. they speculate that business rule modelling languages can overcome these weaknesses, but the integration of rule and process modelling is seen as problematic. they refer to a recent study showing that organisations frequently supplement their business process modelling notation (bpmn) models with business rules in textual annotations. similarly, recker (2010) found in a study on the use of bpmn that a major problem is support in articulating business rules. excellent modelling languages and techniques exist for isd, but very few of them can be simply applied to business modelling. wilcox and gurau (2003) identify a number of problems with integration definition for function modelling (idef) for business modelling and then propose uml instead, but then with the provision that it must be extended with an extension like the eriksson-penker business extensions. the problems are mostly related to complexity, with most business users finding it too difficult to express their business needs in an isd language or technique, or expressiveness, with users not being able to model everything they require (recker, 2010). in practice, most business modelling is done in unstructured text format, which leads to unclear, ambiguous descriptions. there is also a big jump from the unstructured text in use case narratives and textual specifications to the detail needed in a technical level class or entity diagram. for instance, in a study on practical experiences with eliciting classes from use case descriptions, cox and phalp (2007:1286) concluded the following: “it can be construed that there is a lack of detailed guidance about moving from a use case description to elements of design.” thirdly, there is a need to integrate the techniques between non-technical business use (e.g. to define business rules and to define enterprise architectures) and technical it use (e.g. specifying systems interfaces and designing information system applications). grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 243 according to sinha et al. (2009:327), natural language remains the main way of specifying requirements. the adoption of more formal requirements modelling has been slow, mainly because of the “high entry barrier for customer participation”. this paper makes a contribution to information systems by a transdisciplinary approach that integrates the theory process of business rules analysis with insights borrowed from linguistics in order to solve the practical problem referred to above, i.e. to bridge the gap between vague business texts and precise, formal and programmable statements to be used in information systems development. the natural language statements of use cases can easily be ambiguous and vague, but it is a little bit easier to be more clear and direct with the proposed grammar. information can be transmitted or stored in material media only when a language is available. there are different kinds of languages (gitt, 1997): • natural languages • artificial communication languages, such as esperanto, flag codes and traffic signs • formal artificial languages, such as mathematical calculi, chemical symbols, musical notation, algorithmic languages and programming languages • special languages found in living organisms, such as genetic languages, bee gyrations, pheromonal languages and hormonal languages the subset of morphology, syntax and semantics identified below, using a grounded, analytical approach, forms the building blocks for a formal, artificial language that may be used to facilitate the creation of algorithms in business programming. the adopted linguistic concepts enables the processes of communication in the complex systems of isd (cf. checkland, 1999). to function as a whole, there must also be some form of communication between the system components. each subsystem receives inputs, which stimulate further activity to produce outputs, passing this either to other subsystems or to the environment (patching, 1990). during the 1970s, mainly as a result of work done by checkland (2000), the concept of the so-called “soft system” emerged. at the centre of this approach is the concept of a human activity system modelled by using ordinary language rather than mathematical symbols. it can be used in poorly structured situations where the choice of system and the delineation of system boundaries are controversial. the research in this article is an example of the use of human language and linguistics, albeit a subset of natural language, that can be used to model human activity systems in information systems (is), for example, the use of nouns, verbs and adverbials to indicate physical and conceptual things, business actions, as well as the location, time and reasons of these (cf. zachman, 1987; sowa and zachman, 1992). the next section gives an overview of business rules in is in order to understand the need for linguistic analysis to be addressed later. 3. business rules in is business rules are one of the major means by which a system “organisation” controls itself, and a major part of isd is to elicit business rules and to embed them into an is subsystem of the organisation with the purpose of enabling the control of a part of the organisation. for instance, business rules embedded in the financial is, together with the business rules embedded in the manual procedures in a financial department, assures control of the financial subsystem of the organisation. business rules have gained prominence over the last few years. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 244 they are seen as important assets of organisations that should be managed carefully (ram and khatri, 2005). business rules can also be seen as an important (maybe the most important) link between business and is (bajec and krisper, 2005). there is no generally accepted standard definition for business rules (hamza and fayad, 2005). many definitions for business rules have been proposed, but in essence, business rules are statements that govern the structure and behaviour of various business components. some characteristics of business rules are as follows (bajec and krisper, 2005): • they exist in various forms, from simple to very complex and dynamic. • they can originate: o internally, mostly derived from strategic processes, determining the organisation’s vision, goals and policies; or o externally, from government, industry or specific professional rules as well as natural timeless facts (herbst, 1996). • they can be based on explicit (formalised knowledge in the form of principles, procedures, facts, figures, rules and formulas) or tacit knowledge (knowledge that is difficult to see and express). • they can be found in documents, procedures, policies, regulations, user manuals and is. • explicit business rules are a manifestation of a richer underlying implicit knowledge. steinke and nickolette (2003) consider a business rule good if it has the following characteristics: • declarative: it is not stated in a procedural manner. • precise: the meaning of the rule is clear. • atomic: the rule contains one concept only. • consistent: there are no conflicting rules. • non-redundant: no information is repeated. • business-oriented: it is stated in business terminology. • owned by the business: business people are able to maintain the business rules. 3.1 business rules and isd information systems normally implement a large number of business rules, for example, the 627 business rules applied in a 12 000-line cobol application and the 809 in a 30 000-line cobol application (fu et al., 2004). a typical information system has three elements: an interface (usually gui), application code/logic and a database. business rules can be stored in any of these three elements. this can cause various problems with the maintenance of business rules. steinke and nickolette (2003) propose that a further layer be introduced to manage business rules. business rules also require explicit treatment during isd to ensure is agility; otherwise the rules do not reflect real business. this results in applications that do not meet business needs, a lack of documentation on business rules, business rules that are buried in program code, business logic that is hard to maintain and business rules that are hard to control (bajec and krisper, 2005). the majority of is business rules are not explicitly modelled during analysis and design. these rules are only implicitly specified in system models and implicitly embedded in application program code and database structures (ram and khatri, 2005). grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 245 updating an implemented set of constraints is not easy, because the mapping between highlevel constraints and their implementation in various software artefacts are not explicitly done and maintained (fu et al., 2004). therefore, business rules captured in an information system initially can be adequate, but may get outdated and out of sync later on. there is thus a need for a formal approach towards capturing and managing business rules (ram and khatri, 2005). various conceptual models have been proposed to capture the meaning and structure of business rules, but most of them only capture a limited range of constraint types. this has given rise to the development of constraint definition languages. these languages are, however, more oriented towards logical than conceptual design and are difficult for users to understand (ram and khatri, 2005). according to bajec and krisper (2005), business rule management (brm) is needed to manage information about business rules’ evolution and to coordinate their changes centrally. 3.2 types of business rules various types of business rules are identified in the literature and various attempts have been made to classify these rules. the business rules group’s classification has become the de facto classification of business rules and forms the basis of the classification used in this study (hay and healy, 2000). the business rules group classifies business rules as follows (ibid.): • terms: define a thing or data about it • facts: indicate connections between terms • constraints (or action assertions): allow or prohibit actions • derivations (or inferences): define the transformation of knowledge from one form to another, for instance, formulas over and above the types of business rules specified by the business rules group, other types of business rules can also be identified. according to perkins (2000), a business statement is a simple declaration in business language stating strategic business rules such as critical success factors, the enterprise mission, goals, policies, objectives, strategies, performance measures, information needs, functions and events. steinke and nickolette (2003) classify business rules on a business statement level as follows: • mandates: published policies that must be followed, otherwise consequences will be faced, e.g. pay vat. • policies: published policies that should be followed to implement the organisational rules, e.g. mission statements. a business policy is a general statement or direction for an organisation (ram and khatri, 2005). for example: “we only rent cars in legal, roadworthy condition to our customers.” each policy may be composed of more detailed policies (hay and healy, 2000). • guidelines: rules followed, depending on some judgment, e.g. management style. steinke and nicolette (2003) define guidelines as the “shoulds” of the organisation and mandates as the “musts” of the organisation. table 1 summarises the different business rule types. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 246 type explanation source terms word or phrases that have specific meanings for businesses in designated contexts. hay and healy (2000) facts the relationships between different entities and between an entity and its attributes. von halle (2000) constraints statements about some dynamic aspect of the business indicating the results that actions can produce. hay and healy (2000) derivations business rules derived from other business rules and information. hamza and fayad (2005) business statements a declaration in business language stating strategic business rules. perkins (2000) mandates published policies that must be followed, otherwise consequences will be faced. steinke and nickolette (2003) policies published policies that must be followed to implement organisational rules. steinke and nickolette (2003) guidelines rules followed, depending on some judgment. steinke and nickolette (2003) table 1: business rule types 3.3 business rule relationships hamza and fayad (2005) consider businesses to consist of business objects (like objects and processes) plus business rules. a business change means that either one or more business objects or one or more business rules have changed. business objects and business rules can be classified according to their stability (probability to change) as stable, partially stable or unstable. bajec and krisper (2005) identify the following business components related to business rules: business goals, processes or activities, eca structures (meaning, when event happens, and conditions are met, execute activity), business rule descriptions, business terms, business concepts, business actors and resources (e.g. organisation unit, business function or business role). these components are related to business rules in many ways. for instance, business rules support the achievement of business goals, trigger activities, define eca structures, are described in business rule descriptions, define business concepts, are the responsibilities of business actors and are related to resources. business rules also relate to other business rules, for instance, one business rule supports another business rule or is in conflict with another. rosca and d’attilio (2001) provide an example of sets of business rules applied to a business action. for instance, business action calculate discount can be supported by the following grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 247 business rules: “orders > 500 get 30% discount”; “orders > 100 receive 15% discount for preferred customers”; and “orders < 100 receive 10% discount”. business actions are seen as fairly stable, while business rules can change frequently. according to steinke and nicolette (2003), a business rule is not a passive, static element. it is triggered by an event, an action, an operation, a condition or a parameter. to really understand a business rule, one should understand the cause and effect on the event. poo (1999) defines an event as a set of activities that are performed either fully or not at all (depending on preconditions), after it was invoked by a stimulus (actor or point in time reached by system) and it has an effect on the state of a system by creating or deleting objects and/or changing the state of exiting objects. herbst (1996) states that the environment of business rules consists of processes, data model components, organisational units and is components. in summary, businesses consist of the following: • events invoked by some actor or a point in time • actions (e.g. processes and activities) caused by these events • business rules constraining events and actions • business objects (e.g. actors and resources) all of these business components are related to each other and to themselves (i.e. business rules are also related to other business rules). 3.4 business rule representation business rules are represented in various formats from natural language statements to formalised rule languages (ram and khatri, 2005). hamza and fayad (2005) suggest the reuse of business rules, but also contend that it is complex and hard to achieve. they suggest that to accomplish this, business rules should semantically be abstracted and generalised. hamza and fayad (2005) propose a rule dependency diagram showing the relationships between rules and business objects, as well as between rules and other rules. fu et al. (2004) define constraint business rules in terms of structures and constraints and use structureconstraint (s-c) graphs to represent them. a structure is defined as follows by fu et al. (2004): • it is an intension for a set of data. • it can be primitive or a composite of other structures; in other words, not only flat but nested structures are also allowed. • it has a depth, which is the number of nested structures it consists of. • it must be acyclical, i.e. not be a component of itself. • it has a domain: • primitive structure – the set of values from which the structure draws its instances. • composite structure – the cartesian product of its components’ domains. • it has a state at a specific time – the subset of the domain that the structure has at that time. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 248 for example, the structure that a mobile phone service provider can use to record orders received from its customers is as follows (fu et al., 2004): order(customer(id, name, status); service(network, freetime); and recommender(id, name, status). the composite structures are order, customer, service and recommender; and the primitive structures are id, name, status and freetime. the depth of order is 2, customer is 1 and id is 0. fu et al. (2004) represent constraints using predicate logic with two restrictions: they only use a small subset of predefined predicates (like enumerate, equal, atmost and subsume) and they use meta-level elements (like network and freetime) in predicates. to represent nested structures, they use path expressions (like service.freetime). constraints can be related to structures and these relations can be represented using s-c graphs. an s-c graph is created from a set of structures (s) and a set of constraints (c). 3.5 from business rules to is modelling business rules are statements that govern the structure and behaviour of various business components. they are very important in the context of analysing, designing and developing is, but also in businesses in order to model strategic, tactical and operational business rules. business rules are mostly classified as terms, facts, constraints (action assertions) or derivations. some research has gone into the structure of the various types of business rules. business rules are linked to other business objects such as actors and resources, actions such as processes, activities and events invoked by actor and time. due to the length of this article, readers are referred to shelly and rosenblatt (2012) for more background on the use of business rules in information systems analysis and design. businesses are defined by business rules and these business rules are incorporated into is as follows: • business objects (e.g. actors and resources) are described by terms, facts and derivations, which are mostly embedded in databases and files. • events and actions (e.g. processes and activities) are described by constraints and are mostly embedded in programs and manual system procedures. the goal of this article is to formalise the subset of morphological, syntactic and semantic concepts being used in business-rule texts in order to bridge the gap between unstructured language and isd. a formal grammar of business rules will help to represent all types of business rules so that these can again be converted into is models with relative ease. the next section proposes such a subset of linguistic concepts that may provide this bridging facility. 4. a linguistic analysis of is modelling modelling is closely linked to linguistics and language. most modelling techniques use linguistic constructs to help analysts to identify is modelling constructs. in the literature, numerous authors link linguistics and is modelling (chen, 1976; capuchino, juristo and van de riet, 2000; carter, long and truex, 2007; leppanen, 2006; charaf, rosenkranz and holten, 2010). this principle is still valid in contemporary data modelling, e.g.: “as a general rule, a noun in a business rule will translate into an entity in the model and a verb (active or passive) associating nouns will translate into a relationship among the entities” (coronel et grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 249 al., 2013:38). this article builds on this principle and extends the limited traditional examples into a comprehensive system. in his seminal work on entity relationships, chen (1976) has shown that there is a correspondence between erd constructs and natural language. he shows that a common noun corresponds to an entity type, a proper noun to an entity instance, a transitive verb to a relationship type and an adjective to an entity attribute. capuchino et al. (2000:26) propose a conceptual modelling method based on the idea “… that there is some relation between the linguistic world, in which the user need is represented, and the oo [object-oriented – authors’ insertion] conceptual world, in which developers represent the above need.” the purpose of this section is to expand the statements made by chen, capuchino et al. and others, and to do an extended comparison between linguistics concepts and is modelling. fundamental linguistic concepts are related to is modelling. linguistics is divided into a number of different areas. the areas of morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics are directly applicable to is modelling, while other areas like phonology and phonetics are not. the last two areas have to do with sounds of language and the sounds of human speech, respectively (stabler, 2010), not contributing to the issue of modelling directly. a number of standard works on linguistics and natural language processing were used to provide the information in this chapter (stabler, 2010; shinghal, 1992; valeika and buitkiene, 2003; kornai, 2007; haspelmath, 2001). where required, other works were used and specifically referenced. 4.1 morphology morphology is concerned with one of the most fundamental units of linguistic structure, namely the word. 4.1.1 words and morphemes words are constructed out of morphemes, i.e. any part of a word that cannot be broken down further into meaningful parts. compare for instance the words “class” and “classes”. the morpheme “class” cannot be broken down any further, while the word “classes” consists of a base morpheme, “class”, and a plural morpheme, “es”. in a similar manner, we have the words “schedule”, “schedules”, “scheduled” and “scheduling” related to the base concept of “to schedule”. table 2 relates the linguistic concept of words and morphemes to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link words and morphemes not all words used in a specific area to be modelled will be used for is modelling. for instance, when verbs are specified in process and object modelling, only the lexeme (represented by the first-person present tense format) is normally specified, e.g. “order” and not “orders” or “ordered”. table 2: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of words and morphemes joubert, kroeze & de villiers 250 4.1.2 lexicon in a natural language, such as english, all words in the language are described in a general dictionary that represents the language’s lexicon, i.e. a list of definitions of every word in the language. table 3 relates the linguistic concept of the lexicon to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link lexicon in a business or information system, situation words can have very specific meanings not necessarily as defined in the natural-language dictionary. therefore, most modelling methodologies recommend defining all words (often called terms) that have a context-specific meaning in a data dictionary (cf. shelly & rosenblatt, 2012:217). for instance, in normal use “client” and “customer” can be seen as synonyms, but in a specific organisation “client” could mean “a client who has no account with us”, while “customer” could mean “a client who has an account with us”. table 3: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of the lexicon 4.1.3 lexical categories words can firstly be grouped as open-class or closed-class words. open-class words (also called content words) belong to the four major lexical categories of noun, verb, adjective and adverb. closed-class words (also called grammatical or function words) belong to the minor lexical categories. (a) open-class and closed-class words the set of open-class words tends to be quite large and “open-ended”, i.e. new words can be created and added almost unlimitedly. just consider all the new words created fairly recently as a result of advances in information technology, e.g. “cell phone”, “email”, “spam”, “hacker”. closed-class words belong to the minor lexical categories of articles (“the”, “a”), demonstratives (“this”, “that”), quantifiers (“all”, “most”, “some”, “few”), conjunctions (“and”, “or”), comparatives (“more”, “less”), prepositions (“to”, “from”, “at”, “with”) and pronouns (“i”, “you”, “she”, “her”, “them”). the set of closed-class words tends to be relatively small and additions or changes to it is unlikely to happen often (e.g. it is highly unlikely that changes or additions to the lexical group of articles will take place in the next few years). table 4 relates the linguistic concept of open and closed class words to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link open-class words vs. closed-class words there is an unlimited number of concepts as described by entities, objects and processes, but a more limited number of “reserved” words, like “if”, “and”, “or”, and “for every”. table 4: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of open and closed class words (b) nouns nouns denote persons, places or things, e.g. the man walked to london. the things can be those we perceive through our senses or those we can conceive in our minds as ideas. things grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 251 also include animals. nouns have certain important properties: (1) number, i.e. singular or plural, (2) case, categories such as subject (nominative case), object (accusative case), and marking ownership, origin or association (genitive case) and (3) gender in languages like german and french. various categories of nouns, called genus, can be identified: 1. proper nouns: names of specific persons, places or things, such as “shakespeare”, “canada”, “mount everest”, “susan”. these nouns are written beginning with an upper-case letter. 2. common nouns: names of non-specific persons, places or things, such as “city”, “horse”, “women”, “milk”, “ambition”, “thought”. a common noun cannot be a proper noun and vice versa. 3. count nouns: those that can be counted, such as one “man”, two “men”, etc. when used in sentences, these nouns are frequently preceded by words like “a”, “an”, “each”, “every” or “many”. 4. mass nouns (or non-count nouns): those that cannot be counted. these nouns do not usually have a plural form. examples are “dirt”, “foam”, “water”, “honesty”, “homework”, “steel”. when used in sentences, these nouns are frequently preceded by words like “much”, “more”, “little” or “less”. some nouns can be used both as count and mass nouns, e.g. “she pulled out two hairs” (count noun), “she cut her hair” (mass noun). 5. collective nouns: name of a group with the members of the group sharing some characteristics: an “army” (of soldiers), a “crowd” (of people), a “flock” (of geese), a “herd (of cows) and a “team” (of players). a collective noun is usually considered to be singular. 6. compound nouns: those that were originally written as two or more words. either a sequence of separate words, a sequence of hyphenated words or one word derived from merging the original sequence of words, for example, “funny bone”, “mother-inlaw”, “blackboard”. 7. concrete nouns: names of tangibles like “book”, “board”, “plane”, “crowd”, “water” and “mount everest”. 8. abstract nouns: names of intangibles like “ambition”, “fragrance”, “honesty”, “integrity”, “truth” and “thought”. an abstract noun cannot be a concrete noun, and vice versa. 9. living nouns: for example, “plant”, “shrub”, “man”, “woman”, “boy”, “girl”, “colt”, “filly”. 10. animate nouns: for example, “man”, “woman”, “boy”, “girl”, “colt”, “filly”. 11. human nouns: for example, “man”, “woman”, “boy”, “girl”. 12. masculine nouns: for example, “man”, “boy”, “colt”. 13. feminine nouns: for example, “woman”, “girl”, “filly”. 14. neuter nouns: for example, “plant”, “shrub”. note that genera 1–8 are normally found in grammar books (stabler, 2010:58–60), while genera 10–14 are used to create natural language processors (shinghal, 1992:145–146). a noun may be of more than one genus, for example, a colt is a common, count, concrete, living, animate, masculine noun. table 5 relates the linguistic concepts regarding nouns to is modelling. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 252 linguistic concept is modelling link noun nouns are very important in is modelling and many modelling techniques recommend using nouns to identify modelling objects, for instance, entities (erd) and classes (uml). number of a noun an important part of data and object modelling is to identify the one or the many parts in a relationship. for instance, one customer can have many orders. there is also the concept in object orientation of the design pattern called “singleton”, a class with just one instance – for example, the class current president of the country will always just have one instance. case of a noun the nominative and accusative cases of a noun can be used to clearly make a distinction between subjects and objects. the genitive case can be used to identify whole-part relationships like aggregation in class diagrams, and entityattribute relationships in erds – for instance, the product’s components and the client’s name. genus of a noun the whole concept of categorisation per se is important. it relates to, for instance, class hierarchies. proper nouns are rarely used in modelling (unless there is in reality only one of a type, e.g. the reserve bank of south africa). proper nouns will mostly indicate the value of an attribute. a more generic noun indicating the relevant role will rather be used. for example, finance department should be seen as a specific instance of department. count and mass nouns the distinction between count and mass nouns has no direct use in is modelling, but in practice most nouns are count nouns. collective nouns collective nouns may indicate special relationships like aggregation, e.g. project team implies team members. abstract and concrete nouns there is no distinction in modelling between the two types. both types are handled equally. human and neuter nouns human nouns indicate possible actors and agents, while neuter nouns indicate mostly the objects of actions. table 5: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concepts regarding nouns (c) verbs action verbs portray actions, e.g. “he walked slowly forward”, while existence verbs indicate states of existence, e.g. “absa is a bank”. different types of verbs can be identified concerning their transitivity. transitive verbs take one noun phrase after them, like “the client paid his account”; intransitive verbs do not take any noun phrases after them, like “john laughed”; grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 253 while ditransitive verbs take two noun phrases, like “the pope proclaimed elizabeth the queen”. another categorisation of verbs concerns auxiliary and main verbs. auxiliary verbs are a closed set and includes forms of the verb “be” (“is”, “am”, “are”, “was”), forms of the verb “have” (“have”, “has”, “had”), forms of the verb “do” (“do”, “does”, “did”) and modal auxiliaries indicating possibility, necessity and obligation (“can”, “could”, “will”, “would”, “shall”, “might”, “may”, “must”). main verbs are verbs like “run”, “walk” and “sing”. a verb has six properties. like a noun and a pronoun, a verb has a person (first, second or third) and a number (singular or plural). for example, “walks” is a third person singular verb. in a sentence, the person and number of a verb is the same as the person and number of its subject. the tense of a verb indicates the time of the action or the state of existence portrayed by the verb. there are three tenses: past, present and future. within each tense there are four aspects: • simple – action just happens • perfective – action completed in past, present or future • progressive (or continuous) – action continues in past, present or future • perfective progressive – a combination of perfective and progressive. the voice of a verb denotes the relationship of the verb with its subject. it can be active or passive. in active voice, the subject does the action portrayed by the verb: “archie showed the book.” in passive voice, the action is done to the subject: “the book was shown by archie.” the mood (or mode) of a verb tells us about the attitude and understanding of the speaker or writer about the action or state of existence portrayed by the verb. a verb can have three modes: indicative, imperative and subjunctive. the indicative mood makes a statement or asks a question, for example, “she will be a singer”, or “will she be a singer”? the imperative mood issues a command, an exhortation or a request, e.g. “show your book” or “have mercy on me”. the subjunctive mode expresses (1) certain stock expressions, like “be that as it may”, “come one, come all”; (2) a condition expressed contrary to fact, like “if i were you, i would have greeted her” (in reality, i am not you); (3) a desire, recommendation or a requirement by using words like “ask”, “demand”, “essential”, “important”, “insist”, “move”, “necessary” and “obligatory”, for example, “i insist that he show his book”. the subjunctive is gradually disappearing in practice, except in stock expressions. transitive verbs can sometimes occur without an overt direct object, but there is almost always an implied, unexpressed, covert direct object. for instance, “he ate” implies that he ate food and not something else. there are a few transitive verbs that have little information and depend on the rest of the predicate to provide meaning. for example, “john does my taxes”, “she does her nails”, and “they are having a meeting”. table 6 relates the linguistic concepts regarding verbs to is modelling. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 254 linguistic concept is modelling link verb types action verbs (plus a noun phrase) are mostly used to describe action-related modelling constructs like functions, programmes, use cases, processes, etc. for example, the “orderproduct screen” or the “printemployeedetail report”. note that on a higher level, action-related constructs are defined by nouns, for example, “payroll system”. existence verbs are indicative of relationships between entities, e.g. “the cashier is an employee”. main verbs are used mostly, while auxiliary verbs are seldom used, except for modal auxiliaries that are used in business rules, e.g. “all orders must/should be authorised by the department manager.” person and number of a verb because one works with roles, the person and number of a verb is not relevant and most modelling techniques indicate verbs to be first person singular form (or lexeme). voice of a verb only the active voice is used in modelling. passive voice sentences are basically never used to model and are transformed to active. tense and aspect of a verb this is related to time and state and can be indicated in different ways. modelling will mostly be done in simple present tense. if this is an as-is or a to-be picture of the system, it will be indicated by the context. mood of a verb most modelling will be in indicative mood. imperative mood will be used to specify business rules and instructions, for instance, “only authorised managers can approve leave application”. transitivity of the verb most verbs will take one object, for example, “update client information” and “order product”. implied direct objects are normally made explicit. if a transitive verb with little information, such as “does”, occurs, it normally indicates a function or process on a higher level in the decomposition hierarchy. for instance, “manager does day-end procedure” is most probably on a higher level than “manager prints dayend report”. table 6: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of verbs (d) adjectives adjectives specify the attributes of a noun or pronoun, e.g. “the tall girl danced”. when an adjective is part of a noun phrase, it is called an attributive adjective, e.g. “the fat lady”. when an adjective is not part of the noun phrase and it complements a verb, it is called a predicative adjective, e.g. “the lady is fat”. table 7 relates the linguistic concept of adjectives to is modelling. grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 255 linguistic concept is modelling link adjectives they relate mostly to the values of attributes of a corresponding entity or object, e.g. “red” is the value of attribute “colour” of entity/object “rental car”. table 7: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of adjectives (e) adverbs adverbs modify verbs (“he sang loudly”), adjectives (“a very tall building”), other adverbs (“unbelievably quickly”) and sentences (sadly, he died). semantically, adverbs indicate when, where, how or to what degree. adverbs can be of the following types: 1) adverbs of manner modify a verb to tell how an action is done, e.g. “he waited eagerly”. 2) adverbs/adverbial phrases of place modify a verb to tell where an action is done, e.g. “she lives near the sea”. 3) adverbs of time modify a verb to tell when or how long an action is done, e.g. “he cried yesterday” and “he cried unendingly”. 4) adverbs of frequency modify a verb to tell how frequently an action is done, e.g. “he cried once”. 5) adverbs of degree modify a verb to tell how much an action is done, e.g. “he nearly had an accident”. 6) a sentence adverb modifies a sentence to tell about the writer’s comments, e.g. “frankly, he is a snob”. 7) adverbs of focus and viewpoint explain the focus or viewpoint of a sentence, e.g. “he doesn’t like pudding, especially christmas pudding” and “financially, things are going well”. 8) truth adverbs express what the speaker knows about the truth of statement, e.g. “maybe she is lost” and “the athlete allegedly took steroids”. 9) comment adverbs makes comments about what is being said, e.g. “he wisely didn’t say a word”. 10) linking adverbs relates to a previous clause or sentence, e.g. “he worked very hard. however, he still had time to relax,” and “in conclusion, we must invest internationally to survive”. table 8 relates the linguistic concept of adverbs to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link adverbs adverbs relate, among other things, to the different aspects of the zachman framework. for instance, “the client orders stock weekly/monthly” relates to the when aspect of zachman’s framework and “stock is stored in the stockroom” relates to the where aspect. table 8: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of adverbs joubert, kroeze & de villiers 256 (f) compound words words can occur in compounds. these compounds can occur with various combinations of lexical categories. for instance: noun + noun (“spaceship”, “electronic mail”), adjective + adjective (“red-hot”), adjective + noun (“blackboard”), and noun + adjective (“earthbound”, “pitch-black”). table 9 relates the linguistic concept of compound words to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link compound words in many modelling situations, compound nouns are written as one word, for example “user_rights” or “userrights”. table 9: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of compound words (g) word relationships it is also important to realise that specific words can be linked across lexical categories. for instance the verb “pay” is related to the nouns “payer” and “payee”, and the adjective “payable”, while the adverb “quickly” is linked to the adjective “quick”. table 10 relates the linguistic concept of word relationships to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link word relationships there are no specific uses of this concept in modelling. table 10: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of word relationships (h) conjunctions conjunctions connect words or groups of words, e.g. “you and i are a couple”. a conjunction is employed to connect words, phrases or clauses. for example, “he is fat and ugly”, “we went to the movies after we had dinner” and “the kind and generous man gave alms to the poor”. a conjunction can belong to one of the following classes: 1) subordinate conjunctions connect two finite clauses by making one clause subordinate to the other, e.g. “when i walked down the street, i saw him on the road”. 2) coordinating conjunctions connect words of the same formation and grammatical class, e.g. “john and mary are married”, “i will work and study next year”. 3) correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions that behave together like subordinate conjunctions, e.g. “he neither works nor studies”, “the more the merrier” and “both john and susan are engineers”. table 11 relates the linguistic concept of conjunctions to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link conjunctions conjunctions relates to boolean logic in modelling and programming. it occurs mostly in conditional statements, e.g. if the salary > x and the number of years in the company > 20 then … table 11: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of conjunctions grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 257 (i) interjections interjections express emotion, e.g. “wow, what a concert!” table 12 relates the linguistic concept of interjections to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link interjections not used in any is modelling. table 12: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of interjections (j) determiners determiners call attention to nouns by occurring before the nouns, e.g. “a mob damaged his bicycle”. the most frequently used determiners are “a”, “an”, and “the”. the determiner “the” makes the noun it determines definite, e.g. “the child fell down” (a specific child). the determiners “a” and “an” make the noun they determine indefinite, e.g. “a child fell down” (any child). articles occur with noun phrases and can either be definite (“the”) or indefinite (“a”, “an”). table 13 relates the linguistic concept of determiners to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link determiners determiners are not really used in is modelling, for instance, the name of a use case would rather be “register new client” than “register the new client”. table 13: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of determiners (k) prepositions prepositions indicate a semantic relationship between entities, such as the following: 1) location of one entity in relation to another, e.g. “the book is on/under/above/below/near the bookshelf”. 2) direction, e.g. “he travelled from his house to work”. 3) accompaniment, e.g. “with/without salt”. a preposition is one or more words that reveal the relationship between the object of the proposition and some other word in the clause. a preposition and its object constitute a prepositional phrase. for example, “the cost of this book is high”. some prepositions relate to place, such as “in”, “inside”, “under”, “across”, “on top of”, “below”, “in front”. most prepositions of place indicate where something is or where it is going. for example, “there was a barrier across the road” (position) and “the man ran across the road” (movement). prepositions of place can also have more abstract meanings, e.g. “i’m into classical music”, “his behaviour is above reproach and “the people are behind their manager”. some prepositions of place are one-dimensional. “at” is used when we see something as a point in space, e.g. “he was waiting at the house”. some are two-dimensional: “on” can be used for a surface, e.g. “the picture is on the wall”, or it can be used for a line, e.g. “the house is on the main road”. some are three-dimensional: “in” is used when we see something as all around, e.g. “the man in the blue shirt”. prepositions can also indicate time, e.g. “we met in 1999”, “on tuesday”, “in spring”, “during the week”, “since last week”. there are many idiomatic phrases beginning with a preposition, e.g. “he drives at top speed”, “i saw it on television”, “we arrived in time for dinner”, “we arrived on time for dinner”, “we arrived in good time for dinner” and “we arrived just in time for dinner”. table 14 relates the linguistic concept of prepositions to is modelling. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 258 linguistic concept is modelling link prepositions in modelling, the presence of prepositions indicates relationships, mostly spatial or time-related. table 14: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of prepositions (l) pronouns pronouns are words that are usually used in place of nouns or noun phrases, e.g. “she looked him in the eye”. the noun or noun phrase that is replaced by a pronoun is called the referent (or antecedent) of the pronoun. for example, in the sentence “anita walked to the door where she saw her younger brother leaning on crutches; he was wearing a cast on his left foot”, the referent of the pronoun “she” is anita, while the referent of the pronoun “he” is anita’s younger brother. the referent of a pronoun need not always be a particular noun or noun phrase. for example, in “he cheated, but it did not help him to succeed”, the referent of “it” is his cheating. the referent of a pronoun can often be found by seeing how the pronoun is declined. table 15 relates the linguistic concept of pronouns to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link pronouns pronouns are never used in modelling. the noun to which the pronoun refers is normally used. table 15: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of pronouns 4.2 syntax the study of the structure of sentences is called syntax. sentences are made up of clauses, clauses are built up from phrases and phrases are built up from one or more words. 4.2.1 phrases there are five kinds of phrases: 1) verb phrases consist of an ordinary verb (“come”, “sing”) plus optional auxiliary verbs (“is”, “had”, “can”). 2) noun phrases consist of a noun and usually a determiner in front of it. a noun phrase can also be a pronoun. a noun phrase is a group of words that is not a clause but, as a unit, behaves like a noun. for example, “the rowdy boys were punished”. the word “boys” is the vital part of the noun phrase. it is called the headword of the noun phrase. 3) adjective phrases consist of an adjective, sometimes with an adverb of degree (“very”). 4) adverb phrases consist of an adverb, sometimes with an adverb of degree (“almost”). 5) prepositional phrases consist of a preposition plus a noun phrase. table 16 relates the linguistic concept of phrases to is modelling. grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 259 linguistic concept is modelling link noun phrase composite noun phrases are normally translated into a single name, such as “employeeleave” or “employee_leave”. table 16: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of phrases 4.2.2 clauses sentences are made up of one or more main clauses. a main clause has a finite verb. “and”, “or”, “but”, and “so” are used to join main clauses, e.g. “it was late and i was tired”. a subclause is part of a main clause, e.g. “the wind caught him as he fell”, “i was tired because i was working”. we use “because”, “when”, “if”, “that”, etc. in subclauses. clauses are built up from phrases. the elements of an english clause are as follows: • subject: the person or thing about which the clause is. • predicate or verb: it describes what the subject did, what action was done to the subject or what state of existence the subject is in. • object: this is a person or thing affected by the action of the verb. • complement: this relates to the subject. • adverbial: this relates to the verb. the subject of a sentence is those words that tell us what the sentence is about. if the subject of a sentence comprises more than one part (connected by the words “and”, “but” or “or”) the subject is a compound subject. for example, “jan and susan helped with the chores”. the predicate is those words that do not constitute the subject. the predicate of a sentence tells us the following: • what the subject did: “susan toured france”. • what action was done to the subject: “susan was cheated by the guide”. • what state of existence the subject is in: “susan looked ill”. normally the subject occurs before (to the left) of the predicate, but they can be transposed. for example, “ill looked susan”. when the predicate explains more than one action or more than one state of existence (connected by the words “and”, “but” or “or”), then the predicate is a compound predicate. for example, “she hopped, skipped and jumped”. note that the sentence “he ate curry and rice” is not a compound predicate, because it explains only one action, namely “eating”. sentences can have both a compound subject and compound predicate. a group of words containing a subject and predicate constitutes a finite clause. a sentence has at least one finite clause. a non-finite clause is a group of words that express some sense of action or a state of existence, but the clause can never exists by itself, and is connected to some finite clause. for example, “i appreciated his visiting me”. some basic clause patterns are as follows: • a train – stopped (subject – intransitive verb) • five men – carried – the bag (subject – transitive verb – object) • the student – was – unlucky (subject – verb – complement) • a course – is presented – every semester (subject – verb – adverbial) joubert, kroeze & de villiers 260 • the mother – gave – the baby – its dummy (subject – verb – indirect object – direct object) note that all clause patterns contain a subject and a verb in that order. the most common clause pattern is subject – verb – object. 4.2.3 sentence a sentence is a grammatically autonomous word group that makes sense by expressing a thought. sentences are used to make statements, ask questions and issue directions. sentences can be simple, i.e. they consist of one clause that stands on its own, or complex, i.e. they consist of two or more clauses. a sentence can have positive or negative polarity (e.g. “she is there” vs. “she is not there”). different kinds of sentences can be identified: elliptical sentences are sentences from which words have been elided (deleted), for example, “(if) garbage (goes) in, (then) garbage (comes) out”. existential sentences are sentences containing an expletive like “there”; for example, “there are several lamps on the stand” is equivalent to “several lamps are on the stand”. declarative sentences make a statement and ends with a period. imperative sentences issue a command or a request. the subject, usually “you”, is often elided, for example, “please lend me the book”. interrogative sentences ask a question and ends with a question mark. the subject is the same as the corresponding declarative sentence. exclamatory sentences express emotion and end with an exclamation mark. they can also take on the structure of a declarative, imperative or interrogative sentence, for example, “isn’t she lovely!” a sentence s constitutes a noun phrase np followed by a verb phrase vp. this can be indicated as follows: s !np vp a noun phrase can have different formats, such as: np !n (n = noun) np ! det n (d = determiner) np ! det adj n (adj = adjective) a verb phrase can have different formats, such as: vp ! v (v = verb) vp ! v np vp ! v np pp (pp = prepositional phrase) table 17 relates the linguistic concept of sentence (and related concepts) to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link sentence many modelling constructs can be translated into sentences. for instance, a use case diagram can be translated into a sentence by making the actor the subject, and the use case name the predicate and object, such as “client orders product”. sentence polarity sentence polarity is related to boolean logic. it appears mostly in a conditional statement like “if it is not the end of the month, then…”. elliptical sentences ellipsis is not used in modelling because everything must be explicitly stated. grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 261 linguistic concept is modelling link existential sentences existential sentences and expletives are not normally used in modelling. declarative sentences most statements in modelling can be translated into declarative sentences. imperative sentences imperative sentences are used when modelling instructions to a user of a system, for example, “place the paper in the printer”. they are normally used in business rules and conditions and constraints. interrogative sentences interrogative sentences are not really used in modelling. exclamatory sentences exclamatory sentences are not really used in modelling. table 17: the link between is modelling and the linguistic sentence and related concepts 4.3 semantics semantics is concerned with meaning on both word and sentence level. three types of meaning can be identified: referential, social and affective meaning. figure 1: predication types (adapted from dik, 1997a; dik, 1997b) referential meaning refers to looking for the meaning of a word or sentence by considering the person, object, abstract notion, state or event to which the word or sentence refers. in a referring expression, like “john’s car”, the specific car belonging to john is the referent of the controlled uncontrolled dynamic non-dynamic action for example, “the man walks”. process for example, “the man fell”. state for example, “the man is good”. position for example, “the man sits”. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 262 expression. social meaning refers to the fact that over and above referential meaning, the choice of words can also convey social class, ethnicity, regional origin, gender and context. for instance, people calling their drink “pint”, “beer” or “lager” can indicate different social classes. with affective meaning, the choice of words conveys the language user’s feelings, attitudes, and opinions. for example, by using the word “speed cop” instead of “traffic officer” a different level of respect is indicated. 4.3.1. semantic functions the functional grammar of s.c. dik distinguishes between four states of affairs (or predications), based on the parameters controlled/uncontrolled and dynamic/non-dynamic (dik, 1997a; dik, 1997b). these four predication types are summarised in figure 1. table 18 relates the linguistic concept of predication types to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link the four states of predication: action, process, position, state in is, no distinction is normally made between the first three states of predication. all of them will be represented by either a use case or function or program or any other action-related construct. state, on the other hand, is specifically specified in especially uml, but also implicitly in erds. table 18: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of predication types a predication is the combination of the predicate plus compulsory terms (or arguments) and optional terms (or satellites). arguments and satellites can have different semantic functions (roles which the referents of the terms fulfil in the predication) (dik, 1997a; dik, 1997b; weigand, 1992). the following are different semantic functions that can be identified (adapted from dik, 1997a; dik, 1997b): • agent: the controller of an action, e.g. “the dog chases the car”. • positioner: the controller of a position, e.g. “he maintains the peace between the different negotiating parties. • force: the non-controlling entity that initiates a process, e.g. “the exchange rate fluctuation caused the stock prices to fall”. • processed: the entity passively undergoing a process, e.g. “the average cost price slid to an all-time low”. • zero: the entity primarily involved in a state, e.g. “the price is high” (the price does not control the state – it just happens to be in it). • patient (or goal): the patient is the entity affected or effected (produced) by the operation of some agent, positioner, force or processor, e.g. “the manager prints the report”. • receiver (or recipient): the entity to which something is transferred as a possession, e.g. “the employer paid the salary to the employee”. • location: the place where something is located or where a predication takes place, e.g. “the cashier works in the front office”. grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 263 • direction: the entity towards which something moves or is moved, e.g. “they sent the order to the procurement department.” • source: the entity from which something moves or is moved, e.g. “the supplier mails the invoice from the factory”. • reference: the second or third term of a relation with reference to which the relation holds, e.g. “the policy reflects the company’s mission statement”. • interested party (or beneficiary): the person or institution to the advantage/disadvantage of whom the predication is effected, e.g. “the strategic report is produced for top management.” • company: the entity together with which the predication is effected, e.g. “finance created the feasibility study together with the it department”. • instrument: the tool with which an action is executed or with which a position is maintained, e.g. “the credit clerk determines the client’s credit rating by means of the credit rating procedure.” • manner: the way or manner in which an action is executed, a position is maintained or a process takes place, e.g. “the developer creates the program according to the company’s development standards”. • speed: indicates the quantity of action or process which is run through per time unit, e.g. “the project needs to done 25% faster to reach the deadline”. • role (or quality): the role/function/authority/capacity by virtue of which an action is executed or a position is maintained, e.g. “as the head of the department, alta performs appraisals”. • path (or route): indicates the orientation or route of a movement, e.g. “the finance department sends the invoice via the supplier’s standard ordering channel”. • time: the time at/from/until which a predication takes place, e.g. “financial year ends on 30 september”. o duration: a subcategory of time. the period of time in which a predication takes place, e.g. “the quote is valid for 5 days”. o frequency: a subcategory of time. the number of times that a predication is repeated in a certain period, e.g. “the start-of-day procedure must be executed every week day at 07:00”. • circumstance: a second predication taking place at the same time as the main predication, e.g. “while the cake is in the oven, the icing can be made”. some subcategories of circumstance are as follows: o real condition: e.g. “if the order is bigger than 20, give 10% discount”. o unreal condition: e.g. “if the profit is 500%, the company can pay off all its debt”. o concession: e.g. “although a client is a pensioner, they get full benefits”. o exception: e.g. “the fee is r50, but children pay r10”. o restriction: e.g. “projects greater than r10 million cannot be authorised without the steering committee’s approval”. • result: a second predication which is brought about as the result or consequence of the main predication, e.g. “when an order is placed, the stock levels are updated”. • purpose: a second predication in the future which the controller deliberately wishes to bring about by means of the main predication. the purpose serves as the motivation for the main predication, e.g. “the execution of the audit procedure will ensure compliance with the audit standards at financial year-end”. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 264 • reason: a motivation for the occurrence of a controlled predication in terms of a causal ground ascribed to the controller, e.g. “the project team worked overtime, because the project manager required them to”. • cause: a motivation that is not ascribed to any of the participants of the predication, but which is given by the speaker as an explanation for the occurrence of the predication, e.g. “the building project was late because of excessive rainfall”. semantic functions expressed by non-verbal predicates (nouns, adjectives, adverbs and prepositional phrases, in combination with copulative verbs) are as follows: • existence: an argument expressing the mere existence of a zero-argument, e.g. “inflation will always be with us”. • identity: an argument expressing the identity or species of the zero-argument, e.g. “the university alumni are those graduates who have completed their degrees at the university”. • class: an argument that designates the class of which the subject is a member, e.g. “he is a permanent member of staff”. • quality (or property assignment): an argument expressing the quality of characteristics of the zero-assignment, e.g. “his age is 40 years”. • possessor: a term indicating the owner of the zero-argument or other element, e.g. “the receiving branch becomes the owner of the rental car”. table 19 relates the linguistic concept of semantic functions to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link agent the agent is normally the actor or external agent in various modelling techniques. positioner in is modelling, a positioner is never explicitly distinguished. force force is not explicitly indicated, but implicitly; for instance, when a non-human actant (such as algorithm) has an “initiates” stereotype in use case modelling, it is the equivalent of a force. processed in is modelling a processed is never explicitly distinguished. zero an entity in erds and a class in uml is a zero in relation to their respective attributes. patient and receiver a patient refers to the person or thing that is affected or effected by an action or process. a receiver can be indicated in use case modelling as an external receiver actor (era). location location is rarely indicated in is modelling and then only implicitly as in the deployment diagram in uml. direction and source a direction and source are never explicitly distinguished in is modelling. grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 265 linguistic concept is modelling link reference reference is not used in is modelling. interested party an interested party is not separately distinguished, but is included in, for instance, use cases as an actor. company company is not used in is modelling. instrument instrument is not directly used in is modelling, but relates to the means or mechanism of a process in idef0. manner manner is not used in is modelling. speed speed is not used in is modelling. role this concept is used a lot in is modelling, but no specific role modelling construct exists. path path is not used in is modelling. time, duration, frequency time concepts are very important in modelling, but it is only really in uml that time is explicitly modelled. circumstance circumstance relates to concurrent activities, as modelled in a uml activity diagram. real condition, unreal condition, concession, exception, restriction these are all related to business rules, but no specific modelling constructs exist for them, except secondary ones like a decision symbol in a uml activity diagram. result result relates to the output of an idef0 diagram. purpose, reason, cause they all relate to the “why” aspect of zachman, but no specific modelling construct exists. existence existence relates to the associations between entities in erds and classes in uml. identity identity relates to the definition of a term. class class relates to the inheritance or generalisation/ specialisation concept in oo (object orientation). quality quality relates to the values of the attributes of an entity (erd) or a class (uml). possessor possessor is not an explicit construct in is modelling, but could be related to the owner in a catwoe table (soft system methodology). table 19: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of semantic functions 4.3.2 lexical semantics lexical semantics is concerned with the relationships among word meanings (stabler, 2010; shinghal, 1992; valeika and buitkiene, 2003; kornai, 2007; haspelmath, 2001). joubert, kroeze & de villiers 266 (a) hyponymy a hyponym is a term whose referent is totally included in the referent of another term, for instance, “blue”, “red” and “yellow” are all hyponyms of “colour”. the “higher” term, “colour”, is called the hypernym. hyponymy is not restricted to nouns or adjectives only, but can also occur with verbs and other grammatical classes, for instance, “walk” can be the hypernym for “stroll”, “saunter”, “amble”, “hike”, etc. hyponymy can exist at more than one level, for instance, “aquamarine” and “royal blue” are hyponyms of “blue”, which is a hyponym of “colour” in turn. table 20 relates the linguistic concept of hyponymy to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link hyponymy hyponymy is an extremely important concept in modelling which relates to “a kind of”, “is-a” relationship or inheritance relationship in oo. table 20: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of hyponymy (b) part-whole relationships part-whole relationships are where the referent of one term is included in the referent of the second term, for instance, “room” and “house”. it differs from hyponymy in that a room is not a type of house, but in (part of) the house. table 21 relates the linguistic concept of partwhole relationships to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link part-whole relationship part-whole relationship relates to the aggregation concept in oo. table 21: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of part-whole relationships (c) synonymy two words are synonymous when they mean the same thing; more formally, when every referent of term a is a referent of term b, and vice versa. for example, “rent” and “hire” can be synonyms. table 22 relates the linguistic concept of synonymy to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link synonymy synonymy is an important concept, especially in analysis. most methodologies indicate the importance of identifying synonyms when defining terms. mostly, one term will be seen as the main term and all other as synonyms of that term. table 22: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of synonymy (d) antonymy antonymy denotes opposition in meaning and is a binary relationship, unlike synonymy and hyponymy. the most obvious examples are pairs of adjectives that describe opposite concepts, such as “hot” and “cold”, “open” and “closed”, “dead” and “alive”. however, nouns like “male” and “female”, adverbs like “always” and “never”, and verbs like “love” and “hate” are also antonymous. there are different kinds of antonymy. words such as “large” and “small” are fairly subjective, e.g. a mouse is smaller than a house, but much larger than a virus. these grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 267 pairs are called gradable. typically, for gradable antonyms there are words or expressions to describe intermediate words like “medium large”, and “fairly small”. in contrast, words like “single” and “married” are mutually exclusive and complementary. a person cannot be both at the same time. these pairs are called non-gradable. table 23 relates the linguistic concept of antonymy to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link antonymy this concept does not feature directly in is modelling. table 23: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of antonymy (e) converseness converseness refers to a reciprocal concept of oppositeness, different from antonymy. take, for example, the words “husband” and “wife”. the word “husband” is the converse of “wife”, because if a is the husband of b, then b is the wife of a. table 24 relates the linguistic concept of converseness to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link converseness this concept does not feature directly in is modelling. table 24: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of converseness (f) polysemy and homonymy when a word has more than one meaning, it is polysemic, e.g. “book” can be used as follows: “he reads a book” or “they book their flights”. when words sound the same but have different meanings they are homonymic, e.g. “there” and “their”. table 25 relates the linguistic concept of polysemy and homonymy to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link polysemy this concept does not feature directly in is modelling. but ambiguous terms are normally clearly identified (in a list of terms) to indicate just one meaning. homonymy this concept does not feature in is modelling. table 25: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of polysemy and homonymy (g) metaphorical extension a metaphor is an extension in the use of a word beyond its primary meaning. it describes referents that are similar to the word’s primary referent. for instance, the word “heart” can, over and above its primary meaning of the biological pump, also be used to describe the centre of an issue (the heart of the matter), the seat of emotion (she has broken his heart), etc. table 26 relates the linguistic concept of metaphorical extension to is modelling. joubert, kroeze & de villiers 268 linguistic concept is modelling link metaphorical extension this concept does not feature directly in is modelling. table 26: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of metaphorical extension (h) tense and modality the semantic category tense indicates the time reference of a word or an entire clause. epistemic modality indicates the attitude speakers have towards the truth of the statements they make. for instance, “they are probably right” indicates probability, “they are right” indicates assertion and “they know what they are talking about, so they should be right” indicates conjecture. deontic modality expresses obligation, permission or suggestion. for instance, “he must wash the car” indicates command, “he may wash the car” indicates permission, while “he washes the car” indicates statement. the modalities are related and the same auxiliary words (like “may”, “must” and “should”) can indicate both types. modal verbs (like “order”, “allow”, “command” and “assume”) and modal adverbs (like “possibly”, “probably” and “certainly”) also indicate modality. table 27 relates the linguistic concepts of tense and modality to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link tense tense indicates mostly the as-is and the to-be situations in modelling. epistemic modality probability and conjecture are not normally taken into consideration in modelling. only a few techniques like decision trees do allow for indicating probability, and rich pictures (in ssm) allow for conjecture. mainstream modelling techniques cater mostly for assertion. deontic modality command normally indicates the presence of business rules or instructions to users. table 27: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concepts of tense and modality (i) reference reference provides information about noun phrases and their referents. for example, note the semantic difference between the following two sentences: “he reads the book” and “he reads a book”. the first assumes the speaker can identify the book, while the second doesn’t. table 28 relates the linguistic concept of reference to is modelling. grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 269 linguistic concept is modelling link reference when the referents can be identified, for instance, in the phrase “the product”, it indicates a cardinality of one, a singleton (oo) or an instance of an entity or class (in this case “product”). the phrase “a product”, on the other hand, indicates a cardinality of many and the class or entity itself. table 28: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of reference (j) deixis deixis identifies the orientation of objects or events in relation to specific points of reference. all types of deixis share a basic point of the reference: the speaker’s identity and location in space and time. personal deixis shows the orientation of our communications with respect to ourselves, our conversational partners and third parties. these are mostly indicated by personal pronouns. first-person pronouns (such as “i”, “we” and “us”) refer to the speaker or group including the speaker. second-person pronouns (like “you”) refer to the addressee or group including the addressee. third-person pronouns (like “he”, “she”, “it” and “they”) indicate any other entity besides the speaker and person (or persons) spoken to. depending on the language, gender, number and even social status can also be indicated. spatial deixis indicates, in a language expression, the spatial orientation of the referent of an action or state. spatial deixis is mostly indicated by demonstratives (like “this” and “that”), adverbs of place (“here” and “there”) and directional verbs (like “go”, “come”, “bring” and “take”). the main reference points are near or far from the speaker. temporal deixis indicates, in a language expression, the time orientation of the referent of an action or state. the most basic orientation is the moment at which the expression is uttered. events before that moment are in the past, during that moment are in the present and after that moment are in the future. table 29 relates the linguistic concept of deixis to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link personal deixis personal deixis can indicate the presence and orientation of a business conversation or transaction. the interaction between a user and an atm is a classic example: “user inserts card, atm verifies card”, etc. in is modelling, the third-person perspective is mostly that of the system being modelled. spatial deixis spatial deixis indicates the “where” aspect of zachman, as well as actions involving the movement of either physical or informational entities, for instance, “the clerk emails the invoice to the client”. temporal deixis relates to the “when” aspect of zachman. table 29: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of deixis joubert, kroeze & de villiers 270 4.4 pragmatics for a long time, linguists studied individual sentences in isolation. but language is normally used in larger units, like conversations, monologues, emails or letters. these larger units are studied in pragmatics (also called the information structure).in any sequence of sentences, speakers and writers will mark some elements as more important (highlighting) or less important (backgrounding). this is called the information structure and takes into account the discourse context of a sentence. (a) discourse a discourse is a series of sentences (or other non-verbal forms of communication) that go together, for example, a conversation in the tea room, an email, a television interview, a comment to you about the neighbour walking by, a speeding fine or telling a joke. these discourses are social instruments used for communication. discourse can have a major effect on the structure of a given sentence. a conversation is a discourse where more than one person is involved. some of the properties of a conversation are as follows: • any reasonable number of people can take part. • there are rules governing how people take turns. • there are principles of socially acceptable conversation behaviour like greeting (opening the conversation) and closing the conversation. table 30 relates the linguistic concept of discourse to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link discourse any interaction of a user with a system can be seen as a discourse or conversation. you have an opening (like logging in), a closing (like logging out) and all of the steps inbetween. table 30: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of discourse (b) topic the main discourse function of the subject is to identify the topic or theme of the discourse. topics represent given information – information the speaker assumes the hearer already knows. a topic only becomes a topic once it is introduced into the discourse. once a topic is introduced, it stays the subject of subsequent sentences until a new topic is introduced. the topic is in contrast to the comment, the element that says something about the topic. the topic is not necessarily derived from a sentence, but can be derived from the discourse context; for example, “look how cute” when the speaker passes a baby in the street identifies the topic “the baby”. the context can be on different levels. firstly, it can be linguistic, the utterances in the discourse preceding the current point. secondly, it can also be the immediate physical or grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 271 social environment. thirdly, it can include general knowledge. table 31 relates the linguistic concept of topic to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link topic when doing an analysis, it is important for the analyst to determine the topic when statements are made by users. for instance, the statement “the clerk validates the order”, although syntactically and semantically valid, is incomplete pragmatically and must be placed within the topic of the “order process” along with all the other order process steps. table 31: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of topic (c) speech acts certain utterances only declare or state, but there are utterances that in the right circumstances perform an action. for instance, when the bride and bridegroom say “i do”, it constitutes entering into a legal contract; or when the supplier states “i will deliver this before 12:00 tomorrow”, it constitutes a service contract. these types of utterances are called performative utterances. there are four categories of speech acts (searle, 1976): • utterance acts are simply acts of uttering sound, words, phrases or sentences in a language and can be performed by a non-communicating entity like a parrot or tape recorder. • illocutionary acts are acts performed in saying something. examples of illocutionary acts are asserting, reporting, stating, asking, suggesting, ordering and proposing. • perlocutionary acts are acts performed by saying something. examples of perlocutionary acts are inspiring, persuading, intimidating, misleading, embarrassing and irritating. • propositional acts refer to something and characterises it with a predicate. for instance, “the earth is flat” or “nobody is perfect”. table 32 relates the linguistic concept of speech acts to is modelling. linguistic concept is modelling link speech acts the sending of business transaction messages between different agents constitutes illocutionary acts. this forms a major part of is and organisations. table 32: the link between is modelling and the linguistic concept of speech acts 5. conclusion because language is so fundamental to modelling, linguistics is a very important reference discipline for modelling. of special interest are linguistic concepts and constructs that are joubert, kroeze & de villiers 272 absent or underemphasised in modelling. based on the comparison of linguistics and is modelling in this article, some very interesting conclusions can be made. one of the first insights is that linguistics makes a clear distinction between the different levels of morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. in is modelling, some of these levels are often neglected. is modelling, and the teaching thereof, mostly concentrates on the morphological, and to some degree the syntactical level, but not really on the semantic and pragmatic levels. for instance, when learning a new modelling technique like use case diagrams, the basic constructs such as agent, use case and association will be taught and examples given, but very few rules will be given of what a good use case “sentence” or “clause” is. on a morphological level, the main conclusion is that only a subset of all the words used in a specific universe of discourse will actually be modelled. in a sense, the root meanings of words are used rather than derivations of those root words. on a lexical level, a number of significant conclusions can be made: • in language the two main things that are communicated are “things”4 as represented by nouns and noun phrases and the relationships between them as represented by various other linguistic concepts. one of the most important relationships is that of action represented mostly by verbs. for instance, when somebody says “humptydumpty sat on the wall”, the relationship between the two things (“humptydumpty” and “the wall”) is indicated by the phrase “sat on”. it mainly shows the spatial relationship between them, one under and the other on top. it also shows that this spatial relationship is not necessarily true now, but that it was true somewhere in the past, because it says “sat” and not “sits” or “is sitting”. • by contrast, in modelling, the two main things that are modelled are “things” (agents, actors, entities, objects, etc.) and actions (processes, functions, programs, use cases, etc.), with the relationships between things taking at most a third place. • various lexical types give rise to a number of relationship types between things: a) action relationships indicate dynamic relationships where subject things execute actions on object things in a finite (even if long) amount of time. the linguistic concepts indicating action relationships are action verbs, predicates and prepositions. action relationships can indicate many subtypes, such as the following: a. association relationships, e.g. “customer orders product”. b. movement between two locations, e.g. “the flight transports passengers between origin airport and destination airport”. b) action and existence verbs also indicate static relationships showing permanent relationships between “things”, e.g. “order consists of products” and “the customer order is filled”. on a semantic level, semantic functions can be linked to many concepts in is modelling, such as agent, role, etc. the interesting part is the big number of semantic functions that are either not explicitly defined or not defined at all in is modelling. these can provide the basis for developing richer, more nuanced modelling constructs. further, also on a semantic level, 4 the words “thing” or “things” is used rather than “object” or “entity” because of the current it connotations of those words. grammar of business rules in is td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 241-276. 273 lexical semantics indicates relationships between words, many of which are present in is modelling, like “inheritance” (hyponymy) and “aggregation” (part-whole relationships). however, the relationships missing from isd modelling point to interesting opportunities to enrich modelling. for instance, converseness can help to identify processes or functions such as “buy” and “sell”, “input” and “output”, or “debit” and “credit”. by understanding that these functions go in pairs, finding one of the pair can cause an automatic query concerning the other half of the pair. on a pragmatic level, it is clear that communication is not made up of loose sentences but of sentences structured together in bigger units forming discourses. similarly, a series of is modelling diagrams does not constitute a proper model of a specific universe of discourse. modelling is only complete when all diagrams are properly placed within an integrated structure and related to a wider context encompassing the total is under discussion. the grammar of business rules developed in this article can be used: 1) to understand business rule texts better (by means of a linguistic analysis of the text). 2) to rewrite unstructured business rules into a more formal way that more closely represents isd constructs; for instance, instead of allowing passive sentences, only active sentences are permitted, sentences must always follow the basic subjectpredicate-object/complement form, and only predefined (by the users themselves) words can be used. 3) to suggest ways to transform business rules directly into isd statements and diagrams (an is analyst who understands the basic grammatical concepts will be able to more easily identify business concepts and relations in business texts and to relate these more directly to is design structures). 4) to identify building blocks for an integrative isd modelling technique (the fundamental entities of business and isd modelling can be divided into three categories: base entities (corresponding to the morphological level in linguistics), structure entities (corresponding to the syntactical level in linguistics) and role entities (corresponding to the semantic level in linguistics). the suggested grammar may, therefore, assist information systems analysts to explore existing business rules in a methodical and systematic way. implementing this type of linguistic approach may also help prospective analysts to do a better job of capturing business rules since it provides a toolkit to understand and model textual narratives. in future work, an empirical study could evaluate the impact of such an alternative approach by reporting on the quality of business rules produced by students who have been taught in using the grammar of business rules vs. those who have not. it would also be interesting to test and evaluate the proposed method with programming practitioners who have developed tacit abilities to capture business rules in order to find out whether the linguistic concepts affirm and concretise their assumed notions in a manner that these can be shared and used 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(2010) modeling languages for business processes and business rules: a representational analysis. information systems, 35, 39, 379–390. microsoft word 05 spies hans roosenschoon.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2014, pp. 355-379. time and space – the context of hans roosenschoon’s music b spies1 abstract this essay pays tribute to hans roosenschoon who celebrated his 60th birthday in december 2012. in contrast to conventional approaches that focus on local ideologies and local political issues, the essay explores the context of roosenschoon’s music from a global and a historical perspective. taking as point of departure the pluralist nature of postmodernism, it investigates the interaction of cultural spaces, particularly those occupied by ‘african’ and ‘western’ musics. the entanglement of time and space is shown to be manifest in complex, multifaceted contemporary musical worlds. in doing so, the essay interrogates the conventional absence of the ‘voice’ of music in contextdriven musicology. an approach that acknowledges music as an equal partner in the musicological enterprise shows an alignment of hans roosenschoon’s music with global trends and issues of his time. keywords: hans roosenschoon, musical space, musical time, postmodernism, intercultural music, african music this article is a tribute to hans roosenschoon for the important role that his music has played in the on-going shaping of a diverse south african musical landscape.2 roosenschoon studied at the conservatoire of music in pretoria (1967-1971 and 1974-1975) and the royal academy of music in london (ram 1977-1978); he obtained a master’s degree in music from the university of stellenbosch (1987-1989) and a dmus degree from the university of cape town (1990-1991).3 he has won awards from various institutions, including the university of south africa (1975), the department of national education (1975 and 1988), southern african music rights organisation (samro 1977), and in 1978 the arthur hinton prize, the harvey lohr scholarship and second prize in the eric coates competition (clough, 1987:210). in 1987 he won the standard bank young artists award for music (boekkooi, 1987). 1 bertha spies is currently a research partner in the school of music at the north-west university, south africa. e-mail address: spies.bertha@gmail.com. 2 i would like to thank hans roosenschoon for putting at my disposal scores, documents and 2 i would like to thank hans roosenschoon for putting at my disposal scores, documents and correspondence for my use in preparing this article. his comments on the first draft appear in footnotes. another word of thanks goes to edwin hees for his valuable suggestions where complex issues are involved. 3 see the following sources for additional information about roosenschoon’s life and works: his website (2013a), the entries in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart (geldenhuys 2005), international who’s who in classical music (cummings & neale 2002), the new grove dictionary of music and musicians (viljoen 2001), baker’s biographical dictionary of musicians (mcintire 2001) and contemporary composers (may 1992). post-graduate studies that deal with roosenschoon’s music include clough (1984), gerber (1986), jacobs (1987) and roux (1989). spies 356 many of his compositions were commissioned by institutions such as the south african broadcasting corporation (sabc), samro, the federation of afrikaans cultural societies (fak), the oude meester foundation for the performing arts, cape performing arts board (capab) and total sa. his palette for string orchestra (1977) was chosen to represent the ram during the international visitors’ week and iconography was selected to be performed at the 1992 world music days of the international society for contemporary music (iscm) in warsaw, poland. omri hadari conducted his clouds clearing played by the south african national youth orchestra at the opening ceremony of the international youth festival in aberdeen, scotland (cloete, 1994). he joined the sabc in cape town in 1976 and remained there until 1995, first as assistant, then as producer and finally as music manager of the western cape. after two years as a senior lecturer in music theory at the university of the free state (1996-1997), hans roosenschoon became head of the department of music and director of the conservatory at stellenbosch university from 1998-2006. currently he is professor of composition at stellenbosch university. he was visiting professor in composition at the mozarteum in salzburg in 2004 and also presented seminars on his music at the universities of bristol and york in the united kingdom in 2007, and at the royal conservatoire, the hague in 2012 (roosenschoon, 2013b). although roosenschoon has been composing since the age of 14, his earliest listed work is concertino (1972) for piano and string orchestra. because writing for the orchestra comes to him naturally, compositions for this medium dominate his output. when dealing with the context of his music, that is, the space in which this composer functions, musicologists usually focus on social, ideological and political matters that are relevant to south africa. in addressing issues of both musical and social space in a broader, historical perspective (the notion of time), this essay views music and social context as equal partners in order to understand roosenschoon’s music from a global point of view. the aim of this essay is to investigate thinking about doing4 during his time by following a chronological approach (the notion of time), dealing with the pluralism of postmodernism, the connecting of spaces, bridging the space between african and western music, the space between cultures and the question: what happens to the ‘voice’ of music in an exclusively context-driven musicology? 1 time and space: a historical approach to context in ‘the end of temporality’ fredric jameson links time and space with modernism and postmodernism respectively (2003:697) when he explains: the moderns were obsessed with the secret of time, the postmoderns with that of space … [t]ime governs the realm of interiority, in which both subjectivity and logic, the private and the epistemological, self-consciousness and desire, are to be found. space, as the realm of exteriority, includes cities and globalization, but also other people and nature. 4 in my writing i usually combine ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ because (for me) thinking cannot take place in a vacuum and ‘doing’ without ‘thinking’ removes the subject from the enterprise. but this essay turned out to take up more physical space than i originally planned with the result that this article deals only with thinking about the entanglement of time and space. context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 357 jameson refers to thomas mann’s novel der zauberberg (the magic mountain)5 in his discussion of time and the philosophy of time. one of the many questions that the protagonist hans castorp turns over in his mind is: ‘what is time?’ he answers as follows: ‘time is active, by nature it is much like a verb, it both “ripens” and “brings forth.” and what does it bring forth? change! now is not then, here is not there – for in both cases motion lies in between’ (in jameson, 2003:695). ‘now’ and ‘then’ can be regarded as positions in time because they are linked with ‘here’ and ‘there’. more recently achille mbembe also mentions the intimate relationship between time and space. he argues that ‘every age, including the postcolony, is in reality a combination of several temporalities’ and that ‘every age has contradictory significations to different actors.’ he regards as of central interest ‘that peculiar time that might be called the time of existence and experience, the time of entanglement … this time is not a series but an interlocking of presents, pasts, and futures that retain their depths of other presents, pasts, and futures, each age bearing, altering, and maintaining the previous ones’ (2001:15, 16).6 sarah nuttall, who co-edited with mbembe johannesburg – the elusive metropolis, describes entanglement7 as follows in the introduction to entanglement (2009): entanglement is a condition of being twisted together or entwined; it speaks of an intimacy gained, even if it was resisted, or ignored or uninvited. it is a term which may gesture towards a relationship or a set of social relationships that is complicated, ensnaring, in a tangle, but which also implies a human foldedness. the concept of space can be identified with the space occupied by various peoples and interest groups, but also with the physical distance between occupied spaces.8 roosenschoon’s eclectic style of writing is usually judged by the way in which he combines western and african music.9 but his music represents a much broader manifestation of bridging spaces, such as bridging the space between popular music and what was traditionally known as ‘art music’, between electronic music and traditionally produced music, between modernist and postmodernist strategies, etc. furthermore, his music also links ‘now’ and ‘then’ (recalling thomas mann) when he travels back in time to use music from the past, linking the present with the past. 5 as in other works by mann (for example, buddenbrooks and doctor faustus: the life of the german composer adrian leverkühn as told by a friend) music plays a prominent role in the magic mountain. 6 i would like to thank jaco kruger (2013) from north-west university, south africa, for his comments on reading the first draft of this essay and for drawing my attention to the work of achille mbembe and sarah nuttall. but i take responsibility for possible errors in the final version. 7 see point 4 below for a discussion of roosenschoon’s timbila as a manifestation of entanglement of cultures within social space and entanglement of time and space in the music itself. 8 the title of roosenschoon’s 2009 keynote address at the conference on the theme of music and migration organised by the new zealand musicological society, namely ‘between heaven and earth: diversity in the music of hans roosenschoon’, also reflects the concept of space. 9 in african music the concept of eclecticism dates back to the early 20th century when black musicians created township music in the marabi style (kruger 2013). spies 358 hans roosenschoon started his compositional studies in the aftermath of high modernism, a time in which originality of expression was the prime criterion. in the pursuit of uniqueness composers mixed local styles and traditions, genres and also music from various countries. apart from non-western music instruments, new instruments such as electronic instruments, modified instruments (prepared piano or electronically amplified string quartet) and computer music, electronic music and taped music created new modes of expression. because of the cult of originality – every text is new – appreciation therefore had to rely on a close reading of the individual text. this high degree of self-reference complicates the formulation of general laws, which would have helped to establish a common musical practice. the fact that listeners did not have a common ‘musical language’ through which they can access and understand hermetic modernist music eventually estranged audiences. specialized technical knowledge became a prerequisite in order to get access to the highly complex textures of this music and the accusation of elitism became a reality. from the middle of the 1970s modernism was on the decline, soon to be replaced by postmodernist notions of plurality. 2 the pluralism of postmodernism although postmodernism as a term (post-modernismo) was coined by the spanish critic federico de onís in 1934 (bertens and d’haen, 1988:12), postmodernism as a view of reality, as a way of thinking and doing or a zeitgeist originated in america (huyssen, 1986:190). after postmodernism had first flourished in the 1960s in american literary theory, it was introduced in europe by jean-françois lyotard (1979) and julia kristeva (1980) (bertens and d’haen, 1988:8). jameson referred to this new world as follows: the place of culture and its consumption is radically different in the new global dispensation than it was in the modernist period, and one can register a different kind of transnational flow of imagery and music, as well as of information, along the networks of a new world system (2003:702). this ‘flow of imagery and music’ resulted in a pluralistic musical culture in which the boundaries between various kinds of spaces were eroded, a new culture that also accommodates pastiche, irony, parody,10 intertextuality, fragmentation and even the absurd. ‘in absence of a cardinal principle or paradigm, we turn to play, interplay, dialogue, polylogue, allegory, self-reflection – in short, to irony. this irony assumes indeterminacy, multivalence; it aspires to clarity, the clarity of demystification, the pure light of absence.’ irony expresses ‘the ineluctable recreations of mind in search of a truth that continually eludes it, leaving it with only an ironic access or excess of self-consciousness’ (hassan, 1986:506).11 the scope of postmodernism is so comprehensive that i have decided to concentrate on the concept of pluralism and the dismantling of boundaries of various kinds in dealing with hans roosenschoon’s music. from the perspective of cultural theory, david baldacchino argues that music as an art form ‘acts as a language that defies mono-culturism, because in its emergence, it is a form of universal knowledge characterized by a plurality of originals’. he defines plurality of originals as 10 a first trace of parody in the music of roosenschoon can be found in his parody of the then national anthem in the third movement of his sonatine for piano (1974). 11 ihab hassan is a literary critic and the author of out of egypt (1986). context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 359 a local terrain of knowledge, where the awareness of a universality of knowledge (enhanced by the plurality of different localities), is the initial drive towards the liberation of identity from its confined nature’ (baldacchino, 2001:189). in music the idea of pluralism manifested itself in an eclectic mixture of styles. this was the time when hans roosenschoon was most productive as a composer. postmodernism provided the composer with many ways in which he could express himself in a creative manner, an artistic environment that did not restrict his creativity. the result was an eclectic style of writing that many listeners find accessible.12 his compositions are evidence of a finely wrought craftsmanship when he combines atonal modernist techniques (for example, those of witold lutosławski, krzysztof penderecki and györgy ligeti)13 with quotations from well-known music by bach, beethoven, mozart and schubert, or when he uses these styles separately. he also taps into indigenous african music, folk music, popular melodies and electronic music. this multifaceted nature of his style is already suggested in one of his earliest works, janus for string orchestra (1973). here he uses the volga boat song and what shall we do with the drunken sailor, two melodies from two contrasting cultures. in another sense the use of janus as title also suggests a double meaning that corresponds with that of the roman god, who looks to the past as well as the future. as the god of beginnings, roosenschoon’s janus represents the beginning of roosenschoon’s career. as janus is the god with two faces, this work could also be seen as a prediction of the way in which his style would develop in future, namely the eclectic use of quotations from various cultures and earlier times, that is, using the music from spaces and times other than his own. the first work in which he uses african musical material is makietie for brass quintet. with the incorporation of african elements, music from the malay community (ghomma 1980) and a setting of three poems by adam small14 (kô, lat ons sing, o waar is moses, and ons het ’n hys gebou15 for equal voice choir, 1993) his music became less dissonant and more accessible. 12 see, for example, du plessis (1989:43), boekkooi (1991), may (1992:782) and viljoen (2001). 13 hans roosenschoon comments as follows: ‘before the polish thaw (also known as polish october of 1956) many works by polish composers were censored for their modernity. but after 1956 the constraints were lifted and composers could liberate themselves from these constrictions. it was this freedom of musical expression that, to a certain extent, attracted me to the innovative works of lutosławski and penderecki, as well as ligeti (in his case partly due to his miraculous escape to the west). what the “cultural police” (to borrow hendrik hofmeyr’s reference discussed below) are trying to do with their so-called “new” and “truly african aesthetic”, which they want to install in south africa, is nothing other than what the communists enforced in the eastern block countries just after world war ii, a project that failed dismally’ (2013b). 14 composer’s comments: ‘my setting to music of poems by the eminent south african poet adam small was the fulfilment of an ambition i had entertained for some time – before 1993 i tried in vain to persuade a number of organisations to get involved in such a project. small’s poetry was turned down at the time i was commissioned to write a work in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the federation of afrikaans cultural societies (fak) in 1979. however, i never regretted this because the text i chose in its place, ars poetica by np van wyk louw, became a catalyst in establishing my style of the 80s’ (2013b). spies 360 roosenschoon enjoys having fun through music, something that some serious musicians, however, do not appreciate. apart from quoting composers of the past, his electro-acoustic if music be (1984)16 includes pop music, some ‘boeremusiek,’ sound effects from everyday life and even a commentary on a horse race. ‘roosenschoon’s ability to draw and integrate material from a wide variety of sources is remarkable and his instinctive feeling for drama and comic relief is noteworthy’ (james, 1986:110). on the surface the message is ‘have fun, don’t take life so seriously’, but on a more serious note it could also signify ‘don’t give up’ (james, 1986:110). one reviewer of roosenschoon’s timbila understands this less rigid approach to the work of art – johan cloete regards the climax of timbila, ‘when 4 horns got to their feet and blared out frère jacques … [as] a delicious example of self-mockery. “don’t take everything so seriously”, hans seemed to say to us here. everything goes’ (1986, see also 1990). in spite of missing ‘mystery’ in the sound of roosenshoon’s music, david smith admires ‘his consistency of approach across widely separated genres, his orchestral handling which is highly sophisticated and the note of positive delight, even ebullience, that marks much of his writing’ (1995:61). but as a music theorist i had real fun when iconography (1983) with its lutosławskian controlled aleatory and ligetian crystallization of cells from atonally stratified dissonant sound bands ends with a most traditional tonal harmonic progression in c minor!17 the year in which roosenschoon composed if music be (1984) is also the year in which russell berman published his article on ‘modern art and desublimation’ that later formed part of his book on cultural theory (berman, 1989).18 but i am sure that the composer had not read this article when he decided on the eclectic format for if music be, because he creates music by following his instincts and not prescribed ideas. this attitude shows an instinctive alignment with world trends, for example a postmodern distrust of the aesthetic which gave rise to the erosion of the barrier between pop art and what is traditionally known as ‘art music’. the aesthetic as a distinctive phenomenon was also weakened when so-called ‘classical music’ infiltrated public space, for example, when the slow movement of mozart’s piano concerto no. 21 is heard in a supermarket as the theme from elvira madigan. the popularisation of works by the ‘great composers’ resulted in a demystification of so-called ‘high art’, which moved closer towards an upgraded ‘low art’. 15 translation: come let us sing, oh where is moses, and we have built a house. 16 composer’s comments: ‘when stephanus muller (2004) deplores the modest demonstration by composers, and a general unawareness of the electroacoustic genre in sa, he fails to mention two works of importance, commissioned by the sabc, i.e. ballade van die bloeddorstige jagter (1971) by henk badings, based on a poem by ga watermeyer – in my opinion a more relevant work than badings’s asterion, which muller does mention – and peter klatzow’s excellent work, the garden of memories and discoveries (1975). neither are roelof temmingh’s most important work in this genre radar (1982) and abantobomlambo (1987) by jeanne zaidel-rudolph cited. curiously, there is also no mention of my electroacoustic works. so what electroacoustic desert exactly is being “deplored”?’ (2013b). 17 composer’s comment: ‘the work quotes from bach's st. matthew passion. this is the closing cadence of the final chorus: “wir setzen uns mit tränen nieder”’ (2013b). 18 because of lack of space, the category of the sublime is a topic and a debate for another occasion. a basic point to consider, however, is that as far as musicology is concerned, theorists have nothing to speculate about if there is no music. context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 361 3 connecting spaces the second half of the twentieth century had to deal with the legacy of a modernist culture that expressed itself in terms of rigid categories. the binary nature of two opposing agents provided fertile ground for deconstruction; to list but a few of these binaries: high – low art, arts – crafts, art – technology, professional – amateur, local – global, high – low class, presence – absence, central – marginal, nature – culture, positive – negative, life – death, conscious – unconscious, etc.19 ‘the absence of a nuanced middle ground emphasises the rigidity of the two agents. ignoring connections between fields of investigation reinforces the boundaries between the various fields’ (spies 2006:19). the efforts to bridge the spaces between various cultures and various disciplines resulted not only in an upsurge of interdisciplinary studies but also in connecting art with life. ‘the postmodern flaunting of borders between disciplines and spheres of life is purposefully at work here: the postmodern artist is no bohémien anymore, but a social agent’ (snyman, 1995:70). already in 1938 theodor adorno wrote that ‘[t]he diverse spheres of music must be thought of together. their static separation, which certain caretakers of culture have ardently sought … the neat parcelling out of music’s social field of force is illusionary’ (1991:34).20 it is the static separation of worlds of music that roosenschoon tried to bridge when he experimented with the combination of african and western music in his timbila (1985), the composer being regarded by thomas poolley as the ‘first composer’ to experiment with the integration of ‘black and white performers on the same stage’ (pooley, 2010/2011:56).21 roosenschoon strives for interaction when he asks: ‘is it not pretentious to try and define these categories as boundaries? if indeed they exist, is it sincere to identify with one or the other exclusively? are we dealing here with a musical apartheid or are we part of an experience which embraces multiplicity and evolution?’ (in levy, 1986:112).22 almost ten years later the editors of intercultural music write in the first volume of the series that they ‘are concerned about terms referring to musics of particular cultures as “music of 19 south african ethnomusicology also reveals a categorical differentiation when it ‘reveals a tendency either towards music-making as cultural pattern or the intricacies of musical style’ (kruger, 2006:37). 20 this posthumous collection of adorno’s essays (he died in 1969) also deals with mass culture, the culture industry, culture and administration, communication, popular culture and intellectual life. 21 apparently pooley does not favour searching for a meeting point between western and african music, because he describes ‘the attempts to integrate black and white performers on the same stage’ as ‘[f]ar more jarring than the works of volans and grové’ (2010/2011:56). 22 composer’s comments: ‘in his phd thesis, sounding margins: musical representations of white south africa (2000), stephanus muller refers to this article by michael levy but, in my opinion, very obviously and conveniently omits my statement about the equality of musics simply because it does not suit his arguments, that of problematizing the dialectics apparent in the works of south african composers who incorporated indigenous elements in one way or another. by way of one-sided arguments, muller discredits those composers who actively created during the apartheid years and who were realigning themselves with regards to their african context, leading to a complete misrepresentation of what my intentions in 1986 were, i.e. avoiding polarization of music categories (2000:26, 30)’ (2013b). spies 362 third world countries” or “ethnic music” that tend to imply a schism that simply does not exist. unfortunately the idea of separateness or marginalization still persists whenever these terms are used because they create a dual tier system’ (kimberlin & euba, 1995:5). categorisation may be regarded as an essential epistemological tool, as beverly parker points out: we need to see music in its varied contexts, and the use of categories is one way to refer to a context quickly. however, it is important to remember that the naming of such categories creates within us a predilection to experience music in a particular way (2008:68). already in 1992 kofi agawu23 had a problem with the separation of african and european epistemologies (1992:260): the insistence on an african epistemology, distinct from european epistemology, but given in european language, shows no sign of abating in ethnomusicological circles. … to insist that african scholars think african thoughts is an exclusionary tactic, harboring the implicit claim that the african is only capable of – or allowed – one style of discourse, and that a departure from this represents a betrayal of sorts. ten years later, as keynote speaker at the annual congress of the south african musicological society (2002), agawu asserts that the distinction between ‘european’ and ‘african’ modes of thinking and hearing ‘originates not in africa, but in european thought; there is no “native” way of hearing music. ethnomusicologists … have too long been the self-appointed guardians of african musical knowledge’ (in walton, 2001:84).24 in 2003 agawu again emphasises this point in his book representing african music: ‘let us, therefore, get away from simple binary divisions of the world, the cultism that wishes to see a categorical difference between western knowledge and african knowledge’ (2003:196-7). although christine lucia seems to be aware of kofi agawu’s views regarding the polarising of methodologies when she refers to ‘african music’ as ‘that troublesome creature … (never to be innocently used again, post-agawu)’, she nevertheless asks for the development of ‘a new kind of african aesthetic, a new basis for evaluation and critique of new compositions coming out of africa, that is precisely what school children (i would have thought) need’ (lucia, 2002:70, 71).25 the function of categorised knowledge in the pursuit of understanding a 23 kofi agawu who was born in ghana is currently a professor in music theory and ethnomusicology at princeton university. 24 the fact that walton’s report predates the year of the congress (2002) is because the 2001 issue was published after the congress. 25 composer’s comments: ‘christine lucia argues for a “misreading” (her terminology) on my part with reference to an arrangement of michael moerane’s choral work, barali ba jerusalema (in olwage 2008). why, in the course of her discussion, so much attention is given to an arrangement by a ‘white professor’ of a ‘black’ (my italics) composer’s work, whilst no attempt is made at contextualizing the general style of the arranger (roosenschoon), begs the question. although she misrepresents the work as being for tenor and piano – she was referring to an outdated vocal score instead of the orchestral version – and shows ignorance about some important detail around the circumstances of its creation, her comment that i “misread” the original is at least to the point. in fact, in everything i do – where apparitions from the past appear in my music – i deliberately misread these texts for i never pretend to give a purist rendition of something. therefore, i propagate idiosyncratic, albeit non-authoritative, context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 363 complex issue may also be at the bottom of david smith’s statement that within a plural music culture the divergent paths lack ‘a centre, a sense of school or national identity’ (1995:60). are the arguments for an ‘african aesthetic’ and a ‘school or national identity’ viable in a pluralist postmodern society that questions the idea of the aesthetic?26 because categorisation, neat packaging and labelling provide an easy way to understand and make sense of reality, it is not strange, but also unfair in the light of agawu’s views, that interviewers and musicologists expect hans roosenschoon to classify his style of writing: ‘are you an african composer?’ although he does not regard himself as an african composer (geldenhuys, 2005:364), in 1986 he describes three options available to a composer in south africa (levy, 1986:112). these options are also quoted by levy (1992) and mentioned in the composer’s inaugural lecture of 1998. roosenschoon’s final formulation appears in the chapter ‘keeping our ears to the ground: cross-culturalism and the composer in south africa, “old” and “new”’ (1999a:267-8): it seems possible that, through an upsurge in cross-cultural endeavour taking place in south africa, a new aesthetic of ethnically integrated music may be evolved … personally, i have maintained that there are three choices open to the composer in africa. first, one may wish to remain faithful to one’s european heritage and distil one’s inspiration from contemporary western trends. … secondly, one may decide on a purist approach to one’s african roots, and go with ethnomusicology. thirdly, there is the option of cross-culturalism, to a greater or lesser degree, though whether one can ultimately do equal justice to both worlds remains, aesthetically and musically, a rather moot point. but it is clear that he is wary of the idea of categorisation when he says that ‘‘it is not really an issue of different categories or a blend of categories, for perhaps they all belong to but one world – music’ (levy, 1986:112). in 2003 ‘the blending of african and western forms can still be seen as a process that is in an experimental phase’ (herbst et al., 2003:149). it appears as if the experimental nature of an intercultural blend has been accepted in the field of musical creation, because when levy reported on the kevin volans composers’ seminar: composing in south africa in the 21st century, he noted that the perennial question of the nature and/or desirability of cross-culturalism between western and african musics in art-music composition in south africa surfaced again, though it was clear that composers now take it more easily in their stride, and that it is no longer such a vexed issue (2002:86). interpretation and believe in the merit of the ambiguity that results: certainly, i am not giving in to the dictates – especially if they are ideological – of some individual who believes he/she is speaking on behalf of a so-called new collective’ (2013b). 26 elsewhere i have shown in a brief overview of musical aesthetics in the twentieth century that aesthetic understanding came to be associated with ‘class privilege and the traditional alliance of sublimity and power. … it is, therefore, not surprising that the past two decades show a loss of confidence in the aesthetic as a category’ (spies, 2006:33). spies 364 4 bridging the space between african and western music at the première of roosenschoon’s timbila27 at the grahamstown standard bank national festival of the arts in 1985 members of the audience were baffled when at the climax of this work the four horn players stood up and played frère jacques. for them it did not make sense – what happened to aesthetic experience and unity of style? is it ethically acceptable to link a western children’s song with the chopi music?28 if roosenschoon had not known the chopi and their music (muller 2002), how did it happen that he decided to use this music in the commissioned work for the grahamstown festival of the arts? there is sufficient material on the origin and reception of timbila for an article on its own.29 what follows is therefore a very concise version. de oude meester foundation for the performing arts commissioned hans roosenschoon to write an orchestral work for the 1985 standard bank national festival of the arts in grahamstown. he wanted to incorporate african music and asked amampondo’s co-operation in the project. however, it was the composer’s impression that the group’s white manager advised them not to become involved, because roosenschoon would only use their fame to enhance his own image and that he is going to steal their music (muller 2002).30 when he told the festival committee that he was stuck because amampondo showed no interest, they put him in touch with andrew tracey, director of the international library of african music at rhodes university. the correspondence between tracey and the composer is available, but the outcome was that tracey advised roosenschoon to use the music of the chopi, more specifically a group of xylophone players from the south of mozambique. tracey specifically advised roosenschoon to use the mtsitso (1973) composed by venâncio mbande ‘for his tribal chief, whose seat is at the town of kenge' in the south of mozambique (levy, 1992).31 born in 1930, mbande left mozambique at the age of 18 to work on the gold mines in johannesburg. in 1956 he began his own timbila orchestra for which he also composed music. he joined the wildebeestfontein north mine in 1978, where he worked as a chef in the kitchen. it is at this platinum mine in rustenburg that the composer visited him in order to discuss the possibility of co-operation with the timbila ta veltebisi. the timbila dance is one of africa's most complex and demanding dance/music forms, the result of years of dedication and preparation by the composers and performers, and in another sense of many centuries of refinement of style, form and instruments. the timbila dance was always associated with political power, formerly having been the prerogative of chiefs only. …a composer is free to comment on any topic of current 27 timbila is the plural of mbila, which refers to a key of the xylophone. 28 in to the tune of (2007), a flute concerto, roosenschoon uses an afrikaans children’s birthday song ‘veels geluk liewe maatjie’ (also known as ‘afrikaners is plesierig’) and ‘kom dans klaradyn’. the titles of the four movements are tune in to, which tune?, tuneful and finetune (roosenschoon 2013b). 29 . see roosenschoon’s description of the circumstances leading to timbila and its performance (1999b). 30 ‘[e]k gaan net op … die golf van hulle roem ry en ek gaan hulle musiek steel.’ 31 moreira chonguica of amizava (amigos de zavala) describes mbande as ‘[o]ne of the most prominent timbila masters still active’ (2012). context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 365 interest, social, political, or philosophical without fear of retribution. songs composed on the mine naturally reflect conditions and events on the mine. (tracey, 1985a:61) the composer’s ‘idea was to fuse together – and yet juxtapose – the two contrasted musics, by combining their instruments and therefore their sounds, in one work. (listen to timbila on youtube at http://youtu.be/arymzjv4mqk). ‘timbila is the name given to the chopi xylophones; but the word can also suggest to me to strike a note. it is with this supplementary meaning in mind that i have been guided in my approach to the work. it is an attempt by one world of sound to embrace another, searching for and hoping to strike points where they touch’ (1985b:60). the second part of mbande’s mtsitso kenge provided the common ground that the composer was searching for. it has a prominent do-re-mi-do motif, which the composer regarded as common ground, a common denominator that symbolises a ‘coming together’ of african and western music. in practice, this motif has a dual purpose in roosenschoon’s composition, namely to function as a leitmotif but also to act as a kind of signalling device facilitating the alignment of the symphony orchestra and the chopi players.32 in preparation for the première on 12 july 1985 the composer wrote to mbande as follows: ‘[t]he work is constructed in such a way that basically, apart from some minor changes, your mtsitso is played as usual’ (1985a). this do-re-mi-do motif corresponds with the opening of frère jacques and, because ‘it is well known’, roosenschoon decided to incorporate it in timbila (roosenschoon, 2009). however, academia attributed all kinds of sinister intentions to the composer, for example, that he regards the chopi music as ‘child’s play’ (mentioned by tracey, 1985c).33 what was not generally known at the time, and most probably also not by the composer,34 is that the melody of frère jacques has been sung in various african languages, namely tshivenda, sesotho, setswana and isixhosa, and that the song arrived in the limpopo valley towards the end of the 19th century. frère jacques came to south africa through groups of immigrants and the venda adults tell how they learnt these songs as nursemaids and labourers, or as children of labourers on the farms. jaco kruger and liesl van der merwe used the song as an example of ‘songs with wings’35 to illustrate the concept of cultural redefinition. the lyrics36 32 discrepancies with regard to tuning are set out in roosenschoon (1999b:291; 2009). 33 david smith, for example, describes the dilemma in a review of a cd of roosenschoon’s work as follows: ‘to consider these works primarily within an african “matrix” may seem to attach too much importance to their packaging. however, it is precisely their packaging that identifies them as part of a broader current of feeling, or (perhaps) anxiety: the propriety of artistic rapprochement with some sort of african material, if you are a white-and-western composer’ (1995:59). the debate about ownership, opportunism, appropriation and other ethical issues still seems to be going on unabatedly. see also barker (1996), bräuninger (1998), landy (2003), lucia (2002), muller (2001) and pooley (2010/2011). 34 composer’s comment: ‘i was totally unaware of this. serendipity?’ (2013b). 35 ‘this concept derives from nelson mandela’s description of stories as growing wings and becoming the property of others’ (marguerite gordon’s words in the preface of madiba magic: nelson mandela’s favourite stories for children (2002) cited in kruger & van der merwe, 2012:68). 36 see kruger & van der merwe (2012) for the lyrics in tshivenda, sesotho, setswana and isixhosa. spies 366 point to shared experiences across social divides: education and poverty are themes that connect most versions. although change also involves the shedding of some local forms of knowledge, it is clear … that time-honoured social values are promoted in new cultural forms suited to contemporary experience’ (kruger & van der merwe, 2012:69, 76). the question is: did venâncio mbande know frère jacques when he wrote the mtsitso that hans roosenschoon used in timbila? when tracey received the score from the composer before the concert, he wrote to the composer: ‘just opened your score. it looks absolutely magnificent … as long as everybody finds it fun’ (1985b). however, it appears as if the idea of ‘having fun’ did not materialise at the performance (tracey, 1985c): the two systems … are undeniably incompatible; this was obviously one of your basic problems. … i only want to mention, hesitantly, one other point, which is that i found that the horn quote of frère jacques raised undesirable associations for most listeners and clapped a wry smile on their faces at the moment when they should have been most elated. a crucial point is, however, whether the composer achieved the aims that he set out, namely ‘an attempt by one world of sound to embrace another, searching for – and hoping to strike – points where they touch.’ by creating ‘an “answering” mode in which a do-re-me-do motif becomes like the earth’s gravity …, this structure represents a narrative on the subject of flowing together towards a shared aim’ (roosenschoon, 2009). judging from the rest of tracey’s second letter quoted above (1985c), it seems as if he had actually noticed this effect of progression and a pull towards synchronization, which means that the composer has indeed succeeded in his objective: on listening to it again now the whole work seems to take on a quite different meaning. it has become an allegory about the difficulties of co-operation and the joy on the rare occasions when it works. the point of the whole work now becomes much clearer to me because of the excitement that is generated towards the middle: first we do not know, then we have severe doubts, and the intense hope, that the two orchestras will manage to get their cdec phrases to coincide. however, when tracey feels that ‘the tension and doubt should gradually become an explosion when the phrases are showing increasing signs that they might come together, and a huge celebration when they really are together’ (1985c) it implies that he is expecting a happy ending. it may be that at this point the expectations of an african and a western predisposition do not synchronise. from an african perspective based on the notion that ‘musical performance is a performance of life’ (kruger, 2013), the absence of a ‘huge celebration’ may be disturbing. but from a western point of view that regards music more as a listening experience in which the unfolding of the music in time could also communicate various meanings, the perceived absence of a celebration may be regarded as a reflection of life. listening to the work as a whole may lead to a more nuanced understanding, other than an understanding prescribed by the rigid simplistic binary opposition of western – african music. by considering only the surface of the music, that which is directly perceived, frère jacques takes up only about half a minute of the time duration of 11 minutes and 29 seconds (according to the cd cover). the rest of the work consists of reworkings of the do-re-mi-do motif that roosenschoon borrowed from the mtsitso kenge by venâncio mbande. if so little context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 367 musical space is taken up by frère jacques, it appears to me as if the issue was blown up out of proportion in order to suit the preconceived agendas of some critics. if one listens in a conventional way, that is with pitch as the main point of reference, then frère jacques could be regarded as the main point of arrival. but if one listens to the juxtaposition of various kinds of textures and timbres, to the skilful projection of the chopi motif against various curtains of sound, and to the interplay of dynamics that emphasize the spatial character of the music, then the chopi motif does not relate to a children’s song, but it actually becomes the foreground in an exciting experience of a painting in sound. reviewers who were positive about the concert include thys odendaal of beeld, who regards timbila certainly as the culmination of the musical activities at the festival, a gripping experience, mainly because roosenschoon joined diverse forces rather than bringing them into conflict with one another (1985).37 barbara van wyk headlined her review of the concert ‘timbila the highlight as concert disappoints’ and describes the performance of roosenshoon’s work as ‘an emotional experience’ (1985). david stone, artistic director to the cape town symphony orchestra, writes as follows to c.t. warburton, the manager of the impala platinum mine in rustenburg: ‘the piece leads the way in showing what can be done in synthesising western orchestral style and the instrumentalists of south africa: its performance was an important milestone in artistic terms’ (1985). in january 1986 a radio programme on kpfa-fm in berkeley, california dealt with south african music and timbila was included along with music by peter klatzow.38 the producer of the program, harold clark (1985), afterwards wrote to hans roosenschoon: your music was received well by colleagues! … we had many calls during the actual music and interview plays. some of these calls were hostile to the fact that such a listeners’ supported station as kpfa would play music of ‘white south africans’ during the current call for boycotting south african-made products, etc. in california. others welcomed the music and some found the interviews pointedly amazing that people could speak so openly against certain aspects of the establishment arts and government organizations … it was a very controversial program for kpfa to do and this all made it the more exciting. after a performance of timbila in cape town in april 1986, johan cloete wrote in the cape argus: ethnomusicologists i know hate the work. they call it “dishonest” and a “crib”, but, i must say, i enjoyed it. it is probably more of a fun piece than anything else, at least if one is to judge by the treatment of the major third that shapes all the pitch material (1986). under the heading ‘chopi experiment disappoints’ deon irish wrote in the cape times that ‘[w]hat roosenschoon has done has probably more sociological – even political – than musical significance’. the reviewer had a problem with balance and cohesion because the chopi xylophones are essentially outdoor instruments that blend poorly with a symphony orchestra (1986). acknowledging the problems with the balance between the two groups of 37 ‘hans roosenschoon se nuwe werk timbila moet sekerlik as die hoogtepunt van die musiekbedrywighede beskou word. … timbila is ’n aangrypende ervaring.’ 38 in 1992 the bbc’s radio 3 presented a review of roosenschoon’s cd ‘mantis and other african-inspired works’ (bond 1992). spies 368 instruments, roosenschoon wrote to christian tiemeyer, music director of the cedar rapids symphony orchestra in the usa, who conducted the first performance: ‘time will tell whether or not this was a justified experiment’ (1985c). but what is certain is that timbila will be remembered as the first opportunity for a western symphony orchestra to perform on the same stage with a group of chopi xylophone players and also an opportunity in which two cultures got to know each other, and that during the years of apartheid. in the ensuing debate about opportunism, identity, cultural ownership, exploitation and plagiarism39 not much was written about venâncio mbande and his chopi players.40 but he and his players occupy another space on the continent of africa than we do, and the history of their xylophone playing goes much further back in time than the official settlement at the cape.41 the tradition of xylophone orchestras was first described in 1562 by the portuguese father andré fernandes (tracey, n.d.). in august 2012 moreira chonguica wrote about the tradition of the xylophone orchestras of the district of zavala, ‘the cultural heartland of the chopi people’ in mozambique:42 in august, as every year for the past 18 years, the timbilas of zavala will again fill the air with their powerful and mesmerizing melodies. m’saho, a traditional ceremony of over 200 timbilas to welcome leaders, has been revived in a smaller form with the annual timbila festival organised by amizava (amigos de zavala) during the last weekend of august, [and] takes place in the amphitheatre in the centre of quissico, with a breath-taking backdrop of glittering blue lagoons framed by rolling green dune forests. 5 dealing with the space between cultures in 1989 the importance of dealing with various cultures, not only in everyday life or in art but also in the world of music studies, manifested itself in the founding of the centre for intercultural music arts (cima).43 the national sound archive (british library) hosted cima’s first biennial international symposium in london in the following year. in the first volume of cima’s mouthpiece intercultural music (1995), the two editors, cynthia tse 39 see, for example, barker (1996), bräuninger (1998), landy (2003), lucia (2002), muller (2001) and smith (1995). 40 composer’s comments: ‘when two composers collaborate as venâncio mbande and i did in the case of timbila (1985), the question of authorship arises. naturally, as a member of the board of samro for nearly 15 years, i was sensitive in this regard. it was obvious to me that what was required needed to go beyond the mere dedication: “to venâncio mbande and his chopi timbila”, which appears on the title page of the full score. because mbande's mtsitso kenge was performed in its original form (although slightly altered) soon after i wrote timbila, i registered the work with samro both in my name and venâncio mbande’s. so, in terms of author’s rights i do not claim exclusivity to its creation’ (2013b). 41 andrew tracey’s description of the chopi players, their leader and their instruments is available on the internet (tracey n.d.). see also chonquica (2012). 42 moreira chonguica, originally from mozambique, is an ethnomusicologist, a songwriter, an award-winning producer and a saxophonist (chonguica 2011). 43 as one of the foundation members of the council of management of cima, john blacking played an important part in the launching of the organisation (kimberlin & euba 1999:3). context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 369 kimberlin and akin euba, refer to the ‘tremendous increase in intercultural music activity throughout the world’ that is caused by ‘the changing political landscape, historical events, and technological advances affecting human societies in the last few decades’ (1995:1). in this volume j.j. kwabena nketia describes interculturalism as ‘the process of identifying with or sharing in the heritage of other cultures with a view to broadening one’s cultural horizon or one’s capacity to understand and appreciate differences in modes of expression (1995:6, my non-italics). however, it appears as if reviewers found it difficult to ‘understand and appreciate’ the product of the intercultural project as a new mode of expression. the new editor of intercultural music, robert mawuena kwami, for example, raised two questions: ‘who decides whether an intercultural composition is “good or bad”, and what criteria are used?’ (2003:13). ethical matters such as cultural ownership and exploitation complicated the issue further. in volume 5 leigh landy44 asks ‘why are we victims of other people’s musical typologies?,’ referring to some ethnomusicologists and anthropologists who ‘have said that contemporary art music composers gratuitously steal pieces or borrow musical elements from other cultures’ (2003:104, 103).45 in his inaugural lecture hans roosenschoon makes the same kind of point, though not couched in such explicit terms: for a composer of western art music who borrows from various sources, it is almost impossible to assimilate and at the same time pretend to be a purist. in spite of the various possibilities that the composer has at hand, creating a work represents a very personal statement. it does not contain facts and truths that can be verified.46 i believe that, in the absence of a constative dimension, music communicates by means of its very essence, namely as a performative art. when it comes to bridging the space between western and african music, one gets the impression that there is less tolerance of freedom of expression amongst musicologists of western orientation who base their critiques of roosenschoon’s music on a monolithic sociological base than amongst our african colleagues. meki nzewi argues for a more inclusive approach when he says that 44 leigh landy is the chairman of the music, technology and innovation research group at de montfort university (leicester, uk). several of his articles deal with cultural diversity in the arts (kwami 2003:308). 45 the title of his essay is ‘borrowing or stealing? celebration or global village? interculturalism in contemporary music from a composer’s point of view.’ the notion of borrowing is of course not new – the rondo alla turca by mozart immediately comes to mind. apart from the fact that composers use folk melodies in their compositions (for example beethoven, bartók and britten), gregorian chants of the middle ages represent the earliest examples of musical borrowing. here the new work and its source can be compared because both are notated (burkholder, 2001:9). peter burkholder’s annotated bibliography shows a comprehensive list of sources that deal with musical borrowing – for example, the entries under the letter a alone numbers 62 titles (2003). 46 ‘na my mening is dit vir ’n komponis van westerse kunsmusiek, en wat van verskeie bronne leen, feitelik onmoontlik om te assimileer en terselfdertyd te pretendeer om ’n puris te wees. ... en selfs nadat die komponis sy pad gebaan het deur die prosesse en moontlikhede wat so pas beskryf is, bly die skepping van sy werk ’n baie persoonlike stelling. dit bevat nie feite en waarhede wat gekontroleer kan word nie’ (roosenschoon, 1998). spies 370 while melodies could have cultural peculiarities, melody alone does not make the cultural authenticity of a composition nor does an isolated, structurally inconsistent insertion of a rhythmic pattern that may be peculiarly african. … [n]o rhythmic element or motif in isolation is culturally exclusive (1999:203, 213). in the first volume of intercultural music and under the heading ‘creative response to interculturalism’ nketia writes: it seems inevitable that creative musicians on their part, should respond to intercultural musical encounters in their own terms, for differences in musical cultures arouse not only their aesthetic sensibility but also their creative imagination. … thus the ultimate test of new art music that draws on african resources is not only the extent to which it truly reflects “the depth and originality that is africa’s” but also the clarity of its intercultural communication and aesthetic merit (1995:222, 237). the reaction of professor njabulo s ndebele (then vice-chancellor and principal of the university of the north) to roosenschoon’s timbila is also more nuanced when he refers to the potential response of ‘black’ audiences (1993). some might see the experiment as yet another assault on ‘black’ culture. others might see it as an example of the increasing cultural ascendance of indigenous artistic forms. others might see it as simply an incomprehensible tradition of music they know very little of. but chances are that very few will see it as ‘african’ music. meanwhile, for myself, exposed to several musical traditions, including the western classical tradition, your experiment is exciting and worth pursuing further. however, south african composer hendrik hofmeyr does not experience the same kind of fairness amongst south african musicologists (2004): in the unnuanced world view of the cultural police there is place for only one fetish: the ‘relevant’.47 their law is that art must reflect society – society as defined by them as amateur sociologists, of course – and those that break this law are cast into the outer darkness, branded as ‘old-fashioned’, ‘irrelevant’, ‘reactionary’, ‘inaccessible’, ‘elitist’ or ‘eurocentric’. generalisation is used by them as a weapon to destroy those who think for themselves, and to further their own careers within the ranks of the cultural police. according to martina viljoen, music can be reduced to a mere theoretical construct ‘which serves but one politically correct interpretative agenda’ (viljoen, 2011:25).48 reporting on the 2011 congress of the south african society for research in music (sasrim) james davies also complains about a rigidity that reinforces the drawing of boundaries and the opposition of binary oppositions (2010:194): 47 in terms of this ‘fetish’ music is assessed ‘on the basis of how literally it reflects the social conditions in which it was written; if one were to apply this criterion to beethoven, "wellington's victory" would be his most important work’ (hofmeyr 2004). 48 viljoen refers to willemien froneman’s paper entitled ‘the riches of embarrassment: on traversing hegemonies’ delivered at the 2010 ims-sasrim congress. ‘[b]oeremusiek [word] … uitsluitlik as subjektiwiteit (verleentheid van identiteit) benader. hiermee bedoel ek dat die onderwerp ook enigiets anders wat afrikaners tans in verleentheid oor hul identiteit stel, kon wees. boeremusiek is hier nie “musiek” nie, maar slegs ’n teoretiese konstruk wat één polities korrekte interpretatiewe agenda dien.’ context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 371 things boil down – too predictably – to questions of identity. my question is whether this should always be the default position. … attending closely to something other than your own immediate convictions about identity can be usefully surprising of course. but such attentiveness may also threaten the searing purity of those classes of music everyone knows to romanticize, or otherwise to damn. the vocabulary of liberation-speak, unfortunately, falls too precipitously into triumphalism, and by-now tired stories of oppression and liberation, old and new, colonial and postcolonial, yesterday and today, evil and good, impure and pure. the notion of identity is a complex issue that cannot be dealt with properly in this article. but i would like to refer to another form of categorisation in david baldacchino’s article ‘contemporary music and the question of aesthetic identity’. he differentiates between cultural identity and aesthetic identity and the implications of this distinction. for him, cultural identity is identified with boundaries whereas ‘aesthetic identity transcends cultural boundaries and accommodates plurality.’ plurality, again, defies standardization of aesthetic sensibilities into a single identity (2001:187). but are musical scholars in south africa sensitive to the effect of plurality on life and in the world of music (not to mention opinions other than your own) when formulating personal points of view? in 1998 jürgen bräuninger argued that there was a need for ‘a new breed of ethno/musicologists who are well versed in western and african musics of traditional, neo-traditional and popular music genres, who are not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions – questions concerning representation, meaning, economics, appropriation, politics, and ideology and who analyse musical texts rigorously’ (1998:10). is it humanly possible for one person to be an authority in all these fields and who also has the skills to ‘analyse musical texts rigorously’?49 the problem is that the rigorous analysis of a musical text is more or less eliminated by exclusively context-driven studies with the result that one wonders whether there is still a ‘text’. 6 what happened to the ‘voice’ of music? the erosion of the text, and eventually also the musical text, started when the french literary critic roland barthes proclaimed the death of the author in 1967. he focuses on language and the reception of the text when he argues in his well-known essay ‘the death of the author’ that the text must be liberated from the author’s intentions and identity (that is his/her political views, religion, ethnic origin, etc.) in order for us to understand the multiple meanings that the text can generate. according to barthes, 49 composer’s comment: ‘during the last 20 years we have seen a certain breed of musicologists acting in the role of judges and self-appointed custodians of south african music more than ever before’ (2013b). hendrik hofmeyr refers to this group of people as the ‘cultural police’: ‘members of the cultural police have seen fit to attack me for daring not to subscribe to their notion of what represents (depending on their own agendas) an afrikaans, or south african, or african style. i suppose it is understandable that they should be irritated with my "failure" to neatly label myself for their convenience. those who wish to construct a "grand narrative" love stylistic schools (generally consisting of one true original and many followers) as it makes their job so much easier’ (cited in bezuidenhout, 2007:20). spies 372 a text is … a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. …the reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost. he concludes his essay with the statement: ‘the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author’ (barthes, 1977:146, 148). in music, as a reaction to the self-referential nature of the modernist style, the focus shifted to the listener as the locus of the meaning in a work, or more specifically ‘in a text’, as that came to be the correct word to use.50 the emphasis shifted from the intentions of the composer to the interpretation of the listener.51 the reconceptualization of author and reader in an attempt to understand how texts and readers ‘produce’ meaning was perceived as a sacrifice of the text itself, as russell berman pointed out in 1984: the work of art which once appeared to be the final enclave of truth and resistance has been dismantled, and the end of the work means the end of art, understood in terms of the traditional bourgeois institution (berman 1989:98). in 1985 carter wheelock showed how the stories of jorge luis borges (el informe de brodie of 1970 and also other stories) imply that ‘the relationship between the author and the reader of fiction requires their cooperation in the "murder" of the text.’ wheelock argues that the reader must abandon the notion that the intention of a body of language is to present a subject or to impart any kind of objective reality beyond the presence and function of the text as a creative process. …what borges is saying is that the reader of fiction is not looking for a text's agreement with reality but for completeness of idea, the fullness and coherence of his own mental furniture (1985:151-152, my non-italics). in 1982 wheelock had specifically asked borges whether el evangelio segfin marcos, which deals with the young medical student espinosa, ‘can be read as a tale about the crucifixion of a literary text.’ borges said, ‘yes, you are right.’ wheelock concludes that the brodie stories ‘are stories about imagination [and] that the text does not finally say anything’ (1985:155, 160-161). the exclusive concern with the context of the music and the fact that music is being used to fit the musicologist’s fashionable preconceived agenda resulted in a neglect of ‘the music itself’ (another expression frowned upon by what was originally known as the “new musicology”). ‘why, then, should music sound but not speak?’ asks the leading cultural theorist and author of classical music and postmodern knowledge, lawrence kramer (2005:63). in ‘an essay with a thesis or, to speak more plainly, with an axe to grind’ he deplores the marginal standing of music in the larger critical enterprise … music is at best a silent partner. the attitude underlying this silence is plain enough. it is the assumption 50 according to fredric jameson, in the postmodern age there could be no more ‘works’, only ‘texts’ (pasler 2001:215). 51 what i find ironic is the fact that some musicologists still cling to the notion of a composer’s intentions by ascribing to a composer a supposed agenda without proper substantiation. context of hans roosenschoon’s music td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 355-379. 373 that music itself is silent on matters of history and criticism…. [it] has stubborn roots, roots that are both conceptual and ideological. the conceptual persistence is shown by a bias that even inflects the prominent recent trends in musicology that have moved to embrace thickly described contextual relationships. with a few exceptions, most of the studies produced by this cultural musicology have used historical knowledge and critical theory to illuminate music, not the other way around (kramer 2005:61-62). to support his thesis, he uses beethoven’s the ruins of athens, a piece that is ‘short and simple but rich in contextual links … to learn something about a moment in history by thinking about a sample of its music’ (2005:65, 64). in the discussion of nine pages, more than half of them dealing with the music, kramer provides a fascinating historical narrative based on information that the music ‘itself’ provides. in 1999 johan fornäs wrote in the new journal culture machine that cultural studies keeps on learning from texts, even when this interpretation makes detours through an explanatory analysis of how they function. what texts do is certainly as important as what they say, but what makes the discursive work of texts specifically cultural is that it is mainly fulfilled precisely by their signifying force of saying something to someone. the power of culture is anchored in a capability to induce meaning, which makes interpretation the clue to critique. but interpretation is only possible if ‘something’ has been said (acknowledging the necessity of a text) and if the message has been received and understood by the receiver (the listener). because an ideological approach foregrounds the function of the text, rather than its interpretability, i have described the relationship of text and context as an ideological power game and argued ‘for a more nuanced view in which text and context function as equal partners in a kind of dialogue’ (2002:195). conclusion an approach that acknowledges music as an equal partner in a contextual approach shows an alignment of hans roosenschoon’s music with global trends and issues of his time. when considering time and space with regard to his music, a historical approach to the context of his music has shown how the entanglement of time and space manifest in a multifaceted music. not only is the plurality of his eclectic voice a reflection of a postmodern world, but it also links with newer voices from south africa, more specifically with sarah nuttall’s (2009) notion of entanglement mentioned above. time and space also figure in her approach when she writes ‘the now, from here,’ venturing ‘beyond the safety of difference, the easy control of the academic voice, and the comfortable negative subject position of much intellectual critique’ (2009). for her ‘there is a sometimes overwhelming negativity (endlessly bearing witness to the differences of class, race and gender) to academic work in the humanities, as if any other subject position, or point of analysis, is woefully naïve’ (2009). but two decades earlier, in a poetics of postmodernism, linda hutcheon had already referred to a ‘grand flourish of negativized rhetoric’ that produces questions but no solutions or answers (1988:3, 42). in a postmodern world where opinions come to be regarded as having the force of facts, generalised statements not supported by evidence have been tolerated. but to what extent does this strategy, especially when it is linked to the application of a preconceived ideological spies 374 template, promote the academic project? thinking in generalised, rigid categories, for example, relies on entrenched perceptions of afrikaner homogeneity that have found their way into musicology. the potential of a more nuanced approach, a greater tolerance of different perspectives, points of view and personal positions, and regarding the music as an equal partner in the musicological enterprise might just help to find new ways of understanding the music of our time. references adorno, t.w. 1991. the culture industry: selected essays on mass culture –theodor w. adorno, bernstein, j. m. 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(eds). the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd edition. london: macmillan, vol. 21 pp. 662663. walton, c. 2001. body parts, stone holes and ethno-theory: report on 29th annual musicological congress. south african journal of musicology, 21:83-86. wheelock, c. 1985. borges and the ‘death’ of the text. hispanic review, 53(2):151-61. microsoft word 01 taylor & atkinson olives.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(2) december 2013, pp. 185-205. the new national development plan (2011) and the need to create jobs through agriculture: is the south african olive industry ready for the challenge? sj taylor and d atkinson1 abstract this paper provides a scan of the south africa commercial olive industry between 2008 and 2012 and argues the case for greater industry cohesion in this small agricultural sector. the national planning commission’s national development plan (ndp, 2011) has identified the olive industry as one of the country’s many small-scale, labourintensive agricultural sectors with strong growth potential, and which must be supported to enable it to create new jobs. this paper argues that increased government support, linked to the new national development plan (2011), will be needed to enable the olive sector to contribute to national development objectives and create jobs. the olive producer association, sa olive, functions as a cartel of private sector producers, without significant plans for the rapid up-scaling of the industry. while the number of commercial growers has steadily increased, black growers are under-represented, as are black entrepreneurs involved in processing and distributing olive oil and table olives. the article notes the absence of co-operative decision-making between the olive industry and government on issues of shared concern, and considers the concept of ‘corporatism’ as a potential system of interest representation for the olive industry. corporatism would allow greater trust between government and the commercial olive sectors to be fostered. the paper discusses the example of australia, where collaboration between business and government has contributed greatly to promoting the olive industry. key words. arid areas, karoo, national development plan, sa olive, development crops, commercial olive industry. 1. introduction the south african national planning commission, located in the south african presidency, was established in 2010 to identify sectors of the economy which could be boosted alleviate the unemployment crisis in the country. the unemployment rate in south africa was 25.6 % in the second quarter of 2013 (statssa, 2013), and this figure excludes discouraged unemployed people, who have given up looking for work. the national planning commission prepared a national development plan, dated 2011, but this document was only endorsed by cabinet in september 2012. in particular, chapter six expands on the ways in which agriculture can contribute to meeting the unemployment 1 . susan jean taylor and doreen atkinson are attached to the centre for development support, university of free state, p o box 339 (internal 100), bloemfontein 9300, republic of south africa. website: http://www.uovs.ac.za/cds. (corresponding author: rhtaylor@icon.co.za). taylor & atkinson 186 challenge, particularly in the rural areas. the rural economy can be boosted through greater support to agriculture, but also through support to mining, tourism, agro-processing and fisheries (presidency 2011: 196). the national development plan highlights those commercial agricultural sectors which will be supported in regions that have the highest potential for growth and employment. strategies that give new business entrants access to agricultural product value chains are identified as a specific need (presidency 2011: 197). olive growing and processing was identified as a small-scale agricultural sector that could be supported to create jobs (presidency 2011: 201, 203). the plan describes olives as a form of ‘small-scale, labour intensive agriculture’. the growth and export potential of small-scale crops such as olives, cherries, macadamias, pecan nuts, rooibos tea, cherries, berries and figs are potentially significant. the plan also adds that access to growing markets will have to be secured. scaling up south african production in these crops is a challenge, and quality standards also need to be addressed. new farmers, small-scale business, and black farmers need support. the ndp is not particularly in favour of expanding the industry by focusing on larger businesses. security of tenure for new black farmers is also essential to ensure adequate investment in new farming operations. it should be possible, in terms of climate and abundance of low cost labour, for south africa to have an olive sector that rivals that of tunisia or morocco in scale. this paper argues that, for this to be achieved, government support and additional private investment would have to be forthcoming. while the ndp creates the opportunity for olives to be highlighted as a development crop and sector, it warns that the development of new jobs in agriculture will not be easy, and will require credible programmes, significant resources and stronger institutions, such as agriculture departments in local and provincial government. [furthermore], greater effectiveness of extension officers needs to be given priority by provincial agriculture departments. white commercial farmers, agribusinesses and organized agricultural industry bodies can also help bring these objectives to fruition’ (presidency 2011: 197-8). the question arises whether the olive industry in south africa is sufficiently geared for such interventions and support. this paper applies the concept of ‘corporatism’ to the south african olive industry, as it highlights potential, but notably absent, forms of co-operation between business and government, to meet collective goals. 2. corporatism: creating consensus between peak private and public institutions internationally, there has been a growing recognition that the structure of interest group mobilization can have a decisive impact on addressing collective social and economic problems (mathews 2001: 478). corporatism and pluralism are contrasting systems of institutionalized interest representation. ‘corporatism’ refers to the organization of groups into national, specialized, peak organizations, and relies on a consensual means of policymaking. corporatism involves goal-oriented collective problem-solving. in corporatist systems, organizational strength consists of a combination of degree of organizational centralization, internal coherence, and effective representation of their clientele. a fourth variable is access to government, which will enable preferred outcomes to be embedded in legislation and official regulations (mentz 2011: 536). ‘pluralism’, on the other hand, refers the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 187 to a system of factionalized, competitive, adversarial groups, and involves struggle over access to legislative influence (matthews 2001: 483). in the field of economics, ‘corporatism’ typically refers to a tri-partite negotiating structure, involving business representatives, trade unions and government, presumably to the benefit of all three actors (padovano and galli 2003: 247). of course, there may be a continuum, ranging from pluralism at one extreme to full corporatism and the other, and each society is likely to find its position on the continuum due to a host of economic and political factors. there is unlikely to ever be a perfect system of interest representation. from a neo-liberal perspective, corporatism suffers from being rigid and unresponsive to the market. from a corporatist perspective, a pluralist or neo-liberal system of interest articulation is likely to produce short-term outcomes, and will prioritize individual over societal benefit (boucher and collins 2003: 296). padovano and galli (2003: 259) argue that a “intermediate” system, midway between the extremes of pluralist and corporate systems, seems to hold the most promise for output growth. corporatism is based on peak organizations which represent the broad interests of the constituency. at the summit of these peak organizations are political actors who get to know each other over a sustained period of time (matthews 2001: 485). there are various reasons why corporatism can make a difference to economic outcomes: producers can lobby for tax breaks and incentives, it can promote inter-departmental co-ordination, it can provide government funding for research, and it can improve the quality and quantity of products, thereby stimulating consumer demand (doctor 2007: 124). corporatism, or social compacts between ‘peak’ organisations (i.e. organisations representing a host of smaller associations), can be spectacularly successful, as was proven by the turn-around in the brazilian automotive industry between 1996-2001 (doctor 2007). in this paper, the potential of the south african olive industry is described and analysed. its performance is compared to that of a very similar country, australia, where governmentbusiness collaboration has led to a massive growth in olive production and marketing. the paper concludes with recommendations for at least an ‘intermediate’ form of corporatism in the south african olive industry. 3. methodology this study began with a survey of secondary information related to the south african olive industry. industry stakeholders (morgenster, buffet olives and hamilton russell vineyards) were interviewed in 2008 and 2010. other information was drawn from south african and international organizational marketing material. sa olive and the government-funded agricultural research council (arc) (arc infruitec-nietvoorbij) were also consulted. the published work of carlo costa, a deciduous fruit and olive specialist at the agricultural research council (arc) at the infruitec-nietvoorbij station, was also consulted. a wide range of international literature on olive production was consulted, including countries such as tunisia, namibia, and australia. the question arises whether growing and processing olives could form part of creating resilience in rural areas in south africa, assist local farmers to adapt to cope with disasters and/or climate change, as well as bring new black entrepreneurs in these arid areas into the mainstream economy, and thereby address poverty and marginalization. taylor & atkinson 188 4. a comparative study: the australian olive industry australia’s olive industry, which could form a model for the expansion of the south african olive industry, is large and well-structured, with 900 growers and 10 million trees. it has a single industry association, the australian olive association, ltd (aoa). the australian olive association ltd (aoa, 2012a) is the single industry body for olive industry participants, and membership fees are based on annual turnover (aoa 2012a, aoa 2012b). the australian olive industry has an olive industry fund, established by the primary industry funding schemes (olive industry fund) regulations of 2009. these regulations require growers of olives (for oil, table or other olive products) to contribute to the fund with a levy per kilogram of olives (pirsa, 2012). the fund is administered by the minister for agriculture, food and fisheries. the primary industry funding schemes act of 1998 requires that the person or body administering a fund must ensure that management plans for a fund are prepared, meaning that there is a consolidated plan for how the funds are to be allocated. the australian olive industry fund supports the following activities (pirsa, 2012: 7): • market development, including export market development, branding, consumer education to increase domestic demand for australian extra virgin olive oil (evoo), differentiating australian product from imported oils. • building supply chain relationships to establish an effective link between production and the market, establishing industry standards and managing risk, including the need for new marketing arrangements for the olive industry. • improving productivity, both on-farm and in processing, improving efficiency and critical mass to lower the unit cost of production, and making australian evoo more market competitive. there are two categories of membership in australian olive association ltd. category a includes the growers, while category b includes suppliers, service providers, marketers and others who market or sell olive products with a brand owned or controlled by them, or provide a service to the olive industry (south australia, 2006). membership fees are based on annual business turnover. the australian olive industry is supported by occasional government grants (aoa, 2012b; field, 2012), and also by research organizations such as the rural industries research and development corporation (rirdc) and the department of primary industries and resources of south australia (pirsa) in south australia (pirsa, 2012). in addition, the south australian research and development institute (sardi) carries out research for agricultural industries (sardi, 2012). australia’s olive industry research and development plan guides the development of the industry (rircd, 2002), an industry biosecurity plan has been drafted for the australian olive industry (2009) (biosecurity, 2009). the australian industry also has a climate change strategy (james and liddicoat, 2008). while south africa must entertain the notion of small emerging olive growers and smaller community projects, small olive operations often do not make good business sense, as the australian experience has shown. a major influence on the australian olive industry at present is the large number of small growers who represent farm diversification projects and hobby farmers of various levels of capacity and competence. there are no entry barriers to the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 189 production since land and trees are relatively cheap and available, and equipment costs, like those of small olive presses, are also now easily affordable (rirdc, 2002). australian olive growers can therefore be divided into two categories: the larger, sophisticated private or corporate producers, typically with direct strategic alliances linked to processing and marketing activities along the value chain; and smaller operators with small groves, who tend to have little experience in processing or marketing of olive oil (and other olive products) and are less likely to be well-integrated into a supply chain. over 70 per cent of olive trees are concentrated on fewer than 20 groves, with the largest (boundary bend ltd in victoria) having in excess of 6,000 hectares (pirsa, 2012). some australian analysts believe the australian olive industry is too fragmented, with ‘too many’ smaller groves, and the industry strategy aims to consolidate ‘cottage industries’ into commercial farms. such consolidation attempts have exposed deficiencies in local knowledge and skills that need to be remedied (rircd, 2002: 3-6). the size of operation of an olive farm can make a difference to profitability and viability. in australia, a farm size of 85 hectares seems to be the threshold between small-scale and largescale olive farms (pirsa, 2006: 8-10). australian studies suggest that there is a clear correlation between size of grove and profitability. farms below 25 hectares are either part of a multi-enterprise farm or a ‘hobby farm’, sometimes with the costs being allocated to other business enterprises as a tax loss. for any grove below 85 ha, operating costs are punitive, and a decline in the global price of olive oil is often calamitous. if international oil prices are high (average $5.25/l), well-managed groves of 5–10 hectares can be viable, but if the oil price drops below this, then even the large groves begin to struggle (pirsa, 2006). australia has found that, if olives are grown for specialist markets such as organic olive oil and table olives, they may be more profitable, even in the case of small groves (pirsa, 2006; beckingham and o’malley, 2007). larger players in australia can ‘secure their futures by adopting strategies for investment-readiness and by establishing positions of influence in global supply chains’. small players can achieve and maintain viability by adopting strategies for collaboration in supply and value chains, as well as product differentiation. this means knowing the end consumer of the product, the partners in the chain, and which chain partners are driving product quality, production and distribution decisions cycles (pirsa, 2006). 5. profile of the south african olive industry 5.1 a century of innovation relative to europe, the south african olive industry is still very young industry. jan van riebeeck planted the first two cultivated olive trees at the cape on his farm boschheuvel in 1661. however, the fruit of the olive tree was not exploited for another 200 years. in 1907 a farmer from paarl received a gold medal for the 'finest olive oil produced in the british empire' at the london show (olives go wild, 2013). in 1896, raffaele costa, the eldest of three brothers, arrived in south africa from genoa, and established a nursery in newlands, cape town. his younger brother, ferdinando, collaborated with st. illario institute in italy, and imported scions of the best cultivars, which was used to graft onto wild olienhout rootstock. several years of experimentation followed, to determine suitable varieties to adjust to local conditions (olives south africa, 2013). taylor & atkinson 190 the most widely planted cultivar in south africa is the californian mission, with other important cultivars including manzanilla, leccino, frantoio, barouni and kalamata, which have been grown for many years. new cultivars in the industry are coratina, favalosa, nocellara, arbequina and other imported cultivars in minor plantings. south africa has also developed a novel table olive cultivar called nandi which can be processed as green or black olives. it displays good size with an excellent flesh to pit ratio (olives go wild, 2013). today, south africa has over 300 olive growers and producers of varying size and intensity (olives go wild, 2013). south african olive oils compare very favourably with the best in the world as demonstrated by many prestigious international awards received. the western cape is the most important and optimal commercial olive producing region in south africa. it has about 720 000 mature olive trees, grown on 3 000 hectares of land, although olives are grown in other regions (interviews with industry, 2008 and 2010). by comparison, spain has seven million olive trees. traditionally, the south african olive sector concentrated on table olive plantings, but this has changed in recent years towards olive oil cultivars (olives go wild, 2013), because good quality extra virgin olive oil (evoo) commands a high price in the international market. south africa is a small player in the global olive industry, but is able to compete on oil quality. based on the rate at which new trees are being planted in the country, olive farming is growing at an estimated rate of at least 20% p.a. making it one of the ‘fastest growing agricultural sectors in south africa’ (olives go wild, 2013). at present, about 80% of the south african plantings consist of oil olives (olives go wild, 2013), somewhat out of step with the growing local and international demand for table olives (john scrimgeour, sa olives, personal communication, 2010). many of the successful olive farmers in the country are established wine farmers with good farming knowledge and a strong resource base and networks. they are familiar with a select clientele which appreciates healthy food, specialized tastes, food branding, exclusive packaging, and agri-tourism. consequently, olive farming is often started as part of an existing vineyard operation when many of the key overheads like land have already been purchased (interviews, 2008 and 2010). smaller olive farms in south africa could be vulnerable, unless supported by other on and off-farming activities, yet there is a growing group of small independent estates, often established by existing farmers, retired farmers (with experience in other crops), or investors who choose to migrate from the big urban centres to rural towns. information and analysis on the number of new independent or ‘lifestyle’ olive farmers in south africa is not available. in south africa, a third category of olive grower would be the emerging olive grower who may be a land reform recipient, a community using communal land, or a black entrepreneur. a particularly good example of community-based olive production is based at three schools in beaufort west, which have planted more than 400 olive trees on their school grounds, and now press and sell their own olive oil (beaufort west tourism, 2013). such producers may need sustained support from a range of sources (government as well as existing commercial olive farmers) to ensure success. a key challenge is how to encourage black farmers and entrepreneurs to enter this sector. the western cape commercial olive producers form the major group of stakeholders in the south african olive industry. they are made up of large-scale, well-resourced producers (morgenster, buffet olives, drakenstein olives, hamilton russell vineyards, the olive shed, olyfberg, vesuvio estates, willow creek and others). in some cases, these producers the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 191 (such as hamilton russell vineyards) have already established themselves in the wine industry. these large estates are able to compete internationally on oil quality (interviews, 2008 and 2010). understanding the world economics of olive oil is an important element of their success. 5.2 the olive producer organization in south africa sa olive (sao) is the single voluntary association representing the commercial south africa olive industry. it represents about 120 producers and is the contact point for industry information through its committee members and website. it acts as an official mouthpiece for the industry. it aims to protect the industry against threats, to promote the industry and its product on all levels, and to provide guidance for best practice farming and production activities (linda costa, personal communication, 2008). sa olive also conducts market research studies (bizcommunity, 2011a). sa olive is as a section 21 (non-profit) company with a board of directors. members of sa olive pay a membership fee according to the size of their olive business. they must record how many hectares are planted, how many trees they have planted and their annual production of table olives or oils. this information provides the only source of industry statistics. sa olive also expressed an interest in funding social development and crop development to the benefit of their industry (linda costa, personal communication, 2008). there is no collective marketing or sales of olive products, and essentially all producers compete with each other for market share. however, there are various websites, like the ‘olive directory’, which have been established by private individuals to assist in information flows within the industry. this provides information on equipment, trade shows, nurseries, and cultivars (olives go wild, 2013). 5.3 south african olive production in relation to global patterns south africa is a very small player in the international arena. south africa’s olive oil production is not reflected by the international olive council (ioc) or other directories of olive oil producer countries and outputs. south africa competes with larger non-european union (eu) producers like chile, brazil, peru, and australia. in africa, major olive producing countries are tunisia and egypt, while other african countries with smaller production levels include morocco, libya and algeria (turkekul et al, 2007). most of the international commercial attention is focused on olive oil as a global commodity, but table olives are always in demand, including in south africa (john scrimgeour, sa olive, personal communication, 2010). the production of table olives is more complex, with processing to reduce the toxicity caused by the compound oleupurein. there are the traditional ‘home industry’ and artisanal natural fermentation methods to prepare table olives, but for large-scale commercial production, industrial methods are used to harvest and process the olives. industrial scale processing has to be undertaken with care as many things can go wrong, resulting in spoilage. artisanal and boutique foods are a growing global trend (celentano, 2012) and in south africa, if this were pursued as an opportunity for olive growers, there would undoubtedly be a range of research needs. taylor & atkinson 192 5.4 marketing south african olives in 2012, sa olive (sao) noted that there was no effective legislation to protect south african consumers from olive oil products with inaccurate and misleading labeling (bizcomunity, 2011b). consumers are advised to look for olive oil products bearing the ‘member of sa olive commitment to compliance scheme’ (ctc) seal, a scheme initiated in 2005 to protect consumers against fraudulent practices and to set a standard of quality (bizcommunity, 2011b). this seal confirms that the content is 100% locally produced in accordance with the sa olive code of conduct and practice, which is itself based on international standards, and that the product is adequately described on the label (bizcommunity, 2011b). the seal also confirms the year of harvest, as this is an indication of the freshness of the oil. olive oil does not keep well. emerging black farmers seeking to enter the evoo arena would also need to adhere to these standards or risk getting lower prices for their oils. the individual growers in south africa carry out their own marketing, often using ‘boutique style’ marketing approaches to attract affluent clientele, often by means of the internet. for example, an olive farm at riebeek-kasteel advertises its products online using phrases like ‘an ultimate olive experience’ (olive boutique, n.d.). there may be opportunities for south african olive producers to develop other products (nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals) for the local and international markets, including non-culinary products, to find new markets for their produce. kloovenburg wine estate has developed olive orchards and a wide range of olive products that include cosmetic products. this estate is an example of a wine estate that has diversified into olives, and aims to develop an ‘ever-expanding culinary and non-culinary product range’, which they produce from 30 hectares of olive trees. the estate promotes its olive products through a website (kloovenburg, n.d). 5.5 profitability of south african olive growers evidence from interviews suggests that smaller olive groves are not profitable on their own. south african olive industry survey respondents stated that for the ‘smaller growers’, olive farming is ‘not very lucrative’ and is ‘difficult’ because this type of farmer has to take all the risks in their agricultural enterprises. many ‘lifestyle’ farmers enter the industry and set up new groves, but have to run other operations like guest houses and farm stalls to be financially viable (interviews, 2008 and 2010). the threshold of profitability depends on the cost of buying land, the capital costs of establishing and maintaining olive orchards, as well as olive yields. there is a misconception that olives can be grown profitably on small parcels of poor quality land by communities. for olive oil producers of all sizes, financial viability can fluctuate in terms of global olive oil prices, often with disastrous results. successful small producers usually maintain their profit margins through strategic collaborations along the supply/value chain, as well as undertaking product differentiation strategies (pirsa, 2006). to do this, they need a sound sense of the olive business and an understanding of their industry and the supply chain. inexperienced newcomers may not survive. the smaller growers need to know the end consumer of the product, who the partners are in the chain, and which partners are driving product quality, production and distribution decisions. in south africa, too, small-scale olive producers could potentially establish viable businesses, not only as growers, but as processors who may undertake the processing themselves and sell the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 193 them to various customers, including representatives of the food industry, the retail sector or direct to customers. but they would need detailed market information. 5.6 south african olive industry research needs sa olive provides useful information on the climatic requirements for growing olives (sa olive, 2013). however, the south african olive industry has identified several key research needs, which are currently not being met. there been little independent analysis on the social and economic impacts and economic multipliers of this industry, or a survey of the number of people currently employed from which to benchmark the creation of increased jobs. it will be important to have information on where olives are being produced, what yields per hectare are obtained in different regions; the identity of producers (small-scale, community projects on communal land, hobby growers, commercial growers) and an analysis of the sustainability of different sizes of operations, in the short, medium and long term. scientific research requirements include understanding the microflora (bacteria and yeasts) in order to optimize industrial-scale table olive processing; understanding spoilage organisms of table olive processing; optimising processing for cottage-scale table olive operations; horticultural yield improvement, and waste disposal of mill water and olive cake (the solids which remain after the pressing of olives). in fact, olive cake is now used extensively in mediterranean countries as a source of fuel, particularly for heating greenhouses (ipa-tech, 2013). no research is currently done locally in the processing of table olives. however, sa olive has approached the university of stellenbosch to add olive research to their wine and yeast research programme, so that the microorganisms, including lactobacillus strains, involved in the processing of olives can be better understood and improved (linda costa, personal communication, 2008). sourcing new cultivars is a particular challenge. the world olive industry is presently undergoing a radical transformation in order to meet the demands of the 21st century. major changes involve the intensification and optimization of orchard operations, advanced horticultural methodologies, improved management systems, and efficient industrial technology linked to both table olive production, olive oil production and dealing with olive waste. south africa needs to keep up with these developments. considerable efforts are being made globally towards the selection and breeding of varieties more suitable for intensive cultivation. important research issues include the long term uniformity of fruiting, and adaptation to local conditions. desirable characteristics of new varieties include a high oil content and quality, low incidence of alternate year bearing, suitability for mechanical harvesting, and resistance to pests and diseases. in the case of table olives, features such as shape, size, uniformity of ripening time, or a high pulp to stone ratio, are also desirable. south african commercial (and community-based) olive growers need to keep up with, and benefit from, international developments. there is no concerted industry-wide olive breeding programme in south africa. rather than develop local varieties (which is a long process), varieties are brought in from europe and israel, and royalties are paid by individual estates, rather than by the industry. generally, local olive growers surveyed felt that these imported cultivars perform well, although there are taylor & atkinson 194 problems with root stock cultivars. some of the growers also propagate plant material for their own use, while morgenster produces olive planting stock to sell to the industry (erasmus, 2008). the wild olive, olea europea subsp. africana, is a potentially valuable indigenous olive tree. south african horticulturists are experimentally grafting mediterranean olive scions onto wild olive understocks, in an effort to produce a locally-adapted olive crop (carlo costa, arc, personal communication, 2008, 2010). the localities of the wild olive (olea europaea subsp. cuspidata (wall. ex g. don) cif.,), which occurs naturally in the eastern cape, can also give an indication of new areas that are suitable for commercial olives (mkize, 2008). some of the pesticides used until recently in the south african olive industry are now banned in europe, while replacements have not yet been registered on olives. european markets are intolerant of pesticide residues in food products, refusing entry and sale of contaminated goods. this means that integrated pest management strategies will need to be developed in south africa for olives where herbicides and pesticides are no longer used. in the eastern cape, where community-managed groves have been planted, insect pests are problematic (mkize, 2008). another potential menace to the olive industry in south africa is the sale of adulterated olive oil. in 2001, a multimillion rand scam was exposed, and laboratory analysis at the university of the free state confirmed that a dangerous green colourant was used to colour sunflower oil to make it look like olive oil. the colourant is used in engine cleaners as well as in other petroleum products (news24, 2011). the south african olive oil industry does regular tests on all products being marketed as olive oil. however, such research would be a good candidate for a partnership with a public research institution, so that it can be done regularly, at scale, and can contribute to an in-depth corpus of knowledge about south african olive products. in south africa, the larger privatized growers’ or producers’ associations collect voluntary or compulsory funds from the industry to support sector-specific research and development, as is the case with the citrus growers association, potatoes south africa and the south african sugar association. in these cases, a levy is placed on agricultural production to fund marketing and research, and to provide support for new industry entrants. in the case of the olive industry in south africa, collecting additional funds to pay for research is not possible, as olive producers are few in number, and not large in scale (survey findings, discussions with industry, 2008 and 2010). this is a major drawback for the south african olive industry, as it is currently unable to fund scientific research that would benefit the industry as a whole (interviews, 2008 and 2010). in july 2012, the south african commercial olive industry introduced a levy on olive oil and table olives, with the intention of funding a generic marketing campaign to promote the use of local olive oil and table olives. the levy consists of 40c/litre on extra virgin olive oil and 8c/kg on table olives now applies for all locally produced products (erasmus, 2012). this revenue stream will promote marketing, but will not be sufficient to fund research and development. in the absence of south african research, the south african olive industry tends to buy innovation, technology, cultivars and advice from well-resourced european institutions like the italian research council. international scientific olive research, including biotechnological applications, is very advanced, especially in europe. some of the bigger the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 195 dual olive/wine estates rely on in-house experts and thus claim that they have no need for local research. this approach, however, tends to favour well-resourced players in the industry and also does not allow the industry to deal with looming disease problems that will affect all producers. it further disadvantages small-scale growers. if the south african commercial olive industry is not yet ready for a holistic industry plan, or a research and development strategy, it should at least develop an olive industry biosecurity plan to manage biological risks. it should regulate importation of plant material as well as the spread of feral olives, along the lines suggested by the south australian olive industry strategic plan (south australia, 2006). 5.7 finding markets for south african olive products south africa is a small player in the global olive industry, but successfully produces boutique extra-virgin olive oil (evoo) quality olive oil. south africa is not efficient at producing bulk olive oil or bulk/artisanal table olives. the international olive oil market is highly competitive and the established top global companies resort to collaborative arrangements beyond their geographic borders to entrench their positions and buy up interests along the supply chain (rirdc, 2006). this makes it difficult for new entrants to get established. producing and selling olive oil internationally does present an opportunity for south african olive growers, but only if they can gain entry to the international markets, and compete with the other ‘new’ olive producing countries like chile and india. for this reason, new-comer olive growers in south africa should investigate the local and regional african market as this market is expected to be less competitive. market information is somewhat fragmented for the south african olive sector, at least partly because the sector is not well organized. olive growing and processing can create opportunities for a wider range of players up and down the supply chain in the olive industry, but there is no quantitative information on this in south africa, other than that it remains an ‘opportunity’ (linda costa, personal communication, 2008). the 2010 olive directory states that, since 2004, there has been a 40% increase in olive oil imports into south africa, and a 275% increase in table olive imports. this should act as a market signal. erasmus (2012), quoting sa olive, said that currently the south african olive industry produces less than 20% of total domestic olive oil consumption. the country imported 6.8 million litres of olive oil in 2011, while total south african production in 2011 was expected to reach only 1.5 million litres. sa olive’s own market research in 2012 found that 80% of locally available olive oils are imported (bizcommunity, 2011). it is unfortunate that local demand is met by imported products and that this opportunity is not addressed strategically by the local industry olive industry. discussions with sa olive (sao) and the arc in south africa confirmed this situation (interviews, 2008 and 2010). another indicator of the growth of the south african olive industry is that south african nurseries are selling more than 300 000 new olive trees per annum and are ‘struggling to keep ahead of the demand’ (olives go wild, 2008). the expansion of the demand for olives within the broader south african population should be also investigated for new markets. however, a disadvantage of growing olives for this market is that black south africans are not traditionally olive consumers, although as levels of affluence increases in african countries, olives can become part of a middle class diet. in taylor & atkinson 196 contrast to traditional olive oil consuming countries, where annual per capita consumption of olive oil ranges between 12-24 litres, the average south african consumes 80ml per annum (olives go wild, 2008). in south africa, olive oil competes with other well-established vegetable oils, notably sunflower and canola oil (john scrimgeour, sa olive, personal communication, 2010). there may be unexplored regional markets for table olives and olive oil, for instance in the southern african development community (sadc) and the common market for eastern and southern africa (comesa) countries. if the south african olive industry does not position itself strategically in markets in africa, other african olive oil-producing countries like namibia could foreclose opportunities for south africa (john scrimgeour, sa olive, personal communication, 2010). these opportunities would need to be thoroughly tested through market research, either by individual growers or by the industry as a whole, as part of an industry strategy. the ability of regional markets to absorb larger quantities of olive products would need to be explored. according to carlo costa (personal communication, arc, 2012), table olives would be the best option for emerging players as the market locally, regionally and internationally is large and undersupplied. potential markets could even include australia, which, despite its own olive industry, still imports olive oil and table oil in excess of local production. 5.8 threats to the south african olive industry south africa competes with larger non-european union olive-producing countries such as chile, argentina, brazil, peru, and australia. in africa, potential olive oil competitors are tunisia and egypt, while other african countries with smaller production levels include morocco, libya and algeria (tunisia, 2008). morocco is one of the world’s largest producers of black table olives. while countries like chile and argentina are already successful non-eu producers of olives, other large developing countries are beginning to experience an internal demand for olive oil. india and china are also developing their olive industries (vikas, 2011a; vikas, 2011b, butler, 2011). in india, the 2012 annual olive oil demand is estimated at 42,000 tons, mainly because of affluent indian consumers’ desire for healthy foods. some of the government-led olive-growing initiatives in india have failed because of top-down planning (vikas, 2011b). it is important to understand the approaches which these countries have undertaken to support their national olive industries. namibia is a potential rival to south africa. namibia has plans to establish an olive growing sector, admittedly from a very low base (33 growers of which only five are considered economically successful) (tjaronda, 2007). olive farming is attractive to the namibian government, as it is labour intensive. namibian unemployment is 51.2% (2008 estimates), up from 36.7% in 2004 (african agriculture, 2008). the namibian government intends that olive farming becomes its ‘most important commercial crop because it can contribute to the socio-economic development of arid areas, and enable farmers to move away from lowmargin agricultural activities to more profitable ones’ (tjarondo, 2007). the namibian ministry of agriculture, water and forestry has identified olive farming as one of the agricultural projects to be included in the joint spatial development initiative (sdi) started by south africa and namibia in 2000 to stimulate the economic potential of the greater region (tjarondo, 2007). the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 197 establishing a bigger south african olive growing sector might be hindered by distance from international markets. the local and regional markets are still constrained by a lack of a cultural affinity for olives. yet countries such as brazil, exporting fruit to european markets, have established mechanisms such as producers’ associations and are able to compete on quality even though they are also very far from their markets (selwyn, 2008). only detailed market research will reveal the size of market opportunities for an expanded south african olive industry. cheap, inferior and adulterated olive oil imports are a recognized threat to the local olive industry. south african producers complain that olive farmers in europe are heavily subsidized, so an imported spanish or italian olive oil can cost half as much as a south african oil in local supermarkets (brand south africa, 2005). in 2012, south africa's olive industry applied to the international trade administration commission of south africa for a tariff on imported olive oil, because cheap, low-quality oil imports undermines our own olive industry and job creation (bizcommunity, 2012). the duty will amount to about r14/l on extra virgin olive oil, which will reduce the negative effects that subsidies paid to farmers in the eu are having on domestic extra virgin olive oil prices (erasmus, 2012). although industry respondents argued that there ‘were no new pests and diseases’ of olives in south africa, and that olives in general appear to be very resistant to pests and diseases (interviews, 2008 and 2010), some new biological threats may emerge. smaller, underresourced players coming into the sector could be very vulnerable to such outbreaks. an industry biosafety strategy needs to be in place, including monitoring and early warning systems. the australian olive industry’s strong biosecurity strategy should serve as an example (biosecurity, 2009). 5.9 developing a national olive industry in south africa at present, there is no south african national olive industry strategy which outlines the manner in which the existing commercial industry, independently or in partnership with government, will grow in the future. there is now an opportunity for government and the formal olive industry to engage jointly around the vision of the national development plan (2011) and consider how the sector can be scaled up to create jobs. a public-private stalemate exists, with the south african olive industry frustrated about the ‘slow’ government-led initiatives in agricultural development (interviews, 2008, 2010). this frustration has led the commercial olive industry to remain independent, and use private investment to develop their business operations. interviewees suggested that the private investment route is preferable, to grow an industry that competes internationally on excellence. the local industry also largely secretive, with individual growers guarding their trade information closely (interviews, 2008 and 2010). also, the south african olive industry is not particularly unified, despite the efforts of sa olive. olive growers compete vigorously with each other. selwyn (2008) showed that in countries like brazil, where the governments sought to expand their agricultural production and expand rural economies, partnerships between public and private sector were essential. in creating a more widely represented olive industry in south africa, partnerships between the private sector growers and processors, small-scale community growers, new emerging entrants and government will be needed. taylor & atkinson 198 any further growth of the south african olive growing and processing industry will require an evidence-based industry strategy, associated with a research strategy and a biosecurity strategy (for new cultivar imports as well as dealing with new pests and diseases). research needs to be conducted on the various geographical settings in south africa, as well as the onset of climate change and projected increased aridity of the continental interior (gitay et al, 2002; cohen, 2009). the mechanism to develop and fund these strategies urgently needs to be explored, with commitment from both government and the olive industry. a symptom of the failure of the south african olive industry and government to engage with each other, is the friction over research. the government-funded agricultural research council (arc), also called arc infruitec-nietvoorbij in the western cape, has identified certain biosecurity risks to the industry, for example, the emergence of new pests and diseases. but it is unable to fund a bigger investigative or preventative programme for olives because of ongoing budget constraints. matching funds from the industry would be needed to be able to establish a sustainable olive monitoring and research programme. the olive industry, on the other hand, is generally unwilling to pay for local research, as the larger estates are connected to international sources of cultivars, technology and advice elsewhere. these issues must be resolved. 6. conclusion: a corporatist solution? the south african national government, through the national development plan (2011), has effectively issued a mandate for the further development of the olive growing and processing sector to create employment. but how this will be implemented is not yet clear. the ndp (2011) indicates that olive growing and processing should play a much bigger development role in areas where few other crops can be successfully grown, specifically the arid and semi-arid areas of the country, but acknowledges that extensive support will be needed. government will need to find ways to engage with the commercial south african olive sector to ensure that the vision of the ndp is realized. rather than focusing on international markets, local and regional markets for olive products will need to be considered if olive growing is to meet the development objectives of the national development plan (2011). there are many models (in tunisia, australia, india, and china) that south africa could investigate to assist with the establishment of a national strategy for an expanded olive industry. the south african olive industry is currently small but significant, and dominated by wellresourced private growers with little room for emerging players. sa olive believes that the current olive industry is ‘too small’ to invest in local research and developing emerging farmers; however, it did express an interest in the role of funding social development at some stage, to the benefit of their industry. the south african olive industry remains a small, elite industry, functioning as a cautious cartel of private producers, who generally operate independently of each other and without any concerted plans for the rapid up-scaling of the industry. because the south african government has earmarked agriculture as a vehicle for social and economic development, some version of corporatist partnership between government and the olive sector would contribute greatly to shaping a future olive industry. as the existing olive industry is already self-sufficient and privately funded, and has considerable intellectual capital about growing olives and marketing olive products, it is an essential partner setting up a national olive industry. to play a bigger role in social development in south africa, the the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 199 south african olive industry itself needs to embrace new partners, identify new products and markets, undertake sector-specific research, and also implement new technologies for olive production, including biotechnology. it would indeed be an achievement if the south african olive sector could support the further development of the south african olive industry, and extend its membership to small black growers, communities and black entrepreneurs. for the existing olive industry to play a greater developmental role, future funding mechanisms need to be explored, including leveraging government support. the awarding of an import protection levy for foreign olive oil imports is a good sign. the fact that the south african olive industry has applied to the national government for a tariff on imported olive oil to protect the local industry from cheap imports and ensure that it can create a ‘future 30 000 jobs’, suggests that the organized olive industry is ready for the challenge of scaling up to a much bigger olive industry. however, tariffs may also ultimately protect inefficient local producers, by placing an implicit tax on consumers. such tariffs need to be utilized as a temporary protection while a more inclusive industry-wide development programme is designed. once again, this will require a coherent and concerted approach, developed by government and the olive producers. also, as olive industry growers are currently not particularly integrated, and compete with each other, it would seem that the current organized industry is not yet ready to prepare a holistic industry plan. the south africa olive industry also lacks accurate industry information for planning. there has not been a collaborative olive industry situational analysis, and little economic data exists on the commercial growing of olives. ‘classical’ corporatism would require business, trade union and government consensus, and this has been difficult to achieve and sustain. in south africa, the most ambitious form of corporatist experiment has been nedlac (the national economic development and labour council). formally, nedlac was supposed to serve as a corporatist institution for the discussion of economic policies, even though its formation was rooted in enthusiasm about the role that leading businessmen had played in largely non-economic matters during the transition – notably in encouraging constitutional negotiations (seekings and nattrass 2011: 345). the growing conflicts between market-oriented and state-oriented economic proponents, have shown the weakness of nedlac. in response to the launch of the ndp, the chief executive officer of nedlac noted that the plan’s targets ‘can only be achieved if the social partners are prepared to commit to serious discussion around the structural challenges and inadequate investment in the sa economy. it will require dialogue, cooperation and trust among social partners’ (nedlac 2012). these are fine words, but it illustrates the very limited level of real corporatist discussions in south africa. in their insightful analysis of south african political economy since 1994, seekings and nattrass (2011: 341) pointed out three specific impediments to the formation of a developmental coalition: first, the state both elected politicians and bureaucrats remained deeply suspicious of established business; secondly, it was unwilling to discipline organized labour (whilst persisting in its mostly unilateral attempts to discipline business) and, thirdly, it became distracted by the lucrative terrain of ‘black economic empowerment’ (bee). furthermore, the state’s commandist instincts combined, fatally, with a lack of capacity. as seekings and nattrass (2011:339) commented, ‘there is little evidence that state and business have been partners in a “development coalition” concerned not only, or even primarily, with economic growth, but taylor & atkinson 200 also with distribution’. the crucial characteristics of a growth coalition the exchange of information, reciprocity, trust and credibility – have been absent in the south african case. at provincial level, there is some appreciation of the need for government to work with private sector partners. the term ‘corporatism’ is not known in government circles. the term ‘public/private partnerships’ tends to refer to partnerships on specific projects, where equity and operations are shared by government and business. the notion of a standing platform, where government, industry and other role players (such as trade unions) meet to discuss policies, legislation, programmes, regulations, budgetary allocations and implementation, is not understood. some consultation is envisaged at provincial level. in two arid provinces (northern cape and western cape), where olive production has been initiated, public documents use a range of various terms to suggest a vague synergy with the private sector. in the northern cape’s provincial spatial development plan, for example, the term ‘adaptive management’ is advocated, which will bring ‘resource managers, researchers, and other stakeholders together and encourages long-­‐term collaboration through the development and strengthening of institutional ties’ (northern cape 2012: 157). the western cape agricultural strategic plan (2010:25) reported on a stakeholder consultation process, which consisted of written responses to draft documents, as well as a few meetings between officials and a broad range of relevant parties. (neither of these documents mentioned the olive industry). the northern cape local economic development strategy, or led (2011) made repeated mention of olive production in the province, but its only institutional recommendation was a range of loosely structured ‘stakeholder forums’. the document suggests that these forums are less than effective: ‘it is … unclear to what extent these sector forums support led and how planning is integrated between sectors, wider non-governmental stakeholders, and the other spheres of government’ (northern cape 2011: 532). the northern cape’s agricultural strategic plan, 2005-2010, refers to the need to provide support to farmers, to disseminate information, and to co-ordinate research; but its strategic planning process made no mention of consultation with commercial agriculture (northern cape 2005: 9-10). at municipal level, the level of business-government collaboration is generally poor, due to an inherited distrust of the business sector by local government politicians and officials (van rooyen 2013: 24). in the agricultural sector, government has been reluctant to assist commercial farmers, focusing their energies instead on black and ‘emergent’ farmers (atkinson 2013: 1). this has created an institutional void in industries such as olive production. this void is particularly notable when south africa is compared to countries such as australia. it remains an open question whether corporatist arrangements in south african can actually work. the economic sphere is a site of extreme political and ideological contestation. nevertheless, an ‘intermediate’ approach to corporatism (padovano and galli 2003) may well make a meaningful contribution, by promoting collaboration between institutions such as olive sa and government departments such as agriculture, trade and industry, and science and technology. at this limited level, there have been successful government-industry partnerships, as the case of karoo lamb production in the northern cape will attest (kdf 2013). in this case, the entire karoo lamb initiative was driven by universities, with donor funding, and government buy-in was only achieved at the end of the process. olive producers have not approached government in any coherent fashion; nor has government shown much interest in engaging organised olive producers. the south african olive industry still operates in a pluralist fashion, as one small pressure group competing with other the ndp and labour in sa’s olive industry td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. 201 stakeholders, and wielding little public influence. given the success of the australian olive industry, one suspects that south africa is missing important economic opportunities. a corporatist approach will require a stronger cohesion within the olive industry. the south african olive industry will need to set its business priorities, to create greater value; to attract investment into the industry; to involve emerging black farmers; to integrate olive sector development with the land reform process; to create local and export marketing strategies; and to develop transport and packaging strategies. other business priorities could include exploring an optimal industry structure; establishing national and industry funding and levies; consolidating olive industry best practice; and developing industry indicators and a monitoring and evaluation plan. if the south african government wishes to expand the olive sector into an industry of greater commercial significance, deficiencies in local management, technical knowledge and production skills, particularly for emerging players, will need to be identified and remedied. independent researchers have argued that the south african government must find a way to negotiate with the commercial olive industry to scale up the existing industry and increase the number of small growers and black farmers involved, rather than set up an independent and parallel government-funded olive-growing programme. the outcome of government-led community projects with olives in south african up to now has been disappointing (mkize, 2008), and lessons need to be learned. the national development plan identifies the need for collaboration on research and development: ‘the best solution is for the state to play an active role both in funding research and development, and in guiding the type of research and development that the private and public sectors conduct. despite an excellent set of science institutions, research priorities are not always consistent with south africa’s competitive advantage or growth strategy’ (presidency 2011: 110). however, the ndp fails to investigate the potential of corporatist synergies. at best, it argues for ‘social dialogue’: ‘a common front to forge joint solutions to the risks facing the economy must be found. south africa cannot afford dysfunctional relationships between the public and private sectors and civil society. they urgently need to find one another’ (presidency 2011: 101). this vision falls far short of the corporatist institutional options which have been implemented in south africa’s competitor countries. acknowledgments: the authors acknowledge all helpful discussions within the olive industry, sa olive and arc, infruit-nietvoorbij (mr carlo costa). funding for the study came from an independent international donor. references african agriculture (2008). namibia promotes olive farming. bhttp://www.africanagricultureblog.com/2007/05/namibia-promotes-olivefarming.html. senegal. aoa (2012b). australian olives association ltd. membership and who can join. www.australianolives.com.au/blog-detail/who-can-join. aoa (2012b). australian olive association ltd. http://www.australianolives.com.au/ . taylor & atkinson 202 atkinson, d (2013), municipal commonage in south africa: a critique of artificial dichotomies in policy debates on agriculture, african journal of range & forage science, 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http://inra.unu.edu/p12. van rooyen, d (2013), civic culture and local economic development in a small town, phd thesis, centre for development support, university of the free state, bloemfontein. vikas, v., (2011a). another olive production project in india. olive oil times. http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-making-and-milling/gujarat-india-oliveproduction/15952. newport, usa. vikas, v., (2011b). olive farming project in india fails to take off http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-business/olive-farming-project-india-fails/19438. newport, usa. western cape department of agriculture (2010), strategic plan 2010/11-2013/15, elsenburg. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 209 – 224. capability approach on pedagogical use of ict in schools a chigona and w chigona ∗ abstract the use of information communication technologies (icts) for enhancing pedagogical activities has enormous potential to raise standards and increase educators’ and learners’ capabilities. however, research and anecdotal evidence in south africa show that there is a low adoption rate of ict among educators in schools and, in cases where the technology has been adopted, the impact has not been optimal. this qualitative study analyses the factors which prevent educators from using icts in their pedagogy. the perspectives of limited access and/or use of ict as deprivation of capabilities provide a conceptual base for this paper. sen’s capability approach has been used as a conceptual lens to examine the educators’ situation regarding integration of the technology in their pedagogy. face-to-face interviews, with fourteen educators and two khanya personnel, were used to gather data for the study. the findings show that personal, social and environmental factors are hindering the educators from realising their potential capabilities from the icts available in their schools. for effective use of the technology in the classrooms, the educators need to be equipped with technological pedagogical content knowledge. keywords: educator, capability approach, technology, conversion factors, pedagogy. disciplines: pedagogy, information communications technology introduction over the last decade there has been a concerted effort to promote the use of information communication technologies (icts) in schools in developing countries. the integration of ict in classrooms has an impact on learning; however, this is only realisable where educators are able to appreciate that the effective use of the technology requires new capabilities and approaches to pedagogy. while educators’ beliefs and values are important in shaping technology-mediated teaching and learning, these might not suffice to enable the educators to appropriate the technologies appropriately in their curriculum delivery (glover & miller, 2001; cox et al 2003). what may be required most is extensive knowledge of ict, coupled with skills on how to integrate the technology in pedagogy. ∗ agnes and wallace chigona are attached to the department of information systems, university of cape town, private bag, rondebosch 7701 south africa. thei respective emails are: agnes.chigona@uct.ac.za and wallace.chigona@uct.ac.za. chigona  and  chigona   210 educators’ pedagogical practices when using ict may be affected by a number of factors. the educators could be affected by their knowledge about their own curriculum, as well as their capabilities to integrate icts into the curriculum. moseley et al (1999) posit that there is a clear distinction between educators who choose ict resources to fit within a particular topic and those who choose resources merely to deliver curriculum, without any direct application to the curriculum components. furthermore, moseley et al (1999) argue that when educators use their knowledge of the subject and along with their knowledge of how learners understand the subject, as well as their pedagogical knowledge on integrating the technology into the curriculum delivery, their use of ict has the benefit of enhancing teaching and learning. this means pedagogical uses of technology require the development of a complex, situated form of knowledge, namely technological-pedagogical-content-knowledge (tpck) (mishra and koehler, 2006: 1017). effective teaching using ict requires an understanding of how the technology relates to the pedagogy and content; hence the knowledge about technology cannot be dealt with as context-free (neiss, 2005; hughes, 2005; mishra and koehler, 2006). therefore there is a need for an inter-disciplinary approach to studies on the use of icts in education. besides the complex, situated form of knowledge discussed above, there are other factors that prevent educators from using icts in their pedagogy (cox et al, 2003; grainger and tolhurst, 2005). these factors include individual capabilities to use icts, access to resources, ease of use, incentives to change, support and collegiality in their school, school policies, commitment to professional learning and background in formal ict training (mumtaz, 2000; becta, 2003). the educators’ capabilities and constraints determine their efficacy to use the technology in their classrooms. in this paper, we examine the educators’ capabilities and constraints on pedagogical use of icts in schools in disadvantaged areas. this context is interesting because the schools in disadvantaged communities are beset with a myriad of challenges resulting from inadequate resources. it is generally hoped that ict would be useful in such situations to supplement the meagre resources (hardman, 2005). we employed a capability approach to understand factors which may hinder educators, in a disadvantaged schools context, from effectively using ict for curriculum delivery. in particular, we employed the capability approach developed by amartya sen who argues that social arrangements should aim to broaden individuals’ capabilities – their freedom to achieve valuable beings and actions. sen believes that focusing on freedom is a more accurate way to develop what individuals really value (sen, 1999). sen, therefore, discourages focusing on the availability of resources, but recommends that the focus be on how the resources can translate into meaningful benefits for individuals. based on the recommendations of zheng and walsham (2008), the capability approach looks at the failure to derive meaningful benefits from ict as a deprivation of the educators’ freedoms and therefore in need of being addressed. based on the capability approach, this empirical study asks the following questions: • what pedagogical ict benefits and/or well-beings do educators perceive from icts? • what factors impact on the pedagogical utilisation of ict in the schools? this study uses the khanya project (in the western cape province, south africa) as a case study. in south africa, there have been a number of initiatives to make the technologies available in schools and to equip educators with ict skills to be used in the curriculum delivery. the khanya project, a western cape department of education initiative, is one of these initiatives. the project, which started in 2001, has been equipping schools in the western cape province with information, communication and audiovisual technology to improve teaching and learning, pedagogical  use  of  ict  in  schools   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 209 – 224. 211 or curriculum delivery. according to the project, "by the start of the 2012 academic year, every educator in every school of the province will be empowered to use appropriate and available technology to deliver curriculum to each and every learner in the province" (khanya, 2008). according to the 2008 khanya report, 59% of schools in the province had “at least one computer facility”, 70% of educators were trained and 71% of learners had access to ict in their schools (khanya, 2008). anecdotal evidence as well as research conducted in khanya project schools (miller, naidoo, and van belle, 2006) show that not all ict-trained educators are using the technology in their teaching. using sen’s capability approach, we analysed empirical data which we collected through interviews with educators in khanya schools, as well as khanya personnel who are managing the project. research on icts in education in developing countries has focused mainly on physical access to resources, infrastructure, support and collegiality in schools, policies and basic training of the teachers on how to use the technologies. there is a tendency to look at the icts and how they are used in the schools and not at the capabilities which both educators and learners have to effectively use the technologies. we argue that merely introducing the icts in the schools is not adequate to guarantee the effective integration of the technologies in pedagogy. hence this study focuses on the educators’ capabilities when using the technology in their pedagogy. the study makes a practical contribution in that it seeks to contribute towards improving the utilisation of icts for curriculum delivery in developing countries. even though the study uses a single case study of the khanya project, it is hoped that the findings will be relevant to other similar projects in south africa as well as in other developing countries. further, the use of a framework that allows us to look beyond the technological aspects of school ict projects, allows us to place the debate in an interdisciplinary research domain. ict and pedagogy ict holds much promise for use in teaching and learning. literature shows that technology can effectively improve pedagogical abilities, hence increasing learners’ performances (louw, muller and tredoux, 2008). in spite of teachers often being constrained by the ict resources available to them, there are examples in the literature of educators appreciating the technology when it is integrated in pedagogy. cox, preston and cox (1999) show that many educators perceive ict as a tool for improving the presentation of material, for making lessons more fun for the learners and for making administration more efficient. in addition, ict provides fast and accurate feedback to learners (becta, 2003). the use of icts in pedagogy could promote ‘deep’ learning and allow educators to respond better to the different needs of different learners (lau and sim, 2008). ict has the means to aid in the preparation of learners by developing cognitive skills, critical thinking skills, information access, evaluation and synthesising skills (cawthera, 2000; castro, 2003). hardman (2005:100) argues that “placing this new technology in schools could help alleviate the deepening crisis, enabling shifts in pedagogical practices and thus potentially benefiting students' learning.” it is believed that ict–supported learning environments could be beneficial to a constructivist teaching approach (newhouse, 2002). one of the most important components of the constructivism theory of learning is the concept of proximal learning, which accepts that a learner constructs his/her own knowledge for which scaffolding is initially required. the scaffolding could be provided by a tutor or computer. thus, the technology can be used to help chigona  and  chigona   212 create the types of learning environments and the types of support for learning that are known to be ideal; these are argued to have been ignored or have failed to be widely implemented in the past (newhouse, 2002:10). while icts may be used to either maintain a learning environment or be used to support the learner in the constructivist classroom, it is advocated that a blend of instruction and construction is employed. for instance, decorte (1990) posits that there is a need for balancing the approaches when using the ict in schools: a powerful computer learning environment is characterised by a good balance between discovery learning and personal exploration on one hand, and systematic instruction and guidance on the other, always taking into account the individual differences, inabilities, needs and motivation between students (decorte, 1990:74). this suggests that the use of ict for teaching and learning should be understood within a broader framework of educational practice. thus, understanding of the ideal use of the technology in pedagogy requires examining teachers’ ideas, values, beliefs, thinking and environments that lead to observable elements in the practice (cox et al, 2003). the educators’ own pedagogical beliefs and values play an important part in shaping technologymediated learning opportunities. however, the educators may need extensive knowledge of ict to be able to select the most appropriate resources, and to understand how to effectively integrate the technology into their pedagogies (cox et al, 2003). the use of ict and integration of technology into the educators’ pedagogy is dependent on a number of factors. such factors include teachers’ readiness, confidence, knowledge and ability to evaluate the role of ict in teaching and learning, and lack of skills to be able to use the ict equipment (manson, 2000; lau and sim, 2008). according to manson (2000) other factors include school leadership, curriculum planning, technical support, the actual use of ict, training and personal development, the school council, the budget and the learning technologies committee. slaouti and barton (2007) have also shown that hurdles such as access to equipment, time pressures, lack of mentors and opportunities for apprenticeship have an impact on educators’ ability to integrate ict in their pedagogy. cox et al (1999) argue that some educators do not use ict in their teaching because they (the educators) are computer-phobic. it is also reported that sustained and regular use of ict to have any benefit on the teaching and learning in some classrooms rarely occurs because of the limited number of ict resources in schools (comber et al, 2002). theoretical framework: capability approach limited access or use of ict as deprivation of capabilities provides a conceptual basis for this paper. consequently, we employed a capability approach as a conceptual lens to examine the educators’ situation regarding ict for pedagogical use. the capability approach has been developed, refined and defended over a period of time by sen in different articles (sen, 1984; 1985; 1987; 1992; 1993; 1999; 2000). the approach is directly concerned with what people are effectively able to do and to be, taking into account the resources to which they have access. in other words, the approach focuses on individuals’ capabilities and freedom. sen (1999) defines the term ‘freedom’ as effective opportunities individuals have to live the sort of lifestyle they have reasons to value. according to sen (1993), in social evaluations and policy designs, the concern pedagogical  use  of  ict  in  schools   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 209 – 224. 213 should be on individuals’ capabilities, on the quality of their lives and on freeing their lives from obstacles. the capability approach to a person’s advantage is concerned with evaluating it in terms of his or her actual ability to achieve various valuable functionings as a part of living. the corresponding approach to social advantage – for aggregative appraisal as well as for the choice of institutions and policy – takes the set of individual capabilities as constituting an indispensable and central part of the relevant informational base of such evaluations (sen, 1993:30). using the capability approach, zheng and walsham (2008) argue that people should look at poverty not only as lowness of income but also as ‘impoverished lives’, i.e. the deprivation of the freedom to be involved in important activities that one might wish to choose. thus the capability approach centres not on the income level per se but rather on the capabilities which individuals may fail to enjoy due to low income levels, e.g. access to education, participation in economic life and autonomy in decision-making. according to sen, human development should be perceived as a process of expanding individuals’ capabilities. the approach explicitly takes into account environmental conditions, social pressures and conversions which are some of the basic concepts that we are using, since the study has been designed to mainly use the basic concepts of the capability approach as a sensitising tool. the approach seeks to understand transformation of commodities into valuable beings and doings, i.e. vectors of functioning or capability sets. from the vectors of functioning, individuals choose capabilities or functioning which they would like to achieve. the choice of specific subsets of functionings creates a given level of well-being. functionings and capabilities functionings and capabilities are the central concepts of the capability approach. the term functionings “reflects the various things a person may value doing or being” (sen, 1999: 75), i.e. valuable states that lead an individual to well-being (e.g. being safe, having an educated mind, having a good job). functions are related to commodities but they describe an individual’s beings and doings. on the other hand, capabilities refer to “the alternative combinations of functionings that are feasible for her to achieve. capability is thus a kind of freedom the substantive freedom to achieve alternative functionings combinations (...the freedom to achieve various lifestyles)” (sen, 1999:75). that is, capabilities describe the actual opportunities open to an individual. the two terms are interrelated but have different meanings: functioning is an achievement, whereas a capability is the ability to achieve. functionings are, in a sense, more directly related to living conditions, since they are different aspects of living conditions. capabilities, in contrast, are notions of freedom in the positive sense: what real opportunities you have regarding the life you may lead (sen, 1987:36). sen does not propose or endorse a fixed list of capabilities; instead he argues that the choice and importance of capabilities depend on personal value discretion which could be influenced by the nature and purpose of the exercise. the flexibility of the framework permits researchers to develop and apply it in different ways (alkire, 2002:8-11). chigona  and  chigona   214 well-being and agency well-being is an evaluation of anything in an individual’s situation, i.e. an evaluation which is focused on the individual’s being (gasper, 2002). however, for sen, ‘well-being’ refers only to one’s own gratification and is distinct from the pursuit and fulfilment of one’s ideals and commitments. on the other hand, agency is an individual’s ability to pursue and realise what he/she values and has reason to value, or, in other words, the freedom to set and pursue one’s own goals and interests (sen, 1985). well-being may be one of the goals and interests the individual is pursuing. the individual is viewed as an agent thus “someone who acts and brings about change” (sen, 1999:19). he/she is viewed as an agent and not as a patient whose wellbeing (or its absence) is the only concern (robeyns, 2005). consequently, the capability approach is not solely concerned with the possession of material resources (albeit these could be essential to achieve goals and interests), but rather a person’s real opportunity in achieving his/her well-being and freedom and agency freedom. the two freedoms are interrelated in that the deprivation of one often has the causal impact on the other (zheng and walsham, 2008). commodities, freedom and capabilities in this study, we needed to understand the relationship between commodities (resources), functionings and capabilities. the commodities in this study are the computers in the khanya laboratories the functionings are the uses educators make of the commodities at their command, and capabilities are freedoms and/or the real actual possibilities open to the teachers who were given the khanya laboratories in their schools. however, the extent to which individuals can generate capabilities from commodities is influenced by conversional factors. conversion factors can be categorised into: • personal characteristics, e.g. mental and physical condition, literacy and gender • social setting characteristics, e.g. social norms (like rule of behaviour, materialism, etc), social institutions (like political rights, public policies, etc), and power structures (like hierarchy, politics) and • environmental factors, e.g. climate, infrastructure, resources and public goods (sen, 1992). according to zheng and walsham (2008), achievement of functionings (from the set of available capabilities) is a result of the individual’s choice to select from the capabilities available, subject to individual’s preferences, social pressure and other decision-making mechanisms. these are again affected by personal, social and environmental factors. limited use of technology as a capability deprivation research shows that there is limited use of ict by teachers in their pedagogy. bingimlas (2009: 237) postulates that “the act of integrating ict into teaching and learning is a complex process and one that may encounter a number of...barriers” which could lead to deprivation of the educators’ capabilities. this study focuses on the limited access and use of ict by educators in schools in disadvantaged areas. the perspective of limited access or use of ict pedagogical  use  of  ict  in  schools   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 209 – 224. 215 as deprivation of capabilities provides a conceptual basis for this paper. taking this approach, we explored the integration of icts in pedagogy by teachers through the following questions: • which capabilities do educators value in the use of ict in their pedagogy? • who may be disadvantaged by the deprivation of these capabilities? • how do personal, social and environmental factors affect the realisation of capabilities and functionings from the use of icts? in this case, the capability approach provides a set of concepts to unpack the relationship between ict and its limited use in the educators’ pedagogy as capability deprivation. this is elaborated in table 1. commodity/resource the type of technology the characteristics of technology relevant to pedagogy conversion factors personal factors, e.g. training social factors, e.g. social institutions, social norms, politics environmental factors, e.g. infrastructure, resources agents whose capabilities are deprived, e.g. educators, learners capabilities the capabilities the learners and educators are deprived of well-being freedom, e.g. education, utilisation of technology etc. agency freedom, e.g. taking advantage of available resources, policy making table 1: concepts for unpacking ict and its limited use as capability deprivation (zheng and walsham, 2008) the perspective of limited access and use of ict as capability deprivation will be used to illustrate two aspects of the phenomenon. firstly, limited access and use in schools could be due to physical unavailability of the technology in the schools. secondly, limited access and use of ict may be due to relational factors and results from types of capability failure other than the deprivation of the usage of the technology. concepts used in the study an educator may be able to use a khanya laboratory (commodity) at school to deliver curriculum using the technology (functioning). if, however, the educator is unable to use the khanya laboratory (e.g. due to lack of skills), then the availability of the commodity at the school would not result in the functioning i.e. using ict for teaching. however, the access to the technology coupled with the educator’s personal characteristics (ict training etc), creates the capability for the educator to incorporate ict in his/her teaching whenever necessary. furthermore, let us suppose that the educator values this capability for making teaching and learning interesting – thus having this capability contributes to both the educator’s and learners’ happiness (selffulfilment) or well-being. chigona  and  chigona   216 research methodology this study was done qualitatively using an interpretive approach. we were interested in exploring factors which may lead to educators’ deprivation from effectively using ict in their pedagogies. therefore, we collected and analysed empirical data using the qualitative research approach. qualitative research is defined as “the use of qualitative data such as interviews, documents and participant observation data to understand and explain social phenomena” (myers, 1997). according to myers, qualitative research methods are designed to help researchers understand people and the social and cultural contexts within which they live. in addition, the qualitative approach is eminently effective in determining the deeper meaning of experiences of human beings and in giving a rich description of the specific phenomena being investigated in reality (rubin and babbie, 1989). hardman (2005:102) also notes that “interviews can be useful tools for unpacking motives and experiences”. we used semi-structured interviews to explore the deeper meaning of experiences that educators in khanya schools place on their use of ict for curriculum delivery. research sample interview respondents for the study were drawn from four randomly sampled high schools in the disadvantaged areas of the western cape. the schools were sampled from those that are under the khanya project. fourteen educators from the randomly sampled schools were interviewed about the utilisation of computer laboratories and the factors which may contribute to capability deprivation of educators in their schools. at least three of the interview respondents from each school were educators of the subjects which khanya recognises as the focus of the schools (i.e. mathematics and english). a representative of khanya management and one person working for a khanya private partnership were also included in the study in order to understand their expectations on the educators’ use of ict. data gathering and analysis we conducted in-depth interviews with all the participants. all the interviews were audiorecorded and then transcribed. the transcription process helped us get closer to the data – we were able to think about what the interviewee was saying and how this was said. we read each typed transcript several times while listening to the corresponding audio tape to ensure accuracy of the transcription and to come to a better overall understanding of each participant’s experience. the process of transcribing and listening also prompted additional questions for subsequent sets of interviews. afterwards we did a detailed systematic qualitative analysis, case by case. we read and examined each transcript multiple times, each time annotating the text with initial comments pertaining to conversion factors and capabilities affected. after this we extracted and listed themes. the themes were then clustered in a meaningful way by looking for connections between them to develop super-ordinate themes. pedagogical  use  of  ict  in  schools   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 209 – 224. 217 results it was noted that most educators were aware of the benefits icts would offer towards teaching and learning. however, the integration of icts in the curriculum delivery was generally low. the analysis revealed a number of conversion factors that led to insufficient or no integration of ict in the khanya schools, hence leading to the capability deprivation of educators to effectively deliver curriculum and for learners to receive quality education using the technology. the factors can be grouped into personal, social and environmental factors. table 2 summarises the capabilities and conversion factors. the conversion factors are discussed in the ensuing subsections. capabilities deprivation commodity agents conversion factors well-being freedom agency freedom personal factors: -technological (ict) skills -technological pedagogical content knowledge to be able to use ict to integrate ict in pedagogy social factors: -policy on the use of computer lab -freedom to access computer lab to teach using ict without barriers to be engaged in the policy-making of the computer lab to take advantage of computer technology educators environmental factors: -adequate equipment -technical support for using the technology to have support with regards to ict in all subjects to effectively deliver curriculum using technology available at school khanya lab learners environmental factor -conducive learning environment to receive quality education table 2: a summary of conversion factors and capabilities personal factors under the personal conversion factors, we identified two factors, namely technological knowledge/skills and technological pedagogical content knowledge. technological skills while the teachers require technological knowledge to be able to operate the technologies, our analysis shows that low levels of ict literacy amongst the educators was one of the factors that contributed to their limited use of the technology. thus, though the schools had the technology which could have been an important commodity for teaching and learning, very few educators were incorporating the technology in their pedagogy. the khanya project trains educators in the schools which are part of the project on how to use the icts. however, it appears that the training was not always effective since many educators were still not skilled or confident enough to use the technology. one educator indicated that although they received the khanya training: chigona  and  chigona   218 i still don’t know much about computers. i need more training so i can use the computers in my class. some respondents noted that the challenge was that the project offered training at the start of the project at the respective schools; however, there was no follow-up training. further, since the training, some teachers had moved from the school and the school had received new teachers with no ict skills. there was an expectation that the teachers who received the training would train the new teachers; however, this was not happening. this finding is in line with lau and sim (2008:20) who show that, “despite the apparent benefits of the use of ict for educational purposes...the learning potential of ict is deprived as many teachers are still not fully ict-literate and do not use it in their teaching.” as miller et al (2006) note, schools in privileged areas can afford to arrange extra ict training for their teachers; in contrast schools in disadvantaged areas rely on the training provided by khanya unfortunately that was not adequate. technological pedagogical content knowledge some teachers felt they were computer literate. they were able to use the computers for administration purposes, however they were not confident to use the technology for teaching. for instance, a geography teacher said: i know i can use the computers to teach some topics in geography but i don’t know how exactly to do that. it may be argued that the technology provided the educators with a limited set of functionings due to inadequate ict training, which resulted in low technological knowledge. the situation was exacerbated because the training they received from khanya might have been technicallybiased (as claimed by the respondents) and failed to provide the educators with the skills on how to integrate the technology in their teaching, i.e. it did not equip the teachers with technological-pedagogical-content-knowledge. at a deeper level, the problem could be attributed to teacher-training programs; the design and implementation of the teacher training programs treat the technology as constituting a separate set of knowledge and skills that have to be learned. it seems the relationship between these skills and the tried and true basis of teaching (content and pedagogy) is non-existent or considered to be relatively trivial to acquire (mishra and koehler 2006). it is vital that the relationships between the three components be considered as a unit and not in isolation. this knowledge can enable the teachers to integrate the icts in their teaching. social factors policy on the use of computer laboratory the rules set by the khanya project on who could use the technology and what it could be used for affected the level of usage and the benefits derived from the technology. in some instances, depending on subjects (fields of study), educators could not access computer laboratories due to the rules. as reported by the respondent from a khanya private partnership, the khanya laboratory in schools is set up with a given focus, e.g. on mathematics or on the english language. on this point one educator lamented that: pedagogical  use  of  ict  in  schools   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 209 – 224. 219 they [khanya] prescribe who can use it and who cannot use it and when it can be used and when it cannot be used and all these things. ... the rules attached to khanya are too strict, there is no freedom whatsoever, if they say the maths people can use it then only the maths people can use it. in addition, khanya provided ict facilitation only for the subjects which were the focus of the school. this arrangement disadvantaged the educators of other subjects in the institution as they were not provided with ict support from khanya. since the schools were disadvantaged, the equipment provided by khanya was the only equipment they had and the schools could not afford alternative arrangements for those excluded from the khanya technology. some respondents felt that the policies about the usage of the computer laboratories were unfairly imposed on the schools and on the educators who were not included in the drafting of the policies. the educators felt they were deprived of their capability to participate in the decisionmaking. freedom to access computer lab from the analysis, we see that at one level the educators of the subjects which the respective schools focused on were included in the project, while the educators of other subjects were excluded from taking advantage of the available technology. at another level, however, all educators (including those of the subjects the schools focused on) in the schools might have been unfairly included in the khanya laboratory because their agency freedom to participate in the decision-making for the ict at their institution was restricted. this reflects what sen (2000) posits: exclusion from the process of governance and political participation is indeed an impoverishment of human lives, no matter what our per capita income may be. further, since the laboratories could only be opened during the periods permitted by the khanya policy, it resulted in some educators not having an opportunity to develop their skills on the technology for teaching, as reported by one educator: the red tape around the use of the laboratories prevents the educators from having the opportunities to get into the laboratories the hours that they need to actually get familiar to the system... the educators who were not allowed access to the khanya laboratories were deprived of agency freedom to benefit from the available technology to utilise it in teaching. similarly, the learners were deprived of the freedom to benefit from computer-supported education in the other subjects. in the case of educators, the restrictions may result in some lacking the opportunity to develop confidence and/or developing a fear of using the technology. consequently, the educators may feel unfavourably included in the project because they have ict at their school but do not have the freedom to use it whenever they need it. it may be argued, therefore, that the subject-focus restrictions may lead to some educators lacking freedom to benefit from the computer technology. this lack of freedom could be seen as a constitutive of, and contributor to, capability deprivation. environmental factors environmental factors such as inadequate computers, coupled with problems of technical support, negatively affected the use of the computers for teaching. chigona  and  chigona   220 adequacy of equipment it was also noted that the number of computers available at the schools was not sufficient for the schools needs; a number of learners shared a computer during lessons. one educator said: on average our class sizes are 40+ learners...the khanya lab has a capacity to support 25 learners only. there are only 25 computers in the lab. the khanya personnel in the study agreed with the educator above, stating that the number of computers in the schools was one of the factors which limited technology teaching and learning. he said: ...if you got 2000 kids in a school and you have 25 or 30 computers, it is absolutely no good. you need far more or in fact you need technology in the classroom so that you can have an impact. the problem was exacerbated by most of the computers often being non-functional. since the learners had to share the computers, the educators experienced challenges in managing the teaching and learning environment. educators noted that they spent a substantial amount of time getting the learners to settle down and to get logged onto the system. this affected the actual amount of time spent on the content. technical support the analysis also shows that the educators who had the right to use computers did not have sufficient technical support regarding the use of the technology for teaching. the educators complained that the khanya project technical support was not readily available and this was negatively affecting their use of the technology for teaching. one educator narrated that: …if you have a hiccup here, you contact them, they will decide one day when they are going to come. they give you a little reference [number] just to keep you quiet and whether they are going to come today, tomorrow or next year doesn’t matter...you just need to wait...the support isn’t that great from their [khanya’s] side. because, in some cases, the support did not come in time, the educators’ agency freedom to make effective use of ict in their work was curtailed. inadequate technical support, to an extent, discouraged some educators from planning to use the technology for their teaching. the educators did not want to get to the laboratory and face a technical fault which could not be rectified because there was no technical support at the school. the khanya project designated a number of educators to perform trouble-shooting and provide support to colleagues. however, most of these teachers were not available to offer support because they “had their own classes to worry about”. due to lack of teachers (an endemic problem in schools in disadvantaged schools), the principals did not reduce their teaching-load to allow them time to perform the computersupport duties. inadequate technical support indirectly contributed to reduced well-being on the part of the learners in terms of receiving high quality education. conducive learning environment an insufficient number of computers, coupled with limited technical support, created an environment which was not conducive to effective technology-aided teaching and learning. educators expressed frustrations because they faced challenges due to high learner-to-computer ratios when managing their classes. teaching and learning is in such situations negatively affected. literature also shows that in classrooms where learner-to-computer ratios are poor, educators have difficulties with classroom management (becta, 2003). pedagogical  use  of  ict  in  schools   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 209 – 224. 221 conclusions the use of icts in education offers hope to schools in disadvantaged communities. icts can be used to address a myriad of challenges bedevilling the schools in such communities. however, to achieve that dream, it is imperative that the icts should be integrated in teaching and learning. previous studies and anecdotal evidence show that in many cases, with educators, that are not happening. it is imperative, therefore, to understand the challenges that affect the educators’ capability and motivation to integrate icts in their pedagogy. using the khanya project as a case study, this study looked at the factors that may affect the integration of ict in teaching and learning in the context of resource-deprived schools. in this study we used sens’s capability approach as a conceptual framework to analyse ict capability deprivation among educators in disadvantaged communities. given the commodity which, in this case, is the computer laboratory, we analysed the conversion factors which could enable or hinder the educators from converting the commodity (technology) to capabilities. the analysis identified a number of conversion factors that include: • insufficient technological skills and lack of technological pedagogical content knowledge • policy on the use of the technology • lack of freedom for some educators to access the laboratories • inadequate technical support for the educators who are using the ict for teaching and learning • high learner-to-computer ratio, which results in an unconducive environment to learning in order to improve the impact of icts in education and hence maximise the return on the ict investment, there is a need for the school authorities and the funding agencies to mitigate these conversion factors. we appreciate that most of these factors would equally affect schools in affluent areas. however, we would argue that the factors are more prevalent in schools in disadvantaged communities, due to their lack of resources to organise their own training, their own support or the opportunity to acquire additional equipment. it may be argued that the most critical deprivation for resource-deprived schools is their dependency on external entities to manage their ict resources. there is a need for education authorities and funding agencies to reconceptualise the provision and management of ict resources in those schools. the challenge is that the schools cannot afford their own resources and will need an external entity to finance such resources. however, the resources should be provided in a way that empowers the schools. acknowledgment an earlier version of the paper appears in the proceedings of the european conference in information systems: chigona, a. and chigona w. 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capability deprivation. information technology and people, vol. 21(3), 222-243 abstract introduction literature review methodology findings discussion conclusions and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) awonke sonandi eastern cape department, rural development and agrarian reform, bisho, south africa mmboswobeni w. ladzani department of business management, college of economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa eric j. nealer department of public administration and management, college of economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation sonandi a, ladzani mw, nealer ej. lack of business planning: a barrier to successful implementation of total quality management in south african agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1013. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1013 original research lack of business planning: a barrier to successful implementation of total quality management in south african agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises awonke sonandi, mmboswobeni w. ladzani, eric j. nealer received: 20 jan. 2021; accepted: 04 aug. 2021; published: 27 oct. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this study aimed to establish baseline data for performance concerning the business planning function of agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises (agri-smmes) in the eastern cape province, south africa. it also endeavoured to investigate the extent to which agri-smmes that had adopted total quality management (tqm) had improved their business planning performance. an action research design and mixed methods, which included the internationally recognised south african excellence model (saem), were used to collect qualitative and quantitative data from agri-smmes in the western eastern cape (wec) that had adopted the tqm philosophy, as well as from wec and eastern eastern cape (eec) agri-smmes that had not adopted that philosophy. whether or not they had adopted tqm, the agri-smmes studied were performing poorly relating to the business planning function when benchmarked against world-class standards. hence, agri-smmes that had implemented the tqm process did not necessarily have a performance advantage over those that had not adopted the process. with respect to practical implications, the use of the saem for continuous performance improvement of the business planning function should be promoted and interventions should be provided for the identified shortcomings relevant to this function. it is the first study of its kind to be conducted in the agricultural sector in south africa. therefore, the findings should provide a useful guide to enterprises contemplating implementing a tqm programme. keywords: total quality management (tqm); south african excellence model (saem); business planning; agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises (agri-smmes); business excellence models; continuous performance improvement. introduction as a result of the previous apartheid regime, south africa still has a dual agricultural sector. on the one hand, it comprises integrated commercial and prosperous agri-businesses, which are mainly in the hands of a minority of the population, and poorly resourced and trained farmers and producers with little or no access to the benefits of the mainstream agricultural sector on the other.1,2 the operations of the latter group of farmers are often relatively small. hence, they are commonly called small-scale farmers or agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises (agri-smmes), as they are referred to in this article. in addition to the above historical challenges, south africa’s agri-smmes face today’s challenges caused by globalisation, changing customer needs and competition, amongst other factors.3 ironically, these challenges also promote production of quality products or services,4,5 which in turn provide producers with an industrial competitive advantage. accordingly, south africa’s department of agriculture, recently renamed the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development, introduced a total quality management (tqm) programme amongst selected agri-smmes in the eastern cape (ec) province6 between 2006 and 2010. the implementation of the tqm programme sought to achieve the following objectives: to enhance the capacity of agri-smmes to become better organised and better resourced with capital, technology and business management skills. to integrate previously disadvantaged agri-smmes in the broader economic mainstream. to inculcate a culture of organisational excellence in the agri-smme band. in pursuit of achieving these objectives, it was envisaged that agri-smmes would enhance their key role in the south african economy contributing, amongst other things, to employment provision, income generation and the provision of food security. essentially, the welfare and livelihoods of most rural dwellers depend on agri-smmes. over the 4-year tqm implementation period, the agri-smmes that had adopted the process were also presented with a tqm-based quality model called the south african excellence model (saem). in applying the model, the agri-smmes were expected to continuously self-assess their business performance and their status concerning the implementation of the tqm programme. notwithstanding the above developments, the researchers found no literature on studies that investigated the implementation of tqm in the agri-smme band in south africa. as a result, there is a lack of information on the effects of implementing the tqm process in the agricultural sector in general, and in the agri-smme band in particular. this study thus raised the question of the extent to which south african agri-smmes perform a strategic business planning (sbp) function, which is one of the many functions included in the saem (see figure 1).7 figure 1: the south african excellence model. it would be beneficial to explain the origin of and motivation for choosing the saem before progressing with this article. the saem was developed in 1997. it came about after extensive national and international consultation with organisations that used the european foundation for quality management (efqm) and malcolm baldridge national quality award (mbnqa) models to assess excellence in organisational management systems. similarities between the two quality frameworks necessitated that they be merged to produce a hybrid framework suitable for south african conditions. the ‘founding champions’ of the saem were: armscor, csir – council for science and industrial research, eskom, greater pretoria metropolitan council, honeywell southern africa, ideas management southern africa, mercedes-benz south africa, sabs – south african bureau of standards, south african quality institute, south african society for quality and the standard bank of south africa.further to the ‘founding champions’, the following organisations later joined the ‘founding champions’ and were collectively referred to as the ‘founding members’, namely: absa bank, ingersoll-rand southern africa and tsa – technikon south africa.8,9,10,11 the saem is regarded as the best model to assess excellence with respect to the tqm framework because of its non-prescriptive quality framework for self-assessment used to identify organisational strengths and areas for improvement. having merged the best quality models in the world (the efqm and mbnqa) in developing the model, makes it second to none. in view of the above background, the objectives of this study were two-fold. firstly, it sought to establish baseline data for performance concerning the sbp function of agri-smmes in the ec province, south africa, by employing the saem. secondly, it endeavoured to investigate the extent to which agri-smmes that had adopted tqm had improved their performance relevant to the sbp function. the national small business act 102 of 1996 classifies the agricultural sector in terms of enterprise size, either annual turnover or gross assets, or the size of the full-time workforce. for the purposes of this study, agri-smmes are, therefore, defined as small-scale farmers, smallholders or owners/managers of poorly resourced enterprises and poorly trained farmers and producers with little or no access to the benefits of the commercial sector. because there is no consensus on the definition of tqm, this study adopted the following tqm baseline definitions of milakovich12 and vouzas et al.13: a total organisational approach for meeting customer needs and expectations that involves all managers and employees in using quantitative methods to improve the organisation’s processes, products and services continuously. a new approach to the art of management that was developed during the second world war and seeks to improve product and service quality and increase customer satisfaction by restructuring traditional management practices. the study, being the first of its kind to be conducted in the south african agricultural sector, aimed to make original contributions to the body of knowledge on the subject of tqm implementation in the south african agricultural sector in general and in the agri-smme band in particular. these original contributions would be of methodological, theoretical and analytical value at both academic and managerial level. this article is structured as follows: following the introduction, a brief literature review is provided, focusing on the tqm philosophy and sbp, which is one of the critical components of the philosophy. thereafter, the saem is discussed in relation to tqm and sbp. a discussion follows on the research methodology used to collect and analyse data. thereafter, the results of the study are presented, followed by an in-depth discussion. at the end of the article, conclusions are drawn and recommendations are submitted. literature review in this section, tqm, sbp and the saem have been discussed. an overview of the various agricultural enterprises in south africa is provided firstly to give context to industry for implementing these models. various agricultural enterprises in south africa the south african agricultural sector has several branches, namely field crop husbandry, horticulture, animal husbandry, fish farming, game farming and agro-processing (p. 1).1,14 within these branches, there are 39 sectors that produce various products for domestic and export purposes. the largest export product groups involve raw sugar, fresh grapes, citrus fruits, nectarines, wine and deciduous fruits. other important exports include: avocados, plums, maize, black tea, groundnuts, meat, pineapples, tobacco, wool and cotton.15 total quality management and strategic business planning after the second world war, a new customer-centred management approach called tqm was developed and advanced by management and quality gurus, like deming, juran and crosby, to mention a few.16 according to kumar17 and fotopoulos et al.,18 these quality gurus had different areas of emphasis in the course of constructing the tqm framework. notwithstanding that, there were numerous areas of common understanding amongst them, as outlined in the work of some authors,19 which resulted in a measure of synergy. there are also different perspectives amongst various authors in the literature on what the principles of tqm are.20,21,22 however, leadership, continuous improvement, customer focus, measurement, benchmarking and strategic planning are amongst many of the commonly cited tqm principles, whilst the benefits of adopting tqm are well documented.23,24 these benefits include, amongst others, improved effectiveness, flexibility and the competitiveness of a business to meet customer requirements. however, there are also barriers to successful implementation of tqm. these barriers include lack of effective leadership and management commitment, organisational politics, lack of continuous training and education and lack of planning, to mention only a few.20,25,26 lack of planning was the research area of interest in this study. in quality management, strategic planning is referred to as ‘strategy or planning’ or ‘policy and strategy’ or ‘business planning’. in the local tqm-based quality model, the saem, ‘policy and strategy’ is one of the 11 organisational criteria (see figure 1). the criterion refers to how a business develops and reviews its plans and actions for each activity.27,28,29 this criterion or function, which is referred to as sbp in this article, has 10 focus areas, which were explored in the study (see figure 2).30 figure 2: the south african excellence model matrix chart used to assess the performance of the agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises relevant to the strategic business planning function.30 strategic business planning is associated with many benefits. some authors noted that sbp gives smmes a competitive advantage and yet others reported that it results in opportunities for external funding and is associated with increased growth and business success.31,32,33 strategic business planning is also linked to improved resource efficiency, internal communication, innovative thinking, customer value and articulation of organisational goals.34 however, smmes do not often implement sbp when compared with corporations.35,36,37 according to gomera et al.,38 the key to addressing the problems of poor performance and failure by smmes effectively is arguably the implementation of a strategic planning process. other authors reiterated similar sentiments and that barriers to planning constitute lack of long-term vision, lack of time and expertise, inadequate knowledge of the planning process and reluctance to share strategic plans with employees.39,40 figure 2 is an example of a self-assessment questionnaire that focuses on sbp. the south african excellence model most organisations that adopt tqm use tqm-based quality models to measure and manage their performance on a continuous basis. the efqm and mbnqa are two of the most popularly used quality models worldwide. in south africa, organisations in various sectors and industries use the saem.41 the saem,7,30 which is a hybrid quality model of the efqm and mbnqa models, has the following objectives: to form a basis for the saem. to serve as a framework to assist organisations in developing their vision and goals for the future in a tangible and measurable way. to serve as a framework to assist organisations in identifying and understanding the systematic nature of their business, key linkages and cause-and-effect relationships. to serve as a diagnostic tool to assess the current health of an organisation via a process of self-assessment. the rationale to focus on sbp as a criterion over other criteria is that sbp is critical for and contributes strongly to the success of every business. it sets the standard for all other criteria for business success. without this criterion, no achievable goals and milestones can be set. besides, the overall study results revealed that the respondents, including those adopting tqm, were underperforming as far as business planning was concerned. moreover, interrogation of business profiles revealed deficiencies in business planning abilities and risk management skills. strategic business planning ensures community responsibility, customer satisfaction, people satisfaction, supplier and partner performance and business results. hence, its ranking as priority criterion. in this study, the saem was a critical research instrument used to achieve the set research objectives. these objectives were achieved through the research methodology to be discussed. figure 1 shows the saem, which comprises 11 criteria of different weightings, six (6) of which are enablers and five (5) of which are results. the enablers are leadership, policy and strategy, customer and market focus, people management, resources and information management and processes. as indicated earlier, this article focuses on the sbp (policy and strategy) criterion only. the weighted points below the model for both the enablers and results are part of the model. they were assigned during the model development and are used as such. methodology research design the action research applied incorporated a mixed-methods research design in which quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together in an integrated manner for objectivity and to acquire a deeper understanding of how the agricultural enterprises viewed tqm and how they performed specifically concerning sbp. participants and settings the population of the study was agri-smmes in the former ciskei and transkei homelands, referred to as the western eastern cape (wec) and the eastern eastern cape (eec), respectively. accordingly, the unit of analysis was agri-smmes. for this study, the researchers used probability sampling to select two sub-samples (i.e. wec non-tqm adopters and eec non-tqm adopters) to measure the impact of tqm. in the case of the wec tqm adopters, the entire subpopulation was included after the exclusion of survivalist agri-smmes. subsequent to the above sampling, a sample was selected from the two sub-populations in the wec and eec regions. a total of 93 agri-smmes in the wec had adopted tqm. the majority (72) of these enterprises were very small survivalist enterprises, which had noticeably originally been established for food security or poverty-alleviation purposes. these enterprises were found not suitable for this study and were subsequently excluded. the remaining 21 enterprises (23% of the wec sub-population) constituted the sub-sample. the selection criterion was a total annual turnover of between r100 000 and r4 million. the 21 enterprises that had adopted tqm were regarded as the treatment sample for the wec and were referred to as wec tqm adopters. a control sub-sample of 21 enterprises that had never adopted tqm in the wec was randomly selected using the same criteria (i.e. size of total annual turnover or total gross asset value or size of full-time workforce). thus, 42 enterprises constituted a research sample in the wec (21 tqm adopters plus 21 non-tqm adopters). in the eec, a total of 84 agri-smmes, which were recorded in a database of the ec province’s department of agriculture and various non-government organisations, was identified to be suitable for this study. in this region, where tqm had never been adopted, 25 non-tqm adopters were randomly selected as a sub-sample using the selection criteria. in total, 67 agri-smmes were, therefore, selected from the two sub-populations, that is, 42 enterprises from the wec and 25 from the eec. table 1 summarises the sub-populations and sub-samples from the eec and wec regions comprising the study area. the eec had never adopted the tqm/saem, whilst the wec had 41 non-tqm adopters. table 1: agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises setting table. reliability and validity reliability and validity checks were applied to the research instruments. cronbach’s alpha for all three groups of respondents was 0.8518, 0.7979 and 0.8172, respectively, the average being 0.8223. a cronbach’s alpha coefficient of above 0.7 indicates an acceptable degree of reliability.42 this study also upheld internal, external and content validity that is advocated by other authors.43,44,45 data collection the internationally recognised saem was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data from agri-smmes in the wec that had adopted the tqm approach and from the wec and eec agri-smmes that had not adopted tqm. data were collected by means of a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and direct observation. one part of the questionnaire was self-administered to collect demographic data, whilst the other part comprised the internationally recognised saem self-assessment matrix chart that was used to establish the extent of implementation of tqm on 10 focus areas of sbp. face-to-face semi-structured interviews were used to acquire a deeper understanding of the respondents’ perceptions of tqm and sbp. direct observation was used as a means of supporting the answers to the questions by relating the analysis derived from the quantitative questionnaire and qualitative interviews. this instrument ensured that reliability measures were applied when collecting data. observations included consent from the respondents prior to taking pictures, gathering of field notes and verification of the authenticity of documents, accuracy of measure and completeness of the documents. data analysis statistical package for social sciences (spss)version 17 was used to perform descriptive statistical analysis for central tendency. the mean scores of the sbp criterion of the saem were computed and analysed to determine the sbp performance of both the wec tqm adopters and non-tqm adopters, as well as the eec agri-smmes on the scale of the saem self-assessment matrix chart. analysis of variance was used to determine whether there were significant differences in the mean performance scores of the sbp criterion amongst and within the three research subsamples. non-parametric statistics were used to elucidate the outcomes of the parametric t-test.46,47 accordingly, mann-whitney u and kruskal-wallis h tests were used to compare variables of the demographic data and mean performance scores of the sbp. the qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews were analysed using content analysis. the analysis used key issues and themes from the semi-structured interviews. findings this section presents the demographic data and the extent of orientation of the enterprises towards tqm, as well as the sbp performance of the enterprises. these findings resulted from a 100% response rate owing to the physical presence of the research team on research sites when a questionnaire was being administered. respondents’ demographic profile the respondents’ demographic profile collected from a structured questionnaire included: age, gender, level of education, work experience and enterprise size. age most of the enterprises of wec tqm adopters (28.6%) and non-tqm adopters (23.8%), and eec non-tqm adopters (24.0%) were operated by owners or managers. these operators were within the age groups 41–45, 46–50 and 51–55 years, respectively. in all three age groups, none of the respondents were younger than 35 years or older than 75 years. it is envisaged that the farming population could drop drastically with time.48 therefore, the need to encourage participation of youth in agribusiness cannot be stressed enough. gender composition the majority of respondents in all three research sub-samples were male. in the wec, 66.7% of the enterprises that had adopted tqm were owned by males, whilst 76.2% of those that had not adopted tqm were also owned by males. in the eec, 80% of the enterprises studied were owned by males. these results reflected the male dominance in the agricultural sector.49 level of education in the wec, 47.6% (n = 10) of tqm adopters and 9.5% (n = 2) of non-tqm adopters had completed grades 8–11/n1–n2, whilst the comparative percentage in the eec was 12.0% (n = 3). in the wec, 38.1% (n = 8) of the adopters and 42.9% (n = 9) of the non-adopters had completed grade 12/n3 and in the eec 32.0% (n = 8) of the non-adopters had completed these levels. national technical certificates (n1, n2, n3 and higher) are vocational qualifications that one can choose to study at technical and vocational education and training (tvet) colleges. in the wec, 47.6% (n = 10) of the adopters and 9.5% (n = 2) of the non-adopters had a diploma or bachelor’s degree, whilst this percentage was 36.0% (n = 9) amongst the non-adopters in the eec. in all three groups, the respondents’ educational qualifications ranged between grade 8 and a master’s degree. in addition, in all three groups, the majority of the respondents held diplomas or bachelor’s degrees. these diplomas and bachelor’s degrees included agricultural management, business management, teacher’s diplomas and law. it was noticed that the respondents’ level of education differed according to the type of the core business, with respondents in citrus enterprises being the most educated. for example, 86.0% (n = 6) of the respondents in citrus enterprises had diplomas in crop production, whilst 14.0% (n = 1) had master’s degrees in economics. the respondents’ higher level of education could be attributed in part to the elimination of survivalist enterprises that are commonly run by people with a limited literacy level. in a study that included survivalist enterprises, kwaru and gogela50 found that only 16.9% of the 293 participants had a diploma or degree. furthermore, 29.4%, 37.5% and 16.2% of the participants had completed grade 12, grades 8–11 and grade 7 and below, respectively. in a study amongst the agricultural workforce in the ec, jacobs et al.51 found that 91.26% had educational qualifications below grade 12. these findings indicated that not much had changed in the education levels of workers in the agricultural sector of the ec province since the conduct of a previous similar study. work experience of respondents in the wec, 52.4% of tqm adopters and 47.6% of non-tqm adopters had 5–7 years’ work experience in the agricultural sector, whilst 44.0% of the non-tqm adopters in the eec had 5–7 years of work experience. those with more than 11 years of work experience were 28.6%, 23.8% and 28.0%, respectively. the respondents who had more years of work experience in the business were expected to perform better than those who had fewer years of experience. in all fields, experienced owners or managers are expected to perform better by making use of experiential knowledge that can be acquired through personal experience, amongst other things.52,53 size of the agricultural small-, microand medium-sized enterprises in the national small business act 102 of 1996, the size of enterprises in the agricultural sector is classified in terms of either annual turnover, gross assets or the size of the full-time workforce.54 in terms of annual turnover, the majority of the enterprises in all three groups studied were categorised as very small, that is, 61.9% and 42.9% of wec tqm adopters and non-tqm adopters, respectively, and 44.0% of eec enterprises (see figure 3). figure 3: distinction of the regions’ enterprises according to their annual turnover. performance in strategic business planning this section discusses the extent of sbp performance amongst the enterprises studied. these results were collected from self-assessment interviews. generally, all three enterprise groups, be it tqm adopters or non-tqm adopters, performed very poorly in the 10 sbp focus areas listed in figure 2. against a maximum performance score of 17, wec tqm adopters and non-tqm adopters, and eec non-tqm adopters had performance scores of 3.58, 4.03 and 3.77, respectively (see table 2). table 2: results of the regions’ strategic business planning performance scores. table 3 shows very poor performance scores for wec tqm adopters and non-tqm adopters and eec non-tqm adopters, namely 21.07%, 23.69% and 22.20%, respectively. the average achievement percentage for all the respondents was 22.32% against a total achievement percentage of 100%. table 3: business planning achievement percentages of respondents in the western eastern cape and eastern eastern cape regions. table 4 shows the results of the mann-whitney u test and that of the kruskal-wallis h test. table 4: results of the mann-whitney u and kruskal-wallis h tests for comparing the business planning performance scores of western eastern cape total quality management adopters and nontotal quality management adopters, and eastern eastern cape respondents. the mann-whitney u test was used to explain the outcomes of the parametric t-test, whilst the kruskal-wallis h test was used to compare variables of the demographic and business profiles, as well as the mean performance scores of the 11 criteria from the three research sub-samples. the p value of 0.15 results in the business planning criterion showed no statistical significance (p > 0.05) in the difference in poor or no performance of the three enterprise groups. the respondents’ underperformance in business planning indicated severely limited skills relevant to that function. there is notably a constraining business culture of not planning amongst the respondents. total quality management and the saem involving an educational and training process that would change organisational cultures and build the necessary capacities offer excellent mechanisms to address the challenges being experienced concerning planning and risk management. in similar local studies conducted in the education sector and military service using the excellence model, ferreira8 and eygelaar,9 respectively, reported higher achievement percentages of 44.0% and 30.0%. in contrast, ladzani55 found a low value of 12% in the local construction industry. the findings on poor enterprise performance concerning the sbp function reflected the limited progress amongst enterprises in implementing the 10 focal areas of this function (figure 4a). figure 4: the respondents’ (a) scale of progress made in business planning (b) most critical focal areas for improvement in ‘business planning’. figure 4b depicts the five focal areas needing the most urgent attention and the percentage of participating respondents who had identified these focal areas. these focal areas, described in figure 2, are (3) a process in place to collect relevant external information to enable a review of critical success factors and organisation plans; (5) the organisation with policy statements and strategies that cover the 11 performance improvement matrix headings; (7) a process in place to modify policies and strategies as a result of organisation and operational information; (8) the policy and strategy processes that are benchmarked and (9) a process in place to analyse ‘best-in-class’ strategy and modify resultant unit plans to develop and sustain a service excellence organisation. face-to-face semi-structured interviews were used to acquire a deeper understanding of the respondents’ perceptions of tqm and sbp. the interaction with the respondents during the semi-structured interviews, transect walks and participant observation sessions revealed that lack of business planning abilities and risk management skills had complementary effects in frustrating the operations in several enterprises. semi-structured interviews further revealed a number of risk factors that were apparently caused by poor or no business planning. these potentially devastating risk factors were climate, stock losses because of theft and lack of sufficient markets. one of the root causes of poor or no sbp was a lack of business planning skills. the results of the structured quantitative interviews showed that, when asked to rate their business planning skills on a scale of very weak to strong, 52.0% of the respondents in all three groups indicated poor business planning skills (either as very weak or weak). yet, business planning is such a critical component of tqm that it features in many internationally recognised business excellence models rooted in the tqm philosophy. using both quantitative and qualitative methods complemented each other by delivering objective results. direct observation when these two approaches were used further strengthened the authenticity of the results. discussion the purpose of this study was to investigate the current state of implementation of the tqm programme amongst selected agri-smmes in the ec and their orientation towards tqm. the study further sought to identify the reasons for success or failure concerning the implementation of tqm and to make recommendations based on the findings. in this study, the saem was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data from agri-smmes in the selected regions of the study area. self-assessment questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data, whilst face-to-face semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data. measures taken to achieve reliable results from the questionnaires and semi-structured interviews included direct observations and examination of internal documents. all the research instruments were used concurrently on the same day the research team visited the agri-smmes. the results from the application of the saem for self-assessment indicated that the respondents, including the tqm adopters, were underperforming in spb. the study revealed that the baseline data for the performance of business planning specifically were the lowest (22.32%) against the world-class standard of 100%. moreover, the outcomes of face-to-face interviews revealed deficiencies in business planning abilities. the respondents’ underperformance in business planning indicated severely limited skills to perform this function. the relatively smaller enterprises were worst affected, notably because of a constraining business culture of not planning and a lack of resources and expertise to perform the function effectively. the positive and strong correlation between planning behaviour and firm size obliged the respondents56 to emphasise that lack of planning for quality was one of the barriers to successful implementation of tqm-based quality models. observation of and interaction with the respondents revealed that lack of business planning abilities had the complementary effect of frustrating the operations of several enterprises. put differently, the basic and fundamental business planning questions of when, how, what and produced for whom failed to be considered appropriately, for example, in respect of when there was a tendency amongst producers of vegetables and field crops to flood markets with farm produce in summer when the production conditions were more favourable, with resultant unwanted surpluses that fetched poor prices or ran to waste. conversely, in winter when the production conditions were less favourable, there would be limited supplies of farm produce whilst good prices would be offered by the markets, with the result that enterprises would find it difficult to make the most of the available business opportunity. the negative effects of a lack of business planning and risk management skills, with the additional lack of entrepreneurial skills, were also experienced in livestock enterprises. the limitation of these skills amongst operators of smmes in non-agricultural sectors in south africa has also been echoed by other authors.57,58,59 reasons for failure to implement tqm revealed in the study ranged from lack of funds and resources to management and physical barriers. the findings confirmed those of previous studies that reported that cultural barriers and lack of management are considered the most critical barriers to quality management. these are all leadership-related problems. the studies further confirmed that the main physical barriers to the successful implementation of tqm are inadequate infrastructure, inadequate financial resources and geographically dispersed sites.60,61 this study found that soft skills and resources were needed to deal with the management and physical barriers amongst the agri-smmes studied. it was furthermore found that, generally, the business planning performance of relatively bigger enterprises was better than that of their smaller counterparts in that high capital investment and risk make such planning imperative in bigger enterprises. such enterprises consequently had comprehensive shortto long-term business plans. in contrast, some of the smaller enterprises had short-term informal and or verbal business plans. wang et al.62 found that formal planners put more emphasis on setting goals than their informal counterparts who tend to view formal goals and ideals as less important. lack of formal business plans also constrains prosperity because an enterprise cannot access credit from local financing institutions such as the eastern cape rural development agency and the eastern cape development co-operation without such a plan. conclusions and recommendations there is a strong notion in the literature that business planning is one of the functions that determines the path and future direction of any business, irrespective of its size and purpose. contrary to this notion, the agri-smmes studied were found to be dismally underperforming in this function, irrespective of whether they had adopted the tqm approach. the baseline data from the three groups studied underlined this fact. this business conduct is characteristic of many businesses in the smme band in many parts of the world. in this study, it presented itself as a barrier to successful implementation of the tqm amongst those agri-smmes that had adopted the framework. to turn around this situation, practical recommendations include the immediate implementation of interventions to address the problem of shortage of the necessary skills. these interventions should include training in business management skills that focus on tqm and performance excellence. all agri-smme role-players should commit themselves to implement excellence models. such role-players should include agri-smme practitioners, agricultural extension officers, provincial and national agricultural departments and all suppliers of agricultural products and services. to further encourage the use of excellence models, annual competitions with reward incentives for performance excellence should be held at both provincial and national levels. one of the limitations of the study was that it only focused on the business area of the agri-smme band. it did not explore agriculture as a discipline and excluded large-scale commercial agricultural enterprises and micro survivalists. recommended areas for future research include an action research approach to tqm in agri-smmes and an investigation into the suitability of tqm for relatively smaller agribusinesses. acknowledgements the authors are grateful for the support received from the agricultural extension officers of the eastern cape province’s department of rural development and agrarian reform, and community and business development centre of the university of fort hare. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions a.s. and w.l. conceived the writing of this article. a.s. developed the theory, the methodology and investigated the problem at hand. w.l. supervised the study, during and after write-up. both w.l. and e.n. were involved with the revision and editing of the article. all authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript. ethical considerations the study was part of a dbl study by awonke sonandi that was done at the unisa school of business leadership (sbl). the sbl approved the study protocol. the sbl did not issue an ethical clearance certificate at the time of the study. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the data collected and analysed in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author, m.l. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily reflect the official policy of any affiliated agency of the authors, and the publisher/s. 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ncamsile d. motsa school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation motsa, n.d., 2018, ‘masculinities and femininities through teachers’ voices: implications on gender-equitable schooling for vulnerable children from three primary schools in swaziland’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a540. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.540 original research masculinities and femininities through teachers’ voices: implications on gender-equitable schooling for vulnerable children from three primary schools in swaziland ncamsile d. motsa received: 10 jan. 2018; accepted: 19 sept. 2018; published: 20 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract informed by social constructionism and the intersectionality framework, this article focuses on the fight for sustainable gender-equitable and inclusive school environments for vulnerable children. it foregrounds the centrality of teachers’ constructions of gender within prevailing dominant gender discourses and the implications these constructions have on gender equality, the vulnerable children’s welfare and experiences of gender in three rural primary schools in swaziland. the article draws on a qualitative narrative study and utilises semi-structured individual interviews and open-ended questionnaires with nine randomly selected teachers (three teachers from each of the targeted schools). the findings revealed that the absence of gender in the school curriculum left teachers with no option but to resort to dominant constructions of gender in their pedagogical practices. these gender constructions were inundated in paradoxes of equality of opportunities for all children, in ways that held different expectations for boys as compared to girls. the teachers’ constructions of masculinities and femininities as two diverse homogeneous groups made the gendered experiences of vulnerable boys and girls invisible, hence perpetuating the social injustices against them. generally, the teachers were found not to concede the social inequalities and hierarchies within each social group of boys or girls. the study recommends the need to make teachers aware about the limiting and adverse effects of constructing gender and socialising vulnerable children in ways that affirm unequal gendered power relations, as a strategy for promoting gender-inclusive and gender-equitable school environments. introduction with an hiv and aids prevalence of 27% among the adult population between ages 15 and 19 years in 2016, the issue of vulnerable children in swaziland (the kingdom of eswatini) continues to be a challenge (ministry of health 2017). the country’s education system defines vulnerable children as children who are orphaned, living in child-headed households, and children from poor social and economic backgrounds, locally referred to as bantfwana bendlunkhulu (those cared for by the whole community) and whose educational fees are catered for by the government (mkhatshwa 2017). in 2014, vulnerable children made up 71% of the overall number of children in the country as compared to 45% in 2010 (cso & unicef 2016), and in 2016, about 150 000 of these children were within the primary school system (simelane 2016). although the reasons that render children vulnerable may differ, for instance orphaned children, those experiencing childhood poverty, and children living in child-headed households in swaziland, these children share one thing – that is, vulnerability and poverty (mkhatshwa 2017). guided by the country’s constitution of 2005, the ministry of education and training through the swaziland educational sector policy of 2011 committed the education system into providing both vulnerable boys and girls equal opportunities to education (the swaziland ministry of education and training 2011). however, mkhatshwa (2017) found that gender inequalities and discrimination still permeate school contexts, with devastating effects on the vulnerable children – a group already supressed by their socio-economic status. raza (2017) found that when gendered experiences are intersected with poverty and vulnerability, the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ lived and schooling experiences are aggravated. crenshaw (1989:140) says vulnerable boys and girls in the school contexts are ‘multiply-burdened’. this is because their experiences of gender are not only gendered but also classed (luft 2016). in essence, the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ social status is not their only site for oppression (raza 2017), but also the inequalities and hierarchies within each social group masculinities and femininities. the complexities of the young vulnerable children’s everyday school experiences therefore call for gender issues to be considered, with a view to promote equitable schooling experiences. luft (2016) points out that to create gender-equitable school environments and positive schooling experiences for the vulnerable children, it is imperative to be both genderand class-sensitive. the importance of teachers’ role in the creation of inclusive and gender-equitable school spaces cannot therefore be overemphasised (bhana, nzimakwe & nzimakwe 2011), hence the focus of this article. the first call would be to understand the teachers’ own constructions of gender and their individual perceptions of vulnerability and vulnerable children as a social group. this would help in devising intervention strategies that could help teachers devise pedagogic practices that would not only assist the vulnerable children to produce, resist and confront social relationships of gender domination, but also to teach other learners within the school contexts about the importance of a socially just world. by bringing the voice of teachers to the fore, as the primary socialising agents of vulnerable children, the article therefore adds a critical component in the equation, which education policymakers should take into account in their efforts and strategies for enhancing inclusive educationand gender-equitable schooling experiences for the vulnerable boys and girls. hence, the article aimed to understand the teachers’ constructions of gender in the context of three primary schools in the rural areas of swaziland and the local factors that inform such constructions. furthermore, the article aimed to comprehend the implication of the teachers’ constructions on the vulnerable children’s gender socialisation and, most importantly, the effect of all these on gender equality and equitable schooling for the vulnerable children in these contexts. teachers’ constructions of gender: a review of literature according to mollel and chong (2017), education inculcates self-efficacy. akpede et al. (2018:1) argue that it is ‘the light that shines the way’. education is also important for the socio-economic development of individuals, families and communities (katz 2016). hence, the importance of education for the vulnerable boys and girls of swaziland cannot be overemphasised. bowe, desjardins and clarkson (2015) highlight that learners’ attitude towards education and individual beliefs about their educational capabilities is affected and influenced by the teachers’ confidence and expectations on the individual learners’ performance. for example, viewing boys and expecting them to be more studious and brilliant than girls would indeed yield positive results for the boys whilst relegating the girls to poor performances. bowe et al. further argue that boys perform better than girls because they receive more attention from teachers, and their performance and behaviour are more controlled in most instances. yet, studies by mollel and chong (2017) and vidya and kadam (2017) have accentuated the importance of girls education for the socio-economic development of families, communities and nations. this therefore highlights the need for teachers to treat all learners equally in the school contexts. it is a sad reality to see teachers on whose responsibility the education of vulnerable boys and girls is entrusted supporting gender stereotypes that uphold inequalities. understanding the teachers’ overall pedagogic approaches and content is therefore important not only in creating inclusive and equitable school spaces for the vulnerable children but also in improving their socio-economic life situations. whilst bowe et al. (2015) in a study involving african-american students found that teachers worked hard to deconstruct stereotypes of gender in the school. gansen (2017) revealed that teachers in school contexts reinforced and normalised gender stereotypes, often to the detriment of the learners they teach. the same way, bhana et al. (2011) in south africa highlighted how teachers draw from the society’s dominant discourses to actively and stereotypically construct gender in the school contexts, thus socialising their learners to approach and making meaning of their masculinities and femininities along the same lines. in swaziland, the curriculum in teacher training colleges was found not only to be silent on issues of gender but also ‘reproducing the dominant patriarchal culture’ (lumadi & shongwe 2010:47). social stereotypical perceptions about children and gender therefore guide most schools’ and teachers’ pedagogic practices in the country. for example, children are perceived to be too young to listen to or understand issues of gender (nxumalo, okeke & mammen 2014). through their overt and inherent gender norms though, teachers regulate gendered behaviour that reinforces unequal gender relations (vidya & kadam 2017), hence creating gender inequitable school spaces. through the school processes, teachers also uphold the most violent domination of girls in line with what they already experience in the society and home (bhana et al. 2011). for the vulnerable boys and girls whose experiences of gender intersect with poverty and vulnerability, their experiences of gendered social injustices are aggravated (raza 2017). for instance, mkhatshwa (2017) found that an orphaned boy was deprived of privileges afforded to other children in the school only because he was a male, and hence perceived to be independent and self-reliant. what needs to be considered therefore is the ways in which the boys’ masculine identity intersects with their vulnerable social positions, highlighting the intersectionality of their vulnerability, in a sense of emasculation tied in with gendered stereotypes of men being independent and self-reliant. however, these gender norms aggravate the vulnerability that afflicts this learner. indeed, this illustrates one of the troubling, but real-world and highly esteemed constructions of gender in the schools. social constructionism and intersectionality the study was guided by social constructionism and intersectionality. social constructionism states that gender ‘is created and re-created out of human interactions, out of social life, and it is the texture and order of that social life’ (lorber 1994:54). gender identities are not mere products of natural creation (berger & luckmann 1991) but culminate in cultural and social processes that are customarily rooted in traditions, values and social relations within diverse societies (gergen 2009). social constructionists such as berger & luckmann (1991), gergen (2009) and lorber (1994) conclude that it is on these individual society’s discourses of gender that the teachers’ constructions of gender are founded (gergen 2009). norton (2006) describes discourse as societies’ individual culture and tradition, their way of talking, thinking and doing things, which sets them apart from other communities. in essence, the teachers’ constructions of gender are not only closely entwined with the social structures and processes of gender in their contexts (gergen 2009), but are also governed and predicated by the social discourses of gender, traditional norms and gender ideologies in their given contexts (ratele 2013). this means that boys tend to be exalted in assumptions of power at the expense of downgrading girls to subservience, which is the founding logic of the gender inequality scheme, thus socialising learners in the school contexts into unequal gender positions and performances. intersectionality, on the other hand, states that vulnerability amplifies gender disparities (raza 2017). davis (2008) defines intersectionality as: the interaction between gender, race, and other categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power. (p. 68) that is to say, the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ experiences of gender are compounded by and intersect with other variables such as poverty and vulnerability (banerjee 2016). the teachers’ stereotypical constructions of gender, compounded with the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ social positioning, are therefore likely to affect the vulnerable boys and girls not only in different but also in more devastating ways than other children not affected by vulnerability (raza 2017). to understand how vulnerable children are affected by the scheme of gender inequality in the school contexts, one has to look at their intersecting social identities within the system of gender inequality. this study therefore focused on how the teachers’ subjective constructions of gender intersected with the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ vulnerability and experiences of gender. research design geographical and socio-economic context of the study swaziland is an ethnically homogeneous country in southern africa ruled by an absolute monarch. it covers a region of 17 364 km2 with a population of approximately 1.1 million (braithwaite, djima & pickmans 2013), 76% of which live in the rural areas of the country (unicef 2009). the people of swaziland share a common language and preserve their conventional and static traditional way of life, founded on christianity and patriarchy (fielding-miller et al. 2016). the country is divided into four geographically diverse regions: manzini, hhohho, shiselweni and lubombo. muntu* primary school is located in the lubombo region, about 42 km from the nearest town of siteki. lubombo is largely rural and is the poorest region in the country and severely hit by the effects of hiv and aids (unicef 2009). hence, it has the highest number of vulnerable children in the country (braithwaite et al. 2013). mjikaphansi* primary school is located in the rural areas of the hhohho region, about 25 km from the capital city of mbabane. the young children (both boys and girls) are usually found roaming the dirty roads, imbibing alcohol with no prospects of completing school. they end up working in the pine tree plantations nearby. mazingela* primary school is located in the rural areas of the manzini region, about 18 km from manzini city and 11 km from matsapha, which is known as the industrial town of the country. this area is densely populated and it is where most of the country’s illiterate population is found, working in the firms as cheap labour. the children stay either on their own or with parents, usually women who are single parents working in the textile industry. study methodology and data collection methods the study used a qualitative narrative approach as its methodological design. the participants, who were randomly sampled, consisted of nine teachers: three teachers from each of the three targeted schools. the teachers’ were aged between 24 and 60 years. open-ended questionnaires and individual semi-structured interviews were used as a platform to solicit the teachers’ own constructions of gender and their individual perceptions of vulnerability and vulnerable children as a social group, and how this affects or intersects with the vulnerable children’s own experience and constructions of gender. the questionnaires, which each respondent was to fill out individually, were intended to allow the respondents to express their meaning making of and experiences of gender without restraints, at the same time giving them enough time to respond to the questions in their spare time and space without having to worry about learners and school timetables. the researcher addressed all issues of clarity to ensure that the respondents were clear about what they were required to do. the questionnaires were written in english, as this is the second language in swaziland and a medium of communication in most schools. however, teachers were free to answer either in siswati or english. individual interviews were then conducted after all the questionnaires had been filled in to complement the questionnaires and provide more in-depth data. the individual interviews too were conducted in both languages – siswati and english. therefore, teachers had the liberty to express themselves in any language they felt comfortable (mcmillan & schumacher 2010). with permission from the respondents, the use of a tape recorder helped in the accurate capturing of what each respondent said and to make up for data not recorded in notes. data analysis procedures all data were transcribed and then translated into english. an inductive process of analysis was followed to derive patterns and themes in the data (creswell 2014). this necessitated listening and re-listening to the recorded data whilst reading the transcriptions for accuracy in interpretation (mcmillan & schumacher 2010). data were then organised, linking pseudonyms with informants. this was followed by reading line by line and listening to the recordings again for familiarity with the data and to identify emerging themes related to the teachers’ constructions of gender and their individual perceptions of vulnerability and vulnerable children in their schools. this was guided by the research questions of the study. the tone and voice of the participants were also noted, especially in comprehending their emotions. the emergent themes were then coded, analysed and discussed in view of the theoretical framework of the study. ethical considerations as a way of respecting the rights of the participants, ethical issues were observed (creswell 2014). consent was sought from the ministry of education and training in swaziland through the director’s office. a written permission was also obtained from the school principals through a written letter stating the purpose of the study. ethical clearance was then obtained from the university of kwazulu-natal research office. letters of consent were thereafter written to the teachers elucidating the issues of confidentiality, privacy and voluntary participation. for confidentiality, pseudonyms are used in this article to depict both the schools and participants. protocol reference number is hss/1914/016d. findings and discussions construction of gender in ambivalent ways – boys and girls as similar but different the findings revealed that teachers in these schools constructed boys and girls as similar and in need of same and equal educational opportunities. their constructions however were in ambivalent ways. their understanding of boys and girls seems to be in ways that were contradictory and also re-inscribed notions of inequity between the boys and girls in the schools. the teacher’s narratives illustrate the following: this year i teach english language in grade 7. even though the boys here do not like reading novels but i try to motivate them, by giving them sports magazines instead, because i know they like sports. come exam time, then i do not expect the girls to perform better than my boys. i know they are equally capable of doing me proud. (miss gama, individual interview, 38 years old, mazingela primary school) it is important that as teachers we give all children equal learning opportunities and resources for their overall development without discrimination. in fact, teachers who treat girls differently from boys are not doing justice to the education system. the right and correct thing is to treat them equally. i personally feel girls especially need education more than the boys do. especially because most of the vulnerable girls and women here are head of households and without education, life could be very difficult for them. (mrs mvulane, questionnaires, 45 years old, muntu primary school) the above narratives highlight that both teachers (miss gama and mrs mvulane) believe in the importance of giving both boys and girls equal educational opportunities. for example, the boys in miss gama’s class ‘do not like reading’ as much as the girls did. buying reading material that they liked was therefore her way of motivating them to read so that they could do well in her subject, the same way the girls did. by so doing, she recognises the boys’ agency to pass ‘english language’, provided that she gives them the right support (ungar, russell & connelly 2014), probably because miss gama is aware of how important passing english is for these boys. it is also commendable that miss gama understood her ‘boys’ capabilities, and thus motivated rather than castigated them for not getting into the culture of reading which she was trying to inculcate in her english language class. what miss gama did was to tap into the boys’ needs, providing them a springboard to use their agency in doing well in english as a strategy in her pedagogic approach (juan & visser 2017). however, even though miss gama’s actions could appear to be responsive to the boys’ educational needs, it appears to be in the ways that polarised the boys and girls. whilst her use of the words ‘the girls … my boys’ could highlight the good relationship she probably had with the boys in her class, which katz (2016) believes could motivate the boys to try harder. her nurturing tendencies however were in ways that made her look more concerned with the boys’ education than that of the girls (mollel & chong 2017). it appears that she made no serious investment towards the girls’ educational achievement (olasunkanni 2009). this differentiated approach was not only inclined to compromise her efforts towards the creation of equitable educational opportunities, but also to exclude and demotivate the girls towards educational attainment. the different ways in which miss gama treated the boys and girls in her class in ways also re-inscribed and reproduced the long-standing patriarchal notions that perceived boys as future heads of families, hence making their education more important than that of the girls (vidya & kadam 2017). yet, with the prevailing scourge of poverty, hiv and aids in the country, causing mainly girls to become head of households, educating the girl child is equally imperative. miss gama’s perception therefore compromises efforts towards the education of girls and creation of gender-equitable education. yet, vidya and kadam (2017) argue that educating a girl child could bring drastic changes for individual communities, countries and the african continent as a whole. mrs mvulane, on the other hand, put more emphasis on the vulnerable girls’ education in ways that were gender stereotypical because by putting emphasis on the girls’ education, mrs mvulane seems also to trivialise the boys’ education, the same way miss gama prioritised the education of boys. this differentiated approach could imply that mrs mvulane has recognised the changing nature of family setup in africa, and especially the rural and destitute contexts in which the vulnerable children lived (akpede et al. 2018). that is to say, being a teacher in the school for 9 years meant she was well informed about the diverse gendered challenges faced by vulnerable girls as compared to boys in this context. mrs mvulane could also be aware of the responsibilities the vulnerable girls had or that awaited them in adulthood, that is, ‘being heads of households’, requiring them to be educated (mkhatshwa 2017). according to mrs mvulane, the most feasible practicality for the vulnerable girls for acquiring these responsibilities and indeed transcending their poverty and vulnerability and that of their families therefore meant they had to work twice as hard and indeed receive more help than the other learners (mollel & chong 2017). her logic could also have been that, even though boys and girls have to be treated equally, there are certain situations where differentiation is necessary in order to be truly responsive to the specific needs and dynamics of vulnerable boys and girls in a given context. the differentiated perception she had of the vulnerable girls and boys could be a way of appreciating the complexities of gender, which transcend notions of gender equality as sameness to a notion that construes gender equality as equitable treatment for girls and boys. from this, we learn that gender equality and equitable treatment should be perceived as an idealised reality for both the vulnerable boys and girls in these contexts, which makes it imperative for teachers to employ individual strategies in their pedagogic approaches, tapping into individual needs and capabilities (juan & visser 2017). boys and girls as different social groups masculinities as strong and ferocious the ministry of education and training’s initiative to introduce the school feeding programme, where learners in all public schools are assured of a meal, is a commendable initiative, especially in enhancing inclusive school spaces for the vulnerable boys and girls in these rural and poverty-stricken contexts. the findings however reveal that the school feeding was a source of gender contestations in the schools and had the propensity to create gender inequitable spaces for the vulnerable boys and girls. the interview with mr hlata, from mazingela primary school, below illustrates this: mr hlata: biologically, boys are stronger than girls. i am not sure then how they can be equal. for example, during the lunch hour, our learners eat rice and beans. what happens is these ‘children’ literally fight for the food. hence, we tasked the grade 7 boys and not the girls to control the situation and ensure that the learners make straight lines than pushing each other over the food. someone would then say, maybe that is not gender equality… like why do we prefer boys over girls… but seriously girls cannot do that job effectively, these children fight…and they fight violently! researcher: ohh that’s bad! i would like to know what criteria you use as teachers in choosing the boys who control the lines. mr hlata: for now there is no specific criterion, but mostly it is the ‘big’ boys in the class. we do not choose those who come from poor family backgrounds… the vulnerable too. the problem is – those boys are either timid or, at most instances, unruly. so we cannot expect them to control the other learners, when they also need to be controlled. researcher: ok i understand sir… you said they fight … and are the grade 7 boys able to calm the situation? mr hlata: … (silence) not really (silence again) … because, not all learners get the food. some cannot stand the chaos but i’ve seen those who really want to eat patiently waiting in the queues. the vulnerable children especially, because they usually do not have anything to eat at home so they have no alternative but to do as told. the [vulnerable] boys just do not listen…. they push and you can see that they are desperate for the food. we’ve had complaints that the responsible boys use violence to control them but there are also cases where the [desperate] boys fight them [the grade 7 boys responsible] but we haven’t yet found a solution to that. (mr hlata, 31 years old, mazingela primary school) the above interview highlights the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ desperation for food, which unfortunately becomes sites of their subordination and suppression in the school (chowdhury 2017). because of their indigent situations, the vulnerable children are heavily reliant on the meals provided by the school. the teachers’ act of tasking the grade 7 ‘big and strong boys’ therefore did not only dominate and supress the vulnerable girls who were forced to submit in order to get a meal but also the vulnerable boys who because of their socio-economic status, which rendered them ‘timid’, powerless and subordinates, as they did not belong to the perceived hyper-masculine powerful group in the school (connell 1995). in so doing, the teachers upheld the domination of hegemonic masculinities at the same time positioning both ‘the weak’ girls and the vulnerable boys in a lower stratum with respect to their social positioning and power relationships with hegemonic masculinities (connell & messerschmidt 2005). endorsing the grade 7 boys to positions of power could also highlight the ways in which teachers in the school treated the vulnerable learners differently from other learners. for instance, whilst the grade 7 boys were perceived to be capable of bringing order, the vulnerable boys were perceived to be ‘timid and unruly’, hence not only controlled but also excluded from positions of power, in ways that exacerbated stereotypes associated with vulnerability in this contest. mr. hlata’s response further highlights some contradictions. at one point, the vulnerable boys are different because of being vulnerable; at another, they are still classical boys who are strong and ferocious, and hence they ‘do not listen’. such contradictions denote inconsistencies in teachers’ constructions, which denote that teachers’ constructions were mere social constructions meant to feed into general societal expectations of these boys, but with little relevance to the lived experiences of these boys, and their genuine potential as humans. again, as much as he says, the vulnerable boys and girls ‘have no alternative but to do as told’, he also acknowledges that the very same boys ‘do not listen’. here, mr hlata seems to ignore the vulnerable boys’ agency in getting what they want. yet, the vulnerable boys’ defiant behaviour could have been their way to get what they desperately needed – food. the findings point to important intersections of poverty and masculinity in the vulnerable boys’ gender performances (crenshaw 1989) and indeed the transactional nature of gender performances. hence, it was not enough for mr hlata to view these boys’ capabilities to simply denote boys’ ‘timid and unruly’ behaviour. there seems to be some form of material gains associated with the choice and timing of boys’ unruly masculine behaviours. it appears therefore that the more inclusive and responsive to the learners’ needs schooling is, the less likely boys would feel compelled to engage in transactional masculine performances that could be regarded as unruly or unbecoming. mr hlata’s stereotypical belief that construes girls as being ‘weak’, hence ‘cannot [manage the lines] do that job effectively’, could also be viewed as strengthening particular gender stereotypes, associating management and power with men and boys (moosa & bhana 2017:377). in complete disregard of the vulnerable girls’ propensity to be violent and strong as observed by morris and perry (2017). morris and perry (2017) found out that girls from lower socio-economic backgrounds became violent as a means to navigate and negotiate challenges brought by their destitute situations. mr hlata’s stereotypical perceptions of vulnerability and gender therefore had the propensity to nurture and encourage defiant and violent behaviour in the school (ungar et al. 2014). rather, treating all learners in the school equally could encourage a mutual relationship among all the learners where the vulnerable boys and girls would be encouraged to express their desperation through words than through ‘uncontrollable or unbecoming’ actions. the same violence was noted at muntu primary school, where during one of the interviews a teacher came running, and immediately the two teachers (including the participant) left in haste. on his return, he narrated how a group of boys in the school were becoming uncontrollable: mr william: i am sorry for the disturbance. we are having a big problem here … there is a group of boys that is becoming a nuisance. just now they came with a 5 litre oros bottle, filled it with rice and beans then ran away. the other learners caught them just before they could cross the road, and there was a fight that nearly turned nasty. so miss zitha* wanted my help in calming the situation. this is stressful, because tomorrow it will be the same issue … boys running away with food. we are tired! researcher: that is bad. but who really is responsible for seeing to it that all the learners get the food and there is no chaos in the queues? mr william: when i came to the school 3 years back, we had prefects, both boys and girls doing that job. with time the girls could not take it, as the learners always fight for the food. we then decided that the boys should do it, especially the older boys from each class. but what has just happened is a clear indication that these children are becoming uncontrollable by the day. (mr william, 52 years old, muntu primary school) the irony is that, according to swazi culture, preparing food and cooking is not only boys’ responsibility but also that of women and girls (fielding-miller et al. 2016). ndlangamandla (2010) says the kitchen is not only perceived as a space inhibited by girls and women but also it symbolises their subjugation and taming within a patriarchal society. these findings denote a deviation from this cultural norm and dominant discourse in these schools, particularly because it bestowed the boys a position of power, control and responsibility (connell 1995). the violent reactions by some vulnerable boys to this school practice denoted the multiplicity of forms of masculinities (connell 2005). also the likely contestations over power and control among the boys all point to a deep flaw in the scheme of using the ‘older’ boys to signify particular dominant forms of masculinities for power and control within these schools. indeed, the teachers’ constructions of hegemonic masculinities as strong and good managers did not only re-inscribe the disgraceful notions that bequeath hegemonic masculinities with absolute power (connell & messerschmidt 2005), but was also the functional source of violence, contestations and unpleasant gender relationships. with vulnerable girls and boys bearing the minority social status in these contexts, they are likely to withstand the worst of the situation (crenshaw 1989). investing in constructions of gender as multiple, fluid and acquired girls’ and boys’ human abilities would go a long way in the creation of gender-friendly, equitable and peaceful schooling environments (morojele 2011). girls as beautiful and fragile the findings of the study revealed that some teachers constructed the difference between boys and girls through the girls’ sexuality. for example, a teacher from mjikaphansi* primary school felt expecting the same things from boys and girls would be detrimental to the girls’ future prospects for marriage. this emanated from the wider society’s discourse where girls are socialised to live their lives for the approval of men – as good wives and good wife material (akpede et al. 2018). the following narrative illustrates this: the learners here take turns collecting firewood from the mountains [to cook their meals]. even though, both boys and girls are expected to go there … but sisi ncami, i do not like that. manual work is for boys…how then do we teach our girls to always be neat and beautiful when we expect them to work in the scotching sun. personally i do not send the girls to the mountain. even though the principal once complained, but then that is what i believe in. besides, the boys in my class too… they do not mind doing all the work because they are aware that…it is the kind of work only men are expected to do. honestly speaking, besides girls being fragile, no one wants to come next to a girl who smells of sweat [rolling her eyes and smile] [then a loud laugh] do you think sis ncamsile … any man would ever want to come next to you, if you smelled of sweat??? so let us not be unfair on our girls! (miss lukhele, individual interview, 24 years old, mjikaphansi primary school) the learners in this school were expected to collect firewood from the mountain as a school routine. but just because miss lukhele believed that the girls were ‘fragile and had to stay neat and beautiful’, the girls in her class did not go to the mountains, lest the ‘scorching sun’ spoils their beauty. gender stereotypes are again reinforced with girls being expected to be neat and beautiful. this is problematic. earlier responses from teachers referred to girls as frequently having to head households. this would suggest that they too would need to do labour or work that has been previously defined as a ‘man’s job’. yet, whilst miss lukhele says that it was tolerable for boys to smell of sweat, it was completely obnoxious for the girls. miss lukhele’s view seems to reinforce division of labour in gender stereotypical ways (moosa & bhana 2017) because there were jobs that she felt were meant only for men or boys and not for women or girls. this therefore raises the question on how the vulnerable girls could head households (as mentioned earlier) if they are socialised in ways that restricted them from doing manual work, because ‘it is the kind of work only men are expected to do’. although miss lukhele seems to be showing love and affection for the girls, this is in ways that re-inscribe patriarchal notions of gender that have always relegated women to poverty (watkins 2000). in essence, miss lukhele was socialising the girls in her class that their mere existence was for men, ‘so they should not smell of sweat because men would not come closer to them’. this logic draws from the wider swazi normative discourse that women live their lives as subordinates, owned and provided for by men (fielding-miller et al. 2016), and hence had to stay beautiful for the same men. miss lukhele was therefore ‘teaching’ the girls that physical appearance and beauty but not education was their ticket to a better livelihood. this dependent feminine mindset and chauvinistic way of thinking had the disadvantage of making the vulnerable girls – a group whose gender identity intersects with poverty – to think that their value and contribution to the society lies in only being beautiful (watkins 2000). hence, this not only encourages male dominance but also traps the vulnerable girls in destitution for years and, indeed, makes gender equality a far-fetched dream for them. yet, affirming the vulnerable girls through their capabilities and not their attractiveness would go a long way in helping them thrive to come out of their poverty and be inspired to aim higher and not be restricted by their femininity and sexuality (ungar et al. 2014). again, socialising the vulnerable girls within the feminine beauty discourse predisposed them to being sexually abused by rich men who embodied conformist masculinities. this is because the vulnerable girls are being ‘taught’ that their mere existence and livelihood depend on masculinities that would normatively provide for them (mollel & chong 2017). the below narratives illustrate this: one of my best students has just dropped out of school because of pregnancy. it is so sad that the person responsible is married. such sad stories are prevalent here and as a teacher it is very sad to see these children being taken advantage by men only because they are poor and need men who can take care of them. i just wish the government could do something in that regard; otherwise these children will live their lives as sex slaves. (mr william, questionnaires, 52 years old, muntu primary school) we have a big problem here. the girls, especially who are destitute, usually have sex with the older men who work in the nearby farms in order to buy things for themselves, their siblings or even take care of their families. these men give them something like 50 cents or e10/e20 (equivalent to r10/r20) on better days. it is a very sad situation because as teachers there is very little we can say against that, because these children are being pushed into this ‘prostitution’ by their home situations. for example, the other day i talked to a grade 5 learner and she told me that she needed the money in order to buy sanitary towels. unfortunately some get raped and end up being pregnant. (mrs hlatjwayo, individual interview, 60 years old, mjikaphansi primary school) even though mrs hlatjwayo associates the vulnerable girls’ act of engaging in transactional relationships with older men to ‘prostitution’, but by considering its motivating factors, it could be understood as the vulnerable girls’ way of navigating their destitute life situations. selepe et al. (2017:169) argue that in prostitution, the ‘payment to a client is predetermined’. the fluctuation of the price, from ‘50 cents… e10 or e20’, therefore highlights that the vulnerable girls had no power over what the men gave them in exchange for sex. jewkes et al. (2012) call this kind of sex ‘sex for survival’ and not prostitution. again, whilst the ‘blesser’ discourse in south africa implies that girls find rich men to fund their lavish lifestyle (selepe et al. 2017), but for these vulnerable girls, engaging in sex for money was for their minimal survival. from a young age, swazi girls are socialised to be submissive and respect male adults (jones 2006) and for the marriage system where they would become men’s properties. after the payment of lobola (dowry), of course, the husband is often considered as a guardian, a provider and a father to his wife, thus privileged to have the same (if not more) power, control and authority over the wife, as the wife’s father (kanduza 1996). therefore, the logic of vulnerable girls receiving money from elder men is normalised as part of a bigger scheme of gendered heterosexual ritual, where marriage serves merely to formalise this exploitative gender regime. such stereotypes get reinforced by the knowledge and/or lack of alternative information on gender provided in the school, and broader societal discourse. the following narrative further illustrates this: gender is not part of our curriculum and i do not have the opportunity to talk to my learners about issues of gender. even though i’m well aware that most of the children here no longer have parents to talk to them, but i just do not do it. (miss juana, questionnaires, 43 years old, muntu primary school) clearly, gender was not regarded as a primary subject of discussion and curriculum in these contexts. morojele (2011) has found how indeed gender was regarded as not a subject of discussion in south african and lesotho primary schools, respectively. this notion is mostly premised on notions of primary school children’s innocence and immaturity, which are thought to render gender education inappropriate for them – as if ‘gender does not matter’. however, the findings indicate that, in these contexts, gender matters, especially for the vulnerable girls. the gender stereotypes gave exaltation to gender performances that signified hegemonic masculinities (connell & messerschmidt 2005) and generally made vulnerable girls to internalise as the norm (morojele 2014) subordination based on their sexual identity, hence making them easy targets for sexual abuse and exploitation, where information on how to confront and navigate gendered spaces would have come handy. this therefore evokes the concern over the logic of not mainstreaming gender in the swazi primary school curriculum, where there is a population of more than 150 000 vulnerable children (simelane 2016). therefore, having a formal curriculum on gender would allow teachers a targeted opportunity to educate vulnerable children about the social processes of gender socialisation and reinforcement that produce unequal gender relations, and what the school, communities and vulnerable girls and boys could do to break this vicious cycle of gender socialisation in order to enhance gender equality. teachers should expose both vulnerable girls and boys to schooling environments that are not gender-stereotyped to enable their analytical minds to flourish, rather than be supressed. only when the schooling environments are underpinned by these values are gender-equitable school spaces for their learners likely to be created, as teachers would work towards the best interests of both vulnerable girls and boys without discrimination and suppression of other group’s capabilities. gender-sensitive and responsive schooling environments also need to play a critical role in nurturing the resilience of and alleviating the plight of vulnerable girls especially (ungar et al. 2014), who bear a double burden of being positioned in menial works based on both their gender and status of vulnerability (crenshaw 1989). this would also go a long way to help mitigate the vulnerable girls’ and boys’ plight as a group already supressed by their socio-economic status (raza 2017) by ensuring that they do not get exposed to further suppression because of a school regime which socialises acceptance rather than confrontation of gender spaces of constraints, dominance and exploitation. conclusion the teachers in the study drew heavily on the dominant discourses of gender in their wider societies. the findings highlighted the various sociocultural dynamics that informed the teachers’ constructions of gender in ways that were inequitably and variably skewed against the vulnerable boys and girls. whilst generally constructing femininities in somewhat menial terms, they exalted hegemonic masculinities above other ways of being and performances of gender. such constructions drew their logic from the biological differences of girls and boys as a predetermining factor for children’s abilities, gender performances and sexual preferences. using the intersectionality lens, this study has illustrated how teachers’ stereotypical constructions of gender compounded with the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ social identities, and hence worsened the social injustices against them. this therefore made gender equality an idealised reality for both vulnerable boys and girls in these contexts. for example, it was found that masculine strength as ascribed to masculinities did not define the vulnerable boys, yet the teachers affirmed or discriminated the boys based on these. the vulnerable boys were victims of such discrimination if they did not conform to the normative masculine performances as expected by the teachers. this was because their poverty and vulnerability intersected with their masculine performances and subserviently positioned them as compared to hegemonic masculinities. again, socialising the vulnerable girls along the normative dependant discourse did not only constrain their human abilities but also made them easy targets for sexual abuse and exploitation. ‘rich’ men as embodying conformist masculinities were found to be taking advantage of the vulnerable girls’ indigent situations, and hence sexually exploited them. the absence of any school policy that obligated the teachers to educate vulnerable children about gender issues was found to play a role in rendering the current scheme of gender inequalities invisible. as such, teachers found themselves either actively reinforcing inequitable gender relations among the children or being complacent in this social order by not challenging it (morojele 2014). the findings indicate the urgent need to change the manner in which gender relations are construed in the wider society, how vulnerable children are socialised into unequal gender relationships and enhancement of vulnerable children’s agencies to transcend constraining gender polarisations. recommendations the teachers’ stereotypical perceptions of gender were found to be re-inscribing particular gendered notions that serve to differentiate the vulnerable boys and girls in these contexts, hence compromising efforts towards the creation of gender-equitable school spaces. it is the government’s obligation therefore to help teachers deconstruct these perceptions if indeed the education of both vulnerable boys and girls is equally prioritised in the country, as enshrined by the 2011 education sector policy. the following recommendations are meant to support initiatives aimed at addressing gender inequities and improving the quality of the vulnerable boys’ and girls’ welfare and lived gender experiences in these school contexts: pre-service training and in-service workshops should be held where teachers would be skilled on how to deconstruct dominant constructions of gender because of the implications it has on the vulnerable children’s own constructions of gender and general well-being at the schools. in these workshops, teachers should be informed on the intersectionality of gender and the adverse effects their stereotypical constructions have on the vulnerable boys and girls – a group already supressed by its socio-economic status. introduction of gender issues in teacher training colleges where patriarchal notions of teachers’ perceptions of gender could be both deconstructed and transformed. however, the suggested strategies would be futile without foregrounding teachers’ views and experiences, as key role players in caring and supporting vulnerable children, and those of the vulnerable 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watkins, g., 2000, feminism is for everybody, pluto press, london. microsoft word 01 venter et al beijing .docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(2) dec 2012, pp. 167187 the relationship between customer satisfaction, social responsibility, and long-run financial performance y-c wang,1 b-p venter,2 and c-h huang 3 abstract: this paper investigates the link between long-run corporate financial performance, corporate social responsibility, and customer satisfaction. using annual financial data, customer satisfaction index, and the dow jones sustainability index, the paper seeks to establish whether it pays organizations to use ethical methods in striving to be sustainable. data used for this research cover the period 2001 to 2008. we used dynamic panel data linear regression models to analyze the effect of customer satisfaction and social responsibility on short-run and long-run financial performance. it was found that it may benefit organizations to use ethical methods in pursuing sustainability. since organizations who invest time, money, and effort in corporate social responsibility activities, their good reputations and satisfied customers yield long-term cash flow growth. keywords: corporate customer satisfaction, corporate social responsibility, corporate financial performance. disciplines: business studies, international studies, ethics, finance studies. introduction corporate social responsibility (csr) is enjoying renewed interest from business managers and executives, marketers, and public relations practitioners, who seem to recognize the value of investing time, money, and effort in csr while at the same time seeming unable to quantify the contribution of csr to the organizational bottom line. porter & kramer (2006) make the points that csr is a fragmented practice, and seldom coordinated with other organizational functions. they argue that csr should be connected not only to the society it serves, but also the organization’s strategy and tactical activities. they are of the firm opinion that investing time, money, and effort in csr activities would be of benefit to the organization. wigley (2009) connects csr not only to society and organizational activities, but also specifically to customers, when she asks whether increased awareness of csr activity 1 . yi-chen wang, national kaohsiung first university of science and technology, taiwan. email: yiwang@ccms.nkfust.edu.tw. 2 . ben-piet venter, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china. email: benpiet@hotmail.com. 3 . chia-hsing huang, solbridge international school of business, south korea. email: koreasing@solbridge.ac.kr. customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance ”make[s] cents?” the results of her study indicate that consumers would be more willing to purchase products if they were more aware of the csr activities of organizations. against the backdrop of a world economic crisis, signs are becoming more prevalent that organizations facing ruin have been chasing short term profits and not long-term sustainability – an unethical practice at best, and bad public relations at worst. for many years, public relations practitioners and lately responsible business managers have called for business to be more socially responsible. however, their attempts have met with mixed success, perhaps in part because organizational goodwill activities such as csr projects have not been firmly connected to other organizational activities as porter & kramer (2006) claim. three traditional areas of business-customer interface may be identified as marketing, public relations, and finance. the task of marketing is to seek, find, attract, satisfy, and retain customers. to marketing, customer satisfaction is important. the task of public relations is to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and a variety of stakeholder groups such as shareholders, customers, suppliers, and so on. typically, financial management has the job of ensuring that the organization’s income and expenditure is managed in such a way that the organization maximizes profit (firm value) for shareholders. in keeping with stakeholder management theories, the organization engages in corporate social responsibility programs to illustrate its commitment to the interests of all stakeholders. however, these goals (profit maximization, customer satisfaction, and social responsibility) could easily become mutually exclusive, and one practiced to the detriment of another. is this necessarily the case that one should be viewed as exclusive to the other, or is there empirical evidence to suggest that financial performance, customer satisfaction, and focus on corporate social responsibility can work in harmony to the benefit of the organization? is it really the case that shareholder profit will have a negative effect on social investment? is customer satisfaction more important than profit? or is there a link between these phenomena? is it possible that satisfied customers and non-financial stakeholders can benefit the organization’s shareholders and its sustainability in the long run? this paper seeks to establish whether such a link exists. in other words, can and should finance, marketing, and public relations cooperate closely to help improve an organization’s long-term sustainability? literature surveyed for this paper provides a theoretical link between finance, marketing, and public relations. campbell (2006) explores the factors that affect socially responsible corporate behavior on institutions. he develops some causal propositions specifying the institutional conditions under which firms are likely to act in socially responsible ways. smith & wright (2004) showed that corporate financial performance (cfp) is affected by customer satisfaction in the sense that customer satisfaction may be a driver of financial performance by mediating the relationship between market performance and financial performance. mittal, anderson, sayrak, & tadikamalla (2005) found a link between customer satisfaction and long-term financial performance, especially in organizations that have a dual emphasis on satisfaction and efficiency. they point out that managers should not only focus on customer satisfaction or efficiency alone. al-wugayan, pleshko, & baqer (2008) point out that there is no strong link between customer satisfaction and market share, postulating that customers may switch to organizations with better reputations even when satisfied with their current organization. morgan & rego (2009) suggest that marketing spending should be seen as an investment by accountants, and not as an expense, since there is a positive link between market share and cash flow, and consumer loyalty and tobin’s q (tobin’s q, developed by james tobin (tobin, 1969) measures the ratio between market value and replacement value of the same physical asset). wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 169 this paper examines, for the first time, the link between corporate financial performance (cfp), corporate social responsibility, and customer satisfaction in order to answer our research question. we therefore hypothesize as follows: organizations that have satisfied customers, a strong financial balance sheet and which achieve and maintain socially responsible growth, may achieve long-term sustainability and will therefore be able to avoid future economic hardship, loss of reputation, and other negative effects. background orlitzky, schmidt, and rynes (2003) identify a number of theories and hypotheses that discuss the relationship between corporate social responsibility (csr) and corporate financial performance (cfp). the main theories are 1) instrumental stakeholder theory, 2) stakeholder-agency theory, 3) good management theory, and 4) slack resources theory. in discussing instrumental stakeholder theory, jones (1995) suggests a positive relationship between csr and cfp. for its part, stakeholder-agency theory argues that stakeholdermanagement relationships serve as monitoring mechanisms that prevent managers from diverting their attention from broad organizational financial goals (hill & jones, 1992; jones, 1995). freeman & evan (1990) point out that high corporate performance results not only from the separate satisfaction of bilateral relationships as proposed by hill & jones (1992), but also from the simultaneous coordination and prioritization of multilateral stakeholder interests. good management theory (waddock & graves, 1997) proposes that high levels of investing time, money, and effort in csr activities bolsters a company’s competitive advantage by weighing and addressing the claims of various constituents in a fair and rational manner. a positive association between csr and cfp is also proposed by slack resources theory (ullmann, 1995; waddock & graves, 1997), but, in addition, proposes that prior high levels of cfp may provide the slack resources necessary to engage in the subsequent csr. furthermore, empirical evidence on the relationship between csr and cfp yields mixed results. a positive significant relationship between csr on cfp is shown by griffin & mahon (1997), orlitzky et al. (2003), derwall, guenster, bauer, & koedijk (2005), beurden & gössling (2008), peloza & papania (2008), mcpeak &tooley (2008), and callan &thomas (2009). however, hartman, rubin, & dhanda (2007), mittal, sinha, & singh (2008), and surroca & tribó (2008) indicate that achieving high levels of csr activities does not result in a good cfp. nelling & webb (2009) use a time series fixed effects panel data approach, and found that the relation between csr and cfp is much weaker than the traditional cross-sectional approach. brammer & millington (2008) found that extremely high/low csr focus may produce higher financial performance, with extremely poor csr firms doing best in the short run and extremely good csr firms doing best over longer time horizons. by investigating the relationship between csr and cfp, griffin & mahon (1997), and orlitzky et al. (2003) show that accounting-based financial performance indicator performs better than market-based indicators. derwall et al. (2005) found that socially responsible investing (sri) produced superior tobin’s q and return on total assets (roa). however, customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance gil-estallo, giner-de-la-fuente, & griful-miquela (2009) found a neutral relationship between a spanish csr firm with roe and roa. in addition, hall & rieck (1998), little & little (2000), brammer, brooks, & pavelin (2006), mittal et al. (2008), and luo & bhattacharya (2006) have empirically examined the linkage between corporate social responsibility and firm value. hall & rieck (1998) show that the announcement of corporate donations has a significant positive effect on stock price. indicate that corporate reputation for social responsibility explains additional variation in price earning ratios. brammer, brooks, & pavelin (2006) observe that poor financial reward offered by csr firms is attributable to their good social performances in uk. luo & bhattacharya (2006) show that csr contributes positively to market value. mittal et al. (2008) show that csr firms generate significantly more economic value added and market added value than those non-csr firms included in their study. in luo & bhattacharya (2006)’s study, customer satisfaction is defined as an overall evaluation based on customer’s total purchase and consumption expenditure with a good or service over time. luo & bhattacharya (2006) points out that at least three research streams point to the link between csr and customer satisfaction, the first stream is institutional theory and stakeholder theory, brown & dacin (1997), sen & bhattacharya (2001), and gurhan-canli & batra (2004) show that csr creates a favorable context that positively boosts consumer’s evaluation of and attitude toward the firm. moreover, sen & bhattacharya (2001), jayachandran, sharma, kaufman, & raman (2005), and mithas, krishnan, & fornell (2005a) relate csr to customer satisfaction examines the anteceedents of customer satisfaction. gruca & rego (2005), fornell (1992), and mittal et al. (2005b) found that high customer satisfactering firms are able to achieve higher level of cash flows and less volatility (anderson, fornell, & mazvancheryl 2004, and fornell, mithas, morgeson, & krishnan, 2006), thus leading to superor market value. in luo & bhattacharya’s 2006 study, csr affect customer satisfaction, which in turn affects market value. therefore, according to literature reviewed on the topic so far, it seems as if there are links between csr, cfp, and customer satisfaction. as we know, there are short-run and longrun goals for corporate financial performance, our paper wants to know, whether csr and customer satisfaction affect short-run or long-run corporate financial performance. in other words, if marketing (cs), public relations and other related csr activities (csr), and finance (cfp) were to better coordinate their efforts, could the organization benefit in the long run? data and methodology the data used in this report are drawn from three main sources: 1) dow jones sustainability index, 2) customer satisfaction index, and 3) financial statements. each is discussed in more detail below. dow jones sustainability index (djsi) the djsi united states index, launched in 1999, is a family of indexes specifically measuring the sustainability of the 2 500 largest companies listed on the dow jones. it comprises the leading companies in terms of sustainability from the us, and was first published on 23 september 2005. as of 23 september 2005, the djsi united states included 93 companies. wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 171 however, the djsi world index comprises more than 300 companies that represent the top 10% of the leading sustainability companies out of the biggest 2500 companies in the dow jones global total stock market index. the djsi world index data released by the stoxx limited and sam group was ranged from 2002 to 2008. there are a total of 217 companies included in the djsi world index dataset with full financial data from 2001 to 2008. american customer satisfaction index (acsi) this report used the acsi from the university of michigan, which has data from 1994 and it has more than 200 companies and federal or local government agencies from 10 economic sectors, representing 43 industries. in the period from 2001 to 2008, there are 246 companies in the acsi index. industries and sectors are broadly representative of the u.s. economy serving american households. however, 38 companies originally registered in the non-us country, 39 companies lack of stock price or financial data since the companies are not public trading or the companies are held by private funds. these 77 companies that are either nonus registration or lack of financial data are excluded from this analysis. the number of acsi group companies analyzed in this research is 169. when we compared the 169 companies included in acsi with djsi group companies, we found that 59 out of the 169 companies are also included in the djsi groups. financial statement data we used compustat database to obtain financial statement data. stock market data are taken from data stream database. our research will merge all the data from these databases. and will focus on the time period 2001-2008. the sampling groups are divided into three groups: group 1 focuses on the djsi groups only. group 2 describes the relationship between financial performance and the acsi index. in addition, group 3 deals with the total groups containing both djsi rated companies and acsi companies, resulting in a sampling number of 333 companies. the sampling group 3 was further separated into four parts: • high score on customer satisfaction and in the social responsibility index. • high score on customer satisfaction and out of the social responsibility index. • low score on customer satisfaction and in the social responsibility index. • low score on customer satisfaction and out of the social responsibility index. panel data approach our data has the cross-industry time series property, a panel data linear regression model is therefore considered as follows: customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance if all firms have the same intercept, then , the ordinary least squared approach is an appropriate regression model. however, different companies, in practice, may represent different alpha since alpha indicates company’s progress factor. therefore, the fixed effect and random effect panel data approach will be conducted in order to reveal the different progress factor of companies. under fixed effect panel data approach: under random effect panel data approach: before we conduct the panel data regression, an f test for fixed effect approach or lm test for random effect approach should be conducted first to see whether the fixed effect model or random effect model should be used in the panel regression. panel data regression models in order to know whether corporate social responsibility and financial performance are generally positively related across a wide variety of industries, we conducted the panel data approach to empirically test the relationship between csr and cfp. as shown by griffin & mahon (1997), and orlitzky et al. (2003), accounting-based and market-based financial performance may perform differently on csr firms, therefore, both accounting-based and market-based indicators are used in the empirical test. the independent variables include growth rate of sales (sgrt), growth rate of sales margin (sprt), return on equity (roet), macroeconomic impact (sp500t), and also a set of dummies to indicate the acsi firms or djsi firms. growth rate of sales (sgr) if corporate social responsibility investing induces high financial performance, then the growth rate of sales will be improved after the disclosure of acsi or djsi groups. growth rate of sales is defined as: wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 173 growth rate of sales margin (spr) high financial performance under csr investing may be evidenced by the high level of growth rate of sales margin. spr is defined as , where ebit (earnings before interest and tax) can be thought of as the operating profit margin. return on equity (roe) , once again, the net income is replaced by ebit in order to exclude the non-operating profits and losses. macroeconomic impact (sp500) since macroeconomic situations might influence firm’s financial performance. we use the standard and poor’s 500 index return as the proxy for macroeconomic growth. s&p 500 index return is defined as the geometric average return of s&p 500 index during the sample year. dummy for firms in djsi groups or in high acsi groups if corporate social performance and financial performance are positively related, firm in djsi groups or in high acsi groups may produce better performance than non-group firms. therefore, we will introduce three types of dummies to indicate the firm status. and indicate that a firm is included in high acsi group at date t-i, and in djsi group at date t-i, respectively. denotes that a firm is both included in the high acsi group and djsi group at date t-i. our panel data regression model is divided into three parts. in the first part we use only the djsi sample to test the djsi impact on firm’s financial performance. in the second part of regression, we study the impact of acsi samples on firm’s financial performance. in the final part of regression, we study the cross effect of acsi and djsi samples. we will briefly introduce the three regression models. those firms with an acsi score higher than the average score of all acsi firms will be denoted as high csr firms. those firms with an acsi score lower than the average score will be denoted as low csr firms. according to instrumental stakeholder theory (jones, 1995), high corporate social responsibility firms will perform well financially, however, slack resources theory (ullmann, 1985; waddock, & graves, 1997) proposes that current high levels of corporate financial performance may be caused by prior csr investment, therefore, we would like to know whether current investment, or whether prior investment in csr will result in current high levels of corporate financial performance. regression 1 : whether or not djsi group firms perform better? customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance cfgrt represents the growth rate of firm’s operating cash flows. operating cash flow is calculated as ebit + depreciation – tax. roet represents firm’s profitability in investing in djsi firms. sgrt represents the managerial ability in marketing. isrt represents the djsi impact on stock price, isrt is defined as the average return of daily stock returns during the sampling year. regression 2: whether or not high acsi group firms perform better? regression 3: whether or not both in acsi group and djsi group firms perform better? there are 59 companies that belong to both acsi group and djsi group, we use the dummy to see whether firms belong to both acsi group and djsi group perform better than the other firms. results table 1 shows us the empirical result of the high csr investing impact on the 169 acsi firms’ financial performance. as mentioned before, the financial performance indicators contain the macroeconomic dummy (return on s&p 500 index, denoted by sp500t), the growth rate of sales margin (denoted by sprt) to represent the profitability of firm, the growth rate of sales (denoted by sgrt) to represent the market shares of firm’s operations, and the dummies which represent the firm’s status where the firm falls in the high score of wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 175 acsi, or a low score of acsi. if firm results in a high score of acsi, then will be 1, otherwise will be 0. table 1: does acsi group firms result in a better financial performance?4 constant sp500t sprt sgrt cfgrt-1 r2 62.1075 (0.4838) 101.2909 (0.2503) -4.6677 (-0.9492) 1.2830 (1.5292) -0.1154 (-0.9814) -139.4679 (-0.9231) -104.6809 (-0.9111) 268.1099 (1.4295) 0.2558 constant sp500t sprt sgrt roet-1 r2 -4.1148 (-0.2826) -278.9448** (-2.3583) 3.2618** (2.5555) 0.0058 (0.0458) -0.2318*** (-3.1347) -0.7881 (-0.1480) -4.0877 (-0.4967) 13.8340** (2.4300) 0.3302 constant sp500t sprt sgrt-1 r2 4 . sampling data contains 169 firms. data range is from 2002 to 2007. parentheses are t statistics. ***, **, and * represent significance at the 1%, 5 %, and 10% levels, respectively. customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance 9.6254* (1.6656) -8.7420 (-0.1685) 0.7359 *** (3.6395) -0.0292 (-0.4967) -10.3134*** (-4.6344) -2.9737 * (-1.7951) -5.2745 ** (-2.1087) 0.4865 constant sp500t sprt sgrt isrt-1 r2 2.3580*** (7.1663) 0.057 (0.0548) 0.0316*** (7.6312) 0.0035*** (5.3890) 0.1917* (1.7877) -0.0201 (-0.3057) 0.0907 (1.1347) -0.0234 (-1.0596) 0.8218 regression 1 and regression 4 in table 1 both show that high investment in csr activities has no significant impact on the growth rate of operating cash flow (denoted by cfgrt) and individual stock return. however, if we look at regression 2 and 3, the empirical result shows that the high investment in csr activities two periods ahead is positively significantly correlated with corporate current roet at 5% significant level, furthermore, current, 1 period prior, and 2 period prior csr investment is significantly negatively correlated with current market share of the firm at 1%, 10%, and 5% significant level, respectively. therefore, our results show that investment in csr activities have a negative impact on firm’s short-run and long-run market share. however, investments in csr activities yield a positive impact on firm’s long-run return on equity. using roet as accounting-based financial performance indicator, our results support the instrumental stakeholder theory and the slack resources theory. using the information in table 2, we can analyze whether djsi firms outperform other firms. regressions 1, 2, and 3 in table 2 show that djsi firms do not have significant high level of firm’s growth rate of operating cash flow (cfgrt), roet, and growth rate of market shares (sgrt). leading sustainability firms do not perform well in stock price which is also supported by lee & faff (2009). regression 4 in table 2 shows that being a leading sustainability firm is significantly positively related to firm’s individual stock return. high investment in csr activities (leading sustainability firms in this paper) is positively related to individual firm’s stock return, which is also shown by hall & rieck (1997) and little & little (2000). wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 177 table 2: does djsi group firms result in a better financial performance?5 constant sp500t sprt sgrt cfgrt-1 r2 -2335.9050 (-1.2690) 18218.7700 (0.9813) 3.3241 (0.0913) 57.3868 (0.8379) -0.8734 (-0.7118) 154.9103 (0.0926) 109.9302 (0.0620) 80.0077 (0.0477) 0.2026 constant sp500t sprt sgrt roet-1 r2 46.4228*** (7.0643) -121.6051* (-1.8734) -0.0619 (-0.4841) 0.3233 (1.3406) -0.1037*** (-3.6024) -8.2295 (-1.4022) -0.2479 (-0.0398) -8.3243 (-1.4090) 0.3564 constant sp500t sprt sgrt-1 r2 5.5452*** (3.1030) 0.1818 (0.0100) 0.4038*** (6.1476) -0.0188 (-0.5876) -1.1077 (-0.6885) -0.9664 (-0.5677) 2.6161 (1.6197) 0.3783 5 . sampling data contains 217 firms. data range is from 2002 to 2007. parentheses are t statistics. the ***, **, and * represent significance at the 1%, 5 %, and 10% levels, respectively. customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance constant sp500t sprt sgrt isrt-1 r2 2.1568*** (16.8393) 1.3193*** (3.8316) 0.0025*** (4.0586) 0.0032*** (2.7026) 0.3708*** (10.8236) 0.0730** (2.5662) 0.0345 (1.1505) -0.0014 (-0.0494) 0.8708 prior researches have focused on either csr investment (high acsi score) or leading sustainability firms (djsi firm). we would like to know whether firms with a high acsi score and also be recorded as djsi firm outperform other firms? table 3 shows the panel lease squared result for all 333 companies in the djsi groups or with acsi scores. regressions 1 and 2 of table 3 panel a show that, prior 2-period investment in csr activities significantly positively related to firm’s cash flow and roet at 1% level. regressions 1 and 4 show that prior 3-period csr investment significantly negatively related to firm’s cash flow and stock price. looking at the csr investment on firm’s operating cash flow (cfgrt) and its market shares (sgrt), current csr activities have significantly negatively impact on short run performance. therefore, our result in table 3 panel a shows (suggests?) that investment in csr activities deteriorate firm’s current financial performance, however, subsequently, a superior long run financial performance may be realized when the corporate system takes more interest in csr activities. table 3 panel a: does acsi group firms result in a better financial performance?6 constant sp500t sprt sgrt cfgrt-1 r2 69.8308 (1.1070) 960.6010 (1.1859) -1.4317 (-0.6117) 1.2745 (1.5008) -0.1649*** (-6.3509) -301.4925*** (-2.9354) -152.7076* (-1.6585) 269.7466*** (3.0782) -174.3685** (-1.9854) 0.3255 6 . sampling data contains 333 firms. data range is from 2002 to 2007. parentheses are t statistics. ***, **, and * represent significance at the 1%, 5 %, and 10% levels, respectively. wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 179 constant sp500t sprt sgrt roet-1 r2 24.1937*** (2.9037) -405.9365*** (-2.8603) 0.9305*** (4.3834) 0.0175 (0.3744) -0.1391 (-1.0463) 9.9930 (1.3459) 11.3712 (1.1739) 12.2629*** (3.5397) 15.0824 (1.2069) 0.3394 constant sp500t sprt sgrt-1 r2 8.6384 (1.5422) 54.4062 (0.6989) 0.4586** (2.5339) -0.1248 (-0.9927) -8.3458*** (-3.4718) -2.5874 (-0.7800) -2.9770 (-1.3824) -4.0351* (-1.9044) 0.4519 constant sp500t sprt sgrt isrt-1 r2 2.6112*** (3.2397) 2.7417*** (8.6037) 0.0113*** (7.7920) 0.0026*** (5.2764) 0.1965 (0.8456) 0.1202 (1.4915) 0.0789 (1.2143) -0.0061 (-0.2114) -0.0371*** (-3.2017) 0.8701 our result in table 3 panel b is mixed. regression 2 shows that the current and prior 2 djsi impact and roe is significantly negatively related at 5% significant level, while the prior 1 djsi impact has significantly positive effect on current roe at 1% significant level. moreover, regression 3 of table 3 panel b also shows a mixed result regarding the impacts of djsi on the growth rate of sales (sgrt). impacts of prior 1 period and prior 3 period djsis on sgr is significantly negatively related at 10% significant level. however, the current and prior 2 djsi grouping has significantly positive impact on the growth rate of sales. regression 4 shows that djsi impact is significantly positively related to firm’s stock return. in short, whether djsi grouping has a significantly impact on accounting-based customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance financial performance is not concluded, however, djsi grouping firms outperform others on their stock returns. table 3 panel b: does djsi group firms result in a better financial performance?7 constant sp500t sprt sgrt cfgrt-1 r2 -2545.6800 (-1.4024) 22473.4800 (0.7919) 95.9505 (1.1071) 6.2230 (0.2173) -0.7232 (-0.7677) 84.3121 (0.0477) -7.7793 (-0.0043) 169.9624 (0.0920) 46.5164 (0.0219) 0.2533 constant sp500t sprt sgrt roet-1 r2 34.3448*** (4.3711) -437.7007*** (-2.7498) 0.7470*** (5.3209) 0.0866** (2.1126) 0.0568*** (8.0770) -12.4256** (-2.3297) 9.9282*** (4.0138) -18.9652** (-2.1161) 5.4363 (1.2317) 0.3442 constant sp500t sprt sgrt-1 r2 4.9698 (0.9585) 185.6253*** (2.9061) 0.1463*** (3.4383) 0.2649*** (8.6843) 1.0747 (0.9945) -2.7753* (-1.7519) 2.6282** (2.3507) -1.0432* (-1.8663) 0.4473 7 . sampling data contains 333 firms. data range is from 2002 to 2007. parentheses are t statistics. ***, **, and * represent significance at the 1%, 5 %, and 10% levels, respectively. wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 181 constant sp500t sprt sgrt isrt-1 r2 2.7073*** (3.5118) 2.7095*** (6.7388) 0.0123*** (7.5485) 0.0027*** (4.3244) 0.1624 (0.7529) 0.0584** (2.5783) 0.0470** (2.2173) -0.0007 (-0.0168) -0.0366 (-1.2057) 0.8677 on table 3 panel c we will present the result that whether high level in acsi and djsi grouping will outperform others. the cross effect of high acsi score and djsi grouping is represented by . in regressions 3 and 4, djsi grouping firms with high acsi score have significantly positive impact on sgrt at a 5% level, and significantly negative impact on isrt at a 10% level. in regression 1, high level in acsi will result in a significantly low level and high level of cash flow growth in the short run and long run at a 1% level, respectively. in regression 3 and 4, high level in acsi will result in a significantly low level of sgrt in the both short run and long run. moreover, the djsi grouping produces significantly negative impact on growth rate of sales and individual stock price. however, the djsi impact on roet is still mixed, which means short run and long run effects of djsi grouping on roet is not conclusive. we conclude that djsi grouping firm with high acsi score produce negative long-run impact on stock price, and positive long-run impact on growth rate of cash flows. table 3 panel c: does both acsi and djsi group firms result in a better financial performance?8 constant sp500t sprt sgrt cfgrt-1 dacsit ddjsit dacsii,djsit dacsit-1 ddjsit-1 8 . sampling data contains 333 firms. data range is from 2002 to 2007. parentheses are t statistics. ***, **, and * represent significance at the 1%, 5 %, and 10% levels, respectively. y customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance 66.5921 (0.9425) 1002.9860 (1.2158) -1.3811 (-0.5852) 1.2660 (1.4795) -0.1653*** (-6.3229) -328.3985*** (-3.0484) 2.5595 (0.0506) 111.0211 (0.8376) -153.0706 (-1.5864) 12.5038 (0.2376) ddjsit-1 dacsit-1,djsit-1 dacsit-2 ddsit-2 dacsit-2,djsit-2 dacsit-3 ddjsit-3 dacsit-3,djsit-3 r2 ddjsit-1 12.5038 (0.2376) -75.6844 (-0.5934) 277.9002*** (3.0918) -2.1856 (-0.0401) -47.7074 (-0.3457) -172.5760* (-1.9271) -2.1219 (-0.0346) 30.6266 (0.1697) 0.3266 12.5038 (0.2376) constant sp500t sprt sgrt roet-1 dacsit ddjsit dacsii,djsit dacsit-1 29.5431** (2.4120) -445.1138** (-2.5287) 0.9462*** (4.6816) 0.0183 (0.3373) -0.1377 (-1.0517) 10.7609 (1.1101) -11.5487* (-1.9218) -3.0053 (-0.5837) 12.1724 (1.1312) ddjsit-1 dacsit-1,djsit-1 dacsit-2 ddsit-2 dacsit-2,djsit-2 dacsit-3 ddjsit-3 dacsit-3,djsit3 r2 wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 183 8.0631*** (3.8685) 3.4029 (1.0559) 11.5306*** (3.0207) -18.6818** (-2.0949) 4.3374 (0.8868) 16.2726 (1.3134) 6.0478 (1.2073) 8.2513 (1.0060) 0.3441 constant sp500t sprt sgrt -1 dacsit ddjsit dacsii,djsit dacsit-1 8.1916 (1.5198) 58.1811 (0.7496) 0.4657*** (2.7095) -0.1269 (-1.0215) -9.5537*** (-3.0248) -1.2484 (-0.8118) 3.7328 (1.0854) -2.3903 (-0.5885) ddjsit-1 dacsit-1,djsit-1 dacsit-2 ddsit-2 dacsit-2,djsit-2 dacsit-3 ddjsit-3 dacsit3,djsit-3 r2 -1.6772 (-0.8565) -2.1683 (-0.5472) -2.8611 (-1.3042) 1.8576 (0.8155) 1.1804 (0.8984) -4.7016* (-1.8536) 3.0002** (2.1799) 4.6479** (2.0672) 0.4558 constant sp500t sprt sgrt cfgrt-1 dacsit ddjsit dacsii,djsit dacsit-1 2.6238*** (3.3080) 2.7636*** (8.9811) 0.0115*** (7.1954) 0.0028*** (4.9057) 0.1824 (0.7937) 0.1385 (1.5203) 0.0661*** (2.9281) -0.0791 (-1.4193) 0.0900 (1.2380) ddjsit-1 dacsit-1,djsit-1 dacsit-2 ddsit-2 dacsit-2,djsit-2 dacsit-3 ddjsit-3 dacsit3,djsit-3 r2 customer satisfaction, social responsibility and financial performance 0.0633** (2.5145) -0.0652* (-1.8478) -0.0124 (-0.3748) 0.0013 (0.0242) 0.0309 (0.8725) -0.0427*** (-4.5507) -0.0336 (-1.0157) 0.0008 (0.0089) 0.8715 the main preliminary results from our exploratory study (based on a limited data set) are therefore as follows: • csr investment negatively affects short term stock price, but improves long term stock return. • csr investment results in long term superior financial performance. • customer satisfaction negatively affects short term stock prices, but positively affects cash flow growth rate. the results tend to support the hypothesis that long-term sustainability is directly linked to high levels of csr and high levels of customer satisfaction – two activities that have a negative impact on short term stock price, but which improves return on investment in the long run. conclusion in this paper, we wanted to investigate whether investment in csr will result in a high level of short-run or long-run financial performance. by reviewing the acsi listed firms only, our results show that investments in csr activities have a negative impact on firm’s short-run and long-run market share, however, investments in csr activities yield a positive impact on firm’s long-run return on equity. by asking whether the djsi grouping indicate a high level of financial performance, our empirical findings show that being a leading sustainability firm is significantly positively related to firm’s individual stock return. high investment in csr activities (leading sustainability firms in this paper) is positively related to individual firm’s stock return is also evidenced by hall & rieck (1997) and little & little (2000). finally, since prior research focuses on the csr investment (high acsi score) only or on the leading sustainability firm (djsi firm) only, we wanted to know whether the firm with high acsi score and also be recorded as djsi firm may outperform others? our panel lease squared result for the whole samples reveals that djsi grouping firm with high level of acsi activities produce negative long-run impact on stock price, and positive long-run impact on growth rate of cash flows. based on the empirical evidence presented in this paper, it seems logical for firms to investigate ways in which they can spend money, time, and effort in planning, coordinating and implementing csr activities, since a positive correlation exists between csr, customer satisfaction, and cfp. while shareholders may be dissatisfied at the initial downward movement in market share, they could take heart in realizing that their long term investments will improve. moreover, spending on improved customer satisfaction may also have a positive effect on cash flow growth, but may negatively affect stock price. wang, venter and huang td, 8(2), dec. 2012, pp. 167-187. 185 it is clear that using stock price alone as a measure of organizational success – chasing the short term profit – is not advisable in the long run, and a focused approach in designing business strategies to increase stock price may lead organizations to the brink of collapse in the long run. organizations that aim to build sustainable business will therefore have to shift the focus away from a stock-price-only measure, and include measures taking cognizance of csi and customer satisfaction. it makes sense for organizations to take the longer-term view. the current economic crisis was in part caused by an increasingly short-term drive for quick profit. the question now remains – how can organizations ensure that they follow a prudent and integrated approach to designing and implementing csr and customer 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performance link, strategic management journal, vol. 18, pp. 303–319, 1997. wigley, s., gauging consumers’ responses to csr activities: does increased awareness make cents?, public relations review, vol. 34, pp. 306-308, 2009. schabort familiegeskiedenis 1500 2000 / schabort family history 1500 200 piet en peet schabort isbn 0620275464 private publikasie johannesburg eerste uitgawe (ook kennisname van jongste engelse vertaling) 2001 posbus 95268 emmarentia 2029 resensie deur dr w.a. cruywagen historikus en genealoog, pretoria op die vakgebied van die genealogie sorg kenners, gewoonlik akademiese historici, vir die filosofiese besinning, teorie en metodologie van die studieveld. ten opsigte van genealogiese navorsing met die oog op die skrywe van familiegeskiedenis word die meeste van die werk deur amateur-historici uit liefde vir die geskiedenis en die familie gedoen. die produk van die arbeid van twee “amateur hande”, regter piet en peet schabort, schabort familiegeskiedenis 1500 2000, het in 2001 die lig gesien. piet schabort het die werk ook in engels vertaal schabort family history 1500 2000. dit is ‘n indrukwekkende stuk werk, vlak aan die 500 bladsye. wat vroeg reeds opval is die uitgebreide navorsing wat nie net in suidafrikaanse argiewe gedoen is nie maar ook in duitsland en die argiewe van die mormoonse kerk in salt lake city. indrukwekkende studie van suid-afrika se schaborts td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 453-456. 454 die ontsyfering van ou duitse geskrifte moes ‘n tydrowende en uitputtende oefening gewees het. dit was vir die navorsers egter ook bevredigend want hulle meld dat byvoorbeeld kennismaking met die merckse linie van die voorgeslag “opwindende onthullings” ingehou het. die eindresultaat was lonend want die vier hoofstukke oor die europese voorsate vorm ‘n insiggewende aanloop tot die vestiging van johan christoph schabort aan die kaap. op die skeepsmonsterrol van “die generale vrede”, die skip waarop hy hier op 10 augustus 1716 aangeland het, staan hy aangeteken as christoffel schabort wat as soldaat in diens van die verenigde oos-indiese kompanjie opgeneem is. onder dié naam het die geskiedenis van ‘n “nuwe” familie aan die kaap ‘n aanvang geneem. die algemeen aanvaarde beginsel en uitgangspunt is dat geskiedenis en kultuurgeskiedenis hand aan hand sal loop en dat genealoë die kultuurgeskiedenis nie sy plek sal ontsê nie maar dit ten volle sal integreer in die skrywe van familiegeskiedenis. van hierdie beginsel het die skrywers van die schabortgeskiedenis terdeë kennis geneem. dwars deur die werk word die nou band tussen geskiedenis, kultuurgeskiedenis en genealogie eerbiedig en gehandhaaf. die kundige invleg van kultuurgeskiedenis en die breër implikasies van name en datums kom na vore. die resultaat is die beter verstaan van gebeure in bepaalde tydsomstandighede. voorts gee dit ‘n verrykende en verruimde insig in die leefomstandighede van mense, gemeenskaplikhede in gebruike, opvattings en oortuigings. die kultuurmilieu waarin mense gebore word en opgroei, bring hul menslikheid tot ontplooiing. die stempel wat die aanwesige kultuur nagelaat het, word oral in die schabortboek raakgelees. name kry nuwe betekenis en word vermenslik van die vernames en aansienlikes tot die doodgewones. ek glo nie ek het al ‘n familiegeskiedenis gelees waarin die rol van vroue so uitgelig word as in hierdie werk nie, en welgedaan want die belangrike rol van die vrou is in familiegeskiedenis vir te lank verswyg. ‘n belangrike bron van inligting vir die skrywers was vele familiebriewe, memoires en foto’s wat behoue gebly het en steeds in besit van familieverwante is. op p.134 word uit ‘n brief aangehaal wat so ver terug as 1875 geskrywe is. daar word vermeld van ‘n schabortafstammeling wat 90 liefdesbriewe besit wat charlie neethling aan sukie schabort geskrywe het. sy poging was nie vrugteloos nie. die twee is op 14 november 1893 getroud. daar is foto’s van familiesaamtrekke waar tot vyftig persone teenwoordig was en elkeen se naam is bekend tot die kindertjies wat voor op die grond sit. die schabortboek onderstreep die belangrikheid om familiegeskrifte te bewaar. vir toekomstige skrywers van familiegeskiedenis is sodanige bronne van onskatbare waarde. lees gerus die schabortgeskiedenis as u nie oortuig is nie. ‘n mens kom onder die indruk van die betekenis wat ‘n plaas, wat 455 lank in ‘n familie se besit was, op geslagte afstammelinge gehad het. in ‘n verwysing na die plaas eversdal in die tygerberg wat van 1855 tot in die sewentiger jare van die twintigste aan (.:!:. 115 jaar) in schabort besit was, word gesê: “hierdie plaas het ... vir lank as veilige familievesting van ons voorsate en gewaardeerde bodem vir voortbouing op ‘n sinvolle familiekultuur gedien” (p. 194). vir die frankfortse tak van die schaborts was die plaas, glen alphen, in die destydse distrik vrede, blykbaar ook vir lank so ‘n familievesting. hoeveel sulke “familievestings” en “gewaardeerde bodems” is daar nie in s.a. nie? dit sal jammer wees as hierdie kweekbodems van familiekultuur misgekyk word! die skrywers het deurgaans daarna gestrewe om “objektiwiteit en ewewig” te handhaaf. hulle slaag uitmuntend daarin selfs waar dit moeilik geword het “namate meer regstreekse en onmiddellike betrokkenheid by persoonlikhede” voorgekom het. daar is reeds gemeld dat die schabort-geskiedenis ook in engels vertaal is ‘n reuse taak wat op voortreflike wyse deur piet schabort gedoen is en wat pas verskyn het. die vertaling het die voordeel dat foute wat in die afrikaanse weergawe voorkom, reggestel kon word en ‘n paar historiese foto’s wat intussen ontdek is, ingesluit kon word. dit is egter “n voldonge feit dat met “n vertaling baie van die segkrag van die oorspronklike verlore gaan. iets van die intimiteit wat byvoorbeeld uit briewe straal, kan nie met dieselfde gevoel onder woorde gebring word nie. indien hierdie grootse werk as ‘n akademiese dissertasie aangebied is, sou daar baie aanwysingskorreksies in die voetnote aangebring moes word. terwyl dit die werk van amateur-historici is, kan hierdie tekortkoming oorgesien word. toeligting wat in voetnote gedoen is, werp verdere lig op bepaalde gebeure en kom handig te pas. ‘n groot tekortkoming van hierdie pragwerk is dat dit geen bronnelys bevat nie. die voetnote bring ‘n mens op die spoor van die wye spektrum van bronne wat geraadpleeg is. om egter “n bron in die voetnote te soek, is tydrowend teenoor die maklike weg om die inligting te kry in ‘n goedversorgde en volledige bronnelys. ruimtebeperking verhoed dat nog gesigspunte oor die schabortboek aangestip word: die geloofsonderbou waarop geslagte hulle leefstyl en optrede ingerig het, die verwoesting en leed wat deel van die familie met die anglo-boereoorlog getref het en die moedige heropbou ná die verwoesting kon aandag geniet het, maar ... by die lees van familiegeskiedenis van die eie familie en selfs ook van ander wel daar in die gemoed ‘n gevoel van trots op oor ‘n mens se herkoms en oor alles wat voorgeslagte vermag het. dit versterk die eie selfrespek en stimuleer ‘n voorneme en wil om waardige voorouer td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 453 456. boekresensie 456 se nagedagtenis in ere te hou en hulle in ware menswees na te lewe. die schabortboek wek beslis sodanige emosies. die skrywers sluit hulle voorwoord af met die verwagting dat diegene wat “wonder en graag wil weet” moontlik antwoorde in die boek sal vind. baie meer lesers as schabortafstammelinge sal beslis baat vind: deeglike navorsing, goedversorgde taalgebruik, objektiwiteit, metodologiese riglyne, en baie meer. die skrywers het uitmuntend daarin geslaag om aan soekende belangstellendes antwoorde te verskaf! abstract introduction methods results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) nonhlanhla p. khumalo school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa writing centre department, durban university of technology, pietermaritzburg, south africa sarasvathie reddy school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation khumalo np, reddy s. cross-disciplinary synergy: first-year students’ experiences of learning academic writing through integrated writing support at a university of technology. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1038. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1038 research project registration: project number: hss/0800/015d original research cross-disciplinary synergy: first-year students’ experiences of learning academic writing through integrated writing support at a university of technology nonhlanhla p. khumalo, sarasvathie reddy received: 12 mar. 2021; accepted: 27 may 2021; published: 29 june 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract an important role in socialising first-year students into universities is initiating them into different conventions of academic writing. support programmes, such as writing centres, have been established in several south african universities to help students with this objective and the broader issue of academic literacy. the assumption is that such interventions bridge the articulation gap between basic and higher education phases and expedite academic success. this article draws from a larger phd study that explored nursing students’ experiences of developing their academic writing skills at the writing centre. the focus of this article is on understanding first-year nursing students’ experiences of learning academic writing through the integrated writing interventions of language and discipline practices at a writing centre based at the durban university of technology (dut). these students were regarded as relevant because their curriculum incorporates a more structured academic writing component with the writing centre. the study adopted the academic literacies model (alm), which fosters a social view of academic writing and advocates for integrated support to the teaching and learning of academic writing. guided by the qualitative constructivist paradigm, phenomenography was adopted as a research methodology. data were analysed according to phenomenographic categories. whilst the study uncovered various factors influencing the development of academic writing amongst the target population, there was a clear need for shifting from interdisciplinary (at least two disciplines) to a transdisciplinary (more than two disciplines) academic literacy approach to students’ learning experiences. as such, the article recommends the intentional inclusion of various stakeholders (writing centre practitioners, discipline lecturers, clinical and academic support staff) to mitigate students’ writing challenges and develop sustainable and relevant academic literacy practices. keywords: academic literacies; academic writing; extended curriculum programme; writing centres; phenomenography. introduction the importance of sound academic writing practices for university students can hardly be overstated, considering that success in higher education has been intrinsically tied to academic literacy.1,2,3 however, most students in south african tertiary institutions, especially in universities of technology, struggle with learning and maintaining the required academic writing practices.4 this has been shown to impact their academic progress and throughput. according to the council of higher education (che),5 approximately 55% of students who enrol for undergraduate programmes in south african universities never graduate and most drop out in their first year. given the extent that such high levels of attrition are attributable to poor academic literacy, there is a need to create effective academic support programmes to mitigate the challenges experienced by first-year students.6,7 leibowitz and bozalek have asserted the need to transform learning and teaching strategies in higher education institutions.8 this includes, but is not limited to, exposing first-year students to both discipline-specific (curricular) and general academic literacy support structures.9 whilst, traditionally, academic support structures for first-year university students tended to focus mainly on ‘underprepared’ students,10 recent development has indicated the shortfalls of such approaches, hence the need to expand support to all students.11 this need has been shown to transcend national borders. at the global level, these transformation imperatives manifest as part of the response to the need to accommodate student diversity and globalisation.12 the call for widening participation in western higher schooling systems has further led to growing variety inside the ethnic, social and linguistic compositions of student populations. whilst this can be considered favourable, this diversity has increased the need for support programmes to standardise student learning experiences and outcomes. the higher education context involves adapting to new ways of knowledge production and organisation. such adaptation needs are usually challenging for first-year university students, regardless of their educational backgrounds. thus, the development of students’ academic writing calls for a social practice approach to teaching and learning across disciplines, to accommodate other social variables that contribute to academic writing development and proficiency.13 south african universities, in view of changing student demographics, have engaged to transform teaching and learning, to ensure that first-year students cope successfully with the quest for epistemological access into different disciplines.14 the argument, laid out in expansive academic literacy studies, is that effective academic literacy is the key to epistemological access.8 through various interventions such as writing centres, higher education institutions hope to go beyond the teaching and learning of isolated skills. in association with academic departments, writing centres attempt to foster long-term students’ writing development.15 there is a demand for the institutionalisation of such collaborative practices that are responsive to students’ academic needs,16 because of the variegation of academic and professional writing needs in different disciplines. as such, the support ought to transcend the generic academic literacy offered within institutional writing centres, to include discipline-specific writing.3 as such, it is more critical for writing centres to develop and sustain long-term collaboration with the various academic departments and their parallel professional contexts. this article seeks to expand on the initial justification for academic writing support interventions. it explores the possibility, dynamics and extent to which acquired academic literacies could enhance professional competencies amongst undergraduate nursing students. the study investigated first-year nursing students’ experiences of learning academic writing through integrated writing interventions within a writing centre located at the durban university of technology (dut) in south africa. it draws on thesen et al.’s study on the broader understanding of students writing practices in the south african higher education context.17 the article is divided into five sections. the first section presents the setting of the study, which is a description of the dut writing centre and the writing intervention. the section that follows presents the conceptual framework for academic writing and mainly elaborates on the academic literacies model (alm). the description of the methodological choices precedes the presentation of the findings, discussion and conclusion. integrated writing support at the durban university of technology writing centre durban university of technology established its writing centre in 2013, as an independent unit outside of academic faculties. there are six writing centres located across the durban and pietermaritzburg campuses of the university. the writing centre offers a student-centred collaborative learning space that focuses on developing students’ academic literacies. it offers writing companionship for all students and staff, through one-on-one and group consultations, responsive workshops and writing tutorials. the writing centre recruits’ postgraduate students from multiple disciplines as writing tutors. this enables tutors to share disciplinary knowledge and effectively engage with all students.18 the writing centre is fully funded by the university capacity development grant (ucdg) and is one of the university’s special projects. in addition to generic support, the writing centre offers embedded academic literacy support to students in the foundational programmes of the different departments. in 2018, the writing centre in the pietermaritzburg campus entered into a collaborative arrangement with the department of nursing’s extended curriculum programme (ecp). the arrangement was to give academic writing support to the ecp students as part of the essentials for professional practice (epp) module, which is aimed at equipping students with essential skills to succeed in their academic and professional activities. as academic literacy is seen as one of those essential skills in both aspects, the writing centre had to engage with all first-year ecp students, through in-class writing tutorials, workshops and one-on-one and group consultations. with regard to the academic literacies theory in teaching practice underpin the centre’s integrated writing intervention programmes through interdisciplinary collaboration. the activities include support on basic academic writing practices, an offering of context-embedded tutorials and integrated examples of content knowledge. the content of writing tutorials is specific to nursing and designed collaboratively with the lecturers from the department of nursing. this is in line with the view of clarence who asserted that the strength of writing centre practice is in constantly finding new innovative ways of collaborate with departments of various disciplines to ensure that writing development is embedded in specific academic practice.3 the writing tutorials focus on the low order concerns (locs) that generally concentrate on sentence structure, punctuations, spelling, word choice, grammar and mechanics. the workshops and writing consultations focus on higher order concerns (hocs), which are crucial elements of assignment writing. these include thesis or focus, audience and purpose, organisation, development and referencing. the hocs writing support adopts the process approach to academic writing, in which students are encouraged to develop their writing through a series of iterative stages. academic writing as a social practice tertiary institutions are a new environment for first-year students and present them with learning and writing experiences, different from their previous education level. this demands another socialisation for learners who are coming from secondary schools and other pre-university activities. predictably, this proves to be a challenge for learners.20,21,22 harvey prescribed a deliberately crafted socialising initiative for new students in higher institutions of learning, intending to induct them into the tertiary education system.22 this, according to the author, would make students consciously aware of the particular lifestyle of learning in a new academic environment and would affect their overall knowledge because tertiary institutions change the identity of students through student support initiatives. the socialising initiative would therefore, enable students to cope academically and imbue them with demands of the new identity. this study adopts the alm as the theoretical framework. academic literacies theory situates writing within a socio-cultural context.19 the alm conceptualises literacies as social practices and focuses on students’ identities and learning experiences.19 according to a panel of researchers working for the centre for applied linguistics, academic literacy includes: … reading, writing, and oral discourse for school; varies from subject to subject; requires knowledge of multiple genres of text, purposes for text use, and multimedia; is influenced by students’ literacies in contexts outside of school, and; is influenced by students’ personal, social, and cultural practices.23 according to mckenna, academic literacy is not one, but many things; it is the language of academic disciplines.24 she observed that as far as many disciplines in higher education are concerned, academic literacy is ‘no-one’s mother tongue’, as such to be accepted, ideologically to one or the other disciplinary ‘tribe’, a student has to acquire this language. academic access as a code language of epistemological access in many disciplines has to do not only with ‘ways of using language but also the beliefs, attitudes and values of the group’.24 whilst many students come with no knowledge of generic and specific disciplinary literacies, some come with literacy practices that closely approximate them to cracking the code of the literacy of the discipline they want to join. others on the other hand will keep on using wrong literacy practices until they are kicked out by the disciplinary tribe.24 it is therefore the responsibility of institutions to ensure that every student that gains access to ‘university gates’ achieves the acquisition of values, beliefs and attitudes for the discipline they want to join if they are to become successful beyond the university gates. as such, developing appropriate literacy goes beyond mere mastering of specific technical writing conventions; it’s socialisation to certain value systems, ways of thinking and communication. this is why much of the literature on academic literacies advocates an embedded approach for academic literacy curricula.2,25,26,27 these authors argue that the embedded curriculum approach would enhance student experiences of learning academic writing and constructing knowledge in that discipline. boughey and mckenna2 had suggested different models of interaction between writing practitioners and students. street13 suggested that effective collaborative learning between different stakeholders is crucial in supporting students to develop such appropriate academic literacy practices. salamonson et al.28 also contended that embedded academic support is one of the key strategies for supporting academic writing development for nursing students. kift and field29 advocated a holistic approach that integrates fundamental academic support to discipline-specific activities. these scholarly positions depart from the erstwhile academic literacy practices in which the development of writing and language competencies were separate from discipline-specific activities. they argue that effective academic literacy development of first-year students involves not only coaching in academic writing technicalities but also being immersed in disciplinary writing idiosyncrasies.30 according to dison and clarence,31 disciplinary requirements of academic writing play a critical role in socialising students to academic literacies discourse. as such, the activities of the writing centre ought not to be viewed as an end to themselves, but as an integral part of a broader and integrated academic literacy socialisation, which includes discipline-specific and professional activities. therefore, in addition to disciplinary socialisation, students need to develop various socio-professional literacy identities relevant to their professional aspirations.32 it is noncontroversial to contend that different social and professional contexts require different and specific identities. for example, nursing students chosen to participate in this study are required to develop generic academic literacies because of them being students in a higher education institute. in addition, they need to develop and be competent to the nursing-specific jargon and mindset, both in their nursing education and clinical practice settings. as such, if writing is part of socialisation, it could be argued, therefore, that nursing students are required to be socialised in the different contexts they find themselves if they are to practice the correct form of literacy. effective academic literacy support would need embedment in all the three contexts.33 figure 1 reflects that writing as an academic practice needs to be more visible between and within disciplines.3 as such, it is more critical for all stakeholders not only to develop the collaboration but also to be able to sustain it long term. figure 1: writing centre integrated writing support provided to extended curriculum programme nursing students. the empirical dimension of this study is based on phenomenography, a qualitative research approach that assesses how participants make sense of their experiences of a phenomenon.34 the study methodology and design is presented further. methods study design this study employs an interpretivist paradigm to capture the subjective experiences of first-year ecp nursing students on their learning of academic writing. it explains the dynamics of individuals who are engaged in the social world they are interpreting.35 locating this study within an interpretivist paradigm is important because the writing centre, which provides the context for the study, adopts policies of teaching and learning of academic writing that should be informed by the contextual realities of the students. phenomenography was employed as a research methodology because it is a research approach that effectively represents the qualitatively different ways people experience, conceptualise and understand various aspects of a phenomenon. the focus is thus on the variation of participants’ experiences of phenomena.36 in this study, phenomenography was useful in understanding how nursing students experienced and conceptualised academic writing in relation to the discipline of nursing. study population the target group for this study was the first-year students admitted into the ecp stream of the department of nursing. the ecp students, usually 20% of the annual intake, undergo 5 years of nursing training, instead of the 4 years undergone by the rest of the students. in order to improve their academic literacy, the department of nursing offers them the epp module that includes academic writing presentations, tutorials from the writing centre, computer literacy from the information and communication systems (ics) department and information literacy from the library department. the researcher, as a participant, wanted to understand the contribution of the intervention programme of the writing centre on the academic writing skills of these students. thus, the study used purposive sampling for the selection of the participants (see table 1). table 1: biography profile of participants and schooling background. as shown in table 1, participants comprised equally distributed males and female, who come from predominantly rural backgrounds. all participants are isizulu speaking black people, albeit a sheer coincidence. data collection and analysis the data production strategy in phenomenography assists participants to reflect on their experiences of a phenomenon.34 as such, data production comprised a complex battery of activities by participants. these included individual interviews and two focus group discussions. this triangulation of data-collection methods was intended to produce a comprehensive reflection of the phenomenon. through these activities, the participant was encouraged to reflect on their development of effective academic writing development.37 as such, participants were able to reflect on the impact of the activities of the writing centre, discipline lecturers and clinical mentors, in their academic writing development. the variety and diversity of approaches in qualitative research design mean that there are different ways of analysing social life, and therefore multiple perspectives and practices in the analysis of qualitative data exist.38 there is no single technique for analysing data in a phenomenographic study because research questions often guide the type of analysis.39 thus, the researcher focused on examining the differences and similarities in the experiences of the participants. the phenomenographic data analysis method prescribed by sjostrom and dahlgren40 was used to analyse data in this study. it consists of six stages, namely familiarisation, compilation, condensation, preliminary grouping, a preliminary comparison of categories and outcome space.39 therefore, data from different sources were transcribed and translated and hand coding was applied to generate specific themes relating to student experiences. after transcribing all the interviews, i read and compared them repeatedly, thinking about similarities and differences both within a single transcript and across all transcripts. because the ‘how’ aspect of language learning has been thoroughly studied, my analysis focused on the ‘what’ aspect of second language experience, which has not been extensively studied. however, the ultimate aim of analysis in this approach was to discern and identify participants’ qualitatively different experiences or understanding, in a limited number of categories39 as reflected in the results discussed further. results figure 2 presents the findings pertaining to the first-year nursing students experiences of learning academic writing skills. it portrays the complexities of the different experiences, which together comprise the phenomenon. in phenomenography this is referred to as the outcome space that, according to marton,41 is ‘the logically structured complex of the different ways of experiencing an object’, acting as a ‘synonym for the phenomenon’. as such, these results represent experiences of the phenomenon in the same way as categories of description represent conceptions. therefore, in phenomenography, the outcome space represents both the phenomenon and different ways of people’s experiences. figure 2: proposed transdisciplinary collaboration for integrated academic writing support. bruce et al.42 illustrated that the outcome space may be presented as a ‘table, image or diagram and serves the purpose of depicting how each category relates to each other’. bruce et al.42 further describe the outcome space as a ‘diagrammatic representation’ of the categories of description; whilst säljö43 suggested that it reflects a ‘map of a territory’, interpreting how people conceive an aspect of reality. in this study, nursing students were required to describe their experiences of learning academic writing in the writing centre. category one: students’ experience the given category of the outcome space (table 2) presents results of student reflection on their pre-university background, self-acknowledged writing challenges, the experiences of learning new writing conventions. most of these were gathered during in-class writing interventions. these in-class tutorials were part of the compulsory writing centre that mainly focused on locs such as grammar and basic academic writing conventions. table 2: outcome space reflecting the categories of description. despite acknowledging poor schooling and writing background, most participants were confident of their writing abilities. hutchison44 and archer,1 have described this apparent contradictory phenomenon, in which students often overestimate their abilities. this is often attributed to the euphoria of successful completion of high school and admission to higher education, which leaves students with a feeling of temporarily heightened capabilities, especially during the initial days of their university life. nonetheless, most students encountered challenges in mastering basic grammar and academic writing norms. this challenge was reflected on their interviews, as the word ‘difficult’ recurred in 14 out of 18 responses. this initial ‘shock’, enabled students to reflect and come to terms with their specific writing challenges. one participant shared their experience: ‘i had to learn new styles of writing. the university writing is different from how we were writing at schools. lots of our writing requires us to research before writing and that is not easy. for example, i cannot use a first-person “i” or mix tenses when writing an essay. these are some of the things we were not taught at school.’ (participant 05, student, male) another participant explained: ‘i struggle with some of the aspects of writing such as paraphrasing, it is new and with time, i will learn and improve. after all, writing expectations at university are different from high school writing. the assignments, projects and presentations demand a lot of reading and writing.’ (participant 09, student, male) according to their reflections, even whilst acknowledging their shortcomings and the need to develop university-specific writing practices, some students were reluctant to learn new writing conventions. this was also influenced by the still self-perceived competencies that had enabled them to succeed in high school, as seen in the following reflection: ‘i write well but my lecturer deducts marks if my assignment is submitted without consulting the writing centre. i am required to consult and get a stamp to show that i worked with a tutor on improving my writing. my writing is good and readable; i feel i do not need extra help with my writing.’ (participant 13, student, female) on the other hand, the inertia may have been influenced by the fact that over 70% of the participants had studied in poorly resourced rural schools, which had crippled their ability to develop basic writing and literacy skills. as such, the feeling of ‘starting-over’ might have been debilitating: ‘i feel i write better than some of my friends in the mainstream. i do not understand why i should attend writing tutorials and workshops … the fact is english is our second language.’ (participant 14, student, female) this reluctance was reflected in erratic attendance and poor in-class participation. however, in time, this inertia was replaced by the necessity for developing literacy practices for effective academic and professional participation: ‘as an aspiring nurse, it is important to write well and use clear english. therefore, everything they teach us was because they want us to write well. when we are in hospitals, we always do a better job than the students who do not attend writing tutorials.’ (participant 01, student, female) the other participant also added: ‘at first, i felt the writing tutorials was a waste of time because all we did was learn about writing. most sessions focused on how to improve my writing and get good marks on my assignments. however, i enjoy writing exercises at the end of the session. i find them useful, although it creates more writing for us.’ (participant 17, student, male) the participants acknowledged the values of writing tutorials to their academic development. according to participant 17, the collaborative learning initiative aimed at supporting them, as nursing students, to enhance their writing skills. the study affirms that effective learning of academic writing is grounded on an academic literacies approach that allows students to recognise the gaps in their learning experiences. as such, these student experiences show a shift in student perception of their writing competencies and their need for academic literacy support. category 2: writing centre support in category 2, student reflections were directed towards hocs writing centre support. these are organised in the form of workshops and are offered once a quarter – coinciding with first assignments. in these workshops, students are supported in essay writing – which follows a process approach – and conventions of academic integrity (paraphrasing, referencing and avoidances of plagiarism). in this category, participants reflected on the effectiveness of the writing centre in their development of academic literacy, receiving actionable feedback and the conflict between writing centre and disciplinary writing prerogatives. the residual reluctance to support was still reflected in student responses, even with regard to hocs, as stated here: ‘i write well but my lecturer deducts marks if my assignment is submitted without consulting the writing centre. i am required to consult and get a stamp to show that i worked with a tutor on improving my writing. my writing is good and readable; i feel i do not need extra help with my writing.’ (participant 13, student, female) this point was reflected by some participants, where they felt undermined for being taught what they deem ‘easy stuff’. the experience of being treated as incompetent compared with other first years was a cause for concern. whilst some felt that writing an assignment was a skill they had already mastered in their previous education and needed no support, others felt the need to adopt university-specific conventions: ‘at the beginning of the year, i struggled with lots of things…. university is not easy, there is so much to learn and understand in a short space of time. i had to learn how to type my assignment, research and reference my assignment.’ (participant 03, student, female) other participants shared their positive learning experience and valued the one-on-one writing consultations: ‘i feel i have a good command of english and i write well. when i went for writing consultation, there were so many grammatical mistakes in my assignment draft and i was a bit irritated and embarrassed. i could not believe how many unnecessary grammatical errors i made.’ (participant 01, student, female) one of the participants appraised the writing centre as a place that has helped her hone her writing skills by demanding that students plan what they write before bringing their work to the writing centre. however, despite the positive experiences with the interactive mode of delivering writing support at the writing centre, some participants encountered challenges with how feedback was handled: ‘i do not like working with different tutors on the same writing tasks. i go there today one tutor tells me to work on the structure and referencing, i go back the next day and another tutor tells me a different thing to work on the argument of the assignment. i do not like that, and it does not help me with improving my writing.’ (participant 02, student, male) this sometimes hampers the positive experience regarding the use of the writing centre in general and the confusion surrounding the use of the feedback. as archer45 has pointed out, tutors often undervalue the critical role of constructive feedback. a lack of uniformity in feedback has both advantages and disadvantages for the learners and the tutors. in addition to the frustration about feedback provided by the writing centre tutors, there was general confusion on the role of the writing centre. one of the participants considered the writing centre as a place where students go for ‘ eradication of errors’ (participant 08, student, female). another student conceded to having felt irritated because of tutors at the writing centre: ‘… picked out many grammar and literature mistakes.’ (participant 04, student, male) the frustration was mainly based on the expectation that, instead of a space for collaborative learning, the writing centre is a corrective or a remedial setting wherein tutors point out the mistakes and fix them for students. category three: writing in the discipline in this category, participants reflect on the transference of academic writing competence from the writing centre (through task-specific consultations) to the nursing discipline, to the clinical setting. whilst academic literacy socialisation is meant to be interdisciplinary and integrated, it was unclear whether that intention was understood by participants. most understood literacy practices of different contexts (writing centre, discipline classrooms, clinical setting) as unrelated and tended to devalue the ‘generic’ writing practices from the writing centre in favour of mastering discipline-specific jargon and clinical terminologies: ‘what is expected of us in the clinics are terminologies. it is more of the terminologies than the academic writing…words in hospitals are abbreviated because they are aware of what it stands for… these are hospital terms that are relevant to the field and they rarely use full words.’ (participant 11, student, male) the assumption is that students in professions such as nursing do not need to master basic academic writing but their disciplinary jargon is endemic and has been observed in the literature. salamonson et al.28 asserted that institutions of learning usually make assumptions about nursing students that are detrimental to their writing. one assumption is that nursing students would naturally learn academic writing through their interaction with disciplinary texts. however, whitehead46 observed that ‘nurses often have a contractual obligation to participate in scholarly activity, where good writing practices are essential for job survival and security’. writing is also arguably the most important exhibition of one’s demonstration of scholarship. according to miller et al.47 and mitchell et al.,48 the development of generic academic writing conventions is a prerequisite to discipline-specific epistemological access. whilst this has been established, this integrated nature of academic literacy socialisation was not clear to some participants: ‘it is slightly different. in hospitals, clinical terms are shortened or abbreviated which you cannot do in the university.’ (participant 14, student, female) however, others felt that they were able to make the transference between contexts: ‘as much as it is all writing, there is a huge distinction between academic and professional writing. in a hospital report, i am expected to use clinical terms, abbreviations for some of the terms. there is a format to follow. unlike assignment writing where i only have to respond to the research question using academic writing including referencing.’ (participant 10, student, male) whilst participants views differed on the need for the integrated approach to academic writing, some argued that the discipline lecturers were also not invested in the approach: ‘lecturers do not give us feedback with regard to our writing; the feedback we get is for the content and marks. the feedback from the tutors is about our assignments on what we have done well and how to improve my writing.’ (participant 07, student, female) on the other hand, nursing practitioners in the clinical setting were reported as more critical to student writing: ‘the head of the ward constantly read our notes and picks on all the writing mistakes, which is embarrassing and makes me sad. i remember her shouting in front of colleagues about how i need to write in “proper english.”’ (participant 04, student, male) whilst the need for maintaining the integrated approach to learning academic literacy may not be immediately apparent to some participants, their reflections and experiences further consolidate this need. however, the deliberate commitment of different stakeholders (writing centre, discipline lecturers and nursing practitioners) may need to be mobilised and coordinated if this approach can lead to perceptive and effective academic literacy development. discussion as argued here, the alm contends that developing writing competency in higher education is but a part of a larger socialisation practice in which students are assisted to develop appropriate academic literacy. according to scholars in the field,19,24,30 academic literacy involves the ways of writing, reading, thinking and communication, within a broader context of the disciplinary value system. as such, the activities at the writing centre are but a part of such socialisation, as it only develops partial aspects of academic literacy. the success of its activities rests on the collaboration of other stakeholders in specific disciplines and professions. students have to be able to transfer competencies gained in one context to be fully functional in another.1,23 as indicated in the ‘results’ section, there are various hindrances to such ideal outcomes. previous research has documented roadblocks to the transference of academic writing,49 students’ perception of academic literacy transference,50 theoretical applications of learning transfer,51 and contextual factors that affect different kinds of writing transfer. as also indicated in the present study, most participants have less-than-optimal academic literacy backgrounds, having gone through under-resourced rural schools. whilst that was a challenge, some participants had a distorted perception of their literacy competencies, which made them reluctant to fully participating in academic literacy support activities, such as writing tutorials, workshops and task-based consultations. as derived from the response of other participants, the lack of active collaboration between writing centre tutors and discipline lecturers created an impression that some lecturers did not value the contribution of the writing centre in the development of student academic literacy. whilst this may have been the case, several participants observed the importance of effective academic literacy practices in a clinical context, where they have to deal with ‘legal’ clinical records. this further reinforces the need for a transdisciplinary approach in academic literacy development, even if not all stakeholders appreciate the importance of such collaboration. the results may only indicate the need for advocacy to bring all stakeholders to the same page with regard to the value of the contribution of each context. literature appreciates that such advocacy for synergy may not be without challenges, since this transdisciplinary approach emphasises collaboration and cooperation between different stakeholders, who may not directly work together.52 according to shrivastava and ivanaj,53 transdisciplinary is a ‘dialogue and engagement across ideologies, scientific, religious, economic, political and philosophical lines’. in this study, the integrated writing support proposes transdisciplinary collaboration for the effective development of academic literacy practices. as such, collaboration for effective academic literacy learning must be a cross-disciplinary synergy between professional/disciplinary specialists (educators and clinicians) and writing and literacy specialists (writing practitioners), as illustrated in figure 2. such collaboration is also likely to enhance the experiences of students undergoing such support. in this study, some participants were less enthusiastic about participating in the activities organised by the writing centre (tutorials, workshops and consultations) as they felt that the focus was on generic writing conventions, which was less urgent to their cause as nursing students and future healthcare practitioners. if well-implemented, this synergy will therefore bring together different expertise in the development of effective writing practice, making sure that generic academic writing conventions are immediately integrated into technical disciplinary and clinical writing prerogatives. whilst professional experts focus on the development and application of pro-nursing literacies, the writing practitioners will assist with the development of generic academic writing conventions. such collaboration will also enhance the ability for the transference of such literacy practices between the academic and professional contexts, which was one area participants struggled with. many institutions are experimenting with these cross-disciplinary collaborations in the context of academic writing. other institutions have integrated their writing centres, as longstanding, rather than ephemeral and experimental components of institutions of higher learning.16 this has created a need for the revision of how writing centres are to interact with faculties and disciplines for sustained periods. what this observation suggests is the need for the employment of practitioners who can supplement what happens at the writing centre. there has to be more than one component to the teaching of writing – one that is specialised in fields of study and one that caters to various fields. disseminated approaches, according to carstens,54 move the responsibility for the development of academic, quantitative and information literacies to the mainstream, involving language experts and ‘faculty, administrators and other stakeholders’. however, carstens54 contended that for any successful collaboration to occur the players involved need to show ‘a collective commitment to student success and willingness of commitment’. conclusion the study concludes with a debate on the importance of collaboration between lecturers, writing centres and clinical nursing practitioners in reinforcing the value of each support context in the development and transference of appropriate academic literacy practices. whilst data from this study have shown that some students participated in the writing centre initiatives out of compulsion, i contend that this is because of a lack of collaboration between relevant stakeholders. as such, the writing centre is regarded as peripheral because most of the activities are not credited. students do not feel the immediate necessity to take writing centre activities as seriously as credited assessments within their specific disciplines. however, from my experience, i have realised that integrating some of the support (especially locs and hocs) within credited foundational modules can bring effective results. for this to happen, both the disciplinary lecturers and clinical practitioners must be on board to assess the development of such competencies within their assessments. the findings in this research therefore militate against the piecemeal approach to academic writing development be it the basic skills approach emphasised in most writing centres, or discipline-based writing. the evidence in this study and the conclusions drawn from it, advocate for the need for a shift from the interdisciplinary (piecemeal) to transdisciplinary collaboration for effective and transferable academic writing practices, particularly in professional fields such as nursing. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions n.k. and s.r. contributed equally to this work. n.k. wrote the manuscript and s.r. supervised the project. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references archer a. challenges and potentials for writing centres in south african tertiary institutions. s afr j high educ. 2010;24(4):495–510. boughey c, mckenna s. academic literacy and the 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learning, learning cycles and habits of minds. in: transdisciplinary higher education. cham: springer, 2017; p. 3–16. shrivastava p, ivanaj s. transdisciplinary art, technology, and management for sustainable enterprise. transdiscipl j eng sci. 2011;2. https://doi.org/10.22545/2011/00012 carstens a. collaboration: the key to integration of language and content in academic literacy interventions. j lang teach. 2013;47(2):109–125. https://doi.org/10.4314/jlt.v47i2.6 td 17-1_2021_contents.indd http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents original research empowering global leaders through workplace sustainability: a case of zambian leaders robert daugherty, maja zelihic, chera deresa, hellicy c. nga’mbi, david ssekamatte the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 17, no 1 | a897 | 22 january 2021 original research narratives and interpretations of the political economy of zimbabwe’s development aid trajectory, 1980–2013 blessing magocha, edmore mutekwe the 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de jager (university of pretoria, south africa) and clinton van der merwe (university of pretoria, south africa) page iii of iii microsoft word 10 kruger.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 138-150. the sweet peace of perfect assurance: on well-being in the hymns texts of fanny crosby d kruger1 abstract. well-being is often described as a state of happiness or satisfaction with life, but it is so much more. the influence of religious involvement on a positive sense of well-being of the individual has been well documented. one aspect of religious involvement comprises the singing of hymns. through the texts and the power of music, the well-being of the singer/believer can be positively influenced. fanny crosby (18201915) wrote more than 8 000 hymn texts on various aspects of religious life such as assurance, salvation, redemption, worship and witness. many of the hymns deal with the difficulties of everyday life, which is juxtaposed to the better life in the world to come. this paper is concerned with the portrayal of aspects of assurance in some of fanny crosby’s hymns texts. it is also shown how her hymns touch on aspects of well-being in the way that they stress the importance of having meaning in life and point towards the fact that the believer’s life can be worthwhile. keywords. gospel hymn, well-being, fanny crosby, revival movement. introduction well-being is often described as a state of happiness or satisfaction with life, but it is much more. eckersley (2005:2) states: “wellbeing is about having meaning in life, about fulfilling our potential and feeling that our lives are worthwhile”. various studies2 have proven that religious involvement contributes to the sense of well-being of the individual. one aspect of religious involvement comprises the singing of hymns. through the texts and the power of music, the well-being of the singer/believer can be positively influenced, for example, when the text provides assurance of salvation and comfort in difficult circumstances, and celebrates the beauty of the life that comes after death. the benefits that well-being derives from religious affiliation stem from the belief that religion provides hope, structure and meaning to people’s everyday lives (wnuk & marcinkowski, 2012). fanny crosby (1820-1915) wrote more than 8 000 hymns on various aspects of religious life such as salvation, worship and witness. many of the hymns deal with the difficulties of everyday life, which is juxtaposed to the better life in the world to come. in her autobiography crosby mentions that her hymns “always indicate a positive enhancement of her state of mind – a sweet peace of perfect assurance” (crosby, 2008:179). assurance of faith or salvation can be understood as the conviction or persuasion of conversion with the promise of 1 daleen kruger is associate professor at the school of music of north-west university at the potchefstroom campus (niche entity ̶ musical arts in south africa: resources and applications). her research interests include: historical performance practice regarding 18th century keyboard instruments and aspects of modern church music. email: daleen.kruger@nwu.ac.za 2 a few of these studies include the seminal work of ellison (1991); hackney and sanders (2003); fiorito and ryan (2007); ellison and bradshaw (2012). see bibliography for details. well-being in the hymns of fanny crosby td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 138-150. 139 a place in heaven (van neste, 2011:153). this paper investigates aspects of well-being in the hymns of fanny crosby with special reference to the element of “assurance” as contributing to the well-being of the singer/believer. the gospel hymns as the hymns of fanny crosby are classified as gospel hymns, i am first going to sketch the background and context of this genre. the gospel hymn is an american phenomenon. the gospel hymns developed out of the american “camp meeting songs” of the early 19th century. the music of the hymns is “simple, melodic, and harmonious” and “often in strophic form with the use of refrains” (kurian, 2011:1048) and conveys the texts’ meaning with clarity and transparency. leading “traditional” hymn writers of the day, such as lowell mason (1792-1872) and thomas hastings (1784-1872), frowned upon the quality of the gospel hymns and regarded the melodies as “unfit for religious use” (eskew & mcelrath, 1980:169). despite their opinion, it was exactly the hymns’ easy singability and catchy tunes that made them so popular – “easy to learn and remember” (mosher, 1992a). the 19th century gospel hymns are embedded in the evangelical movement in england and america. pietistic3 in nature, the hymns emphasise the interaction between the transcendence of god and the personal relationship with god in repentance, conversion and assurance of salvation (eskew & mcelrath, 1980:96). as we shall see below when the texts are discussed, the lyrics are highly subjective and emotional. – typical of victorian writing (de jong, 1986: 462).4 by the second half of the 19th century these hymns had become so popular that they became part of the revival5 movement (musher, 1992a). the gospel hymns had an immediate impact on the revivals, which on their part were relevant to the political and social crises of the 19th century society in america (sizer, 1978: 153). these included “the consciousness of the evils of slavery, and the civil war”. they are representative of the need for simple and contagious (catchy) hymns that would appeal to “unlettered frontier folk” in the form of “a simplified folk hymn” (eskew & mcelrath, 1980: 164). most of the hymn writers were protestant evangelicals, especially methodist and baptists (sizer, 1978:23). an increasing number of women, such as fanny crosby and others,6 began 3 pietism had its origins in 17thand 18th century germany based on the teachings of spener and francke. the movement was a reaction to the strict lutheran orthodoxy of the time. worship was internalized and focused on the personal experience of the individual. pietism took root in northern america during the 19th century (pless, 1998). 4 “victorian hymnody is distinguished by its preoccupation with the humanness of christ and the human capacity to emulate and be informed by him” (de jong, 1986: 462). 5 a spiritual re-awakening marked the revival movement in north america, also referred to as the second great awakening. important leaders of this movement were finney, beecher, asbury and moody. it grew out of the camp meetings and later led to big gatherings in the open, halls and other public places. thousands converted to christendom and many testimonies were given. the singing of hymns became an important tool during the gatherings. 6 other 19th century female hymn writers include, for example, anna b. warner (1820-1915) (“jesus loves me”); eliza hewitt (1851-1920) (“when we all get to heaven”); julia ward howe (1819-1910) (“the battle hymn”) and mary artemesia lathbury (1841-1913) (“day is dying in the west”). kruger 140 to contribute to the growing body of these hymns. the gospel hymn lyrics existed partly independently (i.e. not used in church services) and were often published in religious periodicals as a poem without a tune (sizer, 1978:9). thoughts on the influence of gospel hymns on religion and worship the notion that music and poetry could touch the heart was cultivated during the 19th century in america. it was believed that a sung text exerts immediate and lasting influences (de jong, 1986:463). the hymns represent an interpretive strategy and a technique of transcendentalism and serve as a vehicle for religious experience and uplifting of the soul/spirit. this technique promotes a process where the believer can move closer to god (sizer, 1978:19). crosby called on people to “sing about singing”. she wholeheartedly believed “in the capacity of song to channel emotions and enable heartfelt corporate as well as individual praise” (blumhofer, 2005:280). the main aim of evangelical hymnody is to put into words “the longing for completeness” (de jong, 1986:461). when singing or reading the hymn, the believer can imaginatively identify with the text, especially when it has a first-person character/narrator (de jong, 1986:463) – thus aspects of salvation and accordingly the assurance thereof can be addressed. the hymn “redeemed, how i love to proclaim it” by fanny crosby (1882) provides an excellent illustration of how the text contributes to the religious well-being of the singer/reader in that it proclaims the assurance of redemption through the blood of christ and the believer’s consequent desire to praise god: (1) redeemed, how i love to proclaim it! redeemed by the blood of the lamb; redeemed thro’ his infinite mercy, his child, and forever, i am. refrain redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb. redeemed, redeemed, his child, and forever, i am. (3) i think of my blessed redeemer, i think of him all the day long; i sing for i cannot be silent; his love is the theme of my song. (4) i know i shall see his beauty the king in whose law i delight; who lovingly guardeth my footsteps, and giveth me songs in the night. another hymn by crosby of similar inclination is “redeemed, and with the price of blood” (1881). it conveys redemption by the grace of god and in the 3rd verse there is also a distinct reference to how the redemption also has a positive influence on the singer/reader’s daily life: well-being in the hymns of fanny crosby td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 138-150. 141 (1) redeemed, and with the price of blood, which thou hast shed for me, i stand, a monument of grace, a witness, lord, for thee. refrain redeemed, and made by simple faith an heir of heaven above! oh, love surpassing human thought! oh, vast, unmeasured love! (3) redeemed, my heart is filled with praise, my soul true comfort knows, and daily feels the calm of peace that like a river flows. rhetoric of the gospel hymns in order to understand the meaning and working of a gospel hymns, it is necessary to analyse the characteristics inherent in its rhetoric. sizer (1978: 24) has identified three dimensions in this regard: metaphor, theme and form. metaphors are used profusely, for example, jesus is described as the shepherd, life as “a stormy sea” etc. they appear mostly as elements in a group in contrasting “sets”. in this capacity the metaphors present a dualism in the texts (sizer, 1978:24). a good example would be frances havergal’s7 hymn “light after darkness”: light after darkness, gain after loss, strength after weakness, crown after cross sweet after bitter, hope after fears home after wondering, praise after tears. one observes how the dualism strengthens the idea of well-being and assurance as it points towards “things getting better”. finney,8 one of the leaders of the revival in america, postulates that the hymns were set on “changing people’s feelings” (as quoted in sizer, 1978:57). consequently the hymns generated inner strength – by turning to jesus, all the requirements for fighting against the world will be provided (sizer, 1978:155). by using contrasting elements such as darkness and light, weakness and strength, fear and hope – referred to as “polar values” by sizer (1978:24-25) – a dualism is established by contrasting the sinfulness of the world with the glory and peace of heaven or jesus (van dyken, 2008:11). demonstrating this process is crosby’s hymn “after the mist and shadow”9 (1893): (1) after the mist and shadow, after the dreary night, after the sleepless watching, 7 frances ridley havergal (1836-1879), english poet and hymn writer. 8 charles gladison finnay (1792-1875), preacher of the second great awakening in america. 9 psalm 30:5 “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” kruger 142 cometh the morning light … (2) after the thorny pathway, after the storms we meet, after the heart’s deep longing, joy and communion sweet, after the weary conflict, rest in the saviour’s love, over the silent river, safe in the home above. (3) after the cares and trials, after the toils and tears, after the time of sowing, reaping thro’ endless years; after the pilgrim journey, rapture that never shall cease, over the silent river, rest in the land of peace. metaphors in the hymns are abundant and will require another and separate study. in this regard the work of sandra sizer gospel hymns and social religion; the rhetoric of the 19th century revivalism (1978) and john danner the hymns of fanny crosby and the search for assurance: theology in a different key (1989) may be mentioned here. biographical notes on fanny crosby frances jane crosby10 was born in putnam county, new york on 24 march 1820 and died in bridgeport, connecticut on 11 february 1915 (cyber hymnal).11 she became blind at the age of six weeks. she was educated at the new york institution for the blind and was a teacher there from 1847-1858. during this period she wrote many secular poems and published several collections, the first being the blind girl and other poems (1844). fanny married the blind musician alexander van alstyne in 1858. she lived in new york for most of her life, where she was a member of the old john street m.e. church (hall, 1914). it was only in 1864, at age 44, that she started to write hymn texts. from then on she supported herself by writing hymns mainly for the biglow & main company. 10 frances jane crosby used many pseudonyms. according to hubert p. main, the number could be close to 100 (crosby, 2008:178). for a partial list of the pen names see blumhofer (2005:358). 11 for detailed information on crosby’s life see crosby (2008) and blumhofer (2005). well-being in the hymns of fanny crosby td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 138-150. 143 e x a m p l e 1 : t i t l e p a g e o f t h e b l i n d g i r l a n d o t h e r p o e m s ( 1 8 4 4 ) she produced her real and most important work, so far as poetry and hymns was concerned, in collaboration with the composer william b. bradbury (danner, 1989: 174). many of the popular composers of the time set some of her hymn texts to music. they include wb bradbury, gf root, wh doane, r lowry, id sankey, jr sweney, hp main, and p philips. her first hymn “we are going, we are going” appeared in print in 1864. e x a m p l e 2 : f a n n y c r o s b y ( 1 8 2 0 1 9 1 5 ) ( c y b e r h y m n a l ) fanny crosby has been described as an extremely prolific writer and was considered “the most important writer of gospel hymn texts in the 19th century” (sadie, 2001:722). kermas kruger 144 (2011:10) considers her hymns (together with those of the british hymn writer, charlotte elliot)12 as the prototypes of the 19th-century hymn-writing by women. her work was highly regarded by prominent preachers of the time (finney, sankey, bliss and stebbins) and church musicians such as william bradbury (“we are going, we are going”) and william doane (“safe in arms of jesus”) with whom she collaborated. she also provided many texts for their melodies and vice versa. e x a m p l e 3 : w i l l i a m d o a n e ( c y b e r h y m n a l ) fanny crosby’s hymn texts miller (1946) has described crosby’s hymns as “the reflection of a worshipping soul. they are rhymed emotions of a christian heart set to music.” in her autobiography fanny writes that the majority of her hymns “seemed to be the result of some passing mood, or of some deep, though intangible feeling” (crosby, 2008:179). sometimes it was a response to a particular event in her life. the hymns always indicated a positive enhancement of her state of mind – “a sweet peace of perfect assurance” (crosby, 2008:179). according to her, this state of mind was portrayed and “sang itself in the lines of the hymn” “hold thou my hand” (1879): hold thou my hand, so weak i am and helpless, i dare not take one step without thy aid; hold thou my hand, for then, o loving saviour no dread of ill shall make my soul afraid. another example is the hymn “my song shall be of jesus” (1875): my song shall be of jesus, his mercy crowns my days, he fills my cup with blessings and tunes my heart to praise (blumhofer, 2005:189). 12 charlotte elliott (1789-1871) is best known for her hymn “just as i am, without one plea“. well-being in the hymns of fanny crosby td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 138-150. 145 topics of the hymns blumhofer has identified four main topics in the hymns of fanny crosby, thus reiterating “the familiar claims of an older gospel to a generation beset by the theologies of modernity: salvation, consecration, service and heaven” (blumhofer, 2005:252-253). other important themes evident in crosby’s work are contentment and trust (wolfe, 2011:636). within these categories her hymn texts touch on several aspects of 19th-century evangelism: “cleansing, rest, safety, intimacy with christ, duty, readiness for christ’s return, and seeing christ” (blumhofer, 2005:253). one common denominator that can be isolated here is the assurance of belief – the assurance of christ’s second coming. sizer writes that the hymns generate an inner strength; by turning to christ, all the needs in the struggle against the secular world would be fulfilled (sizer, 1978:155). the notion of “perfect assurance” can be observed in her first published hymn “we are going we are going” (1864). the text allows the singer/reader to experience a glimpse of the world to come: we are going, we are going to a home beyond the skies where the fields are robed in beauty and the sunlight never dies; where the fount of life is flowing in the valley green and fair, we shall dwell in love together; there will be no parting there. crosby’s, and other gospel hymns, frequently refer to the possibility of seeing loved ones who have departed – “those who have gone before” – within the realms of heaven. the elements of hope, consolation and assurance contribute greatly to the well-being of the soul and are the focal point of verse 3 of “we are going”: (3) we are going, we are going when the day of life is o’er, to the pure and happy region where our friends have gone before they are singing with the angels in that land so bright and fair; we shall dwell with them forever; there will be no parting there. fanny’s theology is christocentric. for her, “[s]alvation, as described in the hymns, comes about through a personal relationship to god” (danner, 1989:342). danner comments that “[s]uch a relationship assures our future in eternity, but also enables us to experience in the hear-and-now [sic] christ as friend and comforter” (danner, 1989:342). most of crosby’s texts in the sankey gospel hymnals embody god’s invitation to the sinner and often employ the metaphor of the “fountain of cleansing”. crosby liked to think that her own lyrics captured the essence of historical protestant faith viewed through an evangelical lens and “her texts voiced a popular understanding of evangelical christianity” (blumhofer, 2005:283). kruger 146 in the next part of this paper will focus specifically on fanny crosby’s hymns texts and i shall point out how aspects such as assurance, hope and comfort are portrayed and how the hymns contribute to the well-being of the singer/reader. blessed assurance fanny crosby’s hymn “blessed assurance” (1873) is probably amongst the best known of her hymns. according to the famous revivalist, ira d sankey,13 this hymn is “one of the most popular and useful of the gospel hymns” (sankey, 1906:136). fanny writes that the music was composed by mrs joseph f (phoebe) knapp,14 who she met as early as 1868. mrs knapp also wrote the music for several other hymns of fanny, including ‘nearer the cross’ and ‘open the gates of the temple’(crosby, 2008:187). e x a m p l e 4 : p h o e b e k n a p p ( c y b e r h y m n a l ) mrs knapp played a melody to fanny on the piano, requesting a suitable text. “crosby responded that the music ‘said’ ‘blessed assurance,’ and so a hymn was born” (blumhofer, 2005:229). it was first published in the 1873 issue of palmer’s guide to holiness and revival miscellany. according to blumhofer (2005: 229), it gained immediate popularity and appeared in methodist publications by 1875. darren (1989:225) states that “blessed assurance”, more than any other of fanny’s hymns, bears testimony to her conviction “that to be content all one needs to do is to be ‘lost’ in christ’s love”. the phrases “blessed assurance”, “perfect submission”, “perfect delight”, “praising”, “waiting” and “watching” stress this point (darren, 1989:225). they highlight the wonderful picture of the coming blessings in heaven and the assurance thereof as is illustrated in the first verse: 13 ira david sankey was born in august 1840 in edinburg, virginia, and died in august 1908 in brooklyn, new york. he was known as the “sweet singer of methodism” and collaborated with the evangelist, dwight l. moody (cyber hymnal). crosby writes that sankey’s “own sweet melodies have indeed been a balm to many an aching heart” (crosby, 2008:140). 14 phoebe palmer knapp (1839-1908). well-being in the hymns of fanny crosby td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 138-150. 147 blessed assurance, jesus is mine! o what a foretaste of glory divine! and from the second verse: perfect submission, perfect delight, visions of rapture now burst on my sight. it is significant that even soldiers were comforted by this song. during the civil war the gospel hymns were carried into military life. they were included in the soldiers’ hymn book “and became an important instrument in army work” (baily as quoted in musher, 1992a). fanny relates how the soldiers frequently used “blessed assurance” and another song by her “god be with you till we meet again” as passwords, greetings and responses. “when one member of the soldiers’ christian association meets a comrade he says ‘494’, which is the number of ‘god be with you’ in sacred songs and solos’; the latter replies ‘6 farther on’, that is 500, which is the number of ‘blessed assurance’”(crosby, 2008:187). she even received letters in this regard from soldiers in south africa during the boer war (crosby, 2008:187). safe in the arms of jesus the hymn “safe in the arms of jesus” was completed in 1868 after doane brought a tune to fanny in search of a suitable text for the melody. according to trevena jackson15 (as quoted in danner, 1989:222), fanny went to her room and after thirty minutes appeared with the text, which “has since been a comfort and solace to many heavy, sorrowing hearts”. sankey relates how dr john hall of the fifth avenue presbyterian church said to him that “this hymn … gave more peace and satisfaction to mothers who had lost children than any other hymn he had ever known” (sankey, 1906:270). safe in the arms of jesus, safe on his gentle breast, there by his love o’er-shaded, sweetly my soul shall rest hark! ‘tis the voice of angels, borne in a song to me, over the fields of glory, over the jasper sea. refrain safe in the arms of jesus, safe on his gentle breast, there by his love o’er-shaded sweetly my soul shall rest. all the way my saviour leads me kermas (2011: 11-12) postulates that crosby’s hymns in her later years are particularly moving and that the texts “cannot fail to bring comfort to the sick and the aged”. in “all the way my savior leads me” (1875) the idea of christ being the guide through life and the promise of the “perfect rest” in the father’s house come to the fore. 15 trevena jackson wrote a biography fanny crosby’s story in 1915. kruger 148 (1) all the way my saviour leads me; what have i to ask beside? can i doubt his tender mercy? who through life has been my guide? heav’nly peace, divinest comfort, here by him in faith to dwell! for i know, whate’er befall me, jesus doeth all things well; for i know, whate’er befall me, jesus doeth all things well; (3) all the way my saviour leads me o the fullness of his love! perfect rest to me is promised in my father’s house above. conclusion religious affiliation and participation (for example the singing of hymns) effect the personal well-being of the individual. the gospel hymn played an important part in america during the 19th and early 20th centuries. we have observed how assurance is portrayed in some of fanny crosby’s hymns. the texts are based on a christocentric theology and written in the “emotional” register of the time. in her texts crosby reveals a particular empathy for those who are week and suffering. thus the strong emphasis on salvation, repentance, assurance of belief and salvation as well as the security and beauty of the life after death is underlined. her hymns touch on aspects of well-being in the way that they stress the importance of having meaning in life and point towards the fact that the believer’s life can be worthwhile. one could pose the question: how are these hymns relevant to us? there is a renewed interest in the gospel hymns in america and south africa. many hymns have found their way into official hymnbooks. some of these hymns have been published in the liedboek van die kerk (2001) of the dutch reformed church in south africa. they are also included in the hymn corpus of vonkk16, task group that busies itself with the enhancement of the liedboek with hymns in different styles. although the 21st-century person may find the gospel hymns over-emotional and even sentimental, they can still provide assurance and consolation for 21st-century believers. the hymns texts, being personal and stressing the individual relationship to god, have the ability to comfort and soothe the seeking hearts of the postmodern human being. as fanny crosby so aptly put it: how tranquil my spirit, how perfectly blessed, while safe on the promise i peacefully rest; believing, abiding, and trusting in thee, my loving redeemer, so precious to me (fanny crosby, 1894). 16 voortgesette ontwikkeling van nuwe klassieke kerkmusiek – an inisiative of the dutch reformed church. well-being in the hymns of fanny crosby td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 138-150. 149 references blumhofer, e.l. 2005. her heart can see. the life and hymns of fanny crosby. grand rapids, michigan: william b. eerdmans. crosby, f.j. 2008. fanny j. crosby: an autobiography. peabody, massachusetts: hindrickson. cyber hymnal: http://www.cyberhymnal.rog/bio/c/r/o/crosby_fj.htm. date of access: 3 july 2013. danner, j.h. 1989. the hymns of fanny crosby and the search for assurance: theology in a different key. doctoral dissertation, boston university. de jong, m.g. 1986. “i want to be like jesus”: the self-defining power of evangelical hymnody. journal of the american academy of religion, 54(3): 461-493, autumn. eckersley, r. 2005. what is wellbeing? the wellbeing manifesto website. http://www.wellbeingmanifesto.net/wellbeing.htm. date of access: 2 july 2013. ellison, c. g. 1991. religious involvement and subjective well-being. journal of health and social behaviour, 32(1): 80-99. accessed through jstor: http://www.jstor/stable/2136801. date of access: 5 march 2013. eskew, h. & mcelrath, h.t. 1980. sing with understanding. nashville, tennessee: broadman. fiorito, b, & ryan, k. 2007. spirituality and psychological well-being” a mediatormoderator study. review of religious research, 48(4): 341-368. hackney, c.h., & sanders, g.s. 2003. religiosity and mental health: a meta-analysis of recent studies. journal for the scientific study of religion, 42(1): 43-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.111/11468-5906.t01-1-00160. hall, j.h. 1914. miss fanny j. crosby: hymn writer and poetess. christian biography resources: http://wholesomewords.org/biography/bcrosby5.html. date of access: 1 march 2013. howard, w.j., & sibley, c.g. 2013. religion, deprivation and subjective wellbeing: testing a religious buffering hypothesis. international journal of wellbeing, 3(2): 182-196. kermas, s. 2011. the language of nineteenth-century women hymn-writers: intercultural insight. lingue e linguaggi 5:7-22. kim, a.e. 2003. religious influences on personal and societal wellbeing. social indicators research, 63(1-3): 149-170. kurian, g.t. 2011. gospel music. in: the encyclopedia of christian civilization vol. 2, ed kurian g.t. oxford: blackwell, p.1048-1049. miller, b. 1946. fanny crosby, famous blind hymn writer. www.truthfulwords.org/biography/crosbytw.html. date of access: 8 july 2013. mosher, f.a. 1992a. toward singing with understanding. a discussion of the gospel hymn, part 1. journal of the grace evangelical society, 5(1); spring. electronic version, date of access: 19 june 2013. kruger 150 mosher, f.a. 1992b. toward singing with understanding. a discussion of the gospel hymn, part 2. journal of the grace evangelical society, 5(2); autumn. electronic version, date of access: 3 july 2013. pless, j.t. 1998. liturgy and pietism: then and now. pieper lectures, concordia seminary, st. louis. date of access: 9 april 2014. sadie, s. (ed), 2001. crosby, fanny. the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, vol. 6, london: macmillan. sankey, i.d. 1906. my life and the story of the gospel hymns. the sunday school times company, london: stationers’ hall. sizer, s.s. 1978. gospel hymns and social religion. philadelphia: temple university press. van dyken, t.j. 2008. singing the gospel: evangelical hymnody, popular religion and american culture: 1870-1940. doctoral dissertation, the university of notre dame, indiana. van neste, r. 2001. assurance. the encyclopedia of christian civilization vol. 1, ed kurian g.t. wiley & sons, p. 153-154. wnuk, m., & marcinkowski, j.t. 2012. do existential variables mediate between religiousspiritual facets of functionality and psychological wellbeing? journal of religion and health. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-012-9597-6. wolfe, e. 2011. crosby, frances jane. in: the encyclopedia of christian civilization vol. 1, ed kurian g.t., oxford: blackwell, p. 635-636. td journal desember 2006.p65 water and the human culture of appropriation: the vaal river up to 1956 johann wn tempelhoff * abstract: there is discernable evidence of the human presence having historically appropriated the 1300 kilometer long vaal river of south africa as it extends itself from the drakensberg plateau into the arid karoo region. this hard-working tributary of the orange river, which was instrumental as a supply of water to the witwatersrand, in the era of the region’s gold mines, has been used by humans in a variety of ways. first it was used as a route of communications, then as a borderline demarcating the territorial spaces of states and colonies. later it was used for purposes of economic development. in the study the objective is to point towards the manner in which humans have influenced the river and its hinterland, particularly from the nineteenth century, up to the 1950s. the process of appropriation, it is argued, has had a different effect when humans laid claim to the river and its environment for social, economic and political purposes. keywords: vaal river, appropriation, missionary history, diamond mining, gold mining, industrial development, water pollution, hydrology, irrigation, cultural history, orange free state, transvaal (gauteng). introduction: humans, nature and cultural appropriation appropriation, a term encapsulated in the thinking of veblen on consumption,1 has been a prominent point of discussion in cultural sciences in recent years. whilst cultural appropriation appears to be suspect and subject to criticism,2 appropriation, per se, which td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 431-452. _______ * school of basic sciences, vaal triangle faculty, north-west university, south africa. 1 t veblen, “the beginnings of ownership” in the american journal of sociology, 4(3), november 1898, pp. 352-365; 2 t heyd, “rock art aesthetics and cultural appropriation” in the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 61(1), winter, 2003, pp. 37-46; jo young, “profound offense and cultural appropriation” in the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 63(2), spring 2005, pp. 135-146; d cuthbert, “beg, borrow or steal.: the politics of cultural appropriation” (review of b ziff and pv rao (eds.) borrowed power: essays on cultural appropriation, (rutgers university press, new brunswick, 1997) in postcolonial studies, 1(2), 1998, pp. 257-262; p kulchyski, “from appropriation to subversion: aboriginal cultural production in the age of postmodernism” in american indian quarterly, 21(4), autumn 1997, pp. 605-620. 432 implies ‘a special capacity to separate ... from nature what human beings find useful and transform it in ways that other species supposedly cannot even imagine’,3 appears to enjoy qualified acceptance. perhaps one of the most striking examples of appropriation is found in the manner in which humans, when they settle in specific environments, first appropriate the land and then the available water resources. in combination these two natural resources provide the essential substances required for the cultural dynamics of human settlement processes to clearly come to the fore. water is a most unusual substance. it shapes our lives, as well as our understanding of the spaces within which we find ourselves – even if it only provides a sense of observational dimensionality or depth of field, or maybe an awareness of scale. this is more than apparent in the case of rivers. in a relatively waterstarved country, such as south africa, a river is a significant feature in any landscape. even dry river beds have an intrinsic value.4 with perhaps the exception of rugged mountainous landscapes, rivers dominate other natural elements of the land that surround them. we are influenced by the environment in which we live when we, for example, adapt ourselves to local conditions. it is also evident that humans have a tendency to try and subjugate the environment in which they find themselves. this can be done in a number of ways. we construct, deconstruct, direct and redirect the environment to the extent that, at times, it tends to strike back at us in the form of a catastrophe under conditions of natural disaster. history informs us that floods5 and droughts6 cause severe damage to the structures tempelhoff _______ 3 t heyd, “rock art aesthetics and cultural appropriation” in the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 61(1), winter, 2003, p. 37. 4 cj andersson, lake ngami or explorations and discovery during four years of wandering in wilds of south-western africa (facsimile edition by c struik, cape town, 1987, of the second edition, hurst and blackett, london, 1856), pp. 48 and 118. 5 de terblanche, cgs pegram and mp mittermaier, “the development of weather radar as a research and operational tool for hydrology in south africa” in journal of hydrology, 241(1-2), january 2001, p. 4; k rowntree, “geography of drainage basins: hydrology, geomorphology, and ecosystems management” in r fox and k rowntree (eds.), the geography of south africa in a changing world, (oxford university press, cape town, 2000), p. 403; wjr alexander, “floods, droughts poverty and science” in science in africa on-line, september 2001, at http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2001/september/floods.htm. 6 see unie van suid-afrika, (departement van landbou), die groot droogtevraagstuk, (goewermentsdrukkery, pretoria, 1926) for a perspective on the impact of drought conditions and recommended solution, in the first half of the twentieth century; for more recent perspectives see pd tyson and ck gatebe, “the atmosphere, aerosols, trace gases and biogeochemical change in suthern africa: a regional integration” in south african journal of science, 97, march/april 2001, p. 106; ips, “drought in kenya: a preventable disaster?” in mail & guardian (print edition) 2004.07.19 at http://archive. mg.co.za/mgarchive/frameset.asp?xhitlist_q=floods&f=xhitlist&xhitlist_x= advanced&xhitlist_s=contents&xhitlist_d=&xhitlist_hc=&xhitlist_xsl=xhitlist. xsl&xhitlist_vpc=first&xhitlist_sel=title%3bpath%3brelevance-weight%3bcontenttype%3bhome-path%3bhome-title%3btitle-path$vid=mailguard:mailguardview& npusername=mailguard&nppassword=mailguard. 433 and textures of human societies. the extent to which nature had been subverted and manipulated by humans, then forms the bottom line on the balance sheet of environmental and cultural conservation. despite their imminent threat, rivers as natural features of the landscape are more than often subjugated to the whims of humankind. the process of appropriation, transforming a natural feature of the land, is as old as orderly human society. in this discussion attention will be given to the manner in which the vaal river, a tributary of the orange river, was used by humans up to the 1950s. in the process of contemplating appropriation, from an environmental perspective, it is desirable to allow nature as crucial role player in the process of historical discourse to maintain a status of dominance in its own right. the interface between nature and human culture is noted for different forms of appropriation. when appropriation is based on the physical exploitation of the natural environment, deterioration follows. thus, it is important to have in place a responsible sense of intellectual awareness, to secure a useful balance between use and abuse, ownership and custodianship. aspects of this discourse will be dealt with in greater detail below. the vaal river the vaal, which extends over a distance of more than 1300 km from the mpumalanga highveld in the east, to the arid kalahari environment in the west, has played an extraordinary role in south african history. it has been used as a communications route for humans and animals moving over large tracts of land in the interior of south africa. it has also acted as a boundary line between independent states, british and indigenous communities in the multi-cultural society of sub-continental africa. the vaal has been described as the hardestworking river in south africa,7 serving the most populous and economically active region in the country.8 it has also been described, in more recent times as resembling a sewage pit, in some places.9 despite all its names and descriptions the vaal river remains a dominant natural feature of the landscape through which it passes. it has since time immemorial shaped the way in which humans look at the appropriation and the vaal river _______ 7 tc robertson, die riviere van suid-afrika (sabc publication p61/5a, cape times ltd., johannesburg, 1961), p. 7. 8 j clarke, coming back to earth: south africa’s changing environment, (jacana publishers, houghton, 2002), pp. 116, 134-135. 9 . e tempelhoff, “afval, besoedeling se eindbestemming: die vaal rivier? nee, ‚n rioolsloot” in beeld, 2002.12.12 at http://152.111.1.251/argief/ berigte/beeld/2002/12/12/12/ 1.html. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 434 landscape and negotiate the manner in which they intend to eke out an existence in a water-stressed region of africa. the vaal river is the northern tributary of the orange river (also known in the vernacular as the gariep, or the grootrivier),10 the largest river in south africa. as is the case with the orange, it flows from east to west. the vaal river was formed about 180 milion years (my) before the present (bp) when the tectonic plates started shifting as gondwana land started breaking up to form the continents of africa and america.11 the vaal, along with the limpopo and orange rivers, formed the boundaries of the cargonian highlands in the southern african interior before the transvaal griqualand axis started forming some 60 my bp. this was when the karoo and kalahari river were captured to form the orange river system, of which the vaal is a tributary.12 as a transporter of water and sediments the vaal river has acted as an agency of substances that shaped the land in times of floods and droughts. activities of transfer, transport and communication have a direct linkage with the natural history of the vaal river, but it can also be linked to human history. a gentle material appropriation: communications some two thousand years ago the vaal river facilitated human communications between the water-rich environment of the drakensberg plateau region, in the vicinity of lake chrissie (the land of the ancient batswa san), and the arid kalahari.13 the vaal, as was the case with many of its tributaries, formed the passage way through which san communities that had mastered the craft of livestock farming – and then became known as khoi – moved from the highveld into the interior of south africa.14 khoekhoen-speaking people, unlike their ancestors, who had been hunters, gatherers and foragers in arid and tempelhoff _______ 10 ak cornelissen, langs grootrivier: grepe uit die kleurryke geskiedenis van die noordweste (n.p., n.d.), p. 3; a sparrman, a voyage to the cape of good hope, towards the antarctic polar circle, round the world and to the country of the hottentots and the caffres from the year 1772-1776, volume ii, (edited by vs forbes. translation from the swedish revised by j and i rudner, van riebeeck society, second series no. 7, cape town, 1977), p. 120. 11 k rowntree, “geography of drainage basins: hydrology, geomorphology, and ecosystems management” in r fox and k rowntree (eds.), the geography of south africa in a changing world, (oxford university press, cape town, 2000), p. 393. 12 t mccarthy and b rubidge, the story of earth & life: a southern african perspective on a 4.6-billion-year journey, (kumba resources, struik, cape town, 2005), p. 264. 13 i schapera, “the tribal divisions of the san” in man, 27, april 1927, p. 71. 14 r elphick, khoikhoi and the founding of white south africa, (ravan press, johannesburg, 1985), pp. 17-19; n penn, “the orange river frontier zone, c. 1700-1805” in ab smith (ed) einiqualand: studies on the orange river frontier, (uct press, cape town, 1995), pp. 42-43. 435 semi-aquatic environments, had become familiar with the intricacies of the iron age and they formed an avant garde frontier society, transferring the skills of pastoral industry and iron age technology to new territories. they were the carriers of an appropriated culture, acquired from southward migrating bantu-speaking peoples from central east africa. by the end of the eighteenth century the vaal, in the vicinity of the harts river – and also where it flows into the orange river – had become a territory of dynamic cultural interaction. from the southeast came members of a mixed iron age and stone age tradition. from the south and southwest came people of mixed colonial asian and african, as well as european descent. the frontier communities of the kora!, the griqua and related khoi groupings settled in many parts, close to water supplies. here they lived under conditions of selfsustaining subsistence in an arid region. towards the end of the eighteenth century trekboers (primarily migrant livestock farmers), missionaries, traders and other travellers made use of these passages into the interior of southern africa. apart from water supplies, the moisture close to the river, grass-covered banks that could be used for feeding livestock and timber resources for purposes of energy, were valuable environmental resources.15 it was however seldom an easy passage across the river.16 a notable feature of south african rivers is the fact they seldom have navigable water ways.17 the vaal river is no exception.18 however, it depends on the time of year. in the summer months, when it rained a lot, travelling on the river was a lot easier than in the dry winter months (april to august). there have also, historically, been diverse opinions on appropriate vessels for travelling on the river. the khoi used tree stump vessels for crossing the orange19 – and presumably also the vaal in the arid areas. appropriation and the vaal river _______ 15 hs gassiott, “notes from a journal kept during a hunting tourn in south africa” in journal of the royal geographical society of london, 22, 1852, p. 138. 16 a smith, “report of the expedition for exploring central africa” in journal of the royal geographical society, 6, 1836, p. 399. 17 this observation was already made at the start of the nineteenth century by j barrow, an account of travels into the interior of southern africa volume ii, (a strahan, the strand, 1804), p. 332; a recent meta-interpretation for the african continent is p collier and jw gunning, “why has africa grown slowly?” in the journal of economic perspectives, 13(3), summer 1999, pp. 12-3. 18 f jeppe, “notes on some of the physical and geological features of the transvaal to accompany his new map of the transvaal and surrounding territories” in journal of the royal geographical society of london, 47, 1877, p. 224; fl cachet, de worstelstrijd der transvalers aan het volk van nederland verhaald, (jh kruyt, amsterdam, 1882), p. 334. 19 e and f bradlow, (eds), somerville’s narrative of his journeys to the eastern cape frontier and to lattakoe 1799-1802 (van riebeeck society, series 1, cape town, 1979), pp. 81-82. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 436 as more people of european descent started moving into the interior a variety of vessels were used for travelling on the vaal river. we know of thomas baines’ sailing boat ‘under british colours’ on the vaal river near potchefstroom in september 1850.20 illustration: thomas baines sailing on the vaal river on 24 september 1850.21 twenty years later the explorer, karl mauch, travelled almost 500 km down the vaal (from its junction with the mooi river to hebron) in a small flat-bottomed vessel (about 3,1m x 1,1m). mauch was convinced that if some alternations could be done to the course of the river in some parts, it would be possible to travel as far down as bloemhof. at the time it was deemed strategically desirable to have a water route to settlements on the diamond fields.22 for the transvalers it meant that they could use potchefstroom as regional trading centre, and then travel by boat, to and from the new mining communities in griqualand west. in the 1880s sammy marks considered making use of a flat bottomed boat to transport coal from the vaal triangle to the diamond fields. nothing came of the plan. however, recollections of the tembe, a flat-bottomed vessel that proved to be inappropriate for the waters of the vaal, is still very much alive in popular historical consciousness. it is a discourse on a visionary plan, for a boat built for travelling on the vaal, which ultimately tempelhoff _______ 20 t baines, journal of residence in africa 1842-1853, volume 2 1850-1853 (edited by rf kennedy, the van riebeeck society, cape town, 1964), p. 132. (entry: 1850.09.24.) 21 t baines, journal of residence in africa 1842-1853, volume 2 1850-1853, illustrations section in book, as well as p. 132. (entry: 1850.09.24.) 22 f jeppe, “notes on some of the physical and geological features of the transvaal to accompany his new map of the transvaal and surrounding territories” in journal of the royal geographical society of london, 47, 1877, pp. 224-225. 437 finished up being used in mozambique.23 in the course of the nineteenth century it was more than often a serious undertaking to cross the river. these crossings presented a multitude of problems, as is evident from the writings of travellers.24 little wonder then that in the latter part of the century ferries were positioned at some of the drifts. the construction of bridges to cross rivers in the transvaal were, to a large extent a direct result of the work of sytze wopkes wierda, a dutch architect, who had been appointed by the republican government in the 1880s. it was the era when the improvement of roads and communication in the republic took place at a rapid rate.25 however, the major breakthrough came in the 1890s. illustration: in 1892 the railway bridge over the vaal river at vereeniging was taken into use. president paul kruger (third from left) and the entrepreneur sammy marks (third from right) at one point made plans to transport water in railway carriers to johannesburg.26 appropriation and the vaal river _______ 23 i am grateful to prof. johannes haarhoff of the university of johannesburg for the recent information. r webster, at the fireside: true south african stories, (new africa books (pty) ltd, claremont, 2001), pp. 101-103. 24 a smith, “report of the expedition for exploring central africa” in journal of the royal geographical society, 6, 1836, pp. 399-400; p brooke simons and m godby, the life and work of charles bell and the art of charles bell – an appraisal, (fernwood press, vlaeberg, 1998), p. 36; ja wahlberg, travel journals (and some letters) south africa and namibia/botswana, 1838-1856, (introduced and edited by a craig and c hummel. translated from the swedish by m roberts, second series no. 23, 1992, van riebeeck society, cape town, 1994), p. 82. 25 ajj du preez, die geskiedenis van standerton tot 1900, ma, nwu [previously puche], potchefstroom, 1977), p. 55. 26 source: central archives repository, pretoria. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 438 the first railway bridge across the river at vereeniging was built to accommodate the mainline between cape town and johannesburg which started operations in 1895.27 similar developments were at the order of the day in standerton where, at the same time, the railway line from natal to transvaal was opened.28 the completion of the barrage, over a distance of more than 400 m across the vaal river, in 1923, opened up the premier bridge-crossing between the free state and former transvaal. the single lane bridge across the river formed part of the national road between the cape and the witwatersrand which had become the industrial hub of the country.29 intellectual appropriation: religion, security and politics the intellectual appropriation of the river had its origins when in 1826 the london missionary society’s reverend james archbell (1798-1866) started working under the baralong people at motlhana-wa-pitse (platklip) on the banks of the vaal river, close to the modern warrenton.30 the missionaries promoted the idea of maintaining this contact with the cape colony’s northern frontier in order to maintain a sense of order, and also secure a route for missionaries to travel from the south into central africa. above all, having access to a route along the vaal river into the interior meant that they were able to work in the interests of the indigenous people who, it was said, were in danger of being subjugated by frontier farmers.31 the significance of the river is evident from the travels of rev. robert moffat.32 as a feature of the landscape the vaal river determined the routes of travellers into the interior. by far the most dynamic role of the river, as a natural water course, is tempelhoff _______ 27 rand water archives (rwa), klipriviersberg, souvenir of the opening of the vaal river scheme by his royal, highness prince arthur of connaught, governor general of the union of south africa, 27th july 1923, (rand water board, johannesburg, 1923). 28 ajj du preez, die geskiedenis van standerton tot 1900, pp. 57-59. 29 the barrage bridge was closed to traffic in the late 1960s. 30 isj venter, “die rol van die drukpers in die wesleyaanse betsjoenasending gedurende die halfeeu 1825-1875” in historia, 4(3), september 1959, pp. 161-170; anon., “james archbell” in wj de kock and dw krüger (reds), suid-afrikaanse biografiese woordeboek, ii, (tafelberg uitgewers, kaapstad, 1972), pp. 12-16. 31 j boas, “the activities of the london missionary society in south africa, 1806-1836: an assessment” in african studies review, 16(3), december 1973, pp. 423-424. 32 r moffat, “journey from little namaqualand eastward along the orange river, the northern frontier of the colony &c &c, in august, 1856” in journal of the royal geographical society of london, 28, 1858, pp. 174-187. 439 to be found in the role it played as a political boundary in the nineteenth century. van jaarsveld in his study on the relations between the orange free state and transvaal,33 and later in a discourse on controversies pertaining to the river as a borderline34 pointed to the pivotal role it played in the era of the afrikaner republics in south africa (1830s-1902). prior to the arrival of whites, it appears as if the region of the vaal river, in the vicinity where the mooi river flows into it, was an area where the khumalo ndebele of, mzilikaze, had settled in the 1820s. presumably in the face of the approaching white settlers mzilikazi, a former military commander of chaka, in the early 1830s started moving in a north-westerly direction. then, in october 1836 his forces were defeated by the voortrekkers under the command of ah potgieter at vegkop in the free state.35 consequently mzilikazi and his followers moved to zimbabwe. subsequent to the clashes with mzilikazi the republic of potchefstroomwinburg came into existence.36 its notable feature was the two small urban conurbations of winburg (founded 1841)37 to the south and potchefstroom (founded 1838),38 to the north of the vaal river. the river did not demarcate a boundary. the land between the vet and the vaal river had been purchased by potgieter after deliberations with the african ruler mancawane. the land to the north of the vaal river the voortrekkers claimed for themselves on the grounds that they had defeated mzilikazi.39 after the british annexed the voortrekker republic of natalia in 1842 appropriation and the vaal river _______ 33 fa van jaarsveld, die eenheidstrewe van die republikeinse afrikaners deel 1 pioniershartstogte (1836-1864), (impala opvoedkundige diens, johannesburg, 1951). 34 fa van jaarsveld, vaalrivier omstrede grenslyn, (perskor, johannesburg, 1974); for a commentary on this work see j du bruyn, “fa van jaarsveld afrikanerhistorikus en vernuwer” in historia, 27(1) mei 1982, p. 59. 35 mc van zyl, “die slag van vegkop” in historia, 31(2), october 1986, pp. 63-70. 36 fa van jaarsveld, die eenheidstrewe van die republikeinse afrikaners deel 1 pioniershartstogte (1836-1864), p. 59. 37 pj van der merwe, die matabeles en die voortrekkers in argiefjaarboek vir suidafrikaanse geskiedenis, 49(2), 1986, (staatsdrukker, pretoria, 1986), pp. 278-280; pe raper, new dictionary of south african place names, ([1987], second edition, jonathan ball publishers, johannesburg and cape town, 2004), p. 406. 38 fj potgieter, die vestiging van die blanke in transvaal (1837-1886): met spesiale verwysing na die verhouding tussen die mens en die omgewing in argiefjaarboek vir suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis, 21(2), 1958 (staatsdrukkery, pretoria, 1959), p. 34. 39 fj du toit spies, “herinneringe van voortrekkers soos aangeteken deur ga odé: herinneringe van jp marais” in historia, 5(1), maart 1960, p. 23; j bergh, “die voortrekkers tot ca. 1844” in j bergh (red.), geskiedenisatlas van suid-afrika: die vier noordelike provinsies, (jl van schaik, pretoria, 1998), pp. 124-128; js bergh, “die veranderende grense van ‘transvaal’, 1840-1994” in historia, 41(2), november 1996, p. 12. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 440 a sense of mutual distrust set in between the frontiersmen and their british neighbours in natal. the politics of territorial domination permeated all levels of white society in the vaal river region. delegorgue, a french naturalist who visited potchefstroom in 1843 with the famous august wahlberg, noted how the british and transvalers appeared to be at political loggerheads. personally, he chose to remain aloof of the politicking. this enabled him to describe the river in aesthetic contexts when he wrote: (the) vaal river is big and beautiful and full of water, although not very impressive looking at linequay-drift (lindeques drift) where her life is just beginning. by the time she reaches the lower drift known as vaater-valdrift (waterfall drift) she has grown beautiful, ample, strong, even frightening. there, where her deep waters sleep in a bed curtained by willows, vaal river could make poets dream; there she equals in beauty the most beautiful, as she moves a while with dignity, before casting herself, tumbling and foaming and eager to lose her name into the embrace of groote rivier.40 his fellow-traveller, wahlberg, on crossing the river, noted how wide it was. he also spotted a ‘beautiful land-crab’ as well as a quagga in the proximity of the river.41 five years later, in february 1848, the british, under sir harry smith, annexed the orange river sovereignty. rather than lose their independence the trans-valers then relinquished their claim to the land between the vaal and the vet river.42 the british annexation had the effect that the transvalers, who had not been very united, now tended to close ranks and seek closer collaboration to form a united front against the british.43 the political tension between boer and brit was omnipresent. the vaal river was a symbol of feelings of animosity. in 1850 thomas baines, like delegorgue seven years earlier, stood on the banks of the vaal river and observed beautiful mimosa trees on the banks of the river and how wagons were moving through the drift. also he noted with a sense of disappointment how much of the wildlife tempelhoff _______ 40 f webb, sj alexander and b guest, adulphe delegorue’s travels in southern africa, ii, (killie campbell africana library and the university of natal press, durban and pietermaritzburg, 1997) p. 167. 41 ja wahlberg, travel journals (and some letters) south africa and namibia/botswana, 1838-1856, (introduced and edited by a craig and c hummel. translated from the swedish by m roberts, second series no. 23, 1992, van riebeeck society, cape town, 1994), p. 65. 42 fj du toit spies, “herinneringe van voortrekkers soos aangeteken deur ga odé: herinneringe van jp marais” in historia, 5(1), maart 1960, p. 25. 43 djp haasbroek, “potchefdstroom se status en verhouding tot die res van die voortrekkergemeenskap” in historia, 1(3), februarie 1957, pp. 239-254. 441 that cornwallis harris had described on the vaal river, two decades earlier, 44 was now absent. this state of affairs he ascribed to the fact that firearms, used by the boers, had been used to hunt down the wildlife.45 the political discourse of culture acted as a catalyst in his states of awareness, whilst reflecting on the river and its environment. it was a subsidiary of his (expanding) spatial awareness. in 1852 the transvalers and the british signed the sand river convention.46 the vaal river now was a distinct boundary line. the british gave the undertaking that they would not annex the area to the north of the river.47 at the time of the signing of the treaty, sanderson passed through the vaal into the transvaal where, in potchefstroom, he became very much aware of the effect that the treaty had on the psyche of the transvalers. he noted that they were jubilant and there were festivities in the village of potchefstroom, as the residents were informed that forthwith the british would leave them at rest.48 clearly the culture of politics again reduced the river and its environment to a line on the landscape demarcating a cosmetic division between two societies that were very similar in most cultural contexts. the political appropriation of the vaal river led to very fixed discourses of real and imagined territorial struggles for power. on the northern banks of the vaal the republican burghers were determined to maintain their independence of british authority. supporters of the british, on both sides of the river, were convinced that it was only a matter of time before the trans-vaal territory would be brought under british control. the free staters themselves appeared to be less perturbed by the new borderline. instead, they anticipated a general improvement in their way of life. ironically, apart from the fact that that the new borderline tended to strain relations between political-minded people, it clearly affected trade. the transvalers were vulnerable. they appropriation and the vaal river _______ 44 see wc harris, narrative of an expedition into southern africa, during the years 1836, and 1837, from the cape of good hope, through the territories of the chief moselekatse, to the tropic of capricorn, with a sketch of the recent emigration of the border colonists and a zoological appendix, (the american press, bombay, 1838), pp. 267-275. 45 t baines, journal of residence in south africa 1842-1853, (ii, 1850-1853), (van riebeeck society, 45, 1964, edited by rf kennedy. cape and transvaal printers, 1964), cape town, pp. 54-55. 46 die konvensie van sandrivier, 17 januarie 1852 in fa van jaarsveld (ed.), honderd basiese dokumente by die studie van suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis 1648-1961, (nasou beperk, elsiesrivier, c. 1971), pp. 91-93. 47 fb fynney, “the geographical and economic features of the transvaal, the new british dependency in south africa” in proceedings of the royal geographical society of london, 22(2), 1877-1878, p. 115. 48 j sanderson, “memoranda of a trading trip into the orange river (sovereignty) free state, and the country of the boers, 1851-1852” in journal of the royal geographic society of london, 30, 1860, p. 242. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 442 relied on strategic supplies of goods such as gunpowder, lead, coffee, sugar and domestic and farming utensils from itinerant and resident traders with strong links to the coastal ports of natal, and the cape colony. there was clearly a grey area in which politics played a secondary role to the demand of everyday consumer goods. these items had to be conveyed across the vaal river, a natural obstacle in the communications routes criss-crossing the interior of the future south africa. the political polarisation tended to be detrimental to the advancement of cultural activities that were aimed at stimulating the quest for knowledge of an almost unknown frontier zone.49 for example, in 1865 anderson, an explorer who had located the origins of the vaal river at klipstapel and lake chrissie, was prevented from conducting his researches. the transvalers, as was also the also case with some of the local african population, were suspicious of everything foreigners surveyed.50 for many years there had been attempts at determining the origins of the vaal river.51 the distrust with which local residents viewed anderson was symptomatic of political discourses of exclusion that proved to be detrimental to disclosures of discoveries, on one of the major waterways of the transvaal. it hampered efforts aimed at a better understanding of the vaal river. ironically this was at a time when alexander mccorkindale’s new scotland settlement scheme,52 to promote industry and higher european population densities, was initiated with the blessing of president mw pretorius and his government.53 the new scotland settlement was not very successful, but over an extended period of time its pioneering efforts opened the way for the economic growth of the eastern transvaal (currently mpumalanga) region. tempelhoff _______ 49 see harris description of the origins of the vaal in the 1830s in wc harris, narrative of an expedition into southern africa, during the years 1836, and 1837, from the capoe of good hope, through the territories of the chief moselekatse, to the tropic of capricorn, with a sketch of the recent emigration of the border colonists and a zoological appendix, (the american press, bombay, 1838), p. 273. 50 aa anderson, “notes on the geography of south central africa, in explanation of a new map of the region” in “proceedings of the royal geographical society and monthly record of geography, new monthly series, 6(1) january 1884, p. 20. 51 a smith, “report of the expedition for exploring central africa” in journal of the royal geographicaphical society, 6, 1836, p. 406. 52 david forbes, a relative of mccorkindale, who was on a hunting expedition in the interior, is said to have first come across the area that was later to become known as new scotland. he was impressed by it because the landscape reminded him of scotland. see hm jones, a biographical register of swaziland to 1902, (university of natal press, pietermaritzburg, 1993), p. 230. the temperate climate and particularly the abundant water supplies in the region undoubtedly played a role in the decision to start the settlement. see f jeppe, transvaal book almanac and directory for 1877, (p davis and sons, pietermaritzburg, 1877; facsimile reprint, state library, pretoria, 1976), p. 30. 53 an pelzer, “alexander mccorkindale en sy skemas, 1864-1866” in historia, 15(1), march 1970, pp. 6-23. 443 illustration: part of anderson’s map of the 1880s, pointing to the origins of the vaal river. he had originally conducted his exploratory work on the origins of the river in the 1860s.54 to what extent the political appropriation of the vaal river as boundary could be shaped, was evident when in the late 1860s the free staters and the transvalers were at loggerheads about the boundary line of the free state. the transvalers maintained that the wilge river was the most southern branch of the vaal river. they were eager to have this area demarcated at the boundary between the free state and the transvaal. the government of the free state, in turn, was of the opinion that the boundary was the liqua or kapok river. in an attempt to address the issue the two sister republics invited governor rw keate of natal to act as intermediary. keate chose a medium between the two states and declared gansvlei, a small river on the northern extremity of natal that flowed into the klip river, the border. from there it extended up to the point where the klip flowed into the vaal river.55 appropriation and the vaal river _______ 54 map accompanying aa anderson, “notes on the geography of south central africa, in explanation of a new map of the region” in “proceedings of the royal geographical society and monthly record of geography, new monthly series, 6(1) january 1884, pp. 19-36. 55 f jeppe, “notes on some of the physical and geological features of the transvaal to accompany his new map of the transvaal and surrounding territories” in journal of the royal geographical society of london, 47, 1877, p. 222; js bergh, “die veranderende grense van ‘transvaal’, 1840-1994” in historia, 41(2), november 1996, p. 13. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 444 up to the 1890s there were differences between the transvalers and their free state neighbours – especially in respect of the right of jurisdiction over islands situated in the vaal river.56 these differences were however minuscule in comparison with the problems that the british created for the free state and the transvaal. in 1871 when the british annexed griqualand west the region between the vaal and the harts river, which the transvaal had claimed for itself, was lost. president j brandt of the free state, who also opposed british claims in a part of the new diamond field, was able to successfully negotiate for compensation for the free state. however, the transvalers lost out. they were unable to effectively lay claim to a region, which they were convinced, was originally theirs.57 in june 1870 president mw pretorius entered into an agreement with representatives of a diamond mining company and, with the approval of the volksraad, gave a private company the exclusive rights to mine for diamonds between the vaal and the harts river for at least twenty years.58 the agreement was subsequently nullified, but it paved the way for the british take-over of what was to become known as griqualand west. admittedly the transvaal government of mw pretorius was unable to defend its rights, but it was an unjustified move by the british to annex a region in which the vaal river was a major feature of the land. the british move was subject to severe criticism by foreign observers.59 at the time of the conclusion of the treaty of london in 1884 the british once again restored a portion of the western transvaal to the republican government.60 the political appropriation of the vaal river and its environs up to the 1870s was, to a large extent the cultural creation in the hearts and minds of people. in the face of what was to come, the political manoeuvrings between the british and the republicans was a harmless form of appropriation of the parts of the vaal river. tempelhoff _______ 56 js bergh, “die veranderende grense van ‘transvaal’, 1840-1994” in historia, 41(2), november 1996, p. 16. 57 f jeppe, “notes on some of the physical and geological features of the transvaal to accompany his new map of the transvaal and surrounding territories” in journal of the royal geographical society of london, 47, 1877, p. 219. 58 an pelzer, “vroegste pogings tot industrialisasie in die suid-afrikaanse republiek, historia, 14(4) december 1969, pp. 235-237. 59 a aylward, “dutch south africa: its hydrography, mineral wealth and mercantile possibilities” in journal of the american geographical society of new york, 15, 1883, pp. 12-13. 60 js bergh, “die veranderende grense van ‘transvaal’, 1840-1994” in historia, 41(2), november 1996, p. 15. 445 economic appropriation of the river since the early settlement of whites in the region the north of the range, the vaal river and its environs had economic potential. until at least the mid-nineteenth century, there were small economic activities that posed no environmental threat. for example, travellers into the interior, reported on the salt pans adjacent to the river in the more arid regions. the local salt deposits were mined61 and the produce was sold to livestock farmers and hunters who required large quantities of salt. moreover, at the confluence of the vaal river, at the mooi, soapstone was mined and used for pipes, goblets and containers. 62 traders visiting frontier settlement in the interior saw the vaal river as a veritable natural resource that could be exploited for raw materials, such as timber, in barter transactions.63 the river and its environment had lots of potential for commercial enterprise, especially in the places where it was fairly easy to cross. at places, such as parys (founded 1876), standerton (founded 1878), the mining settlement of venterskroon (founded in 1889), bothaville (founded 1893) and christiana (founded 1895) small urban settlements started flourishing on the banks of the vaal.64 before the end of the nineteenth century, the hamlet of parys was an industrious centre where farmers were actively irrigating their lands. at stander’s drift, further to the east, an urban community started forming on the banks of the vaal river. nuclear settlements, of this nature, proved to be conducive to the establishment of better lines of communication between the states and colonies of south africa in the nineteenth century.65 the discovery in 1870 of diamonds at kimberley and the sudden population growth of what soon became the largest urban conurbation in the south african interior temporarily at the time, had the effect of dwarfing the political significance of the central transvaal where politics still determined the way in which the vaal river was perceived. appropriation and the vaal river _______ 61 aa anderson, “notes on the geography of south central africa, in explanation of a new map of the region” in “proceedings of the royal geographical society and monthly record of geography, new monthly series, 6(1) january 1884, pp. 20-21. 62 j sanderson, “memoranda of a trading trip into the orange river (sovereignty) free state, and the country of the boers, 1851-1852” in journal of the royal geographic society of london, 30, 1860, p. 244. 63 ibid., p. 242. 64 pe raper, new dictionary of south african place names, pp. 36, 55, 301, 354; cb coetzee (red.), delfstowwe van die republiek van suid-afrika, handboek 7 (vyfde uitgawe, staatsdrukkery, pretoria, 1976), pp. 54, 56; anon., “a stone from heaven” in boksburg historical association bha, newsletter, no. 125, april 2005, p. 2. 65 c cowley, schwikkard of natal and the old transvaal, (edited by l herrman, c struik, cape town, 1974), p. 33. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 446 the river’s economic and industrial significance soon became paramount. with the rise of kimberley as an industrial centre came the demand for more water. the vaal river was a major source of supply. in the years to come it was the valuable water supply of the river that shaped the way in which humans appropriated the river. hydrological appropriation already in the 1860s there had been a tendency to dam up water supplies in the vaal river. apart from securing the sustainability of small farming operations it also served a strategic purpose. in times of drought, farmers would be forced to trek with their livestock to the banks of the vaal river until such time that rains once again watered the land and provided grazing for livestock.66 by the early 1870s there were many weirs across the river, south of potchefstroom and as far downstream as hebron.67 the demand for water storage did not diminish. by the 1890s the water supplies of the witwatersrand, where a gold rush of immense proportions was reaching a climax, were severely put to the test. there were numerous problems with polluted water and an inability to cope with the growing water shortages. the republican government tried to get private enterprise to undertake the construction of a pipeline between johannesburg and the vaal river. this however did not materialise. the politics of conflict between britain and the richest gold producing region in the world, at the time, prevented engineering skills from being used to harness the water of the river.68 in 1905, shortly after the anglo boer war (1899-1902), tn leslie built a weir in the vaal river for the supply of water to vereeniging.69 a british team had just completed an explorative survey of the vaal river region. in their report, published in 1904, it was evident that the river presented a number of opportunities for irrigation farming. it could also secure water supplies for industrial purposes. the time was also not right. the former afrikaner republics of the transvaal tempelhoff _______ 66 a aylward, “dutch south africa: its hydrography, mineral wealth and mercantile possibilities” in journal of the american geographical society of new york, 15, 1883, p. 16. 67 f jeppe, “notes on some of the physical and geological features of the transvaal to accompany his new map of the transvaal and surrounding territories” in journal of the royal geographical society of london, 47, 1877, pp. 224-225. 68 jwn tempelhoff, “on laburn’s ‘mystery’ query – a prehistory of the vaal river as water source of the witwatersrand (1887-99)” in historia, 45(1), may 2000, pp. 88-117. 69 rl leigh, vereeniging south africa, (courier-gazette publishers (pty) limited, johannesburg, 1968), pp. 57-58. 447 appropriation and the vaal river and orange free state were now british colonies. they shared a common border – the vaal river. putting the water of the river to use would have been politically insensitive. consequently, only after 1910, once the union of south africa came into existence, was it possible for the rand water board (founded in 1903) to implement a scheme for the construction of a barrage, modelled on a benchmark design on the river nile in egypt. the project which started in 1915 saw the completion of the barrage in 1923. for the first time in many years the witwatersrand had a sufficient supply of water.70 hardly had this project been completed when there were indications that the small river village of parys would be the site of a comprehensive irrigation scheme. along the vaal river, in the vicinity of the town, a container site had to be found for storing up large quantities of water.71 a decade later, the department of irrigation, at the time of the worldwide economic depression 1930-1933, entered into a partnership with the rand water board and instead started construction work on the vaalbank dam, also known as the vaal dam.72 this, the largest storage dam of its kind in south africa at the time, was built with two purposes in mind.73 firstly, it had to supply water to the witwatersrand. secondly, the water of the vaal river was now appropriated downstream for the development of the largest irrigation scheme in south africa between the vaal and the harts rivers. the vaalharts scheme on which work started in 1933, was not only a breakthrough for farming in the country, but it also marked a highpoint in the era of irrigation scheme developments in the country. at the time of its completion in 1938 some 28 000ha of agricultural land was available for irrigation farmers who had started occupying small highly productive farms in the region.74 _______ 70 jwn tempelhoff, “time and the river: observations on the vaal river as source of water to the witwatersrand 1903-24” historia 46(1), may 2001, pp. 247-70. 71 u.g. 14 – 1925 union of south africa, report of the director of irrigation for the period 1st april, 1923, to 31st march, 1924, (government printer, cape town, 1925), p. 9. 72 rand water archives, rietvlei hq, anon., rand water board/randwaterraad, 19031953, (n.p., n.d., c. 1953), pp. 25-26. 73 la mackenzie, irrigation in south africa. addendum: notes on some of the more important irrigation and multi-purpose schemes and projects in the union of south africa, (typewritten manuscript of departmental bulletin, issued by the director of irrigation, pretoria, c. 1946-1948), pp. 5-8; also see the vaal river development act, no. 38 of 1934 in jm murray, wg hoal, w. pollack and gn cross (eds), the union statutes: classified and annotated reprint 1910-1947, volume 12, (government printer, pretoria, 1952), p. 781, a.f. 74 jc kotze, die vaalhartsbesproeiingskema – ’n ekonomiese en sosiaal-geografiese studie, (ma universiteit van stellenbosch, 1961), p. 6; la mackenzie, irrigation in south africa. addendum: notes on some of the more important irrigation and multi-purpose schemes and projects in the union of south africa, pp. 5-6. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 448 tempelhoff by the mid-twentieth century the vaal was an over-worked river. a variety of plans were afoot to locate alternative sources of water. one of the prime projects engineers identified was the construction of a water supply from the snowy mountains of lesotho to south africa. the oxbow project which was to be kept on hold until the 1980s, paved the way for the development of the orange river scheme in the late 1950s. by optimally using this water some of the stresses, for supplying water to as far down as the lower orange river at upington, substantially relieved the excessive demand for vaal river water.75 appropriation for purposes of energy and industrial development an important subsidiary of the economic appropriation of the vaal in the twentieth century was the development of large manufacturing industrial concerns and power generating facilities in close proximity of the river. although its economic appropriation for the farming sector and domestic consumption was important, over the long term the river’s strategic function was to support the production of energy. since time immemorial, water and energy have gone and in hand. it is only in recent times that we have come to realise that whereas alternative sources of energy can be cultivated, there is no alternative for water.76 at the start of the twentieth century sammy marks was responsible for turning vereeniging into the ‘sheffield’ of south africa.77 on the banks of the vaal river the first comprehensive iron and steel factory in south africa, the union steel corporation (usco) started with production in 1911.78 many related industries followed, such as stewarts and lloyds of south africa limited (1927), african cables (1935) and mckinnon chain (c. 1938-9).79 these developments also had a down side. in order to give substance to marks’ sheffield-ideal, the coal mining town of vereeniging was transformed from a popular riverine holiday resort for tourists from _______ 75 jwn tempelhoff, the substance of ubiquity: rand water 1903-2003, (kleio publishers, vanderbijlpark, 2003), pp. 393-397. 76 world business council for sustainable development (wbcsd), business in the world of water: wbcsd water scenarios to 2025, (atar roto presse sa, switzerland, august 2006), p. 9. 77 r mendelsohn, sammy marks: ‘the uncrowned king of the transvaal’, (david philip, cape town, 1991), pp. 6, 50-1. 78 cw guest, die ontwikkelingsgeskiedenis van die unie-staalkorporasie van suid-afrika (usko), 1911-1996, (ma pucho, 1999), pp. 41-47. 79 pjj prinsloo (ed.), die geskiedenis van vereeniging, (pucho, vanderbijlpark, 1992), pp. 259-260. 449 appropriation and the vaal river the witwatersrand at the start of the twentieth century, to a centre where industrial activities were of paramount importance. the local availability of water and considerable deposits of coal, in close proximity of the witwatersrand, proved to be valuable assets.80 in december 1906 the victoria falls power company entered into an agreement with vereeniging estates and the firm of lewis & marks for the exclusive right to build a steam driven power station at vereeniging.81 by 1914 also the rand mines power supply co. ltd, was a major consumer of water from the vaal river.82 prior to the establishment of the electricity supply commission (escom, currently eskom) in 1922,83 there were substantial private initiatives at generating electricity from the river. these were increasingly consolidated or phased out to strengthen the capacity of escom in the development of a national electricity supply grid. this meant that larger water supplies had to be allocated to the electricity utility. in the vaal river development act, no. 38 of 1934, a substantial supply of water from the vaal river was earmarked for eskom.84 it was used at the klip power station, near vereeniging, which was the largest of its kind in south africa at the time.85 up to 1939 vereeniging was the only major industrial town in a predominantly rural environment in the barrage section of the vaal river. two new towns were subsequently founded in the region. at vanderbijlpark,86 situated on the transvaal side of the vaal river the parastatal, iron and steel corporation (iscor) of south africa (founded in 1928),87 established a modern factory for the manufacture of flat steel products.88 _______ 80 cw guest, die ontwikkelingsgeskiedenis van die unie-staalkorporasie van suid-afrika, p. 51. 81 ibid., p. 11; sr conradie and ljm messerschmidt, a symphony of power: the eskom story, (chris van rensburg publications (pty) limited, melville, 2000), pp. 29-30. 82 ibid., p. 7. 83 see the electricity act, no. 42 of 1922 in jm murray, wg hoal, w pollack and gn cross (editorial board), the union statutes: classified and annotated reprint 1910-1947 volume 5, p. 867-932. 84 see section 8 of the vaal river development scheme, act no. 38 of 1934 in jm murray, wg hoal, w pollack and gn cross (editorial board), the union statutes: classified and annotated reprint 1910-1947 volume 12, p. 781. 85 sr conradie and ljm messerschmidt, a symphony of power: the eskom story, pp. 91-92. 86 see rwa985, chief engineer’s report, no. 1691 to the finance and executive committee, 1943.09.14, “’vanderbijl’ township”. 87 iron and steel industry act, no. 11 of 1928 in jm murray, wg hoal, w pollack and gn cross (editorial board), the union statutes 1910-1947: classified and annotated reprint, vol. 12, pp. 127-48. 88 for details on the works of iscor and the implication for the water supply, see rwa file 985, f. kanthack, johannesburg – chief engineer rand water board, johannesburg, 1942.11.04. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 450 tempelhoff production gained momentum, especially after world war ii (19391945). opposite, on the orange free state side of the river, the town of sasolburg was established in 1950 to provide in the housing needs for the first synthetic fuel manufacturing plant in south africa.89 further downstream, the vaal river was also increasingly subjected to yielding more water for industrial development. in 1947 the anglo american corporation announced that it would be opening up the goldfields of the orange free state.90 the new gold mining town of welkom and the neighbouring town of odendaalsrust (founded in 1899), were soon reliant on water piped from a purification plant on the vaal river at bothaville. seen against this backdrop, the vaal river lived up to its reputation as the hardest-working river in south africa. specifically in the vaal triangle intensive industrial development was responsible for the general decline in the environmental quality of the river’s water in the barrage. this deterioration made the responsible authorities more tolerant of purified effluents flowing into the river from the witwatersrand region.91 local industries used this secondary water. however, in the face of growing water shortages,92 more effective technologies were developed by industry (for example in the field of cooling systems) to reduce excessive water consumption. a new legislative framework: formalised appropriation by the 1950s it was evident that that the secondary and tertiary sectors of industry had appropriated the vaal river to the maximum. the country was in the midst of one of the longest sustained periods of economic growth. there were indications that this trend would not subside in the near future. the government supported the developments. in an effort to focus the activities of the state more efficiently _______ 89 j meintjes, sasol 1950-1975, (tafelberg, cape town, 1975), chapters 2, 4, 5 and 6. 90 mining editor, “union should start big search for water” in rand daily mail, 1945.09.20; mining editor, “water prospects for future o.f.s. mines” in rand daily mail, 1946.02.14; correspondent, “huge irrigation scheme for free state: work started on £4,000,000 project to dam vet and sand rivers” in the star, 1947.06.07; political correspondent, “vaal water for o.f.s. goldfields: government takes new powers” in the star, 1948.02.17; e oppenheimer, “the discovery of gold in the orange free state and its economic effects” in african affairs, 46(185), october 1947, pp. 220-223. 91 it was only in the late-1960s that proactive measures were taken to limit the flow of effluents, especially from the witwatersrand, into the vaal river barrage. see f van wyk, (m.sc., rand afrikaans university [currently university of johannesburg], 2001), p. 15. 92 jwn tempelhoff, the substance of ubiquity: rand water 1903-2003, pp. 222-223. 451 appropriation and the vaal river the legislative framework within which the country’s water supplies had been governed since the era of unification in 1910, was changed. for a start, the department of irrigation, dating back to 1913, was replaced by a department of water affairs.93 the water act, no. 54 of 1956, which replaced all previous waterrelated acts of parliament, now made provision for direct state control over areas in which water was abstracted, supplied or distributed. the government was now responsible to ensure that water was distributed to all who were legally entitled to make use of the supplies.94 in effect it implied that the government had to provide support for the development of sufficient water supplies in a country where industrialisation was peaking.95 in the case of the vaal river the new legislation implied that, like al the major rivers of the country, the vaal would forthwith be subject to central government control. industrialisation was uppermost in the minds of the leaders of the state and the private sector. this created a situation which implied that it was an appropriation of water resources (in this case the vaal) that tended to work to the detriment of sound principles of environmental conservation. instead of seeking alternatives excessive water consumption, new facilities were summarily created. one example was the zuikerbosch water purification works of the rand water board. this facility, a technological achievement of great standing, was basically intended to increase the available potable water for consumers of the rand water board. issues of constructively dealing with contaminated water, were relegated to the back burner. the government, in terms of the existing policy and legislative framework, recognised the natural tendency for water to be returned to sources from where it originally emanated. little consideration was given, in the era of rapid economic growth, to potential alternative strategies of water purification for effective re-use. that would only come much later. _______ 93 irrigation – and water conservation act, no. 8 of 1912, in jm murray, wg hoal, w pollack and gn cross (editorial board), the union statutes: classified and annotated reprint 1910-1947, volume 12, pp. 276-183. the department came into existence in terms of act 8 of 1912, but only started operations in 1913. see r bate and r tren, the cost of free water: the global problem of water misallocation and the case of south africa (free market foundation, sandton, 2002), pp. 76-7. 94 je scholtens, “law of property” in hr hahlo and e kahn (eds), the union of south africa: the development of its laws and constitution, (stevens & sons limited, london, 1960), p. 599. 95 ar turton, r meissner, pm mampane & sereme, a hydropolitical history of south africa’s international river basins. wrc report no. 1220/1/04. (water research commission, pretoria, october 2004), p. 378. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 452 conclusion the appropriation of the vaal river, ever since the nineteenth century, was noted for the mild manner in which humans first used the river and its valuable water supply. as the pace of development stepped up, principles of economic appropriation became paramount. over the long term, these material motives were harmful to the environment. the appropriation of the river thrived on processes that were structured to promote a culture of unbridled consumerism. one example is the growth in the domestic consumption of electricity in these years. it was largely caused by an increase in the use of domestic electrical appliances, manufactured in south africa. it could be said that modernisation, which implied the use of lots of goods and services, was a very universal development in all parts of the world. this may be the case, but it implies that the price of progress was very high. the human appropriation of the vaal river bears testimony to this. scant attention was given to the environmental conservation of a natural heritage asset in a cultural landscape that was rapidly changing the face of south africa. by the mid-1950s the point of gravity of the vaal river clearly was in the vaal triangle region – south africa’s ‘sheffield’. jp leslie, the chief engineer of the rand water board, at the start of the decade, warned that the vaal river barrage faced imminent deterioration. steps were necessary to prevent, especially sewage and toxic industrial effluent, from destroying a valuable water source of the country’s economic nucleus.96 his warnings were prophetic. in the next quarter of a century it was to become apparent precisely how fragile the vaal river environment had become, as a result of the generally brash appropriation of the country’s valuable water resources. _______ 96 jwn tempelhoff, the substance of ubiquity: rand water 1903-2003, pp. 226-233. tempelhoff july 2008 inside book colour .p65 abstract at a time when the south african water department and a circle of water experts in the country are defining their position on water users’ associations (wuas), this paper looks at people’s actions and perceptions of local water management as a fundamental factor to understanding small farmers’ interactions with these newly established institutions. it presents the preliminary results of a community study conducted at thabina irrigation scheme, limpopo, between september 2007 and april 2008. this study offers an original approach to analyzing the scheme’s difficulties and, without providing a representative image of smallholder irrigation schemes in south africa, it allows for interesting preliminary reflections around small farmers’ perceptions of water management and local water management institutions. the study of perceptions is not new, nor does it belong as an analytical tool to one or other academic discipline. in order to fully grasp this complex and multidimensional object, a transdisciplinary approach is therefore applied and implemented in the field by using an innovative set of methods: interviews, verbal associations and participatory photography. the advantages and difficulties related to the use of a perception and transdisciplinary approach are discussed. keywords: local water management; water user associations; perceptions; smallholder irrigation schemes. discipline: transdisciplinarity water users’ associations from the users’ perspective: local water management at thabina irrigation scheme, limpopo, south africa maud orne-gliemann* * maud orne-gliemann is phd fellow, ifas, cirad, safewater-arise project, université de montpellier iii. email: maud.orne-gliemann@wanadoo.fr. the research presented in this paper, as well as the ongoing community study, was undertaken as part of the safewater arise project and thanks to the financial support of the french institute of south africa (ifas), the cirad and the safewater arise project. the author wishes to thank sylvain perret and pascal moliner, co-supervisors of this phd research, stefano farolfi, coordinator of the arise project, aurelia wa-kabwe segatti, research director of the ifas, and ward anseeuw for their help in the conception of the research project. an earlier version of this paper was presented at the “international conference on exploring transdisciplinary discourses: water, society and the environment in africa” organized by the north west university’s vaal triangle campus. the author owes special thanks to dr. maurits ertsen for his support in the editing of this paper as well as for his challenging, demanding but benevolent remarks during the conference. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 1-29. 2 introduction the south african department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) and a circle of water experts in the country are currently defining their position on what a water users’ association (wua) is or should be (dwaf, 2007). based on an analogy with managing institutions of so-called “traditional irrigation communities” (hunt, 1989), wuas have been promoted internationally and for many years now as a “panacea” (meinzen-dick, 2007) or “model” (molle, 2008) in local water management policy. however no single definition of these institutions has been agreed upon and tremendous scope for interpretation is therefore left to each and every stakeholder, at all levels of policy conception and implementation. hence, the negotiation processes, which characterize the implementation of water institutions (cleaver, 2000)1 provides an excellent arena for the expression of diverse and often conflicting interpretations or perceptions of wuas. by questioning small farmers’ actions and perceptions on local water management, this research offers a look at what users themselves think a wua is or should be. the study of perceptions is not new, nor does it belong as an analytical tool to one or other academic discipline (andré, 1998). “the central role of spatial perceptions in processes of dynamic organization of space [for example] has been the object of many studies by geographers for more than thirty years.”2 (ibid.: 11) social psychologists, cognitive and political scientists, economists, even agronomists, forestry specialists and environmentalists have all developed their own definitions and approaches to the study of perceptions. in the field of water management (wm) studies, it is worth noting the contributions of wester et al. (2003), waalewijn (2004) and bécu & perez (2004), all three concerned with stakeholder perceptions of river basin management. throughout this paper, perceptions are understood as the ideas, images and concepts individuals or groups engaged in wm have or associate with the practices, territories and organizations of wm. to fully grasp this complex and multidimensional object or “hybrid concept” (bolding, 2004: 15), the author applied a transdisciplinary approach. over the last decade, policy makers’, funding bodies’ and scholars’ interest in transdisciplinarity (td) has grown noticeably. numerous 1 on the notion of policy implementation as a negotiation process, see also: winter, 2001; conac et al., 1985; bierschenk & olivier de sardan, 1998; compagnon & constantin, 2000. 2 author’s translation – “ ce rôle central des représentations spatiales dans les processus d’une organisation dynamique de l’espace a fait l’objet depuis plus de trente ans de nombreux travaux de recherche de la part des géographes.” orne-gliemann 3 conferences, publications, peer-reviewed journals (ecosytems in 1998, landscape and urban planning in 2001, futures in 2004, or the present journal of transdisciplinary research in southern africa) have looked at defining td, setting it aside from other crossdisciplinary – multidisciplinarity, pluridisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity (hirsch hadorn et al., 2008; horlick-jones & sime 2004; kumar-giri 2002; lawrence and deprés 2004; max-neef 2005; ramadier 2004; wickson et al. 2006; and others) – and comprehensive approaches including action-research. but, very much like wuas and numerous other fashionable notions, no one definition of td has been agreed upon. building from the vast literature cited above, td is understood throughout this article as a comprehensive approach to designing and conducting research that allows for a certain coherence to be reached between different disciplines’ and between scientific and research participants’ knowledge when looking at complex ‘real-world’ issues. this article presents the preliminary results of a community study conducted at thabina irrigation scheme, mopani district, limpopo province, limpopo catchment management area (figure 1). selected as a pilot scheme for the implementation of a revitalization program, thabina was organized in a wua in 2000. eight years later, however, no new elections have been organized for the renewal of the wua’s management committee, only 20 per cent of the scheme is cultivated and half of the infrastructures are in disrepair (table 1). this study offers an original approach to analyzing the scheme’s difficulties and, without providing a representative image of sis in south africa, this account allows for interesting preliminary reflections around small farmers’ perceptions of wm and local wmi. the advantages and difficulties related to the use of a perception approach are also discussed. south african water context as did mexico (1992), brazil (1997), zimbabwe (1998) and thailand (2000), south africa adopted integrated water resource management principles as founding elements of its new water policy. passed at the end of apartheid, the national water act (nwa, 1998) and the water services act (wsa, 1997) lie within the scope of both the integrated management approach and a large democratization enterprise ongoing since 1994. while putting to the fore objectives of equity, representativity, sustainability and efficiency in the water sector, the two acts provide for the decentralization and devolution of management responsibilities to newly created institutions: catchment management agencies (cmas) and water user associations (wuas). td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 4 at local level, wuas are established, institutionalizing the pooling of capacities and resources for the operation and maintenance of water systems. the national water act states: although water user associations are water management institutions, their primary purpose, unlike catchment management agencies, is not water management. they operate at a restricted localized level, and are in effect co-operative associations of individual water users who wish to undertake water related activities for their mutual benefit. (chapter 8, nwa) despite relatively ‘humble’ original intentions, the context of postapartheid meant that the institution was progressively fashioned as a tool for the country’s remodelling. hence, alongside the traditional functions of wuas mentioned in the nwa, a strong political agenda was entrusted to these local wm institutions. democracy, equity, representativity and empowerment of ‘historically disadvantaged individuals’ were added as requirements for the establishment of wuas. instituted at users’ or dwaf’s initiative, wuas bring together under a single designation a wide range of institutional realities, regrouping such diverse actors as former irrigation board (ib) farmers, former government scheme irrigators, smallholder and emergent farmers, municipalities, industries, recreational bodies, forestry representatives, etc. while guidelines for the implementation of the nwa favour the constitution of multiple-use wuas (dwaf, 2004, 2007), the historical legacy of segregation results in a number of hydrological units presenting little use and user diversity. three types of wua are commonly identified: transformed wua – resulting from the transformation of ibs –, government scheme wua and new wua – established amongst users with no prior involvement in water management institutions (wmi), i.e. users in former homelands, mining, forestry and industry. within this category of new wua, we consider it appropriate to set aside a fourth type of wua, the one for “historically disadvantaged individuals”: hdi-wuas. hdi refers in much south african legislation to women, disabled people or south african citizens who were discriminated against during the apartheid era. in addition to little institutional experience, hdi-wuas face a critical financial and institutional sustainability issue. dwaf appears to have come to a rather good understanding of the issues at stake in the transformation of ibs and the establishment of wuas for large commercial activities (farming included). its draft policy document on the fast tracking of transformations presents relatively clear guidelines (dwaf, 2004) which, despite continuing orne-gliemann 5 difficulties encountered by stakeholders in the creation process (conflicts, uneasiness in complying with the various requirements, etc.), seem to provide them with the needed elements to establish functioning institutions3 . the account changes when looking at smallholder irrigation schemes (sis), largely made up of hdis. indeed, implementation of wua for sis remains slow and the various instances of inactive wuas suggest that the model used until now for their creation might not respond fully to local people’s expectations and needs in terms of wm institution (faysse, 2004). although most sis wuas are now being established by dwaf as strictly water management institutions, the context of irrigation management transfer (imt) remains determinant in defining the capacity and organization of sis. indeed, the first wuas for smallscale irrigation in south africa are strongly associated with imt programs initiated in the first years of the nwa implementation process. sis represent approximately 1/10th of the 1,3 million hectares of irrigated land in south africa (tlou et al., 2006); half of them are found in the limpopo province, in the northern part of the country. in former bantustans, most sis were developed following the publication in 1955 of the tomlinson report which accounted for the poor socio-economic situation of these areas and recommended the development, with public support, of small irrigation (ibid.). subsequently, the national government has withdrawn from its managing and supporting functions in sis leaving many schemes in great institutional and material difficulty. provincial governments, through their agriculture departments, have since then developed rehabilitation and management transfer programs requiring the creation of local wm institutions. but imt has not yielded the expected results of increased autonomy and productivity (shah, van koppen et al., 2002). as perret notes: one must acknowledge that […] economic success has never been the clear and unique objective underlying the past and present development policies for sis (perret, 2002). agriculture has thus remained one of several livelihood strategies mobilized by smallholder farmers, limiting their financial autonomy and economic incentives in water management. in view of this multiple legacy, the question remains of the conciliation of these various objectives – iwrm, community participation, political agenda – within a single local institution. 3 on the transformation of ibs, see also: faysse, 2004. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 6 case study thabina irrigation scheme research protocol the understanding of people’s actions and perceptions of local water management – its functions, actors, territory – is fundamental to comprehend their interactions with the newly established wuas., as shah rightfully stresses: (a)n extraordinary aspect of the institutional discussions in global water sector is how very narrowly it has focused on things that governments can do – make laws, set up regulatory organizations, turn over irrigation systems, specify property rights. […] if institutional change is about how societies adapt to new demands, its study has to deal with more than what just the governments do […]. […] [e]qually – or, even more – important is the need to listen to voices from the grassroots. (2000: 16). table 1 facts about thabina irrigation scheme 1998 – pilot revitalization program administered by the limpopo province department of agriculture (veldwisch & perret, 2004) � 233 ha � 1 main canal with intake from the thabina river � 123 farmers � 5 pumps (diesel and electric) � 4 wards (a to d) � 1 night storage dam � permit to occupy (pto) granted � summer crops: maize, groundnuts, by traditional authority butternuts, … � 1 to 5 ha plots � winter crops: tomatoes, spinach, cabbages, … 2000 – establishment of the thabina wua � 1 constitution + 1 management committee � 5 elected executive members and 2 representatives per ward � nominated representatives from tickyline (residential area), tzaneen district municipality, dwaf, lda (extension officer). � regular meetings of ad hoc committees, meeting of management committee at least once a year 2007/2008 – representation study � 20% cultivated (ward a + part of ward b) � 3 out of 5 pumps stolen or vandalized � no new election of the wua management committee since establishment in 2000 orne-gliemann 7 figure 1 sketch of thabina irrigation scheme veldwisch, 2004 originally conceptualized by s. moscovici (1961, cited in abric, 1994), perceptions or social representations are seen as guiding people’s actions. abric explains: if one notes and admits that representations determine behaviors, what about their role in the elaboration of effective social practices, meaning complex systems of actions socially invested and subject to socially and historically affected issues? (abric, 1994: 7).4 influenced by this interrogation, the research protocol was designed so as to maintain this close connection between perceptions and actions. the use of a td approach further allowed for the contribution of each discipline to this “hybrid concept” to be integrated and inform the analysis of the different dimensions of wm. 4 author’s translation – “si l’on considère et l’on admet que les représentations déterminent les comportements, qu’en est-il de leur rôle dans l’élaboration des pratiques sociales effectives, c’est-à-dire dans les systèmes complexes d’actions socialement investis et soumis à des enjeux socialement et historiquement déterminés ? ” td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 8 the choice of both methods and methodology for this research5 was indeed determined by the complexity of wm and its inherent social, political and territorial characteristics. using both classical and lessestablished methods in a transdisciplinary approach, a community research based on a triangulation of methods was used to identify the actions and social representations of small-scale irrigators.each method was designed to cover 5 core characteristics of water management institutions identified beforehand: existence of shared interests, definition of water resources, functions, members and territory of exercise. the use of triangulation allowed for different types of data to be collected and the cross-cutting of conclusions. the repetition of encounters with participants induced by the use of triangulation was also well adapted to the study of perceptions as it gave time for partnership and confidence to be built up between researcher and participants. during the first stage of the community study, interviews with both closed and open-ended questions were conducted with farmers selected on the basis of gender and their plot position within thabina irrigation scheme. these interviews provided elements of information on, amongst others, the farmer’s household, farming habits, water use, knowledge of wuas, expectations regarding its functions, geographical environment the community’s organizational abilities to manage water, existing conflicts and power relations. each interview started with a verbal association activity, used to obtain information on people’s social representations of water resources, wm, the scheme, the community and the wua. the discussion ended with a question about the interviewee’s readiness to participate in another research activity: participatory photography. participatory photography (pp) invests stakeholders with an active role as photographers, visually expressing their perceptions over themes pre-selected by the researcher. each volunteer was provided with a disposable camera and asked to take pictures of his/her environment according to two different themes: water resources and the irrigation scheme. the cameras were collected at the end of a 2week period and the pictures developed. the second phase of the participatory photography activity consisted in the commenting and discussing of the pictures during one-on-one interviews with the photographers. volunteers were first asked to lay pictures down on a 5 whereas ‘methods’ refers to “data collection and analysis issues” (hoggart et al., 2002: 1), the ‘methodology’ explains how one positions itself within and in relation to the data collection and analysis process. thus ‘methodology’ refers to one’s “specific view on the nature of ‘reality’ (ontology) and the grounds for knowledge (epistemology)” (ibid.) guiding the research process. orne-gliemann 9 map of the area, thus identifying their everyday spatial environment, before selecting five of their pictures and explaining their choices. thesepictures, together with the comments and information gathered during individual discussions, were then compiled into a mid-activity report to be distributed to participants. a third phase of the activity was then engaged during which individuals were expected to make comments on the information and explanations given by the other members of the group on their photographs and summarized in the mid-activity report. after a short period of unsupervised exchanges – monitored by one of the participants – collective discussions were organized, articulated around three complementary activities: the commenting on the mid-activity report; the construction of ‘perfect scenarios’ from pictures representing problems; and a discussion around pictures representing cooperation activities. each activity encouraged debate over the management of water resources (problem resolution, collective action) and led to the design of two network maps presenting participants’ geographical and social environments mobilized in wm. in the interest of reporting back to the community and putting forward the work of the participants, the photographs together with the group’s comments were displayed as an exhibition for all to see preliminary results since the creation of the wua in 2000, thabina has received the attention of several researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds (see veldwisch, 2004; veldwisch & perret, 2004; chancellor, 2004). this study offers an original approach to analyzing the scheme’s difficulties and, without providing a representative image of sis in south africa, this account allows for interesting preliminary reflections around the small farmers’ perceptions of wm and local wmi. interviews were conducted with 13 plot holders, the pp activities with 7, half of which had participated in the first phase of the research. the individuals interviewed were evenly distributed across the range of farming situations currently found at thabina: scheme plot cultivation (six farmers); home garden and plot cultivation (three); home garden only (four whose allocated plots had not received any canal water for the past three to four years). all participants but one stated cultivating for both subsistence and commercial use; all plot farmers – i.e. farmers presently cultivating on the scheme – declared selling part of their crop to the neighbouring villages, including four to bigger municipalities (tzaneen or the gauteng province). with the exception of two respondents aged 34 and 47, all were over 50 years old; four were over 70. the sample was distributed evenly across gender. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 10 despite obvious inequalities between upstream and downstream plot holders, respondents felt a real sense of community triggered by a shared interest or concern: the lack of water. community cohesion was also clearly expressed when asked about the compliance with scheme rules and the reason for it (table 2). collective agreement around the rules was mentioned by half of the participants, while nearly one third pointed at the existence of sanctions to explain the perceived strong compliance (figure 2). it is interesting to note that representations regarding cooperation and collective action were concretized only partially into actions. the use of interviews and participatory photography activities was in that regard very useful. indeed, while cooperation as a principle seemed strongly valued by the interviewees and undertaken for simple tasks such as water allocation or canal clearing (picture 1), it did not come out as an automatic or preferred strategy to deal with problems more deeply rooted (water scarcity for example) or involving outsiders (pollution of the canal with rubbish and soap – picture 2). in those cases, farmers reverted on the contrary to individual actions (table 4) or external aid. part of the explanation for the collapse of cooperation might be an increase in the perceived risks (aggarwal, 2000). indeed, the deterioration of farmers’ possible gains from the scheme as a result of the pumps being vandalized means that individuals will have more difficulty in contributing their share to collective action. as expressed by white & runge: (i)ndividuals are less likely to contribute if they do not expect (or are not sufficiently assured) that others will reciprocate (1995: 1693). picture 1 farmers cleaning the canal. photo: b. m. –farmer at thabina, 2008 orne-gliemann 11 picture 2 pollution of the canal 2 km from the intake. photo: a. s. – farmer at thabina, 2008 figure 2 reasons for compliance with scheme rules (% of responses) source: thabina irrigation scheme – author’s own data, 2007 td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 12 table 2 community cohesion (nb and % of respondents) thabina irrigation scheme – author’s own data, 2007 yes n o collective resolution of pb 7 (53.8%) 6 (46.2%) sense of community of pb1 9 (69.2%) 3 (23.1%) good compliance with rules 11 (84.7%) 2 (15.3%) 1 one interviewee did not respond table 3 do you ever go and see your wua representatives with concerns or requests regarding your water resources? why? (nb and % of responses) thabina irrigation scheme – author’s own data, 2007 reason given yes 9 (69%) geographical proximity 5 (55.6%) no reason 4 (44.4%) n o 4 (31%) no activity in the scheme 4 (100%) table 4 reponses to practical scenarios (nb and % of respondents1) scheme infrastructure shortage of water a farmer disrespects need of repair in allocation rules money collection do nothing/stop cultivating go to wua 5 (38.5%) 5 (38.5%) 7 (53.9%) collective work do nothing/keep cultivating go to antother ext. authority 1 (7.7%) 1 (7.7%) 3 (23.1%) seek external help reduce cultivated area seek mediation 5 (38.5%) 4 (30.8%) 4 (30.8%) do nothing change water allocation use sanctions 2 (15.3%) 1 (7.7%) 1 (7.7%) no response do nothing 2 (15.3%) 1 (7.7%) pb does not exist 2 (15.3%) orne-gliemann 13 a farmer pollutes/deteriorates conflict between 2 or domestic infrastructure more farmers in need of repair go to wua go to wua use alternative resources 6 (46.1%) 5 (38.5%) 2 (15.3%) go to another ext. authority go to another ext. authority repair as a household 9 (69.2%) 5 (38.5%) 3 (23.1%) seek mediation gather as farmers seek external help 4 (30.8%) 3 (23.1%) 6 (46.1%) use sanctions seek mediation do nothing 3 (23.1%) 6 (46.1%) 1 (7.7%) pb does not exist pb does not exist no response 1 (7.7%) 1 (7.7%) 2 (15.3%) 1 percentages are calculated according to the number of interviewees (vs. responses); some interviewee might have given more than one response. source: thabina irrigation scheme – author’s own data, 2007 interviews, and meetings conducted alongside, have shown the importance for the management of the scheme of the thabina wua (table 3) and most especially of the ward representatives (a subsection of the scheme, figure 1) and the extension officer. whereas geographical proximity did not appear to be relevant in explaining farmers’ compliance with rules, it played a clear role in legitimizing the wua and its representatives (table 3). nonetheless, here again only a small majority of the strategies mentioned in response to the small scenarios or to problems identified during pp included the wua (table 4). picture 1 shows indeed a group of farmers organized to clear the canal. the story behind this picture is, however, that this organization was not channelled through the wua but was decided upon as an ad hoc measure. through observation, it was moreover obvious that the action of the wua remained strongly limited and disorganized; its influence on non-irrigating farmers was quasi-inexistent; and, inexistent; and, despite provision in the constitution for elections to be conducted every three years, none had been organized since the creation of the wua in 2000. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 14 figure 3 expected functions of a local wm institution (nb of responses) source: thabina irrigation scheme – author’s own data, 2007 figure 4 groups that should be represented on the wua management committee (nb of respondents) sourc: thabina irrigation scheme – author’s own data, 2007 orne-gliemann 15 figure 5 verbal associations – groups of terms mentioned for each theme1 source: thabina irrigation scheme – author’s own data, 2007 a b c d e f 1only terms mentioned by at least 4 participants, that is approximately 1/3 of the sampling, are reported. basic wm functions appeared on top of the list of functions perceived as being that of a wua (provision mentioned by 6 participants, td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 16 conservation, allocation and maintenance by 4 each), followed by the coordination of action in the scheme (figure 3). the resolution of conflicts and the compilation of reports were only mentioned once. the same classification appeared with the use of verbal associations where the management of water was associated most frequently with infrastructures, storage and meetings (figure 5b). it is however interesting to notice that through verbal associations thabina wua was repeatedly associated with help and training, responsibilities that transpired also in pp but did not appear in the theoretical functions listed during interviews (figure 3). data showed an interesting tension between the management of water resources and that of the scheme as a farming unit. while dwaf considers control, allocation and conservation of water resources as the primary functions of wuas, verbal associations showed a clearly different prioritization by farmers: training and input provision were mentioned by 22 and 13 per cent respectively followed by improved communication amongst members (9 per cent); water provision was the only strictly water-related function mentioned more than once (figure 5f). the same tension between strict water management and scheme management is observable regarding the expected members of the wua (figure 4). all respondents mentioned farmers as rightful members.at the same time, only a small proportion of the participants mentioned neighbouring communities and the district municipality. it is interesting to note that four interviewees agreed for the settlement – situated outside the scheme boundaries along the main canal and not then represented on the management committee (mc) of the wua (figure 1) – to be added as a rightful member. increasing the money collected by the institution was mentioned as one of the arguments in favour of such an amendment. the need to foster a dialogue between the farmers and the settlement in order to limit the pollution of the canal was a conclusion reached during pp (picture 2). on the other hand, those very conflicts and farmers’ property over land and water were arguments voiced during interviews by those opposed to the extension of the mc membership to the outside settlement. when questioned on the matter, the chairperson of thabina wua explained that as the people from the settlement were not eligible to access land within the scheme, there would be no interest for them in attending meetings of the mc. these observations raise the question of the extent to which sis wuas in south africa are scheme managing or water managing institutions. this question echoes the conclusions reached by shah et al. (2002) and chancellor (2004) regarding the need for an integrated approach to scheme management dealing with water and farming issues. the scale or territorial boundaries of such an institution also remains to orne-gliemann 17 be defined. observations suggest that the wards, followed by the scheme, are the territories of reference of irrigating farmers. for nonirrigating farmers, the link was existent but secondary. similarly, geographical proximity appeared as a determining element of cooperation, at scheme and community level. it is interesting to note that bécu & perez (2004) made a similar observation in their study of water users’ representations in thailand. the debate around the most appropriate size for a community to undertake collective action has not yet been settled in the literature (i.e. mccarthy et al., 2004; place et al., 2004). but one element is worth underlining in the case of thabina: neither the ward nor the scheme is an independent hydrological entity. indeed, as mentioned above, the intake of the canal on the thabina river is situated outside the boundaries of the scheme within an outside settlement whose inhabitants do not have access to scheme plots. interestingly, meinzen-dick et al. note that “[while] studies of collective action in irrigation (e.g., meinzen-dick et al., 2002; bardhan, 2000) have tended to define the units of analysis in terms of the hydraulic infrastructure, […] swallow et al. (2002) argue that social units may be more appropriate.” (2004: 205) the use of the notion of communauté de gestion (management community) developed by compagnon & constantin (2000) and defined as “the concrete human unit structured by the utilization of the resource”6 (ibid.: 19), might be a means to reconcile hydrological with social determinants of an irrigation community. three tensions are illustrated by this data: according to the five core characteristics listed above: 1. farmers show clearly different understandings of wm and the need for a wmi from that expressed by policy documents – the lack of mobilization through the wua when collective action occurred was symbolic; 2. a diversity of perceptions is apparent at local level – while a general trend appeared in most answers, no clear majority could be identified, the small sample size not allowing however for a finer differentiation to be made; andfinally 3. the translation of farmers’ perceptions into action is not automatic but seems to be dependent on a number of structural and conjectural factors: availability of financial resources, existence of a clear prospect for the scheme, trust in the future. 6 author’s translation « les ensembles humains concrets tels qu’ils sont structurés par les formes d’utilisation de la ressource. » td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 18 discussion this paper does not claim to offer representative results of small farmers’ perceptions on local water management, nor does it claim that the use of a transdisciplinary approach is a flawless one. but it does point to a need for greater reflexivity in the design and implementation of wuas, as well as the use of a td approach.a clear choice was made here to address perceptions at the individual scale, although the individuals were regarded as being socially involved. the relevant level of analysis of local perceptions and collective action is still very much ongoing. it is pointed out: should one favor the individual scale in order to fully grasp the nature of the subjective experience [?] [...] or, on the contrary, should one refrain from any subjectivism and psychologism, and direct […] research towards the study of collective scales of representation and action? (debardieux, 2005: 207-8).7 interestingly, this debate echoes a concern repeatedly voiced by researchers in transdisciplinarity: “in trying to integrate different knowledges and epistemologies, as well as theory and practice, the td researcher will inevitably face the problem of paradox [meaning the existence for a unique object of study of different realities abiding by different laws or fundamental concepts]. while some might see the presence of unresolved paradoxes as evidence of poor quality td outcomes, others may view the accommodation of dilemma as a necessary (perhaps unavoidable) feature of td research processes (wickson et al., 2006: 1054). such dilemmas were evident in the present research as respondents positioned themselves differently in expressing their perceptions of wuas’ functions. depending on their relation to the object – a question pointing at thabina wua or at an imaginary local wmi – significantly different answers were given. it was put forward for example that thabina wua was repeatedly associated with help and training, responsibilities that did not appear in the theoretical functions listed during interviews. to come to term with such paradoxes, a number of td researchers have suggested recognizing the existence of different levels of reality (henagulph, 2000 cited in wickson et al., 2006; max-neef, 2005). resorting to the constructivism of organization sociology (crozier & friedberg, 1977) and the notion of ‘actor’ allows one to potentially reconcile individual and collective (social) representations, as two separate but interdependent levels of 7 author’s translation – “faut-il privilégier l’échelle individuelle pour saisir pleinement la nature de l’expérience subjective ? […] ou faut-il au contraire se garder de tout subjectivisme et de tout psychologisme, et orienter la recherche […] vers l’étude des niveaux collectifs de la représentation et de l’action ?” orne-gliemann 19 reality. in the example of diverging responses, participants refer to two different levels of reality: the factual and the wish. in their efforts to qualify td, academics have identified three key characteristics: 1) problem-focused study; 2) collaboration between academics and with stakeholders; and 3) pluralistic and dynamic methodology (balsiger, 2004; horlick-jones and sime, 2004; maxneef, 2005; petts et al., 2008; wickson et al., 2006). some have observed: what we find particularly interesting in these recent theory building efforts is the variation in, and potential conflict between, the distinguishing characteristics of transdisciplinarity that are foregrounded or favoured by different theorists. (wickson et al., 2006: 1047-8). indeed, petts et al. (2008) and lawrence & després (2004) for example question the general assumption of td being solution-oriented, an assumption derived from td’s first characteristic, a problem-focused study. they remark that: (w)hile the logic of this linkage is, in many respects, undeniable, it can itself create problems for interdisciplinarity if applied research is regarded as somehow ‘impure’ (petts, owens & bulkeley, 2008: 597). moreover, lawrence & després declare: (t)here is no inherent reason why theoretical development especially the analytical description and interpretation of complex environmental questions cannot be achieved by transdisciplinarity(2004: 399/400). the present research supports an alternative understanding of the meaning of collaboration. while most td experiences, accounted for by the literature so far, have involved research teams made of discipline specialists, we would argue that the need for collaboration should not prevent single researchers from conducting td. the rationale for collaboration in td has to do with the desire to integrate different forms of knowledge across disciplines and across the theorypractice divide. and though this integration is commonly understood as requiring the cooperation of individuals, “an integrating synthesis is not achieved through the accumulation of different brains. it must occur inside each of the brains” (max-neef, 2005: 5). the argument is not in favour of a return to isolation, but rather in favour of an internalization of the “integration of [disciplinary] knowledge”, an idea developed by jantsch (horlick-jones & sime, 2004). one must bear in mind, however, that this reflection does not apply to collaboration between academics and stakeholders. indeed, in addition to sharing knowledge, integrating theory and practice entails the sharing of experience, of perceptions, that individuals hold td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 20 because of their identity and background. as a consequence of the prevailing conception of collaboration, as well as that of the complexity of ‘real world’ issues, td is generally understood as cutting across the social/natural sciences divide. more than a rule, it is a presumed element of td as academics concentrate on environment-related issues. for petts et al. (2008) and horlickjones & sime (2004), this is a dangerous assumption for social sciences as, responding to natural scientists’ and policy makers’ expectations, “social scientists [are pressured] to embrace only positivist methodologies” (petts et al., 2008: 598) “(and impoverished) conceptions of human behaviour” (horlick-jones & sime, 2004: 452). for horlick-jones & sime, this is mainly due to “a worrying assumption […] that all social science knowledge can be treated as being epistemologically homogenous.” (2004: 446) their identification of 19 approaches to risk analysis in social sciences, depicting four radically different conceptions of risk (ibid.), is however evidence of the contrary; and we believe that a similar result would be obtained for many transdisciplinary issues, including representation studies, should a comparable exercise be undertaken. difficulties surrounding the development of a truly transdisciplinary study has meant that scientists have often paid greater attention to theory and epistemology than practice and methodology. methods and methodology are, however, a core aspect of research and their integrated quality an essential feature of transdisciplinary studies. it is maintained: (transdisciplinary) scientists cannot relate to particular methodological rules which have already been introduced. in general, either they have to transfer well known methods from a specific discipline, or they have to create a sort of pluralism of methods (balsiger, 2004: 416). for the purpose of our study, new methods were created combining tools from different disciplines. verbal associations were incorporated to more traditional questionnaires. participatory photography was associated with network and geographical mapping. the creation of methods is a very interesting process and allows for tools to be modelled according to the precise needs of the study in terms of data requirements, population targeted and/or geographical area selected. appealing as it might be, this approach is still considered very unorthodox by many in the research community (researchers and participants). a reaction encountered on several occasions during this study was a certain type of uneasiness in facilitators confronted with these new methods. their format and purpose were questioned. understanding and acceptance of them required a significant explanation and adaptation period. orne-gliemann 21 ethical dilemmas traditionally associated with research in development situations do not disappear with the use of transdisciplinary methods and: (n)eedless to say, as england (1994: 86) rightly states: ‘reflexivity can make one more aware of asymmetrical or exploitative relationships, but it cannot remove them’ (hoggart et al., 2002: 224). the notion of reflexivity embodies questioning research issues posed by the investigator, the interpretative biases of the researcher, and the way in which the identity of the researcher impacts on the research process (hoggart et al., 2002: 24). researching small farmers’ perceptions of local water management assumes that by giving a voice to people those of us who are not members of disadvantaged groups can find a way to understand adequately what the diverse, sometimes shifting and contradictory desires of such groups are (edmunds & wollenberg, 2001: 232). but, what is “the ability of researchers to empathize with disadvantaged ‘others’” (bunge, 1971, cited in hoggart et al., 2002: 263)? what is the ability of disadvantaged ‘others’ to enter a truly co-operative relationship with a researcher? short of the possibility of changing the identity of the research protagonists, the possibility of biases and inaccuracies in the results presented above is acknowledged. through the interaction with small farmers, the question of raising people’s expectations of change also becomes critical. asking for time investment and confidence from farmers, with little to give back in terms of what is of vital importance to them, was a real issue in the present research experience. but although short term positive effects might be difficult to identify in such participatory encounters, walter et al. (2007) show that the individuals’ involvement in td affects their decision making capacity, directly and indirectly, through the building of participant networks and the availability and use of transformation knowledge, thus lessening, at the very least, the weight on the conscience of the researcher. td and disciplinary studies – prospective reflections as a last contribution to this discussion, we would like to raise some concerns over what the mainstreaming of td might entail for its own strengths and its relation to disciplinarity. what renders td difficult to grasp, but also fascinating to undertake, is its unorthodox epistemology that transcends linear logic: as it strives to include science and practice, knowledge and methods equally from one or td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme 22 other discipline, td pretends, “to overcome the feeling of threat [imbedded in the sovereignty of disciplines] by means of an inwardly felt need for the other point of view” (kumar giri, 2002: 103). but a high point of this movement towards mainstream is what ramadier qualifies as “the search for unity in produced knowledge” (2004: 431). indeed, as td attempts to unravel complex realities by “[linking] together different forms of disciplinary knowledges” (ibid.), it is confronted with paradoxes. it is in trying to lift such paradoxes that scholars risk undermining td’s strengths as this action requires “preference [to be given] to one rationale over the others, which once again sets us back into disciplinary thinking, from which we were precisely trying to get away” (ibid.). on the other hand, as expressed by billaud: one can see, in the core position of the notion of “complexity” in justifying an interdisciplinary approach, an epistemological reaction to a context of increasing specialization of knowledge (2003: 31).8 hence, parallel to the development of transdisciplinary studies is a reinforcement of disciplinary focus. it seems therefore that disciplinarity and transdisciplinarity form two cornerstones of a truly comprehensive approach to ‘real-world’ issues. the author would therefore argue that it is important for academics to keep in mind when conducting td and justifying their choice to sometimes sceptical audiences that to the extent that “integrative projects are not undertaken for the sake of it” (tress et al., 2005: 808), “transdisciplinarity [remains] a specific approach which does not compete with disciplinary approaches at all” (balsiger, 2004: 419). references abric, j.-c., ed. 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(1994) “the problem of scale in human/environment relationships.” journal of theoretical politics 6(4): 429-447. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 1-29. water users’ associations thabina irrigation scheme << /ascii85encodepages false /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /all /binding /left /calgrayprofile (dot gain 20%) /calrgbprofile (srgb iec61966-2.1) /calcmykprofile (u.s. web coated \050swop\051 v2) /srgbprofile (srgb iec61966-2.1) /cannotembedfontpolicy /warning /compatibilitylevel 1.4 /compressobjects /tags /compresspages true /convertimagestoindexed true /passthroughjpegimages true /createjdffile false /createjobticket false /defaultrenderingintent /default /detectblends true /colorconversionstrategy /leavecolorunchanged /dothumbnails false /embedallfonts true /embedjoboptions true /dscreportinglevel 0 /emitdscwarnings false /endpage -1 /imagememory 1048576 /lockdistillerparams false /maxsubsetpct 100 /optimize true /opm 1 /parsedsccomments true 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<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> >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [612.000 792.000] >> setpagedevice abstract introduction defining refugees and asylum seekers theoretical framework towards a sustainable learning for refugee children access to primary education for refugee children in south africa towards effective integration of refugee children in primary schools discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) rasheedah o. adams-ojugbele department of early childhood development, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa dipane hlalele department of educational psychology, faculty of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa citation adams-ojugbele ro, hlalele d. sustainable learning for refugee children in south african primary schools: a theoretical approach. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1062. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1062 review article sustainable learning for refugee children in south african primary schools: a theoretical approach rasheedah o. adams-ojugbele, dipane hlalele received: 06 apr. 2021; accepted: 26 july 2021; published: 29 oct. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: the advent of democracy in south africa brought about many changes in the education system. policies and frameworks that guide the embracement of refugee children were formulated and later implemented. however, there are ongoing challenges experienced by this group and the incidents of poor access and quality of provision experienced by a larger population of refugee children, calls for urgent redress. aim: this is a theoretical article that examines and analyses the education access, school integration and participation of refugee children. setting: focusing on refugee children in a primary school in south africa. method: empirical study articles and reviews carried out on the education and resettlement of refugee children in their host countries between 2005 till date were randomly selected for inclusion in our analysis. our intention was to understand how the education for refugees is generally conceptualised and the extent to which their lived experiences are captured. result: using gibson’s theory of affordances as a lens, this article analyses the relationship between the new school environment and refugee children and evaluates the possibilities of sustainable learning for all. conclusion: we argue for an expansive access, including social and academic support interventions that are balanced in terms of promoting the individual child’s abilities and needs for optimal development. keywords: refugee children; sustainable learning; school access; social integration; school participation. introduction equity and quality in education for all children are central to the realisation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals (sdgs) 4. universal quality education constitutes an independent goal having seven outcome targets: (1) universal primary and secondary education, (2) early childhood development and universal pre-primary education, (3) equal success to technical or vocational and higher education, (4) relevant skills for decent work, (5) gender equality and inclusion, (6) universal youth literacy, (7) education for sustainable development and global citizenship). this will be implemented through effective learning environments, scholarships and supply of qualify teachers.1 these goals are also linked to every other aspect of the agenda with a specific mention in five other major goals, which include: health and well-being, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, responsible consumption and production and climate change mitigation.2 refugee and asylum-seeking children in their various countries of residence require equal and quality education opportunities if the sdg for 2030 is to be achieved. this article provides an analysis and critique of debates and studies around the educational access, school integration and participation of refugee children in the primary school life in south africa. using the affordance theory as the theoretical underpinning for this article, i posit that the presence and the quality of available resources in a given environment interact with the abilities of the individual, which in-turn influences the nature and quality of such person’s interaction and overall development in the same environment. thus, when the conditions of the environment are favourable to the refugee children, their social and academic integration into the school is enhanced. this in turn will influence their school participation including their overall success. in this article, the concept of access and quality education was engaged, focusing on refugee children in the south african public primary schools. to fully understand this, elements from chemero’s affordance framework were explored. as pointed out by chemero,3 affordances constitute the interaction between the abilities of the organisms and the attributes of the environment that the organisms spend time and lives in. the theoretical framework and its applicability to the present discourse will be discussed later in this article. the incidences of forcibly displaced persons across the globe have resulted in the influx of asylum seekers and refugee population across borders around the world. internally displaced persons, asylum seekers and refugees are on the verge of the society. south africa constitutes one of the countries accepting a high number of refugees on a daily basis, particularly refugees from the neighbouring south african countries.4 although it was observed in the report by the united nation high commissioner for refugee (unhcr), 2018 that the actual number of refugees and asylum seekers in the country as at mid-2018 cannot be easily determined because of a number of concerns raised by different stakeholders. these concerns relate to the methods of data gathering adopted by the department of home affairs and the uniqueness of south africa’s ‘non-encampment’ policy which meant that refugees in south africa are allowed to settle in any part of the country provided they have the right documentations and means of sustenance. refugee children constitute most of this group. defining refugees and asylum seekers refugees are migrants whose movement is not based on improving their situation and quality of life, rather, it is premised on survival and safeguarding their lives. tadesse, hoot5 argued that ‘refugees are forced to leave their homelands, often suddenly, as a result of threats to their personal safety’. rwamatwara6 and essomba,7 added that refugees are forced migrants who because of threats inflicted on their physical well-being in their country of residence resulting from social and economic conflict move to another country, to afford themselves, physical security and general well-being. thus, they arrive at the host countries with no prior preparation in place. on their arrival, they often settle down in camps or on the streets because of the absence of prior arrangement for shelter, job and support for their family, which include finding a suitable school for their children.5 the refugee families also struggle with problems of adjusting to their new environment and learning the local language for effective social integration.8,9 asylum seekers, on the other hand, refer to anyone who because of a reason or the other leaves his or her country of nationality to seek a formal application for asylum in another country for reasons of insecurity and threats to their lives and peaceful coexistence.10,11 it is important to note that most refugees get asylum seekers’ status before their refugee documentation is finalised.12,13 similarly, tyrer and fazel,14 pointed out that asylum seekers are those who are waiting for the finalisation of their refugee status application. according to the15 asylum seekers do not have a constitutional right to the provisions enshrined in the refugee conventions of 1951 and its 1967 protocol, until they are granted a refugee permit. as noticed here, children constitute many of these groups. to cover for the loss and challenges encountered by the refugee children population before, during and after arriving in the host country, it is imperative that an enabling and sensitive environment is made available with particular focus on their education, health and welfare for optimal realisation of the sdgs by 2030. regardless of who accompany the refugee or the asylum seeking children during their migration to the host country, they are continuously exposed to a number of stress and multirisk factors including trauma.8 as soon as they arrive in the host country, they are faced with challenges accessing different services including quality education. the situation faced by the refugee population daily is contradictory to the provisions of the international framework protecting the rights of all children irrespective of their social, economic and racial status. for example, the united nations convention on the rights of the child4,16 guarantees all children’s rights to safety and education as indicated in articles 28 and 29 of the document. as indicated in the convention on the right of the child (crc) 1989, supporting and educating refugee children come with a lot of benefits, not just to the child but also to his or her family and the larger society. thus, promoting educational access and quality provision for refugee children in their host country gives them a head start and assists them to get ready for school, like every other child.13 theoretical framework gibson’s theory of affordances underpins this review.17 in particular, chemero’s3 reconceptualisation of the theory was explored for the review. it sees ‘affordances as the relations between the abilities of organisms and features of the environment’ in this case, the ability of the learner in the new environment. here, the article utilises the theory to understand the interrelatedness between the abilities of the organism (refugee children) and the features of the environment (their host country and the public primary schools). the article seeks to understand those factors in the refugee children’s immediate environment that determine and provide access to a positive and a meaningful learning environment. gibson17 stressed that what is perceived by the organism and the actions that follow it are dependent on one another. he further explains that, for the organism to adjust to and appreciate what the environment offers, it must first perceive, value and associate some meaning to its affording qualities.18 according to gibson’s 1986 version of the affordance theory, it is important that both the organism and the environment where the organisms live are complementary because of its objectivity and physical nature of affordance.19 hence, this article is premised on the understanding that for equal access and quality education and experience for refugee and asylum-seeking children in south africa, factors such as inclusive policies, intervention programmes in schools, training and re-training of teachers, stakeholder’s collaboration, receptive attitudes and re-orientation of local nationals, review of school policies and departmental curriculum in a sensitive atmosphere must be ensured. towards a sustainable learning for refugee children as argued throughout this article, sustainable learning and development, in all schools, for all children irrespective of their social, ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds is a requisite for a sustainable economy. considering the fourth goal of the sdgs for early childhood development and education (ecde) and basic primary education, which supports inclusion and equal quality of education that promotes a lifelong learning experience for all children, it becomes imperative that no child is left out of such life opportunity. ensuring and implementing this sustainable development become the responsibility of all stakeholders in the field. the second outcome of educational goals for sdgs that are targeted towards universal pre-primary and basic primary education for all children regardless of their socio-economic background and/or disability must be protected. to ensure this, all children are expected to partake in at least 1 year of free and compulsory pre-primary education before the formal schooling. this is to be steered by capable and qualified educators. in addition, a safe and child-friendly teaching and learning environment are to be provided to all children for a successful learning and holistic development. such an environment according to the education developmental goal is expected to provide support, care and stimulation to all children without any barrier to unlocking their innate potential.20 as observed by unhcr,16 education for displaced persons, either internally or otherwise, is a major priority for all the concerned authorities. children in this category deserve an equal standard of education as other children, to enable them to develop the necessary skills and knowledge they need to function well in later education and future. the challenges faced by refugees and asylum seekers in their various host countries call for urgent redress. research evidence in the united states suggests that refugee and immigrant children tend to have a lower chance of participating in early education programmes when compared with children from united states-born parents. south africa is no exception. as dryden-peterson16 pointed out, refugee children experience a host of barriers accessing the education programmes in their countries of residence. these barriers may include but are not limited to children’s refugee status in the host country, language barrier and their socio-economic status. often, before their documentation is finalised and their permit granted, access to services such as health, social welfare and education for refugee children has been denied. mweni11 observed that the inability of refugee children in south africa to enjoy their constitutional right as enshrined in both the national and international frameworks: refugee act, no 130 of 1998 of the south african government and the 1951 refugee convention (unhcr) is an issue of concern.21,22 he argued that children of refugees are denied access to basic and quality education because of issues related to school fees, documentations, language and unfear treatment through xenophobic attacks. this will be discussed in more detail in the next section. access to primary education for refugee children in south africa studies internationally and nationally are focusing on understanding the conditions of refugee children in relation to their educational access and resettlement in their various host countries. the unhcr made it clear that the refugee population across the world are continually faced with a host of challenges accessing different services in their countries of residence.4,16 for example, koehler,23 observed that the: eu [european union] member states have been facing challenges in providing decent opportunities in education for newly arrived refugees and integrating them into the mainstream education. according to him, these challenges have intensified since 2015 with the arrival of larger numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. (p. 4) another study in the united states suggests that syrian refugee children in germany and lebanon were faced with a number of challenges related to coping and integrating effectively into the educational system of their host countries.24 in south africa, several complex and unexplained barriers often stand in the way of asylum seekers and refugee family’s access to basic amenities, such as health, social welfare and education. as observed in the work of palmary,25 the south african law is silent on whether or not the asylum seeker awaiting their refugee status permit has a right to these services. this predisposes them to such hardships as taking up jobs and settling in places that are far below economic living standard. consequently, the refugee population in south africa is exposed to conditions that are risky to their life and their overall stay in the country.13,26 in spite of the mandates of the international conventions to which south africa is signatory, refugees and asylum seekers in south africa still face long waits and refusal of permits on a daily basis.27 to elaborate on this, meda28 observed that the inability of refugee and asylum seeking parents to secure and register their preschool-aged children in school was because of delay in their documentation. these delays also affect the young refugee children and their attendance in school. sibanda and vally29 added that the education rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in south africa are suffering at the hands of the public-school managements, who because of one reason or the other do not understand and/or implement the policy around refugee children’s school access and attendance. other issues such as xenophobic attacks and undue discrimination and harm inflicted on the refugee and asylum-seeking families cannot be overemphasised. for example, meda28 pointed out that the present state of affairs with foreign nationals in south africa is believed to be heightened as a result of the limited amenities, which citizens and foreign nationals compete for. to support these findings, bourgonje30 argued that refugees and asylum-seeking children in some of the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) countries (australia, sweden, spain and the united kingdom) still face a lot of obstacles in school enrolment because of the high rates of prejudice, xenophobia and the school’s inability to make a connection to the children’s past school experience. furthermore, perumal31 observed that whilst investigating the experience of refugee children’s attending a bridging programme in a centre at johannesburg, the refugee children who participated in the intervention programme were given the opportunity to access education when they were denied access to the south african public schools because of lack of documentation needed for admission into public schools. accessing basic rights by refugee families and their children appears very difficult.32 in particular, access to social, welfare and health services, adequate programming for assisting unaccompanied children, delays and irregularities around status determination and securing the actual permit remain difficult.11,13 although the south african government has demonstrated a deep-rooted effort towards resettling refugee families and their children to settle into their new environment through the different programmes on ground on their arrival in the country. for example, the continual assistance in providing support through monthly grants for those whose papers are up to date cannot be over-emphasised. moreover, south africa’s non-encampment policy also meant that both refugee and asylum-seeking families are given the opportunity to stay in any part of the country provided they have the right permits. different non-governmental organisations have also been supportive in terms of providing support and awareness for refugee families and their children in south africa. for example, an organisation called the people against suffering, oppression and poverty (passop) that fights for the rights of the asylum seekers, refugee and migrants in south africa observed that the south african school act and the united nations convention on the rights of a child makes provision for the education of all children within the ages of 5 and 15 years to attend school irrespective of the socio-economic and racial background. as outlined in the framework, no learner must be exempted from a state school on the ground of non-payment of registration and school fees, poor language proficiency, race, and religion, ethnic national and social economic background.33 in spite of this provision and recognition of the legal frameworks by all the concerned authorities, many refugee and asylum-seeking families still find it difficult to secure admission for their children in the public primary schools.13,34 the recent and ongoing treatment of refugees reported in schools calls for concern. for instance, the cape town incidence where over 40 children between the ages of 5 and 15 years were denied admission to the cape town public schools is a pointer to the realities facing the refugee population on a daily basis.35 the role of the south african government in receiving refugees from different parts of the world and understanding and protecting their constitutional rights is crucial. the fact that these families have been allowed to resettle in the country meant that their constitutional rights must be protected. access to social welfare and healthcare services including pre-primary and primary school education has to be ensured.2,20 towards effective integration of refugee children in primary schools firstly, this study is premised on the understanding that children’s participation and success in school are directly related to the nature and quality of their academic and social integration in the school. as expounded by,36,37 students’ effective integration into the school system is enhanced through their social and academic interaction with others and materials through the different activities they engage and participate in, in the school. the quality and robustness of such activity and interaction are largely dependent on the availability of stimulating learning and play materials that scaffolds appropriate potentials and skills in children for optimal development. thus, tinto posited that when students are socially integrated into the life of the institution, their academic integration is supported and their performance is improved.38,39 alternatively, inadequate academic integration into the life of the school will negatively impact their social integration and overall success.36 to support the given notion, metz40 observed that factors such as individual interaction with significant others (learners and teachers) the school management, participation in the academic work and students’ involvement in extra-curricular activities in the school system positively impact student’s overall integration into the school system. we argue that the quality of education children experience in the early years of schooling directly impacts how well children perform and thrive in subsequent years in school and in higher education. findings from studies conducted in the south african contexts indicated that refugee children in the primary school are exposed to varied experiences and support, which promotes their integration and participation in school.13,31,41,42 as pointed out by morland and levine,43 the quality of early education the refugee children are exposed to should benefit and support their health, improve their language proficiency and acquisition of maths and reading skills. thus, effective integration and education of refugee children in primary school and early education programmes and availability of a conducive and learner-sensitive learning environment are essential for optimal development and positive educational and health outcomes. discussion the main thrust of this article was to examine and analyse the education access, school integration and participation of refugee children, focusing on refugee children in the primary school in south africa. this was achieved by randomly picking empirical studies and reviews performed on the education of refugee children in their host countries between 2005 and till date. our intention was to understand how the education for refugees is generally conceptualised and the extent to which their lived experiences are captured. to achieve this, insight was drawn from the theory of affordances. in chemero’s reconceptualisation of affordance, he noticed that affordances are the interactions between the abilities of organisms and some distinctive attributes of the environment where the organism lives. the theory was used to understand the interrelatedness between the abilities of the observed organisms (in this case, refugee children) and the features of the environment (host country and the public primary schools). in particular, the article seeks to examine those factors in the refugee children’s immediate environment, which supports their school’s access and their success therein. the findings from the analysis of different research articles suggest that most of the empirical work included in the analysis have their focus on refugee children’s right to education, school practises, school adjustment and achievement11,12,28,31,41 and barriers to educational access to refugee.13,26,44,45 based on these findings, it was noticed that studies are limited to refugee children’s school integration and participation in the primary school life, such as the refugee children in south africa. this article therefore proposes a model that is holistic in its approach. this is important for the refugee population in south africa and beyond if the sdg 4 is to be achieved by 2030. the suggested model put into consideration the factors that may enhance equal access and quality education and support system that will promote effective integration and participation of refugee children in school and beyond. this is believed to have the potential of impacting refugee children’s school success, including other children who may require educational support. in the proposed model, elements from the social and academic integration frameworks of tinto36 and chemero’s affordance model of 20033 were incorporated. this includes inclusive policies that cater for refugee children’s academic and social needs in school and beyond, intervention programmes in schools, training and re-training of teachers to assist refugee children integrate effectively in public schools, stakeholder’s collaboration, home-school collaboration, receptive attitudes from local nationals, continuous review of school policies and departmental curriculum to meet the needs of refugee population. it is understood that the model may be a bit cumbersome and difficult to implement in empirical studies. based on this understanding, a careful review of the suggested model by scholars, stakeholders and policymakers becomes eminent. furthermore, findings from the analysis also suggest that the south african government welcomes refugee families including unaccompanied children into the country, without imposing a clause with regard to where to stay in the country. it was also noticed that the government made provision for monthly grants to assist refugees who are unemployed to sustain their family during their stay in the country. the steps and initiatives taken by some school’s management to create an enabling and inclusive learning environment through the implementation of intervention programmes for refugee children to thrive in the primary schools are observed. however, what we see as missing in the provision of access and assisting refugee children to integrate effectively into the public school relates to the inability of some schools to be inclusive in their approach, clauses in admission policies in different schools, lack of implementation and supervision of the content of both the international and national legal frameworks, which might support refugee children’s effective integration and participation in school. thus, this study argues that, for refugee children to adequately integrate into the social and academic life of the formal school and thrive therein in their different host countries, it is important that a social system that is well structured, well equipped, conducive and encourages the full participation of all learners is put in place in the formal school for optimal realisation of learning and developmental outcomes. conclusion in summary, research evidence has established the importance of early school attendance as a driving force for children’s participation and academic achievement in school. children from refugee background should not be excluded from this lifelong opportunity. thus, this research argues that equal access and quality early education and attendance for all children are a sure means of unlocking issues around school access and closing the school participation and achievement gap between children from resource-poor contexts, including those from refugee backgrounds and their peers.13 this will require a joint effort from stakeholders and individuals involved, including all citizenry. thus, we argue for an expansive access, including social and academic support interventions that are balanced in terms of promoting individual child’s abilities and needs for optimal development. this might open new opportunities and expand the provision of support and guarantee success for this population in school and beyond. it is envisaged that the different stages of implementation might be faced with challenges, it is believed that a stringent and well-monitored process might lead to a successful adaptation and resettlement of the refugee population in their various countries of residence. arguing from equity and quality of services point of view, it becomes necessary that children from culturally and socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds (such as refugees) be given equal opportunity and support needed to access basic education and other services, which will lead to the actualisation of the 2030 sdgs. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions ethical considerations approval for the study was obtained from the university of kwazulu-natal, ethics committee, south africa, reference number: hss/0343/019. funding information this research receives no specific grant from any agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the 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resettlement organizations: providing a head start to young refugees. yc young child. 2016;71(4):69. aydin h, kaya y. the educational needs of and barriers faced by syrian refugee students in turkey: a qualitative case study. intercult educ. 2017;28(5):456–473. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2017.1336373 bačáková m, closs a. continuing professional development (cpd) as a means to reducing barriers to inclusive education: research study of the education of refugee children in the czech republic. eur j spec needs educ. 2013;28(2):203–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2013.778108 http://www.td-sa.net open access page 1 of 1 reviewer acknowledgement acknowledgement to reviewers in an effort to facilitate the selection of appropriate peer reviewers for the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, we ask that you take a moment to update your electronic portfolio on https://td-sa.net for our files, allowing us better access to your areas of interest and expertise, in 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transdisciplinary research in southern africa. should names have inadvertently been excluded from this list, the publisher apologises and undertakes to amend the exclusion in the next volume. adriaan j. van der walt alethea c. de villiers aletta j. van as amy allwright anthony brown asphat muposhi avasha rambiritch betty c. mubangizi cecile gerwel proches cherese f. jones christina a. jordaan christopher j. burman cora burnett-louw dipolelo r. malema eben swanepoel elizabeth rudolph elmarie van wyk enaleen e. draai eric j. nealer ewie erasmus gavin e. heath gerrit van der waldt hannelie louw hermie e. delport hugo h. lotriet izak van zyl jacobus s. wessels jacques du plessis james chakwizira jan h. cruywagen janet condy jean fourie jeann dickinson jennifer fitchett johan wassermann johan botha joseph s. kau laura dison lesley wood lettie botha livy t. mamiala logamurthie athiemoolam makhura b. rapanyane mareve i. biljohn marie m. oelofse mariette liefferink marlize c. pretorius marshall t. maposa martina jordaan matthys j. swanepoel megan doidge michel tshiyoyo ncamisile p. mthiyane nic theo nico (niekie) van der merwe nonhlanhla maseko oliver mtapuri paul goldschagg ramodungoane tabane raymond n. fru rené ferguson reville nussey ronel de villiers sanlie middelberg sarah roffe sarina de jager shan simmonds sonja brink suriamurthee maistry tendayi garutsa terence q. ndlovu teresa dirsuweit teresa connor thanesha rajoo thifhelimbilu j. musandiwa tracey j.m. mckay william kelleher xolani khohliso xolile thani zelma mokobane http://www.td-sa.net� https://td-sa.net� https://td-sa.net https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/user https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/user mailto:publishing@aosis.co.za microsoft word 01 kroeze.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(1) july 2012, pp. 1 16. how to eat: 1 vegetarianism, religion and law ij kroeze∗∗ abstract the approach of critical legal studies that law is a cultural artefact that can be criticised is taken as point of departure in this paper. this insight is applied to food as a very important cultural artefact that permeates virtually every aspect of our personal and social lives. the paper then examines three types of restrictive diets, namely kosher food production, halal food rules and vegetarianism. from this study it concludes that all three perform a vital social function of providing adherents with a unifying and identifying set of rules to foster social coherence. but it also provides adherents with a strong moral foundation that serves to justify a sense of moral superiority. most importantly, all three these diets rest on a modernist view of morality in which absolute, unquestioning and universal truths are possible. it therefore serves to provide certainty in the postmodern condition of uncertainty and relativism. for that reason this study concludes that vegetarianism is the new religion – it provides people who no longer believe in traditional religions with a new certainty. keywords: legal philosophy, food as politics, religion, vegetarianism disciplines: law, philosophy, ethics, environmental studies 1. introduction the history of what we eat is indisputably the history of how we live and who we are.2 law is often portrayed as a neutral and objective enterprise. it is seen as something that transcends ordinary human activity. but, legal philosophers and other legal academics, have become used to the claim of critical legal studies that “law is politics”.3 while many 1 the title is derived from lawson n how to eat: the pleasures and principles of good food (random house london 1999). ∗∗ irma j kroeze is professor in the department of jurisprudence, university of south africa, pretoria. her qualifications include: ba; honns ba; llb; llm (potch); lld (unisa); international professional chefs diploma (london city & guilds). contact details: kroezij@unisa.ac.za. 2 lawson n kitchen: recipes from the heart of the home (hyperion london 2010) xii. 3 see minda g postmodern legal movements: law and jurisprudence at century's end (nyu press new york 1995). kroeze 2 certainly do not accept this as true, it is at least no longer a strange statement to make. what cls means by this is of course not that law embodies party-political ambitions or ideas (although it often does) but that law is one of the sites where the conflict about “what shall we do and how shall we live” is played out. law is therefore one of the cultural artefacts that display our political struggles and power plays. law is a cultural artefact and therefore subject to critique. in much the same vein as the traditional claims about law, dieticians are fond of characterising food as fuel. they do this partly to justify the restrictive diets they prescribe to help their clients lose weight. but archaeologists and sociologists know that food is much more.4 food can tell you what past civilisations were like; when humans became settled farmers who ate grains; how rich these societies were and so forth. food is at the centre of human rituals, celebrations, bereavement and even violence. in fact it is difficult to imagine any of these without the accompanying food. the point of departure of this paper is therefore that food is another site where the conflict about what we do and how we live takes place. food, whether in the form of eating, production or ritual is an enormously important cultural artefact. we do not eat merely to function as more efficient machines. we eat to satisfy our senses, to communicate, to celebrate, to entice and seduce, to please the god(s), to impress, etc. we have imbued food with a meaning that goes far beyond its status as “fuel”. therefore, as berry states: there is, then, a politics of food that, like any politics, involves our freedom.5 in cls terms food, like law, is a form that power sometimes takes.6 food and the withholding of food can be used to reward, to punish or to regulate behaviour – much like legal rules.7 what we eat, how we eat and why we eat is determined by social, cultural and religious considerations, to name but a few. from this it is clear that it is impossible to discuss food and food-related questions from a single disciplinary perspective. it requires the input of various disciplines to achieve a complete picture of a certain problem. in this paper, perspectives from religion, philosophy, law, environmental studies, sociology and ethics are brought to bear on a study of the restrictive diet known as vegetarianism and the social and political justifications thereof. it uses the example of two religious systems of restrictive diets to provide a basis for a critical evaluation of vegetarianism. in a certain sense all diets are restrictive diets. of course, sometimes diets are restrictive due to scarcity, such as in the case of the inuit and the san. but there are food taboos in every 4 see watson lj and caldwell ml “introduction” in the cultural politics of food and eating: a reader (blackwell malden ma 2005) 1-10 1 where food is characterised as “a window on the political”. 5 berry w “the pleasures of eating” in curtin dw and heldke lm (eds) cooking, eating, thinking: transformative philosophies of food (indiana university press 1992) 374-379. 6 see for example heldke lm “food politics, political food” in curtin dw and heldke lm (eds) cooking, eating, thinking: transformative philosophies of food (indiana university press bloomington in 1992) 301-327. 7 this is particularly evident in the way parent use food to reward, punish or regulate the behaviour of their children, for example withholding dessert when the child has been “bad”. how to eat 3 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 1-16. culture, ranging from severe to minimal depending on a large range of factors that have nothing to do with scarcity. this paper will investigate three examples of restrictive diets. restrictive diets are shown to share a number of characteristics that will become clear in the rest of the paper. the hypothesis of the paper is that these kinds of diets serve to establish group solidarity and provide adherents with a form of ethical groundedness or justification. to discuss this, the paper is divided into three sections. the first section will discuss three restrictive diets, namely kosher food production, halal rules relating to food and vegetarianism/veganism8. this section will include a look at the specific rules, regulations, beliefs, practices and oddities as well as the metaphysical bases of these.9 the first two will necessitate going into specific rules in some detail to establish a benchmark for comparison with vegetarianism. the second section is a brief analysis of the animal rights debate that seems to be inextricably entwined with vegetarianism. based on these multidisciplinary insights, the last section will provide a critical conclusion about vegetarianism as a form of religion. 2. three restrictive diets 2.1 kashrut (or kosher) dietary laws one of the oldest and best known of the religious restrictive diets is the one associated with the jewish faith. the dietary laws, found mainly in the torah, determines which foods are kashruth, that is, fit for human consumption.10 jewish dietary laws allow the consumption of fruit and vegetables with little or no restriction. when it comes to animal products, the law addresses three issues. in the first place some animals are regarded as “allowed”. these include all ruminants that chew their cud and have split hooves, traditional domestic birds and fish with fins and scales.11 these are all considered tahor or clean.12 it therefore excludes, for example, pigs, 8 this paper will use the term vegetarianism throughout to refer to both vegetarianism and veganism. it is acknowledged that there are ideological differences not only between these two approaches, but also within them. these will be discussed in 3.3 below. 9 this study will not include an analysis of the nature of religion and religious beliefs, as that would necessitate an article of its own. for present purposes the emphasis is on specific religious rules in recognised religions and how they correspond to vegetarian injunctions. 10 the more familiar term “kosher” is a yiddish word for the more correct hebrew term. the jewish system of law, called halacha, is based on biblical injunctions as well as the talmud and the interpretations and extensions provided by rabbis. see masoudi gf “kosher food regulation and the religion clause of the first amendment” 1993 university of chicago law review 667-696 668; regenstein jm and regenstein ce “current issues in kosher food” 1991 trends in food science and technology 50-54; regenstein jm, chaudry mm and regenstein ce “the kosher and halal food laws” 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 111-127 111; blech zy kosher food production (wiley-blackwell ames 2004) xxi. 11 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 113; regenstein and regenstein 1991 trends in food science and technology 50; belch kosher food 167-168, 188-190. 12 masoudi 1993 u chic lr 668; freedman se the book of kashruth:a treasury of kosher facts and frauds (bloch new york 1970) 100 – 120. kroeze 4 wild birds and crustaceans. this is by no means a simple distinction, as controversy exists around the fitness of animals like ostriches, pheasant, quail and turkey.13 in the second place jewish law prescribes the manner in which animals must be slaughtered, detailing the person who performs the slaughter (the shochet), the knife used and the method.14 an animal is not stunned prior to slaughter.15 after its throat has been cut in the prescribed manner, the animal must “bleed out” before being inspected for any defects. it is also required that the animal's sciatic nerve must be removed and the meat must be soaked and salted16 before cooking. this is all done to remove any trace of blood.17 there is, therefore, an absolute prohibition on the consumption of blood. in the third place, based on a biblical injunction that “thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk”,18 jewish law prohibits the mixing of milk (and milk-derived products) with meat. this prohibition leads to products being divided into meat, dairy and neutral. the last-mentioned category includes eggs, fish, honey and resin.19 orthodox jews do not mix meat and dairy and will use different implements and storage to ensure that they are kept apart.20 it is therefore okay to eat meat and eggs together, but not meat and cheese. despite the extensive rules and regulations about food, controversy still exists about a number of foods. these will not be dealt with extensively here, but they include issues surrounding grape products,21 cheese, milk from non-kosher animals being mixed in with those of cows, flour and early fruit.22 in addition, a distinction is made between kosher food and food that is kosher for passover, but this distinction is not now relevant. the important point is that these laws are not intended to regulate for the purpose of hygiene. scholars are at pains to emphasise that the laws are “mainly spiritual” and is “related 13 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 113, masoudi 1993 u chic lr 670. 14 freedman kashruth 28 – 46 characterises this as “humane slaughter”. see also solomon n “judaism” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 222 – 223. 15 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 114; masoudi 1993 u chic lr; regenstein and regenstein 1991 trends in food science and technology 50; belch kosher food 190-201. 16 there are even requirements about the size of the salt crystal, leading to the development of the salt popular with chefs, known as “kosher salt”. see regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 115. 17 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 115. 18 this prohibition appears three times in the bible (exodus 23:19; exodus 34:36 and deuteronomy 14:21) and is therefore taken very seriously. see regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 115; masoudi 1993 u chic lr 669; regenstein and regenstein 1991 trends in food science and technology 50. 19 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 116. 20 masoudi 1993 u chic lr 669-670; belch kosher food 37-40. 21 jewish law does not prohibit the use of alcohol, but it regulates how and when the grapes are harvested, pressed and pasteurised. see regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 116. 22 for an extensive discussion of this, see regenstein and regenstein 1991 trends in food science and technology 52 – 53; regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 116 – 119; belch kosher food 253 – 537. how to eat 5 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 1-16. to holiness”.23 holiness or self-sanctification is regarded as identical to moral autonomy or moral freedom and the laws are given to the community without the need for explanation.24 american courts have formulated it in the following way: (the rules are) deeply symbolic ... of the basic relationship between god and man... (complying with the rules) is one of the important ways by which the faithful are reminded of the presence of the significant in the commonplace ... (compliance) affects the moral and spiritual character of the individual, which ultimately determines his well being and salvation.25 one of the aspects that is not explicitly mentioned in the literature is the way in which kosher food is seen as defining and delimiting a specific community.26 one commentator does mention that the rules (mitzvos) were designed to “unify people” in a spiritual sense.27 but this purpose is clearly inherent in the assumptions about the availability of rabbis to certify food, shochets to slaughter animals, certifying symbols and kosher butchers and restaurants. without the supporting community, maintaining a kosher lifestyle would be impossible. much like tattoos define members of a gang, kosher adherence guarantees group identification and coherence. quite apart from its religious and communal aspects, kosher food production and regulation have obvious legal implications. state regulation is required to protect consumers against fraudulent claims and misrepresentation28 and there are constitutional issues in the provision of kosher food to prisoners and soldiers.29 lastly a case might be made that the required method of slaughtering contravenes animal welfare legislation, which could also lead to constitutional disputes.30 2.2 sharia rules about food given the historical and geographical closeness of the origins of the world's great monotheistic religions, it comes as no surprise that there are similarities between jewish and 23 masoudi 1993 u chic lr 667 – 668. see also fuchs s “enhancing the divine” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 224 – 234. see also douglas m purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo (penguin books harmondsworth 1970) 64: “the precepts and ceremonies alike are focused on the idea of the holiness of god which men must create in their own lives.” 24 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 111; freedman kashruth 3. 25 united states v kahane 396 f supp 693 (edny 1975). 26 douglas purity and danger 65 indicates that “wholeness” also implies completeness in the social context. there is also the strong link between ritual and social interaction – see page 78: “as a social animal, man is a ritual animal”. 27 freedman kashruth 4 – 5. 28 masoudi 1993 u chic lr 671 – 674. 29 see eg. abramovsky a “first amendment rights of jewish prisoners: kosher food, skullcaps, and beards” 1994 american journal of criminal law 241 – 272. 30 in particular this could lead to a conflict between the animal protection act 71 of 1962 and section 15 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 even though the first act does not prohibit inhumane slaughter. kroeze 6 islamic food laws. but in a sense the islamic rules are more forgiving.31 islamic law on food is contained in the quran and in the sunna (practices of the prophet mohammed) as recorded in the hadith.32 this is complemented by the ijma and the qiyas as sources of law. sharia law relating to food is based on the following principles. in principle all meat is allowed except if it is prohibited. prohibited are pigs, boars, carnivorous animals and birds of prey.33 in most cases all fish are halal, but not animals that live both on land and in the water (like frogs, turtles, crocodiles and seals),34 as well as eels and sharks.35 insects are mostly acceptable, but some are prohibited.36 like in jewish law, there is an absolute ban on the consumption of blood37, but there is no restriction on mixing meat and dairy. the animal must be slaughtered in a way that echoes jewish law, except that the name of allah must be invoked at the time of slaughter. the animal must also bleed out. unlike for kosher food, salting and soaking of the meat is not required.38 the slaughtering requirements do not apply to fish. fish, even if it died of natural causes, is halal. unlike in kosher law, the consumption of alcohol or intoxicants is absolutely prohibited,39 except if the amount of alcohol is below 0.1%.40 it is interesting to note that, contrary to popular belief, up to 5% of alcohol remains in food after two and a half hours of cooking.41 it is therefore highly unlikely that setting fire to a pan (as tv chefs like to do) will “burn off” the alcohol. 31 forward m and alam m “islam” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 235 – 237 explains that islam developed on the edges of the desert and muslims are therefore not “mawkish” about food and killing. 32 bonne k and verbeke w “religious values informing halal meat production and the control and delivery of halal credence quality” 2008 agriculture and human values 35 – 47 38; regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 111. 33 minns rl “food fights: redefining the current boundaries of the government's positive obligation to provide halal” 2001 journal of law and politics 713 – 738 717 – 718. see also regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 121. 34 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 121. 35 bonne and verbeke 2008 agriculture and human values 38. 36 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 121: bees, ants, spiders, lice, fleas and mosquitoes are all prohibited. 37 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 121. 38 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 121 – 122; minns 2001 jl & p 717. 39 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 122. 40 however, bonne and verbeke 2008 agriculture and human values 39 states that, whereas the consumption of pork is regarded as a rejection of faith and group rulings, alcohol consumption is more or less tolerated “since its consumption provides a certain pleasure in contrast to the consumption of pork meat”. 41 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 123; minns 2001 jl & p 718. how to eat 7 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 1-16. meat of animals killed by ahl-al-kitab (“people of the book” – i.e. jews and christians) is regarded as halal.42 this is problematic, as christian practices and ideas certainly do not conform to muslim requirements.43 apart from the prohibition on alcohol, halal does not have any requirement regarding the production of food as is the case for kosher food. like in jewish law, there is still controversy over certain products, including the storage of halal meat, a halal meningitis vaccine and halal makeup.44 in much the same way as kosher food relies on a community to support the lifestyle, halal food requires a social support structure. because of the slaughtering requirements, coupled with the ban on alcohol and blood, halal food implies a whole set of people who provide services and support.45 and, in much the same way, halal also implies state regulation of the provision of products46 and the possibilities of constitutional challenges.47 2.3 vegetarianism now it turns out that even fish feel pain. this is the growing complication of the modern condition, the expanding circle of moral sympathy48 vegetarianism can be broadly defined as a restrictive diet where meat and animal products are avoided to a larger or lesser degree. in academic writing, vegetarians are divided into lactovegetarians (who include dairy in the diet); ovo-vegetarians (who eat eggs); lacto-ovovegetarians (who include both dairy products and eggs) and vegans (who do not include any animal products in their diets).49 but in reality it encompasses a large variety of diets ranging from the strict (where all animal products are avoided, i.e. veganism) to the liberal (which includes anything from eggs and dairy to fish and sometimes red meat on occasion).50 42 regenstein ea 2003 comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety 122. 43 bonne and verbeke 2008 agriculture and human values 35 states that most religions prohibit certain foods “with the notable exception of christianity, which has no food taboos”. this is based on mark 7:19 where jesus declared all food clean. 44 see power c “halal: buying muslim” http://search.time.com/results.html?n=0&nty=1&p=0&cmd=tags&srchcat=full+archive&ntt=halal %3abuying+muslim&x=13&y=15 (date of use 22 november 2011). 45 power http://search.time.com/results.html?n=0&nty=1&p=0&cmd=tags&srchcat=full+archive&ntt=halal %3abuying+muslim&x=13&y=15 (date of use 22 november 2011) reports on developments that focus on muslim travellers to provide the kind of hotels and restaurants that mimic the community at home. 46 see bonne and verbeke 2008 agriculture and human values 39 – 42. 47 minns 2001 jl & p 713 – 738. 48 mcewan i saturday (doubleday new york 2005) 127. 49 antony ac “vegetarianism and vitamin b-12 (cobalamin) deficiency” 2003 american journal of clinical nutrition 3-6 3. 50 beardsworth ad and keil et “contemporary vegetarianism in the uk: challenge and incorporation?” 1993 appetite 229-234 229. kroeze 8 just as there are many kinds of vegetarianisms, there are many reasons why a vegetarian diet is followed. in the case of kosher and halal diets, mere membership of a religious group is enough to justify the restrictions. vegetarianism does not enjoy this luxury of a more-or-less self-evident justification – it must construct it.51 reasons for following a vegetarian diet fall into two broad categories: moral arguments and non-moral arguments. within these two categories there are a multitude of different arguments. these will be dealt with in more detail below.52 in the case of the jewish and halal rules, people adhere to the restrictive diets because of the spiritual element it contains. the question that needs to be asked is whether this spiritual element is also present in a vegetarian restrictive diet regime? authors suggest that there are two success factors for long-term adherence to the diet. people maintain these restrictive diets either because of an “epiphanic moment” (they had an epiphany)53 or because they have an effective social support structure.54 in this context it is important to remember that the word “epiphany” means a meeting with god. apparently vegetarians, like religious people, need a supernatural moment to see the light.55 and, like the religious restrictive diets discussed above, their diets rely on and are constitutive of their social systems. to date there is nothing in south african law to regulate the use of labels like "vegetarian" and “vegan”. this obviously leaves open the possibility for fraud and misrepresentation. even with the obligation to provide nutritional and ingredient information on products, the terminology often makes it difficult to determine what exactly goes into products that claim to be vegetarian or vegan.56 if this is ever to be rectified, vegetarians would need a certifying body (such as the kosher and halal certifications bodies) to insure against fraud and misrepresentation. 3. justifications for vegetarianism as stated above, vegetarianism does not have a self-evident justification based on religious faith. it needs to construct one. frey distinguishes between moral and non-moral arguments for vegetarianism. 57 non-moral arguments are, of course, not completely devoid of moral considerations, as we shall see. but these kinds of arguments at most provide justification for 51 it is, of course, possible to regard all religions and religious rules also as cultural artefacts and therefore subject to the same critique as law and food. for now, however, the internal view of members of these religions is taken as point of departure. 52 see section 3 below. 53 cherry e “veganism as a cultural movement: a relational approach” 2006 social movement studies 155 – 170 156 quotes a number of studies on this, although she does not agree with them. 54 cherry 2006 social movement studies 155 157, 161. 55 this moral aspect of vegetarianism is emphasised by beardsworth and keil 1993 appetite 229-230. 56 for example, fry's vegetarian chicken style burgers contains vegetable proteins (soya), wheat flour, flavorings, vegetable oil, fiber, cellulose extract, sea salt, garlic. (see http://www.frysvegetarian.co.za/products/frys-vegetarian-chicke-style-burger/ ) exactly what flavorings are used is not explained, nor is it clear what fiber is used and why two types of fiber (fiber and cellulose) should be required. all in all, this is not a particularly helpful list of ingredients. 57 frey rg rights, killing, and suffering (blackwell oxford 1983) 6. how to eat 9 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 1-16. choosing a specific kind of lifestyle. moral arguments, on the other hand, seek to do more. it seeks to provide vegetarianism with a moral content that is on a par with the religious grounds. this will hopefully become clear in the following discussion. 3.1 non-moral arguments 3.1.1 the health argument the health argument is based on the idea that a vegetarian diet is a healthier diet than a diet that includes meat. there are a number of problems with this idea. in the first place there is no scientific evidence for this. there simply are no double-blind, controlled, longitudinal studies that have a large enough sample group to substantiate such a claim.58 in the second place the claim is too generalised to be acceptable. while the problems associated with consumption of too much red meat have become folk wisdom, many nutritionists do not accept such a simplistic view.59 in addition, it has become clear that certain animal fats (such as omega 3, 6 and 9) have a very beneficial effect on health.60 in the third place such a claim is too a-contextual to be taken seriously. for example, a pregnant woman can follow a vegan diet, provided she has the resources to be able to purchase expensive supplements. without such supplements the chances of a successful pregnancy and a healthy baby is seriously diminished. and the vast majority of women in poor countries do not have such resources.61 vegetarianism then becomes an option only available to the rich. finally there are serious health risks associated with strict vegetarianism, such as vitamin b-12, iron and calcium deficiencies.62 the point is not, of course, that a vegetarian diet is an unhealthy diet. the point is that diets are never in and of themselves “good” or “bad” for your health. it depends on who the eater is, what his/her context is, what the balance of the diet is like and, importantly, how the food is prepared. totalising grand narratives about health and “good” diets simply serve no purpose. 58 for a clear explanation of what would constitute a proper, scientific study, see goldacre b bad science (fourth estate london 2008) 41 – 62 in the context of homeopathy. 59 see www.discovery.co.za/email_za/mailers/pdfs/general/noakes.pdf [date of use 09 march 2012] on prof t noakes' reversal of his view on the importance of meat in the diet. see also http://www.paleodietandliving.com [date of use 09 march 2012]. 60 to date no vegetable fat has been found that contain omega fats in a form that the human body can digest. see http://theconsciouslife.com/anti-inflammatory-diet-how-to-balance-omega-3-omega-6fats.htm [date of use 09 march 2012]: “but in real life, studies found that the ala (plant-based omega fats) conversion rate in the body is dismally low. in fact, only about 1% of ala is converted to epa and negligible amount is turned into dha.” see also goldacre bad science 134 – 135. 61 george kp “a feminist critique of ethical vegetarianism” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 216 – 221 arguing that the absolutist morality behind vegetarianism is structured around the ideal of male health. 62 antony 2003 american journal of clinical nutrition 3 – 6. kroeze 10 3.1.2 the environmental argument the environmental argument proceeds from the assumption that meat farming is bad for the environment. 63 but one has to be careful about terminology here. if by “environment” one refers to the contamination of soil and water, it certainly warrants investigation. but if by that term reference is being made to global warming/climate change, the whole debate becomes completely different. there is very little doubt that large-scale industrial/factory farming of animals presents a serious threat in terms of soil and water pollution.64 but the point that needs to be made is that this is also true of large-scale industrial crop farming. large-scale crop farming (rice, wheat, maize and soy beans in particular) contributes significantly to pollution through the use of pesticides and fertilisers65, promotes soil erosion,66 contributes to the destruction of rainforests (most notably for farming of soy beans)67 and produces methane gas. the main point is that it is not the farming of either animals or crops that causes the problems – it is the method of farming.68 in this regard some vegetarians (zamir calls them “tentative” vegans) base their food choices on the fact that they find current farming practices (i.e. factory farming) to be unnecessarily cruel to the animals and bad for the environment.69 they are willing to consider using animal products if and when farming practices change.70 but there is also the widespread idea that the flatulence of cattle produces methane in such large quantities that it has a significant impact on global warming. this needs to be debunked on several grounds. first of all cattle, due to their digestive systems, do not fart. they burp. and that does contain methane. a small point perhaps, but indicative of the generalisations that mark this debate. secondly there are serious reasons to think that the 63 it must be borne in mind that many countries do not have a choice when it comes to deciding whether to farm crops or animals. some countries simply do not have the arable land required for crop – such as for example the karoo, japan, peru, egypt and tanzania. see rogers jjw and feiss pg people and the earth: basic issues in the sustainability of resources and environment (cambrdige university press new york 1998) 47. 64 niman nh righteous porkchop: finding a life and good food beyond factory farms (collins new york 2009) provides a detailed account of exactly how much soil and water is being polluted by factory farming. 65 berry “the pleasures of eating” 376. 66 rogers and feiss people of the earth 63: “replacement of natural vegetation by agricultural crops probably causes more soil erosion than overgrazing. grass prevents erosion by binding the soil. ... (m)ost other food plants, however, have stalks that are rooted in the soil but leave large areas of bare dirt in between.” 67 fearnside pm “soybean cultivation as a threat to the environment in brazil” 2001 environmental conservation 23 – 38 and sources quoted therein. 68 see weis t the global food economy: the battle for the future of farming (zed books london 2007) 30-32. see also the argument addressed in 3.1.3 below as they share some concerns. 69 in this regard zamir distinguishes between “tentative” vegans (vegans who will think about eating meat of the treatment of animals improve) and vegans (who would be vegan now and in an ideal state) – see zamir 2004 j soc phil 367 374. 70 the problem in many cases is that free range farming leads to products that is out of reach of most people and such a situation is not moral, as a moral lifestyle cannot depend on the amount of money you have – see zamir 2004 j soc phil 367 379 note 9. how to eat 11 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 1-16. threat of global warming is at least over-stated.71 finally, it is probable that methane from cattle (or humans for that matter) contributes very little to global methane production. the primary suspects seem to be oil refining, natural swamps, rice paddies and then commercial farms.72 once again, it all depends on your perspective and on confirmation bias. 3.1.3 the scarcity/hunger argument. the final argument is the scarcity/hunger argument: the argument goes something like this: globally about 655 million tons of cereal is fed to animals to produce 61 million tons of animal protein73. this is hugely wasteful and if only we fed these cereals directly to people, we could eliminate hunger. a vegetarian diet will therefore effectively eradicate hunger.74 now there are three points to be made immediately. firstly, there is a real and widespread problem of hunger, and not only in the developing world. secondly, this argument would not even arise if animal were reared using grassland and shrubs instead of feeding them wheat and soy so that, once again, the problem lies with industrial farming practices. thirdly we could certainly feed many people with that amount of cereal, but the real question is: would we? it is important to realise upfront that the problem with hunger is not that there is not enough food. on the contrary, agricultural productivity has been growing steadily throughout the twentieth century. the un world food programme estimates that the volume of food produced is more than one and a half times what is needed to provide every person on earth with a nutritious diet.75 so why do we have so much hunger? the reasons are complex but ironically it has everything to do with surplus food. the story is instructive: in the late 1960's america was faced with a huge surplus of wheat and consequently introduced the idea of “food power” politics. what that meant is that they devalued the dollar, then sold the surplus wheat cheaply to various countries. most of these countries did not normally consume wheat so they fed them to animals. when the price of wheat went up again, most of these farmers could not keep on feeding their by now expanded herds and sold the meat cheaply. because wheat now fetched better prices, farmers once again over-produced wheat and the cycle would start all over again.76 it is this process of chronic surplus that first fuelled the demand for cheap animal products. 71 see lawson n an appeal to reason: a cool look at global warming (overlook tp london 2009) and montford aw the hockey stick illusion: climategate and the corruption of science (stacey intl london 2010). 72 see http://www.epa.gov/outreach/sources.html [date of use: 11 march 2012] for a list of methane producers identified by the united states environmental protection agency for that country. it will be different in every country. 73 weis global food economy 41. 74 frey rights, killing and suffering 17 – 21. 75 weis global food economy 11; food and agricultural organisation of the united nations the state of food insecurity in the world 2003: monitoring progress toward the world food summit and millennium development goals (rome 2003). see also http://faostat.fao.org for more recent statistics. see also lappé fm and collins j food first: beyond the myth of scarcity (ballantine books boston 1977) 7: “every country in the world has the capacity to feed itself.” 76 lappé and collins food first 22 – 26; weis global food economy 47 – 88. kroeze 12 authors agree that the problem of hunger is not created by a lack of food (whether animal based or not) but by the global economic system that makes it impossible for people to access the food that is available.77 as long as food is something bought and sold in a society with great income differences, the degree of hunger tells us nothing...78 in africa in particular, this basic problem has been aggravated by colonialism and the more recent interference by both western and non-western powers. in somalia, for example, america “donated” large amounts of food, when there was really no necessity for it. but government officials sold this to their own people at hugely reduced prices, thereby making it impossible for crop farmers to compete. the net result is that global politics and greed destroyed crop farming in that country, leaving it dependent on foreign food aid.79 3.1.4 conclusion the point of this discussion has not been to indicate that all is well with farming and that we can happily continue to have our chicken and eat it too. far from it. the point is that things are not as simple as they seem. in all these cases politics, whether global or local, play an enormous role in our decisions regarding the food that we eat. it therefore substantiates the claim of this paper that food is politics. 3.2 the moral arguments vegetarianism is not a new idea. in fact, arguments to support it can be traced back as far as the greek philosophers. and these arguments have always linked a vegetarian diet to moral and spiritual superiority.80 contemporary moral arguments do not follow the rather crude physiological arguments of earlier ages. it focuses on what might broadly be characterised as “animal rights”. 3.2.1 animal rights the term “animal rights” is a sort of shorthand to convey a complex set of ideas. it is tempting for lawyers to read this as a claim for rights in the legal sense. although this has been mooted,81 it is not the meaning typically ascribed to the term.82 “animal rights” can be used in a wider and a narrower sense. in a wider sense it indicates the idea that animals have some kind of moral status – whatever that might mean and however that might be justified. 77 see shaw dj world food security: a history since 1945 (macmillan new york 2007) 78 lappé and collins food first 18. 79 rogers and feiss people and the earth 50. 80 whorton jc “historical development of vegetarianism” 1994 american journal of clinical nutrition 1103 – 1109. 81 see feinberg j “human duties and animal rights” in morris r and fox m (eds) on the fifth day: animal rights and human ethics (acropolis books washington 1978) 45 – 69; epstein ra “animals as subjects, or objects, of rights” in nussbaum m and sunstein c (eds) animal rights: current debates and new directions (oxford university press oxford 2002) 143 – 161. 82 palmer c “introduction” in animal rights (aldershot london 2008) xiii – xxxi xv. how to eat 13 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 1-16. the narrower meaning is the one associated with rights theory and arguments tend to revolve around the question of whether rights theory is a good way of dealing with this.83 the debate about animal rights is a wide-ranging one and it would be impossible to deal with all arguments in one article. the discussion that follows is therefore necessarily selective. singer is probably the best known of the animal rights advocates. following bentham,84 he argues that the capacity of suffering is what confers moral status.85 basically the argument is that, if a being can suffer, it has interests; if it has interests, they must be taken into account morally on an equal footing with all other holders of interests. to do otherwise would be speciesist. he uses the position of infants and the mentally handicapped to show that full rationality is not the criterion for equality, as we grant equal moral status to such people. at least some animals are comparable to these humans and should therefore have the same moral status.86 the problem with singer's argument is that the comparison between infants and the mentally handicapped on the one hand and animals on the other hand does not hold up. his view of “equal moral consideration” is based on a fairly old-fashioned modernist view of morality and of equality. the fact of the matter is that we do not grant equal moral consideration to infants, the mentally handicapped or even other fully rational adult humans (like those in prison). sometimes they are accorded more consideration, often less depending on familial bonds, cultural beliefs and social dynamics.87 regan argues for animal rights on the basis of rights theory, because that allows him to focus on individuals (human and non-human) as the “experiencing subject of a life”.88 in brief his argument is that if you have the qualities of welfare, beliefs, preferences, memory, feeling, etc you have inherent value and those with value have some rights. following from that, if you have inherent value you have it equally with everyone else. cohen points out that regan conflates the term “inherent value” with “value” in the kantian sense. the first meaning refers to the idea that every unique life has some worth and this is unproblematic. however, the second meaning requires the possession of the capacity to make moral judgements and to take on duties.89 cohen therefore rejects regan's animal rights thesis because animals do not have value in the second, kantian sense. in a similar vein frey argues that animals do not have interests, wants, desires and beliefs and therefore 83 palmer “introduction” xv. 84 bentham j an introduction to the principles of morals and legislation (w pickering london 1823) 311: “the question is not, can they reason?, nor can they talk? but, can they suffer?” 85 singer p “all animals are equal” in regan t and singer p (eds) animal rights and human obligations (prentice-hall englewood cliffs 1976) 73 – 86. 86 singer “all animals are equal” 80. 87 to that one might add that it is sometimes argued that animals really cannot suffer since they lack a right neocortex and a prefrontal neocortex, making singer's argument more dubious. see bernard b “the myth of animal suffering” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 79 – 85. 88 regan t “the case for animal rights” in singer p (ed) in defense of animals (blackwell new york 1985) 13 – 26. 89 cohen c “reply to tom regan” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 17 – 24. kroeze 14 do not have rights.90 the argument is that rights require interests; interests require beliefs and beliefs require language to express them. since animals do not have language, they cannot have rights. finally, francione argues that one should see the use of animals as analogous to human slavery.91 he rejects both singer and regan's arguments, stating instead that “only sentience is relevant” and that animal rights advocacy should ... be directed at promoting veganism and the incremental eradication of the property status of nonhumans.92 exactly what constitutes “sentience” is, however, never fully explored. it is a centuries old problem in philosophy, usually discussed as part of the mind-body problem.93 in the absence of such a complete discussion, it is unclear why only animals would be included and not, for example, some trees.94 3.2.2 vegetarianism and mainstream culture some vegetarians base their concerns on a rejection of western, male hegemonic culture. for them it is less about the welfare of animals and more about the rejection of mainstream culture, such as within the punk vegan groups. in punk culture, veganism is closely associated with feminism and is indeed seen as “a feminist practice”.95 meat eating is associated with masculinity, whilst veganism is associated with feminism.96 the link between vegetarianism and feminism seems to be a particularly strong one. donovan, for example, argues that relational feminism (she calls it cultural feminism) has developed alternative epistemologies and ontologies that replace the mode of sadomasochistic control/dominance (that is) characteristic of patriarchal scientific epistemology.97 90 frey rg “rights, interests, desires and beliefs” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 50 – 53. 91 francione gl “taking sentience seriously” 2006 journal of animal law and ethics 1 – 20. 92 francione 2006 journal of animal law and ethics 20. 93 rowlands m “terminator i & ii: the mind-body problem” in the philosopher at the end of the universe (ebury london 2003) 57 – 85. 94 the acacia tree, for example, is extremely well adapted to the harsh and dry conditions it lives in. it is also a tree favoured by giraffes who feed from the top leaves of the tree. however, the tree has developed a remarkable defence mechanism against this grazing: when the giraffe starts munching, the tree releases a poisonous alkaloid that turns the leaves bitter and unpalatable. the giraffe only gets a couple of mouthfuls before he/she has to move to another tree. amazingly, the tree also releases a chemical compound into the air that warns other acacia trees who also release the same toxins. in this way the trees protect themselves against marauding giraffes. is this tree “sentient”? does it have “interests”? then why not extend the rights to trees as well? 95 clark 2004 ethnology 24. 96 zamir argues that the example of feminism shows “how step-by-step cooperation with partial improvements paved the way to radical reform” – see zamir 2004 j soc phil 367 376. 97 donovan j “animal rights and feminist theory” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 45 – 49 47. how to eat 15 td, 8(1), july 2012, pp. 1-16. on the basis of this, she advocates a strong vegan diet and lifestyle. similarly, in a highly emotional article, adams draws a parallel between sexual violence and meat eating to advocate a similar feminist veganism.98 on the other hand, george argues convincingly that traditional moral theory – including cultural feminism – fails to address the relativist problems inherent in the human condition.99 she shows that vegetarianism is premised upon nutritional needs of the “male physiological norm” and that it is biased against women, children and the elderly.100 she concludes: but i do think feminists must stop preaching the vegetarian life as a moral imperative. vegetarianism is not morally required. it is an aesthetic choice that may be personally satisfying and healthful. to argue otherwise is divisive and self-defeating. ... the "vegan ideal" is not a moral ideal at all.101 4. conclusion this article set out to explore the nature of food as a cultural artefact. the main point of departure was that food is intricately bound up in our cultural, social, political and moral ideas. by using a multidisciplinary approach this aspect was highlighted in the study of three restrictive diets, their religious/philosophical justifications and their social implications. what has, in fact, become clear is that the statement “food is politics” turned out to be almost literally true. the restrictive diets discussed in this paper all share a number of characteristics. they all depart from one over-arching religious and/or moral commandment that determines all the specific rules that follow. in the case of kosher and halal that super commandment is the word of god, but in the case of vegetarianism it is more the moral obligation not to harm animals. from this one general rule, all three have developed an incredible set of sub-rules and disagreements and controversies that at times seem insurmountable. but they perform the function of explaining, justifying and identifying the specific community or sub-culture that these rules apply to. so the differences, far from dividing the community, serve to mark them as “other” or "different" and so contribute to their identity. in all cases the rules are about far more than food. they serve not only to identify members of the group, but also to claim and maintain a position of moral superiority over the practices of those that do not follow them. and even in the case of vegetarianism they maintain an aura of mystical and evangelical revelation that assumes that, if only other people had the same epiphanic moment, they would instantly see the rightness of this lifestyle choice. hence the incredulity when everyone is not instantly converted on being presented with “the facts”. 98 adams cj “the rape of animals, the butchering of women” in armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 209 – 215. 99 george a “a feminist critique of ethical vegetarianism” armstrong sj and botzler rg (eds) the animal ethics reader (routledge london 2003) 216 – 221. 100 george “a feminist critique of ethical vegetarianism” 217. 101 george “a feminist critique of ethical vegetarianism” 219, 220. kroeze 16 all in all these types of restrictive diets are based on a very modernist view of morality.102 they all rest on a set of absolute, unquestionable and universal truths – for example, if it is wrong to eat animals in one context, it must be wrong in all contexts. and this is the most important function of these types of diets. of all the characteristics of postmodernism, it is the lack of certainty that people find most distressing. in the case of kosher and halal rules, that uncertainty is addressed by a holy injunction that provides certainty. in the case of vegetarianism, at least what is certain is that killing and eating animals is always wrong and that provides a certainty that grounds a whole lifestyle and social group. the conclusion is therefore that vegetarianism is the new religion. it provides people who struggle to take the traditional religions seriously with a new set of rules, a new sense of certainty and a new social support system. 102 for a discussion of modernist morality in the context of law see kroeze ij “when worlds collide: an essay on morality” 2007 sa public law 2007 323-335. july 2008 inside book colour .p65 abstract between 1990 and 2004, nigeria’s urban population jumped to nearly half the national population, while access to improved sources of water in urban areas dropped by nearly 15 per cent during the same period. this paper presents preliminary results on the relationship between water supply, neighbourhood characteristics, and household strategies in response to dissatisfaction with water provision as reported by 389 respondents in 10 neighbourhoods in lagos and benin city, nigeria between october 2007 and february 2008. in this paper, a conceptual model of consumer demand for water is used, based upon hirschman’s exit, voice and loyalty (evl) framework. the model explicitly factors in the quality of water provision and variables at the household and neighbourhood levels that could affect perceptions about quality and the strategies that households use to cope with inadequate public services. preliminary results show that reported household strategies to secure water are affected by community-level factors such as the range, cost, and quality of water supply alternatives, as well as neighbourhood composition. furthermore, the percentage of urban migrants and households that live in rented flats in a neighbourhood seems to be associated with the use of exit strategies (as opposed to voice) in response to problems with their primary water supply. keywords: water supply, service delivery, neighbourhood, exit, voice and loyalty framework, inadequate public services, lagos, benin, urban households. disciplines: public management and governance, water studies, sociology, social psychology, urban planning and african studies. neighbourhood effects and household responses to water supply problems in nigerian cities charisma acey * * charisma acey, (email: charisma@ucla.edu) is currently a ph.d. candidate in the department of urban planning at the university of california, los angeles. her research interests include poverty alleviation, water and sanitation service delivery, and environmental governance. she holds a master’s degree in public policy from the ucla school of public affairs and a b.a in english and pan african studies from california state university, northridge. her background includes extensive work, research and travel in nigeria, southern africa and central america. she would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the journal and the participants of the international conference on water, society and the environment held in april 2008 in south africa for the detailed feedback and excellent suggestions for improving earlier drafts of this work. she is grateful to everyone from the university of lagos, university of benin, pan african vision for the environment and koyenum immalah foundation in nigeria for their generous time and support in working on this project. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 123-156. 124 introduction africa continues to urbanize faster than anywhere else on earth. the region’s annual urban growth rate has been averaging 5 per cent each year for over two decades. by 2030, half of the continental population is projected to live in cities (un 2006). this urban growth has been accompanied by the increasingly documented rise in abject urban poverty, characterized by city residents who lack land tenure, quality housing, access to safe water, and adequate sanitation, among other municipal services and infrastructure (un-habitat 2003). as africa’s most populous nation (140 million people) with more than 54 per cent of the nation living under the international poverty line of $1usd (world bank 2008) and at least another 20 per cent living on less than $2usd per day,1 the case of nigeria illustrates the critical challenges facing planners and policymakers in africa. between 1990 and 2004, nigeria’s urban population jumped to nearly half the population, while access to improved sources of water in urban areas dropped by nearly 15% during the same period, as measured by the who/unicef joint monitoring programme (jmp).2 the decline in access to water in nigerian urban areas is striking, but even more critical is the information not reflected in these numbers. the jmp defines access to water at the household level by the type of source and distance to reach it (measured in minutes). statistics are also broken down by urban and rural areas. this definition of access, as well as the urban vs. rural dichotomy, is useful for cross-national and within country comparisons across regions. hence, such figures are used as indicators by national governments and international agencies. however, these data often hide deep disparities within metropolitan areas. in a given city, household sources for water and sanitation services vary, whether by residential location within the city, proximity to the piped infrastructure, household socioeconomic status, residence in blighted areas where land tenure is questionable, and population density (leading to overcrowding and excessive demand). moreover, faced with limitations in water supply and sanitation services, increasing numbers of impoverished urban residents are forced to provide these amenities for themselves. this 1 despite the continued use of national poverty lines and yardsticks of absolute poverty based upon the $1 or $2 usd per day standard, it is widely acknowledged that such income or consumption-based measures do not adequately capture the full scope of poverty. the vast literature on the nature of poverty and how to measure it, much of it fueled by amartya sen’s initial work on famine and entitlements in 1981, has given rise to new concepts such as relative deprivation, vulnerability, social exclusion and even adaptive capacity. for good summaries of these different conceptions of poverty see wratten 1995; moser 1998. 2 improved sources include covered wells, boreholes, and piped connections. acey 125 often occurs in ways that have both public health and environmental impacts, such as the spread of contaminants from hand-dug wells in lagos that also affect the piped water supply (abiodun 1997). additionally, static, expert-derived definitions and measures of access fail to consider the multidimensional nature of inequality in service delivery. such indicators can obscure how citizens themselves define their own access and how their perspectives shape local demand behaviour and responses to government policies, which in turn affect the local provision of services. some argue that an expanded definition of access is required that includes whether water services are adequate (defined as safe, sufficient, reliable, affordable and available) (tipping 2006). all of these factors, some of which are subjective and can only be determined locally, are crucial to health and productivity, and could serve as the basis for defining and evaluating access at the local level. to address this problem, the question becomes what analytical approaches can be used effectively to understand urban deprivation through an expanded definition of access to water services? in this paper, a conceptual model of consumer demand for water is used, based upon hirschman’s exit, voice and loyalty (evl) framework. the model explicitly factors in the quality of water provision and variables at the household and neighbourhood levels that could affect perceptions about quality and the strategies that households use to cope with inadequate public services.3 this paper has two goals. the first is to show how an evl-based model can help contribute to a better understanding of household choices and strategies to cope with inadequate provision of water services in the context of urban water markets. the second goal is to explore the potential for a more comprehensive and locally relevant measure of access that encompasses the dynamics of how social hierarchies affect the supply and demand for public services in urban areas of nigeria. preliminary findings are presented from a subset of 389 households from a recent ethnographic household survey conducted in 18 neighbourhoods in the lagos and benin city metropolitan areas.4 the data shows that reported household strategies to secure water 3 two neighbourhood-level variables are used here — housing type and migration status. housing and migration issues form part of a larger understanding of social factors that contribute to urban deprivation, and this paper hypothesizes that they would affect household strategies to obtain water. the full study includes a full-range of variables, which will be controlled for to test the significance of the relationships evident in the data thus far. 4 the metropolitan area is defined as the core cities (lagos island, lagos mainland, benin city, and surrounding contiguous built up economic area that have become urbanized.) td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria 126 are affected by community-level factors such as the range, cost, and quality of water supply alternatives, as well as neighbourhood composition. furthermore, the percentage of urban migrants and households that live in rented flats in a neighbourhood seems to be associated with the use of exit strategies (as opposed to voice) in response to problems with their regular water supply. the full study contains additional parameters that will be incorporated into this analysis. additional factors include the level of household investment in water supply, use of alternative sources, neighbourhood conditions, and perceptions of supplier responsiveness. this information could be important to planners and policymakers in the water sector given that access to water is a function of both supply and demand. a model that can incorporate both and assess local variation in accessing water within metropolitan areas has the potential to help decision makers and stakeholders improve individual and population access to basic services in rapidly urbanizing african nations such as nigeria. by gathering empirical evidence for local definitions of access and factors affecting civic engagement around basic services, this study is responding to summary statements from recent global development reports such as the 2006 un human development report, 2004 world development report, and the 2003 un human settlements report, all of which have finally expressed the view that meeting basic human needs is not only about technical and financial considerations, but are also the consequence of political power relations and social inequality. in the next section of the paper, both cities are described in the context of rapid urbanization and water provision in nigeria. this is followed by a description of the methodology used for collecting data and a discussion of the conceptual framework used in designing the study. following this, the main findings are summarized regarding water sources used by households in the study area, significant problems experienced with water and household strategies adopted in response, and how these responses differ by residential location. the conclusion addresses the potential for these findings to help us understand how neighbourhood level factors in the face of rapid urban population growth contribute to processes of socioeconomic deprivation in nigeria and, more generally, in the global south. rapid urbanization and water infrastructure in lagos and benin city approximately half of nigeria’s population now lives in cities. during the ten years from 2000 to 2010, the country’s urban population will have grown by another 25 million people (un 2007). while the urban acey 127 population has been increasing, who/unicef joint monitoring programme statistics on urban access to improved sources of water show a dramatic decline from 80 per cent to 67 per cent coverage between 1990 (when monitoring began) and 2004 (the most recent year for which data is available). the two metropolitan areas selected for this study are among the ten largest urban agglomerations in the country, with lagos being the largest overall. both areas are experiencing tremendous population growth with large portions of the population securing household water supply outside of the formal piped water network. among the six regional divisions in the country, both the south west (which includes lagos) and the south-south (which includes benin city) face large challenges in meeting household water needs. according to the 2003 nigeria demographic and health survey, people who live in the south-south region face the longest distances to their primary source, with less than half (45.8 per cent) of the population living within 15 minutes of their primary water supply. both regions have the lowest percentage of residents with water piped into their residential plots (npc and orc macro 2004). for lagos, the commercial capital of nigeria, despite the city’s location in a relatively wet region by hydrological standards, water supply has not matched the pace of urbanization. lagos has grown from an indigenous town of 5000 in the late 1800s to a multiethnic, multinational metropolitan area of over 9 million inhabitants.5 the un projects the city’s population will grow to 24 million by 2020, when it would become the third largest such urban agglomeration in the world. eighty-five percent of the population of lagos state resides within the metropolitan area, with only half able to access the piped water infrastructure. although in 2003 the state passed a law that mandated the lagos state water corporation supply potable water to the entire population, public water supply at the time only met 40 per cent of demand (lagos water corporation 2003). there are persistent problems with power supply, aged infrastructure, and insufficient capacity in the main treatment works throughout the state. these problems are compounded by under-investment in repairing the existing network and extending the main trunk lines into new settlements as the city has expanded, which has led to illegal tapping in some areas, all of which affect pressure and reliability to those who do have formal piped household connections. this means 5 this population figure is based upon the provisional results of the 2006 census. the figure, however, is politically disputed by lagos state officials, who cite their own figures and other population surveillance showing a figure of 12 million inhabitants or more. many recent publications on lagos continue to use projected population vs. the census results. response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 128 that nearly everyone in lagos uses multiple sources to meet their daily water needs. benin city is the capital of edo state in southern nigeria. edo state is considered to be one of the more homogenous states in nigeria, given the cultural and linguistic affinities that exist among the various groups in the state. although many trace their ancestry to the ancient kingdom of benin, the city has a somewhat more diverse mix of inhabitants, serving as a central transit point in the south west/ delta region of the country. the state was created in 1991 out of the former bendel state, one of the oldest political entities in nigeria, having started out life as the midwest region in 1963. since the mid1960s, urbanization in the city has expanded beyond the traditional boundaries of the city that stretch to the benin and ikpoba rivers (erah et al 2002). along with urbanization has come urban environmental problems, such as the increase in flood-prone areas from 4 to 45 by the late 1980s (odemerho 1988, cited in odemerho 1993). although officials interviewed in 2005 cite higher figures, population has grown to nearly 1,1 million with more people coming into the city or living on the outskirts in areas with the least water service. water supply and sanitation infrastructure has been unable to keep pace with this population growth. the municipal water supply system, which uses surface water from the ikpoba river, serves as the primary source of supply to about 30 per cent of the city (erah 2002). for the rest, access to water comes from private boreholes or directly from the ikpoba river.6 in both cities, the problem of water supply is exacerbated by power shortages and infrastructure deterioration. in benin city, the absence of complete documentation on the city’s piped water network has left portions of the city without access to the municipal water system for years. because water provision has not been a high priority action item for state officials, water provision is hindered by financial problems. city officials cite the lack of funds to purchase fuel to run generators during power outages as a problem. planners are also confronted with limited data on the region’s hydrology and private water systems (odemerho 1993). like lagos, there has been explosive growth in the number of households who have installed private water systems utilizing groundwater, much of which is contaminated (erah 6 according to a number of respondents in benin city, collecting river water was the main source of water for most of those without access to the piped supply up until about five years ago, when the use of private boreholes in the city became widespread. although urban boreholes have their own environmental, safety, and social problems, the fact that most no longer face the risk of drowning in the ikpoba river—a frequent occurrence our team was told—makes boreholes a popular substitute for the lack of a regularly functioning municipal supply. acey 129 2002). some of these households, in turn, sell water to neighbours. the past few years have given rise to sales of “pure water,” sold in sachets for the equivalent of 100 naira/litre (l) (5 naira for a 50 ml bag), 2000 times more expensive than tap water. 7 as public concerns about the quality of ’pure water’ have increased, producers in the industry have come under intense scrutiny by the national agency for food and drug administration and control (nafdac), which has become increasingly aggressive about regulating production and sale of packaged water. figure1. area of study. source: maps by charisma acey, 2008. data source: 3dtechnologies, esri 7 1 naira converts to just under .01 usd. response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 130 methodology data for this paper derives from a multistage cluster sample of 389 male and female household heads (226 in lagos and 163 in benin city). as part of the author’s dissertation field work, face-to-face ethnographic surveys were conducted between october 2007 and february 2008.8 work in country was done in collaboration with the university of lagos and the university of benin, along with two local non-governmental organizations (ngos) involved in the water sector — pan african vision for the environment (pave) in lagos and koyenum immalah foundation (kif) in benin city. staff of each organization helped with the recruitment and supervision of enumerators and in carrying out the selection and mapping of enumeration areas. sampling was done utilizing nigeria’s 2006 census data and the master plans of both cities. the first stage of the survey involved using census and gis data provided by the nigerian-based company 3d technologies to create a map of the enumeration area, which included the 16 local governments of the lagos metropolitan area and the three local governments of the benin city metropolitan area (see figure 1). using this map, the master plan, and other available data, the selected local governments were then categorized by density and proximity to the piped water infrastructure. this created four categories. in lagos, one local government was selected from each category for a total of four local governments. in benin, all three local governments that make up the urban agglomeration were included to allow for comparison between local government characteristics in a similar way as in lagos. due to resource and logistical constraints, 18 neighbourhoods in all were chosen to be surveyed — 12 in lagos and 6 in benin city. this paper presents evidence tallied from about half of the surveyed respondents who reside in 10 neighbourhoods in the shomolu and ifako-ijaiye local governments in lagos metropolitan and in the oredo and egor local governments in the benin city metropolitan area. the list of surveyed neighbourhoods discussed in this paper is shown in table 1. although local governments were categorized for their density using census data, master plans, and location within the urban area, the neighbourhoods within local government areas also varied by density and environmental conditions. for example, 8 in the full study, mixed ethnographic methods are used including semi-structured interviews, open in-depth interviews, observation, and face-to-face ethnographic surveys. this process is useful in studies using qualitative methods, as findings from different data sources can be corroborated (lecompte & schensul 2001). acey 131 dideolu court in lagos and garrick layout in benin city are residential estates featuring more single-family households and residents with higher incomes than in other areas. some areas were characterized by observation as blighted, such as shodimu in shomolu local government, and awori/abule-egba in ifako-ijaiye, given dilapidated infrastructure (lack of paved roads, high density, openly dumped refuse, and other observable environmental characteristics). as one of the central premises of the study is that environmental conditions affect the willingness of citizens to engage in voice as a response to dissatisfaction with urban services, these categories will be used to analyze the strength of the relationship between neighbourhood context, civic participation, and access to water and other services. there is some indication that spatial variables do affect the willingness and ability of households to exert voice as a response to dissatisfaction with basic amenities. table 1. selected communities lagos benin ifako-ijaiye local government oredo local government dideolu court uzebu quarters awori/abule-egba garrick layout ogba egor local government shomolu local government evbareke pedro uselu quarters palmgrove shodimu although nigeria completed a long-delayed census in 2006, provisional results below the local government level are not yet available to researchers or the public. the census office in lagos did assist the project by providing a list of localities and the number of sampling units used in the official census, but the level of data provided was not sufficient to select enumeration areas. therefore, a database of street names for each local government served as the basis for selecting enumeration areas, thus large streets were broken into smaller segments. neighbourhoods were then randomly selected from this list and mapped with the help of key informants. participants for the face-to-face ethnographic surveys were selected from these randomly selected clusters. each survey lasted approximately 45 minutes to one hour. the main purpose of these surveys was to response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 132 identify household configurations, demographic characteristics, dimensions of access (beyond source and distance to source), behaviours in response to satisfaction with water providers, and neighbourhood effects as determined and perceived by male and female heads of households. neighbourhoods were the principal cluster used to select households in order to understand locational dynamics affecting the stratification of social services in cities. neighbourhoods were originally conceived of in the early part of the twentieth century as organic geographic areas that emerged from the land use competition between business and residential interests (park & burgess 1921). later, suttles (1972) addressed how outsiders can impose neighbourhood identity. various studies on communities and neighbourhoods have conceived of neighbourhoods in different ways—as centres of activity, demographic clusters, centres of shared values and norms, social systems, sites of power hierarchies and social interaction, and more (cox 1987). in different ways, these studies seek to analyze context as location or site specific and present ways of examining the consequences of political power in society. the main challenge to this study and others that use neighbourhood as a unit of analysis is how to operationalize the neighbourhood. using census tracts provides an easy way to target small geographic areas and is true to the original conception of neighbourhoods as nested hierarchical entities. however, this approach is imperfect, at best, given the differing perceptions of spatial boundaries by residents themselves and how these boundaries could be fluid depending on the type of activity or phenomena being measured. when smaller studies have used other definitions of the neighbourhood outside of census groupings, effects are captured but hard to reproduce in other geographic areas. the purpose of research into neighbourhood effects, found predominantly in sociological studies, is to examine how where one lives affects social and economic outcomes. looking at site-specific context provides a way to measure the potential both for collective action and collective effects on access. studies of neighbourhood effects first appeared in the 1960s. interest in the area increased again in the 1980s after the publication of william julius wilson’s the truly disadvantaged and james coleman’s work on social capital.9 initially, acey 9 around the same time, jencks and mayer (1990) and mayer and jencks (1989) proposed that growing up in poor neighbourhoods affects socioeconomic outcomes because of intervening factors such as collective socialization. with new data sources and statistical techniques, neighbourhood effects research exploded in the 1990s, resulting in about 100 publications each year (sampson, morenoff & gannon-rowley 2002). 133 researchers wanted to know whether where you live mattered. later research explored processes by asking how does where you live matter. some studies in the evl literature that focus on the source of dissatisfaction on intent to stay or exit a municipality have found neighbourhood context to be important, particularly in how it affects problem perception and neighbourhood satisfaction (scavo 1986). other factors affecting community supply and demand of services and infrastructure include length of residence and tenure (transience), presence of affluent neighbours, level of existing infrastructure, hydrology, legal institutions affecting water markets, and community organizing. despite the tremendous amount of neighbourhood effects research, not much has been done on neighbourhood analysis outside of the us (montgomery & hewett 2005). this is due in part to the lack of data to carry out systematic quantitative analyses. there is, however, literature on strong society and weak states in africa, featuring the work of goran hyden and others, which challenges the notion of the dominant role of the state in political economy and looks at institutions that have had an impact on “individual and collective” behaviour.10 looking at the active private market for water in lagos, we are reminded of the limited role of the state in people’s lives. in this situation, how do people who purchase vendor water cope with high water prices (compared to the monthly bills for a household connection) and unreliable water quality? moreover, what factors would compel the state to begin to assert a stronger role in the urban governance of basic services? barkan, mcnulty, and ayeni (1991) note that the shift towards interest in civil society organizations stemmed from the desire to understand the ways in which government maintains legitimacy by responding to the diverse needs of those it governs. in this conceptualization, these institutions mediate between the state and citizens. voluntary, neighbourhoodbased associations could affect the use of voice as a strategy and the signals received by formal structures of governance in the delivery of water and other basic services. despite the u.s. focus in the sociological neighbourhood effects literature, a small number of studies using data from other countries have used neighbourhood effects models to systematically examine the relationship between variables such as health outcomes at the neighbourhood level and at the individual or household level (montgomery & hewett 2005). the following section discusses the conceptual model used to model household demand behaviour in the neighbourhood context. 10 see barkan, mcnulty and ayeni’s article on voluntary associations and civil society in west africa (1991). response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 134 conceptual model: exit, voice, and household access to water the concepts of exit, voice, and loyalty were first used by albert hirschman to describe the various ways that citizens and consumers respond to deteriorating performance by firms, organizations, and the state. hirschman initially formulated the concepts while attempting to understand the case of the failing nigerian railways in the face of competition from the trucking sector (1970, p. 44). exit is related to use of the market mechanism (the decision to no longer purchase a product or service). it can also be thought of in other ways – quitting a job or resigning from an organization. in the realm of local government services, exit would entail individuals or households moving to a new jurisdiction (as in the 1956 tiebout model) or switching to private provision (young 1976). unlike exit, voice represents many different actions that attempt to change a given state of affairs through individual or collective action. hirschman linked voice to non-market forces such as complaint, protest, media influence, and political participation. hirschman defined loyalty as a concept that allows for the co-existence of exit and voice. it holds off exit and exists either because an individual feels he holds influence, is conscious of the fact that his exit may cause harm to the organization or institution, or the past use of voice or influence-wielding inspires loyalty. loyalty does not prevent exit; it only keeps it from being the option of first resort. hirschman writes that loyalty could be instituted to inspire the use of voice by raising the cost of exit. the goal of hirschman’s original work was to identify the conditions under which exit or voice would prevail, the relative efficiency of each option, and when both mechanisms are combined to influence performance (hirschman 1970, p. 5). later psycho-behavioural studies that empirically test the evl model add a fourth variable, neglect, to describe passive, destructive behaviour, thus categorizing exit and voice as active responses to dissatisfaction and loyalty and neglect as passive responses. neglect is described by rusbult et al (1988) as “passively allowing conditions to deteriorate” (p. 601). it is distinguished from the other passive behaviour, for example, loyalty (optimistically or patiently waiting for the service to improve), by the individual’s motivation. in attempting to categorize the reported behaviour of households with respect to water services in the study area, a fifth variable was added, quasiexit. the concept of quasi-exit, originally coined by lehman-wilzig (1991) applies to those who do not believe in the efficacy of, or are unable to use voice or exit and thus create an alternative supply of a public good through possibly extra-legal means (mizrahi & meydani 2003). this paper uses an expanded framework that incorporates all of the above-mentioned categories exit, quasi-exit, voice, loyalty acey 135 and neglect (eqvln) to categorize household responses to water supply problems. in traditional economic terms, exit is thought of as the most efficient expression of consumer preference (hence the plethora of literature on introducing competition into public services delivery). hirschman, however, argued that no studies demonstrated the ability of competition to “lead firms back to ‘normal’ efficiency ... after they have lapsed from them,” much less public organizations (1970, p. 22). consideration of quality is the other side of the coin in understanding the demand for public services. most policymakers in the water sector and much of the literature are preoccupied with pricing and cost recovery without fully understanding household behaviour. although the implementation of cost recovery measures may be economically efficient, the quality of municipal services must be as good as or greater than what they could obtain from private vendors (fox & edmiston 2000). the evl framework has been used to understand the evolution of civil society in response to discontent with the performance of the postcolonial state in africa (osaghae 1999; bratton 1989; azarya & chazan 1987). osaghae describes exit behaviour in nigeria as a matter of survival, citing the dramatic upsurge in parallel, self-governing, black market, and self-help groups that arose in the 1980s and 1990s to perform “shadow state activities” including potable water provision and other basic services (1999, p. 84). in this way, osaghae (1999) and simone (2001) view exit (in the form of increasing informalization of urban governance) as a kind of social activism. although exit can be described in this way, i have operationalized exit as it was used by hirschman and in subsequent empirical tests of the model, as the motivation of the citizen-consumer. for hirschman, the key feature of exit is that the citizen-consumer could not care less about the result of his decision to terminate the relationship, even if the decision inadvertently stimulates improvement (1970, p. 104). individual exit, in this model, is not treated as a form of protest. this allows for the distinction between behaviour that is motivated by a desire to improve the performance of a particular (public or private) water supplier and behaviour that is not. for the state-managed water boards in lagos state and edo state, understanding exit behaviour is critical, as exit deprives the public sector of the feedback mechanism that people may exercise when locked in. moreover, in the case of households that have invested thousands of usd equivalent in naira in establishing their own private borehole water systems, unless there is official coercion, reentry may no longer be a rational alternative. key questions that have not been adequately explored in the literature on urban service delivery in developing contexts include: response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 136 to what extent are households concerned with basic services as an issue, dissatisfied with the quality of service provision, and willing to take action to improve service quality and their access to services? in terms of action, do they tend to withdraw and switch providers or turn to self-provision? is there loyalty in the face of alternatives? do some households simply give up, both in expectations of government and/or service providers? in a study of willingness to pay by whittington, okorafor, okore and mcphail (1990) of a rural district in anambra state nigeria, quality of water services along these dimensions was found to be lacking and was the reason that residents did not want to commit to paying for water in advance for a fixed monthly fee. although vended water was higher priced it was preferred over public taps due to the perception of the quality of government-provided services, and the ability to control their cash flow by purchasing only the amount of water desired when it was needed (enabling cash to be used for other purposes when necessary). rather than improve the public water supply, residents exited from it completely. lagos may present the extreme of exit behaviour in the face of declining public services. in gandy’s 2004 article on the history of planning and infrastructure development in the city, lagos is described as a selfservice city where citizens readily solve their own problems when it comes to accessing basic services, rather than investing significant energy in protest. although heavily discussed in academic and practitioner literatures, the concept of accessibility, when it comes to basic urban services, is fraught with ambiguity and complexity. access defined as household proximity to a public facility (water pipestand or public latrine), for example, can mask overcrowding and under use. counting the number of homes with household connections across a given area or the number of public facilities does not measure usage, water quality and pressure (and how this might affect the quantity of water consumed), cost (including the time cost to transport water a given distance or reduced quantity), or self-provision from wells or boreholes. there is also some evidence that the relationship between income and access is complex, and that the level of aggregation for both independent and dependent variables is critical to analyzing this relationship and how access is defined and measured (daniere & takahashi 1999; manase, mulenga & fawcett 2001; crane & daniere 1996). studies have also shown that other demand factors over and above location or income can be just as important in determining access, such as the organizing behaviour of communities, the prevalence of alternative sources, the political and economic structure underlying the cost of services, and the perception that environmental amenities are inadequate (daniere & takahashi 1999). acey 137 for this reason, a more thorough understanding of the multidimensional nature of access in a given setting is needed prior to policy formulation and implementation. various studies in the literature on exit, voice, and loyalty have found that in cases of imperfect competition (which characterizes water delivery in many african cities where there is a state-run utility competing side-by-side with private formal and informal vendors), voice would send a more specific signal to providers than exit (sawyer 1993). yet, household strategies and responses to performance will be conditioned by their expectations of resolution (given perceptions of the provider, prior history, threat, cost-benefit calculation of speaking out compared with switching providers or remaining silent). other demographic factors, such as socioeconomic status or whether the family has recently migrated to the area, may also affect household strategies. in the following section, i present preliminary findings on water supply in the study areas, and analyze the relationship between neighbourhood characteristics and household strategies in response to dissatisfaction with water provision. preliminary findings and discussion the survey instrument consisted of 93 questions divided into five sections: household information, individual information, dimensions of access, dissatisfaction, exit and voice, and neighbourhood effects. the section on access had multiple measures designed to assess a wide array of factors, such as availability, reliability, alternative sources, usage by source, price, and maintenance costs. other dynamics affecting access were also contained in questions posed to respondents about problems experienced (if any) with their regular water supply. the section titled, dissatisfaction, exit and voice, was designed to elicit responses about satisfaction and civic participation with respect to the regular source of water supply to the household, whether municipal, private, or self-provided. because water supply in many contexts is often considered to be a public good (even when government does not actually provide it) questions were also asked about respondent’s opinions about other public services such as health care, education, roads, etc. along with water in order to get a sense of public perceptions of the role and extent of government responsibility. this section of the survey contained an in-depth series of questions about what actions have members of the household taken in response to problems with their water supply, and asked them to evaluate the effectiveness of their response. lastly, respondents were asked about willingness to pay to improve various aspects of water supply. in lagos, the survey included an additional section which asked whether response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 138 respondents were aware of the privatization of the lagos state water supply. the last survey section on neighbourhood effects asked respondents about their satisfaction with the provision of services in their neighbourhood, their willingness to work with neighbours to improve water supply, and the level of awareness about nongovernmental organizations or government projects operating in their area. below are the preliminary findings from the survey on access, satisfaction, and household response to the quality of water services in lagos and benin city. finding 1: range, cost, and quality of water supply alternatives when asked about their primary source of water, most respondents reported using covered wells or boreholes.11 there is some variation, with residents of shomolu local government sourcing their drinking water from a combination of piped water, borehole, and packaged (bottle or sachet) water. some residential areas are located in close proximity to the main trunk lines running from surface water sources in both cities. residents in these areas report higher levels of piped water usage than in others. among those who report using piped water, most use shared water, either a pipestand shared with other families in a compound or public taps shared by a neighbourhood. although boreholes and wells are categorized as safe water sources by the world health organization and unicef joint monitoring programme, water in some of the covered wells we observed was murky and filled with visible contaminants. in lagos, most reported using these types of wells for all types of washing hygiene, laundry, dishes and cookware, and general cleaning. in terms of drinking water, most in lagos purchased borehole water from vendors who deliver it to the household. in benin city, most purchased private borehole water from houses in the neighbourhood or surrounding area. table 2 compares drinking water sources and water source satisfaction by urban area. in both cities, fewer households report using piped water (provided at the state level by either the lagos water corporation or the edo state water board) compared to groundwater purchased from private sources. most households surveyed reported 11 for the purposes of presenting data in a manner easier to grasp, water sources were grouped together from 20 categories of water supply divided into sources such as piped water, water from open well, water from covered well or borehole, surface water, and other sources. within those categories, sources were distinguished by whether they were located within the house or compound, public or purchased, and other categories. acey 139 having access to flush toilets (often shared with other families) connected to septic tanks with soakaways. however, usually water has to be poured into the toilet by hand given the absence of running water in most settings. overall, more households reported not being satisfied with their household’s regular source of water. respondents were asked to rate on a percentage scale from 0 per cent to 100 per cent whether they were able to obtain water at the time they wanted to obtain it over the prior month.12 this is what is identified as availability. for example, in some communities we visited, residents told us that pipes do not always flow, or that households with boreholes do not sell water to the community at all hours of the day and can stop selling water arbitrarily. residents in lagos (ifako-ijaiye and shomolu local governments) report a higher level of availability of their water supply than in the benin city metropolitan area, 74.5 per cent and 59 per cent respectively. this can be attributed to the fact that in lagos vendor water is generally delivered to the household, whereas in benin city those without an in-home connection or borehole on the premises must fetch water for themselves. this leads to a much higher rate of uncertainty that they will be able to find water. as table 2 shows, a higher rate of residents in oredo and egor reported that they were not at all satisfied or somewhat dissatisfied with their regular water supply. table 2. water source and satisfaction by urban area. the reasons for household dissatisfaction with their primary water supply are summarized below by local government area and neighbourhood in tables 3 and 4. the reasons for dissatisfaction come from several sources. by far, the biggest complaint is power failure, which leads to several problems. for households without a generator large enough to run the borehole water pump, water provision will last only as long as water remains in the storage tanks. generally, houses without large generators will stop selling or giving water to the public when the power supply is cut off. for households with generators large enough to carry boreholes, the cost of fuel to run the generator adds to the cost of water for the household. for homes that sell water to the public or to vendors for resell (which is primarily the case in lagos), the price is doubled. in areas that charge 5 naira per 12 this measure is designed to capture people’s perceptions. the scale was accompanied by a graphic featuring a smiling face at the 100 per cent end of the scale and a sad face at the 0 per cent end of the scale. those who could not state an exact percentage were asked to point somewhere along the scale that best described their happiness with the ability to obtain water when they wanted it over the prior month. response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 140 25l jerry can, the price will double to 10 naira. in areas where the water is 10 naira, the price jumps to 15 or 20 naira per jerry can.13 constant power outages from the recently privatized power holding company of nigeria (phcn, formerly the nigeria electric power authority, or nepa) are a major factor affecting access to water for households, businesses, and state-level water utilities. other reported water problems appear to be specific to local governments. for example, water illnesses and distance to the source are problems in ifako-ijaiye and shomolu local governments in lagos and to a lesser degree a problem in egor. some households in ifakoijaiye and in oredo local governments report that the cost of water is a problem. when further decomposed into responses by neighbourhood in table 4, it is clear that at the sub-local government level, some problems, such as waterborne illness, cost, and distance to the source, are actually particular to certain neighbourhoods. for 13 respondents were asked how much they spend on water from their primary and secondary (when applicable) sources of water. there is much variation in how water is purchased and priced, which yet to be calculated for each survey. acey 141 instance, water-related illness appears to be a major problem in the pedro community of shomolu local government more so than power supply. waterborne illness was also reported as a problem by some households in the shodimu community, which is also located in shomolu. in the awori/abule-egba community of ifako-ijaiye local government, distance to the source was reported as a problem as much as power supply. table 3. reported recent problems with regular water supply by local government ifako shomolu oredo egor (n=67) (n=116) (n=67) (n=69) service interruption-planned 1 1% 1 1% 2 3% 4 6% service interruption -unplanned (electricity) 35 52% 62 53% 48 72% 35 51% water quality/illness 10 15% 33 28% 2 3% 6 9% distance to source 13 19% 6 5% 1 1% 7 10% water pressure/leaks 0 0% 2 2% 1 1% 7 10% lack of storage 0 0% 1 1% 0 0% 0 0% price/cost 7 10% 7 6% 12 18% 6 9% other 1 1% 4 3% 1 1% 4 6% table 4. reported recent problems with regular water supply by neighborhood most recent problem with regular water supply lagos a b c d e f g h fako-ijaiye ogba 0 18 2 3 0 0 4 0 ifako-ijaiyeawori/ abule-egba 1 7 5 8 0 0 0 0 ifako-ijaiye -dideolu court 0 10 3 2 0 0 3 1 shomolu-shodimu 0 24 8 1 1 0 1 1 shomolu-pedro 1 15 23 1 0 0 1 3 shomolu-palmgrove 0 23 2 4 1 1 5 0 response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 142 benin city a b c d e f g h oredo uzebu quarters 0 37 1 0 1 0 12 0 oredo garrick layout 2 11 1 1 0 0 0 1 egor uselu quarters 1 16 3 6 5 0 0 2 egor – evbareke 3 19 3 1 2 0 6 2 legend: a service interruption-planned e water pressure/leaks b service interruption-unplanned f lack of storage (electricity) c water quality/illness g price/cost figure 2. response to water service delivery finding 2: household response to dissatisfaction with water supply the questionnaire also asked respondents to identify the most recent thing or event that caused them to be unhappy with their regular water supply. if respondents indicated an event, they were asked to indicate the timeframe in which it occurred. respondents were then asked to describe their response to the incident, which was then coded acey 143 into one of the five categories – exit, quasi-exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect. here, as in psycho-social studies of exit and voice in human relationships, this was operationalized as response to dissatisfaction with water as either a product or service, or in terms of the relationship with the primary service provider. action defined as exit included switching to an alternate provider, while quasi-exit focused on creating an alternate supply. voice included complaining or organizing with others to address the problem. loyalty included actions such as patiently waiting for the problem to go away. categories of quasi-exit (described earlier in this paper as what occurs when complete exit is impossible as is often the case with public services) and neglect (which included behaviour such as withholding payment or not reporting busted pipes) were also included.14 there is a difference in the ways that households responded that corresponds strongly to location. figure 2 shows the clear difference in responses by residence in lagos or benin city. in lagos, most households used exit and quasi-exit in response to problems with water supply. in benin city, voice and loyalty were the more likely responses. potential reasons for this split will be examined in the next section of findings on housing and migration characteristics and responses at the neighbourhood level. few households reported using neglect as a strategy. however, this will be explored in more detail through the results of the structured and in-depth interviews, which are not reported here. 14 much of the exit, voice and loyalty (evl) work that followed from hirschman built upon the social psychology work of rusbult, zembrodt and gunn (1982) on evl behavior in close relationships, leading to the adding of a fourth varia-ble, neglect, defined as passive and destructive behavior. the literature using this modified evln framework in social psychology and labor economics that has followed the rusbult et al line of thought asks, in essence, under what situational circumstances are (employees/individuals in a relationship) likely to engage in either active/passive or constructive/destructive responses to (job/relationship) dissatisfaction (roberts 2004; withey & cooper 1989). this treats individuals as the same and gives primacy to circumstances under which everyone is equally likely to choose alternative courses of action. later research asked what types of people are likely to choose which responses. the validity of using exit, voice and loyalty as variables has been tested in the evln framework, which posits exit and voice as active responses and exit and neglect as destructive (roberts 2004). response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 144 legend: lagos (n=149) benin (n=142) exit 60 40% 21 15% quasi-exit 33 22% 15 11% voice 25 17% 53 37% loyalty 28 19% 52 37% neglect 3 2% s1 1% the variation of responses at the local government and neighbourhood levels is analyzed below. in tables 5 and 6, responses to water problems are tallied by local government and by neighbourhood. at the level of local government there was variation in household response to water problems. overwhelmingly, residents of lagos in both local governments were more likely to use exit strategies in response to problems, presumably given the prevalence of alternative water sources. however, there is some interesting variation at the neighbourhood level that will be explored further. for example, table 6 shows that residents in two of the neighbourhoods in shomolu local government were more likely to use voice and loyalty compared to the other lagos neighbourhoods. this may be tied to the neighbourhood characteristics (discussed below). another interesting finding is that although households in benin city reported higher rates of dissatisfaction with their water supply, they were more likely to use voice and loyalty as strategies, although this was truer for households in oredo local government and in the high density uzebu quarters area in particular. future analyses will use categorical analyses at the household level to test the hypotheses proposed by this study in order to explore whether household response to water problems are linked to the nature of the problem itself, to characteristics of the household, or to neighbourhood level factors that facilitate or inhibit individual or collective action to address problems with basic services. table 5. responses to water problems by local government legend: lagos benin city ifako-ijaiye shomolu oredo egor (n=73) (n=57) (n=69) (n=92) exit 20 35% 40 43% 4 6% 17 23% quasi-exit 20 35% 13 14% 5 7% 10 14% voice 9 16% 16 17% 29 42% 24 33% loyalty 8 14% 20 22% 31 45% 21 29% neglect 0 0% 3 3% 0 0% 1 1% acey 145 table 6. responses to water problems by neighborhood15 finding 3: household responses and neighborhood characteristics the stated goal of this paper has been to explore preliminary relationships between neighbourhood-level variables (such as percentages of residents by housing type, migration status, and eqvln response) to recent problems with water supply. aspects of housing and migration, such as land tenure and length of residence, have been linked to urban service delivery and the dynamics of poverty in urban areas (un habitat 2003). in both lagos and benin city, the percentage of residents living in a flat correspond to the percentage who report using an exit strategy in response to their most recent problem with water supply. figures 3 and 4 show a scatter plot of the 10 neighbourhoods, with each data point representing a neighbourhood (six in lagos, four in benin city). the percentage of neighbourhood residents who live in flats is shown along the x-axis and the percentage that report using exit as a strategy along the yaxis. there is an upward trend in the use of exit as the percentage of residents living in a flat increase. why does this relationship not exist for single-family residents or households that live in rooms? it 15 the categories of exit, quasi-exit, and neglect were combined in order to increase the number of observations per cell in order to allow for a pearson’s chi-square test of the independence between neighbourhoods in terms of re-sponse variables. the results of the chi-square test revealed p = <.0000, indi-cating that neighbourhoods do differ in their response to water problems. be-cause quasiexit (solving the problem on ones own or switching temporarily) and neglect (not paying bills or destroying provider equipment) are forms of exit, this combination of variables is judged to be valid for the basic analysis presen-ted here. these extended categories will be further explored in future analyses. response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 146 may be that because residents in single-family homes have invested more in their own water supply, they are less likely to exit. on the other hand, it might seem that residents that live in rooms may want to exit, but lack the financial means to do so, given the alternatives available. however, there also seems to be an upward trend in the percentage that live in rooms and an increasing percentage of responses that fall into the loyalty category waiting or hoping for the problem to go away. there also seems to be a negative correlation between living in houses and flats and loyalty. so far, the data does not reveal any discernible link between any housing type and use of voice. the next step will be to cross-tabulate these responses at the household level and use categorical analysis to analyze the relationship between housing and voice while controlling for other variables. among neighbourhoods in both lagos and benin city, the percentage of residents who are migrants to the city corresponds to the percentage that report using an exit strategy in response to their most recent problem with water supply. in both cities there appears to be a negative relationship between those who report indigenous ancestry in the city and the use of exit strategies. figures 5 and 6 show a scatter plot of the selected neighbourhoods with the percentage of migrants to the city in a neighbourhood, against the percentage by neighbourhood, that report using exit as a strategy. as in the case of housing type, the next step will be to proceed with a categorical analysis of this relationship at the household level. for voice, the results were mixed. there does seem to be a strong association by neighbourhood between acey 147 the percentage of indigenous residents and the percentage who report using voice. in benin city, the use of voice by neighbourhood corresponds somewhat to the percentage of residents born in benin city. in lagos, the percentage of migrants in a neighbourhood has a strong negative association with the percentage that report using voice. in both cities, the percentage of households that report loyalty as a response has a strong negative correlation with percentage of migrants. having looked separately at housing type and migration status, what is the relationship between these two variables? there appears to be a strong relationship between being born in the city or being a migrant and living in a single-family house or in a flat. in the neighbourhoods surveyed in lagos, the percentage of residents born in the city is negatively associated with the percentage living in single-family homes and overwhelmingly associated with the percentage living in flats. in benin city, in the neighbourhoods surveyed, the percentage born in the city is strongly associated with the percentage living in single-family homes and somewhat associated with the percentage living in flats. so far as the preliminary findings show, neighbourhoods in both cities have low or negative associations between the percentage of indigenous households and percentage living in single-family houses. it remains to be seen whether this relationship will hold, as some of the remaining neighbourhoods in the full dataset have higher proportions of indigenous residents. additionally, ownership may be more pertinent to this analysis, and at least one of the remaining communities with data not yet entered has a number of residents who live in flats they own. response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 148 overall, the use of exit over voice as a strategy seems to be more clearly linked to both living in a flat and being a migrant (as separate variables). a picture emerges in both cities where migrants to the city (so far measured as the percentage of migrants by neighbourhood) may be reluctant to engage in organizing behaviour or to interact with official governance structures in response to problems with water supply. it could be that because lagos has a higher percentage of migrants, the use of exit and quasi-exit is the typical response, compared to benin city. hirschman wrote that the ability to use exit as a strategy would diminish the use of voice. such a finding would have implications for understanding factors that contribute or inhibit the responsiveness of government and service providers to the needs of consumers and constituents. there has been an abundance of literature on state-society relations in africa. at least one strand of this literature has looked at the roles that local voluntary associations play in both integrating migrants into the urban social fabric and in problem solving around basic services provision (simone 2004, 2001, aina 1997, 1990, barkan, mcnulty & ayeni 1991, barnes 1975). the questions from this paper that will need to be addressed with variables from the full dataset include to what extent membership in voluntary associations varies with household and neighbourhood characteristics and whether, in the case of water supply, such voluntary associations serve as institutions for organizing residents to exert voice or to facilitate exit. acey 149 looking at membership in voluntary associations, a majority of respondents in both lagos and benin city reported that they belonged to religious organizations (see figure 7). barnes (1975) found the same pattern in lagos over 30 years ago, documenting the importance of religious institutions in daily life. in the present study this pattern was consistent across all surveyed neighbourhoods. although religion generally plays a role in meeting functional needs of the community, barnes also found that religious affiliation was even more important. for example, large religious groups like catholics and methodists were not as effective at integrating individuals into the community as were smaller christian institutions, islamic groups or sects. in this survey, respondents were also asked to identify their religious affiliation and this will be analyzed to parse out the effects of religious affiliation on household responses to water problems and access. the second highest reported group membership is neighbourhood associations, including landlord/tenants associations and community development associations. ethnicity and kinship organizations were the next largest reported memberships, although not many respondents reported belonging to such organizations. conclusion like many cities in the global south, both lagos and benin city are characterized by urban water markets, where multiple suppliers compete with the state-run water utility. water scarcity— characterized by a lack of a piped water connection to the household or on the premises—is a major problem in both cities. most residents use groundwater as their primary water supply for drinking and other purposes, whether they own a borehole system, use one owned by a landlord, or must purchase water from households in the neighbourhood or vendors who deliver it. in terms of satisfaction with their water supply, residents of benin city report greater levels of dissatisfaction with their primary household supply and rated very low (compared to lagos) the availability of their water supply over the month prior to the survey. looking at the available water sources, this is probably due to the overwhelming dependence of benin city residents on borehole water from systems outside of their compounds and even outside of their neighbourhoods. regardless of their level of satisfaction with their own household supply (which was higher among residents who had boreholes on their own property), most reported being dissatisfied with the level of safe water provision in their neighbourhoods. data was also collected on membership in neighbourhood voluntary associations and willingness to act collectively around water problems. those findings will be included in future analyses, particularly in exploring how associations response to urban water supply shortagesnigeria td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 123-156. 150 facilitate social integration into urban life. there is a clear difference between responses by metropolitan area, with lagos residents opting for exit and quasi-exit strategies and benin city residents opting for strategies that involve voice and loyalty. few in either city reported using neglect, and this will be explored further using qualitative data collected during structured and in-depth interviews. despite the overall difference in strategies at the aggregate level, there is variation by local government and neighbourhood in responses to water problems. there is also variation in the types of water problems reported by neighbourhood, although unplanned water supply interruptions from power shortages were the most frequently reported problem. looking at household type and migration data at the neighbourhood level seems to provide some clues about the variation between lagos and benin city in preferred response to water problems. the percentage of residents that live in a flat or who have migrated (versus having been born in the city or indigenous to the area) is strongly associated with the percentage that report using exit as a strategy. lagos has more migrants and more residents who live in flats. however, those neighbourhoods in benin city with higher percentages of people living in flats or migrants also report higher rates of exit responses. after the dataset has been fully entered these relationships will be explored in much more detail, allowing for a more thorough examination of the factors determining the use of non-market responses to dissatisfaction with basic services provision, whether they are demographic, contextual (neighbourhood effects) or linked to the nature of the problem itself. once these factors are isolated, the second major task of this research is to explore the relationship between voice and improved access to water in the study areas. while the results discussed in this paper are preliminary and based on summary statistics aggregated at the neighbourhood level, they point to some interesting directions in terms of how neighbourhood composition and organization could be related to processes of social and economic deprivation. as discussed, the literature on in formalization and urbanization in africa has acknowledged the dominant role of civil society in meeting the basic needs of urban citizens, both as necessity and as an expression of protest. the expanded eqvln framework used in this study provides a way to systematically document the way households are coping with inadequate water provision in developing countries where urban water markets commonly compete with state-run utilities. the overriding learning objective of this study is to develop a body of knowledge for interdisciplinary researchers, communities, and policymakers that are interested in understanding examples of urban service delivery in african settings from the perspective of household acey 151 demand, community participation, and neighbourhood effects in the face of rapid urbanization and integration with the global economy. ultimately, this research aims to uncover the factors that allow inequalities in access to basic services to persist. little research exists on how different types of households vary in their response to the well-documented existence of parallel private markets for services such as water, sanitation, health and transportation in less developed countries (moran & batley 2004; budds & mcgranahan 2003; collignon & vezina 2000) or how the exercise of voice affects access to water and 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217-234. project management and performance management: potential transdisciplinary contributions g van der waldt1 abstract as project management and performance management as management applications gain momentum in public sector settings, the question often arise as to if, how, and when these applications should complement each other in various policy implementation and service delivery initiatives. answers to this question should be sought from various vantage points or perspectives. these vantage points may range from macro, meso, micro as well as theoretical-methodological perspectives. the purpose of this paper is to unlock the potential for transdisciplinary contributions between project management and performance management by focusing on the methodologies, functional areas, and practical applications of both management disciplines. it is argued that the respective methodologies and their processes should be unpacked to identify the timing or moment when each discipline could, and should, make a contribution to the success of the other. this will add value to the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of both study domains in the public sector. the respective contributions are illustrated by means of application realities of both management practices in the south african public service. keywords: project management, performance management, public sector applications, transdisciplinarity. disciplines: project management, performance management. 1. introduction both project management and performance management are gaining favour in government. in the case of the south african public service both management applications became mainstreamed through statutory and regulatory frameworks in the quest for answers to service delivery challenges. but, as relative ‘late comers’ on the public management scene, project management and performance management do not as yet have the same levels of maturity as far as the managerial competencies and organisational architecture to successfully apply them, is concerned. both management applications, however, has as far as theoretical underpinnings are concerned, relative mature methodologies in place. the challenge thus is to institute effective knowledge systems, processes and procedures in the work place for their successful application. public managers need to appreciate the way in which these management applications complement each other in the execution of their responsibilities and functions. public managers, due to ‘silo thinking’, often find it difficult to appreciate the interrelatedness and interdependencies of their various managerial responsibilities and 1 . prof. gerrit van der waldt is a research professor in public governance at north-west university (potchefstroom), south africa. email: gerrit.vanderwaldt@nwu.ac.za. van der waldt 218 functions and the related applications required such as strategic planning, financial management, human resource management and programme management. there is a complementary focus of the two disciplines in that project management is about doing, whilst performance management is mainly concerned with the how are we doing? in compliance with their competency profiles, public managers need to understand how and when these applications should complement each other in various service delivery initiatives. the purpose of this article is to explore the potential transdisciplinary contributions that performance management can add to the body of knowledge of project management by focusing on the methodologies of both management disciplines. it is argued that the respective methodologies should be unpacked to identify the timing when performance management could, and should, make a contribution to the success of projects (i.e. during its life cycle). this could add value to the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of project management. within the ambits of this article, it is not possible to explore all the potential disciplinary contributions. therefore, the author does not argue that the specific contributions are by any means complete. it does, however, provide a foundational perspective and conceptual framework to further analyse prospective transdisciplinary contributions. 2. project management and performance management: prospects for transdisciplinarity over time disciplines typically progress through various paradigmatic phases in which the discipline matures and become an established science. due to an ever-changing dynamic environment, disciplines cannot remain relevant without constantly adjusting, rediscovering and enriching itself by making use of theories, approaches, methodology, principles and concepts from established, related disciplines (van der waldt, 2009:14). the relevancy and survival of management or applied disciplines are largely dependent on the degree to which they manage to adjust and reinvent itself to changing circumstances or may run the danger of becoming impoverished and ultimately even obsolete. bruder (1994:61) explains that transdisciplinarity is about ‘transgressing boundaries’ between disciplines. this transgression is healthy since such crossing usually leads to new insights and perspectives regarding phenomena. in this regard, pohl and hirsch-hadorn (2007:124) refer to the ‘common good’ that transdisciplinarity brings. according to medicus (2005:95) and wiesman, hirsch, hoffmann-riem, biber-klemm, grossenbacher, joye, pohl and zemp (2008:435) transdisciplinary research has arisen from the need for solutions for which knowledge of a single scientific discipline is insufficient. wiesman et al. (2008:433-441) established fifteen propositions? regarding transdisciplinary research and highlight that transdisciplinary research includes cooperation within the scientific community. nicolescu (2005:7) in turn argues that transdisciplinarity is about the understanding of the world and the ‘unity of knowledge’. it, therefore, transgresses boundaries between scientific disciplines and between science and other societal fields and includes deliberation about facts, practices and values. from a transdisciplinary perspective an important point to note for purposes of this article is that project management is not applied consistently and generically in all industries and application areas. crawford, hobbs and turner (2006:175), for example, have found variation in project management knowledge and practices between industries, countries and application areas. the influence of industry bias is further confirmed by evaristo and van project management and performance management td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 217-234. 219 fenema (1999:276). as a field of study, project management regularly face new challenges, as the tools, methods and approaches to management that comprise the discipline, are applied to different areas, for different ends, in different cultures (crawford, pollack & england, 2005). as an ‘emerging’ profession (see pmi, 2000:3; urli & urli, 2000:33), the field continues to grow and adapt. the way project management is applied in the south african public service (locus of this study) should make provision for and is influenced by the unique statutory framework, service delivery context, methodology, and management practices in the public service. the same arguments may apply to the field of performance management. both project management and performance management can be regarded as emerging, applied management disciplines in the public sector. the project management body of knowledge (pmbok), which led to the international professionalisation of the discipline, for example, only in 2002 published their government extension of the pmbok. this extension was necessary due to the recognition of the unique context of government projects. in the case of performance management, it was developed in the private sector and adopted by the public sector as a primary a tool to improve service delivery (stewart, 1986:30). in the south african government, first evidence was seen of the ‘mainstreaming’ of performance management and full recognition of the application value thereof with the publications in 1998 with publishing of the white paper on local government (1998) which proposed the introduction of performance management systems to local government as a tool to ensure developmental local government. this was followed up in 2001 with the performance management guide for municipalities and the general key performance indicators for local government (july 2001) as well as in 2002 of the department of public service and administration’s draft guide: performance management and development (gp 5/7 1). the guide on performance management and development, issued by the department of public service and administration, was designed to help departments understand the implications of the new public service policy context for performance management and development, to develop an effective departmental policy on performance management and development that links individual performance to the goals of the department in a way that is relevant and appropriate to the needs and circumstances of each specific department, and to design, implement and use a system for individual performance management and development that is appropriate, relevant and effective. performance management can broadly be categorized in ‘organisational’ and ‘human resource’ dimensions (faucett & kleiner, 1994:64; boland & fowler, 2000:418). performance management focuses not only on individual employees, but also on systems, processes, programmes, and the organisation as a whole. organisational performance management takes a wider institutional perspective as far as the input (resources), processing (systems, procedures, methods, policies, administration, etc.), output (services and products), and outcomes (results of output) of public institutions are concerned. it refers to any integrated, systematic approach to improving organisational performance to achieve strategic aims and promote an organisation’s mission and values. performance can be regarded as a multi-dimensional construct referring to the work as well as about the results achieved (otley, 1999; fitzgerald & moon, 1996). rogers (1994:34) argued that performance should be defined as the outcomes of work because they provide the strongest linkage to the strategic goals of the organisation, customer satisfaction, and economic contributions. a comprehensive view is that performance is achieved in public institutions if it is defined as embracing three interrelated variables: behaviors (processes), van der waldt 220 outputs (deliverables), and outcomes (value added or impact). mwita (2000) regards performance management as ‘a systems-based model for cultivating the achievement culture in public sector organizations’. a well-performing public institution may be regarded as one that provides quality services that minimize the performance gap between actual delivery and customer (community) expectations (ballantine & modell, 1998; fitzgerald & moon, 1996). it is the responsibility of senior public managers to identify performance gaps in service delivery and provide the framework for improvement (horton & farnham, 1999). why did performance management gain popularity in the public sector? according to redman and mathews (1995), the answer is sought in the fact that the public sector strives to become more commercially aware in line with the new public management paradigm and ‘managerialism’ and significant pressures on the public sector now make performance management appear more attractive (dixon et al. 1998: 167). these pressures include the introduction of performance measurement in financial regulations, compulsory competitive tendering, increasing pressures on cost restraint and value-for-money, more demanding customer requirements, improved access to services, responsive to the needs of citizens, and the introduction of the batho pele (customer-first) principles in the white paper on transforming public service delivery, 1997. accountability has become vital in the nonprofit sector as governments effect funding stringencies by introducing criteria based on the ability to prove that specified goals have been achieved. the purpose is to increase public confidence and to improve programme effectiveness by systematically holding public institutions and their political heads accountable for outcomes and results. due to the wide variety of performance management tools, models and techniques available such as the balanced scorecard, six sigma, excellence models, servqual, and citizen charters, it is virtually impossible to identify a generic or common performance management methodology. for purposes of analysis and to operationalize the objectives of article, the transdisciplinary contributions of performance management will be undertaken based on the organisational and human resources dimensions of project management. from the arguments highlighted above, the question arises as to what extent could performance management add value to project management as an emerging, applied discipline? the project management body of knowledge (pmbok) drew a significant number of theories, principles and practices from a wide variety of disciplines including communication studies, human resource management, quality management, financial (cost) management, and risk management. it is argued that pmbok could benefit performance management through the inclusion of project management theories, principles and best practices. it should be noted that project management’s body of knowledge could also make significant contributions to the corpus of knowledge of performance management, but this perspective falls outside the focus of this article. 3. perspectives of transdisciplinary contributions: a framework to facilitate an analysis of the contributions that performance management could make to the body of knowledge of project management, an explanatory logical framework is project management and performance management td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 217-234. 221 necessary. such a framework should make provision for the potential complex interrelationships between the afore-mentioned two disciplines as well as the different vantage points (i.e. epistemological, methodological, theoretical and practical) from which it could be analyzed. figure 1 below, highlights the macro, meso, micro and methodological levels (or perspectives) from which the transdisciplinary contributions could be analyzed.   fig. 1 performance management and project management matrix: the complementary interface. source: author’s own construction based on this framework, it is further possible to elaborate on figure 1 and to establish a conceptual framework for new insight that could be gained once the bodies of knowledge of performance management and project management merged (on macro, meso, micro and theoretical levels). figure 2 below, illustrates this conceptual framework. it should be noted that both performance management and project management applications are context specific. the south african public service environment and associated dynamics – will significantly impact on the transdisciplinary perspectives and insight that could emerge based on their respective contributions. figure 2 indicates how interdisciplinarity (interface between project management and performance management) could lead to new knowledge and insight regarding public sector challenges and the way the principles of both study domains could be applied. van der waldt 222 fig. 2 performance management and project management: transdisciplinary contributions. source: author’s own construction the sections below (3.1-3.4) will analyse the potential transdisciplinary contribution on the respective levels highlighted in the matrix above. 3.1 macro level perspective from a macro perspective (see fig. 1) the complementary interface should explore how the government-wide monitoring and evaluation system (gwm&es), as a macro performance management system for policy implementation in south africa, complements strategic projects that are used as vehicles for policy implementation. the millennium development goals provided the needed impetus for the former president of south africa, thabo mbeki, to propose in 2004 that a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system be developed. his request was that such a system should facilitate reporting on the progress made on the operationalisation of the millennium development goals to the united nations, donor agencies, as well as feedback to society on government’s delivery through the government’s programme of action (gpoa) as well as the state of the nation address (sona). in 2005 cabinet approved such development and the office of the presidency, national treasury, the department of public service and administration and statistics south africa initiated the development of a framework to manage performance and measure service delivery of government departments. in november 2007 the governmentwide monitoring and evaluation system was published. the system aims to instill the systematic and coordinated monitoring and evaluation of policy and programmes to improve the management of the public sector. it monitors developmental impact through the project management and performance management td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 217-234. 223 provincial growth and development plans and integrated development plans (idps) of municipalities. it also enhances the quality of performance information to monitor outcomes and impact. performance management systems (pms) must assist departments and municipalities with its own performance, whilst the gwm&es takes an outcome and sectoral perspective. for this purpose two new ministries were created in the office of the presidency: the ministry of the national planning commission and the ministry of performance, monitoring and evaluation. furthermore, the medium term strategic framework (mtsf) as well as the medium term expenditure framework (mtef) were created to align strategic priorities and budgets of departments with the vision of government. vision 2025, with its twelve outcomes, and the gpoa provide the macro framework for the implementation of programmes and projects in the various clusters in government. each of the twelve outcomes has a delivery agreement, signed by the respective ministers. these agreements reflect government’s delivery and implementation plans for its so-called ‘apex’ priorities. as such, it establishes the foundation from which sectoral departments (a cluster of service-related departments) design and execute projects. evaluation of these projects is aimed at measuring whether and to what extent the presidency’s mid-term development indicators (a series of 76 policy assessment indicators developed in 2009) and performance targets are impacted. in the case of municipalities, the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 provides for a national alignment of municipal performance monitoring with the gwm&es. the minister of the department of co-operative government and traditional affairs (cogta), after consultation with the respective members of the executive committees (mecs) for local government, and organized local government, prescribe national key performance indicators for municipalities. these general indicators make provision for, inter alia, percentage of households with access to basic levels of water, sanitation, electricity and solid waste removal, as well as employment equity targets. it could be argued that the more government implements service delivery projects effectively, the higher the performance (‘goodness’) of government will be rated. from a normative perspective, a performance orientation in government is essential to adhere to the principles attached to ‘good’ governance. the world bank in 1994 indicated the interface between the goodness of a government and its ability to respond to the needs of society. bridgeman (2007:21) in this regard also illustrates the reciprocal relationship between good institutional performance and good governance. the economic commission for africa (2003:5) indicates that the availability of information and transparency in order to enhance policy implementation, promote public debate and reduce the risk of corruption, are essential elements of ‘goodness’. furthermore, hyden and braton (1993:7), batley and larbi (2004), and van der waldt (2004:10) identified various characteristics of good governance which include elements such as the degree of trust in government, the degree of responsiveness to needs, the degree of transparency and accountability, as well as the nature of authority exercised by government over society. in this regard, the mo ibraham foundation developed 84 indicators (such as economic prosperity, safety, human rights and development) to measure the goodness of countries on the african continent (currently south africa ranks 5th on the index; mauritius first and somalia last). the united nations development programme (undp) through its global programme on capacity development for democratic governance assessments and measurements, published in 2005 different governance indicator frameworks within the global barometer, including the world values van der waldt 224 survey, the world governance assessment, the public integrity index, and the afrobarometer. through these frameworks the undp seeks to assist developing countries to produce disaggregated and non-ranking governance indicators to enable the monitoring of governments’ performance. another dimension on the macro level matrix was (and still is) the establishment of a comprehensive statutory and regulatory framework to mainstream performance management in government operations. this includes, but is not limited to: • the public service act 103 of 1994 (gives direction on how state departments should manage performance in a consultative, supportive and non-discriminatory way in order to enhance organisational effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability for the achievement of results) • the constitution of the republic of south africa of 1996 (section 195: ‘performance’ principles of public administration) • the white paper on the transformation of the public service, 1995 (emphasizing the core principles of transformation to lead to service excellence) • the white paper on transforming public service delivery (batho pele), 1997 (set eight principles for service standards and a customer focus) • local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 (section 38: the establishment of performance management systems) • municipal finance management act 56 of 2003 (reflecting on the need for service delivery and budget implementation plans, accountability of section 57 managers, performance auditing and performance accounting) • local government: municipal planning and performance management regulations, 2001 (chapter 3: sets criteria which the municipality’s performance management system must adhere to). the transdisciplinary contribution of performance management from this macro perspective lies mainly in the establishment of systems to monitor, measure and evaluate the implementation of projects aimed at operationalizing government’s programme of action. measurement is aimed at establishing whether projects were implemented efficiently, effectively, and economically. from a normative perspective, performance management further provides the means to measure the ‘goodness’ of a government through its actions (i.e. projects). 3.2 meso level perspective at a meso or intermediate level of the matrix (fig. 1) the second contribution should focus on, inter alia, the design and implementation of comprehensive performance management systems (pms) in government institutions on national, provincial and local spheres as well as the political monitoring and oversight functions of government. all government institutions, including municipalities, are required to develop strategic plans, allocate resources to successfully implement these plans through programmes and projects, and then to monitor and report the outcomes thereof (van baalen & de coning, 2011:178). in the case of national and provincial departments, the department of public service and administration (dpsa) published ‘the guide on performance management and development’ in 2002 to help departments to develop policy on performance management and development that links individual performance to the strategic objectives of the project management and performance management td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 217-234. 225 department, and to design, implement and utilise a performance management system (van der waldt, 2004:290). on the local government sphere the former department of provincial and local government (now cogta) published the ‘performance management guide for municipalities’ in 2001. this guide was aimed at addressing the significant performance challenges that municipalities face through the design, implementation and use of a comprehensive performance management system. the pms is intended as a strategic tool to monitor performance of projects aligned to the idp. the pms assist project teams to measure the efficiency, effectiveness, economy, and quality of project deliverables. the system is designed to continuously monitor the adherence to its developmental and constitutional mandate. the pms use performance indicators, municipal scorecards, service targets, and service standards to enhance the quantification of service delivery outputs, outcomes and impacts. in this regard national treasury designed a ‘framework for managing programme performance’ (2007) to facilitate the utilization of performance management in all activities of government and in the measuring of outcomes of projects. monitoring and evaluation of these projects revolves around a number of key elements such as: • inputs: all the resources required to produce a service delivery output such as finances, personnel, equipment and infrastructure. • activities: all the functions and tasks executed to produce a deliverable. • outputs: the final products, goods and services produced for delivery. • outcomes: the results over time for specific beneficiaries, which are the consequences of achieving specific outputs. • impacts: the depth results of achieving specific outcomes, such as reducing poverty and creating jobs. central to the system is the development of key performance indicators to translate development challenges into quantifiable and measurable constructs. the pms also set targets, assist with the design of roles and responsibilities of personnel to adhere to those targets, and establishes a process of regular performance reporting to facilitate accountability. a comprehensive performance review typically takes place during the mid-year budget and performance assessment in january when the annual performance report is prepared. this review is intended to analyse municipal performance and to draw conclusions from statistics and trends in performance over the financial year and in all political and administrative structures of the municipality. in terms of section 43 of the systems act, the minister of cooperative government and traditional affairs has determined general key performance indicators applicable to all municipalities. these developments further boost political and administrative responsiveness and accountability. a pms makes provision for organisational performance (the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of its processes and systems) and human performance through the signing of performance contracts and bi-annual performance appraisals. furthermore, the pms enables provincial supervision, monitoring and support of local government projects. provincial authorities may intervene in a municipality (section 139 of the constitution) if its actions (i.e. projects) result in misappropriation of funds, corruption, maladministration as well as the breach of sections 152 and 153 of the constitution which outline service delivery obligations of municipalities. from the above contextualisation it appears that the transdisciplinary contribution on the meso level centres mainly around the utilisation of performance management instruments such as performance management systems, performance indicators, service targets, and van der waldt 226 scorecards to assist project teams to measure the efficiency, effectiveness, economy, and quality of project deliverables. performance management principles and practices are also utilised as political oversight and monitoring instruments to evaluate and control government projects. 3.3 micro level perspectives the third vantage point from which the complementary interface between performance management and project management could be explored lies at a more micro level where the performance monitoring and evaluation of projects are built into the design and implementation of project activities and milestones. this includes, for example, the use of performance indicators (pis) to measure the success (quality, efficiency, effectiveness and economy) of each activity. the micro level perspective also includes focus on the human dimension of performance and should include the performance appraisal of project team members. the organisational dimensions of performance management should make provision for the micro management of project team members’ performance. the use of a responsibility assignment matrix (ram), the work breakdown structure (wbs), planning templates, and other tools, should clearly reflect the instruments and/or criteria that will be used to assess the performance of individuals working in a project team. performance monitoring and evaluation of projects typically revolve around issues such as resource results (typically budget), efficiency results (deliverables on target, in scope, and according to quality specifications), and people results (productivity, performance appraisals, performance contracts, etc.) 3.4 methodological perspective arguably the most significant transdisciplinary contribution of performance management on the body of knowledge of project management lies in its theoretical underpinnings. a case could be made that all contributions on macro, meso, and micro levels depend on and are informed by the theories and principles associated with the body of knowledge of both study domains. as management disciplines, both project management and performance management have relative mature methodologies in place (meredith & mantel, 2000:139; schwerin, bourne & reid, 2004), and there are interdependencies between them that should be explored to capitalize on the strengths of each discipline and to understand how each complement the other. for purposes of this article the generic, project management body of knowledge (pmboktm) life cycle model of project management is utilized as conceptual framework to reflect the potential areas where performance management could add value. 3.4.1 project management (pmbok) methodology project management emerged as popular discipline in the late 1950s and 1960s. during the late 1970s the united states and european project management societies were established and project management matured as management application through the widespread adoption in business, government and the military of the matrix form of organisation. during the 1980s project management writings emerged and a body of knowledge became apparent. project management societies began to provide communication on the discipline and this project management and performance management td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 217-234. 227 continued until the mid-1980s when, first, the u.s.-based project management institute (pmi) and, later, the u.k.-based association for project management (apm), embarked on programs to test project management professionalism. this brought about certain guidelines and bodies of knowledge (e.g. pmbok, apmbok), which addressed certain methodology but not every industry and type of methodology. as far as the professionalisation of project management is concerned, the project management institute (pmi) was established with its head office in the usa. the main product of pmi is the a guide to the project management body of knowledge (pmbok®) which provides a conceptual framework for the study of projects. it provides a generic view of project management. the pmbok-guide is intended to provide a common lexicon within the profession for debating key issues in projects. pmi published the first edition of the pmbok in 1996, the second edition in 2000, in 2002 the government extension to a guide to the project management body of knowledge (pmbok guide), and the latest (fifth edition) in 2012. the pmbok comprises of ten knowledge areas, namely: • integration management • scope management • time management • cost management • human resource management • communication management • risk management • procurement management • quality management • stakeholder management especially the quality knowledge area has reference to this article. the existing body of knowledge (pmbok) makes provision for project quality management and the question may be asked whether this knowledge area makes adequate provision for the performance dimensions of projects. to answer this question one has to conceptualise both concepts ‘quality’ and ‘performance’, and compare the differences in foci of both. according to the guide to the project management body of knowledge, chapter 8 (1996 & 2000 editions), the project quality management knowledge area is comprised of the set of processes that ensure the result of a project meets the needs for which the project was executed. processes such as quality planning, assurance, and control are included in this area. each process has a set of input and output. each process also has a set of tools and techniques that are used to convert input into output. this includes the iso 9000, 10000 and 10006:2003 quality standards. it should be noted that the quality management system standards created by iso are meant to certify the processes and the system of an organisation, thus its performance, and not the product or service itself. iso 9000 standards do not certify the quality of the product or service. quality control uses inspections to prove the quality standards of the deliverable projects. there is recent evidence that project performance is receiving increasing attention. crawford, pollack and england (2005:175-184) through their analysis of articles in the international journal of project management and the project management journal, showed that there is a distinct reduction in focus on quality management in the project management literature over the last 10 years, while an increase in the significance of project van der waldt 228 evaluation and improvement is prevalent over the same period, especially, the earned value management domain contributes principles of project performance management. furthermore, there seems to be role confusion regarding quality and performance responsibilities in projects. it is evident that the roles of project governance structures such as steering committee and project management offices is to ‘monitor and control project performance – to track progress against appropriate measures’ (aubrey et al., 2010:33), whilst the role of the project manager is seen to manage the quality of projects (pmbok). a review of competency profiles of project managers further confirms that they are responsible for project quality and that performance is seen as an end result of a project. furthermore, authors such as atkinson (1999:337) argue that project management need to consider other success criteria than simply ‘time’, ‘cost’ and ‘quality’ parameters. in a not-for-profit setting, i.e. public sector, it seems that the concept ‘performance’ is favoured above ‘quality’, probably due to the lack of customer-orientation (in spite of initiatives to put ‘people first’ in service delivery see batho pele, 1997)(faucett & kleiner, 1994:64; aerie & bouckaert, 1996:12). integrated performance management systems are developed, and performance is monitored to ensure the quality of services. in a project management solutions research report titled ‘project maturity: a benchmark of current best practices’, the maturity of organisations in nine project management knowledge areas is generally accepted as critical to successful project completion. more importantly, the research confirms the hypothesis that there is organisational and project management performance improvement if organisations improve their project management maturity. a significant percentage (23%) of high-performing organisations is at level 5 maturity in quality management. this is an indication that a clear distinction is made between quality and performance. the acknowledgement that performance management adds value (especially in the field of earned-value analysis) to project management is not new and studies undertaken by pinto and slevin (1988) and cooke-davies (2002:185-190) illustrate how critical success factors could add value during the project life cycle. 3.4.2 project life cycle and performance management interface the life cycle perspective of projects provides a useful framework to analyse project dynamics over time since it conceptualizes work stages and the budgetary and organisational resource requirements of each stage. pmbok proposes 5 phases in the life cycle, namely: • initiating processes: authorizing the project (usually through a project proposal) • planning processes: defining and refining objectives and selecting the best of the alternative courses of action to attain the objectives that the project was undertaken to address • executing processes: co-ordinating people and other resources to operationalize the plan • controlling processes: ensuring that project objectives are met by monitoring and measuring progress regularly to identify variances from plan so that corrective action can be taken when necessary • closing processes: formalizing the closure the project and bringing it to an orderly end. as stated, pmbok’s life cycle is utilized as conceptual framework for purposes of this article in order to identify potential contributions of performance management. below, each phase of the life cycle is explained with an indication of the kind of contribution performance management body of knowledge of could make. project management and performance management td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 217-234. 229 phase 1: project initiation contribution 1: the use of performance management models for project assessment during the project initiating phase senior management (and often political heads) needs to be convinced about the feasibility of the project before it is authorized. various performance management models exist such as the excellence model, the balanced scorecard, and six sigma that provide metrics to assess the feasibility of projects and its relative importance in terms of strategic priorities. projects should be linked with a strategic programme and falls within key performance areas of the organisation. performance management models could also assist in issues such as environmental impact assessments, swot analysis, baseline indicators, and evaluation methods. phase 2: project planning contribution 2: the use of performance indicators to measure project success performance should be designed into the planning of projects. the performance of a project should be assessed at the completion of the project (summative assessment) and during its implementation (formative assessment). the performance metrics that will be used for these formative and summative assessments need to be attached to the project activities, milestones and deliverables. table 1: project planning and performance management interface activity duration (actual, start, stop) cost responsible person performance indicators standards (level of success) 1.1 book venue for workshop 5 days r800-00 elné input indicator: number of attendants (rsvp) process indicator: venue specifications output indicator: booking confirmation letter 65% attendance 90% compliance with spec’s 1.2 arrange catering 3 days r1 50000 helah input indicator: number of attendants process indicator: dietary requirements procurement policy output indicators: menu confirmed with caterer contract with caterer 100% as per rsvps 100% compliance with policy 100% compliance with procurement policy signed by cfo van der waldt 230 table 1 above proposes a planning template format to be utilised by project teams when they develop a work breakdown structure (wbs). this template makes specific provision for the performance dimension of project activities and its design/layout is congruent with the software architecture of microsoft (ms) project. it facilitates the transferring of paper-based team planning to software-based planning. it is recommended that this template be utilised jointly by all project team members to collectively brainstorm the wbs of the project hereby ensuring buy-in from especially those team members who will be responsible for the execution of the activities. the performance indicators consist of input, process, output, and composite indicators to assist the project manager to assess the quality of completion. in other words, once the team member responsible for a particular activity reports to the project manager that the activity was successfully completed, the project manager will use the performance indicators and standard to determine whether it was successfully executed. the ‘standard” column refers to the level of success that is expected. in other words, if the ‘venue specifications’ (ii of activity 1 above) indicate, for example, the size of venue, accessibility, safe parking, break-away venues, a kitchen, the standard will reflect the level to which the responsible person must adhere to all the specifications. if some specifications are crucial for successful completion, the standard must reflect accordingly. if there are, for example, 10 specifications of which 8 are crucial, the standard will be ‘80% compliance’, meaning that the remaining 2 specifications are not critical for success. the standard further indicates the so-called ‘tolerance level’ for the team. everything below this standard therefore cannot be tolerated, and the responsible team member is required to redo the activity until it achieves the expected standard. by adding the performance indicators and standards will enable self-assessment prior to performance appraisals possible since the criteria for measurement is known to the individual who is responsible for the execution of the activity. it is suggested that these performance indicators and standards be set in conjunction with the responsible person since the person responsible is experienced in this field of activity and will be in the best position to determine what issues should be considered to ensure success. this will also minimize the potential for conflict between the supervisors and individuals since the criteria for performance appraisals are known upfront. it will also legitimize the appraisal rating since there is limited potential for disagreement whether the standard was exceeded or not. by adding these performance indicators and standards could further assist in risk management since, to a large extent, the standard is the tolerance level of the project. should an individual not succeed in meeting the standard, chances are increased that the activity(-ies) will be unsuccessful, which in turn will put the project at risk. if the project is at risk, the institution may waste scarce resources on a bad project. it is further argued that if the performance of the respective building blocks of a project (activities and tasks) are monitored and assessed, the ultimate performance of the project will also be enhanced. contribution 3: responsibility and accountability of team members, role-players and stakeholders by utilizing the planning template (table 1) could further assist in responsibility and accountability improvement in public institutions – an aspect which is critical for performance enhancement. the planning template pinpoints responsibility by indicating the person who is responsible for the execution of the activity. project management methodology adds the so-called ‘rams’ (responsibility assignment matrix) which makes provision for the indication of the responsible person(-s) as well as their acknowledgement (usually in the project management and performance management td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 217-234. 231 form of a signature) that they are responsible for a particular activity within a specific time period, budget and according to specified performance indicators and standards. phases 3 & 4: project execution & controlling contribution 4: performance monitoring during project execution performance monitoring ensures that project objectives are met by regular progress and status reports to identify variances from the original plan so that proactive, corrective action can be taken. monitoring can be regarded as a procedure to check the effectiveness and efficiency in the implementation of a project by identifying strengths and shortcomings and recommending corrective measures to optimize the intended outcomes. in the monitoring process, management should compare project execution performance against parameters defined in the baseline project plan, and take corrective action. monitoring is not necessarily limited to monitoring of performance in project implementation. monitoring is usually conducted in two major areas, namely compliance (pre-)testing and performance (post-)testing. contribution 5: performance reporting, auditing, and accounting reporting on project performance is to review the project progress against expected cost, duration, and quality expectations. status reporting should typically track the schedule and scope status, major challenges, risks, expenditure (actual versus planned amounts) and changes to the baseline plan. performance auditing and accounting are typically the responsibility of the chief financial officer and will use accepted practices, national treasury guidelines, as well as legislative compliance tests. phase 5: project closure contribution 6: assessing the overall performance of the project this phase of the project life cycle is about formalizing the closure of the project and bringing it to an orderly end. performance management’s contribution in this phase is to provide assessment models and metrics to assess the extent to which the project deliverables meet the objectives specified. traditionally project management success focused mainly on the dimensions of ‘within time’, ‘within budget’ and ‘according to requirements’ (quality and functional specifications) of a project (redmill, 1997:30; globerson & zwikael, 2002:58). however, these dimensions are not sufficient to measure overall project management success. therefore, it is important to include performance metrics which should also focus on issues such as the efficiency of the management processes, stakeholders satisfaction, the quality of the product or service delivered, the effectiveness of resource utilisation, and the outcomes and impact of the deliverables, to obtain a more complete (transdisciplinary) view of project success. 5. conclusion both performance management and project management as applied management study domains gained significant popularity in public sector settings. management applications should not be viewed in isolation. the purpose of this article was to explore the potential transdisciplinary contributions of both practical and theoretical contributions that van der waldt 232 performance management could make to the practice and theories of project management. a conceptual framework was utilised to identify practical contributions on macro, meso and micro levels and it was found that performance management could significantly enhance project application practices in the south african public service. furthermore, the potential transdisciplinary contributions from a theoretical/methodological vantage point were explored by using the generic life cycle of project management body of knowledge. six contributions were 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(ed.), handbook of transdisciplinary research. dordrecht: springer. pp. 433-441. microsoft word 9 pretorius and van wyk.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 493504. the utilisation of the performances of neil diamond for improving the classroom practices of educators: an educational appreciation j pretorius1 and c van wyk2 abstract in this research the 5d-framework of appreciative inquiry is used to investigate the possibility of applying the attributes and artistic strategies of the pop singer neil diamond for the improvement of classroom practices of educationalists. during the attendance of the performances of diamond in 2011 in south africa the writers and five other educationalists have identified five broad qualities and practices of diamond. these may have application value in a school or university classroom: passionate enthusiasm, purposeful dedication, communication and interaction with the audience, refusing to conform/creating variation as well as good planning. this is the first time that the 5d-cycle has been used to study the possible utilisation of a live performance of a popular artist to facilitate the professional development of educationalists. key words: appreciative inquiry, classroom practices, educationalists, neil diamond, performance 1. introduction the premise that educationalists in general – and specifically teachers or lecturers – are perpetually in search of strategies to improve their classroom practices or that they should at least be, is relatively certain. most teachers, we think and hope, would surely want to improve their teaching practices in due course. yet, what would the potential sources of, and platforms for, the said improvement be? probable and important platforms for improving one’s classroom practices would naturally include in-service training sessions, self-reflection, discussions and collaborations with colleagues, educational journals, websites and professional associations. our intention here is neither to deny nor to underestimate the value of such developmental tools. at both personal and professional level – no doubt largely as a result of our own half-hearted attempts – we have seldom been able to launch substantial improvements from such platforms. we have found them to be relatively poor with regard to enlightening insights 1 corresponding author: jannie pretorius (phd) is a lecturer of natural and life sciences education in the school of mathematics, natural sciences and technology education at the university of the free state, email: pretoriusjph@ufs.ac.za 2 christo van wyk is a lecturer of physical and natural science education in the school of mathematics, natural sciences and technology education at the university of the free state, email: vanwykc@ufs.ac.za pretorius & van wyk 494 and, at times, even boring. the presenters have often been unable to hold our attention. thus, in the present study, we wish to propose and utilise an additional platform for the improvement of the classroom practices of teachers: appreciating the arts in general and specifically, a popular music artist’s live performances. we believe, and it is indeed our experience, that pop music offers an exciting alternative platform for the improvement of classroom practices. frith (2001:107) describes the potentially transformative effect that pop music has on people: “and if unexpected things happen to songs, so songs have unexpected effects on us”. neil diamond, the popular artist under investigation in this study, explains it like this: “all of these songs came in the flash of some creative inspiration, and at moments that were signposts, pointing toward what the rest of my life and career might be like”.3 2. teaching as a form of art however, in order to utilise the arts as platform for the professional development of teachers, we would firstly require a fundamental assumption: teaching is also an art and teachers, by implication, can also be artists. it would surely be futile to suggest that teachers can learn something from artists about teaching if there were no similarities between the arts and teaching – at least at certain levels. if we were to assume that teaching is also an art (as educationalists do indeed commonly allege) we would be able to utilise the contours and attributes (soanes & stevenson, 2005:102: “a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something”) of artistry in the life and performances of a pop artist like neil diamond as guidelines for the improvement of classroom practice. it is our opinion that an artist, like diamond, and a teacher or lecturer in a south african classroom or lecture hall have to contend with the same basic challenge: to get and keep the attention of their respective audiences. we argue that diamond’s very survival as a performing artist relies on his ability to keep his audiences engaged. because he has succeeded in doing just this over many years we believe that teachers and lecturers alike might learn a lot about improving their classroom practices from studying his performances. references to teaching as a form of art were indeed found: according to feldman and mcphee (2008:126-128) teaching is as much an art as it is a science. we consider the following definition of art as advanced by soanes and stevenson (2005:88) to be a sound base for further arguments for the purposes of the present study: “a skill at doing a specific thing, typically one acquired through practice: the art of conversation.” bloch (2009:104) furthermore considers teaching to be “... a difficult and complex, multifaceted and multilayered art and science”. based on the above, we deem that it is reasonable to consider teaching to be an art. we can start to investigate what educationalists might learn from artists about their classroom practice. we have used the process of appreciative inquiry to conduct our research. we shall now discuss our appreciative methodology accordingly. 3 quotation from booklet included in neil diamond – the greatest hits 1966-1992 cd. using neil diamond to improve classroom practices td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 493-504. 495 3. goals of the study: the definition phase of appreciative inquiry pretorius (2009) utilised the process of appreciative inquiry during a workshop with teachers aimed at investigating pop star cliff richard’s artistry with a view to investigating the positive core of richard’s artistry. in pretorius’s study, richard’s attributes were used as a proposed framework for teachers’ professional development. pretorius, du toit, martin and daries (2013) similarly used the artistry of the pop group abba to facilitate learning by student teachers. in the present case, we have also decided to conduct an appreciative inquiry into the artistry of neil diamond. cooperrider, whitney and stavros (2008:3) describe appreciative inquiry (hereafter called ai) as follows: appreciative inquiry is the cooperative co-evolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. it involves the discovery of what gives ‘life’ to the living system when it is most effective, alive, and constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. ai involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. whitney and trosten-bloom (2010:1-2) give the following description of ai: appreciative inquiry is the study of what gives life to human systems when they function at their best. this approach to personal change and organization change is based on the assumption that questions and dialogue about strengths, successes, values, hopes, and dreams are themselves transformational. in short, appreciative inquiry suggests that human organizing and change at its best is a relational process of inquiry, grounded in affirmation and appreciation. the following beliefs about human nature and human organizing are the foundation of appreciative inquiry: • people individually and collectively have unique gifts, skills, and contributions to bring to life. • organizations are human social systems, sources of unlimited relational capacity, created and lived in language. • the images we hold of the future are socially created and, once articulated, serve to guide individual and collective actions. • through human communication – inquiry and dialogue – people can shift their attention and action away from problem analysis to lift up worthy ideals and productive possibilities for the future. ai is an approach to change with endless variation (whitney & trosten-bloom, 2010:13) and can thus easily be adapted and improved. though no two appreciative inquiry processes are ever identical, they are nevertheless characterised by the 5-d cycle that we followed (see figure 1). pretorius & van wyk 496 according to watkins, moir and kelly (2011: 36) an appreciative inquiry starts with a definition phase during which the inquiry goals are developed (see figure 1). whitney and trosten-bloom (2010:7) argue that, because human systems move towards that which they are studying, the choice of topic or goal is of key importance. the first goal of our study is to provide evidence that, after attending and studying a live performance of a successful performer like neil diamond, teachers and lecturers would definition affirmative topic or first goal of research: to provide evidence that teachers could indeed learn about improving their classroom practices by attending and studying a live performance of a popular artist like neil diamond. discovery “what gives life (to neil diamond)?” (the best that is available) appreciation positive core (diamond’s) dream “what is possible?” (future opportunities in my classroom) imagine destination “what am i going to do in my classroom?” (continuous empowerment, achievement – publication of article and learning) delivery design “what should be?” (my ideal classroom practices and article) innovation f i g u r e 1 : the appreciative inquiry 5-d cycle (adapted from cooperrider, whitney & stavros, 2008, and whitney & trosten-bloom, 2010:6.) using neil diamond to improve classroom practices td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 493-504. 497 indeed be able to identify attributes and strategies of the singer. these might enable them to improve their classroom practices. the second goal of our research is to validate the credibility of this learning process by embedding what might possibly be learnt into current scientific educational literature. the rationale behind this has powerful implications for the process of lifelong learning: instead of viewing it as a series of isolated events, teachers might be enabled to utilize every song, performance or work of art that they encounter as a potential source of learning about their classroom practices. it is now necessary that we describe the rest of our research processes. 4. research plan, design and development our next task was identifying positive themes (whitney & trosten-bloom, 2010:136) from neil diamond’s performances and artistry to enable us to compile the appreciative inquiry interview protocol (cooperrider et al., 2008:62). we wanted to use the interview protocol during the appreciative research interviews with a view to identifying educators’ positive experiences and insights regarding the possible classroom applications of diamond’s performances. during the preliminary phase of our research we have therefore shown two of diamond’s performances of his song, sweet caroline, in 1976 in sydney (diamond, 2008a), and in 2008 in new york (diamond, 2008b) to the staff members of two primary schools one in bloemfontein and the other in welkom. the two staff groups identified five corresponding positive themes regarding diamond’s artistry that might have application value in a classroom. three appreciative questions, dealing with the identified educational themes were subsequently developed and included in the structured interview protocol: • what could teachers learn from neil diamond? • do you sometimes do in your classroom what neil diamond does? stated differently: do you see yourself in how he does things? • what did you learn from the performance that could contribute to your own personal professional career/development as a teacher/lecturer? the next step in the ai process was to decide what form of involvement would be the most suitable (whitney & trosten-bloom, 2010:24). depending on the purpose of the investigation, the availability of resources and the time frame, large numbers of people can be involved – like when an ai conference is held, core groups involving fewer people can be put together, or small ai learning teams (whitney & trosten-bloom, 2010:32) can be involved in specific projects (whitney & trosten-bloom, 2010:24). due to the fact that the first goal of our study was to provide evidence that teachers could indeed learn about improving their classroom practices by attending and studying a live performance of a popular artist like neil diamond, we chose to compose an informal ai learning team comprising of the two writers (as interviewers) and five other educators (four teachers and one lecturer). the additional team members were recruited by asking educators who had attended the performances whether they would be willing to participate in appreciative interviews. since all the questions asked would be appreciative of nature and since only the first names of the participants would be mentioned in the research report, a non-threatening and ethically sound research environment was created. the five additional pretorius & van wyk 498 team members’ involvement would be limited to being respondents during the appreciative interviews. we were extremely privileged to obtain their cooperation as, having attended the performances, they were able to make direct observations. dey (1993), according to ary, jacobs and sorensen (2010:497), considers direct observation to be a factor that enhances data quality. abercrombie and longurst (1998, in longhurst, 2007:260) describe the characteristics of a pop concert in the following way: the simple audience, as represented, for example, by an audience at a pop music concert, involves relatively direct communication from performers to audience; the performance takes place in a confined locale, tends to be highly ceremonial in the sense that it is a special event and the space of the performance is ritualistic, and the site has a high level of meaning for the participants. the performance and the audience response takes place in public and the performers are separated from the audience by clear boundaries. the attention level of the audience with respect to the performance is high. it therefore presented us with a unique opportunity. the two writers and three of the other team members attended the concert in soweto (see figure 2), while two of them attended the concert in cape town. figure 3 is presented alongside figure 2, illustrating the striking similarity between diamond, performing his songs on stage, and a teacher, presenting a class. the team members were all educators because we obviously wanted to identify possible classroom applications from diamond’s performances. one of the appreciative interviews – with annelie (see table 1) was conducted telephonically. the others were conducted personally. the two writers also conducted appreciative interviews with each other, bringing the total number of interviews to seven. the appreciative interviews are part of the second or discovery phase of the 5-d model that we used as a research framework (see figure 1). whitney and trosten-bloom (2010:7) describe this phase as the following: “discovery is the extensive, cooperative search to understand the ‘best of what is and has been’. it is typically conducted via one-on-one interviews, though it may also include focus groups and large-group meetings.” cooperrider et al. (2008:6) provide the following description of this phase: “as part of the discovery f i g u r e s 2 a n d 3 : diamond performing in soccer city, soweto and a teacher “performing” in a classroom. using neil diamond to improve classroom practices td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 493-504. 499 process, individuals engage in dialogue and meaning-making. this is simply the open sharing of discoveries and possibilities.” phase three of the 5-d model is the dream phase (whitney & trosten-bloom, 2010:8), which they describe as the following: “dream is an energizing exploration of ‘what might be’.” in our investigation, this phase consisted of two questions that the team members had to answer during the appreciative interviews: “what could teachers learn from neil diamond?” and “what did you learn during the performance that could contribute to your own professional career/development as a teacher/lecturer?” the fourth or design phase of this ai entailed an analysis of the responses and the identification and discussion of positive themes that represent the essence of what teachers and other educationalists could learn from diamond’s performances. the final destiny phase of the research process involved the submission of the manuscript for peer review and the ultimate publication thereof. 5. responses of team members and positive themes identified: what can teachers learn from neil diamond? in this section, we shall present and discuss the responses of the ai learning team members and analyse these to identify positive themes that could serve as direction indicators for teachers’ professional development. in response to the first question – as to what teachers could learn from neil diamond – jannie, who attended the performance in soccer city, said that they should be absolutely professional and put on a perfect show in spite of difficult personal circumstances. christo also attended the performance in soccer city and he said that teachers should be on time, because the performance in soweto started twenty minutes later than scheduled. teachers might also take note of how diamond uses his voice and also acknowledge their audience’s – the learners’ participation. conrad, a member of the soccer city audience, argued that teachers should display diamond’s dedication how he gets things across to people. he observed that fifty-two thousand people focused on diamond. teachers must achieve this in their classrooms, even if there might only be thirty children attending the class. both annelie, who attended the soccer city show, and lenie, who attended the show in cape town, felt that passion is the key when one wants to involve people in what you are doing. annelie also mentioned dedication, hard work, and enjoying what one does. elmarie, who attended the soccer city performance, argued that teachers should also plan as thoroughly for their classes as diamond when he writes a song: “it’s not something that is simply dashed off.” suzette, who attended diamond’s performance in cape town, was impressed by his dedication, consistency and tidiness. she contended that diamond is conservative, since he did not perform in south africa during the apartheid years. in response to the second question – “do you sometimes do in your classroom what neil diamond does? stated differently: do you see yourself in how he does things?” jannie articulated that he enjoys the connection that he has with students and they laugh a lot in class. christo replied that ordinary artists have notes on the floor, but diamond did it without notes. christo said that he also teaches without notes. he, too, is enthusiastic and passionate. he teaches from his own experience since he shares his life experiences with his students. according to conrad he talks quite a lot to children in his classes; he does not only teach, but talks to them. he creates a relaxed atmosphere. pretorius & van wyk 500 annelie also enjoys her audience and their interaction. she enjoys what she receives. elmarie declared that she also believes in a variaty of teaching and learning activities. lenie associated herself with the interaction between diamond and his audience; provoking a reaction, she speaks to children in the classroom about what has happened. there is a sufficient amount of interaction between herself and her class. she often wears a mask and leaves her problems at home. suzette responded in poetic terms: “yes, we act, we become the performers.” in response to the last question: “what did you learn from the performance that could contribute to your personal professional career/development as a teacher/lecturer?” jannie declared that he never wants to stop teaching with total commitment. christo will strive to better the connection with the students in his class. conrad simply enjoyed the evening, so he did not give the question any thought – nevertheless, he will try to emulate diamond’s contagious energy, to always be purposeful. annelie stated that one has to be a master of what one does: one should prepare well for every lesson. elmarie had a powerful one worded answer: “humour”, while lenie was impressed by diamond’s passion and enthusiasm: “… for doing what i do, to the best of my ability, and transferring it to the children so they develop a love for my subject. enthusiasm.” suzette felt that one should be true to yourself: “stay relevant and do not conform.” five broad qualities and practices of diamond that may have educational significance can, inter alia, be identified from team members’ responses above: • passionate enthusiasm • purposeful dedication • communication and interaction with the audience • refusing to conform/creating variation and variety • good planning in our discussion of the five qualities and practices, two acknowledged educational sources (feldman and mcphee, 2008 and killen, 2010) are utilised as sources of theoretical professional knowledge to illustrate the suitability, validity and credibility of the team members’ insights for the improvement of classroom or pedagogical practice. this is to address the second goal of our research: to validate the credibility of the learning process by embedding what the learning team has learnt into current scientific educational literature. in their discussions of the pedagogical practices of outstanding teachers, both feldman and mcphee (2008) and killen (2010) do indeed refer to all of the aforementioned qualities and practices as having relevance for improved classroom practice. 5.1 passionate enthusiasm feldman and mcphee (2008:130) regard enthusiasm to be a quality possessed by good teachers who communicate and teach effectively: “they are excited about the subject they teach and present the material in an engaging manner. they challenge students at an appropriate level to keep the learning interesting.” killen (2010:37) further reports that such teachers are passionate not only about their subjects but also about the teaching of their subjects. enthusiasm is part of a larger group of behaviours, known as teacher affect – behaviour emanating from attitudes, values and emotions. yet, enthusiasm is that particular form of affective behaviour mostly supported by research (killen, 2010:37). he further justifies it as the following: using neil diamond to improve classroom practices td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 493-504. 501 ‘enthusiastic teachers are more successful than unenthusiastic teachers at engaging learners in learning’ (killen, 2003a:77), and when learners see that their teacher is enthusiastic, this influences their motivation and their perceptions of other teacher behaviours (such as how clearly the teacher explains things, which in turn positively influences student learning (killen, 2010:37). 5.2 purposeful dedication feldman and mcphee (2008:347-351) identify dedication as one of the ‘habits-of-mind’ of good teachers: “not giving up easily is the key to this habit” and, “recognizing the need to act when action is called for, stepping forward in response. persisting, patiently, as the situation may require.” killen (2010:38) further stresses the importance of dedication as a practice common among outstanding teachers. such teachers are dedicated not only to teaching but also to assisting their students to learn effectively. the most common among the indicators of teachers’ dedication, is their loyal adherence to the norms and standards of their profession, their assistance to learners beyond the call of duty (by mentoring and coaching), their development of the philosophy and values of a school, as well as their loyalty to the profession – even when it is demanding and stressful (killen, 2010:38). there is also considerable evidence that dedicated teachers would probably be more open to innovation and policy change than less committed teachers (elliot & crosswell, 2002 in killen, 2010:38). 5.3 communication and interaction with the audience the affection and interaction between diamond and his audience is evident from figure 4. in figure 5 a scene from the movie the first grader represents the comparative feelings and interaction typical of some educational situations. the teacher should also treat students with respect and manage their behaviour by means of effective communication and interpersonal skills (feldman & mcphee, 2008:378). these include using courteous language, an inclusive attitude, listening to learners respectfully and being a role model of respect, common courtesy and understanding (feldman & mcphee, 2008:378). f i g u r e s 4 a n d 5 : diamond’s affectionate interaction with the audience and jane (naomie harris) celebrating with the learners and maruge (oliver litondo) – a rather aged learner in the first grader – a bbc film. pretorius & van wyk 502 these authors further argue that teachers should rather converse with their learners than speak to/at them. learners who see that their teachers are truly trying to understand their perspectives and respecting these, are less likely to feel that they are treated with contempt or belittled in the presence of their classmates. killen (2010:37) also regards excellent teachers as effective communicators, describing them as people who maintain good relations with their learners, who give lucid explanations, who clearly articulate their expectations and who involve learners. feldman and mcphee (2010:379) also advocate the creation of a collaborative learning environment in the classroom, one in which learners will focus on collaborative learning. if teachers succeed in creating this kind of environment, the competitive environment in many classrooms becomes less so. they suggest that the traditional transmission model of teaching be replaced by learning environments influenced by constructivist learning principles, ones that value prior experiences and knowledge and welcome relevant challenges, questions and debates. this will not only support more effective learning, but also strong connections among students. killen (2010:25) categorically states: “you should not expect learners to be engaged in meaningful learning if the environment is not supportive, encouraging and focused on learning.” 5.4 refusing to conform/create variation and variety feldman and mcphee (2008:348) opine that we all have the capacity to do more than we think. we shall realise what we are capable of doing by mastering creative techniques. they advise teachers to encourage learners to take risks so their creative abilities can be nurtured and so thus feel more successful. due to the fact that learners experience knowledge in different ways – which also differ in respect of background knowledge, skills and talents – a one-size-fits-all approach will probably not be very successful (killen, 2010:133-4). killen also argues that we all get bored with doing the same thing for too long. this is especially true when we are inactive, such as when we are sitting quietly in a classroom. he advises that teachers should inter alia vary the following aspects of their direct instruction (killen, 2010:134): • the ways in which lessons commence (e.g. state the outcomes, ask a question, pose a problem and show an object that interests learners). • the way in which learners’ prior knowledge is gauged (e.g. pre-tests, brainstorming and surveys). • the means by which learners gain access to information (e.g. lecture, hand-out, powerpoint presentation, internet, stories, television). • the activities learners participate in (e.g. listening, reading, writing, speaking). 5.5 good planning outstanding teachers come to class organised – ready to instruct (feldman & mcphee, 2008:130), because this not only demonstrates that they have mastered the subject content, but also their dedication and commitment to the instruction. killen (2010:39) further holds that excellent teachers are well organised. they implement systems and processes to systematise all aspects of their teaching. this is ever so important because learners learn more effectively from well-organised teachers than from unorganised teachers (killen, 1991 in killen, 2010:39). killen (2010:84) also warns teachers: using neil diamond to improve classroom practices td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 493-504. 503 you cannot expect individual lessons to be successful if they had not been planned thoroughly and integrated carefully into your medium and long-term plans. 6. conclusion as explained in paragraph 2, the first goal of our research was to provide evidence that, after attending and studying a live performance of a successful, popular performer like neil diamond, teachers and lecturers would be able to identify those attributes and strategies of the singer that might enable them to improve their classroom practices. in our opinion, we have indeed provided evidence that educators can learn from diamond specifically – and therefore likely from the arts in general about improving their classroom practices. the learning team members often presented their observations and interpretations in poetic terms: “to be absolutely professional and to put on a perfect show, despite difficult, personal circumstances”; “i also enjoy my audience and our interaction. i enjoy what i get back” and, “yes, we act, we become the performers.” this is a clear indication that the learning team members were able to interpret, understand and learn about their teaching practices in artistic terms. the ai team members also indicated that they learned from diamond about, inter alia, the interaction between themselves and the learners in their classes (“i also enjoy my audience and our interaction. i enjoy what i receive”), that his passion inspires them (“passion – for doing what i do to the best of my ability, and for transferring it to the children so they develop a love for my subject”), and that educators, too, have to prepare thoroughly (“planning – doesn’t it also take him some time to write a song? it’s not something that is simply dashed off”) – insights with which the educational fraternity are naturally familiar with. what is however new is that the educators in this study were able to come to these insights while attending an enjoyable neil diamond concert and that they could learn from him about their classroom practices. diamond’s songs might indeed be pointing toward what the rest of the lives and careers of teachers might be like. we believe that, by embedding this learning process into the scientific knowledge presented in two acknowledged sources in the field of teaching practice, we have successfully achieved the second goal of our research, namely to validate the credibility of the knowledge obtained during this enjoyable learning experience. we definitely do not want to argue that this method of teacher development should replace any of the existing methods. we readily admit that this was an exploratory study with only seven participants. the positive themes that we have identified from the responses were, however, embedded in current educational literature and the credibility and transferability thereof were established. what we do wish to contend, therefore, is that our research provides some convincing evidence that popular music does, indeed, provide an enjoyable and valid addition to the current range of available teacher training strategies. references ary, d., jacobs, l.c. & sorensen, c. 2010. introduction to research in education. wadsworth, belmont. pretorius & van wyk 504 bloch, g. 2009. the toxic mix: what’s wrong with south africa’s schools and how to fix it. cape town: tafelberg. cooperrider, d.l., whitney, d. & stavros, j.m. 2008. appreciative inquiry handbook. 2nd ed. brunswick, oh: crown custom publishing, inc. and san francisco: berrett-koehler publishers, inc. diamond, n. 2008a. neil diamond: the thank you australia concert. live 1976. archangel television productions. [dvd] diamond, n. 2008b. neil diamond: hot august night/nyc. live from madison square garden, august 2008. sony music. [dvd] feldman, j. & mcphee, d. 2008. the science of learning & the art of teaching. new york: thomson delmar learning. frith, s. 2001. pop music. in frith, s., straw, w. & street, j. (eds). the cambridge companion to pop and rock. cambridge: cambridge university press. killen, r. 2010. teaching strategies for quality teaching and learning. cape town: juta & co. ltd. longhurst, b. 2007. popular music and society (2nd. ed.). cambridge, polity press. pretorius, j.p.h. 2009. cliff richard: an educational appreciation. litnet akademies, 6(3):155-184. pretorius, j.p.h., du toit, d.s., martin, c. and g. daries. 2013. abba: an educational appreciation. journal of aesthetic education, vol. 47(1):72-103. soanes, c. & stevenson, a. 2005. oxford dictionary of english. oxford, oxford university press. watkins, j.m., mohr, b. & kelly, r. 2011. appreciative inquiry: change at the speed of imagination. 2nd ed. san francisco: pfeiffer. whitney, d.k. & trosten-bloom, a. 2010. the power of appreciative inquiry: a practical guide to positive change. san francisco: berret-koehler publishers, inc. microsoft word 12 majila taylor & raga anti-corruption.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 219-240. a comparative analysis of the implementation of anti-corruption legislation by anti-corruption agencies in the provinces of the eastern and northern cape t majila,1 jd taylor2 and k raga3 abstract many countries experience various degrees of corruption. south africa is no exception. the undeniable fact is that corruption cannot be reckoned as a mere countryor regionspecific problem; it is a far wider phenomenon. however, there has been a growing global movement to condemn corrupt practices, resulting in the removal of certain leaders from office. south africa has formulated and promulgated legislation that is considered an international example of good practice and has established agencies for the purpose of combating corruption. the institute for security studies (2007:1) proposes that anti-corruption legislation, if enforced, should equip the country’s anti-corruption agencies with a tool that could effectively be utilised as a punitive instrument for offenders and a deterrent for those contemplating corrupt activities. this article examines whether anti-corruption agencies are apolitical and capable of detecting and punishing corruption or whether they are only a response to international demands by international agreements. in this regard the united nations convention against corruption, the sadc protocol against corruption and the african union convention on preventing and combating corruption are discussed. the article concludes with recommendations based on an empirical survey of anticorruption legislation and anti-corruption agencies conducted in the eastern cape and northern cape provinces. introduction south africa, like most other countries, faces challenges in preventing and combating corrupt behaviour. according to the national planning commission (2011:446), south africa suffers from high levels of corruption that undermine the rule of law and hinder development and socio-economic transformation. however, in the democratic era, steps have been taken to counter corrupt practices and put accountability mechanisms in place. corruption is known to have a disproportionate impact on the poor in terms of income inequalities and access to essential services and resources, and it undermines opportunities for building secure livelihoods and economic empowerment (chêne and hodess, 2010:3). the 1 . dr thozama majila is deputy director: housing policy development eastern cape department of human settlement, east london. e-mail: thoziv@gmail.com. 2 . prof john derek taylor is in the department of political and governmental studies faculty of arts, po box 7700, nelson mandela metropolitan university, port elizabeth, 6031. e-mail: derek.taylor@nmmu.ac.za. 3 . prof kishore raga is a research associate at nelson mandela metropolitan university, port elizabeth, 6031. e-mail: kishore.raga@nmmu.ac.za or raga.kishore@gmail.com majila, taylor & raga 220 costs of corrupt practices fall most heavily on the poor because these costs degrade the quality and accessibility of public services (national planning commission, 2011:446). state systems of accountability have been disparate, thereby enabling corruption to thrive. bassey, ndem, michael and awa (2012:55) state that corruption poses a serious challenge and undermines democracy and good governance by subverting formal processes. furthermore, corruption in public administration results in the unequal or non-provision of services to its citizens. at the level of individuals and households, there is mounting evidence of the negative effects of corruption on the health and welfare of citizens (vian, 2013:83). carr and outhwaite (2008:18) explain corruption as a “cancer” on development and declare that “there is nothing more important” than the fight against it. south africa has followed this trend by embarking on a number of anti-corruption initiatives. within the united nations system, south africa has initiated the following three initiatives: the adoption of the united nations convention against transnational organised crime (2000); the launch of the global programme against corruption (2000); and the work on the preparation of a united nations convention against corruption (2002). south africa, through anti-corruption legislation and anti-corruption agencies also plays a prominent role in fighting corruption within the african context, such as in the new partnership for africa's development (nepad). the emphasis in nepad is on good governance and the adoption of the africa union convention on preventing and combating corruption. within the southern african development community (sadc), the protocol against corruption was adopted in august 2001 and was ratified by south africa in 2003.corruption has been identified as an impediment to national integrity (department of public service and administration and united nations office on drugs and crime, 2003:37). the presidency of south africa (2010:17) states that several measures have been put in place with the objective of combating corruption. according to jackson, muzondidya, naidoo, ndletyana and sithole (2009:5), the government of south africa has undertaken a number of other important anti-corruption measures. these measures include the adoption of the public service anti-corruption strategy as the blueprint for anti-corruption campaigns in the public sector (2002), the promulgation of an anti-corruption related legislative framework (19972004), the development of investigating and prosecuting anti-corruption capacities, and attempts to develop partnerships with business and civil society. other significant developments identified by the international bar association (2012:1) include the following international agreements and conventions to which south africa has acceded: • the southern african development community protocol against corruption; • the southern african development community protocol on combating illicit drugs; • the african union convention on preventing and combating corruption; • the united nations convention against corruption; • the united nations convention against transnational organised crime; and • the organisation for economic co-operation and development convention on combating bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions. anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 221 this article endeavours to briefly explain the nature of corruption and the role of anticorruption agencies in south africa. the south african government’s capacity to utilise legislative and administrative anti-corruption directives to address the question whether anticorruption agencies are apolitical and capable of detecting and punishing corruption is also expounded. nature of corruption curbing corruption has become a top priority in many countries throughout the world. prioritising the fight against corruption has led to the enactment of anti-corruption legislation and the establishment of anti-corruption agencies in some countries. however, devising and implementing these control measures do not necessarily mean that corruption has been curbed since corruption is perceived as a complex phenomenon. hussmann, tisne and mathisen (2009:6) and menipaz and menipaz (2011:78) support this notion. they state that corruption is a complex phenomenon and that its character differs from country to country, depending on the prevailing social, economic and cultural conditions and, particularly, the legal context. they perceive corruption as a complex process and a multi-faceted issue that requires contextual analysis and understanding. the literature acknowledges that corruption is an ancient, wide and pervasive problem that continues to be a factor in everyday lives around the world (gebeye, 2012:5 and vian, 2008:83). while the early years of anti-corruption work focused largely on personalised transactions, it is now recognised that corruption is a much broader problem, often ingrained in political systems (hussmann et al., 2009:6). corruption is a moral and ethical dimension which may be translated into legal provisions in various ways (kolstad, fritz and o’neil, 2008:vi). however, in many countries such as india and pakistan, there is a significant section of the population which does not regard corruption as being simply the result of poverty or disorder, but rather as being something that is appropriate or at least tolerable (reno, 2008:404) . corruption itself does not belong only to the economic domain (danon, 2010:28). according to hussmann et al. (2009:6), an anti-corruption campaign should target the following: political and social dimensions (systemic corruption); the rule of law (control and prosecution); public and administration reforms (prevention) and extractive industries and service delivery (sector corruption). in addition, non-state actors (transparency and accountability) as well as capacity-building and organisational development (anti-corruption abilities) should also fall within the ambit of an anti-corruption campaign. although the complexity factor is often mentioned in the corruption literature, few studies analyse its nature in detail. devising effective and practical anti-corruption initiatives is unlikely without understanding the complexity of corruption. although forms of corruption vary from country to country according to the level of economic development and attitudes to it differing from one culture to another, corruption is fundamentally the same evil wherever it occurs (saryazdi, 2012:503). to be able to understand the nature of corruption, perhaps the phenomenon itself needs to be defined and its extent, causes, forms and consequences need to be examined. despite numerous international and regional anti-corruption conventions against corruption, as well as several international, self-regulatory anti-corruption initiatives, progress in the fight against corruption continues to be slow (world economic forum, 2009:12). persson, rothstein and teorell (2012:7) state that while political actors often talk of accountability and integrity, this majila, taylor & raga 222 by itself does not seem to translate into a genuine and credible commitment to detect and penalise unethical behaviour. in south africa, legislation has been promulgated and agencies have been established for the purpose of combating corruption. however, corruption still seems to be concentrated among certain individuals in the country. in table no. 1, yaru (2010:146) shows the nature of corruption: t a b l e n o . 1 : t y p e s , c a u s e s a n d c o n s e q u e n c e s o f c o r r u p t i o n types of corruption causes forms consequences political corruption weak electoral commission, law enforcement mechanism, judiciary and one-party dominated state inflation of voters, rigging of elections and deprivation of winners from weaker political parties civil unrest, bad governance, incompetent rulers, bad international image and electoral violence economic corruption weak state, poverty and wide income gap between the rich and the poor bribing to win contracts, influenced service delivery, contract cutbacks, inflation of government contracts and non-payment of taxes by highly-placed businessmen escalating cost of governance, poor or nonimplementation of public contracts, poor public service delivery, closure of public parastatals and loss of public revenue through tax evasion and avoidance bureaucratic corruption lack of national commitment, weak state and complex bureaucratic processes bribery of public officials and distortion of due process/normal procedure in the public sectors bad policies, nonpursuance of policy objectives, policy failures, employment of incompetent public officials and poor service delivery judicial corruption poor salary scale, greed and weak law enforcement mechanism free bail, distortion of judgments, acceptance of bribes by judges and delays in passing judgment persistent corruption , private cost of corruption lowered or reduced to zero, civil unrest and lawlessness and decadence of rule of law moral corruption non-taxation of property, high level of poverty and wide income distribution demonstration of individual materialistic possession and exploitation of masses by the few powerful rich in the society desperation to acquire wealth, armed robbery, civil disorder and eventually revolution for change adapted from yaru (2010:146) from the above, it can be inferred that corruption is a multifaceted phenomenon. this is probably the reason why those who write about corruption first attempt to define the concept before examining it. defining the concept is appropriate since it would be difficult to analyse, measure, assess or fight corruption without first determining its essential qualities. in the following section, the legislative framework governing anti-corruption in south africa is discussed. anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 223 legislative framework on corruption in south africa the national planning commission (2011:446) states that south africa has passed laws that provide a foundation for open, transparent and accountable government. woods (2011) and the gauteng anti-corruption strategic framework (2009) commend south africa for having a relatively sophisticated and comprehensive legal framework which deals with corruption, transparency in procurement and financial management. however, the above authors also identify shortcomings when assessing the effectiveness of the legislation, while providing measures for mitigating these failures. the inadequacies detected are irregular accountability systems (national planning commission, 2011:446); the public sector’s uneven capacity to enforce and comply with the legislation (godi, 2007:6); and poor management (woods, 2011:5). south africa provides an example of anti-corruption legislation outside asia (for example, singapore) which is often cited as a reference worldwide because these countries are considered to be the least corrupt (chêne and hodess, 2010:3). however, implementation of south africa’s anti-corruption legislation has proven to be ineffective. to this effect hean (2010:151) remarks that having tough laws is no guarantee that there is effective enforcement. the gauteng anti-corruption strategic framework (2009:8) states that the elements of an effective anti-corruption framework exist in south africa, specifically in gauteng. when assessing south africa’s investment climate, the us department of state (2012) realised that the country has an excellent anti-corruption regulatory framework which is highlighted by the passage of the prevention and combating of corrupt activities act 12 of 2004. however, the national planning commission (2011:446) revealed that the legislation has weaknesses such as: the failure of the protected disclosures act 26 of 2000 to provide adequate protection to whistle-blowers; poor supply chain prescripts; complexity in the implementation of the promotion of access to information act 2 of 2000; and inefficiencies in south africa’s rule of law. despite applicable legislative prescriptions, south africa continues to rank amongst the highest in terms of levels of corruption and perceptions of corruption. there are inefficiencies within and among institutions with regard to anti-corruption mandates, a lack of effective follow-up on complaints of corruption, inefficient application of disciplinary systems, underdeveloped management capacity in some areas and societal attitudes which weaken anti-corruption efforts (gauteng anti-corruption strategic framework, 2009:8). regarding the effectiveness of this law-directed anti-corruption approach, cronin (2013) proposes that there is every indication that corruption, particularly in the public sector, continues to escalate in south africa. cronin (2013) attributes this failure to poor management which results in weak application of laws and regulations, and the subsequent deterioration of the application of internal systems which, in turn, create opportunities for corruption. international anti-corruption legislative framework chêne (2010:7) highlights applicable legislation pertaining to the following three countries: firstly, singapore’s prevention of corruption act (pca) was enacted in 1960. the law explicitly defines corruption in terms of various forms of “gratification” and combines extensive prevention measures with severe sanctions and penalties. secondly, hong kong’s prevention of bribery ordinance 1970 (pobo) is a comprehensive piece of legislation that covers all types of bribery, both in the public and the private sectors. thirdly, malaysia’s majila, taylor & raga 224 anti-corruption act 1997 stipulates offences and penalties for private and public sector corruption, including active and passive bribery, attempted corruption and abuse of office, corruption through agents and intermediaries, corruption in public procurement and electoral corruption (chène, 2010:8). having reviewed anti-corruption legislation in 21 countries (inter alia: australia, bangladesh, cambodia, the cook islands, fiji islands, hong kong, china, india, singapore, malaysia), chêne (2010:7) concludes that good practice examples of anti-corruption legislation have been implemented in singapore, hong kong and, to some extent, malaysia. corrupt practices are consensual in nature, with both the giver and the taker motivated by mutual interests (lian, 2008:4). unlike general crime, the victim does not always reveal what has happened, possibly because he/she is also the offender. in corrupt offences both the giver and the receiver can be guilty parties who have the motivation to conceal and not tell the truth, which makes investigation and evidence-gathering more challenging (hean, 2010:150). hin (2011) emphasises that the law must define what constitutes corrupt offences and their punishment, and identify the powers of enforcement against them (hin, 2011: 124). it can be inferred that characteristics that make anti-corruption legislation successful are detection, investigation and prosecution of cases while punishment, prevention and enforcement aspects are imperative for effective anti-corruption laws. while having anticorruption legislation in place has proven to be the first step, there are other complementary measures that are needed such as: informed citizens; a need to foster and sustain high levels of professional and ethically imbued civil servants; and legislation that supports the transition towards a corruption-free society. the following measures such as: the freedom of information law, a whistle-blower protection law, conflict of interest laws, procurement laws and party financing laws have been implemented in the republic of south africa. for laws to be effective, they need to be enforceable. elements of effective anti-corruption legislation the above-mentioned authors identify other characteristics such as detection, investigation and prosecution of cases, and punishment, prevention and enforcement aspects as imperative for effective anti-corruption laws. del mar landette (2002:23) highlights specific anticorruption legislation that defines public standards of behaviour and their enforcement through investigation and prosecution as a requirement while messick and kleinfeld (2001), mollah and uddin (2002) and hin (2011) emphasise the prevention of corruption. messick and kleinfeld (2001:1) state that an obvious first step is to ensure that laws are in place to deter corruption. prevention is regarded as better than cure. according to the dpsa report (2006:22), the costs of preventing corruption are far lower than investigating it, holding disciplinary inquiries, and taking cases to court. in singapore the principal law is the prevention of corruption act which governs the primary offences of corruption and the powers of the enforcement agency (hin, 2011: 124). the world bank group (2007:3) explains that anti-corruption laws work to deter corrupt actions, prosecute corruptors and resurrect a sense of justice. however, transparency international (2011: online) argues that although it is widely recognised that the prevention of corruption should be at the forefront of reform efforts, anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 225 effective detection and punishment through relevant anti-corruption laws and proceedings are equally important. mollah and uddin (2002:23) add that anti-corruption laws work to resurrect a sense of justice which has become a rare commodity in endemically corrupt countries, while the usaid (1999:11) promotes the application of sanctions to corrupt acts as an important step towards establishing accountability. the world bank (2001:1) supports this notion and argues that laws that punish bribery and other forms of corruption have proliferated throughout the developing world (world bank, 2001:1). messick and kleinfeld (2001:2) identify three aspects of effective anti-corruption laws. anticorruption laws should contain bright-line rules, be tailored to enforcement capacity, and be supported by complementary measures. the world bank (2001: 2-3) advises that countries with weak enforcement institutions should consider including the following bright-line rules in their anti-corruption laws: i. no government employee may receive any gift, payment, or anything of value in excess of a small sum from anyone who is not a member of that person‘s immediate family. ii. no employee may hold, directly or indirectly (that is, through family or other agents), an interest in a corporation or other entity affected by that employee‘s decision. iii. every year all employees above a certain pay level must publicly disclose all assets they hold directly or indirectly. iv. no employee may hire a relative (with a precise specification on how distant a relation must be before he or she is a relative). v. all employees must disclose any relationship with people hired and with firms or entities to which they award a contact or concession. (since in many countries the pool of talented workers and qualified firms is small, this rule leaves decisions about corruption to public opinion). those who formulate anti-corruption legislation need to ensure clarity and non-ambiguity of the law, that it is simple to apply, and that it demands little or no judgment in determining its applicability (messick and kleinfeld, 2001:2). laws written this way are said to contain bright-line rules and are contrasted with those containing standards that are open to interpretation by enforcement agencies (kaplow, 1992:557–629). when drafting such acts, the instinct is to list every activity that can conceivably be considered corrupt, and to avoid deliberate misinterpretation, as people are creative in finding ways to enrich themselves or their friends and family at the public‘s expense (world bank, 2001:1). according to messick and kleinfeld (2002:2), bright-line rules are easy to understand, simple to apply, and demand little or no judgment in determining their applicability. this statement is supported by kaplow (1992:557-629) who states that such laws are contrasted with those which contain standards that are open to interpretation by enforcement agencies. the world bank (2001:1-2) is also against broadly drawn provisions that set out a general standard such as the provision found in the laws of several nations making the abuse of public office for private gain, a crime. sanctions are centred on legislation that criminalises corruption (usaid, 1999:11). the aim of imposing stiff penalties is to make corruption a high-risk activity. adequate anticorruption legislation should, apart from the normal bribery offences, create two unique offences: majila, taylor & raga 226 i. an offence for any civil servant to accept gifts, loans, discounts and passage, even if there are no related corrupt dealings, unless specific permission is given. ii. an offence for any civil servant to be in possession of assets disproportionate to his/her official income; or living above his or her means (man-wai, 2006:200). the world bank group (2007:1) provides the following considerations that should be taken into account when creating anti-corruption laws: i. the laws should match the enforcement capacity of the country’s institutions. since the level of integrity and capacity will be rather low in most countries where corruption is rampant, a law should be easy to understand and unequivocal in its applicability. ii. bright-line rules should be introduced: they are easy to understand and apply but come at the cost of reduced flexibility. examples include a ban on the hiring of relatives or friends regardless of qualification and a ban on receiving any gift in excess of a small set value or a mandatory declaration of assets. having reviewed anti-corruption legislation in 21 countries, (australia, bangladesh, cambodia, the cook islands, fiji islands, hong kong, china, india, indonesia, japan, the republic of kazakhstan, the republic of korea, the kyrgyz republic, malaysia, mongolia, nepal, pakistan, papua new guinea, the philippines, samoa, singapore and vanuatu), chêne (2010:7) concludes that good practice examples of anti-corruption laws have been developed in singapore, hong kong and, to some extent, in malaysia. chêne (2010:7) identifies the following highlights about each country’s legislation: singapore‘s prevention of corruption act (pca) was enacted in 1960. the law explicitly defines corruption in terms of various forms of gratification and combines extensive prevention measures with severe sanctions and penalties. hong kong’s prevention of bribery ordinance 1970 (pobo) is a comprehensive piece of legislation that covers all types of bribery, both in the public and the private sectors, and malaysia‘s anti-corruption act 1997 provides for offences and penalties for private and public sector corruption, including active and passive bribery, attempted corruption and abuse of office, corruption through agents and intermediaries, corruption in public procurement and electoral corruption. state of anti-corruption legislation in south africa the department of public service and administration and united nations office on drugs and crime (2003), godi (2007), the gauteng anti-corruption strategic framework (2009), chêne, (2010) and woods (2011) all commend south africa for having a relatively sophisticated and comprehensive legal framework which deals with corruption, transparency in procurement, and financial management. however, the above authors also identify flaws in these laws when assessing their effectiveness, while several provide measures of how to mitigate these failures. according to the department of public service and administration and united nations office on drugs and crime (2003:6), south africa has unique legislation which empowers the general public to require information from the public sector (and to a lesser extent from the private sector) and to challenge administrative decisions. the department of public service and administration and united nations office on drugs and crime (2003:6) further expounds the fact that these laws greatly enhance transparency and contribute to clean anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 227 government and provide state-of-the-art protection to whistle-blowers in a workplace. the gauteng anti-corruption strategic framework (2009:8) argues that the elements of an effective anti-corruption framework exist in gauteng. the existing south african anti-corruption legislative framework is stable (dpsa, 2002:12). however, it is fragmented: there are capacity constraints in complying with it. it has proven to be ineffective: since the common law crime of bribery was repealed by this act, prosecution of bribery cases has been insignificant. there are serious weaknesses and shortcomings in the capacity and will of public sector bodies to implement and to comply with the laws and there are overlapping mandates which affect the law enforcement agencies and the constitutionally created bodies (department of public service and administration and united nations office on drugs and crime, 2003:6). according to godi (2007:6), the public sector has uneven capacity to enforce and comply with the legislation, the courts are overloaded and struggle to retain experienced prosecutors, and the legislative mandates of some law enforcement and other agencies overlap. these laws do not function optimally and are not effectively adhered to: south africa continues to rank amongst the highest in terms of levels of corruption and perceptions of corruption and there are inefficiencies within and between institutions with anti-corruption mandates, a lack of effective follow-up on complaints of corruption, inefficient application of disciplinary systems, underdeveloped management capacity in some areas and societal attitudes which weaken anti-corruption efforts (gauteng provincial government, 2009:8). regarding the effectiveness of this law-directed anti-corruption approach, every indication has been that corruption, particularly in the public sector, continues to escalate and has now reached the point where south africa is widely perceived as having one of the highest levels of public sector corruption in the world (woods, 2011:1). woods (2011:5) attributes this failure to poor management which results in weak application of laws and regulations, and subsequently deteriorating application of internal systems which, in turn, leads to opportunities for corruption. it has been established that effective implementation and enforcement of legislation are critical steps in efforts to achieve their effectiveness (dpsa, 2002:13). a literature review on anti-corruption legislation in south africa has revealed that it has not been successful, highlighting additional acts that need to be regarded as offences by legislation itself. the results of a recent empirical survey (which follow) suggest that the primary problem is inadequate enforcement of legislation. in the following section, the role of anti-corruption agencies in combating corruption in south africa is discussed. role of ant-corruption agencies since fighting corruption has become a key priority for a number of countries, initiatives have been taken towards achieving this goal. such initiatives have multiplied through the inauguration of specific anti-corruption institutions or through watchdog organisations and anti-corruption legislation. the agencies and laws are required to monitor public ethics and to achieve levels of transparency, especially with regard to public sector decision-making. doig, williams and ashour (2012:4) define anti-corruption agencies as legal entities, permanent institutions in their own right, with full-time staff with executive responsibilities majila, taylor & raga 228 and not just advisory ones, related to at least one of three functions, namely: ‘prevention’, ‘awareness’ and ‘law enforcement’. johnsøn, hechler, de sousa, and mathisen (2011:4) state that anti-corruption agencies (acas) are never given an easy or a well-defined task. de sousa (2009:11) claims that acas may be set up in an attempt to upgrade a country’s ethics infrastructure, respond to corruption scandals, or fulfil international treaty requirements. acas are expected to: combat corruption in an independent, knowledge-based manner by developing a specialised repressive, preventive and educational/research capacity; secondly, overcome the inadequacy of traditional law enforcement structures and processes and assume a leading role in implementing national anti-corruption strategies; and thirdly, re-assure public opinion of the government’s commitment to fight corruption (de sousa, 2009:16). countries worldwide have embarked on various anti-corruption initiatives. del mar landette (2002:3) writes that strategies to combat corruption are often led by independent anticorruption agencies created specifically to spearhead the fight. specialised and independent anti-corruption agencies present the advantage of being exclusively devoted to fighting corruption (transparency international, 2000:41). heilbrunn (2004), stapenhurst and langseth (1997), pope and vogl (2000), del mar landette (2002), man-wai (2006), jennett and hodess (2007), lincoln (2000), camerer (1999) and boone (2002) provide a compendium of features of effective anti-corruption agencies (acas). in addition, stapenhurst and langseth (1997) and heilbrunn (2004) provide reasons why acas fail, also pointing in the same direction as to what an anti-corruption agency ought to be. it can be deduced that anti-corruption agencies have been an integral part of these initiatives. features of effective anti-corruption agencies camerer (1999:2), heilbrunn (2004:18), and stapenhurst and langseth (1997:324-325) identified the following characteristics of acas: political backing, adequately resources, educational, independence and integrity. while de sousa (2009:12) argues that there is no standardised model of what an aca should look like, the national planning commission (2011:448) asserts that other than sufficient monetary resources, a number of important requirements that can be identified for an anti-corruption agency to function effectively include sufficient staff and resources with specific knowledge and skills, special legislative powers, high level information-sharing and co-ordination and operational independence. pope and vogl (2000:6) and de sousa (2009:12) identify criteria to be met by a particular agency in order to be classified as an aca as being distinct from other enforcement agencies with competencies to combat corruption. national anti-corruption agencies should not be run by hand-picked supporters of politicians in power as such leaders could be deployed to intimidate political opponents (pope and vogl, 2000:8). there must be durability: they cannot have an occasional or perennial existence. such agencies must also have the powers to centralise information, including its collection, storage, processing and diffusion – in other words, an information hub (pope and vogl, 2000:8). acas should also allow for articulation of initiatives undertaken by other control actors. here the role of research and membership of and participation in international forums and networks are significant. furthermore, acas should be characterised by the rule of law: there have to be checks and balances in place and there needs to be accountability to the sovereign authority. finally, it is essential that their existence is known by and accessible to the public at large (de sousa, 2009:12). anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 229 according to doig et al. (2012:7), an anti-corruption agency offers many advantages. firstly, it sends a signal that the government takes anti-corruption efforts seriously. secondly, a higher degree of specialisation and expertise can be achieved and a higher degree of autonomy can be established to insulate the institution against undue influences. the institution responsible for undertaking investigations will be separate from the agencies and the departments. a completely new institution will enjoy a ‘fresh start’, free from corruption and other problems that may be present in existing institutions. in addition, it has greater public credibility and it can be afforded better security protection. an aca will have greater political, legal and public accountability and there will be faster action against corruption. furthermore, it will have greater political, legal and public accountability and there will be more clarity in the assessment of its progress, successes and failures. task-specific resources will be used and officials will not be subject to the competing priorities of general law enforcement, audit and similar agencies. finally, it incorporates an additional safeguard against corruption in that it will be in a position to monitor the conventional law enforcement agencies. in the section that follows, the research methodology and design, the sample population and the interpretation of the findings are presented. the country’s progress in the fight against corruption besides pieces of legislation that have been passed and anti-corruption agencies that have been established to support the government‘s fight against corruption the following significant strides have been made: i. reformed management practices, including appointment and disciplinary procedures; ii. institution of financial disclosure requirements and performance systems for managers in the public service; iii. establishment of a new, fair and transparent supply chain management system to prevent corruption in procurement; iv. introduction of a public service national anti-corruption hotline system; and v. institution of stringent financial management, risk management and fraud prevention requirements for public bodies. a national anti-corruption strategy was also formulated. as part of its implementation, in september 2003 the cabinet decided to require all public service departments and entities to have a minimum level of anti-corruption capacity (department of public service and administration, 2006:7). in 2006, guidelines for implementing the minimum anticorruption capacity requirement in departments and organisational components in the public service were developed. notwithstanding all the above-mentioned measures, according to the national planning commission (2011:401), evidence gathered by the commission indicates that south africa suffers from high levels of corruption that undermine the rule of law and hinder the state‘s ability to effect development and socio-economic transformation. research from the transparency international‘s corruption perception index indicates that south africa has fallen from a respectable 34th place in world rankings in 2000, to 64th place in 2011 (corporate governance framework research institute, 2012:42). cronin (2012:1), who majila, taylor & raga 230 echoed the same sentiments, states that the challenges of corruption have escalated significantly in south africa over the past decade; threatening democratic achievements, undermining the capacity of the state to advance socio-economic transformation, and eroding the solidarity culture that once underpinned the broad-based anti-apartheid struggle. the national planning commission (2011:401) refers to it as the twin challenges of corruption and lack of accountability in our society which require a resilient system consisting of political will, sound institutions, a solid legal foundation and an active citizenry that is empowered to hold public officials accountable. criticising the enactment of the “secrecy act” in her nelson mandela annual lecture, mary robinson emphasised the lack of transparency and accountability that is becoming a problem in south africa (robinson, 2012:2-3). empirical research a synopsis of the empirical survey of a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of the anticorruption legislation and anti-corruption agencies in the eastern cape and northern cape provinces conducted by majila (2012) is provided in the paragraphs that follow. research instrument the research conducted by majila (2012) employed a self-administered structured questionnaire designed in the form of a likert scale. through quantitative research the connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships was provided. one of its most common disciplines is the use of statistics to process and explain data and summarise the findings. with regard to the above, the units of study in this empirical research consisted of the following: the participants were comprised of selected officials from two provincial departments located in the eastern cape and northern cape. the total sample size was 108. the population of 100 officials and eight selected senior managers was targeted. a response rate of eighty-four per cent (84%) was achieved. the research findings are based on 79 completed questionnaires. the responses by the participants to the various questions are presented descriptively. ethical considerations a social researcher has to deal with a number of ethical obligations when undertaking research. permission to conduct the study was obtained from the relevant provincial heads of departments in the eastern cape and northern cape provinces. ethical clearance was sought from the human research ethics committee at the nelson mandela metropolitan university. all the participants who formed part of the sample for the empirical component of the research were informed of their rights. each participant was required to sign the informed consent form indicating his or her voluntary willingness to participate in the empirical survey. anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 231 data processing a statistical package was employed to process the collected data and to generate the various statistical results which emerged from the quantitative study. the relative values pertaining to the set statements that emerged from the survey were transferred in codified form to a computer database. interpretation of research findings the following responses were recorded in response to several statements highlighted in bold print. empirical survey resultsmpirical survey results statement province frequency strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 1. the province enforces anti-corruption legislation. eastern cape 30.5 30.5 19 14 6 northern cape 30 35 7 19 9 2. officials are convicted in terms of anticorruption legislation. eastern cape 36 44 8 6 6 northern cape 21 30 7 23 19 3. whistle-blowers are protected in terms of anti-corruption legislation. eastern cape 25 28 41 6 0 northern cape 26 28 23 14 9 4. most prevalent cases of grand corruption are found where public officials in high positions, in the process of making decisions of significant financial value, routinely demand bribes or kickbacks to ensure that tenders or contracts are awarded to specific contractors. eastern cape 0 11 8 53 28 northern cape 0 7 5 60 28 5. anti-corruption agencies in the province are financially adequately resourced. eastern cape 25 30 33 6 6 northern cape 21 28 28 16 7 6. anti-corruption agencies are independent of the party in power eastern cape 33 39 11 11 6 northern cape 23 35 7 23 12 7. anti-corruption agencies are likely to eastern cape 28 44 11 14 3 majila, taylor & raga 232 discharge their duties without fear or favour. northern cape 19 30 9 26 16 8. anti-corruption agencies have political backing at the highest levels of the provincial government. eastern cape 31 50 8 8 3 northern cape 21 28 7 28 16 9. heads of anticorruption agencies are hired on merit. eastern cape 22 44 17 17 0 northern cape 23 28 9 21 19 10. members of the public are free to complain to anti-corruption agencies without fear of recrimination. eastern cape 28 47 11 8 6 northern cape 23 30 7 26 14 11. anti-corruption agency employees are adequately trained. eastern cape 25 44 17 11 3 northern cape 23 26 14 23 14 12. anti-corruption agency employees dealing with sensitive cases are subject to random integrity tests. eastern cape 19 28 44 6 3 northern cape 21 28 28 16 7 13. anti-corruption agencies are accountable to parliament. eastern cape 22 36 36 6 0 northern cape 21 23 28 16 12 a total of 70 per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 65 per cent of the northern cape respondents did not support the statement that the province enforces anti-corruption legislation. although at varying percentages, very few respondents supported the statement: the eastern cape responded at 10 per cent and those in the northern cape at 28 per cent. these results indicate that enforcement of anti-corruption legislation is poor. the public sector integrity management framework (2006:5) explains that the ineffectiveness of the protected disclosure act, 2000 has resulted in a lack of confidence in whistle-blowing against unethical conduct and corruption. this requires that hurdles that hinder the implementation of this act are addressed. in both the eastern cape and the northern cape large numbers of the respondents did not support the statement that officials are successfully convicted in terms of anti-corruption legislation: in the eastern cape 80 per cent held this view, as did 51 per cent of the respondents in the northern cape. of the eastern cape respondents, 12 per cent agreed with the statement as did 42 per cent of the respondents from the northern cape, while eight per cent from the eastern cape and seven per cent from the northern cape remained undecided. section 26 of the prevention and combating of corrupt activities act 2004 provides for the conviction of those involved in corruption. however, the results indicate that officials are not convicted in terms of anti-corruption legislation. only six per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 23 per cent of the northern cape supported the statement that whistle-blowers are protected in terms of anti-corruption anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 233 legislation. impartial responses came from 41 per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 23 per cent from the northern cape; and the majority of both provinces’ respondents, the eastern cape at 59 per cent and the northern cape at 54 per cent, responded negatively. section 3 of the protected disclosures act prohibits subjecting any employee to any occupational detriment by his or her employer on account, or partly on account of having made a protected disclosure. however, the responses show that employees do not believe that whistle-blower protection is provided in terms of this act. of the eastern cape respondents, 81 per cent and 88 per cent of the northern cape respondents identified with the statement that most cases of grand corruption are prevalent where kickbacks are paid to ensure that tenders or contracts are awarded to specific contractors. a small percentage discounted the statement, namely 11 per cent from the eastern cape and 7 per cent from the northern cape. impartial respondents from the eastern cape amounted to 8 per cent and from the northern cape, 5 per cent. concerning the conviction of corruption offenders, section 28 of the prevention and combating of corrupt activities act provides that enterprises that are involved in corrupt offences be endorsed on the register for tender defaulters. this register serves to name and shame those convicted of tender irregularities. despite this act and its provisions, the results indicate that kickbacks are paid to secure tenders and contracts. this conclusion is justified because the register for tender defaulters does not have any names listed. it has been blank since its establishment. the statement that anti-corruption agencies in the province are adequately financially resourced was discounted by 55 per cent of the respondents from the eastern cape and 49 per cent of the respondents from the northern cape. neutral responses were noted from 33 per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 28 per cent from the northern cape whilst 12 per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 23 per cent from the northern cape supported the statement. chapter 14 of the 2030 national development plan (2011:447) states that fighting corruption requires an anti-corruption system that is well-resourced. however, the responses show that anti-corruption agencies in the provinces are financially inadequately resourced. this is detrimental to the success of anti-corruption initiatives. the statement that anti-corruption agencies are independent of the party in power was discounted by both provinces: the eastern cape respondents by 72 per cent and the northern cape by 58 per cent. support for the statement came from 17 per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 33 per cent from the northern cape, with 11 per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 7 per cent from the northern cape remaining neutral. anti-corruption agencies in south africa are accountable to the executive. according to chapter 14 of the 2030 national development plan (2011:448), this compromises the independence of anticorruption agencies, since this may leave them vulnerable to political pressure and interference. the responses could imply that anti-corruption agencies are dependent on the party in power. regarding the statement that anti-corruption agencies are likely to discharge their duties without fear or favour, 72 per cent of the eastern cape responses and 49 per cent from the northern cape disagreed, while 17 per cent of the eastern cape responses and 42 per cent from the northern cape agreed with the statement. impartial responses were recorded from 11 per cent of the eastern cape and 9 per cent from the northern cape. the results indicate that anti-corruption agencies are unlikely to discharge their duties without fear or favour. as majila, taylor & raga 234 shown by responses to statement b10 above, anti-corruption agencies depend on the party in power. they are, therefore, unable to make credible judgments. the statement that anti-corruption agencies have political backing at the highest levels of the provincial government was refuted by 81 per cent of the eastern cape responses and 49 per cent from the northern cape, with 11 per cent of the eastern cape responses and 44 per cent from the northern cape supporting it and 8 per cent of the eastern cape responses and 7 per cent from the northern cape remaining neutral. to tackle corruption, there must be political will and support for anti-corruption agencies (chapter 14 of the 2030 national development plan, 2011:449). however, the results indicate that anti-corruption agencies do not receive the intended support. chapter 14 of the 2030 national development plan (2011:449) describes political will as not referring merely to public statements of support, but as also providing sufficient resources and taking action against corrupt officials. a response rate of 75 per cent from the eastern cape and 53 per cent from the northern cape refuted the statement that members of the public are free to complain to anticorruption agencies without fear of recrimination. support for the statement came from 14 per cent of the respondents from the eastern cape and 40 per cent from the northern cape whilst 11 per cent of the responses from the eastern cape and 7 per cent from the northern cape remained neutral. a large percentage of responses disagreeing with the statement indicates that citizens are afraid to stand up against corruption. this means that there are stumbling blocks that impede the progress in the fight against corruption. this therefore calls for immediate action by the government in order to emphasise the importance of public participation in combating corruption and promoting integrity. principles of participatory democracy as enshrined in sections 59(1) (a), 72(1) (a) and 118(1) (a) of the constitution should be adhered to. the majority of the respondents discounted the statement that anti-corruption agency employees are adequately trained, that is, 69 per cent from the eastern cape and 49 per cent from the northern cape, while. 14 per cent of the respondents from the eastern cape and 37 per cent from the northern cape supported the statement. impartial responses came from 17 per cent of the respondents from the eastern cape and 14 per cent from the northern cape. these results indicate that anti-corruption agency employees lack adequate training. however, according to jennett and hodess (2007:2), expertise and continuous training are essential if the highest professional standard of an aca is to be maintained. this means that equipping anti-corruption agency personnel with the necessary skills is crucial. the statement that anti-corruption agency employees dealing with sensitive cases are subject to random integrity tests was discounted by 47 per cent of the eastern cape respondents and 49 per cent of the northern cape respondents. support for the statement came from 9 per cent of the respondents from the eastern cape and 32 per cent from the northern cape. 44 per cent of the responses from the eastern cape and 28 per cent from the northern cape remained neutral. a large percentage of the responses indicates that random integrity testing of anti-corruption agency employees is not performed. judging by responses to statements b12 and b13, it is evident that the integrity of the agencies is not one of the sought-after characteristics. the fact that heads of these agencies are handpicked by corrupt politicians and are instructed not to investigate certain cases is indicative of dishonesty. the national development plan (2011:402) states that vision 2030 promotes a zero tolerant south africa for corruption where leaders hold themselves to high ethical standards and act with integrity. anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 235 the respondents (the eastern cape 58 per cent and the northern cape 44 per cent) discounted the statement that anti-corruption agencies are accountable to parliament. 6 per cent of the respondents from the eastern cape and 28 per cent of those from the northern cape supported the statement. impartial responses of 36 per cent from the eastern cape and 28 per cent from the northern cape were recorded. the above responses imply that anticorruption agencies are not accountable to parliament. this is true. however, anti-corruption agencies in south africa are accountable to the executive instead of to parliament. this means that government accountability needs to be strengthened. it can be inferred from the above responses that anti-corruption agencies are not accountable to parliament. in south africa, anti-corruption agencies are accountable to the executive instead of to parliament. summary: findings it is evident that there is systematic use of the public office for private benefit. this results in inferior quality or the unavailability of public goods and services. this is facilitated by networks and alliances that use the political system and state resources to sustain unethical behaviour. the survey established that, in addition to implementation lacunae, anticorruption legislation enforcement is being politicised. when this happens, whether laws should be enforced in an appropriate manner ultimately depends on the will and determination of political leaders. political power is used to shield corrupt activities of family, friends, or political supporters, or both. it is concluded that existing anti-corruption agencies are unable to devote their efforts in their entirety to performing the necessary functions to fight corruption. it was also revealed that anti-corruption agencies are functionally and technically incapacitated. anti-corruption agencies appear to lack credibility, independence and accountability. the empirical component of this article revealed that employees of anticorruption agencies are inadequately trained and inadequately remunerated. the survey further revealed that the rule of law is not applied as stringently in south africa as it should be. it can be inferred that a lack of fear of any criminal prosecution is a further reason why anti-corruption agencies are open to manipulation. recommendations it is essential that the right of access to information enshrined in the 1996 constitution is upheld for all. espousing this right augments democratic principles of openness, transparency and accountability. south africa has passed the freedom of information legislation, for example, the promotion of access to information act 2 of 2000 and the promotion of administrative justice act 3 of 2000. the former sets out the procedure to obtain access to information held by the state while the latter ensures that decisions that affect the public are taken in a way that is procedurally fair. these two acts are meant to promote transparency and prevent the government from operating in secret. lack of access to information hinders the implementation of anti-corruption initiatives. the country should reverse the apparent culture of secrecy. when little or no information is released to the public, the scrutiny of government agencies becomes difficult. in order to majila, taylor & raga 236 enhance levels of trust between communities and the government, the public should be further mobilised against corrupt behaviour by public officials and politicians in all spheres of government. while the researchers’ acknowledge that monopoly of power is possibly linked to corruption of the political system, it is strongly suggested that, for the benefit of the country’s survival, no political party should have exclusive control over power. domination of south africa's political environment by one political party for an extended period has led the current government to use its means to its own ends. the influence persists to ensure that antimonopoly measures are not undertaken or that, if they are undertaken, they are merely superficial, taken to strengthen and extend the ruling party‘s monopolistic position and to weaken legislation in order to entrench its philosophy. it has been revealed by the study that because excessive power has been vested in the executive wing of government, it is being abused. where systemic corruption exists, the longer the same political party remains in power, the more the processes are influenced on its behalf. the influence persists to ensure that anti-monopolistic measures are not undertaken or, if they are undertaken, they are merely superficial, taken to strengthen and extend the ruling party’s monopolistic position and to weaken legislation in order to entrench its philosophy. discretion is a vital tool in management. it is meant to enable decision-makers to make decisions which represent a responsible choice. however, too much discretion exacerbates corruption. in order to promote transparency and effective control systems, excessive discretionary powers should be limited. merit-based appointment of government employees is the basis for the public service. the public service commission developed a toolkit on recruitment and selection in the public service. the toolkit is meant to provide guidance in selecting the most competent persons available, within the parameters of the affirmative action and employment equity legislation. it encourages merit-based recruitment for senior civil service positions. compliance with the public service commission toolkit on recruitment and selection in the public service is recommended, together with all other prescripts in the public service. this should be stringently monitored and controlled. the prescripts of the legislation must be written in such a way that it is easy to understand and apply. the vulnerability of legislation to deliberate misinterpretation should be avoided. enforceability of anti-corruption legislation will enhance the protection of whistle-blowers from victimisation, encourage communities to blow the whistle when necessary, and facilitate successful investigations. it is recommended that the implementation of anti-corruption legislation be depoliticised. furthermore, anti-corruption legislation should also be amended. this should be undertaken through broadening the scope of protection in a whistle-blower law and the range of bodies to which a protected disclosure may be made. an organisation that is tasked with providing advice and promoting public awareness as well as a public entity dedicated to monitoring whistle-blowing should be established. anti-corruption laws should protect whistle-blowers from being terrorised and discredited. it is recommended that south africa should establish a centralised anti-corruption agency tasked with deterrence from, prevention of, education about and prosecution of corruption cases. anti-corruption legislation in the eastern and northern cape provinces td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 219-240. 237 conclusion this article reviewed anti-corruption legislation and anti-corruption agencies in dealing effectively with corruption in the eastern cape and northern cape provinces. the research undertaken identified factors affecting the effectiveness of anti-corruption legislation and agencies; compared and analysed the effectiveness of anti-corruption legislation and agencies in the two selected provinces and identified and analysed factors associated 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within south africa and other parts of the world have led to the erosion of older traditions and customs resulting in a replacement of values that have promoted immorality, crime and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases among others. consequently, these forces have resulted in change in the structure of mamtiseni and nkciyo female initiation ceremonies, thereby influencing the musical arts embedded in them. this article examines the educational content of the songs and dances and the role these musical arts play within mamtiseni and nkciyo celebrations expressed by the bhaca of the eastern cape province of south africa. the article reveals that despite the influences on mamtiseni and nkciyo female initiation ceremonies it is evident that certain elements have continued to a large extent as they used to be in the pre-colonial times, while others have undergone change to suit the current lifestyle of the people in south africa. the songs have undergone changes especially in their texts, which have shifted focus from menstruation and marriage to include topical issues of a social nature and wellbeing, and as such the repertoire reduced. keywords. bhaca, mamtiseni and nkciyo, initiation ceremonies, women and girls, psychosocial, cultural and spiritual aspects, song texts introduction the bhaca people from south africa’s eastern province have been faced with various influences in their cultural, social, economic and political life: colonisation, conversion to christianity, western education and technological advancement, among others, the impact of these forces has resulted in the erosion of older values, traditions and customs, replacing them with values that have promoted immorality, crime and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases (especially hiv/aids). despite this impact on bhaca culture and lifestyle, bhaca women and girls have created their own revival customs related to girls’ initiation through the revival of mamtiseni and nkciyo ceremonies. this study examines the educational content of the bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation ceremonies which are 1 mr makaula completed a mmus at north-west university, potchefstroom campus in the musical arts in south africa: resources and applications niche entity. he is currently a music teacher at the magnet school of music, buhlebuzile secondary school. phiwemakaula@hotmail.com 2 dr lumbwe is a post-doctoral fellow of the niche entity musical arts in south africa: resources and applications at north-west university, potchefstroom campus. he completed his phd at the university of cape town in 2009. moral education in bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation rituals td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 166-179. 167 transmitted through song, dance and drama. the song texts are used as tools for communication, as they form a crucial part of bhaca cultural and oral traditional methods of transmitting indigenous knowledge. education entails total human learning by which knowledge is imparted through a process in which a “society reproduces itself [by] passing on its main characteristics to the next generation” (farrant 1991:18–19). mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation ceremonies are organised for girls of ages ranging from 6 to 18, and they are performed separately at different times of the year. the bhaca believe that children’s incorporation into their society is highly dependent on and achieved through initiation schools. furthermore, the study by hammond-tooke on bhaca girls’ initiation indicates that initiation is a rite of passage that enables a person to move from one stage of life to another. traditionally among the bhaca this transition meant preparation of the girl for marriage, an indication to the society that she has become a woman and an adult member of the community (hammond-tooke 1958:20). however, discussions with metu (2014) reveal that initiation currently implies the movement from girlhood to womanhood, and that such a change needs to be recognised by the community. the emphasis on the transition from girlhood to womanhood has occurred because girls no longer go straight into marriage after passing through the rite of passage, since they still have to attend primary and tertiary education before they could be considered ready for marriage. according to nozibele (2010), the bhaca believe that customary education must be taught through undalashe and isintu (the old ways and the values of ubuntu). in fact, bhaca girls who have gone through initiation concur with nozibele and believe that all girls should go through the ceremonies and that one who does not might become thin and sickly. in his studies among the venda and other ethnic groups in south africa, blacking (1982) indicates that initiation schools serve similar purposes and that they are educational institutions in which culturally important information is transmitted through music and dance. blacking continues that domba, the initiation for venda girls, is particularly well known for the large body of information it conveys on aspects of psycho-social, cultural and spiritual aspects of adulthood. indeed the same could be said for the bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation ceremonies in which musicis the main tool for communicating and imparting moral, social, cultural, spiritual and political education. furthermore, music and dance are viewed among the bhaca as a means for social and personal development, through communal participation, as they are the activities inherent in the initiation ceremonies in which music is performed to foster physical development, health and wellbeing. details of these ceremonies will be discussed later in this article. we investigate the specific role of music in the mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation ceremonies. special attention is given to the type and meaning of song texts used, as well as the reasons why they are used in particular ways. we also aim to show that song texts play an integral role as initiation school instructions, and that their utilisation in this context is intended to perpetuate cultural and religious values to ensure the continuity and survival of cultural traditions. the focus here is on the way in which song texts are used to announce, initiate and demarcate the different components of the mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation ceremonies over a period of time. as such, music acts in a special way to signify, validate and incorporate the elements of the initiation ceremonies into the bhaca worldview. this article is a descriptive analysis of bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo female initiation ceremonies and the role played by music in them. in terms of theoretical perspectives, what emerges from the study is that education in bhaca initiation ceremonies hinges, on the one makaula and lumbwe 168 hand, on physical development and health (specifically in relation to menstruation), and on the other hand, on moral and spiritual wellbeing. furthermore, the bhaca “learn new life styles from experiencing day-to-day life as individuals, families, communities, etc., which could be conscious or unconscious learning” (reeler 2007:10–13). learning of new lifestyles among the bhaca has led to the formation of new ways of doing things and the formation of new identities. these new lifestyles have affected the performance of mamtiseni and nkciyo ceremonies to such an extent that some elements have changed, while others have continued to be practised in the traditional way. that is why in this study we identify the features of change in the music. data for this article include material gathered primarily between 2010 and 2013, during which time we conducted interviews with various research participants, in particular bhaca midwives, mamtiseni and nkciyo initiates, and adults who attended initiation ceremonies in various towns and cities in the eastern cape. however, the analysis of mamtiseni and nkciyo music and dances in this article is mainly based on 5 mamtiseni and nkciyo female ceremonies and 20 recordings of songs and dances in which the data permit direct exploration of the role of musical arts in the ceremonies as well as the relative impact on them of colonisation, christianisation, western education and globalisation. for our analysis we used the audio and video recordings of songs, some of which we made from the mamtiseni and nkciyo female initiation ceremonies recorded for us by our research assistants in the eastern cape during the period 2010 to 2013. f i g u r e 1 : m a p o f e a s t e r n c a p e l o c a t i n g t h e b h a c a moral education in bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation rituals td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 166-179. 169 key: mhlotsheni 11. xameni (apho kukho itsewu) lutshikini 12. sihlahleni lutateni 13. cabazi mpoza 14. mpendle siqhingeni 15. lubhacweni ntsimangweni 16. mvuzi colana 17. lugangeni nkungwini 18. mtshazi mgungundlovu 19. tshungwana (osborn) ngqumane 20. nomkholokotho before proceeding it is necessary to describe briefly the historical background of the bhaca people and their location in south africa. the bhaca originate from an area along the northern part of the pongola river, near the libombo hills. this is the area on the present border between mpumalanga and swaziland (kwabhaca kingdom, 2010). hammondtooke (1958:16) points out that in the 1700s the bhaca were part of zululand. however, their present location in south africa is the eastern cape province, more precisely in the following towns: mount frere, mount ayliff, matatiele, mount fletcher, mzimkhulu and kokstad. the migration from the libombo hills to the eastern cape resulted in a cultural and linguistic mix as the bhaca interacted and intermarried with the people they encountered in the new areas of settlement. the bhaca speak a language known as isibhaca, which is a mixture of isizulu, isixhosa and siswati. the following map of the eastern cape shows the present location of the bhaca in south africa. mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation ceremonies according to hansen (2001:13), in the early days bhaca girls’ initiation was centred on the first menstruation, which marked the transition from childhood to womanhood. therefore, this development had to be celebrated by taking a girl into seclusion and performing rituals and ceremonies that would assist her in acquiring the required knowledge about adulthood and how to interact with other members of the society. metu (2014) points out that in the early days initiation seclusions also served the purpose of preparing the girl for marriage, in that after the ceremony the girl was expected to be betrothed as she had acquired marriageable quality and status due to her attainment of physical maturity. metu continues that due to the importance attached to marriage among the bhaca, initiation ceremonies lasted a considerable period of time to allow for the initiate to be properly prepared and taken through all the lessons of the rituals and ceremonies. during these initiation ceremonies the focus of performance was on physical development as well as customary education (mthimkulu 2011). the lessons were conducted by adult midwives who spent time with the initiate, who was in turn supported by selected older girls makaula and lumbwe 170 who had already undergone initiation. the lessons were conveyed through music and dance, rituals and ceremonies. what was important in these music and dance performances was that the initiate received assistance in interpreting the song texts, dance movements, mime actions, rituals and the accompanying attire. according to hammond-tooke (1958:19), initiation did not only involve lessons, rituals and ceremonies, but also included feasts (umjadu). feasting was communal, especially at the end of the seclusion and initiation period. hansen (1981) adds that the initiate also experienced learning through other modes of indigenous knowledge systems (iks), including taboos, proverbs and stories. taboos were used to facilitate the initiate’s ability to memorise and store the knowledge acquired during initiation, and also reinforce the need for an individual’s respect for elders, traditions and customs. metu (2014) indicates that symbolism was also a mode of imparting knowledge. metu continues that this is evident in the earlier practice, when at the end of the seclusion period the initiate appeared before the community dressed in a long goatskin skirt of a married woman, holding a spear, and wearing the twisted fat of the umhlonyane3 in a coil round her neck. the act of appearing in public in a married woman’s skirt was symbolic and indicated the public acceptance of dogma and values, while at the same time emphasising the initiate’s attainment of new social status. hansen (2003) points out that, according to studies conducted by kohler and hammondtooke from the mid-1940s to the late 1950s, the pressure and influence of christianity among the bhaca increased to such an extent that initiation ceremonies underwent considerable modification. evidence of modification could be seen in the change of their name to ipati (party). the term ipati was commonly used, as indicated by platjies (2013), to stress the bhaca embracing christian values and the break with ‘heathenness’.4 in this regard ipati was likened to the western twenty-first birthday celebration. the emergence of ipati also ushered in the incorporation of western and contemporary foods such as cakes, bread, ijiki (locally brewed beer) etc. the mamtiseni initiation ceremony the mamtiseni initiation ceremony is usually held at the end of november in order to accommodate those girls who attend school. this group is under the supervision of specially selected elderly women from the community who are assisted by specially selected older girls who have already been initiated. the supervising girls are responsible for organising and conducting the proceedings of the ceremony. however, the ceremony is generally supported by adults, who are parents of the participating members and experienced members from the community. mamtiseni involves customary education lessons imparted in various group activities that are conducted through music and dance. currently the focus of the initiation ceremony is not on 3 when preparing for the ritual, the girl who will be having 'umhlonyane' is the initiation ceremony has to ask other girls to gather at her house for a week. these girls should be from the same age group. (http://enanda.co.za/2013/01/umhlonyana/). 4 according to hammond-tooke (1958), the name ipaty was adopted by the bhaca to avoid a ban on the practice of initiation ceremonies, which was considered to be fetishistic by missionaries. that is why during the 1940s initiation ceremonies among the bhaca resembled western-style birthday parties. moral education in bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation rituals td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 166-179. 171 a girl’s attainment of the first menstruation because of the specific time designated for it. however, issues concerning hygiene are still included among other topics such as morality, etiquette and decorum, household duties, and socio-economic obligations. according to metu (2014), the initiates spend time learning the songs and dances that are interpreted for them by elderly women and those already initiated. metu added that the involvement in mamtiseni has some effect of binding age-mates together into solidarity regiments. furthermore, the sense of solidarity lays the basis for an identity which these girls are to revive once they complete the initiation, which is to announce their ‘bhacaness’. hansen (2001) concurs, adding that the initiation served as a site of transmission to the initiates of some of the musical and performance practices which are associated with such an identity. the music of mamtiseni the music in mamtiseni expresses women’s life experiences in certain song texts, dance steps, mime and attire. the repertoire of music during mamtiseni covers a number of topical aspects in the girls’ lives, namely issues concerning fertility and health, politics, social structure, gender roles, and the promotion of peace within bhaca society and beyond. because of the diversity of issues to be covered during initiation, the repertoire of songs and dances is very wide in order to accommodate the topics included in the lessons. example 1: zemka mangabangaba! (they are leaving, vultures!) leader: zemka mangabangaba! they are leaving, vultures! chorus: zemka mangabangaba! they are leaving, vultures! the song zemka mangabangaba! encourages the initiates to desist from bad conduct such as stealing, dishonesty, cruelty etc. the term ‘vulture’, in this regard, is used to describe destruction, evil, and inhuman and other forces that cause humans to be unfaithful and unkind. furthermore, good citizens of bhaca society are expected to be peace-loving, and as a result this song also encourages young girls to develop a sense of responsibility towards the creation of a peaceful atmosphere wherever they are and in whatever activities they are involved in with other people in the community. example 2: washiy’ umakoti ekhala (you are leaving a crying bride at home) leader: wandilinga! chorus: washiy’ umakoti ekhala, yewena u zo hamba la ekhaya! leader: yhe wen’uzohamba chorus: washiy’ umakoti ekhala, yewena u zo hamba la ekhaya! leader: hambubuye! you are testing me! you leaving a bride at home, she will leave this home. hey you, she will leave! you leaving a bride at home, she will she will leave this home. go and come back! /come back! makaula and lumbwe 172 chorus: washiy’ umakoti ekhala, yewena u zo hamba la ekhaya! you leaving a bride at home, she will she will leave this home. this song deals with marriage and relationships with the opposite sex. the initiate is encouraged to act maturely and maintain the following qualities: patience, forgiveness, kindness, and humility in relation to all people regardless of their social status. it is emphasised that these qualities are helpful in relationships, as they contribute to the development of one’s self-control and the ability to resolve conflict amicably. customarily, divorce among the bhaca is not encouraged, and that is why moral uprightness is promoted. example 3: inkululeko (freedom) leader: inkululeko umandela wasinika inkululeko umandela! chorus: wasinik’ inkululeko umandela! wasinik’ inkululeko umandela! leader: umandela,wasinceda, wasikhupha ebunzimeni, yinkululeko umandela leader: wasinik’ inkululeko umandela! wasinik’ inkululeko umandela! freedom, mandela gave us freedom! mandela gave us freedom. mandela gave us freedom. mandela helped us, he took us out of struggles, mandela is freedom. mandela gave us freedom. mandela gave us freedom the song inkululeko (freedom) provides evidence that girls learn about their political history at the mamtiseni ceremony. however, despite the song seemingly offering praises to the first post-apartheid south african president, mr nelson mandela, as the one who gave south africans freedom, the initiates are reminded to persevere in the maintenance of good moral conduct as much as mr mandela did when pursuing freedom for the people of his country. after attending initiation, the girls usually meet as a cohort and practise some of the songs and dances they learnt during this period, which they perform to raise funds for their christmas celebrations. by participating in these musical and dance activities, the girls unite to promote their interdependence through performing around the village as well as making some town visits. furthermore, fund-raising during initiation is intended to unite the participants of the initiation ceremony as well as foster gender identity and independence. the nkciyo initiation ceremony nkciyo is another bhaca initiation ceremony for girls of the same age as mamtiseni. according to nozibele (2010), in the early days nkciyo was known as uhlolo lwamantombazana (inspection of girls). this initiation ceremony focuses mainly on sexual education and issues around the consequences of engaging in sexual activity. protection and safety for girls against contemporary ills such as hiv/aids and other sexually transmitted diseases are dealt with intensively. this ceremony takes place under the supervision of respected and trusted adults from the community. during the ceremony, which is usually performed at weekends, girls are checked for virginity by specially selected experienced elderly women. during these gatherings the women not only test the initiates for virginity, but also spend much of their moral education in bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation rituals td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 166-179. 173 time teaching songs and dances with moral content to them. dumako (2011) adds that the emphasis of the ceremony is on teaching ukuziphatha, meaning to behave in a socially accepted manner, which implies total abstinence from pre-marital sex, respect for elders and general moral uprightness. according to luthuli (2013), the emphasis on moral education and allowing the initiates to actively participate in discussions of issues such as abstinence from pre-marital sex has contributed to the reduction of teenage pregnancies in bhacaland. from discussions with jijana (2010), who has gone through nkciyo, we learned that the girls are compelled to follow the teachings of the initiation school as they are aware that they are under constant surveillance by the leaders of the initiation school and the entire community. furthermore, metu (2014) points out that the girls receive constant reminders and encouragement, on the one hand, from peers who have undergone nkciyo initiation, and on the other hand, by attending subsequent initiation ceremonies that take place within the community. the following are some examples of nkciyo songs performed during the ceremony: example 4: ingculaza (aids) leader: mholweni, mholweni! chorus: he mama kwenzekantoni? leader: sesaba ingculaza. chorus: safa saphela sonke. greetings, greetings! hey mother what is happening? we fear aids. we are all dying. the song ingculaza has been included in the initiation process in order to raise awareness of the consequences of being involved with multiple partners and in premarital sex. this song emphasises that a lot of people have died as a result of being infected by hiv, which ultimately develops into aids. example 5: chris hani leader: wayefe kanjani? yehi! chorus: yhe uyheyhe mama yehi, x2 how did he die! alas! oh mother, alas! the song is drawn from the political repertoire and it is based on the 1993 assassination of chris hani, who was a freedom fighter for the south african communist party (sacp) and african national congress (anc). besides reminding the initiates of their political history, this song encourages the girls to make sacrifices in life in order to survive the harshness and difficulties encountered in society. example 6: udiniwe unozala (a mother is tired) leader: udiniwe unozala. chorus: o hohoho ziyanqoza. leader: o thath’ ukhukho s’yohlolwa. a mother is tired. oh yes trouble is coming. take a mat and we go to be inspected. makaula and lumbwe 174 chorus: o hohoho ziyanqoza. leader: o thatha is’camba s’yohlolwa. oh yes trouble is coming. take a mat and we go to be inspected. this song describes the difficulties that mothers go through in order to raise their children to be morally sound. it also encourages the initiates to take heed of the good advice they get from elders and through the lessons provided by the nkciyo ceremony. physical development, health and wellbeing by nature mamtiseni and nkciyo ceremonies are centred on physical development, health and wellbeing. extended communications with nozibele (2010) illuminate the views of those bhaca girls and women who have undergone initiation and who describe their experiences during singing, mime and dance practices and performances, and the opportunities this affords them. first, they interact socially as all the activities inherent in the initiation ceremonies are either conducted in small or large groups. by so doing, the initiates have a chance to develop a sense of community and togetherness. second, they exercise their bodies physically through the energetic dance steps, which involve clapping, leaping, jumping, stamping in response to rhythms of varying levels of intricacy as well as tempi. beisman (1967) and brown et al. (1981) concur with this view in their research on the contribution of music programmes and activities to the physical development, wellbeing and learning of children. in similar studies of health and wellbeing clift and hancox (2001) found that, besides the physical benefit of participating in singing, such as improved breathing and lung functions, one can also develop improved moods and stress reduction. clift and hancox continue that there are other dimensions associated with the benefits of singing such as wellbeing and relaxation, appropriate breathing and posture, socialisation, spiritual upliftment, emotional and heart development. third, they share experiences through continuous group activities when learning songs, dances, feasting and participating in other chores performed during the initiation ceremonies. fourth, they acquire shared knowledge which is exclusive to the initiated and greatly contributes to formation and reflection of bhaca womanhood and identity. furthermore, metu (2014) adds that acquisition of knowledge that is restricted to the initiated promotes the attainment of emotional fulfilment through group membership. finally, they participate in music making and performance. the act of learning and performing music generally contributes to perceived good health, quality of life, as well as mental wellbeing. research in this regard by vanderark et al. 1983, wise et al. 1992, kahn 1998, and coffman and adamek 1999, among others, provides details on how music making contributes to good health, quality of life and mental wellbeing. studies conducted by clift et al. (2008) and stacey et al. (2002) also reveal that participating in musical activities contributes to improved cognitive capacities such as attention, memory, learning, selfconfidence and self-esteem, disciplining the skeletal-muscular system through the adoption of good posture, as well as developing a sense of purpose and motivation by being engaged in valued, meaningful and worthwhile activities. moral education in bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation rituals td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 166-179. 175 continuity and change political influences could be juxtaposed with those of conversion to christianity and the effects point to the bhaca people assimilating new belief systems and worldviews. platjies (2013) points out that among the bhaca the effects of colonisation and the introduction of christianity are manifested in negative attitudes and comments such as ‘practising bhaca traditions and customs is being amaqaba (uncivilised)’. however, this negative view has been countered by botha (2000) in “challenges of an african renaissance in the 21st century”. botha acknowledges that there are changes and in some cases a decline in many south african people’s indigenous practices and way of life, but he also indicates that calls for promotion and revival have also increased over the years. botha continues that even notable and eminent personalities such as former president mbeki have been actively involved in promoting cultural practices such as initiation, among others, through the idea of the ‘african renaissance’. regarding the songs and dances performed in mamtiseni and nkciyo, it is evident that many indigenous songs used in the past have disappeared over the years, or their texts have been replaced by new ones to suit the current times, but the melodies have been retained. it has been very difficult to conduct a comparative analysis of the song texts and their melodies, as there are no recordings or manuscripts available from the earlier times. however, what is clear is that song texts have been adapted to suit the topics being covered in the lessons of the ceremony. nozibele (2010) points out that some song texts have been changed to include current issues such as hiv/aids and teenage pregnancies. nozibele continues that some political and christian issues have been included in the lessons and as a result the songs used for teaching have their texts modified. what is important here is that the interpretation and true meanings elicited from these songs are exclusive to the initiation group. outsiders, the uninitiated, may draw their own meanings, but are not privileged to the same knowledge that the initiated acquire. the songs have continued to be performed in an antiphonal manner, usually with a leader and chorus responding. the songs are usually performed at two levels: a) singing in call and response (antiphony) with the leader calling while the rest of the group responds in chorus; and b) hand clapping and stamping accompaniment. some songs are specific to the ceremonies and are parts of the rite, but some can be sung at other times. all the dances of mamtiseni and nkciyo are of a characteristic type often performed in groups, while at the same time allowing for solo performances that have a dramatic nature. dancing among the bhaca is not only done for amusement, but it is also performed for purposes that signify respect, fertility, sorrow, joy etc. according to mthimkulu (2011), singing and dancing performances during initiation have also included mimes representing aspects of domestic, social and socio-economic life. however, mthimkulu adds that the nature of the initiation ceremonies has taken the format of ipati described in hammondtooke’s study, and that the duration of seclusion has also been reduced to accommodate other social activities that the initiates have to perform in their homes and communities. makaula and lumbwe 176 from the early days the attire worn by the initiates when performing dances for both initiation ceremonies has been ibheshu.5 however, the type of ibheshu used for initiation ceremonies currently is made from synthetic materials and cloth. the colours of the skirts vary depending upon the taste of the initiating midwives. however, from the videos we analysed it was evident that despite the skirts being made from cloth and other synthetic materials, the colour was that of animal skin print. platjies (2013) points out that the size of the small skirt signifies the girl’s state of being intombi-nto (being pure or being a virgin). initially the initiates performed with bare chests, but as a result of increased accusations of ‘public indecency’ from christian organisations, the girls wear t-shirts or beads. the initiates no longer go barefoot, but wear canvas shoes, especially when performing dances in public. the picture illustrates the change in the type of attire warn during initiation. f i g u r e 2 : mamtiseni i n i t i a t e s d i s p l a y t h e i r a t t i r e studies on initiation ceremonies from other ethnic groups within south africa and beyond conducted by scholars such as soga (1931), laubscher (1975), richards (1956), hunter (1961), hansen (1981), dargie (1988), levine (2005) dontsa (2007) and lumbwe (2009), among others, indicate that as much as these initiation ceremonies continue to be practised, some elements disappear completely, some undergo change, while others survive and continue in their traditional form. 5 ibheshu is a raffia skirt made out of strips of animal skin. for the purposes of initiation and considering that the initiates are young and small in size, ibheshu is made relatively short to allow easy performance of agile dance movements such as jumping, galloping, stamping etc. moral education in bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation rituals td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 166-179. 177 conclusion this article has provided a descriptive analysis of bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo female initiation ceremonies, and the role played in them by music and dance. to a great extent mamtiseni and nkciyo songs and dances have continued to be the main vehicles for imparting moral instruction. however, it is evident that certain elements of mamtiseni and nkciyo performances have continued by and large as they used to be in pre-colonial times, while others have undergone change to suit current lifestyles. because of internal and external influences on bhaca society, it is evident from the findings that, first, mamtiseni and nkciyo songs have undergone changes, especially in their texts; second, the repertoire of songs performed during initiation ceremonies has been reduced in that issues concerning menstruation and marriage are no longer included in the focus of the lessons; third, the moral lessons embedded in the mamtiseni and nkciyo ceremonies have contributed positively to the reduction of teenage pregnancies among bhaca people through the promotion of moral uprightness; fourth, the attire worn by the initiates has changed from ibheshu (skirt) made from animal skins to being made from synthetic material and cloth. local contemporary songs have been incorporated into the initiation ceremonies and have since taken on a prominent role and a higher status than indigenous music. the relegation of bhaca indigenous songs to the periphery at initiation ceremonies has been the result of political, economic, cultural and social changes within south african society. the changes in the social structure of south african society have been influenced by many factors, including christianity, education and globalisation, among others, and they have impacted on the initiation ceremonies described in this article. references anonymous, http://enanda.co.za/2013/01/umhlonyana/ date of access: 1 aug. 2014. beisman, g. 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(1998). healthy aging: a study of self-perceptions of well-being. dissertation abstracts international, 58, (udmi no. aat98-10054). kruger, j.h. (2004). dance in venda culture: an introduction. potchefstroom: s.a. kwabhaca kingdom. (2010). http://www.kwabhacakingdom.co.za/ date of access: 09 march 2011. laubscher, b.j.f. (1975). the pagan soul. cape town: howard timmins. leat, d (2005). theories of social change: background paper. in the insp theory of change tool manual. washington: international network on strategic philanthropy. 1 – 16. levine, l. (2005). traditional music of south africa. johannesburg: jacaranda media. lumbwe, k. (2009). ubwinga, a subset of bemba indigenous knowledge systems: a comparative study of pre-colonial and post-independence wedding ceremonies in lusaka and kitwe, zambia. cape town: university of cape town, unpublished doctoral thesis. luthuli, n. (2013). personal communication. mount frere, 9 – 10 september. metu, a. (2014). personal communication. cape town, 15–30 january. mthimkulu. n. (2011). personal communication. cape town, 10–20 december. moral education in bhaca mamtiseni and nkciyo initiation rituals td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 166-179. 179 nozibele, n. (2010). personal communication, mount frere, 8 – 15 may. platjies, d. (2005). personal communication. cape town, 10-20 december. reeler, d. (2007). a three-fold theory of social change and implications for practice, planning, monitoring and evaluation. cape town: centre for developmental practice, 1–33. richards, a. (1956). cisungu: a girl’s initiation ceremony among the bemba of northern rhodesia. london: faber and faber. soga, j.h. (1931). the ama-xhosa: life and customs. alice: lovedale press. stacey, r., brittain, k. & kerr. s. (2002). singing for health: an exploration of the issues. health education, 102 (4): 156 – 162. vanderark, s.d., newman, i., & bell, s. (1983). the effects of music participation on quality of life in the elderly. music therapy. 3: 71 – 81. wise, g.w., hartmann, d.j., & fisher, b.j. (1992). exploration of the relationship between choral singing and successful aging. psychological reports, 70: 1175 – 1183. microsoft word 08 mäki sa town engineers.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(1) july 2013, pp. 139 158. town engineers in south africa before 1910, with reference to water supply h mäki* abstract this article looks at the town engineers in south africa prior to union in 1910. it briefly examines the growth in the number of municipalities and town engineers in the country in this period and investigates the background and training of these engineers; why municipalities decided to appoint an engineer; and what kind of appointment processes were followed. finally the relations between engineers and town councils and the prevailing circumstances at the end of the engineers’ tenures is studied. the article also presents ten specific cases which have reference to the development of water supply. it emerges that most early town engineers received training via apprenticeship for the positions they held, and that there was added pressure from elected councillors in municipalities who were prone to monitor assiduously how officials were spending public money. it is also clear that engineers who did not have earlier municipal experience were bound to have problems in their interaction with town councillors. keywords: municipal history; civil engineering; water supply; sanitation; cape colony; natal; orange free state; transvaal. disciplines: history; engineering; public management. 1. introduction when one studies municipal history in south africa one has to look very carefully, often in vain, to find any mention of town engineers. the names of mayors and medical officers of health feature much more prominently. the history of public works has also become an important part of histories written on the development of south african local government and service delivery, but the identities and contributions of the engineers responsible for those works have for the most part been left out. municipal engineers were appointed in south * dr harri mäki is a finnish water historian, assosiated wioth the university of tampere. he is a senior research associate at the research niche for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat) north-west university (vaal). e-mail: harri66maki@gmail.com mäki 140 african towns before the time period covered by this article.1 this research, however, begins from the 1850s, after the creation of the first municipalities in the cape colony a decade earlier. the end point of the research is the creation of the union of south africa in 1910. in this article, there is a conscious effort to concentrate only on the top official of municipal public works departments, namely the municipal/town/borough/city engineer; all four versions were in use. this official was responsible for all public works under municipal governance. other engineers working for the municipalities have been excluded from this study; in some towns, for example, there were separate electrical engineers, water engineers and sewerage engineers, who in most cases were working under the town engineer. in some cases municipalities had the same person acting as town clerk and town engineer, or even as town treasurer; these cases were taken into account when information was found on their identity. in some instances, exceptions to these guidelines were made. all in all, every known town engineer in the cape colony, natal, the orange free state and the transvaal falls within the ambit of this research project. there were 120 engineers in 43 municipalities in this time period. in some cases, however, only a name is known, as was the case with j. daniel, town engineer of adelaide in 1909. in another instance the name of the first town engineer of pietersburg (now polokwane) is not divulged in the documents, although his resignation is recorded. information on these engineers has been gleaned from various sources including town council minutes, mayors’ minutes and records on membership of various engineering associations and institutes. it has to be stressed that this is not a study of what these engineers achieved while employed as town engineers in their respective municipalities. this article presents an overview of the engineers themselves, where they came from, their backgrounds, how they were selected and why they left the employment of the particular local municipality. all-inclusive research of what these engineers actually did during their tenures is beyond the scope of this article. there is, nevertheless, a section on water supply in the article. here, a discussion is provided on certain engineers closely connected to the development of water supply in their respective municipalities. water supply has been selected as a specific topic because the introduction and augmentation of water resources was one of the most important municipal issues in south africa during the period under discussion. considering the dry climate of south africa, the provision of water, particularly to people in rural municipalities, still remains one of the most crucial issues. 2. the establishment of municipalities and their employment of engineers 2.1 cape colony the first municipalities in the cape colony were established in the 1830s.2 at the beginning of the 1850s there were already 23 municipalities in the area. during the same decade the 1 for instance, hendrik oldenland, the superintendent of the company’s garden and land surveyor for the government, was apparently promoted to the position of first town engineer of cape town as early as 1693. see g.m. theal, history of south africa [1691–1795] (london: swan sonnenschein & co., 1888), p. 7. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 141 first town engineers were appointed in cape town, port elizabeth and grahamstown.3 during the 1860s, the number of municipalities increased to 31. the number of engineers, however, decreased. the first town engineer was appointed in three new municipalities during this decade but by 1869, the only engineers were employed in cape town and beaufort west.4 by the end of the next decade, there were 38 municipalities but the number of town engineers remained low. the town engineer of beaufort west was dismissed in 1877 and for nearly two years james tennant in cape town was the only town engineer in the southern african region. in the 1880s, the number of municipalities in the cape colony increased considerably, with 27 new municipalities being established. but this increase still did not reflect a corresponding number of town engineers. there were five town engineers in the cape colony at the beginning of the decade and only two by 1889. cape town was the only municipality which employed a town engineer for the entire decade. in the 1890s the number of municipalities continued to grow and by the end of the century there were 88 municipalities. during this decade, the appointment of town engineers also increased and there were nine town engineers employed in the cape colony in 1899. the number of municipalities grew to 115 during the first decade of the twentieth century and there was a marginal increase in those that employed an engineer; this tally rose from 11 in 1900 to 19 in 1909, but then decreased again to 17 in 1910. 2.2 natal in natal, the first municipalities, durban and pietermaritzburg, were established in the 1850s. the first borough engineer was appointed in pietermaritzburg for a few years during this decade.5 in the 1860s and 1870s natal experienced slow growth at the local government level and there were no new municipalities created. however, in pietermaritzburg they again employed an engineer for a few years in the 1860s. there was only one new municipality established in the 1880s, namely ladysmith. pietermaritzburg and durban both appointed borough engineers in 1882.6 in pietermaritzburg it was again only for less than two years that 2 l.p. green, history of local government in south africa: an introduction (cape town: juta, 1957), pp. 16–21. 3 western cape provincial archives (hereafter wcpa), town clerk, cape town (3/ct) 1/1/1/15, board of commissioners, 26 april 1854; wcpa, town clerk, port elizabeth (3/pez) 1/1/1/2, board of commissioners, 18 and 25 november 1857; wcpa, town clerk, grahamstown (3/ay) 1/1/1/5, board of commissioners, 28 january 1859. 4 j.a. bateman, the borough of king williams town: a century of public service (king williams town: progress printing, 1961), pp. 9−13; c.g. henning, graaff-reinet: a cultural history, 1786–1886 (cape town: t.v. bulpin, 1975), pp. 73–74; w.g.h. and s. vivier, hooyvlakte: die verhaal van beaufort-wes, 1818−1968 (cape town: nasionale boekhandel, 1969), pp. 25–26. 5 e.n. meineke and g.m. summers, municipal engineering in pietermaritzburg: the first hundred years (pietermaritzburg: city engineers department, 1983), pp.14−15. 6 kwazulu-natal provincial archives (hereafter knpa), durban archives repository (hereafter tbd), town clerk, durban (3/dbn) 1/1/1/16, town council, 17 january 1882; knpa, pietermaritzburg archives depository (hereafter nab), town clerk, pietermaritzburg (3/pmb) 1/1/5, town council, 27 november 1882. mäki 142 the engineer remained in office, while in durban, they have had an engineer continuously thereafter. by the end of the century, the fourth municipality, newcastle, was established. in 1893 pietermaritzburg again appointed an engineer but this time in a permanent capacity. two new municipalities were established before 1910 – dundee and weenen. besides durban and pietermaritzburg, there were borough engineers in newcastle and ladysmith for short periods during the 1900s. 2.3 free state in the free state, the first two municipalities were established in the 1850s and thereafter the number of municipalities grew gradually. in the 1860s, there were two new municipalities; in the 1870s eight; and in the 1880s two. during the last two decades under examination, there were respectively twelve and ten new municipalities. the first town engineer, however, was appointed only in 1898 in bloemfontein.7 during the 1900s, engineers were also employed in kroonstad, harrismith and parys.8 2.4 transvaal in the transvaal, the development of local government differed considerably from other areas. during the 1860s, there were municipal experiments in potchefstroom and pretoria and in the 1870s, municipal regulations were published for four new municipalities.9 all these municipal experiments ended in the 1880s.10 nevertheless, the first town engineer was appointed in johannesburg in 1889.11 however, it should be remembered that johannesburg was not a municipality at the time but a mining area controlled by a sanitary board.12 during the last decade of the nineteenth century, johannesburg and pretoria were granted municipal self-government and in pretoria the first town engineer was appointed. permanent municipal government, however, was only introduced under british control after the anglo-boer war of 1899–1902.13 ten new municipalities were formally established in 1903/1904. furthermore, a number of urban district boards were created in 1903. they were granted municipal status later in 1904, but were called minor municipalities, whereas the ten municipalities mentioned above, plus johannesburg and pretoria, were called major municipalities. roodepoort-maraisburg became a major municipality in 1905 and benoni 7 free state provincial archives (hereafter vab), town clerk, bloemfontein (mbl) 1/1/1/9, town council meeting, 21 july 1898. 8 there might well have been an engineer in ladybrand too but since provincial archives in bloemfontein do not hold the relevant material and there was no possibility for the researcher to visit ladybrand, this information could not be verified. 9 green, history of local government, pp. 52–54. 10 green, history of local government, pp. 56–60. 11 ‘the new town engineer’, the star, 27 november 1889. the appointment was seen as so important that the star commented in its editorial, see ‘the man who makes a town’, the star, 12 december 1889. 12 h. mäki, water, sanitation and health: the development of the environmental services in four south african cities, 1840–1920 (tampere, kehrämedia, 2008), pp. 42−48. 13 green, history of local government, pp. 44–76. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 143 was separated from boksburg and was proclaimed a major municipality in 1907. of the major municipalities, eight had town engineers in 1910; among the minor municipalities the only one to appoint a town engineer was volksrust. 2.5 general development in figure 1 below, the growing number of town engineers in south africa is shown. the numbers are presented for every fifth year and by state. what can be seen is that the number of municipalities which had appointed an engineer only began to increase at the end of the 1890s. one reason for this is that most of the small municipalities in the cape peninsula appointed town engineers at about this time. the other reason is that after the anglo-boer war smaller municipalities in the orange river colony and especially those in the transvaal, began to appoint town engineers. the effect of the economic depressions in the 1860s, 1880s and 1900s is also indicated in figure 1. in the 1860s and 1880s, the number of the engineers in the cape colony decreased. the effect of the depression of the 1900s was different in that the number of engineers in the cape colony still increased but in the transvaal it decreased. f i g u r e 1 . t h e n u m b e r o f t o w n e n g i n e e r s , 1 8 5 5−1 9 1 0 . when considering the development in the number of municipalities and the appointment of town engineers, the orange free state immediately draws the attention. there were 26 municipalities in the free state before the first town engineer was appointed in bloemfontein. the main reason for this was that municipalities were small and poor. some of them, like bloemfontein, had a water bailiff taking care of the water supply. it seems that number of engineers in 1855-1910 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 cc natal ofs transvaal altogether mäki 144 during the nineteenth century municipalities either did not see any necessity to appoint a town engineer or could not afford it. considering the economic development in the decade after the anglo-boer war, the latter explanation seems more plausible. of the overall trends, it can be said that even if the first engineers were appointed in the 1850s, the number of municipalities having an engineer only began to increase at the end of the 1890s. around this time, the small municipalities in the vicinity of cape town had grown so populous that they started to appoint engineers. the other jump in numbers was after the anglo-boer war when the municipalities in the northern colonies with an engineer went from three to fifteen. the same development can be seen when looking at the proportion of municipalities that employed an engineer. from 10 percent in 1860 it went down to 4.8 percent in 1890. it then turned upwards to 14.2 percent in 1900 and 18 percent in 1910. the number of municipalities increased from 18 in 1850 to 181 by 1910. 3. background and training of the engineers14 most of the engineers, whose origin is known, were from europe. all six engineers who are known to have come from outside europe and south africa were from australia and canada. only five of the engineers were born in the current south africa, all of them in either the cape colony or natal. of the 77 engineers coming from europe, only four did not come from britain; they came from sweden, germany, netherlands and hungary. the number of engineers from britain is hardly surprising since the cape colony and natal were part of the british empire during the entire period under discussion. in the orange free state and the zuid-afrikaansche republiek (zar) there were only seven engineers in total in three municipalities before the anglo-boer war. two of the four engineers who were not from the british empire were among these seven. based on the names of the engineers whose background is unknown it appears that they were (with one possible exception) from the english-speaking part of the world. the educational background of only 70 of the engineers is known. they had all undergone at least an apprenticeship level of training. considering that most of the other 50 engineers were qualified engineers, it is safe to assume that most of them had gone through the same training system. of the 70 engineers, a quarter of them had either a university degree or had studied at university, while ten had been apprenticed after this tertiary education. it was also not uncommon that a young man was apprenticed to his father. it is not surprising that most of the engineers were civil engineers but there was a strong contingent of mechanical, especially railway engineers among them too. especially in earlier years, there were also surveyors and architects who were employed as town engineers. half of the engineers whose earlier career is known were already working in another lower position in municipal organisations. nevertheless, there were also many who came from private companies or from government service. 14 this section is based for the most part on information collected from the archives of the institute of civil engineers and the institute of mechanical engineers in london. the candidate circulars and the proposals for membership in the archives include the descriptions of the engineers’ earlier careers. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 145 4. why municipalities decided to appoint engineers in most cases the main reason for appointing the first town engineer in a municipal post was the need for proper supervision of public works. this was why 24 out of 42 engineers were appointed in this period, although there might have been other subsidiary needs too. moreover, it can be speculated that most of the ten municipalities where the reason is unknown also belong to this category. in two municipalities, durban in 1882 and umtata in 1909, the appointment was specifically made because of the need to establish and maintain an adequate water supply to residents.15 in many other municipalities, the needs of water supply were also high in the list, but only in the two mentioned cases was the appointment based primarily on the need for a reliable supply of water. the only other municipality where the appointment was based on a very specific need was pietermaritzburg. there, in 1851, a proper town survey was needed and a surveyor was appointed. as an afterthought he was also appointed as an engineer for the borough.16 in four cases, the first town engineer was an earlier official whose designation was changed. in kimberley, thomas callen was clerk of works; in newcastle, george jenkins was previously foreman of works; in claremont, james maden had been a municipal inspector; and in uitenhage, walter j. mason served in the capacity of the superintendent of works. their designations were changed to that of engineer in 1887, 1900, 1901 and 1907 respectively.17 the appointment in bloemfontein was one of the most noteworthy. it appears that the municipality was not even planning to appoint a borough engineer in 1898, but was forced to do so. bloemfontein needed a resident engineer for their waterworks and h.f. peet was duly appointed. however, he refused to accept the job unless a tenure of more than one year was offered. the town council responded by offering him the position of borough engineer for two years. after further negotiation, a hard-bargaining peet finally accepted when the tenure of the post was fixed at four years.18 in six municipalities, namely pietermaritzburg, grahamstown, port elizabeth, graaffreinet, east london and newcastle, there were periods when there was no town engineer.19 in pietermaritzburg, there were three gaps; in grahamstown, port elizabeth and graaff 15 tbd, 3/dbn 1/1/1/1/15, town council meeting, 27 september 1881; durban, mayor’s minute, 1882, p. 7; wcpa, town clerk, umtata (3/uta) 1/1/1/17, municipal council special meeting, 14 september 1909. 16 meineke and summers, municipal engineering, pp.14–15. 17 wcpa, town clerk, kimberley (3/kim) 1/1/1/1, town council meeting, 23 february 1887; b.c. baylis, a history of newcastle, vol. 3 (newcastle: the newcastle advertiser, 1951), p. 5; south african who’s who (durban and johannesburg: south african who’s who publishing company, 1908), p. 259; wcpa, town clerk, uitenhage (3/uit) 1/1/1/29, town council meeting, 26 november 1907. 18 vab, mbl 1/1/1/9, town council meetings, 16 june, 7 july, 11 july, and 21 july 1898. 19 there are also gaps in the information on king williams town and queenstown, but since it is not known whether there were engineers during these gaps, they are not included in this analysis. mäki 146 reinet there were two gaps; and in east london and newcastle one gap each during the period under consideration. when looking at the reasons for appointing a new engineer, in some cases after a considerable period of vacancy, it can be seen that they were for the most part the same reasons as for the appointment of the first town engineer. in four cases, pietermaritzburg in 1864 and 1882; grahamstown in 1879; and east london in 1897; of eleven in this category, the reason behind the appointment was the need for public works.20 in the other four cases, port elizabeth in 1881 and 1897; and graaff-reinet in 1881 and 1901; the need for re-appointment was based on the necessity of establishing an adequate water supply.21 in two cases, pietermaritzburg in 1893; and grahamstown in 1907; the reason for appointing an engineer was a changed designation because of the need for public works.22 in newcastle in 1909, the reason behind the appointment after a hiatus of five years is unknown. 5. application and appointment process 5.1 applying for the position of town engineer there were at least 80 cases where applications were invited for the position of town engineer; the actual number of people who applied is known in 50 cases. the position of town engineer was much sought-after, drawing an average of 40 applications when advertised. the highest number of applicants was 130 when a post in grahamstown was made known in 1907. at the other end of the scale was cape town in 1857, with only three applicants.23 there was a fair amount of variation in the number of applications, with six cases drawing more than 100 applications and 11 cases having a response of less than 15 applications.24 20 nab, 3/pmb 1/1/3, town council meeting, 9 march 1864; nab, 3/pmb 1/1/5, town council meeting, 27 november 1882; m. gibbens, ‘two decades in the life of a city: grahamstown 1862−1882’, m.a. dissertation, rhodes university, 1982, pp. 154–155; wcpa, town clerk, east london (3/eln) 1/1/1/10, municipal council meeting, 12 may 1897. 21 wcpa, 3/pez 1/1/1/31, town council meeting, 2 february 1881; wcpa, 3/pez 1/1/1/17, town council meeting, 14 july 1897; wcpa, town clerk, graaff-reinet (3/gr) 1/1/1/6, town council meeting, 25 march 1881; wcpa, public works department (pwd) 2/10/27, m19/32, mcmillan to the secretary of public works, 4 may 1903. 22 meineke and summers, municipal engineering, pp. 20–21; wcpa, town clerk, grahamstown (3/ay) 1/1/1/15, town council meeting, 21 august 1907. 23 grahamstown mayor’s minute, 1908, pp. 4−5; wcpa, 3/ct 1/1/1/17, board of commissioners meeting, 18 november 1857. 24 h. mäki, municipal engineers in south africa before 1910 (tampere: tampere university press, epublications, 2013), pp. 73–74, at http://tampub.uta.fi/handle/10024/67997. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 147 f i g u r e 2 . g . s . b u r t a n d r e w s 25 it can be seen both from the number of applications and the engineers who applied, that a position in certain large municipalities, such as in johannesburg, drew significantly more interest (no doubt because of better pay) than one in a smaller municipality. for instance in 1893, amongst the applicants for a post in johannesburg were three former town engineers. five of the applicants for this position in 1893 subsequently served as town engineers in some south african municipality.26 f i g u r e 3 . a . h . w a l l e r 27 in some cases, engineers found it necessary to apply multiple times before being appointed in a certain position. peter penketh was appointed town engineer of cape town at his third attempt, while g.s. burt andrews (figure 2), town engineer of johannesburg, eventually succeeded at his fourth try. there were also some engineers who applied very actively in certain time periods for advertised positions. from 1898 to 1901, a.h. waller (figure 3) applied for a post in cape town, wynberg and twice for a post in woodstock until he was finally appointed assistant borough engineer of durban. another active applicant was james younger, who in the period from 1905 to 1907 applied for positions in pietersburg, potchefstroom, germiston and east london.28 in many cases the numbers may have been inflated by applicants with doubtful qualifications. the definition of an engineer, especially during the earlier part of the examination period, 25 . men of the times: pioneers of the transvaal and glimpses of south africa. transvaal publishing company, 1905 26 the star, 25 march 1893. 27 the natal who’s who. (an illustrated biographical sketch book of natalians). durban: natal who’s who publishing company, 1906. 28 mäki, municipal engineers, pp. 76–78. mäki 148 was very fluid, and many of the applicants were certainly not members of any engineering institutes. nevertheless, the competition was fierce with good candidates to choose from. 5.2. appointment process in most cases, when a municipality needed a new town engineer, the position was advertised in the local newspapers and those of the bigger cities in south africa. in some cases, particularly for positions in major cities, the post was also advertised in british newspapers. in a single instance, in johannesburg in 1902, the position of town engineer was advertised only in british newspapers. there were, however, some appointments that were not advertised. in three cases, appointments were made either on personal recommendation or directly by the municipal council. in grahamstown in 1859, robert hoggar was recommended for the position of town engineer by a local justice of the peace.29 and in other cases, the position was offered directly to a person already working for the municipality as happened in port elizabeth in 1857, when the position was offered to canadian-born robert archibald.30 in four known cases, the assistant engineer was promoted. there were also instances where the designation of the person was changed to that of town engineer. the applications were usually sent to either a special committee appointed for the purpose or to an existing committee, to make a recommendation to the town council. in some cases, however, all the town councillors went through the applications. in many of these cases, the reason was a low number of applications. the exception was in woodstock in 1898 where there were 98 applications that were scrutinised by the entire town council before a shortlist of six was selected for further consideration.31 in 19 of the cases when the matter was placed before the town council, it took a unanimous decision on who to appoint. in 36 cases, there were from one to four rounds of voting involved. in some instances, interviews were conducted with the leading candidates as part of the selection process. 6. engineers and the town councils 6.1 relations between the engineer and the town council when looking at the relationship between the town engineer, the town council and the various committees the engineer had to work with, it is difficult to make any generalisations about good working relations. there are no apparent patterns here. nevertheless there are two municipalities, durban and bloemfontein, which merit special mention. during the period under discussion, durban employed two borough engineers, john f.e. barnes (figure 4) from 1882 to 1887, and john fletcher (figure 5) in the period 1889−1918. 29 wcpa, 3/ay 1/1/1/5, board of commissioners meeting, 28 january 1859. 30 wcpa, 3/pez 1/1/1/2, board of commissioners meeting, 16 december 1857. 31 wcpa, town clerk, woodstock (3/wsk) 7, town council meeting, 19 december 1898. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 149 f i g u r e 4 . j o h n f . e . b a r n e s 32 it seems that neither had any problems getting their proposals approved for building new infrastructure. it is especially remarkable how few problems there were during fletcher’s 29year tenure.33 in bloemfontein there were three city engineers: h.f. peet (1898–1908); h.a.c. wallace (1908); and g.a. stewart (1908–1920). although peet resigned because he would not accept a lower salary, his departure was amicable. wallace resigned because of health reasons but continued as the assistant city engineer for 15 more years, and stewart resigned to apply for a government position. 32 natal mercury christmas annual 1886. 33 h. mäki, ‘john fletcher and the development of water supply and sanitation in durban, 1889−1918’, journal of natal and zulu history, 27 (2009), pp. 43–59. f i g u r e 5 . j o h n f l e t c h e r 1 mäki 150 however, there are instances when engineers experienced problems in their working relations, and some generalisations can be offered. if, for example the engineer came from a totally different working culture and environment without any earlier experience of the municipal decision making process, there were bound to be difficulties. the prime examples are the engineers with a background in railways. they were used to a greater level of independence in decision making than they enjoyed in the municipal hierarchy. for instance, j.s. swallow in cape town and john gillespie in pietersburg (now polokwane) had most of their earlier working experience as railway engineers either in private companies or in the cape colonial railways. neither of these engineers could cope with the laborious municipal decision making process and this lead to swallow’s resignation after a year and gillespie’s after only five months in office.34 in some cases, the engineers were too innovative and progressive for conservative and moneyconscious councillors. the prime examples are w.l. mackie in graaff-reinet, and w.f. malloch in uitenhage. mackie was an english-speaking bachelor in a very conservative town where most of the residents could not even speak english. the final straw was a dispute with the chairman of the municipal board about salary reductions, and mackie was dismissed in june 1865.35 w.f. malloch, on the other hand, was apparently too innovative for the town council of uitenhage and had lofty, over-ambitious plans. slowly opposition against him and his schemes mounted until the council dismissed him when he went ahead with some work on the water supply to the town without prior permission from the council.36 and of course when there were difficult economic times, this was usually reflected in the relations between the town engineer and the decision makers. three specific municipalities, those of cape town, pietermaritzburg and graaff-reinet, should be mentioned here. of the 11 engineers in cape town, only peter penketh and william jeffries seem to have been trouble-free in their relations with the councillors. all the others experienced some kind of friction. in pietermaritzburg, the first six engineers either resigned or were dismissed. graaff-reinet had only three engineers during the period under discussion but all left the town after disagreements with the town council. in this case, the problems were probably compounded by the cultural clash between the british engineer and the remote afrikaner-dominated country town. 34 wcpa, 3/ct 1/1/1/32, town council meeting, 8 march 1882; e.b. van heyningen, ‘public health and society in cape town, 1880−1910’, phd. thesis, university of cape town, 1989, pp 259–260; national archives of south africa (hereafter nasa), public records of the former transvaal province (hereafter tab), town clerk, pietersburg (mpb), 1/2/4, minutes of the general purposes committee, 17 march 1908. 35 henning, graaff-reinet, pp. 73–74; a. de v. minnaar, graaff-reinet 1786−1986 (pretoria: human sciences research council, 1987), pp. 14–15. 36 a. herholdt, ‘the colonial municipality: a case study of uitenhage’, south african journal of cultural history, 5, 3 (1991), p. 82; a.d. herholdt, ‘uitenhage: a case study of small town colonial architecture’, m.arch. dissertation, university of port elizabeth, 1988, p. 66; d. raymer, streams of life: the water supply of port elizabeth and uitenhage (s.l.: s.n., 2008), p. 160. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 151 6.2 reasons for leaving the position when examining the reasons why engineers left their posts, it can be seen that 30 of them left involuntarily, while 69 chose to leave. there is insufficient information on why the remaining 19 engineers vacated their positions. of those who left voluntarily, 23 made the change to take up another position; 11 went into retirement; and four resigned because of illhealth. differences with either the town council or one of the municipal boards led to the resignation of 11 engineers.37 in 13 cases there is no clear reason for resignation. the most intriguing case is that of james j.a. flower in cape town. he was appointed as town engineer in early 1872 but was immediately allowed leave of absence. he resigned in january 1873 without leaving england during his entire 11month tenure. flower was working in london as a representative for a family firm from cape town and apparently chose to remain in this position rather than returning to cape town.38 of those who left their positions involuntarily, three died in office and three had their contracts terminated. in 7 cases the engineers were forced to resign and in 17 instances the engineers were dismissed outright. the case of charles rees is unique. he was appointed as town engineer of cape town in august 1873. in november 1874, the town council discovered that he was also holding a position with the royal engineers. rees was given the choice to resign from the one position or the other but claimed that he could not resign from the royal engineers, so the cape town municipal council removed him from the office of town engineer. however he remained in an acting capacity while the position was being advertised.39 to the astonishment of all concerned, rees re-applied for his old job stating that his connection with the royal engineers’ department might well be terminated within 18 months, and that should his cape town application be successful he would do his utmost to termination his other commitment within nine months. the special joint committee appointed for the screening of the candidates, pointed out in september 1875 that besides being incompatible with the existing regulations for an officer of the municipality to hold a situation elsewhere, the duties of the town engineer were so important as to require the entire and undivided attention of the official concerned. they deemed that the condition in rees’s application was unacceptable. it was recommended that he be appointed as cape town’s town engineer pending the immediate termination of his situation with the royal engineers. if he failed to comply with this stipulation then charles hanson, another applicant, would be appointed. it was, however, moved that the appointment would stand over for six months, and that rees be requested to continue to act as town engineer.40 in january 1876, the town council finally 37 it can be questioned how voluntary these resignations were, but since these cases differ from those of forced resignations in that there are no signs of a “resign or get dismissed” situation, they have been put in the voluntary category. 38 obituary, james john alexander flower, minutes of proceedings of the institute of civil engineers, 95 (1889), pp. 384–385. 39 wcpa, 3/ct 1/1/1/26, town council meetings from 25 november 1874 onwards. 40 wcpa, 3/ct 1/1/1/27, town council meeting, 8 september 1875. mäki 152 dismissed rees and called for new applications because there had been no change in rees’ situation.41 he was still working as a surveyor in the royal engineers’ department in 1879.42 in a broader context, one engineer out of four was either dismissed, forced to resign, had his contract terminated, or died in office. the dismissed engineers (17) are the second biggest group, after those (23 engineers) who resigned when they secured another position. 7. specific cases with regard to water supply in this section a discussion of ten engineers who were connected specifically to the development of water resources, will be provided in more detail. some of these cases have been selected for presentation mainly to show the difficulties these town engineers faced in their interaction with the members of the town council and the municipal residents in general. as will be shown, in smaller and poorer municipalities, financial considerations were particularly challenging in the construction and provision of water supplies. furthermore, as is evident in the case of james tennant, stringency measures were sometimes of concern even in bigger municipalities. avon bruce-brand43 (figure 6) was born in 1843 in leslie, scotland. in his younger days he worked as a bodyguard to queen victoria. he arrived in the cape colony at the beginning of the 1860s and joined the colonial railway department as an engineer. when the railway line reached beaufort west, bruce-brand settled there and was town engineer for the period 1869−1877. later he worked as a mine manager on the diamond mines in kimberley. prior to his appointment as town engineer, bruce-brand had been advocating for building a dam to the northeast of beaufort west. the decision to build this dam was made in 1865, and construction was completed in early 1869. bruce-brand, who had led the construction work, was then appointed town engineer. the next autumn, however, flooding caused by heavy rains broke the dam and nearly 3 000 million litres of water rushed through the town. after four and half years of debate, the town council eventually decided to rebuild the dam in 1874. bruce-brand was again responsible for the construction work, but for unknown reasons he was informed in 1877 that his services were no longer required. the dam was completed three years later.44 41 wcpa, 3/ct 1/1/1/27, town council meeting, 26 january 1876. 42 report of the select committee on the oranjezicht purchase bill, 1879, p. 63. 43 for information on bruce-brand, the author is grateful to pamela bruce-brand, whose husband is a direct descendant of avon bruce-brand. 44 history of beaufort west, http://gis.deat.gov.za/isrdp/staticsites/ss_k/documents/beaufort_west.pdf, p. 4; vivier, hooyvlakte, pp. 25−26. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 153 f i g u r e 6 . a v o n b r u c e b r a n d 45 james tennant was born in 1839. he served in the british army engineering corps during the sepoy mutiny in india in 1857−1859 and later in china. during the 1860s he was resident in the cape colony. tennant went back to england to make a contribution in the construction of the thames fortifications and then went to ireland before returning to cape town in 1875. he was appointed as city engineer of cape town, a position he held from 1876 to 1880. in 1880 he was granted leave to take part in the basotho war and during the war he resigned from his post as city engineer. tennant later worked in cape town as a private engineer, surveyor and architect. the construction of the molteno reservoir was mainly due to tennant’s initiative. at this time, however, all big construction works in cape town were undertaken on tender by private contractors. nevertheless the city fathers demanded that tennant be solely responsible for supervising the construction of the reservoir in addition to his normal workload. they also altered the plans of the reservoir without consulting tennant. all this led to a frustrated tennant’s request for leave of absence in 1880 and eventually to his resignation. the molteno reservoir was completed in 1881 but its wall burst the following year when the reservoir was filled. the town councillors blamed tennant for this catastrophe but john g. gamble, hydraulic engineer for the colony, reported bluntly that the councillors had to shoulder sole responsibility for the mishap.46 45 vivier, hooyvlakte 46 wcpa, 3/ct 1/1/1/31, town council, 22 september and 3 november 1880; j. lison, ‘a short, tragic history of the molteno reservoir’, cabo, 2, 1 (1978), p. 26; van heyningen, ‘public health and society’, p. 259; j.g. gamble, water-supply in the cape colony (london: institute of civil engineers, 1887), p. 28. mäki 154 w.l. mackie was town clerk, treasurer and town engineer for graaff-reinet in 1863−1865. it is unknown what his credentials were as an engineer but he located the so-called mackie’s pit that served as the main water source for graaff-reinet until the next century. mackie quarrelled with the leading citizens of the town and was finally dismissed. according to henning “the presence of a gay bachelor about town, who spent his money freely on liquor, playing cricket and paying attention to the eligible ladies, was viewed unsympathetically by the more conservative, impoverished backstreeters”.47 humphrey henchman had worked on railroads in england, germany, hungary and the united states before arriving in the cape colony in 1876. he worked for the colonial railway department as an engineer until 1880 and from 1881 to 1884 was town engineer of graaffreinet. thereafter, he held a variety of posts in the cape colony, the straits of malacca, new south wales and india.48 henchman was appointed town engineer of graaff-reinet specifically to build a new water supply system. however, some of the residents did not approve of his plans. accordingly, the first motion for his dismissal was tabled by the town council a mere six months after his appointment. the task at hand was by no means easy for henchman; for instance, all his proposals for street improvement were rejected and he was ordered to stop reading water meters which was seen as “a waste of time”. he soon became the target for insults and humiliation and everything he did was criticised.49 somehow henchman managed to concentrate on his work and in april 1884 the water supply system was completed. however, when henchman was ready to start the turbines and pumps, a group of people attacked him and threw him into the turbine basin. henchman won the resulting court case against the attackers but understandably disconcerted and discouraged, he resigned in october 1884.50 john f.e. barnes was born in kilkenny, ireland in 1851. after his education at trinity college, dublin, he was apprenticed for five years under his father. before going to natal in 1879, barnes worked as an engineer and surveyor in northern ireland. in natal he was a government surveyor for two years before being appointed as the first borough engineer of durban in 1882. barnes resigned in 1887 after securing an appointment in the colonial engineers’ department. during the period 1893−1910, he was chief engineer of public works in natal.51 in durban, the main reason for the appointment of a borough engineer was the need for a proper water supply and sewerage system. barnes was seen as a most qualified applicant to realise these targets. under his supervision the first water supply system that covered the 47 henning, graaff-reinet, pp. 73−74; minnaar, graaff-reinet, pp. 14−15; a. de v. minnaar, ‘graaff-reinet’s water problems’, contree, 7, 22 (1987), 24. 48 knpa, nab, colonial secretary’s office (cso) 1286, 1891/1423, henchman to colonial secretary, natal, 17 january 1891. 49 wcpa, 3/gr 1/1/1/6, town council, 25 march and 24 october 1881; the graaff-reinet herald, 30 april 1881. 50 the graaff-reinet herald, 23 april 1884; henning, graaff-reinet, 86−88. 51 obituary, john frederick evelyn barnes, minutes of proceedings of the south african society of civil engineers, 23 (1925), 234. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 155 entire central area of durban was built. building of storm water drains and planning of sewers were also started but the realisation of these was left to his successors.52 john fletcher was born in 1858 in north-east england. before his appointment as borough engineer of durban in 1889, he had worked as assistant engineer of nottingham; engineer of the auston rural authority; and town engineer of sutton coldfield. after almost 30 years of service in durban, he retired in 1918 because of ill-health.53 the main reason for fletcher’s appointment was his experience on sewerage systems. before tackling this problem in durban, he had to plan extensions of the water supply system which his predecessor, john barnes, had begun; fletcher’s new plants were opened in 1891. in the same year, he finalised plans for a sewerage system. these projects were seen as so important that reports were published in the natal mercury, covering two and a half pages out of four in the newspaper. by 1889 fletcher had finalised his plans for new stormwater drainage. he remained in his post for 29 years as borough engineer of durban, so it is inevitable that his handiwork can be seen in all public works during those years. nevertheless, it has to be said that especially during the nineteenth century, most of his time was spent in various works dealing with water supply and sewerage issues.54 thomas stewart was born in perthshire, scotland in 1857. after serving an apprenticeship, he studied at the glasgow university, anderson college and college of science and arts for various subjects related to engineering. he also worked as assistant engineer in the glasgow waterworks and then at the office of j.w. barry in westminster. in 1882, stewart arrived in the cape colony to work as assistant to the colonial hydraulic engineer. during the years 1885−1886 he headed the department and from 1886 to 1887, he served as engineer for the cradock waterworks. from 1889 onwards stewart was consulting engineer for the municipality of wynberg. in the 1890s, he quickly became the most actively employed private engineer for planning waterworks in the cape colony and neighbouring areas. among other projects, stewart planned all five reservoirs on table mountain; the storage reservoirs and filter beds for port elizabeth; and worked as consulting engineer for johannesburg waterworks company. outside current south africa, he also planned engineering works in rhodesia and portuguese east-africa.55 john hamilton wicksteed (figure 7) was born in leeds in 1851. he studied at university college school, london before doing his apprenticeship in leeds. he then worked on various water supply and sewerage projects. in 1877, he was appointed as a water supply engineer for van staden’s waterworks in port elizabeth. when the works were almost complete, wicksteed was appointed town engineer in 1881. however, he resigned only four months later complaining of extreme stress. soon afterwards, wicksteed committed suicide.56 52 knpa, tbd, 3/dbn 1/1/1/15, town council, 27 september 1881; durban, mayor’s minute, 1882, p. 2; mäki, water, sanitation and health, pp. 123−126, 247. 53 institute of civil engineers (ice), london, candidate circular, john fletcher. 54 durban, mayor’s minute, 1890, p. 2; w.p.m. henderson, durban: fifty years of municipal history (durban: robinson, 1904); mäki, ‘john fletcher’. 55 t. murray, ‘past master 19: thomas stewart’, civil engineering, 16, 10 (2008), pp. 36–39. 56 d. raymer, ‘past master 22: john hamilton wicksteed’, civil engineering, 17, 5 (2009), pp. 56–57; a. herholdt, ‘architects and architecture’, modus, 2, 1 (1987), p. 3; j.h. wicksteed, mäki 156 f i g u r e 7 . j o h n h a m i l t o n w i c k s t e e d 57 george frederick newsam had been working as town clerk of east london for six years when in 1881 the responsibilities of town engineer were added to his brief. the next year he resigned his position as town clerk and concentrated on developing plans for supplying water to the town from the amalinda reservoir. this project was completed in 1884 during the economic depression and the following year the position of town engineer was abolished.58 william dunbar was appointed town clerk and town engineer of king williams town in 1881. during the seven years in this position he concentrated specifically on improving the water supply. under his supervision a new reservoir and a dam on the buffalo river were built. however, both these initiatives were strongly criticised, especially because the final cost of the dam was three times higher than the original estimate. this criticism led to dunbar’s memorials of john hamilton wicksteed (london: institute of civil engineers, 1883), pp. 232–233. 57 raymer, ‘john hamilton wicksteed’. 58 wcpa, 3/eln 1/1/1/4, municipal council, 10 march 1881; wcpa, 3/eln 1/1/1/6, municipal council, 29 april 1885; k. tankard, ‘the effects of the “great depression” of the late 19th century on east london, 1873−1887’, the south african journal of economic history, 6, 2 (1991), p. 81. sa town engineers and water before 1910 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 139 158. 157 resignation in 1888 and he went to johannesburg to work as an engineer in the johannesburg waterworks company.59 8. summary a picture of a typical town engineer in the period prior to 1910 can be drawn based on the text above. he was born in england and was trained through the apprenticeship system. there was also a strong probability that his father was also an engineer. his early working experience was mostly in the field of civil engineering and at the time of his appointment he was more than likely already working for another south african municipality in a subsidiary position. our engineer was appointed after an application process and he probably had about 40 competitors for the position. applications were scrutinised by a special municipal committee which then drew up a shortlist of three applicants for the town council. the new engineer was then appointed unanimously at the town council and most likely resigned after five years when he secured a better position elsewhere. this picture is of course a simplification; there are many variations. although most of the engineers were originally from england, there were a significant number who immigrated to south africa from other parts of britain. engineers from outside of the english-speaking world were an exception and of the four known cases, three had come to south africa to work in the independent zuid-afrikaansche republiek in the eighteenth century, while the fourth, wilhelm westhofen, had been working in england for over 20 years before proceeding to south africa. this means that the engineers predominantly represented the british tradition of engineering and this tradition was dominant in the period under consideration. although most of the engineers were already in south africa when they were appointed, a significant number, especially those in the bigger cities, came directly from the mother country without any earlier experience of south african conditions or those in other parts of the british empire. surprisingly, it seems it that most of these engineers adapted reasonably well to the southern african working environment. it is also important to realise that although most of the engineers had gone through the traditional apprenticeship system, there were also some who had university or technical school training. it is also noteworthy that many of the appointed engineers were not civil engineers but mechanical engineers, especially railway engineers. this being so, it is hardly surprising that engineers with prior experience in railway construction had more problems working within the boundaries of municipal regulations and dealing with local politics. during the early years there were also architects and surveyors among the ranks of town engineers. towards the end of the nineteenth century the differences between various engineering professions began to be defined more clearly and after the 1880s, most of the town engineers came from the field of civil engineering. it is clear that the need to supervise public works was the main reason why municipalities first appointed town engineers. in later appointments, specific needs became more prominent. the number of applications for the position varied significantly; in some cases the variation 59 wcpa, town clerk, king williams town (3/kwt) 1/1/1/9, borough council, 22 february 1881; d.r. nelson, ‘maden dam reservoir, king williamstown’, coelacanth: the journal of the border historical society, 17, 1 (1979), pp. 18−19. mäki 158 was so great as to be difficult to explain. of course, lucrative positions like johannesburg received many applications and were of a higher standard than those for smaller municipalities. there was also a great deal of variation in the process followed in making the appointment. advertising the position and calling for applications was the most typical, but there were others too. in some cases, an engineer was appointed directly; in others the designation of the position was changed. there were also cases where apparently the decision makers were dissatisfied with the standard of the applications. in such cases, the method usually followed was to call for new applications, while in others the entire process was postponed or the person appointed was not even among the applicants. the appointment was usually made after a special committee had gone through the applications and made its recommendations. the position of engineer was insecure when difficulties arose in his interaction with municipal decision makers. it was only in the 1920s that laws regulating the dismissal of municipal officials were introduced. in the earlier years, three months’ notice was the only job security town engineers enjoyed. there were bound to be problems if the engineer did not have any prior experience of the municipal decision making process. this can be seen in many cases. engineers who had been working in the railway sector or in private business experienced considerable difficulty in adjusting to a working environment where there were strict boundaries and rules. in most instances, the town councillors were also very conservative in their thinking and a young, progressive engineer coming from a wider world was too much for them to accept. consequently there were only 11 engineers known to have gone into retirement from their position. the large majority either resigned or were dismissed. the difficulties faced by these early town engineers become even clearer when we consider the important issue of water supply. augmenting the water supplies for residents of local municipalities was among the most expensive municipal initiatives undertaken in the period under examination. town councillors typically monitored the engineer’s progress very closely and were constantly alerted on how much was being spent. there were only a few instances where the cost of a project did not cause complaints and in many cases the engineer had to shoulder the blame. as was the case with henchman in graaff-reinet, despite doing the best he could under the circumstances it was the engineer who had to go. what was the influence of these engineers to south african engineering field? in this article the focus has been on town engineers and it can be said that the tradition of municipal engineering in the early twentieth century was predominantly british. this situation changed only later when the training of engineers was begun in south africa and some of the engineers went overseas (for example to the netherlands or germany) to gain a higher degree in engineering. on the other hand, by studying the careers of individual engineers, it can be seen that many also had expertise in fields other than civil engineering. for example arthur henry reid, who went into private business after his early years as a municipal engineer, became one of the most influential architects of his times in south africa. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. iii iv. linking southern africa into global history is it not strange how important trend-setting pointers in academia, almost by chance, present themselves? at a conference of the southern african historical society,1 with the theme of ‘breaking boundaries, blurring borders: the changing shape and scope of southern african historical studies’, one of the papers, presented in a regular session, attracted attention and favourable comment from historians across the board. prof. neil parsons of the university of botswana, re-visited the longstanding issue of finding a platform for southern africa in global history. the reason for the current interest in global studies at undergraduate level in the united states of america, he explained, was that it could liberate undergraduate students from ‘big-power parochialism’, encouraging them instead to explore the connectedness of all parts of the globe. of particular importance was parsons’ suggestion on how historians in southern africa can make these links; how they can aspire to become part of this ‘bigger’ historical picture. the three cues offered in the paper have a direct bearing on the broadening, across disciplinary boundaries, of the foundations of historical discourse. he suggests that historians need to tap into the current field of genetic research in the biological sciences that locates the story of humankind in africa. this in turn will require a more comprehensive investigation into the early, middle and late stone age. and finally, a universalising approach must be taken in biographical studies. we are particularly pleased to be able to publish prof. parsons’ paper in this edition of td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa. southern african historians, it seems, have their work cut out for them. there is a need to take the natural science route to the past. from there archaeology and palaeontology, the bridging disciplines between natural and social science, need to be used to decode the complex story of humankind on a genetically diverse continent. this will link african eve to her descendents around the globe. in the final phase of this ‘blurring of borders’ the historian must master the art of writing history as a literary story; to show how individuals have, over time, taken their place in the long chain of events that comprise the story of life on earth. clearly, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary methodological strategies will have to be pursued in order to arrive at a point where historians in southern africa will begin to share their findings with scientists in a variety of other fields in all parts of the world. ‘transnational’ and ‘transboundary’ theories and perspectives are currently high on the 1 22nd biennial conference of the southern african historical society held at the university of south africa’s sunnyside campus, pretoria, 22 24 june 2009. iv research agenda at some south african universities. these are the buzzwords that bring a sparkle to the eye of many a young postgraduate historian. it is but one step further to link up to a transdisciplinary approach to historical studies. worldwide, the rigid boundaries that once separated disciplines have become less-circumscribed; they are no longer judged by the static conventions of yesteryear. history, as an academic discipline at south africa universities, is only now beginning to recover from a sharp decline in underand postgraduate student numbers, brought about by the reformulation of the south african educational landscape – a process that began in the 1990s. a growing number of young scholars with fascinating fields of specialisation are now making valuable contributions at conferences in south africa and overseas. they are bound to grow in number. however, that trend is subject to undergraduate teaching in history becoming more than the mere memorisation of facts. the focus should shift to the exploration of an intriguing past that is exciting and is relevant to the present. and importantly, it must inform the future. by taking hands with researchers in other fields, historians can open up a whole world of valuable knowledge. editorial contents in november 2008 members of north-west university’s research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water hosted the first symposium of what is scheduled to hopefully become an annual event on the calendar of water studies in southern africa. in the hurried pace of things at the end of the year, as a rule tempers are growing short. time is of the essence; things need to be rounded off. the intention with this symposium is to lure participants away, if only momentarily, from the rush of things, to contemplate relevant issues of common concern. the event offers participants the opportunity to speak their minds in open discussion on the important issue of water in southern africa. three articles, based on themes that came under the spotlight at the 2008 symposium, are published in this edition of td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa. of particular importance is the article by dr anthony turton. at the time of the symposium turton was caught up in a conflict with the management of his former institution of employment, the council for scientific and industrial research (csir). because of this he was unable to present the paper he and a co-worker had prepared. his contribution in this journal provides a basic outline of the work he has been engaged in and the perspectives he has developed in recent years. its publication here is in the interest of promoting responsible transparency in scientific research and reporting. more information on the symposium scheduled for november 2009 can be found in a notice in this edition of td. the theme is: ‘what water problem? multidimensional perspectives on critical issues in the upper vaal catchment’. the focus will be on some aspects of the industrial, domestic and agricultural use of water in one of the hardest working river catchments in south africa. water symposium td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp.v. in the first issue of this journal, that of november 2005, an article was published under the title ‘project management in ghana: expectations, realities and barriers to use.’2 it formed part of the editorial material, submitted earlier in that year, for a dummy run of the journal, before its official launch. we were recently informed that the same article, ‘project management in ghana: expectations, realities and barriers to use’ had appeared in acta commercii, 2004, vol 4. pp. 88-102. the authors of this, the original article, were daniel f. ofori and robert hinson. an investigation into the matter brought to light that the article submitted to td was a blatant act of plagiarism. we unconditionally apologise to the authors of the original article for this unfortunate incident. the plagiarised material has subsequently been removed from the electronic archive of td. at a time when sophisticated software technology is increasingly able to trace even the slightest unethical use of material generated by other researchers, it is necessary for authors to take note that offenders will be caught out. it is not a matter of ‘if’, but rather ‘when’. the consequences of plagiarism are immense. the illegal use of another person’s intellectual property is a criminal act. it leads to severe punishment. ultimately, it means that the search for true knowledge, in the written form, is reduced to a useless bunch of lies. on a personal level, plagiarism inevitably ends the career of the guilty author in an abrupt and most shameful manner. an awareness of plagiarism and its implications is inherent in our understanding of ethics in scientific research and reporting. it is an offensive practice, the worst form of cheating, on which researchers and students should be fully informed. it inevitably ends in disgrace for the perpetrator. plagiarism and its aftermath 2 see td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 1(1), november 2005, pp. 77 96. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp.vi. microsoft word 13 padaruth fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 180-192. indian music and dance for inclusive development: a reflection on the republic of mauritius sk pudaruth1 abstract the purpose of this article is to argue, prove and demonstrate that indian music and dance have a crucial role to play in the overall development of the republic of mauritius. following intensive and extensive literature search, and field study, the author shows that cultural and economic values inherent in these art-forms, if soundly and systematically explored, identified and leveraged, have the potential to create and enhance human, cultural, artistic and social capitals through arts education, besides contributing to economic development by generating jobs and earnings through the establishment of indian music and dance industries in the country. the author further argues that it is incumbent upon the government to formulate and deliver informed, evidence-based cultural policies to guide thoughts and actions in the arts, culture and economic sectors. largely, the arguments are based on the experiences of different countries, especially those of india, and the findings of researchers in the field. keywords. culture, economics, indian music and dance, value, cultural industries, indian music and dance industries, development, and cultural policy indian culture and music in mauritius mauritius is a multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual sovereign, democratic and secular country, protecting and promoting cultural diversity and diversity of cultural expressions of its people, thus presupposing the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. it is a small island located near the tropic of capricorn in the south-west of the indian ocean. it is situated on the south-east coast of the african continent and lies approximately 900 km on the east of madagascar. the island is spread 1 dr santosh kumar pudaruth is a senior lecturer at the mahatma gandhi institute, moka, republic of mauritius. skpudaruth.mgi@intnet.mu; pudaruthk@yahoo.com indian music and dance for inclusive development td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 180-192. 181 over an area of 2,040 sq km, of which 2,030 sq km consists of land and 10 sq km, water. mauritius, forming part of the mascarenes islands, includes rodrigues, cargados carajos (saint brandon) and agalega islands, as its dependencies. discovered by the portuguese, the island was later inhabited and controlled, one after the other, by the dutch, french and british over a period of more than three-and-a-half centuries. the british’s presence on the island lasted till the country gained its independence on 12 march 1968. and it achieved the status of a republic 24 years later on 12 march 1992. there were no indigenous people; hence, all its present inhabitants are progenies of the immigrants who migrated from france, africa, china, madagascar, and india. as at july 2013, the total population is estimated at 1, 295,7892, out of which 68% comprises indomauritians, 27%, creoles or afro-mauritians, 3%, sino-mauritians, and 2%, francomauritians. mauritius does not have one culture, but rather a mosaic of different cultures; namely, hindu, islamic, african, chinese and european, co-existing together. in this respect, mauritian society has been characterised as one fostering 'harmonious separatism'. the indo-mauritian community comprises different ethnic groups whose forebears had come from different parts of india, from 1834 to 1924 to work on the island. indian culture, which has developed and thrived on the mauritian soil through its interaction with not only indian, but also european, chinese and african cultures and other sub-cultures for the last 177 years, has acquired distinctive characteristics. it is for this reason the author prefers to use ‘indo-mauritian culture,’ rather than ‘indian culture.’ the former is unique in many respects, for it is more ‘fluid’ or ‘flexible’ than the latter, and shares the best of values of these different cultures of the world. on migrating from india as from 1834, the indians also relocated in their new homes on the island their food and dress habits, traditions and customs, family kinship and, more importantly, their music and dance art forms. although rudimentary and amateurish in their forms and renderings, music and dance were not only an integral part of their socio-cultural and religious lives, but also a means to educate their children who were debarred of a proper and suitable educational scheme. with the advent of indian cinema in the 1930s and later, the establishment of closer diplomatic relations with india, indian music and dance received the much-needed boost for their introduction and propagation in the country. today, the number of publicly-funded and private institutions promoting indian music and dance, and the increasing number of practitioners and students bear testimony to the good health of these art forms. typical music and dance concerts put up to mark various historical, religious and social events comprise a variety of classical, semi-classical and/or light/folk/fusion music items, coupled with appropriate dance items. sometimes, these 2 central statistics office of mauritius, viewed 2014: <http://statsmauritius.gov.mu/english/statsbysubj/pages/populationjanjun13.aspx> pudaruth 182 recitals are either an amalgam of indian, western, chinese and african components, or a blend of any two or three of these art traditions along with some local influences. the article aims puts forth the following arguments: 1) indian music and dance have cultural and economic values worth pursuing and exploiting, 2) if cultural values enshrined in indian music and dance are properly interpreted and elucidated within the framework of an interdisciplinary indian music and dance education, a new mindset more conducive towards inclusive, sustainable development can be built up within the younger generation of the country, 3) economic worth of indian music and dance can be exploited and leveraged for generating more earnings, and creating jobs through the establishment of indian music and dance industries in mauritius, 4) cultural policies should be formulated in such a way that both cultural and economic values are taken on board to help build up a modern, forward-looking, just, saner and wealthy mauritian society. culture & economics culture, in its anthropological sense, can refer to shared beliefs, attitudes, practices, traditions and, above all, values of a group of people, and in its pragmatic sense, to the creation, practice and re-creation of arts (throsby, 2001:3-4). economics, on the other hand, refers to that science which tries to provide the alternatives or choices as to how the limited resources could be distributed among the people of a country, so that needs and wants can be satisfied in a judicious and rational way. we can say that economics, therefore, is the science about how “to allocate limited means among competing ends” (throsby, 2001:1-2; lipsey, 1989). these two disciplines, which put man at the centre of their debate, are now two worlds apart and can hardly meet to foster inclusive development. sen (2000) noted, “(t)he gap between the two perspectives ... is a major issue in conceptualizing development.” hard-core economists have been maintaining that everything is guided and explained by prices only and that nothing else matters. in this regard, thompson (2001) declares “[d]iscussions of culture … are not seen by mainstream professionals as being within the parameters of economics. for them, these … represent unimportant, irrational, messy noise … ” on the other hand, inflexible ‘well-wishers’ of culture wish that economists should ‘keep their dirty hands off it’ (eagleton, 2000). the role of culture in influencing development is barely recognized by both parties. such a phenomenon is apparent in almost all developing countries, and mauritius is no exception. the author opines that, besides having a representative, educational and integrative function in the society, culture has also an economic purpose through its manifestation in cultural industries, which could be controlled, to some extent, by the logic of economics. he claims that neither culture can function outside the economic reality of the day, nor can the economy strive to bring more welfare and riches to the society without the support of arts and culture. manuel barroso, the then president of the european commission, stated, with regard to the necessity to link culture and economics, in 2004: indian music and dance for inclusive development td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 180-192. 183 (t)he eu has reached a stage of its history where its cultural dimension can no longer be ignored. it would be a mistake to pretend that culture and economy are two totally separate worlds. without proper attention to knowledge, science and culture, our societies at large, our economies, cannot prosper.3 the author opines that there is a dire need for bridging these two ‘knowledges’. indian music and dance the collective term ‘sangita’4 refers to the arts of singing, playing musical instruments and dancing. the different music and dance genres, styles and forms, which originated in india, and are presently flourishing on its soil and elsewhere; namely, mauritius, trinidad, south africa, uk, usa and germany, among others, are considered as the main indian intangible expressions and heritage. when a work of art, whether tangible or intangible, is created by people belonging to and espousing a particular culture, it becomes an important expression embodying the essence of that specific culture. the shared beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and, above all, values, by and through which the culture is formed, nourished, sustained, and perpetuated, and from which the people and community acquire their identity and uniqueness, become the constituent elements and essential attributes/characteristics of this art form. throsby (2001:27) rightly considers “the true value of a work of art as lying in intrinsic qualities of aesthetic, artistic or broader cultural worth it possesses”. he further notes that “... the assertion of absolute value inherent in cultural objects can be seen as congruent with the ideas of intrinsic, natural or absolute value ... ” in ordinary commodities or objects. while talking about these inherent “cultural value characteristics”, throsby (2001:28-29) mentioned six such constituent elements in art forms or cultural objects as follows: aesthetic value, spiritual value, social value, historical value, symbolic value and authenticity value. likewise, indian music and dance, as art-forms, have been shaped by and, thus, embody these perennial, time-tested, and universally-appealed values and thoughts. the author maintains that these have nurtured, enriched, and sustained indian culture as well as the individuals and communities espousing it and flourishing under its protection over millennia (pudaruth, 2012). 5 value value refers to that which is worthy or worth pursuing either for its own sake or, by its means, for attaining some other end. hofstede (1985:347) defines value as “… broad preferences for one state of affairs over others. they direct our feelings of good and evil. they 3 quoted in obuljen, 2005. 4 “gitam, vadyam tatha nrityam, trayam sangita muchyate” (shringi, et al., 1978: 10). 5 unpublished phd thesis of the university of delhi, india. pudaruth 184 are opinions on how things should be. indirectly, they also affect our perceptions of how things are and they affect our behaviour.” in this regard, mason (2000:7) describes value as the “morals, principles, or ideas that serve as guides to action”. cultural values are what make any culture worthwhile, for they determine the thoughts and behaviours of the individuals of that culture. from an economic point of view, value denotes the worth of a product as expressed in what people are willing to pay for it. it is at the base of and the motivation to all economic behaviours and activities. the author, thus, argues that indian music and dance have both cultural and economic values, and these values should be placed at the centre stage of any cultural and economic discussion. it is, therefore, worthwhile to start by wiping out the artificial barrier between cultural and economic activities, and exploring, exploiting and leveraging both the cultural and economic values of indian music and dance to foster inclusive, sustainable development. cultural industries and indian music and dance industries according to the united nations’ creative economy report 2010, creative economy, if properly handled, has the potential to become a plausible option to trigger development and growth in developed and developing countries. throsby (2010) points out that in most developed and developing countries, the object of cultural policy is the cultural industries. the latter, which focuses on cultural products, is taken as a subset of the broader creative industries (united nations’ creative economy report, 2010). in line with the above, indian music and dance industries6, which can be regarded as a component of the general performing arts industries sub-sector of mauritius, refer to those individuals and enterprises that could produce, ‘package’ and distribute indian music and dance products (goods and services) for consumption by the locals and tourists at the domestic level, and people world-wide, through export. there are not yet full-fledged indian music and dance industries in mauritius. development the term ‘development’, which was initially defined in terms of only greater economic wealth created solely through economic activities, is now being regarded as a multi-dimensional, integrated process where the physical, mental, emotional, aesthetic, moral, religious, and spiritual needs and aspirations of the people are met and gratified. development, according to sen (2000), is equated with freedom, as it is, “... a process of expanding the real freedoms that people can enjoy.” development, as sen (2000) further points out, should not be taken in its narrower senses, such as growth of gross national product (gnp), or rise of incomes, or industrialisation, or technological progress, or modernisation only. freedom is more inclusive and encompassing in nature (sen, 2000). this view is a far cry from what conteras had put forth in 1999 when he mentioned “modernization, westernization, and especially, industrialization...” when talking about economic development. though both sen (2000) and conteras (1999) maintain a neo-liberal, free market conception of freedom, yet sen’s (2000) freedom is more inclusive, for it leads towards the overall well-being of human beings. 6 indian music and dance products created, produced and distributed by the indo-mauritians, who own the intellectual property rights (copyrights). indian music and dance for inclusive development td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 180-192. 185 from the above, it can be understood that economic activities alone cannot create those values which can possibly help people develop fully their potentials as human beings; hence, bringing about more well-being in their lives. heyne (1998) rightly says that economics has no solutions on how to create values other than purely economic ones. in the same line of thoughts, throsby (2001:155), while criticising the narrowness of the earlier conception of economic development, fittingly points out that, “(t)he world may have become more efficient and productive (through market and economic activities), but it has not become more fair.” norbu (1996) refers to such a kind of development as ‘doable development’ where there is “industrial development that is people-oriented, eco-friendly and congruent with cultural patterns.” at the international meeting for small island developing states (sids) held from 10 to 14 january 2005 in mauritius, it was unanimously agreed that any culture, which promotes cultural identity, self-reliance, social justice and ecological balance, is an indispensable issue for sustainable development in the country. from the above stated, it can be easily deduced that the human, cultural, social and economic potentials of each individual, group, society, community, and the nation, at large, need to be nurtured in order to foster an inclusive, sustainable development. cultural policy policy formulation is basically a government business; hence, it refers to “the basic principles by which a government is guided.”7 according to mundy (2000), cultural policy is one of the cultural tools by which the government can help improve the quality of life of the people. hence, cultural policy falls within the area of public-policy making, as it is the task of each and every government to formulate its politics regarding culture and cultural assets of the country. the unesco convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions8 mentions several measures member-countries ought to take with regard to their culture and cultural assets. one of them clearly stipulates that governments should aim at integrating culture in their development policies at all levels for the creation of conditions conducive to sustainable development. the republic of mauritius does not have an explicit, well-articulated, and coherent cultural scheme, which can be reckoned as a cultural policy. the discussion below shows how the cultural values inherent in indian music and dance can be used to foster human, cultural, social and, to some extent, economic development through a new body of knowledge and approach to arts education. inculcating cultural values of indian music and dance for human, cultural, social and economic development through arts education with a view to connecting indian music and dance with character building and enhancement of attitudes, thus contributing to the overall development of the students, the author has devised and put forth a completely novel, unique and original body of knowledge. 7 see <http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/policy.html> 8 see <http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/2005-convention/the-convention/> pudaruth 186 this involves cultural values inherent in indian music and dance and their interpretations from different perspectives, as musical values, human values and entrepreneurial values. he argues that knowledge of these values could be imparted to the younger generation of students, through indian music and/or dance education. this knowledge will help develop and sharpen creative and critical thinking skills of the students, ennoble their thoughts, build their character, enhance their attitude towards themselves and others, and guide their actions. theoretical and conceptual framework inspired by and partly based on throsby’s (2001) concept of deconstructing cultural value into its constituent elements, and anchored in the interpretivism and cognitive and social constructivism approaches, the author has identified, developed, defined and interpreted a typology of nine basic cultural values as follows: aesthetic, ingenious, religious, spiritual, social, historical, symbolic, authentic, and emotive values. the nine cultural values and their constituents the author has evolved 31 constituent values from these nine main values. it is worth noting in passing that the number of constituent values is not exhaustive and definitive. what is important is how they are imparted to the students so that this knowledge can help trigger and optimize their latent potentials as productive human beings and, at the same time, reinforce and deepen their knowledge and skills of the art-form under study. f i g . 1 t y p o l o g y o f t h e c u l t u r a l v a l u e s i n h e r e n t i n i n d i a n m u s i c a n d d a n c e cultural value   aesthetic value ingenious value religious value spiritual value social value historical value symbolic value authentic value emotive value indian music and dance for inclusive development td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 180-192. 187 the 31 constituent values, as categorised under the nine main values, are as follows: aesthetic value harmony, design, symmetry, restraint, precision, order and newness ingenious value wisdom, clarity, self-expression, self-confidence and self-governance religious value religiosity and morality spiritual value truth, universalism and serenity social value social awareness, co-operation, tolerance and respect historical value continuity, permanency and authority symbolic value communication and significance authentic value originality and credibility emotive value detachment, sublimation, and universalisation interpretation of the constituent values by way of example, the author takes up the constituent value harmony for interpretation. harmony in indian music and dance harmony contributes to giving ‘form’, to any art form, be it music, dance, or painting. harmony, which is defined in music, in strict terms, as the sonic effect produced from the simultaneous sounding of two or more notes, chords and melodies, is non-existent in indian music. the latter is basically monophonic (melodic) in nature. but, if the definition of harmony is taken, in a much broader sense, to mean ‘in accord with’, ‘in synchronisation with’ or ‘in agreement with’, then we might say that indian music and dance, as any other artforms, are replete with harmony as their main aesthetic value. harmony, in this sense, can then be interpreted, for example, as harmony among body, mind and intellect within the musician herself/himself in order to perform effectively. likewise, unless the dancer is in a harmonious state within whereby the body responds to the call of the mind, which, in turn, receives the approval of the analysing or discriminating intellect, no dance can be performed. equally important is external harmony in the presentation of the art forms. harmony among the different musicians in the case of vocal music, and among musicians and dancer/s, in the case of dance, is a ‘sine qua non’ for the success of any performance. external harmony denotes and connotes understanding, sympathy, comprehension, significance, and tolerance, amongst the people concerned. harmony as human value internal and external harmony is necessary for personality development and cultural and social integration, respectively. internally, there must be harmony between body and sense, sense and mind, and mind and intellect. if the discriminating intellect or reason guides the mind and the mind, in turn, controls the senses and, by extension, the body, harmony emerges within the personality or character. though man has different aspirations, urges and needs; namely, bodily, sensual, mental and intellectual, pulling her/him out in different pudaruth 188 directions, yet harmony can emerge from within, for harmony usually arises from contrast, and not from sameness. harmony is an equilibrium point where there is neither too little nor too much in one’s personality. the same principle of striking equilibrium, i.e. harmony within, can be applied externally to one’s dealings with one’s family members, relatives, friends, peers, colleagues and society, at large. one should always try to bring harmony amidst contrasting characters and behaviours of people around. hence, tolerance, understanding, patience and sympathy towards others must be cultivated. it is also true that unless there is harmony within, there cannot be harmony outside. harmony as a value favouring entrepreneurial mindset harmony can also be applied in the context of economics. the harmonious economic personality (entrepreneur) is a state of mind which blends and harmonizes contrasts, e.g. frugality and risk-taking in business. in like manner, the other 30 values have been interpreted by the author. it is worth noting that presently indian music or dance education focuses only on dissemination of the specific knowledge and skills pertaining to the discipline under study. at its worst, teaching and learning activities are fully geared towards making the students pass the examinations and obtain certificates; at its best, they are trained to become, more or less, musicians and dancers of a reasonable standard. the values inherent in indian music and dance, which have the potential to create better human beings, are considered as part and parcel of the ‘hidden curricula’ and are, thus, left on their own to seep into the psyche of the students and, eventually, affect their mindsets and behaviours. the present author holds a different position. he believes that the present scenario is not yielding the required results and the strategies in place are not working. few, if not at all, benefit from the cultural values which inhere in these art-forms. the problems a young mauritian is facing presently at personal, cultural, social and economic levels is a matter of great concern. indian music and dance industries another way of bridging the gap between arts and development lies in the exploration, exploitation and utilization of economic values of indian music and dance. these could be achieved through the creation, production and distribution of indian music and dance products (goods and services) having economic and market values. total economic value of cultural products however, with regard to the economic value of cultural assets/products, price or utility is not the only value that comes into play when these are evaluated. there are other economic values worthy of pursuit when it comes to the utilization of cultural assets, or cultural goods and services. the economic values or benefits that can be captured from a cultural asset can be divided into direct and indirect use values and option values from excludable private goods, and non-use values and existence and bequest values from non-excludable public goods. indian music and dance for inclusive development td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 180-192. 189 these are collectively known as the total economic value (tev) of the cultural assets, or cultural goods and services. excludable private goods and services excludable private products are those goods and services that can be measured by what private individuals are prepared to give up in order to acquiring them, thus a private market can see the light of day. the valuation of the ‘use benefit’ is worked out from the price paid for their enjoyment (throsby, 2010). non-excludable public goods and services public goods and services are those goods and services that can be collectively enjoyed by the whole community or nation, at large. they are non-excludable or non-exclusive for once they are produced they are accessible to everyone and no one can be excluded from enjoying them. they are also non-rival or non-rivalling for one person’s consumption of them does not diminish the amount available for others to consume or enjoy. indian music and dance have both public and private-good properties. indian music and dance as products the present author affirms that indian music and dance, if combined with other artistic and technical inputs, have the potential to give rise to a whole range of goods and services, having economic values. the creation, production, and distribution, and eventually, consumption of these indian music and dance products are expected to create more jobs, bring in more earnings and thus, produce more buoyancy in the economic and cultural lives of the country. these products, which the author has categorised under 60 types, are what the indian music and dance industries in mauritius will produce and distribute for general consumption. this submission is based on and has been worked out from the visual and aural data gathered by the present author during his multiple attendances as non-controlled and non-participant observer in indian music and dance programmes, seminars, conferences, festivals, concerts, and sittings throughout his stay in delhi, india, from july 2010 to june 2012, in addition to his close interaction with musicians and dancers. the researcher has put forth a new structural model of indian music and dance industries (imdi), which can function within the larger framework of ‘cultural industries’ sector, albeit still in its embryonic stage, in mauritius. he calls this model the indian music and dance industries structural concentric circles model. this model shows the relationship among the single industries or stakeholders (individuals, enterprises and/or firms) within the proposed indian music and dance industries component of the performing arts industries sub-sector and between them and the rest of the economy or outside stakeholders. pudaruth 190 figure 2: structural model of indian music and dance industries (imdi) proposals for implementation with regard to the inner and outer stakeholders, the present author has put forth 151 proposals which, if materialised, could give a new impetus and direction to a more rational and optimal utilization of artistic and cultural resources in the country. for want of space, it has not been possible to present all the 151 proposals in this paper. however, with a view to giving a direction to the reflection, 5 such proposals, each touching upon a related area, are given below: • to audition and grade musicians and dancers into a, b, & c in different forms and genres through an assessment of their level of competences and knowledge and skills acquired. • give status of msme to all informal enterprises involved in the creation, production and distribution of music and dance products in the country, so that they can benefit from the support, measures and schemes put in place by the government. • encourage those enterprises to keep pace with the latest technologies by providing funding accessibility via the development bank of mauritius (dbm) or other agencies at concessional rates. • set up a funding organisation similar to cooperative credit unions and/or the mauritius civil service mutual aid association under the aegis of the ministry of arts and culture or any other agencies, with membership open to all registered inner stakeholders outer stakeholders indian music and dance for inclusive development td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 180-192. 191 artistes, groups of artistes, and enterprises in the imdi, and provide a seed capital to help the organisation take off. • ensure that all private educational and training institutions, their trainers and training programmes in indian music and dance and related areas in mauritius are duly registered, accredited and approved by the mauritius qualifications authority (mqa). conclusion the chasm between culture and economics could be reduced considerably. culture, cultural values and cultural actions have a vital role to play in expediting inclusive development in mauritius. indian music and dance, the two prominent cultural assets of the indomauritians, have both cultural and economic values which could be tapped. these could be explored, identified, utilized to foster inclusive development. a new body of knowledge could be integrated into the existing indian music and dance education and imparted in a systematic manner for changing and ennobling mindsets, building character and enhancing behaviour; thus, hastening enculturation process of the younger generation, while inculcating within them a spirit of adventure and entrepreneurship. references brundtland report, 1987. our common future, oxford university press: oxford. conteras, r. 1999. how the concept of development got started. university of iowa creative economy report, 2008. the challenge of assessing the creative economy: towards informed policy-making, unctad and undp, united nations. creative economy report, 2010. creative economy: a feasible development option, unctad and undp, united nations. eagleton, t. 2000. the idea of culture. blackwell: oxford. heyne, p. 1998. limitations of the economic way of thinking, action institute – religion and liberty, vol 8, no. 4 hofstede, g. 1985. the interaction between national and organisational value systems. journal of management studies, vol. 22, no 4, pp. 347-357: ny. kaur, n. 2010. music for life: social and psychological objectives. kanishka publishers & distributers: new delhi. lipsey, r. g. 1989. an introduction to positive economics. weidenfeld & nicolson ltd: london. mason, r. 2002. assessing values in conservation planning: methodological issues and choices, in m de la torre (ed.), assessing the values of cultural heritage: research report, the getty conservation institute: la. mundy, s. 2000. cultural policy: a short guide. cultural policy and action department research and development unit, council of europe publishing: germany. pudaruth 192 norbu, d. 1996. cultural preconditions for development, in saraswati, baidyanath, (ed) 1996, interface of cultural identity development, ignca and d. k. printworld pvt. ltd: new delhi obuljen, n. 2005. why we need european cultural policies: the impact of eu enlargement on cultural policies in transition countries, european cultural foundation. pudaruth, s. k. 2012. cultural policies for the socio-economic development of mauritius with special reference to the indian experience in the areas of music and dance, phd thesis, university of delhi: delhi. ravikumar, g. 2002. the concept and evolution of raga in hindustani and karnatic music. bhavan’s book university:mumbai. sen, a. 2000. development as freedom. oxford university press:oxford. shringi, r. k., & sharma, p. l. 1978. sangita-ratnakara of sarangadeva. motilal banarasidass:varanasi. thompson, h. 2001. culture and economic development: modernisation to globalisation, theory and science, volume 2, issue 2. throsby, d. 2001. economics and culture. cambridge university press: cambridge. throsby, d. 2010. the economics of cultural policy. cambridge university press: cambridge. wang, g. g., korte, r., f. & sun, j. y. 2008. development economics: a foundation for hrd policy studies in developing countries, advances in developing human resources. x finish up on a second hand bookshelf at campus bookstores. we need to also understand the predicament of publishers. they need to make profits. the more they sell the more profitable (and cheaper) the publication may become. textbooks are important. they provide an important educational support for students. experience suggests that electronic copies of textbooks also do not seem to be readily available – at least not in southern africa. at many education institutions agreements are in place to make use of portions of textbooks in teaching modules. arrangements of this nature, as a rule, tend to create a viable middle way, to circumvent excessive costs. the question begs to be answered as to whether arrangements of this nature, over the long run, are beneficial to the educational process and later studies of readers of the books. ultimately it revolves around the intrinsic value of the printed work and its longevity as an extension of the available knowledge of the student. in an era of constant communications revolutions, access to reading material – which can be readily reduced in price, providing it is in electronic format – should be a lot easier and also cheaper. having the hardcopy work is, and will remain for a long time to come, still the most desirable of solutions. however, given the clear call for more affordable text material, we should support solutions that can promote the cultivation of a next generation of literate and welleducated people in all parts of the world. the availability and cost of textbooks should not hamper this process. td journal desember 2006.p65 matsulu: a community in developmental fermentation and fusion johan visser and rian terblanche * abstract: since 2004, the drama department (university of pretoria) has engaged in the development and execution of theatre-for-development projects in accordance with the mission statement of the endangered wildlife trust (ewt), as well as the white paper on integrated pollution and waste management for south africa (1998) – shifting governmental approach to this sensitive socio-economical issue from cure to prevention – to interrogate issues concerning the environment, sustainable use of resources and subsequently: conservation, within developing urban and rural communities. theatrefor-development (tfd) utilizes theatre to disseminate developmental messages. this paper should be seen as not so much as a report of an end result, but as research in progress. continued projects addressing the issues of conservation, the environment, development and sustainability will in future lead to more definite reporting on results. the paper investigates the ability of tfd to affect changes of behaviour and encourage personal agency and empowerment in community members concerning waste management and the sustainable use of resources within a developing rural society. it will not claim to be definitive; results and conclusions can not be generalized. keywords: theatre for development (tfd), endangered wildlife trust (ewt), matsulu, kruger national park (knp), young minds drama group (ymdg), community development, waste management, sustainable development, hiv/aids, poverty. introduction conservation, bio-diversity, sustainability together with concepts like eco-friendly and eco-driven development have become major focal points throughout the world during the last decade. south africa has always been in the spotlight, and leading the way, as far as wildlife management and conservation was concerned. since 1994, however priorities have shifted to incorporating the peoples of our ‘rainbow nation’ with the idealistic goals of nature conservation. in september 2003, south africa hosted (like it will be doing again in 2006) the international union for the conservation of nature iucn’s td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 2 no. 2, december 2006, pp. 391-408. _______ * drama department, university of pretoria. 392 world parks congress with the theme (in 2003) ‘benefits beyond boundaries’, highlighting the realisation that conservation areas cannot survive as pockets of nature protection in isolation from the people who surround them. at the time the south african icon, nelson mandela, as patron of the congress, stated with his characteristic to-the-point candour: ‘to treasure and retain the rich biodiversity of africa we must ensure that national parks are transformed ... we need to break with traditional thinking, to catalyse a new vision and to join hands in new partnerships’ (borchert, 2003:36). the most notorious of these parks is, without doubt, the kruger national park. despite people coming and going, regimes rising and falling, kruger keeps shining like the great conservation diamond it is. shortly after 1916, a newly appointed commission was so taken by the beauty of the sabi reserve that they determined that the ‘uselessness of having this superb reserve merely for the preservation of the fauna’ should make way ‘for a great national park where the natural and prehistoric conditions of our country can be preserved for all time’ (borchert, 2003:34). when, a decade later, the national parks act no. 56 of 1926 was ratified by the then all-male, all-white parliament, it established the kruger national park and made provision for the setting up of other such parks. the now much larger kruger park remains the flagship national park of south africa and it is quite rightfully regarded as one of the great conservation areas of the world. quoting peter borchert, (2003:34) again: it is an internationally recognized icon of conservation and few would visit southern africa with an itinerary that did not include this magnificent reserve. all along the borders of kruger, there exist communities (mostly rural, but also semi-urban) anxiously awaiting exactly this transformation and the so-called benefits from beyond their boundaries. this paper will deal with (among other developing rural and urban communities) new partnerships with one of these communities, matsulu. in order to imagine some of the problems dealt with by the involved parties, try to visualise the following two scenarios: it is friday afternoon 4:30 in matsulu. municipal workers responsible for waste removal from matsulu c have just filled their truck with refuge. the nearest dumping site is in nelspruit, 40 minutes away – they will only be back home long after nightfall. they agree to secretly dump their load in the bushes on the banks of the crocodile river, visser and terblanche 393 close to matsulu b. their load also contains rejected meat from the local abattoir.1 saturday morning: children from matsulu b play on the banks of the river. they make an exciting discovery – meat (an expensive commodity) delivered on their doorstep. they are unaware of the fact that during the previous night, the local crocodile population also discovered the same ‘gift from the gods’. it ends in tragedy. two toddlers are killed by crocodiles. who or what is to blame? degradation in nature or degradation of culture? the second scenario: it is friday again, the 9th of september 2005. at the community hall, on top of the hill in matsulu, scores of excited people arrive for a special event: the launch of a new theatre for development (or tfd) performance programme on waste management, which was developed during a ten day interactive workshop between the local performers, the young minds drama group (or ymdg) and post-graduate students of the university of pretoria’s drama department (up drama). the guests of honour are welcomed by kenneth phiri (founder and manager of the ymdg) – among them the mayor of the mbombela municipality. then participating actors (from both ymdg and up drama) burst onto the stage and the assembled community members start cheering ... ! what is the link between these two scenes? the participants are working on the crossroads between nature and culture, conservation and performance art. this paper will thus endeavour to explore the contribution of the authors’ discipline and specific field of interest, being performance art, drama and theatre, to the understanding of humankind at the ‘intersection of nature and culture’.2 matsulu _______ 1 the community of matsulu can be divided into three zone groups: matsulu a, matsulu b and matsulu c. matsulu a has access to running water but mostly through communal taps. they are the middle-class in the community. matsulu b is an informal settlement without infrastructure and the majority of the people living there are jobless. matsulu c’s residents bring in the highest incomes in the township and have electricity, running water and weekly refuse removal services. 2 the paper originated and was read at the international conference on humankind at the intersection of nature and culture, 4-6 september, 2006 held in berg-en-dal, kruger national park – organised by north-west university vaal triangle campus in partnership with the kulturwissenschafliches institut essen, north-rhine westphalia, germany. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 394 background and problem statement conservation and development: the issues involved in practice, internationally and in south africa, the formation of policy, legislation and instruments for environmental management remain techno centric and scientific (scott, et al, 2001). however, this trend is shifting to a focus on poverty and the environment (weaver, et al, 1999; scott and oelofse, 2001). this shift requires a more critical approach to environmental management, one that considers social, ecological and environmental input and justice. a shift in discipline may include two ‘connective threads’ holding together the diverse array of sub-disciplines in conservation: ‘the human-nature relationship and the ‘society and space’ theme (cloke, et al., 1999). there may be a third theme explored by this investigation that could be termed as an ‘integrated approach’ – one in which people, environment and place are integrated (scott & oelofse, 2002). the mentioned shift seems to have been in place in south africa for a number of years. the words of the late peter mokaba, then minister of environmental affairs and tourism, are still relevant as environmental issues are on the increase and pollution continues at an alarming rate: ‘in south africa’, he said: (w)e realise that we can only guarantee democracy and good governance if we have a sound economic and social framework, and one that is also environmentally sustainable. we will only survive as a country if we have fair access to, ownership of, and control of our renewable and non-renewable natural recourses. in this we must include black and white people, poor and rich people, males and females ... (government digest, 2004:38). if this could be possible, all people in this country and on this continent would be able to live in spiritual, cultural and physical harmony with their natural surroundings. to try and achieve this, government – according to the government digest, august 2004 – produced a model based on sustainable development, which addresses, amongst others: • holistic and integrated planning and management • participation in environmental governance • environmental education and empowerment.3 the mentioned holistic approach was strongly highlighted in south africa’s previous minister for environmental affairs and now head of the iucn, valli moosa’s address to the g8 heads of state meeting in visser and terblanche _______ 3 others include: sustainable resource and impact management; effective institutional framework and legislation; information management for sustainable development; international cooperation. 395 scotland in 2005. it was aptly named: the nature of poverty, and the wealth of nature (moosa, 2005). moosa states: without action from, and concern for, people – especially those most vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change – nothing can be achieved. increasing the rights of poor people and their access to natural resources, especially in rural areas, increases their responsibilities and can – with clearly defined laws of tenure, access, ownership and rights – unleash grassroots conservation and entrepreneurship on an unprecedented scale (moosa, 2005). he comes to the conclusion that: there is a common misconception that to invest in conservation is somehow contrary to investing in people’s livelihoods. however the idea that you need to get rich first and then worry about your environment is not only untrue, it is dangerous.4 wise words indeed. but can a rural community, like matsulu or bushbuckridge – both bordering on the kruger park – really benefit from investing in conservation in its broadest sense? the answer seems to be a resounding: yes! simply giving jobs to people in rural areas is not enough. conservation success depends on a sense of ownership, enabling communities to be meaningful stakeholders, creating incentives to encourage them to protect and nurture the environment. communities must be engaged in the decision-making process regarding all elements of tourism and utilisation of natural resources (colman, 2003:43). more than alleviation of poverty, community involvement means equipping members with life skills. james blignaut – well known economist – agrees with the notion that conservation offers a viable alternative land-use option to subsistence agriculture on degraded communal land. he argues for a national system that will compensate rural communities for what is potentially their greatest asset – ecosystem goods and services (bezuidenhout, 2004:8). blignaut bases his view on a study in which he compared the total economic value of ecosystem goods and services provided by the pristine rooibos bushveld area of the kruger park with that of the neighbouring, poverty-stricken and degraded bushbuckridge area.5 he matsulu _______ 4 valli moosa is president of the world conservation union (iucn) and former south african minister for environmental affairs and tourism. he was a key negotiator for the african national congress during the drafting of south africa’s new constitution, hosted the world summit on sustainable development in 2002 and was a government minister for 10 years until 2004. 5 bushbuckridge enjoys the same climate, and once had the same vegetation and animal life as the rooibos zone of the knp. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 396 found that if the land-use practice of bushbuckridge would change from subsistence agriculture to private conservation and tourism, allowing sustainable resource harvesting in the area, the community could see a fourfold increase in income (from r1 450,70 per hectare per annum to potentially an astonishing r5 834,70).6 we mention tourism because there is already a great number of success stories concerning this in south africa – including some from the regions and communities involved in this study. ecotourism can be traced back to the 1960’s and 1970’s when many environmental issues began to surface globally. at the time, environmentalism was championed by a few dedicated individuals and organisations with the purpose of addressing waste, over-development, poverty, control and self-sufficiency for communities. development was a key concern, as it is today, because relatively few were benefiting from development projects at the expense of many (fennel, 2003:3). until tourism provides the socio-economic benefits so sorely needed by rural communities, those communities will continue to use resources unsustainably. tourism, whether ecoor cultural tourism, is widely perceived as an industry with the potential to provide communities with job opportunities, income and economic diversity. it is perceived as a generator of tangible benefits to previously disadvantaged communities as well as a key role player in the process of integrating conservation and development (kibrige, 2003:23). a wilderness safaris statement reads: one of the successful developments is the concession to 24 000 hectares in the far north of the kruger park – around the pafuri area, where the park borders zimbabwe and mozambique. the makuleke community has reclaimed the title deed to the area and entered into a lucrative business venture with wilderness safaris. ‘these developments will show how communities’ commercial interests in utilising protected resources can become profitable and sustainable without being destructive to wildlife (colman, 2003:44). other examples come from the maputo development corridor. in this area the care programme (communal areas and rural empowerment), under the auspices of the mpumalanga parks board has identified, and in several cases already developed and established, ecologically sustainable, socially acceptable and financially viable initiatives on community-owned land in rural areas (http:// www.transport.gov.za/library/docs/corrids4.html). visser and terblanche _______ 6 prof james blignaut – of the university of pretoria’s department of economics – is a well-known economist and shared his findings with roelof bezuidenhout. 397 to name but a few in close vicinity to matsulu: • the matsulu / n4 informal market and business tourism development including a business centre, restaurant, accommodation facilities and other tourism attractions • the mthethomusha game reserve for ecotourism. the facilities are designed to accommodate between 100 and 150 people, but will at times be able to carry 500 or more people • the lomshiyo project – a day visitor facility for the matsulu community, adjoining the mthethomusha community game reserve on the kruger park boundary.7 benefits from successful environmental partnerships can thus be improved effectiveness, increased efficiency, enhanced equity, effective fulfillment of missions, and improved environmental quality. performance practice as educational tool: addressing the issues why do we argue that performance practice is such a powerful and dynamic tool for change? any conscious attempt to influence behaviour or attitude must engage with culture. development workers often expect communities to consider new ideas and practices radically different from their own cultural practices, beliefs and knowledge. theatre for development – or tfd – and i use this as an umbrella term, should and can exist, as a lubricant, at the interface between social circumstances and development activities. it takes a dialogical form that ensures mutual listening, learning and communication. it is therefore no coincidence that tfd practitioners no longer refer to ‘target audiences’ or ‘target communities’, but now prefer the term ‘partners’ because of the participatory nature of tfd as communications tool (mavrocordatos, 2005:2). the reason why we choose to refer to tfd as an umbrella term is because of the astounding number of buzz-words currently doing the rounds in the industry as well as in intellectual and academic circles. ideas, terms and notions like: educational theatre – including both tie (theatre in education) & die (drama in education) theatre for intervention theatre for development community theatre matsulu _______ 7 more on these proposed developments available in: maputo development corridor, section 4: tourism (http://www.transport.gov.za/library/docs/corrids4.html). td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 398 theatre for the oppressed interactive theatre advocacy theatre, to name but a few. this may seem confusing, but all of these styles, forms or manifestations of theatre, boil down to more or less the same thing: they are all tools, and a means, by which to empower individuals and groups to take ownership and possession of the possibilities of changing themselves and their environment. at the heart of this lies the dual meaning of the word ‘act’ – to perform and to take action. it is fundamental to theatre for development that anyone can act and that theatrical performance should not be for professionals only. in its most archaic sense, theatre is the capacity possessed by humans to observe themselves in action. humans are capable of seeing themselves in the act of seeing, of thinking their emotions, of being moved by their thoughts. they can see themselves here and imagine themselves there; they can see themselves today and imagine themselves tomorrow (boal, 1985). humans are able to identify (themselves and others) and not merely recognize. to identify is to be able to recognize within the same repetitive context but also to extrapolate to other contexts. this is theatre – the art of looking at ourselves. in this usage of theatre, all human beings are actors (they act!) and spectators (they observe!). they are spect-actors. theatre is thus a form of knowledge; it should and can be a means of transforming society; of changing society. theatre can help us build our future, rather than just wait for it. to quote alex mavrocordatos: (t)he first step to development is a change of attitude, both individual and collective – and in that order – from declared helplessness to empowerment. this is culture in action, and theatre is a cultural tool (2004:3). the issue of empowerment sits on the bottom line of the (community) development process. since tfd plays or programmes are usually created spontaneously through improvisation and a workshop process with actors from the specific community, each individual performer not only owns the play’s content but the form as well. tfd almost works on the principle of ‘home movies’ (mavrocordatos, 2004:9). you are excited to see your brother or sister on the stage, especially if they are exploring problems and interrogating issues that you share. other advantages of tfd as communication tool include its ability to break through language and cultural barriers: • theatre does not require literacy skills or clever speaking to be effective. visser and terblanche 399 • theatre communicates with the whole person – not just with our thinking and reason. it appeals to our emotions, passions and prejudices. it can challenge us to face up to aspects of our lives that we try to ignore. • it is an entertaining way of sharing information. adults, like children, learn best when they are interested. • theatre does not only use words. it also communicates effectively using mime, images, movement and dance (prentki & lacey, 2005:1). furthermore, this style of performance is not a new concept in developing countries and communities. it builds upon the culture and traditions such as traveling theatre, story telling, puppet shows, sociodramas, mimes songs, dance and riddles. for generations, rural populations have relied on these traditional forms of communication to share knowledge, exchange information and to provide entertainment. in situations where profound distrust, fear and anger exist, theatre is a useful medium to bring people together to share stories and trigger emotional responses. the model of using participatory learning methods to explore a group’s main concerns and then creating a play in order to debate the issues can be used in many situations. theatre is a liberating and unifying experience as well as being fun. follow-up is essential, however, in order to turn the community’s reflection into action (scott-danter, 1999:4). up drama: getting involved at the university of pretoria’s drama department, the drama and/or theatre for intervention approach is an eclectic mixture of drama and theatre techniques stemming from the premises, philosophies, strategies and techniques of educational drama or theatre, theatre for development, theatre of the oppressed, community theatre and playback drama or theatre. all of these approaches, in various ways, promote holism, personal empowerment and transformation, social responsibility, advocacy and agency. the focus here is not on creating theatre products or to train performers, but to use drama and theatre as a learning medium.8 as part of their curriculum in various courses concerning theatre: edutainment and development, undergraduate as well as post-graduate students at the drama department partake in the development and performance of various projects in the field of theatre for development or intervention or empowerment. these projects serve the matsulu _______ 8 thank you to dr marie-heleen coetzee for this insight from her khulisa/up drama project proposal, 2005. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 400 purpose of informing, uplifting and empowering the specific target group and / or community towards which it is aimed. previous projects addressed – among others – the effects of drug abuse on teenagers and caring for the elderly. more recent programmes included: water wise with captain manzi, a project concerned with sustainable use of water resources in urban communities to the north of the (then) pretoria metropolitan area. this may have been one small step for up drama, but it proved to be a giant leap forward for most of the individuals, groups, institutions and communities involved. since 2004, contact has been established, and a working relationship developed up drama and the conservation leadership group (clg), of the endangered wildlife trust (ewt), to tackle issues concerning the environment, sustainable use of resources and subsequently: conservation. in collaboration with resourceafrica, a similar partnership was set up with the pfukani theatre group working in the – already mentioned – bushbuckridge area. the ewt: establishing a partnership strategies were developed in accordance with the mission statement of the ewt, namely: the endangered wildlife trust conserves endangered species and ecosystems in southern africa by: • initiating and funding research and conservation action programmes; • preventing species extinction and maintaining biodiversity; • supporting sustainable natural management; • communicating the principles of sustainable living by education and awareness programmes to the broadest possible constituency. for the benefit of the people in the region; the goal of the conservation leadership group is: to build capacity in and mobilise aspiring conservationists, enabling them to represent themselves, their communities and the ewt in which ever walk of conservation they choose. after discussion of the mission, vision, activities and specific needs of the clg with andre van zyl, the following strategies were proposed for ongoing projects, starting in 2004: developing different theatre for development programmes to endorse the clg’s eco-warrior project – to be performed at schools in gauteng townships – tying into the eco-warrior curriculum and addressing issues concerning, sustainable use of water resources, waste management and pollution, sustainable use of energy resources and finally environmental responsibility. this project would also involve actors from the clg’s young minds drama group – working within the matsulu community in mpumalanga – in the development and performance of the above mentioned visser and terblanche 401 programmes. the actors would be utilised not only in the creative development of the various programmes, but also in the implementation thereof. this involvement would also serve the purpose of training and facilitating the participants to employ the same strategies within their own drama group and community. matsulu and the young minds drama group problem statement concerning waste management in matsulu the quality of the environment continues to decline in many parts of the world. the study of human impact on the environment is not a new one, but resolving problems surrounding this issue globally becomes more pressing almost day by day. the contemporary perspectives on developing societies series (edited by john mukum mbako and mwangi s. kimenyi) published a whole volume of research essays in 2003 interrogating this problem: human impact on environment and sustainable development in africa (darkoh, m. & rwomire, a. 2003). this ground breaking study comes to the conclusion that important activities of humans such as industrialisation, technical development, urbanisation and agriculture are increasingly posing a threat not only to the quality of the physical environment but also human health and socio-economic well-being. one life-threatening result of the by-products of development – including waste, pollution and poor sanitation and other infrastructures – is the re-emergence of cholera in south africa three years ago. the disease has since infected 14 000 and killed 250 (taylor, 2004). this seems to be exactly the state of affairs in matsulu. occurrences of diseases related to waste and pollution are becoming more and more frequent within the community. apart from the death of the children mentioned in the introduction, the following incidents have been recorded in local and national newspapers since 2003: • 2003 community standpipes supplying matsulu with water did not work for over three months, so people had to walk and drive up to 5km to collect water from the polluted crocodile river (taylor, 2004). • 2004 in march a law firm was hired to probe the death of at least eight rural children in a suspected water poisoning scandal. the eight children, all toddlers, died in a cholera outbreak that hospitalised scores of matsulu residents after the only water treatment plant for the township broke down. residents were only warned that their drinking water was contaminated by bacteria such as e.coli after local doctors, who treated up to 50 new cases per day, raised the alarm. matsulu td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 402 • the mbombela municipality, in mpumalanga’s capital nelspruit, initially denied culpability and dismissed public outrage as ‘exaggerated’ (mhlabane & arenstein, 2004). • 2004 a few months later, martha moyane lost her 14-month-old baby boy, lindokuhle jozini, to gastroenteritis and chronic diarrhea, after using contaminated tap water that was fed to matsulu. ‘dirty water came out of our taps, but no-one bothered to warn us for almost a week that the water had e.coli in it. in fact, the politicians first tried to deny that there was a problem, before suddenly warning us not to drink anything without boiling it. by then it was too late,’ said moyane (http://www.lowveldinfo.com). • 2005 in july, 2 months before a field trip and workshop week by postgraduate students of up drama with the young minds drama group to create a tfd performance on waste management, another article titled: ‘river of death’, appeared in voice, the local newspaper. after an investigation by three concerned teachers (several learners and other residents in matsulu fell ill), once again several plastic bags containing the carcasses of slaughtered animals were discovered in the river. further investigation led to a dumping site where used motor oil, paint and other toxic materials were dumped on the river banks and oozing into the water (mbuli, 2005). matsulu, surely, is under serious threat because of lack of infrastructure, ignorance and mismanagement of waste and pollution. andré van zyl (manager of the conservation leadership group of the ewt) conducted an in-depth study to ascertain the extent of the problem and to try and identify possible solutions (van zyl, 2004). this research eventually led to the collaboration between up drama, the ewt and the ymdg in an attempt to bring about community awareness, mind shifts within individuals and a change in perception of the issues of waste and pollution management. without going into too much detail concerning van zyl’s research, it may be said that the population-environment interface in matsulu follows the so-called ehrlich and holden model (letamo, g. & toloto, o. 2003:105). the model takes the form: i = pat. where i = impact on environment p = population (size, distribution and rate of growth) a = affluence (per capita consumption, determined by income & lifestyle) t = technology (level of impact of consumption) the population is not the only cause of environmental degradation. visser and terblanche 403 the consumption of materials and energy per person are also important factors. so is the type of technology used to make consumption possible as well as the economic, social and political forces that influence decision-making (ehrlich et al., 1977:719). in a developing community, like matsulu, damage to the environment due to waste and pollution takes place because of rapid population growth with high levels of consumption, economic and political negligence with destructive technology having little impact. there are three main socio-economic groupings in matsulu. the higher income group resides in matsulu c, with water and electricity provided and weekly waste removal services. matsulu a can be described as the middle-class section, water is provided, but mostly by means of communal taps – most households have access to electricity. matsulu b can best be described as an informal settlement. there is an almost complete lack of service provision and infrastructure and most of the residents are unemployed. true to expectations, van zyl’s findings were that different levels of income, social standing, employment and education yielded different patterns of waste management within the community, both from the people’s perspective and from that of the mbombela municipality providing the waste removal service in the area. van zyl (2004:25) believes that in dealing with the issue of waste in matsulu, the most powerful medium would be in the form of environmental education, targeting three specific audiences: • the councillors of the mbombela municipality in order to inform them of environmental initiatives that could be implemented in the community. • the women and children of the community who are mainly responsible for the disposal of waste – with the woman also concerned with the well being of their households.9 • all staff involved in municipal waste management in order to highlight their responsibility as far as the health and well being of the communities they serve, are concerned. the young minds drama group the young minds drama group (ymdg) was founded in 1994 by, among others, mr. kenneth phiri, originally with the aim of establishing a culture of theatrical entertainment within their community. they soon afterwards became involved in community empowerment and upliftment through the enormous talent they have for creating matsulu _______ 9 this observation by van zyl is indicative of current practice, it must be argued that men need to be educated to be co-responsible. td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 404 energetic, interactive and spontaneous performances in the discipline of tfd. after going into partnership with, and receiving limited funding from, the clg and the ewt, kenneth phiri & the ymdg has received numerous awards for acting, scripting and performance for programmes dealing with road safety, conservation issues, hiv and aids as well as other health related problems within their community. says ed farrell in the clg’s annual report (2006): if we had one wish ... it would be for the ymdg’s rehearsal facility to be completed and for us to be in a position to introduce a bursary scheme for meritorious ymdg performers to study drama at the university of pretoria. it has proven rather difficult for a conservation ngo to do fundraising in the performing arts arena, but if this is the challenge, the clg will rise to the occasion, because the ymdg is too talented and the work they are doing too valuable not to give it our all. the partnership and the learning experience described as a particular highlight in 2004 by the ewt, was the establishing of the partnership between up drama, the clg and the ymdg in order to join creative forces to present the so-called ecowarrior message to young audiences in exiting and novel ways (farrell, 2006). based on their eco-warrior curriculum, two plays / programmes were developed and performed in soweto, tembisa and bosmond. this involved four actors from the ymdg in the development and performance of the programmes. the actors were utilised not only in the creative development of the various programmes, but also in the implementation thereof. this involvement also served the purpose of training and facilitating the participants to employ the same strategies within their own drama group and community. during the week of 17-21 may, 2004, water wise with the water warriors and waste wise with the waste warriors were performed at ten schools in urban gauteng communities to an estimated 5650 learners. for may 2005, the same recipe was followed with the creation of the performance programme: my footprint on the environment, this time involving four other ymdg actors. with seven performances of this play, more than 4 900 learners were reached. during august and september 2005, field trips and the interactive workshop between the ymdg and honores-students, mentioned in the introduction, led to the community launch of ymdg’s owntfd programme on conservation and waste management. over a period of three months, performances of this programme were given in some twenty primary and secondary schools in and around matsulu (mpumalanga), reaching over 10 000 learners. the partnership turned out to be a ‘four-way’ learning experience. not only the learners and visser and terblanche 405 teachers at the various schools, but also the staff members and students of up drama, the actors of the ymdg as well as the ewt and their eco-warriors working in the schools all gained valuable knowledge and experience from the project to be put to good use in future projects. valuable experience was obtained and lessons learned by the different groups involved. the workshop and rehearsal process exposed both groups of actors (drama students and young minds drama group) to acting styles and disciplines they have not previously experienced: the ‘community theatre’ style of acting practiced by the ymdg enriched and enhanced the more formalised ‘educational theatre’ style of the drama students, and vice versa. in reaction to the launch of the ymdg’s performance, ms pontso mabelane – representing the mec for culture, sports and recreation, said that she was impressed: my department has everything in place to help such groups to grow and represent the country not only locally, but abroad. please come forward with a business plan so that we can find out what assistance you need (nyalanga, 2005). kenneth phiri, founder of the group, stated: we have been working very closely with the lectures and students of this institution (up drama). they also train our group to produce the best performances ever (nyalanga, 2005). feedback from the members of the ymdg can be summed up in the words of margaret phiri – cousin of kenneth: we were received by the warm and welcoming hands of the teachers, students and institution itself, we couldn’t be much more at home. it felt like we belonged with them. the rehearsals were tough; we were working very hard because we were playing the lead roles, with classes in between on movement, theatre for development, choreography and voice. they tried to equip us with a lot of information in a short time. they learned from us and we did from them. the performances were great. thank you for the opportunity, i hope the friendship between the ewt, the varsity and the ymdg doesn’t end here (farrell, 2006). objectives and outcomes • creating awareness of the problems and issues surrounding sustainable development and use of resources within specific urban and rural communities as envisioned and set out in the ‘white paper on integrated pollution and waste management’ of the departments of environmental affairs and tourism & water affairs and forestry. (refer specifically to section 4: approaches to integrated pollution and waste management, subsection 4.1: shift to prevention.) matsulu td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 406 • developing a sense of awareness, pride and responsibility within the learners and members of specific communities as to the value and advantages of taking responsibilty for their environment, thereby empowering them to develop their own strategies of sustainable development (in the 2005 programmes this was achieved by pointing out strategic planning for the 2010 world soccer cup tournament). • setting up continued involvement with the specific target communities by means of information hand-outs, brochures and follow up workshops. • introducing the idea of turning waste into usable resources, involving existing recycling establishments like: o enviro plastics recoveries o glass recycling association (enviroglass) o mondi recycling o collect-a-can • future involvement in clg projects like the makuleke training project, the conservation training programme, the eco-warrior programme, the young minds drama group and others. • establishing an interactive relationship between the students of the drama department and the participants in projects run by the ewt in rural and other communities. • setting up a framework for future co-operation between the institutions involved, for example: o developing short courses within the framework of theatre for development and other related disciplines. o establishing funding for full time studies at the university of pretoria for deserving candidates from clg projects. o empowering the various role players participating in this project to enable them to set up and create their own theatre for development projects within their communities. conclusion it may be too soon to determine the results of the work of up drama and the ymdg within the matsulu community, but preliminary findings by means of various questionnaires, interviews and discussions indicate that there is a significant shift within the respondents in recognizing individual, family and communal responsibility in waste management. tfd is a way of using theatre to stimulate debate, getting people to question issues in a public forum. it asks questions without dictating the answers – it is never didactic to its audience, it involves a process of learning together rather than one-way teaching; it assumes that there is as much likelihood of the audience knowing the answers as the performers. tfd can not provide the community with answers. it can, however, provide them with the opportunities to experience possible answers. visser and terblanche 407 references african eye news service, 2004: mourning mothers want to sue. published on: http://ww.lowveldinfo.com/news/showstory. asp?story=5920. bezuidenhout, r., 2004: poverty versus conservation, in farmer’s weekly, 2 april, 2004, 8. boal, a., 1985: games for actors and non-actors. intro. & transl.: adrian jackson. london and new york: routledge. borchert, p., 2003: from the past ... into the future: south africa’s national parks, in africa geographic (11) 8, september 2003, black eagle publishing, cape town, 6; 28-45. cloke, p., crang, p. & goodwin, m., 1999: introducing human geographies. arnold, london. colman, m. 2003: communities – the essential ingredient in the conservation pot, in the journal of southern african tourism. june, 2003, 43-46. darkoh, m. & rwomire, a., 2003: human impact on environment and sustainable development in africa. ashgate, burlington, usa. darkoh, m. & rwomire, a., 2003: human impact on environment and sustainable development in africa. ashgate. farrel, e., 2005: clg bulletin. published on: http://www.ewt.org.za/ workgroups_overview.aspx?group=leadership&page.html. fennell, d.a., 2003: ecotourism in the south african context, in africa insight. (33) 1/2, 3. kibrige, r., 2003: the socio-economic impacts of tourism on poor rural communities, in africa insight. (33) 1/2, 23. maputo development corridor, section 4: tourism. published on http:/ /www.transport.gov.za/library/docs/corrids4.html. mavrocordatos, a. 2004: theatre for development – cultural action or development utility? published on: http://www.comminit. com/papers/p_0037.html. mbuli, m., 2005: river of death, in voice, issue 92: july 1, 2005. mhlabane, j, & arenstein, j., 2004-03-24: independent investigations begin into mpumalanga water scandal, for african eye news service. published on: http://www.lowveldinfo. moosa, v. 2005: the nature of poverty, and the wealth of nature. published on www.africageographic.com. matsulu td, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 391-408. 408 nyalunga,s., 2005: new beginnings for young minds, in voice, issue 113: september 13, 2005. prentki, t. & lacey, c., 2005: using theatre in development. published on: http://www.kit.nl/specials/html/td_theatre_and_ devlopment.asp?specials/html. scott, d. & oelofse, c., 2001: social impact assessment as a development tool: principles and practices in a developing context. proceedings of the annual conference of the local chapter of the international association of impact assessment (iaia), white river, 7-10 october, 2001, 262-279. scott, d. & oelofse, c., 2002: geography and environmental management in south africa, in south african geographical journal (84) 1, 38-47. scott, d., 2001: environmental identity and social transformation: experiences from south durban. department of geography seminar series, cambridge university, 2001.02.05. scott-danter, h., 1999: theatre for development: a dynamic tool for change. published on: http://www.fmreview.org/text/fmr/06/ 07.htm. take ownership of non-renewable and renewable resources, government digest. august 2004. taylor, h., 2004: a thirst for profit. published on: http://www.unison. org.uk/features/features/0206thirstforprofit.asp. van zyl, a., 2004: waste and pollution management – the clg’s perspective. unpublished. visser and terblanche microsoft word 15 mamiala.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 581592. beliefs that manifest through newspaper items in relation to peoples’ life challenges and their potential to enhance a sustainable learning environment in school science t mamiala1 abstract the paper documents beliefs that manifest themselves through newspaper items and elaborates on their potential to enhance a sustainable learning environment in a school science lesson. “learning environment” is depicted from different angles and includes virtual and real learning environments, school environments and classroom environments. descriptive and item analyses were conducted on sixty-eight newspaper items that were identified. the nature of problems and prescriptions/solutions was categorised for each item and the paper further provides elaboration on the types of problems and recommended solutions. the results show that the “believed” structure contents in their newspaper items to catch the attention of the “believer”. lessons on the power of belief must be learnt by school science teachers if they are to succeed in creating a sustainable learning environment with improved performance in school science. key words: belief, belief models, teaching, explanations introduction educational transformation and socio-political changes in south africa have been characterised by multiple challenges. perceptions and reactions by some of the stakeholders resulted in the need to reflect on and revisit the national agenda on the transformation of our education system. the need to overhaul the learning environment and create one that is conducive to learning has frequently featured in debates on a national agenda. studies on elements that promote a sustainable learning environment for the implementation of the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) are attracting attention. the learning environment is being portrayed from a variety of perspectives and includes the virtual and real learning environment, the school environment and the classroom environment. in this paper sustainable empowering learning environment refers to “ ... how best to create optimal conditions for excellence and quality in learning, irrespective of the learners’ grade or academic level.” (francis, mahlomaholo & nkoane, 2010, p. 11). the focus in this paper is 1 thapelo l. mamiala (phd) is professor of education and head of the department of mathematics, science and technology education at tshwane university of technology. his research focus is on learners’ belief system and the learning of physical sciences p/bag x680, pretoria, 0001, south africa. telephone: +27 12 382 9447/9405, email: mamialalt@tut.ac.za mamiala 582 on the science classroom environment. the nature of problems and the solutions suggested in the newspaper items were analysed to study the nature of people’s potential beliefs. randomly selected community members were asked to comment on the articles as a means of eliciting their views and beliefs. the aim of this study was to explore beliefs that manifest through newspaper items that people attribute their challenges to. an understanding of such may create a useful foundation for exploring the dynamics of appropriate beliefs in order to enhance a sustainable learning environment in the school science classroom. hence the research questions addressed are: what beliefs manifest through newspaper items do people attribute their challenges to and how can such beliefs be used to enhance sustainable learning environment? theoretical underpinnings beliefs play an important role in creating a sustainable, empowering learning environment (borg, 2001; bojuwoye, 2013; mdunge & wasserman, 2009) and therefore there is a need to acquire insightful understanding into how they may be incorporated in understanding the school science concept. through a focus of this nature teachers may begin to understand their own beliefs, compile a repertoire and recognise their value in a classroom situation. there are numerous references to the concept “belief” in the literature, where it is used interchangeably with terms like “perception”, “efficacy” and “clarification” (borg, 2001; chemero, 2001; ganchorre & tomanek, 2012). its potential and value in a teaching and learning situation has not been fully explored. according to borg (2001), the following are some of the common features that contribute towards a “belief” by an individual: the truth element, the relationship between beliefs and behaviour, conscious versus unconscious beliefs and beliefs as a value commitment. these four features may be viewed as explanatory beliefs that interact and serve as underlying dynamics in defining the concept. belief may be viewed as an individual or collective activity as one engages in making meaning and providing explanations of the phenomena within our world. it plays a critical role in making sense of scientific explanations. figure 1: components of an explanation horwood (1981) emphasises that for the purpose of understanding scientific explanations, in contrast to other forms of explanation, it should be noted that the “why?” question needs to be addressed. horwood also states that when one elaborates on the physical structure of a phenomenon that is viewed as description but includes “why? and how?” questions then the explainer/believed explainee/believer explanatory knowledge explanatory behaviour explanatory artefacts beliefs that manifest through newspaper items in relation to peoples’ life challenges td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 581-592. 583 discussion is elevated into an explanation. this implies that various components of an explanation need to be considered before it can be regarded as an explanation, namely, explanatory knowledge, explanatory artefacts and explanatory behaviour. the components in figure 1 may be regarded as the pillars of any explanatory situation and also serve as underlying dynamics within an individual’s belief system (savasci & berlin, 2012). these pillars are positioned with respect to the explainer and explainee, as shown in the figure. the first pillar, explanatory knowledge, refers to the topic/concepts that are to be explained by the teacher and at times these are within the construct of the teacher’s beliefs (horzum & canan gungoren, 2012). explanatory artefacts refer to the things that a teacher uses while explaining the topic/concept (savasci & berlin, 2012). the third pillar, explanatory behaviour, refers to how the teacher will approach the explanation, including the extent to which he/she uses different types of explanation (borg, 2001). roberts (1991) also refers to these pillars when elaborating upon the three elements that are expected to be present in an explanation. from a teaching perspective, roberts (1991) views an explanation as “having at least three elements crafts, intent and uptake” (p. 72); he describes how each of these elements apply to explanations within the context of classroom teaching. the explainer (teacher) makes use of various aspects of the three pillars in order to produce teaching explanations that are understandable and acceptable by the students because at the end what constitutes an explanation is dependent on “joint construction between teachers and students” (yackel, 1997 p. 1). all these aspects further contribute to building a repertoire of beliefs to explain everyday encounters by an individual (minogue, 2010). various sources provide different versions of the concept “belief”. according to borg (2001), belief is viewed as “a proposition which may be consciously or unconsciously held, is evaluative in that it is accepted as true by the individual, and it is therefore imbued with emotive commitment, further it serves as a guide to thought and behavior” (p. 186). the way an individual makes sense of the world is partly influenced by the beliefs held (horzum & canan gungoren, 2012). these beliefs influence how new information is processed and internalised (areepattamannil & freeman, 2011). beliefs manifest themselves in a classroom environment on occasion. for instance, in the us concerns were raised when the concept of “creationism” instead of “evolution” was introduced in public schools (lac, hemovich & himelfarb, 2010). its inclusion was viewed by some as a direct violation by the state of the separation of church and state. creation of life is a subject on which there are conflicting views. there are teaching situations where teachers have learnt to function within an environment with conflicting beliefs. for instance, a christian teacher who is supposed to teach evolution in life science may find herself/himself operating within various levels of beliefs. this implies that if belief is viewed as a mental state of an individual that portrays “the truth element” (borg, 2001) then the teacher does not necessarily believe what he/she is teaching. belief is viewed as explanatory knowledge. common ground between the explainer/believed and the explainee/believer needs to be established if there is to be meaningful understanding of scientific explanations. from the various perspectives on explanations mentioned, what becomes apparent is the presence of three components in any explanatory situation, namely, the explainer/believed, the explainee/believer and the thing to be explained/believed (knowledge) (savasci & berlin, 2012). the last component manifests itself in the form of a problem that the explainer needs to explain to the explainee by using “a set of linked statements each of which are understood by the explainee and which together lead to a solution of the problem” (brown & hatton, mamiala 584 1982, p. 5), or “sense making of the world” (borg, 2001). “the set of linked statements constitutes the explanation” (brown & hatton, 1982, p. 5) which has the potential to influence the beliefs of a learner (minogue, 2010). the linked statements are the ones that facilitate understanding. treagust and harrison (1999) and rushton, lotter and singer (2011) have also emphasised the need for teachers to use effective pedagogical content explanations in their teaching, that is, the kind of explanations that will link scientific content explanations with everyday explanations. since beliefs are a function of the explanation of natural phenomena, the following sections elaborate further on explanation, providing a historical background to the concept and how it is used in the teaching and learning of school science. the role and effect of explanations in science education and school science (metz, 1991) have gained recognition and attention has now been directed to explanations within the context of teaching and learning (knowles, 1990; ruben, 1993). studies of scientific explanations from various perspectives have resulted in investigations into how these scientific explanations may be transformed into effective teaching explanations. studies that provided an insightful understanding of the nature and types of explanation and their impact on students’ learning are reported by ogborn et al. (1996). other studies highlight the need for teachers to use types of explanation that are learner-friendly in order to enhance students’ understanding of school science (brown & hatton, 1982; cole & chan, 1987; treagust & harrison, 1999). studies related to the effective use of explanations in teaching and learning to improve students' performance in school chemistry emphasise the role of explanatory artefacts such as models in helping learners make sense of science concepts (treagust & harrison, 1999). some studies have shown that although students have a limited understanding of the role of these explanatory artefacts in school chemistry, teaching and learning based on these artefacts have had a positive impact on students’ learning (chittleborough et al., 1999). recognition of the dynamics related to the creation of a sustainable empowering learning environment is essential for the creation of a meaningful learning environment (brown, 2010; mahlomaholo, 2009; nkoane, 2009). in the next section the three concepts – explanatory knowledge, explanatory artefacts and explanatory behaviour – are elaborated on. certain studies have focused on the use of explanation to enhance the learning of school science (chinn, 1995; gilbert et al., 1998; lehavi & galili, 2003) and others have elaborated on the structure of a scientific explanation in a classroom situation (treagust & harrison, 1999). although these studies have addressed important aspects related to explanations and beliefs in school science, none has focused on key patterns that are attributed to the “believed” rather than to the “believer” and the extent to which these patterns may be adopted and adapted for use in school science teaching. other likely influences of beliefs may be related to traditional and cultural practices (smith, 2013). for instance, initiatives are under way to integrate the principles underlying belief in ancestral spirits into counselling and psychotherapy (bojuwoye, 2013). understanding these dynamics as they relate to beliefs may contribute to the pedagogical planning of activities and explanations that may contribute towards the creation of a sustainable, empowering learning environment (brown, 2010; mahlomaholo, 2010 & 2009; nkoane, 2009). beliefs that manifest through newspaper items in relation to peoples’ life challenges td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 581-592. 585 methodology descriptive and item analyses were carried out (cohen et al., 2000). a framework on explanations research was also incorporated (mamiala, 2001).when compared to other sunday papers, sunday world was found to have a lot of items related to peoples’s life challenges hence its choice. opinions sought from the educators and learners were based on the frameworks described by ogborn et al. (1996), childs & mcnicholl (2007) and chi (1997). six learners and five educators (neighbours to the researcher) were purposively selected to seek their views on the categorised newspaper items. based on their responses to the questions and from the item analyses of the newspaper items, broad categories emerged. another researcher, who was not involved in the study, was given the newspaper items and asked to conduct item analysis as well and classify them using the same categories. there was a high percentage of agreement between the classification of the two researchers (altheide & johnson, 1994). this procedure helped to enhance the interpretive validity of the study (cohen et al., 2000; gall et al., 1996), so that the researcher could establish whether there was any consistency in the manner in which the responses are categorised. results a variety of problems and solutions were noted from the 68 newspaper items analysed. problems that were identified from the newspaper items and from conversations with learners and educators were arranged under the following broad categories: nature or type of problem and the solution(s) recommended for each problem. through item analyses of the newspaper items the category on nature or type of problem was further subdivided into the following units: bedroom matters, body-related issues, property, business, relationships, debts and jobs. the second category on solution(s) recommended for the problems was subdivided into the following units: herbals/chemicals, ring/wallet, spiritual/prayers and magic/psychic. six items were identified where no specific solutions were mentioned. that is, they promise the prospective client/believer that they will sort out problems or provide solutions without elaborating on the type of solution. nature or type of peoples’ challenge and the proposed solution the following are the broad categories that emerged from the nature or type of peoples’ challenges that manifest through newspapers: bedroom matters, body-related issues, property, business, relationships and jobs. the challenges may be viewed as indicators of some of the issues that portray the underlying beliefs of society. bedroom matters the challenge appeared more frequently in most of the newspaper items and it focused on the fact that partners are sensitive about how they “perform” in bed as a way to satisfy each other. enlargement of the male organ or tightening of the female organ was mentioned frequently. for instance, the following statement appeared in one of the newspaper items: “famous yodi pills, botcho creams and chicken pills … c4 penis enlargement oils. weight gaining and loss pills, … vagina tightening” (p. 30). as you will note, chemicals are recommended as part of a solution to the problem. this type of problem appeared more frequently in the newspaper items (see table below). according to one of the male interviewees, “men are under pressure to prove their manhood”. learners did not comment mamiala 586 on this item but this may be attributed to cultural barriers. a child may not freely engage in a conversation on such matters with an adult. body-related issues the challenge in this case was more apparent with women who wanted a hip and breast enlargement. again, these organs are part of what people would like to change. herbal pills and oils are some of the recommended solutions to the challenge. two female educators acknowledge that they need to exercise to address figure problems. property insecurity although technology in the form of alarms is available for our properties – houses or cars – there is still a strong belief that one needs to consult a healer and ensure that these properties are protected (p. 29). “monna o tshwanetse go tiisa lelapa la gagwe [ a man needs to fortify his home] (this is a direct translation of a comment by one of the male educators. he meant that, one need to keep evil forces away from their home). for instance, whenever a new property is acquired some form of protection is required so as to ensure that one does not lose it. prof kamau, with spiritual healing powers, claims to ensure that “you get a dream house and car” (p. 29). as highlighted by bojuwoye (2013), “ancestral spirits consciousness has table 1: frequent solutions mentioned in the items type of solution no. of items % frequency comments on the solution herbals/chemicals 33 39 it includes the use of a spray (item 1, p. 29), creams, oils and pills. for example, amiz oil to win lotto offered by dr sendagile (item 62, p. 32). ring/wallet 25 29 it is believed that the magic ring will bring luck to you and help you to secure tenders (items 5 & spiritual/prayer 10 12 it is believed that one’s challenges may be resolved through prayer. psychic/magic 11 13 see your enemies or problems in a bowl of water or a rock. not indicated 6 7 there is no indication of the recommended prescription. has always been with us since it is a way by which we affirm our identity and connect to our root” (p. 76). ancestral spirits are still viewed as playing a pivotal role if one’s property is to be protected. this practice remains common among the african communities. the belief in ancestral spirits serves as a point of reference as we make sense of the world, hence the belief in a muthi to strengthen the property. one educator went so far as to elaborate on the way a person may be subjected to hypnotism which, according to him, is part of a display of psychic powers. according to him, “there is no difference in hypnotism and psychic power mentioned by spiritual healers”. business/tenders despite factors that may be associated with the economic downturn, this item indicates that people regard the need to address this challenge within the context of their beliefs. getting a muthi, spiritual intervention or magic ring are some of the solutions that are suggested by the believed to the believer. in addition to sorting out one’s business problems, chief chikapa guarantees you acquisition of a political position if you use his muthi. no comment from the interviewees. beliefs that manifest through newspaper items in relation to peoples’ life challenges td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 581-592. 587 relationships marriage and lost lovers appeared to be some of the frequently mentioned concerns under this category. a number of suggestions to resolve the problem include herbal remedies/chemicals, magic ring, psychic or spiritual prayers. for instance, according to professor mussa “bring back lost lover and stop he/she from cheating” (p. 30). figure: example of the newspaper item – sunday world, 2013 debts the problems are in the same category as the business problems discussed above. a magic ring is one of the recommended solutions. as indicated by sheik ratif , “100% guarantee in deleting loans” (p. 30). according to dr nikawa (p. 32) “borrow stick charms then point it at katando water then suddenly floating and won” or “hire chitowe short men to fill more than r1 million in your safe/acc” jobs the high rate of unemployment is one of the problems facing south africa and as a result this is frequently mentioned in the newspaper items. various items mention how this aspect may be addressed and the solutions include the use of the magic ring or prayer. the learners believed that qualifications are key to opening the doors of opportunity. none of the adults commented. mamiala 588 reflective comments on the power of belief this paper sought to identify and categorise the nature of beliefs that manifest through newspaper items in relation to peoples’ life challenges and their potential to enhance a sustainable learning environment in school science. the challenges may be perceived as portraying the everyday concerns of society as well as some of the solutions suggested by the believed. the nature or type of challenge tells a story about our society (hidi & renninger, 2006). understanding of the underlying dynamics used by the believed to the believer may provide an insight into how a teacher may apply such an approach in order to give learners confidence and help them to believe in themselves and thereby improve their performance (gentzkow & shapiro, 2010). out of the 68 items analysed, only one mentioned addressing the question of success in exams. according to chief omar, a herbalist and psychic, other than problems mentioned earlier he is able to help one to “pass exams” (p. 31). i attempted to contact the chief for an in-depth interview on this aspect but could not get through on the contact numbers provided. i think that for further study follow-up interviews with such individuals may be of value in addressing some of the issues related to school science performance. in addition to the item on exams, there are also two items that attempt to address problems related to church congregations (pastors are also invited). according to chief albert and mlanzi (p. 31), “all races are welcome whether you are black, white, coloured or indian. even the pastors are invited.” dr ninkawa (p. 32) also invites pastors for consultation. for r20, ninkawa can throw bones so that one may “hear what makes your life to be stuck before you say a word”. if the believed have a skill such that it also makes pastors consult this may shed further light on how school science performance could be addressed through the power of belief. concluding remarks i regard the power of belief as a mental state that is characterised by multiple cognitive activities that inform the final state that an individual assumes to frame her/his understanding of the challenges faced in the world. the newspaper items demonstrated the tentative nature of truth as a result of one’s beliefs. the learners interviewed agree that prayer is important before you write a test and support was expressed for this aspect by two out five educators. most school learners in south africa believe in praying in the morning but do not seem to extend the power of their belief in prayer to their performance in school science. underlying dynamics related to beliefs have the potential to result in desirable action if understood and harnessed properly. for instance, the following analogy of a soccer coach helps illustrate the power of belief in action: the role of a senior coach at a soccer club has more to do with how he/she psychs up the players into a state of mind that makes them believe in their ability to beat their opponents. fitness counts but it is this state of mind that produces the desirable win in a game. there is evidence of soccer clubs where performance has improved because of a new coach. these are the underlying dynamics and skills that a school science teacher needs to acquire he/she is to add value to sustainable learning environment that “ ... create optimal conditions for excellence and quality in learning, irrespective of the learners’ grade or academic level.” (francis, mahlomaholo & nkoane, 2010, p. 11). beliefs that manifest through newspaper items in relation to peoples’ life challenges td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 581-592. 589 teachers’ explanations that are compatible with students’ beliefs, interests and experiences may contribute towards improved performance in school science. teachers need to reflect on their explanations in a learning situation because the key outcome of any explanatory situation is the creation of a sustainable learning environment in a school science lesson. teachers’ insightful understanding of explanatory situations for the creation of a sustainable, empowering learning environment has the potential to promote meaningful learning and explanations that are learner-friendly. implications to science teaching in the light of the findings on beliefs that manifest through newspapers items in relation to peoples’ life challenges and their potential enhance sustainable learning environment in a school science classroom, there are several possible implications for school science teachers if they are to succeed in promoting meaningful understanding and improved performance in the subject. teacher programmes – both preand in-service, may need to incorporate aspects related to teacher and learner beliefs as they engage in school science. teachers in a classroom environment need to be sensitive to the beliefs that learners bring to class and attempt to explain science concepts within such contexts. this approach will provide opportunities for both the learners and the teachers as they negotiate meaning in scientific explanations and the associated beliefs. teachers may have resources, pedagogical competencies and willingness to go the extra mile but if the learners’ beliefs are in conflict with what the teacher presents in a school science lesson then a sustainable learning environment may remain difficult to achieve. as elaborated earlier by clarke and fredin (1978) and miller, goldenberg and erbring (1979), papers do have an influence in peoples’ beliefs. furthermore, beliefs have been found to be rooted in the activities related to witchcraft (davies, 1998). bar-tal (2000), categorises the beliefs into private and common ones, where private refers to internal beliefs confined to an individual and common beliefs as the ones related to a group. what is noticeable in the study is the prevalence of private beliefs. the paper posits and insightful understanding of the dynamics that informs the process of beliefs and how they may be utilized in school science. lastly, the teacher needs to be aware that the learners’ behaviour is related to their beliefs and therefore he/she needs to play the role of a “coach” as a negotiated meaning and understanding are secured in establishing a sustainable learning environment, that is, developing belief intelligence. the discussion detailed in this paper has at its core the understanding of the underlying dynamics that inform the individual beliefs which can ultimately translate into improvement of school science performance. simple questions such as “what are the teachers’ beliefs?” and “what are the learners’ beliefs?” may provide an insightful understanding into the multifaceted nature of school science performance. acknowledging the influence of beliefs between the teaching of science and the science of teaching may further provide a platform in understanding their utility in enhancing a sustainable learning environment in school science. mamiala 590 references altheide, d. l., & johnson, j. m. 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(1997, march). explanation as an interactive accomplishment: a case study of one second-grade mathematics classroom. paper presented at the annual meeting of the american educational research association, chicago, il. microsoft word 08 hoffman heritage tourism.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(2) december 2013, pp. 341-356. ‘locating’ or ‘dislocating’ heritage and cultural tourism within the humanities nb hoffmann1 abstract heritage and cultural tourism (hct) is currently one of the fastest growing fields in the tourism domain. tourism as a composite field of study has traditionally been located within the economic and business management sector. however, due to the range of social, political and ethical issues pertaining to heritage and cultural tourism, it can be argued that it should be also located within a humanities context. after elucidating certain key concepts, the paper will consider the interdisciplinary nature of tourism with specific reference to the groundbreaking work of the leading international tourism theorist john tribe. the relevance of tourism and its relationship with the humanities cluster of established disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, art, literature, history and heritage will be discussed. it will become apparent that heritage and cultural tourism is also locating itself within the domain of the humanities, despite efforts to dislocate it. key words: heritage and cultural tourism (hct), economic and business management, humanities, multidisciplinary field, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary research disciplines: anthropology, archaeology, art, business economics, geography, heritage, history, literature, film, sociology introduction heritage and cultural tourism (hct) is currently one of the fastest growing fields in the tourism domain.2 cultural tourism specialist m.k. smith describes it as “a composite discipline, hence one that necessitates an in-depth analysis of many relevant and contemporary social, political and ethical issues”.3 taking this as a given, the objective of this article is to consider whether or not tourism, which has traditionally mainly formed part of the economic and business management sector, can be located in and thus studied within a humanities context. to comprehend tourism and its knowledge creation within this context, it is essential to first elucidate certain key concepts. the interdisciplinary nature of tourism 1 . ms nicole beate hoffmann is attached to the department of historical and heritage studies, university of pretoria, south africa. email: nicole.hoffmann86@yahoo.com 2 g. busby and j. klug, “movie-induced tourism: the challenge of measurement and other issues”, journal of vacation marketing 7(4), 2001-06-05, p. 316. 3 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, (routledge, london, 2003), p. 1. hoffmann 342 will be analyzed, before discussing the relationship of heritage and cultural tourism to the various disciplines in the humanities. concept definition “heritage” is generally defined as something that is handed down from one generation to another. it is a concept that is very closely related to notions of history and the past. while “the past” is concerned with “all that has ever happened”, “history” is the “attempt to make sense of and explain these past events”.4 historian john tosh expands this definition of history and claims that historians function as the “guardians” of cultural heritage.5 therefore, history is regarded as being solidly located as a cultural subject and thus forms part of the humanities. heritage, in turn, can be described as the current usage of the past through interpreting or representing it tangibly through the construction of heritage sites, the commemoration of events and places and the placement of images in media or intangibly through performance. some claim that through this representation it has been commercialized and commoditized, which has led to the emergence of the burgeoning heritage industry.6 this heritage has two components: “nature” and “culture”. the latter is of increasing importance within the field of humanities and can be defined at its most basic level as the way of life of a group of people.7 culture is said to encapsulate a community’s or identifiable society’s customs and beliefs, as well as aspects of their social organization, and is thus the complex reflection of a particular lifestyle.8 it can amongst others be expressed by means of arts and crafts, music, film and dance, literature and language, history and architecture, religion, cuisine and festivals.9 not unlike the concepts heritage and culture, “tourism” is not easily defined as it can be described as both a business and an activity. according to richards, the conceptual definition states that tourism is a “temporary short-term movement of people to destinations outside the places they normally live and work, and activities during their stay at these destinations”.10 it can also be identified as an industry since one is able to determine and quantify tourism’s economic impact.11 for example, according to the united nations world tourism organization (unwto), “the business volume of tourism equals or even surpasses that of oil exports, food products or automobiles”.12 to substantiate this it is important to 4 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, p. 1. 5 j. tosh and s. lang, the pursuit of history, (pearson education limited, harlow, 2006), p. 51. 6 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, p. 1. 7 m. ivanovic, cultural tourism, (juta & company, ltd., cape town, 2008), p. 10. 8 g. richards (ed.), cultural tourism in europe, (cab international, oxon, 1996), p. 21. 9 m. ivanovic, cultural tourism, p. 10. 10 g. richards (ed.), cultural tourism in europe, p. 20. 11 b.a. lubbe (ed.), tourism management in southern africa, (pearson education south africa, cape town, 2003), p. 3. 12 united nations world tourism organization (unwto), ‘about unwto: why tourism?’, <http://www.unwto.org/>, 2010-10-24. access: 2010-10-24. heritage and cultural tourism in the humanities td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 341-356. 343 note the extent of the networks involved in the travel industry, including transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment establishments, as well as the attractions and services provided to tourists. within this wide business spectrum, one can distinguish between the supply aspect (tourism-receiving area) and demand aspect (tourism-generating area). tourism can therefore be described as a system dependent on an interrelated network of factors.13 this indicates that the tourism industry, and its success, as such is dependent on a variety of aspects, which are not solely located within the business economics, but relate to a multitude of services and disciplines to provide for a fulfilling leisure experience. it is, however, not the intention of this article to focus on the conventional business industry aspect of tourism, but rather to consider its humanities dimension, one which is emerging as a highly interdisciplinary sector.14 it is generally agreed that the field of tourism is very diverse. in more recent times it has been subdivided into various special-interest subsections or niches due to the increased demand for individuality. contrary to mass tourism which occurs in a world of “increasing sameness”, niche tourism implies that travel activities are more sophisticated.15 therefore, special-interest tourism presents an opportunity to diversify and differentiate target markets and tourism offerings. in fact, this increasing demand for individuality gave rise to tourism typologies, as became evident in “tourism consumption patterns”. this clearly reflects “the continuously increasing diversity of leisure interests of the late-modern leisure society”.16 as a result, new forms of tourism began emerging, which were able to meet the changing specialized needs of travellers.17 by adapting to this new demand by offering specialized products and experiences to increasingly differentiated and diversified markets, a variety of destinations began to gain competitive advantage. as a result, the travel industry has become increasingly segmented to cope with and cater for new and emerging forms of tourism.18 in this way, tourism has become a more sustainable activity and industry. it is also better able to protect sensitive natural and cultural environments and generate highspending visitors. the concept of a “niche” is, however, in itself contested since it is a borrowed term. in ecology, it refers to an optimal location which provides the necessary resources to support an organism despite its competitors. in marketing, the notion of a niche is an interrelated concept of the “place in the market for a product” and “an audience for this product”.19 thus produce can be tailor-made to meet the needs of a specific target market. although the concept “niche” as applied to tourism is directly borrowed from the business terminology of a 13 b.a. lubbe (ed.), tourism management in southern africa, pp. 3-10. 14 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, pp. 653-655. 15 m. novelli, niche tourism: contemporary issues, trends and cases, (elsevier butterworth-heinemann, oxford, 2005), p. 1. 16 b. trauer, “conceptualizing special interest tourism – frameworks for analysis”, tourism management 27(2), 2006, p. 183. 17 b. trauer, “conceptualizing special interest tourism – frameworks for analysis”, tourism management 27(2), 2006, p. 186. 18 p. robinson, s. heitmann and p.u.c. dieke (eds.), research themes for tourism, (cab international, oxfordshire, 2011), p. 12. 19 m. novelli, niche tourism: contemporary issues, trends and cases, p. 4. hoffmann 344 marketing niche, “niche tourism” as such refers to a specific theme or particular sector that encompasses the range of tourist related elements of the niche tourist markets. in general, tourism can thus be subdivided to generate special-interest travel options.20 hereby, the tourism activities are planned around a hub or key element which is of interest in a particular region, destination or cultural sector. special-interest or niche tourism is thus the “active involvement of travellers in the cultural and/or physical environment they are visiting”.21 hereby, one needs to distinguish between macroand micro-niches in tourism. the former denotes the broader categories, while the latter focuses on more specific sub-categories specifically developed for the specialist. heritage and cultural tourism (hct) is one such macro-niche and as a broad umbrella term it is currently still one of the fastest growing and most popular tourism macro-niches.22 it encompasses a range of different activities and attractions which emphasize cultural heritage. hct incorporates not only history, but also contemporary and living culture and tourism related to all manifestations of cultural heritage. it refers to the movements of people to diverse cultural attractions outside of their usual environment, frequently also with the intention to “gather new information and experiences to satisfy their cultural needs”.23 cultural tourism often focuses specifically on the experiences visitors can gain by engaging in a range of cultural activities. as a result, when people engage in travel for purposes of exploring a specific aspect of heritage and cultural tourism in more detail, this macro-niche can be further segmented into specific niches such as literary tourism, film-induced tourism, ethnic tourism and arts tourism. accordingly, it is clear that the category of a macro-niche can generally be subdivided into various special-interest fields or micro-niches which are “very precise small markets [or fields] that would be difficult to split further”.24 other special-interest sectors include cycling tourism, gastronomic tourism, health and wellness tourism, dark/thana tourism and film-induced tourism.25 the size of niche travel (be it macro or micro) is indeterminable, but it is evident that it is increasingly popular in both international and particularly western domestic travel. thus niche tourism, as opposed to mass tourism, can be regarded as a growing tourism segment, which means that more attention needs to be paid to the study of individual travel niches, especially within the context of the humanities.26 thus heritage and cultural tourism is fast emerging and establishing itself as a dynamic field of study. by its very nature, it has moved beyond the conventional domain of the economic sector to the interdisciplinary realm of the humanities, critically addressing what has been described as the essential element of human activity.27 20 m. novelli, niche tourism: contemporary issues, trends and cases, p. 6. 21 b. weiler and c.m. hall (eds.), special interest tourism, (belhaven press, london, 1992), p. 5. 22 d.j. timothy, cultural heritage and tourism: an introduction, (channel view publications, bristol, 2011), p. 3. 23 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, p. 30. 24 m. novelli, niche tourism: contemporary issues, trends and cases, p. 6. 25 m. novelli, niche tourism: contemporary issues, trends and cases, pp. 1-6. 26 b. weiler and c.m. hall (eds.), special interest tourism, p. 6. 27 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, pp. 653-655. heritage and cultural tourism in the humanities td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 341-356. 345 origins of tourism as an interdisciplinary field of study in the past, academics have conventionally and conservatively described tourism either as a discipline, a multidisciplinary field or research domain employing scientific methods of study.28 british tourism theorist john tribe offers a new and innovative model for understanding the epistemology of tourism which breaches the existing barriers of a field limited to the domain of pure economics. his research focuses on what tourism knowledge comprises of and sets out to demarcate the expanding boundaries of this field of study. it purports that the concept of tourism is identified as a difficult and exceedingly complex notion since it can be seen in a threefold way: as a phenomenon, a field of study or as an educational subject. in order to understand the concept, tribe thus employs an encompassing definition of tourism: it is “the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interaction in generating and host regions, of tourists, business suppliers, governments, communities, and environments”.29 after describing the key dimensions of tourism, it now is important to understand the interrelationship between the phenomenon of tourism and tourism as a field of academic enquiry. tribe maintains that the study of tourism is in essence an attempt of humans to explain and analyze this phenomenon. within the academic enquiry in this field tribe argues that researchers have tended to describe “the development of tourism studies as an evolution towards disciplinary status”.30 in fact, f. darbellay and m. stock have identified that different scientific approaches towards the study of tourism have occurred over time. the first theoretical observations of tourism in the 1940s referred to it as a system “relating to the various dimensions of human societies”.31 this interpretation viewed tourism as a whole, denoting that it was not “reducible to disciplinary approaches”.32 a second approach refers to the paradigmatic treatment of tourism as a scientific object, employing disciplinary logic for enquiries. this is consistent with theoretical discussions whether or not tourism is a discipline from the 1950s to the 1970s.33 in answer to the question as to whether or not tourism is a discipline, tribe responds in the negative. he claims that tourism does not comply with the characteristics identified for any given traditional discipline. distinct forms of knowledge need to each have interrelated concepts that are particular to that discipline. in addition, these concepts need to make up a network to provide the discipline with a distinctive logical structure. furthermore, “each 28 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 638. 29 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 641. 30 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 642. 31 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 448. 32 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 449. 33 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 449-450. hoffmann 346 form has expressions or statements which are in some way testable against experience using criteria which are particular to that form”.34 disciplines are defined as being irreducible, providing the most basic building blocks of that form of knowledge. as a result, he concludes that tourism cannot be classified as a discipline since it has adapted concepts from other fields of academic enquiry. these “borrowed notions” and “models” used in tourism do not make up a distinctive network and do not link together in a logical way to easily analyze and describe the phenomenon of tourism. thirdly, the expressions and statements used in tourism are not “testable against experience using criteria which are particular to tourism studies”.35 this means that the empirical examination of results as performed in the natural sciences or deductive reasoning by mathematicians is neither possible nor ideally suited for the social sciences. instead, external criteria from other disciplines are utilized and adapted for the analysis, but are not yet intrinsic to tourism itself. in addition to these “missing” criteria, in terms of the definition of a discipline, the study of tourism is in its “infancy stage”.36 c.m. echtner and t.b. jamal support this statement by claiming that the shortage of major intrinsic theories, which is still apparent in tourism, is characteristic of an early developing study area, rather than that of an established discipline.37 its academic community (faculties or departments of tourism and more particularly heritage and cultural tourism) is still relatively weak, somewhat atomized and cannot yet be regarded as a discipline in its own right. in addition, its “network of communications” with regard to professional associations, conferences, books and journals has only recently begun to emerge, albeit at a rapid pace. there are a variety of journals available, but these only have superficially similar titles and do not seem to follow a homogenous trend. on top of this, the “tradition” or a “particular set of values and beliefs” applicable to tourism studies is not yet clearly defined. this is however more understandable given that the majority of studies only commenced in the 1970s and 1980s, thus tourism research is an emerging field and has as yet not established a unified tradition.38 however, there are other scholars that regard tourism as a distinct science and discipline in its own right, thereby dividing academic opinion “as to whether tourism should be studied as a distinct discipline or as an area of specialization within existing disciplines”.39 certain problems arise when treating tourism as a scientific object that can only be studied within one scientific framework. since the 1950s, tourism has been investigated as part of established disciplines such as anthropology, history, geography, economics and sociology. disciplinary fragmentation and specialization occurred as each discipline has developed “its own theoretical perspectives as well as conceptual and methodological tools”.40 the resulting 34 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 643. 35 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 643. 36 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 644. 37 c.m. echtner and t.b. jamal, “the disciplinary dilemma of tourism studies”, annals of tourism research 24(4), 1997, p. 870. 38 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, pp. 644-645. 39 c.m. echtner and t.b. jamal, “the disciplinary dilemma of tourism studies”, annals of tourism research 24(4), 1997, p. 869. 40 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 450. heritage and cultural tourism in the humanities td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 341-356. 347 theories sometimes tend to clash with each other to some extent, resulting in the research topic appearing as lacking in seriousness and thus meeting with much opposition and criticism.41 as is apparent when attempting to define tourism, it is a complex phenomenon that cannot be adequately researched within any single traditional discipline such as economics, business, geography, history or sociology. it has been argued that each of these analyzes tourism from within the boundaries of their own specific discipline and fails to grasp the concept as a whole. by treating tourism as a discipline in its own right, the “development of an integrated theory of tourism” will become possible, merging the distinct perspectives on tourism.42 the study of tourism would thus no longer be fragmented as a solely business-orientated, geographic or sociological occurrence. by concentrating on it as a distinct discipline, the growth of its theoretical foundation would advance. yet, while the lack of intrinsic theoretical frameworks is noted by some scholars, others are unwilling to treat tourism as a distinct discipline and support the notion of cross-disciplinary research.43 in fact, r. sharpley claims that tourism is “unlikely ever to be considered as a discipline alongside more recognized academic subjects”,44 the reason for this being that most of the current terminology was only coined in the nineteenth century. many tourism theorists have argued in the past that tourism research needs to become more structured and should remain grounded within existing disciplines.45 however, according to echtner and jamal, the “solution lies not necessarily in forming a distinct discipline of tourism but in encouraging more cross-disciplinary research”.46 only from the 1970s onwards did tourism studies become a “topic for discussion as a ‘field’” and for the first time recognizing certain “interrelationships with other disciplines”.47 as a result, tourism has been referred to as a “field of study”. fields of academic enquiry focus on specific phenomena or practices, while calling on the assistance of various other disciplines to analyze the particular area of interest. tribe distinguishes between two main fields of study: tourism business studies (tf1) and non-business tourism studies (tf2). in addition, he presents a model for tourism studies as a “field”.48 the business world which produces knowledge in the external world of tourism outside of tertiary educational institutions plays a central role. tourism business studies and non-business tourism studies revolve around this. 41 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 450. 42 c.m. echtner and t.b. jamal, “the disciplinary dilemma of tourism studies”, annals of tourism research 24(4), 1997, p. 869. 43 c.m. echtner and t.b. jamal, “the disciplinary dilemma of tourism studies”, annals of tourism research 24(4), 1997, p. 870. 44 r. sharpley, the study of tourism: past trends and future directions, (routledge, oxon, 2011), p. 65. 45 c.m. echtner and t.b. jamal, “the disciplinary dilemma of tourism studies”, annals of tourism research 24(4), 1997, p. 868. 46 c.m. echtner and t.b. jamal, “the disciplinary dilemma of tourism studies”, annals of tourism research 24(4), 1997, p. 870. 47 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 450. 48 for more information about the model, please refer to the diagram in the article by j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 650. hoffmann 348 however, constant tensions exist between the academic study of tourism and industry-based research conducted by tourism practitioners. in theory, the knowledge produced at academic level should support the tourism industry since practitioners need to make informed decisions to implement policies. nevertheless, due to a prevalent gap in communication, “academic literature has little impact upon the tourism practitioner” at present.49 according to c. cooper, to resolve tensions between the academic world and the practical tourism industry, the tourism industry must “[adopt] a ‘knowledge-based’ platform upon which to make its commercial and policy decisions”.50 this problem could be resolved by further developing tourism as a field of study and allowing tertiary institutions to harness academic knowledge to produce practitioners that work effectively and sustainably. in this regard, it becomes evident that tourism business studies and non-business tourism studies are significantly influenced by other disciplines or sub-disciplines and there is a discernable area of interaction between these disciplines and the fields of study.51 tribe concludes that tourism is not a discipline, but makes up two distinct fields of study. he suggests that it is “an object of study (field) rather than a way of studying (discipline)”.52 he concludes that the best way to approach the study of tourism is to apply multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, business interdisciplinary and extradisciplinary (with regard to the business world outside the domain of educational institutions) methods of inquiry. nevertheless, educational institutions tend to focus on understanding the business world, which means that tf1 expands at the expense of tf2. the business world generally overlooks the value of heritage and cultural tourism, while the academic world tends to overlook non-academic knowledge production. at this stage, it seems justifiable for tribe to abandon the search for tourism as an academic discipline and to rather identify it as a field of study, which may later develop into a discipline. the diversity of the phenomenon and its interdisciplinary status is apparent and should be recognized and advanced.53 darbellay and stock further this approach to the study of tourism. they claim that “[these] intertwining disciplinary and non-disciplinary developments around the tourism phenomenon [allow] for an approach to tourism studies as episteme”.54 hereby, scientific observation and the frameworks and methodologies of various disciplines are translated into and adapted for tourism problematisation, thereby hybridizing disciplinary knowledge for tourism studies. this results in a non-paradigmatic organization of tourism knowledge employing diverse epistemological styles to generate a cumulative approach and even juxtaposition the study of tourism. indeed, since the 1970s international researchers have recommended that tourism best be studied in an interdisciplinary nature.55 yet, despite 49 c. cooper (ed.), classic reviews in tourism, (channel view publications, clevedon, 2003), p. 4. 50 c. cooper (ed.), classic reviews in tourism, p. 4. 51 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, pp. 649-653. 52 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, p. 653. 53 j. tribe, “the indiscipline of tourism”, annals of tourism research 24(3), 1997, pp. 653-655. 54 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 450. 55 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 450-452. heritage and cultural tourism in the humanities td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 341-356. 349 ongoing calls for furthering interdisciplinary studies of tourism, it remains a reality that until now tourism has largely been studied, both internationally and locally, as a fragmented multidisciplinary field instead, thereby dislocating tourism studies. thus, tourism research is characterized by “[multiple] dimensions and perspectives, yet juxtaposed without interaction”.56 initially, tourism research was rather generic in nature, yet recent publications address more specialized topics. this denotes an increased diversification and specialization of the tourism industry.57 the trend is slowly changing, as is evident in publications and curriculum changes over the past decade. indeed, the “field of tourism studies appears to be at a critical turning point”, whereby it has “broken out of its traditional institutional affiliation with business and management programs to take its place as a transdisciplinary field of cutting-edge scholarship”.58 in this regard, tourism is emerging as a social phenomenon, whereby it should not be viewed as marginal, but rather as a “fundamental social force” and a “comprehensive analytic” through which new insights are gained, especially within the realm of the humanities.59 the humanities cluster and tourism a leading american specialist in tourism, edward inskeep, identifies different types of tourist attractions. he distinguishes between natural, cultural and special types of attractions. he further identifies a variety of attractions such as archaeological, historical and cultural heritage sites; distinctive cultural patterns such as religious ceremonies and ritual practices; arts and handicrafts; interesting economic activities such as tea plantations and porcelain manufacturing; unique urban areas such as townships or city centers; museums and monuments; cultural festivals such as carnivals; and the friendliness of the residents, as falling within the cultural domain.60 judging from the range of cultural manifestations acting as tourist attractions, it becomes clear that various established subjects within the humanities intersect with tourism. as indicated, tourism has evolved into an interdisciplinary field of study with highly specialized texts being regularly produced at academic institutions internationally. while generic works about planning and management aspects of tourism have dominated the field, other texts have started to emerge which cover a diverse range of more specialized topics. as stated by sharpley, the tourism literature that emerged after the 1970s initially focused on the economics, but later expanded to “embrace the work of academics from a variety of other disciplinary backgrounds”.61 56 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 452. 57 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, (sage publications ltd., london, 2010), p. 1. 58 c. minca and t. oakes (eds.), real tourism: practice, care, and politics in contemporary travel culture, (routledge, oxon, 2012), p. 1. 59 c. minca and t. oakes (eds.), real tourism: practice, care, and politics in contemporary travel culture, p. 1. 60 e. inskeep, tourism planning: an integrated and sustainable development approach, (van nostrand reinhold, new york, 1991), pp. 76-85. 61 r. sharpley, the study of tourism: past trends and future directions, p. 1. hoffmann 350 by means of a more practical and recent example, in 2012 b. weiler, b. moyle and c. mclennan performed research on “disciplines that influence tourism doctoral research” within the united states, canada, australia and new zealand.62 it seems as though there has occurred a steady increase in the quantity of overall tourism knowledge production since 1951 and a notable increase in multidisciplinary research informing tourism especially over the past decade.63 moreover, it is evident that in recent years there is a global trend for tourism studies to move away from their traditional confines within business economics and management studies, and instead to encompass and draw information from a multitude of disciplines, many of which are firmly located in the humanities. this indicates an increasing depth in the maturity of tourism as a field of study, whereby the synthesis of two or more disciplines allows for the emergence of a new discipline. therefore, this indicates that “multidisciplinary research [is] the future of social science research, including tourism”.64 in the light of this, the relationship between the broader domain of heritage and cultural tourism with a selection of fields of study in the humanities cluster will be considered in more detail. anthropology it is evident, and now recognized, that culture and society play an important role in each travel niche and more specifically within the broader umbrella of heritage and cultural tourism. therefore, the anthropology of tourism becomes a significant field of study within the social sciences of humanities. it is “concerned with the social and cultural nature of tourism and the behaviour of tourists”.65 when tourism started occurring in the places where anthropologists had previously carried out their fieldwork, the interaction between hosts and guests opened up new fields of enquiry such as the analysis of tourism impacts on the environment and the lives of the locals and their traditions. indigenous population groups in foreign destinations have a particular popular appeal to international tourists visiting “other” destinations. by encountering the “exotic other”, tourists come into contact with the host culture and environment of a particular region. this form of tourism might involve activities such as exploring “native homes and villages and the observation of, or participation in, traditional activities, such as rituals, ceremonies or dances”.66 hereby, the main focus is on ethnic or first peoples in their innate surroundings. the resulting cultural contact in an often remote environment has consequences on both the host population and the visiting guests. such aspects need to be analyzed in an anthropological context. therefore, rural tourism development, community-involvement in tourism initiatives and the cultural representation and commoditization of the native communities needs to be carefully analyzed and studied within the domain of anthropology as a key discipline of the humanities. 62 b. weiler, b. moyle and c. mclennan, “disciplines that influence tourism doctoral research: the united states, canada, australia and new zealand”, annals of tourism research 39(3), 2012, p. 1425. 63 b. weiler, b. moyle and c. mclennan, “disciplines that influence tourism doctoral research: the united states, canada, australia and new zealand”, annals of tourism research 39(3), 2012, pp. 1433, 1437, 1442. 64 b. weiler, b. moyle and c. mclennan, “disciplines that influence tourism doctoral research: the united states, canada, australia and new zealand”, annals of tourism research 39(3), 2012, pp. 1426. 65 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 5. 66 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, pp. 117-118. heritage and cultural tourism in the humanities td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 341-356. 351 past anthropological enquiry has mainly dealt with negative aspects of tourism, especially with the advent of mass tourism. this stems from the fact that anthropologists were mainly interested in analyzing the effects of cross-cultural contact between so-called dominant and subordinate societies. the resulting changes in the host society were predominantly focused upon in anthropological research along with an analysis of the authenticity of what was being displayed to the tourist.67 recently, however, anthropologists have “started to shift their focus from largely negative ethnographic critiques of the cultural impacts of tourism to a more balanced discussion of travel and tourism as a social and cultural phenomenon”.68 furthermore, aspects such as identity, sense of place, acculturation, commoditization and the motivations, attitudes and reactions of tourists play an important role within the anthropology of tourism. it therefore places tourism well within the scope of the humanities. sociology many of the above-mentioned elements regarding anthropological studies also feature prominently in sociology. sociology within a tourism context deals with, amongst others, aspects such as the quality of the travel experience.69 also similar to anthropology, the sociology of tourism studies its impact on both the host and the guest. however, while anthropology focuses on the “individual level of perceptions and aspirations”, the sociology of tourism stresses the “level of social community analysis”.70 in a very elementary manner, sociology makes use of individual observations about tourism to produce generalizations. thus, it seems to work with generalizations to come to a conclusion.71 by regarding tourism as a social phenomenon, the impacts of tourist visitation are also analyzed. the nature of the tourists themselves is also a subject of analysis considering their roles, attitudes, motivations and behaviour. in this way, diverse types of travellers can be identified.72 based on this, the relationship between the visitors and the host societies can be assessed. another focal point of the sociology of tourism is the functioning and structuring of the tourism system as such.73 the arts art tourism as a special-interest niche is classified as a subcategory of heritage and cultural tourism. art as a form of cultural expression has been a prominent, if not an indispensible, factor in travel motivation since the grand tour of the sixteenth century. key draw cards in 67 v.l. smith (ed.), hosts and guests: the anthropology of tourism, (university of pennsylvania press, philadelphia, 1989), p. 267. 68 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 5. 69 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, pp. 5-8. 70 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 5. 71 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 157. 72 for more information about tourist motivation, social interaction between indigenous communities and tourists, types of tourists and their motivations, please consult the book by p. pearce, the social psychology of tourist behaviour, (pergamon press inc., new york, 1982). 73 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, pp. 156-157. hoffmann 352 this regard include the performing and visual arts, especially visits to art galleries or museums, opera houses, theatre, ballet, classical music and arts festivals. lately, contemporary or popular music festivals, ethnic art and other forms of popular entertainment have also been included in this tourism niche. in line with this, the buildings that performances were presented in or art was exhibited in, in other words the related sites, have traditionally been as much an attraction as the arts themselves.74 the relationship between tourism and the arts tends to be complex. to attract greater numbers of visitors and to maximize the income, the “artistic integrity or authenticity of performances or events” is frequently compromised as artists adapt their work to serve a broader audience.75 by means of popularizing performances, their international appeal might increase, but the authenticity of the performing cultural tourism product becomes questionable. furthermore, the enhanced visitation of festivals and events could also generate friction between local communities and tourists. these aspects need to be analyzed within a humanities context. history and heritage studies historical tourism, also often referred to as heritage tourism, has been defined as travel for purposes of visiting “historic attractions, buildings and objects, as well as intangible forms of culture such as the traditions and lifestyles of communities”.76 to comprehend this form of tourism, one needs to distinguish between the past: that is everything that has previously happened; and history: the act of interpreting selected aspects of the past; and heritage: which through representation uses the past in a contemporary context. by “commercializing” the past, the “heritage industry” was said to have been able to develop.77 as such this tourism niche, which is located within the broader realm of cultural and historical studies, is very encompassing. some of the vast ranges of attractions include “built heritage attractions” such as historical sites and buildings, architecture, monuments and archaeological sites, as well as “religious heritage attractions” such as the visitation of houses of worship and pilgrimages. “industrial heritage attractions” such as mines and factories are just as significant within the context of history, since they enable an understanding of the way of life of past and current society highlighting the more social dimensions of history.78 related to this aspect is also the visitation to places of agricultural heritage, where certain economic activities are practiced such as visits to tea or coffee plantations.79 traditional festivals, cultural events and historic 74 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 9. 75 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, pp. 173-174. 76 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 93. 77 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, p. 82. 78 m.k. smith, issues in cultural tourism studies, pp. 95-96. 79 for more information on coffee-producing destinations (such as brazil, columbia, costa rica, guatemala, hawaii, ethiopia, kenya, yemen, java, papua new guinea, indonesia and vietnam), coffee culture destinations such as the café district in seattle and coffee history destinations, most notably the bramah tea and coffee museum in london, please refer to the book edited by l. jolliffe, coffee culture, destinations and tourism, (channel view publications, bristol, 2010). furthermore, for a more in-depth understanding of tea-producing destinations (such as china, sri lanka, kenya, malawi), tea-consuming destinations such as england, russia, canada and tea culture (displayed at tea houses in hangzhou, china and taipei, taiwan, by means of the japanese tea ceremony and in tea heritage and cultural tourism in the humanities td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 341-356. 353 reenactments of historical events also feature prominently in this category.80 by its very nature, history is indispensable to most tourism exploits. not only are the origins and developments integral to almost all tourist narratives, but historical skills such as the research and analysis of textual, oral, material, photographic and film sources, the detection of bias and the authentication of historical information by employing internal and external criticism are useful. in addition, the contextualization of historical data to comprehend the sources, establishing gaps in the historical record and creating public awareness through publishing relevant information and the ability to package a logically structured presentation are essential in presenting well-grounded information to the public.81 in addition to this, history is one of the key aspects for any study in the humanities as every subject has a history, with its past making up the foundations upon which later research was built. as such, history is by its very nature integral to the essence of the practice of heritage and cultural tourism and tourism in general. literature and film literature as a key component of the diverse range of languages is another component of the humanities which has a direct relationship with tourism. “literary tourism” as a niche involves travel to sites and tourist attractions “associated with writers and their works”.82 since the late eighteenth century, tourists have frequently travelled to the places where authors were born, where they lived or still live or where they have been buried. at the same time, visitors are also attracted to the landscapes represented in the literature be they novels, dramas or poems. in other words, this tourism can be related to the “real lives of the writers [as well as] the worlds created in their novels”.83 tourism related to this form of cultural manifestation falls directly within the domain of the humanities. closely related to the field of literary tourism, and a more recent phenomenon, is that of “film-induced tourism”. for over a century books have been transformed into films and are often remade, as was the case with several of jane austen’s classic novels and more recently with the popular harry potter series by j.k. rowling. interestingly, these films attract tourism to the locations they were filmed in. the term movie or movie-induced tourism thus “relates to on-location tourism that follows the success of a movie made (or set) in a particular region”.84 however, the term “film” is much broader than “movie” as it also includes television, another form of fictional screen-based media. thus the notion film or filminduced tourism is the preferred term in this regard. stefan roesch identifies film tourism as a “specific pattern of tourism that drives visitors to see screened places during or after the production of a feature film or a television production”.85 people are thus attracted to sites museums in amongst others london, england), please consult the book edited by l. jolliffe, tea and tourism: tourists, traditions and transformations, (channel view publications, clevedon, 2007). 80 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, pp. 93-95. 81 j. tosh and s. lang, the pursuit of history, pp. 88-110. 82 y. smith, “literary tourism as a developing genre: south africa as a case study”, (honors minithesis, university of pretoria, 2006), p. 1. 83 d.t. herbert (ed.), heritage, tourism and society, (mansell publishing limited, london, 1995), p. 33. 84 s. beeton, film-induced tourism, (channel view publications, clevedon, 2005), p. 9. 85 s. roesch, the experiences of film location tourists, (channel view publications, bristol, 2009), p. 6. hoffmann 354 through the author, the storyline or the way in which the places were portrayed in cinematic format. this then situates tourism within the literary and art dimensions of the humanities. other a range of other disciplines located in the humanities also have the potential of attracting tourism or contributing significantly to the creation of tourism theory. one such discipline is psychology, which enhances the understanding of tourist behavior and supplements and advances various theoretical discussions in the field. furthermore, political science and law consider policies and legislation and thus also feature prominently within tourism theory.86 similarly, urban geography or human geography could be mentioned as a subject that sits on the periphery of the humanities.87 essentially, urban tourism can be situated within the parameters of human geography, but also within the ambit of the historical, cultural, anthropological and sociological domains of the humanities. in addition, environmental studies and urban and regional planning feature significantly in tourism research.88 tourism research in the humanities within the context of situating tourism as a field of study in the humanities, in 1990 the sociologist john urry proposed a new theoretical model by applying the concept of the “gaze”, coined by jaques lacan and michel foucault in the 1960s, to tourism.89 urry realized the importance of the way in which tourists consume visual images of a destination, a landscape or place. they take photographs and purchase postcards when they visit a site, book window seats in airplanes and trains and ascend high buildings to appreciate a better view of a location. in fact, “‘sightseeing’ is synonymous with tourism and has been since its earliest days”.90 however, what is of significance is not only the revelation that travellers seek out sights central to tourism studies, but also the fact that these consumed sights are “selected, constructed, stage-managed and directed by an increasingly influential tourism industry”.91 it is here that the analysis goes beyond the mere business of economics of numbers, profits and trends. as the consumption of images needs to be looked at in more detail, tourism is squarely placed within the domain of the social sciences. especially when identifying how destinations are 86 b. weiler, b. moyle and c. mclennan, “disciplines that influence tourism doctoral research: the united states, canada, australia and new zealand”, annals of tourism research 39(3), 2012, pp. 14351436. 87 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, pp. 178-179. 88 b. weiler, b. moyle and c. mclennan, “disciplines that influence tourism doctoral research: the united states, canada, australia and new zealand”, annals of tourism research 39(3), 2012, pp. 14351436. 89 r. scheyvens, tourism for development: empowering communities, (pearson education limited/prentice hall, london, 2002), p. 38. 90 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 175. 91 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 175. heritage and cultural tourism in the humanities td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 341-356. 355 represented in marketing imagery and advertisements, this becomes significant since the notions of a destination are shaped in the tourists’ minds before they have travelled there. the picturesque images – in guidebooks, holiday brochures, internet websites and television programmes – are usually biased as they directly and obviously inform a tourist what to look at and, indirectly and by omission, what to avoid. these selected sights are then reproduced in photographs and circulated amongst family and friends after the conclusion of the trip. thus not only is the destination presented in a certain positive or negative way by destination marketers, but also the viewers and visitors are influential. in order to gain the attention of potential tourists, these images must be distinct from the ordinary everyday experiences. most importantly, the objects must present imagery of the “exotic” or the “other”.92 this once more ties up with and features prominently in anthropological and sociological studies connected to heritage and cultural tourism. the significance of the concept of the “tourist gaze” further accentuates the relevance of studying tourism within the humanities. turning from the theoretical to the mere practical evidence of tourism’s relationship with the humanities is a 2011 study by j. tribe and h. xiao. they claim that the journal annals of tourism research is specifically geared at “exploring the academic side of tourism” as part of the social sciences/humanities.93 academic journals in general have the purpose to disseminate new knowledge and to showcase the development of a field of study. in accordance with this, c-k. cheng, x. li, j.f. petrick and j.t. o’leary claim that “[examining] journal performance is thus considered important for the growth of a research field”.94 numerous such studies have already been conducted in marketing, economics, medicine and other fields of research and would be able to trace the academic development of tourism as well. in this very relevant editorial of annals of tourism research tribe and xiao analyze past issues to identify an academic trend for studying tourism within the parameters of the humanities. by reflecting on tourism research and its knowledge production, they realized that “its theoretical state-of-the-art from paradigmatic, methodological and multi-disciplinary perspectives have constituted a primary subject area of published articles in recent volumes”.95 prominent topics of study included tourism education and research, different approaches to tourism studies and its development. the latter topic deals with the actual and possible impacts of tourism, the relationship of tourism with communities and other stakeholders and discussions about sustainability.96 other articles have focused on aspects such as authenticity and the experiences of tourists, identifying different types of tourists, destinations and attractions, the motivation and behaviour of tourists which ultimately also affects their decision-making to travel to a destination in addition to knowledge and analysis of the 92 m. smith, n. macleod and m. hart robertson, key concepts in tourist studies, p. 176. 93 j. tribe and h. xiao (eds.), “developments in tourism social science”, annals of tourism research 38(1), 2011, p. 11. 94 c.-k. cheng, x.(r.) li, j.f. petrick and j.t. o’leary, “an examination of tourism journal development”, tourism management 32(1), 2001, p. 53. 95 j. tribe and h. xiao (eds.), “developments in tourism social science”, annals of tourism research 38(1), 2011, p. 11. 96 j. tribe and h. xiao (eds.), “developments in tourism social science”, annals of tourism research 38(1), 2011, p. 11-15. hoffmann 356 satisfaction of tourists. tribe and xiao add that culture, heritage and cultural change made up another focal area of tourism research, as did the representation of history, identity and image production.97 interestingly, the areas of recently published articles in the annals of tourism research fall beyond the domain of the above-mentioned themes, while the authors also point to new subject areas relating to and located within the humanities.98 as is evident, the disciplinary focuses incorporated within the scope of tourism have grown and diversified over time. while this is true, a narrower disciplinary focus was evident in other recent journals. in fact, such topic specialization seems to be a trend displaying the increasing maturation of tourism research.99 furthermore, the proliferation of tourism journals, covering theoretical and applied knowledge, indicates that tourism is indeed an expanding field of study. this is also reflected in the growing number of degrees in tourism offered at tertiary institutions.100 conclusion even though tourism has been traditionally viewed as part of economic and business sciences, it is evident that the field of study is of great relevance to the humanities and has developed in this direction. in the past, tourism was studied under diverse disciplines. since this provided difficulties in terms of developing an encompassing theoretical framework, scholars are divided. as indicated, some have suggested developing it as a distinct discipline, while others have argued that tourism, as a comparatively new field of study, does not yet fulfill the criteria necessary for a discipline. it seems that at this stage, the best way to approach the study of tourism is to apply interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary methods of research. this points to growth and a depth in maturity for the field, so that it may soon emerge as a discipline in its own right. indeed, the “interdisciplinary approach articulates the double movement of disciplinary specialization and the awareness of an autonomous logic of the touristic that has been emerging within ‘tourism studies’”.101 therefore, the study of heritage and cultural tourism can be comfortably located within the humanities, though not yet as a discipline in its own right at this stage, but as an interdisciplinary field of study borrowing and integrating elements from a range of the established disciplines within the humanities. 97 j. tribe and h. xiao (eds.), “developments in tourism social science”, annals of tourism research 38(1), 2011, p. 15-20. 98 j. tribe and h. xiao (eds.), “developments in tourism social science”, annals of tourism research 38(1), 2011, p. 20-22. 99 c.-k. cheng, x.(r.) li, j.f. petrick and j.t. o’leary, “an examination of tourism journal development”, tourism management 32(1), 2001, p. 57. 100 c.-k. cheng, x.(r.) li, j.f. petrick and j.t. o’leary, “an examination of tourism journal development”, tourism management 32(1), 2001, p. 58. 101 f. darbellay and m. stock, “tourism as complex interdisciplinary research object”, annals of tourism research 39(1), 2012, p. 455. abstract introduction lesotho’s political context attempts and failures to resuscitate lesotho’s democracy the need for citizenship education for lesotho’s stable democracy conceptualisation and competences of citizenship education citizenship education opportunities in lesotho acknowledgements references about the author(s) rasebate i. mokotso department of religion studies, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa citation mokotso, r.i., 2019, ‘citizenship education for lesotho’s context: towards a stable democracy’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a549. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.549 original research citizenship education for lesotho’s context: towards a stable democracy rasebate i. mokotso received: 10 feb. 2018; accepted: 19 oct. 2018; published: 13 may 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article represents a contextual analysis that seeks a lasting solution to lesotho’s current democratic instability, which has typified its political landscape since independence. this article analyses the literature to argue that the optimised political and institutional reforms that have recently raised people’s hopes are not likely to bring about a lasting solution of democratic stability. they are likely to suffer the same fate as those that came before, which only managed to provide a temporary solution. this article contends that the sustainability of democracy in lesotho can ideally be achieved through the cultivation of the ‘spirit of democracy’, which can be nurtured through citizenship education. the article concludes by exploring possibilities for the introduction of citizenship education in lesotho. keywords: citizenship education; democracy; lesotho; politics; stability. introduction ever since lesotho gained political independence from british colonial rule, followed by the ushering in of democratic dispensation in 1966, the country has never enjoyed stable democratic rule. it suffered a series of coups and attempted coups, political murders and high-profile assassinations, forcing a continued southern african development community (sadc) intervention. at the same time, corruption, the embezzlement of public funds, poverty and unemployment rates continue to skyrocket. this situation calls for a staid introspection and critical exploration from all circles, in order to urgently respond. this article is, therefore, one such response, approaching the problem from an educational point of view, with particular reference to citizenship education. this article cautiously approached an enquiry on lesotho’s political volatility through a systematic literature review. the operative definition of a systematic literature review is adopted from okoli (2015) and michie and williams (2003). they define it as an investigative process that identifies, evaluates and interprets available and relevant published works to address the research questions of the topic under investigation. a systematic literature review depends solely on the works already published. the purpose is not simply to expand them but to systematically screen, approve and select the relevant information to be included in the review. this entails a scientific process of extracting appropriate information related to the topic of investigation from vast literature sources. the research topic provides the criterion for data selection, while research questions necessitate the evaluation and interpretation of data. the research questions that guided the evaluation, interpretation and synthesis of the information are as follows: what is causing the current democracy instability in lesotho; what is the best sustainable solution; and how can that solution be instigated? lesotho’s political context the political context of lesotho has recently become a prime concern for local, regional and international communities. the apparent assassination of the lesotho army commander khoantle motšomotšo on 05 september 2017, which the sadc called an ‘inexcusable, barbaric and heinous act’, aggravated this concern (aljazeera 2017; bbc 2017; news24 2017). as deplorable as the assassination was, it is the perpetuation of lesotho’s political milieu ever since the attainment of independence. maleleka (2009) divides lesotho’s post-independence politics into four historical phases. the first phase represents a multiparty democracy (1966–1970); the second represents a one-party state (1970–1986); the third is a military dictatorship (1986–1993); and the last is the return of multiparty democracy in 1993, which is currently still in place, notwithstanding a short-lived 1994 palace coup that interrupted it. since 2012, the multiparty rule has bred another recent period referred to as ‘coalition phases’. the coalition government phases include the first coalition (2012–2015), the second coalition (2015–2017) and the third coalition (2017–present). motsamai (2015) indicates that the beginning of lesotho’s political difficulties can be traced right from the inception of democracy in the second phase of the post-independence period. the basutoland national party (bnp), under the leadership of chief leabua jonathan, narrowly won the first democratic elections of 1966 (coleman 2015). jonathan instantly became the first prime minister of independent lesotho and remained steadfastly as such for 20 years. motsamai (2015) and hassan and ojo (2002) illustrate that the beginning of political violence started with the second election of 1970 that was won by an opposition party – the basotho congress party (bcp). however, jonathan adamantly refused to step down, citing the questionable excuse of election irregularities, thereby nullifying the official election results. he declared a national state of emergency and continued to retain power by coup. in the event, coleman (2015) notes that jonathan’s unlawful government suspended the constitution, dissolved the parliament, banned the opposition and introduced a series of political murders. the prominent opposition leaders were forced to flee the country into exile, where they eventually resorted to low-key guerrilla warfare. jonathan’s authoritarian rule lasted up until 1986 (coleman 2017), when lesotho entered the third phase of the post-independence period. hassan and ojo (2002) assert that the general elections were ultimately called in 1985 because of mounting international and regional pressure for democratic rule in lesotho. allegedly, the bnp manipulated the election processes to the extent that only its candidates could stand for elections in all constituencies and ultimately were declared to have won the elections. these developments, as hassan and ojo (2002) fittingly describe, led to increased opposition against the government. the increasing opposition contributed to disunity within the army. two groups were instantly formed, one supporting colonel sehlabo and the other supporting major general lekhanya. as coleman (2015) and hassan and ojo (2002) mention, lekhanya eventually toppled jonathan’s government in an army coup in 1986. lekhanya succeeded in toppling jonathan after he sourced the necessary support from the south african government. the functional relationships between jonathan’s government and the south african government had drastically deteriorated. it is believed that jonathan continued to support the outlawed south african african national congress cadres and major general lekhanya cordially agreed to sever ties with the african national congress. lekhanya’s dictatorship military regime, which marks the third phase of post-independence governance in lesotho, suspended democracy and banned political activities (hassan & ojo 2002). the military regime only declined in the late 1980s as a result of disagreements between lekhanya and king moshoeshoe ii (coleman 2015). lekhanya had strategically drawn the king into the government to consolidate support from basotho traditionalists who still offered their allegiance to the king. the king was ultimately sent into exile, and his elder son, letsie iii, replaced him. simultaneously, lekhanya was also losing support from the south african government under president f.w. de klerk, who moderated lekhanya’s relationship with the hard-line pro-apartheid forces (hassan & ojo 2002). western aid was also declining, pressuring lekhanya to return governance to the civilians. despite these pressures, coleman (2015) reports that lekhanya clung to power until col. elias phisoane ramaema led a group of senior military officers to overthrow him in 1991. ramaema’s military government lifted political bans and prepared for general elections in 1993. ramaema’s intervention marked the fourth key phase of lesotho politics, which represents the return of multiparty democracy (coleman 2015). the bcp under the leadership of ntsu mokhehle emerged victorious, winning all the constituencies in the 1993 elections. mokhehle had just returned to the politics of lesotho after spending a prolonged period in exile (coleman 2015). however, as motsamai (2015) claims, the democratically elected government was not without problems. shortly after the election, a fierce battle broke out between two factions of the army: the one pro-bnp and the other pro-bcp. the war culminated in the assassination of deputy prime minister selometsi baholo. in 1994, the democratic government was overthrown by king letsie iii in what is described as a palace coup. the king pushed for the reinstatement of his father, who was dethroned during lekhanya’s military government. the palace coup triggered widespread unrest and protests. the sacd was prompted to intervene and restore democracy. this intervention marked the beginning of continuous sadc involvement in lesotho’s politics (motsamai 2015). in 1997, bcp suffered internal disputes over leadership roles, leading to a split. the bcp splinter lesotho congress for democracy (lcd) was eventually formed in parliament under the leadership of ntsu mokhehle. the sacd mokhehle led the lcd to victory in 1998. however, he was forced by illness to resign from politics, leaving the lcd leadership to pakalitha mosisili. following the lcd victory, opposition parties refused to accept the election results and cried foul. the opposition resentment resulted in a military mutiny. the sadc restored stability through military intervention. this intervention caused widespread violence that left the capital maseru and other urban cities half burnt (motsamai 2015). the period between 1993 and 1998 was described as a time of consolidation of democracy. the country enjoyed a relatively stable democracy from 1998 to 2007 (motsamai 2015). as monyane (2009) expounds, the lcd ruled the country until november 2006, when a popular cabinet minister, tom thabane, resigned to form a new political party – the basotho convention centre (abc). thabane left the government together with a considerable number of lcd members of parliament. prime minister mosisili was forced to request that king letsie iii dissolve parliament, and snap elections were called in 2007. mosisili’s lcd won the 2007 elections (monyane 2009). the developments leading to the 2012 election followed the formation of an alternative political party in parliament in the same fashion as the lcd. mosisili formed the democratic congress (dc), ending a 2-year-long factional battle and power struggles within the lcd. the dc took over the country’s governance as the governing party until parliament was dissolved to pave the way for the 2012 elections (monyane 2009). the 2012 elections, as coleman (2017) explains, ended the 15 years of lcd as the one party ruling the country. without a party with an outright victory, a coalition government was inevitable. the first coalition was comprised of the abc, lcd and bnp. the leader of the abc, thabane, was appointed the prime minister of the coalition government and metsing of the lcd became his deputy. however, the 2012 coalition government, which barely lasted for 3 years, was characterised by an animated series of political events, resulting in political instability (motsamai 2015). motsamai (2015) identified some developments in the government that caused instability. prime minister thabane appointed and dismissed government and parastate officials in key state institutions without the consent of his partners in government. these included the independent electoral commission (iec), the justice portfolios (office of the attorney general, the director of public prosecutions), government secretaries and permanent secretaries, and police and military commanders. motsamai (2015) believes these appointments and dismissals were politically motivated, and prompted sour relationships between prime minister thabane and his deputy, metsing. the direct result was the bombing of the homes of some high-ranking officials, an attempted military coup and prorogation of parliament. the problems were resolved by sadc intervention, with another snap election in 2015 (coleman 2017). sejanamane (2016) articulates that the 2015 elections bred another coalition government of seven parties, including the dc and lcd as the leading parties in the coalition. because there were a considerable number of parties forging the coalition, weisfelder (2015) realised that pundits were tempted to render different names to it. the most popular were ‘the coat of many colours’ and ‘7de laan’, the latter a nickname from the popular south african soap opera. mosisili came back to power as prime minister. contrary to what mosisili professed to have learned from thabane’s ‘many blunders’, that kept him from sustaining the coalition government for more than 5 years, mosisili’s coalition barely lasted for 2 years (weisfelder 2015). within these 2 years, the country was engulfed by different political problems. sejanamane (2016) exemplified these problems including the flight of the three main opposition leaders. one of these included thomas thabane of the abc, who fled to south africa to escape murder threats. another critical political problem was the murder of lt gen. maaparankoe mahao by his colleagues in the army. the sadc intervened and together with the government of lesotho recommended the establishment of the commission of inquiry into disturbances to national peace and stability in august 2015. the retired botswanan judge mphapi phumaphi headed the commission. it was eventually named after him and referred to as the phumaphi commission (sejanamane 2016). sejanamane (2016) highlights that the work of the commission was primarily to investigate the circumstances leading to the death of lt gen. maaparankoe mahao on 25 june 2015, and the alleged mutiny plot in the lesotho defence force (ldf). at the end, the commission released a report recommending, among others, that lt gen. tlali kamoli be relieved of command of the ldf; that members of the ldf who were suspects in cases of high treason be released; and that military officials involved in murder and other crimes pointed out in the report be suspended while their cases were investigated so they could be brought before the courts of law. however, as sejanamane (2016) explicates, the coalition government did not accede to the recommendations, maintaining that in terms of lesotho laws, the recommendations of the commission were not binding. the prime minister went further in a statement delivered in parliament that some of the recommendations may not see the light of day. apart from governance problems, there were internal problems within dc party structures, particularly between the party leader, pakalitha mosisili, and his deputy leader, monyane moleleki. there were rumours as early as the beginning of march 2015 that the dc deputy leader was in negotiations with the abc and bnp leaders. it was said that he wanted to join them, along with some disgruntled members of parliament from the dc. this was barely a week after the formation of the seven-party coalition government (mohloboli 2015). mohloboli (2015) recounts that there were allegations that moleleki and some dc parliamentarians were unhappy that moleleki was not appointed as deputy premier. instead, the mosisili seven-party coalition had appointed metsing to the deputy premiership as the leader of the second biggest party in the coalition government. mohloboli (2015) claims that when confronted by the rumours, moleleki had vehemently denied them as ‘malicious rumours’. however, in the following year, by november 2016, an agreement was announced between the deputy leader of the dc, monyane moleleki, and tom thabane. they proclaimed that they had joined forces to remove mosisili and install moleleki as prime minister. as a result, moleleki was suspended from the dc in december 2016. he eventually launched a new party, the alliance of democrats (ad), in january 2017 (ntsukunyane 2017). sejanamane (2017) elucidates that in january 2017, moleleki crossed the floor in parliament with about 50% of the mps, leaving prime minister mosisili leading a minority coalition government. to aggravate the situation, sejanamane (2017) asserts that the lcd, which was the second biggest after mosisli’s dc in the coalition government, was experiencing a split. the party’s secretary general, selibe mochoboroane, launched a new party called the movement for economic change. mosisili’s coalition was left with only 37 members of parliament out of 120. mosisili resisted succumbing to moleleki and thabane’s plan to form a government in parliament. as an alternative, he resorted to the dissolution of parliament and called for snap elections in june 2017. mosisili’s coalition partners lost dramatically in the elections, giving way to a third coalition government of four parties, namely thabane’s abc, moleleki’s ad, maseribane’s bnp and rantso’s reformed congress of lesotho. thabane headed the coalition and was appointed the prime minister and moleleki his deputy prime minister (sejanamane 2017). on 14 june 2017, two days before thabane was to be sworn in as prime minister, his wife, lipolelo thabane, was murdered. mokhethi (2017) postulates two theories regarding her murder that persist even today, with no breakthrough from police investigations. the first theory, which did not gain popularity, was the criminal theory that explains the murder as simply a criminal act. the most popular theory represents the political theory. the political theory was twofold: those sympathising with thabane and the new coalition government accused the outgoing government of orchestrating the murder. it was argued the intention was to frustrate the new four-party alliance and cause doubts about its morality and credibility. it was also suggested that the incumbent government wanted to extend its tenure on the pretext of solving the murder case before the inauguration of the new prime minister. those sympathetic to the outgoing coalition argued that lipolelo was murdered by pro-thabane supporters to eliminate her chances of reclaiming her rightful position as ‘first lady’. claiming her position as ‘first lady’ meant ousting maisaiah, the current ‘first lady’ and thabane’s favourable wife. lipolelo was deprived of this status in thabane’s initial term as prime minister in 2012, but won her position back through a court battle (mokhethi 2017). three months after the death of lipolelo, another murder shocked local, regional and international communities. the media was abuzz over the death of lesotho army commander lt gen. khoantle motšomotšo (bbc 2017; muzofa 2017; news24 2017). it was alleged that his subordinates, namely lt col. hashatsi and lt col. sechele, had assassinated him (aljazeera 2017; muzofa 2017). the key issues relating to the facts were unclear; one version of the story submits that the two soldiers had forced their way into lt gen. motšomotšo’s office, demanding to see him (bbc 2017; news24 2017). another version claims that they were allowed to enter the army commander’s office (muzofa 2017; the post 2017). it was reported that they were either on suspension or under investigation for the death of lt gen. mahao (muzofa 2017; the post 2017). following the version that they were allowed into the army commander’s office, it becomes blurred as to how the suspended soldiers were permitted into the army commander’s office carrying weapons. one was claimed to have had a gun, and the other a hand grenade. furthermore, how would the people who had planned to assassinate someone carry out the operation without either of them wearing a bulletproof vest? it was reported that motšomotšo’s bodyguards ultimately killed the alleged assassins (muzofa 2017; the post 2017); as a result, the killers’ side of the story could not be obtained. sejanamane (2017) alleges that motšomotšo was eliminated because he had pledged allegiance to the new government and supported its commitment to implement the sadc recommendations captured in the phumaphi commission report. in line with the report, motšomotšo had already told the army that all those implicated in criminal activity would have to face justice. hashatsi and sechele were implicated in the murder of lt gen. mahao. according to sejanamane (2017), motšomotšo sent away three army officers suspected of the murder of one lisebo tang the day before his assassination. the two officers who murdered motšomotšo purportedly accused him of selling them out to both the police and the government. the death of motšomotšo resulted in the sadc deploying a contingent force into lesotho. its mission was to facilitate a secure, stable and peaceful environment conducive for the rule of law necessary for the implementation of sadc reforms (sadc 2017). these brief political problems that have typified lesotho may adequately explain the superficial understanding of democracy. this situation requires strategies to deepen the roots of democracy for the country’s political stability. attempts and failures to resuscitate lesotho’s democracy there have been different attempts to resuscitate lesotho’s fragile democracy. however, most of the hypothesised solutions were limited in time and scope. they were geared towards solving the immediate political problem. for example, makoa (2004) traces the post-independence reforms, which were limited to the transition from colonial and chiefs’ rule to a democratic government. these reforms were mainly in response to the agitations of the nationalists’ political struggles of the time. these included parliamentary, electoral and monarchical reforms. lesotho adopted the british westminster parliamentary model of a pluralist, multiparty, competitive electoral system with a ceremonial monarchical role. however, the reforms failed to establish democratic rule because they were limited to the transitional period and focused mainly on political institutions. makoa (2004) points to the signs of failure of the post-independence reforms. between 1965 and 1966, king moshoeshoe ii led a campaign of civil disobedience aimed at unseating the legitimate democratic government. in consequence, the king incited the people to resist the newly democratic government, which he believed reduced him to a ‘ghost’ king. additionally, prime minister jonathan, of the new post-independence government, instigated antidemocratic governance policies. while it was expected that the role of the legitimately elected state was to defend the constitution and democracy, makoa (2004) observed that, instead, jonathan’s government acted as an antidemocratic bulwark. for 23 years, from 1970 to 1993, lesotho was under authoritarian rule. this undemocratic rule was characterised by brute force, oppression and one-party rule. therefore, from its inception, democracy did not take root in lesotho. the initial reforms were typically limited to the transitional period, with a limited scope focusing predominantly on political institutions and processes (makoa 2004). the year 1993 was idealised as the beginning of proper, democratic rule after legitimate elections enthroned ntsu mokhehle’s bcp into power. nonetheless, within a few months, democracy was hijacked in a palace coup. the situation prompted the sadc intervention (maleleka 2009; monyane 2009). through its intervention, the sadc proposed several political reforms. among them were the reinstatement of the bcp government and of king moshoeshoe ii, and the replacement of the director of elections with an iec. the director of elections was an employee of the government and could undoubtedly be influenced by their employer. however, these reforms, as realised by motsamai (2015), did not sustain democracy for long. in 1998, political riots and violence erupted. monyane (2009) shows that before 1998, lesotho used the first-past-the-post (fptp) election model, or a ‘winner takes all’ system. the model provided an opportunity for one dominant party to form a parliament without opposition. in 1998, the lcd won 79 constituencies out of 80, meaning it had secured 79 parliamentary seats. realising its fate, the opposition, particularly the bcp and the bnp, protested the results, arguing that they were fraudulent. this was in spite of the fact that international observers proclaimed the elections free and fair (monyane 2009). motsamai (2015) states that the protesting parties mobilised their supporters to occupy maseru in order to obstruct parliamentary sessions from commencing. the opposition insisted on the formation of a government of national unity. the legitimate governing party, the lcd, rejected the proposal. failure to reach an agreement resulted in the opposition waging an armed protest, leading to weeks of political instability (motsamai 2015). the opposition’s grievances, as motsamai (2015) states, forced sadc intervention. it appointed the south african judge pius langa to investigate the credibility of the election results. his findings revealed that even though there were some irregularities, there was no electoral malpractice or fraud. the opposition refused to accept the findings, insisting that the king dissolve the parliament and call for fresh elections or establish a government of national unity. some military mutineers supported the opposition course. they seized arms and ammunition and imprisoned their commanding officers. these developments led to sadc military intervention to restore order – but not political stability. makoa (2004) notes that the sadc military intervention succeeded in restoring security stability and reinstating the lcd government on the condition that it prepare for fresh elections within 18 months. there was, in addition, the establishment of the multiparty interim political authority (ipa), mandated to review the electoral process in preparation for the upcoming elections under sadc supervision. according to motsamai (2015) and matlosa (2003), ipa recommended a series of political reforms consisting of: (1) a new electoral model, the mixed member parallel (mmp) system, which is a composite of the fptp and proportional representation electoral systems; (2) increasing the national assembly from 80 seats to 120; (3) stipulating that the additional 40 seats were to be from a proportional representation, with each party providing a list of mps proposed to represent the party in the national assembly. the introduction of the mmp system in the 2002 elections was envisaged to consolidate and sustain democracy. its chief aim was to promote a ‘general participative’ democracy where even the more minor parties would be able to contribute to the governance of the country (motsamai 2015). it is indisputed that post-2002 election reforms provided lesotho with a relatively stable democracy. nonetheless, it was just a matter of time before the reality of lesotho’s democratic fragility surfaced, perpetuating a culture of feigning democracy. as motsamai (2015) indicates, the incompetence of lesotho’s democracy re-emerged in the 2007 elections after the ruling lcd garnered 61 of the 80 constituencies. the opposition parties refused to accept the election results. they argued that the lcd manipulated the mmp system through the creation of alliances to misrepresent the mmp’s compensatory procedures. the sadc was forced to mediate the impasse for 3 years, from 2007 to 2009. a final agreement between the opposition and the government was brokered in the electoral reform act of 2011. according to weisfelder (2015), unlike the initial mmp electoral system, voters simultaneously elected a local constituency candidate and the party’s candidate for compensatory proportional representation on a single ballot. they no longer voted for a party other than that of the constituency candidate of their choice. in the same way, they voted for their preferred party if it did not have a constituency candidate. the 2011 reforms provided short-lived political stability. the peaceful transfer of power after the 2012 elections from mosisili to thabane and establishment of the first coalition government signified relative political stability. however, weisfelder (2015) shows that the 2011 reforms focused on settling mmp disputes, without anticipating the formation of coalition governments that would reshape lesotho’s democracy. conflicts among coalition partners emerged as new threats to lesotho’s democracy. the first coalition of 2012 collapsed before it enacted the commonwealth-suggested reforms. commonwealth envoy rajen prasad’s report outlined recommendations for institutional reforms. prasad realised that partisan appointments of the civil and security services were crucial sources of conflicts among partners in the coalition. he therefore recommended the establishment of an independent professional civil service. the other recommended reform was the regulation of floor crossing in parliament, which continually undermines the sustainability of coalition governments. returning to the previous two-ballot electoral system was also recommended (weisfelder 2015). just as the 2012 coalition collapsed before implementing rajen prasad’s recommendations, the 2015 coalition followed suit before enacting the recommendations contained in the phumaphi commission report. this trend highlights the reality that political reforms are mainly reactive, responding to the immediate political impasse, rather than being proactive and aiming at lasting, stable democracy. the need for citizenship education for lesotho’s stable democracy in recent times, all expectations have rested on the implementation of phumaphi’s institutional and political reforms, with the hope that they will stabilise lesotho’s democracy. for example, sejanamane (2016) is optimistic that the phumaphi commission offers the potential for a brighter political future for lesotho because it focuses on constitutional, public sector and security reforms. moreover, dlamini-zuma (2016), in her capacity as the chairperson of the african union (au), stated that all hope for lesotho restoring its democracy is based on the reforms recommended by the sadc-sponsored commission of inquiry, led by justice mphaphi phumaphi of botswana. she, therefore, unreservedly recommends intense collaboration between the government and the people of lesotho to hasten the implementation of the recommended reforms. the current prime minister of lesotho, thabane (2017), in his speech at the un general assembly, vowed that the current government is committed to the effective implementation of the recommendations of the phumaphi commission for the reform process. this encompasses the constitutional, parliamentary, electoral, public and security sectors in a move to establish stable democratic rule, which is conducive to economic development. the transformation resource centre (2016) released a statement to be considered by the sadc double troika in gaborone, botswana, on 28 june 2016. it appealed to the sadc to call upon the government of lesotho to implement the phumaphi commission’s recommendations. the transformation resource centre believes that the recommendations are likely to restore genuine democracy. the list could go on and on. however, it is the contention of this article that, like other previous institutional and constitutional reforms, the phumaphi reforms are likely to follow a similar path to failure. this article concurs with the findings of makoa (2004) in that whatever institutional or constitutional reforms lesotho may have, without the necessary ideological or political resources for the promotion of the nation’s ‘spirit’ of democracy, stability is unlikely to be experienced any time soon. this democratic spirit can arguably only be cultivated through an education process that can produce a new basotho society that understands and adheres to the values and principles of democracy. political institutions and the constitution can exclusively work for the people when all accept that they represent the general moral binding and are willing to commit themselves to a set of rules underpinning the constitution and the institutions. in support, maundeni (2010) argues that the problem of lesotho’s democracy does not lie within constitutional or electoral systems but in the culture of resisting and rejecting new ideologies that contradict traditional values. these include the longstanding attempts to reject christianity and the continuation of accepting that political leaders are elected for life, as is the case with traditional leaders. sotho culture, according to maundeni (2010), jealously guards itself against the intrusion of foreign cultures; it maintains a society that is not open to renewal from borrowed ideas. a solution suggested by maundeni (2010) represents the creation of an environment to enable lesotho to come up with a cultural reorientation strategy to steer people out of traditionalism, with elements that are incompatible with western democratic values. while weisfelder (2014) commends the new mmp electoral system of lesotho, which provides a legislature composition corresponding with national levels of support from different parties and acts as an effective remedy to the exclusionary electoral fptp system, he contends that the challenge remains the promotion of better governance, greater accountability and more profound commitment to democratic values. these views point to the fact that electoral, institutional and constitutional reforms are not enough to ensure a stable democracy in lesotho. it is the position of this author that citizenship education represents one strategy with the potential to promote a sustainable democratic rule. citizenship education can cultivate the spirit of democracy in basotho youth. if makoa (2004) is correct that the colonial government granted independence with an already-prescribed kind of state for lesotho, imposing the alien phenomenon of western-fashioned democracy without equipping the basotho nation to address the challenges of independence through the inculcation of political and social values that foster democracy, then citizenship education remains the probable tool to fill the gap. if again, the hypothesis of maundeni (2010) is correct, that basotho culture is responsible for the failure of democracy in lesotho, then citizenship education is imperative to re-orientate the traditional culture. nieto (1999) reasoned that education is the best tool to re-orientate culture. culture is embedded in context; that is, culture is invariably influenced by the environment in which it exists. contextualisation of culture typically occurs in the school curriculum. culture is not static; it is constantly evolving as human beings continually change it. we talk of the culture of failed democracy and the culture of political violence in lesotho because there is at present a change of culture from traditional monarchical rule to unstable democracy. nieto (1999) reasons that culture changes as a result of concrete decisions made by cultural agents in relation to traditions, attitudes, behaviours and values. culture constructs cultural agents, and they in turn construct the culture. according to nieto (1999), conscious cultural change occurs in a school setting. conceptualisation and competences of citizenship education cecchini (2004) and tormey (2006) state that there is no consensus on the conceptualisation of citizenship education, leading to diverse nomenclature. different terminologies for citizenship education include active citizenship, civic education, political education, citizenship learning, education for democratic citizenship, social education, human rights education, democracy learning, life skills and learning to live together. in this article, the concept of ‘citizenship education’ is used to differentiate it from its synonyms in lesotho. there are already two types of synonymic citizenship education in lesotho schools. the first is life skills education (lse). as khau (2012) states, lse was introduced into lesotho in 2007 to respond to the challenges of hiv/aids. the idea was that education would be likely to provide a ‘vaccine’ against hiv. as such, lse was introduced essentially for sexual health education, with specific emphasis on sexuality and hiv/aids education. kolosoa and makhakhane (2010) agree as well that lse was introduced in lesotho schools as an educational strategy to curb the spread of hiv. it was also intended to address the problem of alcohol and drug abuse. it was therefore introduced basically as a social and health education. in this sense, therefore, lesotho’s lse is not about the inculcation of values of democracy but socio-health issues. the second type of citizenship education is electoral or voter education, which is essentially ‘civic education’. ngozwana (2014) states that in lesotho, voter education was introduced as an informal education programme in 1997. it is provided as a periodic education programme offered at the time of general elections. the iec officials, civil society groups and political parties’ representatives are responsible for providing the electorate with voter education. its content covers the registration information, nomination and voting processes. the methods of teaching include the use of posters, pamphlets, public notices, public gatherings, local radio and tv station announcements, and newspapers. the iec is responsible for the preparation of teaching materials. voter education does not develop the spirit of democracy but exclusively prepares citizens to exercise their civic nomination and voting rights in times of elections. furthermore, citizenship education is selected on the basis of debates in civic or citizenship education discourse. for example, kerr (1999) postulates that citizenship education is an ideal constructed from civic education. civic education takes a minimal approach, which narrowly focuses on transmission of knowledge of a country’s historical and geographical information. it also focuses on election processes, political structures, the functioning of the government and the constitution. civic education tends to employ didactic teaching and learning approaches in which a teacher transmits knowledge to the students, who passively absorb it. civics presupposes the provision of information about formal public institutions, while citizenship includes the promotion of socially beneficial qualities and encourages a participative learning approach (himmelmann 2013). as cecchini (2004) notes, the focus of citizenship education depends on each country’s historical and political struggle. mutch (2005) also supports the conclusion that citizenship education cannot be divorced from a country’s political and historical antecedents. in addition, kerr (1999) affirms that citizenship education is best understood in the context of democratic reforms. it emphasises the fact that all democratic societies are to respond to the ever-changing circumstances that challenge their stability. therefore, in lesotho’s context, citizenship education should focus on democratic stability. it must be accepted as a process of reform for long-term stability and must focus on developing the spirit of democracy. in other words, it should be synonymous with ‘democracy learning’ or ‘democracy literacy’. print and lange (2012) conclude that in the event that a nation’s democracy is faced with the challenge of an inability to sustain itself, particularly in times of crisis, citizenship education that aims at advocating and inculcating democratic values and actions becomes critical. it is obvious that living democracy is neither inborn nor to be taken for granted. like any culture, the democratic culture, of shared values and the common rules of society, needs to be transmitted and learned. the type of citizenship education optimised for lesotho’s democratic stability is within the framework proposed by himmelmann (2013) and dürr (2005), which centres on democracy and its pedagogical concept. this kind of citizenship education focusses on three competences of learning and living democracy. these are ‘democracy as a form of government’, ‘democracy as a form of society’ and ‘democracy as a form of living’. these different competences of democracy are learned at various levels of educational development involving a taxonomic procedure of beginning from the general to the abstract. the focus of teaching and learning in democracy as a form of government is to provide students at the senior secondary level with sufficient knowledge and understanding of their national history, political and government structures, and their functions and responsibilities in relation to other local, regional and global entities (dürr 2005; himmelmann 2013). this aspect of citizenship learning is extremely important in lesotho’s context because there has been a series of institutional and political reforms and still others to come. however, the fundamental question is whether all basotho, including youth and those at grass-roots level, are literate to them or whether they are the endeavours of political elites only. literacy on political and government structures and their functions enable citizens to participate in reforms with a sound understanding of what they mean for democracy. the emphasis on teaching and learning in democracy as a form of society offered to students at junior secondary level involves learning by doing. learning by doing is enhanced through learners’ active, participative experiences in the school area as well as in their local community and society. the aim is to enable learning through social interaction, promoting competences of social cooperation, communication, respecting others’ views and choices, knowing one’s rights and responsibilities, understanding pluralism and its principles, and being equipped with the necessary skills to manage conflict and to participate in conflict resolution (dürr 2005; himmelmann 2013; kerr 1999). citizenship education promotes what makoa (2004) describes as an aspect lacking in lesotho’s democracy, which are norms and structures that can neutralise continuous political competition. these norms can also increase social collaboration and cooperation, with expanded political participation as a national norm rather than using elections as justification for exclusivism. citizenship education fosters the spirit of democracy, where intergroup interactions, free discussions and the exchange of ideas become idealised. it acts as an effective means for peaceful handling of deep-rooted differences through inclusivism, justice and accountability. the aim of teaching and learning of democracy as a form of living is to provide pupils at the primary level with the principles of democracy as a way of life. the focus is on the individual, and the aim is to enable self-learning through the acquisition of -self-competences including self-development, self-experience, self-responsibility, self-control and moral dispositions. democracy as a form of living enables young children to make a direct link between the learning process and their everyday life experiences (dürr 2005; himmelmann 2013). self-competences are very important for cultural reorientation. maundeni (2010) and ngozwana (2014) posited that a deficiency and fragility of lesotho’s democracy is a result of the traditional political structure that assigns all powers to authorities. modern liberal democracy tends to replace traditional structures of authority with elected leaders. as a result, basotho are faced with clashes of political values between western and traditional political organisations, without being equipped with the essential tools to merge the two or to replace the old with the new. ngozwana (2014) advances that the political elites have been able to exploit traditional values of obedience to control the passive masses that respect and put their trust in political leaders as was the case with the chiefs. living democracy as an educational strategy is intended to establish a new culture of politically participative citizens who are not merely passive recipients of authorities’ regulatory systems. citizenship education opportunities in lesotho it can be concluded that both the political situation and the current state of the lesotho education system offer some opportunities for the introduction of citizenship education as well as indicating that lesotho is apt to be democratically stable. from a political point of view, there is a general concern that drastic measures have to be taken to ensure democratic stability in lesotho. for example, santho (2008) states that it is imperative to explore opportunities for sustainable democratic governance in lesotho. such opportunities should be founded on a firm base of tolerance of multiple views and perspectives from various societal groupings. in addition, matlosa (2003) shares the concern that elections and the choice of electoral system are unlikely to produce good results of democratic governance if there is no sustainable peace and reconciliation. therefore, alternative strategies have to be devised and employed to ensure the involvement of a broader spectrum of the electorate. tsikoane et al. (2007) concur that to consolidate democracy in any country, the active participation of all citizens, both individually and collectively, should be promoted. it is the responsibility of a democratic state to ensure it creates an enabling environment in which there are open debates, persuasion and compromise. lehohla (2006), then deputy prime minister and minister of education in lesotho, advances that lesotho as a young fledgling democracy is committed to stabilising its democratic governance by adhering to the core principle of people’s participation in political decisions. this commitment is enshrined in numerous government documents, including vision 2020, which states that ‘lesotho shall be a stable, democratic, prosperous nation, at peace with itself and neighbours’. it is believed that education, more than anything else, remains a major weapon to overcome democratic ills like corruption. young people need to be provided with appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes to develop a civil and conscientious society. these few examples highlight that because the idea of identifying possible ways of enhancing stable democracy in lesotho represents a commonly shared belief, citizenship education is likely to find support from various sectors and stakeholders. in the lesotho education system, there are two opportunities. the first is that citizenship education is already being offered in the school system through lse. however, at present, the focus is to address health challenges, mainly hiv and aids. what is needed is to extend the scope of lse to include citizenship education. kolosoa and makhakhane (2010) opine that even though lse has been restricted to health issues, it can be expanded to include consumer education, environmental education, peace education or education for development, livelihood and income generation, and education for democracy, among others. life skills education is essentially citizenship education; what is left is to inject competences for democracy. another subject into which citizenship education could be integrated is religious education. religious education is one of the dominant subjects in the lesotho education system because it is the identity of the christian church. according to the recent statistics by the us department of state (2017), the christian church owns more than 80% of schools. however, as setloboko-chokobane and moshoeshoe (2003) contend, religious education in lesotho has been underutilised. instead of teaching social and political values of peace, tolerance, diversity, fairness, justice, equality and responsibility, which are essential elements of citizenship education, it is confined to christian instruction. leung yat sum (2010) maintains that religious education in pluralistic societies can no longer be bible-based but must be centred on students’ lives. its concern should be the lives of students, and the role of the bible is to provide witness and give meaning to citizens’ lives. the teaching of religious values should serve as a source of reflection, a way to talk about life and as a reference for students. in this way, religious education can contribute towards the development of moral values attuned to citizenship education. allowing the consideration that lesotho has claimed to be a christian country (us department of state 2013), a citizenship education component within religious education is likely to diffuse rapidly. lesotho has introduced an integrated curriculum in primary schools and is piloting it in some selected secondary schools. the intention is to cover all schools within the next few years. the integrated curriculum offers an opportunity for citizenship education. many proponents of citizenship education agree that it cannot be restricted to traditional, academically coined subjects. that is, it cannot merely be learned as an independent ‘stand-alone’ subject. kerr (1999) mentions three approaches to the teaching and learning of citizenship education, namely the separate approach, the integrated approach and the cross-curricular approach. in the separate approach, citizenship education is delivered as a specific subject. in the integrated approach, it is offered within broad disciplines of social sciences or social studies, which could be linked to other subjects and curricular areas. in the cross-curricular approach, citizenship education goes beyond both the separate approach and integrated approach to permeate the entire curriculum and become infused into all school subjects. however, the separate approach has not gained favour. for example, beutel (2012), burton (2015) and veugelers (2011) argue that citizenship education prepares people to accept that only democracy can offer them a stable, social and liberal society. it also enriches society’s ability to resist the undemocratic behaviours of intolerance, racism, xenophobia and violence. therefore, these diverse problems cannot only be dealt with in a single school subject. the integrated curriculum introduced in lesotho provides fertile soil for the germination and growth of citizenship education. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references aljazeera, 2017, lesotho army commander ‘shot dead’ by soldiers, 5 september, viewed 12 december 2017, from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/lesotho-army-commander-shot-dead-soldiers-170905132409306.html bbc, 2017, sadc condemns the killing of lesotho army chief khoantle motsomotso, 6 september, viewed 12 december 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41173999 beutel, w., 2012, ‘developing civic education in schools’, in m. print & m. dirk lange (eds.), schools, curriculum and civic education for building democratic citizens, pp. 7–18, sense publishers, rotterdam. burton, d., 2015, ‘citizenship education in secondary schools in england’, journal of the british education studies association 7(1), 76–91. cecchini, m., 2004, ‘education for democratic citizenship in europe: concepts and challenges for action’, paper presented at networking european citizenship education (nece) conference, 27 november, pp. 1–11. coleman, d.y. 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citizenship education’, in a. osman & b. leibowitz (eds.), a framework for heritage, multiculturalism and citizenship education, pp. 73–78, commonwealth secretariat, london. thabane, m.t., 2017, ‘statement by the right honorable the prime minister of the kingdom of lesotho’, delivered at the 72nd session of the united nations general assembly new york, united states of america, 22 september. the post, 2017, how army boss was killed, 11 september, viewed 20 december 2017, from https://www.thepost.co.ls/news/how-army-boss-was-killed tormey, r., 2006, social and political education in senior cycle: a background paper, department of education and professional studies, university of limerick, limerick, ireland. transformation resource centre, 2016, position of the transformation resource centre on the outcome of the sadc double troika in gaborone, botswana, on 28 june 2016, press statement, maseru. tsikoane, t., tefetso h., mothibe, t.h., ntho, m.e. & maleleka, d., 2007, ‘consolidating democracy governance in southern africa: lesotho’, eisa research report 23, 1–110, viewed 15 november 2017, from https://www.africaportal.org/documents/1845/rr32.pdf united states department of state, 2013, lesotho 2013 international religious freedom report, bureau of democracy, human rights and labor. united states department of state, 2017, lesotho 2017 international religious freedom report, bureau of democracy, human rights and labor. veugelers, w., 2011, ‘theory and practice of citizenship education: the case of policy, science and education in the netherlands’, revista de educación, número extraordinario 357, 209–224. weisfelder, r.f., 2015, ‘free elections and political instability in lesotho’, journal of african elections 14(2), 50–80. https://doi.org/10.20940/jae/2015/v14i2a3 abstract introduction theorising city spaces through the feminist planning perspective the south african perspective of gender mainstreaming setting: warwick junction market project methods and material findings discussion: warwick project-planning as an instrument towards gender mainstreaming: the concluding argument acknowledgements references about the author(s) kiara rampaul department of town and regional planning, faculty of built environment and development studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa hangwelani magidimisha-chipungu department of town and regional planning, faculty of built environment and development studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation rampaul k, magidimisha-chipungu h. gender mainstreaming in the urban space to promote inclusive cities. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1163. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1163 project registration number: project number: 216017607 original research gender mainstreaming in the urban space to promote inclusive cities kiara rampaul, hangwelani magidimisha-chipungu received: 21 oct. 2021; accepted: 10 mar. 2022; published: 15 dec. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the roles of urban spaces in promoting people’s social experiences and interactions, and access to green spaces, are critical for long-term community building. while gender balance occurs in the use of metropolitan spaces, the urban environment can still be considered as a mostly masculine sphere. women are still marginalised and unsafe in urban spaces. gender mainstreaming is used to plan and design a gender inclusive city, which includes all women in decision-making processes and helps to achieve the sustainable development goal 11. the exclusion of women and girls from the urban planning process generates a knowledge gap, resulting in public spaces that exclude them. there is a clear planning gap: women are excluded from urban planning and design procedures. the research study developed from the urge to examine if gender mainstreaming is used in the design of urban spaces. data for the study were gathered using qualitative method. primary data was through interview while secondary data includes policy and research focus documents. the study revealed that women’s experience and understanding of urban spaces varied from men’s, and that these differences must be considered when planning and developing urban spaces. the solutions to establishing inclusive urban public spaces that are accessible and safe for everyone in the community include good design and community dialogue. according to the research evidence, professionals in the built environment must be gender conscious when designing and creating urban spaces. warwick market, a public urban location in durban, south africa, was chosen for the study. keywords: city; gender mainstreaming; inclusion; urban spaces; warwick project; women. introduction a city that is inclusive appreciates all of its residents and their needs equally. the awareness of how urban spaces in developing and developed inclusive cities are gendered is tenuous with a small amount of data collected on how women and girls are affected by urban planning decisions. understanding the meaning of urban or public spaces is critical for this research study because it necessitates the search for relationships between urban structures and space usage norms. there are three major difficulties that need to be addressed in this context: physical characteristics, such as the distribution, shape, and size of forms defining the space, as well as the distribution and behaviour of users, which indicate social order and flows of human mobility, and which are reflected in the perceived social layout of a specific site. larsson and jalakas1 reported that urban spaces seem to be more masculine designed than feminine. according to kneeshaw2 the lack of participation of women and girls in urban planning produces an awareness gap, following this group’s public space rejection. women are afraid to visit public parks because they have become crime hotspots. inclusive public spaces are intended to foster a sophisticated cosmopolitan urban community, but they have historically excluded or made women feel unsafe. baboun,3 asserts that inclusive cities are places that are gender conscious and promote gender equality. without a more profound perception of the socio-spatial needs of women, cities will prevail as the domain of men. the relationship between gender and urban space is a contentious debate around the world which is influencing the design of living space from different social, cultural, and economic aspects. women’s experience in urban life is different from that of men, as women use the artificial environment differently as they have several forms, traditions, roles, and responsibilities. men have historically and extensively been conceptualised in urban and public spaces studies. although both men and women now use public areas, the urban environment can still be regarded as a masculine realm in which women feel uneasy, undesired, or excluded.1 the gender-sensitive urban space is a space that supports both men and women’s mobility, access and take into consideration their urban life behaviour and experience. however, the city peculiarities suggest urban restriction (for women) which incorporate some social norms, limiting responsibilities and feelings, and limited sources of space for the use of women. women and girls’ absence from the urban planning process generates a knowledge gap, resulting in public areas that exclude them.2 women are being overlooked in urban planning. unequal city planning is making women feel insecure. public parks have transformed into places of crime, and therefore women are apprehensive to visit such places. inclusive public spaces are meant to encourage a refined cosmopolitan urban culture that promotes men and women’s safety and inclusion. to create a safe and inclusive city, there is a requirement to reveal the gendered power relations in planning. gender-friendly cities remain a ‘utopian concept’ as these sorts of cities are diversified, barrier-free, have well-developed infrastructure, are connected, and propose spaces that can be understood and employed according to different needs. south africa needs a paradigm transformation towards gender equality in spatial planning concerning the visualisation, deconstruction, and redefinition of social values and norms in urban planning methods and management. gough4 postulated that when cities become increasingly feminised, gender equity measures to optimise their economic, social, and environmental sustainability become more significant. the need for this study stemmed from the necessity for a conceptual and project-linked gender balance in the advocacy for inclusive communities within urban planning to achieve sustainable development goal (sdg) 11 (sustainable cities and communities). the view is that despite the existence of policies and initiatives aimed at urban gender mainstreaming, literature gives little indication of a sustainable transformation of the role and status of women and girls. this research aims to examine how gender mainstreaming strategies have been applied to achieve equality in urban spaces and uncover why they have failed – as women and girls still feel unsafe in many urban spaces. theorising city spaces through the feminist planning perspective globally, the importance of including women and girls in the architecture of urban spaces has been recognised. this study applied the feminist perspective and the women in development approach as one of the main theories that can be used to understand planning concerning gender mainstreaming of urban spaces. according to meller,5 feminist scholars have identified the cultural idea of two domains of planning theory and women’s position in the community. many feminist historians recognised that the ‘world is split into two to balance the two sexes’ – the male division included public relations, trade, and industry, while the female division included home, family, and children. many cities recognised the challenges that women were experiencing in the 19th century and proposed alternatives for women to live in cities that did not adhere to a strict interpretation of the two spheres.5 the 1890s saw the emergence of a new town planning movement in the united kingdom and other countries, with the aim of rethinking the usage of urban spaces and the interaction between social structures and spatial structure. feminist theory operates in a number of fields, arising from feminist movements and incorporating general ideas on the causes of oppression and, in some ways, the social construction of sex and gender. feminist philosophy is the expansion of feminism into analytical or intellectual debates, with the aim of comprehending the essence of gender inequality. according to harrison and boyd,6 feminism theory: [a]ttempts to analyse the social platform of women, explain their apparent subsidiary role in history, and offer the basis for reform and the advancement of women in all areas of society. burton7 adapted a feminist paradigm that allows for solutions at the client, programme, and institutional levels. a feminist paradigm should help women and children recognise their own talents and endurance, encourage egalitarian and mutual partnerships, provide a broad critique of institutional frameworks for the treatment of society’s most needy members, help women balance their rights with the wishes and needs of their children, and provide a solid justification for civic and cultural activism. according to andrews,8 feminist urbanism theorists perceive built spaces to be hostile to women. feminist urbanism is a philosophy and social movement that addresses the effect of the built environment on women. feminist urbanism seeks to position people’s lives at the centre of urban decisions. aldana9 referred that feminist urbanism means incorporating and considering everyone’s interest. as common in africa, it advances a critical view on patriarchal political and social systems that has limited female participation in urban development.10 scholars have iterated these dimensions of non-participation of women to include historical exclusions,11,12,13 and loss of authority and limited inclusion14,15 of women in the built environment. milward, mukhopadhyay and wong,16 critique the theory for promoting gender roles with respect to the urban environment, especially when preparing for the reconstruction of urban spaces. according to zapata and bates,17 planners need to advocate for policies and resource allocation to obtain socially just outcomes and break the segregation barrier. the south african perspective of gender mainstreaming south africa has a long history of gender inequality. aside from the overall marginalisation of people, akala18 claims that the suffering of south african women is caused by several subtle variables. these variables – racism, social class, and sexism – are what hassim19 refers to as the ‘triple tragedy’. akala18 argued that the south africa’s altering of gender relations are riddled with contradictions centred on a contentious connection. explaining the contentious experience of women in the country, studies20,21,22,23 have reported that women are more exposed to femicide, rape, sexism, and domestic violence in the country. the continued female negative exposure and shocks have been attributed to weak legislative implementation.24,25 akala18 pointed out that south african women have suffered significantly in the past, and a reform strategy is required to alleviate gender disparities. gender mainstreaming in south africa is meant to take place within the gender policy framework which instructs south africans to take action to correct the historical legacy by establishing new frames of reference for interaction in the public and private spheres, and it proposes and recommends an institutional framework that promotes equitable access to goods and services for both men and women. setting: warwick junction market project the warwick precinct is the dominant public transport node within the ethekwini municipality. the vigour of warwick’s trade, its variety in goods and presentation, its unique products, spaces, smells, and sounds combine to generate a vibrant multicultural space with an african heart. the development of the warwick junction as a public space is based on the public space framework. the public spaces of the warwick junction area form part of a wider inner city public open space structure. the warwick precinct supports and facilitates various functions such as the berea station, market areas, bus and taxi ranks, etc. since the majority of the precinct area serves the public, it is viewed and administered as a public space. furthermore, the unique character of the area, the need to upgrade the precinct and the tourism value of warwick necessitates the proper functional and aesthetic design and street scaping within the public key trade areas and intermodal transport facilities. according to ethekwini municipality,26 four types of public space that exist in warwick project are the following: active open space – active recreation and sports facilities such as the greyville racecourse and the sports facilities attached to durban university of technology. passive open space – parks, beach front areas, cemeteries including the botanic gardens, the west street cemetery, the albert park, the old fort, the beach front, the victoria embankment. urban open space – paved hard open spaces such as the city hall square, the warwick junction and so on. the street as a public space – recognising that although streets may primarily be considered as corridors of movement, they accommodate a great variety of activities associated to movement, adjacent development, high visibility and so on and therefore represent probably the most significant public space area. following apartheid plans, warwick junction served as the black africans’ entry point into an all-white african metropolis. the warwick neighbourhood was designed with the goal of discouraging free-flowing mobility, and black informal vendors faced intimidation and relocation. asiye etafuleni (aet) has been at the forefront of improving public space at warwick junction and assisting markets in surviving redevelopment threats. according to huber27 who performed study on warwick junction market, three main strategies are used to protect and improve the livelihoods of informal labourers (many of whom are african black people). these are an inclusive policy, an inclusive urban planning approach and the organisation and involvement of informal communities. an ‘inclusive planning requires considerable appreciation that space matters and involves planning with, rather than for, someone’.27 it must be concerned with how space can provide livelihoods for both men and women and is based on an awareness of the functionality or mode of operation and requirements of the informal sector. in support of huber’s declaration is that ‘traditional tools’ used by architects and planners must be altered to better understand the functioning demands of the informal sector. methods and material the study examined as to how gender mainstreaming was implemented in a public urban space in durban, south africa. the study focused on gender mainstreaming in urban spaces and how it promoted inclusion. the research focused on examining theoretical assumptions behind gender mainstreaming. the thematic discussion was centred on global and national examples of gender mainstreaming, resulting in a discursive examination of gender mainstreaming challenges, legal frameworks, and strategies in each case. the study examined current gender mainstreaming national and international case study literature to identify issues and opportunities for women and girls. the literature identified successful gender mainstreaming implementation in urban spaces around the world and how south africa can bridge the gap and have inclusive cities. qualitative methods were used in the process of data collection. this method was chosen because it is well-known for providing a unique depth of information. through this study approach, interviewees are free to openly discuss their experiences and feelings. as this study adopted a qualitative research design, all interviews took place synchronously using online platforms like zoom conferencing. study respondents were selected purposively. the research study required the investigation of persons engaging in the warwick upgrading and inclusive cities project’s impressions of gender mainstreaming from the general community; consequently, a small sample size was adequate for this research study. among those that were interviewed were warwick project manager, architect, two town planners and one representative from aet (a non-profit making organisation focused on promoting and developing good practice and process around inclusive urban planning and design). findings the solution to creating inclusive urban public spaces that are accessible and safe for all members of the community is good design and community dialogue. in order to promote inclusive cities, this study looked at gender mainstreaming in urban environments. the study was motivated by the need to comprehend the nature of gender mainstreaming, explore its implementation, and devise solutions to improve gender mainstreaming in south african urban settings. literature confirms that while designing urban places, specialists in the built environment must recognise and accommodate the unique requirements and experiences of various demographic groups. women’s experience and understanding of urban spaces varies from that of men, and these disparities must be considered when planning and designing areas. in the framework of the warwick junction urban renewal project, the project’s informal merchants, the majority of whom are women, were involved in the planning and design of the project. using an intersectional gendered perspective, the market area’s conception and design were informed by women’s distinct experiences, needs, and concerns. women’s requests enabled the development of restrooms and storage facilities. to establish gender equal spaces and cities, women must be included in the decisions about urban design. a gender balance is required to develop gender equality and establish inclusive, safe urban places that represent the needs and desires of not only women but the entire community. historical perspective and case studies to women in urban spaces urban spaces were designed incipiently through the contingent arrangement of buildings and homes. women’s freedom has been progressively expanding since the 1950s, yet deeply established gender norms continue to dictate how women and men go about their daily lives within the urban environment.28 the evolution of the idea of gender mainstreaming can be traced to both the first world gender mainstreaming conference in 1975 in mexico and the united nations third world conference on women in nairobi, kenya.29,30 the beijing platform for action (bpfa)31 identified gender mainstreaming as a technique for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment by government and other actors through policies, programmes, and choices that promote gender analysis, equality, and women’s empowerment. gender mainstreaming was created to directly address organisations’ opposition to social change. it was viewed as a technique of correcting the uneven allocation of development resources by requiring development organisations’ personnel to assess the effects of external programmes and projects, internal management structures, and policies for men and women. studies32,33,34,35 alludes that gender equality challenges in metropolitan areas exhibited in several ways impact on women’s involvement and development. this includes gender bias in urban economies, poor infrastructure, violence against women in public spaces, and insufficient representation of women. world bank36 reported that examining gender equality in cities can be traced to the ‘inclusive city’agenda and the sdg 5, which seeks to achieve gender equality and women and girl empowerment. gender mainstreaming in urban planning, is a process-oriented strategy to ensure excellence in planning37 and city system. an example of such city that embraces a female face is vienna in austria and whittlesea in australia. vienna is accorded a top position at the european level concerning both the conceptual depth of its activities towards gender mainstreaming.38 gender mainstreaming is the activity of ensuring equitable treatment of men and women in policy, legislation, and resource allocation across the globe (table 1). table 1: global case studies of women in urban spaces. discussion: warwick project-planning as an instrument conceptualising gender mainstreaming the authors recognise the plurality in the definition of gender mainstreaming. the argument is along the project applicability. in summary, the interviewees recognised that gender mainstreaming entails the collective involvement, participation, and incorporation of gender (most especially women) in developmental planning projects and programmes. iterating this, an interview reported that identifying with the needs of gender groups is crucial to space design. it was alluded that: ‘[…e]nsuring that different genders are targeted within your development, understanding the different needs of each gender group… with the view that …understanding the sensitive nature of women and considering that some women have kids and will need creches or places to leave their kids when they are working… are essential to project designs (warwick area) ….’ (interviewee, project manager, warwick urban renewal project) therefore, the perception is a technique that is aimed at achieving gender equality and to bring women’s experiences and expertise and shape development accordingly. thus, allowing for an equity-conscious planning said an interviewee. recognising the theme of conscious gender planning, the ‘why’ of women involvement in urban design ranges from the safety concerns, space demands and experience, social roles, capacity, and need for city rebranding away from the masculine dominancy. one of the respondents who is an architect responded that ‘… architects have a tendency to look from the outside in rather than asking people, particularly women, what they want…’ the proposition was that women have a wide range of themes, such as caregivers, mothers, sisters, and urbanists. because women perceive and use cities differently, they must actively engage in urban planning design. this perception is embedded in the space safety, sense of comfort, security experience and accessibility. recognising the importance of giving women a voice and incorporating their opinions into urban planning design gets us one step closer to attaining future equality. the advocacy is that professionals must face the urban future with all of humanity’s capabilities, including the contributions and experiences of women. the warwick project: the ideology and basis the warwick junction region is a relatively new occurrence. warwick junction market is a one-of-a-kind location in durban, south africa, with significant economic importance. according to huber,27 the market is an ‘informal commercial and transit center with about half a million customers passing through on a daily basis’. towards ensuring livelihood security of informal traders, the warwick junction market project was based on three key techniques: an inclusive policy, an inclusive urban planning approach, and the organisation and involvement of informal communities. the inclusive thinking of the project is embedded in the quest to reshape the apartheid footprint within the city centre. an interviewee (urban planner) pointed out that the space was subjected to urban renewal due to its configuration of being characterised as unsafe and unsanitary despite its role as a key transportation hub in durban, south africa. buttressing this, huber,27 stated that ‘inclusive planning requires considerable appreciation that spacematters and involves planning with, rather than for, someone’. it must be concerned with how space can provide livelihoods for all and is based on an awareness of the functionality or mode of operation and requirements of the informal sector. aligning to warwick as a ‘livelihood space’, an architect posited that the project goal was to ‘… improve the livelihoods and capacities of informal workers while also making the environment more responsive to its inhabitants…’ this she mentioned was achieved through the ‘… use of inclusive urban design to bring together local, public, and informal organizations to co-create a safe, inclusive, and accessible public space…’. the study interviewee recognised the project was inspired by urban management and design issues that arose because of increased taxi and street trade activity. the project manager recognised an opportunity to include local street vendors in the remodelling process. the initiative planned to take a sector-by-sector approach. this further iterates the argument of the city for all. this was supported by huber,27 who recognised that ‘traditional tools’ used by architects, planners, and built environment practitioners must be altered to better understand and incorporate the functioning demands of the informal sector within the urban space. the capacity to incorporate and integrate informality is embedded in the urban plans and developmental policies to be inclusive. the planners narrated that the project was part of a larger city-wide experiment with integrated area-based development. this means that public resource planning and management would be decentralised to a geographical area, and that the various departments in charge of managing the area would collaborate rather than work in isolation. area-based development also allows citizens to participate in all aspects of development planning. arguing for a ‘city for all’, onyemenam et al.40 posited about the spatial exclusion that characterises urban spaces. the argument went further to present the view that urban socio-spatial segregation remains a major hindrance to both functional urban development and the inclusive vision of cities we need. various studies40,41 argue for urban transformation that promotes community (formal and informal) participation. dobson and quazi,42 pointed out that the initiative was built on two pillars of area-based management and inter-departmental coordination, and a commitment to participation and dialogue. citizens’ participation in the warwick junction project led to somewhat success and transformation of a once congested and filthy area into vibrant, interconnecting markets and an informal retail mall. in 3 years, the initiative transformed warwick from a notorious centre of ‘crime and squalor’ to a thriving area of the inner city. aligning to citizen participation, the project manager mentioned that the need to incorporate informal traders in the renovation, renewal and reconstruction process was targeted at ensuring an inclusive urban area through the incorporation of traders’ multiple spatial desires. it was recognised that the plurality of stakeholders necessitated integrated, area-based development with decentralised administration and planning. the initiative took a sector-by-sector approach, allowing residents from all sectors and stakeholders (such as street traders, tax collectors, landowners, religious groups, formal shops, storage firms, cardboard recyclers) to participate in all elements of development planning. the initiative attempted to establish a more participatory environment that worked with, rather than against, the interests of traders. success factors of the warwick project the study recognises contextual and organisation factor in project deliverable to be essential in the success of the warwick project. contextual considerations include informal labourers at warwick junction who trusted aet to defend their interests. relationships with stakeholders were also mentioned as one of the most important contextual factors. due to aet’s extensive understanding of warwick’s informal merchants, stakeholders were able to get credible information on an otherwise inaccessible section of the community, which eventually led to the acknowledgement of the requirements of informal workers in the development and planning process. the decision to cultivate connections with individual stakeholders rather than institutional ties meant that roadblocks in certain areas could be avoided; for example, barriers imposed by an official in one municipal department may be avoided or overcome by establishing as many positive connections with municipal authorities as possible. when development initiatives endangered portions of warwick junction, strong historical links and affiliation with built environment professionals and other community members or stakeholders bolstered lobbying efforts. organisational factors: team dynamics – the team’s integration in project work and the collaborative character of progress were identified as critical success factors. the plethora of professionals (planners, gender activists, architects, and other built environment professionals) allows for creative team thinking and viewpoints. this allows for the gender mainstreaming process to be done along an organisational culture that supports a rethinking process towards gender conscious planning. cavaghan43 has reported on the role of experts’ opinion and multiple professionalism in gender mainstreaming. it emphasised that robust gender knowledge from policy and programme planning actors often results into collective dynamics and deeper analysis and deconstruction of a gender bias. as a result, gender expert engagement will aid in translating gendered concerns into more equal possibilities appearing in project organisational outputs.44 challenges experienced during the warwick project the view of an interviewee was that the work of advocating for a truly inclusive environment has never been easy. the interviewee noted that it is the joint responsibility of stakeholders to respond to project difficulties in the best way possible in order to achieve long-term success. the aet,45 reported the apartheid planning that separated the different race groups devising the area with a poor design as a key challenge in the project process. dobson and quazi42 stated that the project grappled with environmental (hygiene, sanitation and safety) challenges. to increase safety, the project team used ‘targeted measures’, such as lowering congestion, removing canyons, minimising concealed places, boosting street lighting, enhancing police presence, and investing in community policing. key to this process was advocacy mechanism through the formation of the ‘traders against crime’ volunteer association and the consideration and action on funding or economic sustainability early in the planning process. in this advocacy programme, the city’s health department worked with the street vendors towards healthy city agenda. however, achieving this is limited by the plurality of urban space groups needs and spatial demands. two interviewees had this to say: ‘… when we first learned of some of the traders’ needs, we attempted to plan for them without involving them in the planning and design process. the traders were dissatisfied and petitioned the city …’ (interviewee, male, town planner) ‘… stakeholder relationships were also among the most important. for the project, better communication and gap analysis were required. practitioners worked tirelessly to foster relationships and involve traders in decision-making. we build and maintain bridgeheads in a variety of communities and professions, and we use those bridgeheads to facilitate effective negotiations among the various key stakeholders …’ (interviewee, project manager, urban renewal project) despite the challenges, an interviewee put that the key to achieving sustainable development in the project process is to establish an inclusive process. women involvement in the warwick project: efforts towards implementing gender mainstreaming the authors recognised that women’s involvement was achieved through communicative, collaborative, gender equality and empowerment and bottom-up planning approaches and process. the project manager iterates that communication with all stakeholders about the importance of creating a comfortable and welcoming public space to all, along with an effective communication strategy helped to support and raise awareness of our project’s efforts. the need for the communication was to promote collaboration said an interviewee. it was argued that collaboration and knowledge sharing among stakeholders were critical to the success of our projects. the project practitioners anticipated collaboration within a gender focal point. this was done by planning with a gender focal point to build capacity in mainstreaming gender equality and to ensure that the traders’ skills and knowledge fed into our design plans. studies46,47 mentioned that it is critical to integrate the viewpoints of women and gender minorities in the design of cities and communities because it will allow women to have equal access to the advantages of the city. many people believe that urban design is an important tool for reducing gender inequities in society. this was why one of the interviewees was of the notion that warwick project is a place of opportunities for unemployed and vulnerable women. the argument was the project promoted collaborations with stakeholders, many of whom had their own strategies, processes, and resources for gender equality and mainstreaming. thus, advocating for everyone to think about gender equality and collaborating to find solutions. the achievement of collaborative solution is derived from the development of a shared understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist. as a result, the implementation of gender mainstreaming initiatives was influenced by this information and was based on a deep awareness of the internal capacities of the stakeholders. understanding the internal capabilities can further be maximised by enhancing a bottom-up approach. zachariassen48 emphasised that bottom-up approach in gender mainstreaming is key to a long-term transformative agenda. the study respondent alluded to this when it was said that bottom-up approach which empowered the informal workers with knowledge and skills was key in the space users’ ability to challenge and question the project process and development. asserting this, studies49,50,51 voiced that gender in power and decision-making promotes cooperative action, dialogue, gendered resonances, women empowerment sustainable and flexible decision structure, and collaboration, which nurture shared meaning and norms. towards gender mainstreaming: the concluding argument women’s experience and knowledge of urban spaces are different to men. these differences need to be considered when planning and designing spaces. in the context of the warwick junction urban renewal project, the project’s informal merchants, the majority of whom are women, were involved in the project’s development and design. the evidence of the involvement of women were the measures put in place to accommodate gender equality in the access to urban space. responding, the interviewees stated thus: ‘… the project team designed interconnected trading spaces to ensure that traders can move safely from one space to another. plans and designs are solely for the benefit of the traders … to ensure space safety and ease of mobility, accessibility and usability, ramps and elevators were provided close to the elderly and women traders with children ….’ (interviewee, project manager, urban renewal project) the interviewed town planners stated that: ‘… we were aware that we needed a broader understanding of different market segments to plan and achieve an inclusive public space. our main planning tool was gender sensitive planning, which aided in creating positive experiences for female traders – it was recognized that female traders’ experiences and needs were not homogeneous … we attempted to create an inclusive approach in which traders were included in the strategy formulation process. … we knew that women’s capacity to fully utilize public places was reliant on their access to transportation and their perceptions of safety … we planners considered the readability of the area as well as the safety element, and we planned appropriately ….’ the interviewed gender advocate – asiye etafulweni representative asserted that the project approach was designed to be ‘all-inclusive’. it state that: ‘… we wanted the warwick area to be a location that has been created in such a manner that it covers everyone – the traders agree, as when we met with one of the trade leaders, he stated that the site must be for everyone – the citizens, the visitors, and the traders ….’ this explained that along the intersectional gendered lens, women’s specific experience, needs and concerns informed the development and design of the market area. the facilities (ablution and storage facilities) were constructed for women to be gender conscious. the warwick junction urban renewal project combines adequate and appealing infrastructure with an innovative approach to urban management concerns, presenting a unique paradigm of how inclusion could be included into urban design. the initiative resulted in a sustained and continuing participation of informal merchants in conversations regarding their needs and priorities. to build an inclusive urban area, the warwick project listened to informal merchants and included their demands into the design. evidence from the study emphasised space comfortability and safety to be key to gender mainstreaming. the view is that when creating spaces for women, the need to keep women safe, typically by crime-prevention design methods or by enabling women’s usual patterns of mobility and utilisation of the city is considered important. women’s engagement in public life is contingent on these improvements. it was established that the fear for personal safety prevent women from travelling in public places, and innovations to keep women secure might ‘paradoxically’ make women feel less protected. women form predicted mental images of hazardous areas based on current news; as a result, their perception of safety is dependent on visuals rather than statistical proof or ideas supported by evidence. in summary, the study recognises that to create gender equitable city spaces, women’s voice in decision-making and their involvement in the designing of urban spaces is critical – in order to promote gender equality, balance, and inclusive safe urban spaces that represent the needs and desires of all community genders. however, the authors, through field observation forwards improved space lighting towards achieving gendered ‘safer’ spaces. we also further iterate owing to the limited project success that, professionals in the built environment especially planners who design the use of spaces need to encourage social interaction in their designs. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions k.r. was the project leader responsible for project design, data capture, and co-wrote the manuscript. h.m-c. performed the draft review, provided technical guidance, co-wrote the manuscript, and was involved in the conceptualisation of the study. ethical considerations this study is approved under the humanities and social sciences research ethics committee (hssrec) of the university of kwazulu-natal, south africa, reference number: hssrec/00002456/2021. funding information this research was funded by the south african research chair for inclusive cities (sarchi). data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references larson a, jalakas a. gender equality next! spatial strategic planning from a gender perspective (english). stockholm: sns förlag, 2008; p. 172. kneeshaw s. gender sensitive public space? placemaking and spatial justice through the 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india. albany, ny: state university of new york at albany; 2019. fihaki l, fihaki e. gender mainstreaming in tuvalu [homepage on the internet]. 2020 [cited 2021 oct 11]. available from: https://www.researchbank.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10652/5012/gender_mainstreaming_in_tuvalu_lupeti_eliala_fihaki.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y abstract introduction effectiveness and benefits of narratives for cancer-related messaging challenges of communicating about cancer to the youth theory source credibility model health belief model methodology results and discussion sources and credibility range of emotions new knowledge lessons learnt from first-hand experiential narratives behavioural intentions conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) karabo sitto department of strategic communication, faculty of humanities, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa elizabeth lubinga department of strategic communication, faculty of humanities, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa molemi geya department of primary healthcare services, faculty of registrars portfolio, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa citation sitto k, lubinga e, geya m. the power of narrative health communication: exploring possible effects of first-hand experiential stories on cancer awareness amongst university students. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1008. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1008 original research the power of narrative health communication: exploring possible effects of first-hand experiential stories on cancer awareness amongst university students karabo sitto, elizabeth lubinga, molemi geya received: 06 jan. 2021; accepted: 21 july 2021; published: 27 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract narrative health communication has the potential for effective health promotion about cancer amongst youth from lowand middle-income countries such as south africa. sub-saharan africa experiences a rising cancer-related disease burden with predicted increase of over 85% by 2030. whilst promotion through communication, of cancer prevention strategies targeting 18–29 year olds remains scanty, it is crucial for cancer prevention behaviour before the disease develops. the study aimed at examining how narrative storytelling can create cancer awareness amongst students at the university of johannesburg. a qualitative approach was adopted. during october 2019, an awareness session that formed part of a month-long health campaign involving various activities for students, promoted preventative behaviour leading to early cancer detection. campus health services in collaboration with other university departments invited six cancer survivors and experts to share stories about their various cancer experiences with students and staff. many of the participants aged between 18 and 49 years, indicated that they did not know how to engage in self-examination of their bodies and had never taken any cancer tests. most of the participants expressed a willingness to engage in frequent self-examination and visiting health facilities to receive regular professional tests as a result of storytelling. results may assist health promotion organisations with the construction of effective cancer health messaging especially for hard-to-reach groups such as youth in developing countries. keywords: spoken narratives; cancer awareness; south african university; young south africans; cancer survivors. introduction narratives can serve as important interventions in health-related communication. narratives have the potential to become an effective public health communication strategy for behaviour change.1 narratives have acted as strategies for health communication and have proved to influence health-related matters ranging from human behaviour to policies.2 narrative health communication is defined as a form of persuasive communication in which a health message is presented in the form of a fictional or non-fictional story, as opposed to being presented as statistical evidence or arguments to promote health-related behaviours.3 research has yet to establish the most effective modality, content and format regarding the use of narratives for cancer-related health communication. in terms of content, a meta-analysis of 153 experimental studies on the use of narratives for health communication4 indicates that narratives proved to be more effective when they involved the use of highly emotional content. specifically, regarding narrative content and emotional effects, narrative warnings are capable of generating transportation and identification,5 both of which relate directly to perceived effectiveness through the emotion of sadness. identification involves audiences taking on ‘the protagonist’s goals and plans’, which results into the audience ‘experiencing emotions when these plans go well or badly’.6 transportation theory defines what happens when individuals immerse themselves into a story or get transported into a narrative world where they may show effects of the story on their real-life beliefs.7 narratives involve people’s experiences or transportation of audiences into narrators’ lived-experiences.8 narratives elicit emotional responses in audiences and forge strong and memorable experiences based on the experiences of the main character(s).9 given the threatening nature of cancer, it may be impossible for messages to achieve behavioural change goals without intentionally or unintentionally arousing their audiences’ emotions.10 dillard and nabi10 proposed six emotional reactions that people may have to cancer-related messages as surprise, fear, anger, sadness, happiness and contentment. yet narrative strategies do not operate at one level. in addition to emotional depth, they usually encompass many facets with varying modalities and format, length and complexity of the plot form part of narrative strategies.8 for health-related narratives, healthy behaviour rather than unhealthy behaviour leading to negative consequences could better be associated with effects on intentions to change health-related behaviour.4 these authors posit that the diversity of narrative characteristics and effects that have been found in experimental studies make it imperative for research efforts to continue, to determine which characteristics lead to effects. five types of narrative communication are identified for different communication purposes.11 firstly, official stories can be constructed in order to tell an innocuous version of events or the position of a group. secondly first-hand experiential stories can be told mostly by survivors. thirdly, second-hand stories of others can be retold. fourthly, culturally common stories that are generalised and pervasive in a cultural environment can be told. lastly, invented or fictitious stories can be made up for purposes of identifying influences on targeted audiences.11 this article specifically examines effects of first-hand experiential stories told by cancer survivors and experts amongst university students. the article attempts to examine effects of narrative storytelling by assessing audience emotional responses to each narrator’s story. effectiveness and benefits of narratives for cancer-related messaging sub-saharan africa is experiencing a rising proportion of an overall disease burden attributable to cancer, with the region predicted to have a greater than 85% increase in cancer burden by 2030.12 persuasive health communication could play a positive role in mitigating cancer burden amongst targeted audiences. as a result of under-preparedness on the part of health systems and bodies, particularly in developing and underdeveloped countries, many individuals live with cancer undetected for dangerously long periods of time.13 this predicted cancer burden requires exploration of more effective methods and early communication to enable the reduction of cancer as a cause of death, particularly amongst younger people. there are numerous benefits accruing from using narratives to communicate about cancer, including the reduction of fear and resistance, help with easier processing of new or complex information, building stronger attitudes and behavioural intentions and providing role models for changed behaviour.14 the main role players play a pivotal role in the attitudes of recipients audiences, particularly in terms of how similar or different they are to themselves.9,14 role players may be fictional or non-fictional. conversely, the effectiveness of narratives may be negated through social distance. social distance describes the perceived social difference between the main character and the recipient of the story.15 narratives may create social distance. when a person listens to a story and perceives themselves to be distant from the main character, then the effectiveness of the narrative is diminished.9 the power of using narratives to deliver messages effectively2 generally lies in the fact that they are easy to understand and are memorable to targeted audiences. specifically, in using narratives to communicate cancer,1 two factors are found that make narrative persuasion effective: whether characters live or die and whether they encounter key barriers. first person narratives or testimonials, particularly positively influenced participant, need to search for more knowledge about colon cancer screening and behavioural intentions to go for screening.16 the effect of those first person narratives or testimonials lay in the vividness of the message to the participants. narratives are effective methods of persuasion by demonstrating experience of main characters and behaviour,9 especially for a complex disease such as cancer. narrated stories are powerful, motivating and can make important contributions to empowering both message recipients and main characters.17 challenges of communicating about cancer to the youth amongst youths aged 18–29 years, little attention has been given to cancer prevention strategies, yet it is important to promote cancer prevention behaviour before cancer develops.18 globally, particularly in disadvantaged communities and amongst the youth, large disparities in the occurrence and death from cancers such as cervical cancer remain.14 the most alarming growth in the number of cancer diagnosis globally lies amongst the youth and more especially young women.19 this age group, amongst which university students fall, represents a critical developmental period that can provide a foundation for the formation of mindsets and worldviews that will ultimately shape future health habits and lifestyles.20 early communication is important considering that some of the risk factors for cancer directly relate to prevailing lifestyles such as binge drinking, which amongst adolescents has been widely studied globally.21 spreading the message about cancer especially amongst young people remains a difficult communicative task.13 in many communities, particularly in lowand middle-income countries, young people contend with health knowledge gaps because issues of health are closely guarded as a result of people’s beliefs and norms.22 language is also a challenging barrier, driven by the use of technical terms that are untranslatable for cancer treatments and diagnoses, making it difficult for persons diagnosed to understand and trust.23 cancer communication and messaging requires innovation and reconfiguration to improve early detection and survival rates, particularly amongst young people in developing countries. although more than half of all cancers are not preventable, early screening actions including mammography and bowel cancer screening help to ensure that cancers are diagnosed and addressed in early stages, which can result into better survival outcomes for patients.24 there is a paucity of cancer messaging that specifically targets young people. communication about cancer is often too generic and is likely to present as irrelevant to young and healthy individuals. cancer communication targeted at young people that is overt in its effort to be ‘youthful’ can miss the mark and make intended recipients feel distanced from the message. in using narratives, perceived similarity to the narrators leads to transportation, that is, closeness, makes recipients ‘see’ themselves through the storyteller’s perspective. ‘individuals appear to more readily adopt behaviours demonstrated by models they consider similar to themselves’.14 these similarities may include obvious physical characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity and age.14 amongst students,5 it was found that age similarity, but not gender similarity, had an effect on identification with the protagonist, yet neither seemed to matter for older adults. the purpose of this study was to examine how first-hand experiential narratives person stories could influence cancer awareness amongst a group of university students in south africa. the intention of organising a session by cancer survivors, which involved the narration of their experiences, was to influence the university students’ intention, as recipients of the messages contained in the narratives, to make behavioural changes with respect to their health. the article attempted to establish which narrative source (public figure, peer, celebrity, gender, expert) appealed to the audience the most through the emotions that the audience experienced and to determine audience intentions to engage in cancer prevention behaviour after the awareness session. theory to answer these questions, two theories, the source credibility model (scm) and the health belief model (hbm) were applied. whereas the two models differ, in terms of their origins, they agree in terms of the effectiveness of message sources. it may be argued that scm is one that is implicitly based in rhetoric studies, whereby a communication is intentionally constructed in order to achieve a desired effect. however, the awareness session upon which the article is based, was set up with an intention of influencing audience members to engage in cancer preventative behaviour – specifically self-examination in order to achieve early detection of cancers. this approach makes the scm and the hbm relevant to the study. source credibility model the scm has its roots in marketing, conceptualised by hovland et al.25 the focus of the model is on the effectiveness of the message by evaluating how credible recipients perceive it to be. the original authors observed expertise and trustworthiness as two critical factors affecting persuasion in marketing messages’ influence.25 attractiveness was proposed by ohanian26 as a third factor of credibility, further developing the concepts into a theoretical model. credibility refers to a person’s perception of the truth of a piece of information27 as working definition for this study. source credibility considers the targeted audience of the message, the author of the message and the contents of the message in assessing credibility of communication. this message includes narratives as communicative tools for conveying ideas and persuading audiences. the three key elements of trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness hold the following definitions:27 expertise: the extent to which a communicator is perceived to be a source of valid assertions trustworthiness: the degree of confidence in the communicator’s intent to communicate the assertions he considers most valid attractiveness: the attraction aspects of the communicator that he or she generates, which are consistently liked more and have a positive impact on products with which they are associated. (p. 5) throughout communication history, the power of messaging proves to be stronger and more credible when it comes from sources that people trust directly. the power of word of mouth is unquestionably stronger than any other channel of information dissemination. this holds true even for health communication, where testimonials or narratives of people living in communities hold more weight than any prepared messages from other sources. in an undifferentiated environment, such as cancer communication, testimonials can be used to differentiate messages.28 attractiveness, expertise and especially trustworthiness are important in a testimonial strategy28 because all three factors play a role in the recipient’s perceptions of the message shared. health communication when successful in delivering effective messages can influence behavioural intentions of recipients as an outcome. testimonials are a form of narratives, sharing non-fictional experiences of narrators with audiences. first-hand experiential narratives are testimonials because they are a narration of individuals non-fictional experiences. in many instances, particularly with respect to health communication narratives about cancer, non-fictional experiences are believed to possibly lend more credibility to the stories.14 the factor of attractiveness in the scm is about how drawn recipients are to the message, that is, the perceived similarity to narrators they find similar to themselves.15 the narrator has to consider the relevance of their story to the recipients, as well as packaging how they tell their story, based on their experiences, in this case, with cancer. expertise as a factor is concerned with how knowledgeable the narrator is perceived to be and considers themselves to be about the subject, for example, often perceived as having authority on the subject matter, in the case of cancer either as a healthcare professional, a survivor or a person living with cancer. the trustworthiness factor of the message or story rests on the authenticity of the narrator, their narrated experience and their connection with the recipients of the message. the trustworthiness is concerned with not only the contents of the narrated story, but who is telling it, the context in which they are doing so and how they deliver it. the success of cancer narratives in terms of achieving cognitive, affective and behavioural intention are affected by existing audience health beliefs. the narratives, the narrators and their credibility may be external to recipients’ attitudes and beliefs with respect to health, specifically cancer amongst youth. health belief model the hbm is widely used to evaluate, explain and predict individual health-related behaviours with respect to taking up of health services. in the case of cancer, the main features of the messaging are early detection and lifestyle interventions to lower or prevent diagnosis. the hbm centres on the individual and factors that may affect individuals’ actions in relation to their health. the variables in the model are broadly categorised into three types: (1) modifying factors, (2) individual beliefs and (3) action.29 the modifying factors include demographic variables such as age, gender and social class, as well as psychological characteristics such as personality.30 the individual beliefs include the individual’s perceptions in relation to the disease,31 in this instance, cancer. the action factors are premised on the perceived benefit of taking action, driven by the cues to action, or triggers for an individual to act, which may be internal and/or external.27 the perceptions held by individuals are driven by their beliefs, which are informed by the information they receive, its source and its credibility. the credibility is multidimensional, including credibility of the source and credibility of the message as perceived by the recipient. the more credible a narrative is about health, the more certain the perceptions are of recipients of the health message and ultimately, their actions in relation to interventions for their health. their personal beliefs in relation to health messages include their perceived susceptibility to the disease, perceived severity of the issue, health motivation and their perceptions of the benefits and barriers of taking action.27,29,30,31 with respect to healthcare narratives, the more relevant recipients find the stories, the lower they demonstrate social distancing behaviour13 with respect to the message and/or narrator. the credibility of the message is directly linked to behavioural intentions in the scm,26 which can be compared with the cues of triggers to action in the hbm.31 source credibility predicts public attitudes and determines the effectiveness of the communication on recipients of the message.32 this is because the message recipient is critical in forming attitudes about the message and its sender too.27 the source of the message tells their narrative by sharing/narrating their story with the recipient.28 for the receiver to take action, they need to perceive that there is truth contained in the message28 particularly the narrated testimonial of an individual about their health-related experience, whether personal or professional. methodology research approach this study took a cross-sectional qualitative approach. a descriptive design involved a narration of personal experiences by a panel made up of cancer survivors to a group of approximately 100 university staff and students. a total of 50 students voluntarily participated in the study. in october 2019, the students and staff attended a university library talk about cancer awareness as part of the activities of cancer awareness month run by the university primary health division in collaboration with other departments. all campaign communication and messaging fell under the themes #saveyourlife #protectyourassets with the intention by the campus health division to educate students about early detection and the importance of self-examination. procedure a panel was selected to address university students and staff about cancer awareness activities by a multidisciplinary team at a south african university consisting of health professionals, radiology specialists, academics, leaders of the student representative body and event project managers and executive management. the main drawcard for cancer awareness meeting was the public figure, a prominent south african government minister who is a cancer survivor. the mix of panellists depended on the factors of credibility and social similarities, that is, expertise (through training or experience), trustworthiness (personal experience) and similarity and attractiveness (age, status), which would make the quality of their narratives relevant to the event attendees as recipients. the underlying intention was for the selected speakers to provide narratives, which could be non-threatening, yet give a realistic and relatable perspective of cancer to young people. other considerations in selecting the speakers for the panel were diversity of experiences, age, background, expertise, gender and types of cancer the survivors had been diagnosed with, to enable the likelihood of similarity with the target population. the single all-encompassing criteria for all panel members were that they had to have experienced close encounters in dealing with cancer. panel members were not prompted in terms of how or what stories to tell, enabling relay of unscripted stories. the event was hosted at the main campus library, to allow for ease of travel, access for students to attend the seminar and familiarity of environment. the first speaker was a prominent south african government minister, female, aged over 60 years, who survived breast cancer. the second speaker was a young female in her mid-thirties who had survived breast cancer after being diagnosed at the age of 30. the third speaker was a male radiology technician who had experience with diagnosis amongst cancer patients. the fourth speaker was an experienced male medical doctor, who had consulted with cancer patients in his community engagement work. the fifth speaker was a male upcoming musician aged 25 years who survived multiple bouts of leukaemia between the ages of 19 and 23. the sixth and final speaker was a female activist and social media influencer aged 25, whose non-governmental organisation is involved in creating awareness about cancer and who survived skin cancer. at the cancer awareness session, the first author who chaired the panel, introduced each panellist by name and title and then invited each of them to share their stories about cancer. they each had 10 min to narrate their experience with cancer, as well as offer up some advice. once all the panellists had spoken, the session moved into a question and answer session, where audience members could ask questions directed to the different narrators. qualitative data collection tool at the end of the session, audience members were invited to complete a self-administered reflective questionnaire. qualitative data collection tools such as reflective questionnaires enable customisation to the specifics of a study.33 the reflective questionnaires were handed out at the beginning of the event, to enable attendees to pay attention to participant information in order for them to fill in the correct information for each of the sources. they contained a section for biographical details, followed by six open-ended questions soliciting opinions about the narratives they had heard on the day. the questions assessed perceptions about the most influential narrative, source of the narrative’s credibility, possible knowledge gained and possible action to be taken to change behaviour. ethical considerations the reflective questionnaire provided for informed consent in which participants were provided with the details of the session. anonymity was ensured by marking each questionnaire with a number prior to the event and requesting the participants not to sign their names. voluntary participation was ensured by informing attendees that by choosing to fill in the reflective questionnaire, they consented to participation. some of the attendees chose not to participate. even though more than 100 people attended the session, only 50 forms were completed, translating into a response rate of close to 50%. the university registrar of students and the faculty of humanities ethics committee (ethical clearance number: rec-01-116-2019), gave permission to the authors to conduct the study. analysis the questionnaires were collected immediately after the event and the responses were captured using a google form. the responses were coded and then analysed thematically. results reflected perceptions regarding narratives, which proved to be the most credible, reasons for credibility and potential trigger for participants to take action towards changing personal behaviour regarding individual health. results and discussion the purpose of the study was to examine how first-hand experiential narratives created cancer awareness amongst university students. thematic analysis was conducted to find out what the most emergent themes were, in terms of selection of the most credible sources and why, lessons learnt from the cancer awareness talk and behavioural intentions. descriptives amongst the 50 attendees who participated in the study, 30 were male and 20 were female. the participants were aged between 18 and 49 years, with the majority aged between 21 and 25 years old. four participants, two each were aged 18 and 19 years. amongst the participants in the 20s, which cover the most common ages amongst university students, there were no participants aged between 26 and 27, with only three aged 20. there was only one participant each for ages 28, 32, 34, 36 and 49 (see figure 1). figure 1: study participants by age (n = 50). age is an important aspect of this study, which intended to examine how narratives would relate to cancer awareness amongst young south africans. sources and credibility in terms of the sources and perceptions of credibility in line with the scm, a variety of themes emerged. source credibility and perceived similarity the source that appeared to have been considered most credible and whom most of the participants choose was the male budding musician aged 25, who had survived cancer between the ages of 19 and 23 years. most participants could identify with the source leading to perceived similarity. a number of participants (n = 20) specifically selected the peer source and his narrative because the experience happened to the speaker at a young age and that they could relate to a young person who went through the experience. ‘the age at which he was diagnosed and how easy it is for us to ignore things because we think they’ll go away.’ (participant 4, female, aged 25) ‘… because he was diagnosed at 19…touched me because i realised it could happen to me ….’ (participant 10, female, aged 23) ‘that he was diagnosed at a very young age, this shows how anyone at any age is vulnerable to getting cancer and that we should take it very seriously.’ (participant 14, male, aged 21) ‘neo’s story because he was young when he was diagnosed, which is a reality slap that even young people can get cancer.’ (participant 18, female, aged 21) ‘it goes to show us that cancer can affect anyone (healthy or sick) at any age and when it is left unattended because of ignorance or in denial it can have severe consequences that would end up being long term.’ (participant 20, male, aged 24). ‘he was young at the time of his diagnosis, which proves that cancer is not an issue of age. it affects everyone.’ (participant 22, male, aged 21) ‘it is about a young man who was diagnosed with cancer at a very young age.’ (participant 26, male, aged 20). ‘i’m also around that age and it could happen to me.’ (participant 30, male, aged 22). ‘i really felt touched by the fact that he had cancer 3 times whilst he was very young.’ (participant 25, female, aged 19) ‘the fact that he was diagnosed [sic] with cancer at the same age.’ (participant 34, male, aged 18). one of the participants found the same source credible, but from a slightly different angle. the participant felt that she could identify with the source not only because he was diagnosed at a young age but also because the type of cancer was similar to the one that her father suffered: ‘his cancer was similar to the one my father was diagnosed with. i was touched by the fact the he was diagnosed at a very young age, and he managed to conquer the cancer.’ (participant 40, female, aged 22) these findings are in line with the existing literature about the effectiveness of perceived similarity in ensuring credibility of stories, with the more credible narratives relying on attractiveness based on the way the stories are told and personal experiences.13 in this case, given that the majority of participants were aged between 21 and 25 years old, they could identify with the narrator who falls within the same age, but underwent the experience at a younger age. the fact that they could have been in the same position by virtue of their age, lends credence to that particular narrative. it is noteworthy that only one of the participants in the 30s+ years age group selected the narrative by the peer source and it was on the basis of not having identified the illness as cancer rather than based on the fact that he was young. furthermore, the narrative evoked emotions of sympathy amongst participants who by comparison (to themselves) considered the ‘tender’ age (younger than themselves) at which the peer source experienced cancer. it was also memorable to the participants, that the narrator together with his parent in the know about his illness, took painkillers for a year out of ignorance, unbeknown to both that he was faced with a more severe disease. range of emotions a range of emotions emerged from the responses representing what appealed to the participants about the testimonials. the emotions ranged from sympathy to fear and admiration. sadness apart from the peer source selected as number one, the second source was the public figure, who is also a government minister. from the responses, the participants appeared to be affected by her narrative whereby she had to go through multiple experiences of losing a child, being diagnosed with and undergoing cancer treatment, whilst having to attend to her duties simultaneously. the emotion of sadness represents loss and tends to lead to failure to meet goals.9 participants said: ‘regardless of an occupation/title/status, it is actually true that cancer is out there and it is really devastating.’ (participant 1, male, aged 24) ‘lost kid whilst being diagnosed.’ (participant 6, male, aged 25) ‘i had someone who was also diagnosed (sic) with breast cancer before and i do understand the basic pain that she went through.’ (participant 17, male, aged 25) ‘… panellist went through cancer after she lost her child, had a lot to deal with.’ (participant 32, male, aged 23) ‘the fact that she had just lost a child, and sadly as a leader she must have been through an emotional trauma.’ (participant 35, female, aged 25) ‘the pressure of paying attention to the state matters/problems and dealing with cancer treatment after one of the members of her family….’ (participant 42, male, aged 23) the source who was placed third in terms of selection and seems to have garnered sadness combined with contentment from the participants was the 30-year-old female who had undergone a double mastectomy. contentment creates satisfaction that aspirations have been met.10 for this source, participants seemed to sympathise with her from the detail of her narrative and the experience that she went through: ‘the detail and the experience she went through.’ (participant 13, female, aged 23) ‘the process of dealing with it both emotionally and financially straining.’ (participant 23, male, aged 23) ‘… cancer survivor who had a bilateral [sic] mastectomy, she spoke about support, we take for granted other peoples feeling and she opened my mind to the fact that we need to be more compassionate and supportive to our friends/family who are going through this journey.’ (participant 37, female, aged 19). for yet another source, contentment arose out of one participant being able to identify with the contextual circumstances: ‘she grew up fatherless, like i did. i know what it’s like to go through a traumatic experience and not have your other parent there.’ (participant 48, male, aged 23) contentment some participants selected all or two of the survivors concurrently, based on perceptions of courage and bravery arising out of their experiences. dillard and nabi10 broke down the emotion of contentment into a cognitive antecedent of satisfaction that aspirations have been met: ‘they both didn’t understand what was happening, which always happens and even after they found out they stood and continued even @ their young age.’ (participant 3, female, aged 22) ‘the courage and bravery of the survivor, not giving up and surviving the terrible cancer.’ (participant 33, female, aged 21) ‘she is a motivator, she embraces the traumatic experience, she combines [sic] to teach about cancer.’ (participant 39, male, aged 21) ‘the conquerus [sic] experience. the lived experiences of the cancer survivor on treatment.’ (participant 41, male, aged 25) ‘that after the chemotherapy and its side effects, a person can actually regain their strength even though some effects can still remain with them in the long run.’ (participant 44, female, aged 23) fear some of the information offered in the narratives created fear amongst the participants, partly because of lack of prior knowledge, but also novelty and perceived susceptibility: ‘auto penisectomy [sic]: it scared me. the fact that the patient had to wait till it happened and only consulted after.’ (participant 11, male, aged 36) in line with the existing literature, the aspects that participants mentioned as having affected them most, involved strong emotions as shown here, emphasising that highly emotional narratives are effective.4,10 it is important to note that whereas the given studies involved constructed stories and took a quasi-experimental approach, the results were similar to this study in which participants spontaneously related their experiences without being scripted. three strong emotions arose out of the narratives, that is, sadness, contentment and fear. what is worth noting is that even though some participants singled out particular narrators, there were others who pointed out multiple narratives because of admiration of the speakers undergoing difficult experiences, yet emerging as strong people who could tell their stories. the narratives provided a human angle and a positive outcome to a dreaded disease, from stories that participants could relate to. from what some participants stated, the stories of victory illustrated to them that if detected early, cancer can be beaten. the narrative by the radiology expert not only created fear but also shocked participants into the knowledge that if cancer is left unattended, fearful consequences could arise. for those participants who identified it as most effective, they also said that they were willing ‘to perform regular checks and to consult as early as possible to ensure early detection’. new knowledge to another group of participants, the vividness of the narratives lay in new knowledge acquired and what was perceived to be dramatic. one of the experts in radiology diagnostics narrated how some patients waited for too long to consult about cancer-related problems until they developed devastating side effects. the dramatic ‘the guy whose penis was cut / because of cancer, i did not know it was possible for someone to get cancer of the penis or….’ (participant 7, male, aged 25) ‘side effects of chemotherapy. that radiation literally burn off your skin and it falls of, penis and also undergo surgery to cut off both breast. something i had no idea on [sic].’ (participant 28, female, aged 20) ‘story … about a man who had autopenectomy. what touched me was that the patient waited for a long time before he actually went to see a doctor.’ (participant 49, male, aged 24) novelty to other participants, it was the novelty of acquiring knowledge about which they had no prior exposure, which made some sources credible: ‘… she mentioned that there are different types of cancers. 1 in 4 people are diagnosed with cancer.’ (participant 38, female, aged 22) ‘all the stories. the breast lump, breast health. the stem cell cancer – the 1st time i heard about it.’ (participant 24, female, aged 49) narratives were also memorable in terms of providing hitherto unknown information to the participants. this finding contributes to the argument about whether narratives are effective because of their cognitive value or are a result of relation to experiences.9 from this finding, it is a combination of both factors. the fact that the participants could relate to the experiences of the narrators also made the new information provided through the personal narratives of these authors more vivid. this is in spite of the fact that cancer-related information is commonly available in the media and at health facilities yet young people often ignore it. lessons learnt from first-hand experiential narratives participants mentioned that they learnt the importance of knowing their bodies (n = 14) and as part of that, a deep knowledge of personal well-being. some participants stated that it was important to go for health checks (n = 11), whilst others said that it was important to prioritise health (n = 8), part of which involved engaging in a healthy lifestyle. participants underscored the need to take care of themselves (n = 5) whilst others said that they learnt how to engage in self-examination or to engage in regular self-examination (n = 5). each of the participants acknowledged the need to go for early treatment, to talk to survivors and mentioned that support from important others is important. participant information about the lessons learnt from the narratives provides some pointers about the effects of this message format. perhaps to a youthful audience, information about cancer is better disseminated through narratives. narratives may be effective because when audiences listen to stories about people’s experiences, they can relate to them making the information tangible and accessible rather than often-existing perceptions that such information is abstract, made up of scientific jargon. pre-existing perceptions are evidenced from responses by some of the participants who did not know that children or black people can get cancer too or the fact that men can get breast cancer. behavioural intentions following the cancer awareness session, participants stated intentions to engage in a variety of preventative activities. the preventative activities proposed by the participants mainly fell into four categories, although some of them mentioned more than one activity. self-examination most of the participants (n = 20) mentioned that they would be engaging in regular self-examination of their bodies in a bid to try and detect any unusual aspects that they were not aware of. part of the process of self-examination, they said, would be to acquire intimate knowledge of their bodies in order to know what is normal for them. some of them mentioned that they are now more aware of how to examine themselves and they know what to search for, for example, unusual lumps in breasts. they also mentioned that they would engage in regular self-examination, some stating that they would specifically examine their breasts or testicles ‘every morning, every day in the shower, every month’. screening at health facilities other participants (n = 13) said that they intended to visit health facilities to get examined and tested by professionals. some stated that they would not test for cancer alone, but for health issues in general. a few mentioned that the reason why they would visit health facilities would be to ensure that if they have cancer, it would be detected early. others were of the view that rather than just engaging in testing at health facilities, they would do regular self-examination first, then go to health facilities if they felt anything unusual on their bodies. of note was a sole participant who mentioned that they will go to the university health centre for a check-up. healthy lifestyle a few participants (n = 7) observed that they would make lifestyle changes to prevent cancer. they mentioned specific measures that they will undertake such as intentions to ‘exercise more, decrease alcohol consumption, try to eat health or for others healthier food’. in terms of their lifestyle changes, some said that they would start ‘taking care of themselves, not take health-related things lightly, don’t take pains, lumps etc. for granted, be careful of minor pains in their bodies’. cancer activism an unforeseen, yet emergent behaviour change intention by a few of the participants (n = 5) was their involvement in informing others about cancer. three of the four participants mentioned that they would: [e]ncourage society and others to take care of themselves, inform peers and family members about early detection of cancer, volunteer in cancer non-governmental organisations, ensure early detection and diagnosis of cancer for close members of family. one of the participants said they would start offering support to patients. the behavioural intentions mentioned by the participants are reflective of the narratives told by the various panellists. in their stories, most of the panellists narrated how they felt ill yet had not attributed the illnesses to cancer. one of the survivors said that he felt ill, but because he was young, he informed his parent who gave him painkillers for a whole year. he survived on painkillers before he went to a health facility for a check-up, where he was diagnosed with cancer. other survivors said that they found lumps in their breasts through self-examination, whilst the radiology expert mentioned that apart from women examining their breasts, it was important for men to examine their testicles frequently. the unforeseen behavioural intention about engaging in cancer activism was a response towards one of the survivors who is a cancer activist. she narrated how after she went into remission, she became part of an organisation, which travels all over the country, raising funds to assist cancer patients. conclusion this article attempted to explore possible effects of first-hand experiential stories of cancer survivors and experts examined, new knowledge accruing from stories and cancer prevention behavioural intentions through the emotions that they provoked. the effects of the narratives mostly lay in the emotions that were provoked amongst the participants, which are in line with literature.4,9 some responses by participants show that they were transported into the experiences of the speakers, thus making the narratives more memorable to them4 buoyed by the fact that the speakers live to tell their stories.1 reactions by students detailing the behavioural changes that they intend to make show that they did not merely listen to the narratives, but that they adapted them with the intention of making necessary changes to their lives. however, behavioural intentions, as researchers mention, do not always translate into actual behaviour because of intention–behaviour gaps.34 yet the formation of implementation intentions is crucial to promoting goal achievement. thus, although people may have strong intentions to achieve a goal, some may succeed whilst others fail. of importance is that theories such as the hbm bridge the gap through attempts to explain why some people succeed and others fail to act on health-related behaviour intentions. the panel session could be considered to have been successful, because participants gained awareness about different aspects of cancer and also expressed a willingness to engage in specific individual measures towards cancer prevention. the scm calls audience members to action. results indicate that in line with the scm the theme of the event, was to motivate students to ensure early detection by engaging in frequent self-examination and visiting health facilities to receive professional tests. from the responses, some participants indicated that they would engage in frequent self-examination or go to the university clinic for professional examination. the session provided knowledge about cancer that most students were unaware of, such as the fact that there are different types of cancer and how to examine themselves. the session debunked myths amongst young south african university students, such as the fact that cancer is not contagious or transmissible and provided necessary factual information about risk factors that the students did not know, yet which are important in terms of awareness. in addition, some of the responses by the participants regarding behavioural intentions were related to the life experiences narrated by the cancer survivors and experts. there is a paucity of cancer prevention messaging targeting young people such as university students in south africa. whilst cancer prevention information is available at health facilities, there are no deliberate cancer-related health communication campaigns that engage young people. this study shows that even in developing contexts, narrative storytelling can yield positive effects on behavioural intentions. based on narrators’ experiences, young people expressed a willingness to engage in self-examination. a limitation of the study was that there were few participants, yet positively, a qualitative approach allowed for the participants to express their individual perceptions. future studies could utilise quantitative, experimental studies to ascertain cause–effect relationships between narratives and specific behavioural intentions. such relationships cannot be assumed outside of a quantitative research design. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this research article. authors’ contributions k.s., e.l. and m.g. all contributed equally to this research article. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data are available from the corresponding author, e.l., upon request and dependent on permission from institution. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this 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ugwu a. perceived source credibility and public perception of information on herdsmen/farmers conflict in nigeria. int j interdiscip stud commun. 2018;23(2):1–11. billups fd. qualitative data collection tools: design, development, and applications [homepage on the internet]. reflective practice tools, chapter 9. los angeles, ca: sage; 2020 [cited 2021 jan 05]. available from: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=jqe-dwaaqbaj&hl=en&pg gollwitzer pm. goal achievement: the role of intentions. eur rev soc psychol. 1993;4(1):141–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779343000059 july 2008 inside book colour .p65 181 black workers, typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river – saldanha military water pipeline, 1942 – 1943 ge visser and fl monama∗ abstract war creates a huge need for labour to support the war efforts of the belligerent parties. in south africa tens of thousands of ‘non-white’ workers were mobilised during the second world war to satisfy the union defence force’s (udf’s) labour needs at home and abroad. this article, firstly, outlines the role of ‘non-white people’, particularly black africans, in the udf with special reference to those employed within the union of south africa. secondly, it briefly delineates typhoid fever as an historical thorn in the flesh of military forces up to the early 20th century. it then looks briefly into the incidence of and perceptions on typhoid fever as a killer disease in south africa on the eve of the second world war. against that background, the article investigates the employment of black workers on the construction of the berg river-saldanha bay military water pipeline and the udf’s response to the threat and subsequent outbreak of typhoid fever amongst the workers at the berg river intake site in 1943. the article concludes that the public health authorities and udf were aware of the threat of typhoid fever with regard to the berg river water scheme, but did not take sufficient precautionary measures, which could have had serious repercussions for the allied war effort. this incident should serve as a warning to the south african national defence force when deploying on peace support operations on the african continent where typhoid fever remains a serious threat next to hiv/aids. keywords: water, history, military, saldanha, berg river, typhoid fever, pipeline, second world war, black workers, union defence force. disciplines: military history, medical history, social history * lieutenant colonel ge (deon) visser is an associate professor of military history at the faculty of military science, stellenbosch university (south african military academy). mr fl (fankie) monama is a lecturer in military history at the same institution. the authors are indebted to dr indira govender of sas saldanha sickbay for her comments. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 181-208. 182 introduction war creates a huge need for labour to support the war efforts of the belligerent parties, both in the various theatres of war and at the home front, be it to erect fortifications, transport military equipment and supplies, manufacture war materials or creating infrastructure. in south africa tens of thousands of blacks, so-called coloureds and asians (indian-malay) were mobilised in and out of uniform during the second world war (1939-1945) to satisfy the union defence force’s (udf’s) labour needs. the aim of this article is to determine the causes, course, and consequences of the outbreak of typhoid fever amongst the udf’s black workers at the berg river pump station in 1943 against the backdrop of the historical threat of that disease to the military, as well as the working conditions of the udf’s black workers during the second world war. the article, firstly, outlines the role and circumstances of ‘non-white’ people, particularly black africans, in the udf with special reference to those employed within the union of south africa as civilian workers. secondly, it briefly looks into the incidence of and perceptions on typhoid fever as a killer disease in south africa on the eve of the second world war and the way in which the udf dealt with the threat of the disease amongst its black workers. against that background, the article investigates the employment of black workers on the construction of the berg river-saldanha bay military water pipeline and evaluates the udf’s response to the threat and subsequent outbreak of typhoid fever amongst its black workers at the berg river intake site in may 1943. in conclusion, the article seeks to indicate the relevance of the berg river incident to the south african national defence force (sandf) when deploying on peace support missions on the african continent. the role of black south african workers in world war ii the south african defence act of 1912 had entrenched racial discrimination in the military as it stipulated that the liability to render military service in peace and war ‘shall not be enforced against persons not of european descent unless and until parliament shall by resolution determine the extent to which and conditions under which any such liability shall be enforced against such persons.1 it stipulated further, however, that nothing would prevent ‘the voluntary engagement at any time of such persons for service in any portion of the defence forces in such capacities and under such conditions as are prescribed’.2 in practice, this meant that blacks, so-called 1 union of south africa, south africa defence act. 2 ibid. visser , monama 183 coloureds and asians (indian-malay) were destined for inferior roles, being allowed to sign up for tedious supportive and unskilled roles only, both in uniform and as civilians. thousands of these people of colour served as construction and other workers, guards, drivers, stretcher-bearers, cooks, orderlies, clerks and similar, non-combatant roles during the second world war.3 three ‘non-european’ military units, namely the native military corps, the cape corps (comprising of so-called ‘coloureds’) and the indianmalay corps were raised in the union during the second world war through the agency of the native affairs department and the directorate non-european army services.4 the mobilisation and recruitment of ‘non-europeans’, particularly blacks, was riddled with controversies premised on paternalistic and racial prejudice which drove policy decisions in the country. firstly, the question of blacks taking part in a ‘white men’s war’ and secondly, the issue of them carrying ‘precision arms’ produced negative reactions from the majority of whites.5 the military authorities, taking cognisance of the practicalities of the war, knew that it made sense to recruit from the black population because whites were in a minority and inevitably their military expertise would be immediately needed in combat zones at the frontlines. and, a significant part of the white population, particularly the afrikaans-speaking section, refused to participate in the war. however, the political implications of even arming blacks were too great; hence the ‘compromise’ of recruiting blacks to serve mostly in inferior roles as labourers, and not as combat soldiers. south african prime minister, general j.c. smuts, made the position of blacks that actually served in uniform clear in 1940 when he stated that in order to forestall misrepresentation and prevent possible misunderstanding, it is to be clearly understood that natives will not … be equipped with arms of precision.6 another factor related to the recruitment of blacks was the question of the adequacy of the available labour pool. the 1936 census put the black male population of the union between the ages of 18 and 45 at 1 539 758, which, according to grundlingh, had risen to about 3 i. gleeson, the unknown force: black, indian and coloured soldiers through two world wars (ashanti, rivonia, 1994), p ix. 4 see l.w.f. grundlingh, the participation of the south african blacks in the second world war (d. litt. et phil. thesis, rau, 1986), and i gleeson, the unknown force. 5 l.w.f. grundlingh, the participation of south african blacks in the second world war, pp 18-20. 6 as quoted in grundlingh, the participation of south african blacks in the second world war, p 23. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 184 1 600 000 at the outbreak of the second world war.7 agriculture and industry employed about 1 000 000 men, leaving some 600 000 that could be mobilised for military service.8 it was, furthermore, estimated that about 4 000 5 000 male urban blacks in johannesburg alone were unemployed and many others who were reluctant to be employed in mine or on farms, could be available for recruitment. although the objective number of blacks to be recruited vacillated with changing fortunes of the allied forces, approximately 80 000 ultimately served during the war in uniform or as civilian workers. the majority of these men came from rural south africa, contrary to the “interests” of the authorities who preferred urban blacks because of their experiences in skilled employment such as construction, industries and mines, as well as some degree of literacy. hence the first recruiting initiatives targeted township beer halls, eating halls, cinemas, clubs, schools, trams, buses and trains.9 however, after the fall of tobruk in june 1942, recruitment procedures were reorganised to draw more people from the rural areas where the local chiefs were used as agents.10 most of the black men who found employment as civilian labourers in the udf, like their compatriots in uniform, were compelled by lack of job opportunities in the urban areas and poor economic conditions in the rural areas resulting from droughts and other natural disasters such as ‘army worms’. poor health amongst some of these men could be ascribed to structural factors such as poor socio-economic conditions and lack of access to adequate health care facilities. compounding this problem was the conditions under which blacks lived and worked in the udf.11 the service conditions of black workers in the udf, as in other employment sectors in the union, were poor. compared to white people, their wages were extremely low, while their food and accommodation was of poor quality. blacks were fed on dry bread at times, and due to the lack of appropriate cooking facilities and messes 7 l.w.f.grundlingh, the participation of south african blacks in the second world war, pp 23, 54. 8 ibid. 9 south african national defence force archives (hereafter sandfa), nmc 5, nas3/ 4/20/1, ‘native military corps recruiting: progress report for period 10/1/43 to 23/1/43. 10 ibid. 11 l.w.f. grundlingh, the participation of south african blacks in the second world war, p 138; m. roth, “if you give us rights we will fight”: black involvement in the second world war, south african historical journal (no. 15), november 1983, pp 85-104. this article highlights some of the laborious non-military tasks such as mining salt, carting maize and extracting rubber, which were performed by the native military corps in adverse conditions inside the union and they were also exposed to diseases such as malaria. visser , monama 185 as opposed to whites, they were sometimes forced to cook and eat out in the open.12 the accommodation comprised in most cases of mining compounds, bungalows and tents.13 grundlingh paints a dreadful picture of the abysmal conditions for blacks in various military camps. at the congella camp, for example, open timber sheds were closed with corrugated iron with no doors, windows or floors.14 the tents for blacks were poorly sited as they were either flooded during rainy seasons or too dusty in dry periods, resulting in extreme health hazards. the whites, on the other hand, had weatherproof tents. the black camps were also overcrowded, while in some cases servicemen slept on concrete floors; the roofs were leaking; ablution and sanitary facilities were in a poor state, sometimes with no running water.15 hence, under these circumstances, hygiene was massively perilous, creating favourable conditions for a plethora of diseases, including typhoid fever. typhoid fever: the ‘poor man’s burden’ and the soldier’s deadly companion enteric fever, specifically typhoid fever, the ‘typical form of enteric fever’,16 has historically been a great destroyer of human life and it is estimated that even today, despite huge advances in health care globally, up to 22 million people contract the disease worldwide every year, of whom about 200 000 die. typhoid fever is defined as an ‘acute infectious disease caused by a specific serotype of the bacterium salmonella typhi.17 this bacterium lives in humans only and enters the body through the mouth by the intake of contaminated food or water. it penetrates the intestinal wall and multiplies in lymphoid tissue, entering into the bloodstream within 24 to 72 hours after infection, causing septicaemia (blood poisoning) and systemic infection. the early symptoms of typhoid are headache, malaise, generalized aching, fever and restlessness, which appear after an incubation period of ten to fourteen days. patients may also experience a loss of appetite, nosebleeding, coughing and diarrhoea or constipation. they develop a persistent, gradually rising fever peaking at about 40°c and after about two weeks of fever, serious complications such as internal bleeding, acute inflammation of the 12 l.w.f. grundlingh, the participation of south african blacks in the second world war, p 138. 13 ibid, p 139. 14 ibid. 15 ibid. 16 p. kumar and m. clark, clinical medicine, 5th ed (wb saunders, edinburgh, etc, 2002), p 88. 17 encyclopædia britannica, “typhoid fever”, encyclopaedia britannica 2008 ultimate reference suite (encyclopædia britannica, chicago, 2009). typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 186 gallbladder, heart failure, pneumonia, osteomyelitis, encephalitis, and meningitis may develop. continued high fever may also lead to mental confusion and delirium. the fever normally starts declining, in favourable cases, by about the fourth week, whereupon the symptoms begin to abate. without treatment, the sickness thus lasts for three to four weeks and between 12 and 30 per cent of those infected will die, while about 10 per cent of the survivors will have relapses. infected people carry the bacteria in their bloodstream and intestinal tract. about 5-10 per cent of people who recover from typhoid fever, called carriers, continue to shed salmonella typhi in their faeces for several months and 1-4 per cent continue to carry the organism for more than a year. antimicrobial treatment shortens the duration of the illness and reduces fatalities.18 most epidemical outbreaks of typhoid are normally the result of the public water supply or drinking water being polluted by human excreta. this killer disease therefore affects mostly vulnerable groups of overcrowded, poverty-stricken communities, especially in the developing world, because outbreaks are facilitated by poor socioeconomic conditions where hygiene is generally low, handwashing is infrequent and ineffective sanitation systems often result in the contamination of drinking water with raw sewage.19 an outbreak can of course also result from food and milk being contaminated by a carrier of the disease who is involved the in handling and processing such commodities. second to human contact in spreading typhoid, are house flies in a situation where there is ‘an abundance of flybreeding material’ and the flies have access to typhoid-infected human faeces.20 other possible causes are contaminated dust, fresh vegetables grown on soil fertilized or polluted by raw sewage and the use of polluted water for cleaning purposes.21 outbreaks of typhoid fever are consequently best prevented through proper sewage 18 p. kumar and m. clark, clinical medicine, 5th ed (wb saunders, edinburgh, etc, 2002), p 88; encyclopædia britannica, “typhoid fever”, encyclopaedia britannica 2008 ultimate reference suite (encyclopædia britannica, chicago, 2009); http:// www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/typhoidfever_g.htm, accessed 6 july 2007; http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/typhoidfever_t.htm, accessed 6 july 2007; http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbookch4typhoid.aspx, accessed 6 july 2007. 19 http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/typhoidfever_g.htm, accessed 6 july 2007; http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/typhoidfever_t.htm, accessed 6 july 2007; http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbookch4typhoid.aspx, accessed 6 july 2007; p. kumar and m. clark, clinical medicine, p 88. 20 see v.j. cirillo, “ ‘winged sponges’: houseflies as carriers of typhoid fever in 19thand early 20th-century military camps”, perspectives in biology and medicine 49 (1), winter 2006, pp 52 63. 21 encyclopædia britannica, “typhoid fever”, encyclopaedia britannica 2008 ultimate reference suite (encyclopædia britannica, chicago, 2009). visser , monama 187 treatment, filtration and chlorination of water and the exclusion of carriers from employment in the food industry and restaurants. prophylactic vaccination was introduced in the early 20th century, but none of the available vaccines is completely effective.22 typhoid fever was one of the 19th century’s deadliest diseases, especially in densely populated urban areas. as a killer disease, it was in a sense comparable to the situation with regard to hiv/aids today, if not in terms of incidence, then at least in terms of the fear factor regarding public health.23 although it declined with the improvement of urban sanitation systems, it remained a considerable public health threat.24 war always produce ‘high risk situations25 which accelerates ‘spatial transmission and rate of [epidemic disease] propagation’26 because of the prevalence of mixing of various groups from different backgrounds. the huge concentration of people and the frequent absence of adequate sanitation and water purification measures in the field during military campaigns made armies also particularly vulnerable to typhoid fever. it is thus no great surprise that when prophylactic vaccination against typhoid fever was first introduced at the beginning of the 20th century, it was primarily in military forces and institutions.27 disease had, as gabriel and metz put it, ever since the dawn of warfare… carried off more soldiers than enemy weapons… [and] more combat power was lost to armies by temporary disablement due to illness than to any other cause.28 john keegan observes that in earlier times the threat of epidemic disease accompanied armies wherever they moved, and the outbreak of disease – cholera, dysentery, typhoid, plague – remained the greatest killer of soldiers until the very recent past. armies acted also as principal disease carriers, and their pestilence was one of the reasons why settled peoples so often fled their homes when an army passed by or, more menacingly, pitched camp. armies that campaigned across disease 22 ibid. 23 j.w. leavitt, typhoid mary: captive to the public’s health (beacon press, boston, 1996), pp 2, 4, 21. 24 j.w. leavitt, typhoid mary: captive to the public’s health (beacon press, boston, 1996), pp 9, 21. 25 s. marks, “an epidemic waiting to happen? the spread of hiv/aids in south africa in social and historical perspective, african studies, 62 (1), 2002, pp 1415, 17. 26 m. smallman-raynor and a.d. cliff, “the spatial dynamics of epidemic diseases in war and peace: cuba and the insurrection against spain, 1895-98”, transactions of the institute of british geographers 24 (3), pp 331-352. 27 encyclopædia britannica, “typhoid fever”. 28 r.a. gabriel and k.s. metz, a history of military medicine ii: from the renaissance through modern times (greenwood press, new york, etc, 1992), p 66. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 188 barriers… exposed themselves to sicknesses against which they had acquired no immunity; they might equally carry with them the agents of disease that would destroy a local population without firing a shot in anger.29 typhoid fever, dubbed by cirillo ‘the scourge of 19thand 20th-century armies’30 always took a heavy toll on military campaigns. besides human contact, flies contributed greatly to this state of affairs. horses played a critical role in the armies of the day and the ever-present piles of horse manure in military camps provided excellent flybreeding sites, while pit latrines afforded the flies a rich source of typhoid-infected human faeces.31 sir william osler, regius professor of medicine at oxford university, stated in july 1916: (t)yphoid fever… in nearly every great war had been an enemy as formidable as the bullet… it was above all other diseases the most fatal…an insidious enemy which… sapped the strength of the opposing forces… over and over again it killed thousands of soldiers before they ever reached the firing line, while the deaths at the front were appalling.32 osler substantiated his claim with statistics from a few well-known wars from the late-nineteenth to the early-twentieth century. he pointed out that during the american civil war (1861 – 1865), statistically ‘the most life-threatening war ever fought’33 and in which three of every five union deaths (and two of every three confederate deaths) resulted from disease,34 the union army alone suffered 79 455 cases of typhoid, of whom 29 336 died. subsequent research revealed even more staggering figures. cirillo claims that the union army, out of mean strength of 1,5 million men, suffered 136 862 cases of typhoid of whom 34 696 (25,3 per cent) died.35 in the franco prussian war (1870 1871) some 8 000 prussian soldiers died of typhoid fever, representing 60 per cent of all their war deaths. during the spanish-american war (1898) 20 738 out of 107 073 american soldiers, almost 20%, contracted typhoid, of whom 1 380 died – all within six months (june – november). in the second anglo-boer war (1899 1902) the british, who deployed close to 500 000 troops in 29 j. keegan “foreword” in r.a. gabriel and k.s. metz, a history of military medicine ii, pp xi-xii. 30 v.j. cirillo, “ ‘winged sponges’: houseflies as carriers of typhoid fever”, p 53. 31 ibid, p 54. 32 quoted in anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered through the lessons learned in other great conflicts”, the new york times, 9 julie 1916. (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/ abstract.html?res=9e04e0df1e31e733a0575ac0a9619c946796d6cf, accessed 16 january 2008.) 33 r.a. gabriel and k.s. metz, a history of military medicine ii, p 181. 34 ibid. 35 v.j. cirillo, “ ‘winged sponges’: houseflies as carriers of typhoid fever”, p 53. visser , monama 189 south africa, suffered 57 684 cases of typhoid, of which 19 454 were invalided and 8 022 died.36 ‘more british soldiers, osler claims, ‘were lost from the bacilli of typhoid than from the bullets of the boers’,37 which is not altogether an exaggeration, since a mere 5774 british soldiers were killed in action, but one must add to that number just over 2000 that died of wounds.38 typhoid fever was indeed endemic in many parts of south africa at the time of the anglo-boer war. 39 it certainly caused many casualties amongst the boer commandos, but what stands out in south africans’ memory, is how, in the much-quoted words of then british liberal party leader, sir henry campbell-bannerman, british ‘methods of barbarism’40 , negligence and indifference cost tens of thousands of south africans’ lives, black and white, most of them women and children, in lord kitchener’s infamous concentration camps. the majority of these deaths resulted from ‘epidemics of measles and typhoid that could have been avoided’.41 in the white concentration camp at heilbron alone there were some 400 deaths a month by november 1901 of which a large percentage were caused by typhoid.42 the situation was probably worse in black concentration camps given the prevailing socio-structural and political conditions, but due to poor british recordkeeping and the neglect of that aspect of the history of the anglo-boer war, very little information is available for evaluation.43 the russo-japanese war of 1904 – 1905 was the first major war in history in which more soldiers were killed by military action than by disease.44 it was also during that war that medical personnel, 36 anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered”; see also v.j. cirillo, “ ‘winged sponges’: houseflies as carriers of typhoid fever”, p 53. (cirillo puts the mean strength of the us forces during the spanishamerican war at 274 717 men, concurs with the figure of 20 738 cases of typhoid, but claims that 1 590 of them died as opposed to the 1 380 mentioned by osler.) 37 quoted in anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered”. 38 t. pakenham, the boer war (abacus, london, 1992), p 572; r.a. gabriel and k.s. metz, a history of military medicine ii, p 223. (according to pakenham the total british casualties amounted to some 22 000 men, of which 5 774 were killed in action and 16 168 died of wounds and disease. gabriel and metz put the number of british killed in action at 6 000 and those killed by disease at 14 000.) 39 t. pakenham, the boer war, pp 381-2, 149. 40 ibid, pp 504, 508. 41 ibid, p 518. 42 ibid, p 516. 43 t. pakenham, the boer war, pp 510-18; 554, 573; p. warwick, black people and the south african war, 1899 1902 (longman, london and ravan, johannesburg, 1983), pp 149-51. 44 r.a. gabriel and k.s. metz, a history of military medicine ii, p 226. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 190 especially on the japanese side, started making significant progress in combating typhoid through a system of adequate sanitation and the experimental inoculation of troops. the japanese achievements in military medicine indeed ricochet around the globe and medical officers from the western world hurried off to japan to share in their knowledge.45 the japanese progress was supported by work done by the us army, who created a typhoid board46 during the spanishamerican war and also experimented with the inoculation of soldiers.47 these successes enabled armed forces to combat the disease effectively right from the commencement of the first world war by inoculating soldiers before they were sent to war. even though inoculation was not compulsory in the british army and a small minority of soldiers did not take that precaution, only 46 cases of typhoid was reported in the british forces in france and england over a period of one year in 1915/16.48 the german forces on the western front were equally successful in fighting the disease,49 but the french medical services were poor and they suffered 50 000 cases of typhoid during the first three years of the war; almost all their water supplies were contaminated by typhoid.50 on the eastern front medical care was even worse than in the french army and a high incidence of typhoid fever prevailed amongst the russian forces, as well as amongst forces in austriahungary, turkey and asia.51 given the high incidence of typhoid in cases where proper preventive measure were lacking, osler correctly warned in 1916, that it still ‘require[d] constant work to protect enormous armies from the ravages of typhus… the ease with which the typhoid germ may spread through a camp necessitates constant watch. a soldier on active service may take typhoid with him, or he may contract it in the country. in a large body of men there will always be a certain percentage “carriers” who may act as a focus of distribution… [and] unless strict vigilance were observed… not alone in the use of preventive serum… but in applying every precaution… to keep camps and trenches clear of germ life… the percentage of mortality would be stupendous’.52 45 ibid; anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered”. 46 v.j. cirillo, “ ‘winged sponges’: houseflies as carriers of typhoid fever”, p 53. 47 anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered”. 48 ibid. 49 r.a. gabriel and k.s. metz, a history of military medicine ii, p 244; anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered”. 50 r.a. gabriel and k.s. metz, a history of military medicine ii, p 245. 51 ibid, p 226; anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered”. 52 quoted in anon., “osler finds nerves chief war problem: typhoid virtually conquered”. visser , monama 191 thus, despite the astounding successes in reducing typhoid to ‘a negligible factor’, it remains a threat to armed forces to this day if proper countermeasures are not in place. amongst the twenty most prominent infectious diseases, including pulmonary tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever and influenzal pneumonia, typhoid fever was still a comparatively prevalent and much-feared disease in south africa by the outbreak of the second world war.53 in 1928, dr james alexander mitchell, the secretary for public health published a circular titled, ‘catechism about typhoid or enteric fever’, to each local authority and magistrate in the union to advice them on the prevalence and deadliness of the disease as well as measures to contain it.54 this circular derived from the publication of the south african red cross society, ‘typhoid or enteric fever’, with the approval of the union department of public health, to highlight the causes, spread and prevention of this disease in south africa.55 emphasis was placed on the so-called ‘three f’s – fingers, flies and filth’, as the key agents in the causes and spread of typhoid fever and how these could be contained.56 over a 16-year period up to 1939, some 3000 cases of typhoid fever had been treated in pretoria alone,57 and in the nearby mining town of benoni the incidence rate was 1,03 cases (all races) per thousand of the population in 1937. four european children and 11 noneuropeans died of the disease in benoni in 1937.58 given the fact that typhoid fever was not a notifiable disease,59 and black people often did not have ready access to medical services, many more could have died from the disease; countrywide the numbers over that period could have been quite significant. from august 1939 to july 1946, 53 pulmonary tuberculosis was the highest killer with about 100-130 cases reported monthly in cape town alone. other diseases included diphtheria (20-30 cases), scarlet fever (20), cerebrospinal fever (10-20), and influenzal pneumonia (2040). national archives of south africa, cape town (hereafter nasac), 3/ct, 1/ 4/7/5/1/3 – 1/4/7/6/1/6, public health committee minutes, 1939-1946. 54 nasac, 3/ct, 4/1/5/553, e1451/5, j. a. mitchell, secretary for public health, pamphlet no. 365 (health), circular no. 8 of 1928, 7 august 1928. 55 nasac, 1/uta, 6/1/17, 13/3/6 (old no, 13/8/3), south african red cross society-union department of public health. this document was available at the end of the second world war, 21 december 1945. 56 ibid. 57 anon., “carrier problem in eradicating typhoid: doctor blames small townships and native hygiene”, rand daily mail, 25 may 1939. (national archives of south africa (hereafter nasa), nts 6716, 27/315 ii, press cutting.) 58 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”, rand daily mail, 15 august 1938. (nasa, nts 6716, 27/315 i, press cutting.) 59 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 192 the public heath committee in cape town reported no less than 886 cases of typhoid fever (all races) in the city and langa township.60 it seems however, that when outbreaks of typhoid fever occurred, it seldom if ever reached truly epidemic proportions. in the 26 years up to 1939, seven outbreaks occurred in pretoria, all of them milkborne. there were no waterborne outbreaks in that period and no outbreak comprised more than 30 cases.61 in cape town, dr shaddick higgins, the medical health officer of health submitted a report reflecting 85 cases of typhoid fever in april and may 1943, mostly resulting from consumption of contaminated milk.62 other causes reported by the public health committee included excremental pollution of subsoil water from the cape flats, primitive, unsanitary pail latrines (some people had no latrines at all), and also from the flies that feasted on the manure from stables in parts of cape town.63 higgins attributed these problems to poverty and the social degradation of populations that converged in the city. he warned that ‘all human pollution has to be regarded as dangerous,’ especially considering that in south africa, the prevalence of typhoid fever was due to ‘the use of polluted water supplies for drinking and domestic purposes.’64 the greatest challenge was that as an insidious disease, it was difficult to point out visible signs from carriers; hence prevention became a matter of urgency. the bold letters of a rand daily mail headline on 15 august 1938 proclaimed typhoid fever by and large as the ‘black man’s disease’ by stating, with reference to the town of benoni, that ‘rural natives bring in enteric’.65 the same newspaper echoed this view on 25 may 1939 with a headline stating with reference to the city of pretoria: ‘carrier problem in eradicating typhoid: doctor blames small townships and native hygiene’.66 the 1938 article, quoting an official report of the benoni public health department, who referred to typhoid fever as ‘this disease of dirt’ states: ‘due to infective organisms harbouring in dirt… enteritis will remain the most serious blot on the public health picture in benoni until two problems have been solved among our non-european 60 nasac, 1/4/7/6/1/1 1/4/7//6/1/6, public health committee minutes, august 1939 july 1946. 61 anon., “carrier problem in eradicating typhoid”. 62 nasac, 3/ct, 1/4/7/6/1/3, report on the outbreak of enteric fever in cape town, s. higgins, 14 june 1943. 63 nasac, 3/ct, 1/4/7/6/1/3, report on the outbreak of enteric fever in cape town, s. higgins, 14 june 1943. 64 nasac, 3/ct, 1/4/7/6/1/3, report on the outbreak of enteric fever in cape town, s. higgins, 14 june 1943. 65 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”. 66 anon., “carrier problem in eradicating typhoid”. visser , monama 193 population. the first is the provision of sanitary housing, which includes adequate kitchen and pantry facilities as well as a sufficient and easily available supply of water for domestic purposes. the second is the education of the people in the old rule that cleanliness is next to godliness, which many of the bantu have forgotten since they left their rural kraals to dwell in city slums’.67 the 1939 article, quoting pretoria medical health officer, dr h. nelson, similarly blames the spread of typhoid fever on ‘natives who have not the same appreciation of cleanliness and hygiene as the whites’.68 both articles, however, blame the poor socio-economic position of black people for their vulnerability to typhoid fever – absence of waterborne sewage, overcrowding, malnutrition and inaccessibility of basic health care. a similar view was held by the red cross, indicating that typhoid fever attacks people of all races…owing to the unsanitary conditions under which natives often live the disease is common among them and they are a source of infection to the rest of the community.69 what the two newspaper articles did not point out was that socioeconomic class and race overlapped almost completely in south africa, making typhoid fever ‘the poor man’s disease rather than simply ‘the black man’s disease’. the benoni public health department blamed migrant black mine workers ‘coming from all corners of southern africa’, for bringing ‘a considerable amount of enteric infection from the rural areas’70 to benoni. the health department contended that (m)ine natives mirror the enteric position in the rural population and so long as the incidence of “carriers” in the country districts remains high so long will there be many unrecognised “carriers” entering employment in the mines. 71 this influx of people from the rural areas certainly did not affect the mining sector only; other sectors of south african society, including the udf, also drew workers from those areas. nelson claimed, for example, that ‘all the labour in connection with dairies and foodstuffs is done by natives’.72 furthermore, as the benoni public health department correctly points out, (t)hese men [the miners] come into the location [black residential 67 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”. 68 anon., “carrier problem in eradicating typhoid”. 69 nasac, 1/uta, 6/1/17, 13/3/6 (old no, 13/8/3), south african red cross society-union department of public health. this document was available at the end of the second world war, 21 december 1945. 70 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”. 71 ibid. 72 anon., “carrier problem in eradicating typhoid”. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 194 area] and the township at week-ends and associate with the urban dwellers.73 to kill the health threat at its base, it was of real importance… that the incidence of enteric fever on the mines should be reduced as rapidly as possible.74 in his analysis of typhoid fever in pretoria over the 27 years up to 1939, which was in fact a thesis that he submitted for an m.d. degree in dublin, nelson came to the conclusion, as did the benoni public health department that the main cause of the occurrence of typhoid fever was the carrier. he too identified blacks as the principal carriers, stating that ‘on several occasions the source of infection was traced to a newly employed native carrier handling foodstuffs or utensils’.75 the same desperate socio-economic conditions that caused a comparatively high incidence of typhoid fever amongst black people also led to a much higher mortality rate among them than among white people. of 144 cases of typhoid fever treated at the isolation hospital in pretoria over a two-year period in the late 1930s, 18 (25,7 per cent) of the 70 blacks died, compared to only four (5,4 per cent) of the 74 whites.76 as pointed out above, typhoid fever is to a large extent a preventable disease and in the case of benoni, the incidence rate (all races) was reduced from 2,54 per thousand of the population in 1936 to 1,03 per thousand in 1937 through prophylactic measures. the incidence amongst europeans had fallen to one-third of the 1936 rate, while the ‘location native rate’ had been ‘considerably reduced’, but the ‘mine native rate’ proved comparatively slow to fall. a preventative programme at van ryn deep near benoni made it abundantly clear that the best results were obtained if strict attention was paid to sanitation in addition to inoculation.77 in the case of pretoria, nelson believed that the best way to combat the spread of typhoid fever was to immunise the entire population, but this was not practicable, so only contacts were inoculated.78 this was, of course, also the case in of the rest of the country. whenever certain conditions or individuals are perceived to be endangering the health of society at large, public authorities have an obligation to act preventatively. since it was not possible to 73 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”. 74 ibid. 75 anon., “carrier problem in eradicating typhoid”. 76 ibid. 77 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”. 78 anon., “carrier problem in eradicating typhoid”. visser , monama 195 immunise the entire population and it was determined that the main cause of the occurrence of typhoid fever was the carrier, it follows logically that the alternative to an all-inclusive immunisation programme was to find and neutralise the carriers.79 having identified black mine workers as the carriers, the benoni public health department consequently emphasised that ‘the incidence of enteric fever on the mines should be reduced as rapidly as possible’.80 the south african military soon bought into the idea of finding and neutralising typhoid carriers. carriers were sometimes found in the course of the examination (blood testing) of black people engaged in the handling of food in the kitchens and messes of the udf. the normal procedure in such cases was to discharge such individuals or transfer them to other jobs. the problem was that those of them that were so-called ‘trained kitchen boys’ would often take their discharge and find employment elsewhere in the food industry.81 in order to neutralise that possible source of infection, the deputy assistant director of medical services, udf suggested to the native commissioner in june 1941 that … the passes of boys who may not act as foodhandlers, be so endorsed, and that this endorsement be transferred to new passes when issued.82 no mention was made of identifying and dealing with white carriers, endorsing the notion that it was ‘the black man’s disease’. the secretary for native affairs, however, discarded the idea of endorsing the passes of carriers identified through blood testing. his argument was that it was futile since only ‘a few’ carriers of typhoid fever (approximately two per cent of those tested by the military authorities) where dealt with by the udf, ‘whilst hundreds of other cases never come to light.’83 furthermore, the secretary for native affairs contended, if the ‘positive’ blood tests were not followed up with further, complicated tests, there was a possibility that people who were not actually carriers of the disease could be ‘stigmatised’ and if passes were to be endorsed accordingly, ‘injustices might be created and the department [could be] involved in legal actions’.84 fear for the 79 ibid. 80 anon., “rural natives bring in enteric”. 81 nasa, nts 6716, 27/315, deputy assistant director of medical services native commissioner, 4 june 1941. 82 nasa, nts 6716, 27/315, deputy assistant director of medical services native commissioner, 4 june 1941. 83 nasa, nts 6716, 27/315, secretary for native affairs native commissioner, 17 july 1941. 84 nasa, nts 6716, 27/315, secretary for native affairs native commissioner, 17 july 1941. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 196 infringement of human rights thus informed the secretary for native affairs’ decision to discard the proposed pass endorsement system. drastic and discriminatory as the military’s proposed pass endorsement system would have been, it was not without precedent in public health authorities’ dilemma in trying to protect the public’s health against individual carriers of disease while at the same time preserving the civil liberties of such individuals. the most well-known example of this is probably the case of the mary mallon, alias ‘typhoid mary’, who was identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the usa in 1904 and detained for life to prevent her from endangering public health. it was calculated that she infected no less than 47 – 51 people directly with the typhoid bacteria, three of whom died. this was, however, just the tip of the iceberg, as she infected scores of people indirectly as well.85 the construction of the berg river-saldanha bay water pipeline one of the many military projects on which black workers were employed inside the union of south africa was the construction of the berg river-saldanha bay water pipeline in 1942/3. this project was in fact the culmination of the vision and dreams of theorists, planners, developers and others over no less than three centuries. european seafarers recognised saldanha bay as one of the best natural harbours in the world even before the dutch refreshment station was established at the cape in 1652. the british, when they occupied the cape almost one and a half centuries after the dutch arrival, saw great potential in saldanha bay as a naval base, but never exploited it. the principal reason for this lack of development was the absence of a sustainable supply of fresh water. the prospect of diverting water from the nearby berg river to saldanha bay had been contemplated ever since the dutch settlement, but only came to fruition in the mid-twentieth century when, during the second world war, military necessity forced the union government into action. italy’s entry into the second world war in june 1940 made the mediterranean 85 mary mallon was the first person in the united states of america to be recognised as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever and was identified as such during an epidemic that spread through parts of new york city in 1904. she worked as a cook in the homes of new york city’s elite between 1900 and 1915, moving from household to household. mary was eventually forcibly detained for life in a small bungalow at an isolation hospital on north brother island in the east river. (j.w. leavitt, typhoid mary: captive to the public’s health (beacon press, boston, 1996), pp xviixviii, 1-8, 14-21, 255; encyclopædia britannica, “typhoid mary”, encyclopaedia britannica 2008 ultimate reference suite (encyclopædia britannica, chicago, 2009); anon., “mary mallon, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mary_mallon, accessed 13 december 2007; j. rosenberg, “typhoid mary”, http://history1900s.about.com/ od/1900s/a/typhoidmary.htm, accessed 13 december 2007.) visser , monama 197 extremely unsafe for allied shipping, with the result that allied supply ships serving the middle east theatre were compelled to sail around the cape to the red sea. the tremendous increase in traffic along the south african coast completely saturated the union ports, particularly table bay (cape town). the south african government, in consultation with great britain, consequently decided in 1941 to build an additional port at saldanha bay to relief the pressure on table bay.86 figure 1: the berg river-saldanha bay water pipeline, 1942/1943.87 86 see g.e. visser, j.a. jacobs and h.a.p. smit, “water for saldanha: war as an agent of change”, historia, vol. 53, no 1, may 2008, pp. 130-61. 87 g.e. visser, j.a. jacobs and h.a.p. smit, “water for saldanha: war as an agent of change”, p. 145. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 198 the military activities at saldanha put severe pressure on the town’s meagre water supplies. this was bound to become even worse if saldanha bay became a convoy assembly point, as the british envisaged (and as had actually happened in january 1943), when an even larger number of ships would have had to be supplied with fresh water. the union government therefore, by june 1942, granted the department of defence permission and funding to lay a 55 kilometres (km) long pipeline (see figure 1), interspaced with storage reservoirs at various points, from the berg river to bring an estimated 4 550 000 litres (l) of fresh water per day to saldanha bay.88 no. 15 field company, south african engineers corps (eight officers and 85 men) under the command of capt. j.m. stacey, subsequently succeeded by maj. w.r.f. connell, was summoned from sonderwater north of pretoria to saldanha to construct the berg river water works, pipeline and reservoirs. the construction of the water works at the intake site and the commencement of the pipeline from that end were entrusted to no. 2 section (one officer and 21 men) under lt. g.j. m. kirk (later succeeded by capt. j.c.g. du toit), who pitched camp at the berg river intake site, about one and a half kilometres upstream from berg river station on the farm jantjesfontein, on 11 august 1942. the remainder of no. 15 field company carried out various other engineer missions in the saldanha bay area, including constructing intermediate storage reservoirs along the course of the pipeline.89 although a mechanical shovel was brought by train from cape town to berg river station to excavate the settling tanks and filter beds at the intake, most of the excavation work on the pipeline had to be done manually. a contingent of 49 black workers (‘unattested black labourers’) under a white overseer thus joined the engineer section at the berg river intake site. the total number of black workers employed on the pipeline was initially 172, but more workers started arriving towards the end of september, pushing their numbers up to 616 by 9 october.90 some of these black workers were recruited in the transkei, whilst others were later taken on, inter alia, from the langa township on the outskirts of cape town. 91 these predominantly black areas were prejudiced in terms of the prevalence of typhoid fever and the apparent ‘indifference’ of the public heath visser , monama 88 g.e. visser, j.a. jacobs and h.a.p. smit, “water for saldanha: war as an agent of change”. 89 g.e. visser, j.a. jacobs and h.a.p. smit, “water for saldanha: war as an agent of change”. 90 south african national defence force archives (hereafter sandfa), wd 127, war diary 15th field coy. saec, 1-31 october 1942, report by j.m. stacy for week ended 9 october 1942. 91 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 199 authorities to the plight of blacks living there. dr g. h. gunn, medical officer of health department in durban wrote disparagingly in the daily dispatch of 1944 that east london’s ‘incidence of typhoid fever amongst non-european population’ was at 900 per cent as compared to pietermaritzburg which stood at 300 per cent by 1943.92 the east london public health authorities dismissed these figures and indicated that from 1938-1943, 103 cases were reported.93 between 1940 and 1943, the magistrate of umtata, e.f. owen, was notified regularly about incidence of between two to five cases monthly of the disease and advised to facilitate the ‘cleaning up and disinfection of abode and surroundings’ in his district.94 the public health committee reports also referred to langa township frequently in connection with the occurrence of cases of typhoid fever. the engineers surveyed and pegged the course of the pipeline between the berg river and saldanha bay and pitched a number of intermediate camps at various intervals along the route in order to carry on with the construction work at several places simultaneously. the construction teams then commenced with the backbreaking excavation of the trench, the laying of the 305-mm (12-inch) piping and the construction of the water works and intermediate storage reservoirs under the blistering summer sun of the western cape. the mechanical shovel helped a lot, but it broke down frequently, forcing the construction teams to fall back on manual labour alone. the initial acute shortage of workers slowed the construction down, but the construction teams made reasonable progress from late september when the additional workers started joining the construction teams.95 on 14 october 1942 capt. j.m. stacey, commanding officer of no. 15 field company, saec, received instructions from the chief fortress engineer, cape fortress to suspend all non-essential works and to speed up the work on the saldanha bay water scheme. no. 1 section of no. 15 field company, saec, was subsequently transferred from saldanha bay to the intake site to increase the workforce. despite the fact that his black workforce had risen to 729 – inter alia through the recruitment of 94 men in the black township of langa near cape town on 5 november – maj. connell reported that a shortage of workers was hampering his progress considerably when he had to negotiate a 92 nasac, 3/eln, 2004, outbreak of typhoid fever at duncan village, typhus epidemic in the transkei, 11 april 1944. 93 ibid. 94 nasac, 1/uta, 6/1/17, 13/3/6, outbreak of typhoid in gwaqana, manqondo location, mqanduli, zueque location, transkei, august 1943. 95 g.e. visser, j.a. jacobs and h.a.p. smit, “water for saldanha: war as an agent of change”. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 200 limestone layer over a distance of almost one kilometre north of the main road to vredenburg in early november. at one stage, the construction teams had to work 24-hour shifts with the only two jackhammers available. by the end of november, he consequently asked for an additional 200 workers to speed up the excavation work and complained that the non-delivery of more jackhammers was delaying his work. more workers were indeed recruited during the next month or two because of his plea, bringing the total to 1 20096 by may/june 1943. connell succeeded in making good progress despite all the difficulties and the first water from the berg river pipeline reached saldanha bay on 7 february 1943.97 the outbreak of typhoid fever at the berg river intake site the accommodation of the black workers at these camps illustrated how south africa’s racial policies not only barred black people from enlisting for combat service, but also exposed them to adverse conditions in the workplace, particularly with regard to living conditions. at the intake site on the berg river, the whites lived comfortably in the farm buildings on the site. elsewhere wartime pressure on resources rendered the accommodation of the engineers somewhat less than spectacular. according to an entry in no. 15 field company’s war diary on 13 september 1942, they constructed officers’ quarters, a hut for the company sergeant-major and a bungalow for the men at saldanha bay from ‘aeroplane packing cases’.98 the black workers, in sharp contrast, were housed in rudimentary inverted v-shaped galvanised corrugated iron shelters or lean-tos, 2,75 x 2,5 metres (9 ft. x 8 ft.) in size, without any ventilation. with room to house no more than four men with any comfort, it was customary to put six persons in such a shelter. acting native commissioner, a.a. burge, expressed doubt that the military authorities had consulted a medical officer when these buildings were put up.99 by may 1943, there were 380 black workers at the intake site on the berg river, with 64 shelters erected for them. though that was sufficient to accommodate the men at the customary ratio of six per shelter, burge found no less than nine living in one shelter, whether 96 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 97 g.e. visser, j.a. jacobs and h.a.p. smit, “water for saldanha: war as an agent of change”. 98 sandfa, wd 127, war diary 15th field coy. saec, 13 september 1943. 99 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, a.a. burge director of native labour, 2 june 1943; ibid., anon., handwritten note on letter, 17 june 1943. visser , monama 201 by choice or force.100 both summer heat and winter cold rendered this primitive accommodation unpleasant and inconvenient, but, more seriously, these overcrowded living conditions were not conducive to good health, particularly with a view to the threat of typhoid fever. the workers obtained their drinking water from the river, but it was treated with ammonia and chlorine by means of a portable unit before consumption. they were, however, washing and swimming in the polluted water on a daily basis.101 these activities were indeed creating a time bomb, since the cape circle engineer, e. fincham, reported as early as february 1938 that the public health department had warned him not to drink the [berg] river water or bathe in it as it was “extremely dangerous”… [since] enteric [fever] is rife from wellington right to the sea… [and the] berg river water is now “a menace to public health”.102 on 25 march 1938 the acting cape circle engineer, furthermore, reported that typhoid fever was ‘almost endemic’103 at the little settlement of velddrift near the berg river mouth with its 1 600 european and 300 ‘coloured’ inhabitants and suggested that the public health department, the local divisional council and other government departments concerned should pay attention to this health threat.104 normally the military authorities paid due attention to health issues based upon medical intelligence that preceded the deployment of forces. the 61st tunnelling company, the black unit attached to the south african engineer corps (saec) to serve in the tunnel construction on the haifa–beirut–tripoli railway and on the kasmieh (lebanon) irrigation scheme, for example, though exposed to hazardous conditions, benefited from an hygiene section that provided medical support to all personnel, including civilian labourers.105 surprisingly the military authorities did not follow up the information on the prevalence of typhoid fever on the berg river and put no proper medical countermeasures in place when the construction of the pipeline commenced. the department of native affairs, who was primarily responsible for the welfare of all black 100 ibid. 101 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 102 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, circle engineer, cape circle director of irrigation, 24 february 1938. 103 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2, i, acting circle engineer, cape circle director of irrigation, 25 march 1938. 104 ibid. 105 sandfa, uwh (civil) 166, narep-unfo 21, saec: 61 tunnelling coy, 19411944 (syria, lebanon, italy), august 1943. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 202 workers in government employ, did not see to it that the military authorities make adequate arrangements with regard to the health care of the workers at the berg river camp. the military authorities did not test the cooks preparing their meals in the on-site camp kitchen to determine if they were carriers of typhoid fever or other diseases. the district surgeon at vredenburg, dr c. rauch, and the medical officer at saldanha, one capt comay, furthermore, carried out the examination and general medical care of the workers on a voluntary basis. this was an unsatisfactory arrangement with a view to the fact that the state was contract-bound to provide free medical services to their unattested black workers. furthermore, the udf informed the workers recruited from langa that they would get free food and accommodation in addition to their wages, but no mention was made of medical treatment.106 the riparian dwellers, who were more sensitive to the health risk on their doorstep than the military authorities, were not happy with the presence and behaviour of the construction workers at the berg river intake site at jantjesfontein. on 20 january 1943 hein wicht, owner of the adjoining farm, warned the secretary for defence that there was ‘a serious danger of the river becoming contaminated… [since] large numbers of natives were bathing and washing clothes in the river… [and] traces of crude sewage [was found] stranded on my frontage.107 given fincham’s above-mentioned report of 1938, chances are that the river was already contaminated when the workers arrived there. be that as it may, the acting director of fortifications and coastal works in cape town promised that the bathing and washing would be stopped. a concerned and annoyed wicht, however, complained on 7 may that these activities were continuing.108 on 13 may, less than a week after wicht’s second letter of complaint, six of the workers at the intake site reported sick, whilst a seventh who also fell ill proceeded directly to cape town. all of them were diagnosed with typhoid fever, as was an eighth individual who fell ill on 22 may. one of the original seven was admitted to malmesbury hospital, while two were sent to the city infectious diseases hospital in cape town. the rest were treated in a sickbay at the camp, where the district surgeon and a medical orderly attended to them. this intervention saved six of the eight, but two unfortunately did not 106 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 107 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, h. wicht secretary for defence, 20 january 1943. 108 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, h. wicht secretary for defence, 7 may 1943. visser , monama 203 survive. tests indicated that the workers’ drinking water was not contaminated and the health authorities concluded that the workers were probably infected by swimming and washing in the river. the health authorities suspected that the infection occurred during the easter weekend at the end of april when there was more opportunity for swimming and when there were consequently more people in the water.109 martin melck, the riparian farmer on whose property the pumping station was built, wrote on 26 may 1943 that he had learned with ‘great alarm’ of the ‘highly dangerous and infectious disease… [that had] broken out among the natives’ and expressed the hope ‘that every step is being taken to prevent [the] infection spreading’.110 he complained, as he had done before, according to his letter, about the slackness of control of these natives…[who] are always found all over my property and also here at the main homestead after dark which is very much against my wishes and requests to the o.c. [officer commanding] in charge.111 he furthermore stated that the workers ‘still are not compelled to use a proper lavatory but litter the veld with their offal’ and stated that he ‘much fear[ed] the safety of… [his] “boys” as they have to use the river water especially in this very much delayed rainy season’.112 part of melck and his fellow farmers’ dissatisfaction and annoyance with the construction workers perhaps resulted from prejudice. the magistrate at the nearby town of hopefield remarked in a letter to the secretary for native affairs in march 1944 when farmers in that area complained about ‘a large number of unemployed natives lying about on… [their] farms’ that ‘farmers and others… in this part of the country are not used to natives and do not understand them, but insist on regarding them all as thieves and murderers’.113 the acting director of fortifications and coastal works claimed, in response to melck’s complaints, to have given ‘strict instructions… to the parties concerned to rectify this matter, but that owing to… the breakdown of certain pumping equipment it is evident that the natives 109 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 110 sandfa, qmg (gp 19) 155, dc(e)671/2/101 i, m. melck secretary for defence, 26 may 1943. 111 ibid. 112 ibid. 113 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, magistrate hopefield secretary for native affairs, 31 march 1944. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 204 again went down to bathe and wash in the river’.114 after they had repaired the pumping equipment, the military authorities commenced putting up a fence to prevent what they called ‘a recurrence of the nuisance’.115 having received a report from the district surgeon, dr rauch, about the eight men that came down with typhoid fever at the berg river intake site, dr j.j. du pre le roux of the union health department in cape town, accompanied by military hygiene officer maj. r.e. meaker and acting native commissioner, a.a. burge, rushed to the scene in view of the fact that the water from this source was being supplied to shipping at saldanha bay.116 the main concern thus seems to have been not for the good health of the workers in the first place, but rather about preventing contamination of the water supply to saldanha bay to avert possible infection of the thousands of soldiers, sailors and civilian personnel on board the allied ships replenishing their water supply at saldanha. the berg river water was, of course, treated with chlorine at the intake at jantjesfontein before it entered the pipeline to saldanha bay. a sample of the main water supply taken at saldanha after the outbreak confirmed, fortunately, that the water in the pipeline was not contaminated. the public health authorities at the same time, rather belatedly, made arrangements for the main water supply to be tested on a weekly basis henceforth.117 acting native commissioner a. a. burge reported the primitive, overcrowded living conditions of the workers at the intake site to the director of native labour in johannesburg as he ‘may wish to take the matter up with the military authorities’.118 the latter forwarded burge’s letter to the secretary for native affairs in pretoria for ‘any action you may consider necessary’.119 the secretary for native affairs expressed concern that there was ‘another much bigger camp in saldanha where numbers are growing… [where] the housing should also be watched’.120 he suggested that all ‘native camps’ in the 114 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, acting director of fortifications and coastal works (cape) secretary for defence, 24 may 1943. 115 ibid. 116 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 117 ibid. 118 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, a.a. burge director of native labour, 2 june 1943. 119 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, acting director of native labour – secretary for native affairs, 14 june 1943. 120 ibid, anon. handwritten note on letter. visser , monama 205 saldanha area should be inspected by a hygiene officer.121 besides the total of 1 200 workers employed on the pipeline, a further 800 blacks were employed by civilian contractors working for the department of defence at saldanha bay,122 which brought the total number of black workers in the saldanha area to about 2 000 and increased the threat of an outbreak of typhoid fever. the military and public health authorities succeeded in containing the outbreak of typhoid fever at the intake at jantjesfontein and preventing it from reaching epidemic proportions. the acting director of fortifications and coastal works reported to the secretary for defence on 9 june 1943 that (t)he position is under control and… all natives have been inoculated [with typhoid endotozoid123 ] and any recruits coming to the area are also inoculated’.124 mother nature had in the meantime also made a contribution to remedy the health situation, for by early june ‘the very much delayed rainy season’125 had finally arrived and the berg river was ‘flowing fairly rapidly’126 , which reduced the risk of contamination. though there were no further occurrences of typhoid fever at the berg river camp, many more cases were reported in cape town (the total for the period september 1943-august 1945 was 475 cases),127 which was of great concern to the udf since they recruited some of their workers in the saldanha bay area from the black residential areas around the city.128 apart from new recruits coming in, these workers presumably went home during weekends and on vacation leave from time to time, which created the opportunity for infection and made protective inoculation of both serving workers and new arrivals imperative. in addition, there was also an influx of black people from cape town into saldanha bay as the construction work in the cape peninsula was completed and workers made their way to saldanha to find new employment and were taken on by contractors when they 121 ibid. 122 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 123 ibid. 124 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, acting director of fortifications and coastal works (cape) secretary for defence, 9 june 1943. 125 sandfa, qmg (gp 19) 155, dc(e)671/2/101 i, m. melck secretary for defence, 26 may 1943. 126 sandfa, qmg (gp 19) 155, dc(e)671/2/101 i, acting director of fortifications and coastal works (cape) secretary for defence, 9 june 1943. 127 nasac, 3/ct, 1/4/7/6/1/3 – 3/ct, 1/4/7//6/1/5, monthly health reports, public health committee minutes, september 1943-august 1945. 128 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, acting director of fortifications and coastal works (cape) secretary for defence, 9 june 1943. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 206 required additional labour.129 the acting director of fortifications and coastal works in cape town assured the secretary for defence shortly after the outbreak of typhoid fever at the berg river pumping station that ‘suitable latrines and ablutions are in existence in their [the workers’] camp area, and strict instructions against fouling of the bush and washing in the river are being complied with’.130 he stated, in response to melck’s above-mentioned complaints, that ‘every endeavour is being made to control these natives’131 but pointed out that it was very difficult to prevent them from wandering onto adjoining properties after working hours.132 the voluntary medical services rendered to the black workers involved in the construction of the berg river pipeline by the district surgeon, dr c. rauch, and the medical officer at saldanha, capt comay, was in the meantime discontinued at the end of may 1943.133 the acting director of native labour, who appreciated that standard conditions with regard to accommodation could not always be maintained in wartime, stressed that ‘the same latitude should not be permitted in respect of medical attention’134 and urged the military authorities to make proper arrangements in that regard. in early july 1943 the secretary for native affairs, through the acting native commissioner, stressed to the director of fortifications in cape town that the accommodation of the black workers in the saldanha bay area was ‘by no means satisfactory’ due to overcrowding, a lack of proper ventilation and inadequate provision for ablution and pushed for appropriate steps to be taken to remedy the situation.135 the military engineers soon after wrapped up construction of the pipeline, but hundreds of black workers were still employed in saldanha bay and at langebaan road, where an aerodrome was being built. the military authorities now assumed overall responsibility for the accommodation and medical arrangements of all black 129 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 130 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, acting director of fortifications and coastal works (cape) secretary for defence, 9 june 1943. 131 sandfa, dc 3395, dc2305/51/2 i, acting director of fortifications and coastal works (cape) secretary for defence, 9 june 1943. 132 ibid. 133 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, j.j. du pre le roux secretary for public health, 7 june 1943. 134 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, acting director of native labour secretary for native affairs, 18 june 1943. 135 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, acting native commissioner director of fortifications, 6 july 1943. visser , monama 207 workers, both those in the employ of the udf and those working for contractors engaged in construction work for the udf in the saldanha bay area and tightened up these services effectively.136 with the end of the second world war in 1945 the wartime military activities gradually died down, most of the military personnel and black workers who had flocked to the saldanha bay area during the war departed and the wartime health challenges posed by the influx of people, overcrowding and the saturation of social services disappeared. conclusion racial discrimination embedded in the south african defence act and limited employment opportunities forced thousands of black men into the service of the udf as civilian workers during the second world war. these workers were vulnerable to health threats such as typhoid fever due to their poor socio-economic background and the unsatisfactory living conditions to which they were subjected in the work situation under wartime pressure. negligence and sloppy health management on the part of the udf and the public health authorities aggravated this. the threat of typhoid fever on the berg river was well-known to them when the military engineers commenced the construction of the berg river pipeline, yet they failed to take proper precautions against possible infections. even when the riparian dwellers warned the military authorities of the health risk created by the large numbers of workers bathing and washing their clothes in the river and the presence of crude sewage in the river, they took no effective protective steps. the subsequent outbreak of typhoid fever could potentially have reached epidemic proportions, threatening not only the life of hundreds of black workers along the berg river pipeline, but also the life of thousands of soldiers, sailors and others in saldanha bay and on the large number of ships replenishing their water supplies in the bay. from that perspective, the sloppiness of the military authorities with regard to hygiene and health care on the berg river could theoretically have dealt the allied war effort a serious blow. fortunately, the outbreak was contained through the belated introduction of precautionary inoculation and a potential disaster was averted. appropriate medical intelligence normally precedes the deployment of armed forces to reduce the risks of contracting and spreading deadly 136 nasa, nts 9843, 56/408b, acting director medical services cape fortressdeputy chief health officer, 14 november 1943. typhoid fever and the construction of the berg river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 181-208. 208 diseases. however, the outbreak of typhoid fever at the berg river intake site proved that even an abundance of prior knowledge and early warning do not always translate into appropriate action on the part of the controlling authorities. the potentially disastrous situation, from both a health and an operational perspective, created through negligence on the berg river during the second world war should serve as a warning to the south african national defence force when deploying on peace support operations on the african continent: hiv/aids might be the number one killer disease of our day, but typhoid fever, though defeated in medical terms, will rear its deadly head whenever preventative measures are neglected. visser , monama << /ascii85encodepages false /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /all /binding /left /calgrayprofile (dot 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pp. 189-199. investigating an effective supply chain for a refinery in a regulated petroleum sector c adendorf,1 f emuze2 and v khulu3 abstract currently, refined petroleum products are manufactured by six refineries in south africa. the supply of refined petroleum products is supplemented by imports of refined petroleum products. these refined petroleum products are transported by pipeline, rail, road, sea and a combination thereof to depots across the country. these products are then distributed directly to commercial customers through points of resale in the form of retail service stations. the challenge is that the storage facilities and distribution networks in south africa are currently utilised to its full capacity. there is a need to expand current storage infrastructure or to erect new storage facilities to facilitate imports. durban port that currently handles 70% of the country’s crude oil and 40% of refined products is also utilised to its full capacity. the investigated problem pertains to the limited storage and transport capacity available for the distribution of petroleum products in the country. the interview protocol, which was based on the literature reviewed, was used for compiling the primary data for the case study. selected findings revealed that the respondents perceived that storage capacity is the most significant constraint militating against adequate supply by the supply chain. the findings also indicated that the respondents were of the opinion that transport rates and routes (cost of logistics) are the greatest contributor to the prices of products. as a result, there appears to be a major scope for improvement in terms of the usage of pipelines and rails for the movement of petroleum products. keywords: petroleum products, storage facilities, supply chain, transportation, south african energy sector. disciplines: civil engineering, architecture, business studies, energy studies. background this research aims to investigate the development of effective supply chain systems in order to create value for end users in south africa. a firm is currently studying the establishment of 1 . chris adendorf phd is adjunct professor, nmmu business school, nelson mandela metropolitan university, po box 77000 port elizabeth, 6031, south africa .email: powerhouse@alfresco.co.za. 2 . fidelis emuze phd, is senior lecturer, school of civil engineering and built environment, central university of technology, free state, private bag x20539, bloemfontein, 9300, south africa. email: femuze@cut.ac.za. 3 . vukani khulu mba, nmmu business school, nelson mandela metropolitan university, po box 77000, port elizabeth, 6031, south africa. email: graham.ward@nmmu.ac.za. adendorf, emuze & khulu 190 a new crude oil refinery in port elizabeth and the design of storage locations around the country in order to distribute its products effectively throughout the country. in order to distribute the fuel products from the refinery in a cost effective manner, the firm has to choose the geographic location, number and size of new storage facilities to be built, and in some cases share existing storage with other firms. the primary objective of this study is geared towards the investigation of how the firm can develop the distribution network for their proposed crude oil refinery in such a way that the firm can achieve improved competitiveness and profitability. the new refinery will have significant changes in the size and location of demand of fuels from the firm. the study is intended to assist logistic designers to develop distribution networks. this is based on the premise that mathematical models that are underpinned by qualitative data could lead to the development of logistics support systems required by large-scale fuel distribution networks. it is necessary to conduct the research as production, inventories, employment, revenue, profit and a host of other indicators fluctuate irregularly but persistently throughout the economy, from one industry to the other (sterman, 2006). in other words, supply chain instability harms firms, consumers, and the economy through excessive inventories, poor customer service, and unnecessary capital investment. in particular, this case study is based on the assumption that a refinery would be built in coega at port elizabeth. although there have been delays due to financial problems, south africa’s state-owned oil company petrosa contend it was still committed to the refinery project according to a media release available on the coega development corporation (cdc) website. the media release that was published on the 25th october 2011 indicates that petrosa was still committed to building a 400 000 barrels per day refinery at the port of coega in order to replace old and aging plants and also reduce the country’s reliance on importation. however, a major problem of the proposed refinery would be that it is not connected to an inland pipeline network, and therefore, products for consumption outside its immediate consumption area would have to be transported to durban by sea and then piped to inland locations. review of related literature in 2007 the south african petroleum industry association (sapia) noted that south africa may face increased importation of petroleum products and therefore refining capacity should be increased in the country (swanepoel, 2007). for instance, cooper (2007) opined that about 60% of south africa’s liquid fuel requirements are imported as crude oil for local refining. having insufficient refining capacity to meet demand is not in itself a problem, as the product can be sourced form international refineries (cooper, 2007). however, the challenge is in having sufficient infrastructure to move the product from one location to another (bell, 2006 cited by cooper, 2007). the growing popularity of the supply chain concept has prompted increasing collaboration among supply chain partners with respect to demand forecasting. such collaboration can enhance efficiency by reducing overall inventory levels in a supply chain (simchi-levi et al., 2000). heungjo, wilhelm and searcy (2011) suggest that most operational level studies of the petroleum based fuel supply chain addressed the operations at refineries. they argued that reducing inventory levels through constant flow of products to the points of need could improve operational efficiency and profits. in this context, neiro and pinto (2004) proposed a supply chain for a refinery in a regulated petroleum sector td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 189-199. 191 general modelling framework for the operational planning of sub-facilities within a refinery. for example, processing units that modify the material physically or chemically, tanks for mixture and storage of the different feed streams, and pipelines for transportation of crude oil and products, were cited by them. they prescribe material flow through each process step and then, incorporate operational constraints to represent practical features associated with the refining process. regardless of the model type, the basic design problem in any production and distribution network is to match supply and demand at the output points of the system in the most economic way. the supply chain infrastructure typically needs to be re-evaluated due to changes in demand patterns, product mix, production processes, sourcing strategies, or the cost of running facilities. in addition, mergers and acquisitions may mandate the integration of different logistics networks (simchi-levi et al., 2000). it is clear that the delivery of products to where they are needed required efficient transport and storage facilities within a supply chain system. the next sections therefore briefly address storage and transportation related issues. storage depot terminal management storage depot terminal refers to places where inventory can be stored for a particular period of time. depot terminals may be established at each production plant or located strategically near the markets; their size will depend upon the demands for specific items, and this will determine the number required. for consumer products, local retail outlets are usually the end of the distribution line; however, most local retailers are primary display and selling locations that were bypassed by distributors. changing the number and location of warehouses will change the number of customers who are close to them, that is, product availability. this will in turn change the costs of warehousing and carrying inventory (coyle, bardi & langley jr, 2003). it’s often said that the success of a retail store depends on three factors: location, location, location. it can also be said that the success of a particular logistics system is dependent upon the location of the relevant warehousing and production facilities. facility location decisions are increasingly important as the configuration of logistics systems is altered due to the impacts of multinational trade agreements (simchi-levi et al., 2000). facility location is a logistics / supply-chain activity that has evolved from a tactical decision to one of tremendous strategic importance in numerous organizations. facility location is studied in terms of sitting distribution centres, warehouses (depots), and production facilities in ways that accommodate the movement of inventories to customers. the location of warehouses (depot terminal) facilities to serve retail outlets is also important in terms of cost savings and the ability to efficiently manage the production and flow of materials along the supply chain. the major factors influencing location decisions are markets and resource availability as most facilities are located near one or the other. labour and transport services are two other key factors in facility location. the transportation system makes other resource factors mobile and allows a firm to combine factors of production that originate great distances apart (simchi-levi et al., 2000). throughput is a measure of the volumes of goods passing through a warehouse in a given time period, and it affects the design and layout. for example, a low through-put requires maximum space utilization for storage, while a high throughput should be capable of rapid information processing and materials handling. tradeoffs must balance the disadvantages adendorf, emuze & khulu 192 against the advantages more or less through space allocation, mechanization and turnover of stocks. space may be an advantage at times, but horizontal storage racks will vary according to the throughput (coyle et al., 2003). layouts must take into account the type of materials handling equipment (loading and offloading facilities) to be used, whether order-picking and stock-replenishing have to occur at the same time, how arrivals and departures are organized, or whether operations are labour inter-designed so that it can benefit from computerized controls (coyle et al., 2003). in essence, the firm must balance the cost of opening new warehouses with the advantages of being close to the customer (simchi-levi & simchi-levi, 2002). thus, warehouse location decisions are crucial determinants of whether the supply chain is an efficient channel for the distribution of products (bhatnagar & teo, 2009; snyder, daskin & teo, 2007). the design objective represents a minimization of the total distribution cost associated with all three decision components; facility locations, inventory parameters and transportation selection (shen & qi, 2007; shu, teo & shen, 2005). it also represents multiple transportation options and explicitly requires that demands of customer outlets for all products are satisfied by open distribution centres tsiakis & papapgeorgious, 2008. transportation management ronen (1995) observed that refineries produce light products in the form of gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, aviation fuel and heavy products. ronen (1995) then explained types of operational environments encountered in practice: light products transported in bulk from refineries to tank terminals and industrial customers; and light products from tank terminals to retail outlets. he proposed two scheduling formulations that are important for a refinery operator: set strategies for minimising cost and set strategies for maximising profits. thus, transportation is an essential element of any strategy that could lead to the evolution of competitive advantage in this context. in particular, most studies of downstream operations have addressed designing the network (strategic) and prescribing material flow (tactical) (heungjo et al., 2011). transportation can be defined as the actual physical movement of goods or people from one place to another, while transportation management (traffic management) refers to the management of transportation activities by a particular organisation. transportation is often the most costly logistics activity, and can range from 40% to 60% of a firm’s total logistics costs (simchi-levi et al., 2000). freight transport is an inescapable cost in the supply function of consignors and consignees so much so that firms usually seek to minimise it whenever possible. economies of scale exist when an expanded level of output results in reductions in the total unit cost of transport (per ton-kilometre). therefore, with increasing output the fixed cost per unit of output declines faster than the variable cost increases per additional unit output. these transport management strategies can contribute to the attainment of economies of scale, that is, increase vehicle size and maximum utilisation of capacity (potter, towill & disney, 2007). according to potter et al. (2007), whenever demand growth can be sustained, incremental expansion of infrastructure may result in substantial return of scale. with rail transport, the move from a single-track to a double track system may quadruple line capacity by eliminating directional conflict and a quadruple track may increase track may increase capacity even more if it allows segregation by speed. engineers involved with petroleum refining and pipeline transport capacity extension use so called two-third rule: the capacity of supply chain for a refinery in a regulated petroleum sector td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 189-199. 193 any facility can be doubled at only two-thirds increase in cost. an outbound journey automatically gives rise to an inbound journey. this implies that if a full load is hauled, backhaul will be cheaper as the vehicle must return to the point of origin as rooted in the reverse logistics concept (bernon & cullen, 2007). the achievement of the economies of scope usually requires standardised or at least compatible technology that can accommodate product diversification. this implies one must be able to share technology between two or more users and spare capacity must be available to accommodate product diversification (chouinard, d’amours & ait-kadi, 2007). modes of transportation according to coyle et al. (2003), modes of transportation that support logistics systems are not limited to road, rail, pipeline and the sea. features of some of these modes include (coyle et al., 2003): • road transport with increased vehicle size and fleet size may result in increased economies of scale. infrastructure such as terminals, particularly for specialised carriers, provides further economies of scale. other potential sources of economies of scale are specialised vehicles, owning a workshop for vehicle maintenance and repairs, specialisation in terminals, and management efficiency. road transport can achieve economies of scope by consolidating consignment effectively. owning to the high ratio of variable costs to total costs of individual vehicles, and the relatively small terminal facilities, road transport does not enjoy significant long-haul economies; • in some countries, ownership of rail infrastructure and of train operations was organisationally divorced. any prospective rail transport operator may gain open access to existing rail infrastructure and tracks under certain prescribed conditions. a rail transport operation may, through economies of density, enjoy natural monopoly on a particular route. the combination of long distance haulage, double-track operation with increased frequency of trains, and capacity loads (also back haul) on long trains may lead to significant unit cost advantage; • on the principle of economies of density, an increase in pipe diameter can result in a lower unit cost. an uninterrupted and prolonged throughput of a large volume of homogeneous product increases economies of density. because of the capital cost of a pipeline the barriers to entering the market is high. owing to the inflexibility in capacity limit of a pipeline once installed, a new method of moving the product has to be found once the pipeline reaches its capacity; and • ocean shipping competition ranges from open competition, as in the case of tramp shipping (individual shipping seeking cargo), to oligopolistic cartels, as in the case of linear shipping conferences. a linear shipping complex is a number of ships from various shipping lines working on a route in conference, or sharing the loads on the route. economies of scale are possible with large individual vessels and not necessarily with large fleet operations, therefore owners of tramp ships, are therefore able to compete with larger scheduled conference liners. adendorf, emuze & khulu 194 methodology the emphasis in this research project was placed on a case study, where a more detailed investigation is carried out to gain a deeper understanding of specific situations. the project was also based on perceptions that could be presented in words. the idea is not necessarily to draw statistical conclusions or comparisons on the success of distribution networks in a business, but rather, it is to make an extensive evaluation of how petroleum products can be stored and transported to different points of sale. case study is usually a selection of a specific organisation, which is profiled in terms of the relevant issues under research (leedy & ormrod, 2005). the objective of most case study research projects is to gain varied opinions or perspectives of the organisations’ situation and processes. participants that were interviewed were selected from different levels within the same industry. though the respondents seemed to agree on a number of issues, they also differed on others. informed consent and confidentiality of responses were assured when undertaking the field work. considering the nature of the project, semi-structured interviews were deemed to be the ideal methods of collecting information from the participants of the study. 21 respondents that are working in the petroleum distribution sector participated in the study. of the 21 respondents, 18 were male while 3 were female. all the respondents were either middle level or top level management employees of their organisations. their job titles range from supply and logistics / or operations manager to chief executive officer (ceo). it is notable that 14 participants of the study have over 15 years of industry experience, while 6 of them have between 5 and 15 years of industry experience. the next section descriptively presents the views of the respondents. results and discussions when asked about demand forecasting related questions, 94% of the respondents were of the opinion that storage capacity constraints constitute a significant challenge in the supply chain; 67% of them agreed that customer base and demand for products have a huge influence on storage facility layout; 87% opined that road and rail gantry do not have an impact on the fixed cost of a storage tank; and 76% agreed that capex for storage tanks contribute significantly to the total distribution costs of petroleum products. the response was in line with the reviewed literature in terms of storage facilities (coyle, bardi & langley jr, 2003). in particular, the findings corroborate the perception that storage facilities and distribution networks in south africa are currently utilised to its full capacity. the split related to the ‘customer base and demand for products’ findings could be understood to show that facilities can either be established at each production plant or located strategically near the markets. the results concerning capex confirms what the literature noted in that when managing inventory, logisticians need to simultaneously consider three relevant coststhe cost of carrying (holding) product, the cost of ordering product, and the cost of being out of stock (simchi-levi et al., 2000). in other words, inventory was perceived as a major contributor to the costs of running a storage facility. in terms of transport related issues, 93% of the respondents agreed that transport rate and route is a major contributor to product price; 66.7% of them contend that the parcel size of loads of petroleum products affect shipment costs; 66.7% of them said that they would not supply chain for a refinery in a regulated petroleum sector td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 189-199. 195 utilise road transport if rail was available; and 80% of the respondents perceive that the lead times for fuel delivery have an impact on distribution costs. table 1 indicates the respondents’ perceptions of certain transport related statements in terms of response percentages ranging from 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree) to 5 (strongly agree) and a mean score (ms) ranging between 1.00 and 5.00. it is notable that the majority of the response percentages were above the neutral point, which indicates that in general the respondents agreed with the statements. in particular, 57.2% of the respondents strongly agreed that the availability of transport mode is important when choosing a location for storage tanks, while 66.7% of them also strongly agreed that rationalising ports of call could reduce the unit cost of shipping products. furthermore, 66.7% of the respondents strongly agreed that slot charter could reduce the shipping rate instead of each partner ‘goes it alone’ shipping method, while less than half of them (47.6%) strongly agreed that shipment load size differs from one province to another. t a b l e 1 : r e s p o n d e n t s ’ r a t i n g o f t r a n s p o r t r e l a t e d i s s u e s nevertheless, 76.2% of the respondents perceive that there is no major price difference among shipping operators, although 66.7% of them contend that they rarely see stranded ships used for fuel supply. when responding to storage tanks related issues, 85.7% of the respondents were of the opinion that competition in the ownership of storage tanks is weak in south africa. granted that the competition is weak, storage tank owners have no control or limited influence on the price of products due to the regulated environment according to 19 respondents. in fact 71.4% of the respondents contend that they would say that ‘regulated prices have influenced investments related to storage tank facilities.’ when asked if the coordination of transportation and storage endeavours concerning distribution could reduce the overall distribution cost, 66.7% of the respondents answered in the affirmative. however, the question related to what could be done to improve the fuel statement response (%) u ns ur e strongly disagree…strongly agree 1 2 3 4 5 availability of transport mode is important when choosing a location for storage tanks 0.0 0.0 4.8 9.6 28.6 57.2 rationalising ports of call could reduce the unit cost of shipping products 0.0 0.0 4.8 9.6 19.0 66.7 slot charter could reduce the shipping rate instead of "goes it alone" shipping method 0.0 0.0 4.8 4.8 23.8 66.7 shipment load size differs between provinces 0.0 0.0 4.8 23.8 23.8 47.6 adendorf, emuze & khulu 196 distribution in south africa generated different intervention from 18 respondents. these interventions that were offered in the form of general comments inter-alia, include: • increase the tank capacity for storage; • development of the nmpp: new terminal in coega should be linked with a network of rail and develop rail network to support regions not covered by the nmpp; • optimising storage capacity and utilisation of ports facilities for fuel imports; • nmpp will greatly improve fuels distribution from coastal to inland. trucking of fuels will be decreased and distribution costs to inland areas will also decrease. rail transport will have to be improved in order to further reduce trucking of fuels. this will also reduce costs of fuels in the inland area; • improve rail infrastructure/reliability and have common rail gauge across south africa. reduce road transport costs since these are sensitive to movement in oil prices. capacity of inland depots is strained there is scope to expand here to minimise risk of stock outs; • more pipelines; improved rail facilities; improved import infrastructure; • consolidation into common access terminals at certain national locations; • investment in new fuel depots, investment in distribution pipelines, investment in new forecourts in previously disadvantaged communities and transport of fuels from distribution gantries to garages; • south africa is extremely short of commercial storage capacity, let alone capacity for strategic stock, which is almost non-existent. all potential investments such as project mthombo, nmpp, will require additional storage capacity along the dbn jhb corridor in order to run optimally and effectively, giving adequate service to customers as well as factoring future growth. so the opportunity is massive. future winners will be those that choose to invest in logistics infrastructure. multinational oil companies are not guaranteeing future capital expenditure. most of them are already exiting africa not because of a lack of opportunities but simply not wanting to spend in africa anymore. so africans have to take this opportunity with pride and determination, focusing not on short term gains but long term economic development for generations to come; • upgrade of the rail network and rationalising of the depot network; • integrated infrastructure development i.e. pipeline, rail and minimal usage of road transport, and • integrated pipelines stemming from refineries to major customers and distributors in the long-term may optimize fuels distribution costs. recommendations the firm that acted as the case study has a vision of becoming the leading energy company in africa. in order to support this goal, it is recommended that the firm invest in integrated logistics support systems so as to distribute products from the proposed new crude refinery to the market. storage facility it is recommended that the firm increase their storage terminal / depot infrastructure capacity to handle imports of fuels, which at the later stage will be for handling the products produced supply chain for a refinery in a regulated petroleum sector td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 189-199. 197 by the new crude refinery to be built in port elizabeth. it is suggested that the firm should consider having a hub storage depot in port elizabeth and in jameson park (johannesburg) where the new pipeline will interconnect to other distribution network. other small depots suggested for the firm to consider are cape town and durban. concerning coega terminal, it is recommended that the firm should build distribution tanks closer to the port. it is recommended that this maritime tank farm be interconnected to the one inside the refinery. the main purpose will be to handle coastal loadings for the new refinery. initially the facility will serve as an import facility for refined products until the new refinery is established. the firm should operate facilities with other oil companies in accordance with universal access criteria to third parties on excess capacity. it is recommended that the firm builds a road and rail gantry within the maritime tank farm mentioned above. the rail will have to be integrated to the transnet marshalling yard in coega where intermodal or cross-docking into railway can take place. to be succinct, it is recommended that the firm should endeavour to refurbish existing tank-farms; and the firm may also consider building additional tanks in the refinery to handle the importation requirements for the area. transport for inland fuel the two most favoured modes of transport are pipeline and rail. it is much cheaper to transport fuel through pipeline and rail. the 16 inch multi-product pipeline between johannesburg and durban due to be completed in 2013 is recommended so as to ensure sustainable and efficient fuel supply while easing congestion on one of africa's busiest road corridors. the pipeline will replace the existing 12 inch durban to johannesburg pipeline, which is nearing the end of its lifespan. the dedicated inland pipeline was running at maximum operational capacity and is unable to increase throughput (cooper, 2007), hence an increase in the pipeline size from 12 inch to 16 inch is commended. the pipeline is expected to reduce the number of fuel tankers on the road by at least 60%, thereby reducing high road costs. multi-product pipeline will be the cheapest and faster means of moving petroleum products as it achieves economies of density, that is, the increased size of pipe diameter will result in lower unit costs. it is suggested that the firm request for an allocation on this new pipeline in advance and factor it into their fuel distribution strategy in order to gain competitive advantage. the firm is advised to maximise utilisation rate of the pipeline in order to substantially reduce their distribution costs for target markets. in addition, rail capacity has been identified as an area that could increase throughput for inland markets. currently, transnet freight rail has 204 rail freight cars, which were in operation as well as block trains that were essentially the same. they also had 32 rail tankers, which they offloaded twice per day at the airport. rail is the only reasonable mode of transport where throughput can be adjusted easily to accommodate drastically increased fuel requirement and also easily adjustable should this trend be reversed. this makes it an important and the most optimal mode of transporting jet fuels for airports during peak times. this can be seen with the ease at which fuel supply was adjusted during world cup by increasing rail freight cars and rail tankers to ortia to meet the peak demand of fuels over a short period. it is recommended that the number of the rail tank cars as well as block trains be increased incrementally to meet inland market forecasted demand. it is advised that additional offloading facility to match increased rail tank cars be considered in the design for a railway distribution network. it is also suggested that the combination of long distance haulage, increased capacity loads on long trains may lead to significant unit cost advantages adendorf, emuze & khulu 198 for the firm. because supply constraints on oil, both from an infrastructure and a resource perspective, could place increasing pressure on the transport systems in south africa (especially in gauteng) (cooper, 2007), the use of pipeline and rail network should be increased. products from the firm’s refinery in coega to durban and cape town will have to be transported by ship. the products will then be sent through the pipeline to inland markets. cost saving can be achieved in shipping through strategic partnership with other oil companies in areas such as equipment sharing for loading and offloading, joint marketing and space sharing on ships through slot charters and consortia. another opportunity for the firm will be to rationalize port of calls and intensified asset utilisation, both in terms of vessel utilisation and container deployment. strategic partnership with ocean carriers will help the firm to vertically integrate shipping into land based activities such as pipeline and terminals. this seamless distribution is important in order to achieve speedy delivery of petroleum products to the terminals. conclusion the findings of the study in terms of an integrated network distribution configuration is intended to act as a catalyst that could enable the movement of products from the proposed coega refinery to designated markets. in addition, it is anticipated that they would create a new fully integrated additional income stream for the firm and will also allow to the firm to substantially increase its profile and footprint within south africa. with respect to fuel distribution networks, the literature reviewed and the primary data of the study corroborate the perception that there is limited storage capacity in south africa. while regulations from the department of energy will affect storage capacity related issues, the firm should ensure that it pursues policies that support the availability of rail and pipeline infrastructure necessary for distribution of products from the refinery. references bernon, m. & cullen, j. (2007) an integrated approach to managing reverse logistics. international journal of logistics research and applications, 10, 41-56. bhatnagar, r. & teo, c. (2009), role of logistics in enhancing competitive advantage: a value chain framework for global supply chains. international journal of physical distribution and logistics management, 39(3), 202-226. chouinard, m., d’amours, s. & ait-kadi, d. (2007) design of reverse logistics networks for multiproducts, multistates, and multiprocessing alternatives. in: jung, h; chen, f.f. & jeong, b. (editors) trends in supply chain design and management: technologies and methodologies. berlin: springer, pp. 181-212. cooper, c.j. (2007) energy and transport issues for gauteng, south africa. journal of energy in southern africa, 18, 11-15. coyle, j.j., bardi, e.j. & langley jr., c.j. (2003) the management of business logistics: supply chain perspective. 7th edition. mason: south-western. heungjo, a., wilhelm, w.e. & searcy, s.w. (2011) biofuel and petroleum-based fuel supply chain research: a literature review. biomass and bioenergy, 35, 3763-3774. supply chain for a refinery in a regulated petroleum sector td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 189-199. 199 leedy, p.d. & ormrod, j.e. (2005) practical research: planning and design. 8th ed. new jersey: pearson prentice hall. neiro, s.m.s. & pinto, j.m. (2004) a general modelling framework for the operational planning of petroleum supply chains. computer chemical engineering, 28, 871-896. potter, a., towill, d.r. & disney, s.m. (2007) integrating transport into supply chains: vendor managed inventory (vmi): in: jung, h; chen, f.f. & jeong, b. (editors) trends in supply chain design and management: technologies and methodologies. berlin: springer, pp. 331-344. ronen, d. (1995) dispatching petroleum-products. operations research, 43, 379-387. shen, z.m. & qi, l. (2007), incorporating inventory and routing costs in strategic locations models. european journal of operational research, 179(2), 372-389. shu, j., teo, c. & shen, z.m. (2005), stochastic transportation-inventory network design problem. operations research, 53(1), 48-60. snyder, l.v., daskin, m.s. & teo, c. (2007) the stochastic location model with risk pooling. european journal of operational research, 179(3), 1221-1238. simchi-levi, d., kaminsky p. & simchi-levi, e. (2000), designing and managing the supply chain. concepts, strategies and case studies. 3rd edition. boston: mcgrawhill. simchi-levi, d & simchi-levi, e. (2002), the effect of e-business on supply chain strategy. mit-esd working paper series. boston: mit. sterman, j.d. (2006) operational and behavioural causes of supply chain instability. in: torres, o.a.c. & moran, f.a.v. (editors) the bullwhip effect in supply chains: a review of methods, components and causes. london: pelgrave-macmillan, pp. 17-56. swanepoel, e. (2007) sa facing permanent import of fuel – sapia [online] available from: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/ [accessed 12 december 2010] microsoft word 06 ingle.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2014, pp. 380-392. are we becoming gadgets? social capital in the era of social networking mk ingle1 abstract social capital is partially predicated on the levels of trust obtaining between institutions and between members of society. as such it is a vital ingredient in the ‘glue’ which holds society together and which facilitates contractual economic activity. recent technological advances, and the concomitant ascendancy of social networking, have radically reconfigured the environment in which social capital is generated, and the social sciences have some way to go fully to digest these new developments. this article surveys the meteoric rise of the ‘technium’ in the social imaginary and delineates some of the reservations current commentators have about the next ‘singularity’ to succeed the internet. the discussion includes a brief account of the philosophy behind the objectification of the human. it also speculates about the consequences of paradigm shifts in modes of relating for the formation of social capital in the future. keywords: social capital; technium; social networking; facebook; singularity; commodification disciplines: sociology; psychology; philosophy; communications; development studies; human geography; information technology introduction this article takes as its inspiration jaron lanier’s (2010) seminal polemic entitled you are not a gadget which, coming as it does from one of the foremost pioneers of ‘virtual reality’, warrants serious consideration. the essay provides a contextual elucidation of the notion of ‘social capital’ before proceeding to describe what is meant by the rise of ‘the technium’. it is argued that just as society is changing in response to technology, so too humans are being modified by their technologies, and this in ways of which most are quite unaware. social isolation, which many scholars perceive as being one of the more insidious concomitants of social networking, is then examined within the contexts of human beings being commodified as saleable datasets, and what many fear is a growing tendency to treat humans as mere things. the concept of ‘convergent evolution’, whereby humans and their technologies become, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from one another, is then analysed. it is contended that humankind is indeed on the cusp of a new ‘singularity’ whereby social intercourse as we 1 . dr. mark k. ingle is a research associate at the centre for development support (cds), university of the free state, bloemfontein, 9300, south africa. email: cdsfreestate@intekom.co.za social capital in the era of social networking td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 380-392. 381 have experienced it hitherto will be revolutionized and reconfigured to accommodate the dictates of new technological advances. lanier’s (2010) fears about ‘cybernetic totalism’ and ‘standardised presences’ are introduced within the ambit of social networking to illustrate just how far the technologically driven reinvention of modern society has advanced. the underlying question is the degree to which humankind and human society is being shaped by devices of its own making. whatever the answer to this conundrum may be, and whatever the impacts of the new technium on social capital formation, the consequences for society are most certainly going to be both radical and profound. social capital the first overt mention of ‘social capital’ appears to date from 1916 and was broached in a rural context. at issue was the notion of community involvement being a necessary condition for quality schooling. because, according to robert putnam (2000:19), this remarkably astute formulation “anticipated virtually all the crucial elements in later interpretations” it is reproduced here in full. following l.j. hanifan, a supervisor of rural schools in america, social capital involved: those tangible substances [that] count for most in the daily lives of people: namely good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and families who make up a social unit… the individual is helpless socially, if left to himself… if he comes into contact with his neighbour, and they with other neighbours, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community. the community as a whole will benefit by the coöperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his neighbours. in expanding on hanifan’s account, putnam (2000:19) says that: the core idea of social capital theory is that social networks have value… [and] affect the productivity of individuals and groups… social capital refers to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. in that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called ‘civic virtue’. the difference is that ‘social capital’ calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal social relations. carlson (2010:195) adds a further dimension to the concept by construing it as “reputation” such that individuals may come to “accrue social capital” by virtue of what they do. although according to willis (2005:110) “social capital is a highly-contested concept”, it is not the intention here to problematise it unnecessarily and the world bank’s formulation which it adopted “as part of the neo-liberal agenda” will suffice for present purposes. the world bank sees social capital as “the informal rules, norms and long-term relationships that facilitate co-ordinated action and enable people to undertake co-operative ventures for mutual advantage” (willis, 2005:111). the applicability of social capital to the business environment, in this interpretation, is obvious. putnam distinguishes between two major variants of social capital namely bonding and bridging. bonding is typified by exclusivity where there is normally an element of membership involved, either tacit or overt. it is the ‘one of us’ syndrome. those “networks that are ingle 382 outward looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages” and that strive towards inclusivity (for example charismatic church organisations) represent the bridging type of social capital (putnam, 2000:22). these two characterisations are not mutually exclusive and an entity may exhibit strains of both variants as for example with an internet chat group which “may bridge across geography, gender, age and religion, while being tightly homogenous in education and ideology” (putnam, 2000:23). it is of the essence, in evaluating social capital, to appreciate that it is value-neutral – it can be used for good or ill and that it frequently exhibits ‘“externalities’ that affect the wider community, so that not all the costs and benefits of social connections accrue to the person making the contact” (putnam, 2000:20). following sen (2006:2), “an identity with others in the same social community can make the lives of all go much better in that community; a sense of belonging to a community is thus seen as a resource – like capital”. but as sen in his study of the links between identity and violence proceeds to point out, “a sense of identity can firmly exclude many people even as it warmly embraces others”. this “dark side” of social capital (putnam, 2000:250) was interestingly enough explored by the social critic and novelist sinclair lewis (1922) as early as 1922 in his account of ‘boosterism’ in a mid-west american town although lewis did not actually use the term ‘social capital’. keeley (2007:116) maintains that social capital is even more difficult to measure directly than is human capital because the concept “is still in its infancy” (although see grootaert, narayan, nyhan-jones & woolcock, 2004 for the world bank’s view that it is a well-institutionalised construct which is measurable). the rise of the technium massive social movements are occurring in the slipstream of technological advances that are moving with extraordinary speed (kelly, 2010; bohler-muller & van der merwe, 2011; essoungou, 2011). putnam and feldman’s (2003) observations about the effect of the internet on social capital now read as quaintly affecting just 10 years after publication. there is something almost antiquarian too about putnam’s (2000) repeated invocation of the term “computer-mediated communication”. sherry turkle (2011:16, 310) for example reports that in january 2010 the ‘average’ american teenager was sending and receiving around 6500 text messages a month yet in the 500-odd pages of putnam’s seminal exposition of social capital, bowling alone, there is but a single mention of cellphones (putnam, 2000:166) and no mention whatever in its 2003 sequel, better together (putnam & feldstein, 2003). this is not to disparage these scholars. perhaps they could not have guessed at what was on the horison and they do make it very clear that they speak advisedly when speculating about the impact of technology on social capital. but it is to say that substantial portions of the social science literature are being rendered otiose because the world has moved on to a different space. since 2003 the world has seen so-called web 2.0 ‘killer apps’, skype, ebay, youtube, facebook, twitter, paypal, second life and a host of others combine in what some commentators view as a development which will culminate in another ‘singularity’ (carlson, 2010; kelly, 2010). an earlier singularity, according to barlow (quoted in putnam, 2000:172) although he does not actually use the word, was the advent of the internet itself: “we are in the middle of the most transforming technological event since the capture of fire”. a singularity is a convergence of processes which results in an utterly changed world which can never revert to its former state. for turkle (2011:25) the singularity is a “notion that has social capital in the era of social networking td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 380-392. 383 migrated from science fiction to engineering... at the singularity we may merge with the robotic and achieve immortality... [it is] technological rapture”. society is changing in response to technology and so are humans, in more ways perhaps than is generally realised (carr, 2010). the economic and social sciences, ungeared as their scholarly apparatus is to cope with such rapid change, find themselves perpetually having to ‘catch up’ in trying to ‘metabolise’ the implications of the new ‘technium’, kelly’s term for the entire technological realm. turkle’s (2011) alone together – a clever play on putnam’s titles bowling alone and better together – was in important geo-political respects obsolete even while it was being launched. advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology and the neurosciences are keeping abreast of the information technology juggernaut with the result that the kaleidoscopic networks that constitute the essence of social capital, and the various ‘knowledges’ on which these networks feed, are being reconfigured almost before one’s eyes. the ‘technium’ really has assumed a life of its own (kelly, 2010) much to many observers’ deep consternation (carr, 2010; lanier, 2010; turkle, 2011). putnam (2000:180) averred that: “the most important question is not what the internet will do to us, but what we will do with it”. ten years later and that question has been very firmly turned on its head. turkle (2011:19) quotes winston churchill – “we shape our buildings and then they shape us”. at issue now is what the internet has already done with us and what it continues to do with us in its latest incarnations. there is a pronounced uneasiness as to whether this accelerated technological progress obligingly translates into human progress and this is discussed at greater length in a later section. alone together? as already intimated there are many scholars who have serious misgivings about the turn information technology has taken and most especially about its ‘social networking’ dimension. although they feel something is going wrong no one can quite put their finger on what exactly it is. richard florida (2010:6) maintains that: “technological innovation leads to new forms of infrastructure, which lead to revolutions in where and how we live and work”. watson’s (2010:125) assertion that: “the very technologies that are bringing us closer together on one level are tearing us apart on another. e-mail, sms, social networks, and the like are addictive attention eaters” can probably be regarded as a truism. turkle’s title alone together suggests much the same thinking. to discuss ‘social capital’ but confine oneself to the sociologicallydenominated frames of reference within which the concept was originally formulated (putnam, 2000) is rather like trying to analyse the impact of technology on society while bracketing out information technology (it). to take but one example the meteoric ascendancy of ‘social networking’ is unprecedented as a cultural phenomenon and must begin to be factored into assessments of social capital – arguably as its chief determinant, at least in the developed world. as collier (2010:235) remarks: “there are supposedly only six degrees of separation between any two people on earth. for the first time in history we have a technology that can span those degrees of separation”. what might this mean for the social capital generated by the users of these novel technologies? humans as objects in her manifesto on the value of the humanities for fostering democracies and healthy civic engagement, nussbaum (2010) returns repeatedly to the warning that an education system ingle 384 that is solely concerned with maximising efficiency and boosting economic growth risks turning people into ‘things’. she writes: we seem to be forgetting about the soul, about what it is for thought to open out of the soul and connect a person to the world in a rich, subtle and complicated manner; about what it is to approach another person as a soul, rather than as a mere useful instrument or an obstacle to one’s plans; about what it is to talk as someone who has a soul to someone else whom one sees as similarly deep and complex (2010:6) nussbaum is not necessarily using ‘soul’ in a religious sense but rather as those faculties betokening what it is to be distinctively human. precisely the same preoccupations are expressed by the ‘creativity philosopher’ jaron lanier (2010:75) in his account of the “spiritual failure” and fragmentation of human being occasioned by “the current dominant ideology of the digital world”. this he argues tends to “undervalue humans” and encourage “the ubiquitous invocations of anonymity and crowd identity”. turkle, a seasoned professor of “social studies of science” at the massachusetts institute of technology (mit), now says her initial optimism about the “freedom of online identity” is “long gone”. she says that we have “invented ways of being with people that turn them into something close to objects” despite a large scale 2007 study by the university of michigan that claimed that “facebook users had more social capital than abstainers” (lehrer, 2011). perhaps this form of capital is coming to accrue at too high a cost – the cost of our humanity? these anxieties are by no means confined to lanier, nussbaum and turkle but are part of a rising tide of disquiet about the long term effects of telecommunications advances (smith, 2010; watson, 2010; halpern, 2014). for the existentialist philosopher martin heidegger we do not approach the many things that make up our world with studied indifference. “our primary way of relating to the world is by practical concernful activity [praxis], and not by disinterested observation” (waterhouse, 1981:71). the greek word for ‘things’, encountered in the course of praxis, is pragmata and as the word suggests it has a ‘pragmatic’ connotation. ‘things’ in our engagement with our environment are not ‘just there’ and not ‘just things’. for heidegger, in his 1926 masterpiece being and time, things are always encountered “in concern” and can therefore be better understood as “equipment” – either potential or actual (heidegger, 1962:96-97). lest this be thought rather a peculiar notion it should be noted that it finds support with the concept of “affordances” developed within the discipline of neuropsychology (blakeslee & blakeslee, 2007:105-108). ‘afford’ should here be understood in the sense of the possibilities some thing affords one, the possibilities inherent within it. according to this theory the brain apprehends things “in terms of how you think you can interact with what you see. you see affordances... [via] higher visual processing... when you see a chair, you ‘see’ its sittability, its stand-upon-to-reach-the-high-shelf-ability...” and so forth. these are “action-based” concepts automatically evoked by apprehension. we are therefore immersed in a world of equipment – the “ready to hand” in heidegger’s terminology. the obvious question which then arises is “what can i do with the ready-to-hand?”. this is a legitimate question from the practical, scientific perspective when addressed to the particular but less so from the philosophical perspective of, say, ‘thingness’ as such – that is the universal aspect. here, in the spirit of a lecture delivered by heidegger (1959:12) in 1935, we could also fruitfully ask ourselves, “what might it do with me?”. the situation is greatly complicated when it comes to other people. are they also equipment? or, to turn the question on its head, are we their equipment? presumably yes to the degree that we can be constituted by them as pragmata. this is something jean-paul sartre (1943) deals with at length in his monumental being and social capital in the era of social networking td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 380-392. 385 nothingness. it should be borne in mind that this work was written during an extremely grim period in history when people (not to mention soldiers) were routinely being treated as subhuman ‘things’ (see for example beevor, 1999). as is well known “people behave badly when the human beings over whom they have power are dehumanized... [and] much worse when the ‘other’ is portrayed... as bearing only a number rather than a name” (nussbaum, 2010:44). sartre distinguishes between three modes of being for humans being-in-itself; being-foritself; and being-for-others. these distinctions could be useful for analysing interactions within the ‘social networking’ arena: human beings... are the kinds of being who exist for-themselves. yet being-for-itself is a fundamentally reflexive category: only the entity whose being it is can witness it. it appears only to the self whose being it is. thus other people cannot directly bear witness to my being-for-myself. yet... this does not imply that they can regard me as simply a thing, a mere in-itself. it is normally impossible to take towards a living human being the kind of attitudes we take toward inanimate objects. thus, when another person looks at me, a third kind of being arises in the world. this third kind of being sartre calls ‘being-for-others’ (levy, 2002:37). there is a problem however. for heidegger our “fundamental relation with other people is mitsein (‘being-with’)”. but not for sartre for whom “we acquire our personal identity by means of the gaze of another” and not in self-reflection. “ i am as the other sees me” (levy, 2002:38). this ‘am-ness’ is the ‘being-for-others’ which is however immediately reduced to a ‘being-in-itself’ (an object) by the other’s apprehension or recognition. and for sartre, “to become an object for others is to become degraded; i, who was pure freedom [being-foritself], have become a mere thing”. of course i can turn the tables and objectify my objectifier but “either i am an object for a subject, or that subject is an object for me; never both at once... i can never... become the in-itself-for-itself”. in the light of this “sinister dialectic of looking-at and being looked-at”, sartre concludes, “the essence of the relations between consciousnesses is not the mitsein; it is conflict” or, as he put it in the play no exit, “hell is other people” (levy, 2002:39). to return to heidegger’s ‘equipment’ then – for sartre people do serve as ‘equipment’ but the relationship is a reciprocal one in which we oscillate in and out of either using, or being used by, other people. understandably enough not many people nowadays subscribe to sartre’s zero-sum, ‘dog eat dog’ view of human interaction although people do like to boast of the usefulness of their ‘connections’ and to flaunt their ‘networks’. and as nussbaum (2010:96) maintains: “learning to see another human being not as a thing but as a full person is not an automatic event but an achievement that requires overcoming many obstacles” and not therefore something to be taken for granted. but the intention of delineating sartre’s schema here is not to persuade. it is rather to present a suggestive framework within which to pursue two lines of thought. the first of these is that recent developments in the neurosciences show that heidegger’s question “what will it do with me?” – can now legitimately be asked of the particular, as well as the universal, insofar as ‘equipment’ (and most especially it ‘gadgets’), is concerned. the second is a consideration of jaron lanier’s (2010) you are not a gadget in which he excoriates the hidden underpinnings of social networking. these two lines of enquiry cannot of course provide the last word on the potential impacts of the emerging social networking phenomenon, but they might provide some pointers as to how notions of human and social capital need to be revised in the light of it. ingle 386 convergent evolution nicholas carr (2010:44) divides technology into four rough categories. the first category extends our physical abilities and would include motor vehicles, lawnmowers and power drills. the second embraces those devices which sensitise or amplify our senses and includes telescopes, hearing aids, and radar. a third covers technology which bends nature to our wishes such as steroids, fertilizers and crop hybridisation. it is the fourth category, “intellectual technologies” which “support our mental powers”, that he says “have the greatest and most lasting power over what and how we think”. these technologies include clocks, books, maps and the internet. as carr puts it: “they are our most intimate tools, the ones we use for self-expression, for shaping personal and public identity, and for cultivating relations with others”. most important in this context is that these tools “work on our minds even as our minds work with them”. in other words they serve to shape us. paul edwards (2010:28) in his study of widely dispersed infrastructures shows that, far from infrastructure necessarily being something physically huge and external to us, we may readily internalise it to the point where it is immanent within us. describing the vast infrastructure underlying universal time he says: “seconds before your morning alarm goes off, you awaken to an inner clock nearly as accurate as the one beside your bed: you have internalized the infrastructure”. this is a reaction to an artificial ‘event’, say ‘6am’, that has no fixed existence in the sense that ‘it happens’ but which is merely a convention. it is an abstraction determined by a complex, dispersed apparatus. a further example is provided by the way a railway line or a main street may serve as a stratifying boundary that confers status, or a sense of belonging, depending upon which side of the demarcatory infrastructure one resides. thus one may internalise that one was raised ‘below the line’ and develop a sense of self in accord with this – or use it as a stimulus to transcend one’s conditioning. but to return to carr (2010:45) “every intellectual technology... embodies an intellectual ethic, a set of assumptions about how the human mind works or should work”. this ethic is often opaque to both the inventors and the users of the technology. both of these parties are usually so taken up with maintaining or using the technology that they often fail to ‘see the wood for the trees’. a topical example of an ethic at work is that, because it is feasible, one ought to have one’s bank statements e-mailed to one instead of posted – this is ostensibly to save paper and, by extension, the environment. this is a classic instance of g.e. moore’s ‘naturalistic fallacy’ first identified by david hume whereby an ‘ought’ is derived from an ‘is’. hume argued “that no description of the way the world is (facts) can tell us how we ought to behave (morality)” (orr, 2011). and as singer (2011:4) puts it, we cannot “identify normative truths with facts about the natural world, whether about our biological nature... or about what we would approve of under some set of specified conditions, or any other causal or psychological fact”. yet the mere fact that certain information is readily made available on the internet (‘ready-to-hand’) can lead to tacit pressure being placed on individuals to subscribe to various feeds, or to familiarise themselves with the contents of various journals on an ongoing basis. this can easily result in a feeling of being driven by an array of ‘oughts’ imposed by an impersonal external agency one has no control over. a classic instance of this is the way time came to be internationally standardised, and punctuality inculcated as a virtue. the “widespread private use [of timepieces] laid the basis for time discipline as against time obedience... punctuality comes from within, not from without. it is the mechanical clock that made possible... a civilisation attentive to the passage of time, hence to productivity and performance” (landes, 1983:7). according to honoré (2004:23): “to teach workers the new time discipline demanded by modern capitalism, the ruling classes set about promoting social capital in the era of social networking td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 380-392. 387 punctuality as a civic duty and a moral virtue, while denigrating slowness and tardiness as cardinal sins”. turkle (2011:17) writes that: “overwhelmed by the volume and velocity of our lives, we turn to technology to help us find time. but technology makes us busier than ever and ever more in search of retreat... we come to see our online life as life itself... the simplification of relationship is no longer a source of complaint. it becomes what we want. these seem the gathering clouds of a perfect storm”. the ‘equipment’ then, purely by dint of the fact that it is, comes to dictate a schedule for its own use. this is a reflection of the polarity in debates on technological progress. for instrumentalists “our instruments are the means we use to achieve our ends; they have no ends of their own” whereas for determinists (such as karl marx) technology “as an autonomous force outside man’s control, has been the primary factor influencing the course of human history” (carr, 2010:46). at first sight the instrumentalist view might seem to be the more sober one as we do surely choose whether to employ a particular tool or not, be it a motor vehicle or a pair of spectacles. and yet as carr (2010:46) points out: “it strains belief to argue that we ‘chose’ to use maps and clocks (as if we might have chosen not to). it’s even harder to accept that we ‘chose’ the myriad side effects of these technologies”. perhaps the difficulty can be accounted for by saying that the ‘we’ that chooses in the instrumentalist version functions at the level of individual agency in relation to a particular instantiation of technology whereas the ‘we’ that is effectively denied choice in the determinist version, and is therefore acted upon, is a matter of societal agency in relation to a universal phenomenon. in this case then our individual choices about whether to employ certain tools or not are downstream responses to some prior organic process that inserts itself into society simply by materialising. the particulars, the gadgets, are manufactured but the phenomenon that informs their instantiation is sui generis. once again then we return to the questions suggested by heidegger’s notion of ‘equipment’ – what can i do with it and what might ‘it’ (writ large) do with me? technological determinism is overtly celebrated by kevin kelly (2010) in his what technology wants. for kelly humanity, and what he terms the ‘technium’, are already well advanced on a process of ‘convergent evolution’ whereby the distinction between the two ‘species’ is becoming ever more blurred and they will eventually merge into a seamless and more highly evolved entity – perhaps a form of cyborg (and see carlson, 2010). it is perhaps telling that we habitually refer to the brain’s ‘wiring’. this is presumably the ultimate form of mitsein (being-with), where two discrete domains of ‘being-withs’ fuse, although kelly cannot quite bring himself to confer life on the technium which he characterises instead as being ‘near living’ (for the moment). as he expresses it: “the technium is maturing into its own thing. its sustaining network of self-reinforcing processes and parts have given it a noticeable measure of autonomy” (kelly, 2010:12). the notion that technology will somehow come to reproduce itself and proliferate is a recurrent theme in this sort of determinism. thus human beings are cast as “the sex organs of the machine world” whose role is to “fecundate” technology to the point where it becomes self-sustaining (mcluhan quoted in carr, 2010:46). for karl marx humans become “appendages of the machine” (kelly, 2010:194). for kelly (2010:152), “the ever-thickening mix of existing technologies in a society creates a supersaturated matrix charged with restless potential”. the sexual imagery of potency is inescapable here. the economist (2011) carried a cover story about a new breed of ‘printer’ which could manufacture anything. in the case of the cover story it was a stradivarius violin but in principle these ‘printers’ can reportedly produce any three-dimensional object given enough information and the appropriate ‘inks’ (plastics and resins). one obvious question ingle 388 which was not addressed, but which was left tacit, was whether these devices could in principle start ‘printing’ themselves as well as robots to tend their operations. the technology is known as ‘additive manufacturing’ and a basic 3d printer now costs less than did a laser printer in 1985. according to the economist, “the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches”. and there are likely to be very few fields it does not touch. according to television news media it is now possible, in america, to ‘print’ new motor vehicles. unlike in heidegger’s day, when it was believed the brain was effectively ‘cast in stone’ once it had developed, we now know that it is not ‘hard-wired’ – that it is in fact “massively plastic” and that it is constantly in the process of reconfiguring itself (carr, 2010:26), albeit at a slower tempo as we age. blakeslee and blakeslee (2007) also show how the brain ‘re-maps’ itself to incorporate equipment that we use on a regular basis. this entails structural changes within the brain itself. the brain “incorporates your car, your bat, your racket, your pen, your chopsticks, your clothes... into your body’s personal sense of self”. there are physical underpinnings to this. as blakeslee and blakeslee (2007:143) proceed to demonstrate: “it isn’t pure wishy-washy mysticism to strive to ‘become one with’... whatever tool it is you seek mastery with: it has a solid experiential and neuroscientific underpinning”. the director of the institute for the future of the mind at oxford, susan greenfield (2010:48) writes that: “screen technologies are neither evil nor miraculous in their effects on the human mind: rather, for every talent lost or diminished, another will be gained or enhanced. what is certain, however, is that our minds will change... the screen can change our brains and thus how we think”. this is ‘neuroplasticity’ in action. but as carr (2010:34) cautions, neuroplasticity “can end up locking us into rigid behaviours” including addictions. we experience a compulsion to keep our rewired circuitry active. carr, for instance, relates how he became obsessively agitated about checking his e-mail once initiated into the technology. more ominously: “plastic does not mean elastic... our neural loops don’t snap back to their former state the way a rubber band does... and nothing says the new state has to be a desirable one” (carr, 2010:34). for those who “value their virtual relationships and their avatars’ well-being more than their own” (blakeslee & blakeslee, 2007:160) or who spend several hours a week engaged in social networking (there are reports of people spending more time in second life than out of it), the ‘internalisation of infrastructure’ referred to earlier begins to take on new meaning (see for example halpern 2014:22-24 on the “internet of things”). web 2.0 afficionados (web 2.0 dates from around 2005) typically involved in academia, content generation and social networking, sometimes report increasing difficulties with reading linearly. instead they find themselves skimming, scrolling and ‘cherry-picking’. although they generally feel themselves to be more productive, they no longer have the patience to follow extended lines of argument (such as this one!) through to a conclusion preferring rather to scan for text-boxes and the like. in 2008 a survey conducted by the ngenera consultancy, on 6000 children who had grown up with the internet, found that they “don’t necessarily read a page from left to right and from top to bottom. they might instead skip around, scanning for pertinent information of interest” (carr, 2010:9). it would seem then that those who pride themselves on the capital represented by their virtual networks could find themselves possessed, or indeed physically modified, by those very networks. as carr (2010:116) summarises: one thing is very clear: if, knowing what we know today about the brain’s plasticity, you were to set out to invent a medium that would rewire our mental circuits as quickly social capital in the era of social networking td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 380-392. 389 and thoroughly as possible, you would probably end up designing... the internet [which] delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli... that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions... [it] turns us into lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment. is this necessarily a bad thing and what might it mean for social capital? sartre was quoted above as saying that to be objectified is always a degradation, by which he means a loss of freedom – a determination imposed upon one by the other. but what if one consents to be an object (cf. james, 2011)? indeed what if one enjoys being an object under certain circumstances – high remuneration for example? what if one experiences it as a compliment that one should be chosen as an object by a subject? is not this what celebrities aim for – to be an object to as many people as possible? might one not freely present oneself as an object? when sartre says that ‘the other’ is constituted as a thing by the ‘gaze’ of the subject (a “transcendence transcended” in his terminology) we seem to hear echoes from the tourism literature where ‘the other’, in the guise of ‘the local’, is ‘commodified’ and ‘consumed’ by the tourist gaze (butcher, 2003) and this presumably not under duress. social networking is the voluntarily objectification described above not also the situation of the networker with hundreds or thousands of facebook friends? but what are the opportunity costs (see turkle, 2011:12) of cultivating and maintaining a thousand friends? of having one’s brain re-wired one way and not moulded in another? as per watson (2010:162), “email and cellphones are useful ways of enriching physical conversation and contact, but we are starting to use them to replace it... perhaps a question we should be asking ourselves... is not whether we can invent something but whether we should. what are the potential consequences of some of these inventions?” since watson posed this question it is now being claimed that actually talking on mobile phones (as opposed to texting) and even the use of e-mail are becoming passé (behr, 2011; turkle, 2011). what was once “better than nothing can become better than something – or better than anything” (turkle, 2011:12). in the context of robotic companions, “when it comes to the perception of other minds, we are extremely gullible, bestowing agency on even the most inanimate of objects” (lehrer, 2011). but as so many nowadays opine, at least robots are dependable and do not cheat, mess or die on one (turkle, 2011). the dynamics of sartre’s phenomenology are actually not nearly as convoluted, or as alien, as their unfamiliar terminology might suggest. it is his conclusion (that all is “conflict”) that is difficult to accept because this is based on a dubious premise – that being an object to a subject is always a degradation. if we could allow for oscillating between subject and object roles without thereby feeling demeaned we could surely assent to heidegger’s mitsein – the mode of ‘being with’. in 1926 heidegger wrote, “even if we see the other ‘just standing around’ [in other words ‘ready-to-hand’ like a piece of equipment], he is never apprehended as a human-thing” (1962:156). the sartrean typology of being can be usefully mapped onto a facility such as facebook as a point of departure for where social networking might be headed. the being-in-itself is simply the technology, the software system as well as whatever device the users employ to run it. being-for-itself is the individual users’ consciousness of themselves as mediated by their status, profiles, avatars and so forth. the being-for-others is the being-for-itself offered up by the user for scrutiny by ‘the other’. the problem for lanier (2010:16) is that this is a lessingle 390 than-human being-for-itself – it is a “standardised presence” which means that being-foritself, which should be radically free, is coerced into making a thing of itself [a dataset] even prior to its objectification by the facebook community. to add insult to injury, the beingfor-itself is being recruited to a system where it is unwittingly being both locked-in and commodified by “antihuman software design” and the host system’s need to provide a return on investment at some point. with roughly one billion users on facebook alone that point is imminent. according to lanier (2010:200) facebook’s users are not its customers – “stop calling yourself a user, you are being used”. facebook’s real ‘customers’ are the prospective advertisers vying for aggregate information from its vast reservoir of users which is why facebook is “evolving ways of goading [its users] into revealing more information” (lanier, 2010:193 and see chatfield, 2012 and crawford, 2014:13). this is of a piece with what lanier (2010:71) means by “cybernetic totalism” which sounds very much like the technological determinism discussed earlier. he gives as an example a situation which might be familiar to anyone who has ever felt themselves being boxed in by a too-restrictive questionnaire: “on a typical social networking site, either you are designated to be in a couple or you are single (or you are in one of a few other predetermined states of being) – and that reduction of life is what gets broadcast between friends all the time. what is communicated between people eventually becomes their truth. relationships take on the troubles of software engineering”. these ‘troubles’ arise because these either/or binaries lie at the core of what is essentially poorly designed ‘legacy’-type software. these reductivist dynamics have also been insightfully analysed by morozov (2013:63-99) in a chapter entitled “so open it hurts” where he describes how people are unwittingly misrepresented online by processes known as data ‘bouncing’ and ‘highlighting and shading’. it is here that sartre’s ‘degradation’ makes its appearance. “what computerized analysis of all the country’s school tests has done to education [disenfranchised teachers] is exactly what facebook has done to friendships. in both cases life is turned into a database. both degradations are based on the same philosophical mistake, which is the belief that computers can presently represent human thought or human relationships. these are things computers cannot currently do” [emphasis added] (lanier, 2010:69; and see nussbaum, 2010; christian, 2011; turkle, 2011; chatfield, 2012 and morozov, 2013). given that lanier was one of the pioneers of virtual reality (he coined the term) we may assume that he has privileged access to how technologically-induced reduction might work. here then the tables are again turned and we find the infrastructure (heidegger’s ‘equipment’) coaxing its users into becoming objects who deliver up data (equipment being fed to sustain the overarching equipment) concerning themselves. as per turkle (2011:xiv), “we seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat each other as things”. conclusion this article has attempted to show that the social capital component of modern society is being subjected to unprecedented pressures and modification arising out of runaway technological developments most especially in the field of information technology. it has traced the trajectory, greatly facilitated by mobile telephony, towards the commodification of humans’ personal attributes, and their conversion into ‘things’ and ‘objects’ for the delectation of an online consumer market. quite irrespective of the desirability or moral tenor of these developments, it stands to reason that any such seismic reconfiguration of society must, ipso facto, hold out unique challenges social capital in the era of social networking td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 380-392. 391 and opportunities. that many of these challenges have yet to be apprehended and articulated is consistent with the extreme unpredictability with which massively accelerated technological progress has imbued the social landscape. references behr r (2011). alone together – review the guardian [online]. 30 january. retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/30/alone-together-sherry-turkle-review beevor a (1999). stalingrad. london: penguin. blakeslee s & blakeslee m (2007). the body has a mind of its own. new york: random house. bohler-muller n & van der merwe c (2011). the potential of social media to impact sociopolitical change on the african continent. policy brief. pretoria: africa institute of south africa (aisa). carlson rh (2010). biology is technology: the promise, peril, and new business of engineering life. cambridge (mass.): harvard university press. carr n (2010). the shallows: how the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. london: atlantic books. chatfield t (2012). how to thrive in the digital age. london: macmillan. christian b (2011). the most human human. new york: doubleday. crawford k (2014). social net worth. the new york times book review. 16 november. economist. (2011). print me a stradivarius: how a new manufacturing technology will change the world. the economist [online]. 10 february. retrieved from: http://www.economist.com/node/18114327 edwards pn (2010). a vast machine: computer models, climate data, and the politics of global warming. cambridge (mass.): mit press. essoungou a-m (2011). a social media boom begins in africa [online]. retrieved from: http://www.ngopulse.org/article/social-media-boom-begins-africa florida r (2010). the great reset: how new ways of living and working drive post-crash prosperity. new york: harpercollins. greenfield s (2010). attention, please. literary review. september: 48-9. grootaert c, narayan d, nyhan-jones v & woolcock m (2004). measuring social capital: an integrated questionnaire. washington: world bank. halpern s (2014). the creepy new wave of the internet. the new york review of books, volume lxi, no. 18. heidegger m (1959). an introduction to metaphysics (trans. manheim, r.). new haven: yale university press. heidegger m (1962). being and time (trans. macquarrie, j. & robinson, e.). oxford: basil blackwell. james el (2011). fifty shades of grey. london: arrow books. keeley b (2007). human capital: how what you know shapes your life. paris: oecd. ingle 392 kelly k (2010). what technology wants. new york: penguin. landes d (1983). revolution in time: clocks and the making of the modern world. cambridge (mass.): harvard univeristy press. lanier j (2010). you are not a gadget. london: penguin. lehrer j (2011). we, robots [online]. 21 january. retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/books/review/lehrer-t.html levy n (2002). sartre. oxford: oneworld publications. lewis s (1922). babbit. new york: signet classic. morozov e (2013). to save everything, click here. london: allen lane. orr ha (2011). the science of right or wrong [online]. the new york review of books. retrieved from: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/12/scienceright-and-wrong/?pagination=false putnam rd (2000). bowling alone: the collapse and revival of american community. new york: simon & schuster. putnam rd & feldstein lm (2003). better together: restoring the american community. new york: simon & schuster. sartre j-p (1958). being and nothingness (trans. barnes, h.e.). london: methuen & co. sen a (2006). identity & violence: the illusion of destiny. london: penguin. singer p (2011). one mountain. times literary supplement. 20 may: 3-4. smith z (2010). generation why? [online]. the new york review of books. november 25. retrieved from: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010 turkle s (2011). alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other. new york: basic books. waterhouse r (1981). a heidegger critique: a critical examination of the existential phenomenology of martin heidegger. brighton: harvester press. watson r (2010). future minds: how the digital age is changing our minds, why this matters and what we can do about it. london: nicholas brealy publishing. willis k (2005). theories and practices of development. oxford: routledge. td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suiderafrika, 7(2) desember 2011, pp. iii – viii. iii redaksionele kommentaar hulde aan prof. pieter de klerk prof. pieter de klerk (65), vakgroephoof geskiedenis in die fakulteit lettere op die vaaldriehoekkampus van die noordwes-universiteit (nwu), tree aan die einde van desember 2011 af. ‘n gedeelte van hierdie uitgawe van td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suiderafrika, word gebruik as ‘n huldigingsbundel vir ‘n kollega wat diep akademiese spore in nwu, veral die vaaldriehoekkampus, getrap het. prof. de klerk het oor ‘n tydperk van sowat 44 jaar baie ervaar en baie mense leer ken. hy het ook bekendheid verwerf. al het hy in beskeidenheid en soms bykans onopvallend, sy weg deur die wandelgange en lokale van die universiteit gebaan, was almal bewus van sy liefde vir kennis en meer insig. as akademikus het hy ‘n invloed op die intellektuele vorming van menige student op die vooren nagraadse vlak gehad. hy het ook ‘n geestelik verrykende invloed op kollegas uitgeoefen. die redaksie van td het vakgenote in geskiedenis aan ander universiteite in suid-afrika gevra om bydraes te lewer. hulle artikels werp lig op terreine van die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis waarin prof. de klerk ‘n lewendige belangstelling het. veral sy interpretatiewe artikels oor die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis, vanuit die perspektief van die historiografie is ‘n aanduiding van die breë spektrum van sy diepte-kennis. hy het voortdurend op die voorpunt van nuwe tendense in die suid-afrikaanse geskiedskrywing gebly. as ewekniebeoordelaar van akademiese artikels en aktiewe medewerker op die redaksie van verskeie tydskrifte, onder meer historia, die amptelike tydskrif van die historiese genootskap van suid-afrika, het hy waardevolle insette gelewer. vir die doeleindes van hierdie bundel is werk gemaak om kollegas in die skool vir basiese wetenskappe aan die nwu vaal te kry om bydraes te lewer. ook in hul werk wat hier aangebied word, het prof. de klerk, regstreeks en onregstreeks, ‘n waardevolle bydrae gelewer. sedert die skoolkonsep in 1998 aan die nwu ingevoer is, het prof. de klerk as akademiese en administratiewe leier ‘n belangrike rol gespeel. daar moes opnuut gedink word oor die wyse waarop akademiese bestuur moes plaasvind in ‘n stelsel waar departemente in vakgroepe omgeskakel is. die ‘verplatting’ van strukture in ‘n skoolsisteem moes daartoe meewerk om in ‘n groter mate die integrasie van dissiplines te bevorder. menige gesprek het soggens in die teekamer van die skool vir basiese wetenskappe oor die jare plaasgevind wat prikkelende idees by kollegas tuisgebring het. prof. de klerk was ‘n belangrike deelnemer in die gesprekke. hy het voortdurend ‘n pro-aktiewe rol gespeel om die skooldirekteur (tans prof. tc rabali) van goeie raad te bedien. ook het hy in die fakulteit op menige komitee gedien en waardevolle insette gelewer. sy doelwit was voortdurend om doeltreffendheid in die stelsel, asook goeie akademiese standaarde na te streef. die dissiplines wat tans (2011) in die skool vir basiese wetenskappe beoefen word, sluit in redaksionele kommentaar iv geskiedenis, bybelkunde, filosofie, openbare bestuur en administrasie asook politieke wetenskap. ofskoon prof. de klerk verkies het om homself met sy geliefde vak, geskiedenis, besig te hou, het hy graag aan akademiese gesprekke met kollegas in ander dissiplines deelgeneem. sy skerpheid van intellek en die vermoë om indringend tot die essensie van wetenskaplike denke te kom, het ‘n waardevolle rol in die skool gespeel. oor die jare het die interaksie tussen kollegas vanuit bepaalde dissiplinêre perspektiewe ‘n invloed op die belewenis van die daaglike akademiese werklikheid uitgeoefen. vanselfsprekend het die omstandighede ook hul navorsingswerk beïnvloed. die verskeidenheid van artikels wat in die bundel opgeneem word, dui op die spektrum van denke en idees wat in ‘n skool van bykans 20 lede kan sirkuleer. prof. de klerk het as akademikus aan menige colloquium en navorsingsgesprek van die skool vir basiese wetenskappe aktief deelgeneem. daardeur het hy kollegas in die strewe na beter navorsingwerk ‘n waardevolle diens bewys. hul bydraes in hierdie bundel is ‘n blyk van dankbaarheid. td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. iiixii v pieter de klerk – beknopte curriculum vitae 1. persoonlike besonderhede van: de klerk voorname: pieter geboortedatum: 1946-04-02 1.1 loopbaangeskiedenis werkgewer posbenaming dienstydperk pu vir cho (potch) junior lektor 1968 1970 pu vir cho lektor 1971 1972 pu vir cho senior lektor 1973 1982 pu vir cho(vdk) medeprofessor 1983 1991 pu vir cho/nwu professor 1992 tans 2. akademiese en professionele kwalifikasies 2.1 skoolloopbaan naam van hoërskool: d.f. malan, bellville matriekjaar: 1963 2.2 tersiêre kwalifikasies kwalifikasie prof./akad. inrigting jaar behaal rigting b.a. a pu vir cho 1966 gesk. en staatsleer honns. b.a. a pu vir cho 1967 geskiedenis m.a. a pu vir cho 1969 geskiedenis d.litt. a pu vir cho 1971 geskiedenis b.ed. a pu vir cho 1973 d.ed. a pu vir cho 1975 tersiêre onderwys 3. publikasies 3.1 boeke (gespesialiseerde werke) 1. de klerk, p. 1973. geskiedenisvergelyking: die gebruik van vergelykende metodes wat gerig is op generalisasie in die geskiedkunde. pro rege, potchefstroom. (rgnpublikasiereeks, nr. 23). 237 bls. 2. de klerk, p. 1975. blywende kolonisasie? ‘n vergelyking van ‘n aantal kolonisasies in die geskiedenis. pu vir cho (wetenskaplike bydraes, a15). 242 bls. 3. de klerk, p. 1977. die opvoedingstaak van die vak geskiedenis, in besonder aan die universiteit. de jong, braamfontein, (rgn-publikasiereeks, nr. 59). 263 bls. redaksionele kommentaar vi 4. de klerk, p. 1981. geskiedenis as kultuurontwikkeling: aspekte van die teorie en filosofie van geskiedenis. butterworths, durban. 175 bls. (herdruk 1988). 5. de klerk, p. het algemeen-nederlands verbond in zuid-afrika (1895-2008). kaapstad/den haag, anv, 2008 3.2 universiteitshandboeke 1. de klerk, p, pretorius, z.l., ingram-barrish, j.r. 1977. die opkoms van europa. ‘n inleiding tot die westerse beskawingsgeskiedenis vanaf die 15de eeu tot 1815. butterworths, durban, 439 bls. (herdruk 1985.) 2. kapp, p.h., moll, j.c., de jongh, p.s., de klerk, p., bergh, j.s. 1984. geskiedenis van die westerse beskawing, deel iii, van rewolusie tot wêreldoorlog. haum, pretoria. 423 bls. 3. kapp, p.h., moll, j.c., de jongh, p.s., de klerk, p., van der merwe, w. en grundlingh, l.w.f. 1989. geskiedenis van die westerse beskawing, deel iii, tussen twee wêreldoorloë. haum, pretoria. 349 bls. 3.3 artikels in vaktydskrifte (vanaf 1984 subsidiedraende tydskrifte) 1. de klerk, p. 1973. die beginsels van geskiedskrywing. perspektief, vol. 12(4): 1315, sept. 2 . de klerk, p. 1974. aims and methods of historical comparison. koers, vol. 39(5 en 6): 289 – 310. 3. de klerk, p. 1974. relevant history. a christian view on the task of the historian provides an answer to the present crisis in historical study. koers, vol. 39(5 en 6): 267 288.4. 4. de klerk, p. 1974. vergelyking in die bestudering van geskiedenis. suid-afrikaanse historiese joernaal, vol. 6: 88 103, nov.5. 5. de klerk, p. 1975. die vorming van historiese perspektief as algemene opvoedingstaak van die universiteit. bulletin van die suid-afrikaanse vereniging vir die bevordering van christelike wetenskap, vol. 45: 3 31, jul.6. 6. de klerk, p. 1983. geskiedenis en staatsleer. historia, vol. 28(1): 1 10 mei. 7. de klerk, p. 1988. vormverandering van kolonialisme in die geskiedenis. koers, vol. 53(1): 121 146.8. 8. de klerk, p. 1988. kolonialisme as historiese proses. koers, vol. 53(4): 537 567. 9. de klerk, p. 1989. afrikanerdenkers en die beginsels van die ossewa-brandwag. joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 14(1): 43 81, jun.. 10. de klerk, p. 1989. die ossewa-brandwag se ideaal van ‘n nuwe samelewingsorde in suid-afrika. joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 14(2): 90 131, des. 11. de klerk, p. 1989. die rol van kolonialisme in historiese ontwikkeling. koers, vol. 54(3): 249 271. 12. de klerk, p. 1989. twee perspektiewe op die suid-afrikaanse historiografie. contree, vol. 25: 29 31. td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. iiixii vii 13. de klerk, p. 1990. die walvisbaai-enklawe: ‘n koloniale oorblyfsel? joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 15(3): 72 90. 14. de klerk, p. 1994. van ‘n eurosentriese na ‘n afrosentriese geskiedenis. koers, vol. 59(1): 53 68. 15. de klerk, p. 1994. die plek van kultuurgeskiedenis in algemene historiese oorsigwerke ‘n vergelykende ondersoek. suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, vol. 8(1): 31 34. 16. de klerk, p. 1994. die algemeen-nederlands verbond en die anglo-boereoorlog (1899 1902). suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, vol. 8(2): 65 71. 17. de klerk, p. 1996. die algemeen-nederlands verbond en suid-afrika, 1945 1995. joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 21(1): 68 87. 18. de klerk, p. 1996. nederlandse nasionalisme en afrikanernasionalisme 'n vergelyking. koers, vol. 61(3): 323 344. 19. de klerk, p. 1997. politieke koersaanduiding in koers, 1933 1961. koers, vol. 62(1): 45 76. 20. de klerk, p. 1997. die algemeen-nederlands verbond en suid-afrika, 1906 1940. suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, vol. 11(1): 109 122. 21. de klerk, p. 1998. afrikaners en nederlanders: stamverwante? koers, 63(4): 295312. 22. de klerk, p. 1999. die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis in vergelykende perspektief – ‘n metodologiese ondersoek. historia, vol. 44(2): 287-306. 23. de klerk, p. 2000. die tydskrif woord en daad en die apartheidsbeleid, 1954-1966. joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 25(1): 72-8. 24. de klerk, p. 2001. van afrikaans tot multikultureel –die vaaldriehoekkampus van die pu vir cho, 1966-2000. suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, vol. 15(1): 34-49. 25. de klerk, p. 2001. afskeid van apartheid – die politieke koers van die tydskrif woord en daad in die periode 1967-1990. joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 26(2): 3457 26. de klerk, p. 2001. die probleemstelling – noodsaaklike beginpunt vir historiese navorsing? historia, vol. 46(2): 405-425. 27. de klerk, p. 2002. 1652 – die beginpunt van kolonialisme in suid-afrika? historia, vol. 47(2):739-764. 28. de klerk, p. 2003. d.w. krüger as skrywer van eietydse geskiedenis. joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 28(3):72-91. 29. de klerk, p. 2004. die bydrae van j.s. du plessis (1919-1990) tot die geskiedskrywing, historia, vol. 49(2):187-202. 30. de klerk, p. 2005. die oorsprong van die afrikaanse republikeinse tradisie – ‘n historiografiese verkenning. tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe, vol. 45(2):218-231. 31. de klerk, p. 2005. die verband tussen apartheid en nasionaal-sosialisme. joernaal redaksionele kommentaar viii vir eietydse geskiedenis, vol. 30(2): 1-18. 32. de klerk, p. 2005. suid-afrika binne wêreldhistoriese konteks – ‘n ondersoek na oorsigwerke oor die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis. historia, vol. 50(2):261-286. 33. de klerk, p. 2006. die politieke beskouinge van paul kruger – interpretasies oor ‘n tydperk van 125 jaart. tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe, vol. 46(23):171-183. 34. de klerk, p. 2007. die akkulturasie van die khoikhoi en die slawe in die kaapkolonie (1652-1910). suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, vol. 21(1):1-21. 35. de klerk, p. en haarhoff, j. 2007. die bydrae van karel schoeman tot geskiedskrywing oor die kaapkolonie. historia, vol. 52(2):125-149. 36. de klerk, p. 2008. taal, kultuur en ontspanning: die rol van die algemeennederlands verbond in kaapstad, 1995-2008. new contree, vol. 55: 67-92.. 37. de klerk, p. 2008. f.a. van jaarsveld se die ontwaking van die afrikaanse nasionale bewussyn na vyftig jaar. tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe, vol. 48(3): 339-356. 38. de klerk, p. 2009. die stigting van die kaapkolonie in die nederlandse geskiedskrywing. historia, vol. 54(2): 178-196. 39. de klerk, p. 2009. streeksgeskiedskrywing en koloniale verhoudinge: die weskaapse platteland en die karoo. new contree, vol. 58: 1-36. 40. de klerk, p. 2009. was die groot trek werklik groot? ‘n historiografiese ondersoek na die gevolge en betekenis van die groot trek. tydskrif vir geesteswertenskappe, vol. 49(4): 658-673. 41. de klerk, p. 2010. integrasieprosesse in die vroeë kaapkolonie (1652-1795) binne vergelykende konteks – ‘n historiografiese studie. new contree, vol, 59: 1-28. 42. de klerk, p. 2011. die periodisering van die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis in resente oorsigwerke. historia, vol. 56(1): 138-152.. 3.4 bydraes in wetenskaplike versamelwerke 1. de klerk, p. 1974. reformasie en revolusie in die geskiedenis. in: pu vir cho (ibc), reformasie en revolusie. potchefstroom. bls. 23 36. 2. de klerk, p. 1975. die indiese oseaan in die wêreld politiek ‘n historiese oorsig. in: pu vir cho (sip), die indiese oseaan in die wêreldpolitiek, potchefstroom. bls. 11-41. 3. de klerk, p. 1976. geskiedeniswetenskap. in: p. de klerk (red.), die geskiedenis in die wetenskap. pu vir cho, potchefstroom, bls. 1 14. 4. de klerk, p. 1976. die midde-ooste in die wêreldpolitiek ‘n historiese verkenning. in: pu vir cho (sip), die midde-ooste, kookpot van die wêreldpolitiek, potchefstroom. bls. 9 32. 5. de klerk, p. 1977. p.d.c. grobler. in: d.w. krüger en c.j. beyers (reds.), suidafrikaanse biografiese woordeboek, deel iii. kaapstaad, tafelberg. bls. 365 367. 6. de klerk, p. 1980. hoofmomente in die amerikaanse geskiedenis. in: pu vir cho (sip), die vsa in die wêreldpolitiek. potchefstroom, bls. 1 23. td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. iiixii ix 7. de klerk, p. 1984. afrika deur ideologieë geteister. in: pu vir cho (irs), ideologiese stryd in suider-afrika. potchefstroom. bls. 41 50. 8. de klerk, p. 1985. fasette van ontwikkelingsproblematiek in christelike perspektief. in: pu vir cho, mens en samelewing: ‘n bundel opstelle uit die fakulteit lettere en wysbegeerte van die pu vir cho. potchefstroom. bls. 56 68. 9. de klerk, p. 1987. die ooste en afrika: ‘n historiese oorsig. in: c.j. maritz (red.), afrika tussen die ooste en die weste. potchefstroom, pu vir cho. bls. 1 13. 10. de klerk, p. 1987. paradigmas in die geskiedeniswetenskap. in: pu vir cho, paradigmas in die wetenskappe, ‘n christelike perspektief. potchefstroom. bls. 46 50. 11. de klerk, p. 1991. die ideologie van die ossewa-brandwag. in: van der schyff, p.f. (red.) die ossewa-brandwag: vuurtjie in droeë gras. potchefstroom, pu vir cho. bls. 292 331. 12. de klerk, p. 1992. die eenheid van die geskiedenis. wetenskaplike bydraes van die pu vir cho. reeks h: intreeredes, nr. 128. 13. de klerk, p en tempelhoff, j. 2006. die ontwikkeling van die universiteitswese – in besonder in suid-afrika. in: van eeden, e.s. (red.) ‘in u lig’: die pu vir cho van selfstandigwording tot samesmelting, 1951-2004. potchefstroom, noordwesuniversiteit. bls. 19-36. 14. de klerk, p. en du pisani, k. 2006. ontwikkeling op onderriggebied. in: van eeden, e.s. (red.) ‘in u lig’: die pu vir cho van selfstandigwording tot samesmelting, 1951-2004.. potchefstroom, noordwes-universiteit. bls. 85-140. 15. de klerk, p. en möller, p. 2006. ontstaan en ontwikkeling van die vaaldriehoekkampus. in: van eeden, e.s. (red.) ‘in u lig’: die pu vir cho van selfstandigwording tot samesmelting, 1951-2004. potchefstroom, noordwesuniversiteit. bls. 443-484. 3.5 redigering van versamelwerk 1. p. de klerk (red.). 1976. die geskiedenis in die wetenskap. potchefstroom, pu vir cho (wetenskaplike bydraes, reeks a, nr. 22). 142 bls. 3.6 ander publikasies 1. populêr-wetenskaplike artikels. sowat 35 artikels het vanaf 1966 in die volgende tydskrifte verskyn. die besembos, loog, woord en daad, nuus oor afrika, die wêreld in oënskou, irs-studiestukke, gister en vandag, oënskou, orientation, handhaaf. 2. boekresensensies. ongeveer 70 boekresensies het verskyn in die volgende tydskrifte: historia, suid-afrikaanse historiese joernaal, kleio, koers, gister en vandag, woord en daad, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe. redaksionele kommentaar x 4. ongepubliseerde verhandelinge en verslae 4.1 verhandelinge 1. de klerk, p. 1969. die geskiedskrywing oor paul kruger. m.a.-verhandeling, pu vir cho. 257 bls. 2. de klerk, p. 1970. geskiedenisvergelyking: die gebruik van vergelykende metodes wat gerig is op generalisasie in die geskiedkunde. d.litt.-proefskrif, pu vir cho, 341 bls., (gepubliseer in verkorte vorm, aangedui in 3.1). 3. de klerk, p. 1974. die uitvoering van die universiteitstaak in die vak geskiedenis. d.ed.-proefskrif pu vir cho. 487 bls. (gepubliseer in verkorte vorm, aangedui in 3.1). 4.2 verslae 1. van der schyff, p.f., badenhorst, j.j., de klerk, p., fourie, l.m. en prinsloo, p.j.j. 1984. geskiedenis van die ossewa-brandwag. pu vir cho (dept. geskiedenis). 460 bls. 2. de klerk, p. 1981. die ideologie van die ossewa-brandwag subverslag. pu vir cho (dept. geskiedenis). 136 bls. 5. akademiese aktiwiteite 5.1 eksterne eksaminatorskappe eksterne eksiminator vir voorgraadse en nagraadse werk, insluitende skripsies, verhandelinge en proefskrifte, vir: randse afrikaanse universiteit (tans universiteit van johannesburg); universiteit van suid-afrika; universiteit van namibië; universiteit van die noorde (tans universiteit van limpopo); universiteit van stellenbosch; en universiteit van zululand. 5.2 onderrigervaring 1. pu vir cho./nwu doseer vanaf 1967 b.a. geskiedenis i, ii, iii feitlik alle afdelings, in besonder wêreldgeskiedenis. 2. 1969 tans. honns. b.a. geskiedenis, teorie, historiografie, die reformasie, kolonialisme. 3. 1969 1975. m.a. filosofie van geskiedenis. 4. 1979 1981. wetenskapsleer, geskiedenisfilosofie. 5. 2000-2003 wetenskapsleer, kultuurfilosofie. 5.3 studieleiding -­‐ ms en ds (afgehandel) promotor, hulppromotor en studieleier vir ses proefsktifte, verhandelinge en skripsie td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. iiixii xi 6. lidmaatskap en deelname aan verenigings en rade 6.1 kommissies, komitees, fakulteitsrade 1. senaat 1992 – 2007. 2. fakulteitsraad lettere en wysbegeerte. 1983 – 1991. lid. 3. fakulteitskomitee lettere en wysbegeerte (vaaldriehoekkampus). 1983 -1991. lid. ook lid van die volgende subkomitees: eksamenkomitee, versoekekomitee, regulasie-, jaarboeken roosterkomitee, dagbestuur. 4. interfakultêre akademiese raad/fakulteitsraad vaaldriehoek, fakulteitsraad geesteswetenskappe, 1992 tans. lid. ook lid van die volgende fakulteritskomitees: navorsingskomitee, eksamenkomitee, roosteren jaarboekkomitee. 5. beplanningskomitee, vaaldriehoekkampus. 1992 1998. lid. 6. beheerraad instituut vir sa politiek. 1977 1882. lid. 7. beheerraad instituut vir reformatoriese studie. 1984 1987. lid. 8. departementele verteenwoordiger, vaaldriehoekkampus, departement geskiedenis. 1983 1991. 9. hoof, departement geskiedenis (vdk). 1992 – 1998. 10. vakvoorsitter, geskiedenis (vdk). 1999-tans 6.2 redaksies 1. loog. 1971 1974. redakteur. 2. woord en daad. 1974 1984. redaksielid. 3. gister en vandag. tydskrif vir geskiedenisonderrig. 1984 tans. redaksielid. 4. suid-afrikaanse historiese joernaal. 1991 – 2003. redaksielid. 5. historia. redaksielid, 1999-2003, mederedakteur 2006-2010. 6. keurder vir verskeie artikels in sa historiese joernaal, joernaal vir eietydse geskiedenis, koers, tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe, sa tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, historia, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe, new contree. 6.3 vakverenigings 1. sa historiese vereniging. 1973 1975. bestuurslid. 2. sa historiese vereniging. 1969 tans. lid. 3. sa akademie vir wetenskap en kuns. 1978 tans. lid. 4. american historical society. 1988 1998. lid. 5. international society for the comparative study of civilizations. 1988 2002. lid. redaksionele kommentaar xii 6. sa vereniging vir geskiedenisonderwys. 1987 -2002. lid. 7. world history association. 1990 2003. lid. 8. sa vereniging vir kultuurgeskiedenis. 1996 tans. lid. 7. toekennings 7.1 navorsingstoekennings 1. ad hoc beurs. 1973. rgn. 2. toekenning vir vakfilosofiese navorsing. 1979. pu vir cho. departement wetenskapsleer. 7.2 beurstoekennings 1. nasionale beurs. 1969 1970. 7.3 publikasietoekennings 1. publikasietoekenning. 1973. rgn (vir publikasie van boek aangedui in 3.1-1). 2. publikasietoekenning. 1977. rgn (vir publikasie van boek aangedui in 3.1-3). 7.4 toekenning vir lewering van referaat in die buiteland 1. 1992. swo. 2. 1994. swo. 7.5 pryse 1. erepenning vir geskiedenisbevordering van die sa akademie vir wetenskap en kuns. 1993. 8. openbare optredes, deelname 8.1 buitelandse studie en navorsing 1. studie: vrije unviersiteit amsterdam. 1969 1970. nederland (1 jaar). 2. studiebesoek aan verskeie universiteite. 1972. vsa (2 maande). 3. gereelde studie en navorsing vir korter tydperke in hoofsaaklik londen en amsterdam gedoen. 8.2 deelname aan binnelandse konferensies verskeie referate is gelewer sedert 1973 op vakkonferensies van hoofsaaklik, die sa historiese vereniging en die historiese genootskap van sa. 8.3 deelname aan internasionale konferensies ongeveer 20 voordragte is sedert 1990 gelewer op buitelandse vakkonferensies. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. xiii – xiv. tribute to prof pieter de klerk prof. pieter de klerk (65), subject head of history in the faculty of humanities on the vaal triangle campus of north-west university (nwu, retires at the end of december 2011. part of this edition of td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa is dedicated to the memory of a colleague who has made a deep academic mark in nwu. over a period of 44 years he experienced much and got to know many people. he also became renowned. although he tried in in a modest and sometimes unobtrusive way to pass through the corridors and chambers of the university, all and sundry were aware of his love for knowledge and more insight. as an academic he had an influence in shaping the intellect of many underand post-graduate students. he also had a spiritually enriching influence on colleagues. the editorial management of td asked colleagues in the subject of history at several south african universities to contribute articles in this edition of the journal. their contributions shed light on some of the areas of south african history in which prof. de klerk has a lively interest. especially his interpretative articles on south african history and historiography are indicative of his broad spectrum of deep knowledge in which he has become a specialist. he consistently remained well informed and abreast of new trends in south african historiography. as peer reviewer of academic articles and active editorial member of several journals, amongst others, historia, the official journal of the historical association of south africa, he made valuable contributions. for the purposes of this collection of articles, colleagues in the school of basic sciences at nwu were asked to contribute material. also in the work presented here, prof. de klerk indirectly made a contribution. since the school concept was introduced at nwu in 1998, prof de klerk played a leading academic and administrative role. it required of colleagues to think anew on matters of academic management and how to turn departments into subject groups. it was all about ‘flattening’ structures to create a school system that would promote the integration of disciplines. there were many chats in the tearoom of the school of basic sciences in the mornings. they left colleagues with many refreshing ideas. prof. de klerk was an active participant. he consistently played a pro-active role in serving the school director (currently prof. tc rabali) with sound advice. he also served in many faculty committees. his objective was constantly to improve efficiency and strive towards improving academic standards. also in the faculty he served on many committees and made valuable contributions. his objective was to favour efficiency in the system and aspire to sound academic standards. the disciplines currently (2011) forming part of the school of basic sciences include history, biblical studies, philosophy, public management and political studies. although prof. de klerk chose to busy himself with his beloved discipline of history, he liked to participate in discussions with colleagues in other disciplines. his sharp intellect and the ability to get to the essence of scientific thinking played a valuable role in the school. editorial comment: tribute pieter de klerk xiv over the years the interaction between colleagues, from different disciplines, had a marked effect on the manner in which the reality of daily academic activity was experienced. it also naturally influenced their research work. the variety of articles in this edition, tells of the spectrum of thought and ideas that circulate in a school of almost 20 members. as an academic prof de klerk sat in many colloquiums and research discussions of the school of basic sciences. by making comments and constructively criticising the work of colleagues he did them a great favour. their contributions should be seen as a gesture of thanks to him. td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 7(2) december 2011, pp. xv – xxiii. hoe ons pieter de klerk sal onthou how we will remember pieter de klerk kollegas van prof pieter de klerk aan die word colleagues of prof pieter de klerk have their say herinneringsbeeld van prof pieter de klerk se werksplek aan die vaaldriehoekkampus van die noordwes-universiteit – prof. piet prinsloo1 prof pieter de klerk was sedert 1983 vir bykans dertig jaar ʼn getroue deelgenoot in die wordingsjare van ʼn universiteitskampus in die vaaldriehoek. oorsigtelik beskou, verdien die volgende aspekte vermelding in die vestiging van die vaaldriehoekkampus in vanderbijlpark. die vaaldriehoekkampus het ʼn beskeie begin gehad. prof albert sorgdrager het gedurende 1963 op versoek van die plaaslike gemeenskap opknappingskursusse vir kosterekenmeesters in die vaaldriehoek, in die handelskool, lettie fouché, se geboue, aangebied. hierdie toetrede het tot gevolg gehad dat die potchefstroomse universiteit vir christelike hoër onderwys (pucho) sedert 1966 'n na-uurse bcom-graad in die vaaldriehoek aangebied het. vir die aanbieding van die kursus het dosente vanaf potchefstroom gependel. sedert 1970 is na-uurse lesings vir 'n ba-graad in vanderbijlpark aangebied. prof sp van der walt het in 1973 'n permanente kantoor in vanderbijlpark vir die 385 na-uurse studente geopen. in 1976 is 'n vierverdiepinggebou in goodyearstraat te vanderbijlpark aangekoop en na-uurse lesings vir 'n bsc-graad is begin. gedurende 1979 het die na-uurse aanbieding van beden hod-klasse afgeskop. dit verteenwoordig die vier studierigtings wat tot op hede aangebied word. die eerste tiental voltydse personeellede van die pucho wat gedurende 1976 en 1977 vanaf potchefstroom na die vaalrivierse tak gestuur is om ʼn universiteitskampus te vestig, moes om die volgende redes teen die tydsgees in poog om ʼn doelmatige universiteitskampus tot stand te bring. op nasionale vlak is die randse afrikaanse universiteit (rau) gedurende die sewentigerjare met genoegsame kapitaal en grootse vergesigte kragdadig gevestig. ʼn nuwe moderne universiteit het gevolglik ʼn skrale sowat tagtig kilometer van die vaaldriehoek verrys. hiernaas het die destydse regering ook die aanbevelings van die van wyk de vries-verslag ter harte geneem, wat beperkings op die verdere uitbreiding van die hoëronderwysinstellings aanbeveel het. die swart bevrydingsbewegings het boonop na 1976 se soweto-opstande getoon dat die daeraad van swart nasionalisme aangebreek het. die vaaldriehoek het ʼn onstuimige politieke klimaat beleef, wat onteenseglik aangetoon het dat die dae van eksklusiewe regte en voorregte vir bepaalde rasgroepe vir altyd verby was. op plaaslike vlak het die gemeenskapsleiers, sakelui en nyweraars die pucho se inisiatief geesdriftig gesteun om ʼn satellietkampus in die vaaldriehoek te ontwikkel, maar kon nie 1 . kampushoof/kampusrektor nwu (vaal), 1995-2009. kollegas aan die woord xvi genoegsame kapitaal monster om hierdie onderneming stewig te vestig nie. die vaalweekblad het, les bes, gereeld sy lesers aangemoedig om by die “kampus” op hul drempel te gaan studeer. op institusionele vlak het prof hennie bingle, die destydse rektor, ʼn klein gideonsbende benoem en op eg reformatoriese grondslag aangemoedig om hul roeping verder in die vaaldriehoek te gaan uitleef. gewapen met die karaktereienskappe wat die pucho oor tyd gekenmerk het, is die klein onderneming in die vaaldriehoek in 1977 met sowat tien personeellede en 55 voltydse studente begin. geld vir nuwe geboue was daar nie, want een universiteitskampus, die pucho, kon nie met die beperkte staatsubsidie ʼn nuwe kampus ontwikkel nie. geld vir bykomende personeel en nuwe programme, om vakkeuses te verruim, was daar ook nie. personeel van die potchefstroomkampus moes in dubbelskofte na die vaaldriehoek pendel om hul kennis op dinsdagen donderdagaande aan na-uurse studente oor te dra. hierdie verdeelde lojaliteit het enersyds groot stremming op personeel geplaas. andersins het die ontwikkelingskoste van die potchefstroomkampus en die hoë vestigingskoste van die vaaldriehoekkampus die universiteit se begroting onder groot druk geplaas, wat menigmaal personeellede van die twee kampusse in uiteenlopende belangebotsings teenoor mekaar gebring het. gedurende 1983 is verdere momentum en bestuursoutonomie aan die ontwikkelende kampus gegee. die kampus is na die vaaldriehoekkampus herbenaam, met 'n viserektor as bestuurshoof, bygestaan deur adjunkdekane vir die vier subfakulteite wat aan die dekane op potchefstroom gerapporteer het. ʼn volgende groep professore, waaronder prof de klerk, is ook na vanderbijlpark oorgeplaas om senioriteit aan die kampus se akademiese strukture te verleen. die bouwerk op die rivierkampus het ook in die jaar 'n aanvang geneem. die eerste professore in die fakulteit ingenieurswese aan die vaaldriehoekkampus is ook in 1983 benoem. in 1984 word die werksaamhede van die vaaldriehoekkampus vanaf die goodyearstraatgebou na die rivierkampus van 117 hektaar en nagenoeg 2 km rivierfront oorgeplaas. die studentegetalle het in die jaar tot 1 140 gestyg en die eerste gradeplegtigheid vir 99 graduandi is in die vaaldriehoek gehou. die vaaldriehoekkampus se studenteraad het gedurende die jaar ook selfstandigheid van die sentrale studenteraad op potchefstroom verkry. die fakulteit ingenieurswese het in 1987 die nuwe doelgemaakte geboue op die rivierkampus betrek. die nuwe kampuskoshuise is in gebruik geneem en ʼn huiskomiteestelsel vir koshuisstudente het in werking getree. selfs op sportgebied het die nagenoeg 1 848 studente vordering getoon. die watuni’s se eerste rugbyspan het die presidentsbeker in die vaaldriehoek gewen. sportspanne het jaar na jaar op die suksesse voortgebou. in 1989 het die watuni-sportspanne ses uit die agt trofeë in die vaaldriehoek verower. die jaar 1991 was ʼn jaar van hoogdrama asook die vestiging van verdere akademiese strukture. aan die negatiewe kant het die fakulteit ingenieurswese vanaf die vaaldriehoekkampus na potchefstroom verskuif en gevolglik die voorafgaande ontwikkelingsdrif getemper. die studentegetalle het daarom tot 1 587 gedaal. aan die positiewe kant het die universiteitsraad besluit om groter akademiese selfstandigheid aan die vaaldriehoekkampus toe te ken. 'n interfakultêre akademiese raad (iar) is derhalwe gevorm wat soos 'n fakulteitsraad in die senaat se werksaamhede gefunksioneer het. die ampte van fakulteitshoofde in die plek van adjunkdekane vir die subfakulteite en departementshoofde vir departemente is ingestel wat direk aan die viserektor as kampushoof gerapporteer het. die colleagues have their say td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. xv xxii xvii ondersteuningsdepartemente het ook aan die viserektor gerapporteer. sedert 1995 het studente uit die agtergeblewe gemeenskappe met protesoptredes begin, wat die kampus se transformasieproses versnel het. ʼn voorbeeld van hierdie proses is die herbenaming en hergroepering van die koshuise vir dorpstudente. die wit manskoshuis (watuni) het saamgesmelt met die swart manskoshuis (amabhubesi) en het die nuwe oryxkoshuis gevorm. die wit dameskoshuis (ixia) het saamgesmelt met die swart dameskoshuis (dishweshwe) en die nuwe acacia-koshuis gevorm. hierdie transformasiedebat was nog volstoom op dreef toe die inkorporering van die vistauniversiteit se sebokengkampus met die vaaldriehoekkampus van die pucho, op grond van die regering se herskikking van die hoër onderwys, in 2003 plaasgevind het. sodoende het ʼn hele nuwe ontwikkelingsproses vir die kampus gevolg. die studentegetalle in 2003 was 2 177 vir die vaaldriehoekkampus en 629 studente vir vista se sebokengkampus, wat ʼn totaal van 2 806 studente meegebring het. die akademiese personeelkomponent vir hierdie studente was 53 vir die vaaldriehoekkampus en 20 vir vista. die regering se transformasieproses van die hoër onderwys sedert 2004 het onder meer tot gevolg gehad dat die pucho en die universiteit van noordwes saamgesmelt het om die noordwes-universiteit te vorm. gedurende 2004, die jaar van die samesmelting en inkorporering, het die vaaldriehoekse studentegetal tot 3 038 gestyg. op interpersoonlike vlak het die kampus baie studente se akademiese en romantiese drome beantwoord. baie personeellede se professionele ontwikkeling en ervaring en die studente se akademiese vorming is genoegsaam op kampus geskool, sodat hulle gemaklik en suksesvol by ander instellings hul loopbane of studies voortgesit het. die vaaldriehoekkampus as werksplek was ook deurentyd baie gewild. dit het telkemale gebeur dat personeel wat om bepaalde redes bedank het, na ʼn tyd weer vir werk aangeklop het. die vaaldriehoekkampus het as ontwikkelende kampus uitdagings aan sy personeelkorps gebied, wat op gevestigde kampusse ondenkbaar was. hierteenoor het die vaaldriehoekkampus as egte multikulturele kampus ook ʼn reputasie onder studente en werkgewers opgebou dat studente uit verskillende volksgroepe, skouer aan skouer hul studies kon voltooi en sodoende ʼn kultureel-sensitiewe leefervaring opgebou het wat vir sinvolle inskakeling in die werksplek noodsaaklik is. in die tydperk 2004-2011 het die vaaldriehoekkampus van die noordwes-universiteit ontwikkel tot ʼn selfstandige en ware multikulturele universiteitskampus met 5 601 studente, 154 permanente akademiese personeel, 150 permanente ondersteuningspersoneel, asook ʼn hele aantal tydelike personeellede, wat ʼn uitstekende reputasie as kwaliteitsgedrewe instelling in die hoëronderwyssektor losgewerk het. die vaaldriehoekkampus is en bly ʼn universiteitskampus wat, steeds getrou aan sy roeping, opleiding van 'n hoë gehalte lewer deur ʼn toegewyde personeelkorps soos prof pieter de klerk. kollegas aan die woord xviii kollega-vriend – mf (tienie) van der walt2 mense leer mekaar ken en vriendskappe word gesluit op grond van gedeelde ervarings. my kontak met pieter de klerk strek oor ‘n periode van ongeveer 47 jaar, waartydens ons baie ervarings gedeel het, van ons eerste jaar aan die pu vir cho (1964) tot 20 jaar se saamwerk as kollegas by hierdie kampus. daar is dus baie stof vir die oudag se “onthou-jy-noggesprekke”. dit is egter nie die ervarings as sodanig waaroor ek wil skryf nie, maar wel iets oor sy persoonlikheid wat ek deur hierdie ervaringe leer ken het. ek het aan verskillende begrippe gedink om pieter mee te beskryf. die vraag is, hoe beskryf mens iemand wat al op elke denkbare en ondenkbare plek op aarde was, maar nie ‘n kamera besit nie? hy liaseer sy prentjies in sy kop-kabinet! hoe beskryf mens iemand wat ‘n buitengewone kennis van nasionale en internasionele gebeurtenisse het, wat ‘n kenner is van al wat ‘n gehalte-fliek is, wat sinvolle gesprekke kan voer oor byna elke nuwe publikasie van gehalte-fiksie, outobiografieë en reisverhale, maar hy besit nie ‘n tv nie en kan nie ‘n selfoon gebruik nie? hoe beskryf mens ‘n hoogleraar in geskiedenis wat die hoogste sport in sy beroep bereik het, maar pretensieloos is, geen waarde aan statussimbole heg nie, en nie enige nut sien in materiële ego-versterkers nie? hoe beskryf mens iemand wat al die land per motor platgery het, en nooit besef het dat sy motor lugversorging het nie? ek kon, na baie geskarrel met woorde, nie op ‘n meer beskrywende begrip kom as “eksentriek” (in die positiewe sin) nie. pieter de klerk is eksentriek, want hy is in sekere opsigte uniek, anders, buitengewoon, a-tipies, onkonvensioneel en buitengewoon. sy soort skop jy nie agter elke bossie uit nie! daar is nog ‘n ander begrip waarmee pieter beskryf kan word, nl. “kwaliteit”. alles waarmee hy hom bemoei, getuig van kwaliteit-kennis, insig en begrip. sy kennis van sy vakgebied is algemeen bekend. sy kennis van gebeure van die dag, filosofiese en teologiese strominge, ens. het ons daaglikse teetyd-gesprekke gehalte gegee. as kenner van die jaarboek, samestelling van kurrikula, die a-reëls, fakulteitsreëls, ens., het hy nie ‘n gelyke op die kampus nie. vir sommige sekretaresses is hy ‘n pyniging, want hy sien elke tik en spelfout, elke foutiewe formulering en weglating raak. baie lede van vergaderings sug as pieter sy hand opsteek vir ‘n spreekbeurt. hulle wil die vergadering so gou moontlik afgehandel kry, maar pieter onthou wat op vorige vergaderings besluit is, hy sien diskripansies raak en kyk krities na voorstelle wat ter tafel is. al hierdie aktiwiteite spel vir my een woord, nl. “kwaliteit”. van vergaderings tot teekamergesprekke het pieter ons verryk deur sy skerp vermoë tot kritiese denke. ‘n laaste kenmerk van pieter wat my altyd sal bybly, is die feit dat hy nooit met ‘n gekrenkte ego rondgeloop het as ‘n mens van hom verskil nie. selfs na gesprekke wat af en toe driftig geword het, was die lug direk na die gesprek weer skoon. ek het nooit kwade gevoelens of rugstekery ervaar na ‘n intense woordewisseling nie. in my boek dui dit op ‘n unieke integriteit. ek gaan pieter mis, die kampus gaan hom mis, maar ek is dankbaar vir die baie jare wat ons ‘n unieke kollega-vriendskap kon deel. 2 . afgetrede vakgroephoof filosofie, skool vir basiese wetenskappe, nwu (vaal). colleagues have their say td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. xv xxii xix vakman, leier en administrator – dr pieter möller3 ek ken pieter de klerk sedert 1974 toe ek by hom klas gehad het as student in potchefstroom. met my aanstelling by die vaaldriehoekkampus in 1986 het ons paaie weer gekruis en het ek die voorreg gehad om as kollega in die department geskiedenis saam met hom te werk tot 2011. op akademiese gebied het ek baie by pieter geleer. hy het gedurende hierdie jare meestal opgetree as vakhoof van ons department. hy is ‘n persoon met ‘n intensiewe vakkennis maar ook ‘n geweldig wye algemene kennis. ek het my altyd verstom aan sy insig en gemaklike bestuurstyl. pieter het nooit oor ‘n mens se skouer geloer nie, maar jou altyd die kans en geleentheid gegee om jouself akademies uit te leef. pieter was in baie opsigte my mentor op akademiese gebied en sy deur het altyd oopgestaan vir enige insette wat van hom gevra is. daarvoor het ek ontsettend baie waardering. akademiese administrasie was ook ‘n gebied waarop pieter gespesialiseer het en hierin het hy ook spesiefke leiding geneem. daar was nie ‘n reël in die boek wat hy nie geken het nie. met my taak as fakulteitsbestuurder het pieter my baie ondersteun en kon ek telkens na hom gaan indien ek onseker gevoel het oor ‘n spesifieke saak. hier het hy telkens die wysheid van salomo aan die dag gelê. teekamer gesprekke was seker een van die mees verrykende ervarings. hier het pieter absoluut leiding geneem en is daar oor hoogs akademiese sake, maar ook ‘n wye reeks alledaagse gebeurlikhede gesels. pieter kon oor rolprente, kultuursake, politieke vraagstukke en diesmeer ‘n waardevolle inset lewer tydens hierdie teekamer gesprekke. sy insig oor soveel van hierdie sake het telkens respek by die ander teedrinkers ontlok. sport was die enigste aspek waaroor pieter nie graag gepraat het nie en sy standpunt was dat daar heeltemal te veel gemaak word van sport. ek het vir pieter de klerk as persoon die hoogste agting. as kollega en akademiese vriend wens ek pieter alles van die beste toe met sy aftrede. ek is seker ons sal nog heelwat van hom hoor en dat hy ook in die jare wat kom nog ‘n daadwerklike bydrae sal lewer tot die vak geskiedenis. honest and humble person … speaking out … on important matters – prof. tc rabali4 he has a good memory and is able to share his knowledge of the history of this institution with all of us. his retirement leaves a huge vacuum because in the school of basic sciences, the faculty of humanities, and in the campus senate, we depended on him to provide a historical context for the developments and issues we discuss. he always participated in our school’s colloquia and gladly shared his research insights. prof de klerk is an honest and humble person who does not shy away from speaking out his mind 3 . vakgroep geskiedenis, skool vir basiese wetenskappe nwu (vaal). 4 . director, school of basic sciences, nwu (vaal). kollegas aan die woord xx on important matters. he is also very human as evidenced by the fact that he has been the anchor and host of our tea room discussions. our debt to prof de klerk as school of basic sciences is also huge in that he helped to ensure that we made good and strategic appointments as we grew the school to what it has become. he served in our selection and interview committees together with me whenever we sought to fill any vacant position. our prayer is that god will continue to take care of prof de klerk during his retirement years so that he in turn will be a blessing to many (psalm 71). revered teacher with historical wisdom – prof. shikha vyas-doorgapersad5 prof. pieter de klerk is a historian in intellect, an academic in excellence and a person of perfection. listening to his insightful opinions and detailed understanding on topics of relevant interests can motivate other academics to go deeper into the ocean of knowledge and gather more enlightening pearls and didactic means that prof. de klerk has earned throughout his academic journey. his intellectual odyssey will always be considered as a foundational milestone for the scholars of the school of basic sciences as an inspirational force for literary revelation and knowledge elucidation. the young academics and emerging researchers salute his legendary personality, moreover his comprehensive awareness and realization, as a revered teacher with historical wisdom. gespreksgenoot in die teekamer – dr ina gouws6 ek het as nuwe dosent by die vaal kampus aangekom in 2003. daar is vroeg vir my gesê dat 10:00 in die oggend tee-tyd is en dat dit bykans verpligtend is. min het ek geweet… soos die jare aangegaan het, het mense tee-tyd begin mis en die meerderheid van die mense in die skool het dit maar bygewoon soos wat hulle tyd en lus gehad het. nie ek nie. prof de klerk kom haal my en kollega herman van der elst uit ons kantore uit elke more 10:00! ek het begin wonder hoekom ek dan nou so verplig word, maar het besef dat dit eintlik ‘n groot kompliment is. gesprekke in die teekamer met prof. de klerk gaan oor enigiets van geskiedenis en politiek tot teater, films en boeke. en ek het besef hy sal jou slegs uit jou kantoor kom haal as jy jou geselskap geniet en geïnteresseerd is in wat jy te sê het. so dit is met groot dankbaarheid dat ek elke dag met graagte teekamer toe gaan. ek het so baie uit my gesprekke met prof. de klerk geleer en selfs wanneer ons verskil het van opinie, kon ek nie help om tog sy wysheid na die tyd te erken nie. ek gaan hom mis. dis al. 5 . associate professor, public management and administration, school of basic sciences, nwu (vaal). 6 . senior lektor, politieke wetenskappe, skool vir basiese wetenskappe, nwu (vaal). colleagues have their say td, 7(2), december 2011, pp. xv xxii xxi die blywende indruk – willie luyt7 voordat ons van prof afskeid neem sou ek graag wou sê dat jy ‘n blywende indruk op my as akademikus gemaak het in die voorbeeld wat jy vir ons gestel het as n kritiese denker. jou wye algemene kennis en akkuraatheid met taalgebruik het my altyd beïndruk. die werk wat prof gedoen het op bestuursvlak om afrikaans as onderrigtaal behoue te laat bly asook die prossese om die kwaliteit van navorsing hoog te hou, sal altyd onthou word. u insette sal terdeë gemis word. ek wens u ‘n voorspoedige en geseënde aftrede toe. ‘n lojale persoon – me debbie mccallum8 prof pieter sal ek altyd onthou as ‘n persoon wat geneig is om ‘n introvert te wees en met die wêreld se kennis in pag sit. hy is ‘n baie lojale persoon. wat ek nogal baie waardeer het oor wat hy doen, was sy fondasie “back to basics” en werk van daar af deur die sisteem. dit was altyd 'n baie goeie riglyn om van te werk. merci pieter de klerk – dr mt lukamba9 je connue professeur peter de klerk l’année passe quand je commence ma carrière académique au département de la gestion public ici au campus de vaal triangle. c’est un bon collègue que je beaucoup apprécie sur le plan scientifique. c’est un model que nous devons suivre pour arrive au niveau qu’il est arrive jusque a la fin de sa carrière académique. je vous souhaite un très bon repos pendant ta pension à la ville du cap. merci. my humble parking colleague – prof. ernest ababio10 prof pieter de klerk assumes a senior citizen role in that he championed socialization of colleagues by tearoom chats. never did he miss it. a principled colleague, never did pieter as well miss his yearly 3-month research tour of the netherlands. if he had a point to prove, he would close his ears to alternative views and put his case across, sometimes emotionally. pieter is learned, resourceful, a good listener, and sympathetic. i will miss him as a humble parking colleague. 7 . vakvoorsitter, filosofie, skool vir basiese wetenskappe, nwu (vaal). 8 . sekretaresse, skool vir basiese wetenskappe, nwu (vaal). 9 . senior lecturer, public management and administration, school of basic sciences, faculty of humanities, nwu (vaal) 10 . chair: public management and administration, school of basic sciences, faculty of humanities, nwu (vaal). kollegas aan die woord xxii ‘n groot wilger in die puk-tradisie – dr herman van der elst11 in die ontwikkeling van my akademiese loopbaan is daar sekere mense wat ek as ‘n mentor beskou. professor pieter de klerk is een van daardie mense. ek ken vir pieter sedert 2006 toe ek by die skool vir basiese wetenskappe aangestel is. pieter is ‘n gevestigde en deurwinterde akademikus waarvoor ek baie respek het. in die puk-tradisie is hy waarlik ‘n groot wilger. in die ses jaar wat ek saam met hom gewerk het, het ek derhalwe baie by hom geleer. wat ek altyd van hom sal waardeer en respekteer is sy vaste beginsels rakende die dinge waarin hy glo, en die waarde wat hy aan akademiese standaarde heg. vir hom is daar geen plaasvervanger vir akademiese standaarde nie as dit kom by klasgee, begeleiding van nagraadse studente, navorsing of die skryf van artikels nie. vir ons jonger mense het hy in hierdie verband altyd ‘n stewige voorbeeld gestel waarop ek net kan voortbou en as voorbeeld gebruik in my eie loopbaan en ontwikkeling van my vakdissipline. ook het ek baie waardering vir sy fyn (nederlandse) humorsin en breë algemene kennis. dit het gelei tot baie interresante teekamergesprekke. in bogenoemde verband sal pieter se akademiese kwaliteite, maar veral pieter as mens gemis word in die skool. pieter alles van die beste vir die toekoms. tsamaya hantle moprofesara pieter de klerk – dr tumi mzini12 ke hopola ha ke ne ke tlile dipotsong tsa mosebetsi (job interview) wa bolecturer, ka selemo sa july 2007. e ne re ke botswa potso, mme ke ne ke tshwanetse ho etsa mohlala ka mosebetsi waka. ke ile ka qolla lebitso la oom piet, ke maketse ha batho ba ile ba keketeha ke ditsheho, ka nako eo ke ne ke sa elellwa hore monga lebitso o teng ka phaphusing eo. ke kgolwa o ile wa utlwisisa polelo yaka ka motsoso ono. mehla le mehla ha re le dikopanong, e tlare ha ho bolelwa ditaba, ke rata ho sheba ka ho wena, hobane o tla tsitsinya hloho mme o hanane le ditaba tse bolelwang. mme re tla tsheha re keketehe hobane o dula o re tshehisa ka dinako tsohle. sena se nkgopotsa mohla re ne re bontshana ka letsatsi la botjhaba (heritage day celebration) ka selemo sa 2009. letsatsi la phomolo le ne le tla ba ka moqebelo, mme wena o ile wa sisinya hore le rona re tlameha ho keteka ka moqebelo, hobane e le letsatsi la sebele. ke rata hore ho wena prof, pele ya pele ntate, o mohlala ho rona. dilemong tsa hao, batho ba bangata ba a kgathala empa wena o ntse o le dibukeng. ke ithutile tse ngata ho wena. e ka re morena modimo o ka o baballa o fetisetse mpho ya thuto ha bana ba rona. ke hore bake ba bone hore ditho ke lefa. re lebohela tshwarello ya hao mosebetsing wa nwu. e ka o ka phomola ha monate lapeng moo. re tla o hoopla prof p de klerk. 11 . vakgroephoof politieke studies, skool vir basiese wetenskappe, nwu, (vaal). 12 . senior lecturer, public management and administration, school of basic sciences, nwu (vaal). td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider-afrika, 7(2) desember 2011, pp. xxiii – xxvii. pieter de klerk in gesprek met td die redaksie van td die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider-afrika het met prof. pieter de klerk gesprek gevoer om sy mening oor ‘n klompie relevante sake in sy lang loopbaan aan noordwes-universiteit te kry. td = redakteur td pdk = pieter de klerk td: as historikus het jy oor ‘n tydperk van 44 jaar in die akademie waarskynlik meer veranderinge en omskakelings in die dissipline van geskiedenis as meeste historici ervaar. wat was die uitstaande tendense in die dissipline? pdk: die geskiedeniswetenskap bestryk ‘n wye terrein en ek is beslis nie ‘n kenner van alle onderafdelings van die vak nie. ek het my aanvanklik toegespits op die europese geskiedenis, in besonder op die vroeg moderne tydperk. in die 1960’s is daar aan die meeste suidafrikaanse universiteite feitlik ewe veel aandag aan europese en suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis gegee. toe eers is begin om afrikageskiedenis deel van die sillabus te maak. soos aan amerikaanse en ook sommige europese universiteite is daar in suid-afrika weg beweeg van ‘n eurosentriese benadering en is daar onder andere meer aandag gegee aan die geskiedenis van asië. tans is inleidende kursusse in wêreldgeskiedenis ‘n algemene verskynsel aan universiteite oor die wêreld heen. aan suid-afrikaanse universiteite is die plek wat aan die geskiedenis van die wêreld buite afrika in sillabusse toegeken word egter dikwels besonder klein. die impak van globalisasie bring mee dat ‘n breë begrip van die wêreldgeskiedenis, veral van die afgelope twee eeue, meer noodsaaklik is as ooit tevore. ‘n mens hoop dat wêreldgeskiedenis ‘n groter plek in toekomstige suid-afrikaanse universitêre onderrig sal beklee. die tendens om te fokus op besondere temas of subdissiplines, soos omgewingsgeskiedenis of gendergeskiedenis, het waarskynlik in die afgelope dekades toegeneem. dit kan ‘n positiewe ontwikkeling wees as dit nie lei tot verwaarlosing van die breë historiese vorming van studente nie. wat die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis betref, het ek veral navorsing gedoen op die terrein van die historiografie. voor 1960 was daar maar min afrikaanse historici en slegs enkeles onder hulle het buite die afrikaanse kring bekend geraak. een van hulle was die potchefstroomse historikus d.w. krüger. sy boek the age of the generals (1958) was die eerste belangrike sintesewerk oor die ontwikkeling van die unie van suid-afrika voor 1948, en afrikaansen engelstalige wetenskaplikes het hoë waardering daarvoor gehad. in die sestigeren sewentigerjare was daar groot geskiedenisdepartemente aan afrikaanse universiteite, en afrikaanse geskiedkundiges is aangestel aan universiteite wat in hierdie jare vir die swart, bruin en indiërbevolkingsgroepe opgerig is. die toename van afrikaanse historici het egter nie gelei tot betekenisvolle bydraes ten opsigte van meer as enkele aspekte van die suidafrikaanse geskiedenis nie. afrikaanse historici het bly konsentreer op konvensionele politieke geskiedenis, en veral op die geskiedenis van die afrikaner. met die moontlike uitsondering van f.a. van jaarsveld het geen afrikaanse historikus met vernuwende geheelinterpretasies van die suid-afrikaanse geskiedenis, vergelykbaar met c.w. de kiewiet se a history of south africa; social and economic (1941), na vore gekom nie. die engelstalige historici van die sogenaamde liberale en radikale skole het die algemene rigting waarin die xxiv suid-afrikaanse geskiedskrywing beweeg het bepaal. sedertdien het die getal geskiedenisstudente en daarmee ook die getal afrikaanse historici steeds kleiner geword. afrikaanse historici neem tans ‘n beskeie plek in binne die ontwikkeling van die suidafrikaanse geskiedskrywing. in die afgelope dekades het eintlik net een afrikaanse historikus, hermann giliomee, hom gevestig as ‘n internasionale leiersfiguur onder die geskiedskrywers oor suid-afrika. td: baie mense redeneer dat die tyd van geskiedenis, en in die besonder die geesteswetenskappe, is aan die verbygaan. reken jy werklik dat geskiedenis as universiteitsvak tot niet sal gaan? pdk: nee, beslis nie. vanaf die vroegste tye het mense belanggestel in hul geskiedenis en geskiedeniswerke geskryf. denkrigtinge waarin geskiedenis as van minder belang geag is, het in die afgelope eeue soms ‘n groter en soms ‘n kleiner invloed in wetenskaplike kringe gehad. in die huidige tydsgewrig is daar waarskynlik baie tegnokrate en ook wetenskaplikes wat nie veel waarde aan geskiedenis en ander geesteswetenskappe heg nie. tog is daar nog baie studente, in al die wêrelddele, wat geskiedenis as ’n universiteitsvak neem en verskyn daar voortdurend wetenskaplike publikasies op alle terreine van die geskiedkunde. in suid-afrika word daar tans besondere klem geplaas op die opleiding van mense met natuurwetenskaplike en tegniese vaardighede asook op direkte voorbereiding vir beroepe. daar is ‘n insinking in die belangstelling in geskiedenis en ander geesteswetenskappe. ook in suid-afrika sal daar egter altyd mense wees wat meer van die geskiedenis van hul gemeenskap en hul land wil weet. hopelik sal daar weer ‘n oplewing in die bestudering van geskiedenis as universiteitsvak kom. td: jy het ‘n lang geskiedenis van belangstelling in veral die kaapse geskiedenis. wat is vir jou die belangrikste ontwikkeling op die terrein in onlangse jare? pdk: r elphick en h. giliomee se the shaping of south african society, waarvan die eerste uitgawe in 1979 verskyn het, het die bestudering van die geskiedenis van die kaapkolonie gestuur in die rigting van ‘n ondersoek na rasseverhoudinge en die wortels van rassediskriminasie in die periode voor 1850. daar is heelwat navorsing gedoen oor slawerny, gedwonge arbeid en onderdrukkende praktyke deur die koloniste en die koloniale owerheid. dit lyk tans of daar ‘n verskuiwing van ‘n sosiaal-ekonomiese na ‘n sosiaal-kulturele perspektief plaasvind en meer aandag gegee word aan die leefwyse van die koloniste as wat in die afgepe paar dekades die geval was. dit is opmerklik dat van die belangrikste studies oor die vroeë kaapse geskiedenis deur buitelanders geskyf is en dat in suid-afrika die meeste navorsingswerk op hierdie terrein tans aan die universiteit van kaapstad gedoen word. die universiteit van stellenbosch en ook die universiteit van wes-kaapland se bydraes tot hierdie navorsing is maar beskeie. td: na alle waarskynlikheid is jy seker aan van die dosente wat die langste aan noordwesuniversiteit vertbonde was. vertel asb. een en ander van jou lewe eers op die potchefstroomse kampus en later op die vaaldriehoek. de klerk in gesprek met td td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. xxiii xxvii xxv pdk: as ‘n mens terugkyk, lyk die vroeë jare na ’n goue era vir akademiese personeel. daar was toe nog geen sprake van taakooreenkomste, studiegidse, memorandums en evaluerings van doseerwerk nie. daar was ook geen geakkrediteerde tydskrifte nie, en in suid-afrika het redakteurs van vaktydskrifte in die geesteswetenskappe gewoonlik alleen besluit oor die plasing van artikels. ‘n mens kon elke ses jaar lang verlof neem sonder dat jy na die tyd moes verduidelik wat jy gedoen het. daar was tog ook negatiewe dinge. by die bevordering van akademici was senioriteit die vernaamste faktor; iemand is selde bevorder bo die posvlak wat ’n meer senior persoon in die departement beklee het. publikasies is by bevordering byna nie in ag geneem nie. ek is al vanaf 1971 by die vaaldriehoekkampus betrokke, toe daar begin is om na-uurse klasse vir ba-studente daar aan te bied. daar het byna elke weeksaand groepe dosente tussen potchefstroom en vanderbijlpark gereis. toe ek in 1983 na die vaaldriehoek geskuif het, was die personeel in ‘n paar geboue in die noordelike deel van vanderbijlpark gehuisves. die terrein waarop die kampus tans is, was toe al in besit van die universiteit en daar is begin om ‘n struktuur op te rig wat as tydelike gebou vir die ingenieursfakulteit moes dien (die huidige administrasiegebou). voor die bouwerk voltooi is, het die universiteitsbestuur egter van plan verander en is die gebou aan die dosente in die geesteswetenskappe toegewys terwyl die ingenieurs in die ou geboue agtergebly het. in die nuwe gebou moes van my kollegas jare lank half oop ruimtes as kantore gebruik. in 1991 is besluit om die ingenieursfakulteit na potchefstroom te verskuif en het die geesteswetenskaplikes weer eens ingetrek in geboue (die huidige geboue 4 en 7) wat vir die ingenieursfakulteit ontwerp is. ek het aangename herinneringe aan die kontak wat ek oor die jare met kollegas, veral ook van ander vakke, kon hê. in die 1970’s was die grootste deel van die fakulteit lettere en wysbegeerte op potchefstroom in die frans du toitgebou gehuisves en het dosente van ‘n verskeidenheid dissiplines mekaar geken en ook oor akademiese sake gesprek gevoer. by die vaaldriehoekkampus was die situasie in die tagtigerjare baie soortgelyk. hierdie kampus het voortdurend gegroei en ongelukkig is kontak met kollegas tans feitlik beperk tot diegene wie se kantore nie net in dieselfde gebou nie, maar ook op dieselfde vloer is. met my kollegas van die skool vir basiese wetenskappe (op die tweede verdieping van gebou 4) vind daar egter nog baie goeie gesprekke in die teekamer plaas. te midde van politieke woelinge in die land, het die pu vir cho/nwu steeds ‘n stabiele en rustige werksomgewing gebied. daar is wel voortdurend nuwe vereistes gestel waaraan akademici moes voldoen, maar hierdie veranderinge het meesal geleidelik geskied. oor die algemeen was daar ‘n aangename werksklimaat in die departemente, skole en fakulteite waarvan ek deel was. dit het daartoe bygedra dat die 44 jaar vir my vinnig verbygegaan het. td: jou betrokkenheid by die universiteitswese was nie altyd uitsluitlik by die vakgebied nie. jy was baie betrokke by samesprekinge in menige vergaderings oor die ontwikkeling van veral die vaaldriehoekse kampus van nwu. het jy enige herinneringe aan wat daaroor gepraat is en hoe dit later verwesentlik is? pdk: in die tagtigerjare was daar ‘n argiteksmodel in die voorportaal van die (huidige) administrasiegebou waarvolgens daar vir ‘n groot aantal geboue op die kampusterrein voorsiening gemaak is. daar is aanvanklik aanvaar dat die vaaldriehoekkampus sou uitgroei tot ‘n aparte universiteit en later dat dit ‘n groot universiteitskampus sou word, maar hierdie verwagtinge moes in die tagtigerjare afgeskaal word. vreemd genoeg is daar tot lank na 1980 xxvi steeds net in terme van afrikaanssprekende blanke studente gedink. ek onthou vergaderings waar besluit is om weg te doen met die oorspronklike beplanningsmodel vir die kampus, om swart studente toe te laat en om ‘n parallelmediumstelsel met klasse in beide engels en afrikaans in te voer. hiermee het die afrikaanse karakter van die kampus in ‘n meer multikulturele karakter verander. die afrikaanse komponent het egter steeds ‘n kernelement van die multikulturele opset gebly. daar is tans nog heelwat afrikaanse studente en personeellede en daar is geen rede waarom daar binne afsienbare tyd ‘n drastiese verandering in hierdie verband moet plaasvind nie. as diegene wat die kampus in ‘n eentalig engelse rigting wil stuur hul sin kry, sal dit myns insiens ‘n negatiewe invloed op die kulturele verskeidenheid en daarmee op die unieke karakter van die kampus hê. tot in die 1990’s het akademiese bestuurders van die potchefstroomkampus toesig oor die werksaamhede aan die vaaldriehoek gehou. in die negentigerjare was daar vergaderings van akademici wat die kampus verteenwoordig het, maar waar ook vier dekane van potchefstroom aanwesig was wat nie geskroom het om ons te vermaan waar nodig nie. die samesmelting met die universiteit van die noordweste in 2004 het as ‘n onverwagte gevolg groter selfstandigheid vir die vaaldriehoekkampus meegebring. met die groei van die afgelope jare lyk dit nou tog of die ideaal van ‘n groot kampus wat ‘n wye spektrum van vakke aanbied verwesenlik word. td: jy het heelwat navorsing en skryfwerk oor die geskiedenis van die universiteitswese gedoen. wat reken jy is die toekoms van die universiteitswese in suid-afrika? is die nwu darem op koers? pdk: ek wil my nie oor die universiteitswese in suid-afrika in die algemeen uitlaat nie. wat die nwu betref, is daar vir my te midde van al die positiewe ontwikkelinge tog ook sake wat rede tot kommer gee. die proses om die onderrig vir die grade wat aan twee of al drie kampusse aangebied word te belyn, het ‘n tendens voortgesit wat, veral as dit nog verder gevoer word, nadelig vir akademiese ontwikkeling sal wees. wanneer dosente op drie kampusse dieselfde modules moet aanbied en dieselfde studiegidse gebruik, word daar weinig ruimte gelaat vir akademici om hul eie oordeel en inisiatief te gebruik wanneer hulle hul doseertaak verrig. as akademiese personeellede aan die begin van hul loopbaan ervaar dat baie besluite, onder meer rakende doseerwerk, vir hulle geneem word en dit vrugteloos sal wees om hierdie besluite te bevraagteken, kan dit daartoe lei dat hulle aanvaar dat daar ook vir hulle gedink word en strem dit hulle ontwikkeling as selfstandige wetenskaplike denkers. die ontwikkeling van die wetenskap berus juis daarop dat voortdurend vrae gevra word en geen standpunte bloot aanvaar word omdat diegene wat die standpunte huldig met bepaalde gesag beklee is nie. dit is ‘n wêreldwye tendens dat universiteite al meer soos sake-ondernemings bestuur word, maar daar is ook oor die wêreld heen akademici wat besef dat akademiese vryheid, en daarmee saam die ontwikkeling van die wetenskap, hierdeur bedreig kan word en dat sulke nadelige gevolge ten alle koste voorkom moet word. ek is seker dat daar ook aan die nwu persone is wat van hierdie probleme bewus is en iets daaraan probeer doen. td: wie was van die uitstaande persoonlikhede aan nwu van wie jy steeds herinneringe het? pdk: in die 48 jaar sedert ek as ‘n eerstejaarstudent aan die pu vir cho begin studeer het, het die universiteit net vier rektore/visekanseliers gehad, naamlik proff. h.j.j. bingle, t. van de klerk in gesprek met td td, 7(2), desember 2011, pp. xxiii xxvii xxvii der walt en c.j. reinecke en dr. t. eloff. ek het nie met een van hulle veel direkte kontak gehad nie, maar elk van hulle het in die lang termyn waarin hy aan aan die stuur van sake was ‘n besondere stempel op die universiteit afgedruk. die ontwikkeling van die universiteit in hierdie jare, en ook my eie ervaring daarvan, is in die eerste plek met hierdie persone verbind. hierbenewens was daar verskeie akademici, meesal leermeesters in my studentejare, wat ‘n groot indruk op my gemaak het. ek dink veral aan die twee historici d.w. krüger en j.s. du plessis. ek het net as ‘n voorgraadse student by prof. krüger klas gehad. daar was toe reeds talle staaltjies oor hom in omloop. hy was beslis ‘n kleurvolle persoonlikheid wat baie gedoen het om my, en waarskynlik baie ander, se belangstelling in die geskiedenis aan te wakker en te versterk. op nagraadse vlak was prof. du plessis my vernaamste dosent, en ook my studieleier en promotor. hy het my nie in ‘n bepaalde rigting probeer dwing nie, en was as historikus baie ruim denkend. hy het verder op ‘n simpatieke wyse akademiese leiding verskaf. hierdie persoonlikheidseienskappe het dan ook seker daartoe gelei dat hy later dekaan en viserektor geword het. td: ofskoon jy, soms onder protes, van nuwe tegnologie begin gebruik gemaak het in die beoefening van jou beroep as historikus, het jy indertyd met groot vaardigheid daardie tegnologie wat vir jou doeleindes van pas was, onder die knie gekry. jy het dit ook goed beheer. watter van hierdie tegnologieë het jy tot dusver die meeste baat by gevind? pdk: van al die aanpassings wat ek gedurende my loopbaan moes maak, was die verwerwing van die nodige rekenaarvaardighede waarskynlik die moeilikste. ek het die gebruik van die nuwe tegnologie maar net in baie beperkte mate bemeester. tog is dit nou vir my moeilik om in te dink hoe ek vroeër sonder ‘n rekenaar my proefskrif, artikels, ensovoorts, geskryf het. naas die woordverwerkingsprogram is die internet ‘n hulpmiddel waarsonder ek seker nie meer sal kan klaarkom nie. td journal desember 2006.p65 die benutting van direkte bemarking op ’n geïntegreerde promosiestrategie fred venter opsomming: hedendaagse ondernemings bevind hulself in ’n hoogs kompeterende en dinamiese omgewing. die onderneming wat egter bo die res gaan uitstyg, is die wat vir hul kliënte omgee en die waarde en voordele van hul produkte en dienste suksesvol onder die aandag van die kliënte bring. die oorlewing en groei van ondernemings gaan dus afhang van hoe goed hulle in kliënte se behoeftes kan voorsien (marcus, 2003). die fokus van hierdie studie is op die aanwending van direkte bemarkingsinstrumente as deel van ’n geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie program te vorm. die doel van sodanige strategie is om kliëntekontak te optimaliseer en handelsmerk lojaliteit te bevorder. dit sal nie net die effektiwiteit van die verskillende bemarkingsinstrumente verbeter nie, maar kan ook aan ondernemings ’n substansiële mededingende voordeel bied. sleutelwoorde: promosie, nisbemarking, bemarkings kommunikasie, standaardafwyking, mediaan, rekeningkundige gemiddeld 1. inleiding ondernemings bevind hulself vandag in ’n hoogs mededingende omgewing (steyn, 2005). in hierdie dinamiese arena kan die winsgewendheid en voortbestaan van ondernemings afhang van hoe goed hulle die behoeftes van kliënte bevredig. hierdie studie fokus op ’n tendens wat weg beweeg van transaksie-oriëntasie na kliëntoriëntasie. dit is waar die kliënt die spilpunt vorm waarom beplanning plaasvind in ’n direkte bemarkingsveldtog. dit skep ’n gevoel van waardering by die kliënt en dra by tot die ontstaan van handelsnaam lojaliteit. hierdie navorsing behels verder ’n ondersoek na die benutting van direkte bemarking in ’n geïntegreerde promosie strategie. 2. probleemstelling die inligtingsontploffing wat gedurende die laaste paar dekades plaasgevind het, word hedendaags aangewend met direkte bemarking aan ’n individuele kliënt of groep kliënte as doelwit. in die verlede het td: die joernaal vir transdissiplinêre navorsing in suider afrika, vol. 2 nr. 2, desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 454 bemarkers hul kliënte in die massa geadresseer. vandag maak hulle van databasisse gebruik en beskou elke kliënt as ’n individu (mercer, 2005:362-363). die probleem van die navorsing wat geïdentifiseer is, was om te bepaal of die rekenaartegnologie en databasisbestuurstegnieke dit vir ondernemings moontlik maak om groot databasisse, wat die name en besonderhede van miljoene kliënte bevat, nog onderhou. nisbemarking kan realiseer deur veldtogte te fokus op die onderneming se belowendste potensiële kliënte (gebaseer op histories produkkategorie-aankoopgedrag) wat deur spesifieke demografiese, geografiese en psigografiese karaktereienskappe geïdentifiseer kan word (shimp, 2006:566). die vestiging van ’n verhouding tussen die onderneming en die kliënt is ’n verdere sleutelkenmerk van direkte bemarking. die persoonlike aard van die onderhandelingsproses bied wesenlike voordele aan potensiële kliënte. die kliënt speel ’n kritieke rol in beide direkte bemarking en ’n geïntegreerde promosiestrategie. daarom is die totstandkoming van ’n kliëntoriëntasie noodsaaklik vir die effektiewe funksionering van beide direkte bemarking en ’n geïntegreerde promosiestrategie (berry, 2005). 3. studiedoelstelling algemene doelstelling ’n ondersoek na die noodsaaklikheid van ’n kliëntoriëntasie vir die benutting en aanwending van direkte bemarking en die totstandkoming van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie. spesifieke doelstellings spesifieke doelstellings rakende direkte bemarkingsinstrumente: • die identifikasie van die verskillende direkte bemarkingsinstrumente. • die ondersoek van die vooren nadele van verskillende direkte bemarkingsinstrumente. spesifieke doelstellings rakende die benutting en aanwending van direkte bemarking: • die identifikasie en ontleding van die besluitnemingsveranderlikes van direkte bemarking. • die identifikasie en ontleding van die verskillende poslyste tot die beskikking van die direkte bemarker. venter 455 • ’n ondersoek om vas te stel dat direkte bemarking beter meetbaarheid in resultate as ander media bied. • ’n ondersoek na die stelling dat direkte bemarking beter resultate behaal wanneer kliënte in gevorderde stadia van besluitneming verkeer. spesifieke doelstellings rakende geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie: • ’n ondersoek na die benutting van ’n sentrale tema as basis vir alle media in ’n promosiestrategie. • ’n ondersoek om te bepaal of die fokus in geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie op die kliënt en kliëntbehoeftes val. • ’n ondersoek na die waarneming dat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie ’n verskeidenheid vorme van kontak vereis. 4. navorsingsmetodologie die navorsingsmetode bestaan uit ’n literatuurstudie en ’n empiriese ondersoek. 5. literatuurstudie die literatuurstudie vorm die teoretiese onderbou van die studie. dit behels onderskeidelik ’n studie van direkte bemarking, geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie en ’n kliëntoriëntasie. die hoof verwysings van inligting is verkry uit boeke, joernale, artikels, dagblaaie en die internet. 6. empiriese ondersoek die empiriese navorsing vir hierdie studie het bestaan uit die verspreiding van ’n gestruktueerde vraelys aan ondernemings wat geregistreer is by die direkte bemarkingsassosiasie van suid-afrika (dmarsa). die ondernemings se ledetal wissel jaarliks tussen 350 en 400 ondernemings. ’n ewekansige steekproef is gebruik en sestig ondernemings is geïdentifiseer om aan die ondersoek deel te neem. hierdie metode bied elke onderneming in die ondersoekgroep ’n gelyke kans van insluiting en verhoed sodoende enige bevooroordeling (burton et al., 2004:145). aangesien hierdie ondernemings verspreid oor suid-afrika voorkom, is daar besluit om van ’n posvraelys (as data-invorderingsmetode) gebruik te maak om die vereiste inligting in te samel. ’n posvraelys kon deur die respondent voltooi word op ’n tydstip wat vir hom geleë was. direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 456 verder kon die respondent ander kundiges in die betrokke onderneming nader vir raad en hulp tydens die voltooiing van die vraelys. dit het tot die akkuraatheid en relevansie van die inligting bygedra. alhoewel die responskoers laag was (slegs 22% vraelyste is terugontvang), kon baie duidelike tendense geïdentifiseer en afleidings gemaak word. die tegniese verwerking van die vraelys is in samewerking met die statistiese konsultasiediens van die noordwes-universiteit gedoen. dié instansie was verantwoordelik vir die ontleding van die inligting en die aanbeveling van watter soort grafieke saam met watter vrae gebruik behoort te word. 7. bespreking van resultate meetinstrument daar is besluit om van ’n posvraelys as meetinstrument gebruik te maak omdat dit die insameling van data en die bereiking van die proefgroep vergemaklik. die geoormerkte ondernemings kom wydverspreid oor suid afrika voor en dus verteenwoordig ’n posvraelys die lewensvatbaarste instrument vir die bereiking van hierdie ondernemings. die struktuur van sommige van die vrae in die vraelys het die moontlikheid van telefoniese voltooiing van die vraelys onmoontlik gemaak. verder bied ’n posvraelys aan die respondent die moontlikheid om ander kundiges in die betrokke onderneming vir hulp en bystand te nader. dit sal die geldigheid en akkuraatheid van die inligting verhoog (teas, 2002). statistiese verwerking beskrywende statistiek is in hierdie navorsing gebruik aangesien die respondente nie meer as ’n steekproef wat ewekansig getrek is, beskou kan word nie. die respondente kan as ’n sub-populasie van die oorspronklike populasie of ondersoek beskou word. die gebruik van beskrywende statistiek is voldoende as die populasie waarvoor die navorser gevolgtrekkings wil maak, bekombaar is (steyn, et al., 2005:39). verder stel beskrywende statistiek die navorser in staat om data op ’n betekenisvolle wyse te organiseer (burnes, 2003:92). rekeningkundige gemiddeldes (x), mediane (m) en standaardafwykings (s) word in hierdie navorsing gerapporteer. die rekeningkundige gemiddeld bestaan uit ’n punt wat ooreenstem met die som van die tellings gedeel deur die aantal tellings. die mediaan is die middelste venter 457 telling, wanneer die tellings van klein na groot gerangskik word. die standaardafwyking gee ’n aanduiding van die mate waarin die data rondom die gemiddeld gekonsentreer is (fink, 2005:23-24). 7.1 beskrywende statistiek rakende respondente se opinies ten opsigte van sekere stellings rondom direkte bemarking tabel 1: respondentopinies oor sekere stellings rondom direkte bemarking uit tabel 1 blyk dit dat die rekeningkundige gemiddeldes ten opsigte van die meerderheid stellings (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 en 8) laag is, met ander woorde: die respondente ondersteun hierdie stellings. vervolgens word die bevindings van elke stelling bespreek. direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 458 • direkte bemarking behaal beter resultate wanneer kliënte in latere stadiums van besluitneming verkeer. respondente wat met die stelling saamgestem was 25%, 41% het dit verwerp en 33% het aangedui dat die besluitnemingstadium waarin die kliënt verkeer nie die effektiwiteit van ’n direkte bemarkingsveldtog beïnvloed nie. • direkte bemarking kan aangewend word om handelsnaamlojaliteit te beïnvloed. die meerderheid respondente (91%) het aangedui dat direkte bemarking in staat is om handelsnaamlojaliteit te verander. slegs 8% het aangedui dat direkte bemarking nie daarvoor geskik is nie. • direkte bemarking kan aangewend word om verbruikershouding te beïnvloed. al die respondente het aangedui dat direkte bemarking aangewend kan word om die houdings van verbruikers te beïnvloed. • direkte bemarking behaal beter resultate wanneer dit deel vorm van ’n gebalanseerde mediaprogram. 83% van respondente het aangedui dat beter resultate verwag kan word wanneer direkte bemarking deel vorm van ’n gebalanseerde mediamengsel. dit bevestig en beklemtoon die tema van hierdie studie naamlik: “die benutting van direkte bemarking in ’n geïntegreerde promosiestrategie.” • direkte bemarking bied beter meetbaarheid van resultate as ander media. 75% van die respondente het aangedui dat direkte bemarking beter meetbaarheid van resultate as ander media bied. hierdie eienskap van direkte bemarking stel bemarkers in staat om hul promosiestrategie voortdurend aan te pas soos produkte deur hul lewenssiklusse beweeg en daar verandering in die ekonomie en in die behoeftes en profiel van die teikenmarkte plaasvind. • direkte bemarking lei tot beter toedeling van fondse deur op die mees geskikte kandidate te fokus. 83% van die respondente het aangedui dat hulle met die stelling saamstem. direkte bemarking kan op ’n be-paalde teikenmark fokus en sodoende verhoed dat fondse op ’n nie-belangstellende gehoor verkwis word. • die strategieë wat direkte bemarkers volg, is nie vir mededingers sigbaar nie. 50% van die respondente het aangedui dat hulle nie met die stelling saamstem nie en dat die strategieë wat direkte bemarkers volg wel aan mededingers bekend is. 25% was onseker en die ander respondente glo dat mededingers nie bewus is van hul direkte bemarkingstrategieë nie. venter 459 • ’n langtermyn-strategie is nodig om die volle potensiaal van direkte bemarking te ontgin. die stelling dat ’n langtermyn-perspektief noodsaaklik is om die volle potensiaal van direkte bemarking te benut, word deur 75% van die respondente ondersteun. ’n eenmalige telefoonoproep of ’n enkele posstuk sal eenvoudig nie die gewenste resultate tot gevolg hê nie. • direkte bemarking bevorder internasionale bemarking. 50% van respondente het aangedui dat direkte bemarking internasionale bemarking bevorder, terwyl die oorblywende respondente besluitloos was. ’n moontlike verklaring kan wees dat die besluitlose respondente nie op die oomblik internasionale markte ontgin nie. 7.2 faktore wat tot die toenemende gewildheid van direkte bemarking bydra respondente is gevra om die faktore wat tot die toenemende gewildheid van direkte bemarking bydra in volgorde van belangrikheid te rangskik. respondente het die ses gegewe faktore soos volg rangskik. • toename in die gebruik van kredietkaarte. kredietkaarte bevorder aankope omdat dit kliënte in staat stel om produkte oor die telefoon of internet aan te koop. boonop verminder kredietkaarte die risiko vir ondernemings omdat hulle die sekuriteit het dat hulle dadelik hul geld ontvang. aan die verbruiker bied ’n kredietkaart die voordeel van onmiddellike gratifikasie – die kliënt hoef dus nie tot aan die einde van die maand te wag voordat bestaande behoeftes bevredig word nie. hierdie vorm van betaling bevorder impulsaankope. • toenemende tydsdruk. dis deur respondente as die tweede belangrikste faktor geïdentifiseer. verbruikers is voortdurend op soek na produkte en dienste wat hul lewens sal vergemaklik en meer vrye tyd tot hul beskikking sal stel. ’n direkte bemarkingsinstrument soos ’n katalogus stel die kliënt in staat om produkte aan te skaf sonder om die huis te verlaat. • ’n toenemende neiging van verbruikers om hul lewens rondom hul huise en gesinne te struktureer. dit is as die volgende belangrike faktor geïdentifiseer. kliënte is voortdurend op soek na alternatiewe wat hul lewens sal vergemaklik en meer vrye tyd tot hul beskikking sal bied. • veranderings in kulturele strukture. dit is deur respondente as die vierde belangrikste faktor aangewys. alhoewel sommige kliënte ’n besoek aan ’n winkelsentrum as ontspanning beskou, is oorvol inkopiesentrums (gebrekkige parkering) en die direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 460 kragte wat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie bevorder die vyfde en sesde belangrikste faktore waaraan die toenemende gewildheid van direkte bemarking toegeskryf word. 7.3 beskrywende statistiek rakende respondente se terugvoer tot stellings oor geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie hierdie vraag het bestaan uit ’n aantal stellings oor geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie (imc) waarop respondente hul opinies moes lig. respondente moes aandui of hulle daarmee saamstem, dit verwerp of ’n nie-partydige siening daaroor het. tabel 2: stellings oor geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie uit tabel 2 blyk dit dat die rekeningkundige gemiddeldes van respondente se sienings oor die stellings wat gemaak is, laag is. dit impliseer dat die meerderheid respondente met al die stelling saamstem. vervolgens word elk van die stellings bespreek. geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie verskil van tradisionele bemarking deurdat die beplanning by die kliënt begin en terugwerk na die onderneming. 58% van respondente het met hierdie stelling saamgestem. slegs 8% het nie met die stelling saamgestem nie en 33% was besluitloos. hierdie resultate bevestig die belangrike rol wat die kliënt reeds in die beplanningsfase van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie speel en beklemtoon die noodsaaklikheid van ’n geïntegreerde promosiestrategie. • koördinasie is die sleutelbestanddeel in die totstandkoming van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie. 92% van die respondente het bevestig dat koördinasie die belangrikste faktor van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie is. venter 461 • geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis die totstandkoming van ’n verhouding met kliënte. 75% van respondente het bevestig dat die ontwikkeling van ’n verhouding met kliënte noodsaaklik is vir geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie. • kliëntbehoeftes kan nie meer deur gestandaardiseerde produkte bevredig word nie. die terugvoer was uiteenlopend. 50% stem daarmee saam, 33% verwerp dié stelling en 17% is besluiteloos daaroor. die uiteenlopende resultate kan hoofsaaklik toegeskryf word aan die feit dat verskillende verbruikers diverse sienings oor standaardisasie handhaaf. • geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis ’n sentrale tema vir al die media wat aangewend word. 75% deelnemers ondersteun hierdie stelling. hierdie stelling hou egter baie nou verband met die tweede stelling wat handel oor die noodsaaklikheid van koördinasie. sonder ’n sentrale tema is koördinasie nie moontlik nie. • die denke in geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie wentel rondom die kliënt en kliëntbehoeftes. al die respondente het met hierdie stelling saamgestem en so die essensie van hierdie beginsel bevestig. die kliënt staan sentraal in geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie en moderne bemarking. die ontstaan van ’n verhouding met kliënte sal bydra tot die skep van handelsnaamlojaliteit. die rol van die kliënt in moderne bemarking word bevestig deur tendense soos nisen verhoudingsbemarking waar die kliënt weereens die spilpunt van die denke en beplanning verteenwoordig. • geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis die aanwending van ’n verskeidenheid vorme van kontak. 83% van die respondente bevestig die relevansie van hierdie stelling en stem daarmee saam. dit is belangrik dat die bemarker al die media tot sy beskikking identifiseer en koördineer om ’n boodskap met die beste trefkrag te ontwikkel. verder is dit belangrik om te verseker dat die diverse media mekaar komplimenteer en aanvul. dit is noodsaaklik dat die bemarker die tye bepaal wanneer die teikengehoor die ontvanklikste vir die aanbod van die onderneming sal wees. • die kombinasie van media genereer sinergie. 75% van die respondente stem saam met hierdie stelling. sinergie impliseer dat die somtotaal van die resultate groter moet wees as die elemente waaruit dit bestaan. die effektiwiteit van die promosieveldtog sal verhoog wanneer alle media gekombineer word. direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 462 7.4 faktore wat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie bevorder tabel 3: kragte wat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie bevorder met die vraag is daar van respondente verwag om hul ondernemings te beoordeel (volgens ’n skaal van een tot vier) op die faktore wat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie bevorder. vier verteenwoordig uitstekend en een is ’n aanduiding van baie swak. die bevindings kan soos volg grafies opgesom word. figuur 1: kragte wat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie bevorder venter 463 • die toenemende verwerkingsvermoë van rekenaars. dit is geïdentifiseer as die belangrikste faktor wat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie bevorder. rekenaars se werkverrigting word by die dag vinniger en effektiewer. bemarkers maak van rekenaars gebruik om die kliëntdatabasis op te berg, op datum te hou en statistiese ontledings van kliëntinligting te doen. moderne rekenaars en sagteware kan baie behulpsaam wees in die ontwikkeling van ’n advertensieveldtog. • druk op die bemarkingsbegroting en die ontwikkeling van elektroniese media. dit is gesamentlik as die tweede belangrikste faktor in die bevordering van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie geïdentifiseer. die huidige ekonomiese omstandighede maak dit vir ondernemings noodsaaklik om voortdurend areas te soek waar hulle kostes kan bespaar. gbk lei tot beter besteding van fondse deur op die beste potensiële kliënte te fokus en kan deur die aanwending van ’n sentrale tema die kostes van ’n bemarkingsveldtog aansienlik verminder. die ontwikkeling van elektroniese toerusting soos rekenaars wat reageer op die stem van die operateur en vinnige hoë gehalte-drukkers ondersteun bemarkers in die ontwikkeling van ’n meer effektiewe promosieveldtog. • die tendens om weg te beweeg vanaf massabemarking, die bereiking van ekonomiese skale en toenemende bewyse dat gbk sukses behaal. dit is gesamentlik as die volgende belangrike faktor geïdentifiseer. die fragmentering van gehore (onder andere) lei tot ’n afname in die effektiwiteit van massabemarking. die bereik van ekonomie van skaal sal vir enige onderneming kostebesparings teweegbring. een van die voordele van gbk is die kostebesparings wat deur die gesentraliseerde aankope van media en mediatyd veroorsaak word. sodoende word ekonomie van skaal ’n faktor wat ondernemings aanspoor om hul kommunikasieaktiwiteite te integreer. hoe meer bemarkers van geïntegreerde bemarking te wete kom, hoe meer word hulle bewus van die voordele daaraan verbonde. • meer gesofistikeerde bemarkingsbestuurders. dis as die vierde grootste faktor in die bevordering van gbk geïdentifiseer. moderne bemarkingsbestuurders is gekwalifiseerd en beskik in die meeste gevalle oor ’n bemarkingsdiploma of -graad. hierdie bestuurders is kundiges in hul veld en besef die voordele wat kommunikasie-integrasie vir die onderneming kan inhou. direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 464 7.5 faktore wat die suksesvolle implementering van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie belemmer respondente is gevra om hul betrokke ondernemings te beoordeel op die kragte wat die suksesvolle implementering van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie belemmer. respondente moes van ’n skaal van een tot vier (waar een swak en vier uitstekend verteenwoordig) gebruik maak om die stellings te beoordeel. tabel 4: faktore wat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie strem bogenoemde stellings kan as volg grafies uitgelig word. venter 465 • dit is menslik om verandering teen te staan. in total het 92% van die respondente het bevestig dat die mense se weerstand teen verandering die grootste enkele stremfaktor op die suksesvolle implementering van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie is. dit is egter ook die moeilikste element om te verander aangesien dit binne die individu ontstaan en die onderneming nie daaroor beheer het nie. ondernemings kan egter wel (oor die langtermyn) deur opleidingen opvoedingsprogramme individuele werknemers se denkpatrone wysig. • verouderde beplanningsisteme wat die status quo handhaaf. baie ondernemings is geneig om nie af te wyk van dit wat in die verlede geslaag het nie. geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis egter dat verouderde beplanningsisteme vervang word deur nuwerwetse stelsels wat rondom die kliënt gestruktueer word. 42% van die respondente het aangedui dat verouderde beplanningsisteme geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie belemmer. • tradisionele, streng funksionele bestuurders. verskeie tradisionele bestuurders is geneig om sake slegs volgens wit en swart te beoordeel. hierdie bestuurders het dikwels soveel klem gelê op die uitvoering van die taak dat hulle die verlangde resultate uit die oog verloor. 33% van die respondente het aangedui dat tradisionele, streng bestuurders geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie strem. • streng, outokratiese beheer. hierdie stelling hou baie nou verband met die vorige faktor. die totstandkoming van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis dat individuele werknemers bemagtig word om hul eie individuele kwaliteit bydraes te lewer. om hierdie doelwit te bereik, moet daar vryheid aan die werknemer gegee word om te eksperimenteer en deur sogenaamde “trial and error” met nuwe oplossing vorendag te kom. 16% van respondente het aangedui dat streng, outokratiese beheer geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie belemmer. • eksterne agentskappe wat slegs in een vorm van kommunikasie spesialiseer. baie ondernemings maak staat op eksterne agentskappe om hul bemarkingskommunikasieprogramme te ontwikkel en te implementeer. hierdie ondernemings voel dikwels dat hulle nie intern oor die nodige kundigheid beskik nie en is van opinie dat ’n eksterne agentskap wat in bemarkingskommunikasie spesialiseer beter resultate kan behaal. die probleem is egter dat hierdie agentskappe dikwels slegs in een vorm van kommunikasie spesialiseer, terwyl geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis dat alle beskikbare vorme van kommunikasie aangewend moet word om die aanbod van die onderneming aan die gehoor oor te dra. 42% van die direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 466 respondente het hierdie faktor as stremmend geïdentifiseer. ’n idee wat binne ’n afdeling ontstaan, word dikwels deur die ander afdelings wat nie ’n aandeel daarin gehad het nie, verwerp. hierdie stelling hou nou verband met die mense se natuur om verandering teen te staan, veral verandering wat deur ander bewerkstellig word. ego en status is verder faktore wat veroorsaak dat die idees van ander sonder deeglike oorweging afgeskiet word. 42% van die respondente het aangedui dat hierdie stelling geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie strem. • die magstryd tussen departemente. die gegewens dui daarop dat 33% van die respondente het getoon dat die magstryd tussen departemente stremmend op die implementering van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie inwerk. geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis samewerking tussen die onderskeie departemente. in geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie word die oorhoofse ondernemingsdoelstellings belangriker as die individuele afdelingdoelstellings. soms is dit nodig vir ’n afdeling om ’n sekere doelwit prys te gee ten einde die oorhoofse ondernemingsdoelstellings te bereik. so kan die finansiële departement byvoorbeeld ’n doelwit van twintig persent opbrengs op kapitaal prysgee ten einde ’n ondernemingsdoelwit van twintig persent groei in markaandeel te bewerkstellig. • geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis ’n aansienlike investering van bestuurders se tyd. statisties het 58% van die respondente aangedui dat hierdie ’n belemmerende faktor van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie verteenwoordig. een van die sleutelvereistes van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie is koördinasie. die bestuur is verantwoordelik vir beide die implementering en die koördinasie van ’n geïntegreerd promosiestrategie. 8. gevolgtrekkings en bevindings met verwysing na elk van die spesifieke navorsingsdoelstellings word die volgende gevolgtrekkings en bevindings gemaak en weergegee: • spesifieke doelstelling 1: die identifikasie van die verskillende direkte bemarkingsinstrumente. direkte pos, direkte terugvoeradvertensie, uitwaartse telefoonbemarking, inkomende telefoonbemarking, internet, elektroniese data-oordrag, videoteks, direkte terugvoertelevisie en katalogusbemarking is as direkte bemarkingsinstrumente geïdentifiseer. direkte pos is geïdentifiseer as die gewildste vorm van direkte venter 467 bemarking. direkte terugvoeradvertensie, telefoonbemarking (uitwaarts en inkomend) en die internet tree na vore as populêre bemarkingsinstrumente. • spesifieke doelstelling 2: ondersoek die vooren nadele van die verskillende direkte bemarkingsinstrument. direkte posbemarking is die meetbaarste en snelgroeiendste kommunikasie instrument. direkte pos is egter ’n baie duur kommunikasietegniek wanneer dit aan koste per kontak gemeet word. verder is die onderneming se vermoë om die doelmark te bereik totaal afhanklik van die kwaliteit van die poslys. direkte terugvoeradvertensie benut enige vorm van media om die geoormerkte teikenmark te bereik. telefoonbemarking is ’n koste-effektiewe metode om potensiële kliënte te bereik en kontak met bestaande kliënte te behou. ’n katalogus is ’n baie duur direkte bemarkingsinstrument, maar kan aangewend word om ’n hele reeks produklyne oor ’n aansienlike tydsverloop te bemark. direkte terugvoertelevisie maak van kleur, klank, bewegings en uitbeeldings gebruik om die sintuie van potensiële kliënte te prikkel. dit is die ideale medium om ’n produk of aanbod te demonstreer. elektroniese datatransmissie en die internet gaan hand aan hand. die feit dat internetgebruikers oor ’n bogemiddelde inkomste beskik, maak dit ’n baie aanloklike advertensiemedium. toetrede tot die internet vereis egter ’n aansienlike kapitale investering en ’n langtermynstrategie. • spesifieke doelstelling 3: die identifikasie en ontleding van die besluitnemingsveranderlikes van direkte bemarking. aanbod, kreatiwiteit, media, tydsberekening en dienslewering is as besluitnemingsveranderlikes geïdentifiseer. die aanbod is as die belangrikste besluitnemingsveranderlike geïdentifiseer. die volgende faktore kan aangewend word om die aanbod aanlokliker te maak: veranderings in die prys, betalingsvoorwaardes, waarborge en die manier hoe produkte in die aanbod gekombineer of gesegmenteer word. tydsberekening is as die tweede belangrikste besluitnemingsveranderlike geïdentifiseer. tydsberekening impliseer aspekte soos die skedulering en herhaling van advertensies. verder moet die bemarker ook die tye van die dag (of nag) bepaal wanneer die teikengehoor die ontvanklikste vir kommunikasie is. dienslewering is as nog ’n belangrike besluitnemingsveranderlike geïdentifiseer. die persoonlike aard van die onderhandelingsproses in direkte bemarking noodsaak die totstandkoming van gemeenskaplike bevredigende verhoudings met kliënte. in so ’n verhouding is voortreflike kliëntediens ’n noodsaaklikheid. media was die vierde belangrikste besluitnemingsveranderlike. dit direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 468 beteken egter nie dat die keuse van media in direkte bemarking onbelangrik of gering geag moet word nie. die bemarker moet eerstens die mees aangewese media vir die bereiking van die teikengehoor identifiseer en tweedens besluit hoe om die gekose media te kombineer. kreatiwiteit is as die vyfde belangrikste besluitnemingsveranderlike geïdentifiseer. die onderneming moet verseker dat hul aanbod ’n element van uniekheid bevat en vir die kliënt waarde skep. • spesifieke doelstelling 4: die identifikasie en ontleding van die verskillende poslyste tot die beskikking van die direkte bemarker. die direkte bemarker het ’n keuse tussen die volgende kategorieë poslyste: saamgestelde lyste, responslyste en huislyste. die beste lys bevat die kleinste aantal verkeerde adresse, bereik die grootste aantal potensiële kliënte en teen die laagste koste. • spesifieke doelstelling 5: ondersoek of direkte bemarking beter resultate sal behaal wanneer dit deel van ’n gebalanseerde mediaprogram vorm. uit die terugvoer wat vanaf die respondente ontvang is, blyk dit daar beter resultate verwag kan word wanneer daar ’n kombinasie van direkte bemarkingsinstrumente geïmplementeer word. die keuse om direkte bemarkingsinstrumentasie as vorm van bemarking te gebruik, vereis ook langtermynstrategie. wanneer die onderneming ’n langtermynstrategie volg, word verskillende direkte bemarkingsinstrumente gekombineer om mekaar aan te vul en aan die inligtingsbehoeftes van kliënte te voldoen. in so ’n strategie vorm direkte bemarking deel van ’n gebalanseerde mediaprogram. • spesifieke doelstelling 6: ondersoek die stelling dat direkte bemarking beter resultate behaal wanneer kliënte in die gevorderde stadia van besluitneming verkeer. by ontleding van die terugvoer wat vanaf die respondente ontvang is, blyk dit dat die spesifieke besluitnemingsfase waarin die kliënt verkeer nie ’n invloed op die effektiwiteit van die direkte bemarkingsinstrumente sal hê nie. direkte bemarking is ’n omvattende vorm van bemarking wat aangewend kan word om die kliënt deur die hele besluitnemingsproses te lei, vanaf die bewuswording van ’n probleem tot die neem van ’n aankoopbesluit en die evaluering van sy keuse. • spesifieke doelstelling 7: ondersoek die benutting ban ’n sentrale tema as basis vir alle media in geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie. die terugvoer van die respondente bevestig die noodsaaklikheid van die aanwending van ’n sentrale tema as basis vir die verskillende media wat in geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie aangewend word. ’n sentrale tema verbeter koördinasie en bevorder die venter 469 integrasie van die verskillende media. verder kan die benutting van ’n sentrale tema aansienlike kostebesparings vir die onderneming teweegbring. • spesifieke doelstelling 8: bepaal of die fokus in geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie op die kliënt en kliëntbehoeftes val. in die voorafgaande literatuurstudie is die kliënt as fokus in beide direkte bemarking en geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie geïdentifiseer. al die respondente het in die empiriese ondersoek aangedui dat hulle hierdie stelling ondersteun. die gevolgtrekking kan dus gemaak word dat direkte bemarking en geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie ’n kliëntoriëntasie vereis. wanneer ondernemings ’n kliëntoriëntasie aanneem, val die fokus op die identifisering en bevrediging van werklike kliëntbehoeftes. slegs ondernemings wat die kliënt tevrede stel, kan op ’n kliëntoriëntasie roem. • spesifieke doelstelling 9: bepaal of geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie die benutting van ’n verskeidenheid vorme van kontak vereis. uit die resultate van die empiriese ondersoek kan die afleiding gemaak word dat geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie die benutting van ’n verskeidenheid kontakvorme vereis. dit is die taak van die bemarker om die verskillende media-instrumente te identifiseer en te ontleed. 9. aanbevelings na aanleiding van die probleemstelling en die resultate van die navorsing, kan die volgende aanbevelings gemaak word: die suksesvolle aanwending van direkte bemarking (as vorm van bemarking) vereis betrokkenheid van die bestuur en ’n langtermyn-verbintenis. die bestuur moet hul gemoed oop hou oor die aanvanklike terugslae en mislukkings wanneer die direkte bemarkingsinstrumente geïmpliseer word. geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis die aanwending van ’n sentrale tema as grondslag vir alle media. ’n sentrale tema voorsien bemarkers van ’n fokus waar rondom beplanning kan plaasvind en versterk die leerproses van die gehoor. veranderings aan die aanbod is ’n maklike en koste-effektiewe manier om die onderneming van ’n mededingende voordeel te voorsien. gerieflike betalingsopsies kan ’n aanbod meer bekostigbaar en derhalwe meer aanloklik as die aanbiedings van mededingers maak. die persoonlike aard van die onderhandelingsproses in direkte bemarking leen dit tot die ontwikkeling van ’n huislys as deel van ’n poslys. alle moontlike kliënteinligting en terugvoer word in die kliëntdatabasis gestoor. dié inligting kan dan aangewend word om kliënte direkte bemarking td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. 470 met ooreenstemmende eienskappe en behoefte saam te groepeer. die meetbare eienskap van direkte bemarkingsinstrumente lei tot kostebesparings en beter toedeling van fondse. in die huidige ekonomiese toestand van suid afrika is ondernemings voortdurend op soek na goedkoper metodes. direkte bemarkingsinstrumente is baie veelsydig en kan vir ’n wye verskeidenheid doelwitte aangewend word. direkte pos kan byvoorbeeld gebruik word om handelsnaambewustheid te verhoog (deur byvoorbeeld ’n voorbeeld van ’n nuwe handelsnaam aan verbruikers te stuur). telefoonbemarking kan gebruik word om handelnaamlojaliteit te bevorder. voortdurende kontak sal lei tot die totstandkoming van ’n kliëntverhouding. ’n katalogus kan ingespan word om ’n nuwe produkreeks aan die teikenmark bekend te stel. suksesvolle geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vereis die aanwending van ’n verskeidenheid vorme van kontak. die gebruik van ’n kostevoordeelanalise behoort gebruik te word in die bepaling van ’n bevredigende balans van media-instrumente. die moontlike bydrae van elke media-instrument moet opgeweeg word teen die koste daaraan verbonde. 10. slotopmerking in beide direkte en geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie vorm die kliënt die spilpunt waar rondom beplanning plaasvind. effektiewe bestuur speel hier ’n groot rol. in enige bemarkingstrategie val die fokus op die identifisering van kliëntebehoeftes. die tendens van ondernemings om alle aktiwiteite op kliënte te fokus, staan bekend as ’n kliëntoriëntasie. in die benutting van direkte bemarking as deel van ’n geïntegreerde promosiestrategie kan die integrering van ’n kliëntoriëntasie ’n baie waardevolle bydrae in die verhoging van effektiwiteit van die algehele strategie lewer. in hierdie studie is die algemene doelstelling, naamlik ’n ondersoek van die noodsaaklikheid van ’n kliëntorïentasie vir die benutting en aanwending van direkte bemarking en die totstandkoming van geïntegreerde bemarkingskommunikasie, asook die onderskeie spesifieke doelstellings soos uiteengesit beantwoord. na aanleiding van die empiriese 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s. & jooste, c.j. 2004. bemarkingsbestuur. 3de uitgawe. kaapstad: juta. wilkie, w. 2001. consumer behavior. 3rd ed. canada: wiley. td, 2(2), desember 2006, pp. 453-471. microsoft word 04 tshelane.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 401 429. participatory action research and the construction of academic identity among postgraduate research students md tshelane1 abstract this paper discusses the construction of academic identity among postgraduate research students who emerged from a participatory action research (par) project. the article reports on how postgraduate research students constructed their academic identity deliberately, as they pursue their studies in a sustainable learning environment (sule) project. the aim is to contribute towards an understanding of the impact par has on research work of postgraduate students in the faculty of education, at the university of the free state, in south africa. this paper draws on the work of yosso’s community cultural wealth to amplify how a relatively unexplored methodology in postgraduate research studies can change and contribute towards the social justice agenda, and give hope to an unequal society ruptured by apartheid. a critical emancipatory research theory of the frankfurt school was used as the focal lens through which the literature was reviewed, together with a participatory action research process to generate data. free attitude interviews were applied to focus groups, workshops, and meetings of master’s and doctoral research students, as well as individual supervisory dialogues, so as to ensure the in-depth views of the construction of students’ academic identity. video-tapes as an instrument in the generation of the data, which was transcribed into text and further analysed in line with the objectives of the study were used. finally, a critical discourse analysis (cda) technique was used to arrive at the following findings: (i) ingenious commitment to social justice; (ii) genuine commitment to serve communities; and (iii) inter-centricity of humanity in relations. key words: construction, academic identity, postgraduate research students, participatory action research introduction resulting from the revolutionary work of people, such as tara j. yosso, especially from the time when the sterling publication, titled “critical race counter-stories along the chicana/chicano educational pipeline” (2006) was published, the development and implementation of symmetrical communication methodologies have become an obligation in research (zuber-skerrit, 2004:149; ladson-billing, 2005 116; yosso, 2006:303; evans, hole, berg, hutchinson & sookraj, 2009:894). this is particularly relevant during these critical times of a need for knowledge construction in south african higher education and for the conscious construction of academic identity among postgraduate research students, as 1 molaodi david tshelane (med) is a lecturer in the faculty of education at the university of the free state. email: tshelanemd@ufs.ac.za tshelane 414 potential knowledge producers in the world. symmetrical communication is a concept used by the frankfurt school of critical theory (ballard & belsky, 2010: 617). it is a core value in participatory action research (par) which refers to research done with a mutual respect for individual needs and differences, and with the recognition of one another as equal members. it means sharing responsibility for project outcomes, as well as for the processes of learning and team building (boud & lee, 2005:508; zuber-skerrit, 2004:149). nkoane (2010:318) states that the current democratic state in south africa with its new policies on higher education has placed greater emphasis than previously on addressing the injustices of the past in the institutions of higher learning. for instance, the government is particularly committed to increasing access to higher education for previously disadvantaged students. based on the above, the aim in this paper is overtly intended to provide alternatives to dominant positivistic theories, and methodologies which have dominated the research agenda for some time. the paper further advocate for the usage of participatory action research particularly in high education which deals with human and not objects (evans et al., 2009:894; mencke, 2013:3). this paper documents the path, processes, and developments which fifty postgraduate research students went through in shaping their different academic identities, yet bonded together by a common agenda of emancipation in their respective spaces, work and communities (butler, 2009:297). we draw from the six cultural capitals advocated and described in the work of yosso’s community cultural wealth to address a curious lacuna on how we construct our academic identities as postgraduate research students, in a sustainable learning environment project. academic identity is a complex concept, focusing on being what you are or could be, and how you have been shaped by your personal characteristics, family dynamics, historical factors, and the social and political spheres, or how others see you or say who you are (francis, 2012:148;tatum, 1997:100). my focus in this article is on identity in the academic context in a sustainable learning environment (sule). an incubator, space, process and experiences through which postgraduate students are brought together to create a network of opportunities to participate in sharing and forming relationships and supporting one another to become different persons (mahlomaholo, 2009:2; mahlomaholo & netshandama, 2011:314). sule focuses on fostering principles of social justice, care, love, equity, respect and inspiring hope (mahlomaholo, 2012; 2).thus, sustainable learning environments are network forums that can be used to enhance postgraduate students towards positive achievement. this network forum made up of a cohort supervisory team of lectures and student where a programme of postgraduate students is develop to provide support outside supervisor student contact in order to provide quality assurance in the students work. we also offer our reflections to show how par enabled us to develop collaborative agencies and gain confidence as a result of critical conversations amongst ourselves, including the supervisory team who participated in the project and who are co-researchers in this project (wehbi, 2009:503). for example on one occasion when we were engaged in a critical conversation on our different studies, a fellow student presenting his work to the large group, made a riveting presentation in which his language usage was so proficient that it caused some excitement. we were elated to observe how participants owned the project and were engaged in a process of symmetrical communication. one postgraduate research student said: you see, with par you can never go wrong. people are freer and you can see that there is a healthy relationship out there and the process is natural. no-one in this picture is bigger than the others. participatory action research and the construction of academic identity td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401-429. 415 the above statement is a point we wish to discuss later in this paper; namely, how par can impact on the construction of academic identity through language and communication. words, which are used in communication are near abstractions and can be manipulated into the shape of meaning and coded by interpretation (nkoane, 2012:99). theoretical framework we position this study in a conceptual framework that views the construction of academic identity among postgraduate research students as shaped by critical emancipatory research (cer) advocated by mahlomaholo (2009:13) and developed from habermas and the frankfurt school’s critical theory (barton, 2005:321; brenner, 2009:45; mahlomaholo & nkoane, 2002: 72; mahlomaholo, 2009:13) and the community cultural wealth (ccw) approach of yosso (2005). this framework informs our believe that: 1. the construction of academic identity amongst postgraduate students requires the active involvement in an incubator for interaction, networking and exposure to critical dialogue. 2. postgraduate research students have a well-developed socio-cultural background that should be respected and used for the critical, conscious construction of academic identity. 3. postgraduate research students should go beyond personal gain and should avoid deficit frameworks by identifying the community cultural wealth and capitals that exist in communities, such as familial capital, linguistic capital, social capital, resistant capital, aspirational capital and navigational capital. 4. postgraduate research students should contribute to positive change in the community in which the research is conducted. they should not be involved in the unethical practices of rigging people’s wealth for personal gain and self-glory. critical emancipatory research theory through the critical emancipatory research (cer) lens, critical consciousness is raised. in other words, researcher and research participants work together as co-researchers to develop understanding and knowledge about the nature and root cause of an undesirable situation, in order to design strategies and marshal support to effect change (nkoane, 2012:98; larrotta & yamamura, 2011:76).this confirms cer principles, since it cautions that human society is organised on the basis of the exercise of power for the purpose of bringing order, but sometimes power can be excessive requiring it to be challenged and subverted (mahlomaholo, 2009:290; mahlomaholo, 2011:5). in reflecting on the space of the postgraduate research student in education for sustainable learning environments, it is observed that extremes of inequality, social injustice, domination, side-lining, a lack of diversity, interracial strife, confrontation and a lack of hope can be demolished only through interaction with communities (mahlomaholo, 2012:7). cer advocates closeness between the researchers and the research participants (cohen, manion & morrison, 2011:37). the research participants are not treated as if they are mere impersonal objects in a natural science laboratory. rather, in cer, the researched are recognised and valued; thus treated with respect as fellow humans by the researcher (mahlomaholo & nkoane, 2002: 74; mahlomaholo, 2009:225). cer advocates peace, hope, equality, team spirit and social justice; thus, cer is changing people’s tshelane 416 hearts and minds, liberating them and meeting the needs of real life. this can be classified as follows: success/worth; fun/enjoyment; freedom/choice; and belonging/respect/love (foulger, 2010:135). for instance, maccabe and holmes (2009:1519) argue that critical research involves the co-creation of the research agenda by the researcher and researched participants. this premise thus justifies our adoption of this paradigm. community cultural wealth yosso’s interpretation of community cultural wealth is attributable to the varieties of the validated emancipation of the chicana/chicano people and can be applicable to a variety of communities. yosso identifies six components that reside within diverse communities in general and in the chicana/chicano people in particular (larrotta & yamamura, 2011:76). these six components culturally validate their strength: linguistic capital, resistant capital, navigational capital, social capital, familial capital and aspirational capital (yosso: 2006:23; yosso & garcia, 2007:146). to possess linguistic capital is to have skills and tools developed through communication experiences in more than one language (yamamura, shaw & stalh, 2011:267). resistant capital comprises the value, knowledge and tools used to nurture oppositional behaviour that challenges and stands in opposition to equality (james, 2012:44). navigational capital is concerned with the skills needed to navigate through unfamiliar or non-inclusive environments. familial and social capital focuses on knowledge and understanding that are nurtured and passed on through relationships with networks of family and friends (yosso & garcia, 2007:146). to have aspirational capital is to have high expectations, to stay focused on one’s goals and to remain resilient, regardless of the perceived barriers and hardships (larrotta & yamamura, 2011:76). we have observed that these capitals are not only important to ensure day-to-day survival but also vital to our construction of our academic identities (burciaga & erbstein, 2010:4). yosso’s ccw approach is integral to this study for the reason that the different forms of capital are consistent and ccw permits one to observe their complexity and perplexing nature. participatory action research par originates from the field of adult education, international development and the social sciences and is an inclusive inquiry often practised in cross-cultural contexts (kemmis & mctaggart, 2005:560; kemmis, wilkinson, hardy & edwards-groves, 2010:112). par is more than a method of conducting research, but an orientation to research and rooted in emancipatory movements. the concept, participatory research originates in tanzania in the early 1970s, rooted in its work with oppressed people in developing areas (schneider, 2012:2334). par is a process which combines systematic research education with the development of a practical intervention action (khanlou & peter, 2004:2334; chapman & dold, 2009:1). par engages the participants so that their voices can be heard and respected. participatory action research has three distinct elements as the driving force; namely: a shared ownership of the research project; a community-based analysis of social problems; and an orientation towards community action (kemmis, 2006:462; titterton & smart, 2008:57; kemmis, 2010a:19; shea, poudrier, tomas, jeffrey & kiskotagan, 2013: 4). the goal is to ensure that everyday knowledge is used to shape the lives of ordinary people (cameron & gibson, 2005:317). par values the local and indigenous knowledge of marginalised groups, as a basis for revolutionary actions, which can improve the lives of people. francis (2012:149) participatory action research and the construction of academic identity td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401-429. 417 contends that the concept ‘marginal’ can be used to describe any person who, for some reason, does not fit into the mainstream mould and who, for whatever reason, straddles two or more conflicted social identities. for the purpose of this study, academic identity refers to knowing who you are, in the academic sense. according to kemmis (2010a:11), revolutionary action can be understood on a smaller scale, meaning action aimed at a self-conscious change of people’s circumstances and of themselves. “people working together in an action research initiative might reasonably contest what counts as the right thing to do at any moment” (kemmis, 2010:417). they can however, proceed towards consensus about what to do as a group, by giving and weighing reasons, and by being alert to power differentials that may distort their decisionmaking process (mertens & ginsberg, 2008:451; kemmis, wilkinson, hardy edwards-groves, 2009:14; kemmis, 2010b:418). it is worth noting that a research method may inspire and empower some groups, while others are alienated from it even if it is not the intention. for instance, a research project may support established power structures by increasing the power of groups who are already privileged (mattsson & kemmis, 2007:196; macnamara & macnamara, 2011:33). ownership and participation address concerns about buy-in and the recognition by target participants which include engagement in the process of determining the input and output of services (chapman & dold, 2009:5). in short, par is a collaborative effort to address issues in specific systems. it is a collaborative, cyclical, reflective research design that focuses on problem solving, improving work practices, and understanding the effect of the research or intervention as part of the research process. it explicitly calls for making sense of the impact of change, and refining actions based on this impact (leykim, pugh, lanham, harmon & mcdaniel jr, 2009:8). based on the above, w report in this paper on our reflections on the use of par in our different research projects and how these research actions have impacted on the construction of our academic identities as postgraduate research students. the impact of participatory action research earlier, we mentioned returning to the following point: how par can impact on the construction of academic identity. the main aim of par as we see it is to give participants an opportunity to engage in identification or acknowledging the existence of the problem; studying the problem; analysing it and designing ways of addressing the problem. we conducted the study at a local university, among ourselves as postgraduates, drawing from yosso’s ccw. he cautions that although the impression created through university advertisements as a form of recruiting students, portrays unchecked optimism, exciting encounters, and numerous opportunities. few students anticipate that their university experience might be marked by on-going racialised and gendered incidents questioning their academic merit, cultural knowledge, physical presence, age, and the subjection to selection tests ( yosso, smith, ceja & solorzano, 2009: 659; larrotta & yamamura, 2011:75). nineteen years into democracy, students from marginalised communities still face charges of being unqualified and ‘out of place in some south african universities. this happens in spite of the enabling educational, legislative and policy context in south africa (mahlomaholo, 2012:4). through par, we engaged fifty postgraduate research students, who are registered for either master’s or doctoral studies and who participate in sustainable learning environments as an incubator, to enable them to complete their studies successfully. as fellow students also use the par approach in their respective studies, we focused on the influence of par in the construction of their academic identities, using ccw as the underpinning tshelane 418 framework. in sule, we were impressed by how much time, effort and energy the supervisory team and the students spent in making the project and final presentation a great success (mahlomaholo, francis & nkoane, 2010:283). on a monthly basis, every student is afforded the opportunity to present his/her work to the sule community, resulting in critical dialogue, reflection, acknowledgement, advice and a deeper understanding of the project. all participants are motivated to work hard, share and learn together in a collegial spirit with a shaped goal. there is interaction and fun, lots of energy and excitement. participants are free to select their topic and many other aspects of their projects, with creativity, innovations and surprises resulting, especially when participants explore alternative solutions (savin-baden & wimpenny, 2007:338; stahl, tremblay & le rouge, 2011:11). participants form alliances and networks (working and smaller ground in a local environment), thus bringing together shared goals and working in close proximity to one another. gradually, participants develop a common language and culture, using critical emancipatory theory, which results in a respect for and an appreciation of one another (water & comeau, 2010:4; wly, 2011:890). there is willingness to share knowledge and information; to cooperate and, collaborate; a readiness to self-critique and critique from others; to admit one’s ignorance or failure; to be honest to others and ones-self; and to use the processes of self-reflection and the reflection of others to take the necessary action. participants are willing to suspend their need for power authority and control (kemmis, 2009:466; van der velde & ogilvie, 2009:8). a spirit of trust is engendered with a focus on learning and applying the task at hand, so as to realise real improvement. mutual respect for individual needs and differences, together with the recognition of one another as equal team members, can be achieved through par. method and design the par notion communicated above forms the context within which we approached and operationalised the study. thus, this research is fundamentally qualitative and conducted in a participatory action research mode. the coordinating team selected par, because of its commonality amongst the researchers in assisting them to respond to the research question: how to construct academic identity among postgraduate research students? the same principle of cer was also used by all the participants as the archetype in which their studies were couched. this was selected because of its emancipatory agenda which was seen as a means to improve, validate and support the policy initiatives of government in its quest to eradicate the tenacious remnants of colonial and apartheid legacies (kalmer, 2013:14). par is an inclusionary mode that complements critical emancipatory research as its tenants are geared towards empowerment and are emancipatory in nature. we agreed to consciously implement the sule project as a familial capital crafted in ccw that would definitely yield results. only one question was formulated by the team which sought answers to how postgraduate student leaders experienced their participation in sule. the study involved collective, community-based research, since all participants benefited on the basis of shared responsibility. in this way, participants were engaged in critical dialogue, seeking to respond to the question at hand. there was a united agreement on problem identification; voluntarism and communal reflection; shared advantage and coalition dependence by participants (khan & chovanec, 2010:38). the eagerness to contribute to this research project shaped by the engagement and involvement of the participants in sule, was a positive sign which stimulated participation (macdonald, 2012:43; lightfoot & williams, participatory action research and the construction of academic identity td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401-429. 419 2009:211) and all available tools were used to communicate among ourselves. in the first meeting we identified the most troubling concerns that the participants expressed; thereafter, we agreed to continue with the thematic concern. four members volunteered to assist me and we were included as the coordinating team. all participants were familiar with one another due to past history, and again, we had had between three months and three years of working together in the sule project; thus, it was not difficult to convince others to participate in the study. this was driven by a collective vision shared by the students and clearly articulated what we needed to achieve. students came together in a planning meeting and reflected on their work. thus, it was easy, since everyone had to reflect on his/her own work by looking at the video tapes we had recorded in the past and compared different presentation, we compared our first presentations with the third. for instance, everybody felt there was a significant improvement from the first presentation of work to the current work. critically interrogating the presentations which enabled collective reflection; obtaining feedback; and then going back to improve on the work and presentation again, was done. teams also supported one another on the basis of a common vision. data generation we implemented the free attitude interview (fai) performance recommended by meulenberg-buskens (2011:1). the free attitude interview technique was used creatively and as an instrument for data collection because it has elements of respect for people and the question used only as a means to initiate a conversation. this is then followed by a reflective summary, thus persuading contributors and inspiring them to reason prudently about their arguments (mahlomaholo, 2009:228). the term free attitude interview can be traced back to vrolij and timmerman (meulenberg-buskens 2011:1). meulenberg-buskens opines that the fai is non-directive in nature, unlocks the space for the participants to intervene and thus, it is possible for the researcher and researched to assess and negotiate issues of consistency and legitimacy emphasised in positivist and phenomenologist paradigms (buskens, 2011:2). the fai allowed us to engage in reflexivity as a means to regulate the effects of researcher preconception and its impact on the research process. we also used diverse ict tools: e-mail and discussion room, in learning management systems. in addition, we had large monthly gatherings for a period of three months, as well as fortnightly focus groups. these sessions had a great influence on how we related to one another; the way we greeted, talked and did things; for example, time consciousness and caring for one another (brydon-miller & maguire, 2009:82). we also became very close to one another and served on different forums in our respective communities. we have had a long history as people who either meet at undergraduate studies, in the workplace, or in the local community. we started with an analysis of the political, economic, social, technological, legal and physical environments (pestle) in which we found ourselves and which impacted on us. we then engaged in establishing our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (swot) to analyse where we were in terms of our academic identities. we also engaged in team-building exercises, and generated data through regular dialogue in different focus groups, using presentations and videotaping all our gatherings. by engaging in many activities, such as: ict training; academic writing skills workshops; social networking forums, such as facebook; public lectures by critical scholars across disciplines; conversations with various experts in curriculum and education studies, we have broadened our knowledge significantly. we had training on the learning management system called blackboard, used for elearning tshelane 420 purposes; we gathered in different places of choice and learnt from different communities. anyone could be approached to help a fellow student in his/her project. the entire group of postgraduate research students participated as co-researchers and assisted one another to overcome pitfalls. many of our gatherings were videotaped and transcribed into text. the video recorder was not seen as a problem, as the camera was on a stand used regularly in the group meetings. thus, members encouraged video recordings and we consented to this prior to the research. participants did not appear to have a problem with this, as most of them suggested creative ways on how to conduct the research. one participant emphasised that everyone should understand the double role of the researcher and the researched, while another participant pointed out that no-one should be forced to participate and that this should be stressed at all the meetings. data analysis as research team, we used critical discourse analysis and then discussed emerging themes, using the framework of ccw. we engaged in critical discourse and reflected on the data which consisted of twenty pages of transcriptions produced from various video footage recorded for sixty minutes. it was advantageous that most of the presentations displayed on video were already in text form. thus we could observe the conversational performance of the presenters as the documented text could be clearly read from the video footage and could be paused in order to comprehend the text transcriptions which comprised twenty pages. the video recordings from each focus group and the meetings held from our research projects in our respective monthly meetings and virtual discussions were included. the recordings were translated verbatim. this information was generated in the form of minutes of meetings and virtual discussions on the learning management system (blackboard). we used critical discourse analysis advocated by teun van dijk which focuses on an understanding of what structures, strategies or other properties of text, talk, verbal interaction or communicative events play as role in these approaches of knowledge production (van dijk, 1993:250; van dijk 2009:230). we decide to focus on only three of the six capitals, with special attention to how we constructed our academic identity using the participatory action research approach. findings ingenuous commitment to effect social justice as an academic identity from the inception of the project we learnt from one of the co-researchers that: “with par you can never go wrong as people are perceived to be freer. you can see that there is a healthy relationship out there; the process is natural and no-one in this picture is bigger than the others”. we analysed what one of the postgraduate research students believes, that people have to be free when constructing academic identity and that freedom can be achieved only through aspirations towards social justice. again, the use of the word ‘bigger’ implies issues of power, and thus, there is an appeal to the principle of equality in cer. drawing from the ccw framework, both social and aspirational capital can be used to build on the construction of an academic identity. for example, aspirational capital means to have high expectations, staying focused on one’s objective and remaining resilient, regardless of the perceived barriers and real hardships. social capital consists of networks of people and community resources, such as participatory action research and the construction of academic identity td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401-429. 421 community organisations. it can also refer to knowledge and understanding that are nurtured and passed on through relationships and networks. sule as a network platform nurtures postgraduate students and privileges them above others who lack this facility. genuine commitment to serve communities as an academic identity postgraduate students see themselves as having the purpose of serving their respective communities as an academic identity. drawing from the ccw framework experience, some students’ proposals are rejected, but they are resilient and continue to persevere irrespective of the barriers and hardships. this situation is common to many researchers reading for phds; however, there are also success stories of those who write their proposals within three months with positive outcomes. some students have completed their phds in eighteen months, due to their unwavering commitment to achieving their personal goals and to serving their communities. resistant capital can be used to fight inequalities, particularly educational inequalities. inter-centricity of humanity in relation to an academic identity a sound culture of respect for everyone exists and this quality is interdependent; thus, when decisions are made, everyone’s ideas are sought, valued and considered. we have an in-house arrangement where we rotate as session chairpersons to facilitate our regular conversations or interventions. evident to this, the conversation we had with “tumelo” (pseudo name of a coresearcher) was as follows: my impression of the team is that humanity comes first; i have come to practise what i took for granted for years, that indeed ‘motho ke motho ka batho’ (a human is a human through people). par has helped me to reflect on this statement over and over again. our team worked closely together, using the same paradigm of learning and research, and usually came to respect and appreciate one another. the ccw framework displayed through linguistic capital, focusing on the skill and tools, developed through communication. we were also able to venture into new ways of thinking: we used internet search engines to acquire information which was relevant to our different study areas and we participated in public lectures (mantoura & potvin, 2012: 4). we were also shown how to use the learning management system, together with the blackboard portal for our discussions. sule provided an opportunity for postgraduate research students to come together to share their experiences among themselves, with the support of the supervisory team. during the sule gatherings the students are given opportunities to showcase their project, wherein they come up with tangible results and successes from completing or working on a project; at this stage they are now ‘fairly expert’ in their chosen areas. they share their expertise with the rest of the sule community and in most cases, they draw from their cultural knowledge, for instance. we have used cda, as a device to attain the above results, since cda can be used in readings concerning discourse, power, domination, social discrimination and the position of the discourse analyst in relation in such relations (van dijk, 1993:249). cda involves answers for difficult connections between text talk, social cognition, power, society and culture which we followed in this study. we analysed texts, unpacking them in order to deepen our understanding of the practices of postgraduate research in the construction academic identity and in the acquisition of progress and attainment. cer is the fundamental tshelane 422 component used by all the members in their separate studies, and in the collective procedure which they have chosen. par supports researchers and demystifies the research process, allowing for the reliable generation of data as all contributors aim for excellence in their projects. discussions and implications findings from the study indicate that academic identity is constructed, dynamic and always in process. the findings are consistent with the literature that: identity is complex and changes from contact to contact in a social context. this is proved in the text below written by one of the postgraduate students through e-mail: (sic):i have just received your e-mail and gone through it. i just want to find out the date for the next meeting. the par meeting we had the other time i was presenting was indeed a good one. i learned a couple of things(,) which i have incorporated in my latest submission. apart from that these meetings makes one's journey in the research less threatening. i wish we could sell the idea and have the team grow even bigger. the message above indicates that the student sees value in par and has influenced the student to see the bigger picture; to connect issues, events and facts in a holistic way; and to appreciate the sule as the basis of long-term competitive advantage. emerging from these issues, the student may be made aware of the concerns of other students in general. thus, the construction of ingenuous commitment to social justice as an academic identity can be said to develop when the student believes that all other students should be nurtured through the sule project. this can be realised through their participation and the implementation of inclusionary approaches. our findings show that developing social and aspirational capitals through the sule project taps into postgraduate research students’ cultural wealth and fosters ccw, which are sustainable forms of postgraduate research involvement. the project which empowered both the students and the supervisory team, reminds researchers to be aware of the capital that exists within the student community and thus engenders respect for students as fellow human beings. researchers should re-examine what sustainable learning environments in a participatory action research mode really means. as yosso points out, ccw enables us to identify and validate the dormant and unstated knowledge held by participants who historically, have been considered as lacking any knowledge and culture (gota, 2010:8; larrotta & yamamura, 2011:82; mahlomaholo, 2012:3). the postgraduate research students see themselves as having the purpose of serving their respective communities. thus, we categorised this as a genuine commitment to serve communities as an academic identity. for instance, one student argued that: (sic) … lastly, i can see the changes that have been taking place within me since i join the group. i have been greatly imparted by the cer/par research paradigm which has taught me that it is very easy to be the change that you expect to see in this world. and as you change, you will respect the changes that are happening in the lives of others. the great principles of cer like democracy, humility, respect, hope, inclusiveness, peace, freedom, etc. have really touched me and i see how they can be used to suggest changes in any social milieu that is seeking for the change that they desire. these principles really participatory action research and the construction of academic identity td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 401-429. 423 get home when we sit in our cer/par group to ensure that we are all working towards building sustainable environments through these principles. the literature confirms that par is premised on a set of principles and related practices that promote a commitment to action and social justice, especially with the goal of exposing and changing relationships of power (evans et al., 2012:896). in the sule projects students start to develop a culture of service throughout their involvement in the project and learn from the presentations of others what the actual value of research is. the participants are encouraged to focus on the learning process, as well as on action, tasks, products and improving performance through reflection on their work, as well as through decision making and questioning their insights as they move through the project. research also attests that students who have caring, supportive mechanisms in their lives are more likely to succeed academically (liou & antrop-gonzalez, 2009:536; guishard, 2009:90). the response above shows that the student uses familial capital, which makes reference to cultural practices in the sule and knowledge that relies on extended familial relationships. these relationships enable the construction and maintenance of collective understanding around emotions and educational and occupational relationships (markic & eilks, 2011:152; masadeh, 2012:131). furthermore, resistant capital was also applied with the students demonstrating elements of patience which can be realised only when there is hope. similarly, students become conscious of critical emancipatory research aspects, thus demonstrating the internalisation of the principles of cer. this ultimately, leads to the construction of genuine commitment to serve communities. to support the argument above, the following extract from one of the students validates the construction of the abovementioned academic identity: i must confess that since i joined the cer/par group and realised that it was participatory action towards building each other’s research, that really troubled me. i say ‘troubled’ because this was the first time in my research life of seeing a group discussing individual research work. i had always seen and perceived research as a lonely journey and a private affair between the student and the supervisor. but here, i was called upon to belong to a group where we presented our work for peer review and group critique. after attending a number of these sessions my mindset has not only developed, but has been utterly modified. i can see my peers as friends and colleagues and not as competitors in the journey of research. lastly, the impact of par on postgraduate research students has led to the construction of academic identity through an intense reflection on the linguistic capital which makes reference to the various ways in which people are able to communicate in more than one language and in other forms of expression, such as art, music and poetry. navigational capital was also used through which we were able to navigate within the parameters of sule, to be included in the postgraduate research process, previously dominated by white, afrikaansspeaking people. this can be seen in the extract below: for the first time i had a chance to express myself in front of a big crowd and to open up my work for critique by my peers. this taught me to be reflective and reflect on my own thinking and change my picture about research. yes, research is about understanding the ‘phenomenon’ as one would normally say, but through par and through critical emancipatory research, it actually ends up as a double gain, making a real contribution. this is accompanied by pride through collective contribution … my attitude towards my love and confidence for my peers has increased. i have suddenly become open-minded, receptive, cooperative and ready to share whatever i have, for the benefit of the entire tshelane 424 group. this change is motivated by the new principles from which i have benefited the mutual empowerment that we have all gained during our group activities. par promotes returning the power of knowledge production and the use of it to ordinary people and oppressed people; thus contributing to the democratisation of the research process and the promotion of social transformation (hanrahan, 2005:22; evans et al., 2012:899). for example, the extract above shows how different par as a mode is, since it brings human elements, such as: love, cooperation, collective contribution and sharing. these words show how linguistic capital can be used to promote humanity which ultimately results in academic identity which centres on humanity. par unearths the humanity in students, unlike in mainstream research which emphases ‘objectivity’ claiming neutrality which can never be possible in humans. one of the core values of par is synergy; according to zuber-skerrit (2004:148) synergy is a willingness to share knowledge, information and skills for problem solving. thus, collectivism in par can lead students to centre their studies on human beings, as has been demonstrated by students in the sule project. the above extracts from the participants show that the students and leaders have acquired multiple skills which serve as an advantage when compared to students who have not been exposed to the sule project (kindon & elwood, 2005:26). the participants also show that the skills they have acquired range from technology to good communication skills, such as virtual discussions, blogging and podcasting. they have also acquired social skills, such as sound human relationships, respect and the ability to recognise their own faults, together with an appreciation of the support of others. it seems that there was an acknowledgement of a reliance on other students and became knowingly aware of their involvement in the project as researchers, as well as those being researched (delman, 2012:162). this fosters a natural understanding of people and gives the research process an authenticity, unlike the superficial elements of control and controllable from which other modes claim to be free. inexorably, at the core of other modes of research is the cog which turns the wheel of continuing the underclass and marginalised people; research as a money-making process, without any contribution to the community in which the research is conducted (derr, chawla, mintzer, cushing & van vliet, 2013:493). conclusion while symmetrical research methodologies, address issues which deal with mutual respect for individual needs and differences, it has been demonstrated in this paper that research can also enhance human life. in this study, the construction of academic identity has been described. participatory action research methodology has been discussed to provide an overview of how it was applied in a sule project. a brief prognosis of the postgraduate research student incubator which was used to drive team sharing and shared responsibility for the project outcomes, as well as mutual learning and team building, was also discussed. how the construction of academic identity was achieved, based on the findings, was indicated. the following findings were reported: an ingenuous commitment to social justice, with postgraduate students showing a strong commitment to social justice, particularly on the basis of drawing from community cultural wealth. with a genuine commitment to serving the people, postgraduate research students seem to have acquired impetus to serve their respective communities; this is also viewed as a constructed academic identity. finally, through the use of the participatory research mode, postgraduate research students see themselves as researchers who view human relations as shaping their academic identity. the conceptual participatory action research and the construction of 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higher education institution; freedom of speech; censorship; democratic discourse universities are ideally world seminar rooms, which offer opportunities to openly shape, share and debate ideas to ultimately find truth. in this context freedom of speech plays a central role and forms a basic prerequisite and right for the development of academics. williams (as referred to by dandridge and mendus, 2012) however insists that freedom of speech for academics as well as the ideal of an open university is challenged within the “highly regulated context of universities.” an online discussion forum of a formerly mono-cultural higher education institution in south africa was established with the objective in mind that employees could raise issues and share ideas in such a virtual seminar room. with the transformation of the university to a multi-racial institution, anxiety levels among employees rose. those in favour of the transformation used the forum to voice their opinions about remaining hegemonous and unemancipatory practices, while those with cataclysmic views about political and institutional transformation opposed the so-called liberals and expressed nostalgia about the time before transformation. 1 . dr louise postma is attached to the school education studies, faculty of education sciences, potchefstroom campus of the north-west university. email: louise.postma@nwu.ac.za. 2 . prof. dr a seugnet blignaut is research professor, school of natural sciences and technology education, faculty of education sciences, potchefstroom campus of the north-west university. email: seugnet.blignaut@nwu.ac.za. postma & blignaut 278 although these opinions are divergent, the ideal would be that they could be expressed in an environment which is secure and equalizing (herring et al., 2002). in such an ideal university context, participants of different academic positions, cultural identities and divergent perspectives can freely raise issues of concern. this can be done without the status-related differences (o'sullivan and flanagin, 2003) which characterise and inhibit offline interactions. the presumed equalization of participants plays a motivating role, with the assumption that this alternative space offers the opportunity for free expression which might not be found elsewhere. in contrast to this ideal perspective of participants, or their “enabling logic,” some participants and members of management condone a “control logic” (de laat, 2012: 1) in the moderation of the forum and expect external intervention by way of censoring or controlling those with extremist and dangerous points of view. this paper describes how the rationalistic and moralistic context of internal and external moderation of the online discussion forum excludes participants. it aims to illustrate which participations are perceived as extremist and socially dangerous and how these participants’ voices are silenced. by these forceful acts, the proponents of the ideal speech situation (iss) which habermas (1990) characterizes as the absence of oppression and dominance are undermined. the central thesis of the paper is that moderating interventions are not aimed to reach a consensus and the common good of the iss, but driven by normalistic and moralistic concerns limiting online and offline uncomfortable positions in order to protect managerial and strategic concerns and to ignore and avoid conflict. these interventions do not facilitate the discourse towards expressing correct views in a moderate and refined way, but lead to more 3flaming and 4trolling (herring et al., 2002; turnage, 2007) on the forum, a growing intolerance between discussants, non-constructive and disruptive comments, and the termination of participation. the opportunity for academics to learn the truth is sabotaged, as the discomfort which management experiences in interacting with perceived irrational and unreasonable participations leads to the silencing of voices. instead of facing and dealing with uncomfortable views, the discourse on challenging issues is censored, which ultimately terminates real and potential voices. the online and offline community of like-minded participants lends intellectual capital and authority to academic participations which assume rationalistic, detached and clinical positions, while more involved, emotional and seemingly ill-judged participations are perceived as intellectually inferior. this “bourdieusian intellectual capital” (wodak, 1996: 25, 26) is dominant in the forum, contributing to the agreement that participations representing opposing world views have less learned styles and are consequently disregarded or acted on by way of some form of external moderation. external moderation eventually adds to the imbalance of power in the forum, which has already been caused by the internal dominance of rationalistic participations. 3 an online argument that becomes nasty or derisive, where insulting a party to the discussion takes precedence over the objective merits of one side or another. x was flaming y over his religious beliefs urban dictionary. (2013a) flaming. available at: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flaming.(urban dictionary) 4 one who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument urban dictionary. (2013b) trolling. available at: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll.(urban dictionary "trolling") silencing dissent in an online discussion forum td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 277-294. 279 the verb “moderate” has a latin root, which explains “modus” as “a medium quantity or quality” and the verb “moderare” as the action “to avoid extremes” (hoad, 1996). understood in the context of the paper, the act of moderation would mean to avoid extreme voices. a moderation of extreme voices on an online forum would be interpreted in the paradigm of deliberative democracy (habermas, 1990) to bring opposing parties to a form of consensus. the paradigm of communicative democracy of young (2000) however, would as an act of moderation allow opposing and extremist voices to occupy their places by way of different strategies. young (2000) refers to these strategies as an emotive rhetorical process to bring opposing parties to the understanding of differences and specific situations and not necessarily to a rational agreement. echoing young’s (2000) insistence on emotive strategies in discourse, the postmodernist position on knowledge holds that “truth and knowledge are not only to be found through rational thought or method” (webster and mertova, 2007: 29), but also through emotional experience, which embodies both discomfort and conflict. critical poststructuralist theory, which informs this study, stresses subjectivity, emotionality and feeling (denzin, 1999: 113), elements which are acknowledged, advocated and regarded by young (2000) as prerequisite elements in the understanding of others, the legitimization of their voices and eventually the democratization of everyone through discourse. this implies that moderation should not become a means to silence the so-called extreme voices but rather create the means for these to be heard. instead of enabling participants to speak their minds, the act of speaking out is used by moderating interventions as a means to control, limit and eventually disable freedom of speech. the forum enhances the visibility of those who participate and ultimately function in a “foucaultian panopticon” (foucault, as cited by rouse, 2003), which implies that the forum offers management a means to see everything and to eventually control what they see. moderation becomes what foucault describes as “control or neutralization of dangerous social elements” (as cited by rouse, 2003: 100). eventually a person whose participation causes discomfort with readers and moderators is literally overpowered. in this respect foucault’s explanation of power as the “right of seizure: of things, time, bodies, and ultimately life itself” is relevant (as cited by rouse, 2003: 100), as these moderating interventions resulted in trauma, time to be spent in dealing with the processing of trauma and the termination of life on the forum. even if the participation is in a virtual space and reality is represented through discourse, participants also create reality through discourse. this presented or created reality is just as real as face to face discourse, as it influences real life and can potentially lead to trauma. the virtual does matter and becomes “embodied matter” (van doorn, 2011). the fact that participation happens in a virtual space, does not diminish the reality of its influence. participants in virtual space are materialized, or embodied through their presentations of themselves: “in this sense, the performative practices in digital spaces…resemble everyday physical experiences in their simultaneous incorporation of virtual and concrete elements to make sense of daily life…the digitally virtual is embedded in the ongoing life of the concrete and forms an important extension of the notions of reality and the context of action” (shields, as cited by van doorn, 2011: 534). one can therefore conclude that the moderation of online participations is not experienced lightly and superficially as it serves as a significantly negative intervention in the participants’ lives. this paper focuses on the moderation of the online forum: (i) by using grounded theory methodology and critical discourse analysis (wodak, 1996), the researchers analyse the text of and interviews with participants who directly or indirectly experienced, feared, condoned or postma & blignaut 280 enforced the processes of moderation, and (ii) by formulating hypotheses and proposals they contribute to the establishing of theory of an alternative form of moderation. moderating interventions grounded theory methodology (strauss and corbin, 2008) directs the empirical part of the study, allowing the researchers to formulate theory concerning moderation as the final stage of analysis. the following diagram illustrates the relationship between the different categories which were established through the procedure of selective coding. in this presentation of data, it is evident that the moderating interventions influence all the aspects of participation. in the discussion which follows, the paths indicated between categories will be referred to. the participants who are referred to in the next section, either condoned or practised forms of moderation, or were subjected to it. moralistic and rationalistic elements in their moderating discursive interactions with participants, effect the exclusion of dissidents or those who oppose the normalistic view. the voice of the people in her time as member of the institution’s management, cathy acted as the unannounced moderator of the forum. during the interview with the researcher, she states her perception of the forum as a useful therapeutic space (figure 1:1) where employees could during the uncertain time of transformation to a racially integrated institution, voice their honest opinions. she also regards the forum as a place where people could make unguarded statements if they were afraid to do so elsewhere: moderation 2. choice of content and style 3. forming an online identity 4.  perceptions  of  and   interaction  with participants   5. consequence 1. motivation for participation opportunity figure 1 categories to which moderation links silencing dissent in an online discussion forum td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 277-294. 281 cathy: and, people are very hesitant to say things directly to you, uh, i think you know...can be a career limiting statement, or they think it is not quite appropriate to load you with unimportant stuff, of they are afraid that they might offend you, all those type of things which out of a, uh, look, the relationship between a senior manager and someone lower down in the organization is a skew relationship of power and of course people are, uh, there are many filters which people build in to make sure that they protect themselves also, and [the forum sic] has always been, uhm, to me one of the very best ways to find out what the people really think. as cathy regrets the collegial distance which was created by the style of management in the new context of a larger university, being a former outspoken academic herself, she perceives the forum to be the “voice of the people.” the forum provides opportunity (figure 1:1) to criticize management, which offers a useful insight in what is happening at grass roots level and which serves as a bridge for her to cross the divide between management and employees: cathy: look, i think it is very important when you are in a, in a management position, that you have to know what people think and say, because, uh, one moves a bit, especially when you are on the level of campus management, that you do not have much to do with people much lower down on the food chain, to call it like that …and the forum has always been to me, uhm, one of the best methods to get to know what people are really thinking, because i think that people who write on the, uhm, forum, that they, uhm, don’t think that senior management will read it, so they are more free or they, uhm, think that you will read it and it provides them with the opportunity to deliver a bit of a blow or whatever, but is has always been to me in the largest extent an opportunity to hear, what the, what the people are thinking. since cathy shows a regular and keen interest in forum activities, she is alerted by her secretary or family members about actions on the forum which they regard would be of importance to her when she herself cannot tend to it. she acknowledges that, in stressful times, the forum served as relief (figure 1:1), as difficult situations were often defused with witty remarks on the forum. in this regard she perceives the forum as a place which provides much needed fun and entertainment, serving as a therapeutic space for her personally. the significance for management although she has a benevolent feeling towards forum activities, cathy acknowledges the dismissiveness of certain members of management about the forum: look, there were some members of management who distanced themselves totally from [the forum sic], who felt, oh no, you know, i am not tiring myself. she adds that the forum creates awareness with management about strong feelings (figure 1:1), although she can’t perceive that the forum effected any structural changes: cathy: you know, i cannot...see that it had in such a measure an impact, and then i cannot say that we said in meetings listen here, what was on the [forum sic] again, and how can we consider it, but, some of the issues were, uh, were discussed, i cannot say in which way it did contribute to structural change...i would say that it did have the impact that people became aware of a strong feeling among people about certain issues. postma & blignaut 282 censorship and boundaries cathy regards the right of freedom of speech as essential for academics and although she admits that rumours of censorship do exist, she strongly denies any censoring by herself or even a vindictive attitude of management towards forum participants: researcher: did you get the feeling that people say, yes, but the [forum sic] is censored and now we cannot say what we want? cathy: you know, one or two people said that, especially andrew, suggested, strongly suggested that it is censored, but it is not true at all, i myself did sometimes not get the chance to get on the [forum sic]…but uh, i always had the feeling that there were people on the campus who think that management gets up early in the morning and figures out especially how they will make life intolerable for that guy’s life. with previous knowledge of incidences where participations did disappear shortly after publication, the researchers took the opportunity to explore the reasons for censorship. although the forum provides the means for the voice of the people to be heard, cathy indicates that there are constraints which inhibit the act of speaking out (figure 1:2). participants should be aware that the public nature of the forum creates the circumstances for voices both to be heard and to be reacted on. cathy phrases the reaction, however, as “repudiation,” indicating that precarious or risky participants should expect just that. in a way she does subvert her own opinion of the freedom the forum offers by resorting to the panoptic view of the forum as a means to see what “the people” are thinking, offering the opportunity to control or “repudiate” those participants. she assumes that participants should know the limits of their participations and the “prudent” boundaries that regulate both the content and the way of their acts of speaking out: cathy: look, i see here is the big brother syndrome, uh…if you are very afraid...that what you say might be used against you, then it would now of course be the prudent path not to say it…or in a different way…when you publish on the [forum sic]…with your name, then it feels to me a bit like throw it down the gauntlet, uh…you want reaction and you will get reaction, if you come afterwards and say yes, but wow, the guys clamped down on me…it was never my approach to clamp down or to harm someone about things he...on the [forum sic], i did in any case not see everything, uh, things which became apparent, uhm, i never saw myself in the role of big brother or big sister, not at all. decorum and academic finesse in addition to the reaction which participants should anticipate, cathy prescribes the concept of decorum for academics (figure1:2). this means that they should be self-regulatory and make informed statements on the forum with academic finesse. in this regard she redefines the nature of the forum from being a therapeutic, fun space to a formal environment where decorum is expected. the decorum of a formal environment requires the use of a proper language, it requires the consciousness of civil norms and the proper address of coparticipants and it could possibly temper free speech: cathy: look, it is a very difficult thing, uh, one would want academics to exercise an amount of decorum, this is to me quite, uh, a concept which we learned quite a bit about in drama, but it is a concept which i...very widely, uh, your decorum means that you have a proper judgment, about what you can say in public and about what you cannot silencing dissent in an online discussion forum td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 277-294. 283 say, uh, i know many of us might perhaps be deeply persuaded about something which you just do not blurt out and broadcast, it can be offensive. cathy leaves the door open for radical ideas to be conveyed on the forum, as long as they are conveyed by the choice of the correct register. she indicates that academics should be able to formulate their statements properly and be aware of the significance or possible reception of their statements, something she doubts happens. stephen is one of the participants who cathy distinguishes as a “solid” academic (figure 1:4) whose participation is especially motivated by his foreign status. she agrees with most of his views, perceiving him as her alter ego who can recognize which issues are pertinent. his style of presentation (figure 1:2) is praised, exhibiting the finesse she expects from an academic: cathy: i must say that uh, especially stephen, uhm, i was partially responsible for uhm, his appointment at the university…i thought it is very important to bring in another voice...and he did not disappoint me, uhm, i liked, i often supported his views, and i thought, uh, that he verbalized what i would have verbalized if i, uh, could speak totally independently…but i thought stephen’s voice was necessary…he, uh, writes well, he writes witty, he recognises things, now, of course it is, when one is a bit of the lefty on the campus, i had for many years the reputation of being the lefty, uh, of course it is a bit exaggerated, of course one does not agree with everything he says...but i always thought stephen’s views were probably the most nuanced, and he uh focused on the right things…i think he is an asset to the university…i do think…uh, his voice was very necessary, within the context of his appointment but also in the broader campus. balancing loyalties over time, cathy dealt with former colleagues (figure 1:4) who criticized and insulted her co-managers. this caused strained relationships and a difficult act of balancing previous and present loyalties. she did tactfully persuade one former colleague into a public apology on the forum: cathy: because we are on a good terms with each other, and therefore i found it very difficult to tell him, uh, you know what, uh, i really think that it’s…the ball is in your court, he is not cross with me, we still are very good friends. as cathy judged francois’ criticism of her co-manager as insulting, it disappeared from the forum within a few minutes of its publication. his first forced attempt at apology which he presented as a statement of his persuasion also vanished. cathy did not appreciate francois’ use of the forum to address the specific issue and felt that, on the basis of their friendship, he could have approached her personally. a critical reflection on the favouring of a co-manager above a former colleague and the benefit of a former friendship in addressing and alleviating a difficult situation was present in the conversation with francois, but absent in the interview with cathy. the superior position of management being better informed than staff was played as a card, viz. that francois’ misjudgement was because of a lack of information: cathy: that is also why i thought with francois, oh no, francois, i thought you are a bit better than this, don’t act on uh incomplete information. during the interview with francois, he did not refer to himself being ill-informed, and in the interview with cathy, the fact that censorship did take place was also not alluded to. if a lack of information caused the uproar, no steps were taken to inform the readers of the forum of the correct facts to put the events in perspective. postma & blignaut 284 cathy finds criticism from andrew, a previous colleague, (figure 1:4) to be unfair, in need of editing and also uninformed and repetitive. she claims that participants need to edit their posts, to be sure of their information and to present it with finesse and decorum (figure 1:2). some utterances did not meet these requirements, such as beth’s, but her perceived racist declarative participation did go uncensored and her opinions were perceived as instrumental for the existence of an authentic, lively debate: cathy: on the other side, concerning beth, it was to me…i did not necessarily agree with opinions, but i just thought that it is good, there must be space for lively debate. beth’s participation is especially seen as a transgression of decorum and lacking in academic finesse (figure 1:2), thereby risking the name of university: cathy: it can bring the university’s name in discredit, and so, and uh, i would in an ideal world that a lecturer know which decorum he must practise, where is his, where is the finesse, the academic finesse to know, oh no man, you don’t make, you don’t make a statement like this, but, when someone then uhm does it…then one has to handle it carefully, i am very careful for uh censorship. it does seem however, that voices are judged as uncomfortable when they move too close to managerial concerns and preference is given to the safe middle ground of tempered views: cathy: one concept which had been driven especially by uh andrew, and he also had his accolades who joined him…the one concept which had been driven very much was managerialism…andrew always has a good case, but he always takes it to the extreme…but one always again has to move a bit to the middle. in describing an ideal world of informed academics who participate with decorum (figure 1:2), cathy perceives stephen as someone who comes close to these proponents of ideal speech: “but i always thought stephen’s views were probably the most nuanced, and he…focused on the right things.” cathy concedes that his views might be exaggerated, but still they are preferred to those who have extreme positions: “of course it is a bit exaggerated, of course one does not agree with everything he says.” in addition to the ideas cathy endorses about academic finesse, self-regulation and decorum, echoes of the proponents of the ideal speech bearing on the universal common good underlying and directing democratic discourse are apparent in cathy’s conclusive reflection: cathy: and therefore ideas are to me…and lately there plays something in my head, which i had as a sort of a mantra, i used it in my first speech…and i used it again in my farewell speech when i said…people and things are temporal, but ideas and values are eternal. it would be unfair to ignore the stress conflicting loyalties exerted on a former academic in management, and especially for a woman who had to deal with a management corps which comprised mostly mono-cultural men. in this sense, the power which resides in the larger contexts of the institution and the perception of the university’s socio-cultural position cannot be denied. cathy can be seen as someone who is subjected to, and also actively exercises, the dominant discourse. the dominant discourse is imbedded in those structures within which the university is perceived to be located. wodak (1996) refers to the powers above discourse, a state of affairs which explains why the dominant discourse is mirrored in external interventions in the forum. it is therefore interesting to note the irony in the touchiness of silencing dissent in an online discussion forum td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 277-294. 285 management about criticism on the forum if they distinctively prefer to dismiss the forum’s existence or importance. those who oppose censorship or moderation acts of internal moderation as a person who is alien to the context of the university, stephen is in conflict with the old dispensation and its sympathizers and this conflict serves to motivate his participation (figure 1:1). he functions unknowingly and in an unofficial sense as an internal moderator, as he sets the style and tone (figure 1:2) for others to follow and he criticizes those who seem not to comply with the form or content of his participation: stephen: beth, unfortunately for you, more questionable information does not make an argument based upon questionable information any less questionable. he especially expects his opponents, such as beth, to be as rational as he is, to present arguments with the type of evidence he approves of, thereby assuming a patronizing attitude (figure 1:4): stephen focuses on her lack of informedness, her doubtful sources of information, and her deficient argumentation. the larger part of his participation is marked by the presentation of information which illuminates certain aspects of beth’s lack of knowledge, thereby educating her and the readers. his language bears some evidence of an emotional attitude defined by the security and authority that stephen’s informative style affords. this also makes clear his bias. he describes her as under-informed, minimizes her evidence and judges her incapable and not in a position to make authoritative statements (postma et al., 2012a). stephen resorts to what he himself confesses as “hermeneutic bullying” in the following address: stephen: explain in less than 500 words how bee [black economic empowerment] and/or equity employment is racist. listing endless examples is not good enough, use them, make an argument, build something convincing by clearly explaining how it is that the evidence that you are presenting supports the assertion that you are trying to make. that is called reasoning, and it is the most important part of academic writing (postma et al., 2012a: 16). ideas about censorship stephen disagrees with the censoring interventions (figure 1:4) on the forum, having a different concept of what censorship is from which is held locally: stephen: i have a different notion of free speech that is commonly upheld in south africa, in south africa there’s certain things that you definitely can’t say, we have the category of hate speech, and…i don’t know if i really agree with the category of hate speech, as we uhm…as we have it, it’s problematic in all sorts of ways, because you can’t really insult a category of people, because a category of people doesn’t really exist. postma & blignaut 286 he does not condone the disciplinary action which was taken against beth for her perceived racist opinions: stephen: well you know, we don’t think there should be a disciplinary act against [beth sic] because we think that she brings to the discussion a sort of popular position and that the discussion is more important than that, uhm, but then by this time i think the person...it was john who made the complaint, and he was very angry and very adamant that that sort of thing should not be tolerated and we differed a bit on that. stephen prefers opposing participants to rather solve an issue internally than expect an external agent to address the problem. he however resorts to a form of dominance in the way he addresses those who oppose his views. he acknowledges his bullying of his main opponent and the power play of ideologies present in the forum, creating the perception that the forum is a playfield. he refers to his participation as trolling, which, contrary to the negative impact he alludes to, was never censored: stephen: i think in some ways it was sort of slightly more a sophisticated form of trolling, really, it was at first then i pop up and say this prayer stuff is terrible, all this religion is crap, we should get rid of it and people immediately i think see that as an extremist position and you know, that coloured the rest of my commentary, and if i can do things over again, i possibly wouldn’t be as hard about, hard core about as when i started. it is evident from the above quotation that stephen became aware of his extremist style. in rethinking his participation, he eventually assumed a self-regulatory position to his style of interaction and became less extreme. those who condone practices of moderation john expects action to be taken against racist remarks, being intensely aware of the hegemony inherent in these types of participations (figure1:1). he perceives the finding of racism against a participant as a small victory but expresses doubt about any disciplinary action taken: john: well, if i have to look at one small victory, that the office of...what is the office’s name, something like...let’s call it something like the human rights commission of the university, that office made a finding in my favour, that one of the participants was racist and that there were judgments, hate speech, so there was a piece of justice which triumphed, the finding alone, but the recommendation that justice was seen to happen, about that i know nothing, i do not know if the person literally was held liable, that i do not know. john’s victory can be seen in the context of his expectation for the institution to transform. an external moderation or a finding in his favour is seen as tangible evidence of a serious commitment to change. he also applies a form of internal moderation in referring to beth’s arguments as a shaky “stream of logic” which she supports with “quasi-academic references”. in this sense his exclusion of her is based both on moralistic and rationalistic grounds: john: with your acutely racist opinions and your quasi academic references, beth, you are now opening a can of worms about your and other colleagues’ similar opinions about us, your black colleagues. your “research” and your own persuasions do now prove that black people are of a lower intellectual capability than whites and asians. your stream of logic (very shaky, i must add) lead me now to the conclusion that black colleagues silencing dissent in an online discussion forum td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 277-294. 287 therefore: 1. must be very thankful that we are tolerated in your white western piece of pride of a university, 2. are not of equal intellectual ability to the white and asian colleagues, 3. must not complain that much about the supposed racism and other unwanted spin-offs of the western thought paradigm in contrast with his exclusive moralistic discursive relationship with beth, john portrays an inclusive view of the forum as a place which could affect catharsis: andrew withdrew from the discussion on racism, as it declines to a level of a shouting competition. catharsis is good colleague. it prevents consuming illnesses like cancer and diabetes (according to some medical practitioners), but overall it gives psychological relieve and prohibits the building up of methane and other gases which clouds the mind. so, the soapbox of discussion forum has space for another shouter. his moralistic condition for catharsis however, is that racist participations should be excluded, as seen in his wish for disciplinary action against those who practise hate speech such as beth. beth does however make the same attribution of hatefulness to him: beth: john, your outspokenness about all imaginable racist incidents bothers on the maniacal. your assumptions about what racism is, is precisely the reason why i condescend to communicate with you. your hatefulness against everything which the [institution sic] was and against those who work and study here, take notice, white people, is clear in all your arguments. those who were subjected to moderation beth and francois were participants who experienced the censoring of their posts by management (figure 1:4). each experienced the censoring differently. it caused beth to become more resolute and persistent in her participation, while francois eventually understood the censoring as a signal that any discourse which is worthwhile is made impossible. he therefore withdrew from a constructive participation in discourses on the forum. beth’s motivation (figure 1:1) to participate lies in her persuasion that she represents the silent voice of the majority of middle-aged white men in her opposition to the dominant voices of the liberalists on the forum. on the basis of her perceived racist opinions, she was forced into an acknowledgement of racism, which she refused to do. the episode did not cause her to rethink her position but only made her more resolute. she even quoted a letter of management on the forum to prove that opinions on the forum are indeed censored and acted against by management, thereby casting doubt on the freedom of speech participants presume they have: researcher: concerning management who took action against you, what is your feeling about it? i see that you quote management, what do you feel about it? beth: i said that time, see the worry in my eyes, and today exactly the same. researcher: so you were not even afraid? beth: no, i did write again as you know. researcher: so, you were not silenced, you... postma & blignaut 288 beth: mmmmm... researcher: would you say you rather were encouraged? beth: yes, yes yes, if someone tell me not to do something, then i will do it, i really did, i have no, uh, anything which i say from conviction, and on which i stand, i stand and fall there, i do not care what the consequences are. she especially despises the moralist position of management, referring to their higher moral ground, while her own morality is frowned upon. she acts from her persuasion which she regards as the absolute truth. the internal moderation which her co-participants exercised in one thread could have been more successful to bring beth to reflection than the external acts of management which only caused antagonism. francois, a former colleague and friend of cathy’s, concedes that their friendship facilitated cathy’s intervention between himself and a co-manager he criticized on the forum. he does however indicate the amiable forcefulness of the situation: francois: yeah, the rector back then, who is cathy, who is a close friend as well, uhm and she tried to mend the pieces, and she asked me, maybe i was the more flexible person in the whole equation i guess, but i think she also…i think she, i wouldn’t say she emotionally blackmailed me, but, you know, there wasn’t any other solution for me (postma et al., 2012b). he reflects on the trauma the event caused and the uselessness of participation: francois: yea, completely, and i didn’t want to, you know back then it was taking a toll on my family as well, as it was the subject of conversations for a while and obviously because of the emotional affect that you derive from such a situation, so, after this episode, i saw that, well, what can you do anyway, you can use the [forum sic] as much as you want, but it is obviously controlled in many ways, and, and you can’t convince the people of your point. the foucaultian panopticon (rouse, 2003) is significant here in the opportunity which the forum offers for management to exert control. this control makes the free debating of ideas and even the raising of “uncomfortable” issues impossible. from here on francois becomes less engaged and reverts more to trolling and ridiculing, as he perceives fruitful debate as impossible. those who fear censorship and those who speak out in contrast to employees who are born and bred within the system, those who are alien to the context, like francois and stephen, do not respect the local morality, but rather by way of trolling and ridiculing they show their disrespect to the “insane” upholding of the status quo. their foreign status and their disregard for negative reactions from co-participants make them fearless and courageous to speak their minds. francois indicates his sympathy for the hesitance of locals to speak out and finds himself like stephen in the fortunate position of coming from a culture where critical discourse is alive: researcher: but did people respond to you positively, say well, we agree, but we won’t write on the [forum sic]. silencing dissent in an online discussion forum td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 277-294. 289 francois: i have had a bit of that, we are not talking about some messages, maybe five or six, messages over the years, saying well, you know, we sort of agree with you, but we don’t have the guts to write on the [forum sic]. yeah, and then i can understand, you know, if i were them, i would have exactly the same grievances, and the same hesitations, as i said, i am in the very fortunate position, i think stephen will share this, because he is english speaking, he comes from cape town, so in many ways he is an outsider as well, and as an outsider i carry with me the reputation of my country, you know, in france we tend to discuss everything,…in europe, there is a culture of critique, rather than embracing any kind of self-propelled truth. peter, who comes from europe, has no fear in speaking out and alludes to the fact that locals do not speak out, as they fear dismissal. he also indicates the minimal existence of true critical discourse, especially among students, and finds its absence strange, especially in an academic environment where everything should be questioned: peter: there isn’t much discussion amongst students also, here, the university, must according to me be an institute where lot of discussion take place, we must actually doubt everything in research, and it does not happen, and eventually, when you look at the [forum sic], how many people are really participating, it’s only ten or twelve, it’s a few, but what i do know is that many people read it, so around the forum, it is …many people [say sic] yes, we agree with you, but there might be a fear to take part, i do not have it, i love discussions a lot. but i think the fear of people not to…because i also have pal, a colleague of mine, he has explicit opinions, but he will never, never write on the [forum sic] never, he is afraid. proposals several contradictions are evident in the forum between what people propose and what their actions are, or a tension is marked between what habermas refers to as linguistic acts and social interaction (as cited by čečez-kecmanović, 2001). what people propose to be ideal in their speech acts is not echoed in their social interactions. cathy proposes that the forum should serve as a space for employees to view their concerns, but as soon as these concerns become uncomfortable for management, those voices are silenced. if participants experience discomfort, frustration or indignation, they are expected to express it with decorum and finesse, a type of ideal speech which young (2003) alludes to as quite an unrealistic expectation. the type of interventions from management to solve conflict is typified as an intervention to sidestep conflict by forcing the weaker party “amicably” further into a subordinate position to acknowledge guilt where no transgression took place. the perceived lack of information in opponents’ actions serves as a rationalistic form of domination to discard their participation. this is also evident in the oppressing interactions among participants themselves. in this regard, stephen’s view of hegemony is contradictory; he opposes censorship in favour of freedom of speech, but simultaneously dominates the forum and alienates other participants with rationalistic devices, such as minimalising and stereotyping his opponents. there are also contradictions in john’s views and actions. he upholds the ideal that the forum should promote discourse, but the reality of speaking out proves too close to home. he proposes to tolerate racist remarks for the sake of debate, but nevertheless wants management to intervene and discipline those who make it. his motivation to participate is to withstand those who are disrespectful and have unemancipatory views about those who are postma & blignaut 290 not of the colour, race, religion, etc. they are, but in the same line of thought he also wants them to be silenced. john views himself as a representative of the injured party in discriminatory racist declarations and presumes that restitutive action has been taken by management, but the moral coherence is distorted concerning the actualization of justice when he is misled into assuming that his charge of racism has been acted upon. the perception and practice of morality is strong in the forum and it seems from the above description that the theory and practice of morality are in conflict. one can assume that a critical form of moderation could solve this tension. in the following paragraphs, some proposals are made to move to a more emancipatory form of moderation. the following diagram illustrates the elements within participation which are subject to emancipatory change should the moderator employ a visible and equalising strategy. the actualisation of a critical morality is perceived to be dependent on this reconceptualisation of moderator participation. from rationalistic exclusion towards emotional inclusion if the forum pivots around morality as the pervasive issue, then a moderator should focus on establishing a forum which is characterised as being a friendly, inclusive and accepting space. aristotle held the view that morality cannot exist or be developed without a community of friends: “with friends men are more able both to think and act” (as referred to by jacquette, 2001; sokolowski, 2001). one needs friendship to grow and to realize one’s potential. the forum can offer the opportunity for people to reach something they are not able to reach themselves (such as the truth), as friendship enables a person to attain something more (sokolowski, 2001). if a rationalistic stance in the forum leads to the assumption of moralistic attitudes by participants, the moderator can facilitate the alienation and disrespect which result from the use of rationalistic devices (stereotyping, minimalizing) by acknowledging the emotions instrumental, unemancipatory morality critical, emancipator morality 1. moderator: unequal, invisible intervention 2. moderator: equal, visible participation 3. disengagement 4. engagement, involvement 5. no reflection 6. critical reflection 7. mistrust, fear 8. trust figure 2 the influence of the moderator on participant emancipation silencing dissent in an online discussion forum td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 277-294. 291 experienced by those who make deviant and unemancipatory claims. the moderator can by encouraging narratives of life experiences which inform a certain persuasion create an understanding among participants which moves understanding beyond the purely rational to include affective, embodied ways of knowing. instead of assuming the moralist position of the majority of participants, the moderator aims to bring opposing parties to a better understanding, but not necessarily an agreement. this intervention might also serve to build “reciprocal respect,” which habermas (1990) refers to, among participants. in addressing participants, the moderator can also employ the rhetorical devices young (2000) proposes, such as to greet and compliment the participants, something which is absent in an online forum. many times the issue takes priority and the participant is ignored by those who build the thread. the practice of greeting and complimenting acknowledges the person behind the statement and lends a humane and emotional element to the discussion. by doing this, the linguistic act does not serve to be the only representation of who the person is. readers construct online identities and these constructs might be a misrepresentation of the real identity. participants who are not eloquent and do not express themselves in their first language have a disadvantage and might represent themselves inadequately. from declarative linguistic acts to social interaction if the practice of certain styles, such as trolling and ridiculing, serves the purpose not to engage in social interaction, then a moderator can facilitate by moving participants beyond those styles. the moderator can acknowledge the linguistic act and move further by asking what motivates the specific choice of style. in this specific case study, sensible interaction between participants is absent. this can be seen in the choice of declarative style in the majority of cases. the choice of ridicule, trolling and flaming also does not lead to meaningful and engaging discourse, although some of it might provide comic relief for like-minded readers. acknowledging the humour is certainly a way to start, but the motive of the participant has to be clarified for proper understanding. language bantering in the forum often clouds participants’ true meanings. from invisible to visible moderation if a moderator is visible and present (figure 2:2), mistrust and fear (figure 2:7) of participants who want to speak out, may disappear. it seems as if the doubt concerning the consequences of participation installs more fear and rumours about censorship and flames the antagonism against management. if the motive of moderation is clarification, the transparency of the moderative act could bring more trust. from censorship to allowing all voices eventually, moderation is not about the silencing or censoring of voices but it should aim to bring opposing parties to better understanding. it does not mean that extreme voices should be made more moderate. real debate will not take place if everyone has moderate views and if all share the same premises (young, 1996; young, 2001). debate is fruitless if premises are not understood. although premises can and should be questioned, it seems as if the termination of participation can be ascribed to the fact that premises keep on being claimed and participants do not adjust their views, simply because they are not within a space which encourages it. instead of finding themselves within a friendly accepting space, the space postma & blignaut 292 remains competitive and toxic and the participants remain isolated and alienated from meaningful engagement. from unequal intervention to equal participation a moral incoherence is created when the moderator intervenes invisibly and gives preference to or silences participants. a mathematical formulation illustrates the incoherence, based on similar examples offered by sokolowski (2001). a moral equation obliges the moderator to stand outside a debate between participants, but the real situation in this case study is that an invisible moderator sides with one participant against another, thereby creating a moral incoherence. from instrumental to emancipatory morality if a moderator assumes an equal, visible co-participative (figure 2:1) rather than an unequal, invisible intervening (figure 2:2) position, several emancipatory elements can be realised within the forum. the participants can become motivated to become engaged and reflect on their own positions as the moderator sets, as co-participant, an example of amiable engagement (figure 2:4) and reflective interaction (figure 2:6). the role of the invisible (figure 2:1), detached (figure 2:3) and punitive moderator is replaced by a visible (figure 2:2), involved co-participant (figure 2:4) who co-defines and is ultimately co-responsible for the creation of a friendly, inclusive space of mutual trust, learning and development. conclusion it seems as if the perception of the forum as an outlet of emotion leads management to be afraid of the emotions of employees. it might explain the measures which were undertaken to censor and silence deviant voices and to condone those voices which supported the direction of transformation. ideas about an ideal world, an ideal institution, the ideal academic and the ideal way of expression can result in enforcing views which support this idealism, and the notion of what is ideal can lead to an oppressive form of management. perceiving the forum as the voice of the people brings with it the necessity to listen to what the people are saying in the way they prefer to do it. formulating rules and restrictions for the style and content of participations eventually disables the potential this form of communication has in the establishment of an institution which truly values freedom of speech, the basic tenet of democracy. references čečez-kecmanović d. 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(2003) activist challenges to deliberative democracy. in: fishkin js and laslett p (eds) debating deliberative democracy. oxford: blackwell, 41-55. abstract introduction theory in social science research: the scholarly discourse meaning of ‘theory’ research aim and type of research nature of the research approach and design the use of theory in the social research value chain conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) gerrit van der waldt department of public management, faculty of humanities, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation van der waldt g. the judicious use of theory in social science research. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1039. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1039 original research the judicious use of theory in social science research gerrit van der waldt received: 12 mar. 2021; accepted: 21 apr. 2021; published: 20 may 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract social science research is focussed mainly on societal concerns and human dynamics. in scholarly domains such as public administration, theory is commonly regarded as the backbone of studies, but the why, where and how dimensions of theory in the research process are generally ill-defined. the purpose of this article is to reflect on the use of theory as value-adding catalyst in the research process. following a literature review based on an interpretivist paradigm, this article aims to enlighten the systematic application of theory in the research process. it is evident that theory’s application is based on its unique nature and the aims, nature and type of research. theory can either inform or structure the research process. this function of theory has significant implications for the research design, methodology, as well as methods and data collection. understanding the role and significance of theory can definitely enhance the scientific rigour of research and the ability of social science researchers, especially postgraduate students. such insight may help to ensure that these researchers are capacitated to utilise theory adequately and apply it suitably within the research process. the construction of new knowledge through theory building is critical for social science disciplines to reach maturity. keywords: theory; social sciences; research designs; research value chain; theoretical frameworks; research approach; theoretical sampling; triangulation. introduction in social science research, such as those conducted in fields such as public administration and political sciences, there appears to be a bifurcation of views on the use of theory. on the one pole are scholars who argue that some form of theoretical abstraction is essential to undertake research. on the other pole, there are those who point out that the nature and type of research will determine the extent to which theory is applied or not. the use of the term ‘theory’ in popular parlance has added to the confusion of just why, how and where in the research process theory should be applied. furthermore, based on studies by scholars such as houston and delevan,1 bennett et al.,2 stout3 and onder and brower,4 it is evident that scholars in social science in general and postgraduate students in particular are typically ill-prepared for theoretically imbedded research. researchers and students alike generally find it difficult to approach phenomena under investigation from a particular theoretical vantage point. seemingly they usually underestimate the significance of particular ontological and epistemological dimensions and the theoretical underpinnings in their research designs. such deficiency is complicated further by study leaders who insist that candidates include meta-theoretical and/or theoretical frameworks or simply ‘theory’ in their research designs to increase its level of sophistication. the result is that, at times, theory is merely added artificially in research without synthesis or attempts to align the particular theory, the research design and analysis of the findings. theory and research are thus not always linked inextricably and the theoretical section simply becomes a bolted-on part that is not integrated with the empirical component.5 bryman,6 flick7 and hofstee8 confirmed that social scientists are often prone to dismiss research that has no explicit link to theory. both postmodern interpretivists and logic-positivists, however, generally concur that theory plays a key role in scientific inquiry involving social phenomena. theory grounds social science endeavours by outlining the meta-underpinnings that constitute social reality (ontology); what is accepted as valid evidence of that reality (epistemology); the means by which the context is investigated (methodology) and the manner in which evidence is gathered (methods). the purpose of this article is to explore why, where and how theories are useful and, in certain instances indispensable, in social science research. a value-chain model is utilised that illustrates the extent to which theory becomes applicable (i.e. add value) in the research process, comprising problem demarcation, literature reviews, research designs, data analysis and the construction of new (grounded) theory. theory in social science research: the scholarly discourse according to blaikie9 and kelly,10 the link between theory and research became a topic of considerable scholarly interest, especially during the 1960s. it became evident that the discourse was guided by at least three broad perspectives. on the one extreme side, some scholars are critical of researchers who remain descriptive in their studies and thus fail to focus their analyses on more abstract concepts or generate new theory. yiannakis11 aptly described this perspective as follows: research that is not theoretically informed, not grounded in the existing body of knowledge, or of the ‘shotgun’ variety that fails to raise and investigate conceptually grounded questions, is likely to generate findings of a narrow and ungeneralisable value. in this regard, bryman6 argued that without an explicitly stated theory to guide social science research, the study can be merely regarded as ‘naïve empiricism’. in even stronger terms, richards and richards12 pointed out that the main task of qualitative research is ‘always theory construction’; jacard and jacoby13 view theory as ‘central in social sciences … and its construction is at the heart of the scientific process’ and hofstee8 argued that ‘there are very few higher callings in the academic world than the development of new theories … it is what moves forward human understanding’. these scholars thus argue strongly that researchers should formulate theories, test it, accept or reject it, modify it and use these foundations as guides to understand and predict specific research outcomes. in the centre of the discourse continuum, alvesson and kärreman,14 ritchie et al.15 and johnston16 contemplated whether researchers must conduct their inquiry under the banner of, and in conformity with, a particular theoretical tradition, school or paradigm. these scholars argue that researchers are often ‘bewildered’ by the multitude of potential approaches (e.g. constructionists, interpretative phenomenological or a grounded theorist approach). they conclude that although it is advisable to have an understanding of the different epistemologies, paradigms and tradition as a way of understanding the range of options available, researchers should be aware of ‘epistemological determinism’. certain researchers rightly feel more comfortable by committing themselves ideologically to a particular theoretical approach. however, not all social science researchers should be forced into a ‘theoretical straitjacket’. a more pragmatic and flexible approach is thus proposed to generate knowledge. in this regard, seale et al.17 and kumar18 proposed that researchers should simply base their choice of approach on the nature of the research and the aim of the inquiry. for example, analysis may stop at detailed conceptualisation of the phenomena under investigation, move on to reveal causal relationship between different data sets or use research data to construct general theories. ritchie et al.15 advised that a ‘hybrid’ design is probably most advisable whereby researchers are encouraged to follow a broad social constructionist approach (i.e. grand theory), thereafter, integrate and align the design with middle-range theory. on the opposite side of the perspective continuum, scholars simply refer to a literature survey as the ‘theory’ of the research endeavour. bryman6 and flick7 stated that theory in this sense merely refers to the ‘literature on a certain topic in the form of accumulated and contextual knowledge gleaned from books and articles’. in a literature survey, it is apparent that the respective arguments in such a discourse depend mainly on the scientific convictions and traditions of the authors, ranging from logic-positivist to interpretivism. furthermore, it is evident that any discourse on the use of theory in research should be informed by issues such as the aim and nature of the research – basic or applied. there is, at least, general consensus on the nature of research. according to bryman,6 social science research denotes: academic research on topics relating to questions relevant to the social scientific fields. it draws on the ideas and intellectual traditions of the social sciences for conceptual and theoretical inspiration and the interpretation of research findings. in the same vein, kumar18 argued that research can be regarded as a ‘journey embarked on that leads to the discovery of new knowledge or revision of facts, theories, and applications’. the fundamental characteristics of research are that it should, as far as possible have the following attributes: ‘be controlled, rigourous, valid and verifiable, empirical, critical, reliable, systematic, arguable, and challengeable’. scholars generally also concur that research should make a novel contribution to the existing corpus of knowledge of a particular study domain. the discourse on the use of theory in scientific research makes it clear that characterising the link between theory and research is by no means simple. constructing a typology in this regard is hampered by several variables. a first variable for consideration is the precise meaning of ‘theory’. a second variable is whether research is intended to collect data to test existing or construct new theory. a third potential variable concerns the nature of the research approach and design. each of these variables is explored briefly in the following sections. meaning of ‘theory’ ‘we don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.’ (anaïs nin 1961) the term ‘theory’ can be used in various ways. in postgraduate research theory is frequently simply used to imply the contextual literature in an area of investigation. the literature thus functions as a proxy for theory. theory is latent in the literature and according to abend,19 its most common meaning is an explanation of observed regularities. grix20 considered theory as an ‘explanatory device’ with different levels of abstraction to provide ‘interpretations of relationships between variables’. thus, theory represents ‘an intellectual description of a phenomenon in its abstract form …’ and serves as a ‘heuristic tool for analysis’. useful theories are generalisable and applicable to different contexts. smit21 defined theory as ‘a set of principles that is used to explain a certain phenomenon or phenomena … [and] is roughly synonymous with ideas or opinions’. de vos et al.,22 jaccard and jacoby13 and swanson23 regarded a theory as a set of statements about the relationship(s) between two or more concepts or constructs. in this regard, theories are related closely to models and hypotheses. welman and kruger24 regarded a theory as ‘a group of logical, related statements, which is presented as an explanation of a phenomenon’ or as hofstee8 explained: ‘theory brings out order out of chaos and gives meaning to observations’. theoretical studies may apply various methods and data to achieve their aims, ranging from mathematical modelling to philosophical argumentation. the given definitions suggest, firstly, that theory consists of concepts, definitions, assumptions and generalisations. secondly, theory aims to describe and explain phenomena. thirdly, theory is heuristic because it stimulates and guides the further development of knowledge. furthermore, theories show different levels of abstraction. the highest level generally refers to grand theory or meta-theory (philosophical concerns, i.e., ontological and epistemological dimensions).25 typically, grand theories include critical theory, symbolic interactionism, structuration theory and structural functionalism.13 these grand theories represent the ontological and epistemological assumptions that underpin social science theory. the use of this type of theory is typically complicated by certain research paradigms, traditions and approaches such as positivism, humanism, behaviourism, interpretivism, feminism and constructivism. grand theories are highly abstract and typically include paradigms such as materialism, critical theory, structuralism, functionalism and symbolic interactionism. middle-range theories are domain-specific and tend to link a particular theory with a field of empirical research.26 these designs include social conflict theory and contact theory whilst micro-theories are usually aimed at informing specific phenomena such as leadership, motivation and performance. in highly abstract theorising, the formal organisation and arrangement of concepts take precedence over understanding the social reality. according to rehfeld and terstriep,27 middle-range theories (i.e. mid-range of abstraction) can be regarded as the ‘link between the macro and micro levels of observation’. for blaikie9 and bryman,6 middle-range theories, also known as substantive theories, are probably the most commonly used in research and are limited to a specific domain such as public policy or human relations. they further argue that ‘middle-range theories’ involve a degree of abstraction but are ‘close enough for observed data to be incorporated in propositions that permit empirical testing’. in this regard, middle-range theories thus deal with delimited aspects of social phenomena and cuts across micro (specific) and macro (broad) social issues. such theories are derived from classical theoretical formulations (i.e. grand and meta-theory) and are more focussed on accounts given of specific phenomena such as organisation theory, administrative theory, theory of human motivation and leadership theory.7 de vos et al.22 also referred to ‘low-level’ or ‘ad hoc theories’ constructed to explicate a given set of data. in addition, rubin28 distinguished implicit from explicit theories. implicit theories refer to the a priori knowledge and presuppositions of researchers when they do not embrace formal explicit theory. instead, researchers guide their work either through ideologically held underlying beliefs or pragmatic theories, without actually stating their approach in so many words. explicit theory is regarded as a formal, scientifically oriented, recognised theory, which the researcher explicitly declares to guide the research more systematically. rubin28 pointed out that implicit theory has to be converted into formal, explicit theory for scientific testing, especially in applied social sciences that address practical concerns. the applied research thus uses theory as instrument to generate potential solutions to concrete problems. theories can also be deductive and inductive in nature.20 deductive theories arrive at inferences by employing logical reasoning to a given set of propositions. inductive theories, on the other hand, arrive at conclusions by observing known facts and feed these into an overarching theory. the deductive approach is a research process that generally commences with a particular theory, which is revised once the research data confirmed or rejected it.6 in simple terms, ritchie et al.15 explained that although theory will inform the initial research design, the relationship between design, data and theory is dynamic. social research can test existing theories or new theories can emerge from the data. research aim and type of research de vos et al.22 and kumar18 reasoned that the aim and type of research determine the level of the use of theory. descriptive, correlational, explanatory and exploratory research all require different degrees of theoretical and conceptual abstraction. furthermore, two key types of research in the social sciences are known as basic and applied research. basic research usually aims to serve science in general by enlarging the scientific corpus of knowledge.13 this form of research is designed to address philosophical and theoretical problems surrounding phenomena associated with human behaviour and activities. in contrast, applied research is aimed at uncovering (potential) answers to practical concerns.29 emphasis is thus placed on the practical value and application of the generated knowledge. such application entails the practical implementation of research findings.21 furthermore, a discipline of applied social science can be described as ‘utilisation’ research.7 in applied sciences, disciplines focus strongly on the application of knowledge, being concerned with the usefulness or relevance of the generated knowledge.30 basic research deals generally with more abstract constructs, broader themes and aims to contribute to and extend the corpus of knowledge on a phenomenon under investigation, thereby requiring a more in-depth theoretical orientation.29 furthermore, jaccard and jacoby13 reflected on the role of theory in grounded research designs and instances where emergent theory becomes the main outcome of the research process. theory emerges or evolves from data, instead of the researcher using data to test theory in more applied, deductive research designs.13 nature of the research approach and design quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method designs represent different research strategies, each describing different roles for theory in its application. qualitative research can be used to test theories, or at least shed light on them, but such a research strategy is not solely concerned with the generation of theory. ‘pre-specified theories can be tested with qualitative data, but the generation of theory tends to be the preferred approach’.6 deductive logic in research designs is generally used to test theory and is applied to answer certain research questions based on theoretical considerations.6 an alternative is to regard theory as a conglomeration that emerges inductively after collecting and analysing the data associated with the research project. such theories should be verified iteratively through empirical investigation. in such verification exercise, theory, research and practice usually converge. based on the above-mentioned orientation, it is evident that the use of theory in social science research can be placed on a continuum,31 ranging as follows: research informed by theory research in which theory is applied through the design and applications of theoretical frameworks research aimed at testing existing theory whereby theoretical constructs are measured and empirically verified research aimed at building theory, either new, revised or expanded theory. the use of theory in the social research value chain theories are generally used to synthesise or combine large amounts of information to discover why an occurrence took place. as stated here, theory development and research methodology cannot be isolated, because it is necessary for relevant methodology to verify and assess theories. new knowledge production by developing theory can be the result of three different processes in research. in this regard it is useful to assess the interrelationship between theory and research as a value chain of scientific engagement. this value chain refers to the initial application of theory at the planning and design phase of the research (i.e. input), the use of theory during the research process to direct data collection and guide data analysis and findings (i.e. processing) and the development of theory during the completion stages of the research (i.e. outcome). these three processes are highlighted briefly here: theory as input: in the first type of design, theory functions as basis for argumentation and the development of a conceptual framework to underpin the research process. theory as process: in this type of arrangement, theory is utilised as evaluation instrument during the research process. a particular theoretical framework (e.g. marxist theory or neoliberal) is thus used to compare and contrast existing phenomena. theory as output: in this type of research design theory is built as a result of research findings, thus it is also called grounded theory. the respective processes in the mentioned value-chain are illustrated (figure 1). this simple linear value-chain model provides a chart to plot the value-adding use of theory in processes of social science research. it should be noticed, however, that research does not necessarily follow a linear trajectory. ritchie et al.,15 for example, explained that research often involves an ‘oscillation between testing emergent theories and collecting data’. there is thus often an interactive, iterative and non-linear linkage between theory and data, which makes a linear research process unsuitable. figure 1: locating theory in the research value chain. use of theory as research input bryman6 pointed out that the relationship between theory and research holds certain consequences for research. theory becomes applicable at the beginning of a research project and serves as ‘backcloth’ and justification for the research that is being conducted. at the outset, the researcher engages in certain theoretical reflections from which a research problem and/or hypothesis is formulated. bryman6 argued further that theory is used to understand the social world and influences what is researched and how research findings are interpreted’. in other words, the issues that are explored are impacted significantly by the availability of appropriate theories. in this way, social research is ‘informed and influenced’ by theory. on the other hand, such research also ‘contributes to theory because the findings of a study will feed into the stock of knowledge to which the theory relates’. in this regard, kelly10 explained that theory guides a research design and methodology in at least the following four ways: it provides a contextual orientation for the study by focussing attention on the specific aspects under investigation it functions as instrument to conceptualise and classify concepts and constructs it summarises what is known already about the object of study, including empirical generalisations and systems of relationships between propositions; in addition, pinpoints gaps in the existing knowledge it predicts results or findings flowing from the research. use of theory in identifying and formulating research problems maree32 stressed that a research problem should have a theoretical significance. such significance refers to the discovery of new conceptual understanding or insight into a research problem. the researcher may, for example, identify an anomaly in the formulation of an existing theory or potential contradiction in its application value within a particular context. mouton25 referred to ‘theory-building’ studies that may utilise empirical, numerical, textual or hybrid data to construct theory. it is expected that such a theory should provide ‘causal accounts of the world, allow one to make predictive claims under certain conditions, bring conceptual coherence to a domain of science and simple understanding of the world’. huysamen33 and welman and kruger24 confirmed that a theory may constitute the research problem. contradictory theories may raise several research questions that could be investigated. in such a case, the purpose of conducting research will be to modify theory, or at least, adjust it to suit particular circumstances. mouton25 explained how theoretical questions should be derived from the research problem. such questions should typically entail questions related to the most plausible theories, the most convincing explanations, as well as competing theories informing the research problem. use of theory in research designs houston and delevan1 argued that to ‘produce a meaningful and cumulative body of knowledge’ in social science disciplines, research methodology should permit scholars to test and develop theories further. according to george and bennett34 and creswell,35 research in the social sciences has entered a ‘new phase’ of development conducive to ‘cross-method’ collaboration and ‘multi-method’ designs. predominantly qualitative designs have generally made way for more mixed designs. the typical where applications of theory in four different types of research designs, namely mixed-method, quantitative, qualitative (deductive) and qualitative (inductive) are illustrated (figure 2 to figure 5). a research design can be regarded as a plan or blueprint indicating how to conduct the research.25 the application of theory and a particular design that is followed naturally depends on the scope, nature, purpose, hypothesis or central theoretical statements of a particular study. the various depictions are thus generalisations that merely help to illustrate the way theory could be incorporated into these designs. figure 2: theory in mixed-method applied social science research designs. figure 3: theory in quantitative research designs. figure 4: theory in qualitative research designs (deductive). figure 5: theory in qualitative research designs (inductive). in this design, typical of applied social sciences, a theory serves as thesis of the study. in other words, theory, comprising the main constructs of the study, provides the researcher with answers to the ‘what should be?’ question. these theoretical parameters are gauged against the counter thesis, namely the observation of the construct in the context of a practical situation (e.g. a case study). such situation could imply a particular institution, groups or an observed phenomenon. the counter thesis of the study reflects answers to the ‘what is?’ question. testing or verification of the extent or level of discrepancies between the ‘what is’ (case) and the ‘what should be’ (theory) then follows. the testing may take the form of questionnaires or interviews with a purposive sample of respondents or participants in the case. the research process builds up to the synthesis in which the researcher makes recommendations to bridge or overcome the discrepancies between the thesis and counter thesis as solution(s) for the problem identified in chapter 1 of the study. in a typical quantitative research design, the researcher commences with a theoretical framework (chapter 1) based on a hypothesis against which empirical testing is performed (chapter 2). the interpretation of results is again guided by the mentioned theoretical framework (chapters 3 and 4). this design is commonly applied in natural sciences. in a deductive qualitative research design, theory generally underpins the entire study. chapter 1 typically aims to establish a comprehensive theoretical framework derived from a robust literature review. the respective constructs of the study and the interpretation of results flowing linearly from the theoretical investigations are based on the theoretical framework. this framework thus provides the parameters, assumptions and premises on which interpretations and conclusions are made. social science disciplines such as anthropology and sociology often utilise an inductive qualitative research design. these studies are highly interpretivist and typically utilise ethnography and participatory action research (par). ethnographic studies systematically analyse people and their cultures including their customs, habits and mutual differences. such studies are generally intended to investigate cultural phenomena where the researcher observes certain behaviour and conduct in society. in the chosen design, (new or grounded) theory is derived inductively from observations through techniques such as discourse analysis, document analysis, content analysis, as well as videos and audio transcription. a particular theoretical orientation also guides the research setting, the design and implementation of the research. the orientation focusses on instrumentation of data collection such as participant observation, field notes, interviewing and gathering of artefacts, as well as the analysing of data, selecting the target population and sampling. use of theory in literature reviews hofstee8 explained that theory can be considered as the ‘knowledge and theoretical base’ of research. the primary aim of the literature review is generally to consider the work of previous scholars, determining the existing theory base for the research and ascertaining how the particular study aligns with prior studies in this field. in this regard, kumar18 claimed that the literature review enhances and consolidates the theoretical base of the area of scientific inquiry and guides the interpretation of research results and findings. neuman36 added that a robust literature review should ‘locate the research problem in a body of theory’. such a review should also indicate the path of prior research and pinpoint the area of knowledge the study is intended to expand. flick7 pointed to consensus in the academic fraternity that researchers should be ‘familiar with the [theoretical] ground on which they move and wish to make progress; finding new insights needs to be based on knowing what is known already’. flick adds that theoretical, methodological and empirical literature should be reviewed in this regard to contextualise the problem and eventually, compare and generalise research findings. theoretical literature should help the researcher to determine what facts are known already, what theoretical debates or controversies exist, what questions remain open and which theories are applicable. theory typically reveals the types of variables that must be considered and thereby directs the instruments of data collection.9 bless and higson-smith37 pointed out that a literature review should allow the researcher to become acquainted with different theories, in order to shape the design of a theoretical framework. frodeman38 and cohenmiller and pate39 also reflected on the trend in social sciences according to which research problems are informed by theories that are developed in other disciplines. the scholars thus stress that a literature review should provide for interdisciplinary perspectives to widen the theoretical bases. use of theory to construct theoretical frameworks according to maree,32 a theoretical framework provides an overview of perspectives and functions as platform to plan the study on the basis of existing theory. kumar18 concurred and added that theoretical frameworks serve as ‘guides or parameters’ for a literature review. from his side, flick7 viewed a theoretical framework as a map or model of alternative theories available against which the results of the study can be interpreted. maree32 added that a theoretical framework should function as ‘justification instrument’ to substantiate why a particular theory is used and how it has been constructed and framed to inform the particular study. theoretical frameworks emerge from literature reviews once researchers have established the theoretical underpinnings of the research problem. in this regard, kumar18 referred to a paradox in research because a theoretical framework cannot be developed unless a thorough literature review has been conducted; however, without such a framework a literature review is unguided and thus ineffective. it should be observed that a literature review is usually universal and very general at the initial stages of the research process. however, as a theoretical framework begins to emerge, the review will become far more focussed and specific. a decision to use a particular theory has a number of methodological consequences. such a decision will, for example, set the frame for operationalising the relevant features of the issue under investigation, the extent to which the theory is compatible with the research questions and direct the analysis and interpretation of the findings. similarly, bless and higson-smith37 stated that theory may provide an orientation for the study in general and the gathering of data in particular. depending on the nature and purpose of the study, the choice of theory can either inform or control the research method. maslow’s hierarchy of human needs theory, may, for example, inform a theoretical orientation of human motivation, or, each of the five human needs identified in the theory should be tested empirically, thus controlling the method. the placing and application of specific theories within a field of study are illustrated (figure 6). in this example, public policy can be regarded as a study domain within public administration. mass-elite theory is one of the theoretical models according to which public policy can be studied. the application in this example is policymaking in government. figure 6: theory application in research. use of theory in conceptualisation scholars such as de vos et al.22 and jacard and jacoby13 concurred that strong operational definitions are required for all constructs and concepts employed in research. bless and higson-smith37 maintained that conceptual clarity (based on theory) is essential to develop comprehensive, non-ambiguous, operational definitions of key concepts and constructs associated with the study. in this regard, a conceptual framework should guide the research design and data-collection instrumentation. mouton25 maintained that concepts are the ‘building blocks’ for all sense-making endeavours. therefore, concepts can also be considered the building blocks of theory, which conveys a particular relationship between concepts. jacard and jacoby13 referred to this relationship as a rudimentary ‘conceptual system’ that provides a ‘mental map’ for research. these conceptual systems thus serve as theoretical guides to identify, organise, explain or predict certain outcomes. van der waldt40 posited that elementary concepts such as ‘table’, ‘contract’ or ‘window’ generally do not require any theoretical orientation whilst the conceptualisation of abstract constructs such as ‘democracy’, ‘leadership’, ‘productivity’ and ‘attitude’ demands a more thorough and detailed orientation. in the case of ‘democracy’, for example, theories should be explored that are related to direct, representative, non-partisan, dominant party, totalitarian, parliamentary and constitutional democracies. use of theory in the research process grix20 highlighted the need for theoretical ‘devices’ that function as explanatory instruments in the research process. these devices range in complexity and abstraction. such a range includes theoretical frameworks, models, ideal type, typologies and concepts. these devices are typically designed during the research ‘input’ link in the value chain, after which they are used as meaning-making tools to explain complex social phenomena during the research process. grix20 suggested that theories ‘select out certain factors as the most important or relevant if one is interested in providing an explanation of an event … theories are of value because they structure all observations’. in this regard, theories can be used as classification systems to help determine which data and facts to collect.6 data analysis and interpretation of research findings research findings and the interpretation of results have limited relevance if it is presented outside a particular theoretical framework. bless and higson-smith37 explained the fundamental relationship between empirical data and theory as the ‘explanatory framework’. theory allows a researcher to confirm, disprove, improve or formulate a theory. in addition, theory allows for a classification and conceptualisation of research findings. jaccard and jacoby13 pointed out that the discussion section in research projects should reflect whether the empirical tests were consistent with the theory. in the same vein, de vos et al.22 proposed that the findings must be verified against the larger stated grand and middle-range theories. if it was found that the theory is not supported, revisions are suggested. if the theory was found to be supported, the researcher should highlight the implications of the results and specify the further required research. this would mean applying the theory in different contexts, populations or conditions, thereby establishing the generalisability of the particular theory. hofstee8 cautioned that the researcher must be certain of the findings, what they mean, and how far they can be generalised, before making suggestions to modify or expand a particular theory. the likelihood of speculation should thus be minimised. maree32 suggested that research findings should be interpreted by situating the results within the broader existing body of knowledge, which includes theory and should indicate any similarities, contradiction, gaps and new insights. ritchie et al.15 in this regard mentioned several ways in which researchers can link findings to existing theory. findings should be ‘located’ within current theory. ultimately the researcher, through inferential or explanatory arguments, should reflect on the ways in which data support or contradict theory, resulting in the widening and deepening of thought patterns in both theory and practice. theory thus drives the gathering and analysing of data. regarding the application of theory in research, smit21 argued that it ‘gives direction’ to the research and ‘organises facts into a systematic source of knowledge’. application thus generates new knowledge by focussing thinking on new aspects. as illustrated, the development of theoretical criteria or yardsticks to gauge or evaluate the results is essential in applied research (figure 3). such criteria are necessary to contrast and compare current practice (i.e. the ‘what-is’ dimensions), with theory (e.g. the ‘whatshould-be’ dimensions). theory thus provides the researcher with approaches and principles against which to measure observed practical applications, such as systems, structures and behaviour. theoretical sampling and triangulation according to jacard and jacoby,13 exponents of grounded theory emphasise the importance of theoretical sampling in the context of constructing theory from data. theoretical sampling is a type of purposive sampling that is typically applied after initial data have been collected and analysed in a preliminary stage. the purpose is to increase the diversity of theoretical perspectives that may help researchers identify and define the constructs and propositions that are evolving.15 the motivation is thus not to obtain full representation, but rather extract new information that provides perspectives on the boundaries and nature of concepts and its interrelationships. theoretical sampling thus contributes to the construction of theory by adding diverse categories, themes and perspectives. on a similar track, flick7 referred to ‘triangulation of theories’ as ‘approaching data with multiple perspectives and hypotheses in mind … various theoretical points of view could be placed side by side to assess their utility and power’. in other words, triangulation contributes to conceptual research by expanding different perspectives to existing knowledge. use of theory as research outcome theory can also add significant value during the outcome phase of research. theory as outcome generally refers to the broadening of theoretical insight whereby theoretical ideas emerge from empirically researched data, usually through thematic analysis and coding of data.23 in this regard, the maturity of academic disciplines in the social sciences should be considered. within these disciplines, theory provides the framework for the construction and production of scholarly knowledge. over time a corpus body of knowledge emerges that is distinct from that of other disciplines. it is evident that the majority of postgraduate studies simply tend to repeat prior studies without a view to confirm their validity. existing theory is thus merely ‘recycled’. such an approach dramatically impoverishes social science disciplines. therefore, the field of study should be enriched by developing theory (i.e. grounded theory). according to van der waldt,41 the idea of disciplinary relevance is generally connected to a sense that scholars should produce new knowledge that will capacitate and guide the world of work. in other words, research should be career-specific or work-integrated to an extent. furthermore, theory may help the researcher to trace the paradigmatic development of a particular discipline. the scholarly study of a discipline only becomes meaningful if the existing praxis is measured against prevalent paradigms guiding thought patterns about specific issues in a discipline (e.g. classic, neoclassical and contemporary) and to interpret the rationale of current thinking. theory may also help categorise or cluster ideas and domain-specific concepts. the study of a discipline such as public administration, which is highly diverse and multidisciplinary, may rapidly become disorganised without the demarcation of certain subfields of study. theories linked to disciplines can, for example, be categorised into grand, middle-range, classical and contemporary. categories may also entail theories of political control, bureaucracy, governance and public institutional theories to inform or interpret social phenomena. conclusion the purpose of this article was to explore the significance of theory in social science research by reflecting on the ways theorising could add value in the research value chain. in the process, answers were provided to the why, where and how dimensions in the use of theory. it is evident that theory may simply inform social research. however, depending on the aims, nature and type of research, theories are generally indispensable. they contribute by enhancing the value of research and building the maturity of the corpus of knowledge for social science research. it is probably advisable to pursue a more pragmatic approach in the use of theory in social research. researchers should attempt to reconcile the competing demands of scientific rigour and the applied relevance of their findings. however, more experienced social scientists should continuously conduct basic research, thus constructing new theory to develop the meta-perspectives and theoretical basis of social science disciplines. theory should be applied scientifically and rigorously in key aspects of the research process, which consists of conceptualisation, design, data collection, analysis and interpretation. such judicious use of theory in social research will surely enhance understanding of complex social phenomena and build the scientific validity and credibility of social research findings. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that no competing interest exists. author’s contributions g.v.d.w. declares that he is the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references houston dj, delevan sm. public administration research: an assessment of journal publications. publ admin rev. 1990;50(1):674–681. https://doi.org/10.1177/009539979402600207 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4th ed. boston, ma: allyn & bacon; 2000; p. 446. bless c, higson-smith c. fundamentals of social research methods: an african perspective. cape town: juta; 1995; p.10, 22. frodeman r. the oxford handbook of interdisciplinarity. new york, ny: oxford university press; 2010; p. 67. cohenmiller as, pate pe. a model for developing interdisciplinary research theoretical frameworks. qual res. 2019;24(2019):1211–1226. van der waldt g. constructing conceptual frameworks in social science research. j transdiscip res s afr. 2020;16(1):1–9. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.758 van der waldt g. public administration and management as study domain: the relevance debate. afr j publ aff. 2013;6(4):72–85. https://doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.1.4986.2882 abstract introduction methodology growth accounting development accounting criticisms of growth regressions synthesis conclusions, implications and recommendations for further research acknowledgements references about the author(s) chris w. callaghan school of business sciences, faculty of commerce, law and management, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa school of management, faculty of business and law, anglia ruskin university, chelmsford, united kingdom citation callaghan cw. growth accounting, development accounting and cross-country growth regressions: a conceptual review essay. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1051. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1051 review article growth accounting, development accounting and cross-country growth regressions: a conceptual review essay chris w. callaghan received: 24 mar. 2021; accepted: 24 mar. 2022; published: 19 dec. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: this review article sets out to identify certain critiques of growth accounting, development accounting and cross-country growth regressions. these critiques provide insights relevant to the usefulness and policy relevance of these methods. aim: the aim of this article was to critically review literature and to provide a synthesis of this literature, deriving certain arguments to contribute to further research. method: this article takes the form of a critical review essay. results: growth accounting, development accounting and cross-country growth regressions all have some limitations and knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses may be helpful for those who are undertaking transdisciplinary social science research using these methods. these methods seem to suffer from similar criticisms levelled at neoclassical thinking, which need to be considered more seriously in the literature. conclusion: further research should explore how such methods might complement each other to improve validity of research findings. keywords: growth accounting; development accounting; cross-country growth regressions; research methodology; empirical research techniques. introduction a large and growing body of literature is concerned with empirical tests of growth and its relationships with other variables.1,2,3,4,5 growth accounting exercises, development accounting exercises and cross-country growth regressions have been used extensively to investigate economic growth and to decompose aspects of the growth process. however, a strong critique of these approaches has emerged over time in the literature. the problem this essay addresses is the lack of clarity or tension, between these two bodies of literature. this review essay therefore seeks to explore this tension and offer certain arguments in order to reconcile these differences. firstly, it is argued that global poverty and inequality pose certain challenges or costs, both directly and in the form of negative externalities and the incidence of these are typically borne by those who are most vulnerable and powerless. economic growth is important, as it can lift populations out of impoverished conditions. however, if growth accounting and development accounting exercises and cross-country regressions proceed on the basis of incorrect assumptions or under conditions that are unsuited to their effective use, then further costs accrue to theorists and policymakers who are dependent on the results of the use of these methods. secondly, without an understanding of strengths and weaknesses associated with each of these methods, theory development will not be able to proceed from a sound base. thirdly, knowledge of the deficiencies and strengths of these methods allow for their judicial use in appropriate contexts and circumstances, the avoidance of inappropriate use and the attendant consequences. this article proceeds as follows. firstly, the methodology of the article is introduced and discussed. secondly, literature relating to growth accounting is reviewed. debates regarding growth accounting are then discussed and issues relating to the concept of technology itself, measurement issues and contemporary thought on growth and development accounting related problems are highlighted. a consideration of development accounting and its criticisms is then followed by a discussion of criticisms of growth regressions. this review essay then concludes with a summary of the main arguments derived from the analysis. it should be observed from the outset, however, that many of the arguments for and against growth and development accounting, as well as growth regressions, are cross-cutting and in order to avoid duplication, or redundancy, are dealt with in the growth accounting section, and these discussions are not repeated in the growth accounting or growth regressions sections. the methodology of the work is introduced and discussed in the following section. methodology this article applies a conceptual essay methodology, which is appropriate for studies seeking to present arguments and perspectives relevant to a field of study. it extends previous literature to clarify and discuss certain strengths and weaknesses associated with growth accounting, development accounting and cross-country growth regressions and derives recommendations for further research and practice. growth accounting according to barro,6 the growth accounting method decomposes (economic) growth into component ‘parts’ reflecting changes of factor inputs and a residual that is taken to represent technological progress. growth accounting is therefore an important initial process analysing what contributes to economic growth.6 barro’s work builds on a stream of literature that extends the work of nobel laureate solow,7 who derived a model for economic growth. this model served as the basis for work by others, who have amended or augmented his model to incorporate additional factors contributing to growth. for example, nobel laureates such as lucas,8 romer9 and others. this stream of research has been described as neoclassical and it has been influential, particularly in macroeconomics. arguably, growth accounting provides a ‘first stage’ in the growth analysis process. the final step in the growth accounting process involves relating growth rates of factors, shares of factors and technological change (captured as a residual), to other variables such as ‘government policies, household preferences, natural resources, initial levels of physical and human capital, and so on’ (p. 1).6 a definitional example of this residual is the variance that is not explained in growth when growth is regressed on human and physical capital. this residual would capture the effects of how well human and physical capital are combined, which solow terms technical progress. solow’s model considered technical progress to be exogenous to the model because it was not explicitly considered. this led to it being called a measure of our ignorance,10 because it was difficult to explicitly describe what comprised this residual. romer’s9 work is notable because he sought to incorporate technical progress, or technology and knowledge creation, within his model, giving rise to the term ‘endogenous growth’. when growth is regressed on human and physical capital this residual value is expected to manifest, or be present in, in the error term of the regression – what is ‘left behind’. thus, the terms residual and error term are synonymous in their use here. what is particularly valuable about the growth accounting exercise is that it allows for a differentiation between fundamental determinants important for growth rates independent of those important for technological change.6 this differentiation, however, is contested, and more recent research,11 challenges the usefulness of orthogonal conceptions of deconstructing these elements of growth equations, instead of a more nuanced approach to understanding complementarities between these elements (a more detailed discussion of these critiques follows in later sections). there are different forms of growth accounting. it builds on a neoclassical production function y = f(a, k, l) with a representing the level of technology, k a measure of capital stock and l a measure of the quantity of labour; where the growth rate of output is made up of different components based on technological progress and factor accumulation.6 by differentiating the equation by time and division by y and rearranging the terms, changes in factor (social) marginal products for labour and capital, as well as the growth rate in technology can be modelled within the equation.6 another approach to growth accounting is the dual approach, in which the solow residual is calculated based on growth rates of prices of factors instead of quantities.6 as discussed, growth accounting has its roots in solow’s12 separation of growth output into growth in output, labour and technological change, starting with production function (equation 1), in which y is output, k is capital, l is labour and b is a hicks-neutral productivity term: by taking logs and differentiating by time, equation 2 is obtained, ‘the key formula of growth accounting’ (p. 45):13 according to this equation, output growth is a weighted average, of capital and labour growth in addition to b’s growth rate; the latter term in equation 2 typically termed ‘total factor productivity growth’ or ‘multifactor productivity growth’.13 by subtracting the labour term from both sides, the growth rate in output per worker can be decomposed into the contributions of (1) physical capital per worker and (2) contribution from multifactor productivity growth.13 to illustrate this process growth accounting of us data reveals that between 1948 and 2010 private sector output per hour grew on average annually by 2.6% and the contribution from capital per hour was 1.0 percentage points versus 0.2 from the changing composition of the labour force, whilst multifactor productivity accounted for 1.4 percentage points.13 these results suggest that about half of this growth may have been because of factor accumulation and the other half as a result of productivity improvements in these factors or the ‘residual’. as discussed, literature has referred to this as a measure of our ignorance.13 interestingly, according to this data, after 1973 the value of this residual dropped, which might offer some idea of what is included in this term. according to some, this might reflect a structural shift away from manufacturing (with high labour productivity) towards services (with lower labour productivity) or perhaps a slowdown in the late 1960s in research spending; the counterpoint to this is the productivity increases of 1995–2000, reflecting what has been termed the ‘new economy’ related to growth in output per hour and multifactor productivity as evidence suggests about half of the increases in multifactor productivity growth may be because of higher productivity in information technology production.13 growth accounting provides helpful insights into these relationships, but it is important to stress at this nexus that certain of these assumptions are not uncontested. as discussed later, the neoclassical ‘lens’ and its related assumptions have been challenged. some have argued that economic growth cannot be considered in any way to be exogenous or hicks-neutral and that the relationships between these variables can be interactive. it is important to reconcile these important critiques with the growth accounting literature in order to understand the boundary conditions or important limitations to these methods. the use of a residual is also problematic, as this residual can contain literally anything. it is argued here that growth accounting can be a useful first step in a growth analysis (as acknowledged by barro), but that it essentially explains very little about exactly what drives growth in the residual term. an example of this lack of clarity is evident in suggestions of hall and jones’s.14 hall and jones use an accounting approach and show that variance in physical capital and educational attainment do not fully explain variance of output per worker and large variations of the solow residual for comparing it across countries; they suggest differences in capital accumulation, the productivity and the output per worker are driven by institutional differences and variance associated with the policies of governments-endogenous ‘social infrastructure’. according to hall and jones14 the residual term picks up social infrastructure effects, which may allow individuals to harness social returns to behaviour in the form of private returns. arguably, this might be taken as evidence to suggest that (1) some causal mechanisms associated with growth and social infrastructure are inherently endogenous and therefore (2) a complementary perspective of these variables might be more useful.11 another indicator of this lack of clarity is perhaps the lack of consensus around relative contributions of the different factors in the growth accounting models. in the decade up to 2003, despite much empirical research on growth and what may cause it, a lack of consensus persisted as to how much of this contribution is due to capital accumulation versus total factor productivity (tfp) improvements in accounting for growth differences over time and across countries.15 this lack of consensus extends to the role of education and economic policy, with conflicting results from studies; within this context, growth accounting and growth regressions have been criticised and some have argued their irrelevance to policymaking.15 bosworth and collins15 argue, however, that both growth accounting and growth regressions can provide valuable insights into testing and a lack of attention to measurement and consistency in their use has been problematic; however, with the requisite attention contradictions between findings in the literature can be explained. bosworth and collins15 applied growth accounts and growth regressions in concert, using data across the years 1960–1980 and 1980–2000, to investigate the channels of factor accumulation versus increased factor productivity in their contribution to growth. other authors, however, contest this, and argued that measurement issues arise from the approach dictated by the neoclassical assumptions applied in growth accounting. this is discussed further in a later section. what seems to be a well reasoned approach in support of the use of growth accounting (and development accounting) frameworks is temple’s16 notion that these techniques have value in enabling thought experiments. given that economists are typically denied the brick and mortar laboratories fields such as chemistry enjoy, frameworks that allow ‘what if?’ conceptual abstractions have an important place in the field. this notion is less contested. according to temple,16 growth models are valuable not in terms of their realism, per se, or the extent to which they reflect reality but because of their ability to support ‘thought experiments;’ the ‘key point is that apparently restrictive assumptions are useful precisely because they allow us to abstract from matters not directly relevant to the problem at hand and to carry out experiments holding certain variables constant’ as these models are ‘the laboratory we otherwise don’t have (p. 500)’. at this nexus, claims of the successes of growth accounting are considered, before their critiques are introduced and discussed. according to certain research, growth accounting has been successfully applied to analyse fast-growing countries such as south korea, hong kong, singapore and taiwan, which have shown growth rates of over 4% from 1960 onwards; growth accounting reveals high growth rates of output per worker but, relative to output per worker, tfp growth rates have not been as high.13 this suggests that growth in capital and education has a disproportionate influence in these countries. therefore, this analysis supports the salience of the solow model,13 and, hence, growth accountancy as useful and policy relevant tool of analysis. the extent to which growth accounting is entrenched in certain sectors of the field (and especially neoclassical sectors) is perhaps well illustrated by its results for which some have claimed ‘stylised fact’ status. according to easterley and levine,17 it is a stylised fact of economic growth that the tfp residual, rather than factor accumulation is responsible for most differences in income and growth across countries. having outlined literature relating to growth accounting, the focus now shifts to certain critiques of growth accounting. criticisms of growth accounting growth accounting often allocates observed output growth between factor input changes versus a residual, tfp, measuring both changes in efficiency in input use and technology change; these expose sources of changes in productivity growth and information technology and differences in experiences of countries.15 however, it has been suggested that its use has failed to settle debates around the relative importance of increased capital per worker versus factor productivity improvements and critics have stressed the following issues:10 (1) that tfp should not be considered to represent technical change because, measured as a residual, although reflecting output increases relative to inputs as shifts in the production function, as a residual it can include other determinants over and above technological innovation (such as political unrest, external shocks, policy change, institutional change and measurement error). (2) that the growth decomposition process can be based on assumptions which might not hold (such as sufficient levels of competition to allow factor earnings to be proportionate to factor productivity and measured factor shares of income), although estimation might not be unreasonable, given the stability of estimates of factor shares across countries once the labour component of the earnings of the self-employment is accounted for. (3) that accounting decomposition cannot imply causality; growth accounting, in countries experiencing accumulation of capital per worker together with factor productivity, cannot show which causes which.15 on the basis of these criticisms, one might question some aspects of growth and development accounting, so the notion of usefulness needs to be qualified. it seems that many issues raised regarding growth and development accounting reduce to notions of usefulness at a certain level of abstraction as a starting point of analysis (acknowledged by barro6), or as a thought experiment device to interrogate different outcomes. a longstanding problem in the literature has been the lack of empirical work to differentiate between different notions of tfp growth because tfp has not been sufficiently modelled and quantified.17 residual determinants of growth and income require more research, particularly in terms of the influence of technology (which might have increasing returns) as well as externalities; countries are typically rich because of high levels of a instead of k.17 according to felipe,18 ‘the theoretical problems underlying the notion of tfp are so significant that the whole concept should be seriously questioned’ (p. 1). understanding these criticisms can be useful to those using these techniques. more specifically, felipe, in a seminal critique,18 argues that east asian growth requires other theory to explain its growth other than tfp growth, which was found to be associated with decreasing returns. the decomposition of growth into its subordinate components: factor accumulation and productivity gains, as the core process of growth accounting, has become associated with two different schools of thought; (1) fundamentalists who suggest growth in the asian region was primarily driven by factor increases, or input-driven (mainly associated with capital, with negligible productivity increases in the form of tfp growth [zero in the case of singapore]) and (2) assimilationists who suggest acquiring and mastering foreign technology and operationalising ideas, as key to this growth.18 according to the assimilationists: [o]ne has to go beyond the argument of accumulation embedded in a production function, and discuss how these countries developed new skills and learned how to use efficiently the technology they imported. (p. 3) acquiring and mastering foreign technology entails processes associated with tacit learning.18 one has to ask if growth accounting is really equipped to authoritatively answer this tension, or if it has helped to create artificial ‘camps’ of scholars as it does not sufficiently take into account the alternative explanation that complementarity might dominate in the real-life counterpart relationships, which growth accounting attempts to model. an alternative and current approach encompassing complementarity in the literature is offered by nell,11 who draws on kaldor’s work in challenging certain of the assumptions of the neoclassical approach to growth accounting. why are criticisms of these models important? theoretical implications of models emphasising the primary importance of technology are different from models that emphasise the role of factor accumulation in economic growth; furthermore, theorists and policymakers need to draw lessons from rapidly growing economies, such as the east asian nations.18 an importance of growth accounting is its focus on the analysis of productivity and the resultant shift from emphasis on saving to other factors associated with technological progress as a residual, such as education, research and development, better management and so on.18 however, for filipe18 it: [i]s important to stress that the way this notion of technical progress is computed empirically results in a black-box, and that any errors of measurement in the series, especially capital, will automatically appear in the residual. (p. 7) some, therefore, argue that poor measurement of inputs, especially capital, account for much of the value of the residual, and others have argued that sectoral reallocation is key for productivity growth, as resources move from lower to higher productivity sectors (such as from agriculture to industry, which might tend to have higher capital–labour ratios and a higher marginal product of labour).18 the fundamental rationale for growth accounting concerns the aggregate production function and the aggregate marginal productivity theory of factor pricing and tfp is decomposed into a technological progress component (changes in the production frontier characterised by best-practice) and a technical efficiency change component (changes in learning by doing, improved management, and how efficient is the use of applications of technology).18 manikew, romer and weil19 found support for the solow model, with its assumption of decreasing returns to capital, and particularly in terms of its prediction that saving and lower population growth are related to income; more than half of cross-country variance in income per head was explained by saving and lower population. manikew et al. augmented the solow model, including human capital and physical capital. filipe18 highlighted theoretical and empirical problems with growth accounting and some are ‘generally accepted problems, which were pointed out long ago, but which seem to have been ignored in the current frenzy for estimating residuals’ (p. 20). these fall into four categories, namely (1) how technology itself is conceptualised, (2) problems in measurement, (3) making conclusions and (4) implications for policy. it is useful to consider these, as they offer more specific criticisms of growth and development accounting; these criticisms are now considered under the umbrella categories of the concept of technology itself, measurement issues and contemporary thought on growth and development accounting-related issues. the concept of technology itself technological progress has typically been considered to be exogenous, disembodied and hicks-neutral, as ‘manna from heaven’ with no relationship to investment and capital accumulation; according to this perspective, technology is a public good, knowledge acquisition is considered costless and time is disregarded as instantaneous technological acquisition occurs.18 however, it might seem counter-intuitive to think of technological progress as an exogenous process, a disembodied process and a hicks-neutral process, as there are surely causal feedback mechanisms that make the differentiation of factors in growth accounting models unrealistic. a further implication of this is that capital is assumed to differ over time only through depreciation and obsolescence; it is not sufficiently acknowledged that capital can differ in its contribution to productivity at different time stages. furthermore, rewards for technology generation are not accounted for, and income is simplistically ascribed to either capital or labour.18 the embodiment hypothesis suggests technical knowledge that is new exists primarily in capital goods that are new, with stock that is more recent increasing its weight more strongly; embodied technical innovation reflects fresh designs, inputs and methods, which implies that a production function needs to be differentiated further together with the bundle of inputs it uses.18 filipe18 questions whether it is realistic to consider technical progress to be exogenous, to be disembodied and to be hicks-neutral; but nevertheless technological progress entails new inputs (which are by definition different methods of production) and what is unclear is how (1) purchasing new machinery can only represent capital accumulation, (2) how well technical progress reflects how well this machinery is used and (3) how these can be separated in analysis. similarly, others have argued that technical progress is largely embodied in capital goods, but it seems that growth accounting has been used because of its inherent simplicity, whereas theories of embodiment are vastly more complicated and more difficult to test empirically, especially models of embodiment structured in terms of vintage theories, which takes the age of capital stock into account and require measures of change in average level of technology versus best-practice technology and growth in average quality of capital.18 arguably, an investigation into growth effects cannot be deterred by the complexity of methods of analysis. it is argued here that the simplicity of the growth accounting approach might have ‘shaped’ research in this area and might have actually constrained the development of the field. measurement issues are now considered. measurement issues certain scholars have questioned the notion that technical progress can be estimated as an independent factor and it is ‘pointless and artificial to try and distinguish either between investment and technical change or between shifts in the production function and movements along it’ (p. 23).18 furthermore, in the real world, the production function is unobservable and only combinations of factors and output can be observed, the combinations of which are dynamic; if capital contributes to introducing technical change in production, then arguing for exogenous technology and offering a specific value for it is nonsensical.18 these criticisms echo more recent criticisms related to the attribution problem, which challenges the neo-classical attempt to usefully separate sources of growth and particularly the neoclassical growth model’s properties of timelessness and also substituting inputs in so orderly a manner along isoquants, particularly when inputs are complementary and interdependent.18 this neoclassical approach pays scant regard to productivity improvements that occur as localised learning and does not capture the real life way producers typically cut costs.18 another challenge facing growth accounting is its assumption that factor prices and social marginal products coincide; if this does not hold true then the estimation of technical change to economic growth will deviate from its true value.15 this seems to be yet another assumption relating to more detailed usefulness of the growth accounting framework. it is suggested here that at the heart of the measurement problems facing growth and development accounting are attempts by the neoclassical school to quantify (and elegantly so) certain relationships that can only be quantified if their complexity was fully unpacked. in other words, what seems to be clear here is that at a certain level of focus (such as viewing relationships at a distance vs. close-up) growth and development accounting can be useful as an initial stage of an investigation (at a distance) but as one gets closer to the real-world phenomena its perspective is more difficult to apply without specifying subordinate relationships. at the heart of this problem might be the lack of an interaction factor or complementarity between constituent factors in these models, as argued by nell.11 growth accounting also assumes a negligible interaction term between factors and the concept of production cannot be understood without an interaction factor; complementarity amongst inputs is therefore a critically important aspect of a production process of any type.18 another serious problem with growth accounting is that tfp production is considered a function of a host of assumptions relating to (1) production functions, (2) choice of output measures (such as between value added or gross output measures), (3) use of capital stock versus capital services flows, (4) cyclical smoothing, (5) the time period and (6) errors of measurement in variables, amongst others.18 what is problematic about this is that different assumptions result in very different residuals.18 other problems related to growth accounting relate to potential confounds in how real value added is conceptualised; it is taken to be gross output minus intermediate inputs, which does not fit with the notion that it can be deflated to an empirical measure.18 furthermore, there is no empirical measure appropriate to capture aggregate output physically and constant price value data have to be used when testing empirical applications.18 when calculating tfp relationships, stocks of capital in aggregate terms are typically calculated, usually with a perpetual inventory method, which might differ substantially from true stocks of physical capital and measuring capital in an index that is not dependent on relative prices and distribution is also a challenge.18 it is argued here that these may all be examples of the ‘level of abstraction’ problem; as growth accounting moves away from its level of abstraction towards real-life predictions or towards smaller-scale phenomena, its weaknesses are more clearly evident. at this nexus, certain contemporary work is now considered, which seems to offer a current perspective of the limitations associated with growth and development accounting. contemporary thought on growth and development accounting-related issues at the core of some criticisms of growth and development accounting approaches might be the fundamental assumptions of the neoclassical school itself. nell and thirlwell20 criticise solow’s orthodox neoclassical growth theory for assuming that there will be identical tastes and preferences across different countries and that technology will be the same, in growth research. they report evidence in support of the assumption that there may be constant returns of models other than the solow-based growth accounting models, which post decreasing returns to capital. this finding is important because it contests predictions of convergence associated with solow models and instead predicts divergence to some extent between rich and poor countries. it also suggests that policy interventions in the form of policy shocks, although not permanent, may be effective for extended periods. a fundamental challenge faced by growth accounting might be in the way it ignores complementarity. nell11 challenges the dichotomy posited by growth and development accounting approaches, which regard technological progress and capital accumulation to be orthogonal and offers a model that captures learning-by-doing effects with technological progress and capital accumulation acting complementarily in long-term growth transitions. this model is found to predict long-term growth in india, incorporating a transition from a phase in which growth is technology-driven between 1980 and 2002 and capital accumulation for the period 2003–2007.11 this research offers a salient challenge to some of the growth accounting literature, which has typically regarded physical capital accumulation and capital per worker growth, as less important in contributions to growth and development than tfp growth.11 modelling relationships similar to those predicted by kaldor’s technical progression function, nell argues that the tfp perspective of research in india suffers from a fundamental flaw in its use of a single regime framework and did not model initial regime change in 1980. this suggests that previous findings on indian growth that prioritise tfp at the expense of physical capital accumulation may not be authoritative, thus challenging granger causality results, which may be structurally unstable because the 1980 regime change represents a structural break. furthermore, assumptions made that elasticity of output of capital is constant at about 0.33 was not sufficiently substantiated and can overstate the contributions of tfp, whilst the use of neoclassical modelling frameworks takes the growth effect of physical capital accumulation to be temporary.11 in order to resolve these issues, nell suggests a long-run approach rather than transitional dynamics, as a multiple-regime, technical progress function better models and supports the complementarity hypothesis; although in the india context tfp growth might have had an initiating effect in the long-run growth transition, physical capital accumulation overtook tfp as exogenous origin of technological progress in the second or subsequent growth transition stage. another implication of this research is that profits need to be included to model investment and capital accumulation and following kaldor, increased saving or investment rates can improve india’s economic growth through its progression along the technical progress growth function.11 what seems to emerge here is the implication that the growth accounting approach has been critiqued by some, and a more complex approach to growth modelling may be necessary in order to capture real-life effects. an important implication of the complementarity hypothesis is that policymakers should keep up high saving or investment rates, particularly in the post-2008 financial crisis milieu.11 although many of the criticisms of development accounting are shared with growth accounting and have been considered in the given sections, literature specific to development accounting and its critiques is also considered now. development accounting hsieh and klenow21 term the proximal contribution of human capital, physical capital and tfp to income as a chain of causality, termed ‘development accounting’. according to hsieh and klenow, the: [s]tate of the debate is as follows: human capital is important (accounting for 10-30 percent of country income differences), physical capital also matters (accounting for about 20 percent of country income differences), and residual tfp remains the biggest part of the story (accounting for 50–70 percent of country income differentials). (p. 207) this demonstrates the importance of tfp. hsieh and klenow argue that important feedback influences exist across human capital measures, physical capital measures and tfp, particularly in terms of differences in tfp levels in different sectors such as investment as opposed consumption or human capital opposed to final goods and that tfp as an aggregate is a function of the input allocation efficiencies over industries and firms. according to hsieh and klenow, development accounting allows a linear decomposition of income level differences between countries. an advantage over growth regressions is that tfp is not required to be orthogonal or not related to, physical or human capital. such an accounting process can offer insight into how many differences in output per person increase because of differences in physical capital per person, effective labour per person or residual tfp whilst keeping two of the latter three factors fixed.21 there seems to be much agreement in the literature that differences in human capital make up about 10% – 20% differences in country income and physical capital seems to make up about 20% and residual tfp accounts for about 50% – 70%; however, what development accounting cannot explain is why these differences happen; hsieh and klenow21 conclude tfp might not only have both a direct effect upon output but may also have an indirect effect through both human and physical capital by way of reducing pricing of capital and schooling compared with prices of output. they also suggest that a misallocation of inputs can occur, across firms and industries that may account for much of the differences in residual tfp, but development accounting cannot indicate ‘what the forces behind the misallocation are’. problems seem to emerge here too, as the level of abstraction decreases; further critiques are considered as follows. criticism of development accounting hsieh and klenow21 offer a critique of development accounting as physical capital is expected to increase endogenously with increases in effective labour or tfp; physical capital investments are typically in the form of final goods but human capital and tfp are not and so higher output is necessarily associated with higher physical capital and increases in human capital and tfp whilst holding fixed capital per person constant implies a decrease in the physical capital investment rate. with regard to the latter, hsieh and klenow21 suggest: [i]t is not obvious why this is a useful thought experiment given that the investment rate in physical capital is presumably driven by factors such as the effective tax rate on capital income and the relative price of capital, but not the level of human capital, or tfp, per se. (p. 209) yet another criticism is offered by hsieh and klenow of an alternative accounting function, which rearranges the production function into intensive form (equation 3): this rearrangement takes the form of a thought experiment and indicates changes of effective labour per person or the residual tfp can allow capital per head, rather than the capital output ratio, to change in response.21 useful for comparing large differences across countries, it is compatible with the neoclassical assumption of no human capital or tfp effects on the steady-state capital-output ratio; because of the larger exponents on residual tfp, or the use of 1/1-α instead of 1 in the equation as well as effective labour input, which as a 1 rather than a 1-α argue for a direct effect of these on output as well as an indirect effect of these via capital per worker.21 however, a criticism of the equation argued by hsieh and klenow is the asymmetry of the equation, as it does not take into account the argument that physical capital is an input into human capital accumulation and higher tfp investments. this critique is yet another specific example of criticisms of accounting processes, which together with other criticisms common to both development and growth accounting provide a sense of the primary problems with these methods. it is argued that the critiques of these models may reduce to two dominant notions: (1) they work as an initial starting point of analysis and at a higher level of abstraction and are therefore useful as thought experiments more than as instruments to get down to specifics and (2) that they do not capture the endogeneity and causal complexity associated with real-life phenomena, particularly in terms of the complementarity of the effects of the factors within these models. criticisms of growth regressions are now considered; these are considered to the extent that they relate to research related to growth, and the following discussion is delimited to this. criticisms of growth regressions the regression of different indicators of output growth on a host of determinants has been criticised due to instability of parameter estimates; however, bosworth and collins15 argue that this instability simply reflects variance present in samples of different countries, time periods and inclusion of different additional explanatory variables. a problem with growth regressions that has already been discussed here is what it shares with growth and development accounting models, the primary issue perhaps being that neoclassical approaches to quantification arguably reflect an extension of the equilibrium analysis mindset, but certain relationships are intangible by nature,and human behaviour is oftentimes not rational. conflict and global unrest reflect conditions that are inherently uncertain and capture perhaps some of the irrationality of human actors. to the extent that only the addition of an error term can transform a growth or development accounting equation into a growth regression, certain criticisms discussed here will also extend to growth regressions. these will not be discussed again here. growth regressions are useful however, as a method to test these growth or development accounting equations, as shown by nell and thirlwell.20 in terms of the tfp debate, according to hsieh and klenow21 growth regressions typically require tfp to be separate to human or physical capital; development accounting does not have this drawback. but overall, bosworth and collins15 argue that a group of explanatory factors usually correlate with economic growth; this rationale formed the basis of their testing based on similar sets of countries, time periods and conditioning variables. a further criticism of growth regressions is endogeneity of explanatory variables other than initial conditions, such as the quality of a country’s institutions, how open it is to trade and its other policy measures. bosworth and collins15 used instruments in analysis of institutional quality and their measures of trade-related indicators of openness, although other key macroeconomic policy variables were interpreted descriptively. if technology growth or the tfp value is inherently endogenous, there is perhaps little chance of instrumenting all of this endogeneity. having introduced and discussed growth accounting, development accounting and growth regressions and certain critiques associated with these methods, a critical synthesis of the ideas discussed here is now provided, to drive key arguments of the work. synthesis growth accounting exercises, development accounting exercises and cross-country growth regressions have been used extensively to investigate economic growth and to decompose aspects of the growth process. however, a critique of these approaches has also emerged over time. although it cannot be claimed that this tension is solved, this essay makes a modest contribution by synthesising and evaluating different perspectives in the literature and the following arguments are derived. firstly, growth and development accounting are undoubtedly useful methods, with some weaknesses and strengths. a social scientist employing these methods should be well acquainted with these and the work here contributes to this objective. secondly, these types of accounting suffer from the same criticisms as neoclassical approaches, because they are essentially derived from the neoclassical thinking the solow model was based on. these criticisms cannot be taken lightly, as certain of these assumptions, such as hicks neutrality might be difficult to use when investigating technological change or other characteristics of the residual. thirdly, what seems to be lacking in theoretical literature seems to be current research that can offer an authoritative perspective on this debate, other than that provided by work which stresses the importance of complementarity between aspects of these models. growth regressions also have their shortcomings but adding error terms provides a useful way to extend other models of growth for empirical testing. in short, these three groups of critiques should be used as input for opportunities to improve models and address strengths and weaknesses. these findings should be contextualised in relation to other challenges facing empirical work in social science. as more work becomes transdisciplinary to address societal and economic challenges, further knowledge of strengths and weaknesses of approaches to studying growth and development may become increasingly important. conclusions, implications and recommendations for further research the objective of this conceptual essay article was to identify and discuss some critiques of growth accounting, development accounting and cross-country growth regressions and to derive insights about strengths and weaknesses of these approaches. the following conclusions suggest avenues for further research. firstly, all these techniques are useful under certain conditions, it is necessary to understand criticisms and to be able to address them or mitigate their weaknesses when conducting research. further research should seek to explore weaknesses and strengths of methods and to disseminate this knowledge in transdisciplinary literature. this may help mode 2 research to solve important societal problems because knowledge of methods is made more accessible and shared across disciplines. second, if these types of accounting suffer from the same criticisms as some neoclassical approaches, and are derived from the neoclassical thinking like the solow model, then those using them should be familiar not only with critique such as that considered here but also with heterodox approaches that suggest further critiques, with theoretical and empirical implications. further research should explore implications of non-neoclassical theory and approaches for the use of these models and inferences one can derive from their use. transdisciplinary approaches should seek out heterodox perspectives because they may complement orthodox principles based on neoclassical approaches. further research should provoke critical perspectives to strengthen the capacity of transdisciplinary knowledge to solve knowledge problems. thirdly, critiques suggest that certain assumptions, such as hicks neutrality might not be appropriate for technological change or other characteristics of the residual. further research should explore more specific conditions under which these assumptions hold or do not hold. knowledge of these boundary conditions to theoretical predictions can go a long way to assisting those setting out on research using these methods. fourthly, the importance of complementarity between aspects of these models should be stressed in future work. growth regressions also have their shortcomings, but by adding error terms they provide a useful way to extend some other models of growth for empirical testing. in short, these three groups of criticisms should be used as input for opportunities to improve models. further research should seek not only to identify weaknesses and strengths of models but should also show how they might be used together, to add complementary information to analysis. certain further implications derive from these findings. firstly, future research should seek to as much as possible avoid bias resulting from the use of a single technique by seeking complementary insights into analysis and should try to use causal statistical methods22,23 wherever possible. further research should seek to extend work here to identify additional strengths and weaknesses of each of the methods, techniques and approaches discussed here. with increasing knowledge of these, researchers will be better able to negotiate the terrain of methodological challenges to achieve valid findings. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions c.w.c. is the sole author of this article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references antonakakis n, chatziantoniou i, filis g. energy consumption, co2 emissions, and economic growth: an ethical dilemma. renew sust energy rev. 2017;68(part 1):808–824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.105 absadykov a. does good governance matter? kazakhstan’s economic growth and worldwide governance 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horizon of shared understanding. the student participation, transdisciplinary interface provides a critical framework and an experience of building a diverse intellectual community as a basis for curriculum renewal. this paper builds upon fieldwork conducted amongst students enrolled for the grounding program also known as life knowledge action and staff. unstructured interviews were used. narrative descriptions where derived and were analysed through content analysis. the findings indicated that, the student participation-transdisciplinarity interface is elucidated through the case of the life knowledge program under the centre for transdisciplinary studies at the university of fort hare. the interface is embedded in the exchange of ideas which supercedes mono-interdiscipline, addressing cross cutting issues that create additional value. the discourse of transdisciplinarity has been promoted through the structure of the curriculum and emphasis placed on the attainment of mutual dialogue amongst learners themselves and with lecturers. key words: student participation, trandisciplinarity, grounding program, university of fort hare introduction this paper aims to discuss the interface of giving a voice to students in the higher institutions of learning. in this paper, the notion of ‘voice’ is used to describe the views and thoughts of students from different disciplines, facilitators and the interns. the idea of student participation or role of students in curriculum development in higher education 1 . centre for transdisciplinary studies, law building. university of fort hare, alice, 5700, south africa, email: tgarutsa@ufh.ac.za 2 . centre for transdisciplinary studies, university of fort hare, 50 church st. east london, 5200, 2 . centre for transdisciplinary studies, university of fort hare, 50 church st. east london, 5200, south africa. email: pmahlangu@ufh.ac.za giving a voice to the voiceless at fort hare td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 310-322. 311 systems is not a new phenomenon. it emerged prior to world war two (kridel, 1983). similarly over the years, more innovative studies (roberts, 2000; messiou, 2003; davie and galloway, 1996) advocate for the importance of giving students a voice; the need to listen to what students say and how they say it. the above mentioned scholars attempted to access the views of the students themselves rather than through second hand accounts from others. such research has found that mutual dialogue not only acknowledges the rights of learners to participate in the learning process but it also acknowledges that there is much to be gained from entering their world and respecting their versions of reality. shor and freire (1987) confirm that dialogical education (which has as one of its basic tenets participatory education) transforms social relations in the classroom and further raises awareness about relations at large. friere (1987) mentions that dialogue rejects narratives lecturing, the learners and the students embark on a collaborative learning process. in addition oliver (2000) argues that, (i)nsider perspectives are essential to our attempts to grapple with any social phenomena but, by themselves and in themselves, they can never be enough. in other words, students’ voices provide an additional perspective in trying to understand knowledge and changing the dominant way of learning, but they are not the only perspective that should be taken into consideration. equally the concept of transdisciplinarity needs to be briefly unpacked in order to see how it relates to the notion of student participation. the knowledge base of transdisciplinarity contributes best to ensuring novel ideas which are not generated in disciplinary isolation but nourish the fertile ground between disciplines, and understands synergies, complexities and multiple realities (mcgregor, 2004). transdisciplinary is undoubtedly pertinent, relevant to solving complex world problems and is built on strong research expertise and knowledge that is transverse and goes beyond monodisciplinarity (mcgregor, 2011). in a nutshell participants involved in transdisciplinary learning process (students, facilitators and lectures) should be active rather than passive participants (mcgregor, 2004). before examining the background and structure of the life knowledge action (lka) and grounding program under the centre of transdisciplinary studies (cts) at the university of fort hare, this section will briefly explain the methodology used for this study. methodology this study used a qualitative research design which allowed the researcher to interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. in order to understand transdisciplinarity in institutions of higher education through mutual learning and dialogue across disciplines the study made use of two kinds of data collection: interviews and documents which led to narrative descriptions. these data collection methods were ideally suited to obtaining relevant data on the realities and experiences associated with student participation and transdisciplinary that provides a critical framework for curriculum renewal. interviews allowed the informants to express their realities, experiences and interpretations of student participation and transdisciplinarity in learning institutions. this enabled the researcher to gain thick descriptions and multiple interpretations rather than the imposition of one dominant interpretation (mouton & marais 1990:175). documents like reports course outlines assisted the researcher in gaining a broader understanding of how the grounding garutsa & mahlangu 312 program elicits transdisciplinarity and student participation in institutions of higher learning. sampling procedure the research study utilized a non-probability sampling method: purposive sampling. the power of purposive sampling lies in selecting information-rich cases for in-depth analysis related to the central issues being studied (de vos, 2005). purposive sampling targets a particular group of people so the researcher purposefully selected the research participants. the sample frame included representatives of students enrolled for the grounding program and representatives from interns, facilitators and academic coordinators to ensure adequate representation from all sectors. participants were selected on this criterion: willing participation, informed consent, seniority for facilitators and interns. data analysis the researcher used content analysis to bring order, structure and meaning to the mass of data collected. according to de vos (2005), qualitative data analysis transforms data into findings. this involved reducing the volume of raw information, sifting for significant patterns and constructing a framework for communicating the essence of what the data reveals. content analysis allowed the researcher to discuss the common themes from the thick descriptions of how participants have experienced transdisciplinarity and participation in the process of curriculum renewal. the common themes derived from the interviews and documents included: the background of the program, the significance of transdisciplinarity, the structure of life knowledge action and student involvement and participation in the grounding program. the following section will elaborate on the structure and the aims of the life knowledge action (lka) and grounding program under the centre of transdisciplinary studies (cts) at the university of fort hare, eastern cape, south africa. the background: structure and aims the university of fort hare launched a program called the grounding program (gp) or life knowledge action (lka) under the center for transdisciplinary studies in 2009, where first year students from diverse disciplines were provided a platform for mutual dialogue between the lecturers and the learners to produce new forms of democratic knowledge. lka/gp is a flexible course which is built in an interdisciplinary nature. the lka/gp is a semester course at national qualifications framework level 7 carrying 16 credits and the credits contribute to the overall credits of an undergraduate degree. in a pilot study 336 students participated and 259 were formally registered. two hundred and twenty two of the registered students passed, resulting in a pass rate of 85.7%. the team which is comprised of the academic coordinators and interns received feedback reports from the 1700 questionnaires distributed (keet and porteus, 2010). most students indicated that lka’s value is tangible and it’s purpose fits the current educational situation where there is need for more critical thinkers who engage with material and are more versatile with issues outside their areas of giving a voice to the voiceless at fort hare td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 310-322. 313 specialty in education. ninety seven percent of the students indicated that they like the program and what it offers whilst 3% cited lack of time as the major reason for their dislike (keet and porteus, 2010). some students cited the problem of the relevance of lka/gp for their studies, despite the fact that there are six umthamos (central themes) which are relevant to all faculties and students in the higher education system. the program was designed in such a way that it encompasses six thematic areas or content from all faculties which include: 1. introduction to life, knowledge action, 2. collective futures: becoming a proud fort-harian, 3. democracy diversity and identity, 4. science, technology, the environment and society, 5. poverty inequality and development, 6. living, loving and learning. these all had potentially important implications for evolving new ways of learning. in particular, they pointed to ways in which the traditional education systems could be challenged to be more alert in identifying the transdisciplinary ways of solving issues affecting society. the program provides students with a critical framework beyond their designated area of study, and provides an experience of building a diverse, caring and intellectual community with a theatre for diverse and humanising pedagogies, as a basis for both curriculum renewal and support in the university. one respondent who has been enrolled for this course mentioned: the members from my group belonged to different faculties and department, i am from social work, other members are from the management and commerce, arts, education as well as psychology amongst other departments. working with other students from other faculties helped me because some issues that i was not familiar with were explained by other members and by doing so i gained in-depth understanding. in-depth interview no. 3, june 2012 the university of fort hare has continued with cultivating a transdisciplinary approach which is associated to pragmatic or solution oriented research. the following section will elaborate the notion and significance of transdisciplinarity. the significance of transdisciplinarity the question of what constitutes transdisciplinarity is of great importance in an era where there are dilemmas in trying to define the theme and assessing its significance beyond disciplines. pohl (2010) acknowledges that this concept has been contested, although there are similarities in the typology of the subject. one of the features, which have been popular, is that the concept of transdisciplinarity should address socially relevant issues and transcend and integrate disciplinary paradigms (rosenfield, 1992; janstch, 1970 and mittelstrab, 1993). how can one attain a position that transcends and integrate disciplines? if we define transdisciplinarity as constituting the above-mentioned characteristics, then do we incorporate the idea that the subject also constitutes the notion of participatory research i.e. acknowledgement of different opinions including non academic actors and civil society as alluded to by kotter (1999), scholz (2002), lawrence (2004) and mojbork (2010)? garutsa & mahlangu 314 consequently transdisciplinarity is often recognised as solution oriented to understanding systems. the relevance of participation in transdisciplinarity becomes more imperative when knowledge of all disciplines is taken into cognisance. this implies intercommunicative action and continuous collaboration between disciplines and the community. shor and freire (1987) assert that experience at university can work to amputate learners from the concrete reality. the concepts abstracted in the intellectual training are far from the concreteness of society. therefore in this essence, transdisciplinarity strives to inculcate learners with concrete reality of society. in order for transdisciplinarity to completely surface there is need to give voice to the previously marginalised groups in the education system and one way to realise it is through student participation. transdisciplinarity does not negate the value of disciplines; instead it embraces the different ways of reality as a practice of research by both academic and non academic actors (mcgregor, 2011). data has indicated that the course has managed to achieve a sense of transdisciplinarity and mutual dialogue in the process of learning. a few informants mentioned that: the course structure cuts across disciplines, umzi groups aim to achieve this as basic support groups. the ikhaya sessions allow students to exchange views across different disciplines. furthermore the course content aims to achieve this since it cuts across different disciplines. in-depth interview no. 7, june 2012 lka/gp has managed to achieve transdisciplinarity because students who are registered for the course come from different disciplines but they share common world problems that they have to solve collectively. in-depth interview no. 2, june 2012 in the process of listening and considering student voices there is a sense of belonging in both the facilitators and students in the learning process. in-depth interview no. 3, june 2012 the structure of life knowledge action the structure of the course is different, since the way lectures conducted is different. the learning community is divided into three different levels which include umzi (a xhosa name for home), ikhaya (a xhosa word meaning an extended home), and village. there is a rich use of isixhosa and of cultural connectivity in the naming and functioning of groups in the program which is useful in the inclusion of indigenous dialect in the curricula. in lka/gp the imizi (plural form of umzi) are structured in such a way that they are comprised of six students from various disciplines factors such as nationality, race and gender are considered in building up of the umzi. these imizi are small learning communities with the two-fold purpose of helping students both to establish sound learning practices and to engage in socially important questions. one informant mentioned that: in my umzi we were from different departments, i am studying agriculture but other members belonged to business administration, education, computer science and psychology so it was easier for me to understand some issues from other disciplines. indepth interview no. 5, june 2012 students from diverse academic disciplines are placed in the imizi which are student-led, that meet together to watch film clips and discuss readings (keet, 2011). the aim of the umzi is to provide a supporting framework; self disciplined student run group taking into cognisance the idea of the members stemming from different faculties with different experiences. the following participants had this to say: giving a voice to the voiceless at fort hare td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 310-322. 315 the imizi sessions gave me confidence to speak because i was shy to speak in public. as i started to share my ideas with other members, i became more confident and in the process i learnt from others. furthermore, another participant mentions that the imizi sessions promoted my participation as a student due to a small number of people or members i was not shy, each member was also given time to share what they had research on and their opinion concerning the subject matter in discussion. in-depth interview no. 4, june 2012 group work has long been accepted as an effective learning strategy because it provides opportunities for students to negotiate meaning and manipulate ideas with others and reflect upon their learning (fraser and deane, 1997) students receive participation points for taking part in the umzi. the second level is an ikhaya. in the lka/gp it consists of 30 students (5 imizi) which meet once in every two weeks to discuss and debate the theme during the cycle. since lka is a student driven course two abakwezeli (student facilitators) facilitate the discussions and are involved in the administration of registers, assignments and other rituals such as movies and imizis when it’s necessary. students are required to complete written assignments that include a research component, keep a reflective journal and complete some kind of creative project related to what they have learned. next level is the village which is a collection of extended families or amakhaya (more than one ikhaya). the village brings the theme/umthamo to a close. a lecturer prepares a lecture that responds to student questions that have arisen in their discussions. the ekhayas engage with the material and issues raised in the ikhaya sessions. the cycle itself allow for the interconnectedness of the rhythms and the rituals which advocate for a learning environment which encourages student participation at all levels. lka/gp emerged in an era where it is of importance to create african scholars who can critically engage with issues affecting the society. the importance of listening to the marginalised voices is emphasised by many authors (rose and shevlin, 2004; french and swain, 2000 and oliver, 2000) who draw attention to the multiplicity of meanings available in relation to insider perspectives, and to the issue of accessing ‘insiders’ perspectives and interpreting these. furthermore, lka/gp is based on the assumption that knowledge is socially constructed through interaction with others (vygotsky, 1968 and wertsch, minick & arns, 1984). freire (1970) mentions that: there is no learning or humanization without the act of mutual dialogue. yet for dialogue to be transformative it needs to be carried out in relations of love, mutual respect, and trust. if the capacity to dialogue offers an alternative to the ‘‘banking concept’’ of education, it does so because it no longer reduces the oppressed human being to the status of a thing or object. the act of mutual dialogue raises relations at large and thus contributes humanising pedagogy anchored in love, mutual respect, trust and support. the next section will discuss briefly student participation in the grounding program. figure 1 is a diagram of how student participation is conceptualised in the lka/gp program. garutsa & mahlangu 316 student involvement and participation in the lka/gp f i g u r e 1 : s t u d e n t p a r t i c i p a t i o n a n d t r a n s d i s c i p l i n a r i t y i n t h e c e n t r e f o r t r a n s d i s c i p l i n a r y s t u d i e s d e p a r t m e n t u n i v e r s i t y o f f o r t h a r e ( g a r u t s a , 2 0 1 2 ) student participation makes it possible to encourage students to critically think and reflect on issues raised in that particular session (umzi, movies, ikhaya and village). grioux (2006) affirms that: democratic education would seek to develop a process of learning that assist not only public forms of participation but also enable students to produce new forms of democratic knowledge. the main purpose of student participation is to foster development of critical engagement and presentation skills. student participation also encourages social interaction and sharing of ideas from different perspectives. one participant revealed that: as students from different faculties we could approach one concept differently. this enabled me to develop a multi-dimensional perspective on issues so in a sense participation is very crucial in higher institutions of learning rather than adopting the transfer teaching methodology. in-depth interview no. 3, june 2012 the way the course is structured allows intricacy beyond disciplines through intercommunicative action and continuous collaboration of those involved in the learning process. shor and freire (1987) support the fact that when small groups are involved in dialogues, they reflect together on what they know and what they don’t know and act critically to transform reality. the individual aspect is not enough to explain the process of knowing in the dialogue, it seals the relationship between those who know and those who try to know. in other words the quest of knowledge in a dialogue negates individualism. shor and freire (1987) further mention that when participating in a dialogue seals together the act of knowing and re-knowing i.e. instead of transferring the knowledge statistical as an educator the act demands a dynamic approximation towards the object. shor and freire (1987) notion of dialogues is paramount in the program at all level were active participation is required to achieve and foster student development through critical thinking and evaluation. student  participation   &  transdisciplinarity     a c a d e m i c   coordinators,   interns   and   facilitators   from   various  disciplines   curricullum  design   administra7on   facilita7on  (lectures   and  ekhayas)     curricullum  design   with  themes  that  cuts   across  disciplines   students  from  various   disciplines  enrolled  for   the  course   ugas   assignments   imizi,ikhaya,  villages   giving a voice to the voiceless at fort hare td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 310-322. 317 the team i.e. academic coordinators, interns, facilitators and students enrolled for the course are actively involved to ensure the promotion of student participation and transdsciplinarity. one of the participants had this to say: lecturers and interns promote student participation and transdisciplinarity through facilitating the content, the readings provided cut across the areas of study allowing students provide their viewpoints to have input. in-depth interview no. 5, june 2012 giving students a voice, or ownership of their own learning environment, leads to meaningful student involvement thereby producing critical african scholars. in the lka/gp this is realised through involvement of students as development partners, planners, administrators working with and not for the university as either academic coordinators, facilitators, interns and students enrolled in the course. facilitators plan for their own sessions encouraging them to be creative; they have a mandate to promote student engagement and transdisciplinarity in the ikhaya and village sessions. this can be substantiated with what an respondent reveals: ikhaya sessions provide a platform for students to participate, create dialogue and debate guided by the facilitators who give direction, encourages participation pertaining the particular umthamo. in-depth interview no. 4, june 2012 students enrolled in the program can also be regarded as planners especially since they are responsible and accountable for their imizi. they have self-led imizi where they meet and plan; they are given an opportunity to be insightful of their needs as an umzi and are very candid about their opinions and thoughts. one respondent mentioned that: i was able to make my own view points in discussions since there was usually enough to contribute and every member was allowed to disagree with another. in-depth interview no. 2, june 2012 and another respondent mentioned that: when i found out that my points or my thinking was accepted by other umzi members, i became eager to share with the whole ikhaya. in-depth interview no. 7, june 2012 realizing such commitment and accountability fosters meaningful student involvement. the lka/gp actively engages students in facilitation and lecturing during the ekhaya and the village sessions. facilitators and interns are also given the opportunity to be creative and conduct lectures in ways that aim to promote the main objectives of the program. some have been able to create documentaries, video clips which enhance visual learning and some create powerpoint presentations for the respective imithamos in the curriculum. fletcher (2008) describes that innate interests in technology enables students to contextualise technology and become literate in areas they are interested in. the program benefits everyone involved since students working as facilitators, interns gain tremendous experience and expertise since students as professional development partners are more grounded they live the teaching and teach (martin kneip, 2007). the team works with and not for the university. through administration, involvement in curriculum design, lecturing, facilitation, self-led imizi’s students advocate for finding a voice, educational improvement and leading new approaches to learning and teaching in the architecture of involvement to make a difference (corbert and wilson, 1995). through a garutsa & mahlangu 318 series of guided critical reflections of the sessions, rhythms and rituals an understanding of how to improve student participation is and can be recognized. one participant reveals that: student participation is when students have a platform to be heard, being heard and finally being able to impact on discussions and decisions. there is need to listen what students say and how they say it because the learning environment needs to facilitate the process of learning and students have first hand knowledge of this process (what works and what is beneficial and what needs to be addressed to improve the learning process). in-depth interview no. 4, june 2012 the imizi fosters student participation through developing group and team skills. however assessing student participation may be hard given factors like class size and group dynamics. participation may be hard to assess objectively unless skills are laid out clearly meaning the criteria of assessment should be uniform across groups. the facilitators’ assessment in the program is uniform. the facilitators and the intern team undergo training presented by qualified facilitators from the teaching and learning centre at the university (tlc and lka training) in order to lay out clearly the assessment criteria and procedures. assessment of performance is done on clearly defined tasks (attendance and assignments) referred to as participation points and not on vague impressions of the quantity or quality of a student's contribution to class discussion. the assessment criterion is specified clearly i.e. in the sessions and the performance of students. for example when students attend a session they are awarded points or marks accordingly and when they participate in group assignments they are also awarded marks or participation points consequently. assessing student participation is paramount in educational values such as growth in critical thinking, active learning and thinking outsides’ ones’ discipline. research reveals that students with a high-grade orientation value only those portions of a course that is visibly graded (marrano et al, 1988; janzow and eison, 1990). when students see that their participation is being graded regularly and consistently, they adjust their study habits accordingly to be prepared for active participation. this paper will look into three types of student participation that have been used in lka/gp and how it has fostered transdisciplinarity. facilitators may foster participation in open class discussions: this is when the facilitator poses questions with the aim of engaging with the ikhaya or village members (welty, 1989). one informant mentions: some methods employed by facilitators to prompt participation in the ekhaya session include presentations whereby students discuss in small groups and give feedback. indepth interview no. 7, june 2012 to facilitate the class discussion the facilitator may arrange chairs in a semicircle or circle so students can engage amongst themselves with the facilitator controlling the session. another method for student participation used by the program is called collaborative learning, in which students work in imizi towards answering umzi group assignments. similarly, (johnson and johnson, 1991; bruffee, 1993) also note that, differences among group solutions often lead to whole-class discussions (villages) during the lecture session. furthermore another method used to improve student participation is “cold-calling” where the facilitator calls out students at random to respond to question. factors such as introvert and extrovert students are taken into account. this may be done by giving a red card to the students who dominate the discussions i.e. who are always participating, giving tasks to giving a voice to the voiceless at fort hare td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 310-322. 319 introverts like scribing or facilitating group discussions. this ensures all students actively taking part in a session or lecture. one of the participants mentions that: facilitators employ different facilitation styles allowing for group discussions and presentations to ensure that reading is taking place and probing critical questions gives the platform for students to freely. these methods have been effective in promoting transdisciplinarity and student participation through their interaction different viewpoints is shared and knowledge is gained from different sources. in-depth interview no. 4, june 2012 another form of student participation in the grounding program entails some team members (facilitators, interns and academic coordinators) being given an opportunity to design the curriculum. although welty (1989) argues that if students sit on curriculum committees their statements are rarely given the same credibility as those of the faculty committee members, and go on to say there is little opportunity for faculty members and students to thoroughly discuss curriculum design and development. never the less, curriculum development process should not bypass the involvement of students. student participation in curriculum development can be traced back to the 13th century (perkins, 2006). in order for the idea of student participation in transdisciplinarity to be realised, the exchange and cooperation of ideas or knowledge by students should be acknowledged for synergy effects, cross-cutting issues to create additional value. secondly students’ participation is to attain the representative legitimacy a move away from the teacher/lecturer dominated oriented environment towards a more empowering social model. student participation is understood as a social process of individual and collective empowerment. in reality this idea has been construed differently in different contexts. a number of models have emerged over previous years reflecting a move towards students’ involvement and participation in curriculum renewal and development (finn, 1989: jenkins, 1995) although student involvement is highly regarded, morrow (1998) identifies some general problems with it such as defining who the stakeholders are, assumptions of homogeneity within each stakeholder (thereby overlooking the idea of power relations amongst the voices). menon (2005) is of the view that student participation creates an atmosphere of openness and trust in universities thus leading to a positive organisational climate. in a similar way, mamashela (2011) notes that students are internal stakeholders or a politically significant constituency of the university therefore need to be involved in governing the university. it is helpful to view the university as an institution composed of internal stakeholders whose views need to be heard and ideas considered transforming antiquated formal hierarchies and disperse power (morrow 1998:386-388, olsen, 2007:32). conclusion the grounding program at the university of fort hare sheds light on transdisciplinary grounding, student participation and involvement, and the integrative quality of a transdisciplinary approach to learning. student participation in transdisciplinarity is embedded in the exchange and cooperation of ideas and knowledge. furthermore the synergy effects supersede mono/interdisciplinarily and consequently cross-cutting disciplines create additional value in the learning process. students have increasingly become involved in the improvement and enhancement of their own learning experience. they are actively involved, garutsa & mahlangu 320 contributing to the development of learning, participating in university decision making processes and 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(1984). the creation of context in joint problemsolving. in b. rogoff & j. lave (eds.), everyday cognition: its development in social context. cambridge: harvard university press. editorial comment since 2002 south africa’s higher education landscape has undergone a number of changes. as a result of a process of mergers introduced by the government, many of the country’s tertiary institutions underwent substantial change. the transformation of the tertiary education sector appears to be an ongoing project. that is how it should be. innovation and change go hand in hand in a sector of education that has the responsibility of training the scientists and technologists of tomorrow. in this edition of td, we publish a position paper by dr frans kamsteeg, a specialist in organization studies of the vu university amsterdam, on the merger process at north-west university. the process started in 2002 when the national government took bold steps to start with the complex integration of the country’s historically white and black institutions of higher learning. for most institutions it has been an encounter in change management that called for exceptional managerial skill. although the processes have been completed on paper there still appears to be a lot of unfinished internal business. dr kamsteeg intends to solicit research support from a number of academics at nwu, as well colleagues at other universities in the country. they will work in collaboration with a number of postgraduate students of the netherlands in a project aimed at understanding what has precisely happened since the university started moving in the direction of a transformed institution. the project will be funded largely from overseas. it is evident that nwu’s management is eager to take note of what the researchers have to say. the project appears to be bold and innovative. for the university it could be of immense value in terms of planning a cohesive sense of togetherness in a changed higher educational environment. moreover, it could also benefit higher education in south africa. most of the country’s tertiary institutions normally share information in an effort at promoting a more efficient higher education system in the country. the project should be of considerable interest for many institutions. towards an understanding of mergers in higher education td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. xi. microsoft word 02 postma ontology is.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(2) december 2013, pp. 206-224. the politics of performative ontology in information systems d postma1 abstract this article argues that information systems (iss) and information system ontologies (isos) are powerful devices that perform reality in profound ways. the development and use of isos are forms of ontological politics through which interests are promoted, identities established and resources distributed. isos are ideological in so far as their political nature is not recognised while serving partial interests. this happens when isos are seen as merely technical, inevitable and natural. a democratic politics of iss and isos is needed in order to make public these political actions. this article aims to create a critical awareness of the ways in which technologies perform reality an d argues that the political agenda must be activated through the opening up of terrains of dissensus and contestation within the technical performances of reality. it provides examples of such ontological politics of technology. keywords: information system ontologies, performativity, technology, politics, contestation introduction technology in general and information technology in particular shape reality profoundly. from this perspective, the anthropocene2 (crutzen & stoermer, 2000) does not simply refer, as the name suggests, to the dominant role of only humans, but rather to the powerful effects of assemblages of which humans are a part and within which they do not necessarily have the first or last say. this is illustrated by and understanding that the unprecedented impact humans have on and beyond planet earth would not be possible without technologies. human abilities to penetrate to the invisible nano-terrain and to explore expanding horizons of outer space and to leave an indelible trace everywhere are mediated and made possible by technologies. in these processes technologies are not simply instruments (intermediaries) through which predefined purposes are achieved but they play an active role as mediators to co-define these purposes (latour, 2002). how we define and experience values, humanity, health, death or work, change through the participation of technologies. technologies are not something that we act on or with, but they have become co-actors that change ends and conceptions of what is good. 1 . dr. dirk postma at attached to the university of johannesburg. email: dpostma@uj.ac.za 2 http://www.anthropocene.info/en/home performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 207 the exponential growth of information technology (it) refers to the expansion and intensification of its reach and effect. this intensification and durability of technology gain momentum through the development of information systems (iss) which draw various technologies together to organise, control and survey people, things and processes (berg, 1999). the fluid globality has created the need to develop ways to translate concepts and taxonomies between iss through the development of ontologies within information systems, information system ontologies (isos). the article argues that technology is not a neutral device simply in the service of efficiency, but a political agent which participates in the promotion of interests, the creation of identities and the distribution of resources. in order to recognise this political role, it has to be realised that politics does not simply refer to the actions of voters and politicians, but to the subtle and profound ways in which social reality itself is shaped. politics is not limited to human interactions through which interests are negotiated, but it extends to the inscription of particular categories, interests and relations within reality, giving it an enduring material existence. political awareness of the role of technologies is necessitated by the powerful ways in which technologies contribute to the irreversible (callon & latour, 1981, p. 301) and immobility (law, 1986, p. 241) of the categories and identities as testified to in the following statement: the information sciences have this century grappled with new ways of configuring, storing and retrieving information, as fundamentally novel as was the printing press in its day…. this new infrastructure has powerful ramifications, comparable to the railroads …. or electricity … infrastructures that respectively accompanied the first industrial revolution and drove the second. because new information infrastructures fundamentally change both work practice and knowledge, they also inscribe a moral order. they do so by allocating resources …. structuring markets … and affecting the rhythm of daily life (bowker, timmermans, & star, 1996, p. 346). this quotation suggests that its, iss and isos play an active political role. close attention should therefore be paid when these technologies shape the very nature of reality beyond their contribution towards human powers, efficiency and comforts. this article points towards this political role of technology and investigates how this could become more open and participatory. this issue of the politics of technology has to be investigated in a transdisciplinary way. it is not just an interdisciplinary approach where different disciplines contribute their insights to the phenomenon. the transdisciplinarity comes to the fore in the ways disciplinary boundaries are transgressed by using theories and concepts developed within a particular discipline in the attempt to address in a holistic way an issue that does not fall within the terrain of any one discipline (kroeze, 2012). this article contributes to transdisciplinarity by transgressing the disciplinary boundaries between political studies, gender studies, information systems, quantum physics, medical research, postcolonial studies and philosophy in an attempt to understand a particular phenomenon. it is shown how insights within one terrain could be used to illuminate issues within another. the basic argument of this article is that iss and isos should be seen as performative devices which organise and structure social reality in particular ways. since isos has such political effects they should become part of overt political processes. one step towards bringing them postma 208 into such processes is by creating an awareness of and by making public the effects of technological interventions. the argument enfolds as follows: the development of isos is located against the background of philosophical ontology in order to identify the ontological assumptions within isos. in order to understand that isos have an effect on reality, realist and instrumentalist conceptions of the relation between isos and reality are contrasted with a performative conception of this relation. it is indicated that such performances are political and that technologies such as isos play an active political role. a notion of the political is developed in order to account for this political role and to see how technology could be brought into overt political interactions. it is argued by means of two examples that terrains of contestation and dissensus should be opened up in order to make public the particular political role played by technologies. information system ontology this section maps some of the ways isos are seen in the literature from the perspective of the relation between notions of ontology and reality. this provides the background for the following section which develops the argument that, however the relation between isos and reality is seen in the literature or in practice, isos perform reality in powerful ways. it is firstly useful to make a number of distinctions that will be clarified and used in the rest of this section. ontology is understood in this article in a philosophical sense as the study of the nature and structure of reality. two conceptions of ontology could be distinguished: realist and instrumentalist (or pragmatist). two kinds of realist views exist: objectivism and social constructivism3. two kinds of ontologies are also found: single and multiple. although these analytical distinctions might not correspond to any particular philosophical ontology or an iso they provide a framework to discuss and compare the different approaches. the dominant philosophical ontology originating from plato is realist, objectivist and singular. it means that ontology describes a reality that exists independently of such description and that there is only one reality. an instrumentalist ontology does not claim that the concepts and categories correspond to an objective reality, but they simply help us to get along in the world. in a strong form the social constructivist ontology claims that reality is constructed through human concepts and categories. the notion of ontology as multiple will be addressed below. the development of isos has become an important project within the development of information systems. the development of many different information systems led to the question about their relationship and about the transferability between them. growing globalisation characterised by the shrinking of time and distance demands harmonisation and translatability between such systems in attempts to avoid fragmentation. the development of isos aims to address the bewildering plurality of information systems through the creation of a meta-language and set of categories which could act as a reference point for the translation of regional (domain specific) languages. through conceptual modelling and the utilisation of appropriate categories, this meta-language promotes translatability and contributes towards harmonious information systems. 3 a social constructivist view of technology (scot) is presented in the volume edited by bijker, hughes and pinch (1987). performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 209 wand & weber (1993, 2004) set the tone for the development of isos by proposing a conceptual modelling of the world where there is a one-to-one relation between the ontological and the grammatical. why are theories of ontology relevant to the information systems field? the answer is that the essence of an information system is that it is intended to be a faithful representation of a world that a human or group of humans perceives (wand & weber, 2004). they utilised philosophical ontology to assist with the classification and to promote the integrity of formal categories such as part-whole relations. ontology also functions mainly as a taxonomy by means of which phenomena in the world could be classified. the assumption is that this classification could be done accurately and definitively. the ontology is based on the distinction between entities (things and properties), relations and processes. the underlying conception of ontology is described by smith (2003): ontology seeks to provide a definitive and exhaustive classification of entities in all spheres of being. the classification should be definitive in the sense that it can serve as an answer to such questions as: what classes of entities are needed for a complete description and explanation of all the goings-on in the universe? or: what classes of entities are needed to give an account of what makes true all truths? it should be exhaustive in the sense that all types of entities should be included in the classification, including also the types of relations by which entities are tied together to form larger wholes. smith (2003) further explains his view as follows: another way of stating this point: it is precisely because good conceptualizations are transparent to reality that they have a reasonable chance of being integrated together in robust fashion into a single unitary ontological system. the fact that the real world itself plays a significant role in ensuring the unifiability of our separate ontologies thus implies that, if we are to accept a conceptualization-based methodology as one stepping stone towards the construction of adequate ontologies, then we must abandon the attitude of tolerance towards both good and bad conceptualizations. for it is this very tolerance which is fated to undermine the project of ontology itself. when compared to the basis distinctions within philosophical ontology, one conception of ontology that transpires here is one that is objectivist, realist and singular. the assumptions are that there is a single reality which the iso represents and that this representation could be done accurately. further ontological assumptions are made such as the existence of clearly definitive natural kinds and a hierarchy of things in the world. smith (2003) reports further that the ideal of a unified ontology is not feasible anymore and the inevitability of domain-specific ontologies should be accepted. isos have now become a more modest field since it does not claim to represent reality as a whole, but only reality within a particular domain. the ideal is, however, still to standardise the domain-specific ontology (concepts, identities, categories and relations). in so far as these domain-specific ontologies are seen as realist, they accept the multiplicity of an objective reality. there are more than one domains which exist independent of our descriptions. the issue of the relation between the different domains remains a question once ontologies are multiplied. postma 210 iso developers and researchers have expressed the difficulties related to the attempts to represent an objective reality complete and accurately (smith, 2003). this applies to both singular and multiple ontologies. one way in which this is resolved is to see ontology as a social construction. in this view no attempt is made to represent an objective reality, but only the reality as experienced and perceived by designers and users. this is particularly the case when ontology is seen as a form of conceptual modelling. according to this view the development of isos consists in establishing a correspondence between the iso and the social reality as seen by the participants. whether single or multiple, the question of the relation between isos and reality could be answered in different ways. the singular realist view assumes that a single reality exists independently of our knowledge representations and that an iso attempts to represent the world as it is as accurately as possible. when seen realistically multiple ontologies limit their representation to a particular domain and accept that another domain may have a different ontology. the larger question of a meta-ontology need not be asked since different realities exist next to each other. a social realist (or constructivist) view sees reality as that which corresponds to the perceptions and experiences of users and does not ask about an objective reality. the relation between the ontology and reality is severed when the iso is seen in an instrumental way as is sometimes the case with the notion of an iso as a form of conceptual modelling of a domain. no ontological claims are made and the ontology is not seen as representing an objective or a social reality in any way. ontology has now become a conceptual tool without any realistic value. ontologies are nothing more than useful devices to map a particular conceptual terrain in order to ensure coherence and consistence of an information system. no reality is attributed to conceptual modelling and classification. such an approach is present in the views of wand & weber who emphasise the taxonomic function of an iso and the fit between conceptual modelling and the perceptions of participants. the purpose is simply to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an is in relation to particular standards and expectations. this concern is mainly pragmatic since it aims at a workable solution of the looming crisis of incompatibility and incongruence. smith (2003) calls this an internal metaphysics which is about 'a correct account of the taxonomical system use by speakers'. this section started with a mapping of different kinds of (philosophical) ontologies. although limited, the account of isos serves to show how they relate to the categories of philosophical ontology as far as the relation between ontology and reality is concerned. it is indicated that isos could be seen as realist, constructivist or instrumentalist and, if realist, they could represent reality as singular or as multiple. the mapping of isos in relation to philosophical ontology is valuable in relation to the way philosophical ontology is developed further in this article. from representation to performativity while realist and constructivist ontologies claim to represent reality in some way, instrumentalist ontologies do not claim any relation to reality since they aim at the more efficient functioning of an is. in all these cases the isos are seen to be neutral. the neutrality of the first two lies in their claim to simply represent reality as it is. the neutrality of the instrumentalist view lies in its claim not to relate to reality in any way. performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 211 in this section it is argued that the neutrality of the first two ontologies cannot be maintained when the relation between ontology and reality is not seen in terms of representation, but in terms of performativity. since performativity also applies to a kind of iso that sees itself in an instrumentalist way, its claim to neutrality can also not be maintained. the central claim developed in this section is that however the relation between isos and reality is seen in the development and use of isos, reality is always being performed in particular ways. it is then argued in the next section that this performance of reality is not politically neutral. the notion of performativity could be traced to austin’s (1962) view of language as action. in contrast to a view of language as representing reality, austin argues that language performs reality. a statement by a marriage official that ‘you are now married’ does not attempt to describe a state of affairs, but it brings the state about. the notion of performativity has gained momentum within the context of gender studies where butler (1993) argues that gender is not a naturally given characteristic of humans, but it is continually being performed. the reality of gender identity is performed through material and embodied actions such as clothing, walking and talking. through such performances the reality of a gender identity is established. this positive4 notion of the performativity (or enactment) of reality has obtained a material focus in barad’s (2007) reading of quantum physics.5 barad (2007, p. 110 ff.) provides a perspective on how reality is enacted through her investigation of the wave/particle duality. she offers a particular interpretation of bohr’s views expressed in his debate with heisenberg about the nature of reality. heisenberg uses the concept ‘complementarity’ to refer to the way in which reality could be described in terms of both waves and particles and ‘uncertainty’ when referring to the status of epistemological claims about reality. in contrast to this bohr typifies reality as ‘indeterminate’ and claims that it only becomes determinate through the intervention of an experimental apparatus. bohr illustrates this point by means of a thought experiment of a particle fired towards a measuring device in order to establish its status. this status is constituted by both the position and momentum of the particle. the experiment illustrates that the status of the particle cannot be established since position and momentum could not be measured simultaneously. while the measurement of position is dependent on a fixed measuring instrument (such as a fixed platform), the measurement of momentum requires a movable measuring instrument. barad concludes: crucially, then, the position and momentum are not simultaneously determinate because they require mutually exclusive experimental circumstances. (barad, 2007, p. 111) the status of the particle could only become determinate through either of the experimental apparatuses. what further complicates the relation between the measurement and a preexisting reality is the realisation that the measuring instrument interferes with the object that 4 it has to be noted that the productive and constructive notion of performativity that is being developed here is different from the critical meaning originating from lyotard (1984). lyotard’s conception has provided important insights into the nature of modernity and the role of managerialism (fournier & grey, 2000; grey & willmott, 2002). other critical views have, however, drawn on the productive notion of performativity in the tradition of butler (alcadipani & hassard, 2010; spicer, alvesson & kärreman, 2009). 5 this appeal to science in an attempt to understand ontology is significant in the light of smith’s (2003) account of the role of science in the development of both philosophical and is ontologies. postma 212 is being measured and that the extent of this interference cannot be established. barad emphasises that the measuring practice makes the measurement determinate. the measured position and momentum do not refer to the position or momentum of the object independent of the measuring instrument as is the case in newtonian physics where ‘objects have individually determinate properties before the act of measurement’ (barad, 2007, p. 111). barad generalises this claim by stating that reality itself does not consist of determinate individual objects since we can’t know something definite about something for which there is nothing definite to know (barad, 2007, p. 118). phenomena are not simply what appears in the human consciousness (as claimed in phenomenology), but they (objects, entities) become determinate through heterogeneous knowledge-making practices. the apparatuses in the thought experiment above contribute to making the status of the particle (position and momentum) determinate. this heterogeneous assemblage, consisting of humans, artefacts, procedures and apparatuses, participates in determining (or enacting) reality. barad emphasises that this view represents a shift from heisenberg’s epistemology of uncertainty to bohr’s ontology of indeterminacy. while we are, according to heisenberg, never certain whether our knowledge practices accurately reflect reality, according to the view of bohr as presented by barad, epistemological certainty and ontological determinacy could be achieved through heterogeneous practices. from insights such as these barad draws conclusions about bohr’s ontology: reality itself is indeterminate and only becomes determinate through heterogeneous practices such as human/apparatus experiments. such heterogeneous assemblages are agents through which reality is enacted (therefore her notion of ‘agential realism’). the production of knowledge and the enactment of reality are relative to the particular heterogeneous assemblage. knowledge does not correspond to an independently existing world, but it is the outcome of such knowledge practices through which this very reality is enacted. knowledge practices do not reflect a pre-existing independent reality, but it participates in the very constitution of the reality. reality does not consist of discrete entities which correspond to our concepts, to the contrary, through the knowledgeand reality-making practices we are able to render reality discrete and definable. the particular way in which reality is made determinate relates to the ontological assumptions and commitments behind, or which emerge from, the heterogeneous practices. the ontological outcomes of such heterogeneous interventions are not the effects of prior ontological assumptions and commitments, but they are rather emergent effects of the heterogeneous assemblage. this account of the way reality becomes (determinate) through heterogeneous assemblages has important implications for the way the relation between isos and reality is to be understood. isos are heterogeneous assemblages similar to the experimental apparatuses. whereas the experimental setup consists of humans and apparatuses, isos consist of humans, systems of classification, conceptual modelling, computer software and hardware, etc. it could then be stated that isos are agents through which reality is performed in particular ways. the relation between isos and reality could therefore not simply be seen in terms of ontological realism, social constructivism or instrumentalism. isos can not be seen as representing a pre-existing (objective or social) reality and they do not act neutrally as performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 213 instruments within reality, but a particular reality emerges from an iso. isos therefore do not represent reality, but intervene in the constitution of reality.6 the powerful and ubiquitous agency of technologies makes them a very strong determinant of a particular reality. while is and iso researchers, developers and users may work with either realist or instrumentalist views of the relation between the iso and reality, isos always perform reality in particular ways. even though iso developers may think that they simply use conceptual categories that correspond to their or to users’ views of the world, they perform a reality that might or might not comprise the same ontological assumptions as those of the participants. even though iso developers and users may think that their concepts and categories correspond with a real underlying reality, they perform a particular reality that may or may not correspond to these concepts and categories. it cannot be established beforehand which reality is being performed. this reality does not coincide with the ontological assumptions of the designers or the users. the notion that technology has agency suggests that the outcome may be unexpected and unintended. the agency of technology means that interests, intentions and purposes shift in unpredictable ways. the multiplicity of reality the argument so far is that that iss and isos perform reality in particular ways. the fact that reality is performed is independent of participants’ views of whether and how they affect or represent reality through the design and use of isos. it is argued in this section that the reality that is being performed is not singular, but multiple.7 if reality is performed by heterogeneous practices, then it is being performed differently through different such practices. such a notion of multiplicity is developed by mol (2002) on the basis of her empirical philosophical investigation into medical practices. in line with the way reality is performed through heterogeneous assemblages as argued above, she shows how different (heterogeneous) diagnostic and treatment practices produce different realities of lower-limb atherosclerosis. it is an error to assume that, since one concept (atherosclerosis) is being used, there must be a single underlying reality. in contrast to such a notion of a singular reality, mol describes how one reality of lower-limb atherosclerosis is performed in the consulting room, another in the pathology laboratory, another in the radiology department, another through an angiograph and still another reality in the operating theatre. the ontological reality of atherosclerosis varies on the basis of ways in which it is produced through different heterogeneous assemblages of people, apparatuses and processes. the practices of clinical and pathological atherosclerosis exclude each other in the sense that they cannot be performed simultaneously. to take one example from mol (p. 35), clinically in the outpatients section physicians talk to patients to establish whether their legs hurt as an indication of the existence of atherosclerosis. this is different from how the pathologist performs atherosclerosis under the microscope (as a heterogeneous assemblage): 6 this contrast between representation and intervention is elaborated on by hacking (1983) with reference to scientific practices. 7 this notion of reality is related to the shift from ‘ontology’ to ‘ontologies’ in isos. postma 214 ‘now there’s your atherosclerosis. that’s it. a thickening of the intima. that’s really what it is’. and then he adds, after a little pause: ‘under a microscope’ (mol, 2002, p. 30). the clinician does not need a microscope to diagnose besides the fact that it is not possible. although the clinical and pathological practices often coincide, there are many cases where they do not. pathology does not answer the question in the clinical situation of what kinds of interventions and prescriptions are required. the clinical diagnosis is done without the pathological one. pathology could only do its work when a leg is amputated or the patient has died. the objects in clinical and pathological practices do not always map on to each other. incompatibilities between the different performances happen when, for example, a patient did not complain of any pain or discomfort in the clinical context, but has died of calcified arteries that could only be seen in the pathology laboratory. reality is enacted in different ways: in the clinical context atherosclerosis is pain when walking, in pathology it is a thick arterial vessel wall. the multiplicity of practices lead to the multiplicity of objects enacted. when we work with a kind of ontology that assumes the singularity of reality, we would assume that a single object exists and that it could be approached by different knowledge practices. the object would be singular, but our practices or perspectives are diverse. in such cases we would harmonise and gloss over the perspectival differences even when objects contradict each other. in contrast to this, an ontology that is based on a notion of multiplicity would recognise that the differences are at times significant and that attempts to harmonise or suppress them may have farreaching consequences for some groups. so what i am trying to relate is not that there are two, five, seventy variants of atherosclerosis, but that there is multiplicity. that as long as the practicalities of enacting a disease are kept unbracketed, out in the open, the varieties of ‘atherosclerosis’ multiply (mol, 2002, p. 51). these heterogeneous agents (such as diagnostic and treatment practices) perform reality in different ways which, in the medical field, results for mol in a ‘body multiple’: we do not have only one body since ‘the same’ body could be different things once ‘it’ is worked on through different practices. these different performances of atherosclerosis does not imply a relativistic fragmentation of realities since comparisons, translations and associations are always possible. there are at times overlaps between the different realities and at other times contradictions which prevent them from being added up to a single reality. there is not one reality as seen in the tradition of philosophical ontology, which we could adequately capture through our concepts and categories. different realities are performed through different heterogeneous assemblages such as medical practices, experimental apparatuses or isos. the arguments of barad and mol could be applied to isos. with barad we can see that reality is performed through technologies such as isos. isos does not and cannot map a preexisting reality since it interferes with the object it wishes to represent. an iso performs a particular kind of reality to the exclusion of other kinds of reality. from mol we gain insights into the variety of iss and isos. the differences between various iss or isos, that are often incompatible and conflictual, should not simply be traced to limited or partial understandings of reality, or to the role of divergent interests or conceptual frameworks. it should rather be traced to the nature of reality itself which only becomes performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 215 determinate through heterogeneous practices such as isos. reality becomes determinate in a particular way through a particular heterogeneous intervention. the version of reality is the outcome of different agents such as the ontological assumptions embedded in an iso and the active role of the iso itself. this understanding, gained from barad and mol, of the ways in which reality is performed as multiple through different isos raises questions of a political nature: what is the relationship between the different performances of reality? which of these performances are better and for whom? who decides which performance should dominate? if some enactments of reality are more powerful than others, what are the implications for those others? if different isos perform reality differently how are identities and resources allocated differently? who is allowed to be part of the world that is created and what place is allocated to the different entities? the politics of technology isos perform reality in ways that are political since they create identities and distribute resources in ways that usually benefit some more than others. this section discusses first the ideology of neutrality within isos and consequently surveys the literature on the political role of technology in general and isos in particular. a conception of the political nature of technology is in sharp contrast to the way in which technology is seen as a neutral instrument in the service of certain purposes (orlikowski & iacona, 2001). latour (2002, p. 255) articulates this as follows: the paradox of technology is that it is always praised for its functional utility, or always held in contempt because of its irritating neutrality, although it has never ceased to introduce a history of enfoldings, detours, drifts, openings and translations that abolish the idea of function as much as that of neutrality. how dare we qualify as neutral the ontological drama of unexpected assemblages of entities which can pass, without a hitch, from zero to infinity? the dominant assumption within the design and development of technologies such as isos is that they mainly contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of organisations. as a consequence the extent to which technologies are implicated in forms of ontological engineering is not adequately realised. this presumption of neutrality is present however the relationship between an ontology and reality is seen. a realist iso is seen to be neutral because it simply represents reality and an instrumentalist iso is seen to be neutral because it simply promotes the ideas of the particular design or use. such presumptions within isos to be (politically) neutral is ideological. it denies how political effects are produced by isos and it hides this very denial. these political effects are already present in the choice of an ontology (ontologies) within isos whether seen in a realist or instrumentalist way. such choices are present within the particular concepts and categories that are being employed and the ways in which relationships are being defined. the presumption that these concepts and categories represent an objective reality hides the way in which they already constitute (perform) the very reality they claim to represent. the political role is furthermore present in the particular reality that is being performed. the political role of technology is the focus of a significant body of research. the performance of reality is related to the underlying or emergent ontological assumptions and postma 216 commitments. the political role of it and the embedded or emergent ontologies is described by bowker: it is clear, in general, that as we create worlds of electronic information which reflect our political economy in all its contradictions, it should be no surprise if the policies that get read out of these worlds should help us shape the world in the image of that political economy again in all its contradictions (bowker, 2000, p. 660). the comments from winner relates to the well-known discussion of the low overpasses which prevented buses (carrying mainly african-americans) to the beaches of long island. the things we call “technologies” are ways of building order in our world. many technical devices and systems important in everyday life contain possibilities for many different ways of ordering human activity. consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or inadvertently, societies choose structures for technologies that influence how people are going to work, communicate, travel, consume, and so forth over a very long time (winner, 1986, p. 5). barry (2001) comments on the political importance of the economic and technological harmonisation during the establishment of the european union. he emphasises in particular the agential role of technologies that exceeds their design and specifications: in its preoccupation with such conventionally ‘political’ actors, political science fails to recognise the political agency of scientific and technical materials. (p. 81) what appears to be a technical matter can become a political event with unexpected ramifications and ‘untechnocratizable consequences. (p. 82) the mutuality of human and technological agency is also present in bijker’s (2006) discussion of a large number of cases to support his conclusion that “all technology is political and all politics is technological”. he argues that a detailed study of technological projects reveals how they are informed by political considerations and how political decisions cannot be understood without a careful study of technologies. the politics of technology has also been described by berg (1998, 1999). in conceptualising the nature of technology, berg engages intensively with social and technological determinist and sociotechnical views. he argues that the political role of technology could not simply be explained through either of these views. social constructivist views locate politics in human interactions and see technologies in the role of realising and enhancing human purposes. technological determinist views, on the other hand, attribute political agency to technology which operates in accordance with an intrinsic logic (such as technological rationality) and imposes this logic wherever it functions. berg (1999) argues that the particular effects of technology could only be established empirically through a careful investigation of emergent processes, agents and purposes. he shows, for example, how recording technologies in medical care fulfils an ‘accumulating’ and ‘coordinating’ function. these functions are apparently neutral because the purposes and outcomes are not pre-determined. they fulfil, however, a political role because they also contribute towards increased surveillance and control, or towards democratic decentralisation of practices. they are, however, never neutral within the dynamism of practices because they are inevitably entangled within the political struggles between interests groups within any practice. in a health information system the realities of ‘psychiatrist’, ‘patient’ and ‘diagnostic’ are being performed in a particular way (bloomfield & mclean, 1996). in the is of a tertiary performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 217 institution, one could trace how the realities of the ‘researcher’ and of the ‘university’ are being performed (scott & wagner, 2003). these problematical entities did not exist in the same way before the implementation of the iss and are clearly an effect thereof. the power of iss ensures the highly irreversible inscription of identities and relations. closer to iss and isos, bowker (2000) illustrates how the designers of a database prefer simple categories and how the entrenchment of these categories structure the world as experienced. there are certain kinds of plants, animals and systems which are charismatic. these in turn create a set of others, entities which are often just as important, but which are overlooked because they do not lead to spectacular science or good funding opportunities (g. c. bowker, 2000, p. 655). thus the world that is explored scientifically becomes more and more closely tied to the world that can be represented by one's theories and in one's databases: and this world is ever more readily recognized as 'the real world' especially when measures can be taken to save only entities which have been named and studied (bowker, 2000, p. 659). it is clear that a database is an agent that not only provides the categories according to which the world is understood, but it also contributes towards the enactment of a particular world. bowker refers to the concept ‘grooving’ to point to the ways in which data structures of databases determine how the world is understood and enacted. hacking (2007) argues a similar point. he describes a ‘looping effect’ which happens when the classification interacts with the people classified. the category ‘multiple personality’ interacted with and performed people as belonging to the category with the result that a wholly new kind of person came into being, the multiple, with a set of memories and a set of behaviours… (hacking, 2007, p. 298). one also finds in hacking (2007, p. 288. 289) a description of the heterogeneous practices and elements through which classifications are effected, such as classification, people classified, institutions, knowledge and experts. this is similar to the heterogeneity of bohr’s human/apparatus assemblages or to isos. although not all these examples are taken from the field of isos, they show how ontological assumptions and commitments are embedded in and emerge from technologies. they also indicate how such technologies play an active role in the distribution of political effects. the implication is that isos have important implications for reality and could never be seen as a neutral description of the world or as merely efficient systems. this politics refers to the potentially problematical ways in which the categories agencies, identities and resources are identified and distributed. the politics of contestation because of these diverse and powerful effects (agency) of technology, it is important to bring it explicitly into the political processes through which the common world is created. the need to make the active role of technology public is necessitated by the fact that technologies exert their power silently and clandestinely (latour, 1994), which is described here as the ideology of neutrality. the political role of technology, or the politics of things (bennet, 2010; latour, 2004a) is not acknowledged in the dominant theories of democracy where politics is seen as an exclusively postma 218 human activity. a brief encounter with deliberative and radical views of democracy helps to show how the politics of technology draws on and goes beyond these humanistic theories of democracy. in the light of the political role of technology we need to reconceptualise democratic politics in such a way that the participation of nonhumans is recognised and made visible. the importance of human-centred discourse, transparency and active participation is developed in the liberal deliberative democracy of theorists such as habermas (1984) and benhabib (1996). democratic politics is an on-going process where legitimacy is based on the following of deliberative processes based on the principles of equality, open debate and the equal opportunity to raise issues and to shape the agenda of the discussion. it requires the establishment of a neutral public sphere and is governed by principles of rationality and neutrality where particularistic interests are overcome. the notion of radical democracy as developed by mouffe (1992) asserts the importance of active political participation in defining and pursuing a common good. it diverts from the liberal notion of democracy which equates it with the maximisation of individual liberties and the devaluation of a common good. democracy is radicalised when the values of equality and liberty inform all spheres of life and when ‘domination can be challenged everywhere’ (mouffe, 1992:238). the political is therefore extended to terrains such as the workplace, culture, entertainment and consumption. in this sense democracy is a way of life that pervades all spheres. mouffe wants to see democracy functioning to challenge the multiple ways through which equality and freedom are denied. the radicalised form of democracy presented by mouffe represents an important development in political theory since it widens the functioning and scope of democracy. the liberal and radical theories of democracy remains, however, limited since they only recognise the active participation of humans in democratic processes. they do not recognise the presence and performative power of agents that are not human which shape the terrain of the political in profound ways. barry (2001, p. 10) shows how the very constitution of a public sphere valued in the liberal view is already technically mediated. this point is also clearly illustrated by suchman’s (1994) discussion of the communicative assumptions embedded in the system developed by winograd and flores discussed below. it is only when the role of nonhumans is taken into account that the meaning of democracy could be radicalised further in terms of an ontological (mol, 1999), or cosmological (latour, 2004b) politics. one way in which technology is democratised through a notion of participatory design (howcroft & wilson, 1999) is important but still limited to the agential role of humans. in order to account for the active role of nonhumans, latour (2004a) has developed heterogeneous democratic politics in terms of due process. this provides a framework for a cosmopolitics within which the issues of inclusivity and stability are accounted for. for the purpose of this discussion and to illustrate how the role of technology could be made public, the view of barry (2001) is drawn upon. barry fully acknowledges the active role of technologies combined with human responsibility. for barry technology is mainly an antipolitical instrument because it reduces controversy and displaces decision to technical bodies and experts such as the processes of standardisation within the european union. it is therefore important for barry that the terrain of the political be activated. in contrast to a definition of politics in terms of the struggle between institutions, political interests and ideologies (p.33), the political is the expanded terrain of participation that radical democracy has opened up. one issue that barry identifies is that it is often not possible to trace the performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 219 origin of important decisions. such decisions are usually deeply embedded in technical details to such an extent that they are rendered ‘non-decisions’. important decisions are often not consciously and explicitly made, but deferred to technical processes and regarded as technical matters. on the basis of his understanding of ontological politics that is deeply embedded within the structure of its and the ways in which everyday reality is profoundly affected, barry (2001) defines the political as the opening up of terrains of contestation. these ‘nondecisions’ have to be made explicit because they shape reality profoundly in a hidden way. the terrain of the political that has to be opened up consists inevitably of dissensus and contestation (barry, 2001, p. 207). this terrain is defined as ‘an index of space of contestation and dissensus’ (barry, 2001, p. 7). what has become deeply embedded in technologies has to be made explicit so that the particular way in which decisions were taken and realities performed, could be made explicit. barry’s comments about iss could be applied to the way in which significant decisions are embedded in isos. isos contribute to the establishment of a certain hegemony, understood in gramscian (2007) terms as the dominance and general acceptance of particularistic interests and ideas of the dominant class. mouffe’s project of radical democracy is now extended to include nonhuman agents. the ways in which reality-performing agencies are embedded within technologies and simultaneously made invisible, should be opened up as terrains of contestation. one way of opening up such contestations is to trace the timing and location of such ‘non-decisions’ in processes such as conceptual modelling or ontological categorisation. within the context of the powerful ontological and political role of technology, it is important that the terrain of the political be established. opening up terrains of contestation two examples closely related to isos are discussed of ways in which terrains of contestation could be opened up. one is a case of categorisation in an is and the other the design of a database. in her article do categories have politics?, suchman (1994) argues that the categories that winograd & flores (1987) used in the design of coordinator determined what could be said as part of the attempt to control speech in an organisation. winograd and flores draw on speech act theory where language is seen as a form of action. from this they devised a formal system of categorisation that aimed to guide the proper and efficient use of language in an organisation. particular intentional categories are used to assist language users to make their intentions clear and their actions more successful. suchman (1994) states that a particular ontology is created where organisational life consists of speech acts. she comments about the political effects of these particular categories: that is to say, systems of categorization are ordering devices, used to organize the persons, settings, events or activities by whom they are employed or to which they refer. non-compliance with the use of a particular category scheme, particularly one imposed from outside, or the adoption of an alternative are in this sense acts of resistance. (p.182) and for management, the machine promises to tame and domesticate, to render rational and controllable the densely structured, heterogeneous texture of organizational life. (p. 185) she points towards the problematical nature of these categories: postma 220 the assumption that "universal" distinctions such as requesting and promising are simple, however, conflates the simplicity of the category with the subtlety and complexity of the phenomenon categorized. (p. 185/6) the performance of this particular reality excludes the performance of one where the interactional and contingent nature of speech is emphasised. a reality is performed where social identities are created in accordance with the predefined categories of intentions. a second example: christie (2008) discusses, within a postcolonial context, how the way databases (with their embedded ontologies) are developed and used to archive biodiversity has exclusionary and oppressive implications. his work is located among the australian aborigines for whom knowledge has a place-bound and narrative nature. the attempts by ethno-botanists to archive their knowledge by means of databases are in conflict with the ways they experience and perform the world. in the process aboriginal knowledge is stripped of its meaning when ordered in the abstract categories of a database. christie comments: [t]here are two completely divergent knowledge traditions here interacting with the same subject matter. the knowledge traditions are at work in two worlds, the world of ethnobotanists who work to enlist traditional knowledge in conservation or development projects, and the world of indigenous people carrying on the ancestral task of making knowledge alive in the new generation, within the ancestral contexts of identity, ownership, custodianship, and accountability. each has its own rules, structures and boundaries. christie points to the incompatibility of categories with references to fundamentally different ways in which plants are seen: but plants, in australian aboriginal cultures, are not so much related to each other as species, but to particular animals, or particular ancestors or clan groups or songs, or ceremonial designs. how particular species of plants are related to each other is much less relevant in aboriginal knowledge work, than how they are related to the rest of the sociomaterial world. sometimes different stages in the lifecycle of a plant or animal, or different genders, have their own names and complex networks of relatedness. the flowers of a particular plant for example, may be related (as a ‘calendar’) to the abundance of a particular food source (fish species, wild honey, or flying foxes) or ceremonial time. it may also be related to a particular ancestral journey bestowing particular rights over particular practices and resources to certain people. it has its value through its extensive connections to people, places, events and entities outside of what we know as the plant world. while the database provides ethno-botanists with the means to capture and organise an increasing volume of data, it undermines the ability of the aborigines in this case to continue with their narrative performance of place. the different heterogeneous performances of reality result in incompatible versions of reality that could become exclusionary and oppressive. these analyses by suchman and christie reveal the ontological assumptions of the iss and the ways in which they perform reality. these performances of reality promote partial interests and exclude others. by describing these particular performances the possibility is performative ontology in information systems td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 206-224. 221 created to open up spaces of contestation. in christie’s case it led towards the development of alternative approaches to databasing.8 conclusion the ontologies embedded in databases and iss are not neutral devices that simply represent an objective, pre-existing world or simply ensure efficient processes and procedures. they perform reality in intended and unintended political ways. the ontologies embedded in and emerging from iss are powerful devices through which reality is performed in very particular ways. in order to make technology part of an overt democratic political process the ways in these reality-performing agencies function, should be made public. such a shift in our understanding from a representational to a performative ontology opens up multiple terrains for the politics of contestation. these terrains have to be opened up whether iss and isos see themselves in terms of realism, constructivism or instrumentalism. an iso is never simply a representation of an existing reality, or simply a conceptual modelling and taxonomy – in all cases a particular reality is performed. by showing that and how iss and isos perform reality this article wanted to create an awareness of the necessity to open up spaces of contestation within areas that are regarded as mainly ‘technical’. it developed a conception of technology as an agent within processes through which identities and relations are created and resources distributed. it has shown that this is the terrain, not only of the political but also of the ontological. such an ontological politics does not only organise relations between people, but also constitutes reality itself. this powerful and mainly invisible work of technology should be made 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(1987). understanding computers and cognition. reading, ma: addison wesley. july 2009 inside book.p65 1 some southern african entry points into global history n parsons* abstract: so-called global history has taken off in the unites states to liberate undergraduates from big power parochialism, and has been the topic of a major conference held in london in may this year. the key element of global studies is to demonstrate the connectedness between different peoples and lands and periods of time. this paper is an attempt to crack the small-end of the egg by starting studies in one familiar region of the world, rather than the big-end approach of starting with general explanations or theory and then relating them back to particulars. it suggests three ways in which southern africa could be used as the starting point to throw more general light upon the world’s history. first, by taking cues from and asking questions about the latest genetic research which suggests that modern human population dispersal about 60 000 years ago began in angola-namibia frontier region. second, by taking cues and asking questions about indonesian contact with africa and coastal settlement that may account for significant influences on southern african societies. third, by tracing the biographies of real individuals whose careers encompass not only southern africa but other parts of the world and in doing so demonstrate not only interconnectedness of cultural, social, political and economic histories but also significant points of comparison in the experience of global trends and events. keywords: global history, deep history, african history, southern africa, dna research, biography, waq-waq, early, middle and late stone age, biography. disciplines: global history, african history, southern african studies, archaeology, globalisation studies, dna studies, biography, anthropology. introduction so-called global history (aka ‘big history’) has taken off in the unites states to liberate undergraduates from big-power parochialism. global modules and the contemporary world issues course at champlain college (vermont) have set the pace in cooperation with colleges in the middleeast etc. through the internet (g scudder 2009; esckilsen 2006). ‘writing the history of the global’ was the theme of a major conference held on 21-22 may this year by the british academy in london (british academy 2009). the key element of global history appears to be to demonstrate the connectedness between different peoples and lands over periods of time. * professor neil parsons, a well-known african historian and author of many academic books and articles, has for many years been a staff member and head of department at the university of botswana in gaberones. his email is: nparsons@mopipi.ub.bw. paper presented on 23 june 2009 at the southern african historical society biennial conference (22-24 june 2009) at the university of south africa’s tshwane sunnyside campus. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. 1-8 2 nineteenth-century ‘universal history’ of the type espoused by winwood reade in cecil rhodes’s ‘bible’, the martyrdom of man (1872) and james frazer in the golden bough (1890) was based on too many inspired guesses. they were guesses that filled the cracks in an impossibly broad range of possible evidence. it was therefore with justification rejected by the early twentieth-century fathers and mothers of modern social/ cultural anthropology. the idea of ‘deep history’ swung back into favour at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the ‘emerging synthesis’ of ‘[r]apidly accumulating information and new theoretical perspectives in population genetics, historical linguistics, and archaeology … coming together at last to tell a consistent story of the ancient human past’ (jones 2003: 502). this paper is an attempt to crack the small-end of the egg, by initiating studies of the global in one familiar region of the world, rather than the big-end approach of beginning with general explanations or theory and then relating them back to the particular. it suggests three ways in which southern africa might be used as the starting point to throw more light upon the world’s big and deep history. genes and ‘deep history’ our first entry point is through the very beginnings of the history of modern humanity – by ‘exploring connections between culture areas, genes and languages’, identified by doug jones (2003) as ‘deep history’. we have long suspected that humans originated in eastern africa. genetic research has suggested our common matrilineal ancestor, or african eve, can be traced back to eastern africa about 100,000 years ago – and that our common patrilineal ancestor, or african adam, can be dated somewhat earlier. the most conspicuous dna research has been publicized through the genographic project funded by the u.s. national geographic society and ibm and led by spencer wells (pennisi 2005). but the most exciting recent research has been led by sarah tishkoff. dna studies led by wells and more recently tishkoff (2007) have identified the hadza people of tanzania as being the modern group most directly descended from our ancestors at the time of african eve in about 70,000 bp (before present). but other research has identified a ‘population bottleneck’ after about 70,000 bp, when the total human population appears to have been reduced to just a few thousand people – from whose descendants the world was colonized after 60,000 bp. the reason for the radical reduction of population appears to have been the explosion in about 75,000 bp of the toba super-volcano in sumatra (indonesia) which blanketed the global atmosphere in thick dust. the resulting ‘nuclear winter’ radically reduced world temperatures and rainfall, stopped plant photosynthesis, and dried up the east african lakes into mere puddles (pease 2005). the really exciting aspect of this dna research for southern africa in just the past couple of months, is that tishkoff’s team has identified the modern population who are the most direct ancestors, those from whom the post 60,000 bp world population sprung. they are people who live on the angolan-namibian frontier (tishkoff et al. april 2009). this implies that the dispersal of the modern human population across the world about 60,000 years ago began in the angolan-namibian frontier region, and parsons 3 spread from there over the eastern african highlands into asia. simply put, the original three genetic groups of humankind identified by dna correspond to ancestors of three of the four present-day language families of africa: (i) khoesan language-speakers located in southern and eastern africa; (ii) niger-kordofanian or niger-congo languagespeakers located in central and west africa; and (iii) afro-asian languagespeakers spreading from eastern africa. they have given rise to the rest of humankind (tishkoff et al. april 2009). (the fourth present-day african language family, that of nilo-saharan, appears to be as yet unexplained genetically, although prima facie it is intermediate between afro-asian and niger-kordofanian language families.) the work by tishkoff and her team raises fascinating questions, in addition to those of genetics, about the universal human heritage evident at archaeological sites in the angola-namibia frontier region. for instance, the extremely rich middle stone age (howieson’s poort industry) site at =/gi pan near the aha hills on the northern namibia-botswana border has been dated to roughly that period by both tl (thermoluminescence) dating of 77ka+/-11 and eggshell protein diagenesis of 75ka+/-10 (brooks 1977 & 1990). much more controversially, in the same geographical area, the =/gi dating has also been suggested for the giant snake sculpture inside rhino cave at tsodilo hills (coulson 2006). these sites pose questions about what it means be homo sapiens. archaeologists have for years vied over finding material evidence of particular moments when early modern people, in this or that place, invented or discovered art and decoration, belief and religion, etc. south africa takes great pride in the decorated pieces of red ochre found in blombos cave on the south coast that are dated to around 77,000 bp (henshilwood 2002; 2006: 81). but alison brooks, who has excavated in east as well as southern africa, cautions against sudden blinding epiphanies and suggests that the change from middle to later stone age society was generally gradual (though remote areas such as the southern cape may be an exception) and was completed by the 30,000 bp date when secure carbon-dating begins (brooks 1990; mcbrearty & brooks 2000; brooks & yellen 2005). though it has long been obvious to linguists, it has taken considerable time for geneticists (particularly those engaged in u.s. medical research which relied on one ‘yoruba’ haplotype to cover all people of african ancestry) to recognise that africa has the greatest genetic complexity of any continent. this implies that there are many more twists and turns in africa’s genetic heritage that await explanation. to the north of the angola-namibia frontier there is the pygmy puzzle. twa or pygmy people are genetically related to khoesan people; they may also be the pioneers of the niger-congo language family. to the south, the genetic heritage of khoesan-speaking people and their descendants is more complex than previously assumed. in south africa, there is a big gap to be filled in the anatomical record between middle stone age, physically robust people and those of the later stone age who were of more gracile build and (as we know) spoke southern san languages. research advances in more or less dialectical fashion, as one researcher modifies or challenges or even contradicts another. but historians should keep a weather eye on current research on ‘deep history’ because (a) it td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 1-8. some southern african entry points into global history 4 has fundamental relevance to who we are as human beings, and how we are all related, with emphasis on the significance of evidence found in southern africa; (b) the research raises very pertinent questions about how to relate archaeological, genetic and linguistic evidence in relation to received oral traditions – notably what has until now been taught in schools; (c) the latest research findings can convey the scholarly excitement of new discoveries to students who may well have become sceptical of the value of history by the dreary rote teaching of fixed truths. wacky theories and the waq-waq the contribution of indonesian or malay slaves from java and neighbouring islands to south african population history, language and religion is relatively well-known. however, to my knowledge there is no research centre dedicated to their study in a south african university. even less familiar, or relegated simply to the history of madagascar and off-shore islands, is the history of non-muslim indonesian or malay settlers from north borneo, referred to in early islamic sources as waqwaq or wak-wak. research into ‘ancient’ and ‘medieval’ connections between africa and asia have been muddied by scholarly reaction against nineteenthcentury european racist theories of the african past – which argued that anything good or clever in negro or bantu africa must have come with settlers from asia or from north of the sahara. such wacky theories have persisted even today, notably in attributing the ‘medieval’ stonewalled ruins of southern africa to the genius of ancient people from lebanon, israel, arabia, or india. in consequence, historians have maybe become a bit too dismissive of genuine pieces of evidence. i refer here in particular to the imperfectly reconstructed stories of the lemba and to the waq-waq. dna studies have shown (what lemba have always claimed) that a significant number of lemba men in the limpopo province of south africa bear a typically jewish y-chromosome or ‘cohen gene’. and they are related to a string of similar small communities of vashimbadze (ancient traders) dotted sparingly along a route that stretches from the limpopo through zimbabwe and malawi to the tanzanian coast. their origin seems to be from the hadramaut of the yemen, where many muslims today probably also carry the ‘cohen gene’. no doubt the vashimbabze were drawn southwards by the eighth to fourteenth century gold trade of zimbabwe. they were probably also pushed out of yemen by sunni persecution of shi’ite muslims and jews (thomas, parfitt, et al. 2000). but, no, they did not build great zimbabwe, which has dry-stone walling very different from yemen and the east african coast (garlake 2002). whatever their story, the lemba and similar groups provide a fascinating window into the remote past at a time when the indian ocean was the very centre of global trade. the coming of the waq-waq long pre-dated the conversion to islam of persian and arab traders along the east african or zanj coast, who referred to them dismissively as unclean pig-keepers. the timing of waqwaq arrivals on the zanj coast, and their coastal settlements, if any, are as yet unknown to archaeology. but connections between africa and asia can be seen as early as 2350 bc in the adoption of african sorghum in parsons 5 indus valley agriculture (sinclair 2006: 154), as well as african watermelons and cotton, and the spread of agriculture-associated p. falciparum malaria out of africa that might well have been even earlier. south-east asian chickens reached zanzibar by 850 bc, and indonesian-malaysian (originally new guinean) bananas were being eaten in cameroon around the same date. the (still undiscovered) port of rhapta on the zanj coast was supplying the himyaritic kingdom of yemen with ‘a great quantity of ivory’ in the early centuries ad. the waq-waq sailed in large-capacity, leather-sewn boats with woven sails or in out-rigger sailing canoes and rafts. their impact on african culture seems to have been considerable. they or other asians brought with them to africa domestic pigs and chickens, bananas and sugarcane, and two asian species of yam. pollen evidence of such imported plants on the island of madagascar dates from 550 bc. the waq-waq introduced the indonesian xylophone (thumb-piano) to africa, and may also have been responsible for the introduction of double-valve bellows and the rotating bow-drill, suggesting their involvement in metallurgy and carpentry. the historian christopher ehret (2002: 188-89) posits that the waq-waq may have been induced by commercial opportunities to settle around rhapta on the northern tanzania coast, before the downturn in world trade caused that port-city to ‘disappear’. alternatively, they may have been attracted somewhat later, during the upturn in world trade that preceded the rise of islam in the seventh century, settling around the coast of northern mozambique. by that time they had also begun to settle across the mozambique channel in madagascar, where the earliest known malagasy artefacts date from about 650 ad. mozambiquemadagascar contacts are confirmed by the fact that the name zimba (leopard folk) is given both to malagasy people of african descent and to mozambican-malawian people in seventeenth century portuguese sources. the rise of zimbabwe gold exports from the central mozambique coast from about the eighth century attracted muslim traders. inevitably these traders came into conflict with the pagan waq-waq who were apparently expelled from the coastal area. however, there appears to have been a second wave of settlers from indonesia, who arrived in madagascar in about 1100ad and renewed attacks on the muslims along the zanj coast.1 history from the side: historical biographies you have heard of history from above, and history from below. now there’s history from the side: historical biographies. they offer small sidelights that can fill in the human features of the past, a past left dark by top1 using the evidence of batibo (1996) and finalyson (2006: 131) about the close relationship between sotho-tswana/ nguni language with the makhua language of the southern tanzania coast, combined with the timing of renewed waq-waq attacks and of shona migrations down to the central mozambique coast, i have suggested (parsons 2008) an alternative explanation of tswana/ nguni origins around the 12th century to the huffman (2004) and hammond-tooke hypothesis of such origins around lake tanganyika. td, 5(1), july= 2009, pp. 1-8. some southern african entry points into global history 6 lights and footlights. individuals both make and are made by history, and their biographies can be compared to the ‘black boxes’ found after an air-crash which help investigators to reconstruct the bigger picture of how the aircraft was performing as it made its way to its destination. in sociological terms, biographies are the situational analyses that plot the networks that connect societies together in the vortices of time and space.2 biographies are often (and should be so) more readable than conventional historical texts. (nelson mandela once expressed the ambition to read all the biographies he could after retirement.) they naturally take the narrative form, stolen by novelists, of tracing human foibles from birth through the trials of life to death. the idea of ‘biography’ has even been purloined by historians such as peter ackroyd, author of london: the biography (2001), who want to treat their subject as an organic whole with a life of its own. the biographies of people whose careers encompass not only southern africa but other parts of the world, can enable us to see and feel the inter-connectedness of cultural, social, political and economic histories. they can also offer significant points of comparison in the experience of global trends and events. there have been many biographies of people whose careers link southern africa with the rest of the world. we need more biographies that link south africa across borders with the rest of the continent. (however, this genre may be overworked in one respect: i scream inwardly when in a bookstore i see yet another white settler autobiography set in colonial zimbabwe.) here i should confess that the biographical form particularly appeals to a historian like me who likes to accumulate a plethora of odd facts around a subject, and then tries to deduce patterns that link them and bring the past alive in one’s mind. i greatly enjoyed the research over many years in many countries for my latest book, a historical biography published by jacana earlier this month (parsons 2009a). i hope that the book reads as well. bibliography ackroyd, peter (2001) london: the biography london: random house batibo, herman (1996) the role of language in the discovery of cultural history: reconstructing setswana speakers’ cultural past gaborone: university of botswana, professorial inaugural lecture, march 1996 brooks, a.s. & j.e. yellen (1977) ‘archaeological excavations at =/gi: a preliminary report on the first two field seasons’ botswana notes and records, vol. 9, pp. 21-30 brooks, allison s. & 5 others (1990) ‘dating pleistocene archaeological sites by protein diagenesis in ostrich eggshell’ science, vol. 248, 6 april 1990, pp. 60-64 2 i owe this point to my sometime mentor prof. jaap van velsen at the university of zambia, one of the rhodes-livingstone (lusaka) school of social anthropologists who founded network theory in the 1950s-60s. parsons 7 brooks, alison s. & john e. yellen (2005) ‘the middle stone age of east africa: new discoveries from ethiopia, kenya and tanzania’ abstract of paper no. 9 & unverified notes by neil parsons on oral presentation at 12th congress of the pan-african archaeological association for prehistory and related studies, gaborone, 4-6 july cunliffe, barry, chris gosden & rosemary a. joyce, eds. (2009) introduction, pp. xiii-cvii in the oxford handbook of archaeology oxford: oxford university press ehret, christopher (2002) the civilizations of africa: a history to 1800 charlottesville: university press of virginia esckilsen, erik (2006) ‘closing the distance: an innovative online program brings u.s. and international students together as global classmates’ champlain view, spring 2006, pp. 19-22 finlayson, rosalie (2006) ‘linguistic relationships: how genetic are they?’ chap. 9, pp. 125-38 in soodyall, himla prehistory of africa: tracing the lineage of modern man johannesburg & cape town: jonathan ball publishers garlake, peter (2002) early art and architecture of africa oxford: oxford university press (history of art series) huffman, thomas n. (2004) ‘the archaeology of the nguni past’ southern african humanities, vol. 16, dec. 2004, pp. 79-111 jones, doug (2003) ‘kinship and deep history: exploring connections between culture areas, genes and languages’ american anthropologist, vol. 105, no. 3, pp. 501-514 mcbrearty, sally, & alison brooks (2000) ‘the revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior’ journal of human evolution, vol. 39, pp. 453-563 parsons, neil (2008) ‘south africa in africa more than five hundred years ago: some questions’ chap. 3, pp. 41-54 in swanepoel, esterhuysen & bonner, eds. five hundred years rediscovered [the maps of figs. 3.1 on p.42 & 3.2 on p.46 have been incorrectly transposed in printing] parsons, neil (2009a) clicko the wild dancing bushman cape town: jacana media parsons, neil (2009b) ‘for richer, for poorer: historical reflections on east and southern parts of africa’ in james robinson & jared diamond, eds. natural experiments in history (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, in press) pennisi, elizabeth (2005) ‘private partnership to trace human history’ science 15 april 2005, vol. 308. no. 5720, p. 340 pikirayi, innocent (2009) ‘the archaeology of sub-saharan africa’ chap. 24 pp. 723-762 in barry cunliffe, chris gosden & rosemary a. joyce, eds. the oxford handbook of archaeology oxford: oxford university press soodyall, himla, ed. (2006) the prehistory of africa: tracing the lineage of modern man johannesburg & cape town: jonathan ball publishers td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 1-8. some southern african entry points into global history 8 swanepoel, natalie, amanda esterhuysen & philip bonner, eds. (2008) five hundred years rediscovered: southern african precedents and prospects (500 year initiative conference proceedings, 2007) johannesburg: witwatersrand university press tishkoff, sarah & 11 others (2007) ‘history of click-speaking populations inferred from mtdna and y chromosome genetic variation’ molecular biology and evolution, vol. 24, no. 10, 26 july 2007, pp. 2180-2195 tishkoff, sarah & 24 others (2009) ‘the genetic structure and history of africans and african americans’ science, vol.324, 22 may 2009, pp.1035-1044 thomas, mark g., tudor parfitt, & 6 others (2000) ‘y chromosomes travelling south: the cohen model haplotype and the origins of the lemba—the “black jews of southern africa” american journal of human genetics, vol.66, issue 2, feb.2000, pp. 674-86 webliography british academy, the uk’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences at http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/2009/globalhistory/index.cfm (accessed 2009.06.26). coulson, sheila (2006) ‘world’s oldest ritual discovered?’ at w w w . s c i e n c e i n a f r i c a . c o . z a / 2 0 0 6 / d e c e m b e r / r i t u a l s . h t m (accessed ) pease, roland (2005) ‘ancient drought changed history’ bbc news weds 7 dec 2005, 01:39 gmt at <http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/ nature/4505516/6.stm> (accessed 15 nov. 2006 g scudder, (2009) global modules. the champlain college modules project: initiating international discussion at globalmodules.blogspot.com (accessed 2009.06.26). parsons microsoft word 13 nealer & betram lindley water.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, 241-252. municipal management and geo-hydrological aspects of importance in the potable water supply of lindley ej nealer1 and we bertram2 abstract when the south african government in 1998 re-demarcated its 283 municipalities so that they completely cover the country in a “wall-to-wall” manner, their main focus was on growing local economies and maintaining the provision of an increased number of diverse and more complex basic municipal services to new geographical areas consisting of millions of citizens who might previously had been neglected. in most of the instances the newly established and merged municipalities were demarcated according to geographical aspects inherited from the previous political dispensation, historical municipal areas and magisterial district farm names. the fact that these municipal government jurisdictions for the purpose of improving co-operative municipaland integrated water resources management (iwrm), in most instances do not correspond with environmental and physical land features such as the demarcated surface water (rivers) drainage regions’ boundaries, could lead to the ineffective, inefficient and non-economic municipal management of water, sanitation and environmental services. the aforementioned is a case with reference to water services management in the free state province town of lindley located in the vals river catchment and the nketoana local municipality’s area of jurisdiction. an extensive literature review, the use and study of geographic tools such as maps, orthophotos and information data bases, as well as two field visits to the area, enabled the researchers to identify the essential geographical, geo-hydrological and municipal management aspects of importance for the potable water service providers and managers in the lindley municipal area. the researchers argue that effective trans-boundary municipal management through simunye-type co-operative governance and iwrm must be facilitated in the vals river surface water catchment between the respective localand district municipalities for the benefit of the lindley, arlington, steynsrus and kroonstad communities. key words: municipality; co-operative governance; integrated water resources management; surface water catchment; municipal area; geo-hydrology; municipal governance; potable water. introduction when the south african government in 1998 re-demarcated its 283 municipalities (rsa, 1998: section 21) in such a manner that they cover the whole country, their main focus has been the facilitation of effective and sustainable developmental municipal management. their main aim has been the improvement of basic municipal services such as formalised municipal basic services (e.g. safe potable water, effective refuse removal and environmental health) to 1. prof. ej nealer, prof eric nealer, public administration & management, unisa, pretoria. email correspondence: nealee1@unsa.ac.za. 2 . department of water affairs, pretoria. nealer & bertram 242 all the residents of the newly demarcated municipal areas. some of the geographical areas consist of millions of citizens who had previously been and possibly now, neglected. in most instances the newly established and merged municipalities were demarcated according to geographical aspects inherited from the previous political dispensation, historical municipal areas and magisterial district farm names. fuggle and rabie (2005:315) are of the opinion that the surface water catchment regions, demarcated by department of water affairs (dwa) according to the surface water divides, should be utilised as area delimiter for geographical planning purposes. they also pointed out that the omission of this planning tool in the demarcation process of the new municipal areas of a developing south africa could lead to ineffective, inefficient and non-economic municipal management of basic services. the researchers are of the opinion that some of the major reasons for the unrests, protests and general dissatisfaction with basic service delivery in many municipal areas is due to the lack of co-operative governance regarding effective basic public services delivery in most of the municipal areas. furthermore, with reference to water services, there are no signs of integrated water resources management (iwrm) being realised in the areas. in order to prove this hypothesis, a typical northern free state municipal area (lindley) was identified. a literature review, maps study, and field visits to the town area were deployed to identify essential geographical, municipal management and geo-hydrological aspects of importance for the facilitation of developmental local governance in the lindley area. see figure 1 for a locality map of the town and the vals river surface water catchment area. subsequently, conclusions were drawn on the nature and extent of basic water services and its management in the lindley municipal area. based on the aforementioned, recommendations are also made on the rendering of public service delivery by the local government institution in its geographical area of responsibility. background and problem statement lindley is a small northern free state province town located on the southern bank of the vals river. a weir built across the river next to the current water purification works has created a five-kilometer stretch of deep water that is ideal for angling, boating and swimming. the settlement was established on the farm brandhoek in 1875 and proclaimed a town in 1878. the town was named after reverend daniel lindley, an american presbyterian missionary, regarded as the first missionary of the great trek (1836) (lindley, 2007: online). tourist attractions in lindley include a british memorial in the local cemetery for british soldiers who died on 31 may 1900 at yeomanry hills, prehistoric stone huts of the original inhabitants of the area as well as a miniature replica of the dutch reformed church that was erected in 1928 in memory of those who died during the second anglo-boer war. lindley, together with the towns of reitz, arlington and petrus steyn, has since the promulgation of the local government: municipal demarcation act 27 of 1998 and the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000, formed part of the nketoana local municipality (head office located in reitz) which is situated in the thabo mofutsanyane district municipality’s geographical area of responsibility (head office located in phuthaditjhaba). lindley is the first town located close to the head waters and source of the vals river catchment. see figure 1 for some geographical information on the location of this geo-hydrological aspects of importance for lindley’s water supply td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 241-25218. 243 surface water catchment and lindley in relation to, for example, steynsrus and kroonstad which are located further downstream and which are also dependent on the river source: f i g u r e 1 : v a l s r i v e r c a t c h m e n t a n d m u n i c i p a l b o u n d a r i e s ( s o u r c e : g p m c o n s u l t a n t s , 2 0 1 2 ) . figure 1 reveals that the demarcating boundary between the thabo mofutsanyane and fezile dabi district municipalities does not take into account any natural features such as mountain ranges, surface water catchments or major landmarks. it merely follows the historical demarcation of magisterial districts and topo-cadastral farms. this method of identification and demarcation of the current municipalities’ geographical area of responsibility tendency has been a common approach utilised with the re-demarcation of municipal areas since 2000. over the past eight years, the residents in towns such as lindley, arlington, senekal, steynsrus and kroonstad in the northern free state province have experienced improved basic municipal services such as on-site drinking water, water-based sanitation and the fitting of solar heating geysers in thousands of newly established households. these positive changes have been as a result of, inter alia, the anc-led government’s attempts to facilitate effective developmental local government (promotion of economic and social development of the society through democratisation and transformation of local governance (van der waldt et al., 2014:21) and the masibambane water services sector support programme in the free state province (dwaf, 2005: online). consequently, the residents’ basic needs became sophisticated. unfortunately, this has taken place in areas which are hampered by regular droughts, where the rivulets and “spruite” in the province have stopped flowing, and the groundwater levels are dropping which are evidence of the termination of spring-flows in the area (brits, 2012: interview). nealer & bertram 244 the purpose of this research was to obtain a “snapshot” of the nature and extent of potable water supply in lindley and the general municipal management of the particular public water related services such as water purification, storm water collection and sewage treatment. in other words, the origin of the area’s drinking water, the management thereof, and the destiny of the used water were identified and described as research foci in an attempt to deploy improved municipal management and co-operative governance to bring about and facilitate an effective integrated water resources management (iwrm). thompson (2006:162) defines iwrm as “a process which promotes the co-ordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems”. specific municipal management aspects of importance lindley’s old town area has a small central business district on the eastern side of the senekal to petrus steyn tarred road (r707) which is surrounded by the urban free-standing housing of a typical free state town. approximately 372 municipal serviced residential stands for businesses and 750 houses for the residents have been catered for in this area. f i g u r e 2 : l i n d l e y l o c a l i t y m a p ( s o u r c e : d e p a r t m e n t o f l a n d a f f a i r s , 1 9 8 7 ; a d d i t i o n s b y a u t h o r s , 2 0 1 2 ) . key to the map: bh1 to bh10: groundwater abstraction boreholes of municipality res1 to res2: water reservoir dam1 and dam2: water storage dams next to vals river sw1: sewage works rd1: refuse dumpsite new township: ntha with services potable water and sanitation stands geo-hydrological aspects of importance for lindley’s water supply td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 241-25218. 245 the new town area (ntha) is situated on the western side of the senekal to petrus steyn tarred road (r707) and expands to the kroonstad and bethlehem main road (r76). in this area the municipality caters for 3318 serviced residential stands for approximately 30 000 residents – approximately 7 persons per home. an additional 970 stands with limited municipal services are also catered for (housing department, 2012). see figure 2 for an exposition of the expanding town area and its development: lindley has a regional town office: nketoana local municipality which is situated in the centre of town and staffed with municipal officials responsible for roads, storm water, potable water, sanitation and financial issues. the office is managed from the nketoana local municipality’s office in reitz (69 km away) where public policy implementation instructions, monitoring, reporting and evaluation are managed through effective communication media. through, for example, the aforementioned organised structure, a municipality is expected to share and benefit from effective co-operative governance from the involved actors (roleplayers, stakeholders and influential individuals). this entails the incorporation of the collective and integrated synergies between the embedded environmental, economic viability (including technology), and social equity (including culture and politics) systems which are underpinned by or grounded in the facilitating system of governance and specifically, cooperative governance in a holistic quest for effective public decision-making and policy implementation (glasson & wood, 2009). integrating environmental considerations into sectoral policy and activities remains a key challenge for effective co-operative governance as a vehicle to facilitate sustainable development. civil society enterprises and public sector institutions also need to be identified, strengthened and linked in synergetic partnerships to enhance their ability to, inter alia, monitor government spheres and to interact on a more equal footing with role-players such as the private sector and representative stakeholders from affected communities. however, the three sectors require considerable education and awareness-raising with regard to an understanding of sustainable development and the implications for more effective public policy making and implementation. a significant aspect to the aforementioned objectives of co-operative governance is the existence of effective organisational arrangements (internal and external) of which two-way communication is first and foremost. this should lead to higher levels of visibility, transparency, access and willingness by committed actors to become involved and participate actively in holistic and synergised group attempts of service delivery and sustainable development per se (nealer & naude, 2011). research has shown that it was, and still is, difficult to work collaboratively and the efforts required to implement co-operative governance are problematic. specific geo-hydrological management aspects of importance geologically, the lindley area is predominantly underlain by sandstones of the beaufort group. this group forms the upper layers of the karoo super group (sacs, 1980). the groundwater conditions of any particular area depend mainly on the geology. this aspect will be discussed followed by its relevance to the geo-hydrology of the area. the basin in which the karoo super group was deposited started developing about 300 million years ago when the area was in the grip of an ice age – the deposits formed during this period are called the dwyka group. as the ice receded, an extreme wet climate ensued and the plant material, which later became the extensive coal deposits, was laid down and the nealer & bertram 246 rocks formed the ecca group. the climate started drying and the beaufort group was deposited. deposits formed under such a climate are coarse grained which can be seen in the soils in the vicinity of lindley. the sand grains are not bound strongly. this is observed by how easily the rocks erode. a further drying out of the climate led to aeolian deposits called the clarens formation. the most spectacular place where this formation can now be observed is the golden gate national park in the eastern free state. the deposits of the karoo super group were ended by massive outflows of lava, which built the lesotho highlands. together with this outpouring there were also many intrusions of molten rock into the rocks of the karoo super group. the ecca group was prone to these molten dolorite intrusions. the vertical intrusions are called dolorite dykes and the horizontal intrusions dolorite sheets. the kroonstad geological map (geological survey, 1986) shows no dykes in the vicinity of lindley but a few dolerite sheets do occur in the area. contrary to the widespread belief, groundwater in this area does not occur in underground rivers and lakes but is stored in interstices in the rocks as they are formed or in interstices developed after the rocks have consolidated (bertram, 2013: interview). the kroonstad hydrogeological map (dwa, 2000) shows that the lindley area has a “low groundwater development potential”, i.e. 80% of the boreholes yield small volumes of water (between 0.5 to 2 l/s [litres per second]). for an interpretation of the issue around “low development potential” see text box 1 below: t e x t b o x 1 source: (baran, 2000). the first report on professional groundwater investigations for the water supplies of the town area of lindley appeared in 1969 (kok, 1969). the issue was evidently investigated intensively and scrutinised up to 1979 (i.e. temperley (1970); kruger and hofmeyer, (1971); anon, 1973a; anon, 1973b; and leskiewicz (1979)). throughout these investigations, the surface water option (utilising the vals river, spruite and rainwater harvesting) was suggested as the feasible and sustainable one (not the investigation and development of groundwater sources). this is probably the reason why the main agricultural activities in the area are stock, cattleand sheep farming and fairly extensive dry-land cropping. no big-scale irrigation activities from surfaceor groundwater are visible on google earth images. leskiewicz (1979) made two recommendations, i.e. to concentrate primarily on surface water supplies and as a last groundwater possibility, to drill boreholes to depths of between 150 and 200 m (metres) to possibly strike additional small water bearing fractures. this conclusion is low development potential (a3, b3, c3 & d3): enough water for either hand and /or wind pumps, i.e. small supplies for small communities and /or stock watering or single households can easily be achieved. additional groundwater for community gardening or other poverty alleviation actions will be available. at the high-end of the yield range, larger communities from single boreholes and well fields supplying large communities would be possible. however, due to large variability in borehole yields, an appreciable number of boreholes will have to be drilled to obtain a yield at the highend of the range. pumping at 2 l/s for 8 hours per day, for 2000 persons, @ 25 l/day can be supplied comfortably. geo-hydrological aspects of importance for lindley’s water supply td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 241-25218. 247 also supported by what is shown on the kroonstad hydrogeological map and its interpretation shown in text box 1. f i g u r e 3 : t i m e f l o w d u r a t i o n c u r v e ( h y d s t r a : 2 0 1 3 a ) the only possible surface water source in the lindley area is the vals river which flows past the town from east to west. the river water-flow characteristics registered at the flow gauging station c6h009 located at lindley (vals river: latitude -27.87250000, longitude 27.91416667) are shown in figures 3 and 4. from figure 3 it can be seen that between 9 october 2012 and 3 july 2012 the river only had water flowing in it 50% of the time. f i g u r e 4 : t i m e v o l u m e c u r v e ( h y d s t r a : 2 0 1 3 b ) figure 4 depicts the flow volumes per time period over the same period registered in figure 3. from the graph one can see that while the river had some water flowing in it, for almost 80% of the time, it only flowed at a yield of 3 m3 / second (cubic metre per second). this figure should be evaluated against the water needs of the downstream located towns of lindley, steynsrus and kroonstad. 0 20 40 60 80 100 department of water affairs hyflow v169 output 08/01/2013 time weighted surface water discharge duration curve. surface water discharge in cubic metres/second, instantaneous values. interval 1 days percentage of samples equalled or exceeded site c6h009 vals @ lindley 09/10/2002..03/07/2012 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000 0 20 40 60 80 100 department of water affairs hyflow v169 output 08/01/2013 flow weighted yield curve. surface water discharge in cubic metres/second, instantaneous values. interval 1 days percentage of total flow from discharge rates equal or exceeding site c6h009 vals @ lindley 09/10/2002..03/07/2012 0.1 1 10 100 1000 nealer & bertram 248 the extensive use of off-channel water storage dams (two for lindley, one for steynsrus as well as one large dam for kroonstad) is an indication of the dire need for water along the whole flow trajectory of the vals river. the capture of water into the off-channel storage dams for lindley takes place whenever the river flows. according to the potable water meter readings information obtained from the water services development plan (2011), the lindley town area’s average water consumption in 2011 was 60 kl/day. this calculates at 20 litres of water / person / day. very strict potable water restrictions have been enforced since 1 july 2012 in the lindley town area to the effect that water is only available in the reticulation network each day between 06:00 to 09:00 and 18:00 to 21:00 (labuschagne, 2012: interview). the costing of the potable water is as follows: 0 – 10kl = r5-56/kl 10 – 15kl = r8-70/kl 15 – 20kl = r11-86/kl (nketoana local municipality, 2013). according to labuschagne, there is a revenue collection rate of at least 60% of all houseand building-stand owners. these exclude theft and loss of potable water as contributor to the level of “unaccounted for water” (uaw) in the town area (2012: interview). during a data collection visit to the town area the following general facts and impressions were collected from six residents: • they do not understand the layout and tariff scale of the water billing accounts; • they do not know or understand the origin of the town’s potable water; • they observe the old town area “dying out” and the new town area expanding fast; and • they have no knowledge about or understand the destiny of the town’s used water. (researcher, aug 2012: informal interviews). with reference to figure 2, the following geo-hydrological, municipal and community development aspects of importance must be noted: • approximately 90% of the town’s potable water is obtained from the surface water abstracted from the vals river immediately north of the off-channel storage dams (dam 1 and dam 2). this usually is possible from january to august of every year. during the remaining months the stored dam water and groundwater abstraction boreholes have to be managed carefully and accurately to ensure that the town residents have access to sufficient quantities and quality of potable water until the subsequent rain season causes sufficient surface water flow in the river. • in times of river-flow lows, six of the town’s 10 boreholes on the lindley municipal area (land belonging to the municipality) are utilised for the potable water supply. all the boreholes are located on the property belonging to the municipality and not at more suitable locations at a distance from within the geographical municipal area. the following limited geo-hydrological information is available on the 10 boreholes: geo-hydrological aspects of importance for lindley’s water supply td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 241-25218. 249 t a b l e 1 : b o r e h o l e i n f o r m a t i o n : l i n d l e y ( l a b u s c h a g n e , 2 0 1 2 : i n t e r v i e w ) number depth drilled (m) groundwater rest level (m) equipment on borehole average yield (litres/second) bh1 72 no data available submersible pump 5.5 bh2 62 no data available no pump on borehole 1.8 bh3 66 no data available submersible pump 2.1 bh4 61 no data available submersible pump 2.1 bh5 66 no data available submersible pump 1.9 bh6 32 no data available no pump (stolen) 0.7 bh7 38 no data available no pump (stolen) 2.2 bh8 32 no data available no pump (stolen) 0.8 bh9 42 no data available submersible pump 1.4 bh10 38 no data available submersible pump 4.2 • bh1 is a borehole fitted with an electric submersible pump inside a manhole ring with cover, protected and pumped for 8 hours per day when the river flow is low. the borehole water is collected at the water purification works where it is submitted to the water treatment process of the municipality. the security, access, monitoring and sustainability of the important water abstraction point can be improved. • bh2 is situated next to the water abstraction point bh1 and must be used as a groundwater level monitoring point to establish an effective groundwater level record. • bh3 and bh4 are located on the southern bank of the vals river immediately north of the two off-channel water storage dams. the main river water abstraction point from the river is also located here. • the water purification works is situated at the small dam wall (weir) built next to the old bridge (north of bh5). • the safety and security aspects of all the potable water abstraction boreholes of the municipality need attention and must be addressed as soon as possible. • groundwater levels, and quantities abstracted must be monitored and reported on at all the abstraction sites. • the location of the town’s main cemetery immediately up-stream of the two off channel storage dams (dam1 and dam 2) as a potential polluter is a point of concern and must be investigated. • the safety and security aspects (i.e. visibility, access and impact on physical and manchanged environment) of the water storage dams dam 1 and dam 2, water purification works (and the newly constructed one), water storage reservoirs at res1 and res2, as well as the sw1 sewage works should be investigated, upgraded and managed to the expectations of dwa to comply with the blue drop as well as the green drop assessment standards. • the refuse dump site right at the southern entrance to the town is a blot on the landscape and possible polluter of the groundwater abstracted at boreholes bh8, bh9 and specifically bh10 (where town residents can fetch drinking water in times of severe water shortage), and should be relocated. nealer & bertram 250 • tourism potential of the town (i.e. history, river location, caravan park and guest houses on the main route from kroonstad to bethlehem) must be investigated and catered for. conclusion on the basis of this research and for various reasons (e.g. diminishing volumes and qualities of safe potable water, climate change and the more sophisticated needs of millions more citizens), the researchers argue that the effective municipal management of water related basic services in the developing south africa entails highly complex hydrological, geo-hydrological and municipal management functions in a dynamic and highly regulated environment. it requires the municipal managers, officials and political office-bearers of a municipality to be equipped with specific knowledge and skills regarding the physical environment and management of basic water related public services. on the basis of this research and for various obvious reasons (e.g. deteriorating physical environment due to pollution, sub-standard storm water and sewage management, migration [informal settlements] and the increasingly sophisticated needs of municipal residents), the researchers are of the opinion that the level of co-operative governance and integrated water resources management (iwrm) in the whole vals river catchment is very low. groundwater and surface water reserves on the current utilised municipality property in and around lindley are unsustainable for a growing lindley community with sophisticated needs and incorporation of improved potable water supply, new sanitation, and, for example, washing (solar geysers) infrastructures. the locations of the municipal boreholes drilled and equipped in the past reflect the reigning paradigm that groundwater should be found within the town allotment area; that is, the water should be found where it is needed and not where it may possibly occur geo-hydrologically. recommendations more effective trans-boundary municipal management through simunye-type co-operative governance and iwrm must be facilitated in the vals river surface water catchment between the respective local and district municipalities for the benefit of the lindley, arlington, steynsrus and kroonstad communities. the service providers in the area deserve and need assistance from neighbouring municipalities and regulatory provincial and national government service rendering institutions (e.g. dwa and the department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs (cogta). although the groundwater potential in the lindley area is very low, it seems prudent to consider carrying out a professional geo-hydrological investigation by an accredited groundwater specialist to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that groundwater is not an option in the townas well as the immediate surrounding area. should such an investigation with its subsequent exploration drilling fail, it is clear that the surface water supply for lindley and its fast growing population should be augmented by other means. more water must be identified, developed and brought into the area. in other words, the vals river must become sustainable in that additional surface water can be added into the catchment for the three towns along its flow down to the vaal river at bothaville. linking the origin of the vals river and the lesotho highlands water via the as river near clarens is a possibility that should be investigated. geo-hydrological aspects of importance for lindley’s water supply td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 241-25218. 251 landand river use must also be determined and regulated along the natural flow of the vals river to ascertain the extent of water reserves available for use and consumption by the downstream located water-poor towns of lindley, steynsrus and kroonstad. the possibility of importing potable water from the water-rich bethlehem area via the current out of commission oil pipeline that passes south of lindley and north of arlington and steynsrus, should be seriously considered. list of courses anon. 1973a. lindley munisipaliteit, welman 858 boorplekaanwysings. unpublished report gh1820. pretoria: department of mines, geological survey. anon. 1973b. bepaling van die porositeit van die dolerietgang te lindley. unpublished report gh1825. pretoria: department of mines, geological survey. baran. 2000. kroonstad hydrogeological map and brochure. bertram, e. 2013. interview between the deputy-director, geo-hydrology, dwa / prof ej nealer (researcher), 4 august 2013. brits, f. 2012. personal interview with steynsrus town office manager on 15 august 2012. department of housing (free state province). 2012. memo to lindley town office. doh. department of land affairs. 1987. 1:50 000 scale topographical map 2727 dd lindley. cape town: government printer. department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf). 2005. masibambane water service sector support programme in the free state province. available at: www.dwaf.gov.za/masibambane/documents/strategies/pwsp/fs.pdf accessed on 19 october 2013. fuggle, r.f. & rabie, m.a. 2005. environmental management in south africa. cape town: juta & co, ltd. geological survey. 1986. 1:250 000 2726 kroonstad geological map. pretoria: geological survey. glasson, j. & wood, g. 2009. urban regeneration and impact assessment for social sustainability. impact assessment and project appraisal, 27(4), december 2009. gpm consultants. 2012. topographical map of the vals river catchment and respective municipalities. polokwane: gpm. hydstra, 2013a & b. the department of water affairs’ flow data database – graphs kindly reproduced by directorate: hydrological services staff member. pretoria: dwa. interviews with three officials of the lindley town office. 13 august 2012. kok, t.s. 1969. beskikbare inligting oor watervoorsiening by heilbron, lindley, petrussteyn, edenville en steynsrus. unpublished report gh1587. pretoria: department of mines, geological survey. kruger, j.c. & hofmeyer, s. 1971. lindley munisipaliteit: voorlopige verslag oor boorplekaanwysings. unpublished report gh1739. pretoria: department of mines, geological survey. nealer & bertram 252 labuschagne, a. 2012. personal interview with lindley town office manager on 13 august 2012. leskiewicz, a.f. 1979. geohydrology of lindley area – as revised by leskiewicz. unpublished report gh3139. pretoria: department of mines, geological survey. lindley. 2007. available at: http://www.co.za/history. accessed on 16 july 2014. nealer, e.j. & naudé, m. 2011. integrated co-operative governance in the context of sustainable development. the journal for trans-disciplinary research in southern africa. 7(1) july 2011 pp. 195-217. nketoana local municipality. 2013. tariff list. reitz. republic of south africa (rsa). 1998. local government: municipal demarcation act 27 of 1998. pretoria: government printer. sacs, 1980. republic of south africa, geological survey. stratigraphy of south africa. handbook 8. part 1: lithostratigraphy of the republic of south africa, south west africa/namibia and the republics of bophuthatswana, transkei and venda. temperley, b.n. 1970. aquifer air cover survey – sheet 2727dd lindley. unpublished report gh1540. pretoria: department of mines, geological survey. thompson, h. 2006. water law: a practical approach to resource management & the provision of services. cape town: juta & co, ltd. van der waldt, g., khalo, t., nealer, e.j., phutiagae, k., van der walt, c., van niekerk, d. & venter, a. 2014. municipal management: serving the people. claremont: juta and company ltd. abstract introduction conceptual framework (m)other tongue(s): what does this mean? language of learning and teaching: problem in education the dilemma in education: the language of learning and teaching and mother tongue alternative concept to (m)other tongue(s) conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) aubrey t. tsebe center for university teaching and learning, sefako makgatho health science university, pretoria, south africa citation tsebe at. the epistemology of (m)other tongue(s): what does this mean for language in education? j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1068. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1068 review article the epistemology of (m)other tongue(s): what does this mean for language in education? aubrey t. tsebe received: 18 apr. 2021; accepted: 17 june 2021; published: 07 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: the promotion of ‘mother tongue’ is at the core of the global education agenda. aim: this article explored the problematic nature of the mother tongue concept, and the subsequent effects it has on language use in education. method: although the african continent is referred to wherever necessary to indicate this problem’s broadness, south africa (sa) as one of the most developed african countries was used to contextualise the current study. this article adopted a transdisciplinary approach that intersected the theological and educational disciplines. the biblical text is used as the background for the current research about the concept of mother tongue as viewed within the broader context of language problems in education. results: this article has argued that the concept of mother tongue and its use in education serves as one of the root problems underpinning south african education’s language challenges. however, this article was not meant to be polemical, but rather, it was intended to stimulate debate on the concept of mother tongue and its use in education. conclusion: this article was concluded with advocacy towards the adoption of an alternative term to the concept of mother tongue. the term, dominant language (dl), was proposed which seemed to be clearer and more precise in describing what the concept ‘mother tongue’ ambiguously tries to express. recommendations and policy guidelines were also provided should either the proposed term be adopted or a need arise to explore the mother tongue concept’s continued use. keywords: dominant language; education; language in education; mother tongue; second language. introduction the concept of ‘mother tongue’ started to receive international attention around 1953 when it was used as a synonym for the concept ‘native tongue’, and it was described as ‘the language which a person acquires in early years and which normally becomes the person’s natural instrument of thoughts and communication’.1 since the meeting by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) and the subsequent report of 1958, which advocated for the mother tongue education, the concept ‘mother tongue’ gained popularity in research on language(s) in education. however, the mother tongue concept has become problematic within the african continent. various researchers have highlighted how the concept of mother tongue is becoming increasingly ambiguous and therefore problematic to use in education.2,3,4 amongst these problems, according to banda,5 chimbganda6 and webb,7 are a lack of clear definition of the concept, the multilingual nature of african countries and the effects of intermarriages on the home language (as propounded by nchindila,8 chimbganda,6 unesco1 and webb et al.9), and the socio-economic status of most africans that results in most children not being raised by their parents.6 these are some of the african population’s challenges that present the concept of mother tongue as problematic and adding to the overall language problems. focusing on south africa (sa), for instance, is characterised by diversity as evidenced by its 11 official languages. this diversity is what marks this country as a rainbow nation. the rich socio-cultural diversity that stems from different tribes and their specific languages mirrors this nation’s context. however, embedded within this nation and its rich culture is the socio-economic and political challenges due to language disparities. these challenges started around 1971 when the nationalist party started to infiltrate the indigenous south african people’s education sector. until around 1971, the indigenous people’s education was mainly in the church’s hands through the missionaries.10 when the missionaries settled in the country, they made efforts to promote mother tongue education by using a team of mother tongue translators for education. during the colonial period 1652 to 1948, the missionaries helped in the establishment of formal schooling in sa,11 and they were the only role player to bring education to the indigenous south african people.12 however, since then and with the new democracy, education was removed from the control of the church, development of mother tongue education has been a thing of the past. it is therefore, not a surprise that english is currently the main official language of learning and teaching in most public schools where the indigenous learners are taught. it can be deduced from the south african statistics that about 80% of children learn in a language other than their mother tongue.13 this is a matter of concern given the poor literacy performance of south african children in both the national and international benchmark.14,15,16,17 the aforementioned longitudinal studies show that language in education has been a concern in the south african education system for years. as such, more time is needed for research and interventions before solutions can be realised. the fact that there has been a pattern of poor achievement for many years is a disturbing factor as sa’s future lies in its current learners. given all these challenges, speculations have been made about the relevant intervention to remediate the situation. focus on teacher development,18,19 norms standards for infrastructure,20 investment on early childhood education,19 increasing the grade 12 pass mark and focus on mother tongue education, are some of the areas speculated to hold promise for improvements in education.2,18 however, a review of past literature shows that language is one of the main problems that this country has been struggling with from the dark historical past.2,10,11 the language problem in education is exacerbated by the fact that language learning ‘underlies all other learning areas since language is the medium through which all teaching, learning and assessment takes place. thus, without language, no other learning area could exist’.21 perhaps, a time has come for the country to review its language policies and refocus on the promotion of indigenous languages, as was the case in the past through the missionaries. however, this time the solution does not lie with the missionaries; but instead in a collective effort by south africans. we should start by firstly reviewing literature and policies about the use of concepts that are key to this development, such as that of mother tongue and how such concepts could best be understood within the south african education system and the african continent as a whole. it is important to understand that an alternative concept is necessary, as this article suggests, and that proper steps that include a policy review should be taken towards this objective. conceptual framework in this article, a transdisciplinary approach to the literature review has been adopted. a transdisciplinary approach allows the researcher the freedom to transverse between disciplines.22 the approach provides a theoretical platform for the researcher to use all available resources in various disciplines to understand a complex phenomenon with the ultimate aim of contributing to knowledge. the concept of mother tongue within the context of languages in education is one such phenomenon with which this article is grappling. in applying the transdisciplinary approach, a biblical text is used to serve as a background to introduce the discourse about the concept of mother tongue. the author concurs with rackley23 who has indicated how narratives from the biblical text can be used to assist one to understand complex issues of life. language development and the use of language in education are complex issues that are at the core of the current discourse. to further engage with the current discourse, the author also relied on literature within the academic disciplines that focuses on language use in education. literature is drawn from disciplines such as education and humanities to argue that the concept of mother tongue and its use in education serves as one of the root problems underpinning the african continent’s language challenges. guidelines are needed to propose a possible way forward in addressing the challenges. (m)other tongue(s): what does this mean? this article has borrowed part of its title from the day of pentecost’s event as narrated in the biblical text (the book of acts chapter 2). according to pereira,24 biblical texts are used to tell stories about god and the people of god (the church). therefore, in this article, an event surrounding the day of the pentecost is used to tell the story about ‘mother tongue’. in this event, the disciples of jesus were waiting in the upper room for the promised holy spirit, whom they were supposed to receive before witnessing in other parts of the world. when the holy spirit arrived, in the most remarkable appearance of tongues of fire, the bible records that all disciples began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them. what was remarkable about this event is that the disciples are reported to have spoken to them was a foreign language, in a sense that they lacked understanding of the spoken language. the bible also records that the jews around them heard each of the disciples of jesus in their native language. however, instead of this event eliciting interest from the jews, they were led to confusion and surprise as they began to ridicule it and ask the question, ‘what does this mean?’ (ac 2:12). this is the same question that this article aimed to address in the issue of mother tongue. this article attempts to answer the question, ‘what does (m)other tongue(s) mean in education?’ underlying the above-mentioned event and the question in focus is the literature indicating that the concept of mother tongue has become meaningless given the south african context.5,7 although these two studies localised the problem to only sa, this article argues that this problem goes beyond sa to include africa as a continent. this is corroborated by other research on language in sa and africa as a whole.6,7,9,25 however, sa as one of the most developed african countries, is used as an example. according to de klerk,26 sa is characterised by diversity, with most blacks in urban areas speaking about three languages or more.27 this situation of multilingualism faced by south africans is because of various factors, including urbanisation and job migration, amongst the main factors. the upsurge of the shared social context promotes this multilingual culture, and as such, it is becoming increasingly meaningless to ask someone the question, ‘what is your mother tongue?’. given the african context, the previous question is a complex one to ask, if at all relevant. as indicated above, some black south africans speak about three official languages, and within these languages, one might be or not even be their mother tongue. hence, other authors have suggested a need for families to decide on family language policy.28,29 based on this policy, the family can decide on the main language to be used in the home by each parent to support the children’s language development. in addition, considering that the literature shows that some african countries speak more than 20 languages, with nigeria leading with about 400 languages,1,9 caution is required when concepts such as mother tongue are used (p.313).9 therefore, one needs to figure out whether by the concept of mother tongue, the person is referring to the dominant language (dl) of communication in the home (i.e. the most spoken home language), the language that one feels comfortable with and is often inclined to use when communicating, or the language passed from parents (often by the mother) to the child? all these are some of the valid follow-up questions that can be triggered by using the concept of mother tongue. of course, accompanying these underlying questions is the issue of measure, that is, determining how much an individual speaks a particular language. this includes understanding how much is enough to qualify a specific language as used more than others. all these are valid questions that beckon reflection by those faced with the mother tongue concept. moreover, according to webb (p. 67)7 ‘in the more traditional african societies, the first language is the language of the father, and the mother tongue does not seem to be a significant concept’. thus, although the concept of mother tongue might fit well within the western countries, the situation is not as simple within the african continent. therefore, when reflecting on the concept of mother tongue within the african continent, one could then ask the same questions as asked by chimbganda (p. 20)6 ‘who is “mother” in language acquisition?’.6 although the attempt that chimbganda6 makes is valid, the mother does not necessarily refer to the biological mother; one also needs to caution why such a misleading concept of mother tongue is used. given the plethora of language challenges the african continent faces, why give-in to concepts which hold no significant meaning for the continent? there should be an acknowledgement by researchers in the african continent and their respective ministries of education that this question is yet to be fully explored. the concept of mother tongue poses a language challenge, and its current use perpetuates the language problems faced by the african continent. in sa, for instance, it is recommended by the language in education policy (liep) of 1997 that education in grades one to three should be in the mother tongue of the child.1 thus, in recognition of this nation’s multilingualism, it is acknowledged that children in their early school years might not be competent to engage effectively in cognitive activities in any language other than their mother tongue. this view is supported by the use of mother tongue in psychological assessments.29,30 however, this creates a challenge; because what is presumed to be the mother tongue of most children is usually their second or third language. therefore, the use of this presumed mother tongue language leads to poor academic achievements and a distorted reflection of their true potential. this misconception could be indicated by learners’ poor literacy performance on the progress international reading literacy study (pirls) even though they were tested in their mother tongue.17 this failure is the result of instruction in the weaker language, as evidenced by international research on bilingualism.31,32 although the above combination of problems stems from the good intention of the department of basic education and language advisers with an attempt to help. however, such intentions seem to be based on some flawed premises that assume that a person’s mother tongue is always the person’s primary language.33 in this way, it is presumed that because the child has conversational ability in a particular language, that is probably his or her dl and therefore should be used in education. however, this is often not the case.34 it is therefore, based on the aforementioned underlying presumption, that the problem about the usage of the mother tongue concept is reflected in education. in addition, the constant use of the concept mother tongue in relation to the language of learning and teaching is also explored to further understand how this perpetuates the language problem faced by the education department. language of learning and teaching: problem in education the impact of colonialism on the african continent is evidenced by colonial languages (usually, english, portuguese and french) in education.7 however, most african countries have challenged these languages’ dominant role, particularly when improving learners’ performance is the objective. botswana, lesotho, kenya, ghana and malawi, to name a few, are examples of some of the african countries that had to reconsider a colonial language as the language of education in favour of mother tongue education.35,36,37 therefore, these countries had to go through a transition to improve their language use in education, and south african is not an exception. the project for the study of alternative education in south africa (praesa) shows that the language of learning and teaching has been the south african problem dated to the late 18th century.38 although a literature search on the language of learning and teaching seems to present sa’s dependence on international studies, heugh38 claims otherwise. according to heugh,38 works by prominent international scholars such as cummins34 and skutnabb-kanga,39 was preceded by south african research that was carried out in the 1800s, 1930s and 1940s. the implication of this is that local educational research has informed international research, and not the other way around. this long history of research regarding the language of learning and teaching within the south african context suggests a long-standing problem of the language of learning and teaching in sa. given the previous history of language within sa, it does not seem too much for one to expect progress concerning language in south african education. unfortunately, such is not the case. although there is acknowledgement of the language problem in south africa, not much effort is made to deal with this challenge. the debate between the praesa team and the department of basic education about the issue of lack of books in african languages and lack of finance by the government to produce or source such books seems to be a never-ending one.40 the reason of limited finance stated by the government for not reproducing books in african languages is challenged by mahlalela-thusi et al.41 and heugh42 as untrue given the amount of money spent per learner compared to the apartheid era when such books were supplied from a significantly lesser budget for black education.10 given the overstated role of developing the primary home language to shortcut the second language development, such prolonged debates should be a concern. language promotion and development within the education context should be a priority for which the south african government should be willing to make sacrifices. if getting books in the african languages is agreed by all (the government included), to help promote and improve african languages, then all efforts should be made to achieve this goal. moreover, there is still a lack of solid basic education policy on language of education besides the liep of 1997.15 policies in education are full of recommendations that do not necessarily take a stance to provide clear guidelines on what is allowed and not allowed. in the words of webb7: [t]he actual policy statement on the language of learning and teaching is unexpectedly general and inexplicit. it reads, simply, that ‘the language(s) of learning and teaching in public schools must be official language(s)’. this is not sufficiently helpful approach. (p. 180). this highlights an example of the many grey areas that have posed a challenge in education, particularly with regard to the language of education. the fact that the language choice is still open to negotiations, and issues of practicality show that the department has not yet figured out what is essential for south african learners concerning language use in education. therefore, the fact that the south african school act no 84 of 1996 gives this critical decision of language in education to the school governing body (sgb) does not seem to help the situation.43 although the sgb has been given the responsibility to decide on the language of the school,43 the composition of this body in the public schools comprises black parents who also have their own challenges when it comes to language. the literature shows that the majority of black parents have low education,41,44 and negative feelings associated with lack of, or limited, proficiency in children’s language of learning and teaching.45 these are the parents who serve as committee members of the sgb as teachers, parents of the learners or concerned stakeholders. therefore, given their background, their role in the sgb is a matter of concern. their educational background raises the question of competency in deciding about the language of education for the majority of south african learners. that is, whether these parents have answers to questions such as the critical role that language plays in education, the relationship between first language and second language in education, the complexity of language development, the history of language of education in south africa and its subsequent psycho-social implications. these are crucial questions to which anyone involved in decision-making regarding the language of learning and teaching must be able to provide valid answers. therefore, it remains unknown whether the parents who represent learners on the sgb could provide valid answers to these questions or not. the dilemma in education: the language of learning and teaching and mother tongue the language of learning and teaching in sa has been the education department’s focus, as indicated above. the use of mother tongue as the language of teaching and learning in formal schooling within sa was started by the missionaries around the 18th century.46 it could be presumed that this decision to invest in mother tongue education was motivated by the then international and national research on bilingualism and language in education.32,38 although efforts to teach children in their mother tongue was strategic in the past as most natives were isolated, and english had not gained the hegemonic status it is currently enjoying. currently, the use of mother tongue, particularly within education, seems to be used inappropriately to the disadvantage of the learners and represents a distorted perception of their potential. for example, in a south african school report, which is used for decisions about educational placements or interventions, children are expected to achieve a higher percentage in the mother tongue subject than any other subject to gain promotion to the next grade.42 such an approach presents the mother tongue subject as one of the gatekeeper subjects, as it is presumed to be the child’s strongest language, although that might not necessarily be the case. therefore, this unfortunate use of mother tongue is proving costly for the learners, thereby hampering their academic achievement and advancement. however, to state that the problem of the concept of mother tongue is unknown would be untrue. many studies have been undertaken in the continent, and debates are still in process regarding the problem of the concept of mother tongue. in sa, for example, during a colloquium on languages held in 2010, a resolution was accepted to develop a common understanding of the definition of mother tongue and home language.42 although the 1958 unesco meeting resulted in the formulation of the above definition of mother tongue, such a definition, amongst others, was given with the caution that it might not be universally applicable, and therefore, it was acknowledged that variations could exist in different contexts.1 it is, however, alarming that since then, it was only in 2010 that sa started to see the need to come up with its own definition. furthermore, it could be viewed as disturbing that a decade later, such a definition has still not been developed. this could be because of the concern expressed years ago by alexander (p. 17)47 that ‘on paper; therefore, the language infrastructure appears to be in place.’ however, as indicated by the author, there are many practical problems as well as lack of political will and strategic clarity with respect to evolving language dispensation. therefore, it can be stated that the problem of mother tongue concept has not been given sufficient attention and urgency by the government agencies who are supposed to be dedicated to language promotion and development, such as the pan south african language board (pansalb), national language service (nls), lexicographic units, and other national language bodies. alternative concept to (m)other tongue(s) it should be noted at this point that concerning the concept of mother tongue, and the language of teaching and learning, the main stakeholders are the learners themselves. therefore, from the perspective of the learners, it could then be necessary to shift the focus towards an alternative concept to mother tongue. the proposed concept is the ‘dominant language’ of the learner. the dl could be viewed as the language that is most often used in the social context; it is the language of interaction with peers and those around.3,48 werker et al.49 refer to dl as ‘the language in which one performs best across a variety of language tasks.’ it is the most valued language that one can trade with to save his life.50 this concept seems relevant given that different contexts are dominated by specific languages. for example, although it could be attested that english seems to be the dl globally, the situation is not so obvious when speaking about dl spoken by individuals. taking south africa for example, although english is the dl used nationally and, in the economy, the distribution of the population by the first language spoken shows a different picture. the picture painted by the 2016 census is that only 8.3% of south africans speak english as their first language in their homes, and the first two most spoken languages are the nguni languages (isizulu and isixhosa).13 this suggests that, although english might be dominant in the wider systemic level, such is not the case in an individual system. therefore, in such a context, it would seem proper to ask about the person’s dl within the context in which language is required, such as, in school. therefore, to ask learners about their mother tongue might be meaningless compared to asking them about their dl. in this way, a person can clearly state of which language they have a strong command. this is the language that they are often inclined to communicate with or switch to when communicating in a less dominant language (ldl). furthermore, the use of the concept dl, with reference to language, relays well the principle of dominance in human development. child specialists have discovered that children develop dominance of their body parts (e.g. hand dominance) at a relatively early age. one of the critical questions that had to be answered about dominance is the factors that influence it. the researchers, however, corroborate that the environmental components play a more significant role in the development and establishment of dominance than heredity/genetics.51,52,53 accordingly, a similar developmental process can be assumed with regard to dl, suggesting that humans also establish a dl as part of a developmental process rather than inheriting it. this could be supported by the social-linguistic researchers who maintain that learning (language included) occurs within a social context.54,55 within this context, studies on language policy come to the fore.26,28 thus, children growing up where isixhosa is dominant will grow up speaking isixhosa, and similarly with the child growing up in environments where english or igbo are dominant. therefore, just as a child establishes a dominant hand with exposure to various motor activities, a dl can also be established as a child is exposed to the language and allowed to use it to interact with his environment. should it be agreed that a person can have either dominant (strong) or less dominant (weaker) language abilities, then referring to dl could be meaningful and clearer than the concept mother tongue. given the research by cutler et al.,53 and werker et al.49 showing that even children who were raised in a bilingual environment have a dl, then acknowledging and understanding about a person’s dl should be viewed as crucial in education. in this understanding, even though a person’s mother tongue might be known, one would still see the need and make an effort to find out about the person’s dl. to put it differently, if the concept of mother tongue is important in education to shortcut second language development, then understanding the limitations of both the concept and its use, are equally important. therefore, alternative concepts, such as the dl as presented above, should be considered to give better clarity about the concept mother tongue and its use in education. this study argues that this stance could help in understanding that a black child could have english as a dl, and thereby, the language of choice for education from grade r instead of the purported mother tongue, as purported by webb4 and webb et al.,9 about the use of english in the african continent. even more, this stance could also help in understanding that due to intermarriages and developments taking place in africa, black ‘africans’ can have english as their dl at home and subsequently, as the language of choice for learning and teaching. hence, it is not a surprise to find learners achieving a higher pass rate when tested in english than in their presumed mother tongue as was the case in a zambian study about the benefit of mother-tongue instruction in multilingual african school.8 it is therefore, in acknowledgment of these possibilities, that the concept of mother tongue could be assessed and its use in education could be reflected on; so that the realities of the existence of a dl other than the purported mother tongue could be accepted. conclusion and recommendations the above account shows that the concept of mother tongue is problematic, not only in sa but also in africa. it seems crucial at this stage to ponder how to move forward. the step forward remains a matter of debate as different approaches might need to be taken in dealing with this matter. firstly, the recommendation that is presented above is that of adopting alternative terms, such as a dl which seems to be clearer and more precise in describing what the concept mother tongue ambiguously tries to express. this approach could serve as a response to the literature as mentioned above that the mother tongue concept is becoming meaningless. therefore, this approach would be a work in progress towards the establishment of a meaningful alternative concept. such an approach could start with consultation of key stakeholders at both the national (government) and the local (schools, communities and organisations) levels, to discuss the relevance and use of this concept. such consultations should conclude with recommendations and adoption of an alternative concept to use as it was the case with the unesco meeting of 1953.1 it is true that language is connected to the culture and the social context of the people, and any definition that wants to be relevant, must consider this.1,56 therefore, the new description should critically engage with the feminine or maternal nature of this concept to ensure that it is neutral and relevant in the african continent’s tradition and socio-cultural nature. secondly, it is true that in the african continent, the agglomeration of people from diverse cultures has led to intermarriages which have subsequently resulted in children growing up in homes where the parents speak different languages.6,57 therefore, in cases where parents speak different languages at home, parents should consider deciding on the family language policy to support the child’s dl, which they would use consistently in communicating to the child. deciding on the language policy implies that both parents should decide on the language to be used at home and be consistent with it throughout the child’s early stages of language development. this practice could prevent language delays and underdevelopment,48,57 thereby assisting the child in establishing a strong dl to be used later as a language of learning and transition to a second language.49,57 in this case, the focus is no longer just on the home language, but rather on the dominant home language. the focus here is to acknowledge the multilingual family contexts and what works best for the african continent and its people.58 thirdly, the role that the colonial era and the legacy of apartheid have had on the attitudes of people towards the use of mother tongue language in education cannot be ignored. it is reported that in sa, mother tongue education was the norm during the missionary period, before apartheid.48 however, the problem seems to have started later when the national party came to power and enforced this mother tongue practice under the notion ‘moedertaalonderwys’ (mother tongue education). however, this was done with the agenda of segregating black africans from quality education, and critical subjects such as mathematics and science, which were only offered in english and afrikaans. this practice resulted in much resentment towards the use of mother tongue in education amongst blacks, and as such, it seems to have propelled them to opt for english against their dl of communication. therefore, the discourse about using the concept of mother tongue should not be taken in isolation from the broader context of the political history of south africa, and the approach should be the same for all african countries with a similar background. fourthly, the issue of congruency of those in position of power should also be addressed. those in a position of power say that they support mother tongue education but do not seem to be making efforts to clarify what they mean by the concept. even more, it might seem hypocritical for education officials to mention that they support the promotion of an african language, while their communications are not even available in any of the african languages they claim to promote. the adopted approach should avoid the unfortunate situation seen in certain education ministries whereby there is a discrepancy between what the education policies are saying about language and what is happening in practice.6 more practical effort needs to be made to promote african languages and increased effort must be put into clarifying concepts used, such as mother tongue. lastly, it should be noted that knowing the diagnosis does not guarantee that the prescription would also be correct. although scholars might agree about the problematic nature of the mother tongue concept, intervention approaches to remedy the situation might differ. therefore, each african country should determine a viable option in dealing with the matter, and most importantly, this article supports that an approach that is relevant to the educational context, and socio-cultural needs of its population, would be most helpful. acknowledgements competing interests this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. author’s contributions the author declares that he is the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institute of the author. references unesco. the use of vernacular languages in education [homepage on the internet]. paris: unesco; 1958. c 1953 [cited 2021 mar 31]. available from: http://www.inarels.com/resources/unesco1953.pdf sibanda r. mother-tongue education in multilingual township possibilities for recognising lok ‘shin lingua in south 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africa | vol 16, no 1 | a984 | 22 december 2020 347 348 page iii of iii abstract introduction literature review theoretical framework methodology findings and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) zamandlovu s. makola department of human resource management, economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa pumeza saliwe department of human resource management, economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa itumeleng dube department of public administration and management, economic and management sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa ramodungoane tabane department of psychology of education, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa awelani v. mudau department of science and technology, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation makola zs, saliwe p, dube i, tabane r, mudau av. high school learners views on benefits derived from attending career talks: need for sound career guidance. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1082. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1082 original research high school learners views on benefits derived from attending career talks: need for sound career guidance zamandlovu s. makola, pumeza saliwe, itumeleng dube, ramodungoane tabane, awelani v. mudau received: 21 may 2021; accepted: 15 july 2021; published: 28 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract tertiary institutions in south africa are experiencing alarming undergraduate drop-out rates. this has partly been attributed to students’ inadequate preparation, and failure to gather information on, and planning for, their careers. the need for sound career guidance at the high school level is key, making the role of life orientation (lo) increasingly prominent. the aim of this study was to determine what benefits high school learners derive from attending career talks. to this end, a qualitative study was conducted with grade 10 learners studying stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) at a township high school in mamelodi, tshwane. data were collected using a qualitative questionnaire and analysed thematically. the findings demonstrated the importance of role models sharing information on their careers and work experiences. another finding pertained to the importance of information on diverse careers, for the development of learners’ career self-efficacy as students of stem in a township high school context. the findings highlight the importance of lo teachers organising career workshops. the study will benefit the department of basic education, businesses, and employers as key stakeholders, by helping to enhance the career development of future employees and entrepreneurs. keywords: career-related information; career talks; high school; life skills education; stem education. introduction tertiary institutions in south africa are experiencing alarming undergraduate drop-out rates.1 the first-year university drop-out ranges from 50% to 60%.2 it has been reported that 52% of learners made their career selection after grade 12, while 34% made concrete career decisions during registration at high education institutions.3 this shows that many grade 12 learners have no or little idea of what they want to study or aspire to do post-school.3 according to moodley and singh,1 one in eight learners believe that because of the scarcity of career-related information at the relevant time, they did not make the right career choice the high drop-out numbers place an emotional strain on learners and parents alike, and such mismatches in turn have an impact on the economy.1 the need for sound career guidance at high school is therefore becoming increasingly clear, and is significantly serving to amplify the role of life orientation (lo) teachers. vanin4 comments that career counsellors play a significant role in career selection choices of students, as is evident from growing concerns about the introduction and delivery of career counselling in high schools. career guidance is premised on the principle that learners who are exposed to career education will be properly prepared to make prudent career choices. the goal of career education is to improve a person’s capacity to make informed career choices, based on his/her objectives, priorities, strengths, and goals.5 although career expos are a key career engagement initiative for high school learners, it has been under-researched especially with learners in underprivileged high schools. most research in this area is focused on college and university students.6,7 the purpose of the study was to investigate high school learners’ views about the career talks they attended, with the aim to determining what benefits they derived from attending a career expo talk with the theme: ‘explore your options’. literature review since the early 1970s, the concept of career guidance has been widely used, but only recently it has been viewed as an inclusive method for managing someone’s career throughout his/her entire lifetime.8 career guidance and lo services are designed to support people of all ages, at any point in their lives, to empower them on an educational or vocational level, and in respect of their career choices, thereby allowing them to accomplish their career goals.9,10 there are three main elements in career guidance and lo services, namely: career information, career counselling, and career education, all of which equip people in terms of their future career choices.11 in most countries, schools continue to be the primary access points for formal career guidance.12 the value of school-based career education resides in its ability to reach a large number of people that are young. in schools, career guidance and lo typically concentrate on career information, by providing course information, outlining career paths, highlighting professions, and supplying information on the job market.13 career education is usually divided into two categories in schools, that is in which students get knowledge of the working work and classroom exercises aimed at developing career management skills. (e.g. work experience).14 lastly, individual career counselling can advise groups or individuals in a one-to-one setting, while providing clear job choices and advice on making an informed decision.14 in general, career guidance is aimed at helping learners make choices based on their desires, passions, and skills, keeping in mind both present and future job prospects. learners are motivated to gain a better understanding of the working environment by investigating a variety of industries, so that they can thereafter take correct actions to fulfil their ambitions, goals, and expectations.13 as holman15 points out, career guidance facilitates knowledgeable decision-making, when choices must be made. it affords learners an opportunity to make better choices regarding the working environment, and to understand what credentials they will require to succeed. in 21st-century south africa, career guidance has been a crucial part of the educational process, as many young people from technologically deprived rural areas aspire to move from an agricultural lifestyle to an urban industrial and manufacturing environment.16 in urban economies, there is a growing range and quantity of job opportunities, meaning that younger people must make practical, educated, career decisions about schooling as well as training. unfortunately, in the rural context, in most cases, young people end up making these decisions without the assistance of family or associated networks.17,18 self-understanding is the main purpose of school guidance programmes. these guidance programmes help learners to learn about, recognise and exploit their aptitudes, interests, beliefs, and weaknesses, as result of a better sense of self. this improves their logical and strategic thinking, as well as their growth and development.19 learners who know themselves are distinguished by their desire to establish more rational educational and occupational plans.20 furthermore, career guidance should educate learners on a regular basis about jobs and job prospects. this means that schools, backed by visits from employers, must instil a love of work in students in their early years. a series of studies20,21 have shown the important effects which learner involvement in such events has on their potential (grown-up) experiences. young people need to be able to gain access to legitimate labour market experiences, to obtain practical and accurate information about the world of work. this information must not only be delivered by employees or executives, but also professionals (from apprentices to chief executive officers [ceos]). every interaction with people in the workforce allows young people to get a clearer grasp of how the job market works, how best they can adapt their career goals, and how they can relate their expectations to immediate schooling decisions. employer involvement in career counselling usually includes events such as work or career fairs, network events and talks, career shadowing, work experience placements, training, and mentoring responsibilities.14 career guidance in south african public schools during the apartheid regime in south africa (1948–1994), the education system for black learners was unpleasant and very limited.22 black youths were constrained in terms of job choices, because of the insufficient content they were taught in their classes in high school.22 career guidance was only accessible to white learners, who received lessons on job advice (every week for half an hour), as per legislation. the black learners, by contrast, received no such support.23 nicholas et al.24 explain that, for many years in this country, teachers’ low preparation in terms of guidance and counselling in schools that are black and under-resourced has harmed career counselling. the higher education act 101 of 1997, was implemented after the advent of democracy in 1994, to address amongst other things, the dissimilarities in career guidance and education.25 secondary school career development activities were identified as involving careers and career choices, which resort under ‘lo’.26 life orientation is defined by the national curriculum statement (ncs)26 as the study of one’s self in relation to everyone else and community. it covers self-awareness, environmental awareness, responsible citizenship, living a healthy and productive life, social involvement, recreation, and physical exercise, as well as careers and professional options. the department of basic education (dbe)27 claims that at the completion of grade 9, learners make career choices when approaching grades 10, 11 and 12, by choosing subject fields. learners have a choice of options which will determine their further study or work preferences from the end of grade 12. during the foundation, intermediate and senior phases, provision is made for the subject life skills, as provided in the ncs for grade r–12.27 according to the national dbe,27 provincial dbes are responsible for career events which should be specifically targeted at grade 12 learners, outside of school hours. normally, such events comprise career-related exhibitions or talks which are presented by individuals working in a subject area. other stakeholders like higher education and training universities, the national youth development agency (nyda), the sector education and training authorities (setas), non-governmental organisations (ngos), private companies and higher education south africa (hesa), take responsibility for organising career talks, exhibitions and career-related events.23 schools in more affluent areas, which utilise the services of licenced psychologists, have well-developed career guidance procedures in place.28 studies have found, nevertheless, that in numerous schools in less affluent areas, lo teachers lack expertise and experience in career guidance.29,30,31 to resolve this issue, the dbe’s provincial offices assist guidance and lo teachers by upskilling them by means of developing learning materials and offering approved training using private companies such as the pace career centre.32 involving business in career guidance bringing the classroom and the workplace together has broad public gains, but in practice, it can be difficult.33 using data from the british cohort study of 1970, however, kashefpakdel and percy34 discovered a positive correlation between school-sponsored career talks with external presenters and the participant’s predicted income when they are 26 years old. the study also found that career talks had a greater influence when presented to learners aged 14–15 years, than for those aged 15–16 years. self-assessed teenagers frequently discovered such sessions ‘unhelpful’, ‘helpful’ ‘very helpful’ – responses which cover the full spectrum, without giving clear answers. additionally, one to three career conversations over the course of a year have no discernible effect on pay, whereas 15 or more career talks, or even more than 30 discussions over the course of a year are connected with a higher compensation anticipated by projecting a linear relationship.34 in the 21st century, schools are faced with complex demands and limited resources to meet those demands, which forces schools and governments to look to outside partners to meet their needs. globally, there has been a shift to more inclusive, collaborative, and holistic ways of working at the policy level. schools cannot do it by themselves, and hence constantly seek community support for building capacity and enhancing educational outcomes.35,36 an increasing corpus of studies has evaluated and shown the crucial connections between youth employment outcomes and school-mediated employer engagement.20,37,38,39,40 experience sharing by individuals at work is a good addition towards the forms of guidance services which are already offered to learners. employers’ participation in education is a strategic resource which schools can use to enhance learners’ understanding of work and professions; give young individuals the skills and knowledge which the present-day labour market demands; and focus on providing youths with the skills and knowledge required for effective school-to-work changes that stimulate education as well as support their achievements.20 young people who are exposed to the workplace are better prepared to make decision about their own education and training.21 it helps them focus on the variety of career options and routes available to them. working people have the potential to provide youngsters with perspectives and interactions that deliver distinct value – something which schools cannot duplicate.41,42 young people are more willing to believe information obtained from employers representing a variety if occupations if they have first-hand experience with them. these encounters offer insights which learners generally feel are both reliable and wide-ranging, compared to the advice of their parents and friends (usually positive, but narrow in reach) or what they might glean from the internet or the media (seen as untrustworthy, and an information overload). this, at the very least, has the potential to reduce inconsistencies between career ambitions, educational options as well as competition in the labour market. theoretical framework bandura’s43 social cognitive career theory (scct) is founded on how personal, behavioural and environmental factors interact in influencing a person’s decisions. rogers and creed’s44 scct focuses on the different behavioural and environmental factors that influence people’s career choices. those choices may be determined by the environment they come from, their personal aspirations, their personal capabilities, or their acquired knowledge. interactions with events and environmental factors can influence people’s career decisions, altering or reinforcing personal choices and, indeed, career choices. not only external influences should be considered, but factors such as internal cognitive, behavioural and physical attributes, as well as physical qualities are also relevant.45 the accumulation of information can assist someone in, or deter them from, making decisions about their career. according to schoenfeld et al.,46 the career-based choices which people make are highly influenced by their judgement of how capable they will be in completing the tasks needed in a specific career. people sometimes choose careers that align with their abilities, but they might first look up the requirements and compare those to the skill sets they already possess. gibbons et al.47 mention that the more people believe in their abilities, the more likely they are to choose a career which aligns with those abilities. however, those abilities should be complemented by an individual’s interests and his/her personality. the scct highlights how support for, or barriers to, an occupation can influence career choices. the more barriers a career path presents, the less likely it is that it will be a viable choice.48 barriers could include: the cost of studying/fees; university entry requirements; the duration of the study; the attitude of the community as regards that career; the unavailability of career role models, etc. someone who believes s/he can overcome the barriers presented by a particular occupation will not let those obstacles affect his/her career choice.47 those individuals possess a high level of resilience (i.e. the capacity to face adversity in life, employment, education, yet to do well despite unfavourable conditions).49,50 furthermore, financial support (e.g. bursaries and scholarships) sometimes make career choices easier, and that might prompt a learner to select a career which offers more financial support over the one that does not. methodology to gain insight into learners’ views of the career talks they attended at school, a questionnaire was used. the study applied a qualitative approach that adopted a phenomenological design, employing the interpretivist paradigm.51 qualitative research enables researchers to deeply explore a subject’s life experiences, behaviours and perspectives, and to uncover the intricacies of the situation under study.52 creswell53 states that a phenomenological study ‘describes the meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon’. the emphasis is on explaining a phenomenon which the study participants experienced – in this instance, attending a career talk. the questionnaire used in this study was developed to determine the views and opinions of the learners about the first leg of a series of three career talks they were to attend. their views and opinions were to be used when preparing the other career talks and were interrogated for academic research purposes. participants and setting the career talks were given at a high school in mamelodi township, to the east of the city of tshwane, in south africa. all grade 10 learners who had selected stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects, were invited to participate. eleven speakers were invited to speak to the learners about their careers, under the theme ‘explore your options’. one speaker, from the field of agriculture, participated, even though that subject is not taught at the participating school. it nonetheless served to broaden the learners’ thinking about that domain. the purpose of the event was to bring together a variety of experts from stem-related careers, to address the learners. in turn, the learners had an opportunity to interact with the presenters and obtain a real understanding of the post-school educational and career pathways which are open to them. the speakers not only discussed their chosen careers, but also their life history (where they grew up, their circumstances while growing up, and how they used education as a catalyst to change their lives and those of their families). table 1 indicates the career fields which the speakers represented, as well as the race and gender of each speaker. table 1: demographics of speakers from different science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. the research site was conveniently sampled, because of the community engagement project, tateni: breaking the cycle of poverty (t-bcop), in which the researchers are involved. at the end of the career talks, the researchers asked the volunteers to complete a paper-based questionnaire. the researcher explained the ethics around the research and reasons for completing the questionnaires. research questions the questionnaire contained following three questions: what did you learn from the career talks? what was the best thing about the career talks? what were the bad things about the career talk? these questions served as preconceived themes for this study, and were used as an analytical framework. data collection and analysis from a population of 78 learners who attended the career talk, a sample of 21 learners volunteered to complete the questionnaire. all the participants were studying stem subjects. the sample of learners was deemed sufficient – creswell and poth51 recommend having 5–25 participants for phenomenological studies. the data were analysed thematically using braun and clarke’s54 six-step process, including: data familiarisation through reading and colour-coding participants’ responses according to similarity; generating initial codes where similar responses were coded together; sorting codes into broader categories through identifying commonalities and differences to establish emerging sub-themes, which resulted in themes 1 and 2 being combined; reflecting and redefining themes in discussion with the study’s authors and with reference to excerpts; considering their coherence and inter-relationships in which the sub-themes were reviewed continually for relevance and coherence, before being finalised. ethical considerations ethics clearance was obtained through the university of south africa (clearance number: 2017/02/15/90179617/04/ mc). the purpose of the study was clearly explained to the participants. each participant gave individual consent for participating in the information and q&a session. no names were recorded, and participants were informed of their right to leave the at any time if they so wished. findings and discussion three themes which emerged from the data on the benefits of attending the career talks, related to whether the learners felt motivated by the speakers, the information they gained on different careers, as well as how to choose a career. each of these aspects is discussed in detail below. motivation most participants indicated that they were positively motivated by the speakers. one participant said: ‘… what drives people’s passion and desire for such choices, and it deeply motivated [me] to know that from any position or background i’m coming from, i can do it!’ (learner 7, black person, gender undisclosed) another stated: ‘i learnt that in life you must set your eyes on your goals. you must [keep] this in mind, if you can dream about it, then you can hold it in your hands and pursue your dream. i learnt that you must be ambitious and have passion.’ (learner 13, black person, gender undisclosed) given the lack of career role models, many learners in disadvantaged communities are faced with difficult issues such as dropping out of school, teenage pregnancy, or hopelessness which unattended can lead to suicide.22 many abandon their education or stop pursuing a career due to low self-efficacy.22 for that reason, role models are important, as they can have a substantial influence on learners’ self-efficacy which, in turn, can affect their career development. in the present study, the speakers served as role models for the participants, especially since most were the same race or gender, thus facilitating the mirror effect, where learners can see themselves as being equally capable of entering the presented careers. gauntlett,55 defines a role model as ‘someone to look up to and base your character, values and aspirations on’. mcintyre et al.56 describe role models as ‘successful members of one’s own group’. therefore, it is not surprising that the learners felt motivated by african speakers who hailed from similar backgrounds to them. the learners could thus possibly have identified with the speakers and envisaged their own future selves in the speakers. literature shows that the presence of career role models is associated with positive outcomes (e.g. increased motivation) for minorities in stem fields,57 and more positive beliefs about their future success.58,59 thus, as reported by dodge and welderufael,60 participants indicated a need for role models to help them find meaningful careers. role models from disadvantaged areas could further assist learners to conquer their own histories and whatever negative effects they experience in their communities, to improve their self-efficacy.61 thus, having role models improves a learner’s career self-efficacy. also, having black role models who are in a stem field is important for encouraging more learners into related careers, thereby increasing the under-representation of blacks in those domains.62 information on different careers most participants shared that they learned about different careers during the talks. as articulated by learner 12, ‘i learnt that there are a lot of careers in this world.’ (learner 12, black person, gender undisclosed) some participants stated that the information they received expanded their existing knowledge of careers. as some participants stated: ‘i learnt that there are different types of civil engineers.’ (learner 14, black person, gender undisclosed), ‘i got to know that different types of careers [exist] in agriculture; i also learned more information and things on the [medical] field.’ (learner 12, black person, gender undisclosed) in addition to broadening their existing knowledge, some participants mentioned learning about new careers: ‘i learned about different careers and their advantages. i learned a lot of things i didn’t know about.’ (learner 15, black person, gender undisclosed) ‘i learnt about career choices that i [didn’t] know [about].’ (learner 14, black person, gender undisclosed) these findings support the notion that inviting working professionals to discuss their careers is beneficial for learners, because research shows that the latter are more prone to believe the first-hand information they receive about varied occupations.20,42 such encounters provide learners with information which they feel is both detailed and reliable – more so than the advice obtained from parents and friends. this can theoretically reduce the misalignment of professional ambitions, academic choices, and labour market demand.14 these findings confirm those of dodge and welderufael,60 that high school learners want experienced workers to come to their schools to talk to them about different careers. this links to the previous finding on the importance of self-efficacy. research shows that the more career information someone has, the higher his or her career expectations will be.63,64 this finding thus confirms that when learners receive career information from role models, it increases their efficacy with respect to making a career decision. choosing a career many participants said they learned how to go about choosing their careers. ‘i was also [taught] more on how to choose a career.’ (learner 2, black person, gender undisclosed) ‘i learned how to choose a career’ (learner 5, black person, gender undisclosed). several participants mentioned learning that the monetary aspect of a career was not the most important factor to consider: ‘i learned that your career is not about the money, but the passion.’ (learner 3, black person, gender undisclosed) ‘i learnt to choose wisely and make decision[s] that will work to my advantage, and not look at the income but the goods it will bring.’ (learner 16, black person, gender undisclosed) ‘i learned that i should choose my career according to my talent and dream.’ (learner 19, black person, gender undisclosed) as noted by edward and quinter65 and perrone et al.,66 learners’ interests provide the main motives or influence for their career choice. when choosing careers, most learners consider their interests, thus their choice might not always be influenced by their circumstances or home background. this is important because matching personal interest with a career choice often leads to job satisfaction.65 the implication is therefore that the study participants were likely to remain in the stem career field, rather than choosing to opt out. therefore, career interests and choices are partly dependent on self-efficacy expectations, while learners’ expectations are developed if they have access to sources that reinforce their self-efficacy expectations.67 two themes emerged from the data on the drawbacks of attending the career talks. these were time spent at the career talks as well as unmet expectations. time spent at the career talks several learners indicated that the time they spent at the career talks was long. ‘they kept us here for a long time.’ (learner 1, black person, gender undisclosed) ‘they took so much time, i was starving.’ (learner 14, black person, gender undisclosed) ‘we came out late.’ (learner 5, black person, gender undisclosed) this finding indicated the need for sufficient breaks during the career talks. this ensures that learners remain comfortable throughout the event and are able to retain information being shared and do not experience information overload.68,69 unmet expectations a few learners indicated that some of the careers they expected to learn about were not included in the career talks. ‘some of the careers we expected to learn about we were not given information on.’ (learner 17, black person, gender undisclosed) similarly, learner 21 reported that ‘my career was not included.’ (learner 21, black person, gender undisclosed) this finding points to the need for learners’ input on the careers they would like information on. obtaining learners input is also recommended by payne and sumter.70 although learners’ input is important, it must be noted that organisers of career talks should also provide information that may not be easily accessible to learners, for example, lesser known careers and new careers, because changes such as the 4th industrial revolution (4ir) requires new set of skills. conclusion this study has demonstrated the importance of role models, comprehensive career information, and career interests and choices, in the development of career efficacy in stem learners in a high school context. it can thus be concluded that events (such as career talks) which are directed at high school learners will be beneficial to them. critically, career talks are more effective when conducted with professionals in the field sharing their journeys, since that encourages learners to select and pursue similar career paths. the findings in this study also point to the need for organisers of careers talks to ensure enough breaks are included in the career talks’ schedule so learners do not suffer from mental fatigue as well as gathering input from learners on the careers they would like to learn about. however, when colleting input from learners, organisers must also include lesser-known careers in their schedules to broaden learners’ information and knowledge on these careers. this study’s findings can be beneficial to the dbe, because it indicates the importance of stakeholder relationships in enhancing career-related learning and development. additionally, the national dbe and especially the provincial dbes would benefit from creating relationships with local and national businesses and organisations for the purpose of providing career talks to learners. this would assist the lo teachers because they lack experience and skills in career guidance. the lo teachers would then play the role of being a facilitator of the career talks event in their schools. additionally, the career talks event could be imbedded within the lo lessons. for businesses and employers, the findings are beneficial because they show that organisations can benefit from participating in career talks because they play a role in shaping the future skills supply for their industries and organisation, especially in fields where there are critical skills shortages such as the stem-field. limitation of this study was that a small sample was used, therefore the findings cannot be generalised. a larger sample could be used in future studies, to allow for a more comprehensive analysis and programme to be designed (with ample breaks, so that learners do not experience information overload). mental fatigue may have been a reason for the low number of learners who completed the questionnaire on the day. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the school and all the speakers of the career talk day. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. funding information the data collection for this article was funded by university of south africa (unisa) community engagement directorate. the authors acknowledge the support provided by mcdonalds sa during the career guidance talk. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, r.t., upon reasonable request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references moodley p, singh rj. addressing student dropout rates at south african universities [homepage on the 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welderufael m. factors that influence career choice in south african township high school students [homepage on the internet]. graduate master’s theses, capstones, and culminating projects. 2014 [cited 2020 jun 17]. available from: https://scholar.dominican.edu/masters-theses/7 matshabane op. exploring the influence of role models on the career development process of school-going adolescents from a low-income community in south africa [homepage on the internet]. 2016 [cited 2021 jul 12]. available from: https://scholar.sun.ac.za:443/handle/10019.1/100356 funk c, parker k. women and men in stem often at odds over workplace equity [homepage on the internet]. pew research center’s social & demographic trends project; 2018 [cited 2021 may 12]. available from: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/01/09/women-and-men-in-stem-often-at-odds-over-workplace-equity/ darmayanti kkh, prasetyo dt, winata ey, sakti p. what will you do after graduated from university? increasing career 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effects of brain breaks in a classroom [homepage on the internet]. 2019 [cited 2021 jul 12]. available from: https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/13870 morton s. engagement through brain breaks in the secondary classroom [homepage on the internet]. msed in educational leadership research projects; 2016 [cited]. available from: https://scholarworks.umf.maine.edu/ed_leadership_projects/39 payne bk, sumter m. college students’ perceptions about career fairs: what they like, what they gain, and what they want to see. coll stud j. 2005;39(2):269. microsoft word 00 a contents.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 93112. liability of school governing bodies: a legislative and case law analysis e serfontein* abstract through an in-depth analysis of legislation and case law, as important sources of education law, this article casts light on the liabilities school governing bodies may incur whilst exercising their statutory functions. focus is placed on the legislative framework in which school governance occurs as cooperative government not only challenges the manner in which power is exercised, but also the empowering statute in itself. to illustrate the dichotomy that exists between the ideals of democratic policies and the manner in which they are interpreted and implemented, emphasis is placed on the practical implication of democratic governance in public schools with reference to important concepts such as representation, partnerships, accountability and liability. these concepts are critically analyzed in deliberation with court rulings in order to ascertain a better understanding of the important role school governing bodies have to play in striving to turn south african public schools into thriving centres of excellence. keywords: governance, cooperative government, statutory power, authority, partnership, organs of state, juristic persons, representation, responsibility, accountability, liability. disciplines: law, education and public management and governance. 1. introduction the constitution of the republic of south africa act 108 of 1996 (constitution), through section 29, grants everyone in south africa the fundamental right to a basic education while obliging the state to respect, protect, promote and fulfil this right (section 7). since education, as pointed out by bray (2002:514), is vitally important for meaningful human existence, the state is bequeathed with an enormous duty in this regard. given the vastness of the task, beckmann (2006:182) emphasizes that the state alone cannot provide a high quality of education to all. to lighten the state’s burden, the constitution provides, inter alia, for the establishment of organizations of structures and institutions (sections 91&92) as well as the distribution of its functions (section 104). basic education has, accordingly, been designated as a concurrent functional area for which both national and * school for basic sciences, north west university (vaal triangle campus) serfontein   94 provincial governments are responsible while complying with the constitutional principles of cooperative government when exercising their authority over education (section 40(2)). in ex parte chairperson of the constitutional assembly1 the constitutional court stated that cooperative government is implicit in any system where the same powers have been allocated to different levels of government. the south african schools act, 84 of 1996 (schools act), consequently, proposes a partnership between the state, parents, educators and learners concerning the funding, governance and organization of schools which led to the creation of public school governing bodies (sgbs). by devolving powers and concomitant responsibilities, the state ensures, as avowed by visser (2003:340), the fulfilment of the right to a basic education at a macro level through the provision of schools by provincial authorities and at a micro level through sgbs exercising their statutory powers. an important consequence of the latter is, as asserted by the court in randpark bpk v santam versekeringsmaarskappy,2 that the state will still be legally liable for the actions of these institutions as education is, first and foremost, a state responsibility. although decisions are to be taken by sgbs in a system of education containing centrally determined goals, priorities and frameworks for accountability (caldwell & spinks, quoted by mestry, 2006:28) they are nevertheless, per se put under pressure of public accountability (ngidi, 2004:260). this new educational system was considered by the court in the matter of schoonbee3 to be a migration from a system where schools were entirely dependent on the assistance of the state to a system where greater responsibility and accountability are assumed. it was, in addition, regarded in christian education south africa4 as a radical break with an authoritarian past. since the concept of public school governing body is relatively new in south africa, much has, thus far, been written on their functions, while few studies have been conducted on the liabilities which stem from such functions. studies have identified a number of reasons which would account for these bodies' failure to conduct their functions successfully. reasons provided for the latter include a lack of understanding regarding the extent of powers, responsibilities and liabilities whilst being unsure notwithstanding especially section 60 of the schools act of which support the state will provide. 2. a legislative framework in terms of south african legislation more powers are allocated to sgbs. these powers are, according to clase et al. (2007:248), reflected in the fact that sgbs legally have the power to establish the overall character and ethos of public schools. most significant hereof, is the democratic governance of schools – centrally concerned with the distribution of powers (maile, 2002:326) through the active involvement of all role-players, which, according to harber 1 ex parte chairperson of the constitutional assembly: in re certification of the constitution of the rsa 1996(4) sa 744 (cc) para 287-290 2 randpark bpk. v santam versekeringsmaatskappy bpk. 1965 b(4) sa 363 (a) 3 schoonbee and others v mec for education, mpumalanga and another 2002 (4) sa 877 (t) 4 christian education south africa v minister of education 2000 (4) sa 757 (cc) liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 95 (2005) as well as the high court and constitutional court in the matters of mikro5 and pillay,6 respectively, relates the emergence of wider issues of democracy and participation. flowing from the above, it is apparent that legislation has dramatically altered the role of parents, as the majority members of sgbs, regarding education. their traditional community support role is turned into a real governance and leadership role to which immense responsibilities are linked. the latter was affirmed by the high court in the matter of kimberley girls’ high,7 by stressing that vast obligations are coupled to the new powers allocated to sgbs. as creatures of statute, specific powers, functions and legal obligations of sgbs are determined and demarcated by the schools act (sections 5-9). section 20(1)-functions deal with, inter alia, responsibilities in respect of the best interests of schools comprising the development of school documentation, the support of staff, and the managing of administrative matters. assigned section 21-functions, with direct financial implications, in contrast, are allocated only to sgbs after they have shown proof that they possess the power to perform such functions. read together with section 22, providing for the withdrawal of sgb functions, this may, according to visser (2003:111), be an attempt to limit legal powers. the scope of section 21-functions was dissected in the matter of st helena primary school.8 while the sgb contended that such functions only confer powers on sgbs, the department of education (doe) argued that they are coupled with obligations to, in this case, maintain school buildings. since this matter concerned damages caused by an isolated incident fire to the library, the high court refused to elucidate on the administration of education services in general. it was, however, decided that the department was not unjustly enriched and the sgb not impoverished by the latter paying for the repair of the buildings out of the proceeds of an insurance policy. this decision has elicited criticism from academics. schlemmer and sonnekus (de bruin 2009a), for instance, opine that, since the state owns them, it carries the constitutional duty to insure school buildings. insurance companies may refuse to pay sgbs for damages in this regard as they cannot suffer damages as they are not the owners thereof. it is hence argued that if the state does not insure school buildings, sgbs may be required to increase school fees to pay for expensive insurance policies. as juristic persons, public schools have the legal capacity to perform their functions. acting through their sgbs, public schools acquire rights and incur responsibilities and liabilities attached to their status (visser 1998). it was, accordingly, ruled by the court? in grove primary school v minister of education9 that sgbs indeed enjoy locus standi in courts. this was confirmed 5 mikro primary school v minister of education, western cape 2005 3 sa 504 (c) 6 mec for education, kwazulu-natal, and others v pillay 2008 (1) sa 474 (cc) 7 kimberley girls’ high school and another v head department of education, northern cape province and others. 2005 (5) sa 251 (nc). 8 st helena primary school and another v the mec: department of education free state province and another, case no. a 3/07. high court of south africa: orange free state provincial division. 9 grove primary school v minister of education and others 1997 (4) sa 982 (c) serfontein   96 in the matter of bestuursraad van laerskool sentraal, kakamas,10 as the high court held that sgbs are able to sue parents for outstanding school fees (schools act: section 40(1)). sgbs can, however, also be sued if not complying with their duties. in the matter of hunt road secondary school11 the high court, for example, had to coerce the sgb to implement their obligations in terms of section 41, regarding the total or partial exemption of parents from paying school fees. notwithstanding, gamage (1994:47) opines that the devolution of power will lead to healthier relationships and provide an alternative form of accountability to bureaucratic surveillance. this is based on the hypothesis that, when educators and communities collaborate, mutual responsibilities will grow from it. in support, maile (2002:327) states that education services constitute an interlocking set of powers and duties, and can, as a result, only work effectively if all role-players grasp their responsibilities and act accordingly. emanating from the latter, clase et al. (2007:244) emphasize that a balance must be struck between the authority of the state and that of sgbs. 3. school governance although the schools act (section 16(1)) entrusts the governance of schools to sgbs, no definition is afforded to the term governance (visser 2003:111). mere guidelines for the distribution of power and only sketchy assistance in the division of authority are provided (van wyk 2004:53). as a result, a dichotomy exists between the ideals of democratic policies and the manner in which they are interpreted and implemented (fareed & waghid 2005:25). governance must, thus, be defined by studying different interpretations thereof. in the matter of grove primary school12 the court avowed that governance simply replaces the words management, control and executive power as per section 31(1) of the education affairs act 70 of 1988. according to maile (2002:1) and nigidi (2004:261), school governance is an act of determining policy and rules by which schools are to be organized. to kuye and kakumba (2008:632) governance refers to the manner in which power and resources are applied towards the realisation of objectives. sound governance, consequently, entails the use of power in a manner that respects human rights, while promoting democracy and accountability. a much broader definition is provided by the united nation’s commission for global governance: governance refers to the sum of the ways institutions manage their common affairs. it is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action may be taken. accordingly, sound governance implies the creating of well-functioning and accountable institutions that citizens regard as legitimate, through which they participate in decisions that affect them, and by which they are empowered. 10 die bestuursraad van laerskool sentraal, kakamas v kranenburg en izaks, case no. ca&r 52/07. high court of south africa: northern cape division. 11 centre of applied legal studies, audrey ngubane and emily ngwira v hunt road secondary school, the kwazulu-natal mec for education, the minister of education and the south african human rights commission. case no. 10091/2006 high court of south africa, durban and coast local division 12 see fn 10 liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 97 as the decentralization of governance implies that decision-making responsibilities have devolved from central government to self-governing school communities (fareed & waghid 2005:25), it is evident, as stated by kuye and kakumba (2008:633), that governance is not a preserve of the state or the wielders of state power, but rather, a partnership between the leaders and the led to promote the entire society’s well-being. probyn et al. (2002:3), similarly, caution that it would be mistaken to view school governance as a simple hierarchical, linear process. constitutional principles for cooperative governance envisaging cooperation, coordination, support and interdependence (bray 2002:518) rather include ensuring transparent and accountable governance, consulting on matters of mutual interest, and ensuring that agreed procedures are followed. cooperative governance thus entails an interactive approach in which all role-players are represented and take co-responsibility for the efficient operations of schools (van wyk 2004:53). in this regard, clase et al. (2007:244) stress that the vision aspired to by political leaders for education must be mutually shared by all. the authors, conversely, have reservations as to whether this is the case. in the matter of governing body, mikro primary school13 the high court had to decide whether an sgb is an organ of state and, as such, bound to constitutional principles of cooperative governance. the court concluded that, since the sgbs, as statutory bodies, are intended to be independent of state control, they are not organs of state. as such, the state was interdicted not to unlawfully interfere with the governance of the school. the high court’s decision was, however, overruled by the supreme court of appeal14 who held that, since public schools and their sgbs are clearly institutions performing public functions (constitution: section 239(b)(ii)), they are indeed organs of the state. the court a quo’s decision to prevent the state from unlawfully interfering with the governance of the school was, nevertheless, upheld. visser (2006:340), accordingly, criticizes the ill advised interference of the doe in the functions of sgbs. although independence may be welcomed as recognizing the involvement of the broader community, roos (2003:492) cautions that it could lead to the implementation of policies that do not comply with legal requirements. due to the fact that sgb-members, with usually no legal training, are expected to draft rules that conform to intricate legal requirements, their independence may leave the decision as to the legality of rules to courts (probyn et al. 2002:2). the latter is confirmed by clase et al. (2007:246) showing that courts are increasingly asked to settle disputes between the doe and sgbs. in this regard, bray (2002:524) refers to the constitution compelling organs of state to make every reasonable effort to use appropriate procedures to resolve internal disputes and to exhaust all other remedies before turning to courts. the court, nevertheless, expressed; in the case of douglas hoërskool;15 that it will not hesitate to substitute its own decision for that of a functionary (doe) who has discretion under an act. the important role of courts was 13 see fn 6 14 minister of education, western cape v governing body, mikro primary school 2006 (1) sa 1 (sca) 15 douglas hoërskool en ‘n ander v premier, noord-kaap, en andere 1999(4) sa 1131 (nc) serfontein   98 highlighted in the matter of settlers agricultural high,16 as the court indicated that it is in the interest of justice to resolve differences pertaining to the interpretation of educational provisions. in view hereof, the key practical implications of bestowing more powers and responsibilities on sgbs will forthwith be addressed. 4. practical implications emphasis placed on school governance brought along a new framework built on accountability, which, according to maile (2002:326), strengthens the position of school managers and enables them to rather share educational power instead of losing it.. within these parameters, school managers must reposition themselves to overcome rules driven by bureaucracy (schelder et al. 1999). this is important since the democratization of schooling will be tenuous and remains policy rhetoric if all governance functions are not equally accessible and practiced in schools (karlsson 2002:132). in practice, mabaso and themane (2002:111) as well as mabovula (2009:219) point out that democratic school governance is inhibited by many underlying factors. singh et al. (2004:301), for example, proclaim that parental participation is beset with problems and, according to roos (2003:485), uncertainties which silence the voice of community partners in school matters. as a result, clase et al. (2007:249) voice their concern over the lack of cooperation between educational role-players as it may seriously threaten the functioning of the entire education process. 4.1 representation in order to democratize school governance and transform schools into democratic institutions (fareed & waghid 2005:25), membership of sgbs comprises democratically elected parents, educators, non-teaching staff and learners in the case of all mainstream secondary schools. this composition of sgbs, as representatives of the community, provides, as per the supreme court of appeal in the matter of hoërskool ermelo,17 for the broad participation in decision-making processes with emphasis on the contributions by parents. governance is, as such, based on the core democratic values of representation, participation, openness, tolerance, rational discussion, collective decision-making (karlsson 2002:329) and accountability which, according to heystek (2004:308), are paramount in the quest for the realization of the best interests of schools and the provision of quality education. participation was regarded, in doctors for life v speaker of the national assembly18 as to provide vitally to the functioning of representative democracy. in line, the united nations’ development program illustrates that inclusiveness in terms of equal participation, equal treatment and equal rights is a core value of democratic governance. 16 head of department, department of education limpopo province v settlers agricultural high school and others (cct36/03) [2003] zacc 15; 2003 (11) bclr 1212 (cc) (2 october 2003) 17 hoërskool ermelo & school governing body of hoërskool ermelo v the hod of education: mpumalanga and others. case no. 219/2008. supreme court of appeal: rsa 18 doctors for life v speaker of the national assembly and others 2006 (6) sa 416 (cc) liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 99 the human rights commission (du toit 2007) is, on the contrary, concerned about whether sgbs are indeed representative and, consequently, whether decisions taken are in the interests of the broader community. the latter is underscored by research conducted by mncube (2009:93) which indicate that sgb-members often accept decisions taken by principles as they are afraid of being suspected of betrayal and, therefore, pretend to being involved in decisions. xaba’s (2004:315) research, correspondingly, identifies principals who dominate decision-making, while probyn et al. (2002:3) found that sgbs implement policies due to political pressure rather than to conform to statutory functions. from another perspective, mabovula (2009:220) reveals that senior learners are being excluded from participation in sgbs due to, among others, educators’ domination. 4.2 partnerships the fact that the schools act, in giving effect to the ideal of partnerships, confers a considerable degree of autonomy in the governance of school affairs to sgbs was confirmed by the supreme court of appeal in the matter of general hendrik schoeman primary school.19 fareed and waghid, (2005:25) however, caution that mere participation by sgbs does not lead to democratic transformation as there are many variables that have to be considered to determine whether sgbs participation indeed contribute towards sustaining democratic principles. in this regard, mabovulo (2009:223) maintains that a key principle of school governance is that decisions be based on consultation, collaboration, cooperation, mutual trust and participation of all affected parties. all role-players should, thus, be permanently engaged in dialogue. although there is compelling evidence that school-family-community partnerships benefit learners, parents and schools (singh et al. 2004:303), many educators still opine that legislation provides sgbs with too much power (van wyk 2001:115,121&124). sgb-members, accordingly, are not accepted and treated as equal partners (clase et al. 2007:246). while fedsas (2002) endeavours to establish and maintain healthy relationships between all interested parties, many research results indicate the opposite. a study conducted by mabasa and themane (2002:111) found that serious challenges with respect to participation in sgbs remain evident. challenges include the actual constitution of sgb-membership, divisive and competing interests served on sgbs, and the manner in which decisions are taken. despite numerous calls on parents to get involved in education (hoffman 2009), they remain reluctant to meet their obligations; lack interest and commitment, and avoid taking responsibility for and ownership of education. there is, as such, still a need to make governance less overwhelming to sgbs by clarifying exactly what rights and liabilities are bestowed upon parents as members of sgbs and how to effectively deal with or prevent legal liability (tsotsetsi et al. 2008:386). this will, however, not be easy as parents are not well prepared for conforming with their new functions, finding expression in the following: unfamiliarity with meeting procedures; not knowing how to make a contribution; lacking knowledge of legislation; feeling inhibited by the presence of knowledgeable educators; and perceiving their role as simply rubber stamping what 19 bastion financial services (pty) ltd. v general hendrik schoeman primary school. case no. 207/07 (sca). serfontein   100 others have already decided upon (mabasa & themane 2002:112; heystek 2004:309; mestry 2006:27-28; mncube 2009:85&93). consequently, as put forward by probyn et al. (2002:2), a mismatch between the dream and reality exists. this mismatch is illustrated by the existence of power struggles between sgb-members, the doe, school principals and even union members (gouws 2001; oelofse 2003; & rademeyer 2009). despite conflict-solving being a prerequisite for democracy and social democracy predetermining consensus and the sharing of power which binds partners together (fareed & waghid 2005:26), tension continues to exist amongst educational partners (mabasa & themane 2002:114). tension, according to colditz (basson 2003), arises, due to, inter alia, the state unilaterally containing the powers of sgbs and, therefore, interfering with the democratic execution of the will of parents. as a result, parents feel that government does not place much value on their partnership (volksblad 2005). an example of the aforesaid can be found in the matter of laerskool gaffie maree20 where the high court had to intervene between the doe and an sgb in appointing a principal. although the sgb recommended one person by providing a list of three names in terms of section 6 of the schools act, no appointment was made. while alluding to the circumstances under which recommendations could be declined by the doe (section 6(3)(b)), the high court had to remind the doe that it is obliged to act within the confines of the law. it was also stressed that the doe should respect the choice made by the sgb. the same stance was followed in the matters of hartswater high school,21 the point high school22 and high school carnarvon.23 another example of existing conflict between the doe and an sgb occurred in the matter of hoërskool ermelo.24 the supreme court of appeal clearly stated that this matter did not concern the language policy of schools per se but rather the principle of legality and the proper exercise of administrative powers in the sphere of education. as such, the court referred to the strife between the doe and the sgb which led to the suspension of the principal, the withdrawal of the sgb’s function to determine the school’s language policy and, even to the dissuasion of the sgb; all of which the doe had no right to. under similar circumstances, the sgb of hoërskool hoopstad (van rooyen 2009) had to turn to the court for an interdict preventing the doe to interfere with its admission and language policies. 20 laerskool gaffie maree & the governing body of the laerskool gaffie maree v mec for education, training, arts and culture: northern cape province and hod of education, training, arts and culture: northern cape province. case no. 1240/)1. high court of south africa: northern cape division 21 hartswater high school and another v head of the department of education: northern cape (765/2996) [2006] zanchc 67 (8 december 2006) 22 the point high school and others v the hod of the western cape department of education 2007 sca 14188/06 23 high school carnarvon and another v mec for education, training, arts and culture of the northern cape provincial government and another 1999 jol 5726 (nc) 24 hoërskool ermelo & school governing body of hoërskool ermelo v the hod of education: mpumalanga and others. case no. 219/2008. supreme court of appeal: rsa liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 101 the doe also needed to be ordered by the court in fedsas v mec for education, gauteng25 to follow prescribed procedures with respect to the closure of schools and not just to negate the inputs of sgbs. in yet another case concerning conflict with regards to the expulsion of learners, to which the doe allegedly showed and inflexible attitude and disclosed institutional biasness against expulsion as a remedy for serious misconduct, the high court; in the matter of queens college boys high;26 claimed that such continuous and justiciable issues are regrettable. a lack of cooperation with sgbs by the doe can forthwith be illustrated by referring to the matter of governing body of bopasetjaba27 in which the court had to urge the doe to consult with all role-players with regard to the erection or not of school buildings. following the above, it becomes evident that, while partnerships may provide all role-players a powerful voice in school affairs (pennefather 2008:90-92), they also lead to large unprecedented demands and stresses (clase et al. 2007:244). in line herewith, beckmann and prinsloo (2009:174) explain that educational partnership does not necessarily lead to democratic participation in practice. while participation is encouraged by the state, measures are simultaneously taken to limit the involvement and powers of sgbs. partnerships, in addition, promote new expectations that need to be satisfied (marope & sack 2007:27) which, as said by clase et al. (2007:255), will not be an easy task due to lack of mechanisms to facilitate educational partnerships. since power play between role-players may have a detrimental effect on the relationship of trust and mutual support (heystek 2004:310), and impact negatively on the participation of all in school governance (mabasa & themane 2002:114), schools will have to create space for criticism amongst role-players. this is important as participants should not be coerced to put their differences aside to invoke a common goal, but rather to discuss them in order to find consensus (mabovula 2009:219). fareed and waghid (2005), however, state that citizens of a democracy do not simply arrive at political maturity and stand ready, willing and able to run institutions, they have to be thoroughly trained to take up their responsibilities. in line, zuma (hoffman 2009) places emphasis on formal training being a pre-condition for principals in particular. 4.3 accountability changes brought along by the schools act regarding school governance are, according to ngidi (2004), to devolve more responsibilities to sgbs and, subsequently, to place sgbs under the pressure of public accountability. 25 federation of governing bodies of south african schools (gauteng) v mec for education, gauteng 20002(1) sa 660 (t) 26 queens college boys high school v mec, department of education, eastern cape government , head of dept of education, eastern cape province, a. s. and ten others: high court of south africa, eastern cape division. case no. 454/08 27 governing body of bopasetjaba and other v premier of the free state province and others (2238/2003) zafshc 77 serfontein   102 accountability, an important but rather new principle in the realm of school governance, includes democratic control over administration and the right to legal protection. it implies that sgbs can be called upon to explain their policy-decisions, evaluate the impact of new rules and decisions and take responsibility for their actions (de la harpe et al. 2008:17-18). the importance of accountability is highlighted by maile (2002:326), indicating that it enhances partnerships and balances the power between partners. in support, ngidi (2004) shows that accountability contributes to active involvement and efficiency, whilst fareed and waghid (2005:27) emphasize that it curtails the misuse of power by acting as a deterrent as it discourages irresponsible representation. the accountability of sgbs to their constituencies is implicated by the schools act. section 18(2)(b) provides for meetings with parents, learners, educators and other staff members whilst section 18(2)(e) obliges sgbs to render reports on their activities. section (20)(9), in addition, provides for the presentation of annual financial reports. notwithstanding, parents still complain about receiving no financial statements from schools (rapport 2009). whether sgbs are exercising their authority accountably also had to be established by courts. in the matter of pillay28 the sgb was, for example, held accountable for their code of conduct which was alleged to unfairly discriminate against a learner for not allowing her to wear a nose stud to school. although both the equality and high courts found that the learner had not been discriminated against unfairly, the constitutional court ruled differently. the latter court decided that it was irrelevant whether the wearing of a nose stud was voluntary or mandatory, as schools are obliged to take steps to reasonably accommodate the needs of all learners. the code of conduct was criticized as it did not set realistic boundaries and did not provide procedures to be followed when applying for and granting exceptions. in another case, mose v minister of education in the provincial government of the western cape,29 the sgb was called upon to defend the procedures they followed during suspending a learner and recommending that he be expelled. the court found in favour of the sgb as it had not exercised its authority in an arbitrary, capricious or irrational manner as alleged. with regard to the fairness of administrative actions taken by sgbs, the court decided in ndlovu30 that the sgb failure to afford learners a hearing and thus not adhering to the requirements of natural justice, caused prejudice to individual learners. in line herewith, the sgb was held accountable and ordered to provide learners individually with an opportunity to be heard before instructing all to rewrite the biology exams. despite court intervention, deem et al. (ngidi 2004:260) argue that there are not enough mechanisms in place to make governors accountable to those whose interests they represent. 28 see fn 6 29 mose v minister of education in the provincial government of the western cape: gabru (13018/08) [2008] zawchc 56 (13 october 2008) 30 minister of education and training and others v ndlovu 1993 (1) sa 89 (a) liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 103 4.4 liability liability can be incurred due to a contractual relationship between two parties or from a delict. when dealing with professional liability to clients, the possibility of a concurrence of claims based on delict and breach of contract respectively is always present. with reference to education, the concept professional liability can denote any form of liability incurred by a person or institution acting in a professional capacity (van aswegen 1997:407). by providing juristic personality to public schools (schools act: section 15), the state denotes authority (capacity to conclude juristic acts on its behalf) to public schools (wicke 1998:610). together with the fact that public schools are organs of state, the state, as the principal, may be held vicariously liable for the actions of public schools, as agents. south african law recognizes four categories of vicarious liability, determined according to the relationship between two parties. the relevant three relationships are (a) employer (state/sgb) and employee (educators employed by the state/sgbs), (b) principal (state) and agent (public school), and (c) partners (role-players) with each other (wicke 1998:611). for the state to be held liable for the actions of sgbs it is, however, necessary that sgbs act within the limits of their authority (wicke 1998:612). to this extent, sgbs are subject to control. visser (2003:114), concurrently, stipulates that if sgbs act outside of their functions, such actions will be ultra vires and, in the event of contracts, will be null and void. state liability for educational activities is provided for by the schools act through section 60 which, in relation to the framesby-case31 equally applies to delictual and contractual liability and to the southview high school32 and general hendrik schoeman primary school33-cases only to delictual liability. the two forms of liability that of contractual and delictual liability will be dealt with separately. 4.4.1 contractual liability from the schools act as a whole, it may be concluded that the primary legal responsibility regarding the conclusion of contracts on behalf of schools vests in sgbs (visser 2003). this act does, unfortunately, not present a coherent and comprehensive set of principles clarifying all issues regarding the contractual capacity of sgbs. in the matters of gene louw34 and fish hoek primary school35 the courts had to consider the nature of the legal relationship between public schools and their parents. the courts held that 31 technofin leasing & finance (pty) ltd.v framesbury high school and the mec for education, eastern cape province. case no. 1073/2001. high court of south africa: south eastern cape local division. 32 financial services of sa (pty) ltd v southview high school 33 see fn 18 34 die bestuursliggaam van gene louw laerskool vs jd roodman, case no. a37/2000 35 fish hoek primary school v gregory welcome case no a 154/08: supreme court of south africa: cape of good hope provincial division serfontein   104 contractual relationships exist between schools and parents and; that schools, providing services to learners, thus, have contractual claims against parents to, in casu, pay school fees. flowing from the latter, visser (2003:113) and floyd (2005:387) confirm that the contractual capacities of sgb are wide enough to permit them to conclude contracts with others to perform acts of commercial nature which sgbs are entitled to perform on behalf of schools. in deciding on who (state/sgb) should be held liable for contractual damages or losses suffered in connection with educational activities, the court referred to section 60 of the schools act in the case of framesbury high school.36 it was established that, since sgbs are obliged to manage and control schools (schools act: section 16), the section 21-school in casu had the necessary power to enter into a contract to purchase school equipment, section 60 equally applies to delictual and contractual liability, the state had to accept its obligations in both instances. in order for the state to be liable, the court placed emphasis on the limited scope of section 60, providing that the state can only be held liable if the sgb would have been liable, and the requirement of educational activity was met. judge pickering opined that the purpose of section 60 is, amongst others, to protect public schools which would, but for the provision of this section, have been liable for contractual damage or loss to others. if the latter is, to the contrary, caused in connection with a business for the purpose of supplementing school resources or relating to the sgb’s contractual responsibility as employer (schools act: section 20(10)) the state would, however, not be held liable. the court found that, since a photocopier machine was required by the sgb in casu for its educational activities and since the sgb could be held liable, the state should be held liable in terms of the contract entered into by the sgb. under similar circumstances, the constitutional court was asked to decide on who should be held liable for the contractual obligations incurred by an sgb (buying a photostat copier for the school) in the matter of general hendrik schoeman primary school.37 while the magistrate and high court decided that the state should be held liable, the supreme court of appeal held the school liable. the latter court concluded, contrary to the framesby-decision,38 that the state could only be held delictualy liable for the actions of sgbs. the court alluded to the fact that section 60(1) does not exempt sgbs from liability to render specific performance of contractual obligations lawfully undertaken by the school’s sgb on its behalf. the public school itself, and not the state, are therefore liable for the fulfilment of its contractual obligations. contractual parties can, consequently, not rely on any warranty by the state that sgbs will perform their obligations contracted to. the reason for the latter, being that the schools act proposes a partnership between the state and sgbs in which both parties should take responsibility for their actions. the constitutional court’s decision in this regard is, unfortunately, still awaiting (de bruin 2009b). section 60 also came under the light in the matter of strauss.39 an educator, employed by the sgb claimed for damages sustained while training learners to throw the discus. strauss alleged that her injuries were caused due to the negligence of the school by failing to take the necessary reasonable steps (no safety nets were provided to ensure a risk-free environment) to prevent 36 see fn 30 37 see fn 18 38 see fn 30 39 mec for education, western cape province v strauss 2008 (2) sa 366 (sca) liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 105 injury. while it became evident that the sgb, and not the state, was to be held liable for the educator’s injuries in terms of section 60(5) of the schools act, the court concluded that this section does not preclude claims, such as this, based on the state’s own negligence and who has been cited as a wrongdoer. the state was, subsequently found to be blamed and, thus, held liable for the damages. with regard to liability of sgb-members (in person) in terms of contracts on behalf of schools, visser (2003:114) highlights that they cannot be held personally liable in terms of contracts since the intention are that the school would be bound. the members may, however, be held liable in delict on the basis of misrepresentation if their conduct has caused economic loss and if all requirements for such liability is present. 4.4.2 delictual liability arising from the statutory functions allocated to sgbs, these bodies are obliged to carry out their duties (moral obligations or requirements). in this regard, shaba (2000) indicates that any omission to perform such functions, subsequently, may result in delictual liability. due to the wide spectrum of functions allocated to sgbs and the vulnerability of their main clients (learners), it can easily happen that mistakes are made due to which injuries or damages to property occur. mistakes made by sgbs could harm the reputation or interfere with the privacy of learners, educators, parents or members of the general public. conduct causing loss to another in general gives rise to a claim for damages in delict, provided the requirements for delictual liability are met. subsequently, the state can incur liability for damages caused by educators or schools to others by conduct relating to the exercise of educational activities. van aswegen (1997:407), however, points out that legal subjects are free to regulate their legal position by agreement subject to generally applicable legal rules. this includes the freedom to exclude or limit the ambit of any form of liability arising between parties, including delictual liability and liability for breach of contract. although good liability risk management can reduce the chances of being sued, it can, unfortunately, never eliminate risks entirely. in order to absolve the doe from liability, parents are often requested to sign indemnity forms. this was the case in the matter of azel40 in which a learner sustained serious injuries due to a motor vehicle accident whilst driving with an educator, in her own car, to a prearranged fieldtrip. the court found that, although the exemption contained in the indemnity form unambiguously pardoned the doe from liability, the additional phrase to the indemnity, namely in the knowledge that the principal and his staff will, nevertheless, take all reasonable precautions for the safety and welfare of my child, qualified the indemnity to such an extent that it could not constitute a defense to the learner’s claim for damages. since the accident occurred due to the educator’s negligence, the doe was held liable. with specific reference to the safety of learners, pearmain (2006:293) points out that the constitution obliges the state to create an overall environment that promotes the fulfilment of fundamental human rights as set out by the bill of rights. although section 29 of the 40 mec for education and culture (house of delegates) v azel and another. 1995 (1) sa 30 (a) serfontein   106 constitution, on the face of it, only imposes a positive duty on the state to progressively realize human rights, it cannot be reasoned that the state alone must carry this burden. given the fact that the state may impose duties upon others by way of legislation, sgbs are also responsible for creating flexibility as to how human rights are given effect to in practice. sgbs are, correspondingly, responsible for ensuring that the necessary policies are in place to ensure orderly school environments. according to section 4.6 of the guidelines for the consideration of governing bodies in adopting a code of conduct for learners, they have a right to a clean and safe environment that is conducive to education. creating safe school environments is, therefore, a prerequisite for the realization of equal educational opportunities and quality education to all. safe schools are defined by squelch (2001:13) as those who are free of danger and possible harm; places in which non-educators, educators and learners can work, teach and learn without fear of ridicule, intimidation, harassment, humiliation and violence. therefore, safe schools are healthy schools in that they are physically and psychologically safe. indicators of safe schools include the presence of certain physical aspects such as secure walls, fencing and gates; buildings that are in a good state of repair; and well maintained school grounds. safe schools are further characterized by good discipline, a culture conducive to teaching and learning, professional educator conduct, good governance and management practices and an absence, or low level, of crime and violence (squelch, 2001:13). while the task of creating safe schools involves educators, learners, parents and the broader community, this article forthwith places emphasis on the duties and liabilities of sgbs, which are most likely to be the target of lawsuits. in the matter of wynkwart41 the court stated that educators owe learners a legal duty to act positively to prevent harm being sustained. in this case a learner was seriously injured when he fell off an unused, locked gate at the school. the court a quo found that the doe was liable for the injuries endured by the learner since the school failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the learners’ safety. on appeal, the court placed prominence; not on foresee ability per se, but on what constitutes reasonable steps and whether such steps would have averted the harm. with respect to the constant supervision of learners, the court argued that the degree of supervision required depends on the risks to which learners are exposed. in deciding whether reasonable steps were taken, the court stated that due regard must be given to the circumstances of each case. in casu, reference was made to the age of learners and the possibility of only one learner slipping away. since it was found that it was not reasonable to expect educators to constantly supervise learners, and that constant supervision would not have prevented injury to the said learner, it was concluded that the state was not to be held liable for the injury to the learner. the court took the same stance in rusere v the jesuit fathers.42 it was noted that a contention to the effect that learners should never be more than momentarily out of sight of a responsible person even when they are in normal and familiar surroundings which are devoid of features that could sensibly be regarded as hazardous, is to exact too high a duty of care. since learners (7-10 41 minister of education and another v wynkwart no 2004(3) sa 577 (c) 42 rusere v the jesuit fathers 1970 (4) sa 537 (r) liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 107 years of age) in casu were left totally unattended whilst engaging in a game with bows and arrows, the state was held legally liable for the injuries sustained by a learner. the state was equally held liable for injury endured by a learner in the matter of lewis43 due to the failure of the school to keep a school gate, which led to a busy thoroughfare, locked or efficiently latched. vicarious liability could also be incurred by the state for the conduct of third persons such as independent contractors. in this regard, wicke (1998:612) shows that when the state employs another to, for instance, cut the grass or build classrooms some risk of harm to innocent third parties is created. an example of such vicarious liability occurred in the matter of knouwds.44 a claim for damages to a learner, who fell on a lawnmower at school, was instituted against an independent contractor and the school principal as being jointly liable for unlawful actions on school grounds. while considering the different requirements for delictual liability, the court ruled that: the accident should have been foreseen by the supervisor and the operator as the possibility of learners colliding with the lawnmower was evident. reference was made to the fact that a reasonable person would have taken precautions to avoid or prevent the damages. it was ruled that the risk to which the learners were exposed was such that constant supervision was necessary, and that since the staff did not reasonably guarantee the safety of the learners by exercising no supervision, the operator, supervisor and the principal were to be held jointly liable. when damages, to the contrary, are sustained due to the negligence of an educator employed by the sgb (schools act: section 60(10)), the sgb per se will be held liable. this occurred in the matter of ficksburg primary school45 where damages were claimed for severe brain damage as a result of a learner nearly drowning whilst under the supervision of such an educator. with further reference to the safety of learners, it was claimed in the matter of in centre for child law & others46 that the conditions at jw luckhoff high school (a school of industry) infringed on the learners’ constitutional rights (constitution: sections 10, 12 & 28) in that it did not provide physical and psychological support structures. in its judgment the court stated that the duty to provide care and social services for learners placed at the school in terms of section 15(1)(d) of the child care act, act 74 of 1983 rested upon the state. as the purpose of schools of industry is to provide care and rehabilitation, it was concluded that secured environments, psychological, therapeutic and social support are critical ingredients of state care. the court, forthwith, set out that the justiciability of children’s rights ought not to be comprised by budgetary considerations. in conclusion, it was found that budgetary-allocation problems were, in casu, far outweighed by the urgent need to advance the learners’ interests in accordance with constitutional values. the state was, subsequently, ordered to provide the necessary support structures. 43 carmathenshire country council v lewis 1855 (1) all er 565 (hl) 44 knouwds v administrateur, kaap 1981 (1) sa 544 (c) 45 member of the executive council of the free state for education and culture and manda louw (first respondent), and martin lourens oosthuizen v ficksburg primary school. highest board of appeal of south africa. case number 483/04 46 centre for child law & others v mec for education, gauteng, & others 2008(1) sa 223 (t) serfontein   108 given the above-mentioned court rulings regarding damages to learners, it is not surprising that parents are viewing their concern over their children’s’ well-being while at school (rapport 2009). 4.4.2.1 liability for school policies as stated before, the state and sgbs must always function within the parameters of the law. in the matter of hoërskool ermelo47 the supreme court of appeal, accordingly, pointed out that all actions taken by the state involving schools have to comply with the principles of legality. whether the doe acted lawfully in changing the school’s language policy, was to be decided in the matters of mikro48 and laerskool middelburg.49 it was decided that the doe act unlawfully in view of the best interests of the learners involved. whether the sgb, on the other hand, acted lawfully when compiling their school’s language policy, had to be decided upon in the matter of nkosi.50 as the language policy in casu resulted in the withholding of benefits to some learners, it was held to be of a discriminatory nature. in deciding whether the discrimination was fair or unfair, the court took into consideration that the school historically catered for english learners and that the overwhelming majority of learners spoke english as their home language. having due regard to these facts, the court found that the discrimination suffered by the learner was fair, in all the prevailing circumstances. the same could, however, not be said of the discrimination suffered by the learner in relation to those learners whose home language was afrikaans (equal amount of learners). as such, the court found that offering afrikaans as a subject at a higher level that isizulu composed unfair discrimination. it was, however, also noted that the school could not be ordered to meet an ideal standard that no school could practically meet. although the schools act endeavours for learners, parents, educators and the state to accept responsibility for the governance of public schools in partnership with each other and not in litigious opposition to each other, the discussion above shows that the latter is more true in practice. 5. conclusion whilst grasping the problems linked to the liability of public schools it became evident that good governance relies on consultation and positive action plans involving all role-players. school governance is, thus, not simply about ruling schools, but rather about removing barriers preventing the creation of effective education to all and to cooperatively deliver sound education 47 see fn 18 48 see fn 6 49 laerskool middelburg v departementshoof, mpumalanga departement van onderwys 2003 (4) sa 160 (t) 171a [also reported at [2002] 4 all sa 745 (t) 50 nkosi v vermaak: deputy principal and another case no. 77/2007 [2008] zakzhc 83 (30 sep) liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 109 policies. democracy demands that differences be confronted and discussed thoroughly it cannot be ignored in order to reach consensus. legislation provides parents, educators and senior learners, as democratically elected members of sgbs, the opportunity to make their voices heard. sgbs must take up their rights, become active partners and, as such, gain experience and knowledge on how to govern schools effectively in the best interests of all learners. in so-doing, the state will come to respect them, realize that they are a growing force to be reckoned with and that it cannot unilaterally dictate the future of schools. in collaborating with, inter alia, fedsas and numerous already effective sgbs, all schools can have sgbs that carry out their functions in a legally sound and accountable way whilst taking responsibility for their actions. justice, democracy and accountability, however, remain complex ideals and, as such, it must be realized that participation in school governance will not be without challenges. of particular interest in this regard is how the mélange of sgbs and departmental institutions should interact and interrelate to influence the content, operation, performance and effectiveness of these institutions. seeing that the concept of sgbs is still relatively new, differences regarding the statutory functions, responsibilities and liabilities will exist and courts will have to intervene. the complexity of school governance is demonstrated by the fact that the majority of court cases concerning school governance followed the route of appeals and reviews. even courts, having the necessary legal expertise, hold opposing views in their interpretation of statutory provisions. sgb-members and the state must, hence, not be frustrated by differences and mistakes made, but rather be encouraged to take ownership of education. although legislation, with specific reference to the schools act, is far from perfect, a basis is laid for role-players to cooperate and to jointly take responsibility. within this framework, section 60 of the schools act must not be regarded as merely bringing financial relief to sgbs or placing more pressure upon them to operate within the parameters of the law, but rather as the state embracing sgbs in their strive to better education. as such, it is essential that educational roleplayers take hands in order to, as set forth by zuma, turn schools into thriving centers of excellence. references basson, a. (2003). vakbond maan teen lollery met kies van skole-rade. beeld, 22 sep. beckmann, j. (2006). the state’s liability for damage or loss in connection with educational activity in public schools: recent minor judgments. perspectives in education. vol 24(2). p. 181. beckmann, j. & prinsloo, i. (2009). legislation on school governors’ power to appoint educators: friend or foe? south african journal of education. vol 29:171-184. bray, e. (2002). the constitutional concept of co-operative government and its application in education. thrhr. 65(4), nov. pp. 514-531. serfontein   110 clase, p., kok., j. & van der merwe, m. (2007). tension between school governing bodies and education authorities in south africa and proposed resolutions thereof. south african journal of education. vol. 27(2) pp.243–263. de bruin, p. (2009a). ouers dok onwetend so op vir versekering. beeld. 8 jul. de bruin, p. (2009b). hoofregter moet nou besluit of skole vrygestel is van eise. volksblad. 6 apr. de la harpe, s., rijken, c. & roos, r. (2008). good governance. p.e.r. volume 2. du toit, p. (2007). skooltaal beïnvloed rassesamestellings. beeld. 3 mar. fareed, f. & waghid, y. (2005). in defense of deliberative democracy: challenging less democratic school governing body practices. south african journal of education. vol 25(1). pp.25–33. fedsas: federation of governing bodies of south african schools. (2002). fedsas’ submission on the education laws amendment bill. government gazette, no. 23327. foster, w.f. & smith, j. (2001). the governance of education in south africa: an analysis of the legislative framework. montreal: csaemp publications. gamage, d. (1994). school governance. (in thody, a. (ed.). (1994). school governors: leaders or followers? essex: longman. pp. 45-46). gouws, p. (2001). nood in spesiale skole; geld en personeel gesny. rapport (gauteng) 28 oct. harber, c. (2005). markets, equity and democracy – structural adjustment and the tensions of educational change in south africa. l chisholm state of the nation: south africa 20042005, 2004 books.google.com. date of access: 26-05-2009. heystek, j. (2004). school governing bodies — the principal's burden or the light of his/her life? south african journal of education. vol. 24(4) pp. 308–312. hoffman, r. (2009). we expect a high turnout. the teacher. 23 jun. karlsson, j. (2002). the role of democratically elected governing bodies in south african schools. comparative education. 38(3):327-336. kuye, j.o. & kakumba, u. (2008). development initiatives and global governance: a continental perspective. journal of public administration. 43(4.1). dec. pp. 631-645. mabasa, t & themane, j. (2002). stakeholder participation in school governance in south africa. perspectives in education. 20(3), sep. pp. 111-116. mabovula, n. (2009). giving effect to the voiceless through deliberate democratic school governance. south african journal for education. vol. 29. pp. 219-223. maile, s. (2002). accountability: an essential aspect of school governance. south african journal of education. vol. 22. pp.326-331. marope, m. & sack, r. (2007). the pedagogy of education policy formulation: working from policy assets. perspectives in education. 25(1). pp. 11-30. mestry, r. (2006). the functions of school governing bodies in managing school finances. south african journal of education. 26(1). pp.27–38. mncube, v. (2009). the perception of parents of their role in the democratic governance of schools in south africa: are they aboard? south african journal for education. volume 29 (1). pp. 83-104. liability  of  school  governing  bodies   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 93 112. 111 ngidi, d.p. (2004). educators’ perceptions of the efficiency of school governing bodies. south african journal of education. 24(4). p. 260-263. oelofse, l. (2003). owerheid moet na ouers luister oor aanstellings, beslis hof. rapport. 11 may. pearmain, d.l. (2006). contracting for socio-economic rights: a contradiction in terms?. thrhr. 69(2) may. pp. 287-301. pennefather, j. (2008). rural schools and universities: the use of partnerships as a teaching strategy in enhancing a positive response to rurality. perspectives in education, 26(2) jun. pp. 81-94. probyn, m., murray, s., botha, l., botya, p., brooks, m. & westphal, v. (2002). minding the gaps – an investigation into language policy and practice in four eastern cape districts. perspectives in education. vol 20(1). pp. 2-9. rademeyer, a. (2009). vakbond saai chaos by skole. beeld. 4 jun. rapport . (2009). ouers het lys van klagtes oor skool. 15 may. roos, r. (2003). legal requirements for school rules and disciplinary sanctions. koers 68(4) 2003:481-498. shaba, s. (2000). keynote address at the conference on health and safety in schools held 4-6 sep. 2000 hosted by rau at kopanong hotel, benoni. schelder, a., diamond, l. & platter, m.a. (1999). the self-restraining state. power and accountability in new democracies. london: lynne riener. singh, p., mbokodi, s.m. & msila, v.t. (2004). black parental involvement in education. south african journal of education. vol 24(4). pp. 301-307. squelch, j. (2001). do school governing bodies have the duty to create safe schools? an education law perspective. perspectives in education. volume 19(4) 2001.p.13-17. the teacher reporter. (2009). our schools will be centers of excellence, says zuma. 3 jun. tsotetsi, s.,van wyk, n. & lemmer, e. (2008). the experience of and need for training of school governors in rural schools in south africa. south african journal of education. vol. 28. pp.385-400. united nation’s commission for global governance. good governance practices for the protection of human rights. united nations isbn 9789211541793. pp. 84. united nations. towards inclusive governance: promoting the participation of disadvantaged groups in asia-pacific. united nations’ development programme (undp) isbn 9789740628378. van aswegen, a. (1997). professional liability to clients: the implications of concurrence. thrhr. 60(3). aug. pp. 395-411. van rooyen, m. (2009). stof wil maar nie gaan lê oor taalkwessie by skool. volksblad. 1 may. van wyk, n. (2001). preparing south african educators for school-gamily-community partnerships. educare,30(1). pp.115-139. van wyk, n. (2004). school governing bodies: the experiences of south african educators. south african journal of education. 24(1). pp. 49–54. visser, p.j. (1998). the admission of learners to public schools: who makes the decisions? serfontein   112 thrhr. 61(3), aug. pp. 487-491. visser, p.j. (2003). notes on the contractual capacity of the governing body of a public school and related issues. thrhr. 66(1) feb. 2002. pp. 111-115. visser, p.j. (2006). education law – language policy at single-medium public school – section 29(2) of the constitution – irregular interference by provincial education department. thrhr. 69(2). may 2003. volksblad. (2005). beheer oor onderwys. 18 may. wicke, h. (1998). vicarious liability for agents and the distinction between employees, agents and independent contractors. thrhr. 61(4) nov. pp. 609-623. xaba, m.i. (2004). governors or watchdogs? the role of educators in school governing bodies. south african journal of education, 24(4) pp. 313-316. legidslation south africa. 1983. child care act, act 74 of 1983. pretoria: government printer. south africa. 1988. education affairs act, 70 of 1988. pretoria: government printer. south africa. 1996. constitution of the republic of south africa, act 108 of 1996 as adopted by the constitutional assembly on 8 may 1996 and as amended on 11 october 1996. (b34b-96) (isbn:0-260-20716-7) south africa. 1996. south african schools act no. 84 of 1996. pretoria: government printer. microsoft word 04 van vuuren large dams.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(1) july 2013, pp. 51-80. together we can do more – environmental consciousness in the south african dam construction sector (1945-1980) l van vuuren1 abstract for several thousand years societies have diverted and dammed up rivers to meet their increasing water needs. the industrial revolution ushered in the modern era of water resource development, which has led to the construction of an estimated 50 000 large dams worldwide. rising concerns over the state of natural resources following the second world war resulted in the emergence of public anti-dam lobby groups who used protest and advocacy to place pressure on authorities to cease dam construction activities and improve environmental legislation. while these actions proved successful in many countries this approach has led to conflict between environmental groups and dam authorities. south africa is highly dependent on dams for stable and regular water supply. the country’s 320 largest dams together store some 66% of the country’s mean annual runoff. in contrast with the global environmental movement, institutionalisation of the environment occurred within the water engineering sector not as a result of outside pressures but due to rising concerns from water engineers themselves. in the absence of strong adversarial environmental non-governmental organisations, improved management of the impact of large dams grew out of early cooperation between department officials and aquatic scientists, especially around the sustainable management of water resources in kwazulu-natal, as this article illustrates. this trend towards negotiation and collaboration led to the country’s main developer of large dams, the department of water affairs, instituting voluntary environmental policies from 1980. keywords: history, dams, rivers, history, environmental movement, environmental consciousness, water, aquatic science, engineering, cooperation 1. introduction throughout the ages the lives of people and water have been inextricably linked. on a planet that is mostly covered in water, but where less than 2,5% of it is fresh, the ability of societies 1 lani van vuuren is a postgraduate student in history at north-west university’s vaal campus. the article is based on an extended essay in 2012 and which was subsequently in 2013 submitted for an essay competition of postgraduate students in history at nwu’s potchefstroom and vaal campuses. ms van vuuren was the overall winner of the competition. van vuuren 52 to regulate and manipulate the water that is available to them have not only been key to their progress and development but to their very survival.2 while offering numerous benefits to society, such as water supply, hydroelectricity and flood control, the damming, diverting and canalisation of rivers over thousands of years have caused considerable damage to the freshwater environment, disrupting natural hydrological processes, and preventing the migration of fish and other aquatic species. it is estimated that large dams have regulated some 60% of the world’s rivers to some extent.3 as many as 80 million people have had to leave their homes to make way for these artificial lakes.4 led by the modern environmental movement, the often irreparable effects of water resource development on the receiving river system have increasingly been recognised from the sixties, leading to a rise in confrontations between state authorities and anti-dam lobby groups.5 this pressure has prevented the construction of further large dams in many countries, while improving environmental legislation in others. whereas countries such as the usa introduced legislation to mitigate the impact of water resource development from the seventies (i.e. the environment protection act of 1970), the south african government, according to some environmental historians, remained seemingly apathetic towards environmental issues until the eighties.6 the country’s racist policies caused it to be largely excluded from global environment-themed events prior to its democratisation in 1994, such as the united nations conference on the human environment, held in stockholm in 1972.7 together with the lack of strong adversarial environmental non-governmental organisations that could place the necessary pressure on government, the isolation of south africa is thought to have delayed institutionalisation of environmental matters.8 while this might seem the case when looking at the environmental sector as a whole, closer inspection of the south african water sector reveals that the charges of apathy and lack of institutionalisation may have been exaggerated, as this essay will illustrate. the focus here is on growing environmental consciousness in the south african water sector, with particular emphasis on large dam construction between 1945 and 1980. case studies focus specifically 2 . united nations environment programme. 2008. vital water graphics: an overview of the state of the world’s fresh and marine waters, second edition. [website: http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/article32.html] [date of access: 14-03-2011]. 3 . world wildlife fund. rivers at risk, dams and the future of freshwater ecosystems. undated. [website: http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/riversatriskfullreport.pdf] date of access: 07-03-2011. 4. world commission on dams (wcd). dams and development: a new framework for decision making: the report of the world commission of dams: an overview, p. 16. 5 . p. mccully, silenced rivers. the ecology and politics of large dams. enlarged and updated edition, pp. 281-308. 6 . see, for example, p. steyn, ‘environmental management in south africa: twenty years of governmental response to the global challenge, 1972-1992’ in historia 46(1), 2001, pp. 25-53. 7 . p. steyn, ‘environmental management in south africa: twenty years of governmental response to the global challenge, 1972-1992’ in historia 46(1), 2001, pp. 25-53. 8 . p. steyn, ‘environmental management in south africa: twenty years of governmental response to the global challenge, 1972-1992’ in historia 46(1), 2001, pp. 25-53. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 53 on kwazulu-natal as an area where early environmental consciousness resulted in provincial authorities taking early action to protect natural water resources from over-exploitation. in the absence of freshwater-oriented environmental groups, aquatic scientists, together with water engineers themselves, stepped forward to highlight environmental challenges in the south african hydrosphere from the forties. it is hypothesised that these scientists chose to work in collaboration with rather than against government water officials towards consensus and compromise towards the sustainable development of the country’s water resources. the essay explores the evolution of environmental awareness in the water resource development sector – more specifically within the department of water affairs (dwa) as the country’s main designer and builder of large dams.9 it identifies the main role-players and their relationship towards each other in dealing with environmental matters through a series of case studies. the study aims to show that cooperation between parties of conflicting interest can be successful in evoking change towards an improved environment. 2. the need for dams in south africa south africa has a prolific history of dam development. this is despite the fact that the country was a relative late-comer to the modern dam construction boom when compared to developed countries such as the usa and britain. while dam construction has slowed dramatically in the last two decades, the country still occupies the number six spot on the list of the international commission on large dams (icold), which ranks member countries according to their number of large dams.10 by 2012 a total of 4 755 dams had been registered with the dwa dam safety office (including medium large-sized dams).11 while pre-colonial society relied on more traditional storage methods, closer settlement by europeans, particularly after 1652, relied on dams to create a more stable, regular supply. this is mainly due to the country’s naturally variable climate and water resources. south africa’s average annual precipitation is about 450 mm per annum (p/a) – well under the world average of 860 mm p/a.12 the country’s semi-arid nature results in much water being lost to evaporation, and in many areas evaporation from the surface exceeds the average annual rainfall.13 as a result it is estimated that less than 9% of the precipitation that falls on the ground eventually finds its way into south africa’s river systems.14 9 . a large dam is defined as being at least 15 m high from the lowest point of foundation or being between 5 m and 15 m high impounding more than 3 million m3. 10 . international committee on large dams (icold). number of dams by country members. undated. [website: http://www.icold-cigb.org/gb/world_register/general_synthesis.asp?ida=206] [date of access: 08-01-2013]. 11 . department of water affairs (dwa). 2012. dam safety office 2011/2012 annual report. [website: http://www.dwaf.gov.za/dso/documents/annual%20report%202011-%2012%20fin.pdf] [date of access: 07-12-2012]. 12 . department of environmental affairs & tourism (deat). south african outlook. a report on the state of the environment, p. 145. 13 . department of water affairs (dwa), water 75, p. 5. 14 . l. van vuuren, ‘dam busters’ in africa geographic (october), 2009, pp. 46-47. van vuuren 54 the country’s water scarcity is illustrated by the fact that south africa’s total mean annual runoff is calculated at 49 210 m3/annum.15 this is roughly equal to the total mean annual runoff of the zambezi river to the north of the country.16 with a per capita water availability of only 1 200 m3 per capita per annum, south africa is considered a water scarce country.17 to overcome its climatic variability south africa has historically depended on the construction of large dams to stabilise supply. these dams typically store two to three times the mean annual flow of the rivers in which they are constructed.18 i l l u s t r a t i o n 1 : map showing distribution of rainfall in south africa.19 15 . b.j. middleton and a.k. bailey. water resources of south africa, 2005 study (wr2005). executive summary version 1, p. 15. 16 . dwa. water 75, p. 7. 17 . deat. south african outlook. a report on the state of the environment, p. 435. 18 . south african national committee on large dams (sancold). large dams and water systems, p. 46. 19. map: rainfall (2009), in b.j. middleton and a.k. bailey, water resources of south africa, 2005 study (wr2005) book of maps version 1, figure 1, p. 28. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 55 i l l u s t r a t i o n 2 : the orange river is south africa’s largest river, carrying 22% of the country’s total river flow.20 the first recorded modern dam was built in 1660 to supply water to dutch trade ships travelling to and from the west indies and held around 2 000 m3 of water.21 as european settlers began to trek further inland over the next century the frontier expanded ever northwards and eastwards. settlement was mostly concentrated around groundwater springs and a few perennial rivers.22 springs were later dammed to provide water for livestock while furrows were led from streams to irrigate household gardens and small plots.23 in 1806, britain annexed the cape colony as part of its growing colonial empire. the british brought with them some of their newly-found engineering expertise, including, it is hypothesised, the skill to dam rivers. by this time the dam construction sector was well established in britain to serve the water and power needs of the industrial revolution. 24 early initiatives were instead taken by european missionaries.25 robert moffat led the construction of a dam at dithakong in the 1820s, while by 1834 irrigation using furrows was 20 . photograph: l. van vuuren, kanoneiland, 18 nov. 2010. 21 . sancold. large dams and water systems in south africa, p. 33. 22 . w. beinart. the rise of conservation in south africa – settlers, livestock and the environment, p. 88. 23 . w. beinart. the rise of conservation in south africa, p. 89. 24 . t. turpin. dam, p. 59. 25 . l. van vuuren. in the footsteps of giants – exploring the history of south africa’s large dams, p. 34. van vuuren 56 well established in the kat river valley.26 similar water leading infrastructure was constructed at the moravian missions at hemel-en-aarde and zuurberg.27 dam construction gained impetus from the 1860s as a result of the first discoveries of diamonds at what became known as kimberley in 1871 and then gold on the witwatersrand in the early 1880s. new towns, such as kimberley and johannesburg – located close to mineral deposits rather than water resources – now required reliable water supply for thousands of newcomers searching for riches and glory, while the demand for foodstuffs found farmers applying innovative ways to improve their yield.28 one of the ways in which farmers sought to overcome the country’s naturally erratic water supply was through the establishment of storage schemes. illustration 3: the ostrich farm, armoed, in the oudtshoorn district, circa 1899. flood irrigation can be seen on the left of the photograph.29 the cape colonial government responded by appointing the country’s first hydraulic engineer, john gamble, in 1875, who dispersed engineering advice to municipalities and 26 . w. beinart. the rise of conservation in south africa, pp. 90-91. 27 . j.c. brown. water supply of south africa and facilities for the storage of it, p. 472. 28 . l. van vuuren. in the footsteps of giants, p. 36. 29 . photograph: national library of south africa, cape town collection. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 57 farmers alike. many of his dam designs were later constructed.30 this was followed in 1877 by an irrigation act, which provided loans to farmers for water resource development for agricultural purposes as long as they organised themselves into so-called irrigation districts.31 the emergence of the ostrich feather export market to feed the fashion stores of europe created further stimulus for the development of irrigation storage infrastructure. birds were easier cared for when paddocked, but this meant their feed had to be supplemented, usually with lucerne.32 initially flood irrigation was used to grow lucerne. this was later replaced by weirs and dams.33 being mainly private investments these irrigation schemes generally remained small. there was early recognition that investment in water infrastructure in south africa was expensive compared to countries such as india due largely to the country’s geology and natural climatic and river characteristics, which made suitable dam sites scarce.34 after the south african war (1899-1902) the government increased its investment in irrigated agriculture – particularly through state-sponsored settlement schemes – in an effort to rebuild the country and settle both english soldiers and afrikaner farmers who had lost their farms.35 when the union was established, the irrigation departments of the cape and transvaal (established in 1904) merged. the irrigation and conservation of water act (no 9. of 1912) was passed to further boost the development of dams. construction of several large dams started prior to the first world war. by 1925, 27 large dams had been built in south africa, including hartbeespoort dam, kamanassie dam, sundays river dam, lake arthur, grassridge dam, and tygerpoort dam.36 in the latter part of the 1920s, the south african government instructed its departments dealing with infrastructure, including the irrigation department, to fast-track large government-sponsored public works projects, mainly to relieve poverty among the white minority amidst world economic depression and a nation-wide drought.37 30 . l. van vuuren. in the footsteps of giants, pp. 38-39. 31 . f.e. kanthack. ‘irrigation development in the cape colony: past, present and future’ in agricultural journal of the cape of good hope 36(3), 1910, pp. 645-657. 32 . f.e. kanthack. ‘irrigation development in the cape colony: past, present and future’ in agricultural journal of the cape of good hope 36(3), 1910, pp. 645-657. 33 . f.e. kanthack. ‘irrigation development in the cape colony: past, present and future’ in agricultural journal of the cape of good hope 36(3), 1910, pp. 645-657. 34 . f.e. kanthack. ‘irrigation development in the cape colony: past, present and future’ in agricultural journal of the cape of good hope 36(3), 1910, pp. 645-657. 35 . l. van vuuren. in the footsteps of giants, p. 62. 36. sancold. 2009. south african list of large dams. [website: http://www.sancold.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&itemid=74] [date of access: 2013-01-07]. 37 . l. van vuuren. in the footsteps of giants, p. 105. van vuuren 58 i l l u s t r a t i o n 4 : the hartbeespoort dam was originally completed in 1923 and raised through the addition of sluices (pictured) in 1970.38 it is significant to note that at the majority of these schemes, including the largest (vaalharts) and second-largest (loskop) irrigation schemes in the country, manual labour was used almost exclusively. by 1938, expenditure on state water infrastructure had reached ten times the figure of 1928.39 in line with international trends, dam building reached a peak in south africa in the postwar period. dwa undertook most of its own construction work and its construction department alone employed 20 000 workers for this purpose (excluding department officials).40 by 1972, the dwa’s annual expenditure on construction projects had reached r114 000 – three-and-a-half times the figure spent in 1932.41 as the dwa increased its scope of work to look beyond irrigation needs, large dams were now constructed as part of multi-purpose schemes, e.g. providing water for irrigation and power generation or industrial and domestic water use.42 this era of dam construction also witnessed a rise in inter-basin transfer projects – where water is transferred from catchments of surplus to feed catchments where water is in deficit. 38 . photograph: l. van vuuren, hartbeespoort dam, 19 jan. 2011. 39 . dwa, water 75, p. 37. 40 . l. van vuuren. in the footsteps of giants, p. 181. 41 . dwa. water 75, p.85. 42 . dwa. management of the water resources of the rsa, p. 1.10. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 59 i l l u s t r a t i o n 5 : map showing the major inter-basin water transfer schemes in south africa.43 dam construction tapered off towards the end of the seventies, mainly as potential dam sites became fewer and dam construction became more expensive. the dwa’s budget also became constrained as the south african government’s attention turned to other matters, such as defence.44 following democratisation in 1994, south africa passed the national water act (no. 36 of 1998), which among others requires that enough water be reserved in the aquatic system for environmental and basic human purposes (known as the reserve).45 the national environmental management act (no. 108 of 1998) for the first time made environmental impact assessments and public scrutiny compulsory for all infrastructure development (including dams).46 dams are no longer the first choice for water supply augmentation in south africa. instead the construction of further water resource development infrastructure is evaluated in each water supply region along a range of augmentation options, including (but not limited to) 43 . map: inter-basin transfers schemes (2009), in b.j. middleton and a.k. bailey, water resources of south africa, 2005 study (wr2005) book of maps version 1, figure 1, p. 71. 44 . dwa. management of the water resources of the rsa, p. 9.5 45 . south africa. 1998. national water act 36 of 1998. pretoria: government printer 46 . south africa. 1998. national environmental management act 107 of 1998. pretoria: government printer van vuuren 60 water conservation/water demand management, water re-use, desalination and groundwater supply.47 authorities are also considering the re-allocation of water from low-value to highvalue uses, for example, from agriculture to mining.48 3. large dams and the modern environment movement the industrial revolution gave rise to the modern era of dam construction.49 dam building became prolific following the economic prosperity of the second world war. improved construction machinery and techniques allowed dams to be constructed faster, more economically and in difficult locations in nearly all parts of the world (including africa). by 2010, there were an estimated 50 000 large dams in the world.50 a few isolated cases are reported in the nineteenth century, particularly in britain and the usa, where parties with a conservation interest opposed the construction of large dams.51 an oft reported case is the (unsuccessful) opposition by john muir and conservation group, the sierra club, to a dam in the hetch hely valley in the early 1900s.52 it was the post-second world war period, however, which gave rise to the modern environmental movement as people became more concerned over the state of the world’s natural resources, particularly as a result of overuse and pollution. popular environmental publications by scientists, such as rachel carson’s silent spring, alerted the public to the consequences of pollution and development.53 in the fifties anti-dam lobby groups successfully blocked the construction of a dam inside dinosaur national monument by the bureau of reclamation, in the us. the aggressiveness on the part of the non-governmental organisations and defensive stance of the bureau led to a hostile relationship between the two parties that would set the tone for future confrontations.54 a similar adversarial relationship is also reported between environmental groups and the us army corps of engineers.55 47 . dwa. integrated water resource planning for south africa – a situation analysis 2010, pp. 6-7. 48 . dwa. assessment of the ultimate potential and future marginal cost of water resources in south africa, p. 43. 49 . t. turpin. dam, p. 34. 50. icold. dams and the world’s water. 2007. [website: http://www.icoldcigb.org/userfiles/files/publications/others/dww-damsandworldwater.pdf] date of access: 7-03-2011] 51 . t. turpin, dam, p. 170. 52 . t. turpin, dam, p. 173. 53 . s. solomon. 2010. water – the epic struggle for wealth, power and civilisation, pp. 354-355. 54. m.w.t. harvey, ‘battle for dinosaur: echo park dam and the birth of the modern wilderness movement’ in montana: the magazine of western history 45(1), 1995, pp. 32-45. 55 . m.c. robinson, ‘the relationship between the army corps of engineers and the environmental community, 1920-1969’ in environmental review 13(1), 1989, pp. 1-41. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 61 the introduction in the sixties and seventies of environmental assessment legislation and multi-disciplinary dam construction teams, which included landscape architects and ecologists, did not prevent the emergence of a highly politicised global anti-dam movement, which gained momentum from the eighties.56 this movement, led by political and humanrights activists, has been fuelled by the rise of environmentalism and have a strong political character. anti-dam campaigns have mainly been in the form of media reports, mass action and demonstration.57 starting as localised protests anti-dam campaigns are now multinational and multiorganisational.58 a contemporary example is that of the three gorges dam, in china, which has attracted significant international opposition. located in the yangtze river, at 185 m high, the three gorges, completed in 2010, is the biggest dam in the world.59 the campaign against the construction of the dam has been led largely outside the borders of china by environmental activists in the us and europe, with the millions of affected chinese people themselves showing little involvement.60 another example is opposition to india’s nermada project, which, while driven by local activists features strong international support.61 in uganda, american-based non-governmental organisation, the international rivers network, drove protests against the bujagali dam, which eventually led to the project’s abandonment, in spite of local communities seemingly supporting the project.62 a milestone in the history of large dams was the establishment in 1998 of the world commission on dams (wcd) to provide a global overview of the benefits and impacts of large dams. the commission was chaired by former south african minister of water affairs & forestry, prof kader asmal.63 the commission’s final report, published in 2000, provides recommendations to improve environmental management around large dams going forward.64 several countries have adopted these guidelines or derivatives thereof, including south africa, although the application of wcd guidelines remains voluntary. for ten years after the wcd final report was published dam construction came to a virtual halt in developed countries, with large internationally funding agencies such as the world 56 . t. turpin, dam, p. 225. 57 . d.l. sills, ‘the environmental movement and its critics’ in human ecology 3(1), 1975, pp. 1-41. 58 . p. mccully, silenced rivers, p. 21. 59 . y.b. lee, ‘global capital, national development and transnational environmental activism: conflict and the three gorges dam’ in journal of contemporary asia 43(1), 2013, pp. 102-126. 60 . y.b. lee, ‘global capital, national development and transnational environmental activism: conflict and the three gorges dam’ in journal of contemporary asia 43(1), 2013, pp. 102-126. 61 . a. gandhi. ‘developing compliance and resistance: the state, transnational social movements and tribal peoples contesting india’s narmada project’ in global networks 3(4), 2003, pp. 481-495. 62. s. mallaby. 2004. ngos: fighting poverty, hurting the poor, foreign policy, 1 september. [website: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2004/09/01/ngos_fighting_poverty_hurting_the_poor] [date of access: 19-06-2012]. 63 . t. turpin. dam, p.205. 64 . wcd. dams and development, p. xx. van vuuren 62 bank withdrawing its support to large dam developments. in the last year, however, the global movement towards greener technologies have re-awakened interest in large dams, particularly for hydropower generation as an alternative to the use of fossil fuels.65 4. the awakening of environmental consciousness in the south african dam sector like many other countries where large dams have been constructed, south africa is paying the price for the socio-economic benefits reaped from its large dams by way of environmental impacts. the south african national committee on large dams (sancold) summarises the main environmental impacts of large dams on river systems in the country as follows: • loss of arable land, natural habitats, human settlement and archaeological sites in reservoir basins; • water quality changes in the impounded water body in terms of physical, chemical and biological characteristics; • water quality changes in the river reaches immediately downstream of the dam in terms of physical, chemical and biological characteristics; • modifications to the river morphology and flow patterns in the downstream river reaches; and • modifications to the riverine ecosystems in the river reaches that flank the reservoir both upstream and downstream.66 in line with international trends south africa’s water resources received more attention from 1944 as serious concern was expressed regarding the apparent deteriorating water quality in several areas due to pollution. in that year a committee was appointed by the minister of welfare and demobilisation to (make an) (e)nquiry into, report on and make recommendations in connection with, incidence through the union of bacterial and chemical pollution of water suppliers used or which may be used for domestic purposes for water supplies, including livestock in both urban and rural areas.67 at that stage limited legislation pertaining to the protection of the country’s water against pollution were contained in the public health act of 1919, the irrigation act of 1912, and the gold law act of 1908. provincially, the cape and natal had passed ordinances to protect their fish populations.68 however, it was municipalities who were mostly responsible for acting against polluters.69 65 . j.i.a. jinsheng. summary report as icold president: joint efforts for better development of dams and reservoirs, may 31 2012. [website: http://www.icold2012kyoto.org/pdf/jiaopening.pdf] [date of access: 03-02-2013] 66 . sancold. large dams and water systems in south africa, p. 178. 67 . sab, ges, 107/33 2069. report of the committee of enquiry on bacterial and chemicals pollution of water supplies, undated. 68 . sab, ges, 107/33 2069. committee of enquiry on bacterial and chemicals pollution of water supplies, undated. 69 . sab, ges, 107/33 2069. committee of enquiry on bacterial and chemicals pollution of water supplies, undated. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 63 members of the committee included representatives from the departments of health, irrigation, and agriculture.70 the committee expressed its concern over the lack of research on south african rivers, the widespread pollution of the country’s scarce water resources, and called for the ‘determined efforts’ to prevent ‘undue pollution’ of south africa’s water.71 i l l u s t r a t i o n 5 : hyacinth in the vaal river at the midvaal water intake in 2009.72 the committee also pointed to the lack of water quality research in south africa’s rivers and dams. water quality problems, such as eutrophication in the vaal river following the construction of the vaal dam, had been reported from the thirties.73 it was not only authorities who became increasingly concerned over the deterioration of south africa’s water resources. from 1945 the engineering fraternity in south africa was publicly voicing its concerns over the effect of water pollution on the country’s aquatic 70 . sab, ges, 107/33 2069. committee of enquiry on bacterial and chemicals pollution of water supplies, undated. 71 . sab, ges, 107/33 2069. committee of enquiry on bacterial and chemicals pollution of water supplies, undated. 72 . photograph: l. van vuuren, water hyacinth in vaal river, 13 jul. 2009. 73 c.a. bruwer. the economic impact of eutrophication, p. 3. van vuuren 64 wildlife.74 it was seen as the engineer’s duty to ensure the protection of south africa’s water resources, not only for the sake of people, but also for the sake of the environment.75 through forums such as the south african institution of civil engineers (saice) water engineers discussed the need for improved regulation to curb pollution and better regional development planning to prevent the over-allocation of water resources. saice president and irrigation department director a.l. mackenzie was particularly outspoken over his concerns regarding the direction in which south africa’s water resources was heading. in his 1944 presidential address he called for improved management of the country’s water resources, particularly where the planning of new water infrastructure was concerned.76 mackenzie also initiated enquiries into the country’s water laws and the activities of his department, as he felt the focus was too narrowly placed on irrigation, with not enough attention being afforded to other water demands.77 following a commission of enquiry into south africa’s water law the irrigation act of 1912 was replaced with the water act (act 54 of 1956).78 the act included for the first time some measure of pollution control mainly aimed at discharges of effluent from industry.79 in the early fifties freshwater research programmes, such as the river research programme of the natal town and regional planning commission highlighted the state of quality of the country’s water resources and the need to take action. up until that time most aquatic research in south africa was focused on the identification and classification of aquatic species.80 the main objectives of commission’s natal rivers research fellowship were to obtain a better understanding of the origin and characteristics as well as the state of water quality in natal’s main rivers, especially after routine surveys discovered far-reaching river pollution by industries and mines.81 74 . g.j. stander. ‘the quality requirements of water for the maintenance of aquatic flora and fauna and for recreational purposes’ in the south african industrial chemist 6(6) 1952, pp. 118-119. 75 . n. shand. ‘the role of the civil engineer in the daily life of the community’ in the transactions of the saice 3(12), 1953, pp. 381-391. 76 . a.l. mackenzie. ‘presidential address’ in minutes of proceedings of the south african institution of civil engineers (saice) 47, 1949, pp. 6-26. 77 . union of south africa. report of the director of irrigation for the period 1 april, 1940 to 31 march, 1946. (report no. ug 55-1947, government printer: pretoria) 78 . dwa. management of the water resources of the rsa, p. 8.8. 79 . dwa. management of the water resources of the rsa, p. 8.17. 80 . p. ashton, d. roux, c. breen, j. day, s. mitchell, m. seaman, and m. silberbauer. the freshwater science landscape in south africa, 1900-2010, overview of research topics, key individuals, institutional change and operating culture, p. 1. 81. sab, ww, pretoria, k52/4/1 435. letter from administrator of natal to j.j. fouché, minister of agricultural technical services and of water affairs, 7 july 1966 regarding abatement of pollution in rivers in natal. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 65 i l l u s t r a t i o n 1 2 : the tukhela river in kwazulu-natal was one of the first rivers on which hydrobiological studies were undertaken in south africa under the natal rivers research fellowship.82 by 1965, the natal rivers research fellowship had covered some 46% of natal and zululand.83 a particularly important discovery made through the programme was the fact that communities of aquatic plants and animals were found to be sensitive to alterations in water quantity and quality. this would later become one of the main indicators of river health in south africa, especially in the dwa river health programme, established after 1998. an important aspect of these programmes was that results were generally considered confidential and reports were not distributed publically. this might explain why the south african public seemed generally apathetic towards the freshwater environment. established organisations such as the wildlife society of southern africa and the botanical society of south africa were more concerned over the country’s fauna and flora than over its freshwater resources.84 these organisations also chose to work with the government, rather than to oppose it. 82 . photograph: l. van vuuren, tukhela river, 08 apr. 2006. 83 . sab, ww, pretoria, k52/4/1 435. water quality and abatement of pollution in natal rivers, undated, p.2. 84 . p. steyn. ‘popular environmental struggles in south africa’ in historia 47(1), 2002, pp. 125-158. van vuuren 66 4.1 involvement in international communities while south africa became increasingly isolated after 1960 as a result of its political activities, both its scientific and engineering communities benefited from global interactions with professional bodies. despite being barred from attending meetings in certain countries aquatic scientists and water engineers were nevertheless exposed to the international environmental movement and discussions around dams and river ecosystems.85 apart from contributing to international research programmes aquatic scientists were also able to share the results of findings from south african freshwater studies through articles in international journals, the most popular of which was hydrobiologia and the african journal of aquatic sciences. for south africa’s water engineers the country’s membership of icold, which it joined in 1965, proved crucial in moulding their thinking around the environment and dams. south africa participated actively in icold activities, with dwa senior officials (along with private engineers) regularly attending meetings and conferences and contributing to technical committees.86 although south africa did not serve on the icold environmental committee which was established in 1972 as a direct result of the united nations conference on the human environment, technical reports dealing with environmental matters were widely distributed among dwa engineers.87 environmental awareness was also ingrained into the dwa culture. in 1976, the country assumed a leadership role in icold when secretary of water affairs, dr jaques pierre kriel, was elected vice president of icold. kriel was a campaigner for cooperation between engineers and other science disciplines, including ecological scientists.88 he believed that environmental studies prior to the construction of dams were essential so as to ensure that dams would not bring more impacts than benefits to communities, and he called on engineers to take more responsibility for the impact their developments had on the surrounding environment.89 for kriel the only way forward to achieve a balance between the protection of the environment and meeting the needs of a growing population was through compromise. as the head of the government’s water department he would have had a considerable influence over government policy, and ensured the dwa’s participation in and funding of multidisciplinary collaborative freshwater research programmes, as will be described below. 85 . vvpa, folder 4. 20120213 king, p. 2 of pp. 1-3 and vvpa, folder 4, 20101123 van robbroeck, p. 4 of pp. 1-7. 86 . vvpa, folder 4, 20120621 van robbroeck, p. 1 of pp. 1-3. 87 . vvpa, folder 4, 20120621 van robbroeck, p. 1 of pp. 1-3. 88 . j.p. kriel. ‘die siviele ingenieur in die veranderende wêreld’ in the civil engineer in south africa 14(4), 1972, pp. 141-151. 89 . j.p. kriel. ‘die siviele ingenieur in die veranderende wêreld’ in the civil engineer in south africa 14(4), 1972, pp. 141-151. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 67 even before he became secretary of water affairs kriel led a major study into the impacts of proposed dam development on the st lucia lake system between 1963 and 1967. a committee of enquiry was established after concerns were expressed by the scientific community over potential impacts of the new hluhluwe dam on st lucia’s water supply.90 this is after an earlier study on the ecology of the st lucia system pointed to increasing siltation and salinity problems in the freshwater system as a result of both natural processes and human actions.91 it was thought that another dam would worsen the situation. the commission investigated several threats to the st lucia system including the impacts of dam construction on the rivers feeding the wetland system. the final report of the commission, published in 1967, proposed that for every storage dam constructed in future in the catchment a proportion of the yield should be reserved for supply to the system during dry periods.92 the commission went so far as to suggest that dams be especially built for st lucia to guarantee its supply during dry periods. the results of the st lucia commission would later influence the findings of the commission of enquiry into water matters, which was published in 1970.93 this was the first official document in which the need to allocate water for the environment was expressed, in this case for two of the country’s most iconic nature reserves, namely lake st lucia and the kruger national park.94 although aquatic scientists would not agree with the figure of 1% of the total estimated water consumption to be set aside for freshwater ecosystems as suggested by the commission, it provided a useful point of departure for further debate and study in the early eighties. the finding of the commission of enquiry into water matters served as the foundation for the 1998 reserve legislation.95 4.2 cooperative research programmes aquatic research in south africa received a major boost through the country’s involvement in the international biological program (ibp), which was launched by the international council of scientific unions (icsu) in 1964.96 the ibp focused on research that investigated man’s relationship with his environment, and over the next decade projects were funded in 60 countries around on seven themes (including freshwater), the ultimate objective 90 . see for example k1/8 vol iii 12. letter to the private secretary to the minister of lands from the south african association for the advancement of science, 2 february 1963. 91 . j.h. day, n.a.h. millard and g.j. broekhuysen, ‘the ecology of south african estuaries part iv: the st lucia system’ in transactions of the royal society of south africa 34(1), 1954, pp. 129-156. 92 . j.p. kriel. report of the commission of inquiry into the alleged threat to animal and plant life in st lucia lake, p. 186. 93 . republic of south africa. report of the commission of enquiry into water matters. (report no. rp 34-1970z, government printer: pretoria, 1970). 94 . r.d. walmsley and b.r. davies. ‘an overview of water for environmental management’ in water sa 17(1), 1991, pp. 67-76. 95 . j. king and h. pienaar (eds.). sustainable use of south africa’s inland water, p. 59. 96 . p. ashton, et al. the freshwater science landscape in south africa, 1900-2010, p. 10. van vuuren 68 being to use the results from these projects to make recommendations for the improvement of society’s well-being.97 in 1970, icsu established the scientific committee on problems of the environment (scope) to further drive international research in the environmental field. as a result of the successful participation of south african researchers in this programme as well as the ibp, a number of national collaborative research programmes were established, most notably the national programme for environmental sciences (npes) under the auspices of the council for scientific and industrial research (csir) in 1972. the npes was a substantive programme, involving at its height over 300 scientists from various disciplines.98 for this discussion the most important sub-programme of the npes was the multidisciplinary, cooperative, inland water ecosystems (iwe) programme, which was aimed at the promotion, coordination and…initiation of research relating to environmental problems and the utilisation and conservation of inland water ecosystems.99 more specifically, the iwe programme sought to investigate existing and projected impacts on the aquatic environment by anthropogenic actions and finding solutions for these problems.100 during the first decade of the programme the main focus of research was solving environmental problems experienced in man-made water systems, such as eutrophication and sedimentation in dams.101 later the emphasis would shift to incorporate more catchmentorientated research. funding came from government departments, research bodies such as the csir and the water research commission (wrc), as well as the council for the environment (and later the departments of water and environmental affairs). information sharing was an important part of the iwe programme. the programme was administered by the national committee for environmental sciences, which among others included representatives from the dwa, the department of health and the environment, provincial administrations, the wrc, the csir, provincial administrations and participating universities.102 in turn, smaller, technical committees with representatives from different disciplines and stakeholder groups gathered regularly in meeting rooms, at symposia and workshops and during field visits to discuss environmental problems, the outcomes of research projects and the way forward.103 97 . anon. ‘the international biological programme’ in south african medical journal 45(45), 1971, p. 1277. 98 . ecosystems programmes (compiler). environmental research perspectives in south africa, p. 2. 99 . r.g. noble and j. hemens. inland water ecosystems in south africa – a review of research needs, p. iv. 100 . r.g. noble and j. hemens. inland water ecosystems in south africa – a review of research needs, p. iv. 101 . r.d. walmsley. ‘the role of multidisciplinary research programmes in the management of water resources’ in water sa 18(2), 1992, pp. 195-201. 102 . r.g. noble and j. hemens. inland water ecosystems in south africa, p. 3. 103 . r.d. walmsley. ‘the role of multidisciplinary research programmes in the management of water resources’ in water sa 18(2), 1992, pp. 195-201. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 69 as scientist r.d. walmsley points out, the iwe programme was instrumental in ‘initiating, stimulating and coordinating research’ between multidisciplinary parties from different organisations – particularly aquatic scientists and water engineers.104 given the legislative and policy environment of south africa’s water sector at the time it is unlikely that any other forum could have been as successful in bringing people from these different sectors together to discuss water-related issues. equally important is the fact that the programme emphasised the environmental impacts of dams in a scientific rather than in an alarmist manner, which resulted in an improved likelihood of buy-in from decision-makers. south africa’s aquatic science community begrudgingly accepted the country’s dependence on dams: we have to use rivers. we have to dam them and, in so doing, we inevitably alter the characteristics of rivers: their flow rate, their volume and their temporal features, their temperature, erosive nature, particulate material and their chemistry.105 rather than opposing government dam construction schemes scientists chose to work with decision-makers in order to come to some kind of compromise. this collaborative approach had a positive outcome. r.d. walmsley comments thus on the value of the programme: sound management of aquatic ecosystems requires an understanding of their ecological functioning. very few of the iwe sub-programmes failed to meet their scientific research objectives and have provided a wealth of documentation on reservoirs, wetlands, rivers, lakes and estuaries.106 engineers and scientists agree on the indispensable value of the multidisciplinary and collaborative approach of the npes. the abandonment of the programme in 1988 as a result of organisational restructuring was a tragedy for water research in south africa. prof will alexander, who participated actively in the iwe from the time of its inception to his retirement from dwa in 1984, comments thus on the repercussions of the termination of the programme: all our hard work during the previous years of developing a multidisciplinary, multiinstitutional approach to the growing environmental problems in our country came to nothing. slowly the institutions in the natural sciences developed a grain silo approach as they were forced to compete for research funding.107 4.3 dams and the natal parks board natal provincial authorities, most particularly the natal parks board (npb) and its scientists, played an important role in stimulating cooperation between dwa officials and aquatic scientists towards improved environmental management of the country’s dams. 104 . r.d. walmsley. ‘the role of multidisciplinary research programmes in the management of water resources’ in water sa 18(2), 1992, pp. 195-201. 105 . j.h. o’keeffe (ed). conservation of south african rivers, p. 15. 106 . r.d. walmsley. ‘the role of multidisciplinary research programmes in the management of water resources’ in water sa 18(2), 1992, pp. 195-201. 107 . vvpa, folder 4. 20120206 alexander. p. 2 of pp. 1-6. van vuuren 70 a major example of this is the collaborative research programme around the pongolapoort dam. the npb was concerned about the potential impacts of the dam on the pongola floodplain situated immediately downstream of the dam site. the annual inundation of the floodplain by summer floods reenergised a rich variance of ecosystems services that not only supported fish and animal life, but also a large community of people who depended on the floodplain for their livelihood. these floods would now be largely contained within the pongolapoort dam. in 1967, npb employee mike coke started research on the fish ecology of the floodplain lakes with a view of determining the effect of the dam.108 coke’s research subsequently underlined the importance of natural flooding to the life history of the fish species supported by the floodplain. illustration 13: the pongola river downstream of the pongolapoort dam.109 the results of the research prompted the first meetings between the npb and the dwa on mitigating the downstream effects of the pongolapoort dam. it was not the intention of the npb to halt the construction of the dam, rather the parks board wanted to find a way of mitigating its effects on the downstream environment.110 the meetings were amicable – so much so that coke and dwa resident engineer roger phélines, together with a colleague, went on to author a paper on the biological consequences 108 . vvpa. folder 4. 20121211 coke. p.1 of pp. 1-4. 109 . photograph: l. van vuuren, pongola river, 15 aug. 2012. 110 . vvpa. folder 4. 20121211 coke. p.1 of pp. 1-4. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 71 of the pongolapoort dam which was presented at the icold conference in madrid, spain, in 1973.111 while dwa was sympathetic towards the need for environmental releases from pongolapoort dam, it required scientific proof as to how much water was required to sustain environmental processes on the floodplain.112 still, the interaction between aquatic scientists and engineers on the issue was described as ‘friendly, sympathetic and helpful’.113 in 1974, as a direct result of these discussions, the university of natal established a research station on site at the pongola floodplain as part of the iwe programme. the pongola floodplain research programme was the first comprehensive study in south africa focusing on water releases for human and environmental benefit and remains unequalled in terms of scope and value.114 when comparing the benefits of water use for irrigation with the benefits of water use for ecosystem services, the latter came out tops, and the results provided the basis for recommendations on how to manage flow below the dam, which dwa accepted. local water committees were subsequently spearheaded by the dwa to negotiate releases from pongolapoort dam, however, conflict of interest between, for example, fishermen and maize farmers, caused environmental releases to be placed on the back burner.115 no flood release date could apparently be found that suited all the roleplayers. despite the challenges of implementing the environmental releases the pongola floodplain research programme has had an enduring influence over the south african water sector. project leader professor charles breen sums up the benefits of the programme: [the research programme] set the platform for the dwa to begin to appreciate the importance of environmental flows and to collaborate with aquatic ecologists…it introduced people as integral parts of river ecosystems – a concept that would later become formulated as ‘socio-ecological systems’.116 in 1976, the npb would play an important role again when it was appointed to undertake environmental impact assessment studies as part of the planned mfolozi dam. this was the first dam for which an eia was taken prior to construction in south africa.117 the committee of inquiry into the ecological aspects of a dam in the umfolozi river oversaw the eia process.118 representation on the committee included wildlife 111 . r.f. phélines, m. coke and s.m. nicol. 1973. some biological consequences of the damming of the pongolo river. (in_proceedings of international conference on large dams, madrid, p. 175-190) 112 . l. van vuuren. ‘pongolapoort dam. development steeped in controversy’ in the water wheel 8(3), 2009, pp. 23-27. 113 . vvpa. folder 4. 20121211 coke. p.1 of pp. 1-4. 114 . l. van vuuren. ‘pongolapoort dam. development steeped in controversy’ in the water wheel 8(3), 2009, pp. 23-27. 115 . vvpa. folder 4. 20110725 breen. p.2 of pp. 1-6. 116 . vvpa. folder 4. 20110725 breen. pp.3-4 of pp. 1-6 117 . r.n. porter. ‘damming the umfolozi: environmental impact assessment’ in south african journal of science 73, 1977, p. 323. 118 . r.n. porter. ‘damming the umfolozi: environmental impact assessment’ in south african journal of science 73, 1977, p. 323. van vuuren 72 preservationists, ecologists, planners and engineers. the positive experience from this process prompted dwa to subsequently pass a policy to voluntarily include eia studies as part of all the department’s bulk water resource development projects from 1980.119 a new division, namely planning services, was created within the dwa to oversee eia studies. 4.4 drakensberg pumped storage scheme another water resources development project which helped to institutionalise environmental matters in the dwa and promote cooperation between engineers and scientists was the drakensberg pumped storage scheme.120 the project would change for ever the way in which large water resource development schemes were planned and executed within the department. located in the foothills of the drakensberg complex, the drakensberg pumped storage scheme formed part of the second phase of the tukhela-vaal transfer scheme – the first phase of which had been approved in 1970 to augment water supply to what is now gauteng.121 concern from some of the owners of the farms that were to be expropriated for the project prompted the dwa to appoint an environmental committee for the drakensberg pumped storage scheme – the first such a committee to be formed for a water resource development project in south africa.122 the committee’s main objective was to identify – and propose ways to mitigate – major environmental impacts of the scheme. specialists were employed for this purpose.123 while the dwa was willing to mitigate some of the effects of the scheme, this inter-basin transfer project was considered crucial and would be completed regardless of the environmental consequences.124 the environmental committee was chaired by the dwa, with representatives from the national parks board, eskom, the department of forestry, department of planning, department of agricultural technical services, the npb, and the natal town and regional planning commission.125 the public’s interest was represented by two members of a non 119 . dwa. management of the water resources of the rsa, p. 6.45. 120 . p. roberts. ‘development and conservation go hand in hand at water affairs’, the civil engineer in south africa 26(9), 1984, pp. 417 and 419. 121 . l. van vuuren. ‘thukhela-vaal transfer scheme – feeding the hungry heartland’ in the water wheel 7(6), 2008, pp. 16-21. 122 . c.p.r. roberts and j.j. erasmus. ‘environmental considerations of the drakensberg pumped storage scheme’ in the civil engineer in south africa 24(8), 1982, pp. 361-373 & 455. 123 . c.p.r. roberts and j.j. erasmus. ‘environmental considerations of the drakensberg pumped storage scheme’ in the civil engineer in south africa 24(8), 1982, pp. 361-373 & 455. 124 . c.p.r. roberts and j.j. erasmus. ‘environmental considerations of the drakensberg pumped storage scheme’ in the civil engineer in south africa 24(8), 1982, pp. 361-373 & 455. 125 . c.p.r. roberts and j.j. erasmus. ‘environmental considerations of the drakensberg pumped storage scheme’ in the civil engineer in south africa 24(8), 1982, pp. 361-373 & 455. the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 73 governmental organisation called the council for the habitat, a composite of various environmental organisations. the first meeting took place on 2 october, 1974. various specialist studies were subsequently undertaken (while the project was ongoing), the results of which were used to compile an environmental impact report in october 1975. it is important to note that the study included only the drakensberg pumped storage scheme and excluded other elements of phase two of the thukhela-vaal transfer scheme. no ecological studies were undertaken to determine potential effects on the river system. rather the committee focused on ‘harmonising of site components, minimal disturbance of the natural environment and site restoration’.126 again it took compromise and partnership between engineers and scientists to work out the best ways to minimise damage to the environment, particularly since there was no environmental laws to govern the process. through this project dwa realised that managing dam construction with the environment in mind is not necessary an added burden on the engineer, but that it can have practical and financial advantages.127 a number of environmental measures taken, such as the use of grass rather than stone pitching on the downward slope of the kilburn dam, resulted in significant financial savings.128 a major long-term recommendation of the drakensberg pumped storage scheme environmental committee was that environmental committees should be established for every large water engineering project. commenting on the changes within the department following the project, dwa chief engineer: planning services, dr paul roberts, wrote in 1984: it is now generally accepted within the directorate of water affairs that environmental aspects must be taken into account in the planning, design, construction and budgeting for projects. any resistance that there was has been overcome.129 5. discussion in line with international trends, south africa’s dam construction sector showed strong growth in environmental consciousness following the second world war, starting with concerns regarding the quality of south africa’s water resources. unlike the modern environmental movement in countries such as the usa improved environmental management of water resources was not as a result of public pressure but rather due to collaborative efforts between water engineers and aquatic scientists. from the forties increased concern was express from various sectors to the deteriorating quality of south africa’s water resources. while local aquatic scientists were mostly focusing 126 . p. roberts. ‘development and conservation go hand in hand at water affairs’, the civil engineer in south africa 26(9), 1984, pp. 417 and 419. 127 . c.p.r. roberts and j.j. erasmus. ‘environmental considerations of the drakensberg pumped storage scheme’ in the civil engineer in south africa 24(8), 1982, pp. 361-373 & 455. 128 . c.p.r. roberts and j.j. erasmus. ‘environmental considerations of the drakensberg pumped storage scheme’ in the civil engineer in south africa 24(8), 1982, pp. 361-373 & 455. 129 . p. roberts. ‘development and conservation go hand in hand at water affairs’, the civil engineer in south africa 26(9), 1984, pp. 417 and 419. van vuuren 74 on identifying and classifying species in water systems, engineers were becoming increasingly environmentally conscious, realising the impact of infrastructure on water systems, and calling for more stringent regulations to curb pollution. water quality issues were also being reported in dams, while dams themselves were seen as beneficial as they act as sinks to pollutants in water. even as the south african government became increasingly isolated from the seventies as a result of its apartheid policy, water engineering officials and local aquatic scientists maintained contact with their respective international communities through membership of professional bodies and publications in international journals. it was through these memberships that scientists and engineers became aware of growing international trends towards environmental consciousness in dam construction, which was then applied to the local sector. while internationally, it was public conservation groups who placed increased pressure on authorities to implement environmental legislation from the sixties, which would eventually also pertain to the dam construction sector, in south africa it was rather scientists who brought attention to the environmental impacts of specific dams in the country, while engineers themselves became increasingly concerned over the state of south africa’s rivers. while south africa’s water resources had long been valued as a result of its relative scarcity, it was only once national and international freshwater research programmes grew local knowledge about the state and functioning of the country’s freshwater systems that scientists and government officials were able to negotiate ways of how best to manage these systems in the absence of local legislation and public consultation, while meeting the growing human demand for water. this shared concern between the different parties took an understanding and collaborative rather than a confrontational tone, and parties worked together voluntarily towards a state of compromise. the historically small size of the water sector also aided the fostering of professional and personal relationships between aquatic scientists and water engineers based on mutual respect, which stood them in good stead when negotiating ways to mitigate the environmental impact of dams. the south african government, through the dwa and later the csir and wrc, expressed a willingness to invest in long-term, multidisciplinary, participative projects to garner the necessary scientific knowledge to improve decision-making to better manage the environmental impacts of dam developments. these research programmes were generally successful in fostering positive relationships between the different parties (i.e. dwa engineering officials and scientists). although it did not curb the construction of dams, it further fostered environmental consciousness among the south african water engineering fraternity and laid the foundations for the environmental reserve which would later become a cornerstone of south african water law, in which a percentage of water in each river has to be reserved to support ecological functions. 6. conclusion the results of the cooperation between aquatic scientists and engineers, the multidisciplinary research programmes, together with the outcome of early eia studies, fed into the subsequent environmental-related decision-making around dams and dwa’s decision to the environment and south african dam construction (1945-1980) td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 51-80. 75 voluntary include environmental impact assessment and environmental committees as part of its bulk water resource development planning and construction process from 1980 – more than a decade before it became compulsory through national legislation. the relationships built between dwa officials and the aquatic science community would stand the country’s water sector in good stead after south africa’s democratisation in 1994 when the country’s new water laws had to be negotiated, leading to one of the most progressive pieces of water legislation in the world in the form of the national water act (act 36 of 1998). bibliography primary sources central archive (sab), pretoria, water affairs archive (ww) sab, ww, pretoria, k1/8 vol iii 12. letter to the private secretary to the minister of lands from the south african association for the advancement of science, 2 february 1963. sab, ww, pretoria, k1/8 vol iii 12. response to the letter to the private secretary to the minister of lands from the south african association for the advancement of science, 26 february, 1964. sab, ww, pretoria, k1/8 vol iii 12. voorgestelde hluhluwe dam. memorandum insake besware van verskeie instansies teen die aanbou van die dam. sab, ww, 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(1994) defines cooperation as the ability to work together to achieve a common goal. common goals define appropriate behaviour and 1 . school of education studies, university of the free state, p.o. box 339, bloemfontein 9300, south africa. email: teisekl.hum@ufs.ac.za teise 520 improve the quality of life within a community (johnson et al. 2007). in south africa, the common goal and also the vision of a socially sustainable south african society is articulated in the south african constitution, act no. 108 of 1996. realising a socially sustainable society through cooperation is therefore constitutionally mandated, especially in light of the apartheid past. education, but particularly south african education is regarded central in realising ssd. however, an approach to education and learning is required which would effectively promote and develop the values of ssd. in this paper i argue that cooperative learning (cl) holds the potential to develop and promote values for ssd. in my argument, i’ll first be conceptualising learning for ssd. thereafter, i’ll be exploring the concepts cooperative learning and social sustainable development. in the last part of this paper i will draw links between cooperative learning and social sustainability to demonstrate the potential cl holds for developing the skills and values of ssd. re-conceptualising learning for social sustainable development education is key to sd and ssd (chapter 36 of agenda 21 (unced, 1992). however, traditional education and its related learning approaches are blamed for creating and upholding unsustainable development and rendering society unsustainable (calder & clugstone 2005; gadotti 2008; sterling 1996). jackson (2011:28) also claims that social transformation involves types of learning that are not at presently recognised or practised in education. in this regard the south african department of education also expressed a concern that “many teachers rely on teaching methods that do not engage learners in active learning” (doe 2003). hence it calls for an overhaul of the ways in which the official curriculum is delivered. sustainable development therefore not only requires a re-conceptualisation of learning. rather it requires deep, transformative learning which would not only lead to new ways of thinking, alternative values, co-operation and more reflexive citizens but also to the construction of a transformed and entirely new world view (jackson 2011; wals 2011). martin et al. (2006) assert that such learning should lead to individual behavioural changes, as well as social change. one could therefore assume that within the sa context, learning for sd should imbue learners with alternative values than the ones associated with apartheid education. such learning should therefore not only give effect to the vision of the constitution and the vision of ssd, but also to learners developing a new outlook on their individual and collective responsibility towards realising both visions. since the habits of the mind and the habits of the heart, the habits that inform the democratic ethos are not inherited (de tocqueville 1969) they need to be developed through education. south african education therefore needs to embrace learning which would cultivate values and behaviour that is supportive of ssd. south african education, prior to 1994, was informed by the traditional paradigm (botha 2002), which rendered society socially unsustainable by creating and reproducing racial, gender, class and ethnic divisions and inequalities in both education, and in society (weldon n.d.; muthivhi & broom 2008). the adoption of a new constitution in 1994 saw the values of the traditional educational approach in contrast with its vision, and therefore unfit to promote ssd and to sustain the democratic project of ssd. education was subsequently cooperative learning and a socially sustainable sa td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 519-536. 521 transformed and curriculum 2005 (c2005) an outcomes-based approach to education adopted. however, implementation challenges saw c2005 revised numerous times since its implementation, and more recently into the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) (2011). the caps stipulates policy on assessment in sa schools, but it also contains the amended national curriculum statement grades r-12, which gives expression to the knowledge, skills and values worth learning in south africa (dbe 2011). as such, the ncs (2011) not only aims to equip learners with knowledge, skills and values for meaningful participation in society as democratic citizens, but it also embraces social transformation, active learning, human rights, inclusivity and social justice (dbe 2011). in principle, the ncs aspires to create learners that will be imbued with the values of democratic citizenship, social justice, human rights and equality – values that were lacking in previous educational aims and objectives. given its nature and aims, i contend that cooperative learning, despite it being “underestimated and underutilised in schools” (al-yaseen 2011) provides a reconceptualisation of learning which would promote the internalisation of these values and so realise a socially sustainable south african society. what is cooperative learning (cl)? various definitions of what cl entails are found in the literature. however, all view cl as a strategy where learners learn to work cooperatively in groups to attain collective outcomes. killen (2010; smith 2000) defines cl as an instructional technique in which learners work together in small groups to help each other achieve a common learning goal. slavin (1990) adds the element of equality as an imperative when defining cl as a social method which involves students working together as equals to accomplish something of importance to all. cooperative learning subsequently rejects selfishness, individual competition and unequal power relations. rather, it deliberately emphasises the group, its cohesion, common progress and the equality of team members. hence killen (2010 schul, 2011; smith 2000) warns that cl should not be mistaken for group work or for having a group of students sitting side-byside at the same table talking to each other while doing their individual assignments. for such group work will not necessarily yield the social outcomes of cl, as they might not attain its common goal, whilst prejudice, biasness or unequal power relations might still be prevalent amongst group members (georgiadis et al. 2011). guided by principles of positive interdependence, individual accountability, interpersonal skills, face-to-face interaction, group processing and equal participation cl places particular demands on the teaching and learning process (johnson & johnson 2010; parveen et al. 2011; smith 2000). it is therefore only when these demands are met, that cl is taking place and space is created to effectively realise the common aims and objectives of the group, and develop the social dispositions required for ss. in addition, cl is also a form of active learning (tsay & brady 2010). active learning is conceptually defined as “anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing” (onwuegbuzie et al. 2009). as such, cl requires that learners not only ‘do’ things, but also reflect on and analyse what they are doing. reflection is the key to what it means to be involved in esd (wade & parker 2008). it therefore enables people to critically evaluate their ideas and actions pertaining to ssd, and change it accordingly. teise 522 cooperative learning could therefore be a valuable educational and social tool in transforming the post-apartheid south african society and education, especially since it is intrinsic to social reconstructivism (killen 2010; schrueder 1998; steyn & wilkinson 1998). as one of the theoretical frameworks of south african education, social reconstructivism supposes social transformation. in addition, social reconstructivism also assumes learners who do not passively receive information, but are actively involved in the learning process by constructing their own knowledge. given the possible value cl holds for social transformation, south african education’s commitment to democratic and responsible citizenship as educational outcomes is therefore significant to cl. hence the statement “we are all responsible for the advancement of our nation ... and ... we are all responsible, too, to others in our society, for our own behaviour” (doe 2001). in addition, not only is south african education principally based on the value of accountability (doe 1995), but the national curriculum statement (2011) is grounded on the principle of active learning (dbe 2011). the ncs also aims to develop learners who cannot only work cooperatively as individuals and with others as members of a team, but who are also able to critically evaluate information and communicate effectively (dbe, 2011). since these outcomes are all linked to cl, south african education has an obligation to advance cl in order to realise ssd. what is socially sustainable development (ssd)? social sustainable development is integral to sd. hence chan lean heng’s (2006) warns that no society can sustain ably, nor can its members live in dignity and peace if there is inequality, injustice, prejudice or discrimination of any group. societies characterised by social inequality and inequity will therefore not be sustainable. although efforts to define ssd are still in its formative phase (magis & shinn 2009), ssd conceptualised in terms of social justice, concerns the human dimension of sd. as such it addresses inter alia issues such as equity, human rights, racism, poverty, accountability and peace (fernando 2003; foley 2004; landorf et al. 2008). social sustainable communities are also equitable, diverse, connected, and democratic and provide a good quality of life (mckenzie, 2004). in addition, for colantonio (2007) the maintenance and development of social capital is relevant to ssd, especially in the context of the need to foster trusting, harmonious and co-operative behaviour to underpin civil society. south africa envisions a socially sustainable society. this vision is articulated in the constitution which aims to [h]eal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights; [i]mprove the quality of life of all citizens ...; [l]ay the foundations for a democratic and open society …; and [b]uild a united and democratic south africa (rsa 1996). in principle, this vision entails the promotion and advancement of democracy, equity, social justice and equality, non-sexism and non-racism, tolerance, respect, rule of law, accountability, transparency, human dignity (rsa 1996). the advancement of this vision cooperative learning and a socially sustainable sa td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 519-536. 523 and principles are relevant because for the south african people, they embody the dream of a ssd, and a break with social unsustainability characterised by inequity, inequality, racism, sexism and social injustices. south african education has a particular role to play in realising ssd. however, it cannot be business-as-usual for education. hence the call for “appropriate education and training [which would] empower people to participate effectively in all processes of democratic society ... community life, and can help citizens building a nation free of race, gender and every other form of discrimination” (doe 1995). it could be assumed that appropriate education not only entails the creation of appropriate teaching opportunities. learning opportunities should also be designed in a fashion that would empower learners to contribute towards social sustainability. in addition, the education system taken as a whole “embodies and promotes the collective moral perspective of its citizens that is the code of values by which the society wishes to live and consents to be judged: (doe 1995). we are furthermore promised that all new education and training policies to address the legacies of under-development and inequitable development will be based principally on the constitutional guarantees of equal educational rights for all and their implementation and formulation must observe all other constitutional guarantees and protections (doe 1995). the doe (2003) also commits itself to develop learners imbued with the values of the constitution and who act in the interest of a society based on respect for democracy, equality, human dignity, life and social justice. these bold statements and promises not only place south african education in the centre of realising a social sustainable society, but in principle create space to realise this through cl. what is the relationship between cooperative learning and socially sustainable development? the value of cl in realising academic outcomes is well-known. various authors also allude to the particular value of cl in developing in learners sound social outcomes (johnson et al. 2007). these outcomes resonate with the tenets of ssd which are: human well-being; democracy, equality and equity; capital and human rights (magis & shinn 2009; mckenzie 2004; pronk 1981). in the discussion that follows, these tenets are explored in relation to the principles and social outcomes of cl in order to establish the extent to which the latter could be instrumental in promoting ssd. a) human well-being sustainable development, and thus ssd focus on the well-being of people as the ultimate goal of all development policies (wced 1987). human well-being concerns basic goods or services as well as fundamental human rights, democratic participation, social justice and equality, needed to meet a minimum standard of living (dresner 2008; elliot 1999; koning 2001). this amounts to different freedoms, political rights and accountability; transparency; skills, dialogue and organisation and social interaction and the creation of an environment where people can develop their capabilities and enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives (blewitt 2008; harkness 2007; magis & shinn 2009; mccarthy 2009; rist 2008; sen 1999). as such, human well-being, relate directly to people’s ability to sustain themselves and to influence the world around them. the concept ‘well-being’ is therefore primarily conceptualised in terms teise 524 of the fulfilment of basic needs, human development and freedom. ssd is subsequently realised when the basic needs, human development and needs for freedoms of people are met. cooperative learning could advance human well-being by promoting the progress of each team member. promoting each others’ progress places a particular responsibility on group members. in cl it entails assisting, helping and supporting one another, exchanging needed resources and information, giving moral support, encouraging one another positively, influencing one another’s efforts, acting trustworthy and being motivated to strive for mutual benefit and to achieve the goal together (boondee et al. 2011; johnson & johnson 1991). as such, cl not only requires provision in members’ basic needs, but also for members to learn to know each other. johnson and johnson (1991) assert that knowledge of each other as persons forms the basis for caring and committed relations. concern for the well-being of others is therefore advanced by developing in learners skills and dispositions characterised by a selflessness, respect for others, caring for one another, considering each others’ well-being and being sensitive to and providing in the needs of others. furthermore, promoting the progress of each member, assumes a relationship where members depend on one another, and as such is responsible for one another. b) democracy democracy is central to achieving a ssd, as the latter requires a political system that embraces effective citizen participation. democracy not only implies democratic government, but also democratic governance. since both are perceived to promote human development, ssd cannot be pursued in the absence thereof (bäckstrand 2006; huh 2011; munasinghe 2009). the application of democratic principles is subsequently regarded as necessary conditions for ssd. democratic government and democratic governance assumes particular principles, values and dispositions which relate to democratic representation, transparency and social participation, but also to accountability, equity and equality, inclusion, fundamental freedoms; non-discrimination and respect for human rights (bäckstrand 2006; blewitt 2008, fernández 2004). as such, the implementation of these principles, values and dispositions therefore holds the potential to ensure the realisation of a sss. cooperative learning is grounded in individual responsibility. boondee et al. (2011) regards individual responsibility an important requirement for the strength and success of the group. individual accountability, assumes that each member is responsible for a particular part of the work or learning (killen 2010). however, as members share the responsibility of the progress of the team, responsibility is divided and members are held responsible for not only their own progress and success but also that of the group (boondee et al. 2011; johnson & johnson 1991). not only is responsibility valuable for promoting and advancing the aims and objectives of the group, but johnson and johnson (1991) asserts that mutual responsibility is the great central principle of democracy. the emphasis cl places on accountability also signals its potential to develop in learners sensitivity for human rights, especially since there can be no democratic rights without responsibilities. cooperative learning could furthermore promote democracy through sound interpersonal and small group skills which ensures that group members interact with each other, listen attentively, question and clarify ideas, negotiate, and peacefully resolve differences (killen 2010). al-yaseen (2011) also maintains that cl stresses the importance of communicative capacity as a means to build trusting relationships. possession of interpersonal and social cooperative learning and a socially sustainable sa td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 519-536. 525 skills subsequently creates opportunities for group members to develop communicative virtues which will enable them to state their views without interruption, to be listened to and not be forced to adopt a particular view. communicative virtues are important for it is not only through knowing, trusting, accepting and supporting one another that the group will accomplish success (roger & johnson 1994), but also through creating conditions where members engage critically and deliberate with each other in an environment that is free from prejudice and bias (boondee et al. 2011). space is therefore created for free and open dialogue where ideas and (mis)conceptions could be challenged. as such through interpersonal and small group skills, learners not only develop and are sensitised about democratic citizenship (killen 2010; slavin et al. 2001), but the values and principles of democratic citizenship and a socially sustainable society are also realised. furthermore, since interpersonal and small group skills also promote decision-making, constructive conflict management, trust in others and effective communication, (johnson & johnson 2010; tsay & brady 2010), cl positively contribute towards social capital and the cohesiveness of the group. in addition, cl also nurtures democratic values such as concern for others whilst it promotes diverse relationships and social interaction regardless of differences, by developing in learners anti-discriminatory tendencies (schul 2011; sharan 2010; govaris & kaldi 2008). cooperative learning could also develop in learners’ empathy towards other peoples and cultures and it promote respect for one another (killen 2010; slavin et al. 2001). as such, cl promotes inclusion. c) equity regarded as basic to every concept of justice, equity implies fairness in the distribution of basic social goods, such as liberty and opportunity, income and wealth and social respect (baker 2006). equity is broadly concerned with the elimination of institutionalised domination and oppression and with the distribution of benefits and burdens throughout the society (enslin 2006; foley 2004). as such, equity calls for more emphasis to be placed on the needs of the poor, vulnerable and the disadvantaged. as a constant theme in all discourse on ssd, equity assumes a commitment to fairness in the distribution of gains and losses, and the entitlement of everyone to an acceptable quality and standard of living (deb 2009; dillard et al. 2009; dresner 2008; landorf et al. 2008;). however, equity cannot be achieved without equality. conceptualised as sameness or equal treatment, equality is not only an important requirement for social justice, but since inequity results in for example unfair treatment and discrimination, it is also perceived to being an integral part of the problem(s) of sd and the driving force behind unsustainability (langhelle 1999; mclaren 2003; rao 2000). as equality, and therefore also equity, are crucial elements of social justice (heyneman 2004; pendlebury & enslin 2004; schultz 2007) it could be argued that social justice is a defining characteristic of ssd. to achieve social justice, and therefore ssd, all people will therefore have to be treated equally and equitably. as social justice is an ideal of governments (schultz 2007), ideals to achieve ssd aims and objectives should therefore specifically be underpinned by the peoples’ social justice needs. cl advance equity and equality by promoting equal participation of team members. parveen et al. (2011) claim that in cl, equal participation ensures that no students dominate another student socially or academically. slavin (in slavin & cooper, 1999) also asserts that if teise 526 learners work and get to know one another as equals they become friends and find it difficult to hold prejudices against one another. in the same breath allport (in slavin 1990) asserts that: prejudice ... may be reduced by equal status contacts between majority and minority groups in the pursuit of common goals. the effect is greatly enhanced if this contact is sanctioned by institutional supports... and if it is of a sort that leads to the perceptions of common interests and common humanity between members of two groups. as such, in cl no room exists for unequal power relations. team members should therefore embrace and respect diversity and treat each other equitably and fairly, irrespective of their social status, gender roles, sexual orientations, religious convictions, physical abilities or any other differences. as such, cl moves beyond discrimination by assigning equal status roles to students irrespective of their differences. promoting equity and equality is therefore also indispensable to sustain the democratic project. by advancing equity and equality cl holds the potential to contribute towards realising ssd. d) social capital regarded as a “sine qua non of stable liberal democracy” and the “glue that holds societies together” (feldman & assaf 1998; fukuyama 1999), social capital is the attribute of communities. it is shaped through interactions and norms and values that are socially held. social capital embraces particular features of society, such as trust, norms and networks, information, commonly held values; mutual understanding, conflict resolution, problem identification and solving, socially held knowledge, reciprocity, dialogue, exchange, sanctions, interdependence, co-operation and connectedness (adams 2009; asadi et al. 2008; blewitt 2008; koning 2001; kilpatrick et al. 2001; messer & kecskes 2009). it is assumed that these principles would contribute towards improving social cohesion and the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions and enabling people to work in groups to achieve a common goal. through social cohesion south africans could mobilise and collectively act to overcome social challenges they are faced with on a daily basis, for mutual benefit. the aspirations for social capital, strong social ties and social cohesion are officially articulated in south africa’s motto “unity in diversity”. in cl social cohesion comes to play in the assumption that students will help one another to learn because they care about one another and want one another to succeed (killen 2010; slavin 1996). cooperative learning provides a learning laboratory where students develop empathy and concern towards other people, a commitment to the values of fairness and social responsibility, and the ability and inclination to act on these values in everyday life (schul 2011; slavin et al. 2001). ‘care’, ‘concern’ and ‘empathy’ are all related to the notion of compassion. compassion focuses more on the other and less on the self. it therefore pushes the boundaries of the self outward by focusing on others (waghid 2003). nussbaum (in waghid, 2003) explicitly link compassion to cl when stating “in order for compassion to be present, the person must consider ... another [person] as a significant part of his or her own scheme of goals and ends”. as such, the value of compassion in cl assumes that members put their individual self-interest second and focus on the needs of every individual member in the group in order to promote the cohesiveness of the group and to realise the groups’ aims and objectives. cooperative learning and a socially sustainable sa td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 519-536. 527 johnson and johnson (1995) claim that cohesive groups tend to show greater commitment to the social goals of the group, and feelings of personal responsibility to the group and the willingness to defend the group. members will therefore look out for another, support one another, be sensitive to the needs of another and share resources with one another. cooperative attitudes are also related to mutual acceptance, respect, liking and trust amongst students (johnson & johnson 1991). positive interdependence is therefore central in fostering social cohesion as an attribute of ssd. smith (2000) regards positive interdependence as the heart of cl. positive interdependence, exists when individuals perceive that they can reach their goals if and only if the other individuals with whom they are cooperatively linked also reach their goals (johnson & johnson, 1991). therefore, positive interdependence assumes that the failure or success of the individual is intrinsically bound to the failure or success of the group. since the whole team will suffer if one member does not do his or her work, the interdependence on one another is strengthened (tsay & brady 2010). therefore, positive interdependence not only fosters feelings of connectedness – a sense of belonging to a group, but it also develops group cohesiveness and unity. as such, positive interdependence promotes a strong sense of (inter)dependence and trust amongst members, and it assumes that members will share whatever is at their disposal in order to enable everybody and the group to succeed. e) human rights a sustainable society protects and promotes the human rights of its citizens. since human rights are integral to a sustainable society, education has a responsibility to protect and promote these rights. human rights are unalienable entitlements based on morality, justice and fairness which all people ought to have, and it occupies a specific place within ssd. for haughton (1999) sd has enlarged the consideration of rights through its explicit attention to the rights of present-day socially marginalised groups. for landorf et al. (2008; agyerman et al. 2003) sd should also encompass human rights issues of racism, democracy and peace, equality and participation. as basic human rights, these should be upheld and protected by all governments, and promoted through education. since human rights envision well-being they directly impact on the human condition. hence, when realised, human rights can ensure an environment supportive of ssd. it therefore follows that the absence of a human rights approach could impede upon the realisation of the aims and objectives of a socially sustainable society. cooperative learning embraces human resources issues in various ways. for example, cl supposes and embraces equity and equality but it also promotes values and dispositions of democracy, communication, deliberation and participation. in addition, cl also promotes diversity by embracing the inclusion and acceptance of learners with special educational needs (brandt 1991; slavin et al. 2001). johnson and johnson (2008) also regard cl to be instrumental in promoting peace, whilst slavin and cooper (1999) asserts that cl has the potential to facilitate the building of cross-ethnic friendships, and to reduce racial stereotyping, discrimination and prejudice. furthermore, cl not only promotes concern for others but also respect for diversity (killen 2010; schul 2011; slavin et al. 2001; tsay & brady 2010). as such, not only does it advance the acceptance of each other, but it also validates and appreciates diversity, and promotes social cohesion. similarly, the potential cl holds for peaceful conflict resolution should also be acknowledged. teise 528 however the effective implementation of cl and the realisation of ssd will more likely take place in classroom and school conditions that are conducive to teaching and learning. teachers should therefore consider the importance of a conducive learning environment, since none of the promises of cl will be realised unless an environment in which they are possible, is created (wohl & klein-wohl 1994; killen 2010). a conducive learning environment is amongst others an environment characterised by learner-centeredness and active learner involvement (maceiras, cancela, urréjola & sanchez 2011; tsay & brady 2010); effective classroom design (johnson, johnson & holubec 1994); and manageable learner numbers (schul 2011). it is assumed that these conditions would not only promote cl but also contribute towards ssd. however, certain complexities and challenges within the south african education context hold the potential to hamper the effective implementation of cl and the subsequent realisation of ssd. for example, harley and wederkind (2004) claim that in south african classrooms, teaching does not approximate learner-centeredness. harber and mncube (2011) cite research suggesting that teachers continue to use traditional, teacher-centered methods of monologue and rote learning. furthermore, referring particularly to the teaching of mathematics (but also applicable to education in general), sekao (2004) claims that the application of cl methods is not only made difficult by the large group sizes emanating from large class sizes, but that these conditions also result in huge time loses as teachers try to manage off-task behaviour. as such, not only does maintaining discipline in large classes become a serious challenge to teachers, but it also negates the effective implementation of cl. in addition, according to murdoch and wilson (2008) cl runs more smoothly when the physical environment is supportive. however, large classes makes it difficult for teachers to create a supportive physical environment, by arranging furniture and designing the classroom space as to maximise social contact amongst students, maintaining eye-contact and have easy access to each other, the teacher and the materials they might need. coupled with these, inadequately trained teachers (van deventer 2009; shreuder 1998); a rather shallow understanding of the principles of obe (and thus cl)(harley & wedekind 2004); haphazard planning and time management (bloch 2009), to mention a few, are some of the contributing complexities found in south african education which might jeopardise the successful implementation of cl as the subsequent realisation of ssd. conclusion schools are societal institutions, established amongst others to realise the aims and objectives of society. whilst in the past education was used to strengthen social divisions, education now has to bring south african closer together. i agree with giroux (1995) that through public schools, learners can be taught the values and skills necessary to administer, protect and perpetuate a free democratic society. it is therefore imperative that those learning approaches which could advance south africa’s democratic project be promoted and validated. especially since apartheid education perpetuated a socially crippled society marked by gender and racial stereotypes, tensions and discrimination, which caused divisions and a rift between the people of south africa. uniting the people of south africa behind a common goal – to build a democratic and free society where diversity is respected and equality and equity and non-discrimination reign is therefore equally the responsibility of education. cooperative learning and a socially sustainable sa td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 519-536. 529 provided that they embrace the goal and vision of a new south africa, teachers would regard the racially integrated and inclusive nature of schools as an asset, rather than a burden, through which they could develop in learners the skills and dispositions for democracy. south africans might not be to, or know how to or probably want to work cooperatively to bridge the divisions of the past. this not only hampers cooperation between and the coexistence of various groups but also the sustainable of the south african society. teaching and learning strategies which would cross these divisions, and bring learners and ultimately south africans closer together are therefore relevant and should be validated. since healing the divisions of the past and overcoming social stereotypes and racial tensions, is not going to happen spontaneously it is imperative that south african schools promote cooperative habits and dispositions in order to build a new and sustainable south african society, for without cooperation, south africans will not realise a socially sustainable society. cooperative learning appears to be relevant in developing in learners the dispositions required for cooperation and democracy. i argued that cl is potentially fit to advance a socially sustainable society. democracy assumes that everybody’s ideas should be validated and acknowledged. cooperative learning’s fitness to promote social sustainability lies in its potential to equip learners with skills, values and the right attitudes to look beyond social differences, and respect and appraise the rich diversity of the country and reach out to ‘other people’ in the safe and conducive environment provided by the school and classroom. part of these includes the ability to listen to others instead of having your views forced down on other people, or having your views ignored. listening demonstrate a concern and a respect for others. in addition, not only does cl promote effective communication, but it also advances rational deliberation. in addition, by promoting equality and fairness in the group cl contribute towards eradicating social barriers which might still divide the people of south africa, and threaten sustainability. there is a strong need for marginalised and oppressed learners to be heard, validated and acknowledged, and for stereotypes to be broken. by effectively implementing cl classrooms could become safe havens; free from inequality, separation and discrimination, and places where diversity is embraced. the social status of a learner or his/her ability should therefore not impede upon his/her self-worth or being intimidated by the social status of another learner. no learner should therefore feel inferior or superior. social sustainability depends amongst others on active citizenship and reflection. cooperative learning holds the potential to transform classrooms from places of passive social interaction, into places of active social interaction and reflection. in such an environment learners learn from one another and can confront and challenge their own prejudice. in addition, reflection upon the self, and challenging ‘the own’ could lead learners to a better understanding of themselves and who they really are. with such knowledge learners are able to defend the good in ‘their own’ or reject that which hampers free and spontaneous social interaction and cooperation. south africa’s bad human rights track record demonstrates that concerted efforts are needed to promote and advance the rights many fought for and which are now the basis of our democracy. south africa’s commitment to human rights is therefore central to both democracy as well as government’s obligation to realise a sustainable society. whilst the promotion of human rights is integral to education, cl could not only sensitise learners about their rights but also that of others in the group. however, there cannot be any teise 530 entitlement to rights without also accepting the corresponding responsibilities. by also emphasising the responsibility of each learner towards achieving common aims and objectives, learners could develop a sense of responsibility towards others in society. the south african society is riddled with crime and corruption. as forms of social capital, these social challenges not only negatively impacts upon relationships of trust, but it also weakens social ties and impedes negatively on social cohesion. in the face of mistrust, corruption and dishonesty, social networks which are supposed to strengthen social cohesion are difficult to establish and social structures cannot function effectively. however, cl could develop and strengthen the values of trust and honesty through social engagement as it takes place within the groups. in this way learners are exposed to the moral demands of societal networks and institutions. in addition, social capital could also promote a sense of belonging and pride in the group. this could particularly be valuable for south africans who need to unite in their diversity. in the final analysis, no group or society can be sustained if the basic needs of all its members are not met. part of the reasons why south africa was socially unsustainable during apartheid, was because the basic needs of all people were not met. in addition, education was cleverly used to justify and promote inequality in meeting the basic needs of black south africans. it is therefore imperative that through education currently, opportunities are created for all people to meet their basic needs. by acknowledging that every learner has particular needs cooperative learning creates a space for education to meet the basic needs of the disadvantaged, the marginalised and the voiceless. through cl these needs which broadly relate to the need to be respected, heard, appreciated and valued irrespective of the social background or ability of the learner, is promoted, and so contribute towards a sustainable society. working cooperatively enables learners to develop social skills which they should carry forward into adulthood and into the community. geared with these skills, learners could act as agents of change by challenging unsustainable social practices of injustice, inequality, discrimination and exclusion. cl therefore holds the potential to develop a new culture of respect for one another, compassion, and tolerance. in addition it could advance the value of ubuntu/botho which is so integral to the aims and objectives of the south african constitution, act 108 of 1996, and central to a sustainable south african society. the south african society still bears the scars of social unsustainable development. getting people to work cooperatively is important if we want to overcome these divisions and heal the scars of the past. cl could promote tolerance and acceptance of diverse social groups, and so foster and promote positive social relationships amongst diverse learners. in this paper i argued that, as a form of learning cooperative learning could be a valuable tool to truly unite people in an effort to realise a socially sustainable south african society. bibliography adams wm 2009. green development: environment and sustainability in a developing world. 3rd edition. london: routledge. agyeman j, bullard d, evans b 2003. just sustainabilities: development in an unequal world. london: earthscan publications limited. cooperative learning and a socially sustainable sa td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 519-536. 531 al-yaseen ws 2011. expectations of a group of 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and development (wced)1987. our common future. oxford: oxford university press. microsoft word 07 habron.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 90-110. ‘through music and into music’, through music and into well-being: dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy j habron1 abstract. there is a longstanding relationship between music therapy and dalcroze eurhythmics, an approach to music education that had its beginnings in the reform pedagogy movement of the european fin de siècle. émile jaques-dalcroze (1865-1950), the founder of the approach, initially focused on educational aims, but was soon to include therapeutic ones as well. during the early twentieth century, dalcroze teachers applied the approach to their work with disabled children. such applications have continued to develop to the present day and have expanded to include palliative treatment in hiv/aids and gerontology. there are many theoretical and technical similarities between dalcroze eurhythmics and improvisational music therapy, including communication through musical improvisation and attunement in playing for movement. however, many of these similarities remain to be discussed in relation to the literatures on music therapy and communicative musicality. to address this gap, this article takes a transdisciplinary approach, making conceptual connections between the theory and practice of both dalcroze eurhythmics and music therapy. implications for future training, practice and research in dalcroze eurhythmics are discussed. keywords. dalcroze eurhythmics, improvisational music therapy, wellbeing, communicative musicality introduction this article is about the relationship between music therapy and dalcroze eurhythmics. dalcroze eurhythmics is an approach to music education that had its beginnings in the reform pedagogy movement of the european fin de siècle. émile jaques-dalcroze (18651950) founded the approach for the purposes of music education, but over time he also developed explicitly therapeutic aims. during the first decades of the twentieth century 1 dr john habron is a senior lecturer, coventry university, uk, and senior research fellow, north-west university, potchefstroom campus (niche entity – musical arts in south africa: resources and applications). he holds a ma in music therapy and is working towards the certificate of the dalcroze society. dr john habron is a composer, lecturer, researcher and music therapist. his research focuses on music composition, music therapy and music education, and he convenes the international conference of dalcroze studies. john.habron@coventry.ac.uk. dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 91 dalcroze eurhythmics teachers began to apply it to the education of those with disabilities. joan llongueras focused on blind children (jaques-dalcroze 1930; mones i mestre 2000) and mimi scheiblauer on those with hearing impairments and physical and learning disabilities (brunner-danuser 1984). these pioneers saw its therapeutic as well as educational benefits. such applications of the dalcroze work have continued to develop to the present day, most recently in the field of gerontology (kressig et al 2005; trombetti, allali and beauchet 2010) and in settings for people with hiv/aids (frego 1995, 2009). the twentieth century also saw the growth of music therapy as a practice and a profession. some historians have argued that music therapy, in the usa at least, developed mainly as a response to world war ii, when musicians often performed to large groups of wounded soldiers (rorke 1996, sullivan 2007). in the post-war era some of the most significant individuals who developed music’s potential as a therapy include juliette alvin (haneishi 2005), ira altshuler (davis 2003), and paul nordoff and clive robbins (aigen 1998, kim 2004). in the uk, music therapists began to professionalise during the late 1950s (barrington-hill 2005), a decade or so after their american counterparts, and in many countries music therapy is now a registered allied health profession. music therapy is used to foster the wellbeing of people with learning and physical disabilities, acquired brain injury, mental illness, trauma, and dementia (bunt and stige 2014). it has applications across the lifespan, from premature birth (nöcker-ribaupierre 2004) to end-of-life care (lee 1995). there are many theoretical and technical similarities between dalcroze eurhythmics and music therapy. some of these, such as the primacy of rhythm in entraining the body have been pointed out (skewes and daveson 2002). others, including communication through musical improvisation and attunement in playing for movement, remain to be discussed. at a time when music, health and wellbeing has established itself as a field of research in its own right (macdonald, kreutz and mitchell 2012), it is important not only to honour the role that dalcroze eurhythmics plays in promoting health and wellbeing, but also to make use of current theories to enhance our understanding of how it does so. the personal motivation for this research comes from my experience as a music therapist and trainee dalcroze teacher.2 my understanding of music’s very nature and potential has been profoundly influenced by my work in both areas and i have become intrigued by the ways in which they overlap historically and in terms of current practice. therefore, this article addresses the research question: how can we expand our understanding of dalcroze eurhythmics through the lens of music therapy? it is a comparative discussion that takes a transdisciplinary approach, drawing on the historical, qualitative and theoretical research into dalcroze and music therapy, as well as my experiences in both fields. the article makes conceptual connections between the theory and practice of both dalcroze and music therapy, and in so doing highlights similarities and differences. the article addresses the research question in six sections: (1 and 2) a description of each practice; (3) the historical context of their relationship; (4) a literature review of dalcroze used therapeutically; (5) a discussion of conceptual models that include music education and music therapy; (6) and a closer look at one particular topic: music as communication. whilst i conclude with some implications for future training, practice and research in dalcroze 2 dalcroze eurhythmics is often shortened to dalcroze. i will follow this convention and refer to émile jaques-dalcroze by his full surname. habron 92 eurhythmics, i hope that what follows will be useful to practitioners and researchers in music therapy as well. 1. music therapy definitions of music therapy abound. one recent one is from bunt and stige (2014): ‘the use of sounds and music within an evolving relationship between patient/participant and therapist to support and encourage physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing’ (bunt and stige 2014: 18). the world federation of music therapy defines it in similar, if more detailed, terms: the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention in medical, educational, and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families, or communities who seek to optimize their quality of life and improve their physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health and wellbeing (wfmt 2014). in both cases, the intrinsically holistic nature of music therapy is implicit. it is important to note however that terms such as ‘therapy’, ‘health’ and ‘well-being’ are cultural constructs and this is as true of music therapy as any other practice (boyce-tillman 2000). music therapy has – and still does – align itself with, and borrow concepts, terminology and practices from, many different fields: psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, behavioural therapy, neuroscience, developmental psychology, to name but a few. all of these discourses have their histories and assumptions. furthermore, although music therapy as a profession is a relatively recent one, the relationship between music and wellbeing – music as wellbeing – is ancient and can be found the world over (boyce-tillman 2000; gouk 2000). music therapy is but one cultural manifestation of that relationship.3 this article focuses on improvisational music therapy (bruscia 1987). this is an umbrella term for any approach to music therapy in which music is co-created by client and therapist in an ongoing relationship.4 such methods include creative music therapy (nordoff and robbins 1977) and analytically oriented music therapy (aom) (priestley 1994).5 improvisational music therapy approaches are used with a very wide variety of people, including those with learning disabilities, mental illness, and dementia. improvisational music therapy is fundamentally expressive and therefore different from practices such as guided imagery and music (gim) that are fundamentally receptive (bonny 2002). in gim there is very rarely improvisation between client and therapist, but recorded music is used instead to elicit feelings and memories as part of a primarily verbal process. in contrast, improvisational music therapy is based on shared, spontaneous music making with voices and/or instruments within the client-therapist relationship. however, even within this practice, there are important differences. in aom, for example, whilst improvisation is also 3 it is all the more important to acknowledge this in the context of transdisciplinary research and, indeed, in writing for a journal based on the continent of africa, with its many different traditions of musical healing (see, for example: friedson 1996; janzen 1992; schumaker 2000). 4 for client, we could also substitute patient or service-user, depending on context. 5 creative music therapy is the term originally used for the approach developed by nordoff and robbins (1977). however, the term is controversial, since it may imply that other forms of music therapy are not creative. dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 93 present, it is often based on a ‘playing rule’, agreed beforehand, that is used to explore a particular aspect of the client’s experience. the improvisation, which may be recorded, listened to, and discussed in the session, is a precursor to verbal processing of a psychoanalytical nature. therefore, ‘music making and verbal processing [have] equal weight’ (trondalen and bonde 2012: 46). in all improvisational music therapy, the therapist draws on empathy, a person-centred ethos, attunement and careful timing in improvised musical interactions, during which any sound may be accepted as music. the client is free to move and make music as they wish, or to remain silent. whereas in aom, the therapeutic relationship develops through music and verbal dialogue, in improvisational music therapy of the sort developed by nordoff and robbins (1977), the therapeutic relationship develops primarily in and through the music. it is sometimes called music-centred music therapy (aigen 2005) and this is a central idea for this discussion. this music-centredness also differentiates this type of music therapy from those in which, for example, recordings are used to stimulate verbal conversation (gim), or sounds are used as stimuli to help regain movement after a stroke (neurologic music therapy, see thaut 2005). in these cases, there is music – or sound – but it is not improvisatory and it is not shaped co-creatively between two or more individuals. another way of putting this is that in music-centred improvisational music therapy, music is not merely used in therapy, but is used as therapy. it is the primary medium in which the relationship between client and therapist exists (although verbal process may also play a role). over time, changes in the improvised music are generally interpreted as changes in the client’s emotional state, preferences, and behavioural patterns. most importantly, they can signify changes in the therapeutic relationship. flexible musicking may be a sign of a healthy psychological state, whereas inflexibility could point to the opposite. for example, we can imagine the case of a traumatised child who is unable to take turns in musical interactions. through music therapy, he or she could develop the ability to take turns and this musical change might not only be interpreted as the analogue of a psychological change (the ability to regain trust in others, for example), but might also extend to changes in interpersonal relations outside the boundaries of music therapy. 2. dalcroze eurhythmics jaques-dalcroze was a pianist, composer, conductor, theatre director, and pedagogue. his approach to rhythmic education initially grew out of experiments he made whilst teaching harmony and solfège at the geneva conservatoire in the 1890s (berchtold 2005). in his hands, and those of colleagues such as nina gorter (odom 2004), the approach continued to develop at the dalcroze training school in hellerau, near dresden, in germany. this garden city community, of which jaques-dalcroze’s school was the centerpiece, flourished in the years immediately prior to world war i. students from many countries engaged with new ideas about music’s relationship to movement and staged performances that drew prominent artistic figures from europe, america and russia (odom 1998). by the time of hellerau, the ‘methode jaques-dalcroze’ (1906) had transformed into something with much wider implications than music education. jaques-dalcroze had come to see his approach as one that could restore and connect all the faculties of the person: the senses, the moving body, emotion, thought, imagination, and will. important in this habron 94 transformation were jaques-dalcroze’s experiences in music and theatre, and the combined influences of psychologists, teachers and artists. he intended his exercises to develop a sense of self and sociability as students worked alone, in pairs and groups (jaques-dalcroze 1920: 19-20, 38; jaques-dalcroze 1921: 32). the result of the liberation of innate responses to music and a growing sense of the creative power of the will would, he claimed, lead to feelings of freedom and joy (jaques-dalcroze 1915: 91-102) and transform not only education, but also society itself (jaques-dalcroze 1930: 57-58). jaques-dalcroze considered that music, when studied through his approach, had the power to make the body perfectly expressive. music was not only the goal of study; it was the means to discovery, skillfulness, and personal transformation. dalcroze is made up of three interrelated branches:6 • rhythmics works on time-space-energy relationships common to movement and music by means of exercises using movement, improvisation and highly focused listening; • aural training (solfège) uses movement, improvisation and the voice to assist in aural development and understanding; and • improvisation of all kinds – vocal (using solfège, bruitages (vocalised sounds), and words or poems), instrumental and in movement – works on developing creative and spontaneous expression. when one branch is the focus of a lesson, the others are also present. for example, in a solfège lesson the students will not only sing and vocalise, but also move in and around the space and, through rhythmic exercises and whole body movements, show and learn about the intervals, melodic shapes and harmonies in question. they will also improvise vocally to become familiar with the topic being studied. the learning is therefore active and somatic (greenhead and habron forthcoming; urista 2001). as a consequence of his pedagogical observations, jaques-dalcroze insisted: ‘the whole method is based on the principle that theory should follow practice’ (1967: 63).7 therefore, he developed a philosophy of education, which in its holism echoes the definitions of music therapy given above (bunt and stige 1994, wfmt 2014). furthermore, this philosophy rejected the mind-body split, the epistemological legacy of descartes (damasio 1994). jaques-dalcroze wrote: ‘the object of education is to enable pupils to say at the end of their studies, not ‘i know,’ but ‘i experience’’ (jaques-dalcroze 1930: 58). jaques-dalcroze therefore foreshadowed the philosophy of dewey, who popularised the term body-mind (dewey, 1958). dewey’s emphasis on bodily experience as the medium of knowing is well-rehearsed, not only in philosophy (johnson 1987, lakoff and johnson 1999, 6 the name dalcroze eurhythmics is still used to distinguish it from other practices, such as rudolf steiner’s eurythmy. originally, jaques-dalcroze’s approach was known as ‘rhythmic gymnastics’ (jaques-dalcroze 1906), but sometime between december 1911 and the publication of the eurhythmics of jaques-dalcroze (jaques-dalcroze 1912) john harvey suggested that ‘eurhythmics’ better described the entirety of the approach (ingham 1914). the appellation ‘rhythmics’ is also used in continental europe as an umbrella term for various kinds of rhythmic education, which may have more or less in common with the dalcroze practice. dalcroze eurhythmics has been carefully defined by le collège de l’institut jaques-dalcroze (2011). although the word ‘method’ is often used in relation to dalcroze eurhythmics, i have adopted the word ‘approach’ here to emphasise its flexibility and to avoid the implication that it sets out a fixed sequence of exercises. 7 all italics in quotations are in the original sources. dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 95 merleau-ponty 1962, shusterman 2012), anthropology (varela 1992), and neuroscience (damasio 2000), but also in the philosophy of music education (bowman 2004, juntunen and westerlund 2001). jaques-dalcroze influenced the development of somatic practices in the twentieth century (eddy 2009; batson 2009) and his ideas find support in contemporary theories that focus on the role of the body in cognition and emotion, including multiple intelligences (aronoff 1988), flow (custodero 2005, frego 2009), forms of vitality (stern 2010; see below), and shared affective motion experience (overy and molnar-scakacs 2009; see below). the dalcroze approach is largely orally transmitted (odom 1995) and has been developed and refined during more than a century of practice (odom and pope 2013). the principles that underpin dalcroze (personal and aesthetic expression, awareness of self and others, flexibility and creativity, artistry, and self-mastery) transcend disciplinary boundaries and therefore the practice is associated with several fields (habron 2013). principally, these are: health and wellbeing (see section 4), music and music education (juntunen 2002, 2004; mathieu 2010; seitz 2005; urista 2003), theatre (lee 2003) and dance (odom 1998). 3. historical relationships and cultural context historically, dalcroze and music therapy have much in common and, as mentioned above, the former has always had therapeutic potential. bachmann writes: ‘at a very early date dalcroze’s own followers could see what part eurhythmics had to play in the then littleexplored field of education, or re-education, for those…with mental, sensory, and motor handicaps’ (bachmann 1991: 66). one of these followers was angèle porta, who in 1917 first began a dalcroze class for ‘backward children’ (dutoit 1971: 94). another was joan llongueras, whose work with blind children began a year later (dutoit 1971: 94). this early therapeutic application of dalcroze is revealing, if compared to a recent definition of music therapy. in 1930, llongueras wrote that the blind children attained: ‘a very sure and precise notion of the space in which they move, their movements become more definite and assured. eurhythmics vivifies the personality, enriches their lives, develops their imagination, strengthens their will and clarifies their thinking processes. they have become bolder and more optimistic and have felt growing up within them the sense of expression, a feeling of pleasure and enthusiasm’ (cited in jaques-dalcroze 1930: 148). this account was written 84 years before wfmt’s definition of music therapy, referred to above, and decades before the widespread establishment of the practice we know by that name today. however, in these three sentences all of the wfmt’s aspects of music therapy are present (table 1). thus, the therapeutic impact of this early dalcroze work is clear. habron 96 t a b l e 1 : a c o m p a r i s o n o f l l o n g u e r a s ’ a c c o u n t o f t e a c h i n g b l i n d c h i l d r e n a n d w f m t ’ s d e f i n i t i o n o f m u s i c t h e r a p y wfmt’s terms (2014) llongueras’ observations (1930) physical very sure and precise notion of the space in which they move their movements become more definite and assured social they have become bolder communicative sense of expression emotional more optimistic pleasure enthusiasm intellectual develops imagination strengthens their will clarifies their thinking processes spiritual pleasure8 also in 1930, jaques-dalcroze wrote: ‘if nerve specialists would be good enough to study my experiments carefully, they would speedily recognise the therapeutic value of exercises that control muscular contraction and relaxation, in every shade of time, energy and space, for instruction thus given must inevitably stimulate intuition and endow the pupils with bodies perfectly organised, both mentally and physically’ (jaques-dalcroze 1930: 105). jaquesdalcroze specifically uses the word therapeutic and offers a transdisciplinary invitation to medical practitioners to study his work. in the same essay he mentions giving lessons to large numbers of ‘ultra-nervous’ children (1930: 104) and curing ‘abnormal children’ (1930: 105). he claims: ‘in many cases, my pupils have been cured of idées fixes, of special obsessions’ (1930: 115). thus, jaques-dalcroze was thinking outside a purely educational framework. as he admitted several years earlier, in 1914: ‘the actual practice of individual rhythms…is more than a pedagogic system’ (jaques-dalcroze 1914/1967: 63).9 cowan (2008) contextualises dalcroze eurhythmics within a culture of will therapy, whose proponents identified the psychological problems of the modern subject as lack of will power, over-sensitivity, and nervousness. often these were grouped together under the heading of neurasthenia, a medical term which jaques-dalcroze also used (jaques-dalcroze 1912: 20). for jaques-dalcroze, as with many of his likeminded contemporaries, one of the most influential factors on their reforms was industrialisation and how it changed subject-object 8 this is taken as a synonym for joy, which van der merwe and habron (forthcoming) identify as one of the aspects of spiritual experience in music education. 9 jaques-dalcroze wrote this in 1914, but it is anthologised in jaques-dalcroze (1967). dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 97 relations (goeller 2005). there was a fear in the early years of the twentieth-century that humankind would be controlled by the machines it had created (cowan 2005: 191). this fear permeated many aspects of culture and was memorably and comically portrayed by charlie chaplin in the film modern times (chaplin 1936/2003). chaplin, as a factory worker, is reduced to a quivering wreck by mind-numbing and repetitive work; the machines swallow him and force him to work, and even eat, at inhuman speeds. perhaps a return to a pre-industrial way of life is what jaques-dalcroze meant when he called for the uniting of the ‘natural rhythms of body and mind’ (jaques-dalcroze 1930: 14). cowan also claims that the work of ‘armchair anthropologist’ karl bücher was influential in jaques-dalcroze’s circle in the years around 1910 (cowan 2005: 189). bücher looked to what he saw as ‘primitive’ cultures for examples of people for whom work and life had not been separated and for whom there was the possibility of ‘“joyful” rhythmical activity’ (cowan 2005: 190). this adds to the most common narrative about the development of dalcroze’s thinking, which focuses on his time at the geneva conservatoire, where he found the teaching methods too theoretical and disconnected from the students’ emotions and sensations (berchtold 2005). although we have no reason to doubt the veracity of this narrative, it might not be the whole truth. the impact of contemporary psychological and anthropological theories about nervousness, rhythm, and work might have also played their part. however, a more balanced summary than cowan’s is provided by franco, who gives due regard to jaques-dalcroze’s musical and pedagogical intentions. the approach had a ‘twofold design…of artistic musical education and…the treatment and prevention of psychological and neurological malfunctioning’ (franco, no date). 4. literature review the writings of llongueras and jaques-dalcroze can be considered alongside several later figures. dutoit (1971) provides us with an account of dalcroze-related music therapy, but there is little detail on techniques used, except for those of scheiblauer, whose deaf pupils carried tambourines as ‘portative ears’ (dutoit 1971: 72). feldmann (1970), a neuropsychiatrist, collaborated with dutoit to develop rhythmic exercises for the psychomotor assessment and rehabilitation of socio-culturally deprived children. also in the 1970s, swaiko (1974) wrote about dalcroze as ‘a resourceful and valuable aid in deaf education’ (swaiko 1974: 322). habron (2014) discusses the writings of priscilla barclay, a british dalcroze teacher and occupational therapist who was active as a music therapist during the 1950s-80s. whilst these historical sources provide interesting perspectives on dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy, they are insufficient evidence for the therapeutic effectiveness of the dalcroze approach. more recent research, however, has been framed within qualitative and quantitative research paradigms and has greater methodological clarity. frego (1995, 2009) pioneered the therapeutic application of dalcroze for those with hiv/aids. he notes that, when used therapeutically, the goal of dalcroze ‘is not only to give the immediate palliative care needed, but also to encourage the client to take responsibility for his/her own therapy’ (frego 1995: 22). an ethnographic study revealed increases in energy level, expression, self-esteem and benefits from ‘non-verbal habron 98 communication through eye contact and physical touch’ (frego 1995: 24). dancing inside: dalcroze eurhythmics in a therapeutic setting (frego 2009) is a single case study of luke, whose experiences in a dalcroze class include feeling more connected to his body and to others, a sense of physical health, and spiritual focus. in summarising his personal transformation, luke says, ‘i think that a eurhythmics class is a microcosm experience of moving from risk into trust… the sense of letting go of vulnerability and opening up to the experience was one of the most liberating moments of my life’ (cited in frego 2009: 322323). dalcroze provided him ‘with the tools to be resilient’ (frego 2009: 327). habron-james (2013) carried out a qualitative observational study of four children with special educational needs over the course of six dalcroze classes. the results, presented as mind maps (buzan 1995), show eight themes: musical, physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioural, vocal, and social (habron-james 2013: 15). it is noteworthy that these contain the four primary elements of bunt’s definition of music therapy: physical, mental (cognitive), social, and emotional (bunt and stige 2014: 18). the four case studies paint very detailed pictures of the children’s responses. the dalcroze approach had a beneficial impact on the children’s wellbeing; ‘moving to music, with others, and in a contained space, can bring a sense of freedom and contentment…engagement in music and movement activities develops the range of vocal communication of children with weak language acquisition’ (habronjames 2013: 61). two studies carried out in switzerland provide quantitative evidence for the effectiveness of dalcroze for older adults, not only in regulating gait (kressig, allali and beauchet 2005; trombetti et al 2010), but also improving balance and reducing the prevalence and risk of falls (trombetti et al 2010). the 21 female participants (average age 79.6) in kressig’s experimental group each had 40 years’ experience of dalcroze. under a dual task (walking whilst counting backwards from 50), there was no significant increase in stride time variability, whereas ‘the healthy older subjects in the control group significantly increased their gait variability’ (kressig, allali and beauchet 2005: 729). trombetti et al (2010) present the results of a randomised controlled trial that analysed the gait, balance, and functional performance of 134 older adults, without any prior experience of dalcroze. participants who had dalcroze sessions for six months showed a statistically significant improvement to gait variability and balance as well as reduced rates of falling and the risk of falling. the studies of the therapeutic or wellbeing outcomes of dalcroze in recent decades tend to make research questions and outcomes clearer than the earlier writings, and this is helpful for future research. frego (2009) and habron-james (2013) stand out in the level of detail provided on the specific dalcroze-based interventions used. this depth of description may prove vital in linking practice, process and outcomes in the ongoing relationship between dalcroze and music therapy. 5. conceptual models that include music education and music therapy the idea that music education and the therapeutic use of music share common ground was current in jaques-dalcroze’s time (jaques-dalcroze 1921, 1930) and is widely acknowledged today. harland et al (2000) have shown that engagement in music enhanced students’ wellbeing and that some participants spoke explicitly about music’s therapeutic nature. broh (2002) found that participation in music led to increases in self-esteem and social skills, whilst mcqueen and varvarigou (2010) have reviewed the benefits of music participation for people over 50, as well as for those in prisons and residential homes. dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 99 two recent sources have visualised the relationships between the educational and therapeutic in musical activity. the first is macdonald, kreutz, and mitchell’s (2012) conceptualisation of music, health, and wellbeing, in which they include community music and everyday uses of music. all four domains have something in common with each other. f i g . 1 a c o n c e p t u a l f r a m e w o r k f o r m u s i c , h e a l t h a n d w e l l b e i n g . f r o m m a c d o n a l d , k r e u t z , a n d m i t c h e l l ( 2 0 1 2 : 8 ) the overlap between music education and therapy is clear. the authors note: ‘the purpose of a piano lesson is to improve piano skills; but there may be secondary benefits for participants relating to health and wellbeing and it is these psychological benefits of music education that overlap with music therapy’ (macdonald, kreutz, and mitchell 2012: 7-8). the reverse is also true: a client in music therapy may benefit psychologically, but also learn about instrumental techniques and musical materials. a second example comes from ockelford (2008). here, it is the intention of music therapy or music education that differs; on a fundamental level, the one intends to promote wellbeing and the other the development of skills and knowledge. f i g . 2 t h e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f m u s i c e d u c a t i o n , t h e r a p y a n d t r a i n i n g f o r c h i l d r e n a n d y o u n g p e o p l e w i t h c o m p l e x n e e d s . f r o m o c k e l f o r d ( 2 0 0 8 : 4 2 ) 10 10 sld = severe learning difficulties, pmld = profound and multiple learning difficulties. although ockelford focuses on these groups, his model is still useful for my purposes. music  educa*on   music   therapy   community  music   everyday   uses  of   music   42 i ', rssu es music provision for children and young people with sld or pmld therapy education (training) more strongly more strongly promotes promotes promotes development acquisition 'well-being' (skills, knowledge of skills and understanding) 'internally' (client-centred ) determined goals i i fig.2.1 the characteristics of music education, therapy (and training) for children and young people with complex needs with severe, or profound and multiple learning difficulties.3 among the questions she asked an equal sample of teachers and therapists working in the field (n : 96) was'to what extent does the child play a part in guiding your sessions/lessons? the permitted range of responses was from ' 1 : not at all' to '10 completely'set out on a likert scale. the results are shown in fig. 2.2. these suggest that, as populations, teachers and therapists do indeed differ in the emphasis they claim to put on child-centredness, with teachers, as the model in fig. 2.1 suggests, on average perceiving themselves as being slightly more child-centred than not, but with a spread of responses across the entire spectrum (m : 6.23, sd : 2.37),4 and therapists believing themselves to be almost entirely child-centred in their work (m: 7.90, sd : 1.70).s these perceptions tie in with the declared content of the music lessons and therapy sessions, with 3 undertaken as a doctoral student at roehampton university. 4 m is the '6s3n'-the sum of the data divided by the sample size. sd is the 'standard devi41isn'-a measure of the range of variation from the mean. s independent samples f-test yields t(96) : -3.95, p 10.001. oi !ipo tl o+,i g l g .ci combination of 'internally'and 'externally' determined goals i i i 'externally' determined goals i i i +t tr o(j l-or 40o/o 3oo/o 20o/o loo/o oo/o 12 not at all perceived fig.2.2 the extent to which sessions the majority of teachers i pre-composed songs anc composed instrumental n apists using only impror songs (see fig. 23)-6 however, the matter is tions of what they do an' margaret corke's'interar 'from the learner's frame ture starting and finishir 6 the differences between tt 20.31, p < 0.001 and instn habron 100 ockelford’s picture includes the notion of goals and where these originate. for him, music therapeutic goals are more internally determined; the client’s needs are uppermost. in education, by contrast, these internal goals are balanced with those of the curriculum, external goals. ockelford connects the characteristics of therapy and education with dotted lines to show that there is not a division between the two. he also uses the comparative ‘more’ – ‘music therapy more strongly promotes wellbeing’ (ockelford 2008: 42) – to highlight that the differences between music therapy and music education are questions of degree. ockelford paraphrases bruhn (2000) as follows: ‘the difference between music therapy and music education lies in the way that music is used in the two disciplines…in therapy, music is considered to be the means through which goals are achieved…in education, it is held to be the purpose’ (ockelford 2008: 41). however, in the case of dalcroze this is not true, because music is not only the purpose, but also the means. in particular, expertly improvised music and the movement it incites, are the means to achieve music-pedagogical goals; the nonverbal media of music and movement are both means and purpose. thus, verbal instructions may sometimes be minimal in a dalcroze class. as bachmann, paraphrasing jaques-dalcroze, put it: it is an education through and into music (bachmann 1991). if music is both the means and the purpose in dalcroze, then this may be one of the most important features that marks it out from other music pedagogical approaches, and one that brings it nearer to music therapy. we could say, adopting the description from improvisational music therapy (aigen 2005), that dalcroze is a musiccentred education. as llongueres writes: ‘let us not forget that…we owe to jaques-dalcroze the very introduction of music into pedagogy’ (llongueres 1984: 131).11 the area of overlap between therapy and education within the dalcroze work has already been discussed in terms of the intentional use of dalcroze as a therapeutic approach. however, there is evidence of wellbeing outcomes as by-products of engagement in dalcroze, for those who regularly attend training courses. participants in the moving into composition project (habron, jesuthasan, and bourne 2012) were invited to take part in a short course of dalcroze and compose in response to their experiences. an unexpected finding was that the students reported benefits to do with wellness. they spoke of enjoyment, relaxation, increased confidence, increased body awareness and even flow experiences, as well as impacts on their compositions and musical understanding (habron, jesuthasan, and bourne 2012: 23). this happened in the context of higher education, not therapy. another recent study also investigated the experiences of university students in dalcrozeinspired classes (van der merwe 2014). van der merwe found that, besides being beneficial for their musical understanding and speed of learning, the lessons were essentially joyful experiences and made the students feel more connected and socially integrated. these two studies indicate that there may be a wider prevalence of such impacts in educational, rather than therapeutic, contexts and that researchers could begin to theorise them in terms of wellbeing. 11 my translation. dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 101 6. communication through music macdonald, kreutz, and mitchell state that ‘the communicative potential of music is undoubtedly linked to its therapeutic potential’ (2012: 6). this communicative potential is now a field of study in its own right (miell, macdonald, and hargreaves 2005; malloch and trevarthen (2009). in both improvisational music therapy and dalcroze, music is the medium of communication for most of the time. they are music-centred practices. trondalen and bonde (2012) describe music therapy as triadic (see fig.3). it is ‘relational and always involves the triad of music, client and therapist… in music therapy the music experience is always embedded in the therapeutic relationships that are both interpersonal and intermusical’ (trondalen and bonde 2012: 41). f i g . 3 e l e m e n t s a n d r e l a t i o n s h i p s i n m u s i c t h e r a p y . f r o m t r o n d a l e n a n d b o n d e ( 2 0 1 2 : 4 2 ) this model could also help to explain the relationships within a dalcroze class, if we change therapist to teacher and patient to student; here, too, teacher and student have intramusical relationships, as well as a relationship between each other that exists in shared music making. however, the one element that may be problematic in transposing this model to dalcroze is the interpersonal relationship between teacher and student. this is, for sure, present in a dalcroze class and an important part of any educational process, but it might not be as close or allow for as much personal disclosure as in the case of music therapy. furthermore, the model could be adapted to show that students in the dalcroze class interact with each other intramusically, as do clients in a group music therapy session. trondalen and bonde’s (2012) model highlights the social aspect of music making. malloch and trevarthen (2009) support this and show that human communication is itself made possible through innate musicality. in the very early stages of infancy the exchanges between a baby and its caregiver show a combined ability to imitate, reflect and synchronise with one habron 102 another in highly complex ways, which are musical and dance-like. such ‘communicative musicality’, as malloch and trevarthen call it, adds to the argument that the propensity for musical communication is hardwired (wallin, merker and brown 2000). as cross puts it: ‘a predisposition to engage in music-like activities seems to be part of our biological heritage’ (2005: 38). music therapists use theories of communicative musicality to understand their work. for example, through attuning to the client in sound and gesture, music therapists model the toand-fro of infant-carer interaction (pavlicevic 1997, stern 2010). music therapists ansdell and pavlicevic (2005) state that human communication is developed through improvised, coordinated interaction in time. music – an improvisational, interactional and time-based art – therefore provides readymade resources for communication and music therapy can be thought of as specialised communication work: ‘music therapists are trained to understand the process of musical communication, and to use music as a medium and tool for initiating or enhancing interpersonal or social communication through developing musical companionship and musical community’ (ansdell and pavlicevic 2005: 193) it may be that as early as 1925, dalcroze himself had observed the phenomenon of what would become known as communicative musicality: ‘the child loves well that which he knows well. his first love is that of his mother, and this love develops in proportion as he learns to know her better, to value her unfailing affection, her tender solicitude. in her he loves the life that she passed on to him, the love that she awakens in him, and those throbbing rhythms that link together two organisms: he loves his mother because he knows her and recognises himself in her’ (1930: 127)12 these ‘throbbing rhythms’ may be the heartbeat and the breath heard and felt in the womb – we do not know – but they may well be the synchronous babbling and cooing, as well as the facial expressions and bodily movements, of infant and caregiver. what is important is that dalcroze notices a rhythmic connection between the two parties, that this has to do with development (‘she awakens [love] in him’), and that there is a process of recognition of self and other. the theory of communicative musicality may also help us to understand teaching and learning in a dalcroze context. if, for example, the dalcroze class is responding in movement to the teacher’s improvised music, there is a sort of dialogue. the class responds by showing with their bodies, and in their use of spatial and interpersonal relationships, rhythm, intensity, phrasing, harmonic tension or whatever the focus of the exercise is. an imaginary student’s experience might be: …as these chords get louder, i step out into the space with more energy and intensity; as they move towards a cadence, i look for a partner so together we can make a gesture of resolution; we communicate our understanding of the music through our movements, our facial expressions, our eye contact; a moment of rest... likewise, the teacher may be inspired to modify his or her playing according to the students’ level of understanding or individual expression. an imagined episode might be: 12 jaques-dalcroze wrote this in 1925, but it is anthologised in jaques-dalcroze (1930). dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 103 …i notice that the students are bunched up in the middle of the room, so i start to use more of the piano’s full range and increase my dynamic level; they spread out; i change to skipping rhythms and i can see that the class has taken on the bouncing movement quality needed to express this rhythm; however, one of them skips in an idiosyncratic way and this inspires me to alter my touch on the keyboard… these music-movement relationships also happen between the learners in pair and group work, when students improvise music to each other’s movements. furthermore, these interactions are inter-modal: the medium of music is projected in the medium of movement or vice versa. this process of transfer between modes is also fundamental to communicative musicality. it is seen, for example, when an infant’s bodily movement is mirrored in a caregiver’s vocal sound (stern et al 1985). the typical dalcroze lesson will contain musicmovement attunement of a similar sort, albeit on a teacher-student or student-student level. the therapeutic potential of dalcroze may therefore share its roots with communicative musicality. a second vital component in communicative musicality is synchrony. the dalcroze class often moves in concert and partakes of the same musical energies and dynamics simultaneously. similarly, music therapists synchronise with the music (and therefore movements) of their clients. this is an essential means of making contact between client and therapist. take, for example, a client who can only make the tiniest, silent tapping of a finger. the therapist will attune to that tapping and make sounds that reflect its pulse and quality, and a musical narrative will begin (ansdell and pavlicevic 2005).13 such ‘interactional synchrony’ (sawyer 2005) is powerful and the resulting rhythm can be an effective organiser (skewes and daveson 2002). dalcroze noted this aspect of rhythm’s potential, but also noted that in shared rhythmic music or movement, the process is two-way and that rhythm can be altered in a process of attunement. he writes: ‘rhythm is life… and so rhythm creates order in the unconscious manifestations of the individual, whilst forcing metre to become supple, and to accompany all the rhythmic swing and flow of individual life’ (jaques-dalcroze 1930: 133). the role that mirror neurons play in such experiences has been investigated by overy and molnar-scakacs (2009), who put forward a theory of shared affective motion experience (same) to explain the social bonding and empathy that can result from such synchronised and interactive music making. the final element to consider is improvisation, which is at the core of both improvisational music therapy and dalcroze. whilst recorded music plays a part in dalcroze, piano improvisation is the norm. the dalcroze teacher invites the class to move to music, sometimes in free, spontaneous ways, such as showing the phrasing of a piece, and sometimes in more fixed ways, such as stepping the rhythm of the bass or treble. as with communicative musicality, this process is two-way because the dalcroze teacher should modify the improvisation in response to the class, if it is too fast for a particular student, for example. changes in dynamic, register, harmony, and touch can all be used to make the intention clearer. we may therefore adapt the words of the music therapists ansdell and pavliveic quoted above: 13 ansdell and pavlicevic use these three terms – pulse, quality and narrative – to understand musical communication in music therapy. habron 104 [dalcroze teachers] are trained to understand the process of musical communication, and to use music as a medium and tool for initiating or enhancing interpersonal or social communication through developing musical companionship and musical community (adapted from ansdell and pavlicevic 2005: 193) the notion of social integration experienced by the participants in van der merwe’s (2014) study would support the interpretation of a dalcroze class as one of musical companionship and community. summary, implications and final words this article set out to address the question: how can we expand our understanding of dalcroze eurhythmics through the lens of music therapy? to summarise, we can say that dalcroze and improvisational music therapy share music making as the primary means of working towards change. the notion of music as therapy finds an echo in jaques-dalcroze’s idea of an education through and into music, music as education. it is also clearly present in the continuous thread of dalcroze-based therapy that developed alongside jaques-dalcroze’s educational aims. in both music therapy and dalcroze, musical interactions are communicative and improvisatory, and based on synchrony and attunement. music is used dialogically or conversationally and, even if students sometimes move silently to music in a dalcroze class, we can still understand the interaction as thoroughly musical, through small’s inclusive notion of musicking (small 1998) and the theory of communicative musicality (malloch and trevarthen 2009). jaques-dalcroze seems to foreshadow the latter when he writes about mother-infant interaction and appears to understand the link between synchronous human interaction, attunement, and musicality on the one hand and the development of the self-inrelationship on the other. within his holistic vision of education, jaques-dalcroze, as with subsequent practitioners, does not separate the educative from the therapeutic; similarly, music therapists encourage and promote learning within therapeutic contexts and do not separate what, after all, are inextricably overlapping domains. some of the implications of this discussion for dalcroze training, practice, and research are as follows: (1) training programmes could develop dalcroze teachers’ understanding of their practice from wellbeing and therapeutic perspectives. this may include developing a vocabulary and theoretical framework with which to describe or interpret the experiences of learners in terms of wellbeing; (2) practitioners could expand the current application of dalcroze to a variety of other contexts, such as psychiatry, neuro-rehabilitation, or family therapy;14 (3) researchers into dalcroze could investigate the wellbeing impacts of dalcroze in general music education contexts; they could also apply theoretical models – such as communicative musicality, interactional synchrony, and shared affective motion experience – to research how musical communication and interaction happen in the dalcroze class and what this means for teachers and learners. 14 as far as i am aware, there is currently no provision of dalcroze in any of these contexts, at least in the uk. dalcroze eurhythmics as music therapy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 92-110. 105 the title of this article is adapted from bachmann’s book dalcroze today: an education through and into music (1991). the re-wording of her title (‘through music and into wellbeing’) has helped us to think about the common ground as well as the differences between improvisational music therapy and dalcroze. in dalcroze lessons, even when not with a particular clinical population, wellbeing outcomes may be present. as bachmann states: for dalcroze…what counts is man himself, and the avowed aim of his work will be to enable that being to achieve fulfillment. no human faculty must be left hiding its light under a bushel: they are all capable of helping one another, of pulling together with a view to affirming that functional balance and harmony which is the source of all wellbeing. (bachmann 1991: 11) for jaques-dalcroze, his approach was always more than an education through and into music or a preparation for artistic work. rather, it had wellbeing at its core and his vision was that individuals transformed through rhythmic movement would foster nothing less than ‘a more beautiful humanity’ (jaques-dalcroze 1912: 31). in 1925 he wrote: rhythmic gymnastics15…restores us to ourselves, in making us aware, not only of our own powers, but also those of others, those of humanity… it enables us…to create closer relations between body and mind, to unify the moral and physical forces of the individual, and to give a firmer foundation to the relations between men (1930: 5758).16 this is a wellbeing or therapeutic programme in all but name, and 90 years after these words were written, the field of dalcroze work is ripe for further development, both to nurture its therapeutic potential and capture its impacts on wellbeing. references aigen, k. 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(eds) (2000) the origins of music. cambridge, ma: mit press wfmt (2014) about wfmt [online] available from <http://goo.gl/edzsx> [11 january 2014] microsoft word 09 heyns et al organisation behaviour.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(1) july 2013, pp. 159 170. dimensionality of interpersonal trust and its relationship to innovativeness mm heyns1 and a.d jearey2 abstract companies striving for a competitive edge need to have insight into factors that best promote innovativeness. our quantitative study explored the relationship between subdimensions of interpersonal trust and innovativeness on both lateral and vertical organisational levels. the convenience sampling technique (n=95) focused on the members of the maintenance and production teams of a division within a large petrochemical company. data were gathered through previously validated, structured questionnaires. research on the specific combination of sub-dimensions and organisational levels has, to the best of our knowledge, neither been linked within the same study, nor within a south african context, before. results revealed practically significant positive correlations between several subdimensions of trust and innovativeness that can assist management in developing more focused strategies to develop a competitive edge. keywords: interpersonal trust, vertical trust, lateral trust, cognitive-based trust, affectivebased trust, organisational innovativeness disciplines: organisational behaviour, innovation studies, business studies opsomming maatskappye wat na ’n mededingende voordeel streef, moet insig hê in die faktore wat innoverendheid sal bevorder. ons kwantitatiewe studie ondersoek die verhouding tussen sub-dimensies van interpersoonlike vertroue en innoverendheid op beide laterale en vertikale organisasievlakke. die gerieflikheidsteekproef (n=95) fokus op lede van die onderhoudsen produksieafdeling van ’n groot petrochemiese maatskappy. data is deur middel van voorheen gevalideerde, gestruktureerde vraelyste ingesamel. navorsing op die spesifieke 1 marita heyns is a lecturer in ogranisational behaviour in the nwu business school, northwest university potchefstroom. email: marita.heyns@nwu.ac.za 2 andrew jearey is a process manager at sasol polymers, sasolburg. this article is based on research submitted by this author for the degree masters in business administration, nwu(potchefstroom). acknowledgements: we thank dr graham baker for his insightful input and responses to earlier drafts of this article and me lusilda boshoff of nwu’s statistical consultation service, who assisted with the analyses of the statistical data. heyns & jearey 160 kombinasie van sub-dimensies en organisasievlakke is, so ver ons kennis strek, nog nooit almal in dieselfde studie gekoppel, of binne ’n suid-afrikaanse konteks, bestudeer nie. resultate het prakties beduidende positiewe korrelasies tussen verskillende sub-dimensies van vertroue en innoverendheid uitgewys. dit kan bestuur help om meer gefokusde strategieë vir mededingendheid te ontwikkel. 1 introduction innovativeness is instrumental in the ability of companies to compete in a global market. these businesses therefore need to foster an organisational climate that encourages risktaking, mutual learning and the free expression of ideas in order to promote innovativeness and remain competitive. certain characteristics of the workplace, such as the levels of trust among the workforce and between employees and management, may influence the conditions necessary to promote innovativeness. although previous research showed that an organisational climate of trust enhances the free expression of ideas and promotes mutual learning (costigan et al., 1998: 303), the specific link between trust and innovation has previously been studied to a limited extent (ellonen et al., 2008:164;165). it is not clear, for example, how lateral and vertical trust relates to different types of organisational innovativeness. for instance, is it more important to focus resources on the building of lateral trust relationships rather than vertical trust relationships? it is also not evident what the nature and strength of the relationship between cognitiveand affective-based trust and organisational innovativeness is. is it necessary to develop both cognitive and affect-based trust relationships, for example, or is it sufficient to merely focus on one of these bases of trust to enhance innovativeness? this study examined the linkages between various sub-dimensions of interpersonal trust and organisational innovativeness within a large south african petrochemical company. if such relationships between particular dimensions of trust and innovativeness could be determined, they could assist management in devising more focused strategies to improve innovativeness within the company. our first objective was to determine the relationship between cognitiveand affective-based trust and organisational innovativeness. our second aim was to determine the relationship between lateral and vertical trust, and organisational innovativeness. these objectives were translated in terms of the following four hypotheses: • h1: organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of lateral trust in an organisation. • h2: organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of vertical trust in an organisation. • h3: organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of cognitive-based trust in an organisation. • h4: organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of affective-based trust in an organisation. data were gathered by means of previously validated, structured questionnaires that measured dimensions of trust and innovativeness, which we distributed among 189 members of the maintenance and production teams of a division within a large petro-chemical company. dimensionality, interpersonal trust and innovativeness td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 159 170. 161 the exploration of the specific combination of dimensions of trust and innovativeness on both lateral and vertical levels within the same study has not, to our knowledge, been attempted before, nor has such a study focused on the combination of these dimensions within a south african company. our findings have the potential to contribute to a better understanding of workplace dynamics within a south african context and more widely. 2 theoretical framework we conceptualise interpersonal trust as a complex, multidimensional construct (rousseau et al., 1998), which can be separated from its antecedents (such as the trustworthiness characteristics of the trustee) and its outcome, which is risk-taking behaviour (mayer et al., 1995). as such, trust can be defined as “a willingness to accept vulnerability based upon having optimistic expectations about other people’s intentions and behaviours in situations that are interdependent and/or risky” (clegg et al., 2002:409). trust has cognitive as well as affective dimensions (mcallister, 1995, lewicki & bunker, 1996), which can be broken down into a further two dimensions, namely lateral trust (costigan et al., 1998:303) and vertical trust (ferres et al., 2004:610). if the trust is based on rationality, an individual looks for rational reasons to trust a person, and the trust has a cognitive dimension. if the interaction between two parties is characterised by genuine, mutual care and concern for each other over time, the trust relationship deepens and an affective dimension develops (mc allister, 1995:26). vertical trust concerns, for example, perceptions of the workforce that management is competent and will act in a fair, reliable and ethical manner. lateral trust, on the other hand, implies that peers are mutually supportive and will not take advantage of each other, for example by withholding information. our conceptualisation of innovativeness best relates to that of ellonen et al. (2008:171), who suggested that there are four dimensions of the organisational innovativeness construct, namely product, behavioural, strategic and process innovativeness. these dimensions were used to measure organisational innovativeness in what follows. 3 research design and methodology our quantitative research approach focused on establishing how cognitive, affective, lateral and vertical trust related to the four dimensions of innovativeness, namely product innovativeness, behavioural innovativeness, strategic innovativeness and process innovativeness. the research population was defined by the role they play in the business as it relates to the direct operation and maintenance of production units. included were those individuals who were responsible for the implementation of improvement and maintenance projects in the company. for this reason, the scope embraced managers, engineers, technicians, technologists, discipline specialists and artisans. the number of employees in this survey population was 189. previously validated, structured questionnaires were sent to all 189 employees in a hard copy and electronic format, in the form of emails. the people who responded formed the sample. our convenience sampling technique resulted in 95 respondents who completed the questionnaires, which was a response rate of 52%. heyns & jearey 162 questions related to demographic information (section a), lateral and vertical trust (section b), cognitive and affect-based trust (section c), and organisational innovativeness (section d), sourced from previously validated and reliable measurement instruments developed by ellonen et al. (2008) and ferda and ozen (2003). responses were measured on a 5-point likert scale. details of the measurement instrument and what each sub-section measured are provided in table a1, appendix a. the analysis of the data was conducted using spss (2009) and statistica (2011). 4 findings 4.1 reliability reliability analyses of results revealed that both the mean inter-item correlations for all the constructs (all above the 0.2 mark) and the cronbach’s alpha values (all greater than 0.6) were deemed acceptable. these results indicated that the scales could be regarded as sufficiently reliable; it was also possible to calculate the aggregated scores for each dimension. the reliability scores of all the sub-sections, as obtained in this study, together with a more detailed breakdown of the questionnaires and related item codes, are displayed in table a1 in appendix a. 4.2 descriptive statistics mean scores and standard deviations were used as the descriptive statistic measures for the data collected from the respondents (table a2, appendix a). the mean scores indicated that, across the dimensions, the respondents felt that they could trust each other and their management enough to engage in risk-taking and innovative behaviours. the benevolence construct of the lateraland vertical-trust results had mean scores of 3.14 and 3.13, respectively, which were relatively low compared to the other dimensions. benevolence deals with the perception of ‘caring’ in a trust relationship. we conclude that the respondents work in an environment where they experience a perception of low levels of ‘caring’ within the business. the mean scores for the productand strategic-innovativeness constructs were also relatively low, at 3.17 and 3.10, respectively. product innovativeness is related to the introduction of new products into the marketplace, whereas strategic innovativeness is related to the management of organisational objectives and the resources required to meet them. a possible explanation for this is that in a large organisation, such as the one targeted, it is exceptionally difficult to change the product offering of any given business unit. in terms of the business strategy, this is largely determined by individuals at senior levels in the organisations. for this reason, it is conceivable that the respondents consider that they do not possess the ability to influence the product offering of the business or strategic direction the company chooses to take. finally, the process innovativeness sub-dimension achieved a mean score of 3.41, which, along with the lateral trust competency aspect, was the highest of the scores. process innovativeness is related to the introduction of new production methods and technologies, which are used to improve production and management processes. this score indicates that, dimensionality, interpersonal trust and innovativeness td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 159 170. 163 of all the sub-dimensions, the respondents are the most confident about their ability to improve efficiencies in the production process. 4.3 correlations spearman’s rank order correlations were calculated to determine the nature and strength of the correlations between the sub-dimensions of trust and organisational innovativeness. the correlation coefficient is a standardised measure of an observed effect and is a commonly used measure of its size. as noted by field (2009:170), values of ±0.1 represent a small effect, ±0.3 is a medium effect and ±0.5 corresponds to a large effect. findings pertaining to this discussion are detailed in table b1, appendix b. 4.3.1 spearman’s rho correlations for lateral trust and organisational innovativeness. our first hypothesis (h1) was that organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of lateral trust in the organisation. with a correlation coefficient of 0.68, we can conclude that there is a practically significant positive correlation between these two constructs. h1 is supported. correlation coefficient values for overall lateral trust and the four dimensions of organisational innovativeness range between 0.52 and 0.67, indicating a practically significant positive relationship between these variables as well. 4.3.2 spearman’s rho correlations for vertical trust and organisational innovativeness our second hypothesis (h2) was that organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of vertical trust in the organisation. with a correlation coefficient of 0.72, we are convinced that there is a practically significant positive correlation between these two constructs. h2 is supported. correlation coefficient values for overall vertical trust and the four dimensions of organisational innovativeness range between 0.60 and 0.64, indicating a practically significant positive relationship between these variables as well. 4.3.3 spearman’s rho correlations for cognitive-based trust and organisational innovativeness the third hypothesis advanced (h3) was that organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of cognitive-based trust within the organisation. with a correlation coefficient of 0.58, we conclude that there is a practically significant positive correlation between these two constructs. therefore, the third research hypothesis is supported. correlation coefficient values for overall cognitive-based trust and the four dimensions of organisational innovativeness range between 0.49 and 0.54, indicating a significant positive linear relationship between these variables as well. 4.3.4 spearman’s rho correlations for affective-based trust and organisational innovativeness. the final hypothesis (h4) presented in this research was that organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of affective-based trust within the organisation. with a correlation coefficient value of 0.62, we conclude that there is a significant relationship between these two constructs. therefore, h4 is supported. when taking a closer look at specific sub-dimensions of organisational innovativeness, we find that correlation coefficients between strategicand process-innovation, and affective-based trust are 0.46 and 0.46, respectively. this indicates a medium to high positive correlation between these two dimensions of organisational innovativeness and the affective-based trust construct. in summary, we show that there are significant positive correlations between the overall, selected dimensions of interpersonal trust and the overall organisational innovativeness heyns & jearey 164 construct. table 1 summarises the main findings pertaining to the four hypotheses, showing that all four were confirmed. table 1: research hypotheses and corresponding spearman’s rho values hypothesis description spearman’s rho h1 organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of lateral trust in an organisation. 0.68 h2 organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of vertical trust in an organisation. 0.72 h3 organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of cognitive-based trust in an organisation 0.58 h4 organisational innovativeness is positively correlated with the strength of affective-based trust in an organisation 0.62 4.4 discussion our findings provide support for our first hypothesis and offer a different perspective on previous research on this topic. ellonen and colleagues, for example, found that none of the dimensions of organisational innovativeness were significantly related to lateral trust (ellonen et al., 2008:173). the practically significant positive correlation between overall lateral trust and all four dimensions of organisational innovativeness found in our study, therefore, points to the potentially important role that lateral trust can play in promoting innovativeness. the fact that contrasting results were found, however, also indicates the necessity for further research on this topic. with regard to our second hypothesis, vertical trust and innovativeness were not only positively related as main constructs, but all the sub-dimensions of these two constructs were also positively related. this emphasises the important role that leadership can play in promoting innovativeness through the building of relationships with the workforce based on trust. the outcome of a trusting relationship is the willingness of the parties in the relationship to take risks, which we suggest is a necessary ingredient for organisational innovation to take place. this argument is in line with previous research indicating that new ideas and innovation demand risk-taking rather than risk avoidance from employees and leaders (ellonen et al., 2008:176). the correlation between organisational innovativeness and lateral trust, at r=0.68, was less than that between organisational innovativeness and vertical trust, at r = 0.72. a possible explanation for this is that innovation within a business requires resources in various forms, be they funds, human capital, time or support or a combination of all of these. within a modern organisation, the leadership holds the keys to unlocking these resources. this finding emphasises the important role of management in providing sufficient resources and support to enhance innovativeness, relative to the role to be played by peers. slightly lower correlations of strategic innovativeness and affective-based trust (r = 0.46) and of process innovativeness and affective-based trust (r = 0.46) were noted. the lower values of r in those two cases can possibly be explained by the fact that any changes made to a production process are undertaken by following a highly structured management of the change process. the structure of the process clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of the parties involved, which means that trust based on an emotional connection would not dimensionality, interpersonal trust and innovativeness td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 159 170. 165 feature as significantly when making changes to the production process. further research, based on a larger sample, is desirable to explore this finding in more detail. as far as strategic innovativeness goes, the overall business objectives and strategies are formulated by the business team leadership. this means that individuals working at the lower management and artisan levels have minimal input into the formulation of business strategies. in this scenario, it is feasible that trust based on an emotional connection between the parties involved does not feature as significantly when making changes to, or implementing, a business’s long-term strategy. 5 conclusions and recommendations this study contributes to a growing body of knowledge on both innovativeness and trust, in its approach to explore specific links between interpersonal trust and innovativeness simultaneously on different levels (between peers, as well as between the workforce and management), within the same company. our findings also provide a richer understanding of the relationship between trust and innovativeness. the mean values for all the dimensions of interpersonal trust and organisational innovativeness suggest that our survey sample is approving of the levels of interpersonal trust and organisational innovativeness within the business. this finding is supported by the fact that all of the constructs achieved spearman’s rank order correlation values of greater than 0.5. therefore, all four our initial hypotheses were supported. according to the workforce, both cognitiveand affective-based trust have a role to play in improving the organisational innovativeness of the business. this is a significant finding. furthermore, we found no published research linking these two dimensions of trust to organisational innovativeness. this should be considered as a topic for future research involving a larger sample and a random sampling technique. it is important to note that innovativeness is positively correlated with both lateral and vertical trust. previous research (ellonen et al., 2008) suggests that trust is most strongly related to impersonal forms of (institutional) trust. our current finding suggests that interpersonal forms of trust are also an important consideration. it implies that management should pay attention to trust-building initiatives on both lateral and vertical levels within the organisation. managers can increase the levels of interpersonal trust by ensuring, for example, that competency and skill set gaps are identified and rectified. management can also build trust by continuously demonstrating and encouraging caring behaviours and by ensuring that all interactions are governed by accepted ethical behaviours. in summary, the findings highlight the fact that high levels of interpersonal trust contribute to enhanced levels of organisational innovativeness within the company. more focused strategic planning is therefore possible by paying close attention to how all the components of interpersonal trust influence product innovativeness, process innovativeness, behavioural innovativeness and strategic innovativeness, respectively. heyns & jearey 166 appendix a: results of statistical analyses table a1: scale reliability for dimensions measured by the survey instrument ser no dimensions item codes cronbach’s alpha (α) mean interitem correlation 1 section b: lateral and vertical trust (ellonen et al., 2008:168) 2 trust in employee reliability lt01-lt06 0.84 0.47 3 trust in employee competence lt07 – lt12 0.84 0.60 4 trust in employee benevolence lt13 – lt16 0.82 0.54 5 overall co-worker trust 0.93 0.48 6 trust in leader’s reliability vt01 – vt06 0.92 0.65 7 trust in leader’s competence vt07 – vt12 0.91 0.67 8 trust in leader’s benevolence vt13 – vt16 0.89 0.68 9 overall employee trust in leader 0.96 0.61 10 section c: cognitive and affective-based trust (erdem & ozen, 2003:134) 11 cognitive trust ct01 – ct06 0.63 0.23 12 affective trust af01 – af05 0.73 0.35 13 cognitive & affective trust 0.81 0.28 14 section d: organisational innovativeness (ellonen et al., 2008:170) 15 product innovativeness in01 – in05 0.87 0.57 16 behavioural innovativeness in06 – in10 0.84 0.52 17 strategic innovativeness in11 – in13 0.81 0.59 18 process innovativeness in14 – in16 0.80 0.57 19 overall organisational innovativeness 0.93 0.47 table a2: mean and standard deviations for the aggregated dimension scores dimensions mean standard deviation overall lateral trust 3.28 0.69 trust in co-worker reliability 3.22 0.72 trust in co-worker competence 3.45 0.80 trust in co-worker benevolence 3.14 0.79 overall vertical trust 3.22 0.78 trust in leader’s reliability 3.12 0.87 trust in leader’s competence 3.41 0.77 trust in leader’s benevolence 3.13 0.88 cognitive trust 3.31 0.52 affective trust 3.31 0.68 cognitive and affective trust 3.31 0.54 overall organisational innovativeness 3.22 0.63 product innovativeness 3.17 0.69 behavioural innovativeness 3.22 0.76 strategic innovativeness 3.10 0.76 process innovativeness 3.41 0.75 appendix b: spearman’s rho correlations dimensionality, interpersonal trust and innovativeness td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 159 170. 167 table b1: spearman’ rho correlations for interpersonal trust and organisational innovativeness d im ension l t – r l t – c l t – b l t v t – r v t – c v t – b v t c t a t c t & a t pr o d in n b e h in n st a t in n pr o c in n in n o lt – r 1.00 0.76 0.74 0.92 0.69 0.60 0.65 0.72 0.59 0.54 0.61 0.61 0.52 0.51 0.51 0.64 lt – c 1.00 0.75 0.92 0.60 0.61 0.54 0.63 0.61 0.61 0.70 0.59 0.49 0.51 0.49 0.60 lt – b 1.00 0.88 0.54 0.53 0.63 0.61 0.49 0.54 0.57 0.65 0.54 0.45 0.41 0.62 lt 1.00 0.67 0.65 0.67 0.72 0.64 0.63 0.70 0.67 0.56 0.53 0.52 0.68 vt – r 1.00 0.82 0.80 0.96 0.65 0.60 0.65 0.59 0.58 0.56 2 0.60 0.66 vt – c 1.00 0.73 0.90 0.52 0.54 0.59 0.55 0.62 0.64 0.60 0.67 vt – b 1.00 0.90 0.46 0.53 0.55 0.63 0.57 0.53 0.56 0.67 vt 1.00 0.56 0.60 0.64 0.64 0.63 0.60 0.63 0.72 ct 1.00 0.63 0.89 0.54 0.50 0.52 0.49 0.58 at 1.00 0.91 0.63 0.52 0.46 0.46 0.62 ct & at 1.00 0.67 0.56 0.54 0.52 0.66 pro d inn 1.00 0.65 0.59 0.58 0.84 beh inn 1.00 0.66 0.71 0.91 sta t inn 1.00 0.69 0.82 pro c inn 1.00 0.82 inn o 1.00 abbreviation dimension abbreviation dimension lt – r trust in employee reliability vt – r trust in leader’s reliability lt – c trust in employee competence vt – c trust in leader’s competence lt b trust in employee benevolence vt b trust in leader’s benevolence lt overall co-worker trust vt overall leaders trust ct cognitive trust prod inn product innovativeness at affective trust beh inn behavioural innovativeness ct&at cognitive & affective trust stat inn strategic innovativeness proc inn process innovativeness inno overall organisational innovativeness heyns & jearey 168 bibliography atkinson, s. 2004. senior management relationships and trust: an exploratory study. journal of managerial psychology, 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legal environmental issues; mining closure; west rand; environmental health; wonderfonteinspruit; tweelopiespruit disciplines: history; health sciences; legal sciences; economic sciences; environmental sciences 1 introduction since the establishment of the environmental movement in 1964 abroad, the understanding of the interrelationship between humans and their environment has grown progressively more complex (benton and short, 2000; white, 1970; attfield, 1983, 1994; goudswaard, 1979). past and current actions by primary regulators, decision-makers, capitalists, * in alphabetic order: dr jf (francois) durand is a member of staff in the department of zoology at the university of johannesburg, south africa. ms mariette liefferink is chief executive director of the federation for a sustainable environment, south africa. prof. elize s van eeden is a member of the research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water at north-west university, south africa. email: elise.vaneeden@nwu.ac.za. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. 51-71 52 scientists, and an ignorant public create a complex array of interactions, which is set in a political, socio-economic, scientific, and legal matrix (adler et al., 2007). to exacerbate the complexity of the situation, the injurers and injured think differently about the solution to these environmental and socio-economic problems (van eeden, 2007a; 2007b). according to funke et al. (2007), the attempts of government departments to engage mining companies in the rehabilitation of the environment have been frustrated because of their refusal to take responsibility for acid mine drainage and other environmental and health problems associated with mining (van eeden, 2006; van eeden, 2007b; van eeden, liefferink & tempelhoff, 2008). before and during the apartheid era, followed by a period of political isolation and economic sanctions, the government of the day always nurtured its relationship with the mining industry, which benefited both parties (van eeden, 2006; van eeden, 2008a). both parties always benefited economically from this relationship, while the government turned a blind eye to the environmentally and socially harmful practices of the mines. adler et al. (2007) argue that mining companies have held their production costs artificially low by opting for the deflection of certain costs such as the rehabilitation of the environment and social welfare to the state and third parties. many gold mines had been abandoned or had become insolvent before the full environmental and socio-economic impacts caused by them became evident and, thus, cannot be legally compelled to remediate these negative impacts. water-related remediation studies should include a consideration of environmental ethics, environmental responsibilities, liability, and equity (gutmann and thompson, 2006; van eeden & brink, 2007). this approach could change the situation of conflict to cooperative efforts between the gold mining companies, conservationists, activists, and inhabitants in the study area (van eeden & brink, 2007). over the past century, toxic and radioactive material have emanated from the gold mines in western gauteng (parts of the west rand) and north west province (parts of the far west rand) into the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit (spruit = stream) at concentrations that exceed average surface abundances. urbanisation in the area increased in conjunction with mining and associated industries, which were established after 1930 in the vicinity of the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit. urbanisation continued until people were living and working only tens of metres away from mine deposits, which, in 2007, were identified as radioactive sites by the national nuclear regulator of south africa (van eeden, 1992; 2008a). the closure of some mines and the non-compliance with laws stipulating rehabilitation of mine tailings, slimes dumps, and land have exacerbated the situation. water containing mine effluent is currently decanting from shafts, boreholes, and springs due to the cessation of the pumping of water from the mine void in the central rand and west rand (van biljon and krige, 2005). some communities living in the rural areas adjacent to the mines in western gauteng and north west province are dependent on groundwater from boreholes due to the lack of municipal water. the farming communities and people living in informal settlements use groundwater and surface water for drinking purposes, to water livestock, and to irrigate crops. in cases where the water used for irrigation is contaminated by van eeden, liefferink and durand 53 mine effluent, the potential exists for metal bioaccumulation in crops and consequently, this would pose a human health risk (van biljon, 2007; van eeden, 2006). environmental studies, which include water and sediment analyses, and radioactivity and biodiversity surveys have been done on the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit over the past few years (coetzee et al., 2006; fourie, 2005; 2006; graham, 2007; heyl, 2007; hobbs and cobbing, 2007; national nuclear regulator, 2007; oelofse et al., 2007; council for geoscience archive, fwrdwa, 1964-1984; council for geoscience archive, sctc, 1964-2004). 2 some negative impacts of mining on the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments this section includes a short summary of some of the major impacts of mines on the west rand on the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments (which have already been discussed in several articles) and their effect on the natural environment and the communities dependent on these water sources. 2.1 abstraction and discharging of water from gold mines mine effluent emanating from mines on the west rand affects the vaal river to the south and the limpopo river to the north, due to the fact that tributaries of both originate at the continental water divide (coetzee et al., 2006) (“intercontinental surface water divide” hobbs & cobbing, 2007). the mine effluent generated by mines on the west rand also has a negative impact on the quality of groundwater because large portions of mine land in gauteng and north west province and the rivers that flow from this land occur close to, or on top of, dolomite (coetzee et al., 2007; hobbs and cobbing, 2007). the malmani subgroup, which is dominated by dolomite, is situated in close proximity to the auriferous witwatersrand group in north west and gauteng provinces. several gold mines in the witwatersrand are situated in close proximity to karst aquifers, which in some instances had to be dewatered in order for mining to take place (morgan and brink, 1981, warwick et al., 1987). the abstraction of water from mines and decant from abandoned mines have a major negative impact on the quality of the surface water and groundwater in gauteng and north west provinces. the massive dewatering of mines since the late fifties of the twentieth century has had (and still has) a detrimental effect on the natural aquatic systems in the area one of the effects being the drying up of the springs of the witwatersrand when the dewatering of the deep mines commenced decades ago (enslin et al., 1996; dreybrodt, 1996; van eeden, 1992). in its place, megalitres of water were pumped into certain rivers, which, together with sediments, changed the flow of those affected river systems. 2.2 sinkholes the dewatering of mines and the placement of slimes dams over the past century have caused several sinkholes in the west rand and north west province (kleywegt and pike, 1982; pulles et al., 2005). many of td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 54 these sinkholes have not been rehabilitated, while new ones are still forming on the west rand (tempelhoff, 2007). karstification occurs when the carbonate rock, which constitutes the karst system, dissolves when exposed to acids such as those contained in amd or even weak acids that occur naturally. the result of this chemical decay is the formation of underground solution cavities, caves, sinkholes, and dolines. the increase of the amd in the mine void in gauteng and north west may cause excessive and rapid karstification in this area as dissolution of the dolomite takes place (fourie, 2006; hodgson et al., 2001; krige, 2006; swart et al., 2003; van eeden et al., 2008). 2.3 acid mine drainage (amd) amd is responsible for the most costly environmental and socio-economic impacts in south africa (oelofse et al., 2007). mine effluent containing bimetals (including radioactive heavy metals), acid, and sulphates issues from mines in several ways: the run-off from slimes dams and rock dumps enters the surface water streams and groundwater, while water from slimes dams enters the groundwater of the underlying karst system on which they were built (kleywegt, 1977). during 1997, south africa produced an estimated 468 million tons of mineral waste per annum. gold mining waste was estimated to account for 221 million tons or 47% of all mineral waste produced in south africa, making it the largest single source of waste and pollution. there are more than 270 tailings dams in the witwatersrand basin, covering approximately 400 km2. these dams are mostly unlined and unvegetated, providing a source of dust, as well as soil and water pollution (oelofse et al., 2007). mine effluent currently decants between 18 and 36 megalitres per day from an old black reef shaft on the old west rand consolidated mine property (harmony gold mine limited), and an unqualified volume is still escaping downstream or into the groundwater (fourie, 2006; hobbs and cobbing, 2007). the water quality of the river systems, wetlands, and groundwater in gauteng and the north west province has been deteriorating rapidly over the past five years due to mine effluent issuing from abandoned mines. after the mines on the central rand and several west rand mines were abandoned, the water table has returned to its original level in the western basin mine void, which comprises an estimated volume of 45 million cubic metres. several of the once dry springs have started to flow again since 2002, but are now issuing water polluted by mine effluent (fourie, 2005). this affects not only the local springs and streams, but also major river systems further downstream. mine effluent is already issuing from the 15 active and 29 closed mines to the north of the vaal barrage. amd may continue for centuries after mines closure (pullen, 1996). acidic mine water is currently decanting from a number of shafts into the tweelopiespruit catchment immediately to the north of the wonderfonteinspruit and flows into the local dolomitic aquifer; the water level is still rising in this area and may decant into the wonderfonteinspruit. this inflow would have a serious impact on any contaminated sites downstream, as was seen in the initial decant, where acid mine water was discharged into the robinson lake. the water decanting from the mine shaft and borehole into the tweelopiespruit in 2002 had a ph of 2.6 due to amd contamination (fourie, 2005). robinson van eeden, liefferink and durand 55 lake near randfontein had a ph of 2.2 in may 2007 (waterlab report no. 19510), and the tweelopiespruit just south of the krugersdorp nature reserve had a ph of 2.7 in june 2007 (waterlab report no. 19766). 2.4 sulphates one of the characteristics of amd is a high level of sulphates. if humans ingest more than 600 mg/l of sulphate, it may lead to vomiting and diarrhoea. the mine effluent from harmony gold had 4 500 mg of sulphates, 1 200 mg of iron, and 16 mg of uranium per litre at the point of decant into the tweelopiespruit in 2005 (fourie, 2005). hobbs (2007) reported sulphate concentrations as high as 4 918 mg/l, while heyl (2007) reported concentrations of up to 5 055 mg/l in the tweelopiespruit. 2.5 metals the mean values for the sediment in the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments exceed not only natural background concentrations, but also levels of regulatory concern. some of these that are mobilised by amd in these catchments are manganese, aluminium, iron, nickel, zinc, cobalt, copper, cadmium, arsenic, lead, radium, thorium, and uranium (venter, 1995; coetzee et al., 2006; heyl, 2007). any of these metals may be toxic depending on the time of exposure and the concentration of the metal an organism is exposed to (hodgson et al., 2001; adendorff, 1997). factors such as salinity, acidity, and hardness of the water may determine the rate of accumulation of the metals by the organism (moore and ramamoorthy, 1984). the studies done on the effect of metals in amd on organisms and ecosystems show that metals in water pose a serious health risk to invertebrates and vertebrates (venter, 1995; adendorff, 1997; jooste and thirion, 1999). the absorption of metals through the skin, gills, or ingestion may cause necrosis, tumours, cancer, and the impairment of several organ systems and, of course, death. 2.6 radioactivity some of the metals contained in amd such as uranium, thorium, radium, polonium, and some isotopes of lead are, in addition to being chemically toxic, also radioactive. uranium is identified as the principal contaminant of concern emitted by the gold mining industry. uranium is radioactive and chemically toxic with an extremely long half-life of 1010 years. its impacts, after mine closure, on persons, property, and the environment are, therefore, long term and of appreciable magnitude. the presence of uranium was reported in the wonderfonteinspruit (coetzee et al., 2006; national nuclear regulator, 2007) and in the tweelopiespruit (heyl, 2007). uranium and its daughter products have a long-term impact on the environment due to the fact that these elements accumulate in the sediments and will continue to leach out of the mine tailings and slimes dams for centuries to come (winde and van der walt, 2004; coetzee et al., 2006). plants absorb these metals readily though their roots, and from there, they are passed on into the rest of the food web. td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 56 according to coetzee et al. (2006), the slimes dams of the west rand and far west rand may contain more than 100 000 tons of uranium. coetzee et al. (2006) further estimate that as much as 50 tons of uranium is discharged annually from the gold mines of the west rand and far west rand into the receiving water courses. seepage and percolation from unlined tailings dams are responsible for the discharge of 24 tons of uranium into the receiving water courses. it was found that the uranium levels in the percolated water are 1 000 to 1 million times higher than the background uranium levels. twelve tons of uranium is released into the wonderfonteinspruit catchment from controlled and uncontrolled point discharges, and 10 tons of uranium is discharged by storm water annually. it is predicted that the sinkholes that were historically filled with uraniferous tailings will become secondary sources of uranium contamination of the groundwater and surface water after mine closure and cessation of pumping, when pre-mine flow patterns and volumes are restored (coetzee et al., 2006). the combination of the ph and redox-driven reactions resulted in a measured uranium concentration of 16 mg/l of the robinson lake and resulted in the nnr declaring the lake a radiation area. the background uranium concentration in water is 0.0004 mg/l. in terms of the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) regulations for drinking water, the uranium concentration should not exceed 0.07 mg/l and, for irrigation, 0.01 mg/l. the sediment in the andries coetzee dam, a privately owned dam within the lower wonderfonteinspruit catchment, contains uranium levels of 900 mg/kg while the sediment of the upper wonderfonteinspruit contains uranium levels of 1 100 mg/kg. the radioactive contamination of surface water bodies and groundwater in the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments caused by the long-lasting mine water discharges and diffuse emissions of seepage and run-off from slimes dams poses radiological risks to people and the ecology. the use of water for drinking purposes may pose a direct threat to the communities dependent on the surface water and groundwater in the wonderfontein and tweelopiespruit catchments. the threat of exposure to radioactive material is even greater when these radioactive materials are bioaccumulated by livestock drinking the contaminated water or through crops that are irrigated using contaminated water. the measured uranium content of many of the fluvial sediments in the wonderfonteinspruit, including those off mine properties and, therefore, outside the boundaries of licensed sites, exceeds the exclusion limit for regulation by the national nuclear regulator (nnr), which was set at 16 mg/kg of uranium (equivalent to an activity concentration of 0.2 bq/ g) before the publication of the water research commission report no. 1214/1/06. it was found that the u-238 concentration of the sediment in the tudor dam is 10 000 100 000 bq/g; at the sluice and in the andries coetzee dam, it is 1 000 – 10 000 bq/kg; and at the donaldson dam, harry’s dam, and the attenuation dam, it is 100 – 1 000bq/g. the sites tudor dam, lancaster dam, attenuation dam, donaldson dam, harry’s dam, and andre coetzee dam had u-238 levels higher than the nuclear energy act stipulation and, therefore, have a positive tier 1 risk quotient. for approximately 50% of the 47 sites sampled, the calculated incremental doses of the respective critical group are between 1 msv and 100 msv per annum, the highest being 548 msv per annum calculated for the sample taken at blyvooruitzicht mine/bridge van eeden, liefferink and durand 57 carletonville (national nuclear regulator, 2007). the prescribed maximum radioactive dosage to which an adult may be exposed per year is 1 msv. after the publication of the wrc report no. 1214/1/06, the nnr increased the regulatory control to 0.5/bq/g. uranium-238 and its daughter products – thorium-234, protactinium234, uranium-234, thorium-230, radium-226, radon-222, polonium-218, lead-214, bisthmuth-214, polonium-214, lead-210, bismuth-210, and polonium-210 are alpha and beta particle emitters that have a damaging effect on tissues (coetzee et al., 2006; durakovic, 1999; hursh et al., 1969; kobert, 1906). the absorption of uranium may lead to kidney and liver failure (garnier and marke, 1921), and its neurotoxic effects include blindness, paralysis, and loss of coordination (verne, 1931). uranium may also cause mutations, aberrant sperm, connective tissue (including blood) diseases, changes in immune and endocrine systems, tumours, and cancer (shanahan et al., 1966; au et al., 1996; baur, 1996; conrad et al., 1996; zaire et al., 1996; 1997). the world health organisation provisionally recommended a maximum limit of 30 μg/l for uranium in drinking water in 2003. in the world health organisation drinking water standards, which were revised in 2005, the toxicological limit for uranium in drinking water was lowered to 15 μg/l. konietzka et al. (2005) concluded that the safe limit for uranium in drinking water should be 2 μg/l. the bundesrat (german federal parliament) passed legislature in 2006 that limits the level of uranium in bottled water to 2 μg/l, which it considers safe for the preparation of baby food. the maximum uranium concentration recommended in drinking water in south africa, on the other hand, is 70 μg/l (north west province, state of environment report, 2002). the uranium concentration in robinson lake is 16 mg/l. if 0.284 mg/l is exceeded, human health may be at risk due to chemical toxicity (kempster et al., 1996). 2.7 biodiversity amd leads to the decimation of aquatic life in the water bodies into which mine effluent is discharged (roback and richardson, 1969; jooste and thirion, 1999; adendorff, 1997; van staden, 2003). the sass aquatic macroinvertebrate scoring system was devised as a quick assessment of the water quality to determine its potability by looking at the diversity, numbers, and type of macroinvertebrate (according to pollution sensitivity) present in the water. according to the diminishing in diversity and numbers of invertebrates in the tweelopiespruit, the water quality rapidly deteriorates upstream along the tweelopiespruit towards harmony gold mine in randfontein (heyl, 2007; hobbs and cobbing, 2007). the pollution of the tweelopiespruit and the wonderfonteinspruit by amd not only impacted negatively on the biodiversity of the region, but also on the health of the surviving organisms that are dependent on the water from the river or groundwater in the vicinity of the mines in that region. amd-contaminated groundwater is used for irrigation in the vicinity of the mines. metals and other pollutants are accumulated in organisms as they pass through the food chain. during the process of bioaccumulation, some toxins can become more concentrated as they travel up the food chain and have a detrimental effect on higher trophic levels (kang et al., 1997). td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 58 3 legal considerations and public responsibility regarding mine closure 3.1 responsibilities, liabilities, and duties regarding mine closure under section 34 of the national environmental management act, no. 107 of 1998 (nema), if any party is convicted of an offence under an act listed in schedule 3 of the nema (which includes the national water act, no. 36 of 1998), and it appears that such a party has caused loss or damage to any other party, the court may determine the amount of loss or damage caused and may award damages or compensation equal to that amount in addition to other punishment such as the rehabilitation of the environment and taking steps to ensure that such damage would not occur again. court costs may be claimed from the guilty party. parties in such proceedings may rely on the common law remedies, including those available in terms of the law of delictual liability and the law of damages. whereas acts of parliament focus on the effects of activities, the basis of common law remedies, in negligence and nuisance, interferes with private property rights. as such, those remedies are available to the party that has suffered harm and not usually to third parties. the common law applies to all mining operations, whenever the licences or permits were obtained, unless modified by legislation. in common law, the landowner stands under no obligation to clean up contamination caused by another party on his or her property; nor is there a power vested in a local authority to order the landowner to clean contamination caused by a another party. however, should that landowner allow hazardous material that has accumulated on his or her property to escape and damage the property of another, the first landowner would be liable to the second under the rule in lascon properties (pty) ltd v wadeville investment co (pty) ltd and another 1997 (4) sa 578 (w). a remedy in nuisance would depend on the contamination escaping from the land that was subject to the mining and affecting other property. arguably, it will also require a foreseeability of harm. the usual remedies where nuisance is established are damages or interdict. even if the risk of harm to the plaintiff were foreseeable, liability would depend on what action could reasonably have been taken in all the circumstances to avert the risk. further, the standard of care required is that of a reasonable person in the circumstances, there being a higher standard of care required of persons possessing special skills or expertise. in the case of tailings dams, a number of experts would have been involved in their design, construction, use, operation, maintenance, and closure. all of these experts would have been required to exercise a degree of care commensurate with their skill and experience. a holder must apply for a closure certificate on lapsing or abandonment of his/her right/permit, cessation of mining operations, or relinquishment of any portion of land to which the right or permit relates. within 180 days from these situations occurring, the holder must complete and submit a prescribed closing plan, including an environmental risk report, to the dme regional manager. only after the chief inspector and dwaf have confirmed in writing that provisions have been complied with pertaining to health and safety and management of potential pollution to water resources may a closure certificate be issued van eeden, liefferink and durand 59 and may the financial contribution or part thereof be returned. 3.2 responsibility and liability for historic and current pollution and ecological degradation both the nema and the national water act (act 36 of 1998) stipulate that a party has to take all reasonable measures to prevent pollution or degradation from occurring, continuing, or recurring as a result of mining operations for which it is responsible. according to these acts, investigations, training, ceasing or modification of activities or processes, containment, and remediation have to be undertaken by the responsible party. the mineral and petroleum resources development act (act no. 28 of 2002) stipulates in section 38(1)(d) that the holder of the mining permit must take responsibility for the rehabilitation of the environment affected by mining to its natural state or to comply with the principle of sustainable development as far is reasonably practicable. the mineral and petroleum resources development act (mprda) deals with the responsibilities of holders of mining rights, permits, or permissions and states in section 38(1)(e) that such holder, whose mining causes or results in ecological degradation, pollution, or environmental damage that may be harmful to the health or well-being of anyone, “… is responsible for any environmental damage, pollution or ecological degradation as a result of his or her operations and which may occur inside and outside the boundaries of the area to which such right, permit or permission relates”, and in terms of section 43(1), “remain responsible for any environmental liability, pollution or ecological degradation and the management thereof until a closure certificate has been issued”. section 19 of the national water act (nwa) deals with prevention and remedying effects of pollution and states in subsection 19(1) that “an owner of land, a person in control of land or a person who occupies or uses the land on which(a) any activity or process is or was performed or undertaken; or (b) any other situation exists, which causes, has caused or is likely to cause pollution of a water resource, must take all reasonable measures to prevent any such pollution from occurring, continuing or recurring”. section 28 of the nema deals with the duty of care towards pollution prevention and remediation. under the mprda, nema, and by implication the nwa, liability is specifically extended to the director of the mining company concerned in his or her personal capacity, that is, personal liability: mprda, section 38(2): “notwithstanding the companies act, no 61 of 1973, or the close corporations act no 69 of 1984, the directors of a company or members of a close corporation are jointly and severally liable; for any unacceptable negative impact on the environment, including damage, degradation or pollution; advertently or inadvertently caused by the company or close corporation which they represent or represented.” nema, section 34(7), states that any person who is or was a director of a mining company at the time of the commission by that mining company of an offence under a provision listed in schedule 3 (this includes the nwa) will be guilty in his/her personal capacities of the offence and liable on conviction to the penalties imposed if the offence in question resulted from the failure of the director to take all reasonable steps that td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 60 were necessary under the circumstances to prevent the commission of the offence by the mining corporation. proof of the said offence by the firm under the schedule 3 provision shall constitute prima facie evidence that the director is guilty. all three statutes, furthermore, establish a joint and shared liability and prevent liability from being contracted out. the mprda, however, provides for the transfer of environmental liabilities in section 43(2) in a particular manner: on written application in the prescribed manner by the holder of a right or permit, the minister may transfer such environmental liabilities and responsibilities as may be identified in the environmental management programme and closure plan to a person with such qualifications as may be prescribed. these prescriptions are contained in regulations 58 and 59 of the mprd regulations (gnr527). the provision relating to the transfer of liability under the mprda does not, however, imply that it can be contracted out, as described above. apportionment of liability is provided for in the nema and the nwa, but not under the mprda, since the holder of the right or permit is deemed to be the responsible person. if more than one person is liable under the nwa, “the responsible authority (dwaf or cma [catchment management agency]) must apportion the liability, but such apportionment does not relieve any of them of their joint and several liability for the full amount of the costs” (section 19(8)). liability may also be apportioned by the department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat) in terms of nema, section 28(11): if more than one person is liable, “… the liability must be apportioned among the persons concerned according to the degree to which each was responsible for the harm to the environment resulting from their respective failures to take the measures required”. bosman and kotze (2005) state that an applicant for a mining right or permit must also make financial provision for remediation of environmental damage or management of negative environmental impacts in terms of the mprda prior to approval of his/her environmental management plan (emp). the liabilities and contribution to the financial provision must be assessed annually, and the minister of the department of minerals and energy (dme) may appoint an independent assessor if necessary. the requirement to maintain and retain financial provision remains in place until a closure certificate has been issued, but the minister may retain such portion of the financial provision as may be required to rehabilitate the closed mining operation in respect of latent or residual environmental impacts (section 41(5)). the mprd regulations prescribe the requirements to obtain a closure certificate. an application for mine closure (regulation 57) must be accompanied by a closure plan and an environmental risk report. the closure plan (regulation 62) forms part of the emp and must include, inter alia: � a description of the closure objectives and how these relate to the prospecting or mine operation and its environmental and social setting. closure objectives (regulation 61) form part of the draft emp (and are, therefore, established before mining commences or on application for the mining right or permit) and must identify the key objectives for mine closure to guide the project design, development, and management of environmental impacts, van eeden, liefferink and durand 61 provide broad future land objectives for the site, and provide proposed closure costs; � a sketch plan drawn on an appropriate scale describing the final and future land use proposal and arrangement for the site; � a summary of the regulatory requirements and conditions for closure negotiated and documented in the emp; � a summary of the results of the environmental risk report and details of identified residual and latent impacts; � a summary of the results of progressive rehabilitation undertaken; � the mitigation or management strategy proposed to avoid, minimise, and manage residual or latent impacts; � details of any long-term management and maintenance expected as well as a proposed closure cost and financial provision for monitoring, maintenance, and post-closure management; � a record of interested and affected parties consulted. bosman and kotze (2005) state that the mprda is the only south african act that specifically indicates the end point of remediation, which also incorporates the concept of sustainable sequential land use and use of other resources such as water in the statutory framework. it is stipulated by this act that interested and affected parties must be involved in the agreement on the future land use of areas impacted on by mining. regulation 56 of the mineral and petroleum development regulations (mpdr) prescribes the principles for mine closure as follows: “in accordance with applicable legislative requirements for mine closure, the holder of a mining right or mining permit must ensure that� the closure of a mining operation incorporates a process which must start at the commencement of the operation and continue throughout the life of the operation; � risks pertaining to environmental impacts must be quantified and managed, which includes the gathering of relevant information throughout the life of a mining operation; � the safety and health requirements of the mine health and safety act 29 of 1996, are complied with; � residual and possible latent environmental impacts are identified and quantified; � the land is rehabilitated, as far as is practicable, to its natural state, or to a predetermined and agreed standard or land use which conforms with the concept of sustainable development and � mining operations are closed efficiently and cost effectively.” this implies that, before a decision is taken on which measures to implement for remediation and closure, the objectives that need to be achieved with the implementation of such measures must be established td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 62 and agreed on. this corresponds to the mprd regulations objectives for mine closure stated above: “the land is rehabilitated, as far as is practicable, to its natural state, or to a predetermined and agreed standard or land use which conforms [to] the concept of sustainable development.” such objectives would include, from a generic perspective, the following: � immediate harm to human health and safety must be eliminated; � groundwater must be fit for current and future domestic and other uses consistent with agreed current and future land use; � surface water must be fit for current and future basic human needs and aquatic ecosystems requirements; � risk of harm to non-aquatic organisms (vegetation) must be eliminated; and � soil (property) must be fit for use consistent with current and future land use. specific objectives must be established for each of these aspects at individual sites. in this context, it is, therefore, impossible to determine whether measures taken to remediate environmental impacts with the aim of achieving mine closure are, in fact, “reasonable measures”, unless the future land use has been determined and objectives for remediation have been agreed on (bosman and kotze, 2005). 4. environmental and societal concerns and considerations in a study of destructive environmental practices such as toxic crimes and other environmental injustices, it appears evident that claims are rarely successful due to the lack of evidence (burns and lynch, 2002). therefore, research on corporate crime has been neglected for many years because of this lack of data. the effects of environmental pollution can take years to emerge as in the case of cancer that may be caused by invisible pollutants. often reports on pollution that is treated by bureaucrats as “secret” or “confidential” are purposefully kept from the public, which is directly affected by the pollution. current mine closures need to be addressed with urgency. all mines have a finite lifespan, and a large number of mines have already reached the end of production and are often left in a derelict and abandoned condition. in terms of the official statement by the dme, there are approximately 8 000 derelict and ownerless mines, which would take 800 years to rehabilitate at a current cost of r100 billion (brown, 2007). this figure is only an estimate and certainly excludes the cost of the treatment of polluted groundwater and human health, loss of earnings, and social disruption. environmental and social impacts manifest after mining commences, but worsen rapidly once mine closure is reached and no further funds are available for remediation. typically, environmental and social costs are not balance sheet items, being kept away from investors, effectively shifting the cost of rehabilitation onto society. the negative effects of the mines will reach their climax over tens if not hundreds of years. the federation for a sustainable environment made an oral and written submission of the official findings from public domain reports on 4 june van eeden, liefferink and durand 63 2008 to ms c september, the chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on water quality and pollution. in response, the minister of minerals and energy, bulyewa sonjica, said in her budget speech before parliament on 6 june 2008: “following reports of possible radiological contamination in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area, the national nuclear regulator instituted an investigation. the investigation indicated that the situation does not pose a radiological risk to the surrounding communities.” government is currently finding it very difficult to engage the mining sector regarding this problem, with many mining companies refusing to accept responsibility for amd and related environmental problems. the wonderfontein regulators steering committee (wrsc) was founded on 21 december 2007 as a result of the oppositional activism of the federation for a sustainable environment with support of the legal resource centre, cansa, the csir, and researchers and community groups such as the public environmental arbiters, potchefstroom petitioners, pelindaba working group, groundwork, earthlife, fochville concerned residents, and the randfontein environmental action group. it was aspired that this committee, together with officials of all the relevant government departments as well as from the local municipalities, would steer the whole remediation process and that the nnr would chair the wrsc. it was aspired that the nnr would have stricter control over the discharges from the mines and that dwaf would ensure that all water use licences be issued to the mines as soon as possible in an endeavour to stop contamination of the tweelopiespruit and wonderfonteinspruit. all regulators agreed that remediation of the hot spots was required. a team of experts (tox) was appointed by government to determine the priority hot spots, but this was done without public participation or community engagement. the wrsc, furthermore, aspired that the mines would be approached to contribute financially towards the remedial work to be done as per the findings of the tox and that the community would be involved in this regard. the only progress that has been made so far is the appointment of the tox. the problems that remain are: � uncertainties regarding the method followed in the appointment of this team, its terms of reference, its source of remuneration, the credentials of its individual members, etc.; � radioactive hot spots remain unrehabilitated, unremediated, unmitigated; � the public continues to be exposed to radioactive hot spots without intervention from the mines or government; � the mines are still operating without water use licences; � the majority of affected communities are still excluded from the consultation processes; � the nnr is visibly absent from all water forum meetings and committees; � point source pollution continues without enforcement of the “polluter td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 64 pays” principle; � habitual non-compliance with the dwaf and nnr directives remains unpunished; � the mines have not agreed to contribute financially towards remedial work; � affected landowners continue to suffer significant pecuniary losses and health risks. it is evident that mine closure poses a number of challenges to the environment and groundwater legislation. the gold mines within the west rand and far west rand are in close proximity, resulting in a hydrological confluence that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to consider the water-related closure risks in isolation. most of the gold mines are exposed to the inflow of extraneous water into the underground workings. the aquifers affected by the subsequent dewatering vary from one basin to the next, as do the associated environmental problems (pulles et al., 2005). from a review of mine environmental management programme reports, none of the gold mining companies (drd gold, anglogold ashanti, goldfields, harmony gold) operating within the west rand and far west rand operate according to an approved aligned environmental management plan (emp) in terms of the mineral and petroleum resources development act (act no. 28 of 2002) (kruger; rex and ellis; wookay; zorab, 2008). according to pulles et al. (2005), the surface residue deposits (tailings dams and waste rock dumps) that remain after mine closure can never be maintained in a completely reducing environment and must be considered to pose a potential water-related risk. while most mines recognise the fact that tailings dams generate amd, it is generally and incorrectly assumed that the impact will decrease to acceptable levels when mining operations cease. the assessment of long-term risks from tailings dams can at best be described as subjectively qualitative in nature, and no proper quantitative assessments are reported in any of the environmental management programme reports (empr). according to pulles et al. (2005), waste rock dumps have very large inventories of fine material that are much more permeable to oxygen than tailings dams. these authors are also of the opinion that the secondary source of contaminants that remain in the soil after a dump has been removed appears to be universally ignored, and it is assumed that removal of the dump removes all potential for pollution from that site. pulles et al. (2005) also state that most mines appear to have some monitoring programme to evaluate shallow aquifer and surface water impacts from the surface residue deposits. however, the monitoring programmes are not clearly stipulated in the empr documents, and hence, it is unclear what the extent of contaminant plumes is. very few specialist investigations appear to have been done to identify the status of the geohydrological regime, the extent of contamination, preferential pathways, and predictions regarding long-term migration. as a result, there are very limited mitigation or management options described in the emprs that specifically deal with the containment or rehabilitation of contaminated groundwater. the potential impact on van eeden, liefferink and durand 65 the groundwater from other surface contaminant sources such as the metallurgical plants and domestic and industrial waste sites is not described. many of the empr documents state that these structures will be removed or rehabilitated during decommissioning, but it is not stated whether they had an impact on the environment and whether groundwater rehabilitation is required. some of the older mines were subjected to amalgamations and changes in ownership (for example, drd gold – joint ventures with mintails, blyvooruitzicht gold mining company; harmony gold – joint venture with pamodzi holdings, known as rand uranium, and sale of assets to moira mining; goldfields’ kloof, including leeudoring, and east driefontein and west driefontein were consolidated, etc.), and in several instances, the surface infrastructure, including some tailings and rock dumps, was sold to third parties. many of the current mine empr documents exclude infrastructure that has been sold, and it is not clear whether the new owners are required to address groundwater contamination and whether it is, in fact, being done. 5 conclusion this paper has illuminated some of the many environmental and socioeconomic issues that have to be addressed by government and the mines before mine closure can take place on the west rand. it is evident that researchers from a variety of disciplines have an important role to play in order to help solve what we consider to be a national crisis. it is essential that environmental justice should triumph in order to secure a healthier environment for those who live in it, if not for the sake of the environment itself (van eeden, 2008b). in the light of the overwhelming evidence that: � the water of the tweelopiespruit and the wonderfonteinspruit is polluted by the gold and uranium mines of gauteng and the west and far west rand, � the water contains unacceptable levels of acid, sulphates, and metals, � the water and sediment contain radionucleotides such as uranium in excess of 15 micrograms per litre, which is the prescribed maximum allowed by the who for human consumption (world health organisation, 2005), � high levels of pollutants, especially in combination with one another, cause the degradation of the aquatic ecosystem, and � the pollution emanating from the mines poses a threat to the health of humans and other organisms that depend on that water source, it is incomprehensible that the department of health, dwaf, deat, and dme refuse to acknowledge this crisis in public or deal with this crisis decisively, but rather prefer to act with ignorance and rather chase smallscale industries for some kind of artificial success in the field of environmental preservation. many thousands of people and their livestock depend on the rivers and groundwater from the tweelopiespruit and wonderfonteinspruit catchments (oelofse et al., 2007; van biljon, 2007). td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 66 the government’s refusal to take punitive steps against the mines that polluted and are still polluting this water resource and the land surrounding it or to force them to rehabilitate the areas that are affected by mining activities stands in conflict with the constitution of south africa. the constitution of south africa (act no. 108 of 1996) supersedes any other act of parliament. it is the moral duty of the government to look first and foremost at the well-being of its citizens and preservation of the environment before catering for the financial needs of multinational companies. the efforts of many specialists have failed to address and solve the problem of mine pollution, which has delayed mine closure so far because most have been working in isolation with relatively little interaction with specialists from other disciplines or the community. the cooperation between geologists, hydrologists, biologists, ecologists, health practitioners, human rights activists, sociologists, historians, environmentalists, legal practitioners, the media, and the community is necessary to address this multifaceted problem and to find a solution to one of the most serious ecological threats that faces south africa. references adendorff, a. 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(1999) “medical effects of internal contamination with uranium. croatian medical journal, 40(1), pp. 49-66. enslin, j.f. , kleywegt, r.j. , beukes, j.h.t. and gordon-welsh, j.f. (1976) “artificial recharge of dolomitic ground-water compartments in the far west rand gold fields of south africa”. geological survey of south africa, report 0249. fourie, m. (2005) “a rising acid tide”. johannesburg mail and guardian, south africa, 12 april 2005. funke, n.; nortje, k. findlater, k.; burns, m.; turton, a.; weaver, a. and hattingh, h. (2007) “redressing inequality: south africa’s new water policy”. environment 4(1), 2007, pp. 141-146. fourie, w. (2006) “impact of the discharge of treated mine water, via the tweelopies spruit, on the receiving water body crocodile river system, mogale city, gauteng province”. dwaf 16/2/7/c221/ c/24. environmental impact document prepared for harmony gold mining limited. garnier, m. and marke, j. (1921) l’intoxication chronique par le nitrate d’urane en injection quotidienne chez le lapin. comptes rendus des seances de la societe de biologie et des filiales (paris), 107, pp. 938-940. goudswaard, b. (1979) capitalism and progress, eerdmans, grand rapids, p. 50. td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 68 graham, l.p (2007) “the effect of acid mine drainage on the cave-dwelling amphipod, sternophysinx filaris: a case study for the use of these amphipods as bioindicators”, unpublished bsc honours research report, department of zoology, university of johannesburg, 37 p. gutmann, a. and thompson, d. (2006) ethics and politics. thomson & wadsworth, uk, pp. 261-263. heyl, a.j. (2007) “effect of mining effluent on the distribution of fresh water invertebrates in the tweelopiespruit, gauteng”. unpublished bsc honours research report, department of zoology, university of johannesburg, 24 p. hobbs, p.j. and cobbing, j.e., (2007) “a hydrogeological assessment of acid mine drainage impacts in the west rand basin, gauteng province”. rep. no. csir/nre/wr/er/2007/ 0097/c.csir. hodgson, f.d.i., usher, b.h., scott, r., zeelie, s., cruywagen, l.m. and de necker, e. (2001) “prediction techniques and preventative measures relating to the post-operational impact of underground mines on the quality and quantity of groundwater resources”, water research commission of south africa, report no. 699/1/ 01. hursh, j.b., neuman, n.f., toribara, t., wilson, h. and waterhouse, c. (1969) “oral ingestion of uranium by man”. health phys.,17(4), pp. 619-621. jooste, s. and thirion, c. (1999) “an ecological risk assessment for a south african acid mine drainage”, water science and technology 39(10-11), pp. 297-303. kang, y.-s., matsuda, m., kawano, m., wakimoto, t.and min, b.-y. (1997) “organochlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans in human adipose tissue from western kyungnam, korea”. chemosphere, 35, pp.2107-2117. kempster, p.l.; van vliet, h.r.; looser, u.; parker, i.; silberbauer, m.j. and du toit, p. (1996) “overview of radioactivity in water sources: uranium, radium and thorium”. final report, iwqs-no:n/0000/ 00/rpq/0196, pretoria. kleywegt, r.j. (1977) “memorandum oor die moontlike gevaar wat geskep word deur water vanaf die ‘western areas gold mining co. ltd.’ na die rietspruit te laat vloei”. geological survey of south africa technical report no. 0141. kleywegt, r.j., pike, d.r. (1982) “surface subsidence and sinkholes caused by lowering of the dolomitic water-table on the far west rand gold field of south africa”. annals of the geological survey of south africa. 16 p. kobert, r. (1906) “lehrbuch der intoxikationen 2”. stuttgart: ferdinand enke publishing, pp. 321-323. konietzka, r. dieter, h.h. and voss, j-u. (2005) “vorschlag für einen gesundheitlichen leitwert für uran in trinkwasser“. in: umweltmedizin in forshung und praxis 10, pp. 133-143. van eeden, liefferink and durand 69 krige, g. (2006) “hydrological/chemical aspects of the tweelopie/riet/ blaauwspruit with specific refence to the impact water, decanting from the western basin mine void has on the system”. eia report prepared for harmony gold mining limited. kruger, k. (2008) “drd gold” personal communication with m. liefferink. moore, j.w. and ramamoorthy, s. (1984) heavy metals in natural waters. applied monitoring and impact assessment. springer-verlag, new york, p. 268. morgan, d.j. and brink, a.b. (1984) “the far west rand dolomites”. in: proceedings of the international conference on ground water technology, johannesburg, south africa, 2, pp. 554-573. national nuclear regulator (2007) “radiological impacts of the mining activities to the public in the wonderfontein catchment area”. report no tr-rrd-07-0006. oelofse, s.h.h., hobbs, p.j., rascher. j. and cobbing, j.e. (2007) “the pollution and destruction threat of gold mining waste on the witwatersrand – a west rand case study”. paper presented at the 10th international symposium on environmental issues and waste management in energy and mineral production (swemp, 2007), bangkok 11-13 december 2007. pulles, w., banister, s., van biljon, m. (2005)“the development of appropriate procedures towards and after closure of underground gold mines from a water management perspective”, water research commission report no 1215/1/05. pullen, a.w. (2006) “acid mine drainage. approved environmental management programme subsection 2.9.2.2, srk report 196369/g/1 – deelkraal mine’, p.44. rex, h. and ellis, j. (2008) “anglogold ashanti and wsp environmental”, personal communication. roback, s.s. and richardson, j.w. (1969) “the effects of acid-mine drainage on aquatic insects”. proceedings of the academy of natural sciences of philadelphia, 121, pp. 81-99. shanahan, e.m., peterson, d., roxby, d., quintana, j., morely, a.a. and woodward, a. (1966) “mutation rates at the glycophorin a and hprt loci in uranium miners exposed to radon progeny”. occupational and environmental medicine, 53, pp. 439-444. smith, m.j. and heath, a.g. (1979) “acute toxicity of copper, chromate, zinc and cyanide to freshwater fish: effect of different temperatures”, bulletin of environmental contaminant toxicology 22, pp. 113-119. swart, c.j.u., james, a.r., kleywegt, r.j. and stoch, e.j. (2003) “the future of the dolomitic springs after mine closure on the far west rand, gauteng, rsa”. environmental geology, 44(7), pp. 751-770. tempelhoff, e., (2007) “nog ‘n reuse gat op grond van harmony gold ontdek”, beeld 24 july, 2007. van biljon, m. and krige, g. (2005) “cost apportionment for the treatment td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 70 of contaminated water decanting from the western basin mine void”. report for harmony gold mining limited. van biljon, m. (2007) “geohydrological review of the potential impact on the sterkfontein dolomite during increased surface water runoff, april 2006 – february 2007”. report prepared for johan fourie & associates for harmony gold mining limited. van eeden, e.s. (1992) “ekonomiese ontwikkeling en die invloed daarvan op carletonville, 1948-1988: ‘n historiese studie”, unpublished phd dissertation, potchefstroom university for christian higher education. van eeden, e.s. (2006) “whose environment? whose nature? – a transdisciplinary discussion on some inhumane actions in the destruction and construction in nature – case study, the merafong municipal region”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(2), dec. van eeden, e.s. (2007a) “past and present actions of environmental heritage by ngo’s in the controversial wonderfontein catchment, gautenga critical assessment”. new contree, 53, may 2007, pp. 55-80. van eeden, e.s. (2007b) “is die regering omgewingsgroen of ‘n boelie? ‘n beknopte perspektief op omgewingsbewaring in die eertydse verre wesrand (tans gauteng)”, woord en daad, lente&somer, 2007, pp. 24-34. van eeden, e.s. and i brink (2007) “factors that determine the facilitation of stakeholders and roleplayers in environmental management – some philosophical-historical thoughts with the merafong area as example”, koers (4) 2007, pp. 334-365. van eeden, e.s. (2008a) “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa: a historical glance on the west rand (gauteng province)”, international journal of water resources development, 24(3) pp. 463475. van eeden, e.s. (2008b) conceptual ‘envirobusion’ in 21st century environmental issues in south africa: past practices abusing present thought, new contree, 55, pp. 105-135. van eeden, e.s.; liefferink, m. & tempelhoff, e. (2008) “environmental ethics and crime in the water affairs of the wonderfontein spruit catchment, gauteng, south africa”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 4(1), pp. 31-58. van staden, s. (2003) “a case study on the use of habitat assessments and biological indices for the management of recreational stream fisheries”, unpublished msc dissertation, rand afrikaans university, johannesburg. 112 p. venter, a.j.a. (1995) “assessment of the effects of gold-mine effluent on the natural aquatic environment”. unpublished phd thesis. rand afrikaans university, johannesburg. 59p. verne, j. (1931) “lesions histologiques des centres nerveux superieurs chez le lapins soumis a l’intoxication chronique part l’urane”. van eeden, liefferink and durand 71 annales d’anatomie pathologique, 8, pp.757-758. warwick, d.w., brackley, i.j., connelly, r.j. and campbell, g. (1987) “the dewatering of dolomite by deep mining in the west rand, south africa”. in: barry, b., wilson, w.l. (eds.), karst hydrogeology: engineering and environmental applications, proceedings of the 2nd multidisciplinary conference on sinkholes and environmental impacts of karst, orlando, usa, pp. 349-358. white, l. (1970) “the historical roots of our ecological crisis” in: de bell, g. ed., the environmental handbook, ballantine, new york, pp. 1826. winde, f. and van der walt, i.j. (2004) “the significance of groundwaterstream interactions and fluctuating stream chemistry on waterborne uranium contamination of streams – a case study from a gold mining site in south africa”. journal of hydrology, 297, pp.178-196. wookay, r. (2008) manager group corporate affairs and corporate communication, goldfields – personal communication with m. liefferink. world health organization (2003) uranium in drinking-water. background document for preparation of who guidelines for drinking-water quality. geneva, world health organization (who/ sde/wsh/03.04/118). world health organization (2005) who guidelines for drinking-water quality.. uranium in drinking water. http://www.who.int/ water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/uranium290605.pdf zaire, r., griffin, c.s., simpson, p.j., papworth, d.g., savage, j.r. and armstrong, s. (1996) “analysis of lymphocytes from uranium mine workers in namibia for chromosomal damage using fluorescence in situ hybridization”. mutation research 371, pp. 109-117. zaire, r., notter, m., riedel, w. and thiel, e. (1997) “unexpected rates of chromosomal instabilities and alterations of hormone levels in namibian uranium miners”. radiation research147, pp.579-584. zorab, r. (2008), harmony gold – personal communication with m. liefferink. td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility abstract introduction theoretical framework methodology findings and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) janet jarvis discipline of life orientation education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa sarina de jager department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation jarvis j, de jager s. boundary talk in life (dis)orientation: collaborative conversations across higher education institutions. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1091. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1091 original research boundary talk in life (dis)orientation: collaborative conversations across higher education institutions janet jarvis, sarina de jager received: 30 may 2021; accepted: 23 july 2021; published: 30 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract life orientation (lo) as a compulsory subject in the south african school curriculum (grades 7–12) aims to develop the learner’s self-in-society. this implies a holistic approach that includes the personal, social and physical development of the learner. in most higher education institutions (heis), lo is not offered as a specialisation that includes these three broad aspects of development. in many cases, the emphasis rests with personal development, focusing, in particular, on modules taken in psychology. physical education, if it is included in any lo programme, usually falls within the ambit of sports/human movement science programmes. the social development aspect is, by and large, omitted and human rights education, including religion education and citizenship education, is neglected. alternatively, pre-service teachers are required to select from a smorgasbord of modules and they often graduate without having included all three broad aspects of this specialisation. this article speaks to the importance of collaborative relationships across heis with a view to meaningful boundary talk that can be transformative in nature and provide the platform for research ventures. this collaboration that commenced as a community of two in conversation, led to a community of many in conversation, in the form of a national colloquium in 2020 that focused on lo in the hei space. this article presents the themes emerging from this colloquium and recommends that transdisciplinary knowledge can lead to transdisciplinary education that serves the mandate of the lo specialisation in heis, namely, to prepare pre-service lo teachers. keywords: boundary talk; collaboration; higher education institutions; life orientation; transdisciplinarity. introduction life orientation (lo) was introduced in 1997 as part of the first democratic curriculum (curriculum 2005), the aim of which was to prepare learners in a holistic manner for life outside the school context. life orientation was introduced in 2002 in grades 4–9 to address specifically, the contents of human rights and democracy, and to awaken sensitivity to democratic processes in a human rights culture. in 2006, lo was phased into the further education and training phase, centering around the ‘self in relation to others and to society’.1 currently life skills is offered in grades r-6 and lo in grades 7–12. the introduction of lo tasked schools with the development of the whole person, placing personal and individual needs in a social context to encourage the acceptance of diversity and to promote the quality of life for all.2 lo is a multidisciplinary subject, embedded in a variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, religious studies, political science, anthropology, philosophy, labour studies, and sports science/human movement studies. ideally, lo pre-service teachers need to be exposed to in-depth theoretical knowledge across this spectrum of disciplines. they are expected to be able to integrate curriculum topics with the foundational knowledge of these various disciplines.3 higher education institutions (heis) are mandated to offer a comprehensive and balanced curriculum that encompasses the personal, social and physical development of the learner, and to address the under-theorisation of lo as a school subject. various factors can account for the poor implementation of lo in schools, not least inadequately prepared lo teachers. in many schools, principals do not appoint qualified lo teachers but rather assign lo to staff members as timetable fillers. these teachers/staff members are not qualified to present this multi-disciplinary subject and often approach lo by preaching to learners about their opinions regarding topics including sex before marriage/teenage pregnancy, substance abuse and so forth. in many schools, lo periods in the timetable are used as catch-up time for other subjects in the curriculum that are deemed to be more important. in some cases, learners are given lo periods in which to complete their homework. the use of lo time to set up school halls for parent meetings and the like also contributes to the impression that lo is not an important subject. add to this the hidden or null curriculum that is offered by even trained lo teachers, it is not surprising that lo has acquired the low status that it carries to the extent of the subject not bearing points for university entrance.4,5,6,7,8 this low status afforded to lo is perpetuated at heis also. life orientation is often considered as a subject that can be taught by anybody and that it does not require specialised lecturers. due to the fact that lo is not a defined field of study or discipline in and of itself, with strong theoretical underpinnings, the subject is neglected or at best fragmented and pre-service teachers are ill-prepared to teach the subject meaningfully in schools. even with ongoing curricular revisions, the aim and purpose of lo remains the same, with an emphasis on the holistic development of the learner. this, in response to the department of basic education’s1 directive to develop a balanced and confident learner who can contribute to a just and democratic society, a productive economy and an improved quality of life for all. life orientation further strives to work towards the transformation and development of society through education.9 in the interests of preparing pre-service teachers to teach lo meaningfully and substantially, this article argues for the importance of collaboration between heis and addresses the following research questions: why is it important to work collaboratively across institutions? how can collaborative work across institutions take place? these questions were initially addressed with the collaboration between two colleagues representing two heis, and this led to the successful facilitation of a national colloquium that included academics involved in lo from seven heis in south africa. the findings presented in this article relate, in the first instance, to the community of two in conversation and then to that of a greater community in conversation.10 the process adopted will be presented and also the theory underpinning these interactions. theoretical framework this article draws on a theoretical framework that supports both collaboration and also transdisciplinarity. the complexity and networked nature of our time, as well as the changing nature of knowledge, seems to demand new patterns of working.11 further, the challenges brought forward by the pressure of globalisation and the shift to a knowledge-based economy has demanded that heis adopt innovative methods that can result in more efficient production and diffusion of knowledge.12 power and handley13 advocate for a joined-up approach to overcome institutional, individual, and discipline based barriers to knowledge production and innovation. collaboration is a process of joint decision-making that requires time, negotiation, trust and effective communication. collaboration involves a long-term commitment to working towards a common vision or goal that is grounded in a common philosophy that results in something new.14 all parties in the process are learners, and the outcome is to improve professional conversation.15 in the higher education (he) context, the advantages of working collaboratively include cross-fertilisation of ideas and enthusiasm and momentum generated through professional conversation and the possibility that the process could be just as important and fruitful as the outcome. collaboration includes the importance of coming together to solve complex issues. it is as much about the journey as the destination.16 trust and healthy interpersonal connections are imperative to the development of a firm foundation for collaborative working with the personal considered to be as important as the procedural. whilst collaboration’s individual characteristics make it appealing for all parties involved, achieving broader success and having a significant impact through the collaborative process means aiming for individual, institutional, and national impact.17 insofar as he consists of work at the boundaries (not least in lo), the tasks of knowledge creation and conceptualisation are necessary and important work. serving a colonial agenda, discrete disciplines have been maintained in heis with possibly intradisciplinary (within the same discipline) debate taking place. in some instances, interdisciplinary (between disciplines) debate had led to the possible transference of a synthesis of knowledge in which understandings change in response to the perspectives of others. primarily, however, according to nicolescu, interdisciplinarity ‘concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another … but its goal still remains within the framework of disciplinary research …’18 (p. 187) interdisciplinarity does not necessarily constitute meaningful boundary talk between disciplines. a multidisciplinary approach concerns studying a particular research topic in several disciplines at the same time. whilst multidisciplinarity involves a number of different disciplines coming together, each disciplinary group works primarily with its own framings and methods.18 (p. 187) a multidisciplinary approach, whilst overflowing disciplinary boundaries, has ‘its goal remaining limited to the framework of disciplinary research’.19 (p. 5) in a subject like lo, it is vital that the currently discreet disciplines of psychology, sociology, and sports/human movement science engage in disciplinary boundary talk. the difficulties encountered at disciplinary boundaries, or border troubles,20 involve the epistemological structuring of disciplines and the privileging of certain frames of enquiry and methodological approaches. transdisciplinary engagement, transcending disciplinary boundaries, strives to solve problems21 by generating new transdisciplinary knowledges19 in the space between, across and beyond academic disciplines.18,19,21 transdisciplinary knowledge can lead to transdisciplinary education that serves the mandate of lo to develop the learner holistically and to prepare them as far as possible for society that is diverse and multi-faceted. methodology this article employs an interpretive approach recognising that an individual’s thoughts and perceptions are more significant than ‘external, objective conditions and structural forces’.22 (p. 104) empathetic, reflective, conversation facilitated the process. an empathetic approach refers to the capacity to understand and respond to another person with an increased awareness of their position and concerns and that this matters.23 reflection implies thinking through something with the aim of bringing improvement. the colleagues met in a safe space, not just physically, but also figuratively where they could be open with one another without fear of posturing, and where the one colleague, in particular, could unburden herself with regard to her concerns pertaining to the way in which lo was not being accommodated at the hei in which she worked.24,25 in 2016, the lo discipline coordinators from two south african universities (referred to as x and y respectively) met to discuss the shape of the curriculum on offer at one of the hei (x). a community of two in conversation was born. this community provided the opportunity for an informal sharing of information in conversation in a safe space.10,24 the conversation provided the opportunity for negotiation and collaboration.26 informally exchanging perspectives and personal experiences, fostered respect, trust and tolerant understanding as ‘divergent ways of thinking and speaking’ were reflected upon.27 (p. 522) this reflection entailed the examination of current practices, beliefs and premises, and a reciprocal exchange resulted in the integration of new understandings into experience.27 the community in conversation was then extended to additional colleagues at hei x. the hei y model of lo offerings was shared and a conversation ensued to address the theoretical and conceptual imbalance in the lo discipline offering at hei x, with pure psychology dominating module content. conversations continued virtually from then on, via zoom and a relationship of trust and collegiality emerged between the initial two colleagues, in particular, from the two heis. realising the benefit of this collaboration the colleagues then embarked on organising a national conversation for lo colleagues in heis. this took the shape of an lo colloquium. whilst it was envisaged that this would take place in a physical venue, with an opportunity for colleagues to engage informally over lunch between sessions, covid-19 played a role in changing the shape of the day. the lo colloquium took place via zoom in the latter half of 2020. an email call was sent by the two colleagues from hei x and y to all those involved in lo in heis nationwide. invitations were sent to 11 heis and colleagues from 7 responded. the event started with a plenary session setting the scene for the colloquium. participants were informed as to the aim of the colloquium, namely to connect by way of conversation and to network across heis. the introduction included rules of engagement that emphasised that this was a community in conversation in a safe space without posturing. participants were encouraged that they have a voice whether they are a seasoned academic or novice. the participants were informed about three zoom breakaway groups to facilitate more opportunity for interaction than would have been the case in the plenary group session. these groups each focused on the personal, social and physical development aspects of lo. participants were informed that the sessions would be recorded and they consented to this. the identity of the participants and their respective heis were kept anonymous. the process adopted in the breakaway groups included the following: introductions that included the participant’s name, hei affiliation, areas of responsibility and expertise, teaching-learning/research interests and responsibilities with regard to lo. participants were also asked to present the structure of the lo offering in their particular hei and to say whether it was offered at postgraduate level, in the post graduate certificate in education (pgce) and undergraduate level and, if so, in which phases. participants described how the personal, social and physical aspects of lo were integrated (or not), and the time allocated to each aspect. theoretical and methodological frameworks employed in teaching lo and related scholarship and research in lo also formed part of the conversation. participants spoke about challenges and opportunities in teaching-learning lo at tertiary level and considered how in the future, lo could possibly be shaped in heis. the recordings of the breakaway groups were transcribed for ease of analysis. a thematic analysis of the data was employed. in the findings and discussion presented below, pseudonyms are used to ensure the anonymity of the participants. findings and discussion emanating from boundary talk in life (dis)orientation, initially between two colleagues in two heis (x and y) and then based on the boundary talk that took place in the colloquium, the following findings and discussion are presented. community of two in conversation the colleague from hei y started teaching before the inception of curriculum 2005. as a lecturer in curriculum studies, with a focus on religious diversity, she was drawn in to develop modules that focused on the social development aspects of lo. the personal development aspects were managed by colleagues in educational psychology and the physical development aspects by the colleagues in the sports science discipline. each wanted to maintain these as discreet disciplines. it took many years and difficult boundary talk to eventually overcome boundary troubles to get to the point of creating lo as a holistic offering, with colleagues responsible for the various distinct, yet integrated, aspects of lo. currently, lo is offered in the undergraduate (senior phase and fet), pgce (fet phase) and honours programmes. fifty (50) per cent of the curriculum is dedicated to physical education (pe), as is the practice in the school curriculum. this also responds to the national directive to address the physical development needs of children. the colleague from hei x comes from an educational psychology background. the lo theory curriculum that was encountered at hei x had been developed by various lecturers over the years, as the subject migrated between different disciplines, with a strong emphasis on psychology and personal development, and a lack of content regarding social development. life orientation consisted primarily of psychology modules offered to undergraduate students in their 3rd and 4th years of study. certain sports science modules were also taken. the social development aspect of lo was non-existent. the collaboration between the two colleagues began with a crisis in 2016 when an external moderator was sought for lo related modules. as a result of the collaboration that ensued, restructuring has taken place at hei x with the curriculum having been reconceptualised to include the missing social dimension and a reconsideration of the psychology focus and content. the lo course is now weighted with 50% thereof allocated to theory modules that cover social and personal development, and 50%, pe. on a postgraduate level, lo is offered as a module in one of the honours programmes in humanities education. collaboration has not only resulted in a revised or new lo curricula in heis, but more significantly, it has been a process during which a trust relationship has been forged.16 this has taken place over time, respectful interaction and effective, tolerant and caring communication.15 this collaborative relationship has led to further nationwide collaboration in the interests of lo. increasingly mindful of the benefits of collaboration, including external moderation, examination of post graduate work and so forth, the two colleagues conceived of the idea to arrange a nationwide colloquium. the impact of the initial collaborative process was therefore far-reaching, not only inspiring a trust relationship between two colleagues from different heis and the restructuring of the curriculum on institutional level, but extending this to create a space for conversation between colleagues from seven heis, across four provinces in south africa. the possibility exists for the implementation of actionable interventions through the creation of lasting and comprehensive partnerships.17 community of many in conversation all of the seven heis that participated in the colloquium, offer lo at the undergraduate level. five of the heis offer the subject in the pgce programme. five of the heis offer lo at a postgraduate level, with two heis offering a specific elective specialisation in pe. two of the heis offer a full lo honours programme. those heis offering a pgce specialisation in lo strongly recommended that non-education undergraduate students should be alerted to the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq) pgce entry requirements so that they can register for the correct subjects at the correct level in their undergraduate degrees. the following main themes emerged from the conversations in the three breakaway groups: (1) the need for collaboration across heis, including research initiatives; (2) the status of lo in heis; (3) pe should be a standalone subject. the need for collaboration across higher education institutions the need for collaboration between lo lecturers at heis, including research, was supported. it was noted that research was taking place in silos and that there was room for collaborative research initiatives. it was also considered to be of utmost importance that scholarship be showcased to raise the status of lo in heis. one participant suggested there should be more research initiatives taking place across heis and referred to academics involved in lo as: ‘… each sitting in our little pods doing our own thing …’ (marietjie) working in a transdisciplinary way would create the opportunity to share in the process of knowledge creation between, across and beyond academic disciplines.18,19,21 the same participant made a case for heis to work together with ‘open hands’ to see what possibilities there are to collaborate, saying that: ‘… if there’s no collaboration, one university is going that way the other one is going that [way] …’ (marietjie) colleagues shared about their research interests and the theoretical and methodological frameworks that they used. the hope was expressed that collaborative relationships would be birthed from the colloquium not only for research but also in terms of providing a pool of external moderators and postgraduate examiners. collaboration would also provide the opportunity for sharing teaching-learning ideas and methodologies. in particular, discussion centred on working in a way that was decolonial in nature. this could include research projects that are transdisciplinary in nature employing methodologies that empower students to be agents of their own learning. a participant elsewhere in south africa who works increasingly with visual methodologies, explained that they don’t present lectures but they get their students involved. thabile said: ‘… they produce the knowledge and they co-create the knowledges and challenge each other, and then i find teaching moments in the discussions and take it on like that so it makes for lively discussions and interesting research.’ (thabile) thabile said that she did not simply start teaching the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) curriculum but rather highlighted specific topics with her students that they discussed as they sat in a circle in what she refers to as their ‘meeting space’ as opposed to a lecture venue. this learning together with the students, as opposed to a top down approach, serves a decolonial approach. the importance of using narrative, and telling our stories was emphasised. research that is decolonial in nature addresses patriarchal attitudes and dispels the myth of african inferiority by drawing on indigenous knowledges and research methodologies: ‘i think it’s good that we’re aware of what one another are doing so that we not always drawing on articles from people overseas… but rather that we are using work which has been generated in our country that is contextually relevant to our students.’ (nick) it is important for lecturers to model reflection and reflexivity in their own teaching to promote classroom praxis.28 the importance of praxis was stressed by gillian, who said that: ‘… we’ve got a fighting chance at changing the technicist classroom practice that is currently taking place in the schools and also in heis, into classroom praxis… where attitudes can actually be transformed in the classroom with the potential of bringing about transformation in the wider society.’ (gillian) those participants focusing on the personal development aspects of lo stressed the need for the pre-service lo teacher to be equipped to support learners emotionally. more often than not it is the lo teacher that is approached to provide a pastoral role and emotional support to learners. this places a responsibility on heis to equip pre-service lo teachers for this role. normah expressed this as follows: ‘lo teachers are sometimes the first people that learners go to when they have challenges…they need to be capacitated with basic listening and reflection skills, and the process of referral.’ (normah) it was also stressed that the sensitive topics covered in the curriculum need to be discussed and presented with care. maureen, cautioned against lo students who often teach from a distinct personal point of view: ‘ they [the students] shouldn’t bring too much emotion into it…when i say emotion i speak specifically about their personal views. preaching instead of teaching.’ (maureen) the participants seemed to agree that a well-rounded education in lo is imperative. zama, in particular, said that students choose lo: ‘… because it is such a multi-disciplinary subject and it’s so holistic, and it links with other subjects and methodologies.’ (zama) it was also mentioned that students seem to experience personal development and self-transcendence through their lo studies: ‘i experience that students tell me that it wasn’t their idea to teach lo, but … they went through the years of training and that is what they want to do now, because they think they can make a difference and be an agent of change.’ (normah) participants were in agreement that the importance of the lo curriculum should not be underestimated. life orientation subject matter requires students to develop emotional intelligence and self-awareness in order to successfully facilitate both the content and the important conversations pertaining to contextually relevant lived experience. the status of life orientation in higher education institutions there is a negative connotation linked with the name ‘life orientation’, and this dissuades students from applying for this specialisation. the low status of lo in many schools as a subject that is accorded little value, has translated into heis. the recommendation was made by participants in the social development focus group, that a name change should be considered: ‘… maybe the issue is the name lo … when students see the name lo they connect so many negative connotations to it … there will not be posts for lo teachers in the future. that is why they don’t opt to do lo.’ (sabelo) a trend at some of the heis seems to be that lo is being discontinued as a methodology option in certain programmes. the main reason being that the perception exists that the market is saturated with lo teachers. at one of the heis in gauteng, lo has been discontinued as part of the pgce programme because of a large influx of applications from students who completed degrees in the humanities and psychology. these students often do not qualify for a second methodology and are therefore only qualified to teach lo: ‘… these students [those that only have lo as a subject] are not very employable. the decision was therefore made to discontinue the subject.’ (thabo) in agreement, another participant added that: ‘… the students i think are the ones who are not so keen on lo … because of the attitudes they get in the schools and … when they have to attend lectures at varsity it’s like … they always say they can learn it on the street they don’t have to attend the lectures. some of the lecturers also reinforce that line of thinking that it is an unnecessary module.’ (keshnie) located at a large inland, urban heis one participant said that heis did not take lo seriously and she blamed both the government and schools for this lack of interest: ‘… at our universities also we won’t take it serious based on what we get from the … government and also from what we get from the schools.’ (boitumelo) a participant from another inland hei suggested that changing the name of lo at heis could draw more serious candidates to the subject. he suggested the following: ‘… we should have diversity in human rights education as the name… that is what i was thinking about. under diversity and human rights education, you can include all the other issues of lo …’ (johan) another supported this reiterating that the: ‘… whole naming is important in how people view the subject itself and maybe in our thinking as the way forward, we should really think about the naming to promote the status of lo … so that it is not seen as a by the way. it is an important subject, very necessary … so i think let’s do something with the naming to improve the standard and positioning of lo.’ (clinton) a participant from an inland hei mentions that their approach to admission of lo students has recently changed: ‘we expected them [students] to have a minimum average of 65% in their degrees to be admitted to lo in the pgce programme. the reason that was decided was because of the high number of applications for lo … we realised we weren’t going to be able to assure them of a position when they are done with their studies.’ (nina) a trend across heis in their pgce programmes seem to be that students are not allowed to take only lo as a subject, they need to take a second school subject. the participant explains: ‘we are becoming weary of admitting students for the pgce programme who can only teach lo. i wonder what that says about how the way we treat lo as a subject.’ (keshnie) another participant from a different hei reiterated this point by stating: ‘we expect of them to have another methodology, not only lo … out there it’s a minefield for the lo teacher if you don’t have other skills and knowledge as well.’ (zama) a further perception that exists within the subject area in the he space is that certain students choose the subject because they perceive it to be easy and attainable. participants in the personal development breakaway group expressed concern about this trend, as this often leads those students to the lecture room that do not take the subject seriously. this is demotivating to lecturers, and fellow students who are passionate about lo. participants also mentioned that the interest in postgraduate studies in lo seems to lean towards pe. students who opt to complete further studies on topics such as personal development and social development seem to be few, and the numbers seem to be on the decline. inevitably this has broader implications in the he context such as funding and feasibility of the programmes. maureen from one of the coastal heis went on to say that as a member of the hei transformation task team, in her lo modules, she looks at issues of gender transformation and identity, and rethinking the way in which students and staff consider one another. it was acknowledged that additional important topics such as that of inclusivity, environmental health, democratic citizenship, and human rights education all fall within the ambit of lo. physical education should be a stand-alone subject participants in the pe conversation emphasised that the multidisciplinary nature of lo often leads to fragmentation in the he curriculum. physical education is mostly located within a different department than that offering the social and personal aspects of the subject. participants in this conversation group felt strongly that pe should be a subject on its own, ‘a stand-alone subject’, especially considering the fact that it is a very specialised field. this sentiment was supported by andries who stated the following: ‘the fact that we do not have pe as a standalone specialisation means that there is less time [to teach] in terms of the content. my vision would be to have a standalone pe where you can focus on all the disciplines that make up the subject.’ (andries) some heis report a larger emphasis on pe, whereas others report that their institution focuses more on social and personal development. a major concern for participants in the pe conversation was the interpretation of the caps document, which they felt was insufficient. one participant, explained that caps is a huge drawback and that: ‘… there are not sufficient guidelines.’ (sbu) another agreed, and said that: ‘we are all experiencing the problem of the interpretation of caps, for pe it is really not sufficient.’ (xolani) other challenges experienced in pe include finding new initiatives required for teaching the discipline via distance education, and teaching to large groups of students: ‘you have to be innovative and creative in how you present pe…to large groups of students.’ (zama) the covid-19 pandemic also seems to have brought challenges to teaching. one participant commented on how teaching pe took place during the pandemic: ‘they had to create virtual lessons … and it worked to some extent, however, it’s not perfect … we still need to see how it goes.’ (rossly) participants also mentioned that there is a need for lo in-service teachers to be trained in the pe component of lo. many in-service teachers teaching lo are not trained in the subject, and so heis are resorting to offering short courses in lo to address the gap: ‘we realised that there is a huge need for lo teachers responsible for the pe component to be further trained … because they get a very small piece of training by the doe.’ (frankie) a participant from an hei in gauteng agreed saying that: ‘… there are teachers out there with no pe experience at all.’ (rene) those who participated in the pe conversation felt that the subject does not always receive the credit it deserves. the majority of colleagues seem to lean towards pe functioning as a separate subject entirely. they were of the opinion that the personal and social development aspects of lo were taking away valuable time from pe. colleagues also all agreed on the issues that exist in pe on a policy level, and that intervention is required from the doe. participants expressed the view that there is a need for more postgraduate students in pe programmes so that expertise in pe can be encouraged. there seems to be an impasse in the lo conversation regarding the relationship between pe and social and personal development. life orientation is considered to have lower or no status when compared with sports science/human movement studies. the frustration experienced is that pe can only be offered through lo. to try to resolve this, in some heis pe is allocated 50% of the lo specialisation. identity crisis in life orientation in higher education institutions unlike pure disciplines such as mathematics and science, lo is a new subject shaped by a synthesis of a multiplicity of topics underpinned by various discreet disciplines. a transdisciplinary approach would go a long way to facilitating holistic engagement that creates new knowledges between, across and beyond discreet fields of study.18 by doing so, a decolonial agenda is supported with a view to developing the learner holistically within an african context. what became apparent in all three breakaway groups is that lecturers find it challenging to facilitate lo in this way. rooted as they are, in specific discipline-based methodologies and theoretical frameworks, engaging in transdisciplinary boundary talk can result in a measure of disorientation. in an academic context where lo is not necessarily a best fit, migrating as it does between disciplines, ongoing collaborative conversation can help to orientate this specialisation. the status of lo ushers in another layer of complexity. the inferior status that lo carries in the majority of schools where it has been poorly implemented has infected heis, to the point that lo is excluded from the admission point score.4,5,6,7,8 in addition, lo lecturers are more often than not, looked down on by their colleagues located in historically well-established disciplines: ‘i am often made to feel that by offering lo, the work that i am doing is not valued as important, lacking academic status. however, when colleagues in the humanities want to collect data for projects pertaining to sexuality education, gender-based violence and so forth, they ask to work with lo students.’ (carina) this ambiguity, double-standard and lack of recognition also contributes to lo lecturers feeling disorientated. the ongoing debates about the viability of lo and possibly replacing lo with history education, for example, is also destabilising and endorses the stereotype that lo is expendable. this leads to an identity crisis for both the subject and those teaching the same. in response, lo lecturers tend to align themselves with the ‘distinct’ fields of study as opposed to adopting a holistic approach to lo. this was made particularly clear with regard to pe which prefers to position itself as part of sports science/human movement studies. participants who specialise in the personal development aspects of lo position themselves and generate outputs specifically in the field of psychology. participants located in areas such as human rights education, religion education, and gender education appeared to be far more comfortable with a transdisciplinary approach to lo. this could be attributed to their understanding of the diversity and intersectionality in society. how can this identity crisis on the part of both lo as a specialisation and on the part of the lecturers be addressed? the authors posit that this could be achieved by building cohesion. transdisciplinary boundary talk could encourage the growth of lo as a multidisciplinary specialisation in its own right. what makes lo so unique is that it demands courageous conversations about complex issues.29 cohesion could also be shaped and given gravitas through growing a body of scholarship related lo as a specialisation in heis. in addition, perhaps as suggested in the colloquium, a new identity could be created for lo. this could begin with the renaming of the specialisation in he and developing scholarship that is transdisciplinary and decolonial in nature. conclusion in answering the research questions posed at the beginning of this article, the authors argue that it is vitally important for collaboration to take place across heis in the interest of bringing a synthesis to the seeming disparity in lo offerings. the community of two in conversation and the community of many in conversation demonstrated how this collaboration can begin and press ahead. colleagues who were working in silos, as identified during the colloquium and who experienced something of a disorientation with regard to their identity as lo lecturers, participated in a conversation in a safe space. there they could openly share the challenges, concerns and complexities that they have encountered. these conversations added to the well-being of the participants, as they established a sense of connection with one another. post the colloquium, contact lists, as well as lists of publications contributing to current scholarship in lo, and a summary of salient points raised at the colloquium were disseminated to the participants. the community of two from heis x and y secured a special issue of a journal to focus on lo specifically, providing an opportunity for academics to share their research. it is reasonable to anticipate that this could lead to future collaborative research ventures. suggestions have also been invited for the focus of a second colloquium. whilst much research has taken place with regard to life (dis)orientation in schools, there is room for further critical conversations in heis. collaboration offers possibilities for benchmarking across heis, shared research projects and continued scholarship. this article draws on the lived experience of collaboration between the authors. they contend that ongoing dialogical conversations between lo lecturers in heis are important, but can only take place effectively through authentic, respectful, and caring relationships. their recommendation is that in order to re-orientate lo in the hei space, communities in conversation that include transdisciplinary boundary talk should continue en route … as the journey continues to unfold. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationship that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or non-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors and the publishers. references department of education. curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). pretoria: government printers; 2011. diale b, pillay j, fritz e. dynamics in the personal and professional development of life-orientation teachers in south africa, gauteng province. j soc sci. 2014;38(1):83–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2014.11893239 hay j 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2011;12(4):515–531. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2011.590342 quinlan o. the thinking teacher. wales: independent thinking press; 2014. magano md. in: nel m, editor. life orientation for south african teachers. pretoria: van schaik; 2017; p. 335–347. july 2008 inside book colour .p65 abstract the discipline of water history is relatively young but since the 1990s there has been growing interest in the field. in this article an exposition is provided on the origins of the discipline of water history as a subdivision of environmental history. the discussion then turns to an outline of recent developments in the historiography of water history in south africa. attention is also given to the possibility of extending the study of this discipline into a number of allied fields. keywords: historiography, water history, environmental history, technology history, south africa, outcomes based education (obe), transdisciplinarity and methodology. disciplines and sub-disciplines: historical studies, historiography, environmental history, water history. introduction internationally there has been considerable interest in water history in recent years. this is the outcome of an impressive array of intergovernmental global water initiatives that have been launched since the end of world war ii (1939-1945), culminating by the 1990s in major water projects, such as those of the world water council recent trends in south african water historiography johann tempelhoff * * johann tempelhoff is professor of history in the school of basic sciences, northwest university, vaal triangle campus. gauteng, south africa. email: johann.tempelhoff@nwu.ac.za. this article is based on a paper presented at the international conference on exploring transdisciplinary discourses: water society and the environment in africa, 20-24 april 2008, at the nest, drakensberg, south africa. the author is grateful to heather hoag who facilitated the process of preparing the text. her comments and constructive proposals are appreciated. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 271-296. 274 (wwc) and global water partnership (gwp).1 historians, as was the case with most other specialists in science and technology, were attracted to the field by widespread concern in the public realm about issues such as global and national water scarcity; population growth; food security; climate change; and the impact of the deteriorating quality of water. although there have always been historians and hydrologists working in the field, their role has traditionally been perceived as providing a historical account of the major accomplishments in engineering, environmental management, governance and development in the realm of water studies. the academic interest in water history in more recent times, at least in developing countries of the world, has emanated in part as a response to trends in globalisation. there is a growing need for more information on indigenous cultures and how historical knowledge can inform governance and management studies. historians, as is the case with anthropologists and archaeologists, are at least able to provide background information on past developments in an era when the rapid development of communication technologies in all parts of the world have superficially obscured the intrinsic value and tangible traces of natural waterscapes and human culture in former times.2 the development of environmental history and its potential role in the modern field of environmental studies, clearly contributed to securing for history a place in what has been an important and growing trend towards interdisciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in scientific research. as a discipline history clearly has a role to play in exploring what has on occasion been described as ‘the most researched fluid of all time’.3 for some specialists in water studies, such as the hydrologist and geographer newson, history’s value is situated in its ability to shed more light on water distribution, in both space and time, which is the essential interest to human society and the source of the stimulus to drain, dam, irrigate, or go to war.4 1 global water partnership, “small planet. big job. our mission” at http:// www.gwpforum. org/servlet/psp?chstartupname=_about (accessed on 2008.03.26). 2 in the field of climate change, see unep, africa: atlas of our changing environment, (united nations environmental programme, division of early warning and assessment, nairobi, 2008). 3 i amato, “a new blueprint for water’s architecture” in science, new series, 245(5065), 1992.06.06, p. 1764. 4 m newson, hydrology and the river environment, ([1994], clarendon press, oxford, 2002), p. 9. tempelhoff 275 historians know that water history has a great deal more to offer. it can, for example, make us familiar with technologies of former times that may, in an era of human-induced climate change and resource depletion, be of value in the field of technology and innovation studies.5 historical knowledge can inform us on how to ensure that the quality of public drinking water does not pose a health threat.6 history can also, when future water storage facilities are planned, inform decision making on issues of culture and past development, when communities need to be relocated to create space for water storage facilities.7 of particular relevance in present-day africa is knowledge of the historical appropriation of land and water, the past struggles over these resources, and the best way in which to meet reasonable demands for restitution rights in an era of change management and governance in africa.8 given the potential of participatory opportunities for historians in the field of water studies, a working definition of water history is necessary. for the purposes of this discussion it is posited that: water history is the study of human culture and its interaction with the environment, specifically in the spatial context of the hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere, in an effort to locate evidence of change that can be interpreted and analysed from observations of past, present and anticipated future trends. its reliance on information and knowledge generated in other fields of science and technology implies that sustainable water history also has a significant contribution to make in multidisciplinary collaboration. 5 compare for example, indications of an exponential growth in our knowledge of the early water supply of bloemfontein between 1960 and 1998. see mce van schoor and jj oberholster, “die fontein van bloemfontein – voorstelle vir ‘n monument” in historia, 5(3), september 1960, pp. 169-178; sm botes, “die stoommeule en bierbrouery op die terrein van fort drury, bloemfontein, 18681920” in suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, 15(2), november 2001, pp. 1-20. 6 see w troesken, the great lead pipe disaster, (mit press, cambridge, massachusetts, 2006), pp. 13-14, 257; a fenwick, “waterborne infectious diseases – could they be consigned to history?” in science, 313(5790), 2006.08.25, p. 1078; n planck, “leafy green sewage” in the new york times, 2006.09.21 at h t t p : / / w w w . n y t i m e s . c o m / 2 0 0 6 / 0 9 / 2 1 / o p i n i o n / 21planck.html?ex=1159070400&en= 4531a2aa062cea79&ei=5087%0a (accessed 2006.09.23). 7 m-b õhman, “on visible spaces and invisible peoples in sweden and tanzania” in jwn tempelhoff (ed.), african water histories: transdisciplinary discourses, (northwestern university, vanderbijlpark, 2005), pp. 185-226. 8 see for example, b derman, r odgaard and a sjaastad (eds.), conflicts over land & water in africa, (james currey, michigan state university press and university of kwazulu-natal press, oxford, east lansing and pietermaritzburg, 2007). td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. recent trends in water historiography 276 outline in the discussion to follow attention will be given to the origins of water history as a subdivision of environmental history. the latter is an approach to history that has internationally become one of the more robust fields of investigation. then the focus moves to some recent and contemporary trends in the field of water history in south africa. the current emphasis on the historiography of water history in south africa is the result of steady growth in the field – largely because of its relevance in a water-stressed subcontinent. in comparison to most other african states, the political transformation of the country as an indigenous african state was delayed for the greater part of the twentieth century. following a period of international political and socio-economic isolation, it was only in the 1990s that this transition took place, literally catapulting south africa into the international water studies environment. at present the country is partner to most continental and international initiatives in the field of water governance and management. and in the academic field of water studies too, it has made substantial progress. this discussion deals with the manner in which the discipline of history in south africa has adjusted to these widespread changes. water history and its linkage with environmental history although the history of water has featured in many forms and under a variety of names for a long time,9 the genealogy of the current flow of research – especially in the discipline of historical studies – is a by-product of the 1960s. it was at this time, in the united states of america, that rachel carson’s groundbreaking study, silent spring,10 was instrumental in bringing environmental politics to the fore as an important discourse in scientific scholarship. although history traditionally has a strong political thread, the discipline did not at first feature prominently in debates on environmental politics. environmental activism was most markedly promoted in the relatively new interdisciplinary field of environmental studies that was growing by leaps and bounds as thousands of first generation ‘baby boomers’ in the usa enrolled for interdisciplinary postgraduate studies at colleges and universities. environmental studies, with a smattering of historical information, began to appear in the 1970s.11 by the 9 see lb lee, “water resource history: a new field of historiography?” in the pacific historical review, 57(4), november 1988, pp. 457-467. 1 0 r carson, silent spring, (hamish hamilton, london, 1963). 1 1 n hundley, jr, “water and the west in historical imagination” in the western historical journal, 27(1), spring 1996, pp. 5-31. tempelhoff 277 1980s, when water history themes featured in new research outputs, enthusiasm for promoting the cause of environmental politics had been relegated to a formalised sub-discourse in mainstream academic thinking.12 a number of exemplary works appeared at the time, but for water historians it was worster’s rivers of empire13 that caught the attention. the evolution of irrigation in the american west, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, was responsible for a euphoric sense of progress which by the twentieth century had become a development nightmare because of the growing threat of dwindling water resources in some of the arid parts of the usa. worster’s description of the dustbowl presented a very pointed environmental message to great effect. it was based on sound scholarship and was also of considerable literary value.14 another influential work was tarr and melosi’s book on urban environments and the management of pollution, which shed light on the history of water and how it has been used ever since the onset of american urban development.15 as early as the 1970s both these authors were at the forefront of opening up the potential of a focus on water in the discipline of environmental history. in western europe and the united kingdom, according to mcneil, the discipline of environmental history was slow to take off.16 however, it does appear that some important work had been done in the field of water history as early as the 1970s, with publications such as stanbridge’s multi-volume study on sewage treatment in britain.17 once research began there was soon a consistent flow of significant results. the development of environmental history, particularly in britain, had an exponential effect in the british commonwealth, of 12 jr mcneil, “observations on the nature and culture of environmental history” in history & theory, theme issue, 42, december 2003, p. 34. 13 d worster, rivers of empire: water, aridity and the growth of the american west, (pantheon books, new york, 1985). 14 lb lee, “water resource history: a new field of historiography?” in the pacific historical review, 57(4), november 1988, p. 466. 15 jk stine and j tarr, “at the intersection of histories: technology and the environment” in technology and culture, 39(4), october 1998, pp. 614-615; see also cm rosen, “’knowing’ industrial pollution: nuisance law and the power tradition in a time of rapid economic change, 1840-1864” in environmental history, october 2003, pp. 1-33 reference no. 3 on p. 24 at http://findarticles. com/p/ articles/mi_qa3854/is_200310/ai_n9330335/pg_24 (accessed 2008.06.15). 16 jr mcneil, “observations on the nature and culture of environmental history” in history & theory, theme issue, 42, december 2003, pp. 19-21. 17 hh stanbridge, history of sewage treatment in britain, (institute of water pollution, kent, 1976). recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 278 which south africa once again18 became part in 1994.19 in canada, australia and new zealand, collaboration and exchanges between historians increased because they were better informed on developments in environmental studies.20 as of the 1990s, water history research became more relevant in view of the anticipated regional impact of global climate change. much can be learnt from studies undertaken in australia, which like south africa is a waterstressed country.21 the history of technology has also been a major influence on the evolution of water history.22 researchers in engineering sciences, in particular, have made a substantial contribution and will no doubt do so in the future, because of the contemporary relevance of links between past and present in the technologies of mineralogy, hydroelectricity, irrigation, digital data-capturing, as well as water supply and treatment systems. historical studies have also been prominent in the fields of environmental, legal, health and management sciences that are currently an integral part of water 18 the country was part of the british commonwealth between 1910 and 1960 when it was forced to leave as a result of the former government’s apartheid policies. 19 see for example: s dovers, r edgecombe and b guest (eds.), south africa’s environmental history: cases and comparisons, (ohio university press and david philip publishers, ohio and cape town, 2003). historians of south africa, working overseas, such as w beinart, have been exemplary in sharing many of the new trends in historical writing with colleagues in south africa. see w beinart, twentieth century south africa, (oxford university press, cape town and oxford, 1994); w beinart and p coates, environment and history. the taming of nature in the usa and south africa, (routledge, london, 1995). 20 jr mcneil, “observations on the nature and culture of environmental history” in history & theory, theme issue, 42, december 2003, pp. 22-25. 21 see for example t griffiths and l robin (eds.), ecology and empire: environmental history of settler societies, (keele university press, university of natal press, pietermaritzburg, 1997); 2 2 this association is evident in the number of water history contributions in technology and culture, the journal of the society for the history of technology (shot), founded in the 1950s in the united states of america. the founding fathers’ approach to this branch of historical studies, is evident in r burlingame, “technology: neglected clue to historical change” in technology and culture, 2(3), summer 1961, pp. 219-229. note on pp. 227-228 of this article the special attention given to a linkage between water and the history of transportation in the united states of america. also see jk stine and j tarr, “at the intersection of histories: technology and the environment” in technology and culture, 39(4), october 1998, pp. 601-640. it is clear from this article that apart from melosi’s work, relatively little had been done until the mid-1990s in the cross fields of pollution, water and the environment. see for example how the history of water and history of technology dovetail in d edgerton, the shock of the old: technology and global history since 1900, (oxford university, oxford, new york, 2007), chapter 4. tempelhoff 279 studies curricula at tertiary education institutions in all parts of the world. on numerous occasions in recent years, the potential of water history has been put to the test in debates on fashionable issues such as tony allan’s concept of ‘virtual water’23 and the ‘water footprint’.24 frequently such work was not by historians, but by specialists making use of history. history began to form an integral part of their discussions on issues such as the commodification of water,25 transboundary water catchment management,26 hydropolitics,27 and water wars.28 there appears to be consensus that historical studies is relevant in water research – especially in respect of critical thinking strategies that have traditionally been associated with the discipline.29 historiographical trends in south africa in historiographical terms water history in south african is still a 23 t allan, “virtual water: a strategic resource. global osculation to regional deficits” in ground water, 36(4), july-august, 1998, pp. 545-546; for a comparative study which features southern africa, see t allan, “water resources in semi-arid regions: real deficits and economically invisible and politically silent solutions” in a turton and r henwood (eds.) hydropolitics in the developing world: a southern african perspective, (awiru, university of pretoria, pretoria, 2002), pp. 23-36. 24 f pearce, when the rivers run dry: what happens when our water runs out?, (transworld publishers, london, 2007), pp. 18-25. also see the webpage of water footprint at http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/home (accessed 2008.07.02). 25 t kluge, “wasser ist kultur” in die zeit, 13/2003 at http://www.zeit.de/2003/ 13/st-wasser; p. bond, “an answer to marketization: decommodification and the assertion to rights to essential services” in multinational monitor 23, 7/8, jul/ aug 2002, pp. 14-7; a versluis, “the great lakes as commodity. water: public good or private gain” in counterpunch, 2004.01.19 at http://www. counterpunch.org/verluis01192004.html 26 ar turton, r meissner, pm mampane & o seremo, a hydropolitical history of south africa’s international river basins. wrc report no. 1220/1/04. (water research commission, pretoria, october 2004). 27 m musemwa, “’disciplining a dissident city’: hydropolitics in the city of bulawayo, matabeleland, zimbabwe, 1980-1994” in journal of southern african studies, 32(2), june 2006, pp. 239-254. 28 see r glennon (ed.), water follies: groundwater pumping and the fate of america’s fresh waters, (islan press, washington, 2002); m reisner, cadillac desert: the american west and its disappearing water, (viking press, new york, 1986); at wolf is one of the leaders in the field. see the oregon state university’s department of geosciences website transboundary freshwater dispute database at http:// www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/ (accessed, 2008.04.15); for an introductory impression of levels of interaction between politics, history and water conflict see at wolf, “conflict and cooperation along international waterways” in water policy, 1(2), 1998, pp. 251-265. 29 m reuss, “historians, historical analysis, and international water politics” in the public historian, 26(1), winter 2004, pp. 65-79. recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 280 young field. quantitatively, output can hardly be compared to similar work in north america, western europe, southeast asia, north africa and the middle east. it is safe to state that there is currently a paucity of good research results.30 the reasons for this state of affairs form the backdrop of the following discussion. ever since the late-1960s there has been in south africa a concerted effort to promote scientific research in the field of the water studies.31 parliament’s approval of the water research act, no. 34 of 1971, was an affirmation of the need to promote research in fields of science that could be of value to the government’s department of water affairs. the water research commission (wrc) was a direct outcome of these developments.32 unfortunately, history has traditionally been classified as part of the humanities/social sciences, and did not feature prominently.33 then too, there were only slight indications of an awareness of environmental issues in water studies.34 water history was clearly not in demand. exceptions were the historical writing of professional and academic engineers such as dr bob laburn at the rand water board;35 prof. des midgley, at the university 30 for a preliminary overview of historiographical trends in south african water history, see jwn tempelhoff, “‘n historiografiese verkenning van watergeskiedenis” koers, 70(3), 2005, pp. 473-514. the article takes a broad view of historiographical trends in the field and does not focus specifically on south africa. 31 practical training for professionals operating in the water sector dates back to 1937 with the founding of the water institute of south africa (wisa). see anon., “wisa has proud history” in imiesa yearbook 2004, may 2004, pp. 58-59. 32 jwn tempelhoff, the substance of ubiquity: rand water 1903-2003, (kleio publishers, vanderbijlpark, 2003), chapter 8. 33 one of the pioneers in the field of environmental studies at the time was prof. richard fuggle of the university of cape town. he also asserted considerable influence in promoting a greater awareness of water in the south african environment. see rf fuggle collision of rapprochement: environmental challenge in s. africa, (university of cape town, cape town, 1974). for a general impression of the thinking on water and its relative position in the broader spectrum of disciplinary thought, see republic of south africa (rsa), department of water affairs, management of the water resources of the republic of south africa, (department of water affairs, pretoria, 1986). at most human geography seemed to enjoy acceptance in the hydrological environment of the department at the time. 34 see p steyn, “popular environmental struggles in south africa, 1972-1992” in historia, 47(1), may 2001, pp. 125-158; p steyn, “environmental management in south africa: twenty years of governmental response to the global challenge” in historia, 46(1), may 2001, pp. 25-53. 35 rj laburn ‘n historiese oorsig oor watervoorsiening aan die witwatersrand (gepubliseerde eerste voordrag in ‘n reeks gelewer aan die johannesburg historical society op 26 augustus 1970), (walker & snashall, g.p., g.d.); rj laburn, the rand water board 75 1903-1978: a treatise on the rand water board with specific reference to its responsibilities achievements and policies during 75 years of operation, (rand water board, johannesburg, february 1979). tempelhoff 281 of the witwatersrand;36 a literary commemorative work for the water year by fa venter;37 a chapter by the inveterate conservationist tc robertson in a volume on south africa’s natural heritage, edited by andries du plessis;38 and some work of the environmental journalist, james clarke.39 apart from these publications, water history did not feature prominently in the world of south african letters. the cohesive factor in these studies was the unmistakable consensus that water deserved attention in appraisals of the south african environment of the 1970s. it was not activist in style, but merely informative. these authors had clearly been influenced by the popularity of environmentalism and environmental consciousness in western europe and the united states of america. they then used the discursive approach to historical writing to convey their impressions of the aquatic realm to south african readers. the absence of professional historians in water research was the result of external (international) circumstances and internal (national) politics. mainstream historical writing until the late-1980s was an important battleground for the struggle against the apartheid policies of the former national party government.40 while a section of the historical fraternity had been internationally isolated for their tacit support of the government’s policies, revisionist and africanist historians, working in the then fashionable paradigm of neo-marxist thought, as well as the popular history workshop movement, provided substantial momentum to initiatives aimed at bringing to an end the racial policies of the day. in essence it was a debate between liberal historians, revisionist historians (mostly neo-marxists and structuralists) and afrikaner nationalist historians. liberal historians tended to outline the fallacies of race issues in south africa. the revisionists wanted to redefine the prevailing historical discourse by optimising class, labour and capital in a framework that could 36 see for example his brief, but insightful historical observations in d midgley, “water resources – the southern african picture” in g baker (ed.), resources of southern africa: today and tomorrow: proceedings of a conference held by the associated scientific and technical societies of south africa at johannesburg, (the associated scientific and technical societies of south africa, johannesburg, 1976). 37 see, for example: fa venter, (ed.), water, (afrikaanse pers-boekhandel, vir die ministerie van waterwese, pretoria, c. 1971-2); hobbs, ld and rf phelines (eds), water 75 (erudita publications, ferreirasdorp, n.d.). 38 tc robertson, “water” in a du plessis (ed.), the conservation of our heritage, (human & rousseau, cape town and pretoria, 1974), pp. 173-236. 39 j clarke, our fragile land: south africa’s environmental crisis, (macmillan, johannesburg, 1974). 40 c saunders, “four decades of south african academic historical writing: a personal perspective” in he stolten (ed.), history making and present day politics: the meaning of collective memory in south africa, (nordiska afrikainstitutet, uppsala, 2007), pp. 280-291. recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 282 accommodate much of the prevailing africanist historical thought. afrikaner nationalist historians, in turn, tended to favour an ethnic approach in which afrikaner interests appeared to dominate the history of south africa.41 history classrooms at universities were crammed with large numbers of students, eager to learn more of the country’s racial past. methodologically the liberal and revisionist approaches, by far the strongest groupings of the three, tended to have a close association with social history and its dominant methodological discourse of the 1970s and 1980s. historians working in this paradigm were also more aware of international trends in the discipline. to all intents and purposes the liberal and revisionist historians were basically concentrating on political history. a clear historiographical discrepancy is discernable if a comparison is drawn between trends in the discipline in the united states of america and south africa. the american society for environmental history, the first of its kind in the world, was founded in 1975 – in the aftermath of the vietnam war. at the time the south african government faced increasing pressure for the formal recognition of trade unions of colour which would bring an end to racial discrimination in the workplace.42 historians accordingly focused on the social history of labour in south africa. a decade later, when donald worster urged american environmental historians to look beyond the divide between the history of nature and the history of culture,43 thousands of black south africans were protesting in the townships, making the country ungovernable. at the time the most influential historians in south africa were transmitting the latest research findings in the field of popular people’s history (and struggles) 41 for more on this see c saunders, the making of the south african past: major historians on race and class, (david philip, cape town, 1988); c saunders, writing history: south africa’s urban past and other essays (human sciences research council, pretoria, 1992); fa van jaarsveld, afrikanergeskiedskrywing: verlede, hede en toekoms (lex patria, johannesburg, 1992); fa van jaarsveld, the afrikaner’s interpretation of south african history, (simondium, cape town, 1964); fa van jaarsveld, geskiedkundige verkenninge, (van schaik, pretoria, 1974); hm wright, the burden of the present: liberal-radical controversy over southern african history (david philip, cape town, 1977); k smith, the changing past: trends in south african historical writing (southern, johannesburg, 1988). for a more recent historiographical study with substantial merit, see he stolten (ed.), history making and present day politics: the meaning of collective memory in south africa, (nordiska afrikainstitutet, uppsala, 2007) 42 j sithole and s ndlovu, “the revival of the labour movement, 1970-1980” and d hemson, m legassick and n ulrich, “white activists and the revival of the workers’ movement” in sadet, the road to democracy in south africa, 1970-1980, volume 2, (university of south africa press, pretoria, 2006), pp. 187-242 and 243-314. 43 d worster, “history as natural history: an essay on theory and method” in the pacific historical review, 53(1), february 1984, pp. 1-19. tempelhoff 283 to south africans at grassroots level.44 meanwhile, the government was trying to address cold war issues and win friends in the west by waging border wars against national liberation fighters in namibia, zimbabwe, tanzania, mozambique and botswana. with the exception of a small number of specialists in the field of local and regional history, water did not register on the radar screens of historians. in general terms relevant information on the history of urban water supply management was located in the local, urban and regional historiography of south africa. this genre enjoyed a long tradition of amateur dominance until historians at rhodes university promoted active research and the division for historical studies at south africa’s human sciences research council (hsrc), founded contree, a peer reviewed journal aimed at promoting interest in local and regional history. despite its relatively chequered path until the late-1960s academic local and urban history now had a marked focus on interdisciplinary history. there were also some works which had leanings towards the annales school of historians.45 interestingly, it was also an area where collaboration began between south african historians of different political persuasions. in the interest of local and regional history, many historians chose to set aside their political differences and share insights on common research interests.46 this collaboration gave a degree of respectability to local and regional history and opened up the way for the integration of liberal (englishspeaking) and conservative (afrikaans-speaking) approaches to the discipline. in many of the articles, water featured as an element for understanding the history of local and regional environments. the first sign of change was evident in the second half of the 1980s when kevin shillington, noted for his revisionist works, published his research on the vaalharts irrigation scheme.47 his chapter was 44 see he stolten, “history in the new south africa: an introduction” in he stolten (ed.), history making and present day politics: the meaning of collective memory in south africa, (nordiska afrikainstitutet, uppsala, 2007), pp. 5-50. 45 the annales school of historians emerged at the start of the twentieth century in the france and were notable for a strong social economic approach in which geography and marxist theories of historical materialism featured prominently. the annales approach was fashionable in all parts of the world until the late1970s. they have also asserted a substantial influence on water historiography and its methodologies. 46 see jwn tempelhoff, the challenge of regional en local history in south africa (university of zululand publication series b79, kwadlangeswa, 1990). 47 k shillington, “irrigation, agriculture and the state: the harts valley in historical perspective” in w beinart, p delius & s trapido (eds.), putting a plough to the ground: accumulation and dispossession in rural south africa, 1850-1930, (ravan press, johannesburg, 1986), pp. 311-335. recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 284 not environmental in orientation, but instead explored the subject of irrigation as an extension of historical racial discrimination in the country’s farming sector. although relatively brief, it was nevertheless a significant contribution. since the 1940s, earlier works, primarily by geographers, tended to underscore the heroic accomplishments of irrigation in south africa48 – a tendency that was to persist for some time to come.49 a response to shillington’s ideas only came from de jager and marais in the 1990s; they delved into the prehistory of the scheme, pointing to its firm roots in colonialist thought on development.50 they were writing in the tumultuous era of south africa’s political transition to a multi-racial democracy and their work thus lost much of its potential impact. furthermore, in this study there was no trace of environmental and/ or technology history. it was more in the nature of a response to what had been written by shillington. the authors accentuated the fact that the political exclusion of africans in the irrigation developments at vaalharts, pre-dated the apartheid era – a debate that had already been opened by lubbe in the 1960s.51 developments since the 1990s in broad perspective, the 1990s were dismal years for the discipline of history. the country’s political liberation shifted the focus to the public sphere of active, socio-economic and political transformation. the discipline was also influenced by comprehensive changes in education policies. in terms of outcomes based education (obe) history, as an independent discipline, only featured as an elective major in the later phases of secondary school curricula. previously it had been an integral part of primary and secondary education as a formative and independent discipline. in the new political dispensation the nature and content of historical studies changed overnight. on the tertiary level in departments of history at the 23 universities in the country, student enrolments dropped 48 see for example the following on the vaalharts project: sj lubbe, die geografiese aspekte van die vaalbankdam; en van die vaalhartsbesproeiingsprojek, (ma, universiteit van pretoria, 1942); jc kotze, die vaalhartsbesproeiingskema – ‘n ekonomiese en sosiaal-geografiese studie, (ma universiteit van stellenbosch, 1961). 49 see h bornman, vaalharts, (vaalharts halfeeufeeskomitee, vaalharts, 1988); p louw, vaalharts besproeiingskema: ontstaan en ontwikkeling, (no publisher or place of publication c. 1980s); hg van der westhuizen, hervormde kerk halfeeu op vaalwater 1940-1990, (ned. herv. gemeente, 1994); anon., vaalharts koöperasie beperk 50 jaar 1944 tot 1994, (promedia, vaalharts, 1994). 50 amva de jager en ah marais, “die aanloop tot die vaalhartsbesproeiingskema” in journal of the south african institute of civil engineers, 36(1), 1994, pp. 6-12. 51 sj lubbe, die geografiese aspekte …, pp. 188-196. cf above note 48 tempelhoff 285 significantly. many teaching historians either went into early retirement or moved to different fields of academic endeavour.52 this changed perspective on the discipline of history was partly the result of new policies introduced in higher education in south africa, aligning the country with trends in other parts of the world. it was also to some extent the product of the new dominant discourse on the country’s past. the history of the country had to be rewritten in such a manner that all south africans featured, especially those of colour, who had previously been sidelined and even ignored. the liberation struggle and the triumphant road to democracy now took centre stage. in essence, it was only the first phase in a dialectical process of historiographical revision that would see debates conducted in a variety of fields between historians and the public at large. the country’s history has remained, up to the present, a strongly contested field of debate between all and sundry on issues of ideology and race. against this backdrop historians actively started working on the critical re-consideration of their discipline. it is here that water history began to emerge. shell and guelke conducted an investigation into the exploitation of indigenous people on the frontiers of the cape colony and examined how the whites had pirated their knowledge of the environment to locate water sources in the arid interior of southern africa.53 perhaps fittingly at the time, the urban water history of cape town made significant progress. grant’s findings on the history of water in cape town between 1840 and 192054 informed concurrent research at the university of cape town on this new focus in the historiography of south africa’s mother city. traditionally, the history of irrigation in south africa was an important field of scholarship, and popular history.55 it formed part of the 52 see g verbeeck “die wraak van vergifnis: moraliteit, geskiedskrywing en politiek in suid-afrika” in historia, 52(2), november 2007, pp. 239-266; c saunders, “south africa’s racial past: the history and historiography of racism, segregation and apartheid” paul maylam: book review in south african historical journal, 47, 2002, pp. 238-241; jwn tempelhoff, verhuidiglikte verlede: aspekte van die hermeneutiese benadering tot die geskiedenis, (kleio, vanderbijlpark, 2002); jwn tempelhoff, “historiografie en stilistiek: die verkenning van enkele kontemporêre tendense” in journal for contemporary history, respectively in 28(1) june 2003 and 28(3), december 2003, pp. 92-113 and 110-122. 53 l. guelke and r. shell, “landscape of conquest: frontier water alienation and khoikhoi strategies of survival, 1652-1780” in journal of southern african studies, 18(4), december 1992, pp. 803-24. 54 d grant, the politics of water supply: the history of cape town’s water supply 1840-1920 (ma, uct, 1991). 55 j meiring, sundays river valley: its history and settlement, (balkema, cape town, 1959); j burman, waters of the western cape, (human & rousseau. cape town 1970) recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 286 pioneering history of life in southern africa – one of the 30 driest regions of the world. it was also part of twentieth century socioeconomic history in which poor whitism,56 missionary history57 and the local history of rural settlements58 featured prominently. legassick, working on upington,59 re-introduced irrigation history. this time the focus was on the process of land claims and restitution in the northern cape.60 it formed an interesting sub-discourse in the prevalent economic debate on the redistribution of wealth in the new multi-racial, democracy. researched and written at the time of the 1994 transition from an old to a new south africa, legassick’s work highlighted the relevance of irrigation and the manner in which it directly and indirectly shaped the lives of humans in society. people of colour, according to him, had been exploited for their labour in the construction of irrigation schemes and in the process had lost possession of the land on which they had been resident. another contemporary publication was that by jacobs who undertook research on the history of irrigation and water management at kuruman.61 she provides an exposition of how indigenous people were systematically driven away from the eyes of local springs, cutting local communities off from water supplies until they were forced by circumstances to either leave or become subservient to white residents. a similar picture of land dispossession on the basis of race emerged from this study. this seminal work has contributed to nancy jacobs’s status as one of the pioneers of environmental justice in south african environmental historiography.62 in the mid-1990s a new legal framework for water in south africa was under intense debate. the existing legislation, dating back to 56 h coetzee, verarming en oorheersing, (nasionale pers, bloemfontein, kaapstad en port elizabeth, 1942); r morrell (ed.), white but poor: essays on the history of poor whites in southern africa 1880-1940, (university of south africa, pretoria, 1992). 57 w beinart, the rise of conservation in south africa: settlers, livestock, and the environment 1770-1950, (oxford university press, oxford, 2003), p. 178. 58 pj rossouw, “die arbeidskolonie kakamas” in archives yearbook for south african history, 14(2), 1951, (staatsdrukker, parow, n.d.) 59 m legassick, “the will of abraham and elizabeth september: the struggle for land in gordonia, 1898-1995” in the journal of african history, 37(3), 1996, pp. 371-418. 60 m legassick, “claiming land and making memory: engaging with the past in land restitution in he stolten (ed.), history making and present day politics: the meaning of collective memory in south africa, (nordiska afrikainstitutet, uppsala, 2007), pp. 129-147. 61 n jacobs, “the flowing eye: water management in the upper kuruman valley, south africa, c. 18001962” in the journal of african history, 37(2), 1996, pp. 237-260. 62 n jacobs, environment, power and injustice: a south african history, (cambridge university press, cambridge, 2003). tempelhoff 287 1956, was out of step with the requirements for a new multiracial democratic society with the approach of the new millennium.63 water was high on the agenda of the african national congress (anc) government’s reconstruction and development program (rdp).64 in terms of the new constitution of south africa, approved in 1996, access to clean drinking water was singled out as a basic human right.65 in the next two years south africa’s water services act, no. 108 of 1997 and the national water act, no. 36 of 1998 were approved by parliament. a complex transformational process was set in motion to implement the third comprehensive revision of the country’s water sector since the formation of the union in 1910. in the first era, following the implementation of the irrigation and conservation of water act, no. 8 of 1912, the focus had been on using water for creating welfare and promoting industry. the second era, that of the water act, no. 54 of 1956, was notable for south africa’s remarkable economic development. the attention was focused on creating sufficient water supplies to keep abreast with demand. the latest framework, implemented since the 1990s, has focused extensively on issues such as: water demand management, instead of merely providing costly, ineffective and unsustainable storage facilities; a distinct concern for the environment; respecting access to clean drinking water as a basic human right in a society where the majority of the population had formerly been deprived of adequate water supply and sanitation on racial grounds; and finally, the awareness that water has become a finite resource that needs to be managed in a sustainable manner. at the time of planning the new legislation there was very little in the way of historical research on water to inform the policy makers of the day.66 for example, the work on sanitation and health by swanson (1977)67 and that by unterhalter (1982)68 could shed some relevant 63 rsa, white paper on water supply and sanitation, 1994. 64 republic of south africa (rsa), a history of the first decade of water service delivery in south africa 1994-2004: meeting the millennium development goals, (department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), pretoria, c. 2006-7), pp. 4-7. 65 see constitution of the republic of south africa, no 108 of 1996, ch2 subsection 27. 66 rh thomas, quality and quantity: the search for an adequate, and pure supply of water for pietermaritzburg, (b.a. hons. assignment, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, 1991); wnk hickson, springs of clear water: a history of uitenhage water, (simon van der stel foundation, uitenhage, 1989). 67 mw swanson, “the sanitation syndrome: bubonic plague and urban native policy in the cape colony, 19001909” in the journal of african history, 18(3), 1977, pp. 387-410. 68 b unterhalter, “inequalities in health and disease: the case of mortality rates for the city of johannesburg, south africa, 1910–1979” in international journal of health services, 12(4), 1982, pp. 617–636. recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 288 light. and in the field of water supply and management there was wall’s 1980s experiment, with the idea of a ‘new history’ for south africa, focusing in on the history of water resources.69 there was also crosser’s master’s study on the evolution of the public water supply of johannesburg from a private to a public sector service in the period 1886-1906,70 while in the field of technology history, grant and flinn reported, in passing, on the history of sanitation and water supply in johannesburg.71 a notable feature of the work that had been done up to the late 1990s was that they were all essentially micro-histories. no comprehensive overview (grand narrative) of south africa’s water history was available. despite all the shortcomings, however, the information was important for a critique of the country’s ‘pre-1994’ water service structures.72 by 1999 it seemed as if the long dry spell in water historiography was finally coming to an end. wall wrote on the comparative history of water management.73 murray, a city engineer by profession, was busy researching the water history of cape town and by 2001 his work had culminated in a respectable working document.74 this project, which is currently (2008) a collaborative initiative under the auspices of southern water, the national archives repository in cape town and the university of cape town, promises to eventually become one of the most comprehensive histories (in timeframes) of any city in south africa.75 the need for urban water histories, up to the present, remains crucial. for example, the first detailed water history research 69 k wall, “a new history of south africa from a water resources viewpoint” in the civil engineer in south africa, may 1983, pp. 265–271. 70 em crosser, water supply and utilization in johannesburg 1886-1905 (ma, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, 1987). 71 g grant and t flinn, watershed town: the history of the johannesburg city engineer’s department, (comma print & design, johannesburg, 1992). 72 see, for example, r bate and r tren, the cost of free water: the global problem of water misallocation and the case of south africa, (the free market foundation, johannesburg, 2002). 73 k wall, “water, civil engineers and multipurpose metropolitan government for the old cape peninsula municipalities: technical paper” in journal of the south african institute of civil engineers, 40(3), 1998, pp. 1-8. 74 t murray, “much water under many bridges: the history of the catchments, rivers, and organic draining systems of greater cape town”, (work in progress, rondebosch, cape town, 2001). 75 s matthews, “tracing van riebeeck’s footsteps: water resources management” in water wheel, 6(6), december 2007, pp. 12-15. tempelhoff 289 on bloemfontein since 196076 was published by botes in 2001.77 zangel’s study on johannesburg’s water opened up new discourses in water history with a unique accent on post-1994 policy objectives such as poverty, housing and proper sanitation.78 although she primarily worked in the field of social history, there was also a focus on environmental history. another important project, currently in the process of completion, is mäki’s comparative history of urban water supply, health and sanitation in four south african cities.79 this finnish initiative should be of great value to water historians of africa. the author’s research group at the university of tampere has for some time been involved in extensive collaborative water history research in africa. the new millennium also saw work produced in the field of health and sanitation. carruthers wrote a brief but eloquent environmental history of the delta wastewater treatment works that served parts of johannesburg from the 1930s to 1963.80 more recently parnell touched on sanitation issues in her study on the slum-yards in downtown johannesburg.81 phatlane’s 2006 study on poverty, health and disease in the apartheid era, also focused on diseases related to poor living conditions and a lack of sanitary services in the former african ‘homeland’ residential areas of south africa.82 the environmental justice approach to water history currently tends to be well suited to regional history. van eeden’s work, in partnership with natural scientists, activists and journalists on the de-watering of sinkholes in the carletonville area of gauteng,83 marked the beginning of a more comprehensive, ongoing regional project on the 76 mce van schoor, and jj oberholster, “die fontein van bloemfontein – voorstelle vir ‘n monument” in historia, 5(3), september 1960, pp. 169-178. 77 sm botes, “die stoommeule en bierbrouery op die terrein van fort drury, bloemfontein, 1868-1920” in suid-afrikaanse tydskrif vir kultuurgeskiedenis, 15(2), november 2001, pp. 1-20. 78 va zangel, ‘the seething masses’housing, water and sanitation in the lives of johannesburg’s poor 1886-1906, (ma, north-west university, vanderbijlpark, 2004). 79 h mäki, water, sanitation and health: the development of the environmental services in four south african cities, 1840–1920, (phd, tampere university, finland, june-july 2008). 80 j carruthers, “from sewage sludge to pleasant park: the story of delta disposal works, 1934-1963” in r vermont (consulting editor), delta environmental centre: the first twenty-five years 1975-2000 and the road ahead, (electronic publication, 2000 at http://www.deltaenviro. org.za/background/25years_sewage.html (accessed april 2008). 81 s parnell, power and urban control: johannesburg’s inner city slum-yards, 19101923” in journal of southern african studies, 29(3), september 2003, pp. 615-637. 82 sn phatlane, poverty, health and disease in the era of high apartheid: south africa, 1948-1976, (phd, university of south africa, 2006). 83 es van eeden, b de villiers, h strydom and l stoch “effects of dewatering and sinkholes on people and environment – an analysis of the carletonville area in gauteng, south africa” in historia, 48(1), may 2003, pp. 95-125. recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 290 wonderfonteinspruit in north west province and parts of gauteng.84 this strain of historiography is contemporary in focus,85 but also relates to an approach to the discipline, known as a history of the present.86 typical themes that are investigated tend to have a strong message of environmental justice87 and seek strategies to clean up pollution caused by industry, particularly the mining sector.88 the collapse of local and regional water treatment infrastructure has also received attention.89 it is in this context that civil society becomes a major actor and participant in research initiatives. in the cultural and technological history of water, staples’ study on the mills of southern africa90 was a continuation of outstanding work that had been done earlier by james walton.91 a new contributor to the historiography of water technology in south africa is the university of johannesburg civil engineer, johannes haarhoff. he completed his postgraduate studies in the discipline of history and has subsequently worked on the desalination of water and water supply on ships of the dutch east india company (deic) in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.92 he has also collaborated with finnish water historians on a comparative history of urban wells and toilets in south africa and finland93 and has been at the helm of a collaborative 84 see es van eeden, “some human actions in the destruction and construction of culture and nature – the merafong region as a case study” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(2) december 2006, pp. 409-430. 85 a turton “can we solve tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s experiences and today’s science?” the des midgley memorial lecture, at the 13th sancahs symposium, cape town, 6 september 2007. 86 for more in this respect see jwn tempelhoff, v munnik and m viljoen, “the vaal river barrage, south africa’s hardest working water way: an historical contemplation” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 3(1), july 2007, pp. 107-134. 87 see ej and jwn tempelhoff, “a story of two dams: government, industry and civil society in north-eastern south africa 1994-2007” in new contree, 53, may 2007, pp. 31-55. 88 ej and jwn tempelhoff, “the community, industry and the quest for a clean vaal river 1997-2004” in s hood-washington, p rosier and h goodall (eds.), echoes from the poisoned well: global memories of environmental injustice, (lexington publishers, united states of america, 2006). 89 jwn tempelhoff, civil society and sanitation hydropolitics: a case study of south africa’s vaal river barrage (2008, forthcoming). 90 co staples, mills of southern africa: water, wind and horse, (umdaus press, hatfield, 2006). 91 j walton, water-mills, windmills and horse-mills of south africa, (c struik, cape town, 1974). 92 j haarhoff, “water and beverages on deic ships between the netherlands and the cape: 1602-1795” in historia, 52(1) 2007, pp. 127-154. 93 j haarhoff, p juuti and h mäki, “a short comparative history of wells and toilets in south africa and finland” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(1), july 2006, pp. 103-130. tempelhoff 291 initiative on the history of water transfer technology to gauteng.94 in the field of the cultural history of water, gouws recently completed research on domestic water supply and sanitation in the rural pioneer highveld home in the period 1840-1910.95 this study sheds light on the manner in which water technology was transferred from the urban to the rural domestic environment in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. it forms part of a more comprehensive project that is currently under way on the history of the vaal river.96 the recent wrc publication, our water our culture: a glimpse into the water history of the south african people, also provides some valuable overviews on south africa’s water history from a cultural and anthropological perspective.97 an important social science project of the water research commission since 2000 has been the hydropolitical history of transboundary water in southern africa.98 turton, formerly of the university of pretoria, and currently at south africa’s council for scientific and industrial research (csir), led the project, which was notable for its vast trajectory of sub-continental water research work aimed at incorporating the theoretical approaches of the political science concept of hydropolitics. hydropolitics, first pioneered by waterbury in the middle east,99 has become a popular field of research for water historians. the zimbabwean historian, muchaparara musemwa, working in south africa, has also recently produced research results in the field.100 related to hydropolitical history is research on big dam projects. the lesotho highlands water project (lhwp), completed in 1996, is one 94 j haarhoff and jwn tempelhoff, “water supply to the witwatersrand (gauteng) 1924-2003” in journal for contemporary history, 32(2), december 2007, pp. 95114. 95 c gouws, water en sanitasie in die landelike hoëveldse woning 1840-1910: ‘n kultuurhistoriese studie, (ma, north-west university, vanderbijlperk, 2007). 96 see jwn tempelhoff, “water and the human culture of appropriation: the vaal river up to 1956” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431-452. 97 l van vuuren (ed.), m nel, s van damme and e braune, our water our culture: a glimpse into the water history of the south african people, (water research commmission, pretoria, 2007). 98 ar turton, r meissner, pm mampane & o seremo, a hydropolitical history of south africa’s international river basins. wrc report no. 1220/1/04. (water research commission, pretoria, october 2004). 99 jwn tempelhoff, “‘n historiografiese verkenning van watergeskiedenis” koers, 70(3) 2005, p. 493. 100 m musemwa, “’disciplining a dissident city’: hydropolitics in the city of bulawayo, matabeleland, zimbabwe, 1980-1994” in journal of southern african studies, 32(2), june 2006, pp. 239-254; m musemwa, struggles over water: the history and politics of urban water supply services in makokoba township, bulawayo, zimbabwe, 1894-1992, (phd, university of minnesota, 2003). recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 292 of the major water schemes in africa and initially attracted favourable comment. however, by the early 2000s critical scholarship on the scheme was evident in the work of thabane, who pointed to the effects of what appears to have been the indiscriminate relocation of people from for the construction site of the mohale dam.101 there has also been work by bracking, who reported on corrupt practices in the project,102 and subsequently there has also been negative comment in the scholarship of mwangi.103 this research suggests that the history of transnational hydropolitics will still feature for some time to come on the agenda for researchers of southern african water history. linked to work on the lhwp is the history of major hydro-electricity schemes, such as the grand inga104 and cahora basa facilities.105 research on hydroelectric power generation is currently an important issue at a time of increasing power shortages, not only in south africa but elsewhere on the continent.106 the historiography on hydropower and trans-boundary water supply systems in southern africa presents a challenge to researchers. there is a wealth of themes that require exploration. for example, there are interesting international and local debates on the impact of hydro-electrical technology on the aquatic environment. it seems as if the advantages and disadvantages of hydropower will in the not too distant future be weighed up against the alternative of nuclear power generation. in the process, the desirability of large dams can be opened for discussion again, as was the case in the 1990s and early 2000s when extensive international deliberations were the order of the day, under the auspices of the 101 m thabane, shifts from the old to new social and ecological environments in the lesotho highlands water scheme: relocating residents of the mohale dam area” in journal of southern african studies, 26(4), december 2000, (special issue on african environments: past and present), pp. 633-654. 102 s bracking, “the lesotho highlands corruption trial: who has been airbrushed from the dock?” in review of african political economy, 28(88), special issue on africa’s future: that sinking feeling, june 2001, pp. 302306. 103 o mwangi, “hydropolitics, ecocide and human security in lesotho: a case study of the lesotho highlands water project” in journal of southern african studies, 23(1), march 2007, pp. 3-17. 104 see sj wachter, “giant dam projects aim to transform african power supplies” in international herald tribune, 2007.06. at http://www.iht.com/ articles/2007/06/19/business/rnrghydro.php 105 unep, africa: atlas of our changing environment, (united nations environmental programme, nairobi, 2008), pp. 252-253. 106 for a contemporary impression of the history of the power outages in south africa in early 2008, see jwn tempelhoff, “bloot ‘n vrees vir verval? ‘n mentaliteitsgeskiedenis van kragonderbrekings in suid-afrika: januarieapril 2008”, paper resented at the national conference of the south african society for cultural history, pretoria, 16-7 may 2008. tempelhoff 293 international commission of large dams (icold).107 looking towards the future from the discussion thus far it is evident that water history as a discipline has relied extensively on a variety of related fields in the study of water. this is most evident from the evolutionary development of the international water history association (iwha), the disciplinary institution that has as the primary objective to promote the study of water history in the international domain. water researchers in other parts of the world have been active in the field of water history for a many years. networking was traditionally confined to academic societies that were seldom dedicated to the pursuit of specialised interests in water history. it was only in 1999 – as a result of the strongly expressed need for coordination – that the iwha was founded in wales.108 the society currently has about 700 members. not all are historians. most participants at the biennial conferences of the association have been trained in other disciplines. what binds members together are two basic issues: locating sources of knowledge on water in the past; and using history as a primary or secondary vehicle for the better understanding of the water realm. judging from attendance trends at iwha conferences (held thus far in bergen (2001), alexandra (2003), paris (2005) and tampere (2007)) there is a lively interest in the field. the iwha is perhaps one of the most important institutional structures at our disposal to promote greater cohesion and constructive debate on the nature of water history and trends for future development. similarly, in sub-saharan africa the field of past perspectives on water has generated wide interest. african researchers and their african studies counterparts have not been idle. the drakensberg conference of 2008, under the auspices of the iwha, the south africa’s water research commission (wrc) and north-west university (nwu), was the second conference of its kind since 2004 in sub-saharan africa. indications are that the field of specialisation in water history on the continent is alive and well.109 it only requires more encouragement and a greater commitment to communication between researchers. currently there is a need for greater transdisciplinary research in 107 for more on this visit the website of the international commission of large dams (icold) at http://www.icold-cigb.net/pagearticle.aspx?ssmenu=210# 108 m reuss, “historians, historical analysis, and international water politics” in the public historian, 26(1), winter 2004, pp. 65-79. 109 a number of the papers presented at the conference were subsequently published in a book. see jwn tempelhoff (ed.), african water histories: transdisciplinary discourses, (north-west university vanderbijlpark, 2005). recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 271-296. 294 southern africa. in the field of contemporary water studies it is important for historians in the region, in collaboration with water specialists who are interested in water history, to seek closer collaboration. a sound example of this nature is recent work conducted by lumby, an economist and economic historian, who has collaborated with matete and rwelamira on aspects of water management history as part of a project for the southern african development community (sadc).110 many conventional historians still pursue their discipline from a tradition of writing critical narrative history with a strong accent on individualised interpretations, methodologically rooted in the framework of the classical hermeneutic approach. these historians have a valuable role to play and their particular approach to water history should be respected when they participate in collaborative projects.111 this will serve to prevent potential misunderstanding and acrimony. at the same time, in an era when the study of water history as a discipline has become varied and multi-faceted, historians need to explore the potential of multi-disciplinary collaboration, to open up new frontiers and new methods in the field. theoretical work in europe, such as that of kaivo-oja, katko and seppälä,112 aimed at linking history and futures studies in research, is an example of what would typically pass for hydrohistory in contemporary collaborative research initiatives. currently unesco’s international hydrological programme (ihp) tends to support the shift to ecohydrology – an area that takes particular note of ecology (environment) in the study of hydrology-related research.113 the approach of being open to transdisciplinarity and mode ii-trends, as is the case in tertiary-level teaching and research in many parts of the world, suggests that history as a discipline will continue to develop as part of a discourse that is intended to generate research results that are relevant to society.114 110 a lumby, m matete and j rwelamira, “the management of south africa’s water resources, with paticular reference to the period 1956-1998” in the south african journal of economic history, 20(2), september 2005, pp. 83-108. 111 for some insight into difficulties that can emerge, see m reuss, “historians, historical analysis, and international water politics” in the public historian, 26(1), winter 2004, pp. 65-79. 112 yj kaivo-oja, ts katko and ot seppälä, “seeking convergence between history and futures research” in futures, 36(5) june 2004, pp. 527-547. for an example of the application of this theoretical approach, see ps juuti and ts katko (eds.), from a few to all: long-term development of water and environmental services in finland, (rt-print oy, pieksämäki, 2004). 113 see mc lemos, j recharte and c-t chang, integration of social science in the unesco’s ecohydrology programme, (report submitted by unesco’s ecohydrology programme special science task force, ann arbor, 2007.04.18. 114 m gibbons, c limoges and h nowotny (reds), the new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies, (sage publications, thousand oaks, 1994). tempelhoff 295 from the perspective of potential research funding and human resource management at universities and research institutions, the demand for greater transdisciplinary may well have a profound impact on monolithic scientific disciplines in future. a field of investigation that deserves more attention from water historians is heritage and tourism studies. clynnick’s chapter on the hartebeespoort irrigation scheme forms part of a study on the famous ‘cradle of humankind’ heritage site in south africa’s gauteng province. other themes addressed in a search for origins: science, history and south africa’s ‘cradle of humankind’, include the history of science, palaeontology and the reappraisal of the heritage region – a major tourism destination in the south african interior.115 in 2003 the gauteng-based water utility, rand water, celebrated its centenary. considerable attention was given to the history of potable water supply services to gauteng and the neighbouring mpumalanga, north west province and parts of the northern free state.116 it became evident that using the water utility as a focal point it would be possible (for example in the vaal triangle, where much of rand water’s water is processed) to develop opportunities to promote water heritage in a region that is bound to enter a phase of post-industrialisation in the future. for some time to come the management history of south africa’s water resources and water catchments should be a priority in research. a recent publication by the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) provides an overview of south africa’s water supply and service delivery history in the period 1994-2004. written from the perspective of aligning the country’s water services sector with the more comprehensive millennium development goals (mdg), it provides information on some of the major accomplishments achieved in the new government’s first decade. it also highlights the integrated legislation introduced and is generally informative on some of the problems experienced at governance level.117 the work can be of value for water historians as a platform to further research. however, one prerequisite would be to be access to primary source materials. the management of water for irrigation farming, which remains one of 115 see t clynick, “white south africa’s weak sons: poor whites and the hartebeespoort dam” in p bonner, a esterhuysen and t jenkins (eds.), a search for origins: science, history and south africa’s ‘cradle of humankind’, (wits university press, johannesburg, 2007), pp. 248-273. 116 see rand water, 100 years of excellence 1903-2003, (rand water, glenvista, 2004); m bonner and p lekgoathi, rand water 1903-2003, (creda communications, johannesburg [?], 2004); jwn tempelhoff, the substance of ubiquity: rand water 1903-2003, (kleio, vanderbijlpark, 2003). 117 rsa, department of water affairs and forestry, a history of the first decade of water service delivery in south africa 1994-2004, (department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), pretoria n.d.). recent trends in water historiography td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 297-300. 296 the major sectors of water consumption in south africa, is important. more work, similar to the recent study by beinart, for example,118 needs to be done. finally, south africa’s water history remains a project in the process of change and on-going development. it is evident that scholarship in the field can and should be expanded. in particular there is an urgent need for historians and natural scientists to work together. the work of mccarthy, venter and ellery on the klip river is indicative of a valuable area for research collaboration between historians and natural scientists.119 waterborne disease is currently responsible for the deaths annually of an estimated 1,6 billion children in all parts of the world. in south africa there have been some serious outbreaks of typhus. of particular significance were those in delmas in the mpumalanga province in 2005; and there were indications of a new outbreak in 2007. the findings of recent health sciences research on the state of water-based disease in south africa in 2000, offer a sound starting point for collaborative research by historians and their colleagues in the health sciences.120 of particular importance here is the quantitative analysis and contemporary history of sewage pollution in south africa’s rivers by de villiers and thiart.121 what now remains to be done is for historians to fill in the detail with discourses human behaviour and interaction in the past. work of this nature is of substantive importance for researchers interested in locating developmental trends in the country’s water governance structures. this will inform our historical insight on the processes of institutional change over time. it would also be meaningful to look at strategies in transdisciplinary research methodologies that can integrate levels and forms of knowledge over a broad spectrum.122 118 w beinart, the rise of conservation in south africa: settlers, livestock, and the environment 1770, (oxford university press, oxford, 2003), pp. 158-194. 119 ts mccarthy, v arnold, j venter and wn ellery, “the collapse of johannesburg’s klip river wetland: research article” in south african journal of science, 103(9&10), september-october 2007, pp. 391-397. 120 s lewin, r norman, e thomas and d bradshaw, “estimating the burden of disease attributable to unsafe water and lack of sanitation and hygiene in south africa in south african medical journal, 97(8) august 2007, pp. 755776. 121 s de villiers and c thiart, “the nutrient status of south african rivers: concentrations, trends and fluxes from the 1970s to 2005: research article” in south african journal of science, 103(7&8) july-august, 2007, pp. 343-349. 122 in this respect, see for example strategies that have been introduced in europe in c pohl, g hirsch hadorn, principles for designing transdisciplinary research: proposed by the swiss academies of arts and sciences (oekom verlag, munich, 2007) tempelhoff << /ascii85encodepages false /allowtransparency false /autopositionepsfiles true /autorotatepages /all /binding /left 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10(1) july 2014, pp. 187-200. increasing self-efficacy in learning to program: exploring the benefits of explicit instruction for problem solving i govender,1 dw govender,2 m havenga,3 e mentz,4 b breed,5 f dignum6 and v dignum7 abstract the difficulty of learning to program has long been identified amongst novices. this study explored the benefits of teaching a problem solving strategy by comparing students’ perceptions and attitudes towards problem solving before and after the strategy was implemented in secondary schools. based on self-efficacy theory, students’ problem solving self-efficacy as well as teachers’ self-efficacy were investigated, showing that both students’ and teachers’ self-efficacy may have benefited from the explicit instruction. this would imply that teaching problem solving explicitly should be encouraged to increase self-efficacy to program. keywords: programming, problem solving, teaching and learning, self-efficacy 1. introduction common problems with introductory programming courses at universities and secondary schools include inadequate learning outcomes and consequently low pass rates (kinnunen & simon, 2012). several studies (for example, kinnunen & simon, 2012; govender & govender, 2012) have pointed out the successes and difficulties experienced by students in introductory programming courses. problem solving has been shown to be one of the key concerns, as it carries a high cognitive load. while a number of instructional methods and strategies have been proposed (see lau & yuen, 2009), to date, learning to program still poses difficulties, which in turn contributes to the low pass rates. for instance, a study that analysed the first year attrition rate in computer programming courses revealed that the main 1 . corresponding author: dr irene govender, discipline of information systems and technology, university of kwazulu-natal, govenderi4@ukzn.ac.za 2 . dr desmond w govender, discipline of computer science education, university of kwazulu-natal, govenderd50@ukzn.ac.za 3 . dr marietjie havenga is attached to the faculty of education sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom. email: marietjie.havenga@nwu.ac.za 4 . prof elsa mentz is attached to the faculty of education sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom. email: elsa.mentz@nwu.ac.za 5 . dr betty breed is attached to the faculty of education sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom. email: betty.breed@nwu.ac.za 6 . prof frank dignum, utrecht university, utrecht, the netherlands, dignum@cs.uu.nl 7 . prof virginia dignum, delft university, delft, the netherland, m.v.dignum@tudelft.nl govender, govender, havenga, mentz, breed, dignum & dignum 188 challenge faced by students is a lack of problem-solving skills (ford & venema, 2010). according to ismail, ngah, and umar (2010) a number of aspects of programming are not being taught explicitly. hasni & lodhi’s (2011) study affirms this belief that teaching problem solving requires more than giving practice exercises to be solved; rather, the actual processes of problem solving must be taught. in the context of changing computer languages and technologies, professional development becomes critical for teacher growth (govender et al., 2013). mentz et al’s (2012) investigation of information technology (it) teachers in economically deprived schools in south africa revealed that many teachers lack the technical skill and pedagogical content knowledge. to address these challenges, a team of researchers implemented a support programme for a small group of it teachers. the overall goal of the programme was to improve the quality of learning and teaching programming across six secondary schools across two provinces in south africa. this article reports on one aspect of the implementation of the support programme, which is the teaching of problem solving and the resulting benefits thereof. specifically, the paper seeks to answer the following question: how does the explicit instruction of problem-solving affect students’ self-efficacy to program? this paper begins with a brief discussion of some of the literature relevant to the study of problem solving and self-efficacy, as this enables us to locate our approach to the problem of learning computer programming. transdisciplinary perspectives from psychology, teachereducation and computer programming are integrated to address the issue of problem solving as it relates to programming. self-efficacy and its related concepts, which have their foundations in social psychology, were used to suggest a conceptual framework for this study. in the next section the conceptual framework explaining the link between teaching explicit problem solving strategy and improved self-efficacy in programming is provided. the transdisciplinary approach integrates the process of self-efficacy analysis with insights borrowed from teacher education and programming in order to solve the practical problem referred to above. a description of the methodology is provided, followed by the analysis and a discussion of the key findings. the article concludes by suggesting that explicit problem solving instruction should be encouraged as it improves learners’ as well as teachers’ selfefficacy in programming. 2. review of related literature it is a commonly held view that programming is a complex and difficult task for secondary students; it requires skills such as problem-solving, abstraction, mathematical logic and testing, debugging and troubleshooting (saeli, perrent, jochens & zwaneveld, 2011). problem-solving lies at the heart of programming and many recent studies focus on this high-level skill as the key issue in programming (govender, 2010; lau & yuen, 2009). the process of developing an algorithm – a step-by-step list of instructions for solving an instance of a problem is referred to as problem-solving. programming is an integral part of computer science and its related fields. it has been shown that the number of students participating in computer courses in secondary schools has been declining, internationally (downes & looker, 2011). anecdotal evidence suggests the same locally. more specifically, there is some speculation that the difficulty experienced by students in programming may contribute to the low number of students choosing to study computer science (maddrey, 2011) or information technology (it), as it is referred to in secondary schools in south africa. programming is a self-efficacy in learning to program: benefits of explicit instruction td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 187200. 189 major component of it and if we understand what leads to success in programming, it might be possible to attract more students to study it. the importance of the need to engage students in explicit problem-solving strategies to improve self-efficacy in the field is reflected in the paper. this study is driven by the commitment to engage in the explicit instruction of problem-solving strategies, and by the low number of students choosing to study computer science or it. not much has been written about it secondary students’ problem-solving ability and it teachers in the provinces under investigation. in this study, we explore another aspect that could have an effect on students’ performance: self-efficacy to program. seturaman and medley (2009) indicated that students’ beliefs about their self-efficacy in programming could be used to determine how well the students are doing in their programming courses. furthermore, it has long been known that self-efficacy is an important motivation for learning (zimmerman, 2000). in a related study, askar and davenport (2009) identified factors such as gender, computer experience and family usage of computers as variables that are related to self-efficacy in general. jegede (2009) established that prior programming experience of the novice learner did predict java programming selfefficacy. although previous studies have addressed approaches to teaching programming (hasni & lodhi, 2011) and factors that affect students’ self-efficacy in relation to programming success (seturaman & medley, 2009), few, if any, have addressed the relationship between problemsolving efficacy and success in programming. bandura (1994: 71) defines self-efficacy as “people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives,” and states that these beliefs “determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave”. maddrey (2011) determined that problem solving is one of the main factors that make programming difficult. in this study, it was surmised that with appropriate introduction to problem-solving, a student would become adept at thinking through the processes for different programming problems. at the same time, as students work with the problem, they may increase their self-efficacy in programming. we sought to explore the effects of teaching a problem-solving strategy explicitly. 3. conceptual framework some research in self-efficacy advocates that teachers would gain more insight by considering not only students’ actual competence, but also their perceptions of their competence. according to hackett and betz (1989), students’ motivation and future academic preferences may be based on these perceptions. as noted earlier, researchers have shown that selfefficacy beliefs strongly influence the choice of majors and career decisions of students. however, it was made known that in some cases a lack of competence or ability was not necessarily to be blamed for avoiding computer courses, but that unreasonably low perceptions of self-efficacy were the cause (hackett & betz, 1989). school and teaching practices that foster both competence and the necessary accompanying confidence should be identified, as well as practices that “convert instructional experiences into education in efficacy” (bandura, 1997: 5-12). bandura (2006) further argues that studies of teacher efficacy and the effect that teachers’ self-beliefs have on their practices and student outcomes, will help explain how teachers’ beliefs influence students’ beliefs and achievement. according to the european commission (2010), when teachers have a strong sense of self-efficacy they become more resourceful in govender, govender, havenga, mentz, breed, dignum & dignum 190 their work, by persevering in and strengthening their efforts in order to meet their goals. hence teachers’ sense of self-efficacy can influence the learning and motivation of students. in an earlier study, bandura (1986) emphasised that being involved with the specific task experience—in this case problem-solving in programming—is the most effective source of self-efficacy information, in that it has critical implications for education. this implies that educational efforts should therefore focus on improving students’ self-beliefs in order to improve achievement, even if success is not immediately obtainable, but achievable in the long term. stated differently, self-efficacy beliefs influence human behaviour through cognitive, motivational, affective, and decisional processes. they affect whether individuals think in self-enhancing or self-weakening ways, and how well they motivate themselves and persevere in the face of difficulties (bandura & locke, 2003). in order to provide a theoretical lens to study the degree of confidence and motivation that students have in performing the problem-solving activities, we formulated a framework. this framework was based on the concepts of self-efficacy for the specific task of problem solving in programming. bandura (2006: 307) states that “the efficacy belief system is not a global trait but a differentiated set of self-beliefs linked to distinct realms of functioning.” there is no “one measure fits all” perceived self-efficacy. we identified concepts within the domain of problem solving with regard to specific tasks, using efficacy theory on the interpretive concept “i can” (bandura, 2006). by the process of concept-driven and axial coding – explained further in the analysis section – the following seven dimensions of the learning experience were identified: enjoyable and supportive, solving simple problems, solving complex problems, perseverance, self-regulation, confidence boosting, overcoming difficulties. these dimensions corresponded with the efficacy scale for computer programming as presented by ramalingam and wiedenbeck (1998), which has been validated in a number of studies (for example, jegede, 2009, askar & davenport, 2009). 4. methods and materials 4.1 procedure this qualitative study followed an interpretive, descriptive and exploratory approach. the study focuses on the participants’ perceptions and experiences of using the problem solving strategy taught which is characteristic of the qualitative approach. creswell (2003) indicates that exploratory studies are most advantageous when little has been written about the phenomenon or the population being studied. the study is located within a larger project that aimed at supporting and developing it teachers’ practice particularly in rural schools. the project included professional development for it teachers, specifically with regard to teaching strategies in programming in order to improve students’ programming skills. one such strategy was for problem solving and was labelled ‘explicit instruction for problem solving’. the strategy was first work-shopped with the teachers before they implemented it in their grade 10 classes. a comprehensive handbook was developed that indicated the problem-solving activities to be followed as well as a number of relevant exercises with the corresponding activities required. table 1 presents a snapshot of the problem-solving activities involved in the strategy. self-efficacy in learning to program: benefits of explicit instruction td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 187200. 191 t a b l e 1 : t h e p r o b l e m s o l v i n g a c t i v i t i e s f r a m e w o r k ( a d a p t e d f r o m p r o b l e m s o l v i n g a c t i v i t i e s : s a n p a d p r o j e c t , m . h a v e n g a , 2 0 1 1 ) main problem-solving activities 1. write down the main ideas and requirements of the problem. -read the problem and underline the key concepts to understand and interpret the question clearly. -determine what you do not understand. 2. represent the problem by using a diagram, table, flow chart, description or any other method to indicate how you understand the problem. 3. plan the detailed steps -determine the purpose of each method. -plan the input, processing and output. -go back to step 1 and check whether you are on the right track. 4. code your planning in a programming language. -determine which code/constructs you will use to input the data. -which statements will you use to process or calculate the data? -which statements will you use to display the output? -compile the program and correct the programming errors. 5. reflect on how well you have solved the problem. -use test data and ensure that the extreme cases of test data are included. -how did you choose the test data and extreme values? -explain if you could correct any programming errors. -did you use resources to support your programming process? -are you satisfied with your solution? explain. 4.2 participants students from six classes from six secondary schools from two provinces in south africa participated in the project “empowering it teachers in economically deprived rural schools”. a total of 96 students and six teachers participated in the project. 4.3 data collection data was obtained using three instruments, namely, questionnaires, interviews and journals. during the data collection process, the concept of self-efficacy emerged as an important aspect in the project as is characteristic of grounded theory. for the purposes of this report, self-efficacy was then used as the conceptual framework for one aspect of the project. while it is common practice to assess students’ self-efficacy by asking them to rate their confidence according to some scale, it is considered just as valid to engage students in self-regulatory strategies in writing specifically about the problem at hand in response to probing questions (shell, colvin & bruning, 1995). there are various ways to measure self-efficacy (pajares, 1997). in general, when assessing self-efficacy, a rating scale may be used with particular emphasis on the subject area needed (pajares, 1997). in this study, students’ thinking processes were elicited from the questionnaires in order to determine students’ self-efficacy govender, govender, havenga, mentz, breed, dignum & dignum 192 with regard to problem-solving as it relates to programming. similarly, the interviews and journal entries served the purpose in determining the teachers’ self-efficacy. 4.3.1 questionnaires two sets of questionnaires, in the form of a comprehensive worksheet (eliciting respondents’ thinking processes) were used in the study. the first questionnaire was administered before the problem solving strategy was taught. it included a problem to be solved – students were asked to show their calculations, and explain their thinking process and any difficulties they may have experienced as well as how they overcame them. after the teachers had taught the problem solving strategy over a month-long period, a second questionnaire was then administered, which included another problem of comparable level to what was done in the first questionnaire. participants answered questions regarding the given tasks with respect to whether they thought they had solved them, their experience in using the problem-solving activities (strategy), whether the problem-solving activities supported them in their programming, their difficulties encountered and how they overcame these difficulties. the questionnaires were administered to the students with the assistance of their teachers during their normal class time. 4.3.2 interviews and journal entries in order to obtain an overall understanding of the process and experiences of both students and teachers, and the teachers’ views of the students’ experiences, semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers. these semi-structured interviews were meant to determine their views of problem-solving before and after they implemented the problem-solving strategy. they also kept a journal of entries – indicating their challenges, problems and achievements – as each lesson was taught for the duration of the intervention. using the students’ responses from the questionnaire, we were able to triangulate the data for validity and reliability. 4.4 analysis the data in the questionnaires were arranged and coded according to a list of a priori themes — a process known as concept-driven coding (gibbs, 2010) – based on the theory of selfefficacy to determine their perceptions of solving the given problems before and after the strategy was taught. the two coding procedures that are characteristic of grounded theory — open and axial coding — were used to further analyse the text data; moving backwards and forwards between both approaches to coding (gibbs, 2010). both concept-driven, and open and axial coding can be used concurrently to arrive at a set of appropriate categories. in the open coding process, themes were identified and named. axial coding was then used to find relationships between the different themes to form more abstract categories. a brief description of data captured before and after the strategy was taught is presented. both sets of results were compared and analysis conducted. the data was collected and analysed by a team of researchers in the project thus ensuring researcher triangulation and validity of the study. 5. ethical measures in this study, ethical measures included assurance of anonymity and obtaining the informed consent of teachers and students, as well as permission from the department of education and the university to conduct the research. the aims of the study and methodologies were communicated to all of the participants in the project. it was made clear to all participants that they could withdraw from the process at any stage and that their decision to participate self-efficacy in learning to program: benefits of explicit instruction td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 187200. 193 or not would in no way be viewed negatively by the project facilitators and researchers. however, while students’ consent was obtained for their participation and use of their work for analysis, their participation was directly related to the teachers’ consent as well. this meant that if teachers withdrew, then the respective students would not be able to participate. we believe these measures allowed us to meet the standards that can be considered appropriate when conducting research in an ethically acceptable manner. 6. findings and discussion this section reports on the main findings and suggests possible implications of the use of the teaching strategy for affecting student self-efficacy towards programming. specifically it reports on students’ experiences with the strategy, teachers’ responses regarding their experiences with the teaching strategy, and the problems encountered. supporting quotations from students and teachers with regard to the framework for self-efficacy are presented. in addition, a brief description of the statistics regarding the responses in the questionnaires before and after the strategy was taught is given. 6.1 students’ experiences of solving a problem before the introduction of the strategy from 95 pre-questionnaires received, only four students obtained the correct answer to the problem given as part of the questionnaire (see appendix a for the problem). however, 26 students believed that they had obtained the correct answer, 34 were not certain that they had solved the problem and 35 students believed that they had not solved the problem. the majority (73%) of the students were not able to overcome the difficulties that they experienced. it is clear from the data obtained in the questionnaire that most students showed no planning in their solutions to the problem. the written responses to the question “explain how you solved the problem”, showed very little planning or no planning at all and a misguided approach to their thinking. because of the large dataset, it would not be feasible to quote all the explanations; however, some typical explanations of their workings are given below: i multiplied the amount with copies and then i added it amounts that were the answer then added them all together then come out with final answer. i calculated all the money and multiplied it all and then at the end i come out with a total. from their explanations, we identified the students’ perceptions of problem solving in programming. the main themes identified in the students’ responses to the question, “if you experienced any difficulties, did you overcome them? if so, how?” were frustration and not being able to overcome their difficulties. some quoted examples of student responses to the question are given in table 2 below. govender, govender, havenga, mentz, breed, dignum & dignum 194 t a b l e 2 : e x a m p l e s o f s t u d e n t r e s p o n s e s p r i o r t o l e a r n i n g t h e p r o b l e m s o l v i n g s t e p s e x p l i c i t l y yes i did experience some difficulties but the worse thing is that i did not overcome them because i did know how to calculate difficulties that i have faced is that i have not manage[d] where to start and finish. i didn’t overcome the difficulties because i don’t understand yes, i got some difficulties but not that difficult and i overcame them by reading to understand, that is the important rule for reading. after i understand the problem and then i made the calculations no, because the difficulties that were there are worrying me especially when comes to calculations of that were there. i get frustrated and try to work through the problem, but it depends on what kind of problem it is. it was hard for me to start but if you are a it learner you have to open minded so that you can able to overcome any programming problems. i tried by all means to solve it by myself. i didn’t overcome the difficulties that i have faced, i’m not even sure of my answer i did not overcome them it was hard to solve and i was solving it alone no formula no understanding i tried in any way to solve it by counting in any other way i heard to but the problem was too hard to solve and it was complicated. given that these students had chosen to study it, one would have expected a certain level of interest from them and to some extent the motivation to learn it. these two aspects are part of self-efficacy. it would appear that their sense of self-efficacy in relation to problem solving was relatively low. the self-efficacy perceptions identified in section 3, (namely, enjoyable and supportive, solving simple problems, solving complex problems, perseverance, self-regulation, confidence boosting, and overcoming difficulties) were not discernible in the dataset obtained before the problem –solving strategy was implemented. 6.2 students’ experiences of solving a problem after the implementation of the strategy after the students were explicitly taught problem solving using a specific framework, they used the strategy to solve all problems they were given as new constructs in programming were taught. this framework was then used throughout the teaching and learning process. after a period of approximately five weeks, the second questionnaire on problem solving was administered. the response from students regarding the problem-solving strategy was overwhelmingly positive, and their confidence level in problem solving had increased significantly. using concept-driven and open coding, seven categories or concepts were identified in the responses given in the post-questionnaire, three of which relate to their views of the problemsolving strategy (activities) used. the next four categories were based on self-efficacy theory with emphasis on the interpretive meaning “i can” in their explanations. table 3 lists these concepts together with extracts from the data that contributed to their identification. self-efficacy in learning to program: benefits of explicit instruction td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 187200. 195 t a b l e 3 : t h e i d e n t i f i e d c o n c e p t s w i t h e x a m p l e s o f e v i d e n c e f r o m t h e d a t a concepts/category excerpts from questionnaires in support of the concepts/categories identified supportive and enjoyable using the problem solving activities [framework] to solve problems they were challenging and enjoyable. they make you think and make you use the skills you have acquired in programming […..] were very interesting because some of them it was for the first time we met with them and they became very educational and not only at a programming level. it helps me because it has an easy way to explain about steps you can follow to solve a programming problem. without the problem-solving activities it will be like trying to cut a plank with your hand. solving simple problems problem solving activities helped in making me aware of how to step by step approach programming problems. so i enjoyed them very much because they made programming understandable with their algorithm solutions and also made programming seem easy and interesting. problem solving activities were a fun topic to deal with and i hope to meet with them again because they bring out the inner thinking abilities of a programmer. it help me to understand and it give me some instruction to know how can i start a simple program or a class and it give me some point to plan to develop a program. handle complex programming tasks i find the problems easier to solve because they [teach] learn you how to solve it step by step, how to separate the problem into 2 or more parts so that it becomes easier to solve. yes it helps you clearly identify your input, process and output especially with the long programs perseverance the experience you get is that you can do [this] problems and you will attempt other problems knowing that you can or you are able to solve the problems on your own without any help from the teacher or other students. expectation of difficulties on the problem lead me to hard concentration and communicating with a partner how we are going to break it and then we came up with solutions. the problem that i experienced is that i forgot how the range in calculated. i overcame my difficulty by going to a search engine called google that’s where i found all the methods of data handling and i chose the formula for range. self-regulation it is the key to knowing or understanding information technology. problem-solving activities define almost everything we need to know and with the help of the professor you adapt easily to problem solving activities. reason: it has boost my understanding of it or the computer itself. i now know the uses and functioning of the computer. yes i think it supports me because it gives me a chance to solve a programming problem by following steps and asking me questions that will help me in order to correctly solve the problem that i was given. govender, govender, havenga, mentz, breed, dignum & dignum 196 confidence boosting the problem solving activities was more enjoyable i really felt proud after completing it. i realize the difficulties in examples 5 and 6 because it was little bit challenging for me, but i tried my level best to overcome, it is that which brings frustration in my problem solving activities but at least i manage to [learn] design. the problem-solving activities were challenging but they were also enjoyable and i managed to see how problemsolving activities could boost you to solve the problem and your skills in programming. yes because they help me to write the questions in my own words so that i can understand them better overcoming difficulties i experienced some difficulties during solving the problem and i overcame them by researching information, discussing the problem with other learners who are doing it and then explained to each other and now we solved the problem. …. i experienced problems in determining which value is the largest between average and range midpoint so i referred back to the textbook and i chose (from several options) the if-then else statements to approach the problem. the activities that formed part of the problem-solving strategy came forward as particularly significant in increasing their confidence. more importantly, the challenge of following the strategy in trying to solve the problems gave the students immense satisfaction (problemsolving activities were challenging but they were also enjoyable and i managed to see how problemsolving activities could boost you to solve the problem and your skills in programming…). the enjoyment of completing the task contributed to their satisfaction as well. the activities of the strategy and the questionnaire forced students to think about what they were doing and to reflect on their actions. this self-regulatory process enhanced their motivation. hence planning and perseverance became apparent because of their enjoyment and boosted confidence. in following the activities of the problem-solving strategy, students were able to handle simple problems as well as complex problems. even though it was not always feasible to use all the activities for very simple problems (as indicated by a learner: “i don’t think it supports me that much because sometimes when you program the program doesn’t run. i find this frustrating and nerve-racking”), they were able to use it for the complex problems. overcoming their difficulties emerged as an important factor, in terms of firstly not giving up easily, then researching information by reading further on aspects that were not clear (e.g. understanding the meaning of the range midpoint), and finally discussing the problem with their peers. of the 96 responses received in the second questionnaire, only 10 students obtained the correct answer to the given problem (see appendix: post-problem). however, 44 students believed that they had obtained the correct answer or solved it partially, 36 were not certain that they had solved the problem and 16 students believed that they had not solved the problem. the majority (89%) of the students were able to overcome the difficulties that they experienced and were willing to use the strategy. only 10 students were uncertain about the success and confidence attained in using the strategy. even though they were not sure, there is still an element of potential use for the improvement of problem solving in programming. self-efficacy in learning to program: benefits of explicit instruction td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 187200. 197 some quotations from students who were unsure of how these activities helped them are reproduced below. i don’t think these problem-solving activities help, i just prefer solving the problem directly by typing the program. but they do help sometimes when trying to create a program that performs multiple functions but it is time consuming. no because sometimes the problem will be too demanding from you and it would sometimes require you to think very hard. sometimes problem-solving activities are confusing and require your full concentration and cooperation. while a small percentage (10%) of students obtained the correct answer in the postquestionnaire, the improved self-belief in problem solving was achieved. this improved selfefficacy is evident from the responses ascertained in the preand post-questionnaires. although only a few more (6%) students managed to solve the problems after, their perceived self-efficacy in programming has increased considerably – a step towards improving ability. the small number of correct solutions may be attributed to the problem given in that many students did not understand the meaning of range midpoint. improved performance outcome may not be immediately evident, but according to literature (e.g. zimmerman, 2000), improved self-efficacy is one of the many factors that can help improve efforts and in turn improve performance outcome in the longer term. 6.3 teachers’ experiences of using the strategy to teach problem solving in programming the interview transcripts suggest that teachers were also pleased with the framework used to teach problem-solving. some excerpts from teachers’ interviews and journals follow: …i see the difference in using the ps strategy…[t1] ‘yes, i think it teachers would benefit from the support [we received]. it goes back to problem solving skills’. [t2] ‘it was two-way, i was learning with my learners while i was implementing this [ps strategy]’. [t3] ‘i think this is the strategy that i will use when i introduce problem solving’. [t4] ‘i find it very interesting.’[t5] ‘the method i was using before was difficult, now it is much easier and they are happy’. [t6] teachers found the framework to be helpful. it forced the students to plan before typing on the computer. the fourth quotation above indicates willingness on the part of the teacher to use this approach not only during the course of the project but to continue doing so. the excerpts above further suggest that teachers are motivated to use this strategy, implying that teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching problem solving also increased. as indicated earlier, if teachers’ self-efficacy increases in teaching programming then it will have an influence on students’ behaviour. the transcripts of teacher interviews and the journal entries helped to triangulate the results. 7. conclusion this study explored the influence of teaching problem solving explicitly to grade 10s in a programming course within the subject it on students’ self-efficacy to program. the govender, govender, havenga, mentz, breed, dignum & dignum 198 teaching of problem solving explicitly was shown to have benefits for self-efficacy in programming as perceived by the study participants. bandura (1986) affirms that people’s beliefs about their capabilities shape the ways in which they will work. stated differently, these self-perceptions of capability help determine what individuals do with the knowledge and skills they have gained. in short, a high sense of self-efficacy in problem solving tends to motivate individuals to persevere and increase their efforts in achieving success in programming. certainly these beliefs or self-perceptions do not necessarily determine whether success will be achieved or not, but they do have an influence. more specifically, the teachers who have undergone the training and who have implemented the strategy also showed a remarkable interest in the use of the strategy. the effect of this intervention programme was two-fold. first, these teachers have gained more insight into their problemsolving strategy and thereby increased their self-efficacy to teach. as noted earlier, teachers’ self-efficacy will influence the way they teach and persevere in the face of difficulties. secondly, students showed improved self-efficacy towards problem solving after the strategy was used for a period. problem solving in programming is a major part of the curriculum of the subject it. it would serve the subject well to foster students’ self-efficacy in programming by targeting their problem-solving skills. teaching problem solving explicitly should be encouraged. it may benefit students’ self-efficacy, potentially improving programming ability given more time. 8. limitations it in schools is an elective course. students taking the selected it classes likely did so because of an interest in the subject matter or parents or peers influence. the problemsolving strategy was employed for a short duration given the time constraints of the project, which might affect the full impact of improved self-efficacy in problem solving. given a longer timeframe and the use of experimental methods, it would be possible to assess the impacts of the strategy on achievements of the students in programming. references askar, p. & davenport, d. 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(2000). self-efficacy: an essential motive to learn. contemporary educational psychology 25: 82-91. appendix a pre problem you are requested to calculate the total cost of 321 photocopies. 13 pages consist of one picture per page. seven of the pictures must be printed in colour. for 100 or less copies, a page costs 15 cents, and for more than 100 but fewer than 200 copies, the first 100 copies cost 15 cents per page and thereafter 12 cents per page. if you want to duplicate 200 or more copies, the first 100 copies cost 15 cents per page, the next 100 copies 12 cents per page and the remainder 8 cents per page. the cost of photocopying pictures is r1.50 per page and coloured pictures cost r2.50 for each page. post problem design an algorithm to compare the average of a list of numbers with its range midpoint. the range midpoint is calculated by determining the largest and smallest number in the list and averaging them. both the average and the range midpoint must be displayed with a message indicating which is larger. microsoft word 06 carr et al internat collab teams.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(1) july 2013, pp. 94 112. establishing and maintaining international collaborative research teams: an autobiographical insight tj carr,1 c van der walt,2 f watson3and n linda4 abstract: despite the growing impetus for international collaborative research teams (icrt), there are relatively few resources available to guide and support researchers through the processes of establishing and maintaining icrts. in particular, no articles were found that provided researchers’ firsthand accounts of being a member of such a team. having access to such personal accounts can help both experienced and novice researchers learn more directly about what to expect, as well as the benefits, challenges, pitfalls, and success strategies for establishing and maintaining icrts. the authors used phenomenological autobiographical reflective journaling to capture their experiences as members of icrts. in this article we provide an overview of key themes that emerged from the analysis of our reflections as members of icrts. these themes include: benefits, challenges, and strategies for success. our aim is to share our first-hand experiences of what it is like to establish and participate in icrt. it is not our intention to provide readers with prescriptive guidelines on how to set up and maintain icrts. every icrt is unique and some of these ideas may or may not apply in every case. instead, we are describing what worked for us, hoping that others may benefit from our experience. consequently, we suggest that the focus of icrt should be on the benefits thereof which promote and encourage interaction between disciplines, transfer of knowledge and techniques and personal and professional development. keywords: international, collaborative, research, teams, interdisciplinary an international collaborative research team (icrt) can be described as an alliance between researchers from different countries and institutions who share a common goal and the responsibility for achieving it. such collaboration can be described as symmetrical, suggesting that scientists from participating countries participate in a relatively equivalent manner (kim, 2006). within such a team, information and other resources can be exchanged and collaborative research projects planned, implemented, and disseminated (boonekamp, costongs, logghe, & vander veene, 2000). according to abell & rultedge (2009), icrts share not only resources, but also risks, power, and authority. they likewise point out that 1 . department of nursing and health sciences, university of new brunswick saint john, p.o. box 5050, saint john, nb, e2l 4l5, e-mail: tcarr@unbsj.ca, phone: 506-648-5664, fax: 506-648-5784. 2 . north-west university, south africa. 3 . north-west university, south africa. 4 . university of the western cape, south africa. international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 95 effective icrts are based on mutual knowledge and common ground, which can be a challenge to achieve across different time zones, nationalities, and cultures (abell & rutledge, 2009). in the light of the above mentioned advantages, the establishment of global linkages and collaborative relationships among health researchers, decision makers, and practitioners is becoming increasingly common (bossert, evans, van cleve, & savedra, 2002). establishing icrts is a top priority for major international health care organizations and health research funding bodies, such as the world health organization (who), the national institutes of health (nih), sigma theta tau international honor society of nursing (stti), and the canadian institute of health research (cihr) (stti, 2003). for example, the who has acknowledged the importance of international collaboration in nursing by establishing nursing collaborating centers. these centers are mandated to conduct collaborative research of regional or global significance (stti, 2003). despite the growing impetus for icrts, our review of scoping literature revealed that there are relatively few resources available to guide and support researchers through the processes of establishing and maintaining icrts (freshwater, sherwood, & drury, 2006). in particular, no articles were found that provided researchers’ firsthand accounts of being a member of an icrt. having access to such firsthand accounts, can help novice researchers learn more directly about what to expect, as well making them aware of the benefits, challenges, pitfalls, and success strategies of being involved in an icrt. this paper builds upon professional and academic experiences and insights of an interdisciplinary team with members from south africa and canada. the idea of a manuscript emerged following the 2010 international nursing research internship in jamaica. dialogue and interaction between the interns, mentors and off site facilitators revealed the need for sharing knowledge and key lessons learned from working within an international collaborative research team. such informal beginnings are typical, as “most collaborations begin informally and are often the result of informal conversations” (katz & martin, 1997, p.4). in this paper we highlight key themes that emerged from a phenomenological analysis of our firsthand experiences as researchers within an icrt. these themes include the benefits, challenges and opportunities of such teams. our findings are presented here for consideration by others interested in influencing research-based health practice globally. literature review search strategies key bibliographic databases were searched. journals and reference lists were hand searched for relevant sources. working papers, reports from international organizations, and sources retrieved through internet search engines were included to supplement the review. search terms included a combination of words: international, collaborative, research, and team. benefits of icrts collaboration and sharing. according to our literature review, there is a general agreement on the benefits of icrts. having multiple researchers, institutions, and countries involved in carr, van der walt, watson and linda 96 a research project, can reduce duplication and provide more textured understanding and interpretation of results. such collaboration also presents opportunities for synthesis of expertise and resources, division of expenses, as well as sharing of talents, strengths, and perspectives between developed and developing or newly developed countries (jone & tilden, 1998; katz & martin, 1997; kim, 2006; melkers & kiopa, 2010). generally speaking, sharing of talent and skill can result in a better end product (broome, 1999), whereas multisite research can improve the chances of obtaining a representative sample size within a reasonable timeframe and thereby increasing generalizability of findings—the findings are not constrained to a particular facility or place-specific characteristics. moreover, multisite icrts can also obtain a level of complexity in research that is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in isolation (bossert, et al., 2002). productivity. another benefit of working within an icrt may be improved productivity (ordóñez-matamoros, cozzens, & garcia, 2010; subramanyam, 1983). for example, one study found that co-authoring with partners located in middle-income countries increased team output by nearly 40% (ordóñez-matamoros, et al., 2010). it has also been found that manuscripts with multiple authors have been associated with a higher rate of acceptance for publication (gordon, 1980), although this may be a debatable claim. furthermore, collaboration can increase the visibility of the work once it is published by increasing the chance that it might be picked up in a literature search for work produced by any one of the contributing authors (katz & martin, 1997). this increases the likelihood of being cited and the concomitant impact of the work (katz & martin, 1997). overall, icrts can serve to encourage interaction between disciplines, to transfer knowledge and techniques, and disseminate results. in addition, the final output has the potential to be of a higher standard than that of individual research institutes, due to synergistic effects (boonekamp, et al., 2000). challenges of icrts although there are many benefits of icrts there are also many challenges and pitfalls. the following four sub themes related to challenges and opportunities emerged from the literature and are discussed. the four sub themes include: communication, relationship building, issues of authorship, and planning and coordination. communication. in the literature that deals with icrts, communication and relationship building are identified as the most critical challenges in establishing and maintaining effective and successful international collaborative research teams (bossert, et al., 2002; broome, 1999; fisher & osborne, 2000; stti, 2003). effective communication demands attention to and accommodation of differences among countries related to culture, language and translation requirements, time zones, and academic calendars, as well as national, ethnic, or religious holidays (freshwater, et al., stti, 2003). face to face interaction is generally considered a gold standard of communication. indeed, face-to-face collaboration in a location free from distractions can facilitate immediate brainstorming and sharing of ideas, enhanced conflict management, and “serendipitous research and discovery” (hampton & parker, 2011, p. 901). however, face-to-face collaboration is not always feasible for international teams, especially those in the early phases of team and project development. telephone or skype conference calls can serve as good alternatives. texting meetings through open access internet communication tools, such as microsoft network (msn) or skype, pose another alternative international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 97 to meeting in person. however, texting does not have the benefits of voice tone or nonverbal communication. emoticons can contribute to some extent, but these, along with humor, irony, puns, and other strategies should be used with caution in the absence of nonverbal cues, as they could be misunderstood (bossert, et al., 2002). in order to facilitate effective communication on all levels, meetings should be chaired by the principle investigator (or team leader), have an agenda, and be followed-up promptly with minutes (bossert, et al., 2002). meetings should be scheduled regularly, but should not overwhelm team members who, more often than not, have tight schedules with multiple competing time commitments. regular meetings provide opportunities to establish momentum, ensure that everyone has shared information and understanding, oversee time line progress, give brief progress reports, and make modifications to the original plan, as needed (abell & rutledge, 2009). relationship building. the above mentioned basic communication components and practices lay the ground work for the more complex task of relationship building. fundamental to relationship building in an international collaborative research team, is effective team leadership. team leaders should be experienced and knowledgeable about the research process and have flexible work responsibilities (bosset, et al., 2002). an effective leader facilitates agreement about the goals, purpose, roles and responsibilities associated with the project; invites multiple leaders or shared leadership; prevents dominance by any particular member(s); and supports local innovation (abell & rutledge, 2009). establishing a common purpose and goal(s) right from the beginning is a critical first step for the team leader. the aim must be clear and accepted by each partner (boonekamp, et al., 2000). most research endeavors are quite lengthy and a common goal can serve to remind everyone why they are involved and can help maintain focus and productivity (jones & tilden, 1998). to facilitate productivity toward the common goal, all team members should have equal and timely access to data, information, and results pertaining to the work. it stands to reason that all information concerning the research should be kept confidential until the research is published (fisher & osborne, 2000). in like manner, effective leaders in icrts work immediately and continuously to establish trust, respect, and team spirit. this can be a challenge when teams interact by using virtual technology, as trust only develops over time by getting to know one another (jones & tilden, 1998). therefore, all team members need to be aware of their own motives and underlying assumptions, biases and expectations with regard to writing and working with other researchers. additionally, they have to be good listeners and recognize that little things indeed matter; that is, respectful engagement, extensions of good will, public acknowledgement, and expressions of gratitude (abell, & rutledge, 2009). in a cohesive team, all members must feel valued for the unique skills and expertise they contribute (bossert, et al., 2002). patience, flexibility and perseverance when working with other researchers are also critical attributes when working as a team. no one should be embarrassed for not being able to fulfill their assigned responsibilities. competing time demands for individual team members can be pressing and can arise unexpectedly (abell & rutledge, 2009). if it appears that a team member is not sharing his/her load, it is incumbent of the team to discuss the problem and find a satisfactory resolution. for example, it must be determined if a particular team member is still interested in the project and, if need be, pick up that person’s work (broome, 1999). at times the team leader may need to re-instill motivation in individual team members or in the carr, van der walt, watson and linda 98 team as a whole (bossert, et al., 2002), as well as set the stage for open sharing and working through any conflict that might arise, so that it can be discussed timely and constructive problem solving can take place (fisher & osborne, 2000). issues related to authorship. besides the above mentioned potential communication deficiencies, icrts may bring added complexities to issues of authorship. for the sake of integrity and scientific accountability, authorship should be proactively negotiated right at the beginning of the project (jones and tilden, 1998). although many researchers may be involved, authorship only belongs to those who write the article, and not to those who only make an occasional or minor contribution (fisher & osborne, 2000; jones and tilden, 1998; katz & martin, 1997). authorship should not be granted as a gift or gesture of friendship or courtesy. instead, honorees can be mentioned in the acknowledgement (fisher & osborne, 2000; jones and tilden, 1998). it is also important to establish agreement in the team that each author is responsible for the full body of work, not just the section they write (jones and tilden, 1998). ordering of authors on the title page is often a challenge, and there are various guidelines but no established rules. the first author is usually the principle investigator or team leader (bosset et al., 2002), while the order of subsequent authors is commonly negotiated by consensus based on the significance of the individual’s contribution (jones and tilden, 1998). it is, therefore, important for individual authors to keep track of what they have done, whereas journals nowadays more often require a summary of each author’s specific contribution towards the final text. for example, the international committee of medical journal editors (icmje) recommends that authorship be based on “ 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published” (icmje, 2009, para. 3). journals following the icmje guidelines often request that authors declare that they have met all three of these conditions. usually co-authors then have the right to propose subsequent publications and assume first authorship (bosset et al., 2002; jones & tilden, 1998). however, secondary analysis or future papers should be undertaken only after receiving written permission from other collaborators of the primary project (fisher & osborne, 2000). other team members might be invited to co-author subsequent publications, but they do not necessarily have authorship unless they actually contribute (jones & tilden, 1998). it is important to stress that any dissemination of data, information, or results associated with the work beyond the network should not be done except by agreed-upon means (fisher & osborne, 2000). finally, the target journal should also be negotiated before the writing process commences, to assure that it is relevant to the various disciplines (jones & tilden, 1998). planning and coordination. for an international collaborative research team to be successful the research must be carefully planned and multiple sites must adhere to the plan. the research plan must take into account the differing policies and guidelines at the various sites involved. in addition, each site needs at least one qualified collaborator who, like the pi, has time, flexibility, knowledge, skills, and resources to conduct the research and can assume responsibility for the project at that specific site (bosset, et al., 2002). these senior, experienced collaborators can work locally with novice collaborators as their mentors and guides. team members may be recruited through a variety of means, for example existing international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 99 professional relationships, professional meetings and conferences, consultations, or professional groups and organizations (bosset, et al., 2002). in addition to researchers, the project may also require the services of project coordinators, statisticians, administrative assistants, or transcriptionists (bosset, et al., 2002). these are usually paid positions that would have to be factored into the funding plans. regarding funding and grant applications, the team must negotiate at an early stage who will take the responsibility for obtaining and managing the funding and if the funding will come from more than one source (bosset, et al., 2002). although it may vary from institution to institution, each participating site usually requires approval from their respective ethics review boards to conduct any research, funded or not, that involves human subjects. letters of support from key decision makers may also be needed from each site (bosset, et al., 2002). as mentioned earlier, planning normally begins with initial contact and informal meetings that invite ideas and comments. it is important at this stage to avoid setting up false expectations or promises (oda, o’grady, & strauss, 1994). as the discussions progress, the aim of the research should become clear and be accepted by each member (boonekamp, et al., 2000). the team can then advance to collaboratively creating a joint document or terms of reference that outlines the team’s purpose, goals, objectives, membership, governance, modes and frequency of communication, as well as authorship guidelines. terms of reference should be drawn up at the beginning with input from all members. these documents are dynamic and need to be reviewed and revised as necessary (fisher & osborne, 2000). there is a growing body of literature that outlines benefits and challenges of establishing and maintaining international collaborative research teams. however, no articles were found that provide researchers’ firsthand experiences as a member of an international research team. our article aims to supply a firsthand account of working within an icrt which can help novice researchers learn more directly about the realities of membership of such a team: what works and what doesn’t work, what are the advantages and disadvantages, as well as challenges and opportunities of being involved in an icrt? methodology in spite of the substantial body of literature to which we referred at an earlier stage, it seems that there are currently very few research articles available dealing with firsthand experiences of members of icrts. to address this gap in the literature, the authors used reflective topical autobiography to capture our experiences as members of a research team. reflective topical autobiography aims to capture and describe experiences of a person (or persons) to “make the world of lived experience of that person directly accessible to others” (johnstone, 1999, p. 25). reflective topical autobiography is influenced by phenomenological approaches that emphasize self-reflection, reflexivity, and emersion in the research experience (anderson, 2006; friedman, 1990; johnstone, 1999; kimble, 2010). it is not our intention to present an objective, detached “truth” about membership in icrts. instead, by sharing our lived experiences, we hope to render an account that advances shareable understandings of what it is like to participate in an icrt (anderson, 2006; johnstone, 1999; kimble, 2010). in order to guide authors in the free writing process, an author reflection guide was used. consistent with reflective topical autobiography and phenomenological approaches, the guide carr, van der walt, watson and linda 100 contained broad topics to be covered (johnstone, 1999; van manen, 1997). authors were encouraged to write freely and only on the topics that were relevant and meaningful for them. the first question in the guide, addressed the grand tour: describe your experience of establishing an international collaborative partnership. other probes contained topics related to establishing and maintaining team spirit, communication strategies and tools, authorship negotiation, membership recruitment and retention, and ethical considerations. four authors from the team participated in the journal reflection process. these team members were from south africa (van der walt, watson, & linda) and canada (carr). they represented a range of experience and expertise as researchers and as members of icrts. disciplinary backgrounds represented, included nursing, industrial psychology, and sociology. in accordance with van manen’s (1997) thematic analysis, data analysis and data collection occurred concomitantly. analysis involved several readings by all team members of the authors’ written reflections, including their own. as researchers we had the unique challenge of also being research participants. as we began to analyse the data, it soon became obvious that we needed to keep our coding and new reflections separate, as the coding process often stimulated new thinking and reflections on our own experience. to manage this, we created a coding table with three columns. the left column contained the reflection text to be coded, the second column contained the codes, and the third column contained any new reflections that emerged as the coding was being done. new reflections were then subjected to the same analysis process. coding and reflection was, therefore, an iterative process, that continued until no new ideas emerged.the credibility of the findings was strengthened by the inclusion of the multiple disciplinary perspectives and a variety of experience and expertise in the sample. initially, data was analyzed separately by four researchers and then discussed until agreement was reached with regards to a shared interpretation (toma, 2006). findings benefits of icrts our overall experience with icrts has been positive and we have observed and experienced many benefits on personal, professional, and global levels. a major benefit is that we have expanded our international professional networks. this international networking has, in turn, enhanced our global understanding through cooperative learning, resource sharing, and exposure to multiple perspectives and cultural contexts. van der walt’s reflection summarizes these multiple benefits well: in the first instance, i met people (other researchers), not only in the field of nursing but also in public health, epidemiology, sociology, etc. interacting with researchers outside my specialty broadened my horizon as a person but also as a researcher. in terms of cooperative learning and enhanced global understanding, watson wrote: all of us participating in this [icrt] project gain more capacity in international collaboration from our interactions, as we have the opportunity to respond, reflect and test ideas with each other in real time. international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 101 as members of icrts, we have also gained confidence along with an enhanced sense of control and ability to influence. linda and van der walt relate: sharing of knowledge and information with international partners helps to increase one`s capacity to perform expected duties. this in turn increases one`s confidence and willingness to provide the expected services with understanding. (linda) being recognized as a member of an international research team contributed to my confidence as researcher (van der walt). beyond our own personal and professional development, we recognize the critical role icrts can play in the advancement of knowledge within and across countries, cultures and disciplines. watson, who is an industrial psychologist, believes that: from these collective interactions we as a group generate public knowledge, knowledge that we are planning to share with other researchers, research users, individuals, groups, organizations and even the community in general can benefit from this knowledge generated. likewise, icrts can forge strong and mutually beneficial relationships between developed and developing countries. this relationship can result in positive outcomes for all parties involved in critical areas, such as healthcare delivery. linda, a nursing scholar from south africa, remarked: there is a steady growth of a meaningful relationship between the developed and developing counties. this relationship will help to improve the provision of health related nursing services, for example nursing practice, education, and policy making. in the analysis of our journal reflections, it was clear that we were unanimous that icrts are an important, rewarding and worthwhile pursuit. however, we also agreed that there are challenges that must be addressed, in order for icrts to form and function effectively. we summarize our reflections on the major challenges we experienced below. challenges of icrts perhaps not surprisingly, the most common challenges for icrts we identified in our reflections were communication and relationship building. for many icrts, like those we have participated in, communication is mostly, if not entirely, virtual. establishing trusting relationships with colleagues across continents and oceans through use of communication technology alone is challenging to say the least. in our teams, most of us have never met in person. we have relied on communication tools, including teleconferencing, instant messaging, and internet meeting room services (or voice over internet protocol), such as skype and elluminate. of all of these tools, teleconferencing is perhaps the most reliable; however, it is also the most expensive, prohibitively so for icrts that are just forming and are not yet funded. free tools, such as skype, or licensed tools, such as elluminate, can provide excellent alternatives to teleconferencing. in addition to being more affordable, internet communication tools allow for simultaneous voice and texting, as well as video conferencing. linda and watson shared their experience with these technologies: skype and tele-conference (communication) were the most useful strategies. skype was the cheapest mode and was used often. at times communication errors and sound technical problems were experienced on skype. but nevertheless it was the most carr, van der walt, watson and linda 102 preferred. tele-conference was also handy; however, it was costly to the coordinator (pi) who had to call and connect every one. elluminate was tried once and appeared to be very good, as the discussions could be moderated, i.e., control of taking turns (linda). we make use of both skype and elluminate internet based software to communicate. skype works really well on small group conferences and one-on-one conversation. elluminate works best with group conferences, and it’s great to block out all the external noise, which is not the case with skype and is somewhat frustrating at times. we once had a text meeting in skype which was fun and yet very effective, and we were able to make decisions on important matters. skype is very useful as it’s freely available, it’s free and the software, in general, doesn’t have too many conflicts with other software. elluminate, however, is, in my mind, the best platform for international collaboration. it is, however, costly for the hosting institutions, and there are some software conflicts which do not make elluminate that accessible to all (watson). for many of us, there was a significant learning curve in becoming proficient with these communication technologies. in addition, team members often experienced weak or interrupted internet connections and some had limited access to information technology (it) support. the learning curve combined with unreliable connections created stress at times and interfered with team members’ ability to focus and fully participate in meetings: initially it was not easy for me to follow on any discussion outside the context of the study topic, simply because i was stressing about a lot of things like online connection, sound, being cut-off, etc. as time went on the problem became better (linda). as linda stated, these problems gradually improved over time, both because we became more technologically proficient and also because the technology, itself, continually improved. reliance on virtual meeting tools and spaces also created the challenge of getting to know each other through voice and text alone, as so much of communication is nonverbal. instead of putting names to faces, we had to learn to put names to voices. this took time. also tone of voice became a replacement for facial expression and was much more difficult to read, especially when taking into account poor or delayed connections and cultural and language differences. linda explained this well: also as i got to know most of the members and being able to identify their voices the whole experience became better. the sense of hearing has been the leading tool in this context. during discussions over skype and teleconference tone of the voice would enable one to establish the mood and attitude of each voice. watson added that for icrts, it would be ideal for relationship building if members had the opportunity to meet in person, even if such meetings were infrequent: something that helps to a great extent is personal contact. working with people whom you have met in person makes any interaction so much easier or rather more natural. if you had the opportunity to spend some time with those working with you on a project, you get to know a bit more about that individual and how to interact with them. so, personal contact would be a great advantage in establishing and maintaining spirit, even if it’s just seeing each other once a year or at the startup of the project. international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 103 other challenges associated with icrts we identified in our reflections, included membership recruitment and retention, as well as time limitations and competing commitments. for us, membership recruitment to our icrts occurred during an international research internship program. ideas for icrt projects were posted and interested interns signed up, if they were interested in participating or at least learning more. from there, other interested individuals who did not attend the internship were recruited by word of mouth by participating team members. carr shared her experience in recruitment as a project team leader: carr, as a postdoc fellow working in the international research internship, took the lead in presenting the idea for the projects and inviting those interested to learn more and/or join the team. team membership began with the interns and, for one team, snowballed out to include others from our respective communities, who expressed an interest in participating in the team. one of the challenges with team member recruitment we encountered initially was keeping the teams to a manageable size. initial interest was strong and membership quickly grew. the ideal size for an icrt is entirely dependent on the nature and scope of a particular project. for us, our projects were small in scope, but interest was high and we did not want to turn anyone away. this resulted in some teams having as many as ten or more members, which is arguably too large for smaller scale icrt projects, such as preparing a manuscript for publication. it can be difficult for that many people to make a significant contribution. what is more, relying on virtual technology alone, combined with significant time zone and scheduling differences across countries and continents made relationship building with more than five or six people very challenging. over time, membership gradually declined to four regular participating members. this gradual decline in membership may be a natural progression with such a team, and starting with slightly more members than needed may be a good strategy for ensuring there will be enough members to complete the task in the end. membership retention was nevertheless an important goal, and we all felt a sense of loss when a member backed out or seemed to lose interest. in our reflections, we considered factors that are critical for the retention of members: communication in my mind would be the most important thing to do. if you don’t talk to your team members on a continual basis, how will you know that they are considering withdrawing? if you are informed, then you will be able to come up with the relevant retaining strategies. also, having a clear understanding of the different individuals’ goals and expectations of the project. having collective understanding of the project and the project outcomes. having clear team roles and responsibilities (watson). it is possible that membership retention can be impacted by competing commitments and time limitations. for many members of icrts with whom we have worked, involvement in such projects is only a small part of their full time profession where work on the team project competes with other professional and personal commitments. furthermore, the ability to contribute can vary for individual members throughout the span of a year, and unexpected, competing priorities can manifest, making it difficult for members to stay actively engaged and involved on a continuous basis. success factors and strategies despite the challenges described above, our experience as members of an icrt has been very successful and positive overall. in our journaling, we reflected on factors that contributed to carr, van der walt, watson and linda 104 this success and identified the following four broad themes: personal factors, structural factors, communication and relationship building strategies, and leadership. in sharing these success factors and strategies, it is not our intention to provide readers with prescriptive guidelines on how to set up and maintain icrts. every icrt is unique and some of these ideas may or may not apply in every case. instead, we are describing what worked for us, and hope that others may benefit from our experience. personal factors. in our experience, we found that personal factors and characteristics of individual team members are critical antecedents to the success of an icrt. those we identified as most critical included: personal interest and motivation, realistic expectations, honest and realistic commitment, positive attitude, professionalism, risk taking capacity, resourcefulness, and perseverance. according to watson, such personal factors are fundamental to the overall success of the research partnership: on a personal and individual level, interest, commitment, willingness to support, and, most importantly, transparency, i think these four aspects encapsulate all other factors and characteristics needed in an effective research partnership. working with multiple team members with competing schedules and personal time commitments can sometimes slow down progress toward completion of projects. van der walt wrote about the importance of persevering despite these delays: “i find that everything takes a bit longer, but as long as there is a steady progress, which is one of the sacrifices one makes to reap the benefit of multiple inputs.” the importance of honest and realistic personal commitment to the project was reiterated several times in our reflections. for example, linda reflected: “[it is important to establish] each member`s willingness to participate. availability of time, although there is no perfect way to check on this, but partners may need to ascertain if they are not having other big responsibilities that may interfere with their participation.” in order for individual team members to make a realistic commitment, the scope of the work and expectations must be clear in the early stages: “the scope of the work was decided early on in the project, so that team members had a clear sense of their commitment” (carr). having said this, carr went on to reflect on the importance of personal flexibility in terms of commitment level: “however, team members also seemed open to progressing beyond the original project once it was completed, if the opportunity presented itself to extend what we are doing” (carr). personal factors, such as commitment level and capacity to participate, were influenced by broader structural factors in the environment. structural factors. structural factors that most influenced the ability of our teams to succeed as icrt included: support from the workplace, financial resources, and access to technology and communication tools. academic institutions are increasingly recognizing the importance of forming international collaborative partnerships in both teaching and research. as members of icrts, we have all received encouragement and support from our academic workplaces to pursue these projects. for example, regarding the support she received, linda wrote: “i was seconded by my head of school and management team to attend the international research internship programme. since then i am participating in two international projects (spiritual team and international collaboration research partnership).” our workplaces have also provided in kind support, such as secretarial support, photocopying, library resources, it support, and time: “my university is very excited and supportive about the international relationships i am forging as a result of these projects. i am given secretarial support and time to devote to this work” (carr). watson wrote about the international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 105 importance of ensuring workplace support and other key structural factors, such as access to funding, technology, and communication tools are in place from the start: on an operational level i think there is a lot more to consider, things like finances, resources, organizational structures the political climate of participating countries, etc. the list goes’ on. but for this specific project things to consider are things like available time, permission from your institution/head of department, access to a pc and the internet, other resources like a headset, and something that we didn’t consider before the time is permission from it, as we needed to open our firewall to connect from our office pc’s. icrts with strong structural supports and motivated and capable team members are in an excellent position to succeed. however, we found that equally essential to the long term success of icrts are communication and relationship building strategies, as well as strong leadership. communication and relationship building strategies. a precursor to establishing strong relationships and team spirit is having effective communication strategies and practices in place. because we relied on newer internet communication tools, such as skype and elluminate, we needed to take time to learn how to optimally use these tools. electronic user guides were circulated to all team members, and team members who had knowledge and experience in using these communication tools in the past helped to mentor those just learning. even as team members became proficient in using these technologies, unexpected challenges, such as connection disruptions emerged. perseverance, creativity, and flexibility among team members proved to be critical in working through these challenges. about this van der walt wrote: we have used a variety of communication strategies, from skype to elluminate and telephonic discussions. we have settled for elluminate as platform; although, from our side the university’s firewall was a huge challenge to overcome. we sometimes had to settle for a combination between elluminate and skype at the same time. transoceanic disturbances were also challenging at times but the team members were quite creative in texting instead of talking. while these tools offer the option of video conferencing, in our experience we found that use of webcams tend to slow down the speed of communication to an intolerable level. to share electronic files and other electronic resources we used dropbox, which we found quite effective. during meetings it was important to allow time for participants to speak and for their message to travel to others. until we got used to this slower rhythm of turn taking, we sometimes spoke at the same time or cut each other off accidentally. elluminate is set up to better avoid these situations and ensure proper turn taking, by allowing only one participant to speak at a time. carr reflected on the challenges of turn taking in virtual meetings, being comfortable with silence, and ensuring everyone has the chance to speak and be heard: team members are encouraged to voice their thoughts and ideas during meetings, as well as by e-mails. it is important for the chair of the meetings to be comfortable with silence, to give people time to think and respond. also, there can be connection delays between countries, and if people speak too soon, others might be cut off. thus, pauses between speakers are important. for me, it took a while to get comfortable with silence. carr, van der walt, watson and linda 106 holding regular and frequent meetings was also important for ensuring good communication within the team and for maintaining project momentum. in the initial stages, we met approximately every two weeks. we used these meetings to clarify the purpose of our icrt, as well as team members’ roles and responsibilities. we then met monthly to check in, provide updates, and keep the project on our respective radars. sometimes we met more frequently, depending on what particular task or deadline we were working on. watson and van der walt reflected on the importance of regular meetings to maintain progress and build relationships among team members: frequent communication and maintaining the momentum is important to keep team members motivated (van der walt). getting back to the “how to establish and maintain team spirit”, i think the best thing to do is to make contact as soon as possible and as frequently as possible and make use of all possible resources available for making this contact. this project to me is a great example of this. there are regular meetings, and if there’s only two or three members that joined, we continued with the meeting anyway, even if we weren’t keeping to the agenda, we used the time to build relationships (watson). meeting reminders, meeting agendas, and timely follow-up with clear and detailed minutes that included action items for specific team members were basic but essential practices for ensuring good communication and group progress: having a formal agenda and minutes at all the meetings with clear action items facilitates a process whereby all members are actively involved in the discussion and in the decision made for the route ahead (watson). also basic but essential was the drafting of a terms of reference (tor) for the icrt. in our terms of reference we included the following: project title, background and purpose, list of team members (including their name and affiliation), operations and governance, team member roles and responsibilities, and authorship guidelines. the terms of reference was a working document that was revised as needed, as van der walt explained in her journaling: each individual member had to negotiate his/her role in the team and that has to be revised and re-negotiated at later stages as well. . . authorship depended on the role of each member and eventually the input the various members made in the project and writing of the manuscript. authorship needed to be renegotiated from time to time and especially towards the end. watson reflected on how a terms of reference document can be important for avoiding conflict or misunderstandings: having a memo of understanding is also a great way of sidestepping possible conflicts, for example developing shared authorship guidelines among the members. . . this was one of the first discussions that the team had, as this project was about developing and publishing a manuscript which clearly emphasizes the need for negotiating authorship. the authorship guidelines then formed part of the tor as it was developed. in addition to the mechanics of setting up consistent and effective communication strategies, relationship and team spirit building also involved getting to know one another personally and professionally; offering mutual respect, support, and encouragement; celebrating small international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 107 wins; and having fun. to get to know each other better, some of us have connected through social media platforms, such as facebook and linkedin. watson reflected on the importance of getting to know one another through use of technology, as well as having fun: technology really helps in connecting to each other. there’s a great number of excellent resources out there that team can use to keep connected. the social network platform that exists always can play a big part as you get to know the members on a more social/personal level too. it’s nice to see that your team members have fun too, it’s not only work. when reflecting on factors that contributed to team spirit, van der walt emphasized the importance of mutual respect and personal and professional support: “what i have learned in the process is how people’s inputs are valued and how members will support each other, not only in relationship to the project but also personally.” similarly, carr and linda commented: although we don’t even know what some team members look like, meetings on skype are fun and full of warmth. this is achieved by encouraging all to talk, respecting each other’s ideas and opinions, valuing each other as key group members. also, emphasizing that we are a team is simple but critical (carr). respect among team members has been the most powerful weapon to keep everybody positive about the progress. respect on how we respond to each other during meeting`s discussions. understanding each other`s unexpected circumstances that prohibit participation, whether by absence from meetings, submitting work section, etc. this makes members feel committed to contribute to the team work (linda). van der walt and carr also pointed out the importance of celebrating small wins: emphasizing small wins is important. smaller sets of outcomes as set on a gant chart for example, give members a sense of achievement (van der walt). keeping the group focused on the goal and encouraging members through recognition of accomplishments and appreciation are also key for maintaining team spirit (carr). relationship building can also be enhanced when team members are aware of and sensitive to the unique historical and cultural context of the countries being represented and how this context can influence team members’ participation and perception of icrts. for example, watson shares his reflections on how south africa’s history of international isolation has influence current international research endeavors and relationships: south africa’s history has definitely had a huge impact on how south african researchers conduct collaborative international research. in the past and in some cases, yes, the south african researcher was left behind, because interacting with their international peers wasn't always as possible as it is currently. however, our national diversity is definitely a great plus, as we interact with individuals from different backgrounds on a daily basis. in some cases, i have felt somewhat patronized by my colleagues in mainstream science countries. the reason for this might be that english isn't all south africans’ first language, and we can't always express ourselves as accurately as we would like. in my mind, when it comes to social science research, south africans were and still are, in some cases, being exploited by paternalistic and colonial funding models which boils over carr, van der walt, watson and linda 108 in research models that places the south african researchers in the passenger seat when doing research in their own country/context. watson’s comments reflect the need for icrt members to not only get to know team members as individuals, but also to understand and respect their unique national and historical context as it relates to research and international relationships. this understanding and respect would facilitate trust building and symmetrical collaboration, in which all team members feel that their relative contributions are of equivalent value and importance. practices, such as establishing trust and respect, celebrating small wins, and setting a tone of mutual support and symmetrical collaboration, are rooted in strong leadership, which we found to be a fourth critical requirement for icrt success. leadership. qualities of leadership that we identified as most important in our experience as members of icrt included: dedication, flexibility, shared leadership, and project management skills. linda reflected on the leadership qualities she found most important: “team leader (pi) leadership style of being dedicated, flexible, supportive and welcoming attitude was definitely a direct input to the outcome.” van der walt reflected on the importance of the team leader being a strong role model and setting a tone of shared leadership and decision making: i do think the team lead is crucial in setting the stage in terms of inspiring a shared vision and enlisting others to join the team. further, the ability to enable others in fostering the collaboration by strengthening mutual trust and sharing power and information is extremely powerful. i found that strong team leaders model the way in setting the example and keeping to promises makes a big difference in the gel that binds the team. watson also wrote about the importance of a shared leadership approach, especially from the inception of a project: this is a great experience for me, as the project was in a beginning phase when i and the other interns joined the project, so there was a lot of conceptualization that happened toward the overall outcome of the project. something that really stands out for me about this project, and i’m sure it’s generalizable to small projects, is that all the members are involved in all the different aspects, from establishing relationships to operationalizing of the ideas. i’m also involved in some of the technical aspects (i’m sure everybody is) regarding connecting with all the members around the globe. watson pointed out that project management skills are also an important and ongoing shared responsibility among the team members: the meetings initially focused on establishing relationships and gaining insight on the member’s prior experience and exposure on the general topic of international collaboration. the overall goal/aim of writing and publishing a manuscript was included in the early decisions and everybody had the opportunity to voice their expectations, concerns, etc. from that point forward, all the members were included in the discussions, and the aim, purpose, goals and desired outcomes were determined by the entire team through democratic decisions. things did change from time to time with reference to the content and process, but the team managed to stick to the outcome and this has proved a great success. international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 109 for shared leadership to be effective, it is ideal to have a mix of experience and diversity of backgrounds and perspectives on the team. moreover, a strong leader sets a tone early on that such diversity is valued and essential: diversity in the group in terms of culture, nationality, educational background, gender, etc. strengthens the interest, credibility, and scope of our work. this diversity is valued by the whole team. . . a combination of novice and more experienced researchers sets up opportunities for professional growth for both mentors and mentees. resources are exchanged from all countries on an equal level. (carr) for team leaders and all group members, establishing and maintaining an icrt is a challenging task. however, modern technological advances and a growing support for international collaboration initiatives worldwide, makes icrts a worthwhile and rewarding pursuit. summary and discussion the establishment of global linkages and collaborative relationships among health researchers, decision makers, and practitioners is becoming increasingly common. in fact, establishing international collaborative research teams (icrts) is a top priority for major international health care organizations and health research funding bodies, and international collaboration is now viewed as an indicator of research quality (freshwater et al., 2006; kim, 2006). the aim of this study was to explore our firsthand experiences as members of icrts. in the presentation of our findings, we identified and discussed the benefits, challenges, and strategies for success from our perspective as members of icrts. the findings of our study support and expand on existing literature on this topic. many of the benefits of icrts we identified, including expanded professional networks, enhanced global understanding, resources sharing, higher research productivity, and advancement of knowledge within and across countries, have been reported elsewhere (broome, 1999; jones & tilden, 1998; katz & martin, 1997; kim, 2006; melkers & kiopa, 2010). benefits we identified that were unique to our study included enhanced professional confidence, sense of control, and ability to influence. such benefits can be critical for building research capacity and advancing knowledge in both developing and developed countries alike. to reap the benefits, icrts must overcome numerous challenges. congruent with existing literature on this topic (bossert, et al., 2002; broome, 1999; fisher & osborne, 2000; stti, 2003), we found communication and relationship building to be the most important challenges in establishing and maintaining icrts. using tools and technology and relying on voice, texting, e-mail, and emoticons to form trusting, professional relationships over space, time, and often poor connections can be a daunting task for all involved. these factors can, in turn, impact membership recruitment and retention efforts, as our study illustrated. however, our experience also revealed that these challenges can be used not as barriers, but as points from which to move forward. indeed, our successes were rooted in our challenges. success factors that were critical in our experience included personal characteristics of team members, specifically, personal interest and motivation, realistic expectations, honest and realistic commitment, positive attitude, professionalism, risk taking capacity, resourcefulness, and perseverance. the importance of such personal factors cannot be underestimated and is supported by existing literature (abell & rutledge, 2009; freshwater, et al., 2006; jarvenpaa, knoll, & leidner, 1998; sanstad, stall, goldtein, everett, & brousseau, 1999). our study also revealed that motivated individuals, in turn, need structural supports to succeed as carr, van der walt, watson and linda 110 members of icrts. structural support from workplaces in the form of financial resources, access to technology, communication tools, and encouragement from leadership proved critical for facilitating full engagement of icrt members. just as communication and relationship building were the most important challenges, they too were the most important keys to success. learning, embracing, and adapting to newer communication tools, such as skype, elluminate, and instant messaging, although frustrating at times, were key factors for our success. unlike previously published literature, we shared firsthand our lessons regarding the use of this technology, including what worked and did not work. in reading our experiences other researchers may be less intimidated by the technology and know that it is normal to fumble and stumble along the way and that over time the proficiency of the user improves, as does the technology. communication and relationship building were also dependent on having a clear purpose, goals, expectations and timelines; establishing a terms of reference; holding regular and frequent meetings; setting agendas for meetings; and writing and distributing timely minutes with specific and assigned action items. consistent with these findings, frequent and regular meetings, as well as consistent membership across meetings have been found to be among the strongest predictors of trust and productivity in collaborative research teams (hampton and parker, 2011; jarvenpaa, knoll, & leidner, 1998). overall, these project management habits and norms are critical for success of an icrt and should be established early on (freshwater, et al., 2006). finally, the adoption of a shared leadership model that fosters and supports team spirit, mutual respect, and trust among all members may be the most critical success factor of all. this view is supported elsewhere in the literature (abell & rutledge, 2009; bossert et al., 2002; jarvenpaa, knoll, & leidner, 1998; jones & tilden, 1998; hampton & parker, 2011) and certainly describes our own experience. strong icrt leaders set a tone of shared leadership; are strong role models; are warm and welcoming; have solid project management skills; and value and embrace the historical, ethnic, cultural, professional, and experiential diversity of all team members (freshwater, et al., 2006). several implications for research and policy emerged from our study. while our research contributes to our firsthand experiences as researchers of icrts, more research is needed that explores the experiences of researchers from other parts of the world engaged in various forms of research. our own work is rooted in smaller scale icrts. a study of the experience of researchers engaged in larger international research studies would add to our understanding of how to successfully establish and maintain icrts for small to larger scale projects. also, research studies could be designed to compare the experience of icrt team members from developed and developing countries and establish what additional supports could be put in place to better facilitate icrts in these variant locations. in terms of policy, academic organizations and industries interested in promoting international research and global partnerships, need to ensure that interested employees are encouraged, given time and financial or in kind support, as well as access to technology and communications tools needed to succeed. in conclusion, icrts involve individuals from different parts of the world working together toward achieving shared goals. the “team” in icrts is the key in achieving these goals, and it is, therefore, important to know and understand the challenges and success strategies for establishing and maintaining icrts. in our experience, however, collaboration is more than just achieving scientific goals—it is about building meaningful relationships with fellow international collaborative research teams td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 94 112. 111 researchers from around the world. indeed, the process can be just as valuable and rewarding, if not more so, than the outcomes. references abell, n. & rutledge, s. e. (2010). awareness, acceptance and action: developing mindful collaborations in international hiv/aids research service. british journal of social work, 40, 656-675. anderson, l. (2006). analytic autoethnography. journal of contemporary ethnography, 35(4), 373-395. boonekamp, g. m. m., costongs, c., logghe, k. r., & van der venne, m. m. e. j. (2000). international networking: a healthy vehicle for research? european journal of public health, 10(2), 143-147. bossert, e. a., evans, s., van cleve, l., & savedra, m. c. (2002). multisite research: a systems approach. journal of pediatric nursing, 17(1), 38-48. broome, m. e. (1999). collaborative research: the art of negotiation. journal of child & family nursing, 2(1), 1-2. fisher, i. & osborne, k. (2000). recognizing and countering the potential barriers to success in international public health collaborations. european journal of public health, 10(3), 220-222. freshwater, d., sherwood, g., & drury, v. 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(1999). collaborative community research consortium: a model for hiv prevention. health education and behavior, 26, 171-184. subramanyam, k (1983). bibliometric studies of research collaboration: a review. journal of information science, 6, 33-38. sigma theta tau international. (2003). sigma theta tau international guidelines for international collaborative research. retrieved from http://www.nursingsociety.org/research/pages/guidelines_icr.aspx toma, j. d. (2006). approaching rigor in applied qualitative research. in f. conrad & r. c. serlin (eds.) the sage handbook for research in education: engaging ideas and enriching inquiry (pp. 405-423). thousand oaks, ca: sage. van manen, m. (1997). hermeneutic phenomenological reflection. in m. van manen (ed.), researching lived experience (2nd ed., pp. 77-109). london, ontario, canada: althouse press. department of chemistry, university of limpopo, medunsa, south africa. tel: +27-12 521 4367. * fax: +27-12 521 5809, email: bbmche@gmail.ac.za oil crops in biofuel applications: south africa gearing up for a bio-based economy bb marvey* introduction the diminishing crude oil supply and the concern over the impact of greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions on the earth’s climate (i.e. global warming) have been a driving force on nations around the world to seriously consider investing in clean and sustainable solutions for fuels, polymers and chemicals. some analysts are in fact predicting that prices for petrol and other fuel should reach disastrous levels soon after 2010 with oil production levels reaching their maximum (jones, 2003). if this was to be the case, then alternative fuels must phase in much faster to complement fossil fuels whose supply is fast dwindling. for this reason biofuels are receiving substantial attention as renewable alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. although not as yet competitive as fossil fuels in terms of profitability (auer, 2005), biofuels offer numerous advantages over their petroleum counterparts in that they contribute to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable development and to energy security (katemgo, 2007). abstract. large fluctuations in crude oil prices and the diminishing oil supply have left economies vulnerable to energy shortages thus placing an enormous pressure on nations around the world to seriously consider alternative renewable resources as feedstock in biofuel applications. apart from energy security reasons, biofuels offer other advantages over their petroleum counterparts in that they contribute to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and to sustainable development. just a few decades after discontinuing its large scale production of bioethanol for use as engine fuel, south africa (sa) is again on its way to resuscitating its biofuel industry. herein an overview is presented on south africa’s oilseed and biofuel production, biofuels industrial strategy, industry readiness, challenges in switching to biofuels and the strategies to overcome potential obstacles. keywords: food crops, biofuel, south africa (sa). disciplines: chemistry, energy studies, agricultural studies. 153 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 153-161. marvey 154 in africa today, as in most parts of the world, the biofuel industry is receiving serious attention in view of the vast land available and the favourable climate for growing many of the energy crops. for south africa biofuel production is not a new concept altogether. in the 1920s to 1960s south africa used bioethanol from sugar cane as transportation fuel until such time when international crude oil prices fell to their lows (bis, 2007). with recent increases in crude oil price, south africa has once again shown interest in biofuel production with a number of potential investors already expressing interest for investing in this market (bis, 2007). in terms of the biofuels industrial strategy of the republic of south africa, some seed crops have been identified in the initial phase of the development of the biofuel industry, namely, sunflower, canola, and soya beans. besides these three, other oilseed crops such as jatropha curcas and moringa oleifera have also been earmarked for biodiesel production (le roux, 2007). in this paper, south africa’s oilseed and biofuel production, biofuels industrial strategy, industry readiness, challenges anticipated in the biobased economy and the strategies to handle those challenges are discussed. south african oilseed production south africa has available cultivated land to grow crops for local consumption and for export purposes. however, there is concern that enough is not produced to offset highly priced grain and oilseed imports (the times 26/04/08). according to the information provided by sa’s department of minerals and energy (dme) about 14% of the national arable land is under-utilised. grains and seeds that are currently grown for commercial purposes include maize, sunflower, soya beans, sorghum, groundnuts, dry beans, wheat, barley, canola and sweet lupines. important oilseed crops in the list are sunflower, soybean, groundnuts and canola (rapeseed) (ftdb, 2008) and those targeted for biodiesel production in south africa, are sunflower, soya bean and canola (bis, 2007). figure 1 shows oilseed production figures for 2005/06 and 2006/07. the production figures indicate a general decline in oilseed yield from 2005/06 to 2006/07 and a corresponding decrease of the area planted, thus confirming the concern over oilseed underproduction and land under-utilisation.¹ the 2008 production forecasts, however, seem to be geared up for improvement. for sunflower seed the production forecast is 785 880 tons, which is 162% more than the 300 000 tons obtained the previous season, according to the rsa food security bulletin (04/2008). for soya beans the production forecast is 302 250 tons, a 47% improvement over the previous season. the production forecast for groundnut is 82 185 tons, which represents 41.7% improvement over previous season and for canola the expected area planted shows a decrease by 0.6%. sunflower crop (helianthus annuus l.,) is the most important oilseed crop in southern africa (ftdb, 2008) and native to south africa and north america (commodity online.com). in south africa, sunflower seed is used primarily for making oil and animal feed. the total oil content after crushing amounts to 40% of the total seed and this is used for edible purposes (e.g. in cooking, margarine and salad dressings) and for industrial use (e.g. manufacturing of cosmetics and skin creams, paints, shoe polish, etc.). sunflower oil cake, a byproduct of the oil extraction process, constitutes 44% and is mainly used as an important protein ingredient in animal feed and for breakfast cereals. the remaining 16% is waste (van schalkwyk, 2003). pie graphs are not a very useful way to represent these numbers. i calculated the total oilseed production in 1. 2005/6 to be 957082 tons from 793600 ha.. this is an average of 1.2 tons/ha. for 2006/07 543449 ha was under cultivation producing 567369 t, an average of 1.04 tons/ha. figure 1 does not show this trend nicely although agree with the message. oil crops in biofuel applications 155 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 153-161. soya bean (glycine max) is a legume native to east asia (cyberlipid.org; wikipedia.org) and an important oil crop providing oil and protein. the oil content amounts to 20% of the total seed whilst the protein content is about 40%. the rest consists of 35% carbohydrate and about 5% ash (wikipedia.org). in south africa, soya beans are grown primarily for oil and for animal feed and a smaller percentage is used for human consumption. soya bean oil is commonly used in bath oil and soap making formulations (fromnaturewithlove.com). groundnuts, also known as peanuts or earthnuts are used as food for humans and livestock and provide a valuable dietary protein in the absence of meat (olajide, 2007). in south africa, groundnuts are used mainly for human consumption with 26% consumed in their primary form whether shelled or unshelled (van schalkwyk, 2003). however, a projection for the 2006/07 season was to have 3000 tons of groundnuts used for oil and oilcake, 23 000 tons for peanut butter and 34 000 tons for the edible market (ftdb, 2008). groundnut oil rates the sixth most important vegetable oil in terms metric tons produced (olajide, 2007) with africa producing a quarter of the world’s total production in 1997 (spore, 1998). the oil is used for cooking, in salad oils and as an ingredient for mayonnaise and margarine production (van schalkwyk, 2003). canola crop, a genetically modified species from rapeseed plant, is used in south africa mainly for providing cooking oil and for animal feed (ftdb, 2008). unlike other major oil crops such as sunflower, soya bean and groundnuts which are summer crops, canola is a dry land winter crop; a characteristic which makes it suitable as a rotational and complementary crop to the existing oilseed crops. canola oil has superior properties as a salad and cooking oil and is suitable for margarine and shortening blends (downey, 1990). (a) (a) soya beans, 240570 ha, (1.76 t/ha) groundnuts, 48550 ha, (1.52 t/ha) sunflower, 472480 ha, (1.1 t/ha) canola, 32000 ha, (1.14 t/ha) (b)(b) canola, 3320 ha (1.2 t/ha) groundnuts, 40770 ha (1.42 t/ha) sunflower , 316350 ha, (0.95 t/ha) soya beans, 183000 ha, (1.12 t/ha) figure 1. sa’s oilseed production for (a) 2005/06 and (b) 2006/07 showing area planted (ha) and yield (t/ha). source: cec, 2008. marvey 156 applications in biofuel oilseed crops have attracted much attention as potential renewable sources of raw material for liquid fuel compatible and blendable with current fuels. with the rising focus on renewable energy sources, oilseed crops are good candidates as sources of biodiesel. amongst seed oils available in sa for biodiesel production are soya bean, sunflower, canola and peanut oils. on the other hand, crops such as maize and sugarcane are attractive sources of bioethanol. figure 2 illustrates processes from biomass to biodiesel and bioethanol. biodiesel is produced by transesterification of seed oils with methyl or ethyl alcohol in the presence of a suitable catalyst. the glycerol byproduct constitutes about 10 wt% of the total product (meier, 2007). the biodiesel produced could then be used in diesel engines neat or blended with petroleum diesel. neat biodiesel (b100) can be used in some engines with little or no modification whereas blends of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel (b20) or less could be used in most diesel engines without any engine modification (zanzi et al., 2006). the glycerol produced as byproduct offers new other interesting possibilities, for example, as a starting material in the production of propylene glycol, 1,3-propanediol and epichlorohydrin. recently the dow chemical co. has revealed its intention of producing propylene glycol from glycerol (ref ). other companies such as huntsman corp., cargillashland and archer daniels midland have also shown similar interest to that of dow. in addition, dow will also produce epichlorohydrin from glycerol, an undertaking that solvay intends doing also (meier et al. 2007). biomass extraction1. transesterification2. hydrolysis1. fermentation2. biodiesel bioethanol figure 2. biofuel production from biomass as shown in table 1, differences in fuel properties exist between petroleum diesel, biodiesel and a pure vegetable oil (hofman, 2003). in this table the heat of combustion, viscosity, cn, pour point and cloud point for soyabean oil, methyl soyate (biodiesel), b20 diesel blend and no.2 diesel fuel (df2) are compared. neat seed oils have a very high viscosity and relatively low cetane numbers (cn). as a result they are not the best choice as diesel substitutes due to their poor ignition quality and engine problems such as nozzle coking and engine deposits. cetane number is an index used to determine the fuel’s ignition time delay (radich, 2004; gc bio fuel) whilst nozzle coking and engine deposits could be linked to the high viscosity of vegetable oils (bruwer et al., 1980(a) and (b)). heat of combustion, cloud point and pour point are other fuel properties indicating suitability of fatty oils as diesel fuel (knothe, 2005). cloud point is the temperature at which liquid fuel becomes cloudy as it turns into solid or crystal form. pour point is the lowest temperature at which the fuel can still flow (knothe, 2005) and fuels with a high heat of combustion will usually produce more power per kilogram of fuel than fuels with lower oil crops in biofuel applications 157 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 153-161. energy (hofman, 2003). table 1. properties of selected diesel fuels² pure soya bean oil methyl soyate b20 mix no.2 diesel fuel heat of combustion (kj/kg) 39,623 39,800 42,723 45,343 viscosity (mm2/s) 32.6 4.08 3.3 2.07 cetane no. 37.9 46.2 50 47.0 pour point (oc) -12.2 -1 -45.6 -33 cloud point (oc) -3.9 2 -14.4 -15 sa’s biofuels strategy and industry readiness for biofuel production in sa the following crops have been targeted: sugar cane and sugar beet for bioethanol, and sunflower, canola and soya beans for biodiesel. for food security reasons basic food crops like maize have been excluded in the initial stages of a biofuel drive and additional land for growing biofuel crops will come from the 14% currently under-utilised arable land which is located mainly in the former homelands. therefore in addition to addressing pressing energy needs, the biofuel strategy seeks to boost the agricultural sector in farming areas previously marginalised by the apartheid system and to create sustainable income-earning opportunities especially for the rural poor. it is estimated that a 2% biofuel penetration level will create 25 000 jobs which is a reduction of rural unemployment by 0.6% and a boost to economic growth by 0.05%. the current fuel levy exemptions are 40% for biodiesel and a proposed 100% for bioethanol. a further increase to 50% biodiesel levy exemption has been proposed after which the absolute value of the support will increase with increases in the fuel levy. the decision to exempt bioethanol from levies was because this fuel can be used in other markets where no levies are charged. for example, ethanol gel competes with illuminating paraffin which carries no levies. companies that have shown interest to invest in sa’s biofuel project include the australian-owned rainbow nation renewable fuels (rnrf), ethanol africa, sasol (sa’s largest fuel producer), to name a few. rnrf is in the final stages of securing a government license to manufacture soya-based biodiesel at coega-based plant (eastern cape) with an initial investment of r1.5 billion. the plant would be the biggest in africa producing an estimated 288 million litres of biodiesel per annum which is around 3% of south africa’s diesel fuel needs and creating about 350 new direct jobs and 725 indirect jobs. according to geoff mordt, the managing director of rnrf, negotiations are already under way with interested transport and mining companies and with local agricultural corporations and farmers. predictions indicate that the plant should be operational by september 2009 and apparently the process of switching to biodiesel will not be a major challenge since the great majority of modern passenger and commercial vehicles are able to run on b5 diesel which is a blend made from 5% biodiesel and 95% petroleum diesel. the east london industrial development zone (elidz) has in the mean time identified canola as fuel for its refinery. sources: hofman, 2003; clark et al. 1984; schwab et al. 1987; vce; biodiesel.2. marvey 158 ethanol africa announced in 2006 of its plans to build maize-to-ethanol plants in sa at a cost of $1 billion. the company planned to build eight biofuels plants near bothaville south of johannesburg but then stopped construction to assess funding options and government support. according to greg jones of sterling waterford holdings ltd which owns a stake in ethanol africa, the project is on hold until government finalizes its policy on biofuels strategy. bioethanol is an alcohol-based fuel obtained by fermenting starch or sugar in a wide variety of crops (figure 2). in usa most cars on the road can run on bioethanol-petrol blends of up to 10% ethanol, and the use of 10% ethanol petrol is mandated in some cities where harmful levels of auto emissions are possible. meanwhile sasol is reviewing its plans to put up a soy-based fuels plant due to its dissatisfaction with government support towards the biofuel project. sasol had earlier indicated its intentions to produce 80 000 tons per annum of biodiesel from 400 000 tons of soya beans. the project would require about 300 000 hectares of extra soya beans to be grown each year for it to run at full capacity. challenges and strategies although biofuels are an attractive alternative to petrofuel and would reduce the vulnerability of world economies to price increases in crude oil, there still remain few challenges to address to make them competitive as main stream energy sources. among the challenges are: food security;• the high cost of feedstock; and • fuel quality. • since biofuel comes mainly from food crops such as maize, sugar cane and various oil crops, this clearly creates a food versus fuel dilemma. to have biofuel plants running and a sustainable supply of biofuel, a significant fraction of the national annual crop production should be apportioned for fuel production. to overcome this dilemma, shah and colantuani (2008) are of the view that a “new agriculture” be developed that will not compete with food crops for land use, for example, the use of algae in biofuel production. other alternatives to food crops would include the use of non-edible plants such as switchgrass, wood and agricultural residues for bioethanol. as a strategy to overcome this challenge, south africa has agreed to exclude crops such as maize, which provide staple food for most south africans, from the targeted crops for biofuels. to further minimise food security risks, a 2% penetration level of biofuels in the national liquid fuel supply has been proposed, which amounts to 400 million litres per annum. this requires about 1.4% of arable land. the land targeted for the biofuel project is the currently underutilized land in the former homelands. feedstock for biofuel would, therefore, come from surplus crops and from underutilized land. equally important for the viability of biofuels are the cost of feedstock, its conversion to biofuel and the cost on the consumer. at the moment the cost of feedstock for biodiesel manufacturing is very high (shah and colantuani, oil crops in biofuel applications 159 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 153-161. 2008). however, research has shown that when a b20 blend is used with some form of tax exemption on the biodiesel portion, the price per litre of biodiesel ranges close to or is slightly less than the retail price of fully taxed petro-diesel (schmidt, 2004). the quality of biodiesel is another serious challenge to overcome. biodiesel from different sources tends to have different fatty acid profiles, a quality which influences its cold flow properties and oxidative stability. tallow and palm oil based biodiesel, for example, show poor low temperature flow properties as compared to soybean and canola based biodiesel which have a relatively higher composition of mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids. on the other hand, biodiesel consisting of highly unsaturated fatty acid esters is more susceptible to oxidation than biodiesel with a high composition of saturated fatty acid esters (shah and colantuani, 2008). in general, neat biodiesel (b100) has been found to perform very poorly in cold temperatures compared to petro-diesel. the poor cold flow properties are indicated by their relatively high cloud points and pour points (knothe, 2005). however, a b20 blend shows no operational problems down to temperatures as low as -40 °c. summary and concluding remarks with the petroleum age nearing its end, biofuels are gradually taking centre stage as renewable alternatives to petro-fuels. a biobased economy is expected to reduce the vulnerability of economies to price increases in crude oil and fuels. to ensure energy security and to pledge a support for reduced greenhouse gas emissions and the promotion of sustainable development, the south african government faces the challenge of showing a strong commitment for the biofuel industry through their policy regulations and incentives. a policy framework which is reliable and objective-oriented is essential for the integration of biofuels to be successful. through concerted efforts and by addressing the concerns around biofuel quality, biofuels from oil crops and non-edible plants could significantly contribute towards reducing global dependence on petro fuels. indeed biofuels are part of the solution and not the only solution to energy demands. the approach to addressing the energy demands should incorporate all renewable energy resources including solar and hydropower as they each have a role to play. references and notes auer, j. (2005). bioenergies after the petroleum age, deutsche bank research, http://www.dbresearch.com (accessed june 2008). biofuels industrial strategy (bis) of the republic of south africa (2007). department of minerals and energy, http:// www.info.gov.za/view/downloadfileaction?id=77830 (accessed october 2008). biodiesel. cold flow properties of biodiesel blends. http://wwwbiodiesel.org/resources/ reportsdatabase/viewall.asp, (accessed december 2008). bruwer, j.j.; boschoff, b.; van, d.; hugo, f.j.c.; fuls j.; hawkins, c.; van der walt, a.n.; engelbrecht, a.; du plessis, l.m. 1980 (a). in the utilization of sunflower seed oil as a renewable fuel for diesel engines, american society for agricultural engineers national energy symposium, kansas city, missouri. marvey 160 bruwer, j.j.; boschoff, b.; van, d., hugo, f.j.c.; fuls, j.; hawkins, c.; van der walt, a.n.; engelbrecht, a.; du plessis, l.m. 1980 (b). in sunflower seed oil as extender for diesel fuel in agricultural tractors, south african institute for agricultural engineers symposium. clark, s.j.; wagner l.; schrock, m.d.; piennaar, p.g. (1984). methyl and ethyl soybean esters as renewable fuels for diesel engines. journal of american oil chemists society, vol. 61, 1632-1638. commodity online. sunflower. www.commodityonline.com/commodities/oil.oilseeds/sunfloweroil.php (accessed december 2008). crop estimates committee (cec, 28 may 2008). food security statistics: (a) final area and crop figures of winter cereals: 2007 production season; (b) area and fourth production forecast of summer crops: 2007/08 season. www.nda.agric.za (accessed july 2008). downey, r.k. (1990). canola – a quality brassica oilseed, in : j. janick and j.e. simon (eds), advances in new crops. timber press, portland, or. free state freight transport data bank (ftdb) (2008). grain and seed production, http://www.freetrans.gov.za/ftd/fs/industries/grain_seeds/index.html (accessed october 2008). gc bio fuel. alternative fuel manufacturers and equipment suppliers – quality, testing and warranties, http://gcbiofuels.com/index.php?ref=quality, (accessed december 2008). hofman, v. (2003) biodiesel fuel, ndsu extension service, http://www.ag.ndsu. nodak.edu (accessed october 2008). jones, g. (2003) world oil and gas “running out”. http://edition.cnn.com/2003 (accessed october 2008). katembo, bi. (2007) africa, seeds, and biofuel, journal of multidisciplinary research, vol. 1, 1-6. knothe, g. 2005. dependence of biodiesel fuel properties on the structure of fatty alkyl esters, fuel processing technology, vol. 86, 1059-1070. le roux, h. (2007). growing biodiesel, engineering news, http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=110466 (accessed october 2008). meier, a.r., metzger, j., schubert, u. (2007) plant oil renewable resources as green alternatives in polymer science, chemical society reviews, vol. 36, pp 1788-1802. njobeni, s. (2006) algae biodiesel production in south africa, oilgae, http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2006/07/algae.biodiesel.productions-in-south.html (accessed october 2008). olajide, j.o., igbeka j.c., afolabi, t.j., emiola, o.a. (2007). prediction of oil yield from ground kernels in an hydraulic press using artificial neural network (ann). journal of food engineering, vol. 81, 643-646. radich, a. (2004) biodiesel, performance, costs, and use, energy information administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/analysispaper/biodiesel/. oil crops in biofuel applications 161 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 153-161. rsa food security bulletin (april 2008). monthly food security bulletin. http://www.nda.agric.za, issued 12 may 2008 (accessed december 2008). schmidt, l. (2004). biodiesel vehicle fuel:ghg reductions, air emissions, supply and economic overview – discussion paper c3-015. http://www.biofuelcanada-ca/c3%20biodiesel%20discussion%20paper.pdf (accessed december 2008). shah, r. colantuani, v. 2008. challenges facing the biodiesel industry: focus on biodiesel testing standards, biofuel industry news, 8-9. spore (no. 73, february 1998). vegetable oils: a slippery slope to success. http://sporearchive.cta.int/spore73/spore73a.pdf (accessed december 2008). the times (26 april 2008). so many questions with lourie bosman. www.thetimes.co.za/printedition/insight/article.aspx?id=757178. van schalkwyk, h.p. (2003). demand relations of oilseed products in south africa. mcom. dissertation. university of the free state, south africa. virginia cooperative extention (vce). biodiesel fuel. http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/ageng/442-880/442-880.html#l2, (accessed december 2008). zanzi, r., aquilar, p.j.v., diaz, i.l., moya, i.h. (2006) biodiesel fuel production, cubarsolar 2006, villa clara-cienfuengas, cuba, pp 17-21 http://hem.fyristorg.com/ zanzi/ paper/ biodiesel-zanzi-cubasolar.pdf (accessed october 2008). july 2008 inside book colour .p65 abstract private sector institutions utilise many different business methods, some of which can selectively be adapted for use by organisations outside the private sector, to the benefit of their service delivery responsibilities. but the best of the appropriate practices from the private sector have often “not crossed over”. the water research commission (wrc) of south africa, working in collaboration with the council for scientific and industrial research (csir), finds that the concept of franchising, so successfully used by the private sector to deliver many goods and services, if applied to water services operation and maintenance, could alleviate and address many challenges in the management of water services. at the same time, franchising could provide an ideal stimulus to support the development of local enterprises, all within the municipal service delivery environment. franchisee water service providers, dependent for their livelihood on the success of their business, would have a strong incentive to perform, and would also enjoy the benefit of the franchisor’s expert guidance and quality assurance. some areas for potential franchising include meter management, billing, plumbing, pressure management, sewer maintenance, and wastewater treatment processes. the help from the franchisor would be of particular value to water services authorities at a distance from the major urban centres. few of these authorities can afford to employ competent qualified staff, and often non-compliance with the laid down performance standards is a direct consequence of this lack. significant improvements would soon be seen if the generally under-qualified and under-resourced water services staff could have this ongoing support, mentoring and quality control — or if the authority could enter into partnerships with small local enterprises or ngos which would, through franchising, enjoy the necessary ongoing support, mentoring and quality control, and would have quick access to expert assistance when they needed it. keywords: franchising, water services, water management, disciplines: water management, public management, economics “crossing over”: appropriate private sector principles, to operate more reliable public sector water services k wall* * dr kevin wall (e-mail: kwall@csir.co.za) is a researcher with south africa’s council for scientific research (csir) in pretoria. he is a registered civil engineer and registered town planner. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 95-121. 96 the principles of franchising. � franchises’ success is based on replication of success, efficient logistics and a trained and capacitated workforce. � franchisee small businesses are relatively easy to establish. � franchising is robust, and able to ensure consistent quality products and services. � franchisees are obliged to adopt the tried and tested systems and procedures of the franchisor, and to accept the quality control of the franchisor — resulting in higher quality assurance and greater efficiencies. � franchises are able to innovate and develop constantly. wall 1. preface how is it that residents of some parts of our country can buy clean petrol, and clean (if, arguably, unrepresentative of optimum dietary practice) hamburgers, but cannot get clean water from a tap, or hygienic and environmentally acceptable sanitation? this contrast is especially stark in the light of the fact that the oil from which the petrol is made has to come from very far away, whereas the “raw material”, so to speak, for the clean water comes from relatively close by. how can such a thing be? there are lots of possible reasons for this situation. two are: � first, the manager or owner of the outlet (petrol station, fast food shop, etc) knows that if he or she cannot provide those hamburgers and that petrol, and cannot promise to provide them every day, he or she will not receive income. if something in the process goes wrong, he knows that he has to get it right again — and quickly. that provides “incentive”. � and, without knocking the majority of municipal employees, who are con-scientious and hardworking, many municipal employees know they can, or think they can, get away with excuses for the water not being clean, or not being available, or the sanitation (and especially the effluent from the wastewater treatment works) being substandard — day after day — and they will still receive their pay. � second, the staff of the petrol station, and all the people responsible for refining the petrol, making sure that it gets to the petrol stations, and so on (and same for the hamburgers), are properly trained. that provides “capacity”. � on most days in the year nothing much happens at the petrol station that the fairly low-skilled staff who are there all the time do not have the capacity to cope with readily. 97 however, when it comes to major maintenance, or upgrading — or when there is a breakdown — the staff at the petrol station know who to call for advice, or to come, maybe from far away, to help them. � and they know that those better-trained and more experienced people will help them, because they have an obligation, in the form of a contract, to do so. � those higher-level people are not needed all the time — they are needed just occasionally. so the cost of these high-capacity people is spread among many petrol stations, and the cost per petrol station is very low. of course there are from time to time other reasons, but these will not be dealt with here. the questions that this paper attempts to address are: � what is it that enables the hamburger outlet or petrol station to provide services as reliably as it does? and � can that recipe be applied to reliably providing acceptable sanitation and clean water? 2. background south african local government, assisted by the national department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) and other roleplayers, has in the past dozen years been remarkably successful in answering the challenge of services provision. large numbers of households are now supplied with water services1 of a wide variety, thanks to massive investments in infrastructure and institutional development. although there are many who are still not able to access services, this achievement is exemplary. however, this very success is creating problems now, and for the future. as the number and complexity of water services systems increases, so the operations and maintenance workload escalates. one of the principal pillars of the policy framework established by south africa’s new government from 1994 involves a shift in responsibility from a centralised, authoritarian state towards greater autonomy at lower levels of the system. ultimately the success of this framework depends on those local governments, their elected councillors, their appointed officials, and the local communities taking the initiative and assuming responsibility for the optimal 1 “water services” for present purposes includes both water and sanitation. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. appropriate private sector principles 98 functioning of the services, the delivery of which has been assigned to them in terms of the national constitution. conventional wisdom, supported by research, indicates that the capacity of many local authorities in south africa to adequately provide even basic levels of water services to all their citizens on a sustainable basis is in question (for only two (of many alternative) examples: dwaf 2005; dwaf and csir 2007). this research illustrates the distance which many authorities at that local level need to travel before this vision can become reality. the rising challenge is to ensure that local government water services providers can manage the delivery system sustainably. exploring a range of options to support these authorities also represents an opportunity to selectively incubate innovations on an experimental basis, following a tradition of south african leadership in public sector-driven partnerships with the private sector. there is undoubtedly, among other measures, a need to make use of the potential of small, medium and microenterprises (smmes) to assist public sector water services providers. however the barriers to entry for the smaller or start-up company are substantial. but if these could be overcome, perhaps through franchising, then there would be many opportunities for local economic development. the twin driving forces of the franchising concept are the profit motive and the existence of a successful business model that can be copied widely – neither of these is currently in evidence in the water services sector. dwaf and others have for a number of years considered that the potential for franchising in the water services sector ought to be investigated, but, for various reasons, they didn’t follow up. the water research commission (wrc), working in collaboration with the council for scientific and industrial research (csir), has since 2002 undertaken pioneering research into the concept of water services franchising in south africa, exploring the concept and its relevance to the water services delivery process. the first stage of this work, completed in 2005, indicated opportunities in the water services delivery chain, and recommended that these be explored further. (wall 2005) a second stage of the wrc/csir work, commenced in 2005 and now complete: � further explored the concept of franchising partnerships and their relevance to the water services delivery chain. � identified those elements in the water services delivery chain which offer the greatest scope for franchising partnerships. � undertook a review of the policy, statutory, technical, financial wall 99 and regulatory aspects which impact on the concept of franchising. � identified those elements in the water services delivery chain which offer the greatest scope for franchising partnerships, and set out the results of the business analysis (i.e. modelling) of possible franchising of selected elements. � developed franchising partnerships models for the areas identified by the research, with consideration for the legal, regulatory etc. aspects. � conducted a case study of an element in a hypothetical situation, to see how the model would work. � set out the principles for water services franchising partnerships. the longer term outcome, when franchising is widely introduced, should be that in a significant number of instances in south africa there will be reliable water services delivery where there has not been such before. in addition: � for dwaf and local government, an alternative, and in many circumstances superior, delivery concept will be available; � employment opportunities will be created; and � for potential entrepreneurs, and for broad-based black economic empowerment (bbbee), new business opportunities will be made accessible and viable. 3. a case for the public sector to selectively learn from some of the private sector’s operating principles private sector institutions utilise many different business methods, some of which can selectively be adapted for use by organisations outside the private sector, to the benefit of their service delivery responsibilities. imagine a system that will ensure that tap water anywhere in south africa enjoys (within acceptable limits) the same quality, and reliability of delivery, from place to place — and that this quality, and reliability, is fully compliant with the nationally laid-down standard. also imagine that if there is the occasional malfunction, and consequent threat to the quality and reliability, the system of delivery is geared to rectify this within an appropriate time limit (depending 2 municipalities, or groups of municipalities, which have the responsibility for water services. they are permitted to contract others to provide all or part of the provision of the service. although it is not strictly correct to do so, this paper uses the terms “municipality” and “wsa” as if they were fully interchangeable. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 100 on the issue, this could, if needed, be as quickly as a matter of hours). that would indeed be a boon to public confidence in water services delivery and in the water services authorities (wsas2 ), and a great contribution that to public health. and what if such a system could be extended to wastewater — in particular to improve compliance of the effluent from wastewater treatment works? however, it is not necessary to invent this system, because it already exists. it is the system that ensures that petrol at any pump enjoys (within narrow limits) the same quality, and reliability of delivery, from place to place. which is the same system that ensures that many other services (including hamburgers!), from specific local suppliers anywhere, enjoys (again within narrow limits) the same quality, and reliability of delivery, from place to place. that system is generally known as “business format franchising”. whereas this system is in widespread use in throughout the world to deliver a wide range of consumer goods and services, it is seldom, if ever, used to deliver services that meet basic human needs. it is worth asking why this is the case. especially considering that the quality of drinking water and sanitation, are, it can be argued, more important to human life than are the quality of petrol, or hamburgers, or printing services, or videos, or shoe repairs, or the myriad of other goods and services often supplied in terms of business format franchising partnerships. a possible answer that immediately comes to mind is that few, if any, in public sector water services delivery have thought of even looking to see if there is anything that can be learnt from the way the private sector is operating and maintaining its infrastructure. (talking here about the private sector generally — not referring to the private sector delivery of water services.) the corollary of that could be that no one in the private sector (not just in franchising) has bothered much about offering its operating principles to the public sector — perhaps because the private sector perceives that there is nothing in it for them, or because it perceives that the public sector would be averse to learning from the private sector, or for any other reason. another possible answer is ideological resistance, from some in public sector water services delivery, to anything that smacks of the private sector. but there could be other reasons. whereas there are many instances of public sector delivery institutions adopting practices from the private sector (and vice versa), many more possibilities wait to be explored — and no doubt many wall 101 others wait even to be identified. the author could refer to many such instances, but one will suffice. an interesting example of what appears to be a recent awakening by a number of institutions, not in the private sector, of the value that might lie in them adopting tried and tested practices in the private sector, is found in what is referred to as the “humanitarian sector”. a number of comparisons have in recent years been made between, on the one hand, the ability of large private sector organisations to deploy people, equipment, materials and funds, and, on the other hand, the ability of humanitarian organisations to perform nearenough the same types of tasks when the latter are faced with the need for the aid that they are mandated to provide – which might be in order to respond to a natural disaster (such as flood, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane), man-made disaster (war, terrorism), famine, or extreme poverty. the comparison has often not been favourable to the humanitarian organisations, whether the disaster might be a rapid onset disaster, such as an earthquake, which requires immediate interventions of rescue and aid, or a slow onset disaster, such as drought or famine, which may allow more time to respond. for example, a series of articles in “fortune” magazine, dealing with the aftermath of hurricane katrina, showed that the private sector has a wealth of knowledge that can be put to good use in disaster relief situations. (boorstin 2005, fox 2005) this knowledge encompasses forward planning, risk management, and the kind of logistics skill and experience that enables goods to be identified, sorted, transported and delivered – speedily and efficiently, and with an ability to respond to changing needs and circumstances. an outstanding example of this was the response by the retail giant walmart, which “… began preparing for the effects of katrina six days before the storm even hit land. walmart takes natural disasters so seriously the organisation even employs private meteorologists to provide the most advanced predictions of weather patterns … in this case, the advance notice of the swing in hurricane katrina’s path enabled trucks to be reloaded and dispatched to the new orleans area.. they did this so efficiently that a local mayor is quoted as having said: “the red cross and fema [the federal disaster relief agency] should take a master class in logistics and mobilisation from walmart”.” (maspero and ittmann 2008, page 182) the “nonchalant response” by rollin ford, walmart executive vice president of logistics and supply chain, says it all: “that’s what we do – we move mass volume very efficiently”. (ibid — emphasis added) humanitarian organisations, while praised for their sincerity, commitment and dedication, have sometimes been faulted for their appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 102 ”lack of professionalism” when it comes to other aspects of their performance. in particular the logistics side has come in for criticism – “the underdeveloped state of logistics in the humanitarian sector closely resembles the state of corporate logistics 20 years ago, by displaying underinvestment, lack of recognition, and the absence of a fulfilling professional career path for those working in the humanitarian logistics domain”. (thomas and rock kopczak (2005), quoted in maspero and ittmann 2008, page 181.) the oft-stated message is that the humanitarian organisations should study private sector companies in which logistics plays a significant role, should learn from their business practices what is appropriate, and then should adapt their own operational principles accordingly. “humanitarian logistics has much in common with corporate logistics, yet the best practices from the corporate world …. have not crossed over.” (thomas, quoted in maspero and ittmann 2008, page 178 — emphasis added) similarly, beamon (ibid, page 179) is quoted as arguing “that the foundation of performance management in the private sector could be applied to humanitarian chains”. this includes: � “resource performance measures”; � “output performance measures”; and � “flexibility performance measures” (i.e. the extent to which the organisation is able to adapt operations and programmes as required by the circumstances). in respect of water services operation and maintenance in south africa, one could also say, adapting the words of thomas as quoted above, that water services delivery has much in common with the delivery of some goods supplied by the private sector, yet the best of the appropriate practices from the private sector have also “not crossed over”. does that comment by the walmart executive “that’s what we do” not sum it up – that there can be a case for the public sector to selectively learn from some of the private sector’s operating principles? for the petrol franchisor and franchisee, ensuring that the pumps work, that the petrol is not contaminated, that the forecourt is clean, that the petrol storage tanks never run dry — “that’s what [they] do”. it’s no big deal for them to do this reliably, day in and day out. for them it is “business usual”. in contrast, for some wsas and water services providers (wsps), ensuring that the pumps work, that the drinking water contains no contaminants, that there is always a supply of the chemicals needed, and so on, is not something that they are able to achieve consistently. for them to achieve this consistently would have to be “business unusual”. wall 103 4. the case for water services franchising partnerships the rapid rate of construction and commissioning of new water services infrastructure is severely challenging the institutions responsible for operating and managing this infrastructure. innovative approaches to water service delivery are required. but even if all the existing institutions were coping with the water services delivery responsibility, there would be good reason to investigate alternative institutional models, on the grounds that it needs to be found out if alternatives: � could be more cost-effective, and/or � could allow existing role players to focus on their other responsibilities, and/or � could offer a range of other advantages (including greater local economic development). there is an alternative service delivery institutional model that is suited more for the ongoing operation and maintenance of water services systems than for investment in new infrastructure – and, importantly, that is friendly to small business and local economic development. this alternative is the franchising of water services. however there is little experience of this approach anywhere in the world, although some existing partnerships share some of the characteristics of the franchise approach. the barriers to entry for the smaller or start-up company are substantial. but if these could be overcome — and franchising is a way to overcome them — then there will be many opportunities for improved water services and for local economic development. the twin driving forces of the franchising concept are the existence of a successful business model that can be copied widely (there are currently very few such models for the water sector 3 ) and the profit motive. franchising is a way of accelerating the development of a business, based on tried and tested methodology. the franchise system firstly correlates and systematises the business, and then facilitates the setting up of the business, and supports and disciplines it thereafter. the key is the incentive, to franchisor and franchisee alike, to improve efficiency, and to provide improved service reliability and quality control. 3 furthermore, much of the business information pertaining to these very few models is, understandably, guarded by the companies that possess it, and which have, with little if any exception, gained their information the hard way – through experience! it is their competitive advantage, and they are willing to share only up to a point. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 104 the wrc, in collaboration with the csir, has explored the concept of franchising, its relevance to the water services sector, and its prospects as an institutional option for water services operations and management. these studies have found that the franchising concept, if applied to water services delivery, could in favourable circumstances both alleviate problems encountered in, and raise the efficiency of, water services delivery. at the same time, franchising would have the added advantage of stimulating small business activities. these studies have, further, described at a conceptual level how a water services franchise model could be made available to emerging entrepreneurs, and have concluded that franchising water services could be the basis of a viable local business. the franchise would be in respect of a component of the value chain that is suitable for small business because it can be readily systematised. the wrc found an indisputable need for alternative water services provider systems, and for local economic development, and that there is potential through water services franchising partnerships to simultaneously: � more consistently deliver water services to specification; � improve water services efficiency; and � promote local economic development and smme development and broad-based black economic empowerment (bbbee). the research further found that it is essential to the success of water services franchising that, inter alia: � service to customers meets the specification in the franchise contract with the water services authority � suitable franchisors are willing and available � local entrepreneurs are willing to take up water services franchise opportunities � franchising proves to be a viable business for franchisor and franchisee alike � funding partners support water services franchising in just the same way as they support in comparable circumstances water services provision by other institutional means on the last of these points: franchising partnerships must benefit from the funding streams (e.g. the equitable share programme) to the municipality to the same extent as these streams are intended to benefit any other type of water services provider, including the municipality itself. franchisee water service providers, dependent for their livelihood on the success of their business, would have a strong incentive to wall 105 perform, and would also enjoy the benefit of the franchisor’s expert guidance and quality assurance. on this latter point, a franchisor can ensure a professional approach, quality control, and ongoing training, as well as advice and help when needed. this help from the franchisor would be of particular value in municipalities at a distance from the major urban centres, few of which can afford to employ competent qualified staff. as an illustration of the direct result of shortfalls in selected competencies, sample surveys of these municipalities’ treatment works show frequent noncompliance with the performance standards laid down. (for one example only: dwaf and csir 2007.4 ) significant improvements 4 for example: “the compliance level for completed bulk water projects is 20.7%, which means that almost 80% of the projects do not comply with policy requirements, norms and standards. [emphasis in the original.] of concern is the fact that less than 50% of the projects are reliable, less than a third meet technical quality standards, and only 20% are compliant when measured against technical quality criteria, all of which has an impact on sustainability. a number of problem areas have been identified regarding breakdowns and slow repair times. approximately 40% of the projects have not been operational at some stage in the past year. other problems include a lack of storage facilities for chemicals and the unavailability of chemicals, while some projects indicated that their operators have not received any training in operation and maintenance and that the water quality is not being monitored. technical problems reported included water pumps that were out of order or non-operational for various reasons, pipe leakages, illegal connections to pipelines, and reservoirs that were nonoperational.” (dwaf and csir 2007, pages 19 and 20.) recommendations in respect of completed bulk water projects are: � challenges and problems have been identified with technical quality, water treatment and reliability components. these include the following: � the reliability component is of critical importance owing to its possible impact on the long-term operation and eventual sustainability of bulk water systems. it is imperative that measures should be developed and put in place to improve maintenance, reduce causes of breakdowns and accelerate repair times. � quality control or supervision should be enforced to ensure the technical quality of pumps, pipes, valves and valve boxes, as well as the regular availability and safe storage of chemicals for water treatment. � measures and processes should be put in place to support the monitoring of water quality. � regular and appropriate training of operators is vital for the effective long-term operation of the system.” (ibid, pages 23 and 24) elsewhere in the same report, it is stated that recommendations include: � “a proper and regular monitoring and reporting system …. to assist in identifying and rectifying problem areas ….” � “the requirements for detailed maintenance records and proper maintenance regimes should be enforced.” � “operating manuals should be standard issue and should be translated into the vernacular of the operator.” � “operators should receive appropriate and regular training and re-training.” (ibid, pages 24 and 25) appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 106 would soon be seen if the generally under-qualified or underresourced water services staff in these municipalities could have this ongoing support, mentoring and quality control — or if the municipality could enter into partnerships with smmes which would, through franchising partnerships, enjoy the necessary ongoing support, mentoring and quality control. given that the costs of the franchisor’s higher levels of specialist expertise would be shared by several franchisees, the franchisor could afford to make this expertise available to each of them on an as-needed basis (and, through them, to their municipal clients), and could provide other resources normally only available to larger water services providers. this type of partnership holds significant benefits for municipalities. thus there is ample scope for the smme private sector to assist, and there is a range of ways in which entrepreneurship in water service provision can be encouraged and supported. if the entrepreneurs were not standalone enterprises, but were franchisees, they would enjoy competent franchisor support, and both franchisee and franchisor would be incentivised to make this arrangement work. many useful pointers can be found in business format franchising franchisee development programmes as well as in engineering infrastructure contractor development programmes, both of which have good track records in south africa. the municipal client’s competence to monitor performance and enforce contract compliance is key to it effectively using the smme sector. however if a municipality is short of management resources, it would be putting these to more efficient use in managing the work of the contractor than in trying to cope with the operational issues itself. given that there are currently not enough water services providers in south africa, entrepreneurs should be offered the opportunity to assist with these operational issues. nevertheless, the argument for franchising as a means to improve efficiency in water services operation and maintenance does not depend on the case for or against the participation of for-profit organizations. there are already elements of franchising in some of the current activities of non-profit water services organisations in south africa. for example, currently, a valuable asset to several predominantly rural municipalities is the practice of appointing large water services institutions as “support services agents” to support water services providers that are non-governmental organisations (ngos) and/or small local community-based organisations (cbos). although this arrangement is not franchising, development of the franchising concept can definitely benefit from its experience, and it could in turn benefit from adoption of some of the characteristics wall 107 of franchising. one parastatal and several private sector organisations that have the expertise and resources to play a franchisor role have expressed interest in playing such a role should the opportunities arise. there is little doubt that other capable organisations would be interested were they to see the potential. it must be acknowledged that there are a few water services franchisors that have long been operating in south africa. they are successful financially and in terms of the service (operation and/or maintenance of an element or elements of the water services delivery chain) that they provide.5 they have not, or do not wish to, provide other elements, but they would like to sell their services to other than their current market niche (invariably private sector purchasers of their services). their usual comment is that they would like to extend their services to infrastructure owned by the wsas but do not find the environment conducive. one of the franchisors is however actively seeking opportunities to extend the range of elements of the water services delivery chain in respect of which it offers operation and maintenance services. a major motivation for the research has been the wrc’s wish to free up the environment, to break water services franchising out of its current niches, and to explore and pilot the application of franchising principles across operation and maintenance of a range of public sector water services delivery elements. and, with that, to place in the public domain the business information (e.g. methods, financial viability) pertaining thereto. 5. overview of water services franchising the wrc has therefore been researching a partnership concept, making use of the principles of franchising, for improved water services infrastructure operation and maintenance, while ownership of the water services infrastructure remains with the public sector wsa. the concept has been formulated with a view to improving water services operational quality and efficiency through introducing a supply-side operation and maintenance provider mechanism that is new to water services. 5 for example, the drain surgeon is a well-known franchisor, based in gauteng, but with franchisees under the same brand name in all major centres of south africa. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 108 many south african water services authorities do not have staff or systems to deliver a reasonable service. a carefully designed set of wsa/franchisor/franchisee arrangements, efficiently implemented, could assist. at the same time, franchising offers opportunities to the smme sector and to local economic development. franchisees are smmes, but their association with a franchisor gives them considerable advantages — reflected in the better service that they can provide — over standalone smmes. all choices of institutions for water services delivery — whether of the primary water services provider (wsp) or (more feasibly) of subcontractors to that wsp — are between alternatives. the water services delivery model in common use (i.e. a heavy reliance on water services authority’s/ municipality’s own in-house resources) is not intrinsically flawed. the reason why many of the owners of the water services infrastructure and/or their appointed water services providers are not able to operate this infrastructure satisfactorily lies in the implementation of the model, rather than in the model itself. given the too-often inadequate state of operation and maintenance of much water services infrastructure under the current institutional regime, water services authorities need to consider different and potentially more successful options, and to give serious consideration to adopting them, or at least facilitating their participation. franchising might not be ideal, but it might in many situations offer the prospect of improved operation and maintenance of water services. however three main priorities need to be addressed simultaneously if the operation and maintenance of public sector water services infrastructure is, in the cause of improved water services provision, and to the benefit of water services users, to be franchised where it is appropriate to do so. as follows: � ensuring that the necessary steps are taken to allow ngos, cbos and smmes to compete on even terms with in-house providers. at very least, this must be done where in-house operation and maintenance is showing obvious signs of serious or repetitive nature of non-compliance. � addressing funding stream and municipal financial stability issues. � ensuring that a limited number of water services franchising partnerships pilots are up and running as soon as possible. these pilots will, through their success, demonstrate the potential of water services franchising. national government is the key roleplayer in terms of addressing the first two of these priorities. research shows that municipalities are for the most part unlikely to wall 109 change in respect of the first of these priorities. invariably, they tend to want to run operations and maintenance themselves, whether they are fully capable or not. they do not have a mindset that says “we cannot provide a fully compliant service, and therefore we must look for some other way of dealing with those aspects that we cannot”. 6 if, therefore, national government wishes to see change, it is going to have to demonstrate strong leadership. research also shows that not many municipalities are able of their own accord to bring about significant change in respect of the second of these priorities. again, therefore, national government is going to have to take the leadership itself. in this instance, national government has succeeded in bringing about some improvement, but much more needs to be done. a “three-step breakthrough” is needed: � the first step is the breakthrough to acceptance by water services authorities of outsourcing the operation and maintenance of infrastructure that they, the water services authorities, own. (to emphasise: this outsourcing need not necessarily be to the private sector – it could also be to ngos and cbos.) � the second is the acceptance that the institutions outsourced to could be smmes. � the third step is the acceptance that these smmes could be franchisees. (this third step should not be a problem once the second level is in place.) it should be easier to convince clients of the merits of franchised smmes than of the idea of smmes that are standalone. what is good or bad for smmes is good or bad for franchising. but the converse doesn’t necessarily apply – or, putting it differently, a franchisee smme, given the support it would receive from the franchisor, would in all likelihood find it easier to meet some regulatory and other requirements than would a standalone smme, everything else being equal. finally, whereas a business based on a single element of the water services delivery value chain might not be viable, a franchisee might be able to make a viable business by offering several water-related 6 municipalities should be required to justify any choice that they make, rather than the current situation where they do not appear to be held accountable if they choose the in-house approach and it consistently fails to deliver reliable water services. if this were the case, there would be many more opportunities for outsourcing of operation and maintenance. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 110 services, thereby achieving dual objectives, viz: � economy of scale; and � lessening dependence on one or a limited number of clients. the next section puts in a nutshell the case for a partnership concept, making use of the principles of franchising, for improved water services infrastructure operation and maintenance. 6. water services franchising in a nutshell: a partnership concept, making use of the principles of franchising, for improved water services infrastructure operation and maintenance in the briefest possible terms: � the wrc has found that a franchise partnership concept can assist municipalities with their water services responsibilities, specifically the operation and maintenance of infrastructure. � the municipalities will continue to own the infrastructure. water services franchising is a means of: � assisting municipalities by providing the higher-level expertise in water and sanitation infrastructure operations and maintenance that would very seldom if at all be found outside the metropoles and larger urban areas; while � creating and supporting cbos and small entrepreneurs who can provide locally-based and thus efficient service provider solutions; and � building local economic development. the concept addresses the lack of higher-level expertise that has so often been identified as a key to improvement of service, especially in the more remote areas. the local staff can deal with day-to-day operational needs, but are not able to deal with anything more demanding than that. the essence of water services franchising is the creation of a pool of appropriate expertise upon which the local operators can draw, a restructuring of the local responsibility for operating, and the creation of a two-way obligation — an obligation to call for assistance from the pool, and an obligation to respond rapidly to that call. all of this together with the incentive structures to ensure that it happens. (for more detail, see box directly alongside.) the franchisees would be smmes and cbos. the franchisors would be any institution that has the required expertise, is willing to provide the service, and would not create a conflict of interest by providing the service. wall 111 7 this analogy should suffice to demonstrate that outsourcing of operation and maintenance, whether to a branch of a larger business, a standalone business or a franchisee, is not a form of “privatisation”. the vehicle owner retains the ownership, irrespective of whether he outsources maintenance or does it himself. the same would go for the meters that are read, the pumps that are maintained, or the wastewater treatment works that is operated and maintained — ownership of the infrastructure remains with the wsa. through franchising partner-ships, matching skills levels, and matching obligations, together with incentives to use the skills appropriately and effectively. � on most days at the (for example) treatment works, nothing extraordinary happens. franchisee staff, who are lesser-skilled, are able to cope. � when major maintenance or upgrading is needed, or when there is a breakdown — those staff know who to call at the franchisor in order to bring the higher level of skill. � and they know that the people they call will help, because there is a binding contract and a shared reputation. � it is two-way obligation — an obligation on the franchisee to ask for help, and an obligation on the franchisor to give the help. � cost of the higher skills levels, which are needed only intermittently, is spread across many sites — thus cost per site is low. an analogy would be a combination of: � together with a maintenance plan (or purchasing the maintenance plan afterwards); and � the vehicle maintenance is undertaken by a franchisee, with the continuous support of a franchisor. 7 the wrc has modelled the franchising of selected elements of the water services value chain. elements in-clude: pressure management, meter reading, demand management, plum-bing services, operating abstraction points, and operating treatment works. this modelling has drawn upon firsthand knowledge of operating these same elements in contexts as close as possible to franchising. it has also drawn upon understanding of the small number of franchises already active in the water services sector, and upon understanding of the very much larger number of franchises in other fields. finally: � franchising offers significant potential for improvement in servicesquality and reliability, greatly assisting the good functioning of municipalities. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 112 � franchising offers significant potential for the capacitation and participation of smmes and cbos, and for bbbee. 7. key points from wrc research key points, potentially of great value in planning and implementation of water services franchising partnerships, that emerge from the wrc work are: � if the wsp or, more likely, a subcontractor to the primary wsp in a wsa, were a franchisee, this franchise alternative should not disturb present relationships between the wsa, other wsps and others, but would simply add one more alternative to the array of possible wsp types. � whereas a wsa may require contractual recourse not only to the franchisee, but also to the franchisor, the franchisor could be a co-signatory to the contract or a guarantor of the performance of the franchisee. � selection of a pilot site brings with it a wsa or another public sector institution that is the responsible authority for water services. in the initial stages of water services franchising partnerships development, selection of an element of the water services value chain is likely to bring with it only a limited choice (or no choice at all) of a business model and a franchisor coupled to that model. � the sequence of events will probably be that franchisors will select water services elements and will formulate the business models to go with each. they will then look for sites to apply the models, and will seek the cooperation of the wsas responsible. finally they will offer the business to potential franchisees, or will attempt to nurture potential franchisees. as water services franchising in south africa grows, however, the initiative may come from others — e.g. from the wsa, but to begin with it is highly probable that it will only be franchisors that initiate water services franchising proposals. � many potential sites for water services franchising partnerships already exist in south africa, in the sense that much water services infrastructure is already in place but is not being operated properly at the present time. while these sites fall under the jurisdiction of or are owned by wsas, and the reluctance of, or opposition of, what appears to be the majority of wsas has been noted by the wrc, it is encouraging that a sufficient number of wsas appear to be willing to consider undertaking, or permitting, water services franchising pilots. wall 113 � the participants in pilot implementation, and the sites where this piloting could be attempted, need to be carefully selected. if the pilot were to fail because of for example political or economic problems in the area, nothing about the merits of franchising partnerships would have been learned. � thus the selection of the initial pilot sites is principally constrained by the need to match: � water services infrastructure and � site, and its environment, and � willing wsa and � willing and competent franchisor, preferably with local experience and local credibility (i.e. credibility built from a track record of delivery and of working with local authorities, communities and local small contractors); and � (once the above have been brought together) willing and competent potential franchisees. � as franchising spreads, business models will proliferate, and companies with the appropriate water services skills and resources will be attracted to the franchisor role. � organisations will of their own accord elect to set up as water services franchisors. how much success they will have will depend on their expertise, resources and track record before entering water services franchising and once they are in it — and their acceptability and that of the franchising proposals they put together. this acceptability will be judged by key stakeholders, principally wsas and financial institutions, but also by dwaf and by affected communities. � the franchise industry literature over and over again advises against franchising a business without a business model that has been thoroughly worked through on paper and that has not been tested “in the field” over a period of time. as the franchise association of southern africa manual emphasises, by far the best way to test the model is by “actually operating the business …. [this] is the only reliable way” (fasa 2005 pg 60). the franchisor should preferably do this test by for example running a directlyowned outlet that lacks only a franchisee and a franchise agreement, but has in place many of the other aspects of franchising — e.g. there would need to be an operating manual, training, quality control, etc. � further to that, a strong case needs to be made for doing the initial testing of the non-franchised business model in an area where, if appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 114 the test result is positive, the first franchised pilot will be rolled out. this is the most direct way to establish: � local expertise (local management and staff) and � local familiarity with and confidence in the product (which in the case of water services should not just be confidence of the customers/end users, but of other stakeholders, especially of the municipality/wsa and of other wsps). � a scan of south african franchising (not water services) literature found that franchisees need to have entrepreneurial attributes such as being highly motivated, hard-working, and willing to wait for reward. specialist technical knowledge and/or operating licences are needed in some sectors. � future water services franchisees will probably be drawn from among emergent independent operators already in the technology sector, or a franchisor’s own employees, or community-based individuals or groups. 8 many (but by no means all) of these will probably need initial support from the franchisors or other external service providers. � for each potential franchising circumstance, a specific approach will probably be clearly enough evident at the time, and a pragmatic “horses for courses” attitude to franchisee selection will prove appropriate. � finally, a number of important issues need to be resolved before franchising partnerships to improve municipal water services operation and maintenance can become widespread. � one of these, clearly, is procurement procedures. � another is budgeting — the smme franchisee would need to be paid not the kind of budget that is so often allocated by a municipality to operation and maintenance, but would need to be paid the proceeds of a realistic, adequate budget. 8 preference, all other factors being equal, could be given to women-owned organisations. particularly in rural areas, women are very active in the water sector, and often the social status quo works against them. whilst there is nothing stopping them from starting and managing their own small businesses, they often meet with resistance from the “traditional hierarchy”. municipalities have and do follow targeted procurement, and the fostering of smmes (particularly in a franchise-like relationship) would provide a good vehicle for the development of new business units within a woman-friendly environment. wall 115 � yet another issue is payment. no smme can afford a delay of two or three months before it receives its due for services rendered, and it could go to the wall while it waits for payment by an inefficient municipal financial department. � a fourth issue lies in the essential services nature of water services — there has to be a backup contractual relationship between the franchisor and the municipality, that would oblige the franchisor to take over the franchisee’s responsibilities, even if temporarily, should the franchisee fail for any reason whatsoever. 8. way forward the way forward lies only to a limited extent in more modelling. it lies rather in piloting the concept, and learning from the pilots. it also lies in creating a more conducive environment – “environment”, that is, including matters relating to funding and financial control, accountability, performance regulation, service standards, capacity, outsourcing policy, procurement procedures, and other issues. this section of the paper addresses modelling in a couple of paragraphs, then, in a few more paragraphs, piloting. the bulk of the section discusses advocacy – particularly advocacy designed to create a more conducive environment. how the themes of modelling, piloting and advocacy can support each other is described – for example how advocacy can (and already has in at least one instance) lead to an opportunity being perceived and resources being put together in order to commence piloting, and how the success with that pilot, once it is underway, will in due course strengthen the advocacy. whereas more research, and particularly the building of more models on paper (even if these models are thoroughly researched and backed by sound experience), would undoubtedly add great value 9 , the main need now is to start piloting the concept. the on-paper studies have been taken to the point at which the 9 the wrc research has already modeled: o a sustainable community-level caretaker management business; o a sustainable schools and sanitation business; and o a sustainable pressure control management business. other areas identified to have potential for franchising include: leak detection, borehole management, management of municipal treatment works, management of treatment package plants, meter reading, pitemptying services, laboratory services, data management, and site and property management. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 116 concept is described and it is made sufficiently clear that it could work, where it could work, and how it would work. if the environment is favourable, potential franchisors will, it is hoped, seize the opportunity, and will do the detailed modelling to suit their abilities and the circumstances to which they see the concept being applied. two companies that have seen the opportunity, and are indeed “seizing” it, are amanz’abantu and biwater, as described immediately below. piloting of the concept, after completion of the current study, is being promoted by the wrc. only in piloting will be benefits be demonstrated. also, unanticipated challenges will be identified — and overcome. proposals for piloting can readily be grouped into two types, as follows: � proposals that would lead to the establishment of franchisee water services providers, offering a full range of water services. (call these “type a”.) � proposals that would lead to the establishment of franchisees that would offer selected services under contract to water services providers (“type b”). preliminary planning of dwaf’s “water for growth and development” programme has identified that franchising partnerships would be a key element in its initiatives (still being evolved) to address the dynamics of water, growth, poverty alleviation, and development. projects could be of either type. both amanz’abantu services and biwater have expressed interest in playing the franchisor role, and are advanced with investigations into how they can expand their range of operations into the franchising arena. in the case of both companies, their interest is in type b. the biwater initiative, in mbombela (nelspruit), would likely be as good a set of circumstances for a pilot project in water services franchising as might be found anywhere in south africa. the experience of the company in water services, and the credibility that it has built with the municipality and the community, makes it very suitable for the franchisor role in the area. also, the basis for potential franchisees has already been created, thanks to, through its mbombela concession, the six-year track record that it has built of developing and utilising small water services contractors. amanz’abantu feels that it, too, has credibility, potential franchisees (already selected and trained, but currently working as direct subcontractors), and a good business model (for operating and maintaining schools sanitation facilities). the need for the service (the dire state of sanitation in many of the schools, and the inability of the school’s bodies to address this) has amply been demonstrated. wall 117 the provincial department of education has been approached, and appears willing to consider a programme that utilises smmes to operate and maintain schools sanitation facilities. a pilot has been embarked on by amatola water on behalf of the department, and useful experience has been gained. the need is clear, but the decision-making process still needs to be concluded before the smme contracts can be awarded. it has been proposed that franchising offers the best opportunities for supporting these smmes. now turning to advocacy: as noted earlier (section 5), a “three-step breakthrough” is needed. the wrc team is confident that this breakthrough will be achieved. it will take strong and insistent advocacy at both national and local level. advocacy, that is, that lobbies key influence groups — such as key personnel within lead departments of national government – chiefly dwaf, the department of provincial and local government (dplg) and national treasury (particularly because of its influence on outsourcing and procurement policy) — and within other bodies such as salga. advocacy, also, that disseminates widely the finding of the research, and is able to encourage locally-driven initiatives. successful pilot projects will be of considerable assistance to advocacy and in achieving the breakthrough. at the moment, the understandable response of many is along the lines of “if water services franchising partnerships is all that you say it is, then why is no one else doing it?” there is a natural reluctance to embark on something other than the tried and tested. the way into acceptance by the municipalities of water services franchising partnerships is: � the municipalities need to see the benefits of utilising smmes, compared to trying to employ their own staff to do the work. � as they cannot (in terms of their procurement policy) directly exclude non-franchised smmes, the municipalities need to understand the benefit of using smmes who are franchisees (above those who are not). � for work requiring a higher level of smme, they can specify additional requirements for smmes as part of the job description (these are the differentiating qualities that will favour the franchisee above the stand alone smme). examples include, access to support of a technical financial or administrative nature, access to financial resources, specialist equipment, and a certified quality management system. � in evaluating the appointment of the smmes, the higher level of services offered by the franchised smme will then count in their favour. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 118 in support of this process, and in order to create a more conducive environment so that more municipalities will be willing to consider outsourcing to franchisee smmes: � wrc needs to step up advocacy to national government around the environment issues listed in the first paragraph of this section; and � wrc needs to lobby for national government to proactively support smmes options, and particularly franchising options. on the second of these: if national government is as concerned about water services performance at local government level as it says it is, it should consider proactively supporting feasible solutions. if therefore dwaf is of the opinion that water services franchising is a valuable option, it should be seeking ways to nurture franchising partnerships. one way it could assist would be by supporting specific proposals put forward in the form of sound business plans. a strong motivation for this suggestion is not primarily derived from need for compliance with standards (such as water reliability and quality standards) or about infrastructure asset management. it is also derived from the attractiveness of the returns from improving operation and maintenance of water services infrastructure neglected by water services authorities. these returns can be substantial – returns, that is, measured in terms of for example water loss reduction, improved wastewater treatment works effluent quality, and more reliable water supply. funding that would enable the trying out of promising new ideas (and franchising of water services operation is one) would be money well spent. national government needs also to assist with focused initiatives to address funding stream and municipal financial liability issues. potential franchisors are inhibited by the fear that, contractual commitments notwithstanding, municipalities may make due payments late or not at all. ideas need to be found, and measures put in place, to remove the cause of these fears. in summary, if national government wants to improve water services operation and maintenance, and wants to encourage more participation by cbos and smmes in water services delivery, national government needs to review the procurement regime (i.e. how water services authorities implement procurement regulations) and also the budgeting and funding of water services operation and maintenance. the several initiatives that have arrangements in place to support cbos (e.g. by mvula trust) have been facing some of the same issues, wall 119 and their success (or otherwise) in achieving at local level the first step of the breakthrough should be observed. indeed their ongoing efforts to get a fairer deal for outsourcing must be applauded. in support of general dissemination of knowledge of the appropriateness and advantages of water services franchising partnerships, the advocacy programme (much of it ad hoc, seizing opportunities as they arise) of the wrc and csir must continue. the aim should be to draw attention of both the public and private sector to the advantages of water services franchising partnerships, and to elicit support for it from the public sector – in particular from dwaf and other key national government departments. this support needs to be not just in-principle, but active support for making the environment more generally conducive to outsourcing water services operation and maintenance, and in particular addressing the priorities identified in section 5 as to what needs to be addressed if franchising is to be viable and is to provide the desired service. further to this advocacy, the wrc has flagged the need for seminars, for example seminars with the most pertinent national government departments, to get the concept across. it is encouraging that, at the nepad projects conference in sandton, in october 2007, the smme approach received high-level encouragement in a non-water services context. in particular, minister fraser-moleketi and eskom chairperson reuel khoza (also chairperson of the nepad business foundation) pointed to the success of south african companies in opening franchised businesses in africa. the need now is to show, through pilots, how the principles of franchising can be applied to water services operation and maintenance. much more remains to be done in terms of dissemination and advocacy. 9. conclusions “crossing over” to the public sector of selected “best practices from the corporate world [private sector]” can be justified where a strong case can be made for the appropriate application of skills, technologies and procedures from the private sector. not promoting any company, water board or other organisation in particular, but a shortlist can readily be drawn up of institutions in south africa which could truthfully say, in respect of what is needed to respond to the “recommendations” listed in the long footnote to section 4, “that’s what we do”. and “we” do “it” every day, “we” have a proven track record, and some (the private sector companies, anyway) are paid by results, so “we are penalised each time we fail to operate and maintain to the specification — and therefore we have strong incentive to perform”. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. 120 among those “best practices from the corporate world” could, for some applications, be franchising partnerships for the operation and maintenance of public sector infrastructure. the corporate analogy in south africa is that of an existing company that, through franchisees, is responsible for water and wastewater processes at a number of mines and food processing plants. however the currently preferred institutional mode of delivery for public sector water services is: public sector ownership of the infrastructure, with public sector operation and maintenance. too often — unacceptably often — this mode fails to deliver reliable services. a strong case can be made for trying out an alternative mode — or at least for trying it out on a much greater scale than it currently is. as follows: public sector ownership of the infrastructure, with; private sector or ngo operation and maintenance. more specifically, given the need for essential services to be operated and maintained so as to provide a high level of compliance, the advantages of smmes that are part of a franchise support group, over smmes not part of such a support group, are undoubted. therefore a strong case can be made out for trying: public sector ownership of the infrastructure, with franchisee operation and maintenance, with franchisor support. should there be any objections to using principles, adapted from the way in which the private sector delivers goods and services, and applying them to public sector service delivery, if it can be shown that public sector service delivery is thereby improved? the authors cannot see any reason why there should be objections. especially given that, for water services, the ownership of the physical infrastructure would unquestionably remain with the public sector, as would user charges, levels of service, prioritisation (e.g. who has priority in receiving services), and other policy matters. this opinion is supported by burger, who finds from her case studies that “where monitoring and incentives have been effective, private outsourcing has been associated with increased responsiveness and efficiency”, and that “when the appropriate incentives are in place, private providers will act in the interest of the poor, offering costeffective services, expanding services to the benefit of the poor and investing in local communities”. (burger 2005, page 491) wall 121 note that the above discussion is about the effective and efficient delivery of services. it is not about the tariffs that recipients of these services might be charged. if the amount spent on operation and maintenance remains the same, there is no reason why tariffs would change — irrespective of the nature of the institution responsible for operation and maintenance of the services infrastructure. considering, in this context, services to indigent households: welfare services, and services that meet basic human needs, are often fully paid for, or subsidised, by government, donor agencies, or more affluent users of similar services — and the cost of providing the service, and what the users have to pay for it (if indeed they have to pay anything), are not connected. certainly, in respect of basic infrastructure services for the indigent in south africa, the policy of “free basic services” was introduced specifically to make this separation. 10. references boorstin, j (2005). “new lessons to learn”. fortune, 3 october 2005. burger, r (2005). “what we have learnt from post-1994 innovations in pro-poor service delivery in south africa: a case study-based analysis.” development southern africa, 22(4), october 2005. dwaf (2005). “water services infrastructure asset management strategy study. phase 1: status report. the state of water services infrastructure and its management: a desktop strategic study.” november 2005. (csir, in association with matingi and associates, makgoleng projects and pula strategic resource management.) dwaf and csir (2007). “spot check assessments of mig water and sanitation projects 2006/2007.” dwaf and csir, pretoria, april 2007. fox, j (2005). “a meditation on risk: hurricane katrina brought out the worst in washington and the best in business. the lessons of the storm.” fortune, 3 october 2005. franchise association of southern africa, the (fasa) (2005). “how to franchise your business”. the association, johannesburg. ittmann, h w, and maspero, e l (2008). “the rise of humanitarian logistics”. “proceedings of the 27th southern african transport conference”. pretoria, july 2008. wall, k (2005). “development of a framework for franchising in the water services sector in south africa.” wrc report no. kv 161/05. water research commission, pretoria. appropriate private sector principles td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 95-121. << /ascii85encodepages false /allowtransparency false 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references about the author(s) alton dewa department of education, faculty of humanities, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa nokulunga s. ndlovu department of education, faculty of humanities, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa citation dewa a, ndlovu ns. use of information and communication technologies in mathematics education lecturers: implications for preservice teachers. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1165. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1165 original research use of information and communication technologies in mathematics education lecturers: implications for preservice teachers alton dewa, nokulunga s. ndlovu received: 22 oct. 2021; accepted: 02 june 2022; published: 31 oct. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the availability and use of educational resources in classrooms has increased remarkably; however, preservice teachers graduate from initial teacher education institutions (iteis) and join the profession without the skills for teaching in these new learning environments. this qualitative study was conducted in four south african public iteis. it is aimed at examining mathematics lecturers’ integration of information and communication technologies (icts) into teaching and its implications for preservice teachers’ readiness to teach in contemporary classrooms. individual interviews were conducted with 12 mathematics education lecturers and 20 fourth-year students in five focus groups. the findings revealed that whilst the lecturers had some knowledge of how to teach with digital technologies in lecture rooms, they did not model specialised mathematics teaching skills to their students. informed by activity theory, this study identified institutional gaps in the implementation of digital technologies for teaching. institutions seemed to view access to technology as sufficient for effective use by lecturers. initial teacher education institutions should therefore establish and regulate structures that equip and support lecturers with desired ict pedagogical skills if preservice teachers are to be prepared for the modern classrooms. transdisciplinarity contribution: this research contributes to literature on the use of icts in initial teacher education. although it focuses on mathematics education, its findings demonstrate the importance of professional development if the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) of lecturers in these institutions will adequately prepare preservice teachers for the modern classroom. keywords: ict pedagogical integration; initial teacher education institutions; mathematics education lecturers; preservice teacher readiness; pedagogic skills; activity theory. introduction information and communication technologies (icts) can be seen as a set of digital technological resources that help in the functioning of ‘business processes, scientific research and teaching and learning’1 through the interfacing of hardware and software, including telecommunications facilities. the covid-19 pandemic has proven that limited knowledge in the use of these resources can bring the functions of a nation’s organs to a halt. eyes are turned to educational institutions as agents of change, and it therefore behooves teacher educators to prepare preservice teachers for the contemporary classroom,2,3 where learners can be prepared to operate in a digital world. several studies indicate that lecturers have low ict competency levels, resulting in graduates leaving their training institutions inadequately prepared to teach with ict, which is a recent tool of the trade for the teaching profession.4,5 when mathematics lecturers exhibit meaningful use of icts in their lecture rooms, preservice teachers can develop the desired cognitive and pedagogic skills they need for their prospective teaching environments.6 mathematics curriculum delivery that is divorced from its contextual use (i.e. classroom teaching) in this era is bound to create a gap in the knowledge package that graduates need to be relevant for the contemporary classroom. the relationship between a preservice teacher and a lecturer can be equated to that of a master and an apprentice. it is a cognitive apprenticeship wherein the master (in this case the mathematics education lecturer) guides the apprentice (the preservice teacher) through modelling and coaching until scaffolds are removed at graduation, when they take new roles as teachers who are ready to use icts in their teaching context.7 apprenticeship occurs when an expert and a novice socially interact whilst focused on completing a task.8 this concept should be applied in the teaching of mathematics. lecturers in mathematics education exhibit limited sound knowledge and teaching abilities while utilising a variety of media and ict capabilities.9 mathematics education lecturers should endeavour to use ict to mediate or support the learning process in the twenty-first century. ict holds the possibility of brand-new solutions to the problems that mathematics students face. mathematics lecturers’ success in modelling good teaching practice with icts depends on their ability to navigate existing barriers. information and communication technology integration barriers can be divided into two categories,10 namely external and internal barriers. external barriers include the availability of computers, level of administrative support and ict professional development opportunities. internal barriers are teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about what it takes to learn or teach with icts. an appropriate ict professional development programme for lecturers and appropriate support structures can alleviate both barriers. educators’ lack of pedagogical training results in low ict competency skills, confidence and thus leads to internal barriers such as negative attitudes towards the use of the digital technologies. initial teacher education (ite) lecturers may have suitable educational software, but if preservice teachers have limited access to ict because of rigid structures of traditional education systems and restrictive curricula barriers, it becomes difficult for them to use icts later for educational11 purposes. south african mathematics education lecturers are not immune to these barriers. an amalgamation of technology knowledge, content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge contribute as key players in preparing preservice teachers for the effective use of icts in the classroom.12 an inclusion of these knowledge domains in the ite programme facilitates learning spaces that do not only prepare preservice teachers but compel mathematics education lecturers to enhance their practices through ict policy and frameworks. it is then that south african mathematics education lecturers can model and teach knowledge and skills needed to promote effective integration of digital technologies in mathematics classrooms.13 education mathematics lecturers hardly integrate ict into their lecture rooms. this is because, “south african preservice teacher education in mathematics is still dominated by textbook teaching” (p. 6)14. additionally, they may not have sufficient skill to integrate icts in their teaching or they lack a guide to direct them on how to integrate ict. some south african mathematics education lecturers do not implement ict integration because they prefer to teach without them, as they are doing well without using these technologies.15 although south africa may have national and provincial ict policies, these do not specify how mathematics teaching should be taught with these digital technologies. there is a gap in policy for initial teacher education institutions (iteis) and their instructors, who are expected to prepare preservice teachers for using icts for teaching.16 a strategy for the institutionalisation of the use of icts in all educational institutions can aid in achieving the goal of preparing preservice teachers, and this should start at the policy level.17 a south african national ict policy would serve to provide guidance at the macro level, and if there is a gap in the design and implementation of educational institutional policies at the implementation level, there is a slim chance of the imperatives being realised at the micro level. the institution carries the mandate to establish and infuse the intervention into its culture and operations that provide support necessary for the successful adoption and implementation of ict use for teaching and learning. the activity theory adopted in this study helps to capture all that may have potential to contribute to and support activities that may lead to a successful preparation of mathematics preservice teachers for ict use for teaching and learning by their lecturers. theoretical framework activity theory emphasises that human action is interactive and fundamentally uses tools that are socially situated for mediation in order to achieve set objectives.18,19 at the heart of the theory is the idea that internal activities, such as thinking, emerge out of practical external activity, and therefore, goal achievement is implemented by individuals who are defined by their cultural context.20 the individuals in this study are mathematics education lecturers and preservice teachers, and the cultural context refers to the iteis where the activity of teaching and learning is taking place. fundamentally, ‘tools mediate the processes between subject and object; rules mediate the processes between subject and community and division of labour mediates the processes between community and object’.20 figure 1 outlines the features of activity theory. figure 1: activity theory.21 the model is systemic, and all the elements are related to each other as they work towards producing the desired outcome. these elements contain mutual relationships between subject, object and community (presented in the upper part of table 1), as the stakeholders make decisions that drive the process within the activity with the help of the other constructs, which are enablers such as rules, division of labour, tools and signs and mediating artefacts.22 table 1: adapted descriptions of constructs in activity theory. this article has customised the descriptions of the activity theory constructs in table 1 in order to contextualise the constructs. table 1 shows that the main role of the first three constructs (community, subject and object) is to intentionally create a learning environment that facilitates the achievement of the outcome through the last three constructs (division of labour, tools and signs and outcome).23 once equipped with these capabilities, there is a high chance that teacher lecturers can harness icts’ potential to enhance teaching and learning and thus transfer good practices to the student teachers. this article aims to examine mathematics education lecturers’ use of icts to teach and also to determine if it prepares preservice teachers for teaching with these technologies. understanding why the lecturers use icts the way they do may help iteis to create integrated strategies that create conducive learning environments that promote the advancement of itei lecturers in the use of icts and, by so doing, prepare preservice teachers for the contemporary classroom. the research questions are: how does the ict use of mathematics education lecturers prepare preservice teachers for teaching with these technologies? what factors influence the use of icts by the mathematics education lecturers? research methods and design this is a case study because it ‘involves an investigation into a present-day phenomenon occurring within a bounded, real-world situation, adding that contextual factors largely determine the nature of the situation within which the phenomenon manifests’.24 this study uses qualitative research methods to collect data through interviews with 12 mathematics education lecturers and 20 further education and training bed fourth-year mathematics major preservice teachers in south african schools, which were utilised as the research tool. twelve mathematics education lecturers were purposively sampled whilst 20 bed fourth-year mathematics major preservice teachers were chosen at random from the mathematics head of department’s list. a list of all the population of students in each participating institution was compiled, and each one was assigned a unique number (e.g. if there are n students, then they will be numbered from 1 to n). random number generator software was used to select random samples from this population. random number generator software was preferred because it eliminates the need for human intervention in the sample generation process. the purpose of the interview was to find out how ict is used in the lecture rooms from a pedagogical standpoint.19 this enabled the researchers to gather and explore various pieces of information on how preservice teachers majoring in mathematics are prepared to integrate icts in their future teaching careers. the identification of themes supported alignment with activity theory constructs to help determine how mathematics education lecturers use icts. students’ responses were used to validate lecturer perceptions on the factors that influenced their use of icts and to illuminate the implications on their ict readiness thereof. permission letters were sought from the iteis, and informed consent was given by the participants (lecturers and students) in this study. mathematics education lecturers and preservice teachers from the iteis were provided with details of the study and were made aware that participation was voluntary before they volunteered their consent to participate. ethical clearance was obtained from the university that gave consent for this study. ethical considerations the study received informed consent from the participants prior to conducting the study. both authors of this manuscript have given the journal consent to publish this article. ethical clearance was granted by the university of the witwatersrand ethics committee in 2017 (ref. no. 2017ece031d). to ensure that participants remain anonymous, letters of the alphabet were used for the 4 institutions (a d). l was used for lecturers, s for students and m or f represented gender. results there is a low uptake of digital technologies in teaching by the mathematics education lecturers. their pedagogical integration of icts seems to be influenced by both external and internal constraints. the students’ responses in the focus groups confirmed the lecturers’ perceptions about their ict usage and how the institutions contribute to the constraints. the data from both lecturers and students demonstrate that failure to achieve the ‘activity’ outcome (preservice teachers’ readiness to use icts to teach) is a result of attributes related to the subject (lecturer) and the community (institution). these two constructs determine the extent to which the other constructs contribute to the activity. we begin with the subject in the activity. subject: mathematics education lecturers’ use of information and communication technologies the espoused practices of all 12 participating mathematics education lecturers concurred on the importance of integrating icts into mathematics curricula. however, most of them only used presentation software to present content without engaging students with digital technologies for different purposes during the lectures. students in all four institutions agreed that lecturers still teach ‘using the traditional way’, with some using chalk and talk (institute a, s1, f; institute a s3; institute b, s1, m; institute d, s1, m). this reflects students’ conception of ict integration that excludes the use of nondigital technologies, which is associated with the smart classroom where modern technology is mainly used in the classroom to teach. this research considers the use of smart classrooms as a higher level of utilising icts for teaching and learning, as it means that more advanced technology is used in the classroom. however, the level of cognitive engagement in its use depends on how the teacher engages the technology.25 use of information and communication technologies as a mediation tool lecturers also assigned value to their use of applications for enabling multimodality that include the use of text, images and videos that enhance their explanations. one out of the 12 lecturers used a subject-specific software called geogebra and explained his use of the software as follows: ‘information and communication technologies [are] used as a resource; for example, in geometry, i will show them with software [geogebra] how to do graphing, again in trigonometry, teaching the transformation of the graph, and i will show them with software if you change the amplitude or if i look at minimum and maximum values and how to change the degrees at the end using the software. it is a tool that mediates learning and consolidates learning, particularly if the concept has been taught using the usual method of teaching.’ (institution a, l3, m) in the context of activity theory, the lecturer uses presentation software to present contentand subject-specific software (geogebra) as a mediation tool. although this type of usage does not necessarily translate to a demonstration of teaching learners in schools (modelling), preservice teachers are exposed to smart ways of learning and resolving geometry problems with digital technology. the knowledge that students gain as they learn influences how they teach in their classrooms.26 therefore, students in such lecture rooms have a high chance of using the same or similar software when they teach in schools. as was the case with most lecturers in this study, their focus as they teach preservice teachers is to create learning experiences through icts to promote cognitive engagement with content, as one of the lecturers indicated: ‘[…h]owever, i am of the opinion that ict acts as a mediating tool that enables student teachers to think critically and understand the subject matter. technically, that is how i use ict.’ (institution b, l1, f) whilst there is no elaboration of how ict is used to promote critical thinking, it is evident that the tool’s use is confined to the lecturer mediating content and not necessarily and explicitly the way it should be taught in the classroom. use of information and communication technologies as a tool to supplement teaching and learning some of the lecturers simply refer students to mathematical software sites and other online tools such as youtube videos to supplement their teaching. over time, as preservice teachers visit the referred sites and other digital resources, they get accustomed to using the internet to research and extend their learning. unintentionally, this activity contributes to the achievement of the ‘outcome’ as students interact with the content through the technology. the benefits are twofold, and they are: (1) skills in navigating different sites and technology and (2) extension of their understanding of the concepts. inadvertently, the lecturers inculcate a culture of research on students as they learn to deal with their mathematical problems through exposure to various methods and explanations available on the internet. whilst the lecturers’ strategy could be considered as pushing their responsibility onto others (online content presenters), this approach can be seen as encouraging future teachers to become researchers and is a desirable attribute. in this case, cognitive apprenticeship happens not through modelling but through discovery as the students expose themselves to online resources. preservice teachers’ perceptions on the type of information and communication technologies use by lecturers students feel that lecturers’ limited use of icts in their lectures prepares them inadequately to teach in modern mathematics classrooms. for instance, a student expressed discomfort in going into classrooms with students who are more familiar with icts than him, as he added: ‘so as much as they give us access to some resources here on campus, for the fact that the learners are already being taught using ict, when we qualify, we will be expected to be at a higher level compared with the learners so that we can teach effectively. so with us leaning on ourselves here, i don’t think it will be enough for us to be able to adjust into the system of technology because they [the learners] are already immersed in it.’ (institution d, s1, m) the student’s concern is valid, because interactive whiteboards have been installed in gauteng schools (the province where the four participating institutions are located), and yet the preservice teachers’ knowledge of using the ict in teaching and learning is not adequate according to a female student from institution a. in his response, student 1 at institution d stated that he has no option but to imitate the teaching methods that have been modelled to him by his lecturers in his future teaching classroom, because he is not familiar with pedagogical integrating icts in his subject. nevertheless, this student acknowledged that doing so makes him appear irrelevant to a digitally immersed 21st century classroom. in addition to the given reality, preservice teachers in this study expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of modelling on how to use these tools for teaching mathematics. a student stated: ‘[…t]hey do tell you that you can use phantom but don’t show you how to. so you have to go and learn it yourself. so i am going to consume more time learning how to use a software than actually using it. my level of confidence when teaching when i am using that software is not going to be high; it’s going to be low, because i might be scared that what if i do something wrong? the kids will laugh at me.’ (institution a, s1, f) preservice teachers’ confidence is presented as a disabler in the adoption of icts for use in schools, and this reflects on the disadvantage of lecturers not creating opportunities for their students to use digital technology in the lecture rooms as they learn and as they play teaching roles in their training.2 there seems to be a disjuncture in the students’ expectations of their lecturers’ use of technology and what they experience in their lecture rooms. their lecturers’ use of icts is aimed at enhancing students’ understanding and developing desired thinking skills to the exclusion of intentionally modelling and giving them opportunities to use them for teaching. in the absence of institutional policies (rules) in the scope of this study, it would be difficult to know what was expected of them. however, without an ict adoption and implementation strategy (division of labour) it becomes difficult for lecturers’ (subject) activities to align with the achievement of the outcome (students’ preparedness for ict use in the classroom). in other words, preservice teachers’ incapacities are a reflection on the extent to which the institution stakeholders (communities) fail to carry out their mandate of ensuring that they support mathematics lecturers within the educating ecosystem. community: institutional efforts all participating institutions have adopted a learning management system (lms) that gives lecturers and students access to more digital tools that can be used for teaching and learning. there is a need to know if lecturers have the capacity to utilise the tools in a way that helps achieve intended learner and learning goals. lecturer utilisation of available information and communication technologies for teaching and learning whilst lecturers may have access to different software, they disclosed that their institutions have not done enough to prepare them for integrating it into the teaching and learning of mathematics, as indicated in the following extracts: ‘we find it difficult to use software, because we do not know how to use the application.’ (institution c, l2, m) ‘our university has never organised a training workshop for such software. at the same time, we are encouraged to use such software when teaching topics such as geometry, trigonometry and so on.’ institution d, l3, m) in addition, some of these lecturers have the software, but because they do not know how it works, they do not use it. the institutions seem to assume that once lecturers have the software, they will automatically use it. the fluidity of the tool complicates the situation. the ever-evolving developments in software make it difficult to adopt and adapt to using the technology without regular training. unless lecturers are trained on how (and when) to use mathematical software applications to teach various concepts, they will shun their usage and the relationship between the subject and the tool is therefore compromised in the context of the activity outcome. in the absence of professional development, professional learning communities could be an alternative, as lecturers can support each other in their endeavour to use digital technologies for teaching and learning. a lecturer elaborated on this as follows: ‘we do not have knowledge-sharing committees here. we definitely need the platforms [and] forums to share ideas. in fact, we have asked one of the lecturers to do that for the department. the identified lecturer has volunteered to train all mathematics teacher educators. unfortunately, the training kept on being postponed, and to date we have not been trained.’ (institution b, l2, f) lecturers who possess mathematical software knowledge and skills can share this knowledge with their colleagues at their itei and at other iteis. these professional learning communities can work together to ensure there is consistent sharing of resources and strategies regarding how to infuse these technologies at the subject level, and this would alleviate pressure (as described by lecturer 1 from institution c) on the limited technical support that lecturers may have in their divisions. the fear that some mathematics education lecturers expressed is related to lack of confidence that can be alleviated by training as expressed by a lecturer from institution b. as a result of the lecturers’ frustration with technical challenges, seven participating mathematics education lecturers are not keen on using icts in their teaching. they do not believe it adds value to their teaching or learning. in addition, some still do not perceive icts as useful in teaching mathematics. one lecturer from institution b, for instance, believes that mathematics’ subject structure is not compatible with the use of icts, an argument that is described as a code clash between the two.23 thus, the lecturer made the following remark: ‘many people believe mathematics is an abstract subject; it’s not a human subject. technology is seen as associated with human being doing something. it’s a practical subject, yet mathematics is seen as abstract. that is a reason why it cannot be taught using technology.’ (institution b, l1, f) this is to be expected if the organisation introduces innovations without instituting change management programmes that can help address misconceptions and provide guidelines on the implementation processes to ensure the lecturer, who is the agent of change or the main actor in this context, is prepared to play his or her role efficiently in the activity. preservice teachers’ perceptions on their access to information and communication technologies whilst preservice teachers may have access to the standard technology offered by their institutions, they only benefit from its use (e.g. lmss) as recipients and not as instructors. one student described their participation as follows: ‘as preservice teachers, we access sakai to view teaching materials uploaded in preparation for the lecture or for further reading. our lecturers also use this platform to communicate and give feedback for the exercises we would have written. one lecturer used to set multiple choice questions on sakai and instructed us to write it on sakai. the advantage it had was that it could mark the exercise and provide the feedback instantly.’ (institution a, s1, f) this student values this software for communication and automated assessments. lecturers use the top-down approach to engage these affordances, as they use the lms for giving instruction, content and assessment. whilst institutionalising this type of software by the lecturers and students has potential to improve the efficiency of the activity within this learning context, its value in preparing preservice teachers for use of the same tool is not present. being a recipient in the activity does not necessarily give one an idea of how the back-end functions, once one shifts roles and becomes the instructor in the learning environment. there is therefore a gap between the object and the desired outcome, as expressed by a student, who added: ‘we have never had a lesson on how to teach mathematics using slides or how to teach mathematics using technology or anything like that.’ (institution b, s1, m) this student alluded to the lecturers’ interpretations of their use of the icts that is limited to their use as mediation tools. there is, therefore, a gap in the application of the cognitive apprenticeship model6 that should lead to the institution’s activity outcome as envisaged in this study. it is evident that the two main constructs (the community and the subject) hold the reins in the activity of preparing mathematics preservice teachers for teaching in modern classrooms. engagement with data suggests that whilst lecturers as subjects in the activity might be directly involved in preparing preservice teachers, they seem to limit their role to delivering subject matter. students in these institutions are expected to graduate with content knowledge, and that could be the reason why lecturers are committed to ensuring they understand mathematical concepts before they leave the iteis. it is expected of lecturers to demonstrate, to students, how to teach mathematics in a clear and understandable manner. instructions on how to give courses and convey knowledge using icts should be part of the strategy. by employing this strategy, they will equip students with tools they can utilize when they leave their training institutions. as a result of external and internal barriers,15 lecturers do not adequately prepare mathematics preservice teachers for teaching with icts. discussion there is evidence that the gaps identified in the functions of the institution’s activity compromise the seamless operation that should make certain that all its organs work efficiently to ensure the achievement of the outcome. in the context of this study, the community seems to view the activity as linear. once lecturers as key players have access to different digital tools, they will use them effectively as they prepare preservice teachers for their careers, and this includes how to use them for teaching. such a view only engages the subject, the tool and the object, with the hope that the outcome will be achieved. as a result, the subject is not capacitated and supported to play its role efficiently. without capacitation, mathematics lecturers are not inclined to perceive icts as easy to use and useful in the teaching and learning of mathematics.27 although the tools and signs may be present, with a weak subject in the activity system, it becomes critical to identify support mechanisms that can empower and sustain it if the outcome is to be achieved. lecturers in this study show that they have some knowledge on the use of icts in a learning context; however, they assign its worth to mediation of the content they teach. beyond that, they refer students to online resources. whilst this could be viewed as working towards achieving the desired outcome, students perceive this as futile in preparing them for mathematics classrooms with digital technology. preservice teachers are therefore not adequately prepared for ict use in schools,18 even though they have access to the technologies. whilst students may be exposed to the use of these technologies, they need to be intentionally taught how to use them as mediation tools in the mathematics classroom.24 they need to be made aware of the principles that need to be followed when selecting the tools and how to integrate them into mathematics teaching. according to this study, the outcomes for not doing so are as follows: ict use is not (intentionally) modelled by lecturers students are not exposed to the knowledge, skills and tools they need to teach mathematics in the classroom and they are therefore not confident to use them students see themselves using traditional ways of teaching that do not integrate icts into teaching and learning. with this outcome, these students are expected to teach the way they were taught25 and thus perpetuate the low ict uptake in mathematical instruction1 in schools. participating institutions seem to have contributed to eliminating external barriers by giving access to both hardware and software as teaching and learning tools, but because they do not include the rest of the package, which is support and professional development,18 their activity is insufficient to afford the desired outcome. there is an indication that the omission of rules and division of labour renders the credibility of the activity futile. data in this study reveal that if itei policies do not address the what, how and when of using icts,6 and there are no monitoring mechanisms that can be drawn from the division of labour, the tools that the community provides can easily become a white elephant as both the subject (mathematics lecturer) and the object (preservice teachers) do not utilise them to sufficiently achieve their obligation. in addition to providing preservice teachers with content, lecturers should expose them to the pedagogical skills they need to operate what is becoming the ‘tool of the trade’. it makes the activity within the institution effective in ensuring that the outcome is achieved, as mathematics students would be ready to teach in their prospective classrooms. conclusion iteis of the participants in this study have limited their activity to providing access to the tools required for the achievement of the outcome. as there is no indication of instituted policies (rules) that stipulate guidelines that can be used to develop ict strategies to be applied by stakeholders (division of labour), effective and efficient utilisation of available signs and tools by mathematics lecturers (subjects) and students (objects) is compromised. the findings of this study highlight the critical role that institutions need to play in ensuring that they develop strategies that sustain the intended running of the activity that should ensure that lecturers are prepared to model and intentionally prepare preservice teachers for the modern classroom. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the 12 mathematics education lecturers and the 20 fourth-year students from the four universities who made this study possible. the university of the witwatersrand is acknowledged for affording this study by granting it ethics clearance. competing interest the authors declare that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions the data used in this study were collected by a.d. the conception, design and writing were a collaboration of the two authors. sections were allocated as follows: a.d. wrote the first draft of the article; n.s.n. wrote the abstract and refined the paper by adding to the literature review and the findings. the summary of the findings were performed by n.s.n. n.s.n. used her funding from the university of witwatersrand for the article’s editing. otherwise, the research was not funded. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data are available from a.d. on request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this statement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references frança rp, iano y, monteiro ac, arthur r. improvement of the transmission of information for ict techniques through cbede methodology. in: ghavifer s, athirah w, rosdy w, editors. utilizing educational data mining techniques for improved learning: emerging research and opportunities. hershey pa: igi global, 2020; p. 13–34. tondeur j, aesaert k, pynoo b, van braak j, fraeyman n, erstad o. developing a validated instrument to measure preservice teachers’ ict competencies: meeting the demands of the 21st century. br j educ technol. 2017;48(2):462–472. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12380 department of education. white paper on e-education. pretoria: government gazette; 2004. chitiyo r, harmon sw. an analysis of the integration of instructional technology in pre-service teacher education in zimbabwe. educ technol res dev. 2009;57(6):807–830. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-009-9136-7 price j, roth m, shott s, andrews s. preparing pre-service teachers: a faculty review strategy. in: society for information technology & teacher education international conference; 2012 mar 5. waynesville, nc: association for the advancement of computing in education (aace); 2012. p. 2068–2076. unesco. information and communication technologies in teacher education. new york, ny: unesco; 2002. lave j, wenger e. situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. london: cambridge university press; 1991. dennen vp, editor. virtual professional development and informal learning via social networks. florida, fl: igi global; 2012. hardman j, dlamini r, dumas c, et al. teaching with information and communication technology (ict). cape town: oxford university press; 2018. ertmer pa, paul a, molly l, eva r, denise w. examining teachers’ beliefs about the role of technology in the elementary classroom. j res comput educ. 1999;32(1):54–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/08886504.1999.10782269 zaldívar-colado a, alvarado-vázquez ri, rubio-patrón de. evaluation of using mathematics educational software for the learning of first-year primary school students. educ sci. 2017;7(4):79. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci7040079 mishra p, koehler mj. technological pedagogical content knowledge: a framework for teacher knowledge. teach coll rec. 2006;108(6):1017–1054. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00684.x mcculloch aw, hollebrands k, lee h, harrison t, mutlu a. factors that 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for human-computer interaction research. in: nardi b, editor. context and consciousness: activity theory and human-computer interaction. cambridge: mit press; 1996, p. 17–44. howard s, maton ka. theorising knowledge practices: a missing piece of the educational technology puzzle. res learn technol. 2011;19(3):191–206. https://doi.org/10.1080/21567069 jarzabkowski p, wolf c. an activity-theory approach to strategy as practice. in: golsorkhi d, rouleau l, seidl d, vaara e, editors. cambridge handbook of strategy as practice. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010; p. 127–140. oleson a, hora mt. teaching the way they were taught? revisiting the sources of teaching knowledge and the role of prior experience in shaping faculty teaching practices. high educ. 2014;68(1):29–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117814552140 yin kr. case study research design and methods. thousand oaks, ca: sage; 2014. freeman d, johnson ke. comments on robert yates and dennis muchisky’s ‘on reconceptualizing teacher education’. readers react… common misconceptions about the quiet revolution. tesol q. 2004;38(1):119–127. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588261 references about the author(s) izak van zyl centre for postgraduate studies, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation van zyl i. towards a unified concept of transdisciplinary research. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1279. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1279 editorial towards a unified concept of transdisciplinary research izak van zyl copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. transdisciplinary orientations in research, education and institutions try to overcome the mismatch between knowledge production in academia and knowledge requests for solving societal problems.1 in 2005, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa (tdsa) was forged on the concept of transdisciplinarity. being appointed as the editor of this journal in 2022, i am newly confronted and intrigued by the term transdisciplinarity. i found myself asking – and being asked – what it means for scientific research and its purpose for broader (southern african) society. thinking about the journal more specifically, what kind of submissions and audience should it attract under a transdisciplinary mantle? it is (fortunately) outside the scope of this editorial to review the history of the scholarship of transdisciplinarity. that said, it is both a historical and emerging paradigm in the philosophy of science. scholars such as piaget2 and mittelstrass3 pioneered the concept in the 1970s and 1980s. arguably, however, the roots of transdisciplinary thinking in science can be traced back further to when paradigms for understanding complexity started emerging.4 there is now a substantive body of transdisciplinary academic work. however, what can we distil as transdisciplinary thinking or paradigm elements? how do these interact with the scientific research endeavour? i would venture a few propositions at the risk of reducing (or ignoring) the wealth of literature on transdisciplinarity. these are my ideological takeaways from attempting to be a transdisciplinary scholar in southern africa and must be treated with caution. firstly, in a transdisciplinary paradigm, (traditional) disciplinary boundaries are fluid and not incommensurate. fluidity goes to ontological, epistemological, methodological and axiological boundaries – an argument i unpacked in van zyl.5 the very notion of ‘boundary’ is not valuable for the transdisciplinary paradigm, much like ‘objectivity’ is not helpful in the constructivist paradigm. this is not to say that disciplinary boundaries are non-existent but instead dynamic and permeable. secondly, scientific undertakings were – or continue to be – insufficient in scope to address complex real-world problems. these problems include the climate crisis, systemic oppression, poverty, inequality and warfare. and while global, they have countless local, grassroots manifestations. nevertheless, i would argue that the sciences and humanities are inherently ill-equipped to solve these so-called wicked problems. this is because the sciences and humanities have the necessary mechanisms of self-regulation and ethics; they are rational and rule-bound. to quote personal correspondence between my colleague and friend, prof. nic theo, ‘both [the sciences and humanities] seem fundamentally set up epistemically to answer questions that are themselves based on assumptions that clearly definable answers are possible’. indeed, complex problems function beyond a logical paradigm of rules and are almost always unpredictable. will it be nihilist or apathetic or blasphemous to conclude that such problems are probably insoluble if it is accepted that there may be no definable answers? however, if we were to believe we – academics, scholars, researchers, scientists, philosophers – have the genuine ability to solve wicked problems, we need not only work inside, between, with and across disciplines but also beyond them. the scope of transdisciplinarity, therefore, is broad, and its disciplinary nature is to look outwardly. from a research perspective, this means that we should engage not only with an insular academic community but also with civil society, the government, industry and for the lack of a more grandiose term, ‘real people’ with different perspectives, experiences, backgrounds, cultural orientations and moral groundings. real people would include those at the peripheries of developed society and thought; indigenous communities and minorities; those subject to being ‘othered’, exoticised or marginalised. this type of ‘post-scientific’ engagement could fall within what has been presented as a quadruple and quintuple helix framework,6 where different ‘helices’ (domains, systems, sectors) interact to innovate around, solve and address complex societal problems. but its practical implementation remains a complex issue, given those same disciplinary and other biases that keep different stakeholders epistemologically, morally and politically comfortable. from the given discussion, we can deduce that transdisciplinary research is, conceptually at least, a form of engaged scholarship (as my colleague prof. chris burman too would suggest). in this paradigm, we posit that the nature of transdisciplinary research is to function beyond traditional disciplinary collaborations, synthesise diverse insights and develop holistic solutions to complex societal problems. while again wonderfully ambitious in theory, what does it mean in practice? this is the enigmatic question i would like to pose to the audience – readers, writers and editors – of this journal in the coming years. if we understand what transdisciplinary research is, how do we do it? references hadorn gh, hoffmann-riem h, biber-klemm s, et al. handbook of transdisciplinary research. dordrecht: springer; 2008. piaget j. the epistemology of interdisciplinary relationships. in: centre for educational research and innovation (ceri) (eds.), interdisciplinarity: problems of teaching and research in universities. washington, dc: oecd publications center, 1972; p. 127–139. mittelstrass j. die stunde der interdisziplinarität? in: kocka j, editor. interdisziplinarität: praxis – herausforderung – ideologie. frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1987; p. 152–158. nicolescu b. transdisciplinarity: past, present and future. lecture presented at: 2nd world congress of transdisciplinarity; 2005 sep 6–12; vila velha, brazil, 2006; p. 1–24. van zyl i. disciplinary kingdoms: navigating the politics of research philosophy in the information systems. electron j inf syst dev ctries. 2015;70(1):1–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2015.tb00501.x carayannis eg, campbell df. triple helix, quadruple helix and quintuple helix and how do knowledge, innovation and the environment relate to each other?: a proposed framework for a trans-disciplinary analysis of sustainable development and social ecology. int j soc ecol sustain dev. 2010;1(1):41–69. https://doi.org/10.4018/jsesd.2010010105 dec 2008 inside book .p65 355 abstract disaster risk reduction is an ever-growing concept and finds its application within various disciplines. this article investigates the development of disaster risk reduction and some of the most important aspects which shaped it. the early years of international disaster relief are discussed and it is shown how a change in this system was necessitated by a variety of factors and international disasters, which exposed its weakness. the article argues that disaster relief and development aid were inextricably linked and it is this linkage which provided a catalyst for questioning the manner in which relief, and development assistance, were provided. the later emphasis on disaster preparedness and management is discussed, and international policies and mechanisms, which contributed to a gradual shift in focus towards disaster risk reduction, enjoy attention. the article concludes that solutions to disaster risks lie within a rigorous transdisciplinary focus. keywords: disaster risk reduction, disaster relief, disaster preparedness. disciplines: disaster management, history, public management. introduction the development and progression in humankind’s understanding of the world and life, ensured a continuous evolution in the response to events threatening our livelihoods. humankind developed techniques to deal with natural hazards, either by aiming to contain the forces of nature, or by altering human own behaviour. the development of humankind brought with it an increase in the susceptibility towards hazardous exploitation (williams, 2005; undp, 2004). it was only in the modern age that humankind aimed to study and understand what was called “natural disasters”. this study increased our understanding of the causal factors and how humans contribute to their own demise though unsustainable development techniques. from disaster relief to disaster risk reduction: a consideration of the evolving international relief mechanism d van niekerk* * dr dewald van niekerk is director of the african centre for disaster studies at north-west university’s potchefstroom campus. email: dewald.vanniekerk@nwu.ac.za. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 355-376. 356 during the last century, several powerful natural disasters occurred in different parts of the world, in countries both technologically advanced and developing. the types of natural hazards that triggered these disasters varied from the unpredictable occurrence of earthquakes, to more predictable seasonal floods and periodic storms. other less immediate and slowly evolving hazards such as drought and environmental degradation affected even more people with potentially greater costs for their future. more than anything else, the media images of natural disasters at the close of the twentieth century underscored and focussed upon the human consequences and social dimensions of these events (unisdr, 2002). this article aims to provide the reader with a brief investigation of the contribution of disaster relief, as well as the early concept of disaster preparedness, to the development of the concept of disaster risk reduction. it should be noted that the development of disaster risk reduction cannot only be discussed in terms of a timeframe or chronology of events. some significant themes like the disaster relief agenda, development aid and assistance, disaster preparedness and response will be used to indicate the development of this multi-, and trans-disciplinary focus. disaster relief a variety of different and varied occurrences had a significant impact on the development of disaster risk reduction. aspects discussed below do not necessarily indicate a natural progression towards disaster risk reduction, but it should rather be seen as elements which ensured a realisation of the need for disaster risk reduction measures. it should, therefore, be stated clearly that the author does not believe that the contemporary attention which disaster risk reduction enjoys is a natural evolutionary process of just one discipline, nor can it be accurately linked to a chronological timeframe. it is rather the culmination of the activities and work of many different professionals and disciplines (see jeggle in rosenthal, comfort & boin, 2001; unisdr, 2003; alexander, 1993; wisner et al, 2004; pelling, 2003). issues of disaster risk always enjoy heightened attention after a disaster. it is only logical to argue that some of the major disasters to strike the globe in the post-world war ii era ensured a continuous focus on disaster and disaster relief related issues stimulated by modern news media, albeit only for a limited period subsequent to a disaster. the following section will therefore aim to address the contribution of disaster relief and development aid to the evolution of disaster risk reduction. disaster relief and development aid a discussion on the international disaster relief mechanism would be inadequate if separated from development aid. it should, however, van niekerk 357 be noted that these two concepts must not be viewed as synonyms, although in many instances the division between development aid and disaster relief is blurred. in this conceptualisation, disasters were events to be waited for and only after the disaster struck, would remedial action be taken to ensure a speedy return to normality (moore, 1956). many less developed countries (ldcs), living with the legacy of the post-world war ii, post-colonial era and then the post-cold war, were mostly defenceless in the face of disasters and in dire need of economic development. this is quite evident in the chinese famine of the early 1960s (watkins, 2003) as well as the north peruvian earthquake of 1970 (forces of nature, 2004). in most instances, communities were perceived to be helpless and required [international] intervention and assistance (comfort et al., 1999; pelling, 2003). this fatalistic attitude towards disasters lead to the stereotypical provision of relief after a disaster has occurred (lechat, 1990; alexander, 1993). the east pakistan/bangladesh cyclone, and resulting storm surge which killed approximately 300 000 people in 1970 is a clear example of how the international community intervened to assist seemingly “helpless” populations (see cuny, 1983), and in doing so, demonstrated strikingly incompetent management capacities (ritchie, 1976). the guatemalan earthquake of 1976 exhibited the same aid provision characteristics, to the extent that the affected population began to believe that they were helpless and in need of external intervention. jeggle points out: (t)he conception of emergency assistance [disaster relief] has been predominantly one of providing immediate and short-term basic necessities of food, water, shelter and medical care to survivors of a specific catastrophe (in rosenthal, comfort & boin, 2001). the provision of relief was therefore not linked to any form of long term development planning. the early years of international relief the earliest documented codes in dealing with early warning and relief were the madras famine code of 1883, which was the forerunner to the bengal famine code. the former aimed “to monitor grain prices as an indicator of famine”. the latter (developed in 1895 and revised in 1913) spelled out in great detail the responsibilities of governments in the anticipation, response and recovery to droughts and floods, and the consequent loss of agricultural production (isdr, 2004b). until the 1920s, disaster relief was delivered strictly on a bilateral basis (from one nation to another). with the inception of the international league of the red cross and later red crescent societies, international organisations started to play a more coordinating and intermediary role in disaster relief (burton, kates & white, 1993; gunn, 1992). most of the humanitarian relief td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. disaster risk reduction 358 activities, both governmentally driven and private (green, 1977), were born out of the world war ii (e.g. british war relief in the united states and oxfam in britain) (black, 1992; burton, kates & white, 1993). the devastation of the world war ii on europe firmly established the need for some form of mechanism to provide relief to people in their hour of need. towards the end of the world war ii (1943), the united nations relief and rehabilitation administration (unrra) became the first disaster enterprise instituted on a global scale (gunn, 1992). it was also in this post-war period that different governments moved into a larger relief role than before, which was predominantly the domain of relief organisations. this is quite evident in the establishment of international aid agencies by the majority of the more developed countries (mdcs). examples are the establishment of the united states agency for international development (usaid) and the office of foreign disaster assistance, created by john f. kennedy in 1961 (usaid, 2004). other mdcs followed the example set by the usa and in 1969 the canadian government established the canadian international development agency (cida) (cida, 2008), germany created the deutsche gesellschaft für technische zusammenarbeit (gtz) gmbh in 1975 (gtz, 2008) and the united kingdom established the ministry of overseas development in 1964 (to become the department for international development in 1997) with a refugee and relief division (dfid, 2004). these international development organisations had, in most cases, a two-fold objective: firstly, to implement the foreign policy of the mother country in the developing world; and secondly, to alleviate the plight of the poor. these objectives as well as the prevailing international political situation dictated the way in which aid and development assistance were given to countries in need. these international development agencies gradually started to form an important part of the international relief system. the international relief system green (1977) states that the international disaster relief system since the 1970s consisted of four major elements: the united nations, private organisations (e.g. red cross and others), donor governments (through their development agencies) and the international media. cuny (1983) identifies five tiers within this relief system, that of primary donors, organisations receiving relief, international relief and development organisations, local government and non-governmental organisations (ngos), and projects. an amalgamation of the focus of green and cuny will be used to discuss this international relief system. the united nations and its agencies the un, realising the importance of disaster relief, prioritised the international coordination of emergency assistance, and in 1971 van niekerk 359 established the united national disaster relief office (undro) (un, 1971; burton, kates & white, 1993). undro was to be the focal point in the un system for disaster relief matters. undro was initially created with a mandate to respond to natural disasters, but quickly expanded to include so called “man-made” disasters as well (un chronicle, 1985). in its first few years of operation undro never obtained the status proclaimed by resolution 28161 of the united nations. internal communication and lines of authority within and between un agencies hampered the work of undro. undro, that mostly had to work though un field staff, found this virtually impossible due to a lack of inter-agency cooperation and collaboration and the competition over relief fund raising within the un system. throughout its 20 years of existence undro was beset by problems including an uncertain mandate, inadequate (and sometimes incompetent) staffing and funding, lack of in-country capacity, lack of support from other un agencies (and on occasion the secretariat), a long running dispute over whether or not it should be operational (i.e. physically involved in the handling and distribution of assistance), and poor credibility within the donor community (odi, 1993). its performance was regularly criticised in reviews by the un and external parties. perhaps the most fundamental of all of undro’s problems was that it was always the poor relation to the other, larger un agencies that were directly involved in the relief operations. the aftermath of the drought and famine in the sahel and particularly ethiopia in 1974 ensured a heightened focus on disaster relief. it is also in this era that undro staff was expanded and it developed a solid base for its operations. green (1977) says that the initial funding of undro was on a bilateral basis (notably from the united states) but later became part of the un budget. in most cases undro worked through the resident staff of the united nations development programme (undp) (cuny, 1983). undro did not itself control a major share of the resources being channelled to the affected population, or indeed have a substantial field presence during the response. it is questionable that it could ever have been expected to play an effective coordination role (odi, 1993). in april 1992, undro was absorbed within the newly created department of humanitarian affairs (ocha, 2008). currently the un still provides for disaster relief through its many agencies (e.g. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (ocha), unicef, world food programme (wfp), united nations children’s fund (unicef) and food and agricultural organisation (fao)). the un specialised agencies can provide a wide variety of resources ranging from technical assistance to food. many of these agencies have their own in-country staff that is capable of managing relief programmes. 1 un resolution 2816 establishment of an adequate permanent office in the united nations to be the focal point in the un system for disaster relief matters (called undro). disaster risk reduction td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. 360 primary donors and international development agencies cuny (1983) is of the opinion that the primary donors (e.g. private contributors, taxpayers, corporate donors and special interest groups) form the first tier in the international relief system. these donors normally do not have direct contact with the community for which the aid is intended and therefore donors tend to work through an implementing agency such as international relief or development organisations. although, international development agencies are primarily responsible for implementing their respective country’s foreign policies through development aid, they inevitably become involved in the provision of disaster relief. response by these international development agencies after a disaster has occurred, also started to influence the development agenda and the provision of development assistance. in many instances much needed development funds were redirected towards reconstruction and rehabilitation after a disaster. this is quite evident in the andhra, pradesh cyclone of 1977. massive development funds were rerouted to indian communities in need of immediate disaster assistance, with some significant long-term development consequences for the communities for which the development funds were intended (cuny, 1983). smith (2002) emphasises the enormous impact of disasters on the development by indicating that in the year 1992 alone the world lost more money due to the impact of natural disasters estimated at us$62 billion), than it spent on developmental (estimated at us$60 billion). according to munich re (2007) in 2007 the global economic losses due to disasters were us$75 billion, but much less than the us$220 billion recorded in 2005. in the same year (2005) the official development assistance globally were us$107 billion, and in 2006 showed a reduction to us$105 billion (world bank, 2008). in staying with the development agencies, todaro (1994) argues that the impetus behind providing foreign aid was either politically or economically motivated. today it is widely recognised that the marshall plan, was a means by the united states of america (usa) to contain the spread of communism through europe. after the successful reconstruction of europe, many of these established organisations continued their work of providing aid and relief to communities in want. most of the relief organisations found themselves working exclusively in the ldcs (black, 1992), with most of the foreign development assistance also going to these countries (todaro, 1994). once the balance of cold war interests shifted from europe to the developing world in the 1960s, the containment policy of the usa development programme dictated a shift towards political, economic, and military support for geographically strategic “friendly” ldcs. most of the aid programmes to the developing nations (not only those coming from the usa, but also great britain and france) were more aimed towards purchasing their security and propping up their sometimes shaky regimes, than promoting long-term social and economic development. at the other side of the cold war spectrum, the socialist aid of the former soviet union was essentially also politically and strategically motivated, van niekerk 361 although its form and content differed somewhat (todaro, 1994). these aid giving governments sometimes found themselves in an absolute conundrum – funding military might on the one hand while providing relief to those affected by these weapons. private relief organisations in the early years of disaster relief (1950 onward), private agencies (widely known as non-governmental organisations – ngos), generally provided a small portion of the assistance during a given disaster (cuny, 1983). they however, became an important part of the relief mechanism, as they tended to be the first responders (cuny, 1983). in most instances they already had in-country resources and were not extensively belaboured by bureaucratic channels. private relief and development organisations also found themselves (most of the time) in political neutral terrain and could better provide aid in areas that were politically sensitive. this was quite evident in the biafra war in the late 1960s; the southeast asian refugee crisis of the 1970s, the civil strive in burundi in 1972, and afghanistan in the 1980s. these private organisations also had the ability to provide different types of relief that were not easily matched by the official organisations (green, 1977). many more private organisations have been created since the 1960s and in many instances have developed thriving fundraising mechanisms. one of the most cumbersome aspects associated with a multitude of private organisations is that their actions often tend to be uncoordinated, are frequently in competition, and also exhibit an alarming lack of collaboration (ritchie, 2004). this lead to a duplication and waste of resources. such was the case in the ethiopian famine of the 1970s (which only became globally known through a television documentary made by stephen green working for a un agency) and again in the early 1980s. in realising the scarcity of resources and the need for a coordinated approach, the christian relief and development association (crda) was established in ethiopia in may 1973 (initially consisting of 13 members). it currently consists of over 200 ngos, and faith based organisations (crda, 2004). jeggle (2005) indicates that another watershed in the international relief system and involvement of private organisations in providing disaster relief was the bangladesh emergency after its independence war. more than 120 ngos flocked to bangladesh in order to provide relief aid. although the un was essentially managing the logistics of the fledgling country, many ngos worked in a myriad of aspects, sometimes uncoordinated. the sometime uncoordinated interventions by ngos and the varied standards applied when providing disaster relief provided the impetus to the development of two important documents. firstly the “code of conduct for the international red cross and red crescent movement and nongovernmental organisations in disaster relief” was developed in 1994 by the international red cross and red crescent movement. disaster risk reduction td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. 362 secondly, the sphere project: humanitarian charter and minimum standards in disaster response by leading international humanitarian ngos was introduced in 1997 (sphere project, 2004). from the discussion above it is clear that the need for a coordinated approach to disaster relief was gradually being addressed. more recent, the relief coordination of the indian ocean tsunami disaster on 26 december 2004, showed that significant strides has been made in international aid coordination. the development of modern media technology and the ability to broadcast live images from disaster stricken area gradually brought the need for global intervention in major disasters to the general public in many developed countries. the international media in the 1970s and 1980s several major disasters, such as the 1973/4 sahel drought and relating famine, the 1974 bangladesh floods, the guatemalan earthquake of 1976, the andhra, pradesh cyclone in india in 1977, the bhopal, india chemical release in 1984, the repeat of the 1973 ethiopian famine in 1984, the great 1985 mexico city earthquake, chernobyl in 1986 and the exxon valdes oil spill in prince william sound, attracted global media attention. taken together, they strained international capacity to provide effective and timely emergency relief services. in addition to this several of these events had a high political profile, particularly among major industrialised countries. media coverage of these disasters transmitted vivid images of suffering and devastation into the homes of the mdcs, sparking a global outcry and outreach to these communities. many relief organisations were quick to realise the usefulness of international television and soon used it to their benefit. an example of how the media influences relief is surely the coverage of the 2000 mozambique floods in southern africa. most relief organisations were mobilised long before the mozambique government made the official call for international assistance (klopper, 2000). continuing today, the role of the international media cannot be underestimated. global media networks possess, in most cases, vastly more resources and field personnel than even some of the most established relief organisations. the international media has become an intricate (albeit transient) part of the international relief system in terms of communication, aid mobilisation and influencing public opinions on a disastrous event. it is with no doubt that the international news media can play a crucial role in disaster risk reduction. the sensational focus of the news media on the death toll and extent of low frequency high impact events (such as 9/11, hurricane katrina and the indian ocean tsunami) remains an obstacle. beside the role of the media the most important component within the relief system is the recipients of the aid and the workers within these affected communities. van niekerk 363 local communities and projects the final tier identified by cuny (1983) is that of the community and project level. at this level the funds and resources mobilised and allocated through the preceding tiers, are dispersed and the needs of the affected communities are addressed. these projects can take on a variety of different forms. cuny (1983) criticised the international relief mechanism for not taking the communities’ coping capacity into account when developing relief programmes. he clearly stipulated the need for developmental interventions to improve development as well as an enhanced state of affairs than that prior to the disaster. the need for vulnerability reduction planning within a development focus comes to the fore. it should, however, be noted that some significant changes occurred in the international relief system. these changes will be discussed briefly. changes in the international relief system the kurdish refugee crisis of april 1991 involved the movement of 1.9 million people fleeing oppression by iraqi government forces (odi, 1993). seventy percent of the refugees were able to cross into iran where they were comparatively well cared for by the local authorities and the iranian red crescent. most of the refugees who moved towards turkey were prevented from crossing the border by the turkish authorities and were stranded on exposed, high altitude sites on the iraqi side of the border (odi, 1993). the international community responded with a number of actions. the most significant being the passage of security council resolution 688 on 5 april 1991 (un, 1991) which insisted “that iraq allow immediate access by international humanitarian organisations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of iraq”. the united states of america, britain, france and the netherlands aimed to establish safe havens within northern iraq to enable kurds to move down to more sheltered sites within iraq where they were protected from attack by iraqi government forces. a further action was the mounting of a massive relief operation in which military forces (principally transport aircraft and helicopters, but also medical professionals and management) played a crucial role in delivering assistance, together with the un agencies and international ngos. the kurdish operation established the important precedent that, under certain circumstances, the international community is prepared to use force in support of humanitarian relief operations (odi, 1993). in addition, the response sharply exposed the weaknesses in coordination mechanisms and in the ability of the system to rapidly deliver assistance in areas where agencies of the host government could not be used and where few international ngos operated prior to the intervention. this operation created precedents because of the context in which it occurred. the performance of un agencies involved in the provision and coordination of relief during the kurdish disaster risk reduction td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. 364 operation was criticised by some western governments, during and after the operation. such criticisms focused upon the slow response of the principal un agencies to the opportunities created by the passage of resolution 6882 , the perennial lack of inter-agency coordination and the lack of leadership provided by the un system to the numerous other agencies (donor, ngo and intergovernmental) involved in the response. the collapse of the former soviet union and the ending of the cold war witnessed a convergence of usa and russian interests on many foreign policy issues, simultaneously reducing the need for russia to use its veto powers in the security council and increasing the costs to it of doing so. this has radically enhanced the capacity of the security council to address and act upon international security and humanitarian issues. whilst resolution 688 established an important precedent, subsequent events indicate a continuing struggle between those favouring a more interventionist approach and those arguing against it on the grounds of national sovereignty (odi, 1993). within the general assembly the former group has faced considerable opposition. thus, initial drafts of general assembly resolution 46/182 of 19 december 1992 (un, 1992) aimed at improving the un’s coordination of the international relief system sought to sustain the impetus for the more interventionist approach resulting from resolution 688. the final text of general assembly resolution 46/182 aimed at improving the un’s coordination of relief states: the sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity of states must be fully respected in accordance with the charter of the united nations. in this context, humanitarian assistance should be provided with the consent of the affected country and in principle on the basis of an appeal by the affected country. the text leaves some room for humanitarian intervention. its use of the phrases “should be” and “in principle” allows for instances when assistance can be provided without an appeal by the affected state or even without its consent. the changes may be seen as the adaptation of international relief system to the ending of the cold war and the collapse of the soviet union. these events have simultaneously enhanced the capacity of the security council to undertake armed intervention in support of humanitarian objectives, removed the capacity for central control over a host of newly unleashed ethnic tensions, and opened up new roles for armed forces built up during the cold war period. within this 2 un resolution 688 (1991) insists that, although the sovereignty of iraq is acknowledged, iraq “allow immediate access by international humanitarian organisations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of iraq and to make available all necessary facilities for their operations.” van niekerk 365 new context the power of the richer western governments to influence the pace and direction of change within the international relief system, were significantly enlarged, by virtue of their central role in resourcing the international relief system and, in the case of france, uk and usa, through their membership of the security council (odi, 1993). the enhanced role of the security council increases the likelihood that relief assistance will be provided to civilian populations in conflict zones. however, an apparent lesson from the cases of somalia and bosnia is that armed interventions in support of humanitarian relief objectives are likely to be crucially dependent upon the prevailing attitudes and concerns of the richer western governments, especially the usa. on the african continent a more direct involvement by african governments to african crises has also become evident since 1994 (neethling, 2004). the democratic elections in south africa, the strengthening of pan african sentiment, the establishment of the african union and the new developmental focus on africa through nepad, all contributed to peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions by african countries. as is the case with the un security council, the african union has not significantly shown vigour in intervening in countries in conflict (e.g. rwanda, sudan, drc and also zimbabwe to an extent). it should, however, be highlighted that peacekeeping and peace making on the african continent should not be confused with relief. to this end, the african relief mechanism is severely limited in its capacity, and many african nations remain the receivers of international relief. in perusal of the “new” international relief system it becomes clear that the provision of assistance is not a unilateral mechanism anymore. moreover countries dependent on relief are aiming to link the provision of relief with developmental initiatives (scuk/c, 2004, ellis & barakat, 1996). influence of the development agenda already in 1976, ritchie (1976) noted the importance of development in preventing disasters. the seminal publication of cuny (1983) as well as the work of randolph c. kent (anatomy of disaster relief: the international network of action published in 1987), explored the importance of development and vulnerability in creating or exacerbating disasters (lavell, 1999). the theme of disasters, environment and sustainability, appeared in a number of works edited by kreimer (1989), kreimer and zador (1989) as well as kreimer and munasinghe (1991) towards the end of the 1990s. cuny paid particular attention to the role of development in emergency assistance and proclaimed that emergency issues should be addressed in the context of much larger development policies. it is widely accepted that cuny was the first to address the disasterdevelopment interaction mostly due to his direct involvement in the international dimension of disaster/emergency management (jeggle, disaster risk reduction td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. 366 2005; lavell, 1999). kent researched the complexity of the causes of disasters being rooted in conditions of vulnerability. they (cuny and kent) questioned the validity of cyclical disaster occurrences and emphasised the importance of a holistic approach towards disasters, although from two different perspectives. mary anderson (1985) also added considerable thought to this debate during the latter part of the 1980s. anderson and woodrow (1989) advanced the concept of incorporating vulnerability reduction in development activities (jeggle, 2003). the above-mentioned authors came from a wide array of different disciplines with varied direct involvement in situations of disasters, yet they all realised that the occurrence of disasters (be it natural or human induced) can, and should, be addressed through a change of focus. such a change of focus was to address the root causes of disaster mostly through developmental interventions. the emphasis on the types of developmental interventions towards disaster reduction varied from author to author, and ranged from the adaptation of public policy to direct community-based development projects for vulnerability reduction. notwithstanding the above, the late 1980s heralded a new era in the management of disasters and the provision of disaster relief. new focus for disaster relief hammock and nastsios (in cuny, 1999) state that one of the traditional weaknesses of humanitarian agencies has been their inability to be reflective and undertake objective analysis of their relief response on a more strategic level (i.e. also considering long term developmental actions linked to relief). it was widely felt by the scientific community (gunn, 1992; quarantelli, 1998) and professional groups, that there had to be a more effective way of responding to disasters than only providing relief materials to the survivors (jeggle in rosenthal, comfort & boin, 2001; comfort et al., 1999). the concept of disaster management progressively found its way into the vocabulary of international relief organisations and policy makers. the disaster events of the 1970s to late 1980s mentioned previously, intensified the drive towards the development of a better global system in terms of disaster preparedness (taylor & cuny, 1979; burton, 1993). a realisation grew that the international relief mechanism was not geared for such events. this motivated the international assistance community, typically accompanied by ngos involved in emergency assistance responsibilities, to give greater public visibility and policy commitment to preparedness in disaster management (jeggle in rosenthal, comfort & boin, 2001). a more comprehensive sense of disaster preparedness and management that encompassed functions of preparedness, prevention, mitigation, reconstruction and rehabilitation began to be more widely recognised as a much needed van niekerk 367 alternative to disaster relief. disaster preparedness and management blaikie et al (1994) and wisner et al (2004) indicate that in the early part of the 1970s, the term “disaster prevention” was used freely. undro later questioned the use of “prevention” because it argued that a disaster cannot be prevented, only mitigated (undro, 1991). the terms prevention, preparedness and mitigation were also frequently confused. disaster mitigation (actions taken to reduce damage or loss) signified a new paradigm towards disaster reduction and so too expanded on the ideas of disaster preparedness and management. this is quite evident of the theoretical writings of scholars in this era. technological advancement in the twentieth century made it possible to apply and mobilise resources in order to reduce (or mitigate) the impacts of natural hazards. one of the first steps in turning the focus of emergency assistance was applied to the field of pre-disaster emergency procurement and shipment procedure for food. this also included the establishment of forward warehouses for emergency food stock around the world. although the ensuring of food stock was given priority, other interests in broader preparedness planning gradually won commitment towards the improvement of “readiness of response” (jeggle in rosenthal, comfort & boin, 2001). through compiling contingency plans, setting up disaster relief teams, and stockpiling emergency relief material, ngos and relief organisations progressively developed the concept of preparedness into a more focused facet of emergency relief assistance (black, 1992). progress in technology also brought with it new possibilities in terms of early warning systems for specific hazards (lavell, 1999). this is clearly illustrated by the usaid-sponsored famine early warning system (fews), and the un food and agricultural organisation’s global information and early warning system (giews). lavell (1999) indicates that the progress in technology also brought with it new risks relating to the uncertain application of these technologies. the end of the 1980s saw a keen interest within the international community towards the systematic development of methodologies which could be applied to ensure even better pre-disaster preparedness (rouhban in ingleton, 1999). gradually the common use of the concept “disaster management” emerged. the central paradigm of the integrated approach towards disaster management can be viewed in a common timeframe cutting across natural hazards as a sequence of phases each being amenable to a specific type of intervention (e.g. planning phase, preparedness phase, prevention phase, mitigation phase, warning phase, disaster impact phase, rescue phase, relief phase, rehabilitation phase, and reconstruction and recovery phase) (lechat, 1990; undp, 1992). disaster management aimed towards the integration of preand post-disaster activities in disaster risk reduction td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. 368 order to safeguard lives and property against possible disasters. jeggle (in rosenthal, comfort & boin, 2001) compares the earlier concepts of emergency assistance and disaster management. he points out that there are distinctive managerial and functional implications for the organisation of risk and disaster management for the future. these are summarised in table 1 below. table 1: emergency assistance vs. hazard, risk and disaster management (source: jeggle in rosenthal, comfort and boin, 2001) from the above table it is therefore clear that changing organisational and institutional roles in disaster management marked a van niekerk 369 fundamental shift towards vulnerability and risk management for the future. jeggle (2003), however, cautions that one should not assume that disaster risk reduction developed or evolved from the earlier understanding of disaster management. the focus on disaster risk reduction rather developed due to the work of a number of different professional disciplines, all with one aim in mind – to reduce the risk of disasters occurring or affecting people. the evolution of disaster management did, however, ensure a realisation that hazard and risk relate to significantly larger professional constituencies. the discriminating focus of the international scientific community, different professional constituencies, and national administrators on disasters brought with it the recognition that intervention is needed on a professional and administrative scale. international mechanisms that shaped disaster risk reduction although the united nations’ various agencies have to a greater and lesser degree been involved in response to disasters, which normally translated into humanitarian crisis, no one agency was dedicated to purely focussing on issues relating to disasters. the inadequacies of the international relief and humanitarian system to address continuous losses due to natural disasters brought with it a realisation that alternative interventions are needed. an international decade on natural disasters was first proposed at the eighth international congress of earthquake engineering (lechat, 1990). the international scientific community met this initiative favourably. in december 1987, the united nations general assembly adopted resolution 42/169 which proclaimed the years 1990-1999 as the international decade for natural disaster reduction, or idndr (wmo, 1997; smith, 2002; unisdr, 2002; un, 1987; lechat, 1990). during this decade a concerted international effort was attempted to reduce the loss of life, property, livelihoods, and social and economic disruption caused by the violent impact of nature on vulnerable conditions. the aim of this decade was to ensure a shift in the reactive approach towards natural disasters to that of pro-active planning and prevention (housner, 1989; lechat, 1990; smith, 2002). another significant event which shaped the disaster risk reduction agenda in the 1990s was the world conference on natural disaster reduction held in yokohama, japan from 23-27 may 1994 and the subsequent adoption of the yokohama strategy and plan of action for a safer world. the yokohama strategy and plan of action for a safer world (1994) stressed that each country has the sovereign responsibility to protect its citizens from natural disasters and that priority must be given to developing countries, in particular the least developed, land-locked disaster risk reduction td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. 370 countries and the small island developing states. it further emphasised the importance of: developing and strengthening national capacities and capabilities and, where appropriate, national legislation for natural and other disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness, including the mobilisation of non-governmental organisation and participation of local communities (yokohama 1994). lastly, the strategy pointed to the importance of promoting and strengthening sub-regional, regional and international cooperation in prevention, reduction and mitigation of natural and other disasters. the idndr cultivated fertile soil for the announcement of its successor, the international strategy for disaster reduction (isdr) in 2000. as the successor to the idndr, the international strategy for disaster reduction (isdr) proceeded with the emphasis of protection against hazards, reducing vulnerability and building resilient communities (unisdr, 2002). the most significant progress that the isdr aims to make, vis-à-vis the ideals of the idndr and the yokohama strategy and plan of action for a safer world, is the cultivation of a multidisciplinary approach to disaster reduction within the broader context of sustainable development (unisdr, 2004). the isdr takes a global approach to disaster reduction inculcating a culture of risk avoidance behaviour through the fostering of partnerships at community level. one of the major emphases of the isdr is ensuring political commitment to the development and implementation of disaster reduction policies and actions by all governments, but in particular those most exposed to the possible impact of hazards. stimulating interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration and the expanding of existing networks is one of the key focus areas of the isdr. learning from the idndr, the isdr calls attention to the importance of research and the improvement of scientific knowledge of disaster reduction. in december 2003 (un, 2003), the un general assembly adopted resolution 58/214, in which it decided to convene a second world conference on disaster reduction. as mentioned previously, the first world conference on disaster reduction took place in yokohama, japan in may 1994 and set a plan of action called the yokohama strategy. the wcdr adopted the hyogo declaration, and the hyogo framework for action 2005-2015: building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters, which aims to define a new plan of action for the years 2005-2015 to facilitate the implementation of the millennium development goals3 . some scholars, however, are of the 3 the millennium development goals (mdgs) form a blueprint agreed to by all the countries of the world and the world’s leading development institutions to aim and achieve eight development goals by 2015. (see http://www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/). van niekerk 371 opinion that the hyogo framework for action (un, 2005) failed dismally in linking the kobe outcomes with the goals and targets set out in the millennium development goals (walker & wisner, 2005:1). despite the good efforts by government, non-governmental actors, civil society and various research and academic disciplines, the reduction of disaster risk in communities most at risk remains a challenging task. conclusion this article aimed to explain the complex historical development of the focus on disasters and disaster relief to disaster risk reduction. it was found that the modern focus on disaster risk reduction cannot be ascribed to a logical flow of events linked to a specific timeframe, or can it be ascribed to a natural evolution of a discipline. rather, it was shown that various international disasters, professional constituencies and international organisations contributed to its development. although some aspect such as the disaster relief agenda and disaster response played a major role in the development of the term, it was the relative lack of prevention measures to disaster events which cemented this international focus. the combined efforts of the international community, lead by the united nations, brought a commitment to disaster risk reduction on a political and policy level. although massive strides have been made in the past number of decades towards more focused and robust disaster mitigation and reduction measures, their alignment with development goals and gains is still lacking . references alexander, d. 1993. natural disasters. new york: chapman & hall. anderson, m. 1985. a reconceptualization of the linkages between disasters and development. disasters. harvard supplement. anderson, m.b. & woodrow, p.j. 1989. rising from the ashes: development strategies in times of disaster. boulder: westview press. black, m. 1992. a cause for our time: oxfam the first 50 years. oxford: oxfam. blaikie, p. cannon, t. davis, i, & wisner, b. 1994. at risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability, and disasters. new york: routledge. burton, i., kates, r.w & white, g.f. 1993. the environment as hazard. 2nd edition. new york: guilford. borton, j. 1993. recent trends in the international relief system. disasters. 17. 3. disaster risk reduction td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 355-376. 372 canadian international development agency (cida). 2008. cida in brief. 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province of south africa identified agritourism as a potential means to this end. the main aim of this primarily qualitative study was to gain a better understanding of the perceptions and opportunities for agritourism in the study area. data were mainly collected through interviews and questionnaires. participants consisted of farmers and tourists, as well as owners of existing agritourism farms within the mdm. five current active agritourism establishments were identified. key findings revealed that agritourism is not being utilised to its full potential. although perceptions of respondents towards agritourism are positive, marketing around it is insufficient and not all farmers are willing to host agritourism activities on their farms for various reasons. however, the mdm is a tourist hub with many visitors passing through the area en route to the kruger national park. therefore, the potential already exists to host agritourism activities that will benefit farmers in various ways. by developing farm trails, scheduling daily farm activities, using information brochures, forming networks with existing tourist establishments, encouraging the use of local and fresh produce and providing good roadside signage, farmers can gain increased exposure and recognition for what they do and opportunities for growth and development may be realised. keywords: agritourism, farm tourism, alternative tourism, farm activities, tourism 1. introduction poor agriculture commodity prices, rising production costs, globalisation, industrialisation, the encroachment of suburban development, loss of government-supported agricultural programs and the elasticity of commodity markets, have led farm families to explore the viability of alternative economic strategies in an effort to preserve the family farm (weaver & fennell, 1997, lobo et al., 1999 and doyle & mcgehee, 2002). one of the driving forces among agricultural sectors to diversify their income sources is to embrace tourism practices 1 . sl myer, tshwane university of technology, department of nature conservation, private, bag x680, pretoria, 0001. email: stephanie.myer@gmail.com. 2 . corresponding author: ep de crom, tshwane university of technology, department of nature conservation, private bag x680, pretoria, 0001. email: decromep@tut.ac.za meyer & de crom 296 into their daily farming activities (viljoen & tlabela, 2006:15). this is known as agritourism and it may be regarded as an alternative form of tourism that falls under nature tourism. agritourism can be defined as the act of visiting a working farm, or agribusiness enterprise, for the purpose of enjoyment, education or active involvement in the activities of the farm or operation (che, veeck & veeck, 2005:227). the inception of agritourism into traditional farming practices is a relatively new concept in south africa and is based on the premise of attracting visitors to farms. however, according to the white paper on the development and promotion of tourism (sa, 1996:6), tourism has been inadequately resourced and funded. there is little integration of local communities and previously neglected groups into tourism. tourism education and training are lacking and there is inadequate protection of natural environments. poor service delivery and lack of infrastructure (particularly in rural areas) are also outlined. the growing levels of crime and violence on visitors remain an on-going problem. this has led the researcher to believe that not enough has been done to promote agritourism to its full potential in south africa and specifically in the study area. while there are a number of constraints associated with tourism development in south africa, many opportunities and benefits exist for agritourism. agritourism has been identified as a unique opportunity for the mopani district municipality (mdm) to combine its diverse agricultural industries with tourism. according to pittman (2006), agritourism provides a number of financial, educational and social benefits to tourists, producers and communities and these include: • providing producers with the opportunity to generate additional income through tours, accommodation or selling directly to the consumer; • stimulating economic development in the form of additional employment opportunities; • providing the public, particularly children, with the opportunity to learn about agriculture and food production; • providing an alternative use for agricultural land that can help maintain the viability of the operation; • providing communities with opportunities to develop business enterprises; • providing visitors with an alternative form of tourism; • providing local tourism officials with the opportunity to enhance existing tourism attractions; and • helping to achieve the tourism goal of increasing the volume of visitors to the specific area. agritourism is a relatively recent phenomenon in south africa that is not being utilised to its full potential. there is a lack of tourism awareness at a national, provincial and local level (sa, 1996:6). this leads to the question of whether enough is being done to promote guest farms or agritourism in south africa. it further prompts the question of whether tourists (general public) are aware of agritourism establishments and their potential in south africa in general and for this study, specifically in and around the mdm of the country. the area chosen for this study is confined to current and potential agritourism establishments in the mdm. the mdm lies in the limpopo province of south africa, in the northernmost reaches of the country where it shares its borders with botswana in the west, mozambique in agritourism in mopani district, limpopo td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 295-308. 297 the east and zimbabwe in the north. the mdm has the potential of becoming an excellent ecotourist destination area as its eastern border lies next to the kruger national park (knp) (blunt, 2009:32). the knp is a world-renowned wildlife sanctuary for large game and attracts many visitors to the area. agriculture plays a significant role with regards to employment and subsequently, the economy, in the mdm. approximately 50% of the farming income earned in limpopo is derived from horticultural farming activities centered in the mdm with subtropical fruits, citrus and vegetable farming making up the remainder of it (blunt, 2009:33). 2. methods the nature of this study is primarily qualitative with aspects of quantitative methods incorporated during data gathering, analyses and interpretation. required data was collected from fresh produce farmers within the boundaries of the mdm, local tourists (i.e. residing in south africa) that were visiting the region or passing through the area to other destinations, and co-workers of the researcher who were approached according to their knowledge of the industry as they work closely with the farm owners in the study area. non-probability sampling techniques were used, namely purposive, convenience and snowball sampling. the sample size was based on information need; hence, the guiding principle in sampling was data saturation (guest, bunce & johnson, 2006). thus, all the participants were sampled to the point at which no new information was obtained and saturation was achieved. primary data were collected using interviews and questionnaires over three years (2009-2011) during weekends and holiday periods and during times of festivals and other arranged farm activities. open content analysis and descriptive statistics were used to describe the information collected from the interviews and questionnaires. 3. results and discussion this study was based on the following objectives: • to investigate what agritourism opportunities exist in the mopani district municipality of south africa; • to determine what the perceptions of visitors and farm owners are with regards to agritourism in the study area; • to determine what the preferences of visitors are when visiting agritourism establishments in the study area; • to determine the benefits of incorporating agritourism activities into classical farming practices; and • to provide recommendations to developing agritourism in the study area. 3.1 current agritourism opportunities current agritourism establishments incorporated in this study and regarded as having potential to further promote active agritourism in the area are located in magoebaskloof and meyer & de crom 298 tzaneen. they include the wegraakbosch organic dairy farm, kuhestan farm, thomac oil distillery and the coach house. zz2 boerdery, located near modjajiskloof, was also included in the study area. these establishments have been identified by the researcher as being strategically placed in promoting agritourism in the area, especially because they are known establishments that frequently appear in the local tourism brochure. two of them, being the coach house and kuhestan farm, have established websites that potential visitors can access. in addition, these two farms have taken the initiative by allowing visitors to participate in day tours, or to spend the night to ‘imbibe’ the atmosphere which these kinds of destinations have to offer. further development of this agritourism initiative could be more readily realised in the future if a synergism was developed between the local communities and other farm owners in the area. 3.2 perceptions of respondents results revealed that 58% of all the respondents have heard of agritourism. in a study done to determine the potential for agritourism development in sri lanka, malkanthi and routry (2011) found that one of the drawbacks for effective implementation was that although farmers were found to be knowledgeable about their farming activities, they failed in awareness of the potential of agritourism to stimulate the local economy. the relatively high number of people in the mdm who are not aware of agritourism (42%) may thus be ascribed to ineffective or non-existent marketing of the concept, as well as overlooking its potential as a source of income to the area. this notion was borne out by respondents in this study, who confirmed that the marketing effectiveness of agritourism in south africa is poor. an attempt was made to establish the extent of the tourists’ awareness/exposure to the agritourism concept, as well as their relative perceptions thereof. it was determined that 95% of the tourists were of the opinion that south africa needs agritourism. reasons given were that agritourism provides a platform to educate tourists and/or members of the general public, who are subsequently provided with the opportunity to learn more about agriculture and food production, a finding supported by pittman (2006). according to raghunandan, horner and schuepbach (2010), there is a definite lack of awareness amongst children regarding human dependence on the environment, including the efforts that farmers expend in food production. through agritourism, greater awareness of food production and the importance of food security to a nation may help people to better understand the contribution that agriculturalists make to society. whereas some parts of south africa are better advertised than others, it is often left to the farmers themselves to manage all the marketing and compiling of promotional material. according to williams et al. (2001:98), some of the critical issues facing the agritourism industry, such as the establishment of marketing partnerships, are limited to the use of available channels of distribution. since farming contributes very little to the south african gross domestic product (gdp) (mather & adelzadeh, 1997; department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, 2010), incorporating agritourism activities into traditional farming practices may help boost the economy. a number of studies done on agritourism have shown that farmers in dire straits facing decreased profits and difficulties within the agricultural industry can embrace agritourism as an alternative source of income (oredegbe & fadeyibi, 2009:9). diversification along these lines can thus be viewed as a means of survival for farm businesses, with tourism becoming an attractive and feasible funding stream. farmers can also benefit agritourism in mopani district, limpopo td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 295-308. 299 from the increased exposure that agritourism creates for them. for example, a local farmer in the study area commented that even though they are trying to promote themselves on a private basis, agritourism could help them reach a greater audience. he said: “we are trying to promote as much as we can on a private basis but it could be streamlined and it could be widened to cover the area, the product and the facilities we offer” (respondent 10, 2011). on the question of whether tourists regard south africa as an attractive agritourism destination, the majority of respondents (89%) agreed that south africa is indeed an attractive agritourism destination. south africa is considered to be one of the most diverse and enchanting destinations in the world (sa-venues, s.a.). as a whole, the country boasts a combination of unrivalled landscapes, friendly people, diverse history and culture that inspires a unique experience for any visitor. south africa is seen as having a diverse range of tourist activities coupled to special interest attractions, such as that of wine tourism (world travel and tourism council, 2002). by way of example, the sa wine industry, according to hands and hughes (1997) and bruwer (2003), is one of the oldest industries outside europe, dating back to the mid-seventeenth century. according to studies conducted by the city of cape town (2002), as well as by grant thornton kessel feinstein (2002) and the world travel and tourism council (2002), visitation of wine routes by international and domestic tourists was ranked as the fourth most popular attraction in south africa. respondents in the 11% category (who felt that south africa is not an attractive agritourism destination) cited crime and political instability in south africa as being a major factor in making the country unattractive for tourism in general. evidence gathered in many parts of the world has demonstrated that safety, as well as peace and tranquillity are necessary for any tourism industry to prosper (sonmez & graefe, 1998; pizam & mansfield, 2006). according to the sa tourism brand tracker, in january 2005, 22-25 million potential travellers, across eight key markets (united states of america, united kingdom, germany, france, the netherlands, australia, india and china), did not consider south africa as a suitable travel destination because of safety concerns (department of environmental affairs and tourism, 2005:29). however, respondents in this study listed many reasons why south africa could indeed be considered an attractive destination for agritourism visitors. they maintained that south africa is rich in resources with an abundance of good soil types, clean air and water, all of which supports a large diversity of farming activities and products. some specifically mention that our sa environment and weather is conducive for diverse farming, allowing for a wide variety of products to be placed in the market place. these findings correspond with a study done by williams et al. (2001), which found factors that determine why visitors travel, include favourable weather, outstanding scenery, as well as a variety of things to see and do, all of which adds up to greater appreciation by the tourists for knowledge thus gained. another attractive feature of south africa is its people. in new zealand, country friendliness has extended into a commercial product (pearce, 1990:347). much of the success of new zealand farm tourism depends on the perceived friendliness of the hosts. many of south africa’s small-scale farms are organic and labour intensive. according to a respondent, overseas visitors like to visit south africa's farms because “they are like how our farms used to be” when machinery featured less. she added that visitors “experience an authentic farm atmosphere when visiting south african farms" (respondent 4, 2011). in a study done by cohen (2002), tourists are frustrated with ‘staged authenticity’ of tourist settings, preferring real authenticity of the site or at least to have an authentic farm experience. meyer & de crom 300 even though there are a number of factors that make south africa, and especially the study area, a worthwhile agritourism destination, some of the challenges that the local farms may face, is one of accessibility. tourists are of the opinion that getting to some of the farms in the wet weather may prove quite challenging without a 4-wheel drive vehicle, because of poor road conditions. in addition, many of the farms are too far away from urban areas to visit in one day. a third of the respondents however, were of the opinion that travelling on gravel roads leading to the farms contributed to the farm visit experience. the infrastructure that is able to host agritourism activities on the farms already exists. in addition, there are a total of 660 beds in bed & breakfast establishements and hotels in the area, as well as some good camping sites and many restaurants. the roads leading to the farms are well sign-posted and well maintained for the sake of being able to transport goods (respondent 3, 6 & 7, 2011). despite some negativity, it can be concluded that the overall perceptions of the majority of respondents towards the promotion of agritourism in the study area, were positive. 3.3 preferences of tourists to agritourism establishments results show that there exists a positive attitude among visitors within the study area with regards to participation in agritourism activities, where 84% of the tourist responses indicated positive participation in agritourism-related activities. only a small percentage (4%) was not interested in agritourism activities, while another 12% were unsure. reasons that visitors gave for being interested in participating in agritourism activities were primarily related to the enhancement of knowledge. respondents were of the opinion that people are not fully informed about where their food comes from, or how it is produced. it would appear that there is an underlying motivation to meet the producers and talk to them about what goes into food production. children who visit the farms have often not seen a live duck or pig and in many cases not picked an apple right off the tree (miller, vandome & mcbrewster, 2010:2). agritourism can thus be considered an alternative form of tourism which even children can enjoy and participate in. however, as indicated by the visitors, their extent of participation would be to only visit a farm for the sake of their children and only if it was en-route to their destination. for most people farm activities are not nearly as appealing as a more passive involvement (hood, 1995). only the younger generations appear interested in active participation via farm chores. would-be visitors in this category are considerably more enthusiastic about watching a demonstration, or being entertained, and leap at the chance of churning butter or pitching hay on a farm. however, persons such as executives, professionals and managers appear to be especially disenchanted by these kinds of options (hood, 1995). visitors in this study who indicated that they would observe an agritourism activity, but with limited participation, maintained a participative interest in a farm tour or fruit festival, where the fruits could subsequently be tasted. 3.4 benefits of hosting agritourism activities on farms tourists to the study area were asked to indicate what they think could be possible benefits to farmers from hosting agritourism activities on their farms. these benefits are illustrated in table 1. agritourism in mopani district, limpopo td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 295-308. 301 table 1: possible benefits of agritourism activities on farms as seen by tourists (n=77) education of tourists 56 % exposure 27 % income for farmers 17 % local tourist interest 15 % value-added products 9 % recognition for farmers 8 % one of the most important benefits mentioned is that tourists are being educated in local food production (56%). linked to this, agritourism then creates increased exposure to farmers (27%), who would also be able to increase their income by selling products directly to the consumer, without incurring extra costs on a middleman (17%). studies done on consumers’ attitudes have shown that buyers are increasingly demanding better quality of fresh fruits and vegetables and that they are willing to pay premium prices for it (connel, beierlein & vroomen, 1986; eastwood, orr & brookers, 1986; rhodus, schwartz & hoskins, 1994). the growing awareness of consumers relating to the health of synthetic agricultural inputs has created a demand for more specialised produce (govindasamy, italia & liptak, 1997). farmers are increasingly supplying more organically produced products, such as integrated pest management (ipm) and naturally ripened produce. in addition, farmers are providing various value-added farm products, such as homemade jams, pies, bread and even flower bouquets through direct markets (nayga et al., 1994). by adding value to their products, farmers in the mdm have the opportunity to earn extra income by setting up a certain measure of catering, to address some of the needs of the consumers in this particular setting. farmers can also supplement their income from the hosting of tours on their farms. farmers in the northeastern states of america have diversified their farm operations into several new directions such as providing farm tours, hayrides, festivals, petting zoos, and on-farm picnic facilities (govindasamy et al., 1997). these activities provide people, especially children, an opportunity for experiencing an introduction to farm life in a novel manner, but also succeed in offering the urban communities a retreat from the congestion of the cities (adelaja, 1995). these activities mainly utilise existing farm resources, offering the farmers the potential to substantially increase their farm income without any additional costs, simultaneously educating the visitor and gaining increased exposure for themselves. a further benefit of agritourism activities on farms identified by tourists is the fact that local tourist interest is on the increase, as more and more people are seeking new and out-ofthe ordinary things to experience. the following comment serves as an example of this opinion: meyer & de crom 302 tourists like to see how people do things in south africa. when they come to a farm, they like to see the workers and have some sort of personal communication with the staff. they like to see crops being planted. this is a labour intensive organic farm and overseas everything would be done by machinery. this is like how farms used to be (respondent 4,2011). tourists also like to have a look at how a farm is run, how the fruits are picked, how it is packed, how the packing house works and how do they get the fruits to the market. in addition, they have the opportunity to buy fresh produce at an affordable rate (vaupel, 1985). according to 9% of the respondents (table 1), small scale farmers are also able to generate more income from value-added products. although farmers have much to gain from incorporating agritourism activities into their traditional farming practices, this study shows that there is a tendency of scepticism among the farmers to host such activities. only about half of the respondent farmers (49%) indicated that they were willing to host agritourism activities on their farms. the main reason provided was the fact that they did not have the time for it. colton and bissix (2005) substantiate this by saying that this constraint may be traced back to the inability of the government to reach farmers and encourage them to diversify. farmers are also afraid that visitors might damage their crops, for example, by breaking the growth tip of the branch, which sets the whole balance back by one year. the washington state department of agriculture (2010:2) verifies this by saying that some of the challenges that the farmers face when allowing visitors onto their farms, are that their liability insurance becomes more costly. visitors may cause damage to the crops or lose some of the products in the fields. furthermore, day visitors may disrupt normal farming activities. according to williams et al. (2001), agritourism can create benefits for farm and tourism operators, but it can also increase the chances of conflict between primary farming pursuits and more leisure travel activities. these conflicts may relate to issues of noise, smell, farming practices and disease control. farmers may also feel that agritourism weakens their identities (brandth & haugen, 2010:8). they place emphasis on how well the farm is managed, how the fields are ploughed, how evenly the fertilizer has been distributed and even how large the crops are. this is what governs their impression of a farmer, gives status and confirms identity in relation to other farmers (brandth & haugen, 2010:3). when they incorporate agritourism into their farming practices, the importance is then shifted to the audience, namely the visitors. even though the majority of the farmers are unwilling to take advantage of the agritourism opportunities in a particular area, the potential remains undiminished, as demonstrated by the 49% of the farmers who were willing to host agritourism activities on their farms. 4. conclusion and recommendations the concept of agritourism as an industry is not established in south africa and needs to be further developed (tifflin, 2005). a model that the local municipalities can use to develop agritourism in the mdm is to nurture subsistence farmers into small-scale farmers. according to scialabba (2000:10), subsistence farmers represent a large part of the farming community in the developing world. farms in developing countries produce for consumption, but should be encouraged to farm agritourism in mopani district, limpopo td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 295-308. 303 for greater income sources, conservation of natural resources, food self-reliance and rural development (scialabba, 2000:3). a further suggestion is that the farming community and local authorities in the mdm should work together to develop ‘farmer markets’. a growing section of consumers wish to buy local produce, with an increasing preference for organic commodities (das & rainey, 2010:278). farmer markets provide exposure for farmers and draw visitors to the specific area. for the consumer, farmer markets provide affordable products, as there is no middleman, market fees, agent fees and huge transport expenses. visitors (consumers) can also assist the farming community through supplementary income. the following activities and attractions, adapted from denman and denman (1993), may also be incorporated on farms intended for agritourism development in the mdm: • develop farm trails. a good example of this is the stellenbosch wine route in the western cape. it was first established in april 1971 by the owners of three wineries who set about encouraging producers to bottle their own wine and to introduce the public to their wine estates (nowers, de villiers & myburgh, 2002). eleven wine producers were eventually incorporated as the first members of this route. its success led to the establishment of various other wine routes in the area where local wine producers could encourage direct and indirect wine sales on their farms, coordinate collaborative promotion of their members’ products and stimulate generic brand advertising. farmers in the mdm can link up with neighbouring farms in the area and collaborate on creating and running a farm route or trail that will promote regional tourism in the area. • incorporate wildlife and conservation interests in farm tours. farmers are knowledgeable about their farms; they are familiar with the surrounding landscape and the natural environment, making them legitimate experts in the field. owing to the presence of many other tourism destinations in the mdm (ecotourism, culture tourism and adventure tourism), farm owners can benefit by having close relationships with them, generating new sources of income through horizontal linkages with other tourism based activities. farm owners can provide tour packages from their farms to nearby attractions. • provide background information on farm for guests in the form of hand-outs. these hand-outs may provide information on the history of the farm and any other information that explains what the farm does and how it operates. • emphasise the use of local produce. by buying local produce, more money is injected into the local economy. farmers can benefit from direct sales when visitors purchase directly from them when the visitors participate in a farm tour or stay. • provide good roadside signage along with clear directions which can draw the attention of potential visitors to previously isolated farms that may have been missed en route to their destination. • schedule daily farm activities in which guests can participate. • consideration should be given to a farm tourism brochure directing guests to various farm related attractions. for example, the stellenbosch wine route in the western cape mentioned earlier. should similar tourism brochures be available in the mdm, these brochures could be distributed to various tourism information offices elsewhere in the country. this will not only advertise the region, but also introduce additional tourism attractions in the area already known for its natural scenery and wildlife. meyer & de crom 304 • maintain strong links with other b&b establishments. small agritourism producers can cooperate with other tourism enterprises and learn from other entrepreneur’s experiences through information sharing. by referring customers to other businesses (if unable to accommodate customers themselves) builds service-derived goodwill among individual businesses and ultimately satisfies the customers. producers should not view other agritourism operators as their competitors but rather compete with supermarkets and other entertainment outlets that take customers' food and leisure activities away from them. farmers can also make use of new marketing and communication channels such as brochures and web linkages that provide consumers with information on previously isolated agritourism providers. they can form marketing alliances to share resources relating to advertising, promotion and marketing information. the benefit of this is that it may also lead to information sharing. a cooperative approach strengthens an area’s agritourism reputation more than what a competitive approach would do. by combining tourism with the uniqueness and diversity of local agriculture, agritourism may generate diversification opportunities for local farmers to increase their revenue and enhance the viability of their operations. agritourism may be an excellent tool to educate the public about the importance of agriculture and its contribution to the country’s economy and quality of life. it may provide economic incentives and reduce friction in the agricultural-urban interface, thus helping to preserve agricultural land in the mdm. agritourism may enhance the appeal and demand for local products, foster regional marketing efforts and create valueadded and direct marketing opportunities that may stimulate economic activity and spread the benefits to various other communities in the country. it would clearly be to the advantage of the local municipalities and government agencies to devote more resources to promoting agritourism. the research and observation conducted within the study area leads to the conclusion that both local communities and farmers stand to benefit a great deal if the valuable resource that is agritourism were to be exploited to its full potential. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank tshwane university of technology and the nrf for their financial support. 5. references primary resources (original notes and transcripts in the personal archive of the head author) respondent 3. 2011. interview. haenertsburg, limpopo province. agritourism in mopani district, limpopo td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 295-308. 305 respondent 4. 2011. interview. magoebaskloof, limpopo province. respondent 6. 2011. interview. magoebaskloof, limpopo province. respondent 7. 2011. interview. tzaneen, limpopo province. respondent 10. 2011. interview. magoebaskloof, limpopo province. secondary resources adelaja, a. 1995. enhancing the viability of new jersey’s farms through farm based recreation and tourism. 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[accessed: 10/01/2013] south africa. department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat). 1996. white paper on the development and promotion of tourism in south africa. pretoria: government printer. south africa. department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat). 2005. 2010 soccer world cup tourism organisation plan executive summary. pretoria: south african tourism. tifflin, w. 2005. agritourism in kwazulu-natal. tourism kwazulu-natal occasional paper no.35:1-6. vaupel, s. 1985. direct marketing in california. california agriculture, sept.-oct. viljoen, j. & tlabela, k. 2006. rural tourism development in south africa: trends and challenges. cape town: hsrc press. washington state department of agriculture. 2010. selling directly to consumers: direct marketing strategies. small farm and direct marketing handbook, 2:1-4. weaver, d.b. & fennell, d.a. 1997. the vacation farm sector in saskatchewan: a profile of operations. tourism management, 18(6):357-365. meyer & de crom 308 williams, p., paridaen, m., dossa, k. & dumais, m. 2001. agritourism market and tourism development status report: centre for tourism policy and research. burnaby, canada: simon fraser university. world travel and tourism council. 2002. south africa: the impact of travel and tourism on jobs and the economy. london: world travel and tourism council. abstract introduction research design and methodology findings and discussion role of higher education institutions conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) janet jarvis discipline of life orientation education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation jarvis j. teacher identity and religion education in life orientation. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1076. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1076 original research teacher identity and religion education in life orientation janet jarvis received: 05 may 2021; accepted: 17 june 2021; published: 28 july 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract integral to the life orientation curriculum is democracy and human right. this article contends that considering human rights cannot simply be a theoretical exercise as the implementation thereof affects lived human experience. currently held narratives of lived experience need to be dialogically explored. integrally linked to any such exploration is the identity of the explorer. it can be said that individuals are made to varying degrees by systems and networks of power in society, including dominant discourses. however, they also have the capacity, by exercising individual agency, to make themselves according to the way in which they respond to the intersections that shape identity, including ethnicity, culture, class, religion, gender, sexual orientation and so forth. this article seeks to explore teacher identity and, in particular, teacher religious identity, with a view to transformed religion education. the argument is made for life orientation teachers to negotiate their religious identity from a position of ‘religious identity paralysis’ or ‘religious identity paradox’ or even ‘religious identity flexibility’ to one of ‘religious identity transformation’. both in-service and pre-service teachers participated in the studies informing this article. keywords: classroom praxis; empathetic-reflective-dialogue; identity negotiation; religion education; religious identity transformation. introduction human rights issues are embedded in the teaching-learning of democratic values as outlined in the ‘manifesto of values, education and democracy’.1 included in the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) for life orientation (lo) (grades 7–12)2 are the topics: constitutional rights and responsibilities (grades 7–9) and democracy and human rights (grades 10–12). the specific aims in both phases is to expose learners to their constitutional rights and responsibilities, to diversity in society, and to encourage respect for the rights of others. according to caps, it is anticipated that by exploring human rights, as embedded in the lo curriculum, learners will be developed who can contribute to a just and democratic society. this cannot, however, simply be a theoretical exercise.3 human rights, or the implementation thereof, affects lived human experiences. integrally linked to any exploration of the narratives of lived experience is the identity of the explorer. identity needs to be considered in terms of a negotiation between master narratives and individual agency. it can be said that individuals are made to varying degrees by systems and networks of power in society, including dominant discourses.4 however, they also have the capacity to make themselves, to varying degrees, according to the way in which they respond to the intersections that shape identity, including ethnicity, culture, class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth. this article seeks to explore teacher identity, in particular, in relation to the human right to freedom of religion, with a focus on religion education (re), located within the lo curriculum. this has implications for classroom practice. the right to freedom of religion is embedded in the united nation’s declaration on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and of discrimination based on religion or belief (1981). in south africa, this finds expression in the south african constitution and more specifically, the bill of rights.5 the latter gives every individual the freedom to adhere to a particular religion or to refrain from adhering to a specific religion. the south african religion and education policy6 gives expression to this in the schooling arena. this policy6 assumes that teachers will simply and seamlessly adopt a multi-religious approach to re. prior to 1994, christian national education (cne) and the specific brand of christianity that was endorsed by the same was entrenched in the south african school curriculum. a mono-religious approach to teaching re was prescribed. post 1994, teachers were expected to depart from this mould of mono-religious indoctrination. for many teachers, moving from a mono-religious christian approach to a multi-religious approach required a paradigm shift, with which they struggled, resulting in something of a religious identity conflict. this conflict arose, in the main, as many teachers considered exploring religions other than their own, as compromising. it is probable that if a teacher feels that specific content in the lo curriculum compromises his or her personal beliefs, then that section of the curriculum may well be disregarded or altered.7 for the purposes of this article, the lo teacher, responsible for teaching re as part of the lo curriculum, will be referred to as the re teacher. the findings that support the arguments for unpacking the religious identity of the re teacher are drawn largely from two localised research projects8,9 undertaken by the author in 2008 and 2012. these projects were located within two large-scale international projects facilitated by hreid in (2004–2008 and 2009–2012).10,11 hreid is a south african research group established in 2000, focusing on human rights and human rights education in multicultural societies. the author’s 2008 study,8 focused specifically on the identity and voice of the in-service re teacher and how these influence approaches to re. the participants in the author’s 2012 study9 were pre-service re teachers in a south african higher education institution. research design and methodology both the above-mentioned 2008 and 2012 studies were located within an interpretive paradigm, adopting an exploratory case study approach. in both the cases, participants completed self-administered questionnaires in which they expressed their understanding of religious freedom. they also described how they thought their biography influenced their approach to re. responses to the questionnaire were further probed in semi-structured focus group interviews. the in-service participants (2008) taught re in purposively selected kwazulu-natal primary schools.9,10 the schools represented three different school contexts in terms of demographics and resources. male and female teachers, young and fairly inexperienced teachers as well as older, more experienced teachers, representative of all race groups, participated in the study. the pre-service teachers in the 2012 study were male and female students in their final year of their bachelor of education degree, with lo as one of their teaching specialisations. they would be teaching in schools the following year. the participants in both the 2008 and 2012 studies completed consent forms. ethical clearance was obtained from the relevant gatekeepers. in keeping with the assurance of anonymity, pseudonyms are used in this article when referring to the participants. the data collected in both studies were analysed thematically with the following themes emerging: (1) religious identity paralysis/paradox; (2) religious identity flexibility; and (3) religious identity transformation. the following framework provided the lens through which the data was viewed, theoretical framework: religious identity format ion social identity theory explores the relationship between the individual and society, and is crucial to understanding how identity is constructed and experienced. the aligned notions of ‘multiple identities’,12 possible identity conflict,13 and ‘identity negotiation’14,15 are helpful in exploring how teachers construct their religious identity. the process of socialisation and the shaping of particular identities by dominant social discourses begins from birth.16 however, identities are not fixed but multi-faceted and dynamic, capable of deconstruction and reconstruction.17 this underpins the notion that through a process of identity negotiation it is possible for individuals to move from a previous held, seemingly fixed identity, to that of a transformed identity. successful identity exchanges can lead to increased identity capital.18 this identity capital refers to the set of strengths that individuals have when constructing and framing their identity,18 in this case, religious identity in their professional context. this can lead to religious identity transformation and contribute to the re teacher’s professional capital.19 findings and discussion the participating teacher’s biographies strongly influenced the way in which they either promoted or discouraged an inclusive approach to re in a context of religious diversity.8 however, the way in which they managed their identities differed from teacher to teacher. teachers identifying with a particular religion that is more exclusive in nature, struggled the most.8,20 they were fearful of possibly compromising their own beliefs by teaching about religions other than their own. teachers were called on to consider negotiating their religious identity by moving from a position of ‘identity paralysis’ or ‘identity paradox’ or even ‘identity flexibility’ to one of ‘identity transformation’. religious identity paralysis and paradox teachers experiencing religious identity paralysis or a bounded identity,21,22 were so tied to their membership of certain social categories that they elected to disregard any religion other than that to which they subscribed. they preferred to teach adopting a mono-religious approach that promoted their particular religion. religious identity paradox refers to those teachers that experienced discomfort at the fact that religions other than that promoted by the previously dominant cne dispensation, were being marginalised. while they felt bounded by their own religious identities (in most cases, christianity), they recognised the need to be more inclusive. however, it became apparent that for many teachers this was difficult and they were not able to make the transition. thelma (an in-service teacher participant in the 2008 study) provided an example of this religious identity paralysis. she completed her teacher training during the years of apartheid and cne, before the new democracy which came into being in 1994. she is a devout christian and her church teaches that only christianity should be spoken about in the classroom and no other religion should be mentioned. in the primary school to which she was posted, she found it extremely difficult to teach re, adopting anything other than a mono-religious approach that promoted christianity. with the passing of time, however, she became increasingly uncomfortable as more children representing a variety of religions were accepted into the school and she realised that she was marginalising them and their beliefs. she was, however, at the time of the study, unable to change her approach.8 the pre-service teachers that experienced religious identity paralysis expressed themselves as follows: ‘not everyone is open-minded and believe[s] in other religions … i believe the religion i follow is the best and that’s the only god that exists’. (maya, female, pre-service teacher.) ‘in my belief i am supposed to promote only islam. that is the basic requirement for any muslim. how can i go against that? it will go against everything i believe in’. (farida, female, pre-service teacher) julie, a committed christian, believes that her religion is right. she expressed an identity paradox, explaining that while she believes that there is only one truth or way, she, nevertheless, could never force her belief on others because that would be discriminatory.9 teachers experiencing religious identity paralysis or paradox, and who are unable to meaningfully negotiate their religious identity were ineffective in addressing religion within a human rights framework. they were unable to promote the human right to religious freedom. religious identity flexibility those teachers who were able to express a measure of individual agency adopted a position of religious identity flexibility. they were able to remain committed to their own religious identity while still adopting a multi-religious approach to re. these teachers were happy to teach about different religions and to promote religious literacies. re was taught in a way that was most often technicist, without any meaningful engagement taking place. sarisha, who qualified post-1994, provides an example of a teacher who exercised religious identity flexibility. she adopted a multi-religious approach to re, preparing her lessons well, so that every faith represented in the classroom was featured in her lessons. her religious literacy was excellent as she had, for example, made it her goal to know the names and traditions of various religious festivals. while her lessons provided knowledge, the learners were, however, still taught about different religions in a way that included ‘othering’. there was reference made to what they (the other) believe, when referring to learners who adhered to a religion other than her own. while seemingly accepting of religions other than her own, she continued to other those who believed differently. there was no meaningful dialogical engagement.8 in the study conducted with the pre-service teachers9 the following responses speak to religious identity flexibility: ‘every individual or religious group should be free and do what their religious group says. they should follow their own principles which are being said by their god’. (nosipho, female, pre-service teacher) ‘everyone has the right to speak about what they believe, and should not be threatened. learning from views and practices of other religions does not mean one would stay away from their own religion’. (jabu, female, pre-service teacher) ‘i will be able to facilitate religion education because i am not compromising my salvation, but merely educating learners about the different religions of the world and south africa’. (ncami, female, pre-service teacher) these pre-service teachers were satisfied to simply know about religions other their own. they were content to adopt an inclusive, multi-religious approach to re. by doing so, however, they would not necessarily engage with substantial issues, including prejudice, suspicion, fear and stereotyping that often underpin the way in which adherents of different religions regard one another, not least in the re classroom. religious identity transformation teachers are expected to manage multiple identities as they move in and out of their personal, social and professional domains. this includes their religious community and school classroom. religious identity conflict between their personal and professional identities, calls for identity negotiation.14,15 the teacher negotiating his or her religious identity, would need to put into parenthesis his or her own values and beliefs, while not necessarily undermining them.8,20,23 martha who exercised religious identity transformation, expressed herself as following: ‘my belief is firm and i feel very secure therefore there is no problem to teach religious freedom in schools. i can deepen the learners’ faith and belief in their own religions, at the same time teaching them to respect other religions’. (martha, female, in-service teacher) she was able to put her religion into parenthesis, while meaningfully engaging with religions other than her own and encouraging her learners to do the same.8 rather than teaching about religion, she was able to facilitate rich dialogical engagement which could be transformative, in promoting the human right to religious freedom. her dialogical approach signalled the shift from classroom practice to classroom praxis, which is both reflective (thinking through something and not just taking it on face value) and reflexive in nature. in particular, reflexivity, or the consideration of the practical implications for possible change, informed new attitudes and practices.24,25 encouraging classroom praxis serves the education agenda in south africa of decolonising the curriculum. while classroom practice supports a very technicist approach to teaching, classroom praxis welcomes dialogue in the classroom where different voices can respectfully be heard and where discrimination, in this case, on the basis of religion, can be addressed. martha’s approach contributed to her professional capital.19 religion education teacher’s voice in order for true transformation to take place, re teachers should be able to exercise their voice26 which can have a very practical, emancipatory dimension. this agency (or freedom to use their voice) translates into creating new ways of self-understanding, new forms of behaviour, and new codes of meaning with regard to religion.27 these teachers could play a pivotal role in supporting human rights values by promoting respect for those who believe differently. dialogical voice,28 in particular, is about searching for meaning and understanding. it has the potential to be emancipatory and transformational for those involved.28 dialogue takes place initially as self-dialogue in the individual’s society-of-mind.29 this is then articulated publicly as re teachers expressing their opinions and considering the ideas of others. dialogical engagement provides the opportunity to get to know oneself better. it also provides the opportunity to listen to others and to better understand those who believe differently to oneself. a threefold approach to dialogue has been suggested by ipgrave.30 she refers to primary, secondary and tertiary dialogue. whilst primary dialogue includes the acceptance of diversity, difference and change, secondary dialogue involves being open to difference. in addition, it includes a willingness to engage with difference and a readiness to learn from others. the actual verbal exchange would constitute the tertiary aspect of dialogue. teachers who are able to employ an ‘empathetic-reflective-dialogical’ approach31 recognise that each person has something of value to offer and they open up and encourage the possibility of learning from the other.30,32 they do so by entertaining understandings and questions from a diversity of religious traditions and perspectives. by promoting dialogical activity, teachers create the space for individual religious thinking, for intra-religious dialogue and inter-religious dialogue. intra-religious dialogue allows for a verbal exchange between individuals belonging to the same religion, whereas inter-religious dialogue takes place between individuals adhering to different religious traditions. simply knowing about different religions (religious literacies) does not support a human rights agenda. a reciprocal understanding is helpful in influencing attitudes towards learners from a variety of religious and cultural backgrounds.33,10 narrative unity34 takes place when, in this case, in-service or pre-service teachers meet each other simply as individuals and not as representatives of one religion or another. they put their own beliefs into parenthesis.23 they do so in the interests of adopting an impartial yet empathetic approach to the beliefs of others. classroom praxis the teacher with a transformed religious identity8 is secure enough in his or her religious identity and religious discourse so as to be able to empathetically explore the practice and traditions of diverse religions represented in his or her classroom. he or she is less fearful of compromising his or her own religious position and equipped to engage in emancipatory discourse.32 by employing an empathetic-reflective-dialogical voice, this teacher is able to create a classroom space for respectful, empathetic, reflective, dialogical engagement.35 this empathetic approach promotes the capacity to understand and respond to the religious experiences of another person with an increased awareness of that person’s thoughts and feelings, and that these matter36,37 learners should feel sufficiently secure in their own religious identity so as to engage with those who believe differently. by creating this space, teachers would be moving beyond mere classroom practice, by shaping a discourse that focuses on the issues surrounding re as praxis in a religiously diverse school context. classroom praxis could include an engagement with re related topics of prejudice, stereotyping, fear and suspicion of the other. religion education teachers employing an empathetic-reflective-dialogical approach in contexts of religious diversity have the potential to select and employ more creative teaching methods and become agents of curriculum development and design. role of higher education institutions this article advocates for the inclusion of an empathetic-reflective-dialogical approach to teaching-learning in lo modules, in particular, those that prepare pre-service teachers to teach re. safe or non-threatening spaces, denoting the figurative and discursive use of the notion (roux, 2012; du preez, 2013; redmond, 2010; stengel, 2010),38,39,40,41 could be created within lo modules for pre-service teachers to interrogate their own religious biography and beliefs. this would include an exploration of the practices and traditions which influence those beliefs. engaging in empathetic-reflection provides pre-service teachers with the opportunity to reflect on their attitudes towards those who hold beliefs that are different to their own. recognising the individuality of religious thinking, the search for meaning and understanding28 is promoted by using a dialogical approach to share personal religious narratives. each person is recognised as having ‘something of value to contribute; it is opening [up] to the possibility of learning from the other’.30(p.7) even amongst those that share a common religious identity, there could well be differences in interpretation and practice. dialogical activity recognises the individuality of religious thinking and provides an opportunity to explore this. this article argues that if pre-service teachers can be provided with the opportunity to successfully negotiate their religious identity, they could possibly be less fearful of compromising their own religious identity (often the root of religious identity paralysis or religious identity paradox) and more able to engage with confidence in situations of religious diversity. this process begins with the acceptance of diversity (religious identity flexibility). however, this needs to progress to a place of being open to diversity and willing to engage with difference and learn from others. when they have successfully negotiated their religious identity, the possibility exists that they will be able to employ an empathetic-reflective-dialogical approach in the re classroom that will provide learners with safe spaces in which to express their own beliefs, as well as empathetically take into consideration the beliefs of other learners. it is at this point that meaning will be added to any multi-religious approach to re as advocated by the religion and education policy.6 the prototype re teacher is the one who has undergone a process of religious identity negotiation and has experienced religious identity transformation. conclusion as contended by samuel and stephens42 teachers: [w]alk a tightrope in both developing a personal [religious] identity which sits comfortably with their own sense of self and maintaining a balance between satisfying the requirements of state and society and providing the source and impetus for change. (p. 478) pre-service teachers need to consider the juxtaposition between what is envisaged by the religion and education policy6 and their personal religious identity. the interrelationship between these identities needs to be unpacked. for this exploration to be successful, space needs to be provided in initial teacher education lo modules for pre-service teachers to engage empathetically, reflectively and dialogically in respect of religious diversity. the religious identity of pre-service teachers can play a substantial role in either entrenching discrimination on the basis of religion or promoting empathetic, reflective religious dialogue. the teacher who has engaged in identity negotiation is equipped and empowered to pave the way to transformative teaching-learning of re. it is through these teachers’ classroom praxis that their learners will be encouraged to not only grow in their own religious beliefs, but also to empathetically respect the religious beliefs of others in society. by doing so, learners in our schools could be meaningfully equipped to participate in the religiously diverse tapestry that is south african society. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationship that may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. author’s contribution the author declares that she is the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations full approval for a period of 3 years was given by the university of kwazulu-natal, college of humanities, humanities and social sciences research ethics committee, for research to be undertaken with consenting students in the area of human rights, and religious identity: hss/0297/017. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or non-profit sectors. data availability the author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references department of education. manifesto on values, democracy and education. pretoria: government printers; 2001. department of education. curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). pretoria: government printers; 2011. roux c. the ‘literacy turn’ in human rights and human rights education. in: roux c, becker a, editors. human rights literacies. new york, ny: springer; 2019; 3–30. foucault m. power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977. new york, ny: harvester wheatsheaf; 1980. south africa. the bill of rights: chapter 2 of the constitution of the republic of south africa. pretoria: government printers; 1996. department of education. national policy on religion and education. pretoria: government printers; 2003. jarvis j. reflections on gender identity in a safe space for transforming classroom praxis. journal for the study of religion. special edition. 2014; 27:169–191. jarvis j. the voice of the teacher in the context of religious freedom: a kwazulu-natal case study [unpublished masters’ dissertation]. stellenbosch: stellenbosch university; 2008. jarvis j. paving the way to transformation: student teacher’s religious identity and religion education. alternation special edition. 2013; 10:131–147. roux cd, smith j, ferguson r, small r, du preez p, jarvis j. understanding human rights through different belief systems: intercultural and interreligious dialogue. south african netherlands project on alternative developments (sanpad). stellenbosch: stellenbosch university; 2006. roux c. human rights education in diversity: empowering girls in rural and metropolitan school environments [homepage on the internet]. 2009. 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stephens d. critical dialogues with self: developing teacher identities and roles – a case study of south african student teachers. int j educ res. 2000;33:475–491. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0883-0355(00)00030-6 microsoft word 09 joseph and southcott.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 125-137. personal, musical and social benefits of singing in a community ensemble: three case studies in melbourne (australia) d joseph1 and j southcott2 abstract australia has a diverse, multilayered society that reflects its rich musical life. there are many community choirs formed by various cultural and linguistically diverse groups. this article is part of an ongoing project, well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts (since 2008), undertaken by deakin university and monash university, that explores the cultural diversity within australian society and how active music engagement fosters well-being. the singing groups selected for this discussion are the skylarkers, the bosnian behar choir, and the coro furlan. the skylarkers and the bosnian behar choir are mixed groups who respectively perform popular music from their generation and celebrate their culture through music. the coro furlan is an italian male choir who understand themselves as custodians of their heritage. in these interpretative, qualitative case studies semi-structured interviews were undertaken and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. in this approach there is an exploration of participants’ understanding of their lived experiences. the analysis of the combined data identified musical and social benefits that contribute to participants’ sense of individual well-being. musical benefits occurred through sharing, learning and singing together. social benefits included opportunities to build friendships, overcome isolation and gain a sense of validation. many found that singing enhanced their health and happiness. active music making in community choirs and music ensembles continues to be an effective way to support individuals, build community, and share culture and heritage. keywords. music and positive ageing; community singing; cultural identity; well-being introduction and background this article discusses community music and successful ageing in australia where the ageing population creates challenges for the maintenance of well-being. although there are differing definitions about what successful ageing might be, most researchers would agree that, “being socially connected, having good health, and having a positive subjective evaluation of one’s life are important markers of optimal development” (huxhold, fiori & windsor, 2013, p. 13). good health and well-being are becoming key issues in social discourse. social 1 . dr. dawn joseph is a senior lecturer in music and education studies in the faculty of arts and education, deakin university, melbourne, australia. she researches, publishes and reviews in music education, teacher education, african music, multiculturalism and ageing in the arts. dawn.joseph@deakin.edu.au 2 . dr. jane southcott is an associate professor in the faculty of education, monash university, australia. she is a narrative historian and a hermeneutic phenomenologist who researches community engagement with music, with a particular focus on positive ageing. jane.southcott@monash.edu joseph and southcott 126 engagement as part of health and well-being is more than simply occupying available time. for older people, regular social interactions are important sources of support and have been conceptualized in various ways, such as social integration, engagement, participation, networks, and connectedness (heaven, et al., 2013). participation in social activities has been identified as crucial in successful ageing. huxhold, miche, and schüz (2013, p. 366) note that a number of studies identify that “the level of activity engagement in general improves subjective well-being and health in older adults”. for older adults, social activities are important and may function as a “buffer against negative effects of ageing” (huxhold, miche, & schüz, p. 366). understanding the effect of the social interactions on the well-being of older adults is “important for the promotion of active ageing in the community” (cramm, et al., 2012, p. 147) that is defined as “the continuing participation of older people in society … in a manner that allows them to realize their potential for well being throughout their lives” (cramm, et al., p. 143). there is a close association between the maintenance of active social relations and “better health outcomes and reduced mortality in later life” (heaven, et al., 2013, p. 224). social connections are important for individual wellbeing and “those with closer social relations tend to be more optimistic and healthier. social relations also affect subjective well-being … by providing the individual with the opportunity for participation … in a social context” (huxhold, miche, & schüz, 2013, p. 366). conversely, a lack of social connectedness may have negative health outcomes. a lack of social connection may be understood by the individual as loneliness that is an unique and powerful negative predictor of well-being (chen & feeley, 2014). the experience of ageing can be affected by cultural backgrounds. australia, a country of ongoing migration, comprises many different cultures, faiths, ethnicities and languages. since the first british settlement in sydney in 1788, australia has been characterized by multilingualism (clyne & kipp, 2006). this vibrant multilingualism is part of the diversity that forms a cultural mosaic comprised of immigrants who maintain many of the traditions of their home countries whilst simultaneously “embracing, to a greater or lesser extent, the new norms, values and practices of the adopted country” (ashman, 2008, p. 7). australia aspires to be a tolerant and inclusive society made up of people from many different backgrounds. cultural diversity is a central feature of our national identity (department of foreign affairs and trade, 2011) and it is recognized that migration has always contributed to the social and economic fabric of the nation. according to the most recent census, there are more than twenty-three million resident australians (australian bureau of statistics 2013a). new census data has revealed that almost a quarter (24.6 per cent) of australia's population was born overseas and 43.1 per cent of people have at least one overseas-born parent and at least 200 languages spoken, thus australia’s multicultural landscape remains as diverse as ever (australian bureau of statistics, 2013b). australia’s population, like that of most developed countries, is ageing. according to the australian bureau of statistics (2011), in the two past decades the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over has increased “from 11.1% to 13.6%. during the same period, the proportion of population aged 85 years and over has more than doubled”. this trend is expected to continue over the over the next two decades. the issues of ageing have been recognized as a national priority by the australian federal government. the minister for ageing at this time, the hon. mark butler mp, asserted that, the australian government is committed to ensuring equitable access to high quality, culturally appropriate programs for older people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (australian government department of health and ageing, 2012). there are six australian states and two territories. benefits of singing in a community ensemble td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 125-137. 127 of these, the state of victoria where this research was undertaken has the fourth oldest population. successful ageing involves maintaining well-being through actively engageing with life through the making and sustaining of relationships within community (anetzberger, 2002). when older people engage in meaningful social engagement with others, there are observable positive health outcomes (lally, 2009). the world health organization (who) (2012) confirms that population ageing is an inevitable and predictable global phenomenon. the who has identified that ageing populations demand increasing attention to the concept of active ageing that is a process of optimization of opportunities for participation, security and health to enhance quality of life (who, 2002). the who asserts that active ageing should allow people “to realize their potential for physical, social, and mental well-being throughout the life course and to participate in society according to their needs, desires and capacities, while providing them with adequate protection, security and care” (2002, p. 12). in this sense, ‘active’ refers to continuing participation in social, economic, and cultural aspects of life (who, 2002). cultural aspects of life include engagement with the arts; active music making and sharing this music making with the wider australian community is the focus of this discussion. active participation by older people in community music programs has many potential benefits and can improve their quality of life (cohen, bailey & nilsson, 2002). the benefits associated with older people singing encompass an enhanced sense of personal and social well-being as well as a range of identified psychological and physical outcomes (clift & hancox, 2001; skingley & bungay, 2010; skingley, clift, coulton & rodriguez, 2011). music participation in a singing group can offer social affirmation and opportunities for collaboration through which participants gain a sense of fulfilment, autonomy, empowerment and being valued by the community (chené & sigouin, 1995; sixsmith & gibson, 2007). this contributes to an overall sense of social cohesion, independence and resilience (creech, et al., 2013a; coffman, 2002b). singing in a group can provide opportunities for people to combat negative feelings such as depression, loneliness and a sense of social isolation (skingley & bungay, 2010; escuder-mollon, 2012; creech, et al., 2013a). participation in group singing provides a meeting place that can assist social relationships and networking (skingley & bungay, 2010). jacob, guptill and sumsion (2009) found that the participants in their study looked forward “to seeing their friends at choir practice each week and … enjoy the social aspect of the choir” (p. 189). shared music making can provide older singers with opportunities to remember and reconnect with their youth and that of their audiences (southcott & joseph, 2013; li & southcott, 2012). this connection can offer “some ‘anchorage to life’” (borglin et al., 2005, p. 205) as will be identified in the diverse singing groups discussed. methodology this article discusses three case studies from a larger ongoing research project, well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts in victoria that began in 2008 and has been undertaken by academic researchers from two metropolitan australian universities in melbourne, victoria (deakin university and monash university). the research project has entailed a number of case studies of individual visual and performing arts community organizations that cater for older people who remain active in their local communities. ethical approval having been gained, three individual groups located via the networks of community arts victoria and multicultural arts victoria were contacted by a research joseph and southcott 128 assistant and invited to take part in the study. data were gathered between 2008 and 2012 through semi-structured focus group interviews (approximately one hour in duration) with each of the three groups. introductory material sourced from each group’s website provided basic information about the ensemble and its evolution. as a phenomenological qualitative case study this research sought in-depth understandings of the participants. phenomenological research entails an exploration of participants’ lifeworlds, experiences, understandings, and perceptions (brocki & wearden, 2006; reid, flowers & larkin, 2005) and recognizes that this involves a process of interpretation by the researcher (smith, 2005; clarke, 2009). giorgi and giorgi (2003) emphasize that it is important to “remain as faithful as possible to the phenomenon and to the context in which it appears in the world” (28). the research assistant undertook the interviews that were audio recorded and transcribed. all participants were invited to confirm the accuracy of the interview transcript. the questions initially sought details about the individual participants, their involvement with the ensemble, and their understandings of group membership. it must be recognised that the older participants for this project have been sought because of their membership of singing ensembles. all informants have remained in their ensembles and were happy to talk about what membership of their respective groups meant to them. it is recognised that this sample is limited in that they are representative of people who have chosen to share music and culture in a small social group and who interpret this as a positive aspect of their lives. the data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa), which is a “qualitative research approach committed to the examination of how people make sense of their major life experiences” (smith, flowers & larkin, 2009: 1). ipa is phenomenological in that it “seeks an insider perspective on the lived experiences of individuals” and acknowledges that, as the primary analytical instrument, the researchers’ beliefs “are not seen as biases to be eliminated but rather as being necessary for making sense of the experiences of other individuals” (fade, 2004, p. 648). in-depth, conversational semi-structured interviews are considered the most effective data collection strategy in ipa (smith, 2005; eatough & smith, 2006). the interview data are analysed and reported thematically, then illustrated by direct quotations from the transcripts (larkin, et al., 2006). quotations can amplify themes and reveal differing perspectives of interviewees (tzanidaki & reynolds, 2011). the data were analysed under a broad theme of perceived benefits to the individual ensemble members that included physical, cognitive and emotional well-being, and validation through belonging and sharing community. the three case studies to contextualise the data generated by the three case studies we will briefly introduce each music group: the coro furlan, the bosnian behar choir and the skylarkers. the coro furlan the coro furlan is the only male italian choir remaining in melbourne, australia. the choir was formed in 1975 by a group of italian singers under the experienced direction of conductor gianpietro canil. the choir’s repertoire consists mainly of songs from the italian region of friuli in the local language, friulano, as they see themselves as the custodians of this cultural heritage. the choir also sings songs in the veneto dialect, and italian, english, and latin languages. their repertoire includes popular english language songs such as battle benefits of singing in a community ensemble td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 125-137. 129 hymn of the republic, i am australian and you’ll never walk alone and italian songs such as la montanara, sul ponte di bassano, and va pensiero (coro furlan, 2011). membership of the choir is open to men who must love singing italian music “regardless of race and background” (coro furlan, 2011). there is no audition to join nor is there an expectation of the ability to read music or sight sing. the coro furlan practices weekly. at the time of interview the choir consisted of twenty-two members. they sing in four parts both accompanied and unaccompanied. the choir has a uniform and follows its own ‘ten commandments’, first written in the 1970s, that reflect their strong sense of community and their commitment to choir membership (southcott & joseph, 2013). the bosnian behar choir the bosnian behar (meaning blossom) choir was formed in 1998 at a picnic that may explain the name of the choir. this mixed choir has a small but dedicated membership, mostly bosnian with a few croatians. at the time of interview all members were over the age of 50. the majority of the members (90%) were refugees who came from bosnia, having lost everything. there were a greater number of women than men. there is no audition to join the choir that rehearses weekly and is run by a formal committee. the bosnian choir promotes bosnian cultural heritage through participation in events and performances. this small choir is actively involved in the community and has taken part in more than one hundred community events. these have included the match works pako festa, brimbank festival, geelong festival, bosnia-herzegovina festival, and the multinational concert bushfire appeal. the members of the choir are committed to its continuance and expect members to make a real commitment to the group. if more than four rehearsals are missed without apology, then membership is cancelled (southcott & joseph, 2009). the skylarkers initially the skylarkers were formed as a four-part choir in 1999 in a suburb of melbourne, victoria. in time the nature of the choir and its membership has changed under subsequent music directors. since 2009 the current music director has focused on music theatre repertoire and employs a style consistent with this genre that combines songs, spoken dialogue, and dance. the choir membership has remained constant at about fifteen but the balance of voices has changed from equal representation to a pre-dominance of women. the interviewed members of the group refer to themselves as performers and singers. there is no audition, or expectation of music literacy, and there is a small membership fee. the choir rehearse weekly and performs about twenty shows per year. this group that comprises retirees of up to 90 years old considers itself more a music theatre-performing group than a choir per se. they perform for a range of community including senior citizens’ clubs, hospitals, hostels, nursing homes, and retirement villages. the choir is organised by an elected committee and the music director takes most of the responsibility for the program that consists of group numbers and solo items. on stage the choir has a dress code. the findings the findings identified a number of different ways in which participation in the singing groups could benefit the individual members. as a corollary of this, members pointed out joseph and southcott 130 what they were able to share with their local communities. we have chosen only those elements that are addressed by all three cases and illustrated these with verbatim quotations. benefits for individuals were identified as an enhanced sense of personal well-being that included physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects. participants also described how membership of the ensemble provided a way to gain a sense of personal validation that included belonging to a group and being able to share culture, heritage and memory with each other, families, and members of their local community. individual well-being amongst all the participants well-being is generally discussed under the headings physical, cognitive and emotional well-being. while enhanced physical well-being was not stressed by the interviewees, several made general comments that relate to physical health such as the following statement by a member of the coro furlan, “it’s good for us; we are all getting older … it is also good for my body”. hays (2005) confirmed that some of his participants “felt music had the effect of restoring and rejuvenating their energy levels” (p. 30). one person from the skylarkers specifically mentioned that at his annual medical check-up his lung capacity had improved and ascribed that to learning to “breathe from the diaphragm when singing”. participants also connected physical well-being to longevity. a member of the coro furlan stated “i want to sing with the choir for as long as i can”. all case studies showed that participants linked group membership to an improved attitude to illness. a member of the behar choir described past experiences when “some of our members have been quite ill or had an operation. they can’t wait to get back to rehearsals. they feel that coming to choir will make them better sooner than staying at home thinking about how unwell they are”. another member of the same choir explained that, whatever makes you happy and makes you feel better that’s well-being. you may be ill … and this [singing] may help you to feel better … all of a sudden you start to sing and you think, ‘oh gosh, i feel good. anna felt empowered by this as “you create your own sense of well-being, nobody can do it for you”. in her study of elderly swedish women forssén (2007) also identified that music engagement offered comfort, survival, enjoyment, and a breathing space in daily life. participants identified a number of specific ways in which membership of the ensemble was beneficial to their cognitive well-being. the oldest member of the coro furlan explained that being in the ensemble “helps my mind a lot to remember these songs and sing them again” and reiterated that, the “choir helps me a lot in my mind”. a member of the skylarkers thought that learning new things sharpened her memory. her partner cited his guitar teacher’s explanation that as you learn new things, new connections are made in your brain and that, although it might take a day or two for that connection to be made… a couple of days later you’ll go through it again and you’ll find you can do it better! this is because ‘things’ are connecting! so, maybe that’s what happens when we learn the words of new songs. the many cognitive benefits older adults derived from music engagement included improved concentration and memory, a sense of achievement in acquiring new skills and knowledge as well as a recognition of maintained mental agility (creech, et al., 2013a, p. 10). emotional well-being was emphasised by all participants in all three case studies. for example a member of the coro furlan stated, “i like the singing; my wife also likes me being benefits of singing in a community ensemble td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 125-137. 131 in the choir because when things don’t look too good i start singing and we are happy!” rehearsals were seen as uplifting events in themselves. a member of the behar choir asserted that singing “recharges my batteries!” he added, “if i’m upset about something or am feeling a little worried, when i get to rehearsal and sing i feel much better – the problems seem to go away”. creech et al. (2013b) reported a range of subjective potential contributions from group music making including positive emotional responses, enjoyment and social affirmation in the lives of older people. self-confidence is another aspect of emotional wellbeing that emerged from the analysis of the case studies. a member of the skylarkers described his preparedness to “have a go” at challenges he would once have avoided. engagement with community arts practices can provide participants with feelings of strength, comfort, higher self-esteem and a space for voices to be heard (forssén, 2007). in discussing their membership of a community music group participants likened the group to a family. for example, when one of the members of the behar choir (anna) first joined she felt that membership of the choir could replace lost family. she said, “i was really touched by some of the things the members do – somebody may be sick and members visit them”. this made her feel less isolated and gave her a greater sense of belonging. noticing “other people feeling the same way” meant a lot to her as it validated her feelings. anna perceived that, “in our group we are not just from the same country, we are not just friends, we really are family!” a similar sense of familial engagement was described by members of the coro furlan who enjoy, “a sense of camaraderie, jokes and friendship” (coro furlan, 2011). one member of the coro furlan focused his sense of family to relationships between male family members. he stated that, one of the things i like about the choir is the sense of togetherness we have. i look on these guys as my uncles; i’ve only got one uncle in australia. these guys are older than me and being in the choir is a cultural event i can enjoy. for some participants finding this new ‘family’ replaced absent children. one participant specifically stated, “when the family left i couldn’t go back into that empty nest”. this was the point at which she joined a community music ensemble seeking a sense of connectness that is identified by baker and ballantyne (2013) as “integral to a meaningful life” (p. 19). validation through belonging and sharing all participants identified the importance of gaining a sense of validation through belonging to their particular ensemble. having a sense of purpose has been described by older people as “core components of their health and well-being” (heaven, et al., 2013, p. 224). encapsulating this idea, anna from the behar choir asserted that, “being a choir member gives me a purpose in life”. underpinning all three groups’ engagement with their ensembles is a desire to contribute to the community, which was realized through audience responses to their performances. a member of the skylarkers explained that, “we are entertaining other people, it is good to think that we are doing something to help somebody else … i just wanted to bring joy into the lives of others”. the participants all stressed that by performing with their respective groups they gained a sense of purpose as they could bring music and pleasure to their audiences. silvey (2001) similarly identified the potential for sharing music with others to add meaning to the experience for the performers. for all the groups, it appeared to be essential that they felt appreciated by their audiences. a member of the coro furlan discussed how, after a concert, members of the audience approached them with “tears in their eyes” as they “were really moved by the songs”. participants reported that they felt joseph and southcott 132 that they had established an almost tangible connection with their audiences. a member of the behar choir stated, it’s almost as if the people listening come together, for a short time they are part of something, even though they don’t really belong to the group, for that particular moment they do belong to the group as they listen to the music and enjoy it. that’s the sense of satisfaction i get out of being a choir member. the meaningful engagement between performers and audiences offers a range of benefits to all (bryant, et al., 2001) and enhances a sense of self-worth and purpose amongst the members of community music ensembles. in some ways all three groups believe in sharing their heritage, history and culture but two of the groups, the coro furlan and the bosnian behar choir also bring a sense of dual cultural and linguistic identity. the members of both these groups have a very strong sense of their regional and cultural identity framed within their sense of being australian. a member of the behar choir stated that, “as bosnian or croatian australians we are all australians. i am proud to be an australian; they help us heaps but i believe we help them too”. members of the coro furlan recounted the power of the old traditional songs from their past in friuli and described a reaction by a fellow countryman to one of their performances, “sometimes when we sing in friulan there may be a returned soldier from the war in the audience who cries a little bit. it makes you feel like crying yourself. there’s something there [in the music and] it’s wonderful!” the notion of embracing cultural heritage and sharing it with others is a powerful motivator for continued engagement. some of the groups see themselves as cultural ambassadors with the mission to preserve and promote their culture and language. a member of the coro furlan explained, “culturally, i’m an italian and through the choir and its older members i can learn more about my culture, i can enjoy it, experience it and pass it on to future generations”. similarly, members of the behar choir perceive themselves to be both bosnian and australian and singing in the choir connects them to their bosnian heritage by the performance of songs in their original language. one member stated that he has been in australia for about forty years and enjoys living here but singing in the choir “takes me back to those days, it brings me memories … and there are still some ties with the old lifestyle”. thus the two culturally and linguistically diverse choirs uphold their past and maintain their cultural heritage. further the choir connects its members to their place in contemporary australia and allows them to share their culture with their families, friends and the wider community. choir members stressed that sharing music with the broader contemporary australian community enables the sharing of cultural heritage and the celebration of diversity. writing about shared community music making, messenger (2013) asserts that the “community grows through sharing” (pp. 178179). this nostalgic desire to share memory also appears within mono-cultural groups such as the skylarkers as one member recounted, last week we did a concert and there was a woman in a long bed who was very old – she was in her 90s. our last number is always chosen to relate to the age group of the audience. for this concert we chose ‘you are my sunshine’ and as soon as we started to benefits of singing in a community ensemble td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 125-137. 133 sing she started to clap. she was obviously very unwell and two nurses ran right round the back [astounded] as she was clapping. the performances of the skylarkers are intended to provoke nostalgic reactions in their audiences. the songs that particularly evoked strong links to their past were, as one described, the “songs from our childhood. we wanted to keep the memories of those days alive. we didn’t want to forget them”. this resonates with the coro furlan who saw singing old school songs as a way of reclaiming past memories and strengthening their cultural identity. hays, bright and minichiello (2002) also identified the emotional release that could be engendered through the sharing of memories and music making that can trigger “joy, sorrow, happiness, or pleasant memories” (p. 169). discussion and conclusion all three music groups are cognisant of the myriad benefits of singing and performing together. as discussed these benefits included an enhanced sense of personal well-being and membership of the singing ensembles provided a way for participants to gain a sense of personal validation by belonging to a group and sharing culture, heritage and memory with each other and members of their local community. the verbatim quotations from participants illustrate the power of music to change individual lives which is encapsulated in the quotation already cited, “all of a sudden you start to sing and you think, ‘oh gosh, i feel good’”. occasionally individuals mentioned what they defined as particular physical and cognitive benefits. the former include better lung capacity and the latter include improved memory and ability to learn. the comments from most participants addressed emotional well-being that included gaining increased self-confidence, a more positive attitude to life, gaining a sense of belonging and feeling as if they were part of an extended family. membership of all the groups continues to be fluid reflecting the members’ changing life circumstances but each group has proved itself to be resilient and ongoing. this was encapsulated by one of the skylarkers who said, “the show must go on”. such group continuance is strongly tied to the sense of family that develops and manifests in a palpable sense of connectedness and caring within the group. this resonates with the findings of bailey and davidson (2005, p. 277) who identified that the “camaraderie experienced in the choir setting results in social encounters which are indicative of relationships and feelings normally experienced with family and friends”. additional benefits to the individual were identified by members of all three groups who gained a sense of purpose and fulfilment from membership of their respective ensembles that aligns with the wide range of findings reported by macdonald (2013). similarly, all groups recounted the benefits and meaning of community engagement that was a result of membership of the ensemble. for all participants the relationship between the group and their audiences was paramount with interviewees describing at length emotionally charged moments with their audiences where there were tears, dancing, and sing-alongs. these responses moved the ensemble members and validated their continued contribution to their communities. shared music making by the three music ensembles in this study offers both the members and their audiences a sense of rejuvenation, pleasure, and musical enrichment. this understanding aligns with consistent research that identifies the emotional and social benefits from a “sense of shared fun and enjoyment, having a sense of purpose, confidence and empowerment” (creech, et al., 2013b, p. 40). the performances of all joseph and southcott 134 ensembles evinced nostalgia amongst themselves and their audiences but for two of the groups discussed in this article their sense of sharing culture, language, and heritage was particularly important. members of both the behar choir and the coro furlan spoke about performing in first language and the importance of maintaining and transmitting their traditional cultures both to younger generations and the wider contemporary, diverse, multicultural australian community. these choirs are amongst the many such community ensembles formed by older people that demonstrate how the combination of ageing, music and culture can generate a sense of belonging and fulfilment (joseph, 2009; li & southcott, 2012). the three phenomenological case studies highlight the personal, musical and social benefits of singing together and sharing music making for members of the ensembles and their belief in the importance of sharing music making with their local australian community. the findings of these studies illuminate the contribution of music making to overall well-being amongst older people (skingley & bungay, 2010; creech, et al., 2013a; macdonald, 2013). with ageing populations across the globe provision of opportunities for older people to remain active and engaged in communities is essential. greaves and farbus (2006, p. 135) underlined the role of “active social network building” that empowers participants, supports the formation of friendships and enhances resilience. as discussed, these three groups demonstrate resilience, perseverance and a sense of personal fulfillment. participation in community music making offers our participants a place and space for social belonging, sharing, enjoyment, personal development, and empowerment (coffman, 2002a, 2002b; sixsmith & gibson, 2007). the groups discussed here are not unique but reflect and exemplify the practices of many such music groups who remain active, positive and optimistic. active music making in community choirs and music ensembles offers an “anchorage to life” (borglin et al., 2005, p. 205) and continues to be an effective way to support individuals’ 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(2011). ‘exploring the meanings of making traditional arts and crafts among older women in crete, using interpretative phenomenological analysis’. british journal of occupational therapy, 74(8), 375-382. world health organisation (2002). active ageing: a policy framework. retrieved from http://goo.gl/5r93i world health organization (2012). good health adds life to years: global brief for world health day 2012. geneva, switzerland: world health organization. abstract background problem statement scope of research methodology gap and contribution conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) medicine magocha department of economic and business sciences, faculty of commerce and administration, walter sisulu university, mthatha, south africa citation magocha m. entrepreneurial orientation on business performance for small, micro and medium enterprises in the telecommunications industry: a management perspective. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1053. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1053 original research entrepreneurial orientation on business performance for small, micro and medium enterprises in the telecommunications industry: a management perspective medicine magocha received: 25 mar. 2021; accepted: 12 sept. 2021; published: 02 feb. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract entrepreneurship is playing a mediating role in ensuring that the impact of climate and technological changes are regulated and made adaptable and adoptable for humanity through entrepreneurial innovations. in this article, a critical discourse analysis is conducted to establish the facts regarding the influential relationships affecting entrepreneurial orientation (eo) and business productivity for small, micro and medium enterprises (smmes) in the information and communications industry in zimbabwe. an exploratory quantitative methodology using a positivist approach was applied to reinforce the independence of the researcher and to eliminate bias in the exploration of the orientations. data were collected from 308 entrepreneurial entities located in different parts of the harare urban zones, which were randomly sampled. one of the major findings of this research points conspicuously to the inevitability of eos. accordingly, it is recommended that enterprise regulators, legislators and the state should emphasise the inclusion of eo in the existing body of knowledge, and support telecommunications business practitioners to make significant decisions on strategic risk management when conducting strategic formulation and implementation. keywords: entrepreneurial orientation; business performance; enterprising; information and communications; technology. background entrepreneurship, like any other discipline and philosophy, is progressing tremendously in tandem with demographic parabolic shifts. the green revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, the industrial revolution, spanning from the first to the current fourth industrial revolution (4ir) of 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840,1 and resurfacing as the 4ir of the 21st century, have triggered climate change, economic growth, and technological advancement.2 the small, micro and medium enterprises (smme) sector and in particular the telecommunications sector is under public scrutiny in zimbabwe. there has been public interest in the issues that are leading to the varied fortunes in the sector. this research seeks to annex knowledge on entrepreneurial orientation (eo) and support information pertaining to communications business entrepreneurs to make considerations with regard to strategic risk when conducting strategic formulation and implementation.3 this article will assist information and communications business owners in incorporating eo in the strategy development for their businesses. it will assist the stakeholders involved in the telecommunications sector in zimbabwe to consider the aspects related to eo with due diligence in their information and communications supplier recruitment processes. the article proposes the shaping of policy underpinning sustained competitive advantage for firms in the telecommunications sector. it seeks to close the gap in research as no studies have to date been carried out in zimbabwe on eo for smmes in the telecommunications industry that can help shape policy formulation for business entrepreneurs to enable them to grow and sustain their businesses in the long term. the historical background of the eo concept has been discussed in several studies including anderson, kreiser, and kuratko,4 basso and fayolle,5 covin and wales,6 edmond and wiklund,7 and miller.8 covin and lumpkin9 noted that hypothetical approval of the eo concept entrepreneurship is simply adjudged as a singular act or activity, such as the launching of an invention, whereas it is in fact an overall strategic outlook. the eo has been designated in diversified manner in the past research. anderson and shemilt10 proposed a brief, yet all-inclusive definition of eo as being a firm’s managerial philosophies, decision-making practices and strategic behaviours that are inherently entrepreneurial. the eo has been traditionally identified as a firm-level overarching strategic outlook involving risk-taking, proactiveness and innovativeness. these dimensions are gleaned from danny miller’s early work on firms’ strategy-making.7,8 introduction the world over, shifts in population demographics, technological developments, economies, corporate social responsibility (csr) and sustainability considerations are transforming societies in magnitudes never previously experienced, exposing humanity to new challenges and opportunities. chief among these shifting forces is an accentuation on entrepreneurship by governments, businesses, and the public.11 the smmes world over have become integral participants in mainstream economic activities in many countries. lukes and laguna12 postulated that smmes are creating critically needed employment, and therefore are considered a paramount influence in a free-market economy. the growth of smmes is a fundamental constituent of competitive and sustainable development in smaller economies such as zimbabwe. entrepreneurial orientation has become an established construct in entrepreneurship and the wider management research, and several recent reviews of the eo literature have been conducted.13 a number of relationships that are widely accepted in entrepreneurship include an important one between eo and organisational accomplishment. research on eo is accelerating and broadening, gaining consequential traction in scholarly outlets beyond solely the entrepreneurship domain-specific journals.14 small micro and medium enterprises in zimbabwe since 2008 growth in smmes is a crucial constituent in developing economies. however, the growth and evolution of smmes in zimbabwe is undermined by a myriad of issues that result in higher rates of failure for such organisations.15 a world bank16 report in 2016 indicated that about 60% of the smmes in zimbabwe collapse in the first year of starting operations, while 25% fall short of their third anniversary, and only the remaining 15% survive. this research established that about 85% of smmes in zimbabwe do ultimately collapse. yet, in 2019 this study indicated that smes in telecommunications industry in zimbabwe contribute about 70% of the gross domestic product (gdp) annually, at the same time employing 90% of the total workforce. moreover, this study shows that the number of the smmes in the telecommunications industry is growing at an average of 20% per annum. accordingly, in this current study 75% of the smmes in the telecommunications industry in zimbabwe pursue different approaches to growth, and 45% of the stipulated 75% have stagnated and suffered from the growth crisis syndrome. it is this backdrop that aroused the interest of the researcher in the current study. there are many theories that deal with the significance, contribution and function of smmes regarding the growth of the national economy. the role of entrepreneurs in smmes in the telecommunications industry has been recognised and proven to have unparalleled importance. this study emphasises that 100% of entrepreneurs should be entrepreneurially oriented to improve the status of entrepreneurship and to strengthen the resilience of the enterprises and the economy in a globally cut-throat and challenging ecosystem. lumpkin and dess17,18 and lumpkin et al.19 supported the view of this study that one of the fundamental characteristics of firms that want to be successful in the long term is eo. lumpkin and dess15,16 defined eo as the eagerness of firms to portray proactive and transformative actions, and take calculated risk to create and exploit the environment. this definition is adopted in the current study. the eo may be used by management in the telecommunications industry as a way to unearth and capitalise on opportunities and thus invariably positively impact the firm’s performance. telecommunications firms in zimbabwe, despite a finite access to capital, can perform well if they exhibit and practise higher magnitudes of eo. it is on this basis that eo is appraised as a critical capability of the organisation. several scholars4,5,6,7 designate a significant relationship between eo and financial performance. the telecommunications sector in zimbabwe has seen rapid growth in the past decade, as many firms are emerging, but unfortunately many have also ceased to exist in short spans of time. the barriers to entry as espoused by this study are relatively low, as such the conditions for exit are also minimal. the cost structures in the sector are relatively high, as key career skills are required to sustain operations in some niche markets. however, many shops based on low-cost models exist and grey market sourcing is making its appearance in harare. as a third world, growing economy, there is high growth potential in this sector in zimbabwe, yet a closer analysis comparing the country’s growth rate to the region, the southern african development community (sadc), would appear to indicate otherwise, and this clearly prompts the need for an understanding of the telecommunications sector. this study sought to ascertain the influence of eo on business performance for smmes within the telecommunications industry, that is, the information and communications and technology (ict) sector in zimbabwe. the article is structured as follows: it commences by giving background on the study with a clear focus on the global trends in business and corporate eo in smmes in the telecommunications industry. the problem statement indicates certain specific management problems that smmes in the telecommunications industry are facing with regard to adaptability and time to market their products. from the research problem, the objectives and the research questions are then formulated and established. the justification for the research is subsequently discussed. the research purpose is to create and add value and allow businesses and academics to capture that value. for this purpose, a short literature review was conducted that examined the key and recent contributions related to the subject of eo, and a proposed construct framework was devised for carrying out the assessment of smmes in the telecommunications industry in zimbabwe. furthermore, the study discusses an appropriate methodology together with the data analysis techniques applied, and the methods for data analysis and results interpretation and synthesis. problem statement the telecommunications sector in zimbabwe has seen proliferation of many companies; however, only a few companies have evolved from smmes to fully fledged enterprises. the smmes play a significant economic role in many countries globally. according to the world bank,20 smmes globally contributed over 70% of gdp in 2014, and in zimbabwe, 50%. the background highlights of the study reflect that smmes are challenged with the constant threat of closure and many cannot morph into large and sustainable enterprises. studies by small enterprise development corporation of zimbabwe (sedco)21 on smmes reveal a high perishability rate of about 85%, with few smmes surviving for more than 3 years. this study established that many of the smmes in the telecommunications industry are generally low margin businesses, lacking risk management, sustainability and strategic management principles, and surviving by necessity with an invariable lack in eo. mahmood and hanafi22 postulated that eo is related to growth, superior performance and longevity. high adoption of innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness is further advanced as key determinants for the success of firms. globally, economies are being largely driven by technology, and information and communications players have become integral to this new paradigm. mahmood and hanafi’s22 opinion echoes the findings of this study which postulate that despite the vast opportunities for sustained growth, zimbabwe’s information and communications sector is experiencing modest growth and high mortality rates of about 15% per annum. one then needs to ask whether eo is lacking in this sector, as companies that have adopted this key characteristic in other economies seem to be faring extremely well. available findings from the literature submit that eo is a critical factor in smme expansion, as reflected in previous studies based on the concept of eo. the question one thus is forced to ask is: whether the lack of eo among zimbabwe’s smmes in the information and communications sector is responsible for their lethargic and modest growth rates and high failure rates.23 this question can logically be looked at on the basis of two premises. premise 1: research studies have provided the necessary support for the assumption that eo is a necessary condition (antecedent) for high performing businesses (literature review). premise 2: the smmes in the telecommunications sector in zimbabwe are low performing businesses (assuming performance indicators related to the studies substantiated in premise 1). conclusion (also a hypothesis): zimbabwean smmes in the telecommunications sector most probably lack eo (with the application of the same measurement instrument used in the studies referred to in premise 1). accordingly, the research question is formulated as follows: what is the level of eo presence in smmes in the telecommunications sector in zimbabwe? because this level is low, the current study finds the support for premise 1 within the zimbabwe context. the studies conducted on the influence of eo were mostly conducted in developed countries outside zimbabwe. zimbabwean smmes in the telecommunications industry make a large contribution in terms of revenue to the zimbabwean economy, yet there is little empirical evidence available on the influence of eo on firm performance and the growth of smmes in harare, zimbabwe. this study aims to investigate this aspect and provide some insights into the zimbabwean context. scope of research this research involved repeated observations of the same telecommunications smmes over a long period of 12 years covering 2008–2020. this period represents the time that the zimbabwe economy started experiencing catastrophic cash and foreign currency shortages which affected the eo of managers in the entrepreneurial context of the zimbabwean economy. the zimbabwe central bank, the reserve bank of zimbabwe (rbz),24 introduced a local currency denominated the bond-note (bn) and the real time gross settlement (rtgs) dollar whose values were suggested to be equal to the us dollar. the rbz pointed to this as the period when corporate collapses in the telecommunications industry began and heightened. the introduction of the surrogate currency saw zimbabwe’s international credit ratings falling, with sovereign risk rising to the red zone beyond the 75% mark. this research was limited to smmes in the telecommunications sector in the city of harare only. entrepreneurial orientation entrepreneurial orientation measures the firm’s structural and systematic organised performance. it is conceptualised as the integral decision-making and business processes operations applied by an entrepreneur to act entrepreneurially.9,25,26 it generally speaks to a firm’s strategic orientation and the procedures the firm uses to innovate, take risks and act autonomously and proactively to compete aggressively. the definition of eo in this article is pinned on the work of miller,27 expanded by covin28 and slevin29 and then supplemented by lumpkin and dess17,30,31 and dess, lumpkin, and covin.31 the eo in businesses is recognised by the presence of five attributes, namely risk-taking, proactiveness, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy. the literature revealed that the measured presence of these attributes in businesses relates to their measured business performance. the attributes are described in the following section. risk-taking risk-taking is an eo associated with entrepreneurship during the emerging stages. risk-taking relates to the uncertain endeavours undertaken by entrepreneurs working for personal attainment, but has since been broadly applied to companies where leaders commit huge outlays to projects whose outcomes are uncertain. risk-taking is a move towards bold actions such as investing in uncertain markets and committing a large amount of capital resources to investments with uncertain outcomes. tshikovhi, and shambare32 described an entrepreneur as a rational decision maker assuming risk and providing the management of the firm. they also described risk-taking as an act that commits huge capital resources to opportunities which may have a high probability of uncertainty. there is no one-size-fit-all method for measuring risk-taking in smmes as they are oriented differently. organisations can conduct surveys or experiments to measure the presence of risk-taking behaviour in their enterprise. the risk-taking construct represents the capability and ability of an organisation’s strategic demeanour which alludes to the firm’s willingness and ability to commit resources for projects with uncertain success. in this study, experimental surveys established that in regard to risk-taking processes, there is 45% risk averse entrepreneurs; 15% risk neutral and 40% risk lovers, and their risk philosophical standing makes these entrepreneurs perform differently in the telecommunications sector in harare. proactiveness proactiveness is a firm characteristic that allows it to positively forecast opportunities and sphere of influence in terms of products, services and consumer demand. proactivity differs fundamentally from affective traits like well-being and from cognitive traits like locus of control. a proactive disposition is a tendency to initiate and maintain actions that directly alter the surrounding environment. proactiveness is indicated internally and externally, and is measured scientifically using proactive personality scales. this characteristic is said to be the core of primary economic discernment in entrepreneurship. a financier is considered to be an identifier of opportunities in the marketplace and proactively engage in them.19 positive performing smme firms with high sustainable profit levels are market leaders, rather than market followers. proactiveness involves the capacity to take on projects whenever the situation demands that such action be taken. proactiveness is associated with first-mover actions and forward-looking perspectives and actions that anticipate future demand. by conducting proactive personality scales, this study exposed that 75% of the enterprises in the telecommunications sector in harare are not proactive because of a lack of foreign currency available to buy the necessary resources needed for their entrepreneurial activities. innovativeness innovativeness is concerned with the nature and form of goods and services a firm introduces into the marketplace. schumpeter33,34 argued that innovativeness is linked to entrepreneurship in creating new combinations of resources and remodelling old products and services deemed acceptable by consumers. the eo contextually portrays innovativeness narrowly, emphasising the significance of technological advancements to the firm, including shifts in its product lines. innovativeness replicates a firm’s propensity to engage in new ideas, novelty, experimentation and imaginative processes,19 the resultant innovated products, services, or technological developments take the organisation to a brand-new paradigm of success.35 according to covin et al.,36 innovativeness represents a basic eagerness to depart from current technologies or practices, and venture outside the current state of the art. the current study pooled the studied firms’ innovativeness, taking in diversified styles, nature and forms. the evidence from the research conducted exposed that in the broadest view, 80% of innovativeness may transpire on a continuum from a modest inclination to either try a new product line to a passionate commitment to master the latest brands of products or technological advancements in the telecommunications sector in harare. innovation is vital to telecommunications sector entrepreneurship as it directly contributes to a country’s economic growth and research. competitive aggressiveness in this article, competitive aggressiveness is concerned with the way telecommunications companies engage with their competitors, focusing on companies which are against direct competition and companies that aggressively pursue competitors’ markets. vij and bedi37 asserted that competitive aggressiveness is the firm’s desire to face its competitors vigorously to achieve entry position and outpace the incumbent industry rivalry in the marketplace. kraus et al.38 postulated that competitive aggressiveness mirrors the unconventional goal of a firm comparable to relying on outmoded systems of competing. competitive aggressiveness is utilised in this study as a measure of how firms in the telecommunications sector in harare deal with strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. it also refers to the firm’s responsiveness aimed at achieving a competitive edge.30 in available sources of related literature, the terms proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness are used interchangeably; however, there is a thin line between the two concepts. proactiveness is focused on the relationship of the firm to the market opportunities in creating demand, while competitive aggressiveness is concerned with the firm’s relationship with the competitors in line with its marketing philosophy. autonomy autonomy is the self-reliant and independent achievement of an entrepreneur or a team in bringing forth a strategic plan, vision and mission, and carrying it through to completion without being pulled back by overly stringent organisational limitations.18 according to lumpkin et al.,30 this autonomy seems to primarily have face validity in large organisations and researchers contextualise it to small companies, obtaining statistically significant findings. from the findings of this study, key informants agreed unanimously that the action of autonomy focuses on self-reliance and independent action of an individual or a team in achieving the strategic goals of the enterprise. in an entrepreneurial context, autonomy refers to actions taken that are free from governmental constraints. the autonomous behaviour of entrepreneurs is guided by several factors which include legal, economic, social, political and technological legitimacy and expertise. autonomy as an eo was attested to amongst the respondents as being a quintessential determinant factor in the telecommunications industry in zimbabwe, which is heavily controlled by the cumbersome operational obligations imposed by the postal and telecommunications regulatory authority of zimbabwe (potraz). these obligations limit the entrepreneurs’ performance. business performance the available information on performance reveals consensus among the researchers on the appropriate measures for business performance indicators. there is broad diversity in the objective and subjective measures of performance; these are financial and non-financial measures leading to diversities in the eo and performance relationships. the question that arises is what the appropriate form of performance measurement is. business performance has been accepted in research as an objective measure of performance compared to subjective measures. objective data is not easily gathered according to the works of short et al.39; accordingly, respondents were reluctant to volunteer certain gate-keeping information. owners and top managers are disposed to volunteer objective performance evaluation, which divests reliability for the study.40,41 performance is seen as multidimensional in character, and it is preferable to merge multiple measurements of performance accurately.31,40 small, micro and medium enterprises the terms smmes and small businesses are used interchangeably. there is no standard agreed definition for small businesses as this depends on many determinants such the size of the economy, the nature and number of resources available, and the objectives and goals of the supporting agent. kuratko42 defined a small business as one which is independently operated and not significantly dominant in its field of operation. the european union (eu) member states traditionally have different definition constituents of an smme; for example, germany has a limit of 250 employees while belgium has stated the limit of 150 employees. the eu’s definition of an smme is companies with less than 10 employees as ‘micro’, those with less than 50 employees as ‘small’, and those with less than 250 as ‘medium. in the united states of america (usa), small business is defined by the number of employees and more often than not it refers to companies with fewer than 100 employees, while medium-sized business are considered to have less than 500 employees. small enterprise development corporation of zimbabwe21 defined a small and medium enterprise in zimbabwe as a firm with up to 100 workers and maximum annual sales turnover of us$1 500 000. this study further distinguished non-formal enterprises and smmes based on legislation. non-formal entrepreneurs are categorised as those firms that are unregistered according to the company act (chapter 190) and the factory and works act (chapter 283), while formal smmes are those that are registered as per the companies act (chapter 190). the researcher’s focus was on those companies whose businesses are formalised and fall within the telecommunications industry in zimbabwe. entrepreneurial orientation and performance the results of this study reflected a positive correlation as proved by +1 between eo and the firm’s sustainable performance. a firm performance is a multi-faceted concept to the extent that the relationship between eo and the performance of a firm depends on the non-definitive indicators used to assess performance. a customary comparison of eo and performance rests on financial and non-financial measures. financial measures are not limited to factors like sales growth and return on investments.43 self-reported data therefore offers greater opportunities for testing multiple dimensions of performance, such as comparisons with competitors.40 non-financial measures include achievements like satisfaction and global success ratings. rauch44 suggested that it is reasonable to assume that there is greater relationship between eo and financial performance than between eo and non-financial performance. firms that score high on innovativeness and proactiveness, and also have a high propensity for risk-taking, are bound to have an increase in the sales of their products and services than firms that do not.45,46,47,48 wiklund and shepherd40 summarised the descriptions of works done by many researchers.27,37,49,50 the eo is about readiness to reengineer and regenerate market contributions, taking risks on new products, services and markets. in addition, eo calls for more proactivity than competition in view of upcoming market openings. this research analysed this phenomenon in the zimbabwean context. the analysis of the findings boosted concerns that entrepreneurs in the telecommunications industry are in dire need of orientation to enable them to provide an acceptable standard of service delivery effectively and efficiently to consumers. figure 1 shows the variables that constitute the eos that stand to impact and influence the performance of smmes in the telecommunications industry in zimbabwe. this study found that entrepreneurs in this sector are greatly concerned with autonomy, proactiveness, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness and risk-taking. figure 1: conceptual framework (courtesy of the study). methodology research methodologies are systems of explicit rules for research based on which claims of knowledge are evaluated. the overall research question for this article concerns the impact of eo on business performance for smmes in the telecommunications industry of zimbabwe. this part of the study focuses on the methods, techniques and tools used in the classification, gathering and management of data, as well as data analysis.51 it covers the areas concerned with design, methods to be used, target population, research instrument to be applied, data collection procedures, justification of the approaches used and data analysis. the research adopted a positivist approach because the researcher is independent from the subject of the research. consequently, the research adopted the telecommunications sector in zimbabwe as the unit of analysis. the research followed an explanatory cum quantitative approach. during the exploration of the effect of eo on firm performance, initial empirical field data from interviews were considered apposite since that empirical evidence could furnish the essential elasticity of the study.52 positivism in this study was also emphasised by the fact that the observations were quantifiable and follow a highly structured methodology to enable replication of results. the research uses a deductive approach as a theory was developed and a hypothesis formulated from which the research was designed to test each hypothesis. the findings reflected causal relationships between variables which the research sought to explain, for instance how strategic risk-taking impacts business performance in zimbabwean information and communications smmes. the research was exploratory and descriptive in nature. surveys were found to be useful for the research in question, and a survey approach was used because of the ability it offers in terms of data collection. the method is used to describe populations that are too large to observe directly and has much flexibility and versatility. the study was cross-sectional and covered an analysis of homogenous events that occurred at the selected smmes for the period between 2015 and 2020. in the research in question, owners and middle and senior management of the selected telecommunications smmes in harare were selected as the study population. population according to the world bank,16 there is a population of 45 041 registered establishments (formalised businesses) in zimbabwe of which about 80% are classified as smmes according to the sedco classification. records of the computer society of zimbabwe (csz) and the computer suppliers association of zimbabwe (csaz) reveal a membership of approximately 3700, of which 70% is classified as smmes using the sedco21 classification criteria. out of that 70%, 50% of the businesses are in harare and bulawayo as the two largest cities in the country. sampling procedure and study sample purposive sampling and judgemental sampling were used, with the researcher’s judgement being used to select population members who were good prospects for accurate information. the 2016 harare informal sector business survey (isbs) uses a new mode for measuring these informal business segments. in describing the potential clustering of informal businesses, the analysis used area-based sampling, termed (stratified) ‘adaptive cluster sampling’ (acs). the acs selects a sample of starting grids (usually squares), which constitute the starting point for the fieldwork. in the current study, all informal businesses in the quadrant were enumerated, using a 2–3 min questionnaire (short-form questionnaire). a subset of businesses selected randomly was targeted with a 20 min long-form questionnaire. the total grid area captured all of central municipal harare, with quadrants of size 200 by 200 m. the sampling was based on four quadrants derived from operational units which included: the smmes operating from the central business district (cbd), industrial zones including workington and southerton, masasa and graniteside, and smmes operating in upmarket areas where the elites of zimbabwe reside (in this case borrowdale brooke was randomly chosen), as well as smmes operating from home offices (table 1). table 1: sample population framework. table 1 reflects that a large number of entrepreneurs in the telecommunications industry in zimbabwe are concentrated in the cbd with 300 enterprises, with the fewest operators being in workington and southerton with 100 enterprises. this may be because these areas are designated for heavy industries. data collection techniques and instruments the researcher used primary data for the research. semi-structured interviews and structured questionnaires were used as the primary data collection methods. in the development of the instruments, a five-point likert scale was used structured as follows: strongly agree, agree, non-aligned, disagree and strongly disagree. these structures offered reasonable validity and reliability of the data gathered. the initial draft interview script was piloted with five smmes which were randomly chosen. the manuscript and the questionnaires were revised before used for gathering data for the key research. in addition, face-to-face interview sessions were held with the owners, and middle and senior management of the telecommunications smmes. the interviews were not expected to last more than 2 h. many of the face-to-face interviews were done in the offices of the interviewees. the interview guides incorporated the firm’s environment, the level of responsiveness of eo, strategic risk-taking, autonomy, competitive aggressiveness, innovativeness, proactiveness and business performance. interviews were recorded with the permission of the participants and transcribed immediately after the interview sessions. transcripts were sent to the participants for refinement as necessary.53 data management and analysis quantitative regression and correlation analysis were applied in data analysis in this study. considering the number of variables to be assessed, multiple regressions were employed using appropriate tools such as statistical packages and software services (spss). to observe relationships among the variables that were impacted by eo, correlation analysis was conducted. bias was prevented by giving participants the opportunity to highlight the factors they consider to be important in their situations with regard to the impact of eo, instead of structuring the research questions around the eo attributes.53 data management and analysis procedures and processes postulated by miles and huberman54 were performed. the data analysis was constituted by three simultaneous activities: data reduction, display and didacticism and/or confirmation. the gathered statistics were abridged and extricated for the purpose of condensation,55,56 while data display focused on organising and assembling information, which consequently allowed the researcher to reach conclusions.54 the analysed data was compared to the findings of the literature review section to come up with a comprehensive report on eo. figure 2 reflects that the smmes were concentrated in the cbd and peripheral areas such as southerton and workington. these areas are allocated for heavy industry and there is space for high powered machinery; consequently the place is noisy because of heavy machinery. in the cbd, it is quieter which telecommunications businesses require. the other noteworthy factor is the high number of offices in the cbd. figure 2: distribution of telecommunications smmes in and around harare. impact of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of small, micro and medium enterprises in the telecommunications industry the study revealed relationships between performance and eos. figure 3 shows that there is a 27% performance impact (pi) when there is autonomy. in this case, the implication is that entrepreneurs for smmes in the telecommunications industry enjoy autonomy which seems to be the key to successful performance for entrepreneurs. the orientations also revealed that risk-taking is the least preferred orientation in smmes in the telecommunications industry in zimbabwe. however without risk-taking, entrepreneurial performance is not sustained. figure 3: performance impact of entrepreneurial orientations. competitive aggressiveness and innovativeness carry the same weight in the relationship between performance and eo at 19%, as attested by the study respondents. the study found strong relationships between eo and enterprise pi and vice versa. the correlation analysis reflected positive significant relationships between eos and pi in zimbabwean smmes in the telecommunications industries. the association is linear, pi increases or decreases a fixed amount in line with a unit increase or decrease in eo. the other technique that this research used here is stepwise regression, which involved estimating the best straight line to summarise the associations. complete correlation between pi and eo was found as expressed by +1. accordingly, eo improves as pi increases indicating that the correlation is positive; when eo declines, the pi decreases.57 limitations the study carried out faced a few limitations. firstly, the research is limited to the smmes in the information and communications sector in zimbabwe, and as such it may be difficult to make inferences to other sectors. the research also ignored other moderating constructs like environment and access to capital which may have a bearing on the results. also, the research was limited to the city of harare only, and as such, there may be differences in terms of eo for this city and other cities and towns in zimbabwe and outside zimbabwe. there is also a limitation in terms of measuring performance which can either be objective or subjective. however, this study tried to be objective by approaching the issues from a rational perspective. gap and contribution the research sought to add to the existing body of knowledge useful to academics as well as assisting telecommunications business owners and practitioners with strategy formulation, implementation, development, and practice. it will help shape the practices underpinning sustained competitive advantage for the firms in the sector and could be used in other sectors as well. it will also assist in explaining the function of eo with regard to business performance.24 the research gap entails the limited scholarly research conducted and published in zimbabwe to date and the bearing of eo on the business execution of smmes in the telecommunications sector. this investigation is specific to smmes in the telecommunications sector and in zimbabwe. the context of the research is peculiar to zimbabwe and the results can be adopted and used in the zimbabwean context and might be adopted by other nations that may potentially find themselves in precarious economic conditions such as those currently prevailing in zimbabwe. conclusion the tenets of eo have been successfully adopted by progressive economies resulting is phenomenal economic and social status growth as evidenced in such places as china and japan. in conclusion, there are valid and compelling reasons for conducting this study as the literature is readily available and the need for the study is apparent and the zimbabwean smme sector will certainly benefit from it. in a nutshell, one can justifiably assert that eo is quintessential to triggering the pi, which is the best practice of an ongoing, two-way operation. business performance helps the entrepreneur to develop goals and objectives that benefit the team, the organisation, and the individual, rather than a once-off operational goals that affect the industry. the eo was investigated to promote the commercial effectiveness of an enterprise, a department or an individual to achieve strategic objectives and improve the expected results of smmes in the telecommunications sector in zimbabwe. this study also found that entrepreneurs in smmes need autonomy, proactiveness, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness and risk-taking in declining proportions. these are also correlated to pi in +1 positive pearson correlation coefficient levels which reflect that they are highly interdependent. improvement in one of them means increased productivity for the entity. policymakers and state entrepreneurial agencies like small enterprise development corporation should evaluate the eo and formulate favourable policies to stimulate the growth and development of smmes for they are the economic drivers of employment creation and revenue creation. acknowledgements the author acknowledges the almighty god for granting him the wisdom to put up this research as well as to acknowledge prof. benyera in proofreading the article. it is also quintessential for the author to offer gratitude to walter sisulu university mthatha campus, for supporting the research activities to immeasurable limits. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. author’s contributions the author conducted the research for this article from the conceptualisation and contextualisation of the idea up to the final write up of the article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information the author received specific funding from university of south africa for publication fees. 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c. real world research: a resource for social scientist and practitioner-researchers. 2nd ed. oxford: wiley-blackwell; 2002. saunders m, lewis p, thornhill a. research methods for business students. essex: financial times/prentice hall; 2007. td 18-1_2022_contents.indd http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents original research formation of professionalism: a courtship between academic staff and prospective clinical associates pieter h. du toit, lumbani tshotetsi, sabatine carvalio-zongo, melissa olifant, bonolo mpholo, murray louw the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1174 | 28 april 2022 original research the importance of life orientation in a time of covid-19: perceptions of preservice teachers aletta e. botha, julialet rens, sarina de jager the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1202 | 30 may 2022 original research the use of english to offer learner support and enhance perceptual skills development in south african township schools nkhensani s. thuketana, mmamoyahabo c. makgabo the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1209 | 27 june 2022 original research government communication in times of crisis: the priorities and trends in south africa’s response to covid-19 sokfa f. john, haruna maama, oluwaseun t. ojogiwa, betty c. mubangizi the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1146 | 15 july 2022 original research reimagining systems that support early childhood development centres in offering quality education adebunmi y. aina, keshni bipath the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1107 | 25 august 2022 original research considering the basotho indigenous education and school system as resources for peace-building education in lesotho rasebate i. mokotso the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1213 | 31 august 2022 original research examining information and communication technology use in public primary schools in south africa from the capability approach lebohang mahlo, zayd waghid the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1201 | 21 september 2022 original research an investigation into the knowledge–sharing practices for innovation in higher education institutions of developing countries alfred h. mazorodze, peter mkhize the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1230 | 29 september 2022 61 74 81 89 99 107 117 126 page i of ii table of contents editorial towards a unified concept of transdisciplinary research izak van zyl the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1279 | 06 december 2022 original research enablers and inhibitors of efforts to reduce scope 3 emissions – the case of an odel university thelma louw the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1104 | 20 january 2022 original research sustaining student wellness in higher educational institutions: possible design principles and implementations strategies karien henrico the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1114 | 31 january 2022 original research entrepreneurial orientation on business performance for small, micro and medium enterprises in the telecommunications industry: a management perspective medicine magocha the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1053 | 02 february 2022 original research water shortages in beaufort west: lessons learnt and applied during the 2009–2011 and 2017–2019 droughts wessel p. visser the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1118 | 28 february 2022 original research unintelligibility, personhood and curriculum silences of intersex bodies in the life orientation high school classroom: a case study anthony brown the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1099 | 23 march 2022 original research investigating groupings in pre-service accounting teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics msizi mkhize the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1125 | 31 march 2022 original research the management of mountain gorilla tourism in uganda: are the socio-economic benefits realised? gift muresherwa, washington makuzva, cynthia n. dube, imelda amony the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1136 | 25 april 2022 1 3 11 20 29 37 45 52 vol 18, no 1 (2022) issn: 1817-4434 (print) | issn: 2415-2005 (online)the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents original research use of information and communication technologies in mathematics education lecturers: implications for preservice teachers alton dewa, nokulunga s. ndlovu the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1165 | 31 october 2022 original research university students’ perspectives on an english-only language policy in higher education sizakele a. ngidi, elliot m. mncwango the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1189 | 01 november 2022 original research international service learning: insights from the voices of host organisations natalie mansvelt the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1208 | 30 november 2022 original research adoption for the implementation of smart card technology in public healthcare lario malungana, lovemore motsi the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1261 | 07 december 2022 original research gender mainstreaming in the urban space to promote inclusive cities kiara rampaul, hangwelani magidimisha-chipungu the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1163 | 15 december 2022 original research securing the cybersafety of south african online high school learners beyond covid-19 baldreck chipangura, gustave dtendjo-ndjindja the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1256 | 19 december 2022 original research gendered research grant conditions and their effect on women’s application (dis)engagement anita bosch, georgina pondayi the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1281 | 20 december 2022 133 141 146 154 165 174 182 review article systematic review: decentralised health information systems implementation in sub-saharan africa oluwamayowa o. ogundaini, mourine s. achieng the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1216 | 30 august 2022 review article immigrant entrepreneurship in south africa: a review and research agenda clavis n. fubah, menisha n. moos the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1160 | 29 september 2022 review article growth accounting, development accounting and cross-country growth regressions: a conceptual review essay chris w. callaghan the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1051 | 19 december 2022 review article digital transformation of small and medium enterprises in sub-saharan africa: a scoping review mourine s. achieng, masike malatji the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1257 | 20 december 2022 review article who is watching the world health organisation? ‘post-truth’ moments beyond infodemic research travis m. noakes, david bell, timothy d. noakes the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1263 | 21 december 2022 book review colonised medicine and transformative learning – lessons from downs’ book: maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine nontsikelelo o. mapukata the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1287 | 13 december 2022 reviewer acknowledgement the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 18, no 1 | a1298 | 20 december 2022 190 200 213 222 235 248 251 page ii of ii microsoft word 03 dehaloo and schulze teachers.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(2) december 2013, pp. 225-240. influences on the work engagement of secondary school teachers in rural kwazulu-natal g dehaloo1 and s schulze2 abstract the aim of this research was to investigate the influence of job resources and job demands on the work engagement of secondary school teachers in the illembe district of kwazulu-natal. a previously developed model for work engagement was used as conceptual framework. in the empirical investigation the authors used a mixed-method, explanatory research design. in the quantitative phase 100 teachers from five schools completed a self-constructed questionnaire which allowed for hypotheses testing. this was followed by 16 interviews with teachers from the same sample. the study revealed that the teachers exhibited low levels of work engagement. this was related to inadequate job resources and excessive job demands. the teachers were particularly displeased with their remuneration packages. however, teachers of different genders, cultures, levels of experience and educational qualifications differed in their perceptions. through the interview data the authors gained a deeper understanding of how the above-mentioned impacted on work engagement. the study is significant for illuminating current factors that managers should consider to improve the work engagement of teachers. keywords: work engagement; job resources; job demands; motivation; job satisfaction; mixed-methods. 1. introduction work engagement is a relatively new concept that refers to a state that demonstrates vigour, dedication and absorption in the job (bakker & demerouti 2008:209). bakker and schaufeli (2008:147) recommended that work engagement in organisations be put on the research 1 . gunram dehaloo is a ded student, unisa, po box 392, pretoria. 2 . salomé schulze, (corresponding author) is attached to the department of psychology education, unisa, po box 392, pretoria. tel. 012 804 6113, fax: 086 6421 640, schuls@unisa.ac.za. dehaloo & schulze 226 agenda. in south africa such investigations are limited, as shown by an electronic search. four examples were found which were conducted with police officers (rothmann & storm 2003); female academics (bezuidenhout & cilliers 2012); employees in a government and a manufacturing organisation (stander & rothmann 2010) and with church ministers (buys & rothmann 2010). apparently no south african study investigated the work engagement of teachers. research on the work engagement of south african teachers is particularly needed since studies revealed several problem areas that could influence their work engagement. for example, teachers were unsatisfied with poor salaries, heavy workloads, few opportunities for career advancements, and unworkable policies (kallaway 2007:30; maniram 2007:4; roper 2007:10). added to the before-mentioned were uninvolved parents, poor student discipline and continuous changes in the education system (schulze & steyn 2007:691). many schools were also characterised by poor race relations, unsatisfactory appointment and promotion processes and poor relations between management and staff (dehaloo 2008). all of these factors could inhibit the work engagement of the teachers. work engagement or lack thereof translates into behaviour. many south african teachers quit teaching (in maniram 2007:4). students who observed de-motivated teachers also became unenthusiastic (atkinson 2000:45-47; kelehear 2004:32; rowley in steyn 2002:83). in contrast to unmotivated teachers, engaged employees have high energy and self-efficacy that help them to exercise influence over events that affect their lives. they are creative and productive (bakker & demerouti 2008:209). the research question that motivated this study was therefore: how do selected factors impact on the work engagement of secondary school teachers in the ilembe district of kwazulu-natal? the illembe district is a rural area and therefore experiences particular difficulties, as is indicated further in the article. 2. conceptual framework: a model of work engagement work engagement is defined as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (schaufeli in bakker & demerouti 2008:209). engagement has physical, emotional and cognitive components. bakker and demerouti (2008:218) designed a model for work engagement that is useful to managers. drivers of work engagement are job resources and personal resources. job resources play an intrinsic motivational role since they foster teachers’ learning and development. job resources can also play an extrinsic motivational role when they are instrumental to achieve work-related goals. job resources refer to, among others, the physical environment in which teaching takes place, social support, supervisory coaching and performance feedback. job resources are particularly important when job demands are high. job demands are related to work pressure, as well as to the emotional, mental and physical demands of the work. personal resources are intrinsic and relate to the levels of optimism, self-efficacy, resilience and self-esteem of the teacher. as such they are not easy to change. job resources and personal resources are inter-related. these resources motivate teachers to a greater or lesser extent for work engagement which, in turn, influences teacher performance. work engagement affects job resources and personal resources since teachers can perform in such a way that they may improve their job and personal resources. for example, teachers work engagement of teachers in rural kzn td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 225-240. 227 who are diligent and creative generate positive feedback and social support from managers and thus enhance their job resources. by using the above-mentioned model of work engagement as lens, this study’s specific aim was to investigate the role of job resources and job demands on the work engagement of secondary school teachers in the ilembe district of kwazulu-natal. there are two reasons why job resources and job demands were selected: firstly, managers have more power to change these factors than to alter teachers’ personal resources (e.g. their optimism, selfefficacy, resilience and self-esteem), as mentioned. secondly, if job resources and demands could be improved, this may enhance the personal resources of the teachers since these two variables are interrelated (bakker & demerouti 2008:217). for example, self-efficacy of teachers (a personal resource), is increased by means of positive feedback from managers (evans 1989:60; powell, bordoloi & ryan 2007:105), and positive feedback is an aspect of job resources, as explained. 3 job resources of south african teachers several authors (in ololube 2006:6) maintain that motivation at work is enhanced by psychological rewards which include meaningful and varied work, task autonomy, participatory decision-making, positive feedback, collaboration, administrative support, reasonable workload, adequate resources and pay, and learning opportunities providing challenge and accomplishment. the question is to what extent these factors are present in the school context of the south african teacher. teaching in rural areas in south africa is particularly challenging (bloch 2010:6; panday & arends 2008:22). these challenges include: a lack of clean water, proper sanitation and basic infrastructure; overcrowding in classrooms; lack of teacher support; student ill-discipline; lack of parental involvement; violence at school; and poor resources (davids & makwabe 2007:1; guttman 2007:14-15; karp 2007:5; mohlala 2010:2). cohen (2009:7) confirms that teachers in many rural schools work under difficult conditions in comparison to their counterparts in the more affluent areas. for this reason the department of health offers its employees scarce skills and rural allowance in contrast to the department of education (doe), (department of public service and administration 2009). the socio-economically advantaged schools in urban and suburban areas have lower teacherstudent ratios than rural schools as their economic resources allow for the employment of school government body (sgb) paid teachers and teacher aides. by comparison, rural schools struggle with large class sizes of 45 and more students (phurutse 2005:14; serrao 2010:4). the education roadmap (development bank of south africa 2008:6) identified a major improvement in teacher-student ratios, from 43:1 in 1996 to 32:1 in 2006. however, such figures predominate on paper only, as the geographic location of schools together with their socio-economic standing determine class size and teacher-student ratios. 4 job demands the national education policy act of 1996 identified seven roles for teachers. these were: learning mediator; interpreter and designer of learning programmes and materials; leader, administrator and manager; scholar, researcher and life-long student; assessor; learning area dehaloo & schulze 228 and subject specialist and also a community citizen and pastor (republic of south africa 2000). accordingly, teachers often felt that they were counsellors, social workers, managers, examiners and secretaries who were concerned with the performance of students (schulze & steyn 2007:694). such demands gave rise to role ambiguity and role conflict. in their dealings with students, south african teachers were confronted with unruly behaviour that impacted negatively on learning and teaching (samuel 2007:5; karp 2007:5). since the banning of corporal punishment in 1996 student discipline was one of the most talked about challenges teachers faced, since many of them were uncertain how to maintain discipline (marais & meier 2010: 41; mokhele 2006). students’ unruly behaviour was attributable inter alia to lack of student motivation. unmotivated students were often absent from class, were unconcerned about perceptions about them and displayed disruptive behaviour (davids & makwabe 2007:1; kyriacou 2001:29; schulze & steyn 2007: 695). amidst the above difficulties, south african teachers were evaluated by means of an integrated quality management system (iqms). weber (2005:70) highlighted two concerns regarding the iqms. firstly, that the system focused exclusively on schools and government employees, viz. teachers. it did not explain by what procedures the national doe would be made accountable. the idea that the department had the responsibility for providing resources to support learning and teaching (education and labour relations council 2003:3) was not followed through regarding what would be provided and how it would be done, who would evaluate the adequacy of the resources and the development of human resources. the second concern was that the iqms marginalised two important groups: students and parents on the one hand, and their representative organisations (the student representative councils and the sgbs) on the other hand. a world bank study on secondary education in africa revealed that for teachers to be effective and competent, they should have curricular (subject) knowledge, pedagogical knowledge (on how to teach), as well as societal knowledge. in addition, teachers required educational resources and expertise in using these resources, an effective curriculum and an environment that was conducive to teaching and learning (de clerq 2008:8). in the south african context, these factors were absent in many schools. the poor socio-economic backgrounds of many students, the school context, inadequate management and resources, coupled with poor teacher development militated against the use of a single uniform evaluation instrument such as the iqms (gallie 2006; khan, mfusi & gasa 2010:1). with the above as background, this research focussed on the influence of job resources and job demands on the work engagement of secondary school teachers in the illembe district of kwazulu-natal. to this end, the next section addresses the research design and data collection. thereafter the results are discussed and conclusions are drawn. 5 method this study used a mixed-method explanatory research design where a quantitative phase was followed by a qualitative phase. this approach permitted the authors to identify trends and explore them further to obtain insight into the topic under investigation (cresswell 2003:216; mcmillan & schumacher 2010:396). since the focus was on job resources and job demands of teachers in particular, the authors designed their own instrument (a questionnaire) for the work engagement of teachers in rural kzn td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 225-240. 229 quantitative phase. the researchers were also more interested in the quality of work engagement than a numeric figure and this required a qualitative approach. in the quantitative phase a structured questionnaire, which was pilot-tested, was used to survey teachers. the first section of the questionnaire collected demographic data while the rest related to the job resources and job demands of the teachers. they were requested to respond to a three point likert scale, ranging from disagree to agree. in the final section of the questionnaire some qualitative data were obtained by means of open-ended questions that required the teachers to describe what motivated or de-motivated them. the authors ensured content validity and face validity through expert opinion. to determine the instrument’s reliabilities, the cronbach alphas were calculated for the various constructs of the questionnaire – these were all above 0,7 which is acceptable (mcmillan & schumacher 2010: 184). the quantitative data was interpreted by means of descriptive statistics. the following hypotheses were also tested: there is a significant difference between the perceptions of different groups of teachers of job resources and job demands. in line with the conceptual framework, the job resources included physical and financial contexts, performance feedback, social support and coaching. the groups differed with regard to gender, culture, levels of experience, and qualifications. the hypotheses were tested by means of t-tests and analysis of variance (anovas). the study population was all the teachers of the ilembe district of kwazulu-natal. five schools in this district were purposefully selected because it was a rural area, conveniently situated and accessible. a sample of 100 teachers was randomly selected for participation. questionnaires were hand-delivered and collected after completion. in the qualitative phase 16 teachers (at least three per school), were purposefully selected from the above-mentioned sample to ensure inclusion of male (m), female (f), black (b) and indian (i) teachers with different years of experience and educational level. (there were no other cultural groups employed at the schools.) the teachers were interviewed to gain an indepth understanding of the results of the quantitative phase. the authors ensured trustworthiness of the qualitative data by conducting the interviews in the natural settings of the teachers that reflected the reality of their work situations, using a tape-recorder during the interviews and transcribing these verbatim. the qualitative data was analysed by the constant comparative method (mcmillan & schumacher 2012:377). ethical issues were adhered to. for example, the authors obtained permission for the research from all relevant stakeholders, and ensured the anonymity and confidentiality of the respondents. 6 results table 1 presents the biographical information of the teachers who completed the questionnaires. dehaloo & schulze 230 table 1: biographical data of the respondents variable percentage gender male 41 female 59 age on 30 april 2011: 26 years and younger 14 between 27-39 years 39 between 40-54 years 37 55 years and older 9 race: african 40 indian 60 teaching experience: less than 6 years 20 between 6 and 15 years 41 between 16 and 25 years 20 26 years and longer 19 current post: teacher level 1 86 department head 11 deputy principal 2 principal 1 highest teaching qualification: teaching certificate 9 teaching diploma 32 b degree 41 hons degree 14 m ed degree 3 table 1 shows that the majority (59) of the 100 respondents were female. most of them (60) were indian and the remaining 40 were black. age-wise, the majority (39 and 37 respectively) of respondents were between the ages of 27 and 39 years, or 40 and 54 years. in terms of teaching experience, 41 teachers (the biggest group) had between six and 15 years experience. of the teachers, 86 were at level 1 only. in terms of teaching qualifications, the biggest group of 37 teachers held bachelor’s degrees, while 32 had teaching diplomas. the perceptions of the teachers of their job resources and job demands are illustrated in the four tables that follow. (since there were 100 respondents, frequencies and percentages are identical and thus not separately provided.) 6.1 job resources 6.1.1 physical and financial environment in table 2, the teachers’ views of their physical and financial contexts are provided. work engagement of teachers in rural kzn td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 225-240. 231 table 2: perceptions of the physical and financial working context item disagree % neutral % agree % i teach students who come from financially secure families 71 17 12 my school is well-resourced 59 26 14 the doe is generally quick to deliver resources to my school. 65 27 6 overall, my school has a good infrastructure. 35 25 40 i have an acceptable number of students in my class. 51 14 34 in my view my salary keeps up with inflation. 80 11 9 i feel that all teachers are paid fairly 83 11 4 student involvement in school life is enhanced by their financial environment. 45 28 27 the most important observations in table 2 include the fact that the majority of the teachers (59% and 65% respectively) disagreed that their schools were well resourced or that the doe delivered resources on time. the most positive response was with regards to infrastructure: 40% of the teachers agreed that their schools had good infrastructure. regarding financial issues, it was clear that most of the teachers thought that their students came from financially challenged homes; 80% and more teachers were also dissatisfied with their own salaries. when hypotheses were tested by means of anova, and when post-hoc t-tests were performed, it was determined that the teachers’ level of experience and qualifications influenced their perceptions of the above-mentioned issues. teachers with 26 and more years of experience were significantly more satisfied (on the 5%-level) with their physical and financial contexts than the less experienced teachers (means: <6=1,64818; 6-15 = 1,72943; 16-25:1,65455; 26+=2000; f-ration=3,4831; significance=0,0188). regarding qualifications, teachers with bachelor’s or with master’s degrees were significantly more satisfied (on the 5%level) with their physical and financial contexts than teachers with certificates. of the whole group, teachers with certificates only were least satisfied with their physical environments (means: 1,85670 for b degree and 1,84848 for m degree versus 1,45455 for a certificate; f=2,9004; significance = 0,0266). the qualitative data confirmed the quantitative data. teachers attested to the fact that modern resources such as computers, projectors, television sets and dvd recorders and players, and other technologically relevant equipment that have revolutionised present day teaching and learning, were not available at the school. this lent credence to the argument that teachers in the schools had unequal opportunities of service delivery as opposed to their counterparts in more affluent areas. in addition to that, the schools were often in states of neglect. one teacher stated: the infrastructure at the school leaves much to be desired. classrooms are in a deplorable state… furniture is broken, windows damaged. some windows don’t open. during hot days we suffer. there are no air cons, no fans like in some of the other schools. our toilets have been repaired on several occasions… but students just damage them. there is a need for more toilets to be provided for our pupils. (im) dehaloo & schulze 232 during the interviews, teachers also expressed discontent with their salary packages, which they considered as unrelated to the amount of work they did. dissatisfaction with salaries focussed on discrepancies between neonates and experienced teachers; subordinates earning higher salaries than their superiors; freezing of capped leave; and lack of tangible salary adjustments for improved academic qualifications. examples include: teacher salaries are not in keeping with inflation ... it is a bit unfair. it is based on qualifications only. years of service are not taken into account. looking at entry level teachers earning more than serving teachers ... this tells you that the department doesn’t care, doesn’t look at skills and experience but at qualifications only... this impacts on experienced teachers who leave for the private sector, or get self employed. (if) 6.1.2 performance feedback table 3 illustrates teachers’ views of the feedback they received on their performances. table 3: perceptions of performance feedback item disagree % neutral % agree % recognition (e.g. praise) motivates teachers at my school to perform well. 22 27 49 teachers at my school are satisfied with the doe’s initiatives at rewarding teachers for good student results. 47 26 27 the doe’s national teaching awards programme is an effective instrument to recognise best practice in education. 56 26 18 the long-term service awards (for 20 or 30 year service) should be paid out from teachers’ capped leave. 60 19 21 teachers on my staff are happy with the payment of once-off cash bonuses in recognition of improvement in educational qualifications. 66 22 12 the doe’s laptop initiative would empower teachers on my staff to improve their classroom practice. 35 19 46 table 3 shows that, with regard to recognition and performance feedback, percentages of 49 and 46 show that teachers are motivated by recognition such as praise. for some teachers (46%), reward could be in the form of computer laptops. however, most teachers (60% and 66% respectively) show dissatisfaction with rewarding teachers by paying out long-term service awards from capped leave or with once-off cash bonuses for improving their qualifications. the above issues were confirmed with the interviews. neonates in particular, desired recognition and appreciation for their efforts to be positive role models to the students. experienced teachers who taught grade 12 students needed recognition if results were acceptable, in particular in the light of parental apathy or a poor teaching and learning culture. in this regard, one teacher stated: work engagement of teachers in rural kzn td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 225-240. 233 one would normally strive for a culture of teaching and learning at school, but this is non-existent at my school… and yet learners expect to pass. i summarise to say it is a sunshine culture where learners just like to be outside doing nothing and expect to pass. (im) to improve motivation, teachers recommended that they be praised for good work in addition to being rewarded appropriately, including receiving remuneration for work done after hours. 6.1.3 social support and supervisory coaching teachers’ views of the supervision and the social support at school are illustrated in table 4. table 4: perceptions of supervision teachers received and the social support at school item disagree % neutral % agree % departmental heads support teachers to excel in the classroom 32 39 29 the smt and staff of my school enjoy a good working relationship. 30 29 41 the smt deal with conflict resolution in a professional manner in my school. 33 29 38 my principal encourages open communication. 26 20 53 teachers at my school support one another in the realisation of educational outcomes. 26 28 46 collegial support raises motivation and job satisfaction of teachers at my school. 22 36 42 harmonious superior-subordinate relations ensure the smooth functioning of my school. 22 35 42 managers at my school engage teachers in participatory decision-making. 36 26 38 my school principal sets a good example of a fair leader. 40 27 32 the smt motivates teachers at my school to perform well. 28 38 34 students and teachers enjoy decent working relations at my school. 28 31 41 uncooperative students are held accountable for their actions at my school. 37 25 37 the rcl works closely with teachers at my school. 42 25 33 the local community provides support services to students at my school. 66 27 7 parents of students at my school supervise students’ work. 67 26 6 the school management ensures that there are effective teacher-parent partnerships at my school. 36 32 32 departmental heads support teachers to excel in the classroom. 32 39 29 dehaloo & schulze 234 table 4 shows that the greatest level of discontent was with lack of support from parents and the local community (indicated by 67% and 66%). the highest positive response (46%) was for the support of teachers for one another to achieve educational aims; 42% of the teachers agreed that collegial support and relations improved their motivation and ensured the smooth running of the schools. for most of the positive statements on social support and coaching, respondents were about equally divided between ‘disagree’, ‘neutral’ and ‘agree’. when tested for significant differences between groups, t-test analysis revealed that male teachers were significantly more satisfied (on the 5%-level) with their interpersonal relationships than females (means: male = 09350; female = 1,91906; std error = 0,10306; significance = 0,0469). in response to the open-ended questions, teachers were critical of ineffective leadership at school. this was related to principals and the sgb, in particular. examples are: the application of affirmative action policies resulting in the promotion of inefficient and ineffective candidates, coupled with the lack of commitment, guidance and monitoring by the principal is very demotivating. (im) my personal view on the sgb’s influence on the school is very negative. our sgb’s aim is not to build the school. their biggest aim… is how money is spent, and how are tenders being issued. so i don’t think they are very beneficial to my school. (bm) 6.2 job demands the job demands that were investigated included work pressure and work load, as well as emotional and mental demands of the various roles that the teachers were required to play. perceptions are illustrated in table 5. table 5: perceptions of job demands item disagree % neutral % agree % teachers at my school are happy with their workload. 48 26 26 the negotiated 1:32 teacher-student ratio is adhered to at my school. 75 15 9 students from larger classes perform well at my school. 73 21 5 in my school teachers perform several roles in addition to classroom teaching (such as care givers, social workers or counsellors). 11 17 72 teachers at my school are able to work well under pressure. 23 21 55 i agree that students with special educational needs are placed in the same class as the others 65 14 21 teachers at my school easily handle students with special educational needs. 51 30 19 i agree with the fact that older students are placed in the same classes as the normal age cohort group of students. 56 15 29 student violence seldom occurs at my school. 29 22 49 work engagement of teachers in rural kzn td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 225-240. 235 traumatisation because of intimidation is absent at my school. 35 27 38 drug abuse is not a problem at my school 61 20 19 teachers are well-prepared to deal with problems of substance abuse at my school. 49 24 26 teachers are well-prepared to deal with criminality at my school. 60 18 22 teachers are satisfied with the abolishment of corporal punishment at my school. 59 31 10 safety measures at my school contribute to the smooth running of my school. 37 27 35 teachers at my school are happy with the assessment policies of the doe. 43 27 30 iqms as an evaluation tool for teachers is well-received by teachers at my school. 53 28 19 iqms is carried out in a transparent manner in my school. 22 24 54 iqms has empowered me to improve my teaching practice in the classroom. 40 33 26 my students are generally well-disciplined. 36 22 42 the ethos in my school is good. 25 32 43 the schools’ medium of instruction supports student performance at my school. 32 31 37 the job demands of the teaching profession emerged as one of the most important aspects of the teachers’ work that could inhibit work engagement. table 5 indicates the following as most significant: large classes and unsatisfactory teacher-student ratios that were demanding; handling students with special educational needs or older students in the same classes as the others; and challenges related to substance abuse and criminal activity; 59% of the teachers were also unhappy that they could not use corporal punishment to discipline students. regarding iqms, more than half of the group (53%) did not think it was well received by teachers as an evaluation tool. t-tests found significant differences between black and indian teachers with regard to their perceptions of the nature of their job. black teachers were significantly more satisfied with the demands of the job (on the 1% level) than their indian counterparts: (means: african = 2,01218; indian = 1,79402; std error = 0,07832; significance = 0,0064). in the open-ended questions some teachers mentioned factors that improved their work engagement, such as working with the learners. for example: empowering students to reach out and take that opportunity to be the best individuals they can be academically, in sport and in society is motivational. (if) several teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the outcomes based education (obe) system and the significant work associated with its administration and with assessment. in addition to obe, the teachers referred to the students and their parents as follows: dehaloo & schulze 236 professional parents, lawyers, politicians who think they know a lot and want to dictate to teachers, is very demotivational. (im) [it is also demotivational] when parents complain about teaching and teachers… since some of them know very little about what goes on in school. also parents’ attitudes when they are informed about their kids’ poor discipline. (am) iqms as an evaluative instrument for teachers was also not well received and the interviews illustrated that the teachers viewed it as a perfunctory exercise only. they noted that it disregarded the contextual realities of schools. although the neonates to the profession in relatively newly built schools tended to find the iqms quite valuable, most of the other teachers were unhappy. they did not believe that it developed them in any way. for example: when one looks at the iqms, it ought to be a developing instrument and there is a rating. there is no national procedure or district-wise way to moderate the scores. you would find a teacher in a certain area scoring 100, and a better teacher in another area scoring 86 or even lower. so it really is not a proper instrument in assessing teachers. there is no fairness, but many challenges with the iqms. (bf) mention was also made of stressful routines with hardly have any free time during the day. in between teaching there was administrative work to attend to such as the collection of school fees. another teacher referred to how demanding it was to teach a subject such as english when the majority of the students were second language students with low competence levels of english. 6.3 the consequences of a lack of work engagement the consequences of a lack of work engagement were apparent during the interviews. inter alia teachers referred to the wish for early retirement or resignation; frequent absenteeism largely due to stress, depression, and/or ill-health; poor engagement in the classroom resulting in poor performance of students; and frustrations resulting in conflicts with the smt. the following quote serves as an example: demotivation suppresses the teachers’ ability to perform in class. teachers feel demoralised. they don’t involve themselves in school activities. they merely go through the motions in class. they have no urgency, no punctuality, but become ineffective in class, and students lose out on the expertise of teachers. (im) 6.4 discussion of results the results show that the work engagement of the secondary school teachers in the rural district of illembe was poor as illustrated by expressed wishes for early retirement or resignation, frequent absenteeism, depression and frustration which resulted in conflict with management. these psychological costs were related to poor job resources which could not buffer the negative impact of high job demands. although all items in the questionnaire were formulated positively, in only three instances just over 50% of the teachers agreed with the statements. this revealed negative attitudes and dissatisfaction. interviews confirmed a lack of passion and dedication to teaching. job resources fulfil a basic need for competence (bakker & demerouti 2008:212). a study with finnish teachers revealed that the job resources they needed to enhance their work engagement were related to job control, information, and an innovative climate, among work engagement of teachers in rural kzn td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 225-240. 237 others (bakker & demerouti 2008:212). in this study, the resources required were more basic but vital for good teaching – yet they were absent or were not delivered on time. since most families in the area were poor, resources could not be obtained through this channel. the most significant source of discontent of the teachers, however, was with their remuneration packages. the teachers that were most satisfied with resources and salaries were those with 26 years and more experience, or who were well-qualified. this seems understandable in view of the fact that they earned more than the less experienced/qualified group. regarding satisfaction or not with the availability of modern technology, older (more experienced) teachers are often set in their ways and not as motivated as younger teachers to employ modern technologies and would therefore be less frustrated by their absence. dissatisfaction with salaries was aggravated by the fact that many of the teachers felt unappreciated. although nearly half of them were pleased about the doe’s laptop initiative; other strategies of reward failed to impress them. thus the doe was out of step with the needs of the teachers. interview data also revealed that school buildings and grounds were neglected. this was symptomatic of low work engagement of the smt that impacted on that of the staff and on their performance. poverty in the community related to low educational levels, facilitated parental uninvolvement in school matters. for the teachers, this was somewhat balanced with the support colleagues gave one another to ensure the functioning of the schools. however, it was clear that the support of the school smt did little to motivate teachers and improve their work engagement. a lack of social support was particularly important to female teachers. this may be explained by greater social dependencies of females in general, or by being more motivated than the males to achieve work-related goals through the necessary support. job resources are pivotal for work engagement and their motivational influence is most important when job demands are high. in this study, job demands played a significant role to counteract work engagement. table 5 and the qualitative data illustrate that the demands of large classes and unsatisfactory teacher-student ratios; the presence of students with special educational needs or older students in the same classes as the others; and the challenges posed by learners with substance-abuse and behavioural problems were important issues that inhibited their work engagement. finally, the iqms was not well received as a fair evaluation tool by many of the teachers, in particular by the indian teachers. this may have been influenced by the complex interplay of political factors with job demands. the job demands of rural schools (e.g. related to large classes) were also more familiar to the black teachers since many of them came from similar educational backgrounds. thus, the black teachers revealed less dissatisfaction with job demands. although this study revealed the particular factors that currently influenced the work engagement of teachers in rural kwazulu-natal, these factors are not new. previous authors have identified similar factors that impacted on job satisfaction and motivation of teachers in other areas (kallaway 2007:30; maniram 2007:4; roper 2007:10). the implication is that teachers were not heard, and that it was business as usual in spite of recommendations to managers for improvement. dehaloo & schulze 238 7 conclusions the study aimed to determine how job resources and job demands impacted on the work engagement of secondary school teachers in the ilembe district of kwazulu-natal. instead of experiencing positive, fulfilling, work-related states of mind, the teachers were generally demotivated and revealed low levels of work engagement. this was related to an absence of effective job resources as drivers of work engagement. although personal resources could influence work engagement, this was not the focus of the study since personal resources are difficult to change. in the illembe district of kwazulu-natal, the most important job resources that were needed included: smaller classes; the timely delivery of relevant educational resources; better remuneration packages, and improved evaluation, recognition and rewards of teachers (which requires effective communication between the doe and teachers); improved maintenance of buildings and school grounds (through greater smt efforts); improved parental involvement (by the smt); more teacher support and coaching (by the smt); and professional development of teachers related to the handling of students with special needs or behaviour problems (organised by the smt and the doe). the above-mentioned indicates areas of intervention. it also shows the importance of contextualised professional development programmes. when such programmes are carried out, the above-mentioned issues could be raised and teased out. this would present opportunities for improved communication between the doe, the smt and the teachers. ultimately, the job resources of teachers could be improved and the demands of their work reduced. this could facilitate improved work engagement displayed as dedication and enthusiasm. although this study was limited to one rural area in kwazulu-natal, the contexts are similar to those of other rural areas. this enhances the significance of this study to understand the effects of job demands and resources on the work engagement and performance of teachers in rural south africa. follow-up studies with other groups of teachers in affluent contexts are needed. such examples may give direction to innovative ways to improve work engagement. engaged teachers employ themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally in the performance of their roles to the benefit of their students. they show energy, enthusiasm and dedication to teach and to learn and thus facilitate positive personal and educational outcomes. references atkinson es. 2000. an investigation into the relationship between teacher motivation and pupil motivation. educational psychology, 20(1):45-47. bakker ab & demerouti e. 2008. towards a model of work engagement. career development international, 13(3):209-223. bakker ab & schaufeli wb. 2008. positive organizational behaviour: engaged employees in flourishing organizations. journal of organizational behavior, 29:174154. work engagement of teachers in rural kzn td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 225-240. 239 bezuidenhout a, & cilliers fvn. 2010. burnout, work engagement and sense of coherence in female academics in higher-education institutions in south africa. sa journal of industrial psychology/sa tydskrif vir bedryfsielkunde, 36(1):872-883. bloch g. 2010. education a tried and tested route out of poverty. the mercury, april 26:1. buys c & rothmann s. 2010. burnout and engagement of reformed church ministers. sa journal of industrial psychology/sa tydskrif vir bedryfsielkunde, 36(1):825-836. cohen l. 2009. schooling a national disaster. the times, 16 september: 7. cresswell jw. 2003. research design: qualitative and mixed-method approaches. thousand oaks, california: sage publications inc. davids n & makwabe b. 2007. teachers can’t take it any more. sunday times, 9 september: 1. de clerq f. 2008. teacher quality, appraisal and development: the flaws in the iqms. perspectives in education, 26(1):7-18. dehaloo g. 2008. the appointment process of education managers and its consequences for schools. unpublished m. ed. dissertation. pretoria: university of south africa. department of public service and administration. 2009. salaries and benefits in the public service. pretoria: government printer. development bank of south africa. 2008. education roadmap. focus on the schooling system. dbsa roadmap process. november 2008. education and labour relations council. 2003. policy handbook for educators. durban: universal print group. evans ri. 1989. albert bandura: the man and his ideas – a dialogue. new york: praeger gallie m. 2006. the implementation of the development appraisal in a low functioning south african school. unpublished ph.d. thesis. pretoria: university of pretoria. guttman c. 2007. defining quality and inequality in education. education south africa. life long learning, 1(5):14-15. kallaway p. 2007. the profound crisis of teaching. 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educare, 31 (1 & 2):82-101. weber e. 2005. new controls and accountability for south african teachers and schools: the integrated quality management system. perspectives in education, 23(2):63-72. microsoft word 07 neethling.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2014, pp. 393-408. rebel movements in the drc as sub-national terrorists and the need for appropriate counter initiatives t neethling1 abstract the word “terrorism” has been used in various political and policy contexts, and studied in several scholarly disciplines. most contemporary writing on terrorism focuses on the international dimensions or manifestations of terrorism. however, in africa, subnational terror (and even state terror) has been a feature of conflict on the african continent. this ranges from amorphous internationally connected groups in which people locally band together around a religious paradigm, to rebels who terrify civilians in civil wars, e.g. the armed movements in the democratic republic of the congo (drc). specifically, the north-eastern and eastern parts of the drc have been major conflict zones where sub-national or domestic terrorists employed and continue to employ terror as a strategy. this paper examines rebel movements in the drc as a phenomenon of sub-national terrorism – a phenomenon that manifests in life-and-death struggles over access to mineral resources and where there is a clear correlation between conflict and the accumulation of resources. key words: rebel movements, sub-national terrorism, the drc (democratic republic of congo), counter-terrorists measures 1. introduction despite a commendable effort of the united nations (un) since 1999 to bring peace and stability to the democratic republic of the congo, the country continues to face several challenges that pose a constant threat to the fragile transition and consequently, undermine its security. although the drc is no longer involved in large-scale armed conflict, it remains a country and society in perpetual turmoil. in the drc, sometimes described as a “no war, no peace society”, there was simply too little progress for a truly transformative peace, particularly in the violent eastern parts. in other words, the ideal of a positive, sustainable (let alone perpetual) peace in the country has largely been a vision encapsulated in paper peace agreements, but had not filtered down to many congolese citizens’ everyday life (swart 2010: 22-23; swart 2012: 45, 61). despite laudable progress in some areas of peacebuilding, the threat or potential outbreak of low-intensity conflict in the eastern drc remains a reality. in recent years, several non-state armed movements or militias posed a continuous security threat in the drc, most notably the rwandan-rooted forces démocratiques de libération du rwanda (fdlr)2 and the former congrès national pour la défense du peuple (cndp), currently functioning as the ‘reorganised’ m23. other important armed groups are the 1 theo neethling is professor and head of the department of political studies and governance at the university of the free state, po box 339 (internal 38), bloemfontein, 9300, republic of south africa. 2 the fdlr is a group of mainly génocidaires; militias who fled rwanda in 1994, along with some new recruits. neethling 394 alliance des patriotes pour un congo libre et souverain (apcls) and the allied democratic forces (adf) in north kivu, the lord’s resistance army (lra) in the orientale province, various mayi mayi groups and other smaller movements. this paper examines rebel movements in the drc as a manifestation of sub-national terrorism. the drc is ill-famed for armed movements targeting civilians in order to expel or eradicate segments of the population with the purpose of gaining political and economic control over mineral resources. in the drc – as in other parts of the post-cold war international community – a new breed of terrorists came to replace the earlier era of revolutionary and state-terrorism in many parts of the world. unlike terrorism in the 20th century which could be distinguished from common law crimes and criminal offences because the motivational factor was not financial, conflict and sub-terrorism in the contemporary african context commonly relate to regional and unregulated dynamics, which often make it difficult to distinguish business, government, crime and conflict from one another. conflicts frequently flow across borders and involve numerous international actors. in the drc, specifically, terrorism is overwhelmingly of a domestic, sub-national nature, which not only kills, mains and affects millions of people, but also plays out in a regional setting (cilliers 2003: 91, 93). 2. background on the post-electoral (2006) drc it is commonly known that the drc was politically and socially destabilised by an extremely brutal intra-state war between 1998 and 2003, which was responsible for the death of about 5 million people. countries emerging from violent conflict carry a high risk of sliding back into violence. the un therefore, in recent years, significantly expanded its intervention strategies to enhance (post-conflict) peacebuilding (tull 2010). since its establishment in 1999, the un organisation mission in the drc, known as monuc (for the french mission de l'organisation des nations unies en république démocratique du congo), expanded to the point where it became the world’s largest un peacekeeping mission of recent years, fielding approximately 22 000 peacekeepers at the height of its activities in 2010. it can even be argued that monuc, and its successor mission, monusco (for the french mission de l'organisation des nations unies en république démocratique du congo), assumed or at least coassumed some of the responsibilities of the congolese state. in many instances, the un served to foster the role of the state, such as protecting civilians against attacks from militias and organised armed movements. in 2006, the un oversaw an election process designed to take the drc into a new era of peacebuilding, reconstruction and development (reuters 2010). sustained intervention to shore up hard-won but fragile peace included security sector reform (ssr); the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (ddr) of combatants; the promotion of human rights; and efforts relating to the protection of civilians. the 2006 round of democratic elections was without question a huge logistical and political achievement, made possible by the support of monuc and financing from donors such as the european union. however, elections did not solve the political problems of the drc, as rebels or militias continued to destabilise the eastern drc, principally through the rebels of the congrès national pour la défense du peuple (cndp), one of the two most institutionalised armed movements in the post electoral drc. in short, the cndp defeated the national army whenever it attempted to take them on. the other group, the forces démocratiques de libération du rwanda (fdlr), mainly génocidaires who fled rwanda in 1994, along with drc rebel movements as sub-national terrorists td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 393-408. 395 some recruits, also continued to destabilise the drc through the exploitation of minerals and the creation of no-entry zones where they were in control (mandrup 2009: 23-25). in february 2009, the drc government and rebel cndp announced that they had negotiated a preliminary agreement addressing the political concerns of the militias. this followed the arrest of the former cndp leader, general laurent nkunda, early in 2009, which resulted in an important agreement between the drc government and the cndp (kahorha 2009). nkunda’s arrest was a significant milestone in the drc peace process since much of the destabilisation in the eastern parts of the country during the 1990s could be attributed to his destabilising political actions. a final agreement was signed in march 2009 after a month of negotiations. in terms of the settlement, the cndp agreed to end its insurgency, transform itself into a political party, and have its fighters join the police or the congolese army, the forces armées de la république démocratique du congo (fardc). in turn, the cndp obtained a number of concessions such as the release of prisoners, the promulgation of amnesty laws, the creation of a national reconciliation mechanism and the integration of cndp officials into the north kivu provincial administration. however, the integration of rebel fighters into the fardc did not always proceed smoothly. cndp elements who were dissatisfied with the integration process fled to the hills. many were unhappy with the dismantling of the militia and the income they received through the cndp (international crisis group 2009). attempts to weaken and dismantle the fdlr were even more challenging and the fardc could only manage to deal with the situation through monuc’s assistance by means of food and logistical support. although the number of fdlr combatants was reduced by half between 2003 and 2008 with the assistance of monuc’s disarmament, demobilisation, repatriation, reintegration and resettlement (ddrrr)3 programme, the fdlr was not seriously damaged (winter 2009: 2). the organisation continued to pose a threat to the drc government (boshoff 2010). fdlr elements (amongst others) were responsible for gross violations of human rights in the form of attacks on civilians and the systematic raping of women (orievulu 2010). another serious challenge for the drc government in the post-2006 period came from the lord’s resistance army (lra), a guerrilla group originally from northern uganda, but now residing in the northeastern parts of the drc. like the fdlr, the lra posed a serious threat to civilians in villages and remote areas. this armed force (like the ex-rwandan génocidaires who entered the drc from 1994 and who are now mostly grouped in the fdlr) attacked and intimidated civilians since much of their income is derived from taxing the population and from other forms of extortion. moreover, the government’s own army (the fardc) also posed a threat to civilians. in fact, the army, along with the fdlr and the lra were the principal threats to civilians in the drc since 2006 (winter 2009: 3), and these organisations remain significant political actors in contemporary drc politics and dynamics (un security council 2012: 20). as much as some important work was done by the un in the field of ssr and ddr under challenging circumstances, specifically with regard to the dismantling of the cndp, the overall security situation in the drc deteriorated significantly since the establishment of the 3 this especially concerns the repatriation to rwanda of surviving members of the génocidaires who fled rwanda in 1994 and their dependants or offspring. neethling 396 march 23 movement, commonly known as the m23. the m23 was mainly formed in the early months of 2012 by former members of the cndp who mutinied against the fardc (after being integrated) and after having managed to occupy the town of goma,4 the provincial capital of the north kivu province. evidence pointed towards cross-border logistical support to the m23 from an old ally of the (former) cndp, namely the rwandan government (un security council 2012: 20; swart 2010: 58). needless to argue, any painstaking post-conflict programming by international actors, such as the un, will be severely hampered by the above-mentioned obstacles – which swart (2010: 45) has described as a “no war, no peace” society. this relates to an environment where institutions, structures, organisations, norms and values that generate conflict potential, both within the society and neighbouring states, are continuously being reproduced. the transformation of the cndp into the m23 is a good example of this phenomenon. another ongoing challenge relates to governance in the drc. broadly speaking, steward (2006: 29) states that many countries have critical gaps in specific areas of governance. such states possess legal but not actual sovereignty. moreover, they struggle to maintain a monopoly on the use of force, control their borders, and ensure public order and provide safety to the citizenry. they furthermore lack legitimate governing institutions that can provide effective administration, while the protection of basic rights and freedoms and accountable leadership are generally weak or absent. few scholars – if any – would argue that the drc is not such a country. in fact, herbst and mills (2013) argue that “[t]he democratic republic does not exist” and that the notion that one sovereign power is present in this vast country is “predicated on the congo myth”. they cynically argue that the drc is not even a failed state; it is a “nonstate”. this means that there is a central government, but there is no sovereign power at all outside the urban areas. this effectively leaves about twothirds of the country’s estimated 75 million citizens beyond the purview of a central authority. in this context, the drc – like somalia – has constantly been topping the list of countries ranked on the failed state index while its poor socio-economic conditions are reflected in the fact that it positioned itself at the bottom of the list on the un development index. in view of this herbst and mills (2013) even contend that the international community must realise that trying to aid the national government of the drc is “a bad play”. what is needed is a division of the drc into different states based on a realisation that “there is no such thing as the congo”. this article is premised on the view that it is highly unlikely that the drc will be carved up into separate states and that the status quo of the drc as a unitary state should be accepted as a political given – simply because africa’s leaders do not show any appetite for partitioning the drc. at the same time, this article accepts as a point of departure that under the current conditions in the drc, any project by external actors aimed at the reconstruction and development of the drc or a part thereof will inevitably be facing serious implementation challenges and must be seen as a long term project. 4 this came to an end in november 2013 when the monusco intervention force forced the m23 out of goma and other occupied towns. drc rebel movements as sub-national terrorists td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 393-408. 397 3. rebels in the drc as a manifestation of sub-national terrorism broadly speaking, the concept “terrorism” ranges from individual terrorism to state terrorism, to terrorism in national liberation struggles. the word “terrorism” has thus been used in various political and policy contexts, and studied in several scholarly disciplines. it is therefore important to try and define and distinguish between different forms of terrorism for the purpose of this article, which is to study those armed groups in the drc who have been and are currently responsible for bouts of murderous mayhem in especially the eastern parts of the country. terrorism in africa can generally be defined and understood as “a tactic that uses violence or the threat of violence as a coercive strategy to cause fear and political intimidation… a feature within resistance movements, military coups, political assassinations, and various intraand inter-state wars that have affected most african states at some point during the continent’s transition to independence and subsequent post-colonial period” (forest and giroux 2011: 1). this means that terrorism is not an isolated phenomenon on the african continent that has left african states unscathed. botha (2008: 30) argues that an act of terrorism includes the following elements: intimidation – which is to put fear into force, coerce or induce a government, body, institution or even the general public or segment of the population to perform any act, or adapt/abandon a specific point of view, or act according to/against certain principles. disruption – which boils down to disrupting of any public service or the delivery of an essential service or creation of a public emergency. creation of insurrection in a state – which is to cause feelings of insecurity among the public or elements thereof, or to induce, cause or spread feelings of terror, fear or panic. several scholars and policy analysts have explored the general link between terrorist networks, militias and rebel groups, especially in the post-9/11 period. they argued that illicit transnational networks, particularly terrorist groups, have been very active in weak or socalled failed states. since the end of the 1990s, african countries have not only struggled against international terrorism, but they have also been challenged by local terrorists who carried out attacks against domestic targets. the 1998 us embassy bombings in kenya and tanzania, and attacks against un buildings in nigeria and algeria, offer just a few examples of international terrorist attacks in african countries, while the revolutionary united front (ruf) in sierra leone represented a clear case of politically motivated attacks against local communities on african soil. their methods included the severing of hands, arms and legs of civilians – all in an effort to induce widespread fear and submission in the context typical of african war-torn societies (forest and giroux 2011: 6-7). at least three intersecting trends underlie the contemporary terrorist threat in africa. first, global geopolitical and economic forces have significantly affected the context for terrorism in africa. the ending of the cold war also brought to a close the superpower rivalry of the former soviet union and united states on the african continent and thus put a stop to external patronage and financial support for specific political allies. on the negative side, the absence of superpower rivalry sparked internal or intrastate forms of conflict in several african states (angola being a striking example) and warring parties were compelled to explore alternative sources of funding to undertake and sustain their operations (duffield 2000: 73). this included the trafficking and illicit trade of small arms and other materials such as mineral resources and narcotics. second, armed conflict has changed from “being neethling 398 primarily inter (between) to intra (within) states”. small, scattered rebel movements and criminal networks (of which somali piracy is an example) as well as terrorist networks that started to exploit the weaknesses of several post-cold war african states, gained prominence. increasingly, armed movements carried out attacks that caused local and sometimes international tremors. third, the global media environment has undergone significant changes in recent years. information communication technologies not only established relationships between armed movements and media outlets, but also allowed violent non-state actors to operate within and between the virtual and physical realm. armed movements of all kinds started to take advantage of the global connections by information technologies such as the mobile phone and access to the internet for their communications and strategic influence on the economy (forest and giroux 2011: 1-11). terrorism is not the only type of violence that african states and their citizens have had to grapple with. famine, drought, endemic poverty, diseases and other natural and human disasters that undermine human security have all been prominent in recent security policy discussions on the african continent (forest and giroux 2011: 6-7). however, sub-national terror and even state terror has increasingly become a feature of conflict on the african continent. at this point of the discussion there is probably a need for a firmer grounding or contextualisation of rebels in the drc as a manifestation of ‘sub-national terrorism’. from all the definitions and propositions on terrorism we derive our own conception of what manifests as terrorism in contemporary africa. in this regard, we draw from the context of policy and decision-making in the european union where the concepts of ‘sub-national government’ and ‘multi-level governance’ are often used interchangeably. these two concepts basically relate to governments at several territorial tiers, namely supranational, national, regional, local (see van den brande 2008). similarly, in this article, the concept of ‘subnational’ is applied to and relates to the existence of rebels in african countries as non-state actors at a regional or local level as opposed to state or statutory actors at the national level. practically, rebels in the drc as actors at the regional or local level share similarities with boko haram in nigeria. political violence in nigeria is carried out in specific parts of the country, namely the northern parts. in terms of terrain, all the relevant rebel groups occupy a particular area or location − typically in the form of a region − which serves as an operational base to host members and from where they plan their actions and attacks. they usually also receive support from external actors (forest and giroux 2011: 3). what is also of interest is that the “new breed of terrorists” on the african continent are basically made up of loose groupings of people with similar backgrounds and beliefs. they are different from the closeknit, disciplined groups of terrorism in the 1980s, but they still show the characteristic of resorting to terror as a way to strike against their enemies (cilliers 2003: 93). it is important to note that the armed movements responsible for sub-national terror on the african continent are generally not in a position to present a significant military threat to the relevant governments or are in a position to seize and hold large areas of territory. they fight or settle on the periphery of states and feature in the ongoing violent intrastate conflicts on the african continent (cilliers and schüneman, 2013: 4). they range from larger amorphous groups at the local level within a religious motivational framework, e.g. al shabab in somalia or boko haram in nigeria, to rebels who terrify civilians in civil wars, e.g. the armed movements in the drc. in fact, in liberia, armed attacks on civilians by both government and rebel forces had become commonplace over the past four decades. displaced people, who drc rebel movements as sub-national terrorists td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 393-408. 399 had been forced to leave their homes because of the conflict, were particularly vulnerable and harassed by gunmen or militias (cilliers 2003: 92-94, 96). more recently, the incident on 14 april 2014 in which boko haram as an islamist militant organisation had kidnapped nearly 200 girls from their homes in the rural village of chibok in the northern parts of the country especially drew worldwide attention. there were also reports of a massacre in the northern towns of baga and doro in january 2015 where boko haram has been operating for years in the absence of government forces (crowder 2015). the latter point also applies to the drc where armed movements act as terrorist organisations – organisations that make use of terror in their actions and insurgencies. what are the root causes of (sub-national) terrorism in the african context? the answer to this is that there is no simple answer, but a number of factors or variables should be taken into account or considered. it is evident that terrorism differs from one sub-region to another, and one country to another. fundamentally, at the heart of the problem is the concept of ‘state’ and the health of political systems on the african continent. in the postcolonial period political power became the ultimate goal, often at any cost. as a result, corruption and nepotism became features of many political systems. furthermore, draconian or closed political systems emerged; systems that are unable to mediate between state and society. in such contexts, governments that represent the interests of at least the majority of populations are absent. political marginilisation usually or often follows – which is one of the root causes of domestic terrorism in africa. where poor governance and a gap between elites and majorities coincide with factors such as poverty and unemployment, people start to feel that they have nothing to lose. such conditions could lead to alienation and radicalisation (botha 2008: 29,35-38) and spark acts of terrorism. in the drc, many of the abovementioned factors are underlying the political landscape, although the essence of political contestation in post-cold war drc has not been that of ideological contestation, but economic consumption (naidoo 2000: 3). as far as the armed movements in the drc are concerned, they are able to exploit the weak central authority in the country and this allows them draw funding from (transnational) illicit trade, local resources and banditry, such as the kivu provinces in the eastern parts of the country (cilliers and schünemann 2013:3-4). generally, politics in such contexts often evolves into a life-and-death struggle over access to public resources. it becomes a zero-sum game centred around material benefits and in pursuit of influence over followers and competitors. to this end, a high degree of disorder becomes the order of the day, coinciding with a high level of governmental and administrative inefficiency and evidenced by a general disregard for the rules of the formal political and economic sectors. examples on the african continent in the post-cold war period relate to imploded political systems such as those in burundi, congo-brazzaville, sierra leone, cote d’ivoire and the drc where the result has been destruction of civil societies by ethnoregional violence, massive flows of refugees across borders and rising rates of criminality (cilliers 2003: 98). specifically, as far as the drc and basically most forms and levels of political power in the country are concerned, control over land implies a ticket to natural resources and therefore economic tensions feed politically motivated hostilities, and vice versa. in simple terms this means that access to resources means the ability to buy arms and reward troops. troops are needed to secure political power and political power, in turn, guarantees access to land and related resources. this has brought the drc to the point of being one of the largest humanitarian disasters in the world (autesserre 2008). neethling 400 what makes terrorism such a fearsome phenomenon is that attacks are often aimed at a group, people or symbol that may not directly be linked to their real target. instead of focusing on a government or ideology, terrorists generally focus on a particular target, such as the intimidation of a specific community or the undermining and damaging of a particular political-economic system. actions and attacks are not unplanned, although random events may occur to terrorise communities. moreover, few terrorists believe that single actions, such as the slaughtering of entire villages or the planting of bombs could change a system (cilliers 2003: 92). to this end, acts of terror usually acquire repetitive properties. in view of the above, an earlier report of the un secretary-general stated that in many armed conflicts …civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure are not simply byproducts of war, but the consequence of the deliberate targeting of non-combatants. the violence is frequently perpetrated by non-state actors, including irregular forces and privately financed militias. in many conflicts, belligerents target civilians in order to expel or eradicate segments of the population, or for the purpose of hastening military surrender (un secretary-general 1999: 2). in the drc, particularly in the eastern parts, persistent high levels of violence and targeted attacks by rebels against civilians have coincided with widespread sexual and gender-based violence, systematic recruitment and use of children by rebels and militias as well as the displacement of significant numbers of civilians, extrajudicial executions and arbitrary arrests (un security council 2013: 2). for instance, the international crisis group, in a report on the lra reported that “[t]he violence of its attacks and the suffering it causes are intended to frighten villagers into not giving [their] pursuers the information they need to wage a counter-insurgency campaign and to frighten civilians away so they can move with less chance of being spotted” (irin 2010). since the end of the 1990s, several actors – including the un – continually reported on the deep and widespread humanitarian consequences of the extreme brutality and acts of terror committed by rebels and militias in the drc. the following excerpt illustrates the magnitude of sub-national terrorism and consequential insecurity in the drc (un secretary-general 2013: 6): the total estimated number of internally displaced persons in the democratic republic of the congo stood at 2.6 million as at 31 august [2013]. north kivu, with over 1 million internally displaced persons, and south kivu, with over 700,000, remained the most affected provinces, accounting for some 65 per cent of the total. in maniema, the number of internally displaced persons exceeded 200,000 on 31 july, mainly owing to fighting spilling over from south kivu. in katanga, the number of internally displaced persons continued to increase since june 2012 as a result of the activity of armed groups; around 370,000 internally displaced persons were registered in that province as at 31 august. theoretically, naidoo correctly points out that the ideological motivation underlying an armed conflict is largely unimportant to rebels groups in conflicts where control of natural resources are concerned. what matters is whether the rebels can sustain themselves financially (naidoo 2000: 3). this is different from ideologically-inspired violent non-state groups that are sometimes responsible for murderous mayhem in several parts of the world drc rebel movements as sub-national terrorists td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 393-408. 401 (forest and giroux, 2011) and financial motivations are certainly true for at least the most powerful, armed movements in the drc, namely the m23 and the (rwandan-rooted) fdlr. in the drc most of the gold mined in the country is dug up by artisanal and small-scale miners. these miners work in very dangerous conditions, particularly in rebel-held parts of the country gold sourcing has important consequences on the issue of armed group financing (international peace information centre 2013). the fdlr always generated much of its funding from illegal mining activities (un security council 2011: 2). minerals such as gold, but also cassiterite, coltan and wolframite, generated estimated profits of millions of dollars for the fdlr (arimatsu and mistry 2012:16). likewise, the m23 rebel group took control of a profitable portion of the “conflict gold trade” in the eastern drc since its formation in 2012, until the monusco intervention force forcibly ended its reign in goma, north kivu in november 2013. the revenue from the illicit trade was used to fund its military campaign and the m23 worked closely with other local armed groups in gold-rich territories to smuggle gold to uganda as well as burundi from where it is sold internationally. much of the smuggled gold from the drc is initially sold in the united arab emirates from where it is mainly handed on to india and switzerland. in recent years, gold seemed to be the most important conflict mineral in the eastern drc with at least 12 tons worth roughly $500, smuggled out of the eastern drc every year (all africa.com 2013). however, unlike the fdlr and the m23, the lra does not seem to prey on the drc’s mineral resources, but rely on abductions and child labour for cultivating food. in the case of the lra, abducted civilians are often used as porters, while the women are forced into sexual slavery (voa news 2012). in this regard, they share certain similarities with the abu sayyaf rebels in the philippines who, in the absence of natural resources to exploit, turned to kidnapping instead (naidoo 2000: 3). in the broader context, one should be acutely aware of the fact that the absence of a functioning, nationally recognised central government in kinshasa, the eastern and northeastern parts of drc especially became safe havens and facilitating environments for domestic terrorism. cilliers strikingly argues that the more informal the nature of local political and economic transactions, the easier it becomes to use the political and economic domains for ‘other’ hidden activities. in such a context, the distinction between legal and criminal, as well as between politics, business and corruption, is opaque. in the drc – a large territory comparable to western europe – hidden and informal networks have always been associated with rebel groups and the ability to access arms and supplies (cilliers 2006: 100). fukuyama’s contention that neopatrimonialism has arisen on the african continent because a powerful private sector is absent, is certainly applicable to considerable parts of the drc. the way to make money is by acquiring political power and then distributing the rents that could be accessed as a result. in fukuyama’s words: “the answer to why this happened is clear: poor governance. for contrast, you can look at successful countries in east asia which have coherent and effective state bureaucracies” (fukuyama 2013: 2). all of the above should be taken into consideration in counter-terrorism strategies and will be further discussed in the section below. neethling 402 4. pursuing a positive outcome in the drc premised on the work of lancaster et al (2011:4), one of the following (three) approaches could be pursued when engaging or dealing with rebel movements or domestic terrorism in the drc: firstly, in accordance with the “statebuilding school”, rebel movements should be viewed as a law-and-order issue that could be reduced to irrelevance in relatively small portions of land where small-scale banditry has in any event, over many years, constituted their primary business. secondly, in accordance with the “military solution school”, rebel movements have no longer any political significance or meaning in a democratic political framework. this calls for intervention and justifies the use of force on the battlefield. thirdly, in accordance with the “re-engagement school”, dialogue with rebel leaders should be pursued because past military action against the rebel movements triggered and spread violence against local populations. currently, the international community as represented by relevant un functionaries seems to pursue a mix of all three above-mentioned approaches. realising the importance of statebuilding, un security council resolution 2098 provides for the current un peacekeeping mission, monusco, to continue its work in the field of stabilisation by establishing “functional state security institutions” in the drc, and by strengthening of the country’s democratic order to reduce the risk of instability. the resolution also supports the establishment of a minimum level of sustainable state authority and control in the conflictaffected areas of the eastern drc. this includes efforts to improve security, state authority and socio-economic recovery. in addition to statebuilding efforts, the un is committed to prevent the expansion of all armed groups, and, in fact, to neutralise these groups and disarm them, specifically through the monusco intervention brigade, which was mandated by the un security council in march 2013 to contribute to the objective of reducing the threat posed by these groups to state authority. the monusco intervention force is tasked to carry out “targeted offensive actions”, either jointly with the drc armed forces or unilaterally in a robust and highly mobile and versatile manner (un security council 2013: 6-8). at the coalface monusco force commander general carlos alberto dos santos cruz put matters in perspective when he declared that “[r]ight now military force is important. in this country, everyone picks up a gun to achieve their objective. we have a plan to take action against all armed groups without exception” (as quoted by hofstatter and oatway 2013: 4). a series of spectacular victories over the m23 in november 2013 has led the un special representative for the drc, martin kobler, to declare the m23 dead. within days of the m23’s defeat, civilian administration was installed in goma, and it was decided that no taxes would be collected until 2014 (wolters 2013). this coincided with general dos santos cruz’s statement that “we need more than military action... there must be benefits for the population, such as healthcare, education and public services. if these issues are not dealt with there will be another rebellion” (as quoted by hofstatter and oatway 2013: 4). the move to create the intervention force has been described as an “unprecedented move” to respond and “neutralise” ongoing violence in the dcr. the un’s resolution is bold in that it was the un’s first calling for offensive action by a peacekeeping mission. a specialist unit within the 20 000-strong monusco peacekeeping mission was authorised to enforce rather than keep the peace (hagan 2013). at the same time, un security council resolution drc rebel movements as sub-national terrorists td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 393-408. 403 2098 committed the un special representative for the drc to promote inclusive and transparent political dialogue among all congolese stakeholders. this had been done with a view to furthering reconciliation and democratisation and to encourage the organisation of transparent and credible provincial and local elections (un security council 2013: 8). unfortunately, at the time of writing the un has been criticised for not doing very much to put a lid on rebel activities in the eastern parts of the drc. this happened after about 200 civilians, including women and children, have been killed north of goma in the beni territory of the north kivu province. monusco bases have even been attacked by the local population for not coming to their defence. however, this time around the m23 and the fdlr were not responsible for attacks on civilians, but the allied democratic forces (adf), an armed group originally from uganda (fabricius 2014). the question arises whether outside involvement in the drc makes things better or worse. the answer may well be premised on the view that it is always extremely difficult to work in ungoverned areas since problems could multiply exponentially if authority were to be imposed under external or foreign pressure. in the worst case, it may even undermine the legitimacy of the very regime that the action intends to bolster. critics correctly argue that anti-terrorism legislation forced down the throats of weak or dysfunctional criminal justice systems in african states is of limited or little value in situations where economic failure continues. no military operation can make states such as the drc safe without a functional, nationally recognised central government. what should be pursued are multiple initiatives and measures to combat acts of terror where safe havens and facilitating environments become the general arrangement (solomon 2013: 440; cilliers 2006: 70). moreover, any effort or model from the outside to render assistance on the basis of “capacity building” would not be effective unless it facilitates “legitimacy building”, i.e. that the local population should view the central government as legitimate and worthy of their support (lamb 2013). solomon critically comments that international actors involved in counter-terrorism on the african continent need to adopt a more sophisticated perspective on the nature of the threat posed by terrorism. apart from distinguishing between international terrorism and subnational terrorism, counter-terrorism measures should focus on the root causes driving terrorism and acts of terror. root causes relate to issues of underdevelopment, poverty, poor governance and the dearth of justice. therefore, measures to improve democratic governance and enhance responsive governance should supplement the establishment of military and security institutions in african states suffering from acts of terror. it requires “a strategy designed to foster the creation of more democratic space and ultimately more inclusive polities” (solomon 2013: 439-441). at the same time, forest and giroux correctly argue that the limitations of a typical african government’s ability to effectively combat terrorist attacks should be recognised – particularly where terrorists have transnational linkages. where they operate in “ungoverned spaces” or “lawless areas” within a country’s borders sub-national terrorism becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to combat as the case of the drc clearly illustrates. this makes crossnational collaboration in countering terrorism an imperative, as well as the need for african nations to participate in multinational efforts and initiatives – the latter being a growing tendency in the african context (forest and giroux 2011: 12-13). thus direct encouragement and assistance to the central government of the country in question – in this case the drc – in exercising and extending (better) control over so-called ungoverned areas are probably (still) the best way of approaching any course of action neethling 404 (institute for national strategic studies 2009: 104). this, of course, implies a search for long-term solutions because the strengthening of state capacity – facilitating statebuilding and security governance – is certainly one of the most demanding and challenging endeavours in current-day international affairs. in accordance with solomon’s assertion that the military should take a back seat to political, diplomatic and economic dimensions in counter-terrorism measures (solomon 2013: 440), williams even suggests that un peacekeeping operations could usefully realign their ‘protection of civilian strategies’ to help build resilient local communities. in effect, this implies processes designed to empower civilian populations to gain a bigger say in their national government structures, which further implies the use of peacekeepers as peacebuilders. to this end, williams is convinced that civil empowerment is one of the best ways over the longer term to reduce both violence and the risk of future wars (williams 2013: 1-2). the above-mentioned coincides with agbiboa’s research on boko haram in nigeria and his findings that countries fighting terrorism must learn that a war on terror can never address the underlying conditions that shape armed movements who reject the prevailing order and develop radical positions, or opt for the violent action. accordingly, actors fighting domestic terrorists should know that a “security-only military approach” is a war without end, which usually turns into a vicious cycle of terror. it even radicalises terrorist groups and strengthens the collective resolve of its members and thus threats of violence or prison are rarely effective deterrents. an effective counterterrorism policy and strategy should appreciate the broader context in which violent actions or attacks occur and seek to meaningfully and non-violently alter it (agbiboa 2013: 68). 5. conclusion many or most observers of international politics would agree with herbst and mills (2013) when they state that “[i]f there is a prize for the worst place on earth, congo has a strong claim”. the country has been severely affected by sub-national terrorism – a phenomenon that is intimately linked to the failure to effect sustained development and to consolidate accountable and effective governance. the absence of good governance creates opportunities for armed organisations to employ terror as a strategy. to this end, sub-national terrorists have turned the north-eastern and eastern parts of the drc into major conflict zones. in the drc all the above-mentioned movements relied heavily, but not exclusively, on the use of extreme violence against civilians in pursuing their objectives (cilliers 2006: 58-59). as far as the main thrust of this study is concerned, the view taken in this article supports the scholarly insight and argument that in countries such as the drc, militias are filling power vacuums that have been caused by the inability and lack of military capacity of weak states to fight the militias effectively. this is certainly true for the two most institutionalised rebel groups of recent years, the m23 and the frdl, as well as other armed groups, such as the apcls and the adf in north kivu, and the mayi-mayi groups – based on the fact that the drc government had not been able to control large parts of the country since the early 1990s (mandrup 2009: 16). clearly, there is a link between conflict and the accumulation of resources which has been particularly evident in the activities of the m23 and the fdlr. this means that the dominant non-state actors in the drc use their positions to maintain or pursue control over drc rebel movements as sub-national terrorists td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 393-408. 405 economic resources, specifically mineral resources. moreover, the ability of rebels to draw funding from illicit trade and the exploitation of natural resources make it extremely difficult to put an end to the cycles of conflict in the eastern parts of the country (cilliers and schüneman, 2013: 4). this is exacerbated by the fact that conflicts such as those in the drc are often rooted in or linked to external factors, and that they often have considerable extrinsic or regional dimensions (smith 2009: 279). the phenomenon of rebel movements in the drc further reiterates the scholarly contention that the nation-state in many parts of the international community is under pressure. it certainly highlights and confirms the point that states are no longer the only important actors and that non-state entities have also become significant actors. generally, where governments are not in control of the lengths and breadths of the geographical territories that constitute their countries or states – arguably the basic requirement for territorial sovereignty – aggrieved national groups in the form of sub-national terrorists often appear and press upward, mostly brutally and violently. in the drc the direct extension of state authority remains a pressing issue and one that has created numerous problems on a national as well as a broader transnational level. to this end, external counter-terrorism measures in countries such as the drc should avoid a too state-centric and militaristic approach to counter rebels as manifestations of sub-national terrorism, but at the same time do enough to support and enable african governments to confront the threat of terrorism more effectively. this is easier said than done, however, because the drc has received an enormous $27 billion in the field of development assistance between 2000 and 2013. this certainly makes the drc one of the world’s largest recipients of international assistance. moreover, the country hosts one of the un’s largest peacekeeping missions for almost a decade and a half. yet, critics can rightly argue that this has not helped much, at least in part because donors have effectively rewarded the central government’s failure to rule, and ignored corruption (herbsts and mills 2013). in the final analysis, this article supports the view of autesserre (2008) that peacebuilding efforts should continue and that local peace will be sustainable only if the congolese state is stable and its institutions are built up at all levels. post-conflict efforts and related counterterrorism tasks will obviously be extremely difficult tasks given the magnitude of challenges such as weak state institutions, a fragmented political arena, high refugee flows, and poor infrastructure. in the words of autesserre (2008): “when it comes to congo, international actors should work, quite literally, from the ground up” – a project that requires a long-term vision, patience and sustainability. acknowledgement this work is based upon research supported by the national research foundation in pretoria, south africa. any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and therefore the nrf does not accept any liability in regard thereto. neethling 406 references african union (2011) african union’s policy on reconstruction and development of post-conflict 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(2008) ‘the role of the subnational level of government in decisionmaking for sustainable development’, paper written in the framework of project 4, ‘the flemish sustainable development policy and multilateral decision-making‘, institute for international and european policy, katholieke universiteit leuven. microsoft word 09 tempelhoff carolina .docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(2) december 2013, pp. 357-378. how pat metheny came to carolina in mpumalanga, south africa: using music in transdisciplinary water research jwn tempelhoff abstract listening to music can help researchers to comprehend and gain insight into complex problems in transdisciplinary research. this article explains how members of a research group at north-west university in south africa conducted research on a crisis in the urban settlement of carolina in mpumalanga province when acid mine drainage (amd) from local coal mining operations was found in the municipal water supply. in grappling with complex issues such as the failure of communication with local stakeholders, the group resorted to using the music of pat metheny’s music to come to a better understanding of the crisis. keywords: carolina, acid mine drainage (amd), pat metheny, transdisciplinarity, coal mining. disciplines: history, water studies, music studies, transdisciplinary methodology. introduction: at the point of action there was an atmosphere of belligerence in the main road of carolina’s silobela township when we arrived there on the morning of 18 may 2012. on a nearby ridge a group of local residents, mostly youths, had gathered and were speaking in excited voices. some 300 metres down the road, at the entrance to silobela, police in riot gear stood waiting, only occasionally deliberating; constantly keeping a watchful eye on the restless crowd. an old man sauntered across the street to the home of a friend waiting for him at the garden gate. two photojournalists stood against the perimeter fence of a corner house. they surveyed the crowd with long-lensed cameras, clicking away when an interesting image presented itself in their camera viewfinders.  prof. johann tempelhoff leads the research niche for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat), school of basic sciences, north-west university (vaal), vanderbijlpark, south africa. email: johann.tempelhoff@nwu.ac.za. the article is based on a colloquium presentation in the school of musicp at north-west university (potchefstroom) on 13 june 2013. the author acknowledges the valued advice and comments of prof. alta van as of the university of the witwatersrand, as well as that of dr liesl van der merwe of nwu (potch). a special word of thanks to all members of the cudywat team who were most helpful in answering questions related to our encounters with music whilst doing research fieldwork over the years. tempelhoff 358 suddenly the beehive of activity quietened down and a single voice sounded the first notes of a song that was clearly familiar to all. this inspired a rhythmic response from the group; they began dancing. shuffling their way forward to the rhythm of clapping hands and stomping feet, the group had a remarkable sense of synchronisation. they were singing in the local swazi-ndebele vernacular. the refrain was notable for the words “ecapitalist” and “carolina”. it was clear that they were angry and wanted to vent their feelings about an injustice they had suffered by not having access to proper drinking water. the group had barely covered 20 metres before police opened fire with teargas. the old man who had reached the other side of the street, started coughing and tried to get out of the way in the face of what appeared to be a direct confrontation between police and the protesters. the gas proved to be too much and the youths dispersed with haste, only to regroup further up the road, ready for yet another confrontational encounter with law enforcement officials. illustration 1 on 17 may 2012, after being without a proper water supply for more than four months angry residents (mostly youths) in the mpumalanga town of carolina started protesting and causing considerable damage. (photograph: jwn tempelhoff, 18 may 2012) interactions of rout and rally continued until the afternoon when the protest eventually fizzled out and the youths sauntered back home to continue living out their lives with basic tap water heavily contaminated by toxic minerals in the acid mine drainage. outline against the backdrop of the brief sketch of protest in the mpumalanga town of carolina south africa, the objective of this discussion is to explain how members of the research niche for cultural dynamics of water (cudywat) at north-west university (vaal) used the music of the the american jazz guitarist, pat metheny to come to a better understanding of a set of complex water-related problems in the south african mining town. in 2012 the group conducted research in the local municipal area when acid mine drainage (amd) had pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 359 contaminated the municipal water supply. the group operates within the framework of transdisciplinary research strategies and has been using music in its research projects which focus on hotspot water-related issues in municipal areas. in this discussion attention is given to the manner in which a song, performed by pat metheny, from his 2011 album what’s it all about was used in the carolina project and the role the music played in gaining a better understanding of the nature of the crisis experienced by the community in 2012. raison d’être for the carolina project members of cuduwat began taking an interest in the carolina saga in mid-february 2012. a month earlier the 17 000 residents of the town woke up one morning to find that their tap water had been contaminated with acid mine drainage. we were interested in conducting what was seen as important research on acid mine drainage and its potential impact on an urban settlement. activists have been alerting the authorities for some time to the potential high incidence of water-related conflict in the energy-development nexus sector (munnik, hochmann & hlabane, 2009; steele & schulz, 2012). the need for sustainable economic growth and energy, especially coal, the major fossil fuel in south africa, has come at a significant cost to the country, its people and an increasingly fragile biodiverse environment. in gauteng province, where south africa’s gold mining industry started in the 1880s, the department of water affairs, in collaboration with local authorities and a number of other stakeholders in the mining sector, have actively been collaborating since 2010 to develop mitigation strategies to reduce the potential devastating consequences of acid mine drainage in the former witwatersrand goldfields (imc, 2010; prinsloo, 2010). in the mpumalanga region of south africa, where most of the country’s coal mining has taken place since the late nineteenth century, there are now increasing indications of serious acid mine drainage problems in urban areas (mccarthy, 2011; tempelhoff & winde, 2013, pp. 77-88). in the emahlaleni district of mpumalanga the coal mining city of witbank has been grappling with major problems of acid mine drainage for a number of years (sapa, 2013: mccarthy & pretorius, 2009, pp. 61-2). poverty-stricken communities living on the fringes of the coal mining and electricity generation industries in mpumalanga, are particularly vulnerable (steele & schultz, 2012, pp. 7-8). carolina, we decided, was a worthwhile research project in that it provided us with a counterfactual micro-study of what could happen if the complex problem of acid mine drainage is not properly addressed. there is a definitive need for long-term thinking (brand et al., 2012) on the potential negative affects of amd in parts of south africa. classifying communities within this framework requires the development of ‘scale free’ network modelling contexts (keller, 2005: 1060-1068; preiser-kapeller, 2012: 8-9) to comprehend how communities that appear to be isolated are in fact connected in time and space. the research team thus set out to determine how such communities typically respond to an extreme event such as acid mine drainage in their drinking water system. the carolina research was different from most other projects that we had undertaken since 2005. as a rule, our focus is on hotspot water issues. of these local municipal potable water supply and sanitation services (tempelhoff, et al. 2008; gouws et al., 2009; gouws, et al. 2010; munnik et al., 2011), and governance-related problems (ginster et al., 2009), were the dominant themes. in the case of carolina we were faced with the problem of acid mine drainage contaminating the potable water supplies of an urban settlement in a predominantly tempelhoff 360 rural region; this was described in the media as ‘a modern day first’ for south africa (tempelhoff, 2012). illustration 2 residents of silobela collecting water from the local mosque on friday 19 april 2012. they were still distrustful of the municipal water and told the photographer they chose not to drink municipal water. (photograph: franz fuls) our research is based on strategies of finding ways to encourage a dialogue and cooperation between stakeholders in circumstances where there are significant water-related problems. we make a concerted effort to generate different forms of knowledge, ranging from indigenous to technical workplace-related issues, instead of imposing a single hegemonic stamp of scientific discourse in the process of finding solutions. the methodology we follow in this context is influenced by the views of rist and dahbou-guebas (2006, p. 472). the practice of integration forms a key element of our research (bergmann et al., 2012, 22-49; pohl et al., 2008, 411-424). therefore the participation of all stakeholders is desirable. however, officials and political leaders of the chief albert luthuli local municipality, under which carolina resorts, refused to collaborate with us in the research (cudywat, 2012). circumstantial evidence suggests they were anxious to protect the interests of the local coal mining industry that has played an important role in the economy of carolina since the late1970s. there was also the fact that the crisis created a politically volatile situation in carolina. it appeared as if there were concerted attempts to draw an official security cordon around a critical condition affecting the entire community. their uncooperative stance made it difficult for us to conduct our research in the usual manner, one we had followed for a number of years. fortunately, we were able to secure the collaboration of the regional office of the department of water affairs (dwa) and the management of the incomati catchment management agency (icma). the leadership of local civic organisations in carolina were enthusiastic and more than willing to participate. they had experienced some frightening water-use times pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 361 and were eager to share their insights. a manager of one of the local mining companies, allegedly partly responsible for the spill, was willing, in his official capacity, to give us an interview. the limited participation of the authorities placed severe constraints on our research programme. ethically, we felt compelled to seek a neutral space for conducting our research. in the group we had consensus that it would be counter-productive for us to side overtly with the activists and members of civil society who were frequently at loggerheads with the municipality and local mining companies. consequently, selected members of our group worked with the activists (tempelhoff, et al., 2012, pp. 54-60, 61-62), while others focused on respondents who were less articulate in their activism (tempelhoff, et al., 2012, p. 69). we also made use of a moderator to monitor the research process. as a neutral outsider, the moderator operated on the inside in some contexts, making observations and recommendations about procedures and potential controversial issues (cudywat, 2012: strauss). by the time we visited carolina in october 2012 to conduct the first group fieldwork, the water crisis was essentially resolved. however, there were signs of considerable public discontent and indignation about the state of affairs. people complained that the water was no longer as it used to be (tempelhoff et al., 2012, pp. 63-84). it did not taste as good. for example, when asked what the water was like previously, people would say it tasted ‘purer’ and ‘far better than bottled water’. it came from the clean streams on the ridges of the incomati watershed. people remained distrustful of the local water supply and many still preferred to collect their household supplies from local artesian fountains in town or at one of the three mosques situated in various suburbs of carolina who did not draw their water from the municipal supply (tempelhoff et al., 2012, 45-48). in fact, our research shows that in the course of 2012 people had come to distrust the local authority. as a result of lapses in the water service, the deep-seated distrust of the water supply created a lack of confidence in the ability of the local authority to provide potable water to the residents of carolina. the spiral of discontent that emerged from the water crisis clearly affected the fibre of the local community. the sense of place and belonging in a particular environment that they could call ‘our town’, or ‘our place’, or ‘my home’, had been disturbed and was in need of restoration. cudywat and transdisciplinary research members of cudywat make wide use of transdisciplinary research. in our projects research groups typically arise when a number of interested academics agree to participate in a research initiative to investigate a complex water-related problem. the next step is to establish a participatory platform of communication with local stakeholders and then collectively start focusing on generating local knowledge, laced with academic disciplinary insights. our ultimate goal is to find solutions to an existing problem. transdisciplinarity does not have a specific methodology. instead researchers rely on methodological approaches which are familiar to the participants operating in a variety of disciplines. the group then accommodates the diverse foci and strategies and to arrive at a sense of understanding of the problem at hand. it stands to reason that if and when a researcher becomes part of a research project (s)he has an intellectual contribution to make and add value which the group then absorbs. the individual’s contribution (in terms of methodology) is respected and each tempelhoff 362 participant can collaborate with a sense of belonging in the research project. we make a concerted effort to create opportunities for approaching research in an innovative manner. in taxonomical contexts, transdisciplinarity is usually grouped with multidisciplinary (klein, 2010, p. 17; baumgärtner et al., 2008, p. 386) and interdisciplinary (krohn, 2010, p. 32) research. distinct features of transdisciplinarity include a focus on knowledge integration and a concerted effort to conduct responsible boundary work towards the absorption of relevant disciplinary foci. in the process of conducting research we work towards strong partnerships in the research group and aim to disseminate relevant scientific information in a comprehensible manner (pohl, 2010, pp. 74-83). transdisciplinarity is often described as the interconnection of science and society (baumgärtner et al., 2008, p. 387). our research aspires to seek connections with reality and real-world problems and to inform a dialectical synthesis for comprehending the dynamics of culture in a social ecological setting where there is a distinct recognition of the status of nature. for the dedicated research community, transdisciplinarity is a societal issue [which includes the] setting and the building of bridges between natural social sciences and humanities as a basis for integrating scientific as well as traditional forms of knowledge and actors (rist & dahdouh-guebas, 2006, p. 472). in many parts of the world transdisciplinarity has been applied to good effect in the process of establishing greater collaboration between the natural and human/social sciences (hirsch hadorn et al., 2008, pp. 19-39). transdisciplinarity features prominently in music studies (mueller, 2002), where the approach is a platform for linking different disciplines and a variety of dimensions of thinking and acting. sound is considered an ordinary as well as a subliminal phenomenon. yet it is apparent that exploring the potential of acoustic perception can contribute to unusual insights (clovjecsek, 2000, pp. 495-500). for example, at the university of berne in switzerland, researchers in the institute for transdisciplinarity have been working on denkgeräusche, exploring the sonification of sound – or the history of sound and specifically the manner in which sounds have been incorporated into the artistic production of music. part of their focus has been to take note of the manner in which scientists in the fields of medicine and natural science, as well as the humanities, have been collaborating in research projects to explore new frontiers of sonification (schoon & dombois, 2009). similar work, has been done, but in a more diverse mode by rietveld (1998, 2000, pp. 28-30; 2011, pp. 4-23) and drever (2009, pp. 163-192; also see rodgers, 2011). it seems there are ever increasing perspectives emerging on the development of human culture since the latter part of the nineteenth century when alexander graham bell had the first telephone conversation in 1876; thomas edison made the first phonograph recording (1878); and gugliemo marconi’s wireless telegraph crossed the english channel in 1899. as was the case with the visual sensory organs, since the development of photography in the first half of the nineteenth century (frizot, 1998:3331; starl, 1998:21-41), the functions of our auditory senses were suddenly (and then permanently) subjected to a new spectrum of states of sonic consciousness (sterne, 2003). historians have started working in the field (coates, 2005:636-665), but it clearly still seems to be work in an exploratory phase of development (saffran, 2012). pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 363 for the purposes of this discussion we make use of the views on transdisciplinarity1 of montuori, who apart from creative and futurist thinking also has a keen musical inclination. he sees transdisciplinarity as an: • inquiry-based, rather than a discipline-based approach to research investigation; • access route of looking at things from a meta-paradigmatic perspective that relies on disciplinary knowledge, but is not confined to its detailed intricacies; • approach that makes space for complexity that enables the researcher to contextualise and connect; and • activity that implies that the observer is also integrated as the observed (montuori, 2008, p. xxvii; volckmann, 2009, pp. 280-282). montuori’s approach is significantly influenced by the french philosopher of complexity, edgar morin (montuori, 2008: ixliv). cudywat and the use of music in research over a period of several years we in cudywat have developed a strategy of incorporating music into our research. we play music in the car while travelling to various localities to conduct our fieldwork. sometimes we travel in a combi. at other times we would travel in two or more cars. members of the research group are, as a rule requested to bring along some of their favourite music and then they would be asked to share their music in the car. by listening to the music the participants in the research fieldwork are indirectly preparing themselves to listen to the spoken word when they conduct interviews. the music also tends to create sounds of memory embedded in the experience of fieldwork in spaces, away from their familiar spaces of work. during trips we would change passengers in the vehicles and people often reflect on each other’s tastes in music. although the music may seem to be an aside, the sound that accompanies the experience of movement in space and time seems to have a pleasant effect. members of the research group get to know each other better as they talk about their particular preferences in music. often the music plays while they are discussing matters of the research project under investigation, while they travel. subconsciously the music registers in a variety of ways. it can calm them; remind them indirectly of what was said in the group earlier; or even contribute to the aesthetic experience of time and space. at the time of deliberations on our research projects we have music playing in the background. much the same as frankinsence, or the sound of tranquil flowing water, music tends to create a pleasant ambience when we socialise between work sessions, or just spend time informally talking about our work. furthermore, we make a concerted effort to listen to music as a group before we begin discussions on the focus of the particular project. given the right type of circumstances it appears from personal observation that the right type of music can create a sense of cohesion in a group. many participants in our research projects are musical novices, but they soon become accustomed to the use of music. at first some tend to consider it an aside to the work we are doing (cudywat, 2013: strauss), or feel that our community stakeholder research participants will not understand the role of music in our tempelhoff 364 work (cudywat, 2013: fulz). researchers who have participated in two or more of our initiatives tend to be more aware of the value of the use of music. a number of researchers think seriously about the music (cudywat, 2013: gouws[a]). some have a background of formal musical training and are the most conversant participants in discussions on the topic of music. they would share some factual information on the history of a piece of music, or on a performing artist or a specific type of instrument. more than often discussions also revolve around the effect and the sheer enjoyment of the music. it is then that the way is opened up for a deeper sense of understanding by listening. of particular importance is the fact that the music brings the novice researcher in the field into a hermeneutic circle of understanding and interpretation from the inside of what is going on outside. the auditory reception of music that elicits a verbal response implies that the individual’s conscious sense and experience of listening is transferred in the spoken language with the objective of sharing verbal pictures of what was heard. therefore participants are often asked to take note of simple elements, such as tone, melody, harmony and rhythm and contemplate the potential sound message it conveys. the objective is to create an open and flexible auditory ecology for thinking about the research problems we are trying to comprehend and resolve. while tone, melody, rhythm, and sometimes even harmony may register in the spoken word, in the key of music there is an artistic aesthetic that is intended to appeal to the senses where the meanings of words only form part of the transmitted message. for the listener who is conscious of music the auditory message can appeal to the research participant in much the same way as a photograph or painting – an aesthetic that is functional, yet also artistic and creative. in cudywat we use music for a number of reasons. 1. integrating social diversity through music our researchers come from different social ecologies. some are students living in university residences. others come from the business and industrial environment. there are also of course the studious types who spend a great deal of their time in confined spaces reading and focusing on computer screens. therefore, we argue that while in the field if we are holding discussions or are involved in individual reading and writing, music can act as a bonding agent between group members. by creating an ambient sound environment it is possible to also create a team-spirit. the ambient polyphony of a familiar home or study environment, the sounds of the office, the factory, city, or a student community in class or relaxing in the campus restaurant, are different from the auditory soundings available at the time of fieldwork. music can act as a cohesive force and so maximise the valuable (but often limited) time a research team has at its disposal. 2. music and memory music can potentially strengthen short and long term memory about the work we are engaged in. the music can also create an emotional response that is potentially conducive to research. as levitin suggests: when we love a piece of music, it reminds us of other music we have heard, and it activates memory traces of emotional times in our lives (levitin, 2006, p. 192). if it is possible to nurture or harbour potential memories of research fieldwork and discussions on a research problem under investigation through the medium of music, the approach can add value to research. in short, it is accepted that music can contribute to creating a sense of enjoyment and also encourage reflexive memory of work done by members of the research team (grahn, 2013). pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 365 3. trauma therapy places we visit at times while undertaking research have the potential to traumatise researchers. witnessing first-hand the abject poverty-stricken circumstances under which people live; the derelict condition of local water infrastructure; or the aura of squalor in informal settlements, can be extremely traumatic. environmental degradation can also be traumatising for both researchers and participants alike. it was glenn albrecht, an australian professor in the field of environmental psychology who coined the term solastalgia for an emotional state which he observed. he described it as a psychological condition that arose when people were emotionally saddened by the decline of the environment in which they live (albrecht, 2006, pp. 34-36; albrecht et al., 2007, pp. s95-s98; glacking, 2012, pp. 209-218; hoffner, 2012; summers, et al., 2012, pp. 327-340). there is also evidence that researchers working in degraded environments where people are clearly suffering – for example as a result of the lack of clean drinking water or proper sanitation can suffer from a solastalgia. it is our conviction that music can be used as a form of therapy and potential solace when we contemplate strategies aimed at finding solutions to problems experienced in the local hydrosphere (stein, 2004, pp. 783-811; anguelovski, 2013, pp. 160-175). 4. agency role for music what we are in fact seeking is an agency role for music as medium of mimesis to help cultivate and nurture an understanding for a sense of reality, as an alternative medium of reality. every research project we undertake is in a different spatial context. therefore the latent consciousness of the researcher in recollecting what transpired is unique for every field trip. apart from universalising the concept of space or location, it makes sense to promote auditory memorisation of music related to a specific research project. in dealing with consciousness of location, chambers explains how music migrates (between culturally demarcated spaces) and the manner in which the journey in space translates into ‘poetics that unfolds beneath the sky of a world which does not necessarily originate from our actions’ (chambers, 2012, p. 14). the history of music is filled with examples of how such transformations took place and the way in which sounds changed and influenced the cultural reception of foreign auditory effects that were integrated and absorbed in the cultural environment of a given society. in our own experience there are examples of how jazz music from the american midwest (metheny, 1982), proved to be a valuable vehicle for comprehending how difficult it is to synchronise the perceptions of farmers as water users with that of officials of the south african department of water affairs (ginster et al., 2009). the blending of poetics and music dates back to antiquity, but there is also recognition of the fact that there is difficulty in reconciling, especially instrumental music with the spoken word. interestingly, prieto suggests that where music is used in conjunction with, for example, the literary text there should be an inwardly directed auditory mode of ‘listening in’, ‘where the primary object of representation is not the outside world but the subtly modulating interactions between consciousness and the world’ of which we become aware through the media of text and music (prieto, 2002, pp. x, 4-5). in our research we try not only to work through the medium of the text, but also the exchange of ideas under empirical circumstances of speech exchanges in the dialogue emerging from interviews. our research participants make notes and some make digital recordings of their interviews. there is thus a strong accent on the auditory faculty. listening to music played at the time of fieldwork can potentially add a long-term auditory message of consciousness and hermeneutic understanding situated in the cognitive faculties of the tempelhoff 366 individual researcher. therefore music should be seen as a mimetic representation of a sense of ‘real’ space that harbours memories of thought formulated and spoken within a research group at the time of fieldwork. it is also a means of cultivating recollections of what transpired in the intellectual creation of knowledge in a group context. 5. teaching researchers to listen: working on oral histories for historians working in transdisciplinary water projects the methodology of recording interviews, taking notes and then resorting to the hermeneutic interpretation of what relevant thought was communicated, is a familiar methodological procedure. oral history (thompson, 2000; thompson, 2007, 49-70; yow, 1994) has been refined and has reached levels of considerable sophistication over many years by following the well-known examples set by the peoples’ history and the history workshop movements (samuel, 1981; welchel, 2009, pp. 85-120). much of the methodology used today is based on the work of anthropological researchers in the post-colonial era after world war 2 (1939-1945). in africa this methodology made a valuable contribution towards the development of modern african history. in south africa oral history research is a lively field of investigation (moonie, 2013). although cudywat’s research activities include historians, many of our specialist researchers come from other disciplines. usually they undergo a brief training session to learn the basics of conducting oral interviews in the field. many slot easily into the work and some even express how they enjoy the heuristic process of collecting this type of information. over time many natural science researchers have pursued challenging oral research objectives and have developed innovative strategies for the transmission of information gleaned from fieldwork. when we are able to bring in local residents as stakeholder participants in our research work, they also undergo elementary training of how to conduct an interview. sometimes they make their own notes and actively participate in daily de-briefing sessions while some of the research participants make notes and digital recordings of what is said. these participants usually work in the field with a specialist researcher. thus fieldwork, especially the interviews conducted, become a collaborative project. the transmission of information collected during interviews is usually in the form of written notes and/or digital recordings. these are then recorded in the researcher’s personal archive. the ideal is for the information to be contextualised in a written discourse after the day’s fieldwork, only later to be incorporated into a narrative discourse of his/her choice in the project report. grasping the significance of what has been said and the thoughts exchanged between researcher and respondent remain an open space to promote spontaneity in a complex communications network that evolves during a research fieldwork session. much of what transpires in an interview is the result of a form of speech improvisation to shed light on a given reality related to a water-based problem. it is here where music acquires special value. the language, especially of instrumental music, is universal. it transcends the narrow confines of speech transmission by integrating rhythm, melody harmony and distinct tones that can create an atmosphere which resonates with basic human emotions. 6. meaning and the transmission of sound making use of music in the research group was at first intended to provide a moment’s reflection on the auditory and cognitive states of consciousness we go through in the process of conducting fieldwork. talking to respondents from all walks of life about issues of water by pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 367 implication means that the researcher is constantly exposed to the absorption of sound. sound coming over in the form of speech may be profound. it can also be mundane. the transmission of sound is a set of coded messages that the researcher instinctively either discards or begins to interpret so as to extract information relevant to the research at hand. our respondents in the field come from different language orientations. alternatively they communicate with us in a language that is not their own. nor would the language of communication necessarily be the researcher’s first language. south africans have developed interesting strategies of verbal communication and understanding and in most cases they are able to understand each other. when we communicate with people on water issues in the field there is usually a great deal of correspondence and mutual understanding between the researcher and the respondent. the issue of water supply or proper sanitation can be an emotional matter and there seems to be a common ground of communication in gestures and visual examples to substantiate a point that needs to be made. 7. music and the ‘rainbow nation’ the use of music is also based on the auditory or polyphonic work we are doing in the field. much of our time is spent on conducting oral interviews with local residents who are directly affected by water-related problems. in many cases, poverty-stricken people in informal settlements are the most directly affected by lapses in proper water service delivery. it is also here that some of the most significant cultural diversity prevails. since the 1990s south africa is often referred to as the rainbow nation (botha, 2000, pp. 51-76). the country is a melting pot of cultural diversity, with 11 official languages and a substantial variety of unique cultural communities that tend to co-exist in a youthful democracy where social and economic development are dominant aspirations of a society that hopes to modernise and globalise. however, there are persistent indications that many communities aspire to maintain their unique cultural and ethnic traditions which are rooted in africa, western europe and asia. since the 1990s the african cultural spectrum has become broader as a result of an influx of people, very often refugees, from neighbouring states and countries elsewhere in africa. this phenomenon is also evident in the rural parts of the country where a great deal of our research takes place. for the researcher, music can be an important medium for cultivating a better ear in listening to what goes on not only in terms of the polyphony of sounds, e.g. in a busy township, or a business district, but also in speech communication while conducting interviews. unwittingly the researcher is often exposed to the aura of a unique sound performance (mcrae, 2013, pp. 115-124) when a respondent in an interview explains how water is procured; displays the utensils for storing water; and even describes with gestures and utterances what problems are experienced in the water realm. the language of the spoken word can also become a metaphor for the sound of water running from a tap, or the pitcher that is filled at a stream and even the sound of a toilet that is flushed, a hosepipe watering a garden and the splash of laundry being washed. also in these unspoken auditary images there is evidence of rhythm, tone, melody and harmony that can be related to the idea of sounds of music of people alive to the realities of living in a culturally diverse society. tempelhoff 368 types of music used in research we have used various types of music in our research process. however, it appears as if contemporary jazz and popular music, work best. we have a diversified audience of listeners and need to create a soundscape that takes participants out of their conventional listening comfort zones, but also appeals to their sense of aesthetics. in one of our research projects we asked participants to bring along at least one cd featuring their favourite music. as the day’s fieldwork involved travelling, the plan was to listen to the music informally and exchange our views of the relevance of the different tracks to the research. later we selected one of the songs – “nine million bicycles” performed by katie melua (melua, 2005). the significance of the song was that it dealt with the issue of love, in the context of the research project, for the marico river in north west province. this fondness appeared to be bereft of logic, but at the same time, we are told by the singer to accept it as a fact, much as we accept the astronomical fact that we are ‘twelve billion light years from the edge’; the statistical reality that there are nine million bicycles in beijing; and the demographic fact that there are now just over seven billion people on the globe (batt, 2007). the song not only made sense to the members of the research group, but also to stakeholders some months later when we shared the findings of the report at a public meeting (bertram et al., 2010). how pat metheny came to carolina the use of pat metheny’s music in the carolina project came quite by chance. while doing the desktop research for the project, the author spent a great deal of time listening to a wide selection of jazz music. as the fieldwork session of october 2012 came closer it registered that we should be able to use the paul simon song “the sound of silence”,2 featured in the 2011 solo album of what’s it all about by jazz guitarist, pat metheny (metheny, 2011). in the research group we grappled with the problem of getting local political leaders and officials of the chief albert luthuli local municipality (calm) to participate in the project. there were many political issues that seemed to militate against greater access for the public into the workings of what was going on behind the scenes of one of the major municipal water crises of 2012 in mpumalanga. another factor that made the song relevant, especially for members of the local community participants was the protection of information bill that had been under discussion in the south african legislative assembly public since 2010. since 2011 cudywat researchers frequently experienced problems with local authorities to give their unstinting support in our research. this being so, it became increasingly difficult to share our research findings with stakeholders. pat metheny’s rendition of the “the sound of silence” seemed to resonate with all these underlying issues we experienced at the time. 2 . a version of the song is available on youtube at pat metheny, the sound of silence at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieminakkxhy&list=plohoqw2okqipof_3h1erkgcbxhqhul0j (accessed 2013.12.19). pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 369 illustration 3 metheny playing the pikasso guitar manufactured by canadian lutier linda manzer (photograph: pankin, 2011) the song has significant depth of meaning on many levels. simon composed the song after the assassination of jf kennedy, president of the united states of america in 1963. he recorded it with art garfunkel in 1964 (simon & garfunkel, 1964) and by 1965 the song had become a major hit (brackett, 2013). in 1967 “the sound of silence” featured in the graduate, a film starring dustin hoffman, that acquired cult status amongst american college students (elliot, 2010, p. 91; monaco, 2010, pp. 179-180). the music of simon and garfunkel, similar to that of the beatles, had a profound impact on a whole generation of 1960s baby boomers. the music formed part of protests and resistance, including anti-war sentiment; these young people were the ‘movers and shakers’, a generation that was distrustful of ‘the establishment’. the first artists to perform the music, simon and garfunkel, described the meaning of the song in diverse ways. on occasion, garfunkel explained that the song was all about the ‘inability of people to communicate’ and people generally being ‘unable to love each other’ (elliot, 2010, p. 40; benninghof, 2007, pp. 9-11). simon, in turn, complained that in his early career his songs did not seem to sell well at a music publishing company he was working for. disgruntled, he resigned and told them that he would not give them his latest composition – instead he published it himself (anon., 2013). “the sound of silence” appears to have been a statement on the sense of alienation the composer experienced. the effect that “the sound of silence” had on the research undertaken by the cudywat research team between august 2012 and march 2013 was diverse. while the fieldwork was in progress, the song immediately resonated with the mature participants. during briefing and tempelhoff 370 discussions sessions “the sound of silence” was tellingly and metaphorically even associated with simon and garfunkel’s album bridge over troubled water (1970). one participant argued that that the title track, “bridge over troubles water” would have been a more appropriate choice as theme for the carolina project, because the research group had to breech the divide that the water crisis of acid mine drainage in the boesmanspruit had caused between civil society in carolina and the local authority (cudywat, 2012). however, we persisted with “the sound of silence” in view of the fact that we had to capture the attention and interest of a larger (and more youthful) community, most of whom had probably never heard of simon and garfunkel. moreover, we needed an instrumental song which could transcend language and cultural barriers among people who had been traumatised by polluted municipal water. metheny’s music seemed appropriate for the purpose. his style of music forms part of a genre of the jazz idiom that contrasts with the conventional urban jazz environment. metheny, as is also the case with the pianist keith jarrett, seems to embrace a rural, almost pastoral aura in jazz music. ake suggests that this approach forms part of an american tradition going back to the eighteenth century; it has clear traces of the idealisation of rural and wilderness spaces. at least in the 1980s and 1990s metheny’s plaintive music-making was associated with attempts at mythologizing or imaging an ideal type of america (ake, 2007:29-59). metheny’s rendition of “the sound of silence” unfolds in a number of unusual contexts. the music is performed on a 42-string pikasso guitar that produces sounds, according to critics, that confound the listening experience with apparent ease by ‘coaxing a variety of tones and textures’. for most listeners, this could come across as ‘impossibly unwieldy’ (kelman, 2011), and yet metheny is able to create the sound effects of ‘dreamy cascades and flourishes’ (spicer, 2011). as a rule, jazz musicians deconstruct conventional musical melodies, harmonies and rhythms with the objective of creating an improvised understanding of what the piece of music is all about at a very specific point in time – a common feature also of classical music until the end of the eighteenth century (montuori, 2003, p. 247). in his rendition of “the sound of silence” metheny, the leading jazz guitarist of his generation, confounded his audience in another way. the influential industry magazine billboard in its review of the album commented on metheny’s dutiful and respectful treatment of the ‘melodic and rhythmic structure’ of the piece (anon., 2011). for bill milkowski the guitarist makes a personal statement in his music that goes against the normal commercial instincts. metheny’s ‘grab’ back to the 1960s is seen as a ‘visionary and grandiose sweep’. he produces a rendition of “the sound of silence” that comes over as the zen-like use of space for a ‘stirring interpretation’ (milkowski, 2012). if it were possible to seek a sense of metaphysics between metheny’s performance and the amd crisis in carolina the motivation of the guitarist for recording the album seems to hold the key. what’s it all about, was inspired by the 9/11 tragedy in new york city a decade earlier. it did make an impression. metheny is an accomplished musician and this album secured for him his 19th grammy in a career notable for creative and innovative musical artistry (anon., 2012). the album was metheny’s second solo guitar initiative (metheny, 2003). what stood out was that for the first time in his long recording career of more than 30 years, the album did not feature any of his own compositions (fordham, 2011). our interpretation of “the sound of silence” in the cudywat research group became a multi-layered musical discourse. originally the song had a bearing on the fact that the authorities would not speak to us. however, as we delved deeper into the realities of what had happened there was more acceptance of what had caused the disaster in the first place. originally, we concentrated on human actors interacting with the natural environment under pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 371 circumstances of disaster in which the water supply of a community was compromised. human interaction with the hydrosphere implies that a cultural dynamic comes into play. a key element – water – forms part of the natural ecology of the setting in which we operate. working in the context of social ecological systems, we used gunderson and holling’s theory of panarchy to comprehend the infinite cycle of accumulation; collapse and alternative revival; conservation; and repeated collapse over time. this provided insight into the cyclical nature of environmental crises and helped participants to comprehend what had happened over an extended period of time (holling, 2001, pp. 390-405; gunderson & holling, 2002). illustration 4. the amd-tainted weir of the municipal water storage dam of the cloal mining town carolina in the boesmanspruit in february 2012. what had been a reliable semi-perennial stream for many years, was not running at the time. (photograph: jwn tempelhoff) moreover, we took cognisance of posthuman reality. we pointed out that in focusing on the water infrastructure of a human community it is essential to note that technology is aimed at manipulating the local natural aquatic ecology. in other words the ecology had been disrupted by human actors, operating in a different yet integrated network. this being so, we discussed latour’s actor network theory (ant) and worked towards identifying non-human actors in the social ecology of carolina (latour, 2005). by interpreting the everyday reality of the world in which we operated, the boesmanspruit (the local stream – a tributary of the incomati river) was in fact the prime actor in the drama that unfolded in carolina in 2012. indeed, in the idiom of metheny’s music, the stream supplying water to the town of carolina spoke in silence to the social ecological system, warning the community of its imminent ‘death’ as a result of an over-supply of acid mine drainage. the boesmanspruit became such a dominant voice in the drama that it affected the water supply network of the town. not only was the water purification plant unable to process the water, but the town’s pipeline network was affected for an extended period of time because the remnants of sticky acid mine drainage became lodged in the water pipeline in many of the town’s low-lying areas. tempelhoff 372 and so the use of pat metheny’s music in our research process became an instrumental poem that mimed the circumstances of real-time drama for the ordinary resident in carolina. in hundreds of families, almost in silence to the world outside their frontdoor, ordinary people experienced the hardship of not having access to proper drinking water. this mimetic role of the music performed an agency function for a form of hermeneutics that initially (but in a one-dimensional context) facilitated the interpretation of human actors and the consequences of their non-communication in the network. however, as we delved deeper into the contemporary natural history of the area, an important actor became the aquatic system. we were able to comprehend the profoundly silent but marked effect it had not only on the human network of participants, but even the non-human network of purification and sanitation works, the pumps, the pipelines, reservoirs and even the ordinary taps that people used to secure life-sustaining water. conclusion in the process of researching and writing this text there were frequently communications with members of cudywat who feel strongly about the use of music in our research. in response to the author’s constant questions on how and why they had reacted to the music, colleagues replied in metaphors. one drew a comparison with vedran smailović, the “cellist of sarajevo” who played the cello in the ruins of the bosnian city in the early 1990s in remembrance of 22 people he had seen killed by an explosion while they were standing in a line to get food. one cudywat member explained that in sarajevo’s desperate situation, music was able to lift the human spirit above the violence and destructive forces of war. the use of music in our water research was then described as a search for a medium in which to understand human resilience under circumstances of hardship and suffering (cudywat, 2013: gouws [b]). another member of the group corresponded via email, while on a workrelated trip in africa. on more than one occasion he affirmed the impact metheny’s “sound of silence” had on his understanding of things. in one email he reported on an incident which occurred while he was travelling in a mini-bus on his way to a hotel in dar es salaam. a pedestrian ran in front of a vehicle in a busy street. he described the scene as follows: the oncoming truck was travelling at a moderate to fast pace when the two (the pedestrian and the vehicle) connected after which she (the pedestrian) disappeared from view for what seemed a very long time until she appeared again in the window holding the screaming pain coming from her head. the fact that she was on her stuttering feet made me think she would be ok but i am not sure as we were waved on by the uniformed policeman … i heard nothing. i felt everything … that was the loudest silence i have ever heard (cudywat, 2013: ginster). most of what we experience comes across in images and sounds. however, somehow we seldom allow the counterpoint of polyphonic sounds to register properly in all our faculties. music, it seems, can be used as a form of mimesis for creating aural spaces in which we can recreate, re-interpret and re-search for a sense of reality that is multi-layered and deep, waiting to be interpreted by us mortal beings who, all too often, are deaf to the sound of silence. pat metheny’s music and transdisciplinary research on carolina’s water td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 357-378. 373 bibliography ake, d. 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(1994). recording oral history: a practical guide for social scientists. thousand oaks, sage. microsoft word 05 ramohai.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 430445. towards a social sustainability in higher education: enhancing students’ solidarity and togetherness through collaborative projects in racially diverse learning environments j ramohai 1 abstract one key goal in the mission and vision statement of the university of the free state is to recruit the best and most diverse students who work in solidarity and togetherness across social and historical divides. this goal is further echoed in the academic divisions’ own mission and vision statements which endeavour to ensure that the broader institutional goals are met. the faculty of education in this institution for instance, in accordance with the institution’s vision, has included in their vision statement issues of diversity and social transformation which foreground the faculty’s commitment to produce teachers who show solidarity in their dealings with others. a question that is worth considering though is how these mission and vision statements can be implemented in practice by lecturers in their classes. in this paper i report on an action research project towards the realisation of the vision of togetherness and solidarity of the university of the free state and the faculty of education, in which spaces are created for collaborative work for honours classes. the results from this classroom practice indicate that students’ solidarity and togetherness in racially diverse learning environments can be enhanced through collaborative students’ work designed by lecturers. key words: sustainability, higher education, diversity, solidarity, togetherness introduction across the globe, higher education institutions (heis) take it as their human project to create spaces that are welcoming for all within their institutions (milem, chang and antonio, 2005: 23). these spaces are driven by policies and practices that take into consideration issues of diversity in the provision of services for students and in organisational learning. according to milem et al. (2005: iv), welcoming environments focus on students’ intellectual and social development and pay attention to the enhancing nature of the cultural differences that learners bring to the educational experience. it is in such environments that difference is not regarded as a negative phenomenon but as an element that contributes to the pedagogical success of students from different social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. through student and staff collaboration towards the advancement of quality education, institutions around the globe work hard to bring these parties together in an effective pedagogical practice (balasooriya, di corpo and hawkins, 2010: 3). according to the literacy and numeracy secretariat (2010: 3-4) collaborative pedagogical practices are iterative approaches in which teachers and students engage as they reflect and build on their experiences. through these, both teachers and students create diversity, broaden their thinking and ask complex questions that tap into their inner selves. at times though, institutions are challenged to create 1 juliet ramohai (phd) is a lecturer of psychology of education in the school of education studies,faculty of education at the university of the free state. her research foucuses on issue of race, gender and social justice. email: ramohaij@ufs.ac.za sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 431 environments where diversity thrives and where social spaces reflect the sustainability of upholding the institutions’ pledges to create inviting and welcoming spaces. particularly in the context of south africa, the legacy of the previous political dispensation seems to have had a bearing on the sustainability of the attempts by institutions to create environments where every constituent feels a sense of belonging. the south african education system before 1994 was marked by exclusions, racial segregations and racial stereotypes that clustered south african higher education constituencies into socially and intellectually unequal race groups (waghid, 2002: 458; bunting, 2006: 39). this higher education system was such that heis, such as universities and technikons were cast in a racial mould (carrim, 1998: 13). there were heis for white students and staff only, as well as those only for black people who were categorised into african, indian and coloured. the ideology behind this division was that of superiority and inferiority (doe 2008: 9). white people were believed to be knowledge creators at their universities and managers in the application of this knowledge in their technikons (bunting, 2006: 40). on the other hand, the education offered at black universities was engineered to be suitable for graduates to serve as assistants to white people and to teach a curriculum that was believed by the apartheid masters to be adequate for black learners (engelbrecht, 2006: 7). engelbrecht (ibid) argues that this perception of black people being intellectually inferior constituted misconceptions by their counterparts that black people could not perform academically. it was from these perceptions and divisions that both black and white groups of students and learners held intelligence stereotypes against each other. the determination by the government to redress the past divisions is clearly documented in the department of education’s white paper 3 (1997) in which issues of equity and equality are stressed. the mergers of former white (and mostly afrikaans) heis with other perceived less worthy institutions were considered a strategy that would ensure that the racial divisions in south african higher education were eradicated and equity practised by the institutions. this, together with most of the institutions’ vision and mission statements provides hope of institutional spaces that are characterised by unity and togetherness. however, the stereotypical belief of low intellectual ability on the part of black people could have led them to feel inferior, undervalued and alienated, and may still influence how they value themselves and act within the now merged institutions (mabokela, 2007: 176; osa, 2007: 2). it seems as if the past divisions that were experienced in and characterised south african heis continue to impact on the activities both staff and students experience in the new higher education landscape (ramohai, 2013: 30). rationale and statement of the problem institutions around the globe and in south africa, through their practices and programmes, have similar interests in creating spaces that are welcoming for all and that provide all constituencies with a sense of belonging and solidarity (doe, 1997; hrabowski, 2011: 3; milem, 2005: vi). the success of such projects and programmes lies mostly in how much constituencies in the institutions embrace the goals of such projects, and are willing to contribute meaningfully to the success of the goals set therein. they should endeavour to create spaces where diversity thrives and students feel welcome. at the university of the free state (ufs) there is a project termed ‘the human project’. among other important issues, this project aims at assisting students to accept and respect themselves and others, which can ramohale 432 be seen by their willingness to put aside their social differences and work together towards their own academic and social success.2 however, given its history of exclusion, discrimination and racism, within the south african higher education context and the ufs specifically, the task to realise the goals of the human project is challenging. the continued racial tensions in mostly historically white saheis (doe, 2008) present a real challenge for institutions to create a socio-habitat in which all members work together in harmony and as a unit; an environment in which both staff and students learn to embrace diversity and cooperate (ramohai, 2013: 60). since i joined the ufs, as a black female lecturer, i have observed that it is a challenge to get black and white students to work together. i believe that the major aspect that has led to this division is language (where one group has learnt in english and the other in afrikaans). students have the option to enrol for classes in either afrikaans or in english, and these two groups do not share physical spaces in classrooms. in my opinion, this contributes to the ‘othering’ that students seemed to have adopted. as true as it could be that the ufs, through a student diversity course which every first year student is required to enrol in, is creating an opportunity for this togetherness and the faculty of education through its diversity programme for the first years is doing the same, the parallel medium of instruction is in my opinion still counterproductive to these good initiatives. through this language division in classrooms, the students are not afforded a chance to get to know and understand one another by sharing experiences and knowledge in the same spaces but learn in segregated spaces while they are considered to be students within the same programmes and at the same institution. however, in the faculty of education a decision was taken that from 2011 honours classes would no longer be segregated. students in the same courses would be instructed in one lecture room, with one language being used by the lecturer (afrikaans or english), while interpreting services would be used to translate to the other language for those students who do not understand. this initiative could be regarded as the faculty’s endeavour to work closely with the vision of togetherness and oneness that the faculty and the ufs have set (while also solving other practical problems). in spite of this, although this could be seen as a positive move to ensure togetherness, as a lecturer in these classes, i have noticed that the segregation of the students has persisted even when they share the same classroom space. white students come and sit at one end of the classroom and the black students at the other end. during classroom discussions, my experience is that the black students often do not participate and the white students usually monopolise the discussions. even in instances where a student comes late to class, the student will look for a space next to those of the same race. when i have tried, at times, to get the black students engaged, they are very reluctant to take part in discussions. i have been bothered by this behaviour for a long time and even thought that perhaps i am responsible for creating an unwelcoming environment for the students and have to find a way to overcome this barrier. the question that i thus posed was: how could i change my own practice and that of my students to create an atmosphere of oneness in my class where all students feel comfortable about sitting close to one another and participating in discussions without feeling inhibited? 2. see, ufs, university of the free state website at http://www.ufs.ac.za/content.aspx?id=12 sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 433 research methodology i thus embarked on an action research study to explore the challenges that impede and frustrate the institutions’ endeavours to create an environment in which students from diverse racial backgrounds can work together in harmony and overcome these challenges. i explored how my classroom environment as exemplified through the classroom practice i undertook contributed towards the realisation of the aspirations to create unity and togetherness in the students at the ufs. my attempts to create such spaces is reported in this paper to encourage and present a challenge to other classroom practitioners to come up with ways in which they can also advance the creation of socially sustainable higher education institutions. the action research process (cf. cresswell, 2010: 28, mcniff and whitehead, 2010: 11) for this study started with problem identification in which i used my own observation (as reported in the problem statement) as a lecturer to identify areas of concern in my honours classes. i should point out here that my observations in my classes were rooted in my own disposition as a black academic within a historically white institution that was undergoing dramatic transformation. eagle, hayes and sibanda (2006: 506) caution that the researcher who engages in action oriented research should acknowledge their role and biases within their research roles. i should therefore point out that experiences of my own perceptions with regard to what on my side seemed like exclusive practices towards me as a black woman academic by my colleagues had made me sensitive to any form of situation that posed a threat for divisions among my students and my quest to challenge such systems made me aware of the lingering possibility for division among my students. i however tried not to impose this disposition on the progress of the classroom exercise that we engaged in as a class by viewing my students as a unit and not as entities of race. so, although my reporting will seem like i am pitting black students from white students, this was not done with the aim of highlighting weaknesses in any one of the groups, but to tackle the issue in hand, which was to assist my students to challenge their divisive views towards each other and to begin to work together beyond race. also, being a black woman in south africa, a country that was plagued by incidences of divisions among its people and the discrimination of black people, i could have interpreted my classroom situation, which to some people could have been a harmless situation, through the lenses of a black person that is sensitive to issues of race. it therefore needs to be understood that i approached this exercise from my standpoint as explained. standpoint approaches could be criticised as lacking credibility (eagle et.al. 2006), but as harding (1993: 51) points out, any research exercise can never be free from bias as all researchers carry their values into the research. my observations aided the discovery of how interpersonal relationships played out among students. drawing from kawulich’s (2005, nd) study on the importance of participant observation as an important aspect of reflective studies, i used the participant observer approach, in which i was a part of my students’ academic and classroom social life and worked with them to scaffold their experiences. the observations were followed by informal interviews with a few of the students (both black and white). after each informal interview, i recorded the conversation in my journal which i had kept specifically for this purpose. given (2008: 68, 522) defines informal interviews as casual conversations in which the researcher aims to discover how people conceptualise their environment and organise it into meaningful categories. in this case, students were involved in an exercise that would probe their critical thinking on matters of unity. ramohale 434 theoretical underpinning my attempt at improving my practice and that of my students departs from the philosophical underpinning of vygotsky’s social constructivism (hall, 2007: 96). basing my teaching practice on the aspects of scaffolding and collaboration, which are enshrined in social constructivism, i believe that students’ collaborative work can assist in scaffolding both their academic and social experiences. this could mean that as students work together, they can enhance their learning of the course content, while at the same time, are able to understand one another’s beliefs, values and attitudes. these social aspects are very important in an educational environment. if students understand other people’s beliefs and values, they can form learning communities that respect diversity and difference and that work towards the achievement of their goals. knowledge of such diversity contributes to the rich array of learning experiences that individuals bring to the education environment. within the collaborative exercise, particular focus was given to how my students and i challenged the issues of marginalisation of each other’s experiences and knowledge and also how we could fall into the trap of problematising other’s social identities. the two concepts, marginalisation and problematisation, were drawn from essed (1991:208) and harding (1993: 51), who both have a strong inclination towards standpoint positions and strongly believe that marginalisation and problematisation divide people in racially diverse context. marginalisation and problematisation according to essed (ibid) suggest that people who are seen as racially and ethnically different are stereotyped as less intelligent, linguistically deficient, and lack social skills. this is the reason why those that consider themselves possessing stronger qualities than the others often exclude and discriminate against those that they believe to be weaker (even if subconsciously). in such cases, those that are discriminated against fail to function optimally and at times end up internalising such stereotypes and unconsciously act to confirm them. such social dynamics could play themselves in any sphere of human interaction and it was my aim with the classroom practice reported in this paper, to explore if such processes could also be playing themselves out in the situation which i interpreted as problematic in my classroom. through scaffolding within the ambit of these two processes, i believed that learners could get to understand each other’s identities and challenge any stereotypes that they could have about themselves and each other. these two processes formed an analytical frame in the analysis of information collected. participants i engaged my educational needs honours class in collaborative exercises with the purpose of enhancing togetherness amongst them. this class consisted of 23 members; 13 white students and 12 black students. the collaborative exercises that i gave to my students required them to compile researched information on barriers to learning in an education setting. among the factors that formed part of the reading material were racial issues as a barrier to learning. i chose this class as it seemed the most suitable because the module that they were doing dealt with issues of inclusion in education. as a result, this group was in a better position to understand the factors that would impact on the unity of learners in class, of which race could be one of them. as inclusive education students, this group would further need to understand that they were going to work with diverse learners in schools and therefore needed to equip themselves with the skills that would prepare them for the realities of diversity in the school classroom. i saw the collaborative exercises as a way of exposing my sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 435 students to the realities of the world of work in which they would experience diverse communities. findings as stated earlier, the action research exercise reported in this study followed a cyclic approach. it involved a cycle of planning, taking action, reflecting on and evaluating the action taken to improve our practice; then starting all over again with a new plan where the previous one seemed not to have yielded the required results. during the problem identification phase, i approached some of the learners informally, in conversations and asked them why they seemed to be withdrawing from one another in class. i spoke to the students in groups and individually. these steps that i took aligned with the general way in which action research is conducted, where central issues of problem identification, planning, taking action, and reflections and evaluation are central to ensuring the success of the action research project (mcniff and whitehead, 2010: 26). below i report on the results of my observations and the informal interviews that i conducted with my students. problem identification there were a number of issues that students raised during the discussions i had with them. the major problem that seemed to characterise students’ perceptions and beliefs about one another was race. they seemed to have slotted each other into groups of white and black and as a result, based their judgement on their internalised thoughts about each other. this clustering and slotting is according to essed (1991: 204) a result of the social and political socialisation that individuals get from their communities and societies. looking at the past sahe landscape as depicted earlier (see introduction), the past political dispensation still had a bearing on how the students viewed themselves and the ‘other’ in the lecture room. this was apparent in their responses during my conversations with them as individuals and groups. of the issues that they raised, they highlighted feelings of non-acceptance from their peers, a negative evaluation of self when in a biracial group and issues concerning the different languages of instruction to which students are exposed at the ufs. these issues are discussed below. perceptions of uninviting attitudes from white classmates this point was raised mainly by the black students who claimed that they had tried in some classes to sit next to their white counterparts. they reported that their white classmates seemed uncomfortable when sitting next to them. this became evident when white students would immediately change seats if a black student came to sit next to them. in one conversation that i had with the black students regarding separate sitting, this is the response that i received: ma’am, it is so difficult to sit next to those people. they make you feel so unwelcome. you will not understand this ma’am, but sometimes they practically stand to sit somewhere else if you try to sit where they are. haven’t you noticed that they sit alone together in class? we talk about it all the time with my colleagues and we think that they have a feeling that we are not as clever as they are... ramohale 436 this complaint about exclusions in the sitting arrangement basically came from the black students. i could not help but wonder why the white students did not raise the same issue. could it be that they were not bothered by the sitting arrangement and perhaps did not notice the negative message that it conveyed to their classmates? essed (1991: 205) points out that some of these excluding behaviours are normalised within communities and the perpetrators never get to understand the effects of their behaviours on others. she further argues that, in racially diverse communities, race itself as a social construct, influences ingroup favouritism and out-group exclusions. this could have been the reason that my students, perhaps unconsciously preferred to form a sitting arrangement with those that they felt uncomfortable with. the problem with this in class though could be the resulting stereotypes that students could end up forming about one another in different groups. in the quote from the student above, the stereotype regarding intelligence could already be felt in the last line of her response, ‘we think they have a feeling that we are not as clever as they are.’ tatum (2003: 60,61), in her book why do all black students sit alone in the cafeteria, argues that it is these kind of thoughts, in which black students feel alienated, that bring them closer together in one group, forming an in-group that pushes any out-group members out; since these do not share a similar identity with the in-group members. perceptions and evaluation of self from my own interpretative analysis of the conversations that i had with the black students, i noticed that they perceived themselves not on par with their classmates with regard to efficiency during class discussions and overall performance and understanding of concepts. they pointed to this as a reason for them not participating in discussions for fear of getting answers wrong and humiliating themselves. responses like, ‘ma’am, i just feel uncomfortable to respond in class, these people know so much they make you feel like you don’t know anything’ and ‘i don’t feel comfortable ma’am. those ladies (white students) know most of this inclusive education stuff. us in lesotho we don’t have inclusive education. what if i get an answer wrong and they laugh at me. but i will try to take part ma’am.’ these and other responses indicated that the black students regarded the white students’ willingness to engage in classroom discussions and to ask challenging questions as a sign of intelligence, while themselves were not since they did not have enough experience of the south african inclusive education context. consequently, this led the black students (especially those from lesotho) to feel that the context knowledge that those from south africa had, gave them the upper hand in the discussions, as they would draw from their own school experiences. the only two south african black students that i had in my class, did not have a problem with understanding inclusion, but they however mentioned that they felt intimidated by the fluent way in which the white students expressed themselves. as a result of this, they also did not participate much in the class discussions. while the above concern from the black students regarding their lack of sufficient detail in issues of inclusive education in south africa could be justified, and while it could be understandable that this exerted a lot of pressure on the image of the black students and influenced their participation in class, i was concerned about the disabling impact this could have on them. they seemed to have resorted to forming their own comfortable spaces where they had convinced one another not to engage in classroom discussion and also had formed a space where they sat in a cluster in one part of the class. according to daniel (2009: 4) this behaviour is a common defence mechanism in people who feel threatened by a social space, in which they feel excluded and ignored; they feel they do not have enough worthy knowledge sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 437 capital to share with others. although this kind of resistance mechanism is not created outside the classroom but within the very same space shared with those that pose a threat, daniel (ibid) refers to this mechanism as a ‘home-place’ or ‘community of resistance’ (page 4), in which black people locate themselves to affirm one another and to find a safe space. in my view as a lecturer within a transforming institution, i felt that this could have a negative influence to the spirit of togetherness envisioned in the mission statement of the ufs and therefore needed to be addressed. language differences both white and black students pointed to language differences as another main reason why they sat separately in class and did not favour working in groups with those using a different language. however, although this point was raised by both groups, it was raised from different standpoints. on the one hand, the black students felt that afrikaans as a language of formal communication and instruction was used by their peers to exclude them. on the other hand, the afrikaans speaking students felt it was their right to use a language that they were comfortable with and one of the official languages used by the ufs, which made it difficult for them to form discussion groups with those that were using english for communication purposes. in this case, elements of marginalisation and problematisation as discussed earlier (essed, 1991; harding, 1993) could already be traced, with black students seeing the problem as lying in the white students and the white students protecting their right to use their preferred language on the exclusion of others. this was a problem that needed to be tackled and i went to the planning stage already conscious of the students positions. most of the white students with whom i had conversations indicated that they were comfortable in afrikaans (which most of the non-afrikaans speakers did not understand) and during group discussions they used the language to communicate. some of the responses were the following: you should understand that we understand more if we discuss with people that understand our language. it is not like we have anything against our classmates. but when you discuss, the most natural language is your own language. i hope you understand that... ma’am, i hope you are not insinuating that we are being discriminatory. i assure you, that it is not an issue here. we struggle very much in class having to speak english and some of us don’t understand that language well. you can’t speak afrikaans either. so, we find it a bit easier to understand the concepts in class if we get a chance to discuss them in afrikaans. sitting together at one part of the class, i think is for this purpose. besides, even you cannot feel comfortable if you are not sitting close to your friend in class. this has nothing to do with race! despite the above seemingly sound reasons that students claim contributed to a lack of unity and oneness in class through exclusion; i was still troubled and wanted to improve the situation. the segregated sitting and preference for same race groupings did not open spaces for collaborative work among these students. the group assignments and portfolios that they had to compile needed group effort. such collaborative work was, in all cases, racially biased. my question was: how as a lecturer i could prepare these students for the realities of diversity, a situation that they were going to meet in school after their training as teachers? ramohale 438 planning in line with the action research approach of mcniff and whitehead (2010: 11) and cresswell (2010: 28), i had to consider a plan that could help address the problem in my class. since this was an inclusive education class, i decided that i would use the concept of inclusion to reach out to my students through a whole class discussion. in our classes, inclusion is conceptualised as a process in which everybody benefits from a pedagogical process, regardless of differences in abilities, ethnicity, gender and race (education white paper 3, 2001). for some time we had discussed inclusion not only in the context of the school, but also how aspects of inclusion could also be applied in our higher education lecture rooms. i decided that i would use this conceptualisation as a point of departure to initiate a discussion on acceptance of the ‘other’. furthermore, my plan was that if the discussions succeeded in making my students see the need to work together beyond colour and language divisions, i would then give them a group assignment to work on. this assignment would require students to carry out research on what inclusion entailed in racially diverse education contexts. the exercise would still be in line with the content of the course; thus, they would not feel side-tracked by it. my plan was to mix the groups in terms of race. i could not emphasise gender because my class was predominantly female, with the exception of two males. it should be noted that although some people may view this exercise as one undertaken only by myself as a lecturer without contributions from my class, i believed that it could work in bringing unity to students, if they were not fully aware of the purpose of the exercise. my belief was that if i kept them informed and involved in the planning from the beginning, some would possibly work hard to display the disingenuous unity that i needed while doing the assignments, without the commitment to change their practice. i needed them to first understand the importance of unity and oneness by engaging in discussions and then implementing their understanding by working together in groups. thereafter, through class discussions, they would be involved in a reflection exercise which would tap into how much they had used the discussions to reflect on their own practices and how much their initial visions had been challenged by the exercises. taking action my first step in addressing the problems that my students had raised was to give them a group assignment. generally group assignments are beneficial for students as they help them to work together to accomplish shared goals and to maximise their potential and that of the others (iteach, 2009: 4). to do the first exercise in my case, the students were divided into groups of three members. to ensure that the groups were racially mixed, i had the students sitting in a circle and picking from a box papers on which i had written the numbers one to three. all the ones, twos, and threes sat together. i should clarify that as students sat in a circle to pick group numbers i asked them to ensure that they were racially mixed to avoid having the same race members in one group. the task involved students visiting two schools within a period of two weeks to observe how teachers addressed the challenges of diversity. the findings from these observations needed to be presented by the groups in class. they also had to make use of the library and research intervention strategies that could assist teachers in schools to handle issues of diversity. the focus of the observations was not on race as the only item of observation, since this was not the purpose of the exercise. however, i sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 439 believed that as these groups collaborated in gathering information about diversity, they would be challenging their own beliefs, attitudes and stereotypes pertaining to diversity. presentations after two weeks during the presentations in class, i noticed that there were groups that had worked together on the assignment and others that had not worked together. the presentations followed a 15-minute report on the observations and 15 minutes of questions from the whole class. some groups had not chosen a person to present on their behalf. they all stood in-front of the class and each presented a piece. what i noticed was that this approach was taken by the groups that had not worked through the task as a group, but had opted to allocate small tasks to group members to do for both the observations and the literature search. this was evident in the organisation of the information which affected the coherence of the presentation. in these cases, every member of the group read from what they had prepared and it was difficult for group members to support one another during questions. for example, in one group, a member raised an issue of staff seating arrangements that she had observed in one school which she thought showed a lack of team spirit between black and white teachers. during the questioning session, group members could not substantiate why they thought sitting in separate spaces for the teachers would affect teachers’ awareness of diversity. they all looked at the person who raised the issue to respond. after the presentation, i allowed time for the students to reflect on the presentations in general. reflections are considered an essential part of a collaborative exercise. according to the literacy and numeracy secretariat (2010: 4), setting aside moments for reflection provides opportunities for collective thinking in which students and their teachers can plan their next step of action to improve practice. in our presentations, students themselves had noticed that groups did not get together to discuss, but presented individual work standing in-front of the class in a group. after this first presentation, the students and i worked together on identifying the reasons why the task was not a success. some of the reasons that were raised included staying far from one another, other members not willing to sit in a group and reluctance to contribute during group discussions. what i experienced resonates with the view of balasooriya, di corpo and hawkins (2010: 2, 3), that it was a challenge to manage group dynamics when facilitating collaborative learning. we however agreed that marks should not be allocated for the activity and to give groups time to discuss their experiences during school observations and subsequently present an integrated voice to their observations. the challenges of working together in context where racial tensions had sown divisions were evident in this exercise. these types of challenges have been discussed by balasooriya, di corpo and hawkins (2010: 2) as emanating from a lack of trust, stereotypes of inferiority and superiority and students who just work better in their own spaces. in addition,, issues of a lack of cohesion, difficult personalities and a lack of motivation were also highlighted as hindering successful collaborative learning among students (numeracy secretariat, 2010: 5). these group problems seemed also to play a role in the groups formed and were some of the issues that were raised during our reflection session. regarding the issue of students staying far from one another, we suggested the use of technology as a communication tool. this included the use of cell phones through smss, facebook, whatsapp and other social networks, as well as the online teaching and learning platform that the ufs uses, namely blackboard. on blackboard there was a discussion forum (space) for students and lecturers and it could be an effective tool for discussions. students could also use these spaces to share the literature that ramohale 440 they had read in preparing for the presentation. one other suggestion that was raised was to choose one member in each group, who could present the group work. after this reflection and evaluation session, students appeared to be more satisfied and some indicated that they were looking forward to working on the task again. i should point out that the exercise was also challenging for me as a practitioner striving to improve my own practice. i had to reflect on how damaging it could be to insist that students work in groups, when they show resistance to this practice. my major concern was that i was robbing the afrikaans students of a chance to use their language when mixing them with non-afrikaans speakers. this could be regarded by my students as against the ufs dual language policy which clearly stipulates that students have a right to choose the medium of instruction between english and afrikaans (ufs language policy, 2001). the other concern was the exposure that i was giving to my english speaking students, who had clearly indicated that their colleagues were reluctant to engage in english. i had to achieve a balance between encouraging my students to work together and what balasooriya, di corpo and hawkins (2010: 2) believe “actually harm individuals and the learning climate”. while at some point i thought pursuing my goal of bringing unity and togetherness among my students was futile, i decided to continue with the exercise and take the risk of being called to task for disrupting the students’ learning. before the students could continue with their next round of presentations, i reminded them that the exercise was not meant to compromise any one of them but to create a learning environment in which people could enhance one another’s learning. we discussed vygotsky’s social constructivism in stressing the importance of others in a learning environment and emphasised that in working together in the exercise that i had given to them, they were scaffolding one another’s learning experiences. i also reminded them that they would be dispatched to schools at the end of their studies, where they would have to work with people from diverse backgrounds. i urged them to view the exercise as a form of practice in preparation for the realities of the schools in which they were to work. second phase of presentations the second phase of our presentations went much better than the first round. the students came well prepared and the team spirit was apparent from the seating arrangements in class. when i walked into the class, the students were still finishing up their presentations and they were sitting in circles in groups. i did not disturb the continuing discussions as i believed they were serving the purpose for which they were meant: getting students to work together. i allowed an extra fifteen minutes for them to complete the exercise. when the discussions started, they had group representatives to present and some groups had designed power points and posters for their presentations. much effort had gone into the presentations. i noticed this, for example, from the projections which had citations. almost all the groups, with the exception of one, related their presentations to their own experiences and the questioning sessions turned into real debates on how the issues of inclusion and diversity related to everybody in class. i was impressed that without accusing one another, students took time in their groups to reflect on how schools were handling issues of diversity and how they created spaces for diversity to thrive. the challenge that arose however was that the class challenged one another on how inclusive they were themselves and at the end the presentations turned into the ufs case of black and white divisions and how these are also apparent in the school context. i was really worried sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 441 that this could cause divisions in class, since this discussion seemed to take the direction of blaming one another for failure to accommodate diversity. however, i drew direction from the numeracy secretariat (2010: 1) that noted that collaborative exercises had to assist students to reflect on their actions and underlying beliefs which had the potential to harm unity within the social context. during our discussion, the white students claimed that they were always willing to accommodate everybody but their black colleagues seemed to reject them only because they regarded every white person as racist. i became concerned that the discussion would turn into a heated argument on race and that it would spoil the intended outcome. thus, i intervened by asking the students to focus more on the findings of their exercise and to reflect on the suggested interventions from the literature and their observations as a point of departure to challenge their own dispositions, feeling that this could be a way of helping my students to reflect on themselves. according to balasooriya (2010: 4), reflecting on oneself during collaborative learning assists in the development of positive group dynamics. based on this assumption, i encouraged my students that in the next class, which was to be our last class, we would look at our personal reflections on how we could improve our own endeavours to accept difference and diversity and work in unity and togetherness. what made it easy for such discussions to continue in all the contact sessions was that the module was non-examinable, so we could delve into any issue of inclusion without fear that we were not covering the content that would be asked in the examination, while still working within the intended outcomes of the module. i left the class that day with mixed feelings; satisfied as well as challenged. since the exercise was meant to enhance the togetherness of students through collaborative projects and exercises, i had to evaluate the success of the exercise. i also interrogated the role that i played in the whole exercise as a course lecturer with the outcomes, as stated in the study guide and as a facilitator of these critical discussions. i also had to reflect on how, in the process of trying to facilitate unity among my students and exposing them to the realities of diversity, i was improving my own practice in terms of showing the same spirit of togetherness and unity in my own class. the debate that my students had during the presentations alerted me to some of the issues that threatened the realisation of the vision and mission of the ufs and the faculty of education to function beyond all types of divisions and work in unity. i realised that to facilitate unity, i also had to be open to my students, as well as being conscious of diversity at the ufs. reflection and evaluation last phase of presentations (personal reflections) the task for this round of discussions was for all of us to choose any issue from our second discussion and indicate how it challenged us to interrogate the way we had been doing things or to indicate how it challenged our thinking. we had to do this by linking our reflections to one of the outcomes of the course which was to enable students to demonstrate insights into the systems of inclusion and exclusion within the south african education context. during the discussions, some students felt that working together in unity and appreciating diversity was threatened by language divides. one student, who was also a staff member at the ufs, said the following about language: ramohale 442 we never think about how much impact the use of language that is not understood by others influence the perceptions that people formulate about us have. i think if we had a common language we would have dealt with one factor that divide us and then we would have to fewer issues to work on. i feel that i have to show that i appreciate others and want to accommodate them by speaking the language that they understand. the majority of the class understood the need to accommodate others by using a common language. this took us to our next point, which was sitting separately in class. luckily, this was one of their own observations during school visits that white and black staff members, in most of the schools they visited, did not sit together during short and long break and that this led to the staff members not understanding one another’s background, which in turn, was a threat to unity. the students promised that they would sit next to the person of the other race in all classes as a way of getting to understand the ‘other’. we all wished that the class we had had that day was not the last class, otherwise we would start implementing our suggestions in our own class. one other issue that came up in the reflections involved students’ awareness during their school visits that schools in general are diverse, ranging from disability to class and race. the students had noticed how challenging it was for teachers to adapt to this diversity and to handle students from diverse backgrounds. they realised how important it was for teachers in schools to get to understand their learners and colleagues to create healthy learning environments. the group became excited as they brainstormed ways in which such diversity could be handled. some of their suggestions were: • teachers understanding of the learners’ cultural background; • teachers being sensitive to diversity and treating each learner as an individual with the potential to succeed; • teachers regarding all learners as valuable and having the potential to succeed; and • teachers should understand that learners are different but may all come with knowledge that could contribute positively to the learning experience. these points were then used to reflect on our own behaviour when dealing with others and we all felt that there is always room for improvement. the class ended with all students willing to improve on their view of others. discussion the classroom practice that my class and i engaged in, shows that there is a possibility that if staff and teachers put effort into creating socially sustainable learning environments, there could be success. although, through the demanding exercise that my students and i engaged in, it could be noticed that elements of marginalisation and problematisation got exposed in all of us, through the collaborative exercise that we engaged in as a class our behaviours were challenged and we found a space to get to understand one another. it has surfaced as is reported in this paper that students almost turned the exercise into a race war, almost failing to take accountability for their own actions, but blaming the ‘other’ and justifying their exclusions of each other. what made this exercise successful was that these students moved sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 443 from their positions of marginalisation and problematisation. although, at the beginning, the students defaulted on stereotypical thinking about each other as black and white, through the exercise in which they immersed themselves, they improved on their negative beliefs, attitudes and approaches towards one another. this seemed to be in harmony with the belief of some of the learning experts, who also consider collaborative reflective exercises as a way of scaffolding learners’ academic and social experiences (balasooriya, di corpo and hawkins, 2010: 1; numeracy secretariat, 2010: 4). the problems that the students raised at the beginning of this action research exercise had at first seemed insurmountable. both groups of black and white learners seemed to have believed that it was impossible for them to work together as a unit and to understand that every single one of them could bring to the learning experience some knowledge capital that could benefit everybody else. after the collaborative exercise, they began to see the potential in one another. the stereotypes that they had held about each other at the beginning had been dealt with successfully. the success could be seen in the reflections that they had had in class. although it cannot be claimed that the students totally moved beyond their differences, they at least had gone through a self-reflective exercise that influenced them to interrogate their view of diversity. the importance of reflective practices within the education context is emphasised by bolton (2009: 4) who strongly believes that reflections pave the way for students to engage in challenging questions. these questions that are mainly directed at oneself should not only be descriptive about one but should also challenge the “political and social structures” that shape a person (page 25). as such, important points during a collaborative reflective exercise could be: • what you can change in your context; how to work with what you cannot; • how to value the perspective of others, however different they are to you; • how others perceive you, and their feelings and thoughts about events; • why you become stressed, and its impact on life and practice; and • how to counteract seemingly given social, cultural and political structures. (bolton, 2009: 4) it is in view of this that i believe that at the end my students were sensitised towards transformation and their initial beliefs and dispositions positively changed, because they challenged themselves by reflecting on the abovementioned points. conclusion the vision of the ufs is to be a university “recognised across the world for excellence in academic achievement and in human reconciliation”3. drawing from this institutional vision, the faculty of education also strives to affirm “the dignity of its students, its staff and the community with which it engages, and draws on their diversity as a source of strength.”4 3 http://www.ufs.ac.za/content.aspx?id=12 4 http://edu.ufs.ac.za/content.aspx?id=14 ramohale 444 this commitment to create spaces that are welcoming for all (cf. milem et al., 2005) is declared in the ufs mission statement to demonstrate “in everyday practice the value of human togetherness and solidarity across social and historical divides”. this paper reported on a challenge that i set myself, in line with the vision and mission of the institution and of the faculty of education to change my own classroom practice and that of my students to create an atmosphere of unity in an environment where students can thrive and meaningful learning can take place. through the process of action research, i believe this project has contributed to the intended outcome of togetherness, even if only on a small scale. my students and i were limited in terms of time; nevertheless, i believe that i should try to build on this by continuing to engage my students in similar exercises and to work collaboratively with all lecturers on the programme towards sustainability. bibliography balasooriya, c, di corpo, s and hawkins, n. 2010. ‘the facilitation of collaborative learning: what works?’ higher education management and policy. 22(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/hemp-22-5kmd4hqzhwvh. accessed: 15 october 2013 bunting, i. 2006. the higher education landscape under apartheid. higher education dynamics. 10 (1): 35-52. carrim, n. 1998. anti-racism and the 'new' south african educational order. journal of education. 3(28). cresswell, j. & clark p. 2008. designing and conducting mixed method research. london: sage. daniel, j. 2009. ‘african american women’s journey to academia and their experiences as occupational therapy professors.’ mcnair scholars’ research journal. 2(1): 49-66. doe. 2001. special needs education: building an inclusive education and training. pretoria: doe. doe (department of education). 2008. report of the ministerial committee on transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher education institutions. pretoria: doe. eagle, g., hayes, g., & sibanda, t. 2006. standpoint methodologies. in: terre blanche, m., durrheim, k. & painter, d (eds). research in practice. cape town: cup. essed, p. 1991. everyday racism. in essed, p (ed). understanding everyday racism: an interdisciplinary theory. newbury park ca: sage. given, l. 2008. the sage encyclopaedia of qualitative research methods. london: sage. hall, a. 2007. ‘vygotsky goes online: learning design from a socio-cultural perspective.’ learning and socio-cultural theory: exploring modern vygotskian perspectives international workshop 2007. 1(1): 94-107. harding, s. 1993. rethinking standpoint epistemology: what is ‘strong objectivity’. in alcoff, l & potter, e (eds). feminist epistemologies. london: routledge. sustainability in higher education: solidarity, togetherness and collaborative projects td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 430-445. 445 hrabowski, d. 2011. institutional change in higher education: innovation and collabroration. a policy paper: mcraw-hill. kawulich, b. 2005. ‘participant observation as a data collection method.’ forum qualitative sozialforschung / forum: qualitative social research. 6(2). http://nbnresolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0502430. accessed: 15 october 2013 literacy and numeracy secretariat. 2010. ‘collaborative teacher inquiry.’ the capacity building series (special edition). (16): 1-8. mabokela, o & wei, n. 2007. ‘lingering effects of the past on a university merger process in post-apartheid south africa.’ international education journal. 160-171. mcniff, j. 2010. action research for professional development: concise advice for new action research. london: sage. milem, j., chang, m. & antonio, a. 2005. making diversity work on campus: a research-based perspective. usa: association american colleges and universities. ramohai, j. 2013. a living journey towards understanding black woman academics’ perceptions of social transformation in south african higher education. unpublished phd thesis. tatum, d. 2003. why are all black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? usa: basicbooks. ufs. 2003. language policy. bloemfontein: ufs. waghid, y. 2002. ‘knowledge production and higher education transformation in south africa: towards reflexivity in university teaching, research and community service.’ higher education. 43(4): 457 488. dagverhaal van ‘n grenssoldaat 294 sal navors en ontrafel’ en ‘dra die inhoud op aan my strydmakkers en ons nageslagte om die gebeure te beleef soos dit vir ons voor die oë van god afgespeel het’ (p. 8). maar as stoere afrikanernasionalis binne sy bepaalde denkskool laat hy sy werk ook na as ‘n bron ‘opdat ons nie vergeet nie en diegene wat na ons kom ons van die skande wat halfhartige en wankelmoedige bewindhebbers oor ons verlede en toekoms gebring het, kan reinig’ (p. 278). met ‘n familiegeskiedenis wat die letsels van die angloboereoorlog en die britse konsentrasiekampe dra, skryf hy, ‘weet ek en my mense baie... van verdrukking deur vreemde oorheersing’ (pp. 1-2). van sy voorouers het hy geleer hoe sy ‘prioriteit ten opsigte van die mensheid moet lê, verloop en moet wees, naamlik “eie volk eerste!” (p. 2). boskroniek is die verwoording van die vergestalting van ‘n ‘militêre droom’ waarmee bakkes reeds as ‘n jong seun ‘besiel [was] as gevolg van die naweë van die [anglo-boere] oorloë, rebellie en staking [1922] waarin ek groot word’ (p. 4). as tienderjarige was hy met die uitbreek van die tweede wêreldoorlog ‘baie gretig’ om sy ‘(militêre) droom te verwesenlik’ en het hy by die ossewa-brandwag se ondergrondse militante vleuel, die stormjaers, aangesluit om ‘as jong ondergrondse stryder... [sy] gewig teen die geallieerdes (in te gooi)’ (p. 1), ‘vasberade dat die britse union jack neergehaal word’, maar terselfdertyd ook vasberade dat ‘n ‘republiek geproklameer word voordat die duitse hakekruis in die union jack se plek oor suid-afrika begin wapper’ (p. 4). met die duitse oorgawe in 1945 het hy hom ‘aan die verloorkant... bevind’ en was, in sy woorde, ‘ons republiekwording nie militêr verwesentlik soos ek begeer het nie, maar my militêre droom bly nog steeds brandend soos toe dit in my kindergemoed ontwaak het’ (p. 5). bakkes het ná die tweede wêreldoorlog as vrywilliger eers by die aktiewe burgermag en kort daarna, as dosent in krygsgeskiedenis aan die militêre akademie, by die sa staande mag aangesluit om sy lankgekoesterde ‘militêre droom’ uit te lewe. in navolging van dié droom het bakkes begeer om aktief betrokke te raak by die teeninsurgensiestryd, die ‘bosoorlog’, waarin die rsa sedert 1966 in noordnamibië gewikkel was en so deel te word van wat hy beskou het as die voortgesette vryheidstryd van die afrikaner. sy droom het in vervulling gegaan toe daar teen 1977 enersyds openbare kritiek was dat ‘jong seuns [militêre dienspligtiges] in die grensgebied... die spit moet gaan afbyt, terwyl die ouer offisiere relatief veilig... buite gevaarsones die gevegsbeplanning doen’, en daar andersyds ‘n behoefte ontstaan het om ‘die bestaande offisierskorps se gevegservaring vinniger uit te brei na ‘n breër spektrum veral van die burgermag en die kommando’s... [en] ook die staande mag... as gevolg van die steeds naderkruipende terreuroorlog na die suid-afrikaanse binneland...’ (p. 7). sodanige offisiere is die geleentheid gebied om vrywillig as gewone manskappe grensdiens te verrig. bakkes, toe ‘n kommandant in die burgermag en op 52-jarige leeftyd ‘n toonbeeld van liggaamlike fiksheid, het hierdie geleentheid met beide hande aangegryp en hom gretig as gewone voetsoldaat in leefwêreld van die grensvegter begewe. bakkes se werk verskil veral in twee opsigte van die meeste ander werke wat die afgelope paar jaar oor die bosoorlog verskyn het. eerstens handel dit nie oor die hoogtepunt van die oorlog nie, maar speel dit af in die tydperk april tot junie 1977 voordat suid-afrika se teeninsurgensie-operasies in opvolg-, hakkejag en voorsprongoperasies oor die angolese grens heen geëskaleer het. tweedens is dit nie ‘n boek in die konvensionele sin van die woord nie, maar ‘n greep uit sy dagboek wat hy reeds sedert 1942 byhou. dit is egter ook nie ‘n konvensionele dagboek nie. hy bied sy ‘dagverhaal’ aan in die vorm van ‘n ‘dagbrief ’ aan sy vrou, aangevul deur korter briewe wat hy tydens sy ‘bostoer’ aan haar, sy vier kinders, sy moeder en ander familielede, asook vriende en kollegas geskryf het. boekresensie 295 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 293-297. die boek beslaan twintig kort hoofstukke en word afgesluit met ‘n aanhangsel waarin hy ‘n bondige evaluasie maak van die bydrae wat sy kompanie tydens hul ‘bostoer’ tot die grensoorlog gelewer het. hoofstuk i word voorafgegaan deur ‘n vyftal bedankingsbriewe aan persone wat sy manuskrip beoordeel en hom andersins met die versorging van sy werk behulpsaam was. hoofstuk i bestaan uit ‘n outobiografiese skets wat sy jeug, loopbaan en lewensfilosofie in enkele paragrawe saamvat en die aanloop tot sy grensdiens verduidelik. hoofstukke ii tot x behandel die mobilisasie van die militêre eenheid waarin hy saam met ‘n mengelmoes van kommando, burgermagen staandemagoffisiere opgeneem is, naamlik die (danie theron) krygskoolkompanie, asook hul verskuiwing vanaf kimberly na oshivello in namibië en hul opleiding in daardie omgewing. dié opleiding, waartydens hulle ‘soos gewone troepe... gedril, gedryf en gejaag’ (p. 111) is, was vir bakkes louter vreugde. hy skryf in dié verband: ‘meteens oorstelp ‘n grote dankbaarheid my. ek sluit my oë en ek praat met god en dank hom vir die groot ”geskenk” aan my – die geleentheid om weer aan ‘n oorlog te mag deelneem’ (p. 26). en verder: ‘om so fiks, gesond en blymoedig te wees, is weelde. onder sulke omstandighede is die duitse spreuk: “es gibt kein schöneres leben als das soldatenleben” onteenseglik waar’ (p. 67). hoofstukke xi tot xvii vorm die hoofelement van bakkes se verhaal. dit beskryf naamlik die operasionele ontplooiing van die krygskoolkompanie in die oshigambo-area en sy wederervaringe as gewone manskap tydens patrollies, vee-operasies, padblokkades en (nagtelike) hinderlae. hy beskryf haas elke tree wat hy en sy makkers gee, elke handeling wat hulle uitvoer, die terrein, plantegroei, klimaat, asook die plaaslike bevolking en hul leefwyse. die plaaslike bevolking in ovamboland was deurgaans sterk swapo-gesind. bakkes en sy kamerade het derhalwe met die oog daarop om steun te werf en op ‘subtiele wyse’ inligting in te win’ (p. 141) dikwels besoeke aan krale en dorpies gebring, gesprekke met hoofmanne gevoer, leeus geskiet wat hul beeste gevang het en soms self elementêre mediese hulp verleen. almal was egter nie ontvanklik vir hul pogings nie. hy skryf: ‘ons kom by ‘n beeskraal. daar is ‘n ou madala en twee klonkies met stertriempies. ek probeer aan laasgenoemde elk ‘n soldatebeskuitjie gee. hulle weier die aanvaarding konsekwent. “hardegatjies!” dink ek en steek verleë my beskuitjies in my dysak’ (p. 146). bakkes lewer deurlopende kommentaar op elkeen wat hy teëkom – van sy kamerade, hul flechaspoorsnyer en ovambo-tolk, tot die bevelselement in die operasionele gebied in ovamboland (2 militêre gebied), laasgenoemde feitlik almal sy oudstudente aan die militêre akademie. hy skets hul uniekhede en besing hul persoonlike deugde, maar spreek ook soms kritiek uit op hul tekortkominge. sy beskrywing is deurgaans eerlik, grafies en filosofies, maar terselfdertyd ook fyn prosa.⁵ hy slaag goed daarin om die leser self te laat ervaar wat hy beleef het. so skryf hy onder meer ‘dit is nou baie warm en ons plof aan deur baie dik, los (wit) sand. ons sweet... ons stap lui en stadig... (ons) dra swaar... eindeloos strek die sandkaplyn oor afrika na die son’ (p. 146). onder hierdie omstandighede probeer bakkes aan sy minder geesdriftige makkers deurgaans ‘die boodskap oordra dat indien ons die ding hier in die wildernis wil doen, ons onversaag en eindeloos moet wees. ons moet onverslytbaar, onvermurfbaar, onbreekbaar, dag na dag, ondanks son en sand, in die woestyn aanwesig bly en ons laat geld’ (p. 146). op p. v haal hy vir kobie gouws aan wat opgemerk het dat sy dagboek “stuk-stuk letterkunde (bevat) – 5. afrikaans wat die leser diep in die hart gryp... al sou hierdie dagboek dan kwansuis nie meer ‘historiese relevansie’ bevat nie, sal sy kulturele en letterkundige waarde ‘n publikasie regverdig!”. dagverhaal van ‘n grenssoldaat 296 as besielde ‘grensvegter’ het bakkes elke oomblik vurig na die geveg uitgesien. helaas het sy kompanie uiteindelik net by twee geleenthede ‘kruit geruik’. by die eerste geleentheid, ‘n landmyninsident op 1 junie 1977, was hy self betrokke. dié ervaring beskryf hy met die waarnemersoog van die historikus en die pen van die prosakunstenaar in fyn, meevoerende detail (pp. 148-149, 151): ons ry. die ou monster [“spook” gepantserde troepedraer] kry swaar. derrek gooi hom in vier-wiel-rat en toe gebeur dit! dit is ineens – so onwerklik! staal skeur soos papier. daar’s ‘n knal en iets knars soos die hou wat uit die nag op die harnas val van die jong paladyn in die verhaal “drogon” van arthur van schendel. meteens vul rook en stof die binneruim en die makkers om my vervaag. my geweer ruk los uit sy staanrak en val tussen die raamwerk van my bankie in... die browning-masjiengewere in die luik op die dak knak en ‘n goue waterval van blink patrone en patroonbande stort in terrence se leë sitplek... oor alles syfer ‘n vaalwit as uit die lug... die bos om ons (is) aan die brand... saam met die swael en wit poeierrook borrel ons deur die agterste luik... die verdwaasdheid begin lig. ons stemme raak los. dis waaragtig waar. ons het kruit geruik. ons is almal behoue... ons buig ons hoofde en ek bid. ons sê diep dankbaar “dankie”. as ons van ons knieë opstaan hoor ek iemand sê: “nou sal ons die dônners skiet!”. die krygskoolkompanie se tweede kennismaking met die vyand was presies die soort kontak waarvan bakkes gedroom het, maar wat sy seksie tot die end ontwyk het. hy moes maar tevrede wees om te hoor hoe sy krygsgenote van seksie 2, peleton 3 kortstondig vuur met ‘n groep ‘swapo-terroriste’ wissel. drie swapo-vegters het in dié skermutseling gesneuwel, sonder enige ongevalle aan die kant van seksie 2. bakkes het die besonderhede van dié geveg haarfyn by die betrokkenes verneem, opgeteken en met ‘n sketskaart en foto’s toegelig (pp. 203-212). hoofstukke xviii en xix beskryf die krygskoolkompanie se onttrekking aan die operasionele gebied en hul terugkeer na die rsa. in hoofstuk xx, sy bondige ‘nawoord’, spreek bakkes sy bittere ontgogeling met die politieke leiers van sy tyd en die wyse waarop hulle die interne revolusionêre stryd in suid-afrika voltrek het, uit. hy skryf onder meer: allengs moes ons wat ons lewens op die spel geplaas het, ontdek dat die bewind wat ons gedink het pal staan en van wie ons die opdrag had om te velde te gaan, besig was om agteraf polities gemene saak met die vyand te maak en... hulle rug te draai op ‘n volk se duur verworwe soewereiniteit; hulle persoonlike belange voorop te stel; op verskillende vlakke silwerlinge te aanvaar in die naam van vrede; die volk wat hulle eens sogenaamd gedien het se selfrespek te verdiskonteer; uiteindelik hul goedvertrouende volgelinge se politieke voertuig onder hulle uit te ontbind en bisar na die vyand oor te loop... sonder dat ‘n enkele wapensukses te velde deur die terreurvegters teen die suid-afrikaanse magte aangeteken is... deur die nuwe bewind van na ’90 is ongevoelig, blatant en koelbloedig ‘n streep getrek deur die afrikaner/blanke se staatkundige selfbeskikking (pp. 277-278). boekresensie 297 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 293-297. bakkes se verhaal is dwarsdeur subjektief maar eerlik veranker in sy persoonlike leefwêreld as afrikanernasionalis binne sy bepaalde denkskool, wat ‘n sterk ideologiese stempel op sy werk afdruk. dit sal kritici hom sekerlik ten laste lê. wat my betref, lê die waarde van sy werk veral op twee vlakke: eerstens, verwerklik sy besondere verteltrant in ryk prosa die vervelige, spartaanse, geroetineerde, stofen sweetdeurdrenkte bestaan van die grenssoldaat, wat kontradiktories in ‘n oogwink in ‘n inferno van rook, vuur en bloed kon uitbars, op ‘n konkreet-beleefbare wyse vir die leser; en, tweedens, bied sy boek die leser ‘n helder insig in die wyse waarop ‘n bepaalde deel van veral die afrikaner-sektor van suid-afrika se wit bevolking die teeninsurgensiestryd beleef het en hoe ‘n gedeelte van hulle vandag die politieke koerswending van die negentigerjare onthou en beleef. dit is beide as afrikaanse prosa en as getinte lens op die verlede ‘n waardevolle, uiters leesbare bydrae tot die lektuur van die grensoorlog. deon visser fakulteit krygskunde (militêre akademie), universiteit stellenbosch microsoft word 05 raga.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 8(2) december 2012, pp. 235 – 251. community development workers (cdws): a case study of the bitou local municipality k raga, jd taylor and a gogi1 abstract local government in south africa is no longer simply an extension of the national and provincial spheres of government; it has become an independent sphere in its own right. steady progress has been made in the delivery of services since the advent of a democratic and developmental state in 1994. the 1996 south african constitution positions local government as an independent sphere of the government, interrelated to and interdependent with the national and provincial governments. to give it a collective voice, local government speaks from a position of strength through organised local government, as embodied in the south african local government association (hereafter referred to as salga). the government is aware of the challenges facing local government service delivery, particularly in the rural areas, w here progress in service delivery has been slow . d uring the form er presidential izimbizo’s, the gap between the government’s delivery efforts and communities’ ability to benefit from that delivery was repeatedly highlighted. the introduction of community development workers (cdws) is to assist the three spheres of government to ensure that service delivery reaches the intended recipients effectively and efficiently (idasa, 2006: online). it was against this background that community development workers (cdws) were introduced as a link between the government and communities. cdws are defined as participatory change agents who work in the community in which the live, and to whom they have to answer for their activities. they are required to help members of the community to improve their living standards and change circumstances. to do this, cdws are expected to make the poor aware of their constitutional rights such as their right to basic service delivery including social grants and assist community members to understand how they can participate in the development plans for their communities. cdws are expected to facilitate community participation in policy-making, implementation and in service delivery (republic of south africa. grassroots innovation, 2007). in this article, the role of community development workers in enhancing service delivery within the bitou local municipality is discussed. the article concludes with recommendations based on an empirical survey to establish the extent to which cdws play a role in improving service delivery and enhancing the accessibility of government services to communities. keywords: bitou local municipality, local governance, community development workers, participation, ward committees. disciplines: public management and administration, social science research methodology, development studies. 1 . prof. kishore raga (kishore.raga@nmmu.ac.za) as well as the co-authors jd taylor (derek.taylor@nmmu.ac.za) and a gogi (gogi@webmail.co.za) are attached to the department of political & government studies at the nelson mandelu metropolitan university in port elizabeth. raga, taylor and gogi 236 introduction local government in south africa has undergone significant and far-reaching changes since 1995. in terms of the new mandate conferred in the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, local government is no longer only required to render basic services, but also to serve as an agent to promote the social and economic development of communities. these expanded responsibilities coincide with the new status conferred on local government. in a departure from the centralised tier system of government, local government now constitutes an independent sphere, embedded in a context of co-operative government with the national and provincial spheres. the following legislative framework makes provision for, inter alia, community participation in matters of local government in south africa. in terms of section 152 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, local government is mandated to: a) provide democratic and accountable government for local communities; b) ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner; c) promote social and economic development; d) promote a safe and healthy environment; and e) encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government. the cdw programme (cdwp) aims to improve service delivery for the people, facilitate community development and work jointly towards sustainable economic and social upliftment. the basis for the cdwp can be found in the preamble of the south african constitution, namely to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person”. the principles of the cdwp reflect the batho pele principles and the spirit of ubuntu. the cdwp occupies a very special place in the south african public service (republic of south africa. community development workers conference report, 2007). when the government created the new echelon of public service officials in the form of cdws, it made it clear that it was important for all spheres of government to work in collaboration to implement the cdwp. in order to consolidate this position, cabinet took a policy decision at its sitting in november 2003, stating that: provincial government should be the employer and that local government should be the work place of the cdws; however, there would be provincial variation according to capacity and budgetary requirements. cabinet recommended that municipalities should take: responsibility for the daily activities of the cdws and these arrangements should take place through the office of the municipal manager (republic of south africa. community development workers conference report, 2007). the cdwp is driven at the national sphere by the department of public service and administration and was piloted and implemented in the provinces of western cape, north west, eastern cape, gauteng, kwazulu-natal and mpumalanga. the departments of public service and administration, labour, and the public administration leadership and management academy (palama) have been tasked with the development of job descriptions and the training of cdws (community development workers progress report, 2003-2010: on-line). community development workers in bitou td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 235-251. 237 as a formal communication channel between the community and the three spheres of government (national, provincial and local), the cdwp in the bitou local municipality is intended to serve as a vehicle for channelling communal needs and challenges to the council and government departments. in terms of the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998, the bitou local municipality is classified as a category b municipality, with an executive mayoral system, and with seven wards and thirteen councillors of which seven are ward councillors. the municipality has eighteen community development workers, of whom three are employed by the provincial department of housing and local government in the western cape (community development workers progress report, 2003-2010: on-line). the community services directorate is responsible for the provision of services to bitou local municipality’s communities, visitors and tourists. this is done as an integrated and coordinated effort with other state organs, within the constitutional and local government legislative framework. the services below are provided in line with bitou’s vision: “to be the best together” and its mission statement, with the focus of enshrining the batho pele principles that ensure the customer is put first and the services rendered are of a high quality. a) traffic control and policing services b) law enforcement c) fire and rescue services d) library services e) parks and recreation f) disaster management g) housing h) environmental health services i) personal primary health care services. the macro administrative structure of the bitou local municipality views the office of the municipal manager at its head. five departments or directorates report to the municipal manager. corporate services is chiefly responsible for secretarial and customer care, property and amenity services, legal services and human resource management. financial services is responsible for expenditure, income, budget and ict functions of the municipality. community services is responsible for protection services, fire and disaster management, integrated human settlement, parks and recreation and library services. municipal services and infrastructure development is responsible for roads, refuse sites and cleaning, civil works, electrical engineering, water quality and control, building control and infrastructure maintenance. strategic services are responsible for integrated development planning and local economic development, performance management and developmental planning and integration (bitou municipality. departments and directorates, 2012: on-line). it is against this background that this article investigates the role of community development workers in enhancing service delivery within the bitou local municipality. in the following section, concepts are defined as proposed for the purposes of this article. raga, taylor and gogi 238 definition of concepts public administration kuye (2001:14) describes public administration as the management of individual and group efforts for the sustenance of the activities of the state, while stillman (1983:2) defines public administration as the management of scarce resources to accomplish the goals of public policy. it involves the coordination of all organised activity having as its purpose the implementation of public policy. public administration is also a cooperative effort in a public setting; it covers the executive, legislative and judicial formulation of public policy and is thus part of the political process. it is different from private administration but works in partnership with private groups in providing services to the community. municipality section 2 of the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998 defines a municipality as an organ of state within the local sphere of government exercising legislative and executive authority within an area determined in terms of the local government: municipal demarcation act 27of 1998. local community the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 defines a local community in relation to a municipality as a body of persons comprising the residents of the municipality; the ratepayers of the municipality; any civic organisations and non-governmental, private sector or labour sector organisations, or bodies involved in local affairs within the municipality. community development according to de beer and swanepoel (1998:8), community development entails placing individuals at the centre of the development process and helping them realise their potential. it acknowledges that the best solution to a problem invariably comes from the individuals within the community who are experiencing the problem. community development workers (cdws) the department of public service and administration defines cdws as civil servants with particularly close links to local communities. the main role of cdws is to work with government departments in order to help bridge the gap between government and communities. in pursuit of this goal, cdws must act to improve community access to government services and strengthen integration and coordination between different government line services. where feasible, cdws should also attempt to strengthen the integration and coordination of public services between the three spheres of government (republic of south africa. grassroots innovation, 2007). community participation de beer and swanepoel (1998:20) assert that community participation is normally associated with the actions of communities, groups or individuals in relation to development and promoting positive change in an existing, less acceptable situation. community participation is local, active and direct, and communities must be fully involved in the local development process. community development workers in bitou td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 235-251. 239 public participation the world bank learning group defines public participation as a process through which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources that affect them (world bank, 1995). from this perspective, public participation could be required in the decision-making phases of programmes or project cycles in the community, namely from needs assessment, to implementation, monitoring and evaluation. for the purpose of this article, the terms ‘public’ and ‘community’ will be used interchangeably. basic municipal service according to the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998, basic municipal service means a municipal service that is necessary to ensure an acceptable and reasonable quality of life, and, if not provided, would endanger public health or the safety of the environment. in the following section, the establishment of community development workers and the difference between ward councillors and ward committees is discussed briefly. community development workers the cwdp as a concept was not introduced as a legislative enactment but rather as a policy decision that emanated from an announcement by the former state president, thabo mbeki, in his state of the nation address of 14 february 2003: government will create a public service echelon of multi-skilled community development workers (cdws) who will maintain direct contact with the people where these masses live. we are determined to ensure that government goes to the people so that we sharply improve the quality of the outcomes of public expenditures intended to raise the standards of living of our people. it is wrong that government should oblige people to come to government even in circumstances in which people do not know what services the government offers and have no means to pay for the transport to reach government offices. in the establishment of the programme, there was a clear understanding that cdws were to complement the work of other departments at all levels, including municipalities, with the main aim of ensuring that services reach the people for whom they are intended. the new cadre of public servants were to be: skilled facilitators, filling the gap between government services and the people. they will be public servants who assist citizens with matters such as birth certificates, ids and social grants applications, and small business start-up, at their doorstep and in their own communities (republic of south africa. community development workers conference report, 2007). the above illustrates the fact that community development workers are the only public servants whose work cuts across all spheres of government and they: are different to the mainline public servants or local government officials (republic of south africa. community development workers conference report, 2007). raga, taylor and gogi 240 the concept of cdws in local government would have favourable consequences for participatory governance since the key responsibility of cdws is to bring the government closer to the people. these officials are recruited from the communities in which they live. cdws are special public servants who undergo training to enable them to enter communities and households, engage with citizens and determine what services are needed, and ensure that these services are made available. therefore, they have a better understanding of the dynamics and needs of the citizens they serve. this enables them to enter communities, facilitate stakeholder interaction, and make effective interventions. the critical role that cdws must perform is that of promoting and encouraging public participation at the local government sphere. cdws link communities with many government services and programmes. cdws assist citizens by helping them to access services such as health, welfare, housing, agriculture, economic activity, education and training, and employment opportunities. cdws are officially mandated to ‘develop’ and ‘transform’ communities by, among other activities: informing and assisting them to access the services provided by government; determining the needs of communities and communicating these to the government; promoting networks between community workers and projects to improve service delivery; and compiling reports and documents pertaining to progress and local issues (williams, 2006:5-6). these tasks suggest that cdws must become advocacy planners (friedmann, 1992:12), that is, they must act as advocates of development and transformation in a specific community, especially in relation to integrated development planning (idp). this, therefore, means that the cdws must be aware of the idp, as stated in the white paper on local government of 1998 and the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000, which both require public participation. the critical element with regard to cdws is the institutional and support framework provided by the different spheres of government, for example, the programme formulation is the primary responsibility of the national sphere; the province undertakes research, inter alia, to identify districts affected by poverty; and local authorities must assess the needs of the public and work together with ward development associations. the latter are responsible for planning and taking cognisance of idps (department of provincial and local government, 2004). the management and control of cdws take place in ward development associations (where the cdws are deployed), where they work together with ward councillors. the cdw programme supports the ideas promoted by the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, and the relevant local government legislation concerning the promotion of participatory democracy. it envisages a structured participatory framework, which ultimately leads to social learning and cohesion, building trust in and credibility for the planning process and inculcating a sense of ownership of the development process (department of provincial and local government, 2004). these ideas are articulated by the international association for public participation (2000) and the manilla declaration on people's participation and sustainable development (1989). cdws are community-based resource persons who work with other local activists to help their fellow community members obtain information and resources from service providers. the main function of the cdws is to assist in progressively meeting the communities’ needs and, helping them achieve their goals, realise their aspirations and maintain their overall community development workers in bitou td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 235-251. 241 well-being. this may include assisting a citizen to apply for an id through the department of home affairs. it may also involve helping a second beneficiary access a child support grant in the event of the death of the primary beneficiary. the cdws are also expected to explain government policy to ordinary citizens in their mother tongue (idasa, 2006: on-line). cdws are required to be multi-skilled and knowledgeable about all government departments and services, as their work cuts across all facets. they must have sound listening and facilitation skills, as they are often called in to act as mediators in the community. in addition, cdws are required to: a) live in the communities in which they work; b) show respect towards the people, their norms and values; c) realise that they are dealing with a living entity; d) acknowledge and accept leaders; e) be open about their positions and task; f) get to know people and their circumstances; g) deepen their insights into people’s needs and resources; h) begin to identify local structures with which they can work; i) promote partnerships between themselves and local structures, such as ward committees; and j) exchange information, guide and provide expertise as well as enable, advocate and catalyse action (idasa, 2006: on-line). they work as community facilitators, focusing on finding solutions to identified needs and blockages by interacting with national, provincial and local government structures. their training combines both class-based and in-service training (south africa, 2005: online). speaking at the launch of the cdwp in winterveldt in the western cape in november 2005, the former minister of public service and administration, ms geraldine frasermoleketi, urged the workers to help ensure that government was based on the will of the people, and encouraged them to work, live, walk and talk to people in their language (south africa, 2005: on-line). the cdws programme is essential for: a) assisting in removing development deadlocks; b) strengthening the democratic social contract; c) advocating an organised voice for the poor; and d) improving a government community network (idasa, 2006: on-line). on 24 february 2012, at batho pele house – pretoria, the deputy minister for public service and administration highlighted the need to implement the batho pele principles as a guide in the work of community development workers. the need to shift the focus to the positive when reporting on government programmes to build the moral fibre of workers was emphasised (dpsa, 24 february 2012: on-line). in addition, the need for information sharing “in order to plan better, and the need to synergise to derive more value in what we put in” was stressed. the sterling work undertaken by the cdws in the western cape was acknowledged by the mec of local government, environmental affairs and development planning in the province. the common objective is raga, taylor and gogi 242 to align all government community practitioners in the delivery of services to the communities (dpsa, 24 february 2012: on-line). at a workshop hosted by the department of public service and administration on 19 march 2012, the member of the executive council (mec) for local government, human settlements and traditional affairs, touched on the macro-organisation of state as a government system in practice in accelerating service delivery and the review of the role of community development workers as special cadres. cdws should be able to "relate policies and programmes of government" to enable them to carry out their work (dpsa, 19 march 2012: on-line). a presentation on the provincial perspective of the community development workers programme (cdwp) highlighted the programmes the cdws are involved in namely: identity document, balelapa war on poverty programme, social grants, human rights, educationback to school campaign and pauper funerals. challenges faced in the province include an unfunded mandate, no service level agreement or mou between salga and the department, the relationship between community development workers, ward committees and councillors and no monitoring and evaluations tool (dpsa, 19 march 2012: on-line). the cdwp is coordinated by all three spheres of government (national, provincial and local). cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta) facilitates the relationships between these three spheres around cdws, while the department of public service and administration (dpsa) is responsible for the overall coordination of the programme. provincial administrations are the employers of the cdws, while salga and municipalities provide workplaces for the cdws and create the necessary environment for them to perform their duties. finally, provincial local government associations and the offices of the speakers within municipalities are tasked with overseeing the creation of an enabling environment for cdws (idasa, 2006: on-line). in discharging their duties, cdws must interact with ward committees and ward councillors. since cdws serve the same constituencies, it is imperative that they work together and complement each other. they contribute in ensuring that the government meets its target with regard to service delivery and poverty alleviation (south africa, 2005: online). the following table identifies the different roles and responsibilities of cdws, councillors and ward committees: councillors ward committee cdws politically elected representatives who live in and serve wards. 10 community or sectoral representatives elected at a ward general meeting and who represent sectoral interests. appointed public servants governed by the public service act 104 of 1994. ward councillors: chair the ward committee meeting and convene the constituency meeting to elect ward committee members. the committees are the centre of local development. are expected to communicate government and other information to communities regularly in an accessible way. community development workers in bitou td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 235-251. 243 call committee meetings. take issues of local concern to the councillor, who in turn takes these to council. pass concerns and issues on to service providers. ensure a schedule of meetings is prepared, including ward committee and constituency meetings. have a direct say in the planning, decision-making and project implementation that has an impact on the ward. coordinate teams of volunteers in community projects. work with the ward committee to draw up an annual plan of activities. increase the participation of local residents in municipal decisionmaking. coordinate teams employed on public works programmes. the proportional representative (pr) councillors should attend ward committee meetings, constituency meetings and special meetings. identify and initiate projects to improve the lives of people in the ward. promote the principles of batho pele and community participation. assist with resolving disputes and making referrals. support the councillor in dispute resolutions. inform communities about problems in the delivery of basic services. help with implementation of projects. monitor the performance of the municipality and take issues of concern to the local ward. help implement projects. support ward councillors, but do not replace them. help with community awareness campaigns on issues such as waste, water and sewage, and payment of fees and charges. liaise with and advocate on behalf of communities with parastatals, ngos and private donors. forwards names of prospective cdw candidates from their respective wards for learnership. monitor, evaluate and report on the impact of developmental projects. help communities deal with disease (such as tb, hiv and aids) and intensify education and awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and other health matters. raga, taylor and gogi 244 help government achieve the people's contract of a better life for all. act as resourceful and dedicated public servants. source: (republic of south africa. grassroots innovation, 2007) in the section that follows, a brief synopsis is provided on the research instrument used to conduct the empirical survey to investigate the role of community development workers in enhancing service delivery in the bitou local municipality’s geographical area of responsibility. using the bitou local municipality as a case study, the survey aimed to provide an understanding of the role of cdw over and above the existing ward committee members relating to service delivery against the background of developmental local government. a quantitative approach was used and the sample included selected cdws and ward councillors. empirical research in the paragraphs that follow, a synopsis of an empirical survey conducted in the bitou local municipality by gogi (2012) to investigate the role of community development workers in enhancing service delivery, is reviewed. research instrument the research conducted by gogi (2012) employed a self-administered structured questionnaire designed in the form of a likert scale. through quantitative research the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships was provided. the questionnaire contained the response categories: ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘neutral’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’. it was assumed that the measuring technique employed would presuppose that a particular test item had the same meaning for all respondents, and thus a given response was scored identically for each respondent. test sample the questionnaire for purposes of the survey was referred to a statistician for final approval so that the data contained in the questionnaire could be quantified and subjected to statistical analysis. eighteen (18) questionnaires were distributed to the cdws and six (06) to ward councillors of the bitou local municipality. the questionnaires were hand delivered. sixteen (16) questionnaires were returned, (eleven from cdws and five from ward councillors) representing a response rate of 67 per cent (gogi, 2012:67). according to saunders, lewis and thornhill (2003:156), a high response rate will ensure that a sample is representative of the target population. the responses by the participants to the various questions are presented descriptively. community development workers in bitou td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 235-251. 245 data processing a statistician from the nelson mandela metropolitan university (hereinafter referred to as nmmu) utilised the computer programme “sas” to process the collected data and to generate the various statistical results. the relative values pertaining to the set statements that emerged from the survey were transferred in codified form to a computer database. interpretation of research findings the objective of the empirical survey was to test attitudinal responses to aspects such as the role played by the appointment of community development workers regarding service delivery within the bitou local municipality in the western cape province, the institutional capacity of cdws in the bitou local municipality to deliver services, public participation and cooperative government. the inherent subjectivity in attitude surveys was realised and kept in mind during the analysis of the results. however, according to zimbardo and ebbeson (1969:125), it is possible to measure subjective attitudes by using quantitative techniques, so that each individual’s opinion can be represented by some numerical score. the objective of gogi’s empirical survey was to investigate the role played by community development workers regarding service delivery within the bitou local municipality in the western cape province. empirical survey results the following responses were recorded in response to the statements highlighted in bold print: community development workers/ward councillors assist in accessing services to the community 100 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed that cdws and ward councillors assist in accessing services for the community. the research findings indicate that when the municipality implemented the cdwp, there has been a positive impact on basic services. the members of the community, particularly the poor, are now able to access government services, for example, subsidised basic services (such as water, refuse collection, electricity), social grants and identity documents through the assistance of the cdws and ward councillors. ward councillors do not support community development workers in performing their functions. the cdws strongly agreed that ward councillors do not support them in performing or executing their duties in meeting the needs of the communities. this result is of concern as in terms of legislative prescriptions, ward councillors are required to work closely with ward committee members. raga, taylor and gogi 246 the living conditions in my ward improved with the introduction of the community development workers programme. only 13 per cent of respondents strongly agreed that the living conditions in their wards had improved with the introduction of the community development worker programme, while 81 per cent agreed that the conditions had improved and 6 per cent remained neutral. cdws play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between communities and government services, making it easier for poor communities to access service delivery. cdws should inform the community of how the government works and what the government is doing. owing to their close working relationship with communities, cdws can become the eyes and ears in the fight against corruption at grassroots level. cdws should be encouraged to report any untoward activities to the right authorities to enable the government to take corrective action. community development workers must affiliate to the ruling or majority political party. the results indicated that 91per cent of the respondents strongly disagreed that cdws should affiliate to the ruling or a political party in the council, while only 9 per cent agreed that cdws should affiliate to the ruling party. in terms of cdw policy (2009), cdws should be appointed on merit as civil servants in terms of the public service act 103 of 1994. community members participate in the council decision-making process. as indicated by the results, 20 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed that community members should participate in the council’s decision-making process, 60 per cent agreed that community members should be part of the decision-making process while the remaining 20per cent of the respondents disagreed. this is indicative of the fact that more should be done to enhance public participation through ward committee meetings. i have completed the community development worker learnership programme. according to the survey, 64 per cent of the respondents indicated that they had completed the cdw learnership programme. it is cause for concern that 36 per cent of cdws did not understand nor have knowledge of the cdw learnership programme. the successful completion of the learnership programme is a core requirement before one can be appointed as a cdw. the former south african development institute (samdi), now called the public administration leadership and management academy (palama), is tasked with the development of job description and training of cdws. cognisance must be taken of the fact that the cdwp was not introduced as a legislative enactment but rather as a policy decision that emanated from an announcement by the former state president, thabo mbeki. community development workers/ward councillors regularly attend and participate in ward committee meetings. the respondents indicated that they regularly attended and actively participated in the ward committee meetings. this indicates that cdws are active in engaging public participation through ward committee meetings. however, the results from the study indicate that there should be a closer working relationship between the ward councillors, ward committee members and cdws. community development workers in bitou td, 8(2), december 2012, pp. 235-251. 247 i actively participate in the development of the integrated development plan and compilation of the annual budget of the council as a community development worker/ward councillor. the results revealed that 25 per cent of the respondents were actively involved in the development of the idp and annual budget, 56 per cent had partially participated in the process while 13per cent had not participated in the development of the idp and annual budget. six per cent of the respondents remained neutral about their participation in the idp development process. considering that one of the aims of the cdwp is to improve the general conditions in the wards, this percentage indicates that greater cooperation between the cdws and the council should be pursued. the ward committee/community development workers do not disagree or compete against each other in the ward which they serve. the results show that 73 per cent of the respondents indicated that there was a clear process and procedure that prevent ward committee members and community development workers from clashing in their wards, while 18 per cent reflected that no clear process existed because they usually disagreed with ward committee members in the execution of their duties. the remaining 9 per cent did not know whether any process or method was in place. the ward committees and cdws are at loggerheads because of a lack of clarity about the role of cdws. ward committees are appointed in terms of section 72 of the local government: municipal structures act 117 of 1998, while the cdws have no legislative prescription. this conflict usually arises with the execution of their duties and remuneration. ward committee members receive a stipend for every meeting they attend, while the cdws are salaried with benefits. the overall results for the survey indicate that the bitou local municipality does not adhere to certain requirements of the cdwp, because only three out of 18 cdws are employed by the provincial department of local government and housing. only a few of the community development workers confirmed that they had completed the cdw learnership programme. nonetheless, the bitou local municipality’s cdws executed their role and responsibilities to the best of their ability in bringing government services closer to the people of bitou. recommendations the following recommendations are made based on the findings of the literature and empirical survey: the roles and responsibilities of cdws should be clearly defined, with clear terms of reference. the majority of the stakeholders felt that relationships would improve if they had a better understanding of the roles, functions and responsibilities of cdws. a major cause of tension in this relationship is because cdws and the stakeholders play similar roles. people are generally confused as to who does what. all cdws who have not completed their learnership programme must register with local government seta (lg-seta) to complete their learnership, within agreed time-frames. the cdw learnership was introduced under the local government sector education and training authority in 2004 to enable cdws to gain theoretical and practical skills while gaining work experience and a nationally recognised qualification. the cdwp comprises 40 raga, taylor and gogi 248 days of formal academic training divided into five block periods per year and; 18 days for mentors to engage with learners and fieldwork assignments given at the end of each training block with practical experience in the field, which accounts for another 35 days. the cdw learnership leads to a national diploma in community development after successful completion of a course and assignments. the cdw learnership is designed to be completed within a year and cdws should be given an ultimatum to complete this programme within not later than one and half years. failure to do so should lead to their release from the programme. the cdws should be formally introduced to the community and other stakeholders, including government departments, to avoid confusion. since cdws are a relatively new type of public civil servant, the natural progression would be an introduction of cdws at all spheres of the government and the broader community. the cdws should be depoliticised in order to obtain cooperative governance from stakeholders. chapter 2 of the south african constitution guarantees everyone the right to freedom of association. yet cdws are meant to be politically neutral or non-political public servants. the reality is that cdws operate within a political arena and contextually, politics is a factor. the belief held by the majority of the respondents is that everyone should be the beneficiary of the programme, irrespective of the political party they support. the politics of the cdw is under-development, poverty, a non-racial society and transformation. a performance management system should be established for the bitou local municipality’s cdws with a view to monitor, evaluate and manage community development workers. stakeholders should be involved in the process. all government departments that fail to cooperate with cdws should be reported to the office of the presidency, since the cdwp was the initiative of the presidency. conclusion cdws are a fundamental building block of the developmental state as their work is primarily aimed at accelerating service delivery by taking government services to communities. this service delivery thrust places the cdws programme in line with government’s medium term strategic framework (mtsf, 2009-2014) which is rooted on the revitalisation and renewal of government in terms of how it goes about with its tasks and how it encourages and values citizen participation in development. currently, cdws are capacitating citizens to know their service rights and responsibilities and also encourage and mobilise communities to participate in government’s service delivery and development programmes such as government outreach programmes and municipal idp and budget processes. the primary objective of this article was to review the role of community development workers in enhancing service delivery in the bitou local municipality. the findings from the empirical study emphasise the vital role cdws play in bringing government services closer to the people. the expectations of enhanced service delivery through public participation on the one hand, and the realities of poverty on the other, suggest a need to 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[retrieved on 13february 2011]. july 2009 inside book.p65 73 abstract: local government in south africa (sa) has come a long way from the period when there were over 1200 racially segregated municipalities. from more than 800 municipalities after 1996, they have been merged to currently 284 municipalities which now cover every ‘millimetre’ of the country, and are focused on growing local economies and maintaining the provision of a lot more diverse and complex basic municipal services to all their citizens and especially to geographical areas and citizens that were previously neglected. this transformed local government environment has brought about many changes in the nature and extent of basic public services delivered at the grassroots level of this developing country with its limited resources and unlimited needs – especially in the areas of potable water supply and sanitation services. this article will firstly highlight the changed environmental context of public service delivery in the local government sphere of the country before the transformation in relevant legislation will be reported on. subsequently the nature and extent of current realities of local governance, dynamics and challenges regarding the diverse and complex public services by a typical category b local municipality will be identified in the real sa out there. the use of the politics – administration system model by easton for environmental management analysis will also be illustrated. lastly, for easy classification of typical characteristics and challenging issues in the dynamic municipal government sphere of sa, the swot-analysis format will be used. keywords: local governance; diversity and complexity; environmental management; potable water; hydrological and geo-hydrological information; water supply management; water supply related legislation. disciplines: public management and governance, political studies, development studies, water studies. 1. introduction the nature and extent of local government in south africa (sa) have continuously been changing since 1996. reddy (1999:10) defines this form and level of governance as ‘... local democratic units within the democratic system which are subordinate members of the government vested with prescribed, controlled governmental powers and sources of income to render specific local services and to control and regulate the geographic, social and economic development of defined local areas.’ there used to be more than 800 racially segregated local government sphere institutions consisting of inter alia, municipalities, town councils and village management boards scattered all over the country with some rural areas located at big distances away from existing infrastructure municipal governance and environmental crises: threats and thoughts ej nealer* * prof eric nealer is subject head for public management & governance at the potchefstroom campus of north-west university. e-mail: eric.nealer@nwu.ac.za td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. 73-85 74 and with no basic public service rendering. this negative state of affairs realised due to the fact that the previous government did not take responsibility for servicing the whole population of the developing country but only selected groups in certain geographical areas. due to the new democratic dispensation, urbanisation and globalisation the current anc-led government has the responsibility to facilitate more effective, efficient, equal and economic basic service delivery to many millions more citizens over longer distances in a deteriorating physical environment. to achieve this objective the country has now been redemarcated with 230 category b local municipalities covering it in a wall-to-wall manner. these local municipalities are also grouped together in clusters of between 4 and 7 to form 47 category c district municipalities. the big cities like johannesburg, cape town and durban are taken up in 7 category a metropolitan municipalities. this article aims to identify some of the most important legislation and the transformation of it regarding the changed basic public service delivery on especially the local government sphere and by its public policy executing institutions. the politics – administration system model and a swot (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis will be used to identify and analyse some important environmental variables and primary actors at play in municipalities’ quest to improved basic service delivery. 2. orientation and background barrett and jaichand stress the importance of potable water for the affairs of nation states and justify why its management and provision should be prioritized: water is life: we can live for only a few days without it. water is death: contaminated, it can be as deadly as poison. yet 1.1 billion of the 6 billion people on this planet have no access to an adequate water supply and 2.4 billion have no access to proper sanitation (2007:543). with reference to sa as a semi-arid and developing country with a growing population and deteriorating physical environment, the following statement made by james clarke as far back as 1991, should now be seriously considered: seventy one per cent of the earth’s surface is covered in water. while ninety eight per cent thereof is undrinkable sea water, only 1,2 per cent constitutes fresh water, which is locked in the polar caps and in glaciers. consequently, inhabitants have a mere 0,8 per cent to inter alia, drink, irrigate their crops, manufacture steel, cool power stations, bath and transport sewage (clarke, 1991:97). in addition to the aforementioned one must be familiar with the so-called hydrological water cycle from rainfall to water runoff. it is a complex system where several processes (infiltration of water, surface water runoff, recharge of underground water aquifers, seepage, re-infiltration of water, and moisture recycling) are interconnected and interdependent with only one direction of flow: downstream (iucn, 2005:22). the study of the nature, extent and behaviour of surface water runoff is called hydrology and that nealer 75 of groundwater is called geo-hydrology. the latter encompasses the effects and links between geology as the science and study of the earth, its history and the processes that shape it, and the place and role of water (hydrology). here follows a graphical display of such a system: figure 1: hydrological water cycle (dwaf, 2008:on-line): it can be seen that the studies of hydrological and geo-hydrological aspects of importance in the quest for more effective, efficient, economical and sustainable public management of water are typical of a rock science but not so difficult that they should be treated as a rocket science… in the next section the transformed nature and extent of relevant legislation for the purpose of local government management and especially potable water supply management will be highlighted. 3. historical overview of legislative transformation the constitution of the republic of south africa (act 108 of 1996) arranges the so-called ‘social contract’ between the south african government and the citizens of the country by the structuring of the three spheres of governmental legislature and execution of public policies. the government is under a moral obligation to be sensitive to, identify, and in earnest take notice of the unlimited needs of the country’s citizens and then by means of effective prioritization determine which of them should be addressed through effective and efficient public administration municipal governance and environmental crises: td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 73-85. 76 and management in an attempt to add value in the respective communities and the country’s society as a whole. in april 1994 the african national congress won the first democratic election in south africa and became the government-of-the-day. it immediately emphasised that its reconstruction and development programme (rdp), as part of its political manifesto and foundation of all its new public policies, would be implemented and every effort be made to improve public service delivery in all three spheres of government. one of the four pillars of the rdp is ‘meeting basic needs’ of which access to basic water supply and sanitation services for all citizens of south africa was made a priority (dwaf, 2004:4). consequently, the former minister of the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) (prof kader asmal), during may 1994, initiated a process to review all waterrelated legislation (gildenhuys, 1999:10). the overall objective of this process was to change the south african water dispensation so that socioeconomic demands and environmental management requirements would be met in as effective, efficient and economical manner as possible, and equal access for all south africans would be provided (pienaar & van der schyff, 2005:263). as a result 17 new acts regarding the municipal environment and especially water management were promulgated between november 1994 and august 2005 to revisit existing executive public policies and produce new ones in furthering the developmental environment of the country as a whole. 4. nature and extent of local governance the local government sphere elections on 5 december 2000 ushered in a new system of local governance in south africa. the newly structured and empowered local government sphere has been granted some degree of autonomy and expanded responsibilities (a shift to developmental local government) (fast & engelbrecht, 1999:2). prior to this date the municipalities were characterised by racial segregation, unequal allocation of resources and unequal delivery of basic public services. the legal and administrative structures inherited by the current government did not serve the broad population of all the municipalities. public participation – now a constitutional requirement – was non-existent (motshekga, 2008:1). consequently, all decision-making related to public service delivery was taken on behalf of the majority. in order to ensure that real integrated economic development and improved basic public services are delivered effectively and efficiently to the under-serviced communities, the municipal boundaries have been re-demarcated, newly merged municipalities with new organisational structures and policies have been formed and transformed organisational arrangements incorporated for more accessible and transparent citizen participation (craythorne, 2006:51-54). governance, as distinct from government, is a relatively new concept that emerged as a policy idea during the 1990s. it flows from the recognition that power exists both inside and outside the formal structures of government and that the inter-relationships between government, private sector and civil society are critical factors affecting the performance of cities, regions and countries. it also stresses the ‘process’ as the place where decisions emerge from a complex set of relationships between many actors with different agendas. ‘urban nealer 77 governance is the sum of the many ways in which individuals and institutions (public and private) plan and manage the common affairs of a town/city. it is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action can be taken’ (un habitat in south african cities network, 2006:4/51). in other words, it refers to how a city community organises itself, determines its priorities, allocates resources, selects who has a voice and holds each other to account. it is inextricably linked to the welfare of the citizenry with reference to inter alia, adequate shelter, security of tenure, safe water, sanitation, a clean environment, health, education, nutrition, employment and public safety and mobility. with reference to national water affairs, the national water act 36 of 1998 was promulgated to provide for reform (improved equity, sustainability, efficiency and integrated water resources management) of the law relating to water resources in south africa. potable water is now recognised as a scarce and unevenly distributed national resource that belongs to all the people of the country and that the water collected in the various rainfall catchment areas (river basins and underground cavities, channels and fractures) and accumulated water resources (such as dams and underground water aquifers) should be managed in an integrated way (fuggle & rabie, 2005:293). the key role-player in this environment is the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf). in the local government sphere of the developing south africa, the effective, efficient and economical municipal management of potable water supply also entails the execution of highly complex hydrological, geo-hydrological and public management functions in a very dynamic and highly regulated environment. it inter alia entails the conserving of suitable water resources by firstly identification, surveying, and demarcation of such resources and then subsequently, the development, transport, treatment, distribution, imposition of tariffs, municipal administration, recollection of the used water, treatment and final release of the wastewater back into the water catchment for use by other downstream users. in addition, the nature and impact of the physical environment are also difficult to manage. it, therefore, requires the municipal managers, leading officials as well as the committed political office bearers to be equipped with specific knowledge and information regarding the physical environment and utilise geographical mapping tools in order to improve their long-term planning skills. 5. environment in which a municipality has to function in order to understand the place and role of a municipality in relation to the higher government spheres and the surrounding environment, the successful municipal manager and his/her subordinate municipal officials as well as the responsible political office bearers should adopt an integrated environmental management approach. this encompasses a sensitivity to, careful cognisance and holistic management of ‘the aggregate of surrounding objects, conditions, and influences that impact on the life and habits of man or any other organism or collection of organisms’ (council for the environment, 1989). the human environment ‘would comprise the external circumstances, conditions, and factors that affect the existence and development of an individual or group’. in the context of development and conservation, this ‘would consist municipal governance and environmental crises: td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 73-85. 78 of both a source of materials for creating circumstances that will improve the human condition, and a source of natural amenities and life-support systems which directly contribute to human well-being and survival’ (council for the environment, 1989). to assist in the aforementioned quest, the system theory is a handy tool which graphically illustrates that public policies are the result of demands that are set to the political system of the relevant country by the public. the political system is defined as the legitimate public institutions that have authoritative allotment of values and resources. these political institutions may be government departments in national, provincial or local spheres or parastatal institutions (bayat & meyer, 1994:86 88). see figure 2 for a simplified diagrammatical view of how, for example, the system theory functions within the public sector in order to establish a more effective public service and general development. figure 2: system model towards improved development for easy classification of typical characteristics and challenging issues in the dynamic municipal government sphere of sa, the swot-analysis format will be used. the acronym swot stands for the strengths (s) and weaknesses (w) of an institution’s intraand internal position and the opportunities (o) and threats (t) that exist in the surrounding (external) environment. the swot-analysis is a technique that managers use to get an overview of the strategic position of an institution (rossouw, 2007:70). nealer 79 5.1 strengths the following aspects can be identified as built-in advantages and resources which the municipal government sphere of a developing sa has at its disposal to further effective and integrated local development: � the newly merged 284 municipalities which now cover every ‘millimetre’ of the country, are focused on growing local economies and maintaining the provision of a lot more diverse and complex basic municipal services to geographical areas and citizens that were previously neglected; � from table 1 presented in section 3 one can distinguish that the change in government since april 1994 has produced an overall revisit to and transformation of existing executive public policies in furthering the developmental environment of the country as a whole; � dwaf’s national water act 36 of 1998 now makes provision for holistic and integrated water management according to surface water drainage regions; � natural resources now are managed for the benefit of all the citizens of the country; � more basic public services are now available to more citizens at more locations in the country in a more transparent and accessible manner; � racial segregation, unequal allocation and delivery of basic services have been replaced with developmental local governance for all; and � the mass media are playing an active and effective role in furthering basic service delivery and effective local governance. 5.2 weaknesses the following aspects can be identified as resources or competencies that municipalities have, but in short supply or of inferior quality compared with their competitors: � sa is geographically a large semi-arid country with vast open spaces and scarcely habitable rural areas; � prior to 2000, the south african municipalities were characterised by racial segregation, unequal allocation of resources and unequal delivery of basic services. communities from previously disadvantaged areas had been subjected to discrimination and degrading living conditions. the legal and administrative structures inherited by the current government did not serve the broad population of all the municipalities. public participation – now a constitutional requirement – was non-existent; � the financial management systems of many municipalities often do not allow for identification of costs and revenue streams from a particular service. this in turn means that it is not possible for municipalities to calculate, let alone charge tariffs that reflect the actual costs incurred for providing such a service (national treasury, 2001); � lack of attention to maintenance and sustainability of water municipal governance and environmental crises: td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 73-85. 80 management infrastructure with resulting high rates of water loss per capita due to internal leakages in houses and deterioration of the reticulation pipeline infrastructure; � with the current urbanisation level of 56% in the country (sacn, 2006:217), the newly established municipalities have much bigger geographical municipal areas and more residents to service and manage; � a lack of effective municipal planning (integrated development planning [idps] and budgets) which include aspects such as inter alia conducting municipal surveys and profiles of privately owned land and budgets in the restructuring, expansion and maintenance of local government infrastructure regarding basic services such as potable water and electricity supply, led to the current unmanageable status in most of the previously disadvantaged municipalities of the country; and � the underlying causes of the ongoing failure of many municipalities to, for example, run a more preventive infrastructure maintenance programme and deliver a more reliable, effective, efficient and economical public service are due to inadequate budgets and skills (technical), inexperience in planning and implementing appropriate maintenance, and an absence of appropriate, credible and authoritative practice norms, standards and guidelines (csir, 2007:10). 5.3 opportunities the following aspects can be identified as major positive factors in the environment that put an institution in a better position to meet the needs of its customers than the positions of its competitors: � in the global sphere the country is now part of the global village and through the means of modern communication technology it is within continuous reach of other countries and has to maintain optimal transparency of and access to aspects such as the nature and extent of its local governance. as foreign investors look for new sites, south african cities and local authorities will for example have to offer increasingly sophisticated telecommunications and freight infrastructure, desirable quality of life and a pool of highly skilled workers; � all the leading political office bearers and public officials in leading positions should be submitted to continuous professional leadership, public management-, and environmental management training and also be equipped with more effective communication skills and the willingness to listen, look, learn and plan ahead. a clear ethical code of conduct must also be inculcated within their public service delivery to bring about and maintain effective, efficient and professional service rendering; � in order to improve the organisational structuring and planning of the south african government, the provincial sphere of government should be merged into the national and local spheres and the functions and legislative authority of municipalities increased to bring about more effective and efficient ‘greater city government’ (craythorne, 2006:42); nealer 81 � the coordination between key role-payers, the political office bearers, public officials, community organisations and residents should be improved. they should also try to liaise and communicate more freely with each other to learn more from each other and to strengthen their coordinated attempts to bring about more effective and efficient public service delivery (daily sun, 2006/03/20:on-line). this can only come true through more effective communication by means of for example newsletters, brochures, open days/launches and effective assistance from the mass media by focusing on important issues identified by the masses and promoting grassroots democracy and popular participation in development (city press, 2005/11/27:on-line); � with reference to internal aspects which a municipality should address, it is firstly recommended that a thorough strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis (swot) as well as a skills and resources audit (survey) be carried out. this would assist a municipality to come up with more effective long-term planning aligned with an overall vision and mission, and its idp; � improved access to service delivery buildings and services as well as a more holistic approach to effective customer care should be arranged (such as chairs for older citizens and ample toilet facilities). for example, the cumbersome queuing techniques used in most public sector buildings must be investigated and improved (daily sun, 2005/ 05/12:on-line); � environmental sensitivity towards and effective protection of the natural environment should be promoted through the numerous environmental laws which might be best achieved if all the available environmental conservation control and law enforcement mechanisms were fully utilised and all persons willing to participate in the enforcement process were allowed to do so (loots in sajelp, 1994:34); � identify, survey, map and demarcate the nature and extent of a water drainage region with its rivers, marshes, fountains, groundwater, number of water users and consumers, quantity and quality of water and implement a well-defined, planned and orchestrated holistic management thereof; � assist in the obtaining and supply of hydrological and logistical knowledge, skills and infrastructure to more correctly manage the identification, surveying, development, transport, storage, treatment, distribution, administering of tariffs, collection, storage and treatment of used and storm water and in the last instance return the treated used water (effluent) into the water catchment for use by downstream inhabitants; � come up with more effective municipal infrastructure, policies, plans (such as idps and budgets) and training of municipal employees to improve public service delivery; � active participation by a municipality on all public forums, legislatures, regulators and environmental watchdog associations; � effective project management of ‘planning by projects’, communication plans and risk/disaster management plans should be incorporated; � administrative and political willingness to put party-politics and municipal governance and environmental crises: td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 73-85. 82 overemphasised ‘red tape’ aside (albeit only for a few years) and to look, listen and learn in all earnest to bring about effective transformation and improvement in local governance and basic public service delivery towards economic growth, development and prosperity; � conjunctive use of both surface (rivers) and underground (boreholes) water should be investigated and implemented by municipalities. underground water which is less exposed to evaporation, is often of better quality (naturally pre-filtered) and provides a slow release of water to a cyclical surface water supply (dwaf, 2006); � citizens should be informed about their rights and obligations with reference to the use and conservation of potable water. continuous participation should also be encouraged by means of optimum access and transparency whenever local government issues are debated and decided upon; � the committed, involved and experienced citizens should be encouraged to serve as informal contacts and advisors regarding more complex public service delivery activities such as the dangers of pollution to a town’s/city’s drinking water; � the public service delivery infrastructure of a municipality should be maintained, developed, expanded, constructed and managed in a proactive, effective, efficient and economical way; and � other more advanced geographical, geo-hydrological and information technological measures inter alia, giss, river flow computer modelling, 1:10 000 scale ortho-photos, and satellite images should be researched and utilised to inculcate a butterfly view of a town’s/city’s primary natural environment determinants of the municipal management of, for example, its potable water supply. 5.4 threats the following aspects can be identified as major negative factors in the environment that put an institution in a weaker position to meet the needs of its customers than the positions of its competitors: � there is too much centralization of government’s executive authority. thus, national government departments constantly argue that they have to keep a tight control over how public funds are disbursed. this creates friction with municipalities; � the nature and extent of governmental administration and management manifesting on the grassroots level entails more than the administration and service rendering by local municipalities itself. the ensuing local governance is made up from a complex set of intra, interand extra-governmental relationships between all three spheres of government, business and the community; an organisational and management shift away from a state-centred perspective to include civic associations, private-sector enterprises, community groups and social movements (sacn, 2006:3-52); � urbanisation and more equal distribution of potable water and sanitation services to millions more inhabitants of the ever-expanding municipal areas brought about a serious increase in, for example, nealer 83 the handling of waste water and effluent in close vicinity to developed towns and cities. this has a subsequent increased potential threat of surface and groundwater pollution; � the delivery of municipal services to a much bigger group of clients over longer distances is also characterised by a very high level of diversity (different types of functions) and complexity (different levels of skills and execution involved). furthermore, the ‘brain drain’ of experienced and skilled municipal officials has resulted in increased work pressure for the municipal managers, officials and political office bearers; � ‘brown and black-outs’ in electricity supply to especially the various potable and waste water pump stations as well as the implementation of a ‘slow-down’ in potable water supply should be managed in a more effective, efficient and economical manner; � a tendency with community members of not being interested in the origin and management of their potable water as well as the destiny and management of their waste water and sewage. just as long as the tap works and the toilet flushes effectively…; � a ‘flood’ of new and unfamiliar water management terms used by service providers and regulators (e.g. acid mine drainage, dilution capacity, microcystins etc.) which are not clearly explained to the citizens in understandable language; and � inaccurate and outdated population censuses which can affect effective planning in a negative sense. 6. conclusion the place and role of the local government sphere in sa are now clear, the necessary legislation and structures are in place, and the service providers must ‘just get their act together’ and start to implement and execute the governmental policies on the more effective and efficient rendering of public services to the citizens of the country. by taking ‘baby steps’ and tackling every unsatisfactory public service delivery challenge one by one in an integrated environmental management manner with effective public management procedures, a positive difference can be facilitated to ensure a better life for all! bibliography barrett, d. & jaichand, v. 2007. the right to water, privatized water and access to justice: tackling united kingdom water companies’ practices in developing countries. south african journal of human rights, 23. bayat, m.s. & meyer, h. 1994. public administration: concepts, theory and practice. halfway house: southern. clarke, j. 1991. back to earth: south africa’s environmental challenges. halfway house: southern book publishers. city press. 2005. (on-line). accessed on 2008.08.15 at: http:// 152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/citypress/2005/11/27/c1/22/ municipal governance and environmental crises: td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 73-85. 84 02.html). council for the environment. 1989. integrated environmental management in south africa. pretoria: government printer. csir. 2007. the state of municipal infrastructure in south africa and its operation and maintenance: an overview. pretoria: csir. craythorne, d.l. 2006. municipal administration: the handbook. cape town:juta. daily sun. 2005. (on-line). accessed on 2008.07.21 at: http:// 152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/dailysun/2005/05/12/ds/31/ 06.html). daily sun. 2006. (on-line). accessed on 2008.07.29 at: http:// 152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/dailysun/2006/03/20/ds/31/ 01.html). department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf). 2004. “a history of the first decade of water service delivery in south africa 1994 to 2004”. pretoria: dwaf. department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf). 2006. guidelines for water supply systems operation and management plans during normal and drought conditions. pretoria: dwaf. department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf). 2008. (online). hydrological water cycle. accessed on 2008.07.07 at: http:/ /www.dwaf.gov.za/dir_wqm/images/posters_catchwqmbig.jpg. fast, h. & engelbrecht, b. 1999. local government transformation: a guide for health workers” in kwik-skwiz 18, april 1999, p. 2. fuggle, r.f. & rabie, m.a. 2005. environmental management in south africa. cape town: juta & co,ltd. gildenhuys, a. 1999. “a new water dispensation”. butterworths property law digest (vol. 3, part 1) p. 10. iucn. 2005. water demand management. pretoria: iucn. motshekga, m. 2008. lessons to be learned from the 19th century on governance, which could enhance our current leadership in the development of local government sector (paper delivered, local government seta, boksburg, march 2008), p. 1. national treasury. 2001. intergovernmental fiscal review 2001. december 2001. retrieved on 2007.03.13 from http:// www.finance.gov.za. pienaar, g. j. & van der schyff, e. 2005. (in jwn tempelhoff [ed.]). african water histories: trans-disciplinary discourses. vanderbijlpark: north-west university. reddy, p.s. (ed.). 1999. local government democratisation and decentralisation: a review of the southern african region. cape town: juta. rossouw, d. 2007. strategic management: an applied south african perspective. claremont: new africa books (pty) ltd. nealer 85 south african cities network. 2006. state of the cities report 2006. sacn. south african journal of environmental law. 1994. making environmental law effective. sajelp, vol 1 no 1. municipal governance and environmental crises: td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 73-85. abstract introduction and background method results discussion and recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) ronel koch department of psychology of education, faculty of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa department of educational psychology, faculty of education, university of western cape, cape town, south africa welma wehmeyer department of educational psychology, faculty of education, university of the western cape, bellville, south africa citation koch r, wehmeyer w. a systematic review of comprehensive sexuality education for south african adolescents. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1087. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1087 original research a systematic review of comprehensive sexuality education for south african adolescents ronel koch, welma wehmeyer received: 31 may 2021; accepted: 15 july 2021; published: 08 nov. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract comprehensive sexuality education (cse) was implemented in south african schools in the year 2000 as part of the subject life orientation, with the aim of contributing positively to adolescent sexual health in a holistic manner. continued high rate of teenage pregnancy and hiv infection is an indication; however, that the programme is not entirely successful. to establish why the aims of the programme and the consequences of learners’ sexual behaviour do not correspond, this systematic review aimed to determine how the programme contributes to the sexual health of adolescents and to make recommendations for its improvement. nine databases were searched, after which two reviewers independently evaluated the methodological quality of the identified studies using an appraisal tool. the 22 articles that met the criteria for final inclusion were qualitative in nature and included cross-sectional and cohort studies. results indicate that the contribution of the cse programme is reflected in teachers, learners and the curriculum. teachers are in need of expert training and learners are neither actively involved in the learning process nor the development of the programme as they need and would like to be. recommendations include the development of context-specific training curricula for preand in-service teachers as developed collaboratively by various experts and stakeholders. learners’ voices, active involvement, cultural context and needs are fundamental to the development and delivery of cse. the teaching method and content of sexuality education should meet the contemporary needs of the 21st century adolescent to ensure optimal sexual health. keywords: adolescents; comprehensive sexuality education; life orientation; south africa; systematic review. introduction and background according to the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco),1 comprehensive sexuality education (cse) is a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality: it provides opportunities to acquire comprehensive, accurate, evidence-informed, and age-appropriate information on sexuality. it addresses sexual and reproductive health issues, including, but not limited to: sexual and reproductive anatomy and physiology; puberty and menstruation; reproduction, modern contraception, pregnancy and childbirth; and sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (hiv and aids).1(p. 16) comprehensive sexuality education has been part of the subject life orientation (lo) in south african (sa) schools since 2000.2 the minister of basic education in sa reported that despite this, pregnancy and hiv infection amongst learners remain high and claims that there has been ‘no change’ in the behaviour of learners.2 these claims can be confirmed by current statistics of the sexual health of adolescents in sa. the sa child gauge publication3 reports that between the years 2008 and 2017, the proportion of adolescent boys and young men engaging in sex at an early age increased, whilst condom use amongst young men and women (15–24) has decreased. although the total number of new hiv infections have declined by 44% since 2012, young adults (15–24 years) continue to be at higher risk, accounting for over a third (38%) of all new infections in 2017. females are particularly at risk in that the rate of new hiv infections each year is highest amongst young women (15–24) who were three times more likely to become infected than young men, with an estimated 66 000 new infections in young women compared to 22 000 in young men in 2017. human immunodeficiency virus prevalence in sa (existing infections in the population) is also higher amongst adolescent girls and young women (15.6%), who account for three-quarters of 20–24-year olds living with hiv – whereas 4.8% of young men were hiv positive in 2017. human immunodeficiency virus prevalence increases with age: 28% of pregnant women (15–49) are hiv positive, with little or no change since 2005. teen childbearing rates have remained steady at 7% in 2009 and 2018. yet, hiv prevalence and teen pregnancy rates remain high and most of these pregnancies are unintended. as mentioned, even though cse addresses more aspects of sexuality than merely the prevention of pregnancy and disease, these statistics could be viewed as concrete evidence that the impact of the cse programme is not as desired. in response to these alarmingly high rates of teenage pregnancy and hiv infection, the department of basic education (dbe)2 initiated a review process in 2011 to strengthen the lo cse programme. the review process showed that teachers generally find it challenging to teach cse. this process of review has led to the development of scripted lesson plans (slp) – pre-planned comprehensive lessons with activities and assessment tasks that assist teachers with the teaching of sexuality education. according to the dbe,2 the slps did not add any new content to the existing curriculum, but rather aimed to guide teachers in a step-by-step manner to deliver the existing cse content more effectively. despite not adding any new content to the cse curriculum, there was a sudden public concern and outcry from parents, teachers and other stakeholders (such as religious groups) that was portrayed in the media, late in 2019, in response to the slp, because of the nature thereof. it led to the creation of a social media hashtag: ‘#leaveourkidsalone’ where, according to an article posted by mail and guardian4 in february 2020, a group of more than 100 000 members have strongly voiced their dissatisfaction with cse. some parents wanted their children to be excluded from cse lessons and some teachers refused to teach cse because the content was deemed to be inappropriate, age inappropriate, explicit, and they were concerned that it would sexualise children and encourage them to become sexually active. contrary to this belief, a study by speizer et al.5 explained how slp could positively assist youth in sa to receive high-quality sexuality and hiv prevention education; and it is a recommendation of this study that slp should be implemented nationally. in fact, research shows that delayed initiation of sexual intercourse, decreased frequency of sexual intercourse, decreased number of sexual partners, reduced risk-taking, increased use of condoms and increased use of contraception have been reported as a result of exposure to cse.1 a systematic review by fonner et al.6 that included 64 studies, reported that cse does not increase sexual activity, sexual risk-taking behaviour, or sexually transmitted infections (sti)/hiv infection rates. on the contrary, programmes that promote a one-sided approach, such as abstinence only, have been found to be ineffective in delaying sexual initiation, reducing the frequency of sex, or reducing the number of sexual partners.7 as a result of the fact that: (1) even though cse has been part of the lo curriculum since 2000, learner pregnancy and hiv infection rates remain alarmingly high, (2) research indicates various advantages of cse and (3) some stakeholders in sa are not convinced of this fact and are opposed to cse, it is necessary to investigate the contribution of cse as part of lo in sa schools. a systematic review by mukoma and flisher8 has been completely linked to this topic, but the focus was not on cse per se, but rather on school-based hiv or aids prevention programmes in sa. a desktop review has also been performed by francis9 with the focus on sex and sexuality teaching practices in the classroom. to date, no systematic review on the contribution of cse as part of the lo subject, specifically within the sa context, is available. the aim of this article was consequently to systematically review previously published primary research to determine the contribution of the sa cse programme towards the sexual health of adolescents with the ultimate goal to make recommendations to improve the cse programme. to reach this aim, the research question was formulated using the well-known participant, intervention, outcome (pio) framework, which is considered a useful strategy to formulate research questions for systematic reviews.10,11 participants include school-going adolescents in sa, the intervention is the cse programme as part of lo in sa schools, the outcome is to promote the sexual health of adolescents in sa. the resulting research question was: what is the contribution of cse within the subject of lo in the sa school context to promote the sexual health of adolescents? the objectives were to: review literature on the current status of cse as part of lo in sa critically appraise the methodological quality of the prevalence of studies related to adolescent cse describe how the cse programme within the context of lo in the sa schools contributes to the sexual health of adolescents identify opportunities to improve cse to promote the sexual health of adolescents and inform future research. method systematic review methodology was employed to satisfy the before-mentioned aim and objectives, and to answer the research question. a systematic review can be defined as a study of the findings of research that has already been undertaken.12 it is an explicit and systematic method used to amalgamate empirical evidence on a proposed topic to produce reliable and unbiased findings from which rational and informed decisions can be made.13 by making use of such accountable and rigorous research methods, it is possible to provide a reliable account of the state of cse in schools in sa by appraising and synthesising the results of existing research in this regard.12 eligibility criteria the first step of this rigorous process was to decide upon the eligibility criteria for study selection. inclusion criteria the first curriculum revision of cse happened in 2002. this study therefore included research that was completed between january 2002 and november 2019 (the date when data analysis of the included articles started). studies considered for inclusion had to focus on cse as part of lo directed at sa school going adolescents as the target population. studies were required to be full-text, published and peer-reviewed; be in english; and qualitative in nature. seeing that the researchers were interested in rich descriptions such as of how the cse programme contributes to the sexual health of adolescents, the inclusion of qualitative studies was deemed appropriate. exclusion criteria studies were excluded from the review if they were quantitative, not published within the designated time frame, if they were not peer-reviewed, full-text or in english. studies not focussing on or failing to include adolescents and any cse programmes outside of the sa schooling system were excluded from the review. comprehensive sexuality education studies that focus exclusively on hiv or aids interventions were also excluded because cse does include hiv or aids intervention, but hiv or aids intervention on its own is not comprehensive in nature and could also fall outside of the school context. furthermore, as a vast number of articles on hiv or aids interventions have become available since the publication of mukoma and flisher’s8 review, it deserves a systematic review on its own. keywords and databases a preliminary search of keywords and search terms was carried out to eliminate possible already existing systematic reviews on this topic. these keywords and search terms were then organised into boolean strings and entered into the respective databases for the identification of studies to be included in the review. initial search terms and keywords included: sexuality education, sex education, cse, lo and south africa. ‘adolescents’ was not added as a keyword, because it did not show any additional studies. the search was performed between july and november 2019, exploring nine databases namely, ebscohost web (academic search complete, e-journals, health source – consumer edition, medline, psycarticles, socindex with full text), pubmed, sabinet african journals and genderwatch. search strategy the review utilised a four-step search strategy process as outlined by moher et al.14 for the extraction and recording of data: title identification: during the initial search, studies were selected from each database based on the relevance of their titles. abstract review: two reviewers independently screened the abstracts of all identified titles to determine further relevance. abstracts satisfying the inclusion criteria progressed to the next level of full-text review. full-text review: again, two reviewers independently reviewed the full texts of potential studies to ascertain methodological rigour prior to the decision for final inclusion in the review. this was determined along the indicators of an appraisal tool as guided by the critical appraisal skills programme (casp).15 specifically, the casp qualitative studies checklist was used, which is a 10-item checklist designed to assist authors to improve the reporting of systematic reviews. each section of the checklist consists of a series of items assessing the study and its associated outcomes. each item is scored ‘yes’ if the information necessary to answer the item was provided in the study and ‘no’, if the required information was not reported. some items were scored ‘n/a’, if the item did not pertain to the study design. one mark was awarded to ‘yes’ and zero was awarded to ‘no’. items scored ‘n/a’ were removed from the total items, so that an overall composite percentage could be calculated, presenting its methodological rigour and quality ranging from weak (0% – 30%), to moderate (31% – 64%), to strong (65% – 80%) and to excellent (81% – 100%). apart from two studies with a moderate quality rating that were included as a result of the value of the content, only studies that rated strong and above were included in the review. disagreements between reviewers on inclusion were resolved by consensus. table 1 shows evidence of how each study was appraised.15 table 1: appraisal results of articles guided by critical appraisal skills programme. data extraction after appraisal, the same two reviewers independently carried out data extraction from the 22 finally included articles. any disagreements on data extraction were again resolved by consensus. the reporting of this systematic review is based on the prisma (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) guidelines as proposed by moher et al.14 preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses consists of a 27-item checklist and 4-phase flow diagram (figure 1) to help authors improve the reporting process. this flow diagram shows how the researchers systematically worked through 193 initial articles to reach the point where 22 were finally included through a rigorous process of appraisal. figure 1: preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses four-phase flow diagram. results an overview of the initial 193 articles that were screened, 22 articles met the criteria for final inclusion in this review. the sample consisted of two main groups of participants: that is, the deliverers and/or managers of cse: 255 lo teachers, 16 heads of department (hod), lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (lgbbtiq) seven principals, two deputy principals and 20 student teachers enrolled for an honours degree in education; and the recipients of cse: 589 learners ranging between grades 6 and 12 of which 167 were boys, 194 were girls, and the gender of the rest was not specified. seventy-five first-year students enrolled at a university were also included because they reflected retrospectively upon the cse that they had received in high school. regarding race, black, coloured, indian, and white participants formed part of the 22 included studies, and therefore the sample is representative of a multiracial and multicultural sa. as determined by inclusion criteria, all studies were qualitative in nature, with three studies being participatory, learner-centred and experiential in nature, three had an ethnographic orientation, two studies employed a feminist/critical gender lens, one study was social constructivist, two studies had a case study design and one study employed a critical semantic analysis. data were gathered by a variety of methods: interviews (semi-structured, in-depth and open-ended); focus group discussions (semi-structured, unstructured and participatory workshops); a facebook forum; questionnaires; drawings and one textual analysis of lo materials. regarding the studies’ specific aims, most of the studies focussed on the lo teacher.17,18,19,20,21,23,24,25,26,28,33,34,36,39 more specifically, studies were directed to understand: how lo teachers teach cse25; the challenges that lo cse teachers generally face26,33; the profile, characteristics and qualification(s) that a lo cse teacher needs to possess16,24,33; whether and how qualified, prepared and comfortable lo teachers are to teach cse25; how teachers’ own life experiences (such as past trauma and how they themselves were sexually educated) impact on how they teach and deliver content19,25; how teachers’ cultures, social background, values and morals impact on how the subject is delivered and what is taught and promoted20,21,23,25,28,39; teachers’ understanding of learners’ context and why they engage in risky sexual behaviour,17 and to investigate the discrepancy between what teachers believe learners need from cse and what learners actually need.18 the remainder of the studies focussed on learners: how learners experience, understand and perceive lo cse,16 as well as their voices around what they learn in the lo cse class and how it is perceived, which was performed to make recommendations for the improvement of the programme.16,29,32,33,38 furthermore, learners’ perceptions of lo as a subject29; where learners get information about sexual and reproductive health from22; how lo shapes specifically girls’ sexual agency, and a focus on gender justice, particularly how the content of lo cse lessons send intentional and unintentional messages via the curriculum and from teachers to learners about supposed gender roles (i.e. what is typically, stereotypically and traditionally expected of males and females, i.e. specific to a culture).31,34,37 the aim of some studies was to investigate the lo cse curriculum content: the implications of what learners are being taught at school and what they determine informally from other sources (such as at their homes, from peers and the media)22; a focus on how the curriculum could be improved, teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of the inclusion of cse curriculum within the broader school curriculum and how the curriculum impacts on learners regarding the prevention of sexual illness and disease with a focus on the detrimental effects of being sexually active.36 only one of the selected studies considered communication between parents and their children about the child’s sexuality as an aspect to take note of when doing research about cse.27 how the comprehensive sexuality education programme contributes to adolescent sexual health the contribution of the cse programme as part of lo in sa schools to the sexual health of adolescents is reflected in three main themes that arose from the data: (1) lo teachers, (2) learners and (3) the cse curriculum. a summary of the findings are presented according to the inductive dendrogram technique as adapted from schutte42 (figure 2). figure 2: systematic review results on cse presented according to the inductive dendrogram technique. life orientation teachers as the deliverers of the lo cse curriculum, it is not surprising that the contribution of the cse programme is reflected in various aspects surrounding the lo teacher, a theme that most often emerged from the sample of reviewed articles. the lo teacher’s contribution to the impact of cse is reflected in: teacher training: insufficiencies and discrepancies regarding preand in-service training of cse teachers are reported.26,28,33,36 there are variations in how and whether tertiary training institutions approach the training of cse teachers, so teachers enter the field with different levels of exposure to training and thus preparedness to teach.25 some teachers report having received no pre-service training.24,26,33 in-service teachers sometimes end up teaching sexuality education, not because they are adequately trained, but because they have space available on their timetables.24,31,32 this results in vast differences and subjectivity in how cse is presented to learners. the teacher as an individual with a unique context: the teachers’ unique context such as their culture, religious convictions, values and past events from their own lives has an impact on the way in which they interact with content, curriculum, pedagogy and learners.19,20,25,28,30,39 teachers are as a result not necessarily considerate of adolescents’ needs or what is best for them, but teach according to their own context and what they deem as appropriate.18,30 some teachers’ culture and values imply that sexuality should not be openly discussed with children and that it is meant for adults only.18,20 this silence about sexuality seems to be a cultural practice.17,19,20 not only does the culture of the teacher has an impact on how cse is delivered, but it could also be that the cultural values of the community are in contrast with what is expected to be taught at school,20,28 resulting in resistance from the community and pressure on the teacher on how, what and whom they are expected to teach. regarding the unique characteristics of a lo cse teacher, francis and depalma24 reported on lo teachers’ perceptions of themselves as agents of change and having the opportunity to let learners experience care and trusting relationships. tucker et al.,16 mentioned what lo teachers are doing correctly according to learners, such as listening to them, guiding them in life, giving them answers, talking to them about things their parents do not want to talk about, telling what parents will not tell and being someone to confide in. the contradicting opposite is true for some learners who report fearing the teacher that the teacher is not available to listen to them, not being a confidante and teachers gossiping about what learners tell them.16,33 methods of teaching: the main teaching method adopted by sexuality teachers is lecture style with an authoritative expert approach. ‘teachers rather use didactic, authoritative pedagogical techniques, which do not acknowledge young people’s experience, nor do they facilitate their sexual agency’.25,31,34 this top-down and teacher-centred approach discourages learners to ask questions and to participate. this way of communicating with learners in the cse class does not offer the opportunity to establish a teacher-learner relationship that is conducive for enquiry and it therefore does not meet the contemporary needs of adolescents.30,39 this teaching method is adopted because of the fact that teachers are uncomfortable when they have to teach cse.30,31 approaches to teaching: sexuality education occurs in a discourse of danger, disease and damage; with the promotion of silence, abstinence and innocence. teachers tend to place emphasis on the negative consequences22 of sexual behaviour with abstinence being favoured.18,21,23,28,39 silence around sexuality17,19,20,38 is used because teachers believe that withholding information from adolescents is a way of protecting them against the dangers of sexuality.22,32 these approaches often undermine the key points of a cse curriculum in that a one-sided approach, as opposed to a comprehensive approach, is adhered to.21,23,25,28,39 what teachers perceive as good practices could actually be obstacles in the teaching of cse.18,22,23,25,30,37 whilst some teachers do acknowledge the value of the broader issues of cse such as relationships and safe sex, they still favour innocence and promote abstinence as the appropriate choice for young people21,22,23,24 whereas others combine abstinence and safe sex teaching.17,23 many teachers view teaching topics about sexuality as a response to declining moral standards, therefore portraying sex and sexual needs as something that is ‘wrong’.28 this preferred moralistic approach leads to the exclusion of issues such as homosexuality and other sensitive topics.28 there is also an absence of the notions of pleasure, desire and fulfilment.39 learners the contribution of the cse programme to the sexual health of adolescents is reflected in learners’ reports: level of involvement: even though learners indicate a need to be actively involved in the teaching of cse,16 the opposite seems to be the norm: there is a top-down approach where learners are often passive receivers of cse lessons.32 adolescents’ needs are thus not considered.22 the fact that they are left uninformed and excluded, fuels adolescents’ curiosity and drives them to informal sources of knowledge on sexuality such as observing and learning from what happens at home, the media and their peers.18,22,29 perceptions of life orientation as a subject: there is a contradiction in the way in which lo, the subject of which cse forms a part, is experienced by learners. some learners enjoy the subject whereas others experience it negatively, describing it as not helpful, boring, irrelevant and unnecessary.16,29,33 the subject is also not externally examined in grade 12 and does not contribute to university admission point scales.16 the implication is that because of the status of lo, cse is not taken seriously by learners and could be one of the reasons why the intended aims as set out in the curriculum are not reached.29 discrimination and gender roles: from the perspective of learners, heterosexuality is promoted as the normal and preferred sexual orientation. there seems to be a moralistic approach to sexuality that disregards homosexuality.16,32,37 gender roles are also reinforced rather than challenged31,34,38 in that specifically girls are often silenced and if they do ask questions, they tend to be judged and blamed as being sexually active.31 they are tasked with the responsibility to resist pressure from males to be sexually active and the possible negative consequences thereof, with desire being dismissed.16,32,37,38 life orientation comprehensive sexuality education curriculum the contribution of the cse programme is reflected in reported discrepancies, omissions and shortcomings as to what is envisioned for the lo cse curriculum, compared to what happens in practice.32 although sexuality education is supposed to be comprehensive, the content of the curriculum is mostly occupied with the physical aspects of sexuality, hiv or aids and abstinence.33 whilst there is a component in the lo curriculum called ‘decisions regarding sexuality’, sexual diversity or lgbtiq issues are not explicitly mentioned.21 moreover, the content of the curriculum is left up to the interpretation of the teacher. curriculum content delivery depends on the teacher’s subjective discretion and context, and thus lacks uniformity.39 what is needed for improvement of the comprehensive sexuality education programme this review provides the opportunity to consolidate reported recommendations for the cse programme’s improvement. recommendations for comprehensive sexuality education teachers conceptualisation of comprehensive sexuality education: teachers need to be made aware of how aspects such as religious and gender-role convictions, values and prior personal experiences can impact, and at times be counterproductive, and therefore go through ‘value clarification’, ‘reflective dialogues’19 or ‘self-reflexive practices’ to interrogate attitudes towards youth sexuality.25 this will enable them to deal with their own discomfort and convince them that proper cse has important benefits and not the negative consequences they fear. this new level of understanding could impact the teaching of cse in a more positive, less fatalistic way,19 and remind teachers not to let their personal convictions interfere with what needs to be taught.25 positive approach: as opposed to focussing exclusively on risk and illness, teachers should not refrain from highlighting positive aspects of sexuality.21 teachers should consider learners’ needs and move away from the negative discourse of danger, damage and disease23,38 where they are conditioned to fear sex and its negative consequences. thus, discussions about sexuality should encourage positive thoughts and feelings towards their bodies and sexuality as sources of pleasure and not something to be feared or ashamed of.21 a participatory, learner-centred approach: emphasis is placed on the participatory, learner-centred and empowering approach to the teaching of cse, condemning the ‘chalk and talk’ method that puts all focus on teachers. teaching methods should shift from a top-down approach to a more inclusive approach, where learners are viewed as sexual agents with valuable information that they bring to the classroom.22,31,34,37,38 adults teaching cse to adolescents must acknowledge their sexual knowledge and curiosity about sexuality and that it is a normal part of sexual development.22 teachers must aim to build a sense of agency and responsibility and not alienate young people by focussing on what is morally right and wrong.23 learners should be free to ask questions and to express their views without fear of being judged.32 learners are then given the power to control and determine what is included and what is silenced in the classroom.38 styles and methods of communication with youth about sexuality should be inclusive of their realities and provide space for meaningful conversations where their voices and experiences can be heard and made part of the discussions, which will consequently lead to learning experiences that are more responsive to their needs.30 gender consciousness: teachers must become aware of how they contribute to the reinforcement of gender stereotypes which confirm and strengthen gender inequality and male dominance against the disadvantage of female adolescents.38 they should oppose gendered injustices and steer clear of a judgemental approach that promotes heteronormativity.32 they ought to adopt an approach where both males and females take equal responsibility to manage their sexual health and its outcomes. collaboration with parents and other stakeholders: an improved level of interaction between teachers and other stakeholders is beneficial to overcome misconceptions and disjuncture between schools and communities to facilitate change.32 wider support could be obtained by integrating cse with other subject areas, and collaborating with the community and parents as well as with members who engage with adolescents outside the school context.36 francis25 suggested that lo teachers keep parents and the community informed on the critical need for a cse curriculum. recommendations for curriculum development and delivery intercultural conversations could assist curriculum planners to understand how different cultures engage with cse to ensure that it is culturally responsive.20 conceptuality-based research is essential to gain a better understanding of the challenges unique to various schools in different contexts within sa.39 this means that voices that have been traditionally excluded must be included in research.20 that includes learners’ voices, opinions and needs that must also be considered when curriculum content is developed.29 it is important to have a sound theoretical and research base for cse programmes.20 it is recommended that a curriculum should be devised that is more explicit and more clearly structured in terms of both negative behaviour and positive desire.21 seeing that there were recommendations that teachers take on a more positive approach when teaching cse, it makes sense that there is also a critical need for a curriculum that is more invitational to young people, one which covers the whole spectrum from pleasure to risk, and that does not exclusively focus on risk where sex is portrayed as something to be scared of and feared.23 learners should furthermore be provided with more than merely content knowledge about sexuality; they also need skills such as critical thinking, decision-making, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills21; and the curriculum needs to be developed to make provision for this. for a curriculum to be successfully delivered, expert qualification, training and preparation of teachers are necessary. preand in-service educator training, structured activity plans and monitoring are recommended.30,36 universities must explore outreach refresher programmes for in-service teachers who are currently teaching in this field.25 george et al.,26 made recommendations about the unique context of the lo teacher and mentioned that determining the level of support that is respectively required must be taken into account. some contexts provide an inequality of services and this must be addressed and guarded against.26 support to teachers must be dealt with at district level. they also suggest that the novice lo teacher in the first term of appointment should be offered additional support where necessary. it is important that support is provided on a continuous basis. discussion and recommendations this systematic review report found that there is not uniformity in the way in which cse teachers are trained, with some teachers having received no formal training at all. together with the unique context of each teacher and their subjective interpretation of what needs to be taught, cse is presented in a way which does not correspond with what is set out to be the aims of the sexuality education curriculum that is comprehensive in nature. whereas some lo teachers do possess characteristics that are responsive to learners’ needs that promote the successful delivery of cse, certain other characteristics alienate learners and work against it. because of lack of training and to counter discomfort, teachers often use authoritarian methods of teaching that excludes children further from the learning experience. teachers furthermore employ a discourse of danger and disease when teaching about sexuality, where negative consequences are used as scaring tactics and pleasure and fulfilment are disregarded. some prefer to use silence to preserve innocence, believing that children should not receive any information about sex. most teachers use an abstinence-only approach, whereas some use a hybrid approach where abstinence and safe sex are combined, both of which contrast with a comprehensive approach. consequently, issues such as homosexuality are intentionally left out and a heteronormative approach is favoured. gender roles tend to be confirmed in a way that undermines females in that they are viewed as the ones having to take responsibility for upholding abstinence and the possible harmful consequences of sexual activity. learners indicate a need to be actively involved in cse lessons where their needs are considered. as the subject through which cse is delivered, the status of lo as a result of learners perceptions thereof as irrelevant, can do harm to the successful implementation and delivery of cse. learners also perceive the subject as one that is offered from a moralistic and hegemonic masculinity point of view where sensitive issues are often omitted. for the programme to improve, it is necessary for lo teachers to reflect upon their subjective approaches to sexuality education, to become aware of their discomfort and how their approach could counter the successful delivery of cse. they should be trained to divorce from the exclusive focus on danger and disease, and a heteronormative, gender biased, moralistic and alienating approach to one where positive aspects of sexuality are acknowledged and where learners are actively included in learning. parents and other stakeholders should also be included so that misconceptions regarding cse could be countered and that they do not perceive themselves and their children as victims of a curriculum that they disapprove of. if all stakeholders (such as learners, parents, teachers, principals, religious groups and community members), are included and the advantages of the cse curriculum are thoroughly explained, they will most likely take ownership and be more positive towards it, which will make the implementation of cse more effective. successful curriculum development and delivery depends on equal and sufficient teacher training on a preand in-service level. this systematic review included primary research as conducted by experts in sexuality education from eight out of the nine provinces of south africa (with the exclusion of the northern cape). it shows that there are numerous experts in south africa who are doing valuable research that contributes to the body of knowledge. these experts must meet on a national and provincial level to consolidate knowledge and determine what is contextually needed to respond to the unique demands that each province and district bring. they must do so by collaborating with various stakeholders and encourage interdisciplinary conversations so that communities can share expertise and take ownership in the sexual health of adolescents. the department of higher education and training (dhet) should draw from this expertise and respond to the fact that no mandated national curriculum for sexuality education for pre-service teachers in tertiary institutions exists.43 it is imperative that it is developed as part of method of lo modules to ensure that teachers enter the profession with a solid and uniform level of exposure to training to be prepared to teach. this will simultaneously restore the status of lo as a subject, because when training and teaching occur at a level of expertise, it would leave less room for poor practice and subsequent criticism. it is commended that the dbe is giving much needed attention to the development of cse in sa schools by means of the national roll out of slp and should continue to do so to ensure that it is successfully implemented in all provinces. efforts are made in the provision of training workshops to assist in-service lo teachers to become comfortable with mediating very sensitive topics with learners44 and this should persist. it is our recommendation that the dbe trains and employs province-specific specialist cse subject advisors to ensure that these structures that are already in place are built upon and expanded. in-service teachers across all quintiles should be trained by subject advisors to ensure that the challenges identified in this review are responded to, to ensure quality sexuality education for all. a limitation was that this review focussed on cse for adolescents in the sa context only. the strength of this study is that prior research is consolidated in a reliable and unbiased way that makes it possible for future research to be more rationally informed.13 as most of the studies in this review emphasised various shortcomings of the programme, future research should be solution focussed and directed towards the development and successful implementation of the lo cse curriculum. we suggest that learners from diverse contexts are asked to provide insight into why they believe cse in sa schools is unable to report a significant impact on their lives. in this way, their traditionally excluded voices are included, and cross-cultural conversations are stimulated, which could provide valuable answers and direction. from this, a praxis for educators could be developed which could encourage uniformity in how learners are educated. conclusion this study aimed to systematically review published primary research to determine how the cse programme that forms part of the lo curriculum in the sa school context, contributes towards the sexual health of adolescents. this was performed to make recommendations for the improvement of the programme to promote adolescent sexual health and inform future research. the review has shown that even though cse has the potential to improve the sexual health of adolescents in various ways, the current cse programme in sa schools as part of lo still fails in doing so to the extent it should. teachers must be trained by expert cse advisers to provide experiential spaces for sexuality education that is inclusive of learners’ voices and needs, and exclusive of the typical one-sided abstinence only, safe-sex, heteronormative, gender discriminative approaches driven by morality. teachers should come to understand that their subjective interpretation of what must be taught does not necessarily respond to learners’ needs. a well-implemented and presented sexuality education curriculum that is comprehensive and inclusive of learners’ needs provides them the opportunity to make fully informed decisions about all aspects of sexuality in order to become individuals who are adequately able to make responsible sexual decisions, enjoy and take care of their sexual health. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the ‘developing the scholar programme’ under the auspices of prof. josé frantz, dvc research and innovation at uwc, for continuous training and support throughout the process of writing this systematic review. a special word of appreciation towards prof. nicolette roman for continuous guidance and training provided. thank you also to profs. christa beyers, steven whitney and dr andrew lewis for their valuable insight as critical readers. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions r.k. was the primary researcher, responsible for data collection, data analysis and the writing of the article. w.w. independently evaluated the methodological quality of data and reviewed and edited the final manuscript. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information the authors of the article acknowledge the financial support from the university staff doctoral programme (usdp). data availability the data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/13s-ouux5nhocbprxepug4_yxwoozl75i12-kxedw9us/edit?usp=sharing (initial search of databases) and https://docs.google.com/document/d/16k7a2bxm6a6kvnx_3-jk4mjgey7obtlsu4cay1uwc7c/edit?usp=sharing (data extraction). disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors, and the publisher/s. references unesco. international technical guidance on sexuality education [homepage on the internet]. 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in south african schools: a matter of space, place and culture. j transdiscipl res south africa. 2019;15(1):1–9. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.612 swanepoel e, beyers c. from personal sexuality bias to the life orientation classroom: bridging the gap with cultural intelligence. journal of psychology in africa. 2015;25(2): 164–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2015.1021535 davids el, roman nv, leach l. the link between parenting approaches and health behavior: a systematic review. j hum behav soc environ. 2017;27(6):589–608. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2017.1311816 schutte dw. the dendrogram technique as a tool to develop questionnaires. j public adm. 2006;41(1):616–630. botha mg. a bourdieuen analysis of learners’ expectations of sexuality education: implications for teacher education. bloemfontein: university of the free state; 2014. comprehensive sexuality education teacher training workshop [homepage on the internet]. western cape education department; 2021 [cited 2021 apr 30]. available from: https://wcedonline.westerncape.gov.za/news/comprehensive-sexuality-education-teacher-training-workshop microsoft word 13 beyers.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 550560. in search of healthy sexuality: the gap between what youth want and what teachers think they need c beyers1 abstract the fact that youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are most vulnerable to contract hiv (unaids, 2011) is a clear indication that adults are failing to provide them with the necessary skills and information to make informed decisions about healthy sexuality. adults, including teachers, have a responsibility to engage youth about sexuality, in order to challenge critical thinking with the aim of contributing towards healthy and responsible individuals. presently, sexuality education is taught as a component of life orientation, and teachers are given a considerable amount of autonomy on what and how to teach. this article aims to explore the gap between what youth want from sexuality education and what teachers think they need. i pose two questions: what are the sexuality education needs of youth? what do teachers think youth need in terms of sexuality education? to answer these questions, i argue that teachers seem to have knowledge on what youth need, but do not necessarily respond to what youth require in terms of sexuality education. using an interpretive stance, i explore potential gaps and possible opportunities in how sexuality education is taught and discuss the need for a common agreement on, or understanding for the teaching and learning of sexuality education. i conclude with direction that future research might take. keywords: communication; sexuality; social network sites introduction teaching sexuality in south african schools has been the subject of discussion and debate for many years. the need for an adequate response to, and proper management of hiv/aids and sexuality education, are very important to the well-being of youth. the world bank (2000) expands on this notion when stating that hiv and aids can wipe out developmental gains of a generation if it is not attended to in an appropriate way. the hiv and aids pandemic in south africa is a clear indication that there is an “alarming failure of communication” between adults and youth with regards to sexual issues (delius & glaser, 2002: 27). francis and depalma (2013) assert that there exist two pre-eminent stances in the teaching of sexuality: abstinence-only and comprehensive sexuality education. abstinenceonly programmes teach that sexual activity outside a marriage is likely to have harmful consequences such as unwanted pregnancies, sexual transmitted infections (sti’s) and hiv, sending a message that abstaining from sex is the only appropriate option. on the other hand, proponents of comprehensive sexuality education – that is education that views 1 christa beyers (phd) is a lecturer in the school of education studies, university of the free state. she is project manager of the teaching and learning about sexuality and hiv/aids (talsha) project of the faculty of education, ufs and her research includes the use of visual participatory methodology. e-mail beyersc@ufs.ac.za sexuality: what youth want and what teachers think they need td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 550-560. 551 abstinence as the best prevention strategy, but in addition provides accurate information on inter alia contraception, gender differences, safe and healthy sex and sexual pleasure – believe that sexuality education should assist youth in gaining appropriate knowledge and skills in order for them to develop a positive view of sexuality and make informed decisions about their sexual behaviour (kirby, 2008; eisenberg, bernat, bearinger & resnick, 2008). although evidence strongly demonstrates the effectiveness of comprehensive sexuality education, research on sexuality and hiv/aids is still dominated by studies concerning the biomedical nature and unwanted consequences of sexuality (kirby, laris & rolleri, 2005; blake, 2008). knowledge valued by adults is usually prescriptive to ‘keep youth safe’, without taking into consideration the sexual experiences of young people and what information they need (allen, 2001). strange, forrest, oakley, stephenson and the ripple study team (2006) have identified factors that influence the quality of sexuality education. these include lack of time available for planning and delivery; teachers’ lack of confidence and commitment; feelings of embarrassment; and lack of training. francis (2010) and beyers (2011) concur by stating that teachers are unwilling to engage in dialogues, because they themselves do not feel comfortable in the teaching of sexuality. these difficult dialogues cannot be ignored because, if we do not acknowledge youth’s own sexual knowledge and needs, young people may feel alienated from the messages of sexuality education. however, there is no doubt that youth obtain sex information somewhere. society is awash with depictions of sexuality, whether it is on television, the internet or in magazines. the question should be asked as to whether this is the information to which we want to expose youth. if we, as adults, do not talk about sex, we are surrendering the responsibility to peers and technology to which youth have access. adults need to encourage dialogue with youth and try to establish what learners want to learn in sexuality education if they want to promote healthy sexuality. in theory, the life orientation curriculum should empower youth for their future lives. however, in practice, we need to address the inconsistent implementation, the content taught as well as the limited time spent on sexuality education nationwide. the majority of sexuality programmes effect social change. when considering that youth may be more susceptible to influences that could help them reflect on attitudes, beliefs and behaviour when they themselves are involved (winkleby, feighery, dunn, kole, ahn & killen, 2004), it is clear that there is a need for social innovation. the latter concerns the application of new ideas or the reapplication of existing ideas in novel ways, in order to add value to, and impact on social issues such as hiv and sexuality. although sexuality is fundamental to the development of the youth, understanding the latter’s needs is still an essential step towards healthy sexuality. aggleton (1997) emphasised this, stating that the answer to what and how to teach sexuality certainly lies within the youth themselves. youth should find it easy and convenient to participate if we want to give them a voice to take part and become involved in their own fight against hiv and aids and to effect social change. mankoff, matthews, fussel and johnson (2007: 4) agree, stating that for youth to participate in social change movements, the activities should be “easily integrated into daily life”. in support of this, south africa experiences a continuing rise in the importance of social networks, especially in the lives of youth (it news africa, 2012). not only are social networks viewed as acceptable and personal, but youth value the informal language used. by making use of social networks such as facebook, messages can be short, positive and cover a variety of topics with immediate feedback. passy and giugni (2001: 123) postulate that networks serve three purposes, namely “structurally connecting prospective participants to an opportunity to participate, socializing them to a protest issue, and shaping their decision to beyers 552 become involved”. in addition, youth are more likely to become involved in a discussion about hiv and sexuality if their peers are also involved. social networking sites (sns) are rapidly becoming a pervasive part of adolescent culture (boyd & ellison, 2007), and are expanding more significantly than any other online modality, including e-mail (nielsen, 2009). at least 75% of south african youth use some form of sns (unicef, 2011). among younger people, the use of cellular phones and internet sns appear to be one of the most prevalent forms of communication. these strengthened networks can easily translate into strong knowledge tools when used in an appropriate manner. for adults communication technologies offer exciting opportunities to engage personally with a huge number of youth at minimum cost. the need to stay ‘in touch’ the interpretive perspective (orlikowski & baroudi, 1991; walsham, 1993) claims that individuals seek to construct their own knowledge of reality as they interact with the world in which they live and work. thomas (2009) holds that the main point of interpretivism is that we are interested in people and the way they interrelate, what they think and how they form ideas about the world, and how these worlds are constructed. they develop subjective meanings of their own experiences about a variety of issues. henning, van rensburg and smit (2004:21) agree and state that “the interpretive paradigm does not concern itself with the search for broadly applicable laws and rules, but rather seeks to produce descriptive analyses that emphasize deep, interpretive understanding of social phenomena”. when making use of multi-methods, as in this study, the researcher seeks a complexity of views rather than restricting the meanings into a few categories or ideas. the participants are thus given the opportunity to construct their own meaning of certain issues – in this study, what youth want with regards to sexuality education, and what teachers think they need. the meanings that individuals attach to certain issues cannot be viewed in isolation, as all human beings are influenced by the society and culture in which they were socialised. it should be mentioned that, when analysing the data, i as a researcher should be aware that my own experiences and socialisation could also influence data interpretation (creswell, 2003). i concur with henning et al (2004) who argue that one can never be free of bias in a qualitative study. the aim of this study was, however, not to find a universal truth, but to understand whether teachers teach content that youth need and want. problem statement taking into consideration that positive dialogue with regards to sexuality and hiv seems to be almost non-existent between adults and youth, the potential of comparing the voices of teachers and learners has a great deal to offer towards responsible sexual behaviour. not only teachers, but also youth should be viewed as a large untapped resource with regards to hiv and sexuality education. two questions arise: what are the sexuality needs of youth? what do teachers think youth need from sexuality education? methodology i made use of a multi-methods qualitative research in an effort to understand what teachers think youth need from sexuality education, and to find out whether this correlates with what sexuality: what youth want and what teachers think they need td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 550-560. 553 youth themselves need. i conducted a survey on facebook with first-year students enrolled at cut, and held group discussions with 125 life orientation teachers. the students were invited to sign up via facebook with the aim of identifying what their needs are with regards to sexuality education. in addition, three posters were displayed in visible positions to invite anyone interested in sexuality education to join. two lecturers, both experts in sexuality issues, were involved with the aim to offer a platform for discussing what youth want from sexuality education. students were invited to join the public facebook profile by choosing the ‘like’ option. they were then connected to participate in the forum and could read all the questions, make comments and share ideas. thirty-seven students took part in answering the posed questions, and initial answers and comments led to students asking subsequent questions. the reason for making use of facebook as tool is that facebook is believed to be the new ‘mall’ – a place where youth go to hang out and socialise (unicef, 2011). in addition, facebook claims 200 million active users and estimates that their users spend 3.5 billion minutes on facebook daily (facebook, 2009). by making use of facebook as sns, a collaborative approach is employed: experts can become involved in disseminating information, and youth can share knowledge and ideas that could assist in social change. accessibility of knowledge through social media must be viewed as an obvious choice – most youth have access to the internet, not to mention cellular phones which 72% of youth are reported to own (unicef, 2012). by creating a sns forum, youth could be assisted in critical thinking skills which may lead to reflection on the individual and society, self/others, democratic culture and notions of equality/inequality (rogow & haberland, 2005). i initially posed the following questions: what were you taught in sexuality education, and by whom? what information would you like to obtain? the focus group discussion is the result of a collaborative workshop facilitated by researchers from the university of the free state with the attendees being teachers from the free state department of education. the sample was purposive insofar as all the educators, registered for a sexuality education workshop, also teach life orientation at the senior level (grades 7 to 10). the teachers were diverse in terms of race, gender, class, ethnicities and age. my reference to race draws on the nomenclature of south africa’s apartheid past and should not, as stated by francis & depalma (2013:12), “lend credibility to popular stereotypes that accompany these descriptors”. it is important to note that the teachers taught in a range of schools, from urban to rural, with differing socio-economic contexts. the group discussion was unstructured, in order to elicit the participants’ true feelings and perceptions regarding their own conceptualization of healthy sexuality. during this discussion, the following questions were posed: what do you think young people want from sexuality education? how do they want to be taught? the rationale behind these methods is to add to the trustworthiness of the study which is underpinned by the principle of triangulation (strauss & corbin, 1998). this implies that i do not rely solely on one group of participants when a second group can enrich the data. according to morse & field (1998: 130), each piece of data must be compared with every other piece of relevant data. this could be viewed as a challenge and be criticised as only the researcher decides which data is relevant. during the analysis, the two groups’ data were transcribed, thus providing the input for the process of analysis. the analysis consisted of the two activities, as described by dey (1993), namely fragmenting and connecting. the process of fragmenting should be viewed as analysing two sets of data and then seeking themes that can connect the data. according to boeije (2002), it is important to pose the following beyers 554 questions: what do the two groups say about the issue? which themes appear in one group, but not in the other, and vice versa? why do both groups view issues differently or similarly? what additional information can be derived from one group about the other group? this step is aimed at identifying the gaps that might exist between teachers and youth about sexuality education. furthermore, the purpose of making use of a multi-method approach was to place participants at the centre of data analysis. de lange, mnisi and mitchell (2010) make it clear that by making use of participatory methods such as facebook and collaborative workshops, the participants are given a voice to identify key issues as well as challenges that affect their lives, instead of being the recipients of what is valued ‘knowledge’ by researchers. burns and grove (2001) emphasise that, for ethical purposes, the rights of both the researcher and the participants should be protected. the research project, under which the workshop intervention is located, served and was approved by the faculty of education ethics committee at the university of the free state. all protocols were followed as participants were informed of the intention to use all available data for research purposes. participants were informed of the intention to use all available data for research purposes. they were also given the choice to take part in all activities. all participants could withdraw from the study at any time. limitations this study proved to be an interesting and revealing journey, but not without limitations, especially on sns. initially, a great deal of time was spent on keeping the discussions on facebook live, vibrant, engaging and flowing. the facilitator has to be involved and make meaningful input. this topic must be carefully monitored, as sexuality and hiv could lead to rash comments. this study started on a small scale – using only facebook with a small group of students. the ideal is to create a network to involve youth from diverse backgrounds who can reach out and share knowledge. although the advantages are apparent, demographic groups who do not have access to computers or smart phones are still a cause for concern. discussion of findings the initial responses made it clear that the truth held by one person does not necessarily hold true for another. the comments were divided into categories and discussed in themes identified by the researcher. this report will not focus on whether the research questions have been answered, but rather on the respondents’ interesting responses, comments and questions. based on the analysis of the two sets of data, the views of the youth were juxtaposed with those held by the teachers towards a holistic picture of what might be the cause of the gap between what teachers think youth want and what they need. i will, therefore, distinguish between the views of teachers (t) and those of youth (y). where applicable, i will cite relevant literature to add to the value of the discussion (cresswell, 2008: 90). theme 1: open communication in an effort to improve sexuality education with the aim of inter alia reducing teenage pregnancy rates and minimizing the contraction of sti’s, it is imperative to evaluate the sexuality education offered to youth in south africa. although some teachers believe that their responsibility lies in being role models to the youth they teach, it appeared that the majority of them are aware that youth need to talk about sex and sexuality and that they have sexuality: what youth want and what teachers think they need td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 550-560. 555 to be taught “the truths and facts about sexuality” (t). teachers agreed that youth need “openness to discuss sexuality issues with each other and adults” (t), but they did not feel comfortable to address all issues that youth may need with respect to healthy sexuality. this concurs with the view of delius and glazer (2002) that adults find it difficult to broach the issue of sex with youth. the reality therefore remains that youth have little option but to search for information elsewhere, frequently from peers and the internet. the majority of the youth participants concurred with the teachers’ view, as they reported that they need to communicate about sexuality, but that their parents and teachers seldom wanted to talk about sexual issues in which they were interested and, if they did communicate, it was about abstaining. most teacher participants believe that teaching values, responsibilities and cultural norms are of utmost importance in sexuality education. culture and religion should be viewed as a valid concern, as we are all shaped by our culture and life experiences, and our behaviour is determined by what we are taught (wood, 2008). although a few youth participants reported that they would feel comfortable if the sexuality educator were of a similar cultural background, and share similar moral and religious beliefs as themselves, it must be noted that one youth participant mentioned that it is sometimes embarrassing to discuss certain topics if the educator is someone they knew, from their own community, as s/he believed that to obtain information from people who think alike could hamper his/her own sexuality. “we will never get the chance to experiment” (y). this should be an indication that youth have an understanding of the pleasures of sex, but that they are of the opinion that they should not share some aspects with adults, as adults still seem to focus on what they themselves find acceptable from their own moral and religious perspectives. the problem is that many of the youth participants reported that they have not received sufficient knowledge regarding sex education. to initiate effective communication, it is important that there is a relationship of mutual trust. although teachers acknowledge that they should not be judgemental, it has become clear that they do not feel comfortable in addressing what allen (2004) calls the discourse of desire. one should ask the question whether teachers do not shy away from talking about important issues, as they mentioned that youth want to be taught by peereducators so that “they can feel comfortable and free” (t). one teacher mentioned that they “want reality because they already know everything”, giving the impression that adults cannot meet the needs of youth, as they are already sexually active. despite considerate efforts to include sexuality education into the life orientation curriculum, high-risk sexual behaviour seems to remain the norm for many adolescents. furthermore, the stigma associated with sti’s contributes to the silence as experienced by both teachers and learners. if youth are given a voice, the outcome could be positive: it could offer teachers and youth an exciting opportunity to engage in difficult, but crucial dialogues. theme 2: content it appears that adults undertake sexuality education without keeping in touch with the changes that have occurred over the last decades in the social construction of sexuality. connell and dowsett (1992) have made it clear that conventional ideas about sexuality are continuously challenged. the hiv and aids pandemic in south africa is one of the major challenges which focussed the attention on how, where and what youth learn about sex. when the focus groups were asked what information they think youth need, one of the participants mentioned that youth need accurate information that will help them to be beyers 556 healthy and responsible. when asked what the participant meant with ‘accurate information’, the teachers stated that youth need to know the “consequences of sexuality” and should be taught to have “boundaries”. they also acknowledged that they feel comfortable in teaching the biomedical dimensions of sexuality as well as religion and values. teachers made it clear that they believe that to teach biological and developmental facts such as the age of the onset of menstruation, nocturnal emissions, and so on are very important. although this is true, there is little value in teaching this content after these events have already happened. the same applies to sex and sex-related experiences – youth should be informed before they become sexually involved. most teacher groups included the need for teaching about sexually transmitted infections (stis) and the use of contraceptives. one group mentioned that youth must be taught “what is good and what is bad” (t), which could be categorised under the “abstinence-only-untilmarriage” programme, as discussed by the advocates for youth: towards a sexually healthy america (2001). it appears that teachers shy away from the comprehensive model where sexuality is viewed as “a natural, normal and healthy part of life”. most of the youth who joined on facebook were of the opinion that all individuals must be aware of the high hiv/aids rate in south africa, and thus not add to the pandemic, but act pro-actively. comments to achieve this included: “… teach us safe sex methods, not only abstain” (y); “that is what we are taught … abc. it does not work for the youth” (y), and “they can be open and say … masturbate – alone and mutual” (y). one teacher mentioned that youth believe that they need to be sexually active in order to be accepted by their peers. they, therefore, need to be taught to be assertive and how to deal with emotions such as “where to get help after a sexual encounter” (t). this in itself seemed to accentuate that many adults work from a negative discourse, rather than focusing on the positive and healthy aspects of sexuality. this correlates with literature findings that sexuality education focuses on medical and disease discourse rather than on an erotic one (allen, 2004). following a discussion between the members of a focus group, one of the teacher participants mentioned that youth must be taught “what the bible says about sexuality” (t). it was also emphasized that youth need to be taught responsibility and respect for one another. although this might be a valid point, the teachers appeared to be afraid to be frank about exactly what was meant by that remark. this could create a gap, as one youth participant (y) mentioned that “adults want us to obey laws and refrain from sexual relationships”. the majority of the youth participants agreed and added that they are taught about sexually transmitted diseases and hiv: “we are not informed, we are warned” (y). the interaction initiated by this comment between youth participants was valuable. the following comments illustrate this: “… it seems as if sex is just bad news which we should be afraid of” (y); “… how can having sex be bad news? it is meant to be enjoyable” (y), and “… i think he means that one must only think of the consequences, which could end up being bad news lol” (y). the youth’s comments indicate that adults emphasise the negative consequences of sexuality, and that they need to follow rules. this ignores the realities of the social and emotional aspects of sexuality. one should perhaps take note of fine & mcclelland’s (2006) argument that youth’s development into healthy sexual beings will be compromised if there are no critical conversations about sexuality in schools. all the focus groups (teachers) agreed that youth need honest information about issues such as relationships and ‘chemistry’ between people, but it was again emphasised that youth must sexuality: what youth want and what teachers think they need td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 550-560. 557 be taught about the negative consequences of having sexual relationships. one group made it clear that youth want to know what the difference is between sex and sexuality, as they “want to experiment” (t). this concurs with findings from research by goldman (2008) who found that adults assume that youth will engage in promiscuous sexual behaviour if they obtain information on sexual issues. teachers are aware that youth are most probably insecure about their own sexuality, as one group mentioned that youth need information, because “they want to know if their experiences are the same as others”. youth want to know whether adults faced similar sexual challenges to those that youth are currently facing. the reality exists that there are high levels of sexual activity amongst youth, and if teachers are not willing or able to confront what they view as awkward, youth are left to conseptualize sexuality on their own. theme 3: mode of delivering sexual messages advances in technology have dramatically changed how people, especially youth, communicate and access information. the time has come for widespread recognition of a different approach needed to teach sexuality. the ideal, according to shön (1983), is for all teachers to be reflective practitioners, implying that they should reflect on their own teaching as well as analyse and engage in a process of continuous learning. evans and policella (2000: 62) add that ‘reflection requires teachers to be introspective, open-minded, and willing to be responsible for decisions and actions’. it may be time for teachers to take to heart what francis and ingram-starrs (2005: 551) express: ‘those [voices] we ignore have more to teach us’. during the workshop with teachers, one participant made an interesting remark: youth need information from adults, because “they believe what they learn in the media and through friends” (t). this serves as a reminder that teachers are aware that youth obtain information from social networks, the internet and friends. if teachers do not capitalise on this reality, it could increase the gap in the teaching of sexuality. the youth’s comments on facebook emphasised the validity of these remarks. one participant reported (and it was echoed by others) that s/he knows many youths who watch pornography, but it is “unhealthy and becomes a problem – especially on cell phones” (y). during this discussion, which came about by posting another question, youth participants were of the opinion that students watch this because they are curious, and they did not obtain “any information from anybody” (y). other participants disagreed that it was a problem, and viewed it as ‘normal’. comments related to pornography on cellular phones and ‘sexting’, included: “… i get some visual material on my phone, which gives me plastic information”, and “… phones can assist uninformed youth to see and hear new things” (y). these comments clearly indicate that there is a need for knowledge on all aspects of sexuality. zisser & francis (2006) acknowledge ‘non-formal’ sources of information as critical in encouraging healthy sexuality amongst youth; therefore making use of sns must be regarded as a new and novel approach to talk about sexuality, but more important, talk about what youth need. the value of sharing thoughts on facebook is that feedback could be immediate and, when used by adults, could give informed information. teachers mentioned that they must communicate on the level of youth, and that youth should be allowed “to express their own views” (t). making use of sns could answer this call, as youth are comfortable in the use of technology, and might just believe that it is easier to ask relevant questions without the possibility of feeling ashamed in front of peers. in fact, even teachers could feel more comfortable talking freely about issues they themselves avoid. i also found the comments between youth participants precious – they became involved and attempted to inform and answer questions posed by fellow participants. becoming involved beyers 558 with peers from diverse backgrounds could help create social awareness and social network sites may afford them the opportunity to share their thoughts on certain issues such as masturbation and fondling which teachers are not comfortable in discussing. one of the teacher participants mentioned that youth should be taught in a language that they understand – it appears that the youth participants prefer the sns as that language. conclusion this paper aimed to establish whether there is still a gap between what teachers teach and what youth need from sexuality education. while the data discussed suggests that teachers do have knowledge of what youth need with regards to sexuality education, it still appears that sexuality is viewed as a private matter – meant for adults only. data reveals that there is an urgent need for positive dialogue, as emphasised not only by teachers involved in the teaching of sexuality education, but also by youth. teachers have no problem with teaching the ‘disease discourse’ where the focus is on negative consequences such as sti’s and hiv, but when it comes to addressing the youth’s needs, they shy away. i argue that, if adults do not teach content that youth need, it may compromise the sexual health of youth, as it became clear from the data that youth do find information that they want on sns. teachers (and parents) should ask themselves whether this information is sufficient to add to the development of healthy individuals. during the group discussions, teachers mentioned that youth need to be taught by making use of “modern techniques” such as dvds and tv series. this implies that teachers understand the need for novel methods to be used in a classroom situation. by making use of sns, teachers could address issues in a controlled setting without exposing themselves or youth, and at the same time add to sexual health and well-being. it appears that there is a need for agreement between all stakeholders when teachers decide on what and how to teach in order to be of mutual benefit towards a sexual healthy society. references 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(ed.) 2008. dealing with hiv and aids in the classroom. cape town: juta. world bank, 2000. health, nutrition and population goals: reduction strategy framework. report of a consultation. washington d.c. zisser, a. & francis, d. 2006. youth have a new view on aids, but are they talking about it? african journal of aids research, 5(2), 189-196. july 2009 inside book.p65 9 the role of science in deepening democracy: the case for water in post-apartheid south africa a turton* abstract: south africa is a water constrained country with a complex history of resource capture and human rights abuses. science, as practiced by the national science councils, could play a significant role in deepening our democracy. this paper explores two possible paradigms one where science is divorced from the national constitution, and the other where our science is embedded in the national constitution. the paper argues that the latter approach would make our national science more relevant, but of necessity would embroil it in issues of historic legacy and therefore become “messy”. keywords: heroic engineering phase, cholera, council for scientific and industrial research (csir), water quality drivers: radiological, chemical and biological, national nuclear regulator (nnr), tooth fairy project, acid mine drainage (amd), heavy metals, uranium, eutrophication, cyanobacteria, xenophobia, disciplines: political science, hydropolitics, hydrology, history and water studies. introduction south africa is a water constrained country with a long and complex history of resource capture and human rights abuses (turton, 2009). it is also the most diversified political-economy on the african continent, with a relatively sophisticated mix of different types of socio-economic activity ranging in scale from subsistence to the highly complex. this paper argues that science is a potential vehicle for the deepening of democracy by making a case for a national water quality science, technology and policy support program (turton, 2008a). this is done by contextualizing the public debate that arose in november 2008 when the author was banned from delivering the keynote lecture at the biannual conference of the council for scientific and industrial research (csir) entitled science – real and relevant. this essay is an attempt to contextualize the debate that underpinned that banning, not as a form of justification of the merits of the author’s case, but rather as an attempt to stimulate a national public discourse on the role of science in a fledgling democracy that is confronted by significant water constraints to future economic growth and development. the hydrological context to the debate south africa has always been a semi-arid country even before the very first european explorers started to plot a route around the southern tip of africa (turton et al., 2004). the very first books on the subject of water * dr anthony turton, a social science researcher in the field of hydropolitics and water resource management, is currently a consultant in the private sector. email: dr.anthony.turton@gmail.com td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. 9-28 10 as a factor limiting economic development were written in the 1870’s by an author named brown (1875; 1877). his work described the aridity of the cape and suggested the need for the development of infrastructure to overcome the problem. in 1886, thomas bain, a civil engineer in the public works department, published his book water-finding, dam-making, river utilization, irrigation. the inspiration for this book came when he journeyed through the karoo and pointed out to farmers how they could augment their water supply. he said, “ . . . my hints were acted upon and in many instances successfully carried out”. these “hints” referred to the utilisation of groundwater in the karoo (bain, 1886:3). he also gave advice in his book on the construction of dams (see figure 1). this can be regarded as the birth of the early phase of the south african hydraulic mission. in this regard a national hydraulic mission can be defined as that discourse which underpins the quest for hydrological security as a foundation for economic development in a land that is fundamentally hydrologically insecure (or what some call being “hostage to hydrology” (grey & sadoff, 2007)). figure 1: drawing of a dam made by thomas bain on 2 december 1885 showing details of an earth wall keyed into the river bank and a drawdown funnel (turton et al., 2004:125). original image made available by the special collection section at the academic information centre (aic) (library) of the university of pretoria. after south africa became a republic, a commission of inquiry into water matters was appointed in july 1966 by the state president, c.r. swart (turton et al., 2004). the objective of the commission was to inquire, report upon and submit recommendations on all aspects of water provision and utilisation within the republic, the broad planning of policy regarding this “with due regard to the arrangements with neighbouring states relating to common water resources” (rsa, 1970:xii). the commission found that (u)nless the essential steps are taken to plan the exploitation and augmentation of our water resources, to conserve and re-use our available supplies, and to manage and control our resources in the most efficient manner, serious shortages will be suffered somewhere before the close of the century (rsa, 1970:3). turton 11 this can be regarded as a watershed year for south africa in the context of water and development, because in effect this commission of enquiry into water matters projected the management of water resources to the highest level of strategic importance, giving rise to the heroic engineering phase of the south african hydraulic mission (turton et al., 2008a), which was accompanied by a proliferation of international treaties and agreements about transboundary river systems to which south africa had a claim or a future strategic interest (ashton et al., 2005). the concept of “heroic engineering” refers to that phase of the national hydraulic mission that seeks to overcome the obstacles to development that are placed there by nature, by co-producing hybrid aquatic ecosystems, through the development of infrastructure (swyngedouw, 1999a; 1999b). in the contemporary language of sustainability science this is referred to as engineering a “social-ecological system” by virtue of the intimate links created between society and ecology as a result of this action (burns & weaver, 2008). the significance of this heroic engineering phase of the south african hydraulic mission is that by 2004, south africa had captured and allocated around 98% of the total national water resource (around 38 billion m³/ yr) at a high assurance of supply (nwrs, 2004), as shown in figure 2. this places south africa in a precarious situation, because in effect it means that the country has little surplus water on which to grow an economy, with a strong reliance on future technology to develop new water resources, either from recycling effluent, or from accessing increasing volumes of groundwater (see figure 2). the difference between the volume of water currently available to sustain economic development (± 38 billion m³/yr); and the water needed to sustain projected economic development (± 65 billion m³/yr), is called “new water” for this purpose of this essay. figure 2: the availability of south africa’s surface water resources based on two developmental trajectories showing that even with lower water use the country has reached the limit of its surface water resource (csir, 2008a:19). td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 9-28. water in post-apartheid sa 12 all manipulations of nature have unintended consequences however (tenner, 1996), and the heroic engineering phase of the south african hydraulic mission is no exception (basson, 1995; davies & day, 1998; snaddon et al., 1999). in broad terms, one of these unintended consequences is manifest in the form of deteriorating water quality, driven largely by the loss of dilution capacity of over-allocated river systems. thus, having solved the water quantity side of the national developmental equation (at least for the time being), the emphasis now shifts to the new challenge of water quality as a limiting factor to future economic growth and development. water quality as an issue in south africa south africa currently faces a serious water quality challenge, both in the eyes of the public (bega, 2008a; coetzer, 2008; tempelhoff, 2007; 2008) and scientists (fatoki et al., 2001; hattingh et al., 2006; hattingh & claassen, 2008; hobbs, 2008; hodgson & krantz, 1998; iwqs, 1999; kempster et al., 1996; murray, 2006; oberholster & ashton, 2008; turton, 2008b; van vuuren, 2008; winde, 2005). the cholera crisis in late 2008, coupled as it was with the collapse of the zimbabwean economy and the massive out migration of people, often too ill to make the journey unassisted, became a media focal point. this coincided with the media interest in the banning of the keynote presentation at the csir biannual conference science – real and relevant, thrusting the whole issue of science as applied to the management of water quality into the national spotlight (bega, 2008b; power, 2008). the water quality problem can be broadly broken down into threats, or perceptions of threat, to human health. it is this perception of threat that makes the issue so emotive, because as long as people feel that they might be at risk, then human behaviour will be driven from this belief. in his capacity as a unit fellow at the csir responsible for science, engineering and technology (set) leadership, the author made a detailed study of the full range of human health-related water quality drivers with a view to developing a robust scientific response (turton, 2008a; 2008b). the manifestation of these water quality drivers can be broken down into three distinct generic categories: radiological, chemical and biological. the radiological contamination of water is typically associated with radionuclide contamination downstream of gold mining areas. while the existence of radiological contamination in mine water has been known about for some time, this information has generally been a closely guarded secret, typically protected by a confidentiality agreement that prevented the information from entering the public domain. when south africa became a democracy, the constitution was strengthened by a bill of rights, making the withholding of information that had been previously classified more readily accessible to the public. arguably the most notable of all research reports in terms of placing the radiological contamination of water into the public domain is the pioneering work done by coetzee (1995) on the gold mining industry and by toens et al., (1999) on groundwater. this research first became public domain just one year after south africa became a democracy in 1994 and it spawned a plethora a new work in this field (csir, 2008b; coetzee et al., 2002a; 2002b; 2005; 2006; iwqs, 1999; wade et al., 2002). of this the most relevant was the document that became known as report 1214 (coetzee et al., 2006). this turton 13 report created immediate public interest once released, with the first print run rapidly being sold out. concerned at the possible consequences of the findings in report 1214, the national nuclear regulator immediately commissioned a study, which came to be known as the brenk report (nnr, 2007). the brenk report, which has never been made available to the public in full text, confirmed the findings of report 1214, suggesting that the extent of the problem might have even been underreported. in response to this and cognizant of the csir parliamentary mandate, the author developed a project concept note that sought to launch a high confidence study into the health implications of off-mine populations that might have been exposed to radioactivity or heavy metals from mine water (csir, 2008). this proposed study became known as the tooth fairy project (smillie, 2008), because it was based on a highly successful program launched in the united states of america in the 1950’s that made use of human deciduous teeth as a source of data for possible evidence of radiological exposure over time. this classic american study was known as the st louis baby tooth survey, which became a significant research program yielding masses of longitudinal data on human health and the environment (mongillo & booth, 2001) (also see http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/dental/articles/babytooth.html). the chemical contamination of water is far less specific in its geographic spread, because it arises from a variety of sources, both point and diffuse. the common element in this form of contamination is the threat it poses to human health. a specific sub-set of this is what is known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (edcs), which have the potential to alter the normal functioning of the endocrine system (genthe & steyn, 2008). the endocrine system is responsible for guiding the development, growth, reproduction and behaviour of both humans and animals (ipcs, 2002), so a typical manifestation is disruption to the gonads, a shift in a population from male to female, or the development of a foetus with both male and female organs. a significant component of the science underpinning our understanding of endocrine disrupting effects is the fact that that these substances have transgenerational capabilities (ipcs, 2002, american chemical society, 1998). this implies that not only can these adverse effects result from exposure of either parent prior to conception, but it can also result from exposure of the developing embryo in utero, or from exposure of the progeny after birth (daston et al., 2003). this means that edcs are extremely important forms of chemical contamination, specifically in the context of a developing country with a high level of hiv/aids and a limited dilution capacity resulting from over-allocation of existing water resources (rascher et al., 2009; turton, 2008b). dalvie et al., (2003) reports on some effects of chemical contamination from the agricultural sector. the return flow of agrochemicals into stressed river systems has also been documented (awofolu & fatoki, 2003). the unintended consequences of attempts to control malaria through aerial spraying results in impaired human semen quality (aneck-hahn et al., 2007) and babies being born with significant urogenital defects (bornman et al., 2005). the loss of dilution capacity in our national rivers, combined with failing sewage treatment works pose a specific chemical-related risk in the form of oestrogen, which disrupts the endocrine system and unleashes a process of androgyny. work in this regard has been done by aneck-hahn et al., (2002) barnhoorn et al., (2004), bornman et al., (2007) and slabbert et al., td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 9-28. water in post-apartheid sa 14 (2007a; 2007b). considerable effort has been made to develop a coherent national research response to this form of contamination (offringa et al., 2007). research has had mixed results however, given the inherent complexity of translating effects observed in animals into possible effects in humans, specifically when it comes to androgyny (daston et al., 2003; wse, 2008). the impact of this exposure on a population with a high level of hiv/aids is not really known with any certainty (rascher et al., 2009), making such research a matter of strategic priority. a distinct sub-set of this category of chemical contamination is acid mine drainage (amd). in a certain sense, south africa finds itself in a similar position to that which faced germany after reunification in 1990 (hobbs, 2008). the lignite and uranium mining activities practised in the federal states of saxony and thuringia in the former east germany (german democratic republic), as well as the chemical industries in the bitterfeld area, left behind a devastated landscape and environment. the responsibility for the rehabilitation of these legacies fell to the federal republic and the respective federal states. acid mine water is a pernicious contaminant that not only sterilises its receiving environment, but also carries trace elements such as heavy metals and radionuclides in concentrations that are potentially hazardous to all forms of life (hobbs, 2008). whilst manageable in small quantities, the potential volume resulting from more than 100 years of gold and coal mining is alarming. for example, the volume of acid mine water currently coming to surface in the west rand goldfield near krugersdorp is sufficient to fill at least 10 olympic-size swimming pools (2,500 m3 each) every day (hobbs, 2008). the daily salt load in this water is equivalent to almost 140 tons (hobbs, 2008). these values can readily be multiplied tenfold to obtain an order of magnitude (and probably still conservative!) number for the entire witwatersrand basin comprising five goldfields (hobbs, 2008). in addition to the west rand goldfield already mentioned, these are the east rand, the central rand, the far west rand and the kosh goldfields. by comparison, the olifants river catchment witnesses roughly double the west rand basin values from defunct coal mines in the witbank coalfield (hobbs, 2008). the situation in the other coalfields (e.g. highveld and ermelo) located in the catchment of the vaal dam is still largely unknown, but some localized work has been done (bell et al., 2001). the potential volume of poor quality mine water threatens to significantly reduce the utility of the already stressed freshwater resources of the economic engine-room of the country (hobbs, 2008). furthermore, the impact of mine water quality on humans is largely unknown and has not yet been studied in south africa (adler et al., 2007). a proposal that was submitted to the water research commission to address this deficiency (csir, 2008) was unfortunately rejected, so the state of knowledge around this crucial area is still very weak. the biological contamination of water is typically the result of increased levels of nutrients downstream of sewage works that are malfunctioning, or in the case of cholera, a lack of proper sanitation services. in south africa this usually manifests as eutrophication or the proliferation of algal biomass in the presence of elevated levels of nutrients (harding & paxton, 2001; oberholster et al., 2008). in the context of eutrophication, cyanobacteria are a group of diverse gram-negative prokaryotes and are one of the earth’s most ancient life forms (oberholster, 2008). evidence of their existence on earth, derived from fossils records, encompasses a turton 15 period of some 3.5 billion years (oberholster et al., 2005). cyanobacterial blooms have become an increasing problem in south african freshwater bodies (harding & paxton, 2001; oberholster & ashton, 2008). cyanobacteria produce some of the most potent toxins known and have no known antidotes. work done by the csir in the 1980’s showed that the molecular structure of some cyanotoxin is similar to that of snake venom (csir, 1984). these biotoxins fall into three categories namely neurotoxins, hepatoxins and lipopolysaccharides (oberholster, 2008). the biotoxins in the first two groups can produce severe reactions in animals and humans, while the third group appears to be less virulent (oberholster et al., 2005). however, the latter have been less intensively studied. any release of these biotoxins into surrounding water can present a significant hazard to humans and the ecosystem (oberholster et al., 2005). the existence of gastrointestinal disorders linked to the ingestion of cyanobacterial biotoxins, as well as the chronic risks posed by hepatoxins, make these toxins a serious threat to human health when they are present in drinking water supplies. a survey conducted in south africa between 2004-2007 by botha and oberholster, used rt-pcr and pcr technology to distinguish microcystis strains bearing the mcy genes, which correlate with their ability to synthesize the cyanobacterial biotoxin microcystin, revealed that 99% of south africa’s major impoundments contain toxic strains of microcystis (botha & oberholster, 2007; oberholster & botha, 2007). insofar as the bulk provision of raw potable water is concerned, problems posed by cyanobacterial biotoxins in south africa are not yet of national crisis status (oberholster, 2008). however, the biotoxin concentrations of cyanobacteria in major impoundments in gauteng are so high, that a regional crisis exists if it is compared to impoundments of countries aboard (oberholster et al., 2008). while no confirmed human death has yet been attributed to these biotoxins produced by cyanobacteria in south africa, acute poisoning of humans has been reported from south america, africa and australia (oberholster, 2008). the majority (80%) of rural communities in south africa rely on surface water as the main source of domestic water (fatoki et al., 2001). therefore, it can be postulated that chronic exposure to low levels of cyanotoxins by people that live in rural areas, who have compromised or suppressed immune systems due to hiv/aids and possibly also suffer from other communicable and poverty-related diseases such as tuberculosis, may experience serious social and economic consequences as a result of cyanotoxins (oberholster, 2008). furthermore, common symptoms of cyanotoxin poisoning (diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach pains) are similar to the symptoms of gastrointestinal illness caused by bacteria, as well as other viral and protozoan infections and are thus not immediately linked to cyanotoxin poisoning (falconer, 1998; 2005). while the long-term impact on the health of south africans who have been exposed to low doses over a long period of time is unknown by virtue of the absence of definitive research on the subject (oberholster, 2008), a study to assess the chronic human health hazards caused by the biotoxins of cyanobacteria toxin ingested over long periods, such as might occur through drinking water from untreated sources, was undertaken on human lymphocytes in vitro. it was found that the cyanobacterial toxins produced more chromosome damage than did benzene and sodium arsenite (pitois et al., 2000). td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 9-28. water in post-apartheid sa 16 a study conducted by humpage et al., (2000) indicated that microcystins from a cyanobacterial extract provided in drinking water to rats increased the area of aberrant crypt foci in the colon, suggesting that microcystins promote preneoplastic colonic lesions (oberholster, 2008). it has also been shown that microcystins are potent tumour promoters (nishiwakimatushima et al., 1991) and there is an indication that they might also act as tumour initiators (ito et al., 1997). epidemiological studies have suggested that microcystins are an important risk factor for the high incidence of primary liver cancer in certain areas of china, where people have consumed pond-ditch and river water contaminated with low levels (within the range of 0.09-0.46 μg/l) of microcystins (ueno et al., 1996). it has also been shown that bathing and showering in water containing cyanobacterial cells can results in allergic reactions resembling hay fever, asthma and skin, eye and ear irritation. oberholster (2008) notes that a new emerging problem includes the production of â-nmethylamino-l-alanine (bmaa), a neurotoxic amino acid which is a possible cause of parkinsonism-dementia in humans and which is produced by all known groups of cyanobacteria. the role of science in deepening democracy with the water quality challenges noted above, it is clear that south africa is in a critical position at present. left unmanaged, two possible consequences can be anticipated. these are a gradual decline into a quagmire of social unrest and the general under-performance of the national economy as water constraints limit future growth potential. with respect to the first aspect – the possibility of water quality issues driving social unrest – there is no hard empirical evidence that makes a compelling argument. having noted this however, there are bits of evidence that suggest we should start to take this issue a lot more seriously. in this regard there are three elements of a potential argument that water quality can drive future social instability. the first is the general literature on water and conflict, which has shown that while wars between states over water are highly unlikely, water does have the capacity to amplify and aggravate existing sub-national tensions (ashton, 2000; 2002; ashton & turton, 2008; gleick, 1993; 1994; homer-dixon, 1994; 1999; wolf, 1998; 1999; 2006; wolf et al., 2003). the second is the small but convincing literature on resource-related conflict as it pertained specifically to south africa (johnston & bernstein, 2007; percival & homer-dixon, 1998; 2001). of this, the most significant is undoubtedly the case of khutsong (merafong), where a convincing case has been made by johnston & bernstein (2007) that while the violence in that municipality has many causes, the issue of water accessibility and perceived nepotism and patronage in terms of service delivery were key drivers in their own right. the third is the as-yet unresearched issue of xenophobic violence that took place in south africa in 2008. media reports indicate the extreme nature of this violence (johnston & wolmarans, 2008). similar reports suggest that failing economic standards were a potential driver of the violence (sibanda, 2008). the unpredictability of this violence, coupled with the extreme nature of the event where humans were set alight by angry mobs, suggests that such violence could be triggered in future if public perceptions of failing health arising from deteriorating water quality are not taken seriously. to this end a testable research turton 17 hypothesis has been suggested – the propensity to resort to mass violence increases when public expectations exceed the capacity of the state to deliver – and the question has been posed as to whether this type of anger could be unleashed in response to perceptions of deteriorating public health arising from declining water quality (turton, 2008a). in this regard the events currently unfolding in zimbabwe will provide rich research data as thousands succumb to cholera through collapsing water reticulation infrastructure (a situation also present in south africa, but as yet to a less catastrophic extent). this leads to a logical question – what role could science play in deepening democracy in south africa? here we have two poles to the argument. the one pole is centred on science as a commercialized entity selling itself to paying clients as a professional service. the opposite pole is centred on science as a public domain entity providing services of a scientific nature that are perceived by the public to be useful. these two poles need to be unpacked a little in order to better understand their relevance in contemporary south africa. this will be done by using the csir as a case study. the csir is a parastatal body that was created by an act of parliament – the scientific research council act – in 1945. the first meeting of the csir council (the governing body) on 8 october 1945 was addressed by jan smuts in his capacity as prime minister of the union of south africa, where he said: the time has come when we must tackle our own ... problems which lie before in south africa. we must develop our own scientific handling of those problems. ... science has come forward in gigantic strides and more and more everyone is beginning to feel that scientific research is a matter of vital importance (kingwill, 1990:13). this gave rise to a national science capability that was deployed in the national interest with the intention of developing the economy at the fastest possible rate. as south africa moved towards a democracy in 1994, the csir was given a new mandate. section 3 of the scientific research council act (act 46 of 1988 as amended by act 71 of 1990) stipulates that the objective of the csir is to: (f)oster, in the national interest and in fields which in its opinion should receive preference, industrial and scientific development, either by itself or in co-operation with principals from the private and public sectors, ... to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of the people of the republic. key elements of this mandate are therefore the following: � the national interest (however that may be defined). � the improvement of the quality of life of the people of south africa. � the role of industry and science in national development. � partnerships with both (or either) the public and private sectors. � the discretion by scientists to nominate work which they believe would help to attain the above objective. td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 9-28. water in post-apartheid sa 18 science as a commercialized entity is in essence what the csir does at present. around 35-40% of its income stream comes from parliament, which is insufficient to sustain the csir as a viable entity. this means that the shortfall has to be made up by selling scientific services to both the public and private sectors. in an assessment of the consequences of this so-called mixed income model, two senior csir officials came to the conclusion in 2006 that this model is deeply flawed (walwyn & scholes, 2006). a direct correlation was found to exist between the flow of parliamentary grant money and staff turnover. the conclusion was drawn that contract income does not retain science capacity within the institution, which has significant consequences for south africa if left unchecked. an alarming trajectory was found where staff numbers peaked in the mid1980s at around 5,000 and dropped off to just above 2,000 in 2006 (see figure 3). this has obvious strategic significance if one considers the vital role of science and technology in unlocking the so-called “new water” needed to sustain future economic development presented in figure 2. figure 3. trends in funding and staff turnover at the csir (walwyn & scholes, 2006:241). program-styled funding builds national capacity but contract-driven funding does not retain that capacity. turton 19 in response to this, in his capacity as a unit fellow at the csir, the author developed a case for returning to the grant funding that had built the national scientific capacity before 1985 (turton, 2008a). noting that the findings of walwyn & scholes (2006) were consistent with his own observations, and suggesting that this would have catastrophic effects for south africa as a whole if left unchecked, the author proposed a national water quality science, technology and policy support program, based largely on the scientific evidence presented above. this mooted program would embed the national scientific capacity of the csir in the constitution of the country. in so doing the national interest would be served by deepening democracy and dealing with the many complex issues related to more than a century of resource capture and human rights abuse. the act of deliberately placing our national science capability in the public domain would give access to public funding, thereby making the csir more financially sustainable, but also more accountable to the legitimate representatives of the citizens of south africa (parliament). it would also mean that the scientists in the csir would become a national asset, which could now be redeployed in a concerted capacity building exercise where principal scientists could become extraordinary professors of the various universities, thereby transferring skills in critical areas of national importance. the downside of this deliberate act is that it would open the plethora of legacy-related issues that have been left unmanaged. this becomes potentially messy, but the payoff for the csir as an institution is that it would then become relevant to the country in its current phase of post-apartheid reconstruction and redistribution of privilege. discussion the fact that south africa is water constrained is beyond any reasonable doubt. the implications that this has for future economic growth and prosperity is not as clear, but one can say with considerable confidence that future developmental aspirations will not be met unless these water constraints are effectively managed. part of that management is the mobilization of the national scientific capacity needed to make the paradigm shift called for in figure 2 where the national water demand of 38 billion m³/yr in 2010 is grown to 65 billion m³/yr in 2035 (assuming a low water use scenario is possible to sustain the level of economic development needed to maintain social stability). current indications are that the national science councils will be unable to rise to the occasion, if the trajectory presented in figure 3 is not drastically altered by a new funding model underpinned by the massive investment of public money. in the absence of this public domain science, then the private sector will have to be embraced in an effort to mobilize the technology needed to meet the demand for water that future economic growth will entail (see figure 2). this raises the prospect of “new water” as a pressing national priority, along with the role of both the private and public sector in making this happen. the question is still open what role could science play in deepening democracy in south africa? if the national science councils are forced to continue as commercialized entities, then they run the very real risk of being hijacked by private interests intent on maintaining the status quo in the country. this will lock in existing inequities and could potentially undermine the stability of our fledgling democracy. on the td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 9-28. water in post-apartheid sa 20 other hand, if our national science councils are given robust grants and a focussed research agenda that meets the national interests as broadly defined, then science could play a vital role in addressing past inequities and helping with the transition to a more stable society in which the core values of democracy are deeply entrenched. conclusion science has always played a major role in the development of south africa. it was the national science capacity in the 1950s that made south africa a world leader in oil from coal and deep-level mining. it was the same national science capacity in the 1980s that enabled the south african government to engage in regional wars of considerable intensity and also to withstand the otherwise debilitating effects of comprehensive economic sanctions. today it could be the same national science capacity that could help to entrench social equity and a new form of sustainable development, thereby building a more just society as envisaged by our national constitution. thus far the latter has not occurred and our national science capacity is dwindling at an alarming rate. the pivotal question is the positioning of a major national science council like the csir, either as an entity separate from the constitution and thus largely irrelevant to society but potentially lucrative to the narrow interests of those that can afford their services; or as an entity embedded in the constitution and thus relevant to the broader base of society, but potentially mired in the many complex issues arising from our historic legacy. this debate is an important one and should be waged in the public domain being led by scientists with a moral conscience and a desire for a just society. bibliography adler, r.a., claassen, m., godfrey, l. and turton, a.r. 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(28)5. september 2008. pp. 24 – 27. td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 9-28. water in post-apartheid sa microsoft word 08 jacobs-du plessis et al a.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 111-124. diaphragmatic-intercostal breathing and the occurrence of gastroesophageal reflux disease in singers b jacobs-du plessis,1 s viljoen2 and p bester3 abstract this article was inspired by our awareness of an increasing number of voice students and professional singers who specialize in western art music and who present with symptoms relating to gastro-esophageal reflux disease (gerd). in our attempts to understand this phenomenon, we began questioning the relationship between diaphragmatic-intercostal breathing (dib) and the occurrence of gerd. this study uses two of the methods by which qualitative research can be done, namely literature reviews and case studies. the results of the literature review show that the way in which the lower esophageal sphincter (les) functions during dib has direct bearing on the possible movement of gastric acids via the esophagus into the pharynx and the larynx. acknowledging the fact that we are not medical experts, we then used the data from the case studies to suggest how singers might adjust their life styles in order to restrict or prevent occurrences of gerd. keywords. diaphragmatic-intercostal breathing; diaphragm; gastroesophagheal reflux disease; lower esophagheal sphincter 1. introduction this research project was inspired by personal experience of how gastroesophageal reflux disease (gerd) influenced performances of western art music. as voice pedagogues, we also have been confronted with singing students who present with symptoms related to gerd and we experienced a need for more information on how to guide a student in seeking help for this condition. this article attempts to understand the relationship between diaphragmatic-intercostal breathing (dib)4 and the occurrence of gastro-esophageal reflux disease (gerd) in singers who specialize in western art music. it is the product of a research project that had its origins 1 . beverley du plessis is a distinguished soprano who has completed a mmus degree at north-west university, potchefstroom campus. (beverleyjacobs.j@gmail.com) 2 . dr santisa viljoen’s from the niche entity musical arts in africa: resources and applications at northwest university, potchefstroom campus, interdisciplinary research interests are concerned with the relationship between text, context and identity formation, as well as with various aspects of voice pathology. (santisa.viljoen@nwu.ac.za) 3 . petra bester obtained a phd in nursing. she is actively involved in postgraduate supervision of masters' and doctoral studies positioned within a trans-disciplinary research programme aimed to improve patient and health systems outcomes: focus area – quality in nursing and midwifery, north-west university, potchefstroom campus. (petra.bester@nwu.ac.za) 4 . while the term ventilation is more commonly used in medicine, this article uses the term breathing as it is more familiar to singers. furthermore, the abbreviation dib is used for the sake of stylistic expediency. jacobs-du plessis, viljoen and bester 112 within the contexts of vocal performance and voice pedagogy. an increasing number of voice students present with symptoms relating to gerd and informal conversations with professional singers have also indicated that this is a medical condition with which many have to cope. because gerd has a definite influence on the singer’s voice, it is necessary for the voice pedagogue to not only be aware of the symptoms of gerd, but also to guide the student in seeking help. therefore, this article has a dual purpose, namely to provide singers and voice pedagogues with sufficient information on the nature of and the relationship between dib and gerd on the one hand and, on the other hand, to make some suggestions on how a voice pedagogue can assist a student in attempts to manage the occurrence of gerd more efficiently. a brief discussion about each of the main concepts serves as background to this study. 2. research design and methods the paradigm for the qualitative design used for this article links to postmodern perceptions that boundaries are not absolute and that solving problems is done most effectively by using a holistic approach. a postmodern approach to research takes into account the relationship between the aims, questions and methods of the research project and acknowledges that it be regarded as an entity rather than consisting of separate units (creswell, 2013:50). it also allows for inter-disciplinary research. as mentioned previously, this research project followed a qualitative design. according to durrheim (2006:48) qualitative research is naturalistic, holistic and inductive. this study uses two of the methods by which qualitative research can be done, namely literature reviews and case studies. it employs a systematic use of primary sources such as articles, conference papers, chapters in books and some internet sources to create an integrated literature review of existing research. ultimately, this data was analysed and a decision was made as to what data meets the criteria recommended by lincoln and guba (1985:290) in order to ensure the trustworthiness of the study, namely credibility, applicability, consistency and objectivity. due to the origins and focus of this article (voice pedagogy and performance) the research project does not claim to present in-depth case studies reported on by medical doctors. while the discussion about the case studies does include some data based on the feedback from medical doctors that treated the participants, the main focus of the data is on themes relating to how gerd influences the participants’ vocal performance and lives. for the case studies, two participants were chosen to take part in this research project. both participants are singers, but represent diversity regarding the level of performance, gender, race and social contexts. the first case study is a caucasian, middle aged male (barend)5 who has a career as a professional opera singer. he is from a middle-class background with access to medical care. the second case study is a young african female (martie) who is in her final year of undergraduate studies and at the beginning of her career. she comes from a previously disadvantaged community and has very little access to medical care. barend provided the researcher with a written document describing his experience of gerd in narrative style. one of the authors of this article (jacobs-du plessis) conducted interviews with martie. the written narrative and the transcriptions of the interviews were used to extract data and, based on the results, prevalent themes were determined. 5 . fictitious names are used. breathing and singers’ gastroesophageal reflux disease td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 111-124. 113 3. discussion 3.1 diaphragmatic-intercostal breathing process the foundation on which the sound of the voice is built is breathing, and like any other foundation it should be properly laid. ideally, the breathing process for singers will be conducive to producing an ideal sound.6 in order to achieve this ideal sound, it is important that the singer’s throat is relaxed and open. the open throat feeling is experienced when the larynx is low and free-hanging (frisell, 2007:106), the mass of the tongue is forward in the mouth and the soft palate is lifted (ware, 1998:141). furthermore, it is important that the singer is in proper control of his breathing (ryan, 2011:50). managing the constant flow and support of air are important in maintaining this ideal sound throughout a performance. therefore, it is clear that the term breathing in singing does not subsume only the acts of inhalation and exhalation. it is a process that also involves breath flow and breath support; a process consisting of more than one action and involving various muscles such as the diaphragm, the internal and external muscles and the abdominal muscles.7 davis (1998:10) points out that the most prominent breathing process currently taught for singing is diaphragmatic-intercostal breathing (dib). it is, in accordance with the statement made in the previous paragraph, a process that includes the management of breath flow and breath support. various other scholars (deere, 2005; miller, 2004; ryan, 2011) have argued that a combination of diaphragmatic, intercostal and abdominal breathing is more conducive to singing than using each of them alone. reasons for this argument include the fact that dib prevents the larynx from lifting upwards and allows the throat to remain open while the soft palate is lifted. it also ensures optimal resonance.8 during inhalation, the contraction of the diaphragm causes the posterior part of the central tendon to move simultaneously down and to the front (davis, 1998:12). the diaphragm thus ‘spreads out’ and both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the pleural cavity and mediastinum in which the heart and lungs are, are expanded. at the same time, the inner walls of the lower ribs are pushed outwards, also contributing to the general expansion of the width of the thorax (davis, 1998:12; watson 2009:106) and increases the oxygen intake of the lungs with more than 60 to 80 percentage (ware, 1998:78-80). these actions cause intra-abdominal pressure because the organs in the abdomen are pushed down and forward. even the slightest contraction of the diaphragm will cause a bulge in the epigastrium9 (watson, 2009:105). dib also manages the air flow on which the sound is carried. during exhalation and phonation, the elastic diaphragm relaxes gradually and returns to its original position. because singers need to manage the breath flow and breath support during exhalation and 6 . an ideal sound is considered a free resonant sound that is placed in the mask of the face (miller, 1995:37). 7 . for detailed discussions on the internal and external intercostal muscles, as well as the internal and external abdominal muscles, see mccoy (2004) and watson (2009). 8 . resonance is the strengthening of a relatively weak fundamental sound. this amplification of sound is obtained by the resonance of sound in different cavities in the head and the throat. some of these cavities are classified as true resonators and other as potential resonators. resonance cavities include the larynx, sinuses, pharynx, oral cavity and cavities in the head (reid, 1983:140). 9 . epigastrium is the upper, middle portion of the abdomen (ware, 1998:78-80). jacobs-du plessis, viljoen and bester 114 phonation, the down and outward movement of the diaphragm needs to be balanced with the inand upward movement of the abdominal muscles. this balance is greatly assisted by the use of the external and internal intercostal muscles that manage both the constant sub-glottal air pressure and the air flow used during exhalation and phonation (cotrell, 2010:53). it can thus be concluded that the collaboration between all the muscles involved in dib contributes to sustaining the ideal sound throughout the performance. 3.2 gastroesophageal reflux disease (gerd) gerd sufferers are known as individuals who present with any of the physical complications attributed to gerd, or people who have health problems as a result of gerd (nicholas & wiklund, 2005:22). jahn (2009:5) describes gerd as a condition where gastric acids move upwards into the pharynx10 via the esophagus11 to the larynx.12 these gastric acids, containing hydrochloric acid, pepsin13 and bile acids,14 are produced in the stomach and move upwards into the esophagus and into the stomach from the duodenum15 where they can damage the esophageal walls and vocal folds. the walls of the stomach, as well as that of the esophagus, are layered with mucosa. fundic (oxyntic) and pyloric (mucinous) mucosa constitute the two basic types of gastric mucosa in the human body (treuting et al., 2012:164), while the mucosa in the esophagus consists of three layers, namely the epithelium, the lamina propria and the muscularis mucosae, as well as the submucosa (treuting et al., 2012:162). treuting et al. (2012: 162) also point out that the muscularis mucosae are “thicker in the esophagus than in other portions of the digestive tract”. it is thus clear that there are differences between the mucosa of the stomach and that of the esophagus. the combination of the gastric acids in the stomach presents a high ph gradient with the mucosa uniquely suited to protect the stomach against them. however, when these acids move outside the parameters of the stomach, the sensitive mucosa in the esophagus cannot withstand their high ph gradient and is thus in danger of erosion and the eventual occurrence of esophageal adenocarsinoma, a cancer of the epithelium in the esophagus.16 while bile acids can also contribute towards the erosion of the esophageal mucosa by scarring 10 . the pharynx (throat) is about 13cm long and extends from the nostrils to the cricoid cartilage. this cartilage is the lowest part of the pharynx (tortora and anagnostakos, 1990: 693). 11 . esophagus is the first segment of the gastrointestinal tract, about 23 cm long, extending from the pharynx to the stomach. (brink, 2011:224). 12 . the larynx, commonly called a voice box, is located between the trachea and the base of the tongue. it consists mainly of cartilages, namely the thyroid and cricoid cartilages, the epiglottis, the paired arytenoids, paired corniculate and paired cuneiformed cartilages (brink, 2011:437). the only bone in the larynx is the hyoid bone; a very important part of the laryngeal mechanism when it comes to singing as it is directly linked to one of the major articulators, namely the tongue. 13 . pepsin is an enzyme that breaks down protein (brink, 2011:615). 14 . acids in the stomach that help to digest food (brink, 2011:930). 15 . the duodenum is the upper part of the small intestine attached to the stomach (brink, 2011:179). 16 . chandrasoma and demeester (2006) discuss the relationship between gerd and esophageal adenocarsinoma in particular detail. breathing and singers’ gastroesophageal reflux disease td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 111-124. 115 the fibres at the bottom part of the esophageal epithelium (brink, 2011:730) – a condition known as barret’s esophageal syndrome, gastric acids are more likely to relate to gerd than bile. there are various reasons for gastric acids to reflux up into the esophagus. according to marks (2010:1) gerd can be caused by various physical dysfunctions, including problems with the lower esophageal sphincter (les) and a hiatus hernia (a specific type of diaphragmatic hernia). while these physical dysfunctions may be the primary causes for gerd, their symptoms are often attributed to a multitude of manifestations, such as intolerance for specific types of food and drinks. this attribution of symptoms to secondary manifestations of gerd, as well as the fact that some patients present with very few or no visual symptoms of this condition, render gerd difficult to diagnose. several abnormalities of the les were found in patients suffering from gerd. chandrasoma and demeester (2006:66) explain that the “esophagus ends distally in the lower esophageal sphincter [which is] 3 to 4 centimeters long”. part of the les is located in the section of the esophagus that can be found in the abdomen – below the diaphragm. the rest, known as the thoracic portion of the les, is situated above the diaphragm (chandrasoma & demeester, 2006:66). the prevention of gerd depends on the length of the les as well as its pressure when in a relaxed position. the pressure in the abdominal section of the les correlates with the intra-abdominal pressure; it increases during inhalation and decreases during exhalation (chandrasoma & demeester, 2006:67). as soon as the length of the abdominal portion of the les is shortened, for example, due to discrepancies in intra-gastric or intra-abdominal pressures, gerd can occur. chandrasoma and demeester (2006:68) also point out that les maintains a sharp ph gradient at the gastro-esophageal junction. distal to this point, in the stomach, the ph is highly acid (in the 1-3 range). proximal to this point, in the esophagus, the ph is in the neutral (approximately 7) range. should the les not prevent the reflux of gastric acids into the esophagus, there is again a danger of esophageal erosion. kuipers et al. (2006:36) state that the relation between hiatus hernias and gerd has been acknowledged since the 1950’s. they define this type of hernia as “a protrusion of (part of) the stomach and/or other intra-abdominal organs via the esophageal hiatus into the chest” (kuipers et al., 2006:36). the manner in which a hiatus hernia contributes towards the occurrence of gerd is not absolutely clear. research conducted by tougas and banemai (2001) implies that reflux might be the cause, rather than the result of a hiatus hernia. the consequences for singers who suffer from gerd are detrimental to their vocal performances. besides the erosion of the esophageal walls and the thickening of the vocal folds due to chronic inflammation, the upward movement of the larynx, a strong indication of gerd (jahn, 2009:5), is problematic for a classical singer. while the higher position of the larynx is present in singers who belt17 – a particular singing technique often found in light music – this upward movement of the larynx presents a singer of western art music with a 17 . in using the belting technique the larynx is high and the vocal folds are at a very high energy level (heresniak, 2010:2; miller, 2004:52). jacobs-du plessis, viljoen and bester 116 major problem. the tension that is created with belting, causes the larynx to close more than what is needed in order to create sound and extra intensity (heresniak, 2010:1). having briefly considered the concepts dib and gerd, it has become clear that the muscles most relevant to both are the les and the diaphragm. it has already been explained that, during inhalation, the diaphragm moves down and outwards causing the expansion of the pleural cavity. it was also stated that, in order to balance the working of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles and to manage the breath flow and breath support during exhalation and phonation, the internal and external intercostal muscles keep the diaphragm as low as possible. this process unavoidably contributes to an increase in intra-abdominal pressure. furthermore, because of this intra-abdominal pressure, the abdominal portion of the les will be shortened and the possibility of the reflux of gastric acids is exacerbated. the role that intra-abdominal pressure plays in gerd has also been discussed and it can be argued that this pressure is the biggest commonality between dib and gerd. therefore, it is safe to infer that the intra-abdominal pressure that occurs during dib will not only exacerbate the occurrence of gerd, but that it could also cause it. it has also been mentioned earlier that dib is the most effective respiratory process for singers in order to obtain the ideal sound. therefore, the singer who suffers from gerd can do very little in terms of changing the breathing methods. the best solution would be to consider medical intervention and/or adaptations of lifestyle. 3.3 the correlation between the singer’s lifestyle and the occurrence of gerd earlier in this article, when discussing the research methods used for this project, it was mentioned that two case studies were used as sources for data-gathering. it should be clearly understood that, because the authors of this article are not medical experts, it was never the assumption to present an in-depth medical discussion of the two case studies. but rather to gather and analyse data in order to identify themes specifically related to the correlation between a singer’s lifestyle and the occurrence of gerd. the methods used to gather the data, the themes identified through the analyses and the conclusion statements are reflected in the summary of the results on the next page. case  1   in barend’s case, four themes emerged from the written narrative he provided the researchers and each will be discussed with literature integration. the first theme indicated the impact that a professional opera singer’s strenuous occupation and lifestyle has on gerd. the professional opera singer’s occupation – singing fulltime in opera productions – impacts physically and psychologically on his wellbeing. rehearsals and performances demand physical exertion while the stress generally experienced by professional singers, impacts them psychologically. in addition, the professional opera singer needs to work hard to keep gerd under control amidst the realities of his career. these realities include singing for long hours per day implying the use of dib as well as the emotional stress and lifestyle factors such as eating too late, eating just before sleeping and lack of sleep. with regard to a strenuous lifestyle on gerd, jones et al. (2007:1452) acknowledge that strenuous physical exercise and work in general have a direct impact on gerd. authors (cammarota et al., 2007:890-898) confirm that opera choristers present with a higher occurrence of acid reflux than other members of the population and, therefore, confirmed their hypothesis that gastroesophageal reflux can be occupation-specific (pregun et al., breathing and singers’ gastroesophageal reflux disease td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 111-124. 117 2009:38). in addition, cammarota et al. (2010:593) confirmed the occurrence of gerd amongst wind musicians. the prevalence of gerd was due to the consistent use of the diaphragm and later impact on the diaphragmatic sphincter functions caused by prolonged straining, inspiration and increased intra-abdominal pressure. with regard to the strenuous physical activity associated in an opera performance, jozkozv et al. (2006:385) explore the prevalence of gerd in physical activities. they confirm that a constrained body position during exercise causes a disturbance between the two opposite pressures, namely intraabdominal and intrathoracic pressure and that this disturbance influences gerd. spiegel et al. (2010:591) point out the effect of nocturnal acid reflux and the impact it might have on the quality of life of those who suffer from it. with regard to the link between psychological stress and gerd, mizyed and fass (2009:351) state the prevalence of gerd and psychological co-morbidities in general. these authors (2009:353) acknowledge the link between gerd and the experience of stressful situations, whether the exposure to stress is acute or chronic. the results of research conducted by naliboff et al. (2004) are of specific interest because they confirmed the correlation between symptoms of heartburn with vital exhaustion (vital exhaustion refers to the measurement of sustained stress symptoms). the second main theme to emerge indicated that the professional opera singer viewed the active management of gerd as the best solution to the problem. the positive management was evident in two choices made by the participant. the first choice involved making positive lifestyle changes and the second choice was to compliment these changes by accepting medical diagnoses and to participate in pharmacological treatment and surgical interventions. in addition, the professional opera singer made positive lifestyle changes amidst the challenges of his singing career. with regard to the acceptance of gerd, karademas and hondronikola (2010:336) concluded that, when people with a chronic cardiac condition accepted the condition, it led to positive subjective health such as emotional wellbeing and physical functioning. de groot et al. (2009:1092) acknowledged the positive impact of lifestyle changes as a conservative mechanism on gerd if these lifestyle changes were associated with weight loss. with regard to the role of surgery in gerd, there is contradictory evidence from literature. cowgill et al. (2007:748) confirm the general satisfaction of the efficiency of laparoscopic nissen fundiplication surgery and eagerness by patients to undergo this surgery again to keep the signs and symptoms of gerd under control. watson et al. (2006) also believe in the surgical efficiency in the management of gerd, especially in patients with an absent peristalsis of the oesophagus. however, contrary to these beliefs, vakil (2007:1365) voices scepticism for surgery as the solution above pharmacological intervention to manage gerd. the professional opera singer’s ability to associate specific signs and symptoms with gerd was the third main theme. the singer is able to manage gerd within the occupational challenges of opera singing because he manages gerd according to specific signs and symptoms. because the singer uses signs and symptoms as guideline to manage gerd, he takes medication, seeks medical advice and applies specific lifestyle adaptations when experiencing signs and symptoms. jacobs-du plessis, viljoen and bester 118 case 2 case 1 data collection and analysis: individual interview, (rule and john, 2011:59), content analysis (durrheim, 2006:52) conducted. data collection: individual interview, case notes in narrative style, case records (medical reports) (rule and john, 2011:59), content analysis (durrheim, 2006:52) conducted. main themes from interview: 1. formal training is critical for the voice student with possible gerd to identify and refer the student. 2. external locus of control over own wellbeing. 3. gerd is a vicious cycle to the voice student. 4. lifestyle changes are the primary focus to manage gerd. main themes from interview: 1. the professional singer’s occupational life is strenuous and impacts on gerd. 2. active management of gerd is the best solution. 3. gerd characterised by specific signs and symptoms. 4. signs and symptoms associated with other gastrointestinal, pathophysiological conditions. conclusion statements for case 1: 1. a professional male opera singer (caucasian, 50 yrs). 2. middle-class social contexts. 3. easy access to medical treatment. 4. has suffered from gerd for more than 30 years. 5. has a history of surgical and pharmacological treatment. 6. gerd exacerbated by hiatus hernia; has already undergone surgery three times. 7. participant is overweight. conclusion statements for case 2 1. an undergraduate, female singer (african, 22 yrs). 2. previously disadvantaged community. 3. no medical aid, therefore very little access to medical treatment. 4. diagnosed with chronic gerd in 2010 after voice pedagogue advised her to seek medical help. 5. treats gerd with a diet and medication when money is available. 6. denies having gerd and avoids talking about it. 7. participant is exceptionally petit. no case records reported. integration of interview results and case records (rule and john, 2011:64). breathing and singers’ gastroesophageal reflux disease td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 111-124. 119 finally the professional opera singer presented with signs associated with other gastrointestinal, patho-physiological conditions indicating that gerd wasn’t an isolated condition of the gastrointestinal channel. this singer’s complaints of a history of gastro-intestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, dumping syndrome, gluten intolerance and a history of barrett’s oesophagus were indicative of the extensive scope of signs and symptoms experienced. while gerd has, in a few cases, been associated with barret’s oesophagus (ronkainen et al., 2006:1725; talley & wiklund, 2005:21), the relationship between dumping syndrome, gluten intolerance and irritable bowel syndrome and gerd in professional opera singers are unique to this research and has not been confirmed from literature. case  2   as in the first case study, four themes emerged from the data collected during the interviews with the second case study. the first theme relates to how the exposure to formal voice training can lead to referral and management of gerd. the singer first heard about gerd from a trained voice pedagogue when she began formal voice training. the voice pedagogue was instrumental in identifying certain signs and symptoms of gerd, in providing the necessary support and in carefully integrating the management of gerd with voice training. the importance of the teacher’s role in considering the multi-dimensional factors of voice problems in occupational health is confirmed by smolander and huttunen (2006:161). they also confirm the role of teachers in promoting voice hygiene, thus preventing further possible damage to the vocal folds. williams (2011) points out the importance of voice pedagogues in instructing voice students on the correct use of their voices when considering that the voice will be a professional commodity. secondly, the voice student presented with an external locus of control of her well-being that impacted directly on the management of her gerd. this student denied the prevalence of gerd, as well as the need to actively manage her condition. the student perceived gerd becoming a real problem once she acknowledged the condition and was convinced that, by denying them, associated signs and symptoms will eventually stop. because the voice student denied suffering from gerd, she did not understand the potential hazardous impact thereof on her voice, nor did she acknowledge the positive results when managing gerd correctly. although the voice pedagogue and physician attempted to guide the young singer to manage her gerd, her denial and lack of knowledge prevented her to do so. finally, the singer experienced that occurrences of gerd were caused and worsened by external factors, such as specific types of food and alcohol. with regard to the acceptance of an illness, zalewska et al. (2006:235) conclude that the lack of acceptance of an illness might decrease adherence to medical treatment and cause a delay in clinical improvement. contrary to their opinion, telford et al. (2005:457) warn that the simple interpretation of acceptance-denial theory is not advisable, but that the narrative history of a person should be taken into consideration. the inability to accept a chronic condition and present with helplessness cause negative subjective health in patients with chronic cardiac conditions (karademas & hondronikola, 2010:336). in addition karademas et al. (2012:1248-1249) underscore the clinical significance of a person accepting an illness and the positive relationship between the acceptance of an illness in general and wellbeing and the ability of a person to adjust to an illness. jacobs-du plessis, viljoen and bester 120 the third main theme in the second case study was that gerd was experienced as a vicious cycle that can be described as follows. the singer would present with signs and symptoms of gerd, and would then be referred to a physician by the voice pedagogue. when gerd was diagnosed, the student needed to adhere to pharmacological intervention and absence from singing. the student experienced a remarkable recovering and wanted to sing again. however, when she started to sing again, the voice was strained and the signs and symptoms of gerd would flare up again and the cycle would repeat itself. jozkozv et al. (2006:385) confirm that gerd symptoms usually do return and therefore chronic management is supported. although not referring to a vicious cycle, feussner (2000:110) proposes an approximate 100% healing rate in the acute phase of gerd, but less efficiency when treatment is maintained for the rest of a patient’s life. finally, the singer experienced adaptation of lifestyle as the primary focus in the management of gerd. through management of food and alcohol intake the student will manage gerd and not through chronic, medical and pharmacological management. with regard to lifestyle changes, jozkozv et al. (2006:385) underscore the role of lifestyle and dietary interventions as the basic prevention of gerd, but acknowledge the need for pharmacological management as well. seidl et al. (2011:145) admits to the effect of alcohol consumption on increased acid reflux. furthermore franke et al. (2008:1425) warn that alcohol consumption can worsen gerd. postma et al. (2002:24) state that a less aggressive reflux treatment approach should manifest. there should be a classification between minor, major and life threatening reflux and this should direct treatment starting from routine lifestyle and dietary modifications when these behaviours might increase reflux risk. the next treatment regime is h2 receptor antagonist or antacid before surgery should be considered. from the results above it is clear that the singer's career and his lifestyle can contribute to the worsening of gerd. in particular, an obvious connection between the singer's eating program and his routine. rehearsals and performances overlap with normal mealtimes and singers can, as a result of increased abdominal pressure during singing, also not eat just before he / she sings. it can often happen that a singer eats his main meal late evening when he comes home after a performance or a rehearsal (sataloff, 1991:10). furthermore, a singer has certain social obligations such as attending a reception after a performance. there are usually alcohol and food at these events and the food is usually not conducive to healthy dietary habits. these receptions also usually take place late in the evening, causing the singer to eat just before going to sleep. this type of food and beverages worsens gerd and more gerd takes place during the night so it can create more damage to the vocal cords. these unhealthy eating habits lead to weight problems and weight problems exacerbate gerd. it can be concluded that singers have to make changes in their lifestyle to manage gerd. 4. suggestions for voice pedagogues and performers the pedagogue can assist a student with advice on how to manage gerd. however, it is of utmost importance that the pedagogue remembers that he is not a medical expert and, therefore, the first step will be to refer the student to a physician. the physician can make recommendations for the treatment of gerd and may prescribe medication that suppresses the production of acid in the stomach. this medication is likely to be accompanied by suggestions for a healthy eating plan. in extreme cases, like a hiatus hernia, the physician may suggest surgery in order to repair the physical problems that cause gerd. breathing and singers’ gastroesophageal reflux disease td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 111-124. 121 voice pedagogues can also assume a role in the physical care of the student who suffers from gerd. recommendations for the pedagogue can be divided into recommendations for the curriculum content of voice pedagogy and recommendations in the practical teaching of singing. a) it is recommended that the voice pedagogue include the following concepts in the curriculum of voice pedagogy, thus creating an awareness of gerd. • the causes and symptoms of gerd • the relationship between dia and gerd • the influence of the singer’s lifestyle on gerd b) it is recommended that voice pedagogues • refer students suspected of suffering from gerd to the relevant professionals. • adapt the teaching-learning program of the student’s voice studies in order to accommodate and manage the occurrence of gerd. • suggest that the student rests his voice. • provide the student with the necessary advise about his condition. • plays a critical role in the student’s acceptance of his condition and encourage him to pro-actively work towards managing his own well-being. • design a user-friendly brochure that provides information about gerd and make it available to all the students. ultimately, the voice pedagogue has to be constantly aware of any signs and symptoms of gerd and how it influences the singer's voice. when these signs manifest, the pedagogue should act with patience and discretion and help the singer to agree not to hurt the voice. the pedagogue also has the difficult task to prepare students for the demanding environment of the professional singer by guiding them in their choices regarding lifestyle. references brink, a.j. 2011. woordeboek vir die gesondheidswetenskappe. heerengracht: nbuitgewers. cammarota, g., masala g., cianci, r., palli, d., capaccio, p., schindler, a., cuoco, l., galli, j., ierardi, e., cannizzaro, o., caselli, m., dore, m.p., bendinelli, b. & gasbarrini, g. 2007. reflux symptoms in professional opera choristers. gastroenterology, 132(3):890–898. march. cammarota, g., masala, g., cianci, r., palli, d., bendinelli, b., galli, j., pandolfi, f., gasbarrini, a. & landolfi, r. 2010. reflux symptoms in wind instrument players. alimentary pharmacology and therapeutics, 31:593–600. december. chandrasoma, p.t. & demeester, t.r. 2006. gerd: reflux to esophageal adenocarcinoma. burlington, ma: academic press. cotrell, d. 2010. on the voice: support or resistance? 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the environmental conservation act (73 of 1989) and the conservation of agricultural resources act (43 of 1983)] the assumption is that developers will comply. if they don’t, then enforcement is difficult. in this case enforcement was slow, during which time the developer continued building and the result was significant degradation. the study makes a number of recommendations: (i) the fragmented administration of environmental legislation pertaining to wetlands should be consolidated under one government department; (ii) relationships between the respective authorities at all government levels needs strengthening; (iii) public participation processes need to be more robust and (iv) the national wetlands database needs to be used more effectively. key words: urban wetlands; eias; eco-crusaders; public participation introduction in december 2004, construction of a petrol station on a small urban wetland in libradene boksburg, gauteng commenced. although community members and wetland stakeholders voiced their concern, construction continued. eventually in december 2005 a provincial 1 . yageshni govender-ragubeer is attached to the department of geography, environmental management and energy studies, university of johannesburg, south africa, p o box 524 auckland park 2006. 2 . june meeuwis is attached to the department of geography, environmental management and energy studies, university of johannesburg, south africa, p o box 524 auckland park 2006. 3 . corresponding author tracey morton mckay is attached to the department of environmental sciences, university of south africa, south africa, pvt bag x 6 florida 1710, traceymckay02@me.com and traceyjillmckay@gmail.com. acknowledgements: the authors are most grateful to ms nicole barlow and ms henretta kekane who provided us with much of the original primary documents upon which this study rests. ms wendy job of the uj cartographic unit for the maps and the uj library, and critical reviewers for their comments. govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 150 government department, gauteng department of agriculture, conservation and environment (gdace), issued a directive to both the developer/landowner and sasol oil (pty) (ltd) which resulted in the cessation of construction activities (tip, 2006). by then, however, the material impact on the wetland and associated watercourse was extensive. canalisation had occurred, building rubble had been dumped directly into the watercourse, and the underlying rock structure had been altered during the installation of the underground petrol tanks. the socially-beneficial attributes of the wetland such as its aesthetic appeal, had also been greatly reduced. cessation of construction was followed by a series of legal actions. to date the petrol station remains incomplete, no one has been held accountable for the legal violations and rehabilitation plans have been suspended. it is argued here that although urban wetlands bring significant benefits to cities, the case of the libradene wetland illustrates both how and why urban wetlands become degraded and lost (kotze et al., 1995; heydorn, 1996; braak et al., 2000; day, 2009; mcinnes, 2010). this loss of wetlands seems to be occurring despite the embodiment of ‘environmental rights’ into the south african constitution (1996) and the promulgation of legislation designed to protect, conserve and, if necessary, rehabilitate wetlands (van niekerk, 2004). understanding how and why the libradene wetland was degraded, despite legislation protecting it, can inform policy makers, government officials and wetland specialists on how threats can be managed. in particular, the development highlights the key challenges regarding the management of conflicts between economic development and environmental protection authorities are faced with. furthermore, it is predicted that conflicts over their use and protection will escalate in the future making wetlands one of the most endangered ecosystems in south africa (dini et al., 1998; braak et al., 2000; cillers et al., 2003; armstrong, 2009). this is especially true for small, seemingly ‘insignificant’ wetlands, which are largely overlooked, with no national policy in place for their protection (kotze et al., 1995; dini et al., 1998). this case study highlights the urgent need for such a policy. objectives the study had a number of aims: (1) to chart the sequence of events relating to the partial building of the petrol station in order to understand who did what, when; (2) to analyse south africa’s legislation pertaining to wetlands to establish if the legislation was robust enough to protect the wetland; (3) to establish if the legislation was enforced; and (4) to ascertain who should be held responsible for the partial destruction of the libradene wetland. in order to analyse the data and build a sequence of events, an historical time-line was constructed using court records, newspapers, the basic scoping report, various other specialist reports, correspondence and records of public objections. lastly, data and events were verified through consultation with ms nicole barlow (a local resident) who played a key role in the whole libradene court case, a wetland dr john dini (of sanbi), mr umesh bahadur (formerly of gdace) and mr piet-louis grundling (a wetland consultant). for clarity purposes, figure 1 outlines the various stakeholders who were directly involved in the events. how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 151 f i g u r e 1 : stakeholders directly involved in the libradene case. the study area the libradene wetland, a small and hydrologically insignificant one, is located in a highly urbanised part of gauteng, dissected by a major road and bounded by minor residential roads (see figure 2). the total area of the wetland measures 7,103ha (arc, 2002). the existence of a wetland was confirmed using on-site identification of primary field indicators, such as visual observations of inundation, soil saturation; water marks, sediment deposits and evidence of drainage flow (dlamini, 2011). a railway siding, the cindarella dam, vacant land and a slimes dam are situated downstream, in a westerly direction. to the north and south lie residential suburbs; to the east (upstream) is a recreational park. the development took place on erf 342, libradene extension 2, portion 125 of the farm, leeuwpoort 113 ir (lri, 2011). although not officially zoned for any activity, it would be best to describe it as agricultural land since it was originally part of a farm. govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 152 figure 2: location and geographical extent of the libradene wetland the wetland is bisected by a watercourse, the elsburg spruit, a perennial tributary of the natal spruit and eventually flows into the vaal river, gauteng’s major water source (see figure 3). the underlying rock is dolomitic belonging to the chuniespoort group (part of the transvaal system) and is a karst aquifer (dlamini, 2011). the hydrological significance of this aquifer has not been established. the southern part of the area is underlain by clayish, silty sands that vary in depth from shallow to deep. these soils are usually highly compressible and potentially collapsible. the wetland is a typical hillslope, palustrine wetland, dominated by vegetation such as trees, shrubs and persistent herbaceous plants (tiner, 1999). the wetland falls within the grassland biome and the following vegetation types are represented: (a) soweto highveld grassland which is highly endangered as only 0.2% is currently protected, and (2) tsakane clay grassland also highly endangered as only 1.5% is currently protected (mucina & rutherford, 2006). how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 153 figure 3: surface catchment map indicating with the libradene wetland indicated govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 154 the most common vegetation are reeds phragmites australus (common reed), typha capensis (bulrush or palmiet), juncus spp. (soft rush), hyparrhenia hirta (thatching grass), cyperaceae ssp. (sedges or biesies) and imperata cylindrical (cotton grass). however, alien invasive plants, such as salix babylonic (weeping willow) bidens pilosa (cobbler's pegs or spanish needle), melia azedarach (bead-tree or cape lilac), arundo donax (giant reed or spanish cane), pennisetum clandestinum (kikuyu grass) also occur (arc, 2000; dlamini, 2011; lri, 2011). animal species include guinea fowl, insects, reptiles and amphibians, typical of the species types associated with highveld watercourses (arc, 2002). the libradene wetland has been exposed to a long period of illegal, informal dumping of domestic waste and building rubble, although much of this has ceased in recent years due to better law enforcement by the ekurhuleni municipality. such secondary impacts include storm water trenches to partially drain the wetland, as a few houses were built within the floodline (pavlakis, 2001). south africa’s environmental legislation wetlands enjoy protection under a number of pieces of legislation, and a summary thereof is provided in table 1. however, confusion can arise as to which act is applicable, when, and which authority must manage each case (van wyk, 2007). in the case of the libradene wetland, cara (act 43 of 1983) is relevant as in terms of the johannesburg town planning scheme of 1979 it was originally zoned as agricultural land (carron, 2009). the environmental conservation act 73 of 1989 (eca) section 21 and section 23(2) is relevant to the land use changes the petrol station wrought. a permit would have to be obtained to comply. the national water act (no 36 of 1998) (nwa) section 21 & 22 which stipulates that any measures to impede or divert the flow of water in a watercourse, alter the bed, banks, course or characteristics of a watercourse requires a water use licence applies. however, as the site is a wetland, in terms of section 22 (1a) the water use licence would have been denied as the erection of petrol stations on wetlands is specifically excluded from the list of permissible water-use regulations. the most important act appling to the libradene issue, is the national environmental management act 107 of 1998 (nema). nema makes special reference to wetlands, stating that they require specific attention in management and planning procedures, especially where they are subject to significant human resource usage and development pressure. nema has two important measures to promote the role of the public in protecting the environment (oliver et al., 2009). firstly that of locus standi [see section 31 and 32] that is members of the public can launch legal action in order to protect the environment, even if they themselves are not directly affected and secondly, the protection of whistle-blowers from civil or criminal liability, dismissal, disciplinary actions, prejudice or harassment on account of having disclosed information. the most significant aspect of nema (see sections 23 & 24) is that of the requirement for developers to undertake an environmental impact assessment (eia). with regards to eias, nema draws on prior legislation, namely the environment conservation act (eca) (act no. 73 of 1989). thus, nema presents framework legislation, which until then had been lacking, and replaces most of the eca (sowman et al.,1995, van wyk, 1999). this is typical of many developing countries (bekhechi & mercier, 2002). in particular, an eia identifies all the social, economic and environmental impacts of activities, including disadvantages and benefits (kidd & retief, 2009). thus, eias are a pro-active and systematic process (van niekerk, 2004). its purpose is to inform decision makers of the desirability of proposed activities and on the conditions which authorisation of the activity should be subject to (saidi, 2010). eias are not without controversy, with a how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 155 number of scholars noting their shortcomings such as poor methodological systems, being drawn up by inexperience people and being less than scientifically rigorous (hugo et al., 1997; biswas & geping, 1999; hill, 2000; saidi, 2000; van niekerk, 2004; munster, 2005; petts, 2007; armstrong, 2009; aucamp, 2009). this is despite nema section 24 (a)-(i) providing and outlining minimum eia requirements. (mantzara, 1998; murombo, 2008). table 1: summary of national legislation relevant in the libradene case. act section importance the constitution of south africa: bill of rights 10; 11; 14; introduces legislation to prevent pollution and ecological degradation in general 24 recognises that humans have the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and well-being 26; 27; 28 promotes sustainable development national water act 36 of 1998 (nwa) 19; 21; 22; 26 ensures the protection, conservation, use, management, control and development of water resources, including wetlands, in a sustainable and equitable manner environment and conservation act 73 of 1989 (eca) 28; 31a; 41a prohibits activities that could harm the environment and ensures that steps be taken against any person causing such harm in order to remedy the cause national environmental management act 107 of 1998 (nema) 4a; 23b; 28, chapter 1 provides relevant principles to promote environmental management and decision-making processes; ensures protection, evaluation, and the prediction of potential impacts on the environment; ensures that polluters “pay”, and prevents pollution from occurring, continuing or recurring. conservation of agricultural resources act 43 of 1983 (cara) regulations: 4; 7; 8, 13 ensures the protection of the soil, the regulation of the flow pattern of run-off water, as well as the exploitation of wetlands. managing threats to wetlands there are differing international policy stances on wetland management. some countries regard wetlands as critical conservation areas, while others perceive them as important agricultural development resources (boyer & polasky, 2004). however, almost all natural wetlands are either modified and/or degraded, either for industrial development, urban expansion or for conversion to agricultural activities (kotze et al., 1995; moser et al, 2002). one of the most common urban practices is to fill them in with rubble or soil (azous & horner, 2000). many of these impacts are occurring in spite of environmental legislation and government policies designed to protect them (boyer & polasky, 2004). some argue that the legislation affecting wetlands is ineffectual as there seems to be an apparent reluctance on the part of administrators to apply it (kotze et al., 1995). it is not clear whether the authorities, who make the decisions that impact upon the wetlands, are well-informed about the consequences of their decisions on these vulnerable areas. alternatively, economic development has been prioritised above the conservation of the environment. thus, it has been suggested, that wetland management practices be incorporated into integrated landand water-use management. furthermore, policies, strategies, and management plans for the govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 156 sustainable exploitation and conservation of wetlands should be based on a solid knowledge and understanding of the ecological and socio-economic functions and processes associated with wetlands (byomkesh et al, 2009). one of the major constraints to the sustainable management of wetlands is that wetland-users and decision-makers often lack knowledge of alternative management and policy regimes (jogo & hassan, 2010). for example, there is little documented information on the impacts of alternative wetland management and policy regimes. in south africa, wetlands then, are the ‘cinderellas’ of the environmental management world. that is, wetlands face neglect, with academic studies into the state of wetlands, number of dedicated wetland officials and policies (as opposed to laws) dedicated to protecting wetlands from impacts and rehabilitating them, for example, lagging far behind that of rivers (day, 2009). south africa’s most dedicated response to the threats wetlands face to date, has been the working for wetlands programme (wfw) a wetland rehabilitation initiative. although wfw does a lot of good work, its focus is on job creation and poverty alleviation rather than on wetland protection and rehabilitation, makes it primarily a public works programme (working for wetlands, 2012). thus, south african wetlands are experiencing intense and sustained pressure and stresses from a range of direct and indirect socio-economic driving forces, especially development (cilliers et al., 2003; driver et al., 2005; turner et al., 2007; mcinnes, 2010). there are a few well-known examples of small urban wetlands are under threat (hartdegen, 2011). in cape town, the princess vlei wetland area is threatened by a proposed shopping mall and taxi rank (adendorff, 2010; masondo, 2011). in gauteng, the bishops glen wetland – home to the threatened giant bull frog was severely degraded by a housing development (mlambo, 2005). after a site visit to bishops glen, government officials issued a cease and desist directive to the developer, which was ignored. although an interim court order was obtained, it was also ignored. the buildings were completed and the housing units put up for sale. eventually bad publicity curtailed the sales of the units. the developer is currently facing charges of violation of various environmental regulations and contempt of court (gca, 2005). also in gauteng, was the erection of the pan-african parliament on a wetland in 2008. initially the construction complied with legislation as a positive record of decision (rod) was issued. soon construction workers began to complain of excessive water on the site. eventually engineers called in wetland specialists who classified the site as a hillslope wetland with a large seepage area. the wetland by that stage had been irreparably damaged by excavations for the main foundations (fairall, 2011). the rod was revoked (adendorff, 2010). the environmental assessment practitioner, stefan frylinck, and his firm, mpofu consulting, were charged with contravening the 2006 eia regulations as incorrect and misleading information had been submitted to obtain the original rod (modise & singh, 2011). frylinck and mpofu consulting cc were sentenced in the pretoria regional court. frylinck to two years imprisonment or a fine of r80 000, mpofu consulting cc to a fine of r80 000. half the total was suspended for five years providing neither contravene section 81 of the eia regulations again (fairall, 2011). modise & singh, 2011). this was the maximum penalty for such an offence under the regulations that were in place at the time. these same penalties have since been increased in accordance with the new 2010 eia regulations to r1 million or one year of imprisonment (fairall, 2011). rehabilitation plans for the wetland are currently undergoing a public participation process. how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 157 findings: the series of events in 1999, ownership of the land upon which the wetland is located was transferred from the ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality to dealmania (pty) ltd (arc, 2002; tip, 2006; carron, 2009). dealmania (pty) ltd later argued that, as the property owners, they automatically had the right to develop the land (tip, 2006). however, property rights in south africa do not give the owner exclusive rights to any natural resources found on the property and the ensuing court case between petro props (pty) ltd and ms nicole barlow confirmed this (cawood & minnitt, 1998). in 2000, dealmania (pty) ltd tasked african resource consultants (arc) as environmental consultants with obtaining the necessary authorisation for a change in land use. this step indicates that both dealmania (pty) ltd and arc recognised that they had to comply with environmental legislation. as a consequence, a basic scoping report commenced (with an application in this regard was submitted to gdace) and did the public participation process (ppp). gdace conducted a site visit and subsequently gave arc the go ahead to conduct the basic scoping report (l serobatse, pers comm, july, 18, 2000). although arc claimed that the proposed development was advertised on site, in a local and in a regional newspaper, only two people (both local homeowners) were officially registered as interested and affected parties (iaps). according to arc, both supported the development at that stage (arc, 2002). the local councillor for the area, did not register as an iap and there is no way of knowing if the councillor knew of the proposed development at this stage. however, in october, 2000, c tydeman, one of the listed iaps, writing on her own behalf as well as that of the other listed iap, withdrew their support, maintaining that they had only been in favour of the development based on information provided by the developer which turned out to incorrect (c tydeman, pers comm, october, 24, 2000). the geotechnical investigation proceeded in 2001, with engineers, michael pavlakis and associates compiling a preliminary geo-hydrological report. this report found that the site was below the 1:50 year flood-line, within a shallow watercourse and where the groundwater table lay between 1.2 metres and 1.4 metres below the surface. thus, a great deal of infilling, scarification and compaction would be required, along with the installation of reinforced steel stanchions or concrete piers, if development was to proceed (pavlakis, 2001). although the pavlakis report succinctly describes a wetland, nowhere in the report is the site referred to as a wetland, nor are the severity of the impacts of the proposed development highlighted. it is left to the reader, who would need to know something about the location in particular, and wetlands in general, to infer it. the geotechnical study also omitted information on the soil properties, nor is any reference made to legislative hurdles that would have to be overcome to build on such a site. omissions of this nature by a contracted professional are most concerning. this report was not made available to the general public, the iaps or even, it seems, relevant government officials. there is no evidence that the authors of this report were ever held accountable for these omissions. in 2002 the landowner/developer began to substantially deviate from standard basic scoping processes. they engaged lawyers, instead of the usual practice of appointing environmental consultants, to deal with government officials. no explanation for this unusual method was ever provided, nor was it questioned. thus, grutter & lombard attorneys wrote to the then department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) claiming that the department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat) was satisfied that the basic scoping report catered for the protection of the environment. an incomplete scoping report prepared by arc was attached. no supporting evidence for deats position was ever provided, nor govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 158 was any evidence provided that deat was ever involved. the attorneys further claimed that the landowner/developer was under pressure to finalise the scoping report in order to have the application for rezoning considered (grutter, 2002). once again, no evidence for this claim was ever presented, or asked for. k chetty, a dwaf employee, responded to the attorneys, in the same year by: (1) instructing the parties to deal directly with the designated lead agent, namely gdace; (2) noting that the basic scoping report was incomplete – as there was a lack of evidence that the local authority and the neighbouring east rand proprietary mine (erpm) had been informed about the inherent flooding problems the proposed development would present for their respective properties; (3) noting that no evidence was presented that the local authority had agreed to provide services; and (4) pointing out that, although the basic scoping report claimed that a hydrological census had been done and five boreholes identified, no details or maps of these boreholes had been included [thus the report lacked important information] (k chetty, pers comm july, 12, 2002). to this end, chetty, representing dwaf demanded that all parties needed to agree on a solution, proof of which had to be provided (townsend, 2001). the year 2003 was a significant one for the libradene wetland. according to the developer, on the 6th of january 2003, the hod of the gdace, dr hanekom, issued a positive rod to dealmania (pty) ltd and arc, allowing the proposed development to proceed. according to gdace, however, on the 6th of january, 2003, the hod of the gdace, dr hanekom, issued a negative rod, declining the proposed development for the construction of a filling station with a convenience store and an atm facility, low residential office units and high density residential units (hanekom, 2003). the negative rod lists four reasons for declining the authorisation: (i) the development did not comply adequately with the requirements for an application for authorisation in terms of section 22 of eca, (ii) the site is within a wetland area and below the 1:50 year flood-line; (iii) as there were three other petrol stations located within a three-kilometre radius of the proposed site with the closest being 1,5 km away the development did not comply with the development facilitation act (no. 67 of 1995) and department’s guidelines for the construction and upgrading of filling stations and associated tank installations of september, 20014; and (iv) the necessary requirements for achieving integrated environmental management, as listed by nema would be violated if the development went ahead. as such, the proposed development could not be classified as one that would be environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. in particular, with a residential area within 100 metres of the site the development would be socially insensitive. it is highly likely that the original rod was indeed negative, for the following reasons: (a) the negative rod as presented is based on verifiable facts, such as the location of the various other petrol stations (see figure 4); (b) on the 15th of january, 2003, arc wrote to the landowner/developer in which the “negative outcomes of the libradene filling station environmental impact assessment procedure” is referred to (arc, 2003). it is clear from the letter that an acrimonious meeting had taken place between arc and the landowner/developer, who subsequently discharged arc of its duties and undertook to personally “follow up on the scoping report” so as to appeal the decision of gdace (c pelissier, december, 18, 2003). the letter subsequently entered the public domain as part of 4 these guidelines were subsequently affirmed by the fuel retailers association of southern africa v director-general: environmental management, department of agriculture, conservation and environment, mpumalanga province, and others 2007 (6) sa 4 (cc). how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 159 the court record and the authenticity of its contents was never questioned. thus, it can be surmised that the rod was indeed negative. figure 4: relation of the three other petrol stations to the proposed development in libradene in early december 2004, alerted by concerned members of the public, gdace officials arrived at the site to find the site under construction and foreman dumping overburden onto another part of the same wetland, well beyond the footprint of the site. this was further damaging the wetland and encouraging secondary dumping by the public. the foreman had also diverted the storm water drain on the site as it had been affecting the site works. the official gdace report suggested holding a meeting with the local authority to attempt to stop the development and requesting the developer suspend operations until an approved environmental management plan (emp) dealing with water and site saturation issues for the site had been submitted and approved (p furniss, pers comm december, 10, 2004). gdace also notified various governmental agencies, namely dwaf, the national biodiversity institute, and the department of agriculture, of the situation, as a coordinated efforts to mitigate the severe impacts would be required (bahadur, 2004). at this juncture, the developer produced a photocopy of a positive rod dated 6 january 2033, which, at the time, could not be disputed as it was the only documentation available (t ratsheko, pers comm october, 24, 2005). this was because a fire at the gdace premises govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 160 had destroyed all copies of the rod, along with other key documents, such as the basic scoping report (bahadur, 2004)5. furthermore, contact with the environmental consultant (arc) proved fruitless, as the firm was no longer operating and the consultant had emigrated. despite these problems, procedurally it could be argued that gdace may have made a critical error at this juncture, that is, an uncertified photocopy, of what was a very controversial rod, was taken at face value. the developer was not asked to produce the original or any of the supporting documents (such as the full eia that would have had to have been produced for a positive rod to be issued, see sandham et al 2013) that would have had to accompany the granting of a positive rod. no reason for this was ever provided. however, even if the rod had indeed being positive, the developer was still acting illegally. that is, the development had commenced without the necessary emp in place as required in terms of section 22 of eca and excavation operations had taken place well beyond the scope of the rod, that is, in all three zones of the wetland (cornelius, 2005). the gauteng office of dwaf conducted a site in january 2005 and issued a report to the developer that dwaf had no objections to the development providing that 10 specific conditions were met. these included: a storm water management plan, the monitoring of the shallow water table, taking south african board of standards 089, 1535, 0131, 0108 and 0400 proviso’s into account, and adherence to all relevant sections of nwa. dwaf indicated that as construction had commenced, this action would be construed as acceptance of these conditions. it was never made clear why dwaf issued such a report or if they had consulted gdace on the matter. how dwaf was supporting co-operative governance and gdace as the lead agent in the matter was also not made clear. despite such obvious violations, and written notification to that effect by various government agencies, construction continued. in response to this, in march, 2005, ms nicole barlow, a local resident, founded the libradene wetland association (lwa) in order to bring pressure to bear on the relevant authorities to intervene further (tip, 2006). a media campaign was embarked upon whereby letters were sent to the local press, sasol oil (pty) ltd and the minister of environmental affairs. ms barlow also met with dwaf and gdace officials between the months of may and october 2005 (tip, 2006). during this period, a further cooperative governance issue raised its head, when the local authority issued an approved rezoning application. although the local authority was well within its rights to do so, it is unclear why this happened when it was well known that construction was not fully authorised. in november 2005 matters took a positive turn when sasol oil (pty) ltd, who would have supplied petro props (pty) ltd with fuel products, agreed to gdace’s instruction to suspend construction for a period of two weeks. whilst sasol oil (pty) ltd gave no official reason for this, it is speculated that the discovery of the original negative rod6 (which demonstrated that the developer had not produced the genuine, original rod), may have caused serious legal concerns for sasol oil (pty) ltd. shortly thereafter, gdace issued a notice of intention to issue a directive to sasol oil (pty) ltd and petro props (pty) ltd based new information pertaining to the rod. at the same time, a forensic document examiner also declared the signature on positive rod to be of ‘questionable authenticity’. gdace 5 thousands of documents were lost in this serious fire. 6 while on holiday in south africa, the former director of arc heard about the libradene issue and then gave a copy of the negative rod to the relevant authorities. how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 161 informed both the developer and sasol oil (pty) ltd that unless an original positive rod (and not an uncertified photocopy) was produced, the opinion of the forensic document examiner would stand. on this basis, gdace gave sasol oil (pty) ltd 48 hours to make a written representation as to why all construction activities should not be permanently suspended (cornelius, 2005). with no reasons forthcoming, in december 2005, gdace issued the directive in terms of section 31a of eca. the directive noted petro-props (pty) ltd ongoing refusal to cease construction, thus giving gdace no option but to exercise its authority to direct the suspension of all activities related to the construction of the service station with immediate effect (cornelius, 2005). gdace also issued a press statement entitled ‘government halts construction of petrol station on wetland’ where by the public was notified that the developer had been acting in opposition to policy and legislative obligations. gdace acknowledged that local residents, environmental activists and the business community had complained extensively about the issue (gdace, 2005). in 2006, petro-props (pty) ltd sued ms barlow and the lwa for interfering with the development of the fuel station, claiming that their media campaign damaged the viability of the project by forcing sasol oil (pty) ltd to withdrawn from its contractual arrangements, with severe financial implications for petro-props (pty) ltd (tip, 2006). it was clear that the relentless media campaign by ms barlow had served to pressure various stakeholders to take action. she had effectively become the ‘public face’ of the ‘save the libradene wetland’ campaign, a role few were prepared to fill. the effect of pressure ms barlow brought to bear on both the authorities via the media cannot be underestimated. for example, an internal sasol oil (pty) ltd email, now part of the court judgement, reads as follows: the whole libradene issue is doing serious damage to our reputation. i think we should seriously consider a formal announcement that we are withdrawing from the site and that we do not support petroprops’ r6 million lawsuit against mrs barlow. mrs barlow has featured as a ‘national champion’ on radio 702 for two days now and listeners are calling for a boycott of sasol ccs. she also featured in the mail and guardian. the saga has been on-going for well over a year now and not a single newspaper, radio or tv mention has so far favoured sasol’s stance. we are seen as the big bully. the fact that petroprops is suing mrs barlow for a reported r6 million because she is trying to protect a wetland (for whatever reasons) is putting the spotlight on sasol. the public are under the impression that this is done with the blessing of sasol and that sasol is supporting attempts to silence responsible individuals in pursuit of profits. i believe that the reputation fallout may in the end prove far more damaging to sasol than the business case and that we should withdraw (tip, 2006). tip ruled that ms barlow and the lwa had the right to complain in the media about the perceived poor conduct of government officials and so dismissed the case with costs (tip, 2006). this high court judgement [petro props (pty) ltd v barlow and another 2006 (5) sa 160 (w)] is considered a landmark one as it enshrines the rights of individuals to exercise their constitutional rights to a ‘clean and healthy environment’ and, thus, ensures that constitutional property rights do not trump this environmental right. the judgement also affirmed the right to object to an environmentally unacceptable development using a public awareness campaign (barnard et al, 2011). while the outcome of the case vindicated ms barlow and the lwa, such litigation (with its associated high costs) launched by petro props (pty) ltd could be viewed as a classic strategic lawsuit against public participation (slapp) suit designed to get both parties to ‘back down’, remove public pressure and govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 162 curtail negative publicity. ms barlow and the lwa were only able to defend themselves because a number of legal experts offered assistance pro bono. furthermore, ms barlow had no attachable assets at the time, so should she have lost the case, she would not have faced financial ruin, a situation few environmental activists could have weathered. in november, 2007 gdace took petro-props (pty) ltd; sasol oil (pty) ltd and dealmania (pty) ltd to court. sasol oil (pty) ltd did not oppose the application, but gdace withdrew the case as both petro-props (pty) ltd and dealmania (pty) ltd agreed to submit an environmental management plan (emp), which would include a new ppp, within 30 days. in the light of both petro-props (pty) ltd and dealmania (pty) ltd’s past behaviour, such light treatment by authorities is questionable. instead of bringing the developer to book, this court order seemed to indicate that gdace was prepared to allow the developer to proceed providing certain compliance issues were dealt with. despite the court order, there is no evidence that this emp or new a ppp was ever undertaken. gdace never proceeded with full prosecution of petro-props (pty) ltd and dealmania (pty) ltd for failure to comply with environmental impact assessment (eia) regulations; failure to comply with chapter 5 of nema (107 of 1998); failure to comply with section 22 of the eca (73 of 1989) and failure to comply with cara (43 of 1983). as a result, in november, 2008, ms barlow and her environmental organisation, environment and conservation association, sought an interdict against gdace, petro-props (pty) ltd and dealmania (pty) ltd to force the demolition of the structures and rehabilitation of the wetland. to date, the case has still not been argued in court, due to multiple extensions granted between 2009 and 2011. no additional action from gdace has been forthcoming. the partly built station still stands, it is still owned by petro props (pty) (ltd) who has repaid the bank mortgage loan raised against the development. two security guards secure and manage the premises around the clock. at the time of writing the wetland remains a dump site, home to alien invasive plants and the remains of a half built petrol station. in december 2011, dwv environmental consulting submitted a basic assessment report (bar) to the gauteng department of agriculture and rural development (gdard) on behalf of wfw. the proposed rehabilitation plan had three main objectives: (1) to improve the hydrological integrity of the wetland system by deactivating trenches and re-wetting the entire wetland; (2) to improve the geomorphological and vegetational integrity of the wetland by removing the dumped material and litter and (3) to restore the original flooding pattern (dwv, 2011 & 2012; lri, 2011). although this represents the most significant progress that has been made towards the rehabilitating of the wetland to date, wfw subsequently suspended it in march 2012, as a wider rehabilitation programme for multiple east rand wetlands was proposed. analysis and recommendations an analysis of the events seems to indicate that the environmental legislation in place did serve its purpose as the initial application was declined by gdace. thus, the main role player responsible for the destruction of the wetland was the developer, who deviated from procedures, made unsubstantiated claims to authorities, ignored written instructions to cease construction and defied a court order. however, some responsibility has to be borne by government officials, as law enforcement was weak and slow. in addition, it could be argued that gdace officials should not have agreed to the basic scoping process in the first place, because a wetland was involved. furthermore, some responsibility needs to be assumed by the professional consultants involved, for undertaking the task of applying for authorisation for a how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 163 petrol station on what was obviously a wetland7. thus, it could possibility be argued that proceeding with the basic scoping process may have falsely led the land owner/developer to believe that his request to erect a petrol station would be dealt with favourably. it leads to a questioning if officials can easily reject basic scoping report requests? for example, if the wetland had been recorded in the national wetland database would this have helped officials in rejecting the basic scoping request? or do environmental consultants and government officials need additional training on wetland identification and wetland protection so as to be more empowered to decline such requests? another serious issue is that law enforcement took a long time, during which construction continued, resulting in significant damage to the wetland. while delays were partly due to the non-cooperation of the developer, an environmental consultant who had emigrated and missing documentation, the effect of justice delayed was justice denied. both dwaf and gdace could have been more forceful in stopping construction, because even if the rod had been genuinely positive, the lack of an approved emp gave them sufficient grounds to institute legal proceedings. this then begs the question as to how empowered are government officials when it comes to dealing with non-compliance? in addition, the actions of dwaf and the local authority at crucial junctures could be construed as unintentionally undermining the authority and decision-making power of the responsible provincial authority, namely gdace. that is, the basic scoping report should have been rejected out of hand due to its incompleteness and gdace should have been copied on all correspondence. whilst the national legislation is quite clear in its intentions concerning water resource conservation and protection, the relationships and the lines of responsibility – between the institutions at the national, provincial and local levels are often entangled. processes and procedures are complex and confusing, the consequences of which is inefficiency, uncoordinated planning, division of control, fragmentation and intergovernmental conflicts such as the one described here. it was clear that the developer was able to exploit this situation. it is clear that document control is vital, with the fire at the gdace premises highlighting the inadequate provision of secure back-up copies. additionally, if all relevant stakeholders, as an established practice, had been sent copies of the original rod, it is less likely that the developer could have seized the opportunity to create a forgery. importantly, south african law requires all documentation be kept for five years, so avenues need to be explored to establish how to ensure environmental consultant firms can be bound to this even in the event of closure or emigration. the case highlights the importance of conducting effective public participation, that is, public participation should be broad based, with all community members who stand to be affected, consulted. this leads one to question how adequately does south africa’s legislation deal with public participation? nema section 24(d) specifically demands public participation with the purpose of providing all interested and affected parties with an opportunity to participate in procedures and access information (nanda & pring, 2003; george & kirkpatrick, 2007). however, clarity on what the obligations regarding ppp for an environmental consultant are, is needed; along with better guidelines pertaining to ppp best practice. this includes clarifying if developers can get directly involved in the ppp and if 7 the poor performance of the various professionals involved means that the findings of earthlife africa (cape town) v director-general: department of environmental affairs and tourism and another 2005 (3) sa 156 (c) may have relevance here. perhaps eia oversight consultants/specialists should be appointed by an independent authority to ensure that basic scoping reports are accurate? govender-ragubeer, meeuwis and morton mckay 164 developers can provide information, that is not shared with the general public, directly to an iap. lastly, considering how few responses were received, one wonders if the general south african public is fully aware of what the ppp is; what an iaps is; and what their rights are? if so, then who should be tasked with informing the public as to what their rights are, the environmental consultants, government agencies or both? furthermore, what can be considered suitable awareness raising? these particular issues have not been addressed in the publication of new nema regulations in 2006 or the august 2010 revised eia regulations (see government gazette 33306). the revised regulations were aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of eias, making authorities accountable in terms of deadlines with respect to decisions and changing aspects of the public consultation such as excluding the period december 15 january 2 in the counting of days for decisions and lodging of appeals and a requirement that decisions must be published in the same newspaper used during the ppp (saidi, 2010). as was the case for libradene, it is clear that not all developers, environment consultants and experts in the field acknowledged their obligations in terms of adhering to environmental legislation. it is of utmost importance, therefore, that a wetland protection strategy programme is implemented in order to (1) improve both regulatory and non-regulatory wetland protection; (2) educate and promote awareness amongst the public on the ways in which wetlands function in the context of an ecosystems approach, and to emphasise their value and importance; (3) impose penalties on those who damage and exploit wetlands; (4) place the responsibility of maintaining a healthy wetland on all south africans; (5) improve the quality and amount of information on wetlands and their intrinsic value to the environment and society, and (6) communicate it more effectively to all levels of authority. this case also demonstrated the vital role eco-crusaders such as ms nicole barlow play in protecting the environment (murombo, 2008). if it were not for ms barlow, empowered by the provisions of the south african constitution, assisted by the media and displaying a selfless interest in the libradene wetland, it is not clear if the development would have been stopped. in particular, her relentless pressure galvanised the internal gdace investigation (which revealed the forgery) and secondly the constant media coverage alerted the director of arc to the situation whilst he was on holiday in south africa, resulting in his submission of a copy of the negative rod to gdace. lastly, the construction of a petrol station on the libradene wetland highlights some key challenges regarding sustainable development which involves balancing economic development and environmental protection. on the one hand there is considerable pressure by landowners and developers to invest in their assets and increase their nett material wealth. on the other hand, urban areas need to be managed in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. this often results in conflict, as this case demonstrated, between those who see the need to increase the extent and value of the built environment and those who feel urban open spaces and habitats such as urban wetlands must be preserved. thus, it is important that all basic scoping reports and, subsequent eias, include a cost/benefit analysis whereby short and long term social and environmental gains and losses are weighed up. conclusion the libradene wetland case, although not a significant wetland, highlights a number of challenges facing good environmental management. firstly, co-operative governance is fraught with difficulties, as delineated lines of responsibility and authority are not always clear. thus, greater attention needs to be paid to improving relationships between how the battle to save an urban wetland was both won and lost td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 149168. 165 government departments. for example, designated lead agents should be copied on all correspondence by all other state bodies in order to ‘give life’ to cooperative governance. secondly, consolidation of legislation at the national level (or, alternatively, the coordination of provincial legislation to align the respective laws of the provinces with environmental legislation at the national level), with the aim of protecting wetlands, is required. thirdly, enforcement and administration of the law naively assumes stakeholders will voluntarily comply, which is not always the case. thus, authorities should promote compliance by developers and environmental practitioners by (a) demanding adherence to stringent environmental management standards (such as rejecting incomplete scoping reports out of hand); (b) streamlining enforcement procedures under one lead agent; (c) strengthening the public participation process to ensure all relevant stakeholders are aware of proposed developments and their concerns are met; and (d) making active use of the national wetlands database to identify wetlands upfront. references adendorff h. 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(2007) the impact of development on the environment as part and parcel of integrated development planning? law, democracy and development 11: 57-79. working for wetlands (2012) available from: http://wetlands.sanbi.org/. accessed 18 january 2012. dec 2008 inside book .p65 305 td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 305-338. abstract this paper does a comparative analysis and assessment of energy impacts of traditional and partly electronic iso 14001 environmental management system auditing that using videoconferencing systems. the focus is on the japanese automotive industry. the idea is to quantify the environmental impacts of auditing and resolve the important question on whether or not the use of information and communication technology (ict) in environmental auditing reduces environmental impacts in iso 14001 environmental management systems. the main results show that there are no clear energy savings or environmental advantages associated with ict use in environmental auditing for the set system boundary. however electronic auditing is shown to have clear advantages for stated variables within the model, for example when the distance travelled by the auditors by train and by car is less than 75 km and 17 km per day respectively. a comparison of modes of travel by auditors, shows that rail travel offers the most environmental and energy benefits. it is also noted that travel dominates in terms of energy consumption and environmental burdens compared to all other environmental aspects associated with auditing. the study contributes to knowledge in that among other things, it enables researchers to draw parallels from it applicable to other industrial sectors and other countries. southern african countries can use this methodology in analysing auditing methods with little or no changes in the model used. keywords: energy/environmental impacts, traditional/electronic environmental auditing 1 introduction this paper analyses the energy implications of traditional auditing of environmental management systems compared to an auditing system that incorporates electronic methods like use of e-mails, internet and teleconferencing. the modelling process focuses on the comparative analysis of energy impacts of traditional and partly electronic environmental auditing: learning from the japanese automotive industry case c mbohwa 1 1 dr. charles mbohwa is a senior lecturer in the department of quality and operations management at the university of johannesburg. e-mail: cmbohwa@uj.ac.za. 306 japanese automotive industry where the plants and facilities conduct audits certify or confirm the compliance of iso 14001 environmental management systems. automobile manufacturers have a number of facilities and by analyzing all of them as this study did, a fuller picture of auditing issues in the industry in japan could be discerned. the thinking is that use of information and communication technology (ict) has the potential to reduce total transportation needs, paper use and the time needed to conduct an environmental audit by providing alternative ways to arrange meetings, eliminating or reducing commuter or business travel. the use of internet for auditing documents and records ideally contributes through creation of paperless systems and dematerialization. being able to study environmental documents while the external auditors are within their own normal environment can also reduce the time needed to complete an audit. these assumed gains have to be compared with the extra energy consumption as a result of increased use of ict. it is not clear if this travel reduction and substitution with electronic media has net positive impacts on the environment. in this case electronic auditing of an iso 14001 certified environmental management system in the japanese automotive industry is compared with traditional auditing, to attempt a resolution of this problem. 1.1 the need for environmental auditing the main idea of an environmental audit is to ensure that there is third part confirmation that a company’s environmental management system meets the requirements of iso 14001. this assures any interested parties about the effectiveness and prevalence of an environmental management system in the audited company. this, when accompanied with the use of appropriate environmental performance data, assures stakeholders that the company has in place an effective system that limits its environmental impacts. the specific requirement in the iso 14001 standard is to “establish and maintain programmes and procedures for periodic environmental management system audits.” (iso 14001, 1996) this helps to determine conformance of the environmental management system to iso 14001 requirements. the information collected during this process is useful, particularly when management reviews of the system are done. activities and areas to be considered during the audit are clearly outlined and the audit programs and procedures are created by the organization in such a way that ensures impartiality and objectivity by both internal and external auditors. this is done at the beginning of certification and later on to reconfirm certification by the registering agent. depending on the type of organization, this exercise can take up to a week. figure 1 shows the role of environmental auditing within iso 14001. (callaghan, 1996) 1.2 transportation reduction and substitution transportation is a major contributor to environmental pollution and mbohwa 307 environmental problems such as global warming, acidification, eutrophication and smog hence the need to reduce it. transport substitution by use of teleconferencing (video and audio conferencing) can play an important role in the travel reduction. however the reality is that traffic in japan has been and contributed 21.6% of total carbon dioxide (co 2 ) emissions in 1998, which amounted to 257 million tons out of a total of 1,188 million tons. (jal, 2001) 55.5 % of these emissions were from private cars. japan’s motor vehicles and railroads account for almost all passenger traffic. in the year 2000, 84.69 billion passengers were transported domestically, an increase of 0.8% from the previous year. the total number of passenger-kilometres was 1,419.69 billion out of which 384.44 billion were for railways and 951.25 billion for motor vehicles. (statistical handbook of japan, 2002) on the other hand co 2 emissions in japan in 1993, contributed to 94.4 % of global warming potential. there is therefore a need for more effort to reduce traffic volume in japan through reduction of travel. figure 1: environmental auditing within iso 14001 (source: callaghan, 1996) td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 308 1.3 the problem scope the traditional system of auditing for the automotive companies in japan was assessed, targeting the certified plants and facilities within japan. the subsidiaries outside japan were not considered since they use local certification agencies and registrars. the electronic system was also considered for the same organizational units involving the use of internet and e-mail to access the audited documents and records and video conferencing facilities to conduct interviews and meetings between the external auditors and the management/employees of the company. traditional onsite auditing for a shorter period focusing on hotspots and unclear areas was finally considered. this assumed that one system was completely traditional and the other was a hybrid of the digital and traditional systems. the study methodology involved modelling using standard life cycle assessment methods for the upstream, use and downstream impacts, to simplify comparisons between the totally paper-based system and the partial electronic auditing system. the analysis focused on energy consumption because it is major source of co 2 emissions worldwide. the other impacts were not included in this analysis, but they were alluded to as part of the discussion. 2 energy and environmental implications of internet and teleconferencing 2.1 net auditing experiences at nec this study was prompted by the successful application of the partly electronic auditing service model by nec japan. (nec, 2001) the company implemented the world’s first known environmental iso 14001 audit employing an electronic system called net audit, which uses the shared information system utilizing the internet and intranet information management resources. audits were done effectively by an iso 14001 certification body, connected to the company through internet. the system consists of three types of auditing. there is net auditing, which enables the auditors to confirm the rules and regulations of the company through the i n t e r n e t . t h e r e i s n e t i n t e r v i e w , w h i c h i n v o l v e s t a i l s videoconferencing with top management and a final onsite t r a d i t i o n a l a u d i t i n g l i m i t e d t o h o t s p o t s a n d g r e y a r e a s . videoconferencing is essentially communication across long distances with video and audio contact and may also include graphics and data exchange. digital video transmission systems typically consist of a camera, coder-decoder, network access equipment, a network, and an audio system. the importance of onsite auditing is that it checks the actual operations and incorporates any questions that arise from the first two methods. the electronic system was used by the japan quality assurance mbohwa 309 organization, the largest certification body in japan. even thought this system has been regularly used, there has been no known scientific study that compares this new model to the old traditional system. this study therefore attempts to fill this gap. the questions that need to be resolved are to do with the assessing the energy implications of using ict in environmental auditing, how this compares with traditional auditing models focusing on the japanese automotive industry. there are claims that net audit at nec has many advantages, for example that about 60% of the auditing work, such as inspection of records, rules and regulations can be covered by accessing the environmental information systems through the internet. (nec, 2001) the actual onsite inspection time of the system is then reduced to less than half when compared to conventional auditing systems. another argument is that because of the detailed preparations associated with the method, on-site inspection becomes more focused and thorough since the auditors are able to inspect the company’s paper work at their own pace and at their own premises. the distributed management systems located at a number of different sites can now have records being examined at the offices of the auditors. the auditors have the advantage of being able to obtain sufficient information in advance hence they can use onsite auditing time more efficiently and effectively. the assumption is that the period of auditing will be reduced whenever electronic methods are applied. other gains noted at nec are that the auditors have been able to reduce the time for the inspection of management operations to 25% of the total original auditing time, time for interviews with top executives and managers has been maintained at the same level and the time for the inspection of documents and records has been reduced to 5% of the original total auditing time. total auditing time reduction of 60% and the approximate reduction in carbon dioxide emissions estimated at 46% were achieved. (nec, 2001) however these emission reduction claims are not verified by indicating the models and the nature of the data used. in the absence of such analysis and evaluation, this study attempts a first cut into this problem. 2.2 benefits expected from ict use in auditing the benefits expected in using ict in environmental auditing are, cost savings from avoided travel business allowances, avoided time losses and reduced hotel costs. some studies indicate that videoconferencing and audio conferencing systems have a payback period of less than one month. (arnfalk, 2000) the challenge is to manage these systems so that in reality teleconferencing replaces travel as opposed to being a complimentary way of communicating or being a way of generating more travel through new electronic business contacts. teleconferencing equipment is more energy intensive than normal telephony and some studies have identified the need to ensure that the equipment is used significantly. studies td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 310 done in sweden (arnfalk, 2002) and globally have shown that ignoring the energy used in the production of trains and airplanes, but taking into account manufacturing of videoconferencing equipment, train travel and air travel had 5 times and 10 times more impacts than a videoconferencing system if such systems were used at least 30 hours a week. equipment left continuously in standby mode and hardly used had impacts comparable to train travel, but continued to be more favourable than air travel. (arnfalk, 2002; gesi unep, 2002) the analysis for the japanese situation done is this paper used a different methodology and assumptions to explore different alternatives. an attempt was made to incorporate manufacturing cycle energy for cars, trains and airplanes also. furthermore for auditing systems, all long distance transport substitution is not achievable, since the auditors still need to carry out at least one onsite inspection. travel substitution is only possible at the local area, assuming that the number of days required to conduct the audit are reduced. the different transportation modes were considered for comparative analysis. some studies have shown that, ignoring manufacturing and delivery cycles of transportation equipment, videoconferencing has clear benefits over air travel and that if such travel substitution led to reduction of flights as opposed to number of passengers only, co 2 emissions from video conferencing could be less than 1% of those of a journey by air. (gesi unep, 2002) for cumulative energy input and assuming a four-hour videoconference 12 times per year, videoconferences have been shown to have an advantage over business trips by train further than 30km, by diesel car further than 10km and by petrol car further than 8km. (gesi unep, 2002) the introduction of ultra low emission vehicles, like the hybrid cars, which are now a common feature in japan and the consideration of the manufacturing energy of transportation equipment, introduces a new dimension in this study. the members of the north american communications environmental excellence initiative (ceei) have also estimated huge co 2 savings from telephone and video conferencing. (gesi unep, 2002) the models for such analysis are in the process of being developed and life cycle analysis is not an exact science, hence requiring more modelling and experimentation for a variety of scenarios. the focus of this research is therefore on microscopic analysis of videoconference applications the typical auditing process was modelled in order to independently and scientifically evaluate the related energy impacts. claims of energy benefits of partial electronic auditing have to be taken with care hence the need for a thorough and independent analysis to identify the critical variables in such systems and how they affect the overall system energy and environmental performance as was done in this paper. 3 modelling energy use in environmental auditing mbohwa 311 environmental auditing normally follows basic steps consisting of: pre-audit activities, on-site activities and post-audit activities as indicated in table 1. (young, 1994) the onsite activities have some aspects, which can be shortened or modified when using electronic systems, for example physical meetings can be replaced by teleconferences. the initial plans for the fieldwork and collection of documentation, information, and records and the exit meeting can be done electronically at the auditors’ offices. the model will therefore focus on the on-site activities and the electronic presite activities, since the pre-audit and post audit activities are assumed to be similar. the access to environmental management system documentation through internet or e-mail using a computer for the partial electronic auditing system and the reading of the paper-based version posted by the company to be audited for the traditional system at the auditors’ office are taken into account. in the case of the electronic version, the documents can be saved on a local pc after being downloaded from the audited company’s website. this reduces energy use compared to reading them on the internet directly. given these boundaries, a comparison of traditional auditing and electronic auditing is as shown in table 2. table 1 the steps followed in the traditional environmental audit td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 312 table 2 time line for typical traditional and proposed electronic audit in the case of electronic auditing, there is no brief facility tour undertaken. the detailed facility tour is limited to one day, since it focuses on hotspots and areas that need more detailed inspection only. the interviews are also limited in time so that any necessary interviews with regulatory staff to answer unclear regulatory issues and the exit interviews are scheduled for the afternoon of the third day. a time reduction of two days is therefore assumed for electronic auditing compared to the purely traditional system since most documentation and records will have been processed and nonessential inspections eliminated. nec achieved similar time savings using net audit and this strengthens the assumption. (nec, 2001) the model therefore includes these two days only for transportation, accommodation and other aspects of the study. the two systems are then subjected to a comparative analysis to evaluate energy and environmental implications associated. the facilities that are iso 14001 certified in the car industry in japan considered for the purpose of this study, are as shown in table 3. table 3 iso 14001 certified facilities in the japanese automotive industry-year ended 31 march 2002 mbohwa 313 sources: daihatsu, 2002; honda, 2002; isuzu, 2002; mazda, 2002; mitsubishi, 2002; nissan, 2002; subarufuji; suzuki, 2002; toyota, 2002 3.1 traditional system modelling the life cycle assessment model system boundaries for the traditional auditing system were transportation of the auditors, accommodation for the auditors, production of paper and the printing of the documents used. the model analyses the following: energy use in the production of paper used for documentation and in paper disposal; printing energy use for the auditing related paper documents; energy use while reading the company’s environmental documentation; and energy use in the transportation of the auditors and energy use at the hotel where the auditors are housed. there are basically two models used for this analysis. the first one is for the situation when the auditors’ office is in the same area as the company that is being audited and only local travel is required. the total energy used e given by e =e p + e pr +e r +e l (1) where e p is the life cycle energy use for paper production e pr is the energy used to print the documents used for environmental management auditing e r is energy used for reading the documents e l is the energy used for local travel by the auditors td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 314 the second model is when the company is so far that the auditors have to travel a long distance and stay in a hotel. the total energy e in this case is given by e =e p + e pr +e r +e l + e hotel + e t (2) where e p , e pr , e r , e l are as defined earlier and e hotel is the energy used for hotel accommodation. e t is the energy used travelling from the office to the company far away by car, train or airplane. it is assumed that the auditors are situated in four different distance zones and that the choice of transportation mode depends on the distance from the facility that is being audited. the transportation of the auditors for different modes of transport is shown in figure 2. the model is defined as follows � distance of less than 200 km roundtrip per day, use a private car to and from the plant, no need to use hotel accommodation and local auditors do the external audit for the facility; � between 100 and 1000 km one way, use a car and stay in a hotel; � between 200 and 1000 km one way, use train and changeover to a taxi or hired car to and from the terminal railway station and for local trips and stay in a hotel; and � between 300 and 1000 km use a train to the airport, an airline to the airport closest to the facility that is being audited and a car to the facility and for local trips and stay in a hotel. this enables a comparison of these different modes of transportation when the audited company and the auditors’ office are between 300km and 1000 km apart. the auditing of companies located more than 300 km away involves the use of a car, train or airplane to cover the long distance. in all cases, a car is used for local travel and this is assumed to be similar to the situation when the company being audited and the auditors’ office are in the same area. this involves travel between the hotel and the company and may involve travel to the airport or railway station also. the use of the bus and ship were not considered because of the times taken by the bus and the ship and the added inconvenience involved in using the ship for most inland areas. mbohwa 315 figure 2: traditional auditing system scenarios for local and long distance travel by different modes 3.2 modelling partial use of electronic methods in environmental auditing figure 3 shows the partly electronic auditing system. the life cycle assessment model system boundaries used were; transportation of the auditors, accommodation for the auditors, the use of videoconferencing equipment, the use of servers and pcs to enable internet access of the documents by the two auditors. two pcs and a server are needed on both the auditors and the audited company’s premises. the transportation and hotel accommodation energy difference is due to the fact that the auditing is planned for a 3-day period compared to a 5-day period for the traditional system. the model analyses the following: 1. the energy use in transportation of the auditors and for hotel accommodation; 2. energy use for reading documents at the audited company. this was taken to be the same as for traditional auditing; td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 316 3. energy use by the two picturetel videoconferencing systems at the two companies; 4. energy use by 4 pcs and 2 servers used for videoconferencing and information storage/exchange; and 5. energy use by the ict network equipment. the total energy use t e for the partly electronic auditing system is therefore modelled as follows: t e = t t + t a + t r +t v + t c + t s + t n (3) where t t is the energy use for transporting the auditors t a is the energy used at the hotel t r is energy used for reading the documents t v is the energy used for the videoconferencing system t c is the energy used by the personal computers t s is the energy used by the servers t n is the energy used by the telecommunications and computer network figure 3: configuration of the electronic audit system mbohwa 317 the energy used for transportation t t , for hotel accommodation t a and for reading the documents t r is derived from the earlier completely traditional auditing model for a 3-day period. however the other energy usage has to be modelled and computed from the beginning. a general equation is defined for the production life cycle energy use in mj e prod as follows: e prod = number of equipment used x total usage time in hours x production cycle energy in mj (4) life span of equipment in unit times x total usage hours per unit time the energy consumption during equipment use in mj e use is given by: e use = number of equipment used x total equipment usage time in seconds x system power consumption in megawatts(mw) (5) the energy use by the equipment in standby mode in mj e standby is calculated using the following formula: estandby = number of equipment used x equipment standby power consumption in mw x equipment time usage in seconds (6) the standby usage time does not include the time when the equipment is used at full power. 4 data collection and analysis this section describes the data used and the assumption behind its usage for the traditional and partly electronic auditing systems. 4.1 energy use in production (e p ) and disposal of paper used in audit documentation the paper industry is one of the most energy and resource intensive industries. for each ton of paper avoided, co 2 savings are 3.3 metric tons for newspapers and 3.8 metric tons for office paper. (cohen, 2001) roughly 29.54 mj is required to make 1 kg of packaging paper. (deq, 1999) other estimates put the electricity consumption of paper production at 10785 kwh per ton (38.83 mj per kg) implying that when other forms of energy are considered paper production consumes more energy. 24 mj of electricity is required per kg for recycled paper. (baxter, cvg) earth systems, 2001 estimates the energy required for producing one ton of paper from virgin wood pulp at 16,320 kwh (58.75 mj per kg) and that required for producing a ton from waste paper at 5919 kwh (21.3 mj per kg). williams et al, 2002 quoting data from the buwal database indicate that the energy required to produce cardboard packaging boxes form waste paper is in the range 24-44 mj depending on the process. for the manufacture of more refined printing paper, the value provided by earth systems, 2001 is closer to the expected value. the life cycle energy for printing paper from virgin wood is therefore taken as 60 mj per kg and that for td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 318 recycled paper is taken as 40 mj per kg in this study. an environmental management system involves a lot of paperwork in the form of procedures, programs, manuals on the environmental management systems and for training, environmental reports and operational instructions. it is estimated that about 1.5 kg of paperwork (500 pages) is sent to the auditors for pre-audit activities in the case of the traditional system. however for partly electronic auditing system, the documents are sent through internet or email. the estimated life cycle energy of the paper used to make the full environmental management system documentation is therefore estimated as varying from 60 mj for recycled paper to 90 mj for paper from virgin wood pulp. assuming that the paper is transported 50km using a 6-ton truck that consumes a litre of diesel for every 3.5 km and recycled, energy use for paper disposal is 0.14 mj. this is negligible compared to paper production energy and is disregarded for this analysis. 4.2 energy use in printing auditing paper documents e pr the environmental protection agency of the united states estimates that a conventional laser printer operating for 9 hours a day throughout the year consumes 185 kwh (666 mj), assuming a n a v e r a g e p o w e r c o n s u m p t i o n o f 5 6 w . ( e p a , 2 0 0 4 ) a n investigation on desktop printers identified that an epson printer epl-6100l monochrome laser printer that can print 16 pages per minute and it has a maximum power consumption of 720 w. (epson epl-6100l) assuming normal printing each page can be printed in 3.75 second consuming 2.7 kj. another printer considered was a brother hl-1070 laser printer that can print 10 pages per minute. its warm up time and first page print time combined together is 45 seconds, with a resolution of up to 1200 x 600 dpi and a printing power consumption of 280 w. its standby power consumption is 60 w and sleep power consumption is 13 w. (brother europe) printing each page takes an average of 6 seconds consuming 1.68 kj. ink jet printers consume less energy. commercial printers for publications are bigger, more powerful and can print colours and pictures using more energy. the total print time depends on image complexity, image size, type of port used and network traffic; printer’s memory configuration; print/quality mode selected; colour/correction mode selected; image smoothing activation and number of non-resident fonts used . most colour printers are specified at 16 pages per minute black and white and 5 pages per minute full colour. the phaser 750 xerox colour printer is rated at 380 w. (phaser 750) taking 12 seconds to print a colour page gives an energy consumption of 4.56 kj per page. many annual reports in the japanese automobile industry are very colourful and t h e a v e r a g e e n e r g y c o n s u m p t i o n p e r p a g e o f t h e a n n u a l environmental report is taken as 3 kj per page. the printing energy is therefore 1.5 mj for the 500 pages sent to the auditors. the life cycle energy use of the printer is ignored. mbohwa 319 4.3 energy use at auditors’ office reading company’s environmental documents e r this is mainly in the form of electricity use for lighting and heating. the measure of energy intensity in buildings is commonly expressed in annual average energy consumption per unit of floor area that is per square meter (/m2). the energy consumption depends on the heat ventilation and air condition (hvac) and the lighting design mainly. the mean electric load is of the order of 10-100w/m2. electric intensive rooms, like data centres, have energy intensities of 1001000w/m2. (aebischer et al, 2002) japan airlines estimates electricity consumption by office buildings of 244 kwh (878.4 mj) per square meter per year and heating at 24.6 litres kerosene per square meter based on its total floor area of 690,263 m2. (jal, 2001) the energy content of kerosene, which is commonly used for heating in japan, is the same as that of jet fuel, which is 5,670 btus per barrel (37.63 mj/litre). (epa, 2001) heating energy is therefore estimated to be 925.7 mj/m2 per year and the total annual energy consumption 1804.1mj/m2. the average power consumption of a building becomes 57.2w/m2. this is in agreement with figures quoted earlier. assuming that auditors working on the company documents need 4 hours during the afternoon of the first day of auditing 0.82 mj/m2 of energy would be used. if the office area is assumed to be 20 m2, the energy use becomes 16.5 mj. 4.4 energy use in transporting (e l and e t ) and accommodating the auditors e hotel the use of a car for auditing a company close to the auditors’ office is considered first. it is assumed that a total distance of 200km a day is covered using a gasoline car that consumes fuel at 10 kilometres per litter (km/l). for a 5-day audit, a total distance of 1000km is covered consuming 100 litres of gasoline. the energy used in the manufacture of a car is quoted as 83 gj. (herring, 2001) this gives a 11.5% contribution to life cycle energy use, if car lifespan is taken as 200,000km at 10km/liter, in agreement with literature. energy use in the production of vehicles and fuel used by the vehicle is incorporated using a factor of 1.24, since some studies have indicated that energy to produce a fuel is 13% of its energy content and the production phase of a private car accounts for 11 % of its life cycle energy use. (williams et al, 2002) the local distance is modelled for rail transportation also and a factor of 1.14 is applied to incorporate manufacturing energy. the same factor is used for airplane. one of the japanese railway companies, jr east reduced the energy intensity in its passenger operations from 20.6 mj/car-km to 18.8 mj/car-km in year 2001. such improvements in efficiency help to ensure that the energy and environmental impacts of rail passengers are reduced. the company used a total of 56.4 million mj in 2001, equivalent to 1.46 million kiloliters of crude oil to transport 5.9 billion customers and emitted 2.29 million tons of carbon dioxide in the td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 320 process. a comparison of the energy consumption and emission levels of the different modes of transport is shown in table 4. (jr east, 2002) table 4 comparison of energy use and co 2 emissions for different transportation modes source: (jr east, 2002) the total revenue passenger-kilometres for japan airlines for the year ended 31st march 2001 were 90,492 million. the available seatkilometres were 122,776 million, giving a revenue passenger load factor of 73.7 %. (jal, 2001) the fuel consumption for the airplanes varies between 1.76 x 10-2 and 2.71 x 10-2 kg per seat-km. using the fact that one ton of jet oil has a volume of 1260.72 litres (epa, 2001), the fuel use is 2.22 x 10-2 and 3.42 x 10-2 litres /seat-km. using the above load factor and 37.63 mj/litre of jet fuel, the energy consumption per passenger-km is between 1.13 and 1.76 mj/ passenger-km. this range agrees with the value given by jr east in the above table. a value of 1.66 mj/passenger-km is used in the model. hotels use energy for various purposes. a study at the university of central florida, of energy saving in caribbean hotels showed that energy consumption by usage area was; air conditioning 56%; water heating 7%; fans, pumps and others 12%, lighting 11% and refrigeration 14%. these ratios can be used to obtain co 2 emissions if the type of fuel used is known. electric water heaters consumed an average 210 kwh per day. on average, each of the 70-roomed hotels consumed 91 300 kwh per month, about 43.48 kwh (156.53 mj) per room per day. (fsec, 2003) some hotel bathrooms use 4 incandescent bulbs, 60w each, resulting in an annual consumption of 600 kwh (2160 mj) per year or 6 mj per day for one room only. (eetd newsletter, 2003) however a more comprehensive study at the university of florida, for hotels in florida gives average usage of water at 300 gallons per month, varying from 99 to 1,045 per occupied room. average energy use is 218 kbtu per occupied room per month, with a range of 92 to 426 kbtu per occupancy per month. the total energy use index varied between 41,000 and 136,000 btu/ft2/year. (west mike) data on japanese hotels is lacking. the energy use index for japanese hotels was therefore taken as 160 mj per room per day based on the data from the caribbean hotels. mbohwa 321 4.5 extra energy use for transportation and hotel accommodation in traditional system additional energy consumption due to the traditional systems was found to be 1,729 mj for transportation (392 mj if rail used) and 640 mj for hotel use. 4.6 energy use by the videoconferencing equipment t v a picturetel venue 2000 model 30 is specified to have a power consumption of 300 watts (w). (picturetel venue 2000, 2004) other videoconferencing systems like picturetel concorde are shown to have a maximum power rating of 1200 va, with an electronic module rated at 469 w and a typical monitor rated at 240 w. (picturetel concorde 4500, 2004) portable video conferencing systems are rated at 40 w, with a maximum power consumption of 100 va. (swiftsite ii, 2004) in this case, the use of a picturetel venue 2000 model 30 at a power rating of 300 w, including the monitor was assumed. this has the following specifications: it can conduct a point-to-point (two sites) or multi-point (3 or more sites) videoconference; it can scan, zoom in and out at speaker or conference participants; it shows a pre-recorded vhs tape to viewers if required; records the current videoconference on vhs tape if required; displays black and white or colour paper printouts and transparencies; interfaces a laptop and shows software application demonstrations or powerpoint slide shows; can have a computer dial-up via modem connection; displays 35mm slides through a slide carousel. the auditor and the company sites being audited have the same type of equipment made up of the following equipment: monitor picturetel venue 2000 coder-decoders; picturetel camera; picturetel area pancake microphone; bose speaker; cannon re-350 video visualiser; 2-vhs cassette recorders (one for playback, one for recording); laptop external video interface for demonstrating software or showing powerpoint slide shows; a 35mm slide carousel; a speaker phone that may also double for an internet dial-up connection; and one picturetel montage 570 multipoint conferencing unit (mcu). the mcu has the capability to do bridging, can do voice activated switching for multi-point conferences and can accept up to 3 simultaneous (384kb) isdn connections through a primary interface (pri) line. the limitations are that the mcu can only send or receive at 384kb and the video is only 15 frames per second compared to a regular video which operates at 30 frames per second. all coders-decoders are directly connected to the picturetel mcu, either through copper cabling or via sub-rated t1 384kb connection. the energy to produce a colour television has been given as 2,800 mj. (herring, 2 0 0 1 ) i t i s a s s u m e d t h a t a l l t h e e q u i p m e n t s p ecified for videoconferencing requires more production energy than a normal colour television and a figure of 4,000 mj is used. the videoconferencing time has been set at 12 hours for the whole td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 322 auditing process. assuming that the life cycle of the picturetel system is 5 years, with a usage rate of 20 hours a week the share of production life cycle energy use is calculated as 18.46 mj. the energy during the use phase of the videoconferencing system in mj based on the assumption that the maximum power consumption of the picturetel system is 300 w and that it actually operates at that power, is found to be 25.92 mw. it is assumed that the system is on standby during the 3-day auditing period whenever it is not used and its power consumption in that mode is 40 w. this gives the standby energy as 17.28 mj. 4.7 energy use by pcs t c the production and delivery cycle of computer consists of the energy use to produce and deliver one computer, which has been quoted at 8,300 mj. (williams et al, 2002) some authors have estimated the production and supply chain cycles energy use for desktop computers at 6004 mj using the traditional model, 5823 mj using the integrated model with air shipping and 5320 mj using the integrated model with ground shipping. (cohen, 2001) others have given higher estimates of between 10 and 12 gj. (herring, 2001) the production and delivery life cycle energy consumption of each pc is taken as 6000 mj. using the models, the production life cycle energy consumption assuming the usage of 4 pcs, whose life span is 5 years for 3 days for the auditing purpose only is 29.59 mj. this assumes the office computers are used an average of 8 hours a day and that computers are also used during teleconferencing. assuming that the pcs have a power consumption of 150 w the energy consumption during the usage phase of the computer is 38.88 mj. the standby energy for the 4 computers, assuming 10w power consumption during that mode is 7.78 mj. 4.8 energy use by server t s it is assumed in this case that the server is a bigger computer, whose production and delivery life cycle energy use is 12,000 mj and that each one exists at the auditor’s office and at the audited company. using the model the life cycle energy consumption of a server is taken as 65.75 mj. for the purposes of this study, it is assumed that the two servers at the two companies are dedicated to environmental auditing only for the 3-day period. the servers are switched on 24 hours a day hence in standby mode whenever not in use. a usage time of 6 hours is assumed for e-mail transfer, file transfer and electronic review of files. the use phase of the server is found to consume 12.96 mj. the standby mode, assuming a power consumption of 40 w, consumes 19.01 mj. 4.9 energy use for the network t n energy used by the networking and telecommunications equipment mbohwa 323 is very difficult to estimate due to lack of data. these include the public telephone network analogue or digital, internet protocol network, port of presence network, firewall, secure socket layer accelerator, cell site equipment, transmission cables like fibre optic, private branch exchanges, local area network switches, load balancers, routers, hubs, wide area network switches, remote access servers and cable model termination systems to facilitate the use of internet. (matthews, 2002: miyamoto, 2001: roth, 2002) estimates have put the energy consumption per telephone line at 90-144 kwh/ year per line. (herring, 2001) this includes space heating at the exchanges, running the exchange equipment, operating air conditioning and ventilation systems and power used by the telephone line. the levels of energy consumption when taken at a national level are high. for example computer networks and telecommunication networks consumed 6.2 twh and 6.4 twh respectively in year 2000. (roth, 2002) the energy consumption of the networking and telecommunications equipment is therefore taken as 288 kwh per year per telephone line at most, assuming that computer networks consume the same amount of energy as the telecommunication network. assuming that two telephone lines are used, the network energy is 566 kwh (2,074 mj) per year. under these assumptions the energy consumed using the network for 18 hours is 4.26 mj. the data used in the model are summarised in table 5. table 5 data sets used for inventory analysis of the traditional and electronic system td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 324 5 results and discussion assuming that a distance of 200 km is covered per day for auditing a company within the locality of the auditor for 5 days, commuter rail use if possible results in usage of 980 mj of energy for the transport during the whole exercise compared to the use of a car at 4,323 mj as shown in figure 4. the figure also compares energy usage when a facility 1,000 km away is audited using different modes of transport. the transport energy use (e l plus e t ) is 8,645 mj for a car, 5,303 mj for a train and 8,107 mj for an airplane. in the case where a train and an airplane is used for travel, a car is assumed to be used for local travel between the hotel and the audited company. mbohwa 325 figure 4: transportation energy in mj for different transportation modes for local auditing and for a facility 1000 km away energy use is calculated for two auditors staying in the hotel for 5 days. the total energy use e for the different transportation modes is shown in the following figure 5. figure 5: energy requirements for the different scenarios the results demonstrate the advantage of using railway transport instead of a car for local audits. the energy use contribution from the use of paper, printing and when reading the documents is minimal, reflecting the central role transportation takes in energy consumption. the use of a hotel results in higher energy usage. the results, model assumptions and constants are shown in table 6. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 326 table 6 energy used in the traditional auditing model travel dominates the energy consumption as shown in figure 6 for an audited company, which is 1000 km away form the auditors’ office and for local auditing activities only, the right side part of the figure. this is followed by energy spent at the hotel and the rest is almost comparatively insignificant. figure 6: energy use for the different activities of traditional auditing distance of 1000 kmauditor to company mbohwa 327 5.1 total electronic auditing energy the energy share for t v , t c , t s and t n is shown in the following chart as figure 7. networking apparently consumes the lowest energy, several times smaller than the other three types. the total energy consumption is calculated as 240 mj. figure 7: energy use for the electronic auditing part 5.2 comparison of total energy consumption for traditional and partial electronic auditing the energy comparisons were done for three scenarios. the first one is when the distance travelled is 300 km. this is considered as the minimum distance over which the three modes of transport can be reasonably compared. the next one considers a distance of 650 km and finally a distance of 1000 km. the results were found to have similar conclusions, that is traditional auditing systems used more energy. the results for the last scenario are shown in figure 8. a summary of the results, model assumptions and constants is shown in table 7. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 328 figure 8: comparison of energy consumption of traditional and partial electronic auditing for a company 1000 km away in both cases, that is, traditional auditing and partly electronic auditing, the major contributor of energy consumption was transportation followed by hotel accommodation. railway transport mbohwa 329 used the least amount of energy, about 845 mj for partial electronic auditing compared with 2,850 for a car. for long distances use of the car was found to have the most energy consumption, followed by the use of airplane and the use of the train had the least energy impacts. using the train for long distances and hiring a car at the station closest to the auditing site can realize major energy savings compared to the use of a car all the way or use of a plane and hiring a car at the nearest airport. the use of local auditors should be given top priority to remove the energy impacts associated, extra transportation and accommodation. table 7 energy use in the partly electronic model for a distance of 1000km td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 330 mbohwa 331 5.3 sensitivity analysis the results were tested for sensitivity for companies between 300 km and 1000 km away from the offices of the auditing company, as shown in table 8 and this was found to mostly change the magnitudes of the energy consumed only. partial electronic auditing systems consistently used lower energy. however the energy difference for local auditing using the railway system was only marginally in favour of partial and electronic auditing. the results were found to be very sensitive to the distance travelled per day during auditing. table 8 sensitivity analyses of all the variables (for car use except when stated) if the auditor travelled 20 km per day only instead of the assumed 200 km per day between the office and the company being audited, the results changed and they are as shown in figure 9. the energy consumption for electronic auditing became higher than for td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 332 traditional auditing for auditors that are in the same locality as the audited company when they used the train. energy use for the car was almost the same for local traditional and partly electronic auditing. this seems to suggest that auditing of local companies is better done using traditional methods. the energy for rail transport in this case is 206 mj compared to 315 mj for electronic auditing. the use of a car for local audits at such a distance resulted in the two systems consuming almost the same amount of energy. the traditional system consumed 540 mj compared to 516 mj for partial electronic auditing. however energy consumption by the partial electronic system remained lower for the auditing of the companies 1000 km away. figure 9: energy consumption when local distance travelled is 20 km per day the use of a car for local auditing was found to have advantages for distances of 17 km per day and below. this doubled when the fuel efficiency was doubled from 10 to 20 km/litre. the use of a more fuel-efficient car did not change the advantage of electronic systems over traditional systems generally though. however it made the use of a car better than an airplane. using a hybrid car with a fuel efficiency of 25 km/litre reduced the traditional system energy consumption of a car over a distance of 1000km to 1729 mj lower than 3785 mj for the airplane, reversing the previous situation when the use of the car consumed more energy in total. when the number of audit days is the same for partly electronic systems, all the transport modes and scenarios show that partly electronic audit systems use more energy than traditional ones. however partly electronic auditing system remained better than traditional system when the partly electronic auditing period was increased to 4 days. also taking the worst-case scenario of the dedicated use of a 10 000 w mainframe computer server for auditing resulted in the use of a train in a traditional auditing system being better than the partly electronic system. this demonstrates the robustness of the model. furthermore, a total of 37 variables were tested for sensitivity and most of them did not affect the dominance of the partly electronic system over the traditional one. 5.4 general discussion the models used have given interesting results that contribute to knowledge in this area. naturally there are some errors to do with the assumptions made and the use of data from external sources. the accuracy of the results thus depends on the validity of the models and assumptions used. the results have to be used with care, because one of the main assumptions is that use of electronic methods results in the number of audit days being reduced from 5 to 3. the advantages of electronic systems are almost completely wiped out when the number of audit days is the same for the two systems. the results mbohwa 333 also show that information and communication technology (ict) systems do not automatically offer energy and environmental impact reductions when they are used. there are conditions under which they do so and these have been outlined in the last section. the use of rail transport for long distances and using the nearest station and hotel to the audited company offers opportunities for energy saving and environmental impact reduction, when auditing companies. these benefits can be increased substantially by contracting auditors that are located closest to the facility that is being audited. this reduces transportation effects, which dominate energy consumption in this case. the sensitivity behaviour of the model demonstrates that it is robust to changes in the variables used. the sensitive variables have been discussed already and even then only affect local auditing for a limited amount of the distance travelled per day. the main problem in this study was in getting information from the automobile companies on the location of their auditors and the distance from the audited facilities. however the few companies that responded had inadequate data and showed that most of the auditors were stationed in tokyo. this lack of data is adequately compensated for by the broad sensitivity analysis that has been done, covering all the 37 variables. the results are therefore not only appropriate for the japanese automotive industry only, but can also be applied in other organizations and companies in countries like south africa. getting exact data from the 97 facilities certified to iso 14001 in the japanese automotive industry, which does exist for most of the variables, will not change the findings and results of this study, particularly the overall conclusions that are derived. it also corroborates results of similar studies (arnfalk, 2000). studies of this nature at a micro-level are very important in trying to understand the total system. a company-wide usage of videoconferencing facilities improves the benefits of the technology since its life cycle energy impacts are the shared. the study highlights the need to consider transportation activities in iso 14001 certified companies. if travel increases without control, the intended benefits from certification can be reversed. the tendency to consider travel as a fringe benefit should change. the analysis that has been carried out also ignores issues like personal and social contact, dining and wining after meetings and the desire for people to see new places. the other problem is that some people feel uncomfortable using videoconferencing since they feel like they are taking part in an artificial movie, affecting their performance, hence compromising the quality of the audit. some studies suggest that the output of videoconference meetings is 60% that of real meetings. (arnfalk, 2000) on the other hand some employees like the frequent flyer points, tax-free goods, making new business contact during travel, allowances and the status of being important customers of the transporting companies. these factors would need to be taken into account in future research. technical problems can also be frustrating like meeting td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 305-338. energy impacts of japanese automotive industry case 334 interruptions, picture problems, sound problems and connection problems. this study has assumed that these problems do not arise and the videoconferencing system works at the set times, when it is needed. these issues would need to be addressed. also company policy changes and new laws, regulations might be needed to substitute travel through videoconferencing. publication of the environmental impacts of travel within a company internally and externally can help to drive the message home. in addition teleconferencing should be made easier to use through constant acquisition of the best technology and ensuring accessibility, convenience and easy of use. 6 conclusion the current pace of globalization cannot continue using old management models that promote more international face-to-face meetings and travel. many industry leaders spend more than 6 weeks a year at 10,000m flying from one place to another and time away from home is often doubling every 24 months. (dixon, 2003) this affects families and videoconferencing is one way to avoid this developing social problem. this study has modelled and compared the energy implications of ict use in auditing systems against the purely traditional systems that are manual and do not use the internet and videoconferencing. the main findings and conclusions of the study are as follows: · the use of partly electronic auditing systems is more energyefficient when compared to traditional systems for all situations except when the local distance travelled per day is 75 km or less per day using a train and 17 km or less per day, when a car is used. the car distance boundary can double when a more fuel-efficient car is used. this suggests that the use of an electronic auditing system may not be justified for companies within a 75 km a day boundary, which are accessible by train and car. · rail travel is the best mode for all ranges of distances, consuming less than 25% of the energy used by a car for local travel. · the use of a car with a fuel performance of 11 km/litre or less results in more transportation energy consumption compared to the use of an airplane for long distances. the use of a more fuel-efficient car can result in better performance than airplane travel. a toyota gasoline vehicle in the same class as the toyota estima hybrid model has a fuel efficiency of 10.2 km/litre, while the hybrid version at fuelefficiency of 18 km/litre. · travel dominates energy consumption, rendering paper life cycle, printing and energy use in office buildings comparatively insignificant. this dominance by travel suggests strongly the need to use contract auditors based in the same area as the audited company whenever feasible. for example auditors 1000 km away from mbohwa 335 audited site consume more than two and a half times the energy consumed by local auditors for the variables set in this study. the study has brought forward more information on how ict can contribute to reducing energy consumption and hence related environmental impacts. the study could be extended to cover the possible use of buses and ships for transporting the auditors. however the results of using the bus can be inferred form indices in table 4 which show that on the average buses in japan, consume 0.61 mj per passenger-kilometre, somewhere between the figure for the train and for the car. more analysis and data collection would be necessary for ship transportation. the mode is slow, less flexible and not always applicable. it has also been indicated that distance education using ict is a variant of remote conferencing and offers similar benefits through travel substitution. education and training of stakeholders and employees is one of the requirements of iso14001 and this can be done effectively through electronic media. e-mails and communication can be enabled between instructors and learners through personal computers, videoconferences and teleconferences in virtual seminars. (gesi unep, 2002) these and other areas of study are candidates for further studies that can use inferences and draw parallels from this study. the results in this microanalysis not only contribute to decisions in auditing, but also provide micro-level data, which can be used to analyze the overall energy and environmental impacts of ict use in environmental management and how it can be used to improve that performance. these results have applications and implications that extend to organisations in southern africa, beyond the initially targeted japanese automotive industry. reference aebischer bernard, frishknecht rolf, genoud christophe, huser alois, varone frederic, 2002, energy efficiency indicator for high electric-load buildings. the case of data centres arnfalk peter, 2000, the use of telework and teleconferencing in travel reduction, paper for the eco efficiency 2000 conference, june 2000, malmo baxter cvg, case study summary: the economical and ecological implications of solid 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corporation environmental affairs division, tokyo west mike and elliot larry, energy management programs that increased hotel and motel profits, http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/body_eh398 williams eric and tagami takashi, 2002, energy use in sales and distribution via b2c e-commerce and conventional retail: a case study of the japanese book sector. journal of industrial ecology 6(2) young steven scott, 1994, environmental auditing, pollution engineering, the magazine of environmental control, cahners publishing company, usa mbohwa microsoft word 06 erasmus a.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 73-89. the role of musical experience in the lives of williams syndrome individuals ewie erasmus1 abstract. the purpose of this literature study is to better understand the musical experiences of those diagnosed with williams syndrome. the problem of this study is defined by the lack of qualitative studies done on the musical experiences of williams syndrome individuals. research done on music and williams syndrome emphasise the intense affinity that those diagnosed show towards music listening and music making, yet very few qualitative studies have been done on the importance of musical experience in the everyday lives of those diagnosed with williams syndrome. the study at hand will provide insight into the lives of individuals with williams syndrome, while focussing on the importance of musical experience, raising the awareness of caretakers, educators, therapists and researchers. this qualitative study was aided by atlas.ti 7 computer software which assisted me in document analysis through a grounded theory approach. for the data analysis process, significant statements were identified and then coded. these codes were then sorted to reveal categories and main themes. literature revealed that music could in fact play an important role in the lives of those living with williams syndrome. musical experience does not only have a positive influence on a single aspect of the lives of williams syndrome individuals, it has an impact on their lives in general, influencing their overall well-being. keywords. williams syndrome, literature review, qualitative, phenomenology introduction this study was inspired by my experiences with a williams syndrome child which made me aware that the child has an intense love of and need for music in everyday life. the unusual grasp of and attentiveness to music drew my attention to the possible importance of musical experience in the lives of those diagnosed with williams syndrome. the problem of this study is defined by the lack of qualitative empirical studies done on the musical experiences of williams syndrome individuals. research done on williams syndrome and music emphasise the intense affinity that those diagnosed show towards music listening and music making. music is also one of the areas in which williams syndrome individuals appear to excel. it seems odd then, that very few qualitative studies have been done on the importance of music in the everyday lives of those diagnosed with williams syndrome. this review synthesises, from the existing literature, the possible role of musical experience in the lives of individuals diagnosed with williams syndrome. 1 ewie erasmus is a mmus student of north-west university, potchefstroom-campus (niche entity – musical arts in south africa: resources and applications). her research interests lie in the fields of lived musical experiences and music education for those with special needs. ewievdm@gmail.com erasmus 74 there are many quantitative studies focussing on the neuropsychology and cognitive profile of those diagnosed with williams syndrome. furthermore, extensive research has been done on the language and musical abilities commonly associated with the syndrome, emphasising links and dissociations between the neuropsychology, cognitive profile, language and musical strengths in williams syndrome. not many researchers, however, draw focus to the meaning those diagnosed with williams syndrome ascribe to musical experience or the importance thereof in williams syndrome individuals’ lives. and it is this aspect that interests me most. the literature review at hand shall provide a summarised view into a neurodevelopmental syndrome which has attracted the attention of many renowned researchers. this study will thus summarise existing research on williams syndrome from a holistic point of view while trying to understand the world from the perspective of those often not listened to (merriam, 2009:6), giving voice (creswell, 2013:44) to williams syndrome individuals. this summary will prove helpful to researchers who aim to embark in qualitative studies on williams syndrome, while drawing focus to the importance of music in the lives of williams syndrome individuals from a special needs music education and psychological perspective. as this literature review will draw conclusions on the musical experiences of williams syndrome individuals, it holds value for researchers undertaking phenomenological studies. the goal of research on williams syndrome is to further the understanding of the syndrome, raising the awareness of caregivers, educators, researchers and therapists about the impairments and strengths associated with the syndrome. for this article, the purpose statement and main research question will first be given, after which the research design, followed shall be described. the literature review which will discuss existing research on williams syndrome, while focussing on defining williams syndrome, cognitive phenotype, language, sociability, auditory abnormalities and music. in the end, this study aims to highlight certain aspects contributing to the possible importance of musical experience in the lives of individuals living with williams syndrome. the purpose of this literature study is to understand the musical experiences of those diagnosed with williams syndrome. methodology this qualitative study was aided by atlas.ti 7 computer software, which assisted me with document analysis through a grounded theory approach. the documents analysed were initially gathered through a process of collecting any and all literature on williams syndrome and more specifically williams syndrome and music. the data collection and analysis processes were interconnected from the onset of the study, seeing that documents that would be included and excluded for this study was immediately identified. this process was guided by the purpose statement and research questions. the documents included in this study mainly include accredited articles. as soon as the documents that would be used for the study at hand were identified, the process of in depth data analysis started. firstly, through open coding, significant statements (quotes) were identified, which would aid the understanding of musical experiences in the lives of williams syndrome individuals. secondly, codes were assigned to each of the quotes identified. these codes were then organised into categories, revealing the main themes. when data saturation was reached, the final organisation process was started in order to write up the findings. williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 75 literature review f i g u r e 1 : t h e s t r u c t u r e o f t h i s a r t i c l e a l s o d i s p l a y i n g t h e d e n s i t y o f a l l t h e i d e n t i f i e d t h e m e s a n d h o w g r o u n d e d t h e s e t h e m e s a r e i n t h e l i t e r a t u r e in order to make sense of the importance of musical experience in the lives of williams syndrome individuals it is necessary to first define the syndrome by reviewing the general literature. the syndrome shall be defined in terms of genetic makeup, neuropsychological profile, cognitive phenotype, sociability, auditory abnormalities, language and musical abilities associated with the syndrome. the possible importance of music in the lives of those diagnosed with williams syndrome will also be discussed. 1. defining williams syndrome williams syndrome is a rare neurogenetic developmental disorder (levitin, 2005:1) which presents itself in approximately one out of every 20,000 live births. the syndrome was first discovered by british cardiologist, dr. williams and his colleagues, in 1961 (levitin & bellugi, 1998:358). williams syndrome characteristics can be divided into six main categories which include physical aspects, medical conditions, neuropsychological profile, cognitive abilities, language and sociability. this review focuses on cognitive abilities, language and sociability. williams syndrome individuals can easily be identified by certain physical aspects which include a slender build, broad forehead and a sunken nasal bridge. they also tend to have blue, puffy eyes. furthermore, individuals living with the syndrome can be identified by their wide mouth, long upper lip, prominent lower lip, small widely spaced teeth and small chin (levitin & bellugi, 1998:358). erasmus 76 those diagnosed with williams syndrome tend to suffer from certain medical conditions which include cardiovascular abnormalities resulting in a narrowed aorta and scoliosis. they also often have renal and digestive problems and perforated intestines. hypercalcemia and curvature of the spine are also among the medical conditions commonly associated with williams syndrome (levitin & bellugi, 1998:358-359). williams syndrome is associated with an abnormal psychological profile which has an effect on the behaviour of those diagnosed. individuals diagnosed, have iq’s ranging between 40 and 100 with a mean of 60 (levitin & bellugi, 1998:358; du four, 2008:2). they also show impaired spatial, quantitative and reasoning abilities (levitin, 2005:9). these individuals do, however, display spared abilities in the domains of facial recognition, language, sociability and music (du four, 2008:6; levitin, 2005:9; levitin et al., 2003:7; martens et al., 2010:6). 2. cognitive phenotype williams syndrome is associated with an unusual cognitive profile which features mental impairment (bellugi et al., 1994:32) and certain dissociations (bellugi et al., 2007:8). the cognitive profile can also be characterised by peaks and valleys of abilities within and across certain cognitive domains (bellugi et al., 1994:22; bellugi et al., 2000:90). williams syndrome individuals tend to show unusually good facial processing abilities, especially when considering that they fail piagetian tests of conservation skills for numbers, weight and substance (bellugi et al., 1994:36). furthermore, individuals living with the syndrome often have difficulty with coordination (bellugi et al., 2000:105) and mathematics and its application in everyday life (bellugi et al., 2000:95). those diagnosed also generally have poor motor skills which lead to difficulty tying shoes and poor eye-hand coordination overall (levitin & bellugi, 1998:74). the cognitive profile of people diagnosed with williams syndrome include dissociations between general cognitive functioning, i.e. visual-spatial processing, facial recognition and language abilities (bellugi et al., 1994:92; bellugi et al., 2000:75; pani et al., 1999:12; du four, 2008:3). studies have found evidence for the separate functioning of language, spatial abilities and facial processing in human behaviour (bellugi et al., 2000:82). 1.1. visual-spatial development the visual-spatial functioning of those with williams syndrome is severely impaired, resulting in individuals having difficulty with simple tests of spatial perception (bellugi et al., 1994:63). this impairment can also be observed in narratives, where individuals diagnosed, tend to misuse spatial prepositions. this becomes clear in a study done by bellugi et al. (2000:125) when a subject stated that “the dog has the jar in his face” when presented with a picture of a dog with his head in a jar. their findings are suggestive of problems in language when used to describe spatial relations. other studies that have been done on the drawing skills of williams syndrome individuals highlight their visual-spatial impairment, presenting drawings with poor cohesion and a lack of organisation (bellugi et al., 2000:115). individuals diagnosed tend to talk their way through their unorganised drawings. thus it becomes clear that children with williams syndrome struggle to focus on the bigger picture (levitin & bellugi, 1998:361). instead, they focus on every detail, as if, removed from the whole. this is demonstrated in a study done by levitin and bellugi (1998:362) as seen in the example in figure 2 which shows that these children focus on detail rather than context. williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 77 figure 2: (levitin & bellugi, 1998:362) despite having these difficulties with visual-spatial processing, those diagnosed with williams syndrome display a good ability to discriminate between unfamiliar faces. this also holds true for the identification of objects that are shown from unusual perspectives (bellugi et al., 1994:72; bellugi et al., 2000:76), revealing certain peaks and valleys within the visualspatial cognition of williams syndrome individuals (bellugi et al., 2000:70). people diagnosed with williams syndrome tend to easily find their way around new buildings and easily place objects in containers. the main problem with visual-spatial cognition thus seems to be spatial construction as described by local and global processing (pani et al., 1999:7). those with williams syndrome struggle to see objects as global configurations and do not, for example, see a flock of birds as flying in a v-shape, but rather see each bird individually. they also tend to have difficulty tying their shoes, drawing and building models (pani et al., 1999:14). model down syndrome williams syndrome age 11 age 13 age 17 age 13 age 15 age 16 age 11 age 16 age 18 age 11 age 16 age 18 age 11; iq 52 age 11; iq 50 erasmus 78 3. language abilities researchers suggest that the mastery of the concept of conservation, which embodies ideas of reversibility and transitivity, is a prerequisite for understanding passive sentences in language. the visual-spatial profile of williams syndrome contradicts this argument, seeing that these individuals fail tests for conservation, but show well developed skills in language (bellugi et al., 1994:76). people diagnosed with williams syndrome pose unusually well-developed narrative and linguistic capabilities resulting in spontaneous fluent speech, good phonology and good vocabulary (levitin & bellugi, 2006:2). despite the fact that individuals diagnosed tend to use unusual words when engaging in conversation, and seem unable to understand the world, williams syndrome individuals continually use affective prosody in conversations and narratives (bellugi et al. (2007:100; 1994:78). this shows that they are not totally incapable of understanding the world, as affective prosody relies on knowledge of cultural expectations and affective astuteness. grammar, on the other hand, is less likely to depend on nonlinguistic ability. the language profile as seen in individuals diagnosed with williams syndrome suggest that certain linguistic skills may become independent form general cognitive ability (bellugi et al., 1994:79-95). bellugi et al. (1994:98) emphasise that williams syndrome individuals show evidence of semantic deviation and preservation. this could support the notion that semantic organisation may depend on general cognition (levitin & bellugi, 1998:44). most researchers however, argue that the structural aspects of language are a relative strength in williams syndrome. in a study done by bellugi et al. (2000:58) they state that, rather than saying that the syndrome represents dissociation between language and general cognition, one could argue that the preserved language skills enable williams syndrome individuals to reach levels of performance otherwise deemed impossible. individuals with williams syndrome generally provide well-structured narratives. in their narratives, they establish direction, introduce time and characters and the characters’ states of mind and behaviours. they also tell stories with clear problems that are resolved in the time the story is being told. the stories that williams syndrome individuals tell, further present good grammatical skills and the use of narrative enrichment devices which contribute to the drama of the story (bellugi et al., 1994:49). williams syndrome individuals perform well in tasks where they are asked to tell a story from a drawing. they tend to draw on their imagination to tell coherent stories filled with paralinguistic devices such as whispering and exaggeration often using phrases like “lo-and-behold”, “all-of-a-sudden”, “guess what happened next!”, to grab the attention of their audience (levitin & bellugi, 1998:28). according to levitin and bellugi (1998:359), the exceptional language development of people who are diagnosed with williams syndrome facilitates their sociability (bellugi et al., 2007:100). this is an important quality to keep in mind when studying the musical experiences of williams syndrome children since they perform optimally in social settings. 4. sociability williams syndrome is characterised by hyper-sociability which includes overfriendliness and a heightened approachability toward others, especially strangers (bellugi et al., 2007:11). williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 79 because of this hyper-sociability, these individuals also present an incapability to discriminate between positive and negative unfamiliar faces (bellugi et al., 2007:19). the hyper-sociability associated with williams syndrome was proven in a study conducted by levitin (2004:226) which shows that williams syndrome children have higher levels of sociability than typically developing children of the same age. the study was done on the rhythmic capabilities of children with williams syndrome as compared to other special needs children. williams syndrome children showed fewer capabilities in rhythmic tasks than other children when using recorded music to conduct the test, but their scores improved immensely when someone played the material on an instrument during the test. in another study, done by bellugi et al. (2007:21), researchers set out to collect data on the emotions elicited by williams syndrome children when a toy was placed behind a barrier before the child. they could however, not collect any data seeing that the children focussed on the experimenter’s face, rather than on the toy. these two studies emphasise the need williams syndrome individuals have for and their love of social interaction. another prominent characteristic exhibited by people diagnosed with williams syndrome is auditory abnormalities in the perception of everyday sounds. 5. auditory abnormalities williams syndrome individuals tend to be overly sensitive to loud noises and timbre. this unusual sensitivity to certain environmental sounds is one of the key psychophysical features associated with williams syndrome (bellugi et al., 1994:6; levitin, 2005:18). these sensitivities are manifested in specific ways which include an awareness of sounds before others (true hyperacusis), an aversion to sounds not usually considered aversive in normal populations (auditory allodynia), a fascination with certain sounds (auditory fascinations) and a lowered hearing threshold for loud sounds (odynacusis) (levitin et al., 2005:70). auditory fascinations are usually presented together with a type of auditory acuity which allows williams syndrome individuals to differentiate between different vacuum cleaner brands or lawnmowers (salk institute, 2006:2). this often leads to some individuals living with the syndrome being drawn to sounds others cannot stand. these concepts of aversion, awareness and attraction could characterise the auditory anomalies observed in williams syndrome and may help to describe the phenotype associated with the syndrome. according to gothelf et al. (2006:4) the onset of these symptoms start before one year of age and tend to decrease during adolescence. research has found that the williams syndrome group seem to have considerably higher ratings of auditory abnormalities than normal controls (du four, 2008:22; levitin, 2005:27; levitin et al., 2005:3). it is important, however, to note that the term hyperacusis has long been used to describe any type of auditory abnormality, when it in fact only refers to an abnormal sensitivity to sound. this means that the term only refers to the ability to detect soft sounds before others or that others normally cannot detect (levitin, 2005:22; levitin et al., 2005:16). 5.1 true hyperacusis hyperacusis refers to an unusual sensitivity to and interest in sound. the sensitivity to sound presented in williams syndrome are usually related to specific timbres (levitin & bellugi, 2006:23). these individuals also seem to have something related to perfect pitch and are able to code, recall and label stimuli along the pitch continuum. they notice small variations in erasmus 80 timbre with finer distinction than others (levitin & bellugi, 1998:117). this ability to classify objects based on timbre suggests a highly developed recognition memory, in this regard sometimes described as ‘hypertimbria’. levitin et al. (2005:45), reported a girl who was sensitive to the sound of a particular vacuum cleaner but not to others. she could hear the specific vacuum houses away and described the sound as follows: “the sound gets inside my head and reverberates”. true hyperacusis is associated with auditory fascinations in the sense that hyperacusis can also refer to an abnormally strong affective response to certain categories of sound (levitin & bellugi, 2006:36). these responses are typically linked to fascinations with these sounds. 5.2 auditory allodynia auditory allodynia is also referred to as phonophobia – an aversion to or fear of sounds not normally found aversive (levitin, 2005:45). in response to these sounds williams syndrome children would typically display feelings of fear, cover their ears, cry or leave the room (gothelf et al., 2006:5). parents of williams syndrome children reported that the reactions of their children to these sounds made it clear that they did not necessarily find these sounds too loud, but that they were truly frightened by them (levitin et al., 2005:31). these frightening sounds can be classified in different categories which include broad-band continuous sounds (e.g. blender, vacuum, lawnmower, airplane, cheering, crowd, engine), broad-band percussive sounds (sudden onset sounds like fireworks, balloons popping, pulsed fire alarms, thunder, door slam), narrow-band continuous sounds (e.g. dentist equipment, air brakes, power saw, power drill) and human/animal sounds (e.g. babies crying, screaming, yelling, dog barking, operatic singing, frequency sweeping sirens, coughing, sneezing) (levitin et al., 2005:36-38). the fear of certain sounds could lead to williams syndrome individuals avoiding birthday parties, because of a fear of the noise of bursting balloons. gothelf et al. (2006:6) refer to a 16 year old girl who described this kind of suffering, stating that “when i hear the sound of an electric drill, i feel as if it is drilling into my body”. levitin (2005:28) found that williams syndrome children often outgrow their fear of certain sounds (auditory allodynia) and that those sounds then become the objects of their intense fascination. 5.3 auditory fascinations according to levitin et al. (2003:14), one would find numerous anecdotes telling of williams syndrome children who would sit entranced by music or the sound of leaf blowers, automobile engines or other noises for hours on end. they would be able to name the make and models of vacuum cleaners and engines based only on the acoustic information (levitin et al., 2005:65). they appear to derive as much pleasure and fascination from these everyday sounds as from music. studies done by levitin (2005:29) found many stories about williams syndrome children and their auditory fascinations which include the story of a williams syndrome child who had a collection of vacuum cleaners and yet asked for a new one every christmas. there are also reports of these children who would describe the sound of lawnmowers or vacuum cleaners as “the most beautiful sound ever”. williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 81 5.4 odynacusis people with williams syndrome often display inappropriate responses to and complaints of uncomfortable loudness levels to sounds that are not threatening or uncomfortably loud to others. this reaction to sound is characterised as odynacusis (levitin & bellugi, 2006:35). it is important to note that odynacusis does not refer to sound that evoke fear in those with williams syndrome, but only to sounds perceived as uncomfortably loud. 6. ws and music f i g u r e 3 : l i t e r a t u r e r e v i e w o n m u s i c a n d w i l l i a m s s y n d r o m e a l s o d i s p l a y i n g t h e d e n s i t y o f t h e i d e n t i f i e d t h e m e s a n d h o w g r o u n d e d t h e s e t h e m e s a r e i n t h e l i t e r a t u r e studies found that the deletion on chromosome 7, which is a key characteristic of williams syndrome, is related to the unique auditory perception and musicality associated with the syndrome (thornton-wells et al., 2010:42). thornton-wells et al. (2010:7) found that people diagnosed with williams syndrome often exhibit a distinct musical phenotype. children with the syndrome seem to be drawn to music in an unusual way and will easily spend hours listening to or making music and are more emotionally responsive to music than comparison groups (dykens et al., 2005:16-18; salk institute, 2006:10; thornton-wells et al., 2010:8). they appear to have an affinity for music and even present increased musical talent and skill (dykens et al., 2005:9). it is important to note that there is as much individual difference in the williams syndrome population as in a normal one. it would thus be inaccurate to assume that all williams syndrome individuals are musical. a more accurate statement would be that those diagnosed with the syndrome are more likely to engage in and express a love for music (levitin & bellugi, 2006:3). williams syndrome children present an extraordinary attentiveness to and grasp of music, together with a deep emotional engagement with music and an above-average erasmus 82 musical memory (salk institute, 2006:8). research has shown that music can encourage the learning process of those with special needs and this statement seems to hold true for individuals diagnosed with williams syndrome. it seems that music is not just a deep and rich part of the lives of williams syndrome individuals, but that it is ever-present in almost all of their everyday lives. this becomes clear in a study conducted by levitin and bellugi (1998:120) where a williams syndrome child said “music is my favourite way of thinking”. another child stated that “music is like soup for the soul, it feels so good.” parents of williams syndrome individuals provide anecdotes for the fact that music forms a rich part of their children’s lives in reporting that their children often gravitate towards musical toys and that their children would easily create musical toys out of different materials (lense & dykens, 2013:35). williams syndrome and music will now be discussed further in terms of musical phenotype, ability, instruments, rhythm and melody, singing, development and learning, music and sociability, music and language, music and emotion, and music and psychotherapy, anxiety and fear. 6.1 the musical phenotype of individuals diagnosed with williams syndrome levitin (2004:236), is of the opinion that there could be a correlation between the social and musical drives displayed by williams syndrome individuals and the gene deletion present at conception. individuals diagnosed with williams syndrome seem to be consumed by their affective reactions to music, resulting in them presumably experiencing music more fully than most. levitin (2005:3) found that several factors such as musical complexity, reproduction, sensitivity, musical theory and achievement, listening, habits, positivity and emotions form part of williams syndrome individuals' musical phenotype. williams syndrome children reveal a significantly young age for the onset of musical interest (levitin, 2005:20). they also present an above-average musical memory. the fact that people with williams syndrome show preserved musical abilities for general music tasks, provide evidence for the independence of music cognition and perception from other cognitive abilities (levitin & bellugi, 1998:58). levitin and bellugi (1998:90-122), also argue that williams syndrome individuals do not seem to have difficulty with response translation for musically based tasks and thus present relatively spared musical ability for both production and perception of musical ideas. this provides further evidence for the idea that there are certain patterns of cognitive dissociations found in individuals diagnosed with the syndrome. it would seem that some of these individuals are musical savants, displaying unusually good abilities in musical tasks and expression, despite their other mental handicaps (levitin & bellugi, 2006:93). 6.2 musical abilities a study done by du four (2008:14), found that williams syndrome individuals show similar musical abilities to normally developing control groups. the study also revealed that those with williams syndrome tend to make more ‘musical’ mistakes during tests than the controls. some of the williams syndrome participants even exhibited stronger musical skills than chronological age, sex and dexterity-matched controls. when considering music perception skills, those of individuals with williams syndrome are equal to normal developing controls. the same is true for their rhythmic production abilities (levitin, 2005:43). the short-term memory for rhythmic sequences appears to be an area of strength in those with williams syndrome. levitin et al. (2003:9), state that it is important to note that williams syndrome williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 83 individuals are not necessarily very skilful musicians in general, but that their ability to play an instrument is remarkable considering their cognitive and motor impairments. it is true however, that there are cases of people living with the syndrome, presenting remarkable skill on their chosen instruments. 6.3 instrumental playing people diagnosed with williams syndrome are more prone to spend time playing instruments, taking music lessons (dykens et al., 2005:36) and to experience more intense levels of involvement with instruments than the control group (dykens et al., 2005:27). levitin and bellugi (1998:102), report that williams syndrome individuals execute musical passages, which require a fine degree of control, on the instrument they specialize in (be it clarinet, piano or drums) with less trouble than they have when walking up a flight of stairs or cutting their food. it is true however, that these performances lack a certain degree of technique, but it is compensated for by the degree of subjective musicality the individuals bring to the performance. 6.4 rhythm and melody williams syndrome individuals show strengths in tonal and rhythmical tasks (dykens et al., 2005:11; salk institute, 2006:13). when considering the rhythmic and melodic abilities of those with williams syndrome it would be more appropriate to describe their abilities as strengths in the domain, than areas of preserved functioning (lense & dykens, 2013:7). it would seem that the rhythmic abilities of people with williams syndrome are stronger than their melodic abilities when rhythmic and melodic production is concerned. however, this disparity does not apply to their perception of rhythm and melody (levitin, 2005:36). levitin (2005:6) conducted a study on the musical abilities of williams syndrome individuals where they presented abilities which were higher than expected. this was seen when williams syndrome children were asked to clap rhythmic patterns presented to them. while they did not necessarily clap the exact patterns as required, they did clap patterns that were musically comparable to the phrase given. when referring to melodic reproduction on the other hand, levitin (2005:7) found that williams syndrome children performed well when asked to repeat a melodic phrase, but did not perform as well when asked to complete a melodic phrase. when these children's rhythmic and melodic audiation were tested, the williams syndrome children scored high marks proving that the inequality between rhythmic and melodic production is not influenced by rhythmic and melodic audiation (levitin, 2005:8). when engaging in rhythmic tests where williams syndrome individuals have to clap rhythmic patterns presented to them, they tend to immediately clap back the demonstrations, without missing a beat. they do this so accurately, it seems that their response forms a part of the same rhythmic sequence. levitin and bellugi (1998:62), mention that the williams syndrome subjects who formed part of their study all interpreted the examples as forming part of a larger musical set, assuming an implied time signature and tempo, displaying a clear grasp of metre. those diagnosed with williams syndrome also display an astounding ability to track changes in rhythmic pulse. it is interesting to note that these individuals do not seem to have any trouble with rhythmic tasks, even considering their visual-spatial impairment. erasmus 84 individuals diagnosed with williams syndrome further demonstrate remarkable precision when clapping rhythmic patterns presented to them, even though the activity requires coordination and perception of temporal order and rhythmic organisation (levitin & bellugi, 1998:130). levitin and bellugi (2006:9) confirmed that williams syndrome participants performed as well as mentally aged matched controls on rhythmic tasks, but that they showed higher levels of musicality when making mistakes during the tests. when making mistakes, it seemed as if the williams syndrome participants completed the rhythmic patterns presented to them, thus keeping the musical integrity of the rhythmic piece. 6.5 singing dykens et al. (2005:10, 44) state that people with williams syndrome were perceived as more skilled singers than the control group. findings reported by the salk institute (2006:12) correlate with these findings in the sense that research shows that williams syndrome individuals possess a great memory for songs. don et al. (1999:163) conducted a study where they found that williams syndrome children performed better in verbal than nonverbal tasks, even when engaging in musical tasks. the study lead don et al. (1999:165) into speculating that the ability williams syndrome individuals have for the processing of auditory patterns could contribute to their good language and musical abilities. people with williams syndrome do exceptionally well in tasks where they have to identify certain patterns. this has an impact on their ability to quickly learn a new language and to easily sing songs in different languages (don et al., 1999:165). it is true, however, that these individuals often sing the correct words with the correct pronunciation without necessarily knowing what they are singing about. levitin and bellugi (1998:104) conducted a study where they found that williams syndrome individuals would spontaneously compose songs about a wide variety of topics, complete with verse, chorus and rhyming lyrics. these individuals would also easily compose music for their songs, which they often performed using basic chord structures, mostly in the root position. 6.6 the development and learning of musical skills the development of musical abilities could contribute to the development of a wide variety of other skills in the normal population but also in people with special needs. the learning of a musical instrument is a multi-modal experience relying on the student’s ability to imitate a teacher’s actions, sound, fineand gross motor movements (lense & dykens, 2013:2). the auditory-motor connections in those diagnosed with williams syndrome could thus be enhanced with greater exposure to musical activities. according to lense and dykens (2013:13), auditory-motor skills are also thought to be the key to good rhythmic perception and production, activities in which williams syndrome individuals seem to excel. music making requires well-developed auditory skills and could assist in the development of visual-spatial abilities in a way that is enjoyable. for optimal development through musical tasks, it is important that one chooses syndrome-specific instruments, taking into consideration the impairments and strengths associated with a specific syndrome (lense & dykens, 2013:22). a study done by lense and dykens (2013:25) revealed that musical activities could contribute to the development of visual, auditory, somatosensory and motor skills. this is plausible seeing that the playing of an instrument involves mapping of movement in time and space to sound, while using auditory information to guide the movement. williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 85 it seems then, that instrumental learning might assist visual spatial and motor development in those diagnosed with williams syndrome in a fun and safe context. musical activities furthermore enhance abilities pertaining to attention, concentration and memory (lense & dykens, 2013:31). when williams syndrome individuals participate in musical activities and performance they have the opportunity to develop skills they might otherwise not. these skills, although mentally and logically challenging, include the planning of a repertoire, developing stage presence and stage skills and increasing their consciousness of time and appointment scheduling (levitin & bellugi, 2006:86). levitin and bellugi (2006:80), found anecdotal reports of some success with the teaching of motor action sequences in williams syndrome individuals, like tying shoes, when these sequences are set to music and taught slowly and gradually. the playing of instruments in ensemble contexts and taking part in group musical activities could provide people with williams syndrome with opportunities for socialisation. 6.7 music and sociability researchers have suggested that there could be a link between gene deletion, sociability and music. this could be attributed to the fact that music played an important role in social bonding and social communication during our evolutionary history. there is thus a speculation that the genes selected for sociability are also those involved in musical behaviour (levitin, 2005:41). williams syndrome individuals are extremely focussed on connecting with people socially. it would seem that they view music as one of the best ways in which to connect with others (du four, 2008:32). their need for socialisation could possibly be one of the reasons they love music. this statement is supported by a study done by du four (2008:13), which found that williams syndrome individuals, due to their extreme sociability, perform better in musical tasks executed by a live person than a recording. those diagnosed thus present high sociability and high musicality. they also seem to have fewer inhibitions than most people. therefore, it could be speculated that the high sociability and high musicality displayed by those with williams syndrome might have an evolutionary basis. the high musicality associated with the syndrome could also be linked to the spared language abilities displayed by individuals diagnosed. 6.8 music and language just as williams syndrome individuals do not scramble words within a sentence or sentences within paragraphs, they do not scramble measures and phrases of a musical piece (levitin & bellugi, 1998:88). there appears to be similarities between the preservation of local motivic elements in language and music. williams syndrome individuals do not, however, focus on detail in language and music at the expense of the global structure. this then, seems to be another area of dissociation when considering the general cognitive abilities associated with williams syndrome. according to levitin and menon (2003:19), musical and linguistic syntax may share common neural substrates for processing. the musical elements which give meaning are part of the bigger coherent temporal structure, just as it is in language. the findings that williams syndrome individuals engage with music with extreme emotions also suggest that they are able to focus on the bigger picture where language and music is concerned (levitin & menon, 2003:24). musical experience is not only a means for erasmus 86 emotional expression to those diagnosed with williams syndrome, but also influences their levels of anxiety and fear in everyday life. 6.9 music and emotion levitin et al. (2005:12), state that williams syndrome individuals display heightened emotional responses and attraction to music. in a study done by dykens et al. (2005:12), they also found that these individuals present high levels of musical expressiveness, similar to normal controls, but that they expressed a greater love of music and a wider range of emotional responsiveness to music than the control group. the assumption that williams syndrome sufferers engage with music with extreme emotions seem to be borne out when taking into consideration a study done by levitin et al. (2004:238), where a little girl began weeping after hearing just a couple of notes at a mozart concert. afterwards she commented to her mother: "there are two kinds of mozart, the kind that hurts and the kind that does not hurt." this could prove to be a key factor in the current study, as it could possibly influence the meaning that these children ascribe to their musical experiences. don et al. (1999:65), also provide an anecdote for the extreme emotions with which williams syndrome individuals engage in music by reporting that one child in their study stated that music could not make him happy, because it made him more than happy. studies conducted by levitin et al. (2004:238) and don et al. (1999:166) show that williams syndrome individuals engage with music, and sounds in general, with extreme emotion. levitin et al. (2004:234) also found that williams syndrome children are more verbally and emotionally expressive when listening to, or engaging with music. it is true, however, that levitin et al. (2003:8) not only found that these individuals display strong emotional reactions to music, but also to certain classes of noise. 7. music and psychotherapy, anxiety and fear music has, since the time of the ancient greeks, been shown to have an astonishing influence on the mood and well-being of people from different societies and backgrounds (dykens et al., 2005:3). music has also been found to provide comfort in times of distress (levitin & bellugi, 2006:78). this holds true for individuals diagnosed with williams syndrome. the affinity that these individuals show toward music could be contributed to the fact that music offers them the opportunity to control structure, sound and time in ways they cannot do in the rest of their everyday lives (levitin & bellugi, 2006:102). williams syndrome individuals are well-suited for studies on the effect of music on mood, seeing that individuals diagnosed with the syndrome are prone to problems with anxiety, obsessions, worries, fears and somatic complaints in their daily lives (dykens et al., 2005:14; thornton-wells et al., 2010:6). kerchner and abril (2009:88) state that musical experience plays a role in children’s lives, not only in terms of communication, but also in helping children realise their feelings and to create a feeling of belonging in the world. this could in turn lessen feelings of fear and anxiety in children while teaching them to calmly display certain emotions. when people spend time listening to music, they tend to show fewer externalising symptoms for fear and anxiety. the frequency, duration and skill in producing music, together with emotional williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 87 response to music, also have a significant impact on the experience of fear and anxiety in everyday life (dykens et al., 2005:2). a study done by dykens et al. (2005:346), showed that williams syndrome children were less prone to experience anxiety than other children when listening to or engaging in musical activities. the explanation for this could lie in the fact that williams syndrome individuals appear to have an affinity for music, show high levels of musical expressiveness and emotional responsiveness to music (dykens et al., 2005:346-347). research reveals that williams syndrome individuals experience high levels of anxiety and fear in everyday life. the study done by dykens et al. (2005:353), proved that the anxiety and stress levels of williams syndrome children decreased when they started to listen to, or engage with, music. it is true, however, that the study showed heightened levels of fear and anxiety in williams syndrome individuals when they would say that sad or atonal music makes them happy. this could be a sign of denial or the incapability to recognise the specific emotion or feeling that they want to express for certain music. the individuals who did admit when music made them sad, in contrast, showed lowered levels of fear and anxiety (dykens et al., 2005:355). it thus seems that music, whether it evokes feelings of sadness of happiness, could contribute to overall wellbeing. conclusion when studying the existing literature on williams syndrome there seems to be a dissociation between the musical and language abilities and general cognitive functioning associated with the syndrome. although williams syndrome refers to a cognitive phenotype with severe impairments, individuals living with the syndrome tend to excel musically, linguistically and socially. music could possibly play a vital role in various areas of development of those with williams syndrome seeing that musical activities promote motor development, reasoning skills, planning, spatial awareness, social and communicative skills. music could also provide an opportunity for williams syndrome individuals to feel that they are good at certain things and it allows them to reach goals that they perhaps otherwise cannot. music may have a positive effect on the overall well-being of those diagnosed with williams syndrome as it promotes a healthy self-esteem, lowers feelings of fear and anxiety and teaches individuals with williams syndrome about different emotions, allows them to admit to certain emotions and provides a means through which they can express certain emotions appropriately. finally music is an aspect in the lives of individuals with williams syndrome which allows them to engage with others socially through a shared interest. it thus becomes clear that music has a larger role to fulfil than assisting in general development. it allows williams syndrome individuals to foster healthy self-images while promoting a sense of emotional and personal wellbeing. reference list bellugi, u., wang, p. p. & jernigan, t. l. 1994. williams syndrome: an unusual neuropsychological profile. (in broman, s. & grafman, j., ed. atypical cognitive erasmus 88 deficits in developmental disorders: implications for brain function. hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. p. 1-59). bellugi, u., lichtenberger, l., jones, w. & lai, z. 2000. the neurocognitive profile of williams syndrome: a complex pattern of strengths and weaknesses, journal of cognitive neuroscience, 12:7-29. bellugi, u., järvinen-parsley, a., doyle, t. f., reilly, j., reiss, a. l & korenberg, j. r. 2007. affect, social behavior and the brain in williams syndrome, current directions in psychological science, 16(2):99-104. creswell, j. w. 2013. qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. los angeles: sage. don, a. j., schellenberg, e. g. & rourke, b. p. 1999. music and language skills of children with williams syndrome, child neuropsychology, 5(3):154-170. dufour, e. s. music performance, williams syndrome, and schoenberg’s string trio. san diego: university of california (master’s degree of arts). dykens, e. m., rosner, b. a., ly, t. & sagun, j. 2005. music and anxiety in williams syndrome: a harmonious of discordant relationship?, american journal on mental retardation, 110(5):346-358. gothelf, d., harber, n., raveh, e., apter, a. & attias, j. 2006. hyperacusis in williams syndrome: characteristics and associated neuroaudiologic abnormalities, neurology, 66:390-395. holinger, d. p., bellugi, u., <ills, d. l., korenberg, j. r., reiss, a. l., sherman, g. f. & galaburda, a. m. 2005. relative sparing of primary auditory cortex in williams syndrome, brain research, 1037:35-42. kerchner, j. l. & abril, c. r. 2009. musical experience in our lives, things we learn and meanings we create. menc : maryland. lense, m. & dykens, e. 2013. musical learning in children and adults with williams syndrome, journal of intellectual disability research, 57(9):850-860. levitin, d. j. & bellugi, u. 1998. musical abilities in individuals with williams syndrome, music perception: and interdisciplinary journal, 15(4):357-389. levitin, d. j. & menon, v. 2003. musical structure is processed in “language” areas of the brain: a possible role for brodmann area 47 in temporal coherence, neuroimage, 20:2142-2152. levitin, d. j., menon, v., schmitt, j. e., eliez, s., white, c. d., glover, g. h., kadis, j., korenberg, j. r., bellugi, u. & reiss, a. l. 2003. neural correlates of auditory perception in williams syndrome: an fmri study, neuroimage, 18:74-82. levitin, d. j., cole, k., chiles, m., lai, z., lincoln, a. & bellugi, u. 2004. characterizing the musical phenotype in individuals with williams syndrome, neuropsychology, 10(4):223-247. levitin, d. j. 2005. musical behavior in a neurogenetic developmental disorder: evidence from williams syndrome, new york academy of sciences, 1060:1-10. williams syndrome individuals and music td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 73-89. 89 levitin, d. j., cole, k., lincoln, a. & bellugi, u. 2005. aversion, awareness, and attraction: investigating claims of hyperacusis in the williams syndrome phenotype, journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 46:5:514-523. levitin, d. j. & bellugi, u. 2006. rhythm, timbre and hyperacusis in williams-beuren syndrome (in c. morris, h. lenhoff & p. wang ed. williams-beuren syndrome: research and clinical perspectives. baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press). martens, m. a., reutens, d. c. wilson, s. j. 2010. auditory cortical volumes and musical ability in williams syndrome, neuropsychologia, 48:2602-2609. merriam, s. b. 2009. qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation. san francisco: jossey-bass. pani, j. r., mervis, c. b. & robinson, b. f. 1999. global spatial organization by individuals with williams syndrome, psychological science, 10(5):453-458. salk institute. 2006. williams syndrome, the brain and music, science daily 5 october 2006. http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2006/10/061003191006.htm date of access: 5 february 2013. thornton-wells, t. a., cannistraci, c. j., anderson, a.w., kim, c., epen, m., gore, j. c., blake, r. & dykens, e. m. 2010. auditory attraction: activation of visual cortes to music and sound in williams syndrome, american journal on intellectual and development disabilities, 115(2):172-189. 190 exploring interdisciplinarity: a theoretical consideration of bioethics at the interface between theology, philosophy and life sciences mc de lange* keywords: bioethics; interdisciplinarity; theology; philosophy; life sciences; hierarchy; ethics; methodology. disciplines: theology; ethics; bioethics; philosophy. abstract: complex ethical problems resulting from research and advances in biotechnologies increasingly confront christian ministers and theologians with difficult and complex moral dilemmas. where do they turn to in order to give guidance and answer questions concerning practical bioethical problems? this article argues that bioethics as the systematic study of specific moral dilemmas implies conjoining a variety of ethical methodologies in an interdisciplinary framework. in trying to clarify this complex nature of bioethics when practiced specifically from a christian theological viewpoint, the article examines theoretical considerations regarding the interface between three contributing disciplines, viz. theology, philosophy and life sciences. this is done by investigating three questions: what is the place of bioethics in the hierarchy of disciplines? in what way do philosophy, theology, and life sciences contribute to the theoretical foundations of interdisciplinary bioethics?, and how do different methodologies relate to one another in order to show the true interdisciplinary character of bioethics? the article concludes that it is vital to re-examine the theoretical basis of bioethics as a philosophical grounding or methodology in order to place moral knowledge within a meta-theoretical and epistemological framework. it is clear that bioethics is a complex endeavour served by many disciplines, as well as a complex interdisciplinary form of knowledge. scholars, scientists and theologians must all learn to transcend the barriers between the multitude of interrogational disciplines and endeavour to work towards designing a wellfounded and meaningful framework within which the methodological assumptions and theoretical grounding have been clarified, and one which also recognizes the complex interdisciplinary nature of bioethics. mrs leentie de lange is senior lecturer in the faculty of theology at the north-west university, * potchefstroom campus. e-mail: leentie.delange@ nwu.ac.za. bioethics 191 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 1290-216 introduction1. the domain of bioethics as an intellectual, autonomous and social research field has grown extremely rapidly over the last four decades.¹ complex ethical problems resulting from research and developments in fields such as stem cell research, artificial reproductive techniques, prenatal testing, health care, abortion and environmental issues – to name but a few need to be addressed not only by scientists, but also by theologians and counsellors. when christian ministers are confronted in their congregations with moral dilemmas resulting from these developments in bioethics, they could turn to different sources for direction in order to answer questions such as: how much of bioethics is life sciences? how much is ethics, and how much is in the domain of the humanities or social sciences? where does philosophy fit in the expansive vision of bioethics? pellegrino (1997:1) takes the argument even further by asking: “is it merely one discipline among many, or can it make some claim to the role of primus inter pares?” given the potential impact of these problems on the spiritual well-being of members of their congregation, it is unavoidable to engage in a rigorous theological and ethical analysis in order to face these questions to which we do not readily know the answers (cole-turner, 2006:943). counselling and guiding members from a specific religious background implies decision-support systems that embrace procedures, methods and knowledge systems capable of dealing with the complexity of techno-induced bioethical problems. when practising bioethics as applied to a specific practical problem, it is often unclear whether to regard it as a discipline, a specific field, an interdisciplinary domain, or a mere “collection of loosely related enterprises” (wildes, 2000:147). what must be made clear from the outset is that the sphere of bioethics has become much wider than what was previously known as medical ethics and applied or practical ethics (frey and wellman, 2006:1; bok, 1977:137-140). this article argues that bioethics as the systematic study of moral dimensions – including moral vision, decision-making, conduct, and policies in both life sciences, health care and the medical fields implies a variety of ethical methodologies in an interdisciplinary setting (cf. reich, 1995:[57] p. xxi; shannon, 1987:2; rae and cox, 1999:vii; wildes, 2000:2-3; sugerman and sulmasy, 2001:5-6; kuhse and singer, 2006:1). it is not only of real and pressing interest to many other related disciplines such as law, anthropology etc., but is also a form of enquiry with enormous potential to make interdisciplinary research tangible in that contemporary bioethical issues can be dealt with in their full complexity. interdisciplinary work generally denotes the combining of knowledge from a number of disciplines to create syntheses that are more appropriate for certain problem areas arising -in this case -from new scientific developments. both disciplinary rigour and integration resulted in new knowledge systems that yield new understanding, which could not have emerged from a single disciplinary avenue (cf. barthes, 1989:72; boix-mansilla and dawes, 2004:4). what remains problematic is that there is as yet no agreement as to how the different methodologies contribute to the interdisciplinary character of bioethics. for the history of this development, see verhey & lammers (1993:1-6); borry et.al. (2005:55-60), and 1. hauerwas (1978). de lange 192 in brief, therefore, the overall aim of this article is to contribute to this discussion in trying to clarify the complex nature of bioethics when practiced from a christian theological viewpoint, also taking into consideration the roles played by philosophy and life sciences. i shall frame the discussion through the consideration of the following three broad questions: what is the place of bioethics within the hierarchy of sciences? in what way do theology, philosophy and life sciences contribute to the theoretical foundations of interdisciplinary bioethics? how do different methodologies relate to one another, and what does this reveal about the interdisciplinary character of bioethics? it will be indicated that bioethics facilitates a more productive interdisciplinary discourse across the many methods of its informing disciplines, and should therefore not be regarded as a discipline. bioethics and the hierarchy of sciences2. it is not possible to understand the interdisciplinary nature of bioethics without first examining the role that the various disciplines contribute and should contribute to it, since interdisciplinary approaches are always an engagement with different modes of knowledge (moran, 2002:2). in order to understand how knowledge may be managed when making decisions in bioethics, it seems appropriate to discuss the place bioethics has in the hierarchy of knowledge systems, and then define the structural aspects thereof, before venturing into the interdisciplinary character thereof. a brief note on the relation between knowledge in theory and knowledge in practice is therefore imperative. 2.1 knowledge and reality when dealing with moral epistemology concerning the practice of bioethics, the debate over the question of whether there is such a concept as ‘moral knowledge’² is not new, and neither is it settled. according to jonsen and toulmin (1988, 26-27; 34; 327), moral knowledge is best understood as practical knowledge or knowledge that is concrete, temporal and preventative. it is therefore very closely linked to reality in the form of particular circumstances, to times and places, and can be distinguished from theoretical knowledge which is characterized as being idealized, a-temporal, and necessary. following the aristotelian view that moral knowledge is a species of practical knowledge³, foundational arguments aim at knowing truly, while practical arguments are methods for resolving problems. aristotilians argue that theoretical knowledge can be spoken of in term of “necessity” and “validity” because its elements are applied within a system of concepts. wildes (2000:182-183) rightfully sees bioethics as being in confrontation with the limits of human knowledge about what is right and wrong when making decisions. the tendency to downplay the limits of our knowledge is problematic because it is “only in knowing the limits that we can come to know the real possibilities of the field”. in order to arrive at a reasonable degree of objectivity and some form of validity in bioethical decision-making, several aspects have to be taken into consideration, the second half of the twentieth century brought a new interest among philosophers on whether or not 2. ethics and bioethics for that matter can be founded upon a rational basis. for a collection of the work of a number of leading scholars with a range of perspectives, see paul et al. (2002). aristotle already distinguished between practical knowledge (3. techne), wisdom (phronesis), and theoretical knowledge (episteme). bioethics 193 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. one of which is confidence to make such decisions from self-knowledge – or knowledge of the specific tradition or community from which the ethical action will be taken.⁴ organizing standards for moral discourse from within an environment in which our options are already formed by a particular paradigm of moral knowledge, can also include values, principles, rules or the cases before us. while it is not the aim of this article to elaborate on these issues, it is however important to make clear the viewpoint from which moral knowledge is seen, and to indicate the relation between moral knowledge and theoretical knowledge. when considering the status of individual decision-making as peter singer (1993:155) does, the question arises if it can be seen as an outcome of knowledge, a matter of feeling, or a custom. john rawls (1971) shows that the issues on decision-making are simply too complex than merely to regard it in such monolithic terms. justice can be achieved in the context of a social contract within which we all autonomously agree on how the basic institution of a just society must be structured. according to singer (1993:155) rawls tries to combine a hegelian recognition of the priority of community with a reinterpretation of the kantian insistence of autonomy (cf. rawls, 1971:10-11; 14-15; 28-29; 96-97). influenced by another hegelian claim that moral personality is and must be formed by the community in which the person lives, dewey shows in human nature and conduct (1922) that although individuals are shaped by their community, they can devise new solutions to social problems through rational enquiry. it is therefore impossible to separate decision-making about bioethical issues from the social context in which the problem is considered, and more importantly from the relational identity thereof – not only between human beings, but also to the environment and reality as a whole. 2.2 evolution of disciplines and relations⁵ the word “interdisciplinary” generally suggests some kind of critical awareness of the relationship between hierarchy, knowledge and power. it provides a democratic, dynamic and co-operative alternative to the old-fashioned inwardlooking and cliquish nature of disciplines (moran, 2002:2-3). bioethics was called a ‘science’ by potter as early as 1970 (dutney, 2001:59), while callahan (1973) called it a ‘discipline’. what then is understood by the term “discipline”? a discipline can be viewed as the object of study in a university department in a late-twentieth-century university. this implies that a discipline possesses a specific area of study, a literature, and a working community of paid scholars and/or practitioners (kline, 1995:3). this comes from the knowledge of “who or what they are that enables them to know what action will be an 4. appropriate response to the truth of themselves and the world” (williams, 2001:5) for a well documented summary of the development of the disciplines as we have come to know them in 5. the late twentieth century, see kline (1995). de lange 194 sugerman and sulmasy define a discipline as a department of learning or knowledge, a community of scholars sharing common assumptions about training, mode of inquiry, the kind of knowledge that is sought, and the boundaries of the subject matter proper to the discipline (2001:5). in essence, the term discipline presupposes two modern uses: (i) it refers to a particular branch of learning or body of knowledge, (ii) it refers to the maintenance of order and control amongst subordinate groups. shaping knowledge into disciplines can be traced as far back as greek philosophy. the role of philosophers and theologians can also not be set aside as their disciplines have meditated on life and nature long before modern science was even conceived. the origin of life, the way in which the world works, ethical and spiritual values – all were seen as theological questions, decidable by reference to the christian scriptures and theological explanations by the church (kline, 1995:194). different denominational attributes were made. catholic reflection left a long standing written legacy on many aspects such as abortion and euthanasia, while protestant theologians have contributed to bioethical developments in medical science at a much later stage (fletcher, 1954; ramsey, 1970). the period of greek rational thought and logic saw thought and discussion as the source of all knowledge. empirical evidence was nowhere to be seen, and using aristotle’s work as “the truth” in the same way as scripture was used in the middle ages, resulted in the formation of “natural philosophy”. natural philosophy was taken to include all the scholarly knowledge that lay outside theological knowledge (kline, 1995:195). this notion of the views of aristotle and seeing natural philosophy as a single body of knowledge reigned as the ultimate authority for many centuries. it was only at and after the reformation that luther and others opened up the freedom for thought of other bases of understanding the world. during the eighteenth century, science began to take a different course in two ways: first, the rise of more fields of knowledge dealing with truth assertions and second, the use of empiricism as initial step in finding the ultimate arbiter of truth assertions about nature (kline, 1995:196). since the end of the nineteenth century, the major disciplines were coming into being. the disciplines developed in an order that roughly moved from the simple to the complex and from the directly observable to the hierarchically obscure (kline, 1995:212). the division of scientific endeavour into disciplines is very much part of our academic culture. throughout bioethics 195 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. for a extended discussion of the evolution of interdisciplinarity in general, see klein (1990:22-54)6. the twentieth century further specialisation took place that constituted in university departments as we know them. this however, has changed in recent decades as the realization developed that none of the specialised domains contain the whole human knowledge; nor can anyone provide knowledge that can be used to derive the whole (kline, 1995:231). the subtle restructuring of knowledge has either given rise to new disciplines which have internal structures similar to those from which they have differentiated (hagstrom, 1986:49 50), or taken on a “interdisciplinary⁶’ form. in his 1993 article entitled “the birth of bioethics”, albert jonsen gave a clear overview of how bioethics matured into a minor form of moral philosophy within medicine, conceived of as a response to the new technologies in medicine, and prompted by the realisation that philosophy does not have all the answers to questions asked by physicians, healthcare workers and patients. this took place within a culture sensitive to certain ethical dimensions and within the need to respond to human rights and the abuse of powerful technologies and institutions. mediators came, almost all of them, from the traditional disciplines of theology and philosophy. there were a few physicians, a few lawyers, and an occasional social scientist, but early bioethics was fashioned out of the bits and pieces from moral philosophy and moral theology (jonsen, 1993:26). the innovative nature of biomedical science (and life sciences in general) is clearly shown as it “moves from observation and discovery” within a social milieu that demands of scientists constant productivity and consistent originality (jonsen, 1993:24). bioethics grew rapidly and soon became an applied science. a new kind of knowledge was urged to be passed on in order to understand bioethics and to use it for solving problems not only in medicine, but in a wide range of aspects in the life sciences. bioethics has benefited enormously not only from the skills and instruments as manufacturing capabilities in technology, but also from the kind of questions thrown up at the forefront of ‘professionals’ working in the fields of theology, philosophy, ethics and life sciences. attempting bioethics without the hybridisation of knowledge from these and many other disciplines, is ineffective. this is indicated by the following statement of sugerman and sulmasy concerning medical ethics: while philosophical, legal and religious scholarship has traditionally dominated the field of medical ethics, empirical, data-based research with methodological roots in the social sciences has gradually assumed an important role in the field (2001:19). de lange 196 the relations are not one-way streets, but are matrix-like and involve many feedback links. in bridging the gaps between disciplines, scholars try to work towards a unity of knowledge, a unity that will (hopefully) result from this deliberate search for new “integrative” concepts that allow for treating problems in the most effective manner. a number of interdisciplinary programs were formed by mergers at the interfaces of two or more existing disciplines and we see more and more existing disciplines working together on common problems, resulting in new and exciting enterprises. however, it was not long before public concern began to demand that scientific endeavours be conducted in ways that not only advance science, but also protect the rights and welfare of human subjects – resulting in among others the development of bioethics. before examining the interdisciplinary nature of bioethics in more detail, it is imperative to briefly revisit the hierarchical nature of the different modes of knowledge, and the importance thereof for bioethics. 2.3 hierarchical issues defining and delineating the various sciences and the sub disciplines into a hierarchical order belongs to the sphere of the theory of science, and is not a new concept. aristotle (1947:i. 3-13; 293-239; ii. 8589) organized different modes of knowledge into a hierarchy, according to whether they were theoretical, practical or productive. quite a few other attempts can also be listed to understand how the different disciplines “fit” into the hierarchy of science. arthur peacocke (1993) employs the idea of relating theology to other sciences by suggesting a “hierarchy of sciences” in which theology is understood as the science at the top of the hierarchy. in a comprehensive work entitled on the moral nature of the universe, murphy and ellis (1996) propose a hierarchy of sciences in which the higher levels split into natural and human science branches with ethics (here considered as a science) at the top of the human-science branch. both theories of a theological and metaphysical nature must be added at the top of the hierarchy, not only to give a complete account of reality (murphy and ellis, 1996:19), but because it is seen that these disciplines complete both branches in answering ‘boundary questions’ which go beyond the scope of individual disciplines. wildes (2000:182) states the importance of a well-ordered hierarchy or even “a lexical ordering but the common-ground shared by moral acquaintances” in that it will enable secular bioethics a better critique of its choices of method and procedures. the same argument applies to practising bioethics from a theological viewpoint.⁷ it has already been suggested that bioethics is a complex endeavour.⁸ murphy and ellis (1996:37-38) argue that the fundamental way for understanding complex systems is to analyze their structure hierarchically. recognizing the hierarchical structuring of reality, and the correlative hierarchical ordering of the sciences, will not only result in understanding the evaluation of theories involved, but will also show the importance thereof in the understanding of bioethics as an interdisciplinary pursuit of knowledge. understanding the relation of the different levels in a hierarchy, brings not only insight in the explanatory power of the scope of the different theories at their own level, but also into the knitting by using “theological” in this apparently monolithic way does not imply that i see this as a singular entity. 7. there are many “theologies” (e.g. protestant, roman catholic etc.) which has contributed in various ways to the developments to be discussed in this article. defining complexity and dealing with bioethics as a complex system will be treated elsewhere.8. bioethics 197 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. together of descriptions and explanations from neighbouring levels in the hierarchy. in distinguishing between pure and applied sciences, they argue that the pure social sciences are incomplete insofar as they ignore both the issue of ultimate values (ethics) and the need to use the results of social science research in order to manage society (murphy and ellis, 1996:79). although the significance of the chosen disciplines will be dealt with later, it is imperative to establish a hierarchical model for relating the sciences at this point. by endorsing murphy and ellis’s viewpoint, viz. that a single theory of divine purpose answers the ultimate questions arising from each branch of the hierarchy (1996:204). their hierarchy can be adapted as follows: bioethics motivational sciences social and applied psychology metaphysics (theology) physics chemistry life sciences ethicscosmology astrophysics geology, ecology sciences fig 1: hierarchy of the sciences, and the place of bioethics therein. justifying this system is not the aim of this article, but a few remarks need to be made. when dealing with specific questions in bioethics, no single piece of evidence or information can be examined in isolation, as ..the combined force of all the pieces is increased, due to the fact that each piece makes one of a variety of possible interpretations of each piece more probable (murphy and ellis, 1996:205). de lange 198 murphy and ellis’ structure is one in which the relations among the natural sciences (for bioethics the life sciences), social sciences (philosophy), ethics and theology are seen as hierarchically ordered and intrinsically connected. in considering answers provided at different levels, it becomes possible to answer those questions in bioethics that can be stated as “boundary questions”. as will be indicated in §3.2.1, certain aspects of reality require the context as some account of purpose of the whole. theology brings closure in that divine purpose answers the ultimate questions arising from each level of the hierarchy (murphy and ellis, 1996:202). such a theological account of ultimate reality not only completes the hierarchy, but also clarifies the sense of moral obligation in that it is now not illusory. this article asks for a more comprehensive development in arguing that answers in bioethics can be formulated by taking into consideration insights from ethics, as well as from theology, philosophy and life sciences. in arguing that the “objective” basis of morality lies in the nature of reality and that the discipline of ethics “can be construed as the scientific study of this moral order” (murphy and ellis, 1996:250), this article will try to show that bioethics moves beyond the disciplinary nature of the contributing disciplines in becoming an interdisciplinary pursuit of knowledge within this hierarchical system. the interdisciplinary nature of bioethics3. 3.1 defining interdisciplinarity interdisciplinarity emerges in response to problems defined in terms of the disciplines. it usually advanced as a way of enhancing the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge of reality or the comprehensive application of disciplinary knowledge as manifested in practical problems. the modern form of interdisciplinarity is often presented in the context of a critique of the disciplines and do not significantly mediate the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge of reality (mourad, 1997:135). in the postmodern context interdisciplinarity will not only have the goal of creating intellectually compelling pursuits of knowledge that are different from those as given in the disciplines, but also consist of creating a ‘new object’ (1997:136). in this case, ‘doing’ bioethics is being able to practice ethics in a new context – a context of dealing with ethical problems arising from new and sometimes revolutionary and controversial developments in the biomedical sciences and the advancement of biotechnologies that outpaces morality. we therefore see that most of the interdisciplinary programs were responses to the demands of praxis: not only to the immediate service to interested clients, but in the case of practising pastors/ministers to members of their congregation who are confronted with these issues in their daily lives. according to klein (1990:11), scholars turn to interdisciplinary work in order to accomplish a range of objectives, viz. to answer complex questions; to address broad issues; to explore disciplinary and professional relations; to solve problems that are beyond the scope of any single discipline; and to achieve unity of knowledge, whether on a limited or grand scale. interdisciplinary activities are rooted in the ideas of unity and synthesis, evoking a common epistemology of convergence in which there is a conscious attempt to integrate material from various fields of knowledge into ‘a new, single, intellectually coherent entity’. this not only demands an understanding of other disciplines, but in a team effort, requires building a common vocabulary. bioethics 199 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. “[interdisciplinarity] forms part of this traditional search for a wide-ranging, total knowledge; ... it 9. represents a more radical question of the nature of knowledge itself and our attempts to organize and communicate it. in this sense, interdisciplinarity interlocks with the concerns of epistemology the study of knowledgeand tends to be centred around problems and issues that cannot be addressed or solved within the existing disciplines, rather than the quest for an all-inclusive synthesis” (moran, 2002:15). interdisciplinarity is ... a process for achieving an integrative synthesis, a process that usually begins with a problem, question, topic or issue (klein, 1990:188). it can suggest forging connections across the different disciplines; but it can also mean establishing a kind of undisciplined space in interstices between disciplines, or even attempting to transcend disciplinary boundaries altogether” (moran, 2002:15).⁹ taking interdisciplinarity to mean any form of dialogue or interaction between two or more disciplines, it is always transformative – producing new forms of knowledge in its engagement with discreet disciplines. seeing it in this way, it is much more than just simply bringing different disciplines together. when interdisciplinarity is able to form part of a more general critique of academic specialization as a whole, and of the nature of the university as an institution that cuts itself off from the outside world in small enclaves of expertise, it assumes existence and relative resilience of disciplines as modes of thought and institutional practises (moran, 2002:16-17). this article views bioethics has having developed as an interdisciplinary field with methodological and epistemological input from many different disciplines, including medicine and law, philosophy, theology, life sciences, the social sciences (e.g. sociology, anthropology, economics), and many others. this discourse of interdisciplinarity supports the notion that input from different fields can expedite and improve the analysis and solution of particular problems. however, borry et.al. (2005:54) rightfully states that interdisciplinarity does not always guarantee better results but also has drawbacks. they identify the biggest difficulty that interdisciplinarity carries, as the intrinsic gap between the conversing disciplines. this gap can cause miscommunication, which may involve speaking “past” one another, cognitive and conceptual dissonance, different cultures and styles, a structural lack of background and knowledge to judge or criticise the research results of another discipline etc. the interdisciplinary gap can result in opposing objectives that limit the conversing disciplines in their interaction, and need to be addressed. it is now possible to give an extensive definition of bioethics in defining it as an interdisciplinary concept: the interdisciplinary study of issues not only concerning life in general or health care, but also including environmental issues of the day. it involves an attempt to discover normative guidelines and moral reasoning for decision-making skills built on sound moral foundations informed by disciplines not only from the lifeand social sciences (cf. silber, 1982:21; pellegrino, 1997:2; rae and cox, 1999:vii; grodin, 2001:7), but also from theology, philosophy and other disciplines not dealt with in this article. as already been indicated by the discussion on hierarchy, and contra sugarman and sulmasy’s (2001:6) notion that meta-ethical questions are more part of ethics in general, the importance of metaphysics/theology for the interdisciplinary field of bioethics will be emphasized. how exactly are these disciplines brought together, transformed and transcended in different forms of de lange 200 for an extensive introduction to the history of theology and philosophy in ethics and bioethics, see 10. troost (1983). interdisciplinarity, and what new forms of knowledge are created by these interactions? as the field of bioethics matures it becomes increasingly important to re-examine and revisit the theoretical foundations asking questions such as: what is the scope of bioethics; how can theology, philosophy or the life sciences inform bioethical theory and practices? does bioethics have a unique or demarcating body of knowledge, methodology or philosophy?; and what are its theoretical assumptions? in order to answer some of these questions, and to try and indicate how different methodologies relate to one another in order to show the true interdisciplinary character of bioethics, three dominant disciplines related to bioethics, viz. theology, philosophy and life sciences will be considered. 3.2 relating bioethics, theology: philosophy and life sciences the bioethical movement of a few decades ago was born and shaped by both theology and philosophy.¹⁰ each brought a distinct tradition and perspective, together with analytical skills sharpened by their disciplines. together they produced an amalgam of ideas, methods and educational structures that become bioethics. but ... the field was interdisciplinary (borry et. al., 2005:50). for pellegrino, bioethics has been the interdisciplinary relation between the abstract and the particular. the moral life, itself, involves essence and existence, the universal principle and the particular case, cognition and affect, experience and abstraction of experience. imbalances between the realms of the abstract and the concrete can distort the enterprise of bioethics (pellegrino, 1997:6). as has been already indicated, the praxis of ethical enquiry is the essence of bioethical problems. in order to understand the problem, one must be open to all relative perspectives on those specific problems. these perspectives are conditioned, at the very least, by the questions asked, the matters of interest upon which the discipline is focused. these concerns can be judged to be intrinsically important, simply interesting to the philosopher, or highlighted in a culture (pellegrino and thomasma, 1981:43). this article considers problems in bioethics as part of the last category, and will add to it insights in theology and life sciences. alasdair macintyre (1988:349-350) provided a proposal that we adopt a picture of moral inquiry as bioethics 201 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. the literature in other religious traditions other than the christian tradition is also growing (sullivan, 11. 1989; green 1985; novak 1990; davis 1991; newman 1992; gellman 1991; 1993; fasching, 2001). hauerwas (1981:144) reminds us that we must incorporate the variety of relational claims being made 12. on us when we sort out “conflicting loyalties”. we do this through the narratives of the lives we live. tradition-constituted. his ideas provide an alternative to the contemporary way of conceiving bioethical conduct. in inquiring bioethical concepts from a tradition-constituted way, inquirers do not attempt to stand outside particular moral positions speaking to all parties, but rather speak from within traditions from which they live their lives. when dealing with bioethics as praxis, one must take into consideration that it is fundamentally socially constructed (farmer and campos, 2007:25). in trying to justify the focus on a discipline from the social sciences in this argument, it is necessary to critique the assumption that most ethicists do not associate social science with ethics other than in the somewhat arbitrary distinction between normative and descriptive ethics. nelson (2000:12-17) not only questions this assumption, but also questions the presumption of a linear relationship between ethicists and social scientists, in which the latter provide the data upon which the former makes judgements: “moral theories, informed by facts, judge practices”. he argues instead for an interactive model between the two. haimes (2007:36) states the potential for a fruitful collaboration between bioethicists and social scientists “in the fact that bioethics is no longer purely an abstract discipline since there is a growing interest in conducting empirical investigations and within philosophy more broadly, with applied work”. a clear understanding of each others’ perspectives on the same issues of substantive interest would therefore be of mutual benefit. nelson (2000:14) suggests that the social sciences might mount an implicit challenge to bioethicists in asking why they attend to the question they do and “even whose interests they think it appropriate to serve”. the interdisciplinary role that philosophical ethics plays can be seen as interdisciplinary and cooperative in order to help bioethics retains its philosophical identity. there are empirical data relevant to almost every debate and every decision that has to be made that takes place in the field of bioethics, which is logical “because the empirical publications reflect theoretical debates that are currently being held in the field” (borry et.al., 2005:51-52). this empirical data do not come from life sciences alone, but there are more and more empirical methodologies applied in both philosophy and theology. what then, is the contribution that theology, philosophy and life sciences can make to bioethics? 3.2.1 theology relating bioethics and religion and bioethics and theology specific are not always without problems (merril, 2009; engelhardt, 2002). this article will focus on christian theology as a relational enterprise in shaping interaction not only between humans, but also between humanity and our physical reality.¹¹ within the reformed tradition, this relation to the god of christian faith is the subject matter of theological ethics.¹² schweiker (1995:51) sees the purpose of theological ethics as “transforming and reconstituting how we understand and intend our lives as moral beings in the world with other”. for engelhardt, (2002:106-107) the character of moral theology takes on a different sense once it is recognized that “theology rests primarily in an experiential encounter with god, which ... remained de lange 202 unaltered...”. this has resulted in a methodological core in which the spiritual disciplines transforms the human heart and open it to an experience of god which influence our relation with reality. the role that prominent theologians have played in the development of medical ethics as the forbearer of bioethics, has been well documented (walters, 1985; smith, 1996; cahill, 2001: 49 – 52). although kuhse and singer (2006:5-6) see ethics as independent of religion, they do not deny that theologians may have a role to play in bioethics (cf. pellegrino, 1997:7). this article makes a clear distinction between religion and theology, and takes theology as a critical reflection on the ultimate causes and meanings of human experience. that reflection, however, is qualified by a belief in god in which reason is enlightened by faith, revelation or religious experience (macquarrie, 1980:47), and within a specific religious tradition. this relation encompasses the whole of human life. in a brief account on thinking theologically about bioethics, madueme (2004) defines theology as canonical faith seeking practical understanding. he argues for applying the scriptures within a new context – reflecting on difficult bioethical problems that cannot take place in a theological vacuum. practicing bioethics and taking theology seriously, is not only about thinking and speaking and living according to scripture, but taking into consideration new contexts and changing cultures within which the bioethical problems are dealt with. alisdair macintyre identified three tasks for theologians writing on medical ethics – the first two are still relevant for contemporary bioethics: first – and without this everything else is uninterestingwe ought to expect a clear statement of what difference it makes to be a jew or a christian or a muslim, rather than a secular thinker, in morality in general. second, and correlatively, we need to hear a theological critique of secular morality and culture (1979:435). the third task can be formulated as that we have to take into consideration the bearing of what has been said under the first two headings, and the importance thereof in reflecting on the specific problems which arise from contemporary bioethics. everybody involved in bioethical reflection ought to expect theological presuppositions to be declared and defended where they are operative. taking into consideration that this takes place within a specific religious tradition, and within a specific contemporary culture, van huyssteen’s (2001:67; cf. also murphy,1996:109) concern is echoed in that he asks if it is fair to ask what special link this may open up from any form of interdisciplinary rationality [and if it] could be credibly achieved: an interdisciplinary rationality that might finally support the claims by at least some in the theological epistemic community for a public voice in our complex, contemporary culture (van huyssteen, 2001:67). when he further asks if it will still be possible for theology to join other modes of knowledge and reasoning strategies in some form of interdisciplinary public discourse within the context of a radical pluralist world where epistemological foundationalism has been so successfully deconstructed (van huyssteen, 1999:213). this article argues that the possibility of a provisional “yes” does exist. what then, is the relation between theology and bioethics? what are we to make of theologians and clergymen who speak in the name of theology without having specialist knowledge in other relating bioethics 203 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. from clement or rome (fl. 96) till maximus the confessor (c. 580 – 13 august 662).13. the title ‘father of the church’ refers to and describe the orthodox champions of the church and 14. exponents of its faith. the writings of the fathers not only fills the gap in historical knowledge between the new testament period and the latter part of fourth century, but also formulated the creeds to give accurate statements of faith. “hence, the fathers are of tremendous value in the study and development of christian life and thought ...” (cairns, 1996:74). the principle of covenant in bioethics is understood in different ways. this is well manifested in the 15. bioethics of ramsey (1970), r. veatch (1981) and w.f. may (1977). see also barth, 1961:116, 344. schweiker (1995) developed a theory of responsibility from a specifically theological viewpoint he 16. hereby makes clear the significance for christian commitment of reflection on moral responsibility. fields? in order to gain the effect of relevance, theologians must refer back to, and ground their bioethical arguments in religious claims – in the case of christian theology, the texts of the judeo-christian scriptures, the writings of the patristic fathers¹³, the creeds, and the rich body of writings from the reformation, the post reformational era and especially the “post-holocaust” twentieth century theology. the christian tradition in particular holds that holy scripture is divinely inspired and that the writings of the fathers¹⁴ breathe the inspiration and enlightenment of the holy spirit. this guarantees a firm approach to contemporary bioethical issues if one attempts to shed light on them from the viewpoint of [the] patristic mindset (griniezakis and symeonides, 2005:11; cf. also murphy, 1996:109; schweiker, 1995:92). its rich literature could be used to help formulate answers to bioethical problems. cahill (2006:40) states an important fact by emphasizing that theologians must be willing to agree that even positions inspired by religious commitment, have to be ‘translated’ into moral terms. terms that can be accepted not only from within a particular tradition, but formulated in such an order to have public viability. different theological themes can be transposed in concepts such as the kingdom of god, hope (cf. moltmann, 1967), re-creation (ridderbos, 1973:223), imago dei (berkouwer, 1957:34, 95, 391; barth, 1961:116; moltmann, 1993:221, 216), eschatology, covenant,¹⁵ etc. this article takes the covenantal aspect as being of particular importance in that our understanding of moral situations are understood in this special relation to god. it specifies the norms and values for how we live in having bearing on specific moral judgements. smit (1991:277-282) adds a doctrinal and religious perspective on covenant as of utmost importance for christian ethics. “it leads to and ethics of responsibility”¹⁶ (1991:277, his italics) an ethics for a public church in a civil society. the covenantal perspective suggest that a relation with a “radically transcendent god” (engelhardt, 1999:203) will have a particular impact on our understanding of bioethics in reality. theology may not deny the burning issues of this reality. seeing theology as not only viable, but as indispensable as a conversation partner in the realm of public bioethics, is underscored by different scholars (cf. murphy, 1996:109; pellegrino, 1997:7; cahill, 2006:54-55). in the contributions of theology to medical ethics, gustafson (1975) points out that theology can help establish a ‘moral point of view’ from which certain attitudes such as an attitude of respect for god and for human life, as well as an attitude of responsibility for creation that is not closed to new possibilities and dispositions, inform the debate. theology’s presence in the bioethics discussion helps inform the fullness of the faithful about contemporary biotechnical achievements. for griniezakis and symeonides (2005:11) it means practically that the faithful can participate in various achievements, and in various developments of life that do not offend human nature. however, a theology that produces de lange 204 fewer terms of reference, fewer aphorisms, and fewer restrictions will be much more beneficial to our postmodern society. theology must produce challenges for working out decisions, not of religious, but of theological character. furthermore, theology will play a determinative role in the cooperation between bioethics and other theoretical sciences. theology can stand as the binding link for these sciences (2005:11). the potential value theology has for bioethics is also of practical value in that it can provide meaning to life, experiences of pain, suffering and death, and an understanding of our role in the preservation of life on earth as we know it. gustafson (1975:25-54) unpacks this value further by indicating that: theology gives an answer to the question: “why the moral?” for christian theology the answer 1. will be because “god intends ... that human action conform to his purposes and activity for the well-being of creation” (1975:25); theology includes harmatology which is a reminder of human finitude (sinfulness) which implies 2. both a need for continual self-criticism and the impossibility of certitude in moral affairs; and theology can give some clues to the understanding of what is moral: morality is not simply 3. human, but has a greater-than-human foundation creation is basically good, non-human creation is good and must be respected; whatever threatens the well-being of creation must be condemned; and creation is full of new possibilities for further development. in arguing for a legitimate place in our scientific endeavours for a christian theological bioethics, the task of such an ethics would include not only the three concepts of gustafson as indicated above, but will also include investigating real-life bioethical issues in the context of all the role-players in order to become more conformed to christ and to be the stewards of creation that god has intended us to be.¹⁷ there are however, others who disagree and argue that theology has nothing to offer bioethics. as far back as 1979 alasdair macintyre already stated that theologians still owe it to the rest of us to explain why we should not accept their discipline as we do astrology or phrenology. the distinctiveness and importance of what they have to say, if it is true, makes this an urgent responsibility (1979:435443). recent developments have also seen a slight distance between theology and bioethics – a situation that madueme (2004) regrets. the distinctive way in which hauerwas (2001:51-74) do theological ethics can be indicated as a more 17. confessional approach. he not only reframes the ‘significant questions’ for doing theological ethics, but centers his approach on the life, death, and resurrection of jesus christ as witnessed to the church. bioethics 205 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. in concluding on the role theology can play in bioethical conduct, this article takes the stand that it must be done in the light of theology’s aim to seek to confer not only knowledge of the divine will but also the wisdom to make the right choices and to live lives conformed to god’s good and perfect will (polkinghorne, 1998:129). it can provide structural elements to guide clergy and congregation members through the maze of insights and taking a moral stand on practical problems. the development of an understanding of bioethics in which theology is inescapable, will achieve several vital results. first, it will free bioethical practitioners from the notion that they must practice a secular bioethics; secondly, relating theology and bioethics in a interdisciplinary way can help secure a better understanding of all created reality; thirdly, theology’s specific norms can be applied consistently and comprehensively to new and complex situations; and finally, it will address the context of the whole in illuminating our understanding of reality with philosophy and life sciences. sound bioethical arguments will be those that cogently demonstrate the connections between premises and conclusions, and the bioethicists must have command of not only the theological tradition that provide these premises, but must also take on the challenge to justify epistemological claims and in doing so complete the body of scientific knowledge at a higher level. the character of the tradition in which this choices have to be made, will not only have an impact on the arguments one offers, but will also indicate the relation between the knowledge one has and the moral choices one makes. 3.2.2 philosophy cicero called philosophy the dux vitae, the rational guide to life. the very nature of philosophy as a science of totality is to provide us with general insights and concepts. pellegrino and thomasma define philosophy as the fundamental understanding of ... a structured dialogue for the purpose of critical understanding. put another way, philosophy is a disciplined, critical reflection following logical rules (1981:39). everyone who searches understanding can be called a philosopher. in order to complement the narrative of modern philosophy (an inadequacy identified by capaldi, 2007), one first needs to identify a starting point. this critical measure …will determine the language of that philosophy, its concerns, and its impact (pellegrino and thomasma 1981:44). this starting point will dictate the tools used – whether it is analysis or synthesis. in choosing how and why philosophy can contribute, this article agrees with the characteristics of a philosophy of practice as set de lange 206 out in pellegrino and thomasma (1981:54-56), and will try to indicate in what way it can also be applied to an interdisciplinary relation to bioethics. this will include: describing what is important about matters of fact. this will clarify the starting point for such a 1. philosophy; radical reflection – where thinking is at a critical distance from the reality one works with. what makes 2. this important for arguments in bioethical issues, is that the product of the activity is important; critical reflection – this function searches for its ground or condition of possibility in the real 3. world of experience; and practical reflection – the attempt to apply the ontology of practice to bioethical and policy 4. issues. moral philosophers should help us discuss moral questions rationally. the prime task of philosophy is the critical study of arguments; and the prime task of moral philosophy is the critical study of moral arguments. moral philosophers therefore should not only help us discuss moral questions rationally, but must teach us how to tell good arguments from bad ones. in this task ethical theory, which reveals the logic of the moral concepts, is an essential tool (hare, 1997:44). by constantly revising those theories that are proven inadequate by concrete experiences and circumstances, philosophy’s role can provides the critical resources of ethical theory and methodology in bioethics. it is important to choose the philosophical method that can best achieve the objectives of bioethics considered as “applied ethics” or “practical ethics”. philosophy does and can enter into an interdisciplinary dialogue about controversial issues with bioethics, life sciences, and theology. a contemporary philosophy of bioethics is thus desirable, even mandatory because of the increasing complexity of our physical reality. the fundamental methodological issues associated with this complex interrelationship still need to be clarified. many bioethicists however do regard philosophy as inadequate to encompass the complexities of moral life. they deem philosophical ethics to be overly rationalistic, abstract, and insensitive to the contextual, experiential, and pluralistic milieu of actual moral choice (pellegrino, 1997:2). the primary role philosophy plays in the interdisciplinary enterprise of bioethics lies in that it provides the analytical and normative components of our bioethical actions. 3.2.3 life sciences the problem that we are faced with is well defined by sugerman and sulmasy when they state that …the mere fact that something is biologically true does not entail automatic conclusions (2001:9). when considering the role life sciences play in the interdisciplinary enterprise of bioethics, it is not the intention of this article to state that biological-, medicalor environmental knowledge will provide clear moral truths. the position it takes is more that a biological premise, a medical fact, or that of bioethics 207 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. any other scientific discipline, informs the imagination and reasoning of the ethicist in such a way that decision-making is guided and elucidated by facts and values taken into consideration when arguments are constructed in decision-making. distinction must be drawn between relevant information, and facts that are just interesting to know. biomedical choices thus involve multiple disciplines and multiple methodologies.¹⁸ it is a true interdisciplinary and dynamic field in which interaction from multiple disciplines, traditions and theoretical foundations ask for more than just general reflection. the claims of interdisciplinary interaction between all these disciplines must be tested by standards of moral theory that are useful for the task. but whose morality, which method, and which theory? method and interdisciplinary bioethics4. in a collection of papers published in 1997, carson and burns claim that the contributions made are evidence that methodology is a continuing and important preoccupation within bioethics. the complex interdisciplinary character of bioethics asks not only for many methods to be taken into consideration, but also for a methodology that is sensitive to these complexities. a survey of the literature on the methods used in bioethics indicates a wide variety of approaches. the work of four representative authors’ covering the scope of methodological diversity in the field will be briefly reviewed. in his book moral acquaintances: methodology in bioethics, wildes (2000:17; 92; 173) warned that a narrow focus on any one aspect of complex moral questions often creates interminable debates. he argues for a middle ground in this moral morass that neither imposes a particular methodology, nor retreats into differential relativism. he contends that the choice of methodology is crucial because the acceptance or rejection of initial premises shapes both the content and the resolution of the issues at hand it will not only lead to sophisticated discussion but also better define the field of bioethics. for wildes the choice of method not only directs in advance the activity of knowing, but also the content that is to be known. for him excellent descriptive research in medical ethics specifies the theoretical framework particular to the empirical discipline, and explicitly designates the ethical theory that under girds the research. the common ground of moral acquaintances and the context of the moral issue at hand are identified by methodological reflection in bioethics. foundational and principlism methods oversimplify the complexity of moral issues. in order to navigate between absolutism and relativism, jonsen and toulmin suggest that we begin with cases and problems, not with theories or general principles (1988:10). there are even conflicting methodologies and perspectives which complicates the problematic 18. interdisciplinary dynamics between these even more. for obvious reasons this is simplified by using the term “life sciences”. de lange 208 degrazia and beauchamp (2001:31) argue that the ambitions of methodology is to provide a procedure or method (1) for producing such a normative framework, (2) for using such a framework once it has been identified, or (3) for navigating the complexities of moral life in the absence of such a framework. douglas strum (in shelp, 1985:135-162) argues that concerns regarding methodology ought not to be overlooked as scholars go about the business of addressing urgent issues. he proposes three methodological questions for bioethics: questions of scope, focus and grounding. for scope its basis is in a ‘perception of social reality’, and is defined as a ‘range of issues appropriate to the discipline’. focus on the other hand determines importance and centrality–structural social science. grounding is split into ‘popular’ and ‘philosophical-theological’ understanding of the foundation of bioethics. theological interaction will address physical and spiritual needs. several methods of philosophical medical ethics can be regard as ‘prominent’. sugarman and sulmasy (2001:32 41) focus on five: (1) tradition and practice as a source of norms in medical ethics; (2) principles, common morality, and specification as the basis of medical ethics; (3) ethical theory as the backbone of “applied ethics”; (4) the use of biomedical cases and their ethical implications; and (5) reflective equilibrium as a technique. other methods include feminist analysis on issues of medical ethics (cf. holmes and purdy, 1992; sherwin, 1992; and wolf, 1996); considerations of virtue as a form of guidance in medical ethics (cf. shelp, 1985); narrative ethics as basis for medical ethics (cf. nelson 1997); and pragmatist approaches to medical ethics (cf. mcgee, 1999). still – choosing philosophical methods to best achieve the objectives of “applied ethics” or “practical ethics”, remains controversial (sugarman and sulmasy, 2001:31). given this myriad of methods, how then should we go about solving concrete complex bioethical problems? can we develop a methodology that finds an interdisciplinary interaction to which theology, philosophy and life sciences contribute? the underlying concern is that we can get “stuck” on abstract theorizing. taking into consideration the resources and techniques available in these disciplines can help us find a justifying role not only for bioethical principles, but taking into consideration the contextual feature of a particular case, the theological context, and the “hard” facts provided by life sciences, medicine or the environmental sciences. one solution would be to explore the way van huyssteen (1999; 2006) integrate the complex issues surrounding the claims of theology and science in general to rationality by setting them into the context of postfoundationalism as a viable mode of interdisciplinary conversation.¹⁹ 4.1 setting the stage for an interdisciplinary methodology in his book alone in the world (2006), wentzel van huyssteen opts for an evolutionary epistemological 19. approach in which postfoundationalism opens up the space for transversal reasoning (following calvin schrag). for a discussion of the possibility for a postfoundational space for interdisciplinarity, see de lange (2007). bioethics 209 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. the role of theory in bioethics has been scrutinized from many different angles. the traditional approaches of consequentionalism, deontology and the principlism of beauchamp and childress, are unsatisfactory when dealing with aspects brought about by new technology. one reason can be that while most traditional ethical theories in bioethics focus on the individual, genetics is concerned with relatedness (almond, 1995:126). this is not only valid for genetics, but for most problems dealt with in bioethics. callahan (1996:9-17) pleads for an ethical theory capable of both being applied to practical problems and of being embodied in the life of the theorist. because of the institutional isolation of professional philosophy from the real world in which ethical problems are embedded, he expresses scepticism in that they will never be able to satisfy both these requirements. as argued before, theology can fill this void in bringing into the interdisciplinary context a theoretical aspect concerning relatedness to all agents involved. 4.2 differentiation in ethical theories degrazia and beauchamp (2001:31) indicate the ambition of ethical theory in so far it attempts to provide an adequate normative framework for addressing problems of moral life. ethical theory may also be defined as the process by which we justify a particular ethical decision. it has already been indicated that each theory needs content and a method by which it can be applied to specific moral cases and dilemmas (wildes, 2000:27). therefore, in order to move forward as a scientific enterprise, bioethics must and should pay attention to ethical theory, theological context, philosophical foundations and methodology in studying the nature and justification of general ethical principles applied to contemporary special moral problems. this it is a means by which we organize complex information and competing values and interests. three forms of ethical inquiry are identified by philosophers each revealing different parts of the truth about morality: firstly, metaethics as the branch of philosophical or theological inquiry that investigates the meaning of moral terms, the logic and linguistics of moral reasoning, and the fundamental questions of moral ontology, epistemology, and justifications (sugerman and sulmasy, 2001:3-4). analysis is made of the meaning of central terms in ethics, structure or logic of moral reasoning, the nature of moral justification, and inferences. secondly, normative theory which is involved in philosophical or theological inquiry that sets out to provide answers to substantive and normative questions in a systematic, and critical fashion, and to justify such answers. contractualism shows the choices made as grounded in reasonableness and fairness, consequentionalism in which the choice of moral principles is self-interested, while deontology holds that what is morally right or wrong is not determined at the level of analysis, the level of praxis, or that which would promote the best outcome. virtue theory which is narrowly associated with aristotle and is concerned primarily with character rather than conduct. thirdly, descriptive ethics where factual description and explanations of moral behaviour and beliefs are dealt with and in which empirical questions are asked.²⁰ de lange 210 4.3 interdisciplinary bioethics what is important for interdisciplinarity in bioethical practices is not only that the different disciplines and methods should relate to one another, but that chosen theories must and can support one another. that is, a theory that may be inserted as an auxiliary hypothesis into another (murphy and ellis, 1996:227). this is especially important for bioethical enquiry in which theological perspectives are taken seriously, as connections or clashes between doctrines are often a more important source of corroboration or of anomalies than are the data. another important notion for bioethics is ‘practibility’ (beauchamp and childress, 2001:340). they claim that when a theory is not practically realizable, it is not an acceptable moral theory, implies complementarity from the outset. while different disciplines ask different questions, fruitful interdisciplinary interaction asks for corroboration. in moving towards the development of a methodology that attends adequately to the organizational and institutional settings as a basis for decision-making within bioethics, it was indicated that the interpretation of knowledge and foundational theories from several disciplines need to be dealt with in an interdisciplinary discourse in order to function optimally. so as to come to workable interdisciplinarity in bioethics, the relations between disciplines, the way in which different theories complement one another, the distinctive viewpoints from each discipline views practical bioethical problems, and the complex nature of bioethics need to be addressed.²¹ conclusion5. at the outset of this article, three questions were asked, namely what is the place of bioethics within the hierarchy of disciplines? in what way do philosophy, theology, and life sciences contribute to the theoretical foundations of interdisciplinary bioethics? and, how do different methodologies relate to one another in order to show the true interdisciplinary character of bioethics? in answering the first question, the relation between moral knowledge and theoretical knowledge was investigated, and it was concluded that answers to complex practical bioethical problems move beyond the disciplinary nature of theology, philosophy, life sciences, and ethics for that matter individually. answers can only be formulated by taking an interdisciplinary stance when moving between the beauchamp and walters (2003:1220) also distinguish between the following ethical theories: utilitarian 20. theories; kantian theories; contemporary challenges to the traditional theories; virtue ethics; the ethics of care and casuistry. the latter subject is beyond the scope of this article. this will be attempted in two follow-up papers dealing with bioethics from a reformed perspective, and 21. bioethics as complex system. bioethics 211 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 190-216. i would like to thank my colleagues, prof hans van deventer and prof koos vorster for comments. 20. this paper was also improved by the constructive advice of the anonymous referees. different levels of knowledge acquisition in the disciplines. this corresponds to scholars views such as murphy and ellis, viz. that social systems involve complex interactions and that bioethical decisionmaking process/es are also therefore cultureand tradition dependent. bioethics as an increasingly specialized domain is moving towards a more complex system and is therefore more and more difficult for human comprehension. in answering the second question, the contribution of the theoretical foundations of theology, philosophy and life sciences in interdisciplinary bioethics were investigated. it was clear from the outset that scholarly, scientific and technological knowledge alone cannot guide us in making objective decisions. involving knowledge frameworks of the human and social sciences, recognizing the word and spirit of god, and taking seriously philosophy as a foundational discipline, could assist people from a specific religious tradition in arriving at informed bioethical decisions on difficult bioethical problems. although theological understanding of bioethics seeks to deal not only with physical needs, but also spiritual needs, its truths cannot be bound by criteria of clarity and certainty because it is clear that moral knowledge grows in a relation to god and that in this relationship, we can understand ourselves in relation to reality. life sciences on the other hand, are clearer and more certain as these describe an empirical understanding of reality. however, both theology and life sciences bring their distinct insights to bear upon human situations through bioethics. the third answer is that philosophy urges the bioethicists to ensure that metaphysical foundations are sound and clear in order to contending other epistemic claims in a charitable and methodologically sound manner. the main purpose of a theory is indicated as providing consistency and coherence in our decision-making endeavours. in a postmodern, relativist age, each discipline discovers some discrete aspect of our reality helping to illuminate and resolving real bioethical problems in a real world. the challenge of giving reliable bioethical advice will therefore be to create an interdisciplinary space in which ethics does not only rely on philosophy, its parent discipline, but one in which it must also take into consideration its metaphysical hard core: the claim about the ultimate purpose or goal of human life and our created reality. in developing a methodology that attends adequately to the organizational and institutional settings for decision-making within bioethics, it is clear that bioethics is a complex endeavour served by many disciplines, as well as complex interdisciplinary form of knowledge. all must learn to transcend the barriers between the multitude of interrogational disciplines and 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university of new, england armidale nsw 2351 australia. email: bdollery@une.edu.au. gert van der westhuizen is professor of economics, school of economic sciences, north-west university, vaal campus, vanderbijlpark, south africa. e-mail: gvdwesthuizen@absamail.co.za efficiency measurement of basic service delivery at south african district and local municipalities g van der westhuizen and b dollery* keywords: efficiency; local government; local service delivery; south africa disciplines: economics, public management and administration, management sciences. introduction1. local government systems across the world have come under intense scrutiny over the past two decades. a good deal of concern by policy makers has been expressed over various aspects of local government, including its operational efficiency. this has seen a wave of reform in many local government jurisdictions which has encompassed almost all dimensions of local government structure and function (dollery, et al., 2008). south african local government has not been immune to these international trends and it too has been subjected to vigorous change. indeed, few local government systems have undergone a greater degree of transformation (cameron, 2001; visser, 2001). the dramatic nature of local government reform in south africa has its roots in the apartheid legacy that abstract. south africa has experienced immense changes in the postapartheid era and coordinated local public policy has sought to expand and improve the level of basic services provided to previously disadvantaged people. local government has played a pivotal role in this process and has been subjected to intense reform in an effort to enhance its effectiveness and broaden its range of activities. while a number of scholars have examined the administrative, political and social dimensions of the local government reform program, little attention has focused on the economic efficiency of service delivery. this paper seeks to remedy this neglect by evaluating the productive efficiency with which municipal councils have delivered electricity, domestic waste removal, sanitation and water in line with their new responsibilities using data envelopment analysis (dea) techniques applied to cross-sectional data covering the period 2006/2007 for 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities. efficiency sa municipalities 163 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 162-174. confronted policy makers in the first post-apartheid administration. this legacy included a high degree of economic, spatial and social inequality between the different population groups, together with a ‘dual economy’ divided along racial lines, and segregated urban areas. post-apartheid policy makers responded with a range of measures aimed at addressing these inequalities across the entire gamut of economic and social indicators. the most important of these measures consisted of the 1994 reconstruction and development programme (rdp), which sought to coordinate the efforts of central, provincial and local governments into an integrated national whole (lester, et al, 2000). the rdp placed great emphasis on the role of local government in this process based on the premise that the democratic government will reduce the burden of implementation which falls upon its shoulders through the appropriate allocation of powers and responsibilities to lower levels of government (african national congress, 1994, p.140). this emphasis was given sharper focus in the white paper on local government, which held that local government must co-operate with local communities to find sustainable ways to meet their needs and improve the quality of their lives (republic of south africa, 1998, p.17). the notion of ‘developmental local government’ thus grew out of the perception that the role of local government in south africa should expand decisively from its traditional narrow concentration on ‘services to property’ to embrace local economic development and local economic growth as well as the conditions that stimulate these elements of national development (nel and binns, 2002). the white paper on local government (republic of south africa, 1998) set out four key aims for ‘developmental local government. in the first place, the provision of a basic level of household services, especially electricity, sewerage and water, to households without these services, should take priority. secondly, municipalities should seek to ameliorate the ‘spatial legacy of apartheid separation’ through the integration of previously segregated urban areas. thirdly, local economic development should be stimulated through local economic growth and local job creation. finally, ‘community empowerment and redistribution’ should be addressed. while these objectives are certainly laudable in the context of post-apartheid south african society, striven by striking racial inequalities, they placed a massive burden on a municipal system that had previously confined its activities to a narrow range of local services. this burden was exacerbated by an acute lack of local government capacity, especially in terms of administrative and technical skills (buthelezi and dollery, 2004; dollery, et al, 2005), as well as very weak financial compliance management (dollery and graves, 2009) and chronic funding shortages (bahl and smoke, 2003) problems also apparent at higher tiers of government in south africa (dollery, 2004; dollery and snowball, 2003). in essence, the problem of local government incapacity seems to derive mainly from a lack of skilled human resources in south african local government to perform its newly expanded responsibilities. against this background, there is an obvious need to assess the progress made by local government to achieve its new objectives. some scholarly attention has already been at this important aspect of the reform process (see, for instance, van der westhuizen and dollery 164 macdonald and pape, 2002 and miraftab, 2004). however, to date there has been no work on evaluating econometrically the efficiency of local government service delivery. the present paper thus seeks to address this neglected question by focusing on the first of the quadrilateral suit of policy objectives set out in white paper on local government (republic of south africa, 1998). accordingly, we assess the economic efficiency with which municipal councils have delivered electricity, domestic waste removal, sanitation and water in line with their rdp responsibilities using dea techniques applied to cross-sectional data covering the period 2006/2007 for 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities. the paper is divided into four main parts. section 2 provides a synoptic description of the service delivery responsibilities of district municipalities and local municipalities in the south african local government milieu. section 3 briefly outlines the theory of local government efficiency analysis and the empirical literature that has developed around it. section 4 sets out the data sources and models employed in the analysis. section 5 considers the results obtained from the estimations. the paper ends with some brief concluding comments in section 6. 2. south african local government service delivery in common with its counterparts in australia and new zealand, south african local government has traditionally provided a rather narrow range of ‘services to property’ (graves and dollery, 2009). however, in line with the white paper on local government and the rdp aims, the role of municipalities was rapidly expanded to include a much broader array of service objectives. in terms of its structure, south african local government is sub-divided into three basic categories; metropolitan municipalities, district municipalities and local municipalities. metropolitan municipalities have municipal executive and legislative authority in their respective local government areas which embrace the major urban concentrations of cape town, durban, east rand, johannesburg, pretoria and port elizabeth. by contrast, district municipalities have municipal executive and legislative authority over significant spatial areas, with primary responsibility for district-wide planning and capacity-building. within the local jurisdiction of each district municipality there are typically several individual local municipalities which share their municipal authority with the district municipality. in essence, district municipalities administer and make rules for a district, which includes more than one local municipality. south africa has a total of 284 municipalities in these three categories combined (atkinson, 2002). the intended purpose of district municipalities and local municipalities sharing responsibility for local government in their given areas is to ensure that all communities, particularly historically disadvantaged communities, have equal access to resources and services. since district municipalities usually cover both relatively affluent and relatively poor concentrations of people, consequent upon the apartheid legacy, this facilitates ‘cross-subsidisation’, enabling local municipalities without adequate administrative, financial and technical capacity to provide basic services to their historically disadvantaged communities. in addition, the system provides scope for shared services between local municipalities which can generate economics of scale and scope and attendant cost reductions. the functions of district municipalities are manifold. from the perspective of local service delivery, district efficiency sa municipalities 165 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 162-174. municipalities inter alia must plan for development for the district municipality as a whole; provide bulk supply of water that affects a large proportion of the municipalities in the district; supply bulk electricity; provide municipal health services for the whole municipalities in the district; ensure bulk sewerage purification works and main sewerage disposal; provide waste disposal sites for the whole district; provide municipal roads and storm water drainage for the district municipality area; provide municipal public works; ensure street lighting; and provide municipal parks and recreation facilities. in the present context, financial management represents an important aspect of the overall south african local government reform process. in this regard, the national treasury has played a pivotal role in the introduction of financial management reforms across local government since 1996. the legislative cornerstone of the municipal reform process has been the municipal finance management act, 56 of 2003 (mfma), supported by the annual division of revenue act. this legislation has been aligned with other important local government enactments, such as the structures act, systems act, property rates act, to form a coherent package. the prime objective of the national treasury in the local government realm has been to secure sound and sustainable management of the financial affairs of local government. this has required the development of a coherent approach to improve the delivery of services to local communities. the national treasury has implemented a strategy of financial and technical support for local government based around the mfma, including conditional grants, subsidies, technical guidelines, policy advice and the placement of international advisors with various municipalities (dollery and graves, 2009). this strategy took into account the vastly different levels of capacity of the different municipalities for implementing the reforms. it also prescribed requirements for institutional strengthening, municipal capacity building and improving municipal consultation, reporting, transparency and accountability. in sum, the mfma aims to modernise budget, accounting and financial management practices by placing local government finances on a sustainable footing in order to maximise the capacity of municipalities to deliver services to communities. 3. local government efficiency measurement ongoing local government reform around the world has led increasing sophisticated attempts to measure the effects of reform programs. this has given rise to a growing theoretical and empirical literature on local government efficiency measurement (worthington and dollery, 2000). economic efficiency has various dimensions, including allocative efficiency, productive efficiency, dynamic efficiency, scale efficiency and scope efficiency. technical or productive efficiency refers to the use of resources in the technologically most efficient manner in order to obtain the maximum possible output(s) from a given set of inputs. when productive efficiency is determined in monetary terms, it is sometimes known as cost efficiency. several features of local government service delivery have made it difficult to develop accurate measures of productive efficiency, especially for benchmarking and comparative performance measurement. these features include (a) multiple inputs and outputs in service delivery (b) problems in estimating the costs of service delivery (c) the existence of different stakeholders with competing needs impedes efficiency improvement, and (c) ‘non-discretionary’ factors beyond the control of local government (worthington and dollery, 2002). van der westhuizen and dollery 166 despite these difficulties, economists have applied five different approaches to the analysis of local public sector efficiency (worthington, 2001): least squares econometric production models; the deterministic frontier approach; the stochastic frontier approach; the fee-disposal hull approach; and dea. dea is often used to measure the relative efficiency (or productivity) of organisations in the same industry, such as municipalities. dea is typically the preferred measure of relative efficiency for complex organizations in complex environments because it readily lends itself to the analysis of multiple output organisations, especially where binding constraints affect the behaviour of the organisations in question. in essence, dea combines all the input and output information on the local municipality into a single measure of productive efficiency that lies between zero (i.e. a completely inefficient municipality) and unity (i.e. a completely efficient municipality). dea is thus an application of linear programming that can be used to measure the relative efficiency of organisations with the same goals and objectives. the empirical measurement of allocative, cost, productive and scale efficiencies involves the estimation of production frontiers. dea effectively estimates the frontier by finding a set of linear estimates that bound (or envelop) the observed data. measuring productive efficiencies using dea requires data on output and input quantities whereas measuring allocative and cost efficiencies also needs data on input prices. outputs measures used in dea studies of local government services have typically used only quantitative measures, and often ‘non-discretionary’ quantitative output measures like the number of residents receiving garbage collection. worthington and dollery (2000) provide a detailed discussion of dea and other frontier techniques for the measurement of economic efficiency in local government, whereas worthington (2001) has summarised the empirical literature on local government. 4. data and models securing adequate and satisfactory data on south african local government represents a formidable challenge to all researchers in the area (bahl and smoke, 2003). after repeated unsuccessful requests to individual local municipalities and individual district municipalities to supply relevant data that could be used to estimate the efficiency of various local services, to which only two municipalities responded positively, we were obliged to use data published by the demarcation board of south africa (2006/2007). this data comprised inter alia total number of households, rdp water, rdp sanitation, rdp electricity, rdp refuse removal, the number of staff, various types of income that can be aggregated as total operating income and staff costs. the number of households, rdp water, sanitation electricity and refuse removal are derived from the 2001 national census. this was adjusted to represent number of households in 2006/2007 using the population growth rate in proportion to the estimates of the population per province (statistics sa, 2008). the total number of households was checked using a regression equation with an independent variable given as the total number of households for 2006/2007 and the dependent variable the number of households serviced for each type of service rendered. the data used for the analysis in this paper represent budget data for the relevant variables used. in common with all efficiency measurement exercises, the quality of the data obviously determines the quality of the results obtained from the analysis. this raises various potential problems in the present context. for instance, an improved municipal budgeting process may change efficiency results without any corresponding real change in local services actually delivered. however, there is some evidence which suggests that this may not be a significant problem in the time period under review (dollery and graves, efficiency sa municipalities 167 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 162-174. 2009). in any event, cross-sectional data covering the fiscal year 2006/2007 were employed, which included 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities. a dea was performed using as output variables the total number of households receiving rdp water, rdp sanitation rdp electricity and rdp refuse removal. for input variables, the rand value of staff costs and total operational income were used. total operational income was employed as an input since this represent the aggregate funds to deliver the various local services under review; it incorporates the rand value of rates income, services income and government grants. 5. discussion of results the software package deap version 2.1 developed by coelli (1996) is ‘purpose-built’ to solve the dea problem in efficiency estimation procedures and typically forms the methodological basis for many local government efficiency measurement exercises. accordingly, it has been used for the estimations reported in this paper to generate estimates of technical efficiency and scale efficiency. the efficiency estimates are executed under constant returns to scale (crste) and variable returns to scale (vrste); they embrace output-orientated as well as input-orientated approaches. the output-orientated approach applies to a situation in which a given district municipality seeks to maximise the output with a given set of inputs, whereas an input-orientated approach applies to the situation in which the district municipality seeks to deliver the desired output with the minimum input. in the present context, discussion of our results will primarily concentrate on the efficiency estimates under variable returns to scale (vrs). following coelli et al (1998:150), the use of the constant returns to scale (crs) specification when not all firms are operating at the optimal scale results in measures of relative efficiency (te) which are confounded by scale efficiencies (se). the use of vrs specification thus permits the calculation of te devoid of these se effects. the relative efficiency estimates for the district municipalities in the country are depicted in table 1. table 1: relative efficiency estimates for district municipalities output-orientated input-orientated district crste vrste scale return crste vrste scale return 1 0.071 0.370 0.193 drs 0.071 0.108 0.665 irs 2 0.118 0.743 0.158 drs 0.118 0.126 0.936 drs 3 0.076 0.301 0.254 drs 0.076 0.158 0.483 irs 4 0.095 0.609 0.155 drs 0.095 0.107 0.883 drs 5 0.043 0.087 0.492 drs 0.043 0.266 0.160 irs 6 0.102 0.135 0.759 drs 0.102 0.352 0.291 irs 7 0.106 0.185 0.574 drs 0.106 0.348 0.306 irs 8 0.223 0.365 0.610 drs 0.223 0.265 0.840 irs 9 0.221 0.429 0.516 drs 0.221 0.451 0.491 irs 10 0.108 0.411 0.262 drs 0.108 0.212 0.509 irs van der westhuizen and dollery 168 output-orientated input-orientated district crste vrste scale return crste vrste scale return 11 0.222 1.000 0.222 drs 0.222 1.000 0.222 drs 12 0.134 0.449 0.299 drs 0.134 0.174 0.773 irs 13 0.045 0.185 0.245 drs 0.045 0.128 0.355 irs 14 0.075 0.399 0.187 drs 0.075 0.110 0.680 irs 15 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 16 0.602 0.913 0.660 drs 0.602 0.684 0.881 drs 17 0.614 0.825 0.745 drs 0.614 0.696 0.882 irs 18 0.776 0.840 0.924 drs 0.776 0.803 0.967 drs 19 0.648 0.765 0.847 irs 0.648 0.963 0.673 irs 20 0.045 0.342 0.132 drs 0.045 0.081 0.561 irs 21 0.279 0.840 0.332 drs 0.279 0.332 0.841 drs 22 0.087 0.363 0.239 drs 0.087 0.093 0.929 irs 23 0.230 1.000 0.230 irs 0.230 1.000 0.230 irs 24 0.506 1.000 0.506 irs 0.506 1.000 0.506 irs 25 0.089 0.318 0.280 drs 0.089 0.223 0.400 irs 26 0.084 0.188 0.445 drs 0.084 0.348 0.240 irs 27 0.141 0.462 0.305 drs 0.141 0.223 0.631 irs 28 0.071 0.309 0.228 drs 0.071 0.102 0.691 irs 29 0.615 0.848 0.725 drs 0.615 0.675 0.911 irs 30 0.835 1.000 0.835 drs 0.835 1.000 0.835 drs 31 0.475 0.796 0.597 drs 0.475 0.503 0.945 irs 32 0.872 1.000 0.872 drs 0.872 1.000 0.872 drs 33 0.422 0.838 0.504 drs 0.422 0.567 0.744 drs 34 0.163 0.752 0.217 drs 0.163 0.230 0.710 drs 35 0.582 0.608 0.956 drs 0.582 0.877 0.663 irs 36 0.651 1.000 0.651 drs 0.651 1.000 0.651 drs 37 0.199 0.563 0.353 drs 0.199 0.234 0.849 irs 38 0.288 0.397 0.725 drs 0.288 0.582 0.495 irs 39 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 40 0.197 1.000 0.197 drs 0.197 1.000 0.197 drs 41 0.080 0.202 0.394 drs 0.080 0.234 0.340 irs 42 0.085 0.184 0.464 drs 0.085 0.203 0.421 irs 43 0.021 0.149 0.140 drs 0.021 0.026 0.796 irs 44 0.154 0.209 0.739 drs 0.154 0.473 0.326 irs 45 0.423 0.586 0.722 drs 0.423 0.508 0.834 irs 46 0.135 0.700 0.193 drs 0.135 0.156 0.865 irs mean 0.305 0.580 0.480 0.305 0.470 0.641 min 0.021 0.087 0.132 0.021 0.026 0.160 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 efficiency sa municipalities 169 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 162-174. from the results in table 1, it can be seen that under the output-orientated approach the district municipalities were, on average, only 30.5 per cent technically efficient under constant returns to scale, 58 per cent technically efficient under variable returns to scale, and 48.0 per cent scale efficient. according to the return to scale estimates (under the ‘return’ column), all but two municipalities (i.e. district municipality numbers 15 and 39) were operating at decreasing returns to scale (drs), which means that they were operating at a scale that was too large in efficiency terms. under the input-orientated approach, the district municipalities were, on average, 47.0 per cent technical efficient in the case of variable returns to scale, and 64.1 per cent scale efficient. with regard to the returns to scale, 32 municipalities were operating under increasing returns to scale (irs), which necessarily implies that they were operating on a scale that was too small in efficiency terms. only two district municipalities were operating at the optimal scale (i.e. district municipalities numbers 15 and 39), which means that they at the optimal size in efficiency terms. the remaining district municipalities were operating at decreasing returns to scale. in the combined case of both the input-orientated and output-orientated approaches, 9 district municipalities (i.e. district municipalities numbers 11, 15, 23, 24, 30, 32, 36, 39 and 40) were fully technically efficient under variable returns to scale. this implies that these district municipalities were using their inputs optimally. thus any reduction in the inputs employed by these municipalities will result in reduced output. the remaining district municipalities can either reduce their inputs without any reduction in output or expand their output without increasing their inputs. we now consider the relative efficiency estimates obtained for individual local municipalities under the auspices of district municipalities. given space constraints, only summary results from these estimations are provided in this paper. table 2 displays the average efficiency as well as the minimum efficiency and maximum efficiency estimates for the best performing district municipality per province, according to the performance. table 2: best-performing district municipality per province province/district municipality output-orientated input-orientated crste vrste crste vrste western cape/5 average 0.618 0.690 0.618 0.736 min 0.507 0.525 0.507 0.511 max 0.775 0.914 0.775 0.934 northern cape/4 average 0.744 0.753 0.744 0.756 min 0.445 0.445 0.445 0.475 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 east cape/6 average 0.698 0.732 0.698 0.741 min 0.459 0.464 0.459 0.481 max 0.937 1.000 0.937 1.000 free state/1 average 0.763 0.780 0.763 0.768 min 0.659 0.660 0.659 0.659 max 0.962 0.972 0.962 0.974 van der westhuizen and dollery 170 province/district municipality output-orientated input-orientated crste vrste crste vrste kwazulu/natal/9 average 0.707 0.759 0.707 0.786 min 0.431 0.461 0.431 0.548 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 mpumalanga/3 average 0.543 0.797 0.543 0.740 min 0.404 0.618 0.404 0.511 max 0.703 1.000 0.703 1.000 limpopo/3 average 0.795 0.878 0.795 0.856 min 0.519 0.722 0.519 0.657 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 northwest/1 average 0.536 0.801 0.536 0.748 min 0.455 0.667 0.455 0.540 max 0.660 1.000 0.660 1.000 gauteng/3 average 0.780 0.905 0.780 0.887 min 0.598 0.853 0.598 0.827 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 in table 2, district municipality 5 is the best performing local government in the western cape province with an average efficiency estimate of 69.0 per cent (vrste) under the output-orientated approach and an average efficiency estimate of 73.6 per cent (vrste) under the input-orientated approach. more generally, efficiency estimates ranged between 52.5 per cent and 91.4 per cent under the output-orientated approach and between 51.1% per cent and 93.4 per cent under the input-orientated approach. none of the local municipalities operating under the auspices of this district municipality was fully technically efficient. the free state is the only other province in which its most efficient district municipality had none of its local municipalities operating at full technical efficiency. the average technical efficiency estimate under the output-orientated approach was 78.0 per cent and 76.8 per cent under the input-orientated approach. in terms of the output-orientated approach, the efficiency estimates ranged between 66.0 per cent and 97.2 per cent. by contrast, under the input-orientated approach, estimates ranged between 65.9 per cent and 97.4 per cent. in the remaining seven south african provinces, there were a number of district municipalities which encompassed local municipalities which were fully technical efficient. district municipality 3 in the gauteng province exhibited the highest average technical efficiency estimate (i.e. 90.5 per cent under the output-orientated approach and 88.7 per cent under the input-orientated approach). table 3 exhibits the worst performing district municipalities per province. district municipality 5 in the northern cape had the lowest average efficiency estimate. under the output-orientated approach, its average efficiency estimate was 40.7 per cent and under the input-orientated approach it was 36 per cent. in general, the efficiency estimate for this district municipality ranged between 16.6 per cent and 60.0 per cent. efficiency sa municipalities 171 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 162-174. table 3: worst-performing district municipality per province province/district municipality output-orientated input-orientated crste vrste crste vrste western cape/4 average 0.456 0.517 0.468 0.489 min 0.354 0.380 0.361 0.372 max 0.672 0.689 0.617 0.665 northern cape/5 average 0.368 0.447 0.368 0.412 min 0.136 0.245 0.136 0.211 max 0.695 0.726 0.695 0.753 east cape/5 average 0.328 0.407 0.328 0.362 min 0.154 0.166 0.154 0.173 max 0.538 0.600 0.538 0.542 free state/5 average 0.587 0.694 0.587 0.654 min 0.527 0.620 0.527 0.577 max 0.676 0.804 0.676 0.759 kwazulu/natal/10 average 0.591 0.609 0.591 0.623 min 0.388 0.399 0.388 0.485 max 0.838 0.849 0.838 0.854 mpumalanga/1 average 0.529 0.643 0.529 0.586 min 0.396 0.480 0.396 0.397 max 0.644 0.812 0.644 0.752 limpopo/4 average 0.519 0.597 0.519 0.560 min 0.315 0.387 0.315 0.315 max 0.709 0.827 0.709 0.768 northwest/4 average 0.594 0.706 0.594 0.695 min 0.407 0.459 0.407 0.463 max 0.795 1.000 0.795 1.000 gauteng/1 average 0.510 0.670 0.510 0.620 min 0.373 0.454 0.373 0.373 max 0.669 1.000 0.669 1.000 van der westhuizen and dollery 172 in table 3, it is interesting to note is that although district 4 in the north west province and district 1 in gauteng province were included in the list of worst performers, both had local municipalities that were fully technically efficient. this means that there were local municipalities that were using their inputs optimally even in the worst-performing district municipalities. table 4 displays the average efficiency estimates of all the local municipalities per province. table 4: average efficiency estimates of local municipalities per province province/district municipality output-orientated input-orientated crste vrste crste vrste western cape average 0.469 0.552 0.469 0.508 min 0.354 0.380 0.354 0.355 max 0.775 0.914 0.775 0.934 province/district municipality output-orientated input-orientated crste vrste crste vrste northern cape average 0.589 0.624 0.589 0.646 min 0.136 0.245 0.136 0.211 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 eastern cape average 0.512 0.569 0.512 0.554 min 0.154 0.166 0.154 0.173 max 0.937 1.000 0.937 1.000 free state average 0.624 0.724 0.624 0.701 min 0.435 0.450 0.435 0.436 max 0.962 1.000 0.962 1.000 kwazulu/natal average 0.619 0.673 0.619 0.676 min 0.315 0.358 0.315 0.361 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 mpumalanga average 0.558 0.722 0.558 0.678 min 0.396 0.464 0.396 0.397 max 0.773 1.000 0.773 1.000 limpopo average 0.624 0.750 0.624 0.714 min 0.300 0.387 0.300 0.315 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 northwest average 0.607 0.755 0.607 0.721 min 0.406 0.459 0.406 0.406 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 gauteng average 0.677 0.794 0.677 0.767 min 0.373 0.454 0.373 0.373 max 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 table 4 shows that eight out of the nine south african provinces had one or more local municipality that was fully technically efficient. only the western cape had no local municipality that was fully technically efficient. the gauteng province had the highest average efficiency estimate of 79.4 per cent under the output-orientated approach and 76.7 per cent under the input-orientated approach. the western cape was the worst-performing province with an average efficiency estimate of 55.25 per cent under the outputorientated approach and 50.8 per cent under the input-orientated approach. there are thus noteworthy inter-provincial differences in the relative efficiencies of local municipalities. efficiency sa municipalities 173 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 162-174. 6. concluding remarks the results obtained from this first preliminary attempt at measuring relative efficiency in south african local government should be regarded with caution mainly because the data from which they were derived are questionable. it would have been preferable to employ data provided directly from a large sample of district municipalities and local municipalities. however, since this proved impossible, we were obliged to use the only available data. future research into the efficiency measurement of south african local government should seek to construct data from reliable sources. nonetheless, because there is no compelling a priori reason to assume that systematic differences in data reliability between provinces or between municipalities, from a policy perspective it is still possible to draw at least some useful tentative conclusions from our preliminary results. in the first place, as we have seen from the results in table 4, considerable variation exists in the average efficiency scores between some provinces. this suggests that the financial and technical support for local government provided by the national treasury to local government, which includes policy advice and the placement of international advisors in municipalities, should be more carefully targeted between the different provinces, and biased towards the worst-performing provinces. secondly, because significant variation in efficiency also occurs within the constellation of municipalities in any given province, a closely related policy option would be to direct 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(2002), “incorporating contextual information in public sector efficiency analysis: a comparative study of nsw local government”, applied economics, 34(3), 453-464. microsoft word 07 pretorius aucamp.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 123-148. ʼn persoonlike waardering van hennie aucamp as mentor j pretorius1 opsomming in hierdie studie benut die skrywer die 5d-raamwerk en teoretiese en metodologiese onderbou van waarderende ondersoek en persoonlike waardering vir ʼn persoonlike waardering van die skrywer, hennie aucamp. by name handel dit oor die invloed van aucamp se mentorskap op die navorser se persoonlike en professionele ontwikkeling. na ʼn waarderende onderhoud met die tv-aanbieder en stemkunstenaar, coenie de villiers, word die volgende vyf positiewe temas van sowel die navorser as de villiers se vriendskap met aucamp geïdentifiseer en ontleed: • keerpunt – ontmoeting met aucamp • aucamp se intellek en ruimheid van gees en ons verwonderdering • mentorskap en briewe • persoonlike keuse van aucamp se aangrypendste skryfwerk en uitsonderlike vakmanskap • persoonlike beskouings omtrent wat ander kunstenaars by aucamp kan leer ʼn foto-collage is saamgestel om as visuele agtergrond vir die waardering te dien. die navorser het ʼn persoonlike onderhoud met aucamp gevoer om sy reaksie op die geïdentifiseerde temas te verkry en het aucamp se reaksie met die bespreking geïntegreer. trefwoorde: persoonlike waardering; 5d-siklus van waarderende ondersoek; hennie aucamp as mentor; coenie de villiers; positiewe temas (english abstract at the end of the article – ed.) 1. inleiding in 2012, na ʼn besoek aan rome om die skilderye van die italiaanse skilder michelangelo merisi da caravaggio te waardeer, skryf ek ʼn akademiese artikel oor sy lewe en werk wat later deur litnet akademies aanvaar en gepubliseer word (pretorius 2013a). terwyl ek in rome is, stuur ek ʼn brief met ʼn aantal poskaarte met afdrukke van caravaggio se skilderye aan hennie aucamp, my mentor en vriend. hy bedank my daarvoor en het, soos dikwels in die verlede, ń aanbeveling gereed: “gaan lees tog wat ek oor hom geskryf het in hittegolf.” ek doen dit en besluit om aucamp se sonnet “caravaggio (1571–1610)” (aucamp 2002:28) in my artikel in te sluit, omdat dit heelwat van die temas van die navorsing belig. ek stuur ʼn ʼn kopie van die artikel aan aucamp en hy skryf op 22 augustus 2012 die volgende: nou het gebeur wat ek altyd in die vooruitsig gestel het: jou eksieperfeksie prosastyl het ʼn venue gevind. mag die caravaggio-stuk die eerste van ʼn reeks wees wat straks later ʼn publikasie kan word. ek voel geëerd dat my caravaggiogedig gebruik gaan word. 1 . dr jannie pretorius, skool vir wiskunde, natuurwetenskappe en tegnologie-onderwys, fakulteit opvoedkunde, universiteit van die vrystaat. e-pos: pretoriusjph@ufs.ac.za pretorius 124 op 30 oktober 2012 skryf ek terug: baie dankie vir jou moeite met jou laaste brief. dankie, veral, vir die mooi kommentaar en aanmoediging. jou wens dat dit die eerste van ʼn reeks sal wees, het my aan die dink gesit: wie kan volgende wees? ek het dadelik geweet wie. […] ek het nog nooit ons vriendskap aan die groot klok gehang nie, maar my ervarings wat ek tydens en na die skryf van die caravaggio-artikel gehad het, het my die waarde en bevrediging van ʼn reis deur interne landskappe laat besef en waardeer. dit is tyd, hennie, dat ek my verantwoordelikheid teenoor jou en ons vriendskap nakom: ek moet streng en omvattend gaan dink daaroor, en dan ʼn artikel in die formaat van die caravaggio-een gaan skryf. op 19 november 2012 kry ek toestemming van aucamp om met die navorsing voort te gaan: “doe zoo voort – alle seën op jou arbeid.” ek voltooi die persoonlike waardering en in desember 2013 stuur ek ʼn kopie van die artikel na aucamp. 2. die teoretiese begronding van waarderende ondersoek en persoonlike waardering waarderende ondersoek, volgens cooperrider, whitney en stavros (2008:3), is die soeke na die beste in mense, hul organisasies en die wêreld waarin hulle leef. dit behels die ontdekking van dit wat “lewe” aan ʼn lewende stelsel gee wanneer dit optimaal effektief is. hulle argumenteer verder dat dit die kuns behels om onvoorwaardelik positiewe vrae op sodanige wyse te stel dat die positiewe potensiaal van ʼn stelsel verhoog word. whitney en trostenbloom (2010:1) is van mening dat sodanige vrae en dialoog oor sterk punte, suksesse, waardes, hoop en drome op sigself tot verandering in organisasies kan lei. hoewel die metodologie van waarderende ondersoek aanvanklik op stelsels en organisasies toegepas is, is die eerste waarderende ondersoek van ʼn individu hier te lande deur crous, de bruyn, roodt e.a. (2006) van die psigometris johann schepers gedoen. pretorius (2010, 2012, 2013a) het drie waarderende ondersoeke van uitsonderlike of artistieke individue onderneem. die eerste van hierdie studies het ńwaardering van die biologie-onderwyser gerhardus bosch behels (pretorius 2010). daarop het ʼn waardering van emme-lancia faro, ʼn voormalige hoofmeisie van die sekondêre meisieskool oranje in bloemfontein gevolg (pretorius 2012). na die waardering van die skilder caravaggio is reeds verwys. van hierdie studie skryf reed en verma (2013:65) in die international journal of appreciative inquiry: one of the messages that the study gives us is that a careful, systematic approach can make a considerable contribution to understanding, where impressions are questioned and conclusions are challenged. an important highlight is about the methodology where at one stage the researcher donned multiple hats, becoming both interviewer and interviewee, and his smooth transitioning back to researcher. his experience validates the inherently improvisational nature of ai. we hope this column will encourage many more ai enthusiasts to experiment with it as a research methodology for unique topics like the one covered in the present column. volgens kelm (2005, 2006, 2008), orem, blinkert en clancy (2007), cooperrider, whitney en stavros (2008), whitney en trosten-bloom (2010), asook watkins, mohr en kelly (2011) vorm vyf teoretiese beginsels die grondslag van waarderende ondersoek: die konstruksionistiese beginsel, die gelyktydigheidsbeginsel, die poëtiese beginsel, die afwagtingsbeginsel en die positiewe beginsel. pretorius (2013a:480-7) het tydens die waardering van caravaggio hierdie bronne ontleed en die vyf beginsels op persoonlike aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 125 waardering (pw) toegepas. in hierdie persoonlike waardering van aucamp word daarom slegs kortliks hierna verwys. die handhawing van die konstruksionistiese beginsel tydens ń pw beteken in wese dat ons lewenservarings nie bloot met ons gebéúr nie, maar dat ons dit eintlik skep. mense maak dus sin uit hul ervarings soos hulle met die wêreld omgaan. binne die konteks van hierdie artikel sou dit beteken dat ek sin sou maak of konstrueer uit my verhouding met aucamp na gelang van my omgaan met die dokumente, bronne en gesprekke. die poëtiese beginsel veronderstel dat ons vryheid van keuse het met betrekking tot dit wat ons wil bestudeer. kelm (2005:31) verwoord dit soos volg: we can find whatever we want in a person or situation: good and bad, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly. what we choose to focus on creates our reality. the more attention we give to something, the more it expands as part of our experience. tydens die persoonlike waardering van aucamp stel hierdie teoretiese beginsel my in staat om persoonlike voorkeure ten opsigte van die keuse van aspekte van ons vriendskap en sy skryfwerk uit te oefen. omdat ek byvoorbeeld nog nooit ʼn uitvoering van sy kabarette bygewoon het nie en dus nie daardeur geraak is nie hoef ek nie daarop te fokus nie. ʼn publikasie soos lendetaal (aucamp 2011) vind ek weens my beperkte verwysingsraamwerk in die veld van homo-erotiek in groot mate ontoeganklik en ek kon dit nie gelees kry nie. sy dagboeke (aucamp 1996, 1997, 2003a) en briewe gryp my egter aan en ek herlees dit só gereeld dat gedeeltes daarvan in my bewussyn ingebed is. ek haal dit ook gereeld aan wanneer ek dit nodig kry. volgens die poëtiese beginsel sal hierdie en ander verkose aspekte van sy oeuvre en ons vriendskap ʼn groter wordende ruimte in my psige inneem, omdat ek bewustelik daarop fokus. vir watkins, mohr en kelly (2011:73) beteken die gelyktydigheidsbeginsel dat die ondersoek en die verandering wat dit teweeg bring, nie van mekaar geskei kan word nie, want dit vind gelyktydig plaas. ondersoek ís dus intervensie: “the seeds of change – that is, the things people think and talk about, the things people discover and learn, and the things that inform dialogue and inspired images of the future – are implicit in the very first questions we ask.” die implikasie wat dit vir my pw van aucamp inhou, is dat die eerste vrae wat ek aan myself en andere betreffende aucamp mag vra reeds verandering sal veroorsaak – en ek moet gereed wees om daardie veranderinge aan te teken en te verwerk. mense en menslike stelsels groei in die rigting van dit waaroor hul aanhoudend vrae vra. hoewel hierdie pw dus handel oor dit wat aucamp in die verlede vir my beteken het, sal die pw ook my persoonlike groei in die toekoms beïnvloed en stimuleer. die afwagtingsbeginsel suggereer dat die prentjies of beelde omtrent die toekoms wat ons in ons gemoedere skep ons huidige aksies rig – en dit skep dan daardie einste toekoms (kelm 2008:50). ons toekoms is dus ʼn verrysende realiteit wat geskep word deur die huidige beelde of prentjies van wat ons dink dit sal wees. ek het daarom ʼn foto-collage geskep wat as visuele agtergrond en verbeelding van die pw van aucamp kon dien (sien figuur 3 en bespreking daarna). die laaste grondliggende beginsel van ń pw is die positiewe beginsel. positiewe emosies skep meer vreugde, maar dit is ook aan die kern van ʼn produktiewe lewe (kelm 2008:68): “we can build momentum toward greater joy by focusing on the positive core and paying attention to what really takes us upward.” kelm (2008:68-9) argumenteer ook dat ons op ander mense pretorius 126 kan fokus om ons eie persoonlike ontwikkeling te stimuleer: “the more we focus on the positive core of ourselves and others [my kursivering], the happier we become. it is a journey of discovery as we inquire into the best of who we are and what life has to offer.” hierdie beginsel skep dus vir my die akademiese en professionele vryheid om op die lewegewende, positiewe aspekte van my vriendskap met aucamp te fokus – nie net omdat die positiewe beginsel die ruimte daarvoor skep nie, maar ook omdat ek aan geen negatiewe aspek kán dink nie. 3. die metodologie van waarderende ondersoek: die 5d-siklus ooreenkomstig die 5d-siklus van waarderende ondersoek (whitney & trosten-bloom 2010:6, watkins, mohr & kelly 2011:100-1) – sien figuur 1 – het die navorsing in vyf fases verloop. pretorius (2013a) het ook die 5d-siklus vir sy persoonlike waardering van caravaggio gevolg. die gebeure tydens elkeen van die fases word vervolgens bespreek. “define” definiëring positiewe onderwerp: ʼn persoonlike waardering van die invloed van aucamp op my persoonlike en professionele ontwikkeling. 2. “discovery” ontdekking “wat gee lewe aan aucamp as mentor van my persoonlike en professionele lewe?” (die beste van wat was) ʼn persoonlike waardering die positiewe kern van aucamp se invloed op my ontwikkeling 3. “dream” droom “wat kan wees?” (geleenthede vir die huidige en die toekoms: hoe sal die navorsing en ontdekkingsproses verloop om maksimale persoonlike en professionele begrip en ʼn akademiese artikel op te lewer?) die identifisering van positiewe temas uit waarderende onderhoud 4. “design” ontwerp “wat behoort die raamwerk van die artikel en persoonlike begrip te wees?” (die ideale artikel en selfbegrip) innovering 5. “destiny” destinasie “hoe en wat skryf ek neer, en wat leer ek uit die ervarings en interpretasies?” (deurlopende bemagtiging, prestasie en leer) f i g u u r 1 : d i e 5 d r a a m w e r k a s s t r u k t u r e e l w e t e n s k a p l i k e o n d e r b o u v i r d i e s t u d i e ( s o o s a a n g e p a s u i t w h i t n e y & t r o s t e n b l o o m 2 0 1 0 : 6 e n p r e t o r i u s 2 0 1 3 a : 4 9 0 ) aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 127 3.1. die definiëringsfase tydens hierdie eerste fase is die hoofdoel of positiewe onderwerp van die studie bepaal as ʼn persoonlike waardering van die invloed van aucamp se mentorskap en vriendskap op my persoonlike en professionele ontwikkeling oor die afgelope tien jaar. 3.2 die ontdekkingsfase tydens die ontdekkingsfase (sien figuur 1) is ʼn waarderende onderhoud – volgens whitney & trosten-bloom (2010:12) “[t]he starting point and essential component of any appreciative inquiry process” –met die tv-aanbieder en stemkunstenaar coenie de villiers (de villiers 2013) oor sy vriendskap met aucamp gevoer (sien figuur 2). sy antwoorde op die volgende waarderende vrae is as katalisators benut om oor my eie antwoorde daarop te reflekteer: f i g u u r 2 : ʼn w a a r d e r e n d e o n d e r h o u d i s o p 2 5 j a n u a r i e 2 0 1 3 m e t c o e n i e d e v i l l i e r s g e v o e r pretorius 128 1. wat is jou eerste of aangenaamste herinnering aan hennie? 2. hy sê in koffer in berlyn (aucamp 2013a): “op grond van my modelle kon ek vir coenie de villiers sê watter soort musiek ek wil hê as inleiding. as intro het ek musiek gevra wat watergeluide suggereer. en coenie het dikwels hoogs kundig oor sy toonsettings van my werk gepraat voor skool-skryfgroepe.” julle het dus ʼn intuïtiewe aanvoeling? 3. jy het iets gesê oor sy ruimheid van gees. so, as jy nou moet sê, wat is die een enkele ding van hom, die kern van hennie aucamp, waarsonder hy nie dieselfde sou wees nie? 4. as jy een spesifieke geleentheid moet uitlig waaroor jy kon sê: “daardie tyd was ons hoogs betrokke by mekaar en ons was connected”. wat sou jy daaroor sê? 5. julle het handgeskrewe briewe ook gewissel. wat het daardie briewe aan jou gedoen? 6. en as ek nou vra, wat is jou gunsteling geskrewe stuk van hom? die ding wat jy aanmekaar weer gaan lees, of wat in jou gedagtes leef? 7. wat sou jy graag wou hê dat toekomstige of ander kunstenaars by hennie leer? wat is jou wens daaroor? hierdie onderhoud is getranskribeer en positiewe temas is daaruit geïdentifiseer. 3.3 die droomfase en die foto-collage f i g u u r 3 : ʼn f o t o c o l l a g e t e r u i t b e e l d i n g v a n d i e n a v o r s i n g s p r o s e s ( s i e n b e s p r e k i n g i n t e k s ) aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 129 tydens die derde fase van die persoonlike waardering is, in ooreenstemming met die algemene praktyk in waarderende ondersoek, ʼn kreatiewe foto-collage saamgestel (whitney & trosten-bloom 2010:184; watkins, mohr & kelly 2011:216) ter uitbeelding van die navorsingsproses (sien figuur 3). soos reeds genoem, was die hoofdoel daarvan om die collage as ʼn visuele agtergrond en verbeelding van die verloop van die navorsingsen skryfproses te laat dien. die kreatiewe proses van die ontwikkeling van die foto-collage is geïnisieer en gevoed deur die voorblad van beeltenis verbode (aucamp 1998), na die skildery verboden af te beelden (1937) – sien figuur 4 − van magritte (aucamp 1998:4). volgens aucamp (1998:4) het magritte die skildery van sy beskermheer edward james (1907–1984) geskilder toe hy in londen by james geloseer het. die skildery toon nie james se gesig nie, slegs die titel van die boek wat op die marmerkaggelrak lê. die boek is die franse weergawe van edgar allen poe − ʼn skrywer bekend vir die makabere en die misterieuse −se enigste roman. f i g u u r 4 : v e r b o d e n a f t e b e e l d e n ( m u s e u m v a n b o i m a n s b e u n i n g e n 2 0 1 3 ) pretorius 130 wat ek poog om in my foto-collage uit te beeld (sien figuur 3), is inderdaad die veelvlakkigheid en misterie van my persoonlike waardering van aucamp. die proses is geloods met die waarderende onderhoud met de villiers, wat – soos reeds genoem − ʼn poging was om my eie vriendskap met aucamp te weerspieël en te herken in dié van de villiers en aucamp. die primêre doel van die persoonlike waardering was wel ʼn verkenning van interne landskappe rondom my ervaring van aucamp en sy mentorskap, maar ek het dit moeilik gevind om die “ek” deurlopend sentraal te laat staan (aucamp 1998:7). ek het probeer om my eie ervarings en interpretasies uit te beeld, maar die beelde en woorde wat dikwels spontaan na vore gekom het, was dié van aucamp. hierdie opwelling van woorde en insigte was geensins steurend nie – trouens, dit het my, soos dikwels in die verlede, gehelp om my eie emosies en ervarings te verstaan en te verwoord. ʼn verdere uitdaging binne hierdie verband was die noodsaak om persoonlike prestasies te vermeld as voorbeelde van die professionele ontwikkeling wat deur aucamp se mentorskap moontlik gemaak is. dit het my verleë laat voel. die invloed van sy mentorskap word egter juis as wetenskaplike verskynsel ondersoek en die omvang daarvan sou nie behoorlik ondersoek of verreken kon word sonder om na persoonlike mylpale te verwys nie. tydens die droomfase is ʼn onderhoud ook met aucamp gevoer (aucamp 2013b) om sy reaksie op die geïdentifiseerde positiewe temas te verkry. tydens die onderhoud het aucamp my dan ook gerus gestel dat die woorde en insigte wel uit myself kom: “jy kan maar net gee wat jy het, jy weet. jy sou nie by daai antwoorde uitgekom het as jy dit nie reeds lankal in jou omgedra het nie” (aucamp 2013b). 3.4 die ontwerpfase tydens hierdie vierde, voorlaaste fase van die persoonlike waardering is die temas ontleed en ingebed in aucamp se insigte wat oor die jare daaromtrent gepubliseer is. my korrespondensie met hom is ontleed om voorbeelde van sy invloed op my ontwikkeling uit te lig en met die positiewe temas te belyn. na sy dood op 20 maart 2014 is die talle huldeblyke wat in die digitale en gedrukte pers verskyn het, gebruik om die geldigheid van die positiewe temas te bevestig en hul teenwoordigheid in aucamp se vriendskappe met ander mense aan te dui. 3.5 die destinasiefase tydens die laaste fase van die persoonlike waardering is die artikel voltooi, vir keuring voorgelê en vir publikasie goedgekeur. vervolgens word die positiewe temas van aucamp se mentorskap aangebied en ontleed. 4. temas van aucamp se mentorskap 4.1. keerpunt: ontmoet vir aucamp vir my, soos trouens ook vir de villiers, verteenwoordig die eerste ontmoeting met aucamp ʼn keerpunt in ons lewens. de villiers (2013) beskryf hul dramatiese ontmoeting op treffende wyse: aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 131 hennie het ek op ʼn baie interessante manier ontmoet en dit is miskien, in my kop, die insident wat vir die res van my lewe geresoneer het. baie jare gelede, in die sewentigs, vroeë tagtigs, tagtig, een-en-tagtig, ek praat onder korreksie. daar was baie min afrikaanse musiek. mense weet regtig nie hoe min daar was nie. sonja heroldt het “ek verlang na jou” opgeneem en dit was dít. en nou, in retrospek, kan mens sien daar was die musiek en liriek-beweging en toe daarna die voëlvry-beweging, maar ons eerste paar ouens het nou maar musiek en liriek begin. dit was myself, laurika rauch, koos du plessis, lucas maree, louis van rensburg, jannie du toit. daar was so ʼn paar van ons. en destyds het ons by die markteater gespeel. daar was nie ʼn beweging nie. ons was net ʼn paar ‘pêlle’ wat gehou het van wat die ander doen. en toe het ons vyf kaartjies verkoop. en ons was ongelooflik opgewonde daaroor, met koos du plessis op die verhoog. jy sal vandag nie daai kaartjie kan koop met geld nie. en toe, soos die afrikaner nou maak, toe het hulle besluit om, na die skrywers bietjie werk begin skep het, om ʼn groot konferensie te hou by die sauk destyds, by name die musiek en liriekkonferensie, want afrikaners gee baie graag vir goed etikette en dan verstaan hulle dit beter. en toe is ons af [sauk toe]. ons was almal uitgenooi en ʼn paar van ons is genooi om op te tree: clarabelle van niekerk, wat nou in pennsylvania bly, koos du plessis, myself, laurika, louis van rensburg, jannie du toit. ek dink nie lucas was daar nie, maar in elk geval. ek was in die weermag gewees – in my basies, aan die einde van my basies. so ek het drie haartjies gehad met die uniform. ek kom toe uit die bos uit vir hierdie ding, want hulle het gesê: ‘ons soek hierdie kind. hy skryf ook afrikaans wat hierby inpas.’ toe kom ek daar by hulle. en jannie, dit was die slegste en die beste dag van my lewe, want ek ... nou sit die hele ouditorium vol kenners. daar was seker 300, 400 mense: akademici, kundiges, kwasi-kundiges. en op die meeste vyftien skrywers wat actually iets skep, waarvan ek nou deel was. en die inkleding van die ding was dat jy sou nou ʼn song speel en dan sal daar nou kommentaar en gesprek uit die gehoor wees terwyl jy op die verhoog sit. en ek het daar gesit met my uniform, jy weet. en ek het ʼn song gespeel wat op die heel eerste album uit ’82 kom. so, ek dink dit was 1980, ‘79, daar rond, met die naam van ‘druiweboer’. ‘somer sluimer hier/in donker eik waar jaar na jaar/die tyd my mos kom roer/en sag die son laat sypel deur die mos.’ something like that. ek speel. toe ek klaar is, toe begin die gesprek. en so ʼn plomperige man, wat sal naamloos bly, staan op. and he ripped into me. ek dink dit voel soos as ʼn mens vir jou sê jy het ʼn terminale siekte. ek kon na’and nie meer hoor wat hy sê nie. my mond was droog. my handpalms het gesweet. ek het gevoel soos ʼn insek onder ʼn mikroskoop. maar ek het geweet, in daai oomblik, dat ek sal nooit in my lewe weer ʼn woord of ʼn noot skryf nie. dis oor. en na hom toe staan ʼn man op met so ʼn geel leerbaadjie, so ʼn pampoenleerbaadjie. en in die mooiste afrikaans, maar snydend, fyn, geartikuleerd, vat hy toe dié ou aan. ek sê niks. ek sit nou maar daar. en hy haal vir hom so stukkie vir stukkie uitmekaar, laat all the king’s horses and all the king’s men sou daai ou nooit weer aanmekaar kan sit nie. en hy eindig toe, toe sê hy: ‘ek dink wat ons pretorius 132 gehoor het is ʼn werk wat geniaal is en wat ʼn hele nuwe platform daar skep in afrikaans – en hoe afrikaans en liriek tot nou toe gebruik is en ek dink dis magistraal.’ tjoeps, gaan sit hy. applous. en ek dog: ‘ek weet nie wie jy is nie, maar jy – vir wat jy nou gedoen het, sal ek vir die res van my lewe vir jou dankbaar wees.’ ek gaan toe na ʼn funksie na die tyd, want dit is ook ʼn ding wat afrikaners goed hou. ons hou van funksies. boonste uitkykvloer van die sauk en snacks, drinks. en die ou is toe daar. en ek sê toe: ‘wie is daai man?’ en almal sê vir my: ‘maar weet jy nie wie dit is nie?’ ek sê: ‘ek weet nie wie dit is nie. ek kom uit die vrystaat, man. en ek kom uit die bos uit nou.’ jy weet? hulle sê: ‘dis professor hennie aucamp. die hertzogpryswenner. dié hennie aucamp.’ en toe gaan ek na hom toe en toe sê ek vir hom: ‘professor aucamp, ek wil net vir jou baie dankie sê, because today you saved my life. en as jy dit nie gedoen het nie sou ek nooit weer geskryf het nie.’ he was só kind. en he saved my life. ek sou nooit in my lewe, ooit weer, een wóórd geskryf het as dit nie was vir daai man wat opgestaan het nie. toe het ons vriende geword, jy weet, en hy het my werk, of wat ek gedoen het – dit klink vreeslik pretensieus om te sê hy’t my werk gevolg – en altyd as iets verskyn het, het hy vir my geskryf. my eie verbintenis met aucamp het aan die einde van 2003 begin. ek het die eerste van sy drie gepubliseerde dagboeke – gekaapte tyd (1996) – pas gelees en was getref deur die insiggewende, verhelderende insigte wat ek daaruit kon put. ek kon ook aanklank vind by sy beskrywing van sy eie leesprosesse: “skielik stol ek by ʼn bepaalde passasie: ʼn reël het ʼn oop senuwee geraak. ʼn reël wat my aan myself verduidelik” (2004:11). ek beskryf my kennismaking met aucamp en sy werk tydens die gesprek soos volg aan de villiers: in 2004 het ek daardie dagboeke van hom gelees, die gepubliseerde dagboeke. en die goed is so vol van daardie ... hulle noem dit mos illuminerende gedagtes. en toe besluit ek net ek gaan berge versit, maar ek moet met die ou praat. en toe het ek hom opgespoor. toe bel ek hom, toe sê ek vir hom: ‘prof. aucamp, ek wil net vir jou sê jou dagboeke inspireer my.’ ek sê ook vir hom: ‘ek is ʼn laat vaarder op jou seë, maar jou dagboeke inspireer my.’ ag, en toe het ek hom gevra hy moet sy boeke teken. en onthou nou, kyk, kom ons sê hy het jou ontmoet as ʼn komponis. my het hy ... ek was van die straat af. ʼn onderwyser by jf [jim fouché hoërskool in bloemfontein]. en daai selfde ruimheid van gees met ʼn gewone mens wat ... hy kon tog nie êrens belange in my gehad het en gesê het: ‘kom ek belê in hierdie ou’ nie. op 25 maart 2004 stuur ek toe ʼn faks aan hom waarin ek vra vir ʼn kort ontmoeting, sodat hy voorin ʼn paar van sy boeke in my besit kon teken. ons ontmoet op 31 maart vir koffie by die kaapse waterfront, en op 5 april skryf ek in ʼn kort bedankingsbrief die volgende: dat jy, as een van die grootste vakmanne wat afrikaans ooit gesien het, waaragtig die moeite doen om jouself beskikbaar te stel vir ʼn ontmoeting met een van jou bewonderaars, oortuig my finaal van dít: dat jy nooit jou relevansie sal verloor nie. dat jy midde-in die kookpot van afrikaans staan; op grondvlak nog reusebydraes maak. jy’t my literêre leefwêreld binne een enkele uur ʼn hele paar vlakke gelig, ʼn stuk betekenis daarin geplaas. dankie ook daarvoor. aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 133 omdat ek na soveel jare nog steeds verwonderd is oor die geredelikheid waarmee aucamp my binne sy professionele dampkring toegelaat en selfs verwelkom het – hy was immers op daardie stadium reeds een van die mees bekroonde afrikaanse skrywers – het ek hom pertinent daaromtrent uitgevra tydens my onderhoud met hom: dit was – en is nog steeds – vir my ʼn verrassing dat jy my – en vele andere – so onvoorwaardelik onder jou vleuels geneem en oor die jare met raad en voorstelle gevoed het. hóékom, hennie? in sy antwoord het hy weer-eens sy rol as opvoedkundige beklemtoon, maar hy het dit ook nadruklik gestel dat sy openheid persoonlike en professionele risiko’s ingehou het: eintlik lê dit alles daarin dat ek ʼn onderwyser is. ek sou nooit dié dinge gedoen het as ek nie ʼn onderwyser was nie. ek kyk na my ander stywe vriende – hulle hou hulle baie eenkant en dis vir hulle baie vreemd dat jy jouself so kan oopgooi. vir my is dit belangrik dat jy gee wat jy het. ‘wie niet geeft wat hij heeft, is niet waard dat hij leeft.’ daai reëltjie het vasgesteek. dis hoekom ek die onderwysberoep gekies het. jy kan eintlik alles daarna herlei dat ek ʼn onderwyser is. mense wat nie verstaan dat die onderwys vir my belangrik is nie sal my nooit heeltemal verstaan nie. […] ek het darem oor die jare versigtiger begin ‘ja’ sê, want ek het ʼn paar nare ondervindings van mense wat my verskriklik misbruik het. koos prinsloo is die klassieke voorbeeld. dit was nie baie aangenaam nie, en dit was onverdiend gewees (aucamp 2013b). dat aucamp ten spyte van so ʼn negatiewe ervaring steeds bereid was om by my professionele ontwikkeling betrokke te raak, beklemtoon en belig juis die vaste oortuiging waarmee hy sy roeping as opvoedkundige volvoer het. sy onmiddellike en ongeveinsde aanname dat ek, wat geen noemenswaardige publikasies agter my naam gehad het nie, iemand besonders was, het my laat besef: dit sou nie anders kon nie − ek sou móés skryf. die hertzogpryswenner aucamp het immers in my geglo. 4.2. aucamp se intellek en ruimheid van gees en ons verwondering ek onthou nie veel van ons eerste ontmoeting by die kaapse waterfront nie – net maar dat ek uit my diepte gevoel het tydens die taamlik eensydige gesprek, gestrand tussen al die insigte oor skrywers en boeke wat hy met my gedeel het. hy reageer binne twee dae op my bedankingsbrief: “baie dankie vir jou hartversterkende faks. ek het een paragraaf oorgedra na my dagboek – iets om my te versukkereer vir die pad vorentoe wat, ideologies gesproke, vol slaggate gaan wees.” die enkele kere daarna wat ons persoonlik ontmoet het, het volgens dieselfde patroon verloop: aucamp gesels, neem aan dat ek bekend is met die groot skrywers en sangers waaroor sy gesprek gaan, en ek luister verwonderd. ek het net een foto van so ń ontmoeting – aan die einde van 2005 in sy woonstel (sien figuur 5). de villiers (2013) het dieselfde ervaring betreffende aucamp se besondere intellek: kyk, ek moet jou sê, tot vandag toe – en hy’s ʼn vriend van my, is ek so geïntimideer deur sy intellek, jy weet? en die wonderlike ding is hoe beskeie hy daaroor is. hy deel net uit. hy deel net uit. ‘wil jy ʼn boek hê? dis joune.’ jy weet? en that’s the measure of his greatness. pretorius 134 op my vraag omtrent die een enkele ding van aucamp waarsonder hy net nie dieselfde sou wees nie, het de villiers (2013) soos volg gereageer: ek dink daar is twee goed en hulle is aan die heup verbonde. ek dink dis moeilik om te skei. die een is sy reuse-intellek. maar só beskeie, jy weet? nou, toe ek weer in die kaap was, ons het die boek [de villiers 2012] gaan vier, toe vat ek hom vir ete. jy weet, jannie, dan sal hy soos ʼn verhandeling doodluiters in die gesprek sit, datums aanhaal, kruisverwysings maak, intertekstuele konneksies maak. soos ek nou vir jou sê: “jy sien, die weer vandag is darem maar lekker.” [...] so daar is regtig ʼn baie, baie rare intellek, ʼn diepte, ʼn breedte van ervaring en dan, daarmee saam, ʼn geweldige ruimheid van gees. hý deel. hý help. [...] ek kan net namens myself praat. ek weet ander mense het dieselfde ervaring. amanda strydom sou vir jou dieselfde sê. elsabé zietsman sou vir jou dieselfde sê. ʼn verskeidenheid van mense, jy weet? ek het vir aucamp gevra of hy daarvan bewus is dat hy op skynbaar moeitelose wyse met tallose kunstenaars, kunswerke en literatuur omgaan – en dit op so ʼn hoë intellektuele vlak dat dit die mense rondom hom verstom. hoe kry hy dit reg, was my vraag. hy was gereed met ʼn gedeeltelike antwoord: f i g u u r 5 : d i e n a v o r s e r e n a u c a m p a a n d i e e i n d e v a n 2 0 0 5 i n s y w o o n s t e l aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 135 ek dink ek het ʼn antwoord daarop. ek het gelukkig beland by die opvoedkunde, waar ek eintlik my eie rooster kon beplan. ek het nie gevoel ek hoef streng volgens ʼn patroon te werk nie: ek kon baie vryelik beweeg, kreatiewe onderwysmetodes beproef. ek kon eintlik doen wat ek wou – dis eintlik vreeslik om dit te sê, want daai dae is vir altyd verby. ek is verskriklik gelukkig dat ek dit gehad het, en dis eintlik maar ʼn stukkie genade (aucamp 2013b). hierdie verklaring spreek wel die oorsprong van die kreatiewe prikkels aan wat aucamp gestimuleer het, maar hy ontwyk op heel bedrewe wyse die intellektuele dimensie van sy skryfwerk en mentorskap. 4.3. mentorskap en briewe de villiers (2013) verduidelik hoe sy vriendskap met aucamp hom beïnvloed het: hy is baie, baie ruimhartig. en hy is die beste mentor, sonder dat hy ooit vir jou sê: ‘ek sal vir jou mentor’, wat jy in jou lewe kan kry. jy sit altyd aan die voete en leer, jy weet? so dis tweërlei. die een is daai verskriklike intellek wat hy so mildelik en ruimskoots deel, en jy weet met soveel menschkeit daar is nie ʼn afrikaanse woord nie. menschkeit. dis net gee. so dis my ervaring van hennie. de villiers (2013) het verder vertel van ʼn tyd toe hy besonder nou verbonde aan aucamp gevoel het: ek dink dit was moontlik die skep van, jy weet, ʼn gekonsentreerde dosis interaksie. dis maar soos ʼn tesis skryf, was blomtyd is bloeityd, die kabaret. dit kom ook uit ʼn era wat kabaret ʼn baie vreemde woord was in suid-afrika. mense het gedink dit is tits and bums, jy weet – dis wortel. dit het niks daarmee te doen nie. en baie min mense het daaraan gewerk. ollie viljoen se wyle eggenoot het haar m daarop gedoen. stefan bouwer, wyle stefan bouwer – jong, hulle kap in die bos – was hoogs kundig. en hy is ʼn verlies. hy was ʼn wonderlike intellek. ek het ʼn bietjie gedoen. hennie was, tot vandag toe, die grand maestro. ek meen, daar was net nooit – daar was nie eers ʼn tweede plek nie. jy weet, hy was voor en ons het maar so hier agterna gekom. daar was ʼn paar mense wat daaraan geraak het: rosa keet. maar hennie was ... hy is die sensei. [...] en ek onthou, toe ek begin werk daaraan [blomtyd is bloeityd], ek het seker drie, vier songs ʼn dag gedoen, wat baie is. maar dis hennie se goed. jy sit daarna en dit gee vir jou in. dit sê: ‘luister, die musiek is reeds daar. en skryf.’ en hennie was so fantasties. kort na ons ontmoeting in 2004, het aucamp se vertroue in my gedien as een van die mees prominente snellers vir my doktorale studie. ek het hom dan ook pertinent saam met ander vriende voorin die proefskrif bedank: “my dank aan my vriende johan en gerda-marie oosthuizen, philip en sandra de jonge, phillip en anne-marie serfontein, annelie steyn en hennie aucamp, want hulle het my laat glo dat ek mag en kan” (pretorius 2007:v). in ʼn brief gedateer 12 november 2006 bedank hy my ietwat onwillig vir die erkenning, maar voorsien na aanleiding van my aanstelling as lektor by die potchefstroom-kampus van die noordwesuniversiteit tog rigtingwysers vir ʼn professionele loopbaan aan ʼn universiteit (sien figuur 6). ek sluit twee uittreksels van sy handgeskrewe briewe hierby in met die spesifieke doel dat die leser sy netjiese, handgeskrewe briewe eerstehands kan ervaar. ek het vir de villiers gevra wat aucamp se briewe vir hom beteken het. pretorius 136 hennie is sonder twyfel ... hy is die ... wat is die mooi woord? hy is die bellettris van afrikaans. daar is niémand wat ʼn mooier brief kan skryf as hennie nie. in alle opsigte: inhoudelik, as jy dit tik in die boek wat nou uitkom, wat in proses is [aucamp 2013c], sal dit weer eens bewys dis – dis kunswerk. en benewens dit, as ʼn bellettris, as ʼn briefskrywer van formaat, dis net beeldskoon. so, as jy jou posbus oopmaak en daai ongelooflike penmanship [...] kyk, hy skrýf. en daai ongelooflike penmanship staar jou in die oog, jy weet: it’s a moment. dis ʼn moment. en dit moet ek ook sê, al is dit hoe klein: as jy ʼn toekenning wen, of die akademie gee vir jou ietsie, of wat, gaan check: dan’s daar ʼn briefie in die pos (de villiers 2013). die lees van aucamp se dagboeke en briewe het sonder twyfel ook mý sensitiwiteit vir en waardering van egodokumentasie verhoog (aucamp 1998:7). ek kon dit met toenemende plesier lees. aucamp (2004:11) verduidelik die effek van sy omgang met literêre bronne, en ek herken dieselfde proses in my eie leeswerk: “hierdie reëls word vir my energiebronne, en al haal ek hulle nie noodwendig aan nie, voed hul tog ʼn verhaal, ʼn liedteks, en dikwels ʼn hele bundel.” die eerste aanduiding dat egodokumentêre publikasies ook vir my as energiebronne sou dien, is toe ek op 12 april 2004 sekere inskrywings uit assassin’s cloak, ʼn bloemlesing van dagboekinskrywings deur irene en alan taylor (taylor & taylor 2000), in my brief aan aucamp insluit. hy merk in ʼn brief van 18 april 2004 op “[…] dat jy in die greep van egodokumentasie is – en laat ek jou maar waarsku/troos, jy kom nooit weer daaruit nie. die groot wins van hierdie verslaafdheid is dat jy ʼn indringende en lewegewende kennis van die menslike kondisie opdoen”. inderdaad. f i g u u r 6 : d i e h a n d g e s k r e w e b r i e f v a n 1 2 n o v e m b e r 2 0 0 6 aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 137 hy vra ook: “hoekom begin jý nie aan so iets werk nie? eers net vir eie plesier, tot jou aangroeiende sitate temas en motiewe begin uitwys.” by nabetragting was daardie enkele vraag die sneller wat ʼn diepgaande verkenning van egodokumentêre bronne en navorsing afgevuur het. op 19 mei 2004 skryf ek: “ek rapporteer opgewonde oor my interaksie met egodokumente.” op 13 junie vra hy: “jy werk so hard aan egodokumentasie, vir eie plesier en verryking in die eerste plek, maar hoekom struktureer jy nie jou arbeid tot iets blywends nie, sê maar ʼn tesis onder prof. hennie van coller?” van die tesis onder prof. van coller het niks gekom nie, wel van my dagboekprojek: op 18 junie bedank ek hom vir “[…] die water wat jy aandra na my egodokumentêre tuintjie toe”. op 22 junie 2004 kry my projek ʼn energie-inspuiting, want hy laat weet: “ek is opgewonde oor die rigting wat jou egodokumentêre navorsing inslaan.” op 18 november 2004 skryf aucamp in ʼn openingsin van sy brief iets wat my altyd sal bybly: “jou brief van 10 nov. was, soos altyd, ʼn verademing en ʼn inspirasie.” teen hierdie tyd begin ek my keuse uit gepubliseerde dagboeke op gereelde grondslag aanstuur, want op 22 november lees ek ʼn verdere onvergeetlike sin: “jannie, ek is bewerig van opwinding oor jou maart-weergawe van ligspore” [die projek van die samestelling van ʼn keuse uit gepubliseerde dagboeke]. die sin het ʼn merkwaardige uitwerking op my, want op 27 november skryf ek: genugtig! my posbus is ʼn entjie van die huis af (pypsteel-erf), en daar maak ek toe jou brief oop soos ek terugstap. die eerste sin lanseer my tot ʼn hardloop – tot ek uitasem langs my vrou op die bed neerval en begin voorlees. dankie vir die mooi woorde. hoe inspireer dit my nie! in die brief van 22 november onderneem aucamp om met uitgewers oor die moontlike publikasie van ligspore te gesels. dit het hy inderdaad gedoen, maar nie die verlangde reaksie gekry nie. aucamp volhard egter met sy aanmoediging en ondersteuning. so skryf hy in ʼn brief op 21 mei 2005 die volgende (sien figuur 7): f i g u u r 7 : d i e b r i e f v a n 2 1 m e i 2 0 0 5 pretorius 138 tydens ńonderhoud met aucamp (2013b) herinner hy hom sy indruk destyds omtrent my en – deurwinterde en gedrewe opvoedkundige wat hy was – spoor hy my weer eens op kenmerkende wyse aan om hoër te streef: ek het ontdek jy is iemand wat kan skryf, wat perfekte afrikaans kan skryf, en jy soek eintlik – ja – ek dink nou nog jy’s nog nie heeltemal – jy’s nou met die regte dinge besig, maar jy’t ʼn wyer doek nodig as wat jy tot dusver gebruik het. daar’s min mense wat ʼn pragtige natuurlike prosa skryf en dis hoekom dit my so opval as ek dit dan by ʼn jong mens kry. die positiewe invloed wat aucamp gedurende hierdie periode op my gehad het, was sonder twyfel blywend van aard en ek kon dit oordra na my akademiese lewe toe ek in junie 2006, ná die voltooiing van my doktersgraad, eers by die noordwes-universiteit en daarna by die universiteit van die vrystaat aangestel is. ek het begin om akademiese waarderings van uitnemende opvoedkundiges en prominente kunstenaars saam te stel en kon daarin slaag om ʼn hele aantal van hierdie studies in akademiese tydskrifte gepubliseer te kry. ook hierdie veld het vir my oopgegaan na ʼn opmerking van aucamp. in ʼn brief van 25 junie 2008 kritiseer hy die omgewing waarbinne akademiese artikels gepubliseer word: ek begin al hoe meer wonder of die geld wat subsidiedraende artikels genereer die geesteslewe van ʼn breër groep lesers bevorder. dis vir my ʼn inteelt-situasie: akademici wat vir akademici skryf. en ʼn verdere beswaar: die tegniese voorskrifte van wetenskaplike tydskrifte wat dwars in die weg van kreatiwiteit kom staan, en vloei en spontaneïteit strem. hoeveel wetenskaplike artikels haal asem? in ʼn brief aan hom op 18 januarie 2009 bedank ek hom daarvoor: jou woorde en insigte is ingeweef in my menswees en rig en verkwik my – help dat ek die lewe self kan verduur en geniet. onlangs nog het jy my op nuwe paaie gestuur in my akademiese skrywery: jou opmerking dat akademici wat vir akademici skryf, op inteling neerkom, het my laat besluit om terug te keer na my eerste liefde: die biografie. ek het ʼn kollega se lewe en klasse as onderwerp vir ʼn waarderende artikel geneem, en ingestuur litnet akademies toe. nog ʼn biografiese artikel broei reeds ná ʼn werkswinkel vir onderwysers, waartydens ons na ʼn dvd van cliff richard gekyk het om te bepaal wat ons by hom kan leer […]. albei hierdie artikels is wel in 2009 gepubliseer (pretorius 2009a, 2009b). studies oor die 1973-fliek the paper chase (pretorius & von maltitz 2010) oor die lewens en optredes van die popgroep abba (pretorius, du toit, martin & daries 2013), neil diamond (pretorius & van wyk 2013), lady gaga en andré rieu het ook gevolg. aucamp (2013c:342) was gereed met ʼn opsomming van hierdie studies toe hy my in sy gepubliseerde briewebundel mits dese wil ek vir jou sê bekend stel met: “dosent in opvoedkunde aan die universiteit van die vrystaat, prosaskrywer wat sy nis gevind het in skryf oor artistieke persoonlikhede.” hy sou myns insiens moes byvoeg: “… wat sy nis onder my mentorskap gevind het in skryf oor artistieke persoonlikhede.” aucamp (2001:93) se beskrywing van bill (wa) de klerk sou sonder meer ook op homself van toepassing gemaak kan word: “want bill was nie alleen ʼn ‘jammer hart’ nie, maar ook ʼn aristokraat van die gees wat talent in ander herken en erken het, en, waar dit kon, bevorder het.” aucamp (2004, in aucamp 2013c:324) beskryf die sentrale plek wat sy rol as “waterman” in sy professionele lewe inneem in ʼn brief aan john kannemeyer: aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 139 die ‘gewerskap’ waarvan jy en lina, en jare gelede dr. anna de villiers, praat, het juis daarmee te maak. ek was op stuk van sake vir 30 jaar lank verbonde aan ʼn fakulteit opvoedkunde. maar dan is ek ook ʼn waterman, (‘verjaarsdag 20 januarie; sterreteken: akwarius’) en dié soort, het my vriendin rita elferink my ʼn keer verduidelik, dra gedurig water aan, ook na mense wat nie dors is nie. 4.4. aangrypendste skryfwerk en uitsonderlike vakmanskap tydens ons gesprek verwys de villiers (2013) na aucamp se uitnemende vakmanskap en bruidsbed vir tant nonnie, wat sy waardering vir aucamp se skryfwerk ingelui het: [...] hy is ʼn vakman. en, vir my ... alle groot letterkunde ... na my mening, het ʼn dawerende intellek onderskraag deur ʼn formidabele hart. en dít het hennie. as jy na die groot letterkunde ... jy kry skrywers wat ... hulle intellek is onweerlegbaar, ek meen, jm coetzee, nadine gordimer: dis groot, gróót skrywers. niemand kan dit ontken nie. vir my persoonlik, die skrywers wat my regtig aangryp, was die dostojewski’s, die steinbeck’s, die hennie aucamp’s, waar die intellek en die hart bymekaar kom en they create a sistine chapel of literature. [...] ek onthou die eerste keer, jare gelede, toe ek ʼn bruidsbed vir tant nonnie gelees het. ek kon nie glo dat iemand dit in afrikaans kan doen nie. dit was of ek die heel ... dis taal wat ek praat, droom, slaap, bid. en dan lees jy dit en dis asof jy vir die heel eerste keer ... dis asof ... alles was swart en wit, en skielik is dit taal in technicolor. volkleur. [...] en it was just perfect. ek meen, hy is die meester van kortkuns. wat my persoonlike gunstelinge onder aucamp se tekste betref, deel ek abraham h de vries se mening (de vries 2006, in aucamp 2010:108) dat “nag van die ooms” een van sy mooiste tekste is. een spesifieke gedeelte hieruit (sien ook botha 1979:122) is vir my ʼn deurlopende bron van plesier – miskien oor die nonchalante gebruik van teelterme deur oom kas en klein-kas om klein-kas se potensiële aanstaande te beskryf, maar ook weens die suiwere woordgebruik en die aansluiting wat ek as plattelander (“well versed in country things” – aucamp 2000:5) by die situasie kon vind: oom kas kón nie duur nie: hy was te gul. boude soos boerpampoene, en ʼn lag en ʼn stem wat ʼn huis laat skud. beeste was sy lewe. hy was ʼn stoetboer wat swaar bulle uit friesland laat kom het. op ʼn keer self een gaan haal. dit was soos ʼn monumentonthulling: ʼn nuwe bul van oom kas. die ou saaier, het die boere ʼn bul genoem, en met ʼn ondeunde lig in die oë: ‘en die bôgger dink hy wérk!’ op ʼn dag moes ek opsluit saam met klein-kas na sy pa. hy wou trouplanne aanroer en het steun nodig gehad. ‘met ou tewie se meisiekind?’ oom kas begin gevaarlik swel. ‘hoekom nie, pa? sy kan nie help vir haar pa nie.’ ‘dis waar. maar sy’s nog ʼn tweetand.’ ‘sy’s mondig en aangeneem.’ ‘sy’s te lank in die lies.’ ‘a nee a, pa, kyk weer. sy sal ʼn kalf gooi soos min.’ pretorius 140 oom kas het weer gekyk en klein-kas het sy sin gekry. en klein-kas doop nog al die tyd. saam met die bostaande gedeelte sou ek ook my reg tot idiosinkratiese voorkeur wou uitoefen deur ʼn dagboekinskywing op 14 november 1994 te vermeld (aucamp 1996). aucamp nuttig ontbyt in die “kompstuin se opelugrestaurant” (aucamp 1996:65) en beskryf die afloop van sy ete op ʼn wyse wat dit vir my moontlik maak om die bewegings van die meel-ogie op kinematiese wyse voor my geestesoog te sien afspeel – die sinne en woorde vestig volkome harmonie tussen literatuur en tempo en beweging: “ʼn halfuur later skuif ek my brekfisbord terug. ʼn meelogie kom land op die bord en gly onwaardig op die olierige oppervlakte, herstel sy balans, en vlieg weg met ʼn reep spek” (aucamp 1996:66). aucamp (2013b) het verduidelik hoe hy dit reggekry het: “ek het eenvoudig net neergeskryf wat ek gesien het. […] maar jy leer ook om skerper te kyk, nè. dit word eintlik ʼn leefwyse om die oog te ... ‘the training of the eye.’ en later kom dit vanself, maar dis nie van die begin af so nie.” 4.5. wat ander kunstenaars by aucamp kan leer ek het vir de villiers gevra wat hy graag sou wou hê toekomstige – of ander – kunstenaars by aucamp moes leer. sy antwoord en motivering daarvoor is ʼn uiteensetting van aucamp se besondere vermoë om liedtekste te skryf en rigtinggewende insette te lewer tydens die toonsetting daarvan. as jy ooit wil leer hoe volmaakte liriek werk, gaan na aucamp toe. in my ervaring – en ek het met meesterlike skrywers al gewerk. ek het self probeer. daar is genoeg evidence daarvan. skeef en krom, but there it is. maar aucamp het regtig kreatief verstaan wat liriek is, maar ook intellektueel en akademies verstaan wat die verskil is tussen ʼn liriek, met ander woorde teks wat in real time gesing word, en dan is die volle storie vertel. as opposed to poetry, which is meant to be read. dis nie vervlietend nie. jy kan dit weer lees. jy kan dit oopsluit. en hy kan óngelooflik onderhoudend praat oor die grootste liedteksskrywers in die wêreld, in die geskiedenis. [...] al die taai, moeilike goed in afrikaans – en afrikaans is, die váder weet, dis soos taai klei wat jy mee werk. hy laat hom nie maklik buig nie. jy weet, nes jy dink jy het dit, dan is daar ʼn dubbele ‘nie’. dan het jy ʼn ‘ghhh’. watse klank is ʼn ‘ghhh’, jy weet? ‘gogga’: dis ʼn moer lelike klank. en dan skryf aucamp and then it becomes ... dit klink soos die soetste frans, jy weet, because it’s perfect writing. maar ek glo honestly dat niemand, wat nog nie teks of liriek geskryf het in afrikaans, kan skeppende vermoë beter kombineer en actually understanding intellectually what he wrote, en dit is hoekom ... jy weet, nie alles is ʼn meesterstuk nie, maar hennie se batting average op masterpieces is nie debatteerbaar nie (de villiers 2013). aucamp (2013b) het met kenmerkende nederigheid gereageer toe ek de villiers se woorde vir hom voorgelees het: “dis baie lief van coenie om dit te sê – want hy’t self pragtige lirieke geskryf – het jy sy bundel [de villiers 2012] gekry? [...] hy’t perfekte lirieke geskryf – ek dink nie hy hoef na my te verwys nie. ons staan langs mekaar.” wat sou ek persoonlik wou hê dat ander kunstenaars by aucamp moet leer? ek sou kon begin met aucamp (1998:105) se beskrywing van wat hy as arthur miller se “basiese skrywerstoerusting” beskou: “[...] skerp sintuiglikheid, menslikheid, interpretasievermoë; ʼn aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 141 effense gedistansieerdheid [...] die speelsheid van ʼn kind.” dus, om in verwondering deur die lewe te dwaal en literatuur daarvan te maak. vir my was dit ook baie nuttig om, soos aucamp, die skryfproses as ʼn persoonlike metgesel of medewerker te sien; as ʼn vae gedefinieerde wese wat om aandag soek en wat op sowel bewustelike as onbewustelike wyse aan die kreatiewe prosesse meewerk. ʼn paar voorbeelde van hierdie soort beeldspraak word aangebied om hierdie benadering te illustreer (aucamp 2000:3). die eerste voorbeeld gaan oor die “aanmelding” van ʼn verhaal of storie om geskryf te word. aucamp (2003b:131–2) verwoord dit soos volg: “hoekom kies ʼn mens ʼn sekere ervaring en laat ander buite rekening? laat ek tot eie verdediging oorgaan: ek dink nie bewustelike keuse is hier in die spel nie: die verhale kom meld hulle aan wanneer hulle gereed is vir vertel.” hierdie beeldspraak het deel geraak van my skrywerstoerusting, want in die inleiding van die caravaggio-artikel gebruik ek dit soos volg: “dié vrae kom meld dus aan vir beantwoording: hoe kan ʼn waarderende ondersoek van so ʼn geweldenaar moreel en geestelik regverdig word?” (pretorius 2013a:479). aucamp (2000:12, 2003b:139) beantwoord as’t ware self dié vraag deur na die rol van “innerlike druk” tydens die skryf van sy “vir vier stemme” te verwys: “‘vir vier stemme’ is binne een week geskryf en het die minimum redigering ondergaan. die innerlike druk was so sterk by die skryf van die verhaal dat die regte woorde, die regte sinne, byna vanselfsprekend daar was.” alhoewel caravaggio dus ʼn geweldenaar was, veroorsaak die innerlike druk dat ek nie anders kón as om die studie oor hom te doen nie – ook in dié geval was ek meegesleur deur die bykans betowerende invloed van sy lewe en skilderye. dit was byna vanselfsprekend dat ek die studie sou doen. aucamp se verhaal “maar waar is al die blomme nou?” begin met ʼn verwysing na ervarings en verhale as lewende entiteite: “ek glo mos vas: ʼn mens kan nie aan jou eie ervarings ontsnap nie. hulle lê jou en inwag, klaar afgerond – bitter, teer, wreed soos die geval ook mag wees” (aucamp 2000:5, 2003b:132). die lewe sélf raak ook vir aucamp (2000:12, 2003b:141) ʼn menslike wese: “hy [die lewe] lewer stories by ons af, beslote en afgerond, hul slot beklink nog voordat hulle geskryf is. en eis dat ons verantwoordelikheid vir die stories sal aanvaar.” aucamp (2000:5, 2003b:132) sê verder oor hierdie verantwoordelikheid teenoor skryfwerk en ervarings: “[...] dan bly daar nog die skrywer se verantwoordelikheid teenoor sy ervaring voor: ek vermoed dat talle onvoltooide en ongebundelde verhale van die herinneringsoort eers ʼn regstelling van die skrywer nodig het voordat hulle kan word wat hulle vooraf bestem was om te wees.” in die geval van “maar waar is al die blomme nou?” het aucamp byvoorbeeld dekades vantevore tydens die skryf van die oorspronklike verhaal dalk nie sy eie hart goed genoeg geken nie – of dalk was hy in daardie stadium bang om gay-kodes deur te gee (aucamp 2000:6, 2003b:133). hy het egter die verhaal jare daarna hersien en die gay-perspektief onomwonde aan die leser deurgegee (aucamp 2000:6-7, 2003b:134). hy sluit af met ʼn uitdrukking wat ek nou dikwels aanwend om die aanstuwing en voltooiing van eie skryfprosesse te verklaar: “ek het my volle verantwoordelikheid teenoor ʼn ervaring nagekom, en nou kan die verhaal wat uit dié ervaring voortgekom het, uiteindelik tot rus kom. sy voorgestemde lot is vervul” (aucamp 2000:7, 2003:134). hierdie uitdrukkings het ek gebruik om die afloop van my akademiese artikel oor caravaggio te beskryf (pretorius 2013a:510) en, pretorius 142 soos voorheen vermeld, ook om toestemming by aucamp te verkry vir die skryf van die artikel oor hóm. aucamp (2013b) het die rol van die personifikasie van die skryfproses in sy skrywersloopbaan bevestig, maar hy het dit ook moeilik gevind om te verklaar: “ek dink dit is so ... dis hoekom dit vir my nogal moeilik is om te praat oor dié dinge, want ek is nie baie berekend nie. hulle kom meld hulle aan en hulle het nog nooit opgehou om hulle aan te meld by my nie.” my laaste versugting oor wat ander kunstenaars by aucamp kan leer, het duidelik geraak toe ek skielik besef dat die twee kunstenaars waaroor my laaste twee artikels handel – caravaggio en aucamp – albei gay was. tydens ons onderhoud het aucamp wel die mening uitgespreek dat caravaggio nie noodwendig gay was nie, maar dat hy wel homoseksuele ervarings gehad het: sogenaamd – niemand weet nie. hy’t sekerlik homoseksuele ervarings gehad. maar ek dink nie dié tyd het eintlik so sterk gediskrimineer tussen ... die mense het eenvoudig maar rondgenaai ... en dis wat mense nie besef nie. hy hét self ervarings gehad, hy hét self kolporteur ook gespeel (aucamp 2013b). aucamp self was gay en ek het hom spesifiek gevra hoekom ek so baie by gay kunstenaars leer – wat dalk ʼn onbillike vraag was. hoe kan aucamp immers weet hoekom ék so baie by gay kunstenaars leer? ek ondersteun wel aucamp (1996:8) se siening dat mense basies eenders is: die tv-dokumentêr, ‘why am i gay?’, het my verleë gelaat, nie net omdat dit so adolessent en gedateerd was nie, maar omdat dit andersheid as uitgangspunt het. hoe ouer ek word, hoe belangriker word die basiese eendersheid van mense vir my. eers is jy mens; dán, amper toevallig, gay. ek vind ook sterk persoonlike aanklank by wat aucamp (1996:104) die “durende adolessensie” van sommige gays noem. in aucamp se antwoord op my vraag tydens die onderhoud het hy verder die vreesloosheid en selfs roekeloosheid van sommige gay mense se ondersoekende leefwyses as moontlike verklaring aangebied: ek dink hulle stel hulle oop, jy weet. hulle het iewers ʼn besluit geneem en daarna het hulle ʼn roekelose lewe geleef. daar’s ook dié wat nie roekeloos geleef het nie en wat nooit heeltemal geword wat hulle kón word nie. en as jy eenmaal roekeloos leef en jy leef heeltemal sonder enige remminge – wel, dan kry jy besondere werk, jy weet. ja, die mense wat net doodgewoon hulle gang gaan en hulle nie ʼn hel steur aan wat die publiek dink of wat ook al nie – die publiek kom terug na hulle, uiteindelik. hulle het gedoen wat hulle wou doen en kon doen. en nou kan hulle ook help – wat hulle nie sou kon doen as hulle nie deur daai mallemeule of meule gegaan het nie (aucamp 2013b). aucamp (1997:79–80) sien ook die basiese onvoltooidheid van die gay in die besonder en die mens in die algemeen as die stimulus vir van ʼn lewenslange soeke na voltooidheid: daar is gays wat vroeg reeds – en tot hul eie gemoedsrus – ontdek dat daar in ieder lewe ʼn armoede (boudier-bakker!), ʼn onvoltooidheid, skuil. die skeppende mens ‘herstel’ dié onvoltooidheid van dag tot dag met wat hy voortbring, maar die mens sonder ʼn kreatiewe uitlaatklep het nie ʼn helingsdevies nie. hy mor en pruttel van dag tot dag. net die beste volgens die katalogus vir hom: die beste wyne, die beste silwer, die beste porselein; die beste, die allerbeste vertolking van ʼn bepaalde musiekwerk op cd. hy voltooi homself in besittings en nie in aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 143 skeppings nie, en vergeet, in sy gemor en gepruttel, dat lewensvreugde ook ʼn skepping is. dit word deur ʼn lewensfilosofie, ʼn sonnige kyk na dinge gehaal. 5. ter opsomming en bevestiging hierdie artikel was inderdaad “ʼn sonnige kyk” na die invloed van aucamp op my as persoon en op my professionele ontwikkeling. die vreugde wat ek daaruit kon put was ʼn uitvloeisel van my omgang met hom en die positiewe temas van sy mentorskap. die sonnige wintersdag in julie 2013 toe ek aucamp by sy woonstel opgelaai en ons by ons huisie restaurant, met ʼn uitsig op robbeneiland, gaan beesstert en doekpoeding eet het, sal ek vir ewig onthou en koester. die rustige wyshede wat hy met my gedeel het, is benut om my insig van ons vriendskap en sy mentorskap in die besonder en menswees in die algemeen uit te bou. ek is weer eens verryk deur my omgang met sy dagboeke en ander egodokumentêre publikasies. die waardering van aucamp en die verandering wat dit teweeg gebring het, is inderdaad nie van mekaar te skei nie: dit het gelyktydig plaasgevind. ek is opnuut verander en geïnspireer deur aucamp se opmerking dat ek dan nou volgens hom perfekte afrikaans kan skryf (aucamp 2013b). uit die aard van die saak was of is dit nie altyd die geval nie – en dit sal sekerlik nie altyd moontlik wees nie – maar dit sal my van nou af deurlopend inspireer en aanmoedig: ek het nou ʼn dure verantwoordelikheid om altyd na beter vakmanskap te strewe. hierdie inspirasie het ook daartoe gelei dat ek meer energiek begin skryf het: in die burger se by van saterdag 20 julie 2013 is byvoorbeeld ʼn stukkie prosa van my oor my buurman wat sy pyp op estetiese wyse stop en rook, gepubliseer (pretorius 2013b:2). daarna het drie ander bydraes op litnet gevolg: ʼn huldeblyk aan aucamp wat op hierdie artikel gebaseer is (pretorius 2014a), ʼn meningstuk oor die optrede van advokaat gerrie nel tydens die oscar pistorius-verhoor (pretorius 2014b) en ʼn bydrae oor jesus se beroep as timmerman (pretorius 2014c). de villiers (2013) beklemtoon aan die einde van my waarderende onderhoud met hom dat aucamp ook ʼn positiewe invloed op verskeie prominente persoonlikhede in die afrikaanse kultuuromgewing uitgeoefen het: dit was vir my só ʼn plesier en dit was vir my ʼn wonderlike voorreg om dit te doen oor hennie. wat ek nou vanmiddag vir jou gesê het: as jy met amanda strydom praat, elsabé zietsman praat, johann de lange praat. the list goes on and on and on. hulle sal almal vir jou dieselfde sê. met sy laaste sin het de villiers aucamp se invloed as mentor tot verskeie swaargewigte in die afrikaanse kultuurwêreld uitgebrei. gedurende die nag van donderdag 20 maart 2014 sterf aucamp op tagtigjarige ouderdom in sy woonstel in kaapstad. na sy dood verskyn talle huldeblyke aan hom in koerante en op die internet. die temas wat hierbo bespreek is, kom deurlopend in hierdie huldeblyke voor en bevestig dan ook hul teenwoordigheid in aucamp se omgang met talle skeppende geeste. aucamp het, soos van der colff (2014) dit stel, “... ʼn hele geslag sangers, liriekskrywers, teaterpraktisyns, regisseurs en gehore se lewens verryk, nét met sy bydrae tot die afrikaanse liriekeskat. dan práát ons nie eens van sy ‘stories’ nie!” petra müller, digter en kortverhaalskrywer, meen ook dat hy “vir ons almal” paaie in die letterkunde en die lewe oopgemaak het (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13) . johann de lange, digter en kortverhaalskrywer, maak melding van aucamp se ruimhartigheid: “in sy laaste weke het hy vriende laat kom en besittings aangegee, want dit was nie wéggee nie. elke geskenk was ʼn stuk van sy leefen denkwêreld waarmee die ontvanger kon en móés pretorius 144 voortwoeker” (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). vir die digter daniël hugo was die mens, skrywer en opvoeder wat aucamp was ʼn onlosmaaklike drie-eenheid: hy het integriteit help gee aan ons menswees in ʼn tyd toe afrikaans en sy gebruikers met minagting en agterdog bejeën is (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). eloïse wessels, uitvoerende hoof van nb-uitgewers, meen aucamp was een van die eerste afrikaanse skrywers wat openlik oor die gay-ervaring en –lewensruimte geskryf het (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). joan hambidge, digter en literator, maak ook hiervan melding: “hy het skrywers, veral gay-skrywers, geleer om sonder skroom oor hul ervarings te skryf” (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). sy het ook by aucamp geleer dat mens ʼn ervaring eers emosioneel moet verwerk voordat dit as verhaal of gedig “werk”. marthinus basson, teaterskepper en regisseur, gee ook erkenning aan die enorme invloed wat aucamp op hom as jong man gehad het: sy gesprekke, toe ek hom later leer ken het omdat hy ʼn kranige teaterondersteuner was, was opwindend, intimiderend en elkeen ʼn lesing in die keurigste en rykste afrikaans op onderwerpe wat kon strek van die mees verhewe tot die smetsigste. en altyd ʼn plesier (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). hy maak ook melding van die durende en sentrale invloed wat aucamp se kabaret sewe doodsondes het op studente in die kabaretkursus wat hy elke jaar aanbied: “... [ek] vind grenslose plesier elke jaar daaraan om te sien hoe studente wat lank reeds uit voeling is met hulle taal hulle kan verkneukel aan sy beeldspraak en skunnige idiome” (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). juanita swanepoel, teatervervaardiger en regisseur, het ongelooflik baie respek vir aucamp as mens gehad (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). as skrywer het hy deurgaans met haar gepraat en sy is dol op sy werk. sy vakmanskap was volgens haar onberispelik, want daar is niks lukraak aan sy werk nie. amanda strydom, sanger en komponis, het aucamp altyd “meester” genoem (volksblad, 22 maart 2014:13). ook vir haar was hy ʼn mentor, vriend, leermeester en ook vaderfiguur. dit was aucamp wat haar geïnspireer het om haar loopbaan te volg: “hy het vir my gesê kabaret is my forte. en hy het my inspireer om self tekste en lirieke te skryf. hy het vir my strukture van hoe om te skryf gegee.” haar verweer was dat sy nie slim genoeg is nie (strydom 2014): “dan het ʼn preek gevolg wat my moed gegee het om tóg te probeer.” sy het altyd haar lirieke vir hom aangestuur, en dan het hy vir haar raad gegee, kritiek gelewer en dit goedgekeur. toe hy een van haar eerste opvoerings van ʼn uur gevang in glas – uit sy pen – bygewoon het, het dit haar opgeval dat hy die gehoor meer dopgehou het as die kabaret, en hy was oorstelp met die reaksie: “jy het hulle in die palm van jou hand gehad, liewe amanda!” (strydom, 2014). sy dood laat haar verlore voel, want sy weet nie wie sy nou op sodanige manier gaan vertrou nie. ook vir danie botha, uitgewer en regisseur, was aucamp ʼn mentor op verskeie lewensterreine (botha, 2014). spies (2014:9) beskou aucamp as ʼn gewer en mentor. hy het haar tot baie van haar gedigte geïnspireer, veral deur boeke en gesprekke oor visuele kunstenaars. volgens botha (2014) sal hierdie invloed egter nie tot ʼn einde kom nie, want dit sal op ander terreine voortbestaan: in sy boeke, in botha se persoonlike argief, maar veral in sy geheue. van vuuren (2014:10) se woorde dien as gepaste opsomming van aucamp se lewe as gewer en aangewer: aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 145 want gul met gee en aangee van skatte was dié oubie. nie net aan bergies en hongeriges nie, ook aan enigeen wat een van sy vele belangstellingsvelde gedeel het: kuns en rotskuns, musiek, letterkunde, outobiografie en ego-dokumentasie, gay-letterkunde, die orale folklore van die san en khoi, kookkuns en resepte. hierdie vrygewigheid en mededeelsaamheid van aucamp het verseker dat sy invloed ingebed is in die psige van vele kunstenaars wat skeppende werk in afrikaans en ander tale lewer. sy mentorskap sal na sy dood voortduur. 6. kritiese refleksie betreffende metodologiese kwessies omdat die toepassing van die vyf teoretiese beginsels en die 5d-siklus van waarderende ondersoek op persoonlike waarderings van hierdie aard relatief nuut en eksperimenteel is, is ʼn kritiese beoordeling daarvan wenslik. die onderhoude met de villiers en aucamp is individueel gevoer (in johannesburg en kaapstad) weens logistieke beperkings. as sodanig, kon die sosiale dimensie van ʼn gesamentlike gesprek dalk nie optimaal ontsluit word nie. dieselfde geld natuurlik die menings van ander kunstenaars vir wie aucamp ʼn mentor was. by nabetragting sou dit oorweeg kon word om al hierdie rolspelers in een lokaal bymekaar te bring sodat hulle ook met mekaar waarderende onderhoude kon voer. weens die geografiese verspreiding en tydskedules van hierdie persone lyk dit egter vir my terselfdertyd na ʼn bykans onmoontlike onderneming. binne die konteks van pw sou dit verder veroorsaak het dat die fokus eerder op ʼn algemene as persoonlike waardering van aucamp se mentorskap sou val en dat die hoofdoel van die ondersoek sodoende nie suksesvol aangespreek sou word nie. soos voorheen genoem, het ek dit ook moeilik gevind om die “ek” sentraal te laat staan – hoewel ek dit moes doen om reg te laat geskied aan aucamp se invloed op my lewe en werk. die besonder uitdagende opdrag in hierdie verband was om persoonlike mylpale bloot ter illustrasie van die positiewe invloed van aucamp se mentorskap op my ontwikkeling aan te bied sonder om selfgenoegsaam voor te kom. ek het dus ʼn sekere balans in hierdie verband probeer handhaaf. of ek daarin kon slaag sal net die leser kan oordeel. bibliografie aucamp, h. 1996. gekaapte tyd. kaapstad: human & rousseau. —. 1997. allersiele. kaapstad: human & rousseau. —. 1998. beeltenis verbode. kaapstad: human & rousseau. —. 2000. ook skaduwees laat spore: ʼn keuse uit sy populêre verhale. kaapstad: tafelberg. —. 2001. bly te kenne: ʼn bundel portrette. kaapstad: tafelberg. —. 2002. hittegolf: wulpse sonnette met ʼn nawoord. kaapstad: homeros. —. 2003a. skuinslig. pretoria: lapa uitgewers. —. 2003b. in die vroegte. kaapstad: tafelberg. pretorius 146 —. 2004. bondgenoot of medepligtige? ʼn skrywer besin oor sy dagboek. ongepubliseerde rede gehou by die bekendstelling van skuinslig op 20 maart 2004 in die protea boekwinkel in stellenbosch (kopie in besit van die artikelskrywer). —. 2010. oor en weer. pretoria: protea boekhuis. —. 2011. lendetaal. pretoria: protea boekhuis. —. 2013a. koffer in berlyn: essays oor kabaret. pretoria: protea boekhuis. —. 2 julie 2013b. persoonlike onderhoud met aucamp. kaapstad (elektroniese opname in besit van die artikelskrywer). —. 2013c. mits dese wil ek vir jou sê: briewe van hennie aucamp. saamgestel deur petrovna metelerkamp. hermanus: hemel & see boeke. botha, d. 2014. ʼn mens onthou maar ... by die heengaan van hennie aucamp. http://www.litnet.co.za/article/n-mens-onthou-maar-by-die-heengaan-van-hennieaucamp (5 april 2014 geraadpleeg). botha, e. (samesteller en inleier). 1979. hennie aucamp: in een kraal. ʼn keuse uit die prosa van hennie aucamp. kaapstad: tafelberg. cooperrider, d.l., whitney, d. & stavros, j.m. 2008. appreciative inquiry handbook. 2de uitgawe. brunswick, oh: crown custom publishing, inc. / san francisco: berrettkoehler publishers, inc. crous, f., de bruyn, g.p., roodt, g., van vuuren, l., schoeman, w.j. & stuart, a.d. 2006. appreciating johann m. schepers. sa tydskrif vir bedryfsielkunde, 32(4):3-7. de villiers, c. 25 januarie 2013. persoonlike onderhoud. johannesburg. (elektroniese opname in besit van die artikelskrywer). —. 2012. hartlangs: lirieke 1973-2102. saamgestel deur cas vos. stellenbosch: sun media. kelm, j.b. 2005. appreciative living: the principles of appreciative inquiry in personal life. wake forest: venet publishers. —. 2006. walking the talk: the principles of ai in daily living. ai practitioner, februarie:5– 8. —. 2008. the joy of appreciative living: your 28-day plan to greater happiness in 3 incredibly easy steps. new york: penguin. museum van boimans beuningen. 2013. rené magritte: la reproduction interdite. http://collectie.boijmans.nl/en/work/2939%20(mk) (20 julie 2013 geraadpleeg). orem, s.l., blinkert, j. &clancy, a.l. 2007. appreciative coaching: a positive process for change. san francisco: jossey-bass. pretorius, jannie. 2014a. hennie aucamp – vaarwel aan ʼn geliefde mentor en vriend.http://www.litnet.co.za/article/hennie-aucamp--vaarwel-aan-n-geliefdementor-en-vriend (5 junie 2014 geraadpleeg). pretorius, jannie. 2014b. advokaat gerrie nel, ‘beste professor’ en die groter prentjie. http://www.litnet.co.za/article/advokaat-gerrie-nel-beste-professor-en-die-groterprentjie (5 junie 2014 geraadpleeg). aucamp as mentor td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 123148. 147 pretorius, jannie. 2014c. is hy dan nie ʼn timmerman nie? http://www.litnet.co.za/article/ishy-dan-nie-n-timmerman-nie (5 junie 2014 geraadpleeg). pretorius, j.p.h. 2007. houdings en persepsies van studente teenoor samelewingsdiensleer: implikasies vir implementering en bestuur deur programhoofde. ongepubliseerde dtech-verhandeling, sentrale universiteit vir tegnologie, bloemfontein. —. 2009a. estetiese hoedanighede in die lewe en werk van lorraine botha: ʼn estetiese ondersoek na pedagogiese kunstenaarskap. litnet akademies, 6(2):132–56. http://www.oulitnet.co.za/newlitnet/pdf/la/la_6_2_pretorius.pdf (16 november 2013 geraadpleeg). —. 2009b. cliff richard: ʼn opvoedkundige waardering. litnet akademies, 6(3):155–84. http://www.oulitnet.co.za/newlitnet/pdf/la/la_6_3_pretorius.pdf (16 november 2013 geraadpleeg). —. 2010. ʼn waarderende ondersoek na die pedagogiese hoedanighede van gerhardus p.v. bosch. litnet akademies, 7(3):212–35. http://www.oulitnet.co.za/akademies_geestes/pdf/la_7_3_pretorius.pdf (16 november 2013 geraadpleeg). —. 2012. ʼn positiewe profiel van ʼn buitengewone hoofmeisie as rolmodel: emme-lancia veronique faro van die sekondêre meisieskool oranje. litnet akademies, 9(1):118– 43. http://www.litnet.co.za/assets/pdf/6_pretorius.pdf (16 november 2013 geraadpleeg). —. 2013a. ʼn persoonlike waardering van michelangelo merisi da caravaggio (1571-1610). litnet akademies, 10(1):475–512. http://litnet.co.za/assets//pdf/joernaluitgawe%2010(1)/10(1)_gw_pretorius.pdf (16 november 2013 geraadpleeg). —. 2013b. ‘oor twak en pypstop en doodgaan’. by in burger en beeld, 20 julie:2. pretorius, j.p.h. en van wyk, c. 2013. the utilisation of the performances of neil diamond for improving the classroom practices of educators: an educational appreciation. the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3):493-504. pretorius, j.p.h, du toit, d.s., martin, c. & daries, g. 2013. abba: an educational appreciation. journal of aesthetic education, 47(1):92–103. pretorius, j.p.h. & von maltitz, m. 2010. artistry in education and aesthetic education: a report of arts-based staff training and learning. journal for new generation sciences, 8(3):120–51. reed, j. & verma, n. 2013. appreciative inquiry research notes. international journal of appreciative inquiry, 15(4):65-6. spies, l. 2014. ‘totsiens, my vriend’. rapport, 23 maart:9. strydom, a. 2014. hennie aucamp: ek het hom meester genoem. http://www.litnet.co.za/article/hennie-aucamp-ek-het-hom-meester-genoem (5 april 2014 geraadpleeg). taylor, i. & taylor, a. 2000. the assassin’s cloak: an anthology of the world’s greatest diarists. edinburgh: canongate books. pretorius 148 van der colff, m. 2014. oor hennie aucamp en mentors. http://www.litnet.co.za/article/oor-hennie-aucamp-en-mentors (5 april 2014 geraadpleeg). van vuuren, h. 2014. ʼn woordstilis enig in sy soort: hennie aucamp het byna alle genres beoefen. volksblad, 27 maart:10. volksblad. 2014. ‘reis veilig en lig, hennie…’ volksblad, 22 maart:13. watkins, j.m., mohr, b. &kelly, r. 2011. appreciative inquiry: change at the speed of imagination. 2de uitgawe. san francisco: pfeiffer. whitney d. &trosten-bloom, a. 2010. the power of appreciative inquiry: a practical guide to positive change. 2de uitgawe. san francisco: berret-koehler. abstract a personal appreciation of hennie aucamp as mentor j pretorius in this study, the researcher utilises the 5d-framework and theoretical and methodological foundation of appreciative inquiry and personal appreciation to conduct a personal appreciation of the influence of author hennie aucamp’s mentorship on the researcher’s personal and professional development. after an appreciative interview with the tv-presenter and voice artist, coenie de villiers, the following five positive themes of the friendships of de villiers and the researcher with aucamp are identified and analysed: • turning point – meeting aucamp • aucamp’s intellect and generous spirit and our awe • mentorship and letters • personal choice of aucamp’s most gripping work and extraordinary craftmanship • personal views of what other artists could stand to learn from aucamp a photo collage was assembled to serve as visual background to the personal appreciation. the researcher himself conducted a personal interview with aucamp with a view to obtaining the latter’s responses to the identified themes and then integrated aucamp’s reaction in the discussion. keywords: personal appreciation; 5d-cycle of appreciative inquiry; hennie aucamp as mentor; coenie de villiers; positive themes microsoft word 14 sithole.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. challenges faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university s sithole1 abstract this article explores the academic and social challenges experienced by students from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) community on campus at a south african university. a qualitative study to investigate some of these academic and social challenges experienced by glbt students at a university campus was conducted. the population of the study was all students from glbt community on campus and a purposive sample of twelve (12) respondents was constituted and a semi-structured interview guide was designed and administered to all twelve (12) participants. data were audio recorded and transcribed. content analysis which is a method used to systematically analyse the meaning of communications was used to analyse data. of central interest were the core themes that speakers referred to, the information or messages that they wanted to pass on to their audience. the findings suggest that glbt students grapple with issues such as labelling, sexual abuse, discrimination/marginalisation and unfairness in the allocation of resources such as accommodation. in response to these cancerous societal ills, the helping professions exhort practitioners to empower vulnerable populations, promote social justice, support client self-determination and keep abreast of current knowledge relevant to professional practice. this article concludes with a set of recommendations on some of the strategies to address the identified socio-academic challenges. keywords: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, socio-academic challenges, south african university introduction the south african constitution is the bastion of democracy in south africa. as a supreme law that governs relationships between persons, and between persons and institutions/organizations, and relationships between three pillars of the state: the judiciary, the legislature and the executive it therefore it prescribes to the south african populace to treat and relate with one another on the plane of equality. yet, for a developing society in transition such as south africa, two decades of democracy seem not to have adequately permeated and pervaded the psyche of the people. one area that still begrudgingly and intransigently begs serious attention is the thorny issue of how the south african society treats sexual minorities, in particular the glbt community. whereas freedom is sometimes undeniably an evasive and vague reality for those at the receiving end of prejudice as a result of naturally endowed attributes or factors that are obviously (not to all) beyond their control such as sexual orientation, south africa remains a country of missed opportunities replete with a myriad of contradictions. given that advanced developed societies such as the united states have grappled somewhat with issues of sexual minorities in universities which are the intellectual repositories and incubators of potent ideas for future leaders, (south) africa still has a lot to prove that its constitution which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual 1 school of social sciences, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: sello.sithole@ul.ac.za sithole 194 orientation, is worth the many (self) sacrifices by most of our iconic leaders who have departed our tortured planet. research on this topical issues of rights to citizenship of glbt students have been subject of scientific investigation (robert, 2002; rankin, 2003). inter alia, snowdown (2003) examines methods of improving the climate for glbt students; and, kiekel (2012) investigates support and engagement for lgbt students. unmistakenly, this article is an additional voice in the discourse on inalienable rights of those who continue to be persecuted by a civilised yet homophobic society. problematising discrimination in societies a large portion of social work clients come from minority communities. however, there are those minority groups who tend to be neglected and rejected more than others, yet sadly, they are part of the entire society, battling in whatever way possible to make south africa a better world by also un/intentionally weaving the new social fabric. the social treatment of ethnic minorities, foreigners, homosexuals, women, the handicapped, the elderly and other groups with perceived low or no social power is a mirror of the dys-functionality of society, reflecting prevailing and dominant mentalities in a specific geographic or cultural context. these mentalities and attitudes are informed by hegemonic beliefs, which shape everyday human relationships and everyday practices of various institutions that determine people’s destinies (leskošek, 2009: 125). misogyny, racial discrimination and homophobia are dominant philosophies for some sections of the population. homophobia is a prevalent and topical problem in south africa, and institutions of higher learning are not immune from such stereotypes, the assumed level of intellectual development notwithstanding. as sexual minorities, the glbt community on south african campuses still experiences notions of “who is outside and who is inside?”, “who belongs among us and who does not”, and “those who dominate and those who are dominated have all to lose if the current disorders continue” (fanon-mendes france, n.d.: 8; soudien, 2014: 912). these issues of meta-narratives, mentalities and identities still pose a major challenge among students across university campuses in south africa. mentality is a specific manner of thinking and feeling among a group of people. it is a manner of understanding, experiencing, and evaluating (sruk, 1980: 211). different groups in society think differently and develop different mentalities; and, those that are supported by the majority become the dominant ones (leskošek, 2009). the current article explores the challenges experienced by sexual minorities within a specific campus in south africa, under circumstances where there is a dearth of literature on this controversial issue. yet, perceptions of campus social environment has an impact on academic performance of students (kuh, 2001, 2003, 2009). theoretical framework for this article, the concept of otherness, which is a set of ideas that demonstrates that labelling leads to disadvantage is used to illuminate some of the challenges that afflict the glbt community on campus. the notion of otherness is used by sociologists to highlight how social identities are contested. this concept is also used to break down the ideologies and resources that groups use to maintain their social identities (zevallos, 2013: 3). needless to say that sexual orientation is used to form an identity. quite often, people relate to one another on the basis of how they perceive one another through the lens of sexual orientation. the negotiation of identity therefore depends upon the negotiation of power relationships (zevallos, 2011: 3). okollie (2003: 2) puts it thus: gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 195 “social identities are relational; groups typically define themselves in relation to others. this is because identity has little meaning without the ‘other’. so, by defining itself, a group defines others. identity is rarely claimed or assigned for its own sake. these definitions of self and others have purposes and consequences. they are tied to rewards and punishment, which may be material or symbolic. there is usually an expectation of gain or loss as a consequence of identity claims. this is why identities are contested. power is implicated here, and because groups do not have equal powers to define both self and other, the consequences reflect these power differentials. often, notions of superiority and inferiority are embedded in particular identities”. homophobia, xenophobia, racism as well as gender discrimination are manifestations of otherness. the issue of otherness was first made a relevant subject within structural anthropology and its approach as a linguistic system (leskošek, 2009). the other is constituted in a manner that it appears as a foreign body in a dominant culture, and therefore needs to be removed if culture is to be healed. moore (1995: 16-20) explains this using the concept of cultural pollution, which forces certain groups of people into a subordinate position or even excludes them entirely, an undesirable philosophy that led to some of the worst human miseries in living memory, such as the jewish pogrom and the genocide in rwanda. the cultural pollution theory refers to a set of beliefs that a collective body of people can be contaminated by the other to such an extent that its existence becomes threatened. the aim of this article is to examine academic and social challenges faced by the glbt community at south african universities; and, to propose intervention guidelines for institutions and organisations. research design the study was exploratory and qualitative. a sample of twelve (12) students was selected purposively from a glbt support group on campus of the university of limpopo. semistructured interviews were conducted with each participant; and, content analysis was performed. the main themes that emerged from data analysis are as follows: labelling or name calling; exclusion by religious institutions; experiences of sexual abuse; exclusion and discrimination by fellow students; marginalization by academic instructors; and, unequal access in as far as allocation of resources are concerned. demographic description of the sample the findings indicated that most members of the glbt students in the sample were single, because societies consider homosexual unions inappropriate and a minority (8%) were married to heterosexual partners, but continued to show interest and get attracted to persons of the same sex. the most important reason for their single status could be as a result of their age and the fact that they had pursued tertiary education. at a more complex level, the single status could be as a result of unresolved social identity issues or not having come out, and therefore being hamstrung in expressing their dating and sexual preferences. inability to come out in the open is a source of continuous and continual psychological conflict and finding it difficult to cope with university life. thio (2004: 413) suggests that such people could be termed bisexual because they are inhibited to express their true sexual orientation. this is considered unhealthy for these people in that they do not live their true lives and identities. the other reason for the participants’ single marital status could be that they were students and therefore still had a few years before they could marry. sithole 196 most students interviewed were affiliated to churches, contrary to some positions on this from other sources (webb & tossel, 2003: 187). the findings also revealed that most students were not comfortable to disclose or come out within the church as the latter institution considers homosexuality blasphemous, heretical and therefore an abomination. the age range of the participants was from 18-21. needless to say this is the time when most people obtain a chance to go through their tertiary education. for most people, this age range is a period of self-discovery and choosing a future soul-mate. however, for glbt students, this is the period at which most of them have to deal with intra-personal conflict of coming out in the open. there seems to be a positive relationship between self-discovery and the level of education among glbt students. there is little self-discovery at primary level (9%), more at secondary level (33%) and the greatest happens at tertiary level (58%). labelling labeling often takes a very subtle form and may extend to micro-aggression. microaggressions are subtle, non-verbal, or even preconscious daily actions that marginalize members of underrepresented groups. as multiple events, these acts may go unnoticed or may be forgotten. however, over time, persistence of micro-aggressions contributes to a constant subtext of threat and stress for members of underrepresented groups (kiekel, 2012). most (67%) of the respondents reported that they were labelled by fellow students whilst 33% never had demeaning and derogatory labels attached to them. some of the labels used towards people in the lgbt community are trassies, an afrikaans word for a homosexual or isitabane, a nguni word for homosexual. one also needs to submit that such labelling are too simplistic and at most demonstrate inadequate comprehension of the glbt community. it is indeed difficult or rather impossible to determine the real orientation of a person by merely observing his/her outward appearance. in most cases, knowing the real status of a person is a function of the particular individual informing you; and, this does not happen that easily. there should be a serious element of trust before this disclosure occurs. so often at times, they are insulted several times by inaccurate labelling of their real sexual orientation and by derogatory labels that go with this misunderstanding. as a result of this negative labelling and stigmatisation, students of the glbt community would invariably find it difficult to come out. the labelling theory suggests that society views members of the glbt community as sick and sinful, they are stigmatised with unfortunate circumstances (weinberg, ruinton & hammersmith, 2006: 192). labels attached to sexual minorities are derived from dominant social discourses and meta-narratives and they form social identities which are relational (okolie, 2003:2). but even these social identities are contested. students from the glbt community are seen by some as a foreign body in a dominant culture, which is what moore (1995: 16) calls cultural pollution. the findings at the university of nebraska and lincoln university climate assessment for glbt indicate that 30% had verbal attacks hurled at them, with 21% indicating this happened more than five times in one academic year. three percent (3%) had been threatened with physical violence and nine percent (9%) had their personal property damaged or destroyed. none reported having objects thrown at them or having been physically assaulted. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 197 experience of sexual abuse fifty five percent (55%) of the respondents reported that they were never exposed to sexual abuse, while the other 45% had been. sexual abuse in this regard would, include, among others, rape, or what is called “corrective rape” in south africa. perpetrators of “corrective rape” believe that forcing themselves on lesbians would result in the latter becoming straight and therefore rehabilitated or rather cured from the “abnormality” of homosexuality. the rape of lesbians can be understood from the otherness notion (leskosek, 2009) where the other is perceived as a foreign body to a dominant culture; and, this foreign body needs to be removed for culture to be healed of pollution or contamination. hence, the mistaken belief among the perpetrators of corrective rape that they can get rid of lesbians as well as their “condition” and heal society. the commission of “corrective rape” claimed the innocent and young life of a thirteen year old lesbian from atteridgeville township west of pretoria. members of the glbt community report that sometimes they experience sexual molestation. webb & tossel (2003: 127) maintain that members of the glbt community are subjected to personal abuse ranging from insults and derogatory remarks to actual physical and sexual abuse which may extend to murder. the findings from the study indicated that 25% of the respondents were raped and 33% were subjected to harassment. literature supports the finding that members of the glbt community are often exposed to harassment and teasing. sexual harassment includes any kind of behaviour which makes one uncomfortable: it may also extend to unwelcome sexual jokes and rude gestures (thio, 2004: 154; hurst, 2010: 134). marginalisation by lecturers some students from the glbt community reported that they were marginalised by the teaching staff at the university. sixty seven percent (67%) of the respondents from this sample reported feelings of being deliberately isolated by their lecturers, whilst the 33% did not feel the same way. marginalisation, according to these students, took the form of, inter alia, exclusion from class discussions. students complained that they could not participate in class discussions. when they raised a hand to answer a question, for example, they would often be ignored. this, according to them is like “being forced to swallow a bitter pill”. the participants also reported being excluded from some validating minor academic errands that lecturers gave to “straight” students. as if that were not enough, glbt students also reported that their ideas were looked down upon. one of the participants’ responses was, “our ideas are also perceived as lopsided just like our sexual orientation”. the situation painted above is a clear assault of social justice because it is characterised by a lack of what nancy fraser defines as “parity of participation” (tikly, 2010: 6). one respondent shared with the researcher a scenario where the students were required to make a joint presentation in class as a form of their formative assessment. after the students had made their presentation, the female lecturer in charge of the class made the following crass remark, “men who wear nail polish are not male enough”. this, inevitably, did not sit well with one of the participants in this study. this homophobic remark by the lecturer, expressed deep sentiments of hetero-sexism or heterosexual bias (a subtle discrimination against perceived minorities), which morrow (1996: 2) describes as “the promotion and valuing of heterosexuality over non-heterosexuality by carefully privileging those who have a gay (or) lesbian…identity”. berkman & zinberg (1997: 320) explain hetero-sexism thus: sithole 198 “heterosexual bias is a more subtle concept than homophobia and entails the belief that heterosexuality is normative and that non-heterosexuality is deviant and intrinsically less desirable. hetero-sexism is often manifested by individuals who would not be considered as being blatantly homophobic or holding negative attitudes. this often subtle hetero-sexism permeates the culture in which social institutions and social work practice are built”. the reported negative remarks towards glbt students on this campus are reminiscent of those at unl campus community where glbt students recounted negative statements from faculty 6%, 5% from student affairs members, 17% from university staff members and 80% from other students (brown, 2002). exclusion by other students students who belong to the glbt community do not only experience discrimination from the teaching staff, but from fellow students as well. occasionally lecturers give students group assignments, tasks or research projects for whatever reason. an average group in this instance would be made up of about five students. in response to these instructions, heterosexual students would more often than not, not allow homosexual students to join their groups. it is as if the homosexual students have to kneel down and beg for inclusion in such academic group activities. zevallos (2011: 31) and okolie (2003: 2) opine that the heterosexual students use groups to maintain social identities which are relational. so, by excluding others, this group defines itself, and these definitions of self and others have consequences that are tied to rewards and punishment which may be material or symbolic. such discriminatory and exclusionary incidents, however, succeed in further denting and eroding the self-esteem of these glbt students and surely this, in, my opinion, would contribute to poor academic performance of these students. when such happens, the words of the poet, heaney (1991), gore at our inner being: “human beings suffer. they torture one another. they get hurt and get hard. no poem or play or song. can fully right a wrong inflicted and endured”. discrimination by fellow students most respondents (75%) in the sample stated that they were discriminated against by their peers and 25% did not feel the same way. the students who felt victims of discrimination cited the same factors as those observed by eitzen & zinn (2003: 308) where members of glbt community are perceived as objects of derision and contempt. the participants also reported an occasion when students on campus had organized a festival and competition on indigenous/traditional games. it is alleged that most heterosexual students did not want to play with members of the glbt community. discriminatory practices also manifested themselves through peers’ refusal to communicate with members of the glbt community. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 199 invariably, most respondents expressed shock at the level of callousness and ignorance about sexuality issues on campus and suggested that there should be more awareness campaigns in this regard. discrimination from worship undeniably, south africa is a secular state but the majority of her citizens are christian (census report, 2012). following from this then, most gays and lesbians would be from christian backgrounds, and they experience discrimination from places where they were born and raised and this extends to their student lives. the glbt students complain about the stares, gossips, derisions, teasing and other homophobic tendencies from church members with whom they worship. such micro-aggressions make it difficult for members to worship freely in a country that abhors discrimination of whatever kind in terms of section 9(3)of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, which states: the state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. one would expect citizens of a country like south africa, which had been in the firm clasp of racial discrimination for almost three hundred years, and was consequently declared a pariah state as a result, to eschew any form of discrimination as instructed by the constitution. but, lo and behold, discriminatory tendencies and practices are still part of the south african higher education landscape. allocation of residences residences on this particular campus are “integrated” in terms of gender. in the case of stacked buildings each floor would be allocated according to gender, meaning that males occupy their own floor apart from females. now, glbt students are discriminated by fellow students in residences. some homosexual male students do not prefer to share residences with gay students, and their reasons would be that gay students propose love to them, touch them inappropriately, make sexist and seductive remarks towards them. some male students are allegedly embarrassed by all this and that is why they resent living among gay students. unequal treatment in health facilities findings from this study suggest that 58% of the respondents felt that they were treated unequally and 42% did not have a problem with the personal treatment from health facilities on campus. literature suggests that gays and lesbians are on the receiving end of unequal treatment from health facilities, and that the students often feel uncomfortable having to communicate with staff in such facilities. the source of the discomfort is that students are scared that they may come out unintentionally or receive less favourable treatment from such encounters (mathieson, bailey & gurevich, 2002; benokraitis 2005; kolmes, stocks & moser, 2006; pitts, smith, mitchell & patel, 2006; edwards & van roekel, 2009). those who eventually use campus health services may not divulge their sexuality and this may mean information relevant for treatment is not provided (mc nair, 2000). alternatively, where health care providers know their patient’s sexual orientation, stereotyped views may lead to sub-optimal treatment (meyer, 2001).the latter part of the previous statement confirms the observation by sir douglas black (dhss, 1980) that social class is a key determinant of people’s life chances. sithole 200 the survey of violence and discrimination against sexual minorities by wright (2009) which was completed by members of bdsm (bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, sado masochism) leather and fetish communities (n=3058) found that nearly half the sample reported being discriminated against by a medical doctor, and 40% by a mental health practitioner. conclusion the findings in this article demonstrate that sexual minorities, in this regard, glbt students still face a lot of rejection by their fellow students and to some extent their academic instructors. evidently, this shows that campus life, more especially among students, does not as yet embrace the value of diversity in its various dimensions. this, undeniably, an indictment of a university as a repository for progressive ideas, and a sad reflection of a homophobic society that we continue to live in, twenty years after the scourge of (racial) exclusion. indeed, nelson mandela’s observation is apt: i have walked that long road to freedom. i have tried not to falter; i have made mis-steps along the way. but i have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. it is indeed true that after climbing a highest mountain such as overcoming an inhuman system was, we still grapple with issues of otherness such as homophobia. this is made so starkly clear when one learns that participants in this study were religious in that they belonged to a variety of churches yet, most felt unwelcome in these institutions for the troubled souls, yet feel rejected. the church, largely, in south africa still grapples with the polemic issue of sexual orientation of its members so much so that some churches have split. little wonder that, glbt students whinged about micro-aggressions meted out to them in the form of stares, gossip, derision, teasing and other homophobic tendencies from other church members. inequality, explicitly and implicitly expressed through various forms of marginalization of glbt students by some lecturers and blatant exclusion by some students from academic activities is a clear demonstration of “otherness”, and confirms that our campuses and to a large extent our society is far from being fully integrated and equal. needless to say that such attitude continues to gradually erode our social fabric, which factor is a gnawing threat to the country’s stability. society and particularly universities which are founded on autonomy and freedom of inquiry must be propelled by values of equality as well as freedom of association amongst others. morrow (1989: 13) maintains that the principle of equality requires not that all people should be treated in the same way, but that people should not be treated differently unless relevant grounds for such differences have been provided. unlike during the epoch of racial discrimination, there is a modicum of freedom on south african campuses. however, this freedom is not extended to all, least of these are the sexual/ minorities. oxlund (2009) made this poignant observation about political freedom in of south african universities, “although political discourses have changed dramatically since the demise of apartheid, the material realities on the ground have only changed marginally”. this fact attests to, inter alia, the fact that the sexual/minorities are still to fully enjoy the fruits that freedom brought. fortunately enough, each problem that assails society is accompanied by an alternative, even though society may have to search the proverbial needle in the haystack to find it. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 201 recommendations on the basis of findings from this research, it is suggested that further research be conducted to enquire exclusively, into the academic performance of students in the glbt community, in particular, to investigate the correlation between membership within glbt and academic performance. as south africa, celebrates more than twenty years of democracy, it may be important to have a robust national debate on diversity, to bring to the fore some of the salient problems that have been conveniently swept under the carpet as the populace dealt with issues of racial exclusion. soudien (2014: 910-914) advocates for progressivism as an anti-dote to some of the socio-academic ills bedevilling higher education in south africa. progressivism is “informed by a commitment to the weak, the poor and the marginalized”. anyway, “much of how it projects itself is premised on the belief that human beings have the ability, through purposeful action, to improve their environments and conditions of their lives” (soudien, 2014: 910). to some extent, this idea of progressivism may be extended to imply that universities as hegemonic and elitist institutions must always be sensitive to the needs and often frustrations of minority communities within their campuses. hence, soudien (2014: 913) concludes his discussion by saying “it is necessary to emphasise why the idea of the progressive is important for the south african university to cultivate”. progressivism is akin to social justice. the concept demands that people have equal rights and opportunities; for everyone, from the poorest person on the margins of society to the wealthiest, deserves an even playing field (miller, 1991: 1; mafumo, 2011: 1554; mashabela, 2011: 1584; hlalele & alexander, 2012: 489). social justice is inextricably aligned to need, desert and equality. it therefore seems plausible, according to waghid (2014: 1448), to claim that higher education for social justice ought to be responsive to the same demands mentioned above. one of the critical means of ensuring integration of the glbt community is to elevate and entrench the notion of citizenship. enslin (2000: 299) notes that citizenship encompass: common membership in a unified society in which difference is respected; the enjoyment of extensive range of rights and freedoms. in concretising a winning battle plan for our universities, issues of diversity must constitute part of the curriculum right at first year level. to this extent, universities must as a matter of urgency conduct awareness campaigns on diversity issues annually. more ground will be covered if staff at the student counselling centre and the university health centre staff is trained on diversity issues, particularly as it relates to these glbt matters. snowden (2003) also provided a blue print to counter homophobia in universities by proposing the following: • include sexual orientation and gender identity in the institution’s non-discrimination policy • if your school offers accommodation to students, ensure that it is open to glbt people on the same basis as it is open to all • check the language of institutional policies and procedures for glbt inclusion • provide specialized transgender training to institutional leaders and all relevant staff • designate a point-person for transgender related needs • allow glbt students to self-identify on surveys and forms • when holding diversity celebrations be mindful of glbt inclusion • make activities for information seekers, applicants and admitted but undecided students glbt inclusive • recruit glbt and glbt knowledgeable students and employees to be admissions reviewers and interviewers. sithole 202 references berg, b.l. 2004. qualitative research methods for the social sciences, 5th edn. boston: allyn and bacon publishers. berkman, c.s. & zinberg, c. 1997. homophobia and heterosexism in social workers. social work, 42(4): 319-333. benokraitis, n.v. 2005. marriages and families: changes, choices and constraints, 3rd edn. baltimore: university of baltimore. bless, c., higson-smith, c. & sithole, s.l. 2013. fundamentals of social research methods: an african perspective, 5th edn. cape town: juta. canadian association of social workers, 1995. guidelines for ethical practice. ottawa: canadian 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what is otherness? the other sociologist: analysis of difference. http://othersociologist.com/otherness-resources [accessed: 04 may 2015]. afrophobia, moral and political disguises: sepa leholo ke la moeti2 mlj koenane3 and kj maphunye4 abstract violent or other attacks on nationals from other african states are a reality we have come to expect time-after-time in post-apartheid south africa. we are once confronted with the ugly reality of barbaric and cruel acts of attacks on foreign internationals from other african states, which some have labelled “xenophobia” or “xenophobic attacks” while others term this “afrophobia” (black-on-black conflict and violence directed at other africans). we argue that this unsolicited characteristic of being african (indigenous) will never disappear unless the moral and political disguises thereof are dealt with radically and proactively. generally, the subject of xenophobia is one which almost everyone has an opinion on – therefore this must be a subject close to every person’s heart, be this controversial or not. keywords: afrophobia, attitude, divide-and-rule, foreigner, hatred, power 2 sepa leholo ke la moeti is the sesotho expression which suggests that whenever anything goes wrong in a home, community or society, blame is attributed towards strangers or foreigners. 3 college of human sciences, university of south africa, p.o. box 392, unisa, 0003, south africa, email: koenamij@unisa.ac.za 4 inaugural wiphold-brigalia bam chair in electoral democracy in africa at unisa, .o. box 392, unisa, 0003, south africa, e-mail: maphukj@unisa.ac.za gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 205 introduction with the dawn of democracy in south africa in 1994, the “rainbow nation” espoused by retired archbishop desmond tutu was usually perceived as a kind of nirvana or paradise based on the numerous rights and freedoms that were enshrined in its new constitution. these rights, which are enshrined in the bill of rights, include freedom of expression, rights to human dignity and equality, freedom of religion, belief and opinion, freedom from slavery, servitude and forced labour, right to life and freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading punishment (constitution of south africa, bill of rights ss. 7-39). such elaborate rights and freedoms suggest that the country is a mature democracy in which these and other rights are sacrosanct and greatly respected. ironically, the situation on the ground in many south african towns, townships, villages and other localities seems to point in another direction. at least since around the year 2000, there have been increasing incidents of hatred, negative attitudes and dislike of foreigners in general from asian countries but specifically targeting african migrants from the different parts of the continent such as somalia, democratic republic of congo, zimbabwe, nigeria, ethiopia mozambique, malawi, to name a few (enca, 2015). violent attacks on other nationals or some forms of attacks on nationals from these and other african states are a reality we have come to expect time-after-time. once again, south africa confronts the ugly reality of barbaric and cruel acts of attacks on foreign nationals from other african states. some have labelled such phenomena xenophobic attacks while others conclude that this is nothing more than afrophobia (black-on-black conflict and violence directed at other africans). mudimbe in his work entitled: the invention of africa (1988) bluntly points to the negative consequences of colonialism on the african soil. one way in which these consequences still haunt africans is the tendency by some of them to look down on other africans especially if they are from elsewhere in the continent. in the case of south africa, the brutal systems of colonialism, racial segregation and apartheid had over centuries inculcated a negative attitude of disdain and hatred of fellow africans from “beyond the limpopo”. during the apartheid era, many africans who came to south africa usually worked in the mines and factories. while this situation might have changed since the country’s democratisation, relatively very few south africans (especially blacks) ventured beyond the borders of the republic in search of work partly because of the apartheid system’s restrictive policies. the end results were that very few south africans (especially africans) clearly understood the socio-economic, cultural and political lifestyles of fellow africans beyond the limpopo. we argue that this unsolicited characteristic of being african is never going to disappear completely unless the moral and political disguises are dealt with radically and proactively by all the role-players in south african society. in a sense, radically here means transforming the way we in south africa do things, including dealing with all aspects of life in settings such as homes, religious and political gatherings and cultural and social meetings, to name but a few. arguably, a child is born as an amoral and apolitical being who then is socialised into becoming anything we shape this child into be-ing, or what sociologists call socialisation. child development depends very much on socialisation, which suggests that under ordinary circumstances, every child be-comes what they were taught or developed to be. the attitude they grow up with – that is, their moral outlook and perspective in life is generally what they sithole 206 were taught to be. to use behavioural theory, people are conditioned in their early childhood to become who they are at their later adulthood stage. we are yet to meet someone who is not in part or completely a product of their society. letseka (2013: 351) views it thus: eventually, i offered my readers african traditional education and the basotho indigenous education as programmes we might draw onto to address the development of the sort of personhood that is necessary for ubuntu moral disposition. justified my choice of basotho indigenous education on the grounds that is my own native education about which i can write uninhibitedly. i surmised that young people who are initiated into ubuntu morality have the potential to become citizens that are inclined to treating others with fairness at all times. in many ways this further suggests that we are all socialised into becoming who we are as well as what we are by our environment. it is also true that we chose at some stage to out-grow certain tendencies we learnt from childhood. but even then, the fundamental reference point still largely remains that of the person’s upbringing and essentially shapes their views later in life. as a result of this conviction, we believe that people can and must be educated on how to view the other person. first and foremost, we need to teach ourselves (even more so our young generation(s)) how to treat others as persons before we can notice differences. kollapen’s primary concern regarding xenophobic actions against other africans from across the borders (cited in koenane 2013: 107) is that “not enough was done to understand the cause of these attacks”. this equally applies to afrophobia, the blatant hatred and dislike of africans from other parts of the continent and this, fundamentally, disguises the crux of the matter; which is the basis of any disagreement and conflict. in order to come up with a working solution and reach a common ground the cause of any conflict must be understood. with regard to afrophobia, probably everyone at the offices believes that they understand the causes of these atrocities. the most striking ones are the now familiar statements such as: “during the apartheid period in south africa, we stayed in their countries” or “during our time of need in the apartheid era they hosted or welcomed us in their country”. there is nothing wrong with these kinds of remarks but the problem is that these statements never made any difference before, they have had no impact in dealing with afrophobic incidents in the past and might not make any positive contribution in the current state of affairs either. the apparent indifference of the south african society to such statements may be attributed to possible disjuncture between the country’s leadership and ordinary citizens who do not understand why they must “share” their country with foreigners, irrespective of wherever they come from. it would seem that some south africans believe their lives would have been better if foreign nationals were barred from coming to their country; but this belief is clearly false in our view. xenophobia or afrophobia as power relations the recent incidents of xenophobia/afrophobia5 and their consequent attacks began in durban, kwamashu, and the city centre and subsequently spread to isiphingo and a vast 5 in this article, the two concepts xenophobia and afrophobia are used interchangeably. we however, prefer afrophobia since it emphasises that it is mostly africans from other african countries who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 207 number of places in kwazulu-natal. the general public (mostly people of goodwill and those whose lives and livelihoods are threatened) is concerned that sooner or later these attacks will spread to the rest of the country, probably targeting new “enemies” such as some other south african ethnic or racial groups. as such, we begin by defining the word xenophobia. for the purpose of this paper, the working definition of xenophobia is taken from frank bealey (1999: 344) it is formulated thus: a fear and hatred of foreigners often reflected in harassment of minority ethnic groups. it may begin as a dislike of people with strange dress and behaviour and develop into specific phobias […]. xenophobia may be particularly rife where a community or nation feels threatened. xenophobia or resentment of foreigners is not a unique phenomenon to south africa, perhaps what could be unique is the manner by means of which this resentment is expressed. speaking at the mail & guardian and university of south africa critical thinking forum recently (23/04/2015), anti-apartheid stalwart and human rights activist, advocate george bizos, made the following remarks on the spate of attacks on foreign nationals in south africa: this isn’t about fear of foreigners. this is far more malevolent than that: rather, we are dealing here with the hatred of foreigners − as the greeks would call it, mísos gia tous xénous. julia kristeva in her book entitled strangers to ourselves (1991) articulates her own experience of being a foreigner in france. nyamnjoh (2006: 38) asserts that xenophobia in all its different manifestations affects all societies but emphasises that not all foreigners became targets. of note are certain elements which according to bealey constitute a definition of xenophobia. firstly, he mentions that “xenophobia is fear and hatred of foreigners”. insofar as we are aware both fear and hatred are real emotions, in a sense that people fear something and such a fear has its source. to begin with, he states “fear”, we therefore would like to investigate if this is a justified fear or not. in other words, is it rational to fear? we believe that xenophobia/afrophobia, is a reality which affects people differently and as such people hold different viewpoints about it. contrary to the belief that xenophobia exists only among africans, it is not only a problem in south africa and among africans only as seen in the current efforts by european countries to keep away africans fleeing from north africa through the mediterranean to southern europe. thus, afrophobia exists at all levels of life and it is expressed in different ways depending on the level at which it operates (koenane, 2013). we also believe that such fear may or may not be reasonable (again depending on the level from which one finds him or herself). the importance of this investigation is that from a philosophical perspective, fear as an emotion is something neutral, that is, fear does not have any moral dimension on its own. it is only if it is judged as a justifiable or unjustifiable act where it adopts such a moral aspect to it. but again it is not as simple as it looks, since what is justifiable for one person may not necessarily be so for the other person. in other words, people may not necessarily agree with what constitutes justification for acting in a always attacked by frustrated locals. we are aware of pakistanis and other asian nationals who are doing business in south africa and who are usually victimised by xenophobic incidents. sithole 208 particular manner. hence, what genuinely constitutes fear in one person may genuinely not necessarily constitute fear in another. however, afrophobic incidents outline power relations. experience teaches us that no matter the progressiveness of a policy or a constitution, a migrant or a foreigner would not have as much comfort in a foreign land as though they were in their own country. in practical sense, power relations characterise the level of comfort a foreigner can enjoy. this again operates within given levels as suggested by koenane (2013), where he outlines three levels on which afrophobia is experienced and expressed. koenane argues that these three levels are: i. the lower level – which is mostly where the frustrations (reasonable or otherwise) lead to acts of vandalism, violence, attacks and looting. simply put, at the lower level xenophobia is expressed in barbaric acts. this is the lower moral road. ii. the second level is characterised by people who do not commit themselves but would simply opine that foreigners must not be attacked or killed as it is the situation in south africa but that they must go back to their own countries; and indifferent people. this he calls the middle road but he does not commit himself into mentioning whether this is a moral or unethical way. however, in this paper, we would refer to this middle road as a moral disguise. iii. he further maintains that the third level of xenophobia is a professional level in which violence and criminal acts do not necessarily play a role. among foreigners in south africa, there are those who are highly skilled and educated. there is high competition for positions at this level and more often than not these foreigners easily elbow locals aside because of their superior education and experience. in the case of zimbabweans and to some extent mozambicans, another factor we often hear is about “hard work”. the binary used is that “south africans are lazy compared to zimbabweans and mozambicans who are “hard workers”. in other words, foreigners are knowledgeable, experienced and preferred to locals. koenane (2013) suggests that the experience of these foreigners could be used to benefit south africans who are at the same level of skills and education if and when these foreigners are meant to train and mentor south africans to acquire skills and experience such as they have. he argues that this in his view is a more moral approach to establishing better relationships between foreigners and locals. for koenane (2013), this is a high moral road. the above differentiation reminds us that there are two different kinds of immigrants: voluntary and involuntary immigrants. immigrants are of heterogeneous groups and their reasons for coming to south africa vary. nyamnjoh (2006: 38) rightly affirms that as much as xenophobia is experienced in all societies those who are targeted are chosen carefully by perpetrators, according to him, people are targeted in terms of the hierarchies in the society,. as such, voluntary immigrants are those who willingly go into a host country for different reasons in particular for greener pastures in terms of seeking professional jobs because of their education and skills. most of those who belong to this group are those affected by xenophobia differently and are generally protected by law since they have work and residence documents which allow them to live in a host country legally. among these are those who cross borders for economic reasons, usually also termed “economic migrants”, even those with little education and little knowledge of this and that (that is, people with no specialised professions in a strict sense of the words – generally referred to as manual labourers). most of these without specialised professions would also have no legal documents to be in a host country. as such, in most cases the dog-eats-dog situation, which is characterised by violence affects most of these unspecialised general labourers. competition at this level is rife since gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 209 there are normally thousands of unskilled job-seekers in a host country such as south africa. be that as it may, there is no moral justification for violating others’ human rights whether they are in the country legally or not. involuntary immigrants are those who cross borders into other countries unwillingly, these are individuals who are forced by circumstances including political and other forms of persecution in their country of origin. among these are those who are regarded as political refugees in terms of the united nations (un) high commission for refugees (unhcr) convention relating to the status of refugees (1951) and its 1967 protocol (unhcr, 2010). overall, political refugees are fairly educated but this differs from country to country and in africa many refugees tend to be women from rural backgrounds who are illiterate (unhcr, 2009: 48). essentially, they are politically involved individuals who, because of their opposition to the ruling party in their country of origin, are then persecuted together with their families and as such are pressured into fleeing their own country into exile in another country6. sometimes they are also forced to flee their countries of birth owing to internecine or civil wars, political instability, despotic or authoritarian regimes and myriad violations of their rights as specified under the universal declaration of human rights. we agree with pogge (2006: 710) that governments have moral obligation and political responsibility to give such people a refugee status and south africa is within its rights in terms of international law to accept refugees into its territory. amnesty international (2002) confirms that a number of governments imprison, persecute and torture their political opponents. since fleeing is one of the main reasons people live in exile, it bothers us that countries continue with political disguises by evading serious issues which ought to be addressed. issues which make people flee their countries are generally political issues; as such political remedies ought to be found in addressing this particular problem. in africa, the african union was established originally as the organisation for african unity (oau) with a hope of addressing african problems head-on and to ensure that africans throughout the continent are liberated from the yokes of slavery, colonialism and white minority governments that used to plague many parts of the continent. to what extent this is taking place, given the tendency of african governments to hide such matters within the cloaks of diplomacy and “national interest”, is difficult to discern but it looks to us as though there is an avoidance strategy in dealing with real political problems which negatively impact on the continent. yet, seriously addressing issues which pressurise people to flee their own countries would undoubtedly ensure that people are safe and protected and thus obviate the need to flee. this would further ensure political freedom and freedom of speech and other fundamental human rights that are often trampled upon easily by african governments. furthermore, this would help to safeguard constitutional change of government through the holding of credible democratic elections that comply with international election management best practices. incidentally, the african charter on democracy, elections and governance, which was adopted by the african union in 2007, clearly stipulates the relevant steps that african governments must take to enhance democratic rule in their own countries (acdeg, 6 however, there must be a an element of persecution and fear of such by anyone so defined. the unhcr convention relating to the status of refugees (1951) defines a “refugee” as “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, members of a particular social group, or political opinion” (unhcr, 2010: 3). sithole 210 2007). in the end, the enforcement of this charter is left to the same governments that usually drag their feet in implementing such agreements. as the un convention for refugees attests (unhcr, 2010), it is not only political views that make people targets in their own countries; and, religion also plays a role in people fleeing their countries. in some cases, some religious groups and sects are usually persecuted for not participating in the political and other processes of their countries. some religions have imposed extremely harsh penalties against their own members to such an extent that people would denounce their religion and flee for their lives. again this is an issue which should be checked against compliance with national laws, continental instruments and international law since all people first and foremost belong to a state. evidence suggests that south africa experiences several impediments to democratic consolidation, suggesting that the country is deply divided along “racial, ethnic and linguistic lines” (gibson & gouws, 2000: 278). similarly, it experienced political tolerance shortly after the demise of apartheid. this may not be dissimilar to the presence of political intolerance and religious oppressive laws in some african states which, inevitably, will require a political solution. such a solution, however, does not imply that african governments must sweep blatant violations of human and democratic rights under the carpets and that, with collusion from western governments; they should pay lip service to the obligations of the universal declaration of human rights including african human rights obligations. undoubtedly, the situation of people crossing borders legally or illegally to get jobs or make money from other countries would always be an urgent political problem which needs to be urgently addressed especially if it looks to insiders as though foreigners are preferred over them.7 thus, there is need for robust political debate in south africa which may lead to finding a sustainable political remedy to this situation. unfortunately, extreme poverty is one of the characteristics of the new south africa, resources are not enough for everyone and as such competition for these limited resources causes frustration on locals. unemployment on all levels is a serious matter to an extent that competing as an underdog would always threaten one who is at the disadvantage. the mind set and xenophobia in his work, i write what i like, steve biko (1978) argues that the most powerful weapon at the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. this is further supported by mzwakhe mbuli in one of his songs where it states: ukulimala kwenqondo ukulimala komuntu. literally, this means that once the mind of the human being is damaged the whole person is damaged beyond repair. in simple terms, this article argues that the problems about certain systemic structural rules of engagement are deep-seated in the minds of individuals. certainly, xenophobia manifests itself differently – this depending on the level at which it operates. however, in all its manifestations xenophobia has everything to do with power relations. power relations, which are some of the main causes of afrophobia, reasonable or unreasonable, were entrenched initially through a well-orchestrated project of the apartheid 7 anecdotal evidence and public talk in taxis, buses, trains and other public forums suggests that some employers do not always hide their preference for foreign nationals in certain industries especially hotels and catering, construction and agriculture. observation by the authors on the nationality of individuals employed in some major retail, hotels and catering outlets in cities such as johannesburg, pretoria and cape town suggests that (unstated or unofficial) preference by these outlets is disproportionately leaning towards foreign nationals. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 211 regime namely the divide-and-rule strategy mostly based on race and ethnicity. this strategy worked and some south african leaders and elsewhere in the continent may have found it appealing as a means to prolong their stay in power. during the apartheid era, the so-called black-on-black violence, which was essentially orchestrated by the regime, was an effective tool which the apartheid government used to its advantage to undermine genuine and organised resistance to its illegitimate rule and draconian policies. in order for this violence to take effect, the apartheid regime had to ensure that the divide-and-rule strategy was in place by carefully co-opting collaborators and elements from the former bantustans who were forced to accept the legitimacy of apartheid in return for concessions from the then white-dominated government. how the strategy worked was simply to turn africans against each other. for instance, one group was made to believe that they were “better” than the others and thus “superior”, while at the same time the same group which was made to believe they were “better” was reported to other black groups as a “sell-out” group. as a matter of fact envy and jealousy were the order of the day, these groups began to hate one another and the hatred aggravated to a deeper level. individuals from these different groups began to see others as enemies, which must be defeated or perpetually undermined; and, in a true sartrean sense, afrophobia is an act of viewing the other africans as “hell”. this is typified by the negative naming of the other which is expressed differently using derogatory terms such as: makwerekwere, izifikanemithwalo, matswantle, etc. (koenane 2013: 106). in terms of the apartheid psyche or ingrained attitudes, a concerted attempt was made by consistent state propaganda and disinformation campaigns to discredit african “beyond the limpopo” by painting a picture of “backwardness, violence and death”. this was often done through biased films, radio broadcasts and newspaper articles. thus, many south africans grew up either hating people from such countries or at least being suspicious of their presence within their midst. the anti-apartheid war against the state, while it ultimately exposed the bankruptcy of the apartheid laws and policies nevertheless did not help much in demystifying many stereotypes created by the apartheid regime. most often than not, cultures embody attitudes towards others in particular those who do not belong to “our own group(s)”, which is a manifestation of the “us and them” syndrome. xenophobic attitudes have everything to do with the mind-set, negative in this case. for instance, among the basotho culture, there is a proverb which largely expresses an attitude towards foreigners or strangers as follows: “sepa leholo ke la moeti […]”8. current and past xenophobic attacks and attitudes in south africa are characterised by allegations and accusations of foreigners engaging in criminal acts. making foreigners scapegoats for things which go wrong is a hypothesis which most authors have explored (wilson, 2015). these include taking out frustrations on foreigners for poor service delivery (fauvelle-aymar & segathi cited in landau 2011: 59). in other words, foreigners are blamed for crime and political failures which they too have no control over. evidence of this is elucidated by landau (2011: 9-10) wherein he quotes the late joe modise’s (the then minister of defence) utterance where he remarked thus: as for crime, the army is helping the police to get rid of crime and violence in the county. however, what can we do? we have one million illegal immigrants in our country who 8 loosely translated, this suggests that the “visitor” that is foreigner is normally to blame whenever things go wrong. sithole 212 commit crimes and who are mistaken by some people for south african citizens. this is the real problem (landau, 2011: 9). this statement can be read together with that of billy masethla, who proposed that strong action must be taken against criminals. masethla asseted as follows: approximately 90 per cent of foreign person who are in rsa with fraudulent documents, ie, either citizenship or migration documents, are involved, in other crimes as well … it is quicker to charge to these criminals for their false documentation and then to deport them than to purse the long route in respect of the other crimes that are committed (landau, 2011: 10). accodingly, both this statemen are convinced that foreigners are a problem since most of them are criminal elements that should be taken care of. foreginers are equated with crime thus sepa le holo ke la moeti. evidently foreginers are blaimed for everything that goes wrong it is for this reason the authors argue that all efforts to address xenophobic attitude and violence is a political disguise. kristeva (1991) differentiates between citizenship and foreignness. in her work: strangers to ourselves, kristeva (1991: 95) asks the question: “by what right are you a foreigner?” she then moves on to what she terms jus soli, jus sanguinis. she is basically concerned with that which constitutes a foreigner or put differently, she wonders how best we could define a foreigner. she explores all sorts of avenues, could a foreigner be someone who does not belong to a particular group? or is the foreigner someone born in another country (kristeva, 1991: 95). she maintains that in terms of a foreigner, two legal systems were created. firstly the jus soli, which is latin for the right of the territory; she refers to the right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognised. secondly, the jus sanguinis this refers to the rule through which birth in a state is sufficient to confer nationality, irrespective of the nationality of one’s parents. both definitions suggest some new definition of a nation state in which the foreigner has no place. analysing the situation from her european context, kristeva (1991) is curious at how foreignness attracts such negativity and fear. she further articulates that the possibility of threat or benefit from the other (foreigner) dictates what rights are offered to him or her. on the lower level in respect of education, self-reliance and skills, the assumption is that the other (foreign nationals) must not have rightsand must be excluded from public service. in terms of the power relations argument propounded in this article, this is a typical example wherein the powerful (police or the state in this case) clearly prey on the powerless (“undocumented” or illegal migrants). such practices have deep roots in the modus operandi of the south african police during apartheid whereby virtually all africans or black people were generally presumed guilty until proven otherwise. during such encounters, police brutality at its worst including the indiscriminate unleashing of police dogs on africans was the norm in many black townships. we find this disturbing and, therefore, we believe that something should be done to legitimise the stay of africans from other parts of the continent in the country and thus extend legal protection to them as well. empty rhetoric and political disguises xenophobic attacks and incidents of violence against african others occur year-in and yearout. we hear the same rhetoric every time these incidents occur; this rhetoric has up-untilnow had no impact and has not made any difference. this leads us to ask this question: is our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 213 government serious about curbing xenophobia among south africans? the new rhetoric reads as follows: #saynotoxenophobia and #simunye9 – africa unite. however, as the word suggests, rhetoric implies hollow promises or verbal declarations that are not backed by concrete action. some south africans anecdotally acknowledge this rhetoric but ascribe it to the fact that “foreigners cannot win votes”, alluding to the fact that politicians from the governing african national congress (anc) and the opposition are not always that enthusiastic about issues pertaining to afrophobia and xenophobia since foreign nationals are legally barred from voting. if this view is correct, it might serve as partial explanation to the apparent official lethargy or reluctance to take meaningful action in dealing with this phenomenon that continually keeps embarrassing the country (enca, 2015; wilson, 2015). with a few slogans, radio, television and print media campaigns that have been undertaken in 2008 and in 2015 when the attacks against other africans occurred, we ask the question: is this the best we can come up with? to answer these two questions, it appears that not enough is done to stop these xenophobic attacks. the attacks are mainly directed to the vulnerable sections of foreigners living in south africa, that is, those in the lower level of the economy, those without specialised skills or education, those who do not have legal documentation to be in the country. in every country, issues of development are of primary concern for government, particularly in developing countries. therefore, in order for development to effectively take place, a country should have a reliable estimation or accurate population statistics of people living in the country, which includes foreigners living in a given country. as observers have argued, this is part of the usual requirements of good governance that governments are expected to comply with (davids, theron & maphunye, 2005: 64). south africa is no exception in this regard. arguably, therefore, those entering the country illegally render development efforts ineffective as this strikes at the heart of development and economic planning aimed at providing services for all citizens. this problem thus needs to be addressed. in cases where foreign nationals are properly documented, we believe xenophobic attacks would be minimised since these foreign nationals are protected by law. however, this means that all the other variables will also have been taken care of such as corruption among state officials such as police, other security agencies and home affairs employees. this applies equally to illiteracy, high unemployment and poverty. kristeva (1991: 96) writes: if political regulations or legislation generally speaking define the manner in which we posit, modify, and eventually improve the status of foreigners, they also make up a vicious circle for it is precisely with respect to laws that foreigners exist. indeed without a social group structured about a power base and provided with legislation, that externality represented by the foreigner and most often experienced as unfavourable or at least problematical would simply not exist. we agree with kristeva (1991) that taking care of what exposes foreigners to exploitation of any sort and legalising their stay in the country is for us the first step in the right direction. this would further provide foreigners with political rights thus making them responsible members of society with rights and obligations like all other nationals. in this way, south africa would in a true sense of the word belong to all who live in it. what kristeva (1991) and wilson (2002) later on challenge us to do is to work towards self-knowledge or selfrealisation of who we are. wilson in the book with a similar title as that of kristeva: strangers 9 simunye is nguni expression meaning “we are one”. sithole 214 to ourselves argues that in order to know ourselves better, we need to find a way of discovering our unconscious selves. he further articulates that for one to know oneself, and how one feels all one needs to do is to take into consideration what one actually does. in other words, our actions define who we are or what we are. put differently, xenophobic acts define south african culture in terms of our relationship with africans from within the continent. xenophobic incidents stigmatise south africans in general. they define south africans as intolerant, violent, heartless and generally brutal to those speaking different language(s) especially if these come from another african country. this, to some extent, exposes the hypocrisy and essence of the so-called ‘xenophobia’ as being actually “afrophobia”. for instance, we have hardly witnessed any incident wherein refugees from the former eastern bloc countries such as czechoslovakia, bosnia-herzegovina, slovenia, and other former yugoslavian territories were exposed to acts of “xenophobia”. yet some from such countries have over the years settled in south africa and were readily accepted as “whites”. they may not have settled in some african township or village but in this case it would appear that the black-white binaries of the south african society seems to have ascribed a “superior” (white) status to them unlike the african migrants who bore the brunt of blatant discrimination. treating others differently with a view to discriminate unfairly against them is a deep-seated problem among africans in particular (enca, 2015). for example, the zulu people in deep kwazulu-natal would refer to any sesotho speaking groups as izilwanyana (little animals); check this out, they are not even animals but little animals because they consider them to be inferior, a negative ethnic mind-set which steve biko cautioned against when he coined the slogan: “black man, you’re on your own”10. this kind of attitude is also reflected in hugh masekela’s hit song, chileshe, in which he cautions against looking down on others, calling them derogatory names and treating them in any inhumane manner. in the song the zulu people represented by ngobese refer to others as izilwanyane (little animals). interesting enough, in the song, dlamini (representing the swazi people refers to others as abantu bezizwe (foreigners) or those who belong to other cultures. again, referring to other africans as foreigners is clearly not acceptable to masekela. technically, it does not make sense to call africans foreigners anywhere in africa – this is their mother continent divided by artificial borders created or invented by colonisers at the 1884 berlin conference. frankly, attitude and prejudice are learnt or acquired, but most importantly they are internalised. it is for this reason that we argue that people could be taught early on in their lives to adopt a positive attitude towards others. furthermore, the country does not deserve the rhetoric and apparent indifference by politicians from all political formations as this has clearly proved ineffective and suggests that south africans merely criticise afrophobic acts whilst in principle not doing much that is sustainable in practice. our approach also urges all individuals and civil society organisations to assist the state to address the manifestations of negative attitudes and prejudice among their compatriots, (enca, 2015; wilson, 2015). way forward avoidance strategy is in our view fuelling incidents of xenophobia and afrophobia in south africa. this avoidance strategy is what we earlier referred to as political disguise. political disguise is understood as a political strategy to refuse or avoid addressing pressing issues such 10 despite the gendered nature of this slogan (man), biko never meant to exclude women as his philosophy is egalitarian. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 215 as immigration policies in the name of maintaining good relations with other countries. we believe that every child is born amoral that is without a sense of morality; as such, morality in human beings is something people learn as they grow up. we therefore believe that introducing moral education from early age schooling would make a difference in terms of people’s attitudes’ towards others. in this respect, all approaches to moral education would be of great help especially aristotle’s approach of character ethics. the reason we advocate for aristotle’s virtue ethics is simply that it emphasises the character of the moral agent. since it emphasises the character of the moral agent, it thus presupposes character formation. better citizenship and sensitivity towards the other could be established earlier in the moral formation of our children. kristeva (1991: 97) moves on to note that as much as certain groups whose philosophy is based on stoicism and the judeo-christian religion have offered some equal status and equal rights to foreigners these are only realistic in a spiritual city since another set of group is created to exclude foreigners from benefiting from the country’s resources. like kristeva (1991), we believe that this is where the political power or the state in its broader sense should play its role. how the political order plays its role is for us a serious moral matter. certainly, politics has everything to do with distribution or allocation of limited resources in a given country. some believe that charity begins at home; by this, the respondents meant that these scarce resources must benefit south africans in the legal sense of jus soli; jus sanguinis. this theory obviously excludes foreigners, therefore where these foreigners benefit from the country’s resources, locals are inevitably frustrated, jealous and strategize and react by victimising the foreigners who seem to be benefitting disproportionately from government interventions such as rdp (reconstruction and development programme) houses and small business initiatives especially in the black townships and villages (wilson, 2015). the question of resources raises another serious question for julia kristeva (1991). she asks: do we have rights as men and women or as citizens? she argues that insofar as resources or rights are allocated in terms of a citizen and a non-citizen, it is equal to recognising one as fully human while the other, a non-citizen, is regarded not as a human being (kristeva, 1991: 98). kristeva (1991) additional emphasises that the idea of exclusion is closely connected with the idea of nation-state, as such she recommends two solutions to this problem. first, she recommends the global united states of all former nation-states where the rights of all human beings are integrated. second, she recommends small political sets designed by humanistic cosmopolitanism with a statute introduced to protect the rights of foreigners (kristeva, 1991: 98). certainly, kristeva’s (1991) view is not new to africa. it seemingly reminds us of the ideas of the pioneers of the organisation of african unity (oau) in 1963 when the likes of kwame nkrumah of ghana were strongly advocating for a “united states of africa” and a continent free from colonialism and white minority rule. of course, probably owing to the reformism from which the oau subsequently suffered, the question of the borders fell out of its agenda (au, 2002). in 2002 when the organisation of african unity became the african union, such ideas again surfaced but africans are still awaiting to see the full commitment and political will of all their governments to such ideas. thus, kristeva’s (1991) argument is not far-fetched. however, the greatest challenge will be on the nature and development of such a “united states of africa” including the actual types of “small political sets designed by humanistic cosmopolitanism”. sithole 216 in koenane (2014: 2) discusses what she refers to as self-defeating behaviour. we therefore believe james’ theory of self-defeating behaviour applies perfectly well in acts of xenophobia and afrophobia (regarded by many as xenophobia). accordingly, reacting also has some selfdefeating consequences as well. consequently, understanding kristeva’s analysis of “strangers to ourselves”, she maintains that we are strangers to ourselves and that which we fear in ourselves needs to be dealt with and accepted in others for us to be able to understand and accept the stranger in others. the growing frustration on other things such as joblessness, scarce resources and political failure to provide services are not reasons enough to take out the frustration on innocent people from other african countries or elsewhere in the world. a xenophobic and afrophobic environment has been allowed to exist for a long time now; and, this environment breeds all kinds of violations and criminal activities ranging from rape, looting, violence, inhumane treatment of others and many other injustices against foreigners who are perceived by locals as a serious threat. yet, the capacity of the state to deal with all these acts of criminology and lawlessness also needs to be brought under scrutiny here. why, for instance, do we constantly see incidents of locals appearing on national television and print media looting “foreigners’ shops” and yet seeing police standing idly by when such acts are perpetrated? (enca, 2015; wilson, 2015) why have we not seen any prosecutions of the perpetrators of the 2008 violence against foreign nationals, many of whom also appeared daringly on national television? (enca, 2015). the answer can only point to the fact that south africa’s state is increasingly becoming “soft” or weak and therefore incapable of addressing such crises. this, for us, also accounts for the current crisis and dilemma facing the country in terms of xenophobia and afrophobia. as much as other scholars express their disillusion regarding ubuntu as a concept on which a south african identity could be established, we argue that given the idea that ubuntu emphasises certain character traits that only could promote friendliness, caring and values that could foster good behaviour, it is our duty to promote the idea of ubuntu and teach young people from early on in their lives to cherish ubuntu ideals. in supporting the ideals of ubuntu landau (2011: 229) writes: while the emphasis on a just and caring society reflects an implicit criticism of capitalism’s inhumanity, […], ubuntu’s action plan – helps shroud a demon to create national cohesion means to overcome difference in a country which, if nothing else, is characterised by difference. therefore we believe ubuntu values cannot be discarded that easily as most scholars argue that these are needed to establish a cohesive south african cultural identity. we believe that from a moral perspective, south africa needs strong leadership that would pave the way in dealing with xenophobia systematically and sustainably. we further need clear policies in terms of dealing with xenophobic incidents in their manifestations. unless tough action is taken against xenophobia in all its manifestations, these incidents will reoccur and define south africa for ages to come. the negative attitude and lack of trusting the other has characterised south africa for a long time. macintyre (2007) argues that behaviour cannot be characterised independently of intention. if macintyre’s assertion is correct, then xenophobic/afrophobic violence and attitude must have an intention – it is this intention which must be uncovered. we likewise believe that incidents of violating the other such as afrophobia attacks, violence, looting and killings would stop if in our school curricula, subjects and modules that are directed at shaping the lives of south african citizens are introduced from early on and are carried through. akinpelu (1981) rightly argues that any system of education would not necessarily change people but education gives individuals an gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 217 opportunity to make informed choices and further enables them to internalise what they have been taught and personalise it. political will is another critical part of the equation because once the political will and determination on the part of leaders is strong enough, afrophobia in all its manifestations its related incidents would be addressed effectively. such political will is quite critical given the fact that whenever the leadership does not seem to prioritise an issue, the general public might erroneously assume that such issue is unimportant.11 finally, we believe that borders we invented to with an intention to divide africa, and if mudimbe’s thesis of the invention of africa is correct, then the new africa could be reinvented by eliminating borders and allowing africans to move freely in the continent without the hindrance of visas and other such hurdles to freedom of movement. we similarly believe that africans must be allowed to have unconditional dual or multi-citizenship in africa. furthermore we suggest that addressing all the real issues that affect africans with honesty will contribute positively towards solving the problem such as afrophobia – this is indeed working towards what landau calls exorcising the demons within. exorcising the demons from within would be the most moral thing to do than adopting the political and moral disguise strategies which in our view are not sustainable solutions to the current intractable problems facing african migrants in south africa and elsewhere in the continent. conclusion afrophobia remains a threat to africa’s long-term stability. however, serious efforts, which will address the concerns of locals in south africa and other countries, have not yet taken place. this is informed by the fact that most countries react instead of addressing the issue proactively. countries affected by border problems need to adopt different strategies than just empty political disguises and rhetoric. it was pointed out that in most situations, the basotho proverb “sepa leholo ke la moeti, […]” is just a strategy to escape blame and apportion it on someone else especially a stranger; which is a way of avoiding confronting a problem. we believe this basotho expression does not always reflect or express truth. foreign nationals cannot be a scapegoat for all social ills that south africa is confronted with. like other crises situations, we all need to learn lessons regarding things that should not happen in our history. this prevailing hostility between africans leaves families broken and destroy trust among africans, xenophobic incidents in south africa have proven that no one is the winner; we all become losers at the end. fighting afrophobia is not an individual responsibility; and, it is a responsibility of the entire society. it is for this reason that the leadership, traditional, political and religious and from other civil society sectors, must lead the way. failing to address this from the leadership perspectives may mean that we have weak leadership morally and politically. we argued that with the introduction of certain subjects and modules in our education system, citizens’ lives may be shaped and that this is important towards shaping the attitudes of society towards 11 in april 2015, zulu king goodwill zwelithini was quoted as saying: “we ask that immigrants must take their bags and go where they come from” (enca, 2015). following these comments, official response from the highest echolons of government was muffled and no forceful message was sent out to condemn such anti-foreigner sentiments. instead, the official line was that the king was “misquoted”; hence there was need to “investigate” what the monarch really said. sithole 218 others. we further argued that in order for south africa to achieve its objectives in terms of fighting xenophobia, we need true political will and strong determination on the part of our leaders including pro-active initiatives by political parties and all role-players. recommendations we suggest that serious political remedies ought to be found in order to address this problem which, as we have established, does not affect south africa alone. we therefore suggest that it is time a sustainable political solution is found to the problem of borders, which was apparently shelved when the oau decided to tackle the challenges of colonialism in africa. we suggested that borders in africa must be abolished for africans to be allowed free movement in the continent. however, we insist that this must be accompanied by african governments’ compliance with all the relevant continental and international instruments such as the universal declaration of human rights and the african charter on democracy, elections and governance, among others. such instruments, we maintain, essentially seek to promote free, just, and democratic rule which will subsequently deter citizens from fleeing from one polity to another. finally, an effective strategy that would eradicate xenophobic attitudes and behaviours at all levels is recommended but may not be an immediate feasibility given the factors raised here. references acdeg, 2007. african charter on democracy, elections and governance, african union commission. http://www.africa-union.org/rot/au/documents/treaties/treaties.htm [accessed: 11 may 2015]. akinpelu, j.a. 1981. an introduction to philosophy of education. london and basingstoke: macmillan press ltd. amnesty international, 2002. report 2000. baltimore: lucas publishers. african union (au), 2002. transition from the oau to the african union. http://www.au2002.gov.za/docs/background/oau_to_au.htm [accessed: 30 may 2015]. bealey, f. 1999. the blackwell dictionary of political science: a user’s guide to its terms. malden, ma: blackwell publishers. biko, s.b. 1978. i write what i like: 1946-1977. london: heinemann publishers. davids, i. & maphunye, k.j. 2005. the public sector: promoting development and good governance. in davids, i., theron, f. & maphunye, k.j. (eds.), participatory development in south africa: a development management perspective. pretoria: van schaik. enca, 2015. checkpoint. enews channel, 31 may 2015. fauvelle-aymar, c. & segatti, a. 2011. people, space and politics: an exploration of factors explaining the 2008 anti-foreigner violence in south africa. in landau, l.b. exorcising the demons within: xenophobia, violence and statecraft in south africa. johannesburg: wits university press. gibson, j.l. & gouws, a. 2000. social identities and political intolerance within the south african mass public. american journal of political science, 44(2): 272-286. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (glbt) students at a south african university td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 193-219. 219 koenane, m.l.j. 2013. xenophobic attacks in south africa an ethical response: have we lost the underlying spirit of ubuntu? international journal of science, commerce and humanities, 1(6): 106-111. koenane, m.l.j. 2014. towards an ethical contextualisation of freud’s theory of personality. phronimon, 15(1): 1-15. kristeva, j. 1991. strangers to ourselves. ls roudiez, new york: columbia university press. landau, l.b. (ed.). 2011. postscript: positive values and the politics of outsiders. in landau, l.b. (ed.), exorcising the demons within: xenophobia, violence and statecraft in south africa. johannesburg: wits university press. letseka, m. 2013. anchoring ubuntu morality. mediterranean journal of social sciences. 4(3): 351-359. macintyre, a. 2007. after virtue, 3rd edn. london: gerald duckworth & co. ltd. mail & guardian and university of south africa critical thinking forum, 2015. “bizos: ‘i know, too, what it means to be a foreigner'”. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-23-bizosi-know-too-what-it-means-to-be-a-foreigner [accessed: 30 may 2015]. mudimbe, v.y. 1988. the invention of africa: gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge. blooming and indianapolis: indiana university press. nyamnjoh, f.b. 2006. insiders and outsiders: citizenship and xenophobia in contemporary southern africa. london and new york: codesaria books in association with zed books. pogge, t. 2006. migration and poverty. in gooding, r.r. & pettit, p. contemporary political philosophy: an anthology, 2nd edn. malden, ma: black publishing. unhcr, 2009. unhcr statistical yearbook. www.unhcr.org/ [accessed: 08 october 2015]. united nations high commission for refugees (unhcr), 2010. convention and protocil relating to the status of refugees. geneva: unhcr. wilson, t.d. 2002. strangers to ourselves: discovering the adaptive unconsciousness. boston, ma: harvard university press. wilson, k. 2015. analysis: are foreigners stealing jobs in south africa? https://www.africacheck.org/…analysis_are_foreigners_stealing_jobs_in_south_africa / [accessed: 08 october 2015]. abstract introduction review of relevant literature rationale for conducting this study research methods and design findings discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) dirk rossouw department of business management, college of business and economics, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa geoffrey a. goldman department of business management, college of business and economics, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa citation rossouw d, goldman ga. technology and collaboration as strategic drivers shaping higher education. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1307. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1307 original research technology and collaboration as strategic drivers shaping higher education dirk rossouw, geoffrey a. goldman received: 31 oct. 2022; accepted: 12 apr. 2023; published: 23 june 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract strategic drivers are the most powerful agents of change not only altering industries, but also the strategic landscape of south african higher education institutions (heis). within this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (vuca) world, technology and collaboration and its interrelatedness seems most profound for heis. therefore, exploring the impact of technology and collaboration as strategic drivers would allow south african heis to serve its socio-economic purpose more effectively. in support of this aim, an interpretive paradigm, employing qualitative methods, was pursued. a qualitative survey design was utilised whereby semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 research participants occupying senior management positions at seven public and one private south african hei. data were analysed in applying conventional content analysis with the assistance of atlas ti. the results confirmed technology and collaboration as strategic drivers and to be critical for south african heis. especially the importance technology was emphasised by the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic, while technology also render collaboration more accessible for heis. to this end, south african heis have to rethink strategy post covid-19 in using technology to enhance technology integrated teaching and learning practices within the realm of the fourth industrial revolution (4ir). furthermore, to also collaborate nationally and internationally to ultimately develop the higher education sector. keywords: collaboration; higher education institutions; strategic drivers; strategy; technology; 4ir. introduction it would seem as though the most powerful change agents in an industry’s strategic landscape are so-called ‘driving forces’.1,2,3 these driving forces are also referred to in the literature as change drivers, drivers of industry development,1,2 drivers4 and strategic drivers,5 the latter term alluding to the strategic nature of these change agents. in literature, these strategic drivers denote the pressing issues and areas of contestation that will determine the future direction, not only of individual organisations but of the industry as a whole.2,3.4,5 when specifically looking at higher education, it would appear as though technological advances and the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) adaptation are crucial for the growth and positioning of higher education institutions (heis) and investment in education technology is sorely needed.6,7 additionally, heis need to strengthen collaboration between hei policymakers and leaders, promote collaboration internally as well as externally between academics, as well as with external stakeholders to foster innovation.8 from the literature, there is enough evidence emphasising the importance of technology and collaborations to warrant a study in determining their status as strategic drivers.8,9 however, despite technology and collaboration emerging as pertinent issues in higher education, it is unclear – whether they could be labelled strategic drivers for heis in south africa. in other words, are technology and collaboration regarded as powerful agents of change able to shift the strategic landscape of the higher education sector? affirming these as strategic drivers will not only make heis aware of these drivers but also alert institutions to include technology and collaboration in their strategic thrusts towards the socio-economic agenda. in conducting this study, an interpretivist paradigm with a qualitative research approach was used, followed by a qualitative survey10,11 as a research strategy. semi-structured interviews with 17 senior management-level staff from eight south african heis were conducted. research participants were purposively selected, and data were then analysed by means of conventional content analysis,12 assisted by atlas.ti. review of relevant literature the literature review commences by interrogating the concept of strategic drivers, where after the discussion will turn to the importance of technology, the 4ir and collaboration for heis, especially in the light of recent disruptive events that have occurred. strategic drivers according to de wit,3 there seems to be no singular definition to accurately define strategic management. however, de wit3 insists that strategy is concerned with aligning the organisation with the environment it operates in. for this reason, a thorough understanding of the business environment is required for the continued existence of any business organisation. although it is vital to consider the whole external environment, the industry environment seems most crucial in developing relevant strategies to deal with disruptive change events in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (vuca) world. to only understand the nature of the industry might not be sufficient, as managers need to know and understand the direction in which the industry is developing in order to ensure fit between the organisational agendas and industry development. in order to keep abreast of industry development, questions such as ‘what are the drivers propelling industry development?’, and: ‘what patterns of development do industries exhibit?’ should be interrogated.3 in support, porter13 emphasises the importance of understanding the intensity and nature of the five competitive forces present in an industry (these being the threat of new entrants, substitute products and services, the bargaining power of buyers and suppliers and inter-firm rivalry within the industry). with this ‘five forces’ model, porter13 underscores the general volatility associated with any given industry. higher education is no exception, as the broader higher education sector is influenced by these developments and trends that require strategic action.14 it is generally accepted that as industries pass through their life cycles, the transition from one phase to the next is accompanied by change. however, there seem to be more reasons for change than merely transitioning from one life cycle stage to the next. change may also be caused by the presence of factors that influence different role players, competitors, buyers and suppliers to alter their course of action. the most powerful of these factors are described as ‘driving forces’ and exert influence on the industry environment to change.2 these driving forces, or strategic drivers,5 often occur in the macro-environment but mostly emanate from the industry environment.2,5 de wit3 extrapolates this notion of strategic drivers further and postulates that drivers that originate from within the industry are to be grouped according to the five competitive forces of buyers, suppliers, new entrants, substitute offerings and inter-firm rivalry. porter1 purports that industry development usually commences with a prevalent industry structure presenting a scenario of how to deal with entry barriers and counter the threat of suppliers and buyers’ bargaining power. however, this structure evolves over time because of changes caused by evolutionary processes and strategic drivers such as research and development, marketing innovation and investment decisions (to take advantage of new marketing or manufacturing opportunities). yet, the inverse can also occur, in that no change is forthcoming within an industry, as organisations choose not to pursue these opportunities. this makes the direction of industry development exceedingly unclear. furthermore, industry changes may occur because of a combination of strategic drivers or because of the actions of one organisation claiming industry leadership. in the absence of a distinct industry leader, it would be safe to assume that changes are the result of a combination of strategic drivers, and industry development is thus steered by industry dynamics.3 although these structures, and associated investment decisions, may be unique to specific industries, it would be safe to assume that some evolutionary processes or strategic drivers are generic across industries, with technological change and manufacturing process innovation being prime examples of such generic strategic drivers.1,2 similar to south african studies on strategic drivers in south african heis,4,5 bender, partlow and roth15 conducted a study on strategic drivers for multinational hospitality organisations in the usa to develop strategies within an uncertain environment typified by heightened global competition and rapidly changing technology. in the south african studies, technology (coupled to 4ir) and collaboration emerged as strong driving forces, and therefore this study endeavours to take a closer look at technology, with the inclusion of 4ir, and collaboration as strategic drivers for south african heis. technology technology has long been seen as vitally important for the sustained existence and longevity of heis.16 however, academics’ willingness to use technology in the teaching and learning environment seems to have been a barrier towards online and blended learning. this changed, literally overnight, with the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic and associated lockdowns in 2020. the pandemic forced heis to rethink their teaching and learning delivery modes to accommodate students and staff not being physically present on campus. mhlanga17 purports that covid-19 necessitated education to adopt 4ir technologies for teaching and learning. at the same time, mhlanga17 also warns that this adoption of digital technologies could lead to a digital divide and widening inequality. david et al.6 further purport that investment in education technologies is sorely needed, as this will make education more widely available. as 4ir technologies allow for students to learn anywhere, heis need to investigate avenues for a swifter transition towards 4ir compliance.18 according to schwab,19 the transformation that technology will bring about is quite intense, and unlike anything the world has previously experienced, and 4ir will fundamentally change governments, institutions and the manner in which people live, work and relate to each other. for this reason, technology and the acceptance of 4ir are paramount for the positioning and growth of heis. according to deviet al.,7 heis will have to invest in the quality, quantity and distribution of human resources in preparing staff for the challenges of 4ir. yende9 postulates that 4ir has become an important driver for higher education, affirming the role of technology to restructure fundamental teaching and learning methods by means of digitalisation. in support, mashau and nyawo20 state that heis will have to rethink teaching pedagogies in the process of adopting e-learning and to improve the success and experience of students. elayyan21 warns that 4ir will cause job losses in traditional fields such as medicine (i.e. doctors), engineering, programming but would also create opportunities in areas such as big data, robotics, artificial intelligence (ai) and three dimensional (3d) printing. yet, according to eckstrand,22 the humanities will remain relevant, as machines cannot replace the human mind where specific mental processes, judgements, analyses and categorisations are required. collaboration lašáková et al.8 purport that a lack of collaboration is hindering innovative educational practices and societal development. to create such a collaborative environment within heis is a challenge, but remains important as new opportunities are created within a broader working milieu, spurring effectiveness in institutions. lašáková et al.8 suggest that innovation should be fostered through heis strengthening collaboration between policy makers and hei leaders. this will create a more collaborative working environment and build relationships, networks and cohesiveness between institutions and academics and with external role players. to enhance collaboration, universities south africa (usaf) is assisting south african heis with various challenges that are present in their respective environments that are hindering collaboration. universities south africa is also assisting heis to develop effective partnerships with local, national and international stakeholders to transfer knowledge and expertise.23 bergman24 refers to a ‘triple helix’ or a three-way collaboration framework whereby heis, government and industry partners work in close-knit to develop a region. the opportunities for collaboration do exist, as there seems to be a drive from abroad to establish partnerships and networks with africa and african heis to rejuvenate african heis rather than provide aid to them.25 the growth in the number of public and private heis necessitates partnerships with private heis to promote better collaboration within the higher education sector.14,25 furthermore, kwiek26 also affirms that research collaboration internationally is of strategic importance especially in a system where resources are inadequate. porter27 emphasises the benefits for students, academics, support staff and research when sharing a vision and also in distributing resources between institutions. conclusion to remain relevant in the current higher education landscape, heis need to continually review and rethink how they fulfil their basic mandate of providing quality teaching and learning and generating new knowledge to advance society in general. technological advances, the rise of 4ir and a proliferation in the adoption of information and communication technologies (icts) made it possible for heis to survive the massive disruptions brought about by covid-19. technology has afforded heis the ability to rise to the challenges posed by covid-19 is also opening up new possibilities for both teaching and learning, as well as research. the 4ir world and the associated technologies within it have also opened up new possibilities for collaboration and collaborative arrangements between academics, heis and stakeholders and therefore enhancing teaching, learning, research and resource availability. rationale for conducting this study resultant from the perspectives presented in the literature review, it is apparent that uncertainty among heis occurs regarding technology and collaboration as strategic drivers. derived from the research problem presented above, the research question for this study is stated as follows: could technology and collaboration be viewed as strategic drivers for heis in south africa? further to this research question, the primary objective of this study is thus: to explore how technology and collaboration, as strategic drivers within south african hei landscape, play a role in defining the realities of higher education in south africa. research methods and design this study forms part of a phd study embarked upon by the first author, d.r., and should be viewed in this context. the second author was the supervisor of the phd and an active co-author of this article. this study was conducted from an interpretivist perspective, as the study sought to understand how technology, manifested in the 4ir and heightened collaboration, is impacting south african higher education as strategic drivers. the study is therefore in essence exploratory, focussing on context and aiming to illuminate gaps in understanding.28 neuman29 reminds us that studies of an exploratory nature are well suited to interpretivist inquiry. furthermore, qualitative research methods were employed in this study. not only are qualitative methods normally associated with studies of an interpretive nature,30 but they also emphasise the social construction of reality.31 in the context of this study, when trying to understand how technology and collaboration are impacting the higher education landscape as strategic drivers, the insights of those who actively play a role in shaping the reality of higher education are essential for the researcher to reach meaningful conclusions. these insights were obtained through a qualitative survey11 hailing from eight different heis across south africa. seven of these institutions were state subsidised, and one was a privately funded hei. from each of these institutions, three senior-level managers were purposively selected. these senior-level managers included vice-chancellors, deputy vice-chancellors, registrars, executive deans, executive and senior directors, as well as directors. of the 24 potential interview subjects selected, interviews were conducted with 17 of them. the remaining seven targeted interview subjects’ work commitments were of such a nature that no suitable time could be arranged for interviews to be conducted. it is important to note that when data collection commenced, lockdown level 5 was announced because of the covid-19 pandemic in which people, with the exception of a few were homebound by government. by this stage, only one interview had been conducted. as a result, the remaining interviews had to be conducted via zoom or ms-teams. the interviews took the form of semi-structured interviews that were informed by literature and previous research of the authors. data forthcoming from the interviews were analysed by means of conventional content analysis,12 to avoid predetermined codes. aided by atlas.ti this method of analysis allowed for codes, categories, subthemes and themes to flow spontaneously from the data12,29 assisting to build the essential narrative and thus achieving stated research objective. following transcription of the interviews, open coding was conducted aided by the ‘content analysis’ tool of atlas.ti. a total of 987 codes emerged. this was reduced to 42 categories once initial codes were interrogated and combined into larger categories, and inter-relationships were explored between these categories. a second round of scrutiny followed. this time all the codes alluding to technology, 4ir and collaboration were re-organised and analysed to allow an essential narrative to develop concerning how the 4ir and technology driven collaboration are impacting higher education as strategic drivers. this narrative centres around four core themes, which will be elaborated upon in turn. ethical considerations an application for full ethical approval of the greater phd study was made to the college of business and economics research ethics committee and ethics clearance was received on 03 february 2020 (no. cberec20som01). in addition, ethics clearance and informed written consent were also obtained from the institutions and research participants who constituted the sample for this study. proof hereof is available on request from the first author. further to this, since humans were involved, all procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the college research ethics committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. findings from the interviews, it is clear that the 4ir world we find ourselves in laid the foundation for dealing with the sudden and disruptive change brought about by covid-19. therefore, within the context of higher education, technology is generating new avenues for teaching and learning and research by making collaborative arrangements possible. the narrative that follows postulates that a certain context exists within the higher education environment where technology and collaborative arrangements can be enhanced to the benefit of teaching and learning, as well as research activities. please note that in the interests of brevity, a limited number of excerpts from interviews are used as supporting evidence. more evidence is available upon request from the authors. theme one: the macro context of higher education research participants expressed views on the broader context within which higher education operates. the forces at play within this context can be seen as drivers of higher education in their own right. two important forces emerged from interviews with research participants, these being globalisation and market forces and change. these shall now be discussed in turn. globalisation globalisation is viewed by all research participants as an important and significant strategic driver for heis in south africa. they describe globalisation as a much broader development than internationalisation, which aims to shift the competitive advantage of businesses and populations. this distinction is also encountered in literature.32 research participants opined that globalisation allows for the hybridisation of ideas, which can lead to major advances in, among others, curriculum design and development and transformation. the interviews also revealed that covid-19, global rankings, competition and inequality between heis, geopolitical risks, demographic differences between the global north and south, student migration within africa and neoliberalist economic policies either create challenges or impact south african heis directly. these views are also echoed in studies by kigotho,33 sabzalieva, moscovitz and brunner34 and maslen.35 a research participant, interestingly, suggested the term ‘glocalisation’, thereby staying locally relevant while remaining globally relevant. other participants felt that globalisation could be pursued through phases of global convergence and divergence facilitated through 4ir-enabled platforms. as online teaching and learning platforms are transferring higher education into a virtual global intellectual space, the right combination of international staff and students is important to maintain stature as a world-class institution, a sentiment also encountered in literature.36 participants see collaboration as a strategy to grow an institution’s international profile in order to make it more attractive for international staff and students, which seems to be consistent with views expressed in literature.37,38 refer to table 1 for excerpts from the interviews. table 1: extracts from the interviews on globalisation. market forces and change most research participants are of the opinion that south african heis are subject to a vuca environment, making higher education a particularly complex environment to operate within, a sentiment also forthcoming in literature.39,40 participants mentioned that this vuca environment is typified by radical and large-scale change, a drive towards technological rejuvenation and a strong focus on innovation. of the research participants mentioned that there is a drive among south african heis to be initiators of change. however, to do so, participants suggest that heis need to re-invent themselves and redefine their purpose in an ever-changing world. although the reality of competition among heis was acknowledged by research participants, some opined that there should be less competition, as heis should complement one another and work together to take advantage of opportunities. therefore, areas of collaboration should rather be pursued to the benefit of all heis. the reality of competition between heis is also cited by other scholars.41,42,43 the covid-19 pandemic is regarded by research participants as driver of change for heis as it not only altered how heis went about the task of education, but it also forced heis to prepare students differently for the world of work. this is consistent with views from the literature44,45 that covid-19 had a huge impact on higher education. higher education institutions, especially residential institutions, were rooted in face-to-face teaching and learning, and covid-19 forced institutions into online teaching and learning literally overnight, a point emphasised by mhlanga.17 some participants feel that investment in technology is still needed to utilise the full potential of online teaching and learning. although some felt that the debate around 4ir had subsided during the pandemic, it did act as a catalyst for advancing technology-based teaching and learning. refer to table 2 for excerpts from the interviews. table 2: interview excerpts on market forces and change. theme two: the impact of technology from the interviews, it is apparent that technological advances are critical and important strategic drivers, not only for south african heis, but for heis around the world. this is also consistent with sentiments from literature.9 most research participants were of the opinion that although heis were debating how to be more involved in the 4ir for some time, the real impact thereof and the technology associated with it became a reality with the global covid-19 pandemic and the transition to the online learning space. research participants all agreed that online or blended learning is an imperative for heis in south africa, now and in the future. this sentiment was also affirmed in literature.17,46 although research participants tended to emphasise the technologies needed to facilitate teaching and learning, especially in times of disruptive change such as covid-19, some participants mentioned the importance of focussing on innovative pedagogies as well as innovative teaching and learning spaces to promote learning. innovations in the fields of virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality as tools to enhance learning were also touched on by research participants as areas that need to be explored to take advantage of the possibilities offered by technology in the teaching and learning environment, a point also emphasised in literature.40 some research participants emphasised that it is crucial for heis to become trendsetters in terms of technology, or producers of technology, rather than merely users of technology that rely or focus on the transformative nature of technology, as this is where institutions could find a basis for competitive advantage in future, by providing a superior online student experience. research participants also felt that technology is an enabler of internationalisation, as it provides an opportunity to study anywhere in the world, a sentiment shared by xing et al.18 although this is seen as a positive point, it is also felt that this can impact south african institutions negatively, as students may decide to rather study at a reputable international institution than conduct their studies at local hei. though it is widely accepted that online learning is more cost-effective, the opposite was also raised by research participants, because of additional backend operational costs. it is also commonly accepted by research participants that technology is there to make it all easier. however, within the south african context, there seem to be many challenges, as society is not prepared to encompass the shift to accelerated technological advancements in the higher education environment, as there are sentiments that it will lead to a widening of the social divide that is already quite vast in south africa, a point emphasised in literature.17 furthermore, there is a fear that technology may render certain work categories obsolete, a very real fear heis need to take heed of when developing curricula and positioning themselves for the future. understanding the impact of technology, as well as the role of innovation in this process of technology adoption, will allow south african heis to better prepare themselves and to serve its social obligations more effectively, as the opposite may render an institution irrelevant as the world continues to move down a trajectory dictated by technology and 4ir.47 refer to table 3 for excerpts from the interviews. table 3: quotations from the interviews on the impact of technology. theme three: collaboration the interviews revealed that not only collaboration but also strategic partnerships were emerging as important issues for heis, which could not be ignored or marginalised. these collaborations centred mostly around intellectual, research, staff and student exchanges aimed at expanding knowledge creation and/or teaching and learning initiatives. research participants are of the opinion that collaborations with both the global north and south need to be considered, as the global south has a better understanding of the south african context. it is felt that such collaborations will not only enhance teaching and learning as well as research capabilities but also cultural experiences. such sentiments are also encountered in literature.25 participants warned, however, that care should be taken when entering into collaborative arrangements, as the quality of these arrangements would affect the outcomes thereof. it was also apparent from the interviews that a potential challenge to collaboration would be to maintain a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary focus, which is important to heis on an institutional level but not necessarily so important on the departmental or individual level. however, real-world challenges are usually multi-faceted, and it is felt that pursuing solutions from multiple perspectives could yield better results. as research participants view cross-pollination of knowledge as a vital progression for the longevity of heis, transdisciplinary collaboration is regarded as a strategic driver for academic programmes and research, views also expressed in literature.48 collaborative research not only helps building research capacity but also promoting teaching and learning. from the interviews, it is also apparent that collaboration with industry and government is vital for the development of relevant and current academic programmes. this idea is also purported in literature, where bergman24 refers to such collaborative arrangements as a ‘triple helix framework’. at the end of the day, however, the overwhelming feeling from research participants is that collaboration assists in developing people through collegiality, openness and forging networks in creating a collaborative space with less of a competitive focus, a view also purported in literature.49 at the same time, however, some research participants did reflect on the current state of collaboration between academics. they commented that even within a given institution, people still tended to operate in isolated ‘silos’, thereby underscoring the necessity to promote the concept of collaboration between academics, not only between different institutions but also within the same institution, as this type of collaboration is dependent on the interactions and initiatives of individuals. this is a sentiment also affirmed in literature.8 also, collaboration with government at various levels and stakeholders should not be ignored. yet, what is painstakingly obvious from the interviews is that collaboration between academics can be taken to new heights by the application of technology. rapid developments in digital technologies, coupled with exponential expansion in ict usage, has affected companies’ collaboration activities in many industries,50 and higher education is no exception. increased digitisation has led to the growth of e-business, which has necessitated changes in how companies go about their daily operations.51 again, higher education is no exception here. not only have electronic platforms such as ms teams and zoom become commonplace for facilitating meetings, colloquia, workshops, public lectures and conferences during and in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic, but learning management systems are playing a more important role than ever before. teaching and learning are becoming distinctively more blended, even at ‘traditional’, purely residential heis. this enables institutions to provide better-quality education to students. furthermore, the opportunities for collaborative research with peers from different parts of the world are tremendous, as digital platforms do not only facilitate meetings and discussions between research partners but can also facilitate data collection, analysis and dissemination of findings. this echoes the sentiments of bals, lane and mugurusi,52 who posit that collaboration can facilitate the sharing of knowledge, improve efficiencies and decrease costs, which are essential factors in assessing the performance of projects or organisations as a whole. refer to table 4 for excerpts from the interviews. table 4: excerpts from the interviews on collaboration. theme four: teaching, learning and research this theme seems to address the level where collaboration, driven by technology in the context of higher education, impacts upon. from the interviews, it was evident that teaching and learning, as well as research were the areas that stood the most to benefit from collaborative opportunities made possible by technological advances. in terms of teaching and learning, research participants feel that technology and collaborative arrangements are key to ensuring student success (as measured by the pass rate per module and the throughput rate per programme or qualification). with the outbreak of covid-19 and the ensuing lockdowns, heis had no choice but to switch to digital platforms to keep operations going and to provide tuition to students. in the aftermath of covid-19, these learning management systems are far more integrated into the teaching and learning ‘fabric’ of heis than they were before covid-19 and blended learning is now almost taken for granted. however, some research participants did mention that heis were not prepared and equipped at the time to switch over to, and engage in, full e-learning. to adjust to these challenges, these research participants are of the opinion that academics would need to adjust their pedagogies to meet the requirements of the online or blended classroom, a view also forthcoming in literature.53 as teaching and learning can be viewed as a core strategic driver, heis will thus have to reconceptualise their outlook in the new teaching and learning environment. the research participants also reflected on research as a factor that impacts upon teaching and learning. they opined that without knowledge created through research, heis and teaching and learning will become irrelevant. therefore, research needs to be of quality, of high impact and relevant to industry and societal needs. some of the research participants were for the opinion that over and above academic research, which provides subsidy income for heis, contract research should also be considered as a potential source of revenue, as budget cuts for research seem inevitable. from literature, the notion of contract research is supported by castree.54 however, to allow for such extensive research, heis should enter into collaborative arrangements with industry partners and other heis, a sentiment encountered in literature.55 research participants also indicated that technology can facilitate research, and research collaboration, as also eluded to in theme 3. refer to table 5 for excerpts from the interviews. table 5: extracts from the interviews on teaching, learning and research. discussion following from the findings presented in the previous section, the following discussion will attempt to elaborate upon technology and collaboration as strategic drivers for heis. as globalisation and the vuca environment are important and most prominent, it not only impacts the strategic intent of heis but also the manner in which institutions use technology and collaborative arrangements within a global or ‘glocal’ world. covid-19 has forced heis to rethink their purpose as educators44,45 and to make sense of how students are prepared for the new world of work. furthermore, online teaching and learning platforms are transforming heis into virtual intellectual spaces, while collaborative arrangements serve to grow heis’ international profile and standing, thereby making it more attractive for international staff and students.37,38 although heis have grappled with becoming more 4ir compliant,56,20 the impact of technology, the possibilities technology open up and the realities of what becoming 4ir compliant involved became a reality when the covid-19 pandemic forced heis to transition to online service delivery.17 yet, irrespective of the emphasis on technology, institutions should remain focused on innovative teaching and learning spaces and pedagogics, as this remains the cornerstone of effective teaching and learning. however, to support and further innovative learning spaces and teaching pedagogies, technology has a crucial role to play in restructuring fundamental teaching and learning methodologies,9 improving the student experience and improving overall student performance.20 therefore, virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality57 are definite candidates for future consideration. higher education institutions have the potential to be producers of technology, instead of merely being users of technology.19 technology should assume a transformative focus to assist the broader society of south africa. technology as a enabler of internationalisation provides students with opportunities to study from anywhere in the world.58 although this may be very positive, south african heis may feel the pinch as students choose to rather study at a credible international institution. although it is generally accepted that online learning may be more cost-effective, heis should be aware of additional backend operational cost. technology might make things easier, but the cost to implement and use the technology might, in itself, be a barrier to adoption by some segments of south african society, thereby exacerbating inequality and the digital divide.17 advances in technology may render certain vocations absolute, which could necessitate heis to alter certain curriculums and syllabi, while also reflecting on the relevance of qualifications. adversely, new opportunities will also emerge, especially in the realm of 3d printing, robotics, big data and ai.21 if south african heis use technology more effectively and understand the mechanisms and logic behind 4ir better, it might increase their preparedness to pursue socio-economic agendas more readily. according to xu et al.,47 one cannot ignore the impact and speed of 4ir as this will cause a shift in knowledge, power and wealth. therefore, the ‘new normal’ is here today and the ‘normal’ going forward. collaboration, especially between the global north and south, is seen as of paramount importance for heis.24,14,26 not only do north-south collaborative arrangements present opportunities for african scholars and heis to connect with institutions perceived to be of higher stature and, in so doing, boost their own reputation and stature, but it also allows institutions and academics from europe and north america to connect with african hei’s and academics, as part of the drive from the global north to rejuvenate african higher education.14 collaboration, whether within or between heis (or with government and stakeholders), promotes people, openness, collegiality, knowledge generation, innovation, quality, sustainability, networks and collaborative spaces that are less competitive.27 however, poorly considered collaborative opportunities and arrangements, as well as the inability to collaborate in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary spaces, can potentially hinder collaboration,49 which underscores the necessity for cross-pollination of ideas, and the co-creation of knowledge and solutions in both research and pedagogy. technology and collaborative arrangements have the potential to put heis in a position where they can indulge in ‘flights of fancy’ and imagine possibilities, which were hereto unattainable. the covid-19 pandemic has proven that heis are capable of far more than they themselves could have imagined. it is not possible for heis can share modules and qualifications, serve markets and students thought impossible or impractical to reach,59 and embark on research-related activities on a far broader scale, thereby promoting transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary and inter-institutional knowledge creation.26 electronic platforms are becoming the norm on how meetings, colloquia, workshops, public lectures and conferences at heis are conducted. learning management systems are now an integral part of the fabric of an hei, and collaborative research is enabled through e-platforms. recommendations and managerial implications from what this study has brought to the fore, the following implications and recommendations are forthcoming: higher education institutions should be careful not to operate in isolation, but to take advantage of increased knowledge bases that are created. higher education institutions have to prioritise online and blended learning and in the process become more 4ir compliant. higher education institutions have to instil innovative pedagogies and teaching and learning spaces which include virtual reality, augmented reality or mixed reality technologies and spaces. in so doing, heis should strive to be known as ‘technology integrated teaching and learning’ institutions. higher education institutions should be producers of technology and leverage the transformative benefits of these technologies. higher education institutions should consider to share the best online modules and qualifications that may not only to enhance teaching and learning but may also prove to be more cost effective by using pooled resources efficiently. south african heis have to prioritise collaboration with both the global north and south to pursue multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborative research opportunities. this can, in turn, enrich teaching and learning, innovation and the general student and staff experience. higher education institutions should actively pursue collaborative arrangements with other institutions of higher learning and form strong partnerships to transfer knowledge, share resources and enhance research output. higher education institutions have to consider joint appointments with industry but also to work closely with government to better serve all stakeholders. higher education institutions have to act as collective and collaborate in support of the strategic goals for higher education in south africa. technology and collaboration should be viewed as interdependent as the one supports the other towards 4ir compliance and serving the broader socio-economic agenda of the country. limitations and avenues for future research a possible limitation may lie in the relatively small sample size. although 24 interviews were planned, 17 interviews were conducted because of the busy schedules of research participants. however, as this is within meaning saturation range,60 it does not affect the credibility of the study but impairs the transferability of the study, as the findings of the study are not applicable to heis in general, but rather to the heis the research participants are affiliated to as well as those that they have exposure to. although this in itself may be tantamount to a representative view, it is not implicit. taking this study further, it is recommended that the impact of these strategic drivers on heis are studied in the broader, south african and african contexts to contextualise the south african perspective better. furthermore, future studies can be extended to include a more exhaustive list of drivers, to better understand the full impact of strategic drivers on heis. thinking further than focussing on strategic drivers, future studies could also include the impact of these drivers on the business models of heis, especially in the wake of covid-19. conclusion south african heis need to rethink their strategies post-covid-19, as covid-19 has exposed the need for heis to adopt advanced technologies and become 4ir compliant to remain relevant in a ‘post-covid’ world. the current environment of higher education also highlights the need for more and better collaboration, not only within institutions but also between heis, and with stakeholders in higher education. both technology and collaboration are crucial in taking south african heis forward into a vuca, 4ir world while still serving a pressing socio-economic national agenda. acknowledgements this article is based on the author’s, d.r., phd thesis in business management entitled: strategic drivers for south african higher education institutions, with g.a.g. as the supervisor. d.r. would like to express appreciation to g.a.g. as supervisor of the phd study and co-authoring this paper. d.r. would also like to thank his wife, annalene, his children and grandchildren for their loving support. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions all authors contributed equally to this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, d.r. the data are not publicly available as it could compromise the privacy of research participants. disclaimer the views and 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of related literature research context research methods and design findings and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references appendix 1 about the author(s) judy van biljon department of information systems, college of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, johannesburg, south africa samwel mwapwele department of information systems, college of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, johannesburg, south africa citation van biljon j, mwapwele s. research collaboration in asymmetric power relations: a study of postgraduate students’ views. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1288. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1288 original research research collaboration in asymmetric power relations: a study of postgraduate students’ views judy van biljon, samwel mwapwele received: 30 aug. 2022; accepted: 14 nov. 2022; published: 16 feb. 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract collaboration among researchers and across disciplinary, organisational and cultural boundaries is essential for addressing the increasingly complex challenges and opportunities facing international development. despite the known advantages and various incentives, research collaboration within africa (specifically within south africa) is lacking. to better understand the reasons for this lack of research collaboration, this study explored collaboration between students and supervisors in an information and communication technology for development (ict4d) postgraduate student project in south africa. south africa, a country with major social inequalities and asymmetric power relations, provides an appropriate context. the students’ perspectives provided a space for investigating the collaboration factors by unpacking the capability inputs according to robeyns’ representation of personal capabilities. data were captured from a survey and focus groups (fg) with students and supervisors in ict4d from different universities in south africa. thematic analysis was used to identify and link the participants’ expectations of research collaboration with their perceptions of the challenges of such collaborations. the contribution is a conceptualisation of the main components representing research collaboration viewed in terms of personal capabilities, including the factors that influence collaboration. transdisciplinarity contribution: research collaboration is fundamental to promoting multi-, interand transdisciplinary research. the novelty of this study lies in applying a theoretical lens from the field of human development to explore research collaboration in the transdisciplinary field of ict4d. given the research application context and the theoretical lens applied, the findings have implications for initiatives and policies on funding transdisciplinary research collaboration. keywords: research collaboration; capabilities; conversion factors; ict4d, postgraduate students. introduction national and international research collaboration is advocated with a view to maximising scientific research productivity,1 research impact2 and global development.3 the trend towards multi-, interand transdisciplinary research is supported by technological advances which create opportunities for researchers to connect and capitalise on a broader range of expertise and information through scientific collaboration.4 the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, adopted by all the united nations (un) member states in 2015,5 and specifically goal 17 (which refers to strengthening the means of implementation and revitalising the global partnership for sustainable development), is one of the key arguments promoting increased collaboration and partnership.6 while institutional support is vital for forming an alliance, individual scientists remain the key actors,7 as human initiatives and capabilities are central to establishing and maintaining successful research collaborations. collaboration patterns for countries in africa are not universal but rather explained by history, culture, language and, to a lesser extent, regional geography.8 based on these findings, adams et al.8 argue for the investigation of bottom-up, subjective, human factors to provide the fuller explanation useful for policy and management purposes. the potential of research collaboration for human development has been studied to some extent. examples include the work of persson6 on conceptualising collaborative research for sustainable development, that of bon9 on rethinking the effects and impact of collaboration versus intervention and that of cottrell and parpart10 for emphasising the challenge of power relations in collaborative research. walsham,11 in a discussion on collaboration between countries in the global south and triangular cooperation with partners in developed countries, raises critical questions about the drivers and benefactors of such an undertaking and whether the less advantaged are adequately included in the process. these studies highlight the unequal power relations which are prevalent in many research collaborations, especially where skills and capacity development is a goal of such engagement. furthermore, the researchers did not explore the personal capabilities and conversion factors impacting research collaboration, especially following the bottom-up, subjective explanation as argued by adams et al.8 ibrahim12 highlights the importance of power relations in human development studies by applying the capability approach (ca). boni and walker13 identify research and knowledge generation as areas where the ca can be applied to investigate human development. against this background, the purpose of the study is to ‘identify the main components of and factors that impact research collaboration in asymmetrical power relations in south africa’. the authors use robeyn’s capability input diagram (see figure 1) to unpack their findings towards presenting the main research collaboration components and factors that impact research collaboration from a personal capabilities perspective. the perspectives of master’s, doctoral and postgraduate students (also known as novice researchers) are significant as they represent the future generation of research collaborators,14,15,16 yet extant studies have not considered their voices in this regard. figure 1: based on robeyns’39 stylised nondynamic representation of a person’s capability set of social and personal context. this interpretivist study was conducted using a case study research design. the context was southern african postgraduate students in the field of information and communication technology for development (ict4d). the exploratory data capturing involved surveys and focus group discussions (fgds) with ict4d postgraduate students in 2019. in the next section, an overview of research collaboration is presented, which is followed by an overview of the ca and then the research context. thereafter, the research design is explained, the findings are presented and the article is concluded by looking at the limitations and the research contribution. review of related literature research collaboration collaboration in academia has been defined in many ways. according to cataldi et al.,17 research collaboration is a two-way process in which individuals and/or organisations share learning, ideas and experiences to produce joint scientific outcomes. sooryamoorthy7 adds the requirement that relationships be well defined and mutually beneficial. besides collaboration between researchers as colleagues, there have long been supervisor–assistant, researcher–consultant and interinstitutional collaborations. in general, research collaboration involves a project based on the interaction between a university researcher and another partner, where the partner is another university researcher, a company representative (as in the case of university–industry collaboration) or an organisation (in the case of a university collaborating with provincial and federal government agencies, local governments or other organised interest groups).6 collaboration can be theoretical, as in the rendering of advice, ideas and criticism, or technical, as in providing tangible assistance in a research endeavour. in many cases, collaboration contains elements of both. given the link between high levels of collaboration and scientific research productivity, many developed countries seek to stimulate collaboration through a mix of research grant schemes and grant criteria designed to fund collaborative research.1 those initiatives have experienced challenges, and the tension between research policy settings (based on particular models of collaboration) and heterogeneous research practices have spurred research into various aspects of research collaboration.4 a substantive investigation into research collaboration models and related aspects are beyond the scope of this article; therefore, only the product versus process dimension and the reasons for collaboration will be discussed. lewis et al.1 distinguish between fluid, expressive and concrete, instrumental collaboration, noting that the two are not mutually exclusive and their use varies from one discipline to the next. arguably, the former (fluid and expressive) can be seen as the process perspective, whereas the latter (concrete and instrumental) fits the product perspective. kumar and ratnavelu,18 who studied scholars from 69 countries in the field of economics, found that respondents considered the improved quality of the outputs, the contribution of mutual expertise and the division of labour to be the biggest advantages of, and motivations for, co-authorship. researchers’ engagement in collaborative activities are motivated by a multitude of factors which can be grouped under the categories of personal, social and environmental. personal factors include intrinsic motivation, researcher characteristics and individual behaviour.19 researchers were found to associate, to varying degrees, with other scholars based on socio-academic parameters such as nationality, ethnicity, gender, professional position and friendship.18 a broader view includes the ability to access expertise and resources, exchange ideas, learn new skills, ensure personal compatibility, garner prestige, establish trust, expand knowledge, foster self-efficacy and strengthen capabilities.20,21,22,23 social factors comprise productivity, association with a prominent co-author, cultural diversity, gender, communication and membership of a researcher’s social network.21,22,23,24,25 environmental (also referred to as institutional) factors encompass higher-quality results, access to funding, the pooling of expertise for solving complex problems, top management support, disciplinary measures, detailed supervision policy and rewards.19,21,22,23 personal factors motivate a researcher to engage in collaborative activities, while environmental and social factors strengthen collaboration.21 collaboration is strengthened through formal and informal meetings and activities.21 cottrell and parpart10 and van den hoven and connell25 concede that collaborators might experience problems regarding the ownership and identity of the research output, transparency, financial issues, power imbalances and the processes followed to reach mutually agreed objectives. this section highlighted core aspects in the theorisation on research collaboration, and the next section motivates the relevance of the application context, namely ict4d for research collaboration. research collaboration in information and communication technology for development information and communication technology for development is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the use of information and communication technologies (icts) for international development;3 thus, the research methodologies are multi-, interand transdisciplinary in nature. historically, ict4d grew out of attempts by researchers and organisations in the global north to use emerging computing technologies to improve socio-economic conditions in developing countries (generally located in the global south).26 north–south research collaboration has thus been fundamental to ict4d research and knowledge production. according to the social network analysis of researchers at the international conference on information and communication technologies and development (ictd), there are fewer collaborative ties among academic institutions in developing countries.27 bibliometric studies provide further evidence that collaboration between african countries is weak and that regional integration of collaborative research networks is lacking.28,29,30 toivanen and ponomariov28 found europe to be africa’s largest collaboration partner in terms of research outputs, while south africa and nigeria were the leading research countries in africa and integrative hubs in their respective regions (southern and western africa). by contrast, adams et al.8 found the countries collaborating most frequently with partners in africa to be the united states, france, the united kingdom, germany and canada. furthermore, they found that collaboration patterns for countries in africa exhibit layers of internal clusters and external links that cannot be explained by monotypic global influences but rather by regional geography, history, culture and language.8 in summary, extant findings on research collaborations in africa indicates mostly intra-institutional collaboration or collaborations with countries outside of africa. involving researchers from the application context can improve the authenticity of the findings, given that south africa has been identified as the main research hub in africa.28,29 locally, there has been an increase in the university student population as a result of the affirmative action policies by the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas).31 maluleka et al.32 found that in south africa, especially in an ict4d field, the majority of the staff members in the academic department of the university were novice researchers. despite the dynamic research context and the prevalence of novice researchers (postgraduate students), there is little evidence of studies into the factors influencing this cohort’s collaboration at south african universities, let alone an investigation that applies the ca to human development in the context of novice researchers in south africa as one of the hubs for research collaboration in africa. against this background, the authors argue that the capability set of postgraduate students, as the future research generation, should be investigated and that south africa provides an appropriate context. the capabilities approach according to boni and walker,13 ‘[h]uman capability formation is human development’. the ca offers an explanation for human needs that goes beyond economic utilitarianism by placing people at the centre of the development process and drawing research attention to sustainable human development.33 not wanting to simplify complex phenomena or debates, the authors will highlight selected key concepts here to analyse the empirical case, including brief references to sen’s34 ca and its application in education, research collaboration and policy formation. sen’s ca34 is a broad, normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being and social arrangements that enable individuals to live meaningful lives. the major constituents of the ca are the interrelated concepts of functionings and capabilities, where functionings (also known as achievements)35 are the ‘beings and doings’ of a person, and capability is ‘the various combinations of functionings that a person is able to achieve’.36 education is regarded as a core capability, fundamental to enhancing other capabilities and well-beings.37,38 unpacking the ca for the design of policies and proposals related to social change in society, robeyns39 depicts the different roles of education by means of a stylised, nondynamic representation of a person’s capability set and his or her social and personal context. of interest as regards research collaboration is the relationship between commodities (goods and services), functionings and capabilities, and the extent to which people can generate capabilities from goods and services. robeyns’ diagram39 as depicted in figure 1 is thus applicable to research collaboration as follows. research collaboration involves several capability inputs that a researcher ought to have; these include educating, writing, engagement and argumentation.25,38,40,41 delving deeper into the capabilities, the authors identify that issues such as history, culture, language and regional geography8 affect researchers’ writing as they require command of the language (grammar, spelling and sentence formulation) and research skills. the research skills may include the ability to command the chosen philosophy, methodology, data collection and analysis skills (including tools and techniques) and the command of ethics. towards involving the social context, researchers can share their work within the department, in workshops and conferences and specifically with novice researchers conducting a proposal defence and viva. the ca focuses on the process of expanding people’s real freedoms so that they can live the kind of lives they have reason to value.42 the kind of lives will be influenced by their capability inputs, social context, personal history and psychology. the functions of a research collaboration include publishing, graduating, being literate, being part of a community, being educated and networking. the relation between a good (personal property or service) and the functionings needed to achieve certain beings and doings is influenced by three groups of conversion factors: the personal, the social and the environmental.34 postgraduate students’ research collaboration contexts, delineated by the personal, social and environmental conversion factors, can be unpacked as follows: personal conversion factors refer to students’ mental and physical condition, literacy, intelligence, gender, affiliation, emotions and so on. social conversion factors refer to public policies (such as goal 17 of the sustainable development goals [sdgs], the south africa national development plan [ndp 2030] to increase the number of graduates by producing more than 100 doctoral graduates per million per year by 2030),14 research and supervision policies, social norms and practices, gender roles, discrimination practices, societal hierarchies and power relations which play a role in the conversion from the characteristics of a ‘good’ to its individual functioning. introducing the idea of network weaving to foster resilience and sustainability in ict4d research, marais and vannini43 claim that ict4d would benefit from intentionally growing social capital and fostering networks within its systems. environmental conversion factors include geographical location, which considers the crime rate in some cities and how it may deter collaboration, and the presence of power rationing, which affects some cities in the country more than others. environmental conversion factors also include issues such as climate and infrastructure, which can affect the conversion from a characteristic of goods and services to individual functioning (e.g. enrolling for distance learning if the geographical location impedes face-to-face tuition). the significance of research collaboration for capabilities can be conceptualised in terms of enhancing individual conversion factors (‘b’ in figure 1). dejaeghere37 mentions two groups of educational capabilities which are found in ca scholarship: affiliation, social networks and recognition; and critical thinking or practical reasoning, aspirations and the reimagining of alternative futures. a basic example is how science literacy enables an individual to convert the resource of an academic paper into information and knowledge (statistical knowledge and scientific reasoning enable an individual to read it critically). by developing reasoning skills, education also influences how individuals make good (or better) choices in respect of particular functionings (‘c’ in figure 1). in accordance with the normative aspect of the ca, research collaboration should be guided by a concern to expand individual capability sets. the ca takes account of human diversity in two ways: firstly, by focusing on the variety of capabilities and functionings as the evaluative space, and secondly, by explicitly focusing on personal and socio-environmental conversion factors converting commodities into functionings, and on the whole social and institutional context that directly affects the conversion factors and also the capability set.44 for postgraduate students, research collaboration has a developmental agenda in terms of human capacity since it can be agency or well-being enhancing. the preferences that influence an individual’s choice of functioning will have been influenced and formed by his or her social context, personal history and psychology. as mentioned, research collaboration can be deemed either a product or a process. the product view (which connects to the functionings) focuses on research collaboration as an artefact of institutional policy or funding agency grants, with measurable outcomes such as interinstitutional agreements, publications, students graduating and so on. the process view adopts a relational ontology to account for the power constituted in social relations and structures, the researchers’ internal processes and the external processes needed to deliver envisaged outcomes. the latter presents the fact that research collaboration is valued for personal development, which cannot be measured in terms of research outputs. against this overview of the ca, the authors focus on investigating students’ personal capability set that could support human development. the next section describes the context followed by the philosophical assumptions that guide the study; motivates and explains the research design and data-capturing strategies; and details the way in which the research was done. research context supervision relationships are asymmetrical by design. supervisors generally have more knowledge and experience than the student in the research area and often more access to resources. the latter is specifically true in south africa, a country with major socio-economic inequalities.45 the nsfas was introduced in 1999 to provide financial aid to students from poor and working-class families to promote access to, and success in, higher and further education and training.46 socio-economic inequalities, together with the provision of financial support for historically disadvantaged students, mean that many of them are the first members of their family to obtain a degree and enrol for postgraduate studies. the now-abolished political system of apartheid, which led to the institutionalised, race-based disadvantaging of nonwhite groups in south africa, had negative consequences for human capacity development. that legacy, coupled with the 2018 parliamentary decision to increase the scope of nsfas aid, underlies the imbalance in power relations between supervisors and students. thus, the case of south african student–supervisor collaborations in 2019 is unique and timely to investigate. research methods and design there is no standard or exclusive procedure for ‘translating’ the theoretical level of the ca into its empirical counterpart.47 frediani et al.48 support that line of argumentation, describing the ca as a broad ‘methodological approach’ that needs to recognise compatible technical methods and partner with those to compensate for its own limitations. researchers therefore have to select from the variety of alternatives that can be implemented, depending on the aim of the research and the resources available.41 this study followed the philosophical assumptions of interpretivism, which are based on the premise that our knowledge of reality is a human social construct.49 this aligns with the purpose of the investigation, where the social context was imperative. furthermore, the use of interpretivism aligns with adams et al.,8 who suggest that research collaboration solutions for africa should use a subjective philosophy. case study research is advocated for understanding a real-world phenomenon when it involves important contextual conditions which are pertinent to the case.49,50 this applies to the current study, that is, seeking to understand novice researchers’ asymmetric power and factors in respect of their collaborative research. postgraduate students undertaking master’s, doctoral or postdoctoral fellowships are the units of observation and analysis, and the terms ‘students’, ‘participants’, ‘junior researchers’, ‘young researchers’ and ‘novice researchers’ are used interchangeably to refer to the participants in this study. scope data capturing was limited to postgraduate students undertaking master’s, doctoral studies and postdoctoral fellowships in the field of ict4d at south african universities. the focus was on students’ perceptions, but supervisors’ inputs were considered when they were available (during an ict4d chapter launch) and found useful for understanding issues related to the conversion and collaboration factors. data capturing in july 2019, exploratory data were captured during the chapter launch of the international network for postgraduate students in the area of ict4d (ipid) in southern africa. the event was hosted in the gauteng province of south africa. the attendees hailed from six institutions (five universities across south africa, plus the national research foundation). the participants represented six different countries in africa, including south africa, uganda, kenya, nigeria, tanzania and namibia. the presence of the novice researchers in south africa speaks to the value that south africa has in fostering their academic development, including access to resources, finances and knowledge, and supports with the claim that south africa is the hub for research in southern africa. a hard copy of a questionnaire containing seven open-ended questions on research collaboration was handed to 38 junior researchers (master’s and doctoral candidates and a postdoctoral fellow) and 5 senior researchers (associate professors and professors) with the request to complete it. after 35 min, all participants had completed the questionnaires. thereafter, they were asked to form groups of five or more individuals, so that each group included master’s and doctoral students. the senior researchers formed a separate group. the groups engaged with the same seven questions (from the questionnaire) in fdgs lasting between 30 min and 45 min. each group had a coordinator who facilitated the discussion and audio-recorded the discussion using a smartphone. the coordinator would pose questions (from the questionnaire) to the group and entice engagement from the fgd members. for the novice researchers, each group had a coordinator who was a fellow novice researcher. for the senior researchers, the coordinator was also a senior researcher. the intention of using peers was to reduce power imbalance and afford open discussions. although the ca informed the authors’ thinking on identifying concepts related to research collaboration, the questions were not formulated in terms of ca terminology, as the authors could not assume that the participants were adequately familiar with the terminology of capabilities, functionings and conversion factors (see questionnaire in appendix 1). the majority of the questions formulated targeted an understanding of the conversion factors (personal, social and environmental). the purpose was to use these constructs during the data analysis to abstract and present the capabilities and functioning from the novice researchers’ perspective. data analysis the authors followed the six-phase thematic analysis, advocated by braun and clarke,51 to analyse the fgds and responses to the open-ended questions. the phases can be described as follows: the first phase, familiarisation with the data, began with an edited transcription of the recorded fgds. a research team member transcribed all three focus group (fg) interview recordings. each questionnaire was given a unique identifier and scanned to retain a digital copy of the responses. all the transcripts (from the fgds and open-ended questionnaires) were loaded on atlas.ti version 8 (atlas.ti gmbh, berlin, germany), and the researchers read and reread the transcripts to understand the breadth and depth of participants’ contributions from the fg. the second phase involved generating initial codes on the transcripts, assigned to a sentence or paragraph, to address the research questions. the authors did not have an externally created code list. initial codes included ‘challenges of research collaboration’, ‘conditions for research collaboration’, ‘intention to collaborate’ and ‘benefits of collaborations’. the researchers also took note of tensions (contradictions) in the transcripts, as the participants engaged with the questions. the third phase involved searching for themes and engaging with the initial codes (from the second phase) by collating all related, relevant data extracts. related codes were connected using networks on atlas.ti, and a code group was created to link them. a few initial codes were grouped under ‘miscellaneous’, since they did not fit into any of the related codes. at this stage, the code groups were referred to as themes. examples of themes emerging during this phase included ‘common understanding’, ‘roles and responsibilities’, ‘distribution of intellectual property’ and ‘publication credits’. the fourth phase focused on refining the code groups, with each being assessed for internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity. in the process, the researchers coded more data extracts (returning to the second phase) in a recursive manner, based on new ideas that emerged while reviewing the themes. the fifth phase involved defining and naming themes obtained during phase four. the themes (including subthemes and counterarguments) were reconsidered in terms of their contribution to the broader perspective of research collaboration. the sixth phase involved producing the research report – a complete data-based story to allow the reader to understand the merit and validity of the analysis. the current study represents phase six of the thematic analysis. ethical considerations ethical clearance (ref. no. 2019_rpsc_037) was obtained from the unisa college of science, engineering and technology’s (cset) research and ethics committee and the research permission sub-committee (rpsc) of the senate research, innovation, postgraduate degrees and commercialisation committee (sripcc). each participant was requested to read and sign the ethics consent form before the questionnaire was distributed. participant names were not captured, so responses cannot be traced to any individual person. findings and discussion the following main themes emerged from the thematic analysis (followed by the number of occurrences in brackets): common goals (51), transparency (30), finance (98), knowledge sharing (107), institutional requirements (86), diversity (54) and power imbalance (59). knowledge sharing and finance being the most mentioned relates to the reasons for collaborating, while the other themes relate to the factors that support or hinder collaboration. the themes are multidimensional in terms of having personal and institutional aspects and constraints. the personal dimension focuses on what an individual values and views as important in a research collaboration. the institutional dimension considers the policy, resources and any documentation that goes beyond the personal dimension and is bound (or restricted) by the researcher’s affiliation. the constraints refer to challenges that researchers are encountering in creating, engaging and ensuring they have a sustainable collaborative working space. the differentiation of the different dimensions is crucial, as it allows for data to show the transition of the personal to the institutional issues and accounts for any challenges encountered, which connects to viewing a research collaboration as a process. the themes and dimensions are now presented, supported by quotations and linked to the extant literature where relevant. data from fg are identified by a number for each fg (i.e. fg1, fg2 and fg3). fg3 represents the fgd among supervisors. questionnaire data are noted as ‘q’, followed by a number for each analysed questionnaire based on the unique identifier. common goals the researchers identified the need for a common understanding of what research collaboration requires, what roles and responsibilities each researcher or institution should have, and how intellectual property and publication credits are distributed. personal goals ‘[…f]rom the onset, having that discussion to state what are the actual benefits, and then allowing rooms for continuous engagements to go through those expectations …’ (fg2) institutional goals ‘[…s]o it is better to be upfront and put forward to say that these are my institution policies and vice versa.’ (fg1) constraints ‘what i think is that if i want to collaborate with you there might be what i want to achieve through my sponsors. so you might see literally when i want to discuss this topic, but the way i understand it, my financers or people who are sponsoring me will understand it different from you. so there is nothing you can do to have a common ground …’ (fg1) noticeably, in some cases these common goals may be affected by the demands of supervisors, sponsors and organisations assisting the researchers. freshwater et al.52 concur with these findings, mentioning a ‘consensus approach to decision-making’. transparency the researchers argued that each party involved in collaborative research had to be clear not only on their common goals but also on the expected benefits. at an institutional level, the use of a memorandum of understanding (mou) was proposed as a tool for researchers to work towards common goals. personal ‘so, i think if we are transparent that, yes there is a common but here are my intended benefits – whether it’s financial or otherwise if we disclose that upfront at least i know that my contribution comes from my heart rather than an embedded expectation.’ (fg1) institutional ‘having the mou upfront about those things may be helpful.’ (fg3) constraints ‘let’s say i found certain findings that are opposite to what the company that is funding you is saying. and then these people are saying no you mustn’t write these results, you must look for the results that speak to our agenda.’ (q17) a sponsor’s agenda was perceived as a possible obstacle to providing credible, empirical evidence. concerning student–supervisor collaboration, there should be a contract outlining action plans, intentions and expected outcomes before commencing the collaboration – an argument that van den hoven and connell25 accept. finances funding is an essential component of most collaborative research projects. it is associated with the cost of data collection, data analysis, acquiring tools and travelling. travel may involve visiting a location for data collection or attending conferences. personal ‘research collaboration could maybe provide funding to travel.’ (q12) institutional ‘it is difficult to have fundamental access to resources, journals, journals database, [et cetera] students cannot access because institutions cannot afford into the journals. all they do is doing profit. but we can’t read our colleagues work.’ (fg3) constraints ‘in a case where finances are not balanced, i believe success will be limited; especially in a case where the researcher is sponsored by a particular organization they may be required to report results that are beneficial to the particular company.’ (q9) ‘we have no funding to attend conferences.’ (q8) ‘we have no access to the fund, yet our full input is required during the inception.’ (q8) the findings on the importance of the availability and management of funding during a research collaboration are in line with those reported by cottrell and parpart,10 freshwater et al.52 and van biljon and naudé,53 where finances were found to play a crucial role in collaborative endeavours. knowledge sharing a lack of experience, few publications, limited research networks and being ill-equipped to operate in a multidisciplinary collaborative space were cited as barriers to research collaboration. personal ‘the challenge that i think we are experiencing as emerging researchers; you will find that the people who are already well established do not want to collaborate with us. because the information is only going in one direction, they don’t gain anything. […] so, if they are working with an emerging researcher, they know that you are dragging them and going to ask too many questions.’ (fg2) institutional ‘because for projects you need people from multi-disciplines – technologies, sociologists, etc. then when you collaborate you can’t be master of all trades.’ (fg3) constraints ‘i think also just to hub on the knowledge side, it is really a case of “you know what you know” and “you don’t really know what you don’t know”. in that collaboration space, it gives you that ability to actually test what you don’t know, and obviously once an acknowledgement is there you are the one that actually knows and there is actually new knowledge that is being generated.’ (fg2) knowledge sharing allows novice researchers to test new ideas, concepts or arguments and acquire feedback that will assist them in better understanding their area of specialisation. tan23 concurs that research collaboration is strongly influenced by knowledge sharing, whereas the latter is influenced by trust, organisational rewards, the organisational culture, the quality of the knowledge management system, openness in communication and face-to-face interactive communication. institutional requirements institutional requirements relate to the research policies which guide the credits and rewards afforded to joint publications, external supervisors and collaborative programs (e.g. visiting researchers). personal ‘[…f]or example, our papers are marked by external examiners. so, if i get an external wits [the university of the witwatersrand] perspective and maybe my paper is going to be marked by a wits lecturer i mean it is quite beneficial for me to sort of understand how wits perceive writing styles or expectations out of your research paper. unless if there is a standard in research on how you should research terms of what is expected.’ (fg2) institutional ‘in terms of institutional practices and background, i think ethics can be different … for example, in terms of let’s say when you are conducting research, some institution may have to incentivize that research giving people gifts etc., whereas some institutions do not allow researchers to give out any gifts, data etc. i think that could be a challenge in my perspective.’ (fg2) constraints ‘[… l]ike the issue you pointing out of students not getting informed about certain things, i find that a lot of time maybe we tend not to read through the websites, [et cetera] because a lot of information is there but we tend to mostly rely on what did the next person tell me about.’ (fg2) the participants noted that much of the information (issues relating to intellectual property, the application of ethics and incentives) about research is found on the university website but that they prefer to consult colleagues instead of university information structures. based on a study of research collaboration at kenyan universities, muriithi et al.19 identified the need for institutions to improve their communication on intellectual property and ethics-related policy requirements. this is echoed by a study conducted at south african universities, where differences in assigning intellectual property rights, funding models and research collaboration histories were identified as barriers to collaboration.53 diversity the participants’ comments related to cultural differences or differing contexts were combined under the heading ‘diversity’. increasing diversity in terms of demographic and knowledge levels within research teams has been proposed as a worthwhile goal. however, the findings of this study show that cultural norms can have a negative effect when they overshadow the expectations of the collaborative space, to the extent where research collaboration is inhibited. personal ‘this brings blended research ideas, with different perspectives and ways of thinking; because of different backgrounds and environments we grew up in.’ (q7) institutional ‘i think we have different cultures in general. i think it’s good because it neutralizes the bias. if i publish and not mention you then you would be neutralized. but if you are from my culture you will understand that woman don’t do partnership.’ (fg1) ‘i think fully i agree with you where cultural differences being seen in terms of strength. in fact, if you go back from one of the information system perspective, we know that the most successful teams in projects are those where the members of the team are from diverse backgrounds.’ (fg3) constraints ‘i think there is a huge bias when it comes to collaborations. almost all of us, we try collaborations with researchers from europe.’ (fg3) respecting diversity successfully means understanding the expectations and capabilities of the participants well enough to create opportunities to collaborate within the scope of their capabilities, expectations and aspirations. muriithi et al.19 provide evidence that despite diversity among participants, those involved in collaborative endeavours published more than their counterparts, which clearly shows the benefit of a culture of research collaboration. the need for contextual and cultural differences to be managed as part of research collaboration confirms the findings of freshwater et al.52 and cumming.54 power imbalance the consequences of a power imbalance were a pervasive theme. arguably, some institutions have facilities and resources that others might not, and these can be used to benefit those undertaking collaborative research. conversely, a power imbalance may work to the detriment of researchers or institutions, as the focus of the research collaboration can be influenced by the funders or interests of the better-resourced partner(s). personal ‘it depends on stakeholders how they use that power imbalance.’ (fg2) ‘power imbalance could be good, in the sense that you might have all the knowledge and i can learn from you, but you can also learn from me.’ (fg1) institutional ‘you might have to conflict your interest or way of thinking or doing things, that you are interested in this particular project but your funder or organisation you are working with has other interests …’ (fg2) constraints ‘these things are happening; i have had a situation where some piece of my writing was presented by my supervisor in a conference without my knowledge.’ (fg1) the perception of unequal power distribution was evident in the relationships between participants and their supervisors. based on a study of collaboration between academics and communities, cottrell and parpart10 report evidence of a power imbalance resulting from financial demands and politics on various levels and argue that power imbalances are prevalent in research collaborations, whether explicitly stated or appearing as differences in class, race or culture. reconsidering robeyns’ representation of a person’s capability set in the light of the findings of the present study (see figure 2), the required capability inputs are relevant expertise, knowledge and skills, cultural awareness, educational and research institutions, infrastructure and funding. the conversion factors that will influence the individual’s capability set derived from the capability inputs are the social, environmental and the personal history and psychology. the main contribution of the findings lies in the identification of collaboration factors, that is, having common goals for the collaboration, transparency in the agendas, processes and resource allocation, knowledge sharing between researchers, acceptable diversity management and power balance management. the themes ‘institutional requirements’ and ‘finance’ influence the collaboration but are already represented in the capability inputs. the themes of common goals and transparency may be more relevant on a personal level, while the themes of knowledge sharing, diversity management and power balance management are relevant on a social level. figure 2: main components and factors in the process of research collaboration, adapted according to the findings. the functionings that novice researchers may realise include graduating, publishing, having academic dexterity and being part of a community of ict4d researchers for networking. limitations as a result of the limitations hampering the direct measurement of capabilities, most research focuses on the achievement of functionings.47 in this study, the collaboration factors were based on students’ perspectives and thus suffer from the limitations of self-reporting. because of distance and accommodation costs, many students and supervisors outside of gauteng could not attend the chapter launch, and that limited the number of responses. although the postgraduate student cohort included six nationalities, the south african students were in the majority (more than 60%). therefore, the findings cannot be generalised to those countries and more research is needed to investigate research collaboration in other african contexts. sen’s ca42 is difficult to navigate and focuses on individual rather than collective choice;55 therefore, the authors limit this study to the individual’s choices. to collaborate is a personal choice but not divorced from the collective; another theoretical lens could make it easier to unpack the collective aspect beyond classifying it under social conversion factors. network weaving towards fostering resilience and sustainability in ict4d, as advocated by marais and vannini,43 could provide theoretical and practical guidance on fostering future research collaborations. conclusion research collaboration has the potential to promote human development while improving research impact by providing the diverse expertise required for interdisciplinary research projects. the lack of research collaboration in ict4d, as is evident in bibliometric studies of developing countries and specifically in south africa, signals untapped potential and the need to better understand the factors influencing research collaboration. applying the ca, specifically robeyns’ focus on personal capability inputs as a theoretical lens, offers a broader vision of research collaboration, with a focus on improving human well-being and agency in the context of unequal power relations between senior researchers (supervisors) and novice researchers (postgraduate students). besides the methodological novelty of applying the ca to the research collaboration space (previously dominated by bibliometric studies), there is the theoretical contribution which consists of the identification and conceptual presentation of the main components and factors that govern postgraduate students’ agency in terms of collaboration. the findings of this study confirmed the elements of a common endeavour and transparency and added shared ethical values, knowledge sharing, respecting diversity, power balance management, access to research environment, tools and opportunities and orientation and training as factors influencing research collaboration. besides general respect for humanity, the study participants did not consider a partnership among equals to be a prerequisite for successful collaboration. they considered asymmetrical power relations as something to be managed rather than something to be avoided. some participants considered a power imbalance as inevitable in triggering a collaboration that involves the sharing of knowledge and access to resources in collaborative endeavours. this finding could be influenced by the transference of the asymmetrical power relations (even if only in terms of supervision experience) inherent in supervision relations. the research collaboration factors are proposed as a point of departure for further investigation in interand transdisciplinary research settings, rather than as a final, prescriptive determination. the findings suggest that novice researchers have a restricted expectation of research collaboration, which would inhibit them from promoting collaborations at a national or international level. novice researchers advancing their research ability to becoming senior researchers and helping other novice researchers may be hampered by the view that research collaboration should focus on the engagement with the supervisor. to this extent, novice researchers may struggle to build collaborative networks with colleagues within the department, institution(s) and even within southern african countries. this suggests the need to reassess the current qualification and publication-based perception of research collaboration, to investigate the potential for promoting the core values of well-being, participation, empowerment and sustainability that underlie capability enhancement and human development. the practical implications for policy and practice are that supervisors’ involvement should be considered in collaborative initiatives. the expressed preference to collaborate with a scholar who is either more senior or better established provides some explanation for the lack of mutual regional research undertakings, since researchers from more developed countries are perceived as having more agency in terms of knowledge and other resources. further research is needed to verify the generalisability of the findings to other contexts and international collaborations and to include the perspectives of university managers, funding agencies and other stakeholders. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions j.v.b. conceptualised the research problem. both j.v.b and s.m. contributed equally to the research and writing the article. funding information this article is based on the research supported by the south african research chair’s initiative of the department of science and technology and national research foundation of south africa (grant no. 98564). data 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supervisors and mentors? …………………………………………………………………………………………… do you think that research collaborations are more successful if there are power imbalances, that is, large differences in the intellectual, financial or other capabilities of the participants? …………………………………………………………………………………………… research collaborations harbour challenges. please provide more detail on what you see as the most important regarding the following aspects of collaboration. financial ……………………………………………………………………………………… differences in knowledge background ……………………………………………………………………………………… differences in institutional requirements and practices ……………………………………………………………………………………… differences in cultural background ……………………………………………………………………………………… initiatives that would be useful in establishing research collaborations …………………………………………………………………………………………… any other information that you believe is important in establishing and maintaining sustainable research collaborations. book review 299 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 298-299. river, zeekoevlei, zandvlei, the hout bay river, the rivers of the southern peninsula, the noordhoek wetlands, the kuils river, the eerste river, and the lourens river. these chapters are the meat of this book. the reader is nearly overwhelmed by the information in these chapters. the history and development of every river area was meticulously recorded and even very small tributaries feature in the narrative. current conditions of the rivers, wetlands and estuaries are presented as well as the threats they are facing with the rapid urbanisation. chapter 20 is about the economics of the rehabilitation of rivers and wetlands. the last chapter looks to the future. these two chapters are important parts of this book telling the reader what can be done to save these important areas and what will be the cost of saving them. after the main text there are still three appendixes, first two are listing frogs and waterbirds living in the area and the third all the relevant cape town city council guidelines, policies and by-laws. as a history researcher you could complain about too few references in this book, especially in the parts dealing with the history of cape town, but considering the scope of the book, this is a minor matter. the book is full of informative maps and charts and it lavishly illustrated with beautiful photos in nearly every page. this book is necessary reading for everyone who is interested in the cape peninsula, its nature and its history. i also hope that this book is a start for similar publications of various other aquatic environments of south africa. harri mäki north-west university july 2008 inside book colour .p65 abstract in the human environment there is a tendency to refer to resources, such as land and water which do not specifically belong to any single individual, as the ‘commons’. garret hardin wrote his famous paper called: “the tragedy of the commons” in which he highlighted the problem inhabitants of the world face regarding the growing population and depletion of natural resources. he proposed that limits must be placed on the liberal use of natural resources, which usually involve some kind of legislation. south africa, as a semi-arid country, needs to manage the water as a commons to ensure that all inhabitants of the country have access to safe drinking water as instructed by the constitution of the republic of south africa act no. 108 of 1996 and subsequently preserved in the national water act no 36 of 1998. the significance of hardin’s theory to south africa becomes evident in the necessity of the mentioned acts, which involve the establishment of catchment management agencies (cmas) and water user associations (wuas). these institutions must ensure the involvement of all stakeholders and water users to manage the resource optimally. establishing these institutions, however, proved to be difficult and their efficiency questioned, thus illustrating a “tragedy within the tragedy”. this article considers the case of the lower orange catchment management agency and the upington islands water user association in the //khara hais local municipality, to illustrate the thus far failing efforts taken by this region to manage the water resource. keywords: lower orange river management area, catchment management agency, // khara hais, water user association, department of water affairs and fortestry (dwaf), integrated water resource management (iwrm), tragedy of the common. disciplines: political studies, public management and governance. the tragedy of the water commons: the case of the lower orange water management area cm gouws * * ina gouws is a lecturer in political science, school of basic sciences, northwest university, vaal triangle campus, south africa. email: ina.gouws@nwu.ac.za the article is based on her research for phd on the water management in the lower orange river catchment, specifically in the khara hais local municipality. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 251-271. 252 introduction with current population pressure, the world needs solutions to provide its human inhabitants with basic natural resources to secure the survival of humanity. one of these resources is safe drinking water. the sustainability of this resource seems to provide countries with the most headaches, and they usually look to science and technology to find solutions to this problem. in this paper, a theory to solving the over population problem will be explored, namely: the tragedy of the commons. the core of this theory is stated in a quote by its creator, garrett hardin: the population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.1 as discussed in section two of this paper, the morality of a society, be it global or in the form of nation state, seems to manifest in legislation and policy and in how these are implemented. access to safe drinking water is protected in the constitution of the republic of south africa act, 108 of 1996.2 the challenge has been to provide this access and to manage water resources effectively. subsequent water legislation, as well as planning frameworks, such as the national water act, 36 of 19983 and the national water resource strategy4 attempt to address the national need to supply water to all people resident in the state. the legislation and the provision for institutional development it presents, is discussed in section three and four of this article and illustrates that south africa developed sound legislation to arrange the tragedy of the commons. the practical implementation of this legislation and management strategies is discussed in section five, with an investigation into the development of the lower orange catchment management area (locma) and the upington islands water user association (uiwua). this is a semi-arid, water scarce area and the effective management of the water commons is essential for the survival of inhabitants of this area, whether their requirements are for domestic use, irrigation or industry. an investigation was conducted into the efforts of the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) in this region, as well as relevant stakeholders responsible for establishing the lower orange catchment 1 g. hardin,” the tragedy of the commons”. science, new series, vol. 162(3859), 1968. pp. 1243-1248. 2 republic of south africa (1996). the constitution of the republic of south africa, act 108 of 1996, pretoria: government printer. 3 republic of south africa (1998). the national water act, 36 of 1998. pretoria: government printer. 4 republic of south africa, department of water affairs and forestry. 2002. national water resource strategy; summary. 2002, pretoria: government printers. gouws 253 management area (locma) and the upington islands water user association (uiwua). semi-structured interviews were held with relevant individuals to establish what has been done to develop and establish these institutions, what the problems are that they faced and the degree of success that was achieved thus far. the objective of the paper is to highlight the relevance of “the tragedy of the commons” in the necessary development of institutions to manage the available water resource in the lowma to prevent depletion of the resource. this study also highlights the “tragedy within the tragedy” that manifests when these institutions fail to effectively manage the water resource. the tragedy of the commons the first order of business is to explain what the “commons” is. those resources that are consumed by all inhabitants of the world, like water, air and land, are referred to as the commons. the understanding is that the commons will always be enough to sustain everyone as long as each only takes his share. the depletion of the commons started when everyone started to consume more than their share. to prevent the complete depletion of the commons, restrictions needed to be put in place for the use of the commons. for land, private ownership became a likely solution. water on the land also became “privately owned”. this meant that the owner could for instance have a water well on the property and use the water freely. if the well dried up, it was the owner’s problem to solve. the more inhabitants consumed the water resource freely and without real consequence, the more the resource turned out to be in short supply.5 hardin highlights the concern with the concept of a class of human problems which cannot be solved by means of technical solutions.6 one of the members of this class is the “population problem”. he argues that most people, who anguish over the population problem, are generally individualists. they cherish individualism because it creates freedom. individualists see freedom as a gift. but in this context, the gift is threatened because the more the population surpasses the capacity of the environment, the more freedoms have to be sacrificed. the tragedy of the commons can also be explained as a social trap that involves a conflict over resources between individual interests 5 g harding, the commons, 1997, (available at: http://members.aol.com/trajcom/ private/commons.htm, as researched on 14 september 2007.) 6 g hardin, “the tragedy…..” science, new series, vol. 162(3859), 1968. pp. 12431248. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river 254 and the common good.7 it takes place when there is an inclination towards free access and unrestricted demand for a limited resource. hardin argues that population has a natural tendency to maximize, meaning to “to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number”.8 merely surviving is simply not good enough. the population wants to consume as much as possible for maximum enjoyment. the problem is that resources that are consumed are not maximized as well. the population grows, but natural resources, like drinking water, do not. they become exhausted. at a moment in time, the realization dawns that the current consumption of the natural resource will not sustain the population indefinitely. so, to avoid depletion of this natural resource, population must show zero growth. not one population in the world can show zero growth although most developed countries show a drop in their population growth rates. the current world population growth rate steadily declined from 2.3% per annum during the period of 1963/64 to 1.2% per annum in 2008 as indicated by the united states census bureau.9 most developing countries in africa, excluding south africa, show rather the opposite. according to gaisie10 , the population growth in sub-saharan africa increased from 2.2% per annum in 1950 to 3.4% per annum in 2000. the south african population growth rate declined steadily from 1.5% per annum in 1995 to 1% in 2007.11 reasons for this growth differences are the impact of aids on mortality rates in south africa according to the united nations world population prospects, the 2006 revision.12 this report also mentions that the decline in population growth in south africa will likely be nullified by the hordes of immigrants (legal and illegal) flocking to south africa from poorer african countries, putting a strain on the nations’ resources. hardin proposes that there is no technical solution to this problem, 7 anon. “tragedy of the commons”, wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. 2007 (available at : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=tragedy_of _the_commons, as researched on 11 july 2007). 8 g hardin, “the tragedy…..” science, new series, vol. 162(3859), 1968. pp. 12431248. 9 the u.s. census bureau international data base. world population information. updated 28 july 2008 (available at: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/ worldpopinfo.html, as researched on 28 july 2008). 10 sk gaisie, “ demographic transition: the predicament of sub-saharan africa”. health transition review. supplement to volume 6, (1996). pp. 345-349. 11 republic of south africa. statistics south africa. mid-year population estimates 2007. statistics south africa: pretoria. 11p. 12 united nations. department of economic and social affairs. world population prospect, the 2006 revision highlights. 2006 (available at: http://www.un.org/ esa/population/publications/wpp2006/wpp2006_highlights_rev.pdf, as researched on 28 july 2008). gouws 255 but that basic morality should be extended to find solutions.13 however, de young argues, that not all commons will suffer the same fate. he argues that there must be a distinction between a public good and a commons.14 this distinction is related to the subtractability of the resource as explained by ostrom.15 subtractability refers to whether an individual’s consumption of a resource deprives others of using it. if one’s consumption of a resource does not deprive others of using it, it is not a commons, but a public good. public good resources can be certain crops being consumed with individuals allowing each other access to consumption without reservation, especially since in most of these cases; consumers are not contributing to caring for theses crops. a commons, on the other hand, like water, is the kind of resource that all individuals contribute in maintaining and consuming, making it possible for this resource to be overused. as such, individuals tend to care very much who gets to use it and how much is being used. an additional distinction, highlighted by feeny, is the issue of access to a resource.16 in this instance, the tragedy occurs when the necessary restrictions needed to be put in place to conserve the commons, is too costly or does not work. feeny refers to this phenomenon as “the tragedy within the tragedy”, meaning that it is a tragedy that the water commons needs to be managed which results in restricted access to the resource, but that a tragedy within this tragedy occurs when these management strategies fail. under these circumstances the water commons remains in danger of being depleted. this important distinction by feeny is emphasised in the example of the lower orange discussed later in this study. ultimately, the moral responsibility lies in the recognition that natural resources, like water, are common. only then do we acknowledge the fact that they require management. various restrictions, like legislation, are then introduced to place limit the use of this resource. it takes away a sense of freedom of individuals. however, it is important because it will ultimately preserve and nurture other freedoms. complete freedom will only lead to tragedy. herein rests the tragedy of the commons. by developing legislation to manage the water resources on the planet, global organizations and governments alike, 13 g hardin, “the tragedy…..” science, new series, vol. 162(3859), 1968. pp. 12431248. 14 r de young, “tragedy of the commons”. 1999. in alexander, d.e. & fairbridge, r.w. [eds.] encyclopedia of environmental science. hingham, ma: kluwer academic publishers. 15 e ostrom, “governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action”. (1990). new york: cambridge university press, p.32. 16 d feeny, et al. 1990. the tragedy of the commons – 22 years later. human ecology, v. 18, 1-19. tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 256 will restrict the consumption of the resource, which may take away certain freedoms, but will preserve other freedoms like life itself. the tragedy of the commons, as a water management theory, can as such, have an important influence on water management. to manage natural resources, like water, an understanding of the complex connection of global, national and local management regimes within a rapidly developing economic, political and institutional transformation is necessary. south africa seems to have made sufficient plans to prevent the tragedy of the commons with admirable water legislation and management strategies developed since 1998. the legislation aims to prevent unrestricted access to and better manage the country’s scarce water resources. as is the case in most other states of the world, the concept of integrated water resource management (iwrm) is used as a blueprint to formulate legislation and policy strategies to effectively manage water resources. world-wide, integrated water resource management (iwrm) is regarded as the most efficient manner in which the basic water needs of consumers can be met.17 it emphasises the maxim: more for all, instead of much for few. iwrm is a key component of integrated water provision, which in turn is a condition of sustainable development. dwaf defines iwrm as a strategy (policy) that influences the need and usage of water in order to ensure sustainability of the water.18 thus, iwrm focuses on the manner in which water is used rather than simply supplying the demand for water, in order to reach the following goals: economic efficiency, social development, social equity, the conservation of the environment, sustainability of water supply and political acceptability.19 this focus of iwrm, directly address the problems highlighted the tragedy of the commons. to prevent the depletion of the water commons, restrictions to open access to the resource need to be put in place, thus ensuring the above mentioned objectives. a paradigm shift from the traditional supply-oriented view to that of water conservation and demand management is necessary for the sustainability of water resources. this is crucial for the environment as well as for economic efficacy and social development. the shift 17 a turton, water demand management programme for southern africa: phase ii. analytical paper: the problematique of wdm as a concept and a policy: towards the development of a set of guidelines for southern africa, 2002, (available at: http://www.up.ac.za/academic/libarts/polsci/awiru/papers/op43/op43.html, as researched on 10 july 2007). 18 republic of south africa. department of water affairs and forestry 1991. national water conservation and demand management strategy framework. pretoria: government printer. 50p (wbp-1991) 19 a turton, “water demand…” management at: http://www.up.ac.za/academic/ libarts/polsci/awiru/papers/op43/op43.html, as researched on 10 july 2007). gouws 257 towards this integrated approach is a long-term process and requires active effort and commitment from all stakeholders and role-players on various levels in the institutional and political arena.20 the following sections will introduce how south africa’s national water act no. 36 of 1998 and how the national water resource strategy intends implement iwrm to ensure equal access and to put restrictions in place to preserve water as a commons. the national water act no. 36 of 1998 the national water act no. 36 of 1998, emphasises the new democratic dispensation and gives effect to the constitutional right of access to water. section 27 of the act clearly states that each individual has the right of access to sufficient water and food.21 in principle the act determines that water is a national resource and that it is owned by the inhabitants of south africa, but that national government acts as the trustee, or custodian, of the resource through the minister of water affairs and forestry. the purpose of the act is therefore essentially to ensure that the county’s water resources are protected, utilized, developed, conserved, managed and controlled. this principle makes evident the idea that the water resources in south africa are seen as a commons for all inhabitants of the country. they have access to it, but they available supplies need to be protected and managed by government to avoid depletion. thompson cites a few criteria to be considered when pursuing these objectives. they include: � meeting the basic human needs of present and future generations; � promoting equitable access to water; � promoting efficient, sustainable and beneficial use of water in the public interest; � facilitating social and economic development; � providing for growing demand for water use; � reducing and preventing pollution and degradation of water resource; and � meeting international obligations.22 20 a turton, water demand management………(available at: http://www.up.ac.za/ academic/libarts/polsci/awiru/papers/op43/op43.html. as researched on 10 july 2007). 21 republic of south africa (1998). the national water act, 36 of 1998. pretoria: government printer. 22 h thompson, water law. a practical approach to resource management and the provision of services (2006), cape town: juta and co ltd. tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 258 by attending to these aspects, implementing the act should enhance iwrm. this could, for example, be done within the framework of catchment management strategies and establishing suitable organisations, like water use associations (wuas). the act provides for the establishment of 19 catchment management agencies, each with its own area. each agency must develop a management strategy for its area and must perform important functions in terms of the application of the act.23 figure 1. the nineteen catchment management areas identified by dwaf.24 these agencies actively encourage community involvement and try to eliminate conflict between the stakeholders. the act provides for the creation of associations by the stakeholders in order to encourage sensible water use. this clause is important since it regulates relations between the consumers and the agencies with the purpose of effectively regulating and managing water resources.25 the idea is 23 republic of south africa, the national water act….,1998, pretoria: government printer. 24 republic of south africa, department of water affairs and forestry. 2002. national water resource strategy, 2004. pretoria: government printers. p. 94. 25 republic of south africa, the national water act….,1998, pretoria: government printer gouws 259 that national government remains in control of water resources, but that stakeholders are involved in the management of the resource through catchment management agencies.26 iwrm therefore takes place by encouraging all those involved to decide together on grassroots-level about how much water should be allocated where and in which manner. to achieve these goals, the national water resource strategy (nwrs) was developed. this strategy takes the division of the 19 management areas provided for in the act and provides a management strategy for each by taking into account the extent of the water commons in each, what the resource is used for and how it should be developed. the national water resource strategy the national water resource strategy (nwrs) binds all water institutions and water users and must be updated at least every five years. the nwrs provides practical structures to manage water resources and to establish relevant institutions, like catchment management agencies.27 according to dwaf, the main purpose of the nwrs is to: � facilitate the proper management of the nation’s water resource; � provide a framework for the protection, use, development, conservation, management and control of the water resource of the country as a whole; � provide a framework within which water will be managed at a regional or catchment level, in defined water management areas; � provide information about all aspects of water resource management; and � identify water-related development opportunities and restraints.28 the nwrs identifies prospects where water can be made accessible for productive livelihoods, and the sustainability and support needed to use the water efficiently.29 in fulfilling their functions, the agencies are required to actively promote community participation. however, 26 republic of south africa, the national water act….,1998, pretoria: government printer 27 republic of south africa, department of water affairs and forestry. 2002. national water resource strategy; summary. 2002, pretoria: government printers. 28 republic of south africa, national water resource strategy……..,2002, pretoria: government printers. 29 republic of south africa, department of water affairs and forestry, internal strategic perspective: lower orange water management area, 2004, pretoria: government printers. tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 260 such facilitation will prove difficult considering the large size of most of the catchment management areas. this issue points to the tensions existing between close interaction with water users, on the one hand, and financial viability, holistic management of the whole catchment, and the potential for cross-subsidisation, on the other. most significantly, the effectiveness of stakeholder involvement will depend on the interactions between the agencies and voluntary associations of water users. the nwrs provides for such associations to be formalized as water user associations and catchment management agencies. the purpose of a catchment management strategy is to: � set principles for allocating water to existing and new water users; � provide a framework for managing water resources within the water management area; � ensure that the water resources within the water management area are protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled.30 these strategies must clearly communicate the intention of agencies in its dealings with the water resources in the water management area and how these resource will be managed. the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) defines a catchment management agency (cma) as a statutory body, which means that its establishment is approved by means of a formal government notice. it is a governing board, appointed by the minister. the minister acts, through dwaf, to delegate water resource management to the regional and catchment level.31 30 t o’ riordan, r preston-whyte, r hamann, m manqele, “the transition to sustainability: a south african perspective. south african geographical journal, 82(2), 2000, pp. 1-10. 31 republic of south africa, department of water affairs and forestry, establishing a catchment management agency, guide 2 in the cma/wua series, 2005. (available at: http://www.dwaf.gov.za/cm/docs/word/ guide2final%20version4.doc, as researched on 15 november 2007). gouws 261 figure 2: illustration of the hierarchy of minimum required personnel in establishment of a cma as identified by dwaf.32 the main purpose of a cma is to involve local communities in water resource management. a cma must ensure that all interested p a r t i e s i n p a r t i c u l a r a l s o t h e p r e v i o u s l y d i s a d v a n t a g e d c o m m u n i t i e s m u s t b e i n c l u d e d i n d e c i s i o n s r e g a r d i n g management of the water resource. there are four major role players in establishing a cma. firstly, dwaf is the body responsible for the process to adhere to the requirements of the national water act no. 36 of 1998. secondly, other statutory water bodies that are playing a role in water management, like the upington irrigation board in the //khara hais local municipality which is in the lower orange catchment management area. thirdly, stakeholders and water users play a role. these will typically be local residents and irrigation farmers in this area. lastly, local, provincial and national government play a role. the cma must in the end be able to encourage cooperative government between these levels of government.33 the lower orange water management area the lowma has more or less the same borders as the northern frontier of south africa’s northern cape province. 32 republic of south africa…establishing a catchment management agency… 2005. 33 republic of south africa, department of water affairs and forestry. cma proposal development, 2001. (available at: http://www.dwaf.gov.za/cm/docs/word/ preproposal_cma_doc1.doc, as researched on 16 november 2007). tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 262 figure 3: the lower orange water management area34 the lowma is a section of the comprehensive vaal and orange river systems. it is a semi-arid region with low rainfall and an almost desert-like climate. water is mainly used for domestic use, industry and especially, irrigation. the main source of water for this management area is the section of the orange river that flows through the northern cape. the orange river is also the border between south africa and namibia. according to dwaf this surface water source is not nearly enough to support existing development in this water management area (wma). about 93% of all water in the orange river is generated upstream of the vaal/orange convergence. this means that the manner in which the water source upstream is managed in other wmas, has an influence on what ends up in the orange river. the orange river supports large scale irrigation in its alluvial soils along the orange river valley.35 the total available water component in the lowma is 1122 million m³/a and this includes groundwater. gouws 34 republic of south africa, department of water affairs and forestry. bitmap of the lower orange water management area (available at: www.dwaf.gov.za/ documents/other/wma/14/lowerorangeispjul04adp.pdf, as researched on 14 may 2008). 263 groundwater is in most cases the only available water source in the lowma. it is mainly used for domestic use and livestock watering inland away from the river. it is not enough to support any large scale irrigation. the water used for irrigation is mostly surface water from the orange river. further development of the groundwater resource close to the towns is not possible. investigating groundwater potential outside town seems to be the only option.36 it is thus clear that the water source (the commons) needs to be managed to ensure that all inhabitants get their fair share. to do this, the locma needs to be established. the locma (not) managing the water commons establishing the lower orange catchment management agency (locma) was planned as medium-term process in 2001. the process was scheduled to be in place by 2007.37 the following section describes the efforts to establish the locma. although public participation as a requirement for the establishment of the locma is emphasised, the focus will fall on the responsibilities of dwaf officials who are responsible for getting the process going and ensure sustainable progress with the establishment of the locma as the eventual goal. the locma, like all other catchment management agencies can only be established once the governing board is appointed. during the process of getting the locma established, activities had to go on according to the internal strategic perspective (isp). this document represents dwaf’s view on how integrated water recourse management (iwrm) should be introduced and put into effect. an isp provides a framework to dwaf’s management of each water management area until it is possible to hand over the management functions to the established catchment management agency (cma). dwaf identifies a few functions that cmas must adhere to: � investigate and advise on the protection, use, development, conservation, management and control of the water resource in the water management area; � develop a catchment management strategy; � coordinate activities of water users and water management 35 republic of south africa. national water resource strategy….., 2004, pretoria: government printers 36 republic of south africa, national water resource strategy….., 2004, pretoria: government printers 37 e-mail correspondence, b conradie, (conradb@dwaf.gov.za) 2004. discussion on water demand management in lower orange catchment management area. [email to:] gouws, cm (pwscmg@puknet.ac.za). jul. 27 tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 264 institutions; � promote coordination between implementation of catchment management strategy with implementation of water services development plans by water services authorities (municipalities); � promote community participation in the protection, use, development, conservation, management and control of the water resource in the water management area.38 in addition to adhering to these requirements, the cmas, and the isps, are supposed to ensure consistency when responding to requests for new water licenses, and informing water users on how dwaf will manage the water resource within the area of concern.39 in the lowma the process progressed as follows: at a planning session held by dwaf in the //khara hais municipal district (upington), on 5 september 2002, the directorate of catchment management planned for the establishment of the locma. the target date for the locma establishment proposal was april 2006. the proposed date to establish the locma governing board was determined to be april 2007.40 it was emphasised how important it would be to create an awareness of the processes that followed. the public had to be informed on the progress that was made. public participation, it was decided, would be invaluable in the process of establishing the locma. stakeholders had to be identified; stakeholder needs had to be identified; and capacity building and empowerment of stakeholders had to be dealt with. the important issue of empowerment implied that knowledge had to be transferred from dwaf the leaders of different stakeholder groups. they had to become “water literate”. it was found that major stumbling blocks in the process would be water services, poor communication as well as confusion about tariffs.41 an essential planning component that emerged from the deliberations was that, it should not be dwaf that takes the initiative to draft the proposal for establishing the locma. thus, maximum participation from all stakeholders was a prerequisite in the process of drafting the proposal. the envisaged ideal was for a drafting team 38 republic of south africa. department of water affairs and forestry, guide to the national water act (no. 36 of 1998)-part 2: water management strategies, 2006. (available at: http://www.dwaf.gov.za/documents/publications/nwaguide/ part2.pdf, as researched on 15 november 2007). 39 republic of south africa, national water resource strategy….., 2004, pretoria: government printers 40 e-mail correspondence, b conradie – cm gouws, jul. 27, 2004td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-59. 41 e-mail correspondence, b conradie, jul. 27,2004 gouws 265 to be assembled from the overall lower orange water management area. they had to initiate discussions, deliberations and formulate the proposal. the main functions on the side of dwaf were to process design and planning, develop communication and to evaluate the process. dwaf also had to provide feedback to all functions that were to be performed by the department. external stakeholders were to provide administrative support to ensure a complete and accurate record of public participation towards locma establishment. the timeline decided upon during the above mentioned planning session were as follows: in 2003, all efforts were made towards creating public awareness with all stakeholders in respect of water management issues. inhabitants of the area were to be introduced to the concepts of catchment management and water user associations. during this time sub-catchment forums were to be established to ensure public participation and a consultation process was to be adopted to include all stakeholders. in 2004 a steering committee was to be established to ensure that planned processes are followed through. in 2005 the proposal to the minister for establishment of the catchment management agency was to be initiated. in 2006 the proposal was to be sent to the minister and ultimately approved by the minister. the governing board of the catchment management agency could then be established which would have led to the final establishment of the locma in 2007.42 the activities planned for during this planning session did not take place as planned.43 the first point in the strategy decided upon in 2002, was that dwaf should not take the initiative to develop the draft proposal to establish the locma. in practice, the dwaf office in the region had to take initiative to get the process started since strategies to get the public involved, failed in the beginning.44 this meant that the strategies decided upon in the planning sessions in 2002 were not followed right from the start. in 2007 the steering committee was still not formalised and the proposal to the minister not initiated. several reasons for this were given by mr kubayi, director of catchment management in the lowma.45 he stated that the previous director’s resignation in 2006 disrupted the process. she was an integral part of the process, especially in respect of public participation. mr kubayi himself was only appointed in june 2006 and was still in the process of learning what precisely constituted the plans of action and the required procedures. a major problem was also the problems he faced with regards to communication with the community. he was not proficient in afrikaans, the language 42 e kubayi (personal collection), interview cm gouws, 7 november 2007. 43 the repetition of “planned” was deliberate! 44 e-mail correspondence, b conradie, jul. 27, 2004 45 e kubayi (personal collection), interview cm gouws, 7 november 2007. tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 266 spoken by most inhabitants in the lowma. furthermore, dwaf moved the deadline for establishment of the cma from 2007 to 2011. the department currently is in the process of reprioritising the establishment of cmas across the country. the locma will be last to be established. the most explicit reasons identified for the failure of this institution to get established and perform its functions are as follows: � the slowing down of the process of establishing the locma by dwaf. the department set a new due date for 2011 last on the list of dwaf after reprioritising the establishment of catchment management agencies. � human resource turnover is problematic. individuals, who started the process, left the employment of dwaf before the process was completed. new personnel have to familiarise themselves with the procedures of what was done, what needs to be done and most importantly, how it needs to be done. � the dwaf office in the lowma experiences difficulties to retain trained technical experts to manage infrastructure. � communication problems are hampering the process. afrikaans is the language most spoken by inhabitants of the lowma and dwaf appoints personnel who cannot speak the language. this is especially problematic in the rural areas where inhabitants do not understand english very well, and as such do not retain important information relayed to them regarding the locma. as a result, public participation is not at the levels it should be to validate the establishment of the locma. the problems encountered by the lowma in establishing the necessary institutions as required by legislation, proves the distinction of the tragedy within the tragedy identified by feeny46 earlier this article. in the case of the locma, the tragedy within the tragedy is that the locma as water management institution is supposed to manage the water commons in the lowma. the institution is however not working as it should, thus not doing what is required to protect the water commons. the same can be said for the problems facing the upington islands water user association. the upington island water user association a water use association (wua) is a grouping of water users working 46 d feeny, et al. 1990. the tragedy of the commons – 22 years later. human ecology, v. 18, pp. 1-19. gouws 267 together towards a common goal. the main functions of the wuas are to: � prevent the misuse of water from the water source and waterworks (for example the irrigation channels); � protect the water sources and waterworks; � remove barriers unlawfully placed in the water source or in the waterworks; � prevent any unlawful activity that may cause lower quality of the water source or water in the waterworks; � act as custodians over the water source and the waterworks; � investigate and take note of � the amount of water in the water source and waterworks; � the times and places where water is allowed to be used; according to mr. stanley chamberlain of the upington islands water user association, establishing a wua requires that certain information that is necessary to complete a proposal has to be submitted to dwaf.47 this proposal must include the name of the proposed association and the area of jurisdiction. it can only be one area, which can be divided into sub-districts. a constitution for the proposed association must be composed according to the guidelines from the national water act no. 36 of 1998. an important aspect is that there must be proof of consultation and the inclusion of all interest groups (stakeholders). this proposal is then presented to the district office of dwaf in kimberley where a committee decides if all requirements for a proposal were met. the district manager of the area involved then makes a recommendation and the proposal is sent to the dwaf head office in pretoria. various directorates evaluate the proposal and a recommendation is made to the minister. an announcement is then made in the government gazette and any comments to the proposal need to be made within 60 days after publication. when no comments are given and all requirements were met, the minister will approve the proposal and the wua can accept the proposal as their constitution. when this process is complete, a management committee must be elected from the ranks of water users, and the business plan must be developed with the proposed financial management plan. as is apparent in the interview with mr chamberlain, and confirmed by tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river 47 s chamberlain (personal collection), interview, cm gouws, 29 july 2005. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 268 dwaf,48 the act regulates the activities of the wuas. a wua may only exercise its functions and powers if it has been delegated by the cma and the minister. the establishment of the wuas is supposed to make the functions of the minister and cmas easier by dealing with organised groupings rather than individual water users. this proved to be a very difficult undertaking. as mentioned above, managing the commons means that restrictions must be put in place. this constitutes the tragedy of the commons, since individuals no longer have the freedom to freely relate to the water realm. establishing management organisations, like a wua, is a practical example of this theory. there are a few options, according to mr. s. chamberlain and his colleagues messrs c williams and c erasmus, for the required procedures to follow in the establishment of wuas and the issues they encountered along the way up to that specific time in the course of their dealings.49 chamberlain, williams and erasmus are chief executive officers in charge of establishing wuas in the locma, the upington islands wua being one of them. by 2005 they had only begun the process and had already encountered several obstacles. the first was a human resource problem. dwaf employees were to be redeployed to the wua. this redeployment took a long time. so, in the mean time, they worked for the wua, but were still dwaf employees. it proved difficult to manage staff whose loyalties were somewhere else, especially where some of these employees were not happy with the redeployment to begin with. dwaf was still the employer but the wua gave the orders. this confused everyone. trade unions became involved and the situation became one of diplomacy and negotiating between the wua and dwaf. work towards affirming the wua were pushed lower on the agenda. employment conditions are the same for employees who are redeployed to the wua, but in implementing these conditions, the wua found that dwaf itself did not always implement these conditions to begin with.50 another issue was the fact that the wua came into existence in april 2001. dwaf was supposed to have a set of guidelines available to develop the wua’s business plan and constitution. the staff of the wua only received these guidelines in 2005, meaning that the process 48 republic of south africa. department of water affairs and forestry, guide to the national water act (no. 36 of 1998)-part 2: water management strategies……….2006. 49 s chamberlain, c erasmus, c williams, (personal collection), interview, cm gouws, 29 july 2005. 50 s chamberlain, c erasmus, c williams, (personal collection), interview, cm gouws, 29 july 2005. gouws 269 was delayed by dwaf itself.51 furthermore, communication appears to be a problem. great effort is being put into arranging information sessions for stakeholders in the different municipalities, but executive members of the municipalities do not seem interested. this poses a substantial problem since every municipality must be represented on the management board of every wua. also, where municipalities are eager to participate, they sometimes insist on having all the members of a political party, in control of the council, to be on the management board. this highlights a misunderstanding regarding the functions of a management board of a wua. politics is not supposed to have any influence. a certain political party cannot have more say over the water resource because the national constitution, no. 108 of 1996, the national water act, no. 36 of 1998 and ultimately the constitution of the particular wua will ensure that all parties are allocated their fair share and pay for access to the resource accordingly. all these politicians do in the end, is to slow down the process.52 the moment management functions are politicised the core focus of managing the water commons gets lost in a tug of war between stakeholders, rather than protecting the resource. the intricacy of this issue warrants a separate article. the most explicit problems encountered by the uiwua are: � the upington islands wua is struggling with the billing system since dwaf insists on collecting the revenue from water users (mostly irrigators in and around upington); � the wua is at a stage where they have sent the final draft of their constitution to the minister of dwaf. they have been waiting for a reply from the minister’s office since november 2007; � there is a conflict of interest between the representatives of the municipality and the irrigation farmers. money allocated for issues of interest to the farmers during the time of the irrigation boards, are now made claim to by the municipality for other interests. this conflict of interest can become full blown conflict if not managed properly; and tragedy of the commons: in the lower orange river 51 republic of south africa. department of water affairs and forestry, establishing a catchment management agency, guide 1 in the cma/wua series……2005. 52 s chamberlain, c erasmus, c williams, (personal collection), interview, cm gouws, 29 july 2005. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 251-271. 270 � the delays in establishing the locma may have implications for the future functions of the uiwua. the uiwua will be officially established and fully operational by the time the locma is established in 2011. since the locma will ultimately oversee the functions of the uiwua, the locma may change the operations of the uiwua once it is established and this creates uncertainty with the management of the uiwua. conclusion when water is defined as a basic human right, should we then not be able to use this resource freely without laws and regulation? in his well-known response to this question, hardin states that the population might show resistance to these restrictions since they take away certain freedoms. only through the willingness to include those who do not currently enjoy this basic human right, can the problem pertaining to access to basic drinking water be successfully addressed. however, the right to water may never imply that water and its availability should be unrestricted. south africa has defined its national water act, no. 36 of 1998 and the national water resource strategy in a response to these challenges. both act and strategy are internationally respected as sound examples of well-defined water legislation and strategic management implementation plans. the legislation provides for the empowerment of all stakeholders, for self-regulating approaches in a new water policy environment and for strategies to make the plans succeed. organisational structures such as the cma and wuas in the lowma, certainly would be able to deal with these matters in an exemplary manner. the analysis provided in section five shows, however, that despite a promising legal framework, establishing the locma and the uiwua is a major challenge in practice. with regards to the locma, public participation strategies failed in the beginning of the planned processes in 2002 and had to be re-initiated in 2007. communication with the community proved to be a problem and retaining qualified personnel is still a challenge for this office of dwaf. these difficulties slowed the process of establishing the locma down which lead to the dwaf head office setting up the new due date for the establishment of the locma. meanwhile the uiwua started the process of developing a constitution for which they await a response from the minister. establishing the uiwua was fraught with practical uncertainties pertaining to the billing system and conflicts of interest between stakeholders. they had to deal with these difficulties with the support of certain individuals from the dwaf office and not with the support of an established locma. the uiwua officers also added to the sense of gouws 271 uncertainty in respect of the eventual involvement of the locma once it was established. since the uiwua should be up and running by 2011, it might have to undergo changes in practices once the locma is able to function as an organisation overseeing the business of the uiwua. these problems are serious indeed. in the case of the locma and the uiwua, any attempt to start solving these problems seems to boil down to one issue: how to find the personnel with the qualifications needed to give the institutions to be established a chance to succeed. a shift in the outlook on human resources is necessary for dwaf. the presence of afrikaans speaking personnel, with a knowledge of the local resident and their requirements, are a prerequisite, especially where communication with the community needs to take place regularly. if effective communication with this redominantly rural community in the lowma fails, none of the processes needed to establish the locma or performing the necessary functions in the uiwua, will be possible. employees must be able to make stakeholders water literate and to stimulate their interest to make their essential participation possible. this means that the priority has to be recruiting qualified officials, make sure remuneration is competitive with that of the private sector, and that the workload is manageable. this will ensure retention of qualified and experienced personnel. how do we avoid the tragedies of the water commons? avoiding management of the water commons is no longer possible since unrestricted access to this resource will surely lead to depletion. avoiding the tragedy within the tragedy, however, with institutions responsible for managing the water commons not functioning the way they should, is avoidable but requires practical measures to avoid the tragedy within the tragedy. dwaf needs to ensure proper support for establishment of the locma and the functions to be performed by the uiwua. to accomplish this, dwaf must ensure that the human resources needed to adhere to the new timeline for establishment of the locma, are 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<feff0041006e007600e4006e00640020006400650020006800e4007200200069006e0073007400e4006c006c006e0069006e006700610072006e00610020006e00e40072002000640075002000760069006c006c00200073006b0061007000610020005000440046002d0064006f006b0075006d0065006e00740020006d006500640020006800f6006700720065002000620069006c0064007500700070006c00f60073006e0069006e00670020006f006300680020006400e40072006d006500640020006600e50020006200e400740074007200650020007500740073006b00720069006600740073006b00760061006c0069007400650074002e0020005000440046002d0064006f006b0075006d0065006e00740065006e0020006b0061006e002000f600700070006e006100730020006d006500640020004100630072006f0062006100740020006f00630068002000520065006100640065007200200035002e003000200065006c006c00650072002000730065006e006100720065002e> >> >> setdistillerparams << /hwresolution [2400 2400] /pagesize [612.000 792.000] >> setpagedevice microsoft word 03 gruner_semantics_software_fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 37-66. on the historical semantics of the notion of software architecture s gruner1 abstract. this study outlines in some detail the semantic variety of the notion of ‘software architecture’ in the field of software engineering since the early 1970s. this paper shows that there are two schools of thought in software architecture, namely a material-substantialist and a formal-structuralist one. in the former school of thought, software architecture is basically regarded as a thing (device) on its own, whereas in the latter one, software architecture is basically considered a property, not a thing (device). from an ontological point of view, these two opinions are mutually exclusive. in their mutual exclusivity, however, they coincide with non-formalist versus formalist philosophies and interpretations of informatics or computer science in general, wherein software engineering –and, by implication, software architecture– is embedded. in this way, the field of software architecture mirrors an ongoing science-philosophical dispute about the characteristics and foundations of computer science or informatics as a scholarly and practical discipline. in summary it seems fair to say that the metaphor of ‘architecture’, with its distinct fine arts connotations, has been particularly attractive to software engineers because this metaphor has helped software engineers to circumvent the notorious scientific immaturity and shortage of classical engineering methods in the field of software engineering. keywords: software architecture, historical semantics, discourse analysis disciplines: computer science, informatics, history of science and technology, philosophy of science 1. introduction well-known texts by thomas kuhn have described how young scientific disciplines typically go through the pre-paradigmatic phase of a proto-science,2 which is characterized (amongst 1 stefan gruner, department of computer science, university of pretoria, lynnwood road, republic of south africa. e-mail: sg@cs.up.ac.za acknowledgments: i owe many thanks to manfred nagl from whom i have learned much about software architecture during my time in his group at the rwth aachen. a few years ago he also gave an inspiring talk on the concepts of software architecture during a lecturing tour to several universities in south africa. more recently an academic discussion with fritz solms (also mentioned in the acknowledgments section of his paper [51]) about the essence of software architecture motivated me to conduct this study in historical semantics. many thanks also to martin olivier for ongoing science-philosophical conversations about software engineering’s scientific-ness and related problems of scientific methodology. last but not least many thanks to the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their critical comments, as well as to cecilia du toit for editorial services (english language advice). 2 the term proto-science in the work of kuhn differs in meaning from the term used in the german school of constructivism: according to kuhn’s writings, ‘proto-science’ is a historic gruner 38 other features) by a peculiar terminological variability and vagueness of its defining concepts and notions. such early volatility only begins to stabilize after a pre-paradigmatic protoscience has made a historic transition into a paradigmatic science. software engineering is still a rather young discipline,3 with less than fifty years of existence since the seminal nato science conference in garmisch during which the term ‘software engineering’ was coined. if this is so, and if kuhn’s characterization of proto-sciences was not completely wrong, then one should be able to detect significant temporal volatility in the meaning of some of software engineering’s key concepts and notions during a relatively short period of time. one of these key notions –and the topic of this survey– is the notion of ‘software architecture’, which was initially borrowed as a metaphor from the realm of the arts and crafts of building (i.e.: house-construction and civil engineering). the purpose of using such a metaphor was to make intelligible what is de facto invisible (because of to the immateriality of software as a technical ‘quasi-thing’) – see weingarten [57] for comparison. historical semantics is a branch of the history-sciences and has overlaps with philology and philosophy (amongst others). scholars in this field study how the meanings of words and notions change during the course of time: sometimes gradually with only subtle nuances, sometimes suddenly with stark contrasts. the methods of historical semantics can be applied to any term, including the notion of ‘science’, and even reflexively (with self-application) onto the notions of ‘history’ or ‘semantics’ themselves. the purpose of this study is to shed some light on the historical semantics of the notion of ‘software architecture’ which is one of the key terms –and also a research sub-field– of the young discipline of software engineering. in this context this study aims at • a deeper and better reflected understanding of the notion of ‘software architecture’ itself (particularly for the software practitioners), as well as at • a deeper insight into the still pre-paradigmatic character of software engineering as a proto-science (particularly for the philosophers and historians of science). one problem of most proto-scientific software engineering concepts to date is their nonquantifiability in measurable units. this shortage has considerable implications on the semantic scope of such notions. in physics and chemistry, for example, the notion of ‘energy’ (which has also had its own semantic history since the times of aristotle) might well be explicated in slightly different ways in various contemporary science-books. nevertheless, the quantifiability of energy in the unit joule ensures that different explications of the notion of ‘energy’ in different books can be related to an inter-subjective reference-semantics which is based on the objective methods and procedures which must be carried out in order to obtain the joule scalar of some observable energetic phenomenon. with the notion of ‘software notion which refers to a science in its infancy, before maturity. in the german school of constructivism, on the other hand, ‘proto-science’ is a systematic notion which refers to a some science’s role as methodical foundation of another science, for example the protoscience of measurement for the science of physics. in the context of this essay, the term ‘proto-science’ always appears in its kuhnian meaning. for comparison see kuhn’s “reflections on my critics”, pp. 231in lakatos/musgrave (eds.): criticism and the growth of knowledge, cambridge university press, 1970. 3 much literature can be found in which software engineering is characterised as neither science nor engineering at all. it is, however, not in the scope of this study to belabour this point. for the purpose of this study it is sufficient to regard software engineering as a young ‘proto-science’ in the above-mentioned sense. historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 39 architecture’ in software engineering, however, this has hitherto been impossible. currently it would not make any sense to say: “here is a software architecture of 7.26 shaw” (or whatever name might be given for any such quantifiable unit). for this reason the semantic constraints, which restrict and delimit our hermeneutic degree of freedom in the interpretations of words and terms, are considerably weaker in the proto-science of software engineering than they are in established sciences such as physics or chemistry. in the remainder of this study, ‘software architecture’ is understood solely as a product of software engineering activities, not as the technical profession of the software architects, and also not as the activity of production which finally leads to a resulting product. in practice, of course, no notion of ‘software architecture’ can exist independently of the self-image of the professional software architect (including his reflective perception of his daily doing) in the environment of a software producing corporation. from a science-philosophical point of view, however, a study of the correlations between the theoretical notions held by some agent and his practical activities would fall into the area of social epistemology, not into the area of historical semantics. an anonymous reviewer of the pre-published draft of this article had suggested that the historic-semantic problem treated in this study could possibly have its roots in software architecture being a so-called “multiple object”, existing simultaneously in a number of different “versions”. to avoid such or similar misunderstandings it must be emphasized that the notion of software architecture is a concept rather than an object. moreover it seems ontologically impossible for one and the same object to exist in n different versions, because otherwise there would be n distinguishable objects in their very own existence, not only one.4 as far as interor trans-disciplinarity –the theme of this journal– is concerned, this study presents an application of methods which are typical of the history-sciences (humanities) in the field of a technical science, for the sake of concept-clarification in such technical science. according to a classification table published by kroeze [31], this study • attempts to promote the understanding of a complex phenomenon which cannot be contained in a single discipline; • is ‘theoretical’ in its character,5 and • attempts to connect different methods to find an appropriate approach to the given problem. this study’s method is thus consistent with kroeze’s attempt to utilize the humanities for enriching the field of information science –and thus to transcend the traditional boundaries of the is discipline [31]– under the condition that software architecture can be classified as a sub-field of the field of the information sciences (is). in summary, this study should be interesting for both software 4 from a metaphysical point of view, the notion of ‘multiple object’ touches upon the classical problem of the relation between one-ness and many-ness. speculatively –if some metaphysical speculation is permitted in this footnote– alone god (if any) could be a being able to transcend the fundamental ontological difference between one-ness and many-ness by which our immanence is characterized: in this world of ours, ‘one’ and ‘many’ cannot be identified with each. 5 ‘theoretical’ in the aristotelian sense of ‘θεωρια’, not in the sense of a formalized mathematical-logical system. gruner 40 engineers (faculty of technology) and historians of technology (faculty of humanities) in a cross-disciplinary manner. 2. related work the useage of the term ‘architecture’ as a metaphor outside the field of material buildings is not new. for example, already in 1871 one can find ‘architecture’ applied to the logical and lexical structure of hegel’s system of philosophy [19]. in software engineering, because the topic of software architecture is still so new (not before 1970), science-historical work on the notion of ‘architecture’ has only been published sporadically so far. the papers or bookchapters recapitulated below should be considered as particularly relevant. together, in their diversity, they can contribute to a better understanding of the reasons of why the meaning of the term ‘software architecture’ was historically not univoque. already in 1998 a historical-semantically motivated paper on the notion of software architecture appeared in print [8]. it asked the question why it is so hard to define the notion of software architecture: in recent years, software engineering researchers have elevated the study of software architecture to the level of a major area of study. see figure 1 below for comparison. a review of the published literature, however, shows quite clearly that a unified view of software architecture has not been forthcoming [8]. attempting to find reasons and explanations for this correctly observed phenomenon, the authors argue that our problems in obtaining an acceptable definition of software architecture are due to the assumption that software systems have a (...) unique design abstraction, determinable at the early stages of the design [8]. such a uniqueness presumption (one software system, one software architecture) was said to have its basis on an allegedly questionable analogy drawn by software engineers between software engineering and classical disciplines of engineering (e.g.: house construction) whereby, for example, one house has only one architecture. to determine the validity of this analogy, we contrast the nature and use of architecture in the traditional building process with software development to identify the differences rather than the similarities that exist [8]. in contrast to kruchten’s unity model [32] –one software system has one software architecture, though comprising different aspects (logical, dynamic, physical, developmental)– the authors of [8] have (postmodern-pluralistically) elevated kruchten’s aspects to different software architectures (of the same system) in their own right, such that one and the same software system would now possess several different architectures: our conclusion is that due to the fundamental nature of the systems we construct, attempts to depict the large-scale structure of the system in an analogous manner (to) traditional building disciplines results in many different architectures. these are fundamentally different representations and not merely different views of a single whole. moreover, each of these is equally qualified to be labelled as the system architecture with respect to the general notion of what architecture is [8]. historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 41 with their approach, however, the authors were not able to convincingly answer the question why such allegedly different architectures (instead of different architectural views) are still architectures of the same software system, instead of being architectures of several entirely different software systems. also a follow-up paper [9] by the same authors some years later could not convincingly explain the genealogy of the historically different notions of software architecture in the field. in 1999 the authoritative informatics handbook [42] distinguished two meanings of the term ‘software architecture’, namely a broader and a narrower one. in my own translation into english (from the german original) the handbook states: in a narrower sense one understands as architecture the division of a software system into its components (mostly modules), their interfaces, the processes and dependencies amongst them, as well as their required resources (...). more generally, the notion of architecture also comprises the structural, formal, not application-oriented principles and organizational forms of software. essential properties of a software architecture are, for example, compliance with the principle of data encapsulation, moduleand class constitution, as well as the extendibility of structures [42]. alas the handbook did not attempt to explain the historic reasons for the semantic varieties in the such-defined technical notion(s). in the year 2001, mary shaw [49] presented in nuce a philosophy and methodology of science and research for the field of software architecture. motivated by concerns similar to snelting’s [50], shaw demanded in [49] a move towards higher levels of scientificness in software architecture research. from a historical perspective, her paper’s assertions about the growth of the field are consistent with the picture presented in figure 1 (below): a rough estimate is provided by citation counts for papers with ‘software architecture’ in the title. for a sample of 2000 citations in the research index database (...), virtually all of the cited papers were published in 1990 or later, and there were sharp increases in the numbers of citations for papers published after 1991 and again for papers published after 1994 [49]. her findings are consistent with the findings of this study (see below). as far as the notion of software architecture is concerned, shaw’s paper stated: software architecture work overlaps and interacts with work on software families, component-based reuse, software design, specific classes of components (...), product line and program analysis. it is not productive to attempt rigid separation among these areas [49]. note that shaw did not claim that it would be impossible to distinguish those areas theoretically – she merely stated that it would not be productive to keep them separate in practice. moreover she recognized a conceptual difference between software architecture in general, as opposed to software architecture in more specialized contexts, where she wrote that there was substantial growth since 1995 and a balance between exploration of specific problems and generalization and model development [49]. in the same year, 2001, also the above-mentioned paper [9] appeared as a sciencephilosophical and science-historical meta-investigation (such as shaw’s). it must thus be regarded as related work for this study on the historical semantics of software architecture, too. the authors of that paper stated: gruner 42 the definition and understanding of software architecture and architecture views still shows considerable disagreement in the software engineering community. this paper argues that the problems we face exist because our understanding is based on specious analogies with traditionally engineered artefacts. a review of the history of ideas shows the evolution of this understanding [9]. moreover: one reason for those differences is the lack of a universally agreed definition or even understanding of what software architecture is or should be [9], though i would rather consider the lack of such a definition as a symptom of (rather than a reason for) those differences. the purpose of [9] was to search for an explanation of the observed differences, and to call normatively for serious attempts to overcome such differences: the problem is not that there are no answers to these problems; rather, the difficulty arises from the fact that there have been so many different answers given [9]; see kuhn’s notion of a pre-paradigmatic proto-science for comparison. in search of explanations of the observed historic-semantic variance in the notion of software architecture, the authors suggested: one thing that is obvious from the review of the literature is that the community’s understanding of software architecture has evolved based on analogies with the largescale structure of traditionally engineered systems – such as, for example, between software construction and house construction– though we believe this understanding is in fact the source of many problems in software architecture research [9]. in other words, the authors attacked specifically the role model of hardware engineering, to which software engineers have always aspired in order to get (eventually) recognized and acknowledged as proper engineers, too: the historical development of the research community’s understanding of these terms highlights their derivation from analogies with more traditional engineering disciplines [9], though –now with a normative slant– their failure to adequately consider the differences between software development and those other disciplines requires them to now be replaced [9]. alas: “earlier versions of this material’’ –i.e.: their own paper – have elicited comments suggesting we are merely poking holes in the current understanding of software architecture without providing a legitimate alternative, and that is certainly one valid assessment [9]. thus, similar to the aims of this study, the purpose of [9] was not to offer their own definition but to shed some light on the historical semantics of ‘software architecture’ in its variety. there is, however, a considerable problem with their critique, specifically because of the non-materiality of software as an invisible scientific object. the non-materiality and invisibility of software (as a quasi-thing) forces us to speak metaphorically about it to a large extent – see [57] for comparison. if we were to completely abandon those analogies and metaphors when speaking about (immaterial) software, then –ultimately– we would be left historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 43 speechless: note that even the term ‘computer’, which is nowadays used so selfunderstandingly in the realm of information technology, was once introduced into this realm as a metaphor. software engineers’ hitherto unfulfilled desire to become publicly recognized as proper engineers has always been too strong to make them abandon their aspirations towards classical hardware engineering with its hardware-specific terminology. in a similar way, many sciences have (with good reasons) looked up to mathematics and physics as their role models of proper science, particularly because of their striving for intra-scientific theoretical coherence and unity. by contrast, the attitude of difference-celebrating postmodernism in [9] appears in a peculiar conflict with its authors’ own normative call for disciplinary unity as far as a future notion of ‘software architecture’ is concerned. in the year 2003, a book-chapter of more than 50 pages was published on the history of the notion of ‘architecture’ in various sub-fields of computer hardware and software [28]. the chapter described ab initio how the metaphor of ‘architecture’ first came into usage in the field of computer hardware, from where it exerted its influence onto the field of software engineering, with eventual repercussions back into the domain of hardware engineering. in parallel to that forth-and-back movement of the word ‘architecture’ between the discourses of computer hardware and computer software, the author of [28] also diagnosed a methodological forth-and-back movement in those fields: first towards a much-desired scientification of the architecture-related design processes, after which a counter-movement towards a new de-scientification of those design processes could be observed. with its subtle tendency of working against “scienticism” in this field, the book-chapter [28] may arguably be counted into the ranks of postmodernism in which the liberty of the arts is often emphasized (over and above the rigour of science-based engineering). claiming that a strictly scientific manner of architectural modelling, in accordance with the paradigm of mathematics and the natural sciences, would be “impossible” in this field, the author of [28] has classified this field of enquiry as design science, which eventually leads him to the following conclusion – (my english translation from the german original): this could be the deeper reason of why the architecture metaphor has remained in use, and has now also in the software community superseded the hitherto dominant rolemodel of engineering [28]. in 2004, a paper on the history and historiography of software engineering [36] identified three different role models for the newly emerging discipline of software engineering, namely: applied science, mechanical engineering, and industrial engineering. the author of [36] also analysed how those envisaged (aspired) paradigms have manifested themselves in the language (metaphors) used by those software engineers who aspired towards the one or the other paradigm of applied science or engineering. concerning the notion of architecture in such a context, the paper stated that the notion of software architecture would have served the purpose of a compromise in the form of a common “meeting ground” for the disagreeing sub-communities of scientists-theoreticians and engineerspractitioners within the software engineering discipline [36]. in 2012, a paper titled “what is software architecture” [51] also presented an analysis of various notions of software architecture: currently there is no consensus on what exactly software architecture is or where the boundary between software architecture design and application design lies. in this paper the concept of a software architecture is analyzed from a number of different perspectives [51]. in his own literature analysis the author of [51] identified gruner 44 three classes of software architecture definitions which view a software architecture as (1) a high level abstraction of a software system, (2) the structure of a software system or (3) the fundamental concepts, properties and principles of design of a software system [51]. the main purpose of that paper, however, was to promote its author’s own notion of ‘software architecture’, not to search for the reasons of the variations in the historical semantics of the notion itself. 3. database and method because it is not feasible to scrutinize every software architecture paper ever published, the well-known acm digital library [1] (abbr.: acm-dl) was chosen as database, on the reasonable assumption that the acm-dl’s large size and wide availability will imply a sufficiently high degree of representativeness for the entire field of software engineering.6 acm-dl’s built-in search function was then used in the following manner: • to track the time-line, which is necessary for a historical study, the search key “software architecture” was entered explicitly in an and-combination with a specific year number, e.g.: 1986, 1994, etc. • to filter the obtained results w.r.t. their relevance and significance for the software engineering community, the most often cited paper of each year was chosen for analysis. this is a safe choice w.r.t. the purposes of this survey, because any further existing opinions on software architecture, which were hardly ever cited (or completely ignored), cannot diminish the semantic variety of the term ‘software architecture’ which this survey aims to show. prior to “1972” the search-term “software architecture” applied to the acm-dl yielded no results, which is consistent with what is generally known about the history of software engineering. from “1972” upwards the search results were all non-empty. not for all years, however, did the search engine turn out papers containing the phrase “software architecture” explicitly in their titles – see for comparison shaw’s paper [49] with similar considerations. for these reasons, the following cases have been distinguished: • implicit papers with “software architecture” only in their text bodies but not in their titles, • explicit papers with “software architecture” in their titles. this distinction leads quite intuitively to the following rule (method): • for years without any explicit “software architecture” papers, analyse the most often cited implicit papers. • for years with both implicit and explicit papers, analyse the most often cited explicit papers. 6 in future work, a study like this one could be replicated with other computer science literature databases, such as the ones provided by ieee, ais, citeseer, and the like. historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 45 figure 1. database from http:/dl.acm.org/ figure 2. citation trails with citation counts figure 1 depicts clearly that: • 1972 is the year of the first appearance of an implicit software architecture paper in the acm-dl. • 1981 is the year of the first appearance of an explicit software architecture paper in the acm-dl. • 1990 is the first year after which one can always find explicit software architecture papers in the acm-dl: the research field of software architecture has been firmly established (as a sub-field of software engineering) ever since then. • for the years 1981 to 1989, explicit software architecture titles in the acm-dl are rather scarce and scattered: in those years the research field of software architecture had not yet been firmly established. on the vertical ↑-axis in figure 1 the number of papers found per year is shown –the implicit ones in pale blue, the explicit ones in dark blue– whereby existing implicit papers are not depicted for those years for which explicit papers could be retrieved. figure 2 depicts the citation counts, together with their citation trails, for each one of the most-cited publications selected for each year (according to the rule given above): • the higher an entry on the ↑-axis in figure 2, the more often the corresponding paper has been cited since its publication. • the longer the line of an entry on the →-axis in figure 2, the longer (in time) the corresponding paper has been regarded as worth mentioning by the software engineering community in its discourse. figure 2 clearly reveals a small number of highly cited (seminal) software architecture papers in the acm-dl, which have apparently influenced the software architecture community’s discourse quite strongly for many years. there are, however, also a number of lesser-cited papers, which have a remarkably long trail of citations from the past to nowadays, even though their accumulated number of citations is rather small. though those papers have a rather low citation density, they are still making their impact onto the software architecture discourse nowadays. 4. concept analysis this section presents the results of ‘mining’ the selected software architecture papers from the acm-dl in chronological (historical) order for their specific notions of ‘software architecture’. in papers that do not lexically define the technical term ‘software architecture’, the semantics of the term had to be ‘hermeneutically deciphered’ as outlined in [12]. in the gruner 46 following, the first sub-section of this section presents the analysis of the most-cited papers, as explained above. thereafter, the second sub-section of this section synthesizes the analysis results in such a manner that meaningful conclusions can be drawn. 4.1. notions of software architecture in the most-cited papers of 40 years (1972-2011) 1972 in [7] a curriculum for a degree in information systems was recommended. the document did not refer explicitly to software architecture, but mentioned programming and linking structures for some frequently used interface programs such as file and communication modules [7], with further reference to a recommended textbook by beizer [11]. in that two-volumes book by beizer, hardwareand software engineering were treated together, from which one may infer that the notion of ‘software architecture’ had not yet been much developed at the time. in analogy to hardware architecture, there was some connotation with modules, connections and interfaces in the broadest sense. software design and software architecture were not yet precisely distinguished. 1973 in [52], the problem of software engineering in the context of operation systems (which are particular software systems themselves) was addressed, and an appeal was made to “improve software modularity’’ [52] for the sake of higher software reliability. in that paper, too, the (implicit) notion of software architecture was still linked closely to a corresponding notion of hardware architecture. the term ‘software architecture’ did not occur in the text body of [52], but in one of its references to a paper by spooner [53]. in spooner’s paper, a framework is described on which it should be possible to construct general purpose systems suitable for the 70’s, concluding with the need for a useful method of modularizing [53]. it allows hitherto mandatory and untouchable components to be optional and alterable [53]. moreover one can find in [53] a conceptual distinction between “logical’’ and “physical units’’, in addition to early attempts at framework standardisation, particularly by developing the role of the central organizing element, as a caretaker of management decisions [53]. 1974 paper [35] was positioned in the context of operating systems, too, whereby the notions of ‘systems architecture’ and ‘software architecture’ (in close proximity to some underlying hardware) were not sharply distinguished. also this paper did not have the term ‘software architecture’ in its text body – only in a literature reference to a further paper [27] written by gordon. the title of gordon’s paper reveals that his ‘software architecture’ was closely related to the design of operating systems, too. this correlation should not come as a surprise, because the discipline of software engineering was born particularly out of the practical difficulties experienced in the field of operating systems construction. a closer look into [27] reveals that its title-term ‘software architecture’ does not reappear in the text body of that paper. hermeneutically one can infer that the notion of ‘software architecture’ in [27] historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 47 referred particularly to the data structures needed to implement an operating system. the terms ‘software architecture’ and ‘operating system’ were thus essentially synonymous. 1975 also in paper [58], hardware and software were regarded as tightly interwoven, with a particular focus on “design philosophy’’ [58]. again the context was one of operating systems. in that paper, modules and components were mentioned many times, whereby it was important to emphasize that we are not using the word module to mean compilation unit; rather, a module is a conceptual entity created purely to encapsulate the implementation of an abstract concept [58]. the paper also described a concept of architectural layering (from higher levels down to lower ones in call/use-relationships) amongst the modules. though the term ‘software architecture’ did not appear literally in [58], its tacit notion is obvious: the paper mentioned the concepts of modules, subsystems, logical abstraction (abstract modules), layering, as well as the correlations between the qualities of module structure and overall system reliability. 1976 also in [21] the link between architecture and reliability in operating systems was prominent. the single term ‘architecture’ appeared more than 15 times in [21], though not the composite term ‘software architecture’. thus the notion of ‘architecture’ in that paper was rather vague and not particularly software-oriented. also in that paper a tight integration between software and hardware was emphasized. moreover there was some semantic overlap between the notions of ‘architecture’ and ‘software design’. 1977 paper [17] shows a first turning-away from the domain of hardware-near operating systems to the domain of data structures and data types, though the overarching leitmotif of software reliability remained the same. in that paper, the word ‘architecture’ appeared only once in a literature reference to paper [58]; (see above). nevertheless one can find in [17] a vague component-notion at a higher level of programming (abstract data type definition), which is conceptually related to the abstract notion of ‘module’ in [58]. 1978 paper [41] was written in a context of reliability issues in computing systems design, too. it also refers to the already mentioned paper [58] in its references. in [41] the term ‘architecture’ appeared only w.r.t. hardware, though the term ‘software’ appeared in [41] dozens of times. a concept of software design, however, can be found in close proximity to the concepts of components and interconnections, whereby the authors of [41] define a system as a set of components together with their interrelationships where the system has been designed to provide a specific service. the components of the system can themselves be systems. the ‘module’ concept appears thus as synonymous to the notion of ‘subcomponent’ [41]. in an engineering tradition, the component concept can be found in [41] in the context of hardware, too. 1979 in [40] one can find the technical term ‘software architecture’ in two places. the following sentence is particularly relevant: gruner 48 at the present time we can identify the dat system as a software level in the software architecture of the computer network [40]. in that paper, however, there was still confusion about the lexical notation for –as well as the systematic limits of– software architecture: a diagram on page 148 of [40] shows a diverse mixture of entity-types, from users at the top to files at the bottom, all of them depicted in rectangular boxes. in other words: softwareand system architecture were not clearly distinguished from each other. 1980 paper [29], too, references the above-mentioned paper [58], however the lexical term ‘software architecture’ cannot be found in [29]. though the general term ‘architecture’ (without the addition of ‘software’) appeared often in [29], it clearly did so in the context of hardware, or systems, in general. implicitly, however, a rudimentary notion of software architecture was expressed: staros provides facilities for the creation of modules, each of which exports a set of functions to be invoked by the code in other modules [29], though there was still no clear distinction between software design and software architecture. of particular interest in [29] is the distinction between ‘physical’ and ‘logical’ distribution: we define a programmed system to be logically distributed if each component is autonomous to the extent that removal of one component will not cause the system to fail to accomplish its task in an acceptable fashion. (...) to gain increased reliability, a software system must be logically distributed [29]. thus, whilst not explicitly mentioning the term ‘software architecture’, it is obvious that there was knowledge about a correlation between overall system reliability and particular softwarearchitectural properties, (which would be termed ‘loose coupling’ in later years). 1981 paper [46] is the first paper in the acm-dl (though not the first paper globally) which explicitly carries the term ‘software architecture’ in its title. the paper describes an alternative approach to software architecture, where the classical division of responsibilities between operating systems, programming languages and compilers, and so forth is revised [46]. in that paper, work-division between operating systems, compilers, and other software tools was already taken for granted. in that context the purpose of [46] was to question a conventional division of responsibilities between the major parts of software, resulting in a particular “architectural philosophy’’ [46]. however, that paper also did not provide an explicit definition of ‘software architecture’, and its authors soon reverted to the previously mentioned ambiguity between software architecture and architecture (in general). in [46], too, the notion of ‘software architecture’ was almost synonymous to the notion of ‘operation system’ or ‘middleware’ (onto which some user-application software could be planted). 1982 paper [44] was written in the context of the then-emerging interactive computer systems (whereas batch systems had been dominant in the earlier past). the term ‘software architecture’ appeared thrice in [44]; one can infer that the term was intended to signify the data structures of a middleware system between the user and the kernel of an underlying operating system. historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 49 1983 the purpose of paper [33] was to focus on the implementation of a software architecture and set of related procedures that allow the designer of a design automation tool to easily modify the control of the program and the interface to the tool’s user. the term ‘software architecture’ appeared six times in the text body of that paper, though not in the form of a lexical definition. most importantly, the following architectural requirement was stated: before designing a large system or program it is important to spend some time investigating what changes to that system are likely to occur. (...) a useful software architecture must be effective in handling these sorts of changes. the architecture described has been designed to be used in individual design tools as well as in a `shell’ type program [33]. one can thus infer that ‘software architecture’ was regarded in [33] as an inherent structural property of any software system itself. on the other hand, relevance of the previously encountered middleware aspect of ‘software architecture’ can also be found in [33], where a standardized architecture that allows for the addition of new application programs without major perturbations to the rest of the system was mentioned. 1984 in paper [55] the term ‘software architecture’ appeared only once, namely in a literature reference to a paper by deutsch [22]. paper [55], too, was mainly concerned with hardware in combination with an operating system needed to make the hardware resources available. deutsch’s work reveals a concept of software architecture similar to the concept of a virtual machine, used as an interface between hardware and a compiler. 1985 in [10], a stream machine is a software architecture designed to support the development and evolution, as well as the efficient execution, of software that performs both data acquisition and process control under real-time constraints. the word “is’’ is particularly interesting in this context: obviously the authors of [10] beheld software architecture from an ontological point of view as a substantial entity on its own – not as a structural property of a software. also in that paper the term ‘software architecture’ appeared in close proximity to concepts of operating systems and their underlying hardware structures. 1986 paper [45] was a follow-up publication of the already mentioned paper [55], wherein the same research group explicated the same notion of ‘software architecture’ (as outlined above). 1987 in paper [4], a high-level petri net model of the software architecture of an experimental mimd multiprocessor system for artificial intelligence applications is derived (...). hardware architectural constraints are then easily added (...) [4]. gruner 50 thus one can identify in [4], too, a software architecture concept at a rather low level of abstraction, in close proximity to the realm of operating systems and hardware architecture. 1988 in paper [59] the only occurrence of the term ‘software architecture’ can be found in a literature reference to a ten-years-older paper. also in [59] the term ‘architecture’ was used in semantic proximity to notions of hardware, operating systems, and system architecture. 1989 also in [16] the term ‘software architecture’ appeared only in one literature reference, namely to the already mentioned paper [22]. context and notions in [16] were similar to the ones of [45]. 1990 from the year 1990 onwards one can always find papers in the acm-dl, which carry the term ‘software architecture’ explicitly in their titles. indeed, from approximately 1990 onwards, software architecture started to be regarded as a research topic in its own right. in paper [30], nevertheless, one can still find the same connotation between the concepts of software architecture and hardware architecture as in several of the papers recapitulated above. paper [30] stated, for example: the charter of the lm-100 hardware modeller development team was (...) developing a software architecture that provided simulator and host-independence while improving overall functionality and performance. in such a context, software architecture was regarded once more as a software image of hardware structures – in [30] with the particular purpose of providing hardware simulation facilities in software. 1991 shaw’s paper [48] provided the following explication: software system design must deal with architectural issues as well as algorithms and representations. architectural issues include gross decomposition of function, assignment of function to design elements, composition of design elements, scaling and performance, and selection among design alternatives [48]. subsequently several architectural styles were identified which were characterized topologically by the manner in which the modules of a software architecture are connected with each other. it is obvious that software architecture was regarded in [48] as a structural property (not as a thing or device), independent of any application context (such as operating systems or middleware). 1992 paper [38], with its more than 440 citations, may be regarded as one of the most influential software architecture papers in the acm-dl repository. the purpose of this paper is to build the foundation for software architecture. we first develop an intuition for software architecture by appealing to several well-established architectural disciplines. on the basis of this intuition, we present a model of software architecture that consists of three components: elements, form and rationale. (...) form is defined in terms of the properties of, and the relationships among, the elements (...). the rationale provides the underlying basis for the architecture in terms of the system constraints, which most often derive from the system requirements. we discuss the historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 51 components of the model in the context of both architectures and architectural styles (...) [38]. moreover: the 1990s, we believe, will be the decade of software architecture – see figure 1 for comparison – whereby the authors explicitly declared to use the term ‘architecture’, in contrast to ‘design’, to evoke notions of codification, of abstraction, of formal training (...), and of style [38]. this was explicitly contrasted against other notions of ‘architecture’, particularly hardware architecture and operating systems. as far as the architectural style is concerned, the authors wrote: if architecture is a formal arrangement of architectural elements, then architectural style is that which abstracts elements and formal aspects from various specific architectures. (...) in these cases, we concentrate on only certain aspects of a specific architecture (...) given this definition of architecture and architectural style, there is no hard dividing line between where architectural style leaves off and architecture begins. we have a continuum in which one person’s architecture may be another’s architectural style. whether it is an architecture or a style depends in some sense on the use [38]. in spite of this particular flavour of perspectivism or relativism (a variant of which reappeared twenty years later in [51]) it is obvious that the notion of ‘software architecture’ in [38] was a strongly topological notion at a high level of abstraction and applicationindependence. in this context it is also worth mentioning that the authors of [38] explicitly acknowledged the position taken by mary shaw – see above. 1993 paper [2] was concerned with the formalization of hitherto informal concepts of software architecture: the software architecture of most systems is described informally and diagrammatically. (...) the imprecision of these interpretations has a number of limitations. in this paper we consider these conventionalized interpretations as architectural styles and provide a formal framework for their uniform definition [2]. in the detailed elaborations of [2] one can find (amongst others) the notions of components and connectors again, in an applicationindependent manner, at a high level of logical abstraction. from a theoretical point of view the specification in [2] reveals a topological notion of ‘software architecture’. the example of [2] shows clearly how a mathematicalscientific approach to software engineering came together with an abstract, structural, and application-context-independent notion of ‘software architecture’. 1994 in the context of domain-specific software architecture (dssa), paper [54] provided a number of concise and explicit definitions for ‘software architecture’, ‘dssa’, ‘reference architecture’, and ‘application architecture’. the paper has thus made a valuable contribution towards the clarification of the hitherto so unclear terminology. as far as ‘software architecture’ (in general) is concerned, [54] defined software architecture in terms of components, connections, and constraints/rationale, with ‘rationale’ being understood according to [38] – see above. the infrastructure issue (so strongly emphasized later in [51]) appeared in [54] only in the context of dssa: gruner 52 domain-specific software architecture – a software architecture with reference requirements and domain model, infrastructure to support it, and process to instantiate/refine it [54]. 1995 the influential paper [3], cited more than 50 times, was written by the same authors as paper [2] (see above) and should thus be regarded as a continuation thereof. the introductory section of [3] stated that software architecture is an important level of description for software systems (...). at this level of abstraction key design issues include gross-level decomposition of a system into interacting subsystems, the assignment of function to computational components, global system properties (such as throughput and latency), and lifecycle issues (such as maintainability, extent of reuse, and platform independence) [3]. the concept of platform independence should be particularly noted here, since it was clearly in opposition to the competing concepts already mentioned, in which software architecture was (or is) regarded as tightly related to hardware structures and operating systems. moreover one can find in [3] an awakening of historical awareness that enabled the authors to diagnose correctly that it was only recently that software architecture has begun to emerge as a discipline of study in its own right [3]. see figure 1 for comparison once again. 1996 in paper [33] one can find another attempt at formalising some previously informal aspects of software architecture. in particular, the aim of [33] was to remove ambiguities from informal pictorial descriptions of software-architectural ensembles. in addition to the usual static views of software architecture (including components and connections), one can find in [33] a dynamic view, too, according to which the interacting components appeared as agents. 1997 paper [15] was written in the context of the then-emerging topic of computer-supported collaborative work (cscw). as far as its concept software architecture in general is concerned, the paper’s authors mentioned components and connectors as well as of architectural styles (patterns), such as pipes and filters, with different layers of abstraction. they also mentioned a dynamic-behavioural view (a.k.a. agents) to complement the traditional static-topological view. work by mary shaw (see above) was cited in [15], too. because of the domain-specificity (cscw) of the approach of [15], the dssa-related considerations of [54] –see above– are (by implication) relevant for paper [15] as well. 1998 paper [20] (1998) presented another contextand application-specific approach to software architecture. once more the application domain was the domain of computer networks and operating systems: we have designed and implemented a high performance, modular, extended integrated services router software architecture in the netbsd operating system kernel. this architecture allows code modules, called plugins, to be dynamically added and configured at run time [20]. historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 53 this quotation confirms that the concept of software architecture in the realm of operating systems differed considerably from the concept of software architecture in the realm of general-purpose software engineering. what both notions had in common was merely the module concept, plus some understanding of the practical importance of architectural qualities for a given system’s runtime performance. 1999 in [13] one can find an exercise in software reverse engineering. in that work, an explicit description of the (implicit) software architecture of a given software system had to be extracted. such an extraction task is logically based on the assumption that every software system has its own software architecture as its structural property. moreover one can find in [13] an important distinction between the notion of a conceptual architecture (i.e.: an idealised model) and the notion of a concrete architecture (referring to a factually existing module structure). on the basis of such a distinction, the two concepts could then be compared with each other. 2000 with its more than 50 citations the “roadmap” paper [26] must be regarded as another milestone paper in its field. at the beginning of a new millennium the paper suggested several future research directions. the paper had an explicitly historical perspective, too: over the past decade software architecture has received increasing attention as an important subfield of software engineering [26]. see, once again, figure 1 for comparison. moreover: during that time there has been considerable progress in developing the technological and methodological base for treating architectural design as an engineering discipline [26]. in that paper, ‘software architecture’ was explicitly defined as the “gross organization of a collection of interacting components’’ [26]. the importance of ‘good’ software architecture w.r.t. performance, reliability, portability, scalability and interoperability of software systems was also stated. from a historic perspective, however, despite this progress, as engineering disciplines go, the field of software architecture remains relatively immature [26], which is typically indicated by confusion about the meaning of important technical terms – see again kuhn’s comments on the topic of pre-paradigmatic proto-sciences. nevertheless: while there are numerous definitions of software architecture, at the core of all of them is the notion that the architecture of a system describes its gross structure. this structure illuminates the top level design decisions, including things such as how the system is composed of interacting parts, (...), and what are the key properties of the parts [26]. moreover the paper stated: software architecture typically plays a key role as a bridge between requirements and implementation [26], which is closely related to the concept of software architecture as ‘programming in-the-large’ (pil). consequently, architecture description languages (adl), in analogy to higher-level programming languages, were discussed in [26], too. 2001 gruner 54 paper [43] presented a domain-specific software architecture example in the field of ‘virtual reality’. in that application context, software architecture was understood to be a framework for the different tasks involved (...) in virtual environments and augmented reality application [43]. such a framework eases the development and maintenance of hardware setups in a more flexible manner [43]. in the case of paper [43], software architecture was obviously understood (once more) as a kind of middleware, in close proximity to an operating system, between some hardware at the lower level and some user application programs at the higher level. 2002 the authors of [5] were concerned with case-tool-supported mappings from software architecture descriptions to executable program code, and the consistencies between those two classes of documents. such an approach indicates clearly that software architecture was related by the authors of [5] to programming in-the-large (pil). the term ‘software architecture’ was accordingly defined as the organisation of a software system as a collection of components, connection between the components and constraints on how the components interact [5]. the paper also explained an important difference between architecture description languages (adl) and module interconnection languages (mil): adls differ from mils in that the former make connectors explicit in order to describe data and control flow between components, while the latter focus on describing the uses relations between modules [5]. very importantly, the paper’s authors also distinguished clearly between software architecture and infrastructure in the form of middle-ware, which the authors of various other papers (including [51]) had often conflated: component-based infrastructures such as com, corba, and java beans provide sophisticated services such as naming, transactions and distribution for component-based applications. while these infrastructures do not include mechanisms for explicitly describing software architecture [5], the example presented in that paper shows how software architecture can be expressed in the context of component infrastructures [5]. 2003. paper [39], similar to [43] (see above), presented yet another domain-specific software architecture example in the field of ‘virtual reality’. not surprisingly, the concept of software architecture in [39], regarded as system-related middleware, was similar to the concept found in [43]. 2004. the authors of [14] worked with a concept of dynamic software architecture. their paper commenced with the following –unfortunately circular– definition: dynamic software architectures modify their architecture [14], i.e.: a software architecture is something which has itself as a property. obviously this does not make sense from a logical point of view. the intention of that definition, interpreted ‘between the lines’, should probably be rephrased such as to express that dynamic software historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 55 systems modify their own architecture, or that dynamic software architectures modify their own structural properties. from [14] one can infer that the main architectural elements of such dynamic software architectures were (once more) regarded as components and connectors. including a reference to paper [33] (see above), the remainder of paper [14] dealt with formal languages to describe the re-compositions and re-connections of such dynamic structures during the course of time. 2005 with reference to kruchten’s “4+1 views” concept of software architecture, paper [47] focused on the development view. the paper was mainly concerned about the projectmanagerial aspects of software architecture construction. in such a context, design rules are applied repeatedly as the system evolves, to identify violations and keep the code and its architecture in conformance with one another [47]. the underlying concept of software architecture was basically the concept of pil. 2006 paper [25] presents itself in an application-specific context, once more in close proximity to operating systems and computer hardware – this time, however, in the modernised form of a wearable personal monitoring service transparently embedded in user garments [25]. by implication the software architecture concept in [25] was (once again) the middleware concept typically found in that area of research. 2007 paper [6] presented another case tool supporting the management of software architecture development. similar to the purpose of [47] (see above), the main concern of paper [6] was software project management, including the professional understanding of software architecture production processes, not software architecture as a product of such processes. also in that paper, kruchten’s “4+1 views” model was mentioned. because paper [6] was written from an epistemological point of view, the paper neither stipulated nor implied any specific definition of the term ‘software architecture’. implicitly the usual concepts of components and connections can be inferred from [6] as the smallest common ground in this field of research. architectural styles and patterns were mentioned, too, however independent of the question of whether or not software architecture should be regarded as contextdependent middleware. 2008 in paper [23] the concept of software architecture was once again a domain-specific one, regarded as middleware between an underlying hardware system and some higher-level application software: in order to improve interoperability, we aim to identify the common traits of these systems and present a layered software architecture which abstracts these similarities by defining common interfaces between successive layers [23]. in addition it was stated that the layered architecture allows easy integration of existing software, as several alternative implementations for each layer can co-exist [23]. in that paper, too, ‘software architecture’ was (more or less) a synonym for ‘operating system’ or ‘service-providing middleware’. gruner 56 2009 paper [18] proposes a high-performance network monitoring software architecture. the proposed architecture (...) is able to employ multi-core cpus in an efficient and scalable manner’’. in the example of [18], however, the such-described software architecture had only very few modules which all implemented typical features of operating systems. from a historical perspective it is interesting to note that such a hardware-oriented understanding of ‘software architecture’ has survived from the early 1970s until nowadays. 2010 in [37] one can find yet another approach to case tool support for developing and analysing software architectures, and their properties, in the context of software engineering project management. the concern of [37] was thus, once more, the professional production of software architectures, rather than any notion of ‘software architecture’. from a running example provided in [37] one can nevertheless infer a concept of software architecture which is component-based in the sense of cbsd or cbse, whereby a component in such a context is a pre-compiled, deployable and executable unit (not identical with an un-compiled software module) which needs some middleware via which it can communicate with other components. in [37], however, such middleware was not be regarded as software architecture. on the contrary, ‘software architecture’ in the context of [37] must be understood in terms of the structural qualities of the composition of such components (on top of the necessary middleware). 2011. paper [56], the final one in the time-line of this survey, returns full-swing back to the context in which this survey had started with the year 1972, namely the context of education and software engineering curricula at universities. in [56] one can find a comprehensive experience report about the use of a computer game project as an illustrative example in a software architecture course at a norwegian institution of higher education. the report had a strong focus on the use and re-use of components in a technical context of cbse. in [56] one can thus find once more a concept of software architecture based on modules, architectural patterns, and design patterns. no clear distinction, however, was drawn between ‘software architecture’ and ‘software design’ – ditto no clear distinction between cbse ‘components’ and the ‘modules’ of oop. together with a concept of different architectural views –’logical’ as opposed to ‘concrete’– software architecture was characterised in [56] as the structural property of any component-based software system. 4.2. synthesis of the analysis results as it will be shown in more detail below, the review of the 40 most often cited software architecture papers in the acm-dl from 1972 to 2011 uncovered basically two co-existing notions of ‘software architecture’ during those decades: • software architecture beheld as a kind of thing, namely some type of middleware between some higher-level application software and some underlying hardware: o this material-substantialist concept of software architecture has been held mostly (typically) by members of the operating systems and computer hardware communities. • software architecture beheld as a topological property of any larger software system, independent of the software system’s application context and application purpose: historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 57 o this formal-structuralist notion of software architecture has been held mostly (typically) by members of the general software engineering community outside the field of operating systems, particularly by theoryand science-oriented software engineers with a strong focus on formal languages and mathematical abstractions. in what follows, those findings on the historical semantics of ‘software architecture’ shall be further consolidated. such consolidation shall be achieved as follows: the characteristics identified in those 40 sample papers will be mapped onto a number of positive is-, or hasproperties, p_1, p_2, p_3, etc., as well as onto a number of negative is-not-, or has-notproperties, n_1, n_2, n_3, etc. based on these properties, in combination with those 40 papers as their carrier objects, formal concept lattices [24] can be constructed automatically by a software tool named concept explorer. the graphs of these concept lattices, which clearly depict inclusion, subsumption, or exclusion relations between semantic notions and concepts, are then considered to be syndromes, which clearly reveal the above-mentioned historicsemantic shifts in the notion of ‘software architecture’. for the totality of the 40 most-often cited papers (1972-2011) recapitulated in the previous sub-section, the following set of positive properties, notions and concepts in the semantic field of ‘software architecture’ has been hermeneutically identified: • p_1: basic notion of modules, connections, interfaces. • p_2: notion of sub-systems as intermediate entities ‘between’ modules and systems. • p_3: notion of structural principles such as layers, levels, information-hiding, and/or loose coupling. • p_4: notion of frameworks, standardisation, adaptation and re-use. • p_5: notion of architectural patterns and styles. • p_6: notion of domain-specific software architecture (dssa). • p_7: notion of architectural views: static versus dynamic, etc. • p_8: notion of architectural refinement: abstract or conceptual versus concrete, schema versus instance, logical versus physical or technical, etc. • p_9: notion of versioning, architectural evolution or change of structure in time. • p_10: recognition of software architecture’s relevance w.r.t. software maintenance. • p_11: recognition of software architecture’s relevance w.r.t. runtime performance. • p_12: context of computer hardware. • p_13: context of operating systems, including networking, etc. • p_14: context of compiler construction. • p_15: context of component-based software engineering (cbse), component-based software development (cbsd), or distributed service-oriented architecture (soa). • p_16: software architecture as programming in-the-large (pil). • p_17: notion of architectural language types, architecture description language (adl) or module interconnection languages (mil). • p_18: explicit distinction between adl and mil. • p_19: software architecture as operating system or virtual machine or simulated hardware architecture. • p_20: software architecture as middleware or infrastructure. • p_21: software architecture as an inherent formal topological or structural property of any software system. • p_22: software architecture as one of many possible software design alternatives, distinguished from software design as such. gruner 58 • p_23: software architecture as a composition of pre-fabricated re-usable components, on top of some component-supporting middleware. • p_24: explicit distinction between software architecture versus an underlying infrastructure or middleware. • p_25: explicit distinction between general software modules and components in the sense of cbse or cbsd. • p_26: independence of the notion of software architecture from any specific application context (such as operating systems or whatever). likewise, for the same 40 papers as objects, the following set of negative properties, notions and concepts has been identified: • n_1: ‘home-grown’, intuitive, rather unspecific, vague or otherwise unreflected notion of software architecture, including confusion between architecture in general and software architecture in particular. • n_2: confusion between module and component, whether hardware or software, whether in source-code or pre-fabricated and pre-compiled. • n_3: confusion between the concepts of software architecture on the one hand, and systemsor computer architecture on the other hand. • n_4: confusion between software design and software architecture. • n_5: ambiguity or a lack of awareness of different types of components or modules, which all appear as equally-looking ‘blobs’ in sketches of (software-) architectural diagrams. figure 3. lattice showing the semantic space of the most-cited software architecture papers in the acm-dl, 1972-2011: the fourteen main conceptual branches are indicated by the red box immediately underneath the lattice’s top vertex. on the basis of all these properties, together with those 40 papers as their carrier objects, a binary object-properties-table can be constructed as described in [24], from which the lattice depicted in figure 3 was automatically derived. the ‘balls’ in the figure represent the objects (i.e.: the surveyed papers), whereby a big ball represents a set of several papers that all belong to the same semantic category which is represented by such a ball. on the basis of the 40 objects of this study, the concept explorer has constructed 90 formal concepts: each of them is represented by a vertex (crossing-point) in the lattice graph of figure 3. not all of those 90 formal concepts are in possession of their own concrete objects. at one glance one can see historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 59 that this conceptual space is wide and diverse, reflecting the multitude of differences in the historic notions of ‘software architecture’. of all these 90 concepts, the 14 main concepts, which are represented by the 14 edges emerging immediately out of the lattice’s top vertex, and which are highlighted (framed) by a red box in figure 3, are the most important ones. each of those is the root of a sub-lattice which has a sub-set of all 40 objects (papers) as its elements. these 14 main concepts (or sub-lattices) can be characterized as follows: (1) is defined by p_19, with 15 objects between 1974 and 2009. (2) is defined by p_13, with 21 objects between 1973 and 2009. (3) is defined by n_1, with 6 objects between 1972 and 2007. (4) is defined by p_20, with 10 objects between 1981 and 2009. (5) is defined by n_4, with 14 objects between 1972 and 2011. (6) is defined by p_8, with 8 objects between 1973 and 2005. (7) is defined by p_11, with 12 objects between 1975 and 2011. (8) is defined by p_9, with 1 object in 2004. (9) is defined by p_2, with 5 objects between 1975 and 2011. (10) is defined by p_7, with 6 objects between 1996 and 2011. (11) is defined by p_21, with 10 objects between 1983 and 2011. (12) is defined by p_4, with 3 objects between 1973 and 2000. (13) is defined by p_5, with 10 objects between 1991 and 2011. (14) is defined by p_26, with 9 objects between 1991 and 2007. figure 4. historic-semantic appearance of the fourteen main connotations in the notion of software architecture, extracted from the formal concept lattice. this list of 14 main connotations in the historical semantics of ‘software architecture’ is further illustrated in figure 4, wherein the number of objects characterized by each connotation is shown on the vertical axis (↑), whilst the historical duration of that gruner 60 connotation is depicted as a horizontal time line (→). also note that properties p_19 and p_20 (software architecture as operating system or virtual machine or middleware) on the one hand, and properties p_21 and p_26 (software architecture as application-independent, formal, topological property) on the other hand, are mutually exclusive from a logical point of view. thereby, • connotations p_{19,20} represent the already mentioned material-substantialist concept of software architecture, whereas • connotations p_{21,26} represent the already mentioned formal-structuralist concept of software architecture. these two mutually exclusive schools of thought in software architecture are also highlighted in figure 4. since computer science emerged from two parent disciplines –mathematics and electrical engineering– soon after the second world war, one can still find in those two different notions of ‘software architecture’ the genes of the parents: whereas the formalstructuralist school of software architecture was obviously influenced by the paradigm of its mathematics parent, the material-substantialist school of software architecture was evidently influenced by its electrical engineering parent. amongst historians of computer science and software engineering it is also well-known that those two different sources of computer science –the mathematical one and the electrical one– have never been completely confluent. the results pertaining to software architecture of this historic-semantic case study should thus be regarded as additional indicators of such a bi-polarity in the conceptual core of computer science since the earliest days of its existence. last but not least it is also worth noting that the negative property n_4 –confusion or ambiguity between the notions of software design and software architecture– has appeared persistently in a considerably large number of papers throughout the decades between 1972 and 2011, in spite of a more-than-sufficient availability of literature in which the difference between ‘software architecture’ and ‘software design’ had been clearly explained. 5. conclusion and outlook the detailed analysis unfolded in the previous sections of this study is now culminating in the following conclusions about the historical semantics of ‘software architecture’: • the notion of ‘software architecture’ was a rather un-reflected, ‘home-grown’ concept in computer science and software engineering from the early 1970s until the beginning of the 1990s. • during this early period (early 1970s to early 1990s), ‘software architecture’ referred in most cases to underlying computer hardware structures, operating systems, or similar kind of middleware. this semiotic relationship i have called the material-substantialist semantics of ‘software architecture’. • since the beginning of the 1990s, the formerly un-reflected meaning of ‘software architecture’ started to become historically and philosophically reflected: the erstwhile un-problematic notion then became problematic. philosophically and historically astute software engineers began to notice and recognize the considerable semantic varieties in the notion of ‘software architecture’. • around the beginning of the 1990s, a new school of thought began to emerge in which ‘software architecture’ was defined as an abstract structural property of any large software system, independent of any specific context of application. this semiotic relationship i have called the formal-structuralist semantics of ‘software architecture’. historical semantics of software architecture’s notion td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.37-66. 61 • the emergence of the formal-structuralist school of thought in the field of software architecture has, however, not terminated the existence of the material-substantialist school of thought. both of them have since co-existed. further notions of ‘software architecture’ also arose more recently in the domain of component-based software engineering (cbse). • not only did (and do) those two schools of thought simply coexist next to each other; there also arose software-methodological quarrels about which one of them should be accepted as ‘right’ or ‘orthodox’. in kuhnian terms one could say that the discipline of software architecture began to feel un-easy about its own pre-paradigmatic and protoscientific state of affairs. those methodological quarrels, as far as they continue, seem to indicate that some aspirations towards a unified meta-theory of software engineering are still alive, in spite of all the many postmodernist-pluralist tendencies which can be identified in nowadays meta-science. paper [51], for example, presented from a substantialist position some of the most recent arguments against the formalist school of thought, and the authors of the somewhat earlier paper [9] had at least lamented the very existence of such conceptual discrepancies. • from an ontological perspective, software architecture is regarded as a thing (in itself) by followers of the material-substantialist school of thought, whereas it is regarded as a property (of something else) by followers of the formal-structuralist school of thought. these two perspectives are mutually exclusive from a logical point of view. • amongst the analysed 40 papers published between 1972 and 2011 there was always some residual ambiguity and confusion about the related concepts of software architecture and software design. there were, however, alsothough some papers in which that confusion was explicitly addressed, and in which a clear distinction between those concepts was provided. both ‘architecture’ and ‘design’, however, have obvious connotations with the fine arts and crafts, which seems to support the most recent de-scientification hypothesis postulated by hellige for computer science as a whole [28]: followers of this third school of thought prefer to identify computer science as a so-called ‘design science’, in opposition to both the mathematical and the electro-technical parent paradigms at the historical roots of computer science. • in the midst of all this conceptual confusion it has even been possible in at least one case, namely [60], for blatant pseudo-science (alluding to the metaphysics of feng shui, etc.) to make inroads into the field of software architecture, in spite of the wellknown calls particularly by snelting [50] and shaw [49] for higher levels of scientificness in the discipline of software engineering. the peculiar feng shui paper [60] may thus be regarded as one particularly crass example of the de-scientification tendencies diagnosed by hellige [28] w.r.t. the entire discipline. • related to the conceptual problem discussed in this study is the non-quantifiability of most software engineering concepts, in contrast to many scientific concepts in physics or chemistry. whereas the understanding of those classical scientific concepts can be supported by the possibility of their objective quantification –for example: the notion of ‘energy’ can be objectified in units of joule– this is to date not possible with any one of the most fundamental notions in software engineering –such as, for example: ‘reliability’– to which the features of software architecture are so closely linked. • for all these reasons i conclude that software engineering in general, including software architecture in particular, is to date still a proto-science in the kuhnian sense of the term. from a practical perspective, however, there does not seem to be any hard incentive for the discipline of software engineering to change its proto-scientific status at all, as long as software producers are still able to sell their sub-scientifically crafted gruner 62 software products profitably to accepting buyers on the commercial software market. in other words: the evolutionary transition of a pre-paradigmatic proto-science to a paradigmatic normal science does not seem to be an inevitable historic necessity. • last but not least i may conjecture without exaggeration that the observed bifurcation in the historical semantics of the term ‘software architecture’ is a heritage from the earliest days of informatics which was born out of two rather different parent disciplines, namely mathematics and electrical engineering. the dialectic tensions between construction (engineering) and abstraction (mathematics) have always been at work in the discipline of informatics (including software engineering) which has never been theoretically unified and integrated since then. the two schools of thought in the field of software architecture, as they were identified in this study, are historically and systematically correlated with those dialectically competing and concurring preparadigmatic movements at the methodological foundations of that discipline. future work would be needed in order to further consolidate and corroborate the findings of this historic-semantic study, with literature databases other than the acm-dl: for example the ieee xplore database, citeseer, and the like. epilogue – from the analects (conversations) of kung fu tse (confucius) tse-lu spoke: the lord of wei has been waiting for you, hoping for your advice in the matters of government. what will you consider first to be done? master kung replied: what is necessary is to rectify the names. tse-lu asked why. master kung replied: if the language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if 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[60] zarayaraz, g. & rodrigues, p. & thambidurai, p. & kuppuswami, s.: a new approach to software architecture. acm sigsoft sen 28/2, art. 17, pp. 17:117:6, 2003. abstract introduction theoretical framework empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying supporting a decolonisation agenda methodology: two recent small-scale research projects findings conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) janet jarvis discipline of life orientation education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation jarvis j. empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying: a teaching–learning strategy for life orientation. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1077. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1077 original research empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying: a teaching–learning strategy for life orientation janet jarvis received: 21 may 2021; accepted: 01 june 2021; published: 30 june 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article presents a teaching–learning strategy that has been employed in recent small-scale research projects at a south african higher education institution, and more specifically, in the school of education. bachelor of education honours students enrolled for a module entitled contemporary issues in life orientation participated in the studies in 2017 and 2018. the introduction of empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying as a teaching–learning strategy created a space for these male and female students to explore their self-dialogue in relation to their understandings and lived experiences of human rights issues, and in this case, gender inequality. this teaching–learning strategy created the opportunity for pre-service teachers to become agents of their own learning as they considered entrenched beliefs and worldviews and co-constructed (re-storied) previously held narratives. by sharing their self-narratives in a community in conversation and then in a community in dialogue with their ‘other’, the possibility existed for creating new knowledges. this strategy, serving a decolonisation agenda, adopts a transdisciplinary approach. it encourages reflection and reflexivity that can transform technicist classroom practice into potentially transformative classroom praxis. keywords: decolonisation; empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying; life orientation; transdisciplinarity; classroom praxis. introduction this article argues for empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying1 as a teaching–learning strategy employing a transdisciplinary approach. this strategy facilitates an empathetic, reflective, dialogical exploration of human rights issues as they fall within the life orientation curriculum. in particular, this article focusses on gender equality as explicitly drawn from this curriculum. an empathetic exploration refers to the capacity to understand and respond to the lived experiences of another person with an increased awareness of that person’s thoughts and feelings and that these matters.2 reflection implies thinking through something and not just taking it on face value. this strategy facilitates a reimagining [or re-storying] of current hegemonies that underpin gender inequality.3 re-storying, or reimagining, revising or rewriting or reauthoring an existing narrative, provides the possibility of creating transformed new knowledges. whilst this strategy is currently employed with pre-service life orientation teachers in a higher education institution, it could possibly also be employed in a school context in life orientation lessons. this strategy provides a safe space in which these pre-service teachers can consider the way in which their personal identity has been shaped by dominant discourses and how they can impact on their engagement with human rights issues. this article highlights the right to gender equality, defined as men and women being equal in quality and identical in value or worth, enjoying a shared humanity, with male and female having the same rights and opportunities.4 exploring how a teacher’s personal identity shapes his or her gender identity would go part way to perhaps understanding why, in south africa, gender inequality is still perpetuated after nearly two decades into a new political democratic dispensation, with a well-established constitution and legal system.5 gender identity as used in this article does not refer to sexual orientation. it refers to the way in which, and to what extent, teachers conceptualise their gender identity. much gender discrimination has been concealed under the guise of cultural and religious tradition with political, religious and cultural leaders defending the origin of specific ritual and practice. patriarchy is the most important structure supporting male domination.6 a substantial study7 was conducted with female in-service teachers situated in six schools in four of the nine provinces in south africa. these schools represented peri-urban and metropolitan contexts and were diverse in terms of cultural, religious and socio-economic circumstances. the findings of this 2013 study showed that teaching–learning about gender equality could be challenging for teachers who have not reflected on their own gender identity and how the same is, in many instances, shaped by their religious and cultural discourses.7 a recommendation of this 2013 study was that pre-service teachers should be given the opportunity to explore their personal identity. in response to this recommendation, empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying has been developed and employed with pre-service teachers in a south african higher education institution. this article makes a methodological contribution, arguing as it does, for the efficacy of this strategy. theoretical framework herman’s dialogical self theory (dst) conceptualises the dialogical self as a dynamic multiplicity of i-positions in the landscape of the mind with differing voices that can engage with one another, with some voices more dominant than others. his theory also provides a link between self and society,8,9 advocating that individuals live not only in external spaces but also in the internal space of their society-of-mind. possible gender identity re-creation can result from the dialogical self in action,10 where the individual i, positions and his or herself and engages in counter-positioning. an example of this would be when the individual teacher adopts a counter-position to a master narrative, such as that of male dominance, in her society-of-mind. the counter-position adopted in her self-dialogue assists her to move from one position to another in her society-of-mind as a way of gaining an understanding about herself in relation to the world.8 sharing her self-narrative, as informed by her self-dialogue, both with an internal audience (in her ‘society-of-mind’) and with an external audience, presents the possibility for female teachers to reclaim themselves as they discover the extent to which it is possible to become disentangled from their ‘other’ (men). whilst it is recognised that there are more genders than the male and female binary, in the context of this study, ‘other’ is used by the female pre-service teachers to refer to their male counterparts and vice versa. whilst female teachers are made to varying degrees by the master narratives of gender inequality in society, they do have the capacity, to varying degrees, to make themselves. whilst they are shaped by dominant discourses, they can exercise agency by dis-identifying with and adopting a counter-position to the same. their gender identity transformation needs to be articulated in their personal, social and professional domains by their resistance to, and challenging of, male hegemony. the following example serves to illustrate this. there are particular discourses in society that do not permit women to have a voice in, for example, religious gatherings. the accompanying dominant discourse creates the i-position in the individual woman’s society-of-mind that dictates that ‘i, as a woman, cannot have a voice in religious gatherings’. adopting a meta-position11 (something of a helicopter view), the individual’s self-dialogue, in response to observing and self-reflecting on various i-positions including ‘i, as a mother, can speak up in defence of my children’ or ‘i, as a teacher, can take the lead in an educational setting’, reconsiders the position that ‘i, as a woman, cannot have a voice in religious gatherings’. her dialogical self in action adopts a counter-position to the dominant discourse in her society-of-mind. she then articulates this by adopting a promoter position11 and she voices this counter-position to male dominance, by using her voice in religious gatherings and encouraging other women to do the same. the individual’s ability to adopt this counter-position, to share her self-narrative with an external audience and to take up a promoter position depends on the extent and strength of her gender identity capital.12,13 identity capital refers to the set of strengths individuals have when constructing, framing and presenting their identity in social circumstances.14 the accumulation of successful identity exchanges, or social interaction, with their ‘other’, increases an individual’s identity capital. as a female teacher’s gender identity capital strengthens, she will be able to voice, both implicitly (in her self-dialogue to an internal audience) and explicitly (to an external audience), and to practise in increasing measure and with increasing confidence, counter-positions to male dominance and gender inequality. by doing so she will also be contributing positively to her professional capital.15 empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying there is a link between self-narrative and agency. self-narrative has a role to play in enabling individuals to discover the degree to which they are entangled with each other and, furthermore, the extent to which it might be possible to become disentangled from each other and thus be freed to build new identities.16 it is through considering their self-dialogue and expressing this through self-narratives that information about human rights (human rights literacies) can lead to empathically understanding through human rights (mutual respect) and for human rights (empowering individuals to enjoy and exercise their rights and to respect and uphold the rights of others).17 empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying can create a safe space in which pre-service teachers can begin to deconstruct master narratives and build both tangible and intangible identity capital before they move into the professional domain. this safe space is not just physical but also figurative. the strategy comprises five levels. at each level the participants were given questions to consider that were relevant to the research focus (these questions can be found in tables 1 and 2). at level 1 self-dialogue provides the dynamic flexibility for continued dialogue to an internal audience (the society of mind) and the re-positioning of internal and external positions in the society-of-mind,9 and this can lead to external identity stability. at level 2, self-dialogue is expressed through written self-narrative18,19 to an internal audience, namely the author of the narrative. as they write their own stories, individuals can create an alternative to a master narrative, in this case male hegemony, by undermining and re-interpreting the same.20,21 re-storying takes place as the self-narrative is expressed verbally, in a safe space to an external audience at level 3, in a community in conversation.22,23 in the community in conversation the women and men meet separately to talk, providing the opportunity for informal exchange of thoughts and feelings related to lived experiences, in this case, of gender inequality. by doing so the possibility exists for previously held narratives to be re-storied, with the co-production of new knowledges with regard to gender equality. at level 4, a community in dialogue23 provides the opportunity for more purposive, discursive exchange as the ‘other’ dialogues with his or her ‘other’. the aim of this dialogue would be to understand self-respect and own positionality and to inspire reciprocal exchanges with tolerant and empathetic understanding. the community in dialogue becomes a community for transformation1 at level 5 where both parties, in this case both the men and the women, engage collaboratively to discuss re-storied attitudes that could be transformative for the individual, the classroom and the wider community. table 1: questions informing the focus on religious identity and gender equality.39 table 2: questions informing the focus on religious identity and the right to bodily self-determination.40 supporting a decolonisation agenda empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying, as a teaching–learning strategy, supports a decolonisation agenda.24 decolonisation in education refers to the process of rethinking, reframing and reconstructing curricula and research that has been the preserve of the europe-centred, colonial lens. this is a curriculum imperative in higher education in south africa and as such seeks to change how teaching–learning takes place. empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying specifically supports this decolonisation agenda by encouraging the following: re-searching with participants, empowering students as agents of their own learning, a transdiscipinary approach and challenging, in this case, gender inequality. research with participants tibbitts’s activism-transformation model17 is helpful for the understanding of situatedness and the need for teaching and learning methodologies that are participatory, empowering and transformational to be employed. participants’ daily lived experience should be viewed through a human rights lens in order for participants to reflect on their own behaviour and demonstrate new behaviour. empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying contributes to this process, adopting as it does, a bottom-up approach. in a western research methodological stance research is performed to, on or about participants. decolonial research makes the shift to research that is carried out with the participants. pre-service teachers are re-positioned from objects of research to co-researchers as they engage in self-reflection and self-dialogue. in a community in conversation and in a community in dialogue the potential exists for re-storying to take place as new interpretations and understandings speak to lived experience25 and infuse dominant discourses. in contrast to the typically western ideology of individual or focus group interviews,26 this strategy, akin to chilisa’s talking circle[s],27 attempts to engage in research in a community in conversation, community in dialogue and community for transformation. an opportunity is created for participants to engage with and seek to know their ‘other’ in a research context, which is safe and in which they are co-researchers. empowering students as agents of their own learning empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying empowers pre-service life orientation teachers to be agents of their own learning as they consider dominant narratives and take responsibility for the generation of new knowledges by co-constructing (re-storying) new understandings thereof.3 it is in the community in conversation, in particular, that they strengthen their identity capital12,14 and are empowered to engage with their ‘other’ in a community in dialogue. as they participate in a community for transformation, together with their ‘other’, the potential exists for them to become agents of transformation and change. transdisciplinarity historically, the colonial legacy is that of discreet disciplines operating in isolation from one another. empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying adopts a transdisciplinary approach,1 where transdisciplinary boundary talk takes place in the blurring of boundaries between both discreet disciplines and integrated fields of knowledge. engagement with human rights issues, such as that of gender equality, takes place in the space between, across and beyond academic disciplines.28,29,30 pre-service teachers meet in the included middle31 when they co-construct their stories. by doing so they are empowered to build identity capital.12,14 this can be emancipatory and empowering. challenging gender inequalities challenging male hegemony plays a substantive role in decolonisation.32 gender ideologies in which social relations between women and men are defined become stubbornly defended as traditional and immutable.4 empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying provides an opportunity for women (and also men) to explore gender inequalities and to dis-identify with the same, in a safe space in a community in conversation and then in a community in dialogue. methodology: two recent small-scale research projects the research took place within a feminist paradigm. feminist research actively seeks to remove the power imbalance between the researcher and the participant as it seeks to address social inequality. it also begins with the standpoints and experiences of women. feminist research, whilst addressing the assumption that there are structural gender inequalities, seeks to deconstruct commonly held discourses. unequal power relations existing as a result of gender inequality and the way in which women are represented and positioned in society are addressed. narrative inquiry as a methodology within narrative research33,34,35 and with a strong representation in the field of education36 promotes authentic accounts of lived experiences.37 in the case of both these small-scale projects, narratives were explored, which are socially constructed, interpreted and reinterpreted, giving meaning to the participant’s lived experiences of gender inequality. a safe space23 was created to provide the opportunity to hear the participant’s voices in response to the master narrative of patriarchy. it was the place where the participants could feel sufficiently secure to unburden themselves.38 the potential existed for these narratives to have an emancipatory function, transforming individual lives and the broader culture. the participants submitted their written self-narratives to the researcher and the narratives at levels 4 and 5 were audio-recorded. the latter were later transcribed for the purposes of analysis. in both small-scale projects participants signed consent forms and were assured that their anonymity would be protected and that pseudonyms would be used when citing their responses. the ethical code of conduct and the requirements set for narrative research by the tertiary institution’s ethics committee were adhered to for both projects. the participants in both projects included both male and female pre-service teachers, and they all happened to be black african ranging in age from their mid-20s to 50s. in both cases they were registered for a bachelor of education honours degree and more specifically a module called contemporary issues in life orientation. in this life orientation module, whilst learning about empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying as a teaching–learning strategy, the pre-service teachers simultaneously became participants in applying the same as a research methodology. in the first project39 24 students agreed to participate and engage with the human rights to gender equality. in the second cohort 39 participants engaged with the human rights to bodily self-determination and, more specifically, the termination of pregnancy.40 tables 1 and 2 show the questions that informed the engagement at the various levels in each small-scale project. participants expressed the opinion that empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying provided the opportunity for them to consider their self-dialogue (level 1) and to reflect on their personal identity. they were sensitised to the possibilities of their dialogical self in action as they adopted meta positions and then counter-positions to the dominant voices as evidenced in their society-of-mind.9 the men and women met separately at level 3, the community in conversation, so as to provide a safe space in which to share their self-narratives. at levels 4 and 5, the community in dialogue and the community for transformation, they met together. in the community for transformation the participants reflected that they became far more aware that their self-dialogue impacts their self-narratives (level 2). they articulated the view that by participating in empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying they troubled master narratives and mostly re-storied understandings of gender equality and also the right to bodily self-determination. findings one of the male participants said that he found the community in conversation (level 3) revealing as men spoke to men about their ‘other’ (women). he said that he found it: ‘… very impactful … i thought i understood gender equality, but in community in conversation made aware of our privileges as men … we have a lot of privileges we are not aware of.’ (dumi, male, 2017) the female participants, in particular, commented that the community in dialogue (level 4) was most helpful providing as it did, the opportunity for them to express their perspectives about their ‘other’ (men) to their ‘other’ (men). their successful exchanges with their ‘other’ strengthened their gender identity capital and opened up a space for constructing a narrative in which they can be agents of change, directing future-oriented action: ‘i think this strategy gives out many possible ideas to think critically … what can we do … what are the gaps … what can be changed.’ (phumi, female, 2017) ‘this strategy is transformative … some will actually go home today and some have daughters and some have sons and will try and change things.’ (ncami, female, 2017) faced with pregnancy, women often struggle ‘alone’. they are made to feel judged, embarrassed, guilty and shameful about the decision they have made to end a pregnancy41: ‘i feel and know that some parents (especially in our african culture or religion) if they know that you are pregnant can even chase you away from home. there is no space to discuss what you are going through and how and why you are pregnant, let alone what impact in your personal life can this said pregnancy do to “you” as a person not the wider community. therefore, i think sometimes decisions are taken as one is forced by circumstances ….’ (lungi, female, 2018) as the female participants engaged in their community in conversation (level 3), the identity capital of individual women increased as they drew on the tangible asset of their membership of a social group of women with whom they could share their self-narrative of their lived experience. this became clear when they addressed their male counterparts at level 4 with confidence, resolution and conviction. the community in dialogue provided the opportunity for the female participants to dialogue with their ‘other’ (men). the accumulation of successful dialogical exchanges increased their identity capital. they said that they were empowered as they gained confidence by voicing their opinions and sharing their lived experiences in a context in which they did not feel judged: ‘i must say that the strategy is therapeutic. one learns to get the perspectives of others and realise that i am not alone, i can survive. if what i do is a sin, then i will go to church, apologise to god, and move on with my life because if there is no support, i have to find ways so that i do not bring a child in this world who is going to suffer.’ (agnes, female, 2018) the community for transformation (level 5), in both small-scale projects, provided the opportunity for the participants to think critically about the processes of socialisation and to discuss and begin the process of deconstructing the same. whilst the participants were aware of the influence of master narratives and also how their particular contexts can shape their behaviour, engaging in this teaching–learning strategy assisted them to see that they can be agents of change. the strategy opened up a space for constructing a narrative in which they have some ability to direct future-oriented action. their views pertaining to the efficacy of empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying included the following: ‘i found this strategy to be helpful especially in levels 1 and 2 where one had to listen to different voices before one takes a decision … it gives you possible ideas to question yourself to say: what can you change? how can you do that? why should you act in that particular way?’ (sipho, male, 2017) ‘the methodology allows you, and especially us as males, to understand the female side of the story. at the same time, it allows every one of us time with yourself, and discussions allow you to make a choice to change or not to change your attitude.’ (spha, male, 2017) ‘… this strategy stimulated the mind, gives us many possibilities and ideas leading to critical thinking and to question yourself for better understanding and the probing questions assisted … it has a potential to be transformative.’ (thabi, female, 2017) ‘the strategy transforms the way you perceive issues and other people. we need to go out there as changed men and women so that we will be transformed parents to our children.’ (andile, male, 2017) ‘i think that this methodology is helpful, constructive and transformative in that it gives you an opportunity to sit back and self-reflect on the topic and further gives you a particular worldview to think about other people as well and understand their actions.’ (nonjabulo, male, 2018) ‘it teaches us not to be judgemental, whether female or male.’ (bongi, female, 2018) ‘the strategy allows people to open up, share with one another, and the goal is to learn and acquire new knowledge … one’s story can help or groom somebody and my story can also groom the ‘other’ … i think these dialogues should happen in wider communities as well as in the wider university community … for other students to benefit as well.’ (maureen, female, 2018) participants in both small-scale projects were of the opinion that this strategy could be an effective tool to employ in their professional space to enhance teacher–learner relationships. their views can be summed up by what bongi had to say: ‘as teachers, we need to do what is just with our learners … social justice…. we need to teach them and expose them to such [human rights] issues.’ (bongi, female, 2017) we need teachers who will not place gendered expectations on their learners42,43 either overtly or through the hidden curriculum44 of gender differentiation, which is provided by stereotypes. the hidden curriculum refers to the transmission of norms, values and beliefs that are the side effect of schooling. for example, a teacher may teach about gender equality in the classroom, and yet practice gender inequality when certain tasks are assigned gender-specifically, thereby teaching that there are specific tasks that should be assigned to boys and others to girls. an example would be when girls only are always expected to clean the classroom or comments are made by the teacher that only boys can do mathematics. we need teachers, both male and female, who are able to voice explicitly and practise a counter-position to male hegemony, by treating the female and male learners equally and by addressing any form of gender abuse, be it verbal or physical. both female and male learners should be encouraged to engage critically with issues of gender equality, not only within the classroom but also within their personal and social domains. a teacher who has experienced gender identity transformation can encourage his or her learners to be not only reflective in their practice, but also reflexive, where the practical implications for possible change are considered, to inform new attitudes and practices. this approach could transform classroom practice into classroom praxis.45,46 conclusion this article has argued for the inclusion of empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying as a teaching–learning strategy that can be used in life orientation. this strategy provides the opportunity for currently held narratives of the lived experience of, in this case, gender inequality, to be dialogically explored. this dialogical exploration takes place in the dialogical self and in dialogue with the ‘other’. it is important to provide the opportunity for pre-service teachers to consider their self-dialogue and to engage their dialogical self in action, by adopting in their society of mind, counter-positions to master narratives that perpetuate inequalities. the strength and extent of an individual’s identity capital enable the possible re-storying of previously held narratives, in this case, of male hegemony. empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying also serves in decolonising the curriculum, promoting as it does a transdisciplinary approach that changes how teaching–learning takes place and empowering students as agents of their own learning as they becoming co-researchers. by engaging in self-reflection and empathetically dialoguing human rights issues in the classroom, teachers have the potential to go beyond mere technicist classroom practice. they are equipped to facilitate classroom praxis that is empathetic and both reflective and reflexive. this has the potential to possibly be transformative for learners in the classroom, as future participating citizens in the greater south african society. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationship that may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. author’s contributions j.j. declares that she the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations full approval for a period of 3 years was given by the university of kwazulu-natal, college of humanities, humanities and social sciences research ethics committee (hss/0297/017) for research to be undertaken with consenting students in the area of human rights/and religious identity. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or non-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the 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https://doi.org/10.1080/02783199109553361 boostrom r. hidden curriculum. in: kridel c, editor. encyclopedia of curriculum studies 2. thousand oaks, ca: sage, 2010; p. 440. roux c, du preez p. clarifying students’ perceptions of different belief systems and values: prerequisite for effective education praxis. s afr j higher educ. 2006;30(2):514–531. quinlan o. the thinking teacher. carmarthen: independent thinking press; 2014. microsoft word 00 ac soares op-ed carruthers.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(2) december 2013, pp. ix-xiv. the edges of environmental history: an international tribute to the work of jane carruthers op-ed by filipa soares1 in an unprecedented international tribute, a special one-day workshop has been held in munich to honour the work and influence of south african environmental historian jane carruthers, president of the international consortium of environmental history organisations (iceho). the event was organized by the rachel carson center for environment and society (rcc) at ludwig maximilian university (lmu), the largest center for advanced study in the field of the environmental humanities. jane carruthers has been the chair of the academic board of the carson center since its founding in 2009 and she was instrumental, according to rcc director christof mauch, in guiding the carson center in a spirit of transnational collaboration and interdisciplinary exploration. inspired by carruthers’ ground-breaking histories of national parks and biographies of nineteenth century artist-explorers who worked across seas and continents, christof mauch (rcc), and libby robin (australian national university and national museum of australia) explored, what robin called, the “edges” of environmental history which ultimately help us see connections: connections between national politics and nature conservation, between environmental inequalities and dominant metaphors for nature, but also geographical connections between literary and colonial histories, carried through maps, biographies, letters, and the transnational flow of people, ideas, and goods. the workshop was attended by 95 scholars from 30 different countries. sixteen working papers were presented by eminent environmentalists and historians. all of them emphasized the vision that professor carruthers’ work had provided them with. the papers will be published in a book entitled the edges of environmental history, as well as the paintings by mandy martin specifically conceived for this event. the book is expected to be launched at the second world congress of environmental history in guimarães, portugal, in july 2014. christof mauch, rcc director and president of the european society for environmental history (eseh), opened the workshop with a description of the work and future of the center, whose advisory board is chaired by jane carruthers, and a presentation of the philosophy behind the event and the book. libby robin of the australian national university followed with an introduction to jane carruthers and the book inflows: the channel county, by mandy martin, jane carruthers, guy fitzhardinge, tom griffiths, and peter haynes. according to her, this is an example of a successful partnership and collaborative work between artists, scientists and environmental historians. 1 rachel carson center for environment & society, ludwig-maximillian universität münchen, germany. soares x this idea of collaboration was used in jane carruthers‘ own introductory remarks, seizing the opportunity to thank her colleagues and audience for making environmental history “the most collaborative discipline in the world”. she then identified some of the many “edges” that it can introduce, using the examples of greg dening and rachel carson, and spoke about protected areas and their edges. carruthers explained how environmentalism, while differing in some respects in south africa due to the social and political context, nonetheless resonated in other emerging economies. she stressed the importance of a transnational framework within environmental history, namely in the south african context, without forgetting the environmental, political, economic and social specificities of the emerging world. she concluded by mentioning that environmental history could become one of the most important and relevant fields, particularly in the emerging world, with the possibility to broaden the horizons and boundaries of historical study and to provide a reinterpretation of our understanding of historical processes. jane carruthers speakers were grouped into four panels, the first of which, entitled “inside and out”, centred around carruthers’ emphasis on identifying and analysing differences in how protected areas and nature are perceived. kate christen spoke of her work with wild horses (the extinct and reified przewalsky’s horse) at the smithsonian conservation biology institute, aiming to analyse distinct experiences of a wildlife species variously located in zoos, protected areas and reintroduction sites. these horses are now used extensively in re-wilding programs, but they have paradoxically been rebred after extinction. although they are valued as ‘wild’, they have had extensive breeding programs and their genetic lineage is recorded in studbooks. bernhard gißibl of the leibniz-institute für europäische geschichte suggested looking at environmentalism and conservation through the lens of cosmopolitics, a concept that applies op-ed: international tribute to jane carruthers td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. xi particularly to the global history of national parks. in his presentation, gißibl provided details of the frankfurt zoological society as an example and suggested a commodity chain analysis of ngo-mediated conservation that includes the multiplicity of worlds (and worldviews) we are confronted with, and whose diverse articulations need to be taken into account for conservation to succeed in practice. in a similar line of thought, clapperton mavhunga, massachusetts institute of technology, took the example of vashona, the predominant cultural-linguistic group in zimbabwe, and explored the concept of “nature” from the point of view of african meanings and practices. according to him, these practices are seldom interpreted by “outsiders” in economic and legal terms as poaching, disregarding the underlying cosmovision where nature and culture are not perceived as different entities. this often leads to conflicts. by giving several examples of symbolic uses of animals, he stressed the importance of “wearing a villager’s lenses and see what trees, animals, rocks, rivers, and being in them means”. emily wakild, boise state university, described the edginess of jane carruthers’s history of the kruger national park and how it influenced historians’ views of what was natural and what was national about national parks, focussing attention on parks as places worthy of study by themselves as well as rich cultural, social, political, and historical ‘mirrors’. it also drew attention to transnational knowledge networks, and opened the door to understanding claims of environmental justice and injustice by looking at the larger picture and acknowledging that the same forces that threaten the conservation of natural spaces also threaten the conservation of indigenous cultures. in a delightful inter-panel presentation, tom griffiths (australian national university) presented an essay about la bête du gévaudan, the legendary wolf that terrorised france in the mid-eighteenth century and that became a national sensation, serving the interests of urban, educated elites that afterwards attributed the legend to rural superstition. through this example, he reflected about how the wild is negotiated, and the importance to look at the social, ecological and historical context of its making. he ended with a thought-provoking twist comparing the eighteenth century prejudices of rural france with latter-day attitudes to natural phenomena such as the destructive fires of australian forests. recalling claude lévi-strauss’ famous dictum, the second panel was entitled “thinking with wild animals” and was focused on perceptions and attitudes towards wildlife. thomas dunlap, texas a&m university, demonstrated how birds and birding have provided the bridges to the world outside and to our relation to it, shaping not only action but also individual consciousness. birds, because of their familiarity and proximity to our homes, offered a window into nature. birding encouraged awareness of nature and of the ties between our homes and the world beyond, even in the center of the city, leading to an organised social reaction to our effect on wild birds: bird conservation. mahesh rangarajan, university of delhi, spoke of the historical links between nationalism and wild animals in india, particularly the asian lions which were highly valued as royal and later ‘national’ animals. as their numbers have improved since indian independence (1947), nationalism has been increasingly redirected toward the tigers, an even more endangered species. asian lions survived for so long in densely populated india because of the protection of their habitats by mughal princes for hunting, then by the raj for forestry, then since 1948 and the foundation of iucn, as ‘national parks’. this continuity has been very important to the soares xii survival of many rare species, including the snow leopard. thought to be extinct, it was first photographed in india in 1972. harriet ritvo, massachusetts institute of technology, delved into the topic of “how wild is wild?” and explored the practices of the nineteenth-century acclimatisation societies, namely their attempts to breed and manipulate wild animals to fit human expectations. their efforts sometimes blurred the line between wild and domestic animals and even among some domestic animals. she concluded by mentioning the initiative to save the scottish wild cat which, ironically, benefited from the establishment of a studbook, a captive breeding program, and other measures that blur the cultural boundary between the wild and the domesticated, even as they attempt to reinforce the genetic boundary that separates them. edges of environmental history panel a third panel dealt with “knowing nature” and ideas around science. william beinart from the university of oxford looked at some of the problems around the concepts of biodiversity and biocultural diversity for environmental historians. referring to carruthers’ work on the genus acacia, he took the opportunity to question the differing uses of terminology by natural scientists and historians with particular reference to nonindigenous species and the process of plant transfers. he argued that biodiversity is frequently used as a nativist or purist concept with limited spatial applicability, lacking often a historical, social and cultural dimension, and that the term biocultural diversity may be useful to get at some of these complexities. he suggested a totalising approach to environmental history, a more descriptive environmental history that attempts to map the complexity of change and to evaluate it both in social and natural terms. op-ed: international tribute to jane carruthers td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 185-205. xiii etienne benson, university of pennsylvania and max planck institute for the history of science, spoke about territories and territoriality among ornithologists and pondered on possible connections with discourses of territoriality that occurred at the same time in terms of the nation-state. his aim was to suggest the need to overcome the disciplinary divides separating the human and natural sciences, which continue to shape science and scholarship today, owing to the division of the world into two independent parts, typically identified asnature and culture. according to him, the resonance between theories of territory in bird life and the structure of the nation-state in the twentieth century was due to the shared situation — all at once biological, ecological, social, cultural, political, and economic — in which humans and other animals found themselves. saul dubow, queen mary, university of london, introduced south african science into the conversation, citing jan smuts’ use of the work of alex du toit (geologist and proponent of plate tectonics) and raymond dart (discoverer of an early hominid fossil) to provide a southern emphasis to the natural sciences. he drew comparisons with jane carruthers’ exploration of what it means to be an african in an increasingly transnational world, signaling one of the main strengths of her approach as an environmental historian: the embracement of historical span while remaining keenly aware of the local contexts and institutions that affect the production of environmental and scientific knowledge. libby robin, australian national university, looked at carruthers as a biographer and spoke about the use and branding of historical figures and their life histories by science, emphasising the importance of personalities and biography in understanding environmental developments and schools of thought. she gave the examples of charles elton (invasion biology), aldo leopold (restoration ecology), and c.s. (buzz) holling (resilience science), whose names have been used to bestow authority in their respective fields. the list ends with rachel carson, whose name was adopted by the sponsor of the workshop, underscoring the center’s transnational and global dimensions, to draw more readers and writers into the conversation. the fourth and final panel, “a commonwealth of ideas”, covered some of the philosophical developments in environmental history. bron taylor, university of florida, discussed how protected areas are demarcated not only by physical boundaries but also by differing and sometimes incompatible perceptions. he drew the distinction between the “romantic narrative”, recalling the romantic tradition of felt loss and longing for biologically pristine and diverse ecosystems, and the “critical narrative”, who considers the first one a mask for elite or imperial power, privilege, and subjugation. jane carruthers has refused to embrace either narrative uncritically, recognising that there is a dialectical relationship between them, and showing that protected areas reflect materially and philosophically the societies in which they are situated. taylor also came across this conclusion in his work at the california state department of parks and recreation. he concluded by saying that environmental history must do more than criticise past failings and injustices. rather, it must contribute to understanding processes, lifeways and livelihoods that promote healthy and resilient biocultural systems, producing paths toward a more equitable and sustainable future. lise sedrez, federal university of rio de janeiro, brought environmental justice firmly into the picture by comparing jane carruthers’ research on the evictions of the residents of lady selborne (pretoria) during apartheid and the evictions of the slum areas of rio de janeiro, focusing namely on the construction of a new community, cidade de deus, where displaced soares xiv communities were relocated after several floods. she concluded advocating historians’ capacity to bring back the communities’ struggles and voices, to honor their strategies of survival, and to address historical urban injustice by working on their memories. christof mauch reflected upon the concepts of exploitation and sustainability, two core terms in jane carruthers’ thinking. he discussed how the notion of sustainability had possibly originated with the venetians, aware of the scarcity of natural resources, and how the old world’s worries about it were brushed aside with colonisation, with the sudden availability of land and resources in the new world. according to him, the illusion of having enough space and resources was perhaps the tragedy of modern western history, giving the feeling of boundlessness and taking away any sense of urgency. he concluded that if we are to use the experiences of history for the good of our future, it is important to evoke both positive images and warnings against destructive changes in the world, revealing to us both faulty decisions and new courses of action, precisely as jane carruthers’ sustainable stories do. final edges panel at the end of the workshop, there was a presentation of the recently published thomas baines: exploring tropical australia 1835 to 1857, edited by jane carruthers and lindy stiebel, which was presented to all the participants. microsoft word 17 motsei.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 608623. intercultural communication problems relating to translation from english into sesotho as motsei 1 abstract in this article, certain translative communication problems associated with the linguistic and stylistic differences between english and sesotho are identified and discussed. with a view to help improve translation between the two languages where inaccurate and stilted communication frequently occurs, issues of equivalence, fidelity/faithfulness and the purpose of translation are delved into. it is furthermore argued that in south african multilingual contexts, like legal courts, criminal cases/hearings and hospitals clinics and similar health establishments, inaccurate translation and/or misinterpreting can lead to serious miscarriages of justice and poor service delivery. the reasons for such unfortunate eventualities sometimes relate to the translator-interpreter’s poor understanding of the cultural factors behind the english or sesotho message. as such, emphasis is lain on the need for a translator-interpreter’s cultural understanding of the source language/text (sl/t) and target language/text (tl/t) to deliver an accurate version (in the target language or text – tl/t) of the original message. it is furthermore shown that one cause of social and legal injustice is closely related to the translatorinterpreter’s insufficient knowledge of both the english and sesotho culture as it exists in grammatical forms, idiomatic structures, collocation patterns and stylistic patterns of the sl/t and the tl/t. keywords: translation processes; interpreting practice; equivalence; fidelity; translative purpose; cultural influences; intercultural communication; legal discourse; social justice. background prior to 1994, the bilingual policy and the legal system in the republic of south africa tended to privilege only the white speakers of english and afrikaans, the official languages of civil life. a significant number of the south african populace was prevented from full participation in the social and political life of the south african system. the african populace could not access full legal services in the justice system neither derive significant 1 dr anastacia sara motsei, university of the free state. email address:motseia@ufs.ac.za intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 609 benefit from the country’s education, nor gain any health and welfare rewards from public institutions. the situation was partly due to barriers created by the system’s overriding reliance on the two non-indigenous languages, english and afrikaans (deprez & du plessis, 2000: passim). the inherently unjust and racially discriminatory language policy had, therefore, the effect of marginalizing the speakers of african indigenous languages like sesotho. even though the nine indigenous african languages were granted official status in 1996, the advantages accruing from the dominant use of english and afrikaans in official circles, continue to disadvantage non-native speakers in the new democratic state. the ideal of all south africans enjoying equal treatment and obtaining equitable use of government social and legal services still has to reached. various scholars (tollefson, 1991; skutnabb-kangas, 2000; alexander, 2002; beukes, 2004) have argued that for african citizens, particularly, to acquire fairness and respectability for themselves in the public domain, their indigenous languages should be accorded the socio-political status similar to english and afrikaans. in other words, the nine african languages ought to be employed just as regularly and widely as the other two. at present, the value attached to using an african language like sesotho in most social situations is quite low in comparison to resorting to english and afrikaans. thus, the actual or de facto circumstances require interventions such as interpreting and translation for african language speakers to gain the ‘sociolinguistic power’ (fairclough, 1995) that will allow them to fully access the legal, health and educational facilities of their country. relevance of social justice the notion of access to the social and political goods and services through one’s home or native language, in a multilingual south africa, needs to be defined and relocated within the de facto circumstances pointed out earlier. social justice can be defined as, the responsibility of state institutions/organs to ensure equal treatment of the citizens and to uphold human rights and the dignity of each person in enjoying the freedoms and services guaranteed and enshrined in the country’s laws. in the south african context, social justice is also about state organs taking direct action to redress historical inequities and inequalities. those include the freedom to use the ‘language one understands best to access opportunities in the health, education, legal and/or justice services’ and the economic rights of the country (tollefson, 1991: 8-12; skutnabb-kangas, 2000: passim). the latter statement implies that information and knowledge relevant to various spheres of south african life should be ‘available and accessed through a medium that not only promotes but also guarantees equal opportunities’ (fairclough, ibid.). in pursuance of the principles of equal opportunity, the bill of rights and section 6, of the republic of south africa’s constitution (act no.108 of 1996) were crafted in order to bring that into legal effect. this implies that everyone has the legal and legitimate right to use the language they understand best and to participate in the cultural life of his or her choice. this is important especially regarding the ordinary person’s obtaining access to the social, political official and legal services of the country. in fact, nowhere are these rights crucial as in the legal courts where justice has to be seen to be done, as section 35(3) and 35(4) of the country’s democratic constitution enjoins the citizens: motsei 610 every accused person has a right to a fair trial which includes the right to: (a) to be informed of the charge … in sufficient detail, (k) to be tried in a language that the accused person understands or, if that is not practicable, to have the proceedings interpreted in that language. (and) whenever this section requires information to be given to a person, that information must be given to that person in a language that the person understands. … (justice college handouts, 2004a: 39-41). it is evident therefore that where, in a court case or trial, the services of a translator or an interpreter are needed, especially if it involves a non-native speaker of either or both english and afrikaans, the person chosen or appointed as a communication intermediary should be well-versed in languages the court will use ((justice college handouts, 2004a: ibid.). if there is any neglect in that regard, a good deal of social injustice will be done to the accused and those who are closely associated with him or her. this issue will be discussed further in later paragraphs. argumnents advanced this article argues that although translation is sorely needed in the south african multilingual reality, the processes and procedures of translation per sè, should not be understood as being without pitfalls. indeed, the conventional definitions such as of bell (1991: 5), catford (1965: 20) and others, overlook the problems and give the impression of translation processes as basically straightforward. bell, for instance, comments in the following way: ‘[it is]… the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another language (or the source language) [whilst] preserving semantic and stylistic equivalence.’ catford presents essentially the same view where he states that: ‘translation is communication of the meaning of a source-language or text by means of an equivalent target-language text … these rather broad explanations of what goes into the processes of translation present a perfect world in which the translator is in full possession of all skills and knowledge required by this type of interactive communication. the definitions of bell, catford and others deal essentially with pristine, monolingual and bilingual conditions within socio-politically stable societies. on the other hand, these conventional definitions falter, for example, where multilingualism is the norm and where languages as dissimilar as english is from sesotho are involved. in contrast to traditional positions, modern experts have come to contend that translation is rather complex enterprise. writing in their edited publication, baker and malmkjaer (1998) and several other contributors define the translation generally as linguistic work that is hardly the ‘mere replacement of textual material in one language (source text/st) by their equivalent in another language’ (target text/tt). intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 611 as such, one central argument made herein, is that the able translator, expert interpreter, as snell-hornby (1988) calls them, has to possess more than ability in the two languages involved. in their repertoire, the translator-interpreter must own skills and strategies to fathom meanings and implicatures of both the sl/t and the tl/t. in addition to that, according to newmark (1988), he must be able to negotiate and broker the cultures and/or cultural nuances lying behind any text or utterance they are given. the importance of culture in translation the definition of ‘culture’ as given in the concise oxford dictionary varies from the description of the ‘arts’. more specifically concerned with language and translation, newmark (1988:94) defines culture as ‘the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression’. in this, newmark recognizes and acknowledges that each language group has its own culturally specific characteristics that feature within their language. he further states that operationally he does ‘not regard language as a component or feature of culture’ (newmark 1988:95). this is a directly opposite view to that taken by vermeer who states that ‘language is part of a culture’ (1989: 222). according to newmark, vermeer's stance would imply the impossibility to translate whereas for the latter, translating the source language (sl) into a suitable form of tl is part of the translator's role in trans-cultural or intercultural communication. the researcher share the same view with vermeer on culture because nothing defines culture as distinctly as its language, and the element of language that best encapsulates a society’s values and ‘s beliefs. theoretical framework traditionally, translation between languages has been explained in terms of two basic principles used to determine the effectiveness of the process and outcome. ‘fidelity’ and ‘equivalence’ were the defining hallmarks of good translation, from the days of st jerome, through the mid-18th century missionaries, up to the early 1900s (nida, 1980: passim). however, translation has come to be re-defined, by later theorists and practitioners like nida (ibid.), snell-hornby (1988) and baker (1992), as the transfer of meaning from one language into another. it has therefore become convention to argue that the translative process is not the transfer of words from one language into another. put in another way, the translator is expected to translate the meaning of what is being said, rather than doing it word-for-word or metaphrastically (baker and malmkjaer, 1998). according to newmark (1980: passim) and baker (1992: 6-17), the principle of equivalence even though relevant, cannot be really attained in translation processes. these writers go on to characterize the principle as a ‘failure’ since no two languages are fully or exactly interchangeable. this is because every language comprehends and describes the world and reality in its own and different way. translation does not necessarily imply the transference of syntactic patterns only but the meaning of a message conveyed in a communicative act. different languages also have different grammar, different word orders, sometimes even words for which other languages do not have any equivalents. the english spoken by a scientist may have words which a simple farmer cannot even start to imagine. and the farmer is likely to have words for things the technologist never dreamed of. it is often extremely difficult to express semantic and stylistic equivalence from the source text (st) to the target text (tt). motsei 612 there are factors which need to be taken into account during the process of translation. a translator may be called to translate a text, without taking the client into consideration. the initiator aims at receiving a translated final product that is without unnecessary errors. that is the essence of any assigned translation task. this article therefore demonstrates translation problems as encountered by the translator of the source text into the target text in sesotho. problems of translation identified in sesotho target texts the article presents the functionalist theory of translation as expounded by translationists like nord (1992: 14.). her argument is that principles such as fidelity concerns intertextual coherence translatum and the source text, and stipulates that some relationship must remain between the two. like other writers on translation processes fidelity or loyalty and equivalence are a means to an end like an authentic translation product (baker and malmjakaer, 1998: passim). as will be shown, the functionalist principles will assist in the identification and analysis of the intercultural problems associated with translating from english into sesotho be classified according to two fundamental principles of the practice of translation. the first principle, namely fidelity or loyalty, underlies what is termed the linguistic theory of translation. the ‘fidelity’ that the tt/l owes to the st/l is fundamental to and plays a dominant role in translation processes to produce authenticity in the quality of a translated text. in other words, the linguistic style of the st can often override the style of the recipient language (tl or tt) on account of the emphasis on fidelity. baker (1992) refers to this relationship as that non-equivalence between the st and tt at the word, the sentence as well as, the text levels. the second principle of the loyalty or fidelity to the st, refers to the interplay of culture as the background or context within which the translation should be made. this principle focuses largely on the extra-textual references, particularly with regard to the formulation of the tt or in that the formulated ‘translatum’ remains true to the original meaning in the st. according to the functionalist theoretical framework propagated by, among others; nord’s emphasis is that, a translation that serves both the linguistic but mostly the cultural interests of its speakers will be perceived as functional within the limits of this article. it is then against this understanding as the environment that i would demonstrate that translation is not only a linguistic but also a cultural transference. i hope to argue at the end that most of the problems are essentially caused by undermining the sociocultural factors around the target readers. in other words, even if identified problems can be largely linguistic or semantic, the underlying factors are seen as the dynamics of the culture that characterizes both the source text and the target language or text. with reference to the two fundamental principles cited above, the idea in this case is to demonstrate how translation problems occur in sesotho language and how culture manifests itself as the underlying factor behind such problems. to a question like, ‘can social justice be derived through translation?,’ the answer can be derived from what translation theorist’s like lotman (1978: 211-32) and bassnett (1980:23) have argued. according to nida (1964), lotman's theory states that ‘no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have at its centre, the structure of natural language’ is pertinent to social justice issues. this also goes to what bassnett points out in the following way: ‘the translator must tackle the sl text in intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 613 such a way that the tl version will correspond to the sl version’ the latter definition suggests that the correspondence needs to come about in terms of both the linguistic and cultural aspects of the st and the tt. if there is a lack of such equivalence, the final tt will sound ineffective and the message will have been distorted. problems of non-equivalence according to baker (1992:17), the choice of a suitable equivalent in a given context depends on a variety of factors. some of these factors may be strictly linguistic while others may be extralinguistic. however, the choice of a suitable equivalent will always depend on the translator. equivalence at word level baker (1992: 20) explains that non-equivalent at word level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word occurs in the source text. she points out that different kinds of non-equivalence require different strategies; some are straightforward while others are difficult to handle. the following are common types of non-equivalence at word level with examples from english to sesotho: culture-specific concepts: the source language may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target language culture. for example: • banquet which means a large meal or feast, complete with main courses and desserts. it usually serves a purpose, such as a charitable gathering, a ceremony, ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/banquet • matric dance is (south africa) a formal ball for scholars in their final year of school. it is also thought to be a metaphoric pre-wedding day of a learner, which is why lots of attention and effort is put into it. it is a celebration of the end of your school career (graduating into the adult life i should say) read more: http://wiki.answers.com/q/what_is_a_matric_dance#ixzz16rewtemk • gala dinner a private room reserved for a group to pre-order off a set menu and seated in banquet or cabaret. wiki.answers.com/q/what_is_a_gala_dinner • ball dance a ball is a formal dance. the word 'ball' is derived from the latin word "ballare", meaning 'to dance'; the term also derived into "bailar", which is the spanish and portuguese word for dance (verb). in catalan it is the same word, 'ball', for the dance event. the above concepts, they may relate to a social custom or even food of a source text but to the target language in which in this case is sesotho, they may be translated as ‘mokete’ (feast) irrespective of the type of the feast. these concepts are culturally specific and are part of those english concepts rarely understood through a sesotho cultural perspective or by being literally translated into sesotho. the problem of non-equivalence at the lexical level therefore has to be understood as fraught with many pitfalls since there is often little equivalence, at the word level, between the source language and the target language. there are many more problems are inherent in non-equivalence at word level, as many translation theorists and interpreting practitioners have argued. motsei 614 translation of sl/t semantic complexity in translating into a second language, the understanding of source text is the easier aspect, the real difficulty is in producing a target language in which the composition does not come naturally. in the following circumstances, single words in a sentence sometimes can express a more complex set of meanings than a whole sentence. study the following sentences where italised single words can express a complex meaning. (i) sl/t: (1): the car is out of control. (idiomatic english). -complexity in syntax: subject deletion and object fronting: ‘the car’ is the dummy subject/not syntactically real subject. tl/t *(1a): koloi e tswile taolong. -passive voice structure is repeated holus-bolus in the sesotho version. tl/t (1b): mokganni o hlotswe (ke) ho laola koloi. -active voice construction. subject is: ‘mokganni’. copular deletion: ‘ke’. tl/t *(1c): mokganni o ile a hloleha ho kganna hantle. (justice college notes, 2004b.) semantic complexity is reflected in both (1a) and (1b), because of the ‘fidelity-principle’; even though (1b) has somewhat greater syntactic fidelity because of object-deletion: ‘koloi’ is implied in the deep structure of both the english and the sesotho sentences. during court cases, object deletion like the one discussed above, can cause problems for a witness because the law and legal discourse demands specifics and directness when evidence is given and has to be later weighed (gibbons, 2004) a witness who states the following (*1c): ‘mokganni o ile a hloleha ho kganna hantle!’, could be interrogated by the magistrate and/or the defence as to what they are actually referring to and whether the driver/‘mokganni’ could not drive because they were unable to drive or were in some way disabled or physically challenged, rather than being drunk, as in utterances like (4a) –(4c) cited in the paragraphs below. since argument and verbal contestation are part and parcel of court proceedings as well as being at the heart of most legal discourse, as writers like to point out, any witness who cannot fully clarify and/or specify what they mean, stands to loose their case. thus, translation and interpreting in court, as anywhere else, has to be accurate and meaningful lest injustice is caused. thus, the sesotho idiom is undermined. (ii) sl/t: many people lost their lives in a car accident. tl/t (2b): batho ba bangata ba lahlehetswe ke maphelo a bona kotsing ya koloi. (literal/metaphrastic translation). tl/t (2c): batho ba bangata ba hlokahalletse kotsing ya koloi. (semantic/paraphrastic translation) intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 615 in the first translated option, the translator emulates and/or produces a lexical equivalent of the source language/text and thereby ignores fidelity rule. while doing so, the translator forgets that: • he/she communicates with different readers who have a totally different world view. in (1) the car can be said to lose control within the source text linguistic structures, but that will be questionable and controversial among the sesotho target readership. on the other hand, in (2) the word ‘lost’ is said to lose its meaning due to the complexity of the meaning explain in tt (1) and the translation is said to be questionable and controversial to the target group. • the collocational pattern assumed in the above statement is critical in the sense that the car cannot be expected to be out of control on its own. • moreover, the translation does not feature efficiently within the limits of the african culture in general, and the sesotho translation in particular. • as a result of this oversight on the part of the translator, the entire translatum cannot the classified as functional on the part of its intended readers. in the second translation option specified above tt (2) it becomes obvious that the translator takes the intended readers on board in the translated outcome of the given source text. the translator appears to have a thorough perspective of the dynamics of the sesotho language as well as the attendant culture of an acceptable utterance, as possa and makgopa (2010: 2-3). the following are the salient points worthy of mention in the analysis of the second translation option: • the translator appears to know that it would be prudent to bring in the driver of the car to make sense of the assertion made as the given source text (because the car cannot simply lose control on its own). • only the translation that communicates sense on the part of the intended readers can be said to be functional to the targeted group. the second translation option thereof characterises itself as functional in its relationship with the source text as well as its presentation of the cultural interplay directed at the intended sesotho target readership. some idiomatic meaning distinctions in english and sesotho lexis there often are wide semantic differences between an sl and a tl word or expression which may be a potential pitfall for the interpreter-translator who focuses only on lexical equivalence to do their translative work. a relevant example is the neutrality of the english words relating to death like die, dead, and corpse when contrasted to the their equivalent but culturally loaded ones in sesotho: shwa, shwele and setopo. the cultural nuances between sesotho and english lie in the fact that in the three terms, english applies the notion of ‘death’ to all things, whether they be human, non-human and/or inanimate. sesotho, on the other hand, employs the same three words selectively, by making a distinction between human and non-human things. thus, the following sentences illustrate the cultural meanings that are not readily visible or obvious to an unsophisticated and an untrained interpreter-translator: motsei 616 sl/t (3a) ‘the grass is dead from the drought/the grass has been killed by drought’ could be appropriately translated as (3b): tl/t (3b) ‘jwang bo shwele ke komello/bo bolailwe ke komello.’ a further example of the cultural dimension in sesotho is that only setopo would be used in reference to human entities and hardly ever to non-human things. in this sense, the english word carcass would be a relevant substitute for a sesotho expression like setopo sa ntja, which accounts for the non-human and animate entity: tl/t *(3c): setopo sa ntja ya mapolesa se fumanwe; yona e ile ya shwa ha e betswa ka majwe ke bashemane. sl/t (3d): the carcass of the police dog has been found; (it died when) the boys (had) stoned it (to death). the important point with regard to sentences *(3c) and (3d), is that the sesotho expression is somewhat stilted and bookish since it arises out of the lexical and cultural tyranny of the sl/t, rather than the ethnolinguistic nuances of the tl. a much more meaningful and appropriate rendering would have been the following: tl/t (3e): ntja ya maponesa e fumanwe (e shwele); e ne e tlepentswe ka majwe (ke bashemane). also significant is that a residing dimension in sesotho y have same meaning as a word in sl but may have a different expressive meaning. for instance the word “die” in english may take a different expressive meaning in sesotho depending on who or what has died. an enemy or an animal ‘dies’ but a respected and loved person ‘passes away/has passed away.’ the cultural nuances and subtleties in the following sesotho sentences become clearer in the back-translation english equivalents below: sl/t (4a): motho ya hlokahetseng e le leselamose kapa momoseleme o patwa pele tsatsi le dikela. tl/t (4b): ‘a person belonging to the muslim faith has to be buried before sunset.’ (equation /equivalence/matching) sl/t (4c): ntate o hlokahalletse mosebetsing; moepong wa marikana. tl/t (4d): my father passed away at his workplace; in the mines of marikana.’’ ( amplification) sl/t (4e): e mong wa masole a thuntsweng a be a hlokahalla ntweng tsa kwana bangui, naheng ya car, ke mangwane thakane. tl/t (4f): ‘one of the soldiers that were shot and died in the fighting at bangui, in the country called car, was my aunt thakane.’ (reduction & repackaging) consideration of the cultural implications of an sl/t text about to be translated implies recognizing all of the problems associated with non-obvious meanings that require highlighting and capturing in the tl/t. in tricky cases such as those in six underlined intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 617 sentences above, the best or most appropriate translative strategy is dictated by the cultural nuances of the original or the sl/t. the various strategies of matching, reduction, amplification and repackaging of meaning can be seen in the tl/t examples given as (4a) – (4f) above. translation of idioms and proverbs in legal contexts sl/t (5a): a leopard cannot change its spot. (means: ‘things cannot change their inner nature’). tt *(5b): motho ha a fetohe letlalong la hae. (metaphrastic translation) tt (5c): motho ha a fetohe semelong sa hae/nkwe e shwa le mebala. (paraphrastic translation) the first translation option (5b) signifies a failure to recognize the idiomatic meaning of the sl/t expression which is almost untranslatable, in the sense that the true meaning of the english idiom cannot be transferred holus-bolus into sesotho. if the interpreter-translator does so, the outcome is a culturally strange meaning or a metaphrastic version that would alienate sesotho native speakers who are unfamiliar with english idiom. several important points have to be made in regard to what are the unseen pitfalls of metaphrastic translation: • the gist of the message communicated in the sl/t is lost seeing that the translator does not recognize the fact that the language used is figurative. • the lack of an equivalent figurative expression in sesotho, the translator goes for a word-for-word rendition which, according to baker (1992) cannot be maintained at all grammatical and pragmatic levels. • the translation depicts itself as non-functional at cultural level seeing that it does not capture the basic purpose intended for the target readership, by the writer/translator. the second version (5c) is reckoned to be a functional translation at the cultural level because it correctly recreates both the linguistic and semantic features of the original. of great importance, the particular translation option implies that the translator operates according to what was actually contained in the original sl/t or in line with the purpose of translation. a translation that satisfies the needs of the intended group in terms of a given purpose and the implied socio-cultural background tends to be functional and efficient in communicating the desired and therefore the important information to the target group. the functionality of the target text assigned by the socio-cultural elements of the translated text or product is quite important in the following examples: sl/t (6): he drove the car under the influence of liquor. ((english idiom)). tl/t (6a): o ile a kganna koloi tlasa tshusumetso ya tahi. (metaphrastic ; this is wordy sesotho and is ‘legalese’ in form.). tl/t (6b): o kgannile koloi a tahilwe. (precise translation; might be less appropriate in legal courts where exactness in required.). tl/t (6c): o kganna koloi a itjelletse. (paraphrastic; more idiomatic sesotho with both deferential plus comical overtones). motsei 618 analysis of the translation options given above reveals the following issues: • the first translation option (6a), might not be conversationally functional since it distorts the message intended in the sl/t (6), which is ‘influence’, rather than ‘tshusumetso’ or driven/impelled/encouraged by liquor. for its meaning, it relies rather heavily on the literal meaning of the individual lexical items of the st. in another sense, the sesotho rendition (6a) proves the alleged crime of drunken driving before the facts have been considered. the translation or interpreted version could arguably be detrimental to the accused person, and prevent his right to be ‘presumed innocent before being proven guilty’ (justice college notes, criminal procedure, 2003.). • the second version (6b) is functional because it captures communicatively the meaning essence or message intended by the sl/t however, (6b) might be less functional in legal contexts since it merely states facts about the physiological condition of the driver. a prosecutor who is after finding someone guilty appropriate or quite. although (6a) sounds like typical court language, in general it comes across as communicatively wordy and formal, in the legal sense. where verbal potency is required in order to decide matters of retribution, punishment, life and death, (6a) stands as a relevant utterance. indeed, where clear evidence and accurate statements are required such by a legal court, the interpreter rendering a tl utterance like (6a) from the sl (6) input, will be highly commended. yet the consequences for the accused driver could be severe if he/she were innocent. the third option (6c) is more appropriately used where reference is being made to someone older or of higher social standing than the speaker. hence, option (6c) is culturally more acceptable in less formal contexts than in a court because it also carries overtones of familiar and mocking respect. in cultural communicative settings and within world-views or social philosophies of african people, particularly the basotho, the older generation is always ‘to be respected and venerated’. in interacting verbally with basotho seniors, the younger person who works as an interpreter, a nurse or even a doctor is expected to treat and listen in a fair or just way,’ as moleleki (1993: 36) and mokitimi (1991: passim) point out. differences in interpersonal, relational and kinship terms the latter discussion about basotho people’s cultural precepts and expectations is closely connected with communication between members of a family, clan or larger community group. in this sense therefore, kinship terms become an area relevant for showing how translation deals with it. • in some languages the relational or interpersonal perspective is more pronounced than in others. for example, in english the word ‘brother’ denotes any male sibling, whereas in sesotho a more distinctive denotation is made about the position of the sibling relative to the speaker. the equivalent sesotho term for ‘brother’ is ‘moholwane’, which refers to an older male sibling while ‘monyane’, is one’s younger brother. the distinction that is made, if at all, sometimes depends for meaning on the gender of the speaker. intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 619 • where the tl does not have particular gender distinctive forms but uses a general word, often there occurs confusing translation. a relevant example is in english where pronouns like ‘he/she’ and ‘it’ denote a person’s or something’s gender. in sesotho no such lexical distinctions are made, and instead ‘o’ is used in all instances. as such, an english utterance (st) using several distinctive pronouns like she, her and their, in sesotho is rendered without making those gender differences clear, as the two examples seek to highlight: sl/t (7): ‘the bus was hijacked while the driver had alighted. she had gone off to fetch, from their office, her ticket batch and change’ [for the passengers]. tl/t (7a): bese e ile ya utsuwa ka nako eo mokganni a theohileng. o (ne a le siyo kahare, a ile ho) a tlohile ho ya lata sehlotshwana sa ditekete le tjhelete ka ofising ya bona.’ as can be seen in the sesotho text (tt), the second gender identification form or the pronoun ‘her’, is missing. indeed, none of the feminine denotations are directly spelled out and only ‘their’ is correctly translated as the plural pronoun ‘bona’ in the equivalent sesotho version. the implications of such language differences have been shown, by moeketsi (1999: passim), hlophe (2004) and others, to have serious implications when interpreting court in cases involve victims and accused perpetrators of different genders. where the tl distinguishes greater or lesser meaning than sl, e.g. cousin, ‘motswala’ which in sesotho refers to my uncle or aunt male and female children. ‘uncle’ in english refers to both my father’ and mother’s brother whereas in sesotho it usually refers to one’s mother’s brother while the english ‘aunt’ refers to both one’s fathers and mother’s sister. in sesotho ‘mangwane’ refers to someone’s mother’s younger sister. what these kinship terms imply is, therefore, that ‘mangwane’, ‘motswala’, ‘malome’ define blood relations on a wider scale encompassing the family hierarchy tree, rather than narrowly in terms of oneself, myself and one’s closest and immediate biological parents. medical/health terminology medical terminology presents the kind of challenges that typify the cultural or ethnolinguistic nuances every translator and/or interpreter must grapple with to render effective or meaningful target text(s). scientific fields such as medicine, health and anatomy typically employ registers overlain with peculiarities and particulars of knowledge. while the latter often are not highlighted or marked in ordinary english as well as in sesotho speech, such levels of understanding and meaning are quite important in the courtroom, the clinic and hospital. consideration of the list given below, with english terms in the first column vis-à-vis the sesotho ones in the second column, reveals the latter to be direct lexical equivalents of the former. in contrast, the third column while focusing on anatomical accuracy, is cognizant of the ‘cultural dynamism’ and the restrictions (possa and makgopa, 2010) surrounding the contextual uses of the longish terms and phrases. motsei 620 thus, even in a public institution like a hospital or a courtroom, the efficient translatorinterpreter would be wary and conscious of the need to avoid using the second column terms. in a sense, the well-trained and skilled communication intermediary between a witness and an accused, the victim and the prosecutor/magistrate, the counselor and the one receiving therapy/counsel, as well as the messenger of the doctor to the patient is obliged to possess what tollefson and others (1991: ii-iv and passim) have called ‘critical language awareness’ or sensitivity to the socio-cultural side of a language. awareness of their vulgarity and/or profanity would signify would mean that: (1) the translator-interpreter knows the medical and anatomical nuances of the english source terms; (2) that the accuracy of the sesotho terms is essentially medical, but that (3) those terms are not socially acceptable; and finally, (4) that he/she has to resort to the more suitable and appropriate term(s) from column three. the latter column consists of terms that are more socially acceptable or respectable ‘hlonipha/tlhompho’ terms (mokitimi, 1998; 45-52) than the taboo ones in the first translated column. medical term translated sesotho term hlonipha’ term vagina nywana botshehadi ba mosadi/senana penis kwae botona ba monna/molamu buttocks se-/dibono leraho/maraho sex/ intercourse kotano/ho kotana ketso tsa thobalano testis le-/marete ditapole anus mosono motete to loose libido ho se tsohelwe malamu ha o pole/moshemane ha a sebetse/thipa ha e sehe in a hospital or clinic where an illiterate, elderly african woman is consulting an englishspeaking gynaecologist, the services of a culturally-conscious interpreter might be needed. such an interpreter, whether they be male or female, would instantly know that they have to avoid any of the medical/anatomical terms in the first column (justice college handouts, 2005). the ubuntu-botho precepts of decorum or the implicit respect of the elderly within sesotho culture and the broader african context, will dictate that ‘hlonipha’ terms be used throughout. unless this is done, the dignity of the older woman will be undermined and she would be consequently offended and refrain from taking the gynaecologist’s therapeutic and/or medical advice. inadvertently, the old woman would lose faith and trust in public health-care facilities, as maseko and nosilela (2010: 21-22) warn, largely because her linguistic human rights were violated by communication that affronts her dignity. thus, when translating, it is important to consider not only the lexical impact on the tl listener or reader, but also that one has to be attentive to the manner in which cultural nuances of speech influence the outcome of the translation or interpreting target. in other words, the translator-interpreter ought to always cultivate an awareness of those linguistic and cultural facets that might be negatively perceived, in the way the lexical items cited in column two would. conclusion observations deriving from the discussion in the article are, among others, the following: o that translation is not a mere linguistic transference of lexical items from one language to another (i.e. from the sl/t into the tl/t) or metaphrastically; intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 621 o that the target text cannot be functional (according to the fidelity-loyalty principle), if the translation processes are not rooted in thorough understanding and knowledge of the socio-cultural or ethnolinguistic implications of both the source language and the recipient language of the target group(s). it is clear that translation that focuses exclusively on the translator’s language ability rather than on the cultural nuances of both the sl/t and the tl/t, can lead to the kind of effective communication required in the public and social spaces of south africa. however, a translation practice that ignores the legacy of past linguistic injustice as discussed earlier, will be fraught with intercultural misunderstanding, communication difficulty and lack of cooperation with governance perceived as delivering bad service. the attainment of social justice for sesotho speakers in public institutions like legal courts and in health facilities, can probably be achieved when and where meaningful communication through accessible translation services and products occur. in the new dispensation of welltrained translator-interpreters, the capacity to manipulate source texts in terms of the sociocultural and functional demands would attain for sesotho speakers the linguistic rights to dignity and a self-expressive identity. finally, it is recommended that research institutions initiate cross-cultural studies in translation and/or begin developing translation courses that inculcate skills around communicating the socio-cultural nuances of texts produced in multilingual circumstances, as possa and makgopa (2010) also suggest. references alexander, n. 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(2003). basic principles of court interpreting: criminal courts. no. 106. edited by: mr bj king 2003; written and updated by: adv. e. mathe and chief inspector, mr a.a. mahlangu, 2000-2002. department of justice and constitutional development (dojcd); proes str., pretoria. justice college handouts. (2004a). specific charges for court interpreters in setswana and sesotho. [the criminal procedure act and interpreting]. compiled by: chief inspector, mr a.a. mahlangu and others, 2003-2004. dojcd, sunnyside, unisa campus pretoria. justice college notes. (2004b). kimberley courts & the northern cape: tutor of court interpreters’ visits – makhudu, pdk. 7th to 9th june, 2004. dojcd, sunnyside, unisa campus: pretoria. justice college notes. (2005). bail terminology, rights of the accused at beginning of the trial: isixhosa, sesotho, setswana interpreting versions. prepared and updated by: court interpreting tutors and retired senior inspectors: mr s. xhamela, mr j. matshisi, with mr j. mazibuko, mr ps baloyi, mr pdk makhudu, 2003-2005. dojcd, sunnyside, unisa campus, pretoria. lotman, j., uspensky, b., (1978). on the semiotic machanism of culture’, new literary history, vol 2, the johns university press maseko, p. & nosilela, b. (2010). “they use my medicine together with their muthi”: a motivation for integrating cultural awareness and sensitivity in the isixhosa pharmacy programme at rhodes university. in: southern african journal for folklore studies. may, vol. 20, no. 1., pp 21-36. [available: http://www.safos.org.za ]. moeketsi, r.m.h. (1999). discourse in a multilingual and multicultural courtroom: a court interpreter’s guide. 1st edition. pretoria: jl van schaik. mokitimi, m.i. (1991). a literary analysis of sesotho proverbs (maele). unpublished doctoral thesis. university of south africa: pretoria. moleleki, m. m. (1993). makokonana a neanotaba le dingolwa tsa sesotho. 1st edition. randburg, south africa: vivilia publishers & booksellers. national language services. (2003). south african language bill.-revised 04 april 2003. department of arts and culture: pretoria. newmark, p. (1980) the translation of metaphor. babel 26:2, p93. newmark, p. (1988) approaches to translation. oxford: pergamon press. intercultural communication problems: translations from english into sesotho td, 9(3), spec. ed., december 2013, pp. 608-623. 623 nida, e a. (1964). principles of correspondence. the translation studies reader, london: routhledge. nida, e a. (1991). theories of translation. leiden, the netherlands: e.j. brill. nord, c. (1992). cultural implication for translation. manchester, uk: st jerome publishing. nord, c. (1997). translation as a purposeful activity. manchester, uk: st jerome publishing. possa, r.m. & makgopa, m. (2010). the dynamism of culture: the case of sesotho proverbs. in: southern african journal for folklore studies, october, vol. 20, no. 2., pp 1-12. [available: http://www.safos.org.za ]. skutnabb-kangas, t. (2000). linguistic genocide in education, or worldwide diversity and human rights? london: lawrence erlbaum assoc. snell-hornby, m. (1988). translation studies: an integrated approach. amsterdamphiladelphia: john benjamins. tollefson, j. (1991). planning language, planning inequality. london: longman. vermeer, h. (1988). skopos and commission in translation activity. the translation studies reader, london: routledge. www.afairerworld.org/_justice_and_equity/ microsoft word 00 a contents.docx   td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. using a transdisciplinary approach for environmental crisis research in history* es van eeden** abstract although it is true that each local area or region possesses its own historiography – and for that matter its own environmental historiography – there should not be much difference in the research methodology, sources and pitfalls or drawbacks of doing environmental history research in labelled environmental crisis areas. this article presents a concise historiography on dealing with environmental crisis in literature is provided. this is followed by a proposed transdisciplinary (td)-methodological structure that can serve as a guideline to specifically to environmental historians, and perhaps other disciplines in the humanities, that studying local or regional environmental crises. a local environment in south africa, namely the far west rand, serves as an example for conducting td research that features an environmental crisis. the paper concludes by also, amongst others, suggesting that environmental historians and other environmental experts in a variety of fields and disciplines in south africa and africa should form an environmental studies association to support one another, particularly in their efforts to work together in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways with researchers from a broad range of academic fields. this paper therefore serves merely as a debate to open up discussions for refining the perspectives and existing methodologies of research in environmental history. keywords: environmental history; environmental research methodology; transdisciplinary research; far west rand research; environmental crisis research. disciplines: history, environmental studies, research methodology. introduction in the past two or three decades, historians in african environmental issues have been alerted to fresh subjects of investigation relating to the exploitation and conservation of natural resources * originally developed on a paper read at the south african historical society conference, grahamstown, 6-9 july 2008 and supported by the inaugural lecture by es van eeden, “impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in south africa – a historian’s perspective”, inaugural lecture no 7/2010, 5 march 2010 (nwu, vaal triangle campus). ** prof elize van eeden is a history researcher in eco-health environmental issues. e-mail: elize.vaneeden@nwu.ac.za . van  eeden   192 as well as the effects of climate and specific geographies. they have also promoted thinking about new sources of evidence within histories of environmental crises. it has also been realised that such issues need to be seen within an international framework.1 for example, although not much attention had been paid to historical research of the local environment in france by the early nineteen-eighties, local environmental research in great britain was flourishing, and the political history of conservation in the united states was already well established. in 1983, worster pointed out that the destruction of ecosystem cultures by marketplace ideas and institutions has been going on for roughly four hundred years. worster continues, “the outcome of that research agenda would be, i believe, a revival of the local and regional historical inquiry along with an awakened global imagination.”2 after 27 years has passed it can be confirmed that worster’s beliefs indeed is correctly predicted, at least as far as it concerns south africa.3 environmental destructions happen to be world-wide within many local and regional areas. environmental destructions also are more than often inextricably linked to economic motivators; politics of denial and a lack of coordination on community and professional levels to accentuate and contest4 the seriousness of an environmental crisis. though it may be said that environmental history has retreated into the dominant historiographies of each region,5 it is also true that outcomes obtained from research on historical environmental crises concerning local issues may create the required insight to deal with similar issues nationally and internationally. though much can be written about the meaning “environmental crisis” and the libraries full examples of specific local and regional histories in which environmental crisis histories are recorded,6 the focus of this article is to mainly provide a concise literature discussion on environmental crisis, followed by a debate on the transdisciplinary approach to research in a local environmental crisis context. a local environment in south africa, namely the far west 1 donald worster refers to britain, france and the united states as the countries where environmental history has flourished impressively. see d worster, “world without borders: the internationalizing of environmental history”, environmental review, 6(2), autumn 1982, pp. 8-13. 2 d worster, “world without borders: the internationalizing of environmental history”, environmental review, 6(2), autumn 1982, pp. 8, 11-12: d worster (ed.), the ends of the earth: perspectives on modern environmental history (cambridge university press, cambridge sydney, 1988). 3 see j carruthers, “transnational and disciplinary aspects of the environmental history of africa” (keynote address, international conference, humankind and nature at the intersection of culture, kruger national park, 4-6 sept. 2006), p. 2. 4 compare the contesting of a crisis in f buell, from apocalypse to way of life: environmental crisis in the america century (new york, routledge, 2003), pp. 1-390. 5 see j carruthers, “transnational and disciplinary aspects of the environmental history of africa” (keynote address, international conference, humankind and nature at the intersection of culture, kruger national park, 4-6 sept. 2006), p. 2. 6 compare the discussion of a hornborg, “introduction: environmental history as political ecology”, as in a hornborg, jr mcneill and jmartinez-alier (eds), rethinking environmental history. world-system history and global environmental change (new york, altamira press, 2007), pp. 1-23; jj walmsley and rd walmsley, the environmental science research infrastructure in south africa. a discussion document (foundation for research (frd) programme series, no. 7, december 1993), p. i. td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 193 rand, serves as an exemplary area for conducting td research that features an environmental crisis.7 environmental crises: aspects from the literature “slow” and “fast” environmental crises in any environmental history labelled as a history in which a “crisis” occurred, human factors will and should always be directly or indirectly part of the “crisis”; they are not merely “spin-offs”.8 environmental crises can be divided into “slow” and “fast” crises. “slow” crises happen over time due to natural or man-made factors with which man is familiar or with which he has gradually become familiar and due to environmental constraints the course of which cannot necessarily be changed overnight. “fast” environmental crises, on the contrary, can be a result of human interference or constraints or occur due to natural consequences occurring rapidly. environmental historians mainly focus on researching, amongst others, “slow” environmental crises. however, some sometimes also get caught up in “fast” environmental crises that have happened in the immediate past because it may often happen that some “fast” crises have historical roots that make linkages and comparisons possible. some roots of transdisciplinary environmental crisis history research environmental crises are still mostly unsolved or insufficiently addressed in modern research and environmental remediation processes. in this regard, the following quote by mcneill from the writings of machiavelli in 1513 is spot-on: it happens then as it does to physicians in the treatment of consumption, which in the commencement is easy to cure and difficult to understand; but when it has neither been discovered in time nor treated upon a proper principle, it becomes easy to understand and difficult to cure. the same thing happens in state affairs; by foreseeing them at a distance, which is only done by men of talents, the evils which might arise from them are soon cured; but when, from want of foresight, they are suffered to increase to such a height that they are perceptible to everyone, there is no longer any remedy. environmental crises made more frontline news after the turn of the millennium because of a more open government policy regarding previously embargoed environmental knowledge.9 in addition, the interdisciplinary (id) and transdisciplinary (td) ventures in doing research on 7 es van eeden, impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in south africa – a historian’s perspective (inaugural lecture 07/2010, platinum press, nwu, vaal triangle campus), march 2010, pp. 1-38. 8 see f buell, from apocalypse to way of life: environmental crisis in the america century, (new york, routledge, 2003), pp. 1-390; e leroy ladurie, the territory of the historian, p. 143. 9 a hornborg, “introduction: environmental history as political ecology”, as in a hornborg, jr mcneill and jmartinez-alier (eds), rethinking environmental history. world-system history and global environmental change (new york, altamira press, 2007), pp. 1-23; f buell, from apocalypse to way of life: environmental crisis in the america century (new york, routledge, 2003), pp. 143-176. van  eeden   194 environmental crises by historians and among disciplines in the humanities, especially within “slow environmental crises” research, are in many ways absent10 or very limited.11 environmental research projects that involve academic researchers from unrelated disciplines as well as non-academic participants12 (for example, user groups, land managers, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and the general public), as well as professional researchers operating as consultants outside academic-focused institutions, are defined in this discussion as being td in its ultimate form.13 in td research, academic research knowledge is ‘married’ to firsthand experience and knowledge of the research focus of study on the environment/an environmental theme such as industrial water pollution in area x or y. two key justifications for undertaking this kind of participatory research are:14 • that it is more relevant to society than disciplinary efforts; and • that it provides for a more holistic perspective on problem solving of an environmental aspect, identified as an issue or problem, or that requires remediation and/or improvement. 15 from a history angle towards a td research scope, a three-phase methodology from the disciplinary (d), to the id, and eventually the td as phase three is suggested.16 the td research approach as defined in this article should actually be quite familiar to historians (for example, in environmental, regional or local history research). a history of communities cannot be properly recorded if it is not involved in or contributes to memories and primary resource material not available elsewhere. however, if knowledgeable peoples outside a structured educational research context become actively involved in multidisciplinary forms of research 10 traces of research cooperation on the environment between the humanities and the natural sciences and among the humanities themselves exist, but remains limited, especially the role of historians in the research. 11 see a hornborg, “introduction: environmental history as political ecology”, as in a hornborg, jr mcneill and jmartinez-alier (eds), rethinking environmental history...; ja roberts and n langston, toxic bodies/toxic environments: an interdisciplinary forum, environmental history, 13, october 2008, pp. 629-635. 12 g tress, b tress & g fry, “clarifying integrative research concepts in landscape ecology”, landscape ecology, 20, 2004, p. 487. 13 es van eeden, impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in south africa…, pp. 1-13. 14 compare the ideas of the following authors: m gibbons; c limoges; h nowotny; s schwartzman; p. scott & m trow (1994), the new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies (sage, london, 1994); j mittelstrass, “unity and transdisciplinarity”, interdisciplinary science review, 18 (2), pp. 153-157; j moran, interdisciplinarity (routledge, london, 2002); jt klein, “the discourse of transdisciplinarity: an expanding global field”, in jt klein, w grossenbacher-mansuy, r häberli, a bill, rw scholz & m welti (eds.), transdisciplinarity: joint problem solving among science, technology and society (birkhäuser, basel, 2001), pp. 35-44; es van eeden, “die behoefte aan dinamiese tersiêre geskiedeniskurrikula tot voordeel van mededissiplines en gunstiger beroepsmoontlikhede”, koers, 58 (2), 1993, pp. 195-210. 15 compare centre for science development (csd), human sciences research council, report, “social science research methodology teaching at south african tertiary institutions” (compiled by a tothill and c crothers), november 1997, p. 34. 16 es van eeden, impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in south africa…, pp. 1-13. td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 195 within an educational research context, then this research could be labelled as an all-inclusive td research. three possible levels of a td research co-operation could be: o research information that communities/individuals/groups/research consultants and/or disciplinary knowledge by het expertise share/exchange with regard to the environment and their experiences regarding the environment. the historian (or/and any other discipline in e.g. the humanities) simply utilises this information according to the historical (or other discipline specific) research methodology and writing process. in a research report that embarks on an aspect of td research, this form of information application will apply and contributors will only be acknowledged in the references section of a report; o research information that communities/individuals/groups/research consultants and/or disciplinary knowledge by het expertise share/exchange and continue to help find in a research project as full partners in a research project. together with the historian(s) or/and other disciplines in e.g. the humanities, these contributors participate in the research and in the process of writing the report, based on research criteria and a methodology that those involved have found consensus on. they thus form part of the authorship of the report; o research information that communities/individuals/groups/research consultants or/and disciplinary knowledge by het expertise share/exchange and continue to help find in a research project as full partners in a research project to write scientific articles/to share the podium at conferences/to provide student guidance within a specific focused training environment. the need for dealing with environmental crisis research in multiple ways, and the continuous quest for “revamping” the environment by the means of rehabilitation; remediation; recycling; reusing and re-development models,17 with a future sustainable development and environment in south africa in mind, is enough reason why td research – also from a humanities angle –, can be of immense value.18 from an historical angle, environmental crisis research implies that humankind is present, which in effect also requires and welcomes the input and research leadership of disciplines in the human and social sciences. environmental “crisis” research and history by definition, a crisis implies and refers to an event that may occur on a personal or societal level. it may be a traumatic or stressful change in a person's life, or an unstable and dangerous 17 compare ca brebbia & u mander, brownfields iii. prevention, assessment, rehabilitation and development of brownfields (witpress, southampton, boston, 2006), pp. 3-260. 18 see an in-depth discussion on the concepts and methodology of transdiciplinary and interdisciplinary research in es van eeden, “impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in south africa – a historian’s perspective”, inaugural lecture no 7/2010, 5 march 2010 (nwu, vaal triangle campus). van  eeden   196 social situation in political, social, economic or military affairs, or a large-scale environmental event, especially one involving an impending, abrupt change. more loosely, it is a term meaning “a testing time” or “emergency event”.19 in environmental history, the thematic focus regarding a crisis can be, amongst others, public health, nature preservation, smoke abatement, municipal housekeeping, occupational disease, air pollution and water pollution. researching these environmental crises by means of a historical environmental approach lacks the application of a generally accepted methodology of how to deal with research of this nature. the many voices, debates and differences in statistical data, together with the thinking and debating of intellectuals on environmental ethics, justice, human and legal rights, environmental crime, hydrosolidarity,20 et cetera,21 can sometimes cause environmental research to be an “envirobusion”22 jungle. “envirobusion”, as a newly created concept in dealing with environmental crisis history, mainly boils down to the fact that researchers/scientists tend to theorise some environmental trend, then call the same outcome by different names while offering different or no clear utility value or solutions. in 1981, the environmental historian ladurie gave the concept “crisis” and history some thought, though mainly in an economic and demographic sense. some aspects of his explanation of the concept crisis also apply to an environmental crisis, namely: a negative…long-term trend or tendency. it may refer to…phenomena…slowdown, stagnation or collapse… the crisis…may be set in motion in several ways…it represents, in the most classic fashion, the outward and momentarily visible sign of the clash between mighty and invisible forces. 23 ladurie suggests an extension between the following different scales of “crises” in history: • crises over several centuries, such as epidemics spreading worldwide; • century-long crises, in which ladurie also refers mainly to epidemics as examples; • medium-term crises; • the “shortage” crisis after 1973. perhaps the next scale of crisis to be historically recorded from a present, early 21st-century human perspective should be called “how humans lived sustainably in unsustainable environments”. 19 compare w collins, collins english dictionary (harper collins, glasgow, 2004), p.375; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/crisis retrieved on 4 july 2008. 20 see es van eeden, “conceptual ‘envirobusion’ in 21st century environmental issues in south africa: past practices abusing present thought”, new contree, 55, may 2008. 21 l buell, the future of environmental criticism. environmental crisis and literary imagination, pp. 10-19. 22 compare es van eeden, “conceptual “envirobusion” in 21st century environmental issues in south africa: past practices abusing present thought”, new contree, 56, may, 2008. 23 el ladurie, the mind and method of the historian (the harvester press, sussex, 1981), pp. 270-271; 288-289. td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 197 in an environmental crisis, the environment and the public closest to an environmental crisis are affected most. mcneill remarked as follows:24 while one cannot say with any confidence what forms an ecological crunch might take, when it might happen, or how severe it might be, it is easier to predict who will have the worst of it. the poor and powerless cannot shield themselves from ecological problems today, nor will they be able to in the future. the wealthy and powerful in the past have normally had the wherewithal to insulate themselves from the effects of pollution… an environmental crisis can eventually stretch over centuries or at least be long-term and be very much related to effects on man’s movements, his health and his future, not even to mention the long-term effects on the environment. in addition, those who are labelled as the major injurers in an environmental crisis are also affected in the crisis, although their production actions and/or their regulatory actions do not necessarily reflect a decline or improvement towards nature and man in the process of an environmental crisis. as in the case of an economic crisis, an environmental crisis may affect population numbers, threaten human health and life and cause irreversible destruction to the environment and even to the functioning of a regional or local economic entity.25 though not a historian, l buell in 2005 correctly summed up present research trends regarding environmental crisis research in general internationally (his remarks below can also be stated as the 2008 scenario for research trends in south africa):26 environmental issues, in turn, have become an increasing provocation both for artists and for academics, giving rise within colleges and universities to cross-disciplinary environmental studies programs often galvanized by student demand as much as by faculty research agendas. though natural and social scientists have so far been the major players in such programs, considerable numbers of humanists have also been drawn in, many of them bringing pre-existing commitments of a citizenly kind to bear in environmentally directed teaching and scholarship. indeed, many non-humanists would agree – often more readily than doubt-prone humanists do – that issues of vision, value, culture and imagination are keys to today’s environmental crises at least as fundamental as scientific research, technological know-how and legislative regulation. if we feel tokenized as players in environmental dialogue, both within the university and without, that may be more because of our own internal disputes and uncertainties about role, method and voice than because of any stigma attached to the ‘impracticality’ of the humanities either within academe or the wider world. two years earlier than lawrence buell, his brother frederick (an academic in english and cultural studies) also contributed to the environmental crisis debate by tracing the myriad ways 24 jr mcneill, something new under the sun…, p. 359. 25 personal impressions of the author based on studies done in the far west rand for several years. see also jr mcneill, something new under the sun…, pp. 118-135. 26 l buell, the future of environmental criticism. environmental crisis and literary imagination, p. 5. van  eeden   198 in which these crises have settled into the fabric of everyday life. buell contends that the notion of crisis has shifted from the:27 apocalyptic to the mundane over the past generation even as actual crises have increasingly intruded into the lives of growing numbers of people, particularly in the third world. in the process of coping with degraded air or water sources, for example, these numbers or their governments engage in a range of postures: denial, rationalization, resignation, even enthusiastic acceptance in the face of current corporate spin control or popular cyber fiction or art. in multiple publications from various disciplines, reference is made to environmental crisis debates as firstand second-wave ecocriticism,28 with revisionists in the forefront of having largely absorbed the sociocentric perspective related to a governmental practice of ecological problems such as health, sanitation, birth rate, race, longevity, etc. another reality is that scientists can research and critically assess environmental areas as hot-spot crisis areas, but that the “crisis” as identified will actually always be labelled as a crisis because of the effects of environmental destruction on man’s existence, health or future economic loss/transformation. a discussion of an environmental “crisis” barely receives attention without the human factor imprinted in, amongst others, the effects of the crisis on man’s health, man’s living conditions, etcetera. an environmental crisis is seldom discussed with the natural environment as prime focus in order to remediate for the sake of the environment.29 therefore, the point of l buell30 is taken that one can speak as an environmentalist (and i may add even as an environmental activist focussed on the effects of environmental constraints and destruction on humans), or one can speak a “word for nature, for absolute freedom and wildness”, but no human can speak “as the environment, as nature, as a nonhuman animal”. we can only go so far as to speak of environment and humans as being embedded ecologically or environmentally.31 f buell has divided his discussion of environmental crisis in the usa in three parts, namely a “contesting crisis”, an “elaborating crisis” and an “imagining crisis”.32 in many ways any country’s environmental crisis can fit into these broad parts of buell’s divisions. as historians in south africa are progressively dealing with histories of environmental crisis, the next discussion focuses on aspects of a “contesting” an environmental crisis as a social crisis33 through the means 27 f buell, from apocalypse to way of life: environmental crisis in the america century, pp. 1-390. 28 though l buell critically debates the narrowness of “ecocriticism“ as terminology on pp.12-13 and 16-19 in the future of environmental criticism. environmental crisis and literary imagination, his view will not be debated as part of this article because buell’s argument that the words “interdisciplinary studies“ better fits the “actual mix“ of research studies on the environment are currently accepted and even strengthened with research according to the “transdisciplinary“ methodology. 29 compare es van eeden, “conceptual ‘envirobusion’ in 21st century environmental issues in south africa: past practices abusing present thought”, new contree, 55, may 2008. 30 l buell, the future of environmental criticism. environmental crisis and literary imagination, pp. 6-7. 31 see the remark by aldo leopold as in l buell, the future of environmental criticism. environmental crisis and literary imagination, p. 8. 32 f buell, from apocalypse to way of life: environmental crisis in the america century, pp. 1-390. 33 compare f bell’s discussions in from apocalypse to way of life: environmental crisis in the america century, pp. 39-66;143-176. td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 199 of a transdisciplinary (td) research discourse34 in the far west rand (the present day merafong area, formerly known as the carletonville area). the intention is that this discussion should serve as an example of approaching td research on an environmental crisis through a historian’s perspective. contesting” an environmental crisis as a social crisis35 from the literature most sober humans will agree that humans, by far, are the root of the environmental crises as experienced by most countries and communities all over the globe. eco-marxist, jb foster so clearly put it that the chief causes of the environmental deterioration that faces man to contest in the 21st century: are social and historical rooted in the productive relations, technological imperatives, and historically conditioned demographic trends that characterize the dominant social system.36 so is population and economic growth, amongst others, “crude indices” (f buell’s words)37 of a rising environmental disequilibrium. a developing country like south africa is forced to absorb a wide variety of environmental problems created by developed world economies that still continue heedlessly with their excesses as usual.38 by mapping all the environmental footprints of humans, one realises that environments can’t be fooled as they are visible reflections of past and present activities. though scientific research can’t turn back the clock in environmental crisis scenarios (not even to reverse their own in competencies and silences),39 the scientific and informed communities can certainly support a variety of efforts to contest and be preventative towards a continuous environmental deterioration. one of many examples in africa and south africa that can be labelled as being a contested area in which an environmental crisis also evolved in a social crisis, is the far west rand (merafong municipal area and even wider). 34 es van eeden, impressions on conducting and reporting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research in south africa – a historian’s perspective (inaugural lecture 07/2010, platinum press, nwu, vaal triangle campus), march 2010, pp. 1-38. see also the discussion of a hornborg, “introduction: environmental history as political ecology”, as in a hornborg, jr mcneill and jmartinez-alier (eds), rethinking environmental history. world-system history and global environmental change, pp. 1-23. 35 utilized from f bell’s discussions in from apocalypse to way of life: environmental crisis in the america century, pp. 39-66;143-176. 36 jb foster, the vulnerable planet: a short economic history of the environment (new york, monthly review press, 1999), p. 12 as quoted by f buell, from apocalypse to way of life…, p. 144. 37 f buell, from apocalypse to way of life…, p. 150. 38 compare f buell, from apocalypse to way of life…, p. 169. 39 compare es van eeden, ej nealer, m liefferink, “environmental management complexities and rumours impending the effective application of scientific research and results to address possible health risks in the west rand gold mining region of south africa”, conference proceedings, 5th international conference, impact of environmental factors on health, september 2009. van  eeden   200 the former far west rand through historical lenses a unique characteristic of the former far west rand region and the widely known wonderfontein spruit catchment (wfs) is that it is currently regarded as probably the most written about area in south africa. environmentally, it is in a most damaged state and is also probably the most dangerous environment in the country after a gold mining history of 75-years. since the mid-thirties gold mining has formed the hub of human activity in the area, also known to be part of the west wits gold line region. the witwatersrand group has yielded more than half of all the gold excavated in the history of humankind. one of the unexpected windfalls of mining this geological sequence was the discovery of uranium deposits in the same formations that yielded the gold. active mining in the wfs area accelerated after 1934.40 the establishment of the first three gold mines, blyvooruitzicht (1937), west-driefontein (1945) and doornfontein (1947) raised entrepreneurial expectations. 41 by the 1960s, four more gold mines had opened, of which the western deep levels mine was the best known then, due to its depth.42 because of the mining development, several towns were founded in the area, and for years were managed by the periurban areas health board. these were west wits (1937), oberholzer (1939), bank (1940), welverdiend (1942), blybank (1947) and carletonville (1948).43 on 1 july 1959, the local or west wits area committee's dream was realised when carletonville became an independent municipality.44 the newly demarcated area comprised roughly 89 000 ha – and the length of the area from east to west was approximately 57 km, with an average width of 17 km from north to south.45 after carletonville had gained municipal independence, the mining sector gradually featured as the dominant role-player, land owner and exploiter of, amongst others, the wfs catchment. eventually, the gold mines also became uranium mines, and radon 238 is known to be a byproduct of uranium that is presently causing concern regarding its radioactivity. urbanisation increased in close conjunction with mining activities until people were living and working only 40 es van eeden, “nederlandse emigrante op wonderfontein, 1928-1969 – ‘n suksesvolle mislukking onder die vaandel van stamverwantskapsen ekonomiese motiewe”, historia, 46(1), 2001, pp. 54-91. 41 compare es van eeden, “nederlandse emigrante op wonderfontein 1928-1969 'n suksesvolle mislukking onder die vaandel van stamverwantskapsen ekonomiese motiewe”, historia, 46(1), may 2001; es van eeden, “die geskiedenis van die gatsrand, van voortrekkervestiging tot dorpsproklamering“ (ma., puvcho, 1988); es van eeden, “die invloed van grondverskuiwings en wateronttrekking op die landboubedryf in die oberholzer-distrik (carletonville-gebied), 1959-1972.” new contree, 39. aug. 1996. 42 r macnab, gold their touchstone: gold fields of south africa, 1887-1987: a centenary story (jonathan ball, johannesburg, 1987), pp. 64-161; es van eeden, ekonomiese ontwikkeling en die invloed daarvan op carletonville, 1948-1988: ‘n historiese studie, pu vir cho. (phd proefskrif, 1992), ch. 5. 43 unie van suid-afrika, dept. van handel en nywerheid, 1950, pp. 34-35; 1953, p. 19. 44 rand daily mail, 1959-02-07, p. 6. 45 fj potgieter, “west wits line project. planning for the future”, institute for regional planning, potchefstroom university, 1978, p. 4. td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 201 tens of metres away from mine dumps and slime dams – which have proved to be radioactive, amongst others, with the potential of further polluting water sources in the area.46 since the 1940s, dewatering of compartments has caused serious environmental and economical obstacles for local businesses, although mines were financially more able to continue their activities. presently, the ground water from former springs, after being dewatered and dry for almost 60 years, has been rising gradually since the closing of some of the mines in the former far west rand. the difference is that not only is water decanting from these springs, but also acid mine drainage (amd) is occurring, bearing a mixture of highly toxic and radioactive waste materials. a number of people from different populations and various economic sectors are said to be affected. from this concise historical background of the far west rand as example of a slow environmental crisis, a discussion on practicable aspects from a td research methodology can begin. in this area it all started for historians and students in history by utilising the historical research methodology (d) with which they are familiar in many facets of the research process. however, at some stage in the research process, it became difficult to provide a reasonable, clear account of specifically environmental issues and the environmental crisis scenario due to the multidisciplinary nature of the content one is dealing with (technicalities, methodology, scientific semantics and epistemology). the need for interdisciplinary (id) and eventually td interventions became non-negotiable research requirements. it was felt that id and td interventions may even be required in the initial stages of a project on an aspect of environmental crisis research or it may occur at a much later stage of a research process. practicable aspects of a td methodology in environmental crisis research in this section the last level option for doing td research, as suggested earlier, will be discussed by referring to a case study in the far west rand (merafong area) in south africa that is well known as an environmental crisis area. this last level td research option reads: research information that communities/individuals/groups/research consultants or/and disciplinary knowledge by het expertise share/exchange and continue to help find in a research project as full partners in a research project to write scientific articles/to share the podium at conferences/to provide student guidance within a specific focused training environment. a research theme/project usually accentuates the disciplines/fields of expertise that are required to do the research. having said this, it still happens in interdisciplinary research environments that related subjects in either the natural or the social and human sciences commence with research without considering the human component (community voice and experience) or underscoring the natural component. because of this most projects fail to provide an all inclusive view of a project theme where especially the humanities aspect can’t be ignored but is 46 compare water research commission (wrc), f winde, “impacts of gold-mining activities on water availability and quality in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment”, in h coetzee (ed.) an assessment of current and future water-pollution risk with application to the mooirivierloop (wonderfonteinspruit). report k5/1214, pretoria, 2005, pp. 14-38. van  eeden   202 in fact ignored. exploring with research by means of a defined level in the td approach helps to overcome this negligence one often find in south african environmental related research, and the option to include more fields of expertise (whether they are from activist podiums, for example, or private consultancies). a few considerations to take note of in environmental crisis research theme from a td angle could be listed as follows: • identify research fund options if the research is not initiated from the public and private sector; • identify other operational constraints; • identify the fields of expertise in the sciences; professionals as private consultants and expertise/experienced members of community/industry; • develop aims, purpose and solutions; • digest ethics, concepts and a methodology for doing research (and revisit these often to rephrase if required); • approach the research topic from various disciplinary angles as identified in the aims (all disciplines should be accommodated in low and high order aims to create scientific cohesion and understanding of a research theme); • share preliminary findings, among those involved in the project, in colloquia opportunities and refine results through a co-operation in explanation; analysis, evaluation and syntheses; • formal and community reporting with the td team’s approval. from this td-suggested approach, some experiences are shared. scientific scope, themes and funds in environmental crisis research probably many historians (and scientists in other disciplines) believe that thinking beyond their academic comfort zones (or “out of the box”) is methodologically unacceptable, and a modus operandi not to be associated with fundamental sciences in the humanities. in a changing world, however, where it is required that the wide spectrum of sciences dealing with aspects of humanity and nature should provide a more comprehensive view and way forward for a complex issue, the “out of the box” approach is inevitable but also very challenging. the following general remarks on the td research scope and funding requirements are based on personal experience in historical research dealing with the environmental crisis of water pollution in the merafong/far west rand area: • the research focus on an environmental crisis is seldom one that can be locked between two time frames, to be done and just forgotten about while the crisis is continuing and requiring more historical clarity. the environmental historian should be willing to explore/initiate the environmental crisis from its origins to its present status in order to provide a representative and more valuable, conclusive research report; td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 203 • funds for doing the research can neither be accepted from the perceived polluters as the injurers, nor from the injured, because, regardless of the best efforts put into them, the credibility of the research outcomes will always be questioned. in this regard, independent academic institutions and national/international research foundations are the best resorts for funding research; • it is necessary to bring together a network of professional and local people, as well as academic experts, and to retrieve data from a very wide variety of fields, archival storage systems and other sources. historians dealing with research on environmental history are not always sufficiently skilled in the technical and contextual research methodology and conceptual semantics of other disciplines; therefore, a solo research process will not always be feasible if the idea is to obtain a broader scientific understanding of an environmental crisis. in many ways, a consolidation of research discussions and efforts proves to be more effective. with greater knowledge and understanding, the human and social scientist may even write reports on environmental history regarding issues that also concern the broader public that they would understand more easily but that have never been explained in plain language; • a representative and consolidated view can be formed, but this requires that possible traces or relics are obtained from sources47 from a variety of disciplines and academic/research institutions, associations, companies, consultants, government departments and local professional people as well as local communities. these sources vary in format, and the most valuable or useable sources on environmental crisis issues are not necessarily annual reports or minutes, but reports on investigations or/and research done by researchers or consultants after a reported local disaster. in the past, such reports and letters of correspondence between the injurers (for example the government and the mines) and those perceived as the injured in polluted areas were seldom made available to the public. quite some effort is required to obtain them and not be put off by negative responses or closed doors; and • the environmental history researcher mostly also has to deal with role-players perceived as being exposed to a crisis as the injured (eg. financially/ health wise). they may be, amongst others, low-income communities, so-called environmental fanatics, local businesses or environmental activists. undertaking research on an environmental crisis does not imply that the historian's focus should be a broad general history to explain the development or process of the crisis. although this kind of information is important, other possible research themes or questions as aim(s) that can cover past to contemporary environmentally related content are of immense value. in the far west rand a td-research approach to water pollution from a humanities perspective, as an example, brought about the following research questions as aims:48 47 compare rg collingwood, the idea of history, (oxford university press, oxford, 1946); rg collingwood, the idea of nature (clarendon press, oxford, 1945). 48 not all of these questions as research aims have been addressed yet. a few examples of references are provided. in some research currently is in process. van  eeden   204 • the role of the injurer(s) in creating or abusing environmental knowledge. (the injurer can vary. in the wfs context, the major polluters/injurers within a direct and/or indirect context are the mines and the government);49 • the role of scientific knowledge and scientists/research consultants in correcting/endorsing environmental practices of the day;50 • the role of the local authority in environmental practices and creating knowledge; • aspects of power play, ethics, environmental injustices/justice, human rights movements and environment, economic choices versus the environment, etcetera;51 • determining of the application of past environmental ideology and laws in an area and to what extent it is possible to reverse thoughts in new acts after 1994;52 • the environmental awareness/experience, and/or laxity, and/or ignorance of local/regional citizens regarding an environmental crisis or crises in their own area; • the role of non-governmental organisations (ngos) and environmental activists in activating i) environmental awareness; remediation and rehabilitation processes ii) enforcing the principle that the polluter pays;53 • to take critical account of the thinking and actions behind the environmental remediation/preservation history and process; • the local business community’s dealings and future focus with the environmental crisis;54 49 see for example: es van eeden, ab de villiers, h strydom & ej stoch, “mines, people and sinkholes –an analysis of the carletonville municipal area in south africa as case study regarding politics of secrecy” historia, 47(1), may 2003. 50 es van eeden, ej nealer, m liefferink, “environmental management complexities and rumours impending the effective application of scientific research and results to address possible health risks in the west rand gold mining region of south africa”, proceedings of the 5th international conference on the impact of environmental factors on health, september 2009. 51 es van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa: a historical glance on the west rand (gauteng province)”, international journal of water resources development, 24(3), september 2008; es van eeden, m liefferink & e tempelhoff, “environmental ethics and crime in the water affairs of the wonderfontein spruit catchment, gauteng south africa” , the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 4(1), july 2008. 52 jf durand, es van eeden & m liefferink, “legal issues concerning mine closure and social responsibility on the west rand”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa , 5(1), july 2009. 53 e.s van eeden & i brink, “factors that determine the facilitation of stakeholders in environmental management – some philosophical-historical thoughts with the merafong area as example”, koers, 3, 2007; es van eeden, “an historical assessment of ngo efficiency in progressing towards a sustainable environmental heritage focus with as case study the wonderfontein spruit catchment, gauteng, new contree, 53, may 2007, pp. 55-78; m lieffferink & es van eeden, paper, “proactive environmental activism to promote the remediation of mined land and acid mine drainage: a success story from the south african goldfields”, iwm conference, canada, 7-9 september 2010. td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 205 • the effect of, for example, chemical pollution on water resources used by the local agricultural sector; • a history of the effect of an environmental crisis such as water pollution on the health status of local communities and how it may impact on future sustainability;55 and • the effect of an environmental crisis on communication facilities, roads, the local economy, political rivalry; education; religion, etc.56 to the local/regional research historian, some examples of the themes above will be familiar, with the only distinction being that the content is reflected from an environmental crisis perspective, which in itself is a rearrangement of knowledge to create new knowledge and insights. operational constraints in researching environmental crisis history the human factor in doing research on the environmental crisis in the far west rand, the human factors and agendas were the most important constraints. it was found that not all experts/disciplines would want to work together in the research process and/or exchange their ideas and findings. there are many reasons for attitudes of this nature, of which the following cannot be excluded: money from the injurer/polluter or even the injured resulting in a variety of personal agendas; research and academic selfishness; and/or insuperable methodological differences in research. carruthers refers to this constraint by saying that (a)ll historians have become more sensitive to the tropes and requirements of the natural sciences.57 in environmental history, the application of internal criticism to opposing views (as applicable to written sources to determine authenticity) and external criticism (that deals with confirming authenticity or otherwise labelling source material as fake or forgery) can be a very time 54 es van eeden, "so long gold mines long live industries. carletonville’s battle for economic survival", south african economic history journal, 12(1-2), september 1997, pp.103-127. 55 es van eeden, ej nealer, m liefferink, “environmental management complexities and rumours impending the effective application of scientific research and results to address possible health risks in the west rand gold mining region of south africa”, proceedings of the 5th international conference on the impact of environmental factors on health, september 2009; es van eeden, ej nealer & m liefferink, “a historiography on past scientific research and references to environmental health concerns in the merafong gold mining region of south africa”, new contree, 58, november, 2009. 56 es van eeden, “ekonomiese ontwikkeling en die invloed daarvan op carletonville, 1948-1988: 'n historiese studie“ (phd, pu vir cho/nwu), 1992). 57 j carruthers, “transnational and disciplinary aspects of the environmental history of africa” (keynote address, international conference, humankind and nature at the intersection of culture, kruger national park, 4-6 sept. 2006), p. 3. van  eeden   206 consuming process. even then, one is left with no clear-cut findings, solutions and academic remedies of how to be absolutely sure about environmental report findings. a reason for this problem is the difference in approaching a research problem within specific research methodologies used by researchers in the natural sciences. then a td-focussed cooperation between role-players sharing the same environment as the socalled injurer and the injured was and remains a difficult constraint in dealing with research into an environmental crisis. it not only affects the availability of potential knowledge that might unlock difficult reports or discussions on unavailable data, but also leads to complete lack of cooperation if a role-player becomes aware of one's liaison with the so-called “enemy” that “blows the whistle” or holds different or “inaccurate” views. environmental historians willing to be exposed to a team and a research theme who have different environmental views and perhaps agendas regarding a local environmental crisis need to develop communication skills that are built on continuous confidentiality, trust and respect. historians dealing with an environmental crisis have the daunting task of living up to the fundamental methodology of history and to avoid “choosing sides” before the information collection has been finalised and critically assessed according to the historical methods and holistically according to the td team’s accepted methodology. if a research report with a modest focus that will add to a holistic understanding and addressing of a crisis within a 21st-century environmental ideology must be compiled, then ways of working (researching and reporting) together have to be found. source access the most valuable past and currently developed documentary sources in understanding decisions that may have led to an environmental crisis are often not accessible due to their scattered or disordered nature (especially in corporate companies and government departments), or they are marked as “strictly confidential” and therefore not available. sometimes, corporate companies and government departments also lack human capacity and knowledge, because those who know most about a crisis and have the information that was developed to address or manage the crisis have usually resigned or “moved”. in many cases, these people leave only the not so important information “leftovers” to their followers to fill the gap of information amnesia. information amnesia and a lack in intellectual capacity among government officials is a concern when dealing with environmental history in south africa. if the government is serious about implementing its model environmental acts based on representative environmental history reports, then its record management systems (which are currently perceived as being in a very poor state), should be sharpened, in line with to the country’s model constitution. however, to overcome information amnesia in one department or institution, it is sometimes possible to identify a list of the role-players involved and to explore the document database of another department or institution also involved in dealing with managing the same crisis.58 in the far 58 compare es van eeden, “is die regering omgewingsgroen of ‘n boelie? ‘n beknopte perspektief op omgewingsbewaring in die eertydse verre wesrand (tans gauteng), word & action/woord & daad, 401/402, spring/summer 2007; es van eeden, “whose environment? whose nature? – a trans-disciplinary discussion on some inhumane actions in the destruction and construction in nature – case study, the merafong municipal region”, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2, nov. 2006; inteview e swart (former director gtt)/es van eeden), march 2008. td  and  environmental  crisis  research   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 191 – 208. 207 west rand (wonderfonteinspruit area or wfs) for example, the list of involvement and relationships in 1994 was plotted as follows:59 conclusion in the discussion, the key focus was to provide ideas on how to deal with research in environmental crisis history within the framework of a transdisciplinary (td) research approach. apart from a concise historiographic view on environmental crisis history, some important aspects in the research were also highlighted. it seems inevitable that historians will have to undertake research ventures in the field of environmental research that require thinking “out of the box”. so, entering into a broader repertoire of knowledge and research associations with capable experts from a variety of disciplines will become more possible, and theoretically as well as methodologically more approachable. information amnesia, as perceived especially in research on historical environmental crises, may be addressed more effectively if research experts dealing with the same locality can cooperate more efficiently. there should be no doubt that a well-documented, multi-faceted, historical account of a specific environment will most certainly be put to use in many ways within the practical focus of, for example, government, corporate bodies and consultants who deal with a variety of role-players in a destructive environment where solutions are the remedial focus. new questions arrive from a 59 e.s van eeden & i brink, “factors that determine the facilitation of stakeholders in environmental management – some philosophical-historical thoughts with the merafong area as example”, koers, 3, 2007. van  eeden   208 broader focus, and these can be considered in further research. for example, environmental ethical issues and man’s ability to utilise global experiences to prevent crises or to find solutions are examples of themes that could be more fully explored.60 whatever the situation, the point is that, although history may be regarded as a fundamental discipline in recording the human past when dealing with environmental history, the historian cannot and will never be able to fully master the conceptual and methodological approaches employed by natural scientists. it is also not necessary, because no researcher has ever been required to be familiar with or to master all disciplines. the very old idea of interdisciplinary focussed research, and recently the additional reference to transdisciplinary research methodology as ways to accommodate research by multiple disciplines, should be strengthened in the 21st century, especially if academics want to play a meaningful role in contributing to a better understanding of present-day environmental crises contexts and provide support in creating sustainable environments. south africa and africa cannot afford environmental history researchers who cuddle themselves so deeply in the past and avoid outspoken assessments of present-day concerns against the past environmental heritage. this article is a humble effort to help environmental historians who deal mostly with environmental crisis research in specific local/regional areas to step out of their comfort zones and to debate possibilities in the development of td as a methodological approach to perhaps accommodate the multitude of disciplines and community/private experts and professionals involved in environmental crisis research. perhaps the time has also come for environmental historians and other environmental experts in a variety of fields and disciplines in south africa and africa to form an environmental studies association to support one another, particularly in their efforts to work together in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways with researchers from a broad range of academic fields. this paper therefore serves merely as a debate to open up discussions for refining the perspectives and existing methodologies of research in environmental released history. 60 see j carruthers, “transnational and disciplinary aspects of the environmental history of africa” (keynote address, international conference, humankind and nature at the intersection of culture, kruger national park, 4-6 sept. 2006), p. 12. dec 2008 inside book .p65 377 abstract the national curriculum statement of south africa envisages qualified and competent teachers to deal with the diversity of learners and their needs in the classroom. one of the needs refers to all learners (gr r-12) who need to acquire the necessary social skills to enable them to work effectively with others as members of a team, group, organization and community. these skills refer inter alia to: learning to work with others, listening to others, giving attention, asking clarifying questions, learning how to evaluate, and to praise others, handling conflict, reflecting on group work and allowing all group members to participate. the most obvious place to deal purposefully with the development of social skills is the classroom. this implies that alternative ways and methods of teaching must be introduced to develop the necessary social skills. this article reports on the findings obtained from a combined quantitative and qualitative study that set out to determine the levels of social competence achieved by a group of grade 2 learners, and the possible association of a cooperative teaching and learning intervention programme for enhancing the social skills of these learners. the results revealed the latent potential of cooperative learning to enhance the social skills of grade 2 learners. the significance of this research lies in the contribution it makes to establish the social competence of a group of grade 2 learners and to determine the possibilities for enhancing their social skills through cooperative learning. keywords: foundation phase learners, social development, development of social skills, cooperative learning, cooperation, assertion, empathy, self-control introduction the national curriculum statement (ncs) of south africa builds on the vision and mission of the constitution of the republic of south enhancing social skills through cooperative learning mj booysen and mm grosser* * mrs m.j. booysen is a lecturer in teaching and learning, school of educational sciences, north-west university: vaal triangle campus.e-mail: ria.booysen@nwu.ac.za dr m.m. grosser is a senior lecturer: teaching and learning school of educational sciences north-west university: vaal triangle campus. e-mail: mary.grosser@nwu.ca.za. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 377-399. 378 africa 1996, act no. 108 of 1966, which provides the basis for curriculum transformation and development in contemporary south africa (department of education, 2002:11). this vision and mission includes, among others, the following principle: “social justice, a healthy environment, human rights and inclusivity.” (department of education, 2002:10). specifically with regard to this principle it is clear that the social needs of the learners need to be addressed during teaching and learning. the critical outcomes of the ncs envisage learners who are able to “work effectively with others as members of a team, group, organisation and community” (department of education, 2002, :11). in addition to this, the developmental outcomes of the ncs (department of education, 2002:11) envisage learners who are also able to “be culturally and aesthetically sensitive across a range of social contexts”. in essence, education should stimulate the minds of young people so that they will be able to participate fully in economic and social life one day (department of education, 2002:12). although evidence of the importance of starting the development and assessment of social skills in the pre-school years for laying the foundation for later attitudes, values and behaviours is highlighted by devin and van staden (2004:47) and essa (1992:421), we could not find any evidence of research or formal assessment conducted with learners in south africa. furthermore, our own observations of various learning situations in the foundation phase revealed that most of the learners do not possess adequate levels of social competency which led us to the conclusion that intentional efforts should be undertaken to establish the social competence of young learners and to recommend ways in which social skills could be enhanced. in this regard, we support the assertion of schniedewind and davidson (1987) who state that: “we are not born knowing instinctively how to interact effectively with others.” it is imperative that social skills must be taught through intentional efforts (lerner & kline, 2006:539; greeff, 2005:1890193). research done by roger and david johnson (1987), slavin (1987:713) and joubert, bester and meyer (2006:4) show that cooperative learning seems to be an effective approach which is important for the school as well as for the community. cooperative learning has the latent potential to improve the academic, social, affective and cognitive development of learners (gawe, 2007:209, 213, 224; gunter, estes & schwab, 2003:257-258; webb, farivar, sydney & mastergeorge, 2001). other benefits include improved self-esteem, cooperation between learners of different cultures, tolerance, greater use of higher-level thinking skills and increased appreciation for different points of view (joubert, bester & meyer, 2006:4; post, 2001). we could not find evidence of the potential of cooperative learning for improving the social development of foundation phase learners in south africa. therefore our research builds on the fundamental work done by johnson and johnson and slavin to determine the merits of cooperative learning for enhancing the social skills of grade 2 learners. booysen and grosser 379 the social development of foundation phase learners social development: concept elucidation social development refers to a process which, when successful, results in the human organism’s moving from its infant state of helpless, but total egocentricity, to its ideal adult state of sensible conformity coupled with independent creativity (child development institute, 2008). according to joubert et al. (2006), dowling (2005:32, 109), denham, von salish, olthof, kochanoff and caverly (2004:321) as well as mc naughton and williams (2004:118) socially acceptable behaviour refers to aspects such as how to lead and to follow, how to control temper, how to argue, how to be less selfish and self-centred and how to respect and show consideration for others. literature also reports that interaction and cooperation with others, self-awareness, selfacceptance, responsibility, friendship and empathy with others in order to establish relationships, handling conflict, gender equality, race and cultural equality and listening to others are crucial skills that learners need to acquire (devin & van staden, 2004:47; landsberg, krüger & nel, 2005:102). early development and assessment of social skills with young learners is important in order to avoid poor mental health, dropping out of school, poor achievement, behavioural difficulties, delinquency, inattentiveness, peer rejection, emotional difficulties, bullying, difficulty in making friends, aggressiveness, problems in interpersonal relationships, poor self-concept, academic failures, concentration difficulties, isolation from peers and depression, and to lay the foundation for the later development of attitudes, values and behaviours (mcclellan & katz, 2006; christopherson, 2003). in the context of the article, we focused on enhancing the social skills as indicated by the data collection instrument which we used, namely cooperation (learning to work with others, giving attention, allowing all members to participate, sharing apparatus), assertion (listening to others, asking clarifying questions, learning how to evaluate, praising others, reflecting on group work, thinking and reasoning), empathy (feeling sorry for a friend in need, listening to friends, making friends ), self-control (handling conflicts, controlling temper, asking for help when in need, having respect for others and their belongings, handling race, gender and cultural differences) (gresham & elliot, 1990:3). a close examination and comparison of these skills with those mentioned in table 1 indicate that they build on the attributes defined for general social competence in the preschool years. literature indicates that a number of factors can impact on the social development of learners. for the purpose of the article, we highlight the factors that could possibly have impacted on the present and future development of social competence of the learners who took part in td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. social skills through cooperative learning 380 this research. factors that impact on social competence according to dilg (2003:182), the culture of home and school needs to be contiguous in order for social development to be fostered. specifically in multicultural settings, many factors impact on learners feeling part of one cohesive group. as the group of learners involved in the research represented multicultural groupings, it was necessary to reflect on the relationship between social development and culture. in this regard it is necessary to mention that the ncs values multicultural education. multicultural education is about changing the nature of teaching and learning in order to create a suitable learning environment for learners from diverse cultural backgrounds (lemmer, meier & van wyk, 2006:3). in a south african classroom this implies that teachers should maintain equally positive expectations of all learners irrespective of race, social class, gender or culture (lemmer et al., 2006:3). in addition to this, the way parents act towards their children and the demands that they set are influenced by culture and can have a lasting influence on children’s social development (nisbett, peng, choi & norenzayan, 2001:293). children of authoritarian parents appear to be unfriendly, distrustful and withdrawn; children of permissive parents appear to be immature, dependent and unhappy and children raised by democratic parents seem to be friendly, selfconfident and socially responsible. most western cultures raise their children to be independent, to think for themselves and sometimes even question their parents’ behaviour. some asiatic and african cultures expect obedience, conformity and cooperation thus an authoritarian style (nisbett et al., 2001:293). learners’ preferred learning styles are however not necessarily related to their cultural background (lemmer et al. 2006:69). an awareness of the diversity of teaching strategies could therefore be considered during teaching. it is based on this notion that we argued that the cooperative teaching and learning intervention programme that was developed to improve the social skills of the foundation phase learners should not be regarded as a teaching method exclusively for learners from specific cultures. in the context of this research, we thus acknowledge that the multicultural group of learners who took part in the research could vary in social behaviour related to inter alia the family backgrounds, parenting styles and the different cultures that they come from. the national curriculum statement however, expects of all learners (grades r-12) to reach an adequate level of social development irrespective of culture, poverty, race, gender and disability (lemmer et al., 2006:96). bearing in mind that learners spend most of their time at school, it seems reasonable to assume that teachers can play a major role in booysen and grosser 381 assisting learners to become socially competent. this implies that the teacher needs to consider the type of classroom environment that has to be created in order to promote social development. enhancing social skills through cooperative learning research done in the field of social development indicates that the acquisition of social skills requires social involvement. the role of parents, peers and teachers is crucial in this regard (mahn, 2006:129; mcclellan & katz, 2006; vygotsky in dowling, 2005:33; devin & van staden, 2004:47; pintrich & schunk, 2002:147-151; chaiklin, 2003:54; van wyk, 2003:141). according to pintrich and schunk (2002:147-151) and gresham and elliot (1990:75), social skills training is generally characterized by the mediation and modelling of social skills by peers and/or adults to learners during problemsolving and peer group activities. based on this notion we concluded that cooperative learning (a teaching and learning strategy where learners work together in small heterogeneous groups on well structured tasks to achieve a common goal) could be an effective method for enhancing the social skills of the learners who took part in the study, as it complies with all the above-mentioned elements, namely modelling of behaviour, teacher and peer guidance and support and learning by doing (slavin, 1990:1-3). another important aspect we had to take cognizance of was to examine ways in which to determining whether social skills develop or not. assessing the development of social skills according to lerner and kline (2006:535) young learners overestimate their own social competence, misbehaviour and intimidating intents towards others. therefore, la greca, lemaneck, loeber, green and lahey, as quoted by webster-stratton and lindsay (1999), mention that mothers are the best candidates to rate their own children’s social skills. lerner and kline (2006:535) and webster-stratton and lindsay (1999) however, maintain that teachers are the best candidates to determine the level of the learners’ social skills as learners spend most of their time at school. in support of the latter argument, we made final conclusions for this research based on the responses of the teacher. method empirical research research method: quantitative research (questionnaires and social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 382 observations) and qualitative research (interviews) were used in this research. according to mcmillan and schumacher (1997:27,28; 2006:28), many situations are best investigated using a variety of methods and an important advantage of mixed-method studies is that they can show the results (quantitative) and explain why they were obtained (qualitative). this research supports the principle of triangulation (leedy & ormrod, 2005:105) as it enhances the validity of this study. research design intervention research with a pre-experimental design was used and data was gathered through a one-group pre-test, post-test design. the pre-test was done with the sample of grade 2 learners to establish levels of social competence, after which the cooperative teaching and learning intervention programme was introduced for a period of twelve weeks. the same sample group was then subjected to the posttest to determine whether any association between the intervention programme and the development of social skills could be determined (leedy & ormrod, 2005:224). this article reports on the early development and pilot testing of the cooperative teaching and learning intervention programme. implementation of a cooperative teaching and learning intervention programme by meticulously following the steps for successful cooperative learning activities (table 3), as identified by johnson and johnson (1984:26-40), the programme was designed and implemented. the social skills were introduced by implementing various cooperative teaching and learning methods and activities suitable for the foundation phase. before the actual implementation started, eight heterogeneous cooperative learning groups of four members each were identified and the method was introduced to the learners. each group had to decide on a name for the group and designed a banner and a slogan for the group. they also decided on basic rules that would guide their working together. this was done in order to create a feeling of belonging to and responsibility towards the other group members. the same learners were kept in basis groups with stable membership for the period of twelve weeks. this was done in order to give learners the opportunity to get to know one another and to sustain the working together relationships. twelve different activities were designed and implemented over 12 weeks lasting approximately two hours on fridays through the rotation of various cooperative teaching methods (learning together, group investigation jigsaw). each activity focussed on achieving academic learning outcomes as well as social outcomes. the academic learning outcomes were derived from the national curriculum statement and the social outcomes linked with the indicated outcomes in the test booysen and grosser 383 instrument. activities included the following: conducting interviews, theme discussions, problem-solving, a puppet-show with the writing of an own script, reasoning, designing of a game, classification, word building and analysing information. to ensure that the activities were implemented strictly according to the criteria for the successful implementation of cooperative learning, we designed a checklist in accordance with the literature to guide us during the implementation (johnson & johnson in grosser, 2002:31). this increased the reliability of the implementation of our programme and enabled us to conclude convincingly whether an association between cooperative learning and the development of social skills exists. table 1: evaluation checklist for implementing cooperative learning the above checklist also served the purpose of guiding the chronological flow of each of the activities. during the rest of the week the class teacher was requested to determine whether the activities done on fridays translated into the social behaviour of the learners. population and sample the research was conducted in the d8 (sedibeng west) district of the gauteng department of education in south africa and involved a multicultural group of foundation phase learners at a primary school. this school was chosen as the researchers are familiar with the school and staff, and it was easily accessible. the purposively selected sample comprised the following participants: grade 2 learners (boys and girls) (n=32). not all the learners were english mother tongue speakers, but it was their third year in the same school social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 384 environment, as most of them started school there in their reception year where the language of learning and teaching (lolt) is english. grade 2 learners were chosen for the research as these learners are halfway through the foundation phase and should have at least achieved a pre-school level of social competence on which teachers can build further. measuring instruments: ssrs (social skills rating system) questionnaires as no south african test could be located to determine the social competence of south african learners, it was decided to use the ssrs which is an american test. the ssrs components include three rating forms, namely for the teacher, the parent and the learner, which focus on the social skills domain. all three raters assess common core behaviours from the sub-domains cooperation, assertion and self-control. in addition to this, the parents also assessed responsibility and the learners assessed empathy. after having obtained permission and consent from all participants involved in the research, we administered the ssrs questionnaires to the learners personally to determine to what extent they possess adequate social competence. the learners completed the questionnaire in the form of a pre-test and post-test at school under our supervision. one teacher, who taught the learners for nearly eight months before the research and continued teaching them after the research was conducted, took part in the research. the teacher completed the social skills rating questionnaire for the learners in her own time prior to the intervention programme, as well as after the implementation of the intervention programme. the parents were responsible for completing a social skills rating questionnaire for their child prior to the research to determine their perceptions on the status of the social development of the child, as well as after the completion of the research to determine whether they could detect any change in the social behaviour of their child. the questionnaires were sent home to be completed by one of the learners’ parents and the class teacher collected the completed questionnaires for us. semi-structured interview after the completion of the intervention programme, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the teacher of the learners to determine whether she noticed any improvement in the development of the social skills of the learners. booysen and grosser 385 focus group interviews focus group interviews were conducted with the learners who took part in the research after the completion of the intervention programme to determine their perceptions regarding the benefits of the programme with regard to the development of social skills. focus group interviews were conducted with each of the eight cooperative learning groups. observations pre-determined criteria were developed in accordance with the literature, according to which we observed the development of the learners’ social skills during the implementation of the intervention programme. we conducted observations of the various group members during each of the intervention sessions according to the following criteria: ability to interact and cooperate with others, ability to listen to others, ability to wait and take turns, ability to not interrupt each other, ability to show respect and appreciation for the opinions of others, ability to plan their own thoughts, ability to take part in joint decision-making and complimenting each other. these abilities were rated on a four-point scale as being “excellent”, “good”, “average” and “can improve”. validity and reliability of the data collection instruments before the ssrs questionnaire was administered to the sample, we selected a number of participants from the target population who were not part of the sample to verify the questionnaire regarding its qualities of measurement and appropriateness and to review it for clarity. no signs of learners being uncomfortable or shy to answer the questions were detected and no questions were asked by the learners. it appeared as if the group did not experience any difficulties in understanding what the questions requested them to do and we decided to administer the questionnaire to the sample. during the actual study the group was also eager to complete the questionnaire and did not appear hesitant, uncomfortable or shy. according to the discretion of the authors of the questionnaire, the instrument complies with reliability and validity criteria (gresham & elliot, 1990). internal consistency, coefficient alpha reliability for social skills estimates ranged from .83 to.94. validity was arrived at by considering content validity, criterion validity and construct validity. content validity is supported by the fact that all test items represent the domain of social skills. criterion validity is supported by the correlation between the ssrs and other instruments such as the beck youth inventories of emotional and social impairment (beck, beck, & jolly, 2001). both instruments prove a similar understanding of the domain social skills. construct validity is underpinned by the fact that the ssrs measures social skills as a social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 386 sample of a behavioural function in specific situations and settings. although it is an american test, we were convinced that the ssrs comprehensively samples the domain of social skills necessary for social competence, irrespective of culture and family background. however, in the absence of a local norm group, caution was exercised when the data obtained from the questionnaires were interpreted. the questions formulated for the semi-structured interview and the focus group interviews were circulated to other grade 2 teachers and learners who were not part of the sample to determine their appropriateness and to review their clarity before the interviews were conducted. the criteria identified for the observations were verified against the literature and with knowledgeable colleagues in the field to determine whether the observations would provide a true reflection of the application of the social skills which we set out to establish. data analysis and interpretation data analysis and interpretation of the ssrs pre-test and post-test results data analysis was done through standardized procedures by the statistical consultation services of the north-west university, vaal triangle campus in south africa. data analysis was done by means of descriptive and inferential statistics. frequencies, means and percentages were calculated for the various responses obtained for the pretests and post-tests from all three raters for the group of learners. data obtained for the preand post-tests were compared and possible significant differences between the means of the preand post-test results were determined by means of t-tests. all 32 participants were present when administered the questionnaire. biographical information indicated that the average age of the participants was eight years. learners, parents and the teacher were requested to respond to questions which determine the frequency of the execution of social skills before the research commenced. responses pertaining to the frequency with which the skill was executed were rated “never” (0), “sometimes” (1), or “very often” (2). the following table provides the results for the questions put to learners to determine the frequency of executing the indicated social skills for the group. booysen and grosser 387 table 2: learner perceptions of social skills the learners rated themselves very high in the acquisition of cooperation and empathy with 84% and 85% respectively. although the ratings for assertion and self control were relatively lower, at 70% social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 388 and 73 % respectively, it appeared as if the learners achieved adequate social growth during their pre-school and grade 1 school years. the post-test, however, yielded opposite results. for three of the skills, lower results were reported with 72% for cooperation, 74% for empathy and 58% for self-control, whereas the rating for assertion remained the same for the preand post-tests at 70%. it appears as if the intervention programme made learners aware of what the skills really entail and that more could be done to enhance the social skills of the learners. specifically with regard to self-control, it appears as if intentional efforts are needed to advance the development of this skill. the following table presents the results for the questions put to the parents to determine the frequency of the execution of the social skills for the group of learners. responses pertaining to the frequency with which the skill was executed were rated “never” (0), “sometimes” (1), or “very often” (2). table 3: parent perceptions of social skills the parents rated the social skills development of the group of learners much lower than what the learners did, with 60% for cooperation, booysen and grosser 389 66% for responsibility and 60% for self-control. only with regard to assertion, a higher rating was reported, namely 81%. the results for the post-test did not indicate any improvement either. for cooperation, the same rating was indicated as for the pre-test, namely 60%, whereas for assertion, responsibility and self-control respectively, lower ratings were indicated for the post-tests, namely 76%, 67% and 56%. it is interesting that, for both learner and parent social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 390 ratings, self-control yielded the lowest results on both test occasions. the lower ratings of the parents for cooperation, self-control and responsibility could point in the direction that adequate social growth had not yet been achieved by the learners. the following table presents the results for the questions put to the teacher to determine the frequency of the execution of the social skills for the group of learners. responses pertaining to the frequency with which the skill was executed were rated “never” (0), “sometimes” (1), or “very often” (2). table 4: teacher perceptions of social skills the teacher rated the social growth of the group of learners much lower than the learners and the parents during the preand post-test booysen and grosser 391 sessions with only 55% for cooperation, 43% for assertion and 43% for self-control. the post-test ratings of the teacher revealed higher scores for all three of the mentioned skills with 61% for cooperation, 52% for assertion and 52% for self-control. although an improvement is indicated after the implementation of the intervention programme, the results could also indicate that the learners have not yet attained adequate social competence. during both test occasions, the teacher rated the social skills development of the learners on all skills lower than the parents and the learners themselves. considering the responses of the teacher for the post-test, in which her responses indicated an improvement in the development of the learners’ social skills, it appears as if the implementation of the cooperative teaching and learning programme could be associated with the development of the social skills of the learners who took part in the research. it is noteworthy that learners, parents and the teacher rated self control very low during the post-test. significance of the differences between the pre-test and post-test results the significance of differences between the pre-test and post-test results is interpreted with caution due to the fact that this was only a pilot study and a true experimental design with an experimental and a control group was not used. in addition to this, we acknowledge that our conclusions can only be tentative. to determine whether the differences that occurred in some instances between the preand posttests were significant, t-tests were utilized to determine the significance of the differences. the calculated p-values that were smaller than 0.05, were accepted as significant. the tables below reflect the results for the learners, parents and teacher respectively. social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 392 table 5: learners: comparison of pre-test and post-test results · significant with regard to the pre-test cooperation: the calculated value for p is 0.000046. this value is smaller than 0.05 (p < 0.05 = 0.000046). assertion: the calculated value for p is 0. 65. this value is larger than 0.05 (p < 0.05 = 0.65). empathy: the calculated value for p is 0.000045. this value is smaller than 0.05 (p < 0.05 = 0.000045). self control: the calculated value for p is 0.000013. this value is smaller than 0.05 (p < 0.05 = 0.000013). the averages for the social sub-domains cooperation, assertion, empathy and self control as determined by the learners, were lower in the post-test. this could possibly be attributed to the fact that learners only became aware of what the different social skills imply during the implementation of the cooperative teaching and learning programme, and realised that they are not yet competent in the execution of the skills. according to the responses of the learners there is no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test results and it appears as if cooperative learning cannot be associated with the enhancement of social skills. on the contrary, the post-test results are invariably lower than the pre-test results. table 6: parents: comparison of pre-test and post-test results · significant with regard to the post-test cooperation: the calculated value for p is 0.95. this value is larger than 0.05 (p> 0.05=0.95). assertion: the calculated value for p is 0.05. this value is larger booysen and grosser 393 than 0.05 (p> 0.05=0.06). responsibility: the calculated value for p is 0.88. this value is larger than 0.05 (p> 0.05=0.88). self-control: the calculated value for p is 0.11. this value is smaller than 0.05 (p> 0.05=0.11). only with regard to self-control, a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test is evident. according to the parents, it appears as if one could assume that there is an association between cooperative learning and the enhancing of self-control. table 7: teacher: comparison of pre-test and post-test results · significant with regard to the post-test cooperation: the calculated value for p is 0.0035. this value is smaller than 0.05 (p < 0.05 = 0.0035). it can be accepted with reasonable certainty that the improvement in cooperation can be attributed to the implementation of the cooperative teaching and learning programme. assertion: the calculated value for p is 0.000005. this value is smaller than 0.05 (p < 0.05 = 0.000005). it can be accepted with reasonable certainty that the improvement in assertion can be attributed to the implementation of the cooperative teaching and learning programme. self control: the calculated value for p is 0.000017. this value is smaller than 0.05 (p < 0.05 = 0.000017). according to the teacher, it appears as if one can associate the improvement in self-control with the implementation of the cooperative teaching and learning programme. a positive association of the cooperative teaching and learning programme for the enhancement of social skills is supported by the responses of the teacher. the lower means indicated for the post-test responses of the teacher social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 394 compared to the means of the post-test responses for learners and parents respectively, could indicate that intentional efforts have to be made to enhance the social skills of the learners who took part in the study in order to provide a foundation on which future teachers can build. data analysis and interpretation for the semi-structured interview with the teacher by means of a content analysis the interview responses of the teacher were scrutinized to identify themes. according to the teacher there was a noticeable improvement in the learners’ execution of social skills. in this regard, she specifically refers to an improvement in their ability to cooperate and work together with their peers. furthermore (although not reflecting one of the skills addressed during this research), she indicated an improvement in the listening skills of the learners when instructions were given to them. although the teacher acknowledges the merits of cooperative learning for the development of cooperation, she indicates that more time, effort and attention are required to enhance the development of assertiveness, empathy and self-control. data analysis and interpretation for the focus group interviews with the learners by means of a content analysis, the responses of the learners for the focus group interviews were also analysed in order to identify recurring themes. the learners indicated that they enjoyed the group activities as the roles that they had to play taught them responsibility. the group activities also taught them to listen to one another, to appreciate one another’s opinions, respect others’ belongings, assist one another when confronted with problems, make decisions together and take turns when sharing ideas and information. it appears as if the learners’ responses during the interviews indicate improvement in cooperation, self-control, empathy and assertion which could be associated with the implementation of the intervention programme. data analysis and interpretation for the observations the initial observations at the onset of the intervention programme indicated that the learners were not used to working in groups. each learner wanted to do his/her own thing. they were not very good at listening to one another and kept on interrupting one another during the group activities. impulsivity occurred frequently and it was very difficult for the learners to take part in joint decision making and planning for the execution of a task. as the intervention programme progressed with intentional to mediate and model the social skills to the learners during each activity, we observed an improvement in the way in which they cooperated with one another as a team. they booysen and grosser 395 started praising one another for successes, and they listened to one another’s opinions and formulated joint decisions. triangulation of data in the absence of a true experimental design, we aimed to increase the validity and trustworthiness of the collected data by using a variety of data collection instruments. the apparent association of cooperative learning with the enhancement of the social skills of the group of learners who took part in the research is supported by the interview responses of the teacher, the focus group interviews with the learners and our observations during the implementation of the intervention programme. although the research design only enables us to formulate tentative hypotheses, the results, although preliminary in nature, indicate the latent potential of cooperative learning for the enhancement of social skills. findings it is not our intent to be prescriptive regarding correct social behavior, but rather to assist teachers to become aware of the importance of social skills development and to support learners intentionally as they grow. we are aware of the fact that no norms exist for south african learners and that the norms for american and south african learners might differ. however the results for the south african group of learners sound a warning for concern when bearing in mind that the ssrs comprehensively samples the domain of social skills necessary for social competence irrespective of culture (gresham & elliott, 1990:9). in the context of the ncs, it is argued that all learners need to become socially competent, irrespective of gender, culture, socio-economic environment. after the implementation of the intervention programme, slightly higher results were revealed for the learners who took part in the research. based on the significant differences between the pre-test and the post-test results for cooperation, assertion and self-control, we cautiously assume that there could be an association between cooperative learning and the enhancement of the social skills of the learners who took part in the research. limitations of the research we acknowledge that the research in its present form presents a number of limitations due to the small sample size and nature of the research design which only allows for the formulation of tentative hypotheses and hampers the generalization of the findings. furthermore, the enhanced social skills might be a temporary change to behaviour in response to a change in the classroom environmental conditions. prolonged observation of the learners’ social functioning social skills through cooperative learning td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 377-399. 396 and purposeful efforts to enhance their social functioning over a period of time is necessary to determine whether the social attributes are typical or not for learners of this age and whether these attributes can be enhanced or not. we also acknowledge that children vary in social behaviour for a variety of reasons. these reasons include inter alia the following: having distinct personalities and temperaments from birth, different family relationships and backgrounds, different cultural expectations and different degrees of maturation which could impact on the results of the research. however, apart from these limitations, the research provides some insight into the latent potential for enhancing the social skills of foundation phase learners with cooperative learning. the present research was only a pilot study and further evaluation and development of the intervention programme are required to report conclusively on the merits of cooperative learning for improving social skills. recommendations and conclusion it should not be accepted that social skills are automatically developed at home and that all children possess the necessary social skills when coming to school. social skills should be taught. therefore, parents and teachers need to play a vital role in the development of social skills by acting as role models who must display acceptable social behaviours. it is recommended that opportunities for interaction should be created: on the playground with other learners, in the classroom between learners and teacher through the use of cooperative 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inquiry: overcoming interdisciplinary methodological challenges in health sciences. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1325. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1325 original research historical inquiry: overcoming interdisciplinary methodological challenges in health sciences gisela h. van rensburg, johanna m. esterhuizen received: 07 jan. 2023; accepted: 12 june 2023; published: 24 aug. 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract historical inquiry is seldom used in south african nursing research and south african historians seldom conduct research into the historical contributions nurses made in south african healthcare, specifically the nursing discipline. in this article, the authors discuss the challenges of conducting historical inquiry within a south african nursing (health sciences) context and from nurses’ perspectives. several challenges relating to the compilation of the research report were identified, as the traditional nursing research format differs from the typical historical inquiry format. the authors explain how critical realism philosophy influenced the research objectives and deepened their understanding of historical inquiry as a research methodology and thus assisting them in gaining new insight into historical events in south african nursing and guiding the writing of the historical narrative. the authors concluded that an interdisciplinary approach to research that allows for flexibility in report writing is recommended to contribute to the historical inquiry of discipline-specific histories. such flexibility encourages fresh viewpoints and insights into historical inquiry as a research method transdisciplinary contribution: this article illustrates how historical inquiry as a methodology, informed by critical realism philosophy, was applied in the health sciences field of research. keywords: critical realism; health sciences; historical inquiry; nursing history philosophy; research methodology; social studies; south africa. introduction historical inquiry is a neglected field in nursing research. the social nature of the profession enables nurse researchers to implement a range of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, including mixed methods research, but, globally, there are very few nurse researchers who conduct historical inquiry. one author, being a professional nurse and nurse educator, but wishing to research and write about the history of the south african nursing profession, embarked on historical research with the other author, a professor teaching research methodology and an experienced qualitative researcher. in the hope of being accepted for a postgraduate study with nursing history as the topic, one author studied basic history subjects for non-degree purposes. by 1995, feeling ready to start the postgraduate journey, she consulted the relevant department of a south african university that advised her to contact the history department for assistance. ironically, the history department referred her back to the department offering degrees in health studies because of her nursing background. straddling two scientific fields seemed insurmountable. a chance meeting with her future supervisor at a 2008 local nursing conference turned out to be the starting point of the formal research journey – two professional nurses conducting historical inquiry, one an emerging researcher with an avid interest in history and the other a seasoned qualitative researcher. at the time of embarking on the research, conducting historical research in the field of nursing was a rare phenomenon in south africa. even now, very few historical inquiries are conducted in the south african nursing context. an initial historical study focusing on the professional development of black south african nurses in the period 1908–1994 resulted in rich data that were shared, nationally and internationally, in the form of a published article1 and several conference presentations. a second historical study was conducted for doctoral graduate purposes and involved research to determine the historical influence of nursing organisations on the development of the nursing profession in south africa, over a 100-year period. a subsequent article was published in an international nursing journal.2 given the limited historical studies in nursing (and health sciences in general), the authors often found themselves in the dark when they yearned for academic debate on historical inquiry. furthermore, a paradigm shift was required in that the traditional format of a doctoral thesis in the particular department had to be adapted to satisfy historians’ expectations of what a research report should consist of. in this article, the authors discuss the challenges of conducting historical inquiry within a south african nursing sciences context. a cursory online search for the latest (published from 2010 to 2020) nursing history-themed publications revealed that, internationally, more than 20 books, book chapters and journal articles were published. locally, approximately 10 south african healthcare-themed publications (not all dedicated to nursing history) were found. of these, three historical inquiries with specific nursing history themes were conducted by south african professional nurses (two of the three being the authors’ work). historians conduct vigorous, inquiry-based searches to find the historical truth.3 such historical truth depends on the researchers analysing the data and creating a meaningful representation thereof in a narrative form.4 tholfsen, in streubert and rinaldi carpenter,5 mentions that ‘history lacks a coherent theoretical and conceptual structure’ and maintains that ‘[n]o one theoretical framework exists for which to study history’. therefore, various theoretical structures are used by historians to organise data. herein lies the creative freedom and the conundrum. research methods and design analysing some history-themed theses published from 2015 to 2020 reveals that historical inquiries are generally written in narrative form with the researchers providing in-depth analysis and discussion of the historical data. each researcher’s voice and conclusions are interspersed throughout the chapters. a few researchers state specified research objectives, while some use a few paragraphs in their introductory chapters to explain the principles of historical inquiry. seemingly, a dedicated chapter to explain the research methodology is not required. this absence of a comprehensive methodology chapter and, thus, a clarification of historical inquiry as a research method is in stark contrast with what is required of south african nurse researchers conducting research within a health and social studies context. historical inquiry versus nursing research: methodological challenges nurse researchers wishing to submit a doctoral thesis to a south african university are required to adhere to a prescribed layout and format designed to accommodate either quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research reports. the ‘pure’ historical research report as written by historians, therefore, had to be altered to accommodate certain requirements of the particular department within which the study was registered as a graduate programme. yet, the study guide provided to doctoral candidates that stipulate these requirements (e.g. the format of the thesis) is silent about how this should be accomplished when conducting historical inquiry. methodological challenges experienced by the study supervisor the first author, also the study supervisor, is an experienced and well-published researcher who teaches research methodology and has authored research methodology books. she has a special interest in qualitative research but has not conducted historical inquiry before. she had to draw from her knowledge as an educator and qualitative researcher. furthermore, she engaged in academic and research discussions with historians, in preparation for the specific supervision role. it soon became clear that the historians and historical inquiry authors had less interest and focus on the methodology per se but rather focused on the content itself. this contributed to the debate on how to present a nursing study as a historical inquiry. on the one hand, there were discipline-specific practices and requirements, while, on the other hand, methodological specificities. of importance for the first author was to not only guide the second author through her master’s and doctoral degree programmes but also to provide the nursing discipline and/or profession with good historical facts that are indeed lacking in the nursing literature. as an educator, she also deemed it important to provide the best evidence for future researchers and students in the research methodology courses. methodological challenges experienced by the doctoral candidate the study guide provided to doctoral candidates in the particular department prescribes the thesis format and chapter content required when conducting quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research. although the two researchers (authors) could adhere to most of these requirements, there were grey areas where they had to ignore convention to stay true to the principles of historical inquiry. in the following sub-sections, such methodological challenges and the authors’ solutions to these challenges are discussed. layout and reference style: the layout of a typical doctoral thesis in nursing science is designed to accommodate both quantitative and qualitative researchers. a methodology chapter, in which the research problem, the research objectives and the aim of the research are comprehensively discussed, and a chapter dedicated to the clarification of the researcher’s philosophical stance is required. table 1 provides a basic comparison between the layout of a typical nursing science doctoral thesis and a historical inquiry research report, as published from 2015 to 2020 in south africa. table 1: comparison between the layout of a typical nursing science doctoral thesis and that of a historical inquiry research report. the authors had to adhere to the department’s prescribed style of reference, namely, revised harvard style. this was a clear break from the historians’ traditional use of footnotes. furthermore, the provided study guide contained no guidance about how one must refer to archival sources or primary (historical) sources in private collections. the researchers had to study literature (online and in reference books) that explained the classic method of referencing archival material and then developed a reference style that was as close as possible to the nursing department’s prescribed style. this was described in the introduction chapter of the doctoral thesis and applied throughout. results according to francis historians agree that multiple realities exist that inform the recording of the historical truth.3 the authors applied critical realism, the chosen philosophical lens, to contemplate past historical events evident in south african nursing and find historical truth.2 discussion epistemology critical realists challenge the two absolutes of objectivism or positivism (knowledge is independent of humans) and relativism or constructivism (scientific inquiry is fallible because it is socially embedded). critical realism therefore provides researchers with the opportunity of using various research methodologies.6 positioned centrally on the epistemological continuum, critical realism enables researchers to identify previously unnoticed causes that can initiate social change and to describe those associated events.7 in this article, the authors describe how critical realism guided them to bring to the fore new questions about historical events in south african nursing.8 ontology walker9 avers that (now and in the past) there are many causal mechanisms interacting simultaneously to create the social world and that human understanding of that world is incomplete. earlier resources also state that depending on circumstances, numerous emergent properties and powers interact at the same time, but in different ways and thus, causing various effects.10 by adopting the tenets of critical realism, the authors aimed to identify the interacting causal mechanisms, often conflicting, yet influencing the south african professional nursing structures specifically, and society in general. these causal mechanisms brought changes in the south african nursing profession and its structures.2 the three reality domains of critical realism comprise the real, the actual and the empirical. world events that occurred are represented by the actual domain, while the often-unobserved structures and relationships influencing it are found in the real domain. the real domain’s veiled structures and relationships are the causal mechanisms that create unique effects (events) in certain instances.11 thus, the hidden powers that interact within a specific context in critical realism’s real domain are evident in the actual domain.12 lastly, people’s imperfect account of what they observed of the social world are represented by the empirical domain. it is the actual and the real domains that interest critical realists. however, considering that people’s perspectives of the actual and the real domains are potentially flawed, it is accepted that these domains could never be known with absolute certainty. consequently, before making final conclusions, researchers should consider all events and their underlying causes.7 this philosophical lens enabled the authors to identify the central realities of the historical events of interest to them.8 inspired by schiller’s6 depiction of the three domains, the authors illustrate that historical inquiry can be positioned in critical realism’s real domain. the link between critical realism and historical inquiry as a methodology is illustrated in figure 1.8 to symbolise the openness of the social system and to indicate that there is knowledge not yet know, the real domain (the diagram’s outer line) is represented by a broken line. figure 1: historical inquiry searches for causal mechanisms in the real domain of critical realism. in the second author’s doctoral thesis, the actual domain is represented by the professional activities of south african nursing organisations during the last century. the empirical domain is represented by the prevailing interpretation of the nursing organisations’ history. by focussing on critical realism’s real domain, the authors could offer an alternate perspective on the history of south africa’s nursing organisations. the emphasis moved away from generally accepted historical facts and what is known to identifying those causal mechanisms that historically exerted influence on south africa’s nursing organisations. by implication, the south african nursing profession was affected as well. in this way, a new truth about the history of south african nursing organisations emerged, as the emphasis moved to the causative mechanisms and not only a mere description of the occurrence of events.8 throughout the 5-year duration of the project, an in-depth exploration was conducted into all potential factors, aiming to guarantee a comprehensive and diverse range of data. application of lonergan’s cognition structure in historical inquiry the philosopher bernard lonergan’s transcendental method is a form of critical realism.9 lonergan explains that human beings structure cognition from an experience (level 1) to understanding (level 2), eventually forming a judgement (level 3). objects of thought can become objects of judgement only after level 3 (judgement) was reached.12 in figure 2,8 the authors illustrate the complementary nature of historical inquiry methodology and lonergan’s cognition structure. the red and blue rectangles illustrate the phases of historical inquiry, with the black arrows indicating the corresponding critical realism process.8 figure 2: lonergan’s cognition structure complements historical inquiry. walker explains lonergan’s assertion that there is more to knowledge than only the empirical (what can be observed with our senses).9 researchers observe something and inevitably ask questions about their experience (level 1): what it is that they observed and why did it happen. they make attempts to acquire insight and to understand (level 2) the observed event. researchers can judge (is it true?) the event and create a concept definition thereof once they attained insight. researchers can assert that ideas and thoughts became knowledge only after a judgement (level 3) was made. application of lonergan’s cognition structure to the doctoral thesis implies that historical inquiry methodology demands more from researchers than simply the recording of historical events (experience – level 1).13 rather, the inquiry should attain lonergan’s knowledge level, with the researchers inquiring the reasons why (understanding – level 2) historical events occurred.8 this is referred to as reflective understanding by critical realists.9 if researchers make correct judgements, they attain insight and a knowledge of reality. the researcher’s preliminary insight might change during data collection and analysis because more questions are continuously asked and answered. at the beginning of a study, vulnerable (initial) insights are reached. invulnerable insights are only obtained after all possible questions have been asked and answered.9 this philosophical principle necessitated in-depth questioning by the authors throughout the data analysis phase of the inquiry, thus ensuring that the contextualisation of the historical data was implemented correctly. new answers emerged as questions were asked from various viewpoints. in this way, numerous vulnerable insights were attained and recorded in the narrative chapters of the thesis.8 while the vulnerable insights are evident in the data analysis and reflection phases of the research, the invulnerable insights were attained (concluded) only at the end of the research when it became evident that new questions would not lead to new insights. a state of objectivity was reached. this critical realism concept aligns with the qualitative research principle of crystallisation, and this is where the nursing studies thesis differs from a ‘classic’ historical inquiry. the raw historical data were, firstly, presented in narrative form in five chapters; with only preliminary conclusions (vulnerable insights) being made at the end of each chapter. the final conclusions (invulnerable insights) were only stated in the last chapter of the thesis, the conclusions chapter. it becomes evident that an open social system as proposed by critical realists elicits difficulties. critics of the philosophy question the extent to which such a complex system, with its many influencing structures and relationships, can be examined.14 supporters of critical realism encourage researchers to embrace, explore and explain such complexity. effort is made to reconcile the real domain with the actual domain. in doing so, phenomena are explained against the background of the real world.7 for these reasons, the authors explored all emerging agency and structural factors to provide rich, all-inclusive explanations of the historical events of interest. the narrative, detailed descriptions assist in explaining the complex interactions between agents and structural factors.8 elger describes this process as the ‘theoretically led, non-empiricist account of knowledge production’.15 influenced by the philosophical stance: a deeper understanding of historical inquiry as research methodology qualitative research, a naturalistic approach, uses humans as research instruments.16 such subjectivity of the researcher is supported by critical realists.14 classified as a qualitative, non-traditional research design, historical inquiry features a range of methodological approaches that enable researchers to discover credible answers to historical questions.17,18 by studying factual data (evidence of positivism), the interpretation of that data (evidence of subjectivity) guides the historian to come to a credible non-transferable conclusion (interpretivism).8 the existence of multiple truths as suggested by a large ill-defined middle ground (reality) is something that historians and critical realists both agree on.4,11 the apparent disorganised nature of historical inquiry as a research methodology is not without structure. it is a cyclical process of inquiry with particular phases that may be completed in any order.5 the authors’ initial illustration used double arrows to depict the historical inquiry steps, signifying its cyclical, repetitive nature (note figure 3).8 after reflection and gaining new insight into the historical inquiry process, the authors modified the illustration. the modification of the illustration (note figure 4)8 and an explanation follows. the doctoral thesis topic, namely, professional nursing organisations is used to compare the authors’ initial (2012) and current (2019) understanding of historical inquiry as a methodology.8 figure 3: first schematic representation of the historical research process. figure 4: the authors’ current understanding of the historical inquiry methodology with the complementary critical realism terms in italics. the initial understanding of historical inquiry the historical inquiry process as it was understood and applied in the authors’ first (2012) research report is illustrated in figure 3. the phases of historical inquiry as described by lewenson and mcallister19 begin when researchers identify a broad area of historical interest. the area of interest is narrowed down and determined by the researchers asking various questions. (in the thesis, questions were asked about the types of professional nursing organisations that exist and their influence on the profession. questions about what historical events enabled professional nursing organisations to continue to have an influence on the development of south african nursing, were considered). a provisional title was formulated (‘the influence of nursing organisations on the development of the nursing profession in south africa: 1914–2014’), which consequently directed the literature review that was conducted. the preliminary historical data collected and interpreted led to more questions, necessitating further literature review and analysis. the authors reflected on the data collected, interpreted it within the given social context and wrote the narrative.20 data collection, analysis and recording the narrative, occurred in-parallel, with each step repeatedly performed. in this way, the cyclical nature of the historical inquiry emerged as a continuous in-depth literature review leading to sub-themes being identified. in the thesis: the eras in which the south african trained nurses association (satna), the south african nursing association (sana) and the democratic nursing association of south africa (denosa), respectively, dominated the south african nursing profession. the study concluded with all influencing factors identified and crystallisation occurring. bracketing was applied during the research process. the authors’ current understanding of historical inquiry the historical narrative depends on how researchers interpret data-rich sources. thus, the historian’s inquiry is simply an informed interpretation of the historical data that were accessed and read.21 this description of historical inquiry confirms francis’s assertion that historians have an interpretivist research view: they accept the existence of multiple realities and truths.3 there is no absolute truth. the historian is obligated to ensure that interpretation, and the subsequent historical narrative has meaning and is presented in an acceptable social context.22 discovery of new reliable data sources that shed a different light on the topic necessitates a re-interpretation and understanding of historical events. hypothetically, historical inquiry is a prolonged, even lifelong, search for the historical truth. this is illustrated in the historical inquiry cycle with its continuous nature used in the earlier study (figure 3). at the commencement of their latest research, the authors planned to use the initial historical inquiry cycle of the previous study but then comprehended that their research project must conclude when crystallisation was reached. it was, therefore, impractical to remain in the continual historical cycle as depicted in figure 3.8 a formal doctoral thesis is limited in terms of scope, resources and academic time allowed to complete the research. once sufficient time has been spent on data collection and analysis, the historical inquiry must conclude with a written narrative. the authors’ first attempt to illustrate the historical inquiry process (figure 3) had to be revised (illustrated in figure 4) to accommodate the confining (limited instead of a lifelong search) structure of a thesis8: two steps were repositioned in the cyclical process: the first step (identifying the main topic of interest) was performed once only, and the last step (finalising the title) ended the research. the arrows in the diagram illustrate this process. for the duration of the research, historical inquiry’s cyclical process only holds true within the main topic of interest: the main topic remained unchanged, but within it, new sub-areas of interest became apparent and became the thesis’s narrative chapters. the smaller circle in the diagram illustrates this process. the finalisation of the data collection and analysis phases was signalled by inserting a crystallisation banner (thus illustrating its role in concluding specific phases of the research process). finalising and submitting the thesis did not suggest that inquiry into the historical topic of interest was fait accompli. questions about the research narrative, its conclusions and the implications thereof might lead to further research (thus the lifelong search). the larger circle in the diagram illustrates this aspect. the diagram’s outer circle is characterised by a broken line to illustrate critical realism’s real domain. the world is considered to be an open system, with knowledge, as yet, unknown (note figure 1). critical realism informs historical inquiry in this article, figures 3 and 4 illustrate the authors’ deeper understanding of historical inquiry methodology and the matching critical realism concepts. in table 2, the authors illustrate how critical realism informed their historical inquiry.8 in this, fletcher’s explanation of how critical realism can be used in research methodology was applied.11 table 2: critical realism applied to the research methodology. visiting archives and convincing subject librarians that ‘we are not lost’ being nurse researchers attempting to enter historians’ historical territory, created light-hearted moments. writing about the history of south african nursing’s professional organisations necessitated the authors to access and study legislative sources, such as nursing acts, commission reports and transcripts of court cases. each department has dedicated librarians. when consulting the allocated librarian, the student (second author) was promptly referred to the history department librarian – who then promptly referred her to the law librarian. three flights of stairs, three desks and numerous explanations later, the law librarian understood why it would not be helpful to send the student back to the nursing department librarian. she kindly assisted the out of breath (but by that time, well-exercised) professional nurse or student or budding historian to find the information needed. she also taught the student how to use the law department’s data bases (lexisnexis – south african law or netlaw – sa legislation). a bit of legalese’ and ‘phone a friend working in the legal field’ was required to understand and interpret the legal documents! conclusion globally and particularly in south africa, historical inquiry is seldom used in nursing research. those who attempt it, must contend with the demands of two academic research fields that view research methodology and the application thereof from quite different perspectives. the authors conducted two formal research projects using historical inquiry to explore the history of south african nursing. in the process, they gained a deeper understanding of the research methodology and dealt with challenges relating to the academic writing styles of two different disciplines. the primary focus of a typical historical research report is the historical narrative and the researcher’s interpretation of historical events. in contrast, nurse researchers must demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the methodology and the philosophical stance guiding the research process: the application thereof influences the writing of the historical narrative and the research report’s final conclusions. an interdisciplinary approach to research that allows for flexibility is recommended to contribute to the historical inquiry of discipline-specific histories. acknowledgements this article is based on the authors’ works entitled ‘a historical perspective on the professional development of black south african nurses: 1908–1994’ and ‘the influence of nursing organisations on the development of the nursing profession in south africa: 1914–2014’. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions g.h.r and j.m.e contributed equally to this work. ethical considerations an important influencing factor (consideration) was that the main topic of interest was identified in the proposal phase of the research and approved by the health studies research ethics committee (rec-012714-039). the topic of historical interest was therefore unalterable during the subsequent data collection and analysis phases. an interim title directed the review of historical literature and the questions asked, which led to sub-areas of interest being identified and subsequent crystallisation. after crystallisation was reached, the historical narrative was written, and the research title was finalised. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. the second author was granted a study bursary. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references esterhuizen jm, van rensburg gh, tjallinks je. a historical perspective on the professional development of black south african nurses: 1908–1994. afr j nurs midwif. 2013;15(2):16–29. esterhuizen jm, van rensburg gh. the influence of nursing organisations on the development of the nursing profession in south africa. int j afr nurs sci. 2021;14:100290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2021.100290 francis k. historical research. in: taylor b, francis k, editors. qualitative research in the health sciences: methodologies, methods and processes. new york, ny: google books, 2013; p. 57–64. lewenson sb. doing historical research. in: lewenson sb, hermann ek, editors. capturing nursing history. new york, ny: springer, 2008; p. 25–44. streubert hj, rinaldi carpenter d. qualitative research in nursing. philadelphia, pa: jb lippincott company; 1995. schiller cj. critical realism in nursing: an emerging 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lonergan b. introducing the thought of bernard lonergan. london: darton, longman and todd; 1973. benton t. critical realism. in: lewis-beck ms, bryman a, futing liao t, editors. the sage encyclopaedia of social science research methods. thousand oaks, ca: sage; 2011; p. 222–223. elger t. critical realism. in: mills aj, durepos g, wiebe e, editors. encyclopaedia of case study research. thousand oaks, ca: sage, 2012; p. 254–257. lincoln ys, guba eg. naturalistic inquiry. newbury park: sage; 1985. polit df, beck ct. essentials of nursing research. philadelphia, pa: wolters kluwer/lippincott williams and wilkins; 2014. fealy g, kelly j, watson r. legitimacy in legacy: a discussion paper of historical scholarship published in the journal of advanced nursing, 1976–2011. j adv nurs. 2013;69(8): 1881–1894. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.12048 lewenson sb, mcallister a. learning the historical method: step by step. in: de chesnay m, editor. nursing research using historical methods. new york, ny: springer, 2015; p. 1–22. barroso j. qualitative approaches to research. in: labiondo-wood g, haber j, editors. nursing research: methods and critical appraisal for evidence-based practice. st. louis, mo: mosby elsevier, 2010; p. 114–115. taylor b, francis k. qualitative research in the health sciences: methodologies, methods and processes. google books: new york, ny; 2013. d’antonio p. conceptual and methodological issues in historical research. in: lewenson sb, hermann ek, editors. capturing nursing history. new york, ny: springer, 2008; p. 11–24. abstract introduction literature review and background of the study methodology results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) carina america department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, cape town, south africa lara skelly university of stellenbosch business school, stellenbosch university, cape town, south africa citation america c, skelly l. exploring the scope of and gaps in the teaching and learning of business studies at school and teacher education levels. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1040. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1040 original research exploring the scope of and gaps in the teaching and learning of business studies at school and teacher education levels carina america, lara skelly received: 13 mar. 2021; accepted: 27 may 2021; published: 22 july 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the relevance of business studies education (bse) at school and in higher education is undisputed, given the rising levels of youth unemployment and the need for an appropriate skill set for potential entrepreneurs. although a relatively large corpus of general business education literature is available, the same does not necessarily apply to published research related specifically to business studies teaching and learning at school and in teacher education. the aim of this research was to explore the scope, similarities, differences and potential gaps in the teaching and learning of business studies within school and teacher education contexts. a meta-study methodology was applied in this study to provide a comprehensive review and synthesis of peer-reviewed research publications in business studies education. an overview of the challenges facing bse within the south african context is provided. a framework encompassing situational, pedagogical, practical and disciplinary knowledge areas guided the analytical overview to underscore the limitations and particular points of focus of current and past research. in addition, the meta-study set out to establish the scope, similarities and differences of promising areas for future research. findings suggest that bse research remains limited, entrepreneurship is an important focus for research and that not enough research has been conducted about situational knowledge. recommendations include the need to analyse the complexities of teacher education and training, to investigate and critique the theoretical foundations of business studies education and to evaluate the shifts in school curriculum policy, development and design. keywords: business studies; teacher education; meta-study; content knowledge; situational knowledge; practical knowledge; pedagogical knowledge. introduction business education at school level (sl) is often geared towards the acquisition of knowledge and skills for potential employability, enterprise capability and responsible citizenship.1 learners make career and prospective study choices based on the subjects they study at sl, signalling the crucial role an education system plays.2,3 business studies is an ideal school subject that could help prepare young people to make sense of the fast-paced business and technological advancements in the world of work. however, the subject is facing some challenges, such as its perceived low status in comparison to other established subjects1 and the limited research conducted in the field within the contexts of school and teacher education (te). quite a large corpus of general business education literature is available, but it is difficult to establish the scope of research on business studies education (bse). business studies education refers to the teaching and learning of business knowledge at sl and in te. the question arises as follows: how can bse best practices based on existing literature provide guidance to business teacher educators, practitioners and researchers? of greater concern is that the depth and breadth of the research undertaken on bse in south africa are relatively unknown. the aim of this article was to examine the similarities and differences in existing research studies to identify the knowledge gaps in the literature on business studies teaching and learning. identifying these gaps could be a catalyst to develop practice and research guidelines for the future. business studies is regarded as a theoretical subject because it has a well-established body of content knowledge. the subject matter content knowledge is what young et al.4 refer to as powerful (specialised) knowledge, which is reliable, and which should be prioritised in the curriculum. the acquisition of powerful knowledge presents an opportunity for learners to excel beyond their everyday lives. hordern5 advises that the pedagogical challenge is to make powerful knowledge relevant to all learners from all backgrounds. business studies also incorporates a vocational component because it is perceived as a preparation for employment in business, although this view is less prevalent in south africa. in some instances, pedagogical shifts are needed, which entail adjusting to the context and the diversity of learners where learning takes place. the teaching and learning process therefore requires a combination of knowledge areas, such as discipline-specific knowledge, knowledge about pedagogy and the curriculum, knowledge about the learners and their context and practical knowledge. these four knowledge areas are included in the minimum requirements for teacher education qualification (mrteq) as important learning areas for te, which are then cascaded down to the school context.6 these knowledge areas consequently underpin the thematic analysis in this meta-study. this article presents the findings from a meta-study of the scope of research conducted in bse from 1994 to 2015 as it relates to pre-service and in-service teaching and learning in south africa. pre-service teaching and learning refer to the te context and in-service refers to the school context where teaching and learning take place. literature review and background of the study business education was founded based on its relevance to the business world and its usefulness to students in terms of its real-life application.7 business knowledge not only became increasingly important as corporations competed in the global arena, but also became important in the handling of personal finances and making informed decisions as consumers. fierce competitiveness led to the adoption of an underlying principle that business curricula should be developed based on what employers (businesses) wanted, and to a lesser degree on what is beneficial for society or the environment. stronach8 argues that the business education curricula rarely show educational relevance in terms of its teaching and (vocational) learning. instead, it generally has a focus on instrumentality within a particular economic model or paradigm. there has been ongoing critique of the value of business education and the trends and limitations of research conducted in the field. whilst the value of business knowledge at sl is acknowledged,1,2,3 the research conducted in school and te contexts remains inadequate. business education within a south african school context includes subjects such as economic and management sciences (grades 7–9) and business studies, economics and accounting in the further education and training (fet) phase (grades 10–12). business studies therefore takes place at high school and te institutions, with the focus on the teaching and learning of the theory and practice, and of business principles that, for example, underpin the development of entrepreneurial initiatives, sustainable enterprises and economic growth.9 according to the curriculum assessment and policy statement (caps)9 for business studies in the fet phase, the subject ‘deals with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values critical for informed, productive, ethical and responsible participation in the formal and informal economic sectors’ (p. 8). since 1994, there were several curriculum restructuring processes to address the ills of an unequal apartheid education system. in the south african context, we refer to a learner as someone who is enrolled at a school and a student who is enrolled at a higher education institution – this distinction is adhered to in this article. with the inception of caps in 2012, an increased level of rigour and critical understanding of the subject matter was required from a learner and student-teacher perspective.10 moreover, a change in pedagogical content knowledge was required to reflect changing contexts and practices. business studies knowledge is mostly theoretical; however, an active learning pedagogy is almost imperative to heighten social responsibility, ‘real-world’ relevance and the acquisition of an adaptable skill set for a fast-changing (technological) business environment.11 alsagheer et al.12 are of the view that bse is not as widespread globally and does not get so much attention in the literature. america and le grange13 also point out that there has been limited research on the training of business education teachers at higher education levels. they argue that because te is a field that functions at the interface of higher education and schooling, the complexity and context of the school system (in)directly affect te programmes. we discuss some of these complexities briefly here. firstly, business education curriculum policies are often devoid of any substantive philosophical grounding.7 besides, any semblance of the underlying philosophy of business education is usually justified based on the functional needs of the business and the ultimate vision of economic growth for the country. fisher7 argues that the conceptual basis and theoretical framework of business education do not essentially rely on the educative value of the development of the person who studies business phenomena. furthermore, a curriculum is generally the mouthpiece of a government’s sociopolitical and economic goals; therefore, teaching and learning are normally aligned to such goals. maistry et al.14 are of the opinion that business education has shown an ideological bias, which is couched within a predominant neoclassical economic world view that is mostly unrelated to local (south) african realities. moreover, bse is underpinned by a predominant theory of productivity and competitiveness and does not really reflect a theoretical basis that integrates educational theories. critical reflection why production takes place and how it affects the various stakeholders (including society)8 are still relevant today and, as purported by america,15,16 are particularly appropriate in bse at sl. yet, there is limited research on pedagogy and critical reflexive teaching in bse. secondly, the bse curriculum has four main topics that encompass the subject matter knowledge: business environments, business operations, business roles and business ventures. these topics are linked to the comprehension and critical thinking on specific business activities, learning objectives and teaching strategies. four broad types of knowledge as stipulated in mrteq are relevant to this research because they are applicable to pre-service teaching (student-teachers). moreover, they are also relevant to in-service teachers (practising teachers), who are in continuous interaction with the four types of knowledge: disciplinary knowledge: disciplinary or subject matter knowledge situational knowledge: situations, contexts, environments of education practical knowledge: teaching practice pedagogical knowledge: how to teach – curriculum, assessment, learners.6 the inter-relatedness of the four themes is particularly evident in the acquisition of specialised knowledge (disciplinary or content knowledge) as argued by rusznyak,17 which young et al.4 referred to as powerful knowledge or reliable knowledge. young et al.4 aver that powerful knowledge resides within a formal structure where specialised knowledge is not acquired or produced informally or forms part of people’s everyday lives. these formal structures include schools and universities where specialised knowledge communities exist with rules, concepts and boundaries. however, not much has been reported on powerful knowledge in bse curricula, or the locus of concepts within the knowledge structures of the subject. thirdly, the pedagogical challenge is to make subject matter content knowledge relevant to students from diverse backgrounds, as stated by hordern.5 pedagogical approaches and the selection of resource material are pivotal to make the subject content relevant to students. maistry et al.14 argue that the dominant resources for bse have been adopted from a western and/or eurocentric world view in which perceptions revolve around a male, white and liberal view of reality. fisher7 also claims that the challenge for bse research on pedagogy is that limited research has been undertaken on the theory–practice relationship and the development of skills to create a viable theory-in-practice or praxis. fourthly, the lack of status and value in business education, as claimed by alsagheer et al.,12 has increasingly been questioned, not only for the attainment of exit-level outcomes, but also for how it is perceived as a field of study. this apparent lack of status emanates from the comparison of science and mathematics competencies as scarce skills. in undergraduate programmes at many education faculties, business education is an elective. america15 avers that not many students choose it as their area of specialisation, because they are more likely to get a student bursary from the government if they choose science or mathematics. moreover, researchers have pointed to a growing gap between the skills needed in the business world and what is being taught in higher education institutions.12,18 fifthly, according to brant et al.,1 the academic versus vocational divide influences curriculum development and the credibility of business studies as an academic subject. business studies is often criticised as being insufficiently practical as vocational preparation, implied as the vocational or theoretical dichotomy. the complexity of the educational system and the over-reliance on summative assessment for the curriculum outcomes have an impact on the resources needed for practical learning. the school environment is often criticised for the vocation or theory dichotomy in overstressing academic content at the expense of students gaining practical experience. in te, the practice teaching component forms an integral part of their training. in the case of business education, real-world relevance is more important than ever.11,16,19 bse teachers, with the support of the school management, can create awareness and encourage enterprising behaviour, creativity, skills and competency development.2,20,21,22 unfortunately, not enough research has been conducted on enterprise and business education for initial te.23 the above concerns informed the scope and conceptual framework of this research, which encompasses the four key knowledge areas that focus on subject matter, context (situational), pedagogy and the practical aspects of the teaching and learning process. methodology a meta-study is applied to interpret and systematically review primary research to reveal the similarities and differences across a range of different studies.24 a meta-study is different from a traditional literature review in that it is conducted in a methodical (or systematic) and unbiased manner, according to a pre-specified protocol.25 of specific interest in this case was the scope of peer-reviewed research publications about bse in south africa between 1994 and 2015 according to four themes: situational knowledge, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and practical knowledge. these four themes broadly cover the key aspects identified in the literature review on the challenges in bse within the south african context. the analysis process of this meta-study starts with the identification of studies that comply with the pre-specified protocol, followed by the (re)interpretation according to the four themes identified, after which the data are appraised and key findings are summarised. in addition, the reasons for the different results across studies and limitations of current knowledge are presented.26 booth27 is of the view that the results of such a systematic review could lead to the development of new knowledge, a synthesis or interpretative conversion of the new knowledge. we reviewed the protocols employed by dempster,25 khan et al.28 and moher et al.29 for the purposes of this research, the inclusion criteria were the following: all studies must be conducted on south africa. journal article publications that were peer reviewed and published between 1994 and 2015: must be accessible to the researchers should include research in bse or bse combined with other school subjects should focus on practices or aspects (pedagogy, resources, content, curriculum, philosophy, etc.) related to in-service (school-based) and pre-service teaching and learning (te). these inclusion criteria formed the basis for the keywords that were used. each of these keywords was linked with ‘south africa and with advanced search items ‘teach*’ and ‘school*’. the numbers in brackets reveal the number of initial search items for all the databases: business education = 4450 business studies education = 5065 business teacher* = 3057 business studies teacher* = 2859. figure 129 shows a flow diagram of the different screening stages. the reason why the initial search was so high (15 431) is because ‘business’ and ‘school’ also appeared as ‘business school’ referring in most cases to research related to courses such as a master in business administration offered at a business school. with the assistance of the university’s librarian, the databases included in this research were scopus, ebsco (the ebsco collections included academic search premier, africa-wide information, business source premier, masterfile premier and teacher reference center), emerald, nexus and saepublications. figure 1: summary of screening stages.29 the next step was to remove all the duplicates, search for title and content relevance of the abstracts, which produced a total of 57 articles. we then screened the articles for relevance at the full-text level, and in the process 44 were excluded, thus leaving us with 13 articles. however, three articles had a (negligible) mention of the teaching of business studies, which were therefore excluded, leaving a final number of 10 articles for the study. the predominant focus of the excluded three articles was on societal impact factors in general. mendeley and excel were used as tools to organise and code the results. mendeley, specifically, was chosen for its suitability for working with published literature (as opposed to a tool such as atlasti, which is more generic) as well as for its collaborative functionality. all decisions used in compiling the information were explicit, reducing potential bias and ensuring the quality of the review process. the 10 documents included were coded at the first level into two main categories: (1) te, which included articles about pre-service student-teachers doing business studies as a specialisation subject, which reflect research conducted within but not exclusive to an education faculty; and (2) research related to sl business studies and in-service teacher development. the articles about business management undergraduate courses and academic performance or academic development were removed from the final data set, unless they dealt with te and business studies at sl. the aim of this meta-study was to give an overview of the focal points of the publications to establish the trends and future directions for bse in south africa. the final 10 articles had been published in six journals. dissertations are excluded, as many could not be sourced full text. table 1 summarises the analysis, followed by a discussion based on, and in some instances a combination of, the aspects of disciplinary, situational, practical and pedagogical knowledge. table 1: summary of results: business studies education.17,24 table 1 highlights the various gaps in the respective themes. the structure of the table was adapted from the outline used in the research of rusznyak17 and minnaar24 and focused attention on the sub-themes within the four broad types of knowledge. results and discussion the gaps in bse disciplinary knowledge relate to its theoretical foundations based on philosophy, psychology, politics, sociology, historical perspectives, professional ethics and relationships and the economics of education. many of these gaps signify the need for bse to be conceptualised at a much broader socio-economic and even political level. these are areas for research which could foster a developmental and transformative way of thinking about bse. another limitation is reflective practice inquiries, such as self-study methodology. self-study broadly refers to a study based on a teacher educator’s reflection of his or her own practice, experience and action for reflection and has become more prevalent since the 1990s.38 using a self-study methodology could be an appropriate avenue to explore ethical and moral issues in bse.39 the gaps in terms of pedagogy reflect issues of inclusivity and curriculum inquiry.13 america and le grange13 claim that teacher educators of bse are often criticised for not being critical enough about the formal curriculum to mediate learning that raises questions about the conduct and decision-making of corporate businesses. moreover, this gap could also sensitise researchers towards the decolonisation of the bse curriculum, because there is a silence in the selected articles in this regard. for example, an important resource in bse is business case studies, which are mostly written from a western and/or eurocentric world view with a neoclassical ideological bias mostly devoid of local (south) african realities. over the years, business studies educators became dependent on these knowledge systems, epistemological traditions and curriculum materials. in all the articles, only the specific focus on business studies was considered and the scope of the analysis was confined to the following four themes discussed as the conceptual framework earlier: disciplinary, situational, practical and pedagogical knowledge. disciplinary knowledge entrepreneurship is highlighted in the research by gouws et al.30 and meintjies et al.3 as important content within the school context. they apply intervention strategies to reinforce the relevance of entrepreneurship in bse through powerful knowledge and key threshold concepts integrated with the vocational element. burger et al.31 examined the impact of the business-related knowledge (formal and informal) of grade 12 learners on their entrepreneurial attitudes. formal education here referred to business-related education at sl. informal education referred to their practical experiences and skills acquired because of part-time work in business environments as well as previous exposure to entrepreneurial role models. they present the findings of learners who have either economics, business studies and/or accounting as school subjects as well as a non-curriculum subject, entrepreneurship. isaacs et al.32 assessed the levels of entrepreneurship education at the fet level by looking at policy, practice and the context within entrepreneurship education. they argue for education for entrepreneurship as opposed to education about entrepreneurship. they found that there is a need for schools to specialise in entrepreneurship education and training, for opportunities to be created and for resources made available to stimulate and facilitate such initiatives.15 pedagogical knowledge pedagogical content knowledge refers to knowledge about the curriculum and pedagogy. how to teach aspects of the curriculum, learners and/or assessment form part of this category. meintjies et al.3 presented practical exposure in a simulated business environment through active learning. their goal was to enrich the curriculum through the enhancement of entrepreneurial competencies and to develop problem-solving capabilities. gouws and russell30 proposed shifts in the curriculum from the outcomes-based assessment of learning to assessment for learning by means of a 3-year project-based practical intervention for grade 12 learners. their first project was based on selecting and designing appropriate teaching resources and the second one was a project on environmentalism and sustainable consumerism. apart from the learners’ involvement in addressing real social problems as part of their project, the business studies teacher, who was the project mentor, was also interviewed. the authors’30 proposition is for learners to develop the skills to do research and to have proper scientific research principles as part of the curriculum, whilst students are addressing the real social problems as part of the project. textbooks are key teaching and learning resources, which should transmit and control knowledge within the boundaries and values of the constitution. however, not all textbooks comply with these values, as seen in the way that maistry et al.35 explored the gendered characteristics in their analysis of two business studies textbooks. if teachers use this textbook uncritically, it may reinforce the specific values and ideologies of the authors or serve as a mouthpiece for a specific political allegiance. their findings suggest that textbooks continue to reinforce gender bias. the suggestion is that curriculum material in schools should be selected carefully to ensure that gender equality is included in resources. in the context of accounting at sl, ngwenya et al.40 cautioned that teachers must be circumspect about in their use of and over-reliance on textbooks, even though textbooks play a pivotal role in providing structure, support and guidance to the learners. insights into the views of teachers of business education (including accounting, economics and business studies) on the adoption of information and communication technology (ict) in the classroom are put forward by govender et al.36 they argued that because of the ubiquitous nature of technology initiatives across the world, the perceived usefulness and relative advantage for ict pedagogy must be considered. whilst bse teachers are, in general, positive about the compatibility of ict with their current teaching practices, they also cautioned that time constraints and facilitating conditions are not always conducive to such innovativeness. as discussed by mtshali et al.,37 business studies student-teachers’ experience of and reaction to the use of online chats as part of the course offering enables students to comment on new work as they progress with curriculum content. this means that collaboration is enhanced as they share curriculum content and their views. north34 provided an account of curriculum renewal leading up to the implementation of curriculum 2005 and beyond where learners, teachers and the private sector were engaged in entrepreneurial programmes.15 findings suggest that by introducing deliberate and consistent practices, students can become critically aware of and confident in interrogating disciplinary content in business. practical knowledge this theme focuses on the practical aspect of teacher training and professional development for in-service teachers. north34 provided a comprehensive background to the introduction of entrepreneurship education and the training of teachers in entrepreneurship programmes in schools during a curriculum renewal process in 1994 and later as part of curriculum 2005. the research focused on the entrepreneurship initiatives that were undertaken by role-players in the private sector and curriculum developers. situational knowledge as argued by kroon et al.,33 the role and perceptions of business people and entrepreneurial learnership programmes at schools have increased the skills requirements of the workplace drastically and this may have outstripped the education system’s capacity to provide the needed skills effectively. they found that most business employers do not believe that schools provide the necessary skills needed for the business world. to address this skills gap, they recommend a structured youth entrepreneurial learnership programme at sl. north34 gives an account of entrepreneurship initiatives by various role-players in the private sector and education sectors. he describes the historical background of entrepreneurship education, informal training of in-service teachers and the perspectives of learners about the relevance of entrepreneurship education in the school curriculum. the above discussion illustrates the current scope of bse research as well as the gaps in the literature. mostly qualitative studies were conducted with interviews and observations as data collection methods. gouws et al.30 used a case study design to gain greater insight into the dynamics of assessment for learning. maistry et al.35 applied critical discourse analyses to evaluate the textbooks through open coding, analysing sentences, phrases and words focusing on the insinuations, tone and the language that imply power relations. isaacs et al.32 used telephonic interviews consisting of questions related to the state, challenges and opportunities for improvement of entrepreneurship education at schools. mtshali et al.37 preferred personal reflective journals, focus group discussions, individual interviews and a quantitative component by means of a questionnaire. they applied a phenomenological approach to unveil what the student-teachers’ experiences of learning are by using online chats to serve as knowledge repositories that can enhance greater student engagement with learning.15 quantitative approaches by govender et al.,36 burger et al.31 and kroon et al.33 were applied by means of question-based scenarios using descriptive and exploratory approaches to analyse the data. as with most research, this research has also some limitations. even though we used a wide selection of databases, and with the assistance of the research librarian, there is a possibility that some publications could not be ‘picked up’ by the searches. another limitation is that a specific time frame had to be established beforehand to allow enough time for the searches, cross-checking, organising and analysis of the data. there may have been other publications after 2015 which could have addressed some of the gaps identified. we acknowledge that different criteria could have led to different conclusions; however, we deemed the four knowledge factors we applied, namely, disciplinary, situational, practical and pedagogical knowledge, as most appropriate for our objectives. we also localised the research only to a south african context, which may not be generalisable to other contexts. more research is needed to identify other challenges within the school and te context for business studies. conclusion the relevance of bse in school curriculum is undisputed, yet this review shows that there are gaps in the scope of research conducted on bse from 1994 to 2015. the gaps that need to be addressed include the need for disciplinary knowledge to be evaluated much more broadly, for example, the philosophical foundations, socio-economic and political imperatives within the discipline, a historical overview and ethical and professional relationships. there is also a gap in terms of reflective practices when it comes to practical knowledge. in pedagogy, the gaps had to do with issues of inclusivity and curriculum inquiry. entrepreneurship appears to be a common and important focal point in the research under the disciplinary knowledge theme, all four studies were conducted at sl. this clearly reflects the importance that researchers attach to cultivating entrepreneurial knowledge and skills from a young age and even to the need for gaining practical experience and exposure as part of curriculum outcomes. other similarities emerged about situational knowledge and the school environment about the linkages between the education system, private sector requirements and informal sector skills requirements. most of the research conducted on pedagogical knowledge was at the sl, with most studies focusing on how learning takes place, alternative forms, teaching resources and (e-)learning interventions. this meta-study devoted attention to content knowledge, situational knowledge, practical knowledge and pedagogical knowledge within a te and an sl context. the upshot of this synthesis is the identification of promising areas for new research initiatives and continuous contestation of bse knowledge through publication output. the following are some of the areas of research that could be further explored. firstly, the apartheid legacy still has repercussions in the socio-economic environment in which the learners (and teachers) find themselves, such as poverty and inequality, high unemployment, child-headed households, crime and illiteracy amongst parents – all of which have a negative impact on the south african school system. a developmental and transformative conceptualisation of bse within the current educational landscape could be therefore explored. secondly, self-study methodology is gaining traction in te research. as part of the practical knowledge theme, self-study inquiry could be encouraged in bse to promote reflective practice. thirdly, te and training (in)directly impact the school system. more research is needed to encourage critical thinking at the te level, for example, to encourage in-service teachers to critique curriculum policy, be circumspect about their selection of teaching and learning resources and to develop sensitivities to curriculum debates such the decolonisation of the curriculum. another aspect for further research is the philosophical grounding of bse disciplinary knowledge, the needs of society and the shifts in curriculum policy, development and design. acknowledgements the financial assistance of the national research foundation (nrf) towards this research is greatly acknowledged. opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the authors and need not necessarily be attributed to the nrf. competing interest the authors declare that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions c.a. conceptualised the study, analysed the data and wrote the first draft. l.s. outlined and researched the methodology and facilitated critical review. both authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research. funding information funding for this study was granted by the national research 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security, national, provincial, local government, municipalities, intensity of relations, parliament, legislatures. disciplines: public management, political science, law, history. introduction the post-1994 government of south africa introduced transformative measures in compliance with the constitutional democratic values and principles necessary to, among others, ensure effective and efficient governmental relations and decentralised service delivery. this research article, therefore, explores whether powers, functions, and responsibilities transferred from the national sphere of * prof. ernest ababio is subject group heads for public management and governance at north-west university’s vanderbijlpark campus. dr tamsanqa edgar tengeni has a phd in public management and governance from the north-west university. he has been in municipal management for years as municipal manager, and is currently a chief director at free state provincial department of public safety, security and community liaison in bloemfontein. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 419-430. 420 government to the provincial and local units and the public are adequate to promote effective, efficient, and equitable safety and security service delivery. governmental relations as conceptual framework are used to analyse the relations that exist among authorities in national, provincial, and local spheres of government and with communities. the analysis exposes gaps in legislation that reduce efficiency and effectiveness of safety and security service delivery in provincial and local spheres of government. the article therefore makes a contribution to the ‘scarce’ body of knowledge in governmental relations. conceptualisation of governmental relations governmental relations, though not a new concept in public administration, are being tested in practice in democratic south africa as a result of a relatively complex constitution of the republic of south africa act (act 108 of 1996) (hereafter referred to as the 1996 constitution) that creates spheres of government. van niekerk (2002:89) defines governmental relations as “… the regulations controlling orderly relations between individuals in power, government institutions and departments; as well as between governments on various levels with the aim to facilitate co-operation, co-ordination and decision-making”. according to hattingh (1998:19), governmental relations occurring within the geographic boundaries of a state are classified into three major categories, namely, intergovernmental relations, intragovernmental relations, and extragovernmental relations. intergovernmental relations refer to the mutual relations between governmental institutions; intragovernmental relations” refer to official relations within an institution; and, as pointed out by thornhill et al (in kanyane & nazo 2008:139), the concept refers to relations among different governments.. in adition, there is extragovernmental relations which refer to relations between government institutions and members of the public (hattingh 1998:23-30). the discussion below focuses on how the decentralisation of powers and responsibilities from national to sub-national units influences governmental accountability and oversight between and among government bodies, on the one hand, and between government bodies and the public, on the other. accountability and oversight in safety and security the 1996 constitution establishes that accountability (which, according to schneider and moore (2003:13), is the intended outcome of oversight) is one of the core founding values of the democratic system. margue et al. (1995:164) state that if basic democracy is to be achieved, then the directors of state agencies must be accountable to outside bodies for the running of their departments. ababio and tengeni 421 in their view, accountability includes providing satisfactory answers to questions about the use of funds and the implementation of policies required by the legislature. public accountability involves what tengeni (2005:160) calls intra-governmental accountability, a process that is hierarchical and which flows from one who confers responsibility to one who executes it. the agents of accountability from whom authority relationships are derived include: legislators, elected chief executives, the courts and the general public (kakumba & fourie 2007:653) the object of accountability is thus to ensure that the actions by the authority charged with the implementation of policy (such as the police service) are congruent with the values and priorities of the body to which it is accountable. “accountability” connotes answerability of officials to a designated official or public (schneider and moore 2003:14), and “oversight” refers to the monitoring and reviewing of actions of the executive organs of government (cordner 1999:2). 3.1 intergovernmental accountability and oversight the basis of intergovernmental accountability and oversight in south africa is the 1996 constitution, which states that: � in the republic, government is constituted as national, provincial, and local spheres of government, which are distinctive, interdependent, and interrelated (section 40(1) of the 1996 constitution); � all spheres of government are enjoined to “exercise their powers and perform their functions in a manner that does not encroach on the geographical, functional or institutional integrity of government in another sphere” (section 41(1) of the 1996 constitution); � south africa consists of a single police service (section 199(1) of the 1996 constitution); and � the national police service must be “structured to function in the national, provincial and, where appropriate, local spheres of government” (section 205(1) of the 1996 constitution). although there are functional areas of “concurrent” and “exclusive” competence (schedule a and schedule b of the 1996 constitution) among spheres of government, overriding powers of safety and security are reserved for the national sphere of government. for instance, parliament is empowered to legislate on “any matter”, including a list of broad concurrent powers spelled out in schedule 4 of the 1996 constitution (section 44(1) of the 1996 constitution) such as policing to the extent that the provisions of chapter 11 of the 1996 constitution confer on the provincial legislatures’ legislative competence. schedule 5 (of the 1996 constitution) lists areas of exclusive provincial legislative competence. however, parliament also has the td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 419-430. decentralisation of safety and security 422 power to legislate in exclusive areas of provincial jurisdiction if it is deemed necessary, for example, to “maintain national security” (section 44(2) of the 1996 constitution). lastly, the national executive may intervene when the provincial sphere of government cannot or does not fulfil an executive obligation in terms of the 1996 constitution or legislation (section 100(1) of the 1996 constitution). 3.2 intragovernmental accountability and oversight in the national sphere, the hierarchical structure for intragovernmental accountability and oversight consists of parliament, cabinet ministers, and national government departments; and at the provincial level, it is that of the provincial legislature, executive council, and provincial government departments; while in the local sphere of government, it is the municipal council, mayoral committee/executive and councillors, and municipal departments. furthermore, the 1996 constitution merely provides general guidelines for the creation of internal oversight bodies; structures within these bodies are allowed a considerable degree of discretion to establish additional internal bodies (for example, committees) to optimise oversight over safety and security service delivery. national sphere of government (a) parliamentary portfolio committees for safety and security relations between parliament and security-related institutions are of vertical intergovernmental. chapter 4 of the 1996 constitution states that the national assembly of parliament has legislative powers and oversight over the exercise of national executive authority, including the implementation of safety and security legislation. this oversight role is usually manifested through the parliamentary portfolio committees (including the portfolio committee on safety and security). portfolio committees are key mechanisms provided for in the constitution to assist parliament in fulfilling its oversight and accountability functions. these committees monitor and review the actions of the different departments of government (including the national and provincial departments of safety and security) and are also charged with holding officials and their ministers accountable (the minister and head of department (hod) of safety and security). the portfolio committee for safety and security has an oversight role over the executive organ, namely, the mec, hod as the administrative head of the department of safety and security, and the provincial police commissioner. the oversight role of parliamentary portfolio committees is not without challenges. firstly, the difficulty in monitoring policy against implementation is that policies (or mandates) for which government departments (such as the department of safety and security) are called ababio and tengeni 423 to account may be vague and complex in character and capable of many interpretations. secondly, corder et al. (1999:14) state that the south african parliamentary system of government does not give full expression to the notion of separation of powers because of the close relationship between the executive and legislature. the ruling party elects the executive from its leadership and may, therefore, be reluctant to call its leadership to rigorous accounting. further, in terms of the electoral system of proportional representation, members of parliament hold and retain their seats on the basis of membership of their political party. members of the ruling party may, therefore, be reluctant to hold the executive accountable for fear of being perceived as disloyal and risking expulsion. thirdly, portfolio committee decisions are influenced by partypolitical concerns. government policy is, of course, ultimately in the hands of ministers and members of parliament, whose interests usually lie not in the detail of the particular regime (such as the safety and security regime), but with broader questions of public safety. at the broader level, the issues of accountability and oversight are overshadowed by party politics. the parliamentary portfolio committee dominated by one political party may decide to interrogate an issue or not, depending on its party policy. (b) national (and provincial) secretariat for safety and security the 1995 saps act provides for the establishment of the national and provincial secretariats, chiefly to promote civilian oversight over safety and security service delivery by the police by: · performing functions necessary or expedient (in view of the minister/mec) to ensure civilian oversight of the police; · promoting democratic accountability and transparency in the police service; · promoting and facilitating the participation of the saps in the government’s reconstruction and development programme (rdp); · monitoring the implementation of ministerial policy (in so far as this may apply to provincial policy, provincial secretariats would be required to monitor police adherence to provincial government policy) and directions by the police service and reporting to the minister/mec on this; · conducting research into any policy matter instructed by the minister/mec; and · evaluating the functioning of the police service and reporting to the minister/mec. adamolekun (2002:377) states that in order to be effective, a police oversight structure, especially in africa, must be: td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 419-430. decentralisation of safety and security 424 · independent from presidential, ministerial, and police manipulation. in addition, leaders of the oversight organisation must themselves exhibit the virtues of independence of action, subject to the rule of law, effectiveness and efficiency, fairness, self-restraint, and incorruptibility, especially in relation to the police, government officials, and members of the public; · adequately and timeously funded; · in full and constant liaison with appropriate civil society organisations in order to gain their confidence, support, and as a mechanism of voluntary submission to public accountability; · sufficiently empowered to exercise and perform oversight powers and functions effectively and efficiently. in other words, it should have relatively comprehensive mandates covering police operations, discipline, and conduct as well as legal powers to make it an effective mechanism of reward for good police officers and commanders and dispenser of punishment for bad policemen and women. furthermore, it should vigorously protect the rights of police officers from abuse by their superiors and commanders and thereby gain the support of the police, including encouraging whistle-blowing; · sensitive and promptly responsive to complaints; and competent in research, monitoring, and evaluation to determine police performance and conduct. one of the critical shortcomings of the national and provincial secretariats for safety and security is their lack of independence. the national/provincial secretariat for safety and security reports to the minister/member of the executive council (mec) for safety and security, and such formal reports rarely find their way into the public domain. furthermore, senior public servants from the national or provincial secretariat are obliged to go through the minister or mec as a channel to parliament or the provincial legislature or its portfolio committees for safety and security. (c) independent complaints directorate (icd) intensity of vertical intergovernmental relations governs in the icd. the independent complaints directorate (icd), as a national oversight structure with a presence in all nine provinces, came into operation in april 1997. it is independent from the saps and reports directly to the minister. section 222 of the 1993 interim constitution (act 200 of 1993) (hereafter referred to as the 1993 interim constitution) provided for the establishment of an independent mechanism under civilian control, with the objective of ensuring that complaints in respect of offences and misconduct allegedly committed by members of the saps are investigated in an effective and efficient manner. section 53(2) of the 1995 saps act stipulates that the icd may, on ababio and tengeni 425 receipt of a complaint, investigate any misconduct or offence allegedly committed by a member, may, where appropriate, refer such investigation to the commissioner concerned, shall, on receipt of a complaint, investigate any death in police custody or as a result of police action, and may investigate any matter referred to the directorate by the minister or mec. extra-governmental relations, that is, interaction between security institutions and the community, are regulated by legislation. section 18 of the 1998 domestic violence act (act no. 116 of 1998) (hereafter referred to as the 1998 domestic violence act) stipulates that failure by a member of the saps to comply with an obligation imposed in terms of this act or the national instructions referred to in subsection (3) constitutes misconduct as contemplated in the 1995 saps act, and the icd, established in terms of this act, must forthwith be informed of any such failure reported to the saps. unless the icd directs otherwise in any specific case, the saps must institute disciplinary proceedings against any member who allegedly failed to comply with an obligation. the icd must, every six months, submit a report to parliament regarding the number and particulars of matters reported to it in terms of subsection (4)(a) of the 1995 saps act and set out the recommendations made in respect of such matters. the national commissioner of the saps must, every six months, submit a report regarding steps taken as a result of recommendations made by the icd. in terms of section 64 of the 1995 saps act and annexure 5 of the regulations for municipal police service (mps), the icd has been given the same civilian oversight mandate in respect of the mps as it has in respect of the saps. according to cordner (1999:17), the icd faces the following oversight challenges and limitation: · the saps is under no obligation to report cases of police misconduct to the icd. therefore, that encourages the gross underreporting of cases of police abuse and misconduct. · the saps is not compelled to refer cases of police abuse and misconduct. the icd relies on cases brought to its attention. · the icd only has powers to make recommendations (with the exception of the implementation of the 1998 domestic violence act). it has no powers to compel acceptance or implementation of its recommendations. furthermore, there is no obligation on the saps to give feedback to the icd in relation to disciplinary action. · there is no uniform system or proper record-keeping of complaints by stations and, therefore, no comprehensive picture of the extent of police misconduct. · the relationship and sharing of information between other oversight mechanisms, in particular the secretariats of safety and security, need to be improved. this could be beneficial in terms td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 419-430. decentralisation of safety and security 426 of building the monitoring capacity of oversight mechanisms. · it has been argued that public knowledge of the icd remains limited. furthermore, the provincial offices of the icd are largely situated in urban centres and, therefore, limit access to the broader public. provincial sphere of government executive authority in each province vests in the premier who, together with other members of the executive council, is entrusted with implementing all national legislation within the functional areas listed in schedule 4 (except where the 1996 constitution or an act of parliament provides otherwise). section 4, part a, of the 1996 constitution classifies policing as a functional area of “concurrent national and provincial legislative competence … to the extent that the provisions of chapter 11 of the 1996 constitution confer upon the provincial legislature’s legislative competence”. therefore, each province may approve a constitution or pass legislation regarding a functional area listed in schedule 4, subject to certain processes and provisions. in effect, this means that a provincial legislature may pass legislation with regard to policing that falls within its competency, provided that this does not conflict with national legislation. section 114(2)(a) and (b) of the 1996 constitution states that a provincial legislature must provide for mechanisms to ensure that all provincial executive organs of state are accountable to it and to oversee the exercise of the provincial executive in the province, including the implementation of legislation, and any provincial organ of state. furthermore, the provincial legislature or any of its committees (including the portfolio committee for safety and committee) may summon any person to appear before it to give evidence under oath or affirmation and to produce documents. it may also require any person or provincial institution to report to it and compel any person or institution, in terms of provincial legislation or the rules and orders, to comply with a summons or requirement in terms of paragraph (a) and (b) cited above. in pursuing its oversight functions, the provincial legislature may evoke the extragovernmental relations mechanism. for example, it may receive petitions, representations, or submissions from interested persons or institutions as well (section 115 of the 1996 constitution). the relationship between the provincial legislature and the mec is one of intensity. in addition to requesting the mec for safety and security (as the political head of policing in the province) to answer questions, the legislature also has the power, in terms of section 206(9) of the 1996 constitution, to require the provincial police commissioner to appear before it or the portfolio committee for safety and security to answer questions. this links to the obligation of the provincial commissioner to “report to the provincial legislature ababio and tengeni 427 annually on policing in the province” (section 207(5) of the 1996 constitution). furthermore, the mec is enjoined to provide legislature with full and regular reports concerning all matters under his/her control. according to section 133 of the 1996 constitution, the mec is responsible for carrying out the executive functions assigned to him/her by the premier, and the former is accountable, both collectively and individually, to the provincial legislature for the exercise of his/her powers and functions. the mec is also required to act in accordance with the provisions of the national legislative framework, including the 1996 constitution and the provincial constitution, if one has been passed. however, the current notion of police accountability and oversight over the south african police service is meaningless because the provincial sphere of government (either through the provincial portfolio committee for safety and security or the mec) does not really have direct power and authority over the police service and the delivery of safety and security services in the province. the mec, for instance, does not have the power to sanction, direct, or reward the police service, as these roles are largely held at national level. although safety and security oversight functions and responsibilities are devolved by the national to the provincial sphere of government, such mechanisms tend to be fairly subtle, lengthy, limited, or indirect because the control and management of safety and security service delivery are mainly centralised in the national sphere of government. political authority for the saps vests in the minster of safety and security (section 206(1) of the 1996 constitution), and the national commissioner of the saps (not the mec) is responsible for the control and management of the entire police service (section 207(1) and (2) of the 1996 constitution). local sphere of government the 1996 constitution states that one of the objectives of local government is to promote a safe environment (section 152(1) (d) of the 1996 constitution). the 1996 constitution further provides that there must be a “single” police service in south africa (section 199(1) of the 1996 constitution) and that the saps “must be structured to function in the national, provincial and, where appropriate, local spheres of government” (section 205(1) of the 1996 constitution). furthermore, the 1996 constitution states that national legislation must provide a framework for the establishment, powers, functions, and control of the municipal police service (section 206(7) of the 1996 constitution). the 1998 south african police service amendment act (hereafter referred to as the 1998 saps amendment act) provided the first piece of such legislation. it prescribes that the national minister for safety and security may make regulations regarding the establishment of municipal and metropolitan police services. section 64j of the 1998 saps amendment act provides for a municipal council to establish a td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 419-430. decentralisation of safety and security 428 committee to ensure civilian oversight of the municipal police service. however, a municipal council does not have direct oversight powers over the south african police service (saps), except through the provincial government. for example, the 1998 saps amendment act states that the provincial government must monitor that the saps, through the office of the provincial commissioner, fulfils its responsibilities for scrutiny of, and standard-setting for, municipal policing in the province. although much of the responsibility for standard-setting and monitoring of the new municipal police agencies is that of the provincial police commissioner, the mec and the provincial secretariat for safety and security, through their accountability and oversight functions, will need to ensure that the provincial police commissioner maintains appropriate scrutiny. extragovernmental accountability and oversight extragovernmental accountability and oversight are constitutionally guaranteed, and they take place through the community police forums (cpfs). the 1993 interim constitution made provision for the establishment of community police forums in every police station area and described their role (section 221 of the 1993 interim constitution); and the 1995 saps act outlined the objectives of the cpfs. the cpf is a group of people from the police as well as different sectors and interest groups from the community who meet to discuss crime problems emanating from their communities (jagwanth 1994:7). cpfs are currently seen as more than a vehicle for civilian oversight in local policing; rather, a trend has developed, within and outside the police service, in which community policing is seen as synonymous with the functions of the cpf. in fact, cpfs remain the most visible expression of community policing in south africa (pelser 1999:12). furthermore, the evaluation of community policing is often done through cpfs. the political prerogative informing community policing was one of democratic accountability. however, the policy that guides the implementation of community policing in south africa has, while consistently focusing on the functions of the cpfs, substantially shifted in emphasis. that contributed extensively to the ineffectiveness of cpfs in various localities. for example, the initial emphasis of the cpfs was oversight of the police (as stipulated in the 1993 interim constitution). currently, government policies emphasise liaison, communication, and cooperation (as stated in the 1995 saps act). conclusion and recommendations the article examined the status of governmental relations with ababio and tengeni 429 reference to decentralisation of public safety and security in south africa. the following recommendations are, therefore, made with the purpose of prompting government action to address the aforementioned accountability and oversight shortcomings: � the statutory framework (that is, the 2005 intergovernmental relations framework act) needs to be amended to accommodate the institutionalisation of horizontal intergovernmental relations between and among the provincial departments of community safety. � intergovernmental safety and security sub-committees should be established in the local sphere of government to enhance accountability and oversight in the context of community safety policy. � sufficient powers must be delegated to, and significant effort must be mounted to enhance the capacity of, national, provincial, and local safety and security structures of accountability and oversight to enable them to act effectively on their recommendations (for example, secretariats for safety and security, the independent complaints directorate, and municipal civilian oversight committees). � current national and provincial accountability and oversight structures must be afforded sufficient independence, in terms of their reporting lines and basic resources, from the executive (that is, the minister or member of the executive council for community safety). � the proliferation of accountability and oversight mechanisms and structures, often with unclear and/or overlapping mandates that confuse and retard public participation, must receive immediate government attention. bibliography adamolekun, l. 2002. africa’s evolving career civil service systems: three challenges state continuity, efficiency service delivery and accountability. international review of administrative sciences, vol. 67, no. 3. cordner, g. 1999. community policing: elements & effects, in alpert & piguero, community policing: contemporary readings. illinois: waveland press. hattingh, j.j. 1998. governmental relations: a south african perspective. pretoria: unisa press. td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 419-430. decentralisation of safety and security 430 jagwanth, s. 1994. defining community policing in south africa. south african journal of criminal justice, 7(2). kakumba u and fourie d.j. 2007. revitalizing accountability in public management reform: issues and challenges for developing countries. journal of public administration 42:7 kanyane, m.h. and nazo l. 2008. examining south african intergovernmental relations impact on local government: the case of eastern cape local government portfolio committee oversight role. journal of public administration 43:3.1 margue, k.; vagg, g.; and morgan, f. 1995. the political economy of democratic decentralization. lit verlag, hamburg. pelser, e. 1999. the challenges of community policing in south africa. institute for security studies, occasional paper no. 42, september. republic of south africa. regulations for municipal police service. regulation gazette 8784; government notice no. 1131. pretoria: government press. republic of south africa. interim constitution of the republic of south africa, 1993 (act no. 200 of 1993). pretoria: government press. republic of south africa. the south african police service act, 1995 (act no. 68 of 1995). pretoria: government press. republic of south africa. constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 (act no. 108 of 1996). pretoria: government press. republic of south africa. the south african police service amendment act, 1998 (act no. 83 of 1997). pretoria: government press. republic of south africa. domestic violence act, 1998 (act no. 116 of 1998). pretoria: government press. schneider, a. and moore, m. 2003. measuring pro-poorness: does decentralisation help the poor? id21 research highlight. accessed at www.id21.org. tengeni, p.m. 2005 promoting accountability as a tool of making government stronger and building partnerships and networks. journal of public adminitration. september. van niekerk, d. 2002. governmental relations, in van der waldt, g.; van niekerk, d.; doyle, m.; knipe, a.; and du toit, d. 2002. managing for results in government. johannesburg: heinemann publishers. ababio and tengeni td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, p. 290. boekresensie vredefortkoepel in tyd van oorlogsgeweld ve d’assonville, generaal de wet in die vredefortkoepel, (marnix, pretoria, 2010). isbn: 978-0620-46619-6 prys: onvermeld. pp. 239. sagteband, geïllustreer, bibliografie, register, lys van foto’s en afdrukke. met teksverwysings. d’assonville is ’n afgetrede teoloog en hoogleraar aan die voormalige pu vir cho (tand noordwes universiteit). hy het verskeie teologiese boeke geskryf en is ook die outeur van biografieë, onder andere oor die digter totius en s.j. du toit. die afrikaanse volksgeskiedenis het hy in die boeke bloedrivier, majuba, kruger en rhodes, op die bodem van die vaaldam en eugène marais en die waterberge opgeteken. die skrywer, ’n grondeienaar in die vredefortkoepel, het in hierdie publikasie die herinneringe van generaal christiaan de wet, saam met die verloop van die anglo-boereoorlog langs die vaalrivier opgeteken. interessante gebeure soos: die meule van mac kensie wat vyf vragte koring vir die boere gemaal het; die slag van die meulwaens, 7km wes van vredefort; generaal de wet se veilige kamp by renosterpoort langs die vaalrivier; verkenners wat 200 opgesaalde engelse perde gekaap het en die engelse heliograafseine ontsyfer het, word in hierdie hoogs leesbare werk beskryf. die dramatiese deurtogte deur schoemansdrif, van rensburgdrif, skandinawiëdrif, winkelsdrif, smitsdrif, koolmynsdrif, lindequisdrif en de wetsdrif word met die nodige spanning oorvertel. d’assonville het die veldslae van tygerpoort, vanvuurenskloof, buffelshoek, groenkop, heuningkoppies, rooiwal, tweebos en koedoesfontein waar de wet en sy kommando kwaai onder die grofgeskut van die engelse deurgeloop het, in detail beskryf. die wêreld in die vredefortkoepel die dorpies vredefort, venterskroon en reitzburg, en die plase tygerfontein, leeufontein, rietfontein, schoemanshof, rooikraal, lindequesfontein en vlakkuil is die milieu waarbinne generaal de wet en sy manne ’n verbete stryd teen ’n oorweldigende militêre mag gevoer het. daar het bomme geval, koeëls gereën, voorrade gebuit, benoude oomblike ervaar en wegkom planne beraam. die engelse se magteloosheid om die boere te verslaan, hulle beleid van die verskroeide, konsentrasiekampe (vredefortwegkamp) en die wegvoer van mans na die britse eilande is die koepelbewoners nie gespaar nie. die foto’s, afdrukke en kaarte is toepaslik en komplimenteer die teks op die toepaslike plekke. verder verleen die register met personsen plekname aan die einde, meer waarde aan die publikasie. nuwe belangstelling in die streek het veral ná 2005 gekom, toe die united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) se wêrelderfenisbewaringsprogram die vredefortkoepel op die lys van wêrelderfenisgebiede geplaas het. hierdie boek is ’n uitstekende kultuurhistoriese bron oor die anglo-boereoorlog in die vredefortkoepel. dit is ook van toepassing op die omliggende gebied. dit word aanbeveel vir enige iemand wat meer oor die geskiedenis van die area wil weet. claudia gouws noordwes universiteit microsoft word 00 editorial comment.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. iii-x. editorial comment and introduction african societies, nation-states, governance, human migration, xenophobia and cultural contestations: editorial framing m.p. sebola1 and j. tsheola2 introduction african societies have continued to be afflicted with deleterious challenges and problems, years after gaining independence from colonialism. post-colonialism, if it was anything real, was supposed to be preoccupied with the pan-africanism vision of revaluation of african cultures, respect of human rights of all people on the continent, intensified continental cooperation for sustainable development, peace, security and stability. instead, africa has continued to be gripped by internal strife, insecurities and power inequities that manifest along the existing geopolitical entities defined through the socio-political boundaries. notwithstanding the rejection of the latter’s bordering of the nation-states as artificial, african states have continued to order and re-territorialise sovereignty in ways that have accentuated colonially-inspired cultural divides, amounting to “new racism” on the continent (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014). whereas the spectrum of africa’s problems is long, human migration together with the attendant xenophobia expressed within local societies against african immigrants have become prominent with repeated violent public abuses in south africa in 2008 and 2015. for this reason, the journal for transdisciplinarity research in southern africa has dedicated this special edition to the unfinished discourses on the african societies, nation-states, governance, human migration, xenophobia and cultural contestations. african societies, nation-states and governance in international geopolitics societies have ordered themselves through fragmentary geopolitical entities bounded by socio-political boundaries that define de jure sovereignty governed by states (pereira & ruysenaar, 2012; kark, tulloch, gordon, mazor, bunnefeld & levin, 2015; thondhlana, shackleton & blignaut, 2015). the african society too has been ordered through similar reterritorialisation of sovereignty along cultural and ethnic divides, creating “bordering, ordering and othering” landscapes (iossifova, 2013; lunstrum, 2013; dallimer & strange, 2015; kark et al., 2015). this territorialisation of sovereignty has enabled conceptions and treatment of african immigrants on the continent as “out-groups” and enemies of nationstates (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; lunstrum, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014; dallimer & 1 school of economics & management, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: mokoko.sebola@ul.ac.za 2 faculty of management & law, university of limpopo, p.o. box 313, fauna park, 0787, south africa, e-mail: johannes.tsheola@ul.ac.za sebola & tsheola iv strange, 2015). the preeminence of the western economic philosophy in this “bordering, ordering and othering” of international relations governance is apparent in the ironic dominance of the interpretation of african renaissance through the globalist modernist, rather than africanist, perspectives (moilanen & arponen, 2011; van amerom & buscher, 2005; martin, rutagarama, cascao, gray & chhotray, 2011; dallimer & strange, 2015). the understanding of sovereignty through state exercise of power over defined territory is universal, notwithstanding the reality of its complexity and inconsistency (devine, 2014, duffy, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; dallimer & strange, 2015; massé & lunstrum, 2015). reverence of the existing geopolitical entities in international relations and reinforcement of exercise of power through territorialised sovereignty has impaired the potential for organic spatial socialisation of people on either side of the socio-political boundaries (lunstrum, 2014; dallimer & strange, 2015; massé & lunstrum, 2015). as a result of the enforcement of governance of international relations along the fragmented geopolitical landscapes, human migration has precipitated the establishment of transnational cultures that signaled “otherness” within local societies (devine, 2014, duffy, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). territorialisation of sovereignty in international relations coincides with geopolitical landscapes of peace, war, security, insecurity, legality, illegality, order, disorder, poverty, opulence and so on, prompting large scale international migration across the world, which enabled perceptions of collective threat, fear and siege. to overcome the divisions and potential conflicts encouraged by nation-state governance based on sovereignty-territory relations, spatial socialisation is necessary to bring people across geopolitical entities and socio-political boundaries closer together with increased international migration, contact and interactions. human migration, xenophobia and cultural contestations human migration has historically epitomised the development landscapes (brown & connell, 2004; moses & letnes, 2004; balbo & marconi, 2006; jolly & digiusto, 2014); and, recent occurrences of crowds of africans drifting into europe notwithstanding the horrific incidents of drowning in the mediterranean sea and sheer sufferance of elements of the long journeys demonstrate that international human migration is not a passing phenomenon. equally, the historical reality of african immigrants streaming into south africa is not an anomaly in the context of the international relations status quo and the socalled world order. however, human migration had historically reflexively reproduced itself in increasingly complex ways, rendering past experiences less insightful in the search for instruments relating to forecasting, predictability and adoption of proactive and preemptive measures. when the north african spring started, both protagonists and critics could have accurately forecast the future history that is now unfolding with droves of africans dying to reach european shoes. unsurprisingly, a democratic south africa failed to read the future from the 2008 violent abuses and killings of african immigrants. hence, the 2015 xenophobic eruptions became another baffling embarrassment to a democratic south africa; and, the search for causes and measures for redress remains unfinished. ironically, a democratic south africa’s leadership of african renaissance through hyperboles of exceptionalism and differentness has not been neutral in the perpetration of xenophobic stereotypes, societal attitudes and perceptions against african immigrants. concepts that were designed to be instrumental in reaffirmation of african cultures, respect of human rights, promotion of multiculturalism, inclusivity and spatial socialisation of people on either side of the borderlands, became complex virtual container-buzzwords with inconsistent editorial comment td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. iii-x. v meanings and effects enabling the unchallenged predominance of the globalist economic modernity as well as marginalisation and dispossession of lands from access of the poor sectors of the populations. given the centrality of governance processes and structures in the determination of access to natural resources and human habitat, increased international migration and contact came with intense cultural contestations and xenophobic stereotypes wherein concepts of “ingroups” and “out-groups” justified the “ordering and othering” of immigrants for discrimination and denial of citizenship (jolly & digiusto, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). theorisation of the causes of xenophobia is wide ranging, inclusive of extremes of contact, prejudice, power, cultural-symbolism, phenomenology, threat and economic theories (adjai & lazaridis, 2013; jolly & digiusto, 2014; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). in southern africa, especially in south africa, xenophobia came to be synonymous with violent abuses of the african immigrants (jolly & digiusto, 2014; chinomona & maziriri, 2015). thus, questions of the coexistence of ideals such as constitutional democracy, culture of human rights, multiculturalism and inclusivity with violent abuses and senseless killings of african immigrants in south africa have to be raised. importantly, south african political elite has championed the vision of african renaissance, which should be founded on the ideals of pan-africanism such as continental unity, reaffirmation of african cultures, emancipation, cooperation, sustainable economic development and democratisation (van amerom & buscher, 2005 muzeza, schuttle & snyman, 2013; barquet et al., 2014; kark et al., 2015; sibanda, 2015). also, the recent hype about the transfrontier conservation areas (tfcas) or “peace parks” raised hopes of building peace and security in the continent, especially in southern africa (van amerom & buscher, 2005; martin et al., 2011; muzeza, schuttle & snyman, 2013; barquet et al., 2014; kark et al., 2015; sibanda, 2015). in practice, though, the establishment of “peace parks” was based on the securitisation of wildlife conservation that enables western economic philosophy of capital accumulation by dispossession of lands of the most vulnerable sections of the population whilst simultaneously characterising “others”, specifically african immigrants, as dangerously armed poachers and enemies of the nation-state (van amerom & buscher, 2005; martin et al., 2011; massé & lunstrum, 2015). these narratives has meant that international migration in southern africa is met with local society hostilities, animosities, antagonisms and violent abuses in south africa. also, the aphorism of “ubuntu” and “rainbowism” abound in south africa, african immigrants have continued to be treated with unbaiting disdain. for these reasons, it is important to understand the embeddedness of cooperation with conflict in africa. embeddedness of cooperation with conflict in africa conflict does coexist with cooperation in international relations (martin et al., 2011); and, this observation is borne out in post-1990s southern africa where container-concepts such as african renaissance and “peace parks” presented convenient buzzwords for securitisation narratives to reinforce sentiments of continentalism, reaffirmation of african cultures and pan-africanism simultaneously with polarisation, conflict and violent rationales. south africa’s political elite has been responsible for the african unity narratives amidst fervent support and implementation of the hegemonic western economic paradigms of “privatisation, free trade, private land ownership and the commercialisation of conservation” (van amerom & buscher, 2005: 10). that is, state narratives for continental recovery, emancipation and democratisation have enabled capital accumulation through securitisation of profitable wildlife conservation as well as the dispossession of the lands of the most sebola & tsheola vi vulnerable groups of the population. in practice, the conduct of international relations by nation-states in southern africa during the post-apartheid era have uniformly consolidated the de jure sovereignty and fragmentary geopolitics that promote negative images of citizens on either side of the socio-economic boundaries. evidently, african renaissance is an inherently politically value-laden concept and practice. attempts to frame a depoliticised conception of african renaissance have drawn a blank because it inescapably set power relations that re-territorialise sovereignty to reconstruct divisive geopolitical entities that describe “otherness” as unwanted enemies of the nation-state (devine, 2014; duffy, 2014; lunstrum, 2014; massé & lunstrum, 2015). hence, the initiatives for regional cooperation, continental emancipation, reaffirmation of african cultures, sustainable economic development and democratisation have commonly dissipated with negligible notice. historically, africa’s development efforts have drawn negligible pragmatic effect and expression because of the preeminence of self-interested nation-states. hence, the continental unity expressed by leaders in terms of the scourge of xenophobic violence against african immigrants in south africa notwithstanding, no verifiable pragmatism is on offer. unfinished discourses of human migration and xenophobia discourses relating to human international migration and xenophobia in south africa remain unfinished and contested. this special edition compiles articles that range from those that question the balancing of transnationalism with localisation in respect of international migration, which remains unresolved, to those that theorise the causes of xenophobia. chigudu takes up this challenge by examining the nexus of state-sovereignty-migration. he locates migrants in the framework of human rights and the insistence on state sovereignty in order to reveal that migrants remain on the periphery of effective protection from the vagaries of the citizens, partly because the states’ tendency to limit certain human rights to its citizenry. however, he asserts that international migration does contribute to local development. tsheola & segage examine the association of the concept of governance of international relations and, by implication, human population migration, through the rigid practices of “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, which foments and exacerbates societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia in africa, in general, and south africa, in particular. besides highlighting the prominence of theorisation of human population migration through environmental conservation and securitisation of biodiversity that enables land dispossession of the vulnerable sections of the populations along the western economic narratives of “peace parks”, they demonstrate that in southern africa, the concept of african renaissance has been inescapably embedded with “cooperation and conflict”, offering a container-buzzword that failed to deliver reaffirmation of african cultures, continental emancipation and democratisation. to this extent, they argue that the preeminence of societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia and violent abuses of african immigrants in south africa provides vivid illustrations of the inconsistencies and nonlinearity of concepts such as african renaissance and “peace parks” for pursuit of the panafricanism vision. from these locationing of the topical issues of human migration and xenophobia within international relations and state sovereignty, their relevance to the discipline of public administration is examined by hanyane. he provides an account of the meaning and the relevance of transnationalism as both a concept and phenomenon in order to situate the topical issues of human international migration within the scope of pubic editorial comment td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. iii-x. vii administration. indeed, migration is a relevant subject in international relations governance, administration and management. the cognitive search for causes of xenophobic eruptions in a democratic south africa commences with madue who blames the senseless acts against african immigrants on the foreign and international migration policy and doctrines omissions and exclusionism. from a public administration perspective and pan-africanism philosophy, mbecke identifies policy and strategic shortfalls and dilemmas in the new partnership for africa’s development (nepad) as the primary complicating factors that created scope for the construction of negative images and xenophobic stereotypes against african immigrants in a democratic south africa, in the face of loud public stunts about continental recovery and respect for african cultures. this line of thought is pursued by koenane & maphunye who locates the challenges of afrophobia in a democratic south africa on the dearth of moral and political leadership that has exposed african immigrants to untold sufferance and violent abuses in the hands of local societies. notwithstanding the horrific experiences in a democratic south africa, african immigration has appeared to intensify, especially in terms of the dimension commonly described as illegal. whilst acknowledging the difficulty of understanding illegal international immigration into south africa due to its undocumented nature, wotela & letsiri examines the causes of this form of human migration which has persisted against the odds through public administration perspective on international boundaries. on her part, makwembere locates the causes of xenophobic violent attacks on african immigrants in the local sphere of governance of municipalities in south africa. she argues that the local governance institutions are both irresponsible and unresponsive to the challenges of xenophobia that unfold within local societies wherein african immigrants are excluded from participation in civic affairs, thereby being exposed to stereotypes. dassah addresses the causes of afrophobia and/or negrophobia associated with labeling and discrimination of african immigrants in south africa; and, he calls for the involvement of all stakeholders in attempts to resolve the xenophobic violence. mamabolo examines poverty and unemployment as drivers of xenophobic attacks on african immigrants in south africa, imploring government to establish an enabling local environment for business enterprises as one of the possible remedial interventions that would dampen the violent abuses against nationals from other parts of the continent. xenophobia has its own impacts on local societies and the african immigrants themselves. mothibi, roelofse & tshivhase provide an analysis of the impact of xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals’ business initiatives, using a case study of shops and street vending in the central business district of louis trichardt in limpopo province. they find that the impact go beyond material destruction of businesses to involve psychological and emotional trauma that lives with the african immigrant shop owners and street vendors, a long time after the violent xenophobic eruptions had occurred. a similar type of impact analysis is presented by tshishonga, drawing from experiences of informal businesses in the central business district of durban city in kawzulu-natal province. he argues that the impact of xenophobia is a double-edged sword with far-reaching implications for both south african citizens and african immigrants because informal businesses are the fulcrum of survival of the majority of residents in the city of durban. that is, xenophobic attacks create lose-lose situation for both the local society and african immigrants. sebola & tsheola viii academia, especially at tertiary institutions of learning, is supposed to be enlightened in terms of transnationalism and localisation of cultures for spatial socialisation. however, sebola demonstrates that the academic expatriate project has failed to live up to its expectation of building capacity for south africa, thereby raising questions about the conduct of the so-called star researchers recruited for the empowerment of the local society. he concedes that this project may become open-ended without a goal in sight. apparently, the academic expatriate at tertiary institutions of learning has maintained transnational cultures, language, values and identities that impaired the potential for integration and assimilation into the local society, with the result that such african immigrants remain highly exposed for discrimination, vilification and violent abuse. however, incidents of xenophobic attacks in south africa’s tertiary education sector, if any, have never captivated national headlines. perhaps, the south african academia could be aloof from the challenges afflicting the local societies because these topical issues of human migration and xenophobia in africa have not featured much in research and curricula. in the final analysis, this special edition should ask if new south africanism has inaugurated a fascist culture within local societies. there is no verifiable powerful political system of rules, legislation, regulations and state control nor sentiments of extremist nationalistic pride and racist/ethnicist reverence to warrant characterisation of xenophobic eruptions in south africa as “new racism”. using a case of tertiary education sector, sithole examines the question whether new south africanism is basically hateful of “otherness” by exploring attitudes of the educated elite towards guys, lesbians, bisexual and transgender students. whereas his finding confirm widespread discrimination and abuse of these groups in the tertiary education sector, it remains untenable to conclusively characterise the local society as generally hateful of “otherness’. but pertinent questions arise with these inhuman treatment of african immigrants and other groups in south africa; and, one of them is whether or not the local society is fascist. indeed, the sensitive topical issues of african immigration, spatial socialisation, transnationalisation, localisation, cultural genocide and xenophobia in southern africa continue to be unresolved discourses and unfinished narratives. however, muswede offers an examination of the prospects of power of community radio being explored to popularise appropriate narratives to undermine the negative images, stereotypes and perceptions that foments xenophobia against african immigrants in south africa. he recommends for a participatory community radio programming of interventions to promote peaceand trust-building narratives within the local societies as means of influencing the communal scripts against xenophobia. this special edition compilation is paradoxically concluded with an article co-authored by tsheola, ramoroka & muzondi, who theorise collective threat among in-group communities against out-group african immigrants over the untenable alibi of job and women stealing as well as acceptance of below minimum wages as functions of irrational jealousy. they frame this argument through a rigorous examination of theorisation of xenophobia as “new racism”, models of governance of xenophobic societal attitudes for public hostilities, animosities and violent abuse, in order to question the role of constructions of new south africanism, african renaissance, exclusionary citizenship, exceptionalism, differentness and exclusionism in agitating for intolerance and xenophobic propensities within local societies. in the final analysis, tis compilation points to unfinished stories and discourses about new south africanism and its association with the unpredictable xenophobic stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions. editorial comment td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. iii-x. ix conclusion the search for conceptual instruments for forecasting local societal xenophobic stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions against african immigrants has to continue. equally, the latter’s propensity to uphold distinct transnational cultures, values and languages within local societies has to be addressed in order to repair the distinctness with which such african immigrants are easily identifiable and targeted for violent abuses. further, it is recommendable that the container-buzzwords such as ubuntu, rainbowism, african renaissance, new south africanism, “peace parks”, constitutional inclusivity, discriminatory citizenship and re-territorialised post-colonial sovereignty, among others, should be rigorously examined for their role in disabling spatial socialization of africans across “nationstate” socio-political boundaries and geopolitical entities, whilst simultaneously enabling dispossession of the poor rural communities, western economic philosophy-based capital accumulation, undermining the revaluation of african cultures, continental emancipation and democratization. perhaps, these lines of investigation could unveil the true causes underlying local societies’ xenophobic propensities and violent abuses of african immigrants in a democratic south africa. references adjai, c. & lazaridis, g. 2013. migration, xenophobia and new racism in post-apartheid south africa. international journal of social science studies, 1(1): 192-205. balbo, m. & marconi, g. 2006. international migration, diversity and urban governance in cities of the south. habitat international, 30: 706-715. barquet, k., lujala, p. & rød, j.k. 2014. transboundary conservation and militarised interstate disputes. political geography, 42: 1-11. brown, r.p.c. & connell, j., 2004. the migration of doctors and nurses from south pacific island nations. social science & medicine, 58: 2193-2210. chinomona, e. & maziriri, e.t. 2015. examining the phenomenon of xenophobia as experienced by african immigrant entrepreneurs in johannesburg, south africa: intensifying the spirit of “ubuntu.” international journal of research in business studies and management, 2(6): 20-31. dallimer, m. & strange, n. 2015. why socio-political borders and boundaries matter in conservation. trends in ecology & evolution, 30(3): 132-139. devine, j. 2014. counterinsurgency ecotourism in guatemala’s maya biosphere reserve. environmental planning d: society & space, 32: 984-1001. duffy, r. 2014. waging a war to save biodiversity: the rise of militarised conservation. international affairs, 90(4): 819-834. iossifova, d. 2013. searching for common ground: urban borderlands in a world of borders and boundaries. cities, 34: 1-5. kark, s., tulloch, a., gordon, a., mazor, t., bunnefeld, n. & levin, n. 2015. crossboundary collaboration: key to the conservation puzzle. current opinion in environmental sustainability, 12: 12-24. lunstrum, e. 2013. articulated sovereignty: extending mozambican state power through the great limpopo transfrontier park. political geography, 36: 1-11. sebola & tsheola x lunstrum, e. 2014. green militarisation: anti-poaching efforts and the spatial contours of kruger national park. annals of the association of american geographers, 104(4): 816832. martin, a., rutagarama, e., cascao, a., gray, m. & chhotray, v. 2011. understanding the co-existence of conflict and cooperation: transboundary ecosystem management in the virunga massif. journal of peace research, 48(5): 621-635. masse, f. & lunstrum, e. 2015. accumulation by securitisation: commercial poaching, neoliberal conservation, and the creation of new wildlife frontiers. geoforum, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.03.005 moilanen, a. & arponen, a. 2011. administrative regions in conservation: balancing local priorities with regional to global preferences in spatial planning. biological conservation, 144: 1719-1725. moses, j.w. & letnes, b. 2004. the economic costs to international labour restrictions: revisiting the empirical discussion. world development, 32(10): 1609-1626. muzeza, d., schutte, d.w. & snyman, r. 2013. great limpopo transfrontier conservation governance in southern africa: understanding contestations and conflict between local resource access and biodiversity conservation. international journal of innovative research & development, 2(6): 187-227. pereira, l.m. & ruysenaar, s. 2012. moving from traditional government to new adaptive governance: the changing face of food security responses in south africa. food security, 4: 41-58. sibanda, m. 2015. rhythms of power and institutional reengineering in conservation. journal of sustainable development in africa, 17(2): 77-96. thondhlana, g., shackleton, s. & blignaut, j. 2015. local institutions, actors, and natural resource governance in kgalagadi transfrontier park and surrounds, south africa. land use policy, 47: 121-129. van amerom, m. & buscher, b. 2005. peace parks in southern africa: bringers of an african renaissance? journal of modern african studies, 43(2): 1-24. microsoft word 11 lumbwe.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 151-165. ubuomba: negotiating indigenisation of liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia k lumbwe1 abstract in the early 1950s the vatican accepted the translation of catholic hymnals into local zambian languages and the incorporation of indigenous musical instruments into the liturgical music. this development inspired a group of priests and seminarians, led by father charles rijthoven from ilondola mission in northern zambia. because of its geographical location, a bemba indigenous musical style derived from ingomba (royal musicians) was adopted and is now commonly referred to as ubuomba (lit. being a royal musician). the word ingomba is derived from the word omba (to clap) as in omba amakuku (to produce low-toned claps by means of capped palms), a characteristic which forms the core of rhythmic structure of the musical style. besides hand clapping, ubuomba songs are usually accompanied by double-headed drums known as inshingili (hour-glass shaped drum). over the years the ubuomba style has spread to other parts of the country and formed a catholic liturgical music identity. this study tries, by way of ethnographic investigation, to outline the way in which the ubuomba musical style has been used to negotiate the indigenisation of liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia. the focus of this study is on the origins and processes of development of the ubuomba musical style and how it relates to wellbeing within the catholic church; these developments are based on song text, instrumental accompaniment, dance and mime. the ‘contemporalisation’ and ‘commercialisation’ of the ubuomba musical style to incorporate western musical instruments such as guitars, drum kits and synthesisers is examined with reference to internal and external musical influences. keywords. indigenisation, ubuomba, wellbeing, catholic liturgical music, zambia introduction this article is a descriptive analysis of the development of ubuomba music and the liturgical, political, social and cultural aspects embedded in it. within the broader context and social complexities, the functional role that the embedded aspects play and how they are utilised is examined, while at the same time paying attention to elements that have changed, since their inception in 1952, and what has continued to date in the whole musical performance structure. the focus of this study is on the origins and processes of development of the ubuomba musical style in the catholic church in zambia. these developments are examined with regards to song text, melody, rhythm, instrumental accompaniment, dance and mime. 1 kapambwe lumbwe received the phd (ethnomusicology) degree at the university of cape town in 2009. currently he is a post-doctoral fellow of north-west university, potchefstroom campus (niche entity: musical arts in south africa: resources and applications). lumbwe 152 furthermore, ‘contemporalisation’ and ‘commercialisation’ of the ubuomba musical style to incorporate western musical instruments such as guitars, drum kits and synthesisers is investigated based on internal and external musical influences. chomba (2007:62) indicates that because of the striving for contextual relevance, musicians in the catholic church are drawing on elements of local or other african popular musics and integrating them into the liturgical music of the church. regarding the current local music culture in africa, hellberg (2007:367) states that they contain at least three strands: pre-colonial musical traditions, imported and more or less localised western music, and popular music. data for this study were collected for the most part in the course of a social ethnomusicological study carried out in northern, lusaka, and the copperbelt provinces of zambia from the year 2000 to date. during this period, which entailed doing extensive fieldwork and a literature review, i became interested in the religious, musical, social and political complexities of human behaviour and musical influences from within africa and from other parts of the world. when embarking on this study i encountered challenges in the usage of the bamba language by my research subjects, as they often mixed linguistic practices and literacies, which were often characterised by code switching and slang. this is the case because bemba is commonly used even by other ethnic groups in the country, resulting in the inclusion of borrowed words from other languages within the country, within africa, and other parts of the world (central statistical office cso 2011:13). however, after consulting linguists such as mubanga kashoki, a retired professor from the university of zambia, and interacting with several ubuomba musicians and clergy from the catholic church as an insider and participant observer, i developed a platform for investigating in-depth information and knowledge. that warranted ease of interrogating and eliciting interpretations and meanings of the music, dance and dramatisation. it became necessary for me to adopt the research stance of ‘observer as participant’, as described by merriam: using this method the researcher may have access to many people and a wide range of information, since the researcher’s observer activities are known to the group, and participation in the group is a secondary information-gathering process. (2009:124) merriam continues that the researcher might begin as a spectator and gradually become involved in the activities being observed ((2009:126). in this dual researcher role, open-ended interviews were held with 30 individual research participants and 30 focus groups drawn from the research area described above. in discussing the process of change the term ‘indigenisation’ has been used to indicate the musical traditional style pertaining to the bemba ingomba (royal musicians) that initially replaced the western church hymns, but later included elements from localised western music and other african musics. hellberg (2007:370), babiracki (1985:96–100) and nettl (1985:89–90), among others, used the term ‘indigenisation’ to describe the processes of change that the music cultures of some churches in african and asian countries went through in the latter half of the 20th century. the term ‘localised’ has been used in this article to describe the new catholic church musical styles2 that have been integrated into liturgical service besides the dominant ubuomba style. in this regard the term ‘localised’ refers to what 2 the new catholic musical styles being referred to include four genres from indigenous bemba music: imipukumo (topical songs that carry a didactic text, such as, for example, work songs), chilumbu also known as ifimbo fya malilo (funeral dirges); kalela (music for the kalela dance) and mfunkutu, as well as contemporary styles that include bemba kalindula and congolese rhumba (from the democratic republic of congo (drc)). liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 151-165. 153 krister malm defines as a musical style that has been adopted from another culture closer to the culture it has newly become a part of (lundberg, malm & ronström 2000:32). although the development of the catholic church and its music in zambia has received scholarly attention, i have not yet encountered literature specifically on ubuomba music. however, mapoma (1969) has discussed the use of folk music among some bemba church congregations in zambia. the following are studies on the development of the catholic and other churches in zambia: “the music of zumaile village, zambia” (mensah 1970), “the mutumwa churches of zambia: an indigenous african religious healing” (dillon-malone 1983), “the white fathers’ archive in zambia” (hinfelaar 2003), “personhood and self in catholic formation in zambia” (simpson 2003). historical background to contextualise the indigenisation of liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia, it is imperative to provide a brief background on the development of the church in the country. although expeditions and attempts to establish catholic missions were made as early as 1795 by portuguese gamitto, and jesuit white fathers between 1881 and 1885, the year 1891 marked the beginning of christian missionary work in zambia; that was when three french white fathers of the society of the missionaries of africa arrived and settled at a place near mambwe mwela, a village in mbala district of northern province. this was followed in 1895 by the foundation of their first mission post at kayambi, near chief makasa in kasama, the provincial headquarters for the northern province. in 1905 two french jesuits arrived from the south and founded chikuni mission in monze district and in kasisi in lusaka (hinfelaar 2004:65). after the upheavals of the first world war, missionaries from other congregations arrived in the 1930s. they consisted mainly of the conventual franciscans from italy, who settled in the emerging copperbelt, and of capuchin franciscans from ireland, who founded mission posts in livingstone and barotseland (now western province). the beginning and the development of christian missionary work coincided with british colonial rule in zambia.3 colonial administration made it easier for the catholic missionaries to spread their christian work throughout the country (kashoki,4 2010). although the second world war was another setback, when it was over another wave of missionaries arrived from many parts of the world, especially after zambia’s independence in 1964 and after the end of the second vatican council in 1965. christian church music as it is known in zambia and other countries in africa is the revival of earlier jewish tehllim and mizmor in worship, which involved stringed musical instruments, drums and dancing to the lord (cf. exodus 15: 1–20, 2 samuel 6: 1–6, psalms 149:3) (chomba 2007:v) chomba continues that the catholic church adopted and developed this lyric poetry (psalm in greek meant a song) into unisonic plainchant, later known as ‘gregorian chant’.5 phiri (2012), a curator at the national museum, points out that 3 before independence zambia was known as northern rhodesia. 4 a retired professor of literature from the university of zambia. 5 gregorian chant is the plainsong or liturgical chant of the roman catholic church. it is one of the five principal repertories of latin liturgical chant of the middle ages, the others being: old roman, ambrosian, gallican and mozarabic (randel 1986:351). it consists of sacred latin texts set to melody and sung without accompaniment (monophonic) (kamien 1992:88). lumbwe 154 musical instruments and dancing were forbidden in worship as they were associated with greek pagan music, which was performed annually and occasionally on their festivals and rituals dedicated to zeus, the god of all nations, and also to hermes, the god of eloquent speakers (cf. acts 14:12, jungmann 1958:14). between the 10th and 18th centuries, breakaway groups from the catholic church, such as the one led by martin luther, capitalised on new music in order to win over many followers (tinalesa,6 2010). consequently, the catholic church was compelled to accept polyphonic church music with musical instruments, preferably the organ. f i g u r e 1 : m a p o f z a m b i a s h o w i n g a l l t h e d i s t r i c t s , t o w n s a n d c i t i e s i n t h e c o u n t r y ( h t t p : / / w w w . e z i l o n . c o m / m a p s / a f r i c a / z a m b i a m a p s . h t m l ) polyphony was used occasionally during big feasts mainly in seminaries and catholic institutes, while gregorian plainchant remained dominant in all parishes. gregorian chant was valued as the only sacred music with latin as the language of the church and worship. mutale (1979), archbishop of kasama, points out that protestants valued polyphonic music as the best way to praise god but it should be flexible enough to use local languages. mutale 6 a catholic parish secretary and retired teacher. liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 151-165. 155 continues that when missionaries of different denominations came to africa, they all arrived with different backgrounds. looking at the ‘miserable’ lifestyle of the africans, they considered them and their culture as pagan (mulenga,7 2002). mulenga’s view is also evident in studies conducted by mapoma (1969:76); chomba (2007:vi); cheyeka (2009:146) gordon (2009:46). so african music and musical instruments, especially drums, which were used in social festivals and rituals, were forbidden in church worship as they were considered pagan. in zambia african tunes were incorporated into catholic church worship on christmas day 1952, which marked the beginning and birth of african church music in the country. the idea of incorporating african singing, dancing and drumming was initiated by a dutch catholic priest, fr charles rijthoven, a member of the order of white fathers, based in the heart of bembaland ilondola parish in chinsali district.8 rijthoven borrowed the idea from joseph kiwele of shaba province in the then zaire (congo dr). joseph kiwele, with the help of the bishop of shaba, sought special permission in line with four encyclicals, especially musica sacra disciplina by pope pius xii, which allowed secular music and musical instruments in public worship. just like the missionaries in the times of martin luther, rijthoven was prompted to incorporate local indigenous music into the liturgy because of the difficulty that missionaries had in convincing the bemba, who were attracted to the style of worship introduced by the lumpa, an indigenous church, introduced by alice regina mulenga, popularly known as alice lenshina.9 the popularity of the lumpa church music, which was catchy and had sweet melodies, prompted the catholic church in chinsali to capitalise on bemba music from ingomba (royal musicians) and mfunkutu to form a style known as ubuomba (gordon, 2009:56). according to hinfelaar (2004:69), the white fathers negotiated with the colonial administration for them to be allowed to continue using ubuomba for their services as their aim was to attract as many converts as possible. unfortunately, this state of affairs, as indicated by bwalya (2000), a catechist in chinsali catholic parish, led to the banning of indigenous worship, which included the lumpa church. elias mutale, archbishop of kasama, points out that the negative actions of the colonial administration have been blamed on the missionaries, who did not go to such extremes (mutale, 1979). mapoma (1969:74) agrees with mutale when he points out that the advantage in using ubuomba music in the catholic church was twofold: first, it attracted people to the church, and second, the songs provided a familiar musical idiom in which the congregation could express itself freely. ubuomba: the music the word ubuomba is derived from the word ingomba meaning royal musician of the bemba chiefs.10 the word ingomba is derived from the word omba (to clap with capped palms, an 7 a retired educationist and zambian high commissioner to the democratic republic of congo. 8 chinsali district used to be part of northern province, but is now the headquarters for the newly formed muchinga province. however, i have still used northern province because the available maps have not been updated as yet. 9 the name lenshina comes from the mispronunciation of the name regina by the bemba people. 10 there are 73 languages spoken in zambia, which have been classified into 9 main linguistic groups according to regions: northwest (northwest lunda/wiko); east (chewa/tumbuka); south (tonga/ila/lenje); northeast (bemba); corridor (mambwe, namwanga, lambya, nyika (roberts1976:69). the bemba group is a conglomeration of different tribes all sharing the same lumbwe 156 action referred to as omba amakuku, which is done to show respect or appreciation for good will) (mapoma, 1980:84). therefore, ubuomba means being a royal musician. chitwansombo (2006), a royal musician, indicates that the name ingomba was favoured because the royal musicians performed music exclusively for the bemba chiefs, an action which was most appropriate for praising god. although there are four types of present-day ingomba – ingomba sha filimba, ingomba sha tulelo, ingomba sha masamba and ingomba sha bafwalwa – the catholic ubuomba cannot be associated with one specific type, but to the whole concept of being a royal musician, which is a combination of the functions of all the four types of ingomba (mapoma, 2012; mwela,11 2012). however, chomba (2007:32) emphasises that the ubuomba musicians of the catholic church focused on the function of praising the king, in this case god, and not so much the other characteristics such as style of dress and type of musical instruments, which are the distinguishing features of the bemba ingomba. for instance, tinalesa (2010) points out that ingomba sha bafwalwa are identified by the dancing skirts they wear; ingomba sha kalela by the type of dances they perform; ingomba sha filimba by the type and size of musical instruments they play; and ingomba sha masamba by the inshingili drums they play. according to chitwansombo (2006), besides the amalgamation of characteristics from the different types of ingomba, ubuomba involves a large group of singers and instrumentalists. chitwansombo adds that the distinct types of ingomba could be identified in ubuomba performance through the small groups constituted in the following way: one group will be made up of singers, the second group will be made up of dancers, and the third will be made up of instrumentalists. the word ‘music’ in this article should not be understood as having the same implications as its western sense, as the bemba equivalent may also mean ‘song’ (lumbwe, 2011). according to mapoma (1980:36), among the bemba the terms ulwimbo (song) and ingoma (drum) are used to indicate music, although the term ingoma is used more often in that wherever drumming is heard, there would be singing and dancing. in addition, some songs do not carry a melody, but are sung rhythmically, sounding almost monotonously, following the tonal inflections (natural contours) of the bemba language. such songs could be described by some western music-oriented persons as ‘chanting rhythmic recitation’ (lumbwe, 2005, 2009). out of the five genres that constitute indigenous bemba music – inyimbo sha baiche (children’s music: games and story songs); imipukumo (topical songs that carry didactic text, such as work songs); chilumbu also known as ifimbo fya malilo (funeral dirges); kalela (music for the kalela dance) and mfunkutu – ubuomba singers of the catholic church adopted mfunkutu style for their worship. the mfunkutu genre consists of two categories, namely general music, for example, for beer parties and coronation ceremonies; and marriage music. the music discussed here is mfunkutu, general music for coronation ceremonies. mapoma (1980:38) points out that mfunkutu is not only a name of a specific dance, but also a genre of music which is performed by ‘older’ bemba at social functions, and that the dance refers to specific movements called ukuifukutawila, which include the shuffling of feet, twisting of the waist, and the up-and-down movements of the arms by the dancer. over the years ubuomba music has developed into a musical style that not only incorporates bemba ingomba music and mfunkutu music but includes kalindula and congolese rhumba language: bemba, shila, tabwa, mukulu, chishinga, ngumbo, lunda of luapula, bisa, lala, kunda, ambo, swaka, lamba, luano, ushi, unga, seba and kabende (mapoma 1969:72). 11 a member of the zambia national dance troupe and prominent ubuomba musician. liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 151-165. 157 styles, which are contemporary african styles of music (chasaya,12 2010). by implication the incorporation of kalindula and congolese rhumba styles means that the accompanying musical instruments and some dances are also assimilated into ubuomba. song texts initially, in the early 1950s ubuomba music, as created by rijthoven, used selected hymns already translated into bemba from european languages, which were maintained as they were or dressed with new tunes and performed with piano or organ accompaniment. examples of such songs included: example 1: text of the hymn mwekatula mwinshilila (pass me not, oh gentle saviour) mwekatula mwinchilila pass me not, oh gentle saviour ndemipapata hear my humble cry ilyo muleita bambi while on others thou art calling mwilanchilila do not pass me by yesu, yesu saviour, saviour shumfwa ndekuta hear my humble cry ilyo muleita bambi while on others thou art calling mwilanchilila do not pass me by example 2: text of the song mwe mfumu mutubeleleko luse (lord have mercy) (mapoma 1956:13) mwe mfumu mutubeleleko luse lord have mercy mwe mfumum utubeleleko luse lord have mercy mwe mfumu mutubeleleko luse lord have mercy kristu mutwelele christ have mercy kristu mutwelele christ have mercy kristu mutwelele christ have mercy 12 a retired broadcaster and member of ubuomba. lumbwe 158 in the late 1960s, with the help of fr joseph chomba, marcelino milota, bernard kachingwe, educators joakim chungu and chajitan lunsonga, new liturgical tunes were composed. marcelino milota and bernard kachingwe composed their songs in mambwe,13 while the rest composed in bemba. although the ubuomba songs are composed following the principles of mfunkutu music, the characteristics of the song texts do not follow strict principles of mfunkutu. the main characteristics of ubuomba song texts could be described as follows: 13 mambwe is the language spoken in mbala and mpulungu districts found in northern zambia. liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 151-165. 159 • the solo and chorus phrases share the same text, literally or with minimal differences; • sometimes the solo phrase is in the form of a question to which the chorus provides the answer; • the soloist may sing the first word of a phrase or make pneumonic sounds to signal entry of a chorus phrase into the main cycle of a song. example 3: text of the song amalumbo (praises) amalumbo kuli lesa praises to god amalumbo kuli kabumba praises to the creator amalumbo kuli tata praises to the father uwaikala mwachindama who stays in a holy place mulya mumwakwe there in his home nakula kutotela we lesa wandi i will be thanking you my god nakula lumbanya ishinalyobe i will be praising your name uluchelo in the morning akasuba in the afternoon ichungulo in the evening no bushiku and at night lesa ube chibusa wandi god be my friend rooted in these characteristics, ubuomba songs need not necessarily be described as being set in ‘call and response’ mode, but instead ‘solo and chorus’ or ‘leader and chorus’. the song texts are composed in such a way that they convey a spiritual message in conformity with the teachings of christianity and the doctrine of the catholic church. mwela (2012) adds that most of the song texts are based on spiritual salvation and the quest for one’s soul to enter heaven after death. however, chomba (2007: 51) points out that by the 1990s calls for the contextual relevance of catholic church music prompted ubuomba composers to include topical issues such as hiv/aids and corruption, among others. this development, on a semantic level, implies that ubuomba songs can be interpreted on two levels: first, there is the literal meaning of the text; secondly, there is a metaphoric level which entails the transfer of ideas from one context to another, for example, from liturgical service to general education. in this regard bwalya (2000), a director of an ubuomba group, points out that the content of the song text is considered the main factor that determines the suitability of a song for use in church. that is why kunda (2001), indicates that among ubuomba musicians the issue of harmony is not a subject for discussion as the tendency is to sing in parallel thirds, a characteristic borrowed from mfunkutu and other bemba music traditions. by implication, singers do not follow strict or prepared arrangements, but instead harmonise in their own way. concerning this style of harmonisation, chomba (2007:32) indicates that for ubuomba lumbwe 160 singers what is important is for the total performance of the song to sound so good that it stimulates the listeners to dance.14 from the year 2000 to date ubuomba music has not only been performed in the catholic church for liturgical purposes, but has also been performed at bemba ubwinga (wedding) ceremonies and kitchen parties, and has also been recorded on cds and dvds for sale. the commercialisation of ubuomba music has resulted in the incorporation of western musical instruments such as electric guitars, synthesisers and drum sets to create a fusion of mfunkutu drumming and contemporary musical styles such as kalindula from within zambia and rhumba from congo dr. sinjela (2010) observes that some ubuomba songs have been used by recording artists who have produced them in the style of rap and hip-hop music. musical instruments as indicated earlier, ubuomba music was accompanied by piano or organ and later by inshingili double-headed drums and mfunkutu drums sensele, ichibitiko and itumba, as well as ifisekese shakers. the inshingili drums are strapped around the neck of the player and supported by shoulders, while mfunkutu drums are strapped around the player’s waist, as shown in the pictures below. f i g u r e 2 : h o w i n s h i n g i l i a n d m f u n k u t u d r u m s a r e s t r a p p e d t o t h e p l a y e r on inshingili the musician plays a two-tone motif which is interlocked with that of the second player to produce a rhythm pattern that is complemented with that of mfunkutu drums. mfunkutu drums are all single headed and are strapped around the waist of the player. other musical instruments incorporated in the ubuomba performances include the local banjo, the babaton (shown in figure 3) (mwela, 2012), as well as western guitars, synthesisers and drum sets (kasonde,15 2008). according to chanda (2010), a music educator, the inclusion of 14 chomba describes the good sound of singing that stimulates a listener to dance in the bemba phrase ‘chileumfwika umunsaunte’. 15 a catholic parish secretary in lusaka. liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 151-165. 161 local and western musical instruments has been part of the process of evolution of indigenous and contemporary music in the country. in the same vein, arom (1991:5) adds that traditional musics are firmly embedded in history and as such have continued to evolve as they are practised in societies with strong oral traditions. arom adds that the evolution of musics could be attributed to an organic and in some sense a self-perpetuating renewal reinforced by elements derived from the surrounding traditional world, and the influence of ethnic groups on each other. f i g u r e 3 : t h e b a b a t o n a n d b a n j o , s t r i n g e d i n s t r u m e n t s u s e d b y u b u o m b a m u s i c i a n s f i g u r e 4 : s e n s e l e d r u m a n d i t u m b a d r u m u s e d b y u b u o m b a m u s i c i a n s dance and mime since the inception of ubuomba in the catholic church dance and mime have been received with mixed feelings by different quarters of the church. however, mutale (1979) points out lumbwe 162 that moving when singing during mass is acceptable, and even desirable as long as it is done within acceptable limits. chomba (2007: 60) emphasises that the incorporation of dance and mime into liturgical service is an expression of joy, on one hand, and it conforms to the zambian cultural way of expressing praise and respect for a supernatural being, in this case god, on the other hand. chitwansombo (2006) points out that, according to the bemba ingomba tradition, dance and mime are closely associated with the whole performance structure, as they are by extension an emphasis and expression of the lyrics of the song in observable actions. chitwansombo’s point highlights the customary way that the bemba use bodily expression of praise to someone in a position of authority. according to chandamukulu (2005), the mother of mwinelubemba chief chitimukulu,16 praises carry more weight when expressed through the use of the voice, body and actions such as prostrating, clapping hands (which is done with cupped palms) and kneeling down. chandamukulu continues that these gestures are more meaningful than even the spoken word. as indicated earlier, ubuomba singing is accompanied with mfunkutu dancing and miming. however, in this context, the shuffling of feet, twisting of the waist and the up-and-down movements of the arms by the dancer are not performed in the same way as mfunkutu for marriage ceremonies or for beer parties. according to kunda (2001), ubuomba dance movements are performed more gently and within the acceptable limits of the catholic church. concerning mfunkutu dancing, ilunga (2003), a catholic parish member, points out that ubuomba dancers are mindful that they cannot incorporate marriage mfunkutu and beerparty dance styles, as these will be inappropriate for the church setting and at the same time against the principles of bemba customary and cultural principles. in addition, choreographers usually break down the dance into different routines that (a) match the subject of each stanza, (b) the lyrics of the song, and (c) the ritual for which it is being performed. the mime actions follow the lyrics of the song as well as the general theme of the ritual or occasion, and are intended to convey praises and respect for god. in this regard, dancers customarily carry artefacts such as an axe, ox tail, fly whisk etc., all which symbolise authority in bemba culture (mulenga, 2002). according to chasaya (2010), dances are performed by three groups: first, the young girls (aged between 7 and 15); second, the group of women; and third, the group of men who usually perform the mime. depending on the occasion, these groups may perform at the same time, although the girls usually perform their routines during a procession within the mass setting, especially during offertory and communion. in order to enhance ubuomba performances, the singers and dancers wear attire which includes: • white shirts and chitenge material wrapped around the waist with white head-dress for the women; • shirts made from chitenge material with black trousers for the men; and • white dresses with white veils and white gloves for the young girls. rehearsals and performances for ubuomba musicians rehearsal time is more than just practising the songs, dances and mimes. according to chomba (2007:65), ubuomba musicians also include discussions on the 16 chief chitimukulu is the most senior of all the bemba chiefs and that is why he is referred to as mwinelubemba (the owner of bembaland). liturgical music in the catholic church in zambia td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 151-165. 163 general wellbeing of each member of the group. this is the case because ubuomba groups are treated as family units in the catholic church chomba adds that the bemba attach great significance to wellbeing and describe it as a way of improving people’s lives through their participation in healthy activities such as singing and dancing that foster happiness and a sense of togetherness (ilunga, 2003). regarding wellbeing, chinkumwa (2002), a member of an ubuomba group, points out that during practices and performances members have the opportunity to: • interact socially; • exercise physically through the energetic dance steps; • share experiences; • acquire shared knowledge; and • attain emotional fulfilment through group membership and solidarity. rehearsals are broken down into small groups engaged in singing, dancing, instrument playing and miming. songs are taught by rote, because in most cases the songs are not scored and also very few singers are able to read music (mwela, 2012). however, the group leaders are usually able to read the tonic-solfa and in some cases even staff notation. the whole group learns the main melody of the song and once the song has been mastered, harmonies are included based on traditional principles. this means that instead of following the western style four-part harmony, the same melodic line is sung in parallel thirds higher and lower (sinjela,17 2010). sinjela continues that among the different christian denominations in the zambia ubuomba singers are the only groups that do not sing choral music with western-style harmony, but instead rely on indigenous ways of harmonising their music. once the group leader is satisfied with the performance of the song, the singers are then taught the dance routines to accompany the song. mwenya (2006), a librarian at the catholic church education centre, indicates that the routines are created as development of mfunkutu dance steps, and they are taught by whoever choreographed them. regarding the mime actions, mwela (2012) points out that the actions are created based on the meaning of the song text and taught to the group through imitation of the instructor. similarly, the instrumentalists learn and practise the songs separately and by rote as well. once all the different groups have learnt their parts satisfactorily, the whole ubuomba outfit gets together to combine the song, dance and mime. ubuomba performances are mainly sunday services, festivals and ecumenical gatherings. during these times all the components of ubuomba – singing, dancing and miming – are amalgamated into one performance. however, according to chinkumwa (2002), ubuomba performances have been extended to television and some groups have also produced audio and video recordings of their songs for the purpose of selling them to raise funds. conclusion what emerges from this discussion is that the development of buomba, the music and performance styles, has coincided with that of the geographic (rural to urban), social, cultural, political, economic and religious. in the indigenisation process the catholic church drew on bemba secular music styles, mfunkutu and the music of ingomba, an amalgamation which was 17 a music educator at kitwe teachers’ college. lumbwe 164 incorporated into the liturgical service and this style has been further contemporalised, commercialised and integrated in kalindula and congolese rhumba, and has also been incorporated into indigenous ceremonies, especially some marriage ceremonies such as kitchen parties and weddings. furthermore, the ubuomba style has spread beyond bembaland into other areas of the country, especially lusaka and the copperbelt. besides the development of the new musical style ubuomba, musical groups within the catholic church operate as small family units that offer spiritual, moral and emotional support for its members by promoting a high sense of wellbeing. references anonymous, (2014). http://www.ezilon.com/maps/africa/zambia-maps.html/25.06. arom, s. 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(2010). personal communication. mufulira, june – july. july 2008 inside book colour .p65 abstract. an important step in urban purification of drinking water is disinfection by e.g. chlorination where potential pathogenic micro-organisms in the water supply are killed. the presence of organic material in natural water leads to the formation of organic byproducts during disinfection. over 500 of these disinfection by-products (dbps) have been identified and many more are estimated to form during the disinfection step. several dbps such as trihalomethanes (thms), which is carcinogenic, poses serious health risks to the community. there is very few quantitative data available which realizes the actual levels of these compounds present in drinking water. the levels of four thms present in drinking water were measured. it included chloroform, bromodichloromethane, chlorodibromomethane and bromoform. although microbiological parameters are considered to get more attention than disinfection by-products, the measurement of the levels of these compounds in south-african drinking water is essential together with establishing minimum acceptable concentration levels. the target range for total trihalomethanes (tthms) established by the us epa at the end of 2003 is 0-0.08ug/ml. the aim of this paper is to create an awareness of the problem as well as presenting preliminary results obtained with the method of analysis. preliminary results indicate that urgent attention must be given to the regulation and monitoring of dbps in south african drinking water. keywords: drinking water, taps, south african municipal areas, disinfection by-products dbp), organic compounds (oc), trihalomethanes, chloroform, bromodichloromethane, chlorodibromomethane and bromoform. disciplines: chemistry, environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology. disinfection by-products and extractable organic compounds in south african tap water c nothnagel, k kotte, jj pienaar, pg van zyl and jp beukes* * carien nothnagel, (e-mail: 13066544@nwu.ac.za) is an m.sc-candidate in analytical chemistry, at north-west university’s potchefstroom campus. dr karsten kotte is a post-doc in environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology. prof. jj (kobus) pienaar, is leader of the atmospheric chemistry research group in the school of physical and chemical sciences at north-west university’s potchefsrteroom campus. dr pg (pieter) van zyl and dr jp (paul) beukes are also chemists and members of the group. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 175-180. 176 introduction the widespread disinfection of drinking water, which is approximately 100 years old, is regarded to be the major instrument in combating various waterborne diseases. however, modern methods of water treatment face the growing challenge of balancing the risks of waterborne pathogens against the risks that disinfection by-products (dpbs) may pose. dbps are a wide range of unwanted organic compounds formed by chemical reactions of disinfectants typically used in water treatment such as chlorine, chlorine derivates and ozone, with the organic matter present in natural water. since the first dbps were found by rook [1] and bellar [2] 30 years ago, more than 250 dbps have been identified. it is estimated that the amount of dbps identified thus far only contributes to about 50 per cent of the actual amount of dbps present based on the number and weight perception [3, 4, 5]. except for dbps there are also organic compounds (oc) present in tap water. they originate from sources, other than those formed during the treatment process. in most instances the sources of these compounds are either from impurities present in untreated water or from contamination within the distribution systems due to pipe leakages. some dbps and ocs present in drinking water are potentially hazardous to humans (e.g. carcinogenic, cause harm to the liver, kidney, brain, reproductiveand nervous system) and may also have an influence on the aesthetic quality of tap water such as odors and taste. in the last 30 years significant research efforts have been initiated by developed countries aimed at improving the understanding of formation, occurrence and health effects of dbps and ocs present in drinking water. in contrast to this development similar research in south africa has declined since the early 1990s. in consequence of this tendency there is currently very little or no data available regarding the occurrence and formation of dbps and ocs in south african drinking water [6,7]. according to a survey conducted by holzhausen in 2005 [9] only 58 per cent of south african authorities responsible for water services monitor the quality of the local drinking water on a regular basis. the world health organization (who) and most developed countries have well defined regulations and guidelines to protect consumers from elevated levels of dbps and ocs without compromising on the biological safety of drinking water. current legislation on drinking water quality in south africa reflects an anomaly in the regulation of microbiological quality and organochemical characteristics. in particular disinfection by-products, pesticides and other ocs receive little or no attention from the policymakers. as a result, the current south african national standard on drinking water only provides regulations for total trihalomethanes (tthm), dissolved organic carbons and phenols. nothnagel, kotte, pienaar, van zyl, beukes 177 figure 1 sample sites in south-africa. method samples were taken from publicly and regularly used water taps in 31 municipal areas across south africa (figure 1). each sample was immediately closed off in a glass vial. they were stored in a fridge at temperatures below 10°c and above freezing point until the extraction was performed. the extraction and analytical method used was adapted from the epa 551.1 standard operating procedure. this particular epa method is used to determine dbps such as trihalomethanes and haloacetonitriles, chlorinated solvents and pesticides. the procedure was adapted to apply to small scale laboratory extraction and analysis. liquid-liquid extraction was carried out using 0.5ml methyl-t-butylether to extract trihalomethanes from 5ml water. the extracted sample was analyzed on a gas chromatograph (gc) coupled with a time-offlight mass spectrometer detector (ms-tof). this instrument is a powerful analytical tool providing fast and sensitive analyses and has not previously been used for the detection of dbps in drinking water. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 175-180. disinfection by-products in tap water 178 separation of complexes in a gc occurs due to differences in polarities and affinities of the various compounds. the sample is inserted into a column and is carried with an inert gas (mobile phase). as it moves through the column separation of the compounds present in the sample takes place due to their interaction with a packing material (stationary phase) inside the column, which results in different retention times for the complexes (time for a compound to move through the column). the separated compound is then detected with a ms-tof and identified on its specific mass. results and discussion measurement of the concentration levels of four trihalomethane (thm) compounds (trichloromethane, dichlorobromomethane, dibromochloromethane, tribromomethane), which are dbps typically found in drinking water, were selected for this investigation. four compounds were chosen to increase the certainty of the presence of thms in a water sample. in order to determine concentrations of these compounds in real samples it is necessary to compare results with a reference sample, which is called a standard solution. a standard sample solution containing known concentrations of these compounds was purchased. figure 2 shows the chromatogram obtained with the gc/ms-tof. the four peaks are clearly separated with the first peak for trichloromethane emerging after ~ 550 s and last peak for tribromomethane appearing at ~ 1320 s. figure 2 chromatogram of four trihalomethanesfound in water samples. nothnagel, kotte, pienaar, van zyl, beukes 179 in figure 3 the preliminary results obtained for 10 of the 31 municipal areas are shown. the concentrations are given in microgram per milliliter (ug/ml). the concentrations of the tthms measured vary from as high as 1.25 ug/ml for potchefstroom to the lowest value of 0.2 ug/ml for vereeniging. these differences can be expected because each municipality receives its drinking water from different water purifying plants. the source of the water that is purified and the level of disinfection will differ for each purifying plant. the type and amount of organic compounds present in the unpurified water will vary for each place, which will determine the concentration levels of tthms formed during disinfection. when taking into consideration that the target range established by the us epa for tthms is 0 – 0.08 ug/ml, these values determined are high and raises concern. even the lowest concentrations measured at vereeniging and magaliesburg are well above the us epa target range. the concentrations measured at potchefstroom and groblershoop are especially high and action should be taken to decrease these levels. figure 3 preliminary results of ten of the 31 communities. the analyses of these samples were carried out using onedimensional gc/ms-tof and the presence of only four thms was determined. the instrument however has the ability to give twodimensional gc/ms-tof graphs, where overlapping compound peaks are separated on a second column. this allows for the determination of more compounds present in the sample. this feature will be used td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 175-180. disinfection by-products in tap water 180 later to increase the total amount of thms and dbps detected. it is clear that a full assessment of tthms and other dbps present in drinking water across the country should be conducted when examining these preliminary results. another motive for a comprehensive evaluation is to determine a target range, which is feasible for south african conditions. benchmark targets established by the us environmental protection agency (epa) are not necessary applicable to unique south african environmental conditions. the study is still in an early stage and the method will further be optimized. considering the preliminary results obtained, it can clearly be seen that urgent attention must be given to the regulation and monitoring of dbps and ocs in south african drinking water. references bellar, t.a.; lichtenberg, j.j.; kroner, r.c., 1974. the occurrence of organohalides in chlorinated drinking waters, j. am. wat. wks. ass., vol. 66 (12), 703-706. krasner s.w., weinberg h.s., richardson s.d., pastor s.j., chinn r., sclimenti m.j., onstad g.d., thruston a.d., 2006. occurrence of a new generation of disinfection byproducts, environ. sci. technol. 40, 7175-7185. meintjies e., maharaj v., 1992. evaluation of south african raw and drinking water supplies for volatile organic complexes potentially hazardous to human health. wat. sci. tech., 26 (911), 2117-2120. richardson s.d., plewa m.j., wagner e.d., schoeny r., demarini d.m., 2007. occurrence, genotoxicity, and carcinogenicity of emerging disinfection by-products in drinking water: a review and roadmap for research, mutat. res., 636, 178-242. rook, j.j., 1974. formation of haloforms during chlorination of natural waters. water treatment examiner 23, pp. 234–243. van steenderen r.a., pieterse m.j., bourne d., 1991. thm formation in potable waters with reference to related variables and health data bases, water sa, 17 (4), 269-272. weinberg, h., 1999. disinfection byproducts in drinking water: the analytical challenge. analytical chemistry news & features, volume 71 (23), 1999, 801a-808a. nothnagel, kotte, pienaar, van zyl, beukes << /ascii85encodepages false 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july 2013, pp. 113-138. south african music learners and psychological trauma: educational solutions to a societal dilemma i swart1 abstract emotional trauma affects a large proportion of the south african population. this article addresses its influence on music learners, including its effects on brain development, relational development, learning and music-making. the power of the educator to reshape a child’s brain by providing a nurturing and consistent environment is stressed. the effect of the environment in modulating epigenetic expression is discussed in conjunction with object relations theory as a model for human relations. brain-damaging consequences of early attachment trauma can be reversed by healing these patterns through the educational system. music teachers’ observations of how trauma influenced their students’ music-making, emotional expression, memory and relational patterns, students’ observed recoveries from trauma, and the influence of teachers’ own experiences on their appraisal of students’ experiences are discussed. the article also examines the advice of healthcare professionals to teachers and the latter’s legal responsibilities in terms of the reporting of abuse. this is done with reference to responsibilities regarding witnessing and referring, and the possibility of empowering learners through unlearning helplessness and fear. treatment strategies discussed include pharmacological intervention, psychotherapeutic intervention such as cognitivebehavioural therapy, hypnosis, eye movement integration therapy and somatic experiencing. music can serve as an object relationship representing human experience, expressing the movement of feelings, bypassing the cortical function and expressing what words cannot. it can aid in repairing damaged communication processes and restore the sense of bodily connectedness. suggested future directions include the incorporation of teaching modules on educational psychology in music teachers’ training curricula, providing support for students, reducing the risk of secondary traumatisation to professionals, and transdisciplinary collaboration. keywords: brain development, educators, epigenetic expression, integration, previously disadvantaged, trauma disciplines: education, music education, psychology, sociology introduction trauma in our society in a society plagued by violence, poverty, political inequality and broken homes, the effects of trauma2 are familiar to most. for the purposes of this article, corsini’s definition of trauma as the result of a painful event is appropriate. he defines trauma as follows: 1 dr inette swart is a post-doctoral fellow at the school of music, north-west university, potchefstroom campus. contact details: inette.swart@nwu.ac.za 2 this article builds on previous work done for the dmus degree at the university of pretoria under the guidance of prof. caroline van niekerk and dr woltemade hartman (swart 2010). some material from this unpublished thesis was incorporated into the current article. swart 114 the result of a painful event, physical or mental, causing immediate damage to the body or shock to the mind. psychological traumas include emotional shocks that have an enduring effect on the personality, such as rejection, divorce, combat experiences, civilian catastrophes, and racial or religious discrimination (corsini 2002, 1019). a subtle distinction is made between trauma, as defined above, and a ‘traumatic event or experience’, which corsini (2002, 1019) defines as physical or psychic injury that is stressful or shocking and that may be the original cause of an emotional or mental disorder. it is important that teachers take note of his contention that some such events taking place early in life could form the foundation for subsequent neuroses or psychosis. if the impact of trauma can be dissolved during the foundational years, we could make progress in solving a major societal problem. this article focuses on what can be done for the younger members of society to break this cycle of suffering. it is important to be aware that the consequences of trauma could be transmitted from one generation to the next (yehuda et al., 1997; heart, 2005; maviglia, 2006). the new generation of south african musicians might still be dealing with the burden of the apartheid legacy because of the experiences of their parents and grandparents, their economic circumstances or lack of educational opportunities. therefore teachers should be sensitive to the psychic disposition of ‘previously disadvantaged’ music students.3 in his autobiography, long walk to freedom, mandela (1994, 751) writes: ‘the oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity … for to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.’ this underlines how not only a part of the south african population, but all races share the burden. neither the abused nor the abuser escapes unscathed, while without understanding, insight and forgiveness, people who were abused might become abusers themselves (van der kolk 1989). whilst warning that real reconciliation could only occur on the basis of the truth, tutu (2011, 47) states that a future without forgiveness is inconceivable, for ‘revenge merely begets further violence, causing an inexorable spiral of reprisal...’. in order to properly describe trauma as understood by the most recent research, which tends to emphasise the importance of cumulative small traumas, additional factors need to be highlighted. according to levine (1997, 128-129), the factor that determines whether an event could be classified as traumatic for a person is whether its impact remains unresolved. the perception of the nature of an event by an individual determines whether trauma results. the terms ‘perceived life-threatening experiences’ and ‘perceived overwhelming experiences’ feature repeatedly in the literature (e.g. levine 2005, 7; van der kolk & mcfarlane 1996, 6). for levine (1997, 147), the ‘core of the traumatic reaction’ constitutes hyperarousal, constriction, dissociation, denial and feelings of helplessness. scaer (2005), in formulating his hypothesis that the body bears the burden of adverse experience, explains at length the impact of many small cumulative traumas on the body and mind. in addition, scaer (2005, 215) states that complex trauma is associated with sufferers of ptsd (post-traumatic stress disorder) who were subjected to many episodes of traumatic stress. regarding cumulative trauma experienced by children, he (2005, 262) states that multiple events and forms of trauma experienced in childhood lead to complex trauma, and he specifies the associated 3 throughout this article, the terms ‘students’ and ‘learners’ are used interchangeably. sa music learners and psychological trauma 115 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. syndromes to be conversion, somatisation, dissociation, borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. the purpose of this article is to explore music teachers’ beliefs about and approaches to their students’ stated or suspected traumatic experiences against the background of current trauma research, psychological theories and available knowledge about the functioning of the human brain. the article aims to raise awareness and empower teachers through, first, explaining theories on human development as well as the possible influence of trauma on development, and, secondly, drawing on relevant insights from reports by music teachers and advice from healthcare professionals (hps). it shows that it is possible to mitigate the damaging effects of adverse experiences through establishing safe and secure educational environments, relationships and boundaries. influence of trauma on the human brain trauma affects not only the body, the emotions and the personality, but also the brain. the earlier the trauma, the more likely it is that damage to brain structures could result, as will be explicated more fully below on the basis of scaer’s (2005, 58) explanation of the effect of traumatic events. he states that in the brain of a trauma victim, the synapses, neurons and neurochemicals have been altered, consequently changing the perceptual experiences that constitute the mind. in scaer’s view, this confusion of time, together with a thwarted freeze discharge, further immobilises the trauma victim, since unresolved threat bombards procedural memory. overwhelming traumatic events cannot be fully and meaningfully processed by the human brain without proper intervention and assistance. as a result of the high level of arousal and elevation of stress hormones accompanying such events, traumatic memories can become more deeply engrained in neural pathways than ordinary memories (roth & friedman 1998, 12). therefore, although belonging to the past, a traumatic event could continue to have an influence on a learner and his or her development, relations, learning and music-making. this article contends that music learners and their music-making could be influenced by traumatic experience, but that music can also be used in the treatment of trauma sequelae. lathom-radocy and radocy (1996, 69) define music as ‘a product of cognition and affect operating under particular psychological and physiological constraints’. music experienced by an individual or group involves many factors, including psychological and social factors, which determine the nature of the experience for those involved. music is sometimes used in the treatment of trauma victims (for example, see lee 2009; sutton 2002; williams 1978). in addition, much has been written about music’s beneficial effects on the brain (for example, see rauscher, shaw & ky 1993; jausovec, jausovec & gerlic 2006). therefore, while it is clear that trauma can change the brain, the contention here is that music, which also has the ability to exert a strong influence on brain development, could be instrumental in the recovery process. modification of relational patterns in educational settings − through an understanding of basic concepts in object relations and developmental theories − consequently affecting the working of the brain, is explicated as the other dimension of the recovery process. music as communication and relation the music teachers who described their observations of the impact of trauma on their students in the research questionnaire in swart’s study (2010), as well as additional swart 116 unpublished research (2012), were primarily involved in teaching western art music, or what is also commonly known as ‘classical music’. the arguments could also be applicable to other forms of music, and some also to other educational environments. at a basic level music can be defined as ‘organised sound’ (levitin 2006, 111). frawley (1997, 228) explains that sound can either reinforce or release emotion. structuring and making meaning of abstract sound by organising it into melody, harmony and rhythm are part of the creative process utilised by composers and performers. in a music therapy setting, freely expressing emotion through sound, improvising, responding to cues from others and structuring experience can have therapeutic value where the communication process has been damaged, extending even to the treatment of mental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia (sutton 2002, 25-32; di franco 1993, 83). inclusive definitions of musicmaking include elliott’s description of what he calls ‘musicing’ as encompassing performing, improvising, composing, arranging and conducting (elliott 1995, 49, 109), a definition in which ‘teaching’ is noticeably omitted. holmgren (2008/9) defines music performance as ‘an experience, encompassing teaching and learning, analysis and critique, and the combined experiences of those who interact in diverse ways with the processes and products of making music’. in line with holmgren’s view, this article focuses on the experiences of teaching and learning, regarding both as aspects of music-making. the emphasis in this article is on ‘relating’ as a dynamic, ongoing interaction between human beings. in short, music is seen as a process of communicating with and relating to others. it is not only through the content that they teach, but also through the way in which they relate to learners that teachers exercise such a strong influence on their students. watkins describes this relational aspect beautifully with a concept called ‘resonance’ (2005, 8): ‘resonance is a wonderful skill, the ability to see the world, and even our own selves, through the eyes of another. by internalising perceptions of another, we invest our own self energy and turn “it” into “me”. if resonance were more practised, parents would understand children, teachers would understand students, and nations would understand one another.’ before an attempt can be made to understand music or art as representative or expressive of human experience, it is necessary to ask what music is for those involved with it. welbel (2009) and stein (2007, 444) explain that from a psychoanalytic or developmental point of view, the music and its auditor can be described as being in an object relationship. it may be deduced that the same psychic operatives are at work between performer and the instrument. welbel explains that a relationship always exists between the artist and his/her surroundings, and adds that while psychoanalysis itself is sometimes dismissed, its principles are still applied by the way relationships are described. she even describes music as a substitute for the loved object that leaves and returns, and notes that this perception provides the possibility of mastering anxiety in some cases. in her view, music is the best way to re-enact trauma, while performance of music is therapy in itself – translating into performers getting therapy every day. it will be seen below how music’s relational role can play an integral part in the healing process. mcclary (2007), marshman (2003), skar (2002) and tilly (1977), all authors who discuss music’s role in the treatment of trauma, follow the psychotherapeutic philosophy of carl jung. central to jung’s psychology is the concept of individuation, the early developmental components of which are discussed in the section on klein’s adaptation of freud’s work into her ‘object relation theory’ of child development (klein 1946). jung believed that true works of art have their origin in the collective unconscious and could possibly bring balance to the sa music learners and psychological trauma 117 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. conscious values of a society. the artistic impulse to create has similarities to a pathological state, but it is not entirely the same (marshman 2003, 24, 26, 28). despite all the biological explanations, the question can still be asked: on the continuum of past and present experience as well as future hopes, is it brain mechanisms that are responsible for behaviour and creativity, or is it deeper-lying inspirations, including philosophical constructs such as the collective unconscious, or both? pervasive effects of early trauma the effect of the environment on epigenetic expression while research has shown that trauma can damage the brain (bremner 2002), very promising research on epigenetics offers hope that we might have more control over our destiny than was formerly believed. that is, provided we are able to modify our environment into a relatively nurturing and safe place. epigenetics is defined as ‘the study of heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in dna sequence’ (eccleston, dewitt, gunter, marte, & nath 2007). cloud (2010) explains that gene expression governed by the epigenome sits on top of the genome and can tell genes to switch on or off, allowing the expression of the genome to be modified by environmental factors such as diet, stress, nurturing and prenatal nutrition. it works on two basic principles: methyl groups attaching to genes, called dna methylation, turning genes on or off (cloud 2010), and the utilisation of coiling proteins which, by wrapping dna into spools, can hide genes by tightening them or allowing them to become active by relaxing spools (zimmer 2010). this mechanism changes the way brain cells work and has implications for relieving people of psychiatric disorders through rearranging the pattern of gene expression by modifying the environment (zimmer 2010). the ground-breaking study on the influence of environment on epigenetic expression was conducted by weaver, cervoni, champagne, d'alessio, sharma, seckl, dymov, szyf and meaney (2004). they found that rat pups from mothers who groomed and licked them a lot grew up to be calm adults, while pups from mothers who seemed to ignore their pups became anxious adults. in addition, by taking rats from the different groups and placing them with foster mothers with the opposite relational pattern, they proved that whether a rat pup grows up as anxious or relaxed depends on the mother that raises it and not the mother that gave birth to it, showing that nurturing can bypass the slow processes of random mutation and natural selection (genetic science learning centre 2012). child abuse may leave its mark on victims in a similar manner by altering epigenetic marks in the hippocampus4 and as a result making fewer stress receptors on the neurons, leaving victims unable to regulate their stress hormones, which in turn leads to anxiety (zimmer 2010). zimmer (2010) concludes that differences between personalities are determined not only by genes, but that love also plays a major role in shaping personalities. therefore, the hope for traumatised children lies in the environment being modified by caring others, such as family or teachers, into a nurturing and safe place as opposed to a dangerous, cold and unpredictable place. 4 the hippocampus is a brain structure responsible for the assimilation of incoming stimuli into meaningful material which can be stored in memory (spiegel 2008). swart 118 further biological effects of trauma and its implications for therapeutic intervention understanding the effects of trauma on the brain is central to understanding its pervasive influence. trauma research veteran and expert in mind-body healing, stress and selfregulation, robert levine (2010, 249), asserts that we cannot escape the fact that we are bound by the brain’s control over, influence and operation on our bodies. levine (2010, 249) states: ‘to know ourselves is to know our brains, and to know our brains is to know ourselves – more or less’. according to levine (2010, 254), our higher thought processes are servants rather than masters, as can be illustrated by the fact that language alone is not sufficient to soothe a small child, but needs to be accompanied by holding, rocking and gentle sounds. he states that words need to have a physical context for them to be healing (levine 2010, 264). an important aspect of the symptoms traumatised people exhibit is the immediacy of their emotional reactivity. this could cause them to overreact and intimidate others (van der kolk & saporta 1991, 202) and is connected to the observation that under stress these people may feel as if they were traumatised again (van der kolk 1996, 291). levine’s work (for example 1997, 99-100) emphasises the role of instinctual responses, the ‘thwarted freeze response’, the release of ‘frozen energy’ and the use of physical contact (levine 2010, 3-9) in the quest for healing. interventions such as talk therapy and cognitivebehavioural therapy do not fully address these aspects, since they both emphasise the higher thought processes and verbal accounts of events without addressing somatic components. levine (2005, 27) explains that the instinctual parts of both human and animal brains are almost identical, while it is the rational part of our brain (the neo-cortex) which is uniquely human. our first responses to shock and trauma are instinctive, while rational appraisal and reflection follow only later. therefore, as levine shows, the challenge in treatment is to address the primary instinctual responses and memories of threat. he states that ‘successful healing methods inevitably involve establishing a connection to the body’ (2005, 28). recent developments in the field of neuropsychology increasingly acknowledge biological changes caused by trauma as a causative factor in the symptoms characterising its aftermath. van der kolk and saporta (1991, 199) use the term ‘physioneurosis’ to describe this phenomenon. while scaer (2005, 58) refers to the relationship between changes in the brain of the trauma victim and alteration of perceptual experience, nijenhuis, van der hart and steele (2004) link trauma-induced neurobiological changes to difficulties with integrative functions. physical brain structures can also be affected. unfortunately, the scope for research into this very promising aspect in furthering our understanding of the effects of trauma is mostly limited to post-mortem findings. numerous authors refer to decreases in hippocampal volume associated with trauma and especially with complex trauma (e.g. scaer 2005, 75; bremner 2002, 60-2; robertson 1999, 236). spiegel (2008) states that a smaller hippocampus would likely have a limiting influence on a person’s capacity to encode, store and retrieve memories and to manage associated emotions. the lack of unconditional love is another aspect of unresolved trauma that should be referred to. as was illustrated above, love and nurturing affect us not only emotionally but also physiologically. the emotional trauma inflicted upon a child who does not receive unconditional love can, according to miller (1997) and weeks (2000), result in such a child not developing an inner sense of self. weeks argues that children and even adults traumatised in this way are frequently encountered among high-achieving musicians. miller (1997, 1) writes that emotional discovery about the history of our childhood is the only enduring sa music learners and psychological trauma 119 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. weapon to combat mental illness. although the truth of the influence of early experience cannot be denied, in reality we are continually confronted whilst going through life with situations which have the potential to modify our ‘established’ physiology. this article maintains that, whilst re-traumatisation remains a dangerous possibility that should never be left out of consideration, subsequent positive encounters can erase or change the markers of trauma on our biology. on the other hand, treatment strategies that overemphasise revisiting past events can perhaps diminish the capacity for taking control over current circumstances, the capacity for making choices and responding to challenges, as well as overlooking serendipitous opportunities for healing on the path through life. insights from the theory of object relations into personality development much can be understood about our ways of relating to others through a basic comprehension of object relations theory. such knowledge could prove particularly valuable to teachers observing the behaviour of learners. object relations theory holds that the way infants experience their parents shape the way in which they subsequently relate to other people and situations (st. clair 2000). for the young child the primary caregivers play the biggest role in shaping their experience of the world as a safe or unsafe place, as well as influencing the brain circuits which determine their most likely behaviour and responses in future relationships. this article contends that, in the light of the epigenetic research referred to above, these behaviours and responses can be modified later in life; this approach therefore goes beyond the more deterministic conclusions reached by biological theorists such as schore (2010), referred to below. ‘object relations’, a term coined by ronald fairbairn, is a developmental theory developed by mélanie klein through her observations and work with children. building on the work of sigmund freud, klein elaborated on the significance of early developmental phenomena by focusing on pre-oedipal development with object seeking (primarily the mother or the breast) rather than drive satisfaction as the primary motivation (st. clair 2000). the infant’s unconscious ‘phantasy’ is tested against experience of reality; introjections of the ‘good object’ help the ego to defend itself against anxiety, while projection of undesirable qualities is an attempt to eject the bad (segal 1981). early in its development, the child can only perceive experience as all good or all bad, characterising the ‘paranoid-schizoid position’ by splitting or part object relations’. since the ego tends towards integration, splitting is never fully effective and it is during the ‘depressive position’ that others are now perceived as whole, integrating ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characteristics (klein 1946). in the light of the above, it follows that traumatic early attachment can form dysfunctional patterns and challenge the child in forming and sustaining healthy relationships with others. levine (2005, 71) explains that, if those who are supposed to love and protect us instead turn out to hurt and violate us, a double bind is created. this can be explained as follows: unlike children from secure families who are able to go to adult sources of protection and develop trust and a sense of safety in the world, children who are abused are compromised in their ability to develop a sense of safety and stability, and their basic sense of self and trust is undermined, causing them to carry thwarted survival patterns into adulthood (levine 2005). this forms the origins of relational difficulties as well as self-esteem issues, and often prevents people from reaching their full potential (levine 2005). if modified early in the child’s development through the educational system, these maladaptive patterns can be changed. according to schore (2010), neural circuitry of the stress system is located in the early developing right brain. he postulates that traumatic attachments occurring at a critical swart 120 period of development will lead to dysfunction during stress and predispose individuals to post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). schore (2010) states that the ‘good-enough mother’ of a securely attached infant responds appropriately to his/her emotional expressions and permits the child access after separation, thereby expanding the child’s coping capacities. the developmental attainment of such an efficient internal system serves the function of regulating arousal and psychobiological states and allows for affect, cognition and behaviour to evolve. an inaccessible caretaker responding to her infant’s expressions of emotion and stress with rejection induces extreme, enduring states of arousal and stimulation in the infant. the child feels its survival is at risk, its capacity to trust is jeopardised and until these internal states are brought under control, the child can ‘do nothing else’ and fails to develop (schore 2010). schore states that, while the organisation of the brain’s coping mechanisms occur during certain critical periods, these systems are also most plastic during those times and can be modified by infant mental health interventions aimed at altering the affect-communicating capacities of high-risk mother-infant dyads and altering the intergenerational transmission of ptsd. he does not state what the alternatives are if these critical periods in development have been passed and intervention takes place at a later age. nature of the music teaching relationship what distinguishes the teacher-student relationship in music education from that in general education is the often individual or small-group nature of lessons. teachers know their students on a personal level and often have a major influence on their lives. they should know that they are not therapists and cannot act in that capacity. however, the importance of their influence on their students should never be underestimated. welbel (2009) explains that ultimately any relationship between human beings can have therapeutic components, but even more so the relationship between a teacher and a student. she goes as far as stating that teachers are therapists nolens volens – whether they want to be or not. howard gardner, developer of the theory of ‘multiple intelligences’, is reported to have said that ‘[t]he teacher … must be at once physiologist and psychologist’ (cited in brice 2004, 41) the responsibility that teachers have for the wellbeing and musical maturation of their students extends to choosing age-appropriate music for them to learn. welbel (2009) said in a personal interview that young children should not play too dramatic music, since they then ‘take the trauma of the composer on their own soul’. such music could include mature compositions or music written during times when composers were experiencing great individual or collective turmoil. excessively virtuosic music written for themselves by young composers embarking on solo careers could also fall in this category. types of compositions given to students to play have certainly become a concern recently as younger and younger musicians competing in contests are playing increasingly demanding music – both technically and interpretatively. sometimes their life experience does not yet prepare them for this, but it could also be possible that children who had suffered trauma could be inclined to play more mature music. skar (2002, 631) observed that adult students’ attraction to certain types of music could reveal dormant aspects of the unconscious. if taken to possibly apply to younger students as well, this suggests that giving them the freedom to indicate their own musical preferences could facilitate natural intra-psychic processes of finding equilibrium. stein (2007, 451) cautions about the very delicate balance that exists between different possibilities: art can represent experiences that could otherwise be too overwhelming to express, but it can also break down the necessary protective mechanisms that trauma victims employ to suppress sa music learners and psychological trauma 121 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. extreme experience. identifying emotions appropriate to the music and guiding students to assimilate the development of these emotions into the musical structure − for instance how the musical ideas and intent transform during the course of a work, such as through the exposition, development and recapitulation sections or a series of variations − is simply music therapy in a different form (welbel 2009). research methodology introduction: holistic research of a qualitative nature the experience of trauma is very common. still, victims often feel isolated before they discover, through therapy or the sharing of their experiences, that they do not have to suffer alone. research such as exemplified by this study can play a role in giving a voice to the young victims of trauma through the observations of those who work with them, as well as providing knowledge to those interacting with and educating them. ashworth (2003, 24) confirms that it is usually only qualitative research that properly takes into account the diverse experiences of individuals and that can make the voices of the excluded heard. personal interpretative viewpoints are integral to qualitative research, and the article presents the experiences and opinions of the respondents. welbel (2009) reminds us that psychology is an art form and not only a strictly scientific endeavour. in fact, this article aims to combine the scientific and artistic attitudes. hanser’s (1999, 52) description of music therapy as ‘combining the best of art and science in the service of helping others’ is appropriate for this article, which investigates phenomena in music and psychology in order to find ways to ease the pain and suffering caused by traumatic stress. this article examines not only the reactions and responses of music learners to trauma, but also the role that educators can play in softening and even reversing the impact of unfortunate experiences. the literature on trauma, brain development and object relations explains the mechanisms of development which, when thwarted, produce pathological manifestations. it is hypothesised that the pathway to resolution can lie in the modification of pathological patterns, both relational and neuronal, through the educational system. research method after reviewing the available literature on trauma, psychotherapeutic intervention strategies, and the use of music by professionals working with individuals recovering from trauma, i decided on an open-ended qualitative questionnaire as a means of data collection. two questionnaires were formulated, one for music teachers who have worked with traumatised students and the other for prominent healthcare professionals (hps) who indicated that they have worked with musicians affected by trauma. responses were obtained from 27 music teachers and 17 health-care professionals including psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech-language pathologists and counsellors (swart 2010). selected aspects of the research results from swart (2010) on the influence of trauma on musicians, as well as additional unpublished data gathered by the same methods (swart 2012), are incorporated. the feedback was from music teachers and hps who, although some had lived and studied elsewhere previously, were working within the south african music environment at the time they responded to the survey. swart 122 data extracted from the research results for the purposes of this article related to the way that learners responded to trauma as evident in their relationship to music, their instrument or voice, and their teachers, as well as general signs and effects of trauma observed by teachers. the influence of teachers’ own experiences on their appraisal of the experiences of their students is briefly referred to; these data were obtained from the final question of the teachers’ questionnaire, namely a section marked ‘optional’, inviting them to provide brief introspective self-reports of traumas experienced by teachers themselves and treatments received, if any. teachers were asked whether they had referred students for treatment, and if they observed improvement in students they knew were receiving treatment. the hps’ observations of common mistakes made by teachers in dealing with traumatised learners and their advice to teachers were selected from the feedback. limitations the exploratory nature of the research relies on individuals’ own interpretations of their experiences, as well as their observations of the experiences of others, namely those of students and clients or patients. these are subjective evaluations that cannot be reliably quantified. it is not the aim of this article to provide any predictions about how music learners might respond in dealing with traumatic circumstances, but rather to increase awareness, including awareness of appropriate professional ways of handling such situations that may arise. the article can only provide knowledge to broaden educators’ frame of reference: it cannot provide recipes on how to apply such knowledge. a limitation of non-experimental research designs noted by marczyk, de matteo, and festinger (2005, 147) is that, since no control is exerted over the variables and environments being studied, extraneous variables as the cause of observed phenomena and effects cannot be ruled out. response to the research questionnaire: opinions of participant music teachers population of respondents twenty-seven music teachers responded to the questionnaire (swart 2010, 2012). for the purposes of this article, research results were greatly condensed and only points relevant to the current topic extracted. the population of respondents included teachers of voice, piano, organ, violin, cello, classical guitar, transverse flute, recorder, clarinet, saxophone and trumpet. years of experience in music teaching ranged from 6 to 51 years, with the majority of respondents having 30 or more years of experience. the levels taught ranged from beginners to concert artists, with most respondents having a balanced experience of teaching at different levels as well as teaching students from previously disadvantaged communities. kinds of trauma reported are abuse of various perpetrators including that by students’ parents; verbal, sexual and physical abuse; dysfunctional family set-ups; the breaking up of families and divorce of parents; being raised by a single parent; the onset of mental illness; death of a parent, relative or friend; suicide attempts (students themselves or close friends); drug addiction; political violence; students hijacked and/or held at gunpoint; chronic hunger; and suffering from hiv/aids. sa music learners and psychological trauma 123 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. working with traumatised students: observations from respondents teachers were asked whether they have worked with students whom they were aware of having been exposed to serious trauma and, if so, what they learnt from the experience. twenty-two teachers indicated that they have indeed worked with traumatised students: aspects which came to mind included single severe incidents as well as the accumulation of a traumatic influence over a period of time. previously disadvantaged students and students from broken homes: problems affecting the poor and the rich problems at home have the most pervasive influence, potentially affecting all aspects of students’ lives. teachers who have worked with previously disadvantaged students identified concentration difficulties (commonly noted and described by one respondent as erratic concentration affecting performance in a student who was known to have been affected by political violence), frequent breakdowns during performance and lower achievement levels as common signs. it was noted that the emotional nature of music lessons often leads to tears and breakdown. it is not uncommon for these children to be hungry and suffering from hiv/aids. previously disadvantaged students tended to be markedly reserved in their emotional expression and became noticeably more expressive as they discovered that music is a means whereby they could explore their inner selves as they grew to trust the teacherlearner relationship. however, it appeared that the stress of performance made them relive their own personal stress and trauma, and performances inevitably suffered. for some of these children, coming to the music centre every afternoon irrespective of whether they had lessons scheduled or not was a means of escaping from their hardship. the importance of learners needing to feel safe, to belong and to have secure boundaries was highlighted by respondents. if these elements were absent, emotional expression became distant and depression was common. while previously disadvantaged students are likely to lack a feeling of safety or secure boundaries, especially if they come from broken homes or households affected by disease, privileged students are also affected by similar challenges and teachers noted high rates of dysfunctional homes. traumas were often related to the breaking up of families. severe inner tension was audible in the music of these learners. it was noted that problems could only be resolved when learners were able either to get away from the circumstances or cut their emotional connections with the problem. over-ambitious parents were also a particularly destructive influence on their children, sometimes with devastating consequences. adjustments teachers made in their teaching four teachers noted that they had to treat students with great patience, sensitivity and understanding, and had to refrain from applying pressure to achieve. the importance of applying ‘constructive patience’, yet encouraging perseverance in order to achieve success, the latter being a healing process, was explained. the patience of the teacher was especially challenged when reactions were excessive, and anger and resentment were always near the surface. it was found to be especially challenging to teach students who were verbally and psychically abused. their teachers reported making an effort to help learners to change engrained negative thinking patterns, to reframe their thinking and to cultivate positive thinking patterns. tension interfered with technique, and teachers incorporated relaxation techniques into their teaching and tried to remove the pressure of exams and performances. whilst empathy and listening with understanding are important, teachers stated that learners do not want to be pitied. as one teacher commented: ‘become as noble and caring as possible swart 124 – learn how to become empathic and walk the extra mile with others – yet focus on staying on the right side of professionalism.’ learning problems traumatised students were noted to have difficulty with learning the notes of and interpreting new pieces. they were reported as battling to maintain concentration; they have difficulty studying any work, and exhibit fluctuating mind-sets and are inclined to be emotionally very vulnerable. drug addicts were particularly difficult to teach: the reason for the addiction first had to be identified. if this is achieved and the journey to recovery embarked on, some responded well to music teaching and were even rehabilitated. mild to seriously traumatised students were unresponsive during lessons and the teacher had to be satisfied if the students could play the correct notes. these students tended not to pay attention to dynamics and expressive features of the music. insights gained teachers remarked that they had learnt that having knowledge of students’ background helps with understanding them ‘and where they come from’. it is important that teachers realise when students are failing to progress according to their ability. for some, music serves as an ‘escape’ from the pain and can have a ‘redemptive influence’. however, teachers also found that some students wanted to stop music lessons when traumatic events were impacting on other areas of their lives. a singing teacher was of the opinion that since singing utilises such a personal instrument in the form of a person’s own voice, singers are more prone to the effects of traumatic events than other performers are. another wrote that if aggression is channelled into singing, this can put too much pressure on the vocal cords, causing damage. the role of the teacher was noted to be even more important in the case of young children. one teacher noted that for young children ‘music and teacher are indivisible. a sympathetic teacher helps as much to re-establish stability as the music does.’ all music teachers need to be very aware of their students’ feelings and any changes. ‘more than any other teachers the music teacher has a close relationship to the student. we may often be first to see signs.’ general signs of trauma noted general signs indicating to teachers that students were suffering from the effects of trauma were consistent with those referred to in the literature on trauma, mostly centring on motivation, under-achievement and inadequate preparation, low self-esteem, mood swings or depression, loss of confidence, fearfulness, fatigue, tension, loss of breathing control in singers and wind players, change of appearance, and emotional as well as social withdrawal. introversion, anxiety and sometimes anger lead to relational difficulties and changes in socialisation. the fact that traumatised learners experience a lot of stress was emphasised, and this was linked to physical difficulties such as tense body posture inhibiting movement at the instrument as well as emotional problems such as feelings of insecurity and worthlessness which affect motivation and performance. trauma was noted to have caused ‘extreme tension interfering with technique’. effects could be so overwhelming that learners became unable to function. such learners were noted to have searched for therapeutic or psychiatric intervention over extensive periods of time. decreased attention span and concentration deficits, often leading to inaccurate playing, were the most frequently identified signs. concentration deficits were suspected as a cause of frequent memory lapses in these students. a case is made elsewhere for the role dissociation has to play as an aetiological factor in such occurrences of memory lapses in traumatised sa music learners and psychological trauma 125 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. students (see swart, van niekerk and hartman 2010). dissociation was not raised as an issue by these teachers, since a background in psychology is needed to make these links. concentration problems and memory lapses were closely followed by suppression of emotions and expression of anger in music (identified both in instrumentalists as well as singers). marked variations between learners were noted: while some struggled with interpretation, others found the performance of music therapeutic. reactions ranged from complete withdrawal to using the instrument as an emotional outlet. expression of emotion and memory for music are areas greatly affected and especially audible in the musical result, since they are so integral to the study and performance of music. it was observed that music could be an outlet for students, since it does not require that feelings be verbalised but provides a beneficial avenue for students ‘to express themselves in an alternative way’. this is consistent with the findings of mcclary (2002), molnar-szakacs and overy (2006), montello (2002), peretz and hebert (1995) and scaer (2005), which will be discussed under the section on treatment possibilities. referrals and recovery only seven teachers indicated that they have ever referred students to appropriate healthcare services. some teachers indicated that they did indeed speak to class teachers or remedial teachers of these students and/or to the headmaster or headmistress of the school, and that these individuals took the prescribed steps. one teacher remarked that, although one can sometimes easily identify problems, it can be challenging to find solutions since ‘the pupil may not want you to speak to anyone about it’. teachers were asked about their perceptions of change and recovery in students whom they knew were receiving treatment (not necessarily referred by themselves). many teachers alluded to the fact that, while there are great individual variations, recovery can be a lengthy process – lasting even years – before recovery is perceived in the lessons and performances. • one teacher remarked that the symptoms are at their worst shortly after the onset of treatment, almost as if the student is reliving the trauma. only afterwards does the healing process become evident and the symptoms diminish and sometimes recede completely. • yet another teacher remarked that, although signs diminished, they recurred occasionally. • symptoms never went away completely (in between two to four years), but treatment facilitated visible improvement. this was described by another teacher as students ‘never fully regaining lost ground’. • expression eventually deepened only in cases where the situation was resolved. psychosomatic symptoms were prevalent. • treatment helped students to gain control over emotions such as anger, grief and aggression. this was achieved in conjunction with the return of physical and psychic strength. • complete recovery was only attained in cases where the student was treated by ‘an experienced specialist in that particular field’. in these cases, communication of emotion became more secure, frequency of memory lapses declined, focus and dedication improved, restlessness ceased and depressive symptoms diminished. some of these students even considered music as a future career. swart 126 • emotions are often suppressed and, after healing, the playing again becomes more sensitive. • it is important that students themselves should take control and find ways to handle the situation when ‘triggers’ appear. • performance and self-confidence improved and signs diminished. teachers working with students from previously disadvantaged communities stated that they and their colleagues often adopt the role of counsellors, since the students do not have the financial means to receive counselling. teachers ‘might not have the means to change their situations at home, etcetera, but at least we try to give the necessary comfort, support and love’. advice of healthcare professionals to teachers healthcare professionals warned against some common mistakes that teachers make when dealing with traumatised students. their responses as anonymous research participants are exclusively based on their own experiences in treating clients who were musicians or music students, and are not related to the input received from the teachers. the most prevalent responses by the teachers were scolding, reprimanding, comments or criticisms aimed at reactive behaviour from the student that is a result of trauma (but the teacher perhaps does not realise this) and not related to the abilities of the student. other responses on common mistakes include: • trying to handle this themselves; • not always realising that any behaviour that is different to the known profile could be a warning sign; • placing too much pressure on a student or increasing the workload so as to improve performance when progress was perceived as deteriorating could be detrimental (from two respondents); • insufficient understanding on the part of the teacher; • re-inflicting the damage by insensitive criticism or derogatory comments; • inappropriate probing; • labelling performers as people who should be able to overcome extra emotional stress (the old saying that ‘the show must go on’); • not believing students, telling them ‘it is not so bad’ or labelling them as troublesome; • when the teacher misinterprets a disability as a lack of concentration or poor practice; • anything that causes anxiety in students and makes them feel unsafe to express their feelings and emotions. points of advice from hp’s include: • teachers should be aware that the possibility exists that symptoms may be triggered in repeatedly traumatised musicians while they practise, preventing them from continuing their careers. • a forensic psychologist emphasized the importance of not questioning the person about the traumatic event as this can lead to ‘contamination of evidence’ and adversely influence the relationship between teacher and student/performer. sa music learners and psychological trauma 127 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. • it was suggested that a teacher who suspects abuse refer the student for assessment under the guise of ‘assistance to reach his/her full potential’. in such a situation, any suspicions harboured by the teacher should be shared with the therapist only. • a psychologist cautioned teachers to respect the boundaries of the student musicians and to be prepared to change the manner of teaching, perhaps on the advice of a trauma specialist. • the importance of appropriate referrals was repeatedly emphasized. responsibilities of music teachers regarding witnessing and referring how and when to intervene there are times when intervention is necessary. music teachers may sometimes find themselves to be in the best position to take action, especially since they often work with students on a one-on-one basis and might be told things which other teachers are less likely to hear. they should be equipped with transdisciplinary knowledge. teachers’ responsibility and influence extends to their immediate reactions to such news, or ‘compassionate witnessing’ as weingarten (2003,163) refers to this, but most importantly to appropriate referrals to trained professionals. an appreciation and understanding of the uniqueness of each student and of different students’ and individuals’ reactions to trauma are prerequisites to even begin to act in an appropriate manner (swart 2010, 100). welbel’s (2009) explanation that ultimately any relationship between human beings can have therapeutic components is relevant, given the previous discussions on the capacity of the environment and interaction with significant others to ‘reshape’ students’ brains. she explains that teachers actually perform music therapy just by being, relating to their students, hearing and experiencing. however, as previously stated and without ever underestimating the importance of their influence on their students, teachers should know that they are not therapists and cannot act in that capacity. knowing the signs of possible trauma can help educators to act in the best interests of their students, to refer them in a timely way and to maintain the appropriate confidentiality. it is also important that any person in a teaching capacity is aware that there are clear linkages between childhood trauma and many psychiatric disorders. educators should be familiar with their legal responsibilities regarding the reporting of child abuse. legal responsibilities, ethical considerations and the advice of healthcare professionals the children’s amendment act s110 of 2007 states (vetten 2012): ‘any teacher, medical practitioner, psychologist … who on personal observation concludes that a child has been sexually abused, deliberately neglected or abused in a manner causing physical injury must report that conclusion to the provincial department of social development, a designated child protection organisation, police official or clerk of the children’s court.’ in the article ‘reporting child abuse or ill-treatment’ on the website of the south african government services (2008), section 42 of the child care act, 1983, such responsibility is stated more generally as teachers and medical practitioners being ‘obliged to report any suspicions of child abuse or ill treatment’. according to de wet and oosthuizen (2001, 166167), educators who are negligent about reporting child abuse can be convicted for a criminal offence and also possibly held liable for civil remedy. de wet and oosthuizen (2001, 169swart 128 170) note that teachers often do not fulfil their duties in cases where they become aware of child abuse. in cases of suspected domestic violence, abuse or incest, particular care should be taken not to jeopardise the victim through ill-considered disclosure to third parties – particularly keeping in mind possible retaliation by the perpetrator. psychopathology outcomes it was noted above that trauma could lead to brain changes, developmental disorders and psychopathology. luxenberg, spinazzola and van der kolk (2001) identify the developmental level at which the trauma occurs and whether it occurs in the context of an important relationship in the victim’s life as critical elements in determining psychopathological outcomes. scaer (2005) states that complex trauma is associated with ptsd victims who were subjected to many episodes of traumatic stress particularly in childhood. van der kolk (1996) states that if the psychopathology of these patients is understood, it becomes possible to understand much of their symptomatology as caused by adaptations that were necessary at the developmental level at which the trauma occurred in order to survive the experiences. differences of responses among teachers who indicated that they have experienced trauma themselves and those who have not an optional section in the research questionnaire invited teachers to write self-reports on traumas they had experienced themselves. out of 27 teachers who responded to the questionnaire 20 confirmed that they had indeed personally experienced trauma, eight of whom mentioned having received professional treatment. noteworthy (seeming) discrepancies were observed in the responses, particularly in the area where three teachers reported that they had never given any consideration to the influence of trauma on their students’ progress and music-making, even though giving detailed self-reports of traumas personally experienced. ways in which the personal experiences of teachers relate to their professional evaluation of the influence of trauma on their students seem to suggest that some who reported that they had been traumatised and had not received treatment were unlikely to notice the possibility that trauma could be affecting their students. swanepoel (2008) observed that there may be a tendency for musicians who have not dealt with their own trauma to feel alone and be less capable of recognising if and when others are also affected. on the other hand, the mere act of ‘dealing’ with past trauma possibly opens a person’s eyes to the fact that many others could also be affected. this just serves to illustrate how, just as music itself is a dynamic and changing form of communication, so perception is a dynamic and changing form of observation. empowering students through unlearning helplessness and fear knowledge of the immobility response and learned helplessness can aid teachers in developing the necessary understanding to help re-instil their traumatised students’ sense of sa music learners and psychological trauma 129 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. control and mastery. jensen (1998, 58-59) draws attention to the potentially debilitating effects of learned helplessness. many repetitions of showing learners that they have the ability to exercise control over their circumstances and encouraging them to reengage in choicemaking are required to reverse the effects that biological rewiring of the brain had on subjects who perceived themselves as helpless during a traumatic situation (jensen 1998, 58-59). an understanding of how trauma can influence the psychological aspects of music performance, amplify stage fright, lead to concentration problems and even cause memory lapses is important to enable teachers to assist all their students – and not only the more resilient or ‘lucky’ ones – to reach their full potential (swart 2010; swart, van niekerk and hartman 2010). adequate knowledge of examples of how trauma influenced other musicians, particularly famous musicians, can help equip teachers to highlight learners’ potential for growth. such examples of identification with others could assist students to remain motivated even in the face of adverse circumstances, to evaluate their responses to trauma and explore alternative responses, enabling them to regain control over their lives and their choices. however, a prerequisite for such growth is that teachers begin by questioning their own metanarratives. hlynka and yeaman (1992, 4) state that it is important to support one’s ‘way of knowing’ by operating from a mode of criticism yet not evaluation, and thereby recognising dysfunctions as well as functions. only by not judging and not evaluating can dysfunctional as well as functional responses to trauma be identified. treatment possibilities principles of potentially successful treatment strategies the focus in this article is on educational solutions to trauma, but a few core principles behind effective intervention have not yet been covered. in consulting the available literature on the handling of trauma sequelae and through the feedback to the research questionnaires, various treatment modalities emerged. however, a discussion of all these models is beyond the scope of this article and the reader is referred to swart’s (2010) original study for further information. the pre-eminent goal of all treatment should be to enable the affected learner to return to an optimal level of functioning in his or her daily life and so effect growth. at the moment of imminent death, ‘animals shake, sweat, and breathe it all out’ (scaer 2005, 285). humans do not deal with trauma in the same way as animals, and problems develop because the emotional response to the trauma is not allowed to be completed. levine (1997, 100-101) blames this on the neo-cortex, overriding the instinctual responses, which had the original function of completing this cycle. modern trauma-based psychotherapy works on the principle of synthesis and integration of traumatic material (huopainen 2002, 97-98). van der kolk (1994, 12) maintains that returning to an optimally functioning, fully integrated state entails locating the traumatic experience in time, separating it from the reality of the present moment as well as the perception of potential future events in order to return to living fully in the present. in all the stages of psychotherapeutic intervention, including the referral and diagnostic stages, care should be taken not to re-traumatise an individual. treating trauma-related anger could involve various methods of restorative justice, an example of which is face-to-face meetings among the various parties connected to a particular swart 130 violation (winkel 2007, 27). this is the principle upon which the truth and reconciliation commission, a restorative justice body assembled after the abolition of apartheid in south africa and chaired by archbishop desmond tutu, was constituted. neurotransmitters and neural circuits the contribution of pharmacological intervention in the treatment of trauma symptoms can be of value in treatment under the supervision of a psychiatrist and used in conjunction with psychotherapy (bremner 2002, 249-250; van der kolk 1994, 12). medication works by modulating the neural feedback system. levine (2005, 9) confirms that medication can at times be helpful, but also cautions that it is insufficient in itself. the possible beneficial effects of natural supplements that enhance optimal brain function should also be considered (see sahley 2009, 1; holford 2007; neurogenesis n.d.). the benefits of natural supplementation are that they assist the body’s own capacity for self-healing and restoring homeostasis. if used as prescribed, this is a reasonably safe alternative to traditional pharmacological intervention, provided that pathological processes have not progressed beyond a critical point. while pharmacological treatment places the emphasis on neurotransmitters and the balance and amounts thereof in different parts of the brain, le doux (2002, 261-2, 280, 294) argues that perhaps neural circuitry plays a greater role in brain pathology, including ptsd and depression, than neurotransmitters per se. this supports the argument in this article that placing control within the domain of the so-called victim opens possibilities for changing pathology by favourable environmental influences, increased control and command of the thinking processes. traditional psychotherapeutic intervention strategies blenkiron (2005) explains that cognitive-behavioural therapy (cbt) deals with problems in the present and that there is a strong reliance on the way people think about problems as this directly affects their behaviour as well as how they feel physically and emotionally. cbt can be effective in the treatment of ptsd and its use with patients diagnosed with asd can greatly reduce the chances that ptsd will develop subsequently (see e.g. kornør, winje, ekeberg, weisæth, kirkehei, johansen & steiro 2008). hypnosis can be used to alter the meaning of a traumatic event by reducing the perception of threat and also addressing somatic symptoms. amendolia (1998, 1) describes hypnosis as structured dissociation and states that the goal of ericksonian hypnotherapy is to recontextualise the memory as well as the effect of fear and physiological hyperarousal. utilising eye movements and somatic experiencing eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (emdr), originally developed by francine shapiro, is an information-processing therapy that uses fast lateral movements similar to those encountered in rapid eye movement (rem) sleep (emdr institute 2004). brenner (2004, 253-4) writes that inter-hemispheric stimulation is responsible for its integrative effect. while emdr utilises rem, emi uses smooth pursuit eye movements (spem) in multiple directions (beaulieu n.d., 8), guided by slower hand movements. this sa music learners and psychological trauma 131 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. technique helps the client’s brain to access fragments of memory and form linkages between traumatic memories and more adaptive information (beaulieu 2003, 69-113). trauma researcher peter levine developed the therapeutic modality somatic experiencing (se) specifically for trauma intervention (levine 2010, 74-95). during this process a therapist guides trauma survivors through renegotiation and transformation of traumatic experience through accessing sensations and thoughts through the felt sense, letting them peak and resolving them through allowing them to take their natural course (levine 1997, 128). this is done through a series of nine well-defined but intertwined and interdependent steps. levine states that the first three steps, namely the establishment of a safe environment, exploration and acceptance of sensation, and the use of the innate power of rhythm in establishing ‘pendulation’ and containment, must follow sequentially, while the remaining six steps can be accessed independently and in any order afterwards. they include using titration of survival-based arousal to recreate stability, resilience and organisation; providing corrective experience by substituting passive helplessness with active empowered defensive responses; separation of conditioned fear and helplessness from the immobility response; resolution of hyperarousal through the discharge of survival energy; restoration of ‘dynamic equilibrium’ through engaging self-regulation; and orienting the patient to the present, regrounding the patient and facilitating social engagement. the success of this model lies in addressing the thwarted instinctual responses originating in the limbic system of the brain, integrating sensation, movement and cognition, and resolving bodily dissociation. in the light of this, it can be understood why modalities involving movement which are not necessarily designed as trauma therapy have been reported to show considerable healing properties. these include dalcroze eurhythmics and drumming (see swart 2010). although other avenues can provide benefits to traumatised students, it stands to reason that a systematic approach such as that of levine will yield the greatest results. ways in which music and art can facilitate healing mcclary (2007, 156, 259) focuses on the physicality and kinaesthetic aspects of making music as an avenue for releasing blocked feelings and accessing repressed memories as well as the healing nature of musically induced vibrations. according to tooley (2007), given that all matter vibrates to a precise frequency, it is possible to restore balance by means of resonant vibration. frawley (1997, 227) states: ‘sound, as the most primary sensory potential, generates the strongest emotions.’ musical direction entails degrees of tension and release which also underlies the experience of emotion and gives music its ability to contain, express and communicate emotions (i.e. rose 1993, 509-510). sutton (2002, 32-25) expresses the view that, since trauma disturbs the sense of bodily connectedness and music is a means of experiencing oneself in time, music therapy can be useful because of its qualities of ‘musical embodiment’. the section on the nature of the music teaching relationship touched on the role of music in establishing intra-psychic balance. jung (1973, 542) wrote that music expresses the movement of feelings and emotional values that cling to unconscious processes and through this transforms the motifs of the collective unconscious. he was also of the opinion that music reaches deep archetypal material and should therefore form an essential part of every psychological intervention (tilly 1997, 275). montello (2002, 124) states that music bypasses cortical functioning, enabling it to enter emotional centres of the brain directly before being processed by the conscious mind. swart 132 mcclary (2007, 159) explains that music’s ability to bypass defences and provide a direct pathway to emotional and unconscious material is because music can act as symbolic representation for otherwise inexpressible experience. if a piece of music or art could be constructed (or reconstructed in the case of performance of compositions by others) into a realistic symbolic representation of traumatic events, it becomes possible to change the meaning of the event or events for the survival brain (scaer 2005, 268). this is extremely helpful in the case of victims of early childhood trauma since, according to scaer, their somatic memories of traumatic events are carried in their procedural memory and hence less accessible through verbal expression. peretz and hebert (1995, 128) illustrate by means of a case discussion of two brain-damaged patients that the processing avenues of music and language are not the same. in view of this, it can be argued that music may provide an avenue to the brain that cannot be accessed through traditional talk therapy. another application of how the input-processing pathways of the brain operate is posited by rizzolatti and craighero (2004). their work centres on the human mirror neuron system, a system thought to enable the shared representation between sender and receiver necessary for any type of communication, including musical communication. molnar-szakacs and overy (2006, 238) applied their work to music processing. they explain that the human mirror neuron system enables a person to understand the meaning of a communicative signal by stimulating a representation of that signal in the brain of the person perceiving the message. they (2006, 236-8) explained that this same mirror neuron system is responsible for our ability to understand the intentions behind the actions of others, to feel empathy, and to learn from the experience of others through action observation and imitation. according to them, imitative speech therapy techniques based on singing such as melodic intonation therapy (mit) work, because their imitative elements lead to the recruitment and co-activation of brain regions involved in the perceptive and productive aspects of music and language through the direct transfer of sensory information to a motor plan. molnar-szakacs and overy (2006, 139) contend that music perception, cognition and emotion are linked via experiential and not representational mechanisms through the human mirror neuron system. their research thus holds the promise of a better understanding of the neural basis of the interlinking of music and trauma, as well as offering possibilities for the healing of trauma through enabling a more precise understanding of how the brain constructs meaning and how different neuronal systems communicate with each other. in conclusion, the explanations above again emphasise the importance of levine’s (2010, 249) statement, quoted earlier, that to know ourselves is to know our brains and vice versa. the article had also shown that to change our brains we need to change our actions, relations and environments and vice versa. the above arguments underscore the essence of this article which progresses from an understanding of how human beings relate according to watkins’s description of ‘resonance’, to music as an object relation, and finally to a neurological explanation for the mirroring required to teach, to learn and to develop as a human being. future directions equipping teachers there are only two ways of increasing teachers’ and students’ awareness of trauma: personal experience (whether that of self or witnessing the effects on others) or education. research should be done and action taken to determine how educational psychology teaching modules intended to educate teachers on manifestations of trauma and appropriate interventions could sa music learners and psychological trauma 133 td, 9(1), july 2013, pp. 113-138. be incorporated into the music curricula at tertiary institutions in south africa. the aim should be to produce a holistic educational outcome, equipping teachers to recognise general signs of trauma, including those connected to the instrument or voice, and familiarising them with the general manifestations of acute stress disorder (asd) and post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) symptoms. teachers should be trained to make referrals in an appropriate manner and be cognisant of their legal responsibilities. short training and enrichment courses offered by institutions such as unisa (university of south africa) and abrsm (associated board of the royal schools of music) are an ideal platform where concise guidelines could be distributed to teachers who have already graduated or who do not have tertiary music training to make them aware of the main aspects related to the matter (swart 2010, 202). providing good support structures for students in schools and reducing the risk of secondary traumatisation to professionals time limitations, financial restrictions and other problems challenge the ability of educational institutions in south africa and elsewhere to provide safe boundary structures in cases where these may have been lacking in the immediate environment in which children live and grow up. however, if care is taken to make the circumstances within educational systems as safe and nurturing for the learners as possible, including providing reliable professional counselling services and equipping teachers with the necessary skills to deal appropriately with challenging situations, this can go a long way towards helping to diminish the adverse effects of a fractured and troubled society. exposure to secondary traumatisation, however, can take its toll on the health of teachers, hps and researchers in the field of trauma. it is recommended that transdisciplinary collaboration be sought and explored in order to find and implement effective ways of reducing the risk to those investing their energy and resources in helping others. collaboration between different disciplines the study of the impact of trauma is a multidimensional pursuit and transdisciplinary involvement should be an important element in this. not only must the intrapersonal effects of trauma be understood, but also its interpersonal manifestations and intergenerational transmission. in addition, 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sternberg & sternberg, 2012, p. 234). metacognitive thinking occurs as a cascade of related mental activities. it involves explicit planning, active control and critical evaluation of one’s own cognitive processes, such as our own thoughts that engage in learning (bergin, reilly & traynor, 2005, p. 82; sternberg & sternberg, 2012, p. 234; titus & annaraja, 2011, p. 14). metacognition has two distinctive foci, namely metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control of learning experiences (flavell, 1979, p. 907-909; miller & geraci, 2011, p. 303). according to titus and annaraja (2011, p.15), metacognitive ability has a critical role in students’ successful learning, especially in mental activities such as reasoning, comprehension and problem solving. 1 . dr. marietjie havenga, school for natural science and technology education, faculty of education sciences, north-west university (potchefstroom campus). email: marietjie.havenga@nwu.ac.za havenga 134 in addition, the use of metacognitive skills plays an important role in solving computer programming problems (parham, gugerty & stevenson, 2010, p. 416); however, not much research has been done in this regard. shaft (1995, p. 25-26) studied the use of metacognitive skills in program comprehension where professionals used the programming language cobol. his research indicated that the use of metacognitive skills influences how well programmers understand a program. shaft (1995, p. 25) asserts that programmers require the development of specific metacognitive heuristics to support them in comprehending programming tasks. bergin et al. (2005, p. 82, 85) support shaft’s findings that students who performed well in introductory object-oriented programming, used more metacognitive strategies, such as planning, monitoring and regulation, than lower-performing students. since the nature of object-oriented programming involves high-order thinking skills, such as reasoning, problem solving and abstract thinking, the use of metacognitive skills may support students in this regard. consequently, the aim of the research reported here was to explore the role of metacognitive skills when students are solving object-oriented programming problems with reference to various steps involved in program development. the main research question was: what is the role of metacognitive skills when solving object-oriented programming problems in a computer science course? the rest of the article is structured as follows: in section 2, an overview is given of the conceptual-theoretical framework on which the empirical investigation was based. section 3 is devoted to the empirical investigation and section 4 to the results obtained. section 5 discusses the findings. 2. conceptual-theoretical framework 2.1 metacognitive skills metacognition involves numerous skills that are fundamental in assisting students to manage their own understanding, thinking and learning (falkner, vivian & falkner, 2014, p. 291; garrison & akyol, 2015, p. 66). the aim of metacognition is to direct students’ thinking in such a way that they effectively control their mental activities especially when addressing reallife problems and complex tasks. a distinction is made between metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control of experiences (flavell, 1979, p. 907-909; miller & geraci, 2011, p. 303). metacognitive knowledge involves knowledge of a person, knowledge of a task and knowledge of distinctive strategies to complete a task successfully (flavell, 1979, p. 907), while metacognitive control refers to managerial processes to plan, monitor, reflect on and evaluate activities such as problem solving and critical thinking (sternberg & sternberg, 2012, p. 21; titus & annaraja, 2011, p. 14). since the focus of the current study was mainly on metacognitive control, each of the managerial processes is outlined in more detail below. planning is associated with goal setting, reading of text and analysing of tasks to support understanding (bergin et al., 2005, p. 82). monitoring involves an individual’s awareness of his/her state of cognitive activity, the skill to consider all detailed activities involved (e.g. problem solving), and the ability to assess his/her progress (bergin et al., 2005, p. 85; fletcher & carruthers, 2012, p. 1366). reflection as part of metacognition concerns that learners should reflect in action (while doing a task) and on action (after completing a task) (schön, 1983). lastly, evaluation is a metacognitive skill that determines the efficiency at which the task was performed, what students had to learn from the task, and whether the main goals had been achieved (breed, mentz & van der westhuizen, 2014, p. 53; garrison & akyol, 2015, p. 67). metacognitive skills in solving object-oriented programming problems td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 133-147. 135 the use of metacognitive skills is thus an endeavour undertaken to challenge one’s own thinking, to monitor one’s progress accurately, and to determine whether the aims had been accomplished. metacognition is therefore a catalyst for change in cognitive thinking and behaviour to enhance meaningful and deep learning. 2.2 application of metacognition in real-life problems the importance of applying metacognitive skills as part of problem solving is emphasised by referring to two real-life examples. in industry, the application of metacognitive skills plays a significant role in food production, for example. food safety requires strict specifications to manage possible hazards. to ensure food safety and trust of consumers, the hazard analysis critical control point system (haccp) was developed with the aim to provide rigorous actions in identifying and preventing hazards that may occur in food production (psomas & kafetzopoulos, 2015, p.134). haccp involves seven principles namely 1) conduct of hazard analysis, 2) identify critical control points, 3) establish critical limits for each critical control point, 4) establish critical control point monitoring requirements, 5) establish corrective actions, 6) establish procedures for ensuring the haccp system is working as intended, and 7) establish record keeping procedures (psomas & kafetzopoulos, 2015, p. 134-135). another real-life problem is found where an air traffic controller needs to respond simultaneously to various inputs regarding aircraft to direct the controlling thereof. solving real-life problems, such as those occurring during air traffic control, requires metacognitive factors (planning, monitoring, reflection, evaluation) to direct the reorganisation, priorities and management of air space as well as future aircraft movement and positions (loft, sanderson, neal & mooij, 2007, p. 390). 2.3 metacognitive scaffolding of programming problems since the teaching of programming does not involve teaching a programming language only (caruso, hill, vandegrift & simon, 2011, p. 498), additional skills are required to address misconceptions, increase students’ understanding, address gaps in their knowledge, and to enable students in managing their own cognitive processes (holliday, 2011, p. 2; nussbaum, 2012, p. 116, 117; parham et al., 2010, p. 416). metacognitive scaffolding is therefore required during all steps of program development, such as understanding, planning and design, coding and testing. each of these steps is outlined below. understanding results from rereading text, monitoring the reading activity and integrating knowledge structures into human memory to enable the processing and storage of information (coiro, 2011, p. 108, 109; gobet, chassy & bilalic, 2011, p. 187; holliday, 2011, p. 2). underlining of text, asking questions and addressing misconceptions may further support understanding of problems (lee, lim & grabowski, 2010, p. 630; nussbaum, 2012, p. 116). planning of solutions includes setting of goals, activating prior knowledge, breaking down a complex problem into manageable sections and consulting a strategy for problem solving (bergin et al., 2005, p. 82; sternberg & sternberg, 2012, p. 448). in addition, the creation of hierarchies and concept mapping (lee et al., 2010, p. 630) may support the design of objectoriented programs. program comprehension is part of program development, and is related to the understanding of programming code (schulte, clear, taherkhani, busjahn & paterson, 2010, p. 65, 66). the purpose of program comprehension is to explore programmers’ thinking processes when developing a computer program (détienne, 1995, p. 164-166; pennington, lee & rehder, havenga 136 1995, p. 198-199). in this regard, the use of visualisation techniques, tools and debugging skills (storey, 2006, p.187, 202) can be seen as metacognitive initiatives to support the understanding of computer programs. the interpretation of various solutions may further support program comprehension (lee et al., 2010, p. 630). metacognitive support is also required when developing test cases, determining program efficiency and assessing whether the goals had been achieved (breed et al., 2014, p. 53; caruso et al., 2011, p. 495). in addition to the mentioned skills, the use of heuristics (mental shortcuts that lighten the cognitive load of making decisions) (sternberg & sternberg, 2012, p. 445) may further support students when solving problems, for example applying means-ends analysis (the problem solver analyses the problem with the final result in mind), working forward (to solve a problem from start to finish), and working backward (sternberg & sternberg, 2012, p. 493) (starting at the end and working backward, e.g. to determine whether the solution addressed all the programming requirements). 2.4 object-oriented programming when writing programs, students need to understand the programming approach (e.g. the object-oriented approach) they are using as this approach affects the way in which a program is written. the main building blocks of the object-oriented approach are ‘objects’ and ‘classes’. an object comprises encapsulated data (e.g. balance = 1000) and methods (e.g. getbalance( )), that determine program behaviour (farrell, 2008, p. 6; satzinger, jackson & burd, 2004, p. 175). an object is based on a class for example a client is an object of the bank class. since novices experience limited understanding of the object-oriented (oo) approach (ginat & shmallo, 2013, p. 345; sajaniemi, kuittinen & tikansalo, 2007, p. 2), students should be supported in this regard by applying, among others, metacognitive thinking. havenga (2011, p. 96) is of the opinion that the more complex a programming problem is, the greater the need for metacognitive control, purposeful reflection and positive feedback. to summarise this section, an overview was given regarding metacognitive thinking skills, the application thereof in real-life problems as well as metacognition’s specific role in supporting object-oriented programming tasks. consequently, the empirical research as described in the next section explored the role of metacognitive skills when students were solving objectoriented programming problems in a computer science course. 3. empirical investigation this section discusses the empirical research. the investigation was constructivist-based within an interpretivist approach (hadjerrouit, 2005, p. 168,169; kroeze, 2012, p. 9; üredi, 2014, p. 228) to gain a deep understanding of the participants’ metacognitive activities and programming experiences where they were actively involved in developing their own objectoriented programs. the aim was firstly to teach students metacognitive and problem-solving guidelines (section 3.3.2) to support their thinking processes during programming and secondly to evaluate and gain an understanding how participants have implemented these mentioned guidelines as part of oop. 3.1 research design a case study design (gill, 2011, p. 10, 11) was employed to explore the role of metacognitive skills when students solve object-oriented programming. merriam (1998, p. 27) emphasises that delimitation of the case being studied is “the defining characteristic” of a case study. in this research the case was bounded by the subject specification of students enrolling for metacognitive skills in solving object-oriented programming problems td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 133-147. 137 computer science with the aim of focusing on object-oriented programming (oop) in this course. the purpose of this case design (table 1) was to look at the succession of two programming tasks regarding students’ detailed experiences during programming. this research was designed in such a way that there was a period of two weeks between the first and second programming assignment, in order to prevent other factors from having an influence over time. table 1 displays the research design. t a b l e 1 : c a s e s t u d y d e s i g n introduction week 1 and 2 assignment 1 week 3 intervention week 4 and 5 assignment 2 week 6 introduction into oop explain oop examples. first programming assignment (individual work, see section 3.3.1). 1) explain the guidelines to support program development (see section 3.3.2). 2) discuss and apply the guidelines when developing an object-oriented program for the ab bank (see section 3.3.2) (group work, two students). second programming assignment (individual work, see section 3.3.3). conduct semi-structured interviews regarding students’ experiences with the second assignment (see section 3.4) 3.2 participants the participants were third-year students at a large south-african university taking computer science as one of their major subjects as part of their bed degree. from the population of five students, four participated in this case study. no case study selection criteria were used as this was a small population of students. participation was voluntary and all students completed informed consent forms. ethical clearance was obtained from the university to conduct the study. although the participants had previous experience regarding programming basics (e.g. iteration, selection), procedural programming, database skills and the use of arrays, they were novice oo programmers. 3.3 programming assignments and the intervention two programming assignments as well as the intervention are discussed. 3.3.1 programming assignment 1 the students were required to plan, design and implement an object-oriented program that involved determining a total mark from a number of class tests. these marks were randomly generated. although this problem can be solved in many ways, the rationale was to give the participants an easy object-oriented program where they were required to implement various methods as part of their introduction to oop. before starting to program, the students were required to write down their planning and design the solution. this assignment was done individually. 3.3.2 intervention the intervention was done in two separate parts (see table 1). the first part comprised the teaching of metacognitive and problem-solving guidelines to support students’ thinking activities and to direct their mental processes. the guidelines are summarised as follows: • read the programming problem and underline the main ideas and requirements. write down the problem in your own words. havenga 138 • plan detailed steps and design a possible solution. identify classes and draw a class diagram (additional diagrams may also be used). • code your planning in a programming language. • test the output. indicate how well you have solved the problem. • continuously reflect and monitor all your activities. after completing the final solution (3.3.3), give yourself a mark out of 5, where 1=poor; 2=below average; 3=average; 4=good; and 5=excellent. justify why you have given yourself this mark. during the second part of the intervention (table 1), the lecturer discussed a programming example and facilitated students in applying the above-mentioned problem-solving and reflective guidelines. this programming problem involved the following: write an objectoriented program for the ab bank to create a new account for a client, enable the transfer and deposit of funds and close the account. the program is activated as soon as the pin’s correctness has been established. participants worked together in groups of two during this assignment. 3.3.3 programming assignment 2 after the intervention, participants were given the following programming task: design an object-oriented program to display the amount due at a specific fuel pump after each vehicle had been filled-up. click stop to display the total amount after the morning shift. the pump number and amount were randomly generated. participants had to plan and develop the program by using the metacognitive and problem-solving guidelines (see 3.3.2). students had to complete this programming task individually during a practical lab session. 3.4 data-collection activities data collection involved three aspects. firstly, participants’ planning, design, computer program and output (if output was obtained) of the first and second assignments were obtained. secondly, their written problem-solving and reflective activities using the guidelines were collected (see 3.3.2). thirdly, semi-structured interviews were held based on their experiences of the second assignment. the purpose of the semi-structured interviews was to clarify and elaborate on participants’ thinking, metacognition and programming experiences. the interview questions were the following: explain the thinking processes you followed before starting to program; explain the processes used during programming and what difficulty you experienced; and reflect on your thoughts and activities regarding object-oriented programming. 3.5 analysis of qualitative data following the interviews, the students’ reflections on their experiences were examined. their programs were explored to check their understanding, approach, programming code, the solution and final program output (where applicable). results from the interviews and written reflections were transcribed and manually analysed using both concept-driven (codes based on the literature) and data-driven coding (open coding) (gibbs, 2010, p. 44-45). the main focus was on two matters, namely students’ programming experiences and their use of metacognitive skills. 4. results results are integrated and presented in this section. participants’ results from both assignments and the interviews are shown in tables 2 to 5. the criteria indicated in these metacognitive skills in solving object-oriented programming problems td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 133-147. 139 tables were based on how participants understood, planned, designed and solved programming problems as well as on their reflections. t a b l e 2 : p a r t i c i p a n t 1 ’ s ( p 1 ) r e s u l t s criteria assignment 1 assignment 2 problem comprehension no in-depth analysis of the programming problem was made. p1 wrote some requirements and identified some nouns and verbs. planning and program design no planning was included. presented three ‘screen’ buttons of the graphical user interface (gui). planning was incomplete. fragmented and incomplete design of the solution was indicated. program development p1 programmed the solution without using the oo approach. programming of the class was incomplete. problems and errors p1 was unsure how to program the solution when using oop. p1 made some programming errors. the class was not associated with the main application program. testing and self-assessment some output was obtained. no output was obtained. own mark allocation: none. oop experiences the participant did not know how to create a new class and was unsure about the coding. p1 did not use the new class as part of the application program. reflections and feedback i am not sure where to start and what to do. i have identified verbs and nouns. i find it difficult to plan. i never know what to use where and what to assign to the class. you can do it without using a new class ... it [oop] is stupid. t a b l e 3 : p a r t i c i p a n t 2 ’ s ( p 2 ) r e s u l t s criteria assignment 1 assignment 2 problem comprehension p2 understood the problem. p2 understood the problem and identified all nouns and verbs as part of problem analysis. planning and program design some ideas were written down. he planned and designed the solution in detail and identified the required class. program development p2 applied oop. he could not solve the problem correctly. p2 applied oop and solved the problem correctly. problems and errors programming of the methods was incorrect. the program worked after addressing some access violation problems. testing and self-assessment incorrect output was obtained. correct program output was obtained. his own mark allocation was 4 out of 5. oop experiences he could not solve the problem correctly. successfully applied the object-oriented approach. reflections and feedback i read the problem and get a basic idea … thereafter i am planning the solution. i got some [execution] problems and did not know what the reason was for this … at the end the program worked in some manner, i think that i have solved the problem. i enjoy oop … one advantage is better security. havenga 140 t a b l e 4 : p a r t i c i p a n t 3 ’ s ( p 3 ) r e s u l t s criteria assignment 1 assignment 2 problem comprehension p3 indicated understanding of the problem to some extent. p3 comprehended the programming problem and identified some nouns and verbs. planning and program design although some ideas were written down, his planning was incomplete. he could not design the solution. he did some planning how to solve the problem and designed the new class and application program. program development p3 could not create an object. p3’s programming was incomplete. problems and errors he experienced problems with program syntax as well as the programming of methods. he used incomplete statements in the class. testing and self-assessment no output was obtained. no output was obtained. his own mark allocation was none. oop experiences p3 did not know which methods to use and experienced an incomplete understanding of the oo approach. he experienced problems with the programming syntax and semantics. reflections and feedback i understand the problem but do not know how to program this. i could not convert the planning into a program … i do not know how to do the programming. if you understand oop you can use it effectively … i do not know what oop is all about. t a b l e 5 : p a r t i c i p a n t 4 ’ s ( p 4 ) r e s u l t s criteria assignment 1 assignment 2 problem comprehension p4 indicated understanding of the programming problem. he comprehended the problem and identified nouns and verbs. planning and program design some planning was included however he presented the ‘screen’, instead of designing the solution to the problem. some planning of the problem was included. the program design was incomplete. program development he was unsure about the programming of methods. p4 completed the class and application program. problems and errors p4 was not sure when to use the specific methods. he could not display the total amount after the morning shift. testing and self-assessment no output was obtained. output was obtained but was incorrect. his own mark allocation was 4. oop experiences he experienced difficulty in comprehending the oo approach. he still experienced difficulty in comprehending oop. reflections and feedback i never plan in detail … i am thinking in a programming language when i plan. when starting with the programming, i have made changes [changed the initial planning]. i am not sure what precisely should happen. it is sometimes still difficult to comprehend the oop concept. metacognitive skills in solving object-oriented programming problems td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 133-147. 141 5. discussion of the findings this section addresses the research question: what is the role of metacognitive skills when solving object-oriented programming problems in a computer science course? the approach followed in this section is to discuss participants’ individual experiences regarding the first and second assignments. this is followed by a discussion of all students’ experiences and the overall findings. the discussion is elaborated by integrating results from the interviews. 5.1 findings of individual participants findings of participant 1: p1 experienced the following problems: an inability to understand and apply the object-oriented approach and incompetence regarding the use of metacognitive control in terms of planning, monitoring and evaluation (see 2.1, 2.3, table 2). p1 preferred to program without using the oo approach. he made some syntax and semantic errors and experienced problems in programming the methods. p1 realised that he did not clearly understand the problem requirements and made no in-depth analysis of both programming problems (table 2). his attempts were fragmented and did not proceed towards solving both programming problems. with reference to metacognition, p1 reflected: i am not sure where to start and what to do, however his reflection was not followed by active monitoring to address the problems he experienced. participant 1’s planning was incomplete, he did not monitor his actions and did not evaluate and self-assess his efforts. as a result he was not able to plan, design and code the programs and solve the two problems. bergin et al. (2005, p. 82) emphasise explicit planning and active control to direct one’s own cognitive processes during program development. findings of participant 2: results from table 3 indicate that participant 2 understood both problems and the requirements. he made an analysis of the second programming assignment and was able to plan and design the solution after applying the problem-solving and reflective guidelines (see section 3.3.2). although he encountered minor challenges in solving the first assignment, it was evident that p2 experienced a higher level of overall understanding in the second assignment than the first. he monitored the programming process, reflected on his programming efforts and made the required corrections: i got some access violations … at the end the program worked. p2 obtained incorrect output from the first programming task; however he solved the second problem correctly and his own mark allocation was 4 out of 5. findings of participant 3: participant 3 understood both programming assignments to some extent; however the planning and design of both solutions were incomplete. the main obstacles were an incomplete understanding of the object-oriented approach as well as problems with program comprehension (see section 2.3). i understand the problem but do not know how to program this (table 4). this student struggled with the coding, the programming syntax, semantics and oo constructs. ginat and shmallo (2013, p. 345) concur that novices in their study experienced limited understanding of the oo paradigm. in addition, p3 experienced problems with various programming statements and methods. he was not able to complete both programming tasks and could not obtain output. participant 3 did some planning, however he did not monitor his progress, follow up or correct the errors. results from table 4 indicate that there was nearly no progress towards developing the second assignment. findings of participant 4: p4 was able to understand both assignments although he had problems in identifying classes in the first programming task (table 5). he outlined the gui havenga 142 instead of giving a detailed plan regarding how to solve the problem. p4 mentioned i never plan in detail and this was an obstacle in the process of solving the problem correctly. although he obtained some output, p4 did not monitor and correct the output errors. furthermore, he was unsure how to interpret the object-oriented approach. regarding his own assessment, he indicated a mark of 4 out of 5. 5.2 participants’ overall experiences results from both assignments as well as the interviews and reflections (tables 2 to 5) indicate that the participating students experienced the following problems: 1) fragmented knowledge and misconceptions of the object-oriented approach, shortcomings regarding the implementation of oop, and 2) inefficient and inadequate metacognitive control during all steps of program development. firstly, participants (p1, p3 and p4 to some extent) had fragmented knowledge and shortcomings in understanding and applying the object-oriented approach. they did not understand the problem requirements clearly, could not analyse the problems in depth and made various syntax and semantic errors (p1 and p3). except for p2, analyses of the remaining students’ programs revealed that they struggled to combine code and relevant constructs to produce an object-oriented program that executed correctly. since participant 4 was not used to planning in detail, his design of the solution in the second assignment was incomplete, and as a result, his program output was not correct. previous research (sajaniemi et al., 2007, p. 2) also indicated students’ challenges in applying oop with specific reference to a change from procedural to object-oriented programming, and a limited understanding of the oo paradigm and concepts (ginat & shmallo, 2013, p. 345; govender, 2010, p. 14, 15). secondly, participating students experienced difficulty in applying metacognitive skills. distinctive skills, such as detailed planning, the ability to monitor their own progress (bergin et al., 2005, p. 85; fletcher & carruthers, 2012, p. 1366) and accurate judgement to determine whether the goals had been achieved (garrison & akyol, 2015, p. 67), were clearly absent in most participants. participant 2 mentioned the use of reflective skills when his program worked after addressing some execution problems (table 3). regardless of the fact that p1, p3 and p4 (to some extent) had knowledge about the problem-solving and reflective guidelines (section 3.3.2), they did not implement these adequately and were not able to proceed towards solving the oop problems. these students did not control their own learning processes as referenced by flavell (1979, p. 907-909) and miller and geraci (2011, p. 303). negative reflection, e.g. i am not sure where to start and what to do (p1, table 2) without positive feedback and corrective activities will be an obstacle in solving programming problems successfully (havenga, 2011, p. 95, 96). it seems that when participants struggled and got stuck, they experienced an accumulation of problems in subsequent steps as indicated by p1’s reflections: i am not sure where to start and what to do. i never know what to use where and what to assign to the class. falkner et al. (2014, p. 291) assert that, without a fundamental level of metacognition, students cannot direct their knowledge in a constructive manner. deliberate integration of metacognitive skills during program development is therefore crucial and students need to be directed in this regard, as mentioned by titus and annaraja (2011, p.15) (section 1). 5.3 application of metacognitive critical control points although participating students applied the metacognitive and problem-solving guidelines (section 3.3.2) to some extent, the results were unsatisfactory (sections 4, 5.1 and 5.2). metacognitive skills in solving object-oriented programming problems td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 133-147. 143 further interventions are therefore proposed, though not tested, to support programming students in this regard. in section 2.2 the application of metacognition in real life is outlined with reference to its use as part of a haccp system to provide rigorous actions in identifying and preventing food hazards (psomas & kafetzopoulos, 2015, p.134). accordingly, the author of this paper applies these principles and postulates the use of metacognitive critical control points (mccps) as a metacognitive mechanism to enable students in supporting and managing their own thinking processes during all steps of program development. the aim is to teach programming students how to direct their own thinking processes, to enable them in proceeding towards successful completion of a task, to improve their overall metacognitive managerial skills, and to prevent loss of control (where a student is no longer being able to manage his or her thinking when trying to solve a problem). the detailed activities using mccps are the following: 1. each student should conduct his/her own reflective analysis regarding previous programming experience(s) since he/she should think about his/her own cognition the application of mccps will therefore differ among students. 2. a student should identify metacognitive critical control points for each step of program development to address challenges, gaps and problems he/she had experienced previously (as mentioned in the above activity). 3. the next step is to establish specific requirement(s) for each critical control point as mentioned in point 2. 4. the student should apply monitoring and reflective procedures that allow one to address the requirements for each critical control point. 5. repeat steps 2 to 4 (shaded in table 6) to ensure that all the critical points (mentioned in point 2), were addressed. 6. lastly the student should evaluate whether all metacognitive critical control points have been met to support the successful completion of the programming task. a record should be kept of these reflective evaluations for future reference. the application of mccps and relevant literature (section 2) in each step of program development are used with reference to the problems that p1 experienced. note that the analysis following here is mainly focused on this participant’s first problem: i am not sure where to start and what to do (number 1, table 6) since it is not possible to outline each of the problems in the same way due to problems with space. table 6 shows the integration of mccps during program development with specific reference to the problems and challenges that participant 1 experienced (table 2). regarding the first step of mccps, analysis indicates that p1 was not sure where to start and what to do. in the next step mccps were identified to address this problem, namely understanding the problem and determining what to do to direct the problem-solving process. step 3 establishes requirements to address the first control point. the fourth step involves detailed monitoring and reflective actions to address the requirements for a specific control point as mentioned in the previous step. steps 2 to 4 are repeated to ensure that all critical points have been met. when evaluating the programming solution in the final step, a student is required to understand, test and reflect on all previous steps and processes to ensure that the required mccps had been addressed and the problem had been solved. havenga 144 t a b l e 6 : a n e x a m p l e o f h o w t o a p p l y m c c p s i n s u p p o r t i n g p 1 mccp activities the application of mccps in program development 1. conduct your own reflective analysis regarding a previous programming experience conduct your own reflective analysis: -i am not sure where to start and what to do (first challenge of this participant) -i find it difficult to plan (2) -i never know what to use where and what to assign to the class (3) -you can do it without using a new class [oop] (4) (table 2) 2. identify metacognitive critical control points for each step of program development (see section 2.3) identify critical control points to: -understand the problem and determine what to do (no 1) -plan and design the solution (2) -enhance program comprehension, direct coding of the program (3) -evaluate the solution and your understanding of oop(4) 3. establish specific requirements for each critical control point establish requirements for no 1 to: -understand the problem description -specify detailed actions, heuristics and strategies on what to do. 4. apply monitoring and reflective procedures that allow you to address the requirements for each critical control point establish and apply monitoring and reflective procedures to enhance understanding of no 1: -pay focused attention, reread the problem, comprehend what is required (bergin et al., 2005, p. 82; coiro, 2011, p. 108) -determine the intended meaning of the problem and reflect towards the clarity thereof -interpret and write the programming problem in your own words -make connections and recall previous knowledge -address any misconceptions (lee et al., 2010, p. 630; nussbaum, 2012, p. 116) -ensure deep understanding of the problem, what exactly is required in terms of program development and reflect on your thinking -comprehend additional oop problems and solutions -make decisions regarding actions, heuristics and strategies (sternberg & sternberg, 2012, p. 448), e.g. underline all nouns and verbs as an indication of ‘things’ (objects) and ‘events’ (methods) -reflect in action (schön, 1983), when solving a programming problem 5. repeat steps 2 4 6. evaluate whether all metacognitive critical control points have been met to support the successful completion of a programming task. evaluate whether all metacognitive critical control points have been met: -determine whether the requirements of each critical control point were addressed and reflect on action (schön, 1983) -determine whether the main goals were achieved and if you solved the problem effectively (garrison & akyol, 2015, p. 67) -ask yourself questions about the correctness and efficiency of your programming solution -discuss your solution with peers and compare various solutions -keep record of your reflective evaluations for future reference metacognitive skills in solving object-oriented programming problems td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 133-147. 145 6. conclusion this investigation was aimed at determining whether students apply metacognitive skills when solving object-oriented programming problems. results indicate that the participating students had difficulty in understanding object-oriented problems and they displayed shortcomings regarding the implementation thereof. in addition, most participants experienced problems with metacognitive control during all steps of program development. the author postulates the use of metacognitive critical control points (mccps) as a mechanism to manage and facilitate all thinking involved in object-oriented program development. the aim is to teach students how to manage their own thinking processes, to enable them in proceeding towards successful completion of a task, and to prevent loss of control. it is essential that lecturers support students in the application of mccps during programming to direct their own thinking processes and activities. some limitations of the current study involved a small population, and participants had only two formal programming assignments to complete. initial findings should therefore be tested and verified using a larger cohort of students. future research could focus on the effectiveness of applying mccps in problem-solving tasks. acknowledgement the author would like to acknowledge the dean of our faculty for providing funds, as well as the students who participated in this research. bibliography bergin, s., reilly, r., & traynor, d. 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(2014). analyzing the classroom teachers’ levels of creating a constructivist learning environments in terms of various variables: a mersin case. educational research and reviews, 9(8), 227-236. abstract introduction method conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) hosea o. patrick department of community development studies, school of built environment and development studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ernest n. khalema department of community development studies, school of built environment and development studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa oluremi a. abiolu department of library studies, faculty of library studies, federal university of technology akure, akure, nigeria enioluwa j. ijatuyi department of agricultural extension, faculty of agriculture and engineering, north-west university, mafikeng, south africa rhoda t. abiolu the centre for general education, faculty of general education, durban university of technology, durban, south africa citation patrick ho, khalema en, abiolu oa, ijatuyi ej, abiolu rt. south africa’s multiple vulnerabilities, food security and livelihood options in the covid-19 new order: an annotation. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1037. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1037 review article south africa’s multiple vulnerabilities, food security and livelihood options in the covid-19 new order: an annotation hosea o. patrick, ernest n. khalema, oluremi a. abiolu, enioluwa j. ijatuyi, rhoda t. abiolu received: 09 mar. 2021; accepted: 10 june 2021; published: 21 july 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the advent of the covid-19 pandemic and its crippling effects exacerbate many people’s vulnerability to food security across the world, including africa. this article offers an explorative discourse on the implication of covid-19 pandemic for south africa’s food and livelihood security in the face of climate change. using a scoping desktop review method, the article aims to provoke research and policy action and discourse on the subject matter. the article explores pre-and post-covid-19 vulnerabilities in south africa. it acknowledges the impact of climate change on food security and the situation of food security in south africa pre-and post-covid-19 pandemic. it then provides policy recommendations and expected outcomes to reconfigure the agricultural sector in the new sociopolitical and economic order necessitated by the pandemic. the article argues that reducing the stress posed by covid-19 will require collaborative efforts and systemic thinking by stakeholders across all quarters. this will proffer workable solutions to mitigate the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic on the food and livelihood options of rural dwellers in south africa and their interconnectedness with the impact of climate change. keywords: covid-19; food security; south africa; climate change; livelihood options. introduction the covid-19 pandemic has raised serious policy concerns for food and livelihood security globally as indeed other human security sectors, particularly the economy and public health.1 the swiftness of spread, communicability and instantaneous strain of the pandemic on every facet of life and economy makes it a far-reaching global crisis.2,3 as of 18 february 2021, around 109 million people were reported to have contracted the virus, with over 2.4 million deaths globally. south africa has recorded over 1.4 million confirmed cases and over 48 000 deaths.4 the measures taken by governments (such as lockdown protocols, social distancing, etc.) to curtail the spread of this virus have had unintended consequences on almost all sectors of the economy, including the agricultural sector.5,6 the implication of these measures for communities, especially in the developing world in view of its many multiple vulnerabilities conditioned by weak coping mechanisms, is enormous and an issue of eminent policy concern. this is further exacerbated by poverty, government incapacities, weak infrastructure and institution and climate change impact on food and livelihood, among others.7,8 in africa, the impact of climate change and other factors such as poverty, poor infrastructure and weak governmental capacities have been daunting issues prior to the covid-19 pandemic.9 for instance, several studies have argued on the direct and indirect impact of climate change on agriculture and food security in africa.10,11,12 the vulnerability of africa to climate change impact (rainfall and temperature variations) is argued to be informed by weak coping strategies resulting from high poverty, incapacity of the government to provide basic amenities, population growth and over-dependence on climate-sensitive livelihood options, among others, leading to increased food and livelihood insecurity.1,8,9,11 the impact of these climate change variabilities on water availability coupled with these multiple exacerbators increases the vulnerability to food insecurity in africa. this undoubtedly partly informed the united nations sustainable development goal (sdg) 2 aimed at ending hunger by 2030 while doubling agricultural productivity and income, especially for small-scale food producers.13 covid-19 and its crippling effects exacerbate the vulnerabilities of many to food insecurity globally, including africa.1 although the multidimensional character of food security makes it difficult to define and measure, the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao)14 defined food security as: … a situation that exists when all people have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.14 (p. 1) this definition rests on food security pillars, namely, access, availability, utilisation and stability.15 with the overwhelming impact of covid-19 on all facets of life, it is, therefore, no gainsaying that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic will in no small measure aggravate the situation of human security (especially food, health and livelihood) while making the vulnerability of many to food and livelihood security even more daunting and worrisome.16 as the world food programme (wfp)17 and fao5,18 opined, the concern for food security has been heightened since the outbreak of the pandemic. for instance, food prices have not only gone up but there were also cases of panic buying across south africa during the early period of the pandemic.19 given this, the knock-off effect of the measures taken on food security at the national and household levels, especially for the rural poor, has been enormous. it has increased the number of people under poverty and food insecurity because of the impact of the pandemic and measures taken on food access and affordability.17 this, therefore, provides the basis for evaluating the multiple vulnerabilities in africa, and south africa in particular, in the light of the emerging impacts of the covid-19 pandemic. in south africa, the national development plan (ndp) presented an attainment date parallel to the sdg 2 2030 date of accomplishment in terms of hunger and poverty eradication. the ndp aims at ending poverty and reducing inequality in south africa by harnessing the nation’s human and material resources through leadership enhancement, inclusive economies and building human and material capacities and partnerships.20,21 the attainment of these goals in less than 10 years seems blurred for many obvious emerging global issues and especially in the face of the ravaging covid-19 pandemic. on these premises, this discourse builds the case around the varied levels of vulnerabilities that south africa faces in tandem with existent challenges of food security and global concerns of climate change worsened by the reality of covid-19.1,3 the article offers an explorative discourse on the implication of the covid-19 pandemic for south africa’s food and livelihood security in the face of climate change and now the covid-19’s new order. the aim is to provoke research and policy action and discourse on the subject matter. situation in africa and south africa on the african continent, the fao22 estimated that about 23% of the gross domestic product (gdp) and 60% active population are in agriculture. the fao further estimated that about 670 million are already faced with food insecurity out of which an estimated 250 million are considered food insecure and 512 million below the poverty line. the implication of this reality vis-à-vis the impact of climate change on agriculture and the attendant impact of covid-19 pandemic on all spheres of livelihood make a significant population in africa vulnerable to food and livelihood insecurity. as indeed other developing countries in africa, south africa is not immune to the multidimensional impact of climate change on food security and livelihood.7,23,24 the south african constitution (1996), sections 26 and 27 1(b), speaks about every south african’s right to sufficient food and water access. the implication of climate change on this crucial bill of rights, given the nation’s vulnerability to the impact of climate change and its general aridity, is an issue of policy concern.8 these vulnerabilities are experienced at varying degrees primarily because of income inequality, historical imbalances and the issue of black tax, among many others.25 in south africa, the growing impacts of covid-19 coincide with the 1.4% retraction in the nation’s economy coupled with the 7.7% decline in the 4th quarter of 2019 for the agricultural sector.26 this also falls under the backdrop of climate change’s impact on food and livelihood security and the already stressed coping mechanisms available for rural communities. statistics south africa27 reported that despite the enormous efforts by the south african government to reduce hunger through social assistance amounting to about 3% of its gdp, as well as other interventions such as the national policy on food and nutrition security, integrated food security strategy (2002), agricultural policy action plan (2015–2019), integrated growth and development plan (2012) and strategic plan for the development of agriculture forestry and fisheries (2015–2020), over 3 million households still have no access to food because of the lack of economic means for food affordability. despite studies conducted on food insecurity prevalence in south africa,28,29 the link between poverty, income, climate change and household food security is neither well understood nor well studied. studies claimed that food insecurity is more prevalent in black-headed households, largely in rural areas.28,29 statistics south africa29,26 highlighted that of the 39.26% south african population living in rural areas, 65% were identified as poor. statistics south africa27 posited that over 90.8% of households without food access were black africans. northern cape and kwazulu-natal (kzn) were flagged as the provinces with the highest proportion of households experiencing hunger. it also identified limpopo, eastern cape and kzn as provinces with the highest proportion of rural poverty and households dependent on agricultural activities for food supply. interestingly, these provinces are residents of the former homelands during the apartheid era.30,31 this, in many ways, buttresses the lopsidedness in the historical inequality evident in south africa prior to 1994.32,33 judging from the data provided above, rural poverty is high in free state, kzn and eastern cape largely because of the historical imbalances partly caused by the legacies of apartheid. given this, food security is a mirage in most rural households in south africa largely because of these historical effects of inequality resulting in widespread poverty. as shisanya and mafongoya opined, the country has one of the world’s highest income inequality rates coupled with too high levels of absolute poverty.25 similarly, april and owusu-sekyere argued that despite launching ndp as a poverty eradication policy drive in south africa, there had been a steady increase in poverty, job loss and inequality in south africa.20 world data lab (https://worldpoverty.io/map) estimated that an average of 16.2 million south africans live in extreme poverty. similarly, an average of 4.75 million south african households live below the poverty line, with over 14 million susceptible to food insecurity.34 there has been reportedly a gradual rise in the proportion of people living below the food poverty line of r441 per person per month since 2011.35 the statistics south africa36 report indicated a 2.8 million increase from 2011 to 2015 alone.36 these are largely because of low wages, unemployment and high dependency ratio, which are seemingly more prevalent in rural areas. the combination of these multiple stress and threat multipliers in the event of the emerging impact of the covid-19 pandemic on africa and indeed south africa begs for the need for policy and research considerations. as of january 2021, over 9 months since the global outbreak of covid-19, in what we can safely refer to as ‘post-covid-19 premier hit (as a result of efforts at making vaccines available worldwide)’, many are still battling with the immediate aftermath of the pandemic such as recession and job losses among others. method the discourse is solely a desktop scoping review. a scoping review aims to provide an overview of emerging evidence from an array of sources.37,38 it is seen as a method of mapping and summarising evidence-based research to identify the priorities and gaps of a research phenomenon, to inform policy review and future research.7 by this, a synthesis of the literature on climate change, food security and covid-19 with a focus on south africa was carried out to provide a preliminary assessment of the scope and status of multiple vulnerabilities within the south african context. to achieve this, a bibliometric analysis39 was used to identify relevant studies, data charting and collate summaries and reports. this led to gathering data and reviewing grey literature and online information between january 2010 and february 2021 using google scholar, international scientific indexing (isi), proquest and scopus search engines. the keywords used were ‘climate change’, ‘food security’ and ‘covid-19’. these keywords were then merged to include ‘africa’ and ‘south africa’, in particular. as table 1 indicates, from about 302 795 articles found on climate change between 2010 and 2021, only 7378 articles were on climate change and food security. approximately, 885 articles were on climate change and covid-19, while 489 articles were on food security and covid-19. the combination of the three keywords ‘climate change, food security and covid-19’ recorded 40 articles within the time frame sourced. table 1: a summary of articles searched. interestingly, only three articles were related to ‘climate change, food security, covid-19 and africa’.40,41,42 no data were recorded for south africa within the confines of the keyword combinations searched. while this provides a clear rationale for this review within the context of south africa, one may also argue that the emerging status of covid-19 as a research endeavour may explain the dearth in literature for africa, and south africa in particular. using thematic content analysis, the data were triangulated with documents, monographs and organisational reviews and analysed for meaning and relevance. the discourse explores the nexus between climate change, food and livelihood security in the light of the impact of the covid-19 global public health pandemic in south africa. the rationale assesses south africa’s situation given the impact of climate change on food and livelihood security preand post-covid-19 pandemic. it proffers policy recommendations and action plans to adopt a necessary coping mechanism by individuals, households, provinces and the nation while invoking research on the subject matter. status before covid-19 agriculture supports about 70% – 80% of the entire african population, with approximately 4 million smallholder subsistence farmers in south africa.25 this is seen as a major development priority in sub-saharan africa because of the proportion of people dependent on agriculture which is a climate-sensitive livelihood option. statistics south africa asserted that about 8.5 million people in south africa are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.24 turpie and visser argued that the rural areas accounted for about 40% of south africa’s population.43 these areas are directly and indirectly dependent on natural resources (land and water) for their livelihood. therefore, the impact of climate change on agricultural output can be expected to impact rural communities directly, given the level of poverty and inequality evident within these societies.8,44 judging from the lopsided historical inequality prevalent in south africa,30,31,32,33 for rural communities in eastern cape, limpopo and kzn, the implication of climate change will not only affect agricultural productivity but also increase the propensity for food and livelihood insecurity.23 while south africa is a secure food nation, about 1.7 million households and an estimated 6.8 million individuals are still affected by varying degrees of food insecurity.27 about 26.3% of south africans live in households identified as food poor in the sense of being constrained economically or otherwise in securing sufficient food.45,46 about 28.3% are at risk of food insecurity if their income or livelihood option is threatened in any way.47,48 for these reasons, it is arguable that food security is a mirage in most rural households in south africa largely because of these historical effects of inequality that have cumulated in widespread poverty. hence, the challenge of food insecurity is more probable among black african-headed households, largely in rural areas.28,29 statistics south africa asserted that 55% of south africa’s population live below the national poverty line, with over 14 million susceptible to food insecurity.26 the report showed that kzn accounted for over 26% of poverty in south africa, with over 56.3% of the population living in poverty. the report also identified kzn as one of the provinces with the highest proportion of rural poverty, hunger and households dependent on agricultural activities for food supply. similarly, about 580 000 households in kzn are food insecure. the need to explore the coping mechanism of rural households in the face of climate change, food and livelihood insecurity in the event of the enormous impact of the covid-19 pandemic in south africa becomes paramount.46,47,49 covid-19: food security and nutrition risk even though covid-19 is an attacking respiratory illness, there is no direct relationship with food security. however, there is an indirect implication for food security as malnutrition increases the vulnerability of contracting the virus.50,51 there has been a range of conflicting and strengthening trends that have so far impacted food processes, food security and nutrition. this includes fragmentation of food supply chains, lack of jobs and livelihoods, expansion of inequalities, disruption of social welfare programmes, altered food environments and unequal food prices in localised settings.52,53 fluctuations in food supply chains occurred globally as food system employees suffered high rates of sickness.52,54,55 this contributed to shutdowns and individual food processing facilities that resulted in a decrease in buying power for those who lost their incomes.1,49,52,56 it also had a significant effect on food security and nutrition, particularly for those who were already disadvantaged.49,56 besides, considering the high degree of unevenness and complexity surrounding the virus and its development, there could be future risks to food security and nutrition, including the potential for reduced food output and development, depending on the magnitude and length of the pandemic and the efforts to combat it.52 the imminent and inevitable destruction of food production, supply chains and food supply in south africa because of containment steps to curb the proliferation of covid-19 poses immense food security threats for already disadvantaged people.1,49,57 as the covid-19 pandemic spread, statistics south africa reported an increase in the number of no-income people in south africa from 5.2% before the national lockdown in march 2020 to 15.4% (about 10.2% increase) after 6 weeks of lockdown.26 in the same report, about 11.4% indicated that they had experienced hunger during the lockdown. within the agricultural sector, the unplanned and sudden restriction on movements led to a massive disruption in agricultural activities such as harvestings, processing and produce sales, among others. small-scale farmers, especially those producing perishable stocks such as vegetables and fruits, suffered economic losses and shortage of supplies and a threat to household food security. the restriction on movement also led to labour loss as well as a decrease in production efficiency and capacity because of the disruption in the normal cycle of food supply.58 for instance, livestock and poultry markets were disrupted, leading to increased production costs and loss for farmers. in the face of these realities of covid-19, people living within the agricultural production chain would be trapped in poverty should the situation continue. on a more macro level, the pandemic has enormous negative implications for consumer spending as the quarterly employment statistics (qes) survey also showed a job loss of about 671 000 employees in all industries (approximately -6.6%) in june 2020 as compared with the year before.26 this poses negative implication for the agriculture market and by inference increases individual and household food insecurity. the immediate and long-term impact of the covid-19 pandemic, especially for rural households solely dependent on agriculture as a means of livelihood and support, will be devastating. this includes the loss of households’ income, less access to food gathering activities, closure of institutions that support food safety nets (such as food banks) and wastage of perishable foods such as vegetables, milk and fruits. this will imply untold hardship, especially for the rural poor. in south africa, job losses, especially in the agricultural sector because of the pandemic, will alter the government’s aim at increasing employment by a million in the agricultural sector by 2030. the continuation of this crisis in the face of climate change’s impact, among others, will imply a broader impact on the agricultural sector. proposed policy recommendations and expected outcomes as we all strive to reshape our lives, the realisation of the covid-19 new normal demands a reconfiguration of the agricultural sector so that it can function in a new world order necessitated by the pandemic. as nwankpa59 posited, improved agricultural performance stimulates economic development and contributes to rural and urban hunger and poverty reduction. in this sense, agricultural growth is seen as pro-poor as it allows for greater participation of the poor in the growth process. the impact of climate change, and, more recently, the covid-19 pandemic, makes agricultural performance, especially for the rural poor, a herculean task. despite the situation we find ourselves in, it is pertinent that the food supply chain continues to function unabated to avoid a food crisis at the national, local and household levels. as mahendra60 and arumugam and kanagavalli61 observed, the 1943 bengal famine led to about 3 million deaths because of a disruption in the food supply chain. to ensure continuous agricultural performance in the face of climate change and the unintended consequences of the covid-19 pandemic, the following are recommended. it is pertinent to note that these recommendations are not exclusive. they are based on the authors’ perceptions of possible alternatives in the mitigation and adaptation strategies necessary in the new ‘covid-19’ world order: there is a need for the adoption of vertical and horizontal cooperative approaches by all stakeholders (national, provincial and municipal governments, community members and the public) in the development of coping mechanisms to food and livelihood insecurity in the face of the impact of climate change and the new order of covid-19. to this effect, there is a need for public and private partnerships (ppps) in extension, research and development in the agricultural sector.62,63,64 there is also the need for further study and recognition of the place of small-scale agriculture in rural development, poverty alleviation and food security in south africa. there is a need for proactiveness in government agencies’ action in the agricultural sector rather than the typical reactionary tendencies of these agencies.8 there is the need for a radical rethink of water management strategies and policies, which will allow for increased water harvesting and storage to improve agricultural yields at the provincial and municipal levels. forecasting machinery is necessary to track food availability, pricing and access during and after the covid-19 crisis. in this sense, the tracking system should be devised to monitor production based on food stock and yields and trade flow, pricing and availability in rural and urban areas. there is a need to introduce biotech seeds that are more resilient against climate change and pest threats. the need for a robust and well-structured skill and acquisition programme to empower the youth and unemployed segment of the population is key in the development agenda. there is a need for the re-examination of the strategic food reserve management and social safety nets to stabilise lives with food and cash on agricultural production and supply for rural poor households, especially in the face of the covid-19 pandemic. there is a need to develop agencies and financial institutions to support rural poor households that are either already or on the verge of experiencing vulnerability to food and livelihood insecurity, especially in period crisis. whilst these measures and recommendations are not exclusive, they provide a basis for policy engagement. it is also interesting to note that the covid-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for reforms in the agricultural sector in south africa and a reconfiguration of the coping mechanism available for rural communities and households in the face of climate change, food and livelihood insecurity. implementing actors the alleviation or reduction of the stress the covid-19 pandemic will evoke for the south african economy, mostly for poor households in rural areas, requires collaborative and systemic thinking from all stakeholders. the implementing actors for the policy recommendations will include the following stakeholders. however, this is not exclusive: the national, provincial and municipal government: the government’s role at all levels in the alleviation of poverty and hunger for the actualisation of food security and livelihood is crucial. the need for the government’s conscious action at this trying time of the covid-19 pandemic in the face of widespread poverty and the impact of climate change on the agricultural sector is even higher. while south africa is food secure at the national level, the need for policy action and implementation to replicate the same strive, especially at the provincial and municipal levels and particularly in rural and relatively poor municipalities, is fundamental. agencies of government: these are organisations set up by legislative or executive powers as government machinery set out to carry out oversight and/or administration of specific function of government.65,66 these agencies will be required to monitor and evaluate the policies implemented in the face of the pandemic’s impact on the agricultural sector in order to alleviate hunger and ensure food and livelihood security for the rural poor. these agencies include the agriculture and rural development across all provinces in the republic of south africa, the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development, agric south africa and agribusiness development agency, among others. community cooperatives: community agricultural cooperatives are crucial stakeholders in alleviating poverty and ensuring food security for rural households dependent on agriculture as a means of livelihood and food support.67,68,69 their roles in providing support for farmers by the combination of collective human and capital resources are necessary coping mechanisms in the face of the covid-19 pandemic. research institutes: research institutes are also necessary stakeholders in implementing policy actions for coping during and after the pandemic. they are essential in evaluating and monitoring these policies to proffer better policy solutions during the implementation phase. these institutes include (but are not limited to) the agricultural research council, agricultural research council vegetable and ornamental plants (arc-vopi), council for scientific and industrial research (csir) and research innovation and sequencing platforms, among others. private corporations: the need for private corporations as crucial stakeholders cannot be overemphasised. they are expected to be involved in governmental efforts to alleviate food insecurity, especially in rural areas, as corporate social responsibility (csr).70 in this sense because csr is a responsibility of corporations to their host community,70,71 these corporations can help address urgent social and environmental challenges as it relates to the covid-19 pandemic in their host community. the need for these actions in the covid-19 era makes this even more remarkable. individual and rural households: the alleviation of food insecurity and the creation of a sustainable livelihood option in the agricultural section in the face of climate change and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic cannot be achieved without individuals and households themselves. there is a need for individual and household involvement as active partners rather than as passive participants in the policies necessary for a food secure rural household. conclusion this article provided an exploratory discourse using a desktop scoping review. the rationale was to explore the degree of vulnerability the covid-19 pandemic posed and still poses on food and livelihood security in south africa, given other multiplier effects such as climate change, poverty and weak institutional and household coping mechanisms. the article acknowledged the impact of climate change on food security and the situation of food security in south africa pre-and post-covid-19 pandemic. it then provided policy recommendations and expected outcomes to reconfigure the agricultural sector in the new sociopolitical and economic order necessitated by the pandemic. the article argued that the reduction of the stress posed by covid-19 would require collaborative efforts and systemic thinking by all stakeholders across all quarters. it thus proffered workable solutions to mitigate the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic on food and livelihood options of rural dwellers in south africa, as well as the interconnectedness of these with the impact of climate change. acknowledgements competing interest the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions h.o.p. conceptualised the idea and wrote the first draft. e.n.k. and o.a.a. reviewed the article. e.i.j. reviewed the second draft and r.t.a. reviewed the final draft of the article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely that of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references arndt c, davies r, gabriel s, et al. covid-19 lockdowns, income distribution, and food security: an analysis for south africa. glob food sec. 2020;26:100410. 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and the implementation of the ezulwini consensus: challenges and prospects’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a387. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.387 note: this article is based on work previously published by the author shirambere p. tunamsifu ‘challenges and prospects of au to implement the ezulwini consensus: the case of collective security and the use of force’. published article: http://www.monitor.upeace.org/archive.cfm?id_article=1045 original research the international conference on the great lakes region and the implementation of the ezulwini consensus: challenges and prospects shirambere p. tunamsifu received: 19 oct. 2016; accepted: 08 may 2017; published: 13 july 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article is evaluative assessing the implementation of the ezulwini consensus by the international conference on the great lakes region (icglr). in early april 2012, a mutiny started in the eastern part of the democratic republic of the congo (drc), resulting in the creation of the rebel group known as the mouvement du 23 mars (m23). the spread of m23 constituted a serious threat to peace, security and stability in the entire african great lakes region. on the basis of the ezulwini consensus, which emphasises that regional organisations in areas of proximity to conflicts should be empowered to take action, the icglr resolved to intervene. through several summits attempting to find a home-grown solution, the icglr faced two main challenges in implementing the ezulwini consensus. the first was related to the lack of actions and sanctions against member states that violated fundamental principles and the second was related to the lack of neutrality of the chairperson of the icglr during the dialogue between the government of the drc and m23. the intervention of the icglr is important, but in such circumstances, it is crucial that member states demonstrate their political will to respect fundamental principles and sanction members that allegedly ignore these principles. in the mediation process, where there is sufficient evidence to indicate that a member state is allegedly providing support to rebel groups that are destabilising another member state, it is important that the icglr adopt a policy of requesting such a country to avoid taking the lead in or mediating the conflict. however, when regional organisations in areas of conflict face such challenges, the african union must take responsibility for co-mediating or sending african experts to resolve the conflict impartially. introduction the ezulwini consensus is a common african position on the proposed reform of the united nations (un) adopted by the african union (au) following the report of the high-level panel on threats, challenges and change. the ezulwini consensus was adopted during the executive council’s 7th extraordinary session of 7–8 march 2005 held in addis ababa, ethiopia. it contains three elements: collective security and the challenge of prevention, collective security and the use of force and institutional reform. this paper focuses mainly on collective security and the use of force. however, the latter element of the ezulwini consensus is one of the objectives for which the un was created to maintain international peace and security, as provided for in article 2.7 of the un charter (hereafter the charter). to this end, member states of the un have transferred this primary responsibility to the security council (article 24.1). as conflicts are inescapable facts of human existence, the charter encourages regional arrangements for appropriate responses to matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security (article 52). in this regard, at the continental level, the au has an array of bodies tasked with maintaining international peace and security, as provided for in the au constitutive act and its protocol on the establishment of the peace and security council (psc). without undermining the responsibility of the international community, the au has resolved that when conflict occurs, nearby regional organisations should take action. in such circumstances requiring urgent action, the un should assume responsibility for financing such operations (african union 2005). indeed, in early april 2012 a mutiny started in the north kivu province of the democratic republic of the congo (drc), resulting in the creation of the rebel group known as the mouvement du 23 mars (m23). after taking control of most localities in the territory of rutshuru, in mid-november 2012, m23 occupied the town of goma (capital of the north kivu province). the purpose of m23 rebels was to put pressure on the government to ensure that the peace agreement of 23 march was fully implemented (rdc 2009).1 indeed, human rights watch (hrw 2013) and the un joint human rights office (unjhro 2013, 2014) documented several allegations of serious violations committed by m23 rebels. they have summarily executed civil population, raped women and girls, forced recruitment of men and boys in both rwanda and drc, and looted civilian properties. concerned with the humanitarian disaster caused by the spread of the m23 rebellion, the international conference on the great lakes region (icglr), as the regional organisation in the area, took action that resulted in several extraordinary summits of heads of state and government in order to find a home-grown solution to the conflict. to this end, a dialogue was held in kampala between the government of the drc and m23 under the mediation of the chairperson of the icglr, h. e. president yoweri museveni of uganda. during the period when the icglr took the initiative to intervene, on 12 november 2012 the un group of experts on the drc delivered a report emphasising that the creation and sustainability of the m23 rebellion had received extensive foreign support from the government of rwanda and from senior officials in the government of uganda (unsc 2012b). therefore, the challenges the icglr faced in implementing the ezulwini consensus that this paper attempts to analyse can be separated into two elements. the first challenge relates to the lack of action against member states that violated fundamental principles. the second relates to the lack of neutrality of the chairperson of the icglr during the dialogue between the government of the drc and the m23 rebel group. this paper begins with a reflection on the ezulwini consensus regarding collective security and the use of force within the frameworks of the responsibility to protect (r2p). it then analyses the challenges in implementing the ezulwini consensus and their implications. next, it presents the prospects for implementing the ezulwini consensus. lastly, it presents concluding remarks. the ezulwini consensus within the responsibility to protect framework the ezulwini consensus, as it relates to collective security and the use of force, is in conformity with the framework of the un, the au and the icglr regarding the r2p: the responsibility to protect implies a duty to react to situations in which there is compelling need for human protection. if preventive measures fail to resolve or contain such a situation, and when the state in question is unable or unwilling to step in, then intervention by other states may be required. coercive measures then may include political, economic, or judicial steps. in extreme cases they may also include military action. (evans & sahnoun 2002:102–103) in this light, collective security can be referred to as: a system, regional or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of, the peace. (roberts & zaum 2008:11) under the united nations charter the system of collective security under the charter is reflected in article 24(1). in this provision, member states of the un confer on the united nations security council (unsc) primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility, the unsc acts on their behalf. however, one should bear in mind that article 2(4) of the charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state. the exception to this provision is a case of self-defence or the use of force authorised by the unsc under chapter vii of the charter (as provided for in article 51). where there is a threat to peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, article 39 of the charter provides that the unsc may make recommendations on, or decide, what measures shall be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security. such measures may not involve force, such as partial interruption of economic relations, under article 41 of the charter, or may involve the use of force as provided in article 42 of the charter. in the millennium report of the un secretary-general, annan (2000) acknowledged that the principles of sovereignty and non-interference offer vital protection to small and weak states. however, to the critics, he posed the following question: if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a rwanda, to a srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity? (p. 48) on the dilemma of humanitarian intervention and the defence of the sovereignty principle, annan (2000) stated that: [w]here such crimes occur and peaceful attempts to halt them have been exhausted, the security council has a moral duty to act on behalf of the international community. the fact that we cannot protect people everywhere is no reason for doing nothing when we can. armed intervention must always remain the option of last resort, but in the face of mass murder it is an option that cannot be relinquished. (p. 48) from the above, the dilemma is justified in accordance with international law, particularly the purposes and principles of the charter article 2(1.7), which underlines the principles of sovereignty and non-interference. however, these principles do not allow any sovereign state to abuse the human rights of its own people by evoking domestic jurisdiction. in other words, there is a limit to the principles of sovereignty and non-interference when a government is unwilling or fails to protect its own nationals, because sovereignty is also the capacity of a state to be able to protect its own peoples and its borders. in this regard, nanda (2007) argues that a government can no longer: hide behind the shield of sovereignty, claiming non-intervention by other states in its internal affairs, if it fails to protect the people under its jurisdiction from massive violations of human rights. (p. 373) accordingly, the report presented by the international commission on intervention and state sovereignty (iciss 2001) in december 2001 on the r2p, marked a new milestone in international humanitarian law. the theme reflects: the idea that sovereign states have a r2p their own citizens from avoidable catastrophe – from mass murder and rape, from starvation – but that when they are unwilling or unable to do so, that responsibility must be borne by the broader community of states. (p. viii) concerning collective security, the high-level panel on threats to the un, challenges and change has endorsed the same point of view. in addition, the report mentions that when a state fails to protect its citizens, the international community then has a responsibility to act, through humanitarian operations, monitoring missions and diplomatic pressure – and with force if necessary, though only as a last resort. it is in this context that the un general assembly (unga) adopted resolution 60/1 (the 2005 world summit outcome). paragraphs 138 and 139 of the resolution provide that each individual state has the r2p its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. in addition, the international community, through the un, has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with chapters vi and viii of the charter, to help to protect populations from the aforementioned crimes. in this context, the international community is prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the unsc, in accordance with the charter, especially chapter vii, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organisations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations (unga 2005). under the constitutive act of the african union african heads of state and government, conscious of the fact that the scourge of conflict constitutes a major impediment to development, resolved to replace the organisation of african unity by unanimously adopting the constitutive act of the au (hereafter the act) in 2000. indeed, article 3(f, h) of the act provides for the promotion of peace, security and stability and the promotion and protection of human and peoples’ rights on the continent. in contrast to the erstwhile organisation of african unity, article 4(h) of the act emphasises: the right of the union to intervene in a member state pursuant to a decision of the assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. thus, desirous of establishing an operational structure for the effective implementation of the decisions taken in the areas of conflict prevention, peace-making, peace support operations and intervention, as well as peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction, the protocol creating the psc was adopted in accordance with article 5(2) of the act. the protocol also integrated article 4(h), with the objective of anticipating and preventing conflicts (article 3[b]). acting under those provisions, when atrocities were committed against citizens in darfur (between 2003 and 2005) and burundi (between 2002 and 2003), the au was obliged to intervene with the aim of resolving both crises. the au’s missions in sudan (amis) and in burundi (amib) were deployed in 2003. however, because of financial constraints on the part of the au during both operations, the unsc decided to establish international hybrid operations under its own banner. in order to achieve a more decisive response in such situations, at its 60th session, the unga adopted resolution 60/1, which provides for the r2p in paragraphs 138 and 139. during an extraordinary summit on 7–8 march 2005 in addis ababa, heads of state and government of the au endorsed the r2p in a report known as the ezulwini consensus. the report recognises the authority of the unsc to authorise the use of force in situations of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, and insists that in such cases regional organisations in areas near to conflicts should be empowered to take action (icrtop n.d.). as the unga and the unsc are far from the scene, the report insists that in circumstances requiring urgent action, the unsc should approve and assume responsibility for financing such operations (african union 2005). however, notwithstanding the right of the au to intervene, it cannot protect people everywhere. that is why the unsc encourages peaceful settlement of local disputes through regional arrangements or regional agencies (article 52.3 of the charter). in this regard, the au has, among other objectives, to coordinate and harmonise the policies of existing and future regional communities (article 3.l of the act); it is the case of the icglr among other regional organisations. under the pact on security, stability and development in the great lakes region of the international conference on the great lakes region the icglr is an inter-governmental organisation of 12 african member states in the great lakes region (glr).2 it is governed by the pact on security, stability and development in the glr (hereafter the pact) that was solemnly signed by the heads of state and government in nairobi in december 2006. the pact includes 10 protocols and deals with aspects of the r2p. article 5 of the pact provides that member states renounce the threat or the use of force against one another. explicitly, member states acknowledge the responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity through the protocol on the prevention and punishment of international crimes (article 8). challenges and implications of implementing the ezulwini consensus this section begins with a brief overview of the m23 armed conflict, followed by the challenges faced by the icglr in implementing the ezulwini consensus. brief overview of the mouvement du 23 mars armed conflict the peace agreement signed on 23 march 2009 between the government of the drc and the cndp rebel group allowed former rebels to integrate the armed forces of the democratic republic of the congo (fardc), the police and the provincial government of north kivu. however, on 14 march 2012, the international criminal court’s (icc) judicial decision that found thomas lubanga guilty of war crimes (icc-01/04-01/06-2842 2012:§22–28, 1115) changed the situation on the ground. the icc issued an arrest warrant for bosco ntaganda, who was deputy chief of general staff for military operations of lubanga’s union des patriotes congolais/forces patriotiques pour la libération du congo (upc/fplc), and integrated into the army with the rank of brigadier general. because of international pressure, president kabila issued an instruction to arrest him (hrw 2012). subsequently, by the end of march 2012, most of the former cndp combatants who were integrated in the fardc and other public institutions deserted from the army, claiming that the drc government had failed to fully implement the peace agreement of 23 march 2009. the deserters requested to talk with the government, but president kabila insisted that they would face military justice instead of reintegration. following heavy pressure from the fardc, the mutineers moved out of masisi where they had fallen back to a narrow stretch of hills close to the rwandan border. from there, rwanda became their rear base (stearns 2012:44) and on 6 may 2012, they announced the creation of m23 as a rebel movement. gravely concerned by the escalation of the armed conflict in the eastern drc, the icglr, as the regional organisation in the area of conflict, organised several extraordinary summits of heads of state and government as well, as a direct dialogue between the government of the drc and m23. however, the intervention of icglr faced some challenges in implementing the ezulwini consensus. challenges in implementing the ezulwini consensus the first challenge relates to a lack of action during several extraordinary summits of the icglr against member states violating fundamental principles. the second challenge relates to the neutrality of the chairperson of the icglr. challenge of the lack of action against member states while efforts were undertaken by the icglr to resolve the conflict, rwanda and uganda were playing a crucial role enabling m23 to emerge, resist and fight against the fardc. indeed, pursuing resolution 1533 (2004), the un secretary-general appointed the group of experts on the drc. in its monitoring of the arms embargo, the group’s primary role was to investigate and document evidence regarding the procurement of military equipment, including weapons and ammunition, by armed groups active in the drc, as well as their related financial networks and involvement in the exploitation and trade of natural resources. the findings revealed substantial evidence that rwandan officials had provided direct military and political assistance in the creation of m23 through allowing them the use of the rwandan territory. the group also found evidence that rwandan officials mobilised ex-cndp cadres and officers, north kivu politicians, business leaders and new civilian youth recruits to support and strengthen the ranks of m23 rebels (unsc 2012a:4–17). during a bilateral meeting between the drc and rwanda, the drc authorities supplied evidence of the rwandan defence force’s military support for and weapons delivery to m23. the rwandan government denied these allegations (unsc 2012a:24–25). under article 5(1.d) of the pact,3 the government of the drc requested the icglr to intervene, in its capacity as regional organisation, in the conflict situation in the eastern drc. thus, a series of extraordinary summits were organised, attempting to find ‘a regional solution to regional problem’. international conference on the great lakes region regional inter-ministerial committee and ministers of defence of 11 july 2012: as a technical organ, the icglr regional inter-ministerial committee and ministers of defence meeting was held at the headquarters of the au on 11 july 2012 to prepare for the summit of the heads of state and government. at the end of the extraordinary meeting, the following decisions were adopted: the committee strongly condemned the actions of m23 and requested all negative forces, in particular m23, to stop armed activities. the committee resolved that no support should be given to any negative forces destabilising the region and eastern drc in particular. finally, the committee called on member states to fully implement the pact, and in particular the protocol on non-aggression and mutual defence (icglr 2012a). before analysing the decisions taken by the committee on 11 july 2012, it is important to highlight the following observations: the icglr regional inter-ministerial committee and ministers of defence failed to acknowledge the findings of the un group of experts on the drc on the involvement of rwanda in the provision of support to m23 (s/2012/348) or recommend them to the summit of the heads of state and government of the icglr. such support of the rebel group was a violation not only of the arms embargo, but also of the protocol on non-aggression and mutual defence in the glr (article 5 of the pact). besides, the support was also in violation of paragraph 5 of the peace, security and cooperation framework for the drc and the region (psc framework) that calls on states to neither harbour nor provide protection of any kind to persons accused of international crimes. indeed, considering the first decision condemning the actions of m23, the icglr regional inter-ministerial committee and ministers of defence failed to call on the government of rwanda to respect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the drc and not to interfere in its internal affairs. regarding the second decision requesting all negative forces, in particular m23, to stop armed activities and that no support should be given to any negative forces destabilising the region and eastern drc in particular, the committee failed to request rwanda specifically to stop any support to m23 on the basis of evidence from the un group of experts. in addition to this report, the committee took advantage of findings from non-governmental organisations such as human rights watch. on the third decision calling on member states to fully implement the pact, and in particular the protocol on non-aggression and mutual defence, the committee failed to anticipate sanctions or possible measures that could be taken against member states violating these instruments. extraordinary summit of the heads of state and government of the international conference on the great lakes region on 15 july 2012: meeting on the margins of the 19th ordinary session of the au to discuss the security situation in eastern drc that constituted a serious threat to peace, security, stability and the entire glr, the heads of state and government of the icglr approved and endorsed the report from the extraordinary meeting of the regional inter-ministerial committee (icglr 2012b). the heads of state and government also decided that negative forces, in particular m23, should stop armed activities immediately and no support should be given to any negative force attempting to destabilise the region and the eastern drc in particular. in addition, they called on member states to fully implement the pact and the protocol on non-aggression and mutual defence in the glr. concerned by the security issues and the fighting between m23 and the fardc, five heads of state of the 11 countries that at that time composed the icglr were present and the ministers represented others. the heads of state and government of the icglr made a good decision against the m23 rebel group; however, they failed to request the rwandan government to respond to the allegations that it supported the group. extraordinary summit of the heads of state and government of the international conference on the great lakes region on 7–8 august 2012: the heads of state and government of the icglr, having considered the report of the extraordinary meeting of the regional inter-ministerial committee, considered that the security and humanitarian situation in eastern drc constituted a serious threat to peace, security, stability and development in the entire glr because of the activities of armed groups (icglr 2012c). determined to seek home-grown solutions to the problems of the glr through established regional mechanisms, the summit adopted the following decisions, among others: to stop the fighting in eastern drc, with the possibility of sanctions against those who obstructed the peace process. however, as in the previous summit, heads of state and government of the icglr did not endorse the findings of the un group of experts or request rwanda to stop any support to the m23 rebel group (s/2012/348). to establish a sub-committee consisting of the ministers of defence of angola, burundi, congo, drc, rwanda, uganda and tanzania with the mandate to propose urgent actionable steps to ensure that fighting stopped completely and provide details of the operationalisation of the neutral international force. however, even though the government of rwanda denied providing support to the rebel group m23, it would have been better for the rwandan minister of defence to withdraw from the sub-committee to a neutral position. nevertheless, the icglr’s summit accepted the participation of the rwandan minister in the sub-committee. sixth extraordinary summit of the heads of state and government of the international conference on the great lakes region on 31 july 2013: deeply concerned about the resumption of fighting in eastern drc, the heads of state and government of the icglr called for a quick conclusion to the dialogue between the government of the drc and m23 by reiterating that the primary responsibility of the glr was to find lasting solutions to the peace and security challenges in the region (icglr 2013a). besides, they welcomed the adoption by the unsc of resolution 2098 in march 2013, establishing the force intervention brigade with responsibility for neutralising armed groups. however, the summit did not take note of the mid-term report of the un group of experts. according to this report: [s]ince the outset of its current mandate, the group has to date found no indication of support to the rebels from within uganda, and has gathered evidence of continuous – but limited – support to m23 from within rwanda. (un group of experts of the drc 2013) nevertheless, instead of requesting rwanda to respond to the continuing allegations, the summit encouraged rwanda and the drc to pursue bilateral discussions in order to strengthen confidence and cooperation. however, the government of the drc requested an extraordinary meeting of the icglr because at the bilateral level, the drc and rwanda had failed to find a solution regarding evidence of the rwandan defence force’s military support of and weapons delivery to m23 rebels. thus, there was a remarkable imbalance in the handling of complaints against rwanda when compared to the sudan’s complaint against uganda for providing arms to sudanese rebels. in the latter case, the summit had the opportunity to listen to uganda’s response and requested that the joint intelligence fusion centre reports on the issue be discussed by the committee of ministers of defence for appropriate action. seventh extraordinary summit of heads of state and government of the international conference on the great lakes region: the ezulwini consensus recognises that the unga and the unsc are too far removed to understand the situation on the ground at the regional level (icglr 2013b). therefore, there is no reason for the icglr to request the un system to urgently find a definitive solution to the problem of former m23 combatants interned in eastern rwanda since march 2013. as the drc requested the government of rwanda to extradite former m23 warlords living in rwanda, the icglr could immediately request both countries to undertake cooperation in matters of extradition, judicial investigation and prosecution, as provided by article 7 of the pact. rwanda denied the drc’s request because of the existence of the death penalty in the drc and because it could not be a neutral prosecutor; therefore, the summit requested both countries to agree that former m23 combatants alleged to have committed crimes under international law be extradited to a third state applying universal jurisdiction where they could be judged. challenge to the neutrality of the chairperson of the international conference on the great lakes region this challenge is analysed in accordance with the decision taken by the fifth extraordinary summit of the heads of state and government of the icglr on 24 november 2012 (icglr 2012). on 19 november 2012, m23 captured the city of goma in violation of the request of the previous summit in kampala on 7–8 august 2012 to stop the fighting. for this reason, the summit decided that the drc’s government should listen to, evaluate and resolve the legitimate grievances of m23, m23 should withdraw at least 20 km from goma, and goma airport should be deployed for a composite force of one company each for the neutral force, for fardc and for m23, etc. however, unsurprisingly, the extraordinary summit of the heads of state and government did not take note of the report of the group of experts of the unsc’s drc sanctions committee (s/2012/843), the findings of which demonstrate the following evidence: the government of rwanda continues to violate the arms embargo by providing direct military support to the m23 rebels, facilitating recruitment, encouraging and facilitating desertions from the armed forces of the drc, and providing arms, ammunition, intelligence and political advice. the de facto chain of command of m23 includes gen. bosco ntaganda and culminates with the minister of defence of rwanda, gen. james kabarebe. following the publication of the addendum to its interim report (s/2012/348/add.1), the group met the government of rwanda and took into consideration its written response. the group has, however, found no substantive element of its previous findings that it wishes to alter. senior officials of the government of uganda have also provided support to m23 in the form of direct troop reinforcements in congolese territory, weapons deliveries, technical assistance, joint planning, political advice and facilitation of external relations. units of the ugandan people’s defence forces and the rwandan defence forces jointly supported m23 in a series of attacks in july 2012 to take over the major towns of rutshuru territory and the congolese armed forces base of rumangabo. both governments have also cooperated to support the creation and expansion of the political branch of m23 and have consistently advocated on behalf of the rebels. m23 and its allies include six sanctioned individuals, some of whom reside in or regularly travel to rwanda and uganda. (unsc 2012b:3) from the above, it is clear that the chairperson of the icglr, h. e. president yoweri museveni, who invited heads of state and government of the icglr to the summit on 24 november 2012, was both judge and party in the situation. a mediator is supposed to be neutral, so why did the heads of state and government of the icglr endorse president museveni as facilitator of the dialogue between the drc government and m23 while uganda was continually accused of providing support to the rebel group? in such a situation, even if the drc government did not recuse the mediator, it would have been better for the chairperson of the icglr to resign even though he still denied the accusations. in addition, the icglr failed to establish a sub-committee with the mandate to deal with those allegations against rwanda and uganda in order to take appropriate action, in accordance with the protocol on non-aggression and mutual defence of the pact (article 5). prospects for implementing the ezulwini consensus the r2p implies a duty to react to situations in which there is compelling need for human protection. if preventive measures fail to resolve or contain such a situation, and when the state in question is unable or unwilling to step in, then intervention by other states may be required. coercive measures then may include political, economic or judicial steps. in extreme cases they may also include military action (evans & sahnoun 2002:102–103). clearly, the r2p embraces three specific responsibilities: the responsibility to prevent, the responsibility to react and the responsibility to rebuild. indeed, the ezulwini consensus has endorsed the r2p by prioritising regional organisations in the areas of conflict to take action in situations of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. as the drc is situated in the glr, when bilateral talks with rwanda did not provide the expected solution, the drc requested the intervention of the icglr. the latter was deeply concerned about the security situation in the eastern drc that constituted a serious threat to peace, security and development in the entire glr. following requests from the drc, different extraordinary meetings were held by the icglr regional inter-ministerial committee and ministers of defence as well as by the heads of state and government of the icglr. different declarations reiterated that the primary responsibility of the glr is to find home-grown solutions to the problems of peace and security in the region. to this effect, the icglr decided to intervene through a neutral international force to eradicate m23 and all negative forces in eastern drc, and to open a dialogue in kampala between the government of the drc and m23 under the mediation of the chairperson of the icglr. thus, working with the au and the un, the unsc decided to establish the intervention brigade through resolution 2098 (2013). nevertheless, much evidence from the un group of experts and non-governmental organisations proved that the government of rwanda as well as senior officials of the government of uganda cooperated to support the creation and expansion of the political branch of m23 and consistently advocated on behalf of the rebels. besides, both governments violated the arms embargo by providing direct military support to the m23 rebels in the destabilisation of eastern drc. nevertheless, the icglr lost the opportunity to confront rwanda and uganda with those allegations; but the drc government also failed to request such confrontation or sanction against both countries within the icglr. based on the above, in order to implement the ezulwini consensus, this paper puts forward the following recommendations for better collective security and the use of force in the glr. for member states of the international conference on the great lakes region as the consent to be bound by the pact and its protocols as expressed by ratification was freely given, member states of the icglr solemnly agreed to honour their commitments in a spirit of mutual trust. article 26 of the vienna convention on the law of treaties (1969) stipulates that ‘[e]very treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith (pacta sunt servanda)’.4 therefore, member states of the icglr have to demonstrate their political will to respect the fundamental principles enshrined in the charter and the au constitutive act, notably the principles of territorial integrity, national sovereignty, non-interference and non-aggression, and prohibit any member state from allowing the use of its territory as a base for aggression or subversion against another member state as expressed by the preamble of the pact. in so doing, they will ensure the glr becomes a specific zone of reconstruction and development, as declared in the preamble of the pact, and create the conditions for security, stability and sustainable development between the member states as provided by article 2c. the icglr should not be transformed into a club of friends; instead, it should undertake the required actions to protect populations under imminent threat. in the event, as president museveni was the chairperson, observers waiting for sanctions against uganda were disappointed. in such circumstances, for a neutral mediation, it is better to appoint a head of state against whom there are no allegations. the member states should demonstrate their capacity to enforce the decisions of the icglr in order to protect civilians in member states. the member states should renounce the threat or the use of force as policy means to achieve national objectives in the glr (article 5a of the pact). the member states should abstain from sending or supporting armed groups into the territory of other member states (article 5b of the pact) and abstain from tolerating the presence in their territories of armed groups against the government of another state. if any member state fails to comply with the provisions of this article, an extraordinary summit should be convened to consider appropriate action (article 5a of the pact). alleged perpetrators accused of committing international crimes should not receive any protection from member states of the icglr (paragraph 5 of the psc framework). for the african union since july 2012, the icglr has organised around six summits on the conflict in eastern drc, but some member states such as rwanda and uganda have failed to comply with the pact that created the icglr as well as different resolutions of the unsc. rwanda has continually been accused of providing military support to the rebel group destabilising the eastern drc, which constituted a serious threat to peace, security and development in the entire glr. furthermore, although uganda played the role of a mediator between the government of the drc and m23, it was accused of providing military support to the rebel group. because of the dilemmas highlighted above, it is important that in similar situations the au itself takes responsibility5 by sending african experts to help sub-regional organisations to resolve the crisis when the mediator is no longer neutral, as was the case with president museveni. this could help the au to take appropriate measures to implement the ezulwini consensus. as the situation on the ground is not yet fully restored, or is fragile because of military operations against the ugandan rebel group allied democratic forces that is perpetrating mass killings of civilians in beni, the au must open a permanent office in the eastern drc that will keep its commission informed on the situation. collaborating with the un mission, the icglr, civil society and the representative of the au in eastern drc, being on the ground, will be able to suggest strategies to the au that will help resolve the cycle of armed conflict and persistent violence by armed groups. in the joint icglr–southern african development community (sadc) final communiqué on kampala dialogue signed on 12 december 2013, the icglr and sadc ‘call upon the international partners, particularly the un and the au to work together and provide support and resources to the government of the drc and its follow-up process’ (icglr-sadc 2013:4). in the researcher’s opinion, as there is often bad faith in the implementation of peace deals in the drc, the final communiqué would provide a recommendation requesting the au to monitor its enforcement through its permanent office in the eastern drc as suggested above. conclusion the protection of populations within the african glr requires the maintenance of regional peace and security. in this regard, through the protocol on non-aggression and mutual defence, member states of the icglr undertake to renounce the threat or use of force against one another and to abstain from providing support to armed groups. however, when the icglr committed to implementing the ezulwini consensus, it nevertheless inherited an existing situation in the region in which its members had been involved for two decades. the case of rwanda and uganda is eloquent because they have been behind rebel groups in the eastern drc since 1996, providing direct military support, arms and ammunition to destabilise the drc for their own economic, political and security interests. indeed, the willingness of the icglr to intervene and eradicate the m23 rebel group would not be sufficient without sanctions against member states that destabilise their neighbours. unfortunately, despite its several summits, the heads of state and government of the icglr did not do so against rwanda and uganda. therefore, it is crucial that member states of the icglr demonstrate their political will to respect fundamental principles, particularly territorial integrity, national sovereignty, non-interference and non-aggression against another member state. concerning the mediation process, where there is sufficient evidence to indicate that a member state is providing support to rebel groups that are destabilising another member state, it is important that the member states of the icglr adopt a policy of requesting the relevant country to avoid taking the lead or mediating in the conflict. in this regard, the president of uganda as chair of the icglr and de facto mediator would be requested to resign from the chairperson and mediator positions on the basis of allegations that senior officials in the government of uganda were providing support to m23. even if uganda were to deny this, museveni’s resignation would allow the icglr to find a neutral home-grown solution to the conflict. thus, in similar situations, this paper recommends that the au – which has the duty to intervene, coordinate and harmonise the policies of regional organisations – takes responsibility for co-mediating or sends african experts to resolve the conflict impartially. acknowledgements this article is a revised version of a paper entitled ‘challenges and prospects for the au to implement the ezulwini consensus: a case of collective security and use of force’ presented at the south african association of political studies on 4 october 2013. peace and conflict monitor of the university for peace acknowledged it on 20 may 2014. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references african union, 2005, ‘the common african position on the proposed reform of the united nations: the ezulwini consensus’, viewed 12 august 2013, from http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/files/au_ezulwini%20consensus.pdf annan, k., 2000, we the peoples: the role of the united nations in the 21st century, un department of public information, new york. british broadcasting corporation (bbc), 2014, ‘news africa, “burkina faso profile”’, viewed 02 december 2014, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13072777 dersso, s.a., lulie, h., assanvo, 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security council committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the democratic republic of the congo addressed to the president of the security council, viewed 22 april 2013, from http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=s/2012/843 footnotes 1. it is about the return of congolese refugees in neighbouring countries (article 6[1]), to reform the security sector services (article 10) and grant ranks to former national congress for the defense of the people rebels integrated in the police and the armed forces of the democratic republic of the congo (article 12[7]). 2. they are following: angola, burundi, central african republic, republic of congo, drc, kenya, uganda, rwanda, republic of south sudan, sudan, tanzania and zambia. 3. article 5(1.d) stipulates that if any member state fails to comply with the protocol on non-aggression and mutual defence in the great lakes region, an extraordinary summit shall be convened to consider appropriate action. 4. ‘pacta sunt servanda’ is a principle in international law which states that international treaties should be upheld by all the signatories. it is based upon the principle of good faith. 5. in the crisis in burkina faso where president compaoré attempted to amend the constitution in order to change the presidential term limits, seek re-election in 2015 and extend his 27 years in power (1987–2014), the african union responded proactively. concerned to secure the integrity of the constitutional process, the people of burkina faso protested against the scheduled debate on the amendment of the constitution in the national assembly. as the result of the mass protest, the national assembly was stormed and the president was forced to resign. thus, the economic community of west african states, as the regional organisation in the area, took the initiative to mediate the crisis, but the african union rejected a coup d’état following the declaration of the army, through lieutenant colonel zida, to install a transitional government for a period of 1 year. in addition, the african union gave the army 2 weeks to hand over power to a civilian transitional government, after which it would suspend the country’s participation in its activities and impose targeted sanctions (dersso et al. 2014). finally, on the african union’s deadline, the parties (religious, military, political, civil and traditional leaders) adopted and signed the charter, setting out a year-long transition to elections and michael kafando was named acting president (bbc 2014). microsoft word 08 makwembere.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 118-126. hallmarks of irresponsible and unresponsive governance: internal xenophobic attacks in south africa’s municipalities s makwembere1 abstract municipalities face major pressures to demonstrate that they are responsible and responsive institutions. at present, different policies and institutions exist to guide local governance in pursuit of numerous ideals through various assigned roles and responsibilities. broadly, the latter involve government’s vision of participatory development, citizen engagement and innovative service delivery amongst other things. xenophobia has been a particular challenge to the south african government’s vision for local governance, especially due to its complex contributing factors. using document analysis, this article discusses issues around citizenship and regionalism as suggested in policies and strategies on local governance in view of the realities of xenophobic attacks. the experiences of marginalised migrants as stakeholders of local governance reveal the paradoxes of xenophobic attacks as local governance agenda on responsibility and responsiveness this article suggests implications of the conceptualisation of citizenship and regionalism in municipal approaches to local governance. political and economic restructuring associated with local governance goals are undoubtedly shape constructions of citizenship and regionalism. as sustainable solutions to the problem of xenophobia are yet to be achieved, this article concludes by offering possible routes to local governance that broaden what is conceptualised as responsible and responsive vision and action in addressing xenophobia. keywords: xenophobia, citizenship, regionalism, local governance, south africa introduction the images of violent attacks on foreign nationals in 2008, which left 62 people dead and thousands of foreign nationals displaced from their homes, come to mind when issues of xenophobia in south africa are raised. the widely publicised pictures of mozambican national ernesto nhamuave, who was burned alive, highlighted a dark side of the experiences of foreigners from other african countries living in south africa. the case itself was closed without any perpetrator being charged; and, it points to a worrying picture on the extent to which the already over-burdened justice system is able to handle crimes of this nature. arguably, the extent of the problem goes far deeper than simple criminal acts; thus, the justice system alone cannot deal with the situation which is an apparent problem for almost all municipalities. the causes of the kind of violence associated with xenophobia are undoubtedly complex, hence the solutions to address the problems call for multi-focal efforts. however, one can argue that it is the efforts by local government, the arm closest to the people, which reflect 1 department of sociology, rhodes university, p.o. box 94, grahamstown, 6139 south africa, e-mail: smakwembere@gmail.com or s.makwembere@ru.ac.za internal xenophobic attacks in south africa’s municipalities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 118-126. 119 the extent to which government policy-concern on the treatment of foreign nationals is prioritised and realised. in a study on xenophobia, the human sciences research council (hsrc) investigated some of the main causes for the attacks witnessed in 2008 (hsrc, 2008). the study shed some light on issues that are particularly relevant for municipal councils’ consideration and action. the causes identified included the influx of migrants into the country, government failings especially around service delivery, corruption as well as addressing violence, the poor pace and maladministration of housing, the impact of migrant numbers on gender dynamics and the pressures of economic livelihoods and competition over resources (hsrc, 2008). in the analysis and recommendations, the study highlighted the importance of policy and action targeted at the local level. different municipalities across south africa have had to deal with xenophobic attacks to some extent over the years. while not always making headline news, xenophobic attacks notably continued since 2008. recently, the attacks of april 2015 in durban and johannesburg have once again highlighted discrepancies in south africa’s response to and progress on addressing xenophobia. when soldiers drafted and sent to johannesburg and durban townships to support the police, this eerily resembled images of apartheid state of emergency. many foreign shop owners were driven from their businesses, people were killed and others displaced. once again, the 2015 incidents have brought to question government’s capacity to deal with the attacks, predominantly on nationals of other african countries. in addition to the violence, controversial public statements were made by different leaders such as king goodwill zwelithini, the traditional leader of the zulu people, who reportedly compared foreigners to lice and declared that they must pack and leave the country (timeslive, 2015). the anti-foreigner sentiments made at the time were not new. different public officials were cited in the press as publicly making anti-foreigner statements with no consequences. this conduct brings to question what and where progress had been made in the south african society, in regard to addressing xenophobia since 2008. this paper seeks to interrogate issues of local governance in light of the experiences of xenophobia, using the case of the city of johannesburg. using document analysis, the article critically discusses the issues of citizenship and regionalism as suggested in policies and strategies on local governance, in view of the realities of xenophobic attacks. prior to democratisation of south africa in 1994, local government played a key role in implementing racist policies and maintaining the separatism status quo of apartheid. post-apartheid, the evolving political situation has seen an ongoing evaluation of the role of local government in building a new south africa which reflects the democratic values of diversity and multiculturalism of its people. the constitution and local government framework have entrenched a new local government with a broad mandate of creating “developmental local governments”. the white paper on local government of 1998 defines developmental local government as “local government committed to working with citizens and groups within the community to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic and material needs, and improve the quality of their lives”. with this, the issues of citizenship, social inclusion as well as regionalism have grown in importance as considerations how developmental local governance could be framed, which players should be involved in processes as well as how participation should be governed. a brief overview of decentralisation and democratisation in south africa is provide hereunder as a prelude to the conceptualisation of citizenship and regionalism at a local government level using the city of johannesburg. this is followed by a discussion of citizenship and social inclusion, then a discussion on regionalism given the aspirations of local economic makwembere 120 development and finally some recommendations for focus areas that local governance can explore to overcome marginalising local economic development strategies. decentralisation and democratisation of the south african local government: towards inclusive local economic development many countries have attempted decentralisation for various reasons and with varying degrees of success. in africa, the decentralisation trend is evident and there is much evidence pointing to the complex realities of embarking on fiscal, institutional (or deconcentration) and political (or devolution) decentralisation (crawford & hartmann, 2008). some key challenges include identifying the specific form of decentralisation should take to meaningfully benefit the country, coordinating as well as building links between various actors and identifying the elements of a good decentralisation implementation strategy (stoke, 2003). a dominant argument in literature is that decentralisation strengthens the bonds between the state and citizenry through enhanced political participation, thus providing an avenue to promote democratisation. however, the implementation of decentralisation cannot absolutely be credited for positively changing the relationship between the state and citizenry. after the institutionalisation of democracy in south africa through the 1994 elections, government set in place institutions and legal frameworks to guide the formation of a developmental local government. with democracy by its nature observing the varied segments of society external to the political system, government anticipated that decentralised service delivery would facilitate increased citizen participation as well as enhance local government capacity to deliver its developmental mandate. the process of broadening the involvement of society meant that the relationship between the state and the individual had to change. simultaneously, the conceptualisation of citizenship had to change. the former apartheid processes, structures and systems which excluded black people, because they were not given full citizen rights, had to be restructured. it is the constitution of 1996, the local government act no.27 of 1998 and the decentralisation policy that played a key role in promoting local government authorities that support citizen participation. the new constitution defines local government as a “sphere within a cooperative governance framework and not just a level or tier at the bottom of a vertical hierarchy” (van donk, 2008: vi). as such, attempts to strengthen the institutional capabilities to deal with xenophobia came to be situated in a complex framework with numerous variables. when it comes to internalising changes and achieving tangible results, many things remain unclear. chapter 7 of the constitution establishes and spells out the responsibilities of local government authorities. section 151(1) specifically states that local policy matters are to be resolved at local levels under the supervision of local government authorities. section 4 of the local government act assigns to local government a mandate to promote accountability, transparency, democratic principles as well as participation in development and decision making processes. the role of local government is however broad, dealing with social development and local economic development. in terms of economic development, the decentralisation process is perceived as fundamental to encouraging self-sustaining small-scale projects, thereby facilitating a distribution of resources to grassroot levels. this distribution is consequently meant to reduce regional inequalities (sharma, 2000). economic development by its nature is generally an uneven and inequitable process; therefore, the need for a local economic development (led) agenda internal xenophobic attacks in south africa’s municipalities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 118-126. 121 emanates out of this challenge. the application of led strategies involves a broad spectrum of techniques and tools to frame interventions that respond to developmental challenges of particular locales with individual characteristics in terms of geography, demography, business, social groups and so on. any growth of the local economies is dependent on stakeholders, amongst other things, collectively harnessing their competitive and comparative advantages to stimulate growth, establish revenue-generating value chains as well as effective service value chains to ultimately improve citizens’ quality of life. at present, south africa is posed with numerous challenges such as lack of shared understanding of the role of led and led processes, ineffective working relationships between provincial, district and local authorities as well as failure of local authorities to clearly define a led strategy in the wider idp process (salga, 2015). the municipal systems act of 2000 legislates for the idp and a number of led functions. the act aims to enable “municipalities to move progressively towards the social and economic upliftment of local communities” (rsa, 2000). as a planning tool, the idp is meant to guide municipalities to achieve their responsibilities. a shortcoming of idp processes has been their failure to make reference to migrants. in his analysis of the major policy documents of ethekwini municipality, maharaj (2009) found that they made no reference to migrants. migrants were not identified amongst the vulnerable groups; thus, it was not clear how they were being catered for if at all, especially in light of xenophobia being identified as a major challenge for the municipality (maharaj, 2009). the use of aggregated demographic profiles and information has shortcomings because planning is not entirely based on a picture of local economies evolving due to regionalisation and globalisation trends. not african enough: citizenship and social inclusion in local governance globalisation has resulted in accelerated flows of capital, goods and people. the migration of people has especially increased uncertainties and anxieties of locals and foreigners, creating major concerns around citizenship and belongingness (nyamnjoh, 2006). the attacks against foreign nationals in johannesburg were mainly targeted at africans, bringing into sharp questioning the true nature of the situation at hand. neocosmos (2010) argued that the causes of attacks should be situated in the “politics of fear” (neocosmos, 2010:141). this “politics of fear” should take the “etymological roots of the term ‘xenophobia’ in order not to understand it simply as a psychological ‘attitude’, but as a political subjectivity and practice” (neocosmos, 2010: 141). he further noted that the history of xenophobia in south africa is closely connected to the way citizenship has been conceived and contested (neocosmos, 2010). it could be asked: what are the borders of citizenship, in light of shared histories and struggles, both political as well as economic, as people participate in local economic development in a globalised arena? johannesburg or egoli (the place of gold) has historically drawn people from various countries seeking better fortunes. from the time it was proclaimed a town in 1886, it drew many migrants to work in the mines and settle in the immediate geographic vicinity. johannesburg was typically characterised by influx of migrants from within and outside south africa. under apartheid, government policies resulted in racialised communities in terms of income and access to resources. further, the relocation of black residents and the institutionalisation of racialised locations resulted in many being denied access to live in the increasingly well-developed city despite the city relying on their labour (schmitz, 2013). makwembere 122 today, johannesburg is a very diverse city and a significant representation of migrants from different african countries are still a major feature of the labour force. further, it has been characterised by increasing crime as “the issue of control over public spaces re-emerges in a quite different setting, revolving around crime and insecurity” (benit-gbaffou, 2009: 55). before the attacks on foreigners in may 2008, concerns were raised about the general treatment of foreign national in johannesburg. an article in daily nation captured the situation in january 2008. nyathi wrote: “the burning down of shacks belonging to the refugees and even public lynchings have become a common occurrence, especially in poor neighbourhoods” and these attacks were mainly on zimbabweans and mozambicans (cited in bordeau, 2010: 45) who were fleeing the harsh conditions of their countries. wood (1994: 617) called this ecomigration whereby this migration “is propelled by economic decline and environmental degradation” in their home countries. however, while these migrants move to look for better opportunities, they have not always been positively received. accusations are made against migrants for taking business opportunities and jobs from south africans, perpetuating negative sentiments. in khayelitsha, cape town, a national african federated chamber of commerce and industry leader was quoted as saying “we are the ones who fought for freedom and democracy and now these somalis are here eating our democracy” (mail & guardian, 2008 cited in neocosmos, 2010: 117). his sentiments suggested that the somali foreign nationals were not legitimate citizens of the city to partake in development. the common use of the term ‘makwerekwere’ (denigrating term for african immigrant) reflects the social acceptance of the exclusion of immigrants from city citizenship. labels with negative stereotypes and sentiments against different groups of foreigners further contribute to the exclusion with contempt wherein african foreign nationals are, for example, all described as illegal immigrants and nigerians as drug dealers. there is a view that foreigners are not citizens and, therefore, that they are not legitimate partakers in economic development. when locals blocked roads in jeppestown and cleveland in johannesburg with rocks and burning tyres in april 2015, they ordered foreigners to close their shops and leave south africa. the affected groups were from other african countries. many shops were vandalised and some looted. some business owners closed their shops while others returned to try to protect their goods. many foreigners quoted in the media seemed perplexed at their treatment, given their commitment to the city as citizens through, for example, creating employment in their business enterprises (ewn, 2015). despite many of these african nationals contributing to the local economy as residents, when attacks take place they are perceived as unwelcome outsiders. should these business owners have had an obscure sense of belonging or citizenship, this would have become further subverted by the events. the issues of social inclusion have been an ongoing concern for all levels of government since 1994 because of the deep-rooted divisions apartheid created. in 2009, the department of social development produced a concept paper on social inclusion in local integrated development plans with the aim of interrogating how social cohesion should be promoted for inclusivity at municipal level in order to address issues such as xenophobia. the concept paper asserts that social cohesion needs to be seem as a project that requires management and clear assessment using key performance criteria and indicators within the idp framework (department of social development, 2009). however, the extent to which idps reflect a social cohesion agenda addressing factors contributing to xenophobia is yet to be determined. from a human rights perspective, there is room to interrogate this dimension. the challenge is that social cohesion is difficult to measure at an individual level (hjerm & schnabel, 2012). internal xenophobic attacks in south africa’s municipalities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 118-126. 123 xenophobia has been used to measure ethnic social cohesion; however, there are limitations as exclusion, rather than inclusion, of groups tends to be the primary emphasis (hjerm & schnabel, 2012). the city of johannesburg’s (coj) vision is to be “a world class african city of the future – a vibrant equitable african city, strengthened through its diversity; a city that provides real quality of life; a city that provides sustainability for all its citizens; a resilient and adaptive society” (coj idp 2014/15). it notes that the population of gauteng is 78% african. however, an analysis of the coj strategy documents reveals an omission of other nationals as residents from the demographics. it is therefore not clear what the municipality understands about this excluded segment of its demographics. in using the term african, the statistics do not at all disaggregate foreign african nationals. coj idps consistently categorise citizens as african or black or african black but no clear reference is made to foreign nationals from african countries. the use of the terms black and african, sometimes interchangeably, is problematic especially as government needs to be concerned with its performance towards addressing the challenges of xenophobia. the measurement of performance is made difficult when the definitions and demographic information is unclear. the term african is used to refer to south african nationals rather than to all african immigrants. that is, nationals of other african countries in south africa are not african enough to be classified as african. ironically, the coj speaks of having an african agenda. the joburg 2040 strategic vision is for johannesburg to become “world class african city of the future” (city of johannesburg idp, 2012/16: 5). however, the rest of the idp does not recognise the diverse african identities of its citizens. the fact that race is a social construct and identities are constructed in several ways, compounds the issues of social cohesion and belongingness. labels are necessary to identify people, but these labels are not always appropriate. yet, government cannot do away with labels to demonstrate progress in governance. one could argue that classification labels need to be interrogated; and, in light of issues of xenophobia, alternatives to the legal view of citizenship should be explored. for the coj to build a “world class african city”, citizenship to africans needs to be specified. this move is necessary not only to try to deal with building citizenship identity, but reinforcing a view that local governance includes individuals from other countries. building south africa on africa: matters of regionalism in local economic development there are various theories of regionalism. these can be grouped as market integration, development integration, regional cooperation and regional integration. this article is concerned with regional integration because of its closer connection to the movement of migrants in trade-related issues. regional integration occurs when countries come together and develop formal agreements to enhance cooperation with each other around trade. in southern africa, the regional integration agenda is guided by the regional indicative strategic development plan (risdp) (2005-2020). the revised risdp (2015-2020) is currently being implemented with four priority areas: industrial development and market integration, peace and security cooperation, infrastructure in support of regional integration as well as special programmes of a regional dimension. in a speech, president zuma stated that regional integration and industrialisation must benefit all citizens of sadc. makwembere 124 the economic strength of south africa has meant that it is the strongest economy in southern africa and one of the strongest economies in africa. over the last twenty years, south african companies have expanded their trade on the african continent. shoprite, for example, has almost 150 stores in about 20 countries. other big companies include woolworths, pick ‘n pay. while the rest of the african continent has been a viable trade terrain for many south african companies, south africa has been an attractive destination for foreign nationals seeking better economic opportunities. the influx of immigrant groups of people from different countries has changed the demographic profile of municipalities. the city of johannesburg’s demographic profiles tend to aggregate the population. the main socio-economic indicators take into account the population size, number and size of households, age, gender and race. concerning race, african black is often cited. what is missing is information on the migration into and out of the municipal area. records do not indicate foreign nationals living in the area or indicate their socio-economic profile. migration trends are important for municipality to understand how to respond. migration has an impact on the spatial development patterns. equally, foreign migrants are “excluded from developmental plans of the local state and can therefore be marginalised” (vawda, 2004: 218). embracing the african immigrants in the development processes of johannesburg as citizens would enhance the prospects of regional economic development for a promising future. “responsive” and “responsible” local governance against xenophobia as reitzes (1994: 9) argued that migrants are a “marginalised underclass who are easily open to abuse”. the presence of xenophobia as with other social ills, points to the need for reflection on the model of local economic development being implemented. local governance methods have the potential to correct negative attitudes where the general public policy has been ineffective. responsiveness and responsibility to xenophobia requires changes in urban cultures. breaking negative cultural patterns within governance discourse is an important aspect. also, it is important to consider consistent communication about the inclusive citizenship of the locales. while literature widely covers the effects of political restructuring on citizenship generally as well as in relation to decentralisation specifically, more research is needed on the effects in this domain, especially in respect of association with decentralisation on citizenship and xenophobia in south africa. a discussion on decentralisation brings to light the trajectory of reconceptualisation of local governance in public administration as well as that for citizenship. johannesburg townships are sites of various social problems and migrants are open to “become tempting scapegoats for alienated citizens” (wood, 1994: 625). the need for deconstruction of the language of “black” or “black african” that excludes african immigrants in south africa cannot be overemphasised. for this reason, south africa’s racialised history cannot be ignored because race is a social construct (ntombela, 2015). government needs to find an approach to xenophobia that is human rights-sensitive and “takes cognisance of the creative ways in which migrants contribute to the local economy” (maharaj, 2009: 56). conclusion this article has demonstrated that addressing xenophobia is by no means a straight forward affair. as the south african government continues to invest resources towards resolving the local development challenges, it needs to continue to seek innovative and informed ways of addressing xenophobia. indeed, more conceptual and empirical work is needed around this internal xenophobic attacks in south africa’s municipalities td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 118-126. 125 issue of xenophobia so that relevant, sustainable and pragmatic strategies are crafted and implemented. building the capacity to deal with the issues connected to constructed identities such as citizenship may provide some solutions. therefore, the article has argued that reconceptualisation holds the key to finding pragmatic 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(eds.), african cities: competing claims on urban spaces. leiden: koninklijke brill. bordeau, j. 2010. xenophobia: the violence of fear and hate. noew york: the rosen publishing group inc. cloete, p. & kotze, f. 2009. concept paper on social cohesion/inclusion in local integrated development plans. pretoria: department of social development. crawford, g. & hartmann, c. 2008. introduction: decentralisation as a pathway out of poverty and conflict? in crawford, g. & hartmann, c. decentralisation in africa: pathway out of poverty and conflict? amsterdam: gordon crawford and christof hartmann/amsterdam university press. crook, r.c. 2003. decentralisation and poverty reduction in africa: the politics of localcentral relations. public administration & development, 23(1): 77-88. de visser, j.w. 2005. developmental local government. oxford: intersentia antwerpen. ewn 2015. overnight xenophobic violence rocks joburg. http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/17/overnight-xenophobic-violence-in-johannesburg [accessed: 18 october 2015]. hjerm, m. & schnabel, a. 2012. social cohesion and the welfare state: how heterogeneity influences welfare state attitudes. in ervasti, h., andersen, j.g., fridberg, t. & ringdal, k. 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(ed.), encyclopedia of african history. new york: fitzroy dearborn. smoke, p. 2003. decentralisation in africa: goals, dimensions, myths and challenges. public administration and development, 23: 7-16. timeslive, 2015. listen to exactly what king goodwill zwelithini said about foreigners on 16 april 2015. http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/04/16/listen-to-exactly-what-kinggoodwill-zwelithini-said-about-foreigners [accessed: 11 october 2015]. vawda, m.s.e. 2004. hidden migration: livelihoods, identities and citizenship – malawians in the city of durban. unpublished doctorate thesis submitted to the department of development studies at the university of kwazulu-natal, durban, university of kwazulu-natal. dec 2008 inside book .p65 339 water and the public trust doctrine – a south african perspective e van der schyff and g viljoen* abstract the legal principles concerning rights to water have been changed considerably by the provisions of the national water act 36 of 1998. the national water act aims to redistribute water rights to previously disadvantaged people and communities by the introduction and application of a public trust doctrine to south african natural resources law. it is proposed that these legislative measures will ensure that water as a natural resource will be used to the benefit of the nation as a whole. however, the practical application of the public trust doctrine needs to be analysed, especially with the view of determining the actual benefits to poor and deprived people. keywords: water, public trust doctrine, hierarchy of entitlements, poverty. disciplines: law, social science. certain interests are so particularly the gifts of nature’s bounty that they ought to be reserved for the whole of the populace. sax j1 1 introduction poverty in south africa is considered by many to be one of the harsh legacies of apartheid. the country’s pre-1998 water law dispensation contributed to this sorry state by linking access to water to land * elmarie van der schyff (b.a., llb, llm, lld) is an associate-professor in law at the law faculty of the north-west university, potchefstroom campus, south africa. germarie viljoen (llb) is a llm student at the law faculty of the north-west university, potchefstroom campus, south africa. a note of gratitude to the national research foundation for the funds made available to conduct the research that resulted in this publication. this article is based on a paper presented at the international conference on exploring transdisciplinary discourses: water, society and the environment in africa held in the drakensberg, south africa, during 20-24 april 2008. 1 sax j “the public trust doctrine in natural resource law: effective in judicial intervention” 1970 michigan law review 471-566 on 484. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 339-354. 340 access. the victory of democracy and promulgation of the constitution of the republic of south africa 1996 emphasised the need for land reform and equitable access to all south africa’s natural resources and demanded a revision of the national water use policy. the amendment of the south african water law dispensation was inevitable. with the promulgation of the national water act 36 of 1998,2 a complex and dynamic framework for governing the country’s scarce water resources drew its first frail breath.3 the roman dutch4 and english5 common-law base of the south african water law dispensation, linking water-use rights inextricably to land access, has been wiped out.6 in contrast to the pervious regime, the nwa is based on the principle that water as a natural resource belongs to all people.7 the national government is appointed as public trustee of the country’s natural water resources for the benefit of all people.8 against the background of apartheid-induced poverty, the primary question to be answered in this article is whether the statutory application of public trusteeship in south african water law can contribute to poverty alleviation? due to the fact that several doctoral theses can be written on both the concept of public trusteeship and poverty alleviation, it is the aim of this article to give a brief exposition of public trusteeship as novel concept introduced to south african water law and speculate tentatively on the effectiveness its application in the race towards poverty eradication. 2 public trusteeship public trusteeship refers to the state’s (national government’s) duty to act as custodian or public trustee of certain interests, in this case – water, to the benefit of the public as a whole. research indicated 2 the national water act 36 of 1998 hereafter referred to as nwa or “the act.” 3 thompson h water law – a practical approach to resource management and the provision of services (juta cape town 2006) hereafter referred to as thompson water law, 1. 4 due to the application of the roman law doctrine cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos which implied that a land owner was also the owner of everything beneath and above the surface of his or her land, groundwater – that was not a source of flowing or running water – were regarded to be privately owned by the land owner thompson water law n 3 above 19. on 27 he indicates that voet held the opinion that the principle was also incorporated in the romandutch law. 5 after the british occupation of the cape of good hope in 1806, certain english law principles were introduced and applied in the law of the cape. hence the riparian principle was introduced.thomson water law n 3 above 36. see also thompson water law n 3 above 47 50. 6 van der walt aj constitutional property law (juta cape town 2005) 373. 7 preamble of nwa. 8 s 3(1) nwa. van der schyff and viljoen 341 that this concept has respectable philosophical credentials. john locke9 asserted in his second treatise on civil government (1685) that governments merely exercise a “fiduciary trust” on behalf of their people. roscoe pound10 suggested that the role of states in the management of common natural resources must be limited to “a sort of guardianship for social purposes” and karl marx11 voiced the opinion that “the private property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as private property of one man in other men. even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. they are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations...”. it is imperative to gain insight in the concept of public trusteeship before predictions can be made of its implementation as poverty eradicating tool. it will be argued in this article that public trusteeship entails more than merely recognising the government’s role in managing, protecting and determining the proper use of the country’s scarce water resources.12 we are of the opinion that although this concept entered the south african legal realm without much fanfare, it changed the foundation of the water law dispensation in totality. water as natural resource was removed from the sphere of private property13 and an “all-encompassing uniform system of regulated use rights with regard to public water”14 has been introduced. the paper will thus be structured to address the relevant attributes of public trusteeship as it manifests through the provisions of the nwa and tentatively indicate the extent to which its application can benefit the promotion of poverty alleviation. 9 found on http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm[2006/11/15] chapter 11 s139. also see dunn j “the concept of trust in the politics of john locke” in rorty r (ed) philosophy in history (cambridge university press cambridge 1984), 279-301. 10 pound r 1954 an introduction to the philosophy of law (revised edition yale university press new haven 1992) 111. 11 marx k capital vol. 3 (vintage publishers new york 1981), 911. this passage is frequently quoted. see inter alia foster jb “marx’s ‘theory of metabolic rift: classical foundations for environmental sociology” 2006 105:2 ajs 366-405 on 385 – http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk [2006/11/15]. 12 thompson water law n 3 above 279. 13 van der walt constitutional property law n 6 above 376 – “the notion of private ownership of water is abolished”. see the text accompanying n 48 infra. 14 van der walt constitutional property law n 6 above 376. although persons (juristic persons or natural persons) can obtain entitlements to use water, water as a resource has to be regarded as public property. see principle 3 of the “fundamental principles and objectives for the new water law in south africa” approved by the cabinet in november 2006 http://www.africanwater.org/principles.htm. see also sechaba v kotze and others [2007] all sa 811 (nc) par [13] on 818 for an analogues application of the concept to the mineral law dispensation. water and the public td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 339-354. 342 2.1. attributes of the public trusteeship as it manifests in the nwa the authors are of the opinion that the public trust doctrine, a foreign legal doctrine, has been introduced through the nwa to south african water law.15 although this doctrine shares characteristics with certain of the south african roman dutch-common law principles as its relates to the categories of things16 as well as some indigenous and customary law principles, we are of the opinion that its introduction should not be regarded as a resurrection of these principles. the emergence of the doctrine is not the result of different principles of our roman, roman-dutch, indigenous and customary heritage being stitched together to create a new south-african quilt – it is the legislative introduction of a foreign legal doctrine that displays similarities with, but goes beyond customary and common law principles. the characteristics displayed by the public trust17 as created in the nwa are similar to the characteristics of the existing anglo-american public trust doctrine.18 public trusteeship, albeit statutorily introduced, will attain a distinctly south african flavour when it is interpreted and applied against the background of our rich customary and common law heritage. nevertheless, in extracting the essence of the doctrine it is necessary to turn to the foreign legal systems where it is applied as part of the common law of those jurisdictions. our focus fell on the application of the doctrine in the united states of america19 and we limit the discussion to those attributes of the doctrine that is relevant to the research question stated in the article. 15 s 3 nwa; thompson water law n 3 above 160; 16 property not belonging to any individual but to the people at large was either classified as res publicae or res omnium communesinst 2.1.pr the institutes of justinian with english introduction, translation and notes by sandars tc 14th impression (longmans green and co london 1917). 17 see principle 12 of the “fundamental principles and objectives for the new water law in south africa” approved by the cabinet in november 2006 http:// www.africanwater.org/principles.htm. 18 van der schyff e the constitutionality of the mineral and petroleum resources development act, 28 of 2002 lld-thesis north-west university 2006 at 98. 19 the american legal system was chosen due to the fact that joseph sax, a renowned american scholar is widely acknowledged as the father of the modern public trust doctrine – olson j “the public trust doctrine: procedural and substantive limitations on the governmental reallocation of natural resources in michigan” 1975 2 detroit college of law review 161-209 on 162; huffman jl “trusting the public interest to judges: a comment on the public trust writings of professors sax, wilkinson, dunning and johnson” 1986 63 denver university law review 565-584 on 566; dunning hc “the public trust: a fundamental doctrine of american property law” 1989 19 environmental law 515-526 on 524; brady tp “but most of it belongs to those yet to be born: the public trust doctrine, nepa and the stewardship ethic” 1990 17 boston college environmental affairs law review 621-64 on 622; kearney jd and merrill tw “the origins of the american public trust doctrine: what really happened in illinois central” 2004 71 university of chicago law review 799-931 on 806. van der schyff and viljoen 343 2.2 legal title of the public trust corpus when questions are asked that relate to the ownership of property falling under the public trust doctrine, one must immediately be aware of the limitations of language. the use of the term “ownership” is therefore discouraged when dealing with property falling under the public trust doctrine. “ownership” is a term intrinsically linked to the south african private property concept.20 the question should rather be where does the legal title of property falling under the public trust vest?21 focused on the research question of this article, the question is actually – where does the legal title to water as public property lie? this being said however, it is trite that due to the private property framework that dominates the south african property law, the notion has developed that virtually everything has an owner. the south african legal system further provides that only legal personae (that is natural – or juristic persons) can acquire and hold property.22 the wording of the preamble to the nwa therefore creates a dilemma, for how can something “belong to all people” if the entity named “people” does not have legal personality.23 one answer might be that water flowing in the rivers of south africa has always been regarded as res publicae24 and that the nwa merely codified this roman dutch based common law principle. one has to keep in mind however that the nwa deals with water as a natural resource, irrespective of whether the water is found in a river or a spring located on private land. the answer is therefore, not to be found solely in our common law heritage. the answer is to be found 20 van der walt aj the constitutional property clause (juta kenwyn 1997) 32. 21 “ownership” is a real right in property. the concept of ownership in a society is usually reflected in the political and juridical systems of that society. in short it can be stated that “ownership has to do with both the relationship between a legal subject and the thing and with the relationship between legal subjects regarding the thing.”van der walt and pienaar introduction n 22 below on 41. “legal title” is to be differentiated from “ownership” because the content of ownership –depicted in the entitlements of the owneras concept functioning in property law, differs from the rights and responsibilities of the state who acts as custodian of the public trust. as stated in rex v lapierre 1905 orc 61“the expression ‘private property’ ... is used in contradistinction to property to which the public have a common right of user...” 22 van der walt aj and pienaar gj introduction to the law of property 5th ed (juta lansdowne 2006) 7. 23 due to the scope of this article it is not possible to delve in all the possibilities that might provide answers to this question. this article focuses on the possible application of the “public trust doctrine”. for a cursory comparison between the ‘public trust doctrine’ and ‘trust law’ see van der schyff n 18 above 115, 116. see also the text accompanying n 33 infra. 24 van heerden v wiese 1 buch ac 5 1880; butgereit v transvaal canoe union 1988 1 sa 759 (a); pienaar gj and van der schyff e “watergebruiksregte ingevolge die nasionale waterwet 36 van 1998” 2003 24:1 obiter 132-156. water and the public td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 339-354. 344 in case law where the public trust doctrine, as part of the american jurisprudence, is discussed. in shively v bowlby25 justice gray explained the common law perspective on the nature of the sovereign’s claim when dealing with navigable waters and the sea (the only things traditionally falling under the public trust doctrine): such waters, and the land which they cover, either at all times, or at least when the tide is in, are incapable of ordinary and private occupation, cultivation, and improvement; and their natural and primary uses are public in their nature,26 …state control and ownership therein being supreme, subject only to the paramount right of navigation and commerce. 27 in illinois central railroad company v illinois28 the court emphasised that state ownership of lands subject to the public trust were held by a title different in character from that which states hold in lands intended for sale: it is a title held in trust for the people of the state,... 29 we are of the opinion that what is effectively achieved through the application of the public trust doctrine in south african water law, is that the dominium in water resources and the use and enjoyment of these water resources are separated. the dominium in the country’s water resources are acquired by the state and therefore the legal title to water as public property vest in the state. this is a natural consequence of the application of the public trust doctrine and compatible with the roman and roman dutch principle of res publicae.30 however, through the public trust doctrine, the concept of water being regarded as res publicae has been developed and refined. for although the state acquired the legal title of the nation’s water resources, the title is to be held as trustee, in a purely fiduciary capacity.31 the “people” as a generic entity, acquired the use and 25 shively v bowlby 152 us 1 (1894). 26 shively v bowlby n 25 above 11, 12. 27 shively v bowlby n 25 above 56. 28 illinois central railroad company v illinois 146 us 387 (1892). 29 illinois central railroad company n 28 above 452. 30 according to kaser m das römische privatrecht vol 1 3rd ed (ch beck’sche verlagsbuchhandlung: münchen 1971) res publicae in its technical sense indicated state property or state owned property. the notion is also contained in south african law relating to the sea-shore, another instance of res publicae in our legal system. in surveyor-general (cape) v estate de villiers 1923 ad 588 on 624 kotze ja stated – “ while the ownership of the seashore is in the crown, the public has the free right of its lawful use” (my emphasis). 31 in principle 12 “fundamental principles” n 17 above it is stated – “the national government is the custodian of the nation’s water resources”. public trusteeship pre-supposes a fiduciary relationship – see text accompanying n 33 infra. 32 although the people as a generic entity acquired the use and enjoyment of the nation’s water resources, this use and enjoyment is subject to the provisions of the nwa. the use and enjoyment are regulated to ensure inter alia “the sustainable use of water for the benefit of all users”. van der schyff and viljoen 345 enjoyment of the water resources.32 the boundaries and responsibility attached to the dominium and the extent of the use and enjoyment are legislatively determined. in the following paragraphs the focus will fall on the state’s dominium and the “people’s” rights as it manifests in the nwa. 2.3 inherent limitations on the dominium of the state in property subject to the public trust doctrine the legal nature of the public trust doctrine is not to be deduced from the phrase ‘public trust doctrine’. the word ‘trust’ refers to the fiduciary responsibility of the sovereign and is not an indication that the trust analogy was adopted to satisfy the need to identify the owner of the legal title to the resources in which the people have a common right.33 through the statutorily created public trust, government’s activities with the country’s water resources are constrained to the sphere created by the objectives and purpose of the nwa.34 in addition an obligation is created through which the government is positively compelled to see that the said objectives are pursued. the provisions of the nwa should thus be interpreted “with due regard to the constitutional rights, norms and values the legislature sought to encapsulate, protect and advance in the act. the more prominent rights, norms and values appear to be the custodial role of the state ...”35 the government is obliged to take positive action and must ardently strive to ensure that the nation’s water resources is to be protected, used, developed, managed and controlled in ways to meet basic human needs of present and future generations; promote equitable access to water; redress results of past racial discrimination; promote efficient, sustainable and beneficial use of water in the public interest and facilitate social and economic development.36 this responsibility is irretrievably intertwined with the legal title to the country’s water resources. it simultaneously limits the state’s entitlement to deal with the trust property to the exact parameters as set in the nwa. any act of the state that does not adhere to these objectives will 33 van der schyff n 18 above 114 – 116. 34 preamble and s 2 of the nwa. one should always keep in mind that the nwa was promulgated with the aim to fulfil the constitutional obligation created through the provision of section 27 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 where it is determined that “everyone has the right to have access to ... sufficient food and water..” 35 sechaba v kotze and others [2007] all sa 811 (nc) 818 – the principle as voiced with regards to the mineral law dispensation applies mutatis mutandis to the water law regime. 36 s 2 nwa. water and the public td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 339-354. 346 therefore be regarded ultra vires.37 if the government is found to be recalcitrant or noncompliant, the public’s right of user as created by the doctrine creates judicially enforceable rights held in common by all the people of the country. locus standi is thus awarded to any member of the public who can prove that the government is not complying with the objectives held in common by all the members of the public – “the people” thus awarding a legal remedy to ensure government compliance. this attribute of the public trust doctrine is firmly entrenched in south african jurisprudence through section 38 of the constitution where locus standi is awarded to certain categories of people who allege that a right in the bill of rights has been infringed or threatened.38 it is clear that the government’s title to the country’s water resources is severely restricted. the trust property cannot be alienated,39 equitable access to water needs to be established and the necessary measures must be taken to ensure the sustainable, efficient and effective use of water.40 at the same time special attention is to be given to internationally shared water courses.41 although these objectives set the parameters and limits for the government’s dealing with the country’s water resources, it will be indicated below that in pursuing this responsibility, the state’s regulative authority is increased through the public trust doctrine to the extend that the opinion has been voiced that the doctrine destroys the basic fabric of property law.42 it can be stated that while the doctrine limits the government’s dealings with property subject to the doctrine it simultaneously provides the mechanism for the state to give effect to constitutional obligations regarding water43 in pursuing the objectives and purpose of the nwa. 37 illinois –case n 28 above; national audubon society v superior court of alpine county 33 cal 3 d 419, 658 p 2d 709, 189 cal rptr 346, modified, 33 cal 3d 726a, cert denied, 104 s ct 413 (1983). 38 s 38 states: “the persons who may approach a court are – anyone acting in their own interest, anyone acting on behalf of another person who cannot act in their own name; anyone acting as a member of, or in the interest of, a group or class of persons, anyone acting in the public interest and an association acting in the interest of its members.” 39 blumm m “public property and the democratization of western water law: a modern view of the public trust doctrine” 1989 19 environmental law 537-604 on 584, 585. 40 thompson water law n 3 above 161. 41 nwa chapter 10. 42 scott gr “the expanding of the public trust doctrine: a warning to environmentalists and policy makers” 1998 10 fordham environmental law journal 1-70 on 4; kearny and merrill n 19 above 800. see par. 2.5 below. 43 constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996, s 27 (1)(b). van der schyff and viljoen 347 2.4 the public’s right of user being functional in the united states of america as a common law doctrine, the range of public purposes protected by the public trust doctrine is dictated by the “need for continued protection of a public benefit” and “changing public needs”.44 it should however be considered that the south african public trust doctrine is not a common law legacy but statutorily introduced. as such the south african public trust doctrine will be less flexible than its american counterpart. the people’s public rights in the trust property – the country’s water resourcesare determined according to, as well as restricted by, the provisions contained in the nwa itself. due to the fact that courts cannot usurp the functions of the legislature,45 courts will not be able to determine the scope of the public interest to fall outside the parameters set by the nwa these parameters can only be narrowed or widened by further legislation.46 it is also imperative to state that the judicial recognition of the people’s right in and to the country’s water resources does not mean that any individual person has an unrestricted right of access and use.47 any entitlement awarded to any legal persona must be compatible with the collective objectives and public interest in the water resources. as several objectives have been stated in the nwa, the state must balance opposing interests to attain the statutorily set equilibrium. it should also be noted that it is a question whether an entitlement to use water amounts to property in the sense of private property. the nwa defines “entitlement” as “a right to use water in terms of any provision of this act or in terms of an instrument issued under this act”. however, van der walt48 indicates that although it can be expected that certain commercial interests as licences, 49 will be 44 olson n 19 above 182; dunphy po “comments: the public trust doctrine” 1976 59:4 marquette law review 787-808 on 794; stevens js “the public trust: a sovereign’s ancient prerogative becomes the people’s environmental right” 1980 uc davis lr 195-232 on 196; hannig tj “the public trust doctrine expansion and integration: a proposed balancing test” 1983 23 santa clara law review 211236; manzanetti ab “the fifth amendment as a limitation on the public trust doctrine in water law” 1984 15 pacific law journal 1291-1319 on 1309. 45 de beers consolidated mines ltd v ataqua mining (pty)ltd and others (ofs) 3215/06 decided 13 december 2007 –unreported. 46 if it is however an issue of interpretation, the courts will have to consider south african, roman dutch and roman law and also law of other jurisdictions. 47 s 4 of the nwa determines to a great extent the scope of access by prescribing the entitlements to water use. 48 van der walt constitutional property law n 6 above 87, 100, 119. 49 “the tendency is to regard licences, permits and quotas as constitutional property only if they have commercial value and once they have been vested and acquired according to the relevant (statutory or regulatory) requirements.” – van der walt constitutional property law n 6 above100. water and the public td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 339-354. 348 regarded as constitutional property,50 “licences are normally regarded as state grants and awards and therefore subject to state powers of cancellation, amendment and regulation, and are therefore not regarded as property.” 2.5 infringement of entitlements to use water with the introduction of the public trust doctrine the concept of rights clothed or taintedwith the public interest has been introduced. while this doctrine may be advantageous to the people of the country as a collective unit, individuals might experience a less favourable approach whenever the entitlements awarded to them are curtailed or cancelled if drastic action is deemed necessary to protect the existence of the corpus of the trust or to adhere to the public’s right of user as expressed in the nwa. the deprivation of exclusive water use-rights held by legal personae under the previous water regime is a consequence of the introduction of the vast regulatory authority codified in the nwa.51 section 22 (6)-(10) provides that any person who has applied for a licence in respect of an existing lawful water use, and whose application has been refused or who has been granted a licence for a lesser use than the existing water use, may claim compensation for any financial loss suffered. the only prerequisite is that the refusing of the licence or curtailment of the existing water use must result in severe prejudice to the economic viability of the undertaking in respect of which the water was beneficially used. the question whether the refusal of the licence or curtailment of the water use in these circumstances amounts to an expropriation has already been asked.52 the conclusion has been reached that in the transition from one water law regime to another the deprivation of exclusive use rights obtained under the water act 54 of 1956, could in certain circumstances amount to constructive 50 “property” represents a laden concept. for the purpose of this paper it suffices to state that a distinction is made between so-called “private property” and “property” referred to in section 25 of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996. in the latter instance the scope of the concept is much wider than when it relates to a discussion of private property. for a detailed discussion see roux t “property” in cheadle mh, davis dm and haysom nrl (eds) south african constitutional law: the bill of rights (butterworths: durban 2002) 429-472; roux t “property” in woolson s and roux t (eds) constitutional law of south africa 2nd ed (juta kenwyn 2003) 46-1 to 46-37. 51 s 3, 4 nwa. 52 see in this regard van der schyff e die nasionalisering van waterregte in suidafrika: onteiening of ontneming? llm-dissertation potchefstroom university for che 2003; pienaar gj and van der schyff e “the reform of water rights in south africa” lead 3/2 http://www.lead-journal.org/2007-2.htm. van der schyff and viljoen 349 expropriation.53 the deprivation took place when the nwa was promulgated as section 4(4) determines that “any entitlement granted to a person by or under this act replaces any right to use water which that person might otherwise have been able to enjoy or enforce under any other law” and section 4(2) created the entitlement that a person may continue with an existing lawful water use in accordance with section 34. the previously existing waterrights were thus deprived in 1998. under south african prescription law any possible claims to compensation that might have existed, other that the claims provided for by section 22(6)-(10) has prescribed.54 a different scenario exists in relation to entitlements, authorisations and licences to use water granted in terms of the nwa, excluding the category of entitlements referred to in the previous paragraph. as it is deemed that all entitlements awarded to legal personae since the commencement of the nwa are subject to the pre-existing public trust title, it is argued here that these entitlements can be withdrawn if its withdrawal would benefit the objectives of the trust and protect the trust property. the nwa expressly provides for the withdrawal of, or alteration to, entitlements to use water in inter alia sections 28, 31 and 54. section 28 determines that a licence may not be granted for a period longer that 40 years55 and requires that all licences must be reviewed at intervals of not more than 5 years.56 during this review under section 49, the responsible authority may amend any condition of the licence other than the period thereof. the curtailment of the entitlement will, in our opinion, not be regarded as an expropriation due to the fact that entitlements to water that are awarded, are awarded under the veil of the public trust and inherently proned to strive to achieve the collective objectives of the public trust.57 any 53 van der schyff nasionalisering n 52 above at 27. “constructive expropriation” is also known as indirect or effective expropriation. van der walt constitutional property law n 6 above on 209 describes the concept of constructive expropriation. he states “the idea of constructive expropriation is usually associated with a claim for compensation for excessive regulation... one problem situation is the case where the imposition of a state regulation actually or effectively destroys a private property interest without the state acquiring the property..” the question whether constructive expropriation is applicable or useful in south african law has not yet been decided authoritatively. 54 both the prescription act 68 of 1969 and the institution of legal proceedings against certain organs of state act 40 of 2002 apply. 55 s 28(1)(e) nwa. 56 s 28(1)(f) nwa. 57 while the ordinary meaning of expropriation is to ‘deprive of property”, expropriation in the south african legal context entails more than the mere taking away or divesting of property. an individual who is deprived of property or a right in property might feel that he is the victim of expropriation while in the legal sense additional requirements are set before a divesting or depriving act will be regarded as expropriation van der walt constitutional property law n 6 above 132. expropriation equals the sum of taking away (deprivation) plus acquisition – van der schyff e “constructive appropriation – the key to constructive expropriation? guidelines from canada” 2007 40:2 the comparative and international law journal of southern africa 306-321 on 310. water and the public td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 339-354. 350 entitlement acquired in the trust resource is acquired subject to whatever state action may be deemed necessary to protect the public’s interest in the trust resource. if it would be in the public’s interest to amend the conditions of the licence, the responsible authority is compelled to do so by the objects of the nwa and due to the fact that the state is regarded to be the public trustee on behalf of all people. the fact that the nwa provides for the payment of compensation in section 49(4) “if an amendment of a licence condition on review severely prejudices the economic viability of any undertaking in respect of which the licence was issued” should be regarded a measure incorporated by the legislature to “soften the blow” of strict regulatory actions which may harm specific water users. it should not be regarded as compensation for expropriation in the strict legal sense of the word. the reserved sovereign prerogatives in the country’s water resources preclude the assertion of vested rights to water contrary to public trust purposes.58 in addition to the procedure provided for in sections 28 and 49 of the nwa, section 31 expressly states that the issue of a licence is not a guarantee of supply of water. the nwa does not even provide for compensation payable in circumstances where no water is available. section 54 also provides that the responsible authority may by notice to any person entitled to use water under the nwa suspend or withdraw the entitlement in specific circumstances brought about by the conduct or omission of the licencee.59 3 poverty alleviation promoted through the provisions of the national water act it may boldly be stated that by stating unambiguously that (b) promoting equitable access to water; [and] (c) redressing the results of past racial and gender discrimination; are two of the factors to be considered in the use, protection, conservation and management of the country’s water resources, they are also to be considered two of the factors through which the public interest is defined. the people’s use and enjoyment of the nation’s water resources are thus inherently focused on achieving, amongst other, these objectives even if it brings about the total extinguishing 58 van der schyff n 18 above 138. 59 the reader is also referred to s 64 where express provision is made to expropriate any property for any purpose contemplated in the nwa, if that purpose is a public purpose or is in the public interest. thompson water law n 3 above 282 opines that entitlements to water may also be expropriated. since this section provides for expropriation in the strict legal sense compensation will be determined according to the constitutionally prescribed determinants. van der schyff and viljoen 351 of previously granted entitlements or existing lawful uses.60 this idea is strengthened if it is taken into consideration that a hierarchy of entitlements to use water emerges from the provisions of the nwa. 3.1 hierarchy of entitlements to use water from the provisions of the nwa it is clear that a hierarchy of entitlements to use water is recognised. in section 4(1) it is provided for that water may be used without a licence for reasonable domestic use, domestic gardening, animal watering, fire fighting and recreational use. unless a notice has been issued in terms of section 43 of the nwa through which the machinery for compulsory licensing is set in motion, existing lawful water uses can continue unlicenced. all other water uses have to be licenced. this section provides explicitly for poverty alleviation as the need to achieve equity in water allocations and the promotion of the beneficial use of water are two of the factors that may be relied on to call for the compulsory licensing of water use of a specific water resource. the nwa strives to better normal living conditions by allowing for the unlicenced use of water for reasonable domestic, gardening and animal watering purposes. furthermore, compulsory licensing of water uses in respect of a specific resource can be called for if equity requires it. this is another manifestation of the government’s commitment to address results of racial discrimination. the objectives of the nwa should constantly be measured and taken into consideration when licence applications are considered. these objectives are reiterated explicitly in section 27 of the nwa. the factors that should be taken into account that may impact on poverty alleviation are inter alia: (b)the need to redress the results of past racial and gender discrimination; (c)efficient and beneficial use of water in the public interest; (d)the socio-economic impact— (i) of the water use or uses if authorised; or (ii) of the failure to authorise the water use or uses. the application of section 27 provides for more than the improvement of living conditions. here poverty alleviation in its raw form can take shape by granting much needed access to water to upcoming farmers or industrialists. it must be stressed however, that all the factors mentioned in section 27 should be balanced to ensure that all water use entitlements allocated foster the aims of the public trust by 60 dwaf strategy -http://www.dwaf.gov.za/war/documents/ warstrategynov06.pdf. [12/11/2008]. water and the public td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 339-354. 352 promoting the public interest in the people’s water. section 61 provides for rendering financial assistance to any person for the purposes of the nwa taking into account all relevant considerations including: (a) the need for equity; (b) the need for transparency; (c) the need for redressing the results of past racial and gender discrimination; (d) the purpose of the financial assistance; (e) the financial position of the recipient: and (f) the need for water resource protection. in the final instance it is imperative to take cognisance of the fact that section 49 of the nwa provides for the amendment of licences to use water if “it is necessary or desirable to accommodate demands brought about by changes in socioeconomic circumstances, and it is in the public interest to meet those demands.” through the application of this provisions water use allocations can be altered to fulfill the needs of the poor if circumstances require it. 4 conclusion the question that inspired this paper is to what extent can the statutory application of the public trust doctrine contribute to poverty alleviation? it was argued in the first instance that through the application of the public trust doctrine water as natural resource was completely removed from the sphere of private property by awarding the severely limited and burdened dominium of the water resources to the state but the right of use and enjoyment to the people as a collective entity. this right of use and enjoyment awarded to the people as collective entity does not mean that individual personae have an unrestricted right to access and use. the state is encumbered with the responsibility to regulate access to and the use of south africa’s water resources in the interest of the public at large. although the state was awarded the legal title in water this title is simultaneously being restricted to the scope set down in the nwa and burdened with the immense responsibility to strive towards achieving the purpose of the nwa. entitlements to use water awarded to legal personae may in certain circumstances be regarded as constitutional property. poverty alleviation will be a natural consequence of the application of the provisions of the nwa as the “need to redress the results of past racial and gender discrimination” is explicitly stated as one of the factors that determines the extent of the public interest in the nation’s water recourses. it also forms part of the state’s responsibility when dealing with the water resources. the nwa promotes the improvement of the living conditions of the poor by prescribing that van der schyff and viljoen 353 water use for reasonable domestic use, gardening and animal watering should be allowed without a licence. it also provides for the alleviation of poverty by providing access to water to e.g. upcoming farmers. the public interest cuts so deep that the nwa allows for the curtailment of existing lawful water uses and the revision of licences if it would promote the purposes of the act. the goal has been set and in a certain sense the concept of public trusteeship as it is embodied in the nwa describes a utopiaa vision to be realised through the implementation of the act by the different branches of state. unfortunately we are left with an unfailing truthin this broken reality we call ‘now’, legal mechanisms are only as effective as the people steering them. fortunately the public trust doctrine provides an effective mechanism through which the people of south africa can enforce their constitutionally created right to water. amanzi ayimpilo – water is life water and the public td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 339-354. 354 217 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 217-229. the devil is in the detail – an analysis of the dbsa’s ‘access to sanitation’ indicator m.k ingle* keywords: indicators; sanitation; dbsa; sanitation backlog; pit toilets; flush toilets. disciplines: public administration; development studies; environmental studies; statistics. abstract: when using indicator values to measure change over an interval of time, the general understanding of the factor being analysed may have been modified during the period under review. altered definitions of ‘urban’, or ‘poverty’, provide common instances of this phenomenon. this article outlines a similar situation with respect to the ‘access to sanitation’ indicator as it features in the development bank of southern africa’s series of development reports. these publications are often referred to as a ready source of useful information. it is shown how an altered understanding of what constituted ‘sanitation’ in south africa came to influence the relevant indicator values. this change, if not taken into account, could result in planning calculations yielding invalid conclusions. the article deals with the casual use of ready-to-hand indicators by nonspecialist practitioners, and about how easy it is to be misled on occasion. research associate, centre for development support (cds), university of the free state, bloemfontein, * 9300 south africa e-mail: cdsfreestate@intekom.co.za introduction1. this article will focus on a single indicator access to sanitation, as provided in a series of development bank of southern africa (dbsa) development reports. the object is to demonstrate how the casual enquirer may be led unwittingly astray by what, on the face of it, is the most elementary of indicators taken in conjunction with the most basic of datasets. this apparent bedevilment is not, however, the product of any negligence but is instead attributable to an environment where policies, paradigms and definitions are all in a state of flux, such as has been the case in south africa since 1994. sanitation provision is of particular salience on at least two counts. while an acceptable standard of sanitation is a sine qua non for improving public health, the type of sanitation system provided is an issue that resonates strongly with the unprecedented surge in concern over climate change that emerged early in 2007 (stern, 2007; tls, 2007). this revival of interest was triggered by the so-called stern review (stern, ingle 218 2007), contentious books and films by high profile scholars and public figures (gore, 2007; lovelock, 2006; martin, 2006; monbiot, 2006; ruddiman, 2005), and the ferment surrounding the release of the fourth assessment report from the international panel for climate change (ipcc, 2007). the ipcc’s summary for policymakers report confirms the long-term ‘drying up’ of southern africa (ipcc, 2007: 6), although of course these impacts will not be uniform across the region and some areas may continue not to be water-stressed. but the primary trend will be one of reduced rainfall (stern, 2007: 62). in fact “southern africa will be most seriously affected, experiencing the most extreme temperature rises [worldwide] coupled with severe reductions in rainfall” [own emphasis] (independent london, 2006). it is within such a context that the mode of sanitation delivery, and especially the prospects for dry sanitation, acquire resonance. sanitation indicators are already being referred to with renewed interest by the planning fraternity who are looking to monitor the effects of climate change in south africa’s arid regions. in order to obviate misunderstandings right at the outset, it must be stressed that this paper is not primarily about sanitation provision. it is an article about the caution one should bring to bear on the use of indicators. the use of the sanitation indicator to illustrate the article’s main thesis is therefore contingent – it might just as well have been some other indicator. the discussion does not aim to analyse the extent or nature of south africa’s sanitation backlog. there is no attempt to ‘triangulate’ the dbsa data sets with others that may be available. this is also not a paper about the comparability of preand post-apartheid datasets in general. the focus is purely on the access to sanitation indicators, considered as they actually appear in the oft-cited development bank reports, and quite irrespective of outputs produced by other institutions, such as the world bank or the undp, which might produce similar statistics. methodology and conceptualisation2. a pair of very basic sets of data that make up a ‘time-series’, will be interpreted in order to ‘unpack’ an ‘access to sanitation’ indicator. these datasets are derived from the development bank of southern africa’s (dbsa) development reports for 1998 and 2000 respectively. other sources and references will be kept to a bare minimum in order to maintain a tight focus and so as not to introduce needless complexities into the analysis. the relevant data are as follows: table 1 reflects the percentage of • houses with access to sanitation in 1993. table 2 shows the percentage of • households with access to sanitation in 1996. table 3 gives the total number of the different types of toilet • by household for 1996. this table will be used to shed some light on table 2. figure 1 provides an overview of the percentage of • population with access to sanitation in selected southern african countries. this figure is drawn from the dbsa 1998 report and appears unchanged in the 2000 report. the object of this exercise is to draw attention to the ambiguities that may infect certain socio-economic indicators, and not to interrogate the actual values provided by way of discussing the sanitation backlog as such. for this reason, the age of the time-series is, strictly speaking, immaterial. as it so happens though, dbsa sanitation indicator 219 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 219-229. the arguments presented here would, appropriately modified, still apply to the 2001 data supplied within the dbsa’s 2005 development report (dbsa, 2005: 173) where significant progress with the delivery of housing did not see a commensurate improvement as regards ‘access to sanitation’. what is important in this enquiry, however, is to register the conceptual thinking and the policy context within which each of the 1993 to 1996 time series ‘nodes’ was embedded. the interrogation of the data will be conducted from two perspectives: from the point of view of an outsider (perhaps a researcher who needs, via recourse to an authoritative source, to form a quick judgement regarding sanitation provision in south africa) and an insider (envisaged as a practitioner working in the field of sanitation in south africa). the outsider’s knowledge is strictly limited to that which appears within the dbsa reports (tables 1 and 2). these are used by the hypothetical enquirer in order to ensure consistency across sources. he or she has no other source of information. the insider by contrast, has access to the sa stats data (table 3) and practical experience gained from extensive field work. as the data consists of two ‘snapshots’, one from 1993 and the other from 1996, two distinct bureaucratic paradigms vis-à-vis sanitation will also feature. the 1993 paradigm represents the erstwhile nationalist government’s way of thinking, and the 1996 one, the anc government’s approach as informed by its reconstruction and development programme. these differences are dealt with in more detail in the following section. the discussion will later turn to an examination of the indicator qua indicator, and without reference to any data. this section will also focus on the glossaries and the ‘small print’ that accompany the data provided in the tables. access to sanitation3. this section will try to provide some background on what happened with regards to sanitation policy and its implementation in the period between 1993 and 1996. this background was more true of some provinces than of others. for example dwaf in the northern cape enthusiastically embraced the concept of dry sanitation (kleinhuis koerant, 2000) whereas lobbies in other provinces (bond, 1999 for example) were less enamoured of the idea. 3.1 state of the art 1993 table 1 reveals that, on the face of it, 46 percent of houses in south africa had access to sanitation in 1993. there is a huge discrepancy between the urban access of 81 percent and that of the rural areas, where a mere six percent had access to sanitation. ingle 220 table 1: percentage of houses with access to sanitation (1993)¹ province total urban rural western cape 88 98 27 northern cape 64 87 24 free state 47 72 10 eastern cape 29 75 3 kwazulu-natal 37 78 4 mpumalanga 26 73 7 limpopo 11 69 4 gauteng 78 80 12 north west 27 72 6 total sa 46 81 6 unless this is a typographical error, it must be objected that houses do not have access to sanitation. households do, or people do. the concept of ‘house’ as a unit of analysis is a deeply problematical one although it might seem at first glance that nothing could be easier to define. the dbsa did not define ‘houses’ in its 1998 report glossary. so-called ‘traditional’ structures of raw earth blocks tended to be regarded as ‘houses’ by the old dispensation but not by the new (csir, 2000). conversely, the new dispensation has been readier to confer ‘house’ status on certain informal dwellings that the previous government might have been hesitant to endorse in this way. the conceptual difficulties are well illustrated by the title of a council for scientific and industrial research (csir) publication – housing is not about houses – the boutek experience (csir, 2000) where ‘housing’ is treated as an holistic set of interrelated processes straddling a number of disciplines. whatever the case, it is no surprise to see that the dbsa substituted the marginally less problematical ‘households’ for ‘houses’ in its 2000 report. the distinction between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ is still a contested one with many people dubious about the statssa formulation that was used in the 2001 census (statssa, 2001). given the subjective, ‘intuitive’ nature of the distinction, this uneasiness in certain quarters is probably inevitable. is a densely populated area such as qwa-qwa in the free state urban or rural? it seems that one person’s urban is often another person’s rural, and vice versa. to add to the complexity, the south african census definition changed quite significantly between the 1996 and the 2001 censuses. up until 1996, urban areas were defined as “areas with local authorities”, regardless of their spatial features. since 2001, the definition has been based on spatial form and land use. this means that smallholdings, mining towns and residential peri-urban areas came to be reclassified as urban. in traditional areas, villages were still regarded as rural, but the larger towns were reclassified as urban. consequently, a proportion of the population was, by definitional fiat, reclassified as urban. this could lead to inaccuracies if 1996 and 2001 figures are compared, without taking these changes into account. the finer details of this particular reclassification are not really germane to the present discussion, but what is important to bear in mind is the concept of definitional shift and the urban/rural distinction provides a striking example of this. working backwards from table 1’s overall figure of 46 percent access (given the urban and rural values), it can be calculated that an urban-rural weighting of 53 to 47 percent respectively was applied for source: adapted from dbsa 1998:204.1. dbsa sanitation indicator 221 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 219-229. the dbsa’s 1993 figures. this would have reflected the previous government’s thinking about what constituted ‘urban’. quibbles over small margins of error, in this regard, need not detain us here, but it should be noted that the urban/rural ratio has implications at the macro-planning level. in the first place, south africa is still very much an urbanising country, and secondly, so-called ‘dry’ sanitation tends to be better suited to relatively sparsely populated rural environments, and unsuitable for urban areas where ‘densification’, typified by high-rise living, has occurred (bond, 1999; csir, 2000; csir, 2003; george, 2008). mvula trust (2001) however provide an interesting case study of an indoor dry sanitation system in johannesburg’s bellevue east suburb. this brings us to the point where the low six percent figure for the rural areas can be accounted for. in a sense there is no such thing as not having access to sanitation – human beings improvise, and shift for themselves. what is at issue, and this is crucial for an understanding of the sanitation indicator, is the kind of sanitation. in 1993, anything less than a flush toilet was not regarded as qualifying as ‘sanitation’. this is referred to as a ‘high level definition’ of sanitation and it reflects a country which thinks of itself as being first world. the ‘high’ in ‘high level’ is understood by the advocates of waterborne sewerage as referring to its superiority, whereas the detractors of flush systems, equate the ‘high’ with ‘high cost’, ‘high maintenance’ – in short ‘highly problematical’. the 1993 mindset created the perception that dry sanitation was in some way inferior to flush, that it was the second-best option (howard et al., 2001: 22), and the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), along with non-governmental organisations (ngos) such as the mvula trust, laboured for many years, none too successfully, to change this perception (kleinhuis koerant, 2000; 2001; 2002). the dominant, pre-1994 elections, ‘flush’ paradigm was shortly to undergo a major assault from the ‘dry sanitation’ lobby, with the accession to power of a new government, and this will be discussed in more detail below. 3.2 the 1993 to 1996 sanitation paradigm shift again on the face of it (table 2), the 1996 figures reflect that there was massive sanitation provision that occurred over the 1993 to 1996 period. access to sanitation was up to 82.5 percent in just three years – an advance of some 79 percent over the 1993 value. table 2: percentage households with access to sanitation (1996)² province percentage western cape 90.5 northern cape 70.9 free state 70.3 eastern cape 64.2 kwazulu-natal 83.3 mpumalanga 87.1 limpopo 77.8 gauteng 94.5 north west 86.7 total sa 82.5 source: adapted from dbsa, 2000: 181.2. ingle 222 as it so happens, nothing could be further from the truth. dbsa’s 1996 figures were derived directly from the 1996 census, as is not too readily apparent from a comparison between table 2 and table 3. table 3: toilet facilities by province, 1996 (number of households)³ province flush or chemical pit latrine bucket latrine none of these unspecified or other total eastern cape 407 358 447 273 83 058 385 656 9 004 1 332 348 free state 282 116 157 183 128 890 55 018 1 804 625 011 gauteng 1 627 791 228 236 48 696 48 363 11 083 1 964 168 kwazulu-natal 693 130 690 560 15 713 250 956 10 575 1 660 934 mpumalanga 228 158 298 340 21 864 5 225 3 423 604 010 northern cape 111 327 21 266 33 896 19 923 571 186 984 limpopo 129 075 635 462 4 534 207 097 6 289 982 457 north west 230 697 394 471 46 483 46 028 2 964 720 643 western cape 843 202 46 803 37 051 52 865 3 094 983 015 total sa 4 552 854 2 919 594 420 185 1 118 132 48 807 9 059 571 statssa (2002) reflects ‘toilet facilities’ (by household it should be emphasised) in various categories. if the totals for ‘flush toilet’ and ‘pit latrine’ are added together, and the resultant 7 472 448 is divided by the grand total of 9 059 571 households, a figure of 82.48 percent is obtained (cf. the dbsa figure of 82.5 percent in table 2). thus the 1996 figure has been very significantly distorted by a change in the definition of ‘sanitation’ to include pit toilets. at first glance this appears to have been in line with the 1995 draft white paper on sanitation policy and the reconstruction and development programmes’ (rdp) stipulations that anything ‘less than’ a ventilated improved pit (vip) toilet did not constitute adequate sanitation (csir, 2003: 10.1; dwaf, 2001: 4; howard et al., 2001: 23). but what in effect happened during the 1996 census is that all pit toilets were counted as meeting rdp standards. the enumerators’ failure to distinguish between improved-pits and unimproved-pits created enormous headaches, which continue to this day, for planners, bureaucrats and researchers charged with drawing up plans for addressing the sanitation backlog and making budgetary allocations. the planners have had to deal with a ‘grey area’ of almost three million pits. while it was easily estimated that the bulk of these were unimproved, the extent was not known. to equate a properly constructed vip toilet with an unimproved pit toilet is to commit a category mistake – it is a bit like classing tricycles with harley davidsons simply because both have wheels. there is an elegant simplicity to the principle of air-flow which is integral to the vip toilet’s functioning, and in certain ‘pro-green’ european societies, most especially in scandinavia, the vip is the ‘toilet of choice’, notwithstanding the ready availability of flush systems. although these toilets are easy to build, and can withstand robust usage, for their proper functioning they are nonetheless dependent on their component source: 3. statssa, 2002: 82. dbsa sanitation indicator 223 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 219-229. parts being fairly finely related to one another. a shoddily built vip, or one with some vital component incorrectly installed, is no better than an unimproved pit toilet. in essence the vip consists of a lined pit covered by a concrete slab to prevent the ingress of rainwater. a black air vent, the dimensions and positioning of which are critical, serves to help ‘ventilate’ the system. the trajectory of insects, most especially flies, is dictated by the natural lighting within the system, and flies are trapped by a fly-screen. the positioning of the superstructure, with respect to the prevailing winds, has a direct bearing on the control of odours. the pit is either emptied after some years of usage, or it is covered over and the superstructure moved to a new pit. a well-built, properly maintained vip system is in no respects inferior to conventional waterborne sewerage systems, and is more sustainable environmentally, financially, administratively and operationally. but while the functioning of vip and unimproved (‘long-drop’) pit toilets is poles apart, in their physical manifestations they are all but indistinguishable to the untrained eye. one cannot expect of census enumerators to perform the sort of site audit needed to differentiate between the two types of toilet and thus, in the future, this data should ideally not be derived from the census, but rather supplied ‘bottom-up’ from the local authorities (las) themselves. this can only happen, however, once the las start to implement their integrated development plans (idps) with all the diligence that this planning instrument calls for. that process in turn is dependent upon costly, and lengthy, needs assessments being performed. in an environment of rapid in-migration to the urban nodes and small towns (atkinson, 2007), sanitation backlogs are a perpetually shifting target and the anecdotal evidence is widespread that sanitation backlogs, as they feature in idps, are often little more than ‘thumbsucks’. it is also the case that many municipal officials, even technical staff, cannot readily distinguish between the two types of pit toilet. the upshot of this is that south africa’s ‘access to sanitation’ figures may contain quite a significant margin of error and this is likely to persist for the foreseeable future. the percentage of pit toilets that are in fact ‘improved’ will, for the time being, probably have to continue to be estimated. 3.3 policy and paradigm shifts the rdp policy was formed in response to a paradigm shift which said that waterborne sewerage was an unsustainable option for a developing country like south africa with its constraints on water supply, and finances. the arguments for dry sanitation, and its manifest sustainability, are detailed and compelling but beyond the scope of this paper. suffice it to say that the ‘new’ paradigm is well illustrated by the following: “conventional sanitation technologies… are predicated on the notion of human excreta as an unpleasant, dangerous waste product necessitating disposal. however, alternative technologies, such as urine diversion, regard human excreta as a resource” (csir, 2000: 79). the above formulation is not the prevailing orthodoxy but it succinctly captures the direction in which government policy was moving in the 1990s. it is necessary to point out that, in terms of current rdpingle 224 informed policy, the 1993 figures for sanitation access were understated (vip toilets were excluded) while in 1996 they were overstated (unimproved pit toilets were included). the dbsa tables referred to do not reflect the pronounced shifts in paradigm and policy that informed the numbers and are therefore misleading. a ranking of provinces between 1993 and 1996 (cf. tables 1 and 2 above) would show mpumalanga as having ascended from 8th position (out of nine) to 3rd. the implication is that mpumalanga embarked on a massive (and successful) drive to eliminate its sanitation backlog. it should be borne in mind that as of 1993 the current nine provinces had not come into existence yet and so there must be a margin of error in these provincial allocations. nevertheless, the fact was that by 1996 not that much had been achieved by way of sanitation provision in any of the provinces. in the light of the foregoing, however, we know that what this leap up the rankings really means is that mpumalanga has (or had) a relatively much higher preponderance of pit toilets than did the other provinces. how many of these were vip toilets we cannot of course tell from the statssa numbers. 3.4 read the small print the small print attached to the table (statssa 2002:82) from which table 3 is drawn, reveals that these values are to be read as “excluding institutions and hostels”. this is a crucial qualifier. for one, the provision of sanitation to schools is something of a sub-discipline in itself. the same applies to hospitals and clinics. human beings spend a very considerable amount of their time, away from the domain of the household, in public spaces, or in institutions such as the workplace, hospitals, places of learning, prisons and so forth. sanitation provision in these instances (public facilities, facilities at sportsgrounds, school hostels, migrant worker facilities, etc.) is of critical importance but this backlog is not reflected in the dbsa figures (derived from statssa) although it forms a crucial component of urban planning and of the state’s ‘sanitation backlog’. 3.5 the regional/international perspective this section serves to illustrate sachs’s (1995: 2) contention that, “as regards international comparisons, it must be said straightaway that they have a far more limited informative value than longitudinal comparisons for one and the same country. at bottom, what needs to be analysed is the way one economy or society develops”. ravallion, chen and sangraula (2007: 667-676) also draw attention, in the context of urban and rural poverty lines, to the incompatibilities that have to be catered for when comparing the findings of country-specific studies with one another. figure 1 (to follow) suggests that south africa was well behind even malawi, tanzania and zimbabwe in the provision of sanitation in 1995. dbsa sanitation indicator 225 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 219-229. figure 1: southern africa regional access to sanitation, 1993-1995⁴ 0 20 40 60 80 100 bo ts wa na m al aw i m au rit ius m oz am biq ue na m ibi a so ut h af ric a ta nz an ia za m bia zi m ba bw e percentage of the population with access as was shown in table 3 south africa’s value in figure 1 is expressed in terms of ‘flush or chemical’ toilets. it is highly unlikely that poor countries like malawi and tanzania, with predominantly rural populations, would have conceptualised ‘access to sanitation’ similarly. indeed the african development bank, from where these values were sourced, points out that “applications of these [access to sanitation] definitions may vary from one country to another, and comparisons can therefore be inappropriate” (african development bank, 2002: 252). treatment of sewage is prohibitively expensive for poor countries, as is the maintenance of the bulk infrastructure. the sanitation levels for some of the sadc countries in figure 1 include ‘low level’ options such as basic ‘pit privies’ and are thus not comparable to the south african percentage. 3.6 cross-checking and verification when engaging in precautionary verification one should also not relax one’s vigilance concerning what the data might be masking. nafziger (1997: 36) says, quite rightly, that, “infant mortality is a good indication of the availability of sanitation”. provision of acceptable sanitation in south africa proceeded apace in the period from 1995 to 1998 and one might have hoped to see this reflected in a declining infant mortality rate, the more so given the policy shift in the direction of primary health care (phc). the sad reality was that the infant mortality rate actually rose from 42 (per thousand live births) in 1995 (dbsa, 1998: 206) to 45 in 1998 (hst, 2002: 297). this probably reflects the impact of the hiv/aids pandemic on this ‘verificatory’ indicator. source: adapted from dbsa 1998:202-2034. ingle 226 unpackling the dbsa’s ‘access to sanition’ indicator4. in south africa the emphasis is on delivering ‘units’ to households and the thorny question of ‘access’ may be said to be lying dormant. as rdp targets come to be met however (in 2001 the target for the elimination of the sanitation backlog was set for march 2010 dwaf, 2001: 18), and once the rdp’s sanitation standard has been properly incorporated into the indicator, the focus will shift to ‘access’. does a ‘household’ toilet shared by 20 people constitute ‘access’? if so does it matter that it is situated 100 metres from the homestead? what is the ideal number of public toilets that should be made available in a city or in a small town? should dysfunctional flush systems (such as may be found at schools where the toilets have been blocked for months) still constitute theoretical access? one could go on at length in this vein but the point is obvious – at some stage what is understood by ‘access’ is going to have to be spelt out with the kind of precision the rdp has applied to the differing gradations of ‘sanitation’. ‘access’ will need to be amplified to incorporate issues of management and maintenance and it will need to be subjected to regular monitoring and evaluation. at present the term is too susceptible to subjective interpretation to be really useful. the question of what entity, or who exactly it is, that is deemed to have access has already been touched upon. it is now necessary briefly to examine the underlying assumptions contained within the dbsa glossary of ‘access to sanitation’ descriptions. these evade the ‘access’ question (perhaps wisely so) and focus on ‘sanitation’. the 1998 report has just one gloss: “percentage of population with access to sanitation – the share of the population with at least adequate excreta sanitation disposal facilities that can effectively prevent human, animal, and insect contact with excreta” (dbsa, 1998: 218). as already indicated, in the south african context, this formulation reflects the old paradigm and is meant to describe waterborne sanitation. as such it reflects a number of fundamental misconceptions. the implication is that flush systems are healthier than dry systems, and that flush systems effectively prevent contamination of the environment. on the first count it has now been recognised that what is important is not so much the fact of excreta’s being whisked off into who-knows-what dark realms, as that people should wash their hands after having been to the toilet. this was reflected in the united nations’ wash campaign which was endorsed on national television by ex-president nelson mandela. whether users are using dry or ‘wet’ sanitation systems is thus irrelevant from a health perspective. on the second count, the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ aspect of flush sanitation has increasingly been recognised as a dangerous illusion. massive damage is done to the environment by poorly managed treatment works. “it assumes fresh water as an unlimited resource... it is further blithely assumed that, at the end of the pipe, sewage is treated whereas in fact a negligible amount of third world sewage is treated… all over the world natural ecosystems are being destroyed by the discharge of untreated or dbsa sanitation indicator 227 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 219-229. partially treated sewage” (csir, 2000: 79). these reservations about the wisdom of advocating waterborne sanitation systems have unfortunately proved to be prescient. an infrastructure survey conducted by the south african institute of civil engineers (saice) in 2006 found that there were very serious problems with the maintenance of treatment works and with the condition of sanitation infrastructure installed post-1994 (fourie, 2008). the health hazards attendant upon this state of affairs ought not to need spelling out (dwaf, 2001). the point that needs to be made is that faeces mixed with water and urine becomes a dangerous substance, the more so where control over it is at some point released. as the csir (2000: 79) points out, “the human body does not produce ‘sewage’. sewage is the product of a particular technology”. what is at issue then is the level of control exercised over the eventual fate of the faeces. this level of control is much greater with a vip system, and even greater with any one of the plethora of new technologies that has been brought to market in south africa such as the urine diversion system (uds), and the ‘enviro-loo’. the ‘dry paradigm’ would ideally like to see people engage constructively with faeces, not to put too fine a point on it, especially in a desiccated or composted form (csir, 2000: 78-83). human excreta need not be regarded as a waste product. be that as it may, the dbsa gloss fails to capture the innovative thinking that sometimes informs sanitation provision in south africa. the dbsa’s 2000 development report repeats the 1998 definition for ‘population’ access but adds the following one: “percentage of households with access to sanitation – households that have access to a flush toilet, a chemical toilet or a pit latrine”. (dbsa, 2000: 191) this captures the rdp thinking except that, as already pointed out, it crucially fudges the distinction between improved and unimproved pits (“or a pit latrine” does not specify what kind of pit latrine). the former constitutes ‘sanitation’ but the latter not, in the south african context. thus an indicator that does not cater for this distinction is defective from a south african perspective. it is only with the 2005 development report that ‘access to sanitation’, as it relates to the 2001 census, is overtly stated to include pit latrines “with ventilation (vip)” and pit latrines “without ventilation” (dbsa, 2005: 151). this does at least draw the necessary distinction between the two types of pit latrine although they are still lumped together in the counting. it must be remarked, very briefly, that the ‘access to sanitation’ indicator measures an assumed level of deprivation from, say, a eurocentric perspective that does not necessarily find its echo ‘on the ground’. as such it is something of a ‘weak and paternalistic’ indicator following wisner (in sachs, 1995: 5). it is for example not unheard of to find residents converting their sturdily constructed vip structures into storage sheds (the recipients’ real felt need was a lack of secure storage as opposed to improved sanitation), or communities resisting the upgrading of unimproved pits because they would rather the funds were applied to something else that is considered more pressing. the need for decent sanitation as a rule follows on from a fair degree of health education, and it must be borne in mind that, while the selected indicator would be suitable to measure deprivation from the vantage point of government, it might be less effective as a mirror of deprivation as experienced by ordinary people. ingle 228 conclusion5. the point of this discussion was not to cast doubts upon the competence of bureaucrats; census enumerators; or sanitation workers. neither was it the intention to cast aspersions on the integrity and authoritativeness of the dbsa’s invaluable development reports. nor, for that matter, was it meant to disparage what is in fact an important, useful indicator. the intent has been merely to show that, using the dbsa’s access to sanitation indicator as an illustrative example, indicators should be handled with care, especially when they are used to yield meaningful information over a span of time. it may sometimes be necessary to take crucial shifts in definitional and conceptual distinctions into account, as well as the extraneous dynamics that prevailed during the period under review. bibliography african development bank. 2002. african development report 2002. oxford: oxford university press. atkinson, d. 2007. going for broke: the fate of farm workers in arid south africa. cape town: hsrc press. bond, p. 1999. basic infrastructure for socio-economic development, environmental protection and geographical desegregation: south africa’s unmet challenge. geoforum, 30. csir division of building and construction technology. 2000. housing is not about houses – the boutek experience. pretoria: csir. csir division of building and construction technology. 2003. guidelines for human settlement planning and design. pretoria: csir. department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf). 2001. white paper on basic household sanitation. development bank of southern africa (dbsa). 1998. development report 1998. midrand: dbsa. development bank of southern africa (dbsa). 2000. development report. midrand: dbsa. development bank of southern africa (dbsa). 2005. 2005 development report. midrand: dbsa. fourie, j. 2008. a note on infrastructure quality in south africa. development southern africa, 25(4). george, r. 2008. the big necessity: adventures in the world of human waste. london: portobello books. dbsa sanitation indicator 229 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 219-229. gore, a. 2007. an inconvenient truth. emmaus: rodale books. health systems trust (hst). 2002. south african health review 2001. durban: hst. howard, jr., olen, b., eales, k., douglas, s., quinn, n. and voller, r. 2001. the development of an on-site sanitation planning and reporting aid (sspra) for the selection of appropriate sanitation technologies for developing communities. water research commission report 586/1/00. independent (london). 16 may 2006. “climate change will be catastrophe for africa.” available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060516/ai_n16364624 international panel on climate change (ipcc). 2007. climate change 2007: the physical science basis – summary for policymakers. geneva: ipcc. kleinhuis koerant. 2000. kimberley: mvula trust. kleinhuis koerant. 2001. kimberley: mvula trust. kleinhuis koerant. 2002. kimberley: mvula trust. lovelock, j. 2006. the revenge of gaia. london: penguin. martin, j. 2006. the meaning of the 21st century. london: penguin. monbiot, g. 2006. heat. london: penguin. mvula trust. 2001. the use of dry sanitation in an urban environment. case study series no. 7. braamfontein: mvula trust. available at http://www.mvula.co.za nafziger, ew. 1997. the economics of developing countries. new jersey: prentice hall. ravallion, m., chen, s. and sangraula, p. 2007. new evidence on the urbanization of global poverty. population and development review, 33(4): 667-701. ruddiman, wf. 2005. plows, plagues and petroleum. princeton: princeton university press. sachs, i. 1995. the quantitative and qualitative measurement of development – its implications and limitations. international social science journal, 143: 1-9. statistics south africa. 2001. investigation into appropriate definitions of urban and rural areas for south africa: discussion document. report no. 03-02-20. pretoria: statssa. statistics south africa. 2002. stats in brief 2002. pretoria: stats sa. stern, n. 2007. the economics of climate change: the stern review. cambridge: cup. times literary supplement (tls). “respect the facts.” 6 april 2007. pp. 3-4. microsoft word 01 mahlomaholo.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(3), special edition, december 2013, pp. 379392. on bricolage and the creation of sustainable postgraduate learning environments s mahlomaholo1   abstract in this paper i show how bricolage as a theoretical framework is used to understand and enhance the learning of the postgraduate students and academics working as a team. bricolage is described as a metaphor for a research approach which creates something out of nothing and uses that which is available to achieve new goals. it is about finding many and new ways to resolve real life problems using that which is present in the context. it is not linear research, but research that acknowledges and works with the contradictions and incongruences in order to weave a complex text of solutions to the problems. it uses multiple voices, different textual forms and different resources, blurring neat disciplinary boundaries. in short, it splinters the dogmatism of a single approach. this theoretical positioning provides the vocabulary to describe and understand processes and interactions among the research team of 28 phd and 22 masters’ students being supervised by 15 academics, across the two campuses of the university of the free state. for example, while all the actors in this team come from diverse and sometimes contradictory theoretical origins and fields of specialisation they tend to coalesce around the theme of creating sustainable learning environments in their respective research sites. to this theme they ask different questions, hence diverse aims and objectives. they also read different literature informed by the diverse groups of participants in their respective studies. rather than being the sole determinants of their respective research agendas, they treat the participants as co-researchers who direct and inform the direction of these studies. their methodologies acknowledge the multiple voices of those who directly experience the problem under investigation and thus can assist in the resolution thereof. they listen to all, irrespective of their station in life and, like bricoleurs, they weave meaningful solutions out of fragments of data and materials from very diverse sources of participants with different ways of doing things. background in   this   paper   i   show   how   bricolage   as   the   theoretical   framework   for   a   research   project   titled  sustainable  learning  environments   (sule),   is   used   to   understand   and   enhance  the  learning  of  the  postgraduate  students  and  academics  working  as  a  team   on   this   project.   such   a   study   has   become   urgent   and   necessary   because   research   indicates   that   the   rate   of   attrition   not   only   at   phd   level,   but   at   all   the   other   postgraduate  qualifications,  is  very  high  both  in  south  africa  and  globally  (boshoff   &  mouton,  2008).  statistics  internationally  reveal  that  more  than  65  %  of  those  who   1 sechaba mg mahlomaholo (ded), professor of education and head of the school of mathematics, natural sciences and technology education at the university of the free state. email: mahlomaholomg@ufs.ac.za mahlomaholo 380 enrol   for   their   phd   qualification   never   complete   their   studies,   the   same   pattern   occurs  in  as  far  the  master'ʹs  degree  is  concerned  (boshoff&  mouton,  2008;  denecke,   2005).  this  continues  to  drain  the  meagre  resources  made  available  by  the  tax  paying   communities.  the  situation,  with  regard  to  south  africa,  worsens  when  one  breaks   down   this   percentage   in   terms   of   race,   gender   and   social   class   as   it   ultimately   becomes  evident  that  these  markers,  as  determinants  of  success,  still  hold  the  whole   nation   captive   (national   research   foundation,   2007).   furthermore,   many   of   those   who   graduate   do   so   from   a   perspective   that   emphasises   the   dominant   abstract   knowledge,   which   seldom   translates   into   practical   solutions   to   the   imminent   problems  in  the  societies  (reeves,  2011).     a   bricolage   is   used   since,   to   date,   conventional   and   linear   approaches   to   postgraduate  learning  have  not  yielded  the  desired  levels  of  throughput  (boshoff  &   mouton,   2008;   denecke,   2005).   furthermore,   learning   thus   obtained   has   also   not   proven  to  be  sustainable  beyond  the  acquisition  of  the  respective  qualification;  hence   the  current  poor  state  of  education  at  all  levels  in  our  country  as  we  continue  to  lack   highly  qualified  leaders  in  education  who  can  improve  the  theory  and  practice  of   education  (de  beer  &  mason,  2009).  it  is  also  common  knowledge  that  a  country  that   does  not  have  a  significant  number  of  phd  graduates  is,  economically  speaking,  not   competitive  because  it  lacks  knowledge  leaders  who  are  aware  of  developments  at   the  global  stage  and  can  be  innovative  to  give  the  country  the  competitive  edge  (le   grange,  2012).  le  grange  is  very  assertive  when  he  argues  that  currently  we  live  in  a   space   and   time   that   requires   different,   multiple   advanced   skills   –   knowledge   and   attitudes  that  only  a  postgraduate  study  can  provide  (le  grange,  2012).     various  strategies  have  been  tested  as  a  manner  of  addressing  the  problem  of  high   levels   of   attrition.   some   of   these   strategies   have   focused   on   the   institution   where   students  are  enrolled  following  the  argument  that  students  would  find  it  easier  to   move   through   the   system   if   appropriate   mechanisms   were   in   place   (abiddin   &   ismail;   2011)   have   noted   that   at   many   institutions,   facilities   such   as   the   post   graduate  office,  the  postgraduate  school  and  so  on  were  established,  guided  by  this   notion.   a   large   amount   of   funding   in   many   of   such   institutions   was   obtained   in   order  to  fund  the  postgraduate  students'ʹ  bursaries,  research  work,  research  material,   site   visits,   library   searches   and   other   infrastructural   resource   needs   (barnes   &   randall,  2012;  department  of  education  -­‐‑  doe,  2005;  essa,  2010).  what  has  become   apparent   though   is   that   all   these   efforts   have   not   directly   translated   into   proportionate  throughput  rates  (essa,  2010).     other  studies  show  that  over  and  above  improving  the  infrastructure,  focus  has  been   on  capacitating  the  supervisors  (butler,  2009;  de  beer  &  mason,  2009).  some  of  these   have  been  provided  with  the  best  training  possible  (butler,  2009;  de  beer  &  mason,   2009;  hassad,  2010).  programmes  that  provide  emotional,  academic  and  professional   support   have   been   established,   enabling   these   supervisors   to   execute   their   supervisory   roles   more   effectively   (butler,   2009;   de   beer   &   mason,   2009;   hassad,   bricolage and sustainable postgraduate learning environments td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 379-392. 381 2010).   incentives   in   the   form   of   salary   increases   or   a   once-­‐‑off   payment   for   a   successful   supervision   of   a   postgraduate   student   have   been   implemented   (wu,   griffiths,  wisker,  waller  &  illes,  2001).       other   attempts   focused   on   the   student,   training   him/her   in   all   aspects   of   doing   research  (barnes  &  randall,  2012;  butler,  2009;  de  beer  &  mason,  2009;  department   of  education  -­‐‑  doe,  2005;  essa,  2010).  for  example,  experts  would  present  a    seminar   on  how  to  choose  a  research  topic,  how  to  formulate  it  into  a  proper  researchtitle,   how  to  align  the  literature  with  the  aim  of  the  study  and  the  methodologies,  how  to   keep  the  focus  of  the  study  in  terms  of  the  objectives  and  how  to  weave  a  coherent   and   logical   argument   from   beginning   to   end   (barnes   &   randall,   2012;   bills,   2004;   butler,   2009;   de   beer   &   mason,   2009).   the   students   would   then   also   be   provided   with  the  opportunity  to  practice  the  skills  and  knowledge  provided,  and  feedback   would  almost  be  immediate.  however,  even  under  ideal  circumstances  such  as  these   where   the   infrastructure   was   suitable,   the   best   supervisor   possible   and   ample   opportunities   for   the   student   to   learn,   the   success   rate   was   still   not   significantly   higher.     further  attempts  under  the  banner  of  cohort  supervision  were  embarked  upon  to   broaden  the  interaction  among  the  students  and  their  peers,  as  well  as  between  the   students  on  the  one  hand  and  the  supervisors  as  a  team  on  the  other  because  there   was   a   realisation   that   students   learned   best   when   learning   from   a   multiplicity   of   sources  including  other  students  and  other  supervisors  (bills,  2004;  butler,  2009;  de   beer   &   mason,   2009;   mahlomaholo,   2012;   2013;   2014).   this   was   a   realisation   that,   because  of  the  changing  nature  of  the  need  of  a  postgraduate  student,  the  days  of   one  apprentice  learning  at  the  proverbial  'ʹknee  of  the  master'ʹ  were  gone.  currently,  a   post  graduate  student  must  have  a  wide  knowledge  obtained  from  as  many  sources   as  possible,  in  order  to  keep  abreast  (mahlomaholo,  2012;  2013;  2014).  the  demands   of   a   postgraduate   study   currently,   in   a   complex   and   constantly   changing   world,   require  greater  depth  in  terms  of  theoretical  knowledge,  methodological  expertise,   interpretative  skills,  political  awareness  and  technological  savvy,  to  mention  a  few   (kinchloe,  2004;  kinchloe  &  berry,  2008)     sustainable postgraduate learning environments the  project  reported  herein,  which  aims  at  using  bricolage  to  formulate  a  framework   for   sustainable   postgraduate   learning   environments,   is   an   attempt   to   respond   to   these  challenges,  to  integrate  the  solutions  already  in  place  and,  on  the  bases  thereof,   to   create   an   approach   far   more   effective   in   increasing   throughput   rates   through   knowledge   that   is   functional   beyond   the   qualification.   the   notion   of   sustainable   postgraduate   learning   environments   takes   its   cue   from   the   theory   of     learning   environments  which  was  popularised  by  eric  de  corte  (2000)  and  barry  fraser  (2002)   through   their   mathematics   and   science   education   teams   at   leuven   and   curtin   mahlomaholo 382 universities  respectively  (mahlomaholo,  2012;  2013;  2014).  the  main  thrust  of  their   argument  is  that  for  good  academic  performance  in  learning  (and/or  otherwise)  to   occur,  it  is  not  just  about  one'ʹs  genetic  make-­‐‑up  and  inborn  potentialities  only,  but   that  the  context  in  which  one  lives  also  provides  further  cues  for  the  re-­‐‑creation  of   identity  which  may  even  include  differentials  in  terms  of  performance.  the  theory  of   a  learning  environment  thus  integrates  both  the  nature  and  the  nurture  of  theoretical   positions  into  one  coherent  and  meaningful  theory,  recognising  that  as  humans,  we   are   born   with   certain   potentialities   that   require   a   material   context   for   realisation   without   undermining   the   emergent   volition   or   agency   defining   who   we   are.   de   corte   (2000)   and   fraser'ʹs   (2002)   ideas   are   actually   an   extension   and   further   integration   of   both   piaget’s   genetic   epistemology   (piaget   &   inhelder,   1973)   and   vygotsky'ʹs   socio-­‐‑historicism   (vygotsky,   1978).   this   integration   emphasises   the   interaction  between  the  growing  organism  and  the  environment  where  the  former   depends   on   interiorising   material   objects   from   the   latter   by   converting   them   into   images   and   concepts   for   the   construction   of   its   own   innate   cognitive   functioning.   through  processes  of  assimilation  and  accommodation  the  growing  organism  opens   up  its  pre-­‐‑given  cognitive  scheme  in  order  to  accommodate  new  stimuli  from  the   environment,   which   in   turn   contributes   towards   the   expansion,   growth   and   development  of  these  innate  cognitive  structures  through  assimilation.  while  piaget   (piaget   &   inhelder,   1973)   above   seems   to   be   inclined   towards   the   innate   abilities,   vygotsky  (1978)  tends  to  create  a  balance  through  his  emphasis  on  the  social  context   which  includes  objects,  animals,  relationships,  other  human  beings  and  all  else  as   bases  for  the  creation  of  ideas,  thoughts,  actions,  identity  and  performance.  he  goes   further  by  stating  that  as  individuals,  we  can  only  be  as  good  as  what  our  context   and  cultural  milieu  allow  us  to  be.   the  integration  as  explained  above  constitutes  the  founding  principle  for  almost  all   theories   that   attempt   to   explain   and   understand   how   academic   performance   is   constituted.  perhaps  the  concept  that  captures  the  above  aptly  is  the  one  developed   by  teun  van  dijk  (2007;  2009)  and  nikita  basov  (2012).  van  dijk  (2007;  2009)  uses   the  concept,  'ʹsocio-­‐‑cognition'ʹ  in  order  to  describe  the  role  of  sociality  in  constructing   innate   cognitive   functioning.   he   even   introduces   the   notion   of   the   epistemic   community  to  show  the  immense  contribution  of  others  in  our  environment  towards   our  being  and  our  understanding,  as  well  as  to  how  we  create  meaning.  it   is  this   same  concept,  which  basov  refers  to  as  structural  congruence,  that  depends  on  an   individual'ʹs   pre-­‐‑given   and   inborn   structural   autonomy   being   influenced   through   interaction   with   and   learning   from   other   structural   autonomies.   basov   calls   this   process  of  two  human  beings  mutually  influencing  one  another  structural  coupling.   this   is   a   process   that   ultimately   produces   an   equilibrated   state   of   being   called   structural  congruence  where  one'ʹs  innate  abilities  are  strengthened  and  developed   through  the  sociality  generated  by  others  from  the  environment.  thus,  when  we  talk   about  postgraduate  learning  environments,  we  attempt  to  invoke  the  idea  and  the   role  of  the  other  such  as    sociality,  context,  cultural  milieu,  epistemic  community,  the   bricolage and sustainable postgraduate learning environments td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 379-392. 383 institution,   its   research   culture   and   all   else   which   may   impact   on   the   learning   processesof  a  postgraduate  student.     added   to   the   concept   of   postgraduate   learning   environments   is   the   notion   of   sustainability   which   we   have   appropriated   from   the   sustainable   education   and   sustainable  development  theorisations  that  have  now  found  expression  in  the  united   nations'ʹ   sustainable   development   goals   (united   nations.   economic   and   social   council,   2013).   this   concept   links   this   study   with   big   and   broad   international   theories   and   movements   which   are   also   inspiring   economic   development,   environmental   sustainability   and   social   inclusiion   (united   nations.   economic   and   social  council,  2013).  these  three  pillars  of  sustainable  development  goals  (sdg)   have  influenced  our  understanding  of  what  postgraduate  learning  environments  are   and/or   should   be   about.   among   other   aspects,   we   also   understand   sustainable   postgraduate   learning   environments   as   contexts   where   phd   students   can   learn   effectively   such   that   they   meaningfully   can   contribute   towards   the   economic   development  of  the  nation  and  beyond.  phd  graduates  are  supposed  to  be  leaders  in   as   far   as   the   creation   of   theoretical   and   practical   knowledge   is   concerned,   contributing   directly   and   indirectly   towards   the   economic   development   of   all.   research   (centre   for   research   on   science   and   technology   &   council   for   higher   education,   2009)   shows   that   as   a   nation   we   do   not   have   enough   people   enrolled   towards  and  completing  their  phds  and  this  continues  to  impact  negatively  on  our   economy,  employment  levels  and  ability  to  create  wealth  for  the  wellbeing  of  all.  on   top  of  that,  even  those  who  are  enrolled  do  not  always  complete  their  studies  and   this  places  a  further  burden  on  the  already  reeling  economic  base.  furthermore,  the   idea  of  sustainable  postgraduate  learning  environments  implies  that  a  phd  and/or   master'ʹs   study   should   enable   our   graduates   to   respect   the   environment   which   consists   of   the   animals,   the   plants   and   all   (united   nations.   economic   and   social   council,  2013).  these  can  and  should  be  used  for  economic  development  but  that  has   to   be   done   in   a   responsible   manner   so   that   even   future   generations   can   still   find   value  from  them.  they  should  not  be  depleted  and  destroyed  senselessly.     the   concept   of   sustainable   postgraduate   learning   environments   reaches   a   climax   when  it  addresses  the  issue  of  social  inclusivity,  the  third  pillar  of  the  sdg  (united   nations.   economic   and   social   council.   2013).   this   implies   that   a   learning   environment   should   enable   the   postgraduate   student   to   contribute   towards   the   advancement   of   the   agenda   for   equity,   social   justice,   freedom,   peace   and   hope   (mahlomaholo,  2012a;  2012;  2013;  2014).  actually  it  should  be  the  express  intention   of   such   an   environment   not   to   produce   phd   graduates   whose   knowledge   is   so   abstract  that  it  does  not  have  any  functional  practical  value,  especially  in  terms  of   contributing  towards  the  democratic  social  transformation  where  all  people  can  live   together  in  peace  and  harmony.  a  phd  graduate  should  thus  learn  to  be  sensitive  to   discrimination  of  any  kind  and  his/her  role  should  be  to  use  his  superior  learning  to   address   and   resolve   that   in   favour   of,   for   example,   aspects   such   as   the   equitable   mahlomaholo 384 distribution  of  resources,  learning  and  employment  opportunities,.  a  phd  graduate   possessing  these  qualities  will  be  fair  and  will  ensure  that  all  people  are  treated  fairly   irrespective   of   their   origin   or   where   they   are   stationed   in   life.   the   learning   environment  should  thus  enable  the  graduate  to  strive  towards  just  and  respectful   relationships.  it  is  also  our  understanding  that  a  sustainable  postgraduate  learning   environment   enabling   phd   graduates   to   function   in   the   manner   described   above,   will  contribute  towards  the  enhancement  of  the  notion  of  freedom  for  all,  as  well  as   protecting   our   democracy,   which   will   be   free   of   strife     and   full   of   peaceful   coexistence.   in   the   case   of   the   marginalised,   we   understand   that   sustainable   postgraduate   learning   environments   are   engendering   feelings   of   hope   and   confidence   that   the   future   will   become   a   better   place   through   knowledge   and   practice  based  on  the  above-­‐‑mentioned  principles.   bricolage towards sustainable postgraduate learning environments in  order  to  create  the  above-­‐‑mentioned  learning  environments  we  found  bricolage  to   be   the   most   useful   theoretical   framework   and   approach   to   couch   our   studies.   bricolage  is  understood  to  be  a  metaphor  for  research  that  creates  "ʺsomething  out  of   nothing  and  uses  that  which  is  available  to  achieve  new  goals”  (aagard,  2009;  kabi,   2013;  kinchloe,  2008;  kinchloe  &  berry,  2004;  meko,  2013;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013).   bricolage   is   research   that   uses   the   materials   that   are   available   in   the   contexts   to   create  and  recreate  new  meanings  (steinberg,  2011;  wibberley,  2012).  for  example,   the  research  problems,  topics,  aims  and  objectives  that  bricolage  researchers  work   with  are  generated  by  the  local  participants  as  the  understanding  is  that  the  people   who  have  the  problems  are  the  very  same  people  who  have  the  solutions.  the  role  of   bricolage  as  research  is  to  enable  these  people  to  discover  the  power  they  possess   and   to   realise   that   the   solutions   to   the   problems   are   local.   this   places   the   responsibility  of  creating  solutions  on  their  shoulders  as  no  outsider  will  have  better   expertise  and  knowledge  than  those  forming  part  of  the  community  concerned.  the   creation   of   sustainable   postgraduate   learning   environments   thus   depends   on   the   students,  teachers  and  parents  themselves  participating  practically  as  researchers  in   improving,  for  example,  learning  at  their  local  schools.     bricolage  does  not  search  for  new  tools  and  does  not  have  a  simplistic  and  linear   plan  of  doing  research  from  one  point  to  the  next  (kabi,  2013;  meko,  2013;  steinberg,   2011;   tlali   2013;   tsotetsi,   2013;   wibberley,   2012).   it   is   contingent   and   emergent,   depending   on   that   which   is   available   in   the   context.   furthermore,   bricolage   as   a   french   word   in   knowledge   and   production   has   its   origin   as   a   metaphor   used   by   levi-­‐‑strauss   (1966)   in   his   structuralist   pursuit   to   describe   how   primitive   human   beings  came  to  know  and  understand  the  world  they  live  in.  according  to  him,  these   primitive   human   beings   did   not   have   access   to   scientific   tools   to   enable   them   to   acquire   knowledge   (levi-­‐‑strauss,   1966)   but   they   pieced   together   their   own   tacit   knowledge  with  personal  stories  to  produce  a  way  of  knowing  that  enabled  them  to   understand  the  world  they  lived  in.  that  mode  of  knowing  may  have  included  what   bricolage and sustainable postgraduate learning environments td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 379-392. 385 others  could  have  described  as  myths,  legends  and  superstitions,  but  in  the  end  that   enabled  them  to  bring  order  into  their  universe.  bricolage  thus  is  about  finding  new   and  many  ways  to  resolve  real  life  problems  using  that  which  is  in  the  context  (kabi,   2013;   levi   -­‐‑strauss,   1966;   meko,   2013;   rogers,   2012;   steinberg,   2011;   tlali,   2013;   tsotetsi,   2013;   wibberley,   2012).   it   is   not   linear   research,   but   research   that   acknowledges  and  works  with  the  contradictions,  complexities  and  incongruences  in   order  to  weave  a  complex  text  of  solutions  to  the  problems  (aagard,  2009;  kinchloe,   2008;  kinchloe  &  berry,  2004).  it  uses  multiple  voices,  different  textual  forms  and   different   resources   (rogers,   2012;   steinberg,   2011;   wibberley,   2012).   it   blurs   neat   disciplinary  boundaries  by  splintering  the  dogmatism  of  a  single  approach  (aagard,   2009;  kinchloe,  2008;  kinchloe  &  berry,  2004;  levi  -­‐‑strauss,  1966).   this   theory   affirms   the   multiplicity   of   voices   in   research   thus   deconstructing   the   monolithic  view  of  the  dominant  and  mainstream  approach  where  the  voices  and   interests  of  the  poor  and  marginalised  would  be  obviously  excluded  in  favour  of  the   more   powerful   (denzin   &   lincoln,   2011;   kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,   2008;   meko,   2013;   tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013).  for  example,  mainstream  research  had  taught  us  about   the   researcher   who   alone   formulated   the   research   problem   based   on   his/her   academic   knowledge.   such   a   researcher   would   even   search   for   the   literature   including  deciding  on  the  appropriate  theoretical  framework  to  adopt  for  the  study   alone.   she/he   would   even   decide   on   the   strategies   to   use   in   order   to   analyse   and   interpret  the  data  in  the  same  manner.  to  the  contrary,  bricolage  preaches  that  the   researcher  has  to  broaden  his/her  area  of  operation  by  including  other  researchers   and   participants   in   identifying   and   formulating   the   problem   for   investigation,   especially   where   research   is   about   them   (denzin   &   lincoln,   2011;   kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,  2008;  kinchloe  &  berry,  2004;  meko,  2013;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013).  these   people  are  not  only  to  remain  on  the  periphery,  but  they  have  to  become  full-­‐‑fledged   co-­‐‑researchers   who   even   determine   the   whole   agenda   for   research   as   well   as   the   literature  to  review  and  theoretical  framework  to  adopt.  in  fact,  at  every  stage  of  the   research  process  the  researcher  has  to  be  with  as  many  people  as  possible  because  it   is  that  multiplicity  of  voices  that  ensures  a  better  interpretation  of  the  situation  in  a   communicative  action  approach  (denzin  &  lincoln,  2011;  kinchloe,  2008;  kinchloe  &   berry,  2004).     the  participation  of  many  people  as  other  co-­‐‑researchers,  co-­‐‑supervisors  of  research   and  participants,  ensures  not  only  a  diversity  of  voices  in  determining  the  area  to  be   investigated   but   ensures   that   many   theoretical   positions   are   included   in   the   study(kabi,   2013;   meko,   2013;   rogers,   2012;   steinberg,   2011;   tlali,   2013;   tsotetsi,   2013;  wibberley,  2012).  bricolage  thrives  on  diverse,  divergent  and  a  multiplicity  of   theories  which  are  sometimes  at  variance  with  one  another,  but  which  have  to  be   synchronised   through   conversations   and   discussions   into   a   more   integrated   theoretical  position  affirming  diversity  but  also  being  coherent  (aagard,  2009;  kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,   2008;   kinchloe   &   berry,   2004;   levi   -­‐‑strauss,   1966;   meko,   2013;   mahlomaholo 386 rogers,   2012;   tsotetsi,   2013).   bricolage   represents   the   climaxing   of   the   historical   development   in   qualitative   research   which   has   gone   through   the   eight   significant   moments,   from:  traditional  qualitative  research,   the  golden  age,  blurred  genres,  crisis  of   representation,   postmodernity,   post-­‐‑experimentalism,   methodologically   contested   representation  and  the  current  fractured  futures  (denzin  &  lincoln,  2011;  kinchloe,  2008;   kinchloe  &  berry,  2004).   guided   by   a   diversity   of   theoretical   positions   and   participants   in   its   explanatory   arsenal,  bricolage  brings  together  different  sources  of  data  in  the  form  of  field  notes,   minutes   from   strategic   planning   sessions,   meetings,   observations   and   reflective   journals  to  mention  but  a  few  (levi  -­‐‑strauss,  1966;  kabi,  2013;  meko,  2013;  rogers,   2012;  steinberg,  2011;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013;  wibberley,  2012).  the  methodologies   used  are  also  not  one-­‐‑dimensional  but  reflect  a  richness  of  approaches  to  research  to   provide  as  many  perspectives  as  possible.     we  chose  and  adopted  bricolage  because,  within  this  approach,  a  researcher  does   not  conduct  research  on  his/her  own  as  he/she  very  often  has  no  knowledge  of  the   problems  from  an  informed  perspective  from  the  site  of  research.  bricolage  affirms   the   fact   that   research   is   always   collaborative   and   is   defined   by   negotiation   and   communicative   spaces   among   researchers   and   participants   (aagard,   2009;   kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,   2008;   kinchloe   &   berry,   2004;   levi   -­‐‑strauss,   1966;   meko,   2013;   rogers,  2012;  steinberg,  2011;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013;  wibberley,  2012).    it  is  an   approach  that  expands  the  wisdom  and  perspective  of  one  researcher  by  involving   other  researchers  who  can  contribute  meaningfully  towards  the  resolution  of  a  given   problem.  bricolage  epitomises  what  basov  (2012)  described  as  structural  congruence,   and  what  van  dijk  (2007;  2009)  referred  to  as  the  epistemic  community  in  a  socio-­‐‑ cognitive  approach  to  knowledge  production.  we  assumed  that  such  an  approach   would  go  a  long  way  towards  addressing  the  problem  of  high  levels  of  attrition  if   phd  students,  who  are  the  participants  in  this  study,  were  allowed  to  operate  in  that   learning  community  of  practice  where  they  are  part  of  a  team  of  researchers,  and   where  they  can  learn  from  their  own  supervisors,  other  supervisors  and  their  peers.   however,  bricolage  insists  that  even  the  learners,  the  teachers,  the  parents  and  other   instances   of   civil   society   in   those   school   communities   where   the   individual   phd   students  were  conducting  research,  had  to  be  constituted  into  teams  facilitated  by   the   students   respectively.   these   layered   levels   of   teams   are   critical   when   phd   students  have  to  learn  about  problem  identification  and  formulation  as  these  are  not   imposed   but   democratically   formulated   in   a   collaboration   of   researchers   and   participants.   in   their   own   school   communities   where   they   facilitate   research   they   have  to  listen  to  the  participants  and  must  be  able  to  interpret  their  problems  from   them  accordingly  (kabi,  2013;  meko,  2013;  rogers,  2012;  steinberg,  2011;  tlali,  2013;   tsotetsi,  2013;  wibberley,  2012).    they  have  to  read  extensively  and  be  practically   informed   in   preparation   for   such   engagements   because   they   must   be   able   to   respectfully   engage   in   debate   with   the   people   who   experience   the   problems   first   bricolage and sustainable postgraduate learning environments td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 379-392. 387 hand  as  they  identify  and  formulate  the  research  problem.  at  the  same  time,  these   students   have   also   to   convince   their   peers   and   supervisors   at   subsequent   project   meetings  about  the  scientific  and  social  merits  of  such  a  formulation  of  the  research   question/topic/problem.   such   an   approach   provides   multiple   opportunities   for   learning,  debating  and,  as  such,  all  parties    involved,  irrespective  of  whether  they  are   researchers   or   participants,   taking   ownership   of   the   research   process   (kabi,   2013;   levi  -­‐‑strauss,  1966;  meko,  2013;  rogers,  2012;  steinberg,  2011;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,   2013;  wibberley,  2012).     once   the   problem   has   been   identified,   formulated   and   accepted   by   the   teams,   bricolage  prescribes  that  the  teams  have  to  work  out  a  clear,  common  vision  that  will   guide  all  team  members  in  terms  of  the  literature  review,  the  appropriate  theoretical   framework  and  the  methods  and  methodologies  to  adopt  for  data  generation  and   analysis  (aagard,  2009;  kabi,  2013;  kinchloe,  2008;  kinchloe  &  berry,  2004;  levi   -­‐‑ strauss,   1966;   meko,   2013;   tlali,   2013,   2013;   tsotetsi,   2013).   another   point   worth   mentioning  is  that  bricolage  argues  that  all  participants  and  researchers  have  to  be   accorded  the  same  status  of  equality  throughout  the  research  process  to  the  extent   that   by   the   end   of   the   study,   the   initial   participants   have   graduated   into   co-­‐‑ researchers  in  line  with  the  principles  of  equity,  social  justice,  freedom,  peace  and   hope  (aagard,  2009;  kabi,  2013;  kinchloe,  2008;  kinchloe  &  berry,  2004;  meko,  2013;   tlali,   2013;   tsotetsi,   2013).   the   word   which   is   used   to   describe   this   process   is   depowerment,   in   other   words,   the   researchers   must   consciously   be   aware   of   the   immense   power   they   have   and   have   to   continuously   check   against   abuse   of   such   power.  they  must  at  all  times  try  to  participate  on  the  same  level  and  wavelength   with   the   participants   who   have   to   be   empowered   in   turn.   bricolage   is   a   humanitarian   approach   to   research   which   is   mounted   on   the   principles   of   critical   participatory   democracy   and   transformation,   among   others   (aagard,   2009;   kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,   2008;   kinchloe   &   berry,   2004;   levi   -­‐‑strauss,   1966;   meko,   2013;   rogers,  2012;  steinberg,  2011;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013;  wibberley,  2012).       this  observation  also  refers  to  bricolage'ʹs  epistemological  stance  which  argues  that   the  truth  is  not  a  single  aspect  (wibberley,  2012).  the  truth  is  created  in  discussions   among  members  of  the  research  team  or  the  epistemic  community  and  depends  on   the  most  powerful  argument  collaboratively  pieced  together  by  all,  and  not  on  the   status  of  the  researchers  and/or  participants  (kabi,  2013;  meko,  2013;  steinberg,  2011;   tlali,   2013;   tsotetsi;   wibberley,   2012).   the   truth   is   always   negotiated   given   the   literature  and  the  experiences  concerned.  this  further  indicates  that  a  high  number   ofparticipants  who  are  informed  and  have  a  real  stake  in  the  issue  being  researched   will  result  in  better  achievement  of  this  ‘truth’.  in  other  words,  the  truthfulness  of   such  knowledge  depends  on  its  usefulness  and  is  assessed  in  terms  of  the  extent  to   which   it   advances   the   agenda   for   equity,   social   justice,   freedom,   peace   and   hope   (aagard,   2009;   kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,   2008;   kinchloe   &   berry,   2004;   levi   -­‐‑strauss,   1966;  meko,  2013;  rogers,  2012;  steinberg,  2011;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013;  wibberley,   mahlomaholo 388 2012).  this  also  has  implications  for  the  ontological  stance  of  bricolage.  the  nature  of   reality  is  not  external  to  the  perceptions  of  the  human  beings,  be  they  researchers  or   participants,  hence  it  is  important  that  their  views,  voices  and  inputs  have  to  inform   the   study   from   the   beginning   to   the   end.   the   possibility   of   multiple   realities   and   truths   challenges   the   phd   students   to   be   knowledgeable   regarding   their   areas   of   investigation.   they   are   also   encouraged,   in   a   practical   sense,   to   be   open-­‐‑minded   when  it  comes  to  other  people  and  their  contributions  (kabi,  2013;  kinchloe,  2008;   kinchloe  &  berry,  2004;  levi  -­‐‑strauss,  1966).  they  are  moved  out  of  the  comfortable   situation  of  certainty  to  become  aware  of  the  infinite  possibilities  of  interpretation   and   understanding   (aagard,   2009;   kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,   2008;   kinchloe   &   berry,   2004;  levi  -­‐‑strauss,  1966;  rogers,  2012;  steinberg,  2011;  wibberley,  2012).  in  order  to   be  able  to  function  under  such  circumstances,  extensive  reading  becomes  the  only   crutch  they  can  hold  onto,  in  turn  better  preparing  them  to  face  the  challenges  of  a   phd  study.   once   the   teams   have   formulated   the   common   vision,   they   conduct   an   analysis   consisting  of  the  strengths,  weaknesses,  opportunities  and  threats  with  regard  to  the   vision,   in   order   to   determine   existing   and   lacking   capacity     to   actualise   it     (kabi,   2013;  mahlomaholo,  2012;  2013;  20l4;  meko,  2013;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,  2013).  it  is  on   the  basis  of  these  discussions  that  the  teams  firstly  identify  priorities  and  secondly   jointly   formulate   strategic   action   plans   to   identify   the   activities   which   have   to   be   embarked  upon  in  order  to  operationalise  each  and  every  one  of  the  priorities.  for   each   activity   the   team   then   have   to   identify   responsible   people   who   will   also   be   afforded  particular  resources  and  tied  to  defined  time  frames,  for  the  activities  to  be   embarked  upon.  the  highlight  of  this  approach  is  achieved  when  teams  are  able  to   reflect  on  progress  made  on  regular  basis,  say  once  a  month,  to  identity  areas  that   still  have  to  be  improved  in  terms  of  implementation,  re-­‐‑planning,  readjustment  and   more  (kabi,  2013;  mahlomaholo,  2112;  2113;  2014;  meko,  2013;  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi,   2013).  when  these  data  are  being  generated  through  meetings,  planning  sessions  and   activities      it  must  be  audio/video  recorded  or  both,  to  be  transcribed  and  analysed.     the   above   discussion   has   demonstrated   that   the   study   our   team   conducted   was   important   and   necessary   because   it   created   the   opportunities,   first;   for   the   phd   students   and   their   supervisors   to   learn   to   produce   knowledge   in   a   very   practical   sense   based   on   the   resolution   of   a   real   life   problem   (aagard,   2009;   kabi,   2013;   kinchloe,   2008;   kinchloe   &   berry,   2004;   levi   -­‐‑strauss,   1966;   meko,   2013;   rogers,   2012;  steinberg,  tlali,  2013;  tsotetsi  2013;  2011;  wibberley,  2012).  secondly,  even  the   local  school  communities  have  had  the  opportunity  to  learn  take  an  interest  and  play   a  practical  role  in  the  resolution  of  a  problem  that  affects  their  children  and  schools   directly.   furthermore,   this   discussion   has   demonstrated   that   learning   how   to   produce  knowledge  in  a  practical  sense  can  enable  students  and  researchers  to  be   well  grounded  theoretically  as  they  have  to  do  proper  literature  reviewsin  order  to   inform  the  choices  and  debates  of  the  teams.  because  the  students  have  to  defend   bricolage and sustainable postgraduate learning environments td, 9(3), spec. ed, december 2013, pp. 379-392. 389 their  studies  at  all  levels  there  is  an  opportunity  for  them  to  sharpen  their  skills  in   terms   of   writing   a   literature   review,   methodological   skills   and   to   truly   own   the   knowledge  they  have  acquired.     conclusion out  of  a  total  of  15  students  who  enrolled  towards  their  phd  in  april  2011,  5  are   graduating   in   2013   which   is   a   great   achievement,   given   the   fact   that   the   average   completion   rate   was   one   student   in   five   years.   there   are   already   15   who   are   submitting  their  work  for  examination  by  the  beginning  of  2014.  the  academics  who   are  in  the  team  have  also  experienced  heightened  levels  of  research  output  as  they   continue  to  publish  in  accredited  and  peer  reviewed  journals  and  books,  over  and   above   being   invited   not   only   locally   but   also   internationally,   to   do   keynote   presentations  on  the  achievements  of  their  team.  even  the  local  schools  where  this   research  has  been  conducted  are  experiencing  significant  improvement  in  terms  of   learner   and   teacher   performance.   parent   communities   are   beginning   to   take   more   interest  in  their  children’s  learning’s  and  all  are  beginning  to  learn  to  be  free  and   thus   contributing   towards   the   maintenance   of   the   democratic   ethos   in   our   communities.   the   conclusion   i   am   bound   to   make   given   all   the   above   is   that   bricolage   as   an   approach  has  enabled  us  (the  whole  sule  research  team)  to  see  and  to  understand   that  researching  into  human  life,  experiences,  fears  and  aspirations  is  more  complex   than  initially  thought  of.  we  have  thus  become  consciously  aware  that  the  successful   learning   of   children   at   school   is   related   to   a   complex   web   of   relationships   in   the   community   and   the   social   contexts   within   which   they   and   their   schools,   their   teachers   and   parents   occur   (kinchloe,   2008;   kinchloe   &   berry,   2004).   it   thus   was   worthwhile   searching   and   pursuing   those   larger   processes   bringing   all   these   instances  and  relationships  together.  kinchloe  (2008)  calls  these  the  implicate  orders   of  reality.  this  search  in  turn  enabled  the  researchers  to  be  multi-­‐‑perspective  and   multi-­‐‑layered  in  approach  and  to  understand  both  the  events  and  their  contexts.  as   researchers,   we   became   more   open   minded   and   versatile.   we   had   to   read   more   about  the  context,  the  cultural  milieu,  the  parents,  the  learners,  the  teachers  and  all   the  actors  who  became  participants  and  co-­‐‑researchers  accordingly.  our  success  was   thus   based   on   this   realisation   which   questioned   the   universalism   of   research   approach  and  its  findings.  the  local  became  more  important  as  we  came  to  relate   what  we  know  to  the  solution  of  a  real  local  problem.  the  findings  we  made  could   be   generalised,   however,   this   was   not   the   intention   as   we   understood   that   construction  of  meaning  is  always  context  bound,  and  that  generalisations  miss  this   richness   of   the   particular   contexts.   this   made   research   to   be   meaningful,   relevant   and  interesting  to  the  students  and  the  participants.   in  spite  of  all  the  good  outcomes  described  above,  i  must  indicate  that  this  approach   is  very  difficult  to  implement  as  it  demands  that  we  all  step  out  of  our  operational   mahlomaholo 390 comfort  zone  and  create  meaningful  interaction  with  the  local  communities  through   debate  and  negotiation.  we  were  challenged  in  the  sense  that  we  were  expected  to   have   more   knowledge   with   regard   to   literature,   as   well   as   the   ‘ways   of   doing/knowing’  of  the  communities  we  interact  with.  in  the  end,  although  complex,   it  was  a  rewarding  experience.     references aagard, m. 2009. bricolage: making do with what is at hand. creative nursing, 15 (2): 82 – 84. abiddin, n.z. & ismail, a. 2011. attrition and completion issues in postgraduate studies for student development. international review of social sciences and humanities, 1 (1): 15 29. barnes, b.j. & randall, j. 2012. doctoral student satisfaction: an examination of disciplinary, enrollment and institutional differences. research in higher education, 53: 47 75. basov, n. 2012. knowledge creation in the intellectual networks. in basov, n & nenko, o. understanding knowledge creation. intellectuals in academic, the public sphere and the arts. amsterdam: rodopi bills, d. 2004. characteristics associated with research degree student satisfaction, completion and attrition at the university of south australia. available at 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rendered in translation. although the theatre of the absurd expresses absurd thoughts through absurd language, it is not meaningless, but on the contrary seeks to make people aware of the anguished purposelessness of human existence. it is therefore essential that translations of absurdist plays render this message in the target language in an equally absurd, yet meaningful way. since all absurdist plays cannot be taken into account in the scope of this article, a case study will be carried out, using eugene ionesco’s play la cantatrice chauve as focus. an evaluation of its english translation by donald m. allen, the bald soprano, is carried out in order to identify its strengths and weaknesses. suggestions are made where relevant to enhance the translation or comment on its level of success. keywords: theatre of the absurd, translation, eugene ionesco, disciplines: translations studies, linguistics, philosophy, cultural studies, french and english. introduction literary translation encompasses a variety of texts, from novels to poetry, from short stories to theatre plays. the translation of each genre may present challenges in terms of content, form and culture. this paper focuses on the translation of absurdist theatre, because of one specific characteristic. the topic of predilection of absurdist playwrights – the meaninglessness and precariousness of human existence – has been widely dealt with in other literary genres, but this article focuses on absurdist theatre because of the way in which it deals with the topic. indeed, the theatre of the absurd is characterised by a devaluation of language and privileges – “the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thoughts” (esslin, 1961: 24), which may result in dialogues consisting of “incoherent babblings” (esslin, 1961: 22). in this case, one may be justified in asking how one can translate what does not make sense. the domesticated absurd fanny lacroix* * school of languages, vaal triangle campus, north-west university. email: fanny.lacroix@nwu.ac.za td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. 105-122 106 it is obviously not impossible: it is enough to browse the shelves of bookshops to see that translations of absurdist plays have been carried out in different languages. it would however be interesting to look at how successful these translations are. but since it is not possible to evaluate the whole of the absurdist corpus within the scope of this article, the focus will fall on relevant extracts from la cantatrice chauve (1950), written in french by romanian-born author eugène ionesco, and from the bald soprano (1958), its british english translation, by donald m. allen. this play was selected because of the almost organic way in which the play grew after ionesco attempted to teach himself english. in his préface to la cantatrice chauve, emmanuel jacquart (1993b: 9) describes the creation of the play as an unconscious process and quotes ionesco as saying: un phénomène bizarre se passa, je ne sais comment: le texte se transforma sous mes yeux, contre ma volonté [...]. this phenomenon, which is reminiscent of the surrealist creative process called “automatic writing”, echoes esslin’s statement about “the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thoughts”, that is characteristic of the theatre of the absurd and makes la cantatrice chauve a particularly interesting play to study, and a challenge to translate. the challenge is due to the fact that, although the play was written in french, it features british characters: the smiths, their servant mary, the martins and a fire chief, whose interaction throughout the play does not follow any plot and appears utterly nonsensical. the translation of la cantatrice chauve is therefore evaluated in terms of domestication and of how well it conveys the absurd. in order to do so, textual, intertextual and extratextual aspects of the translation are analysed. this article argues that, although mostly successful, allen’s translation would have benefited from further domestication in some instances, in order for the meaning to be conveyed even more accurately. the first part shows that absurdist theatre indeed makes a philosophical statement and explains why it is important to take it in consideration when translating absurdist plays. the second part focuses on the strengths of the translation as far as the as the elements mentioned above are concerned, while the third part focuses on the weaknesses of the translation and makes suggestions to improve them, again in relation to the same elements. the meaning of the absurd the following definition of the theatre of the absurd, taken from the penguin dictionary of theatre, is to be found as quoted by hinchliffe in the absurd: in the penguin dictionary of theatre (1966) john russel taylor writes: absurd, theatre of the. term applied to a group of dramatists in the 1950s who did not regard themselves as a school but who all seemed to share certain attitudes towards the predicament of man in the universe (hinchliffe 1977: 1). lacroix 107 this predicament can be defined as anguish produced by awareness of the fact that man’s existence is purposeless, and is the central theme of absurdist theatre. this view is shared by esslin (1980: 402) in the theatre of the absurd: the theatre of the absurd is intent on making its audience aware of man’s precarious and mysterious position in the universe. taylor’s (1977: 1) definition adds that this concern is expressed through the abandonment of “logical construction, of the rational linking of idea with idea in an intellectually viable argument” and that instead, “the irrationality of experience is transferred to the stage”. la cantatrice chauve is full of these occurrences, like the verbal joust between the smiths and the martins in scene xi, on which the play ends. in this scene, the tension rises between the smiths and the martins, as they first exchange parodies of proverbs and social clichés to finally yell nonsensical phrases at each other. the utterances of the characters are incoherent, do not relate to each other in any way, nor do they to the situation, and contribute to a rising tension between the characters, which ends in chaos. these definitions show that absurdist plays, although based on irrational situations, are not absurd where meaning is concerned. true, the situations depicted may not make any sense to the audience, because of the discrepancy between language and what is going on on stage, but one may argue that the language is clearly recognisable as either french or english. absurdist authors have not created a language of their own. the absurd actually arises from semantics and stage dynamics. however, one cannot deny that the language used in the theatre of the absurd breaches the gricean maxims of quality (truth), quantity (information), relation (relevance) and manner (clarity), to such an extent that the audience becomes confused. the unusual collocations and the irrationality of the relationship between language and situation are what cause the feeling of absurdity. however, what esslin refers to as a “devaluation and disintegration of language” (1980: 406) illustrates the breakdown of society and communication between people, which is the philosophical message absurdist authors seek to convey to their audiences. thus, the theatre of the absurd does not present its audience with nonsensical dialogues and situations for its own sake. although the characters’ actions and utterances are completely devoid of motivation and meaning in relation to the situation in which they are taking place, there is a reason for this. the author seeks to make audiences aware, through language and art, of the breakdown of our society and, from a more existentialist point of view, of the purposelessness of human existence and its resulting anxiety. la cantatrice chauve, by depicting the utterly nonsensical interaction of the smiths and their guests, may be said to strongly convey this meaning. the circumstances in which ionesco found the inspiration for the play are also of interest. indeed, as hervey & higgins (2002: 59) state, the author’s attitude to the subject matter and his intention regarding the effect of the text on his audience, are important issues in translation. in his 1993 preface to la cantatrice chauve, emmanuel jacquart quotes ionesco explaining that he wrote the play after trying to learn english the domesticated absurd td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 105-122. 108 using a self-teaching method. he marvelled at the platitudes and commonplace statements contained in the language’s corpus. these kinds of statements are typical of old-fashioned language methods, in that they are meant to provide a real-life background to the use of idiomatic expressions, grammatical structures and vocabulary. this provided the author with the material required for his play, as he realised that his ambition was to communicate to his contemporaries the essential truths of which his language manual had made him aware (jacquart, 1993b:8). due to the method ionesco was using, the statements created illogical situations, such as when one of the characters, mrs. smith, informs her husband, mr. smith, that they live in the london area, that they have three children, and so forth. the result of this ambition was la cantatrice chauve, which ionesco describes as an “anti-pièce, c’est-à-dire une vraie parodie de pièce” (jacquart, 1993b: 11), because it defies the traditional rules of drama, originally prescribed by aristotle as the law of non-contradiction, the principle of causality and the factor of continuity (hinchliffe, 1977: 56). this is characteristic of most of ionesco’s work, together with the simple plot, dehumanised characters and absurd (if logically so) language (hinchliffe, 1977: 59). although it seems ionesco was not concerned with ideology at the initial stage of the creation of the play (jacquart, 1993b: 10-11), his plays, including la cantatrice chauve, cannot be regarded as mere entertainment. hinchliffe explains: ionesco is not committed to artistic definitions, nor to political or religious codes; but neither can his plays be mere entertainment (1977: 61). the above substantiates the statement made at the start of this paper, which says that absurdist theatre reflects a philosophical position translated into literature. hervey & higgins can also be quoted in their exposition of french-english translation. they identify five textual genres: empirical, philosophical, religious, persuasive and literary, but also acknowledge the existence of hybrids, i.e. texts which present characteristics belonging to two, or more, of the aforementioned genres (2002: 59-61). since the fact that la cantatrice chauve is a play with a philosophical message has been highlighted, it may be considered as a philosophical-literary hybrid, and it is helpful to keep this in mind when evaluating allen’s translation. it may therefore be concluded that, since the theatre of the absurd in general, and more specifically la cantatrice chauve, is known to serve a philosophical purpose – namely, that man’s position in the universe is precarious and meaningless1 – the target text should reflect the same intention, in the absence of a translation brief giving different or contrary instructions.2 this is taken into account in the next two sections, which 1 . the play also offers a social commentary, but this is not taken into consideration in this paper. 2 . the translation brief dictates the way in which the source text will be translated. according to it, the translator will decide which translation method to use, and will have to make decisions as to how to render the contents and the form. lacroix 109 deal with the weaknesses and the strengths of allen’s translation of la cantatrice chauve. the strengths of the translation this section deals with the strong points of the translation, in terms of how well it domesticates the absurd. the translation strategy is key in the process of translation, as it may greatly influence the finished product. there are many strategies for a translator to choose from depending on what is required by the client and the translation brief. according to jeremy munday, absurdist plays are generally domesticated in translation (2007), which means that they are adapted to the requirements of the target culture and language. chesterman & wagner point out that nothing should be left that links the text specifically to the source culture, perhaps not even proper names (2002: 58). foreignisation, on the contrary, consists of respecting the source text by disrupting the cultural codes that prevail in the target language (venuti, 1995: 20). by using this method, the translator allows the reader to get a sense of the linguistic and cultural differences between his own language (the target text) and that of the source text. of course, it is possible to work in both directions, as fawcett confirms (1997: 116), and the translator’s choice between both methods is likely to depend very much on the translation brief, including the type of target readership, as well as on the type, variety and genre of the text to be translated. for instance, foreignisation would be relevant in a situation where the idiosyncrasies of the source text must be highlighted. just as for all translations, the translation brief plays an important role in the way the translation is processed. the translation brief, which vermeer refers to as skopos, includes the aim and mode of the translation (vermeer, 2004: 227). this will have an influence on the way the translation is performed. for the purpose of this study, we will assume that the translation of the absurdist play in question, la cantatrice chauve, was commissioned in order to allow target language readers to access the written text in their own language. the target readership is paramount when one considers the best translation strategy for any text, but maybe even more so as far as a theatre play is concerned. as marta mateo puts it: (a) drama performance would not exist without an audience, and a translation depends – for its success and indeed for its very existence as a translation – on the interests and cultural assumptions of the receiving system (1995: 99). this analysis of the translation’s strengths focuses on scene xi, which would have required extensive domestication due to the textual, intertextual and extratextual aspects of the source text. the textual aspect is related to the importance of style in terms of translating scene xi. the translator also had to deal with the issue of intertextuality, when a quote from another play appears in the text, as well as with extratextual the domesticated absurd td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 105-122. 110 aspects such as the translation of proverbs. scene xi depicts a nonsensical and increasingly tense argument between the smiths and the martins. as the tension rises, their parodic exchange of proverbs and clichés give way to increasingly absurd statements, characterised by alliteration, assonance and rhyme. these elements actually contribute to the creation of a highly-charged atmosphere (jacquart, 1993a: 147). the section of the play starting with mr smith repeating the word “kakatoes” (ionesco, 1954: 98) ten times and ending with mr. martin saying “de l’ail à l’eau, du lait à l’ail”3 (ionesco, 1954: 99), is likely to represent quite a challenge for the translator – specifically for the reasons mentioned above. however, it can be said that the translation of this section was carried out successfully in terms of domestication, because it retains the effect of rising tension created in the source text, while adapting the contents to the target culture when relevant. the examples and comments provided below confirm this point. this section of scene xi contains many instances of alliteration, assonance and rhyme from the beginning to the end. for example, a [k] alliteration is to be found in “quelle cacade!”, “quelles cascades de cacades!”, “cactus, coccyx! cocus! cocardard! cochon!” (ionesco, 1954: 96), “les cacaoyers des cacaoyères donnent pas des cacahuètes, donnent du cacao” (ionesco, 1954: 97). “les souris ont des sourcils, les sourcils n’ont pas de souris” (1954: 97) features an [s] alliteration, together with an [i:] assonance. a rhyme in [u:?] occurs in several lines, from mrs martin’s “touche pas ma babouche” to her “sainte nitouche touche ma cartouche” (ionesco, 1954: 98) in this section, it may be argued that the style is more important than the content. if one looks at the examples which feature a [k] alliteration, it seems evident that the words were chosen for their alliterative properties as opposed to their meaning. true, these sentences are grammatically and syntactically correct, but their absurdity lies in the fact that, semantically, they are not coherent with any of the other utterances in this section, or cohesive within the situation. it is also important that the alliteration and assonance should be rendered in the target text because they greatly contribute to the expression of growing tension between the four characters present in scene xi (jacquart, 1993a: 147). for example, allen translated the statement uttered by mrs martin, “les cacaoyers des cacaoyères donnent pas des cacahuètes, donnent du cacao” (ionesco, 1954: 97) as “cacao trees on cacao farms don’t bear coconuts, they yield cocoa” (1958: 40). the word “coconut” is substituted for the word “cacahuète”, which means “peanut” in english, as the word “peanut” does not allow for [k] alliteration with the rest of the sentence. in this case, not only has the alliteration been respected throughout the sentence, but the meaning has been retained too, but for one word, which does not compromise the quality of the translation as its meaning is of secondary importance to the alliteration. since conveying the effect the text has on the target reader depends on 3 “from garlic to water, from milk to garlic” (author’s literal translation). but translated as “from sage to stooge, from stage to serge” in the bald soprano. lacroix 111 the alliteration, the latter should be the focus of the translation. therefore, the translator kept to the source text’s alliteration whenever possible, and otherwise resorted to a [u:] assonance, which is close to the original. the resulting effect is one that is indeed very close to that created by the original, due to the fact that the alliteration has been respected, as well as the fact that the incoherence and absurdity of the content were retained through the domestication method. the target reader will therefore also experience increasing tension in this section of the scene. this is essential as this is the last scene, the play therefore ending with unresolved conflict. it could therefore be said that the form, more than the content, of scene xi contributes to creating an increasingly tense atmosphere between the smiths and the martins. despite the fact that allen’s translation often distances itself from the source text in terms of contents, it is successful in conveying this highly-strung atmosphere in the target text by conforming to the style of the source text. indeed, the alliteration and the accumulation of repetitions contribute greatly to the rising tension between the characters. the verbal joust between the smiths and the martins does not only include alliteration, assonance or rhyme. a parodied quotation from a poem by sully prudhomme4 , a 19th century french author, entitled le vase brisé (1865) introduces intertextuality as an extra challenge for the translator. le vase brisé ends on the following verse: “il est brisé, n’y touchez pas”5 (jacquart, 1993a: 149). ionesco changed this verse to “n’y touchez pas, elle est brisée”6 (1954: 98), where the french “elle” refers to an object of feminine gender as opposed to the “il” of the original, which refers to a masculine object. this instance of intertextuality should be recreated in the target text in order to achieve the same effect of recognition of another text amongst target readers. allen uses “who’d stoop to blame?...and i never choose to stoop” (1958: 40), two respectively incomplete and slightly modified sentences taken from different verses of my last duchess, a poem by robert browning,7 and brought together into one single line in the bald soprano. the name of sully prudhomme is used together with the name of françois coppée,8 another 19th century french author. although their names are mismatched by the characters as “coppée sully” and “prudhomme françois” (ionesco, 1954: 98), they are clearly recognisable. it is interesting to note that in his translation, allen replaces the names of françois coppée and sully prudhomme with the names of robert browning and rudyard kipling, both english authors and poets, who were contemporaries of prudhomme and coppée. these names will certainly be more easily identifiable for an english audience than sully prudhomme or françois coppée would. the two preceding sections show that the la cantatrice chauve presents the translator with challenges of a different nature, textual and 4 1839-1907 5 it is shattered, do not touch it (author’s translation). 6 do not touch it, it is shattered (author’s translation) 7 1812-1889 8 1842-1908 the domesticated absurd td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 105-122. 112 intertextual, where domestication is concerned. another challenge the translator will have to face in this play is extratextuality. in order to provide a successfully domesticated translation, the translator must reckon with the “false” proverbs used in scene xi. the scene is based on clichés, common place statements and proverbs which the author encountered while teaching himself english (jacquart, 1993a: 146). the difficulty in translating this kind of language lies therein that it is narrowly linked to the source culture and must therefore be adapted to the requirements of the target culture. indeed, according to hervey & higgins, it is “a crucial fact that translating involves not just two languages, but a transfer from one whole culture to another” (hervey & higgins, 2002: 31, italics in the text). the translator also faces a technical challenge in the sense that this kind of language often resorts to rhyme or other kinds of linguistic parallelisms. even though the language is absurd in the context of the dialogue and the situation created on stage, it is not meaningless. the “false proverbs and clichés” have meaning, and a translator has to choose which aspects of the source text he wants to retain: the meaning, the sound, the parallelisms, or any other present. some of these “false proverbs and clichés” are based on existing ones, which ionesco has modified in order to obtain an effect of parody (jacquart, 1993a: 145). this is supposed to surprise the reader and provoke laughter. for instance, the french reader will recognise that the well-known french proverb “qui vole un oeuf vole un boeuf”9 which is mimicked in the deformed proverb “celui qui vend aujourd’hui un boeuf, demain aura un oeuf”10 (1954: 93). ionesco also makes use of unjustified comparisons: “on marche avec les pieds mais on se réchauffe à l’électricité ou au charbon”11 (1954: 93); maxims that are irrelevant in the context: “il faut toujours penser à tout”12 (1954: 93); parody of cliché: “quand je dis oui, c’est une façon de parler”13 (1954: 93); and aphorism: “prenez un cercle, caressez-le, il deviendra vicieux”14 (1954: 93) (jacquart, 1993: 146). proverbs and aphorisms can be problematic to translate, because they relate to culture. since the french proverb “qui vole un oeuf vole un boeuf” has a direct english equivalent, it makes sense that this equivalent be used in the translation, provided that it is also mimicked. the target reader should be able to recognise the original proverb behind it, as is the case in the source text. the only effect which is not rendered in the translation is the rhyme between “boeuf” and “oeuf”. however, it may be argued that the rhyme, although it may facilitate recognition and memorising of the french expression, is not essential in english, as the proverb can still be easily recognised under its absurd disguise. 9 he that steals an egg, will steal an ox (one of several english equivalents) 10 he who sells an ox today, will have an egg tomorrow (author’s literal translation). 11 one walks with one’s feet, but one warms up with electricity or coal (author’s literal translation). 12 one always has to think of everything (author’s literal translation). 13 when i say yes, it is a way of speaking (author’s literal translation). 14 take a circle, stroke it, it will become vicious (author’s literal translation). the reader will recognise the aphorism “vicious circle” in this parody). lacroix 113 this section shows that the extracts used for the purpose of this analysis have been successfully domesticated. indeed, the textual, intertextual and extratextual aspects were skilfully adapted to the requirements of the target language and culture. the following section, on the other hand, focuses on the weaknesses of the translation and suggests possible alternatives. the weakness of the translation it can justifiably be argued that all translations have weaknesses and that it is always possible to suggest alternatives, due to the teleological nature of translation (mateo, 1995: 99). this section shows that improvements are possible, both at textual and extratextual level. as it is the case in the section on strengths, the evaluation is based on selected extracts relevant in terms of textuality and extratextuality. from a textual point of view, several mistranslations have been identified. two examples are given below. the first one is uttered by mrs smith in scene i. in this scene, mr and mrs smith are at home and exchange both nonsensical information and information that is so obvious it shouldn’t even be worth mentioning. for instance, mrs smith tells her husband that they are called smith, that they live in the london area, and what they have just had for dinner. potatoes were on the menu and mrs smith declares: “je ne les aime que lorsqu’elles sont bien cuites”1 5 (ionesco, 1954: 42), which means that mrs. smith only likes potatoes when they are well done. however, the target text reads as follows: “i do not like them when they are well done” (allen, 1958: 9), which says the exact opposite. beside being a mistranslation, it does not reflect the fact that ionesco wrote his play using structures reminiscent of those to be found in foreign language self-teaching methods like the one ionesco used to teach himself english. ionesco may have used the utterance “je ne les aime que lorsqu’elles sont bien cuites” (1954: 42) in order to illustrate a grammar point on the french structure “ne ... que”, which means “only” in english. it is important that the target language should reflect this, since the way in which ionesco wrote the play has been established as contributing to the expression of the absurd. “i like them only when they are well done” is thus more accurate. the second example of mistranslation occurs twice, in similar sentences. however, only the first instance is mentioned here, as the following considerations are valid for the second mistranslation as well. “this room, with the bed and the green eiderdown is at the end of the corridor, between the w.c. and the bookcase, dear lady!” (1954: 18). the problem concerns the use of the word “bookcase” as the translation for the french original “bibliothèque”. although correct from a lexical point of view, it is not accurate in the present context. indeed, “bibliothèque” refers to both a bookcase and a library. so when mr martin talks about his bedroom being situated between the w.c. and the “bibliothèque”, he is more likely to refer to it as a room between two other rooms, and not a room between a piece of furniture and another room. 15 i like them only when they are well done (author’s translation) the domesticated absurd td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 105-122. 114 one may argue that it may very well be a bookcase, which could be possible, especially in the realm of the absurd, but in this scene the absurd is expressed not so much through the breakdown of language than through the aberrant situation of a married couple, who have arrived together at their friends’ house, suddenly suffering from amnesia and behaving like complete strangers. therefore, i suggest that “library” might be a more accurate translation. indeed, they do not cause the aberrant situation depicted above to lose its nonsensicality. it may be argued that the above mistranslations do not, however, represent a hurdle to the conveying of the absurd. indeed, they do not cause the aberrant situation depicted above to lose its nonsensicality: the target still shows mr and mrs martin as unable to recognise each other, although they have been married for years and have arrived at the smiths’ house together. however, since the source text here does not require any extensive domestication between french and english, it is not necessary to localise extensively in the target text. apart from the illogical relationship between the dialogues and the situations, a few instances of abrupt drop in language register contribute to the feeling of absurdity. for example, in scene vii, after the smiths and the martins have exchanged a few platitudes and definitely seem uncomfortable in each other’s presence, mr smith utters: “ah, la la la la”1 6 (ionesco, 1954: 64). mr martin then asks him: “vous avez du chagrin ?” (ionesco, 1954: 64), which was translated as “don’t you feel well?” (allen, 1958: 20). in the source text, the rather crude reply to this question comes from mrs smith: “non, il s’emmerde”1 7 (ionesco, 1954: 64). this sentence would be very likely to be interpreted by a source reader in terms of its figurative meaning, “he is bored out of his skull”, and does not render the scatological component of the verb “s’emmerder”. it must be noted that this expression is one of the many scatological references used by ionesco throughout the play, because he considered these to be a source of laughter (jacquart, 1993a: 147). in the target text, mrs smith’s reply reads as follows: “no, he’s wet his pants” (allen, 1958: 20). although it is indeed a ludicrous statement and provides a pertly logical answer to mr martin’s question, once again it does not echo ionesco’s scatological vein and does not really render the abrupt drop in language register of the source text. “he is bored shitless”, on the other hand, is both scatological and shocking. in a situation such as this one, where retaining both the drop in language register and the scatological reference may represent a problem, it would be up to the translator to decide which of the two issues should be given priority, based on the extent to which each contributes to conveying the absurd. from an extratextual point of view, various instances of problematic translation have been identified. firstly, the estranged mr and mrs martin attempt to find out why they look so familiar to each other and start talking about the time they took the train from manchester. in the target 1 6 “oh dear, oh dear, oh dear” (author’s translation). 1 7 “he is bored out of his skull” or “he is bored shitless” (this possible translation has the advantage of echoing ionesco’s vein). lacroix 115 text, mr martin says: “madam, i took the 8:30 morning train which arrives in london at 4:45” (allen, 1958: 15), which does not seem to present any problems out of context. however, in the source text, mr martin uses a typically english structure in order to express these times: “j’ai pris le train d’une demie après huit le matin, qui arrive à londres à un quart avant cinq, madame” (ionesco, 1954: 54). this french sentence includes a literal translation of the way in which a speaker of english would have said: “half past eight in the morning” and “quarter to five”.1 8 this creates a surprising and comical effect (jacquart, 1993a: 142). the english translation therefore does not render this effect at all. in the target text, the english character utters a statement in french, which is based on an english idiom. here, the translation fails to render the comical and possibly confusing effect created by the word-for-word translation of an idiomatic english expression into french. the following suggestion: “madam, i took the train of eight hours and half of the morning, which arrives in london at five hours minus the quarter”, is more appropriate in the sense that it renders the aforementioned effect in reverse. however, it would not make sense to have mr martin, who is english, utter an english sentence which was translated word-for-word from a french idiomatic expression. although this may be acceptable in the realm of the absurd, in which logic is set aside, the above suggestion would also fail to convey the same effect as the source text to english-speaking readers. the issue therefore is how to convey the same comical effect while respecting the interlinguistic word play. this might only be possible by changing the character’s nationality. if mr martin became monsieur martin and acquired the french nationality, for example, he could then utter the suggested phrase in english (“madam, i took the train of eight hours and half of the morning, which arrives in london at five hours minus the quarter”), based on the french expression “le train de huit heures et demie du matin, qui arrive à londres à cinq heures moins le quart”. in this way, one would obtain the same foreignising effect as in the source text. again, one might argue that the problems highlighted above do not in any way put the conveying of the philosophical message in jeopardy, nor the general effect that the translation may have on the target reader, except in the case of mr martin’s utterance about the time at which he took the train. however, we have already established that la cantatrice chauve does not only belong to the philosophical genre, but also, as a play, to the literary genre. the above considerations, although not directly relevant to the philosophical dimension of the play, may nonetheless contribute to the overall quality of the translation, accuracy being one of the fundamental criteria of quality in translation. secondly, further in the scene, mr martin utters “la maison d’un anglais est son vrai palais” (ionesco, 1954: 94). this sentence, although in french, is reminiscent of the english saying “an englishman’s home is his castle”. this creates surprise as this proverb was translated literally 1 8 literally translated, french speakers would tell the time by saying, not “half past” or “quarter to”, but “and a half” or “minus the quarter”. the domesticated absurd td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 105-122. 116 and does not evoke any french proverb which might have a similar meaning. therefore, readers of the original french who are not familiar with the english expression – which, it can be assumed, might be a majority as they are supposed to be native speakers of the source language – are unlikely to identify it as such, which will therefore put this sentence at the same level of absurdity as the preceding example would. this effect should therefore be rendered in the target text, which is not the case. indeed, the target text reads as follows: “an englishman’s home is truly his castle” (allen, 1958: 38), which only differs from the original saying by the addition of the adverb “truly”. the target reader will thus easily recognise the proverb despite the addition, which is unlikely to recreate the confusion and feeling of absurdity conveyed by the source text. i therefore suggest that the target text base itself on a french proverb translated into english in order to achieve the same effect on the reader as the source text. preferably, and if possible, the french proverb should have a meaning similar to the english one. it so happens that “an englishman’s home is his castle” has a french equivalent which is “charbonnier est maître chez lui”, which could be literally translated as “the coalman is the master in his own home”.1 9 however, it may be argued that the actual meaning of the proverb is of little importance within the text, as there is hardly any semantic cohesion or coherence throughout the play, which is one of the characteristics of absurdist theatre in general, and of la cantatrice chauve specifically (jacquart, 1993b: 10). the last extratextual issue in terms of translation is the nationality of the characters. in absurd drama, it is often difficult to sympathise with the characters, as their motives are hidden and we thus find it difficult to understand their actions (hinchliffe, 1977: 5). contrary to traditional theatre, it is actually a prerequisite of the theatre of the absurd that the audience should find it difficult to identify with the characters, because the theatre of the absurd aims at expressing the fact that our society is disintegrating, and that the relationships between people are losing their substance – replaced with clichés, commonalities or even hostility and aggression. this cannot be achieved if the audience identifies with the characters. if the audience identified with the characters, it would mean that they accept their point of view, and therefore see the world through their eyes, and feel their emotions – in other words, the audience would sympathise with the characters (esslin, 1980: 410). this is why characters in the theatre of the absurd do not seem to have any explicable motives, which in turn makes their actions incomprehensible. according to esslin: (w)ith such characters it is almost impossible to identify; the more mysterious their action and their nature, the less human the characters become, the more difficult it is to be carried away into seeing the world from their point of view (1980: 411). 1 9 author’s translation. lacroix 117 it is therefore essential that this non-relationship be retained in the target text. this can be achieved by the dynamic rendition in the target language of the absurd dialogues and situations. however, this does not mean that the target text must absolutely stick to all of the characters’ characteristics, like their nationality. in the original french version, mr and mrs smith, as well as all of the other characters, are english. as emmanuel jacquart states in his preface to la cantatrice chauve, this is due to the author of the play, eugène ionesco, finding inspiration for the play while teaching himself english. inspired by the accumulation of clichés and commonplace statements used in the curriculum of the language course he followed, ionesco decided to communicate the essential truths he had found in the method to his contemporaries (1993b: 8-9). it therefore seems that the characters’ names and nationality are the products of a coincidence. had ionesco intended to learn german, the characters may have been german and called mr and mrs schmidt. however, nationality is a concept which is heavy with cultural connotations. it could be argued that, although this was not the author’s intention, the animosity between the french and english – which is widely recognised as historical, though debatable nowadays – may have influenced the way the audience perceived the play when it was first staged, and may still do so. on top of the audience being exposed to the purposelessness of human existence, and its resulting anxiety, another element may have come into play, which may have emphasised the comical aspect of the play: the fact that the audience was french, and the characters unmistakably english. the former may therefore have relished the fact that the absurd elements, whether situational or dialogue-related, were being conveyed in a context where it may have been considered as stereotypically english. therefore, although the nationality of the characters does not seem to be essential as far as conveying the existentialist angst of the theatre of the absurd, one cannot deny that it is an element that can provoke a specific reaction on the part of the audience, like the one mentioned above. this reaction may or may not come in the way of an absurdist play’s original purpose. a french audience may see in la cantatrice chauve a satire of english ways. ionesco was actually aware of that risk, as he decided against such titles as “l’heure anglaise”, “big ben folies” and “une heure d’anglais”, for fear the play should be interpreted as a satire of the english (jacquart, 1993b: 11). it could however be argued that such a surprising title as la cantatrice chauve does not necessarily exclude such a satire. if this is the case, one could argue that an english translation retaining the characters’ nationality and the typical english setting as announced at the start of the play, as allen’s translation does (1958: 8), may lead an english audience to view it as a satire too, and depending on their frame of mind they might find it amusing or offensive. whether from a french or an english point of view, the nationality of the characters gives rise to considerations, positive, negative or even neutral, which have the potential to distract the audience from the message the play is set to convey. as ionesco mentioned, [l]a cantatrice chauve “la pièce n’est pas une parodie de théâtre the domesticated absurd td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 105-122. 118 de boulevard, une critique des clichés et du comportement automatique des êtres, de la petite bourgeoisie ou une tentative de destruction du théâtre (jacquart, 1993b: 18). this leads to the following question: how can the element of nationality be handled in the translation so as to minimise, if not totally avoid, what we might call a ‘culturally motivated’ reaction? first of all, one could suggest that the english nationality of the characters be changed to another one, for example german. ionesco says that his characters are supposed to represent une sorte de petite-bourgeoisie universelle, le petit-bourgeois étant l’homme des idées reçues, des slogans, le conformiste de partout... (jacquart, 1993b: 19-20). the word “universelle” used in this statement indicates that the nationality of the characters is not the most essential of all the meaning-creating elements of the play, and that what actually matters is the fact that the characters are from a bourgeois (middle-class) background, which exists in most societies regardless of country, language or culture. the introduction of german characters in the translation may be more likely to create the same impression among target reader as a french audience would have had of the source text. this idea can be effectively applied to the very first didascalia in the target text, as it is characterised by numerous occurrences of the adjective of nationality, “english”. in a theatre text, didascalia are stage directions, an essential feature of the written play, because they allow the reader to visualise what the spectators of the performance would see on stage. in the case of the theatre of the absurd, and especially in ionesco’s work, it may be argued that the function of the didascalia is just as important as the main text, if sometimes not more so, for the reader to understand what is going on as most of the time it’s completely absurd. a middle-class english interior, with english armchairs. an english evening. mr smith, an englishman, seated in his english armchair and wearing english slippers, is smoking his english pipe and reading an english newspaper, near an english fire. he is wearing english spectacles and a small gray english moustache. beside him, in another english armchair, mrs smith, an englishwoman, is darning some english socks. a long moment of english silence. the english clock strikes 17 english strokes (allen, 1958: 8). a translation applying the suggestion made earlier may read as follows: bourgeois german home, with german armchairs. german evening. m. meyer, german, sitting in a german armchair and wearing german slippers, smokes his german pipe and reads a german newspaper, next to a german fire. he is wearing german spectacles and a bushy grey german moustache. next to him, mrs meyer is sitting in another german armchair, darning german socks. a long german silence. the cuckoo clock strikes seventeen lacroix 119 german times.2 0 although the translation does not change considerably, english-speaking readers may get an impression more similar to the one experienced by the french audience than if they were reading about or watching characters of their own nationality and cultural background. moreover, the suggested translation may evoke a scene in a comfortable, bourgeois bavarian home, thus conveying ionesco’s original intention, that his characters should be middle-class. however, changing the english nationality to another does not entirely solve the problem of the translation appearing as a satire, even though it may not be a satire of the english anymore. a reader of the target text may be justified in interpreting the new translation suggested above as a satire of the german way of life. it is, however, not the purpose of la cantatrice chauve to poke fun at a specific ethnic group or culture, as mentioned earlier on in this section. nevertheless, a french-speaking reader of the source text would also have good reasons to interpret the play as a satire, as many of the ingredients of a satire are present. in this case, the above considerations, once applied to the target text, may indeed help improve the source text.2 1 can one therefore conceive of a translation which does not render nationality at all, in order to avoid the reader misinterpreting the meaning of the play? this may be possible, considering that the nationality of the characters does not create essential meaning. the characters happen to be english solely because ionesco was inspired to write this play while teaching himself english. suppressing any mention of nationality has, nevertheless, implications: it implies doing away with the first and last names of the characters, so that they cannot be related to any ethnic group in particular. the characters could be referred by letter, number, or any appellation which is unlikely to bear connotation to a specific nationality or culture. each of these suggestions has the double advantage of preventing the establishment of a link with a specific culture as well as denying the characters their individuality, which reinforces the absurdist theme of disintegration of society and human relationships mentioned earlier on. although this paper focuses on the written form of the play, it may be interesting to look into the changes in mise-en-scène which would have to be made for the stage performance of the target text as opposed to a performance of the original. if the didascalia in the source text is translated by replacing the english nationality with german for the reasons already been mentioned, the director of the play will have to think of a mise-en-scène where the décor and the character’s clothing are stereotypically german (which could encompass quite a wide range of possibilities). on the other hand, if the same didascalia is translated 2 0 author’s translation. 2 1 here, it must be highlighted that should the translator decide to change the nationality of the characters with the intention to domesticate the translation further, all other cultural references (e.g. the “false” proverbs and aphorisms discussed in the second and first parts) would have to follow suit. this article is not suggesting that only the characters’ nationality should be changed. the domesticated absurd td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 105-122. 120 suppressing any mention of nationality and culture, the various semiotic elements of the mise-en-scène will have to be kept as neutral as possible, so as to avoid any possible association with a certain culture or nationality. this alone would be a difficult exercise, as neutrality itself could be considered a notion related to culture. however, if the nationality of the characters is changed or removed in order to suit the needs of the translation, one runs the risk of not projecting the author’s world, which is, according to esslin, also part of what the theatre of the absurd is based on (1980: 403). nevertheless, one may wonder whether it is indeed essential, as the audience is likely unaware of the context in which ionesco created the play, that is to say, while trying to teach himself english. this is indeed incidental and, i believe, does not carry as much weight as the author’s intention. indeed, the author’s intention is one of the three aspects of the author’s attitude, implicit or explicit, towards the “treatment of the subject matter” (hervey & higgins, 2002: 59). as such, the author’s intention is particularly relevant to the translation of la cantatrice chauve since, as was previously established in this paper, ionesco did have an intention, albeit not an ideological one, while writing his play. the issue of the characters’ nationality in la cantatrice chauve will lead the translator to consider the matter of cultural difference between french and english, not only at linguistic level, but also at the level of the absurd. the issue of linguistic dynamic equivalence between the source and the target text has been dealt with in the second section of this paper. however, this is not the only aspect of the translation on which culture has an influence. indeed, what about the notion of absurdity? various taxonomies of translation methods have been designed in order to assist the translator in dealing with the issue of culture in translation. for example, hervey & higgins offer various translation methods, such as exoticism, cultural transplantation, calque, cultural borrowing and communicative translation (2002: 33-36). however, these methods only seem relevant to general translating situations, and do not really shed any light on the issue of translating the absurd from one culture into another. translating la cantatrice chauve – and by extension any other absurdist play – should cause the translator to ask himself what it is that the source culture within which the text was created considers as absurd, and whether these indicators of the absurd would be interpreted in the same manner in the target culture. the intertwined history and physical closeness of the french and the english may lead one to assume that they have a lot in common in terms of culture and therefore in terms of what they respectively consider as absurd. this is what allen seems to have thought, as the bald soprano does not distance itself from the french original in terms of the elements that convey the feeling of absurdity, i.e. the discrepancy between the dialogues and the situations, and the style evoking a growing tension between the characters, especially in scene xi. admittedly, a fireman going door-to-door looking for a fire to extinguish (scene viii) – although he is not allowed to put out a fire at priests’ houses – and a couple who act as if they were meeting for the first time although lacroix 121 they have been married for some time (scene iv) are elements of the plot which certainly defy reason for the french and the english alike. but this is not to say that the absurd situations depicted in la cantatrice chauve would be seen as such within a different culture. conclusion this article concerns itself with the evaluation of an english translation of the absurdist play, la cantatrice chauve, by eugène ionesco. this evaluation shows that, in the way it deals with the relevant textual, intertextual and extratextual elements of the play, allen’s translation is successful in conveying the absurd. it may, however, require some minor adjustments at textual level, as it presents a few inaccuracies, but these issues do not have negative repercussions as far as the creation of a feeling of absurdity is concerned, which, according to the discussion in the first section, is a tool that ionesco relies on in order to convey his philosophical message, as do absurdist authors in general. nevertheless, some alternative suggestions have been made with a view to enhancing the translation in terms of its expression of the breakdown of society and meaninglessness of human existence. mostly, these suggestions point out the fact that the relevant extracts, although accurately translated, may have benefited from further domestication. this article also points out that the translation of la cantatrice chauve, as well as the translation of absurdist plays as a whole, cannot be approached at textual or linguistic level alone, and requires knowledge of the general purpose of the theatre of the absurd, as well as an awareness of the cultural implications surrounding the notion of absurd. in the broader context of a general study of the translation of the theatre of the absurd, the conclusions of this paper may be considered as helpful, as they may be relevant to designing translation methodology for written plays. this methodology could also be used as a basis for staging the translated play, which would imply the consideration of the various semiotic elements of the mise-en-scène. bibliography browning, r. my last duchess. 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(in venuti, l., ed. the translation studies reader. 2nd edition. london; new york: routledge lacroix abstract introduction climate change and its predicted impact on south africa’s agriculture sector: a national and sub-national context failure to adapt to a changing climate: consequences for commercial and subsistence farmers common constraints to climate change adaptation within farming communities research methods and design results discussion strengths and limitations implications or recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) anica pienaar department of natural and agricultural sciences, faculty of environmental science and management, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa christo coetzee department of natural and agricultural sciences, faculty of environmental science and management, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa livhuwani nemakonde department of natural and agricultural sciences, faculty of environmental science and management, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation pienaar a, coetzee c, nemakonde l. ongoing climate crises and obstacles to adaptation: observations from the ditsobotla local municipality, south africa. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1089. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1089 original research ongoing climate crises and obstacles to adaptation: observations from the ditsobotla local municipality, south africa anica pienaar, christo coetzee, livhuwani nemakonde received: 26 may 2021; accepted: 21 sept. 2021; published: 23 nov. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract adaptation is a key component for fostering resilience amongst farmers as they are exposed to the challenges caused by climate change. however, the implementation of adaptation strategies is not equal or easy for most farming communities and are influenced by a diverse range of socio-economic constraints. in this context, the study intended to explore the factors constraining the implementation of climate change adaptation strategies amongst commercial and subsistence farmers of the local municipality in the north west province, south africa. an exploratory sequential mixed method design was used, allowing the utilisation of both qualitative and quantitative methods in a single study. a total of 50 farmers (25 farmers from each group) were identified through purposive homogeneous sampling and were given a questionnaire consisting of semi-structured and structured questions. the study established that some of the most prominent factors constraining adaptation amongst farmers in the local municipality are related to their physical environment, lack of market access, financial constraints and limited access to established social networks (such as farmers associations). identifying barriers to adaptation through area-specific research or studies, such as this particular study, is crucial for the development of holistic climate change adaptation strategies that will allow sustainability in diverse agricultural systems. keywords: agricultural adaptation strategies; climate change adaptation; coping capacity; disaster risk reduction; resilience; sustainable agriculture; vulnerability. introduction the societies who build their livelihood around agriculture are becoming increasingly vulnerable during the 21st century as anthropogenic climate change is expected to have significant and pervasive effects because of deviating climatic conditions (e.g. drying) and the manifestation of extreme climatic events (e.g. drought).1,2,3 many developing countries and their agricultural sectors are the most likely to be adversely affected by climate change as opposed to developed countries.4 the vulnerability of developing countries are often attributed to the centrality of agricultural activities in their economies and the lack of available and sufficient capital for implementing adaptation strategies.4,5 this also seems to be the case for south africa and one of its provinces, the north west province (nwp). as stated by elum et al.,6 weather-related disasters, specifically droughts and floods, have had a long history in the nwp. this especially affects areas that are known to be highly dependent on agricultural activities for people’s livelihoods, such as the local municipality. the vulnerability of south african farmers, and more specifically those located in the province, will increase in direct correlation with the occurrence of extreme weather events and unexpected variations in climate.7 as such the aim of this article is to examine the factors that are restricting the commercial and subsistence farmers situated in the ditsobotla local municipality from implementing climate change adaptation (cca) strategies in their agricultural practices. considering the challenges faced by both farming groups in a single study ultimately resulted in relevant recommendations for addressing the constraining factors that were identified in this study. in turn this could be used to facilitate the formulation of adaptation methods which are beneficial and applicable to both the commercial and subsistence farmers in the region. climate change and its predicted impact on south africa’s agriculture sector: a national and sub-national context south africa has a dual agricultural economy consisting of a well-developed commercial sector, and a subsistence farming sector that makes significant contributions to rural livelihoods.8 as such agricultural land takes up roughly 80% or 100 million hectares of the total 121.9 million hectares of the country.9 it is estimated that more than half of the country’s population depends on agriculture and agricultural-related industries for their livelihood, with almost 40 000 commercial farmers and an estimated 2.8 million south african households involved in subsistence farming.8,9 because of the presence of summer, winter and year-round rainfall areas, a wide variety of crop cultivation and livestock rearing activities are practised amongst both commercial and subsistence farmers.10 the vulnerability of south africa’s agricultural sector to the adverse effects of future climate change has been linked to the country’s pre-existing classification as a semi-arid country, prevailing temperature and precipitation variations, increased farming activities on marginal lands, scarcity of water and frequent occurrences of droughts.9,11 as defined by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc),12 climate change refers to deviations in the state of the climate that can be observed through changes in the overall variability or the mean of its properties and is prevalent for an extended time, such as decades and longer. one of the major areas of concern relating to climate change is the impact thereof on existing water supplies.9,13 the availability of water is already one of the biggest constraints limiting the agricultural sector in south africa with an estimated 60% of available water resources already being used for agricultural purposes and average annual precipitation of only 450 mm – 500 mm per year, which is lower than the global precipitation average of 860 mm.6,8,14,15 in global terms, south africa’s water resources are referred to as being extremely limited and scarce, with projections suggesting that it would be one of the most water scarce countries in the world by 2025.6,7 turpie and visser10 paints an even more dire picture for the country indicating that the country’s overall precipitation might decrease by as much as 6.3% by the year 2050 and 9.5% in 2080 because of the effects of climate change. elum et al.6 states that south africa is likely to be one of the countries that is most adversely affected by climate change on the african continent. similar views are shared by schlenker and lobell16 who estimated an agricultural yield loss for south africa of up to 30% by mid-century. other studies suggest a decrease of 10% – 20% in maize production over the next 50 years as a result of decreased precipitation brought on by climate change.17 the predicted impact of climate change on maize production is especially concerning as it constitutes the staple food for many communities in the country, whilst also accounting for 25% – 33% of the total gross agricultural production in the whole country.18 therefore, climate change could have food security, livelihood and economic implications for south africa. research further indicates that some provinces and local municipalities in the country are likely to be more vulnerable and susceptible to variations in climate than others.8 specifically, turpie and visser10 identified the north west, free state and limpopo provinces as the three provinces most likely to be adversely affected by climate change. all of these are arid areas that are especially vulnerable to future variations in climate. additionally, the department of environmental affairs7 proposes that the agricultural sector of the nwp is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, accompanied by a concerning low adaptive capacity. agriculture is a very important sector in the nwp having both large-scale commercial farmers and subsistence farmers.19,20 it is estimated that agricultural activities account for about 18% of the province’s employment, making it the biggest source of employment in the nwp.19 one of the main attributes of this vulnerability is the dominating preference of maize production in the province. maize and sunflower are extensively cultivated in the area, making the nwp one of the biggest maize producers in south africa.7,18 however, this productive capacity greatly depends on the relationship between rainfall and crop production. maize yield is known to be extremely sensitive to changes in precipitation patterns, which is predicted to become more erratic as the effects of climate change continues to manifest in the country.15,21 as such the potential implications of climate change could be devastating. studies indicate the nwp as one of the provinces experiencing drastic changes in rainfall patterns, which puts pressure on agricultural systems through reducing the areas suitable for agriculture, shortening growing periods and decreasing yield potential.4,22 the nwp is considered a dry region with the average annual rainfall ranging between 300 mm – 600 mm. historically, droughts have always been a problem in the area with the district experiencing severe and persistent droughts in 1992, 2013 and 2015–2016.19 this existing proclivity for drought is only set to increase with the advent of climate change.18,23 future projections of persistent droughts and variations of precipitation patterns show that there is a great threat for dryland and livestock agriculture in the province.6 plausible future projections for the nwp during the latter part of the 21st century, in association with high mitigation efforts, include a temperature increase of 4°c, with an increase in the occurrence of wet spells.15,24 under low mitigation, circumstances include a drastic decrease in rainfall, accompanied by an increase in temperatures as large as 6°c in the far future.25 widely implemented dryland crops are generally more sensitive to variations in climate, whilst irrigated crops tend to be less vulnerable.5,9 however, because of the effect of climate change on rainfall patterns and water resources, the use of irrigation in the province will become increasingly limited.7,8 as the effects of climate change take hold in this region, maize harvests are expected to break even with production costs only every seven out of 10 years in the ditsobotla local municipality area.7 this would mean that future maize production in the area will no longer be economically viable and should serve as a definite warning for the province where maize is the most frequently cultivated crop. both commercial and subsistence farmers in the region are likely to experience the detrimental effects of climate change, but there will be differences in how these two farming groups could be affected and the subsequent consequences. situated within the nwp, the ditsobotla local municipality is considered to be one of the municipalities most vulnerable to variations in climate.10,26 because of the local municipality’s capacity for crop production, approximately 57% of the region is cultivated, with maize production constituting roughly 90% of all agricultural activity in the area.7,20 failure to adapt to a changing climate: consequences for commercial and subsistence farmers climate change has become an increasing challenge in the agricultural sector, and even more so for vulnerable farming communities in developing regions such as africa.2,5 climate change adaptation plays a crucial role in combating the potential effect of climate-induced disaster on agriculture.1,6 in the context of this study, cca relates to adjustments to the established processes of farming systems to cope with current or foreseeable external climate stresses.8,18,27 for commercial farmers, failure to adapt does not only entail extensive personal economic loss, but also affects their labour force (including their families), and the agricultural economy of that area.28 the demise of commercial farmers as a result of climate change could further aggravate food insecurity on a national level. projections for the year 2050 estimates a net revenue loss of approximately 18% for south africa’s commercial agriculture, with a decline in maize production of between 12% and 40%.10 even more concerning is the fact that, by 2080 the net revenue loss is predicted to increase to 110%, causing this sector to be completely unprofitable.10,28 subsistence farmers, on the other hand, often lack the necessary resources to use anticipatory action against climate change compared to commercial farmers.13,29 because of the nature of subsistence farming (i.e. producing for a households own subsistence), failure to adapt successfully could lead to various adverse consequences, including food insecurity, population dispersion, social disruption and instability and in extreme cases starvation.4,14,30 prominent differences currently exist between commercial and subsistence farmers’ cca rates and their ability to implement modern agriculture techniques and methods.8,11 subsistence farmers constantly battle problems pertaining to the isolation of their agricultural businesses, that include almost no support structures, uncertain opportunities to participate in world markets and little to no access to technological advances.8 from the literature it is evident that whilst some studies suggest that subsistence farmers might be at higher risk to climate change owing to their limited ability to implement adaptation methods,9,31 others indicate commercial farmers to be the riskier sector because of higher investments in unstable and uncertain environmental and economic conditions.32 regardless of which sector might be at higher risk, the ability of both to adapt to climate change is important for the survival and economic prosperity of vast populations. understanding and considering the constraints to adaptation and their contributing factors when formulating adaptation strategies could facilitate improved integration of climate adaptation in their agricultural activities.32,33 this is further substantiated by vincent,29 who argues that the identification of barriers to adaptation is crucial as it will only become harder to build sustainable adaptation methods, whilst the effect of climate change will continue to increase the vulnerability of developing countries such as south africa. some prominent barriers to climate adaptation by farming communities are unpacked in the following section. common constraints to climate change adaptation within farming communities the implementation and planning of climate adaptation strategies are influenced by a diverse range of constraints in multiple contexts.6,34 although literature tends to discuss each adaptation constraint individually, these factors rarely tend to act in isolation from each other. as a result, farmers are forced to navigate various interacting constraints to successfully reach a chosen adaptation objective.32,35 roka36 identifies three distinctive dimensions that may limit a farmer’s decision to adapt, namely environmental/physical limits, which include access to natural resources; economic limits relating to financial capital, and lastly technological limits. other prominent limitations include educational or experience related constraints, social and cultural constraints, and institutional constraints.25,29 the factors limiting farmers’ use of appropriate adaptation strategies are discussed in the following section. these are general constraints that have emerged from literature; however it was important to highlight these constraints as some of them, if not all, might be applicable to the south african context. environmental or physical limitations the environmental or physical transformations of an area because of climate change could affect a farmer’s possibilities of adaptation.36,37 climate attributes, namely precipitation and temperature, influence farmers’ production and ultimately adaptation strategies, as they are forced to choose their livestock species and crop cultivars based on the climate of their surrounding environment.36,38 lack of access to natural resources is another constraint that keeps farmers from adapting; for instance, the abundance or lack of water in an area highly susceptible to climate change could restrict the use of adaptation methods such as irrigation for farmers in the affected area.11,24,39 economic limitations financial factors are also one of the main determinants of adaptation, with the most prominent constraints emerging from literature being a lack of credit, a limited financial capacity and the presence of poverty, especially amongst subsistence farming communities.31,32,39 because of the adverse consequences of this barrier that limits a farmer’s operations and adaptive capacity, financial limitations were also identified as a determining factor of vulnerability to climate change.40 access to technology and farm assets the use of technology often offers opportunities for adaptation.32 key aspects that may promote or hinder the incorporation of technology in adaptation methods include its access, availability, and effectiveness for climate risk management purposes and the acceptance of technology by the users and relevant stakeholders.33,41 farm assets such as heavy machinery facilitate the adoption of more advanced and effective adaptation methods. literature shows a correlation between farm assets and the farmer’s ability to adapt.42 access to technology is one of the major points of differentiation between the adaptive capacity of subsistence and commercial farmers. modern technologies are often more accessible to commercial farmers.8,29 however, in the absence of access to modern technologies, subsistence farmers often rely on innovative adaptation techniques based on traditional knowledge.43,44 education, awareness, perceptions and farming experience education, farming experiences and perceptions are critical aspects that affect a farmers’ decision to implement adaptation strategies.6,45,46 knowledge and education on climate change, different agronomic practices and the potential benefits of adaptation enable farmers to respond to changes in climate more efficiently and to apply action specific measures.47 awareness of climate change may urge farmers to use adaptation strategies in their agricultural activities if they know about the potential positive effect that adapting to climate change may have on their production.41,48 of the previously mentioned adaptation barriers in this section, farming experience is thought to be the most influential factor prompting farmers to adapt.47,49 however, perceptions are formed based on climatic differentiations observed on a day-to-day and yearly basis. as a result, research indicates a greater relationship between a farmer’s perceptions of climate change and short-term climatic events rather than long-term changes in climate.23,48 this causes significant challenges regarding the agricultural community’s capacity to implement adaptation measures, as most cca methods focus on the latter timeline of long-term changes in climate.27 risk has an influence on what adaptation strategies a community might adopt or reject. a community’s perception and knowledge of risk is consequently an important decision-making factor for the participants.50 this factor turns into a limitation if the individuals involved do not perceive long-term climate change risks as significant enough to warrant action. social and cultural limitations social and cultural barriers have been underestimated in past research. but in recent literature these factors have been emphasised as constraints of adaptation because of their influence on societal values, cultural norms and beliefs, and individuals’ or communities’ perception of risk.1,50,51 various cultures and communities’ approach and perceive predictions and knowledge of climate change differently.50,52 these variations in knowledge between communities testifies to the different values that persist and this could lead to adaptation constraints.52 other social factors, for example social networks, can facilitate adaptation by spreading information about successful adaptation methods and climate change trends/predictions.38 a different perspective that is not often mentioned as a limiting factor is the perceptions of farmers and the farming community of indigenous adaptation methods. an existing bias towards western information and the methods being more efficient have greatly undermined the mainstreaming of traditional adaptation methods.45,53 consequently, the exclusion of indigenous adaptation methods could hinder the implementation of modern cca methods by traditional farmers. governance and institutional constraints according to berman54 and the ipcc,33 public, municipal and private institutions all have an influence on local adaptation. these institutions are often interlinked and play a vital role in how local communities are affected by variations in climate and their ability to respond. biesbroek34 proposes that governments are the primary actors in removing or creating factors hindering adaptation. thus, governments could aid in the facilitation of adaptation and in comprehending the barriers that limits farmers’ adaptive capacity. in other words, governments have the ability to constrain or enable adaptation at a national, regional or local level. before the results of the study are presented, a brief summary of the research design and methods applied will be outlined. research methods and design the previous section briefly identified and discussed the existing literature pertaining to some of the major barriers to the adoption of climate adaptation measures in agricultural practices. this section gives an outline of the design and methodology applied to guide the study. this study was conducted using an exploratory sequential approach. specifically, the initial database of qualitative results and findings was used to guide the development of a second (quantitative) database.55 this design was best suited for the research as the initial qualitative inquiry allowed for the development and refinement of a quantitative instrument.56 the questionnaire was developed after the initial identification of prominent themes related to climate change and cca from literature. from this literature review, a structured and semi-structured questionnaire was formulated to collect qualitative and quantitative responses from participants. purposive sampling was used to select the participant’s representative of the commercial and subsistence farmers of the study region.57,58 purposive homogeneous sampling was best suited for the selection of respondents as it permitted the researcher to gain sufficient information, whilst also representing the population as accurately as possible. respondents for the sample size were selected based on whether they are commercial or subsistence farmers and the area in which they are situated within the local municipality. a total of 25 commercial and 25 subsistence farmers were selected, which allowed the researcher to collect information-rich data. as the farmers answered the questionnaire, a translator was present to translate phrases or questions if necessary. to guide the data analysis for the study a thematic analysis approach was chosen for the first phase, in order to identify patterns in the information or data collected.59,60 the data collected from the questionnaires was then analysed by means of a deductive content analysis approach. content analysis is a systematic analysis that involves the classification of text by means of a systematic coding scheme to ultimately form knowledgeable conclusions of the information. the approach was suitable for this particular data set because of its flexibility, permitting the researcher to evaluate and interpret the data gathered by means of both the semi-structured and structured questions.61 ethical considerations this study was conducted with the approval of nwu’s natural and agricultural sciences ethics committee and adhered to all the conditions and guidelines set out by the committee (reference number: nwu-01291-20-a9). the participants were informed of the purpose of the research, their anonymity and that their participation was strictly voluntary. results impact of climatic changes on ditsobotla local municipality the majority (76%) of farmers (38 of 50 participants as illustrated in figure 1) observed changes or variations in temperatures and increased variations or changes in rainfall patterns in their farming practices and immediate environment. one of the commercial participants observed ‘unpredictable rainfall seasons’ along with a subsistence farmer claiming that ‘rainfall patterns have changed, and droughts are more frequent’. when disaggregating the data per farming group, a significant overlap, as is evident from figure 1, emerged in the environmental changes observed by the subsistence and commercial farmers in their surrounding areas. changes and variations in temperature was the most observed by 80% (n = 20) commercial farmers and 44% (n = 11) subsistence farmers. variations and changes in rainfall (i.e. irregular and sporadic rainfall patterns) followed with 36% (n = 9) for commercial respondents and 36% (n = 9) for subsistence respondents, and lastly higher frequencies and more intense droughts were mentioned by 20% (n = 5) of the commercial farmers and 28% (n = 7) of the subsistence farmers. figure 1: environmental changes observed by respondents. the environmental changes observed by the respondents (figure 1) correlate with the proposed effects climate change could have on the region according to literature discussed under the section titled ‘climate change and its predicted impact on south africa‘s agriculture sector: a national and sub-national context’. in addition to the common observations mentioned, a unique observation was made by a commercial farmer who said, ‘plants with a higher woody content and of lower nutritional value are replacing the grass and plants with a higher nutritional value in the field’. this could suggest an overall decline in the levels of agricultural fertility in the area. both farming groups were also asked to what extent they believe climate change already has or might have an impact on their agricultural activities. with regard to the impacts of climate change on their agricultural activities, most commercial farmers indicated that climate change has/might have a severe impact on their agricultural activities (88% [n = 22]), with only 12% (n = 3) believing it to have a moderate impact. to the same inquiry subsistence farmers gave varying answers with the primary being that climate change has a severe impact on their agricultural practices (40% [n = 10]). of the other subsistence farmers, about 24% (n = 6) believed it to have a moderate effect and 16% (n = 4) believed that it has little impact. therefore, there seems to be some difference between the groups relating to their perceived impact of climate change, with commercial farmers experiencing the impact of climate change to a greater extent than their subsistence counterparts. in this regard, a commercial farmer acknowledged: ‘there are huge risks connected to climate change. only one unfavourable harvesting year could cause my downfall due to all the financial constraints.’ (commercial farmer, participant 9, male, age group 41-50 years) factors constraining subsistence farmer respondents the farmers participating in the study were able to identify the factors (presented in figure 2) that hinder cca in their area.structured questions were asked in likert-scale form (on a scale of never, rarely, regularly, almost always and always) to establish relevance and not simply the applicability of the questions. the likert-scale data were processed for the formulation of charts through assigning value to each rating on the likert-scale, calculating the mean scores of each variable and creating charts based on the results. according to the scores listed in table 1, the biggest issue for subsistence farmers was a lack of access to machinery (extremely high number of 99.2%), which also corresponds to the literature presented under section access to technology and farm assets. whilst the main driver for commercial farmers to operate within a highly mechanised environment is to increase their yields, their access to machinery also increases their resilience to climate change through minimising their dependence and use of only natural resources. a lack of access to chemicals was identified as the second biggest limiting factor (an estimated 93%).this factor is associated with economic limitations, a category that was emphasised throughout literature because of subsistence farmers’ predominantly restricted access to financial resources. lack of access to markets (92%) and lack of access to fertilisers (92%) followed closely. the farmers were also given a chance to elaborate on any additional limitations they might experience that have not been included in the questionnaire. a few of the responses identified a lack of access to land, more specifically as one farmer stated, ‘access to healthy land’, pertaining to the issue of land degradation, or ‘access to larger areas of land’ as indicated by another. to increase the implementation rates of adaptation strategies, it is therefore important to acknowledge that the greatest challenges subsistence farmers in the area need to overcome often relates to economic and productive factors. figure 2: factors constraining the adaptation of respondents. table 1: scores of the factors constraining respondents from adapting to climate change. factors constraining commercial farmer respondents with reference to figure 2, deriving from the scores of table 1, the greatest limiting factor for the commercial farmers was variations and/or changes in rainfall (almost 80%), which has an overall rating of ‘almost always’. variations and/or changes in temperature was the second greatest factor limiting adaptation for them (about 74%), followed closely by a lack of access to water (69%). discussion the inquiry into the influence of climate change on the agricultural sector of the nwp and the local municipality revealed the high vulnerability of the farmers in the locale accompanied by increasingly challenging environmental issues in the near future. the heightened awareness of climate change impacts amongst commercial farmers might be linked to the scale of their investments in operations, production assets and livelihood, both presently and because of probable future circumstances. on the contrary, the varying answers given by the subsistence respondents could reflect their risks associated with climate change owing to their relatively small-scale operations and different livelihood sources, which could help offset the extent to which climate change could have an impact on their agricultural operations.32 what was clear from both these lines of questioning was that farmers were generally well aware of the impact of anthropogenic climate change as they could observe significant climatic changes in the environment. furthermore, the shift in the climate could already be felt in their agricultural production and economic outputs. however, in spite of these clear observations the reality exists that different farming groups, that is, commercial and subsistence farmers, might have disparate abilities in being able to adapt to future climate change. these differences are important to identify if governments are to develop holistic and context-specific adaptation strategies. the information obtained from the farmers who participated in the study also substantiates the claims of climate change manifesting as changes and/or variations in temperatures and increased changes and/or variations in rainfall patterns. these were also found to be the greatest limiting factors amongst commercial respondents as variations and/or changes in rainfall patterns were identified by about 79% of the respondents and variations and/or changes in temperature by about 74%. for them, the biggest limiting factors were based on the difficult environmental challenges and the pace at which these changes are happening, so much so that they cannot adapt to the changing climate quickly enough. as the qualitative investigation of this study suggests, these challenges are likely to intensify as climate change continues to manifest during this century. enabling these farmers to adapt efficiently to the adverse effects of climate change is imperative so that they, along with the families dependent on commercial farming for their livelihood, can continue to contribute to south africa’s agricultural sector and economy. as presented in figure 2 and table 1, the factors hindering the subsistence farmers from adapting were mostly related to their limited access to agricultural machinery (99.20%) and chemicals (92.80%). unfortunately, limitations are rarely mutually exclusive, in the case of the subsistence farmers their lack of access to basic agricultural products are the result of a combination of economic and productive limitations. without access to basic agricultural products such as chemicals or fertilisers, their crops will likely be less resilient to the impacts of climate change such as increased temperatures or crop diseases. in turn this could have a detrimental effect on the food security and health of subsistence households as they are directly dependent on their crops to meet their food consumption needs.4,32 a crucial challenge that limits the adaptation to climate change identified by both the groups of farmers is the lack of financial support by the government. considering that both groups of farmers agree on financial limitation as a key constraint to climate adaptation, the government should ensure that any future cca strategy should incorporate financial tools, mechanisms and strategies that support adaptation efforts by all farming groups. these farmers constantly battle unstable environmental, economic and political conditions. those who have access to markets are often met with very low prices for their products, often causing their agricultural yield to be unprofitable, whilst those who do not have access to markets are also left with immense challenges when attempting to meet their basic food needs. arguably, these could also reduce the adaptive ability and the overall levels of resilience. to help farmers navigate the detrimental effects of climate change within their environment, it is important to facilitate the creation of location-specific adaptation strategies. asking the individuals most affected by the detrimental impacts of climate change about what they believe could eliminate the factors that prevent them from adapting is a great starting point for location-specific adaptation initiatives. from the subsistence respondents’ perspective, the adaptive capacity of farming communities could be improved significantly by financial aid and with increased access to resources such as materials for shelters, information resources and access to water resources. some respondents also mentioned access to land as another method of improving the adaptive capacity of these communities. one subsistence farmer alluded to the problems that farmers face with regard to livestock theft as he told that his ‘chickens are being stolen by individuals living in the neighbouring communities’. this indicates that increased security and stricter laws could improve the coping capacity of livestock farmers. most of the commercial farmers believed that the dissemination of climate change related information and the sharing of knowledge between farmers could improve the adaptive capacity of rural communities. they also highlighted government aid and financial relief as ways to build the resilience of their communities. one commercial respondent in particular mentioned ‘agricultural extension officers should be more accessible’ and that ‘mentorship should be encouraged’. a noteworthy recommendation mentioned by another commercial farmer was that ‘the government should promote cohesion between all farming groups’, which in turn could also increase the adaptive capacity of farming communities. consideration of the specific environmental characteristics of the areas these farmers farm in could result in more effective adaptation strategies with a higher implementation rate. however, this is not the only threat to agricultural systems in the area. increasingly challenging circumstances surrounding the local municipality’s natural environment are often accompanied by discouraging political influences. the sentiment that the financial input required for successful agricultural production is no longer justifying the economic outcomes was emphasised throughout the study, especially by commercial farmers. to alleviate the limitations pertaining to financial factors, increased government aid is needed, especially for the commercial and subsistence farmers that are already established within their communities. finally, the value of the indigenous knowledge of these established farming communities should not be overlooked in the formulation of modern adaptation strategies. taking into account the potential benefits of using indigenous knowledge in cca strategies, such as increased adoption rates and creative cost-effective solutions, an all-inclusive approach should be mainstreamed globally with more adaptation options specifically suited to the communities and their locations. strengths and limitations the research aimed to provide a significant contribution to knowledge, in both theory and practice, about the factors impeding the implementation of cca methods by the commercial and subsistence farmers of a local municipality in the nwp. the information collected could serve as a comparative reference point for facilitating the improved adaptive capacity of agricultural communities. however, the study has potential limitations. the research is mainly confined to the ditsobotla local municipality context. therefore, it is not assumed that all findings, including the cca methods implemented by these farmers and the challenges they face, could be generalised to other regions and farming groups within the country or to other countries. however, the study might provide insights into the factors leading to difference in cca methods chosen by commercial and subsistence farmers, as well as the importance of improving agricultural communities’ ability to respond effectively to climate change. lack of access to a list of the population being studied, in this case subsistence farmers, eliminated the application of probability sampling. in turn the application of a non-probability sampling method restricted the generalisability of the findings. nevertheless, non-probability sampling methods are useful in exploratory mixed methods research, especially for developing a complete understanding of the complex issues relating to human behaviour such as adaptation to climate change. implications or recommendations the findings from this study emphasises the need for further research on relevant topics. opportunities for future research include the following: further research is needed to better facilitate the integration of cca strategies within the agricultural communities of developing countries, as the theoretical investigation suggested that these countries will be the most affected by climate change. strategies should specifically be designed for and be applicable to the locations and circumstances of the target communities. the study identified the various aspects that keep farmers from adopting some strategies that could enhance their resilience to the impact of climate change. however, an investigation of a greater scope of the barriers to adaptation could aid in promoting more focused action towards addressing these issues. in the ditsobotla local municipality, there is a need to improve communication between the government and farming communities, especially in the case of subsistence farmers. a lack of information was found to be a primary constraint of cca for them. this study highlighted the need for enhancing the adaptive capacity of vulnerable farming communities, such as those situated in the study area. there is scope for further inquiry into effective approaches for strengthening their capacity to adapt. the emotion and passion evident in the respondents’ answers were a true testament of the hardships and difficult circumstances surrounding agriculture in south africa. most cca literature gives detailed descriptions of the possible limitations that commercial and subsistence farmers might face, but very few address the issue of their emotional well-being in the face of challenging circumstances and climate change. further research on this topic could help emphasise the importance of adaptation facilitation by governmental structures. conclusion the impending effects of climate change on the natural resources of developing countries make those dependent on agriculture vulnerable to variations in climate and occurrences of extreme weather events. the steadily declining state of agriculture owing to climate change manifesting in the form of increased temperatures, longer periods of drought and irregular rainfall patterns in the ditsobotla local municipality and regions alike, greatly threatens the sustainability of their commercial and subsistence farming communities. the inquiry into existing literature revealed three distinctive dimensions that may limit a farmer’s ability to adapt. these were environmental and/or physical limits, which includes access to natural resources and recurrent droughts; economic limits relating to financial capital; and lastly technological limits, which relates to a farmer’s accessibility to modern farming equipment and heavy machinery. during the study, different factors were found to have the potential of improving or constraining the adaptive capacity of the respective farming groups. the common limitations hindering both the farming groups from adopting other strategies were variations in temperatures, financial factors and a lack of governmental support. additionally, there was also a difference in some of the limitations these farmers face. the results of the structured questions revealed that commercial farmers were primarily hindered by adverse and uncertain environmental circumstances, whilst subsistence farmers face a diverse array of limitations, including environmental, technological, and market-related aspects. however, these factors should not be identified as a means of deciding which farming system should receive priority for support. this study has emphasised the importance of increasing the adaptive capacity of all farmers. the differentiating factors should rather be used to formulate appropriate responses to ensure the sustainability of all agricultural systems. if governing bodies seize the opportunity to enhance the adaptive capacity of local farming communities, they are sure to find resilient and determined farmers with a willingness to participate in adaptation processes. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions a.p. contributed to the conceptualisation, design and implementation of the research, to the analysis and curation of the results, and to the writing of the manuscript. c.c. supervised the research, contributed to the conceptualisation of the work and writing of the manuscript, to the critical revision of the manuscript, and to the approval of the version to be published. l.n. supervised the work, contributed to the critical revision of the manuscript, and to the approval of the version to be published. funding information the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. data availability the data that support the findings of this study 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2016;5(1):1–4. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11 vaismoradi m, turunen h, bondas t. content analysis and thematic analysis: implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study. nurs health sci. 2013;15(3):398–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12048 nowell l, norris j, white d, moules n. thematic analysis: striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. int j qual methods. 2017;16(1):1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847 bengtsson m. how to plan and perform a qualitative study using content analysis. nursing plus open. 2016;2:8–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.npls.2016.01.001 abstract introduction research methodology results discussion summary, conclusion and recommendations for further research acknowledgements references about the author(s) sithabile ntombela department of inclusive education, university of south africa, south africa samukelisiwe mngomezulu discipline of curriculum studies, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation ntombela, s. & mngomezulu, s., 2018, ‘crossing disciplinary boundaries: students’ experiences of facilitating a learning support programme at a south african university’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a487. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.487 original research crossing disciplinary boundaries: students’ experiences of facilitating a learning support programme at a south african university sithabile ntombela, samukelisiwe mngomezulu received: 06 oct. 2017; accepted: 15 may 2018; published: 27 aug. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract increased access to higher education has brought into focus the under-preparedness of students for higher education and vice versa. as such, various programmes have been developed to enhance students’ success in universities. in one institution, an administrator and a lecturer collaborated with senior university students to facilitate a learning support programme where the students acted as peer mentors. the study sought to document students’ experiences of facilitating a peer-mentorship programme that targets first year students as well as senior students who were regarded as at risk of academic exclusion. using a qualitative case study and bandura’s social learning theory, 30 peer mentors were purposively selected to generate data through a peer mentors’ reflection workshop. findings of the study suggest that the mentors were more successful in working with first year students than with senior students. the article concludes that, because of the training provided, mentors were knowledgeable about the programme and the resources available to support mentees. further studies should solicit mentees’ views and experiences of such a programme, especially those reluctant to take part, as that will highlight areas that require attention to raise the participation and academic success of all participants. introduction the 21st century has brought about an increased demand for access into higher education (he) on the african continent as more people recognise the role he plays in modernisation and development (teferra & altbach 2004:21). this increased demand for access into he is said to be a result of massification (akoojee & nkomo 2007:385), a process brought about by pressure to transform universities from being elitist to making access possible to those who were previously excluded (altbach 1999). in south africa, black people, despite being in the majority, were previously marginalised and were largely excluded from he during the days of apartheid. of course the apartheid regime did create a limited number of black universities as part and parcel of its unfair separation of the races. institutions designated as black universities were far less resourced than white universities. the scars of this unfair treatment of universities remain to this day; thus, there is reference to previously disadvantaged institutions of he. the demise of apartheid was accompanied by the call for transformation across all sectors of society, and he has not been left untouched by the winds of transformation. it is against this background that the passing of education white paper 3: a programme for higher education transformation (department of education 1997) called for radical transformation of how higher education institutions (heis) respond to social needs. this call saw an unprecedented increase in the admission of, and funding for, previously marginalised students. at the same time, worldwide, 21st century economies have become ‘increasingly complex and technologically-based’, thus placing a huge demand for skills taught through university study (altbach 1999:108). as a result, there has been a surge in the rates of students from different schooling backgrounds accessing he. post-apartheid south africa has also witnessed a huge demand for university access by black students, many of whom are products of poorly resourced schools. in addition, some of the students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. this process has brought into focus the question of preparedness and readiness for the he sector. because student retention is highly dependent on their success in their studies, heis have had to consider and implement strategies that facilitate student success. it is important to mention that students who are less prepared for he are an unpalatable reality that cannot be swept under the carpet in the post-apartheid era. however, what is more important is to ask: are heis prepared for students who are underprepared for university study? it is against this background that universities across post-apartheid south africa are vigorously engaged in a range of interventions whose common denominator is assisting underprepared students or disadvantaged students. once underprepared students have accessed he (physical entry), there is a critical need to ensure that such students gain epistemological access and are enabled to achieve academic success. this article is about a peer mentoring programme offering tailored support via smaller, peer-led sessions held weekly. it is an intervention programme developed to support first year students transitioning from school to university and senior students who are identified by the system as ‘at risk’ of academic exclusion. it is a cross level peer tutoring programme where the ‘targeted’ students are supported by third to fourth year undergraduate as well as post-graduate students with good academic records. we worked together in our capacity as lecturer (lecturer in psychology and inclusive education) and administrator (student support) with the sole purpose to provide academic support to students on this campus using peer mentors. at the beginning of each academic year, we invite new students to be part of the peer-mentorship programme and we post information on notice boards to ensure that they are aware of the programme and its importance. we also counsel those who are at risk of academic exclusion and encourage them to enlist on this programme. attendance is not compulsory but those at risk of failure are aware that regular attendance will help them get back on track academically. the mentors, most of whom have served as orientation week mentors, are trained to equip them with the necessary skills to facilitate the formal and informal mentorship sessions. the formal programme runs every week until the week before examinations start. every week on thursday there is a planned programme for one period (45 min) during the timetabled free period. this programme is available to all those enlisted on the peer-mentorship programme. however, because it is also advertised in strategic places within the university, the thursday programme is open to anyone. then there is a follow-up programme where mentors schedule individual and group meetings with their mentees with the intention to reinforce whatever was taught on thursday. there is also an informal programme facilitated through the drop-in centre where mentors are on duty (there is a roster) to provide support to those who drop-in at any time. this is also the meeting venue available to mentors and mentees during office hours. mentors’ timetables and their contact details are on display in this room to enable mentees to book appointments at convenient times when they and their mentors are free. should there be a need to refer a mentee to a subject specialist or another unit for additional support, the mentors make the necessary arrangements. the call for papers, to which we responded, asked authors to situate their articles within the transdisciplinary tradition. we have, therefore, provided a brief overview of transdisciplinarity and attempted to show its links to the current article. we believe that the study of peer mentoring offers a fertile ground on which the transdisciplinary tradition can stand. we live in a world in which compartmentalisation of disciplines or knowledge is not helpful. for example, in which discipline can we say we can firmly situate peer mentoring? it is impossible to choose one discipline or branch of knowledge that can take full monopoly to address peer mentoring. transdisciplinarity confirms unity of knowledge. it is a research effort that addresses issues that cross disciplinary boundaries, and we believe peer mentoring is one such issue that crosses disciplinary boundaries (nicolescu 2008). in the next section, we provide a literature review followed by a description of the nature of peer mentoring that takes place at the hei that is under study. this section is followed by our discussion of the methodology of the study, then we provide the results and discussion of the results. in the last section of the article, we provide a summary, conclusion and recommendations for further research. mentorship as a form of student support in south african higher education institutions: an overview of the literature the objective of the study whose findings are discussed in the current article was to document the experiences of mentors in facilitating this programme. the critical question that the study sought to answer was: what are mentors’ experiences of running this peer-mentorship programme? the study was informed by the social learning theory of bandura (1977). the most important aspect of the social learning theory is the collaborative nature of the learning process. this is key in peer mentoring where the mentor and the mentee are expected to work together and hopefully, learn together. mentoring is not a passive process but an active one in which the mentee and the mentor are dynamically involved with each other in learning. as mentioned earlier, as students’ access to he has increased, so has the admission of non-traditional students, which has raised the issue of retention. what massification of he has done is to highlight the need for student support programmes, including mentoring. there has been an increase in the number of students in need of mentoring because of the admission of first year undergraduate students from schooling systems that have not adequately prepared them for the demands of he as well as an increase in the number of students who are regarded as being at risk of academic exclusion. to address this need, most heis in post-apartheid south africa have adopted mentoring programmes that facilitate student retention (adams 2006). mentoring is a developmental relationship between the mentor and the mentee (ndebele, van heerden & chabaya 2013). a variety of mentorship programmes exist but the focus of this article is on peer mentoring. this is a specific form of relationship between two or more students, where ‘one student, only slightly more experienced, takes on a mentor role and provides guidance, instruction, and support to another less-experienced student or group of students’ (goff 2007:2). somehow, there is reciprocity and mutual learning in peer-mentorship, as both mentees and mentors gain knowledge and develop some skills during these relationships. as an academic support programme in he, academically successful senior students, under the guidance of academics or administrators, provide guidance and support to students who are at risk of academic exclusion as well as to those who are new to university. such academic support is necessary to promote student success in the university. there is also evidence that ‘social and academic support from peers’ benefits students (goff 2007:1) as they transition to he. peer mentoring is different from ordinary mentoring because of the nature of the relationship and the power relations involved (du preez, steenkamp & baard 2013). they observe that: peer mentoring within the academic context is a process whereby reciprocity and equal status abides and both mentor and mentee exchange knowledge, ideas, support and interest to the benefit of both parties. (p. 1227) a number of studies have been conducted on mentoring programmes in south african universities. one such study was carried out in a rural-based university where masehela et al. (2014) found that mentors were positive and committed to their role as academic support advisors. another study on the monitoring and evaluation of peer academic support programmes in a historically disadvantaged university found that training of peer mentors was pivotal in an attempt to ensure that they possessed the required skills in mentoring their peers (tangwe & rembe 2015). the study also found the importance of structured monitoring of peer mentoring activities to ensure meaningful engagements between mentors and mentees (tangwe & rembe 2015). clearly the success of these programmes depends on adequate preparation of mentors for their role (terrion, philion & leonard 2007) as well as monitoring and evaluation of the mentoring process, which suggests that effective mentoring does not happen by chance but is well structured and coordinated. in another study, du preez et al. (2013) found that the programme succeeded because the mentees had entered into the mentoring arrangement because they wanted to improve their marks and to be assisted to understand difficult concepts. ntakana (2011) concludes that in order for student academic support programmes to be meaningful, the intended outcomes should be clearly stated. programme inputs and processes can then be directed towards achievement of the set outcomes. what this says is that such programmes work best if students are not compelled to attend but participate because they see value in it. research methodology at the end of semester 1 in 2016, mentors had a debriefing session where we asked them to reflect on their experiences of participating in this programme. this study was evaluative in nature and an ‘objectives-oriented approach’ was used to determine how the programme could be improved (goff 2007:2; robson 2002). using an interpretivist research paradigm, we tried to understand student mentors’ experiences of participating in this programme. interpretivists hold the epistemological view that knowledge is a result of subjective experiences of key role players (holloway & wheeler 2010; neuman 2014). this enabled us to gain a holistic understanding of the views, feelings and perceptions of peer mentors regarding their role in facilitating this mentorship programme. we drew a purposive sample of 30 mentors from one campus of the university and generated qualitative data through a debriefing workshop. to answer the research question, mentors were divided into six groups of five (g1–g6) and the groups’ deliberations were captured by scribes and these were presented to the plenary during discussion. group members were free to elaborate on what the group representatives had said if they so wished. data were analysed using the thematic content analysis technique. ethical considerations this study received ethical clearance from the university where the study was conducted. no informed consent was signed but participants were informed of the study and participated willingly. results during the workshop, mentors reflected on the various intervention strategies used in the mentorship programme, particularly focusing on what worked well, what did not work well and why. we have used the four pillars of the programme as organising themes. participants’ views are summarised in table 1 and elaborations are provided under each theme. table 1: participants’ views on key structured intervention strategies. strategy 1: workshops this section presents results of the group discussions on the effectiveness of workshops as an integral component of the peer mentoring programme. participants confirmed that workshops were held weekly during the timetabled free period (forum period) where different academic skills were offered to mentees and any other students who chose to attend. the following verbatim quotations of group reports show how workshops were utilised to offer academic skills to students: ‘workshops included academic writing skills, time management, study skills, etc. the majority of mentees showed up and fully participated during the workshops.’ (g1) ‘workshops were effective because they familiarised mentees and mentors with university proceedings and taught mentors to become agents of change through time management skills, study skills and communication skill.’ (g4) the fact that group 4 thought both mentees and mentors benefited from the workshops confirmed the reciprocal nature of peer-mentorship highlighted earlier (knippelmeyer & torraco 2007). these workshops took place every thursday at the same time during a timetabled free period. all the mentors were encouraged by the regularity and enthusiasm of first year mentees’ attendance. however, students regarded as at risk of academic exclusion were not as forthcoming, as captured in these excerpts: ‘first year students came in their numbers to attend the workshop but some senior students who were supposed to attend always had excuses of study group meetings or other commitments.’ (g5) ‘in our group we also felt that first year students are the ones that showed the most commitment.’ (g4) ‘students ‘at risk’ don’t come regularly to workshops and group meetings; some are aware of what they need to do. they only come when they are desperate for help.’ (g1) the popularity of the academic skills workshops was obvious. ‘they [workshops] were effective because [a] majority of them showed up or attended the meetings. the number of people attending keeps on increasing week by week.’ (g1) ‘a number of mentees came to attend workshops towards exam time and when they were struggling with [the] work load.’ (g5) the above statements suggest that the intended beneficiaries of the workshops were embracing them. it was also comforting to learn that when students felt under pressure they remembered that support was available through these workshops. this confirms what du preez et al. (2013) found that when mentees saw value in the programme (improvement of marks or understanding of concepts), they were more committed. however, sometimes there were logistical problems that students had to find ways to deal with: ‘at times it was difficult to meet mentees because of timetable clashes. we then communicated through emails but it’s not like meeting and discussing face to face. even with forum period some mentees attend group meetings, especially students that stay away from campus residence.’ (g3) ‘some mentees will leave assignments and queries till [the] last minute, sometimes when we are not available to assist immediately.’ (g3) when there were challenges like timetable clashes, mentors found alternate ways to support their mentees. although most mentees seemed to develop the skills taught through the programme, there were those who lagged behind in their learning and remained dependent much longer. at university level students are expected to operate independently and to self-regulate (heirdsfield et al. 2008) but some students will take longer to reach that level and require more guidance than others. strategy 2: weekly themes these weekly themes are a follow-up of weekly workshops where mentors are required to arrange meetings with their mentees where they reinforce skills learnt in their weekly meetings. there were mixed feelings about the effectiveness of these: ‘weekly themes gave us directions on what to discuss with mentees.’ (g2) ‘weekly themes were sometimes not relevant to everyone. for an example, if you don’t have a problem with time management there would be no need to attend. some mentees will come because of a particular theme.’ (g1) ‘weekly themes were very effective; these themes helped mentees to stay on track, by developing study skills as well as reading and understanding questions, which is important when writing academic papers.’ (g4) a concern was also raised on the absence of some mentees from scheduled meetings that focused on the given themes: ‘poor attendance because of transport issues especially for off-campus students who are taking lift clubs.’ (g3) ‘some senior ‘at risk’ students were sent emails to attend the mentorship programme; they did not come for group meetings and workshop but they ask for appointment for individual meetings.’ (g1) ‘some of my mentees had a “catch up” lecture during forum period and they were unable to attend our meetings.’ (g2) ‘we tried so many times to send emails to make appointments with mentees. some responded but some not. some students just don’t read emails.’ (g4) absence from scheduled meetings by the intended beneficiaries of the peer support programmes, as shown above, can negatively affect mentees, especially those already at risk of academic exclusion. the intention of weekly themes and meetings is to reinforce whatever skills have been taught as one period of 45 min is not adequate to explain or understand how one can manage their time or how to study effectively. during the rest of the week, mentees can meet their mentors where these skills are broken down into manageable steps that mentees can begin to implement. strategy 3: drop-in centre the mentors felt that one of the important things about the peer-mentorship programme was the existence of a central place where assistance to mentees could be rendered. the accessibility of the venue to both mentees and mentors was a big plus. the following comments support this view: ‘the drop-in centre strategy was effective because there were always two or three mentors available, and if students needed subject-specific help they could get an appointment with a relevant mentor.’ (g4) ‘some mentors preferred to spend their free periods at the drop-in centre because they were able to address individual problems on the spot as we were available when students needed someone to talk to.’ (g1) ‘some students gave positive feedback (about the drop-in centre). it is also a conducive environment for one to study; it is peaceful.’ (g6) the existence of a central place was regarded positively as students in need knew exactly where to go to whenever they required assistance. the accessibility of the drop-in centre also encouraged mentors to spend time there even when they were not on duty, thus increasing the availability of support to mentees: ‘as mentors we followed the duty timetable at the drop-in centre; it was convenient for both mentors and mentees because you had your turn when you had a free period.’ (g2) ‘drop-in centre was a huge help for mentees because there was always someone there to assist.’ (g3) the availability of a contact person at the drop-in centre ensured that mentees were always attended to. in addition, that peer mentors’ timetables were available to the mentees was noted as a very good aspect of the peer mentoring programme as mentees could see who was available and when. ‘individual meetings with mentees were very productive because it is when they get comfortable to talk about their challenges and they get a chance to ask questions.’ (g4) ‘in my group, mentees sometimes asked to speak in their language and the atmosphere is more relaxed compared to group meetings.’ (g1) the existence of a one-on-one consultation service between mentors and mentees highlights the flexibility of this programme that mentorship happened in group as well as individual sessions. it also shows that one-on-one sessions provided a comfortable space where mentees could freely express themselves. the mentors were also aware that they could refer their mentees to other sources of support when the support required by mentees was beyond their scope and areas of expertise: ‘some mentees will come with problems that are beyond our means; during our training we were informed about other university support sectors that we can liaise with, for example, students that needed counselling were referred to the counselling unit.’ (g3) ‘in my group i had a number of students who did not have funding and i took them to student funding office.’ (g1) it was also important to note that peer mentors were aware of their limitations in terms of either knowledge, resources or skills and made referrals to other university structures where mentees could be further supported. sometimes mentors felt unable to address urgent needs: when mentees come to the drop-in centre for subject-specific assistance, and there is no mentor doing that subject, they will be shown the duty timetable when mentors doing that subject will be available. they have to come back when one of the mentors is available. (g4) although this could be regarded as a shortcoming of the programme, if students manage their time well, they would come when there is still enough time for the next available mentor to support them with their query. strategy 4: food drive as more first year students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds got admitted, it became evident that many had limited means to support themselves. thus, the programme coordinator incorporated a food drive as an aspect of the peer-mentorship programme. the food drive was managed by mentors: ‘in our individual meetings mentees were able to tell us about their challenges such as going to classes hungry. we designed posters to create awareness to both staff and students to donate food.’ (g1) ‘we had a basket in the drop-in centre where staff and students donated food parcels; it was exciting to get everyone involved.’ (g4) the cooperation of staff and students in the acquisition of food meant for needy students showed the importance of collective efforts in achievement of set goals for a good cause. it was clear from the above comments that peer mentoring activities extended beyond mere academic needs of students to other felt needs necessary for students’ welfare. however, some mentors still experienced challenges, as this group related: ‘food donated was mostly canned food and other non-perishable food but some mentees needed something like bread, toothpaste and soaps.’ (g3) ‘one of my mentees told me that she does not have food to eat in the morning when she is rushing to lectures because she has to cook food that she received.’ (g2) it was disturbing to learn that what is meant to support students can also be regarded as an additional source of victimisation. the following comments confirm this view: ‘some [students] shy away from receiving help or the food parcels because they are running away from stigma. but on the other hand, it has helped many students who are less fortunate since many of them don’t have funding.’ (g1) ‘students are afraid to receive a food parcel because they don’t want to be seen as needy.’ (g4) discussion because of their training and seniority, mentors were knowledgeable about the academic programme as well as resources available for student support. as such, they knew what to do and in instances where mentees brought problems that were beyond them, they knew where to refer them to. the mentors were instrumental and effective in using structured workshops to teach mentees academic skills that are deemed critical for academic success. in the process, both mentors and those mentees who committed to the mentor–mentee relationship developed social connections that contributed to the success of the whole programme. there is documented evidence that feelings of connectedness create a sense of belonging in students and contribute to retention as well as academic success (o’brien & llamas 2012:7; terrion et al. 2007:54). the findings also show that most first year student mentees were very enthusiastic about, and committed to attending scheduled workshops. this could be because most mentors had served as orientation week mentors, and maybe this made first years regard them as knowledgeable or leaders. alternatively, these students soon realised that the course demands were complex, that they needed the mentors’ support to adjust. in working with mentors, mentees were exposed to positive behaviour modelling (bandura 1977) as they learnt with others and co-constructed meaning (heirdsfield et al. 2008). the existence of one-on-one consultation services between mentor and mentees is consistent with the social learning theory around which mentoring is modelled. the mentee should be afforded the opportunity to be with the mentor and learn appropriate knowledge, skills and values (bandura 1977). in learning from the mentor, the mentees ultimately observe and emulate the mentor and in the process internalise important study habits as well as commitment to studies. in such an arrangement there are intended and unintended outcomes, which all assist in the academic growth of the mentee. the presence of a dedicated venue (drop-in centre) facilitated this type of learning. in a study by masehela et al. (2014) the mentoring programme was negatively affected by lack of appropriate and convenient venues. we were concerned to learn that senior mentees (those at risk of academic exclusion) were reluctant to attend academic support workshops. this finding is inconsistent with findings in earlier studies by tangwe and rembe (2014), masehela et al. (2014) as well as du preez et al. (2013), who found that generally student mentees were very keen to attend scheduled mentoring programmes. probably they were keen because of the desire to learn peer mentors who offered support in a relaxed and collegial manner, which is different from the lecture room set-up (mudzielwana & maphosa 2013). maybe the programme coordinator needs to consider assigning at risk students to post-graduate mentors. there is a possibility that these mentees will find it easier to relate to post-graduate mentors than to those they regard as their peers. the findings also show that as much as some participants realised the value of attending the support programme, there were a few challenges, including the following: means of communication between mentors and mentees. the problems of communication cannot be solved through the programme as it is each mentee’s responsibility to look for information. during orientation into the peer-mentorship programme they are advised to check their emails regularly and to inform their mentors should their contact details change. stigma, which means few mentees who were at risk attended intervention programmes because others felt stigmatised and embarrassed to attend workshops. this finding is consistent with findings by latino and unite (2012), who reported that students displayed resentment about the way in which academic support singled out students and made them feel stigmatised. fear of collecting food parcels because of labelling. findings suggest that some financially needy students were reluctant to receive food parcels because they did not want to be labelled as needy. timing of the workshops. some mentees did not attend the workshops because they had other commitments, group sessions and social activities. since attendance was not compulsory, each mentee chose what was more important to them. summary, conclusion and recommendations for further research the existence of a peer support system has become a necessary academic intervention strategy to ensure both student retention and student success (council on higher education 2010). without structured intervention strategies, it would be impossible to address the retention and throughput challenges in south african universities. the issues that emerge from the mentors’ experiences cannot be compressed into one discipline. for example, some of the issues that emerged from the mentors’ experiences could be seen from psychological, linguistic, food and nutritional perspectives, thus conforming transdisciplinarity (nicolescu 2008). we conclude that the mentors’ experiences in this programme were positive in that they developed important life skills. they learnt leadership skills like facilitating workshops, conducting follow-up sessions, initiating group meetings, providing one-on-one support and chasing after those mentees who did not see any value in the programme. although the focus of the peer-mentorship programme is on ensuring smooth transition into university as well as the provision of academic support to those students deemed at risk of academic exclusion, the findings of this study highlight the significant role played by mentors in the successful running of such a programme. what this suggests is that mentor training is a critical component of such a programme. if mentors are to remain knowledgeable, positive and committed in their work, heis need to provide resources to ensure that student support programmes like this are successfully run. future research could solicit mentees’ experiences of such programmes, especially those who seem reluctant to participate. this will assist in highlighting their mentorship needs, which will enhance the implementation of the programme and foster the academic success of all participants. further, it would be of interest to explore lecturers’ views of the value of such programmes in supporting transitioning students as well as those at risk of academic exclusion and how they think the programme could be enhanced. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions s.n. was responsible for the literature review, data collection, analysis and addressing the reviewers’ comments. s.m. contributed to sample preparation and collected the data. both authors contributed to the interpretation of results, discussed the results and contributed to the final writing of the article. references adams, j.d., 2006, ‘prevailing and preferred learning practices in university student support programmes’, unpublished doctoral thesis, university of zululand, kwadlangezwa. akoojee, s. & nkomo, m., 2007 ‘access and quality in south african higher education: the twin challenges of transformation’, south african journal of higher education 3, 385–399. altbach, p.g., 1999, ‘the logic of mass higher education’, tertiary education and 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https://doi.org/10.1023/b:high.0000009822.49980.30 terrion, j.l., philion, r. & leonard, d., 2007, ‘an evaluation of a university peer-mentoring training programme’, international journal of evidence based coaching and mentoring 5(1), 42–57. microsoft word 03a maeko & makgato.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2014, pp. 323-339. skills training through hands-on practical activities in civil technology – a case study of three technical schools in south africa msa maeko1 and m makgato2 abstract skills training for civil technology learners in south african schools, is an aspect entrenched in the civil technology policy document in order to produce skilled personnel for a sustainable economy. practical activities through the practical assessment task (pat) are national requirements for all practical-based subjects from grades 10–12 in south african schools. the purpose of this study was to investigate the status of civil technology practical activities in three south african schools in the eastern cape province. purposive sampling was used to identify 41 learners and 3 teachers to participate in the study. questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observation as data collection methods were instruments used to collect data. the study has found that learners exit grade 12 without basic practical hands-on skills. civil technology practical activities were found to be inadequately offered in the three schools investigated. educators should be well-trained by higher education institutions (heis) to conduct practical activities with learners so that these learners are equipped with marketable skills in order to contribute to a sustainable economy after grade 12. technology teacher education and training should include regular exposure and visits to relevant industries in order for teachers to keep abreast with the latest technological developments. the supply of equipment to schools should be coupled with routine maintenance of the equipment. keywords: practical skills acquisition, civil technology, skills training, eastern cape, practical activities discipline: technology education introduction post-apartheid south africa provided the ministry of education with the opportunity to change the curriculum; one of the new subjects conceived for secondary schools, was civil technology, previously known as woodworking. woodworking fell within technical education currently called technology education and included trades such as plumbing, bricklaying and plastering that were taught separately. learners who studied the subject would be apprenticed, obtain a trade test certificate then become artisans and entrepreneurs whereby they earned a living if they were unable to further their studies. usually apprentices complete a trade test at the end of their training at the institute for the development of learnerships and learnership assessment (indlela), after which they are certified if successful and recognized as artisans within the relevant industries (department of labour, 1998). the subject civil technology is designed to provide learners with a sound technical foundation that integrates both theory and practical competencies (department of education, 1 . mr mogale maeko is a lecturer at the durban university of technology in civil technology in teacher education. email: maekos@dut.ac.za 2 . prof. moses makgato is an associate professor at tshwane university of technology. his research interests include technology education, educational technology/ ict in education, technical vocational education and training. email address: makgatom@tut.ac.za maeko and makgato 324 2005). according to the curriculum assessment policy statement (caps) (department of basic education, 2011), learners who study civil technology in grades 10–12 will acquire skills that will make it easy for them to enter into learnerships or apprenticeships in preparation for a trade test. the caps document (dbe, 2011) lists, among other things, the workshop with tools and equipment together with measuring equipment and consumable items as the basic requirements to achieve this objective. kennedy (2011) states that since the civil technology course is intended to be practically oriented, fewer theory than practical components should be taught. the purpose of this study was to investigate the status of civil technology practical activities in three south african schools in the eastern cape province. civil technology in schools the school system, through technical schools and through technology education subjects in academic schools, has been contributing to skills development for many years (mcgrath, 1998). learners in south african schools study civil technology only from grade 10 to grade 12 where the practical component should be implemented. according to the policy document (dbe, 2011), the subject civil technology is allocated four hours per week of which 2½ hours are for teaching theory and 1½ hours for practical lessons. according to brunette (2006), technology subjects must include practical work, because applying theory to practice provides the practical experience that is necessary. in this study, brunette discovered that, unfortunately, schools had been producing many learners without technical skills. technology education is viewed as education which equips learners with marketable skills after grade 12 for a sustainable economy. in other countries, for example, canada, technical skills training is meant to enhance the general education of students intending to join the labour force on leaving school. it offers industrial skills for youth who have completed high school and occupational skills for adults (gardner & hill, 1999). the traditional pedagogy of workshop-type technical subjects was, and still is, in many cases, ‘demonstration and follow’ (fritz, 1996); it has been used to good effect in the development of student competencies, particularly in industrial skills. however, technology education’s evolution is transforming the subject from one that requires learners to imitate teacher-prescribed industrial handand machine-skills to one that is argued as being unique in the school curriculum (walmsley, 2003). technology education has been developed as a subject aimed at promoting an individual learner’s ability to solve real-world problems by integrating specifically relevant knowledge of structures, materials, technological processes and systems (department of education, 2003). technology education is considered to be the panacea for south africa’s economic development and prosperity. the majority of learners in south african schools are subjected to a lack of exposure to technological products (for example, mechanical toys); hence, they lack experience in ‘do it yourself’ (diy) tools (makgato, 2011; martin, dakers, duvernet, kipperman, kumar, siu, thorsteinsson & welch, 2003). according to galluzo (1996), there is no faith in the ability of teachers and existing schools to produce students who will excel in the industrial job market. in addition, a loss of confidence is fuelled by the belief that first, the present configuration of schools is incapable of producing youth who can meet the increasingly complex demands of the workplace, and second, the present school curriculum is outdated (department of education, 2000). all students who graduate from high schools should acquire the sustainable economic skills needed for employment, as well as, those skills required to continue the students’ education (makgato, 2011). the quality of technology skills training through hands-on practical activities td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 323-339. 325 education programmes is greatly determined by the number of students who acquire the skills for the economic development, knowledge and values needed by society (makgato, 2011). it appears that the education system does not prepare children for a career after school, but merely a grade 12 certificate. school education is geared at making children job seekers and not job providers. in order to prepare job-providers for the country, the education system should make a significant paradigm shift by emphasizing hands-on technological skills that can sustain our economy at all levels of the school system (makgato, 2011). the situation in south african schools still requires much attention, particularly with regard to equipping students with sustainable economic skills through quality technology education. technology subjects are designed to respond to societal changes, such as those evident in many of the world’s current post-industrial technological societies (lauda, 1988). designing and making in technology education will make learners technologically literate. learners will become more innovative, knowledgeable, skillful, adaptable and enterprising. this will enable learners to: • respond critically and resourcefully to challenges • devise creative ways of generating and applying ideas • translate ideas into worthwhile outcomes • find innovative solutions to community needs • focus on the design of techniques and products • deal with uncertainty in an informed way • cooperate in flexible teams • appreciate cultural differences • learn throughout their lives • use local, national, regional, and international networks (rasinen, 2003). the technological design process involves the application of knowledge to a new situation, resulting in the development of new knowledge. technological design requires an understanding of the use of resources and engages a variety of mental strategies, such as problem solving, visual imagery, and reasoning. developing these mental abilities and strategies so that they can be applied to problems is a significant aspect of technological literacy. these abilities can be developed in learners through experience in designing, modelling, testing, troubleshooting, observing, analyzing, and investigating (walmsley, 2003). these types of skills provide learners with the opportunity and facility to fulfil the various requirements of the technological design process. bjurulf and kirlbrink (2012) point out that in order to infuse theory into practice, teaching and learning should take place in different learning arenas, namely, both in schools and in workplaces. in schools, the workplaces may be referred to as practical laboratories or workshops. bjurulf and kirlbrink (2012) suggest that if schools cannot afford expensive machines, they enter into partnership with industries to teach specific course components in a workplace environment. nze and ginestie (2011) have discovered that the absence of maeko and makgato 326 equipment impels technology teachers to replace practical classes with those of a theoretical nature. they further affirm that equipment and its use are attributes of technology education. kennedy (2008) has observed that facilities like classrooms, workshops, laboratories, studios, equipment and materials are grossly inadequate in secondary schools. bacchus (1988) warns of the fact that when equipment and materials are lacking, there is a tendency for the theoretical aspect of technology education to dominate the practical aspect, thereby denying technology education the opportunity to be taught qualitatively, and to take its rightful place in the education system. in support of the above, ijambo (2001) believes that the lack of finance does not allow for practical subjects like technology education whilst brunnete (2006) finds that technology education teachers and subsequently principals are frustrated by the lack of support from education offices in namibia. schools do not receive sufficient equipment and materials to teach technology practical subjects and the syllabus does not make provision for practical work either (ibid). gamble (2003) points out clearly that while practice cannot be substituted for theory, neither can theory be substituted for practice. gamble concludes by stating that both theory and practice have their own place and that the one is impoverished without the other. according to the department of education in papua new guinea (department of education, png, 2006), the skills to be taught and learnt in the practical workshop are inclusive of the responsible and safe use of a range of tools, materials and techniques in the workshop. reid and shahi (2007) maintain that it is necessary for students to handle laboratory equipment regularly and that adequate time should be given to students to learn how to use equipment and to develop skills for practical activities. the annual report of the namibia ministry of basic education, sport and culture (mbesc, 2002) reports that many schools have only damaged tools or even no equipment at all with which to teach the subject effectively; schools have to use recycled materials and as a result syllabi are unfinished. a meeting of the bureau of the conference of ministers of education of the african union (comedaf ii, 2007) reports that offering practical sessions of technology education in schools is unlikely to be effective when delivered concurrently with general education subjects. this is because the practical component of technology education requires materials and extended time, both of which are too expensive to provide to all schools. furthermore, the report explains that in general, the quality of training in africa is low, with undue emphasis on theory and certification rather than on skills acquisition and proficiency testing. workshop equipment and material factors for civil technology civil technology is a practical subject and according to rosa and feisel (2005), applying skills to everyday life requires both theory and hands-on workshop experience. while the former lends itself to classroom learning, the latter can be learned and practised only in the workshop. working with materials and tools should lead to the development of manual skills, cognitive reasoning and the transference of these abilities to what has been designed in reality (seiter, 2009). school workshops offer opportunities for the practical training of learners in skills acquisition in their technology education areas for the future development of key sectors of the economy in order to meet society’s basic needs for electricity, roads and machinery, among others (umar & ma’aji, 2010). however, mwaokolo (2003) affirms that the level and kind of training received by learners in technology education, in the workshop in particular, is quite different from what is required of them afterwards. in schools, the emphasis on skills acquisition, which is the hallmark of technology education, is an illusion. in the study, mwaokolo maintains that most schools in skills training through hands-on practical activities td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 323-339. 327 nigeria do not have workshops for practical lessons. there is no longer much emphasis on a learner’s acquisition of practical skills. the windhoek technical high school threatened to close down its workshops due to a lack of materials and old equipment that not only hampered practical work, but also increased the safety risk (van zyl, in brunette, 2006). this is in contrast to the findings by simiyu (2009) that in kenya there is ample wood workshop space for practical lessons and that the machines are adequate for the number of learners studying civil technology subjects. in addition, the maintenance of equipment and machines is impeccable. umar and ma’aji (2010) assert that the availability of appropriate facilities enhances student learning by allowing students to be involved in demonstrations and to continue to build their skills through practice. to illustrate this worsening situation, puyate (2002) maintains that in nigeria the present state of technology education facilities is very poor; there is no planned means to repair broken and damaged equipment or means of purchasing new equipment. this author adds that there is little or no concern on the part of government, teachers and students for the improvement of the present state of facilities. anyakoha (1992) notes that the development of useful skills could be reinforced by the appropriate selection and use of learning facilities and resources. these facilities comprise workshop structures, working materials, teaching materials, workshop tools and equipment. in the same vein, uzoagulu (1992) warns that where equipment and tools are not functional or where their provision is inadequate, technology training programmes will suffer and will lead to the production of unskilled personnel who are unemployable and unproductive. letsie (2003) in a contribution from a south african perspective, points out that as much as technology subjects offer an array of vocationally focused subjects with a practical orientation, most south african schools depend on theoretical studies with little access to technological facilities linked to apprenticeship. skills development in the south african context has gone through many changes over the last decade, yet the skills development gap is still broad. south africa is expected to be an active global player and tackle the burden of unemployment and poverty (steinaker-key, 2014). technical high schools or comprehensive schools are expected to contribute to skills development through practical, hands-on vocational and technical education. so far, it is not very clear to what extent technological practical subjects at schools in south africa produce skilled youth employable by various industries. based on the critical needs for skills development and advocacy to train skilled youth, it is important to investigate the state of practical activities in technological subjects such as civil technology in selected schools in the eastern cape province. research problem statement the subject civil technology is taught from grade 10 to grade 12 and consists of both theoretical content and practical activities. learners exiting grade 12 should have acquired adequate hands-on practical skills, according to caps. as part of assessment learners are expected to complete a pat as evidence of their expertise in the practical component which counts for 75% of the examination requirements. despite this pat requirement, learners exit grade 12 of the further education and training (fet) band in technology subjects with no hands-on practical competence or very limited competence in practical skills, as much of the literature has already confirmed. this is happening at a time when the country is desperately looking for youth who are technically skilled in order to solve the current youth unemployment problem and enhance south africa’s economic advancement. the practical activities at schools should form the basis for learners to become apprentices, artisans and maeko and makgato 328 technicians, particularly with regard to those learners who do not want to immediately proceed to higher education. this study is a significant contribution in the investigation of the state of practical hands-on activities in the subject of civil technology. the research questions below guide the investigation in order to understand the nature of this problem. research questions this study has been guided by the following research questions: 1. how often do civil technology teachers teach practical sessions (if any) in schools? 2. what is the state of practical workshops in schools? 3. how are practical tasks and theory taught in the classroom? theoretical framework the theoretical framework for the study was based on david kolb's learning styles inventory (klsi) model and experiential learning theory (elt) as defined by kolb (1984). elt provides a holistic model of the learning process and a multi-linear model of adult development, both of which are consistent with what we know about how people learn, grow, and develop (ibid). though kolb’s proponents view his model as too mechanistic and lacking in strong empirical validation, this study, however, views it as relevant as it is aimed at capturing the nature of learning through action. hence, the theoretical framework chosen for this study is relevant because the study is based on the integration of theory to practical knowledge in the civil technology subject. kolb's learning theory sets out four distinct learning styles, which are based on a four-stage learning cycle (that might also be interpreted as a 'training cycle'). the four-stage learning cycle consists of (1) concrete experience (ce); (2) reflective observation (ro); (3) abstract conceptualization (ac), and (4) active experimentation (ae). ce occurs when learners experience active participation in the civil technology practical workshop, i.e. learners first see the project they are supposed to do in the workshop. ro is the stage when learners produce their own explanations from the drawing. johnstone and al-shuaili (2001) are of the opinion that a student struggling to operate a piece of equipment may have failed to make important observations. ac is when learners conceptualize the principle relating to how the final product would look from the drawing. ae is a doing or performance stage, where learners are expected to manipulate equipment, materials and tools while taking safety issues into consideration. in relation to this study, kolb’s four learning styles involve the process which leads learners to understand, design and make the final practical model in the workshop. to be able to do this, learners are expected to conceptualize and put the project to be made in drawing form or, most importantly, to be able to interpret the project drawn on paper. methodology purposive sampling was used to identify 41 learners and three teachers to take part in the study. data was collected through questionnaires for learners, interviews for teachers and the researcher’s observation in the classroom which was adapted from the differentiated classroom observation scale protocol instrument derived from the study by grant, stronge and popp (2008). according to merriam (1998), the judgmental sampling technique is a skills training through hands-on practical activities td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 323-339. 329 sampling which identifies people who can provide the required information in response to the critical questions of the study. all learners and educators involved with the subject civil technology in all three schools were respondents. the questionnaire data was analyzed using the spss statistical software. the analysis of results was in the form of frequency distribution. interview data was first analyzed by transcribing. each transcription was considered with the aim of identifying and underlining key issues. descriptions were then formulated from the key issues identified as relevant to the study and coded. themes were created and categorized into headings and narrated with the support of verbatim notes, while observation data was analyzed descriptively per item as reflected in the schedule. each item on the observation schedule was analyzed per school with the purpose of finding a connection among the activities in the civil technology workshops in the three schools. results and discussions the results of the study were presented in terms of three categories namely, questionnaire, interview and observation data. overall questionnaire responses from learners barriers to the teaching and learning of civil technology practical activities were listed in table 1 below where respondents answered as follows: strongly agree sa, agree a, disagree d and strongly disagree sd. learners were requested to tick which item they agreed or disagreed with from the table. table 1: workshop resources and skills acquisition as viewed by learners percentages % workshop resources and skills acquisition sa (1) a (2) d (3) sd (4) there are not enough tools in the workshop. 22(54) 16(39) 1(2) 2(5) the tools we have are no longer in good condition. 18(44) 15(37) 2(5) 6(15) we do not have materials for practicals in the workshop. 11(27) 19(46) 3(7) 8(20) there is no machinery in the workshop. 20(49) 10(24) 3(7) 8(20) we do not have access to the use of machinery (if any) in the workshop for practical projects. 25(61) 4(10) 1(2) 11(27) we often prepare material (if any) on our own for the project. 13(32) 3(7) 15(37) 10(24) we do not do practicals weekly in the workshop. 33(81) 6(15) 1(2) 1(2) maeko and makgato 330 there is more time allocated for practical lessons weekly in the timetable. 2(5) 9(22) 30(73) table 1 above indicates that the majority of learners (83%) agree that the tools they have in the workshop are insufficient and that they have to share. most (81%) of the learners also agree that many of the tools they have are not in good condition. from the table, 73% of the learners agree that materials and machinery respectively are in short supply in their practical workshops. puyate (2002) also finds that the present state of facilities in technology education is very poor, and there is no planned means of maintenance of broken equipment already in disrepair or means of purchasing new equipment. puyate argues that there is little or no concern on the part of government, teachers and students for the improvement of the present state of facilities. when asked if they had access to and use of machinery in the workshop for their practical projects, 71% of learners agreed that they do not prepare the material on their own but teachers do that for them. the respondents (86%) also agreed that they do not conduct practical sessions weekly in the workshop while 95% complained that the time they spent in the practical workshop is just too short. according to brunette (2006), technology subjects must have practical work, as applying theory in practice provides the practical experience required by the work environment. this implies that learners leave grade 12 without adequate or practical hands-on skills. brunette (2006) has also discovered that schools produce many learners without technical skills. the results indicate that learners are not doing the practical lessons as prescribed by the civil technology policy which advocates 1½ hours of time which is supposed to be spent by learners weekly in the workshop for practical lessons. interview results and responses the analysis of interview data is presented and discussed in terms of the themes below, of which the first two themes tend to respond to research questions 1 and 2. the importance of workshop practical sessions for learners taking civil technology teachers of civil technology consistently acknowledged the importance of workshop practical sessions for learners taking civil technology, as practice is an integral part of the subject. the respondents unanimously indicated that the practical component of the subject helps learners understand the theory of the subject. one theme that consistently emerged when the teachers responded to the issue of workshop practical sessions is that it is extremely important for learners to do practical work. the respondents are of the view that learners should be able to become self-employed and create jobs on completion of grade 12 without any further training. however, teachers felt that the current training of learners does not offer them such opportunities. the subject teacher from school a stated that the practical component covers a lot of material because it could train the learners to become self-employed, and also gives learners an opportunity for employment after grade 12 should they not further their studies. the subject teacher said: for learners to make sense of the theory part, they have to go to the practical workshop to put what they have just learned into practice. some of the learners who went through my hands at the school during the apartheid era are self-employed and make a living without any further training. skills training through hands-on practical activities td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 323-339. 331 this is reminiscent of uwameiye’s (1993:17) assertion that practical work constitutes an essential component of technology education. challenges for teaching the practical component the study used interviews swith three civil technology teachers to determine the state of practical activities, in terms of teaching and learning in a practical workshop. this theme responds to research question two, to understand the state of the practical workshop at the schools. each civil technology teacher from the three schools agreed that teaching the civil technology practical component is a laborious task. the teachers said that the challenges they face with regard to the practical component seem to have no solution. teacher c from school c was recorded saying: training material is a challenge; the government doesn’t supply us with the material. tools are expensive, machinery is old and to replace the machinery with the new is expensive. we end up levying the parents for us to be able to buy material for learners to be able to do practical. generally the practical covers only what we have in terms of equipment which should not be the case as far as the syllabus and skills acquisition are concerned. then teacher a from school a said: we teach theory without the practical because we lack material and equipment. we do not even have a proper workshop for the practical lessons and this compromises the quality of what we are offering to learners in civil technology. in response to the question of the state of practical workshops for civil technology the teacher from school b said: the challenges we have concern the shortage of equipment and material as the government does not supply us with these materials and equipment. although the government officials emphasize the importance of the practical skills when addressing the media, the reality is that we are practically suffering in schools. as a result, we are also lacking behind with the use of the latest modern technology equipment with regard to the practical component as no one from the government is concerned about the practical component of this subject. this happens despite the fact that technology changes all the time which necessitate that there be further training to keep abreast with technological development. time for starting with the practical project for grade 12 class this theme responds to research question one which investigates the rate of conducting practical activities in the classroom at the three schools. teachers stated that the practical was supposed to start earlier at the beginning of the year to give learners more time to practise skills. teacher c said the following: we were supposed to start at the beginning of the year to equip learners with practical skills, but because of the lack of material we do projects in the fourth quarter when moderation is about to take place just to meet the civil technology curriculum requirements for pat as opposed to skills acquisition. we rush the practical so that learners get the 25% of the pat. we are sent from pillar to post when we knock on provincial government doors asking about material and equipment for learners. maeko and makgato 332 in addition, the teacher b from school b had this to say: the learners only get a chance to go to the practical workshop in september to prepare for pat. unfortunately this is the only time the school buys us material for the practical component. the findings from the interviews with teachers indicate that the three schools are only interested in learners receiving the practical mark as opposed to mastering the practical skills. the sentiments expressed above by these teachers echo the findings of okorie’s (2001) study on the dearth of tools in schools’ technology education workshops and that the few tools that were available were obsolete, non-functional and did not meet the curriculum requirements. uwameiye (1993) emphasises that practical work constitutes an essential component of technology education. this study further argues that without suitable workshop space, classrooms and laboratories, programme implementation and structuring would be very difficult if not impossible (ibid). however, this is in contrast to the findings by simiyu (2009) that in kenya there is ample wood workshop space for practical lessons, that the machines are adequate for the number of learners studying civil technology and that the maintenance of equipment and machines is elaborate. learners’ readiness to be entrepreneurs or work in industry after grade 12 when teachers were asked whether learners acquire sufficient hands-on practical skills that meet the needs of technological industries, it emerged that the pattern of responses were similar. teachers’ respondents expressed the view that learners will not have acquired proper skills to become entrepreneurs or even work in industry after grade 12. according to osuala (2004), the shortage of equipment and materials for technology education impedes the training of students. moreover, on completion of their schooling, these students have not acquired sufficient skills to enter the labour market. teacher a from school a had this to say: our learners cannot get the skills to become entrepreneurs upon completion of their grade 12 because the training they get is not up to scratch. they are not getting the kind of skills which will make them become entrepreneurs after completion of their grade 12.the learners can only get the skills required for them to become entrepreneurs if they get further training. the advantage is that the learners stand a good chance to do civil engineering at higher education institutions because of the built background they are exposed to. in the ncs learners do projects with cardboard and not with real material like in the old system. so this disadvantages them from dealing with what they should expect in reality. similarly, the teacher from school b said that the lack of material and equipment makes skills acquisition impossible as the time the learners spend in the workshop is too short to enable them to acquire the skills they need, given the fact that the school timetable does not even accommodate practical lessons. observation results non-participatory observations were made in the classroom at each of the three schools involved to answer all the rqs stated in the study. the observation schedule was underpinned by literature discussed as well kolb’s experiential learning theory (gamble, 2003; kennedy, 2008; kolb, 1999; umar & ma’aji, 2010). in particular, the observation sought to investigate the state of practical workshops in schools and the teaching and learning skills training through hands-on practical activities td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 323-339. 333 of practical tasks, i.e. the integration of theory and practice in classrooms where civil technology is taught. arrangements were made earlier with both the head of department and principal in each sample school to conduct the observations. the observation data were analysed according to themes as presented and discussed below. student’s ability to use machinery on the learners’ participation in the use of machinery, it was observed that learners were unable to use the available machinery in the workshop, because in all three schools the teachers would talk throughout the lesson without providing learners opportunity to conduct practical experiments. however, this could also be an indication of the teacher’s inadequate competence to use the machinery. this is also confirmed by results from the questionnaire where learners disagreed that they often prepare materials for a project on their own. as kennedy (2008) attests, this could be due to inadequate equipment and material in practical workshops at technical schools. state of the workshop the findings from the researcher’s observations reveal that the state of the workshop in all three sampled schools is poor. this observation confirms the responses of the majority of learners and the teachers’ responses that the workshops in the three sampled schools are in poor condition. most machinery is broken and therefore remains dysfunctional. this is corroborated by puyate’s (2002) argument that the present state of technology education facilities is very poor as there are no planned means of maintaining the already broken equipment or avenues to purchase new equipment. in addition, there is little or no concern on the part of the government, teachers and learners for the improvement of the present state of facilities. correct handling of tools tools can be dangerous if not properly handled. they can cause serious injuries and even death because most of them are sharp. few learners in all the sampled schools were seen to be handling tools properly as the majority of them did not follow the correct procedures. whether tools are in good condition or not, the handling procedure remains critical for safety reasons. according to the department of education in papua new guinea (doe png, 2006), the skills to be taught and learnt in a practical workshop are inclusive of responsible and safe use of a range of tools, materials and techniques. availability of equipment and material notably, in all the workshops of schools a, b and c, the availability of equipment and materials is a problem. the findings from the researcher’s observation are that in all three selected schools materials such as timber and safety gear are a great challenge. personal protective equipment (ppe), for example, safety goggles to protect the learners’ and teachers’ eyes from flying wood chips, dust masks to prevent inhalation of dust which might cause lung diseases, earmuffs to protect ears from being damaged by excessive noise coming from running machinery, safety gloves to protect hands from cuts, and safety clothing like boots and overalls, are in short supply. as argued by the national union of teachers (2011), for every kind of practical activity teachers should give priority to ensuring the availability and maeko and makgato 334 use of protective equipment. in short, safety should be a priority for teachers supervising practical activities. ppe can be described as the equipment worn from head to foot in order to protect workers from injury and from contracting diseases in the workshop. anyakoha (1992) argues that the development of useful skills can be reinforced by the appropriate selection and use of learning facilities and resources. these facilities, according to anyakoha, comprise workshop structures, working materials, teaching materials, workshop tools and equipment. teacher’s demonstration on machinery for skills to be transferred, it is important that teachers demonstrate to the learners what needs to be done with the machinery. all teachers from the selected schools demonstrated a high level of knowledge on the use of the available machinery. however, the teacher from school b was seen operating machinery without protective equipment. instead of using the mask to protect himself from inhaling dust, the teacher was observed to have inserted tissues into his nostrils. though no teacher strictly followed safety and health measures, all knew how to use the available equipment. this contrasts with the assertion by apagu and andural (2007), namely, that school teachers lack knowledge and skills in the handicraft subjects because the curriculum used to prepare and train those teachers also omitted those aspects of education. umar and ma’aji (2010) assert that the availability of appropriate facilities enhances student learning by allowing students to be involved in demonstrations and that, in addition, practice continues to build their skills. however, most technical colleges in nigeria have been forced to perform below standard due to the purported non-availability, poor management or utter neglect of the required facilities in workshops for effective training. status of equipment: tools and machinery this aspect was relevant to help check the status of the available equipment in workshops in the sampled schools. with this aspect the researcher established that some of the machinery is either in a poor condition if not broken or unused. this confirms the responses of the learners in table 1.4 and 1.6 where 80%, 5% and 73.2% of the learners respectively agreed that tools and machinery are not in good condition. safety procedures the workshop can be a dangerous place to work in as it contains sharp objects and dangerous machinery. with regard to this variable, the researcher observed that in all the sampled schools, safety is considered only when machinery is operated simultaneously with the handling of tools. this then leaves both teachers and learners exposed to danger and health hazards. in all the selected schools learners, together with their teachers, were observed working without ppe. learners, as well as teachers, were observed to be working without ppe in a dusty and noisy environment created by the machinery. notably, woodworking exposes workers to a variety of hazards, including kickbacks, flying wood chips, noise, wood dust and chemical substances. ppe can help protect against these hazards (national union of teachers, 2011). infusion of theory into practice on this aspect, the researcher observed that because of the lack of material and equipment, integrating theory into practice is a challenge. learners in all three sampled schools only go to skills training through hands-on practical activities td, 10(3), december 2014, pp. 323-339. 335 the workshop around september for one month for the practical project. although by that stage of the academic year students would have learnt a considerable amount of theory, they would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to incorporate this theoretical knowledge into practice in just one month. the findings from this observation are corroborated by bhurulf and kilkbrink’s (2012) argument that in bridging the gap between theory and practice, learners need to be taught theory or basic knowledge first before they can do practical lessons. it is argued that this will help them to transfer knowledge learned into practice. on the contrary, mjelde (1995) argues that a sound approach in relating theory to workshop learning under present educational reform is that theory and practice should be learned at the same time. conclusion and recommendations the questionnaires, interviews and observations from the three schools as discussed above have revealed that all the workshops lack equipment and material to equip learners with the technological skills required for a sustainable economy. the supply of tools to schools is contemptible as two of the three workshops in the selected schools lacked most tools, and the workshop in the third school had tools which in general were in such poor condition that they could not be used safely. from the selected schools in the study, it was discovered that there is no longer much emphasis on the learners’ acquisition of the practical skills needed for a sustainable economy. the emphasis on skills acquisition, which is the hallmark for a sustainable economy, is in a dire state. it was found that no schools in the study had a technician competent to repair broken machinery; hence, any broken machinery is set aside to gather dust. the other common factor, which can be described as a great challenge, is that theory is taught for most of the available time because of the lack of materials as mentioned above. because of this lack of equipment and material for practical lessons, learners spend most of the time in a theory class, therefore, the practical acquisition of skills is severely compromised. moreover, it has been found in other studies (makgato & mji, 2006) that the delivery of equipment and materials to schools does not necessarily guarantee that practical activities will be performed in class. the findings also reveal that even in a situation where there is machinery in the workshop, learners do not have access to such machinery. it is possible that some teachers do not possess the appropriate skills to use the machinery, and they deem it dangerous for the machines to be used by learners. this practice of not allowing learners to handle machinery could be attributed to a lack of proper professional training for teachers. in all three schools the study discovered that educators do the actual practical work for learners. this might also be caused by the fact that both educators and learners were pressed for time; they had to rush to complete the pat project for moderation by officials of the department of basic education. this factor is a blow to skills development on the part of the learners, because the focus seems to be on attaining marks for pat rather than on skills acquisition. this practice denies learners the opportunity to get involved in their project from its foundation stages, thereby denying them the opportunity of manipulating and controlling tools and equipment to acquire the skills needed in a sustainable economy. the late arrival of material was also found to be a contributory factor to the failure of teachers to integrate the practical and theoretical components of the subject because of time constraints. though both teachers and learners are aware of the importance of the civil technology practical component, it was discovered that in not one of the three schools were practical lessons timetabled. however, special arrangements are made towards the end of the year, usually maeko and makgato 336 around september, for learners to spend time in the workshop in order to complete the project for moderation. this means that learners do not have an opportunity to attend practical lessons on a weekly basis during the year. the basic principle of integrating theory and practice is that they should be timetabled together. these findings are supported by a meeting of the bureau of the conference of ministers of education of the african union (comedaf ii, 2007). the meeting reports that offering technology education practical in schools is unlikely to be effective because the practical requires time which is too expensive to provide in all schools. teachers should be thoroughly trained by heis to conduct practical activities with learners to equip them with marketable skills for entry into a sustainable economy after grade 12. technology teacher education and training should include regular exposure and visits to related industries in order for teachers to keep abreast with the latest technological developments. in its mathematics, science and technology strategy, the department of basic education in south africa should focus more closely on the development of technological literacy by equipping schools with relevant materials and equipment. it is also 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(5):16– 22. uzoagulu, a. e. 1992. towards an effective equipment management (eem) in schools for economic and technological self-reliance. paper presented at the 7th annual conference of the nva held at fce (t), umunze. november 25–28. walmsley, b. 2003. partnership-centered learning: the case for pedagogic balance in technology education. journal of technology education. url: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/jte/v14n2/walmsley.html. july 2008 inside book colour .p65 abstract early in the post-independence era, the control of water resources in many african states was a task of central planning. regrettably, water management soon became a miry adventure in most african states largely because of warped planning and implementation. this article examines the phenomenon of private sector involvement in water resources management and seeks to understand the effect of such involvement on the right to water in africa in the context of the millennium development goals. the article explores the continuing relationship between african governments and non-state actors in the management of water resources in the privatisation age. the article further analyses the role of various national water governance initiatives vis-à-vis the efficient management of water resources and the sharp contradictions in their frameworks from a rights-based perspective. it evaluates the normative frameworks of access to water as a human right in africa and contends that the human being must be placed at the centre of water discourses in assessing all role actors and their responsibilities. extrapolating from experiences from various states within and outside africa, this article advocates a rights-based approach to water issues and its value for the ultimate purpose of humancentred development. keywords: water governance, decentralisation, privatisation, multi-national enterprises (mnes), millennium development goals (mdgs), rights-based approach, sub-saharan africa. disciplines: human rights law, african political economy, development, social policy. privatisation and water governance in africa: implications of a rights-based approach ’dejo olowu* * prof. oladejo olowu, a specialist in human rights, is associate professor of law, nelson mandela school of law, university of fort hare, east london, south africa. email: djolowu1@yahoo.co.uk. this article was presented at the international conference on exploring transdisciplinary discourses: water, society and the environment in africa, under the auspices of the north-west university’s water studies research group in collaboration with the international water history association, held in drakensberg, south africa, 20-24 april 2008. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 59-93. 60 introduction in light of the increasing scarcity of fresh water resources, coupled with the weakness of post-independence policy frameworks to ensure the effective management and distribution of water resources, most developing states of the world are now taking steps to exploit their water resources in a more sustainable way and are implementing systemic changes to the use of water resources and water delivery services. there are ongoing major changes in policies and laws in most states. african states are no exception. state policy initiatives now often encourage private investment in water services, and in the case of many african states, particularly in the so-called subsaharan region, this is often foreign. policy changes in developing states have received the backing of most international financial institutions in the development sector such as the international bank for reconstruction and development (the world bank) and the international monetary fund (imf).1 this pattern has become ever more contentious in a number of developing states because the upand-coming global market for water services strains communal water supply schemes. moreover, the decision-making process in terms of water sector reforms often takes places without adequate dissemination of information and involvement of the civil society.2 as would be seen shortly, the institutional bias towards the private appropriation of water along the lines of neo-liberal free market regimes established for other resources is increasingly being challenged across disciplines. while one must acknowledge that intensive global legal and policy initiatives to water issues are incipient, what is worrisome is that states, multilateral institutions and the civil society in the african region are generally not responding to the challenges of water governance in a coherent and effective way. the questions presented for researchers and scholars on water affairs in african states are: 1 see world bank, private sector development strategy – directions for the world bank group (washington, dc: world bank group, 2002) 3-15; clare joy & peter hardstaff, dirty aid, dirty water: the uk government’s push to privatise water and sanitation in poor countries (london: world development movement, 2005) 15; barak d. hoffman, “development despots: foreign aid, domestic politics, and the quality of governance”, globalisation research centre – africa, paper no. 21, 3 may 2003, <http://www.globalization-africa.org/papers/21.html> (last visited 27 july 2008); sarah grusky, “imf forces water privatisation on poor countries”, february 2001, <http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/waterimf.html> (last visited 27 july 2008). 2 see hoffman, ibid. see also emilie filmer-wilson, “the human rights-based approach to development: the right to water” (2005) 23(2) netherlands quarterly of human rights 213, 215. olowu 61 where does africa belong in the regulatory regime of foreign investment and international development activities where such adversely implicate the management of water resources, particularly now that the continent is being talked about increasingly in terms of marginalisation?3 will the present regime of water privatisation programmes guarantee africa’s attainment of global development aspirations? these questions, from my perspective, form a critical component of the quest for effective, equitable and sustainable water governance in african states. it must be borne in mind that while i recognise the plenitude of water governance challenges confronting africa and africans, this article does not propose to answer all the tribulations of africa. in this article, therefore, focus is on the involvement of states and non-state actors in the water sector reform processes and the implications of their activities for equitable water usage in some african states and the survival of african peoples in the shorter and longer terms. efforts are made to fashion out alternative trajectories for normative, policy and other strategic action to enable the continent engage the many challenges arising from the prevailing global economic system. drawing on learned experiences, therefore, this article accentuates the significance of a rights-based approach to the formulation of legal, policy and institutional responses to initiatives implicating water governance in the african region. the parameters of the overarching connection between a rights-based approach and water governance vis-à-vis nonstate actors are elaborated in subsequent discussions in this article. as a final preliminary note, we must be careful to note that all references to “africa” does not indicate any attempt at homogenising geopolitical differences among africa’s 54 states. rather, it is the commonality in the experiences of african states as duty bearers for the promises of various human rights treaties and their challenges as developing states that must guide our interpretation of the thrust of this paper. while the problematised themes of this paper revolve mainly around sub-saharan africa, i indicate scenarios that implicate the northern states of the continent. 3 for scholarly references on the “marginalisation” discourse, see yash tandon, “the world trade organisation and africa’s marginalisation” (1999) 53(1) australian journal of international affairs 83; r. j. hagen, “marginalisation in the context of globalisation. why is africa so poor?” 28(2) nordic journal of political economy (2002) 148-179; j. oloka-onyango, “reinforcing marginalised rights in an age of globalisation: international mechanisms, non-state actors, and the struggle for peoples’ rights in africa” (2003) 18 american university international law review 851; sehlare makgetlaneng, “the penetrated political economy of africa countries: marginalisation or increased integration and dependence”, aisa electronic monograph, 1 august 2003, <http://www.ai.org.za/ electronic_monograph.asp?id=5> (last visited 27 july 2008). td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. privatisation and water governance in africa 62 water governance in africa: concepts, contexts and concerns the term “governance” is a hackneyed concept that has since the 1990s been applied by institutions, states, policy-makers, researchers and other commentators to diverse “zones” of human endeavour.4 when placed within the water context, the concept is generally defined as encompassing the relations and interplay among governmental and non-governmental entities, processes and normative frameworks, where powers and functions directly or indirectly influence the use, management and control of water.5 in this regard, the united nations development programme (undp) has defined “water governance” as “the ways in which individuals and societies have assigned value to, made decisions about, and managed the water resources available to them.”6 however, the terminology encompasses the entire gamut of laws, policies, regulation, administration, investment, uses and other issues pertaining to water as well as the roles and responsibilities of state and non-state actors in that sphere.7 water governance thus concerns how legal and policy decisions are made, with particular emphasis on participation by human beings who will thereby be directly affected by the outcome of such decisions. what then are the basis, scope and content of water governance? where lies the linkage between water governance and the language of human rights? what implications do the global water governance discourses portend for africa and african peoples particularly in the context of the millennium development goals (mdgs)? based on my premise that the human being must be at the centre of water governance discourses, i make a modest attempt at addressing this plethora of questions. it must be borne in mind from the onset that the current debates and challenges relating to water supply and management in africa cannot be properly understood without reference to the historical developments about the subject beginning from the colonial period.8 4 john graham, bruce amos & tim plumptre, governance principles for protected areas in the 21st century (ottawa: institute of governance, 2003) 5; uk department for international development (dfid), governance, development and democratic politics: dfid’s work in building more effective states (london: dfid, 2007) 6-13. 5 dfid, ibid., 2-7. see also unesco, un world water development report (new york, ny: undp, 2006) 45-46. 6 undp, water governance for poverty reduction (new york, ny: undp, 2004) 2. 7 ibid., 10. see also maria saleth & ariel dinar, evaluating water institutions and water sector performance, world bank technical paper no. 447 (washington, dc: world bank, 1999) 4-5. 8 naren prasad, “privatisation of water: a historical perspective” (2007) 3(2) law, environment & development journal 217, 223. olowu 63 in much of pre-independence africa, the management of water resources was mainly the responsibility of colonial national governments.9 the centralisation model thus remained the dominant approach to water governance in african states even at independence.10 however, with the ubiquitous failure of various centralised water and other development-oriented project initiatives, governments in african states embarked on the idea of decentralising bureaucracies, social services and governmental planning, with the objective of enhancing efficiency and accountability, among others.11 while the assumption of the vast majority of african states that opted for the decentralisation model was that decentralisation would guarantee better management of public resources for the common good,12 practical experiences across states of the decentralised model – democratic republic of congo, ethiopia, ghana, kenya, morocco, mozambique, namibia, niger, nigeria, zambia, senegal, south africa, sudan, tanzania, uganda, and so on – all showed that decentralisation largely compounded the problems sought to be avoided.13 one of the core areas where many african governments felt decentralisation was desirable which however manifested much of the adverse effects of the approach was water management, particularly as related to access and distribution.14 although popular scholarship defines decentralisation as “the transfer of authority and responsibility for planning, managements, and resource-raising and 9 james s. wunsch, “foundations of centralisation: the colonial experience and the african context”, in james s. wunsch & dele olowu (eds.), the failure of the centralised state: institutions and self-governance in africa (san francisco, ca: institute for contemporary studies, 1995) 23. 10 prasad, above note 8, ibid. 11 see dele olowu, “bureaucratic morality in africa” (1988) 9(3) international political science review 215, 222-223. 12 james s. wunsch, “centralisation and development in post-independence africa”, in james s. wunsch & dele olowu (eds.), the failure of the centralised state: institutions and self-governance in africa (san francisco, ca: institute for contemporary studies, 1995) 43; dele olowu, “the failure of current decentralisation programs in africa”, in james s. wunsch & dele olowu (eds.), the failure of the centralised state: institutions and self-governance in africa (san francisco, ca: institute for contemporary studies, 1995) 74, 87; george matovu, “decentralisation in africa: a review of patterns, trends and challenges”, in united nations, decentralised governance for democracy, peace and development and effective service delivery (new york: un, 2004) 34, 39-40. 13 see generally stephen n. ndegwa, decentralisation in africa: a stocktaking survey, african region working paper series no. 40 (washington, dc: world bank, 2002) 13. 14 matovu, decentralisation in africa, above note 12, 54. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 64 allocation from the central government to (a) field units of central government ministries or agencies; (b) subordinate units or levels of government; (c) semi-autonomous public authorities or corporations; (d) area-wide regional or functional authorities; or (e) ngos/pvos”,15 the manifestation of the decentralisation phenomenon in africa supports the view that it is not to be conceived only as a vertical transfer of responsibilities and resources but also encompasses horizontal transfer between governments and non-state entities.16 this is where the concept of privatisation makes its entry into this discussion.17 the privatisation of public infrastructure and social services had become the dominant approach of many african governments since the late 1980s, as solution to all the shortcomings and challenges of public service delivery and management.18 the management of water resources was no exception, manifesting in diverse forms of private sector participation (psp) in the water sector. notwithstanding upward indication of failures and increasing public pressures against it, privatisation remains the prevalent approach to water supply and management in much of africa, albeit constantly repackaged under new nomenclatures and frameworks, e.g., “public-private partnerships” (ppps), “water operator partnerships” (wops), “integrated water resources management” (iwrm), and so on.19 while privatisation as a concept has received considerable scholarly 15 ibid.,38. 16 george matovu, “capacity building approaches and strategies: human resources development for effective local government performance in africa”, in united nations, decentralised governance for democracy, peace and development and effective service delivery (new york: un, 2004) 103, 110. 17 for a scholarly background discussion of “privatisation” in africa, see samuel adams & berhanu mengistu, “the political economy of privatisation in subsaharan africa” (2008) 89 (1) social science quarterly 78–94. 18 ibid.; kate bayliss, “privatisation and poverty: the distributional impact of utility privatisation” (2002) 73(4) annals of public & cooperative economics 603, 605. 19 see peter h. gleick et al, the new economy of water: the risks and benefits of globalisation and privatisation of fresh water (oakland, ca: pacific institute for studies in development, environment, and security, 2002) 26-28. for a discussion about “water operator partnerships” (wops), see silver mugisha, developing water operator partnerships: a case of nwsc-uganda” march 2006. for a discussion of “public-private partnerships” (ppps), see david hall & emanuele lobina, “private and public interests in water and energy” (2004) 28 natural resources forum 268–277. for a discussion of “integrated water resources management” (iwrm), see emmanuel m. akpabio, nigel m. watson, uwem e. ite & imoh e. ukpong , “integrated water resources management in the cross river basin, nigeria” (2007) 23(4) international journal of water resources development 691 – 708. olowu 65 attention vis-à-vis discourses on the effect of globalisation in africa,20 what appears negligible is the interjection of african water privatisation discourses by international human rights ethos. it will serve the ends of this article, at this point, to analyse the role and influence of privatisation on water governance in african states in order to accentuate how this implicates human rights considerations. water sector reforms and the privatisation paradigm in africa no doubt, infrastructure services such as electricity, telecommunications, transportation, and water and sanitation play a critical role in a country’s development and are directly and indirectly linked to living standards and economic growth. until the 1990s, most developing states relied on public sector monopolies to finance and operate their infrastructure, albeit with disappointing results.21 beginning in the late 1980s, therefore, most of these states began turning to the private sector to take over the operation of existing infrastructure and to finance new infrastructure development. private sector participation in infrastructure was expected to expand and improve services, create incentives for efficiency, and reduce the burden on strained public resources.22 20 some of the notable literature on the subject include: roger g. noll, “reforming urban water systems in developing countries”, stanford institute for economic policy research (siepr) discussion paper no. 99-32 (stanford, ca: siepr, 2000); colin kirkpatrick, “regulatory impact assessment in developing countries: research issues”, centre on regulation and competition, working paper series no. 5, university of manchester, manchester, october 2001; john craig, “privatisation and indigenous ownership: evidence from africa’, centre on regulation and competition, working paper series no. 13, university of manchester, manchester, 2002; david parker & colin kirkpatrick, “privatisation in developing countries: a review of the evidence and policy lessons”, working paper series no. 55, centre on regulation and competition, university of manchester, manchester, july 2003; ademola ariyo & afeikhena jerome, “utility privatisation and the poor: nigeria in focus”, global issues papers 12. heinrich böll foundation, berlin, july 2004. see also matthew ryan graham, “african water and sanitation bibliography”, globalisation research centre – africa, paper no. 55, 11 july 2005, <http://www.globalization-africa.org/papers/69.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008). 21 prasad, above note 8, 224; un world water development report above note 5, 44. see also wunsch, centralisation and development, above note 12, 51-69. 22 see the resources in note 20 above particularly john craig, at 2, as well as clive harris, private participation in infrastructure in developing countries: trends, impacts and policy lessons, working paper no. 5 (washington, dc: , world bank, 2003). privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 66 water sector reforms basically seek to redefine the role that governments play in the management and distribution of water resources. in much of africa, these include both measures restricting the role that the government is playing as well as measures seeking to increase governmental control.23 on the one hand, the main thrust of water sector reforms is to transform the role of the government by transferring part of existing governmental prerogatives to users and private actors. this includes, for instance, the transfer of operation, maintenance, management and collection of water charges to user groups.24 this is meant to promote a sense of ownership at the user level that the overbearing presence of the government in the water sector had not been able to cultivate. a second thrust of the reforms is to set up new bodies at the local level to take over part of the functions of the government. the reduction of the role of the state in the water sector is also linked to the promotion of the use of incentives to ensure that water is more efficiently and productively used. the main consequence which is derived from this is the call for private sector involvement in all aspects of water control and use from planning to development and administration of water resources projects.25 on the other hand, some of the ongoing reforms seek to foster increased state involvement in the water sector. at the global level, an increasing number of states are seeking to control and regulate groundwater whose use has been largely linked to land ownership until now.26 the reference to groundwater and land ownership here is neither abstract nor superfluous. as society becomes more settled, or as water becomes scarcer, there is an increased focus on the issue of who owns the water under the land. three approaches to groundwater ownership have developed. first, the oldest and least rigorous rule is the common law rule or the absolute ownership rule. it grants to property owners the unrestricted right to remove water beneath their properties, even if this results in depleting the water table beneath adjacent property or causing subsidence in the adjacent land. the common law rule was based on the reasoning that ownership of property extended ab infernis ad cielos – “from hell to 23 see afeikhena jerome & ademola ariyo, “infrastructure reform and poverty reform in africa”, african development and poverty reduction, forum paper, october 2004, 3-4. 24 ibid. 25 patrick bond, “uneven urban development, water and finance during africa’s global economic integration”, globalisation research centre – africa, paper no. 55, 18 may 2005, <http://www.globalization-africa.org/ papers_detail.php?paper_id=55> (last visited 27 july 2008). 26 see generally elli louka, international environmental law: fairness, effectiveness, and world order (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006) 169-171. olowu 67 heaven” – the owner of a parcel of land owns that land, the air rights, the ground rights and any other rights all the way through to the heart of the earth.27 this creates a nice imaginative picture of ownership, but it also raises a number of questions about the complexities of the land tenure/water rights interface. in a number of areas, therefore, the state seeks to either maintain its de facto prerogatives or extend them. in the national policies of many african states, a clear statement is made to the effect that the government should be able to provide for the transfer of water from one river basin to another.28 overall, recent reforms in the water sector in african states are based on the need to promote decentralisation and participation that involves water users, in accordance with international principles.29 this is meant to provide a framework for decentralising decisionmaking to the lowest level and to allow the beneficiaries (end-users) and other stakeholders to be involved from the project planning stage. the rationale for decentralisation is the perceived inability of the state to deliver appropriate benefits.30 the state is thus called upon to change its role from that of a service provider to that of a regulator. in the case of agricultural irrigation, for example, this implies partial or full transfer of the control of irrigation systems to users by permitting and inducing the users to become responsible for the upkeep of the irrigation systems as well as for sharing the water allocated among them. in theory, participation is conceived as an omnibus expression that covers participation in policy planning and project design to the management of water infrastructure. in practice, however, the word “participation” is some sort of anomaly. on the one hand, what is envisaged is not so much the opportunity for users to participate in taking decisions affecting them but the blanket imposition of a new system of local water use and control scheme based on commercial 27 see joshua getzler, a history of water rights at common law (oxford, oxford. university press, 2004) 49-52; s. hodgson, land and water: the rights interface (rome: food and agriculture organization). 28 bond, above note 25, ibid.; un world water development report, above note 5, 54. 29 see yuliya mitrofanskaya, “privatisation as an international phenomenon” (1999) 14 american university international law review 1399, 1410; john n. drobak, “a comment on privatisation and democratisation” (2006) 50 saint louis university law journal 783, 787-790; philippe cullet, “water law reforms analysis of recent developments” (2006) 48(2) journal of the indian law institute 206. 30 edward mugabi, “decentralisation for good governance: policies, legal frameworks and implementation strategies”, in united nations, decentralised governance for democracy, peace and development and effective service delivery (new york, ny: united nations, 2004) 22, 27-28. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 68 principles even where there may be successful systems of water governance already in place.31 in other words, a government could choose to have less participation in economic affairs by authorizing regulated private firms to provide water to consumers as a monopoly product and by subsidizing market supply of the service. although privatisation and participation had become catchphrases in current water sector reforms in africa, particularly in the context of the involvement of development agencies, the central operational paradigm has been the radical restructuring of the delivery of water in african states, with varying degrees of consequences. one notable aspect relates to the so-called water markets.32 throughout the 1990s, many african governments awarded water resource management contracts to multi-national enterprises (mnes). by 2004, there were 20 ongoing water service contracts in subsaharan africa.33 swyngedouw projects that whereas only three per cent of all water services in africa were privatised as of 1997, the figure will grow to 33 per cent in 2010, at the net value of us$3 billion.34 it should be remembered that following the gale of water privatisation programmes across the continent, there were various protests and public outrage; and water service contracts have been terminated in the gambia, ghana, guinea, kenya, mozambique, south africa and zimbabwe, among others.35 the privatisation of the water sector was introduced into african states based on the assumption that privatisation will benefit the poor and rural 31 see generally r. alence, “sources of successful cost recovery for water: evidence from a national survey of south african municipalities” (2002) 19(9) development southern africa 699-717; a. g. kyessi, “community-based urban water management under scarcity in dar-es-salaam, tanzania” (2001) 8(1-3) journal of building and land development 28-41. 32 see ndegwa, above note 13, 7-8, 14. for some scholarly background discussions on “water markets” in africa, see rokeya ahmed, dsk: a model for securing access to water for the poor (london: water aid, 2003); matthew ryan graham, water services delivery and its typologies in africa (ma urban planning dissertation, university of california, 2005) 89-91. ariyo & jerome, utility privatisation and the poor, above note 20, 25. 33 colin kirkpatrick & david parker, “regulation and privatisation of water services in developing countries: assessing the impact of the general agreements on trade in service”, centre on regulation and competition, working paper series no. 67, university of manchester, manchester, 2004, 5-6. 34 erik swyngedouw, “private sector participation in the water sector and the mdgs: turning local waters into global money?”, fourth world water forum, mexico city, 19 march 2006 (on file with author). 35 see bernard collignon & marc vezina, “independent water and sanitation providers in african cities”, washington, dc: world bank, april 2000; ariyo & jerome, utility privatisation and the poor, above note 20, 14. see also bond, above note 25, ibid. olowu 69 consumers and improve access to sanitation and clean water. however, this obviously has not been the overall outcome and while there have been pockets of relative success, the privatisation of the water sector has failed in many other cases.36 one of the main grounds of criticism was that the tariff hikes following water privatisation were not affordable to low-income consumers. in some south african townships, where unemployment is close to 70 per cent, for example, high reconnection fees and volumetric charges were followed by cholera outbreaks.37 in the kwazulu-natal province, the death toll rose to 250 with more than 100 000 cases of illness because of using water from rivers and stagnant ponds, as most poor people could not afford higher tariffs.38 in zimbabwe, a uk company (biwater) terminated its water provision contract claiming that the customers are too poor to pay tariff rates that would have enabled the firm to make a decent profit.39 in guinea, the privatisation of water maintenance, billing and payment collection resulted in a tariff increase from us$0.02 per cubic metre in 1989 to us$0.83 per cubic metre in 1996.40 indeed, more customers were connected in one year reaching 23 000 from 12 000 in 1995. the number of metered private customers therefore went up from five to 93 per cent. nearly all government institutions were also connected to piped water. in the end, only 24 per cent of the new water connections were working.41 empirical data show that 50 percent of ghanaians earn less than us$1 36 colin kirkpatrick et al, “state versus private sector provision of water services in africa: a statistical dea and stochastic cost frontier analysis”, centre on regulation and competition, working paper series no. 70, university of manchester, manchester, 2004, 3. see also bond, above note 25, ibid. 37 see generally laura russ, the right to water and sanitation: a useful tool for universal service delivery? (ma urban planning dissertation, university of california, los angeles, 2005) 35-37; sonkita conteh, inhibiting ‘progressive realisation’? the effect of privatisation on the right to water in senegal and south africa (llm dissertation, university of pretoria, 2006) 39-43. 38 ibid. see also edward cottle & hameda deedat, the cholera outbreak: a 20002002 case study of the source of the outbreak in the madlebe tribal authority areas, uthungulu region, kwazulu-natal (cape town: ilrig, 2002); m. scrace, “cholera in the mdletsheni tribal authority” (2006) 5 journal of rural & tropical public health 70-78. 39 janelle plummer et al, preparing a concession: working towards private sector participation in water and sanitation services in gweru, zimbabwe (london: ghk international, 2001) 442; graham, water services delivery, above note 32, 70-71. 40 george r.g. clarke, claude menard & ana maria zuluaga, “measuring the welfare effects of reform: urban water supply in guinea” (2002) 30(9) world development 1517-1537; graham, water services delivery, above note 32, 18-19. 41 clarke et al, ibid., 1523. see also ariyo & jerome, utility privatisation and the poor, above note 20, 14. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 70 per day and 40 per cent live below the national poverty line.42 in addition, 35 percent of ghanaians lack access to safe drinking water, yet poor households in several communities in ghana spend up to 25 percent of their earnings on drinking water.43 water privatisation manifests its problematic edges in many other areas as far as africans are concerned.44 it is worth mentioning that way, back in 1994, the world bank had vehemently posited that the use of prepaid water meters by which end-users pay upfront for the water consumed, and invariably, the privatisation of water services, was the most cost-efficient way of ensuring the delivery of water services to large populations.45 while the world bank’s contention sounded plausible, it had later been proven as missing a number of collateral issues. for one, this method of delivery was essentially detrimental to the poorest individuals with low and irregular income and who therefore were often unable to pay upfront for water services to which access must be guaranteed on a daily basis.46 furthermore, the individualisation of the provision 42 see gyekye tanoh & kathy cusack, “the struggle over water”, <http:// www.socialwatch.org/en/informeimpreso/pdfs/ghana2003_eng.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008); public citizen, “water for all campaign”, <http://www.citizen.org/ documents/ghanawbalert.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008). 43 tanoh & cusack, ibid. see also erin webreck, “access to water: the challenge of battling privatisation: a case study of swedish water companies” (2005) 5 american university/sustainable development law & policy 30; stephen adei, “governance, state-ownership and divestiture: the ghanaian experience” (unpublished, on file with author) 24. 44 for various publications on different national contexts depicting warped outcomes of the water privatisation process across africa, see kenyan social watch coalition, “the stark realities of an ideological orthodoxy”, <http://www.socialwatch.org/ en/informeimpreso/pdfs/kenya2003_eng.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008); abould souleye sow, “less state, fewer benefits”, <http://www.socialwatch.org/en/ informeimpreso/pdfs/senegal2003_eng.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008); hassan a. ati & galal el tayeb, “the damage of declining public investment on services”, <http://www.socialwatch.org/en/informeimpreso/pdfs/sudan2003_eng.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008); david obot, “privatisation versus the poor”, <http:// www.socialwatch.org/en/informeimpreso/pdfs/uganda2003_eng.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008); and michelo hansungule, “poverty in the midst of the m a r k e t ” , < h t t p : / / w w w . s o c i a l w a t c h . o r g / e n / i n f o r m e i m p r e s o / p d f s / zambia2003_eng.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008). 45 world bank, world development report 1994: infrastructure for development (washington, dc: world bank, 1994) 8-11. see also jan vandemoortele, “access to basic social services: access to basic social services, human rights that make excellent economic sense”, carnegie council on ethics and international affairs, workshop on social policy principles and the social development agenda, pocantico conference centre, new york, 3-5 december 1999. 46 see john scanlon, angela cassar & noemi nemes, water as a human right? (gland: iucn, 2004) 1; erik b. bluemel, “the implications of formulating a human right to water” (2004) ecology law quarterly 957, 962. olowu 71 of this traditionally communal commodity has had the side effect of eroding social cohesion as neighbours suddenly start competing for a good that they previously shared.47 finally, it has been observed that, in the long run, private water supply companies have tended to favour investment in rich neighbourhoods to the detriment of poorer areas, where the quality of services consequently declined, and in some cases disappeared altogether.48 so much has been written on the negative consequences of privatisation in africa as most of the resources already cited in this article would show and it serves no purpose to revisit this wealth of literature. the privatisation model, which is prevalent in much of africa, comes under critical review bearing in mind the contextual global challenges that reflect the continent’s particularly precarious position on the issue of human access to safe and adequate water.49 it should be remembered that more than 30 years ago, precisely in 1977, delegates from most of the world’s governments had expressed their commitment to ensuring that everyone would have adequate water and sanitation by 1990.50 since this goal failed to materialise, another target was set in 1990 to achieve universal access to safe water by 2000.51 by 2000, it was obvious that this goal was not achievable sequel to which the goal date was shifted to 2015, this time, relabelled as a millennium development goal (mdg) targeted at halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water all over the world by this future date.52 having laid the premise for the interjection of the global water agenda by the water governance crisis in africa, the inevitable question to ask is whether african states are on a progressive path towards the realisation of the above-mentioned goal. the next segment therefore evaluates the significance of the mdg on water for africa and africans and accentuates the need for a re-conceptualisation of current african water governance reforms. 47 see bluemel, ibid. 48 kate bayliss, “utility privatisation in sub-saharan africa: a case study of water” (2003) 41 journal of modern african studies 507-531. see also scanlon et al, above note 46, 2; adams & mengistu, above note 17, 85; legal and human rights centre et al, “benefit of an elite at the expense of the poor majority”, <http:// www.socialwatch.org/en/informeimpreso/pdfs/tanzania2003_eng.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008). 49 see the graphic description of africa’s overall standing on global water target in dfid, “water and sanitation: are we on track to meet the target?”, dfid factsheet, november 2007 (london: dfid, 2007) 1-2. 50 see un-habitat, water and sanitation in the world’s cities (london: earthscan, 2003) 5-6; joy & hardstaff, dirty aid, dirty water, above note 1, 7. 51 jan vandemoortele, are the mdgs feasible? (new york, ny: undp, 2003) 1. 52 water aid, “women’s problems”, <http://www.wateraid.org.uk/what_we_do/ the_need/241.asp> (last visited 27 july 2008). privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 72 water governance in africa: challenges and dilemmas in the context of the millennium development goals (mdg) at the united nations (un) millennium summit of 6-8 september 2000, 189 sovereign states adopted a document known as the millennium declaration, from which emerged a set of eight fundamental global development goals, 18 numerical targets and 48 quantifiable indicators to be achieved by 2015.53 the millennium development goals (mdgs) commit the international community to an expanded vision of poverty reduction and pro-poor growth and vigorously place human development at the centre of social and economic progress in all states. the mdgs also seek to reduce the number of poor in the world and specifically target the worst aspects of poverty, including lack of access to water.54 throughout the developing world, there are significant social, economic, ecological, and capacity obstacles to meeting the mdg for water and sanitation.55 it is conceivable that overcoming them will require more effective and participatory water governance, improved water management, enhanced capacity at all levels, and greater empowerment of the poor. yet, as the world strives towards achieving these development targets, africa stagnates. it is becoming evident that africa will miss the mdgs by wide margins. according to the global monitoring report (gmr) for 2008,56 the annual report that assesses how the world is faring in implementing the policies and actions required to achieve the mdgs, jointly produced by the world bank and the imf in collaboration with other international partners, because of high economic growth in the last five years, the world is generally on course to achieve the first mdg, that is, halving extreme poverty by 2015 with the number of people living on less than us$1 per day declining by 278 million between 1990 and 2004.57 based on the same trends, however, most mdgs 53 for the text of the declaration and related reports, see kofi annan, “we the peoples: the role of the united nations in the twenty-first century”, <http:// www.un.org/millennium/sg/report/full.htm> (last visited 27 july 2008). see also salil shetty, “millennium declaration and development goals: opportunities for human rights” (2005) 2(2) sur – international journal of human rights 7, 8. 54 mdg number 7 (ensure environmental sustainability) declares target number 10 as “reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.” see undp, “about the mdgs: basics”, <http://www.undp.org/ mdg/basics.shtml> (last visited 27 july 2008). see also shetty, ibid.; undp, water: a key to meeting the millennium development goals (new york, ny: undp, 2004) 2. 55 undp, water: a key, ibid., 5-7. see also bluemel, above note 46, 961; scanlon et al, above note 46, ibid. 56 world bank, global monitoring report: mdgs and the environment (washington, dc: world bank 2008). 57 ibid., 33. olowu 73 are unlikely to be met in africa.58 with regard to goal number 7 target 10, the gmr paints a dismal picture for africa: while wide agreement exists on the need for adequate water and sanitation, progress has been slow, particularly compared with progress on other mdgs…for 32 countries in africa, the distribution of access to clean water and proper sanitation is highly unequal: while less than 10 percent of the bottom expenditure quintile has access to improved water supply, nearly 70 percent of the top quintile has such access. similarly, over half of the bottom quintile has no access to sanitation of any kind, while only 6 percent of the top quintile has no access to sanitation. given the fundamental nature and cost of water and sanitation services…as incomes increase, many families will invest in these basic services, and they are willing and able to pay at least for water.59 suffice to say that the litany of africa’s turbulent experience with warped outcomes from water privatisation leads to inevitable questions: what should be the focal point in assessing the water privatisation paradigm in africa? next, in the context of the mdgs, will privatisation guarantee that mdg number 7 goal 10 is achieved as scheduled? furthermore, are there operational models or platforms for pursuing and achieving the mdg goal on water in a sustainable way? this is where the rights-based approach to water governance canvassed in this article makes its entry point and to this we now turn. the millennium development goals and water governance in africa: a rights-based critique as shown in the preceding segment, the mdgs call for change, but not for creating the conditions to make real change possible. to address the root causes of the problems that the goals are supposed to rectify, there is a need to engage those phenomena that the mdgs take for granted. these include policies that have increased poverty and inequality around the world. one way of doing this is by exploring the phenomenon of privatisation as i have done earlier in this article. another way of gaining insight into any policy model is to look at its authors. the mdgs are sponsored jointly by the un, the world bank, and the imf. while the united nations operates within a human rights framework, the objectives of the world bank and imf are to advance 58 ibid., 2-3, 21-22. see also ebenezer hanson, “privatisation of water, health renders mdgs unattainable, says civil society”, public agenda (accra), 21 april 2008, <http://allafrica.com/stories/200804211721.html> (last visited 27 july 2008). 59 ibid., 83-84. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 74 a set of economic policies that are often contrary to human rights considerations.60 in essence, the mdgs infuse neoliberal priorities into development policy, merely employing the language of human rights. they seek to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” (goal 1), for instance, but rely on the discredited notion that economic growth at the national level can eliminate poverty, and they assume that privatisation of basic social services will promote rather than impede economic development.61 latent in the mdgs is a deep-seated incongruity: poor states are expected to meet the mdgs by implementing the very neoliberal economic policies that have, in large measure, caused the crises that the goals are intended to address in much of the developing world. these policies include cutting government spending, privatising basic services including water, liberalising trade, and producing goods primarily for export.62 from the above, the methodology and assumptions of neoliberal economics inform the mdgs, which rely heavily on the indicator of “absolute poverty” (i.e. measurement of the proportion of the population surviving on less than a certain amount of income each day).63 the mdgs therefore utilise the world bank’s index of an income of us$1 per day to indicate extreme poverty. this earningbased measurement of poverty blurs the experience of millions of people, for whom poverty may not be a question of income, but of their alienation from sustainable patterns of livelihood. someone can enjoy good health and live quite long but be illiterate and thus cut off from learning, from communication and from interactions with others. another person may be literate and quite well educated but prone to premature death because of epidemiological characteristics or physical disposition. yet a third may be excluded from participating in the important decision-making processes affecting her life. the deprivation of none of them can be fully captured by the level of their income. furthermore, indigenous people, for instance, assert that 60 see ’dejo olowu, conceptualising a rights-based approach to human development in africa: reflections on the roles and responsibilities of non-state actors, research partnership programme 2/2004 (copenhagen: danish institute for human rights, 2005) 52-56; j. paul martin, “development and rights revisited: lessons from africa” (2006) 4(3) sur international journal on human rights 91, 96. 61 vandemoortele, are the mdgs feasible?, above note 51, 3. 62 see sanjay reddy & antoine heuty, “achieving the millennium development goals: what’s wrong with existing analytical models?”, <http:// www.millenniumdevelopmentgoals.org> (last visited 27 july 2008). see generally ban ki-moon, “millennium development goals report 2007”, <http:// m d g s . u n . o r g / u n s d / m d g / r e s o u r c e s / s t a t i c / p r o d u c t s / p r o g r e s s 2 0 0 7 / unsd_mdg_report_2007e.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008). 63 vandemoortele, are the mdgs feasible?, above note 61, ibid. olowu 75 their poverty and wealth are determined primarily by access to, and control of, their natural resources and traditional knowledge, which are the sources of indigenous culture and livelihoods.64 in indigenous communities, therefore, human rights, particularly collective indigenous rights over land, natural resources including water, are critical to fighting poverty.65 however, the mdgs fail to recognise that poverty is a function of human rights violations; such as the lack of access, discrimination and inequality. for the purpose of this article, the mdgs conceive of access to water not as a non-negotiable and universal right, but as a “need” to be met.66 by extension, therefore, the poor are not seen as autonomous subjects demanding that governments meet their legal obligations, but as a passive target group in policymaking.67 sustainable development – which depends on broad civic participation, social justice, and a fundamental shift in the balance of power – is consequently sidelined by this failure of the mdgs to operate within a human rights framework.68 i submit that human rights standards are a useful yardstick for evaluating the mdgs. they will reveal that the mdgs are not a spontaneous expression of governmental goodwill at the dawn of our present millennium. rather, the mdgs constitute pre-existing international obligations, some dating back to 1948. where, then, lies the normative framework for a human rights-based approach to water governance in africa, in the context of the mdgs? 64 see russel lawrence barsh, “indigenous peoples in the 1990s: from object to subject of international law?” (1994) 7 harvard human rights journal 33. see also ike okonta & oronto douglas, where vultures feast: 40 years of shell in the nigerdelta (benin-city: environmental rights action, 2001). 65 ibid. see also sidsel saugestad, “the indigenous people of southern africa: an overview”, in robert hitchcock & diana vinding (eds.), indigenous peoples’ rights in southern africa (copenhagen: iwgia, 2004) 22, 38-40; african commission on human and peoples’ rights, indigenous peoples in africa: the forgotten peoples? (copenhagen: iwgia, 2006) 17-19; sille stidsen, the indigenous world 2007 (copenhagen: iwgia, 2007) 12-13. 66 see un world water development report above note 5, 62. 67 see world bank, global monitoring report, above note 56, 19, 38, 60, for references supporting this line of thought. 68 see prasad, above note 8, 231-232; verena fritz & alina rocha menocal, “developmental states in the new millennium: concepts and challenges for a new aid agenda” (2007) 25(5) development policy review 531-552. see also amy hardberger, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of water: evaluating water as a human right and the duties and obligations it creates” (2005) 4(2) northwestern journal of international human rights 331, 341. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 76 basis for a rights-based approach to water governance in africa with the formal commitment of a range of international institutions, intergovernmental agencies and international non-governmental organisations (ingos) towards integrating human rights ethos into their development work, the prevalent thinking in contemporary development discourses is the rights-based approach.69 although there is divergence in the outlook of what each agency or institution perceives as representing the “rights-based approach”,70 certain elements have crystallised over the years as representing the central dynamics of the concept. in a definition that encapsulates some of the more fundamental elements of the rights-based approach, the overseas development institute (odi) proclaims that: a rights-based approach to development sets the achievement of human rights as an objective of development. it uses thinking about human rights as the scaffolding of development policy. it invokes the international apparatus of human rights accountability in support of development action. in all of these, it is concerned not just with civil and political rights, but also with economic, social and cultural rights.71 in another comprehensive definition, the united nations development programme (undp) posits that: a rights-based approach is based on the values, standards and principles captured in the un charter, the universal declaration of human rights and subsequent legally binding human rights conventions and treaties…civil and political rights and social, 69 for in-depth scholarly insight into the emergence of human rights themes in development theory, see hans-otto sano, “development and human rights: the necessary, but partial integration of human rights and development” (2000) 22(3) human rights quarterly 734-742. see also peter uvin, “on high moral ground: the incorporation of human rights by the development enterprise” (2002) 17 praxis: fletcher journal of development studies 1, 3 (for a historical view on the “rhetorical-formulaic incorporation” of human rights into development theory). cf tone bleie et al, a rights-based approach to (norwegian) development assistance, a discussion paper commissioned by the royal norwegian ministry of foreign affairs, november 2002, 2-3. 70 see generally “definitions of rights-based approach to development: by perspective”, august 2003, <http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/publications/ hrbap/interaction_analysis_rba_definitions.pdf > (last visited 27 july 2008). for a detailed analysis of the variants and features of the “rights-based” approach to development, see florence nguyen, “emerging features of a rights-based development policy of un, development cooperation & ngo agencies”, discussion paper, ohchr asia-pacific regional office, september 2002, <http:// www.un.or.th/ohchr/issues/rba/pdf/discussrba.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008). 71 simon maxwell, overseas development institute (odi), briefing paper, september 1999, 1. olowu 77 economic and cultural rights should be simultaneously advanced in a rights based approach to poverty alleviation.72 there is thus an unmistakable consensus among the various theories on rights-based approach that the full realisation of human rights should be a vital goal of all development efforts. the approach canvassed in this article therefore perceives human rights as vital components of development programs and policies that must necessarily be integrated in all processes designed to deliver the promises of global development, including access to safe drinking water in the context of the mdgs. taken together, the rights-based approach articulated here contemplates human-centred modalities for water governance in ways that emphasise equality and nondiscrimination; accountability and transparency; and popular participation.73 the right to water was only implicitly mentioned in the universal declaration of human rights (udhr), 1948.74 the international recognition of water as a right was advanced through the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (icescr), 1966,75 and continued with the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), 1979,76 and the 72 undp, integrating human rights with sustainable human development: a undp policy document, 1998, at http://magnet.undp.org/docs/policy5.html (last visited 27 july 2008). for a compilation of how governmental and non-governmental organisations and a wide range of other agencies perceive the rights-based approach, see susan appleyard, a rights-based approach to development: what the policy documents of the un, development cooperation and ngo agencies say, ohchr asia-pacific human rights roundtable no. 1, september 2002. 73 see generally nguyen, supra note 69, at 6 (indicating these as the critical “rights” considerations). 74 article 25, udhr provides: “(1) everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” see filmer-wilson, above note 2, 227, contending that this provision encompasses the right to water. 75 see bluemel, above note 46, 967-68; salman m.a. salman & siobhan mcinerneylankford, the human right to water: legal and policy dimensions (washington, dc: world bank, 2004) 2, both arguing that articles 11 and 12 of the icescr make “water” a prerequisite for the fulfilment of every other human right. 76 article 14(2)(h), cedaw provides: “states parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, that they participate in and benefit from rural development and, in particular, shall ensure to such women the right to enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply, transport and communications.” privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 78 convention of the rights of the child (crc), 1989.77 over the past three decades, water has been addressed in a number of international conferences, which have recognised that water as a basic human need and some have gone as far as explicitly affirming the right to water. in 1977, the mar del plata action plan that emerged from the un water conference held in mar del plata, argentina, stated: (a)ll peoples, whatever their stage of development and their social and economic conditions, have the right to have access to drinking water in quantities and of a quality equal to their basic needs.78 furthermore, at the international conference on population and development, in cairo, 1994, and the second united nations conference on human settlements (habitat ii), in istanbul, 1996, 177 and 171 states, respectively, unanimously adopted international declarations which stated that the right to an adequate standard of living includes water.79 these have been followed by several other declarations and soft law instruments.80 at the african regional level, even though the main human rights treaty in africa, namely, the african charter on human and peoples’ rights, 1981, only guarantees that “every individual shall have the right to enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health”, it is arguable that this right and the measures to secure it necessitates the inclusion of the right of access to safe water.81 a later treaty, the 77 article 24 of the crc, paralleling article 25 of the udhr, provides that a child has the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health and that measures taken to secure this right shall include “combat[ting] disease and malnutrition…through, inter alia…the provision of adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking water.” 78 asit k. biswas, “from mar del plata to kyoto: an analysis of global water policy dialogues”, april, 2003, <http://www.doccentre.net/docsweb/water1/waterbiswas.htm> (last visited 27 july 2008). 79 ibid.; un world water development report above note 5, 63; salman & mcinerneylankford, above note 75, 7-8. 80 among these are article 8 (1) declaration on the right to development, 1986; un declaration on environment and development (“rio declaration”) the rio declaration, 1992; dublin statement on water and sustainable development, international conference on water and the environment, dublin, 31 january 1992 (“dublin declaration”); political declaration of johannesburg, 2002; and lately, the who guidelines for drinking-water quality, 2006. for an analysis of some of these instruments, see sarah i. hale, “water privatisation in the philippines: the need to implement the human right to water” (2006) 15 pacific rim law & policy journal 765, 780-782. 81 see anton kok, “the right to water and environment in south africa”, in lawrence mashava (ed.), a compilation of essential documents on the right to water and environment (pretoria: centre for human rights, 2000) 1, 3. olowu 79 african charter on the rights and welfare of the child, 1990, makes a more direct pronouncement on the obligation of african states “to ensure the provision of adequate…and safe drinking water” in fulfilling the foregoing provision for children.82 at the national level, only a few states have established formal legal frameworks acknowledging water as a human right, and of course, even fewer have embarked on practical implementation of a constitutional right to water. perhaps the most outstanding example of the latter group is south africa whose bill of rights provides everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water.83 based on this explicit provision, various policies and statutory measures have been put in place to implement this right in postapartheid south africa.84 significant here is the national water act (nwa), enacted in 1998, which establishes an all-inclusive principle for all water resources on the need to protect basic human and ecological needs. to this end, the nwa creates the ‘reserve’ which is meant to implement the right of access to water guaranteed in the 1996 constitution. the reserve primarily creates a basic human needs reserve, which ‘provides for the essential needs of individuals served by the water resource in question and includes water for drinking, for food preparation and for personal hygiene.’ it also creates an ecological reserve, which ‘relates to the water required to protect the aquatic ecosystems of the water resource.’ this is the only right to water established by the nwa regime and it supersedes all other uses of water; in other words, the amount of water required for the reserve must be guaranteed before water resources are allocated to other water users.85 there are indications that the human right to water is gaining further national and international appreciation. empirical survey shows that numerous states around the world have constitutions that recognise 82 see article 14(2(c) african charter on the rights and welfare of the child, 1990. 83 section 27(1)(b), constitution of south africa, act 108, 1996. 84 for some of the scholarly explorations into the normative and practical aspects of a rights-based approach to water governance in south africa, see jaap de visser, edward cottle & johann mettler, “realising the right of access to water: pipe dream or watershed?” (2003) 7 law democracy & development 1; g. j. pienaar & e. van der schyff, “the reform of water rights in south africa” (2007) 3(2) law, environment & development journal 179; anton earle, jaqui goldin & phemo kgomotso, domestic water provision in the democratic south africa – changes and challenges, september 2005, <http://www.acwr.co.za/pdf_files/02.pdf> (last visited 27 july 2008). 85 see generally alix gowlland-guatieri, south africa’s water law and policy framework implications for the right to water, international environmental law research centre (ielrc) working paper 2007-03 (geneva: ielrc, 2007) 4. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 80 a general right to a healthy environment which implicates water.86 in 2004, the human right to water was enacted in the uruguayan constitution following a referendum in which more than 64 percent of the population voted in favour of the amendment.87 while judicial decisions concerning water as a human right are scarce, courts in india, argentina, brazil and south africa have, in some cases, reversed decisions to disconnect water supply to poor people who could not afford to pay.88 this is immensely instructive for african states. in a landmark elaboration on the content of the plethora of international legal instruments implicating the right to water, the united nations committee on economic, social and cultural rights (cescr), the body of experts monitoring the implementation of the icescr adopted its general comment on the right to water in 2002 based on articles 11 and 12 of the icescr.89 the cescr emphasised the government’s legal responsibility to fulfil the right and defined water as a social, cultural and economic good in addition to being an economic commodity.90 the right to water applies primarily to water of acceptable quality and quantity “for personal and domestic uses”, placing an emphasis on “affordable” water supply.91 the need for access to water for farming and other productive uses was also acknowledged in the general comment, while “priority in the allocation of water must be given to the right to water for personal and domestic uses.”92 acknowledging that there can be constraints due to water scarcities, the cescr recommended the “progressive 86 these include: argentina, belarus, benin, brazil, bulgaria, burkina faso, cambodia, cape verde, chile, colombia, congo, costa rica, ecuador, eritrea, ethiopia, france, gambia, greece, guatemala, honduras, hungary, india, japan, kazakhstan, korea, kyrgyzstan, laos, macedonia, mali, mexico, moldova, namibia, netherlands, nicaragua, panama, paraguay, peru, philippines, portugal, slovakia, slovenia, south africa, spain, switzerland, togo, turkey, uganda, venezuela, and zambia. scanlon et al, above note 46, 11-20. 87 articles 47 and 188, constitution of uruguay, 2004. see also hale, above note 80, 783. 88 see generally gowlland-guatieri, above note 85, 7; philippe cullet, water law in india: overview of existing frameworks and proposed reforms, working paper 200701 (geneva: ielrc, 2007). see, in particular, residents of bon vista mansions v. s. metro. local council, 2002 (6) bclr 625, 643-44 (w) (south africa). 89 see cescr, substantive issues arising in the implementation of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights: general comment no. 15 (2002), the right to water (arts. 11 and 12 of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights), un doc. e/c.12/2002/11, 11-29 november 2002. 90 ibid., para. 1. 91 ibid., para 2. 92 ibid., para 6. olowu 81 realisation” of the right to water and identifies international donors and non-state actors and their responsibility to assist by providing financial and technical assistance.93 this is of huge significance for the developing states of africa particularly in the fulfilment of the mdg number 7 in africa. now, the question thus comes to the fore: what makes the rightsbased approach a sine qua non for water governance in africa in the mdg context? for many reasons, the rights-based approach is crucial in defining the benefits of the rights-holder(s) and in identifying the obligations of the duty-bearer(s). it is equally critical in addressing the problem of access, participation and non-discrimination. in these regards, i classify what i consider the more significant raison d’être for a rights-based approach to water governance in africa as follows: • it represents a comprehensive platform for evaluating the policies and actions of african governments in relation to their water-related obligations contained in various legal and policy instruments; • it will provide a substantive operational agenda for policymakers in meeting the objective of popular ownership and empowerment; • for those who constitute the most vulnerable and most deprived in africa are to be able to make any effective water claims as “peoples”, the rights-based approach could become a platform for accessing information, for pressing collectively for individual and/or group rights, and for accessing fair assessment of competing claims; • it will define the role of the african state as purveyor of those rights that enhance the conditions of human life in their respective situations. in this regard, it does not require the state to be a mere charitable entity but to become responsible for promoting policies that will secure the mdg regarding water; • it will provide a viable framework for scrutinising the contractual commitments of governments to commercial operators and invariably render them accountable to democratic demands and priorities; and • it will help all non-state operators in the water sector to promote genuine development beyond induced bureaucratic set-ups that produce contrived water policies and services. the rights-based approach works in tandem with international initiatives and other development efforts, focusing on the twin issues of equality of access and sustainable development. with regard to water resources, all human rights are to be perceived as components privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 93 ibid., paras. 18, 36 and 60 82 of holistic response to the pressures of economic globalisation, without compromising the interest of future generations. it would seem appropriate to explore some practical experiences of humanfocused water initiatives and popular participation in water governance. rights-based approach to water governance: lessons learnt even though the rights-based approach remains largely a theoretical concept and confined to mainstream development discourses, the positive realities in its application to several social spheres, in different national contexts, cannot be overemphasised. illustration 1: ghana the rights-based approach places particular emphasis on the involvement of human beings in the processes through which policy goals are determined and implemented, and could help in eliminating conflicts among stakeholders in the water sector. a case illustrating this assumption can be found in the involvement of skanska, a swedish mne, in the privatisation of water in ghana. as part of the world bank/imf conditionalities for aid, ghana had been mandated to privatise certain public utilities including water system. consequently, skanska had won the bid for the management of the country’s extensive water resources.94 following massive protest by the organised civil society under the auspices of the ghana national coalition against the privatisation of water, the world bank, as sponsors of the initiative, had to beat a retreat by proposing that skanska be given a three-year contract which would then be subjected to popular review, as opposed to a ten-year lease.95 while popular involvement in the policy drafting process was ignored, the experience shows the value of popular ownership of water governance and the impact that grassroots mobilisation could achieve to curb abuses. olowu 94 see sara grusky, “privatisation tidal wave: imf/world bank water policies and the price paid by the poor”, multinational monitor, september 2001, <http:// multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01september/sep01corp2.html> (last visited 27 july 2008). 95 ibid. see also webreck, above note 43, 32. 83 illustration 2: kyrgyzstan and tajikistan beyond polemics, it is beneficial to have water users involved in the management of the irrigation systems they depend upon. since the early 1990s, therefore, several large and small-scale initiatives to establish water user associations (wuas) were taken in various developing states. while some recorded successes in influencing water governance in their localities, others were shown to have recorded resounding failure, as most groups were found to be inactive and eventually existed only on paper.96 while there are extensive studies on the diverse trends,97 what is vital to the present discourse is to highlight how a people-owned, grassroots-based wua could be an essential component in promoting equitable water governance. as with many other civil society-inspired concepts, the world bank had adopted wuas as part of its policy models in promoting the participatory component of its privatisation prescriptions.98 today, it is the government and its irrigation agency that prescribes the role of wuas in several states.99 the kyrgyzstan and tajikistan experiences demonstrate the significance of democratic ownership of wuas at the grassroots. according to sehring: the concept of the water user association (wua) seems ideal to merge all the main normative objectives of the current water governance discourse: it is a democratic grass-roots organisation of the water users themselves at decentralised level, independent from state structures. it finances itself with members’ payments for the service of water delivery. its main tasks are the maintenance 96 see françois molle, nittaya ngernprasertsri & savakon sudsawasd, “are water user organisations crucial for water management?”, paper presented at the 6th conference on participatory irrigation management, beijing, 20-26 april 2002, < h t t p : / / w w w . w c a i n f o n e t . o r g / s e r v l e t / binarydownloaderservlet?filename=1035464324781_wugs_beijing.pdf&refid=86774> (last visited 27 july 2008). 97 see, for example, benjamin u. bagadion, are water user organisations crucial for water management? (tokyo: asian productivity organisation, 2002); water conservation and use in agriculture (wca), “knowledge and subtopics on water user association issues”, <http://www.wca-infonet.org/servlet/ cdsservlet?status=nd0xmjq2jjy9zw4mmzm9kiyznz1rb3m~> (last visited 27 july 2008). 98 see generally jo smet, “water user associations” (washington, dc: world bank, 2003) 1. see also ashok subramanian, n. vijay jagannathan & ruth meizendick, user organisations for sustainable water services, world bank technical paper no. 354 (washington, dc:, world bank, 1997) 32; d. l. vermillion, impacts of irrigation management transfer: a review of the evidence, research report no. 11 (colombo: international water management institute) 2. 99 see bagadion, above note 97, ibid. see, for example, sections 91-98, national water act, no. 36, 1998 (south africa) dealing with the establishment, powers and disestablishment of water user associations. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 84 of the tertiary irrigation system; the operation of this system, i.e. the distribution of the water obtained by the district water agency to the member farms in an equitable manner; and the collection of isf from its members. due to the accountability of the democratically elected board towards the members – the farmers – equitable water distribution [is] be guaranteed.100 from the kyrgyzstan and tajikistan experiences, collaborating with the state enhances access to resources such as grants and subsidies, as well as influence over the management of water resources at a higher level than that of singular wuas. in the case of developmental wuas, collaborating with the state can provide access to knowledge through state sponsored capacity building efforts. this can lead to increased independence in the long term as members become less dependent of external support for the management of their service. it is also clear from the kyrgyzstan and tajikistan scenarios that the provision of secure access to water is an important tool with which poverty can be alleviated, although its effectiveness depends on secure access to other productive resources such as land and training and capacity building.101 however, wuas can only enhance equitable and effective water governance where the members have been trained to manage the water supply system efficiently and effectively; where the members have been trained to produce and market goods efficiently; where the members have been provided with secure access to water; where the members have been provided with secure access to land; and where the members have been provided with secure access to production inputs.102 illustration 3: laos while the two previous case studies did not directly employ the language of the rights-based approach, their background and impacts commend the concept. in a more context-specific way, however, the conceptualisation and operation of a rights-based approach to the programming strategies of the nam saat/sida/unicef project in 100 jenniver sehring, “the politics of water institutional reform a comparative analysis of kyrgyzstan and tajikistan”, paper presented at the 2006 berlin conference on human dimensions of global environmental change “resource policies: effectiveness, efficiency and equity”, berlin, 17-18 november 2006, 10. 101 ibid., 11-13. 102 for an insight into the south african wuas scenario, see department of water affairs and forestry, “empowerment of the poor through agricultural water user associations: a clarification of policy with respect to the establishment and operation of developmental water user associations”, 13 february 2002, 17. olowu 85 laos is instructive. 103 with active fiscal support from the swedish international development agency (sida), the united nations children’s fund (unicef) in laos entered into a partnership with the centre for environmental health and water supply (nam saat) and the laotian ministry of health, for the laos water and environmental sanitation project, in which both nam saat and the local communities were to be empowered to collaborate in designing, implementing, accessing and managing community water resources and sanitation facilities under a rightsbased structure with focus on the participation of all stakeholders and accountability mechanisms that would guarantee empowerment and equity.104 barnerjee gives insight into the background of this landmark initiative. in his words, [the] rights-based philosophy to water use implies that the people themselves have the democratic authority to make the decisions about water. and such authority translates to ownership issues relating to water use: ownership of water resources per se and ownership of the decision-making processes that govern water use. such ownership may be expressed through different democratic structures and systems.105 it is instructive for our present purpose to note that in selecting the hubs of the laos water project sites, the collaborating bodies considered the following criteria: (a) high proportion of poor, disadvantaged ethnic minority communities located in remote, often rocky areas; (b) existing needs – based on a participatory assessment of quality of life indicators, health, poverty and investment indicators; (c) past record of limited support to the rural water and sanitation activities, focussing on empowering communities to enjoy their right to water and sanitation; and (d) all stakeholders, that is, district and provincial officials under nam saat, the communities and the mass organisations, demonstrating the willingness to actively participate in project activities, including willingness and ability to pay.106 barnerjee’s seminal work on this project is exhaustive and we do privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 103 upala devi banerjee, “adopting rights-based programming strategies towards developing capacities for accessing sustainable water and sanitation facilities: the nam saat/sida/unicef partnership in luang prabang province in laos – a case study”, in upala devi banerjee (ed.), lessons learned from rights-based approaches in the asia-pacific region (new york, ny: undp and office of the high commissioner for human rights, 2005) 239. 104 ibid., 245. 105 ibid. 106 ibid., 251. 86 not need to revisit it. suffice to say, however, that apart from emphatically showing that a rights-based approach to water governance appropriately responds to the conceptual problems of decentralisation and privatisation, the approach has proven in the laos case its capacity to guarantee procedural legitimacy through popular participation and inclusion, paying special regard to vulnerable groups that are normally excluded from the decisionmaking process. in another respect, the laos experience conveys the lessons that unclear roles and responsibilities under decentralisation processes, low capacity and limited civil society capital, limited investment in rights-based water projects as well as limited inter-sectoral partnerships could hamper the enthronement of effective, people-friendly water governance.107 extrapolating from all the above arguments and experiences, a rightsbased approach to water governance exhibits the capacity to strengthen the normative agenda for regulatory and protective policies in an objective way and to facilitate universally acceptable tools and operational guidance which are pivotal in justifying policy measures and informing their design, implementation and evaluation. this would be a veritable response to the ‘democratic deficit’ highlighted in privatisation discourses. the other benefit in applying a rightsbased approach to the water question in africa is that beyond rendering governments accountable to democratic demands, it could subdue the impact of unscrupulous mnes who would indulge in exploitative and anti-people activities – a corollary of the “naming and shaming” stratagem. invariably, when this eventually generates reformative reactions among the generality of mnes, a veritable synergy will emerge for more effective monitoring of tackling their excesses and impunity in africa. for the mdgs to become a tool for advancing the dignity of human beings, they must be treated not as a technical process, but as a political process. there is therefore a pressing need for the civil society to push for a rights-based approach to the mdgs that goes beyond improving statistical indicators to addressing root causes of human rights violations. a holistic approach will enable the international development community to pursue water issues with the human being at the centre. in this regard, discourses on the mdgs implicating water should focus on safe and adequate access so that the full utility and value of mdgs can be realised. the global population left behind by the mdgs also needs to be factored in. it is in this light that progress on improved access to water and sanitation under the mdgs has been 107 ibid., 270-272. olowu 87 adjudged as sub-optimal in africa, and it is here suggested that the goal now needs to be bolstered through an alternative model that integrates the global public goods approach. a well-coordinated approach to water issues in the mdgs, which is integrative, effective and equitable, flexible and inclusive, as proffered in the approach canvassed in this article can help steer priorities right and impel new actions towards success in economic efficiency, social equity and sustainability of water governance in africa. conclusions the premise from which this article proceeded is that important as water sector reforms may be for the equitable, affordable and sustainable access to water for all africans, it is equally necessary to humanise the consequences of such reforms. while current water sector reforms in african states aim at the introduction of innovative water policies and laws for the objectives of effectiveness and participation, it is imperative that all water users, or in other words everyone, should be aware of the implications of ongoing and proposed reforms for human rights, in the first instance, and the ultimate attainment of the mdgs. at present, despite the frequent consultations that have taken place in policy-making circles over water reforms and the implementation of the mdgs, there is little awareness of the unfolding changes at the level of individual human beings who are most likely to be affected by these reforms. the lack of popular participation and of democratic decision-making has become increasingly contentious as exemplified by the controversy over the adoption of water sector reforms induced by the world bank and the imf in african states. this article has attempted to show that a comprehensive participatory model which provides opportunities for disentangling all the implications of the reform interventions is therefore necessary for the efficacy of further actions and policies. in formulating the trajectories of comprehensive rethinking of water sector reforms, and in pursuing the mdg target on water, it is crucial to ensure that any further reforms in the water sector effectively benefit the poor, focus on access to safe drinking water and prevent the complete commercialisation of a sector directly concerned with the fulfilment of all human rights. this was the basis of the rightsbased approach rigorously canvassed in this article. far from being an ex cathedra pronouncement on all the dynamics that should inform water governance and the fulfilment of the mdg target on water in africa, this article would have served its purpose if it stimulates further intellectual discussions on its theme. privatisation and water governance in africa td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 59-93. 88 references adams, samuel & mengistu, berhanu “the political economy of privatisation in sub-saharan africa” (2008) 89 (1) social science quarterly 78. african commission on human and peoples’ rights, 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conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) janet jarvis school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation jarvis, j., 2018, ‘restorying for transdisciplinarity: a proposed teaching-learning strategy in a context of human rights education’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a483. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.483 original research restorying for transdisciplinarity: a proposed teaching-learning strategy in a context of human rights education janet jarvis received: 06 oct. 2017; accepted: 16 apr. 2018; published: 28 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract human rights education can provide a context for transdisciplinary boundary talk as a possible way to create cohesion among the multiple disciplines embedded within the social sciences. this article presents a teaching-learning strategy, empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying, which can be employed to facilitate such boundary talk. both self-dialogue and self-narrative are used to create open space stories. this provides a platform for restorying as social science postgraduate students at a south african higher education institution engage in the space between, across and beyond academic disciplines. conversation centres on the human right to gender equality as informed by the individual’s substantial and situational identities. the teaching-learning strategy introducing as it does, communities in conversation, communities in dialogue and communities for transformation, can be used to create possible cohesion among both academics and students in the social sciences. it also has the potential to be transformative beyond the social sciences and indeed, society at large. introduction human rights education research has been criticised for being ‘predominantly school-based and fundamentally descriptive and uncritical’ (simmonds & du preez 2017:17). in this article, this conventional approach to human rights education1 is troubled and human rights issues and in particular, the human right to gender equality as it is embedded in the south african constitution (bill of rights) (republic of south africa 1996) is employed to facilitate transdisciplinary boundary talk in a higher education institution with a view to possibly being a catalyst for social transformation. human rights issues are embedded in the policy of human rights across the curriculum (department of education 2003) and the teaching-learning of democratic values as outlined in the manifesto of values, education and democracy (department of education 2001). human rights education can cut between, across and beyond academic discipline boundaries, interrogating as it does human rights issues, drawing on social intersectionality (crenshaw 2003; shields 2008) and affecting as it does the whole teaching-learning space (jacobs, vakalisa & gawe 2011). central to any human rights conversation is the individual’s substantial (personal) and situational (professional) identities (nias 1989). according to roux (2012:41), ‘teachers cannot mediate or facilitate knowledge and skills pertaining to human rights without understanding their own position, identity and beliefs’. transdisciplinarity has been hailed as a powerful tool for ‘ensuring the empowerment of higher education to be a catalysing force for social transformation through direct, continuous engagement in communities …’ (hampson & assenza 2012:6–7). in this article, transdisciplinary boundary talk (godemann 2006) and more specifically empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying as a teaching-learning strategy is presented, requiring students to engage with their substantial as well as situational identities. drawing on self-dialogue and self-narrative, empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying has the potential to facilitate transdisciplinary boundary talk and to transform classroom practice into praxis (mccormack & kennelly 2011). an empathetic approach refers to the capacity of individuals to understand and to respond to their other with an increased awareness of their other’s thoughts and feelings (abdool & drinkwater 2005). engaging in reflection entails the examination of responses, beliefs and premises which could result in the integration of new understandings into experience (mccormack & kennelly 2011). dialogue refers to the search for meaning and understanding. it necessitates engaging with others, recognising that each person has something of value to contribute (allen 2004). it is about opening up to the possibility of learning from the other (ipgrave 2003). empathetically engaging in dialogue with others and then reflecting on this engagement can lead to restorying, namely the revising of an existing narrative, as new interpretations or clarified understandings are applied to dominant discourses. empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying facilitates transdisciplinary boundary talk exploring how the substantial and situational identities of social sciences students intersect, in this case, with the human right to gender equality. gender equality refers to men and women being equal in dignity and in terms of their shared humanity, having identical value or worth and enjoying the same rights and opportunities (subrahmanian 2005). this teaching-learning strategy provides students with the opportunity to reflectively engage with their own perspectives by way of self-dialogue and then to express this through self-narrative. they are also provided with the opportunity to empathetically search for meaning and understanding of perspectives which are different from their own as they engage in communities in conversation (cic) (de wet & parker 2014; roux 2012) and communities in dialogue(cid) (roux 2012). this has the potential to be both emancipatory and transformational as they engage in boundary talk. the difficulties encountered at disciplinary boundaries, or border troubles (petts, owens & bulkeley 2006), involve the epistemological structuring of disciplines and the privileging of certain frames of enquiry and methodological approaches. while multidisciplinarity involves a number of different disciplines coming together, each disciplinary group works primarily with its own framings and methods (in the case of this study, each of the nine disciplines fall within the social sciences cluster) (nicolescu 2014). gender equality as a human right can be studied from a multidisciplinary perspective within the social sciences, embracing, for example social justice education, gender and education and religion education as it falls within life orientation education. a discussion about gender equality will be enriched by incorporating the perspectives of several disciplines. however, this multidisciplinary approach, while overflowing disciplinary boundaries, has ‘its goal remaining limited to the framework of disciplinary research’ (nicolescu 2005:5). another approach to boundary talk would be that of interdisciplinarity which refers to a synthesis of knowledge, drawn from more than one discipline, in which understandings change in response to the perspectives of others. according to nicolescu (2014:187), ‘it concerns the transfer of methods from one discipline to another … but its goal still remains within the framework of disciplinary research …’ interdisciplinarity does not constitute meaningful boundary talk. by contrast, transdisciplinary engagement, transcending disciplinary boundaries, strives to solve problems (mcgregor & volckmann 2013) by generating new transdisciplinary knowledges (nicolescu 2005) in the space between, across and beyond academic disciplines (mcgregor & volckmann 2013; nicolescu 2005; 2014). graduate programmes enabling students to engage in transdisciplinary boundary talk have the potential to contribute to the creation of new knowledges and understandings which, in turn, have the potential to be socially transformative. this article draws on the findings of a small-scale project located at a south african university in the college of humanities and more specifically the cluster of social sciences education in the school of education. the specific disciplines located within this cluster include commerce education, gender and education, geography education, history education, life orientation education, social science education, social justice education, sports science education and travel and tourism education. the project endeavoured to create cohesion among these disciplines which fall under the historically designed umbrella of the social sciences. transdisciplinary boundary talk required the researcher and the students to find a way of communicating across disciplinary boundaries. this transdisciplinary boundary talk was facilitated by empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying with the human right to gender equality as the focus of conversation in which 24 social sciences postgraduate students, embedded in their particular disciplines participated. for this empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying to be effective, a safe space (du preez & simmonds 2011; roux 2012) was created where substantial and situational identities could intersect. this safe space does not only refer to literal or physical safety but rather denotes the figurative and discursive use of the notion (du preez 2013; redmond 2010; stengel & weems 2010). despite possible discomfort, these spaces are safe because they are the place where, in relation to this teaching-learning strategy, social sciences students engaged in a cic, a cid and a community for transformation (cft). according to nicolescu (2014:187, 195), this transdisciplinary border talk can be described as ‘a fertile complementarity’, embracing complexity because ‘transdisciplinary knowledge transgresses duality’. nicolescu’s (2012) theory of the included middle conceives ‘of people moving to a place where they become open to others’ perspectives … valu[ing] premises and belief systems … letting go of aspects of how they currently know the world’ (mcgregor 2011; mcgregor & volckmann 2013:62). the logic of the included middle requires the creation of a space for dialogue and knowledge generation. that is what the teaching-learning strategy presented in this article facilitates, engaging as it does with students from different disciplines who, when they come into contact with each other, are energised. in this case, as the students engage with human rights education issues related to gender equality, the strength and potentialities that emerge from these intellectual encounters have the potential to be transformative (mcgregor & volckmann 2013). theoretical framework underpinning empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying the following bricolage provides the framework for empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying. these theories were employed in a recent study (jarvis 2013). the dialogical self provides a link between self and society. hermans’ (2011) dialogical self theory advocates that individuals live not only in external spaces but also in the internal space of their society-of-mind. possible identity re-creation can result from the dialogical self in action. this occurs when the individual moves from one i position to another in the self as a way of gaining understanding about the self in relation to the world (hermans & hermans-konopka 2010). an example of this, when engaging with the human right to gender equality, would be the adoption of a counter-position to both individual and collective dominant voices in the individual’s society-of-mind that promote male hegemony. this self-dialogue can inform self-narrative. various scholars (gonçalves & ribeiro 2012; nothling 2001; nuttall 2009; white 2012) make the link between narrative and agency, arguing that self-narration can help individuals to make sense of their lives, past and present. self-narrative has a role to play in enabling individuals to discover the degree to which they are entangled with their other (in this case, men or women) and, furthermore, the extent to which it might be possible to become disentangled from their other (men or women) and thus be freed to build new identities (nuttall 2009). in this sense, the self-narrative can be emancipatory and empowering as it can fragment and reinterpret dominant discourses such as that of male hegemony (lawler 2008). it is the contention of ter avest (2011) that self-narratives which have the greatest potential to transform readers are open space stories. such stories, instead of trying to colonise readers, allow them sufficient space to deconstruct and reconstruct what they receive. the possibility then presents itself that as students engage in open conversations they might restory what they know (revise their narrative), as new interpretations are applied in the light of clarified or new understandings of dominant discourses. this can potentially lead to the co-production of new knowledge as individuals previously locked into their traditions, embark upon personal journeys of restorying. in this project, the restorying takes place in and through the following conversations: community in conversation a community in conversation (de wet & parker 2014; roux 2012) provides the opportunity for an informal sharing of information in conversation in a safe space. in the case of gender equality, for example men and women meet separately. this conversation green (1999) refers to as negotiation and collaboration. informally exchanging perspectives and personal experiences can foster respect, trust and tolerant understanding as ‘divergent ways of thinking and speaking’ (mccormack & kennelly 2011:522) are reflected upon. this reflection entails the examination of responses, beliefs and premises, resulting in the integration of new understandings into experience (mccormack & kennelly 2011). this process of reflection is very relevant within a cic where it is anticipated that as men and women separately but reciprocally share their self-narratives they will reflect on the position of men and women (and their others) in, for example their religious and cultural discourses. their intersection with other organising principles in society (wetherell 1996) could also be considered. community in dialogue a community in dialogue (roux 2012) fosters the opportunity in which the other is disclosed to their other (women or men) in a dialogue which includes a rhetoric that questions and a rhetoric that reveals respect, and inspires reciprocal exchanges with tolerant and empathetic understanding and collaboration initiatives for transformation. conversations could be designed around unpacking the implications of gender equality as expressed in the bill of rights (republic of south africa 1996). the aim of the cid would be to understand self-respect and own positionality and inspire reciprocal exchanges with empathetic understanding. this dialogue has the potential to lead to a conversation in a cft. community for transformation a community for transformation aims to explore how, in this case, new knowledge about substantial and situational identities and the human right to gender equality could inform teaching-learning about human rights for transformative classroom praxis. the cft could identify challenges and possibilities for constructive engagement that could lead to new layers of consciousness (white 2012) which has the potential to lead to action. self-dialogue (to an internal audience) is expressed as self-narrative (to an external audience) in the spaces created by a cic, cid and cft. transdisciplinary boundary talk takes place in the spaces provided by the cic, cid and cft, as students explore how their substantial and situational identities intersect with the human right to gender equality. by doing so, the possibility exists for transdisciplinary restorying to take place, and this has the potential to contribute to social transformation. methodology this small-scale project employed a narrative research design, conducive to the exploration of the ways in which the student participants construct, interpret and give meaning to their subjective experiences with regard to gender equality. it also provided the space to describe and explore how people are similar to and also different from one another (newman 2011; silverman 2010). narrative inquiry as a methodology within narrative research (chase 2011; clandinin 2007; clandinin et al. 2010; luttrell 2010; riessman 2008; squire, andrews & tamboukou 2008), and with a strong representation in the field of education (clandinin 2007), refers to ‘the authentic accounts of real life experiences’ (nothling 2001:153). squire et al. (2008:4) add to this idea of narrative contending that it is ‘always multiple, socially constructed and constructing, reinterpreted and reinterpretable’. narratives can be used to maintain the status quo but can also have an emancipatory function, transforming individual lives and the broader culture (plummer 1995). participants twenty-four social sciences honours students representing nine disciplines within the social sciences cluster agreed to participate in this project. it so happened that there were 12 men and 12 women, ranging from their mid-20s to 50 years of age and black african in the main. participants signed consent forms, including permission for the cid and cft to be audio recorded. they were assured that their anonymity would be protected and that pseudonyms would be used when citing their responses. empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying the particular honours module focused on various components of research. students were tasked with choosing a particular topic from a broad list of topics related to social sciences including issues related to human rights. they read about their topic, or a particular aspect thereof, presented their substantiated perspectives to the class, and submitted an annotated bibliography. students were then required to design a mini-proposal for a small-scale project further researching the topic presented in class. the literature review constituted a separate assignment for assessment. in a discussion about research methodologies, empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying served as a demonstration of a data collection method. it was also introduced to facilitate transdisciplinary boundary talk. the students would be required to evaluate the efficacy of this particular method of data collection for the possible transformation of attitudes towards gender equality and for better understandings of the other in society. the researcher explained to the students that while empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying can be used to engage in transdisciplinary boundary talk focusing on numerous human rights issues, for the purposes of this project, it would be used to explore how the substantial and situational identities of the participating social sciences students intersect with the human right to gender equality. their self-dialogue and self-narrative contributed to their engagement in a cic, cid and cft. the researcher explained the process, locating it within the theoretical framework outlined previously. she introduced and asked the participants to consider three questions at levels 1 and 2. a female and a male participant were asked to each lead a separate cic on level 3. levels 4 and 5 were guided by the researcher and audio recorded. table 1 presents these five levels and what transpires in respect of each. table 1: empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying – five levels. on level one, the social sciences participants were given the opportunity to consider the dominant individual and collective voices informing the internal i positions which they hold in their society-of-mind with regard to the position of men and women in their religious or cultural discourses. they were asked to consider the following questions: gender equality has been defined by subrahmanian (2005) as men and women being equal to one another in quality, and identical in value, with men and women having the same rights and opportunities. do you think your religious or cultural identities affect the way in which you view the human right to gender equality? please explain. what does your religion or culture say about your position as a man or as a woman? what does your religion or culture say about your role and responsibilities as a man/as a woman? it was on this level that the participants negotiated their self-dialogue and considered or adopted counter positions to male hegemony as they engaged their dialogical self in action (hermans & hermans-konopka 2010). their self-dialogue found expression in level two where they wrote their self-narratives. at level two the social sciences participants, both men and women, in response to the above questions, were required to write their self-narrative. according to gonçalves and ribeiro (2012:302), this self-narrative was ‘the outcome of dialogical processes of negotiation, tension, disagreement, alliance and so on, between different voices of the self’. the self-narrative, writing for the self (ellis 2004), could be therapeutic as it caused the participants to pause and to think about their positionality in relation to gender equality. this could also be empowering as their writing exposed a new sense of consciousness and a greater sense of control in the present and for the future (paul, christensen & frank 2000). at level three, the social sciences participants were separated into two groups, one for the men and the other for the women. in each group or cic, they were afforded the opportunity to share their written reflections orally in response to the questions below. sharing their self-narratives provided the opportunity for them to individuate as ‘equal … dignified partner[s] in constituting reality and constructing the world’ (becker 2012:89): what does your religion or culture, which informs your substantial identity, say about your position and roles and responsibilities as a man or as a woman? what does your religion or culture say about possible privileges that you have as a man or as a woman in your personal, social and professional domains? what does your religion or culture say about possible expectations of men or of women in their personal, social and professional domains? at level four, the social sciences students together entered into a cid. this fostered the opportunity in which the other was disclosed to their other (women or men) in a dialogue which included a rhetoric that questioned and a rhetoric that inspired reciprocal exchanges with tolerant and empathetic understanding. the researcher facilitated the responses of the participants who were asked to discuss their responses from the cic with their other (women or men), using the following headings: gender-based roles and responsibilities. gender-based privileges. gender-based expectations of the other. religious and/or cultural understandings of the position of men and women and the possible impact of this on the way in which gender equality would be approached in their professional spaces. at level five, a whole group discussion as a cft took place with the aim of exploring how their substantial identities and substantial attitudes towards gender equality informed their situational or professional practice. this constructive engagement had the potential to lead to new layers of consciousness (ritchie & wilson 2000; white 2012) as participants considered self-respect and own positionality and inspired reciprocal exchanges with empathetic understanding. this had the potential to lead to the emergence of collaborative initiatives for negotiating entrenched positions disentanglement from their other and restorying for transformation. the researcher guided the discussion at level five with the following questions: how has empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying impacted your understanding of gender equality in terms of experiences, roles and responsibilities, privileges and expectations? how has the dialogue impacted on your perspectives of teaching-learning about gender issues and promoting gender equality? evaluate the efficacy of empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying for the transformation of attitudes towards gender equality and for better understandings of the other in society. analysis drawing on the work of various scholars (chase 2011; gubrium & holstein 2009; luttrell 2010; silverman 2010), narrative analysis was employed as a means of analysis. all five levels of empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying are implicit in the discussion which follows. the written responses (level 2) and audio recorded conversations at levels 4 and 5 were crystallised (maree 2007) to lend authenticity (newman 2011). the dissonance between the participants’ substantial and situational identities with regard to gender equality became very apparent. the engagement with the different levels of empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying increased levels of trust between the participants, ‘blurring the disciplinary boundaries and escalating valuing of each other’s knowledge and perspectives … working for a common cause’ (mcgregor & volckmann 2013:61), in this case engaging with their understandings of the human right to gender equality. various threads emerged from the transdisciplinary boundary talk focusing on how the situational and substantial identities of the participants intersect with the human right to gender equality. dissonance, as substantial identity intersects with the human right to gender equality postgraduate students who are aspiring academics have cognitive understanding of human rights education and the south african bill of rights. however, there is a dissonance between the demands placed by this understanding on their situational identity as professionals and their substantial identity as informed by their religion or culture. their self-dialogue is informed by both individual and collective dominant voices reinforcing entrenched attitudes of male hegemony. this finds its way into their written self-narratives as shared in the cic and discussed with their other in the cid. gender-based roles, expectations and responsibilities are deeply entrenched. the man is acknowledged as the provider, controller of finances, head of the family and the protector of the family. he is seen as superior to women and deserving of privileges. what follows is a selection of comments, illustrating the firmly held position of gender inequality. the man is the head of the home: ‘the man is head of family, a provider, a protector, a decision maker.’ (themba, male, student) ‘the men should run the finances … the man is in control … if wife earns more than you then you are discredited and women look down on you if you earn less.’ (sabelo, male, student) ‘a man should be strong, he does not cry, but only cries on the inside.’ (patrick, male, student) men are entitled to privileges: ‘the man is the provider and the one taking the major role in making decisions … and he has privileges.’ (dumi, male, student) dumi provides the following elucidation of these privileges: whenever i come back home they [women] have to wash for me cook for me … do everything for me … sometimes even the career women will come and cook for me because being a man is a privilege … getting a family name …also in religion whenever she is … she will have to come to me [to my religion] … and also [take my] family name. (dumi, male, student) these privileges include an entitlement to the lion’s share in any inheritance. michael expresses this when he says: ‘… as a man you need to take over the cows and everything, they belong to you.’ (michael, male, student) men must marry. it is considered a good thing for a man to be married and to have many women: you have to be married … if not married you are considered to be a boy … you are regarded as a man if you have many children even if outside the marriage.’ (muntu, male student) ‘… the more girlfriends they have the more of a man they are … even given different names if you have one woman or more than one.’ (phumi, female student) men expect women to be submissive to them: ‘the woman needs to be submissive to me … there is a logic in this … because i do everything for [her]’. (muntu, male student) ‘the man is the head and the woman the helper … the man is the head of a woman … and the responsibility of a woman is to be submitted under the authority of the man.’ (ayanda, female, student) nomsa describes this submission as follows: ‘… serving the man constantly, cooking for him, looking after the house … he has to go out to work … the male is the head of the family and we [the women] have to do everything that he says.’ (nomsa, female, student) men are superior to women. it became apparent that from childhood gender inequality is taught, and more specifically, that women are less than men: ‘as i was growing up i was taught that men and women cannot have the same value. men should be valued the most important because they are the head of the house or family …’ (thula, female, student) ‘my position as a man in my culture certainly comes first than that of a woman. men make the decisions and also enforce these decisions.’ (muntu, male, student) ‘women and men are not viewed in the same way. men are seen as superior while women are seen as inferior.’ (mary, female, student) it is clear from the above extracts that entrenched in the participants’ substantial identities as experienced in their culture or religion is the notion that men are superior to women and this creates a dissonance with their situational identities as professional teachers. this highlights the need for the provision of intervention strategies in their graduate programmes to enable students to engage with, and negotiate, dissonances between their substantial and situational identities. the need for the other to listen to his or her other (women or men) the interaction in the cid (level 4) highlighted the dissonance between human rights and substantial identity. in a safe space created both physically and figuratively, men and women listened to their other (women or men). for some like majozi, the very notion of gender equality is offensive. for others like alex, while they aspire to embrace gender equality, they encounter difficulties in doing so. alex provided the following example: although i am a modern man with a broader understanding of the world i still find myself not seeing genders being equal. for example, if i come home and have to serve a plate and there are elders that consist of male and female, my cultural identity tells me to serve the male elders first although in my view it should be equal but it is not … and if i served women first at home, the women will probably pass the plates to the men to eat first so even when i try to practice equality my society doesn’t allow me. (alex, male, student) the women agreed this was the case because of the entrenched gender attitudes in their religion or culture that men are superior and should be served and that they deserve to have many privileges. by contrast the women reflected that they do not have any privileges: ‘we don’t have much privileges … all in all we don’t … as men do.’ (phumi, female, student) precious challenged her other (men) saying that she should have a voice in her home, but on the contrary, she has no voice in her family: ‘the voice of a man is the one that will be listened to … women should respect men while men does not teach the respect for their wife, they even beat them or abuse them, therefore the human right to gender equality has been violated because we are not getting the same treatment as the man.’ (precious, female, student) ncami and lindi expressed their frustration in knowing that they have legal equal gender rights but only in theory. ‘i believe in equality … although until this day there is still no gender equality. men are still regarded to be superior to women.’ (ncami, female, student) ‘in theory we have equal rights but in practice i am still reminded that i am female and there are certain things that i still cannot do.’ (lindi, female, student) thabi disagreed with her other (men) that it is considered as acceptable for a man to be married and to have girlfriends. she says: ‘as a woman i expect that my husband will have one wife … as a woman i am expected to be only one’. (thabi, female, student) two of the men in the group challenged the culturally entrenched social construct of women being less than men and having to always serve the men. their households, in contrast to others, did not promote gender-specific roles. ‘… if my wife is tired i will cook’. (thabo, male, student) ‘where i come from (my home) there are no specific roles that a male should play and a female should not. i did all and i am still doing the house duties with my sister … we do things collectively as our parents told us there is no male and female, cook if you have to and clean the yard if you want to regardless of your gender. (nkosi, male, student) the cid provided the opportunity for the participants to engage with one another in a safe space and to challenge gender inequality and to explore how attitudes and positions shaping substantial identities are socially constructed. the dialogue was not bound by a particular academic discipline but rather the boundary talk was robust, rigorous and transdisciplinary. efficacy of empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying at level 5, discussing the possibilities of transdisciplinary restorying, participants suggested that a possible limitation could be that this teaching-learning strategy ‘needs willing participants’ and could possibly not be effective with a group ‘who don’t really care’ (zanele) or who are unwilling to participate in any boundary talk. a unanimous show of hands indicted that the participants in this project, having participated in empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying were far more aware of their self-dialogue (level 1) and the dominant voices in their society-of-mind which impacted their self-narratives (level 2). they were also sensitised to the possibilities of their dialogical self in action as they adopted counter positions to dominant voices in their society-of-mind. the participants said that they appreciated the opportunity to share their self-narratives with one another in a cic (level 3). ‘… very impactful … i thought i understood gender equality but in cic made aware of our privileges as men … we have a lot of privileges we are not aware of.’ (dumi, male, student) the cid (level 4) provided the opportunity for the men or women to listen to their other (women or men): ‘… the best part was when the other participant says how she really feels about my experience … this puts emphasis on how does the other party feel about my actions … appeals to feelings … then you think about it more.’ (sabelo, male, student) the dissonance between human rights as it relates to gender equality and the implementation thereof at the intersection with substantial identities became very clear in the discussion. the cft (level 5) provided the opportunity to think critically about processes of socialisation into societal norms with regard to gender issues, such as that of patriarchy, and to discuss and begin the process of deconstructing the same. the disjuncture between substantial and situational identities was unpacked. participants were made aware of how their substantial identities impact their situational identities and the expectations of them as professionals to implement gender equality. thabo expressed the opinion of the majority of the participants when he said: ‘if we can’t do that then how are we going to be instrumental in transforming society?’ the participants were seemingly of the opinion that empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying provided the opportunity to engage meaningfully with issues of substantial identity and the human right to gender equality across disciplinary boundaries: ‘i think this strategy gives out many possible ideas to think critically … what can we do … what are the gaps … what can be changed.’ (phumi, female, student) ‘i think it gives you a better understanding of … all the issues.’ (thabi, female, student) ‘this strategy is transformative … some will actually go home today and some have daughters and some have sons and will try and change things.’ (ncami, female, student) participants suggested that while, in this study, empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying focused on the human right to gender equality as the topic for transdisciplinary boundary talk, this teaching-learning strategy could be employed to engage in transdisciplinary boundary talk about various other human rights issues such as racism, xenophobia and so forth. the constant aim would be that of bringing about social transformation as participants engage meaningfully with their internal audiences (self-dialogue) and external audiences. the suggestion was made that empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying could be used in various contexts such as parliament, for politicians to engage meaningfully, considering their own self-dialogue and self-narrative and that of the other, so as to engage in conversation and dialogue in order to forge a way forward that is transformative for society. the participants were in agreement that this teaching-learning strategy provided a way in which to create cohesion among the multiple disciplines embedded within the social sciences. conclusion faculties and school’s of education are professionally bound to provide intervention strategies in their graduate programmes to enable students to engage in transdisciplinary boundary talk which can contribute to social transformation (hampson & assenza 2012). academics engaging with transdisciplinary work will strive to ‘fuse perspectives’ (mcgregor & volckmann 2013:62) to generate new knowledges. this article shows how empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying fuses perspectives and generates new knowledges that cross disciplinary boundaries. self-dialogue and self-narrative communicated in a safe space within a cic, cid and cft is not discipline bound. it is empathetic, reflective and dialogical, engaging with the intersection between substantial and situational identities and human rights issues. this process requires ‘the ability to see the world through the lens of others … providing space within which to grow peoples’ capacity to communicate across boundaries’ (mcgregor & volckmann 2013:62–63). empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying as a teaching-learning strategy facilitates the nudging of static disciplinary boundaries within the social sciences and creates open spaces for empathetic, reflective dialogue that carries the potential of generating new transdisciplinary knowledges in the space between, across and beyond academic disciplines. in this case, the intersection of substantial and situational identities and the human right to gender equality was explored. transdisciplinary engagement, as reflected in this article in empathetic-reflective-dialogical restorying, could create cohesion among the multiple disciplines embedded within the social sciences and has the potential to be socially transformative. acknowledgements the ethical code of conduct and requirements set for narrative research by the tertiary institution’s ethics committee were adhered to in conducting this study. competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. references abdool, d. & drinkwater, m., 2005, ‘guidelines to create a positive classroom climate for religion education: an empathetic approach’, scriptura 89, 363–372. https://doi.org/10.7833/89-0-1023 allen, l., 2004, ‘from votes to dialogues: clarifying the role of teachers’ voices in school renewal’, phi delta kappan 218–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170408600416 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(ed.), identities, groups and social issues, pp. 299–342, sage, thousand oaks, ca. white, e., 2012, whiteness and teacher education, routledge, new york and london. footnote 1. for the purpose of this article, human rights education will be used as a collective to include human rights in education. abstract introduction conceptual framework research methodology the case of the san of southern africa conclusions acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) andreas g. velthuizen institute for dispute resolution in africa, college of law, university of south africa, south africa kate d. ferguson institute for dispute resolution in africa, college of law, university of south africa, south africa citation velthuizen, a.g. & ferguson, k.d., 2018, ‘the poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliation’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 14(1), a472. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.472 original research the poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliation andreas g. velthuizen, kate d. ferguson received: 14 sep. 2017; accepted: 28 mar. 2018; published: 25 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article is inspired by the need for research methods that would discover the interrelationships of reconciliation and culture, specifically analysing the behaviour of field researchers originating from different lifestyles or culture, observing and participating in the artful expressions of research subjects. the purpose of this article was to present an overview of research into poetics as a source of information that contributes to existing bodies of knowledge and the finding of practical solutions related to peace-building in african communities. the authors argued that knowledge could be discovered from various forms of poetics through sensuous participation and intellectual interpretation and could be applied to the process of reconciliation. in support of this argument, the research was conducted with the san, the first people of southern africa, in the context of a broader research project that aims at finding and publishing theory for dispute resolution in africa. the discussion contains a conceptual framework of philosophy and theories that elucidates the concepts of poetics, the aesthetic domain and its relevance to peace and reconciliation in africa. the transdisciplinary research methodology borrows from ethnographic methodologies including sensuous scholarship and participant observation of ritualistic experiences. the authors conclude that the creative, ritualistic and artistic lifeworlds of communities, in or recovering from conflict situations, are deeply relevant to any real motion towards reconciliation and healing. introduction this article is inspired by the need to discover knowledge in the aesthetic domain of the african episteme. currently, some african communities are in the process of achieving peaceful reconciliation after being exposed to slavery, colonisation, socio-economic neglect, political marginalisation and violent conflicts. in a world dominated by western knowledge systems, people in africa require the capacity to access customary knowledge to understand disputes around them and find solutions to reconciliation. such customary knowledge can mostly be found in poetic expressions in their own languages. in many cases, the people of africa became accustomed to the formal articulation of knowledge in languages that were brought by colonisation, such as by the english and french. in those cases, people from communities seldom use the same language they use in their communities to express themselves outside the community. however, the ‘language’ of music, song, dance and many art forms became a way of disseminating worldviews. for scholarly observers, the challenge is to access the knowledge hidden in an aesthetic domain. against this background, the following question arises: how can information from the aesthetic knowledge domain in africa be accessed and applied for reconciliation in africa? the purpose of this article is therefore to determine a methodology to access information in the aesthetic knowledge domain in africa and apply that knowledge, together with other knowledge claims, to find practical solutions for communities in conflict. the analysis will focus on african communities, the building blocks for reconciliation in african society. the authors argue that if the poetic creation, processes and products (storytelling, art, ritual, music, dance forms, song and poetry) of relatively peaceful communities are discovered, analysed and understood, it will reveal how relationships are reconciled across socially-constructed divisions in communities. it was found that knowledge obtained from the aesthetic domain can contribute to peace strategies in communities and even replace dominant and hegemonic narratives from knowledge systems outside the community. this argument is supported by literature study, field research as well as transdisciplinary, critical and complementary reflection with research participants. in support of the argument, the research was conducted with the san, the first people of southern africa, in the context of a broader research project that aims at finding and publishing theory for dispute resolution in africa that is engaged in african communities and grounded in african epistemology. the discussion contains a conceptual framework of philosophy and theories that elucidates the concepts of poetics, the aesthetic domain and its relevance to peace and reconciliation. the research methodology will be explained with specific reference to research carried out during 2016 with the san. finally, an evaluation of the applicability of knowledge from the aesthetic domain to accomplish peace in africa is presented. conceptual framework reconciliation according to komesaroff, the concept ‘reconciliation’ is found in all traditions of thought. the indian culture, for instance, has a hermeneutical approach to reconciliation, meaning dialogue with the self-interpretive skills through self-purification, abstinence, fasting, meditation and pilgrimage. in the buddhist tradition, mindset, heart, soul, subjectivity and objectivity are fused into one whole and all phenomena are interconnected and interdependent as a condition of ‘enlightenment’ (komesaroff 2008:1). the western perspective asserts that conflicts are the consequence of distorted communication, misunderstandings, lack of comprehension, insincerity and deception. reconciliation is a process of communication ‘across difficult, unpredictable, ambiguous and fragile barriers’. to overcome these barriers, in the western perspective, a ‘fusion of horizons’ and an open discourse is required, where assumptions are shared, subjectivities are integrated and communication structures are free from coercion and distortion (habermas 2003:35–38). according to the african way, reconciliation refers to the traditional african concept described as the spirit of ubuntu (in nguni languages), botho (in sesotho, setswana and tsephedi), kparakpor (in the yoruba language) and ujaama (in swahili). this concept holds that one’s health and wealth is intricately connected to the health and wealth of a greater community, of a greater whole (velthuizen 2016). desmond tutu summarises this as follows: ‘reconciliation is about the healing of breaches, redressing imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships, and the rehabilitation of victim and perpetrator’ (tutu 2000:54–55). reconciliation is also broader than just conflict resolution. according to komesaroff, reconciliation includes the values of peace, justice, fairness, healing and forgiveness, transcending many disciplines such as social, cultural and legal aspirations including human rights, the quest for social justice and coexistence. furthermore, reconciliation seeks the revival of cultural identity, trust building and rising above personal animosities. moreover, reconciliation encompasses understanding of and responding to relationships within and between communities as well as cultural, religious and other sensitivities that impede social dialogue. ‘at its core, reconciliation is concerned with bringing diverse voices into conversation and balances the perspectives they present’ (komesaroff 2008:10). cohen (1997) states that: reconciliation refers to the re-creation and/or creation of the moral framework of a relationship through which individuals and groups overcome alienation by engaging in transformative processes that in themselves embody the norms of respect and fairness intended for their new relationship. through the ongoing processes of reconciliation, the parties to conflict become increasingly trusting and trustworthy as they understand each other’s suffering, acknowledge injustices, and strive to address both unresolved and emerging conflicts in ways that meet their underlying needs. (p. 283) this is when the contrast between goal-driven, conscious decision-making needed for the survival of individuals and the knowledge required for the survival of the group that resides in the ‘non-conscious’ realms of the human mind becomes evident (bateson 1972:147). in the case of reconciliation following civil wars, an evolutionarily and emotionally driven pattern without rational purpose transforms aggression into empathy and desire for revenge into desire for affiliation (longe & brecke 2003:28). sense-making focuses on discontinuities that an individual experiences when encountering a ‘gap’ and is compelled to stop and discover a next step. it is about what an individual experiences at that moment, the person’s perspective of the fissure, the decision to try to overcome it and progress after the fissure is crossed (dervin 1992). we need to find a way to help people be tolerant of the fact that other people see the world differently and that not all differences between human beings need to be resolved (unless we’re going to call human life war). (dervin 2011:61–84) from the above assertions, it is inferred that reconciliation is first of all personal reconciliation, meaning that the victim, the perpetrator and the affected person first need to find remorse and inner peace as a result of self-knowledge, and then take personal responsibility for the reconciliation process. a personal commitment to the process of reconciliation means that a person assumes responsibility for dialogue aimed at the restoration of peaceful relations characterised by relinquished animosities, recognition of mutual humanity, trust, forgiveness and healing. furthermore, sense-making is achieved when individuals can cross or close the gaps between themselves and others to become part of a collective awareness of the need for reconciliation. in this process of reconciliation, it is inevitable that social justice, social equilibrium and cultural identity are promoted. however, reconciliation and restoration is seldom a rational process that leads to ideal solutions. reconciliation evolves from emotions that are deeply imbedded in a subconscious realm of human minds that needs to be accessed and shared to make reconciliation possible. the aesthetic knowledge domain in his classic work poetics, as translated by butcher (1992:7), aristotle identifies persons who, ‘by conscious art or mere habit, imitate and represent various objects through the medium of colour, form and voice, producing rhythm, language or harmony’. for epistemological, psychological, logical and metaphysical questions to be answered, 18th-century philosophers such as edmund burke and david hume explained aesthetic concepts empirically by connecting them with individual experiences (physical and psychological) of objects and events, finding objectivity in personal reactions. immanuel kant maintained that aesthetic concepts are essentially subjective (rooted in personal feelings), but conceded that they contain objectivity because personal feelings are general responses to aesthetic objects and events. emanating from the philosophy of burke, the human faculty of taste (the ability to discern between what is beautiful and what is ugly) established an epistemological or logical uniqueness for aesthetic concepts. although there are no aesthetic rules, aesthetic concepts play a significant role in discussions and disputes, being context-dependent, constructed out of social customs. for example, the term ‘harmony’ may not have the same meaning in different cultures (eaton 2016). edmund burke in his work sublime and beautiful explains that the ‘sublime and beautiful’ do not come from objects but from objects as they are experienced: the same object can be described as ‘fearful’ or ‘sublime’ depending on the situation of the viewer. burke asserted that aesthetic concepts depend on ‘psychophysical machinery’ to experience the world, which means that two counterintuitive aesthetic forces need to reconcile: the belief that aesthetic concepts are subjective (‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’) and the view that aesthetic concepts are objective (‘the sunset or mountains are beautiful’). aesthetic properties to describe and evaluate aesthetic objects and events are artistic. burke further warned that taste is not a separate faculty of the mind, distinct from judgement and imagination (burke 1958:26–27). russel contrasted science and art by saying that in the study of art we focus primarily on the achievements of the past and neglect those of the present. science is required for progress, whereas good art demands creativity as a product of individual genius (russel 1913:390–397). the importance of discovering meaning by interpretation in social contexts is professed by heidegger (1927[1962]). the understanding of conditions, in which phenomena are observed, is a stepping stone towards full understanding. all that a person needs is a secure vantage point as foothold. such a vantage point is established through self-reflection, a consciousness of the position of people in the world, including the essence of their belief system, as well as the importance of cultural and historical context. furthermore, the hermeneutic cycle described by heidegger explains the crossing of boundaries in listening to messages, interpreting it and passing it on to others. when other people are exposed to these experiences through discovery, it assists the understanding of the other people. however, it is the fusion of horizons, described by gadamer (1976:98–99), as the mediation between the immediate horizon of the interpreter and a new emerging horizon, which is the main achievement of complementary reflection. the explanation of cohen and yalen (2005:1–5) asserts that: the aesthetic experience is ‘a profound and pleasurable transaction between a human being and certain cultural and artistic forms’ arising from the arrangement of the elements of the art form and the perception of the person who experiences it. aesthetic experience emerges from art forms such as painting on a canvas, reading a novel, embroidering a scarf, watching a dance performance, participating in a drumming ceremony, interface with folk expressions and rituals, or assuming the role of a creator, a composer, an audience, a participant or a performer. therefore, the aesthetic experience is a powerful resource of learning or reconciliation. in aesthetic experiences between a human being and a natural form, the perceiver may experience strong focus and meditation that are critical for reconciliation, especially to learn the capacity to restore relationships. however, rational processes alone cannot transform relationships. learning for reconciliation has to take place in body, spirit and mind, restoring damage caused by the trauma of violence. an integration of the sensory and cognitive faculties of a person who engages with artistic and cultural forms within a specific space or time mediates the tensions between order and chaos, tradition and innovation, and the individual and the collective. reconciliation can manifest when people will acknowledge harms, tell truths, mourn losses and imagine a new future. our senses are of social nature, advancing our comprehension of selfhood, culture and social relations. therefore, sensory scholarship in the fields of sociology, anthropology, history and geography, among others, proliferated into a model that prescribes that both ‘semiotics’ (meaning making) and ‘phenomenological ventures’ (i.e. the structures of consciousness as experienced from the vantage point of a person) represent a ‘sensory interpretation model’. a cultural system and hierarchy of the senses emerge beyond the hegemony of vision, where sensorial experiences such as the ‘feeling in the body’ can be sensorially relevant (low 2012:271). in her later work, cohen (2005:51–54) discovered that judgements on aesthetic forms from an aesthetic perspective are authentic judgements that can lead to inferences, important questions and debates on the features of an object or event by several people investigating the form or event. in this kind of investigation, ‘supervenience’ is applied, meaning that a stable set of properties of an object or event is not required, but the aesthetic experiences are sensory and cognitive. if applied to reconciliation, sensory experience combined with cognition can help former enemies to reconcile, developing a more intricate but refined understanding of their own narratives. an understanding of their own narratives can help communities to address injustices by visualising and giving substance to more equitable relationships. cohen recommends that policymakers working on rebuilding communities after violence and long-standing oppression should recognise that the arts and cultural work are important resources for coexistence and reconciliation. according to eaton (2016), concepts are determined by language shaped by interests and attitudes that are culturally specific. for instance, african art cannot be described in english without making it english art, and vice versa. even a concept such as rhythm does not migrate from europe to africa without significant modification. aesthetic concepts are determined culturally, and understanding any particular concept will demand thorough knowledge of the culture in which it functions. according to eaton, there is no universal concept. although this article does not necessarily endorse the notion that there is no universal concept, the authors integrate into their narrative that gender, class, religion and economic or political status often affect the formation and application of aesthetic concepts. these concepts are learnt in the context of the performer, creator, audience, critic, tourist and other observers. roles are culture-bound, and in some communities they do not even exist. aesthetic responses may seem ‘natural’ (e.g. appreciating the sunset), but many responses are subject to social prescription and exclusion. bateson (1972:84–85) believes that the way of analysing a system in one milieu can be used to analyse a similar system in another setting. in such analysis, the ‘feel’ of culture and new thinking is more important than defining scientific concepts in terms of operations to determine or prove them. however, by letting our ideas ‘run wild’ without formal thought and clarification, we will probably fail to understand what we are experiencing. a combination of loose and strict thinking is ‘the most precious tool of science’. in this regard, bateson (1972:205–211) warns against the limitations of imagining. the observer cannot imagine the world as it is without making the imagination self-validating. aesthetic consciousness should be analysed, mapped and synthesised so that it is not just ‘fancy creations’ from the mind. for instance, the relationship between beauty, ugliness, what is deemed sacred and a specific consciousness should be mapped. the point of interpreting poetics is to keep the interpretation grounded in self-awareness and self-conscious participation, to prevent premature closure on thinking and to encourage creativity in research and findings that reaches for many voices, interaction and intellectual harmony (brady 1991:12). proposing a movement away from positivist paradigms to ‘artful-science’ through fieldwork, brady (2003:3–4) identified a new paradigm that requires ‘self-conscious knowledge about ordinary realities’ in a ‘semiotic world’ meaning the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation together with positivist research. ‘no science is an island and no discipline is unconnected to the study of being human’. ‘privileged observation’ has merits, but there is no monopoly on truth, irrespective of discipline. language renders meaning unlimited and responsible social science should reject dogmatic empiricism. note the words of shaun mcniff (2008:34) from the art-based research (abr) method: ‘science tends to reduce experience to core principles while art amplifies and expands, and i see the two as complementary within the total complex of knowing’. the transdisciplinary nature of knowledge in the aesthetic knowledge domain nicolescu (2005:7) proposes a transdisciplinary methodology that establishes links between persons, facts, images, representations, fields of knowledge and actions to discover the ‘eros of learning’. during the entire lifetime of a person, the integration of beings and phenomena is questioned. transdisciplinarity articulates among different realities where the flow of information appears to be transmitted in a coherent manner from one reality to another in our physical universe. in order to implement such a methodology, stoller (2012) proposes the use of sensuous scholarship that links analytical and sensible approaches, which is only possible with the rejection of mind–body duality and acceptance of interconnectedness. sensory data are articulated through language and brief sensorial reflections of the researcher while conducting sensual research. in narrative interviews, participant observation and visual methods, sensory research requires innovative sensorial strategies on the part of field researcher. the senses in social life and social interaction may be tapped into for data, implying that the researcher is not neutral, but a participating observer, embroiled in the process as an embodied researcher, collaborating together with the respondent who equally takes on an embodied position in sensuous research. for instance, by getting respondents to use a digital camera and conducting a ‘home-tour’ with the author, audio-visual media evokes physical experiences together with sensorial experiences where all the senses simultaneously perceive images and/or metaphors. the involvement of the body of the field worker together with these sensory exposures translates into sensuous portraits of social life. non-textual outlets for translating the senses may also be found in ethno-drama, other performance and audio technologies towards presenting sensual ethnography. inquiry into domains such as sociology of body, emotions and visual sociology provides insights and contributes to theory, method and epistemology in the social sciences and beyond, broadening the field of sensory studies within and between cultures (low 2012:276–279). from these assertions, we can infer that the knowledge embedded in the aesthetic knowledge domain is a transaction between the experience of the observer-participant, the unbridled creative imagination of the artist, the cultural context of both the creator and the creation, and also the scientific judgement of the observer-participant. discovering knowledge in the aesthetic knowledge domain means observing artful expressions from different vantage points, with self-reflection of an observer’s position in relation to the art form and the context as a foothold from which boundaries can be crossed to participate in events. knowledge embedded in poetics can be accessed through the self-awareness and self-conscious bodily participation of all research participants, sensing what the sometimes many voices try to articulate. a knowledge dimension can be accessed through transdisciplinary methodology that involves an intellectual interpretation of what is experienced by the senses by critically reflecting together on the meaning of what is experienced, as well as seeking a synthesis of sensory feeling. however, horizons merge towards some understanding of violent conflict and what is needed for reconciliation if analysis, synthesis, complementary reflection and judgement of different observers from different vantage points, including the lived experiences of communities in conflict, become a whole. for effective learning from the aesthetic knowledge domain and poetics, an in-depth understanding of the cultural norms that inform the artistic impression is required, avoiding both the notions to apply universal rules or for imagination to distort observations. the result of this sensory interpretation of poetics opens the access of better understanding of issues that are difficult to articulate in popular language and to analyse from a positivist perspective. if this new understanding were applied, it would potentially create new pathways to reconciliation. however, a process of validating, mapping, acknowledging individual subjectivity and collective reflection is crucial to the sensory interpretation of poetics, without ever claiming that the process is scientific. research methodology participating in rituals as methods of data collection auslander (2003:127) asserts that the flat view of a ritual and the notion that ritual could be best understood as mechanisms for promoting group solidarity must be abandoned. according to wepener (2004:34–37), the symbols of ritual are not merely reflections or expressions of components of social structure; they are multi-levelled and capable of creatively effecting social change on all of these levels. to achieve this change, a research methodology is required to document rituals as part of a larger research design. the whole ritual must be studied and documented, including words, deeds and every single piece of information that will add to the clarification of the meaning of the term ‘ritual’. the complete sensory interplay is important. the researcher should take into account everything he or she sees, hears, smells, feels or tastes during the performance (lukken 1999:135–138). documentation will entail examining the completely enacted ritual within its multiple contexts, including cult and cultural milieu, continuity and change, from the data obtained from both primary and secondary sources. a detailed study of what actually happens during the rite itself will be followed by an analysis of what actually happened (stringer 1989:511–512). the research methodology should include the documentation of both the enactment and the appropriation of the ritual by the participants. although the ritual is embedded within a larger cultural system, the immediate culture in which the rituals take place should be described (barnard 2001). a preferred method is community engaged participatory research (cepr), a methodology used for the study of community ownership and sustainability. it builds on the knowledge resources of the community as a partnership between research institutions and community members, shares the findings of knowledge with all relevant stakeholders and applies it to the benefit of the community (lazarus et al. 2012). storytelling as a method of data collection according to berns (2016): stories are both universal and individual. they are our mannerisms and our beliefs, our choice of words and our dreams for the future. most of all, stories shape the way we interact with the world around us and how we define our role in it. we find purpose and belonging through stories – as individuals, communities, and nations. (p. 4) in an oral culture ‘you know what you can recall’. an oral culture has no texts; to create texts, an interlocutor is needed and sustained thought is linked to communication. experience is put into any words, transforming it a little without falsifying it. in primary oral cultures, some people have not been exposed to writing in any form, but are able to produce powerful and valuable verbal performance of high artistic and human value. once writing took over the mind, this may no longer be possible. however, without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its full potential. orality is destined to and needs to produce written knowledge. when reflecting upon it, the nature of the story is important. if the narrator or orator recalls and shares a linear tale that spans generations and is a relevant history to an entire group or community, it is a chronicle. if the storyteller expresses anecdotal, folk tales, or personal experiences with metaphor, symbolism and ethics ‘told by old women to groups of children huddled near the kitchen fire during the cold season, it is a story’ (turner 1980:148). smith (2007) describes how apparently bounded cultural entities dissolve their cultural separation through narrative and storytelling, enlightening similarities. narrative storytelling as a method is able to soften apparently hardened identities and allow understanding and reconciliation between peoples. storytelling is therefore more than just another way of telling and abstraction. it can be a deeply affective process of locating, articulating and communicating personal lived experiences. it opens the way for innovative sensorial strategies that involves sensuous, participant scholarship by immersion in the subjectivities and fictionalised realities that ‘ring true’ encoding (especially in digital format using a camera), analysis and interpretation of digital stories, knowledge production and the construction of meaningful sharing experience as well as relationship building in the context of a reconciliation process. the case of the san of southern africa the san, the first people of southern africa the san is part of the first people of southern africa, whose origins can be traced to the ‘mitochondrial eve’ from whom (according to oppenheimer 2004:40) all africans originated. the largest group of san people currently reside in an underdeveloped village called platfontein on the outskirts of kimberley, the capital of the northern cape province of south africa. the san of platfontein speak kwedam and !kun, which distinguish them from other groups. the next largest san group is the ‡khomani of the southern kalahari, who descended from several original san groups, including the ||ng!u who are close relatives of the !xam who lived south and north of the !gariep river, also in the northern cape province of south africa. these communities were selected as the research population because most of the people living there still suffer from the consequences of genocide before and during colonialism, soldiers fighting as surrogates for belligerents during the so-called cold war, apartheid and a current south african society characterised by race-related turmoil. despite these misfortunes, there is rich and abundant knowledge, leadership, and a strong religious component in their culture. most conflicts that occur are within a context of spiritual and material impoverishment that is characteristic of post-conflict communities in africa (see https://dspace.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/13079 for more readings about the san communities in conflict and in search for reconciliation). accessing the poetic knowledge of the san: ritualistic poetics and storytelling in 2016, the institute for dispute resolution in africa (idra) launched a research project to access knowledge to discover knowledge on dispute resolution and reconciliation embedded in the poetics of the san. the first research venture was to access knowledge on reconciliation and storytelling in digitalised form by facilitating two digital storytelling workshops. the digital storytelling events demonstrate the rawness of experiencing poetic expressions and thus sensuous scholarship as a method. the next research activity took place near the small town of andriesvale during the kalahari desert festival, september 2016 (ferguson 2016a), involving the close observation of female rites of passage performance and the san dancing rituals that celebrate and create a culture of reconciliation. this section explains how the san poetics were accessed and how the sensuous experience was interpreted. accessing ritualistic knowledge one of the most recognised rituals of the san is the ‘trance dance’. this is one of the most researched aspects of the san and thus requires cautious attentiveness regarding the validity of the findings. as we are arguing the aesthetic and subjective, entirely relevant, perspective in this article and because of the sacred and/or private nature of the trance dance, the researchers who have claimed to experience the dance cannot be regarded as claiming the entire truth. our opinion is based on the fact that any claim about the culturally poetic (poetry from a specific culture), and specifically ritualistic, needs to be recognised consciously as a partial claim about a greater cosmology of belief and practice: partial experience, partial analyses and partial conclusions and/or findings. according to published knowledge about the trance dance (lewis-williams & pearce 2004:83–85; ouzman 2009:221) and the authors’ interviews with the san religious leaders and shamans, the dance has certain characteristics and purposes. spiritually potent people (e.g. shamans, healers and seers) lead the dance that is usually held at night after eating or fasting, depending on the particular intentions of the dance. instruments such as rattles are used to make an atmosphere that raises the frequency (energies) of the space – ‘people clap, dance, sing and talk to create a spiritually charged and socially cohesive atmosphere that launches shamans to the spirit world’. an interview with pupa jan pieterse, a community elder, mediator and spiritual leader, revealed that dance is typically initiated to resolve a physical or social ill that needs to be healed in a multidimensional way. ritual is, in most cases, a creative performance that works to envision the life world of individuals and communities. in ritualistic time-spaces, the participants create and recreate their past, present and futures (ferguson 2016b). the following quote is from one of the shamans who led the ritual trance dance among the san in the kalahari: ‘you must make sure your spirit is clean. and you begin with the traditional healing dance to make your spirit clean… to make your body healthy, to make your mind clean, and to be positive. if your mind is not clean, you have negative thoughts. so this is where the leaders start. with the dance… to make them right and clean… and through that dance, they get their messages on where and how to do their work. and through the dance they get the spiritual messages of the medicines, what they do and where they are. with the dance, they know how to heal the people and how the healing must be. with the dance they become the medicine people for the community.’ (interview with community elder, mediator and spiritual leader, 2016, see http://uir.unisa.ac.za/hdl.handle.net/10500/21543) during the kalahari desert festival 2016, raw data were obtained by researcher kate ferguson (ferguson 2016a) observing the ritual, music and dance at the campsite, which she experienced as ‘creative, adaptable, and inclusive and could therefore include those who are not rehearsed in the performance. it is a ritualistic experience rather than a rehearsed ritual’. participation in the san dispute resolution project allowed her to learn significantly about the custom of the san people and informed her capability as a researcher, to some extent to interpret ritual elements in collaboration with knowledge holders from the community. she describes her experience as follows (ferguson 2016a): after a little while of this quiet transition period came the sound of drums, beating intentionally, rhythmically and consistently by what could be gauged from our tent (about eight to ten meters away from the kraal1 where everybody was gathered) as one person drumming. the sounds, of what i later learnt were n!uu language expressions and songs, rose and pierced the night’s comparative silence and dove into the centre of the crackling spirited fire that held the circle of a choir and dance group.2 although we did not see the fire or any of this performance with the sense of our eyes, we saw the remains of a fire the next day and the visuals of the scene became impressions behind my closed eyes as we listened and sensed the scene in the kraal. the sounds: clicks, and shrieks that flowed and descended into low rhythmic moments; elongated expressions of voice that was accompanied by the shakers that are attached to ankles of dancers; emulations of animal utterances like bird calls, antelope sounds, onomatopoeic expressions, guttural sounds. in some instances, they are not clearly identifiable sounds but it is clear that they are channelling something from some place inside or outside of themselves. there was dancing to the rhythm of vocals and vocals singing to the rhythm of feet pounding the red sand, creating a harmony between song and dance. (p. 2) the most important element of the above extract is related to the point that auslander (2003:127) made that ‘ritual, in its full per formative flow, is not only many-levelled, laminated but also capable, under conditions of social change, of creative modifications on all or any of its levels’. ritualistic time-spaces, and in some cases their public performance, are therefore not merely representations of a culture, but rather a concentrated moment of creativity, where social and spiritual ‘modifications’ can be made in each person and within the community at large. rituals are malleable and open to the moulding of hearts and minds. it is thus vital to recognise, encourage and potentially integrate some elements of these creative ritualistic spaces into real community building and reconciliation efforts. in saying ‘some elements’, it is important to note that it is not necessarily possible or respectful to try to claim the entirety of a ritual as these are also sacred spaces that require a certain degree of distance from public and institutional proceedings. the extract also demonstrates the intuition, sensitivities and sensibilities required to engage in sensuous scholarship. along with heightened senses for deep observation of a context are an equally heightened awareness of the self and an honest declaration of the limitations of the researcher in experiencing and later analysing a context. in this case, the insight of the researcher into the lives of the san was limited to two years of interrupted collaborative work with members of the san communities, influenced by personal and professional experience of rituals, which are sufficient to make claims about insights into the ritualistic life of the san. it was found that preliminary analysis occurs naturally, particularly if the researcher is in-cultured and inscribed self (i.e. instilled with cultures and essential and own formative experiences), as highlighted by brady (1991:12). however, the researcher was fully aware that her observations had to be collectively validated involving the san participants. as an ‘outsider’ who does not share the culture, she had to rely on collaborators from the community to understand the traditional rituals. she was also conscious of the probability that the ritual might be an enactment aimed at the presence of researchers and other observers. however, the spontaneity of the enactment, linked to the awareness of the researcher that interpretation of rituals requires collective interpretation, mitigated the limitations of sensual scholarship. by reflecting on the literature and together with community participants, we infer that multidimensional, bonded and creative ritual has the potential for healing and reconciliation in the context of social change. ritual is an immersive process where people have the opportunity to delve into themselves as individuals within a creative and supportive context. ritual in a neutral setting potentially allows for intra-community reconciliation of opposing groups when participants display trauma from different perspectives, involving a larger audience that can challenge individual bias without judgement. however, a ritual dance will not automatically make a person to accept the trauma or enable him or her to be totally healed. healing is a long-term process that involves many aspects and not only the ritual. furthermore, we acknowledge that the ritual is a difficult place to access from a structural functional vantage point. not just anyone is welcomed into the intimate and delicate space of community-based ritual. the ritual is a creative, observable and poetic act that allows knowledge discovery, including knowledge required for reconciliation. furthermore, the research demonstrated the richness and realness of engaging the poetic spheres of people and communities and thus the profound relevance of these dimensions to inform policy-making, decision-making and planning for communities experiencing and recovering from conflict situations. theatrical storytelling in poetics, people will choose the issues or themes most relevant to them to work with as creative material. the performance at the kalahari desert festival, called ‘die hook’, did just that. the descriptions of the poetic event at the festival demonstrate how communities, and particularly women, are striving towards reparations, recreations and reconciliation of gender dynamics and a revival and recreation of respect for both men and women. there is also a plight among the older generations that the younger generations are forgetting and do not care for the old stories that are passed down from generation to generation and regarded as ancient and sacred by the elders (ferguson 2016b)). this theatre performance revisits, revives and re-imagines some old stories that connect the earth with the greater cosmos through the presence of the sacred fire and the moon figure. the following raw data were obtained from a theatre performance during the kalahari desert festival that focused on the female experience in the san communities (ferguson 2016a): the ouma (grandmother) began narrating a 20-min story about the rites of passage that the bushmen women go through as they enter womanhood and prepare to become wives and mothers. during the old woman’s story, a younger version of herself stayed concealed behind a screen where the shadow of herself was acting out her reflections and descriptions of her early womanhood. the story described her being kept in a kind of solitary confinement where food and water was brought to her and how she spent her time sleeping and dreaming about a life outside of that space. her mother would come and wash her down, scrub her skin until she was bleeding from being washed. this was the ritual cleansing that prepared her for her ‘coming out’ moment where she would sing and dance and be honoured for her womanhood and all that came along with that. when she emerged all decorated and cleansed, she danced around the fire under the moonlight to traditional music including drums and voice. the audience responded in different ways, with the majority clapping enthusiastically for the very simple and powerful story and how it was performed. a couple of young men under the influence of alcohol whistled, jostled and became rowdy when the young woman emerged from the confined part of her rite of passage. this immature masculine demonstration enlightened the need for such a story to be told about the traditional and sacred ways that women were supported and encouraged by their communities. from the above story the researcher discovered the following data elements: female rites of passage; the moon symbol (cosmology); performative; storytelling; voice and body reflection; fire and water (cleansing); solitary confinement; matriarchal relations; ritual cleansing; dance during the pinnacle point of the rite of passage ritual; reflection of the moon, the shadow and the story (see figure 1). figure 1: ritual, reconciliation and gender in cultural context. the illustration serves as a framework for interpretation of how reflective, mindful and sensitive practices of sensuous scholarship in poetic spaces may offer relevant and valuable insights into the breakdown of gender relations in the san communities. by observing the performance and using this framework, the researcher could detect elements of harmony and discord. furthermore, the performance revealed the need for the reinstatement of rites of passage for both genders to alleviate generational amnesia on what is seen as disrespectful and immoral in gender relations in that specific cultural context leading to community conflicts. digital storytelling two digital storytelling workshops conducted with the san communities (november 2015 in pretoria and june 2016 in ashkam) highlighted the causal relationship between poverty, dispossession and conflict. during these workshops, each person chose the story they wanted to tell and they were prompted gently to link it to issues of law and justice. each person shared a story about his or her experience of rising above the socio-economic context – ‘the hero’s journey’. for example, there was a story about a mother whose child had gone down the path of drugs and how difficult that was to overcome. another person shared her experience of her mother dying from an illness. another person was explicit about him ‘coming from nothing’ and then finding his gifts and his role in society. this is not to say that these experiences are exclusive to low-income and dispossessed people as drugs and illness occur in high-income communities. however, a particular context that is being overcome includes being low-income san communities in south africa. when considering the kinds of stories that are told, and how it relates to stories of peace and reconciliation, we can look at the digital story of mario mahongo (ferguson/mahongo, http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/20559). he chronicles the movement of the !xun and khwe from the military base in angola to the refugee camp next to the orange river to the lands of the platfontein farm where they now live and have custodianship of the land. he entwines the hardships of disand translocation from their homelands in angola to a country that has little capacity to treat the san and/or bushmen communities as equal south african citizens. mahongo also speaks in the first person about being a leader of his people who found and lost peace through lived experiences. there is an entwinement of chronicle and story in his expression. in his storytelling, mahongo employs a certain style where he speaks for himself and for his people as their leader. this is a mighty story that demonstrates that reconciliation is an ongoing journey with moments of peace and moments without peace. that mahongo is the storyteller is powerful as he has walked the road and led his community through many stories of dislocation and location, conflict and harmony. that mahongo decides to focus on building and raising platfontein for the latter part of the story demonstrates his focus on redressing the past, reconciling that which is lost, creating, building and growing with the resources and abilities available. reflections on the application of aesthetic knowledge for peace and reconciliation knowledge from the aesthetic knowledge domain by means of transdisciplinary, participant observation of the poetics from a specific culture requires personal reconciliation, meaning that the researcher first goes through a process of self-reflection (as part of the methodology). the researcher needs to develop an honest awareness of how the cultural context of the creator of poetics differs from the context of the researcher, assuming that the researcher comes from another cultural context. furthermore, the researcher has the challenge of differentiating between sensuous feeling and emotional involvement by sensing without constriction when participating in the event, but needs to re-establish emotional distance after the event in order to objectively evaluate and interpret what was experienced. once the researcher achieves this inner reconciliation, he or she can engage in participant scholarship following an innovative sensorial research strategy to access the knowledge in the aesthetic knowledge domain. such a strategy will be launched from a vantage point where artful expressions can be accessed. a suitable course of action for the researcher will be to respond to poetic forms such as ritual, song, dance and storytelling as a whole person who embroiled themselves physically in the form to discover new knowledge. such a response involves the assumption of responsibility by the researcher to enter into dialogue with the creator of the poetic form to share insights that could creatively add to the process of reconciliation. in applying this strategy, the researcher is purely an observer of processes and listener of stories, while becoming involved in the process of analysing and interpreting the meaning of such poetic expressions. this per-action of sensuous participation and intellectual interpretation contributes to the understanding of the cultural norms of those who are in the process of reconciliation, which would otherwise be difficult to articulate in popular language. new perspectives can therefore be discovered from various forms of poetics when the communication of the creator aims at the creation or restoration of cultural identity, peaceful relations and connections among people towards reconciliation. conclusions this article departed from the aim to evaluate poetics as a source of information to find practical solutions for reconciliation and peace-building in a community. the argument is forwarded that if access to the poetic forms of relatively peaceful communities is discovered, interpreted and understood, it will reveal how relationships are reconciled. this argument is supported by offering a conceptual framework on reconciliation, the aesthetic knowledge domain and poetics, making it relevant to peace and reconciliation. a transdisciplinary, participatory and engaged research methodology is discussed. finally, an evaluation of specific forms of poetics researched with the san communities of south africa to accomplish reconciliation is presented. it was found that the poetic spaces of the ritual are open to creative imaginings and abilities if a community aspires for true and deep reconciliation. it is less about the exact nature of a specific ritual and more about the innovative characteristics of ritualistic spaces in general. it was also found that the poetic worlds of communities hold some of the most important knowledge for consideration regarding issues of conflict and reconciliation. from this knowledge, new perspectives could be discovered in a hermeneutic fashion by applying sensuous participation and intellectual interpretation. interpretation requires that the researcher and the creator of the poetic form successfully merge their understandings of phenomena. the merging of insights would require a research strategy that moves the vantage point of the researcher to become as intimate as possible with the artful expressions in order to sense meaning beyond popular language expressions. this would require inner reconciliation by the researcher and an awareness of the cultural context of the creator of poetic form. furthermore, it would require on the part of the researcher to sense initially what is being articulated and then place some emotional distance to assert meaning from a neutral vantage point to ensure good scholarship. the knowledge that emerges from this mutual experience, if applied to the process of reconciliation in a community, may become creative, innovative and restorative. recommendations it is proposed that all field researchers who engage in participatory research together with communities should develop an awareness that a wealth of knowledge is embedded in the aesthetic knowledge domain. the knowledge of differing cultural contexts, the skills to engage with many forms of poetics and a mindset that enables research beyond disciplinary boundaries should be an important venture to develop researchers. from the perspective of the community artist, it is important that the creative energy and the quest to influence positive change through all forms of artistic expression should never be abandoned. creativity is not to be drowned out by dominant narratives from scholarly and other interpretations that failed to dwell beyond scientism to a dimension where metaphysical knowledge can be applied to find reconciliation. policymakers should take cognisance of messages from communities articulated through art form such as storytelling and ritual, especially where the articulation of needs and expectations are limited by the use of unique language. especially people involved in formulating and implementing peace and reconciliation strategies may derive valuable information from observing and participating in rituals, or simply listening to stories told. specifically, in the case of dispute resolution, storytelling and ritual can form an important part of the process for identifying the cause, understanding the dynamics and dealing with the consequences of disputes. in the case of storytelling, it can serve the purpose of fact-finding in customary law as well as during modern court proceedings. in the case of ritual, it forms an important part of cleansing and healing in african communities after violent conflict. it is therefore of vital importance that the art and science of researching poetics and knowledge production from the aesthetic knowledge domain find their way into learning contents and curricula in all educational dimensions. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the san, the first people of southern africa, especially the communities of platfontein, andriesvale, welkom, rietfontein and philandersbron, for participating in the study. the authors declare that only professional and intellectual considerations as researchers inspired them to write this article. declarations of interest were signed by both authors to comply with university of south africa (unisa) policy requirements before the start of the project. this research was financially supported by the college of law, university of south africa, and the national research foundation of south africa. the views expressed in the article are those of the researchers and authors and does necessarily represent the funders’ views. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions a.g.v. was the project manager and responsible for writing of the conceptual framework, interpretation of data, 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which could, in this context or scene, more aptly be described as a youth group or a community of people singing together. abstract introduction research design results and discussion discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) mogamat n. davids department of educational foundations, university of south africa, south africa citation davids, m.n., 2018, ‘”from history project to transdisciplinary research”: district six as a case study’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a507. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.507 original research ‘from history project to transdisciplinary research’: district six as a case study mogamat n. davids received: 27 oct. 2017; accepted: 06 apr. 2018; published: 25 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article expounds how a national research foundation (nrf) history project evolved into a transdisciplinary study. the article develops a case in favour of transdisciplinary research as a departure from strict discipline-based inquiry. the project involves collaborative research with master’s students and researchers located at five south african universities. the aim of this article is to evaluate the project as a transdisciplinary case study, intending to focus on its emergence as a history-based discipline, evolving into a transdisciplinary project. it also explores the epistemological value of transdisciplinary research as a knowledge production methodology in the context of the demand for a decolonised curriculum in south africa. the article is set in the context of a nrf project with a spatiotemporal focus on the district six forced removals during the colonial-apartheid period. a qualitative instrumental case study design guided the data collection and analyses. participants’ project proposal texts were used as data. the results show, firstly, that transdisciplinarity is manifested in a wide range of titles and disciplines; secondly, a myriad of conceptual frameworks emerged from the data; and thirdly, a broad spectrum of research approaches emerged, mainly qualitative. transdisciplinarity focuses on the ‘subject’ and the ‘hidden middle’ as domain where alternative philosophical research orientations are explored. transdisciplinarity can be regarded as ‘ubuntu’ research, given the common concern to bring out the ‘voice’ of the subaltern and a rejection of separation of humans into ‘racial’ classifications. as ‘ubuntu research’, transdisciplinary research rejects an atomistic understanding of reality that excludes the human subject and a separation between human and nature. introduction political transformation in south africa had significant epistemological implications. the transition from apartheid to democracy implied a political shift in power that created epistemological space to challenge colonial-apartheid historical narratives. according to foucault, a shift in political power is potentially a transformation in regimens of truth because power and knowledge are inseparable (dreyfus & rabinow 1982). considering the inseparability of knowledge and power, constructions of knowledge are viewed as discourse formations articulated as effects of power (foucault 1991). during the post-apartheid transition period, knowledge became a highly contested terrain. notwithstanding the contestations around the terms ‘colonisation’ and ‘decolonisation’, official south african history was written from a colonial-apartheid perspective, which imposed a eurocentric–afrikaner nationalist view of the past, rendering the historically oppressed communities invisible or marginalised. according to mignolo, geoand body-politics of knowledge has been hidden from the self-serving interest of western epistemology and the task of decolonial thinking is to unveil the epistemic silences of western epistemology and affirming the epistemic rights of the racially devalued (mignolo 2009:3). in the south african context, there is still an imbalance between euro–afrikaner centric and an ‘africanised/decolonised/indigenize’ historiography. after 23 years into democracy, the continuation of a dominant colonial-apartheid curriculum and an infuriating annual university fee increment resulted in the #feesmustfall movement: a national student activist movement that demanded a quality, decolonised and free education (langa 2017). while the demand for free higher education elicited a positive political response from former president jacob zuma (hunter 2017), the demand for quality and a decolonised curriculum remains an inescapable imperative in the educational sector. the theoretical richness in south african historiography is destined to intensify with the increasing demand for a decolonised narrative. traditionally, history has been written from particular ideological positions: from colonial english liberalism to radical marxism, to afrikaner nationalist writing (wright 1977). visser (2004) traced certain trends in south african historiography beyond the traditional schools towards a ‘social history’, as demonstrated in the work of the wits history workshop and university of cape town’s memory and oral history projects. these initiatives begun to recognise the history of the voices of previously excluded communities (visser 2004). these changes in south african historiography demonstrate how history as a discipline has gradually evolved towards transdisciplinary research and potentially as an agent for decolonisation, as this article will show. this article illuminates the evolution of a district six history project, into transdisciplinary research, involving multiple researchers working in different universities in south africa. the article explains how a national research foundation (nrf) project grew into a transdisciplinary study, as it evolved from its discipline-specific base, to engage relevant and complex research questions. as a post-apartheid study, the project sets out to record forgotten, unrecorded and suppressed memories of a previously disadvantaged community. interestingly, all participants or researchers in the project were either born there or have close personal relations with people from the district six community. post-apartheid historians and other social scientists are constantly challenged to address the biased representation and almost invisibility of historically oppressed communities in the school and higher education curriculum. official opportunities to address the epistemic injustices of the past are presented by the government through the nrf’s funding platform, which gave birth to the project: remembering district six: lest it be forgotten. district six was chosen as a research focus for its richness in symbolism, historical material and pedagogical potential. district six symbolises the physical and psychological scars left behind by apartheid’s group areas act (1950). the south african historical landscape is strewn with unrecorded memories, untold stories and experiences of forced removals of communities such as sophiatown (johannesburg), south end (port elizabeth) and lady selborne (pretoria), to mention only a few. contrary to popular notion that district six was an ill-begotten, crime-invested urban slum (field 2001), jeppie and soudien (1990:203), described it as the ‘birthplace of the national democratic movement and the fountainhead of literature, intellectual and ideological development in south africa’. this statement is equally valid if applied to other communities that were destroyed by forced removals. these communities have deliberately been stereotypically represented as ridden with gangsters, alcoholism and crime, deserving of destruction (schoeman 1994; van tonder 1990). this project is a work in progress with the purpose of reconstructing a more inclusive narrative of district six, thereby restoring the dignity of the historically oppressed by giving voice to their suppressed memories and untold stories. while district six and forced removals feature prominently in academic publications, a common research objective was to preserve the past and to remember the injustices of the apartheid government (carrim 1990; field 2001; trotter 2009). needless to say, a number of monographs and academic theses have been produced on forced removal communities, which created a rich literature source. noteworthy literature on district six includes hart (1990), field (2001) and jeppie and soudien (1990). on fietas’ (johannesburg) history, the works of carrim (1990) and okunlola (2013) are important. about south end in port elizabeth, the writings of hendricks (2017) and agherdien, george and hendricks (1997) deal comprehensively with forced removals. lady selbourne has been recorded expansively by mojapelo (2008), while sophiatown was the subject of research in van tonder’s master’s thesis (1990) and hart’s doctoral dissertation (1990). while the extant literature demonstrates the disciplinary nature of available knowledge, this project shows the epistemological value of adopting a transdisciplinary approach when excavating the unrecorded and marginalised histories of a forgotten community. transdisciplinary research differs from traditional research as it crosses disciplinary boundaries that govern academic inquiry. augsburg employs nicolescu’s concept of a ‘transdisciplinary attitude’ to describe the intellectual disposition adopted by researchers involved in transdisciplinary projects (augsburg 2014:233). nicolescu asserts that transdisciplinary education has its origins in the richness of the scientific spirit, which is based on questioning the a priori answers and certitude contradictory to the facts (nicolescu 1999). a transdisciplinarity attitude revalues the role of deeply rooted intuition, of imagination, of sensitivity and of the body in knowledge production (nicolescu 1999). despite the abundant literature available on district six, this project is guided specifically to target those topics that have not been researched such as, inter alia, untold life story histories (the late salie fredericks, rugby legend), john hendricks (hymn composer and choir master), institutional biographies (moravian zinzindorf primary school, sheikh joseph moslem primary school), cultural and religious communities (qanimia indian community, mohamadi qadiri jama and moravian congregation) and sport clubs (collegians, rosendales and roslyns rugby clubs). in the reconstruction of the historical narrative, an embodied notion of knowledge, as suggested by nicolescu (1999) becomes a meaningful alternative as a possible decolonising approach to research. nicolescu’s embodied notion of knowledge is embedded in the concept of transdisciplinary as a perspective that involves collaborative research from a myriad of professions, disciplines and societal sectors. collaborators would creatively co-generate new knowledge that has personal meaning to them: an expression of growing their ‘transdisciplinary self’ (mcgregor 2015:9). embodied knowledge is understood to involve inner changes that allow the researcher to grow into a new and progressively, more complex self. in addition to identifying the epistemological gap in current district six literature, this project became the genesis of a transdisciplinary research journey that resulted in theorisation across the spatiotemporal forced removal landscape in south africa. in an effort to make history responsive to contemporary challenges facing post-apartheid society, the project generated innovative perspectives on forced removals by engaging dynamics of gentrification, drawing similarities between forced removals and gentrification as a form of post-apartheid, neo-liberal, people displacement. the project also excavated intergenerational memories of forced removals that shaped the identities and knowledge of a group of learners with ancestral roots in district six (davids 2017). conceptual framework while individual researchers conduct their research independently, they participate collaboratively in a common project. for the purpose of this article, the author employs the concepts ‘self-reflective historiography’, ‘decoloniality’ and ‘transdisciplinarity’ as conceptual framework. self-reflective historiography is employed as a key component in an auto-ethnographic narrative. in this project, the author’s subjective experiences and knowledge of the context shape the architecture of the project. borrowing foucault’s notion of biopower (pylypa 1998), the ‘self’ is expressed in the context of complex discursive practices, which make expressions fluid and unpredictable. the self is embodied (nicolescu 1999) and the body is entangled in power relations, which render it docile but potentially productive. the productive body uses the power of technology of self in expressing knowledge in the form of disciplinary discourses (smart 2002:76). in this study, the author’s self-reflexivity becomes productive as he asserts power in challenging existing disciplinary boundaries that became the basis for existing knowledge. the second component of the conceptual framework is ‘decoloniality’. according to raewyn connell (2016), the continuation of hegemonic forms of knowledge in the global economy has been maintained by the power of ‘coloniality’. frantz fanon (1925–1961) pointed out that colonisation does not only take place through political and economic processes of domination but also through cultural and linguistic alienation, leaving an indelible imprint on the psyche of the colonised subject (satpathy n.d.). it was ngugi wa thiong o who suggested that the decolonisation of the mind becomes crucial to the emancipation of colonial subjects from the effects of colonialism especially after power was transferred to the colonised (satapathy n.d.:28). the term ‘decolonisation’ has multiple meanings and cannot be used monolithically. in southern africa, the decolonisation process unfolded differently in namibia, zimbabwe and the portuguese colonies (angola, mozambique). to explain the case of south african colonisation, the african national congress (anc) used the phrase ‘colonialism of a special type’ (anc 1987:1). what was special about the colonial system in south africa was that there was no spatial separation between the colonising power (white minority state) and the colonised black majority. another feature of the south african case is that the apartheid state was independent of any colonial power, having a sovereignty legally vested in them by various acts of the british government and state (anc 1987:1). colonisation lasted for 342 years (1652–1994) before an independent democratic state was established, but the colonial values and mindset arguably continue. in south africa, coloniality and the need to ‘decolonise the mind’ came to a wild awakening when in 2015, university students initiated a national protest movement for free, decolonised and quality education. students experienced their education as alienating, eurocentric and entrenching a western hegemonic epistemology (fataar & subreenduth 2015). despite africa’s political severance from their colonial histories for more than 50 years, the institutionalising effects of colonisation on the epistemic and socio-economic structures of societies are reproduced in various forms (fataar & subreenbuth 2015). south africans, as revealed in this study, are not free from the manifestation of ‘coloniality’. an example of coloniality is the theatrical work on district six by the late taliep petersen. sauls argues that petersen and david kramer portrayed district six as mainly a place of ‘gangsters, an uneducated class, illiterate and lazy hooligans hanging out on street corners’ (sauls 2004:39). these derogatory themes are colonial representations but remained dominant in petersen and kramer’s productions such as district six: the musical; fairyland; crooners; poison; and kat and the kings. in kramer’s 2016 production: district six – kanala, negative stereotypes are again reproduced. these images of district six are consistent with the apartheid-colonial representation of black (african) colonised people as inferior and insignificant (alvares 1991). revising the existing historical narrative requires a decolonising lens to promote an emancipatory sense of being which may be offered in a multi-perspective, transdisciplinary approach to research. transdisciplinarity is the third component in the conceptual framework. in conjunction with the primacy of the role of an ‘embodied self’, nicolescu argues that the ‘subject’ transcends the ‘object’ in transdisciplinary research and that the subject cannot be encamped in a restricted discipline (2010:22). nicolescu (2010) defines multidisciplinarity as a concern with studying a research topic in several disciplines simultaneously, while interdisciplinarity refers to the transfer of methods from one discipline to another. transdisciplinarity is research among, across and beyond various disciplines (nicolescu 2010:22). van eeden (2010) developed a notion of transdisciplinarity based on nicolescu’s understanding. for the purpose of this study, van eeden’s (2010) model of transdisciplinarity provides a clear path to identify stages in the research process. van eeden (2010) asserts that one cannot move towards a transdisciplinary approach without recognising the disciplinary nature of a field of study. from a disciplinary position, the researcher moves towards interdisciplinary fields where there is an overlap of disciplines and eventually the transdisciplinary, which is the third phase (van eeden 2010:194). van eeden worked from a history disciplinary orientation, which presupposes the availability of knowledge, memories and primary resources. the incorporation of knowledgeable people, coming from different disciplinary fields, in a multidisciplinary research project, qualifies a project to be labelled as a transdisciplinary project (van eeden 2010). in the district six project, transdisciplinary research is incorporated by multidisciplinary researchers from, inter alia, history, environmental studies, technology education and religious studies. these researchers agreed to write scientific articles as research outputs and to share conference panel discussions. the district six project can be categorised as transdisciplinary, according to van eeden’s three-phase model, because it moved from its initial history-based discipline to its eventual transdisciplinarity stage. as a case study, district six remains rich in unexplored and suppressed cultural memory and history. based on the assessment of this project as a transdisciplinary study, this article is ontologically informed by the author’s use of self-reflective historiography and technology of self by having interwoven his knowledge and experience of district six and forced removals. objectives of the study the objectives of this study are twofold: firstly to argue that this project qualifies as a transdisciplinary case study and, secondly, to demonstrate the epistemological generativity and productivity of a transdisciplinary approach as a knowledge-producing methodology. the article unfolds as follows: research design, data presentation and analysis, discussion and conclusion. research design the research design for this article is informed by two research questions: firstly, how was transdisciplinarity manifested in a project initially conceived as a history study? secondly, in the context of decolonisation, what useful epistemology emerged from this project? the next section is subdivided into the research design and data presentation and analysis. this article employs a qualitative, auto-ethnographical, transdisciplinary, instrumental case study design. methodologically, nicolescu (2010) argues for a unitary notion of reality that includes the subject, object and the hidden third. the latter refers to the interaction between the subject and the object (nicolescu 2010:19). nicolescu argues that transdisciplinarity is both unified and diverse: unity in diversity and diversity through unity. nicolescu speaks about phenomenological transdisciplinarity as one type of transdisciplinarity that focuses on the lived experiences of the subject in the research. as a former district six resident and author, i prefer to use the more commonly-known method of auto-ethnography because this project is inextricably part of my sense of being. the study is qualitative with its focus on the subjective experiences of individuals and their interaction with context. project proposal texts serve as evidence of disciplinary content and dispositions. the author played the role of researcher, coordinator and narrator when he brought to bear his own interpretations and cultural orientations on the project (goldbart & hustler 2005:16). as a case study, this project is bounded by space and time (mabry 2009): district six and apartheid forced removals. guba and lincoln (1981) classified case studies into a number of types, differentiating between those that are descriptive, interpretive and evaluative. this is an evaluative, instrumental case study, which is used to accomplish something more than understanding a particular situation (nieuwenhuis 2016:82). in this study, the district six project became instrumental in demonstrating how transdisciplinarity was used as a research approach to provide insights and new knowledge (nieuwenhuis 2016:82). van eeden’s (2010) three-phased disciplinary model was employed to differentiate between the project in its initial stages and in its growing complexity to an advanced transdisciplinary phase. data presentation and analysis before presenting an analysis of the project proposal texts, a brief note on the sample, data collection and analysis is explained. a sample of three masters students’ and seven academic proposals were deemed as data and potential research outputs. these proposals were analysed textually and thematically to glean their transdisciplinary characteristics. textual contents were analysed based on titles, disciplines, theoretical frameworks and methodologies. content analysis is ‘any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages’ (nieuwenhuis 2016:111). analytical categories were colour-coded for easy identification. another source of data was the author as auto-ethnographical narrator and participant researcher. the researcher became a ‘complete participant’ when he immersed himself in the setting of a project, to the extent that other participants did not know that they were the participants of the observation (nieuwenhuis 2016). although all participants became voluntary participants, individual consent to use the proposals or abstracts as textual data was given. all of them will become authors in the research output: proposed book publication. results and discussion data analysis 1: titles and disciplines three master’s students were registered at one university, in three different colleges: environmental science, education and human sciences (religious studies). after registration, they submitted their proposal drafts. in addition, six project proposals were received from academics in which they located their disciplinary positions in the context of the project. the proposals submitted were identified as belonging to the following disciplines or sub-disciplines: life story history or biographical studies, history, environmental geography, technology education and town planning. the project was launched at a national conference panel discussion. three workshops and individual meetings were held for consultation and sharing. table 1 summarises the titles, disciplines or sub-disciplines and format of the proposed research output. table 1: titles, disciplines or sub-disciplines and outputs. data analysis 2: theoretical frameworks this section takes a closer look at the theoretical or conceptual frameworks that were implicitly or explicitly identified in the proposal texts. the proposals are available for verification and kept under secured conditions according to standard research practice. critical historical theory three proposals reflected the use of ‘historical theory’. these proposals deal with three educational institutions of which two: moravian zinzindorf primary and sheikh joseph moslem primary school have been demolished during the time of forced removals. a third, chapel street primary school, has a long history since 1845 and is still in operation. critical thinking is an approach to interpreting content that generates new thoughts, understandings and beliefs to create instruments of insight and a new point of view (lunenburg 2011). the authors brought to their conceptual underpinnings a strong critical orientation. they were either personally connected with the institution or have intimate knowledge of people associated with the institutions. according to one of the proposals, the purpose of the study is to excavate and record the forgotten areas of social life of parts of the community of district six, which implies a critical grassroots perspective of history. preserving the memories of these institutions as official history would have been detrimental to the apartheid regimen as they would remind the nation of the injustices committed against the oppressed. the deliberate exclusion of the people’s history from the official curriculum is now being addressed and with the transition to democracy, a more inclusive, fuller history of the nation would have to replace prevailing knowledge imbalances. these proposals have a definite contribution to make to district six’s memory. these proposals depart from a theoretical framing that interprets education from a functional perspective and pursue a critical understanding of apartheid education. subaltern theory ‘giving voice to the oppressed’ emerged as a commonly used phrase in many texts. the project instilled an intellectual concern to challenge the dominant eurocentric, colonial historiography of district six. hence, a counter, decolonised narrative that intersects with culture, arts and ethics became a project objective that permeated the proposals. authors used the term ‘subaltern’ with reference to the oppressed classes who were denied positive or appropriate recognition during apartheid. the use of the term ‘subaltern’ seems to deviate from gramsci’s notion of the subaltern as ‘proletariat’ because the voices of not only the poor but also the famous middle and lower middle-class achievers in district six were suppressed (chaturvedi 2007:9). critical race theory another strand of theory identified in the proposals is critical race theory, which is innovatively used in a digital storytelling proposal. the proposal seeks to reconstruct the dominant narratives on district six. the proposal’s objective is to disrupt stereotypical historical narratives by engaging with the past and the present. decolonisation is an underlying epistemological objective of the proposal as the study will pursue counter-narratives and critical thinking to produce socially conscious students as future leaders. while critical race theory is primarily associated with legal studies, its methodology is increasingly gaining popularity in social studies, especially where race, class and ethnicity form an integral part of the social context (lynn & dixson 2013). given the historical role of race in education, critical race theory offers useful analytical lenses to expose hidden meanings not often revealed through commonly used functional theories. spatial theory spatial theory emerged in four proposals in three different disciplines: town planning and architecture of urban renewal initiatives, gentrification, segregation history and forced removal policies, and place-making of indians in district six (1860–1980). in the empire’s grand plan to develop cape town as a modern city, district six was neglected in spatial planning and it appeared that the place was intended for demolition in the future. some proposals revitalise the town planning history debate by asking whether the city of cape town’s urban renewal initiatives in the post-apartheid period were a continuation of apartheid and market-driven policies that led to the residential displacement in woodstock and salt river, similar to that of district six during and before apartheid. with reference to various forced removal case studies (district six, sophiatown, fietas, south end and lady selborne), spatial theory is applied to explain the systematic establishment and subsequent destruction of communities for ideological and economic reasons. spatial theory challenges traditional economic determinist explanation by inserting the role of human agency which in this case was demonstrated by the segregation ideology of the british and apartheid policy of afrikaner nationalists. phenomenological theory one study employed phenomenology as practical theory to describe the making of a ‘hymn writer’ and ‘choir conductor’. phenomenology is concerned with the study of experiences from the perspective of the individual, where personal knowledge and subjectivity are emphasised as data for interpretation (hefferon & ollis 2006). findings emerge as the subject’s mind is opened and probed for rich descriptions of personal experiences. this proposal is underpinned by the project objective to recognise the unsung heroes who were ignored because they belonged to the subaltern class. given the centrality of probing the lived experiences in a phenomenological study, this theoretical approach is well placed to produce new knowledge that will contribute towards unfolding of a rich historical kaleidoscope. data analysis 3: research methodologies a meta-analysis of the project research designs revealed an overwhelming use of qualitative research methodologies. this is in line with any transdisciplinary study that places the subject at the centre of analysis (nicolescu 2010). transdisciplinarity departs from a classical positivistic science by seeking to develop an intellectual perspective that bridges the gap between human and nature, a rejection of an objective view of knowledge (nicolescu 2010). ethnomethodologies qualitative methods pursue to study the meaning of subjective experiences and interactions of individuals in their contexts. qualitative research recognises the complexity of human meaning. a major strand of qualitative research identified in the proposals is variation of the ‘ethnomethodological’ approach to data collection. ethnomethodology was developed by garfinkel (1984) and focuses on ‘reflexivity’ that carries out technologies of self in the representation and creation of everyday life activities. in one proposal, the interview technique is proposed to probe the memories and experiences of former learners of sheikh joseph moslem primary school. these interviews will produce data that will be used in tandem with historical constructions based on archival material and documents. similarly, the proposal on chapel street primary school also proposes to use the same methodological approach. the proposal dealing with residential mobility and wellness involves the identification of stakeholders through desktop analysis, archival research and retrieving memorialised as well as living ethnographic materials of displaced residents from district six and woodstock. archival searches and documents in most of the proposals, reference is made to archival searches to establish the historical veracity of their study focus and to construct narratives based on documentary evidence. archives are being searched because any attempt at (re)writing history requires the visitation of the archives. documents were extracted from institutions such as the district six museum, wynberg education museum, cape provincial archives and the moravian theological college archives. documents represent power over memory and identity and serve as a source for historical narrative (schwartz & cook 2002). proposals drew on archives or documents to reconstruct institutional histories (moravian, district six indian community, sheikh joseph’s school and chapter street primary school). the approach to archives and documents is motivated by the quest to find new meanings in light of possible biased interpretations. needless to say, these studies will potentially offer new sources that will enrich existing literature. interviews the interview technique lies at the heart of investigating how people behave, experience and understand. in some proposals, the interview technique is proposed to bring out the ‘voice’ of the people. according to cohen, manion and morison (2007), the interview is a valuable method for exploring the construction and negotiation of meanings in a natural setting. the interview emerged as the spinal method in those proposals identified as ethnographic and phenomenological. interviews yield experiential knowledge, which become the data to (re)tell stories and (re)construct spatial and temporal meanings. most proposals intended to use the structured and semi-structured interview. the semi-structured interview shows more flexibility than the structured interview and allows for the interviewee to be probed for deeper responses (berg 2007). discussion the data analyses identified a myriad of proposal titles across disciplines, employing diverse theoretical or conceptual frameworks and methodological designs. titles bring together disciplines across colleges and theoretical and conceptual frameworks from various critical traditions. overwhelmingly, qualitative data collection techniques such as the interview, archives and documents, and reflexivity were identified. the diversity in disciplinary approaches was bounded by the broad objectives of the project, which intends to produce knowledge with an essentially different architecture: a correction of the epistemic injustice of the past (fataar & subreenduth 2015) and the centrality of an ‘embodied subject’ in knowledge construction (nicolescu 1999). with reference to the first research question, the transdisciplinary nature of this project was displayed in the various proposals that contributed to deepen an understanding of the project theme. as a transdisciplinary project, the different disciplines or sub-disciplines were united on an understanding that transdisciplinary knowledge brings unity through diversity (nicolescu 2010). this project traces the emergence of its transdisciplinarity since its genesis as a historical study and its development towards a complex amalgamation of disciplines. initially a history project, the first shift took place when students’ proposals were submitted to different colleges. van eeden’s (2010) three-phase model provides a conceptual trajectory to trace the project’s progression from asking a simple historical question to the formulation of research questions from multiple disciplines. as for the second research question – the epistemological value of a transdisciplinarity research approach – a collective evaluation of the project proposal shows the potential of emerging decolonised and contextually meaningful knowledge claims (fataar & subreenduth 2015). all proposals addressed the need to ‘decolonise the mind’ (killam 1984) and to bring out the voices of the subaltern (chaturvedi 2007). pedagogically, the project’s research outputs are destined to make substantive contributions to new knowledge, which will provide learning material for educational institutions locally and nationally. transdisciplinary research begins with an attitude (nicolescu 1999) that goes beyond one discipline. it is therefore suggested that interdepartmental research be explored among academics and as in this case study, postgraduate studies be explored across universities, colleges or faculties and departments with possibilities for co-supervision. the three master degrees that form part of this project are registered in three different colleges and co-supervised by academics in different colleges. the promotion of transdisciplinary research begins with a discipline-based study towards the incorporation of interdisciplinary projects, which gradually becomes transdisciplinary (van eeden 2010). conclusion the district six project and transdisciplinarity complement each other in a symbiotic way. there seems to be a common concern to excavate the voices of the historically oppressed in the district six project, which corresponds with the centrality of placing the ‘voice’ of the subject in, as opposed to outside the research in transdisciplinarity (nicolescu 2010). authentic, embodied knowledge is arguably a common pursuit of the project and transdisciplinary research. this article is an evaluative study of an nrf history project that evolved into a transdisciplinary study. an objective of the project is to excavate unknown, suppressed and forgotten knowledge of district six to be used for epistemological reconstruction. project proposal texts serve as evidence that research conducted with a transdisciplinary attitude (nicolescu 1999) can be productive and generative. an innovative conceptual–methodological framework evolved while engaging with the complexity of the demand for a decolonised curriculum (the salon 2015). this defining characteristic of the project was incorporated in all the proposals as an underlying epistemological objective. as a work in progress, a few journal articles have already been published (davids 2015; 2017), while three registered masters students are expected to submit their dissertations in 2018–2019. various book chapters are at their advanced stage of completion. as a qualitative, auto-ethnographic, instrumental case study, the district six project to date has demonstrated the epistemological value of adopting a transdisciplinary research approach (see table 1). in the same way that district six is in need of alternative historical narratives, transdisciplinarity searches for an alternative understanding of reality. transdisciplinarity places the subject or researcher at the heart of the knowledge production process, which provides a viable philosophical alternative that is productive as it encourages questioning beyond disciplinary boundaries. the transdisciplinary ethic seeks to establish sustainable development and sustainable futures (nicolescu 2010:35) by seeking a new philosophical–intellectual orientation to reality that speaks of the unity and diversity of disciplines: unity in diversity and diversity through unity (nicolescu 2010:23). the south african coat of arms: ‘!ke e: /xarra //ke’: ‘diverse people unite’, which is a precolonial khoisan expression, makes transdisciplinarity potentially an ubuntu science. ubuntu rejects the artificial separation of humans into ‘races’ (tutu 1999) in the same way that transdisciplinarity rejects researching ‘human’ and ‘nature’ separately. while the district six project may soon come to an end, its essence will be kept alive by the numerous unanswered questions that the project will generate through its transdisciplinarity. acknowledgements the author would like to acknowledge the funding and support received from the national research foundation of south africa to conduct the research for this project. the author would also like to extend his heartfelt thanks to all the participating students, authors and co-authors from the university of cape town, stellenbosch, cape peninsula university of technology and the university of the western cape. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references african national congress (anc), 1987, apartheid south africa: colonialism of a special type, viewed 09 march 2018, from http://www.anc.org.za/content/apartheid-south-africa-colonialism-special-type agherdien, y., george, a.c. & hendricks, s., 1997, south endas we knew it, western research group, port elizabeth. alvares, c., 1991, decolonising history: technology and culture in india, china and the west, 1492 to present day, the other india press, goa, india. augsburg, t., 2014, ‘becoming transdisciplinary: the emergence of the transdisciplinary individual’, world future 70, 233–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2014.934639 berg, b.l., 2007, qualitative research methods for the social sciences, pearson, london. carrim, n., 1990, fietas – a social history of pageview: 1948–1988, save pageview 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dancers’ experiences of flow’, research in dance education 7(2), 141–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647890601029527 hendricks, s., 2017, ‘biography of a vanished community: south end, port elizabeth’, unpublished phd thesis, university of stellenbosch. hunter, q., 2017, ‘free higher education will be fiscally sustainable, says zuma’, sunday times, 16 december, viewed 08 may 2018 from https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-12-16-free-education-needs-improved-government-spending-cosatu/ jeppie, s. & soudien, c., 1990, the struggle for district six: past and present, buchu books, cape town. killam, g.d., 1984, critical perspectives on ngugi wa thiong’o, three continents press, washington, dc. langa, m., 2017, # hashtag: an analysis of the #feesmustfall movement at south african universities, center for the study of violence and reconciliation, johannesburg. lunenburg, f.c., 2011, ‘critical thinking and constructivism techniques for improving student achievement’, national forum of teacher educational journal 21(2), 1–9. lynn, m. & dixson, d., 2013, handbook of critical race theory in education, routledge, new york. mabry, l., 2009, ‘case study in social research’, in p. alasuutari, p. sickman & j. brannen (eds.), the sage handbook of social research methods, pp. 214–227, sage, london. mcgregor, s.l.t., 2015, transdisciplinary knowledge creation, mount saint vincent university, halifax, ns. mignolo, w., 2009, ‘epistemic disobedience, independent thought and de-colonial freedom’, theory, culture, & society 26(7–8), 1–23. mojapelo, j.s., 2008, the corner people of lady selborne, university of south africa, pretoria. nicolescu, b., 1999, ‘the transdisciplinary evolution of learning’, in symposium on overcoming the underdevelopment of learning at the annual meeting of the american educational research association, montreal, canada, viewed 09 october 2017, from http://perso.club-internet.fr/nicol/ciret nicolescu, b., 2010, ‘methodology of transdisciplinarity – levels of reality, logic and the included middle and complexity’, transdisciplinary journal of engineering & science 1(1), 19–38. nieuwenhuis, j., 2016, ‘qualitative research designs and data-gathering techniques’, in k. maree (ed.), first steps in research, pp. 49–70, van schaik publishers, pretoria. okunlola, o., 2013, ‘memories of fietas from the late 50s to the 70s’, in c. landman (ed.), oral history: representing the hidden, the untold and the veiled, pp. 65–83, research institute for theology & religion, university of south africa, pretoria. pylypa, j., 1998, ‘power and bodily practice: allying the work of foucault to anthropology of the body’, arizona anthropologist 13, 21–36. satpathy, p.k., n.d., post-colonial literature: africa: things fall apart and decolonizing the mind, school of open learning, university of delhi, viewed 15 october 2017, from https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=utfsauls, r.k., 2004, ‘identity: a study of representation with reference to district six’, a dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of master of fine arts, humanities, university of cape town. schoeman, c., 1994, district six: the spirit of kanala, human & rousseau (pty) ltd, cape town. schwartz, j.m. & cook, t., 2002, ‘archives, records and power: the making of modern memory’, archival science 2, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02435628 smart, b., 2002, michel foucault, routledge, london. the salon, 2015, “uct rhodes must fall mission statement’, vol. 9, viewed 05 july 2017, from www.jwtc.org.za/resources/docs/salon-volume9/rmf_combined.pdf trotter, h., 2009, ‘trauma and memory: the impact of apartheid-era removals on coloured identity in cape town’, in m. adhikari (ed.), burden by race: coloured identities in southern africa, pp. 49–78, uct press, cape town. tutu, d., 1999, no future without forgiveness, penguin, london. van eeden, e.s., 2010, ‘using a transdisciplinary approach for environmental crisis research in history’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 6(1), 191–208. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v6i1.127 van tonder, d.p., 1990, ‘sophiatown: removals and protest 1940–1955’, unpublished master of arts thesis, university of south africa, pretoria. visser, w., 2004, ‘trends in the history of south african historiography and the present state of historical research’, paper presented at the nordic africa institute, university of stellenbosch, uppsala, sweden, 23 september 2004. wright, h.m., 1977, the burden of the present: liberal-radical controversy over southern african history, david philip, cape town. july 2009 inside book.p65 29 abstract: this article is based on data gathered during a research project commissioned by the fezile dabi district municipality in the northern part of south africa’s free state province. the research team (which included the authors) was asked to investigate allegations of pollution of tap water, as well as sewage from the local wastewater treatment plant flowing into the vaal river in the town of parys on the banks of the vaal river. the authors adopt a sustainable livelihoods approach in analysing data gathered by way of unstructured interviews in and around parys in june–july 2008. they argue that actual and perceived levels of pollution are eroding various local livelihood assets and it is posited that the situation constitutes an unfolding slow-onset disaster. it is imperative that shocks such as sewerage spills and rumours of polluted potable water are addressed to ensure that these do not become long-term negative trends. keywords: water service delivery, ngwathe local municipality, wastewater treatment, potable water supplies, vredefort dome world heritage site, vaal river, barrage, sustainable livelihoods, slow-onset disaster, fishing, farming, tourism. disciplines: disaster studies, history, integrated water resource management, environmental studies. introduction in 2008, media reports gave currency to rumours of an environmental crisis in the northern free state town of parys in south africa. all was reportedly not well with the town’s water.1 there was an atmosphere of acrimony between residents and the management of ngwathe local municipality about the condition of the local potable water supply and the fact that the town’s raw sewage flowed directly into the vaal river that meanders through parys. residents claimed that the town’s water slow-onset disaster and sustainable livelihoods: the vaal river in the vicinity of parys g van riet and jwn tempelhoff* * gideon van riet is attached to the african centre for disaster studies at northwest university’s potchefstroom campus. johann tempelhoff is head of nwu’s research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water at the vaal triangle campus in vanderbijlpark. 1 r myburg, “vaalrivier se water gevaarlik sê kundige” in die noord-vrystaatse gazette, 2008.03.06, p. 3; anon., “regering gaan help om rioolbesoedeling in vaal reg te stel” in die noord-vrystaatse gazette, 2008.03.13, p. 5; r myburg, “vaal se besoedeling beskryf as ’n nasionale krisis” in die noord-vrystaatse gazette, 2008.03.27, p. 5; anon., “protesoptog teen waterbesoedeling: inwoners oorhandig memorandum” in die noord-vrystaatse gazette, 2008.04.03, p. 5. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. 29-49 30 infrastructure was not being managed properly. the local authority’s management, in turn, tended to ignore what it considered to be false allegations. contemporary circumstantial evidence gave the benefit of the doubt to the residents. many local authorities in the rural parts of south africa have for some time been faced with similar problems in the broad field of service delivery. recent research suggests that the potable water supplies, especially in small urban settlements, are below acceptable standards.2 general discontent with service delivery in other parts of the country has, for some time, given rise to violent confrontations between residents and local municipal officials.3 in response to a state of affairs that experts ascribe to rapid development, unprecedented urbanisation and a severe shortage of sufficient skills,4 residents of urban settlements in the rural regions have stopped paying rates and taxes to local authorities. they then take the responsibility of securing certain essential services for themselves. these arrangements usually mean that local authorities experience a loss of revenue from rates and taxes.5 furthermore their credibility and standing in the broader civil society takes a knock. 2 c nothnagel, k kotte, jj pienaar, pg van zyl and jp beukes, “disinfection byproducts and extractable organic compounds in south african tap water” in the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 175–180. 3 m hough, “violent protest at local government level in south africa: revolutionary potential?” in scientia militaria, 36(1), 2008, p. 8. 4 sapa, “infrastructure maintenance getting attention” in iol, 2008.05.21 at http://www.iol.co.za/ index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=nw20080521132608605c650979; a powell, “shock finding on cape water” in cape times, 2008.03.04 at http://www.iol.co.za/ index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=vn20080304060439991c659539 (accessed 2008.09.09); sapa “’transkei infrastructre collapsing’” in iol, 2008.01.10. at http://www.iol.co.za/ index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=nw20080110182101694c303029 (accessed 2008.09.09). 5 c visser, “so pak sannieshof dienstekrisis” in beeld, 2008.07.02 at http://152. 111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld/2008/07/02/b1/16/brief.html (accessed 2008.09.25); also see jwn tempelhoff, “service delivery conflict in south africa’s water sector: phiri, soweto’s pre-paid meter protest” in quarterly bulletin of third world studies, 49(1), 2009, pp. 30–53. van riet and tempelhoff 31 figure 1 map of parys in the northern free state, potchefstroom north west province and the south-western parts of gauteng.6 in an effort to proactively address the apparent inability to defuse the problem of parys’ water, the council of fezile dabi district municipality, of which ngwathe local municipality forms part, opted for an independent assessment of the state of affairs. members of north-west university’s research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water were then appointed to conduct the relevant research. working in a transdisciplinary research framework and in collaboration with representatives of all stakeholders in the community, the team came to the conclusion that there were indeed problems. while the town’s potable water supply appeared to be in a satisfactory condition, raw sewage from the local wastewater treatment works flowed freely into the vaal river.7 this had a marked effect on the environmental health of the river which meanders through the vredefort dome, a listed unesco world heritage site. working from data captured during fieldwork,8 it was possible to classify the water situation of parys as a typical slow-onset disaster. the ramifications of this state of affairs became evident when attention was given to the manner in which water pollution in the vaal river affected the sustainable livelihoods of local economically active stakeholders who have high levels of dependency on the river and its immediate environment. 6 source easymap.co.za (accessed 2008.09.04). 7 jwn tempelhoff, a van zyl, g van riet, c gouws, j hardy, h jordaan, a ludick, s motloung, a schlemmer, a venter, g van geuning and h van wyk, “an investigation into the environmental health of the vaal river in the vicinity of parys” (report 1/2008. research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water, north-west university vaal, vanderbijlpark, 2008). 8 ibid. disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river .td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 32 by taking into consideration public perceptions on the quality of water, as well as the factual state of affairs, a number of recommendations were made to the authorities. one was that a local forum be established in which all stakeholders would have the opportunity to consider constructive plans for solving the local water problems. outline in the discussion to follow attention is given to an exposition of the transdisciplinary methodological strategies followed in the execution of the project. a brief historical sketch is given on parys and the vaal river and it is shown that apart from providing the town with its potable water supply, the river is also responsible for the community’s environmental dignity. attention then focuses on the dissatisfaction of the local residents with ngwathe local municipality’s service delivery in the water sector and how residents linked up with the non-governmental organisation save our vaal environment (save), operating in the vaal river barrage area. after providing some theoretical underpinnings of a slow-onset disaster scenario, there follows an exposition of the concept of a sustainable livelihoods framework approach to interpreting the water situation. this then leads to an analysis of empirical research data collected in parys. the focus is specifically on the impact of poor water quality on the local tourist industry, the farming sector and the informal professional fishing community. finally follows a short discussion on recent steps taken by the local authority and civil society. research planning and project execution research on the water problems at parys began in march 2008. a number of meetings were held with members of the research niche for the cultural dynamics of water at nwu’s vaal triangle campus and a senior official of environmental health at the fezile dabi district municipality. subsequent meetings were also convened with some members of civil society in the vicinity of parys and the vredefort dome. later a selected group of stakeholders, representative of urban and peri-urban property owners; the local tourist industry; local business; municipal officials; and representatives of a university of johannesburg research team working on fish in the vaal river below the barrage, were invited to participate in talks aimed at locating essential aspects of the problem. this comprehensive meeting took place on a smallholding, somerplaas, on the outskirts of parys. the understanding was that transdisciplinary strategies would be pursued in executing the project. while some participants had accredited proficiency in water studies, environmental studies, disaster management and tourism studies, there was also specialised knowledge in the academic fields of history, political science, public management, zoology and botany. notwithstanding this, the understanding was that representatives of local stakeholders would also form part of the team. by participating as co-researchers and co-authors of the project, the non-academic participants were well-positioned to communicate in the heuristic process, providing valuable local knowledge and a realistic understanding of human interaction with the vaal river environment that borders on the northern free state and part of the van riet and tempelhoff 33 north west province. in the first week of june 2008 a research group of 12 participants met at parys to undertake fieldwork. in the course of five days almost 50 group and individual interviews were conducted with a broad spectrum of people. respondents included urban dwellers in the residential townships of parys, tumahole, vredefort and mokwallo. farmers and operators of private tourism facilities along the vaal river were also consulted. furthermore, a random series of interviews and informal discussions were held with local business people. here the most important imperative was to determine the precise extent to which respondents interacted with the vaal river environment and relied on the river for their livelihood. in july, individual members of the research team shared their findings at a one-day internal conference. then a first draft of the report was compiled and circulated among members. after electronic correspondence a second version of the report was prepared. stakeholders in the public realm were then, in august, invited to a meeting where the report was discussed. preliminary copies of the report were distributed before the time, as well as at the meeting which was attended by about 40 people. subsequently, the report was edited and adjusted in response to comments and recommendations made at the meeting. in november 2008 the final report was submitted to fezile dabi district municipality, whose council later approved it. throughout the research and writing process there was a concerted effort to empower stakeholder participation. all members were able to participate as equals in the collection of information and group discussion. there were frequent debriefing sessions to consolidate perceptions and summarise essential preliminary findings. although not all stakeholders responded with equal fervour, the opportunities were there for them to make meaningful contributions. in the process they were also in a position to gain a more comprehensive perspective of the water problems in the region. the contribution of stakeholder participants, specifically the sharing of local knowledge with members of the team, enhanced the quality of the team’s understanding of the local culture. broad-based participation in the project also served other purposes. apart from seeking transparency, the objective was to make the complex issues of water management and administration user-friendly to the general public. this was seen as one way of giving recognition and significant status to ‘ordinary’ people of the area and an indication that their views were indeed respected. in the process an awareness was cultivated of how valuable the river and its water are to the town and its surroundings. this basic affirmation of aquatic space enhanced the comprehension of what the environmental health of the vaal river means to all stakeholders. the theoretical thrust of the report focused on disaster risk reduction. for the members of the research group it was abundantly clear that the report outlined a worthwhile route to follow in the search for a solution to parys’ water problems. one of the initial foci was to look at issues of disaster management. the idea was mooted that if critical problems of urban water supply were categorised as a disaster situation, there would be a more immediate response to similar predicaments faced by civil disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 34 society in other parts of south africa. working from a slow-onset disaster situation, the researchers then tried to contextualise its impact on sustainable local livelihoods in parys. this process is discussed below. historical background to the condition of parys’ water early in the investigation it became evident that the water problems of parys (founded in 1876)9 had its origins in the early twentieth century – when construction work began in 1915 on the barrage at lindequesdrift, upstream in the vaal river.10 although the barrage, a storage facility of the utility rand water (formerly the rand water board), secured a more consistent water supply for parys, especially during the dry winter months, it was responsible for many other problems. rapid urbanisation and the more intensive consumption of the vaal river’s water for industrial purposes had the effect that the quality of the water flowing down the vaal from the barrage, deteriorated markedly. some examples prove the point. coal mining operations in the vaal triangle began in the 1880s. from the 1910s onwards a number of coal-fired power stations in the vereeniging area caused the quality of the water to decline. the operations of the union steel corporation (founded in 1911) were also responsible for contaminating the vaal river in the barrage area.11 by the 1930s dilution strategies that involved passing water into the barrage from the newly completed vaal dam, appeared to reduce the problem of deteriorating water quality. however, as south africa’s industrial development gained momentum,12 the vaal triangle became a hive of industrial activity. at the town of vanderbijlpark (founded in 1944) south africa’s iron and steel corporation (iscor) established a large flat-steel foundry. on the free state side of the vaal river, sasolburg was founded in 1950 and became the hometown of the country’s first petroleum from coal manufacturing plant by another parastatal, sasol.13 oral information collected during fieldwork in june 2008, suggests that residents of parys became aware of the unsatisfactory water quality in 9 jh van eeden, parys 1876-1976: die geskiedenis van parys (parys? munisipale raad van parys, c. 1976); ag oberholster, “parys on the vaal” in contree, 3, january 1978, pp. 10-15. 10 c gouws, j hardy, h jordaan, a ludick, s motloung, a schlemmer, jwn tempelhoff (team leader), g van riet, a venter, and g van greuning, h van wyk and a van zyl (assistant team leader), “an investigation into the environmental health of the vaal river in the vicinity of parys” (third draft report, water niche area for the cultural dynamics of water, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark 23 september 2008), p. 9. 11 cw guest, “die ontwikkelingsgeskiedenis van die unie-staalkorporasie, 1911– 1996” (ma, pu for cho, vanderbijlpark, 1999). 12 ge schneider, “the development of the manufacturing sector in south africa” in journal of economic issues, 34(2), june 2000, pp. 413–424, (especially p.417). 13 see jwn tempelhoff, “water and the human culture of appropriation: the vaal river up to 1956” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(2), december 2006, pp. 431–452. van riet and tempelhoff 35 the 1940s.14 the town’s official history confirms this. in 1941 rand water declined to respond favourably to a request by the town fathers that parys be linked to the rand water supply network. however, the water utility was prepared to put in a good word for parys at government level and the authorities responded by making funds available for the construction of parys’ first water purification works.15 parys had always relied on the vaal river for its drinking water. the town also used the river for other purposes. part of its wastewater was allowed to flow into the river downstream of the residential area. in a responsible manner, processed sewage from the town’s wastewater treatment works flowed downstream in the river and seldom compromised the environmental dignity of local residents. since the 1990s, as a result of the transition of governance structures to a multiracial democratic dispensation, the quality of the town’s water, according to residents, began to deteriorate. increasingly there were concerns that this was because of persistent upstream sewage spills in the region of the vaal triangle – specifically in the vaal river barrage storage area.16 residents interviewed in june 2008 complained that parys’ water had a rotten smell,17 showed visible traces of algae,18 and tasted strange. this had been going on for a considerable period of time. numerous examples were cited of people, especially children, suffering from diarrhoea.19 although there was reason to believe that the water purification plant had been operating poorly prior to june 2008, the research team was assured that the plant was being serviced and brought up to full operational standards. unscheduled spot checks by environmental health officials of the fezile dabi district municipality and members of the research team confirmed that officials of the local municipality and contractors were in the process of doing upgrading and maintenance work. claims to the effect that raw sewage from the parys wastewater treatment works flowed into the vaal river adjacent to the centre of town were indeed accurate. at the beginning of june 2008 the plant was not in proper running order.20 it was found that the deteriorating state of affairs 14 g van riet, interview anonymous, tumahole, 2008.06.03. 15 jh van eeden, parys 1876-1976 (munisipale raad van parys, parys?, 1976), 62. 16 jwn tempelhoff, “civil society and sanitation hydropolitics: a case study of south africa’s vaal river barrage” in physics and chemistry of the earth, parts a/ b/c, 34(3), 2009, pp. 164-175. 17 h jordaan, interview motsoko, 2008.06.02; c gouws, interview ms g van der merwe, 2008.06.02; photographic evidence: jwn tempelhoff, 2008.06.06. 18 c gouws, interview ms l van den berg, ms g van der merwe, 2008.06.02.19 jwn tempelhoff and s motloung, interview (percy) boy moloi ramahodi(56), principal ntshewephepa primary school, lusaka extension, tumahole township, parys, 2008.06.04. 20 c gouws, j hardy, h jordaan, a ludick, s motloung, a schlemmer, jwn tempelhoff (team leader), g van riet, a venter, and g van greuning, h van wyk and a van zyl (assistant team leader), “an investigation into the environmental health of the vaal river in the vicinity of parys” (third draft report, water niche area for the cultural dynamics of water, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark 23 september 2008), pp. 26–7. disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 36 was as a result of poor maintenance of infrastructure.21 the management of ngwathe local municipality assured the members of the research team that the matter was receiving urgent attention and that officials were working in collaboration with the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf).22 because of their grave concerns about the deterioration of the town’s water, in 2007 some parys residents began to cast around for some form of external moral support. it was then that they started communicating with the non-governmental organisation (ngo) save our vaal environment (save) that has been operating in the barrage area since the mid-1990s. as of 2003 the ngo has concentrated on local sewage pollution in the barrage. in the space of a short time save’s management effectively negotiated with the management of emfuleni local municipality,23 the department of water and environmental affairs, as well as with senior political role players on provincial and national government level.24 government began to take note of the efforts of civil society in the vaal river barrage area.25 all this met with the approval of the residents of parys. their representatives then began attending save meetings. one local activist, edward mafereka, took the initiative to establish an ngo called sciento cultural occult paragenetic evolution research (scoper). this group aligned itself closely to save. in march 21 h jordaan, c gouws, a venter, j tempelhoff and s motloung, interim reports to members of the research group. 22 at the time of the fieldwork excursion in june 2008, members of the research team met informally with officials of the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), who were conducting tests and taking samples at the parys wastewater treatment works. 23 the local authority, through metsi-a-lekoa, a non-profit enterprise, is responsible for the management of the water infrastructure in vanderbijlpark and vereeniging. 24 jwn tempelhoff, v munnik and m viljoen, “the vaal river barrage, south africa’s hardest working waterway: a historical contemplation” in td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 3(1), july 2007, pp.107–133; cm gouws, c gouws, r mathipa, k motumi, jwn tempelhoff, and m viljoen,“perspectives on emfuleni’s aquatic commons: a qualitative study on the vaal river barrage”, report 3/2007 (north-west university, vaal triangle campus, released 2007.09.19); for the most recent implications of the spills see jwn tempelhoff, “the fish-kills and clean-up operations n the vaal river barrage” november 2008-april 2009 (report for messrs jt industrial waste management, vanderbijlpark, april 2009). 25 more recently save resorted to taking legal steps in an effort to bring to an end the persistent problem of sewage pollution in the vaal river barrage. see the following documentation: the high court of south africa (witwatersrand local division): case 08/400064, the matter between save and the emfuleni local municipality, 2008.11.21; the high court of south africa (witwatersrand local division): case 08/41554, the matter between save and the emfuleni local municipality, 2008.12.05; the high court of south africa (witwatersrand local division): case 08/400064, the matter between save and the emfuleni local municipality, 2008.12.05. also see e tempelhoff, “hof gelas herstel van pompstasies: organisasie keelvol vir riool” in beeld, 2008.11.24 at http:// 152.111.1.88/argief/berigte/volksblad/2008/11/24/vb/4/etsave_1936.html (accessed 2009.04.04). van riet and tempelhoff 37 2008 a representative of save staged a march, together with scoper supporters, to hand over a memorandum to the management of ngwathe local municipality.26 it was against this backdrop of growing civil discontent that the nwu researchers entered the research area. after investigating the local water quality problem from various perspectives they settled for a slow-onset disaster scenario in the local water sector. in an effort to transmit the implications of this state of affairs in a comprehensible manner, the ramifications of low quality water was contextualised in a local sustainable livelihoods framework (slf). theoretical underpinnings of slow-onset disaster and sustainable livelihoods according to the united nations’ international strategy for disaster reduction (unisdr) a disaster can be defined as: a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.27 a distinction can, however, be made between rapid-onset disasters, such as mudslides and flash floods, which are often difficult to predict and slow-onset disasters, which typically arise over a longer period of time. they may take months, years, or even decades to unfold. slow-onset disasters such as environmental degradation and drought should typically be easier to address than rapid-onset disasters. in many instances warning signs are evident long before the situation reaches disastrous proportions. however, these signs are often ignored until it is too late for effective preventative or mitigating actions to be taken.28 disasters occur within complex social settings. various social, economic, political and environmental factors and the interaction between these can contribute to the prevention and mitigation of disasters.29 effective measures begin with a thorough understanding of these dynamics, and to clarify them in the particular study area, the slf is used. the slf, (see figure 1 below) has in recent years been applied increasingly as a conceptual tool in the field of development. it offers a holistic framework to understand local livelihoods by focusing on various types of local capacities and prevailing conditions, such as seasonal shocks and the ambient political and institutional environment. thus, by using the slf, aspects facilitating favourable or unfavourable 26 anon., “protesoptog teen waterbesoedeling: inwoners oorhandig memorandum” in die noord-vrystaatse gazette, 2008.04.03, p. 5. 27 unisdr, terminology on disaster risk reduction. (geneva: united nations. 2009). www.unisdr.org/eng/terminology/terminology-2009-eng.html (accessed 2009.05.29). 28 d van niekerk, disaster risk reduction, (african centre for disaster studies potchefstroom university for che, 2002). 29 b wisner, p blaikie, t cannon, i davis. at risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters (london: routledge, 2004). disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 38 “livelihoods outcomes” can be identified. in 1991 chambers and conway first unveiled this tool for the analysis of rural livelihoods.30 other experts have subsequently adopted the framework in the context of urban livelihoods.31 according to chambers and conway: a livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (stores, resources, claims and access) and activities required for a means of living: a livelihood is sustainable which can cope with and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and which contributes net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the long and short term.32 in order to achieve a sustainable livelihood, individuals and households can make use of five types of assets or capacities. human assets refer to the set of skills (such as ingenuity) an individual may possess. social assets are those networks and relationships with others which yield personal gain. for example, different households might pool their labour. trust is of course a significant component of such relations. according to the uk’s department for international development (dfid), cooperation based on trust may improve people’s access to various institutions, such as political and civic bodies.33 physical assets include infrastructure, houses or any potential productive asset. finally, resources such as fresh water, wood supplies and arable land are valuable natural assets. assets acquire specific meanings in their particular political, institutional and cultural environment. according to dfid they form part of the so-called “transforming structures”.34 these structures also assert an influence on the “vulnerability context”. they may present themselves as trends and tendencies, such as demographic shifts, experiences of extraordinary surprise (shock), such as economic crises, and as seasonality in the form, for example, of seasonal job opportunities or the seasonality of prices. the vulnerability context also has an impact on the amount and type of livelihood assets individuals, households and communities may posses. in his discussion of the vulnerability context, de satge distinguishes between shocks and stresses.35 shocks entail sudden events that erode household assets, such as the death of a breadwinner or a flood. stresses, on the other hand, are longer term 30 r chambers and gr conway, “sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century” (ids, discussion paper 296, 1991). 31 for example, see m lyons and s snoxell, “sustainable urban livelihoods and marketplace social capital: crisis and strategy” in petty trade urban studies, 42(8),2005, pp. 1301–1320. 32 r chambers and gr conway, “sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century”(ids discussion paper 296, 1991), pp. 7–8. 33 department for international development, sustainable livelihoods guidance sheets. 1999. http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html (accessed february 2008). 34 ibid. 35 r de satge, “livelihoods analysis and the challenges of post-conflict reocovery” in j clover and r cornwell (eds.), supporting sustainable livelihoods: a critical review of assistance in post-conflict situations, monograph 102 (pretoria: institute for security studies), august 2004, p. 39. van riet and tempelhoff 39 “trends” (see figure 1 below), which may undermine livelihoods. examples include aspects such as environmental degradation and climate change.36 the slf does not merely offer a one way, structuralist explanation whereby local communities are rendered helpless in the wake of prevailing political, economic and environmental processes. the utilisation of livelihoods assets can also positively or negatively impact on the vulnerability context and the transforming structures. figure 1: the sustainable livelihoods framework (slf). 37 it is evident that shocks, such as water pollution induced by human action/inaction in the study area, negatively impact on the livelihoods assets, of local communities. if these shocks continue over time and become negative trends, the situation in parys could well be one of a slow-onset disaster. the vaal river and local livelihoods it seems clear that various local livelihoods are to a varying extent dependent on the vaal river. in many instances this relates to riverbased tourism activities. these range from adventure tourism initiatives, to fishermen and fishing equipment retailers, to numerous other retailers and service providers who benefit indirectly from the tourism industry. small-scale commercial fishing also takes place. farmers are largely dependent on the river for their livelihoods, because their irrigation systems draw on the river. tourism industry since the vredefort dome was listed in 2005 on unesco’s list of 36 ibid., p. 40. 37 department for international development, sustainable livelihoods guidance sheets. 1999. http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html (accessed february 2008). disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 40 prospective world heritage sites, there has been a boom in the local tourism industry.38 apart from a steady stream of weekend visitors from gauteng, there is a constant flow of international visitors visiting the region, either individually, or as part of organised tours. many visitors return to purchase their own holiday homes, while others acquire farms; some even start businesses aimed at providing commercial goods and services in a region where there is considerable demand for leisure time pursuits.39 the river plays an important role in almost all the local leisure activities. of particular importance is adventure tourism, such as river rafting, canoeing, fishing and swimming.40 local resorts are also renowned for corporate breakaways and teambuilding programmes.41 the river, which flows through the potential world heritage site, is thus an extremely important natural asset to local livelihoods. it is also important for the urban economy of parys. tourism operators are unanimous that negative reports in the media about the dubious quality of the river water are bad for business. some feel that no news should be disseminated at all, even when there are indications of an impending environmental crisis.42 this attitude is understandable. the tourism industry is an important source of income for many local residents. apart from the water-based activities mentioned above, there are numerous other forms of outdoor pursuits, such as hiking, bird watching and fishing that are enjoyed along the river banks. in most cases these ventures offer local employment opportunities and are a means of securing financial independence for many households.43 the recreational fishing industry, often comprising fishermen who visit tourism venues beside the river, seems to have suffered significant losses in recent years. many interviewees noted that fishermen complain about the quality and quantity of fish in the river44 and mention that the amount of fish caught in a given period of time has declined markedly.45 some claim that the fish are now a different colour, and that some recreational fishermen have even stopped fishing in the area. as the owner of a local fishing supply store noted, many “serious” fishermen now prefer to go to vaal dam or koppies dam.46 this may however, not be 38 the vredefort dome is the world’s oldest and largest remaining meteorite impact crater. it is located to the west of parys and north of vredefort. the dome spans two provinces, the free state and the north west province. 39 j tempelhoff, interview s de jager (56), somerplaas, 2008.06.02. 40 g van riet, interview hannes pretorius, vredefort dome, 2008.06.02; g van riet, interview mark rensleigh, parys, 2008.06.05. 41 j tempelhoff, interview h pretorius (54), dimalachite, 2008.06.02. 42 one interviewee (g van riet, interview hannes pretorius, vredefort dome, 2008.06.02) noted that: “berigte moet ook sê wat word aan die probleem gedoen”. (reports should also state what is being done [to improve the quality of the water]). 43 all tourism industry operators employ and train local residents. 44 for example g van riet, interview eddy woods, parys, 2008.06.05; g van riet, interview hannes pretrius, vredefort dome, 2008.06.02. 45 an owner of a fishing supplies store in parys (g van riet, interview vicki van vuuren, parys, 2008.06.02) noted that about 10 years ago, it was possible to catch about 20 yellowfish in four hours in the vaal river. now fishermen typically only catch two or three. 46 g van riet, interview vicki van vuuren, parys, 2008.06.02. van riet and tempelhoff 41 entirely due to the alleged pollution. one explanation offered is that new golf estate developments are chasing the fish away because of the constant noise pollution.47 fishermen may also be less likely to visit parys as a result of the current economic climate in the country. media reports on the economy indicate that the country’s consumers currently spend less on retail goods and services.48 one of the tourists also complained about the smell of the water.49 at some resorts where non-water based activities are offered, and visitors do not directly come into contact with the river, the water problem is less severe. activities, such as quad-biking, mountain biking, hiking, hunting and game viewing, for example, are not as dependent on the quality of river water. however, one should not overlook the fact that at times the situation becomes very serious. on one occasion a tourist was hospitalised after drinking water from the river.50 at the beginning of 2008 there were indications of staff cutbacks at tourism resorts because of the deteriorating condition of the river’s water. this meant that in addition to the economic downswing that south africa has experienced since 2007, the local economy was dealt an even harsher blow.51 according to operators in the tourism sector there has been an increase in local job losses. the power of media reports is worth noting. after negative press reports, those in the tourism industry claimed that potential tourists had cancelled their reservations.52 given the delicate nature of this situation, the need for a balance between two important issues should be considered. on the one hand, the safety of tourists should not be jeopardised in any way; this is non-negotiable. on the other hand, policy recommendations and especially media reports should not be exaggerated. these reports should be written from a perspective which is (at least to some extent) sensitive to the needs of the tourism industry, without compromising the safety of anyone concerned. as reports of water pollution and evidence thereof accumulate over time the potential impact on water-based tourism activities is clear. as a significant natural asset the state and perceived state of the vaal river is of crucial concern to many working (either directly or indirectly) in the tourism industry in the area. farming farming is arguably the most significant economic activity in the vredefort dome area immediately downstream from parys and for this industry the river is a crucial natural asset. from the data gathered it seems that this sector has indeed been negatively affected by pollution. according to interviewees, water pollution has affected the type of 47 ibid. 48 anon., “retail sales take steepest dive in 9 years” in business day, 2008.07.17, pp. 1 and 2. 49 g van riet, interview johan bester, parys, 2008.06.02. 50 g van greuning, interview anonymous, 2008.06.06. 51 anon., “regering gaan help om rioolbesoedeling in vaal reg te stel” in die noordvrystaatse gazette, 2008.03.13, p. 5. 52 h jordaan, interview pg schoeman, vredefort dome, 2008.06.06. disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 42 agricultural activities practised; it has also meant that farmers have incurred additional expense. using water from the vaal for irrigation has proved problematic. tobacco production was previously quite extensive in the vredefort dome area.53 this crop had to be discontinued because it was rejected at the market due its high chlorine content. the suspicion is that this originated from the parys sewerage plant.54 similarly, vegetable production, another relatively lucrative pursuit was also stopped when produce was rejected at the market and farmers were told that their vegetables smelt of sewage.55 one respondent claimed that due to the presence of heavy metals in the water: “if you irrigate, your land is polluted”.56 farmers also complained about the quality of the products when using water from the vaal for irrigation purposes. one farmer who grew wheat attested that he obtained two tonnes per hectare less than usual when he used vaal water.57 as for farming with livestock, it was claimed that there were cases of cattle in the area dying and that a veterinarian had put this down to drinking polluted water.58 it was also alleged that widgets had become more prevalent compared to previous years. these insects eat at the teats of cattle and carry horse diseases.59 other reports indicate that there seem to be more weeds in the area than previously and this is costly because sheep farmers have to hire additional labour to clean the wool. all these problems are potentially compounded by the fact that fresh water in the vredefort dome area is a relatively scarce commodity. the ground water level and water pressure are both very low,60 and there are also reports of certain streams drying up.61 furthermore, it has been reported that some of the ground water has been polluted. local residents also feel there is a difference between water from boreholes closer to the river, compared to water from boreholes further away.62 a game farmer who relies on the river for tourism complained about the 53 in one interview (g van riet, interview a kotze, wr deadwith and m prinsloo, kommandonek, 2008.06.03) it was mentioned that tobacco produced in the vredefort dome area used to be of such a quality that it won awards, beating highly regarded ‘rhodesian’ (zimbabwean) tobacco. it was also revealed that there used to be a cooperative in parys servicing the tobacco industry, which subsequently had to close down. 54 g van riet, interview louwtjie van rensburg, vredefort dome, 2008.06.02.55 g van riet, interview herman van wyk, vredefort dome, 2008.06.05. 56 g van riet, interview pretorius, vredefort dome, 2008.06.03. 57 g van riet, interview kotze, deadwith and prinsloo, kommandonek, 2008.06.03. 58 g van riet, interview van rensburg, vredefort dome, 2008.06.04. 59 g van riet, interview kotze, deadwith, prinsloo, kommandonek, 2008.06.03; g van riet, interview pretorius, vredefort dome, 2008.06.03. 60 g van riet, interview johannes van der merwe, tabella thabeng, 2008.06.03. 61 g van riet, interview f de villiers, venterskroon, 2008.06.04. 62 one interviewee (g van riet, interview herman van wyk, vredefort dome, 2008.06.05) mentioned that the boreholes on his farm had a high tds. those further away have a tds of about 100. those within about 50 metres of the river have a count of 600–700. he also said that this water can no longer be used for drinking and that this difference between water quality of boreholes close to and further away from the river, is presumably due to pollution. van riet and tempelhoff 43 large local private holiday resorts that he says dump their sewage in the vaal river. some of these resorts cater for almost 800 visitors a day. he was concerned that their wastewater systems might be unable to cope with vast quantities of sewage, and pointed out that sewage leaks into the river were inevitable. he was also concerned about the bad smell near the river, caused by the parys sewerage works.63 a local nursery operator, resident about 40 km from parys, told the research team that at one point he had envisaged moving his business from pretoria to a farm on the vaal river. however, because of the quality of the river water he had decided against this. in 1994 he tested the water over a period of time and found significant fluctuations in its quality. according to him the ph varied between 2.7 and 9.61; this made it impossible for him to move his business to the banks of the vaal.64 fishing many people fish in the vaal river. these fish are either sold or consumed by the fishermen and their families. people in previously disadvantaged communities have increasingly taken to fishing as a professional pursuit. some local residents resort to fishing on days when they have no employment as gardeners or casual workers in town.65 for many families in tumahole, red meat is prohibitively expensive and they are seldom able to afford poultry. consequently, fish caught in the river by local fishermen is in high demand.66 fish with an average size of 30 cm fetch prices of up to r10 each.67 although there is a constant demand fishermen are not always in a position to meet this. they are simply unable to catch enough fish and this perhaps accounts for incidents of illegal netting that have come to the attention of members of the research team.68 there are no reports of local people falling ill as a result of the fish they eat. interviewees are adamant that the quality and quantity of fish has declined markedly over the years. this has a potential impact on the 63 c gouws, j hardy, h jordaan, a ludick, s motloung, a schlemmer, jwn tempelhoff (team leader), g van riet, a venter, and g van greuning, h van wyk and a van zyl (assistant team leader), “an investigation into the environmental health of the vaal river in the vicinity of parys” (third draft report, water niche area for the cultural dynamics of water, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark 23 september 2008), p 17. 64 ibid. 65 s motloung, interview fisherman, riverfront parys, 2008.06.04. 66 jwn tempelhoff and s motloung, interview rebecca modikwe (54), evelyn leboko (21), alina uhlangs (65), mabel beba (50), anna nocanda (50), evelyn makate (28), miriam mokoena (43), house 60, lusaka extension, tumahole township, 2008.06.04. one of the above interviewees stated: “ons eet nie vleis nie. ek kry die vleis as die man die vis vang.” (we do not eat meat. i get meat when my husband catches fish). 67 jwn tempelhoff and s motloung, interview rebecca modikwe (54), evelyn leboko (21), alina uhlangs (65), mabel beba (50), anna nocanda (50), evelyn makate (28), miriam mokoena (60) house 60, lusaka extension, tumahole township, 2008.06.04. 68 c gouws, interview y pienaar, parys, 2008.06.02. disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 44 livelihood of the fishermen and the diet of those who buy the fish. for these individuals the river is an even more significant livelihoods asset. whereas certain tourism and agricultural activities might be able to survive under conditions of pollution, a decline of an important natural asset such as fish stocks, has a far greater impact on fishermen and their clients. the pollution of a key natural asset (water) thus has clear implications for both tourism and agriculture-based livelihoods in the vicinity of the vaal, leading to sub-optimal livelihood outcomes. in addition it appears to lead to a decline in other important natural assets, namely soil and fish stocks. farmers who use the vaal for irrigation have lower yields and professional fisherman struggle to make a decent livelihood. furthermore, additional costs incurred to remedy the impact on livestock, such as hiring additional staff to clean sheep, erodes the financial assets of farmers. as has been shown, actual and perceived levels of pollution in the vaal also cause decline in the financial assets accruing to tourism venture operators. such shocks on the tourism and agriculture industries may in the future be even more significant because these industries offer employment to local residents and the economy of the town of parys is dominated by the tourism industry. water quality the issue of public uncertainty about the quality of water in parys and environs is at the root of the problem. in june 2008, acting on information drawn from its fieldwork, the research team initiated a water sampling project. the main focus was on collecting samples of the micro bacteriological quality of water used for recreational purposes. samples were taken under the supervision of as van zyl, deputy manager of municipal health services, an official employed by the fezile dabi district municipality.69 a major objective was to determine the degree of pollution of the vaal river with sewage (faecal pollution).70 the data gathered (on one occasion and not over a period of time) suggests that there was a risk of gastrointestinal effects in the event of full contact (swimming) or intermediate contact (for example waterskiing, canoeing and angling), while partaking of recreational activities in the vaal river in the study van riet and tempelhoff 69 see appendix 2 of jwn tempelhoff, a van zyl, g van riet, c gouws, j hardy, h jordaan, a ludick, s motloung, a schlemmer, g van greuning and h van wyk, “an investigation into the environmental health of the vaal river in the vicinity of parys”, p. 38. 70 republic of south africa (rsa) department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) south african water quality guidelines. volume 2: recreational use, second edition (pretoria: dwaf, 1996). 45 area.71 to this should be added the observed aesthetic impact of pollution on the vaal river. aspects such as water taste, smell and colour, do indeed influence the perception of risk, and this was noted by many of the interviewees.72 many residents made negative comments on the municipal tap water that they considered to be suspicious;73 and it often looked and tasted “vrot” 74 or “muddy”. others noted that the water smelt like fish.75 many interviewees indicated that they frequently suffered from upset stomachs and knew of others who also had the same complaint, particularly children.76 according to interviewees living in the settlements close to parys, some people had even fallen ill and subsequently died.77 it seems that there is a distinct lack of trust in local government’s ability and willingness to address the situation. there have in the past been sporadic breaks in the water supply in tumahole, schonkenville, mokwallo and vredeshoop, and to a lesser extent the residential areas of vredefort and parys. this is mainly due to the fact that old asbestos pipes, which have been in use for many years, are prone to fail and are apparently only being replaced when they 71 according to c gouws, j hardy, h jordaan, a ludick, s motloung, a schlemmer, jwn tempelhoff (team leader), g van riet, a venter, g van greuning, h van wyk and a van zyl (assistant team leader), “an investigation into the environmental health of the vaal river in the vicinity of parys” (third draft. report, water niche area for the cultural dynamics of water, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark 23 september 2008), pp. 29–31, this can be contrasted to non-contact recreation, which encompasses recreation that does not involve direct contact with water, such as picnicking or hiking next to the river. they also state that: “a more stringent approach is necessary where water contact is frequent and relatively extensive, whereas a less stringent approach can be adopted if water contact is infrequent and minimal. the major factors distinguishing high contact activities in this class from full contact recreation are the degree of water contact (full immersion is likely to occur only occasionally and among novices of a water sport), the age of users (water sports such as waterskiing and windsurfing are usually practised by adults rather that by young children) and health status of users (strenuous water sports are generally practised by water users in a fairly good state of health).” 72 g van riet, interview h van wyk, parys, 2008.06.04. 73 c gouws, interviews ms e van der merwe, mr. d olivier and ms y pienaar, parys, 2008.06.02. 74 “vrot” is an afrikaans word for rotten or rotting. 75 c gouws, interview ms e van der merwe, parys, 2008.06.02. 76 jwn tempelhoff and s motloung, interview (percy) boy moloi ramahodi (56), principal ntshewephepa primary school, lusaka extension, tumahole township, parys, 2008.06.04. 77 for example, g van riet, interview celena msibi, mokwallo, 2008.06.03; g van riet, interview samula matsipi, tumahole, 2008.06.03; g van riet, interview “aida”, tumahole, 2008.06.03 one interviewee (g van riet, interview “emily”, tumahole, 2008.06.03) for example noted: “baie mense raak siek en gaan dood. kinders gaan ook dood” (many people fall ill and die.children also die). disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 46 give trouble.78 then too an insufficient supply of spare pipes is held in reserve to deal with such problems when they arise.79 the manner in which residents cope with this perceived poor water quality varies. most white interviewees noted that they bought bottled water and did not drink tap water. visitors to the town and local resorts are issued with bottled water, or informed in advance to secure sufficient supplies for drinking purposes.80 residents of schonkenville, the former coloured township of parys, noted that they also tended to buy bottled water if they had the money.81 however, it came at a considerable cost.82 interviewees remarked that as a rule, they had no other option but to drink tap water. they simply could not afford to buy bottled water.83 some indicated that they would be prepared to pay more in municipal rates, providing the local authority ensured that the supply was of good quality and consistent.84 the causal relationship between the (perceived) quality of tap water and the reported illnesses still awaits confirmation. some interviewees were convinced that bouts of diarrhoea were directly related to the inferior quality of municipal tap water.85 it is also possible, however, that such illnesses might be the result of inadequate sanitation. in fact, more than one participant reported that the townships of mokwallo, near vredefort and tumahole, near parys, are rapidly expanding, while the provision of sanitation has not been able to keep pace with demand. at least one of the participants who reported frequent stomach ailments admitted to still making use of a bucket toilet. local residents employ various strategies to deal with the perceived poor water quality. while the wealthier members of the population can afford to buy drinking water, most residents of the study area cannot afford to 78 one former supervisor for the department of technical services (he remains anonymous for the purposes of this discussion) in the nngwathe local municipality noted that: “pipes in vredefort are broken. the pipes are old and people don’t have water. there is a need for complete replacement of old pipes. this should be done by the department of water affairs.” 79 a venter and a van zyl, interim reports and disclosures to members of the research group at internal conference 2008.07.14. 80 g van greuning, interview steyn, 2008.06.03; g van greuning, interview lee, 2008.06.02. 81 for example g van riet, interview “cyril”, schonkenville, 2008.06.03; g van riet, interview eddie woods, parys, 2008.06.05; g van riet, interview koos h a r m s e , parys, 2008.06.02; g van riet, interview johan bester, parys, 2008.06.02. 82 jwn tempelhoff and s motloung, interview rebecca modikwe (54), evelyn leboko (21), alina uhlangs (65), mabel beba (50), anna nocanda (50), evelyn m a k a t e (28), miriam mokoena (43), miriam mokoena (60), house 60, lusaka extension, tumahole township, 2008.06.04. 83 g van riet, interview celena msibi, mokwallo, 2008.06.03; g van riet, interview “magdaleen”, tumahole, 2008.06.03. 84 jwn tempelhoff and s motloung, interview rebecca modikwe (54), evelyn leboko (21), alina uhlangs (65), mabel beba (50), anna nocanda (50), evelyn makate (28), miriam mokoena (43), miriam mokoena (60), house 60, lusaka extension tumahole township, 2008.06.04. 85 h jordaan, interview j matsoko, 2008.06.02; h jordaan, interview a botes, 2008.06.05; a schlemmer, interview botes, 2008.06.03. van riet and tempelhoff 47 do so. some residents boil water, before they drink it. others, if they are aware of the strategy,86 add bleach to sanitise their drinking water. however, both these practices, especially the latter are time consuming and expensive. furthermore, both methods impact on the taste of the water.87 not all those who were interviewed appeared to be familiar with basic strategies to ensure that drinking water is safe. statistical analysis of data generated for the fezile dabi district municipality in may 2008, about two months before the transdisciplinary river health research fieldwork was conducted, indicate that the quality of tap water in the town of parys was in fact well within legal limits for drinking water. though the water could perhaps, from an aesthetic point of view, appear unclean, the standard of tap water in the area for the purposes of human consumption was in fact very good. this was corroborated by an independent laboratory report on samples taken at the time of the fieldwork in june 2008.88 currently the quality of drinking water in parys does not seem to be problematic. there is also no concrete evidence that stomach ailments reported by interviewees were indeed the result of poor water quality. however, water may in the past have been below standard, although this is difficult to verify because residents currently perceive perfectly safe water to be of very low quality. this implies that reports of poor water quality in the past, though possibly justified, must be viewed with some scepticism. stomach disorders can, at least in part, be attributed to questionable sanitation practices. given the high levels of unemployment and low levels of income in the area, many, if not most local residences cannot afford to buy bottled water. by way of example, quantitative data collected in march 2008 as part of a disaster risk assessment for the fezile dabi district municipality, in tumhole and mokwallo, pointed to low levels of income and high levels of unemployment for both settlements. in tumahole the average combined household income was r1220.00 per month with half of the households earning less than r870.00 per month. in this settlement 27 per cent of households reported at least one member of income earning age (18–60 years) being currently unemployed.89 in mokwallo the average monthly income was r 1306.00, with half the households earning less than r 870.00 per month. in mokwallo 34 per cent of households reported at least one member of income-earning age being unemployed.90 86 jwn tempelhoff and s motloung, interview mr jeremia ngandi (51) and katrina ngandi (50), house 10930 mandela extension, tumahole township, parys, 206.06.04. 87 g van riet, interview celena msibi, tumahole, 2008.06.03; g van riet, interview with “emily”, schonkenville, 2008.06.03; 88 c gouws, j hardy, h jordaan, a ludick, s motloung, a schlemmer, jwn tempelhoff (team leader), g van riet, a venter, and g van greuning, h van wyk and a van zyl (assistant team leader), “an investigation into the environmental health of the vaal river in the vicinity of parys” (third draft report, water niche area for the cultural dynamics of water, north-west university, vaal triangle campus, vanderbijlpark 23 september 2008). 89 this is defined as currently not involved in paid work (regardless of whether or not the individual is actively seeking employment). 90 g van riet, c coetzee, r musakuzi, and y maartens, “fezile dabi district municipality disaster risk assessment: methodology and results” (african centre for disaster studies, north-west university, potchefstroom, 2008). disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. 48 from this it is evident that continuous maintenance of water infrastructure, ensuring a consistent supply of drinkable water, is of the utmost importance. apart from rendering local populations vulnerable to epidemics, drinking water issues may also compound other crises. they may, for example have a negative impact on the productivity of local residents. then, along with reported deficiencies in sanitation service delivery, a reduction in the capacity of human resources ensues. it may also affect the local economy at the aggregate level, by for example denigrating the image of parys as an ideal tourist destination. cumulative effects might well be difficult to quantify despite their significant negative impact over time. however, managing the quality of tap water and thus limiting negative perceptions is essential to maintain the health of local residents and protect the tourism industry. to the latter end, open lines of communication between local government, the residents and entrepreneurs is essential. this is not only in order that informed decisions be made by local entrepreneurs, and prospective tourists, but also to create much needed trust between key stakeholders, most notably between local government and civil society. conclusions and recommendations from the discussion above it is evident that at the time of the investigation and the compilation of the research report, there was good reason to believe that conditions were conducive for the development of a slow-onset environmental disaster in the area of parys and the vredefort dome on the banks of the vaal river. this was confirmed by the local sustainable livelihoods framework compiled by the research team. this state of affairs could typically have a negative impact on the local economy because as an important natural asset, the river makes a significant contribution to local wellbeing. an environmentally sick river compromises not only the livelihood of local residents, but also their aesthetic dignity. in order to prevent livelihood shocks from becoming negative trends, the research findings suggest that the proper maintenance of water and sanitation infrastructure should become a priority of local government. the purpose of the final report and its findings was not to be part of a whistle-blowing exercise. this would have been an irresponsible standpoint in view of the fact that much of the evidence presented in the report could be construed as inconclusive. the researchers, to a large extent, focused on prevalent perceptions in the public realm; this was merely contextualised in a larger report format. however, in an assessment of the period until june 2008, there is enough evidence in the report to warrant concern. there are growing fears that local water pollution is on the increase. apart from industrial pollution, there have been shocks such as faecal pollution – especially further upstream. the objective of local government should be to ensure that states of shock do not become long-term trends. in certain cases this has arguably already happened, and where possible, such shocks should be avoided in the future. the effects of pollution on local livelihoods may be compounded by the actual and perceived poor quality of drinking water in the area. the proper maintenance and management of water infrastructure can go some way towards stemming the tide of civil discontent. in particular, the potable water treatment van riet and tempelhoff 49 operations of the local authority should be above suspicion. according to data collected during fieldwork, civil society has a notable distrust of local government institutions. the research team came to the conclusion that there was a dire need for better communication between local government and civil society on the issue of water. the report also suggested that a local water forum be created.91 this would ideally be an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss water-related problems in an open and transparent manner. by establishing firm lines of communication, local government will be in a better position to move towards building a working relationship of mutual trust and cooperation with all interested parties, which would in turn help to maintain and promote current livelihood strategies. we also recommend that a concerted effort be made to reduce all pollution levels in the vaal river. if effective safety measures cannot be introduced to protect the environment and human society, alternative arrangements should be made to provide parys with potable water. potential strategies would be, for example, to make a renewed effort to secure the services of rand water as a bulk water provider. alternatively a direct pipeline should be laid from the vaal dam to transport water to parys and vredefort. furthermore, development of additional industries upstream should be carefully monitored. 9 1 a ngwathe sub-catchment forum, was established in february 2009. several meetings of the executive committee of the forum have taken place since april 2009. a public forum meeting is scheduled for the end of july 2009. disaster and livelihoods in the vaal river td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 29-49. microsoft word 07 devenish decolonisation.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 9(2) december 2013, pp. 309-340. cutting the apron strings: the south african experience of decolonisation ge devenish1 abstract decolonisation is a recurring constitutional and political theme in the process of change and reform in south africa’s history during the 20th century. the constitutional emancipation of the erstwhile union of south africa and the subsequent internal decolonisation of designated black ethnic population and cultural groups, are two kindred processes which have interesting similarities, but also important differences. the former involved british imperialism, the latter involved afrikaner nationalism and african nationalism. the former was a natural, legitimate and spontaneous process, the latter was an artificial process that was induced by afrikaner nationalism, that was spurned internationally and domestically by the the international community of nations and indigenous people of south africa respectively. the article examines the legitimacy of the process of the decolonisation of the union of south africa resulting in its independence, followed by the adoption of a republican form of government. in contrast, a comparison is made with the controversial and questionable evolution of the bantustans, which emerged out of the erstwhile native reserves, a stratagem designed in effect to thwart the liberation struggle for a truly democratic form of government for all the people of south africa. this pseudo decolonisation was an analogous process to that of genuine decolonisation. the former involved political fragmentation, whatever it was designated, that in effect, denied to the indigenous people, freedom and liberation for decades. as an odyssey it was a very protracted and painful process. ultimately, in a belated and circuitous manner, after the inordinate suffering and oppression of south africa’s indigenous people, a genuine democracy in a unified and consolidated state for all the people of south africa was to transpire. this was liberation and not decolonisation, and was the final stage in the historic and traumatic process for south africa. it is also argued that only with the inception of the interim constitution, following the first historic democratic election of 27 april 1994, did south africa and its people adopt an authentic democratic and republican constitution. keywords: union of south africa, status, dominions, decolonisation, liberation movements, afrikaner nationalism, african nationalism. introduction their purpose is to capture the vanguard, to turn the movement of liberalisation towards the right and to disarm the people; quick, quick, lets decolonize. decolonize the congo, before its turns into another algeria. vote the constitutional framework for all 1 . prof. ge devenish is a senior research associate in the school of law, university of kwazulu-natal. the article is based on a paper presented at the european society of comparative legal historians, university of amsterdam, 11 july 2012. devenish 310 africa, create the communaute, renovate the same communaute, but for god’s sake let’s decolonize quick.2 this article sets out a brief chronological and comparative account of some of the different manifestations of decolonisation. thereafter, the process of emancipation from colonial tutelage in the erstwhile union of south africa, and the subsequent emergence of the bantustans as part of the policy of so-called “grand” apartheid, are discussed. decolonisation is a political phenomenon in terms of which a dependent territory is emancipated from colonial tutelage. according to encyclopedia britannica,3 one of the major international political changes after the second world war was the emergence of more than 50 new sovereign states. decolonisation is considered to be one the most seminal political, international and cultural issues of the contemporary world. it has involved the transformation of an obsolete imperial hegemony, and the emergence of new nations in the global order. this epic change was to mobilise the concepts and practice of “national sovereignty, the right to self-determination and a portfolio of human rights”.4 before 1945, western european nations had ruled over vast territories in the middle east, asia and africa.5 all of this was to change fundamentally in the decades after the war. the lineage of decolonisation, however, goes back very much further than this period. great britain’s prized and prosperous 13 north american colonies were to successfully wage a revolutionary war, which culminated in an historic break with the british crown and empire, and as a result they were collectively recognised as an independent nation by the treaty of paris in 1783.6 this resulted in the emergence of the united states of america, which was the first territory colonised by europeans to achieve constitutional and international independence, and the first independent state in the new world. this was to be followed by haiti, which declared itself independent from metropolitan france, and which also became the first indigenous nation to be emancipated from european rule.7 subsequently, the spanish and portuguese territories in the americas obtained independence.8 decolonisation was also to occur in other parts of the world, such as in the ottoman empire. this involved mainly christians in the balkans, who had been ruled by the turks of the ottoman empire, and obtained their independence during the 19th century. this was the process that “peaked at the time of the ottoman defeat in the russo-turkish war of 1877-78”.9 the states involved in this decolonisation process were egypt, greece, bulgaria, romania, serbia and 2 f fannon the wretched of the earth (1990) at 53. 3 1993, vol. 18 at 720. 4 see: “darwin speaks on decolonisation as a history of failure”, available at: http://national history center.org/tag/decolonization/ .( accessed on 27 july 2013). 5 encyclopaedia britannica (1993), vol. 18 at 720. 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/delonization, at 2. (accessed on 29 july 2013) 7 see: “decolonisation”, slider encyclopaedia, available at: http://enc.slider.com/enc/decolonization, at 3. 8 ibid. brazil obtained independence from portugal in 1808. this was followed by paraguay (1813), argentina (1816), chile (1818), columbia(1819), the dominican republic (1821), nicaraqua (1821), honduras(1821), guatemala (1821), el salvador (1821), costa rica and mexico (1821), ecuador (1822), peru (1824), bolivia (1824) and cuba(1865) – all of whom obtained independence from spain.(accessed on 27 july 2013). 9 ibid. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 311 montenegro. in the british empire, the colonies that had substantial white populations – such as canada, australia, new zealand and south africa – were incrementally granted greater measures of self-government, that in fact constituted a process of decolonisation. this historic process was precipitated by the famous report of lord durham,10 and was explained in keith’s book dealing with the advent of representative and then responsible government, in such colonies – which then became dominions.11 durham stated that: [i]t is difficult to understand how any english statesman could have imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be successfully combined12 ... (since) ... the colonial demagogue bids high popularity without fear of exposure. hopelessly excluded from power he expresses the wildest opinions and appeals to the most mischievous passions of the people without any apprehension of having his sincerity or prudence tested by being placed into a position to carry his views into effect.13 in this regard, canada was a pioneer. in march 1867, the british parliament enacted the british north america act, which established the dominion of canada.14 next to obtain dominion status was australia, which it obtained by virtue of the commonwealth of australia act – once again a british statute adopted by the imperial parliament at westminster, on 9th july 1900.15 this was followed by the dominion of new zealand16 and newfoundland,17 and then the union of south africa in 1910.18 although in 1921-2 the irish free state “was added to the list ...”,19 its constitutional status was to prove to be anomalous – since, as explained by j m kelly,20 “the quality of its membership and the motive keeping it up (the desire to retain some formal link with the north) were idiosyncratic.” this continued until 1949, “when even informal commonwealth membership was discontinued”.21 after the first world war, there was a gradual emergence of independent territories from the defeated powers such as those of the german22 and ottoman empires. also in the wake 10 see: ab keith the dominions as sovereign states (1938) at 5 et seq. 11 ab keith responsible government in the dominions (1930) at 14. 12 cp lukas lord durham’s report, vol. 2 at 74. 13 idem at 82. 14 see: the world book encyclopedia (1992), vol. 3 at 98. 15 63 & 64 victoria, chapter 12. see: ph lane lane’s commentary on the australian constitution (1996) at 697. 16 in 1854 the colony of new zealand became self-governing, with the advent of responsible government – gaining responsibility over all domestic matters other than native policy, which was granted in the mid-1860s. in 1907, at the request of the new zealand parliament, king edward vii proclaimed dominium status for the country. in 1947, it adopted the statute of westminster, confirming that the british parliament could no longer legislate for it without its consent. 17 this territory became a province of canada in 1949. see: the world book encyclopedia (1992), vol. 14 at 178. 18 ab keith the dominions as sovereign states (1938) at 151. 19 ibid. 20 jm kelly the irish constitution (1984) at xxvii. 21 ibid. 22 in this regard, german west and east africa should be mentioned. the former became the mandated territory of south west africa, which was administered by south africa, and became independent as the state of namibia in 1990. the latter became tanganyika, was placed under united kingdom trusteeship, became independent in 1961, and in 1962 merged with the island of zanzibar to become tanzania. see: slider encyclopedia, available at: http://enc.slider.com/enc/decolonization, at 7. (accessed on 27 july 2013). devenish 312 of the war, the austro-hungarian empire disintegrated – from which emerged its component parts, namely austria, hungary, bosnia-hercegovina, bohemia, moravia and galicia.23 this was in effect a process of de facto decolonisation, and it flowed from the fifth of president woodrow wilson’s fourteen points.24 from the latter emerged the establishment of the mandate system25 in relation to the colonies of the defeated powers – germany and turkey – such as german south west africa, and palestine – both of which were to spawn decolonisation problems of their own kind. the tempo of decolonisation26 changed rapidly after the second world war, with “43 states achieving independence between 1956 and 1960, 51 between 1961 and 1980 and 23 from 1981”.27 by resolution, a milestone of cardinal importance designated the declaration of the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples, was adopted in 1960.28 thereafter, the end of the cold war – involving the disintegration of the monolithic soviet union and its satellite client states – was tantamount to a form of decolonisation.29 according to the huffington post,30 there are still 16 territories around the world that have yet to achieve decolonisation – the most notable being western sahara, which has fought for more than 35 years to achieve self-determination in relation to morocco.31 union of south africa the legitimacy of the process of decolonisation of the union of south africa – resulting in its independence and followed by the adoption of a republican form of government – is now examined. in contrast, a comparison is made with the controversial and questionable evolution of the bantustans, which emerged out of the erstwhile native reserves – a stratagem designed, in effect, to thwart the struggle for a truly democratic form of government for most south africans. it is submitted that this pseudo-decolonisation was a process analogous to genuine decolonisation. the former involved ethnic fragmentation by means of unilateral partition, whatever it was designated, denied to the indigenous people of south africa as a whole, freedom and liberation for decades. as an odyssey, it was a very protracted and painful process. what is occurring at present in relation to palestine – with the so-called two state scenario – is in fact analogous, to some extent, to the decolonisation of the bantustans in south africa. however, the emergence of south sudan, previously known as southern sudan, as africa’s newest independent state – involved bilateral, as opposed to a unilateral, 23 world book encyclopedia (1992), vol. 1 at 914. 24 see: me chamberlain decolonisation : the fall of european empires (1987) at 7. 25 ibid. 26 ab keith responsible government in the dominions (1930) at 14. 27 see: “decolonisation”, available at: http://www.credoreference.com/topic/decolonization, at 1. (assessed 27 july 2013). 28 resolution 1513 (xv) of 14 december 1960. 29 see: j cole “decolonization”, international encyclopedia of the social sciences, available at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/deconolisation.aspx, at 5. (accessed 27 july 2013). 30 http://www.huffingtopost.com/tag/decolonization. (accessed on 27 july 2013). 31 in 1976, colonial rule from spain terminated over western sahara, but the territory was partitioned between mauretania and morocco. the latter subsequently annexed the entire territory in 1979, rendering the declared independence of saharawi arab democratic republic ineffective – to the present time. see: slider encyclopedia, available at: http://enc.slider.com/enc/decolonsation. (accessed 29 july 2013). sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 313 partition.32 this was also the position with the traumatic emergence of india and pakistan in 1947, by virtue of partition.33 as far as india was concerned, important incremental changes and reforms were made to the raj, “culminating in the government of india act” of 1935.34 complete independence was delayed until after the second world war, and was then to involve the tragic and bloody process of partition – in an attempt to separate the predominantly hindu and muslim parts of erstwhile british india. belatedly, east pakistan achieved independence in 1971, as bangladesh.35 despite the oppression of the african people – inherent in the bantustan policy, which formed an integral part of the policy of apartheid – ultimately, and in a belated and circuitous manner, a genuine democracy in a unified and consolidated state for all the people of south africa was to transpire. this was a negotiated process of liberation and not essentially decolonisation, and was the final stage in the historic and prolonged process for south africa – ensuring democracy and freedom for south africa and all its diverse people. decolonisation is, however, a recurring constitutional and political theme in the process of change and reform in south africa’s history during the 20th century. the constitutional emancipation of the erstwhile union of south africa and the subsequent internal decolonisation of designated black ethnic and cultural groups, are two kindred processes which have interesting similarities – but also important differences. contrasting the two manifestations, the former involved british imperialism, while the latter was precipitated by a conflict between afrikaner nationalism and african nationalism. the former was a natural, legitimate and spontaneous process, while the latter, it is submitted, was an artificial process that was induced by afrikaner nationalism – that was spurned internationally, and domestically by the vast majority of south africa’s indigenous people. formation of the union of south africa an important milestone in the drawn-out saga of decolonisation occurred on 31 may 1910, when the union of south africa was born into what was designated as the third british empire – that marked the emergence of dominion status for certain colonies of the empire.36 the emergence of the union of south africa constituted an important symbolic, rather than 32 south sudan became an independent state on 9 july 2011. this followed a referendum in which 98.83% of the vote supported the creation of the new state. it is a member of the united nations as a member state, a member of the african union, and a member of the intergovernmental authority on development. in july 2012, south sudan signed the geneva conventions. see: “south sudan”, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/southern-sudan, at 1.(accessed 29 july 2013). 33 the new encyclopaedia britannica (1993), vol. 18 at 720. 34 slider encyclopaedia, available at: http:enc.slider.com/enc/decolonization, at 5. (accessed 29 july 2013). 35 this was in 1971, after a nine-month civil war, between east and west pakistan. see: the world book encyclopedia (1992), vol. 2 at 81. 36 according to ab keith the dominions as sovereign states (1938) at 3, “england was declared to be an empire long before she possessed any external territories of consequence”. the first british empire came to an end with the recognition – in 1782-83 – of the independence of the 13 american colonies. the second british empire involved essentially india, for whom queen victoria was designated as empress. the third empire involved the dominions – which was pioneered by canada, flowing from the durham report. devenish 314 a substantive reform.37 a new, consolidated state having dominion status, replaced four selfgoverning colonies. a governor-general, who represented the british monarch and government, replaced the colonial governors. furthermore, and of great significance, the special powers of the colonial governors in relation to native affairs (the term used at the time to refer to african people), were to vest in the governor-general-council – who, according to the convention applicable in the dominions, would act on the advice of the union cabinet. this eliminated certain vestiges of independent imperial authority exercised by the imperial government at westminster.38 however, in relation to foreign affairs, the union government was constrained by the policy of the british government.39 the south africa act did, however, create an oligarchic constitution, involving a controversial and racist colour bar – since only whites could sit in parliament, and only in the cape province was there a qualified non-racial franchise. in the other provinces, only whites were eligible to exercise the franchise. the process of emancipation from colonial tutelage encapsulated constitutional changes and reforms, allowed the union to emerge as a sovereign independent state, and ultimately to adopt a republican constitution. the highly-cherished independence that the boers had lost on the field of battle, was attained by a united south africa through a peaceful process of reform, and not by violent and revolutionary change. in a very controversial way, south africa, under a national party government, was to endeavour to emulate the process of internal decolonisation with regard to african people within her borders, and to establish a constellation of states that were nominally independent. this in some respects was analogous to the commonwealth of nations, which had previously been designated the british commonwealth.40 this kind of “internal decolonisation” was afrikaner nationalism’s response to the political demands made by african people and the international community, for internal reform in south africa. this was an unprecedented process and was perceived internationally as a manifestation of the odious policy of apartheid – rather than a process of genuine reform and liberation. ultimately it was to fail abysmally and tragically. this will be explored more fully later. subordinate status of dominions and early endeavours to reform relationships with great britain41 the term ‘dominion’ was officially accepted in a resolution passed by the participants at the colonial conference of 1907.42 it was short for “self-governing dominions beyond the seas.” 37 see ab keith the constitutional law of the british dominions (1933) at 6, who states that “... by 1911 the right of every dominion to complete self-determination was conceded”. 38 see m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 194, and 185 fns 53 and 54. the union parliament could not adopt laws having an extraterritorial jurisdiction. 39 m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 203. 40 the word “british” was dropped in 1965. see: me chamberlain decolonization: the fall of european empires (1987) at 52. 41 see, in general, ge devenish constitutional change and reform in south africa, doctoral thesis, university of south africa (1986), chapt. 3. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 315 however, the precise meaning of this term was not clear. when the british prime minister, david lloyd george, was asked to explain its meaning, he replied that it was “difficult and dangerous to give a definition.”43 he further explained that dominion status for ireland – according to the articles of agreement of the irish treaty – meant that “...whatever measure of freedom dominion status gives canada, australia, new zealand or south africa, that will apply to ireland.” 44 as a matter of fact and law, however, all the dominions before the enactment of the statute of westminster of 1931, were colonial appendages of the united kingdom – meaning they did not have sovereign independence. the dominions, in 1910, were not in law independent or completely self-governing, since they were subject to certain restrictions by the united kingdom’s parliament and government. it was clear from a famous british statute, the colonial laws validity act,45 that de jure, the union parliament was not sovereign, and that legal sovereignty vested ultimately in the imperial parliament at westminster. the latter was imperial in the sense that it could make laws for overseas dependent states of the empire, and was sovereign in the sense that such laws when made, prevailed over conflicting laws of the state concerned. however, in practice, and by strong convention, the british government did not interfere in the domestic affairs of the dominions. initially, dominion status permitted them de facto “complete control over domestic matters”, and the dominions “were beginning to make cautious advances beyond their own boundaries.”46 general smuts, who was a prominent, brilliant and perceptive member of the imperial war cabinet, accurately summed up the position at the imperial war conference in 1917, by stating that: although in practice there is great freedom, yet in actual theory the status of the dominions is of a subject character. whatever we may say, whatever we may think, we are subject provinces of great britain. that is the actual theory of the constitution, and in many ways, which i need not specify today, that theory still permeates practice to some extent.47 42 kc wheare the constitutional structure of the commonwealth (1961) at 9 and 10. see also: k hancock survey of british commonwealth affairs (1918-1939) (1964), vol. 1 at 47. the conference replaced the noun “colony” with the adjective “colonial” and thereafter the conference circle was constituted by the united kingdom and “self-governing dominions beyond the seas”. this was merely a change of nomenclature and it did not effect a change in legal status. in law, the dominions were still subordinate to the government and parliament of the united nations, and were thus colonies.” 43 kc wheare the constitutional structure of the commonwealth (1961) at 11. see also: 149 house of commons debates 5 s., col 27-28 (1921). 44 ibid. 45 28 and 29 vict. c 63 (1965). it should, however, be noted that the british government was less inclined to interfere in the domestic issues of the union than it would have in such issues relating to mere colonies, that were not dominions. in this regard, see: m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 201. 46 rm dawson the development of dominion status 1900-1936 (1965) at 4. see: k hancock survey of british commonwealth affairs (1918-1939) (1961), vol. 1 at 50. 47 kn wheare the constitutional structure of the commonwealth (1961) at 47. smuts was, in effect, spelling out the divergence between the conventional constitutional position and the strict legal devenish 316 foreign affairs was virtually the exclusive concern of the imperial parliament and government, and in those matters involving the conduct of foreign policy, “the conclusion of treaties, the maintenance of peace, or the declaration of war could not be shared.”48 dominion efforts to obtain equality of statehood the legally-subordinate status of the dominions was manifestly apparent when, at the outbreak of the first world war, the “british declaration legally committed the whole empire, although the dominions had taken no part in the diplomacy which preceded the declaration, nor in the decision which irrevocably committed them to war.” 49 the reason for this was patently clear, in that the dominions were still legally and constitutionally colonies and the change of nomenclature that had occurred in 1907 did not change their legal status – despite the operation of the convention of non-interference by britain in their domestic affairs. during the war, dominion statesmen like the canadian prime minister, robert borden, and general smuts, began to persistently agitate for a revision of the subordinate status of the dominions. this was to give rise to the famous resolution ix at the imperial war conference of 1917 – relating to the existing and future government of the empire and its component parts. it was hereby agreed that the post-war adaptation of relationships would have to be based on “a full recognition of the autonomous nations of an imperial commonwealth.”50 this resolution was an important milestone in the constitutional evolution and process of reform within the empire and commonwealth, although the actual legal status of subordination of the dominions was unaltered. the dominions participated meaningfully in the peace treaty of versailles of 1919 and the adoption of the treaty of the league of nations – not as completely independent parties, but as members of the british empire.51 nevertheless, the relationship between great britain and the dominions was undergoing a process of incremental reform, which was to accelerate in the years after the first world war. in this regard, ga coertze made the perceptive statement “dat die unie reeds volkeregtelik onafhanglik is, maar nie staatsregelik nie.”52 during the years 1919 to 1926, the dominions began to assert their desire for complete independence – both domestically and internationally. in pursuance of this, the united position. conventions have always played an important role in english law, in terms of developing the actual constitution in a positive way. 48 minutes of proceedings, imperial conference 1911. see: parliamentary papers (great britain) section 1 at b2 (b) at 155. see also: rm dawson the development of dominion status 1900-1936 (1965) at 11. 49 rm dawson the development of dominion status 1900-1936 (1965) at 17. 50 idem at 25. 51 m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 117. 52 ga coertze “die wetgewende orgaan van die unie van suid-afrika” thrhr (1941) at 53, and, by the same author “die posisie van die koning as hoof van die uitvoerende gesag van die unie van suid-afrika” thrhr (1939) at 250. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 317 kingdom allowed canada to send a diplomatic envoy to the united states.53 what this meant in relation to self-government was explained in an address to the house of commons,54 by mr bonar law, in which he declared that: “[t]here is not a man in this house who would not admit that the connection of the dominions with the empire depends on themselves. australia, canada or new zealand could say tomorrow: we will no longer remain part of the british empire. we would not force them. dominion home rule means the right to decide for themselves.”55 this meant metaphorically, that what was being anticipated was that the ‘apron strings could be cut’. this was indeed to occur with burma, and then ireland.56 in relation to the latter, kelly57 states that “when even informal commonwealth membership was discontinued, it has been unarguable that the state bears the same character internationally as the french or italian republic”. however, ireland’s departure from the commonwealth did not in any way lead to international isolation, and must be seen in the light of its turbulent history as a rebellious part of the united kingdom. furthermore, its domestic policies based on an exemplary constitution,58 were in fact democratic in nature. as far as burma is concerned, however, it became independent on 4 january 1948, and was named the union of burma.59 unlike most other erstwhile colonies and overseas territories, it did not become a member of the commonwealth. today it is called myanmar, which is short for the republic of the union of myanmar.60 this country has experienced international isolation as a result of its oppressive domestic policies, from which it is only now beginning to emerge – as a result of political reforms.61 balfour declaration and statute of westminster at the imperial conference of 1926, the famous balfour declaration was adopted. it stipulated that: great britain and the dominions are autonomous communities within the british empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate to one another in any aspect of their 53 m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 119. 54 speech by mr bonar law, 30 march 1920. 55 see: gd scholtz hertzog en smuts en die britse ryk (1975) at 76. 56 this occurred in 1949 when the coalition government under john a costello repealed the external relations act, thereby “severing the only remaining link between britain and eire”. the republic of ireland was formally declared on 18 april 1949, thereby receiving international recognition. see: the world book encyclopedia (1992), vol. 10 at 377. 57 the irish constitution (1984) at xxviii. 58 ibid. 59 http://en.wikipedia.org/org/wiki/burma#history. (accessed on 30 july 2013). 60 ibid. 61 ibid. devenish 318 domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the crown, and freely associated as members of the british commonwealth of nations.62 it is important to note that the balfour declaration stressed the concept of equality. in this regard, it stated that “equality means equality of status, not equality of stature. members differ in power and potential. equality means no subordination.”63 in the period before the second world war, the world “equality” was used, and not the word “independence” – which only became accepted terminology after the second world war, and firstly in relation to india.64 at the time, there was a dichotomy between the theoretical legal position and the constitutional practice that gave rise to certain anomalies. the process of decolonisation and reform reached its climax with the adoption – by the imperial parliament – of the historic statute of westminster, which declared: no act of the parliament of the united kingdom passed after the commencement of this act shall extend, or deem to extend, to a dominion as part of the law of that dominion unless it be expressly declared in that act that the dominion has requested, and consented to the enactment thereof.65 the adoption by the union parliament of the cognate status of union act,66 and the royal executive and seals act,67 was complementary in this regard. section 2 of the status act declared that: the parliament of the union shall be the sovereign legislative power in and over the union, and not withstanding anything in any other law contained, no act of the united kingdom and northern ireland passed after the eleventh day of december 1931 shall extend to the union as part of the law of the union, unless extended thereto by an act of the parliament of the union. this meant that the british parliament could – if it so wished – repeal the statute of westminster, by virtue of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. constitutional significance of statute of westminster and status act the union of south africa, both by act of the imperial parliament in 1931, and by a statute of its own parliament in 1934, achieved a constitutional state of complete independence. this was a singular triumph for the idea and practice of a liberal policy of incremental 62 report of the inter-imperial relations committee, imperial conference, 1926. see: m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 120-123. 63 kc wheare the constitutional structure of the commonwealth (1961) at 20. 64 ibid. 65 22 geo v, c 4, section 4. 66 69 of 1934. 67 70 of 1934. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 319 constitutional reform. although afrikaner nationalists had rebelled in an effort to reestablish the independence of the erstwhile boer republics, but without success, in 1914 – and against the pro-british botha government – sovereign independence was to emerge from an incremental process of constitutional evolution and liberal reform and adjustment, and not from armed struggle or revolution. in contrast, the united states secured its independence by force of arms against the british government and crown. canada and the other dominions, however, obtained their independence by an evolutionary process of constitutional reform and adjustment, which commenced with the implementation of the recommendations of the durham report in 1848.68 belatedly, this process started in the cape colony in 1853, when the colony obtained firstly representative government, and subsequently responsible government in 1872. the statute of westminster and the status act in fact led to the most fundamental reform that ever occurred in the relationship between south africa and great britain. the statute of westminster constituted a watershed in south africa’s constitutional development, since in terms of it, the imperial parliament relinquished its sovereignty over the union and its parliament. the status act declared the union parliament to be the “sovereign legislative power in and over the union,” and thereby this involved a break in legal continuity – since the locus of legal sovereignty had shifted decisively and irrevocably from the imperial parliament at westminster to the union parliament in cape town. in a technical tense, a revolution had occurred, and there had been “a judicial recognition of a political fact – a revolutionary break with the past, with subordination.”69 in this important process of emancipation from colonial tutelage, general smuts, and in particular, general hertzog, who was the south african prime minister from 1924 to 1939 – played a vital and constructive role. however, the indigenous people of south africa, who were almost completely disenfranchised because of a colour bar (except for people of colour in the cape province, where a qualified franchise prevailed), played no role.70 the crucial test with regard to the sovereignty of the union and its parliament came with the outbreak of the second world war.71 despite the enactment of both the statute of westminster and the status act, there was a difference of opinion on this seminal issue – which depended on the divisibility or not of the crown. was south africa automatically at 68 see: m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 111-113. 69 hr hahlo and e kahn the union of south africa: the development of its laws and constitution (1960) at 150. see also: cowan modern law review 15 (1952) at 294, who states that: “there is little doubt that in the eyes of south african courts that the statute of westminster had resulted in a formal break in the continuity of the south african legal system.” see, however, the critical comments of hancock (fn 5), who stated that: “the separate south african grundnorm, if it comes to be established, may look to the balfour report or merely the status of union act for the root or title of south african law. or it may set up a fiction that the statute of westminster was a complete and irrevocable abdication of power of the imperial parliament. in any case, it will do violence to law or history. probably both. but it may well be politically fortunate. there is much to be said for stealth and subtlety as methods of revolution, if revolution there must be.” 70 see: ge devenish “south africa from pre-colonial times to democracy: a constitutional and jurisprudential odyssey” tsar (2005) at 553. 71 fr scot “end of dominion status” salj (1947) at 149. see also: gd scholtz hertzog en smuts en die britse ryk (1975) at 127. devenish 320 war if great britain and the monarch were at war with germany? on the one hand, both mr jh hofmeyr72 and mr h nichols73 expressed their belief in the indivisibility of the crown – to the effect that when the king is at war, all his subjects are at war as well. on the other hand, a constitutionally more convincing argument was that the statute of westminster and the status act had rendered the crown divisible. this was the view of most speakers in the celebrated neutrality debate, and it was the opinion of both hertzog and smuts. the argument between the two generals was not a legal one, but a political one – relating to the desirability of neutrality or war with nazi germany. in this regard, the sovereign south africa parliament had to decide. this it did, in favour of war.74 in this regard, smuts, using a powerful metaphor, expressed the position as follows: “die beroep is op caesar gedoen, en caesar het oordeel gevel.”75 the apron strings had indeed been cut. one of the fundamental issues relating to the historic constitutional crisis associated with the removal of the coloured voters of the cape province from the common role in the 1950s – was whether the statute of westminster had negated the entrenched clauses of the south africa act. there was also a dispute as to whether entrenchment imposed a restriction on the union’s sovereignty as an independent state. centilivres cj clarified the position, with the explanation that:76 the union is an autonomous state in no way subordinate to any country in the world. to say that the union is not a sovereign state simply because its parliament functioning bicamerally has not the power to amend certain sections of the south africa act, is to state an absurdity. republican status although india wished to become a republic, it desired to retain its membership of the commonwealth. this was facilitated by a “formula ... which merely described the king as the head of the commonwealth and the crown as the symbol of the free association of its independent member states”.77 in 1949, when the commonwealth prime ministers’ conference granted india the right to retain its commonwealth membership, “although it had become a republic, dr malan had insisted that all the commonwealth countries had an equal right with britain to say whether republican india would remain in the commonwealth.”78 this set an important precedent – that republican status was not 72 hansard house of assembly debates, col 74, 4 september 1939. 73 ibid. 74 see: m wilson and l thompson (eds) the oxford history of south africa (1978) at 382. 75 jc smuts groter suid-afrika: planne vir n beter wereld (1941) at 131. see also: n mansergh survey of british commonwealth affairs (1939-1952) (1968) at 3. 76 harris and others v minister of the interior and another 1952 sa (2) a 428 and 468. 77 me chamberlain decolonization the fall of european empires (1987) at 53. 78 m wilson and l thompson (eds) the oxford history of south africa (1978) at 393. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 321 incompatible with commonwealth membership. pakistan and ceylon were to follow india’s example in 1955 and 1956 respectively. this development was of considerable importance for south africa – with its strong republican sentiments and traditions. membership of the commonwealth entailed many diplomatic, cultural and economic advantages. on 31 may 1961, 51 years after the advent of the establishment of the union, the republic of south africa came into being. the attainment of the republic was the consummation of an historic political and constitutional struggle by afrikaner nationalism in south africa – against imperialism. it was therefore an event of singular political importance for white south africans, but it was accomplished at the expense of south africa’s ignominious departure from the commonwealth – of which general smuts in the years before the second world war had been its principal architect and protagonist. smuts, the philosopher statesman, had propounded a philosophy of holism, in his book on the theory of holism,79 which was reflected in his approach involving a philosophical and political synthesis – finding expression in the commonwealth and also the league of nations.80 south africa’s departure from the commonwealth and the subsequent fragmentation of south africa into bantustans reflected the eclipse of this philosophy. the coming of the republic was to herald south africa’s diplomatic and international isolation, for more than three decades.81 however, it brought to an end the constitutional association with the united kingdom and the commonwealth, that had commenced on 16 september 1795 when the articles of capitulation were signed, and had only been interrupted once for three years by the batavian interlude.82 metaphorically, the apron strings were cut in a most traumatic manner – that led south africa into international ostracism as a pariah83 state, because of its policy of apartheid. verloren van themaat84 had pointed out earlier, in 1942, that it was accepted that self-governing dominions of the commonwealth could unilaterally sever ties with the commonwealth if so desired. in 1947, burma was the first to exercise this option.85 this was to be followed by ireland in 1949, when the republic of ireland came into being.86 79 holism and evolution (1926) at 353. 80 k hancock smuts 1: the sanguine years (1962) at 500-502. 81 see d geldenhuys the diplomacy of isolation (1984). during the period 1961–1990, south africa became increasingly isolated and ostracised, by virtue of the threat and subsequent application of economic sanctions, employment codes, and trade boycotts. see: trh davenport south africa: a modern history (1987) at 489 et seq. 82 see: trh davenport south africa: a modern history (1987) at 41. 83 d geldenhuys the diplomacy of isolation (1984) at 11. “an indication of the extent to which south africa had become estranged from its traditional allies was when britain, the united states and other western countries declared their adherence to a voluntary arms embargo against south africa called for by the un security council in 1963". 84 m wiechers staatsreg (1981) at 132. 85 this was by virtue of the burma independence act of 1947. 86 see: world book encyclopedia (1992), vol. 19 at 337. in this regard, it is stated that “[i]n 1948 a coalition government under the fine gail leader john a costello repealed the external relations act, severing the only remaining link between britain and eire. the republic of ireland was formally declared on april 18, 1949, and the republic received international recognition”. devenish 322 no provision was made in the 1961 constitution for a fundamental redistribution of power within the state. the constitution therefore did not create a new basic norm or grundnorm87 – which remained the sovereignty of the minority white south african parliament. the westminster unitary system of government, which was retained, involved legislative sovereignty and a parliamentary executive. the republican constitution of 1961 terminated an era which had involved south africa’s emancipation from colonial tutelage by a process of incremental change and subsequent commonwealth membership as a dominion – which started with the union of south africa, formed in 1910. this process was legitimate and had also occurred in relation to australia, new zealand and canada. it was a genuine process of decolonisation, in which both general smuts and hertzog played significant roles, as explained above. exclusion of people of colour in the constitutional process of emancipation the national party government excluded all people of colour from any share in the making of the republic. dr verwoerd decided that coloured voters would not be eligible to vote, but that the voters of south west africa could indeed vote. had the coloured voters been eligible to vote and the voters of the mandated territory of the erstwhile south west africa been excluded, the republican majority may very well have been eliminated.88 at the time, in 1960, african leaders – including nelson mandela, as part of the national action council – called for a national convention of all races, coupled with a threat that if the government did not respond favourably, it would call a general strike between 29 and 31 may 1961, during the inauguration of the republic. this was contemptuously spurned by the national party government.89 more than three decades later, during which time africa had experienced an historic process of decolonisation as explained below, with the unbanning of the liberation movements – mandela and de klerk were to play a vital role in both codesa (akin to a national convention) and the multi-party negotiation process that followed. this, in turn, led to a historic political settlement, which paved the way for the interim and final constitutions of 1994 and 1996 respectively90 – which were both republican and democratic in character. belatedly, south africa was in a sense being ‘decolonised’ or liberated, and was metaphorically coming of age. although south africa’s liberation was tragically and traumatically delayed, those who participated in the negotiating process and drafting of the two constitutions referred to above, were in a uniquely opportune position to learn from the african experience of decolonisation that had occurred in the previous decades since harold macmillan’s epoch-making speech “winds of change” in 1960. 87 h kelson general theory of law and state (1961) at 115: “a change of grundnorm is by definition, an event outside and prior to law. it constitutes a technical revolution, for the grundnorm embodies the identity of the state”. see also: k hancock smuts 1: the sanguine years (1962) at 540. 88 see: van der merwe “die totstand-koming van die republiek van suid-afrika” 31 mei 1961’. in: van jaarsveld and scholtz (eds), die republiek van suid-afrika (1966) at 199 and 213 . 89 see: trh davenport south africa: a modern history (1987) at 402. 90 see: ge devenish the south african constitution (2005) at 22. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 323 process of internal decolonisation of bantustans in south africa91 the practice and theory of territorial segregation had its roots in british colonial policy in the province of natal. in fact, david welsh, in his informative and scholarly book on the historical genesis of apartheid,92 comments that “it is a myth that apartheid is the exclusive product of afrikaner nationalism: its antecedents are to be found in natal rather than any of the other provinces.” the lagden native commission (1903-1905) had created an influential blueprint for territorial segregation in order to halt land penetration by africans, and had recommended that land for the ownership of africans be demarcated by legislation.93 this was to find expression in the infamous native land act of 1913,94 which consolidated and legalised the practice of territorial separation, as expounded in the report of the lagden commission. the next important stage in this saga was the enactment of the representation of natives act of 1936,95 which introduced the principle of political segregation by abolishing the common-role franchise of the cape africans, and substituted in its place communal representation, and the ineffectual native representative council. africans and a small number of progressively-minded white persons strongly opposed this illiberal act of disenfranchisement.96 it was on the foundations of both territorial97 and political segregation, that the policy of internal decolonisation, involving unilateral partition, was to be built after the national party victory at the polls in 1948. the native administration act of 192798 was also a seminal piece of legislation, which was used to promote segregation and apartheid. it combined the cape colonial technique of rule by proclamation, with the natal doctrine of an absolute supreme chief – to produce a colonial-type structure of rule by the executive, acting through decrees of the governorgeneral.99 this formidable legislation, in effect gave the south african executive virtually unlimited power to legislate by proclamation in relation to african people – in effect, a henry viii clause involving very circumscribed judicial supervision. 91 see: ge devenish constitutional change and reform in south africa, doctoral thesis, unisa (1986) chapt. 5. see also, in general, f venter die suid-afrikaanse bantoe staatsreg, doctoral thesis (1978). 92 the roots of segregation (1971) at 322. 93 e hellman (ed.) handbook on race relations in south africa (1949) at 173. 94 27 of 1913. 95 act 12 of 1936. 96 see t karis and g carter from protest to challenge (1979), vol. 2, 4. see: trh davenport south africa: a modern history (1987) at 314. the most important of these was jh hofmeyr, a cabinet minister from the united party of hertzog and smuts. 97 the land act of 1913 scheduled about 7.5 percent of the country’s land for africans, which was increased to 13.7 percent by the native trust and land act 18 of 1936. t karis and g carter from protest to challenge (1979), vol. 2, 4. 98 38 of 1927. 99 a sachs justice in south africa (1973) 114. devenish 324 in may 1948, the national party, with its policy of apartheid, came to power. an election pamphlet, issued by the national party at the end of 1947, explained its policy and philosophy of “bantu self-government”, as follows: the party is in favour of a system of local government for the bantu more or less along the lines of the bunga, which will uphold the authority of the tribal chiefs and enlist the services of educated bantu. such local councils are to be established in all the reserves with the prospect of developing into separate central councils for the different ethnic groups or sub-groups.100 bantu self-government was the premise on which the policy of ethnic or domestic decolonisation was to be developed. the policy of apartheid – in relation to africans – envisaged the strengthening and restoration of the tribal system, and the re-establishment of the authority of the chiefs – which had been undermined by the urbanisation and consequent detribalisation of african people. the bantu authorities act of 1951101 abolished the inoperative and ineffectual native representative council, which was a western-styled, partly elected, and partly nominated advisory body. this seminal legislative enactment amounted euphemistically – in the words of dr verwoerd – to a restoration of “the natural native democracy.”102 the act was intended to epitomise the positive aspects of the policy of apartheid, which in effect amounted to institutionalised racial discrimination in every sphere of society and government. the system of bantu authorities involved the replacement of western democratic principles in local government, by tribal principles in the native reserves. in the urban areas, africans were merely to have the indefinite status of temporary sojourners. nature and effect of bantu authorities the bantu authorities act removed the local franchise which had been exercised in the native reserves, and created a new dispensation, in which the chiefs – assisted by councillors – would be appointed by the chief or headman, and not “as under the old local council system, by popular vote.”103 the political philosophy of this illiberal legislation, was explained as follows: the idea is to foster strong progressive action by tribal authorities whose councillors should be able to act independently of a less progressive and probably dissatisfied electorate.104 the constitutionally-retrogressive nature of the bantu authorities was even more clearly spelled out in a handbook of the erstwhile department of native affairs – explaining the 100 dj kruger sa parties and politics (1960) 406. 101 68 of 1951. 102 hansard house of assembly debates (1951) col 9807. see also: h kenney architect of apartheid h f verwoerd – an appraisal (1980) at 94. 103 tomlinson report (full report), chapt. 17, para 223. 104 ibid. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 325 thinking behind the act: “the councillors will perform their tasks without fear or prejudice because they are not elected by a majority of voters.”105 the act provided for a hierarchy of local authorities, consisting of tribal, regional and territorial authorities, and for the gradual delegation to these, of circumscribed executive and administrative powers, in their areas of jurisdiction. the act also provided that after consultation with the people concerned, and with due regard to bantu law and custom, the long-standing system of local councils might be replaced by bantu authorities. african people were, however, deeply divided on the merits of the new system. some traditional leaders and their followers welcomed the change, as they hoped it would reinforce and re-establish tribalism – which was in the process of inexorable disintegration – and thereby enhance the powers of the chiefs. other traditional leaders, and most westernised urban africans, were intensely critical, and they pointed out that, except in the transkei to a limited extent, no provision was made for democratic principles in the constitution of bantu authorities. this was the very antithesis of western notions of constitutionalism and liberal reform. in essence, it constituted a subtle technique of divide and rule, involving the demarcation of african people into separate ethnic groups. also, the system was essentially aristocratic, with the recognition of the chiefs as a core component. patrick lawrence – in his seminal study on south africa’s first nominally-independent bantustan 106 – stated: it is clear that commoners will have little hope of electing representatives of their own onto the territorial authority. individual commoners who are acceptable to the chiefs or department of native affairs may, however be appointed ... the institution of an ‘aristocratic’ form of local government for african people in the middle of the 20th century by a republican-inclined afrikaner-nationalist government, was anachronistic and anomalous. furthermore, as indicated above, it involved the eclipse of the elective element in the erstwhile system of local and district councils. the philosophy of apartheid was premised on the assumed irreconcilable cultural differences between whites and africans. democracy was seen to be exclusively a product of western civilisation, and the tribal system was the corresponding indigenous equivalent for all africans. what was required for africans was, as indicated above, euphemistically termed “a natural african democracy.”107 this amounted in practice, in the form of bantu authorities, to a highly oligarchic system of local government, conceived by whites – according their preconceived ideas of tribal government. it also amounted to a system of indirect rule through the chiefs, which was not new, in that it had been used elsewhere in africa. it had been employed extensively – and for a period successfully – in british colonial africa. lord lugard, in his celebrated book the dual mandate in tropical africa, explained how it worked: the essential feature of the system is that the native chiefs are constituted as an ‘integral part of the machinery of the administration’. in natal, the influential 19th century colonial administrator, sir theophilus shepstone, used the same principle in native administration.108 however, indirect rule was eclipsed in the post 105 d cowan constitution making for a democrac, supplement to optima, march 1960, fn 23 at 1. 106 transkei, the politics of partition (1976) at 26. 107 see: h kenney architect of apartheid h f verwoerd – an appraisal (1980) at 94. 108 d welsh ‘chieftanship under shepstone’. in: the roots of segregation (1971), chapt. 7. devenish 326 second world war era in the british colonies – by the inexorable demand for western-styled representative institutions. however, when indirect rule was on the wane in the british colonial empire, it was belatedly introduced in south africa. lord hailey therefore perceptively commented in his magisterial work, african survey: a study of problems arising in africa south of the sahara,109 as follows: but the recent decision to improve the status of chiefs or to base the institutions of local government on tribal councils rather than on electoral bodies belongs to a different category. it is an attempt to divert attention of the african from a pattern which is favoured by europeans and in which he might desire to share. the change of policy embodied in this decision has been made at a time when most of the british and french dependencies the african is being given increasing access to institutions of a european pattern. the forces of traditionalism are still strong in africa, and it is possible that the changes may have attractions for some part of the african population in the union, it is not likely to appeal to the growing body of more progressive africans or to the great mass of those who now live in urban conditions. for them it can have little or no meaning, and it is to this class that african society now looks for its leaders.110 furthermore, when indirect rule was introduced into nigeria, tanganyika and northern rhodesia,111 indigenous tribal life was virtually unimpaired. it had not been emaciated by an economic and industrial revolution, as had occurred as a result of the european exploitation of mineral resources and the consequent urbanisation and detribalisation of african people in south africa. in british colonial africa, indirect rule was used to train african people in local government in order to equip them to participate, ultimately, at the central level of government. in south africa, the rejuvenation of tribal government, however, was intended to be a surrogate for participation at the central level of government. marquard explained this by commenting that “[u]nder indirect rule in british colonies, tribalism is made a temporary transitional purpose. under the national party policy it becomes an end in itself.”112 with regard to the policy of separate development, the system of bantu authorities was of seminal importance. it was to lay the foundation for the unilateral partitioning of south africa. lawrence aptly commented that “[t]he process of implementing the grand design of separate development began with the bantu authorities act which verwoerd put through parliament in 1951".113 the promotion of bantu self-government act114 109 (1956) 343. 110 ibid. 111 lord hailey african survey: a study of problems arising in africa south of the sahara (1956) at 202. see also: l marquard the people and policies of south africa (1960) at 107. 112 l marquard the people and policies of south africa (1960) at 107. 113 see p lawrence transkei, the politics of partition (1976) at 59. 114 act 46 of 1959 . sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 327 this was the next legislative step in the process of internal decolonisation. this legislation abolished the parliamentary representation of africans in the cape province – who had enjoyed common-roll franchise rights in the cape colony from the inception of representative government in 1853, and also subsequent communal representation in the union of south africa from 1936 to 1960. it was another inexorable step in the process of disenfranchisement and constitutional retrogression of persons of colour. this had started with the representation of natives act of 1936,115 which introduced the principle of political segregation by removing the common roll franchise for cape africans, and substituting in its place communal representation. africans strongly opposed this act of disenfranchisement. in the words of karis and carter: “african reaction was unequivocal in its opposition and union wide in its expression.”116 legalised fragmentation and segregation were the very antithesis of the ideas and policies of inclusion of persons of colour in the body politic of south africa, and which found expression in the cape’s liberal tradition. these ideas and policies were to be inexorably eclipsed by the policies of disenfranchisement, segregation, and ultimately apartheid. african and coloured persons respectively were disenfranchised in 1936 and 1956. the disenfranchisement of the coloured persons on the common role in the cape province involved a battle lasting four years – from 1952 to 1956.117 at the heart of this constitutional struggle and crisis was the constitutional significance of the entrenched provisions of the south africa act, and the nature of parliamentary sovereignty provided for in this constitution. segregation and apartheid involved, inter alia, a retrogressive disenfranchisement of people of colour from the common roll. this is the antithesis of what occurred in great britain – where an incremental process involved the progressive enfranchisement of the population, and starting with the great reform act of 1832. this process in britain culminated in universal adult franchise in 1930, when women exercised the vote on the same basis as men.118 the bantu authorities act recognised eight african national units, based on ethnic considerations, and provided for the appointment of five commissioners-general to represent the government in these areas. the preamble to the act endorsed the thinking of divide and rule, by stating: “the bantu peoples do not constitute a homogeneous people, but form separate national units on the basis of language and culture.”119 at the time, it was not entirely clear what the ultimate destiny of the national units would be. the white paper120 accompanying the bill spoke of its intention to create “self-governing units” and of “creative self-withdrawal” by the european guardian. in order to justify the “concurrent abolition of the native representation in parliament”, it drew an analogy with 115 18 of 1936. 116 see t karis and g carter from protest to challenge (1979), vol. 2, 4. 117 this involved the famous harris cases, and collins v minister of the interior (1957) (1) sa 552. 118 see j harvey and l bather ‘the reform of the electoral system’ in: the british constitution (1968) at 49 et seq. 119 in this regard, d geldenhuys the diplomacy of isolation (1984) at 11, comments that “it was the first time that territorial separation was legislatively explicitly linked to ethnic separation”. 120 see: annual survey of south african law (1959) at 31. devenish 328 the commonwealth – in which none of its dependent or component territories had direct representation in the parliament of the united kingdom before gaining independence. furthermore, it was within the bounds of possibility that the bantu national units might ultimately become completely independent, as was indeed to occur in relation to transkei, bophuthatswana, venda and ciskei. in this regard, dr verwoerd was reported as saying in parliament that “i foresee that – the eventual outcome of this policy will be no discrimination and no domination.”121 what was foreseen was a south african “commonwealth,” with the “white” south african state serving as its core, and being the ultimate guardian of the emerging bantu states. this would have involved partition, giving rise to a confederation or constellation of states. it must be noted that partition had from time to time received some support from persons of liberal disposition, such as the erudite prof rf hoernle, a well known south african liberal who considered that total segregation or partition offered a just solution to south africa’s political problems. this was the opinion expressed in a book the south african native policy and the liberal spirit.122 as a result, lever commented that “[t]he idea of separation as a solution to south africa’s race problems has an appeal on the left as well as the right of the political spectrum.”123 obviously what these liberals had in mind was a bilateral negotiated process of partition, and not the unilaterally conceived and imposed one devised by dr verwoerd and the national party government. a fundamental change of policy the year 1959 was a decisive watershed in the evolution of the policy of so called ‘grand’ apartheid. in this year, dr verwoerd, the erstwhile south african prime minister, had come to realize that the growing criticism of apartheid abroad demanded changes which would give some moral basis to the policy of separate development – “however specious and expedient it may seem to critics.”124 dr verwoerd’s own words support this contention: “... we cannot govern without taking into account the tendencies of the world and in africa. we must have regard to them. our policy must take them into account.”125 dr verwoerd endeavoured to resolve the fundamental constitutional and political problem facing south africa with a stratagem of unilateral partition. in so doing, he rejected a liberal policy of constitutional reform involving the extension of the franchise to african people, within a united south africa. as explained above, the european colonial powers were, in 1959, in the process of embarking on a policy of decolonisation that was to lead to the independence of colonial territories. it was this emancipation from colonial rule in the “world and in africa” that had to be taken into account. however, the national party – during its first decade of rule after its election victory in 1948 – had been vociferously critical of the liberal colonial policies of the british 121 hansard debates of the house of assembly col 4552, 14 april 1961. 122 at 183. 123 h lever south african society (1978) at 265. 124 h kenney architect of apartheid h f verwoerd – an appraisal (1980) at 55. 125 ibid. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 329 government, which preceded independence.126 although dr verwoerd’s new policy of proposed sovereign independence for the erstwhile native reserves was innovative, its potential for constitutional reform was controversial and highly ambivalent. in 1960, in the wake of the tragic sharpeville massacre, the anc and the pac were banned.127 this was to force african people to channel their political activities and aspirations into homeland political institutions, or to opt for illegal revolutionary political activity – since it had become increasingly difficult for africans to advocate and work for a genuine nonracial democratic system of government. this became virtually impossible after the enactment of the prohibition of political interference act in 1968.128 subsequent constitutional development the implementation of the bantu authorities act set in motion a process that began to gather its own momentum and initiative. by march 1960, there were 371 tribal authorities, 29 regional authorities, and only one territorial authority.129 in 1961, ciskeian and tswana territorial authorities were, however, established.130 in january 1962, dr verwoerd made a historic announcement that transkei was to be granted self-government.131 this was preceded by a motion introduced in the transkeian territorial authority – requesting the government to declare the transkei a self-governing state under black control.132 similar motions had been put to the bunga in 1944 and 1946.133 they were rejected on both occasions. this meant that – independent of the national party’s policy of separate development – the transkei had a history of endeavours to acquire a form of selfgovernment, dating back to the war years and the smuts government. this urge for selfgovernment was skilfully used by the national party to promote its policy of unilateral partition. self-government for transkei was an important and pioneering step in the process of internal decolonisation and constitutional ‘reform’, according to the philosophy of apartheid. furthermore, the national party government was embarking on a process that would be difficult – if not impossible – to reverse, and was to culminate in ‘independence’ for transkei. 126 d geldenhuys the diplomacy of isolation (1984) at 13, who comments that “this found clear expression in malan’s africa charter, an anachronistic statement of policy aimed at stemming the tide of decolonization”. 127 see, in general, t lodge sharpville (2011). 128 51 of 1968. see: annual survey of south african law (1968) at 2. 129 rand daily mail, 9 march 1960. 130 gn no r 496, ggn no 6656 of 24 march 1961, and gn no 585, gg no 6666 of 21 april 1961. 131 hansard house of assembly debates vol 2 cols 75 ff (23 january 1962). see: annual survey of south african law (1962) at 61. 132 p lawrence transkei, the politics of partition (1976) at 25. 133 made by councillor lingham maninjwa. see da kotze african politics in south africa (1964-1974) at 27-28. devenish 330 although, in terms of the transkei constitution act,134 the african parts of transkei became a separate territory, it did not create a federation or an independent state. the attitude of the south african government was that nationhood must precede statehood.135 the relationship between the transkei and the central government of the republic was sui generis. there was no comparable analogue.136 the policy of apartheid required that africans in the homelands be ‘liberated’ from tutelage, as members of ethnic units. this putative method of reform was intended to ensure coexistence between whites and blacks. genuine reform within a unitary or even a federal state would, according to the protagonists of separate development, result in black majority rule – which at the time was unthinkable for the national party of dr verwoerd. the self-governing transkei was the first fruit of a self-induced internal decolonisation movement, that was to result in constitutional balkanisation. the constitution of transkei was partly ‘aristocratic’, since it entrenched the power of the chiefs. although all adult citizens qualified for the franchise, 64 chiefs ex officio were appointed to the legislature, in which there were only 45 elected members. this meant that the elected element was introduced, but only in an attenuated form.137 nevertheless, in so doing, dr verwoerd took a calculated risk that the political forces unleashed by self-government could be contained within the framework of his rigidly-conceived policy of apartheid.138 this is clearly evident from the first election that occurred in the transkei. there were no political parties as such, and, as a result, the voters had to choose between competing and opposing political philosophies. chiefs victor poto and kaiser matanzima emerged as advocates of multiracialism and separate development respectively. of the successful candidates, poto claimed 38 of a total of 45 who were aligned with him, and matanzima reportedly conceded 35.139 this meant that 64 ex officio chiefs held the key to power. they voted overwhelmingly for chief matanzima, who, as a result – by means of a narrow majority of 54 to 49 – was elected as chief minister of transkei. although the gamble had paid off, it was clear that the majority of voters of transkei were strongly opposed to the policy of separate development, and by supporting chief poto had expressed a preference for multi-racialism within a single south african state. besides the legislature, provision was also made for an executive 134 48 of 1963. see: e kahn “some thoughts on the competency of the transkeian legislative assembly and the sovereignty of the south african parliament” salj (1963) at 61. 135 e kahn annual survey of south african law (1963) at 56. 136 ibid. 137 see: h kenney architect of apartheid h f verwoerd – an appraisal (1980) at 232, who states “in fairness to verwoerd it must be pointed out that this closely resembled the official majorities in the british and french colonies in the early 1950's: it could be seen as only the first stage in an inevitable unfolding process of emancipation.” this transpired to be the position in retrospect, except that the south african process of decolonisation was to take much longer than that of the british or french. 138 the self-governing constitution of transkei can be viewed as an endeavour to reconcile the conflicting aspirations of the traditionalists – i.e. the indigenous leaders – with the modernists in african society, in order to produce a politically stable system. 139 p lawrence transkei, the politics of partition (1976) at 69. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 331 authority, comprised of a chief minister and 6 other ministers, and ultimately for the introduction of a high court.140 with the enactment of the bantu constitution act,141 certain other ethnic units began to embark on the path of self-government. in 1973, it was the turn of venda, gazankulu and kwazulu, and qwaqua followed in 1974.142 this was followed by the implementation of the bantu homelands citizenship act,143 which provided that every african person in the republic of south africa was to be a citizen of one or other territorial area. such persons were, however, to retain their south african citizenship, and this was to lead to a form of dual citizenship. it was an important preparatory step in the very controversial process of ‘denationalising’ millions of african people.144 it was to apply to all african people, including those who had lived in the urban areas for generations, and who had no real contact with homeland areas. the constitutional development in kwazulu was particularly slow – because the zulu leaders and particularly chief buthelezi,145 considered that the bantu authorities offered no lasting solution to south africa’s complex racial and political problems. considerations of real politik, however, forced the zulus into reluctant acceptance.146 consummation of the policy of internal decolonisation the policy of so-called grand apartheid, was to be consummated in the establishment of the so-called ‘independent’ bantustans, such as transkei, ciskei, bophuthatswana and venda – all of whom were granted a form of putative independence in the years following the advent of the republic. none of them were to be accorded international recognition – being perceived as a product of the infamous policy of apartheid. nevertheless, in a very real manner, the metaphorical apron strings were cut by the respective status acts, for the states concerned. in a technical sense, a revolution had indeed occurred,147 since in each case the 140 section 50. this belatedly came into operation from 1 august 1973 – by virtue of a proclamation. see: annual survey of south african law (1973) at 32. this was another important milestone in the unfolding of the process of emancipation leading to decolonisation, since it provided for a separate judiciary – the third arm of government. 141 21 of 1971. 142 gov notices: venda 12 of 1973; gazankulu 14 of 1973; kwazulu 69 of 1973 and 223 of 1976; and quaqua 112 of 1974. 143 26 of 1970. 144 see j dugard ‘the denationalisation of black south africans: a question for the international court of justice” lawyers for human rights, bulletin no. 4 (1984) at 11. 145 see: j butler the black homelands of south africa at 40, who comments that “zululand (since 1972 known as kwa-zulu), although the most populous of the homelands, was loath to co-operate with the wishes of the department of bantu administration ... the delay in achieving self-government in kwazulu has been due in part to the political struggle between buthelezi and the central government”. 146 see: m horrell laws affecting race relations in south africa at 42, who comments that “[a]ccording to press speculation, the reason was that they found themselves excluded from economic progress and political advances being made elsewhere, had little responsibility for their own affairs, and lacked a platform from which to express their views”. 147 see hr hahlo and e kahn the union of south africa: the development of its laws and constitution (1960) at 150. devenish 332 locus of sovereignty shifted irrevocably from the republican parliament, to the new state concerned – analogous to what had occurred to the erstwhile union of south africa in terms of the statute of westminster and the status act of 1934.148 sovereign independence for these states was not the end of the road. in a paradoxical way, the ethnic fragmentation of south africa was an anomalous stage in the circuitous process of economic and political re-integration into the body politic of a greater south africa. unrest and instability in these territories contributed to the incipient and potential insurrection that gathered momentum in south africa in the 1980s, and which could only be contained by successive states of emergencies – commencing in 1985.149 the 1960s had par excellence been one of decolonisation for africa. british prime minister, harold macmillan’s epoch making “winds of change” speech, made in cape town in 1960,150 had profound political influence on the course of decolonisation – in both africa as a whole, and in south africa. as a result, during the 1970s, the national party government began to endeavour in its own unique way, to emulate this process of decolonisation. this involved fundamental constitutional and political changes, but these were imposed by an oligarchic white government on indigenous black people. it was not a process that had been worked out and negotiated by legitimate representatives of both the white and black populations. its continued application depended on coercion, and, in its unfolding, frequent inroads were made into the norms of constitutionalism and democratic government – always by recourse to african law and practice of indigenous rule, as perceived by whites. it was not a genuine process of decolonisation, but rather a putative or pseudo one, or one which had the “goal of co-opting a trained indigenous social class into a political framework”.151 the process of integration, de-integration and re-integration of the territories that made up south africa, can be compared with the fate of yugoslavia during the 20th century.152 as indicated above, the union brought together the four erstwhile british colonies in 1910. thereafter, application of the policy of apartheid fragmented south africa into selfgoverning and independent homelands. finally, the process of negotiation leading to the interim and final 1996 constitution, resulted in the re-integration of these homelands. as far as yugoslavia is concerned, the name “describes three political entities that existed at one time on the balkan peninsula in europe during most of the twentieth century”.153 firstly, the kingdom of serbs, croats and slovenes was a monarchy formed after the first world war on 1 december 1918, and was renamed yugoslavia by king alexander 1 on 6 january 1929. secondly, yugoslavia, which existed under various designations and was the successor to the kingdom, was called, inter alia, the socialist federal republic of yugoslavia, but disintegrated as a result of the collapse of the soviet union in the early 1990s. finally, there was the federal republic of yugoslavia, which existed from 1992 to 2003, and consisted of 148 see no 69 of 1934. 149 see: race relations survey 1985 at 28. 150 see: g wasserman politics of decolonization (1976) at 8. 151 idem at 11. 152 ‘yugoslavia’, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/yugoslavia, at 1. 153 new world encyclopedia, available at: http:/www.newworldencyclodedia.org/entry/yogoslavia, at 1. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 333 serbia154 and montenegro. the latter states declared their independence on 3 and 5 june 2006 respectively, and constituted the last remnants of the federation of yugoslavia.155 role of the liberation movements in 1912, two years after the formation of the union of south africa, the anc was formed. it was convened by two prominent african lawyers, pk seme and rw msimang – who were also responsible for drafting its constitution.156 in the 1920s and 1930s, its moderate leaders attempted, to little avail, to engage successive white governments to respond positively to the reasonable aspirations of african people. it policy of moderation bore little fruit. during the second world war, however, the anc became a manifestly more militant political organisation, as a result of the activities of its youth league, involving, inter alia, nelson mandela, walter sisulu and oliver tambo.157 as a consequence of the atlantic charter – accepted by the allied powers during the second world war – african leaders in south africa drafted a monograph entitled “the african charter from the african’s point of view”. this was followed by the ‘bill of rights”, drawn up by a committee of african leaders, and adopted by the anc in december 1943.158 after the war, the anc and the natal indian congress were involved in a heroic defiance campaign in the early 1950s,159 and in 1956 it drafted the legendary freedom charter.160 in 1960, as a result of the disturbances that culminated in the tragic massacre at sharpeville, the anc, pac and south african communist party, were declared unlawful organisations by the national party government, and were banned. as a result, members were forced into exile161 and sought liberation by revolutionary means. the exclusion of african people from political participation in the political structures of south africa gave rise to intense dissatisfaction, alienation and serious violence from time to time. the tragic sharpeville massacre and the soweto riots of 1976, are notorious examples in this regard. the anc, pac and south african communist party had now become liberation and revolutionary movements, proscribed in south africa. from 1985 onwards, a virtually continuous and brutal state of emergency was instituted in order to deal with the seething and incipient rebellion in the african townships of south africa. this turbulent era, encapsulated the ill-fated tri-cameral constitution of 1984 – involving whites, coloureds and indians, but excluding africans. this period was characterised by the “imperial 154 serbia included the autonomous provinces of vojvodina, kosovo and metohija.see: new world encyclopedia, available at: http:/www.newworldencyclodedia.org/entry/yogoslavia, at 1. 155 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/yugoslavia, at 1. 156 a sachs justice in south africa (1973) 210. 157 m wilson and l thompson (eds) the oxford history of south africa (1978) at 458. 158 idem at 456. 159 t lodge black politics in south africa since 1945 (1990) at 42-45. 160 idem at 71-4. 161 idem, chapt. 10, ‘guerillas and insurrectionists, 1961-1965'. devenish 334 presidency” of mr p w botha,162 whose administration governed by increasingly dictatorial methods, in terms of emergency regulations. apartheid and white minority rule involved a notorious assault on human rights163 and inordinate suffering and tribulation for the black people of south africa. decolonisation in africa164 during the historic “scramble for africa”,165 which took place between 1876 to 1912, the european powers demarcated africa and its rich resources at the berlin conference of 188485.166 in this regard, although britain and france obtained the lion’s share, germany, spain, italy, belgium and portugal also obtained colonies. this was morally and politically justified “using the concept of the white man’s burden, (and) an obligation to ‘civilize’ the people of africa”.167 as a result, the vast resources of the african continent were ruthlessly exploited, although the second world war and the adoption of the atlantic charter led to decolonisation becoming inevitable, first in asia, and then in africa. decolonisation was to take place during the era of the cold war, which was to have an important influence – clearly reflected in the “winds of change” address to the south african parliament in 1960. in it, the british prime minister stated that “[t]he growth of national consciousness in africa is a political fact and we must accept it as such ... i believe that if we cannot do so we may imperil the precarious balance between east and west and on which the peace of the world depends”.168 decolonisation proved to be problematic due, inter alia, to the fact that the indigenous population were ill prepared by their colonial masters to assume power and the responsibilities of government. so, for instance, even after the war, the british still considered “their african colonies as ‘children’ and ‘immature’; and they introduced democratic government only at local levels”.169 during the 1930s, however, the western colonial powers educated a small elite of indigenous leaders at their universities – where they imbibed liberal ideas of government such as government by consent, the rule of law, and individual rights. these leaders – such as kwame nkrumah and jomo kenyatta – were to play a pivotal role in the struggle for independence and subsequently statehood. however, the pitiful record of many post-independent africa states has produced harsh criticism, given that the decolonisation process between 1950-1970 resulted in regimes that were characterised by violence, inefficiency, nepotism and corruption, and which were the very antithesis of the rule of law and human rights.170 as a result, the question must be asked: who really benefitted from the political exercise of decolonization? in 162 see, in general, b pottinger the imperial presidency (1988). 163 see, in general, j dugard human rights and the south african legal order (1978). 164 see, in general, d birmingham the decolonization of africa (1995). 165 see: t pakenham the scramble for africa (1992). 166 see: ‘decolonisation of africa’, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/deloniztion_of_africa at 1 (accessed 30 july 2013) 167 ibid. 168 b talton ‘the challenge of decolonization in africa’, available at: http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/essay-challenge-of-decolonization-africa.html. 169 see: t pakenham the scramble for africa (1992). 170 this is a common point of view that found expression in a bbc news broadcast, 22 september 2004: ‘africa better in colonial times’. sa’s experience of decolonisation td, 9(2), december 2013, pp. 309-340. 335 the 1960s, frantz fanon, the revisionist intellectual, commented on neo-colonialism, that “because it proposes to do justice to human dignity in general, addresses itself essentially to the middle classes and the intellectuals of the colonial country”, and that this resulted in “the continued exploitation of the continent from outside and within, together with european political intervention during the post-independence years”.171 as a consequence, he argues that this state of affairs benefitted african politicians and a small middle class, but not the vast majority of ordinary people in these states.172 this produced political instability, which facilitated insurrection and coup d’etats. the instability that occurred in the nominallyindependent bantustans in the 1980s, is analogous with fannon’s sentiments. conclusion the constitutional and political dilemma of south africa was how to effect reform and maintain “civilised” values in a body politic, in such a manner that minorities are protected, justice is done to the majority, and simultaneously one group is prevented from exercising domination over any other group. apartheid was morally and politically not the answer to this question. the resignation of the ailing president pw botha in 1989 and the election of mr fw de klerk as president, was providentially to usher in a new era for south africa. in a watershed speech to the south african parliament on 2 february 1990, mr de klerk announced the unbanning of the liberation movements – anc, pac, and the south african communist party – and the release of political prisoners such as nelson mandela, who, behind the scenes, had played a seminal and decisive role in facilitating political reconciliation. this paved the way for the process of genuine political negotiation between the major and lesser political role players in south africa. this took place within the framework of the convention for a democratic south africa (codesa) – created for this purpose. codesa drafted a declaration of intent, in which the signatories committed themselves to the drafting of a new constitution for south africa, as soon as possible. only with the inception of the interim constitution, following the first historic democratic election of 27 april 1994, did south africa and its people adopt an authentic democratic and republican constitution. this was effected within a unified framework, involving an entrenched bill of rights, with a democratically elected government, in an exemplary and consolidated republic – respected worldwide and premised on government by consent, guaranteed by universal adult suffrage. involved in this process was the re-incorporation of the putatively independent territories of transkei, bophuthatswana, venda and ciskei – which constituted a categorical repudiation of the pseudo decolonisation that had created “independent bantustans”. however, in an ironic way, it constituted another unique aspect of decolonisation in the broadest sense of the word. after an absence of more than three decades, during which time the indigenous people of south africa were subject to inordinate suffering and oppression, flowing from institutionalised racial nationalism – south africa was to emerge liberated, as a fully –ledged, non-racial democracy, and with a state-of-the-art constitution, admired by all. as a result, south africa was readmitted to the commonwealth of nations, with open arms. as indicated above, general smuts had previously played a decisive role in the conception and 171 f fanon towards the african revolution (1964) at 122. 172 ibid. devenish 336 establishment of the commonwealth, in the years before the second world war,173 and from which south africa departed so ingloriously as a consequence of dr verwoerd’s policy of apartheid.174 re-admission therefore meant the wheel has indeed come full circle. at long last, after much travail, south africa was on a path that was morally and politically defensible – to facilitating a just society for all its people within the framework of an inclusive, nonracial liberal democracy, and as a respected and valued member of the commonwealth and the united nations. at long last, liberal democracy had triumphed over racial nationalism. there are lessons to be learned from south africa’s traumatic and tragic experience with bantustan decolonisation, inter alia, in countries where there was some form of partition – such as palestine,175 northern ireland, and cyprus. the political conundrum relating to the palestinian people and the prospective independence of palestine, is one of the unresolved issues of decolonisation which arose out of the independence of israel in 1948.176 on 29 november 2012, the united nations general assembly, in a vote of 138 to 9, and by means of resolution 177, upgraded palestine to a “non-member observer state” status at the united nations. this new status equates palestine with that of the holy see – the vatican.178 by april 2013, 132 (68.4%) of the 193 member states of the united nations have in fact recognised the state of palestine. indeed, the present condition of palestine and its people represents the unfinished business of decolonisation in this part of the world. it remains to be seen whether, in the long term, a two state179 or one state scenario will emerge from the present uneasy and turbulent state of affairs in the middle east. bibiography annual survey of south african law (1959), juta & co, cape town. annual survey of south african law (1962), juta & co, cape town. annual survey of south african law (1963) juta & co, cape town. annual survey of south african law (1973) juta & co, cape town. 173 k hancock smuts 1: the sanguine years (1962) at 429. 174 although this was a disaster for south africa, according to d geldenhuys the diplomacy of isolation (1984) at : “for some of the more ardent 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bakuwa.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 112-122. the significance of citation impact indicators of research performance in the developing countries of sub-saharan africa j bakuwa1 abstract this paper argues that sub-saharan africa needs to produce more journals indexed by isi web of science (wos). researchers from the region should also publish in other isi indexed, reputable and high impact journals such as nature and science. inevitably, this will make sub-saharan african researchers visible and globally competitive. the subsaharan african region has only about 40 journals out of over 12 000 journals that have been indexed by the isi web of science (wos). arguably, ranking of universities across the globe and qualification for nobel prizes are determined by metrics-based evaluation of research performance. sub-saharan africa is poorly represented on the world university rankings. the region has also produced only six nobel prize award winners from 1901 to 2010. in the same period, usa, uk and germany produced 326, 116 and 102 recipients respectively. while there are some limitations on the use of citation indicators to evaluate research output, this researcher argues that citation impact indicators of research performance provide policymakers, researchers and funding agencies with an objective measure for assessing research performance and therefore are of great significance in the developing countries of sub-saharan africa. key words: bibliometrics, citation impact indicators, journal impact factor, research output, sub-saharan africa, web of science (wos), scopus, google scholar 1. introduction bibliometric indicators attempt to measure impact, visibility and quality of research output. the development of bibliometric indicators is thus key to evaluating performance of scientific research (see van leeuwen et al., 2001; garfield, 2003). the bibliometric indicators mostly used to assess performance and influence of scientific research are the number of research articles (or publications) and citations (moed, 2009). citation impact indicators are important tools for measuring the quantity and quality of scientific research output. inadvertently, quality and quantity of research have a significant impact on scholarship and the world at large. science policy makers, managers and funding agencies make policy decisions based on citation impact indicators. today, the journal impact factor2 is widely used 1 japhet bakuwa is a registered phd student at stellenbosch university’s centre for research on evaluation, science and technology, private bag x1, matieland, 7602, south africa. email: 16839889@sun.ac.za. acknowledgement: many thanks should go to the two anonymous reviewers whose comments i found tremendously helpful as i revised the manuscript. i also thank helen j. van niekerk of transliterate for editing the paper thoroughly. 2 the journal impact factor is a measure of the total number of citations for each of the papers published in that particular journal during the previous 2 years divided by the total number of eligible articles within that particular period. it can be considered to be the average number of times published articles are cited by authors up to 2 years after publication (garfield, 1979: 149). sub-saharan african citation impact indicators of research performance td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 112122. 113 by researchers, science policymakers and funding agencies to assess impact and quality of research output. the use of citation impact indicators as determinants of quality of research output have been heavily debated: some argue that they are a flawed measure of quality and should not be used, while others think that they should be refined to improve their accuracy of indicating the quality of research output (seglen, 1997a; moed, 2005; seglen, 1997b; williams, 2007). simply put, there are some reservations about the use of metrics and quantitative indicators for evaluating research performance. the criticism against impact indicators notwithstanding, the researcher in this essay argues that citation impact indicators can be of use to developing countries of sub-saharan africa. 2. the use of citation impact indicators of research performance bibliometrics measures the impact, visibility, and quality of scientific publications. in bibliometrics, citation impact indicators have been developed as tools assessing the performance of scientific research output. according to tijssen (2003), citation impact indicators “disclose the actual scientific influence of papers on the outside world– a key indicator of research excellence from a user-oriented point of view” (tijssen, 2003: 98). some of the indicators used include: number of citations; number of citations per document; number of highly cited papers; number of uncited publications; number of citations received by a publication from other publications; number of publications; citations per publication rate, normalized by the average citation scores of corresponding journals during a specified time interval; average number of citations per indexed publication(s) produced by an entity within a specified time interval; number of h-index which is a single measure of quantity (publications) and impact of the research output; relative citation rate (rcr) i.e. citations of documents as compared with their publication journal, etc. there are a number of databases that index scientific publications on the basis of number of citations. these databases include thomson reuters web of science (wos), elsevier’s scopus and google scholar. suffice to say, each of these databases has its merits and demerits. in this discussion reference will be made to thomson reuters wos because it is generally considered to be the world’s largest and most reliable citation database covering over 12 000 of the highest impact journals worldwide across more than 250 disciplines (http://thomsonreuters.com). since 1973 the institute for scientific information (isi) has been producing the impact factor in the journal citation reports (jcr). the general perception is that if a journal is not indexed by wos, it means that no impact factor is available (pendlebury, 2009). by means of citation analysis and the impact factor, the thomson reuters’ institute for scientific information (isi) web of science (science citation index, social sciences citation index and arts and humanities citation index introduced in 1963, 1973 and 1978 respectively) and elselvier (publishers) scopus databases have indexed a number of journals to signify the quantity and quality of research output. it is assumed that journals indexed by either isi’s web of science or scopus are high impact journals as determined by these citation impact indicators. however, caution should be exercised when using these indicators as they may give a skewed picture of research performance. for instance, articles published in the natural and applied sciences tend to be cited more than those in humanities and social sciences. since citation frequencies are output-dependent, field-dependent and time-lag bakuwa 114 dependent, it is important that citation frequencies should be normalized accordingly (tijssen lecture, 2011, stellenbosch). one reason for the importance of citation impact indicators are that they can be used as a basis for making policy decisions. for instance, there has been a proposal in uk that research institutions should be funded based on their research performance as reflected through bibliometric indicators (hobbs & stewart, 2006: 983). this proposal, however, is controversial, because in addition to aiding the assessment of scientific research output, citation analysis also contributes to the understanding of networking among researchers and the development of fields of study (garfield 1979; zitt & bassecoulard, 2008). another reason why citations are important is that they are used to rank journals based on the isi impact factor and can also be a useful tool for establishing a relationship between papers, fields, authors or even journals (jusoff, 2008). they can furthermore be used as a guideline in determining which individual researchers or institutions should be granted awards i.e., nobel prizes to (garfield, 1979). 3. research performance in sub-saharan africa generally speaking, sub-saharan africa’s overall contribution to global science is steadily declining. in tijssen’s 2007 article assessing africa’s contribution to the worldwide research literature, he noted that sub-saharan africa’s contribution to global knowledge has fallen dramatically from 1% share in 1987 to 0.7% in 1996 (tijssen, 2007: 304). however, over the last decade there has been an increase in africa’s research output. pouris and pouris (2009), in their analysis of the state of science and technology in africa between 2000 and 2004, report that africa produced 68 945 publications in this time frame, representing 1.8% of the world’s publications (pouris & pouris, 2009: 301). 23 335 of these 68 945 publications were publications from the north african countries (egypt, morocco and tunisia), 20 762 were from south africa and the rest from other african countries. this analysis further shows that sub-saharan countries are not contributing significantly to the world’s publications, with the exception of south africa. it should be noted that 40 south african journals are indexed in thomson scientific’s citation indexes (mouton & gevers, 2009). it is worrisome to note that 47 countries in the sub-saharan african region are only contributing 1.8% to global science. this speaks volumes of the quality of journals (including research) of this region. africans need have more journals indexed by isi as this will ensure an international presence. moreover, african researchers should be publishing in international high impact journals. sub-saharan africa’s scientific research performance are reflected in three main areas: the number of african journals indexed by thomson reuters’ isi, the number of african universities listed on rankings of world universities and the number of african recipients of nobel prize laureates. these numbers are important because the ranking of journals, universities and researchers are based on the number of citations to publications. a discussion of these areas will follow. 3.1 citation impact indicators and african journals in isi’s web of science journals found in isi’s web of science are assumed to have a high impact factor. by implication articles that are published in isi-journals are also assumed to have a high impact factor determined in part by the number of citations to articles within a particular journal. the more these articles are cited, the higher the publishing profile of the author is raised. in sub-saharan african citation impact indicators of research performance td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 112122. 115 short, the quality of a journal is intimately connected to its impact factor. the higher the impact factors of a journal, the higher the quality of that particular journal is. the number of african journals indexed by isi’s web of science is low compared to the total number of journals published in africa. only about 40 out of 2503 accredited south african journals were indexed by web of science as of 2009. mouton and gevers (2009) analysed south africa’s output in isi journals and noted that most of the journals indexed in the isi web of science are natural and health science journals. they observe that: south africa’s output in isi-journals has been dominated by the sciences (4346%), followed by the health sciences (25-28%) and engineering (10%). the social sciences and humanities, combined, have produced between 9 and 11% of all outputs (mouton & gevers, 2009: 58). this means that the sciences contribute to about 90% of south africa’s output in isijournals. this picture is reversed when one analyses the output in non-isi local journals, as pointed out by mouton who claims that the social sciences and humanities represent about three quarters of the output in local non-isi journals (all south african journals) (mouton & gevers, 2009: 58). this means that the bulk of south africa’s non-isi journals publish social sciences and humanities articles. this is mirrored by the state of scientific publication output in sub-saharan africa. many african academics publish in local journals not indexed by isi web of science instead of publishing in international journals. understanding the reasons behind this trend is worth pursuing. 3.2 citation impact indicators and african recipients of nobel prize laureates policy making is only as good as the evidence used to formulate it. we live in an information age where credible knowledge is necessary for virtually every decision we make. reliable information and metrics are the basis for science policy and strategic decision making in the world today. thus, policy makers, science managers, and funding agencies use citation indicators to support research assessment decisions (costas & bordons, 2007). citation impact indicators can even determine the level of research and development of a particular country. this emphasises the importance of citation impact indicators for sub-saharan african countries. citation impact indicators are also used to reward individuals for their distinguished contribution to the knowledge base. nobel prize organizations, for example, select recipients of prizes on the basis of their remarkable achievements in literature, physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine. this decision is mainly based on the number of citations in high impact journals of their ground-breaking research in respective fields (//nobelprize.org; garfield, 1979). since 1901 (the year these awards were first given) sub-saharan african has only produced 18 nobel prize winners eight of whom are nobel peace prize winners and 10 are nobel prize winners in literature, physiology or medicine and physics. six out of the 10 nobel prize winners were from the sub-saharan africa. this means that from 1901 to 2010, sub-saharan africa has produced only six nobel prize winners who have contributed to two fields, namely three in literature and three in medicine. over the same period usa, uk and germany have produced 326, 116 and 102 recipients respectively. if developing countries of 3 as of 2014 the south africa department of higher education and training has accredited 274 local journals. see www.dhet.gov.za bakuwa 116 sub-saharan africa are to produce more recipients of the prestigious nobel prizes then citation impact factors, derived from journals indexed by thomson reuters’ web of science, should be taken seriously. african academics and researchers need to improve their research output to be globally competitive. 3.3 citation impact indicators and african universities on world rankings it is well known that citation impact indicators play an important role in the ranking of universities worldwide. three of the institutions that use citation impact indicators as part of a criterion to rank world universities are: the times higher education, shanghai’s (arwu) and the leiden university.4’5’6 african universities are conspicuously absent on world rankings. for instance, the 2010-2011 times higher education show university of cape town (rsa) and alexandria university (egypt) as the only african universities that appear in the ‘top 150’, ranking 107th and 147th, respectively, among the world universities. if alexandria is not considered, it means that only one university in the sub-saharan africa appears on this ranking. the university of cape town appears on the leiden university ranking (161st). the 2010 shanghai (arwu) has only six african universities in the ‘top 500’, with the university of cape town in the bracket group of ‘top 300’ while the university of witwatersrand and the university of kwazulu-natal both are in the bracket group of ‘top 400’. thus, only three south african universities represent the whole subsaharan african region on world university rankings – a region that has hundreds of so called research universities. there could be two possible explanations for the poor showing of african universities on world rankings. the first is that sub-saharan african universities do not have research influence on world knowledge base. these institutions use publications and citations as indicators of scientific worth (frey & rost, 2010: 3). it means that african academics do not publish adequately in high impact journals. certainly, african academics publish relevant research, but they do so in local journals with a limited global exposure which are not indexed by isi’s web of science. understandably, some of these local journals are published in the local languages because they target the local audience, whereas the web of science targets the international audience and hence is biased towards the english language. for a university to appear on shanghai ranking, researchers need to publish in high impact journals such as nature and science.7 the second explanation for the poor performance of african universities on world ranking is that the web of science – with a very good coverage of basic (or natural) and applied sciences – is not focused on social science, humanities and arts journals. arguably 4 2010-2011the times higher education world university ranking. available at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/top-200.html. accessed on 19 may 2011. 5 2010 shanghai’s (arwu) has 500 universities on its ranking. available at: http://www.arwu.org/arwu2010.jsp. accessed on 19 may 2011. 6 2010 leiden university ranking. available at: http://www.topuniversities.com/institution/leiden-university. accessed on 19 may 2011. 7 nature and science are highly reputed science journals. according to arwu papers published in these two high impact journals account for 20%. for institutions specialised in humanities and social sciences such as london school of economics, this criterion is not considered. instead, the weight is relocated to other indicators. available at: http://www.arwu.org/arwumethodology2010.jsp. accessed sub-saharan african citation impact indicators of research performance td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 112122. 117 some african academics, especially from the social sciences, humanities and arts disciplines, have authored books and chapters in books which are not covered by isi’s web of science. the times higher education uses a normalised citation impact to assess a university’s research influence.8 overall, it is clear that citation impact indicators should be taken seriously by universities in the sub-saharan region if they would like to be ranked among the best in the world. african academics should increase their publications in high impact journals to ensure that the number of citations is significant to put their research universities on the world map. certainly it has to be acknowledged that high quality research output in the sub-saharan african region has been hampered by a plethora of factors. inadequate government funding to public universities in particular, has led to inadequate library and laboratory facilities, an inability to subscribe to journals, limited mobility and poor education. simply put, the environment in these resource poor sub-saharan african universities is not conducive to high quality research performance. 4. the downside of using metrics and quantitative indicators in evaluating research performance the use of bibliometric indicators to assess scientific research performance has generated a considerable amount of discussion (garfield, 1979: 359). three of these indicators are the journal impact factor (if), the hirsch index (h-index) and the eigen factor. the journal impact factor is currently used by science policymakers, researchers and funding agencies to assess impact and quality of research output. in spite of the perceived advantages, science policymakers and research funders need to be aware of the limitations, misuse and negative effects of metrics-based evaluation of research performance (schoonbaert & roelants, 1996; amin & mabe, 2000; bordons et al., 2002; leydesdorff, 2008; pendlebury, 2009). the sections that follow discuss some of the problems related to the use of metrics and quantitative indicators for evaluating research output. 4.1 language biases in indexing journals the value of impact indicators of research performance is dependent on the inclusion or exclusion of research publications in the wos databases (van leeuwen et al., 2001). language of scientific publications plays a key role in the inclusion or exclusion of a publication. there is empirical evidence that most of the journals indexed by isi wos are english. obviously, there are some journals of high quality and importance that are not covered by isi’s web of science simply because they are not written in english. for instance, a significant number of journals in germany, france, spain, switzerland and even africa are not indexed on the basis of their language. since these journals are not indexed, this affects the impact factor scores of individual researchers, institutions and countries. incidentally, the impact factor measures of english journals in mainly us and uk far outweigh those of nonenglish language journals (van leeuwen et al., 2001). as a matter of fact, the isi wos 8 the times higher education ranks universities on the basis of their research influence – measured by the number of times a university’s published work is cited by academics. this is the largest measure of the broad rankings categories which accounts for 32.5% of the overall score. available at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/20102011/analysis-methodology.html#citations. accessed on 20 may 2011. bakuwa 118 databases are dominated by american publications (coryn, 2006: 118). this means that the impact factor measure does not reflect all scientific research output in a particular country. it would be naïve of policymakers to compare and evaluate national science systems solely on the basis of the impact factor as provided by jcr. simply put, the journal impact factor is not a good measure of research output of institutions or countries. according to van leeuwen and colleagues (2001) science policymakers need to acknowledge that, although english is considered to be the most important language of science, other languages are also used (van leeuwen et al., 2001: 336). in their scathing criticism of the use of the impact factor to evaluate research performance, hecht and colleagues (1998) claim that the impact factor has clearly become a key marketing tool where some journals are being promoted at the expense of others. they think that the ‘impact factor’ is misnamed, misleading and hence misused by science policymakers (hecht et al., 1998: 77). 4.2 discipline-related biases the isi web of science coverage is also biased towards the science disciplines. the wos has a multidisciplinary coverage of over 12 000 journals worldwide across more than 250 disciplines (http://thomsonreuters.com). web of science has excellent coverage of the sciences, particularly of molecular biology and biochemistry, biological sciences related to humans, clinical medicine, physics, astronomy and chemistry (schoonbaert & roelants, 1996). the coverage for social sciences and arts and humanities is moderate. the science citation index (sci) has 8 500 journals across 150 science disciplines. the social sciences index (ssi) has 3 000 journals across 55 social sciences disciplines while the arts and humanities citation index (ahci) has 1 700 journals across 56 disciplines. the foregoing suggests that science disciplines dominate coverage of over 60% in the wos databases. while most physical science publications are in journal format, the social sciences and the arts and humanities are mostly published in books and therefore not indexed by isi, negatively affecting citation counts and impact factors. it is also worthwhile to note that citation patterns are discipline-linked and this affects absolute citation counts and journal impact factors (schoonbaert & roelants, 1996), the latter which depends on the research field (seglen, 1997). the science disciplines, like molecular biology and biochemistry, publish and cite more than the other disciplines. 75% of social science publications are not even cited once, while the arts and humanities publications are worse off with an average of 98% publications that are not cited (schoonbaert & roelants, 1996). it also seems that citation to social sciences and humanities publications only occurs long after the publication date. this affects the number of citations in these disciplines. the exclusion of social sciences and humanities journals in the wos databases means that they will always have a low impact factor. ironically, the impact factor is what is used to index journals in the wos databases. this is why the journal impact factor alone should not be a basis for making science policies. 4.3 research quality and metrics-based evaluation of research performance the impact factor is increasingly becoming a measure for determining quality of research. it has become standard practice for science policymakers and research funders to use the impact factor as a basis for policy decisions (moed, 2005). for instance, some journals such as nature and science are considered as high quality journals because they have high a impact factor. by implication, all the papers that are published in these two high impact journals are also of sub-saharan african citation impact indicators of research performance td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 112122. 119 high quality. suffice to say that a high impact factor does not necessarily denote a high quality journal and conversely, a low impact factor does not necessarily denote a low quality journal. the number of citations has become a major determinant for research rankings. but citations do not measure research quality. this implies that rankings do not reflect research quality, but rather research quantity; they merely show the position or significance of researchers (frey & rost, 2010: 2). some studies have criticized the impact factor as being too simple a measure that does not capture enough of the multidimensional phenomena of a journal’s influence and quality (hobbs & stewart, 2006; seglen, 1997; coryn, 2006; williams, 2007; pendlebury 2009; frey & rost, 2010). it is important to understand that it is only possible to obtain an impact factor if publications are indexed by isi wos. not all research publications are, however, indexed by isi wos and the criterion for inclusion or exclusion of publications in isi wos is hugely biased as some journals, institutions and countries are favored above others. if some publications are not indexed and the impact factor for journals produced by jcr yearly determines quality of research, then the impact factor is indeed a flawed measure of research quality. moed (2005) is of the view that that citation impact has limited value as an indicator of research quality (moed, 2005: 81). the best way to evaluate quality of research is by combining bibliometric indicators with peer reviews (moed, 2009). 4.4 relevance of scientific research vs number of citations although bibliometric and other citation indicators can measure the influence scientific research has, it is not a measure of the relevance or usefulness of research. a journal with a low impact factor, for example, may be very relevant within its social context. in other words, low impact factor does not necessarily denote that the journal is irrelevant. in south africa 40 out of 274 journals accredited by the department of higher education are indexed by isi wos. thus, over 200 journals (mostly in social sciences and arts and humanities) are assumed to have a low impact factor; hence they are not indexed. however, this does not mean that they are irrelevant when it comes to solving certain socio-economic problems in south africa. some of these journals are published in national languages, i.e. afrikaans. it would be naïve to discard these journals as useless. bibliometric indicators do not capture this aspect of research performance. 5. peer review or metrics-based evaluation of research output it is necessary to assess research performance. one assessment method is using metrics and quantitative indicators. this has merits and demerits. in the light of the limitations and criticisms discussed in this paper, how should research performance then be assessed? some researchers suggest that we should disregard impact factors and use peer reviews (williams, 2007). others wonder to what extent peer reviews are objective (garfield 2003; schoonbaert & roelants, 1996). schoonbaert and roelants (1996) is of the opinion that peer reviews are prone to all kinds of biases, such as sympathy, antipathy, nepotism, in-house bias, ‘old boys’ networks, filling up socio-political quota, etc. seglen (1997b) has aptly argued that there is a need for more qualified experts to read and evaluate the contents of publications. this should complement the use of metrics. he quotes sidney brenner who once said: “what matters absolutely is the scientific content of a paper, and nothing will substitute for either knowing or reading it.” (seglen, 1997a: 497). indeed, an assessment of the contents of papers is important as this vindicates whether the journal impact factor really determines the quality of one’s research. bakuwa 120 6. the problem of using citation impact indicators to measure research quality one of the contentious issues in the study of bibliometrics is about the use of citation impact indicators to measure research quality. some analysts argue that citations are a good measure of research impact rather than quality (seglen, 1997b; moed, 2005; williams 2007). seglen argues that evaluating quality of research output is a very difficult task which has no standard solution (seglen, 1997b: 497). moed (2005) thinks that as much as citation impact can be understood as an indicator of research quality, it does not give a comprehensive picture of quality (moed, 2005: 81). in other words, one needs a different set of tools to measure research quality. the argument can be extended further by proposing that the use of journal impact factors to determine the quality of a journal is questionable and that a high impact journal is not necessarily a high quality journal. for instance, one can claim that science and nature are high impact journals, but this does not guarantee that they are high quality journals. measuring quality or excellence of research is a mammoth task. tijssen (2003) points out that the notion of ‘research excellence’ (good quality science) has not been clearly defined as it is complex and multi-faceted, and has aptly argued that assessment of research excellence requires “a systematic and interactive approach, combining multiple perspectives and stakeholders, while incorporating a wide range of information sources and quantitative indicators within the analytical framework of a “scoreboard”” (tijssen, 2003: 91). this means that one cannot use a single indicator i.e., journal impact factor, to assess the quality of a journal. others have suggested that the quality of research is accurately assessed when metrics (including bibliometric indicators) are combined with peer reviews (frey & rost, 2010; moed, 2009). the above observation has far reaching implications. it implies that not all journals indexed by isi web of science or scopus are of high quality, and conversely, not all journals not indexed by these databases are of low quality. but equally vexing is the implication that all decisions made by science policy makers based on the numbers of citations are questionable; this, of course, includes decisions to rank world universities, award nobel prize laureates and index journals in web of science or scopus. a question that remains to be answered is: does sub-saharan africa produce high quality journals that are not indexed by isi’s web of science? 7. conclusion to sum up, sub-saharan africa’s contribution to global science, now at 1.8%, leaves a lot to be desired. partly, this is because not many african journals are indexed by isi web of science. this has contributed to sub-saharan african countries’ poor showing on the global map as reflected in the number of recipients of nobel prize awards, position and number of african universities on world university rankings and number of african journal articles indexed by web of science. african academics and institutions need to improve on both impact and quality of research output to be globally competitive. one measure of research impact and quality is the number of citations. there are some bibliometricians who think that citations alone cannot fully measure research quality, but that metrics should be combined with peer reviews. they argue that the quality of research is best assessed by sub-saharan african citation impact indicators of research performance td, 10(1), july 2014, pp. 112122. 121 qualified experts. nonetheless, it is this researcher’s opinion that citation impact indicators are useful and important, even in the developing countries of sub-saharan africa. references amin, m. & mabe, m. 2000. impact factors: use and abuse. perspectives in publishing 1:1-6. bordons, m. et al. 2002. advantages and limitations in the use of impact factor measures for the assessment of research performance in a peripheral country. scientometrics 53.2:195-206. centre for science and technology studies (leiden university). 2010. leiden ranking 2010. available at: 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reuters’ web of science. available at: http://thomsonreuters.com. accessed on 24 february 2014. the times higher education. 2011. the world university rankings 2010-2011. available at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/20102011/top-200.html. accessed on 21 may 2011. van leeuwen, t. n. et al. 2001. language biases in the coverage of the science citation index and its consequences for international comparisons of national research performance. scientometrics 51.1:335-346. williams, g. 2007. should we ditch impact factors? bmj 334: 568. zitt, m. & bassecoulard, e. challenges for scientometric indicators: data demining, knowledge-flow measurements and diversity issues. inter-research 8 (2008): 49-60. available online at: www.int-res.com. accessed on 21 may 2011. abstract introduction research methods and design results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) anita bosch stellenbosch business school, faculty of economic and management sciences, stellenbosch university, cape town, south africa georgina pondayi stellenbosch business school, faculty of economic and management sciences, stellenbosch university, cape town, south africa citation bosch a, pondayi g. gendered research grant conditions and their effect on women’s application (dis)engagement. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1281. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1281 original research gendered research grant conditions and their effect on women’s application (dis)engagement anita bosch, georgina pondayi received: 22 aug. 2022; accepted: 29 sept. 2022; published: 20 dec. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract men continue to outperform women in obtaining funding through research grants globally, in both science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) and social science, in multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary fields. this article focuses on the role of research grant funding conditions in women’s lack of research grant funding. grant conditions are the rules of participation and funding use set out by grant funders. this study aimed to answer the question: how do grant conditions limit women’s propensity to engage with research grant applications? research grants from the open 4 research database were analysed. research careers with a reproductive life-cycle perspective and four feminist concepts were deliberately gendered. these resulted in a theoretical framework. a content analysis on n = 270 multidisciplinary early career grants for those who already have a phd was conducted. grants were selected from both the social science and stem disciplines. the findings suggest that, overwhelmingly, grant conditions are gender-neutral, assuming no differences between women and men. a comparison between stem and social science grant conditions also show very little difference. the article provides a framework to guide multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary grant funders in crafting deliberately gendered grant conditions. transdisciplinary contribution: a pre-application phase to the research grant application process by problematising gender neutrality in early-career researcher grant conditions is introduced. it is posited that grants’ gender neutrality is discouraging women to consider applying, resulting in self-exclusion early in the pre-application phase. keywords: grant conditions; research grants; gender; grant applications; research careers; early career researchers; women researchers. introduction parity in the numbers of women and men researchers can be achieved, as there are sufficient numbers of qualified women in most major disciplines of study.1,2 however, women are less likely than men to be awarded research grants.3,4,5,6 women grant recipients are likely to produce more publications and attain a higher research impact h-index than nonrecipients.7 blanchard et al.8 indicated that women early-career grant recipients gain economic, social and cultural capital, which are essential for promotion in a researcher career. receiving grant funding is therefore an important indicator of researcher development and impact. the cumulative effect of grant funding over the span of a research career makes the attainment of grant funding especially important for early-career women researchers. more recently, a number of studies9,10,11 on grant funding and gender inequality have focused on the grant application review process. this article aims to contribute to a better understanding of gender inequity in multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research grants by shifting the focus from the reviewer to the grant funder, specifically to an underexplored area of investigation, namely grant conditions. grant conditions are the stipulations by grant funders regarding grants, such as the rules, the mode, the place of research collaboration and the inclusion and exclusion criteria of grant holders. this was the focus of the article, as previous research has predominantly focused on three actors, namely: (1) women grant applicants, specifically improving the writing skills of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) careers to write grant applications;12 (2) grant reviewers, by investigating differential treatment of women’s and men’s grant applications through mechanisms such gendered language use;13 and (3) grant funders, such as adaptations of grant scoring and selection criteria by grant funders to increase gender parity in grant outcomes.9 research on these three actors fits into the outline of the three main stages in the funding–productivity nexus,14 namely: (1) applying for a grant, (2) successful fundraising and (3) conducting the research. this article argues that there is an additional phase – the pre-application phase – in this nexus, a phase that is invisible to grant funders and grant reviewers. grant funders, through the grant conditions attached to grant funding calls, play a decision-shaping role in the pre-application phase. women have ‘the tendency to be careful, deliberate, and thorough’.15 therefore, grant conditions are an important yardstick in the pre-application phase, against which women researchers carefully weigh up their lived realities. if grant conditions do not support the realities that women researchers experience, women’s tendency to be less optimistic16, more conscientious17 in adhering to stated grant conditions and more risk averse18 will lead to disengagement with grant applications. this study therefore focused on grant conditions in the context of the pre-application phase, with the aim of answering the following question: how do grant conditions limit women’s propensity to engage with research grant applications? theoretical framework the theoretical framework in the article utilised elements of christina hughes’s19 key concepts in feminist theory, namely difference, care, time and choice. the first element of the framework is difference. not only are there differences between women and men based on their reproductive and hormonal functioning, but there are also vast differences in their societal roles. these facts are commonly acknowledged.20,21 addressing diversity is key according to linnehan and konrad,22 as managers of large systems often misunderstand the role and place of differential treatment to address acknowledged differences in order to achieve equality. felski,23 cited in hughes,19 asserted that ‘the antithesis of difference is not equality but sameness’. this article argues that sameness in treatment may lead to unintended inequity. in the theoretical framework, this article framed difference to have ‘universal commonality of womanhood’,19 in line with evans’s24 woman-centred schema of difference, namely that women as a grouping are different from men. in this study, women and men are treated in the binary from a cisgender perspective. this allowed us to explore grant conditions with this heuristic device for purposes of this study, although we acknowledge that there are other distinguishing differences within womanhood. if difference is acknowledged between women and men based on societal structures, it then stands to reason that there are differences in society’s expectations of women researchers. in addition, women are reproductively active and may have children quite early on or decide to have them well past the age of 40. the second element of the framework is care.19 care is connected to work, labour, time available to do research and the place where the care needs to be given. in addition to the dissolution of the nuclear family, the economic survival of families in urban settings, which is where universities and research institutes are mostly located, has brought about the necessity for mothers who are carers to also be breadwinners.25 women also intentionally aim for economic independence, and in the case of researchers, women participate in education and innovation to develop and utilise their talents towards self-actualisation and the betterment of society. however, care in households, especially care for the elderly, young and vulnerable, in combination with simultaneous earning, results in ‘inevitable periods of dependency and vulnerability across the life course’.25 while most women do not resent their care responsibilities,26 the unpaid care and associated labour they perform form the backbone of the ‘growth and well-being of families and communities’, on which all societies rely.25 in families where care is required for children and/or elderly members, the care is often outsourced and is a personal financial expense item.27 in europe, involvement of grandparents in regularly caring for the young is increasingly becoming a support mechanism for families.28 caregiving by extended family members such as grandparents, sisters and aunts29 has been part of the traditional support structure for women from less industrialised countries. irrespective of whether a woman researcher’s caregiving responsibilities are shouldered by a grandparent or another member of the extended family, the woman researcher remains responsible for the economic stability of the caregiver who is standing in for her. in addition, close proximity to the person who needs the care is required for caregiving to take place. the third element of the framework is time. the linear career path of a male scientist should not be assumed for all researchers, and universities and grant-funding institutions should instead ‘experiment with life course options’.30 linear time, where time is seen as a set of sequential events – with a beginning that leads to something towards an end – has been challenged in feminist writing.31 for instance, many women ‘envisage motherhood as part of their futures; this aspiration is [often] not structured as a plan with concrete times’32 and a specific end-state. women’s reproductive life cycle, or their potential for reproduction, may result in no childbearing, bearing children at a young age or bearing children much later, since reproductive advances have resulted in women being able to delay having their first child in order to focus on their careers.33 therefore, women scientists may obtain a phd at varying ages during their reproductive life cycle – not necessarily before having children. research careers are formally built from the point of attaining a phd,34 which implies that women scientists’ research careers may start at various ages, thus not necessarily following a linear pattern starting at a relatively young age. in addition, women researchers may also choose adoption to overcome biological limits to having a child of their own.32 of importance is the notion that ‘feminine time exists in relation to the time demands of others’19 and may therefore not be based on the woman researcher’s preferred choice but instead be dictated to her by life circumstances. the final element of the theoretical framework is choice.19 plummer35 asserted that ‘the idea that we are autonomous human beings that can choose the kind of personal life we wish to live has become a deeply entrenched one’. however, women’s personal lives are intertwined with societal expectations of them being good daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, while also being breadwinners. these constraints entangle to influence women researchers’ autonomy in choosing to apply for grant funding during the pre-application phase. thus, although grant funding opportunities are available to women researchers, the choice to apply for the funding is constrained by social power structures. ‘power works through subjects, “not in terms of crude manipulation, but by structuring our sense of self, by constructing particular kinds of subjectivity”’.36 if the intersection of time and care is viewed within current practices of research careers following a linear path, it may bring about assumptions that women with young children are not suited to a research career.37 when combined, the four feminist analysis elements create a theoretical framework with indicators that can be utilised to analyse research grant conditions. these are summarised in table 1. table 1: feminist framework to analyse research grant conditions. gendered fields of study funding systems are deemed biased in favour of men, a situation that is compounded by a favouring of ‘male-dominated and culturally masculine positions and fields’, when in fact, grant funders need to consider a wide range of academic disciplines.38 these disciplines are increasingly becoming more multidisciplinary. fields dominated by men include stem. broadly speaking, there are more men employed in stem fields globally than in fields of work underpinned by qualifications in the social sciences.39 this concentration of a sex in a field is influenced by the pipeline and available talent. it is also shaped by organisational regimes, which are ‘loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions and meanings that result in and maintain’ gender inequalities.40 therefore, if a greater level of gender equality is to be achieved, the talent pipeline and the organisational regimes need to be changed. for instance, regimes dominated by men often have a blind spot regarding care, ‘as they are premised on the existence of paid workers who are unencumbered by caring responsibilities’,41 since society may not expect men to be involved in caring or to view caring as central to their identities. the opposite expectations befall women. the division of labour, workplace interactions, cultural symbols, individual worker identities and organisational logic are gendered.42 consequently, the collective of employees within a field also becomes gendered, causing the field to ultimately become gendered. multidisciplinary fields of study such as engineering and physical sciences, including biomedical engineering, energy conservation and nonrenewable energy and fossil fuels, are dominated by men, while the social sciences are dominated by women. research methods and design the study followed a feminist approach which impacted the elements included in the analysis, the research question and how the data were viewed. from extant literature, the elements that have been found to affect women’s intentions to apply for research grants were determined, and a framework of these elements was constructed (table 1). thereafter, document analysis to examine available grants internationally was performed, using the framework to expose gender-related hindrances women encounter in considering applying for a research grant. data sources the search terms included grants, women, female and gender. the open 4 research database was used to draw a sample of international multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research funding opportunities for analysis. this article focused on grant opportunities for early-career researchers, as these researchers should already be in possession of a phd, eliminating problematic comparison between groups with and without a phd. obtaining grants within the early-career phase is also very important for the career success of researchers.7 sample selection the search was limited to grants that were open as at february 2022. all funding opportunities other than grants and closed grants were excluded. thereafter, the browse funding link in the portal menu was used to select the status early-career researcher. this yielded eight research disciplines, which were filtered to include only engineering and physical sciences and economic and social research. within engineering and physical sciences, the following interdisciplinary fields were selected: (1) biomedical engineering, (2) energy conservation and (3) non-renewable energy and fossil fuels, representing male-dominated stem fields. the feminised field of social science was selected to allow comparison. relevant funding opportunities for the chosen categories were obtained by clicking the view all category for results on each discipline. this yielded full information on all applicable funds. the results were filtered according to funding type and status. the grant funding option was selected and refined through the selection of current and future grant opportunities. data collection process the filtered results were sorted alphabetically on the open 4 research platform. to create the report, the grants to be included were identified by placing a tick in the relevant box(es) and then clicking to produce a report. the funding search results were then exported to a microsoft word document and then transferred to a microsoft excel data-extraction sheet (both by microsoft corporation, redmond, washington, united states). document analysis using a content analysis strategy was used to collect data from the grant reports. the grant documents were read while collecting data, and pertinent information was entered into the excel spreadsheet based on the indicators listed in table 1 to enable a structured examination of the data. the researchers employed content analysis to extrapolate elements identified in the gendered theoretical framework and other points that could assist in answering the research question. figure 1 is the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) chart detailing the identification, screening and selection of grants. table 2 reports the search results. the search yielded a total of n = 270 grant opportunities for analysis. figure 1: preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) chart showing the identification, screening and selection of grants. table 2: search results for available grants. data analysis the selected grants were analysed using an excel spreadsheet with the following columns: grant name, gender, time since completion of phd, age, geographical location, travel stipend and family and other considerations, in line with the four feminist elements as outlined in table 1. data analysis followed a systematic process of content analysis, reading and objective reflection during the collection of information from the contextual source. in the analysis stage, the gathered data were sifted and sorted in accordance with the elements identified from literature, shown in table 1. an inductive process was followed to create data from reading the grant conditions; therefore, points subsequently raised are contextually grounded (i.e. based on data). an abductive process was followed to ascertain whether the framework reflected the collected information. ethical considerations the study utilises secondary data which is publicly available. as such, the study was declared exempt from ethical clearance via the stellenbosch university, reference number 26079569. results the sections below provide a description of indicators in table 1, linked to the findings from the related analysis of the conditions within grants. age cut-off many grants limit the age of researchers who may apply by stipulating an age cut-off point. the present study’s analysis found the following in this regard: social science: n = 5 grants specified a cut-off age, namely a maximum age of 30 (n = 1), a maximum age of 40 (n = 3) and ‘… preference is given to younger applicants’ (n = 1); nonrenewable energy and fossil fuels: maximum 40 years (n = 1), maximum 30 years (n = 1) and ‘young people or researchers’ (n = 4); biomedical engineering: maximum 40 years (n = 1), maximum 30 years (n = 1) and ‘young’ (n = 4); and energy conservation: maximum 40 years (n = 1), maximum 30 years (n = 1) and ‘young’ (n = 3). to determine if this has a limiting effect on women when considering the intersection of age and stages of women’s career life cycles as posited by blackwell and glover,44 the limitation to women’s career life cycles were compared. reproductive life cycle there was no specific mention of reproductive life cycles in the analysed grant conditions, although age gives us reference to women’s most fertile years.45 the age cut off-data stated above is between 30 and 40 years, which correlate with ages when women predominantly have children. in addition, this limitation should be understood in conjunction with care responsibilities. linked to the age limits for early career grants, women’s reproductive life cycles dictate a focus on childbearing that may thus lead to self-exclusion. no grants (n = 0) referred to any maternity or childbearing provisions. care responsibilities the present researchers examined whether the grants indicated consideration of women’s reproductive life cycle and care responsibilities. not a single grant (n = 0) specified that individuals will be assisted in fulfilling any care duties. related to care responsibilities is the reality that the locations of research projects are often abroad in relation to the woman’s place of residence. lubitow and zippel46 contended that a woman’s geographical location can limit her mobility for career purposes. this consideration is particularly limiting if a woman has young children. therefore, the travel stipend indicated in the grants was analysed to ascertain whether this factor was ameliorated. social science grants (n = 3) indicated a travel stipend but did not indicate that it may be used to visit home, and only one (n = 1) grant noted that the organisation was willing to pay a ‘mobility allowance’, together with provision for ‘familyand long-term leave’. this was also the case for one grant (n = 1) which was available in each of three male-dominated fields: nonrenewable energy and fossil fuels, biomedical engineering and energy conservation. time since completion of phd some grants specified a maximum period from the researcher having completed a phd: social science: 3 years (n = 1); 4 years (n = 1); 5 years (n = 2); 8 years (n = 1); 10 years (n = 16); and 12 years (n = 1) energy conservation: 4 years (n = 2); 5 years (n = 5); and 8 years (n = 2) biomedical engineering: 3 years (n = 1); 4 years (n = 2); 5 years (n = 2); and 8 years (n = 1) nonrenewable energy and fossil fuels: 4 years (n = 2); 5 years (n = 1); and 8 years (n = 1). only one grant in each field (n = 4) noted that ‘[c]areer breaks will not count towards the above maximum’. these grants did not specify that women applicants were sought, only that particular attention is paid to gender balance. it is also clear that the stem fields’ cut-off points are earlier than those of social sciences, which is not conducive to attracting more women when considering the compound effect of the other factors women have to bear in mind. this externally imposed limitation is thus another variable that needs to be factored in when considering the research opportunity. while aligned to the career path dominated by men, it may create severe restrictions for women who have to balance the right grant at the right time with all the factors related to their age and thus their career life cycle and reproduction. a concerning finding is that the vast majority of the grants indicated that the opportunities were ‘[gender] neutral’, and exceptions were few. in the field of energy conservation, n = 3 grants indicated ‘attention to gender balance’ and n = 1 grant specified ‘female researchers’. however, only n = 1 of these grants specified ‘mobility allowance and family leave’. in biomedical engineering, n = 3 grants stated ‘attention to gender balance’, and only n = 1 grant specified ‘female’, but again, only n = 1 grant specified ‘mobility allowance and family leave’. in non-renewable energy and fossil fuels, n = 2 grants noted ‘attention to gender balance’ and n = 1 grant indicated ‘female’. even in the feminine field of social science, only n = 3 grants noted ‘attention to gender balance’, while none (n = 0) of the grants indicated ‘female’, and only n = 1 grant noted ‘mobility allowance and family leave’. ironically, none (n = 0) of the grants that specified ‘female researcher’ referred to any allowance related to mobility or family leave. furthermore, it must be noted that all instances of consideration of family were by only one entity – the european union. discussion the key feminist concepts that formed the theoretical framework in this article – difference, care, time and choice – elucidated the circumstances under which women may self-exclude in the pre-application phase, because of the grant conditions set by grant funders. analysing the research grant conditions from a feminist perspective enabled us to uncover hindrances women face. the way grant conditions are formulated may create discomfort in women’s self-assessment whether to apply for grants or self-exclude themselves before application. the analysis of grant conditions reveal that grant conditions are formulated in a gender-neutral manner. on the face of it, gender neutrality is a safe way of stating conditions, as every grant applicant is provided with exactly the same conditions – thereby eliminating any alleged unfair treatment.1 however, when the element of difference between women and men is acknowledged, the gender neutrality argument becomes less egalitarian and more exclusionary. in support of this conclusion, the data shows age cut-offs within childbearing years, no grants providing maternity or childcare benefits, only one grant with a family mobility benefit and only four grants that took career breaks into consideration. women’s career cycles are different from men’s, amongst others, because women may need to take a career break to have children and care for them full-time while they are babies.47 this alters their career trajectories and career life cycles. given the purported neutrality in the grant conditions analysed, women are regarded the same as men, without opportunity to acknowledge difference. when considering that many research grants state a term of up to eight years and require the researcher to conduct fieldwork up to 50% of the time, coupled with staff exchange programmes, the conflict women face in terms of fertility and care becomes glaringly obvious. these requirements become particularly onerous for women who then have to conduct research far away from home without grants providing for childcare support or family travel arrangements. in addition, women of all ages tend to have care responsibilities within the family. it is thus clear that the finding of gender neutrality in grants (i.e. compliance with equality numbers), will not result in equity for women researchers. only two grant conditions expressly excluded certain researchers (age and time since completion of phd). however, women researchers’ realities (career life cycle, reproductive life cycle and care commitments) may lead to self-exclusion, resulting in women’s underrepresentation in applying to receive research grant funding. there are also several issues involved in the layering of time in grant conditions, for example, age cut-offs and time since completion of phd. given the low numbers of grants that move beyond gender-neutrality, it remains disappointing that only 4 grants out of 270 consider career breaks in continuity in respect to time since completion of phd. women’s gendered roles result in unpaid care work for the elderly and children in families. when considering the pre-application phase of research grants, given the inflexibility of most grants regarding care work, women could make an assessment that the grant will not make provision for their lived realities, resulting in women being unlikely to apply. grant funders who design and award grants should consider whether age-cut offs are necessary, as well as how restrictive these should be. when it comes to choice, we argue that women may not be at liberty to choose as freely as is assumed to apply for research grants, as they may feel confined by caregiving responsibilities associated with societal norms. stating that women therefore choose not to apply for grants, without acknowledging the contextual pressures for such so-called choices, masks the underlying assumptions of grant conditions. the grant conditions of the majority of the funders in the dataset did not acknowledge women’s realities. the analysis of grants from disciplines dominated by both men and women (i.e. social sciences and stem) contradicts the assumption that grant conditions are shaped around the characteristics of the majority researchers in a discipline. instead, grant conditions in both disciplines dominated by men and women remain gender neutral. we argue that it is within grant funders’ ability to address these concerns by differently shaping grant conditions to meet the needs of researchers. the manner in which grant conditions are currently shaped and stated, has the power to limit women’s propensity to apply for research grants. women may be deselecting themselves before attempting to apply during the pre-application phase by contemplating whether they can effectively balance the demands of domestic activities according to gender norms and the requirements of the grant conditions. grant conditions are an important yardstick in the pre-application phase, one against which women researchers carefully weigh up their lived realities. while data on the number of women in relation to men who apply for research grants is not readily available, we maintain that there are many women scientists who are simply not able to reconcile their lived experiences with the constraints of grant conditions. therefore, if grant conditions do not support the realities that women researchers experience, women’s tendency to be less optimistic,15 more conscientious and more careful17,18 in adhering to grant conditions is likely to lead to their disengagement from the research grant application process. while none of the limitations under study in relation to difference, care, time and choice in isolation seem major, the compound effect is that once a woman has met the external conditions of age and time since completion of her phd, she then has to consider her career stage. once these conditions have been satisfied, she has to calculate her window of fertility, bearing in mind family planning and subsequent childcare, and consider how she would meet any care responsibilities she may have, now and in the future. even if she has been able to negotiate all these obstacles, research abroad without the necessary support through grant funding conditions may simply be impossible without accommodation of the cost of care and family leave. limitations and recommendations for future research the data for the study were drawn from a single source, the open 4 research database, at a single point in time. although the database serves as a comprehensive collection of available grants, future studies could analyse data from multiple database sources. future studies could also compare trends in the changes of grant condition conditions longitudinally. trends, especially a lack of change in grant conditions over time, could support the argument that grant funders are not shifting in their thinking about the role that grant conditions play in shaping women researcher’s research careers. grant funding agencies could analyse whether there is an increased trend for women researchers to apply for grants. gaining access to grant applicant data is difficult, but grant funders could collect such data for descriptive analyses. research on the decision-making criteria and contexts under which women researchers carefully weigh up their lived realities in the grant pre-application phase will aid grant funders in shaping grant conditions more optimally. conclusion women who want to embark on a research career have to negotiate multiple realities, intensified by the intersection between grant conditions on the one hand and motherhood and care responsibilities, coupled with their career life-cycle and childbearing years, on the other.45 when viewing multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary grant conditions through a feminist lens with the elements of difference, care, time and choice, the article points to several issues that may impede women to seriously consider applying for grants. the self-exclusion may occur during the pre-application phase, which is not open to observation by grant funders. in this manner, grant conditions have the ability to shape women researchers’ propensity to deselect themselves. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions a.b. conceptualised the study, supervised the work, provided the resources, co-wrote the initial manuscript, developed the analysis framework and wrote the final manuscript. g.p. collected the data, conducted data analysis and wrote the initial draft. funding information the authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors and the publisher. references bosch a. gender inequality at work. in: daya p, aril k, editors. 12 lenses into diversity in south africa. johannesburg: knowres resources, 2021; p. 91–104. unesco. unesco research shows women career scientists still face gender bias [homepage on the internet]. 2021. 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p. 73–91. lubitow a, zippel k. strategies of academic parents to manage work–life conflict in research abroad. in: demos v, berheide cw, segal mt, editors. gender transformation in the academy. new york, ny: emerald group publishing, 2014; p. 63–84. mavin s. women’s career in theory and practice: time for change? wmr. 2001;16(4):183–192. https://doi.org/10.1108/09649420110392163 abstract introduction multiple literacies theory emerging conceptualisations of peace and approaches to peace education reading the connections between peace education and teaching english to speakers of other language through multiple literacies theory conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) frans kruger school of education studies, university of the free state, south africa rinelle evans department of humanities education, university of pretoria, south africa citation kruger, e. & evans, r., 2018, ‘a transdisciplinary exploration: reading peace education and teaching english to speakers of other languages through multiple literacies theory’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a525. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.525 original research a transdisciplinary exploration: reading peace education and teaching english to speakers of other languages through multiple literacies theory frans kruger, rinelle evans received: 30 nov. 2017; accepted: 12 apr. 2018; published: 17 sept. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract since the early 1990s peace education has increasingly informed the field of teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol). more recently, this transdisciplinary dialogue has found expression in approaches such as peace linguistics, peace sociolinguistics and content-based language instruction that incorporate peace-related content into language learning curricula. in this conceptual article, we aim to contribute towards the transdisciplinary possibilities generated between peace education and tesol by reading these possibilities through the lens of the multiple literacies theory (mlt). we set out to argue that mlt offer a means to explore the connections between peace education and literacies as entangled with affective, material and discursive practices. introduction in this article, we consider the potential of transdisciplinarity as it finds expression in the fields of peace education and teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol). transdisciplinarity starts from a position that recognises ‘the inherent complexity of reality’ (bernstein 2015:para. 30) and sets out to explore the often overlooked connections between different fields of study. to explore what we believe to be instances of such overlooked connections between the fields of peace education and tesol, we draw on the multiple literacies theory (mlt) (masny 2010; masny & cole 2009; masny & waterhouse 2011; waterhouse 2011). before setting out our argument, it is important to highlight two points. the first is to recognise that tesol is a relatively small field within the south african education landscape. although small, the field can be subdivided into three areas. firstly, tesol finds expression in non-degree short courses offered by universities (e.g. university of south africa, university of the witwatersrand language school, university of cape town english language centre and nelson mandela university’s unit for continuing education), as well as private institutions. upon successful completion, one is (usually) qualified to teach english as a second (esl) or foreign language (efl) either within south africa, or as more often the case, internationally. to a lesser extent, tesol is also offered as a postgraduate qualification at a few south african universities (e.g. stellenbosch university and university of south africa). the second area associated with tesol involves english for academic purposes (eap) programmes offered at both privately owned language institutions and language centres associated with specific universities (e.g. university of the witwatersrand and university of kwazulu-natal) (jordaan 2011). these programmes are most often attended by international adult language learners who wish to obtain the prerequiste academic english language proficiency (cummins 2008) to enroll for study at a south african university. the third area associated with tesol in south africa involves short courses (e.g. english for specific purposes, english for academic purposes and english as a second or foreign language), ranging from two weeks to one year, offered mostly by private language institutions to international adult learners. secondly, we acknowledge that the field of tesol is not unproblematic and that it is criticised for contributing to the spread of a globalised hegemony closely associated with neo-liberal capitalism (see, e.g. masny & waterhouse 2016). we also work from the premise that english language teaching and learning are not neutral or value-free practices (pennycook 2006; phillipson 2009). it is precisely these problematic aspects of tesol from which our research emerges and from where we set out to explore the transdisciplinary connections between peace education and tesol. in what follows, we introduce mlt in order to consider how this theoretical orientation allows us to interrogate the complexity of the connections between peace education and tesol. in doing this, we specifically consider the critiques offered by scholars such as bajaj (2008), gur-ze’ev (2001, 2010, 2011) and zembylas and bekerman (2013) on how peace education is conventionally framed in order to explore the different connections made evident between peace education and tesol through employing mlt. multiple literacies theory multiple literacies theory was developed by dianne masny; it seeks to make evident that literacies do not only involve learning the correct language codes but they are also about ‘desire, about transformation, becoming other than through continuous investments in reading, reading the world, and reading the self as text’ (masny 2009:15). within mlt, literacies are conceptualised as a social construct expressed ‘through words, gestures, attitudes, ways of speaking, writing, [and] valuing’ (masny 2009:13; 2010) that take on multiple meanings. literacies are constituted through multimodal texts that become fused with ‘religion, gender, race, culture, and power’ (masny 2009:13). cole (2013a:39) argues that from an mlt perspective, literacy does not only reflect ‘being able to speak and listen, read and write, but is any form of communication in life’. furthermore, within this theoretical position, a person is conceptualised as ‘a text in continuous becoming’ (masny 2009:15). for researchers that draw on mlt, this conceptualisation enables one to foreground the flows of life experiences and events through which individuals become literate. within this context, and although constituted along the same continuum, the difference between becoming literate and becoming-literate is of significance. to become literate refers to achieving predetermined outcomes that indicate whether one has obtained the desired proficiency, ability and skills in a particular target language. in contrast to this, cole (2012a:33) argues that becoming-literate comprises a ‘multi-directional and dimensional notion’ of literacy that involves ‘convergence [of] assemblage[s] … that often chaotically collide in language learning spaces’. becoming-literate thus takes cognisance of the myriad factors that impact on learning a language by attending to more than the transition ‘from being illiterate to literate’ (cole 2012a:33). this in turn enables one to focus on the connections forged between various elements and allows for transformations to occur through investment in literacies. it is through positing literacies ‘as ongoing processes whose directions, multiplicities of possible lines of flight, are not predictable a priori’ (masny 2009:14) that allows for this concept to be understood as involving ‘creative and productive processes’ (masny & waterhouse 2011:290). these processes, argue masny and waterhouse, are ongoing and emerge from events that stem from life experiences as one reads the self and the world as texts. masny and waterhouse’s use of event in this instance draws on an understanding thereof as an occurrence that unfolds based on the dynamic interaction of various affective forces. within mlt, events are understood as the ‘moments that create ruptures and difference that allow for creativity to take off along various planes, similar to a rhizome1’ (masny 2010:340). it is the creation of these ruptures and differences that create the conditions for transformation to occur. yet, in stark contrast to conventional approaches in applied linguistics that foreground linear transformation or developing proficiency in a language in terms of a programmatic logic (illiterate to literate), from an mlt perspective, although it is recognised that transformation will inevitably form part of the learning process, towards what end, however, cannot be foreseen. learning is not a linear process but responses to an unfolding of life experiences and events. as such, the transformations produced through learning (a new language such as english) have ‘neither beginnings nor endpoints, only entry and exit points that allow for more connections to be continuously created’ (masny 2010:341). thus, mlt emerges from the random collision of affects present in the teaching and learning context as it ‘examines the processes and manners in which these literate behaviours come together through becoming with the world’ (masny & cole 2009:6). this understanding of mlt is based on the idea that reading is both an intensive (or disruptive) and an immanent activity (masny & waterhouse 2011) that involves ‘constant movement – from a territory (of bounded stability) through a deterritorialisation (a disruption) to a reterritorialisation (on a different territory, a different mapping) – in the process of becoming other’ (masny 2010:339). deleuze’s (1995) assertion that reading concerns not so much exploring what a text means but rather what connections and functions it produces forms the basis of this understanding of reading. for deleuze (1995): there are, you see, two ways of reading a book; you either see it as a box with something inside and start looking for what it signifies, and then if you’re even more perverse or depraved you set off after signifiers. and you treat the next book like a box contained in the first or containing it. and you annotate and interpret and question, and write a book about the book, and so on and on. or there’s the other way: you see the book as a little non-signifying machine, and the only question is ‘does it work, and how does it work?’ how does it work for you? if it doesn’t work, if nothing comes through, you try another book. (pp. 7–8) thus, reading does not only involve the encoding and decoding of texts in order to determine what it signifies but is also about what connections it makes possible and the possible transformations that such connections may produce. it is this second aspect of reading as described by deleuze that informs mlt and through which it is posited as an intensive and immanent activity. masny and waterhouse (2011) explain this understanding of reading as follows: take this example: you are at work; you are walking down the hallway. you smell coffee and look at the clock to see that it is four o’clock. the coming together of the walk down the hallway, the smell of coffee, and seeing the time disrupts (reading intensively) and brings on the thought of vacation, the thought of it’s time to go home, the thought of … (reading immanently). (p. 292) in positioning reading as an intensive and immanent activity allows for the creative and productive aspects thereof to be foregrounded and to posit it as the emergence of sense. deleuze argues that sense is an event because it does not express ‘what something is but its power to become’ (colebrook 2002:60). it is this conceptualisation of reading within mlt that allows for it to explore how ‘words, notes and icons are actualised in situ and in interested ways’ (masny 2010:340) and how in reading the self and the world as texts enables one to explore ‘ways of becoming with the world’ (masny 2010:338). having considered some of the main aspects of mlt, we turn our attention to the emergent understandings of peace and how these understandings are also reflected in approaches to a peace education proposed by bajaj (2008), gur-ze’ev (2001, 2010, 2011) and zembylas and bekerman (2013). after having considered these selected approaches, we read them through the lens of mlt to explore the transdisciplinary possibilities this makes possible between the fields of peace education and tesol. emerging conceptualisations of peace and approaches to peace education the manner in which peace education and peace theory inform tesol (see, e.g. kruger 2012; waterhouse 2011) relies to a large extent on a normative and universalised understanding of what constitutes peace and violence (see, e.g. danesh 2005). this is not in itself problematic but arguably allows for only some of the connections between peace education and tesol to be explored within our research and teaching endeavours and how these find expression in our practice. normative and universalised understandings of peace and violence have been problematised in both peace theory and how these find expression within peace education. in providing only the position of a few scholars, we do not claim that their views are either representative or exhaustive. rather, we choose to consider their work because we believe it complements important aspects of mlt. within peace studies, webel (2007:7) argues that peace is dialectically determined and should be conceptualised as ‘an ideal without an essence, an “ideal type”’. as a concept whose meaning remains both a historical ideal and one in constant flux, peace revolves around personal and collective ethical transformation through goals and means that are continual. as such, peace becomes an intrapersonal and intersubjective praxis immanent to a particular event. in a similar vein, cubitt (2002) troubles the received understanding of peace and violence by questioning the binary opposition that governs this position. such an understanding, he argues, does not offer any grounds for progress towards the ideal of peace. accordingly, peace should be approached as being post-rational. central to a post-rational position is the surrendering to difference at a subjective and dialogical level. this means that to demand peace would necessarily involve demanding ‘a new mode of thinking, a new mode of becoming’ (cubitt 2002:12). becoming, or that which not-yet-is, stands central to cubitt’s argument as it allows peace to be understood as transitory, originating in dialogue and characterised by change. dietrich et al. (2011) similarly problematises peace as a normative and universal concept by arguing that any conception thereof should be guided by transrationality. for these authors, this entails considering peace, and the historical and contemporary practices thereof, from within different cultural frameworks. this they argue will enable one to avoid the eurocentric foundations prevalent in much of the peace studies field. grounding any understanding of peace within transrationality also allows for it to be understood as ‘a dynamic, relational network of interaction and communication’ (dietrich 2011:13), thus rendering any normative and universalised notion of peace as relative. the consequence of this is that the concept of peace is dissolved into a plurality of peaces. the difficulty of defining peace as it finds expression within peace education and the practice thereof have led scholars such as ben-porath (2003:525) to argue that the field ‘is in fact so broad that authors disagree on the description of the problem they wish to address and correspondingly on the proper solution, as well as on the site in which peace education is taking place’. for others such as harris (2004:8), the nebulous nature of peace education is not problematic because ‘[e]ach branch of this peace education family has different theoretical assumptions about the problems of violence it addresses, different peace strategies it recommends and different goals it hopes to achieve’. as such, various approaches ranging from human rights education, education for gender equality, environmental education, and education for reduction of violence in schools, to international and development education and conflict resolution are understood as a form of peace education (see, e.g. ben-porath 2003; harris 2004; zembylas & bekerman 2013). danesh (2005) has attempted to argue for a unified theory of peace education that encompasses all these various fields within his theory of integrative peace education but this position has come under direct and indirect critique by scholars such as bajaj (2008), gur-ze’ev (2001, 2010) and zembylas and berkerman (2013)2 who have all pointed out that such a position fails to question the fundamental philosophical and theoretical assumptions of the field that normalise particular ways of understanding and pedagogical practices. in this regard, bajaj (2008) argues that research should aim at gaining a better understanding of local knowledge, meanings and experiences of peace education. this call is echoed by dietrich et al. (2011) who argue that researchers and practitioners should avoid constructing metanarratives regarding the nature of peace and violence while remaining ignorant of local concepts and histories thereof and struggles towards this end. waterhouse (2011:90) refers to approaches that remain ignorant of local concepts and histories as ‘violence against diverse ways of knowing’, while zembylas and bekerman (2013:199) point out that such a position ‘undermines local understandings of how participants can cultivate a sense of transformative agency on the basis of contextual values and truth claims’. gur-ze’ev (2001:315) argues that the thin philosophical and theoretical foundations on which peace education rests, and from which universal conceptualisation of peace arise, emerge from a position that posits ‘philosophical work … as unnecessary, artificial, or even dangerous for this educational cause’. this in turn allows for an ‘ahistorical or homogenized [sic] perspective, as if there was one universal theory that could encompass everything’ (zembylas & bekerman 2013:199). in contrast to this, zembylas and bekerman propose an understanding of peace education that acknowledges multiplicity, contingency and complexity because any essentialist, normalised and universalised understanding thereof fails to recognise the multiple representations of truth and understandings of justice that emerge from within differing temporal and spatial contexts. to support this proposition, zembylas and bekerman aver that nouns such as conflict and peace, and adjectives such as peaceful and violent, are not true representations of the world because they do not possess predetermined forms. instead of considering words ‘as prepacked discrete units readily available for implementation in social life’ (zembylas & bekerman 2013:204), they should rather be understood as ‘reflective accomplishments’. such an understanding allows for words to be posited as ‘tricky constructs whose meaning is negotiated by active participants and put to work in complex social relations’ (zembylas & bekerman 2013:204). such meaning is furthermore also ‘bounded in the materiality of “things” and the practices within which concepts are performed, contextually and historically’ (zembylas & bekerman 2013:205). zembylas and bekerman’s proposition that concepts such as peace and violence have no fixed meaning in and of themselves but have to be performed, offer a welcome refrain on deleuze’s (1995) and deleuze and guattari’s (1987) assertion that it is not what a word signifies that is important, but rather what it does and how it functions; in other words, its potential to enable transformation. we lastly consider gur-ze’ev’s (2010) suggestion that peace education should be founded on co-poiesis3 and improvisation. in contrast to most conventional approaches to peace education that hold a utopian vision of a future world comprised of a redeemed humanity, gur-ze’ev (2010, 2011) calls for counter-education premised on an understanding of peace as responsible improvisation and co-poiesis. such an education, he argues, is made possible through foregrounding the importance of the ethical ‘i’ as it finds expression within the immediacy of an event. this gur-ze’ev avers makes ‘possible becoming-toward-the-world’ through ‘creativity that gives birth to alternative togetherness, to openness and responsible improvisation’ (gur-ze’ev 2011:111). it is through the practice of responsible improvisation and co-poiesis that we create the conditions in which peace can be edified anew in every moment. given this, an argument can be made that we should not only seek to determine what concepts (such as peace and violence) mean through our research and teaching and learning practices. rather, we should create explorative opportunities to experiment with what such concepts can do and the possibilities for transformation they make possible and the forms such transformations may take. if one takes up gur-ze’ev’s position, it would mean that peace education should enable the practice of an ethics of immanence that seeks to maximise one’s ‘affective power (puissance), extending connections, and forming life-affirming assemblages’ (waterhouse 2011:147). in other words, an approach that emphasises that it is through our responsible improvisation towards-the-becoming-world that we create openings for performing ‘possibilities of worlds we haven’t yet thought’ (st pierre 2013:226). the arguments of cubitt (2002), dietrich et al. (2011), and to a certain extent, webel (2007) are important for rethinking the concept of peace and how it finds expression within peace education. this is evident if one considers bajaj’s (2008) assertion that any understanding and practice of peace emerges from a particular socio-political context. zembylas and bekerman (2013:199, 205) similarly argue that it is through negotiated performances within ‘complex social relations … bounded in the materiality of “things”’ that any understanding of peace emerges. the performative aspect is also foregrounded by gur-ze’ev (2010, 2011) through his call for responsible improvisation and co-poiesis. the notion of peace as change, as transitory, as dialectical and peace education as a contextually determined practice founded on an ethics of immanence potentially opens up new possibilities for mapping the connections between peace education and tesol. to explore this, we read the connections between peace education and tesol through an mlt lens to consider the transdisciplinary possibilities that doing so facilitates. reading the connections between peace education and teaching english to speakers of other language through multiple literacies theory given the nebulous nature of peace education, the manner in which it has been taken up in tesol has spawned an array of subfields. these include approaches such as international or global education (jacobs 1990; yoshimura 1993), intercultural communication (bruneau 2000) and caring communication (mcinnis 1998). more recently, peace linguistics (crystal 2003), peace sociolinguistics (friedrich 2007) and content-based language instruction that incorporate peace-related content (allan 2011; kubota 2016) have come to the fore. given the current prominence of humanistic and communicative approaches within the field of tesol, a focus on incorporating aspects of peace education that promote communicative peace, peace building and peace maintaining practices through language is understandable (see, e.g. friedrich 2007; kruger 2012; mcinnis 1998; morgan & vandrick 2009). for as gomes de matos (n.d.:2) states: ‘as language users/learners we have both the right and the responsibility of communicating well (appropriately, accurately, meaningfully) and of communicating for the good of humankind’. the manner in which aspects of peace education are incorporated in tesol thus focuses not only on making ‘peace with language’ but also on making ‘peace through language’ (friedrich 2007:73). in working from an mlt perspective, waterhouse (2011:81) argues that a ‘litany of peace literacies’ is produced given the manner in which peace education informs tesol. within all of these literacies, the notion of literacy becomes effectively reduced ‘to a set of skills and knowledge, to an outcome and product’ (waterhouse 2011:81). such an understanding is premised on the assumption that learning unfolds linearly and programmatically. as has been argued earlier, understanding literacy development in a linear fashion does not take into consideration the dynamic processes that produce unforeseen transformations through investment in becoming-literate. similarly, from an mlt perspective, the manner in which peace education informs tesol should not reduce gaining communicative peace to a predetermined set of linguistic and communicative skills whose development trace a programmatic trajectory. employing mlt, we argue, potentially allows one to take different aspects of becoming-literate into consideration when exploring the transdisciplinary connections between peace education and tesol. this could be achieved by paying attention to the dynamic affective, discursive and material processes that are involved in and inform gaining communicative peace. in this manner, gaining communicative peace can be understood as a reflective accomplishment which responds to the argument presented by zembylas and bekerman (2013:205) that concepts such as peace are ‘bounded by the materiality of “things” and the practices within which concepts are performed, contextually and historically’. deleuze and guattari (1987) assert that language is not only a discursive but also a material practice that works on the world through speech and through transforming bodies. this understanding of language is also proposed by lecercle and riley (2004:69) who points out that although language may not physically change the body, ‘it leaves traces, or inscriptions’ on the body. as performative, language is thus not descriptive of the world but inhibits the world. as mlt enables one to consider ‘how thought [and action] might arise in education and through educational contexts’ (cole 2012b:5), it will arguably provide an opening to explore how the ‘language of peace’ and the experiences thereof in the tesol context give rise to the thought about and action towards peace. we furthermore argue that mlt enables one to address a second concern raised, namely that the normative and universal definitions proposed for the key concepts on which peace education rests are uncritically incorporated into tesol. this critique includes an understanding that not taking a critical stance towards the fundamental premises that inform peace education has as consequence that peace (and by implication peace education) is treated as a deontological ‘thing’ (page 2008; zembylas & bekerman 2013). as a concept that is deontologised and universalised, it can be argued to perpetuate eurocentric value and knowledge positions at the expense of ‘cultivating a sense of transformatory agency on the basis of contextual values and truth claims’ (zembylas & bekerman 2013:199). deleuze and guattari (1994:83) similarly critique concepts representing a universal ‘truth’ because such concepts are ‘too regular, petrified, and reduced to a framework … the most universal concepts, those presented as eternal forms or values are the most skeletal and least interesting’. from an mlt perspective, a concept such as peace is not understood as meaningful in and of itself. rather in following colebrook (2010:1), a concept, such as peace, is intensive in that it ‘does not gather together an already existing set of things’ but rather ‘allow[s] for movement and connection’. if one works from the premise that any understanding of peace is always emergent, developing from ‘a dynamic, relational network of interaction and communication’ (dietrich 2011:13), it implies that peace is invented through performance (waterhouse 2011; zembylas & bekerman 2013). as such, tesol educators cannot provide learners with promises of ‘meaning, truth, consensus, justice and peace’ (gur-ze’ev 2001:336) but should rather respond ‘to these difficult ambivalent spaces of unknowability’ (waterhouse 2011:95) with responsible improvisation (gur-ze’ev 2011). taking an mlt stance arguably allows for interrogating the manner in which peace is invented and performed within the tesol context and the transformations that this produces because mlt foregrounds the flows of life experiences and events through which individuals becoming-literate. lastly, we consider the importance of context. literacies become actualised within specific contexts, being ‘tied up with relations of power across various dimensions of difference (gender, race, class, religion, etc.)’ (waterhouse 2011:82). from an mlt perspective, mapping when and how peace is performed should reflect sensitivity to the spatial and temporal context such performances occur in and the power relations that permeate these contexts. assuming similarities across different contexts, as is done in most conventional approaches to incorporating peace education in tesol, is thus highly problematic. gale (2010:304) argues that the ‘territories of teaching and learning are not fixed, stable, and unchanging but that they are spaces of flux, viral contagion, and transmutation’. given this, what is of interest for researchers working from an mlt perspective is how various aspects of peace education find expression and become valued and are practised in different language learning contexts and between different groups of people. in this regard, the transdisciplinary connections between peace education and tesol could be made sense of in terms of constituting an assemblage. according to masny (2016:668), assemblages consist of content, the relationship between human, animal, vegetal, and social bodies, ‘the social nature of language and the discourse that emerges from the assemblage and the discourse that produces the assemblage’. examining the peace education and tesol assemblage would thus entail not so much seeking to discover what it means or represents but how it functions and what it produces; how various bodies come together, collide and transform within specific contexts and the material and discursive practices these produce. conclusion the descriptions provided about the manner in which mlt can inform how we make sense of the connections between peace education and tesol are not exhaustive but rather serve as an introduction to the potential that such an approach may hold. furthermore, by critiquing the conventional ways in which peace education inform tesol, we do not wish to discredit the important work being carried out in this regard and the contribution that tesol educators make in peace building and peace maintaining projects. rather, through our employment of mlt, we aim to create opportunities for the generation of different knowledge that explore the affective, material and discursive connections these fields may produce and the unforeseen transformations made possible. in working from a position of difference (deleuze 1994), what such transformations may entail and to which ends they occur cannot be known in advance. what an mlt approach offers rather is a means to explore the affective, material and discursive connections between peace education and tesol, and to become aware of transformations that these connections make possible and produce. multiple literacies theory furthermore offers a way to map these possibilities and that which is produced through such connections. this mapping occurs in the border region between the present and the future, or that which foucault (1972:130) refers to as the ‘border of time that surrounds our present, which overhangs it, and which indicates its otherness …’. it is by working at the borders – the transdisciplinary connections between peace education and tesol – that enables one to explore ‘that which is in the process of coming about … [that] what we are in the process of becoming … our becoming-other’ (deleuze & guattari 1994:111, 112, our emphasis). multiple literacies theory furthermore allows one to explore ‘the multiplicities of literacies’ (masny & cole 2009:10) present in language learning contexts. we argue that in considering how peace education informs tesol, mlt allows one to investigate and comment on the multiplicities of literacies on peace and violence and the transformations that are brought about as one invests in reading, reading the self and reading the world (see, e.g. waterhouse 2011). it is through mapping such transformations that opportunities are created to explore and experiment with how peace and violence become conceptualised, valued and practised by language learners in particular contexts. in this regard, we are reluctant to be prescriptive because, as we argued earlier, teaching and learning unfold differently across different contexts. what mlt does offer, however, is to serve as a means for both researchers and tesol and peace education teachers to become sensitive to and interested in investigating the effect of affect on teaching and learning, as well as the untimely becomings that educational encounters produce. multiple literacies theory thus offers a means by which ‘new [and different] possibilities in education can be seen which take away the normative blueprints for development that currently exists’ (cole 2013b:64). by doing this, mlt, and for our argument specifically how it relates to the transdisciplinary connections between peace education and tesol, creates the possibilities to make evident the ‘multiple and minor literacies’ (cole 2013a:64) through which the concepts of peace and violence are negotiated and becomes actualised as teachers and students read the word, the world and the self. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions f.k. as a phd student (contributed 75%) and r.e. as a supervisor (contributed 25%) contributed to the conceptualisation, drafting and editing of the final manuscript. references allan, t., 2011, ‘pedagogies of peace education as a content-based subject among second language learners in nagasaki, japan’, unpublished doctoral thesis, 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rhizome to map ‘a process of networked, relational and transversal thought’ and to ‘… conceive how everything and everybody … can be seen as multiple in their interrelational movements with other things and bodies’ (colman 2010:232–233): 2. it has to be made clear that these are not the only scholars who have critiqued an integrative approach of peace education or an understanding of peace education that develops from a normative or universalised understanding of peace and violence. for the purposes of this article, we, however, only focus on how these scholars understand peace education. 3. gur-ze’ev (2011:113) understands co-poiesis to be ‘a new kind of togetherness and new realizations of responsibility in the face of the apparent deconstruction of the humanist ethics and its universal value and truth claims’. abstract introduction literature review and hypotheses development discussion implications of marketing practice and policy formulation conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) asphat muposhi department of marketing and sport management, vaal university of technology, south africa manilall dhurup faculty of management sciences, vaal university of technology, south africa roy m. shamhuyenhanzva department of marketing and sport management, vaal university of technology, south africa citation muposhi, a., dhurup, m. & shamhuyenhanzva, r.m., 2018, ‘underlying correlates of consumers’ attitudes towards chinese apparel and relationship with purchase intention in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a518. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.518 original research underlying correlates of consumers’ attitudes towards chinese apparel and relationship with purchase intention in south africa asphat muposhi, manilall dhurup, roy m. shamhuyenhanzva received: 06 nov. 2017; accepted: 01 mar. 2018; published: 16 may 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the study examined the influence of south african consumers’ attitudes and purchase intention towards chinese apparel. a survey of south african consumers who had purchase experience of chinese apparel was conducted to test the hypothesised relationships. structural equation modelling results indicated that economic animosity and consumer ethnocentrism are negatively related to attitudes towards chinese apparel and consumer purchase intention. the study revealed a significant, positive relationship between cosmopolitanism, attitudes towards chinese apparel and consumer purchase intention. in addition, the findings of the study suggest the importance of cosmopolitanism, consumer ethnocentrism and animosity in market segmentation, targeting, positioning and market potential analysis. the study provides managerial implications for the marketing of chinese apparel in south africa. introduction consumer buying behaviour in domestic and global markets is principally driven by rational and emotional factors (schnettler et al. 2011; wang, he & li 2013). drawing from the concept of neuromarketing, marketers utilise rational and emotional cues to design marketing strategies (plassmann, ramsoy & milosavljvevic 2012). rational reasoning, which is underpinned by the utility theory, holds that global products offer consumer-centric benefits such as variety, novelty, quality and prestige that drive purchase intentions (lew & sulaiman 2014; riefler 2012). in contrast, emotional reasoning advances that emotions and normative sentiments play a pivotal role in the purchase of foreign products (dmitrovic, vida & reardon 2009). whilst a standardisation strategy is used to enhance the utilitarian benefits of products earmarked for foreign markets, incorporating the emotional component in the global marketing mix remains a challenge for marketers (wang et al. 2013). part of the challenge emanates from mixed empirical evidence on salient emotional factors that influence consumers when buying foreign products (cleveland et al. 2011; nes, yelkur & sikoset 2012; wang et al. 2014). given this background, the objective of this study is to understand consumer attitudes towards chinese apparel and relationship with purchase intention in south africa. contextual setting of the study the selection of south africa as a contextual setting for the study and chinese apparel as a unit of analysis was informed by a number of factors. with an estimated population of 54 million, south africa is one of africa’s economic hubs, representing a significant market for both domestic and foreign products (besada, tok & winters 2013; wasserman 2012). of greater importance to global marketers is that south african consumers are increasingly becoming more ambivalent towards foreign products owing to the growth in nationalism. for example, pentz, terblanche and boshoff (2014) note that feelings of ethnocentrism have become pervasive in contemporary south africa, with implications on the purchase of foreign-made products. the growth in nationalism is partly attributed to the proudly south african campaign that encourages south africans to buy home-made products (bevan-dye, garnett & de klerk 2012). chinese apparel was selected as the locus of economic animosity (ea) of south african consumers for the following reasons. firstly, china is the largest trading partner of south africa and the relationship between the two countries oscillates between scepticism and controversy (rebol 2010; wasserman 2012; zeleza 2008). secondly, china’s economic inroads into south africa have generated much debate. for example, international trade analysts (e.g. lamprecht 2014; wasserman 2012) perceive that south africa is ‘settling for crumbs’ in what appears to be an imbalanced trade relationship. thirdly, as china continues to deepen its trade with south africa under the auspices of brics (wasserman 2012), it is important to understand south african consumers’ attitudes towards chinese apparel. problem statement the dominant perception that prevails among south africans is that the continued influx of cheap imports from china is deindustrialising south africa’s textile industry (edwards & jenkins 2013). the confederation of south african trade unions (cosatu) characterises a glut of cheap products from china as a ‘tsunami’ that has the potential of damaging local companies (wasserman 2012). in addition, chinese apparel have been criticised for being counterfeit with the ‘fong kong’ tag affixed to products made in china (alden & wu 2014). a study conducted by rebol (2010) showed that only 44% of the surveyed population in south africa expressed positive views about chinese products. the south african textile industry blames cheap chinese apparel for eroding profit margins with ripple effects on employment and economic growth (morris & einhorn 2008). despite the growth in academic interest in south africa and china trade relations, research on consumer attitudes towards chinese products remains low. to date, the majority of studies have mainly focused on south africa and china’s trade relationship (e.g. obiorah 2007; rebol 2010; wasserman 2012; zeleza 2008). relatively few studies have been directed towards understanding consumer attitudes towards chinese apparel. a notable study by pentz et al. (2014) only focused on consumer ethnocentrism and did not consider other important attitudinal factors such as animosity and cosmopolitanism. this study attempts to close this gap by examining south african consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions towards chinese apparel. in addition, this study examines the relationship between attitudes towards chinese apparel and consumer purchase intentions (cpis). the chinese apparel was considered as the ideal product category because china is one of south africa’s biggest trading partners in this product category. literature review and hypotheses development consumer attitudes towards foreign products today’s globalised marketplace is inundated with a wide assortment of products of diverse national origins (nijssen & douglas 2004; pentz et al. 2014). within this cluttered marketplace, consumer purchase decisions are increasingly informed by consumers’ nationalist sentiments (cleveland, laroche & papadopoulos 2009). to survive the cut-throat competition characterising contemporary markets, it is imperative for marketers to understand consumers’ attitudes towards foreign-made products (dimofte, johansson & bagozzi 2010; riefler 2012). in consumer behaviour, attitudes are construed as ‘a summary evaluation of a psychological object captured in such attribute dimensions as good–bad, harmful–beneficial, pleasant–unpleasant, and likeable–dislikeable’ (ajzen 2001:29). according to liu et al. (2006), product quality, country of origin and unavailability of domestic product alternatives influence attitudes towards foreign products. apart from product-related sentiments, feelings of ethnocentrism and hostility towards foreign products also influence cpis (shimp & sharma 1987). for this reason, akdogan et al. (2012) identified ‘economic animosity’, ‘consumer ethnocentrism’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’ as the main attitudinal factors that influence the purchase of foreign-made products. these factors are discussed in the following sections. consumer ethnocentrism the concept of ethnocentrism has ancient roots. the pioneering work of sumner (1906) described ethnocentrism as the enduring belief that an individual’s social orientation is superior to others and ought to be considered as a benchmark for behavioural performance. when applied to nationhood, the overriding perception in individuals with a high ethnocentric orientation is that the country of birth is superior relative to others (parker, haytko & hermans 2011). from a marketing perspective, a company is considered ethnocentric when it perceives that products that succeed in its home market will automatically succeed in global markets (keegan & green 2008). accordingly, purwanto (2014) defines ethnocentrism as a castellation of feelings of nationalism, morality and patriotism. the term consumer ethnocentrism was derived from the general principle of ethnocentrism and captures the inherent beliefs of consumers towards foreign-made products (bandyopadhyay 2014). consumer ethnocentrism emanates from a socialisation process that acts as a baseline for evaluating products from foreign markets (ahmed et al. 2013). ethnocentric perceptions play a pivotal role if consumers are of the view that the purchase of foreign products threatens personal livelihoods and the country’s well-being (klein, ettenson & morris 1998). consumers who are highly ethnocentric perceive that the purchase of foreign-made products is detrimental to the domestic economy and hence their loyalty resides in home-made products (jimenez & martin 2010). to highly ethnocentric consumers, the purchase of home-made products amounts to promoting their own cultural identity (cleveland et al. 2009). in consumption settings, consumers with high levels of ethnocentrism are driven by the normative belief that the consumption of domestic products is beneficial to the economy and society (ahmed et al. 2013). moreover, highly ethnocentric consumers regard home-made products as of more superior quality than foreign-made products (bandyopadhyay 2014). conversely, consumers with low levels of ethnocentrism evaluate products based on their value proposition rather than origin (jimenez & martin 2010; schnettler et al. 2011). based on the foregoing discussion, it is hypothesised that: h1: there is a significant negative relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and attitude towards chinese apparel among south african consumers. economic animosity apart from ethnocentric perceptions directed to foreign products, the feelings of hostility directed towards the country of origin of imported products have the potential of inducing consumer apathy (fong, lee & du 2014). in international marketing literature, the term animosity was coined by klein et al. (1998) to denote the enduring feelings of hatred directed to a certain country. according to de nisco et al. (2016), such feelings of hatred may emanate from historical conflicts (war animosity) or accusations of unfair trade practices (ea). in international marketing literature, consumer animosity is defined as the resentment of consumers towards the geographical origin of the product (amine 2008; jimenez & martin 2010). according to riefler and diamantopoulos (2007), consumer animosity is a macro-marketing concept that portrays the value attached by consumers to the virtues of societal norms and altruism in purchase decisions. consumers who exhibit significant levels of animosity towards a particular country tend to be less likely to purchase products manufactured in that country (hoffmann, mai & smirnova 2010). to cite an example, a study conducted by bahaee and pisani (2009) showed that animosity of iranian consumers towards united states resulted in negative purchase intentions although the products were considered a necessity. in particular, high levels of animosity have the potential of devaluing the quality of foreign products, inducing consumer apathy and nurturing the tendency of boycotting products from the hostile country (hoffmann et al. 2010). based on the foregoing discussion it is hypothesised: h2: economic animosity is negatively related to attitude towards chinese apparel among consumers in south africa. cosmopolitanism the market penetration of foreign products also depends on the level of cosmopolitanism in the domestic market (riefler, diamantopoulos & siguaw 2012). the pioneering work of merton (1957) defined cosmopolitanism as behavioural actions that are not constrained by cultural orientations. since then, the concept of cosmopolitanism has evolved to encompass cultural openness and tolerance, acculturation, world-mindedness and internationalism (kurasawa 2004; parts & vida 2011; skrbis, kendall & woodward 2004). accordingly, cannon and yaprak (2002) defined cosmopolitanism as an individual’s commitment to embrace and learn other cultures. the values of cosmopolitans are shaped by the quest for a global identity, versatility and are less inclined to conform to a particular culture (yegenoglu 2005). from a marketing perspective, consumers with a cosmopolitan orientation are more receptive to foreign consumption values and products of foreign origin (gao, andras & huang 2013). for cosmopolitans, the desire for a global consumption identity outweighs the feelings of ethnocentrism and animosity (schroeder 2009). cosmopolitanism is spurred by the growth in globalisation that accords consumers an opportunity to learn other cultures, which ranslates into favourable perceptions towards foreign products (riefler & diamontopoulos 2009). in consumer buyer behaviour, cosmopolitanism distinguishes consumer segments that are favourable to foreign-made products from those favouring local products (steenkamp & de jong 2010). a study conducted by strizhakova, coulter and price (2012) showed that the level of cosmopolitanism among consumers varies with the level of economic development and cultural setting of the target market. thus, an insight into the level of cosmopolitanism in an emerging economy with diverse cultures such as south africa (pentz et al. 2014) is deemed necessary. hence, this study hypothesised that: h3: consumer cosmopolitanism positively influences attitude towards chinese apparel among consumers in south africa. attitudes and intention relationship the theory of reasoned action (tra) has been widely employed to explain the influence of attitude on behavioural intention (bian & forsythe 2012; jin & kang 2011; malhotra & mccort 2001). the tra posits that an individual’s behaviour is influenced by intention, which is a function of two constructs: attitude towards the behaviour and subjective norm (ajzen 2001). according to fishbein and ajzen (1975), intention is defined as the determination to act in a certain manner. attitude towards behaviour refers to the individual’s assessments of whether to execute a certain behaviour or not (kim & cheong 2011). a stronger intent to engage in a certain behaviour is normally accompanied by the desire to perform such behaviour (kim & cheong 2011). given the influence of attitudes on cpi, the study hypothesised that: h4: there is a positive relationship between attitude towards chinese products and purchase intentions among south african consumers. based on the theoretical perspectives discussed and the research gaps identified, the proposed research model and the posited hypotheses are shown in figure 1. figure 1: research model 1. competing models apart from the posited relationships depicted in research model 1, direct and indirect relationships between the variables under investigation are plausible. drawing from a study conducted by parker et al. (2011) that showed a positive relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and willingness to buy foreign products, the possibility of a direct relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and cpi is also examined. in addition, based on the study by gao et al. (2013), consumers with a cosmopolitan orientation have favourable intentions to buy foreign products. hence, it is plausible that a direct relationship exists between cosmopolitanism and cpi. based on the foregoing discussion, it is posited that: h5: consumer ethnocentrism positively influences consumer purchase intentions among consumers in south africa. h6: cosmopolitanism positively influences consumer purchase intentions among consumers in south africa. the alternative research model 2 that incorporates the additional paths is shown in figure 2. figure 2: alternative research model 2. in international marketing, consumer ethnocentrism, ea and cosmopolitanism are also posited as direct antecedents of cpi (fong et al. 2014; klein et al. 1998). in addition to the normative and affective attitudinal components integrated in the ethnocentrism and animosity variables (nes et al. 2012; smith & qianpin 2010), the cognitive attitudinal component also influences purchase intention towards foreign products (roth & diamantopoulos 2009). to validate this theoretical argument, this study further tests the direct effects of consumer ethnocentrism, animosity, cosmopolitanism and attitude on cpi, as shown in figure 3. figure 3: alternative model 3. research methodology the study employed a quantitative approach to verify the hypothesised relationships in south africa’s import-oriented apparel retail sector. a structured, self-administered questionnaire through a mall-intercept method was utilised. the following steps were followed in the research design: target population and sampling frame the target population for the study was south african consumers who have purchase experience of chinese apparel. the respondents were drawn from the major shopping malls which sell chinese apparel in the gauteng province. the gauteng province was considered the ideal setting for the study owing to its status as the economic hub of south africa and also because it is an emblem of cultural diversity in south africa. in the absence of the sample frame, the identified shopping malls (survey location) were used as the sampling frame. sampling method and sample size to examine south african consumers’ attitudes towards chinese apparel products, data were collected between march and april 2015 through the use of convenience sampling employing a mall-intercept technique. using this technique, shoppers were approached and requested to complete a structured self-administered questionnaire. a total of seven major shopping malls that sell chinese apparel was selected. in total, 500 questionnaires were administered and after accounting for incomplete responses to some parts of the questionnaire, 410 questionnaires were considered valid for analysis. this resulted in a data set adequate for execution of multivariate statistics such as confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) and structural equation modelling (sem) (pallant 2011). research instrument the questionnaire consisted of four sections. section a solicited demographic information of respondents. section b solicited information on attitudes towards foreign-made products that included consumer ethnocentrism, ea and cosmopolitanism constructs. the questions in section b were adapted from validated instruments employed in previous studies conducted by klein et al. (1998) and cleveland et al. (2011). section c covered attitudes towards foreign products, measured using a four-item semantic differential scale developed by shimp and sharma (1987). section d sought information on cpi using a five-item scale adapted from klein et al. (1998). all items in sections b and c were measured on a five-point likert-type scale denoted by strongly agree (5) and strongly disagree (1). the questionnaire was pilot-tested to assess content validity and appropriateness of questions with 50 respondents drawn from one shopping mall. the respondents who participated in the pilot study were not part of the main study. the pilot-tested questionnaire returned acceptable cronbach’s alpha values, ranging from 0.704 to 0.899, that were above the minimum threshold value of 0.70 (pallant 2011). in line with ethical practices in research, each questionnaire was accompanied by a covering letter explaining the purpose of the study (gupta 2011). to enhance anonymity, no names were attached to the returned questionnaires (polit, beck & hungler 2001). data analysis the statistical package for social sciences (spss) 23.0 and analysis of moment structures (amos) 23.0 were used for data analysis. the statistical approaches utilised in this study include descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, cfa, correlational analysis and sem. sample composition the majority of the respondents were women (61%, n= 250), with the remainder (39%, n = 160) being men. in terms of age, the majority of the respondents, 87.6% (n = 359) were aged between 18 and 40 years, with 12.4% (n = 51) constituted by respondents over 50 years. with regard to education, an estimated 42% (n = 172) held a matriculation certificate, whilst 38% (n = 155) were in possession of a diploma. furthermore, approximately 18% (n = 74) were in possession of a degree and almost 2% (n = 8) had attained a postgraduate qualification. in terms of monthly income, almost 95% (n = 390) earned below r15 000.00, whilst approximately 5% (n = 20) were earning above r15 000.00. reliability and validity of measured items the internal consistency of the measurement items was assessed using cronbach’s alpha coefficient, the item-to-total values and composite reliability. internal consistency measures the degree of interrelatedness of measurement items that are designed to measure the same construct (hair et al. 2009). composite reliability measures the degree to which observable variables measure the latent variable (malhotra 2009). it provides a robust measure of reliability by taking into account the contribution of each latent factor to each item and each item’s error (hair et al. 2009). the cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability values for all scales as reported in table 1 are above the recommended benchmark levels of 0.70 (zikmund & babin 2010). furthermore, item-to-total correlations ranged from 0.560 to 0.834, which is above acceptable threshold of 0.5 (anderson & gerbing 1988). in order to assess the content validity of the questionnaire, a pre-test was conducted as recommended by malhotra (2009). one big shopping mall located in johannesburg, which was not participating in the main study, was used for the pre-test. based on the results of the pre-test, minor adjustments were made to the questionnaire. the study employed the measure of average variance extracted (ave) to assess discriminant validity was evident (fornell & larcker 1981). the ave measures the amount of variance captured by the construct and its items relative to the amount of variance owing to measurement error (bagozzi & yi 2012). according to fornell and larcher (1981), discriminant validity is evidenced when the square root of ave is greater than the correlation between the construct and the construct in the model. discriminant validity was evidenced as the aves of individual variables were greater than the squared correlations between the relevant variables (tables 2 and 3). convergent validity, which measures the extent of positive associations of the measurement item with other items measuring the same construct, was assessed by inspecting the factor loadings (malhotra 2009). as shown in table 2, all item loadings of all constructs were greater than the baseline value of 0.5, indicating the attainment of convergent validity (bagozzi & yi 2012). predictive validity was measured through sem. table 1 provides the reliability and validity measures. table 1: reliability and validity measures. table 2: correlations between constructs. table 3: structural model comparison. correlation analysis the non-parametric spearman’s correlation analysis was utilised to examine the extent of relationship among the five constructs in the study. the benchmarks suggested by field (2009): small (r = 0.10 to 0.29), medium (r = 0.30 to 0.49) and large (r = 0.50 to 1.0) were used to explain the relationship between variables. the correlation coefficients in this study ranged from −0.245 to 0.452, indicating the absence of multicollinearity as variables under investigation were not highly correlated. table 2 presents the correlation analysis results. measurement model fit assessments the fitness of the measurement model was assessed by conducting cfa by means of maximum estimation likelihood method using amos version 23.0. the measurement model refers to the relationship between latent variables and manifest variables within a given study (anderson & gerbing 1988). the cfa model for the study comprises all latent and manifest variables, that is, consumer ethnocentrism (five-item scale), ea (three-item scale), cosmopolitanism (three-item scale), attitudes towards foreign apparel (two-item scale) and cpi (five-item scale). the quality of the measurement model was assessed by checking the significance of the item loadings of all the constructs. all items scored factor loadings above the minimum acceptable threshold of 0.50 and as such no items were deleted. the cfa yielded satisfactory fit: chi-square value over degree of freedom (χ2/df) = 2.469, goodness-of-fit index (gfi) = 0.921, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) = 0.060, comparative fit index (cfi) = 0.940, incremental fit index (ifi) = 0.941 and tucker-lewis index (tli) = 0.927. all reported indices are within the recommended thresholds according to the cut-off criteria suggested by bagozzi and yi (2012), indicating the robustness of the measurement model. structural models assessments the fitness of the posited structural model (model 1) and the competing models (models 2 and 3) were assessed by means of amos version 23.0, employing the maximum likelihood estimation. the structural model captures the relationships among the latent variables (hair et al. 2009). to ascertain the fitness of the structural model, absolute fit indices (χ2/df, gfi, adjusted goodness-of-fit-index (agfi) and rmsea) and incremental fit indices normed fit index (nfi), tli and ifi were used. model 1 reported fit indices that are within the recommended thresholds, as suggested by bagozzi and yi (2012), indicating the fitness of the model to the data. however, model 2 yielded values that are not consistent with the acceptable values (χ2/df = 3.263, gfi = 0.896, nfi = 0.868, tli = 0.887). with regards to model 3, only the agfi = 0.844 met the recommended threshold. based on results presented in table 3, model 1 was accepted for hypotheses testing as it was the best-fit model. the results of structural model comparisons are summarised in table 3. results of hypothesis testing the study employed sem to verify the posited hypotheses. table 4 presents the hypothesis testing results. the first hypothesis (h1) predicted a negative relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and attitudes towards chinese apparel among south african consumers. the hypothesis was confirmed (path coefficient = −0.289, t = −4.005, p < 0.001). this result was affirmed by a moderate negative association between the two constructs (r = −0.220, p < 0.001). this result suggests that south african consumers have moderate negative ethnocentric feelings towards chinese apparel. the second hypothesis (h2) predicted a negative relationship between ea and attitudes towards chinese apparel among south african consumers. h2 was supported (path coefficient = −0.211, t = −3.373, p < 0.001). this finding was also validated by the existence of moderate negative relationship between the two variables (r = −0.294, p < 0.001). this result suggests the resentment of south african consumers towards chinese apparel. table 4: structural equation modelling hypotheses testing results. the third hypothesis (h3) postulated that cosmopolitanism positively influences attitudes towards chinese apparel among south african consumers. the hypothesis was confirmed (path coefficient = 0.484, t = 5.884, p < 0.001). this result was supported by a moderate positive association between the two constructs (r = 0.270, p < 0.001). this result suggests the willingness of south african consumers to try chinese apparel. lastly, the fourth hypothesis (h4) posited a positive relationship between attitudes towards chinese apparel and cpi. this hypothesis was confirmed (path coefficient = 0.560, t = 9.091, p < 0.001). the hypothesis was also supported by a positive moderate relationship between the two constructs (r = 0.452, p < 0.001). this result affirms the potency of favourable attitudes in enhancing cpi. ethical considerations respondents participated voluntarily and no incentives were offered. discussion the study examined the influence of consumer ethnocentrism, ea and cosmopolitanism on south african consumers’ attitudes and purchase intention towards chinese apparel. it indicated that south african consumers harbour negative yet moderate feelings of ethnocentrism towards chinese apparel. based on this result, it can be inferred that south african consumers who participated in the study do not hold extreme feelings of ethnocentrism. an inspection of consumer responses showed that two statements on the consumer ethnocentrism scale: ‘buy south african-made products, keep south africa working’ and ‘it is not right to purchase foreign products because it puts south africans out of jobs’ attained the highest, strongly agree (5) rating. this score seems to suggest that preserving employment is upmost in south african consumers when making a purchase decision of chinese apparel. this result resonates with previous research by shimp and sharma (1987) that revealed highly ethnocentric consumers perceive that the purchase of foreign products retards economy growth and triggers unemployment. this concern could be one reason for feelings of ethnocentrism in south africa as unemployment is estimated to be 25.5% (statistics sa 2015). however, it is important to note that the moderate levels of ethnocentrism could be attributed to diverse cultural orientation that results in multiple consumption cultures (pentz et al. 2014). according to phau and chan (2003), collectivistic cultures depict more ethnocentrism tendencies than diverse ethnic groups, which is the case in south africa. the key question that remains unanswered, however, is whether this finding constitutes a growing trend of south african consumers who value safeguarding employment by buying home-made products. in terms of consumer animosity, the results confirmed that south african consumers’ animosity is negatively associated with attitudes towards chinese apparel. the study also confirmed the existence of a strong positive relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and animosity (r = 0.428; p < 0.01). the perception that chinese firms are dumping low-quality products in developing countries (gao et al. 2013) could explain the high levels of animosity directed to chinese apparel in south africa. for instance, more than 60% of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘china has too much influence on the south african economy’ in the consumer animosity scale, indicating high levels of consumer animosity towards chinese apparel. however, the relatively modest correlation between consumer animosity and attitudes towards chinese apparel (r = −0.294, p < 0.01). this result seems to imply that not all consumers resent chinese products. this may be attributed to lower prices of chinese products that make them more affordable to people with low disposable incomes. for instance, a study conducted by nes et al. (2012) showed that the level of animosity towards foreign products is potentially diluted by the unavailability of domestic alternatives and high quality of foreign products. the results also indicated that cosmopolitanism was positively associated with attitudes towards chinese apparel, consistent with previous studies (parts & vida 2011). such a positive association (r = 0.270, p < 0.01) implies the willingness of south african consumers to try chinese apparel. as global markets continue to converge, strizhakova et al. (2012) observed the emergence of a cohort of young global-oriented consumers who are not swayed by nationalist sentiments when evaluating foreign-made products. this seems to be the case in this study as approximately 87.5% of the respondents are young consumers below the age of 40 years, implying that they are adopting a global posture in buying behaviour. this view gains empirical supports from a study conducted by bahram, mojtabaand kazem (2011), which showed that young consumers manifest variety-seeking consumption behaviour and are less influenced by ethnocentric considerations when making purchase decisions. according to zhang and khare (2009), consumers with high levels of cosmopolitanism are driven by the quest for a global consumption identity, resulting in a positive attitudinal response towards foreign-made products. lastly, the study showed that the respondents’ attitudes had a positive significant relationship with cpi towards chinese apparel. this finding supports the tra’s proposition that attitude is a precursor for behaviour intention (fishbein & ajzen 1975). this result suggests that levels of consumer ethnocentrism and animosity in this study are not strong enough to weaken purchase intentions towards chinese apparel. the most plausible reason could be that the emotive and normative elements of attitudes are outweighed by the cognitive component, which is based on rational assessments centred on affordable chinese apparel. implications of marketing practice and policy formulation the findings of this study have important implications to chinese and south african marketing managers. the reported moderate levels of consumer ethnocentrism and animosity could assist south african marketers to engage in marketing communication campaigns that promote south african products. marketing messages that emphasise the importance of buying south african products to support the economy are more likely to appeal to segments with high levels of ethnocentrism. it is important for chinese apparel marketers to identity market segments with high levels of hostility towards their products and manage country of origin perceptions. this can be done by emphasising distinctive features of chinese apparel such as affordability and status that resonate with consumers in developing economies such as south africa. the chinese marketers may also use the levels of consumer ethnocentrism and animosity to predict cpis. both south african and chinese marketers could also use consumer ethnocentrism, animosity and cosmopolitanism as additional variables in market segmentation, targeting and positioning as they significantly influence attitudes towards foreign products. on a broader perspective, chinese marketers may need to develop strategic alliances with south african apparel companies as a way of mitigating ethnocentrism-induced apathy to chinese apparel. this view is supported by a study by fong et al. (2014) that showed foreign-entry modes such as joint ventures and strategic alliances have the potential of diluting high levels of ea and consumer ethnocentrism. at a macro-level, the chinese government needs to engage in concerted efforts of national branding, particularly in changing consumers’ enduring perceptions that chinese products are counterfeit. limitations and avenues for further research this study has inherent limitations, which offer directions for further research. the study was based on one product category (apparel); hence, the findings may not be generalised to other product categories. thus, future studies may seek to substantiate the results with more product categories such as electronics or furniture. in addition, other factors likely to influence attitudes towards foreign products such as country of origin, demographic variables and acculturation were not included in the research model. thus, future studies may seek to develop an integrated model that comprehensively assesses attitudes of south african consumers towards chinese apparel. future studies may also extend the geographical location of the study in order to have a holistic south african insight of attitudes and purchase intention towards chinese products. future research endeavours could also test whether cosmopolitanism reported among south african consumers moderates the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and ea. notwithstanding these limitations, the findings of the study contribute to the understanding of consumer attitudes and purchase intention towards chinese apparel in south africa. conclusion this study has contributed to the understanding of south african consumers’ attitudes and purchase intention towards chinese apparel. it found that consumer ethnocentrism and ea negatively influence attitudes towards chinese apparel among consumers in south africa. the study, however, showed a positive association between cosmopolitanism and attitudes towards chinese apparel. based on its findings, consumer ethnocentrism, ea and cosmopolitanism are central in international market segmentation, market potential analysis and formulation of positioning strategies in global markets. however, conventional segmentation variables such as demographics and psychographics still play a crucial role. it would be useful for chinese marketers to engage in marketing research efforts to understand the underlying causes of consumer animosity towards chinese apparel. acknowledgements the authors thank vaal university of technology for funding this study. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions a.m. conceptualised the study, r.m.s. conducted literature review and m.d. conducted data analysis. references ahmed, z., anang, r., othman, n. & sambasivan, m., 2013, ‘to purchase or not to purchase us products: role of 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https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987042000280030 zeleza, p.t., 2008, ‘dancing with the dragon, africa’s courtship with china’, the global south 2(2), 171–187. https://doi.org/10.2979/gso.2008.2.2.171 zhang, y. & khare, a., 2009, ‘the impact of accessible identities on the evaluation of global versus local products’, the journal of consumer research 36(3), 524–537. https://doi.org/10.1086/598794 zikmund, g.w. & babin, j.b., 2010, essentials of marketing research, 4th edn., south-western cengage learning, mason. abstract introduction research methods and design results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) aisha m. abdullahi department of computer science, faculty of computing, federal university dutse, jigawa, nigeria department of information systems, faculty of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa bester chimbo department of information systems, faculty of science, engineering and technology, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation abdullahi am, chimbo, b. co-designing a framework for a persuasive educational technology tool for motivating female students for enrolment into science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1349. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1349 original research co-designing a framework for a persuasive educational technology tool for motivating female students for enrolment into science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines aisha m. abdullahi, bester chimbo received: 04 mar. 2023; accepted: 01 june 2023; published: 11 july 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract goal five of the united nations sustainable development goals calls for increased female participation in socioeconomic growth and development. achieving this goal requires promoting females’ participation in fields such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) which facing a dire shortage of personnel. however, existing efforts to increase female participation in stem professions in nigeria are limited in two ways: firstly, they are not focused on young females between the ages of 11 and 18. secondly, most existing studies are not focused on the affective aspect of learning. given the claims in existing literature that females’ disinterest in stem professions is affective rather than cognitive, this article employs the attitude-change approach, also known as the persuasion approach, to motivate females to pursue stem pathways. we conducted an empirical study among young female students, stem teachers and stem professionals from nigeria. based on the empirical study, a framework indicating the key components that educational technology designers should consider when developing technologies to motivate young females in nigeria to pursue stem professions is presented. transdisciplinary contribution: this study is unique in that it combines strategies from various fields. the framework’s persuasive strategies are drawn from the field of psychology, the innovative pedagogies are drawn from the field of education and the design science research approach is drawn from the field of information systems. this implies that increasing female participation in socioeconomic growth requires transdisciplinary research. this also has implications for how other united nations sustainable development goals can be met through transdisciplinary research. keywords: female students; stem; education; attitude change; persuasion; technology. introduction the need for individuals to take up science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) jobs to keep up with the increasing demands of today’s world is evident in research.1,2 according to the 2022 global gender gap report, the demand for professionals in computer science, medicine and engineering increased by more than 9 million between 2012 and 2022 and will continue to rise.3 the risk of a stem skills shortage is that technologies and processes will become obsolete, leading to stagnation in the economy, food production and healthcare.4 for instance, a study of 35 european countries between 1995 and 2019 revealed that the gross domestic product (gdp), gdp per person, employment, labour productivity and expenditures for research and development increased with an increase in stem skills.5 reading6 also predicted the gdp of australia to increase by $57.4 with just 1% of its workforce switching to stem-related jobs. with the increasing number of female students enrolling in school,7 one would expect that the number of personnel to fill the gap in stem fields would continue to increase, but this is not the case. research shows that many female students are opting for non-stem professions over stem professions.8 in nigeria, the problem is even more worrying, only 17% of stem researchers are women.9 females’ preference for non-stem professions over stem professions has been attributed to factors such as their perceived inability to succeed in stem disciplines10 as per the prevailing societal norms,11 and stereotypes about stem professions being for a select group of people with whom they do not identify.12 globally, no study has found any difference in brain composition or function between males and females.13 this suggests that the gender difference in professional choice is not cognitive but rather affective.14 as a result, there is advocacy for researchers to focus on the affective aspect of learning to motivate female students to take up stem disciplines in school so as to increase the number of students skilled in stem.15 the affective aspect of learning deals with students’ motivation, interests, values, attitudes and beliefs about learning.16 problem identified despite the strong advocacy for research to focus on the affective aspect of learning to promote females’ participation in stem fields, no research in nigeria aimed at increasing female participation in stem fields has employed the attitude and behaviour change process, also known as the persuasion approach.17 persuasion is ‘an interactive process through which a given message alters an individual’s perspective by changing the beliefs, or attitudes that underlie that perspective without using deception or coercion’.18 in the learning domain, it is often argued that teaching is an act of persuasion in that tutors and educators are often faced with the need to reinforce or strengthen certain beliefs or attitudes in students to promote positive learning experiences.19 with the advancement in technology, persuasive cues, from the field of psychology, have been converted into design features and integrated into technologies, and such technologies are today known as persuasive technology (pt).20 today, pts are defined as tools deliberately designed to change people’s attitude and behaviour without coercion. at present, studies outside nigeria have designed pts to motivate positive learning behaviour among students.21 for example, orji et al.22 designed a pt to motivate undergraduate students in a canadian university to increase their engagement in their online learning activities. there is currently no pt designed to promote positive learning attitudes or behaviour among nigerian students.23 hence, motivated by the united nations sustainable development goals, specifically, goal 5 which calls for increased participation of women in socioeconomic growth and development, this paper advocates for pts designed to motivate junior secondary school female students in nigeria to select the stem fields when they proceed to senior secondary classes to help increase the number of stem-skilled people in the country. the problem, however, is that there are limitations in the applicability of the available pt frameworks such as the 8-step persuasive technology design framework,24 the functional triad framework25 and the persuasive system design (psd) framework:26 the 8-step framework failed to provide persuasive cues that designers can employ.27 the functional triad framework provided persuasive cues but failed to describe how the persuasive cues can be converted to actual system features.26 the psd framework described how to convert persuasive design principles into actual system features but was not domain specific.28 it provided broad design guidelines, hence designers would need to resolve domain-specific issues on their own. given these issues, context-specific pt frameworks are required. according to murillo-muñoz et al.29 context-specific pt frameworks will provide a more detailed level of design guidelines for specific contexts. a framework for designing pt for motivating young female students in nigeria to enrol in stem is important to address the peculiarities surrounding young nigerian female students’ enrolment into stem pathways. as a result, this article developed a pet4stem framework for persuasive educational technology (pet)-based tools, so that designers can use the framework to design pts for motivating young nigerian female students to enrol in stem disciplines. as illustrated in figure 1, the concept of pet is based on three components: persuasion, education and technology.30 the idea is that by integrating various persuasive cues31 into teaching instructions and integrating these persuasive teaching instructions into a technology for the females to use, their attitudes towards stem fields will change, and this will, in turn, increase their enrolment in stem disciplines.32 there are over 400 persuasive cues33 that have been developed in the field of psychology. for example, the authority persuasive strategy is a very popular persuasive cue31 and it builds on the assumption that people are more likely to be submissive to people in authority. to integrate this strategy in learning instruction, authorities such as well-known experts in a field, respected religious leaders or government officials can be referenced when explaining concepts. technological platforms such as interactive online learning applications with forums can accommodate such persuasive teaching instructions. figure 1 shows the relationship between the concepts of pet. figure 1: the concept of persuasive educational technology. this work offers three main contributions to stem education for females in nigeria. firstly, at a theoretical level, this work develops a new framework, informed by the design science research (dsr) approach, that provides information regarding important components that pt designers can consider when designing pts for promoting stem enrolment among junior secondary school female students in nigeria. secondly, at an empirical level, this work establishes the factors that influence junior secondary school female students’ enrolment in stem classes. there are limited studies that have empirically investigated the factors that affect the enrolment of female students in stem at the junior secondary school level.34 results from this study can serve as a strong empirical base for future studies that are targeted at this population. thirdly, it provides persuasive strategies that can be employed to mitigate the negative perceptions about stem subjects that female students hold. these strategies can be used by schoolteachers, parents and researchers to help motivate young females in nigeria to take up stem pathways. literature review in an attempt to increase females’ participation in stem fields, researchers have designed stem instructional approaches and educational technologies to increase their participation in stem fields. as regards the instructional approaches, this study realised that the researchers assumed that females have some personal qualities that need to be corrected for them to be able to participate in stem fields,35 as a result, they focused on correcting the individual-level characteristics of the female students.35 for instance, going with the proliferation of low self-efficacy being the single most important factor affecting females’ enrolment in stem, oinas-kukkonen and harjumaa36 designed and investigated the effect of a counselling intervention on 6th grade students’ self-efficacy in mathematics. also, in a project funded by the european union’s horizon 2020, researchers of the finnish institute for educational research at the university of jyväskylä, finland, mäkelä et al.37 developed a framework relying on lack of motivation as the single factor influencing females’ low enrolment in stem fields. similarly, feng and tuan38 argued that lack of motivation was the single most important reason students opted out of taking chemistry courses and so they designed and investigated the effectiveness of a teaching approached named the attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (arcs) model at motivating and improving learning about acids and bases, in chemistry, among 11th-grade female students. chittum et al.39 on the other hand argued that female students had low expectations for success in stem classes and did not value the outcome of pursing a stem profession; hence, they developed a model called the music model and used it to design an after-school programme to foster students’ participation in stem classes. the music model is an acronym for empowerment, usefulness, success, interest, and care. several other studies40,41 also presented similar arguments. they focused on the individual-level characteristic of female students to increase their participation in stem fields. this study argues that it is imperative to consider the broader social context of this issue by looking at the sociocultural context surrounding female students.42 this is because studies that investigate the factors that hinder females’ participation in stem fields43,41 point to factors that revolve around a wide variety of areas such as school,42 family,43 culture46 and individual characteristics43,44,45 factors such as stem curriculum,47 the absence of female stem teachers48 and weak government policies49 are the most cited school factors that discourage females’ participation in stem fields, while parents line of work50 is the most cited family factor. concerning cultural factors, societal gender role belief that makes people feel that certain activities are more efficiently accomplished by one gender as compared to the other46,51was reported to significantly influence females’ participation in stem fields, while low self-efficacy52 in stem subjects, lack of social belonging in stem fields,53 lack of interest54 and lack of career-driven55 goals are the major individual factors. as regards educational technology, the tools designed were mainly computer-assisted learning tools consisting of software packages designed to develop stem skills like improving mathematics computation.56,57 based on the review, there is evidence that authors of these interventions have the notion that girls possess some underdeveloped cognitive abilities that require correction for them to be able to enrol in stem disciplines. for example, audu et al.58 argued that the cognitive skills of students need to be stimulated for them to be able to understand and take up engineering courses. for this, they designed a stimulation software for understanding oil and gas instrumentation and control flow process for the students. these same authors also built a small-scale power plant and integrated it with a computer simulation to develop student cognitive stills.sevari and falahi59 designed and evaluated the effectiveness of an educational software at aiding students to learn mathematics focusing on their cognitive aspect of learning. mellore60 also designed an educational game to help high school students better understand the concept of green chemistry while also focusing on the cognitive aspect of learning. even though the authors reported the software improving students’ cognitive ability, authors such as escueta and quan61 have questioned their impact in the longer term which could lead to enrolling in stem disciplines. although the contributions of these studies are acknowledged, there is room for more research work. there is a need for instructional pedagogy designers to consider the external factors that influence students’ participation in stem disciplines and education technology designers should be based on theory and practice of attitude and behavioural change process to help females build positive attitudes to challenge practices around them, rather than assume that females possess undeveloped cognitive capabilities; a misconception that needs to be corrected. in summary, the research gap identified in literature aimed at increasing females’ enrolment in stem fields is that there is little focus on the affective capabilities of students. there is a need to focus on the affective capabilities of students to help challenge both external and individual characteristics that influence professional choices of females. no research has been conducted which focuses on an attitude change approach to increase females’ enrolment in stem disciplines in nigeria. hence, this study proposes a pet approach to motivate female students in nigeria to take on stem pathways. the conceptual framework of the study this article draws on lents’62 framework of social constructive career theory (scct) which has shown relevance in understanding students’ interests and choices of academic disciplines.63,64 the theory emphasises the influence of certain internal and external factors on academic choice. social constructive career theory posits that the decision to choose to take a career path emerges from the interest in a career path and interest is built from a set of individual variables (self-efficacy and outcome expectation) that are formed through exposure to different learning experiences and environmental factors. this article also draws on the theory of reason action (tra)65 which posits that students’ academic choice can be predicted by their attitude towards choosing an academic pathway and how they think other people will view them if they choose the pathway (subjective norm). the tra agrees with the scct in that subjective norm reflects the influence of the external environment on an individual’s decision-making or actions, while attitude reflects the individual character. both theories emphasise the influence of both external and internal factors on students’ choice of academic discipline. the article also leans on the behavioural learning theory (blt)66 which argues that before a behavioural change can occur, people need to be stimulated. behavioural learning theory was explained in the famous experiment with dogs by ivan pavlov where he would present the dogs with food, and they would begin to salivate.66 he then began to ring a bell whenever the food was presented and after several repetitions, pavlov realised that ringing the bell alone would make the dogs salivate without the food being presented. this explained human learning behaviour as well. in our day-to-day affairs, we are often exposed to conditions that shape our future attitudes and behaviour. in school, a teacher with a biased way of teaching may condition a student to develop a dislike for the subject and even for the school entirely and vice versa. from the blt the researcher realised that humans have a natural ability to learn and therefore an external stimulus such as a motivational push can eventually begin to trigger humans’ natural ability to learn different things when the learning process is rightly stimulated. this was similar to pavlov’s experiment where the dog’s natural ability to salivate was successfully paired with the ringing of a bell and the same result was obtained. this theory implies that a motivational push in pet can serve as an external stimulus to female students to participate in stem professions. these theories were mentioned because they provided a foundation for arguing that certain external factors work to influence students’ attitudes towards stem professions, and it is their attitudes towards stem that determine whether they choose to partake in stem fields in the future. to counter the effects of these factors, students need to be subtly persuaded to change the attitudes built from these influences. hence, a pet tool is argued as a suitable tool to help increase the number of females participating in stem professions. as illustrated in figure 2, to design such pets, designers need to be aware of four key components. these components are: barriers to enrolling in stem pathways: designers must be aware of the barriers that hinder female students’ enrolment into stem disciplines. this is because very little can be accomplished concerning solving a problem if the causes of the problem are not first identified. none of the existing frameworks mentioned in section 1 of this article identified the limitations or barriers to the desired behaviour that they are affecting their audience towards.67 hence, the pet4stem framework fills this gap. persuasive knowledge: designers must be informed of the persuasive strategies that young females in nigeria are more susceptible to. this is because what motivates one individual may not motivate another and what motivates in one domain may not motivate in another.68 although existing frameworks mentioned in section 1 provide suggestions for persuasive strategies they were not specific to any problem. pedagogical knowledge: designers must know of the teaching and learning approaches that can accommodate the persuasive strategies and are suited to teaching stem subjects. this is because the curriculum, learning objectives, ways in which instructional contents are sequenced and how ideas are interconnected differ for every discipline. the existing frameworks mentioned in section 1 were generic and therefore did not provide any context-specific considerations. technology knowledge: designers must know the technologies that can accommodate the teaching and learning strategies for the effective delivery of the instructional content. the technologies should also be those that female students will embrace, those that will accommodate, and those that persuasion communications can be integrated into. again, the existing frameworks mentioned in section 1 did not provide any technologies for designers to use. figure 2 presents the conceptual framework that guides the design of the actual pet4stem framework. figure 2: conceptual framework of the study. research methods and design this study targets female students in junior secondary classes in nigeria. this is the class where students choose one of three possible academic paths to follow – science, arts or commercial studies. the rationale behind selecting this population is that this is the phase in their education where their choices define their career path. subsequent transitions such as from senior secondary classes to undergraduate or from undergraduate to postgraduate levels allow them to further specialise within the broader discipline. there has been a huge advocacy for females to be targeted at a young age to nurture their participation in stem fields.13 research approach and strategy this study used a qualitative research approach that targets gaining deep insights into the phenomenon being studied from a small number of information-rich participants.69 in this study, abstract phenomena, such as participants’ perceptions, feelings and attitudes are investigated, making the qualitative approach ideal. the research strategy employed was the dsr strategy. design science research is a research strategy that focuses on the creation of socio-technical artifacts to change existing societal circumstances into desired ones.70 the rationale behind choosing dsr is its multiple iteration phases that ensured rigour and relevance in the framework design and development.70 following the dsr strategy the pet4stem framework went through four design phases. phase 1: the first phase was based on interviews with 15 junior secondary school female students to investigate the four components discussed earlier. the basis for using interviews is that it allows the researcher to collect self-reported data from the students that accurately represent their perceptions. interviews also allowed the researcher to observe their expressions, gestures and tone of their voices to better understand their responses. the data gathered from the students were used to design an initial framework. phase 2: the second phase was based on interviews with five stem teachers. the reason for interviewing the teachers is to find out if they agreed with the responses of the girls and if they wanted anything to be added or removed from the framework. again, an interview was the best means to collect this information because it allowed the researcher to interact with the teachers and observe their true expressions. their responses were used to update the initial framework and design an intermediate framework. phase 3: the third phase was based on interviews with five stem experts working in different stem fields in nigeria. the rationale behind interviewing the professionals was to find out if the four components of the framework were relevant and if they agreed with the responses of the girls and the teachers. their responses were used to design a penultimate framework. phase 4: then a focus group session was conducted with the same junior secondary school female students (n = 15) to discuss the penultimate framework with them. a focus group was chosen as the method of data collection here because it allowed the researcher to identify and extract relevant and interesting reactions beyond what was obtained in the interview. the information gathered was used to redesign the final pet4stem framework. sampling method the sampling techniques employed were convenience, purposive and key informant sampling. convenience sampling was used to select three government secondary schools in nigeria. the reason for using convenience sampling to select the three schools is that it is a very easy and economical sampling technique.71 from these schools, purposive sampling was then employed to select the 15 junior secondary school female students. the reason for using purposive sampling to select the junior secondary school students is because it allowed the researcher to identify and select participants who have the characteristics that are needed in the study72 (junior secondary school girls and senior secondary school girls were not needed). also, purposive sampling was used to select the five teachers who take these students’ basic stem subjects. the reason for using purposive sampling to select the teachers is that only the teachers who taught the junior secondary school girls selected were needed. lastly, key informant sampling was used to select five stem professionals from different stem institutions. the reason for using the key informant sample to select the stem professionals is because it allowed the researcher to select information-rich stem professionals who can provide deeper and unbiased information, ensuring the study’s quality.73 the rationale behind selecting 15 female students is that the qualitative approach used in this study is not aimed at selecting a representative case for broad generalisations but rather the empirical data collection is to gain deeper insights into the situation so that the idea that is conceptualised or components that are identified can be generalised or further explored across similar cases. the justification for the adequacy of the sample size (n = 25) is based on literature69 where it was recommended that at least one out of three criteria must be met to justify the adequacy of a research sample size. in this study, two criteria were met: (1) sample size must be based on suggestions from qualitative methodologists and (2) the sample size must tally with those of prior research in the same field with a similar research problem, and methodology. the sample size in this study was based on references from qualitative research methodologists,74,75,76 who recommended 6 to 10 interviewees for qualitative research,77 recommended at least six interviewees and78 recommended at least three to five interviewees. similar studies have also used similar sample sizes. angkananon et al.79 used three to validate the framework they designed to enhance technology interaction,80 used 6 teachers and 14 students to investigate the distractions caused by educational technologies in the classroom and tshuma81 used nine interviewees to investigate the use of educational technologies in a university. participants’ profiles the female students’ age ranged between 11 and 18 years. for confidentiality purposes, their schools are represented as sch-a, sch-b and sch-c. table 1 presents the demographics. table 1: female students’ demographics. in regards to the teachers, two were from school-a, two from school-c and one from school-c. their age ranged between 25 and 47. one of the teachers has a master’s degree, three have a bachelor’s degree and one has a diploma. all the teachers have teaching experience above 4 years. all the teachers were males. for confidentiality purposes, the teachers are represented as tch-1, tch-2 and so on. table 2 presents the demographics. table 2: science, technology, engineering and mathematics teachers’ demographics. out of the stem experts, three are university lecturers, one was from a research institute and one works in an electricity distribution company. their age ranged from 36 to 61. two of the experts have master’s degree, while three have doctoral degrees. all the experts have work experience of above 8 years. this is presented in table 3. for confidentiality purposes, the experts are represented as expert-1, expert-2, expert-3 and so on. table 3: science, technology, engineering and mathematics experts’ demographics. data analysis semi-structured interviews and a focus group session were conducted among junior secondary school female students, stem teachers and stem experts in nigeria and what was gathered was analysed using content analysis and was used to develop the pet4stem framework that provides designers with more specific design considerations that will equip them to make junior secondary school female students view stem subjects differently and consequently enrol in stem pathways. the rationale behind using content analysis was that it allowed the systematic coding and categorisation of large amounts of textual data, retrieved from the interviews, and a focus group, to determine trends, frequency, relationship and discourse of communication.82 the steps followed to analyse the data are outlined next: familiarising with the data: a considerable amount of time was spent reading the transcripts repeatedly. this step allowed for an initial understanding of the data which are essential for a more detailed analysis.82 atlas.ti and microsoft word were the main software application tools that facilitated data analysis in this study. coding the data: after a good understanding of the data, then coding was performed. the idea behind coding is to reduce the size and complexity of the initial transcript while retaining the contextual meaning of the original data.82 the transcripts were thoroughly and repeatedly read and then relevant words and sentences that represent a common idea were shortened and labelled with shorter phrases. the codes generated are summarised in table 4. moving from codes to categories. next, the researcher and the data analyst separately reviewed the codes and came up with a separate list that grouped the codes into categories. the two lists were then compared to come up with a consolidated set of categories that were of contextual meaning to the study. the categories generated are summarised in table 4. moving from categories to themes. generating themes was guided by the components of the conceptual framework.82 the themes generated are summarised in table 4. producing reports: after grouping categories into themes, the researcher came up with an argument to respond to the research question of the study. the report is presented in the results and discussion section. table 4 is a summary of the codes, categories and themes generated in the content analysis. table 4: a summary of the codes, categories, and themes generated in the content analysis. ethical considerations ethical approval was obtained from the university of south africa’s research ethics committee. ethical clearance number is 2022/cset/soc/013. results and discussion the findings are presented with a focus on the four key components that pet designers should be aware of: (1) barriers that prevent young females in nigeria from opting for stem pathways, (2) the persuasive strategies that can be used to motivate them to opt for stem pathways, (3) the pedagogical approaches that can accommodate the strategies and (4) technologies that can deliver the pedagogies. each of these is discussed one after the other. barriers to female students choosing science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines the series of interviews and a focus group session conducted with the research participants lead to the identification of the barriers to junior secondary school female students’ enrolment into stem disciplines. with this, designers will be aware of the specific barriers that they should be addressing. the barriers identified were grouped under the school, sociocultural, family and individual factors. school factors: the school factors are: absence of female stem teachers, teachers’ lack of expertise in teaching stem subjects and insufficient educational materials for practical works in stem classes. these factors have also been found to be barriers in prior studies.41,83 sociocultural factor: the sociocultural factor includes societal beliefs about stem fields being for men. this factor has also been found to be a barrier in prior studies.47,84 family factor: the family factor is the parental perception that stem is for men. not many pieces of literature reported this; ikkatai et al.85 found this as a parental factor. individual factors: the individual factors are: the females’ perception that stem fields are things oriented; the females’ lack a sense of social belonging in stem fields; and the females’ lack of motivation to partake in stem fields. this finding is in agreement with those of earlier studies.47,86 the crux of the barriers to females’ participation in stem fields can be argued to be the societal belief about stem fields being for men as indicated strongly by one of the female students: ‘in my understanding, i think men are supposed to do that job because our culture doesn’t want us to do that career’ (sch-b, student-10, jssiii). many of the individual factors can be linked to their societal belief about stem fields being for men. for instance, the perception that stem fields are things-oriented can be argued to be built from the way society portrays these fields. the media show advertisements of male engineers working with heavy machinery;47 this can impede the females’ sense of social belonging and reinforce the sense of stem being things oriented.47 their parents’ beliefs can also be argued to have been conditioned by the societal gender role belief. this is not surprising as the literature suggests that societal beliefs are consumed by the small units of families within society.87 the school, which is supposed to buffer the effect of these perceptions has only exacerbated the effect of society. the female students see few or no female stem teachers, as most of the females are teaching non-stem subjects because that is their area of specialty. again, female teachers’ choice of specialty can be argued to be influenced by the societal belief about stem fields being for men.83 figure 3 presents the relationship between the barriers to female students’ participation in stem fields. figure 3: relationship between barriers. as illustrated in figure 3, the societal factor influences the school and family factors which then influence the individual characteristic. also, the societal factor can directly influence individual characteristics. this illustration is significant as designers should be aware that they should not be focusing on just individual characteristics. the argument presented above is supported by meece et al.88 who said that individuals begin to identify themselves at an early age with their family and sociocultural values and this influences their beliefs, attitude and behaviour towards the choice of career paths. spelke89 also asserts that the career choices of women are because of sociocultural factors, such as subtle gender expectations during childhood which influence occupational identities and aspirations. this argument also aligns with that of the social cognitive carrier theory that environmental factors work to affect individual factors, which in turn affect career choices. this explains why among the 15 female students interviewed only five wanted a career in stem. the others wanted a career in journalism, law, catering, banking and social work. they chose professions that they felt resonated with their identity within their milieu as indicated explicitly by a student: ‘[s]ome of them since from their upbringing the society has already shown them that this is for boys and this is for girls, you should choose this and not go to that.’ (sch-b, student-6, jssi) they recognise the fact that society views them to be more interpersonal and inherently caring so they channel their interest to professions where they feel they can interact with people and make people happy. as indicated by one of the students who wants to be a journalist ‘i cannot be doing engineering work when people need doctors in the hospital to help the sick’ (sch-a, student-2, jssii). they would rather save their people from the hands of bad politicians than develop phones. this was similar to the five females who indicated that a career in stem wanted to be medical doctors. this argument also applies to those who chose non-stem professions. all five want to be medical doctors where they can interact with people and help care for them. this argument is supported by studies90,91 that show that even within the medical profession, female doctors show an inclination towards paediatrics and gynaecology subspecialties where they get to treat the more vulnerable people (women and children) in society, in comparison to male doctors who practiced in a broader range of specialties. the authors claim that the penchant for these specialties is in the bid to align with being interpersonal and inherently caring. even though these factors are argued to develop from a sociocultural belief about stem fields being for men, it is pertinent to identify means to mitigate against all the factors identified from the interview sessions. hence, the next subsection discusses the persuasive strategies, pedagogical approaches and technologies to mitigate against each of these factors. the absence of female stem teachers to mitigate against the effect of the absence of female stem teachers through a pet, students should be helped to discern that there are females involved in teaching stem. the persuasive strategies that should be employed to achieve this are: social facilitation persuasive strategy: this strategy involves providing means for discerning other users who are performing the desired behaviour.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can create a network of available female stem teachers and female stem professionals, in and outside nigeria, who are interested and willing to respond to students’ concerns and answer their questions. social role persuasive strategy: this strategy involves designing a persuasive system to mimic the social behaviours of humans.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can make virtual female stem teachers that teach stem subjects, answer questions and praise the students for good work. similarity persuasive strategy: this strategy involves persuading people by imitating them in some specific ways.26 this is based on the idea that people are more likely to be persuaded by those who are similar to them. to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can design virtual female stem teachers in their pets and make the avatars have nigerian female names, wear local clothes and speak in nigerian languages. pedagogies that can accommodate these strategies are: an inquiry-based learning environment where different learning scenarios trigger students to ask questions and share ideas with these teachers and stem personnel.92 a problem-based learning environment where students respond to open-ended questions and will need to explore different solutions and seek support from these teachers and stem personnel towards searching and arriving at a reasoned solution can also accommodate these persuasive strategies.93 a technological platform that can accommodate these proposed pedagogies for this barrier is learning management systems (lms) and interactive online learning applications with chat, video conferences and forum features. teachers’ lack of expertise in teaching stem subjects to mitigate against the influence of teachers’ lack of expertise in teaching stem subjects through a pet, students should be taught using enhanced instructional methods. the persuasive strategies that should be employed to achieve this are: reduction persuasive strategy: this strategy involves breaking down complex activities into manageable steps to make the activity attractive.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can break stem topics into chunks. for each chunk, start by introducing concepts to students using things they are already familiar with. then allow students to explain the concepts based on their experiences. then go ahead to teach the topic. designers can also use charts, pictures, audio and videos to aid understanding. simulation persuasive strategy: this strategy involves providing real-world experience through a virtual environment.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can use simulation models to explain abstract and difficult concepts and allow students to manipulate values themselves to observe how they behave. tunnelling persuasive strategy: this strategy involves making a persuasive system provide means for action that brings its users closer to the target behaviour.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers should show students a model of the outcome of each task before they start it. then, with the finished model in hand, walk students through each stage of the task. self-monitoring persuasive strategy: this strategy involves providing means for users to track their performance.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers should allow students to present what they have learned periodically. this allows them to reflect on what they have learned and come up with new ideas. also, designers should integrate features that track students’ data to determine areas they may need assistance and areas they may excel. suggestion persuasive strategy: this strategy involves providing suggestions to individuals while they are engaging in the desired behaviour to make the activity easier.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers should prompt resource materials that will enhance understanding and provide solutions to different problems. collaboration persuasive strategy: this strategy involves enabling users to collaborate in the behaviour change process.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers should allow the students to work together in groups so that those with better understanding can assist others. expertise persuasive strategy: this strategy involves providing competent information.26,64 to implement this strategy for this barrier, when explaining concepts, the information provided, and the examples given should be authentic, have variety and be based on current happenings to enhance understanding. reliability persuasive strategy: this strategy involves making systems readily available to users.26,64 to implement this strategy for this barrier, updates, and maintenance work on the app should be conducted during hours when students are not likely to be using the app. as indicated by an expert ‘for example between 02:00 and 04:00 to avoid disrupting students’ engagement with the app’ (expt-5, male, phd). pedagogies that can accommodate the proposed strategies for this barrier are: design-based learning approach.93 through its iterative design phases, students can investigate the related and relevant phenomena that they are already familiar with, in chunks, by identifying a problem, defining a solution, implementing the solution and testing and evaluating the solution. a project-based learning environment where topics are being taught in chunks as mini projects.94 technologies that can accommodate the proposed pedagogies are: virtual labs where students can conduct virtual projects individually and in groups. simulation technologies where students can watch simulated videos. interactive online learning applications with conferences for students to upload pictures of their live projects and discuss what they have done. video presentation features can also be integrated for students to present their works as a group or individually and then discuss what they have learned. insufficient educational materials for practical work in stem class to mitigate against the influence of insufficient educational materials for practical work in stem classes using a pet, students should be involved in practical activities via a persuasive system. the persuasive strategies that should be employed to achieve this are: simulation persuasive strategy: this strategy involves designing a persuasive system to provide real-world experience through a virtual environment.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can use simulation models to explain abstract and difficult concepts and allow students to manipulate values to observe how they behave. a pedagogy that can accommodate the proposed strategy is: a project-based learning environment: topics and skills can be taught as projects and projects should be connected to the students’ lives. technologies that can accommodate this pedagogy are: virtual reality technologies with technologies like virtual laboratories can accommodate these strategies, where students can practice basic computer programming. simulation technologies where students can watch simulated videos can also support these strategies. societal and parental beliefs about stem fields being for men to mitigate against societal and parental beliefs about stem fields being for men through a pet, awareness should be created that stem fields are for everyone. the persuasive strategies that should be employed to achieve this are: authority persuasive strategy: this strategy involves referring to people in the role of authority when trying to persuade an individual.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can include statements or quotes from religious and traditional leaders in nigeria who have a positive view about females’ enrolment in stem. verifiability persuasive strategy: this strategy involves providing means for the person that is been persuaded to be able to verify the information that they are getting.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, the contact details (emails, phone numbers, website) of the authorities should be provided for students to verify the statements. third-party endorsement: this strategy involves providing endorsement from respected sources to support the persuasive message being communicated.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can provide links or statements from individuals that are well-known and respected amongst their audience, like celebrities, countering the misconception that stem fields are for males only. collaboration persuasive strategy: to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can organise quiz competitions or hands-on project competitions where students and their parents work together. this will allow parents to see what their daughters can do while boosting the morale of the girls. role model persuasive strategies: this strategy involves using mentors who will help people set goals and find opportunities for networking with others.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can have willing female stem personnel serve as role models to the girls, to help them set goals and find opportunities to network with other role models. creating awareness that stem fields are for everyone does not require any specific pedagogy, but technologies that can accommodate the proposed strategies are: interactive web-based learning applications where students can follow events, access links, send emails and read blog posts. gamified applications, interactive online applications or virtual laboratory applications can accommodate any of these pedagogies to implement the collaborative persuasive strategy. the perception that stem fields are things oriented to mitigate against the effect of the perception that stem fields are things-oriented through a pet, different stem learning activities that go with the interests of female students should be developed. the persuasive strategies that should be employed to achieve this: personalisation persuasive strategies: this strategy involves providing personalised content and services to users.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can link the outcome of stem knowledge and skills to the educational motivation of the students, such as improving people’s lives and making people happy. this is one of the major educational motivations of the girls that were interviewed as indicated by one student: ‘yes because my ambition is to really help the society, not financial motivation’ (sch-c, student 12, jssiii). tunnelling persuasive strategy: to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers should share ideas about stem jobs that relate to students’ interests or offer hints that would lead students to connect concepts taught in the classroom to their everyday activities like cooking, sewing, cleaning, washing, childcare. reduction persuasive strategy: to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers should break down all the job roles in stem fields and emphasise those that are less physically strenuous and are more indoors. these align with the students’ cultural beliefs. pedagogies that can accommodate the proposed strategies are: a project-based, inquiry-based and problem-based learning pedagogy can support the collaboration persuasive strategies.94,45 technologies that can accommodate this pedagogy are: interactive web-based learning applications where students can follow events, access links, send emails and read blog posts. virtual labs where students can conduct virtual projects individually and in groups can also accommodate these pedagogies. the lack of social belonging to mitigate against the effect of lack of social belonging through a pet, a female-inclusive learning environment should be created. the persuasive strategies that should be employed to achieve this are: social facilitation persuasive strategy: to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can create a network of females in stem disciplines in secondary school, undergraduate and postgraduate levels and practitioners so that students can interact with them. social proof or social learning persuasive strategy: this strategy involves enabling users to learn by viewing the activities of other users.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers should provide continuous information and means for students to observe and follow projects about stem women who are making a difference in the environmental, agricultural and security sectors. likening persuasive strategy: this strategy involves making a persuasive system have a look and feel that appeals to its users.64 to implement this strategy for this barrier, learning materials should reflect who the students are. images should be for females, colours should be bright (pink, orange and turquoise blue) and font style should be stylish. these persuasive strategies do not require a pedagogy to implement but a technology that can accommodate these strategies is: interactive online learning: learning management systems, chat applications, forums and conference applications. the lack of motivation to choose stem disciples to mitigate against the influence of the lack of motivation through a pet, female students should be encouraged to set goals for themselves and to persevere in attaining the goals. the persuasive strategies that should be employed to achieve this are: commitment and consistency persuasive strategy: this involves leading a user to make a small initial commitment, and then this small commitment will lead to bigger action.64 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can set short-term achievable goals for students and make them note their progress as they work on the goals. social facilitation persuasive strategies: designers can let students see successful women in stem within nigeria and from around the world to inspire them to become ambitious. self-monitoring persuasive strategy: designers should integrate features that track students’ data to determine areas they may need assistance and areas where they excel. competition persuasive strategy: this strategy involves allowing users to compete to achieve their target.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can set quiz competitions and structure quizzes in levels so that students advance from one quiz level to another. reward persuasive strategy: this strategy involves providing virtual rewards to users as they progress in the task.26 to implement this strategy for this barrier designers can give students rewards like points, and badges after winning quizzes to make learning fun and engaging. scarcity persuasive strategy: this strategy involves showing the scarcity or needs for something to increase interest in it.26,64 to implement this strategy for this barrier, designers can show reports or statistics of the shortage of technology and engineering skills and their impact on people’s lives. pedagogies that can accommodate these strategies are: a project-based learning environment can accommodate the commitment and consistency of persuasive strategies: students can be asked to write down step-by-step objectives to accomplish a task. this serves as small voluntary agreements that will lead to achieving a bigger goal. a formative assessment method can support this strategy where periodic feedback on student progress is provided. a context integration learning pedagogy can accommodate the tunnelling strategy where elements from other subjects or other stem subjects that interest students are used to make the content of other stem subjects more relevant. a collaborative learning environment can accommodate competition and reward persuasive strategies where students are grouped into teams to compete against each others’ teams and earn rewards for their team. the inquiry-based and problem-based learning environment can accommodate learning scenarios where the need for stem skills is discussed.92 technologies that can accommodate these pedagogies are: lmss and interactive online learning applications can accommodate context integration learning. gamified educational learning applications can accommodate collaborative learning pedagogy. interactive online learning applications with chat, video conferences and forum features. simulation technologies can also support these pedagogies for students to watch simulated models of the impact of the shortage of technology and engineering skills. virtual labs where students can conduct virtual projects individually and in groups. table 5 presents the framework in a diagram. table 5: pet4stem framework. limitation this study, like all research studies, has limitations. the researchers acknowledge that the number of female students and stem teachers recruited for the study could have been more. however, the qualitative approach used in this study is not aimed at pursuing a large sample size for broad generalisations to be made but rather the empirical data collection is to gain deeper insights into the situation so that the idea that is conceptualised can be generalised across similar cases. according to polit and beck96 qualitative research rides on gathering data from a small number of information-rich participants that can illuminate the phenomenon under study. hence the limited number of female students and stem teachers. however, future works can focus on the quantitative approach where findings from a larger number of participants can be generalised. conclusion in this work, we identified the barriers to female students’ enrolment in classes leading to stem professions in nigeria. we then proposed persuasive strategies, pedagogical approaches and technological platforms to employ to mitigate each identified barrier. how the strategies can be implemented in a pet were suggested and were based on information gathered from female students, stem teachers and stem experts. this was done to make the content suited to female students and to stem subjects. this framework may not have exhausted all the persuasive strategies, pedagogical approaches or technologies in the literature, but in practical terms, one pet cannot integrate all of what was suggested in the framework. what is advised is that a pet selects a couple of barriers they want to address and then implements the suggestions from the framework. it is worth noting that, although non-transdisciplinary research (tdr) has been effective for societal problems that have relatively little ambiguity, they have become less effective in the context of complex societal problems such as the low participation of women in stem fields. according to lawrence et al.95 tdr addresses wicked problems in information systems (is), these are societal problems that are multi-faceted in nature and hence can only be solved in multiple ways; hence, this article shows the significance of tdr. there are challenges with tdr, and one is that there is little cross-fertilisation among the different disciplines that research employs.95 in this study, the close interaction between the methods and knowledge from the fields of persuasion, technology and education led to the development of a new concept: ‘pet’. this indicates that a high level of engagement among the different disciplines in tdr can lead to the development of what can eventually be considered a new academic discipline, with its characteristic knowledge, approaches and boundaries. this is one of the main contributions of this article to the tdr community. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the participants for their participation in the study. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions a.m.a. conceived, planned and conducted the experiments. b.c. verified the 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ginster, c gouws, cm gouws, h mäki, r mathipa, s motloung, m nyandoro and jwn tempelhoff* abstract as a result of the growing demand for additional water supplies, officials at the national department of water affairs (dwa) continually monitor consumption patterns. the unlawful abstraction of water for irrigation purposes along the axle and liebenbergsvlei water transfer scheme, a south african river catchment, has been identified as a potential over-consumption hotspot. an investigation into the evolution of modern farming and irrigation developments along this important water transfer scheme found that restrictions on irrigation water abstraction have primarily focused on the water security of downstream urban and industrial users who receive water at a high assurance of supply. during periods of normal rainfall the authorities paid little attention to the existing use of water from the liebenbergsvlei water transfer scheme. subsequent restrictions placed on local water abstraction for irrigation has achieved mixed results. this paper focuses on the perspectives of irrigation farmers who may be unlawfully using water from the transfer scheme. their views are compared with those expressed by the authorities on this issue, and the way in which the authorities attempt to regulate water use in the region within the confines of existing legislation. the responses from the different sectors were qualitatively analysed and suggested solutions have been formulated for further discussion. the study’s major findings reveal that the contestation around water use for agricultural purposes will continue as long as the misunderstandings surrounding legal or illegal water use persist. as demand on water is escalating, it is considered important to put in place water security measures designed to safeguard the available water in light of scarcity. keywords: lesotho highlands water project (lhwp), irrigation, eastern free state, gauteng water supply, department of water affairs. disciplines: history, political science, public management and administration, soil science, legal studies. 1. introduction the large water demand of the densely populated and industrialised inland province of gauteng in south africa has since the twentieth century been supplied through inter-basin transfers.1 since 1998, one of the largest schemes – the lesotho highlands water project (lhwp) – has * research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water, north-west university, vaal campus, vanderbijlpark, south africa. martin ginster and ruth mathipa, (subsequently married: terblanche), are attached to sasol. both are postgraduate candidates at nwu’s cudywat. the reading of this article may be enhanced if it coincides with listening to pat metheny, “farmers trust”, cd travels, (ecm, 1982). 1 . j haarhoff and jwn tempelhoff, “water supply to the witwatersrand (gauteng) 1924–2003” in journal for contemporary history, 32(2), december 2007, pp. 95–114. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 2 used the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers in the eastern free state province to transfer water from the kingdom of lesotho to the vaal dam. the vaal dam is the anchor of the large and important vaal river water supply system. from there water is distributed primarily to domestic and industrial consumers in gauteng. as a result of the growing demand for more water supplies, officials at the national department of water affairs (dwa)2 have been looking at consumption patterns. the unlawful abstraction of water for irrigation purposes in this region has been identified as a potential over-consumption hotspot. illustration 1 in some parts the liebenbergsvlei river flows in the typical shape of an oxbow. photograph: johann tempelhoff 2009.01 31 the most recent estimate by water resource planners of the use of water in the entire upper vaal region3 is that about 174million m3/annum is unlawfully used for irrigation purposes.4 the water planners have further concluded that these losses contribute significantly to the precarious state of balance of the vaal river water supply system. there is general consensus among experts that 2 . prior to april 2009 the government department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) was responsible for water governance. however, as a result of a number of departmental and ministerial changes, forestry now resorts under the department of agriculture. water, in turn, is now a separate department, but falls under the ministry of water and environmental affairs. for the purposes of this discussion the department is now referred to as the department of water affairs (dwa). 3 . the upper vaal is the most economically important of the 19 water management areas of south africa. it is located in the central inland region of south africa. see dwa electronic archive, upper vaal wma strategic perspective http://www.dwaf.gov.za/documents/other/wma/upper_vaal_isp.pdf (accessed 2010.05.19). 4 . see s rademeyer, t coleman, p van rooyen and w wegelin, “vaal river system: large bulk water supply reconciliation strategy” in civil engineering, 17(5), june 2009, pp. 9, 11–13. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 3 the current demand from the vaal system is exceeding its sustainable supply capability.5 the imbalance in the system (the demand from the system, is greater than it’s sustainable supply capability) is largely due to the growing demand from domestic users; large physical leakages occurring in municipal water supply infrastructure; and what is thought to be a vast quantity of water used for unlawful irrigation in the upper reaches of the catchment.6 above average rains over the past few years have masked the imbalance and a period of below average rainfall and growing demand would almost certainly result in unpopular water restrictions being applied. according to seef rademeyer, leader of a research project undertaken by dwa to outline a management strategy for the vaal river catchment, irrigation farmers in the catchment have a role to play. between 1998 and 2005 irrigation activities in the upper vaal river system (the area upstream of the vaal dam) have allegedly increased by more than 100 per cent.7 the lhwp was developed specifically for the benefit of gauteng province, which not only hosts about 25 per cent of the country’s population but contributes in excess of half its gross domestic product (gdp).8 now, as more and more projections of the anticipated water shortfall in the vaal river water supply system are being made, questions are being asked about the real benefits of the lhwp. this project, one of the biggest of its kind in africa, stands out as a masterpiece of civil engineering. moreover, the spin-offs of the initiative have been considerable. it has brought prestige to southern africa, specifically to lesotho. in south africa as well as lesotho the lhwp has meant that both governments have managed to incur financial savings by working judiciously within the project framework; both have started fostering economic and political interdependence; jobs have been created in both lesotho and south africa; and for lesotho especially, it has been an opportunity to develop the lesotho highlands region.9 10 however, there has also been a downside to the lhwp. seloane and van der zaag,11 hassan and matete,12 as well as hoover,13 to name but a few, have identified a wide variety of socio-economic 5 . dwa, integrated vaal river system wrm studies at www.dwa.gov.za/projects/vaalwrms/default.asp (accessed 2009.07.06). 6 see information on the vaal river systems study: www.dwa.gov.za/projects/vaalwrms// (accessed 2010.05.18). 7 . l van vuuren, “start saving or start paying, river studies warn” in water wheel, 7(3), may/june 2008, p. 15. 8 . ne willemse, “actual versus predicted transboundary impact: a case study of phase 1b of the lesotho highlands water project” in water resources development, 23(3), september 2003, p. 457. 9 . r meissner, the transnational role and involvement of interest groups in water politics: a comparative analysis (d. phil, international politics, university of pretoria, 2004), p. 194. 10 11 . p seloane and p van der zaag, “can local people also gain from benefit sharing in water resource development? experiences from dam developments in the orange senqu river basin” in physics and chemistry of the earth parts a/b/c, 32(15-18), 2007, pp. 1322–1329. 12 . r hassan and m matete, “integrated ecological economics accounting approach to evaluation of interbasin water transfers: an application to the lesotho highlands water project” in ecological economics, 60(1), november 2006, pp. 246–259. 13 r hoover, the world bank’s failed efforts to restore lives and livelihoods of dam-affected people in lesotho (international river network [irn], berkeley, 2001). ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 4 disadvantages that have ensued for civil society in lesotho as a result of the lhwp. in some quarters there is a sense of discomfort and agitation with transboundary water users further downstream. namibia relies on the water of the orange river. that country’s water managers are concerned about the decline of their water supply.14 in many respects what is happening in the farming industry and its dealings with the dwa in the eastern free state can perhaps also be seen as yet another negative consequence of the development of the lhwp. not all unlawful water use in the upper vaal is along the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers, but this is regarded as one of the regions most affected15 because of the abundant quantity of water transferred through this region. there is also ample opportunity to abstract large quantities of water unnoticed. the river is in constant flood due to the vast quantities of water transferred from the lesotho highlands water project to the vaal dam. pump stations are clearly evident along the river banks. all this presents a unique opportunity to study the attitude and responses of the irrigation farmers operating in the area and the mixed reactions from the authorities concerned, most notably the dwa, in dealing with this contentious issue. a conflict has arisen between water users and water use regulators to which a number of secondary factors also contribute to the unfolding situation. 2. study objective and methodology during 2009 a qualitative transdisciplinary investigation was launched by a group of researchers working in north-west university’s cudywat,16 to investigate views on water use along the liebenbergsvlei river. of particular interest were the contrasting views of different stakeholder sectors on the use of water along the transfer scheme. the researchers wanted to gain an impression of what drives the irrigation community and secondly, to ascertain the priorities of the dwa in addressing water use in the region. it was important to understand how the different stakeholders perceived the existing situation. a key objective was to be in a position to make recommendations on how to address these potentially serious problems. the researchers aimed to move beyond constrains, break down barriers and create common ground to contemplate the intricacies of both legal and illegal water use. the project participants have widely different academic backgrounds and include historians, political scientists and those with management sciences, soil science, chemistry and industrial science qualifications.17 extensive internal feedback and debriefing sessions were held to compare 14 . ne willemse, “actual versus predicted transboundary impact: a case study of phase 1b of the lesotho highlands water project” in water resources development, 23(3), september 2003, pp. 457–472. 15 . see dwa report p rsa c000/00/4405/07 dwa(f) vaal river system: large bulk water supply reconciliation strategy: first stage reconciliation strategy, december 2006 at http://www.dwa.gov.za/projects/vaalwrms/documents/vaalbulkreconstratdec06.pdf (accessed 2010.05.19). 16 research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water (cudywat), north-west university, vaal campus, vanderbijlpark, south africa. 17 . gender and racial representation of the research team was respectively: 3 females, 4 males; and 3 blacks, 4 whites. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 5 and debate the views gleaned from the specific research objectives that had been assigned to each team member. in january–february 2009 a preliminary reconnaissance group of three explored the region. then, between 27 april and 1 may 2009, a group of eight researchers, working from a guest lodge outside reitz, visited various sites along the liebenbergsvlei river catchment, conducting interviews with farmers and a range of people with wide local knowledge. semi-structured (qualitative) group and individual interviews were conducted with 14 farmers who abstract water from the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers for irrigation purposes. representatives of the dwa with responsibilities in this region; representatives from the small grains research institute of the agricultural research council (arc); a lawyer working on legal actions between irrigation farmers and dwa; a representative from agrisa and consultants employed by dwa to investigate irrigation practices in the region, were also interviewed. the responses from the different sector representatives were qualitatively analysed. suggested solutions were then formulated for further discussion. a key objective was to identify the main factors that have contributed to the conflicting views and attitudes that have arisen between the irrigation farmers and the authorities on this issue. an electronic archive was constructed and shared access was provided to all the members of the group.18 collective knowledge construction was a transparent process. internally there were spontaneous checks and balances that guided the early phases of reporting. a post-fieldwork session was held by the researchers to consult with all stakeholders and identify relevant issues that could be added to the findings. an important objective from the outset was to ask people’s views on how they perceived the complexity of the issue. while the process adopted could perhaps have benefited from being more structured, a conscious decision was taken to err on the more flexible side. while the interviews were qualitatively constructed there was a continuous reflection back to the key actors in the catchment area. this proved useful because many new and contrasting views presented themselves when the return interviews were conducted; some responses even challenged previous findings. follow-up group discussions took place with dwa officials, consultants to the dwa, and an agricultural policy specialist. team members also examined detailed issues of water abstraction, governance, the relevant legislation, existing water management and agricultural practices. 3. farming along the liebenbergsvlei river farming in the free state is a long-established cultural tradition which is of vital importance to the economy of the province. an estimated 90 per cent of the free state’s surface area is used for agriculture.19 hensley et al. point out that the province makes up about 10 per cent of the surface 18 . notes of interviews by members of the research team are numbered, to protect the identity of respondents. the codes of researchers' files in the electronic project archive are referenced in alphabetical order as follows: martin ginster (gmoa), claudia gouws (gcoa), ina gouws (gioa), harri mäki (mhoa), mark nyandoro (nmoa), ruth mathipa (mroa), sysman motloung (msoa) and johann tempelhoff (tjoa). 19 . anon., “provincial focus: free state” in sa irrigation, 30(4), 2008, p. 11. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 6 area of south africa, but produces a third of the country’s total grain crop – mainly wheat and maize.20 whereas crop production is possible on only 14 per cent of south africa’s land, in the free state suitable conditions for crop production exist on approximately 29 per cent of land.21 map 1 irrigation developments in the vaal river sub-catchments22 the free state has a climate with a wide precipitation range. an aridity index expressed as a ratio between rainfall and evaporation shows that most of the region is semi-arid. exceptions are the south and south-western regions which are arid and the extreme eastern region which is subhumid. there are distinct climatic regions across which the water is transferred from lesotho along the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers to the vaal dam. the agricultural potential along the water transfer route has been classified as medium. key factors that determine this potential in the area include rainfall, rainfall variability, as well as temperature and soil type. close to the border with lesotho the average annual rainfall is in excess of 700mm and very reliable. the relatively lower temperatures shorten the growing season for summer crops but the rainfall is highly effective, with low evaporation rates. in the reitz-bethlehem region (liebenbergsvlei) the average annual rainfall is between 680 and 700mm. 20 . m hensley, pal le roux, cc du preez, cw van huyssteen, e kotze, ld van rensburg, “soils: the free state’s agricultural base” in south african geographical journal, 2006 88(1), 2006, pp. 11–21. 21 . ibid., pp. 11–21. 22 south africa, department of water affairs and forestry, vaal river system: large bulk water supply reconciliation strategy: first stage reconciliation (dwa, pretoria, 2006), appendix a-2. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 7 the climate and soils generally favour crop production. wheat is the crop of choice, followed by maize, with small areas of sunflower and dry beans. in the region of frankfort and its surroundings the rainfall decreases to about 600mm; it also becomes less reliable. the lower rainfall and soil with less agricultural potential make the area less suitable for growing crops. nevertheless, the region is intensely farmed and there is evidence of significant irrigation from the wilge and liebenbergsvlei rivers.23 the study area is predominantly a dry-land production region with most irrigation taking place along riverfront properties. the eastern free state has traditionally enjoyed the status of the wheat basket of the free state.24 not only is frankfort home to the second largest wheat mill in south africa,25 the region is also famous for its rapid development and its reputation as a major wheat producer in twentiethcentury south africa.26 in more recent years there has been a significant shift from wheat to maize production. this is largely ascribed to the fact that south africa is currently a net importer of wheat and local farmers are unable to compete with the imported product. many have thus resorted to producing maize, which has a number of significant advantages over wheat in terms of production.27 what is more, irrigation is used for maize production – a trend generally considered to be an inefficient use of irrigation water.28 4. historical context 4.1 the early years in the eastern free state, and the mountain kingdom of basutoland (lesotho) the history of farming goes as far back as 550 ad.29 french missionaries active among the basotho from the 1830s, recorded that local african communities had ardent agriculturalists in their midst, farming primarily with sorghum.30 by the mid-nineteenth century they were producing maize, a crop introduced presumably from mozambique and the cape colony.31 they also engaged in 23 . ibid., pp. 11–21. 24 . anon., “provincial focus: free state” in sa irrigation, 30(4), 2008, p. 11. 25 . tjoa, interview 3, 2009.04.28; nmoa, interview 03, 2009.04.28; gcoa, interview 03, 2009.04.28. 26 . cc eloff, oos-vrystaatse grensgordel: ‘n streekhistoriese voorstudie en bronneverkenning, i (raad vir geestewetenskaplike navorsing, pretoria, 1980), p. 119. 27 . maize has become the most important cereal crop in south africa. an estimated 67% of all grain crops produced in south africa is maize. it provides 35% of south africa’s carbohydrate dietary requirements, 15% of its fats and 31% of its protein requirements. an estimated 25% of the maize crops are intended for livestock consumption. this is unlike the tradition in the rest of africa. see j mccann, “maize and grace: history, corn and africa’s new landscapes, 1500-1999” in comparative studies in society and history, 43(2), april 2001, p. 266. 28 . tjoa, interview: f joubert (43), (gis expert on liebenbergsvlei river water), schoeman & vennote, consulting engineers to the dwa, brits, 2009.05.12. 29 . j wright and a mazel, tracks in a mountain range exploring the history of the ukhalamba-drakensberg (wits university press, johannesburg, 2007), p. 46. 30 . e casalis, the basuto: or, twenty-three years in south africa (james nisbet & co., london, 1861), p. 165. 31 . ibid., p. 168. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 8 wheat farming and found a ready market for their produce in the cape colony.32 between 1873 and 1900 maize became a major export crop from basutoland to the diamond fields of kimberley and the goldfields of the witwatersrand. in 1873 basutoland exported 8 000 tonnes of grain to kimberley – about one third of its total production. by 1893 this had increased to 11 600 tonnes of wheat and 6 000 tonnes of maize.33 in the 1830s the first people of european descent began settling in the eastern free state. they acquired land in terms of special agreements with local african communities. later, as their number increased, white land settlement became part and parcel of speculation in fixed property – a practice that was foreign to the indigenous people who were accustomed to communal land tenure.34 indigenous people were increasingly marginalised in terms of places of habitation.35 many of them sought employment on white farms; for others, sharecropping arrangements between white land owners and their black neighbours provided a reasonable outcome.36 the development of sharecropping practices enabled the region to supply large quantities of maize to the rapidly expanding markets of the witwatersrand goldfields after the 1880s. the impact of gold mining was that more african males began to migrate between basutoland, the free state and the gold mines of the witwatersrand. and after the formation of the union of south africa in 1910, the natives land act, no. 27 of 1913, was passed. inter alia this legislation had the effect that many africans were dispossessed of their traditional land.37 4.2 more recent developments in 1970 the then department of water affairs issued notices placing restrictions on the use of water in the upper vaal river catchment. they first outlined the vaal dam catchment as a 32 . ibid., p. 169. 33 . j mccann, “maize and grace: history, corn and africa’s new landscapes, 1500-1999” in comparative studies in society and history, 43(2) april 2001, p. 261. 34 . e casalis, the basutos: or, twenty-three years in south africa (james nisbet & co., london, 1861), p. 159. 35 . see tj keegan, “white settlement and black subjugation: the tlokoa heartland in the north eastern orange free state, ca. 1850-1914” in w beinart, p delius and s trapido (eds), putting a plough to the ground: accumulation and dispossession in rural south africa 1850-1930, (ravan press, johannesburg, 1986), pp. 218–258; tj keegan, “dispossession and accumulation in the south african interior: the boers and the thlaping of bethulie, 1833–1861” in the journal of african history, 28(2), 1987, pp. 191–207; tj keegan, rural transformations in industrializing south africa: the southern highveld to 1914 (ravan press, braamfontein, 1986). 36 . for more information on sharecropping, see: c van onselen, “the reconstruction of a rural life from oral testimony: critical notes on the methodology employed in the study of a black south african sharecropper” in the journal of peasant studies, 20(3), april 1993, pp. 494–514; c van onselen, “race and class in the south african countryside: cultural osmosis and social relations in the sharecropping economy of the southwestern transvaal, 1900–1950” in american historical review, 95(1), 1990, pp. 99–123; c van onselen, “social and economic underpinning of paternalism and violence on the maize farms of the southwestern transvaal, 1900–1950” in the journal of historical sociology, 5(2), june 1992, pp. 127–16; c van onselen, the seed is mine: the life of kas maine, a south african sharecropper 1894-1985 (oxford, james curry, 1996). 37 . for an exposition of the ramifications of this measure, see t keegan, “crisis and catharsis in the development of capitalism in south african agriculture” in african affairs, 84(336), july 1985, pp. 371– 398. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 9 government water control area.38 the second notice placed restrictions on the construction of storage dams in the catchment and on the extraction of water from the public streams.39 these restrictions were of a preliminary nature. the state did not determine the final rights.40 furthermore, they were introduced at a time when water resource planners were predicting a significant shortfall in the water supply of the former witwatersrand (a large portion of what currently constitutes the gauteng province).41 illustration 2 a google earth view of irrigation activities along the liebenbergsvlei river. photograph google earth – accessed january 2009 in an effort to cope with a potential shortfall the department resorted to seeking alternatives, such as the development of the thukela transfer scheme.42 this major engineering initiative created a water supply for the eastern highveld from a river source that passed through the drakensberg escarpment before flowing into the indian ocean. development in what was then 38 . government notice 181 of 10 july 1970 in government gazette of the republic of south africa, no. 2750, 1970.07.10, p. 3. 39 . government notice 1187 of 24 july 1970 in government gazette of the republic of south africa, no. 2759, 1970.07.24, pp. 18–20. 40 . dwb bo210/2, september 1994. aanhangsel a. notule: die eerste adviserende komitee vergadering gehou te vaaldam op 19 junie 1991, p. 3. 41 . tjoa, interview 11, 2009.05.21. 42 . r meissner, the transnational role and involvement of interest groups in water politics: a comparative analysis (d. phil, international politics, university of pretoria, 2004), p. 201. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 10 the witwatersrand (currently gauteng) region of south africa, was taking place at a rapid rate and it was essential that the authorities secure an even larger long-term water supply.43 in this respect what was later to become known as the lesotho highlands water project had a major role to play. the second notice of 1970 informed all those farming in the upper vaal river region that they could continue with their existing irrigation activities. this was henceforth to be considered “legal use”. in cases where farmers had not done any irrigation prior to the regulation, they were entitled to install equipment making provision for a maximum of 21,4 ha of agricultural land under irrigation with a maximum water consumption rate of 6100 m3 per hectare per annum (m3/ha/a). even now, experts in the field consider an allocation of this nature a sound estimate for effective water use under irrigation. however, it is accepted that it may be too limited for double cropping.44 in october 1986 the lesotho highlands water project (lhwp) was given the green light after the governments of south africa and lesotho concluded a treaty which made provision for the development of the scheme.45 then a complex process of consultation began between dwa and stakeholders. at the time, it was explained that the perennial stream flow of the liebenbergsvlei river was set to increase drastically. what was scheduled to begin in 1996 as a flow of 18 cubic metres per second (m3/s) would become 70m3/s by 2020.46 the department indicated that it would make a thorough investigation of the issue of agricultural land impacted by the increased stream flow of the river. in cases where property owners were affected they would be compensated by the department.47 the intention of the department was to ensure that existing irrigation farmers would not be in a weaker position than they were before the introduction of the lhwp.48 in retrospect it could perhaps be argued that there were not enough consultations with the affected riparian farming fraternity along the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers. there is however evidence that dwa, in concert with the consulting engineers, had kept to its original 43 . l van vuuren, “thukela-vaal transfer scheme: feeding the hungry heartland” in the water wheel, november/december 2008, pp. 16–21. 44 . tjoa, interview 10, 2009.05.12. 45 a tanner, s tohlang and p van niekerk, “an overview of the engineering components of the proposed phase ii lesotho highlands water project based on the feasibility study” in civil engineering, 17(5), june 2009, pp. 28–35; og mwangi, “environmental change and human security in lesotho: the role of the lesotho highlands water project in environmental degradation” in african security review, 17(3), september 2008, p. 63. 46 . departement waterwese en bosbou (dwb) bo210/2, september 1994. aanhangsel a. notule van die vergadering, insake die invloed van die lesotho-hoogland waterprojek op oewerplase in die oos-vrystaat langs die asen liebenbergsvleiriviere, soos gehou op 22 februarie 1991, department waterwese, residensiegebou, schoemanstraat, pretoria, p. 2. 47 . ibid., pp. 2–3. 48 . aanhangsel a. notule van die vergadering, insake die invloed van die lesotho-hoogland waterprojek op oewerplase in die oos-vrystaat langs die asen liebenbergsvleiriviere, soos gehou op 22 februarie 1991, department waterwese, residensiegebou, schoemanstraat, pretoria, p. 4. in bo210/2, september 1994. departement van waterwese en bosbou, subdirektoraat: watertoedeling, as-liebenbergsvleirivier volume 1. hoofverslag en aanhangsels a tot e. (schoeman & vennote, brits). water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 11 undertaking of working out viable quantified water extraction rates in the catchment.49 in the course of the advisory committee meetings of 1991, there were indications that some of the assumptions made by dwa were unacceptable to representatives of farming interests.50 on 4 february 1991 a farmers’ day was held in the eastern free state where officials discussed the use of irrigation for intensive agriculture with farmers. in particular, attention was given to the use of water from the lhwp. at the time, engineers warned farmers that their irrigation plans should not rely on the new water supply coming from lesotho.51 in may 1993 the minister of water affairs, ja van wyk, issued a government notice which retracted the provisions of an earlier notice, no. 1187 of 24 july 1970, in respect of the piece of land in the vaal dam catchment government water control area which is riparian to the axle river and the liebenbergsvlei river and the wilge river up to the point where the wilge flows into the vaal dam. 52 it was determined that as of 7 may 1993: no water from the stretches concerned of the said public streams may be construed, altered or enlarged on any of the relative pieces of land and that no further irrigation development may be undertaken on the pieces of land concerned on the authority of a permission issued by me [the minister] in terms of section 62(2b) of 62 (21) (a) (i) of the said act.53 arrangements of this nature were partially as a consequence of drought conditions. in years of normal rainfall the authorities made little effort to monitor the farmers’ water consumption patterns. however, if and when drought conditions set in, water conservation was uppermost in the minds of dwa officials. this tendency was more than evident in the drought conditions of 1983–88 and 1993–95. 49 . see dwb bo210/2, september 1994. aanhangsel ca louw and j kleynhans, “beperkings op die ontrekkingstempo langs die vaalrivier” (streeksingenieur transvaalstreek, besproeiingsingenieurswese, 1991.10.01; epj kleynhans,”verslag oor die bepaling van ‘n geskikte pomptempo vir die vaalrivier opvanggebied 1991, departement landbou-ontwikkeling. streeksingenieur transvaalstreek, november 1991); and b0210/1, julie 1991. verslag aangaande ontrekkingstempo’s uit openbare strome. 50 . dwb bo210/2, september 1994. aanhangsel a. notule van ‘n adviserende komitee vergadering gehou te vaaldam op 2 oktober 1991, pp. 1–2. 51 . dwb bo210/2, september 1994. asliebenbergsvleirivier volume 1. hoofverslag and aanhangsels a tot e, p. 4. 52 . government notice no. 764 of 7 may 1993, vaaldam catchment government water control area, in so far as it concerns specific stretches of the orange free state: withdrawal in terms of section 62 (2b) (e) (ii) of the water act, 1956, of government notice no. 1187 of 24 july 1970 in respect of a certain category of pieces of land in government gazette of the republic of south africa, no. 14767, 1993.05.07 at http://www.puk.ac.za:2111/webz/fetch?sessionid=01-59441386729291&recno=4&resultset=1&format=f&next=html/t2/full.html&bad=html/t2/error/badfetch.html &&entitytoprecno=4&entitycurrecno=4 (accessed 2009.05.26). 53 . ibid. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 12 it was in this period that the first major shifts in the direction of water demand management (wdm) strategies were applied in the south african water sector.54 more importantly, in preparation for the lhwp water flowing down to the vaal dam, dwa had to make arrangements for the effective management of this additional water which was intended primarily for urban domestic use throughout the service distribution area of rand water (a bulk water supply utility). the proclamation of 7 may 1993 also marked the start of plans by dwa to implement a ban on further use of the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers for irrigation water until such time as applications for water rights in terms of article 62(2f) of the water act, no. 54 of 1956 had been processed.55 the manner in which the farming community responded to dwa’s warnings is evident from a rumour that began to circulate. in june 1994 a report appeared in landbouweekblad, in which the eastern free state fruit growers’ association let it be known that they were concerned about the state of affairs. since 1990 apple farming had begun making significant headway in the region.56 the department of water affairs, the farmers now claimed, was trying to limit their supply of water just at a time when they were seeking alternative avenues for crop diversification.57 the 1993–95 drought conditions coincided with the april–may 1994 political transition of the south african government to a non-racial democratic dispensation. there was a vast array of complex government departmental changes, policy shifts and interactions between civil society and state machinery. added to all this, the new government had to deal with what was the largest transnational water scheme in the country’s history. the lhwp was scheduled to come into operation in the not too distant future. the first interaction with the farmers was a basic procedural formality under drought conditions. in may 1995 the minister of water affairs and forestry, prof k asmal, issued a notice placing a limitation on the pumping of water from the vaal river system. irrigation farmers and others who were resident along the liebenbergsvlei river were only allowed to extract water from 06h00 on tuesdays to 06h00 on fridays.58 there seemed to be a favourable response to this regulation. meanwhile, country roads were being upgraded and sturdy bridges being constructed to cross the liebenbergsvlei river at various 54 . water demand management (wdm) is a strategy in integrated water resource management that was introduced to south africa in the late 1980s. the objective is to manage water in such a way that consumers are disciplined by demand and supply so that they, of their own accord resort to saving water. for example, stringent water restriction, are not considered to be a solution. instead, it should be an inclination that is a cultivated conservation consciousness on the side of water consumers. wdm also has the objective to refrain from summarily starting new water schemes to provide more water. for more on this strategy, as applied by the water utility rand water, see jwn tempelhoff, “from water restrictions to water demand management: rand water and water shortages on the south african landscape (1983– 2003)” in ps juuti, ts katko and hs vuorinen (eds), environmental history of water – global views on community water supply and sanitation (iwa publishing, london, 2007), pp. 531–562. 55 . copy of press release, department of water affairs, “vaaldam: gebruik van lesothowater gevries, 10 mei 1993”. 56 . j le roux, “bylae: plaagbestryding by vrugte – blink toekoms vir nuwe appelstreek” in landbouweekblad, 1999.05.29 at http://152.111.1.45/argief/berigte/landbouweekblad/1999/05/28/3/2.html (accessed 2009.06.16). 57 . anon., “watertwis kan vrugteplan in oos-vrystaat kelder” in landbouweekblad, 1993.06.11. 58 . notice 653 of 1995.05.05, notice in terms of section 9a of the water act, 1956: curtailment of the abstraction of public water from the vaal river system in government gazette of the republic of south africa, 1995.05.05, 16369, pp. 24–27. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 13 points in the region between bethlehem and frankfort in the eastern free state. farmers, taking note of the developments, responded by expanding some of their irrigation operations. then, on 18 september 1998, the minister of water affairs and forestry issued two notices. the first, notice no. 1175 of 18 september 199859 stipulated: no water work in which more than 50 000 cubic metres of public water can be impounded or stored or with which more than 10 litres of public water per second can be abstracted or diverted on a property contemplated in the said section 9b (1) (a), may be constructed, altered or enlarged in the intended public streams, except on the authority of a permit issued by the minister.60 another proclamation, no. 1176 of 18 september 1998, issued on the same day, stated that private water users were now confined to a maximum storage facility of 50 000 m3. furthermore, it was required of farmers (in terms of the 1956 legislation) to apply for a permit, allowing them to extract water. many users had already applied for permits.61 a few days later, on 1 october, the new national water act, 36 of 1998 came into effect.62 there was still no response to the permit applications farmers had submitted earlier to dwa. in legal terms, if dwa wanted to comply with the water act no. 54 of 1956, it was supposed to publish lists of applications for water allocations, in terms of section 62 (2f) of the 1956 act. these procedures formed part of the operations of the department in matters of this nature,63 so the implication is that officials should have processed and responded to all applications. however, this had not been done, despite the fact that there is evidence that the farmers began to respond by making application to register their rights in 1993. furthermore, sections dealing with surface water in the new national water act only came into effect a year later (in 1999). until october 1999 surface water was supposed to be dealt with in terms of the 1956 legislation. up to the present, the national water act is still not applied in all its contexts; there is still a tendency, under certain circumstances, to apply the old act of 1956. this is particularly the case, when it is necessary to determine whether a water use is an existing lawful entitlement. the old 59 . notice no. 1175 of 18 september 1998. catchment of the vaal dam: amendment of the limits laid down by section 9b (1) (a) of the water act, 1956, in regard to the impoundment, storage abstraction or diversion of water works, in government gazette of the republic of south africa, no. 19245, 1998.09.18 at http://www.puk.ac.za:2111/webz/fetch?sessionid=01-396831029476500&recno=1&resultset=10&format=f&next=html/t2/full.html&bad=html/t2/error/badfetch.ht ml&&entitytoprecno=1&entitycurrecno=1 (accessed 2009.06.16). 60 . email disclosure f joubert (43), schoeman & vennote, pretoria – jwn tempelhoff, 2009.06.15. 61 . notice no. 1176 of 18 september 1998. restrictions on the abstraction of water emanating from the lesotho highlands water project from the axle river, the liebenbergsvlei river and the wilge river in terms of section 56a(1) of the water act, 1956 in government gazette of the republic of south africa, no 19245, 1998.09.18 at http://www.puk.ac.za:2111/webz/fetch?sessionid=01-40522374301789&recno=27&resultset=2&format=f&next=html/t2/full.html&bad=html/t2/error/badfetch.htm l&&entitytoprecno=27&entitycurrecno=27 (accessed 2009.06.15). 62 . the act had been published in august 1998. see government notice no. 1091 of 26 august 1998. national water act, no. 1091 of 1998 in government gazette of the republic of south africa, no. 19182, 1998.08.26. 63 . email disclosure f joubert (43), schoeman & vennote, pretoria – jwn tempelhoff, 2009.06.15. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 14 water act of 1956 has to be used in cases where the use was authorised under that specific act. in essence, this means that the old act is often used for the verification of entitlements; not all irrigation matters have been properly incorporated into the new act. for example, in 1998 (when the lhwp’s water started flowing down to the vaal dam) farmers could use lhwp water. if they used water prior to 18 september 1998 and their use was within the stipulated limits (using less than 110ℓ/s), they were legally entitled to do so.64 in 1998 lesotho highlands’ water simply swamped the whole water supply of the liebenbergsvlei river.65 everything was in place to regulate and protect the use of the lesotho water and section 62 (2f) was there to enforce the powers of dwa. the water in the liebenbergsvlei river would supposedly be apportioned to the farming community in such a manner that it “excluded” the lhwp water being transferred along the liebenbergsvlei. this simply did not happen. no measures were taken to rectify the matter. 4.3 illegal abstraction key to understanding the dispute is the complex water registration, validation and verification process as set out in the national water act, 36 of 1998. members of the research team visited the engineering consulting company of schoeman & partners in brits. they are water management consultants working for dwa. one of the company’s directors, francois joubert, provided a detailed explanation of the process. the new national water act, 36 of 1998 describes how the lawfulness of water use is determined. part 3 of the act specifies the conditions under which existing water use may continue even though that water use was derived from a law (notably the water act of 1956) that has since been repealed by the 1998 act. the scrapping of riparian rights granted under the 1956 water act with the implicit intention to license water use meant that guidance was needed on the interim measures that would be applied, particularly to riverfront property owners, and to clarify their water use entitlements. the long and cumbersome process which is described below66 has many loopholes and inherent delays – which are generally to the advantage of the water user if he is using more than his lawful entitlement. the process began when a government notice was gazetted in april 200067 requesting that all water users in the upper vaal should register their water use. the general trend was for farmers to register significantly larger quantities of water than they actually used. to acknowledge the quantities of water registered, registration certificates were issued by the department. based on the information provided to them by the water users and using additional information from surveys, such as satellite images, the department prepared a pre-validation estimate of water use by farmers. a distinction was made between what the department considered lawful water use and the amount considered unlawful water use. in terms of the requirements of section 35 of the 1998 national water act the dwa issued notices to water users to verify the pre-validation water use estimates determined by the department. various administrative processes followed, including requests for additional information or directives if there had been no response to a notice. water users could 64 . tjoa, interview 10, 2009.05.12. 65 . tjoa, interview 11, 2009.05.21. 66 . this overview is based on interview with a dwa consultant, gmoa 05, 2009.05.12. 67 . notice no. 387 of 14 april 2000. “request to register a water use” in government gazette no. 21086, 2000.04.14. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 15 also make representation to the authorities. communication challenges, mistrust, fear (of losing water entitlements) all appear to have contributed to long delays in finalising this process. illustration 3 the katse dam in lesotho. photograph: martin ginster, 2009.07.11 one clear intention of the act is for all large water uses to eventually undergo a process of compulsory licensing. it was accepted that this would take time to implement. interim measures to determine one’s lawful water use were therefore included in the new act. importantly no (water use) licence is required to continue with an existing lawful water use “until a responsible authority requires a person claiming such an entitlement to apply for a licence”.68 when a licence is issued it becomes the source of authority for the water use. if a licence is not granted the use is no longer permissible. this provided a big incentive for water users to co-operate with the authorities to ascertain their lawful water use. the registration process for the entire upper vaal region indicated a far greater area was under irrigation than could be served by the available water. schoeman & vennote were appointed by the dwa gauteng to conduct field surveys on riparian farms along the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers. 68 . south africa, department of water affairs and forestry: a guide to verifying the extent of water use, edition 2.1, november 2006. electronic version accessed at www.dwa.gov.za on 2009.07.05. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 16 illustration 4 irrigation pump station along the liebenbergsvlei river. photograph: martin ginster 2009.01 31 a total of 376 properties were surveyed between march and may 2002.69 the main objective was to ensure that all water users were correctly registered and to verify that they were indeed lawfully entitled to abstract water. during the initial registration process a total of 7 562 ha of irrigation land was registered on 159 properties with an annual abstraction of 43 306 876 m3. following the field surveys a total of 3 434 ha of irrigation was identified on 95 properties with an annual abstraction of 19 254 137m3. this indicated an over-registration of 125 per cent as far as volume was concerned (120 per cent in the case of area). in terms of volume only 5 per cent of the registration applications were correct (4 per cent in terms of area). so, their estimate in 2002 was 19 million m3.70 for the entire upper vaal region the registration process indicated that there were 103 000 ha of land under irrigation but the available water for irrigation could only provide water for 23 000 ha of crops under irrigation.71 the dwa clearly had a huge problem on their hands because they had data that they couldn’t use. 69 . executive summary, liebenbergsvlei 2002 report by schoeman & vennote report to dwaf, 2002. 70 . ibid. 71 . ibid. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 17 5. attitudes and responses from what has been explained above, it is evident that irrigation farmers along the liebenbergsvlei water supply scheme had to comply with a veritable maze of complex legislation and policies that had been laid down by the dwa. the following section provides insight into the perceptions of these farmers; the stance of water-use authorities; and the perceptions of selected stakeholders. in order to ensure confidentiality it was agreed in consultation with the interviewees that their identity would be protected; a coded system of referencing was used to capture the information and store it in the electronic archive. 5.1 irrigation farmers a general observation was that most of the farmers concerned were highly critical of the way in which the dwa had thus far responded to their water use issues. the following quotes extracted from the interviews leave little doubt where local farmers place the blame. broadly speaking these grievances can be categorised into a lack of concern on the part of officials; a lack of clarity on procedures; poor communication with the public; and general incompetence in dealing with the regulation of water use in the area. lack of concern over and above the ramifications of securing lawful access to water, various farmers found it discouraging that there was a lack of concern for their situation.72 to some the indifference to their plight seemed to be a bigger issue than the actual delays and frustrations in addressing a complex and user unfriendly administrative process. “the dwa does not recognise irrigation farmers and does not have a clear irrigation policy”, lamented one interviewee.73 there were other similar expressions of complaint that were not directly linked to the main issue at hand. clarity of process “a lack of clarity on the part of the dwa about water rights causes confusion in the market when it comes to valuing the price of land”, said one.74 another respondent complained that “the only way to get any answer from dwa is to make use of a lawyer and that is expensive”.75 one farmer pointed out that he had communicated with dwa numerous times without success. he agreed that as a last resort an individual had no option but to hire a lawyer to unravel the confusion, but that this was prohibitively expensive.76 the farmers explained in great detail to the researchers that in their discussions with the authorities and particularly the consultants in dwa branch offices, the complexity of the legal process (as described in section 4.) to determine the lawfulness of water use was a major hurdle. 72 . nmoa, interview 03, 2009.04.28. 73 . gcoa, interview 02, 2009.04.28. 74 . gcoa, interview 03, 2009.04.28; gioa, interview 03, 2009.04.30. 75 . gioa, interview 03, 2009.04.30. 76 . gioa, interview 3, 2009.04.30; nmoa, interview 6, 2009.04.30. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 18 one repeatedly heard the view expressed that the dwa did not seem to know what the problem really was. communication both the farmers and authorities were in agreement that the necessary procedure to confirm the lawfulness of water use was challenging, often confusing and fraught with pitfalls. as far as many of the farmers were concerned the best way to resolve this impasse was by improving communication with the dwa, something they had found to be virtually impossible. “farmers are not informed about any actions taken by the dwa”, said one interviewee.77 another farmer claimed that communication between dwa and the irrigation farmers left a great deal to be desired. to many farmers it seemed a simple case that the department did not inform the farmers exactly what was needed.78 competence another key issue raised in the interviews was the mixed level of competency in the dwa. perhaps this was merely an easy excuse; a way of placing the blame on nameless officials that were “unable to deliver”. the statements made in the interviews with farmers were more generic and did not specify exactly where (and at what level) within the dwa the competence was found wanting. for example the response that noted: “the problem is partly due to incompetence on the part of dwa officials”79, does not provide helpful analysis. nor does the statement: “the officials cannot perform and they have no control over water use”. 80 the farmers generally viewed the problem of water use as being caused by the inability of dwa to implement its own policies. time frames/delays one farmer raised a time-frame issue when he maintained: “water licensing has been under consideration by dwa for five years without any real progress being made locally”. positive views in the list of responses positive views towards the dwa were also expressed. one satisfied respondent said that he had no problems with dwa and that he believed he would be able to get a new pivot if he wanted one.81 5.2 water authorities’ views representatives of the dwa provided on the whole a more systematic and “technical” response when they were interviewed. being more cautious to criticise the local water users, they were quick to emphasise the difficult challenge presented by the efficient control of water use in the 77 . gioa, interview 03, 2009.04.30. 78 . tjoa, interview 01 2009.04.17. 79 . nmoa, interview 08, 2009.04.30. 80 . nmoa, interview 8, 2009.04.30; mhoa, interview 8, 2009.04.30. 81 mhoa, interview 03, 2009.04.29; gioa, interview 03, 2009.04.30. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 19 region within the ambit of the law. the first problem they had to solve was whether a water use was in fact legitimate, and then to regulate that use. the officials went to great lengths to emphasise that they were indeed responding to the problem but that staff shortages were hampering their efforts. two critical solutions highlighted by the dwa as being necessary to address the problem were the need for a regulation to force farmers to measure the water they used, and secondly, the wider use of remote sensing devices, including sophisticated satellite imagery, to identify unlawful water use. a key message emanating from the authorities was that the farmers were compromising water security to gauteng and therefore any unlawful irrigation had to be stopped. in correspondence with a member of the research team a senior dwa official made his view clear: the issue is quite simple: the water that is being used unlawfully has already been paid for by other users, which makes it plain theft!82 this view was further emphasised through statements such as: “this water has already been paid for by urban and industrial users”;83 and “what they are doing is simply stealing water”.84 another position taken by the dwa was that “unlawful irrigation” by these farmers was giving them the advantage of a constant flow of water, whereas dry land farmers were being pushed out of the market by those who had ready access to water.85 5.3 general observations from the interviews it was apparent that misinformation, mistrust and poor communication have all contributed to this state of affairs. while the interviews with farmers provided useful information on their opinions as far as water loss was concerned, there were other aspects that were not readily forthcoming. it is interesting that no farmer volunteered to produce documentation that confirmed the lawfulness of his/her water use. this is not to suggest that they were being untruthful, but if proof is unavailable it is perhaps better to set an allegation aside. it is interesting that matters of irrigation were relegated to second place when farmers discussed their frustrations with the research team members. most negative comments were aimed directly at dwa. farmers like to talk but they generally prefer not to share details about their farming activities and the viability of their operations. perhaps this should be considered part of their personal competitive advantage. they are quick to present the general realities and the challenges of modern-day farming. concerns about rising input costs (fertiliser, diesel, seeds, etc.) and low product prices remained high on the list of complaints.86 in most cases farmers are “price takers”,87 in that they have little influence on the price they receive, which fluctuates 82 . gmoa, correspondence 1, 2009.08.11. 83 . gmoa, correspondence 1, 2009.08.11. 84 . gmoa, interview 7, 2009. 05.21. 85 . gmoa, correspondence 1, 2009.08.11. 86 . gioa, interview 05, 2009.04.28; nmoa, interview 02, 2009.04.28. 87 . nmoa, interview 05, 2009.04.29. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 20 substantially. there are of course many risks involved in farming, including drought, fire, stock theft, personal security, disease, finances and land restitution.88 illustration 5 an irrigation pivot near frankfort, on the banks of the wilge river in the eastern free state. photograph: johann tempelhoff 2009.04.30 there are only white farmers along the riverside. this point was clearly emphasised by an emerging black farmer who was interviewed; he is farming in a nearby district. among the thoughts he shared were that in his understanding: it is only the marginal farms (never the good ones) that are put up for sale for land reform purposes.89 he further articulated that the pace of land reform was far too slow to achieve the target of 30 per cent black ownership by 2014, set by the ruling government and went on to say that there was a growing realisation of the need for successful commercial black farmers rather than unsustainable emerging black farmers.90 88 . see m ginster, c gouws, cm gouws, h mäki, r mathipa, s motloung, m nyandoro, and jwn tempelhoff, the problem of irrigation from lesotho highlands water in the axle and liebenbergsvlei river catchment, eastern free state, (report 1/2009, version 2.10) cudywat, nwu, vanderbijlpark, 2009.0826, p. 6. 89 . gmoa, interview 02, 2009.04.29. 90 . gmoa, interview 02, 2009.04.29. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 21 there were frequent references to water licences.91 according to the dwa there were few water users in the region who had applied for water licences through the national water act, 36 of 1998. most of the lawful water users were being determined through the complex validation and a specific verification process as set out in section 35 of the 1998 national water act. the outcome of this complex process is a letter confirming the existing lawful water use entitlement to a water user. the payment for water remains a controversial subject. according to dwa no farmer pays for the use of water in this region; if they are being charged for anything it is not the cost of the water but a water resource management charge. this is a minimal fee, based on the initial amount of water registered. for the most part, the dwa spoke in technical terms,92 while the farmers spoke in more general terms.93 this was a collision course towards misunderstandings, miscommunication, a lack of cooperation and, in the end, a poor result. the dwa clearly identified the problem of unlawful irrigation. being accountable to ensure that the main economic hub of the country (gauteng and surroundings) receives the water requirements to function is an onerous responsibility that has been placed on the government’s water department. at a senior administrative level it is all too easy to discuss the need to “eliminate unlawful water use”, simply “because the water resource planning models indicate that this issue is contributing to the imbalance of the vaal river water supply system”.94 these individuals lament the fact that water losses have serious implications; they can be compared, they say, in severity to the collapse of the transfer tunnel between mohale and katse – to the loss of the entire yield of the mohale transfer scheme. if that were indeed to happen no doubt emergency repairs would immediately be initiated. and yet there is little or no urgency to address the challenge of unlawful irrigation. it is a subject that is easy to talk about. it focuses the mind. on the local and regional level the realities are quite different. 6. discussion irrigated agriculture remains a highly contested terrain between the large constituency of commercial farmers in the eastern free state on the one hand, and the government’s department of water affairs on the other. of particular relevance to the discussion and on coming to some form of comprehensive understanding of the issue, is the following observation by a senior water affairs official: 91 . gioa, interview 01, 2009.04.30; gioa, interview 07, 2009.04.05. 92 . group interview: w van der westhuizen (54), north west university (vaal triangle campus), 2009.05.21. see notes in digital archive of nyandoro (nmoa), ginster (gmoa), mäki (mhoa), and mathipa (mroa); see also tjoa, interview 10, 2009.05.12. 93 . gioa, interview 06, 2009.04.29; mäki, harri oral archive (mhoa), mhoa, interview 04, 2009.04.30; gcoa, interview 07, 2009.04.30. 94 . see s rademeyer, t coleman, p van rooyen and w wegelin, “vaal river system: large bulk water supply reconciliation strategy” in civil engineering, 17(5), june 2009, pp. 9, 11–13. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 22 the new (national) water act emphasised the efficient use of water but looked at it too narrowly and placed less emphasis on water security as a whole. so a farmer irrigating efficiently in the upper vaal is protected by the act but actually irrespective of how efficient his water use is it shouldn’t be allowed as it compromises the water security from the vaal. here the law is weak to support water security.95 the unlawful use of water by irrigation farmers in the upper vaal region has been identified as a major risk to the vaal water supply scheme. the message from the water resource planners is very clear: despite the good rains over the past few years the demand for water from the vaal system is exceeding its capability to supply water in an ongoing, sustainable manner. this is not the first time that the vaal system has been stressed. nor will it be the last. water use by agriculture in the upper vaal region has been a contentious issue for a number of years. it appears that unlawful water use is taking place throughout the country. however, water abstractions along the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers present a unique situation. a notable difference between water abstraction from this source and from other rivers in the upper vaal is that in the case of the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers an unusually large and unnaturally abundant quantity of water is constantly transferred because of the outflow from the lesotho highlands project to the vaal dam. it is highly plausible to suspect unlawful abstraction of water from this system. the flow is large; continuous with no noticeable seasonal variation in the flow. furthermore, the quality of water is very good. not all water use in the liebenbergsvlei river catchment is unlawful. the legal process to distinguish between lawful and unlawful water use is highly complex. furthermore, determining the relative lawfulness of water use is also difficult. there are stages in the process where delays – deliberately induced or otherwise – can occur. the process to verify the lawfulness of water use is the first step in the process to the compulsory licensing of water use. at present there appears to be no institutionalised blueprint to bring all stakeholders into an integrated water management plan. in all the irrigation schemes in south africa legislative provision has been made for consultative structures of communication and management of the available water supply. for example, irrigation schemes typically have water users’ associations (wuas). in urban areas where the stakeholder population is diverse, provision has been made for sub-catchment forums. in the case of the liebenbergsvlei river, an institution resembling a form of interactivity between the department of water affairs and the farming community does not appear to exist. during the registration process that began in 2000, most farmers tended to over estimate water use as compared to the preliminary validation estimate determined by the department. one of the objectives set for this study was to be provocative and consider the issues of unlawful extraction of water from the perspective of “unlawful” action or simply as anarchy. somehow anarchy does not fit the bill. it is difficult to think of farmers, who play a stabilising role in local communities and are considered by many to be role models for the next generation of inhabitants in the region, as being people operating clandestinely outside the law. 95 . comment by mr hennie smit, acting regional head of dwa in gauteng, to martin ginster at a water sector leadership group meeting, riviera on vaal, vereeniging, 2009.06.18. water abstraction along the liebenbergsvlei td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 124. 23 the researchers were given the opportunity, in the course of the interviews they had the privilege of conducting, to form an impression of the type of people the farmers are. they were also able to gain some insight into the frustrations of the competitive environment which farmers, as industrialists in their own right, experience daily. most of those in the liebensbergsvlei area are third generation farmers. their perspectives on irrigation, their dealings with dwa and the manner in which they have to respond to the demand for greater equity in terms of land tenure are all factors that need to be taken into consideration when plans are mooted to effectively manage the water supply flowing to the vaal dam. there is definitely a need to improve relations between dwa and the farmers. the government should create an enabling environment that would help them to move ahead with production unobstructed. the issue of subsidies should be given consideration; the importation of maize and wheat from abroad does not make sense in a country that has farmers who have the capacity to feed the nation.96 the government should come up with production incentives, price incentives and other plans that will boost irrigation development. dependency on imports is counterproductive in the longer term. the announcement of pre-planting prices should as far as possible be done early enough to influence farmers’ decisions on what crops to plant and in what quantities they want to grow these crops for a particular season. it is noted that many farmers complain about the low prices maize and wheat are fetching on the market; if this is so, why continue growing these crops if they are not lucrative? why not diversify into other fields? the situation along the axle and the liebenbergsvlei river is an example of south africa’s excellent legislation, benchmarked by many countries of the world, not coming into its own right. it is imperative that dwa improves its institutional capacity for policy development, communication and implementation. this is vital if the high level recommendations of water for growth are to be realised.97 race plays a part in the debate on agricultural water use in the area. it appears that there are only white farmers operating along the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers. black farmers are aware of the unlawful water use that is taking place. it seems to be an issue they feel comfortable to criticise without fear of implicating the black farming community. there is, however, a realisation that black farmers would probably also exploit this water if they were in a position to do so.98 7. conclusion water use along the axle and liebenbergsvlei rivers remains controversial. while the dwa has regulations in place to address unlawful water use, they seem unable to curb this practice. the effectiveness of the regulatory measures available to the dwa can be questioned. a lack of sound administrative action has also contributed to the impasse. an accurate measurement of actual 96. msoa, interview: j nel (49), reitz, 2009.04.28. see also notes of same interview in nmoa. 97 . dwa, water for growth and development framework (version 7, dwa, 2009) at http://www.dwaf.gov.za/masibambane/documents/watergrowth/wfgd_frameworkv7.pdf (accessed 2009.07.08). 98 . gmoa, interview 2, 2009.04.29. ginster, gouws, gouws, mäki, mathipa, motloung, nyandoro and tempelhoff 24 water use has still to be determined but this will only be available once the formal verification of water use has been completed. indications are that the actual water use is likely to be lower than the current estimate which is based on details provided during the registration process. agricultural water use needs to be responsibly undertaken to ensure that the scarce resource is utilised to the best possible benefit of the entire region. thus, the picture presented by the farmers and government officials in the department of water affairs whilst revealing contrasting perceptions is significant. it provides an interesting dimension from which to interrogate the challenges for south africa as a whole and the axle and liebenbergsvlei region of the free state in particular of the pervasive and unlawful water abstractions for irrigative purposes. to achieve agricultural sustainability and at the same time allocate the same water efficiently to all users there must be better cooperation between the major players. from the discussion it seems farmers need on the one hand to utilise irrigation water responsibly and dwa on the other should provide clear policy direction in irrigation farming to safeguard water as a scarce resource and avoid antagonising stakeholder sentiment. irrigation farmers in the axle and liebenbergsvlei river district are trying to hold on to their current water allocations to be able to sustain their existing livelihoods. the fear of losing this water is creating resistance to water management policies implemented by the dwa. the dwa on the other hand is responsible for implementing the national water act and to ensure that the water allocated to gauteng from the lhwp actually reaches its destination. it is, however, clear that farmers are not properly informed of the process of registration and licensing of water use. the dwa needs to constructively inform irrigation farmers what this process entails to avoid confusion about the methods and reasons for the water management policies the department is trying to implement. on their side, farmers need to constructively work towards the development of irrigation forums to ultimately represent their cause in a water user association or a catchment management agency. the existing farmers associations do not give irrigation farmers proper representation which leaves individual irrigation farmers to their own devices to solve problems and get answers to questions from the dwa. a collaborative and inclusive attitude is needed from both sides. farmers must realise that water is simply no longer freely available to them and that strict management of water resources are needed to prevent depletion and ensure a fair allocation to all south africans. the dwa must understand that clear and considerate communication may be the key to take away some of the farmer’s fears, thereby lessening their resistance and ensure effective and cooperative management of the disputed water resources. agricultural water use needs to be responsibly undertaken to ensure that the scarce resource is utilised to the best possible benefit of the entire region. microsoft word 05 20160202 muposhi et al fin.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(3) december 2015, pp. 225-240. the green dilemma: reflections of a generation y consumer cohort on green purchase behaviour a muposhi,1 m dhurup2 and j surujlal 3 abstract green consumerism has garnered much scholarly interest in recent years. however, research on the influence of the social dilemma theory (sdt) on green purchase behaviour has been scarce. using data generated from sixteen in-depth-interviews, the present study identified perceived efficacy, perceived cost, in-group and self-identity, trust and peer influence as the main antecedents of sdt that influence green purchase behaviour. the findings of the study imply that to promote and institutionalise green purchase behaviour, marketers need to enhance perceived efficacy, trust in green products, reduce perceived cost, align green products with the consumers’ sought image and utilise peer networks when structuring green marketing messages. keywords: green purchase behaviour, self-efficacy, sdt, peer influence, generation y. 1. introduction the production and marketing of green products has proliferated with consumers reporting significant levels of environmental concern (gleim, smith, andrews & cronin, 2013:44). at the epicentre of the trend towards sustainable consumption are generation y consumers (atkinson & rosenthal, 2014:42; smith & brower, 2012:357). generation y represents a cohort of individuals who were born during an era of environmental consciousness and this group is more apt to adopt pro-environmental behaviours than other cohorts (awad, 2011:60; lee, 2008:573). while there is no consensus on specific cut-off dates, the general understanding is that generation y consumers were born between 1978 and 2000 (kotler & armstrong, 2010:98). in 2014, generation y consumers in south africa were aged between 14 and 36 years, constituting approximately 37 percent of the total population (statistics south africa, 2011:28). according to lee (2009:8), the generation y cohort represents a significant citizenry that has the potential to drive green consumerism. however, in spite of the potential of the generation y cohort to spearhead green consumerism, empirical evidence suggests that the demand of green products remains low in major markets (carrington, neville & whitwell, 2010:140). it is estimated that green products account for a paltry market share of less than 4 percent globally (ritter, borchardt, vaccaro, giancarlo, pereira & almeida, 2014:1). as green products continue to struggle to 1 . a. muposhi, department of marketing and sport management vaal university of technology, private bag x021 vanderbijlpark, 1900, south africa. email: vmunhewu@gmail.com 2 . m. dhurup, faculty of management sciences, vaal university of technology. email: royd@vut.ac.za 3 . prof. j surujlal, north-west university (vaal campus), p. o box 1174, vanderbijlpark, 1900. email: babs.surujlal@nwu.ac.za muposhi, dhurup & surujlal 226 gain market appeal, marketers noted the existence of the ‘green paradox’ (longoni, gollwitzer & oettingen, 2014:158), also known as the ‘sustainability dilemma’ (jayanti & gowda, 2014:130). the green paradox or sustainability dilemma emanates from the mismatch between the purchase of green products and the reported increase in environmental concern among consumers (tseng & hung, 2013:181). this dilemma is recognised as the foremost impediment of green purchase behaviour (gupta & ogden, 2009:386). as the gap between environmental concern and consumption of green products continues to widen, numerous studies have characterised the purchase of green products as a social dilemma (gupta & ogden, 2009:386; jayanti & gowda, 2014:130; irwin, edwards & tamburello, 2014:2). the decision to purchase green products amounts to a social dilemma in that most consumers are trapped in the conundrum of balancing individual and collective societal needs in consumption settings (gupta & ogden, 2009:386). specifically, the social dilemma is perceived when individuals who are intrinsically driven to satisfy individual needs attempt to reconcile societal needs and maximise self-interest when making purchase decisions (davari & strutton, 2014:1). thus, gupta and ogden (2009:386) contend that the social dilemma theory (sdt) potentially explain the attitude-behaviour gap that characterises green purchase behaviour. 2. research objective given the background of the persistent existence of the environmental concern-purchase behaviour gap, conflict between self-identity and societal interests, the objective of the present study was to provide insights on the influence of the sdt on green purchase behaviour of generation y consumers. the dearth of research in this area in the context of an emerging market such as south africa necessitated the need for such a study. 3. social dilemma theory and green purchase behaviour the phrase ‘social dilemma’ was popularised by dawes (1980:173) to refer to situations whereby the pursuit and maximisation of immediate individual needs often translates into long-term societal deprivation. the social dilemma manifests itself when there is a conflict between short-term individual needs and long-term altruistic needs (van lange, joireman, parks & van dijk, 2013:125). conceptually, social dilemmas are characterised by a noncooperative choice behaviour that is principally motivated by the desire for personal gratification with the inherent danger of causing long-term societal harm (dawes, 1980:173). from an individual perspective, it is considered irrational to engage in the protection of a public good such as the natural environment as everyone benefits regardless of the level of participation (molenmaker, de kwaadsteniet & van dijk, 2014:175). conversely, if everyone attempts to maximise self-interest, the benefits are forfeited by all (kollock, 1998:183). environmental protection is classified as a public good due to its non-rivalness and nonexcludability (hardin, 1982:17). a resource qualifies as non-rival if everyone can benefit from it and non-excludable if one’s benefit from it does not preclude others from doing so (irwin et al., 2014:4). in a typical case of the ‘tragedy of commons’ (hardin, 1968:1245), the benefits of a clean environment are enjoyed by all regardless of the degree of cooperation (irwin et al., 2014:4).within the natural environment domain, social dilemmas include decisions on environmental protection including the purchase of green products (van lange et al., 2013:125). the social dilemma emanates from the fact that green purchase behaviour is a generation y consumer cohort on green purchase behaviour td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 225-240. 227 considered an altruistic, highly costly act that benefits the society including non-participants (griskevicius, tybur & van den bergh, 2010:392). for instance, individual consumers sacrifice to buy premium priced green products yet everyone benefits from a sustained natural environment including non-green product buyers (gleim et al., 2013:44). hence, the decision whether to buy (societal benefit) or not to buy (individual benefit) a green product is framed as a social dilemma (gupta & ogden, 2009:377). the antecedents of sdt that influence green purchase behaviour include social value orientation, self-efficacy, peer influence, the degree of cooperation of others and the cost of cooperation (gupta & ogden, 2009:377; van lange et al., 2013:125). 4. antecedents of social dilemma theory 4.1 social value orientation the purchase of environmentally friendly products is regarded as a socially acceptable gesture with a high social value attachment (webb, mohr & harris, 2008:93). van lange, liebrand, messick and wilke (1992:17) define social value orientation as “...preferences for particular distribution of outcomes to oneself and others.” social value oriented individuals are altruistic in nature and display a higher propensity to pursue collective goals as opposed to personal ones (lee, kim, kim & choi, 2014:2100). social value is presumed to be more influential in shaping purchase intentions within a collectivist cultural setting where consumers are more expected to comply with social norms than in individualist cultures (oliver & lee, 2010:98). social value orientation encompasses behavioural actions that enhance in-group and self-identity (van lange et al., 1992:17). 4.1.1 in-group social identity past studies revealed that promoting in-group identity enhances cooperative behaviour in resource preservation dilemmas (gupta & ogden, 2009:388; kerr, 1989:287). this is so because in-group identity entails the quest for identification with a significant social group and compels an individual to comply with the expectations of peers through the purchase of specific products or services (bearden, netemeyer & teel, 1989:473). in particular, social identification plays a key role in buying behaviour as it enhances approval from an esteemed reference group (bartels & reinders, 2010:350). the generation y consumers consider an environmentally sensitive group as a socially appealing and inspiring segment of the population with which they would like to be associated (smith & brower, 2012:357). the strong power of in-group identity suggests a possible group effect in environmental behaviour, a trend more noticeable among young consumers (lee, 2009:92). social value is particularly important to generation y consumers as they are characterised by the desire for peer acceptance, conformity and affiliation (williams & page, 2011:44). in an endeavour to connect with peers, oliver and lee (2010:99) note that generation y consumers perceive purchase decisions as a creation of social identities. however, there is an inherent conflict within the generation y cohort to balance in-group identity and selfinterest (hume, 2010:392). moreover, the effect of social value on consumer buyer behaviour tends to vary within the cultural domains of collectivism and individualism (cheah & phau, 2011:453). muposhi, dhurup & surujlal 228 4.1.2 self-interest the overriding concern in social dilemmas is the conflict between self-interest and collective benefits (lee et al., 2014:2097). apart from being regarded as an altruistic act, the consumption of green products is also associated with the quest for status (griskevicius et al., 2010:394). for instance, schultz and zelezny (1999:255) noted the prevalence of egoistic environmental attitudes that have the potential of stimulating or inhibiting proenvironmental behaviour performance. in addition, de young (2000:515) suggests that some individuals find environmental behaviour “as worth engaging in because of the personal, internal contentment that participating in such behaviours provides.” accordingly, sexton and sexton (2012:6) opine that green consumption has a ‘green-signalling’ effect as it portrays an individual’s pro-social behaviour as demonstrated by the willingness to incur costs associated with the purchase of green products such as a high price. given the status enhancing benefits of engaging in pro-environmental behaviour, consumers are more likely to engage in competitive altruism in the presence of peers whilst at the same time seen as caring for the well-being of the environment (nunes, dreze & han, 2011:199). as green products are more expensive than conventional ones, status seeking consumers are more likely to buy green products to signal their ability to incur costs on behalf of others and the environment (griskevicius et al., 2010:393). as a status driven cohort, generation y consumers however, perceive high social risk if product purchase decisions fail to meet the expectations of peers (batra & kazmi, 2008:127). apart from social value orientation, the consumption of green products is also influenced by the cost of cooperation (gupta & ogden, 2009:387). 5. cost of cooperation the performance of green purchase behaviour is associated with costs such as high prices, extensive information search, unavailability of green products, risk perception and poor quality (lea & worsley, 2005:860; radman, 2005:269). within the context of green products, elliott (2013:299) conceptualises price under the auspices of the willingness of consumers to pay the premium price associated with green products. for instance, shafie and rennie (2012:365) observed that the premium price of green products remains as one of the major deterrents of green product consumption. moreover, the perception of risk is heightened by a scarcity of effective standards to monitor the production of green products (radman, 2005:271). specifically, the perception of risk is compounded by the scepticism associated with the credibility of eco-labels and green product advertisements (padel & foster, 2005:620). thus, risk adverse consumers would rather remain loyal to known conventional products than experiment with relatively unknown green products (smith & paladino, 2010:97). in social dilemma situations, the decision to engage in cooperative behaviour also depends on the perception of self-efficacy (van lange et al., 1992:18). 6. self-efficacy perceived self-efficacy is defined as ‘beliefs in one’s capabilities to organise and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainments’ (bandura, 1998:624). as an individual centric concept, self-efficacy largely depends on one’s willingness to engage in certain behaviours, core competencies and value systems (carrington et al., 2010:146). a generation y consumer cohort on green purchase behaviour td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 225-240. 229 based on the self-efficacy theory (bandura, 1977:193), consumers are likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviour if they believe that they have the capacity to reduce the negative effects of climate change. similarly, the theory of planned behaviour (ajzen, 1991:183) employs the perceived behaviour control construct to refer to an individual’s perception of the easiness and effectiveness of performing the behaviour of interest. perceived behavioural control also refers to an individual’s perceptions of the ability to perform a given behaviour (paco & raposo, 2009:431). thus, the concept of self-efficacy is based on the premise that consumers’ attitudes and responses to environmental appeals are a function of the belief that their efforts can positively address environmental problems (awad, 2011:61). 7 methodology 7.1 research approach and sample a qualitative research approach in the form of semi-structured in-depth interviews was adopted to understand the influence of sdt on green purchase behaviour of generation y consumers. this approach was preferred over a quantitative one as it allowed the "phenomenon of interest to unfold naturally" (patton, 2001:39). the sample was drawn from two higher education institutions (heis), namely a private college and public university of technology. using this sample, data were collected from a purposively selected generation y student sample comprising sixteen participants (n=16). the student population was selected because young students are regarded as future consumers, with the ability to influence longterm consumption patterns (atkinson & rosenthal, 2014:42). of the sixteen participants, nine (56%) were female and seven (44%) were male. participants ranged in age from 20 to 35 years, with a mean age of 25 years. 7.2 instrument and procedures an interview guide was designed after a comprehensive literature review. it was pre-tested with three participants to assess the suitability of questions, sequence of questions and the duration of the interview (surujlal, 2011:121). following the pre-test, it was refined with minor adjustments. the interview guide comprised questions on: motivation to buy or not to buy green products, experience of consumers with green products, sources of green product information, basis for green purchase behaviour and the possibility to continue to engage in green purchase behaviour. in line with the concept of informed consent, an invitation letter was sent to all participants prior to interviews. the letter briefly explained the purpose of the interview and the interview procedures. the ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from the participating two heis. the interviews were conducted at two campuses over a period of 30 days between may and july 2014. the interview commenced with a general broad question to put the interviewees at ease. the interviews were recorded on audiotape and notes were taken simultaneously by the interviewer to supplement the taped discussions. the tape recorder was positioned close enough between the researcher and each participant to record the conversation. as suggested by holloway and wheeler (2002:237), key points were noted discreetly to avoid distracting the participants and the flow of the interview. where necessary, probes were used to clarify certain issues. the audio tapes and interview notes were labelled properly for each interview with dates and pseudonym names including the date of the interview and the gender of the participants. all muposhi, dhurup & surujlal 230 the interviews were conducted by the researchers and were between 60-90 minutes duration. the interviews were conducted in line with ethical considerations such as respect, honesty, confidentiality and anonymity (surujlal, 2011:122).the concept of technical saturation was used to determine the sample size. technical saturation refers to the point at which recurrence of previously generated data occurs (guest, bunce & johnson, 2006:60). technical saturation was deemed to be reached by the sixteenth interview as no new information emerged from subsequent interviews. 7.3 data analysis following the verbatim transcription of the interviews, the researcher and two professors analysed all the transcripts from in-depth interviews by employing the six-stage process recommended by braun and clarke (2006:6). data analysis commenced by reading through the transcribed notes and listening to the interview recorded tapes to become familiar with the data. this was further done in order to capture all the key aspects raised in the interview and ascertain the depth and credibility of data (braun & clarke, 2006:86). after sifting through the data, the second stage took the inductive form of open coding. open coding refers to the process of clustering interview transcripts that appeared to pertain to similar ideas into categories and sub-categories (glesne, 2011:187; lawrence & tar, 2013:32). the creation of themes and sub-themes followed the open coding stage. according to leininger (1985:60), theme creation involves “bringing together components or fragments of ideas or experiences, which often are meaningless when viewed alone.” thematic analysis was undertaken to create themes from the interview transcripts. thematic analysis is defined as a meticulous process of identifying, analysing and reporting themes that emerge from a qualitative study (braun & clarke, 2006:79). thematic analysis was utilised because it is regarded by braun and clarke (2006:78) as “a foundational method for qualitative analysis.” the major advantage of thematic analysis is that, it allows the researcher to comprehensively scrutinise interviews transcripts and glean for all possible themes (glesne, 2011:187). the fourth stage involved theme refinement (braun & clarke, 2006:91). also known as axial coding (lawrence & tar, 2013:32), theme refinement involves a detailed analysis of themes and sub-themes in order to search for possible relationships amongst them (chen, chang & wu, 2012:374). theme refinement followed a two-step process. firstly, the themes and subthemes were reviewed to verify whether the identified themes were supported by interview transcripts. secondly, the themes were re-analysed to check for the relationships between themes and sub-themes (braun & clarke, 2006:91). in instances where the themes and subthemes were related, they were further collapsed to form one dominant theme (chen et al., 2012:374). the fifth stage involved mapping the themes that emanated from the analysis. the mapping process took the form of naming and defining precisely the themes that emerged in the analysis of the data. the aim of this step was to identify the essence of each theme and to determine the aspects of the data captured by each theme (braun & clarke, 2006:92). the data were analysed using an iterative and recursive process to ensure that all information relating to the study was aptly captured (creswell, 2009:189). in the final stage, the identified themes were related back to the research question and conclusions were inferred based on the generated themes. a generation y consumer cohort on green purchase behaviour td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 225-240. 231 7.4 credibility and trustworthiness of the study the reliability and validity of the present study was enhanced through methodological coherence, interview guide pre-testing, researcher flexibility, prolonged engagement, member checks and peer de-briefing. methodological coherence was achieved by ensuring compatibility between the research method and data analysis procedures (morse, barrett, mayan, olson & spiers, 2002:18). to achieve this, purposive sampling method was employed to enhance the richness of data in an attempt to answer as far as possible the research questions (russell & gregory, 2003:36). prior to conducting interviews, the interview guide was pre-tested with three participants to enhance its reliability. a further approach that was employed to enhance the trustworthiness of the present study was researcher reflexivity. it imposes an obligation on the researcher to disclose all personal beliefs and values that underpin the study, honestly (creswell & miller, 2000:121). in the context of this study, the semi-structured nature of the interviews allowed the researcher to be flexible and to approach the study with an objective mind by suppressing inherent preconceptions about the subject under study. credibility and trustworthiness were also ensured by assessing the consistency of responses from participants (brink, 1991:176). based on this technique, there was evidence of consistency in participants’ response and as such, the stability of data was evidenced. as recommended by kirk and miller (1986:30-31), the researcher also employed the concept of ‘prolonged engagement’ with participants through comprehensive interviews. this was done in order to generate a complete data set as well as to enhance the ‘thickness’ of data with the sole objective of revealing the full picture of the phenomenon under study. in addition, guba and lincoln (1989:239) consider member checks as “the single most critical technique for establishing credibility”. five participants that were readily available were requested to inspect the interview transcripts and they vouched that the data represented a true reflection of their views. the interview transcripts were also subjected to peer-debriefing to enhance credibility (robson, 1993:404). peer debriefing was done by two experts in qualitative research and it took the form of an “audit of the decision trail” whereby all stages in the data collection and analysis were scrutinised in order to check their adequacy (myrdal, 1970:43). the researcher also maintained meticulous documents and presented all the evidence regarding the interviewing process in form of recorded interview transcripts and interview’s notes to independent experts as a form of ensuring re-test reliability (surujlal & dhurup, 2011:127) and corroborating themes (crabtree & miller, 1999:170). based on the evidence from the interview documents presented, there was consensus between the researcher and the two experts regarding the validity of the themes that emerged from in-depth interviews. 8. results and discussion the depiction of research findings and analysis are closely intertwined in qualitative research. as such, these two sections are integrated in this study to “avoid repetition and to increase readability” (gustafsson, hassmen, kentta & johansson, 2008:805). in the following sections, the antecedents of the sdt that emerged from the analysis of the sixteen in-depth interviews are discussed. narratives associated with the antecedents of sdt are provided verbatim from the transcripts. • perceived cost muposhi, dhurup & surujlal 232 it was evident from the interviews that consumers perceive the purchase of green products as a costly undertaking. most participants cited price, unavailability of green products in conventional outlets and extraneous effort required to make a green purchase decision as the major impediments. these views are captured in the following excerpts: for me buying green products requires a bit of effort…you can only get these products in upmarket outlets…sometimes i think they are not meant for us ordinary people…you need extra transport money to access them….and making a purchase decision sometimes it’s not easy [oscar]. i regard myself as a price sensitive consumer, price plays a big role in my purchase decisions, honestly i am not prepared to pay for the higher price, which in some cases its double that of non-green products...i believe it’s too much…for example the green coffee is twice more expensive than the non-green one... [melisa]. it can be deduced from the foregoing excerpts that consumers are concerned with the magnitude of physical and cognitive effort required to buy green products. this finding is consistent with that of gupta and ogden (2009:389) that showed that the costs of cooperation influence the purchase of green products. similarly, hjelmar (2011:341) characterises the green market as a “complex purchase setting” resulting in difficulties in making a green purchase decision. • effectiveness of individual behaviour the majority of the participants perceived that their individual effort appears not enough to address environmental problems. the feelings of inadequacy are captured in the following excerpt: i am willing to participate but i believe my effort alone is not enough. it must be a collective effort...the way i see it our government is not doing enough to punish those companies that are damaging the environment…even if you look at the environmental campaigns by the department of environmental affairs…they appear lukewarm. to me they are not stimulating… [steven]. this finding is in line with that of shafie and rennie (2012:365) which revealed that consumers are not equipped to make green product purchase decisions. steven’s comment confirms the association between environmental responsibility and the concept of selfefficacy. self-efficacy refers to the extent to which individuals believe that their efforts have potential to mitigate the problem at hand (bandura, 1977:193). consistent with the selfefficacy concept, cheah and phau (2011:459) also found that unless consumers believe that their actions will have the desired outcomes, they are less likely to engage in proenvironmental behaviour. • peer influence the participants also indicated that they are favourably influenced by the views of family members and peers to engage in pro-environmental behaviours. the following narrative indicates the effect of social influence on green purchase behaviour: “when i am at campus my friends influence me much on what to eat…we enjoy buying as a group…it appears our tastes are now converging…but during vacations what to eat appears to be a family decision…whatever you buy it must be acceptable…my mother, in particular likes organic foods…she says they reduce breast cancer and obesity…..so i always buy what is preferred … [esther]. a generation y consumer cohort on green purchase behaviour td, 11(3), december 2015, pp. 225-240. 233 the foregoing excerpt consolidates the role of family and peer influence in the purchase of green products. this finding reflects those of previous studies by pickett-baker and ozaki (2008:289), and lockie, lyons, lawrence and grice (2004:145) who found that social environments and peer networks positively influence purchase decisions of green products. similarly, lee (2011:303) acknowledges the role of family and peers as socialisation agents with the potential of imparting environmental values and attitudes to their acquaintances. thus, the uptake of green products is likely to be enhanced if they are promoted through the use of social networks. • green dilemma for the majority of the participants, the purchase of green products amounts to a dilemma as they strive to balance individual needs and collective social needs. this view is encapsulated in the following excerpt: i must say i wish to identify with my colleagues on almost everything i do... but sometimes i look at factors that affect me as an individual like my image, style yeah something like that…i always try to make sure that my peers fit in whatever i do though... [owen]. the foregoing excerpt is supported in literature that characterises the purchase of green products as a social dilemma (gupta & odgen, 2009:386). the social dilemma is evident when participants strive to balance the quest for belongingness and selfidentity. the need to fit in the social group is supported by the social comparison theory (sct). the sct posits that individuals relate their behavioural actions with those of esteemed acquaintances to attest their affiliation (festinger, 1954:135). based on the foregoing excerpt, participants tend to compare their product choices with those of their peers. the preceding narrative also implies that consumers seem to be favourably inclined towards products that bolster their self-image. this is evident when participants strive to buy products that enhance their self-image. this finding is consistent with that of lee (2008:582) who found that young consumers are favourably inclined towards green products that assuage their self-image. this finding has its theoretical roots in the self-image congruity theory (sict) that holds that individuals tend to prefer to buy products that are compatible with their image (sirgy, 1985:296). thus, to promote green purchase behaviour among the ego-driven generation y consumers, marketers need to strive to align the green product’s image with that perceived important by consumers (hume, 2010:392). • perceived trust the study also revealed that trust plays a major role in promoting and sustaining consumer interest in green products. this view is captured in the following excerpts: …to me benefits of these products to the environment remains a myth…it appears it’s a marketing gimmick…i regard it as a ploy to charge higher prices…just like the recent meat labelling scandal….without sound checks on those claims you can’t be sure... [ruth]. …it seems companies just slap a green label to their products…i think the government needs to do more to protect consumers…so honestly i don’t trust the so called green products… [neil]. it can be inferred from the foregoing excerpts that participants demand green marketing messages that are cogently expressed. notably, an undertone of a deliberate attempt to mislead by marketers is apparent from the preceding excerpts. this finding reiterates the muposhi, dhurup & surujlal 234 importance of justifying the environmental claims of green products and enhancing the integrity of environmental labels. this finding also dominates green marketing literature and scepticism is considered as the major challenge faced by marketers in promoting the adoption and diffusion of green products (albayrak, aksoy & caber, 2013:36). additionally, sceptical participants tend to attach more risk to green products as attested by the following excerpt: i buy the products i consider good regularly…green products are relatively new to me...i feel i don’t have enough information to consider buying them…because, i have formed a habit of things that i buy all the time, and i’d rather not put in the time and money, and somewhat cost difference for green products… [owen] it is evident from the foregoing excerpt that perceptions of green-washing tend to erode the formation of favourable attitudes towards green products. this finding tends to endorse the recommendation by atkinson and rosenthal (2014:39) that marketers need to structure green marketing messages in a way that fosters consumer trust. similarly, young, hwang, mcdonald and oates (2010:29) also stressed the importance of the role of government in setting clearer regulations to stamp out green-washing claims by consumers. 9. limitations and directions for further research although the objective of the study was achieved, the findings are prone to limitations that offer avenues for future research. firstly, the present study utilised non-probability sampling methods that included purposive and convenience sampling to select participants. the study also employed a self-reporting method of data collection that involved the use of in-depth interviews. this increased the chances of the findings to be susceptible to sampling and social desirability bias. thus, future research efforts may employ probability sampling methods and multiple data collection methods to enhance the external validity of the findings. secondly, the results of the study are limited to the generation y consumers enrolled at higher education institutions in the gauteng province in south africa. as such, the findings of the study may not adequately capture the influence of the sdt on green purchase behaviour of all generation y consumers and other generational cohorts in south africa. thus, it would be enlightening to examine the influence of sdt on green purchase behaviour using a broader heterogeneous sample frame to enhance the generalisability of the findings. 10. conclusion the aim of the study was to understand the influence of the sdt on green purchase behaviour of generation y consumers. the study identified perceived cost, self-efficacy, trust and peer influence as the main antecedents of sdt that influence green purchase behaviour. self-efficacy perceptions may be enhanced in consumers through the provision of objective environment knowledge and environmental awareness campaigns (ling, 2013:14504). green marketing tools such as environmental labels and rational green product messages have the potential to enhance self-efficacy in generation y consumers. alternatively, marketers may formulate marketing messages that reinforce the importance of individual contribution in preserving the environment. in order to foster the purchase of green products, it is recommended that the green marketing strategy be focused on setting competitive prices, and enhancing quality and availability of green products 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a. 2011. marketing to the generations. journal of behavioural studies in business, 3(1):37-53. young, w., hwang, k., mcdonald, s. & oates, c. j. 2010. sustainable consumption: green consumer behaviour when purchasing products. sustainable development, 18:20-31. abstract introduction background to the study aim and objectives research methodology data collection findings discussion of findings recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) christa delport de villiers department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa sarina de jager department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation delport de villiers c, de jager s. courageous conversations in the life orientation classroom and teacher vulnerability. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1097. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1097 original research courageous conversations in the life orientation classroom and teacher vulnerability christa delport de villiers, sarina de jager received: 31 may 2021; accepted: 23 july 2021; published: 04 nov. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the independent education board (ieb) introduced the need to facilitate critical conversations on controversial topics in the life orientation (lo) classroom at the national conference in 2016. this shifted the focus of discussions to a facilitated critical narrative within ieb subject assessment guidelines (sags) topics. this push followed youth activism against systemic racism at educational institutes, which initially created the perception that these conversations related to the socio-political status quo alone. however, the lo curriculum includes a range of topics that require critical narratives. courageous conversations may trigger cognitive and emotional dissonance in both the teacher and learner. it is, therefore, crucial to interrogate the lo teachers’ lived experiences in facilitating courageous conversations. this study employed individual phenomenological interviews and a focus group discussion. the participants consisted of nine lo teachers from gauteng, eastern cape, western cape and north west province. each individual interview focused on determining the contexts and the phenomenon of their lived experience of courageous conversations and each participant’s agency in their private capacity as professional educators. the focus group discussion centred around establishing gaps in the motivation, training and skill development of lo teachers to facilitate these conversations. the findings indicate that the courage required of teachers to challenge and be challenged, albeit in a safe environment, results in teacher vulnerability. keywords: courageous conversations; vulnerability; life orientation; critical agency, dissonance triggers, autonomy, lived experience, negotiated space. introduction life orientation (lo) teachers are encouraged to provide their learners with exposure to multiple perspectives and academically sound knowledge. the content must allow them to critically analyse opinions, views and beliefs that manifest in democracy, human rights, gender and sexuality, mental health and identity development.1,2 these courageous conversations occur in lo classrooms where teachers need to develop an agency to negotiate the trust relationship with their learners that make the possible vulnerability of the teacher meaningful, despite the professional dissonance that the conflicting values between school and subject may trigger.3,4,5 during this study, the lo teacher’s lived experience of courageous conversations in the lo classroom was explored. both teacher and learner share this space within which the courageous conversation occurs with openness, honesty, trust and safety.6,7,8 this integrated sharing of learning and teaching could enrich identity development and the meaning attached to the courageous conversation as a learning process. the facilitation of courageous conversations depends on the teacher’s ability to reflect and grow their personal beliefs, develop high professional courage, re-frame their critical agency and remain motivated to facilitate these conversations.9,10,11 it is crucial that the teachers’ model of facilitation, self-regulation and growth determine the trust relationship between the teacher and learners.5,12,13 background to the study the informal directive from the independent education board (ieb) in 2016 to facilitate courageous conversations as a lo teaching practice shifted the focus from an informal approach to critically analysing selected content, seen as potentially controversial, to utilise in an open formal conversation. this shift in teaching methodology presented a challenge to lo teachers.14 the teacher’s level of professional skill and experience directly correlated with their confidence and motivation to select specific content that learners may experience as sensitive, to enhance the lo curriculum.15 perceptions held about lo since its implementation as a compulsory subject have been and continue to be tenuous.16 the support for both lo as a subject and the lo teacher as an academic is often limited, resulting in greater rates of teacher turnover and a compounded lack of specialised lo teachers to meet the increased demand for a higher academic standard in this subject.17 in independent schools, there is more flexibility in applying subject curricula and structured timetables.18 in lo, the battle for sufficient time allocation continues. consequently, in smaller schools, it is likely that the entire lo department will consist of only one teacher.19 few lo teachers can teach their subject with complete autonomy, managerial support and with respect for the value of the subject they teach and for the challenges integral to the context and nature of the lo curriculum.20 the lo teacher has a significant need for professional courage when negotiating a safe space within which courageous conversations can be facilitated with their learners truthfully, openly, safely and honestly.21,22 aim and objectives the study’s objective is to describe how lo teachers attach meaning to teaching topics they deem sensitive, and that need to be facilitated through courageous conversations to develop critical citizenship skills.17,23 empathy and knowledge of one’s learners are vital in enabling the teacher to create an environment where these open and truthful conversations can occur and foster trust and understanding.24,25 furthermore, the study aimed to provide insight into the existing gaps in skills development, dissonance and motivation to facilitate the conversations that require professional courage.26,27 identifying factors contributing to the lo teachers’ sense of vulnerability is vital in understanding their choices of content, the boundaries of the school culture, the availability of a support system and the level of respect and trust that exist in the space where they need to implement these difficult conversations.28 research methodology this qualitative study implemented a phenomenological approach to focus on the lived experiences of lo teachers. phenomenology was a suitable approach to understand and describe the complexities of the teachers’ lived experiences, anecdotes thereof, and emotions experienced during courageous conversations. the data obtained from the in-depth phenomenological interviews of the participants’ lived experiences and the focus group discussion enabled the development of ‘seamless perspectives’ to describe these different experiential realities authentically.29,30 in-depth phenomenological interviews with nine teachers and a focus group discussion were utilised. bevan describes the phenomenological approach as a three-phase process: contextualisation of the participant’s lifeworld, apprehension of the phenomena or lived experience of the participant and clarifying the phenomenon to focus on specific aspects of the lived experience.31 these three phases provided a practical structure and confirmation that ensured that the phenomena were fully clarified from the data collection process. data collection nine teachers were selected based on their experience as subject heads of lo, as cluster leaders or regional moderators or both. furthermore, the participants have experience as either nsc portfolio moderators or national common assessment task (cat) examiners. the implementation of online teaching in march 2020 allowed for the inclusion of participants from cape town, eastern cape, north west province and gauteng. this inclusion ensured a more diverse group of participants, who included teachers from religious schools, a dual-medium school, transdisciplinary teachers, teachers who are mainly sports specialists and teachers who are dedicated lo specialists. the individual interviews consisted of a set of leading semi-structured questions used to design a critical questioning approach. the main question posed to participants were what are your experiences of courageous conversations in the lo classroom? the interpretivist researcher role allowed the questions to evolve according to participant responses.32 the structure consisted of three phases: phase 1 – contextualisation, phase 2 – apprehension of the phenomenon and phase 3 – interpretive and imaginative questions.31,33 the interaction included opportunities to self-regulate any dissonance that resulted from the critical conversations.34,35,36 the focus group discussion consisted of a further set of semi-structured conversations to authenticate responses during the individual interviews or address gaps in the data gathered.33,37 the transcribed interviews and discussions were analysed according to tesch’s eight step coding process.38 each interview was read to identify key phrases to structure the data; commonalities between these key phrases were identified to create main thematic headings; the supporting themes were resorted under each main thematic heading. the third tier of thematic subheadings that enable the interpretation of the data was identified and assimilated to structure a rich, in-depth and detailed analysis of the findings.38 ethical clearance was obtained from the university of pretoria’s research ethics committee. thereafter, participants who met the criteria were approached and presented with informed consent. participants were notified that they could withdraw at any stage of the study. findings the three main emerging themes will form the focus of this article. the participants indicated the following themes as consistent contributing factors to their motivation to develop dynamic content for courageous conversations: (1) vulnerability, (2) teacher’s experience of a lack of autonomy and (3) fostering mutual respect in the lo space. the nine schools represented by the participants were found to have a demographic that ranged from 90% black learners, indigenous learners and learners of colour (bipoc) learners to 90% white learners. the approximate average learner demographic was 45% – 65% white learners approximately 25% – 35% black learners (here referring to african individuals), 10% bi-racial learners approximately 5% coloured learners and 10% – 15% indian learners. the majority of schools are situated in urban middle to upper middle-class areas. one of the schools were situated in a rural farming area and therefore found access to resources, which were easily accessible by urban schools, a challenge. the teaching environments consisted of historical schools, religious schools serving a specific denomination, religious schools that do not serve a particular denomination and a very liberal school. vulnerability participant c mentioned that: ‘i think i do this [refers to strategising according to potential triggers] all the time; i literally think i have a back-up plan for every statement i make in class. [all round laughter] i feel like it is a continual problem, i always … every time i say something i review it, and i’m like what happened, if this child leaves the room and say that this happened, will there be kids that will back me up.’ (participant c, lo teacher) further feelings of vulnerability are expressed by participant i when she says: ‘… in lo you are talking about feelings, you are talking about perceptions and there is no guidebook to that and that is why you are so nervous all the time because what you are doing is you are negotiating the space, you don’t know how learners are going to react to things [specific current content to augment the curriculum] because you cannot hide behind this is fact …’ (participant i, lo teacher) this participant further added that: ‘… what you [the lo teacher] are doing is getting learners to engage with opinions openly and honestly having those courageous discussions, but at the same time it is unchartered territory and that is scary and you never know what side you are going to get, and even in a school like mine [liberal, upper-middle-class] that tries to bring this critical learning attitude across i still feel that fear in the classroom.’ (participant i, lo teacher) participant b described the following: ‘i am constantly grappling … and i think that is why i started the year off so badly – i never felt i was on top of things despite how well i was prepared.’ (participant b, lo teacher) life orientation teachers experience a lack of autonomy participant c described that: ‘we are also almost seen as people who may have instigated problems rather than actually seeing us as doing a good job by actively discussing these problematic issues with the learners.’ (participant c, lo teacher) participant e illustrated the impact of current unease: ‘… for the first time in all the years that i’ve been here, management wanted my lo books, for each and every single grade, he went through them and then called me in for a meeting and now i’ve got purple dog tags that he put into topics that i have to chat to him about first, before i’m allowed to tackle it in class.’ (participant e, lo teacher) participant a stated that the demands made of lo teachers are often unrealistic and stand in stark contrast to the dismissal of lo as having poor educational value and of lo as a non-academic subject. academically the initial description of lo as a compulsory subject was as experiential, and the allocation of only 10 credits led to the assumption that the subject would have a lower academic standard. therefore, the expectation was for lo to account for exponentially greater numbers of subject distinctions. this, despite the requirement, stipulated in the lo subject assessment guidelines (sags) for lo to be taught and assessed using the same bloom’s taxonomy levels as all other subjects.20 participant c illustrated the lack of managerial support as: ‘you know i am never called into a meeting at any other time, but i am called into meetings, not to hear how i am or how lo is going – it is just “why do you not have more distinctions?”’ (participant c, lo teacher) it was clear from five of the respondents that praise or acknowledgement for lo and the work performed, skills needed and the constant need to be able to respond with sound knowledge to the learners’ questions about an increasingly complex world, an increasingly fluid and sensitised society, and the toxic dynamic between society and environment. participant i stated that: ‘the need to interact critically and challenge the power relationships between racial groups, gender identities, sexual orientations, the decline in mental health, the fragility of environmental resources has not decreased, it has increased. so much needs to be performed constantly by an lo teacher to stay current, source content, design new lessons, and have factual substantiation for everything we take into that lo space.’ (participant i, lo teacher) ‘the need to prove oneself as an lo teacher is far greater on young inexperienced teachers, who do not have the skills or knowledge to manage expectations or to set boundaries and make enough time to self-reflect and self-regulate. this further increases the high turnover rate of teachers that weakens the subject.’ (participant b, lo teacher) however, participants seem to feel that a loss of autonomy can be minimised by supportive mentorship: ‘with maturity and experience, it is far easier to negotiate boundaries and set limits according to your level of expertise.’ (participant e, lo teacher) becoming assertive and setting clear boundaries reflect a conscious choice to adapt to becoming a strategist and facilitator as their set teacher behaviour and becomes the coping mindset needed to facilitate courageous conversation. however, as participant c reflected: ‘… preparing for every possible question and being prepared with a coping strategy for every possible contentious response or risk of confrontation becomes mentally exhausting.’ (participant c, lo teacher) the importance of overcoming the lack of time to reflect and self-regulate is described by participant d as follows: ‘… 2020 [despite the covid protocols and online teaching] just that time helped me to gain a new perspective and to really look at myself, like look at what am i really here for as a lo teacher? what should my focus be?’ (participant d, lo teacher) the professional courage required from the lo teachers increases their vulnerability and professional risks, but without support, it results in self-isolation triggered by their fear of failure. participants g shared that: ‘… one parent just ripped everything [lo content covered in the classroom] to shreds for about a year – it affected me emotionally, and basically i didn’t teach those aspects for a while. i basically said to the school. the school needs to actually say, don’t teach that, if that’s what they want. if they say don’t teach it, then i won’t teach it.’ (participant g, lo teacher) fostering mutual respect in the life orientation space despite the challenges faced by lo teachers, there are many aspects that provide motivation to the teachers. participant h stated that: ‘you have to love this subject; the interaction with the learners, mentoring them until they have those “aha-moments.” providing well-placed scaffolding until they are ready to embrace the challenge and extend themselves, all while learning to listen and learn with others equally.’ (participant h, lo teacher) participant g stated that experienced teachers who are aware of and can sufficiently manage their workload have longevity, emotional intelligence, aptitude and a thirst for new knowledge. these teachers also have internal motivation and are energised by challenging and rigorous debate – they find lo a beautiful subject. participant g described the impact of mutual respect as follows: ‘… when it comes to learners and in the classroom, then i’m only uplifted by what happens. i’ve never walked away from a lesson with learners and felt “that was dreadful” or felt upset or whatever – never!’ (participant g, lo teacher) participant d described the need for mutual respect as follows: ‘… part of our role as lo teachers is to challenge learners on statements that are made, and in that challenging … there has got to be an element of trust in a teacher, and respect for a teacher’s capabilities.’ (participant d, lo teacher) participant a mentioned that: ‘… it is paramount that lo teachers focus on getting to know their learners, gauge their maturity levels and their readiness before they move on to the self-analysis of their own beliefs and opinions during grade 11 and grade 12.’ (participant a, lo teacher) participant b added to participant a’s comment that: ‘learners have to be provided with the cognitive scaffolding to identify their triggers, understand them and practice how to reflect on and accommodate cognitive and emotional dissonance so that they may be able to cope with a peer or teacher challenging their opinions.’ (participant b, lo teacher) the bond that is created between teacher and learner and learners with their peers in a relationship characterised by mutual respect is illustrated by participant g: ‘i’ve got one youngster in matric, who as he has realised that he actually has a voice, he is just the most amazing youngster, and he has this wealth of knowledge … because he’s the one, at the end of our meeting the other day, who said “i just want to say, if any of you are feeling uncomfortable after this, that’s ok, you’re on the road to recovery.” how sweet is that – “you’re on the road to recovery.”’ (participant g, lo teacher) discussion of findings the participants experienced vulnerability, to be attributable to a lack of support from school management and colleagues, specifically regarding broad, often unrealistic, expectations of expertise regarding social issues that are considered the purview of lo.39 this teacher’s vulnerability is further compounded by negative perceptions of lo’s value, a general lack of understanding of the context and content of lo and socio-historical trauma experienced by bipoc teachers, learners and parents.15,40 the participants expressed that they had to learn to be assertive in dealing with unrealistic expectations and the lack of recognition in developing an improved perception of the academic value of their subject.7 they also had to develop coping skills to overcome the challenges that deplete their professional motivation and result in the lack of teacher longevity.41 the impact of maintaining this learned teacher behaviour made it vital to utilise self-reflection as restorative self-care and to rely on internal motivation independent of an external support system.12 it is not merely the workload but the mental drain of being fearful of reprisals.24 teachers must constantly be cognisant of parent’s and management’s possible reaction to the content analyses of belief systems and worldviews that are common during courageous conversations. a backlash from learners, parents and management because of the content analyses of belief systems and world views of which they must be cognisant.42 it is impossible to remove racial identity and perspectives from the curriculum topics or content of lo as a subject area because culture and ethnicity are a big part of how meaning is added to the lived experiences and how the lo teacher interacts with their learners.10 therefore, it is not unusual that the conversations at home that become evident in the classroom also indicate that the classroom conversations feature around the dinner table at home.43 the importance of socio-historical perceptions is still inherent and needs to be acknowledged and resolved.10 the skills to negotiate an lo space in which there is trust, respect, accommodation and openness, need to be honed constantly.9 this negotiation starts each year afresh, with each new class. it remains very stressful and lo teachers remain nervous in this space. it is not possible to pre-empt all responses, you are actively negotiating that trust relationship and safe space with each courageous conversation. the lack of understanding, especially from management, the courage and motivation needed to navigate the specific content and context of lo and courageous conversations is an increasing drain on the lo teacher’s self-motivation. most participants indicated that they find it easier to foster openness with their learners by using themselves and their combined lived experiences as subject matter in general lo lessons and courageous conversations.4 taking this risk makes the trust relationship between teacher and learner integral to the honesty and respect negotiated in this safe lo space.35 the common denominator in the various participants’ individual critical agencies for their teaching praxis is that with lo, through promoting personal growth and development, the concept of an evolving worldview is to afford young adults with an agency that is crucial to the world beyond school.21 identifying the factors that are contributing to the lo teachers’ sense of vulnerability is vital in understanding their choices of content, the boundaries of the school culture they need to navigate, the availability of a support system (internal or external) and the level of respect and trust that exist in the space where they need to implement these difficult conversations.17,28 recommendations there is a clear need to create training opportunities and hands-on workshops for lo teachers, especially regarding the setting of boundaries and negotiation of a safe space for courageous conversations. their existing skills need to be updated to be able to open up controversial topics and discussions. clear efforts should be made to create a better understanding and insight into the context and content of lo. management structures especially should be encouraged to be more supportive of the value added to the affective and psychological becoming of the learner in the lo classroom. conclusion life orientation teachers had to adjust their teaching practice to accommodate the informal directive from the ieb to implement conversations on controversial issues in the classroom.14 however, the lo curriculum additionally encompasses many topics, such as democracy, race, gender, sexuality, belief systems, political policies and human rights that do not have set content to provide the lo teacher with the flexibility to keep the content current and valid to their learners. attempting to plan for all possible questions or perspectives, that may manifest in their classroom during a critical discussion compounds the teacher’s constant sense of being vulnerable. it is important to identify accessible support systems to provide lo teachers with the skills to self-regulate, practice self-care and restore their waning motivation and positive decision making. it is only when the teacher can balance effective and meaningful experiences, without fearing the challenges and discomfort, that the lived experience of courageous conversation can continue and the value and academic impact of the lo subject and teacher can fully be achieved. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions c.d.d.v. conceptualised and executed the study as this article is based on her masters dissertation. s.d.j. supervised the process, edited the article and added to the writing. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. other than the change to electronic meetings platforms used, permission for which was granted by the faculty of education, all guidelines and criteria set out by the ethics committee were adhered to with great care. all data is stored in accordance with the guidelines as provided by the ethics committee of the faculty of education, university of pretoria: hu 19 02 01. data availability permission to access data can be requested from the supervisor of the study, dr sarina de jager (sarina.dejager@up.ac.za), upon reasonable request. the study was still in progress at the time of this article’s publication. disclaimer the views expressed in this article are the researcher’s and not the official position of the university of pretoria. references independent examination board (ieb). life orientation subject assessment guidelines. johannesburg: ieb, 2018; p. 1–18. independent examination board (ieb). independent examination board regional user group conference. johannesburg: independent examination board (ieb); 2019. bongwe si. 100 lessons in diversity: learning about yourself and others. 1st ed. johannesburg: the diversity centre; 2010. francis d, le roux a. teaching for social justice education: the intersection between identity, critical agency, and social justice education. s 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relationships in post-apartheid south africa and the informal policing of public spaces. ethn racial stud. 2018;0(0):1–17. baumeister rf. self-control, ego depletion, and social psychology’s replication crisis. in: mele a, editor. surrounding self-control. new york, ny: oxford, 2018; p. 1–13. reygan f, steyn m. diversity in basic education in south africa: intersectionality and critical diversity literacy. africa educ rev. 2017;14(2):68–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2017.1280374 wassermann j. teaching controversial issues in history. in: van eeden es, warnich p, editors. teaching and learning history and geography in the south african classroom. 1st ed. pretoria: van schaik publishers, 2018; p. 113–131. abstract introduction research methodology context of current protests legislative and policy framework governing public protests service delivery historical context the frequency, geographical spread and effect or impact of service delivery protests service delivery protests literature review: the south african context conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) bethuel s. ngcamu department of governance and management, walter sisulu university, east london, south africa citation ngcamu, b.s., 2019, ‘exploring service delivery protests in post-apartheid south african municipalities: a literature review, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a643. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.643 review article exploring service delivery protests in post-apartheid south african municipalities: a literature review bethuel s. ngcamu received: 29 nov. 2019; accepted: 02 aug. 2019; published: 14 nov. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: this literature study argues that some studies published in south africa on service delivery protests at municipal level are unacademic, as they are based on mainly untested, unreliable and unvalidated perceptions. aim: this study addresses issues such as how service delivery protests have been conceptualised scientifically by researchers from the perspective of practice, policy and industry; how the conceptualisation has evolved over time; interconnections, if any, between service delivery protests and other elements; dominant dimensions or themes in the scientific literature on service delivery protests; and the impact of lack of public participation on service delivery. method: the study adopts a hermeneutic framework, with the literature obtained classified, mapped, critically assessed, themes and arguments developed. results: there is a paucity of studies conducted and published between 1994 and 2000 on service delivery protests. secondly, most studies are narrative analyses of protest events not grounded in any research philosophy, tradition, theory or framework. lastly, most of the studies are qualitative, with no evidence of reliability and validity being tested and, consequently, acceptability of their findings. conclusion: this study is expected to play an important role in shaping government policies and practices and assisting in planning to mitigate service delivery protests and also contribute to the scientific knowledge regarding how scholars perceive service delivery protests. it depicts gaps in the service delivery protests at a municipal level to draw future scholars to conduct empirical studies with an aim to contribute to theory, concept and policy and advise decision-makers at municipal levels. keywords: civil society; hermeneutic framework; participation; service delivery protest; south africa. introduction the south african government, constituted by the african national congress (anc), has been experiencing turbulence manifested in a multiplicity of protests that are worsening at the municipal level where service delivery issues are paramount. an increase in service delivery protests has been correlated with economic retraction, dual pressures of recessionary environment and rising unemployment. the previous statement can be attested to because of the demands and grievances advanced by the unemployed to create employment opportunities or unhappiness with how tenders and jobs are allocated. while the disgruntled citizens may have valid reasons to embark on the service delivery protests, they have been perceived as having a negative impact on government programmes, businesses, investor confidence and jobs. the ongoing service delivery protests can be regarded as a self-defeating strategy to those areas that are more susceptible to them, mostly the municipalities located in the peri(urban) areas. this has been evidenced across the century where the municipal service delivery protests have destroyed several schools that have affected the quality of education (vuwani in limpopo province is a typical example). these protests have a detrimental impact on businesses as they are hijacked by criminals who break into and loot shops, forcing businesses to close their doors. furthermore, business prospects for growth diminish when several days are lost to strikes throughout the country. the service delivery protests do not restore investor confidence, decreasing the reputation of south africa as an investment destination and having a negative effect on tourism arrivals. in view of the above problems that have been identified, this literature review seeks to determine emerging themes and trends on the published data regarding service delivery protests at a municipal level as well as to contribute to theory, policy and practice. this study attempts to answer the following questions: how empirically and academically reliable are the findings of academic and other research on service delivery protests in south africa? what are the reasons for a fluctuating quality of empirical methods and findings? how can such problems and challenges be rectified? a number of commentators have attributed the proliferation of often violent service delivery protests at a municipal level to poor service delivery, low productivity, poor communication, poverty and unemployment, poor participation of communities in decision-making processes and lack of access to information, which has fuelled rumours of favouritism, corruption and mismanagement by officials. pithouse (2009:251) argues that official discourse from the state, academics and non-governmental organisations (ngos), including human rights activists and ngos, more or less, uniformly describes these protests as ‘service delivery protests’. the author posits that the protests are often regarded as targeting local ward councillors who are deemed responsible for rendering municipal services. several researchers (alexander 2010; booysen 2009a; ngwane 2010; sinwell et al. 2009; vally 2009) have suggested that protest action in south africa is derived from a growing body of research and scholarship, as well as a number of disparate, largely qualitatively based initiatives to collect protest data. some researchers are of the view that service delivery protests are instigated and led by young people mostly in townships (matebesi 2011), civil society movements, personally motivated and local groups and immigrants (akinboade, mokwena & kinfack 2013; hough 2008). service delivery protests in south africa have been characterised by mass meetings, drafting of memoranda, petitions, ‘toyi-toying’, processions, stay-aways, election boycotts, blockading of roads, construction of barricades, burning of tyres, looting, destruction of buildings, chasing unpopular individuals out of townships, confrontations with the police and forced resignations of elected officials (akinboade et al. 2013:467; alexander 2010:26; sebugwawo 2011). scholarly published data on service delivery protests in south africa are lacking, with the available published literature being anecdotal and informed by popular media rather than theories emanating from the empirical data. this is occurring while a municipal iq (2019) has recorded a peak level of service delivery protests in 2018 tallying 24% more protests than the previous 2014 record holder. the gauteng province has tended to be the major site for service delivery protests between 2004 and 2008, accounting for 24% and reaching 36% in 2017. conversely, 2018 was totally different, with the eastern cape province leading with 20%, followed by the western cape (17%) and gauteng province at 16%. nyar and wray (2012) posit that protests occur mostly in urban areas, among groups such as labour, the unemployed and poor, shack dwellers, informal traders, students, local communities and ordinary citizens, whose grievances are related to issues of socio-economic justice. the deep gulf between the state and the urban poor is underlined by the violent response of the police in many instances, resulting in injuries and deaths of protesters as well as innocent bystanders (beall, gelb & hassim 2005). researchers such as akinboade et al. (2013), alexander (2010), hough (2008), and thompson and nleya (2010) note that service delivery protests are either violent or peaceful, with clear dissatisfaction of local communities about the shortcomings of services rendered to them. service delivery protests also shed light on a general attitude of disgruntlement with the local government system in south africa (mathekga & buccus 2006:13). these researchers further postulate that service delivery protests are regarded as a security threat, resulting from elected councillors’ failure to provide communities with adequate basic needs, government making empty promises and resistance to government policy on privatisation and private accumulation of wealth by corrupt municipal officials. thompson and nleya (2010) posit that inadequate service delivery and lack of accountability, shortage of people with relevant skills to govern, underfunding and the anc’s policy of deployment have exacerbated service delivery protests. this study provides an in-depth analysis of published literature in databases on dimensions and relationships implicated in violent service delivery protests. specifically, the study addresses issues such as how service delivery protests have been conceptualised scientifically by researchers from the perspective of theory, concept, policy and practice; how the conceptualisation has evolved over time; interconnections, if any, between service delivery protests and other elements; dominant dimensions or themes in the scientific literature on service delivery protests; and the impact of lack of public participation in service delivery at a municipal level. this article is divided into seven sections: research methodology context of current protests in south africa, legislative and policy framework governing protests, analysis of public protests between 1994 and 1999, statistical analysis of service delivery protests and scholarly published literature between 2000 and 2019 on service delivery protests. the article draws conclusions, makes recommendations and provides suggestions for future researchers on the basis of the limitations of the study. research methodology this article draws a literature review performed by the author for the service delivery protests in south africa that critically examined peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, government reports and theses on service delivery protests in the south african municipality level. the study’s research design was a structured review of the south african published work up to 2019. the author consulted a library team to devise an overall search strategy and specific terms (such as the service delivery protests in south africa) to review publications across databases, including sabinet (southern african bibliographic information network), google scholar, ibss (international bibliography of the social sciences) and irec (inclusive research education community). the search engine was an iterative process with terms progressively refined to increase the relevance of results. two academics in the social sciences discipline were used to appraise the initial results through a review of abstracts. abstracts were filtered for their relevance for the objectives of the review. the abstracts were reviewed for quality, citation of the journal articles, reliable empirical base and/or being theoretically sound. a total of 26 quality journal articles were returned initially, which were used in this study. the journal articles espoused some limitations on the impact of service delivery protests which were supplemented by reviewed book chapters and government reports. the researcher’s purpose was to download articles that have focussed on the conceptualisation of the service delivery protests, how these have evolved dominant into themes, and the impact of public participation in service delivery protests. however, the majority of the journal articles were generic, not grounded in any theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and mostly qualitative, with very few quantitative research studies found. context of current protests published academic literature on service delivery protests is scant, with many authors focussing on causes of protests in articles published in journals such as the international journal of social economics, journal of south african studies, journal of public administration and africanus. south africa has been described as the protest capital of the world, with diverse triggers of protests, including unhappiness of residents with re-demarcation of wards or municipalities to other areas without proper consultation by government, which has led to burning of public institutions such as schools (e.g. the case of vuwani in limpopo). furthermore, hashtags such as feesmustfall, commissioned by university students fighting for free education, zumamustfall, coordinated by the civil society save south africa campaign, femicide and sexual abuse of women and young girls by religious leaders have exacerbated and changed the nature of protests in south africa. moreover, disillusionment and unhappiness with the leadership of the country under president zuma, which is characterised by political patronage, factionalism, vote-buying and gate-keeping, have exacerbated the situation, with the interest of the country subordinated to the interests of a few. finally, the major cabinet reshuffle on 30 april 2017 negatively affected economic conditions, leading to the country being downgraded by two of three ratings agencies. in early april in the same year, standard and poor’s (s&p’s) global ratings announced the lowering of foreign currency ratings of seven banks (firstrand bank, firstrand, nedbank, investec bank, absa bank, barclays africa group and bnp (banque nationale de paris) paribas personal finance south africa) from ‘bbb-/a-3’ to ‘bb/b’ (junk status) out of concern for weakening standards of governance and public finances, followed by a similar downgrading by fitch, from ‘bb+’ to ‘bbb’. this has ignited a new round of mass protests against what is perceived as mushrooming of the phenomenon of state capture. legislative and policy framework governing public protests the legislative and policy framework governing public protests in south africa consists of several instruments, which are briefly outlined here. chapter 2 of the 1996 constitution is a bill of rights, which outlines various rights citizens are entitled to and which the state is enjoined to respect, protect, promote and fulfil. among them is the right to assemble, demonstrate, picket and petition. specifically, section 17 states that ‘[e]veryone has the right, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions’, while section 18 guarantees the freedom of association: ‘[e]veryone has the right to freedom of association’. the labour relations act (no. 66 of 1995) guarantees employees’ freedom to participate in protest action. section 64(1) provides for employees to engage in strikes and employers the right to lock employees out provided: (1) the issue has been referred to a council or to the commission and a certificate stating that the dispute remains unresolved has been issued; or (2) a period of 30 days, or any extension of that period agreed upon between parties to the dispute, has elapsed since the referral was received by the council of the commission. the act, however, prohibits employees engaged in essential services from participating in protest action. the labour relations policy framework for the south africa public service (n.d.) acknowledges the right of employees to participate in protest action provided such action is protected in terms of section 77 of the labour relations act. it is important to note that an employee cannot apply for leave to engage in protest action and the principle of ‘no work, no pay’ applies to all protesting employees. equally important is the fact that employees engaged in essential services are prohibited from engaging in protest as such protest is unprotected. the regulation of gatherings act 205 of 1993 (amended by the safety matters rationalisation act 90 of 1996 and dangerous weapons act 15 of 2013) regulates the holding of public gatherings and demonstrations at certain places. the act is premised on the right to protest: every person has the right to assemble with others and to express his views on any matter freely in public and to enjoy the protection of the state while doing so. (p. 1) the ministry of police’s policy and guidelines: policing of public protests, gatherings and major events (2011, p. 5) seeks to ensure that the policing of public protests and gatherings is consistent with the constitutional rights of all persons, demands of effective and peaceful crowd control, an approach that does not have negative impact and promote tension between the police and the community, and an approach that does not promote the violence it seeks to control in public protests. the purpose of the south african police service (saps) standing order (general) no 262 on crowd management during gatherings and demonstrations is to regulate crowd management during gatherings and demonstrations in accordance with the democratic principles of the constitution and acceptable international standards. it states that the use of force must be avoided at all costs and members deployed for the operation must exercise the highest degree of tolerance. service delivery historical context the pre-mandela era has been prone to an array of mass protests and defiance campaigns with some being sporadic and most being coordinated by civil society groups. historically there has been a diversified array of mass protests, such as the two defiance campaigns in 1952 and 1989, the udf (united democratic front) and inkatha separate protests in kzn (kwazul-natal) and occasionally in gauteng, as well as the pac (pan africanist congress) defiance campaigns that led to the sharpeville and langa massacres in 1960 and, of course, the 1976 soweto student uprisings. these coordinated mass protests had a clear aim in the abolition of the apartheid laws which were central to segregation in terms of race, white supremacy and the oppression of the majority black population. the violent service delivery protests mostly prevalent at a local level of government have been associated with the results of apartheid, which was central to segregation, with the majority of the people (black people) being marginalised with regard to basic needs including clean drinking water, proper sanitation, electricity, access to health care, formal housing and access to infrastructure. after the apartheid dispensation, the new democratic government led by the anc inherited an unequal society that confronted them with protest action associated with a perceived lack of basic service delivery and systematic corruption at the level of local government. breakfast, bradshaw and nomarwayi (2019:107) indicated that such unrest was epitomised by the racial segregation of black, mixed race and indian people, preventing them from participating in socio-economic and political activities as opposed to their white counterparts. according to kotze and taylor (2010:198), communities throughout the country have resorted to violent riots, destroying schools, libraries and the houses of underperforming local government councillors. mananga (2012) is of the opinion that service delivery protests are exacerbated in the informal settlements where poverty and unemployment are high, with a lack of technical and management skills in municipalities (steyn & van heerden 2011: 167), lack of accountability by local councillors and municipal officials (alexander 2010:37), corruption, poor financial management and cadre deployment. public protests did not feature prominently during president nelson mandela’s administration (1994–1999). the notable lull in public protests from the tumultuous apartheid era following the inauguration of mandela as president in 1994 can be attributed to three main factors. firstly, according to ngwane (n.d.), the attainment of independence was widely seen as the dawn of a new era for the country and its citizens, which raised expectations that eventually turned into frustration. in the collective euphoria of the new democratic south africa, the destructive power of mass protest action that had brought down the apartheid regime had no place; protests were seen as an anomaly and vigorously discouraged by the anc and alliance partners in favour of mobilisation of the masses to support government programmes. consequently, if there were any protests at all, they were carefully state-managed to be peaceful. secondly, militant apartheid-era civic society organisations, including the united democratic front, were demobilised. demobilisation of civil society organisations had the effect of weakening opposition to unpopular government policies. thirdly, the adoption of the pro-poor reconstruction and development programme (rdp), which was aimed at redistributing wealth, was well received as a pacifying measure. however, in 1996, less than 24 months after introduction of the rdp, the growth, employment and redistribution (gear) macro-economic policy was adopted, signalling a shift to neoliberalism that prioritised the interests of big businesses above those of poor citizens. the adoption of gear had implications for immediate loss of some economic benefits citizens had enjoyed under the apartheid system. the labour movement and some civil society organisations accused the government of ‘selling out the people’s mandate’ (bond 2000). cost recovery was an essential part of gear, which soon pitted poor citizens against the government. while the shift to gear marked a radical change in how government approached delivery of services and generated criticism from the south african communist party and congress of south african trade unions, it did not immediately trigger mass protest action mainly because these two powerful organisations’ championing workers’ and ordinary citizens’ rights were in alliance with the anc, but the grounds were laid for future public protests. the inauguration of nelson mandela saw a rise in land-grabbing and a proliferation of informal settlements within major cities, which eventually became hotspots of protest action. the first mandela-era public protests, derogatively referred to as ‘pop-corn’ or ‘mushroom’ protests, an example being ‘operation khanyisa’ (ngwane n.d.), were manifestations of dissatisfaction of new community organisations with the provision of municipal services, housing, roads, electricity cut-offs and other services. the protests were sporadic in nature, short-lived, did not constitute a pattern and were ‘trivialized, marginalized and demonized’ by the government (ngwane n.d.). bond and mayekiso (1996) describe the public protests during the early post-apartheid years as: … spontaneous demonstrations, marches, boycotts, highway blockades, wildcat strikes, land invasions, inner-city building squats, sit-ins and occupations of factories and government offices, disruptions of neo-apartheid education, protests against (and by) public service providers (including kidnappings) and mutinies by anc cadres in the integrated defence forces. (p. 40) the local government system has shown a sign of being overwhelmed (alexander 2010), which is characterised in the phenomenon of recurring and increasing violent mass protests towards local government that have assumed multiple forms such as partitions, marches, demonstrations and violent confrontations (nyar & wray 2012). most protests have taken the form of carefully planned marches governed by provisions of the regulation of gatherings act (1993), rendering them ‘short, invisible and non-threatening as possible’ (ngwane n.d.). in 1997, two events – the introduction of the neoliberal restructuring igoli 2000 programme by the johannesburg city council and laying off of employees by the university of the witwatersrand in favour of outsourcing – culminated in the eventual formation of the anti-privatisation forum in 2000, which played a key role in public protests during the mbeki administration. the frequency, geographical spread and effect or impact of service delivery protests according to the civic protest barometer (cpb), the number of civic protests increased in 2009, with the number reaching 204, followed by a stable period in 2014 (with 176 recorded); and declined in 2015 (with 126 recorded) (chigwata, donovan & powell 2017). across the eight metropolitan municipalities were cape town (17%), johannesburg (14%), ethekwini municipality (8%), tshwane (7%) and ekurhuleni (4%). the categories of violence reported in protests include intimidation (33%), personal attack (27%), damage to property (19%), arson (14%) and looting (7%), while the grievances cited between 2012 and 2016 reported in the popular media include municipal services (58%), party political (15%), governance (14%) and socio-economic challenges (12%) (chigwata et al. 2017). karen heese, an economist at municipal iq (2016), argues that: … it is a welcome sign of [a] well-functioning democracy that saw service delivery protests retreat in the immediate run-up to elections. these protests may be violent or peaceful, but there is a clear dissatisfaction with the management of a municipality. (p. 3). municipal iq’s (2014) municipal hotspots monitor shows that since 2004 south african municipalities have been targets of violent protests, with a peak in violence recorded in 2012 (77%) and the lowest in 2011 (67%). kevin allan (2016) of municipal iq notes that gauteng (30%) and the eastern cape (22%) continue to account for the greatest proportion of protest activities in 2016, followed by kwazulu-natal (16%), western cape (8%), north west (4%), mpumalanga (65), limpopo (55) and northern cape (4%). the empowerdex service delivery index (citydex) (2009) shows a somewhat contrary finding that gauteng was on the top rung on the status index (83.1), but bottom in terms of improvement (47.4%). the disproportionately high percentage on the service delivery protests in the eastern cape tallies the citydex (2009), which falls short of the national average on all elements of service delivery (formal dwellings, piped water, formal toilets, waste removal, electric lighting, electric waste removal, electric cooking and electric heating). there is a large service delivery gap between urban and rural municipalities. of particular concern is the low level of service delivery for communities within the former homelands in the eastern cape, north west and limpopo provinces as well in rural areas of kwazulu-natal (empowerdex service delivery index [citydex 2009]). it can be deduced from the statistics analysed above that the ‘service delivery protests’ are increasing at a high rate and can be regarded as part of the development, although these findings cannot be considered reliable and valid. nyar and wray (2012) are of the opinion that protest actions in south africa are diverse and multi-faceted, while the absence of reliable and comprehensive data frustrates attempts to interpret protest action and strategies about the implications. these authors further postulate that quantitative data sources on protest action are less common and are not readily available. service delivery protests literature review: the south african context while alexander (2010) argues that south africa has experienced a movement of local protests amounting to a rebellion of the poor, booysen (2009a:128–129) suggests that service delivery protests continue to be ‘grassroots’ actions, the triggers increasingly being national-level responsibilities, including housing, land and jobs. meanwhile, thompson and nleya (2010) cite strong similarities linking the mbekiand zuma-era protests, notably in relation to issues raised that are principally central to inadequate service delivery and lack of accountability by local councillors. bond (2010) identifies the fifa (fédération internationale de football association) world cup (june–july 2010) as the period when the country’s poor and working class continued protesting, triggered by anger attributed to commercialisation of municipal services, increasing poverty and inequality in the country’s slums (freedom of expression institute and the centre for sociological research 2009). bond (2010) cites a multiplicity of factors behind service delivery protests, including the link between rising costs of basic needs (clean drinking water, sanitation and electricity) because of the implementation of the neoliberal policies, forced removals of informal settlements, disparities between luxury stadia and impoverished neighbourhoods and the world cup’s gentrification of inner-city access by low-income informal traders. this encapsulates the indignity of poverty, and the bucket sanitation system, especially when municipalities are inefficient and the buckets are not emptied, providing community activists with an effective and ready-made weapon of protest, which has been used with substantial effect in protests about poor service delivery (muller 2007:36). the dynamics of the phenomenon, familiarly known as ‘service delivery protest’, have generally been understood by the public within the context of local government failures or shortcomings in terms of, for example, community access to water, electricity, sanitation and basic infrastructure (mclennan & munslow 2009). a desktop analysis performed by alexander et al. (2018) reported the frequencies and turmoil of the protests which took place between 2005 and 2017. the authors found the rising trend in frequency of community protest to be disorderly, disruptive and violent. matebesi and botes (2017) conducted an in-depth analytical study in two areas in the eastern cape and the northern cape provinces, where in one area protests were mainly about the shortage and quality of houses and in another area, the protest was about getting the mayor to resign. the researchers found that partisan protesters were consequently able to navigate successfully between the party and concerned resident group. an exploratory study performed by morudu (2017), where a principal component regression method was utilised to assess the relationship between protests and available data at a local municipal level, found that local municipalities can minimise protests by increasing the provision of services in highly concentrated areas and that an emphasis should be on the actual water supply to communities rather than on the number of the water accounts. an exploratory study was conducted by mpehle (2012) in different provinces (kzn, gauteng and north west) between 2009 and 2010 involving 180 consumers of the municipal services to test whether service delivery protests were justifiable in the democratic south africa. the author found that the consumers of the municipal services were dissatisfied with the deployment of unskilled, unqualified and inexperienced cadres to municipal management positions, the accumulation of wealth by a few individuals through the tendering system, inadequate revenue because of centralisation of funding and absence of proper systems of collecting revenue by municipalities, which have negatively impaired municipalities. although this is an empirical research study where both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were followed, there is no evidence of the theoretical and conceptual framework that informs this study. furthermore, there is no evidence in any article regarding the reliability and validity testing for both qualitative and qualitative approaches which questions the credibility and trustworthiness of the research findings. meanwhile, hough (2008) investigated the main causes and theories of revolution in south africa by analysing recent events pertaining to the ongoing protest actions over service delivery. the author concluded with two basic views: violent protest actions at local level can lead to revolutionary activity and the protest can be contained, but aspects of policy will have to be adapted. hough (n.d.) has mentioned some incidents of violent protests that have occurred in south africa over service delivery, especially those accompanied by an overall political motive, which could in fact be viewed as acts of terror. furthermore, the existence of certain underlying conditions conducive to both political violence and the creation of revolutionary potential is undeniable. while this study’s methodology is unclear, the author has highlighted various causes of the violent service delivery protests. however, the majority of the mentioned causes in this article are mostly mentioned in the popular media as evidenced by the domination of the media articles in the reference section of this article. the data in this article can be considered anecdotal, without any basis. there is a serious methodological weakness in this article as the research study is not based on any research design and methodology. breakfast et al. (2019) investigated the rationale underpinning violent protests within the nelson mandela bay municipality by following a qualitative research approach and further provided policy recommendations. this research study was located within the conflict resolution field arguing from a standpoint of a relative deprivation theory. the authors argue that violent service delivery protests cause a security threat because of the lack of stability in affected areas rather than creating an enabling environment for economic development. breakfast et al. (2019) suggested that there is an intricate interconnection between ‘national security’ and economic development. these authors suggested that the security cluster, which includes the defence, intelligence, security and police, needs to develop a ‘national security strategy’ in order to deal with violent service delivery as a security threat to the stability of the country. a study conducted by netswera and kgalame (2014) analysing the escalation of service delivery protests and ascertaining some of the underlying reasons for the mutual exchange of violent behaviour between citizens and the state revealed interesting developments in the scholarly literature such as the fact that municipalities are regarded as the dumping sites for incompetent officials and this has led to the local officials and politicians being the immediate targets when communities revolt. this conclusion is alluded to by mpehle (2012), who conducted an empirical study that indicated that a disproportionately high percentage (71%) of the community members felt that the employment of municipal officials occupying strategic positions was not based on their competency levels, but rather on their political affiliations. this literature study has found that provinces with limited revenue sources, which cannot deliver services effectively and efficiently, political infighting, lack of proper financial and record-keeping skills and corruption are implicated in perpetuating service delivery protests. another study of interest (nleya et al. 2011) conducted at five sites located in cape town and pietermaritzburg recognised that the so-called ‘service delivery protests’ may actually emanate from reasons that extend beyond service delivery. the authors found deep-rooted poverty, lack of income, dire living conditions, the high crime rate and a low level of engagement and community interaction, attendance of community meetings and participation in community organisations to be the factors associated with service delivery protests in khayelitsha (nleya 2011). some researchers (bond 2010; booysen 2009b:21) have directly linked service delivery protests to voiceleness of public communities in meaningful participation in decision-making processes, structures and municipal priorities. mayosi et al. (2012:6) are of the view that a vigorous long-term strategy of programmes to renew trust through community involvement and effective governance could alleviate marginalisation of the people. a study by netswera and kgalame (2014) analysed the escalation of service delivery protests and ascertained underlying reasons. they concluded that campaigns such as masakhane to influence public participation in municipalities and payment of services were short-lived. meanwhile, mpehle (2012) conducted a study in three provinces (kwazulu-natal, gauteng and north west) where semi-town or tribal authorities were targeted. this exploratory study found that communities were not engaged in decision-making processes, which created a communication gap between the elected and the electorate. a study conducted by nleya et al. (2011) investigated the origins of protests in south africa in two cities – cape town and pietermaritzburg – and found that community participation in cape town was higher than in pietermaritzburg. another study by nleya (2011) on service delivery and protest in khayelitsha, a black township in cape town, revealed that interest in public affairs and participation in communal meetings were very important variables in the generation of social protests. beyond the issue of service delivery, the protests echoed ‘dysfunctional relationships between citizens and government’ (nemeroff 2005:10). while the protests were often linked to immediate service delivery issues such as lack of water supplies, housing and electricity, it is clear that citizens also wanted to express their dissatisfaction with government’s poor consultation and its limited engagement with citizens at the local government level (mathekga & buccus 2006:13). ngcamu (2014:144) postulates that community participation by departments in municipalities, including ethekwini municipality, has neglected the constitutional responsibility of consulting and influencing participation of the local communities in municipal governance. from the current literature study, it is suggested that research findings and conclusions emanating from studies on service delivery protests are based not only on untested perceptions, but also on speculation or hearsay. some researchers have cited a number of factors, such as revolution or rebellion of the grassroots, unemployment and poverty, lack of houses, corruption and nepotism, as contributing or linked to service delivery protests; however, these are mostly beyond the mandate of municipalities. nevertheless, poor rendering of basic services to communities and inadequate communication between municipalities and communities are mostly linked to the service delivery protests. the literature that has been analysed above on the service delivery protests has shown a limited basis, with the authors being silent on their designs and methodologies, and theoretical, conceptual and policy contribution. the following themes emerged from reviewing the secondary data which are mostly reported in the popular media and focussing on the causes of the service delivery protests: poor quality of the rendered services, which include water, electricity, housing and sanitation inadequate supply and delivery of the municipal services and lack of accountability from councillors deployment of the incompetent cadres to the municipal management positions higher unemployment and poverty commercialisation of the municipal services that have skyrocketed electricity and water prices service delivery protests coordinated by unemployed youth who are residing in the informal settlements as well as the civil society groups. table 1 presents some dimensions of service delivery protests identified by different scholars. table 1: dominant dimensions and interconnections on service delivery protests. table 1 displays common themes that have emerged from the critically reviewed literature on the service delivery protests. a number of researchers have consistently concluded that unfulfilled promises on basic service delivery, such as access to proper housing, have triggered the service delivery protests. the table also shows that poor and inadequate communication channels between government and local communities have exacerbated service delivery protests, mostly in urban areas. furthermore, some researchers have concluded that local communities are inadequately consulted on government programmes and initiatives, with the majority of them not participating in government projects. conclusion the literature study has shown there are misconceptions concerning the labelling of public protests as ‘service delivery protests’ as some studies are not underpinned by any theory; nor do they generate any. it is recommended that future researchers locate protests within particular theoretical frameworks in order to contribute to the body of scholarly knowledge. it is evident from the available literature that most ‘service delivery protests’ occur in gauteng and the eastern cape provinces, yet a few studies have been conducted in these provinces. an understanding of the protest phenomenon will be enhanced if future researchers conduct scholarly and empirical studies in rural, urban and rural–urban fringe areas of these provinces to determine underlying causes of ‘service delivery protests’ and dimensions, which are linked to municipalities. given that previous studies conducted by some scholars are not systematic, not anecdotal and, mostly, not academic, it is problematic to attribute ‘service delivery protests’ to municipal employees not performing up to standard. furthermore, the public has no reliable means to measure or ascertain how good municipal official’s competency levels are and how well they are performing. future researchers need to focus on determining the performance levels of municipal employees and assessing their competency levels using mixed-methods research to ensure that their findings are reliable and valid. such systematic approaches will assist in developing relationships between service delivery, protests and dimensions of the ‘service delivery protests’. nyar and wray (2012) argue that service delivery is a complex phenomenon that requires further critical examination and rigorous and coordinated data collection initiatives. the development of comprehensive, informed and reliable data sources could improve critical reflections on the meanings and consequences of ‘service delivery protest’ for transformation and development at community level. to sum up, this literature review study recognises three major limitations in published studies on ‘service delivery protests’. firstly, there is a paucity of studies between 1994 and 2000. secondly, most studies are narrative analyses of protest events not grounded in any research philosophy, tradition, theory or framework. lastly, most of the studies are qualitative, with no ways to test the reliability and validity and, consequently, the acceptability of their findings. to address the theoretical, conceptual and methodological shortcomings observed in the previously published scholarly works on service delivery protests, future researchers should conduct case research studies in different provinces, such as the eastern cape province (which is mostly rural), which has seen an increase in service delivery protests in 2018 compared to other provinces. a mixed-methods research approach should be followed with the various stakeholders sampled, including traditional leaders, civil society groups, activists, ward councillors, saps, municipal officials and the ward committees. the structured questionnaires should be used to test the householders’ perceptions about the underlying causes of service delivery protests. in-depth interviews and focused group discussions should be conducted in order to determine new theories, concepts, themes or dimensions and trends. acknowledgements competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. author’s contributions b.s.n. wrote this article independently without any assistance. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references akinboade, a.o., mokwena, m.p. & kinfack, e.c., 2013, ‘understanding citizens’ participation in service 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khayelitsha, cape town’, in v.s.p. coelho & b. von lieres (eds.), mobilizing for democracy: citizen action and the politics of public participation, p. 10, zed, london. vally, n., 2009, ‘national trends around protest action: mapping protest action in south africa’, paper presented at development studies seminar, centre for sociological research, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, 20th february. abstract introduction research method definition of energy efficiency energy efficiency methods and policy challenges in agriculture conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) joseph n. lekunze school of business and governance, faculty of commerce and administration, north-west university, south africa angwe r. lekunze faculty of law, north-west university, south africa citation lekunze, j.n. & lekunze, a.r., 2017, ‘linking energy efficiency legislation and the agricultural sector in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a359. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.359 original research linking energy efficiency legislation and the agricultural sector in south africa joseph n. lekunze, angwe r. lekunze received: 19 july 2016; accepted: 18 nov. 2016; published: 28 apr. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract there are different ways of measuring energy efficiency. although there is no generally agreed definition of the concept, it should, however, always be approached according to particular circumstances and contexts. as such, technological, operational, performance and equipment efficiencies should be taken into consideration. generally, energy utilisation in most sectors of the south african economy is inefficient. this requires more energy needs to be generated in order to cater for losses. an increase in generation causes environmental problems at global, regional and local levels. a review of literature on energy efficiency was undertaken and a gap identified between legislation and efficiency in the agricultural sector. this article seeks to suggest ways of implementing an energy legislation in this sector in south africa. such implementation will address concerns in terms of harnessing, generating and utilising energy in different sectors in south africa. legislation is vital in reducing energy consumption in the agricultural sector. it also ensures efficient use of energy and the maintenance of current levels of production. introduction energy drives agricultural activities. apart from direct solar energy used by plants in photosynthesis, gasoline, diesel, electricity and biofuel are used to power equipment used in the processing of produce, storage and transportation of such produce to the market. efficient use of energy is thus imperative for sustainable production. however, there is no universally accepted definition of energy efficiency. the term ‘energy efficiency’ generally entails doing more work with less energy while maintaining or increasing the ratio of energy output to energy input. the world energy council (2013) defined energy efficiency as a sustainable reduction in energy used for a given service or level of activity. the agriculture sector in south africa comprises the following: crop and animal husbandry, fisheries and forestry. however, this sector consumes a lower amount of energy compared with the mining and manufacturing sectors. there is considerable literature on energy efficiency legislation in south africa. the literature addresses energy efficiency concerns at all levels and sectors of the economy, particularly in agriculture, manufacturing and mining (deloitte 2012; department of energy [doe] 2012b; department of minerals and energy [dome] 2004; inglesi-lotz & blignaut 2015; statistics south africa 2005). however, the literature does not address the issue of energy efficiency legislation and the extent to which the legislation has resulted in the reduction of energy consumption by different sectors of the economy (gellings 2000; winkler 2005). according to winkler (2005), coal, electricity, liquid petroleum and natural gas are used for domestic, commercial and industrial purposes. among these forms of energy, electricity is the most used. the manner in which energy resources are harnessed, generated and utilised by different users in the country raises a lot of concerns. the main challenge is that most sectors of the south african economy are inefficient in terms of using energy. this situation leads to increased global, regional and local environmental problems. the relationship between increasing energy demands and the diversification of energy sources in south africa is a delicate one. if a balance is not reached, south africa may experience energy insecurity. according to a report by the doe (2012b), the bulk of energy generated is consumed by the following sectors: industrial and mining (~41%), transport (~27%), households (~20%), commerce (~8%) and agriculture (~3%). research method this article is a review of literature on energy efficiency legislation in south africa, commonly known as iso 50001. an analysis of the extent to which legislation has brought about efficiency in the utilisation of energy in the agricultural sector is done in this study. information was sourced from the southern african development community (sadc) protocol on energy (1996), sadc energy corporation policy and strategy (1996), sadc energy action plan (1997), sadc energy sector activity plan (2000) and sadc regional infrastructural master plan (2012). these pieces of legislation provide guidelines on how energy efficiency could be attained at the level of sadc and within member states. the draft 2012 integrated energy planning report (doe 2012a), the south report (world wide fund 2014), energy accounts for south africa (statistic south africa 2005), the draft energy strategy of the republic of south africa (dome 2004), energy efficiency in agricultural equipment (gellings 2015), the south africa energy efficiency report (deloitte 2012) and many other reports and journal articles were used in the study. iso 50001 was also considered in the study. this is a voluntary energy management standard for measuring and verifying energy efficiency savings for tax incentives. it is a key basis for the development of energy efficiency policies in south africa and recognises the role energy efficiency can play in economic growth. it was developed by the sadc as a policy tool. the document outlines policies and strategies to address energy efficiency at both regional and national levels. this has led to the introduction of policies, legislation and voluntary measures to address energy use through energy efficiency in south africa (a member of sadc). energy efficiency policies and the legislative framework in south africa according to camaren and swilling (2011), the need for an energy-efficient economy is urgent and the current resource and energy-intensive growth path strategies used by policymakers in south africa is unsustainable. as a result, there is a shift in south africa towards energy efficiency. the country passed the white paper on energy policy (1998), the white paper on renewable energy (2003), the white paper on national climate change response (2011), the integrated energy plan (iep 2003), the national integrated resource plan (2003/2004), and the national energy efficiency strategy (2009). all these pieces of legislation are drivers towards regulating the use of energy by the different sectors of the economy. gerrard (2011) argued that there are two main ways in which energy problems could be addressed: energy efficiency and renewable energy. the international energy agency (iea 2006) considers ‘energy efficiency’ as a way of managing and restraining the growth in energy consumption. xiaohua xia and jianjfeng zhang (2010) and zhang et al. (2013) maintained that energy efficiency consists of the following components: technology efficiency, equipment efficiency, operation efficiency and performance efficiency. in a study conducted by blancard and martin (2014) on energy efficiency measurements in agriculture, they maintained that efficiency is not a fixed value and should be considered with caution, especially in situations of data uncertainty and availability (such as the case of south africa). blancard and martin defined energy efficiency in agriculture as ‘the ratio between outputs in physical units or converted to energy and inputs converted to energy’. it is on this basis that the french environment and management agency, through its energy efficiency plan (eep), measures the subsidisation of agricultural equipment that confers energy savings. perez-lombard et al. (2009) submitted that these different ways of approaching and defining energy efficiency demonstrate that there is no generally acceptable definition of the concept. in an attempt to ascertain a meaning of the concept, it should be borne in mind that it has to be defined according to a particular context. energy efficiency is interpreted in this study based on the four components involved at different stages in agricultural production. in agriculture, inefficiency in the use of energy is generally related to the use of equipment that is not technologically advanced, and inadequate skills and training to operate such machines at the optimum level. following the inception of the sadc protocol on energy efficiency, south africa introduced the white paper on energy policy (wep 1998). it stipulates that energy efficiency would be attained through the introduction of energy efficiency incentives in the industrial sector, households as well as commercial energy consumers. such a strategy would be realised with the introduction of energy efficiency norms and standards for commercial buildings, industrial equipment, domestic appliances, labelling programmes and programmes to reduce consumption in energy installations. however, mthombeni (2011) argued that since the introduction of new requirements by the european union permitting the use of ie3 motors in agriculture from 2015, while ie2 motors may only be used in case the machine is equipped with variable speed drives (vsds) to ensure energy efficiency, the south african market has been flooded with cheap imports of ie1s, eff2s and eff3s motors (which are energy inefficient). these motors have been found to be energy inefficient and consume 63% of electricity used by industries (representing 25% of the total electricity consumption in the united states) (janicijevic & hauptfleisch 2015). furthermore, the white paper on renewable energy (2003) empowers the government to intervene in industrial and household sectors while the iep (2003) stresses that energy efficiency would be achieved through the introduction of energy efficiency policies, legislation and regulation programmes. in south africa, these pieces of legislation are mostly voluntary and there are no mechanisms in place to enforce such legislation, thus allowing the continuous usage of energy-inefficient motors in the agricultural sector, leading to dumping from european union member countries (given the low prices farmers pay for these motors). the national integrated resource plan (2003/2004) emphasised that energy efficiency would be attained through energy-efficient lighting and best practices in the five demand-side management (dsm) programmes (residential energy efficiency, commercial energy efficiency, industrial and mining energy efficiency, residential load management, and industrial and mining load management). furthermore, the national energy efficiency strategy (2009) underlined, among others, energy labels, energy performance standards, energy audits, energy management and the promotion of efficient technologies as measures aimed at improving energy efficiency. it sets a national target for energy savings (at least 12% to be achieved by 2015). blancard and martins (2014) maintained that measuring energy efficiency is an important aspect in the planning of energy-reduction policies. decision-makers are normally reluctant to act in the absence of policy data and results supporting a policy position. the notion of energy efficiency is driven by factors such as climate change, the finite nature of fossil fuel, increase in energy demands, securing the supply of energy and a reduction in energy-related public expenditure as well as developmental goals and job creation (ryan & campbell 2012). the integrated resource plan for electricity 2010 to 2030 (irp 2011) stresses that energy efficiency would be achieved through changes in the structure of the economy, higher electricity prices, improvements in technology, financial support, access to capital, appliances labelling and building standards. this assertion is affirmed by camaren and swilling (2011), posited that: the global policy context related to energy usage in developed and developing countries is heavily informed by changes in the global economy and global climate due to increased uncertainty, short-term unpredictability, non-linearity and vulnerability to resource scarcity. (p 3). although energy efficiency is an important tool in addressing issues such as climate change, the finite nature of fossil fuel and secure energy supply and the increased demand for energy penetration into society remains somewhat slow. in addition, the national climate change response white paper (nccrp 2011) affirms that, as part of the energy efficiency and energy demand management flagship programme, the doe should continue to develop and facilitate an aggressive energy efficiency programme in industry (musango & brent 2011). in south africa, there are only two acts that specifically refer to energy efficiency. they are the national energy act 34 of 2008 (ne act) and the electricity regulation act 4 of 2006 (er act). the er act regulates electricity as a way of promoting energy efficiency (mnguni & tucker 2012) while the ne act regulates electrical products as a way of enhancing energy efficiency. the act stipulates that the ministry of energy may issue regulations that lay out steps and procedures for the application of energy efficiency technologies and procedures; labelling for energy efficiency; prohibiting the manufacturing, importing and selling of electric products and fuel burning appliances for the purpose of countering poor energy efficiency; standards and specifications for energy carriers; and energy efficiency standards for specific technologies. there is no act in south africa that deals with energy efficiency specifically. the act is regulated by different departments and pieces of legislation. it is not clear whether the south african legislation that promotes energy efficiency corresponds with sadc frameworks. definition of energy efficiency blancard and martin (2014) argued that in the agricultural sector, one can measure energy efficiency as the amount of energy required per quintal of product. it is necessary to define ‘energy efficiency’, as the notion of ‘energy efficiency’ remains contested as a consequence of its many possible multi-layered and context-dependent meanings. economists describe ‘energy efficiency’ from an economic perspective as the use of energy at a level set by consumers in a market where the price reflects the true social cost in the absence of information and transaction costs. economists link energy efficiency to the cost of energy used in the market. furthermore, a tool is more energy efficient if it supplies more service for the same energy input, or the same service for less energy input. for example, when a tractor uses less energy (gasoline) to produce the same amount of work, the tractor is regarded as being energy efficient. notably, the definitions place emphasis on the reduction of energy usage while maintaining production level and quality of output. according to the united states (us) department of energy, ‘energy efficiency’ is perceived as simply doing more with less as ‘efficiency’ is naturally linked to the manner in which energy is consumed at the point of end use, production as well as distribution. this definition accentuates efficient energy use and consumption as a means through which energy efficiency could be achieved. it could be argued that generally, a reduction in energy consumption is normally associated with technological advancement. this is not always the case since it can also be achieved through better organisation and management or improved economic conditions in the sector (non-technical factors). this argument draws attention to technological change, better organisation and management as means through which energy efficiency may be achieved. similarly, the european union’s action plan for energy efficiency considers ‘energy efficiency’ as reducing energy consumption without reducing the use of energy-consuming plants and equipment. the aim is to make better use of energy. energy efficiency, therefore, implies promotion of behaviour, working methods and manufacturing techniques that are less energy intensive. similar to the world energy council’s (2013) definition, behaviour and management serve as measures through which energy efficiency could be attained. according to barton (2008), ‘energy efficiency’ is the ratio of function, service or value provided in relation to the energy converted to provide a service or the amount of work done in relation to the energy used. the wide discrepancy of views on energy efficiency described above suggests that it is an extremely flexible concept consisting of different facets. nonetheless, aspects pervade the different definitions and could, therefore, be used collectively in an attempt to come up with a definition for the purpose of this study. the following notions pervade the above definitions: measures of energy input and output, the cost of energy in the market, energy use or consumption, alternative equipment and technology (moving from more energy-intensive equipment or technology to less energy-intensive ones), change of behaviour and introduction of energy-efficient management, among others. based on the common features inherent in the different definitions of energy efficiency discussed above, the concept could be defined as: (1) an improvement in energy equipment, technology, practices, products and services (such as lighting, cooling, heating, manufacturing, cooking and transport); (2) a change in behaviour; or (3) the introduction of energy management systems in order to reduce the amount or quality of energy used. the drivers and measurements of energy efficiency are discussed later in order to justify the need for policy measures in this regard. drivers of energy efficiency and measurement approaches in agriculture it is important to understand the drivers of energy efficiency as they influence the development and introduction of policy measures pertaining to energy efficiency in the agricultural sector. these drivers include climate change, the finite nature of fossil fuel, increase in energy demand, energy security, the reduction in energy-related public expenditures, developmental goals and job creation (du plessis 2014). climate change, primarily caused by the use of fossil fuels, is regarded as one of the primary drivers of energy inefficiencies in the agricultural sector. in 2012, the iea (2006) also stated that the direct combustion of fossil fuels represents, by far, the largest source of energy-related carbon dioxide (co2). inglesi-lotz and blignaut (2015) maintained that energy consumption in both developed and developing countries is explained by three main factors as follows: production changes, changes in the structure of the economy and efficiency improvements. since agriculture is highly dependent on climate, increase in temperature leads to an increase in the number of hectares under irrigation farming and more boreholes to access underground water (all of these depend on energy to function). inglesi-lotz and blignaut used sectoral decomposition analysis of electricity consumption from 1983 to 2006 in south africa and found that increase in consumption over this period was mainly owing to output or production-related factors, with structural changes playing a secondary role. their study revealed evidence of efficiency improvements; however, such efficiency was not enough to offset the combined production and structural effects that propelled electricity consumption higher in different sectors (inglesi-lotz & blignaut 2015). south africa is highly energy-intensive and this makes the country one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases (ghgs) in africa (barnard 2014). in its 2010 report on south africa, the iea identified energy efficiency as a cost-effective strategy to boost productivity if energy efficiency measures are introduced in all sectors of the economy (doe 2012b). a 57% carbon emission reduction is possible by 2050. blancard and martin (2014) used the data envelop analysis (dea) similar to the costs framework and decomposed energy efficiency measurements into technical and allocative efficiencies in energy contents of inputs in agriculture. they replaced input prices used in traditional economic efficiency measurements by their energy content and used the energy efficiency model to explore the optimal input mix that can produce current outputs at minimum energy consumption. lekunze and luvhengo (2016) further used the stochastic frontier model to measure technical efficiency in small stock production. findings from these studies revealed that such decomposition of factors can help policymakers find the accurate energy policy when dealing with agriculture. however, the authors recommend that energy efficiency is not a fixed value and policymakers should consider it with caution. the generation of energy in south africa is over-dependent on fossil fuels. the finite nature of fossil fuel is an important driver for energy efficiency. serious doubts have been expressed over the certainty and accuracy of reserve projections on some of south africa’s coal reserves (hartnady 2010; simmons 2005). the economic situation appears to be heading towards a state of severe energy crisis, which is exacerbated by the anticipated finite nature of fossil fuel (hartnady 2010). if energy efficiency legislation and strategies are not enforced, agricultural productivity will decline. this is because an increase in the effects of climate change has resulted in a shift from less energy-intensive farming methods to high energy-intensive production methods within the agricultural sector. however, the introduction of energy-efficient measures in the utilisation of fossil fuels stands a chance to significantly boost the finite nature of fossil fuel and also reduce the increased demand for energy (simmons 2005). the living standards of citizens in a number of economies today are improving and, by implication, increasing their energy and food consumption. in south africa, the ever-increasing modernisation of agriculture and the intensification of production entail utilisation of machines that depend on energy. in a study by camaren and swilling (2011), it was revealed that local development is vulnerable to changes in the global economy and climate, as well as to regional pressures, and has prompted significant growth in the renewable energy sector in south africa. in 2011, the iea (2006) stressed that the introduction of energy efficiency measures would result in a reduction in the demand for absolute electricity. energy savings from energy efficiency may greatly assist countries to meet the electricity demand of countries, avoid blackouts and other costly results of power shortfalls. being energy efficient could, perhaps, be the most important means of reducing such consequences. energy security entails an assurance of sufficient energy supply to allow an economy to function in a political and acceptable manner (ciuta 2010). gunningham (2012) considered ‘energy security’ as having a reliable and adequate supply of energy at reasonable prices which, by implication, also means addressing shortand long-term energy insecurity. in the past two decades, south africa has witnessed steady economic growth, resulting in an increasing focus on industrialisation, together with mass electrification programmes to take power into deep rural areas (kiratu 2010). south africa’s energy demand is expected to be twice the current level by 2030. electricity generation is a high consumer of fossil fuels, especially in the form of coal (kiratu 2010; strydom & surridge 2009). the advent of new coal-fired electricity generation stations and new gas to liquid fuel plants is likely to increase south africa’s dependence on fossil fuels. to reduce the increased dependence on fossil fuels, more efforts and financial support may be put into energy efficiency, for it is likely to enhance energy security as well as energy-related public expenditures. the public budgetary position of south africa may be improved through lower expenditure on energy, based on benefits accruing from the introduction of energy efficiency measures (ryan & campbell 2012). in countries where fuel is imported, there is a positive impact on current reserves and in energy exporting countries, energy efficiency can free up more fuel for export. in addition, for countries with energy consumption subsidies, reduced consumption means lowered government budgetary outlays to finance these subsidies. according to ryan and campbell (2012), reducing expenditure on energy may improve the public budgetary position in several ways. in countries with state-owned enterprises, reducing energy demand means less public expenditure on fuel. this can be particularly important in fuel importing countries where foreign currency reserves may be depleted through high fuel imports. in contrast, in countries with fuel exports, domestic energy efficiency remains important, as reduced energy demands domestically free up more fuel for export. sustainable development is an international concern and access to modern energy services is an important issue in serving the basic needs for living and the conditions for social and economic development (ryan & campbell 2012). in designating 2012 as the international year of sustainable energy for all, the united nations called on governments to support its millennium development goals (mdgs) through energy policies with a specific call to double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency. the mdgs form the bedrock of south africa’s national development plan (2010 to 2030). this plan, in its fourth chapter, stresses that between 2021 and 2025, energy efficiency will have to increase as well as the resilience of the transport network through the introduction of energy efficiency measures. furthermore, the development of energy efficiency programmes has the potential to create jobs within a short period of time. improvement in employment rates can be attributed to energy efficiency programmes directly through job creation and indirectly through consumer surplus spending (janssen & staiaszek 2012). direct jobs created in the delivery of energy efficiency measures are easiest to measure and are likely to be abundant. in measuring the sectoral consumption of energy in an economy, the gross production value (gpv), as a primary indicator of a country’s economic performance, is widely used to estimate its energy consumption. in south africa, the gdp contribution of the primary and secondary sectors (agriculture, mining and manufacturing) is declining while that of the tertiary sector (tourism and service industry) is on the rise. however, energy consumption (electricity) in the primary and secondary sectors is higher compared with their gdp contribution. the decreasing contribution to gdp and the growing consumption in terms of energy within these sectors is a direct indication of energy inefficiency in these sectors. this is consistent with the definition of energy efficiency by economists that energy efficiency is a measure of input and output. if this method of measurement is accurate, historical values for gross value added for the agricultural sector from statistics south africa (2005) during the period 1980 to 2010, and projected value estimates based on this historical contribution of the agricultural sector to the country’s gdp from 2010 to 2050, were used to compute the final fossil fuel demand for the agricultural sector. the results revealed inefficiency in energy consumption in the agricultural sector as the increase in demand is higher than the sectors’ contribution to the country’s gross domestic production (deloitte 2012). the doe (2012a) maintains that there are basically two traditional approaches generally used in projecting the demand for energy, namely energy-econometric and end-use accounting. while energy demand can be closely linked to economic activity, this approach is most effective in quantifying energy demand in sectors such as agriculture whose productivity may not always have a high level of correlation with energy demand. in south africa, the energy efficiency market is growing as the private sector comes to grips with increasing energy prices and customer demand for sustainable business practices (rutovitz 2010). various companies offer a variety of services across the board from energy efficiency assessments to the implementation of energy efficiency measures to reduce energy demand. in turn, this may provide opportunities for work and jobs for a multitude of individuals in different disciplines, such as civil, mechanical and electrical engineering at various technical levels. greenpeace estimated that energy efficiency can create 27 000 jobs in south africa by 2030. these figures, however, illustrate that energy efficiency could contribute to a green economy. the present increased demand for energy, climate change, threat to energy security and finite nature of fossil fuel have driven the world (south africa inclusive) into realising the need for energy efficiency. these drivers have led to efforts to develop methods to utilise energy efficiently. the common forms of energy used in agriculture are diesel, coal and electricity. although the agricultural sector contributes immensely to the economic activities and job creation in the economy, the proportion of energy consumption is relatively small compared with the industrial and manufacturing sectors. according to the food and agricultural organisation (fao 2013), the energy intensity usage in the agricultural sector follows three stages: basic human work for tillage, harvesting and processing, together with rain-fed irrigation which does not need external energy. furthermore, the use of animals to provide various energy inputs and the application of renewable energy technologies, such as wind pumps, solar driers, water wheels, modern renewables and fossil fuel technologies for movables, stationary power appliances and machines for processing agricultural products, have reduced the amount of energy consumed by the agricultural sector. in agriculture, energy usage increases as production intensity also increases. since energy is provided using traditional methods in the first two stages, productivity is low at these stages. however, with modernisation of the agricultural sector, energy intensity increases owing to the increase in investments in order to develop infrastructure, increased usage of chemical fertilisers as well as machines. the initial phase may see the use of energy-inefficient technologies. as the need for efficiency within the sector increases, there is a reduction in the use of energy owing to investments in energy-efficient technologies while still maintaining the level of output. ogunlade et al. (2006: 35) argued that: of the 122.3 million hectares of land in south africa, 16.7 million hectares are potentially arable, 83.9 million hectares are suitable for grazing, 11.8 million hectares are protected by nature conservation, 1.4 million hectare is under forestry while 6.9 million hectares are used for other purposes. of the 16.7 million hectares of arable land, 14.2 million hectares are under commercial farming while 2.5 million hectares are under emerging or small-scale agriculture. (p. 35) most of the energy used in agriculture is consumed by commercial farms as they tend to increase in size and decrease in number. in an attempt to model energy usage in the agricultural sector in south africa, winkler (2005) focused on the end-users of energy in the agricultural sector. winkler aggregated agricultural activities into sub-sectors and later into groups, and used value added as an indicator to measure energy consumption by sub-sectors. the study revealed that an estimated 73 pj of energy was consumed in the agricultural sub-sector by 2001 (with approximately 58% diesel, 10% liquid fuel, 30% electricity and 2% coal). the study also revealed that energy usage in agriculture is primarily for the purposes of preparing the land; irrigating the land; applying nutrients, pesticides and herbicides; harvesting; and primary processing. based on the above, the authors identified the following set of end-use demands: traction (tractors, harvesters and on-site transport); irrigation (electricity-, dieseland petrol-driven pumps); primary processing (electrical equipment), heat (hot water for dairies, incubators and drying crops) and other (electricity demands for lighting and cooling). they derived a set of end-user energy intensities based on the above allocation, assuming that the allocation of fuel to various activities is based on the iep of south africa. using value added as the driver for energy demand in the agricultural sector, the results revealed that demand projections for energy use intensity by 2025 in the agricultural sector for traction, irrigation, processing, heat and others will be 0.564gj/r, 0.401gj/r, 0.344gj/r, 0.211gj/r, 0.596gj/r, respectively, from a base of energy use intensity in the year 2000 which stood at 0.564gj/r, 0.314gj/r, 0.214gj/r, 0.211gj/r, 0.371gj/r, respectively. the forecast for the value added in millions by agriculture over this period were r26588, r27510, r28098, r28538, r28912 and r29200 in 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2025, respectively. in another study that assessed energy-related behaviour and perceptions by households in south africa, the doe (2012b) utilised the expenditure-based and subjective approaches relating to the share of total household income or expenditure devoted to energy. it was assumed in the study that the threshold for determining energy poverty is between 10% and 15% of income spent on energy with 10% being the norm. households with energy expenditure exceeding this threshold are considered energy poor and are likely to be confronted with difficult choices between meeting energy requirements on the one hand and sacrificing other important competing spending priorities on the other. energy efficiency methods and policy challenges in agriculture in order to improve energy efficiency, a number of options may be considered across all sectors. options or methods of energy efficiency, among others, include appliance labelling; energy-efficient lighting, buildings, transport and industries; the introduction of energy audits, market-based instruments (mbis) and machines with energy-efficient motors; and education and awareness as well as voluntary instruments (davis et al. 2011). gellings (2015) maintained that the implementation of energy efficiency in agricultural equipment will help reduce the costs of food production. he argued that when considering the area to be cultivated alone, fertilisers and pesticides consume the largest amount of energy followed by agricultural equipment. this equipment makes use of motors and drivers and some of them are more efficient than others. in terms of crop and animal production, energy use can be direct or indirect. indirect use refers to energy consumed for producing materials and equipment, transportation of manufacturing machineries and fuel to end-users. however, the direct consumption of energy relates to the use of fuel to operate machineries. the energy efficiency level of such machines is dependent on the following: the type of fuel and the engine (diesel or petrol), matching equipment to task, timely maintenance of equipment, proper operation of equipment, balancing yield with energy consumption, using efficient machines and reducing tillage operations. policymakers should balance the benefit of reducing energy in farm operations with the costs of increasing energy consumption in the form of chemicals. energy-efficient appliances are important sources of energy savings (amann et al. 2010). considerable reduction in monthly electricity can be achieved by switching to energy-efficient appliances (govender, okoro & chikuni 2014). even though these appliances may be more costly to purchase than average energy-efficient ones, reduced energy bills may compensate for the cost of the product long before it wears out. lighting is one of the major causes of high energy usage in large buildings. advanced lighting systems such as high efficiency lamps in farms, lighting controls and light reflectors through lighting standards may greatly reduce electricity consumption (davis et al. 2011). studies by deloitte (2015) have revealed that agriculture consumes 2% of south africa’s total electricity and have identified income, price and technology as the key drivers of electricity consumption in the country. the implication is that an increase in the level of gdp results in an increase in the demand for electricity although increasing electricity prices may result in decreasing demand. however, research has shown that energy consumption is more responsive to changes in income than changes in price. across many countries, the demand elasticity for the price of electricity, in particular, ranges from -0.2 to 0.4, an indication that a 1% price increase may result in a 0.2% to 0.4% reduction in electricity consumption compared with the 0.8% to 1.1% increase in electricity consumption, if there is a 1% change in income or gdp. this is an indication that as long as the income and gdp of south africa are increasing, an increase in electricity consumption will outpace the decrease in consumption if price is used as the only policy to control consumption and achieve efficiency. buildings offer great potential for saving energy through efficiency gains (us national research council 2010). large amounts of energy are wasted in the heating and cooling of unnecessary space in buildings owing to inefficient energy designs and construction of buildings. however, it could be argued that increasing energy consumption in the south african economy is a direct effect of the changing structure of the economy (structural effects) and the influence of new technology. it could also be argued that new technology is expected to be more energy efficient and a shift in the structure of the economy from high energy users and gdp contributors in the 1970s and 1980s such as mining (from 21% in 1970 to 6% in 2010) to non-traditional sectors (service sector in 2010) should be accompanied by a shift in energy consumption pattern as well. if the above argument is factored into the idea of structural change and new technology transfer into the south african economy as the fundamental cause of the burgeoning energy consumption, the idea of energy inefficiency in these industries cannot be ruled out. efficient energy utilisation, coupled with contracting traditional sectors (mining and agriculture), should ensure that enough energy is released in order to power emerging non-traditional sectors. this is quite important if the term ‘structural effect’ is defined as the energy input (g/kwh) per unit output (value). although i concur with the energy intensity differentials by sectors, i am of the view that there is inefficiency in the consumption of energy in the agricultural sector and south africa as a whole. the slow replacement of non-energy-efficient technologies, the prioritisation of profit by industries over investment in energy-efficient technologies as well as traditionally low prices charged for electricity (far below the real market price for energy) are some of the major causes of energy crisis in the country (bird & hernandez 2012). this is because traditional building regulations paid little or no attention to energy-efficient designs. studies have shown that 40% to 50% energy savings can be obtained by modifying building regulations. the putting in place of building standards and best practices containing energy saving measures such as the installation of ceilings and wall insulation, water heater blankets, solar water heaters and low-flow shower heads, monitored by energy auditors, could lead to a significant drop in the quantity of energy consumed. the cost of installing energy-efficient measures would be compensated by the economic benefits accruing from the energy saved. the contribution of gdp by agriculture is approximately 3%. it could be as high as 12% if backward and forward linkages are considered. the agricultural transport sector is one of the areas where fossil fuel has not been effectively substituted (european commission 2013). the most common replacement for fuel has become natural gas, although there are different sources of renewable energy. although these forms of fuel substitutes have been established, vehicles designed to use these substitutes seem to be experiencing difficulties (us department of energy 2007). the consumption of energy by the agricultural sector is slightly above 3% (department of energy; south africa, 2012) and appears to be operating at an energy efficiency level. however, the use of energy in this sector is inefficient since most of the motors used by farm machineries and equipment are energy inefficient compared with those in developed countries in europe. in a study conducted by blancard and martin (2014) to examine energy efficiency and its components (technical and allocative efficiency in energy contents) in a deterministic case (i.e., when one knows the energy content), it was revealed that energy efficiency varies across farms in france (from 0.305 to 1). they concluded that energy efficiency improvement policies should target the most energy-inefficient farms, and precise energy policies designed for such farms may involve giving them incentives to reallocate inputs in a manner that corresponds to that of energy-efficient farms. the development of energy efficiency standards whose enforcement would be monitored by energy auditors for transport (vehicles and train) is, perhaps, the most important requirement to move towards an energy-efficient world. transport is not the only measure through which energy efficiency could be achieved. a major portion of the energy supplied is consumed by the industrial sector. energy savings in industry may be achieved through energy-efficient industrial motors, wiring and cogeneration plants. firstly, industrial motors present a significant occasion to save energy. large industrial motors, such as those used in the paper industry, consume electricity costing about 10 times their own capital cost per year. savings in energy could be obtained through the replacement of standard induction motors with high energy efficiency motors that save electricity. furthermore, switching off idling motors that are not in use will also save a significant amount of energy and reduce costs. according to govender et al. (2014), the use of larger diameter electrical cables (wiring) from the distribution board to industrial machines can also reduce power loss. this may be done through wiring regulations that stipulate the minimum wire size in order to reduce the possibility of fires, and not to save energy through reduced power losses and costs. using wires with twice the required diameter will incur high costs initially but would lead to energy saving within a short period of time. according to the california energy commission’s cogeneration handbook report 500-82-054, cogeneration is described as the simultaneous production of electrical energy. a cogeneration system operates at an overall thermal efficiency as much as 2.5 to 3 times that of conventional electrical generating systems. the normal wasted exhausted heat during electrical generation systems is captured and used for electrical energy production, thus saving energy and improving energy efficiency in industry. the world energy council (2013) describes energy audits as on-site inspection of existing energy activities of consumers by an energy auditor (energy rating) followed by an identification of energy saving potential. audit schemes are a practical way of informing consumers about the possible actions to improve energy efficiency. profitability or margins should be used to allocate energy prices as sectors with larger profit margins, utilising non-energy-efficient technologies, should pay higher prices than those with energy-efficient technologies. this may force companies to switch investments towards energy saving technologies, which will be beneficial to the economy as a whole. the california public utilities commission (cpuc 2013) adopted a state-wide agricultural energy efficiency programme premised on strategic energy planning, audits, rebates and incentives to customers in order to accelerate the adoption of energy efficiency measures and provide energy analysis services, leading to improved energy efficiency of agricultural facilities, including on-site food-processing facilities. these strategies have been developed in industry and in non-residential buildings and are increasingly made mandatory. energy audits are usually funded by public agencies. mandatory audits, unlike voluntary audits, assume a certain quality of the auditors as well as of the staff responsible for energy management in companies (energy managers). this can be assured by the certification of the auditors and training of energy managers. rademaekers et al. (2011) argued that mbis are important tools in promoting energy efficiency. mbis refer to tools that seek to address market failure, either by incorporating the external cost of production or consumption activities through taxes or charges on processes or products and facilitating the establishment of a proxy market for the use of energy services. the rationale for using mbis in promoting energy efficiency lies in their ability to correct market failures in a cost-effective manner. mbis have the advantage of using market signals to address market failures. examples of mbis, among others, include energy efficiency taxes, charges, subsidies and pricing. mbis can be implemented across the entire energy sector (agriculture, household, mining, industries and commercial). internationally, the most widely used forms of mbis are energy pricing, taxes, charges, subsidies and levies (du plessis 2007). the european commission (2013) warned that consumers, industry and public authorities alike need to be aware of the importance of energy efficiency issues and be motivated to tackle them. making available clear and accessible information about energy efficiency and providing appropriate education and training for stakeholders and individuals are key ways of achieving energy efficiency. according to the commission, priorities for raising awareness on energy efficiency would include labelling as well as education and training programmes for energy managers in industry and utilities, and teaching aids for primary, secondary and vocational education. the impact of education and awareness campaigns can be evaluated by detailed monitoring. the impact and effect can be increased by providing positive feedback to the target group or sector during programmes on behavioural changes. moos (2007) maintained that world-wide experience with energy-efficient voluntary instruments has shown that ambitious targets could be a driving force for innovation and continuous energy efficiency improvement. voluntary instruments refers to negotiated agreements between public authorities and individual firms or groups of firms, which include targets and timetables for actions aimed at improving energy efficiency or reducing ghg emissions for either a reward or a penalty. voluntary instruments are often combined with other instruments such as energy audits. factors influencing the success of voluntary programmes and negotiated agreements include social pressure or systems of social control, supporting instruments and regulations, positive incentives, transparent target setting, clarity on commitments on both sides, adoption of new roles and responsibility as well as good communication networks among participants (rezessy & bertoiti, 2011). voluntary programmes have a range of soft effects such as capacity building, increasing awareness, empowerment and transfer of responsibilities from authorities and experts to energy end-users themselves. energy efficiency has the potential of meeting the growing energy needs of countries. however, the penetration of energy efficiency into societies remains slow owing to a number of impediments. conclusion energy efficiency could be defined differently depending on the context within which the concept is used. for the purpose of this article, it has been defined as: (1) an improvement in energy equipment, technology, practices and products or (2) a change in behaviour or (3) the introduction of energy management systems in order to reduce the amount or quality of energy used. the agricultural sector in south africa is energy inefficient. to achieve efficiency, programmes such as strategic energy planning, audits, rebates and incentives should be initiated in this sector. this will assist farmers to accelerate the adoption of energy efficiency measures and provide quality data on energy analysis services. this will lead to improved energy efficiency in agricultural facilities, including on-site food-processing facilities. there are various drivers that could be used to implement energy efficiency measures. these include climate change, increased demand for energy, energy security, the finite nature of fossil fuels, reduced energy-related public expenditure, developmental goals and job creation. despite the remarkable benefits associated with energy efficiency, the overall penetration of energy efficiency remains slow and ineffective owing to impediments such as low energy prices, financing, poverty, uncertainty, split incentives, capital budgeting and ignorance. legislation plays a vital role in ensuring energy efficiency. non-compliance, enforcement of legislation, energy audits and poverty could be regulated by law. south africa needs legislation that promotes energy efficiency awareness, regulates the production or importation of goods regarding energy efficiency, provides for basic energy services for the poor as well as efficiency auditing in farms. however, legislation alone cannot fully eradicate energy inefficiencies. uncertainty, capital budgeting and energy pricing cannot be regulated by law. they remain behavioural issues which differ from person to person and most often change with time. they are, thus, left to particular individuals to moderate their ways. acknowledgements angwe r. lekunze acknowledges the important guidance by prof. w. du plessis from the legal perspective. further, the north-west university for offering her the opportunity to study her master’s degree and the financial support during her studies. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions j.n.l conceptualised the idea of combining the concept of energy efficiency and its application to agriculture. j.n.l is responsible for the layout, structure and agricultural-related aspects of the article and wrote the title, introduction, problem statement, research method, energy efficiency methods and policy challenges in agriculture, conclusion and has been the corresponding author. a.r.l is responsible for all the legal content of the article and her contribution stretches across the following sections: energy efficiency policies and the legislative framework in south africa, definition of the concept of energy efficiency, research method and drivers of energy efficiency. the collaboration is purely for academic purposes and transdisciplinary research interest as well as support and mentorship. references amann, j.t., wilson, a. & ackerly, k., 2010, consumer guide to home energy savings, 10th edn., american council for an energy efficient economy 2012, washington, dc. barnard, m., 2014, ‘sadc’s response to climate change – the role of harmonised law and policy on mitigation in the energy sector’, journal of energy in southern africa 25(1), 26–32. barton, b., 2008, ‘the law of energy efficiency’ beyond the carbon economy, oxford university 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introduction orientation terminological clarifications nature of the human-changed environment around westonaria and carletonville co-operative governance surface-water catchment and divide integrated water resources management conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) eric j. nealer department of public administration and management, university of south africa, johannesburg, south africa citation nealer, e.j., 2020, ‘geohydrological aspects of importance in the public management of basic water supply services in merafong city local municipality (carletonville area), south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a671. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.671 original research geohydrological aspects of importance in the public management of basic water supply services in merafong city local municipality (carletonville area), south africa eric j. nealer received: 11 feb. 2019; accepted: 17 oct. 2019; published: 31 mar. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract carletonville is a gold-mining town in western gauteng province, south africa, and is located in the merafong city local municipality’s geographical area of responsibility. it is one of the richest gold-producing areas in the world but unfortunately the current state of the town’s infrastructure is in shambles and the environment is in a pitiful state because of human activities that have caused massive physical changes. geohydrological aspects such as complex geology and the compartmentalisation of the groundwater into seven areas separated by syenite dykes, of which five have been dewatered to facilitate the gold-mining, have made it the research area of choice. unfortunately, this led to the formation of hundreds of new sinkholes between the towns of westonaria and carletonville and eventually the evacuation of the old town of bank, abandoning the area and declaring it unsuitable for human settlements. to try and identify possible reasons for this unfortunate state of the human-induced environmental change all along the wonderfontein spruit draining the area, the author using a comprehensive literature review, study of geological maps and databases as well as through data collection and semi-structured interviews with selected role-players and stakeholders identified basic essential geographical, geohydrological, organisational and municipal management aspects of significance for consideration. these steps were all a part of an attempt to improve the nature and extent of basic water-, sanitation-, human settlementsand environmental management in the westonaria, carletonville and khutsong areas. keywords: community participation; dolomite rock; geohydrology; municipal management; basic water; sanitation service. introduction carletonville is a gold-mining town situated on the western side of gauteng province, south africa, and borders on the north west province. it is one of the richest gold-producing areas in the world (treasure route association n.d.:online). carletonville was originally an unplanned settlement established between 1937 and 1957, as various companies laid their gold-mining claims. on 01 july 1959, it attained the town council status. it is currently a part of the merafong city local municipality (hereafter referred to as mlm). the area is located approximately 65 km south-west of johannesburg and includes the following smaller towns: blybank, fochville, greenspark, khutsong, kokosi and welverdiend. the area is hydrologically drained from the northeast to the southwest by the wonderfontein spruit. notwithstanding the fact that carletonville finds itself located in one of the richest gold-producing areas in the world, a drive through the area and superficial personal inspection revealed that the town’s roads, storm-water provisioning, potable water reticulation system, sanitation, public housing and the naturaland human-changed environment are not being maintained according to the standards that were until recently still in place and being maintained. the author has been involved in this area, both as a practitioner and as a scientist for 16 years, over a period spanning close to 40 years. these personal observations by the author 2 years ago led him to identify the area for a collaborative community engagement project of the department of public administration and management, university of south africa (unisa). to add positive action-research value to mlm’s basic water-related services in the area, this article specifically reports on a literature review, study of geographical tools such as maps and ortho-photos, compilation of information database and semi-structured interviews with selected role-players and stakeholders. these research tools were utilised to identify some basic essential geographical, geohydrological, organisational and municipal management aspects of significance for consideration by the municipal service providers and managers in order to try and strengthen the basic water-, sanitation-, human settlementsand environmental management in the westonaria and carletonville areas. in conclusion, the article reports about important geohydrological related findings made by the author, logical conclusions he came to and some specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (smart) recommendations that he can make, which the municipality may investigate, consider and implement. orientation along the wonderfontein spruit, over a distance of 79 km from immediately south of krugersdorp to its confluence with the mooi river near welverdiend, the environmental disaster and potential mining-created waste land are self-evident. the westonaria (randwest local municipality) and carletonville (mlm) areas have become more complicated and problematic with regard to socio-economic and environmental challenges. these include, inter alia, west rand issues of gold undermined surface areas, geologically underlain by dolomite, sinkholes, acid mine drainage and ineffective corporate social responsibility on the part of mining industries towards the natural and human-changed environment. the area is characterised by, inter alia, dewatered dolomitic compartments, gold-mining and over-the-surface transport (piping) of polluted surface water and effluents from upstream areas such as krugersdorp, randfontein, bekkersdal and some mines. these water sources are collected immediately west of the donaldson dam dam-wall, and gravitated along a 1-m diameter pipeline, over approximately 48 km, to be released into the natural flow of the wonderfontein spruit immediately west of the dyke, on the northern side of carletonville. unfortunately, the water in question is polluted and originates from an officially declared ‘abandoned area’ (department of land affairs [dla] 2002). numerous studies undertaken in the area over a period of more than 50 years have demonstrated the unfavourable environment. the groundwater reserve of the boskop-turffontein dolomitic compartment is adversely affected by all the upstream pollution sources. the boskop dam, the main water reservoir for the jb marx local municipality (potchefstroom), is located south of the confluence of the mooi river and the wonderfontein spruit. the groundwater quality of the gerhard minnebron spring, located due south of this confluence, is also directly affected by mining activities (north-east of the spring) and the compromised surface-water inflow into this dolomitic aquifer. terminological clarifications dolomite rock is soluble, that is, it dissolves in water. it is composed of mineral dolomite, which is a carbonate of calcium and magnesium rainwater. percolating groundwater gradually dissolves the rock over time as it seeps through joints, fractures and fault zones in the rock. the term ‘dolomitic land’ is used to describe areas in south africa underlain directly or at shallow depth (i.e. up to 100 m below the ground surface) by dolomite rock (department of public works 2003:online). the dissolution of the dolomite gives rise to cracks, voids and eventually cave systems through which the groundwater gravitates (usually mimicking the surface-water flow) on its hydrological journey to an ocean. soils and plant material covering the rock can collapse into these voids and caves, resulting in catastrophic ground movement on the surface, such as dolines (hollow or basin visible on the ground surface) and in the last instance, sinkholes. to date, in south africa, 38 people have died in sinkholes that have occurred under, amongst others, sports clubs, factories and homes and financial losses have exceeded r1 billion. more than 1000 sinkholes have occurred on the west rand, 800 south of pretoria, centurion and atteridgeville and approximately 150 on the east rand (department of public works 2003:online; oosthuizen & richardson 2011:1). south african research shows that 96% of sinkholes and subsidence that have occurred to date were induced by humans, generated by ingress of water from leaking water-bearing infrastructure, poor storm-water management and other factors or because of artificial lowering of the groundwater level. consequently, intervention through an integrated, comprehensive and pro-active dolomite risk management strategy has the potential to reduce the incidences of ground instability events (sinkhole and subsidence formation) by reducing the likelihood of water gaining entry into the subsurface profile, or controlling dewatering or recharging of the dolomite aquifer (van niekerk & van der walt 2006:online). the first signs of devastating sinkholes in the westonaria–carletonville area in west rand, south africa date back to the 1960s. the west rand is the area hardest hit by sinkholes, an issue dating back to the discovery of gold more than 120 years ago, with gold mines pumping water out of the underground void. the poorly managed infrastructure creates new sinkholes that endanger service delivery, schools and other public works in the human settlement areas. nature of the human-changed environment around westonaria and carletonville traveling through the mlm’s geographical area of responsibility one is confronted with the horrific state of the naturaland human-changed environment. tarred streets cluttered with potholes, blocked storm-water channels, no painted lines, or signage and filthy unmaintained sidewalks are the order of the day. in comparison to this depressing state of the town environment, the entrances, reception and employee settlement areas of the bigger gold mines in the area exhibit good planning, well-maintained infrastructure and optimum visibility, access and proficiency (see figure 1) figure 1: locality map of the westonaria and merafong city local municipality areas. the following aspects indicated in figure 1 are worth noting: the two municipal areas are geologically underlain by dolomitic rock (see the legend in the figure in which the dolomite underlain area is indicated with the 45˚ angle lined shading). the geology and subsequent geohydrology of the area are very complex because of, amongst other reasons, the natural underground ‘compartmentalisation’ in the dolomite by syenite dykes into seven separate compartments and the fact that five of them have been dewatered by gold mines. this practice was initiated to maintain the groundwater level at such a level so as to enable mining to continue effectively and safely. the wonderfontein spruit rises immediately south of krugersdorp and is the natural conduit of the continental surface-water divide located to the northeast of the research area. this stream flows through the area in a south-westerly direction, where it merges with the mooi river, flowing in a southerly direction to meet the vaal river at kromdraai and eventually flows into the orange river, finally draining into the atlantic ocean. the surface water in this part of the catchment is artificially collected and diverted into a 1-m diameter (ø) pipeline, from immediately west of the donaldson dam up to the downstream side of the syenite dyke of the oberholzer compartment, north of carletonville. this surface-water stream diversion is unique and transports water over a distance of approximately 48 km to allow subsurface mining to continue safely in the area. gold mines (operating and closed ones) occur at approximately 20 locations in the area and are indicated with a mine shaft sign in the figure. the area (especially that located across the dewatered dolomite compartments) is riddled with sinkholes (indicated with ‘blotchy’ dots in figure 1) and a large area between westonaria and carletonville has been declared ‘abandoned because of sinkhole occurrence’. the n14 national main road from johannesburg to potchefstroom passes the area on its south-eastern side. the main ‘n1’ railway line from johannesburg to potchefstroom stretches through the area crossing right across the above-mentioned ‘abandoned’ area from east to west. no signage is used in the area to warn roadand railway transport users about the dangers of ground surface subsidences, cracks and sinkholes in the immediate surroundings. the western boundary of the mlm coincides with the delimiting provincial boundary between gauteng and north west provinces. when the gold mines in the westonaria area came into existence during the 1930s, the mining works, at very deep depths ranging from 2000 m to more than 3000 m, unfortunately got flooded by the consistent inflow of groundwater. the mines then (prior to the 1960s) obtained permission through water abstraction licenses from the then department of water affairs (now water and sanitation) to pump out (abstract) the water and actually dewater the ‘dyked-in’ compartments and to seal (plug) any inflows of water so that the underground mining works could take place in a dryer and safer work environment. unfortunately, this mining strategy and subsequent organisational arrangements had a disastrous effect on the physicaland human-changed environment in that ground surface subsidences and cracks appeared and sinkholes fell in (new york times 1964:online). huge areas had to be vacated completely (e.g. bank, venterspost and westonaria). figure 2 shows photographs depicting the horrific state of affairs because of the forming of sinkholes in the dolomite. figure 2: some sinkholes in the merafong city local municipality area. the area indicated on the locality map in figure 1 as ‘abandoned declared area because of sinkhole occurrence’ is also to be noted. in trying to identify possible reasons and confirmation for or of the aforementioned state of the physicaland human-changed environment, the following reported and sourced incidents and manifestations can be identified: on thursday, 27 october 2016, the merafong city local municipality council voted to declare khutsong, welverdiend and carletonville a local state of disaster under the disaster management act (independent online [iol] 2016:online). this came as a response to numerous sinkholes in the area destroying water access and waste disposal infrastructure, leaving thousands of residents without access to basic services in the area. according to the council for geoscience, millions of south africans live in 50 towns either completely or partly underlain by dolomite. these include parts of krugersdorp, potchefstroom, sasolburg, vereeniging, johannesburg and pretoria (centurion) (iol 2016:online). more recently, a pipeline linking a reservoir to khutsong south, khutsong new extensions and welverdiend fell into a sinkhole, leaving an estimated 23 802 residents of the mlm stranded without piped water until september 2017. ‘currently we have 10 open sinkholes affecting services, which must still be rehabilitated, pending availability of funds’, mlm spokesperson chris spies said in a statement (iol 2016:online). a visit by the star newspaper to hlanganani primary school near carletonville confirmed that the ground surface was shifting and slowly separating the foundation from the building. bodibe, spokesperson for the gauteng provincial department of education, said that there were historic sinkholes on the school’s property, but the sinkholes had since been closed. bodibe added that other schools might still be impacted by sinkholes (iol 2016:online): given the fact that a substantial portion of gauteng province is underlain by dolomite, it stands to reason that a number of buildings including schools are located on dolomite land. some of these schools were built before dolomite awareness and foundations and wet services therefore do not necessarily comply with the more recent south african national standards, bodibe said in the statement. (olalde 2016:1) a rehabilitation of sinkholes project is under way in merafong city local municipality to address ageing and leaking infrastructure. part of the project includes fixing khutsong’s water delivery, a task expected to cost r70 million. kbo projects construction company is contracted by the merafong city local municipality to fill sinkholes. general manager riemer wijnja said that impacts to infrastructure were wide-ranging: we’ve done a couple of sinkholes that damaged houses and buildings. there’s one particular one that’s very close to a classroom in a school, and they had to evacuate that classroom, wijnja said, declining to identify the school. (olalde 2016:1) according to mr stoch, an environmental consultant at north-west university, who currently researches the occurrence and forming of new sinkholes, flooding from a silted canal system in the khutsong area threatens nearby housing developments. as water, including that pumped from mines, overflows the canal, the additional water can cause sinkholes close to houses: ‘if you do not manage infrastructure and you allow it to become progressively worse, it gets to a stage of no return when it becomes almost more expensive to maintain it than what it entails to build a completely new system’, stoch said. (e.j. stoch, pers. comm., 17 june 2018) the sinkhole problem is also taking a toll on local businesses. paulo de gouveia is a carletonville business owner who has plans to open a new filling station at the entrance to the town. after he invested in the drilling and permitting necessary to build on dolomite, two large sinkholes formed on his property, most likely caused by leaking water pipes. he will have to push his plans back to next year and most likely re-drill samples in a new area. ‘this is all because of bad maintenance. if they walk the line once a week, check that there are no leaks, then we won’t be having this problem here’, de gouveia said. ‘rand water must come to the party and sort us out’. rand water declined to comment (iol 2016:online). sifiso ngubelanga, a senior scientist from the council for geoscience, said: the far west rand area is one of those areas that have been highly influenced by sinkholes. this phenomenon dates back to as early as the 1960s when the mines started the de-watering of the area to access the underlying gold deposits. (iol 2016:1) because of these geohydrological and developmental realities in the wonderfontein spruit sub-catchment, the residents of bekkersdal, westonaria, venterspost, libanon, carletonville and khutsong human settlement areas do not have access to usable surfaceand groundwater (e.g. water abstracted through boreholes). their water (raw and potable) is supplied by the rand water board that obtains its water from the vaal dam. this fortunate position of the area’s inhabitants in terms of easy and ample access to potable water unfortunately might be one of the reasons for them becoming insensitive or non-caring and careless towards the quality or state of the surfaceand groundwater in the area. they therefore do not take ‘ownership’ of a clean and safe physical and human-changed environment. as a result, the subsequent nature and extent of release of ‘treated’ sewage and effluent in the natural flow of the wonderfontein spruit is no problem of theirs. they seemingly also do not care about the surfaceand groundwater users trying to make a safe living downstream from carletonville in the wonderfontein spruit catchment (including welverdiend, and small holdings and farms along the mooi river and the boskop dam). this dam is the main water storage facility for the residents of the town of potchefstroom located downstream. some of the major challenges that the residents of this area are confronted with are the following: the gold-mining activities taking place 2 km–3 km underground and the ensuing setting off of dynamite and mine blasting, noise, earth tremors and mobilised dust. the fact that the underlying dolomite rock formation is being hammered by the mining activities causes cracks in houses, bursting water and sanitation pipes, subsidences in the ground surface and the forming of sinkholes – big enough to swallow a house in its totality. poor intergovernmental relations (igr) realise amongst, for example, the municipalities, government institutions, private sector enterprises, non-governmental organisations (ngos), mines and research units of universities as prominent role-players and stakeholders in the area (e.j. stoch, pers. comm., 17 june 2018). judging by, for example, the leading officials of the local municipalities of westonaria’s and randfontein’s very low level of participation on community forums such as the wonderfontein spruit (westonaria and carletonville) and mooi river (potchefstroom) forums, one can only assume that they do not understand the diversity and complexity of the municipaland environmental health management challenges at hand (j. janeke, pers. comm., 28 october 2014). these citizen participation forums meet four times a year to discuss common environmental challenges and together try to come up with solutions on how to manage them. at these meetings, the municipal residents unfortunately are present in very small numbers and the following facts have manifested: the department of water and sanitation (dws) acts as a convener of the meetings, usually chairs it and unfortunately dominates the proceedings (the case of ‘one of the players also acting as referee’). the gold-mining companies’ personnel sometimes make presentations at a too high and advanced technical level to try and impress and confuse (‘fogging technique’) the novice attendees (citizen representatives) of the forum meetings. the following has been overheard from one of the community attendees: ‘by providing nice tea, snacks and lunch i feel as if the host is trying to fill my stomach with nice food and to make me go home empty-headed’. forum meetings usually are called during times on public work-days during which the novice community member cannot be excused from his or her place of work. many feel that they would have been able to attend the meetings more regularly if they were to be called after normal working hours or on a saturday morning. the public media (e.g. carletonville herald newspaper) ‘shines in its absence’. the fact that the natural environment features are land-locked between several municipal boundaries, cover areas of two adjacent provinces and are purely politically and administratively oriented also possibly increases the municipal management complexity in the area. this adds to the perceived absence of effective co-operative governance, integrated water resources management (iwrm), public management of human settlements and effective facilitation of basic municipal services in the area. the nature and extent of iwrm and co-operative governance specifically in the wonderfontein spruit and mooi river sub-catchments between role-players and stakeholders are of a poor standard (m. liefferink, pers. comm., 06 april 2017). the fact that the role-players and stakeholders do not communicate effectively (even with the assistance and publicity attempts of the public media [e.g. carletonville herald newspaper]) is depicted by the dilapidated state of streets, sanitation, houses and water reticulation in the area. figure 3 illustrates the unsafe physical and human-changed environment in the khutsong township located in the merafong city local municipality. figure 3: photos depicting the state of destruction in and around the khutsong area. in light of the exposition so far of the unfortunate state of the merafong city local municipality’s environment, the author in the next three sections identifies and suggests co-operative governance, surface-water catchment management and iwrm as tools to facilitate a positive change in the area. co-operative governance co-operative governance is a cross-cutting of various governmental spheres’ theme. the south african constitution of 1996 has established a governance system that forces ‘all spheres of government and all organs of state’ to co-operate with one another in ‘mutual trust and good faith’ (republic of south africa [rsa] 1996). this should therefore be taking place across and within all public-sector departments regardless of the activity and their location in the project cycle. the national environmental management act (nema) and the national water act support co-operative governance through, for example, the provision of arrangements, such as catchment management agencies and environmental cooperation agreements (department of environmental affairs [dea] n.d.:online). in the facilitation of effective co-operative governance, there is a shift away from the narrow focus of governance to a broader focus, which, inter alia, includes the following: process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound public policies the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic, social and environmental interactions (igr) amongst them (nealer & naude 2011:105). furthermore, organisational arrangements such as visibility, access, responsiveness, transparency, participation, equity, effectiveness, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, ethics and environmental sensitivity can also be identified. in terms of these principles, corruption is minimised, the views of minorities are taken into account and the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in public decision-making. an important key to the aforementioned wider and encompassing focus of co-operative governance is the existence of effective organisational arrangements (internal and external) of which two-way communication is first and foremost. this should lead to higher levels of visibility, transparency, access and willingness of all actors and stakeholders to become involved and to participate in a more active manner towards, inter alia, holistic and synergised group attempts of public service delivery and sustainable development per se. to make the aforementioned happen, effective public management is essential. cognisance should especially be taken of the subsequent order in which the individual phases of the public management process in practice unfold, with planning always realising first and control in the last instance. attention should however be given to the public policy-making and policy implementation activities that have to be executed prior to planning. in terms of the quest to improved co-operative governance and iwrm, the subsequent logical order and role of structuring and organisational arrangements (especially communication) together with the allocation and management of financing, human resources and work procedures should be taken into account. additional management tools such as information communication technology, performance management (monitoring, reporting and evaluation) and effective representative citizen participation complete the comprehensive definition. the author’s research also revealed that in numerous instances there is a lack of knowledge in municipalities about the following: the origin of the water (raw and potable) in the geographical jurisdiction of a municipality; the nature and extent of public management of the water-related (e.g. potable and used water) services; the collection, transport, treatment, release and disposal of the used water; the most suitable protocol to follow for human settlement in, for example, a dolomite rock underlain area (nealer 2015). before the management goal of iwrm in a specific geographical area is analysed, the aspect of surface-water catchment must be understood. surface-water catchment and divide a surface-water catchment is an area of land where surface water from rain, or melting snow or ice converges to a single point at a lower-lying ground surface (metres above mean sea level [mamsl]) elevation (usually the exit of the river basin). these waters then join another waterbody such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, groundwater aquifer or ocean (pediaview 2015:online). the delimiting line between two adjacent surface-water catchments (e.g. river systems) is called the surface-water divide and stretches along the highest points, for example, a ridge or crest of a spur from where rain water can flow in either direction (u.s. geological survey [usgs] 2015:online). the exact location and stretch of a divide are generally delineated from topographic maps based on land elevations indicated with brown contour lines. however, the actual location and stretch of boundaries may be differently demarcated at different times because of map interpretation assumptions or human-induced changes that have occurred since the map was made. it therefore might be necessary to carry out field inspections of the areas in question. groundwater watersheds are conceptually similar to surface-water watersheds because groundwater flows from high points (divides) to low points (outlets, discharge areas). however, the boundaries of surface-water and groundwater watersheds do not always coincide. groundwater movement occurs in underground located aquifer systems and is subject to: (1) hydraulic properties of the aquifer, (2) input to (recharge) and outflow from (discharge) the aquifer system and (3) geological factors such as rock formations that block the flow of water and tilted formations that create a flow gradient (minnesota department of natural resources 2015:online). in the next section, the place and role of iwrm as a strategically important ‘vehicle’ through which a geo-hydrologically sensitive area like the wonderfontein spruit sub-catchment can be developed and managed will be described. integrated water resources management the reform of potable water services provisioning by means of promulgation of the water services act 108 of 1997 and the national water act 36 of 1998 in south africa has been revolutionary and it started a process of addressing the imbalance that existed in how the national resource was distributed. water now is recognised as a scarce resource that belongs to all the people of the country and consequently it should be managed in an integrated way for social and economic development including future growth (fuggle & rabie 2005; riemann, chimboza & fubesi 2012:445). the aforementioned encompasses a sensitivity to careful cognisance and management of ‘the aggregate of surrounding objects, conditions, and influences that impact on the life and habits of man or any other organism or collection of organisms’ (rsa 1989). the provision of potable water supply by water services authorities (wsas) is an important basic service that faces a number of challenges such as the use of outdated infrastructure, lack of skilled and knowledgeable people, improper planning and the booming population that places overt pressure on the demand for service delivery. the municipalities and government departments of the south african public sector now realise that governments cannot achieve development on their own, and that they need all possible assistance. to make this quest happen, an iwrm approach has now been accepted internationally as the way forward for efficient and sustainable development and management of the world’s limited water resources and for coping with conflicting demands for water-related services. it is most widely defined by the global water partnership: [a]s a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. (united nations [un] 2008:1) furthermore, the de-politicising of water management areas by having them defined by surface-water catchment – rather than political boundaries – is internationally recognised as lending itself to more effective iwrm. conclusion and recommendations in conclusion, one can understand the importance of utilising a public planning tool such as the surface-water catchment regions of dws in the day-to-day public planning and organising of a geographical area, such as the wonderfontein spruit sub-catchment. the nature and extent of the demarcated municipal areas are in a state of constant change. the effective utilisation of macro-organising vehicles, such as co-operative governance and with reference to water, iwrm, is of essence. this can be realised by establishing partnerships of effective co-operative governance by means of, inter alia, transdisciplinary research and collaboration as well as strengthening of public policy-making and implementing hands. by becoming more sensitised about the origin of everybody’s potable water, the management of it and the disposal of the grey water in the area, the people in authoritative positions as well as the municipal residents might experience an effective capacitation with some basic geohydrological and municipal management knowledge and skills. so, what can be done to address the challenges identified in a more positive manner and facilitate some positive changes – albeit small? the author is of the opinion that through effective co-operative governance and the application of the basics of public sector management by skilled and capacitated municipal officials and politicians together with a committed quest of the community members, effective iwrm can be realised. to give effect to the aforementioned, the adjustment or alignment of municipalities’ geographical areas of responsibility, according to the demarcated surface-water catchment regions of dws, will assist in the facilitation of more effective iwrm and co-operative governance. the place and role of the local government sphere in south africa are demarcated and the necessary legislation and organisational structures are in place. the responsible governmental public service providers must ‘just get their act together’ and start to implement and execute the numerous governmental policies in terms of more effective and efficient rendering of public services to the citizens of the country. unfortunately, the committed municipalities are continually experiencing new pressures to deliver a wider variety of usually more complex basic urban public services to citizens who are developing new and more sophisticated needs. this quest to deliver public services in a more effective, efficient, equal, economic and sustainable manner now requires an optimum level of cooperation and integration between the role-players and stakeholders involved. together, these actors will be able to bring about a positive difference in the nature of basic public service delivery and development in the very dynamic and highly politicised local government sphere. the occurrence of dolomite rock in a river catchment area requires an urgent new municipal management protocol, which, through effective and efficient co-operative governance and transdisciplinary research, should be acknowledged and managed by the major role-players (i.e. municipality, governmental institutions, mines, universities and ngos) in the service delivery and regulation of iwrm in the area. last but not least, it is recommended that the merafong city local municipality should start to play a much more visible, dominant, leading and managerial role in the whole of the wonderfontein spruit and downstream located mooi river sub-catchments up to, for example, the towns of westonaria, carletonville, fochville, welverdiend and potchefstroom. acknowledgements competing interests the author has declared that no competing interest exist. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from unisa (ref. pam 2017-006(cr). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references department of environmental affairs (dea), n.d., environmental impact assessment and management strategy, viewed 16 march 2015, from https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/eiams_subtheme10.pdf. department of land affairs (dla), 2002, 2627bc westonaria topographical map, dla, pretoria. department of public works, 2003, public works’ manual, viewed 16 november 2016, from https://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/dolomitemanual_0.pdf. fuggle, r.f. & rabie, m.a., 2005, environmental management in south africa, juta & co, ltd., cape town. gpm consultants, 2018, locality map of the westonaria and merafong city local municipality areas, gpm consultants, centurion. minnesota department of natural resources, 2015, surface-water watersheds vs. ground-water watersheds, viewed 16 march 2015, from http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/watersheds/surface_ground.html. nealer, e.j., 2015, catchment management through integrated water resources management and co-operative governance in a municipal area. inaugural lecture, unisa, pretoria. nealer, e.j. & naude, m., 2011, ‘integrated co-operative governance in the context of sustainable development’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 7(1), 105–118. new york times, 1964, earth holes stir south africans: spreading fissures in gold mine area raise fears, viewed 10 july 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/25/archives/earth-holes-stir-south-africans-spreading-fissures-in-gold-mine.html. olalde, m., 2016, sinkholes – a most significant threat, viewed 16 june 2018, from https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/south-africa-most-significant-threat. oosthuizen, a.c. & richardson, s., 2011, sinkholes and subsidence in south africa, council for geoscience, pretoria. pediaview.com, 2015, drainage basin, viewed 16 april 2015, from https://pediaview.com/openpedia/drainage_basin. republic of south africa, rsa, 1989, environment conservation act no. 73 of 1989, government printer, pretoria. republic of south africa (rsa), 1996, the constitution act 108 of 1996, government printer, pretoria. riemann, k., chimboza, n. & fubesi, m., 2012, ‘a proposed groundwater management framework for municipalities in south africa’, water sa 38(3), 445–452. https://doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v38i3.10 treasure route association, n.d., history carletonville, viewed 10 july 2018, from http://n12treasureroute.com. united nations (un) water, 2008, status report on integrated and water efficiency plans for csd16, department for international development, viewed n.d., from https://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/iwrm.shtml. u.s. geological survey (usgs), 2015, what is a watershed?, viewed 06 may 2015, from https://water.usgs.gov/edu/watershed.html. van niekerk, h.j. & van der walt, i.j., 2006, dewatering of the far west rand dolomitic area by gold mining activities and subsequent ground instability, viewed 08 august 2018, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ldr.749. http://www.td-sa.net open access the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa issn: (online) 2415-2005, (print) 1817-4434 page 1 of 1 corrigendum read online: scan this qr code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online. authors: eben h. swanepoel1 christa beyers1 lizette de wet2 affiliations: 1department of psychology of education, university of the free state, south africa 2department of computer science and informatics, university of the free state, south africa corresponding author: christa beyers, beyersc@ufs.ac.za dates: published: 21 dec. 2017 how to cite this article: swanepoel, e.h., beyers, c. & de wet, l., 2017, ‘corrigendum: exploring judgement and internal bias of life orientation teachers in sexuality teaching’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a528. https://doi. org/10.4102/td.v13i1.528 copyright: © 2017. the authors. licensee: aosis. this work is licensed under the creative commons attribution license. in the version of this article initially published, a reference was misrepresented in the reference list. the reference is hereby corrected to: francis, d., 2017, troubling the teaching and learning of gender and sexuality diversity in south african education, palgrave macmillan, new york. the errors have been corrected in the pdf version of the article. the author apologises for any inconvenience that this may have caused. corrigendum: exploring judgement and internal bias of life orientation teachers in sexuality teaching read online: scan this qr code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online. note: doi of original article: https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.405 http://www.td-sa.net mailto:beyersc@ufs.ac.za https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.528 https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.528 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.4102/td.v13i1.528=pdf&date_stamp=2017-12-21 https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.405 abstract introduction adam smith and agrarianism the wealth of nations, moral theory and agrarianism results discussion and conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) mark rathbone department of management, faculty of economic and management sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation rathbone m. moral theory, agrarianism and sustainable free market economics in the work of adam smith. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2023;19(1), a1317. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v19i1.1317 original research moral theory, agrarianism and sustainable free market economics in the work of adam smith mark rathbone received: 12 jan. 2022; accepted: 24 mar. 2023; published: 03 may 2023 copyright: © 2023. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the purpose of this article is to argue that adam smith’s assessment of agrarian economics is based on the transdisciplinary engagement between moral theory and economics in an inquiry into nature and causes of the wealth of nations (first published in 1776). this assessment draws on recent scholarship that underscores that smith’s earlier work the theory of moral sentiments (first published in 1759) is not in conflict with smith’s economic theory; it rather presents the moral point of departure of his economics. this transdisciplinary interaction derails the divergent perspectives of contemporary scholars that either view smith as an agrarian economist or an antagonist of industrialisation. the reason for this view of smith’s economics is due to the failure to emphasise the engagement between agrarian economic and smith’s moral theory that championed liberty. secondarily, this engagement between economics and moral theory highlights smith’s contribution to sustainable economics that can play an influential role in contemporary society. transdisciplinarity contribution: the article highlights the transdisciplinary interaction between adam smith’s free market economic theory and his moral theory as a function of liberty with special reference to agrarianism. keywords: adam smith; agriculture; free market; liberty; moral philosophy. introduction the purpose of this article is to demonstrate that an analysis of an inquiry into nature and causes of the wealth of nations1 (wn) provides evidence that the importance of liberty in adam smith’s moral theory and economics supported his ideas concerning free market economics and sustainability that is a foil of agrarian economics that was championed by the french physiocrats of his time, as proposed by some contemporary scholars. conversely, it will be argued that smith’s free market economics has the features of what is today known as transdisciplinary engagement between smith’s moral theory and economics that gave priority to liberty (as extension of his political philosophy) for sustainable economics and a flourishing society. smith’s moral theory supported his free market economic theory and therefore debunks divergent scholarly arguments that view smith as an agrarian economist or an antagonist of industrialisation. smith’s moral theory rather underscores that agriculture cannot be the singular basis of economic growth, it should rather be part of a multi-sectoral, sustainable free market economics. research methods and design the article follows a hermeneutic analysis of the relationship between smith’s moral theory and economics in respect of agrarianism. this analysis will be structured as follows, firstly, smith’s moral theory and the role of liberty in the theory of moral sentiments2 (tms) are discussed because it accentuates smith’s unique view of morality in which freedom is a determining factor. liberty connects his view of morality and economics as will become clear in the discussion of agrarian economics in wn. secondly, the scholarly controversy concerning smith’s agrarian economic is introduced by the supposed pro-agrarian smithian perspective that is advocated by john dwyer.3 this will be followed by hiram caton’s4 criticism of smith’s supposed resistance to industrialisation because of his favour of agrarian economics. finally, paul b. thompson5 highlights the importance of environmental factors in moral development. he investigates the transformation in smith’s economics and moral theory that started with agriculture and later was followed by commercial and industrial economics. this underscores that smith’s analysis of human behaviour, as free agents and interaction (also in the economy), is the basis of his moral theory and economics, which emphasises traces of the transdisciplinary nature of his thinking, although not known as a field of study in the 18th century. conversely, based on the role of liberty in smith’s moral theory, it will become clear that it was also an important factor in his economics. his writing clearly contradicts the assumption that he supported agrarian economics as the most effective source for the wealth of nations and freedom. this contradiction will be highlighted in the second part of the article where an analysis of smith’s agrarian hermeneutics in wn will underscore the influence of smith’s moral theory and the importance of liberty in his economics that contrasts between smith’s free market economics and pro-agro-smithian scholarly perspectives. conversely, smith’s free market economics supports sustainable economics as a function of liberty that was not part of agrarian economics of the french physiocrats due to the proposed policy interventions that they introduced in the 18th century french economy. adam smith and moral theory smith’s moral theory took a clear departure from traditional normative ethics because of the importance of liberty that is associated with his political economy and his empirical epistemology. this is endorsed by fleischacker6 who states that smith’s view of morality is not ‘… unconnected with his political interest in guaranteeing to ordinary individuals the “natural liberty” to act in accordance with their own judgments’ (p. 1). harpham6 states that in the ‘… idea of self-command we see the kind of moral personality that is needed if one is to attain freedom and happiness in a commercial society’ (p. 235). for smith, the natural liberty of people, as one of the main tenets of the scottish enlightenment, was a priority and therefore normative moral principles and government regulations impede upon the freedom of people, although smith does make room for certain government duties as will be discussed in section ‘the wealth of nations, moral theory and agrarianism’ of the article. instead of normative principles, smith gave priority to human passions and sentiments as expressions to human freedom. however, liberty is viewed by smith as the freedom of choice and fairness. in smith’s (wn) discussion of banking regulations, the primacy of liberty is clear and its link with liberty, justice and law: to restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment the promissory notes of a banker, for any sum whether great or small, when they themselves are willing to receive them, or to restrain a banker from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to accept of them, is a manifest violation of that natural liberty which it is the proper business of law not to infringe, but to support. such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respects a violation of natural liberty. (ii.ii.94)1 in this discussion regarding banking regulations, smith underscores that regulatory interference is tantamount to the violation of the natural liberty of people and a legal infringement. a clear distinction can be made between natural liberty and moral liberty in smith’s work. moral liberty refers to the freedom of a person to do the right thing as prescribed by institutions such as the state or church and is mainly based on normative principles. conversely, natural liberty is the freedom of a person to do good or evil. natural liberty is unrestrained freedom to do whatever a person wants to do. this may seem morally questionable as smith’s critic jean jacques rousseau7 points out in his proposal that society is bound by a social contract and civil liberty (e.g. right of life, property and liberty). although rousseau followed the route of civil liberty to deal with the moral ramifications of natural liberty, smith follows the route of morality as self-command and guidance for a person to be happy in a free market society. although liberty is not a key topic in tms the way smith develops his view of morality with reference to the natural instincts of self-interest and sympathy, it is clear that freedom was highly revered as an important motivation for the effective functioning of society. smith states: the habits of economy, industry, discretion, attention, and application of thought, are generally supposed to be cultivated from self-interested motives, and at the same time are apprehended to be very praise-worthy qualities, which deserve the esteem and approbation of everybody. (vii.iii.3.6)2 smith’s moral theory followed an empirical epistemology and therefore morality was more a cognitive science in which he attempted to understand the mental process involved in moral development. this empirical perspective accentuated the role that moral sentiments play in decision-making and behaviour. smith observed that two motivations inform this process, namely, self-interest and sympathy. self-interest for smith as natural motivation for our behaviour provides the space to function in the wider context of the enhancement of natural liberty or the freedom to do what makes a person happy. in other words, when faced with a situation that requires moral contemplation, a person will naturally or instinctively ask what is good for my self-preservation and/or success and natural liberty provides the space to do what is good for an individual. smith writes that without self-interest a person will: […n]ot take proper care of his health, his life, or his fortune, to which self-preservation alone ought to be sufficient to prompt him it would undoubtedly be a failing… which render a person rather the object of pity… (vii.iii.3.16)1 for smith, this was a natural right that must be protected by the state and respected by others for their own benefit. the relationship between self-interest and liberty is understood in the context of fairness or justice to apprehend what smith meant by liberty in wn. for example, a slave in the hellenistic period is not free but can also act in her self-interest and is free to do what will be in her advantage, but she is not free and does not have liberty. liberty is therefore understood as a freedom that at the same time advances self-expression and social harmony. fairness and the advancement of others are important for smith; therefore, later in wn, liberty is presented as an important principle of his economics (i.ii.2).1 this explains why smith was very aware of the limitations of self-interest because it could infringe on the rights of others due to excessive behaviour that may cause harm to others, which will ironically also cause harm to the antagonist. smith therefore notes that people also have the natural ability of sympathy. simplistically, this means that people empathise with others – we are socially located and care about others and they bring us happiness or sorrow. however, for smith sympathy was far more complex. the cognitive process involved in sympathy was, for smith, of crucial importance because it influenced moral sentiments (i.i.1.6).2 the reason for this is that sympathy involved a network of mental constructions and evaluations that was important for moral reflection and decision-making. smith notes that people use a mechanism that he refers to as the impartial spectator (vii.iii.1.4).2 the impartial spectator is the ability to objectively reflect on a situation as a spectator by constructing a situation and possible responses to determine which response will arise the sympathy of others for the person (i.i.4.8).2 conversely, morality cannot be reduced to a set of rule or principles. morality is more dynamic and context-specific. it is also intimately connected to other people and the way people function in society. the implication of sympathy is that natural liberty also has natural limitations. there is a natural tension between what we want to do and what we eventually do because there is a natural tension between the instincts of self-interest and sympathy. however, this tension can also be viewed as a necessary tension for natural liberty and self-interest to maintain its independence because the disapprobation or rejection of other may also not be in the self-interest of a person. a further implication is that smith’s moral theory is rooted in particular contexts and that human behaviour and interaction, which includes the economy, influences moral development. the implication is that wn can be viewed as a moral analysis of the economy in the realm of human freedom. in the next two sections, the focus shifts to smith’s agrarian economics with an emphasis on the role of liberty as an extension of his view of morality. in section ‘adam smith and agrarianism’, the diverse views and controversy surrounding smith’s view of agrarianism are introduced from where an analysis of his discussion of agrarianism in wn follows. adam smith and agrarianism the pro-agrarian smithian perspective of dwyer follows a technical analysis of the role of morality and the impartial spectator of smith’s agrarian hermeneutics. the foil of the pro-agrarian smithian perspective is represented by caton, who is critical of smith’s supposed agrarianism, by accentuating the role of technology, or rather the hypothetical failure of smith to take note of the industrialisation in the creation of value and development. finally, thompson’s perspective of smith focusses on the role of environmental aspect in moral development that supported smith’s moral theory and the role of liberty in his economics. these affirmative and critical perspectives regarding agrarianism in smith’s economics will be analysed from a transdisciplinary perspective in terms of the interaction of his moral theory and economics. john dwyer dwyer follows a social analysis of smith’s view of the self-interest, sympathy and the impartial spectator. dwyer3 notes that smith’s ‘economics was subservient to his ethics’ and that his ethics was ‘saturated by a sociability that could never be reduced to self-interest’ (p. 662). both economics and ethics ‘needed to be grounded on the mechanics of sociability’ (p. 662).3 these mechanics accentuated the critical role of the impartial spectators (role of average suggested by dwyer) as a function of ‘prudential self-interest’ that was embedded in social engagement (p. 663).3 dwyer3 observes that morals or: [… h]igher order norms, were determined by the particulars of social interaction and the precise point of propriety (emotional agreement) between agents and spectators. ethics, in other words, could never be captured within universal standards, codes, or categorical imperatives but, rather, represented the social averaging confirmed by an ‘impartial spectator’. (p. 665) accordingly, smith was a critic of commercial and proto-industrial bourgeoisie because they may undermine the moral economy of agrarianism and assumed that social engagement with the gentry (e.g. country gentlemen) as a model of prudential self-interest in society will promote the public interest (the greatest good) and moral development (p. 663).3 the socio-agrarian analysis by dwyer does not necessarily reject the importance of liberty in the functioning of the self-interest, but it does follow a line of argument that distorts smith’s view of individual freedom by making it subservient to agrarian social relations. it therefore seems that morality for smith, according to dwyer, was about copying the behaviour of country gentlemen. ‘smith’s ideal type of country gentleman was the owner of a compact and enclosed farm who practiced progressive agriculture or improvement’ (p. 669).3 dwyer3 (p. 67) claims that smith’s agenda in wn was to support agrarian capitalism and the moral norms of the gentry because it provides a solution to the tension between wealth and virtue by focusing on the investments of the gentry whom smith regarded as the ‘economic engine of society’ and their ‘ethical status as independent moral guardians of society’ (pp. 670–671) and champions of ‘agrarian capitalist economy’ (p. 669).3 for smith, the gentry were industrious, prudent and respectable, according to dwyer (pp. 671–672).3 dwyer3 notes that smith proposed that commercial capitalists were the ‘enemies of the public because they constituted antisocial factions … they undermined social stability by encouraging negligence and profusion’ (p. 674). this was exacerbated by the monopolistic and exploitative activities of mercantile companies like the east india company (an example of british mercantilism). as an alternative: smith’s economic theory was designated to consolidate the hegemony of prudent proprietors of land. this strategy can be seen most clearly in smith’s doctrine of agricultural rent. smith did not merely argue that an increase in rent was synonymous with the natural progress of society, but also that agricultural real estate provided added value above any mere market commodity. (pp. 676–677)3 this differed from manufacturing, where prices were determined by the cost of labour and the need to make profit. besides his moral argument, smith, according to dwyer,3 identifies four benefits of agricultural capitalism: (1) agriculture is a stable source of revenue, (2) the value of land includes rent and it higher than other assets, (3) agriculture is naturally productive and produces more than the labour required to produce, and (4) rent on land is more hedged against competition because it does not include profit and wages (p. 677). on the other hand, government interventions like the corn laws that regulated imports and exports limited the natural growth of the agricultural economy. this focus on agrarianism as opposed to manufacture, according to dwyer3, was challenged by the rise of industrialisation that created a new class of manufacturers that resulted in changes regarding smith’s view of the impartial spectator based on the gentry (p. 680). in the first edition of tms, the spectator was embedded in society with the idea that the approbation of others is an important part of moral development. however, this positive role of society for moral development in wn changed in the 1790 edition. this change was subtly introduced in the 1761 edition when he referred to the spectator as a metaphor for conscience and the internalisation of norms – ‘like the demi-god of poets’ (p. 680).3 the reference to the conscience was a minor change in the 1761 edition and reflected smith’s uncomfortable acceptance of a moral conscience that is distinct from public opinion. dwyer3 emphasises that this reflects smith’s hope that his agrarian perspective on the economy would prevail and would result in a flourishing and moral society (p. 680). dwyer3 notes that a clear separation took place between, on the one hand, the spectator as an external point of reference, with the gentry as the preferred spectators and their values as a natural social norm; and on the other hand, the spectator as an internal ‘voice’ (p. 681).3 the shift to an internal voice also leans more towards a stoic understanding of virtue with detachment, prudence and propriety as key values that led to a separation between the moral self and society. ‘the operations of internal and external spectators have now become two “different and distinct” principles, with only the internal spectator having ethical validity’, according to dwyer (p. 681).3 the reason for this is that smith’s view of society and economics was undermined by the growing manufacturing and industrialisation, which he did not regard as a natural order for economic prosperity and development. alternatively, dwyer points out that smith preferred agrarian economics and the productive possibility of agriculture as the basis for economic growth and prosperity. manufacturing and capitalism resulted in consumerism, greed and vanity of the capitalist and working classes. this is supportive of smith’s supposed agrarianism and the role of the gentry as moral custodians of society and the economy and model for the impartial spectator as argued by dwyer. dwyer’s moral arguments based on the changing role of the impartial spectator because of industrialisation and new models to follow are problematic in terms of smith’s description of the impartial spectator in tms that is not a form of social modelling. the assumption that the impartial spectator to a more stoic principle due to industrialisation seems forced because it was never based on the behaviour of others to be copied. in terms of the freedom to be guided by self-interest, it seems problematic that smith would concede that people should be limited to agriculture and not be free to explore other means of economic activity and use their ingenuity to develop other sectors of the economy. this will also not lead to the sympathy of others because new developments and the constraint of innovation will be constraining to the personal freedom of people and limit the possible benefit it may have for society. as shown earlier, this limitation would rather be frowned upon and is not in the self-interest of the person or society. from this moral perspective, it does not seem plausible that smith proposed singular agrarian economics. although he did value agriculture, his moral theory does not support the view that one sector could contribute to the wealth of nations. hiram caton according to caton,4 smith promulgated a physiocratic view of the economy (p. 833). these views can be traced to the greek idea of the role of nature in agriculture, which was an important aspect of 18th-century french enlightenment thinkers who valued agriculture and the development of land as a sole basis for wealth. nature differs from manufacture because ‘the labor of agriculturists is assisted at every turn by nature. sun and soil convert seed to corn; livestock convert vegetation to milk and meat’ (p. 835).4 in other words, people do all in manufacturing but much less in agriculture, due to the natural processes involved in the growth of crops and so forth. to support his argument, caton quotes smith from wn (ii.v.12)1: the land constitutes by far the greatest, the most important, and the most durable part of the wealth of every extensive country. the capital employed in agriculture, therefore, not only puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour than any equal capital employed in manufactures, but in proportion too to the quantity of productive labour, which it employs, it adds a much greater value to the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, to the real wealth and revenue of its inhabitants, according to caton.4 of all the ways in which a capital can be employed, it is by far the most advantageous to the society. the point that caton makes is that the role of nature in the economics of smith (although flawed argued by caton) was important because it is the foundation of the various aspects of his economics. one of the most influential aspects was that there is an order of capital accumulation that started with agriculture and progresses from there with capital investment in manufacturing, domestic and later international trade. the problem for smith was the progressive diminishing of returns that deplete capital value. consequently, caton notes that smith viewed investment and profit in mercantilism as eroding the accumulation of wealth that should start with agriculture (p. 836).4 caton4 relates smith’s focus on agriculture to his ‘laissez-faire doctrine’ that ‘contains distinctive value postulates intended to promulgate an egalitarian agrarian capitalism in the spirit of physiocracy’ (p. 833). in other words, according to caton, smith’s free market and non-interventionist view of the economy does support self-interest and liberty, but the assessment that this is the most advantageous economic activity is disputed. the reason for this incorrect assessment according to caton is because smith disregarded the importance of industrialisation (p. 833).4 the problem noted by caton is that smith’s assessment of technological advancement in the economy was informed by his understanding of the division of labour as a function of market dynamics and not technology (p. 834).4 in other words, the division of labour is the result of increased demand and not developments in science, innovation and invention. caton4 concludes that these preindustrial aspects in smith’s economics were rooted in agrarian capital accumulation: smith’s assessment of productivity, his understanding of economic growth, his advocacy of free trade and small government, and his liberal plan of equality and justice are all related to this thesis’. (p. 834) furthermore, caton4 argued that smith reduced all technical prowess to a single type, namely the division of labour (p. 840). the implication is that technological advancement takes place in the realm of the division of labour that leads to economic growth and prosperity. as mentioned earlier, the division of labour was influenced by demand and not innovation. therefore, economic growth is not the effect of rationality, but democratic freedom of people driven by the impulse of self-interest. the division of labour is an instrument of production and a specialised skill. caton4 proposes that ‘[t]he incentive to increase productivity is the reward it brings in the market’ (p. 842). although caton may have a point that smith’s views of the division of labour is based on market processes, it does not seem plausible from the perspective of smith’s moral theory and the importance that smith placed on ingenuity and technological advancement because it gave expression to self-interest and the sympathy that it might generate from others. the analysis of caton provides an insightful perspective on the prominence of technological innovation and science in the economy. other people will benefit from technological innovation, and it will lead to their sympathy. smith would also have been aware that the economies of his time are far more complex to depend on a single sector or the linear stadial logic of development.8 both caton and dwyer assume that smith supports agrarian economics, with the difference that dwyer is sympathetic of smith’s agrarianism and caton is critical of the assumed benefit of agrarianism and insinuates that smith was unaware of the advances in industrialisation (p. 533).4 dwyer favours agriculture as the basis for the accumulation of wealth but also the farmer and specifically the gentry (social class of landowners who received rental income) as the model for the impartial spectator (p. 533).4 although there is a level of truth to this claim, it is presented in a one-sided way because others fail to reach the same conclusion (thompson 2008). however, from the perspective of smith’s moral theory, it does not seem correct that he would support the idea that multiple-sector development and innovation are not important because this goes against his views of self-interest and liberty in tms. paul b. thompson in the above two sections, the work of dwyer and caton was discussed from the perspective of smith’s moral theory and it became clear that both authors aligned smith with an agrarian point of departure for economic growth. whereas dwyer emphasised the role of the gentry as an ideal spectator and moral consciousness for society, caton underscores the importance of technological innovation and science as a driver of growth (and not only demand) with agrarian dynamics as the basis of the economy. caton’s critical approach to smith’s agrarianism introduces advancement in manufacture and industrial ingenuity as an emergent factor of the late 18th century. it is this aspect that thompson picks up in his assessment of smith’s work, although with a clear emphasis on smith’s departure from agrarianism as foundational for economic growth and development. thompson5 notes that for smith, material production went hand in hand with social conventions and values systems: on this model, hunter-gatherer societies develop moralities around group needs for sharing of provisions and protection. with pastoral societies, it becomes necessary to develop institutions of chattel property and trade for exchange of livestock. with settled agriculture, these institutions become associated with land holdings and crops, but there are also reciprocities that become established among well-defined social roles (butcher, miller, and baker). (p. 531) the need for survival of earlier economic stages was influential in the development of traditions, values and morals that supported survival. this instinct – the moral codes and ethics of a society, as suggested by thompson5 – was not evolutionary but rather more associated with the ecological changes (p. 531). thompson5 explains that due to environmental factors, people are: expected to conform to norms characteristic of their given station, but reciprocities continue to exist between specific individuals who will know and interact with one another not only throughout their lifetimes, but over generations. (p. 531) from the perspective of smith’s moral theory, reciprocity aligns with the importance of self-interest and sympathy because the reciprocity between people highlights their shared interest for survival and mutual dependence between community members to accomplish this goal. the social connected functioning of the impartial spectator therefore assists with how people function as a collective and with their moral development. in other words, the context of a particular situation is important, and it must be constructed with possible behaviour to determine what the best action will be to obtain the approbation of others. appropriate behaviour is context specific and relates to the unique requirements of the situation. in this regard, the transition to manufacture, according to thompson’s thesis, should alter the value system. thompson is of the opinion that the wn represents an attempt to investigate the moral basis of a transformation in economics influenced by the changing context brought about by the shift from agrarianism to a techno-industrial society. he notes that the wn does not only reflect on: [t]heoretical innovations that blossomed into contemporary notions of the market, economic equilibrium and capitalism, but the book was also intended to investigate how the emerging commercial and industrial environment might work on moral sentiments to produce habits and institutions quite unlike those of the agrarian societies that had been the primary focus of scottish enlightenment moral theory. (p. 531)5 this observation of thompson places smith’s work firmly on a new economic platform far removed from classic agro-economics or physiocracy as the singular sector for wealth of nations and the freedom to participate in new innovative technological development and commercial opportunities. this underscores the importance of liberty at the core of his moral theory. although smith was well informed of agrarianism, he was not convinced that physiocracy would be ‘functional in the newly emergent capitalistic world’ in which manufacture and ingenuity contributed to the creation of wealth, as stated by thompson (p. 531).5 from this perspective, dwyer’s suggestion that there was a subtle change in the way smith viewed the impartial spectator could have some merit. in other words if a person, as impartial spectator of possible scenario, is informed by the behaviour of the gentry or industrialists, a preference for industrialists might be preferred because they are the new upcoming, popular and wealth class of people. however, returning to the premise that freedom in society as a space for self-interest and sympathy to thrive, it does not seem plausible that smith would dictate a particular model for moral development. this would be in contradiction of the independence of the impartial spectator and the individual as an agent to determine her own course of action in a free society. thompson5 concludes that smith believed that not only moral development, but society in general, was structured accordingly with: formal social institutions (e.g. laws and public policies) that channel self-interested behavior into mutually beneficial practices that eventually influence habits and norms, making industrial trading states as functional (and considerably more prosperous) than the agrarian societies they replaced. (pp. 531–532) for thompson, it is not smith’s moral theory that informed his economics, rather the opposite, smith’s analysis of human behaviour and interactions in a free society that informed his moral theory. the wealth of nations, moral theory and agrarianism in this section, an analysis of smith’s assessment of agrarianism in wn is provided. it will be argued that wn and specifically smith’s view of agrarianism is influenced by the transdisciplinary engagement between smith’s moral theory and economics as a function of liberty. three aspects that are related to smith’s discussion of agriculture will be underscored in this section, namely, division of labour, policy interventions, and the hierarchy of value. division of labour in book one, chapter 1 of the wn, smith opens his magisterial work on economics with an assessment of the limitations of agriculture as the basis for the accumulation of wealth. for smith, the division of labour was based on the market as caton observes. exchange is linked to supply and demand: therefore, the supply of goods increases with increased demand that necessitates the division of labour to increase the supply of goods that are required to fulfil the needs of people. division of labour results in the increase of productivity and specialisation, with the positive effect, that the quantity and the quality of products increase and thereby probably leads to economic growth. exchange makes it possible that the goods and services that become available with the increased specialisation will probably result in the increase of economic activity and accumulation of wealth. the market is, for smith, an economic mechanism that enhances the liberty of people to express their self-interest and sympathy. producers profit by supplying the goods that people need and consumers benefit by obtaining what they desire. in this process, the impartial spectator facilitates the process by assessing what people need and assists to determine what the most beneficial course of action will be to supply quality goods in the most efficient manner to obtain the sympathy of people. therefore, the market, and the forces of supply and demand, are embedded in smith’s moral theory because it influences the most appropriate course of action. however, this inclination towards specialisation is not as prevalent in agriculture, as smith1 states: the nature of agriculture, indeed, does not admit of so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so complete a separation of one business from another, as manufactures. it is impossible to separate so entirely the business of the grazier from that of the corn farmer as the trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the smith. the spinner is almost always a distinct person from the weaver; but the ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the corn, are often the same. (i.i.4) the impossibility of making a complete separation between the different activities involved in agriculture is, for smith, one of the most salient reasons why improvement of production in agriculture cannot keep up with manufacture, supporting thompson’s assessment of the alignment of smith’s moral theory and economics. for this reason, wealthy nations may have superior production in agriculture to poorer nations, but it will not be higher than manufacture. therefore, the price difference between agricultural goods of wealthy and poorer nations will not differ substantially. this basic economic fact highlighted by smith is that agriculture is not the singular basis for wealth as commonly believed by physiocrats. hence, caton’s assumption that smith was against specialisation and innovation is incorrect because smith clearly notes that agriculture is not as conducive to the division of labour and therefore the wealth of nations as is the case with manufacture. from the perspective of smith’s moral theory, the freedom of nation to give expression to their self-interest and sympathy would naturally support other forms of economic activity specifically if it is beneficial for society. the importance of smith’s moral theory for his economics is underscored by the fact that although the division of labour is market related, the role of self-interest and sympathy directs supply and demand through the intervention of the impartial spectator. this does not exclude technological innovation (as caton suggests) because both supply and demand rest on the interests of people that participate in the economy. the impression that smith supported a singular focus on agriculture can be regarded as unsustainable because it clearly does not have the benefit of the division of labour as other sectors. consequently, any policies that intervene in the economic would damage the sustainability of the economy and infringe on the liberty of people (e.g. interventions in banking referenced earlier). policy interventions a major reason why smith did not support agrarianism as the sole basis for wealth was based on the failure of french physiocrats that promoted an agricultural economy by introducing policy interventions. furthermore, these interventions are in contradiction of his moral theory that supports the freedom of people to participate in any sector of the economy and limits the forces of supply and demand embedded in self-interest and sympathy as discussed in the previous section. smith notes that the policy intervention of french physiocrats must be seen as a response to similar interventions by colbert (minister of louis xiv) that attempted to promote industrialisation. smith notes that ‘[colbert] bestowed upon certain branches of industry extraordinary privileges, while he laid others under as extraordinary restraints’ (iv.iv.3).1 this was done by keeping: [p]rovisions cheap to the inhabitants of the towns, and thereby to encourage manufactures and foreign commerce, he prohibited altogether the exportation of corn, and thus excluded the inhabitants of the country from every foreign market for by far the most important part of the produce of their industry. (iv.iv.3)1 smith suggested that this situation was exacerbated due to: [r]estraints imposed by the ancient provincial laws of france upon the transportation of corn from one province to another, and to the arbitrary and degrading taxes which are levied upon the cultivators in almost all the provinces, discouraged and kept down the agriculture of that country very much below the state to which it would naturally have risen in so very fertile a soil and so very happy a climate. (iv.iv.3)1 smith’s assumption is that any form of interference in the market disrupts economic activity at the detriment of the provision of goods and services and the accumulation of wealth. consequently, there later developed resistance in france to colbert’s policies of industrialisation by physiocrats who supported agrarian economics and who used equally radical policies of the french agrarian philosopher francois quesnay and others, with equally disastrous results as the policies of colbert. the point that smith makes is that liberty should increase trade and decrease duties and taxes that may limit all sectors of the economy because these interventionist devices only deplete the sector that they are attempting to protect, as is the case with agriculture: ‘such duties could serve only to discourage the increase of that surplus produce, and consequently the improvement and cultivation of their own land’ (iv.iv.20).1 the implication is that the: [… c]ontinual increase of the surplus produce of their land would, in due time, create a greater capital than what could be employed with the ordinary rate of profit in the improvement and cultivation of land; and the surplus part of it would naturally turn itself to the employment of artificers and manufacturers at home. (iv.iv.22)1 it is crucial to note that for smith, agriculture is important for the accumulation of wealth, but not exclusively so or to the expense of other sectors of the economy because agriculture cannot create wealth without manufacture. smith underscores that the: [c]ontinual increase both of the rude and manufactured produce of those landed nations would in due time create a greater capital than could, with the ordinary rate of profit, be employed either in agriculture or in manufactures. (wn iv.iv.23) in other words, agriculture and manufacturing are means to resist the mercantile system that limits freedom and competition: according to this liberal and generous system, therefore, the most advantageous method in which a landed nation can raise up artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of its own is to grant the most perfect freedom of trade to the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of all other nations. (iv.iv.24)1 furthermore, trade with foreign nations is suppressed by duties and other means because it will negatively impact the economy of that specific country by eroding the real value of the surplus produced of the country. the implication is that it raises the cost of manufacturing and mercantile profit in relation to agriculture. the difference in profit is because duties on foreign trade and taxes erode the real value of profit (iv.iv.25): this policy, therefore, discourages agriculture in two different ways; first, by sinking the real value of its produce, and thereby lowering the rate of its profit; and, secondly by raising the rate of profit in all other employments. agriculture is rendered less advantageous, and trade and manufactures more advantageous than they otherwise would be; and every man is tempted by his own interest to turn, as much as he can, both his capital and his industry from the former to the latter employments.1 smith’s discussion of the restrictive nature of policy intervention whether to advance agriculture in the case of french physiocrats, taxes or any form of obstacle that may limit the liberty of people to express their self-interest and sympathy can be regarded as immoral and corrupt. this is specifically the case in his criticism of mercantilism and collusion with the state. a further criticism of physiocrats was their hierarchy of value. smith was also aware of the dangers of the singular focus on agriculture (e.g. interventionist policies to limit imports or exports and so forth) at the expense of manufacture and other forms of trade. however, it is imperative to note that there are traces of agrarianism in his economics that favour an open and participatory economy across the various sectors of the economy (e.g. agriculture, manufacture, trade, etc.). many scholars view smith as supportive of stadial development, with industrialisation and commerce as the evolutionary pinnacle of development.9,10,11 from this perspective, agriculture is understood as a minor developmental stage with a minimal impact on the accumulation of wealth. this perspective of smith’s work is refuted by paganelli,8 who argues that the reference to the stadial approach is only used as a heuristic tool for the classification of different types of economies. paganelli’s perspective is supported by smith’s free market economics and multi-sectoral interdependence, as will become clear in the analysis of smith’s discussion of agrarianism in wn in the second part of this article. in this regard, agriculture has an important place in the economy of a country without restriction or privilege in a free market and unrestrictive economy built on the bedrock of liberty. hierarchy of value linked to the policy interventions of physiocrats is their hierarchical model of value, which concludes that manufacture is the least advantageous sector for the accumulation of wealth. smith1 criticises french agrarians who saw agriculture as the foundation of economic growth from where a model of crude social stratification was constructed: the first is the class of the proprietors of land. the second is the class of the cultivators, of farmers and country labourers, whom they honour with the peculiar appellation of the productive class. the third is the class of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, whom they endeavour to degrade by the humiliating appellation of the barren or unproductive class. (iv.iv.5) this distinction represents a social hierarchy of value, with the proprietors of land at the helm – the class that should least be burdened with taxes because they must be encouraged to invest to improve the land and income that can be made for the state. at the low end of the hierarchy are the manufacturers and merchants, who are viewed as unproductive labour by the agrarians because they do not increase wealth located in the land, according to quesnay. the profit from manufacture and other activities is merely at the service of the needs and greed of the unproductive class (iv.iv.15).1 smith explains the logic of the creation of wealth in the work of quesnay as follows: the profits of manufacturing stock therefore are not, like the rent of land, a net produce which remains after completely repaying the whole expense which must be laid out in order to obtain them. the stock of the farmer yields him a profit as well as that of the master manufacturer; and it yields a rent likewise to another person, which that of the master manufacturer does not. (iv.iv.10)1 the implication is that the expenses of manufacturers are barren, with no real value being added, while those of farmers are productive, with added value. smith is critical of quesnay’s delineation of classes by agrarians that reduces manufacture to the category of ‘unproductive’. smith notes: [the] unproductive class, however, is not only useful, but greatly useful to the other two classes. by means of the industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, the proprietors and cultivators can purchase both the foreign goods and the manufactured produce of their own country which they have occasion for with the produce of a much smaller quantity of their own labour than what they would be obliged to employ if they were to attempt, in an awkward and unskilful manner, either to import the one or to make the other for their own use. (iv.iv.15)1 in contrast to quesnay, smith underscores the importance of a multi-sectoral economy with unconstrained exchange as the basis for the supply of goods and services. inclusivity was paramount for smith and therefore he supported the stance that the various ‘classes’ or people involved in different sectors of the economy interact with each other because of the mutual benefit. this is supported by his moral theory in which the freedom of people to create shared value is an expression of their self-interest but also sympathy in an inclusive and multi-sectoral economy. in this regard, the impartial spectator is important in the assessment of the difference between a single-sector or multi-sector economy and to determine the most effectiveness approach for the benefit of each individual and society within a particular context. the mutual dependence can be seen in the fact that production of manufacture can also be made available to improve the cultivation of the land. in other words, the hierarchical structure of value that quesnay supports is misleading because it does not provide a clear understanding of the dynamics of the broader economy. more importantly, it may negatively influence policy that protects agriculture and hampers other sectors. consequently, this is to the detriment of agriculture and the economy. smith concludes: it can never be the interest of the proprietors and cultivators to restrain or to discourage in any respect the industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. the greater the liberty which this unproductive class enjoys, the greater will be the competition in all the different trades which compose it, and the cheaper will the other two classes be supplied, both with foreign goods and with the manufactured produce of their own country. (iv.iv.15)1 for smith, any restraints on the economy interfere with the liberty and cost-effective functioning of people. therefore, smith subsequently emphasises that the physiocratic classification of the different sectors of the economy is problematic because it places a limitation on economic growth, as the hierarchical system of value will influence interventionist policy and conflicts with his moral theory: ‘the capital error of this system, however, seems to lie in its representing the class of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants as altogether barren and unproductive’ (iv.iv.29).1 the reason for this is that smith supports a more balanced approach to the different sectors of the economy that are mutually dependent on each other and increase the values that each contributes to the economy. this supports his theory of labour, the role of the market and free exchange, which can be seen in how the increase in produce takes place in manufacture: the improvement in the productive powers of useful labour depend, first, upon the improvement in the ability of the workman; and, secondly, upon that of the machinery with which he works. but the labour of artificers and manufacturers, as it is capable of being more subdivided, and the labour of each workman reduced to a greater simplicity of operation than that of farmers and country labourers, so it is likewise capable of both these sorts of improvements in a much higher degree. in this respect, therefore, the class of cultivators can have no sort of advantage over that of artificers and manufacturers. (iv.iv.35)1 the more sophisticated specialisation and technological advances in manufacturing increase the required labour and capital required, with more saving than in the case of agriculture. this leads to economic growth in society because of higher rates of employment due to the division of labour that is in the interest of society and underscores smith’s moral theory because it is an extension of self-interest and sympathy. smith notes: the increase in the quantity of useful labour actually employed within any society must depend altogether upon the increase of the capital which employs it; and the increase of that capital again must be exactly equal to the amount of the savings from the revenue, either of the particular persons who manage and direct the employment of that capital, or of some other persons who lend it to them. if merchants, artificers, and manufacturers are, as this system seems to suppose, naturally more inclined to parsimony and saving than proprietors and cultivators, they are, so far, more likely to augment the quantity of useful labour employed within their society, and consequently to increase its real revenue, the annual produce of its land and labour. (iv.iv.36)1 the employment of more people is supportive of their ability to be free and create wealth for themselves. people also learn from the interaction with others that is supportive of moral development and the functioning of the impartial spectator. the wealth of a nation can directly be linked to manufacture because it increases the ability to purchase more ‘rude produce’ than an agricultural economy, as smith explains: a small quantity of manufactured produce purchases a great quantity of rude produce. a trading and manufacturing country, therefore, naturally purchases with a small part of its manufactured produce a great part of the rude produce of other countries; while, on the contrary, a country without trade and manufactures is generally obliged to purchase, at the expense of a great part of its rude produce, a very small part of the manufactured produce of other countries. (iv.iv.37)1 smith, therefore, concludes that a balanced economy with free trade and equality is superior to an agrarian economy. any form of policy intervention in agriculture or manufacture will be to the detriment of the economy because of the dynamics of interaction between the different sectors of the economy: those systems, therefore, which, preferring agriculture to all other employments, in order to promote it, impose restraints upon manufactures and foreign trade, act contrary to the very end which they propose, and indirectly discourage that very species of industry which they mean to promote. they are so far, perhaps, more inconsistent than even the mercantile system. that system, by encouraging manufactures and foreign trade more than agriculture, turns a certain portion of the capital of the society from supporting a more advantageous, to support a less advantageous species of industry. but still it really and in the end encourages that species of industry which it means to promote. those agricultural systems, on the contrary, really and in the end discourage their own favourite species of industry. (iv.iv.49)1 the core of smith’s critique of a hierarchical model that privileges agriculture as the source of wealth is his support of free market economics and values such as liberty and equality. associated with these values is the importance of justice that ensures the fair distribution of justice: the establishment of perfect justice, of perfect liberty, and of perfect equality is the very simple secret which most effectually secures the highest degree of prosperity to all the three classes. (iv.iv.17)1 hence, for smith, the only unproductive form of labour is that which focuses on maintenance of any sort, like cleanliness and even health (e.g. physicians). results sustainable free market economics the foundation of smith’s sustainable free market economics is a function of the natural freedom. as smith suggests, the self-interest of a person is an expression of liberty, which is directly linked to the economy and is the basis for the creation of wealth: all systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. every man (sic), if he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. (iv.iv.51)1 the importance of liberty, which underpins smith’s economics, resonates well with thompson’s evolutionary perspective on moral development.12 however, as mentioned earlier in the discussion of thompson’s position, the divergence in their views relates to the role of the impartial spectator. for smith, the moral values that support his economics are not only influenced by context (as thompson suggests). it is also a function of cognition, in which the subject uses analogical imagination to determine the most appropriate action that will receive the sympathy and approbation of others. the implication of this for economics is that economic activities and trade are foremost social engagements that invoke our moral sentiments to guide our social relationships and their contribution to the happiness and stability in society. in other words, the moral view of smith in tms is an extension of the way economics as a prominent form of social engagement function. commerce is a form of social interaction and therefore embedded in socio-morality that influences the way we interact and this also advances sustainable economics. sustainability is achieved through moral behaviour that supports social harmony and trust13 which does not require external governmental or institutional interventions. external interventions that place limitations on the moral freedom (e.g. moral sentiments and sympathetic passions) and certain sectors of the economy are therefore detrimental to the economy because people cannot express their natural liberty (as smith argued). furthermore, it is also to the detriment of the moral fabric of society and economic sustainability because morality is then enforced and not a function of personal moral development. alternatively, the government does have the duty to support the advancement of the socio-morality and the stability of the political economy. smith identifies three duties of the state: according to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society. (iv.iv.51)1 to conclude, smith’s economic theory cannot be reduced to an agrarian system. for smith, the economy is dynamic and inter-dependent. the implication is that all sectors of the economy must function in an unconstrained environment for economic growth and prosperity. the values of freedom and equality must therefore be protected and administered by the state in a responsible manner for citizens to flourish. economically this means that the division of labour and innovation as a function of exchange must be encouraged to increase employment and economic growth. the references that smith makes about agriculture, the work of physiocrats and several other comments, must be read in the context of smith’s support of free market economics as the basis for sustainable economic growth and development. discussion and conclusion in this article, it was argued that there are traces of transdisciplinary interaction between smith’s moral theory and free market economic theory based on the importance of liberty as the space for the expression of self-interest and sympathy as developed in wn as it relates to agrarianism. from this perspective, scholars that argue that smith supported agrarian economics disregard the importance of natural liberty in his moral and economic theory. the argument of dwyer and caton who view smith as an agrarian economist underestimates the role of liberty in smith’s moral theory as foundation of his economics. this became even more evident from the analysis of smith’s discussion of agrarianism in wn where it became clear that there is a close relationship between smith’s moral and economic theory as a function of liberty. thompson’s analysis of smith underscores the relationship between his moral theory and economics by arguing that smith’s moral theory was influenced by the new economic situation brought about by industrialisation of the 18th century. therefore, freedom of expression in economic terms that gave rise to his descriptive moral theory that championed self-interest and sympathy as a function of liberty. the above-mentioned positions were assessed in the third section of the article that followed an analysis of the agrarian hermeneutics present in the wn. the analysis focussed on three aspects of the economy that are closely related to smith’s criticism of agrarianism and the promotion of his belief in free market economy, namely, division of labour, policy intervention, and hierarchy of value. from this analysis, it became clear that smith was appreciative of certain aspects of agriculture, but that he did not regard agriculture as the only basis for sustainable economics and development. smith followed an open approach to the uninhibited functioning of the market, with the division of labour adding to the quantity and quality of goods for exchange. he thus rejected any form of policy interventions and hierarchical structures of values to categorise sectors of the economy. for smith, free market economics is an expression and perpetuation of the values of liberty and equality. this analysis supports the view that smith’s moral theory can be viewed as a foundation of his free market economics that are supported by the motivations of self-interest and sympathy as expression of liberty. these motivations are part of smith’s moral theory and are guided by the moral analysis of the impartial spectator that limits economic excess and creates social harmony and sustainable economics. therefore, wn can be viewed as an interaction between smith’s moral and economic theory as a function of liberty. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that they have no financial or personal relationship that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions m.r. is the sole author of this article. ethical considerations ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the economic and management sciences research ethics committee (ems-rec) of the north-west university (no. nwu-01854-22-a4). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references smith a. an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. indianapolis, in: liberty fund; 1981 (first published 1776). smith a. the theory of moral sentiments. indianapolis, in: liberty fund; 1984 (first published in 1759) dwyer j. ethics and economics: bridging adam smith’s theory of moral sentiments and wealth of nations. j br stud. 2005;44(4):662–687. https://doi.org/10.1086/431936 caton h. the preindustrial economics of adam smith. j econ hist. 1985;45(4):833–853. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050700035129 thompson pb. agrarian philosophy and ecological ethics. sci eng ethics 2008;14:527–544. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9094-1 harpham ej. the problem of liberty in the thought of adam smith. j hist econ thought. 2000;22(2):217–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/10427710050025420 rousseau j-j. discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les home. paris: bordas; 1754. paganelli mp. adam smith and economic development in theory and practice: a rejection of stadial model? j hist econ thought. 2020;44(1):95–104. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/ztc2y meek rl. social science and the ignoble savage. new york, ny: cambridge university press; 1976. campbell rh. introduction. in campbell rh, skinner as, (eds.), an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. indianapolis, in: liberty press; 1976, p. 1–60. evensky j. adam smith’s moral philosophy. cambridge: cambridge university press; 2005. johnson dg. agriculture and the wealth of nations. am econ rev. 1997;84(2):1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511610646 rathbone m. economic inequality and trust from a smithian perspective. acta acad. 2022;54(1): 92–112. https://doi.org/10.18820/24150479/aa54i1/5 microsoft word 16 van as.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 221-235. healing notes: singing for well-being in an african bank a van as1 abstract in 2005, dr steve booysen then group chief executive of the absa group initiated an internal choir festival as a platform for social interaction and teambuilding of staff across all cultures, age groups and post levels in the bank. towards the end of 2005, based on the widely held perception that the effects of the project had exceeded all expectations, it was decided to repeat the initiative, which has since become an annual event. to date, absa has invested, and continues to invest, millions of rands in their choir project confirmation that choir participation offers valuable benefits to the ordinary employee. this paper uses data from an investigation into the ‘extra-musical benefits of this project to reflect on the value of the 2005-2008 absa choir project for building social capital and strengthening individuals’ sense of coherence (soc) through singing together. key words. choir, social capital, sense of coherence, cultural diversity introduction this paper is a personal narrative of my experience and observations of the annual absa internal choir competition during the years 2005-2008. it should be noted that the terms ‘absa choir competition’, ‘absa internal choir competition’ and ‘absa choir project’ are used interchangeably in the paper. my involvement in this project and specifically as mentor for all absa choirs in the country, afforded me countless hours to work with and observe the choirs. the experience provided numerous glimpses of the impact that choral singing had on the interand intra-personal relationships of the singers. the narrative draws from qualitative data obtained through open-ended questionnaires, notes and reflections in my journal and diaries, photographs and video material. prologue early in january 2005 i received a telephone call that i will probably never forget. the caller invited me to compose a choral song for an absa choir competition. i had never heard of such a competition. all sorts of warning lights went off in my head: if the biggest banking group in the country was sponsoring a choir competition, it was likely to be huge; many outstanding choirs in the country (some world-class, really) were likely to participate; composing a competition song to be studied by these choirs – and especially their conductors – would be a 1 alta van as, current head of the arts division at the wits school of education, completed her van as 222 daring endeavor; if i were to go ahead and put forth my own composition in such a domain, i would be subjecting my work to unnerving public critique. so i asked my first question: “which choirs are participating?” the answer totally baffled me. this was an internal absa competition. ordinary bank employees from different branches, regions and business units would form choirs and compete to identify firstly provincial winners and finally the national winning choir. i later found out that dr. steve booysen, then newly appointed group chief executive of the absa group, had initiated the absa internal choir festival/competition. this happened at the time of barclays’ investment of hundreds of billions of rands that would translate into its assuming a controlling share in absa. a key role player in the negotiations, booysen was aware that the merger would introduce a period of significant changes – possible restructuring could mean job losses, reshuffling of staff could require employees to move to new positions, business units or branches, under new management with new expectations responding to new company values in a new company culture. booysen recognized these uncertainties as a potential threat to the morale of the absa workforce and envisaged the choir project as a tool for team and spirit building for absa employees during this phase of transformation in the bank. and he had the courage to follow his instinctive conviction that singing together in choirs could help navigate his staff through the merger. i said yes, i would love to write the absa song for this unique competition. i had no idea what an absa song was. much later i would learn from the work of graham welch that the use of specially composed company songs to reinforce company culture exemplifies singing as a form of group identification and social bonding (welch 2005). i contacted key role players in the project and asked them what absa would like their people to sing. these conversations brought an understanding that booysen, who had a deep respect for former president mandela and his esteem of ubuntu, felt passionately about nationbuilding. he wanted his staff to develop a sense of togetherness and to construct wholesome views of and relationships with colleagues of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds and, very importantly, he wanted them to have fun in the process. the song would have to include more than one official south african language. i was invited to participate in a panel discussion to establish principles for the absa internal choir festival. this provided me with an opportunity to promote my notion of more through music, than for music. as booysen wanted every absa employee to be free to join an absa choir, there would be no auditions allowed in forming these choirs – literally, ‘whosoever will, may come’. absa is a major national organization in south africa and so their staff represents a wide range of groups working in almost every conceivable region in the country. absa choirs were formed in different regions of every south african province, comprising male and female members between 18 and 65 years of age, representing different cultural, religious, ethnic and language groups employed at different post levels in the bank. the message of the absa song evolved around the catchy absa slogan today, tomorrow, together and in general endeavored to simply convey the message of ‘together we can’. not knowing what the choirs would be able to master, i set out to compose a song made up of simple melodies and natural harmonies, with some contrast and ample repetition, for soprano, alto, tenor and/or bass. singing for well-being in an african bank td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 221-235. 223 the day before the final competition in july 2005, as choirs appointed as provincial winners arrived at the venue, the excitement was palpable. observing all the activity – choirs rehearsing on stage in preparation for the final, socializing and interacting with other choirs, having last minute practices in hotel rooms or outside in the cold, singing their own choral slogans in corridors to keep their spirits up – i realized that something ‘deeper’ was happening here. the singing together of absa employees in choirs appeared to have produced by-products not envisaged when the choir competition was initiated. the following snapshots show members of the first absa massed choir whole heartedly singing the refrain of the 2005 absa song. choir members’ enjoyment of the singing as well as conviction of the message of the song is evident in the images. the three different choirs in the images can be identified by their individual choir uniforms. words: and we shall stand together, we shall walk together, we shall run together we shall win the race and we shall celebrate each other as a sister and brother and honour child and mother we are a special race figure 1a: eastern cape (black uniforms) and western cape (red uniforms) participating in the 2005 van as 224 figure 1b: gauteng choir members singing in the massed choir item and so the absa internal choir competition (aicc) took root as an annual institution and my doctoral investigation of choir participation as a tool for transformation and teambuilding in a corporate environment began, with absa bank as a case study. i was commissioned to compose three more absa songs for the 2006 to 2008 choir competitions and in 2007 i was contracted as external service provider to mentor all absa choirs across the country, teaching the absa song and mentoring each choir’s own choice item. singing for well-being in an african bank td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 221-235. 225 theoretical framework the paper is framed by the concepts of ‘social capital’ and ‘salutogenic sense of coherence (soc)’2. social capital one of the fundamental ideas associated with social capital is that social networks have value. social capital involves people becoming connected through being sociable. lyda judson hanifan, a state supervisor of rural schools in west virginia in the early twentieth century, was the first to use the principles of social capital by advocating community involvement in the development of successful schools. he refers to social capital as ‘those tangible substances that count for most in the daily lives of people: namely good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and families who make up a social unit’ (hanifan 1916: 130). few concepts in the field of sociology have gained as much recognition or as many disciples over such a short period of time as is the case with social capital. it is therefore understandable that the discipline has been criticised for lack of clarity in the conceptualisation of the term (schaefer-mc daniel 2004: 154). definitions include “social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (putnam 2000: 19); ‘the ability of people to work together for common purposes in groups and organizations’ (portes 1998: 6); ‘the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition (bourdieu and wacquant 1992: 119); ‘the information, trust, and norms of reciprocity inhering in one’s social networks’ (woolcock 1998: 153); and ‘social capital is defined by its function. it is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure’ (coleman 1994). woolcock (2001) describes three types of social capital namely bonding, bridging and linking. bonding social capital refers to the relationships built among people who have much in common such as members of families and ethnic groups. bridging social capital refers to relationships built with people who have little in common, such as people who are from a different socio-economic status, different ethnicity or a different generation. these relationships are “likely to be more fragile, but more likely also to foster social inclusion." (schuller et al.: 2000: 5). linking social capital refers to “social relations with those in authority, which might be used to garner resources or power” (stone and hughes 2002: 3). social capital differs from other types of capital in that it increases in value when used (oecd 2001). there is now a range of evidence indicating that societies and individuals dealing generously in social capital are likely to benefit from lower crime figures, better health, higher educational achievement and better economic growth (halpern 2009). harvard political scientist robert putnam is widely acknowledged for popularizing the concept of social capital. putnam’s work focuses mainly on bonding and bridging social 2 in 1979 antonovsky introduced salutogenesis as an alternative approach in medicine. the sense of coherence is the core construct of the salutogenic model. van as 226 capital. he explains that connected people grow to be less suspicious, more tolerant, and also more compassionate towards the adversity of others. people whose lives are rich in social capital have improved abilities to fight illnesses and cope with stress and traumas. judd et al. (2001: 368) identify a link between notions of social capital and salutogenesis in that both these concepts focus on activities that could maximize the health and quality-of-life of individuals, families and communities. salutogenesis and the sense of coherence antonovsky (1979) introduced salutogenesis as an alternative approach in medicine. the term is derived from the latin salus (health) and the greek genesis (birth), indicating a focus on that which gives birth to health. since the introduction of salutogenesis, the work of antonovsky has become very influential and his salutogenic approach and sense of coherence theory has been researched and applied in fields such as medicine, nursing, psychopathology and health psychology (griffith 2009). in the salutogenic approach the health/disease relation is perceived as a continuum. salutogenesis is concerned with a person’s movement toward the health pole of the health/disease continuum (antonovsky 1991). it focuses on strengthening peoples’ resources and capability to overcome setbacks and create personal health. traditionally medical science focuses on risk factors (pre-disposing factors causing disease) and pathogens (organisms causing disease) and aetiology (how risk factors and pathogens cause disease). salutogenesis focuses on strengthening general resistant resources to support movement toward the health pole of the ease/dis-ease continuum. the core construct in the salutogenic model is the sense of coherence (soc). the soc is the ability to make sense of life and make use of coping strategies (henry 2013: 19). it consists of three components: • comprehensibility the belief that the world is orderable and that demands (challenges) can be understood; • manageability the belief that the resources needed to cope with the demands are available. these resources can be one’s own or that of a trustworthy other (e.g. god or a friend). in the workplace, factors such as social support and appreciation from workmates and superiors act as primary resources (kalimo et al. 2002: 232); • meaningfulness the wish to cope and the ability to perceive the demands as challenges worthy of emotional investment (strang and strang 2001: 127). antonovsky (1991) regarded meaningfulness as ‘the crucial motivational component’. a stronger soc brings about a higher level of overall well-being. through strengthening an individual’s meaningfulness, comprehensibility and manageability it would be expected that ‘feelings of despair, hopelessness and entrapment would be reduced, and a brighter and more recovery-focused, life-affirming and compelling future could be created and internalized’ (griffith 2009). singing for well-being in an african bank td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 221-235. 227 choir, absa choirs, social capital and soc: presentation and discussion of data from the research project janice chapman, australian born singer and teacher, and recipient of the order of australia medal, notes that the true power of music is illustrated when ideas and passions in music are communicated through the medium of another human or group of humans. she continues: ‘it is a very big idea: that singing enhances and balances lives and can be so powerful a force that people without it feel bereft and diminished’ (chapman 2006: 264). communicating ideas through choral singing involves much more than everybody merely learning to sing all the lines of the choral songs correctly. pavel chesnokov, one of the most prolific russian composers of sacred choir music of the early 1900s, noted that to transform the mere sound of human voices into a focused choral tone, the singers need to achieve levels of excellence in three areas: • ensemble: balance and blending of all voices and voice groups to obtain a homogenous sound; • intonation: precision in the tuning of the melodies and harmonies to achieve beauty of sound; and • nuances: fulfilling the conductor’s demands to achieve vocal expressivity (chesnokov 2010: 5). for a choir to obtain excellence in these three categories, each choir member needs to continuously assess his/her own singing, adapt his/her intonation, blend the tone of his/her voice with all the voices around, and respond expressively to the leading of the conductor. this requires continuous focus and listening. erie (1999) observes: ‘if the eyes are the mirror of the human soul, then the voice is the barometer of human emotion’. in working with many choirs over many years i have come to understand that communicating human emotion through choral singing is richly rewarding but necessitates uninterrupted sensitive listening, openness to the music and conductor, and a sincere desire to communicate meaning to the audience. every year the absa choir competition3 expects choirs to achieve all of the above in two categories: 1) the prescribed absa song and 2) the ‘own choice’ item (see below). however, before an absa choir begins the journey of becoming an expressive vocal instrument, it has to overcome a number of significant hurdles. firstly, employees who are eager to participate have to take initiative and start campaigning amongst ordinary bank employees from different cultural, language and age groups until they have enrolled enough members to constitute a choir. suitable candidates must be prepared to sacrifice considerable personal time, balance professional, social and family responsibilities and commit to weekly or biweekly practices for a period of six months. once formed, each choir must appoint a choir conductor from among their members – someone whose directing and leadership all members are willing to follow – whose ‘will is their will’ when singing (chesnokov 2010: 6). then they must organise regular practice times suitable to all and find an appropriate venue for the practicing. as most practices take place after a normal day’s work, members must organise beverages. in the event of a full-day practice, meals must also be provided. in more rural areas where choir members live in different towns and have to travel long distances to attend, practices usually take place over weekends (often on sundays) to allow for adequate travelling time to and from the practice venue. for members of the christian faith this translates to missing the traditional 3 the choir project is still an annual event in absa. in 2012 it was renamed as barclays harmony. van as 228 sunday morning church services. this has been particularly hard for those in leadership positions in their church community, e.g. deacons, sunday school teachers and members of ‘worship teams’. each year every choir must master the annual absa song and select or arrange a song (or songs) for their own choice item. they are also expected to take full responsibility for their choir costumes which are assessed as part of the adjudication at the final competition. cultural diversity is a defining element of the absa choirs. sindane (1995) explains culture as largely prescriptive in nature. he explains: ”it says, ‘this is how such and such is done’. hence it is common to hear people say, ‘in our culture, this is how we do it’”. another significant hurdle is presented in the conflicting views embedded in the different cultures, religions and age groups represented in the choirs. in my work this were foregrounded when songs for the ‘own choice’ item and decisions regarding the design of the choir uniform needed to be finalised. during these times i sensed that some members felt uncomfortable with the songs, movements and/or ideas for the choir uniform proposed by members of other cultures or age groups. while members from minority cultural groups seemed to feel that their opinions were of less value, members from majority groups seemed frustrated when it appeared that their preferences were overlooked even though they were the majority in the choir. however, it was interesting that, even when heated debates and feelings of irritation surfaced, i never witnessed decisions made simply by voting – not before members had invested a great deal of time (sometimes hours) and proposed a variety of compromises to negotiate a resolution acceptable to all. i observed firsthand how culturally diverse groups of absa employees developed, through conflict and misunderstanding, into cohesive teams characterised by goodwill, always wholeheartedly singing together ‘as one’. more important than the cultural/other differences in the choir was a common goal shared by all: they wanted to be the best absa choir in the country. every member of the choir was an important role player in achieving this goal. and so every member belonged – became one of ‘us’ – everybody existing as a member of the choir community. portes (1998: 6) identifies this ability of people to work together for common purposes in groups as a defining element of social capital. at the same time that cultural diversity presented a challenging (and creative) process of bridging social capital, it also enriched the music. choirs would intentionally include folk songs of all the cultural groups represented in the choirs. in cases where there were only one or two afrikaans members, afrikaans folk songs would be included in the repertoire. i believe that the purpose was to reflect the demography of the choir through the singing. but this practice also communicated a celebration of the diversity, acknowledging the different cultures represented as part of the collective identity of the choir through the singing. these non-professional singers became very skillful in weaving together multi-cultural medleys within the prescribed boundaries of the competition’s three minutes limit in an aesthetically pleasing manner. welch (2005: 254) notes that when fusion of music traditions of the diverse cultures within a choir occurs and established performance practices are modified, the singing becomes a transformative activity culturally. performing each other’s traditional songs generated cultural empathy among absa choir members. cultural empathy is not sympathy with, or agreement with a specific culture. rather, it is the appropriate understanding of a culture’s values and beliefs (zhu 2011: 117); “seeing the world through another’s eyes, hearing as they might hear and feeling and experiencing their internal world” (ivey et al. cited in zhu 2011: 117). singing for well-being in an african bank td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 221-235. 229 figure 2a: black soloist passionately singing my sarie marais figure 2b: white (afrikaans) members eagerly singing egalile van as 230 the above figures of the mpumalanga choir performing their own choice item illustrate choir members “seeing the world through another’s eyes, hearing as they might hear and feeling and experiencing their internal world” through performing each other’s cultural songs. it was heartwarming to watch choir members grow in sensitivity to fellow choir members’ differing cultural artefacts (in this case songs). an informal interview with three middle-aged afrikaans females revealed that learning to sing and dance to the sesotho song studied at the time, had bought about a sincere appreciation for the beauty of the language. one interviewee expressed sadness at not having discovered this earlier in her life. she said that she was ‘now determined to learn to speak the language’ as this would allow her to communicate with basotho colleagues in their mother tongue. i found that afrikaans popular music artists who can speak and/or include phrases from black languages in their afrikaans songs seem to have endeared themselves to black choir members. choirs were often eager to include such works in their repertoire. figure 3a: lyrics: “vat jou goed en trek, ferreira singing for well-being in an african bank td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 221-235. 231 figure 3b: swaar dra al aan die een kant …” members of the 2008 kzn choir singing vat jou goed en trek, ferreira in their own choice item. only one of the choir members was afrikaans speaking (a white male). the fusion of music traditions is evident in the inclusion of movement (an important element of african choral music) in the performance of this afrikaans folk song singing together, and specifically singing each other’s cultural songs, created a bridging social capital in these choirs. in the qualitative data acquired through responses to open-ended questions in the questionnaire, 46 of the 461 respondents4 indicated that the single most important benefit the choir brought to their lives was that they gained new understanding of and bonds with people of differing cultures. comments included: “i think differently about cultures that i didn’t know much of before” “i feel that others are more positive about my culture” “we are from different cultures but we are together” 4 the questionnaire was administered at three interventions over three years. not all participants chose to answer all the open-ended questions. van as 232 “i love the new friendships with people who speak other languages” “i am going to learn to speak an african language” “we manage to teach white people how to dance to our music” “i have learnt african dancing!” it was always intriguing to watch black choir members teach white colleagues the correct pronunciation of words of traditional songs, explain the meaning and context of the lyrics and teach the dance movements with great patience. interestingly, the data obtained indicated that the teaching and learning of the dancing which accompanied the african songs was an important milestone for both teachers and learners. special care and attention was always given to colleagues with a physical impediment. on several occasions, lydia, a blind afrikaans speaking member in one of the choirs, said to me: “i live for this choir”. she always expressed how she loved the african dancing, marveling at the warmth, care and humour evident when her colleagues coached her to master the movements with great precision. indeed: ‘singing together (like bowling together) does not require shared ideology or shared social or ethnic provenance’ (putnam 2000: 411). kalimo et al. (2002: 232) predict that such increase in available resources of ‘trustworthy others’ will contribute to an increased soc in the lives of choral singers. singing in the choir had a positive influence on the singers’ moods. 120 respondents viewed this as the single most important benefit of the choral singing. comments included: “feeling good!” “i am a happier person” “i feel like a winner – even if we do not win the competition” “the choir brings me joy” “relaxation i stress less” “it brought me peace” “singing in the massed choir was one of the most moving experiences of my life” the choral singing seemed to have developed individuals’ general resistant resources and to have led to a stronger soc (antonovsky 1991). 7 respondents reported that they had developed crucial leadership skills; 47 reported that they (or others) discovered their talent: “i did not realize how musical i am!” “my family and friends are amazed at my talent” “i have gained a lot of recognition for my musical talent” “people look at me differently after i sang the solo” “i love music more than ever before” true teambuilding encapsulates different notions of social capital and soc. teambuilding activities and recognition from management and colleagues develops a stronger soc – and so increased well-being in individuals (muller and rothman 2009: 9). collier (1998) regards putnam’s example of networks of trust and reciprocity developed through amateur choirs as the most famous example of social capital. many respondents (134 choir members) indicated singing for well-being in an african bank td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 221-235. 233 that the sense of belonging to a cohesive team was the most valued personal benefit of participating in the choir project. comments included: “i have learnt to be a better team player” “the people in my choir respect me” “i now know my colleagues with whom i spend a great deal of time” “togetherness – a sense of belonging” “i have learnt to cooperate with others” “i belong to a group where i feel appreciated’ putnam (1993) describes how positive social capital is increased in amateur choirs: the choir members learn to trust each other even though this is not the purpose of their interaction. this causes a reduction in opportunistic behaviour when individuals balance own interests with that of the networks they have learnt to trust which results in reduced transaction costs. choir participants learn to trust not just other members of the choir but other members of society. hence, the choirs benefit even non-participants. a case in point: in 2007 the reciprocity between the (culturally diverse) members of the western cape choir benefited the south african wheelchair bowling team. a choir member was selected as a member of the national team to compete in an international handicapped bowling championships. however, the team had not received sufficient sponsorship to cover all their costs. her fellow choir members stepped in with enthusiasm and organised a number of fundraising events and were able to raise the money needed. in 2007 i experienced vividly the significance of a sense of belonging to a team for a northern cape choir member. this provincial choir comprised members from absa branches in various towns in the province. the distances between the towns posed a real challenge for choir practices, as many choir members would have to travel for many hours to attend the practices. i arrived early one sunday morning at the mcgregor museum in kimberley, an hour before the practice was to commence, and was surprised to find a young woman waiting on the steps of the museum. i was astonished to learn that she had hitch-hiked 700 kilometers through the night as she did not have any other form of transport to get her to the venue in time for the choir practice. when i asked her why she would go to such lengths, putting herself in possible danger, her response was simply: “we are a team. they depend on me”. in 2008 booysen noted that the statistics of the absa choir project indicated that 5003 employees had participated in the choral singing in that year. 2008 was also the year when a wave of xenophobia wreaked havoc in many townships in the country. a member of the mthata choir (the only racially homogenous absa choir at the time) told me that the following verse in the 2008 absa song (which they were constantly rehearsing in preparation for the competition) served as a compass for their choir during these sad times: rata hona joale (love this moment) ithate (love and give back to yourself) rata bang basatsoaning le oena (love those who are different from you) rata bopelo! (love life!) van as 234 this was a clear indication of the deep importance and meaning that singing had in the choir members’ lives and how they used it to process deeply felt emotions and in this case maybe confusion and pain felt in the wake of the violence. conclusion absa’s daring venture to capitalize on the power of choral singing, as an investment in their human capital is indeed a very big idea. it demonstrates the suitability of choir to 1) generate trust and reciprocity between south africans of differing cultural and language backgrounds, so promoting a bridging social capital and 2) promote teambuilding and employees’ sense of belonging to a group, strengthening participants’ soc and so improving individual and group well-being. when the idea of the choir was first floated, it was largely to give employees the opportunity to have fun, socialize and get to know each other … it has certainly achieved those three objectives, and so much more. the truth is: at the time we had no idea what was taking root. this initiative transformed people’s lives … and brought business benefits no training programme could hope to imitate. (booysen 2007) i recently had the privilege of adjudicating at the 2013 final choir competition – now termed barclays harmony. the choir competition has now expanded and includes choirs from twelve african countries, allowing the expansion of social capital and sense of coherence through choral singing across the planet. i am very grateful for that phone call in january 2005. references antonovsky, a. 1991. the salutogenic approach to family system health: promise and danger. european congress on mental health in european families, prague. retrieved on 12 july 2013 from http://goo.gl/vzgrlq bourdieu, p. and wacquant, l.j.d. 1992. an invitation to reflexive sociology. chicago: university of chicago press. booysen, s. 2007. opening address. the third absa internal choir competition. sandton. chapman, j.l. 2006. singing and teaching singing: a holistic approach to classical voice. oxford: plural publishing. chesnokov 2010. the choir and how to direct it: a handbook for choral conductors. musica rusica, san diego, california. coleman, j.s. 1994. foundations of social theory. cambridge: harvard university press. erie (1999) voice of emotion the speech-language pathologist’s role in managing stress related voice disorders. london speech and language centre. retrieved on 9 august 2013 from http://www.londonspeech.com/article7.htm griffiths, c.a. 2009. sense of coherence and mental health rehabilitation. clinical rehabilitation 23: 72–78. retrieved on 3 september 2013 from http://goo.gl/cj0bil singing for well-being in an african bank td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 221-235. 235 hanifan, l. j. 1916. the rural school community center. annals of the american academy of political and social science 67: 130-138. halpern, d. 2009. capital gains. rsa journal autumn 2009. retrieved on 24 july 2013 from http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features/features/capital-gains henry, h. 2013. asset-based thinking part 2: an asset-based approach to creating health. nursing times 109 (4) 19-21. retrieved on 16 june 2013 fromhttp://goo.gl/ueda1n judd, j., frankish, c.j. and moulton, g. 1991. 2001. setting standards in the evaluation of community-based health promotion programmes— a unifying approach. health promotion international 16 (4): 367-380. kalimo, r.,pahkin, a. and mutanen, p. 2002. work and personal resources as long-term predictors of well-being. stress and health 18: 227-234. oecd. 2001. the well-being of nations: the role of human and social capital, education and skills. oecd centre for educational research and innovation, paris, france. schaefer-mcdaniel, n.j. 2004. conceptualizing social capital among young people: toward a new theory. children, youth and environment, 14 (1): 140-150. schuller, t., baron, s., & field, j. (2000). social capital: a review and critic. in s. baron, j. field, & t. schuller (eds.). social capital. oxford: oxford university press. sindane, j. 1995. democracy in african societies and ubuntu. pretoria: human sciences research council. stone, w. and hughes, j. 2002. social capital: empirical meaning and measurement validity. retrieved on 17 august 2013 from http://goo.gl/qsc2s1 strang s, and strang p. 2001. spiritual thoughts, coping and sense of coherence in brain tumor patients and their spouses. palliat med 15:127–34. welch, g.f. 2005. singing as communication. in d. miell, r. macdonald and d. hargreaves (eds). musical communication. woolcock, m. 1998. social capital and economic development: toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework. theory and society 27(2): 151-208. retrieved on 7 september 2013 from http://goo.gl/qoxumb woolcock, m. 2001. the place of social capital in understanding social and economic outcomes. isuma: canadian journal of policy research 2(1): 1-17. retrieved on 3 august 2013 from http://goo.gl/g059rb zhu, h. 2011. from intercultural awareness to intercultural empathy. english language teaching 4(1):116-119. about the author(s) eduan kotzé department of computer science and informatics, university of the free state, south africa burgert senekal unit for language facilitation and empowerment, university of the free state, south africa citation kotzé, e. & senekal, b., 2019, ‘erratum: employing sentiment analysis for gauging perceptions of minorities in multicultural societies: an analysis of twitter feeds on the afrikaner community of orania in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a650. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.650 note: doi of original article: https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.564 erratum erratum: employing sentiment analysis for gauging perceptions of minorities in multicultural societies: an analysis of twitter feeds on the afrikaner community of orania in south africa eduan kotzé, burgert senekal published: 21 aug. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the version of this article initially published, the text entries in eqn 1 and eqn 4 were mistakenly misspelled which presented it in an illegible format. the actual values for eqn 1 and eqn 4 are updated and presented here: these corrections do not alter the study’s findings of significance or overall interpretation of the study results. the errors have been corrected in the pdf version of the article. the publisher apologises for any inconvenience caused. abstract introduction the problem the relationship between individual and structural corruption adopting the categorical imperative for dealing with political situations applying kantianism in the nkandla controversy conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) mojalefa l.j. koenane discipline of philosophy, department of philosophy, practical and systematic theology, university of south africa, south africa citation koenane, m.l.j., 2017, ‘politics without morality and accountability: the nkandla case from a deontological perspective’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a383. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.383 original research politics without morality and accountability: the nkandla case from a deontological perspective mojalefa l.j. koenane received: 20 sept. 2016; accepted: 15 dec. 2016; published: 28 feb. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the nkandla controversy has long dominated south african politics and has seemingly been endless. this article revisits the nkandla issue from the perspective that it fails the kantian categorical imperative (i.e. ci) and attempts to explain the problem of individual as well as organisational or structural corruption, in which the author contends the nkandla controversy to be grounded. this article opens a discussion on the relevance of kantian theory in confronting the matter of nkandla. the author argues that kant’s moral theory should not be viewed simplistically but from a rational position of internalised moral maxims or precepts. the nkandla project is interrogated in relation to the former public protector’s and minister of police’s reports on the nkandla ‘security upgrades’. it is the author’s view that south africans are demanding accountability insofar as the nkandla project is concerned, since moral attitudes are an integral and necessary part of our everyday lives. it is the author’s contention that the president and the executive have no desire to be accountable and transparent in the nkandla matter. the aftermath of nkandla controversy has changed the face of south africa’s political environment completely. the author further argues that holding political elites accountable should not be regarded as hostility towards those held responsible and the african national congress as political organisation. the author also looks at the constitutional court ruling on this matter. introduction the nkandla controversy is currently a political cauldron on which public opinion has been expressed, thus giving an indication that the public can no longer be taken for granted by political elites. news bulletins and newspapers in south africa are dominated by the nkandla controversy either in the form of the love–hate relationship between president zuma’s loyalists, cabinet ministers (in particular the minister of police) and deputies, african national congress’ umkhonto wesizwe (that is mk) veterans and the office of the former public protector thuli madonsela. furthermore, opposition parties in parliament, in particular the democratic alliance (da) and the economic freedom fighters, are keen to pursue the matter with a hope of finding out who is accountable for authorising the exorbitant and extravagant amount of r246 million (almost ¼ of a billion) in the so-called security upgrades at nkandla’s private home of the president. the nkandla controversy does not seem to reach finality, not even after the president ‘paid back’ the money. south africa’s political situation is at a standstill since the whole focus is on nkandla. in this article, the author attempts to understand organisational or structural corruption and its strategies of shifting blame from powerful political decision-makers to inconsequential role players. furthermore, the author examines the confusion, which is caused by failure to separate organisational, private or personal ends and that which is in the public interest. the public need to be able to separate organisational interests; in the case of nkandla it was difficult to draw a line between the president as the president of the country or his position as the president of the political organisation or even his capacity as a private person. in political terms, the inability to draw a line between these competing benefits constitutes conflict of interest. the anc national executive committee regarded critics of how nkandla project was handled as attacks on the organisation and on the person of president zuma. it is the author’s contention that by its very nature democracy allows for democratic processes to be scrutinised; this scrutiny is perceived by zuma supporters as hostility towards the anc. but some such as the former premier and national executive member (nec) matthew phosa has come out publicly criticising both the president and the anc. phosa stated that the anc must stop protecting corruption (eye witness news august 21, 2014). in her detailed report on the nkandla ‘security upgrades’, the former public protector concluded that some but not all of the nkandla ‘security upgrades’ were in her opinion ‘undue personal benefit by the president and his family’ (madonsela 2014). she further posited in her recommendations that the president pays back a portion of the exorbitant amount of this unjustifiable expenditure incurred in the building of his private home at nkandla (madonsela 2014). although the president initially resisted, he ultimately did settle the amount which was decided by the national treasury as non-security upgrades, which was r7.8 million. two instances of the president’s reaction and defiance to the former public protector’s correspondence and recommendations are of interest to the author. this was after the constitutional court1 judgement earlier this year (mogoeng 2016). the author looks at three sections of the former public protector’s closing recommendations, specifically those directed to the president and one especially directed to the minister of police. according to the former public protector, the president needed to do the following (the former public protector’s report on nkandla (madonsela 2014:48) subsection (a)): to take steps with the assistance of the national treasury and the saps, to determine the reasonable cost […]. pay a reasonable percentage as determined with the assistance of national treasury […]. reprimand the ministers involved for the appalling manner in which the nkandla project was handled and state funds were abused. firstly, the president contends that because he did not ask for these security upgrades to his private dwelling, he was not going to pay back the money and claimed no knowledge about the upgrades that were taking place in his private residence (april 2, 2014). put differently, he is defiant and he (the president) is not prepared to comply with these recommendations. secondly, the president decided to change the terms of reference as set out by the former public protector. instead of determining the reasonable percentage the president had to pay, he subsequently instructed the minister of police to establish whether he (the president) must pay a percentage towards the upgrades or not. the report by the minister of police (nhleko 2015) came as no surprise to many when he announced that the president should not pay anything towards part of the upgrades, which were considered by the former public protector as non-security features. the instructions of the former public protector to the minister of police are similarly of interest to the author. section (m) subsection (c) (2) of the former public protector recommendations reads thus: ‘ensure that no further security measures are installed at the president’s private residence […]’. south africans’ opinions are diverse on the nkandla security upgrades issue; some do not see any wrongdoing on the part of the president (especially his loyal supporters in kwazulu-natal province) and have accepted his apology, while others expressed their moral outrage and indignation2, on the same matter. this recommendation by the minister of police is problematic and considered by many as continuous undermining of the constitution. this position further sends a message to the public that the office of the public protector can be undermined by those who are prepared to abuse their power-positions. however, the decision of the constitutional court announced on 31 march 2016 reaffirmed the findings of the former public protector thuli madonsela. chief justice mogoeng announcing the unanimous decision by constitutional court judges elucidated: certain values in the constitution have been designated as foundational to our democracy. this in turn means that as pillar-stones of this democracy, they must be observed scrupulously. if these values are not observed and their precepts are carried out conscientiously, we have a recipe for constitutional crisis of great magnitude. in a state predicament on a desire to maintain the rule of law, it is imperative that one and all should be driven by a moral obligation to ensure the continued survival of our democracy. (the law society library, cct 143/15 and cct 171/15, p. 4) while the former public protector’s findings were clear that the president acted unethically (2014 subsection (j) 1–7), nowhere in her report does the term corruption appear. as such, president zuma capitalised on this aspect. according to the president since there is no mention of corruption in the former public protector’s report, he could not be accused of corruption. therefore, in terms of the president’s interpretation, the author’s viewpoint is that the south african public needs to revisit its understanding of corruption, that is, individual and structural corruption, as well as public opinion on this matter. this article adopts the following schema: defining the problem. the categorical imperative as method of dealing with political situations. understanding corruption and structural corruption. applying kantianism in the nkandla controversy. the problem it is not easy to define the problem, but, in short, the author refers to it as the ethical dimension of the nkandla decision-making process and its aftermath. south africans want an explanation regarding the nkandla project; they want to know who is responsible for what. the author contends that from an ethico-moral point of view whenever a decision is made, whoever made a decision must account for it. furthermore, it is the author’s view that political decisions must be rational, objective and non-personal. what went wrong? who must account? it was in 2009 that south africans and the world first heard about the nkandla renovations which, at that time, shocked many although the amount was estimated at r60 million. the current amount is just about ¼ of a billion, which is spent on what government and some anc members, including the national executive committee, umkhonto wesizwe veterans and zuma-cabinet loyalists, regard as ‘security upgrades’. certain actions are considered morally right, while others are said to be morally wrong; however, this particular action is viewed not only from a moral perspective but also from constitutional and legal perspective. morality viewed from its relationship with the law could be understood as behaviour guided by rules; therefore, political elites need to be held accountable to the values they espouse and moral orders, which their organisation promote. pinto, leana and pil (2008:686) elaborate: ‘an organisation may impose processes and structures to inhibit corruption against it, but the same organization may not discourage corruption on its behalf’. clearly, the african national congress has allowed itself as the organisation to be compromised by failing to distance itself from the nkandla controversy. this basically is kant’s conception of moral obligation or duty. his compelling statement about what constitutes the good is freedom of choice, which renders individuals duty absolute but at the same time moral. levine puts it in more lucid terms as he notes that: the term norm refers to a standard or expected pattern of behaviour. when norms are formerly instituted and sanctioned by authority, they become rules, just as rules applied for a long enough period of time may become norms. rules and norms take on a moral significance when their authority derives not from habit, convenience or the arbitrary decisions of governing institutions, but from their connections to an ideal of the good. the attack on rules and norms may be an attack on the good, or it may be an attack on rules perceived to be arbitrary because they are not morally conventional. (levine 2005:3) rules are morally conventional when confirming to human conduct and by extension human beings are regarded as good or right. morality then is about human efforts to be good and right, and therefore, to fend off possibility that human beings could be judged bad or wrong (2005:2). in other words, morality should not be understood as something imposed but the individual’s inner efforts to be genuinely good. the three theories discussed at length are utilitarianism, deontology and virtue or character ethics. in the above-mentioned work, the author further posits that ethical theories are just approaches, which serve to justify humankinds’ inclinations towards a particular approach to morality and how people internalise or fail to internalise morality. internalised morality according to the author could be viewed from two perspectives: individual morality, and organisational or structural morality. in a sense, morality is individual when individuals take charge of their own behaviour and reflect on the impact of this behaviour in relation to how their (collective) actions affect the public. niebuhr (2001:42) contends that it is difficult to outline the attitudes and actions of classes – the author’s interpretation of niebuhr’s classes is organisational or structural for the purpose of this article. the important aspect of morality in this case is that it is an extension of the self and the inner disposition. further to that, morality is organisational or structural when the decision reflects on an organisation or institution as a whole. in this case, individuals who hold strategic positions within an organisation would collectively be held accountable for behaviour of its members or as collective try to justify actions of its leaders irrespective of what society accepts as true. the idea of collective moral responsibility is derived from the belief that an individual’s moral standards are in most cases a reflection of his or her inner organisation. put differently, an individual’s moral principles affect the group. in kritz (1995:208), massey clarifies the idea of moral guilt by positing that moral responsibility for actions or failure to act appropriately must be established by interrogating the moral agent or at least by an attempt to determine blameworthiness of the moral agent. it is, thus, argued that the actions of the moral agents involved in the decision-making process regarding the so-called ‘security upgrades’ at the president’s private residence were unconcerned at least insofar as the majority of south african society is concerned. this arrogance was further displayed when the minister of police in his latest report on the former public protector’s recommendation concluded that despite the extravagant spending that the remaining security upgrades must further be funded (nhleko 2016). it is argued that kant’s ethical theory does allow us to reflect and apply it in the nkandla matter as it affects the larger south african society. questions that need to be answered are: what was the moral obligation on the part of all those involved? was there a moral duty towards the entire south african society? could the maxim of the nkandla project be universalised? in the next section, the author undertakes to explain the nature of political corruption from an individual’s actions especially when the individual holds political power; the author, likewise ventures into collective political corruption. the relationship between individual and structural corruption there are times when moral responsibility is looked at from a collective perspective – that is, when morality is understood from a relationship context. zaleznik (1970) puts it more clearly organisations empower individuals in a literal sense. he further asserts that organisations are political structures which provide opportunities and ‘platforms for the expression of individual interests and motives’. in one of the platforms where the president was questioned about the nkandla in reference to it as having all signs of corruption, he argued that the former public protector’s report has no reference to corruption. he further expressed his opinion that people who speak about corruption are political witch-hunters. but the question is: did the former public protector have to pronounce nkandla to be a corrupt incident ad verbatim? does this mean the absence of the word ‘corruption’ means it does not exist in this particular case? this section begins with the general definition of the term ‘corruption’ and further goes on to define my understanding of structural or organisational corruption, which is not an easy task. corruption is not necessarily an easy phenomenon to define because it varies in nature, depending on its context. simplistically, political corruption relates to individual or organisational abuse of politically mandated power (individually or collectively) and circumventing consequences or preventing legal processes from taking place. pinto et al., (2008:685) differentiate between corrupt organisations and organisations of corrupt individuals. these authors define an organisation of corrupt individuals as the scaling up of personally beneficial corrupt behaviours to the organisation level. by ‘organisation’ in this context, the author refers to those entrusted with political obligations by the public; in the judgement of the constitutional court, the chief justice mogoeng referred to this as the ‘constitutional obligation’ (new agenda 2016). levine (2005:1) sees organisational corruption as a phenomenon which is spreading widely among a given group of people in such a way that it is entrenched in society. from levine’s assertion, the author identifies in some of what he regards as qualities associated with corruption in the nkandla controversy or issue from an individual as well as organisational level, in particular egotistical (i.e. someone with an exaggerated self-esteem) impudence and a sense of personal entitlement. it is clear to the public that individual action always impacts on others such as family, general public, business partners, associates and organisations. macintyre (1984:148) in his promotion of the ethic of ‘virtue’ as opposed to the ethic of action emphasises this differently. according to him the virtues are shaped in accordance to the acceptance or internalisation of the ideal of the common good. this definition would help the reader to make his or her own judgement as to whether nkandla narrative has what characterises actions as corrupt or not. public service anti-corruption strategy (psacs) working definition for corruption is adopted in this article and it reads as follows: […] any conduct or behaviour in relation to persons entrusted with responsibilities in public office which violates their duties as public officials and which is aimed at obtaining undue gratification of any kind for themselves or others. (psacs 2002) this definition captures the main idea regarding corruption, indeed the nkandla security upgrades scandal entails almost all elements of corruption as understood by this scholar. for gerring and thacker (2004:300), political corruption is understood as ‘public official that violates legal or social norms for private or particularistic gain’. corruption is indeed an anomaly because it takes away from the people what is legally due to them in order to benefit individuals illegally. given the psacs definition, it follows that the former public protector did not have to pronounce nkandla the so-called ‘security upgrades’ as corruption. although the former public protector’s report does not contain the concept, it is still regarded as corruption. corruption by public officials betrays moral ideals of political integrity and undermines efforts to promote a moral culture in a society. in south africa, there are growing concerns regarding the collapse of the moral fibre which is also referred to in some circles of education, the academic, sociological and political as moral degeneration (de klerk-luttig & van der walt 2008; louw 2009). determined leaders in this country encouraged people to develop a moral culture and work towards moral-regeneration. a call to moral regeneration appears to be a direct acknowledgement that morality, which is glue that holds the social orderliness together, is quickly disappearing. as a result, levine (2005:2) articulates that the attack on rules and norms could be interpreted as the attack on the good; likewise, he posits that individuals either get attached to norms or do away with norms. the constitutional court judgement concurs with levine in that it declares that south africa’s ‘constitutional democracy can only be truly strengthened when: there is zero-tolerance for the culture of impunity […]’ (new agenda 2016:9). for levine those who fail to get attached to norms are likely ‘to develop qualities associated with corruption’ (2005:3). it remains deeply ironic that president jacob zuma at one time prominently headed the moral regeneration project. this irony gives content to qualities of which levine gives examples: ‘greed, arrogance, a sense of personal entitlement, the idea of virtue as personal loyalty, and the inability to distinguish the common good and personal ends’. accordingly, atkinson and bierling (2005:1006) emphatically argue that rules may help to shape politicians’ behaviour. similarly, o’callaghan (1989:444) postulates that once moral [political] leadership decides to put principles aside for casuistry, morality will suffer. indeed as waliggo (1996) correctly argues, corruption contradicts the normality in a given society; south africa’s normal running of politics and services has been compromised by the nkandla issue. van der merwe (2001) simply defines corruption as ‘the abuse of public office for private gain’. such private gain is much too evident in the nkandla project. in addition, levine (2005:4) identifies a conflict which exists between what he refers to as ‘the moral claims of the corrupt and their corrupt conduct’. levine further contends that the corrupt are unable to ‘perceive their corruption as corruption’. clearly, their understanding of moral norms and accountability are different from those of other rational persons. the nkandla project has become a governance and anc problem. it is for this reason the author contends that south africa will never be the same after nkandla. the president does not seem to understand the fact that since he received services which could not be legally and morally justified, this constitutes corruption, according to the working definition provided by psacs 2002. this atkinson and bierling (2005) refer to as ‘benefiting improperly from public office’. president zuma had material benefits, which could never be justified constitutionally but cabinet, and some anc loyalists and mk veterans continue to justify the spending. levine (2005) goes on to contend that corruption also includes efforts to hide the truth. put differently, corruption consists in maintaining top secrecy for unacceptable practices; as such gerring and thacker perceive corruption as ‘indicative of governmental performances’ (2004:299). there is little doubt that the minister of public services, the minister of police, loyalists within the zuma camp such as the anc youth league, the anc national executive committee, the anc mk veterans and other cabinet ministers in the zuma administration have failed the country in a big way and continue to do so; firstly by their conceit and denial of any wrongdoing and, secondly, by their new strategy to get out of the scandal by shifting blame to lower-ranking government officials and non-political figures. this was made fundamentally clear by the constitutional court judgement on the same matter that the president and the national assembly have the obligation to defend the constitutional democracy of south africa (new agenda 2016:6). according to bivins (2006:29), this constitutes ‘moral buck passing’ about which he also claims is a rule rather than an exception. it is absurd that a democratic principle of accountability is shifted to lower-ranking government officials, while those burdened with the duty to account get away scot-free. again, failing to account where accountability is a moral duty is regarded as failing the test of what kant considered moral obligation on the part of moral agents who are supposed to do so. it is apparently clear that the president is not willing to take full responsibility regarding the nkandla project by continuously shifting blame to others and consistently claiming ignorance. in this regard, february (2014) suggests that the president has surrounded himself with ‘unethical and criminally oriented individuals who hide from him information on matters directly involving him’. clearly, the attitude of the president, the executive and the anc national executive committee suggest there is no desire to be accountable and transparent regarding the nkandla project. a particular capacity to respond to a moral call is always taken as given. to emphasise this, bivins writes: moral responsibility assumes a capacity for making rational decisions, which in turn justifies holding moral agents accountable for their actions. […], in that autonomous rational agents are in principle capable of responding to moral reasons, accountability is a necessary feature of morality. (bivins 2006:20) in this regard, bivins (2006:21) further suggests the following as a formula for determining accountability: if the person is functionally or morally responsible for an action or [decision]; if some harm occurred due to that action or decision, and if the responsible person had no legitimate excuse for the action. the remedial action(s) recommended by the office of the former public protector madonsela (2014) determined that the president was indeed morally responsible; this was further confirmed by the constitutional court on nkandla judgement. according to mr. matthew phosa (2014), parliament’s failure to act responsibly in that situation and do the right thing when such pronouncements are made against the anc, you ask yourself: ‘what happened to the anc?’ clearly, harm resulted from the action in that the action polarised the nation and casted doubt on the ability of president zuma and parliament to act in the interest of the general public and guided by the rule of law. therefore, in the context of this article, the author concurs with bivins that all of the above define the character of the nkandla project: accountability is not forthcoming. this is another way of disregarding the categorical imperative (ci) of ‘not merely using other persons as means to an end’. the author further argues the buck-stops-with-someone in the highest position; in this case, the president and his cabinet. in its judgement, the constitutional court found that the president as the head of state holds the highest office and as the first citizen occupies an indispensable position for effective governance. in her recommended remedial action, the former public protector clearly indicates that the president failed to ask questions regarding the security upgrades which were taking place in his private dwelling. as both the former public protector’s report and the findings of the constitutional court resolved (new agenda: south african journal of social and economic policy 2016). it is further argued that holding a person accountable for his or her deeds is an indication of respect awarded to this particular individual. in a same way, a person’s avoidance of taking responsibility and accounting for his or her ‘political errors’ (atkinson & bierling 2005) in moral matters is doing disservice to the public trust over and above self-disrespect. the author contends that the popular expression ‘prevention is better than cure’ could be applicable in the moral education of young people, since their moral consciousness or lack thereof will play an important role as they are regarded as future leaders in business and in government. hence, the kantian moral theory is proposed as a preventive measure that could help shape the moral fibre of public office bearers in particular. the author argues that kant’s moral theory takes it for granted that a sensible moral culture that is realistic and reasonable is one which can be universalised. for kant, morality represents an environment in which people as rational beings maturely agree to rational norms and principles which would normalise society in the kingdom of ends. perhaps one needs to define the term ‘arrogance’. looked at from a realistic point of view, arrogance has everything to do with the nonchalant attitude of an individual or that of a group; in this sense, arrogance is a display with an attitude of undermining and disrespecting other people. according to niebuhr (2001:113), actions of organisations are determined not by what individuals do but by their attitude. therefore, displaying an egotistical attitude could be viewed from an ethical perspective as wrong, in a sense; arrogance is an action which is also subjected to ethical standards. the author opines that arrogance is an attitude which suggests the absence of humility and the refusal to admit to making a bad moral judgement. taking this further, cocking (2005:51) posits that ‘refusing to consider the reasons put to you that would suggest you’re (sic) mistaken is for him regarded as arrogance’. thus, it is maintained that the claim that person a is arrogant is a serious ethical statement, which summarises the action(s) of a as morally unacceptable. further, if b acts from the basis of the power he or she wields, then ones’ action lacks morality since his or her action is unreasonable and as such does not reflect the maxim of the will. acting from the basis of power as is the case in the nkandlagate involved the abuse of power; this is not ethical. the nkandla ‘security upgrades’ controversy clearly indicates that some people do have a sense of moral responsibility while others do not. adopting the categorical imperative for dealing with political situations the german philosopher immanuel kant (1724–1804) like his predecessors in the field of philosophy focused in certain areas of the discipline and as such is credited with the moral theory known as deontology or kantian ethics. in his theory, kant sought a basis for morals by introducing the categorical imperative. as such, deontology as a moral theory takes a form of moral obligation. kant believes that the morality of human action comes from that which characterised actions as morally binding, that is, a call to duty which comes from within. as such in kant’s ethics, there is a strong relationship between law and duty (gonsalves 1985:152). gonsalves further notes that kant’s moral theory is formulated in slightly modified formulations in the form of the ci. there are all-in-all four formulations of the ci. the first formulation is regarded as the general one, which will be given a symbol ‘g’, whereas other formulations which are slight modifications would be assigned symbols m1, m2 and m3, respectively. the formulations of the ci are as follows: g – ‘act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that your actions become a universal law’ (gonsalves 1985:152; norman 1998:76). m1 – ‘act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature’ (gonsalves 1985:152; norman 1998:76). m2 – ‘so act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, never solely as a means but always as an end’ (gonsalves 1985:152; norman 1998:76). m3 ‘so act as if you were by your maxims in every case a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends’ (gonsalves 1985:152; norman 1998:76). to begin with, it is obligatory to clarify our understanding of basic concepts which kant uses in his formulation of the categorical imperative. kant distinguishes from two kinds of imperatives, namely the hypothetical and categorical. hypothetical imperative is understood by kant to have exactly the same meaning as a hypothetical statement. generally, a hypothetical statement links an antecedent and a consequent action or action-mandate; it is characterised by if-then structure. in the case of a hypothetical imperative, the action which is the object of the imperative is only considered as a means to achieving an end (wren 2008:32). for example, if you want ‘c’ then do ‘b’. in this command, there is clearly a condition, which seems plausible in the manner through which the nkandla project was carried out and continues to be defended by zuma’s political loyalists. assumingly, a rational agent would not will through the maxim of his or her rationality that the hypothetical imperative be universalised. this suggests that the hypothetical command cannot be regarded as a moral command in a sense that it does not flow from good will or good intention. contrarily, the categorical imperative in kant’s doctrine is regarded as a moral imperative, because it does not have the antecedent and the consequent structure, that is, there is no condition attached to it. in the categorical imperative, the moral uprightness of an action does not depend on anything else but on the action itself. as such, unlike the hypothetical imperative, the categorical imperative is a product of the moral maxim. what then is the moral maxim in kant’s philosophy? as elucidated by balgrie (1982:100), kant outlines his understanding of the concept maxim, defined as the subjective principle of an action and which according to him is further regarded as that which contains ‘practical rule determined by reason’. the concept maxim has all to do with the guiding principles, which govern an agent’s action(s). the same idea is explained further by shaw (2014:55) according to whom a maxim for kant is a rule on which one acts morally. in a sense, an agent’s maxim is the essence on which inner disposition(s) are rooted. in other words, ones’ actions are external expression(s) of inner convictions. this is supported by the fact that kant’s ethics emphasise consistency in ones’ moral principle(s). in view of that, the categorical imperative and its maxim are meant for rational beings or agents who by their own maxim will for their actions to become the universal law of nature. accordingly, for kant the morality of the act is determined not by its consequences but by the moral obligation or a sense of moral duty. composta (1987:30) identifies three moral imperatives in the ci. firstly, the idea of universalising ones’ action(s); secondly, emphasis on the good will, and; thirdly, respect for humanity. understood from this point of view, the author encapsulates kant’s doctrine thus: if one cannot consistently universalise his or her actions, such principles and actions fail the test insofar as the categorical imperative is concerned. actions could be morally accepted if and only if they can be universalised in the kingdom of rational beings. further, actions which must have universal acceptability are those which flow from good will only. given this, the author asks: how does kant understand the concept will? shaw (2014:54) offers the following explanation: ‘[by] will kant meant the uniquely human capacity to act from principle’. as pointed out earlier, the idea of duty dominates kant’s deontology theory; therefore, from the good will flow actions motivated by performing one’s duty. kant argues that actions which are aimed at one performing their duty are thus moral actions. this is because such actions are internalised and therefore performed with freedom; there is no external pressure exerted on the doer from the outside. as such, the internalised observation of law is for kant self-imposed. in other words, a reasonable person would not will for that which he or she regards unreasonable. o’callaghan (1989:443) suggests that principles have a role which he outlines as ‘patterns of moral decision-making’. interpreted correctly, this implies that moral principles are criteria for distinguishing right from wrong in any given situation. understood from this perspective, the moral maxim serves as a source from which individual moral fibre is founded; it is that which gives moral direction. in this way, moral principles are self-imposed and internalised thus bringing about moral order into the life of the individual and the wellness of society. simply put, moral maxim refers to moral ideals an individual puts up to direct his or her moral life. this further suggests that a person of principles and integrity is one that can be trusted to make good moral deliberations. applying kantianism in the nkandla controversy in this regard, the author argues that moral principles make sense strictly in terms of their validity and applicability. kant’s reasoning was that by applying their reasoning, rational human beings could arrive at agreements on moral standards, norms, duties and obligations that were central to a moral and sensible life. kant further argued that the application of his doctrine could be applied in the kingdom of rational beings consistently and universally. as such, the author examines into the nkandla issue in terms of its validity and application as advocated by kantianism. kant argued strongly that morality among other things depended on humans’ ability to advocate for consistency in their action. in his attempt to clarify and simplify his theory, he concluded that a selfless moral individual is he or she who by the maxim of his or her action would universalise the action into a moral law guiding every other rational person anywhere in the world. if a person could consent to his or her action(s) to be regarded as the universal law, then that action is probably a moral one. in other words, any doubt or hesitation even for a second to universalise ones’ action(s) suggests a moral problem; put in a different way, an inconsistency insofar as this is concerned poses an ethical problem. interestingly, president zuma in his written report to parliament concluded that a policy should be in place, regulating the minimum amount that could be spent on the building or renovation of future presidents’ residences. what this suggests in terms of the above-stated formulation of the categorical imperative is an inconsistency. president zuma on reflecting upon the nkandla ‘security upgrades’ cannot will for what happened in his private home to become the law. he does not through the maxim of his undue benefit will that future south african presidents could benefit as he did. this sudden change logically suggests that he must have awakened to a moral realisation that the maxim of the actions through which he benefited cannot be universalised. as much as he may be praised for finally coming to a moral consciousness or realisation that the actions from which he benefited were not praiseworthy, for kantian ethicists, the lack of consistency on the part of the president remains unimpressive. in his earlier response to parliament regarding ‘security upgrades’ which took place at his private residence, president zuma assured parliament and the nation that government did not build his house but he built it himself using his family resources. writing on this matter, february (2014) reminds the public of what transpired then by putting it in jacob zuma’s own words to parliament: my residence in nkandla has been paid for by the zuma family. all the buildings and every room we use in that residence, was built by ourselves as family and not by government. therefore, zuma informed parliament and the entire nation that his family had built its own houses and the state had nothing to do with it. this was clearly deceptive. according to the former public protector’s report (2014), the president also maintained that he secured a building loan from an undisclosed bank for renovations at his private home (again this was not being truthful). the former public protector states in her detailed report that this information could not be verified; in other words, there was no evidence to suggest that this was true (february 2014). on the basis of the categorical imperative and deontology as a moral theory, which advocate for moral obligation and propose that actions which are done from ‘duty’ are those that are moral, the author through the revelations exposed by the former public protector ascertains that the president was not telling the truth about his attempt to evade the nkandla security upgrades scandal. putting it in a politically correct way, the president misrepresented facts about extravagant expenditure in his private home at nkandla. the constitutional court also confirmed the former public protector’s findings that the president failed in his duty to protect the resources of the country (mogoeng 2016). shaw (2014:57) contends that some actions are always wrong, and among these he asserts: ‘lying is an example’. close interpretation and understanding of the principle of ‘universalising our actions’ in the kantian ethics regards inconsistency of any action as unethical. lying to get out of an uncomfortable situation therefore cannot be consistent with what individual would will as universal law. levine (2005) argues that deception is another way to show contempt and express arrogance towards others. if president zuma holds that he should tell a lie whenever he is cornered, then it is unreasonable or even impossible to will the maxim of his action to become the universal law. clearly in kant’s mind the wrongness of actions of those involved in the nkandla ‘security upgrades’ rests in the number of inconsistencies which include: lying repeatedly. unwillingness to legislate that nkandla example becomes a moral model on which policy for all other future presidents must be established. failure to adhere to ‘duty’ (thus disregarding the law) by those involved in the nkandla saga, especially those entrusted with public trust and the nation’s resources. failure to acknowledge ‘corruption’ on nkandla saga (this denial that nkandla epitomises corruption at its best is justified by the fact that the concept is not used by the public protector in her report). the author further argues that as head of state, the president by virtue of his office has a moral duty to protect the country and its resources; this idea was further articulated by the constitutional court chief justice mogoeng (2016). it contradicts this normality when the president is involved in conduct that compromises the moral and social order of the country he is expected to promote. furthermore, any morally questionable action which is done in favour of the president or in order to benefit the president in his capacity as president compromises the dignity of the office and weakens the president. the contempt for moral norms is equally contempt for the ideal moral culture the country is hoping for. in the earlier reaction to parliament on nkandla, in his attempt to avoid accountability, president zuma was deceptive about at least three important aspects of the upgrades such as the following: knowledge about the upgrades which were taking place in his private home. denial that there was a state resource, which was used to build his private home, claiming that his private home was built by the zuma resources. he ‘secured a loan’ from a private bank to renovate his private home. taking all these factors into consideration and analysing them from kant’s doctrine, telling a lie in an attempt to avoid taking responsibility is morally wrong. as a matter of fact, matthew phosa (2014) openly expressed his views that the president should have taken both political and moral responsibility by resigning. apparently, kant through this formulation of the categorical imperative advocates for a moral principle where people respect others and as such refrain from ‘using’ others for their own selfish purposes. elucidating the foregoing, levine (2005:11) refers to treating people in this way as ‘sources of needed inputs […]’, that is, using others as objects to be manipulated for personal gain. the deception by the president and those who arrogantly attempted to defend the defenceless and extravagant expenditure of state resources is considered disrespectful to society at large and to the office of the public protector in particular. it was established that kant grounded his moral theory on the maxim that ‘nothing is unconditionally good except for good will’ (norman 1998:72). there cannot be any doubt that there is an absence of such a good will in lying. lying to the whole nation about a matter as obvious as nkandla so-called security upgrades is regarded as taking the people for granted. taking people for granted in kant’s doctrine is morally wrong, it is against the categorical imperative which requires other rational beings to be respected and not be ‘used as means to achieving personal ends but be treated as ends in themselves’. kant’s categorical imperative reference to the universality principle is misunderstood by some as the ethic of the distant future. the author disagrees. in addition, the author argues that the categorical imperative to be an ethic which analyses what goes on here-and-now taking into consideration its future moral implications. by the same token, wren (2008:32–33) proposes a practical way by means of which the categorical imperative could be understood by an analogy in which human rights are cited as an example. wren further argues that human rights are universal not because they are conceptually accepted and respected by all cultures around the world but in the sense that they ought to or should be. in other words, the ethical ‘ought’ has a moral significance (it is the moral ought). insofar as the first formulation goes, wren suggests that a moral maxim is one that could be rationalised consistently to an extent rational moral agents would want adopted by every person. however, bauman (2009) puts it differently; he asserts that one cannot advocate against a moral order and realistically expect to live in an orderly world. the second formulation, according to wren, points to the fact that illogical and irrational maxims are morally impossible to universalise and are thus morally untenable. in the third instance, this formulation simply advocates for a moral maxim in which other people are treated as rational moral agents who ought to be respected as human beings which have intrinsic value; that is, people must be treated as ends in themselves and not merely as means to achieving our vested interests or benefits. treating people as means to an end is equally treating people as tools since tools are used to achieve personal goals. apparently the idea of rationality emphasised in kantian ethics should also be understood within kant’s principle of duty. finally, wren suggests the idea of ‘legislative rationality’ in which an individual’s maxim must be acceptable as a norm or law in the kingdom of ends. the latter analysis is of interest in particular to a non-partisan parliament, whereby parliamentarians could respectfully disagree and thus ensure that the maxim through which they act or do things may be acceptable as normal in the kingdom of rational beings. in the author’s view, the maxim through which the ruling party and its majority are conducting parliament affairs is morally unacceptable. this is the outcry expressed by phosa (2014) in his critique of how the anc used its majority to protect corruption. a paper of this nature is duty bound to critically look into the nkandla matter, and its moral implications name the collective duty of politicians to south african society at its entirety. before this is done, the author begins by giving a definition of the term accountability. by accountability is meant preparedness to take full responsibility for action(s) performed by statesmen and women. president zuma does not think he did anything wrong; hence, he is adamant and unwavering he was not going to pay. lately, in a bid to undermine the former public protector’s recommendation, the president declared that the decision for him to pay or not to pay back the money spent on his private residence is a call that must be made by the minister of police. by undermining the former public protector, the author is of the opinion that the president is actually undermining the constitution because the office of the former public protector is a constitutional institution; as such, her recommendations must be taken seriously, and this was further supported by the constitutional court judgement on nkandla (mogoeng 2016). according to van der merwe (2001), the abuse of public power could manifest itself in two ways, namely, behavioural and structural, both of which the author contends hold true in the manner nkandla project continues to be handled. atkinson and bierling (2005) argue that ‘political loyalties trump legal requirements of neutrality’. in the nkandla project, the public have seen some anc cabinet ministers, mk veterans and people held in high esteem doing everything in their power to justify the ethical blunder instead of accounting. this kind of behaviour is referred to by pinto et al. (2008:685) in their title ‘corrupt organizations or organisations of corrupt individuals’. the president himself attempted to avoid accountability in his initial response to nkandla security upgrades. ashforth and anand (2003) and anand, ashforth and joshi (2004) refer to this behaviour as the normalisation of corruption and acceptance and perpetuation of corruption in organisations. in the author’s view, the arrogance displayed could be interpreted as a refusal to acknowledge moral lapse of a worst kind by these structures, and it is certainly a refusal to be accountable and unpreparedness to take moral responsibility for wrong action(s) involved in the nkandla ‘security upgrades’ or nkandla controversy. ekpo (2007) contends thus: the concept of power has no concern for ethical moral behaviour because moral bankruptcy is rooted in the acquisition of power and this has given a negative concept to power, for power is all about gain and the capacity to control an [sic] dominate and not for the maintenance of law and order and promotion of common good. (p. 124) in a different way, the above statement by ekpo reminds the public all of the popular expression: ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. the author’s main concern in this regard is on political power, and how this has played out by president zuma after getting into a power position. it is the author’s view that the ruling elites possess too much power and use its majority in parliament to betray the ideals which democracy stands for. building on levine’ assertion that some qualities necessitate association with corruption, i argued earlier that arrogance and a feeling of personal entitlement are qualities which clearly characterise the nkandla issue. in the author’s view, the whole nkandla matter suggests to the south african society that president zuma is more deserving than all other presidents before and after him. this could not be disputed because never before has this happened, and in his response to parliament, the president suggested that there should be a policy in place establishing ground rules about expenditure that ought to be approved for future presidents’ private residential renovations. this readily calls to mind the conclusion by levine (2005:3) that this is the ‘ultimate narcissistic fulfilment’ in which the goal is to set one apart in exclusion of all others. conclusion and recommendations morality is the foundation of good governance and, as such, the ethical ‘ought’ is a principle which must inform our social order. it is recommended that the presidency as an institution ‘ought’ to carefully choose advisors on a moral ground. these should not be just people who are blind loyalists but morally upright individuals who have a moral standing themselves and, thus, able to morally justify political decisions made for and by the office of the president. furthermore, the author recommends that moral development be part and parcel of the formal programme for politicians who should be accountable for their actions and be held as such by the societal members, especially members who participate actively in the political processes and thus justify the idea of democratisation of their society. an outline of kant’s doctrine of the categorical imperative and its application to the nkandla ‘security upgrades’ was articulated. in order to achieve this and apply the categorical imperative correctly, the four formulations of the categorical imperative were further explained in terms of kant’s notion of maxim, which was defined as the essence or principle within which our actions are founded. the author likewise contended that our maxim insofar as kant’s doctrine is concerned should be universalised. it was further established that in kant’s writing, the maxim is the production of the good will. it was argued why actions of those involved are irrational, and thus morally untenable. it was further argued that actions which cannot be universalised according to kant or those that are morally inconsistent are unethical. the author stated that performing an act just because the doer wields political power or any form of power for that matter cannot be regarded as reasonable if, following kant’s ethical theory in particular, the categorical imperative is the maxim by means of which the morality of actions is measured. it was established that for kant, the morality of an action rests on the concept of moral duty; in a sense a moral person for kant is one who acts from the principle of moral duty and the principle which promotes consistency. in addition, it was further established that moral duty for kant refers to duty towards self and duty towards others; as such, actions that are intended to advantage an individual at the expense of many or actions performed to please individuals in their personal capacity cannot be regarded as right actions. it stands to reason that such actions should not be performed. accountability in this article was understood as a principle by means of which individuals and organisations, especially people entrusted with public trust, are prepared to take responsibility for their actions. the relationship between organisations of corrupt individuals and corrupt organisations was drawn. it was argued that for people entrusted with the duty to account for their actions or the decisions of a moral nature in the state, failing to do so is morally wrong. it was also contended that corruption does undermine many other aspects of governance, especially in cases where those involved are people entrusted with public trust and public resources. interpreted correctly, there is no justification for corruption in kant’s deontology or doctrine of the categorical imperative. the author further pointed out that there is lack of accountability on the side of president zuma, his cabinet (institutional responsibility) and anc leadership. it was argued that this lack of accountability is also demonstrated by the continual refusal to accept moral responsibility from a personal point of view by the president as well as structural refusal to account as a collective. it is thus recommended that president zuma, cabinet ministers and their deputies and the entire african national congress structures should come to a realisation that it is by their preparedness to accept responsibility for the nkandla blunder that south africa can move forward. this preparedness to accept responsibility must be sincere and the process of remedying the situation transparent. the author posits this is what accountability is all about. the president and his cabinet have a duty to account to the people of south africa. finally, it is recommended that in order for south africa to have a sustainable moral fibre, strategies must be put in place wherein politicians of all political structures must be formally educated towards understanding the role of morality in society. further, the integrity of the office of the president must be above moral reproach. introduction of moral education and development earlier on in south african schools and institutions of higher learning is necessary and cannot be ignored, if south africa is serious about establishing a moral culture which should make sense and could be universalised. the categorical imperative is the core of what the author takes as cognitive development of kant’s moral education. for kant, the good will and the theory of the ci are necessary conditions for a moral life, which the author maintains should be regarded as the ethical ought for south africa to achieve its purpose of establishing a sustainable moral culture. it is recommended that political leadership ought to have principles by which they set high moral standards and lead an exemplary moral life. as some have argued, this political and moral responsibility include among others the president taking moral responsibility and resign, impeachment of the president, and a vote of confidence against the president. this is because the nkandla 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man and immoral society: a study in ethics and politics, westminster john know press, washington, dc. norman, r., 1998, the moral philosophers: an introduction to ethics, 2nd edn., oxford university press, oxford. o’callaghan, d.f., 1989, ‘the meaning of moral principle’, in r.p. hamel & k.r. himes (eds.), introduction to christian ethics: a reader, pp. 443–453, paulist press, new york. pinto, j., leana, c.r. & pil, f.k., 2008, ‘corrupt organizations or organizations of corrupt individuals? two types of organization-level corruption’, academy of management review 33(2), 685–704. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.32465726 phosa, m., 2014, ‘the president should have taken both political and moral responsibility by resigning’, eye witness news, august 21, p. 5. republic of south africa, 2002, public service anti-corruption strategy, government press, pretoria. shaw, w.h., 2014, business ethics, 8th edn., international edition, wadsworth cengage learning, melbourne, australia. the constitutional court of the republic of south africa, 2016, ‘the supreme court of the republic’s extract from the concourt judgement on nkandla’, new agenda: south african journal of social and economic policy. first quarter 61, 6–9. van der merwe, s., 2001, corruption in south africa: an exploratory discussion, viewed 23 september 2015, from http://www.interfund.org.za/pdffile/volume2_1 waliggo, j.m., 1996, ‘corruption and bribery – an african problem?’ in m. lejeune, p. rosemann & k. adenauer (eds.), business ethics in the african context today: proceedings of the international conference held at uganda martyrs university, 9–12 september. uganda martyrs university press, nkozi, kampala. wren, t., 2008, ‘philosophical moorings’, in l.p. nucci & d. narvariz (eds.), the handbook of moral and character education, pp. 11–29. routledge taylor and francis, new york. zaleznik, a., 1970, ‘power and politics in organizational life’, harvard business review, viewed 2 april 2015, from http://hbr.org/1970/05/power-and-politics-in-organizational-life/ar/1 footnotes 1. the constitutional court is the highest court in south africa, the decisions of which reign supreme. 2. the south african general population was interviewed on the nkandla matter and expressed their views on social media and public setting such as radio and television stations. abstract introduction a review of related literature theoretical framework methodology findings and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) adebunmi y. aina department of educational management and policy studies, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa keshni bipath department of early childhood education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa citation aina ay, bipath k. reimagining systems that support early childhood development centres in offering quality education. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1107. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1107 original research reimagining systems that support early childhood development centres in offering quality education adebunmi y. aina, keshni bipath received: 21 june 2021; accepted: 10 may 2022; published: 25 aug. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract systems ensure the attainment of goals at any educational level, including quality early childhood education. various studies focus on the benefits and components of quality early childhood education, yet none emphasise systems that will support early childhood development (ecd) centres in offering quality education. this study explored existing systems that support ecd centres in providing quality education to young children. the study adopted a qualitative research approach and collected data through document analysis and face-to-face interviews with eight participants purposively selected from four ecd centres situated in pretoria. the data were analysed thematically. the findings revealed that national policies, internally generated policies and financial systems support the participating centres in offering quality education. however, many of the participants did not know the existing national policies. the findings also revealed that ecd centres in the township area do not have financial systems to help them provide quality education. the study recommends effective implementation strategies to foster awareness and enforce strict adherence to government policies at ecd centres. the study contributes to awareness and adherence to quality early childhood education by suggesting that ecd centres, principals and teachers should engage in relevant and practical training on effectively establishing systems from the available national education policies that will help them offer quality education. contribution: this study adds to the body of knowledge by filling in the gaps on how ecd principals and teachers understand national policies and translate them into systems that assist them in managing their centres on a daily basis. the novelty of this study is the empirical input from different disciplines (early childhood education and management and policies studies), in a way that enables one to comprehend the role of educational management and policies studies at the early childhood learning centres in south africa, which is the emphasis of the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa. keywords: system; support; early childhood development centre; quality early childhood care; education. introduction quality early childhood education, according to a large body of research, is critical to improving health, academic levels, future employment possibilities and the eradication of poverty and inequities.1,2 there has recently been increasing global awareness of the value of quality early childhood education as the foundational basis for upward mobility in any nation’s educational ladder, especially in the developing countries of africa, including south africa. in south african early childhood development (ecd) policy documents and guidelines, quality in early childhood care and education (ecce) is mainly determined by the structural and process quality input, such as physical infrastructure, the number of toilets and wash basins, the learning programme, group size, teacher–child ratios, the presence of developmentally appropriate education equipment, materials and resources, governance and financial management.3 to improve the quality of ecce in south africa, the government has put several interventions in place. for example, the ecd centres registered with the department of social development are qualified for government funding based on a ‘per child subsidy’ of r15,00 per child, aimed at children living in impoverished communities.3 the department of higher education and training also aims to provide qualified teachers for this sector to improve ecd quality.4 enactment of policies, such as the south african national curriculum framework (ncf) and the national early learning and development standards (nelds), for children birth to 4 years is a sign of government commitment to the early childhood sector. the government made progress in improving the quality of ecce. however, researchers argue that early childhood education gets little or no attention at national and local levels in terms of policy guidelines, regulations, equality and delivery of much-needed resources to improve quality education.3,5 as a result, ecd centres had to develop means to get the necessary support to enhance their ability to offer quality education. therefore, there is a need to explore and understand the systems that support ecd centres in providing quality education. a system could be described as how things are structured and done to achieve predetermined goals. a system is mainly referred to as a group of components that work together to achieve a common purpose or objective.6 in this study, a system refers to the structures built by the ecd centres to guide and support them in providing quality education. extensive studies have researched quality early childhood education and components of quality input in terms of structural and process aspects.7,8 structural quality is referred to as input that is easily observed and measurable in determining quality, such as ecd centre facilities and resources, ecd practitioner to child ratio and ecd practitioner qualifications, training and wages.7,9 process quality describes the nature of interactions between the children and teachers, amongst children and amongst adults, such as practitioners, parents, staff, and leadership and pedagogy.10 both structural and process components are essential inputs at the ecd centres that determine quality service delivery. however, there is a scarcity of studies on the systems that support ecd centres in establishing structural and process quality input, which will assist them in offering quality education. without effective systems in place, it will be challenging to offer quality education to young children, which is essential as the foundation of education. policies are necessary to build systems and define the rules, regulations, procedures and protocols that schools require to run smoothly, safely and to deliver quality education. therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the existing systems that supported ecd centres in offering quality education by exploring the policies, finance and management quality of the selected ecd centres. exploring the policies, finance and management quality could help identify aspects to guide schools and support their system building for quality education. hence, the research question to address the aim of the study is, ‘how do policies in ecd centres enhance the operational systems in sustaining quality education?’ theoretical perspectives for the study are provided next, followed by a description of the framework for ecological and system-level settings and cross-cutting quality dimensions.11 britto, yoshikawa and boller’s framework facilitated the incorporation of ecological system rates with efficient cross-cutting dimensions. the level of ecological systems is split into two settings and systems and five dimensions of quality that cut across and impact the system at different levels. this framework provides the lens to explore and discuss the systems available at the four selected registered ecd centres chosen as research sites, leading to a discussion of the implications of these findings for the ecd sector. a review of related literature literature regarding factors that support system building such as policies, finance, management and leadership quality is relevant in this study. the theoretical framework underpinning the research is also discussed. policy formulation is the first factor that forms the basis for system building. the common purposes of enacting these policies are to ensure that quality education is provided for young children through relevant systems available at the ecd centres. for example, manyike12 refers to this role by stating that the ‘government’s objective in policies enactment is to promote equal access and quality education for all children living in south africa’ (p. 594).12 lazzari et al.13 added that government policies need to be designed in consultation with stakeholders to realise the aim of education as a right for all children. indeed, several educational policies related to early childhood were established, but it seems that the enacted policies have not achieved their purposes – improving quality education. this failing is as a result of the findings of atmore3 (p. 10), who states that ‘while the ecd policy reflected in education white paper 5 has created grade r and significantly increased access to grade r, it has been less successful in improving quality’.14 atmore3 further states that the ecd policy was designed with little political support and leadership, and that the implementation plans that are available are poor. the question to ask is whether the enacted policies are the problem or the ecd centres not taking advantage of the policies to support themselves in building a system to facilitate quality education. management and leadership quality is the second factor that is likely to influence the application of and responsiveness to policies that guide staffing issues, supervision and the organisational climate.15 the astute management and innovative leadership skills of ecd managers will influence the running of these centres. however, the literature reveals a lack of adequate management systems and structured monitoring and evaluation instruments to guide the operation of ecd centres.16 similarly, atmore3 states that there is often a lack of appropriate management and administrative systems at community-based ecd centres. the implication of improper management and leadership skills of the managers and teachers at the centre will prevent the establishment of systems and structures that should enhance provision of quality education. hence, this study sought to understand the ecd centres’ management and leadership ability in system building. lack of funding is the third factor that could prevent the ecd centres’ ability to build a system to improve the provision of quality education. financial resources play a role in system building, and a lack of financial resources negates the attainment of any goal, including system building. however, a worse scenario would be when available funds are mismanaged.17 for instance, bachelet18 stated that very ‘few countries have national frameworks for the financing, coordinating, and providing ecd programmes for young children’ (p. 4).18 shonkoff19 confirms that the: education for all dakar declaration (unesco), the united nations millennium development goals (united nations) and the who commission on social determinants of health have identified early childhood education as a specific component in their funding strategies (p. 365).19 unfortunately, it appears that for many governments, the pre-primary sector of the education system is the one that is least likely to receive much-needed investment for the delivery of quality education.3,20 therefore, a lack of funds and a system to manage the available funds will affect the quality of education provided. therefore, ecd centres need to have systems that will guide and support them in financial management, leading to quality education. the theoretical framework that guided this study in reimagining the existing system at the selected centres is presented next. theoretical framework the britto, yoshikawa and boller11 framework for ecological and system-level settings and cross-cutting quality dimensions, as depicted in figure 1, guided this study. figure 1: ecological and system-level settings and cross-cutting quality dimension. the relevant systems refer to the larger organisational and institutional systems within which ecd centres exist,11 including the local support systems, subnational support systems and national systems. the framework is used because it explores features that will enhance quality in early childhood education.11 it also indicates support systems that can help ecd centres provide quality education. for example, the research asserts that accessibility and quality characteristics must be discussed at a higher level than the ecd internal system to facilitate sustainable and meaningful progress in ecd education in developing countries.11 thus, this study aims to reimagine features such as the policies, finance, management and leadership ability of ecd centres in building systems that will sustain them in offering quality education. furthermore, research suggests that a comprehensive view of quality ecce should include ecological standards outside the ecd centre environments also on a broader systems level.11 this study implies that the ecd centres should not depend solely on the internally generated system but should also take advantage of support systems from their immediate community at the regional, provincial, national and international levels. in summary, the britto, yoshikawa and boller framework brings to light that the existence of systems, such as policies both internally and externally generated, and active involvement of relevant stakeholders would enhance the quality of education and care provided in ecd centres. the chosen framework guided the researchers to understand the selected ecd centres’ situation through leading questions used during the data collection process explained in the following section.11 methodology a qualitative approach to research through the interpretive paradigm was used in this study because the study’s focus was on providing detailed information and in-depth descriptions of existing systems that support ecd in offering quality education.21 furthermore, multiple case studies permit the selection of several cases, which proves advantageous as they highlight the differences amongst many.22 although the study was not designed to be comparative, it was realised that getting data from a variety of situations would enhance the study’s findings and contribution. hence, this study adopted a multiple case study research design using a sample of four registered ecd centres – two from the township areas and two from the suburbs area – of pretoria, gauteng province, south africa. table 1 shows the biographical information of the selected centres and participants. table 1: biographic information of centres and participants. face-to-face, semi-structured individual interviews were used to collect data from eight purposively selected participants from the chosen registered ecd centres. the participants include four ecd centre principals and four teachers. the selected participants were expected to have a job experience of at least three years in their present post. they were expected to have a level of experience and knowledge that would foster answering the research questions.23 the interview sessions were audio-recorded to obtain a verbatim record of the interaction and provide material for reliability checks.24 in addition, the researcher took notes to capture the body language of the participants. the researcher triangulated the data by using document analysis along with the interview response. documents could be a rich source of data because they record and retain evidence.25 this study analysed the participating centres’ daily programme plan, admission policy and staff policy. data analysis was done thematically through transcribing data and familiarising ourselves with the data. codes were generated after which subthemes were formulated; themes were then established and guided by the research question and the theoretical framework. the thematic analysis aimed to identify significant themes and provide answers about the phenomenon under study. the researcher observed ethical principles by initially obtaining clearance to conduct the research from the relevant bodies – the university ethics committee and the department of social development. before the data collection, participants were informed about the purpose of the study and their rights to withdraw from the study at any point in time.24 pseudonyms or codes were used to conceal the participants’ true identities to ensure the non-disclosure of information about the ecd centres and the participants.26 findings and discussion the data generated stemmed from the participants’ existing system that guided them in the day-to-day running of the centre. therefore, their description of these systems was gleaned from the national policy, the centres’ admission policy, employment policy and financial systems. hence, the themes that emerged related to the knowledge and implementation of national policies, managing people through internal policies and managing and controlling the financial system. the findings are discussed under the knowledge and implementation of national policies, managing people through internal policies and management of financial systems sections. knowledge and implementation of national policies several government policies that registered ecd centres can adopt will help build a solid system to achieve the ecd objectives. unfortunately, the participants could not relate to most ecd policies, such as education white paper 5, national integrated plan for ecd and the national early learning development standard (nelds). the data revealed that the participating ecd centres (especially the township centres) have little knowledge of some of the national ecd policies. thus, they could not structure a practicable system that will help them attain high quality in early childhood education. joyt said, ‘i know that we use the government policies, but i don’t know their names’. in addition, kindnesst stated, ‘i have not heard of neld, ncf and national norms and standards for [an] ecd centre, but i have read about the children’s rights and responsibility acts’. on the positive side, the participants demonstrated fair knowledge of national norms and standards for ecd. section 79(2) of the children’s amendment act (no. 41, 2007) sets out the requirements for the registration of ecd centres.27 these requirements are known as the 11 national norms and standards that must be maintained in ecd centres. ‘participants’ responses are indicated under the ‘managing people through internal policies’ section: smarts: ‘i read all the policies we received from the department of education. we receive them from time to time, like the ecd policy, the guidelines for preschools, the principal’s guidelines, and everything we need to know. we follow the government policies by ensuring that children eat good food and are safe all the time.’ (principal, 61 years old, from suburban centre, 39 years of experience in ecd centre) excels: ‘i read from the national norms and standards document where they said kids have the right to safety, to drink clean water, to be cared for, and also how we need to manage the toilet facilities. in my classroom, safety is my main priority because parents rely on us for the safety of their kids.’ (practitioner, 29 years old, 7 years of experience in ecd centre) the data analysis revealed that participants from the suburban centres displayed more knowledge of ecd national policies and adapted them to develop a system on how to plan effectively for the teaching of young children. however, the township centres did not display good knowledge of national policies which might affect the quality of education provided to young children in their centre. this finding shows that the township participants could not establish a practicable system that could guide them in providing quality education from the national policies as they are not aware of the policies’ existence. as a result, it contradicts neuman and devercelli’s28 statement that a ‘robust ecd system should include policies that support programs in all essential sectors and target all groups (e.g., pregnant women, infants and toddlers, preschoolers and caregivers)’ (p. 15).28 hence, there is a need for adequate and necessary support from the government on training and development regarding awareness and implementation of national policies. this finding at the township ecd centres is also contrary to research suggestions that ecd centres should get training and support from local, provincial or national governments.11 these suggestions are supported by the view that ecd teachers’ and principals’ training will lead to staff competence.29 the township centres’ participants’ lack of understanding of how the national policies should guide the ecd processes would deprive them of obtaining maximum results through quality learning; this situation demands urgent, intensive, practical and continuous training. sufficient training regarding understanding and application of national policies in building systems to facilitate quality learning is essential. managing people through internal policies the findings reveal that the participating ecd centres built a system on managing people through their internally generated policies such as the admission policy and employment policy. most ecd centres usually develop their operational systems from internally generated policies and procedures to support functions such as hiring practitioners, contacting parents and using the centre’s resources. these policies function as a system on how things should be done regarding specific actions for specific situations. the participants described their internal policies such as the admission policy, health policy and employment policy: peacet: ‘we have an admission policy and an admission form that parents fill in. it contains the child’s details, parents’ details, child’s immunisation details, and who is going to bring and fetch the child. we also have a “sick” policy – when the child is sick in our centre; we call the parents to come to fetch them.’ (principal; 32 years old; 4 years of experience in ecd centre) smarts: ‘in the admission policy, parents will get to know the rules and regulations of the centre, such as commencing and closing times, due dates for fee payment. in the admission form, the parents fill in their child’s name and date of birth.’ (principal, 61 years old, from suburban centre, 39 years of experience in ecd centre) joyt: ‘from the admission policy, i learnt about the “sick” policy that we must not give a sick child medication from the centre, but we must inform the parent if a child is sick. and when a parent brings medicine, there should be agreement between the practitioner and the parent to give medicine to the child.’ (practitioner; 42 years old; 4 years of experience in ecd centre) the data revealed that all the centres have admission policies given to parents after their children are registered at the centre. the admission policy serves to orientate the parents about what to expect from the centre and what is expected from the parents, such as their rights and responsibilities. this policy implies that if both parties (parents and ecd centre) keep to the terms of the admission policy, there is potential for a good relationship that directly impacts the quality of education available for young children. the findings regarding the use of admission policy to build a system of effective management and communication with parents disagree with some researchers such as atmore3 and mbarathi et al.16 there is a lack of adequate management systems structured to monitor the operation of ecd centres. the differences in the findings could be a result of the context of the studies. whilst the present study is conducted in suburban and township ecd centres, studies of atmore3 and mbarathi et al.16 were conducted in the rural centres. another system built by the participating ecd centres to display their management ability is the employment policy. it stipulates the terms and conditions of service of the staff at the ecd centres. the participants expressed the following: peacet: ‘we also have an employment policy. here the dress code is included which we must abide by. also, our values, we have to be honest, clean and disciplined.’ (principal; 32 years old; 4 years of experience in ecd centre) humbles: ‘we have a work policy where one of the conditions is that you don’t have to use your phone during classes, and you don’t have to shout at the kids. we, as the staff, should not engage in conflicts because it is not healthy for the kids. also, the late coming of staff and many other rules are stipulated in this policy.’ (practitioner; 61 years old; 30 years of experience in ecd centre) excels: ‘we have many rules here. the first one is about the dress code; the practitioners must not wear clothes that will expose their bodies. secondly, practitioners must respect parents. also, language, we must speak politely to the children, to staff and to parents. we are not allowed to use cell phone during school hours.’ (practitioner, 29 years old, 7 years of experience in ecd centre) table 2 displays the analysis of the participating centres’ admission policy, health policy and employment policy to corroborate participants’ responses about internal policies used at the centres. table 2: document analysis of admission, health and employment policies. the internal policy documents provided by the participating centres revealed that they operate differently in terms of interpersonal relationships, communication, salaries of personnel, daily activities, nutrition and access to health benefits. these differences are as a result of resources that they possess – especially the management and leadership style. notably, the principal and practitioners at the centres are the primary resources because their innovative and creative capabilities will enable them to build systems for connecting and accessing support from the external environment. management and leadership capacity are critical components for making decisions such as resource allocation, managing people, detecting training needs and communicating with parents and community members.11 from the participants’ responses, it appears that both the township and suburban participating centres have built a system to manage communication and relationships amongst staff members and between staff members and the parents. however, this study does not deliberate on the details of how effective these internal policies are. the reasons were time constraints, and interviewing parents and learners was beyond the study’s ethics code and scope. management and control of financial systems financial resources are at the root of achieving any worthwhile goal, including quality ecce enhancement when properly managed. hence, i sought to understand how the participating ecd centres receive funds and how such funds are managed and directed towards promoting quality ecce. the participants responded as follows: peacet: ‘the dsd gives stipends for food and also subsidises our salaries.’ (principal; 32 years old; 4 years of experience in ecd centre) kindnesst: ‘government funding is usually allocated yearly. we usually submit our papers in terms of the constitution, and they give us money quarterly.’ (principal; 36 years old; 5 years of experience at ecd centre) perseverances: ‘our source of income is through fee payments from the parents, with no financial support from the government.’ (principal; 46 years old; 9 years of experience at ecd centre) smarts: ‘we do not get any form of financial support or assistance from the government.’ (principal; 61 years old from suburban centre; 39 years of experience in ecd centre) the findings reveal that the participating township centres receive financial support from the government. the suburban centres do not receive any form of government financial assistance but solely rely on school fees paid by the parents. the funding received from the government by the township ecd centres confirms suggestions that ecd centres should get support from provincial departments.11 despite the financial support received by the township ecd centres, it appears that they still have financial challenges. the township financial challenges are that because of the parents in the township centres’ low economic status, there was a challenge of delayed or non-payment of fees because of no system for fee collection being in place, which was not the case at suburban centres. participants explained this: kindnesst: ‘we have too many financial challenges because parents are not paying on time, so we get paid late, and this causes demotivation. this is a huge problem because we get our salary sometimes on the 7th of the month.’ (principal; 36 years old; 5 years of experience in ecd centre) greatnesst: ‘sometime[s] parents pay late, and that means i also get my salary late. and this occurs often, which is very demotivating. these are our financial challenges.’ (practitioner; 30 years old; 6 years of experience at ecd centre) peacet: ‘some parents pay and some do not pay. we call meeting for non-paying parents. some do not have good reasons as they just want to use the school, but some have genuine reasons because they are not working so we say bring the child, and when you have the money, you can come and pay.’ (principal; 32 years old; 4 years of experience in ecd centre) this finding concurs with baka30 who discovered in his study on financial management literacy of ecd centre managers in mafikeng that financial management challenges at ecd centres are late or non-payment of school fees which led to delay in payment of staff. on a contrary note, the suburban centres in this study sometimes also experience some of their parents not making prompt payment of fees, but they ensure that parents make payment when due. the practitioners responded as follows: perseverances: ‘some of the parents struggle to pay fees. i try to persuade them to make payment through phone calls, emails, and if i see them, i talk to them personally to find out why they have not yet paid. i must say most of my parents respond.’ (principal; 46 years old; 9 years of experience at ecd centre) smarts: ‘we put posters by the gate saying it’s the week for paying school fees. we use newsletters at the end of the month reminding them. we also send whatsapp messages. sometimes i stand at the gate with a list showing who has not paid, so we can communicate with the parents, as communication is critical. mostly i handle this aspect, and it has been very successful. we don’t have many non-paying parents.’ (principal; 61 years old from suburban centre; 39 years of experience in ecd centre) the data revealed that the parents in township centres are lenient to prompt fee payment. centres also do not have strict measures to ensure prompt payment as stated by peacet (‘bring the child, and when you have the money, you can come and pay’). this signifies that no specific policy was communicated to the parents regarding late payment or non-payment of school fees. for example, if a parent fails to pay fees, the ecd centre can refuse further admission of the child. however, this must be in writing, and parents must sign such a document. although the sympathetic stance by township centres is admirable, it adversely affects the centre’s management, especially salary payments, and it demotivates staff. hence, an effective system for collecting fees will facilitate prompt payment, which will invariably increase the financial resources available to promote quality education. conclusion the existing systems that guide and support participating ecd centres in offering quality education to young children come in existing national policies, internally generated policies and financial, administrative practices. participants could not fully utilise the available national ecd policies to build practicable systems around them because of their limited knowledge about the existing national policies (especially at township centres). the recommended ecd teacher training workshops provided by government and tertiary institutions will capacitate them with the appropriate knowledge. the findings reveal that the participating centres built a system to manage and relate to people through their internal policies such as the admission, medical and employment policy. the content of these policies differs from one centre to another. the internal policies of suburban centres include essential information that helps to identify the quality of service available for the children, such as free health examinations for young children, and for parents to get to know the quality of food given to the children as per menus which are included in the admission policy. township centres’ medical policies do not have such information. hence, their young children do not enjoy free medical examination, and parents are not informed about the type of food given to their children because no menu was advertised. the differences in the internal policies reveal disparities in service delivery. these differences widen the gap in the provision of education for young children. the sources of funding in participating centres are mainly school fees and stipends received from the government. the suburban centres charge higher fees, and they ensure that parents pay school fees promptly, whereas the township centres charge minimal fees. however, the township centres are unable to build effective systems that will ensure that parents make prompt payments. therefore, they are unable to purchase essential resources and pay practitioners’ salaries on time. this delay in payment of practitioners’ salaries demotivates them, cascading into the quality of service delivery to young children. the implications of the study for ecd centres (especially township centres) indicate that more essential management or leadership skills that will enhance them to seek support and build operational systems from their ecological system as recommended by britto et al.11 are required to enhance the quality of education provided. an effective system is essential at all levels of education, especially at the foundation stage of learning. this study brought to light the existing systems at the very starting stage of education (ecd centre) and the challenges faced in different contexts (township and suburban centre). for young children to enjoy quality education through effective systems at their various early learning centres, it has become urgent for the government to develop effective strategies to make national ecd policies more accessible to ecd practitioners in township centres. the government should encourage uniformity in the contents of the internal policies used at various ecd centres irrespective of the location. similar internal policies can help improve the provision of equal access of young children to quality ecce. it is also recommended that practical and continuous training should be made available to the ecd principals regarding building effective management and financial systems. early childhood development principals both at the township and suburban centres are also encouraged to enrol for short courses on system development in schools. the development and growth of ecd principals’ skills regarding system building will place them in a better position to create structures and systems in their centres to smooth the running of the centre and equally offer quality education for the younger children. acknowledgements this article was produced with the support of the teaching and learning development capacity improvement programme, a partnership programme between the department of higher education and training and the european union. its contents are the sole responsibility of and do not necessarily reflect the views of the department or the european union. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contribution a.y.a and k.b. equally contributed to this research article. a.y.a was the doctoral student, and k.b. was the supervisor and wrote the article from a.y.a.’s thesis. ethical considerations ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from the university of pretoria, faculty of education research ethics committee (clearance number: ec 18/11/02). funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. 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[open knowledge repository] c2013 [cited 2021 february 10] available from: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/20174 fukkink rg, lont a. does training matter? a meta-analysis and review of caregiver training studies. early child res q. 2007 jul 1;22(3):294–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2007.04.005 baka p. financial management literacy of early childhood development centre managers in mafikeng [master’s thesis]. maheking: university of north-west; 2012. read online: scan this qr code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online. page 1 of 1 reviewer acknowledgement http://www.td-sa.net open access acknowledgement to reviewers in an effort to facilitate the selection of appropriate peer reviewers for the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, we ask that you take a moment to update your electronic portfolio on https://td-sa. net for our files, allowing us better access to your areas of interest and expertise, in order to match reviewers 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participating with local government around the area of service delivery. the findings illustrate the current state of mobile phone usage and capabilities, and the potential for using the mobile platform to increase participation in local government in south africa. the paper also can be used to inform and guide project stakeholders on how best to implement m-participation strategies. keywords: mobile phones, public participation, ict4d 1. introduction since the turn of this century, there has been much excitement surrounding the use of internet enabled mobile phones as a solution for a number of development issues [1]. as ndlela notes: many studies of the development problems in africa… and policy documents from organizations such as unesco, undp, and wto… all pointed to the potential of icts in leapfrogging development in africa, facilitating economic growth, enhancing lives and empowering citizens [2, p217]. within the context of participation in government, questions have been posed as to whether electronic-government (e-government) systems can help increase the accountability of public governance [3]. proponents of the use of technology for development cite a number of reasons for their use: increased penetration of mobile devices; availability of mobile internet; and the potential of technology to leapfrog over other developmental challenges. within africa, there has been a dramatic rise in the use of mobile phones in the past 20 years. this rise has been shown to stem from a number of different sources. most notably, there has been almost zero growth in fixed line infrastructure, necessitating people to look to other sources for their communication requirements [4]. 1 hannah thinyane, ingrid siebörger, edward reynell are attached to the computer science department, rhodes university. corresponding author: hannah thinyane; h.thinyane@ru.ac.za; hamilton building, rhodes university, prince alfred st, grahamstown, rsa 6139. thinyane, siebörger & reynell 242 across sub saharan africa, mobile penetration rates have been growing steadily. gsma found that “by mid-2013 there were 502 million active sim connection in the region (equivalent to a penetration rate of 61%), a figure that has grown by 23% per annum over the last five years” [5, p10]. within south africa itself, reported mobile penetration rates vary, with gsma reporting rates of 65.7% [5], nielsen group reporting figures of 76% [4] and some sources even reporting more than 1 active connection per citizen (59,474,500 mobile subscriptions in a population of 52.98 million equate to a rate of 112.26% [6]). some researchers [4] have tried to put these figures (in particular the more conservative figures) into perspective, saying that more people on the african continent have access to mobile phones than access to clean drinking water. the same study also showed that more south africans use mobile phones than any other modern and traditional icts, including computers (6 million), televisions (27 million) and radios (28 million) [4]. as well as access to mobile devices, south africa has also been ranked as fifth in the world for mobile data usage [4], ahead of countries such as the united states of america, which ranks seventh. when asked what they currently use their mobile phones for, a study by nielsen group found that: sms text messaging is practically ubiquitous among south african mobile customers, and is used by almost 4.2 times more people than e-mail. more than two-thirds (69%) of consumers prefer sending texts to calling, in large part because it is less expensive, and 10 percent believe texting to be a faster way of communicating [4, p1]. mobile devices have supported a number of great developments in a wide range of areas: the fishing industry in india [7]; a telemedicine network for rural clinics in palestine [8]; online banking in africa [9]; and micro-entrepreneurs in rwanda [10]. these figures speak of the proliferation and acceptance of mobile phones across developing nations. when we turn to the context of the use of mobile devices to increase citizen participation in government, we see that the devices are new platforms are opening up new possibilities and spaces “for different forms of political discourses and networking”[2, p217]. it is important to note that icts are being increasingly used to shift the paradigm of political communication. there have been numerous cases recently of mobile devices being used to help gather people for protests and the like. despite the potential of the devices, there is more required than access to a new technology. as otieno notes, “the reality of widespread poverty, language barriers, and cost issues” are important to remember when considering the use of mobile phones [11]. wasserman also warns that access to mobile devices does not explicitly entail increased participation: discourses around mobile phones make an interpretive leap from access figures to speculation about the impact of mobile phones on democracy and development without examining context [12, p150]. however, there are a number of recent examples in africa of the use of mobile phones to increase participation. ushahidi, is such an example. ushahidi, meaning “testimony” in swahili, was designed to “harness the benefits of crowdsourcing information (using a large group of people to report on a story) and facilitate the sharing of information in an environment where rumours and uncertainty were dominant” [13]. this webpage was developed after the post-election violence in kenya, when a wave of censorship of mobile phones for increasing public participation in local government td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 241-259. 243 information in the media was felt. the ushahidi platform has been successfully used across a number of different countries around the world. as stated by wasserman, technologies such as ushahidi are successful for “amplifying a brief political campaign or event but less successful in ensuring ‘ongoing and higher levels of accountability’” [12, p152]. however, as also noted by wasserman, “the surveillance of government also has to happen in between the ‘ritual of elections’… through ongoing social movement and civil society campaigns” [12, p152]. this gap is where mobisam is situated, particularly focusing on ongoing accountability and citizen monitoring outside of electoral cycles. mobisam is a 3 and a half year, ford foundation funded research project investigating the use of mobile phones for increasing citizen participation in local government. at the time of writing this report, the project was mid-way through a pilot project where a local municipality in south africa, makana municipality (located in the eastern cape province), uses mobisam to increase citizen participation around the area of service delivery. this paper presents a critical discussion on the current use of technology and participation in local government. it describes the results of a baseline study undertaken in a small town in south africa, to empirically investigate how residents are currently using technology and participating with local government around the area of service delivery. it draws from these findings to propose the design of mobisam, a mobile phone based polling and reporting framework intended to increase citizen participation in local government. 2. context this section provides some contextual information on south africa, and then the makana municipality. this is followed by some background on the mobisam project. 2.1 south africa with the new democratic dispensation in 1994, the state’s new constitution and commitment to human rights were entrenched in its bill of rights. the south african constitution is widely recognized as one of the most progressive in the world, as it guarantees both civil liberties and socio-economic rights [14]. the constitution gives the responsibility to government to provide housing, sanitation and basic services for all [15]. the reality is far different to what is promised in the constitution, particularly for the country’s poorest citizens. prominent commentators have attributed this lack of delivery of basic services across the population to a lack of accountability at local government level, particularly with respect to a lack of public participation [14]. more recently pravin gordon, the minister for co-operative governance & traditional affairs noted that the main problems faced by local government in south africa are “a communication breakdown between councils and citizens; no accountability; political interference in administrations; corruption; fraud; bad management; violent service delivery protests; factionalism; and depleted municipal capacity” [16, p1]. according to statistics sa [17] there are three national poverty lines by which levels of poverty are measured; the food poverty line (fpl), the lower-bounded poverty line (lbpl) and the upper-bounded poverty line (ubpl). the fpl is the “level of consumption below which individuals are unable to purchase sufficient food to provide them with an adequate diet” [17]. the lbpl includes non-food items but requires that individuals sacrifice food items in order to obtain them, while the ubpl individual is able to purchase both sufficient food and non-food items. according to statistics sa [17], the lbpl for march 2011 was thinyane, siebörger & reynell 244 r443 per month and the fpl for the same period was r321 per month. furthermore, according to stats sa, 45.5% of south africans in 2011 were considered poor and living in poverty [17]. in contrast to these levels of poverty, south africa’s municipal bill is amongst the most expensive in the world, with nearly 12% of gdp spent on wages for civil servants [18]. in the past four years, the growth in salaries of government employees has surpassed increases in all other state spending. despite the high levels of poverty 88.9% of south african households contain at least one working cellular phone [19]. furthermore, 16.3% of south africans have access to the internet via their mobile phones (the largest method of internet access by south africans) [19]. furthermore, duncan found that in informal settlements, where some of the poorest of the south african population live, residents spent up to one quarter of their income buying airtime for their pay as you go (prepaid) mobile phones; this money is spent on mobile phone charges instead of food [20]. we would argue that this is an indicator of the importance of access to communication channels for the poor, while acknowledging that in order to achieve true universal access the needs and limitations of the poor also need to be considered when designing mobile applications. 2.2. makana municipality makana municipality is situated in the eastern cape, one of south africa’s poorest provinces. the 4,375 km2 municipality is home to an estimated 80 389 people or 21 388 households [21]. the area experiences a high unemployment rate (63.4%) and low levels of education (39.2% of makana residents have received primary level education or none at all) [21]. the result is that 55.5% of makana residents, in 2011, live below the poverty line [21] (defined by statistics south africa as earning less than r801 per month [21], which equates to the earning bracket above the ubpl). the number of south africans in total at the same time living below the poverty line was 45.5% [17]. efforts to alleviate poverty are hampered by a sluggish economy and there is an increasing dependency on social grants, with 45.5% of the total makana population receiving some form of government grant in 2011 [22] (compared with approximately 29% of the national population receiving some form of government grant in 2011 [17]). this places a significant burden on the municipality, particularly in delivering basic services. according to the municipal systems act, a municipality is responsible for (amongst other things) municipal health services; municipal roads; sanitation; electricity reticulation; potable water; refuse removal, refuse dumps and solid waste disposal; child care facilities; and, local tourism [23]. despite a r266 million budget in 2009/10 [24], only 21% of makana residents have access to potable water and only 35% to sanitation [25]. the municipality was ranked as the third worst performing municipality in the eastern cape province in 2011, with 2,507 instances of misspending (r19.8 million ), making up 9% of the total misspending in the province [26, 27]. the supreme audit institution (in south africa called the auditor-general, or ag) has repeatedly found the municipality unable to adequately account for the use of public resources. in 2011/2012, the ag could not obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to support over r48 million of municipal expenditure [28]. this was the fourth successive disclaimer that makana had received [29], meaning that the auditor-general could not obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence for municipal mobile phones for increasing public participation in local government td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 241-259. 245 expenditure. consequently makana was named in the top five of worst-run municipalities in south africa in 2012, with massive mis-expenditure and poor leadership. in 2012 the ag found that the municipality was in over r20 million in debt, and there was irregular, unauthorized, and wasteful expenditure of over r60 million [30]. at the end of 2012, both the municipal manager and chief financial officer were removed from their posts and legally charged with misconduct [30]. at the end of 2013, the new municipal manager and the strategic manager in the mayor’s office were suspended pending an investigation into the fraudulent acquisition of a r3 million payout. furthermore, in 2014 a report, referred to as the kabuso report was released which named a number of senior municipal officials in alleged financial and management irregularities [31]. the situation in makana municipality is comparable to most local municipalities across south africa, where “local government capacities are in short supply and financial sustainability is frequently in doubt. this hampers total government ability to perform traditional functions such as service delivery and regulation, collecting rates, user charges and fees” [32, p137]. this is not a problem that is unique to south africa, but has been demonstrated on numerous occasions and across a number of different contexts. a recent cross-country, empirical evaluation found similar evidence across developing countries around the world [33]. 2.3. mobisam three methods of m-government have been identified, namely: supplement, expand, and innovate [34]. the first method, supplement, may be defined as mobile tools which include an additional channel to supplement the way that government services are currently provided. an example of this would be in south korea, where the e-government services have been expanded by adding wireless portals and interfaces to access existing e-services [35]. the second method, expand, help to extend the reach of traditional government services, so as to include previously underserved citizens. healthline, a telephonic service offering medical advice to citizens in bangladesh, provides an example of expanding traditional e-government reach [36]. the service reduces the need to travel to clinics and waiting in health centre queues. the third and final method, innovate, are mobile tools which are used to “develop new services for service delivery and governance” [34, p88]. the mobisam system falls into the third category, aiming to enable innovative ways for local government to interact with and involve citizens. mobisam consists of two separate yet equally important components. on the one side is the sam methodology, which provides a way of engaging meaningfully with governments’ service delivery processes. the second component is the proposed mobile polling application that allows municipalities to collect, collate, and visualize information [37]. developed by the centre for social accountability at rhodes university, the social accountability monitoring (sam) methodology is a “rights-based and evidence-based framework for understanding and participating in government service delivery processes” [37, p174]. sam is a rigorous methodology that tracks the phases of the municipal financial cycle: planning and allocation of resources, expenditure and implementation; accountability to oversight. the proposed mobisam application will be a framework that allows questions to be posed by the municipality, and to be made available to registered users who can answer them either thinyane, siebörger & reynell 246 on their mobile phone or a desktop computer. furthermore, we intend for residents to be able to report problems with service delivery using any one of the following: sms; native mobile applications; mobi-site for use in mobile internet browser; and facebook. to this end, we proposed and undertook a baseline study within the makana municipality to better understand how many residents have access to mobile phones, how they currently use those mobile phones and how they currently interact (if at all) with the local municipality. it is intended that media practitioners be included in mobisam as key partners in the process. the media are believed to play a key role in increasing participation and dialogue between a municipality and its citizens as they provide a space for the dialogue to be held, and can follow up on issues stemming from the data generated through the use of the mobisam framework. 3. research design in this section we discuss the research design of the baseline study undertaken in makana municipality, focusing on the study participants (section 3.1), the survey tools (section 3.2) employed and our methods and analysis (section 3.3). 3.1. participants grahamstown is the largest city within the borders of the makana municipality, and the site from which this baseline study was conducted. grahamstown citizens represent a microcosm of life in south africa. according to the 2011 census results for grahamstown, of the more than 50000 citizens, 72.78% described themselves as “black african”, 14.29% as “coloured”, 11.22% as “white” and 0.94% as “indian/asian” [38]. while the split in terms of gender in the city is 52.61% female and 47.39% male [38]. the results for entire of south africa in the same census were, 79.2% south african residents described themselves as “black african”, 8.9% as “coloured”, 8.9% as “white” and 2.5% as “indian/asian” [19]. nationally, gender results are female 51.7% and male 48.2% [39]. despite the validity of the 2011 census results being called into question [40, 41], it was decided to try and match the race and gender demographics of the 2011 census as closely as possible in our baseline study. as such we used stratified sampling with simple random sampling within each strata (race and gender demographics), in order to obtain as representative a sample as possible. in order to achieve this participation was solicited in public areas across grahamstown. one hundred and five (n=105) grahamstown citizens took part in our baseline study. of our sample group, 73.33% described themselves as “black african”, 10.48% as “coloured”, 12.38 as “white” and 3.81% as “indian/asian”. participants in the study were limited to those 18 years and older and fell into the age groups reflected in table 1. of the participants, 51.43%% were female and 48.54% were male. table 1: age groups and percentage of participants that fell into each group age group percentage 18 – 30 years old 40% 31 – 45 years old 26.67% 4660 years old 28.57% over 60 years old 4.76% mobile phones for increasing public participation in local government td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 241-259. 247 3.2. survey a four page questionnaire was developed, consisting of three sections: demographic information; mobile phone usage; and service delivery satisfaction and current participation. the first section consisted of nine questions which solicited information such as race, gender, education, employment status, and monthly income. the second section consisted of sixteen questions soliciting feedback on mobile phone ownership, and current usage. these included questions about ownership or access to mobile phones, network choice, amount spent weekly on mobile airtime, and the use of applications on mobile devices. the final section consisted of fifteen questions soliciting feedback on the way that residents feel that services are currently delivered by the municipality, as well as their current ways of participating with local government. the section also examined participants’ engagement with traditional news channels (newspaper and radio). questions pertaining to residents’ current ways of participating with local government were informed by the citizen scorecard developed by the african centre for citizenship and democracy [42]. some questions asked as part of the questionnaire was outside of the scope of this paper so will not be described further. 3.3. method and analysis ethics approval was sought and granted from rhodes university for this study to be undertaken. after approval was obtained, two researchers began the process of identifying participants who were needed for the strata outlined in section 3.1. participants were approached in july and august 2014 from a number of different areas in grahamstown: communal areas in the township; common areas near the assumption development centre (also in the township2); pedestrians walking down main roads in grahamstown; and by referral from existing participants. once a resident agreed to participate in the study, a consent form was signed. the questionnaire described in section 3.2 was completed orally, with the researcher questioning and transcribing participants’ responses. in the process of piloting this questionnaire, this was found to be quicker than asking participants to complete the form themselves. although the questionnaire was only available in english, interviews were conducted in either english or isixhosa, as directed by the participant. this was done to ensure that written literacy levels did not interfere with the accuracy of the results obtained. once completed, questionnaire responses were captured electronically and analyzed using microsoft excel. 2 the term township in the south african context refers to, typically underdeveloped, urban area that was reserved for non-whites during the apartheid era. they are typically located on the outskirts of towns or cities. while non-whites are no longer forced to live in townships, townships remain typically populated by poor, non-white south africans. thinyane, siebörger & reynell 248 4. results this section describes the results of the study, with the results of the demographics section, use of technology section and current participation section described separately. across all results, responses are classified into the following race groups: white, indian/asian, black african/coloured. these combinations are performed for historical reasons as they refer to the classifications used in the former dispensation. although apartheid has long since passed, these classifications are used in order to determine the ongoing inequalities experienced in south africa. 4.1 demographics participants were asked about their levels of monthly income, 31.43% said they had no income, 5.71% earned between r1-r400; 4.76% between r401-r800; 15.24% between r801-r1600; 11.43% between r1601-r3200; 17.14% between r3201-r6400; 4.76% between r6401-r12800; 7.62% r12801 or more; and 1.9% were unsure of their monthly income. in addition, we asked about their levels of education, of the 105 participants, 13.33% only had primary school; 21.9% had some high school education; 34.29% had a matric (pass from the final year in high school); 2.86% had a technikon or college diploma; and 27.62% had a university education. employment status across our sample group also varied, 25.71% described themselves as students; 6.41% were part-time employed; 39.72% were full-time employed; 3.4% were selfemployed; 2.82% had temporary employment; 4.68% said that they were temporarily unemployed; 3.55% were retired; and lastly, 11.31% were unemployed. the preferred language of each participant was asked, we found that 56.19% preferred isixhosa; 39.05% english, 2.86% afrikaans, 0.95% isizulu, and 0.95% other. literacy levels in the preferred language of the participants were gauged: 98.1% were able to read in their preferred language, while 97.14% were able to write in their preferred language. 4.2 use of technology from the findings derived from the survey of grahamstown residents, we were able to answer seven key questions worth highlighting here. these were: • “how many respondents own a mobile phone?”; • “how many respondents have access to a mobile phone?”; • “how do respondents pay for the use of their mobile phones?”; • “what is the average expenditure on mobile phones per earning bracket?”; • “which do respondents value more, sms, data or voice?”; • “which online data services do they use?”; and • “how often do respondents make use of the online data services?”. the answers to each of these seven questions are detailed below. mobile phones for increasing public participation in local government td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 241-259. 249 figure 1: (a) top five brands of mobile devices and (b) mobile operating system of the 105 respondents, 95.24% have access to a mobile phone – 90.48% own their own phones, while 4.76% have access to a shared mobile phone. this means that in our study, only 4.76% have no access to a mobile phone. figure 1(a) provides an overview of the brands of mobile phones that participants own, and the number and percentage (n=95 respondents who owned their own phone) of each of the top five brands. the survey sought information regarding the make and model of participants’ mobile phones, so that researchers could determine the mobile operating system, as well as to determine other technical specifications of the devices3. in some cases even though exact make and models were captured, no specific operating system was specified online for handsets. in other cases the phone operating system was simply referred to as “proprietary”. in these cases, the results were grouped together, with a distinction instead made on support for java: no java support; midp 2.0; and midp 2.1. as can be seen in figure 1(b) the most popular brands of operating system are android, blackberry, ios, and windows mobile. the nokia handsets (36.84% of the mobile devices – see figure 1 (a)) make up part of the following segments: proprietary os with java midp 2.1, proprietary os with java midp 2.0, or proprietary os with no java. this split was included to obtain a better understanding of the capabilities of the wide range of nokia devices that were prevalent in the study. devices that are included in the “unknown” category are those where not enough information was provided to determine the technical specification of the device. when collecting information from participants, investigators helped to determine the make and model of the device when participants were unsure of it themselves. in the case of “unknown” being recorded, either: the device was not with the 3 the gsmarena website was used for most makes / models of handsets (www.gsmarena.com). in the case that the phone specifications were not available on this site, a simple google search was used. thinyane, siebörger & reynell 250 participant, and the participant was unsure of the model so only the make could be recorded; the device was with the participant but the model number could not be located. of the respondents, only 72 (n=72) were able to identify both the make and model of the mobile phones they owned or had access to. thus, we were only able to derive the phone communication capabilities from those 72 respondents. of the identified phones, 59.72% were wifi enabled; 91.67% were bluetooth enabled; 23.61% had built in near field communication (nfc) capabilities; 100% were capable of 2g communication; 56.94% of 3g communication; 13.89% of 4g (lte) communication; 51.39% had gps capabilities; 15.28% were capable of infrared communication; 90.28% were capable of usb communication and lastly, 69.44% had built in fm radios (as can be seen in figure 2). as previously discussed, 10 of the 105 participants did not own their own phone. a further two more respondents chose not to answer the question regarding how they paid for the use of their mobile phone. as such, the total number of respondents who answered regarding the type of payment method they use with respect to their mobile phone was 93. of the 93 participants who answered, 83.87% indicated that they made use of the prepaid method to pay for airtime, sms and data use on their mobile phones. the remaining 16.13% indicated that they were on mobile phone contracts as their method of paying for the voice, sms and data services that they consume on their devices. figure 2: communication capabilities of known mobile phones in the survey, respondents were asked to indicate in which earning bracket they fell on a monthly basis (based on similar brackets given in the 2011 national census). in addition, we asked them to indicate how much money they spent weekly on prepaid airtime (indicate into which bracket they fell) or on their monthly contract. we were then able to extrapolate weekly airtime expenditure over the period of a month (roughly four weeks) and correlate that to the earning bracket of each respondent. we did this by grouping the respondents together who chose the same earning brackets and then calculated the mode of expenditure for prepaid respondents and the average monetary costs of contract respondents. the results of this can be seen in table 2. in some cases where there was no mode for the prepaid brackets per earning bracket we chose the lowest common denominator in terms of mobile phones for increasing public participation in local government td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 241-259. 251 expenditure. note that empty cells in the level of expenditure column for contract participants reflect that there was no one who fell into this category (rather than an expenditure of r0). it is interesting to note that participants who rated their level of income as “no income” still had a way to purchase airtime. on closer examination of the results, 66.7 % of those who said they had no income were also students, so it can be assumed that someone else was paying for their monthly mobile airtime. the remaining 33.3% described themselves as temporarily unemployed. table 2: monthly income verses expenditure on mobile airtime prepaid contract level of income monthly mobile airtime level of income monthly mobile airtime i don't know more than r16 i don't know no income less than r5 no income r 277.25 r1 r400 r5 r15 r1 r400 r401 r800 r5 r15 r401 r800 r801 r1600 r5 r15 r801 r1600 r1601 r3200 more than r30 r1601 r3200 r 240.00 r3201 r6400 r5 r15 r3201 r6400 r6401 r12800 r5 r15 r6401 r12800 r12801 or more r16 r30 r12801 or more r 487.50 we asked participants to rank the level of importance of data, voice and sms services offered by the mobile phone. they were ranked as most important (most), moderately important (mod) and least important (least). answers are reflected in table 3, where we can see that overall, data was ranked as the most important feature by each of the race groups and across male respondents. while female respondents ranked data and voice as equally most important. the blank space in the sms field for indian/asian participants is as a result of there being no mode for the ranking of sms amongst this demographic of participants. this was not surprising, as there were only four indian/asian participants who chose to take part in the study. table 3: data vs sms vs voice all female male w i/a ba/c data most most most most most most sms mod mod least least mod voice mod most mod mod mod most participants were asked two questions about the services they use on their mobile phones. firstly they were asked to select the messaging services that they currently use, and then thinyane, siebörger & reynell 252 asked to select any other services they used on their mobile phones. the results of these two questions are summarized in table 4. table 4: use of messaging service and other services female male w i/a ba/c sms 69% 80% 92% 75% 72% whatsapp 56% 76% 92% 75% 61% bbm (blackberry) 2% 16% 8% 50% 7% mxit 13% 20% 0% 0% 19% facebook 46% 76% 92% 50% 57% news 19% 33% 69% 25% 19% twitter 13% 29% 38% 25% 18% e-mail 19% 41% 77% 75% 20% wikipedia 7% 27% 46% 0% 14% from table 4 it can be seen that sms is the most popular messaging service and facebook (see figure 3 (a)) as the most popular service across all gender and race groups. figure 3: (a) data services accessed by respondents; (b) frequency of accessing online data services of the 105 respondents, only 92 answered the question regarding how often they made use of the above data services. from figure 3 (b) we can see that the majority of respondents 0,00% 10,00% 20,00% 30,00% 40,00% 50,00% 60,00% 70,00% 46,74% 22,83% 2,17% 28,26% at least once a day a few times a week a few times a month never mobile phones for increasing public participation in local government td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 241-259. 253 accessed their data services at least once per day, while a little more than a quarter never made use of any online data services. 4.3 current participation participants were asked how they currently participate with local government in the area of service delivery. in answer to the question “have you ever made a complaint to your local municipality”, 58.1% of all participants stated that they had complained (total responses for this question is 105, n=61). table 5 describes the results when analyzing the ways that people chose to complain by gender and race. in the “other” category, one participant stated that he used facebook to report a problem to the municipality. table 5: methods of complaint to municipality all female male white i / a ba / c petition 25% 23% 27% 80% 0% 20% spoke to municipality 46% 42% 50% 20% 100% 46% phoned municipality 7% 13% 0% 0% 0% 7% ward councillor 20% 19% 20% 0% 0% 22% letter 2% 3% 0% 0% 0% 2% other 2% 0% 3% 0% 0% 2% when considering responses by gender, both female and male participants preferred to speak in person to people at the municipality. anecdotally, this could be seen to be as a result of municipal officials seldomly answering the phone at their offices. when analyzing by race, white residents showed a preference for signing petitions, with all other residents preferring to speak to someone in person at the municipality. table 6: participation in protest action all female male w i/a ba/c yes 39% 45% 33% 15% 25% 44% no 61% 55% 67% 85% 75% 56% the next question asked if residents had participated in a protest or demonstration within the last 12 months. one respondent did not answer this question (n=104). as shown in table 6, 39% of all respondents said that they had participated. when analyzing by gender, females participated more often than males. interestingly there is a large split in participation between races, with white and indian/asian respondents participating on average far less than their black african/coloured counterparts. furthermore, we asked the participants whether they were satisfied or not with the basic services (electricity, water, sanitation, refuse removal, parks and recreation facilities, and roads and sidewalks) supplied by the municipality. a summary of the results can be seen in table 7. from table 7 it can be seen that the majority of participants were satisfied with the levels of service around electricity, refuse removal and sanitation. however, the majority of participants were not satisfied regarding the levels of service surrounding water, parks and recreational facilities and roads and sidewalks. thinyane, siebörger & reynell 254 table 7: levels of satisfaction regarding municipal services amongst participants municipal service satisfied not satisfied unsure no response electricity 82.86% 17.14% water 16.19% 83.81% refuse removal 73.33% 26.67% sanitation 61.9% 35.24% 1.9% 0.96% parks and recreation facilities 20.95% 74.29% 4.76% roads and sidewalks 21.9% 78.1% another question asked residents how much agency they believed they had to change the system. one respondent chose not to answer this question (n=104). table 8 provides a summary of the results of this question. as illustrated in the table, over half of all participants believed they could make “some” or “a great deal” of difference to improve the situation in local government. when we consider the results by gender, males responded more negatively (“nothing”) to the question, but also higher to the positive response (“a great deal”). table 8: perceived amount of agency to effect change all female male w i/a ba/c nothing 10% 6% 16% 31% 25% 7% a small amount 33% 33% 33% 54% 25% 31% some 26% 31% 20% 8% 0% 30% a great deal 28% 26% 29% 0% 25% 32% i don't know 3% 4% 2% 8% 25% 1% interestingly, white participants responded more negatively than any other race groups, with 85% of respondents saying an individual could make no change or “a small amount”. 5. discussion while the constitution of south africa mandates that local governments provide basic services such as water, sanitation, electricity, refuse removal, etc. many of these tasks are not being fulfilled [43]. as a result, citizen response often takes the form of strike action and protest (south africa has been called the “protest capital of the world” [44, p1] and has recorded as many as 900+ protests in a single calendar year [45]), which do not typically result in meaningful, long lasting change [45]. in grahamstown, results from the base line study indicate that the majority of citizens surveyed were dissatisfied with the level of service with regards to the provision of water, parks and recreational facilities and roads and sidewalks. however, only 58.1% of respondents had formally laid a complaint with the municipality; 39.05% of the 105 respondents were both dissatisfied and had never bothered to make a complaint to someone in their municipality. this is not surprising when one considers the responses from those surveyed regarding agency for change, in which 43% of respondents believed that they had little or no agency with which to effect change. however, local governments have been structured in such a way as to increase meaningful citizen participation by “placing more power and resources at a closer and more easily-influenced level of government” [32, p136]. the key to successful public involvement is to ensure the “meaningful, informed, and mobile phones for increasing public participation in local government td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 241-259. 255 effective participation” of citizens in government processes [37, p170]. it is important to note thought that adequate mechanisms and skills are required in order to hold service providers accountable for their performance (or lack thereof). this is where the sam methodology (see section 0) assists; it is a mechanism that has been used to hold service providers accountable for their performance in many southern african development community (sadc) countries [37]. that said, in its current form, the sam methodology is conducted via the post-hoc, primarily desk-based analysis of government documents. we are thus proposing that this process may be further enhanced through real-time feedback from the public, via their mobile phones. from the results of our survey with the grahamstown community, we saw that 90% of those surveyed owned their own phone, while a further 5% had access to a phone that they could make use of. this, together with data from organizations such as the nielson group which reports cellular phone penetration rates of 76% [4] in south africa, further strengthen the idea to use mobile phones to support citizens communicating with their local municipalities around service delivery. with this in mind, the application needs to adhere to the following specifications (according to the results of the survey performed amongst the grahamstown citizens): • the application should be available for android, ios, blackberry, windows and java based handsets in order to cater for at least 82% of the available handsets used by citizens. • the application should be available in english, isixhosa and afrikaans, in order to cater for the preferred language of 98.1% of those surveyed. • while data was highly ranked in terms of importance amongst the majority of people surveyed, more than a quarter of people surveyed never made use of data services and only 60% of known phones were capable of 3g or wifi communication. as such, in order to facilitate communication for as many citizens as possible, the application should provide an sms facility (in addition to the data usage) to allow citizens to report to and communicate with their local municipality. • considering that the majority of people surveyed earn r3200 or less per month, the application should be as conservative as possible on data usage in order to minimize expense in terms of airtime of citizens. this “mobile-enhanced” sam methodology will hopefully allow citizens to participate in local governance by giving them a direct means to interact with their municipality and express their needs and concerns. dialog could take the form of citizen satisfaction surveys, social auditing, the monitoring of service delivery, and reporting service delivery faults or outages. the project could see feedback and results published in a local newspaper on a regular basis, thus providing a formal dialogue between citizens and local government. 6. conclusion and future work the mobisam project aims to encourage meaningful citizen participation within local government matters, through evidence-based engagement. to this end we have conducted a base line survey of 105 citizens, detailed in this paper, within the city of grahamstown in the makana municipality (arguably a microcosm of life in south africa). findings suggest that grahamstown and makana municipality, like other municipalities across south africa, is plagued by service delivery short-comings. furthermore, local citizens do not typically feel empowered to effect change, despite the structure of local governments in south africa being thinyane, siebörger & reynell 256 such that power and resources are more closely situated to citizens such that they are able to more easily influence government. thus mobisam proposes to enhance the sam methodology by facilitating real-time feedback from the public, via their mobile phones. to this end, we propose the development of an application that will target as many mobile handsets, local languages, and usage patterns as possible, in order to maximize penetration and take up within local communities. thus, the future work of the project will focus on the application development and usability testing, with the aim of making it available to makana citizens as a pilot study. this paper also hopes to contribute to the growing body of knowledge around the use of mobile phones in developing countries, particularly with reference to endeavors to support citizen engagement with (local) government by employing evidence-based research initiatives. 7. acknowledgements our thanks to ford foundation for the generous funding that has supported this research. thanks also goes to debbie coulson for helping to develop the baseline study questions on service delivery satisfaction and current participation. 8. references [1] m. fernández-ardèvol, “mobile 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[online]. available: http://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-13-a-massive-rebellion-of-thepoor[accessed:24/01/2015 [45] s. booysen, “with the ballot and the brick: the politics of attaining service delivery,” progress in development studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 21–32, 2007. abstract intermezzo innovative research idea construct process meta-reflection acknowledgements references about the author(s) pieter du toit faculty of education, university of pretoria, south africa citation du toit, p., 2018, ‘reflecting on more than 20 years of involvement in a postgraduate higher education qualification for academics: may i dare use an auto-ethnographic lens?’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a481. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.481 original research reflecting on more than 20 years of involvement in a postgraduate higher education qualification for academics: may i dare use an auto-ethnographic lens? pieter du toit received: 06 oct. 2017; accepted: 03 may 2018; published: 03 dec. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract as a proponent of action research for more than 20 years, i reflect on my scholarship of higher education using an auto-ethnographic lens. the research reported focuses mainly on my facilitating of learning as a lecturer at the university of pretoria, one of the largest residential universities in south africa. through informal educational professional development i am involved in offering workshops to academic staff and become involved in complementing research projects. i am the coordinator of the postgraduate certificate in higher education (pgche), a mainstream educational professional development programme offered at the faculty of education. the objectives of the study are to make public my reflecting on my reflection, which forms part of my action research. i do this with a view to encouraging practitioners of action research to do the same. an action research spiral is executed, complemented by cycles of reflection. quantitative and qualitative data are collected. in this article the focus is on qualitative data. it comes in the form of narratives and visuals. the visuals include brain profiling. narratives are derived from student feedback. the underpinning epistemology is constructivism. by means of the action research teaching practice is enriched. a higher order of reflection is promoted – identified as scholarly meta-reflection. all scholars of higher education and action research should take a meta-level approach to reflecting on practice: within an action research paradigm – reflecting on reflection at a high level of scholarship. intermezzo my reflection on the educational professional development of academic staff includes some of my colleagues and myself. i focus on the educational professional development initiatives i have been involved in over more than 20 years. as the context is higher education, the professional development revolves around the responsibilities of academic staff in terms of their higher education practice – their responsibilities and professional roles (department of education 2000b) to be enacted and mine. my higher education practice at one of the largest research-intensive universities in south africa offering students the opportunity to enrol in programmes in nine faculties is the main focus. i use an auto-ethnographic lens. my practice is both formal and informal in nature. the formal entails a higher education postgraduate programme offered as a mainstream programme by the department of humanities education in the faculty of education. this qualification developed through a number of curriculum development iterations. first it was called a diploma in tertiary instruction. next a postgraduate diploma in higher education. this was followed by yet another renaming, alias the united kingdom (uk) model, currently known as the postgraduate certificate in higher education (pgche). and recently under a process of continuous curriculum development it reverted back to a postgraduate diploma in higher education. this qualification will most probably be offered as from 2018 to 2019. the pgche is often complemented by informal professional development initiatives. it includes short courses that are offered through the entity responsible for continuing education at the university, recently renamed. initially it was called continuing education at the university of pretoria (up) (ce@up); currently it is known as up enterprises. modules of the pgche are selected according to specific client needs. these modules are credit bearing. on successful completion of these modules a candidate may enrol for the remainder of the mainstream programme. in this way numerous lecturers from other universities or colleges for technical and vocational education and training have completed the pgche. after teaching at high school level for a short period of time, i decided to specialise in higher education. this led me to completing a master’s and phd in higher education, both at the university of pretoria. i joined the university, as i was offered a position as education consultant, taking responsibility for the educational professional development of academic staff in two faculties. following this, i joined a university of technology, at the time called a technikon, as deputy director responsible for academic staff development and research. i then was offered a position as lecturer at the faculty of education at my alma mater. in this article i journey through my professional career as a higher education practitioner and stop at some key points. i use my auto-ethnographic lens that is reflexive in nature to do so. this lens i am referring to can only be used by the self – me in this case, as is reflected in the word particle auto of the construct auto-ethnographic. the word particle ethno refers to a community – in my case a distinct community, namely a scholarly community of higher education practice. in other words, i am a scholar of higher education among other scholars of higher education. i can only be considered a scholar when other scholars, especially those from the same field of study, would value my work as scholarly. looking through this lens allows for reflecting on my professional past. questions such as the following come to mind: how would i introduce myself as an academic to another academic? how did i get into higher education? why would i consider myself as a leader in my field? these questions are implied in the ontological research question i refer to below and the entire narrative. in answering these questions my lens is also both reflexive and critical as adams and manning (2015) explain what an auto-ethnographer does. i follow a style of reporting true to my scholarly dna, which is less traditional. however, i do want researchers taking a more traditional approach to their research to engage with my work by referring to constructs they are familiar with such as research problem, research question, research design and conceptual framework – tinted in different shades. my breaking away from traditional ways of conducting and reporting research is based on a number of reasons. first and foremost, more often than not it is ‘tradition’ to report research using the third person style of writing. in doing so the researcher ‘becomes detached from the research’ conducted. this is my view, which resonates with the view of other advocates of action research – scholars of international standing. since i was a first-year student – one of the key points in my academic journey – it has been beyond my comprehension why i was forced to do the same. why write about something you had done but ‘distance’ yourself from it? of course, i realise that such a statement will be considered to be a generalisation – perhaps condemned. but none of my lecturers or professors or any scholar over many years could ever give me a justified explanation, except for: this is how it is done. this was the case until i met scholars of note such as jean mcniff and ortrun zuber-skerritt – another key point – whom i consider as my first mentors in true scholarship, advocating the emancipatory stance scholars should take by writing in first person. since that point in time i have had no mentor. in saying this – also a generalisation perhaps – i do not at all negate the fact that many professors, lecturers, colleagues and my students contributed to my professional development in different ways. yet ‘back home’ as i have started embarking on my journey of becoming a scholar in my own right, i have been bombarded by the one (traditional) way of doing research. i had to come up with numbers and graphs and the refrain in my mind echoed: ‘quantitative data’, ‘empirical research’, ‘empirical data’, ‘empirical study’, as if the real world and looking at and into it is only a quantitative cosmos. any other means of reporting that i found of value through my research, for example narratives, objects, photo evidence, reflective journals, were frowned upon and still are by some of my colleagues. and not using ‘traditional’ terms and not structuring research reports in the same way as others do, by using headings such as ‘problem statement’, ‘rationale’, ‘purpose’, ‘aim’, ‘objectives’, made me an ‘other’. breaking away from a single, preferred, proposed, expected way of conducting research – a limitation in terms of unleashing my potential – was emancipatory. and it was this emancipatory experience that i wished and still wish for my students. i experience my students – lecturers specialising in an array of fields of study, such as medicine, veterinary science, accounting, engineering, who are familiar with and used to doing traditional research – to be quite hesitant when i expect them to do a self-enquiry study or action research of teaching practice. they would frown upon my expectation that they write in the first person, that they realise that research that includes preand post-tests as is to be found in comparative studies is not a necessity when one researches one’s own teaching practice. expecting an engineer, an accountant or a veterinary practitioner to write a poem about how they would like to conduct research, or to enrich a theoretical framework, is quite daunting. however, challenging them to do so, to think out of their comfort zone of explaining their research design, and rather have them write a poem on action research, they become creative, non-traditional researchers. evidence of writing such poems as a scholarly act is to be found in poems published in de boer et al. (2013) and readers for students (du toit 2017). another reason for opting out of the traditional way of conducting research, which i consider a principal reason, is that i have to act as a transformational leader in higher education. in this endeavour, acting as a transformational scholar becomes evident. my scholarly discourse and narratives are in the first place tinted by writing in first person format as alluded to above. and, according to my thinking preferences as determined by means of the herrmann brain dominance instrument (hbdi®) (herrmann 1995, 1996; herrmann & herrmann-nehdi 2015) as another tint – making my lens multifocal – an auto-ethnographic lens and action research are a perfect fit. furthermore, what i cannot negate is the fact that over the past 20 years of reflecting political and historical tints are to be added to my lens. a new dispensation in the form of a new government changed the entire south african landscape – south african life – in all its dimensions, specifically in higher education, the latter being informed by the founding of a new department of higher education and training that previously did not exist. closer to home, working under the leadership of the very first black dean appointed in the faculty of education contributed to opening my eyes to an authentic south african society. an authentic world of work where i more and more have to rethink what i do from an african tint perspective. making way for diverse thinking in terms of higher education and including indigenous knowledge was initially a challenge until i realised that, honouring my education philosophy of socio-constructivism, all students, representing different cultures, were allowed to contribute to constructing the curriculum by means of constructing own meaning. they were to create their own practice theory because the application of different educational principles differs from one context to the next. referring to ‘students representing different cultures’ marks another key point in my academic journey. having mostly white students sitting in my class, working with the professional development of mostly white academics changed to working with students and academics from all cultures, especially africans. when reflecting on my contribution to higher education in general and specifically at my university – viewing myself as a leader – it is not at all meant to be a case of academic arrogance. i do so simply because one of the roles of a lecturer (department of education 2000b) and an attribute of the 21st century (du toit 2017) expects all citizens to contribute to building the nation as leaders. i consider my leadership as multilayered and transformational. from a hierarchical, organogram point of view i progressed from a lecturer teaching on the programme, to senior lecturer assigned the responsibility of taking a leadership position as programme coordinator of the pgche. at structural level, i enacted my leadership role in curriculum development. i enacted this role in revising the curriculum to a qualification well known by academics at the university. academics who enrolled in the programme and others who would attend short courses linked to the programme. at a practice level i endeavour to take a leadership position as a role model to my students – transforming my practice, with the intention of observing them transforming theirs. realising that my students implement what they have learnt on the programme in their practices gives me a sense of satisfaction regarding the contribution i have made and am still making to creating opportunities for professional development that will be emancipatory – allowing them to transform themselves. proof of their transformation is evident in articles they publish and their presentations at conferences. and personal feedback or emails of claims they make of acting as transformational leaders in class – owing to attending the pgche: some are mentioned below. my leadership is educational in my world of work. my students’ leadership is educational and an attribute of the 21st century as it is to be enacted in their specific context – their world of work. our respective worlds of work differ in the sense that i am from the department of humanities education in the faculty of education, specifically from the division of higher education and professional development; they are from other faculties, which focus on other fields of specialisation. at a scholarly level, my leadership takes, inter alia, the form of editorship. at national level i have acted as guest editor of a journal focusing on higher education: the south african journal of higher education. at international level i have acted as editor of the alarpm journal, published in australia: the action learning action research and process management journal. another example of my leadership responsibility enacted is by conducting workshops on action research. this is done at a local and international level. for example, i have conducted such workshops at the university of nottingham in the uk and the university of tübingen in germany. this is apart from the numerous conference papers that are proof of leader-scholarship. in the past my colleagues and i were at times confronted by the leadership of our faculty, being asked: what is your international standing? this is quite an intrapersonal question that only i can answer. innovative research idea i use the construct innovative research idea instead of the traditional problem statement. i do so as i follow an asset-based approach (du toit 2016a) to self-enquiry. i consider the self as the most important asset in any educational setting – human capital that forms the epicentre of professionalism, with thinking preferences as attributes of any professional as asset. as alluded to in the introduction section i considered myself as such a professional and still do. the status of my professionalism, however, has transcended from just being a professional by name to being a professional in action. it was a rebirthing (du toit & van zyl 2006). i came from a theoretical space where one was ‘investigated’ from a distance by others. more often than not by my superiors and external examiners and panels of scholars responsible for external auditing of my programme – to an authentic space of self-enquiry. the ‘others’ now have become the ‘self’. instead of asking research questions that would force me to do as the others did, i ask ontological and epistemological questions from an intrapersonal point of view. the construct intrapersonal as part of both my ontological and epistemological stance is derived from the work of herrmann (1995, 1996), gardner (1993), de boer et al. (2013), de boer, du toit and bothma (2015) and slabbert, de kock and hattingh (2009). being self-smart is the construct gardner (1993) uses, which he aligns with intrapersonal intelligence. this means of being intelligent is integral to auto-ethnography, action research, self-enquiry and reflexive practice. intrapersonal suggests reflecting from within and asking about self-knowing and how one comes to know and thinking about one’s knowing and getting to know. keeping this notion in mind i constantly have to ask myself: who am i as a scholarly higher education practitioner? this question intertwines the ontological and epistemological dimensions of my scholarly dna. in essence, self-enquiry, where self represents the ontological and enquiry represents the thinking about the self – the epistemological dimension. construct process being an advocate of action research and self-enquiry, constructivist thinking tints my way of conducting research. as a constructivist, i for some time battled with the shading of constructs commonly used, such as theoretical framework or conceptual framework. i recently came across a tinted version, namely conceptual argument, and another, conceptual canvas. i valued it as innovative and used it once. but soon i realised that it does not reflect the essence of the process of constructing new meaning. i tinted my meaning making as construct process. in doing so, the continuous process of meaning making is progressed, as the term framework per se is much too restricting. research – my research – as an authentic endeavour is frameless. it is the reporting that is restricting – as prescribed by universities, conference organisers or journals. as a constructivist and practitioner-researcher i allow myself the freedom of making new meaning. making new meaning is continuous and therefore the theoretical subsection is merged with the gathering and analysis of data. constructing meaning is a scholarly responsibility i have. i have to enact related competencies with a view to act as role model for my colleagues who are enrolled for the mainstream programme – my students. or colleagues who attend professional development opportunities i initiate, namely short courses or workshops. these initiatives complement the notion of an asset-based approach. this is in contrast to the use of the construct ‘intervention’ that is commonly used but that suggests a deficit-based approach. i acknowledge the fact that my meaning making in some cases involves my students or colleagues within a socio-constructivist context of professional development. this is evident in the numerous journal articles published or conference papers presented as co-authors. these research outputs are interdisciplinary in nature. they are a combination of my field of specialisation, namely higher education, and other fields of specialisation. examples include health sciences (van der wath & du toit 2015; wium et al. 2017; wolvaardt, cameron & du toit 2013; wolvaardt, lindeque & du toit 2016); arts and design (giloi & du toit 2013); management (wolvaardt & du toit 2012) and others. i wrote a reflective article on a head of department at the university who was enrolled on the pgche (du toit 2016a). a number of articles were published in collaboration with colleagues at the university and other universities who attended my workshops. one such example is lucas, dippenaar and du toit (2013). i experienced and still experience the value of scholarly communities of practice. the co-authorship of the articles listed attest to this. it should be noted that, because action research is more often than not collaborative in nature, co-authorship is inevitable. although my preference is for working as a member of a scholarly community of practice – as it relates to my thinking preferences as outlined in table 1 – single authorship has more and more become a prerequisite of evidence of scholarship by my university. i therefore often find myself constructing meaning on my own. this is where self-enquiry and auto-ethnography become integral to constructivism as the underpinning epistemology that complements my action research. the construct self-constructivism may be appropriate. table 1: qualitative feedback of postgraduate certificate in higher education students on my facilitating learning. self-regulated learning (knowles 1990), i argue, is a construct that i have to make authentic to my scholarship. in the context of higher education and the professional development of academic staff i prefer the constructs professional self-regulated learning and professional constructivist learning. this i do with a view to distinguish it from student learning. combining professional constructivism and professional self-regulated learning brings about a deeper understanding and appreciation of my scholarship and how relating processes of continual professional learning, as is evident in action research, are to play out. my action research over many years and my scholarly reflection (fringe 2013) in general over more than 20 years brought about the depth in terms of my reflection. constructivist curriculum development i came to realise that my scholarly reflection supports the claims i make (mcniff & whitehead 2006) of innovating and transforming my higher education practice. this practice is multidimensional. as both coordinator of the pgche and lecturer teaching on the programme i was and still am responsible for curriculum development, facilitating authentic learning (slabbert et al. 2009) and ensuring that i demonstrate other education values, such as authentic assessment. an example of my belief in constructivism was operationalised when the curriculum development of the module on research supervision, which is an elective of the pgche, commenced. a socio-constructivist approach was followed. as the students who were enrolled at the time were my colleagues at the same university where i am employed, my challenge to them was to design the module themselves. they had to implement the prescribed curriculum development model of the university (malan & du toit 1991) used for many years. they had to formulate the learning outcomes they would have wanted to achieve. they had to decide on the different study units and the assessment opportunities that would have promoted authentic professional learning. as a scholarly community of practice they had to study relevant literature. they collaborated as scholars within professional cooperative learning groups. a study manual – a document that communicates the curriculum to students in the format prescribed by the university – was developed. as the lecturer responsible for the module i monitored the process. however, my intention was that professional self-regulated learning be operationalised. my role was to play a facilitative role in terms of their constructing of meaning. i acted as co-member of the scholarly community of practice and co-constructed a new meaning of research supervision. what they had to include was a list of contextualised so-called critical cross-field outcomes (department of education 2000a). the list includes the following: critically reflect on your supervision practice and complementary professional development and use a variety of strategies to learn more effectively how to improve your practice. identify and solve problems you encounter in your supervision practice in an accountable way, using critical and creative thinking. work with other colleagues or peers as a member of a supervision team (co-supervision) to develop your supervision skills. collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information regarding your own supervision practice. communicate effectively as supervisor using visual and verbal language skills. these competencies fit the authentic assessment opportunities that are used to determine to what extent the colleagues (my students) are able to make claims of developing as supervisors. and claims of developing scholarship of supervision. for this purpose they have to execute action research on their supervision practice. the outcome of the action research and self-reflection should be reported in the form of a draft conference paper or a draft journal article. the module on research supervision consists of the following study units: managing research supervision, facilitative supervision, assessing theses and dissertations and disseminating research outcomes. assessment includes assessing a research proposal in written and oral format; informal assessment of drafts of chapters; progress reports; assessment of a final dissertation or thesis and external examination; and finally an oral examination in the case of phd studies. disseminating research outcomes includes the final dissertation or thesis, publications and conference presentations. an innovative approach to supervision was followed. for example, principles of innovative means of facilitating learning – in this case the learning of postgraduate students – were applied to the context of research supervision. many of the principles form part of the module on facilitating learning. it was for the first time that the principles of thinking preferences were included in the study unit facilitative supervision. so far i have not come across any such a module at any other university that includes this as part of supervision. for this purpose the work of herrmann (1995, 1996) is used. i would like to demonstrate this innovation by means of a case study from my supervision practice. applying the principles of thinking preferences in my supervision practice was transformative. my experience of the value of herrmann’s work inevitably informed my research supervision. i realise that my specific modes of thinking should be married to my students’ modes of thinking. for the purpose of determining these modes of thinking, profiling is done by means of the hbdi. such a profile is referred to as a brain profile. in some cases my profile and the profile of the student i am supervising are similar. in other cases my profile and the student’s profile are opposites. i refer to the latter as the perfect mismatch. in cases like these it is important to take note of the fact that my thinking preferences and the preferences of my student complement one another. in cases where my profile and my student’s profile are similar it is important to note that there are other modes of thinking – which both of us may avoid – that need to be included in a supervision practice. if organising is not one of my student’s preferred modes of thinking he or she most probably would have problems with managing his or her progress in terms of executing their research. as i do not have a preference for organising, both of us need to realise that monitoring the student’s progress, setting dates for submission of drafts or making appointments on a regular basis are aspects to be acutely aware of, as the university expects students to finish within a given time limit. as an example i give an adapted version of the preferences and avoidances (smit & du toit 2016) that my profile reflects and the same for one of my master’s students with a similar profile. as a supervisor with a high preference for experimenting with innovative ideas and people-orientated aspects i prefer to make supervision sessions ‘fun’ for my students; to create opportunities for both of us to participate in a spontaneous fashion; to make them ‘playful’, with surprising approaches to supervision; to work with visual representations, metaphors and overviews, discovering new meaning; to provide freedom to explore new ways of supervising postgraduate students and designing and executing research projects; to encourage a quick pace and variety in supervision format; to provide the opportunity to experiment with innovative ideas regarding supervision. what i most probably struggle with or would avoid are the following: keeping up with administration pertaining to supervising a student; detail necessary for documenting progress during the supervision; lack of flexibility. the student that i use as respondent 1 (r1) in this case has the same preferences and avoidances as me. in relation to my preferences in terms of being people-orientated i prefer the following: (group) discussion and involvement during supervision sessions; sharing and expressing feelings and ideas with the student i supervise and other students; being offered opportunities for hands-on supervision; personal connection with the student; emotional involvement; creating a user-friendly supervision experience for my student; using all my senses during supervision. what i may struggle with includes the following: too much data given by the student or too much data (information) expected in terms of administrative processes, procedures and forms; lack of personal feedback from the student. the following example represents a case of one of my phd students, respondent 2 (r2), with a profile that is opposite to mine. she prefers precise, to-the-point information from me as supervisor and the administration office; theory and rationale for executing tasks; proof of validity; reading text – a thorough literature study; working with figures, numbers and data sets; quantitative research; expertise in a field of specialisation. what she may struggle with includes the following: expressing emotions during supervision or supervisor–student relationships; lack of logic during supervision sessions and argumentation; communication of vague, imprecise concepts or ideas during supervision sessions. in addition she prefers an organised, consistent approach during supervision sessions; that i honour her staying on track and on time; that i work with examples; to receive clear instructions from me; clear expectations. what she may struggle with are aspects such as taking risks; experimenting with innovative ideas; ambiguity; unclear expectations; directions from me as supervisor. this respondent and i formed a ‘team’ that offered both the opportunity for reciprocal learning and making the supervision process work for both of us. this brain profiling should be read in conjunction with the next subsection. in this section my preferred theory on thinking preferences is briefly outlined and a visual representation is given. in figure 1 my profile and the profiles of both students are represented as visuals. figure 1: visual representation of my thinking profile (b) and that of two students (a and c). brain profiling as the theory on thinking preferences – referred to as whole brain thinking (herrmann 1995, 1996) – forms an essential part of my teaching practice, i did profiling of a group of pgche students. their profiles are not represented as individual profiles. instead, all the profiles are combined as a composite whole. from figure 2 it can be deduced that the group of students have preferences in all four quadrants. with a view to inform the reader of the essence of the whole brain model, the following simple model is briefly explained. figure 2: metaphoric whole brain model. the model in figure 3 represents four quadrants: ‘in brief the a-quadrant (blue) mainly represents fact-based learning; the b-quadrant (green) sequential learning; the c-quadrant (red) emotive thinking and the d-quadrant (yellow) experimental and holistic learning’ (smit & du toit 2016). figure 3: composite group profile of a group of postgraduate certificate in higher education (pgche) students. another way of portraying similar data is evident in figure 4. it shows the average profile of a different group of pgche students. figure 4: average profile of a group of postgraduate certificate in higher education (pgche) students. student feedback as another means of gathering data for the purpose of using my auto-ethnographic lens is discussed next. student feedback often student evaluation is confused with student feedback and vice versa. i am of the opinion that students cannot evaluate lecturers as they are not skilled in judging whether a teaching practice is of high quality or not. one can but rely on their perceptions of their experiences. however, expecting my students to give feedback to me on my teaching practice challenges them, as professionals, to engage in scholarly reflection, scholarly discourse and higher-order thinking. it is also aligned with one of the learning outcomes stated in the study manual for the module on professional development. this learning outcome states that they need to be able to assess their own teaching practice and the teaching practices of their peers and other higher education practitioners. as professional self-regulated learning is integral to my practice i have designed a feedback questionnaire that focuses on both the contribution of the lecturer and the contribution of students to the effectiveness of learning opportunities. reflecting on their contribution is aligned with the principles of professional self-regulated learning. next i report the qualitative feedback of the 2017 cohort of pgche students. the questionnaire was used as part of a learning opportunity that focused on student feedback. the questionnaire was administrated as a mid-year feedback opportunity. the outcome was discussed during the second semester – as an extension of the learning opportunity on student feedback. the same questionnaire was to be administered by the end of the academic year in november. an auto-ethnographic lens makes one aware that receiving feedback from students is emotional and closely linked to intrapersonal intelligence. it is also something that happens in an education context, which represents social life – education and teaching practice in my case. it is messy, uncertain and emotional. if we desire to research social life, then we must embrace a research method that, to the best of its (our) ability, acknowledges and accommodates mess and chaos, uncertainty and emotion (adams & manning 2015). and auto-ethnography is a vulnerable, self-reflective form of writing. in my many years of experience of ‘putting myself as higher education practitioner out there’ to be assessed by my students, i came to realise that the mid-year feedback more often than not is less positive than at the end of the academic year. in the middle of the year they still feel somewhat confused and find it difficult to cope with the demands of the programme and level of learning expected. these concerns are typical of students who have never been confronted by a transformational practice that expects them to take responsibility for their own learning and for constructing new meaning. by the end of the year the feedback is often quite different – more positive. in general it comes down to acknowledging: ‘oh, now i realise why you have offered the programme in this way’. in table 1 the qualitative feedback of the students is listed per respondent. where applicable, it is indicated if more than one respondent were of the same or similar opinion. only section a – feedback on the lecturer’s contribution – is reported. this section is divided into three open-ended subdivisions. the heading ‘general comments’ invited students to give feedback by means of short narratives. each respondent is coded as r1, r2, r3 and so forth. one of the respondents (r1) wrote his or her feedback in the form of a poem consisting of two stanzas. writing a poem on participatory action research was one of the tasks they had to execute during a learning opportunity on action research. the two stanzas appear as a separate ‘narrative’ below table 1. the feedback that followed after the stanzas is tabled. consequently i offer examples of objects i use. they serve as symbols of what i consider as part of who i am as a higher education practitioner – answering the ontological question posed above. at the same time it is used to demonstrate how objects can be used for promoting creativity and getting students to actively participate. by means of the tasks to be executed, the constructing of new meaning is promoted. objects next i report by means of photo evidence how i use objects as part of my professional development trajectory. in using objects i act as role model to my students, and i expect them to do the same. the first encounter they have in using objects is when they have to bring an object that would best describe who they are as a higher education practitioner. this is the first task they receive to enact on the day of the commencement of the programme. it comes in the form of a wedding invitation: the marriage between the scholarship of teaching and research scholarship. this i do with a view to inculcating the importance of doing research and publishing on the outcome of the research – as universities expect them to do. i use action research to introduce them to the world of research and to narrow the gap between teaching and research. executing an action research project of their own practice and reporting the outcome by means of a draft publication as alluded to above serves as an authentic assessment opportunity, as they do not sit for a written examination of 3 hours at the end of the year. each student receives the invitation in the form of a rolled-up invitation on marble paper tied with a silver ribbon to make the look and feel authentic. the narrative of the invitation can perhaps not be read, but it gives the reader an idea of where my practice starts (figure 5). figure 5: example of invitation. the object i bring to the next session during which they have to introduce themselves is a baobab tree. it is made of hundreds of pieces of wire. it is an object of art that i bought from a creative and proud south african. he sells his art as part of his informal small business enterprise on the pavement. i keep the original object in my office. it constantly reminds my students of why i have chosen it as a metaphor for my teaching practice. when i am visited by other people it usually becomes an object that initiates conversation and further discussion. figure 6 shows what it looks like. figure 6: baobab tree. in essence the baobab is considered by the san people as a tree of wisdom – a tree that was turned upside down. this is exactly what i intend to do during each academic year – to turn my students upside down. i do this with a view to offering them the opportunity to think in a different, innovative way of looking at their teaching practice. i want them to become transformational in what they do to improve the quality of their teaching and their students’ learning. the photo is included in their study manual. when introducing students to the idea of action research of practice, i use balloons as objects. the collage in figure 7 is evidence of how the balloons are used as objects and to what extent students actively participate. the balloons as objects create an atmosphere of fun – addressing the d quadrant of the whole brain model. in addition it allows for learning from one another – an attribute of the c quadrant. figure 7: balloons used as objects. playing cards, bears and hats (aligned with herrmann’s [1995, 1996] notion of whole brain thinking), and building paper towers (demonstrating the principles of cooperative learning and reflection) are all objects that form part of my object trajectory. owing to space limits, i show how the different objects are combined. figure 8 was part of an exhibition during an international conference funded by the national research foundation: international research symposium and exhibition. ‘not just an object’: making meaning of and from everyday objects in educational research (du toit 2016b). figure 8: exhibition. meta-reflection my use of the construct meta-reflection is based on the notion of metacognition – thinking about one’s thinking. here i am reflecting on my reflection. i use my auto-ethnographic lens to zoom in on my reflection and the way i use auto-ethnography to tint my action research. i consider my reflection as multilayered. i reflect on self. i co-reflect with other scholars. i reflect on my teaching practice, my assessment practice, supervision practice and the way in which i conduct my research. my reflection is scholarly. and i reflect before i do (plan), while i do (enact) and after i have done what i have intended to do – by asking others and doing self-observation. self-assessment becomes intrapersonal reflection. and i reflect on the poems i write. so, true to my advocacies i would like to conclude with the same i expect of my students. i wrote a poem (figure 9) as a response to the chapter i wrote (du toit 2014) in vandeyar (2014). during a seminar we had to report on our experience of writing the chapter and being part of a scholarly community of practice who all contributed to the publication. figure 9: poem. as i entered my article with an intermezzo, i take liberty in exiting with a fanfare. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references adams, t.e. & manning, j., 2015, ‘autoethnography and family research’, journal of family theory and review 7(4), 350–366. https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12116 de boer, a., du toit, p.h. & bothma, t., 2015, ‘activating whole brain® innovation: a means of nourishing multiple intelligence in higher education’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 11(2), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v11i2.78 de boer, a., du toit, p.h., scheepers, d. & bothma, t., 2013, whole brain® learning in higher education: evidence-based practice, chandos, oxford. department of education, 2000a, curriculum 2005, lifelong learning for the 21st century. a user’s guide, government printer, pretoria. department of education, 2000b, norms and standards for educators, government printer, pretoria. donche, v. 2005, leren, onderwijzen en leren onderwijzen. academia press, gent. du toit, p.h., 2014, ‘an auto-ethnographic lens on lecturer professional development’, in s. vandeyar (ed.), good practice in culture-rich classrooms: research-informed perspectives, pp. 254–281, oxford university press, cape town. du toit, p.h., 2016a, ‘an ethnographic account of a snapshot in professor graham duncan’s journey of educational professionalism’, hts teologiese studies/theological studies 72(1), a3275. https://doi.org/101402.v72i1.3275 du toit, p.h., 2016b, ‘a pair of scissors, 15 a-4 pages and cello tape: a constructivist equation to making meaning of self-regulated and cooperative learning’, in international research symposium and exhibition, ‘not just an object’: making meaning of and from everyday objects in educational research, february 03–05, maharani hotel, durban. du toit, p.h., 2017, ‘linking multiple intelligence and thinking preferences as a means to facilitating multiliteracies: evidence-based practice’, in a. engelbrecht (ed.), manuscript of a publication on multiliteracies, in press, van schaik, pretoria. du toit, p.h. & van zyl, a., 2006, ‘birthing an action research scholar’, alar journal 11(1), 82–100. ellis, e., adams, t.e. & bochner, a.p., 2011, ‘autoethnography: an overview.’ historical social research/historsiche sozialforschung, 36(4), 273–290. fringe, j.j. dos, s.f., 2013, ‘promoting critical reflection for academic professional development in higher education’, phd thesis, university of pretoria. gardner, h., 1993, multiple intelligences: the theory into practice, basic books, new york. giloi, s. & du toit, p.h., 2013, ‘current approaches to the assessment of graphic design in a higher education context’, international journal of arts and design education 32(2), 256–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2013.01758.x herrmann, n., 1995, the creative brain, brain books, lake lure, nc. herrmann, n., 1996, the whole brain business book, mcgraw-hill, new york. herrmann, n. & herrmann-nehdi, a., 2015, the whole brain business book, 2nd edn., mcgraw-hill, new york. knowles, m., 1990, the adult learner: a neglected species, 4th edn., gulf publishing company, houston, tx. lucas, k., dippenaar, s.m. & du toit, p.h., 2014, ‘analysis of assessment practice and subsequent performance of third year level students in natural sciences’, africa education review 11(4), 563–583. https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2014.935004 malan, s.p.t. & du toit, p.h. (red.), 1991, suksesvolle onderrig. riglyne vir dosente, onderwysers en opleiers, academica, pretoria. [successful teaching: guidelines for lecturers, teachers and trainers.] mcniff, j. & whitehead, j., 2006, all you need to know about action research, sage, london, uk. rooke, d. & torbert, w.r, 2005, ‘seven transformations of leadership’, harvard business review, april, viewed 22 september 2011 from http://hbr.org/2005/04/seven-transformations-ofleadership/ar/1 slabbert, j.a., de kock, d.m. & hattingh, a., 2009, the brave ‘new’ world of education: creating a unique professionalism, juta, cape town, south africa. smit, t. & du toit, p.h., 2016, ‘transforming beginner teacher mentoring interventions for social reform’, south african journal of education 36(3), art.#1134, 12 pages, viewed from http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication/educat van der wath, a.e. & du toit, p.h., 2015, ‘learning end-of-life care within a constructivist model: undergraduate nursing students’ experiences’, curationis 38(2), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.4102/curationis.v38i2.1537 vandeyar, s. (ed.), 2014, good practice in culture-rich classrooms: research-informed perspectives, oxford university press, cape town. wium, a.m., pitout, h., human, a. & du toit, p.h., 2017, ‘an analysis of thinking preferences across three health care disciplines’, innovations in education and teaching international 54(1), 33–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2015.1117010 wolvaardt, j.e., cameron, d.c. & du toit, p.h., 2013, ‘the bottom line: tailoring a public health election to students’ needs’, african journal of health professions education 5(1), 14–18. https://doi.org/10.7196/ajhpe.196 wolvaardt, g. & du toit, p.h., 2012, ‘action research-driven professional development: developing transformational health care managers and creating learning organisations’, south african journal of higher education 26(6), 1235–1249. wolvaardt, l., lindeque, b.g. & du toit p.h., 2016, ‘balancing the educational choices in the decision making of a dean of medicine: fission or fusion?’, african journal of health professionals education 8(1), 25–29. https://doi.org/10.7196/ajhpe.2016.v8i1.474 book review colonised medicine and transformative learning – lessons from downs’ book: maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine book title: maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine author: jim downs isbn: 0674971728 publisher: belknap press, 2021, r462.88* *book price at time of review review title: colonised medicine and transformative learning – lessons from downs’ book: maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine reviewer: nontsikelelo o. mapukata1 affiliation: 1department of public health medicine, school of public health and family medicine, faculty of health sciences, university of cape town, cape town, south africa corresponding author: nontsikelelo mapukata, ntsiki.mapukata@uct.ac.za how to cite this book review: mapukata no. colonised medicine and transformative learning – lessons from downs’ book: maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1287. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1287 copyright notice: © 2022. the authors. licensee: aosis openjournals. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction in an article that was published in the university world news: africa edition, tomaselli1 declared the task of reviewing books, a framework and building blocks towards a scholarly process. this, he argued, is a process that is likely to not only accrue benefits for the author and readers but also contribute to a flourishing career. although tomaselli does not labour this point, one assumes that if the book review is undertaken as an academic exercise, the reviewer cannot expert to reproduce what has been published by expert reviewers nor seek to undermine their efforts. to that end, a few months after i submitted my thesis, i accepted a call to review jim downs’ book,maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine.2 everything about the title of the book was relatable to me as a gendered self – a black female in south africa (sa), for we have been victims of a silent war. in post-apartheid sa, that war transformed and morphed itself to become a war on women and children.3 my brief was to determine whether downs’ book should be included in our reading list as we embark on a plan to decolonise our curriculum offering in the school of public health at the university of cape town (uct). this was, after all one of the students’ demands during the 2015–2016 #rhodesmustfall at uct, which culminated in a nationwide #feesmustfall students’ protests in sa.4 prior to the localised and nationwide university students’ protests, changes in higher education institutions, particularly in the historically white institutions (hwi), were limited to changes in enrolment targets in response to a policy directive that was issued by the ministry of education.5 although this yielded an increase in the number of black students who were admitted to study in hwi, an observation that was made by heleta6 was of macro boxes that were ticked whilst colonial structures remained untouched. as such, as reported by otu and mkhize in 20187, attrition rates among black students remained high as students took longer to complete their degrees. a prevailing perception was of students who were ill-prepared for university studies, particularly if they matriculated from poorly resourced schools in rural and underserved areas within sa. what was overlooked was the impact of a teaching and learning approach that had not embraced the diversity of learning experiences, diversity of contexts, diversity of skills and a range of personal experiences derived and defined by spaces that were occupied by the learners prior to them becoming university students8. thus, beyond #feesmustfall, the urgency was in defining initiatives to decolonise and facilitate the pursuance of a transforming curriculum. in preparing for this review, i submitted a request to our librarians to purchase a physical copy of downs’ book. in no time, i was informed that an e-book was available on short loan. within a few minutes of downloading a pdf copy of the book, i made three observations. firstly, i did not need the 3 days – the book was a page-turner. secondly, downs’ peer-reviewed book is an asset to novices as well as public health experts as it provides a detailed historical timeline of three major maladies of the empire, namely, slavery, colonialism and war. the third aspect caught me off guard. as i turned each page, i became increasingly upset by the power and patriarchy that dominated the pages and the violations that were metered on children, the very vulnerable and disenfranchised communities. down’s book validated the struggle of women scientists who are often overlooked and disregarded. not only that, i was also shocked by the myriad of ethical dilemmas. i had no choice but to pursue a value-based approach. taking into consideration our historical perspective, the demands of the student body i referred to earlier and the efforts to decolonise curricula in post-apartheid sa, in reviewing this book, i had no intentions of reproducing the work of the experts. bearing in mind the role of public health as a transdisciplinary offering that is concerned with preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through organised efforts of individuals and their families; communities; public and private organisations9, i had to demonstrate that down’s book met the criteria to fulfil uct’s commitment to transform teaching and learning. not only that, although i approach this review from my teaching base in the faculty of health sciences, there are opportunities to engage students in other faculties such as commerce, engineering and the built environment, humanities and law at uct and other universities in keeping with winslow’s definition of public health as an art and a science. two exploratory questions informed my approach: what aspects of the book were likely to add value to the curriculum of health sciences students in their first year, fourth year and final year? what aspects of the book were likely to create opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students to pursue context-specific research in public health? contextualising teaching, learning and research the first chapter in downs’ book proved to be a great resource to introduce undergraduate students to research and the application of two research methodologies, namely, the unobtrusive research methods and the mixed methods approach, that have informed processes in this chapter. later, downs introduces the narrative, yet another methodology. tracing the historical context of epidemiology, thomson makes critical observations about africans and introduces four concepts that can be explored with students in group activities. the first one is resilience and self-determination in cases of human trafficking. this section defines the role of healthcare workers in managing prisoners of war (asylum seekers) who embark on hunger strike. two local cases, steve biko’s death10 and the life esidimeni tragedy,11 could be referenced in discussions on human rights violations in the public sector. secondly, groups can explore insufficient nourishment as the cause of disease as thomson deduced that africans could survive without food in crowded and unventilated environments for 10 days. using the poverty cycle, students can trace the impact of undernourishment on health and education outcomes and link this to policy initiatives such as the feeding scheme in south african schools and, more recently, the social relief distress grant that is administered in terms of section 32 of the social assistance act no. 13 of 2004, to provide relief to unemployed citizens beyond the global pandemic. a debate that can be pursued would allow selected groups to examine the involuntary effects of inedia (fasting) and the incidence of malnutrition and kwashiorkor in underserved and rural communities. students can contrast this to the practice of intermittent fasting as a lifestyle weight management plan for the middle class. alternatively, groups can explore the incidence of overnutrition and sedentary lifestyles and its contribution to the burden of chronic diseases. the session can be concluded by introducing students to research as an instrument for mediating population challenges in lowand middle-income countries. downs’ book offers many other opportunities that are likely to facilitate transformative learning in the examples i present below. the role of journalists in exposing war crimes educators can use this exercise to encourage students to reflect on instances where investigative journalism has exposed inefficiencies in the delivery of health care. within the south african context, students have an opportunity to reflect on the crisis of personal protective equipment (ppe), the impact thereof on frontline health care workers and potential threats to the implementation of universal access to health care. students can conclude the discussion by reflecting on their role in advocating for equitable access to health care. in a transforming democracy, such debates can be pursued by students across disciplines to curb corruption and promote ethical leadership. in a group exercise, students can explore differences between colonialism and imperialism. on the one hand, postgraduate students have an opportunity to explore the role of imperialism in advancing epidemiology as a scholarship. multidisciplinary studies can be pursued that explore the role of imperialism in perpetuating the dominance of the ruling party. for example, health sciences, humanities and law students can analyse the impact of guptacare on the health outcomes of people residing in the north west province. on the other hand, multidisciplinary groups can investigate the effect of arson attacks as weapons of war and the impact thereof on oncology services at the charlotte maxeke johannesburg academic hospital. in a country with high levels of youth unemployment that have not spared university graduates, another group can evaluate costs that are borne by families and students pursuing professional training in teaching hospitals as well as sunk costs and opportunity costs to service providers. florence nightingale as a revered nurse who is silenced as an epidemiologist drawing on nightingale’s efforts in advancing the practice of record keeping and its value in monitoring and evaluating the emerging threats and patients’ response to interventions, students across disciplines have an opportunity to evaluate the role of social media in advancing access to information about a contagion. the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) is a realistic reference for this task. educators can challenge students across disciplines to explore the role of descriptive statistics in contributing to policy formulation and the use of implementation science as a practice approach to address public health challenges. in addition to that, students could pursue collaborative inter-faculty partnerships and address emerging problems that are likely to impact health outcomes such as the 2018 water crisis that had implications for people living and working in the western cape province. other opportunities that are likely to contribute to transformative learning may include an exploration of the shift from case finding to protocol development as a faculty-mediated response to the recent mental health crisis, a malady that is not limited to the students of health sciences but one that has affected university students across disciplines. in a country that is overburdened by crime and gendered forms of violence, educators can encourage students to explore the benefits of making a shift from curative approaches to implementing salutogenic approaches such as hiking and walking clubs, thereby creating safe spaces for university students as they pursue practice-based research. race and racial differences a critical component in downs’ book that is relevant to sa’s apartheid history is exploring the role of race as a defining factor in the pathogenesis of diseases. in advancing the decoloniality project, working in groups, health sciences and humanities students can draw from woodward’s reflections on the attitudes of black soldiers to death and dying and contrast that with their understanding of the role of culture and patient health-seeking behaviour in determining health outcomes. senior students across disciplines have an opportunity to examine the role of observational studies in facilitating an understanding of the use of language as a form of subtle oppression and exploitation of disenfranchised communities when undertaking research as an experimental science. another group can collaborate and examine russell’s role in advancing scientific racism or that of physicians in perpetuating racial differences in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. watching the 1998 documentary on the life and times of sarah baartman should instil an appreciation of pedagogical innovation as a form of enhancing transformative learning. ethical dilemmas in practice in introducing students to ethical dilemmas in practice, the violations that are metered against children can be explored in discussions that are guided by the south african bill of rights12 and related legal provisions such as the children’s act of 200513. in downs’s book, three critical points of reference include the use of children as research objects, children as vaccine intermediaries, as well as orphaned and marginalised children as the property of physicians. as a transdisciplinary activity, students can carry out an audit of published research to evaluate the role of research committees and institutional commitment in protecting the interests of children when they are enlisted as research participants. in conclusion, downs’ book offers many opportunities for educators across disciplines to engage a diverse group of students in discussion as they explore a range of context-specific topics in public health. as we embark on a range of curriculum transformation initiatives, downs’ book creates opportunities for students to appreciate the role of the three maladies of empire in contributing to transformative learning. references tomaselli, k. g. book reviewing should be a measurable academic output. the conversation: africa edition. 2021 [cited 2021 apr 21]. available from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20220418043931171 downs j. maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine. harvard university press; 2021. younger ds. health care in south africa. neurologic clinics. 2016;34(4):1127–1136. langa, m. (ed.) #hashtag: an analysis of the #feesmustfall movement at south african universities. johannesburg: centre for violence and reconciliation; 2017. department of education, r.s.a. education white paper 3: a programme for the transformation of higher education, government gazette, 386, pretoria: government printers; 1997. heleta s. decolonisation of higher education: dismantling epistemic violence and eurocentrism in south africa. transformation in higher education. 2016;1(1):1–8. otu mn, mkhize z. understanding black african student attrition in the context of transformation in south african higher education institutions. journal of african foreign affairs. 2018;5(1):149–171. mapukata no, couper i, smith j. the value of the wirhe scholarship programme in training health professionals for rural areas: views of participants. african journal of primary health care & family medicine. 2017;9(1):1–6. winslow ce. the untilled fields of public health. science. 1920;51(1306):23–33. mclean gr, jenkins t. the steve biko affair: a case study in medical ethics. developing world bioethics. 2003;3(1):77–95. dhai a. the life esidimeni tragedy: moral pathology and an ethical crisis. south african medical journal. 2018;108(5):382–385. nthai sa. a bill of rights for south africa: an historical overview. consultus. 1998;11(2):142–143. dawes a. the south african children’s act. journal of child & adolescent mental health. 2009;21(2):iii–vi. references about the author(s) johann tempelhoff faculty of humanities, north-west university, south africa citation tempelhoff, j., 2018, ‘transdisciplinary diversity for resolving contemporary problems?’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a644. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.644 editorial transdisciplinary diversity for resolving contemporary problems? johann tempelhoff copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the doors of transdisciplinary research are wide open for those seeking a richer intellectual pastorage beyond the confines of mono-disciplinary studies. one thing is clear from working on the content of this edition of our journal: the material is diverse and covers a broad spectrum of relevant themes. few articles can be categorised as the mere product of a mono-disciplinary silo. to be sure, principles of transdisciplinary research are not always clear from the content. yet, elements deeply seated in transdisciplinary thinking, do come across. there is evidence of authors grappling with critical contemporary issues. most contributions speak of problems facing contemporary south african society and africa in the 2010s. above all, there is consistent evidence of deep reflection in a transdisciplinary mode. it is apparent that researchers in many fields, exploring methodologies and strategies, rely on aspects of transdisciplinary methodology to find their way through the maze of contemporary thinking in the field. if we are at the present juncture in time a little lost for finding the clear threads of transdisciplinary thinking, rest assured we are not alone. in a letter, at the start of 2018, to the editor of an international publication, journal for cleaner production, sakoa and brambila-macias asked the question: ‘do we share an understanding of transdisciplinarity in environmental sustainability?’ the authors provide a thoughtful assessment of article contributions to the journal on what constitutes transdisciplinary research. they then provide an exposition of disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity before exploring transdisciplinarity from specifically the perspective of environmental sustainability research design (sakao & brambila-macias 2018). for them, it is clear that not all authors nurture the same views on the practice of transdisciplinarity. consequently, they suggest, the field of environmental sustainability research should be foregrounded more prominently when authors articulate their work from the use of transdisciplinary tenets in their research. but is this a ‘safe and trusted’ route to follow? categorising transdisciplinarity is seldom uppermost in the minds of scientists and social scientists who seek to understand a variety of perspectives on any given problem. for example, knierim, lachewski and boyarintserva (2018) rely on systems theory to accommodate disciplinary transgression, aimed at absorbing a multitude of actions and points of views of stakeholders and those of the researchers exploring wicked or benign problems in real life. there is evidence of a growing understanding of what constitutes transdisciplinary research. colpaert (2018:485), working in the field of computer-assisted language learning, defines transdisciplinarity as: … the ontological specification of knowledge constructs on a higher, boundary-transcending, level of abstraction. however, the field remains in an emergent phase of development and requires greater tolerance from disciplinarians. transdisciplinarity, if we consider its origins way back in the 1970s, is still a young field of academic endeavour. the final destination of transdisciplinarity is perhaps a journey that transcends our present horizon of disciplinary understanding. methodologically there remain critical issues. lamine, for example, cross-examines the field of participatory research activities in transdisciplinarity, which appears to be suspect in some quarters among transdisciplinary methodologists. despite the potential controversial nature of collective participation and engagement with stakeholders, lamine is satisfied that the elements of critical thinking and reflection that precedes the process of co-production of knowledge remain in place (lamine 2018). back to this edition of td, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa: there are lots of fertile ideas in the mix on a number of highly topical issues. south africa’s state system is under scrutiny at the municipal level where monitoring and evaluation systems seem to be amiss. chigudu seeks to locate corporate governance for sustainability in south africa’s public service. magagula and zondok contemplate the strengths and weaknesses of outsourcing core business deliverables in south africa’s state-owned enterprises. dassah seeks answers for the conundrum of state capture as a governance problem. with memories of the zuma administration (2009–2018) still very fresh in the public memory, the problem can potentially be resolved by resorting to levels of deeper contemplation. feeding into the theme of euphemistic understanding, ndaguba, ndagubva, tshiyoyo and shai explore african philosophical views on corruption. like philosophers in all parts of the world, since antiquity, we become aware that the jin and yang of taoist thinking, embracing both the good and the bad, is ever-present in the philosophical objective of locating an understanding of what constitutes reality and truth at any given time and place. the western cape’s ‘day zero’ drought event that appears to have come to an end at long last has reverberated in the global news media. we are currently world leaders in terms of recently acquired in situ technical and scientific knowledge, on how to immaculately manage water supplies to a bustling metropolitan city on the african continent in a respectable manner. working from the examples of australia’s 25-year drought and california’s recent dry seasons, south africa’s water sector specialists have made a significant contribution to resolving a brooding conundrum at a time when we grapple with climate change, urbanisation, population growth and an ever-decreasing per capita availability of much needed water on the developing african continent. in this issue of the journal, visser explores cape town’s drought from a historical perspective, with an accent on the political drama that played itself out when the crisis reached a climax. while we are very aware of potable water, there is also a need to contemplate wastewater. we may be using purified wastewater in the near future. kevin wall, a respected south african engineer, with many years of research insight, looks at the origins of effluent parameters and the south african regulations on wastewater. it is time for us to take note of these facts for future action plans. africa’s future depends on the maintenance of order and a peaceful environment conducive to development. in the field of making peace and resolving conflict in africa, velthuizen and ferguson lay down a discourse, in philosophical mode, while ndaguba reflects on peace operations in southern africa and the prospects for a permanent sadc standby force. although all the articles published form part of original research, two cutting-edge articles in this issue deserve attention. kotzé and senekal’s work on gauging the perceptions of minorities in the twitter messages regarding the afrikaner community of orania sheds light on the increasingly important role of social media in south african society. the second article feeds, from a transdisciplinary perspective, into what is normally associated with the mundane field of humans herding livestock as a profession. pitikoe’s work with practitioners of this ancient occupation in the mountain lands of lesotho explores the potential for creating learning opportunities among herders. in 2018, an important report was published on south african livestock farming and the threat of predators (kerley, wilson & balfour 2018). for the meat industry and the food economy of the country in future, the work is important. however, some civil society organisations have grave concerns about what is considered to be the random and ruthless extermination of wildlife. the report, with a sound contribution on the need for appropriate ethical guidelines to ensure the continued coexistence of predatorial wildlife and commercial livestock on the land, leaves space for more research. it is of vital importance for environmental researchers to explore this field in collaboration with zoologists and botanists. one alternative to random predator hunting is a 24/7 herding programme on ample and well-cared for grazing lands. south africa’s landmark foundation, a non-governmental organisation, headed by dr bool smuts, has been working for some time in the karoo’s nieuweveld mountain lands, on a novel experiment of this nature. on 25 november 2018, landmark foundation launched the fair game programme. the plan is to win the support of consumers, to pay a little more for fair game meat, produced by farmers with an ethical conscience, by respecting the need for wildlife and livestock (under sound herding conditions) to share the land. given the fact that certain predator species, such as leopards (panthera pardus) (mcmanus 2018), can potentially become extinct in the eastern and western cape, as was the case with the cape lion (panthera leo melanochaita) in the mid-19th century, there is good reason for exploring alternative strategies. for transdisciplinary researchers, there are ample opportunities to make valuable out-of-the-box contributions to resolving problems related to africa’s rapidly diminishing wildlife heritage. references colpaert, j., 2018, ‘transdisciplinarity revisited’, computer assisted language learning 31(5–6), 483–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2018.1437111 kerley, g., wilson, s. & balfour, d. (eds.), 2018, livestock predation and its management in south africa: a scientific assessment, centre for african conservation ecology, nelson mandela university, port elizabethg. knierim, a., lachewski, l. & boyarintserva, o., 2018, ‘interand transdisciplinarity in bioeconomy’, chapter 4, in i. lewandowski (ed.), bioeconomy: shaping the transition to a sustainable biobased economy, pp. 39–74, springer, cham. lamine, c., 2018, ‘transdisciplinarity in research about agrifood systems transitions: a pragmatist approach to processes of attachment’, sustainability 10(4), 1241. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041241 mcmanus, j., 2018, ‘conservation of leopards (panthera pardus) in the eastern and western cape, south africa: investigating the effect of land use, gene flow and connectivity’, university of the witwatersrand. sakao, t. & brambila-macias, s., 2018, ‘do we share an understanding of transdisciplinarity in environmental sustainability research?’, journal of cleaner production 170(1), 1399–1403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.09.226 abstract introduction educational technology research methodology findings and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) alethea c. de villiers department of music, nelson mandela metropolitan university, south africa maxwell m. sauls department of music, nelson mandela metropolitan university, south africa citation de villiers, a.c. & sauls, m.m., 2017, ‘changing teachers’ practice in the creative arts classroom: the case for educational technologies’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a371. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.371 original research changing teachers’ practice in the creative arts classroom: the case for educational technologies alethea c. de villiers, maxwell m. sauls received: 04 aug. 2016; accepted: 06 feb. 2017; published: 21 apr. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the study described in this essay explores the use of educational technology as a resource in the creative arts classroom. many teachers are not qualified to teach creative arts. they then tend to rely on curriculum documents and textbooks to help guide their planning, teaching and assessment. most of the teachers who participated in this case study were not specialists in any of the arts, and in the education district where this study took place, there was a lack of ongoing professional development for the creative arts. to enable the teachers from grades r to 7 to mediate more meaningful classroom teaching and learning in the creative arts, the researchers introduced the teachers to technology as a means to facilitate learning and teaching. this study follows a phenomenological approach to explore the use of educational technology in the teaching of dance, drama and music, which are three of the art forms in the creative arts. the researchers describe the teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards using technology in the classroom. eight teachers participated in the study (seven female and one male), ranging in age from 22 to 41 years. there were three teachers from the foundation phase, three teachers from the intermediate phase and two teachers from the senior phase. data were collected from (1) unstructured open-ended conversational interviews, (2) observations of the participants during contact time with learners and (3) audio-visual recordings of the teachers in the classroom. findings from the study showed that after the 10-month intervention of using educational technology in the classroom, there was divergence in the teachers’ use of technology. the findings also suggest that classroom practice in dance, drama and music improved. introduction teachers need training and experience in order to mediate meaningful learning experiences to be effective in their profession (doe 2012d:8–10; shulman 1987). it is a global phenomenon that many teachers are not adequately trained or qualified to teach the non-specialist arts of dance, drama, music and the visual arts. moreover, without the competences to mediate teaching and learning in the creative arts, research has shown that teachers may teach only those sections of the curriculum that they understand or neglect to teach certain art forms (andrews 2006; figuerido 2004; nompula 2012; vermeulen 2009). in this exploratory case study, the researchers sought to overcome the shortcomings of the teachers’ lack of training in the creative arts through the introduction of educational technology. educational technology a number of researchers concur that within their educational contexts learners are required to master more than the core curriculum in pursuit of future success in the employment industry (blair 2012; collis 2005:215–217; scherer & cator 2011). these skills are embedded in the use of a variety of educational technologies. in first-world countries, transformation is taking place where the traditional three r’s of reading, writing and arithmetic are being merged with the four c’s of critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration (beschorner & hutchison 2013; blair 2012; darby & catterall 1994; fogarty & stoehr 2008:23–42). latham and gross (2014:46–47) suggest that effective application of technological skills in the workplace requires acquiring the skills in a technology-infused learning environment when learners are still at school. scheffler and logan (1999:305) also recognise that because the world is becoming more technological and interconnected, policymakers, educators and the public acknowledge the importance of computer knowledge and skills in the daily lives of individuals as well as for national economic competitiveness. children’s out of school lives are characterised by the use of digital technologies. owston (1997), marsh (2005) as well as twiner et al. (2010) remind us that teachers engage with learners whose lives have been immersed in media culture. outside of school learners are assimilating the world through the filter of computing devices such as television, cellular phones, handheld gaming devices, electronic tablets and laptops (chayko 2008:63–72; imazeki 2014; wientjes 2011:37). beschorner and hutchison (2013:20–22) describe how children navigate the electronic apparatuses in which they are faced with complex tasks such as analysing, synthesising and problem-solving. popular cartoons aimed at learners aged 5–8 years include dora the explorer and little einsteins (gordon-biddle et al. 2013:279). these educationally based cartoons exploit the use of the computer model by presenting the narrative on a computer screen that mimics transitions, the movement of the mouse on the screen and computer tones (beschorner & hutchison 2013:17–18). because of their familiarity with a number of media, learners tend to be keen to explore technology. researchers report that in some educational contexts, learners are creating study groups on whatsapp and navigating electronic tablets as textbooks (imazeki 2014; scherer & cator 2011). these learners also expect instant access to knowledge (chayko2008:3–16; cline 2014:63–70). with the world literally at the fingertips of the learners through the use of technology, education challenges teachers to re-envision the role of technology in the classroom (klopfer et al. 2009:1–20; marsh 2005). researchers have highlighted technology that has been used in education. these include (1) multimedia (ware 2006); (2) interactive whiteboards (iwb) (betcher & lee 2009; twiner et al. 2010); (3) videos, video clips and movies (berk 2009; white 2009); (4)youtube (duffy 2008; jones & cuthrell 2011; white 2009); (5) ipads (beschorner & hutchison 2013; hutchison, beschorner& schmidt-crawford 2012; kucirkova et al. 2014); (6) computers (scheffler& logan 1999); (7) cellular phones (imazeki 2014); and (8) digital technologies (bruce & chiu 2015; kirk & pitches 2013). examples of the application of educational technology in the classroom some of the technology affords learners opportunities for interactive engagement, such as multimedia and the interactive whiteboard. for example, ware (2006) reports on a study where children converted written stories into multimedia presentations with images, music, movement and voice-over, after revisions and edits. courts and tucker (2012:122) state that multimedia can expand the boundaries of the classroom through the use of animation, text, audio, video, slideshows, podcasts, instant messaging and simulations. twiner et al. (2010) and cutrim-schmid and whyte (2012) describe classroom practice where the interactive whiteboard was used in whole class teaching where the learners actively participated in an interactive classroom. the specific example provided by twiner et al. (2010:219) describes how the learners worked with content: animations, static images and photographs were displayed, annotated and changes either discarded or saved. in the study described by kirk and pitches (2013), learners used digital technologies to reflect on creative practice and for creative forms of reflection. other examples of multimedia such as videos, movies, youtube and television are mainly used to provide a context and also to understand complex issues (white 2009). ipads also allow for greater learner interaction and manipulation of media. kucirkova et al. (2014) provide a description of the ipad our story application that can be used by children to create their personal multimodal stories. whereas hutchison et al. (2012) and beschorner & hutchison (2013) viewed the ipad as a means of enhancing literacy lessons. interactive learner participation through the introduction of technology in the classroom leads to a paradigm shift in learning theory from behaviourist to social constructivist views of human cognition occurring in education (cutrim-schmid & whyte 2012; daniels 2005; vygotsky 1978; leont’ev 1997). researchers writing in the field of educational technology in the classroom agree that technology can lead to the teacher no longer being the centre of knowledge (beauchamp & kennewell 2013; betcher & lee 2009:47–62; flewitt 2008; hennessy, ruthven & brindley 2005; lin, esmahi & poon 2005; scheffler & logan 1999; twiner et al. 2010; ware 2006). scheffler and logan (1999:305) and siegel (1995:455) explain that the approach to teaching and learning becomes more inquiry based where learners see themselves as knowledge makers and take responsibility for their own learning. scheffler and logan (1999:305–306) state that learning comes from learner inquiry, critical thinking and problem-solving based on information accessed from many sources. they also reveal that computers make it possible for the learners to engage in research, data analysis, knowledge application, communication and collaborative writing. the phenomenon of educational technology in the classroom has also been recognised in south africa. with the policy operation phakisa: ict in education (doe 2015:17–19), there is an acknowledgement from the government that the integration of educational technology is inevitable. the policy points the way to the future when tablets and iwb will be available in the classroom. within the context of e-education, this study focused on the integration of technology in the creative arts classroom. researchers inform us that technology is a powerful tool that can improve education in the arts if it is integrated systematically and implemented appropriately (beauchamp & kennewell 2013; pitler et al. 2007; scheffler & logan 1999). collis (2005) as well as hooper and rieber (1995:154–155) emphasise that the effective use of technology transforms instructional content from information to useful knowledge. teachers and learners will then be able to access, analyse and apply information (klopfer et al. 2009:1–20). bruce and chiu (2015) describe how learners use learning digital video for composing music. gall and breeze (2006:43) describe the use of technology in music classes over time, such as those that are still relevant today, namely audio recordings, surround sound encoder with multitrack recording, music software for computers and music genres that developed from technology. curriculum policy statements in south africa recognise that education encompasses the holistic development of learners (doe 2012b:8–9, 2012c:8–10, 2012d:8–10). the national curriculum statement (ncs) refers to development in all areas, including that of technology (doe 2012a, 2012b:8). the skills learnt through arts education are interdisciplinary, integrated and project based in nature. these skills include the following: using language, text and symbols interactively using media tools interactively processing data and reporting results creating original works as a means of personal and group expression synthesising experiences coherently communicating ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media formats (doe 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d). from these skills, it is evident that the arts curricula are complex and integrate higher-order thinking skills, technology, multimedia and the literacies of the present century (doe 2012d). in addition, arts curricula worldwide, including in south africa, are often thematic and have many other distinguishing features, such as being multidisciplinary, project based and research driven (burton, horowitz and abeles 2000; darby & catterall 1994; kassing & jay 2003; mcdonald & fisher 2006). furthermore, the arts disciplines extend to incorporate the wider community which refers to building relationships between the local, provincial, national and global communities through the use of technology (beauchamp & kennwell 2013:201,179; blair 2012:10–11; hilmes 2014:232–478; owston 1997; white 2009). while engaging with the arts curricula, learners construct knowledge through research, personal experience and associations made with prior knowledge (franklin 2011:201; inhelder & piaget 1958; vygotsky 1978; leont’ev 1997; walls 2000:16–19; webster 2006). skills are acquired through research and application in projects (haycock 1991; klopfer et al. 2009:6). before the research study began, one of the researchers presented a short professional development workshop in the creative arts to the teachers at the school. he then proceeded to explain and demonstrate how the technology could be used to enhance the teaching and learning in the classroom in dance, drama and music, which is the focus of this study. the following is a description of the technologies to which the teachers were introduced. in dance, the teachers were introduced to (1) the video camera on smart phones to record learners’ performances; (2) dance-inspired fitness videos such as hip hop abs and zumba for warm-up routines; (3) how to create a youtube channel and upload learner performances; (4) how to utilise video games of a kinematic nature such as dance dance revolution, just dance wii or dance central. two or more learners can use the controllers while the other learners stand behind them and mimic the movements. the class can be divided into groups that compete against each other; (5) dance-related software such as great dance debate and stimulus that can be downloaded from the internet for free. these programmes have been developed to allow learners to think abstractly in a controlled environment within the parameters of the curriculum; (6) having the learners use the internet for research art forms and present the project as a powerpoint presentation and a practical demonstration. in drama, the teacher can (1) use a timer to ensure good time management; (2) use a megaphone to practise voice projection, speaking in a range of dynamic levels; (3)utilise interactive story books that allow for learner participation. in music, the teacher can use (1) a midi keyboard with music software to compose simple phrases; (2) an interactive whiteboard to teach music notation; (3) a metronome to teach tempo in music. for dance, drama and music, the internet, dvds, movies and youtube can be sources for content and context. a cd player or mp3 player can be used to play music in dance, drama and music. in dance and drama, the learners can create digital diaries. for school concerts, learners can use the microphone and also experiment with sound and lighting. table 1 provides a summary of the technology that was accessible to the participating teachers, including technology that they intended to develop. table 1: educational technology accessible and intended to develop. research methodology the research followed a phenomenological approach, by interpreting the meaning the intervention had for the teachers who participated in the study (creswell 2013:24–25). from an epistemological viewpoint, phenomenology is based in a paradigm of personal knowledge and subjectivity. perspectives and interpretations led to an understanding of the motivations and actions of the teachers over the 10 months of this study as they used technology in the dance, drama and music classes (johnson & christensen 2014:49). data were collected from (1) unstructured open-ended conversational interviews (merriam & tisdell 2015:137–161); (2) observations of the participating teachers during contact time with learners (fetterman 1998:34–35); (3) field notes taken during the observations (kawulich 2005); and (4) audio-visual recordings of the teachers in their classrooms (merriam 2002:13). the sample purposive sampling was used, as all the participating educators teach life skills or creative arts1 at one school, where one of the researchers is also a teacher (boeije 2010:35). eight teachers participated in the study (seven females and one male), ranging in age from 22 to 41 years. three teachers were from the foundation phase (fp), grades r to 3; three from the intermediate phase (ip), grades 4 to 6; and two teachers who both teach grade 7, were from the senior phase (sp). data analysis qualitative data were collected from the interviews, observational field notes and audio-visual recordings. the researchers identified emergent themes or topics that are discussed in the ‘findings and discussion’ section. ethical considerations the ethics clearance number for this study is h/14/art/mus-001. findings and discussion the themes that emerged from this research are discussed under subheadings in the sections that follow. the school curricula in the case study the south african schools act of 1996 (rsa 1996) recognises two categories of schools: state-controlled and independent schools. the school in this study is owned and operated by a church. it is an independent primary school in a previously disadvantaged community in port elizabeth. prior to 2013, the school followed an american-based curriculum. the then south african department of education, now department of basic education, began its rollout of the revised curriculum, from 2013 onwards. at this time, the school management decided to opt for the departmental curriculum for the ip. after consulting the fp teachers, the school management decided to maintain the status quo of the fp. the consequence of this decision is that when learners enter grade 4, they do not have any experiences in either dance or drama and have limited experience in music. this situation was confirmed by the grade 4 teacher, mary2: i do not know that much about dance, music and drama but when the learners enter grade four they have no clue what i am talking about. they enter a new phase, with new subjects. they do not do the same work as they did in grade three. i am not sure what they learnt for music but it did not help me at the start of the year. an analysis of the curriculum followed by the fp showed that it was not comprehensive and only focused on two elements of music, namely the learning about music instruments and their sound (tone colour), and the emotion that the music evokes (mood). additionally, the time allocated for music in the fp was 30 minutes on each friday of the fourth term, and not the entire year, which is considerably shorter than the government guideline of 2 hours per week for four art forms over a year (doe 2012b:6). the children in the fp therefore followed a limited music curriculum. although grades 4 to 7 followed the government syllabus, time allocation for the creative arts in the ip was up to the discretion of the teacher. according to departmental guidelines, the creative arts should be allocated one and a half hours per week on the timetable (doe 2012c:10). primrose confirmed this with the statement regarding her own practice: life skills is very demanding and working out lesson plans is not easy. i don’t understand all the different art things that the department expects me to teach. even though i teach life skills. i spend more time teaching the other components and give the learners any activity to have marks to capture on the system. in contrast, in grade 7, the time allocated to the art forms dance and music, which were the specialisations chosen by the school given the expertise of the teachers, was an hour a week. this is in accordance with the recommended time allocation as stated in the curriculum policy statement (doe 2012d:7). training in dance, drama and music: the responses of the participating teachers according to the curriculum statement document, teachers should be (1) capable of teaching the art forms and (2) the school management and the school governing body should ensure that teachers receive intensive training in one or more art forms (doe 2012d:9). however, six of the teachers felt that they were not particularly well-qualified to teach the creative arts. teachers in the fp lacked a general understanding of the basic underpinnings of music education. as a consequence, they relied on worksheets sourced from the internet to supplement the content in workbooks. their teaching style could be described as narrative teaching whereby learners would listen to the teacher. this teaching style did not foster creativity or enable active learner participation in the music class. the following are some of their responses. lucy, who is the youngest teacher, and an enthusiastic grade 2 teacher, had this to say: ‘in the bachelor of education course we had an arts module. however, we were only introduced to the elements of the arts forms. we did not do any content and methodology. i therefore did not feel prepared to teach the curriculum.’ naomi, a grade 3 teacher, shared the following: ‘i usually start the year by letting the learners sing familiar songs as this is the easiest way to begin. i am not so confident in the way i teach music. although i do sing in the worship team at my church, teaching is different from pure singing’. two participants had completed one-year courses offered through a local early childhood development institution located within the metropolis. two different participants have national diplomas in educare training. professional development in the performing arts was not included in any of these qualifications. the fp and ip teachers in this study needed professional development in the creative arts to prepare them for classroom practice. even younger staff members who had qualified since the inception of the new curriculum in 1998 were not adequately qualified in the creative arts. during the pre-interview stage, matthew, a sp teacher, stated that: i had been dancing for approximately a year already before the implementation of caps. the grade 7’s are taught concepts of dance and not actual dance routines. although when i received some training while studying, they focussed on actual dance routines and never taught us about the concepts as it is stated in the textbook.’ monica, a grade 7 teacher, who qualified 20 years ago and is the oldest teacher in the group, had a different experience in pre-service training. she said: when i was at the teachers college, one could major in either music or visual art. our lecturer concentrated on music theory, so we did not do any of this… erm… stuff we find in caps’. she also shared: ‘less than ten years ago i participated in a three arts initiative programme that focused on practical implementation of dance, drama and music. the course consisted of assignments, demonstrations and reflections on practically carrying out what we were taught in the classroom.’ matthew has a bmus (ed) degree and was the most qualified in a specific art from. during his bmus (ed) degree, he enrolled for teaching modules, namely dance in the classroom and drama in the classroom. so, although he majored in music, he has knowledge and some practical experience of dance and drama. matthew concluded the description of his training by saying: ‘the instruction i received from the lecturers only assisted to a certain extent. the (curriculum content) objectives of the (creative) arts do not change but only the wording differs from curriculum to curriculum.’ moreover, matthew and monica, the two grade 7 teachers, have been involved in various arts programmes in the school such as, arts and crafts, recorder lessons, coordinating the school plays and concerts, and training learners for the various items. both teachers attended ballroom and latin american dance classes. due to matthew’s expertise in music and broad knowledge of dance and drama, the educators of the ip sought his assistance in preparing their lessons. he was always eager to assist as this was his area of expertise, more specifically, music education. primrose, an ip teacher, goes on to explain how matthew assisted her: ‘matthew would come to my class after school and teach me how to draw the music notes and how the stave works. he tried different ways of doing it and i chose the one that i understood the best. he would bring his instruments for me to use. he would help me to come up with ideas for assessments and provided rubrics for me to use. he would tell me what he expects the grade 6’s to be taught so that it makes his job easier the following year’. mary an ip teacher preferred to work independently. this was confirmed by primrose, monica and matthew. monica has always gravitated towards the arts and thus her initial form of instruction was appropriate from the onset. monica stated: ‘growing up being in drama performances and singing in the choir has helped me to be creative in class. i later started playing the recorder and the guitar. this helped me especially when i taught music because the guitar is a versatile instrument and can be taken anywhere. i even used it to teach the alphabet in afrikaans (teaching the children an afrikaans alphabet song).’ the use of technology in creative arts (dance, drama and music) in this study, the technological devices that were used most frequently in the classroom were the smartphone, speakers and laptop. participants most often used their smartphones as a music player because of one of the functions of the device itself. the speaker of the smartphone is not powerful enough; therefore, an external sound device was attached to the smartphone. lucy, a frequent user of the smartphone said: ‘i have a lot of music on my phone and this helped me to play music that the learners know but i also introduce other songs as well.’ the laptop was the second most popular device used in the classroom as a tool for teaching and learning in dance, drama and music. participating teachers used laptops to play videos clips to learners. these videos were based on the content of the creative arts curriculum. lucy who teaches the youngest of the all the learners concurred with this statement: ‘learners did not realise that i was actually teaching them. i just made use of the laptop to do the teaching for me. learners enjoy cartoons and they really enjoyed seeing characters like donald duck on the screen. they did not realise that the music was playing in the background.’ the teachers who participated in the study were of the opinion that technology improved their classroom practice. technology enabled them to expand the educational resources to assess higher-order cognitive skills and not only comprehension. naomi, one of the other fp teachers, stated the following: ‘i found better worksheets from the internet. i am not saying that the worksheets we use are bad but the ones on the internet had more variety and the layout was better. i could use ideas from it for the next lesson.’ the teachers played sound clips, had learners watch a section of a movie and used dance exercise videos to teach warm-up exercises through dance. the teachers also made use of youtube videos and cds to play music. rachel an fp teacher shared the following: ‘i feel very confident in using technology in the classroom. i made use of my cellular phone and connected my shox to it. it helped me to understand what i was expected to do during the observation.’ the teachers of the ip chose to begin with warm-up exercises for dance and drama with zumba.3 mary said: ‘the warm-up exercises caused such an excitement that i found it difficult to get the learners quiet after the exercise.’ mary, an ip teacher, was not as keen as the other participants to use technology in her classroom. she stated: ‘it’s nice to use videos and other things to help with teaching but it takes a lot of time to prepare lessons and find things to make it interesting. i teach natural sciences and technology also and don’t always have a lot of time to prepare lessons using laptops. further evidence that the technology was mainly used by the teachers is evident in both matthew and monica’s testimony. both of them made use of video technology to record their learners’ dance performances. monica had this to report: ‘i recorded the learners’ dance performances and viewed this at home. i then assessed them, which felt fairer once i had the opportunity to view performances more than once.’ due to the time allocations for dance, drama and music, it was essential for performances to be recorded and assessed later. the timetables of the teachers in the study showed that creative arts was timetabled closer to the end of the day. fatigue sets in as the day progresses. teachers would find it difficult to assess fairly if they did not concentrate on performances. videotaping the performances reduces the stress placed on the teacher. additionally, the use of technology limited bias because it allows for viewing performances multiple times. this enabled the teacher to make fair comparisons of the performances of groups and individuals. the digital dance diaries were not used for reflection on creative activities nor were they used for creative reflection. youtube and cds made different styles of music more easily accessible without attending live concerts. this is reflected by statements made by two of the teachers. gretchen (ip) stated: ‘i don’t know a lot about classical music but the videos i found helped me to introduce learners to the different instruments and sounds they make.’ naomi (fp) commented on how she had used the internet to prepare for her drama class. she said: ‘googling plays helped me to come up with ideas for the concert. i chose a play about animals. videos helped me to see how the animals move and the sounds they make.’ the internet search of characters helped the teacher to understand the mannerisms of a character. learners are not always acquainted with the attributes of a character, nor are teachers. by viewing other drama performances, the teacher became the more knowledgeable other, instructing learners how to act in their roles. as is evident in the findings, across the three phases, teachers mainly used technology for content as a teaching resource and to explore topics. consequently, the use of technology in the creative arts lessons was almost exclusively teacher-centred as the teachers were the main users of technology in the classroom. technology assisted them in teaching a subject, creative arts, in which they were not adequately trained. notwithstanding this fact, although the learners were not active users of technology, they were actively engaged in completing worksheets and in performing music, dance and drama. the exception to this trend in the use of technology was the utilisation of computers by the grades 4 to 7 learners. the learners’ use of the computer laboratory resulted in more learner interactions with technology. through the use of computers, the roles of the teacher and learner shifted; teachers became the facilitators and the learners became more engaged with their own learning. learners explored the internet, made use of virtual instruments, discovered answers to questions and sourced videos on youtube of relevant dance, drama and performances. primrose stated: ‘i don’t understand everything about computers but i am happy that i and the computer teacher worked together on this. he helped the learners with the more complex procedures that i do not understand. in this way we cover both the computer syllabus and creative arts syllabus at the same time.’ she added: computers help to allow learners to be creative and use imagination. the internet helped learners to find pictures and videos on drama performances. they copied these and added their own flavour to the performances.’ the underlying skills that learners were developing were how to use the computer mouse, typing skills, navigational skills and critical selection of content relevant to the dance, drama and music components of the creative arts curriculum. these skills were all embedded in exercises and demonstrate the cross-disciplinary nature of the arts. grade 7 learners were the most interactive in their use of technology and also made use of virtual instruments (midi keyboard) and composed using music software. these learners were also taught by teachers who were the most qualified and competent in the two specialisations (dance and music) of creative arts chosen by the school. furthermore, learners from grades 4 to 7 used microphones, lighting and sound effects for their christmas concert. consensus was reached among the participating teachers that they had to explain the expectations of each lesson. learners would be responsible for safeguarding the technology and taking ownership of their own learning. gretchen an ip teacher was particular about this and stated: ‘younger learners can be wild and play around with expensive things that might just break. i don’t have money to replace the equipment and the school itself does not get funding for this. i need to train my children now because when we do use other forms of technology they need to respect that.’ professional development as ongoing and classroom based the participating teachers took the time to sit down and plan the lessons according to the abilities of the respective learners they taught. participants were autonomous in their planning and catered to the needs of their learners while using the classroom to create a conducive learning environment. they also found that through using technology they became more confident to teach the creative arts, specifically dance, drama and music. during the time that the study took place, the district office of the department of education held professional development workshops in the creative arts during the third term. this was a 12-week course to develop the teachers’ knowledge, skills and competences to teach the creative arts. the workshops were presented twice a week on friday afternoons, after school and on saturday mornings. attendance at this workshop was voluntary. of the teachers who participated in this study, only monica and matthew attended these as the workshops were focused exclusively on grade 7. the district education department did not provide professional development opportunities in the creative arts to the fp and ip teachers and those teaching grades 8 and 9. this meant that the teachers participating in the study remained dependent on their colleagues and on the available education technology to teach the creative arts. improved classroom engagement and motivation the use of technology in the classroom enhanced both the learners’ engagement and motivation. learners who were lethargic and not interested in the beginning of the study had changed at its conclusion. this motivation and engagement can be ascribed to the content that was learnt or new skills gained by the incorporation of technology. learners from the fp classes who were usually absent on a friday came to school. this was confirmed by checking the attendance register kept by the participating teachers. an increase in learner involvement in learning activities was observed. once technology was introduced and became part of classroom practice in the creative arts, the learners desired a similar approach across the curriculum. it is this observation that has led the researchers to conclude that technology as a tool can be used effectively in the classroom to facilitate teaching and learning. due to an increase in learner engagement, fewer behavioural problems were observed. learners who misbehaved were excluded from activities. learners did not want to be excluded from the activities and so they displayed good behaviour. recommendations from participating teachers at the end of the study, some of the participating teachers made recommendations that relate to training and also to resources. three of the participating teachers suggested that the school should purchase resources such as laptops for the teachers’ use and tablets for teaching. one of the respondents emphasised the need for more training. he stated: the teachers need more training in creative arts. i help where i can. teachers need to understand the basic concepts of all the art forms. at present, they don’t.’ emerging patterns in the technology-infused classroom the participating teachers had been introduced to different technologies at the beginning of the study. as the findings reveal, they used most of the technology that was available to them with the exception of the digital diaries for drama and music, the metronome, the webcam and the interactive whiteboard. cellular phones were used exclusively by the teachers and not the learners as a result of school rules pertaining to cellular phone use by learners during school hours. table 2 presents a summary of the use of technology in the creative arts. table 2: a summary of the teachers’ use of technology in the study. conclusion in this study, the researchers introduced teachers to technology to facilitate teaching and learning in the creative arts classroom. the introduction of technology in the creative arts classroom served a dual purpose. firstly, the researchers recognised that learners interact with technology daily outside of the classroom. introducing technology into the classroom was viewed as a means of formalising the development of high-order cognitive skills such as problem-solving, decision-making, creative thought and technology skills in the creative arts. secondly, due to the teachers having a limited understanding of the creative arts, one of the researchers provided support and guidance with respect to content and classroom practice to the teachers participating in the study. he introduced them to educational technology to enhance their classroom practice in the creative arts. after engaging with technology, the findings as discussed in this article reveal that there was a divergence in the use of technology in the creative arts. this divergence was apparent across the different art forms, among teachers and even within individual teacher’s use of technology. the incorporation of technology alone did not ensure a change in classroom practice. technology set in motion a change in how the teachers and learners engaged with the creative arts. a shift in the role from ‘teacher’ to ‘facilitator’ became more evident, especially in the ip and sp. this study highlighted the fact that teachers needed more in-depth professional development in the art disciplines. the researchers therefore recommend that professional development workshops should be ongoing to develop competences in the creative arts. the researchers believe that increased competences to mediate learning and teaching in the creative arts could lead to more innovation in the use of technology in the classroom. the researchers acknowledge that the current study is limited in that it focused almost exclusively on the teachers. a future study could focus on a more learner-centred approach in the use of technology. this could include learners interacting with the technology such as using multimedia to create their own digital diaries for reflective practice. finally, the study emphasised an area in education that could become increasingly researched and discussed in years to come. education is moving in a direction where technology will be the minimum standard and requirement in classrooms. the researchers motivate that in the absence of ongoing professional development workshops, non-specialist teachers in the arts should be encouraged to explore how technology can improve their practice. acknowledgements this article is based on a study which was part of a master’s degree. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. references 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africa. one of these broadlybanded learning areas was arts and culture, which integrated dance, drama, music and the visual arts. a revised version of the curriculum was published in 2002. in 2010, the curriculum was revised for a second time. arts and culture was renamed as creative arts. in grades r to 6, creative arts form part of life skills and is organized into two streams, visual arts and the performing arts consisting of dance, drama and music. from grades 7 to 9, creative arts is a separate subject, with policy stipulating that schools choose two art forms (from visual arts, dance, drama and music) for specialization. 2. not her real name. throughout, the researchers use pseudonyms to protect the identity of the teachers who participated in this study. ethics clearance was obtained from the ethics committee of the nelson mandela metropolitan university to conduct this study. the ethics clearance number is h/14/art/mus-001. 3. zumba is a dance fitness programme. abstract introduction social constructionism as a theoretical paradigm understanding bullying dynamics research design findings and discussions ethical considerations conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) zibeleni l. hlophe school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa pholoho j. morojele department of research, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa ncamsile d. motsa school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation hlophe, z.l., morojele, p.j. & motsa, n.d., 2017, ‘learners’ constructions of bullying in a south african school context’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a391. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.391 original research learners’ constructions of bullying in a south african school context zibeleni l. hlophe, pholoho j. morojele, ncamsile d. motsa received: 28 oct. 2016; accepted: 12 june 2017; published: 31 july 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract drawing on social constructionism as a theoretical paradigm, this article foregrounds learners’ voices to depict the profiles of bullies and bullying victims within a cultural context of one co-educational secondary school in hammarsdale in south africa. the article uses qualitative data from semi-structured individual and focus group interviews as well as a participatory mapping exercise based on a narrative study of six purposefully sampled grade 9 learners, aged between 13 and 16 years. the findings denote learners’ social identities such as gender, sexual orientation, economic status, age, stature and complexion as critical determinants in the incitement and formation of bully–victim relations. the complex forms, causes and spaces of bullying are highlighted to denote its pervasiveness and the extent of the school’s ill-preparedness to effectively respond to bullying incidents. the study recommends education policy and practice reformists foreground learners’ understanding and experiences of bullying as a basis for enhancing social inclusiveness, tolerance and safe schooling environments, for enhanced equitable quality of learning experiences for all the learners. introduction bullying is ‘an aggressive behaviour’ or ‘harm doing’, which is carried out repeatedly and over time in an interpersonal relationship characterised by an ‘imbalance of power’ (olweus 1993:8–9). it verges more on violence than harassment because of its aggressive nature, which involves a high likelihood for serious, and sometimes permanent, physical injury (patchin & hinduja 2011). bullying further creates a hostile school environment (patchin & hinduja 2016). a rapidly growing body of research over the past 15 years has shown that acts of bullying have severe long-lasting consequences for both the victim and the perpetrator (denny et al. 2014), which has a likelihood to compromise learners’ educational achievement and success (hong & espelage 2016). as a widespread social problem, which compromises learners’ rights to human dignity and educational welfare, inflicting devastating long-term physical, psychological and emotional effects on both the perpetrators and victims (hymel & swearer 2015), bullying requires continued and renewed intervention. volk et al. (2016) further saw bullying as goal oriented. that is to say, the bully usually has a clearly mapped goal in mind on what benefit the act of bullying would be to him or her, for example, material possession or social status. there is no wonder, therefore, as to why bullying has been closely associated with school avoidance (ndebele & msiza 2014), poor academic performance (patchin & hinduja 2016), increased fear and anxiety and suicidal thoughts (patchin & hinduja 2011), including long-term internalising of low self-esteem, anxiety and depression (darney, howcroft & stroud 2013), mostly suffered by its victims. ‘there is no conclusion to what children who are bullied live with. they take it home with them at night. it lives inside them and eats away at them. it never ends’ (hymel & swearer 2015:296). according to darney et al. (2013), not only are these learners isolated from their social circles and denied peer group interaction but they also feel incompetent, lose self-confidence and experience serious health problems. according to maree (2005:30), bullying and violence are very rife in south africa and bullying in school contexts is just ‘the tip of an iceberg’. in a study by ndebele and msiza (2014:117), respondents defined acts of bullying as ‘kicking, beating, name calling, bad treatment by others, hurting other people, forcing others to do what they do not want, forcibly taking other peoples’ belongings and screaming at others’. south africa as a country experiences many violent acts in the communities, and the young population is familiar with such acts, thus they mimic them in school contexts (maree 2005), which explains the high prevalence of bullying cases in south african schools. there is a need for more research to raise consciousness about bullying among learners and its devastating, compromising and antisocial effects on the learners’ well-being and quality of schooling experiences. although many studies have been conducted on bullying (maree 2005; patchin & hinduja 2016), the nexus between constructions of bullying – including perceptions on social identities, in a given context – and forms and incidents of bullying does not come out entirely clear. bullying is a social construct, an activity undertaken and permeated through social relations; therefore, without focusing attention on the sociological nature and dynamics of bullying, we would not come to understand it better (denny et al. 2014) and thus become unable to respond to and prevent bullying effectively. in this article, the authors provide a glimpse of learners’ constructions of bullying and their perceptions of the social identities of perpetrators and victims of bullying. in so doing, the article exposes the nature of social power relations among learners that predicate bullying and how societal dominant constructions of learners’ identities play a critical role in shaping perpetrators and victims of bullying. the article also addresses the complex, often fluid, and contested forms and places of bullying, thereby exposing bullying-free zones and active bullying danger zones within a school context. the findings provide insights into the strategies and interventions that education policy and practice reformists concerned with addressing bullying in schooling context could implement, in order to enhance the quality of the learners’ schooling experience. social constructionism as a theoretical paradigm social constructionism places emphasis on discourse and social relations as bases on which learners’ construction of bullying and learners’ identities as being victims or perpetrators of bullying are predicated (gergen 2009). gee (2011) saw discourse as a socially accepted association among ways of thinking, feeling, believing, valuing and acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group. mccann and kim (2003) posited that a discourse is not a language or a text, but a historically, socially and institutionally specific structure of statements, terms, categories and beliefs. in essence, one’s reality is not just a product of natural creation but a formation of the society one identifies with (berger & luckmann 1991). therefore, discursively constituted social relations are a key phenomenon informing learners’ constructions and experiences of bullying. in this regard, this article shows how the learners’ constructions of bullying are complexly entangled with dominant constructions of bullying in their sociocultural context. social constructionism does not, however, deny external realities affecting learners’ construction of bullying, although it posits that what is important in the study of humans (in this case learners) is to understand how they perceive and make sense of the world around them, for instance, in relation to bullying. this paradigm argues that it is the learners’ socially and historically constituted relations that determine their meaning-making of bullying. hence, the authors focused this article on the role of social identities and relationships in learners’ constructions (meaning-making) of bullying, as a basis to understand bullying dynamics within the school. although social constructionists (such as berger & luckmann 1991; bruner & weinreich-haste 1987; gergen 1985, 2009; gergen & gergen 2000) are not in the business of dismissing reality, they do question the objective existence of meaningful reality. their belief is that, whatever, exist does exist, but the moment we attempt to explain what there is – what is actually the case – we enter a world of discourse, which is suffused in traditions governed by culturally accepted ways of life or of being, and a myriad of socially and historically constituted sets of value preferences (gergen 2009:161). rather than seeking facts and truths, this article was interested in the learners’ social spaces and places (physical locations of collective interactions) – in the school – and how historically founded inventories of the learners’ relationships with these spaces informed their subjective constructions and experiences of bullying. this theoretical perspective enabled the article to illuminate not only the spaces and places of bullying in the school contexts but also the broader societal constructions of violence in their community, owing to the social ills that the community presented to the learners, thereby highlighting that bullying is a social process and ‘an activity that is situated within [a] cultural and historical context’ (bruner & weinreich-haste 1987:1). indeed, the learners’ constructions of bullying were found to be entrenched in discursively symbolised and regulated social relationships with their school communities. when the learners narrated stories about their constructions of bullying, it was apparent that these were not only the learners’ reality but also an embodied reflection of the nature of social relationships of bullying in their school, homes and communities in which they lived. understanding bullying dynamics profiles of perpetrators and victims of bullying bullying is a sociological phenomenon that is rooted in human and social relations (denny et al. 2014). for bullying to take place, two basic components must intersect: the perpetrator and the victim. of course, some studies have also posited the presence of bystanders (bullying audience) as a third, but not least significant, player in bullying. perpetrators of bullying display characteristics of being strong, nasty and angry (ndebele & msiza 2014), with a strong desire to dominate, displaying little empathy (olweus 1994), and tend to abuse peers in their social circles who are mostly non-assertive and insecure. for instance, newcomers, young, shy and intelligent learners are easy targets for bullies because of their vulnerability and social sensibility, which often render them unable to reciprocate similar violence in order to defend themselves. this is particularly the case when perpetration of bullying verges on an antisocial, selfish and socially insensitive abuse of power to inflict fear and intimidation and create social insecurity. generally, perpetrators of bullying mostly bear dominant social identities – for instance, males, older learners, wealthy, tall, confident and outspoken and generally learners who are regarded in a positive light, according to the social constructions of learners’ identities in a given context. on the contrary, bystanders are usually spectators in bullying incidents because they enjoy or are coerced to watch such violent acts in order to give audience and social affirmation to the bullies. bystanders do not necessarily encourage bullying and are often unspoken victims, given the emotional and psychological distress they experience from watching some horrific acts of bullying, while they stand helpless to stop the acts of bullying (hong & espelage 2012). forms of bullying in south african school contexts, learners experience different forms of bullying, which are physical, emotional, psychological or cyber bullying (hymel & swearer 2015). physical bullying occurs when a learner uses overt bodily acts to gain power over peers (schmidt, pierce & stoddart 2016) and can include such acts as kicking, punching, hitting and other physical attacks (chabalala 2011). emotional bullying is conceived as an individual psychologically acting out of aggression from bully to the victim (ringrose & renold 2010) like name-calling, mocking, use of sarcasm, threatening, belittling, social exclusion or humiliation. psychological bullying means harming a person through emotional abuse, thus causing significant stress and interfering with a person’s ability to develop healthy and stable patterns of relating to others (chabalala 2011). this type of bullying occurs between close friends and impact one’s self-esteem, and can further involve indirect actions like stealing or damaging other learners’ property (ndebele & msiza 2014). according to patchin and hinduja (2011), cyber bullying is an act adopted by learners to harass others through emails, social networks, using cell phones or computers. it is considered the cruellest of the other forms of bullying because it allows perpetrators to remain anonymous, therefore reducing individuals’ sensitivity and empathy (ang & goh 2010). research design study context, methodology and data generation methods the research was conducted in a co-educational secondary school in hammarsdale area, which is located on the periphery of durban, in south africa. this area has a history of political violence because of the most brutal black-on-black political killings in battles that took place at the peak of the apartheid violence in the 1980s. the school is located in a semi-urban area, has a population of 1350 children and has 22 classes accommodating learners from grades 8 to 12. this study used a qualitative narrative design to provide data on the learners’ constructions of bullying. this approach enabled the study to present experiential data in a rich, complex and holistic manner and involved the examination of not only consciously told stories but also the deeper, underlying stories that learners held about bullying in the school (creswell 2014). in this way, learners’ experiences of bullying were located in context, moving away from viewing learners’ stories about bullying as merely individual perceptions but more as cultural and ideological constructions that reflect not just learners’ subjective constructions of bullying in the school contexts, but a bigger sociocultural context of their communities at large. qualitative narratives added richness to the study as they enabled learners to tell stories, which were preserved in real-life memories, and therefore connected and situated in particular sociocultural contexts of these learners’ schooling lives. purposive sampling was utilised to select six learners aged between 13 and 16 from grades 9 and 10 (creswell 2014). these comprised a mixture of both bullies and victims of bullying. semi-structured questions were used in both individual and focus group interviews. a participatory mapping exercise technique, which included learners drawing the profiles of bullies and bullying victims, and safe and bullying danger zones, was used. all interviews were conducted in the native language, isizulu, to allow the participants to express their thoughts, feelings and opinions without limitations. integrity, trust and rapport were maintained throughout the research process. validity and trustworthiness validity and trustworthiness were ensured by utilising a multiplicity of data collection methods, namely mapping (drawing) exercise and individual and focus group interviews. this allowed for data collected from different sources to be corroborated and triangulated with other sources (creswell 2014). the choice of participants also provided rich data for the study as they were representative of a wider population of learners who had either been victims, bystanders or perpetrators of bullying. to get honest responses, the authors emphasised that the importance of the interviews was to get a true reflection of their lived experiences and not to get correct answers. the mapping exercise improved the validity of the study as the drawings provided a proof of what was actually documented by the learners as data. trust and respect were maintained throughout the research process and with all the research participants. all interviews and discussions were conducted in isizulu for participants to express themselves without linguistic restrictions (creswell 2014). this allowed for a more accurate transcription and presentation of the data, and some verbatim excerpts from the recorded data were used to illustrate and support the study findings. after transcription, the participants were given the transcripts in order to confirm if the interpretations made by the researchers were the correct narrations and true reflections of their true responses. any wrongly interpreted data were removed. data analysis procedure data were translated from the native language isizulu into english. it was then analysed through an inductive process, which necessitated listening and re-listening to the recorded data, which aided in the identification of the patterns and themes related to the learners’ construction of bullying in the school context (creswell 2014). this was followed by line-by-line reading of all the transcripts for familiarity with the data and identifying sub-emerging themes related to the research question, which were then coded (dicicco-bloom & crabtree 2006). the participants helped with the selection and contextualisation of the pictures (harley 2012). all the generated data were then discussed in relation to the study objectives, drawing insights from the literature debates in the field, the conceptual framework of the study and the original critical interpretive abilities of the researchers. findings and discussions learners’ understanding of bullying: victims and perpetrators bullying was an intractable challenge, which learners experienced on the playground, during journey to school and in the community. the findings indicate the active roles that learners played as they perpetually negotiated the complex social and emotional spaces and places of bullying in this context. social power and contestation over social capital and status were found to suffuse many incidents of bullying. for instance, attempts of power abuse were found to thwart learners’ relationships in ways that precipitated incidents of bullying. indeed, power abuse and contestations thereof were found to be the main catalysts triggering many bullying incidents at the school. the tendency was for learners whose social identities were perceived to embody dominant characteristics and values (gender, sexual orientation, economic status, age, stature, complexion, etc.) to inflict bullying on those whose social identities did not signify dominant notions and values of being normal. the authors found that incidents of bullying were neither triggered by genuine situations of survival nor as a means for learners to navigate their circumstances towards any noble or legitimate end. most incidents of bullying were sheer malicious abuse of power mainly for bullies’ own amusement. they were purely a wielding of power against other learners for no other reason than ceremonial and egoistic selfishness, aimed at belittling them (other learners). for instance, there was no reported scenario where bullying incidents occurred as a result of learners’ contestations over basic resources or means of survival. learners’ experiences of bullying were found to be closely linked to what they, as learners, understood and perceived as bullying. therefore, many other incidents of bullying might not have been reported as bullying if these were not perceived as such by the participants in this study. as illustrated below, power abuse or misuse and domination were major features in learners’ understanding of what constituted as bullying: bullying is whereby those bigger boys use to fight the smaller boys. (participant 1, boy aged 14) bullying is when you take somebody’s possessions by force. (participant 2, boy aged 13) bullying is when you force someone to do something that he or she does not like. (participant 3, girl aged 16) some children think that as their homes are bigger than others in the location that means they are also better than others here at school. (participant 4, boy aged 15) learners who were perceived to be dominant and powerful were found to use their power to intimidate their victims who usually were the smaller boys with low social power, thus relegated as helpless against the bullies (olweus 1994). some learners at the school however seemed to have legitimate power vested in them; these included school prefects and the scholar patrol members who took advantage of their status as prefects in the school to bully other learners. this was mainly seen as an acceptable use of authority when understood within the context of their roles and responsibilities in the school, which hymel and swearer (2015) described as difficult to stop, for it affirmed the prefects’ social status. in other cases, the participants explained that other learners would involve themselves in bullying that took the form of fights to protest against this abuse of power, especially when the learners thought the prefects were being vindictive or if they overplayed their roles (did more than what the learners thought were acceptable means for prefects to institute discipline, etc.) (volk et al. 2016). indeed, the prefects were found to exert their authority over the learners by hitting them when they did not listen or follow the instruction regarding certain codes of behaviour: some prefects want us to respect them as if they are our parents; they want us to bow on them, and if we don’t, they hit you. (participant 5, girl aged 13) some learners here fight the prefects. for example, one boy in grade 5 fought a prefect in the toilets because he felt he was not treating him fairly, only because he was not from one of the bigger houses. (participant 2, boy aged 13) another dynamic of use or abuse of power in bullying was demonstrated when older boys were found bullying the younger boys, while in some other cases, boys were using their social power of masculinities to bully girls. as illustrated below, the participants agreed that stealing was a form of bullying (volk et al. 2016), and it usually occurred when older learners stole from younger learners, as a tactic to inflict fear, anxiety and emotional pain: grade 8 children are always in trouble because they have to pay for their schooling, if they don’t, the bullies do it by force e.g. steal from them. (participant 4, boy aged 15) on a trip early this year, two boys were picking other’s bags looking for money and other stuff. (participant 3, girl aged 16) a boy in our classroom last year was caught stealing a girl’s cell phone. (participant 2, boy aged 13) stealing and forceful taking of other learners’ belongings was understood as a form of bullying by learners in this study. there are those who were easy targets, for example those who possessed minority social status within social groupings (cortes & kochenderfer-ladd 2014) or as constructed by the local cultures (schmidt et al. 2016). although the code of conduct was in place at the school to protect the learners from any forms of social abuse, including bullying, the learners nonetheless disobeyed and disregarded this code (hymel & swearer 2015) and continuously engaged in petty criminal offences such as stealing, which, as illustrated above, the learners regarded as bullying. as part of the participatory methods of this study, the learners were asked to engage in an exercise where they dramatically depicted the victim and perpetrator profile. learners were asked to list what they regarded as dominant social identities of learners in the school (figure 1). against each dominant identity, learners were asked to write what they would regard as a subservient identity. thus, the left-hand side indicates what the learners regarded as dominant social identity, and the right-hand side is a corresponding subservient identity. then, learners were asked to place a red dot on the social identity which is mostly the perpetuator of bullying in the school and a blue dot on the social identity which is mostly the victim of bullying. figure 1: the red dots depict social identities which the participants regarded as dominant and thus perpetrators of bullying. likewise, the blue dots show subservient social identities, which predisposed learners to be victims of bullying. the victim and perpetrator profile in figure 1 illustrates that all six participants perceived boys, learners from rich economic backgrounds, lesbians, thin learners and those with light skin complexion and short in stature as the main perpetrators of bullying. perpetrators of bullying were generally depicted as the so-called ‘normal’ children. the inclusion of lesbians and short-statured learners is an interesting phenomenon. perhaps this drew from the dominant constructions of lesbian as girls who possess masculine attributes relatively similar to boys. as for learners who were short in stature, more research is required to probe this phenomenon. there were dominant perceptions among learners in this study that short learners, especially boys, featured significantly as perpetrators of bullying. little is known about how this might relate to the phenomena of the so-called ‘short men syndrome’. the victims of bullying were generally learners who were regarded as the social minorities such as girls, those coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds, gay learners, fat learners, learners with dark facial complexions and the physically challenged, so-called ‘disabled’. generally, the findings indicate that the dominant social categories such as class (assumptions of poor and rich), gender, sexual orientation and learners’ physical appearances play a determining role for who the perpetrators and the victims of bullying in this school were. this same pattern of the victim and perpetrator profile was prevalent in almost all learners’ drawings, illustrating the currency and dominance of these phenomena in how learners constructed the victims and perpetrators of bullying in this context. learners’ understandings of bullying drew on how dynamics of power based on social identities constructions were used and acted out in conformity with the dominant culture within the school context. the low social status (olweus 1994) accorded to learners who did not signify dominant social identities relegated them to the likelihood of becoming victims of bullying. another important matter that is related to the issue of power and learners’ understanding of bullying is the learners’ use and possession of what are regarded as dangerous weapons, such as scissors, sticks and knives, which some learners used to fight with at school: some children mimic tv wrestling at school especially at grade 8 and 9 and when like one child hits another real hard and they get into a fight over that one thing. (participant 4, boy aged 15) one day in class, a boy claimed that he is ‘van damme’ and he called another boy ‘dolf’, [popular movie actors]. he then challenged a fight because van damme is known as a movie star and nobody can defeat him. (participant 3, girl aged 16) learners’ exposure to images of bullying and violence today, via the electronic media, was found to contribute to relationships of bullying in the school (thornberg & jongert 2013). indeed, some learners’ imitation of their tv screen heroes through bullying games at school subjected the targeted learners to the inhumane treatment of bullying in the form of violent wrestling games, which the bullies regarded as entertainment. indeed, sometimes, the learners’ games went too far as the perpetrators of bullying attempted to blur the distinctions between reality and tv fantasy, which often led to fights: in grade 10 there is a group of boys who called themselves super heroes, they used to wear those watches like ben 10, as they saw in a tv movie and they claim that they can perform miracles as ben 10 does. (participant 6, girl aged 14) from this, we can learn that challenging the taken-for-granted normality of dominant constructions of social and learners’ identities, and the concomitant inequitable power relations that these forge among learners, could be a useful strategy to address bullying within the school. there was much commonness in how learners described bullying as always involving the use or misuse of power against those who are perceived as powerless (hymel & swearer 2015). therefore, the inequitable power imbalances (olweus 1994) caused by how dominant social identities were exalted and rewarded with power and social status at the expense of minority social identities who were relegated and devalued precipitated most incidents of bullying in this context. addressing general issues of poverty, economic destitution and other societal ills that relegate learners to powerlessness (schmidt et al. 2016) could also be a long-term strategy to eradicate and mitigate bullying in this school. complex forms, causes and spaces of bullying respondents were asked to identify the various forms of bullying and the spaces and places where different forms of bullying took place. these were the spaces that the bullies used to inflict bullying because of their location within the school premises and were dubbed ‘bullying danger zones’. forms of bullying that were prevalent in this school were calling other learners by derogatory and hurtful names, physical abuse, mostly in the form of fighting, making demeaning jokes about someone (hymel & swearer 2015), taking somebody’s possessions by force and spreading malicious anecdotes through gossip; this latter form was inflicted especially by girls. the following are some of the examples that were offered by the learners during the interviews: the form of bullying that is annoying in class is when the teacher asks a question then you try to answer and the other children just laugh at you. (participant 2, boy aged 13) discrimination, whereby you find those who are light in colour laughing to those who are dark and call them ‘kwerekwere’ [a derogatory term used to refer to people who come from the middle of africa]. (participant 3, girl aged 16) touching the opposite sex without his or her permission is another form of bullying. usually it is done by boys to girls. (participant 1, boy aged 14) the findings indicate that we should pay attention to learners’ well-being in the classroom, beyond reprimanding them. this could be achieved by creating a conducive classroom environment where learners can freely learn and exchange ideas without fear of being ridiculed and laughed at. especially when learners regard being laughed at when trying to answer teachers’ questions as a form of bullying, precisely because this act elicits the same feelings of being bullied, like belittlement, shame and embarrassment, effective learning is not likely to take place (patchin & hinduja 2016). bullying based on learners’ complexion is a microcosm of white supremacy racial undertones, where the assumption was that the lighter in complexion one is, the closer one is to being a white person, and therefore more superior and better. seeing the same internalised racial inferiority of blackness (harro 2000) playing out in dynamics of bullying within a school context is a bleak indication of how pervasive and destructive this phenomenon is. it is needless to overemphasise the currency of touching other learners’ private parts as a sexually charged form of bullying, mainly perpetrated by boys against girls, as participant 1 indicated above. the roots of this are implicated in unequal gender relations between boys and girls, where girls’ bodies are seen or used as objects for boys’ gratification and amusement (bhana, nzimakwe & nzimakwe 2011). this was closely associated with notions of hypereroticised girls’ bodies, which were supposed to be slim and heterosexually appealing. girls who did not have this ideal body form were subjected to teasing, which learners regarded as a form of bullying. for instance, those who were regarded as thin always teased those who were fat: i won’t forget my first day here at school whereby children were laughing at me; telling me that i should run, rounding the school because i am too fat. (participant 3, girl aged 16) there was generally a stigma associated with not having a beautiful body, especially targeted against girls. the findings indicate that the learners’ ‘bodies’ were a major precipitator of bullying in this context. besides girls being bullied for not having idealised heterosexual slim bodies, some learners were bullied and teased about the size of their heads, nose, eyes, ears, chin and so forth. these would be ridiculed for being too big, too small, too pointy, too blunt, eyes too sleek and the list goes on: some people tease each other because they have big heads, small nose, big ears and then they start fighting. boys also compete with their girlfriends, thinking that ‘mine is prettier than yours’ and if anyone says your girlfriend is ugly, the other boys laugh at you, and that too lead to fights. (participant 6, girl aged 14) i always hear some children teasing others because they are fat and they call them ‘fatty boom boom’ and those children said they will catch them on their way home and i don’t know what happened after that as they were so angry. (participant 2, boy aged 13) sometimes there is bullying in school because children start relationships that they can’t handle and then they go to someone else and then when that person finds out it becomes a fight. (participant 1, boy aged 14) some beautiful girls in the school are teased for having either a long noise or big bums. (participant 5, girl aged 13) the learners placed great emphasis on appearance, physical beauty and attractiveness, especially for the girls, even though it was very loosely defined. the lack of definition of what constituted a beautiful, sexually attractive appearance increased the fluidity of teasing such that at one point someone who was regarded as beautiful, and possessing the ideal body parts, could be teased and bullied as unattractive based on a particular body part that could be regarded as out of the norm. from the findings, it did not seem to matter what boys looked like, but the attractiveness of a girl seemed to matter, and as a boy, being told that a boy’s girlfriend was ugly could lead to a serious fight. it appeared that a boy’s girlfriend’s beauty was a reflection of his real masculine and heterosexual prowess and ego. it was literally the case of the more macho the boy, the prettier the girl he was supposed to date. participant 3 described an incident in which a boy was seen brushing against another boy at school. the incident was reported to the teacher who happened to be passing by at the time. the teacher responded to their report by reporting the incident, ensuring that everybody in the school heard about what was regarded as a disgusting act of homosexuality – a boy trying to kiss another boy: wow! they almost kissed each other those boys, the way they were brushing each other and the other boys saw them too. (participant 3, girl aged 16) learners were very critical of one another and there was a social stigma attached to homosexuality. consequently, learners had learnt to conceal any sexual orientations that did not signify heterosexuality. this ensured that the currency of homosexuality, bisexuality and other forms of learners’ sexual orientations secretly prevailed under the guise of pretence and platonic relationships, where learners could not disclose even to their closest friends for fear of being bullied, victimised and rejected by their peers (ratele 2014). being overly competitive was regarded as another form of bullying. learners who demonstrated how much better off they were than others compared their homes and their school uniforms in relation to wealth, and added a layer in the dynamics of bullying in this school. learners who were dropped at school in fancy cars, had sophisticated cell phones and lived in large houses internalised a sense of domination and superiority (harro 2000) over other learners who did not have these material possessions. this set the scene for unproductive competitive comparison and arguments, eventually ending in acts of bullying fights: some of the fights in class come because of the competition of the cell phones that children use to carry at school. (participant 5, girl aged 13) last year two boys were fighting because his girlfriend was dating a taxi driver as he was failing to buy her fancy cell phone and other fancy stuff, that other boy was laughing at him because of that situation, and the fight began. (participant 4, boy aged 15) the availability of portable possessions, particularly the latest electronic gadgets such as cell phones, triggers and feeds jealousy and that automatically leads to fighting. (participant 2, boy aged 13) competitiveness is a key dominant masculine attribute (ratele 2014) that was found to underlie many incidents of bullying, especially because the essence of bullying was an expression of domination – a sense of personal supremacy and superiority over those who were relegated and perceived to be menial. therefore, the bullies needed to be seen in a better light in all aspects of their lives in relation to other learners. either the bullies had the best cell phones or they would grab things from others in the active execution of bullying. other learners’ resistance to this sparked most fighting incidents in the school. the bullies seemed to have feelings of envy, especially towards individuals perceived to have some advantages or privileges denied to them, as participant 2 illustrated above, especially connected to material possessions. another interesting form of bullying was territorial bullying, where older boys urinated in particular spots, and kicked and abused anyone urinating in the same spot if they were not part of the group of boys who were known to use that spot. as illustrated in figure 2, learners were asked to actively engage in a mapping exercise in which they made drawings of places which were safe and unsafe from bullying incidents. this exercise allowed the learners to pictorially show what they regarded as the danger zones in their schooling environment. figure 2: the participants collaboratively drew this figure to depict bullying danger zones and safe places in the school. the red dots denote bullying danger zones and the blue ones denote safe places. all places that learners regarded as unsafe were denoted with a red dot and the safe ones with a blue dot. the findings indicate that the school’s main gate, principal’s office, staff room, passage through grade 10 classrooms, boys’ toilets, teachers’ toilets and generally upper-grades classrooms were the main bullying danger zones for learners in this study. the study found that there were only a few places that were regarded as safe within the school context: yho madam, you know those classes [grade 10-12] they just look at you as you are coming then make a joke of you and after that the whole class laughs at you as you pass there. (participant 1, boy aged 14) even in the toilets, madam, you will find other bullying boys who use to tell you that you must not urinate in this spot because it is mine [that is only me or my group can urinate in that spot]. (participant 2, boy aged 13) when you pass the arcade next to grade 10 classes, there are older boys, who use to stand there, and they can call you and ask you to do something for them and if you refuse, they kick you or sometimes call you names. (participant 5, girl aged 13) some of the places that learners regarded as bullying danger zones were far away from the teachers’ staffrooms. in such spaces, the bullies could do whatever they liked without being noticed. however, some spaces such as the principal’s office and teachers’ toilet were indicated as bullying danger zones, which directly implicated teachers’ and principal’s roles in the perpetuation and infliction of bullying in the school. the authors even found cases were teachers were reported to encourage learners to engage in acts of violence: one day i was reporting the child who was bullying me then the teachers asked me that don’t i have the hands to do what he did to me? (participant 3, girl aged 16). it was not uncommon for learners who reported bullying incidents to teachers to get responses like, ‘are you afraid of him?’ (participant 1), simply meaning, ‘why don’t you fight back?’. perhaps such experiences might have led the participants to map the teacher’s staffroom as a danger zone, with red, as also illustrated above. the teacher’s response was a blatant attempt to encourage learners to respond with violence as a means to avenge bullying, thereby exacerbating rather than minimising incidents of bullying and violence in the school, which could be minimised by having positive responses to such incidents (denny et al. 2014). the findings indicate that the container, which was used as a kitchen at the school, was one of the few places that learners regarded as safe. the motherly instinct kicked in and inspired the women who cooked in the kitchen to protect learners who were victims of bullying. such learners would run to the container where the women cooks would hide them and pretend they did not see or know where those learners were: aunties in the kitchen are very wise, if you are in trouble you just run to them and they just hide you under the buckets of food. (participant 5, girl aged 13) the principal’s office is not safe because sometimes when he is not in your favour, you report the matter to him, and then he can blame you. only the aunties in the kitchen who can save you when you are in trouble. (participant 6, girl aged 14) the findings indicate that the school did not have its own policy against bullying. in fact, all members of the school who possessed dominant social status and power were the main active perpetrators of bullying – teachers, the school principal, older boys and so forth. the bullying danger zones were so widespread that they made bullying a predominant predicament in learners’ schooling in this context. there were only a few safe places, considering that the participants also considered the teachers’ toilet and the staffroom as places where incidents of bullying occurred. it appears that teachers’ use of emotionally harmful means to reprimand learners was seen by learners as a form of bullying. participants reported that teachers encouraged them to retaliate to bullying, and this indicated how ill-prepared teachers in the school were to deal with and to combat bullying. therefore, it was indeed a survival of the fittest with respect to how learners navigated the schooling spaces. it was interesting to note how the container (depicted by the blue dot in figure 2 and which was used as a kitchen), not the staffroom or the principal’s office, was a place of refuge for learners who were targeted victims of bullying. could this point to the critical role that non-teaching staff could effectively play in combatting bullying in the school? perhaps, further research could probe more on how the non-academic staff could effectively help in this phenomenon. limitations of the study the study used only six participants from one co-educational secondary school in durban, south africa, who provided valuable insights on bullying. indeed, the findings are only limited to these learners’ perceptions and experiences and thus cannot be generalised beyond the six participants. a longitudinal and ethnographic research project, involving more participants and various stakeholders, is planned to explore further dynamics of bullying in this context. this article focused more on the learners’ constructions of bullying perpetrators and victims, and forms of bullying in a school context. future research could benefit by eliciting more insights on the effects of bullying, especially on the victims and bystanders. ethical considerations consent for the research was sought from the department of education in the district and the principal of the school. ethical clearance was then sought from the research office at the university of kwazulu-natal. permission was also obtained from the parents or guardians of the participants and the participants themselves. the authors respected the notion that children are human beings who have to be given a choice to make decisions on matters concerning their lives, and the principles of voluntary participation and willingness were applied in the selection. during the study, the learners’ rights and welfare were protected and pseudonyms were used to protect their identity. all parties were assured of anonymity and confidentiality. conclusion and recommendations socially constructed relationships and identities were found to play a critical role in mediating learners’ constructions of bullying, as well as in shaping profiles of perpetrators and victims of bullying in the school context. most of the learners’ social identities were caught in, or at least a product of historical social relationships, which were intricately suffused in, and regulated by dominant discourses within the school. this fact made it harder for the learners to conduct their schooling lives in ways that transcend dominant predisposition as perpetrators or victims of bullying. there were cases where learners conducted themselves in ways that challenge the dominant constructions of perpetrator–victim relationships. however, such cases were defused and scattered across time and space, making it difficult to make a significant impact to alleviate adverse effects of bullying in this context. the study found that bullying incidents were mostly sheer power exercises by perpetrators, and it was difficult to comprehend the logic or pattern or procedure, beyond the supposedly minority social status of the victims, making it rather challenging to devise effective strategies to combat bullying in the learners’ real-life schooling experiences. the findings indicated that learners who were generally not affirmed by dominant social identity constructions were prone to being bullied more than those who were. for instance, victims of bullying had characteristics of being a social minority, mainly learners from low socioeconomic backgrounds, labelled as fat, and disabled. on the contrary, perpetrators had characteristics such as thin learners, light skin and short stature. even teachers were found to be encouraging bullying either by not attending to cases of bullying or through encouraging learners to avenge bullying by violence. this denoted the omnipresent nature of bullying in this context, and why it is vitally important and urgent to devise strategies in order to address this social problem. the following recommendations are made as possible ways through which bullying incidents could be prevented or mitigated in this school context: teachers need to be skilled in dealing with, recognising and responding promptly and effectively to cases of bullying in the school context. this is because teachers in the study seemed to be ill-equipped to deal with cases of bullying as they were found to be perpetuating instead of mitigating violence. for instance, both pre-service education and in-service workshops could help equip teachers to respond effectively to cases of bullying and thus enhance the creation of inclusive school spaces. issues of poverty (which was hugely prevalent in this context) predisposed learners to bullying incidents. consequently, poverty alleviation strategies could be implemented in order to mitigate the effects of bullying in this school. schools should design their own policies to deal with issues of bullying that adequately respond to the schools’ historical and cultural positioning in order to complement a safe school environment enshrined in the values of the constitution of south africa. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions z.l.h. took lead in organising the field work, conducted data collection and did data transcription and some preliminary analysis. p.j.m. conceptualised the entire study and provided general guidance to n.d.m. in framing this article, as well as writing the critical aspects of the article. n.d.m. conducted and wrote the literature review sections of this study and co-wrote most of the content in this article with p.j.m. references ang, r.p. & goh, d.h., 2010, ‘cyber bullying among adolescents: the role of effective and cognitive empathy, and gender’, child 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judgment and defender self-efficacy’, journal of adolescence 36(3), 475–483. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2013.02.003 volk, a.a., farrell, a.h., franklin, p., mularczyk, p.k. & provenzano, d.a., 2016, ‘adolescent bullying in schools. an evolutionary perspective’, in d.c. geary & d.b. berch (eds.), evolutionary perspectives on child development and education, pp. 167–191, springer international publishing, basel. editorial comment x td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp.ix-x. importance is that some of the older generation of academics have tended to shun developments in information technology, or have failed to keep pace with new strides made in this direction. although this is not always the product of their own doing, we should embark on a constructive search for options to determine how the apparent divide between human-machine interactions can be overcome. there is also a need to integrate knowledge in the field of education. why is it that some of the remarkable contemporary scientific discoveries are often overlooked by civil society? could it be that important information is not properly communicated? this is reminiscent of a defunct culture associated with the ivory towers of the academe. in an interactive world of communication technology there should be some remedies for this short circuit in scientific knowledge dissemination. in southern africa, a developing region of the world, it is important to be aware of breakthroughs and innovations in science. although there are scientists and media practitioners in south africa who are actively propagating better linkages with society at large, this should become an integral part of educators’ teaching objectives at the primary, secondary and tertiary level. we have to communicate valuable information that speaks of now and anticipates tomorrow. we would like to think that td can serve as a platform for education communication of this nature. writing science does not imply that it has to be written in a manner that is incomprehensible to a broader readership. indeed, most good scientific material is written in a clear, unambiguous register. it has the greatest impact when the average intelligent person in society can understand it. the most gifted scientist is one who can state precisely in plain language what needs to be understood. speaking of language, the editorial policy of td makes provision for authors to write in any of the 11 official languages of south africa. with the exception of less than five articles in afrikaans, all published material has been in english. we have not yet, for example, received a single scientific article written in isixhosa, isizulu, sesotho, or setswana. publication of material that reflects the diversity of a regional society with a rich cultural heritage, a field still under-explored in our regional scientific writing, would justifiably make td a proudly southern african publication. in addition, we are open to publishing articles in international languages that have a substantial scientific readership. here we think for example of spanish, portuguese, french, german, chinese, swahili and arabic – languages also spoken in our region. if we are able to explore some of these communications we may be able to promote linkages with experts in other parts of the world. given the possibility of using comprehensive summaries of articles, the discourse in a ‘foreign’ language need not exclude the majority of our readers. instead it could pave the way for greater opportunities. for example, in the southern hemisphere, we share much in common with our continental neighbours in south america. can we not use language as a vehicle to communicate ideas that are of mutual interest to our regional partners? finally, as of the next issue of td, scheduled for july 2010, we will move into the digital era. forthwith the journal will only be available in electronic format. the high costs associated with printing hardcopy editions, has forced us to move away from this valued medium of communication. we have a feeling of nostalgia and a sense of loss with the passing of the paper printing technology. on the brighter side, hopefully this change will inspire more readers to resort to comfortably settling in with electronic publications as a feature of an ever-transforming society. abstract introduction beginner teachers amidst changing curricula: a vulnerable group socio-political origins of transdisciplinary demands in south african classrooms unique transdisciplinary demands in south african schools research context and methodology presentation and discussion of main findings beginner teachers’ excitement turning into disillusionment beginner teachers’ experiences of dealing with transdisciplinary demands conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) yolandi woest department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, south africa citation woest, y., 2018, ‘beginner teachers’ experiences of transdisciplinary demands of a school curriculum’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a488. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.488 original research beginner teachers’ experiences of transdisciplinary demands of a school curriculum yolandi woest received: 06 oct. 2017; accepted: 12 june 2018; published: 13 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article focuses on the experiences of beginner teachers of the transdisciplinary demands evident in school curricula. a detailed inductive thematic analysis of open-ended interviews with ten beginner teachers from socially diverse south african schools provided rich data on their experiences of these demands. rapid changes in the south african school curriculum since 1994 are discussed against the backdrop of participants’ real lived experience during their first three years of teaching and are posed as main reason for transdisciplinary demands on beginner teachers. despite the socio-economic differences between schools, all participants experienced the same cognitive and emotional dissonance during their first years of teaching. all participants’ related experiences of heightened levels of confusion, fear of failure to meet demands of school management teams, frustration of not being able to effectively teach subjects for which they had been trained and concern about the influence of their lack of knowledge in unfamiliar subjects on learners. drawing on the concept of an ‘ideal’ transdisciplinary approach, this article explores the ways in which transdisciplinary demands within the transitional space of the state of the south african educational system compound challenges faced by beginner teachers. recommendations for tertiary teacher training programmes are briefly suggested in the conclusion. introduction this article focuses on transdisciplinary demands encountered by beginner teachers during the first years of their teaching career. for the scope of this article, transdisciplinary work refers to a concentrated effort ‘between disciplines that creates a movement across the disciplines and results in a product beyond all disciplines’ (nicolescu 2005:2–3). this article deals with the experiences of beginner teachers in south african classrooms, where the ‘product beyond all disciplines’ (nicolescu 2005:2–3) is obscured because of various transitional socio-political changes in a short period which vastly affected the school curriculum. education in south africa has undergone several changes after the fall of apartheid1 in 1994, which had a profound influence on beginner teachers’ experiences during their early years of teaching. the beginner teachers involved in this study have received subject-specific tertiary training, and were appointed in positions according to their expertise, only to be asked to teach different subjects at the start of the academic year. all were committed to be successful teachers in their fields of expertise but felt that they were not in any position to refuse requests from school management teams to teach other subjects at this early stage of their careers. in some cases, the participants were asked to teach other subjects together with their expertise subjects, which compound the demands of preparation for subjects of which they knew little. it is these experiences brought about by a unique context with a transdisciplinary nature that contribute to the significance of this article. the starting point of this article will be an overview of the nature of beginner teachers. firstly, the concept of beginner teachers will be clarified and it will then be be characterised. challenges and difficulties appear when teachers start their teaching careers and these will briefly be discussed. the socio-political origins of these demands manifesting in south african classrooms will be provided. then, ‘transdisciplinary demands’, as it stands in scholarly literature, will be clarified and conceptualised. transdisciplinary demands for the scope of this article will also be discussed. the transdisciplinary framework set forth by van der westhuizen, greuel and beukes (2017) is discussed to show how transdisciplinary demands could be dealt with as opposed to the way it is actually dealt with in classrooms, thereby highlighting the experiences of beginner teachers. the next section deals with the research methodology and methodological decisions that were employed in this study. then, presentation of the findings and a discussion of the ways in which beginner teachers experience these demands will follow. beginner teachers amidst changing curricula: a vulnerable group the concept ‘beginner teacher’ has been debated by a number of scholars in the field (feiman-neser 2001; fraser, greenfield & pancini 2016; veenman 1984). other terms such as ‘beginning teachers’ (fraser, greenfield & pancini 2017; veenman 1984), ‘novice teachers’ (feiman-neser 2001) and ‘early career teachers’ (fraser et al. 2017) have been used interchangeably. these terms have in common that they mostly refer to educators who are new to the teaching profession, although scholars usually specify the exact amount of time in relation to the preferred terminology. for the scope of this article, the term ‘beginner teachers’ refers to participants of the article who have been teaching for 3 years or less. challenges faced by beginner teachers are neither novel nor confined to a specific context. international research indicates that beginner teachers struggle with the shift from student teacher to beginner teacher (friedman 2000; klusman, richter & lüdtke 2016; stokking et al. 2003; veenman 1984). researchers describe the challenge of learning to teach in a ‘real’ teaching environment by using various terms, such as ‘transition shock’ (corcoran 1981), ‘reality shock’, ‘the survival phase’ (huberman 1989:57) and ‘shattered dreams’ (friedman 2000:182). one of the challenges described in the literature is the ‘dilemma from the extensive range of duties’ (kumazawa 2013:50), where beginner teachers are expected to take on various other duties besides teaching. other researchers have also studied workload and role ambiguity as stressors affecting beginner teachers (betoret 2009; dicke et al. 2014; schwarzer & hallum 2008). the well-being of beginner teachers has been under scrutiny in the light of the problematic nature of the transition from student teacher to beginner teacher, which manifests in different forms such as low levels of well-being (evers, tomic & brouwers 2004; friedman 2006). other researchers in the field (billet & somerville 2004; day 2008) discuss the reality shock and contradictory emotions experienced by beginner teachers as they take on roles as school teachers. ‘praxis shock’ is described by kelchtermans and ballet (2002:115) as the contrast between teachers’ expectations and classroom realities; they confirmed that beginner teachers are overwhelmed by a multitude of new challenges during their early years of practice (kelchtermans & ballet 2002; le maistre & pare 2010). in most of the cases, emotional discomfort arises because of the dissonance between personal idealistic expectations, perceptions and beliefs and classroom realities (keys 2007; parkison 2008). challenges in south african teaching contexts included negative attitudes of family members and friends when choosing to teach as a profession, teaching in unsafe environments, language barriers, transitions between different kinds of schools (independent, public or township schools), academic struggles, victimisation because of racial differences and transdisciplinary demands of continuously changing curricula (woest 2016). beginner teachers experience emotions of isolation; in many cases, they experience not only the lack of institutional support but they also have perceptions of hostility from management and more experienced colleagues (flores & day 2006). these negative experiences generate negative emotions in the transition process from student teacher to beginner teacher. in addition, beginner teachers are expected to control their classes, ensure that their learners obtain good results and take on numerous extra-curricular duties (woest 2016). the reality is that once newly qualified teachers start teaching, they experience teaching ‘from the other side’ for the first time. they were probably exposed to ‘real-life’ teaching only during teaching practice or in-service programmes, which take place in artificial environments and only prepare student teachers to a limited extent for the real world of teaching. the case made in this article involves experiences of beginner teachers when they are requested to teach subjects outside their fields of expertise. beginner teachers’ experiences are explored when they are in a sense ‘forced’ to adopt a transdisciplinary teaching approach with no or very little training or the ‘new’ subject they are requested to teach. socio-political origins of transdisciplinary demands in south african classrooms the socio-political sphere surrounding participants of this article arises from the inimitable development of the national south african school curriculum after the demise of apartheid. the ages of participants (24 – 28 years of age) involved categorise them as part of the so-called born-free generation. according to the 2015 report of the south african institute of race relations (irr), the ‘born-frees’ are children and youths born in the post-apartheid era, after the handover of power by the national party (np) to the african national congress (anc) in 1994. however, this article has broadened this definition to include everyone born in or after 1990. this inclusion is significant in the sense that it accounts for aspects of the political environments in which the participants had grown up, which correspondingly came to the fore during interviews. although most of the participants were too young to remember much about the apartheid system, the rippling effect of apartheid was revealed in their narratives and all were strongly influenced by the apartheid system on their parents or had experienced the effects thereof in the south african school system themselves. although born-frees are largely free of the constraints of the apartheid regime and have political rights, they still face difficulties such as poor education and a high unemployment rate. the participants as born-frees also experienced several changes in the south african school curriculum. after the fall of the apartheid regime, several policy changes were implemented one after the other, all of which had affected the participants, who had been of school-going age at the time. the changes which probably had the largest effect on the born-frees pertain to the introduction and implementation of several curricula in a relatively short period of time. to improve the general quality of education, curriculum 2005 was introduced in 1997 and was associated with social justice, human rights, equity and development, learner centeredness and learning facilitation (booyse & le roux 2010:52). this amendment implied that there were no more different curricula for different races as with the earlier bantu education act. in 2004, the revised national curriculum statement (rncs) was introduced, whose aim was strong conceptual knowledge and critical awareness of the social, moral, economic and ethical issues in south africa. the implementation of the rncs attempted to address skills shortages in south africa and the disciplines life orientation and mathematics and two languages became compulsory. finally in 2012, a comprehensive curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps), an improved implementation of the rncs, was introduced and implemented. these changes in policy took place in less than approximately 15 years’ time, a fact that made the working conditions of teachers employed during this time extremely difficult. curriculum changes had far-reaching effects on teachers who had to implement changes daily and in ‘real-life’ circumstances. it was expected that educators ‘link’ disciplines to others, for example a specific theme should run across all disciplines. other curriculum changes demanded that different skills in specific disciplines were included with which educators had little or no experience. numerous teachers were asked to teach other disciplines than their fields of specialisation, according to schools’ urgent and diverse needs. in many cases, the curriculum changes were implemented in such a way that there may have been as much as three different curricula simultaneously implemented in one school. thus, several teachers had to adhere to the guidelines of, in some cases, up to three different curricula when teaching different grades. even for experienced teachers, these changes implied increased workload and new challenges to stay abreast of the curriculum demands. more so, it had a significant influence on the experiences of the participants included in this article, as they were faced with change, transition and the inevitable uncertainty brought therewith, during their first years of teaching. unique transdisciplinary demands in south african schools current research focuses on transdisciplinary matters at higher education institutions rather than at schools (aneas 2015; darbellay et al. 2008) or the implementation of technology as a transdisciplinary demand (aneas 2015). according to darbellay (2015), transdisciplinarity involves the complicated relations woven into a dialogue between the scientific disciplines such as technical sciences, life and natural sciences and social sciences. in addition, jahn, bergmann and keil (2012) describe the aim of transdisciplinarity as a contribution to: …both societal and scientific progress; integration is the cognitive operation of establishing a novel hitherto non-existent connection between the distinct epistemic, social–organizational, and communicative entities that make up the given problem context. (p. 2) teaching across disciplines is by no means an easy task and students must be specifically trained to teach between disciplines. the participants in this article faced situations where they initially were under the impression that they will teach subjects in which they received specialised training in the skills and theoretical knowledge of their subjects of choice. they did not receive training in any other subject fields or specific training to deal with a transdisciplinary curriculum. bostan (2015) found that teachers lack a theoretical background on transdisciplinary curriculum, which supports the confusion experienced by these teachers. in addition, buckler (2010) concluded that transdisciplinarity refers to the ‘highest level of integration, that which proposes the unity of intellectual frameworks beyond the disciplinary perspectives’. according to a transdisciplinary approach, suggested by van der westhuizen et al. (2017:2), disciplines involved in a specific field ‘work together and learn from each other’ to assess and develop, in this case, the taught curriculum. a key component is that the voices of role players are considered in the implementation of principles such as participation, collaboration and cooperation (van der westhuizen et al. 2017). neither of these building blocks of a successful approach to transdisciplinary teaching was set in place when participants were requested to teach other subjects, thus resulting in their typically negative experiences. research context and methodology within a qualitative methodological paradigm (creswell 2007), i maintained an interpretivist epistemological stance which allowed for true meaning to be discovered (neuman 1997) and meaning-making of the worlds of individuals (cohen, manion & morrison 2011). in this case, i tried to make sense of beginner teachers’ lived experiences of transdisciplinary demands of school curricula during their first years as teachers. the research design comprised a multiple case study (creswell 2007). i employed purposive sampling to include participants, which is regarded as a core characteristic of qualitative research (cohen et al. 2011). i further used maximum variation sampling (terre blanche, durheim & painter 2006) to select participants who could provide a comprehensive variety of data from different schools. five male and five female participants who were employed at urban, township2 and independent3 schools were selected to expand the various experiences. schools where participants were employed varied from well-resourced, fee-paying schools to under-resourced, no or low-fee-paying schools and differed vastly in many aspects. participants were only selected from pretoria in gauteng, the administrative capital city in the smallest but wealthiest of south african provinces. the south african department of basic education groups grades into two ‘bands’ called general education and training (get), which includes grade 0 plus grades 1 to 9, and further education and training (fet), which includes grades 10–12. the get is sectioned further into ‘phases’: the foundation phase (grade 0 plus grades 1 to 3), the intermediate phase (grades 4 to 6) and the senior phase (sp) (grades 7 to 9). all participants were trained to teach in the sp and fet phases. data were collected by means of open-ended interviews (cohen et al. 2011). the interview protocol consisted of three loosely structured questions based on their overall experiences as teachers who recently started their teaching careers. follow-up interviews were conducted, as participants were eager to share their experiences. the total time spent per interview was estimated between 90 min and 2 hours. interview data were transcribed by means of an inductive thematic analysis (terre blanche et al. 2006) and several themes were identified. the identity of participants was protected by the use of pseudonyms in the dissemination of findings. this article focuses on one such theme, namely, participants’ experiences of transdisciplinary demands of the curriculum encountered in the schools where they were employed. presentation and discussion of main findings in this section, i present the main tenets of participants’ experiences as they pertain to the transdisciplinary focus of this article. findings are related to existing literature as discussed earlier as well as the ‘ideal’ transdisciplinary framework set forth by van der westhuizen et al. (2017). i divided the findings into two groups, the first dealing with the initial experiences at the beginning of the teaching career in real lived school environments as opposed to expectations formed during tertiary training and secondly, the experiences of ways in which transdisciplinary demands are dealt with in school contexts. beginner teachers’ excitement turning into disillusionment although many challenges of being a beginner teacher were mentioned by all participants, one aspect stood apart: the distance between implied expectations and preparation during their tertiary careers and the disillusionment this caused when facing reality. the majority of participants related emotions of excitement, anticipation to teach and excel in their subjects of expertise and commitment to succeed as teachers at the start of their careers. jantjies4 remembered how he ‘was so excited during the december holidays to teach his subject’ that he had trouble sleeping. he specialised in english teaching and had prepared literary works, collected books and teaching materials prior to the start of his career. three months into his teaching career, he was asked to take on additional life orientation classes, a field which he knew nothing about. he said he ‘felt out of his depth and was sure the kids could see it’. msizwe’s experiences resonate with the findings of keys (2007) and parkison (2008) who find that the discrepancy between personal idealistic expectations and classroom realities create dissonance and emotional discomfort for beginner teachers. data gathered from all participants showed that it is common practice in schools for beginner teachers to be asked to fill positions in disciplines for which they are not trained. all participants were asked at some point to stand in and teach subjects for which they were not trained for short periods of time. six of the ten participants were asked to teach life orientation permanently together with the subjects they were already teaching and were trained to teach. teaching the subject of life orientation was challenging for most of the participants. with the implementation of caps in 2012, as an improved implementation of the rncs, came the reduction of disciplines taught at schools. the subject life orientation was divided into two parts consisting of arts and culture (henceforth ac) on one side and physical education (henceforth pe) on the other. this was especially problematic in township schools, as materials with which to teach these subdisciplines were not readily available. policy writers did not seem to consider the fact that not all the schools have adequate human or physical resources or equipment to deal with disciplines like life orientation, especially as they were expected to teach all the disciplines umbrellaed by the subject called life orientation. participants’ views confirmed this: ‘classrooms at my school are not suitable to cater for the requirements of life skills as a subject. we do not have a school hall for art exhibitions and drama performances’. (thabiseng) ‘no, learning takes place in a normal classroom environment which makes it difficult to do justice to the completion of practical work. we also lack classroom space as our classrooms are over-crowded with numbers between 50 and 60 in one classroom, therefore the practical part of art & culture can’t be taught in the classroom’. (msizwe) ‘no, our school is old and under-resourced to teach life skills properly especially the art & culture aspect. we don’t have a school hall and just an open space representing sporting grounds’. (jantjies) isabel explained that she was the only teacher teaching life orientation to all the grades in the secondary school at which she was employed. she majored in music and pe on tertiary level and was not skilled enough or trained to teach the subdiscipline, ac. she confessed that she focused on the pe section of the work because she found the ac ‘too challenging and i didn’t know enough, so i wasn’t self-confident’. she said she did not have sufficient time or resources to engross herself in the ac section of the curriculum and ‘that put learners at a disadvantage’. all participants agreed that life orientation was viewed by school management as a subject ‘teachable’ by any trained educator, regardless of their fields of expertise. thabiseng said ‘they did not know enough about the subject to know everything that’s required’. in all cases, either pe or ac suffered and participants admitted that academic standards dropped to make up for their lack of knowledge or skill in these disciplines. a practical implication of teaching life orientation was that participants had to take learners out of the classrooms to assess the pe section of life orientation. they found this part exceptionally upsetting, as they should teach children about ‘reading not running’ around (msizwe). when requested to teach life orientation, isabel expressed her disappointment of not being able to focus solely on her subject of expertise. she said she wanted to ‘leave this profession because it is just too different than what they are sketching at university’. she said the ‘school expected her to teach too many subjects in one position’ and that it was not what she had ‘signed up for’. isabel elaborated on her experiences by commenting on the range of other duties expected of beginner teachers. she remembers how time spent on extramural activities limited her time for preparation for her own subject and the extra preparation for a subject of which she knew little. her experiences mirror earlier findings in literature: kumazawa (2013:50) explicitly refers to the ‘dilemma from the extensive range of duties’. similarly, other authors found negative workload and role ambiguity contributing to anxiety experienced by beginner teachers (betoret 2009; dicke et al. 2014; schwarzer & hallum 2008). while thabiseng’s narrative was overshadowed by the negativity she had experienced from senior teachers and school management teams, she shared the same general disillusionment as her counterparts. lack of institutional support and hostility from management as stressors experienced by beginner teachers were similarly identified by flores and day (2006). in thabiseng’s case, idealistic expectations were created during her tertiary career but were not met in the reality of practice, especially about the teaching of large classes. although she had been prepared for large classes in a theoretical way during tertiary studies, the fact that she had to handle large groups in a small space was overwhelming. the fact that she was also asked to teach a subject out of her field, compounded this issue. she felt that she was not ‘prepared correctly or even at all’ to deal with such circumstances and that she would rather leave her position before it ‘kills my passion for children’. thabiseng’s experiences resonate with recent findings of challenges experienced by beginner teachers specifically in south african classrooms, such as the teaching of large classes (woest 2016). similarly, elsa commented on the problem of teaching of large classes, another aspect they considered as lacking in their tertiary preparation. isabel described the independent school where she had been appointed as follows: ‘they had pushed thirty-three learners into a classroom that was built to accommodate twenty. so, we’re not just talking physical space issues, but also four grand a month for thirty-three kids in a class. thirty-three to one’. once again, expectations created during her tertiary career were foregrounded. she said that lecturers tell students ‘to try and get into a private school, because classes are smaller, and you get paid better’. jantjies was the participant who had experienced change most frequently during his early years of teaching. he had taught at three different schools during his short career of 3 years and the effects of these changes in his teaching context came to the fore during the interview. before he was appointed in a permanent position, he held different temporary positions, teaching a variety of disciplines depending on where the school needed him. jantjies completed tertiary studies in the field of mathematics. he related how he was approached by school management teams with an attitude of ‘if you can teach mathematics, you can teach anything else.’ the most significant transdisciplinary demand in his career related to him teaching in a different medium of instruction than for what he was initially appointed. jantjies shared how this made him feel ‘stupid and not like myself’ and that he was taken aback when he was asked to teach in his second language. the fact that participants feel they could not deliver their best work was a point of tremendous frustration for all. participants seemed charged to make a good impression on school management teams and fellow colleagues by delivering their best work to stay in their positions and be accepted into the school culture. they further shared feelings of helplessness and subjection, as they did not perceive themselves in a position to refuse any requests from school management teams. they recalled how they struggled to prioritise activities and demands and how they were confused as a result of having to teach ‘my own, real subject and all this other stuff’ (isabel). it can be inferred that the learners as well as the subdisciplines itself suffered the most in lieu of this transdisciplinary curriculum. the learners being disadvantaged was one of the most serious and distressing concerns for all participants. participants’ narratives were interwoven with not only tales of being requested to teach outside of their subject fields but also of stories about how what they were taught during tertiary training did not match the demands they faced as teachers. the idea of ‘better’ schools is created in the minds of student teachers without tertiary staff being close enough to the real situations in south african schools. as a result of the position of power tertiary staff hold, student teachers not only believe them but also build ideal pictures of how a teaching environment should be. adding to the issue of creating unrealistic pictures of the ‘real world’ of teaching, participants’ stories indicate a lack of deep preparation of student teachers for the variety of transdisciplinary demands they face in a school context. beginner teachers’ experiences of dealing with transdisciplinary demands it is significant that discourses of disillusionment were shared by participants from vastly different historical backgrounds, different schools they were teaching at the time and the contexts of these schools. none of the participants were prepared to deal with the variety of transdisciplinary demands they encountered in practice. this article shows that transdisciplinary demands expatiate further than only teaching different subjects than the specialisation of participants. participants’ narratives also showed that certain skills were emphasised during their tertiary preparation, without preparing students to transfer those skills should a situation dictate otherwise. msizwe relates how tertiary education prepared students to use multimedia in classrooms and foregrounds online teaching strategies, despite the fact that there was only limited access to such facilities in the township school where he had started teaching: ‘at university we’re taught about using multimedia in the classroom, but when you get to the school, they don’t have a projector there. it’s only one projector for the whole school, or it’s not working’. darbellay (2015) comments on this aspect by mentioning the complex relation plaited into an interchange between the scientific disciplines such as technical sciences, life and natural sciences, and social sciences. participants lacked the cognitive skills to create a connection between the ‘distinct epistemic, social–organizational, and communicative entities that make up the given problem context’ (jahn et al. 2012:5), which is evident in the narratives of participants. at times, msizwe had prepared lessons that required the use of multimedia and found that despite having made the necessary arrangements beforehand, the equipment needed was either not available or out of order. he related how he was so scared that he ‘saw some ghosts because i wasn’t really prepared by varsity for the school’. tertiary institutions have been moving towards a hybrid approach of learning for more than two decades, including a blended variety of digital teaching strategies (prensky 2001). apart from the fact that many students struggle to stay abreast with these developments, owing to lack funds for internet connectivity. (woest 2016), it also has an influence on the expectations created in the minds of future teachers. students are striving towards becoming technologically literate, and spend funds on technological equipment and extra training sessions only to be disheartened by the total lack of technological equipment when starting to teach in less-privileged schools. isabel shared that even in a privileged school, there were often instances where she had to rely on what she called ‘old teaching methods’. the transdisciplinary framework van der westhuizen et al. (2017) suggest as an ‘ideal’ transdisciplinary framework in this article highlights the negative experiences of beginner teachers as a result of the lack of implementation of the principles of an aligned transdisciplinary approach. participants expressed uncertainty, fear and anxiety of anticipated conflict with school management teams by using phrases such as ‘not being sure of what i really should do, often got me into trouble’ (elsa), ‘i was afraid of being in trouble all the time’ (jantjies) and ‘i couldn’t say no if the principal asked me to teach something although i couldn’t do it’ (isabel). the transdisciplinary principle of ‘work together and learn from each other’ suggested by van der westhuizen et al. (2017:2) was not evident in the real lived experiences of participants involved in this article. participants faced hostility if they challenged school management about transdisciplinary demands (thabiseng) and found themselves in vulnerable positions as opposed to management teams positions of power. isabel related how she ‘was asked so nicely by my head of department to teach life orientation, that i could not say no’. jantjies and msizwe also shared how they were approached in a very polite and friendly manner which left them too ashamed or feeling guilty to refuse. this data show that beginner teachers are indeed thrown into the deep end and end up stretching their abilities to a point where it is only the most resilient or desperate beginner teachers who do not leave the profession (flores & day 2006). all participants commented on how they wanted to make a good first impression and how they wanted to avoid people thinking ‘i’m not willing to work’ (jantjies). these findings are in contrast to the transdisciplinary framework set forth by van der westhuizen et al. (2017), who emphasise transdisciplinary principles such as participation, collaboration and cooperation. in the light of their experiences together with numerous other challenges shared by participants, beginner teachers may be viewed as a vulnerable group in the educational sector. included in their narratives, all participants shared stories of how they were expected to coach certain sports and cultural activities as part of their extra-curricular duties and how they were under immense pressure to achieve results in these activities without any mentoring or training in. the transdisciplinary demands thus extend further beyond the academic curricula, adding additional cognitive and emotional stresses to beginner teachers. conclusion this article discussed the experiences of transdisciplinary demands of school curriculum of ten beginner teachers teaching in south african schools. findings showed that beginner teachers are still faced with a myriad of challenges as shown by various other scholars over the past four decades (fraser et al. 2017; friedman 2000; klusman et al. 2016; stokking et al. 2003; veenman 1984). this article added transdisciplinary demands as one more compounding stressor to the experiences of beginner teachers. the significance of the article lies in the unique south african schooling context, where continuous curriculum changes seem to have left a void in tertiary training, where student teachers should be prepared to fulfil a range of transdisciplinary duties. data clearly showed overwhelming feelings of anxiety, fear of school management teams, disillusionment, frustration and waning enthusiasm about the profession. in any environment, engaging in responsibilities for which one is not specifically trained for is never easy, more so in an environment where the futures of young minds are at stake. however, at this point in the south african education system, it is the way it is. this is the reality with which beginner (and other) teachers are faced daily and must deal with together with many other challenges. yet, the responsibility to alleviate the resulting tension and disillusionment lies with tertiary institutions and their visions for teacher educator training. training for teachers must necessarily engage with the aspect of transdisciplinary curricula and demands in diverse south african schools and should challenge the existing regimes of the perceived ‘truth’ around the situation in south african schools. the way beginner teachers navigate themselves through transitory periods of change and the numerous challenges thereof should be considered when designing tertiary curricula. furthermore, preparation of education students should be diverse in that it involves all possible contexts which students may encounter. demographically, this article was limited to the gauteng province in south africa. it was thus placed in a specific context which did not include other south african provinces where more diversity may have been evident. though the article focused on a relatively small sample, this article showed that all beginner teachers in this sample, despite vastly differing histories and backgrounds, struggled with the same emotions about transdisciplinary teaching in different contexts and had similar experiences. participants were also representative of four south african races (black people, mixed race people, indian people, white people). although the research sample included racial diversity, it still implies that only two participants of each race participated in this article. further research in this field may prove valuable in that generic findings may be applied to other contexts such as the other south african provinces with the unique context of each in mind. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. references aneas, a., 2015, ‘transdisciplinary technology education: a characterisation and some ideas for implementation in the university’, studies in higher education 40(9), 1715–1728. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.899341 betoret, f.d., 2009, ‘self-efficacy, school resources, job stressors and burnout among spanish primary and secondary school teachers: a structural equation approach’, educational psychology: an international journal of experimental educational psychology 29, 45–68. billett, s. & somerville, m., 2004, ‘transformations at work: identity and learning’, studies in continuing education 26(2), 309–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/158037042000225272 booyse, j.j. & le roux, c.s., 2010, ‘a cursory history of education provision in south africa’, in themes in south african education: for the comparative educationist, heinemann, pretoria. bostan, c., 2015, ‘interand transdisciplinary issues present in the school curriculum’, social and behavioural sciences 180, 489–496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.02.149 buckler, j., 2004, towards a new model of general education at harvard college, essays on general education in harvard college, new york. cohen, l., manion, l. & morrison, k., 2007, research methods in education, 6th edn., routledge, london. creswell, j.w., 2007, qualitative inquiry & research design: choosing among five approaches, 2nd edn., sage, thousand oaks, ca. darbellay, f., cockell, m., billotte, j. & waldvogel, f. 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(eds.), 2006, research in practice: applied methods for the social sciences, juta and company ltd,cape town. van der westhuizen, m., greuel, t. & beukes, j., 2017, ‘are we hearing voices? africanisation as part of community development’, hts teologiese studies/theological studies 73(3), 4512. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v73i3.4512 veenman, s., 1984, ‘perceived problems of beginning teachers’, review of educational research 54(2), 143–178. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543054002143 woest, y., 2016, ‘bayakhuluma kaningi: the influence of own teachers on the professional identity of beginner teachers’, phd dissertation, university of pretoria. footnotes 1. apartheid (‘separateness’) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination that existed in south africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. 2. township school: this term usually refers to schools in the often-underdeveloped urban living areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, were reserved for non-white residents. 3. an independent school is independent in its finances and governance; it is usually not dependent upon national or local government to finance its operations. 4. no real names are used to protect the identity of participants. abstract introduction literature review research design and methodology results and discussions conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) gift muresherwa department of tourism and events, faculty of business and management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa washington makuzva department of tourism and events, faculty of business and management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa cynthia n. dube department of tourism and events, faculty of business and management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa imelda amony department of tourism and events, faculty of business and management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation muresherwa g, makuzva w, dube cn, amony i. 2022, the management of mountain gorilla tourism in uganda: are the socio-economic benefits realised?, j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1136. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1136 original research the management of mountain gorilla tourism in uganda: are the socio-economic benefits realised? gift muresherwa, washington makuzva, cynthia n. dube, imelda amony received: 04 aug. 2021; accepted: 10 feb. 2022; published: 25 apr. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract despite being endangered, the mountain gorilla (gorilla beringei beringei) is inextricably linked to tourism. with only 1069 primates globally, expanded conservation initiatives need to be extended to allow for continuous and sustainable benefits from gorilla tourism. this unique tourism niche has positively changed the economies of uganda, rwanda and the democratic republic of congo (drc), where they are endemic. vast opportunities emanate from the management and conservation of the great apes (e.g. poverty alleviation, economic growth, etc.). the study examined the management of mountain gorilla tourism and its socio-economic contribution to selected stakeholders in butogota, a rural community next to the bwindi impenetrable national park (binp). to achieve this, structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with six stakeholder groups. in order to gather samples for the study, convenience sampling and snowball sampling were used. data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire and analysed with the help of the constant comparative method. key findings show that mountain gorilla tourism activities benefit people in a number of ways, including job creation, entrepreneurial opportunities and expanded local infrastructure. the study highlights key imperatives for the effective management of mountain gorilla tourism, including developing infrastructure, investment in training, empowerment of locals, controlled access, and more conservation and dealing with the persistent corruption problem. keywords: mountain gorilla; conservation; gorilla tourism; primate; bwindi impenetrable national park. introduction the mountain gorilla (gorilla beringei beringei), which is one of the two subspecies of the eastern gorilla, has been classified by the international union for conservation of nature (iucn)’s red list of threatened speciestm as ‘critically endangered’ for more than two decades.1,2 their numbers once plummeted to just below 680 individuals, which led to extensive efforts to conserve and protect this mammal species.3,4,5 following the last census of the mountain gorillas conducted in 2018, it was revealed that the numbers have grown to 1069 individuals.4,6 this population growth resulted in the mountain primates getting downlisted to ‘endangered’ species.2,3 however, the mountain gorilla continues to be threatened, thus requiring more intensive conservation effort, including widespread anti-poaching programs such as removing snares set up by poachers, more patrols and close collaboration with communities to support these programs.7,8,9 mountain gorillas are endemic to only three african countries, which are the democratic republic of congo (drc), rwanda and uganda.10 these countries are rich in fauna and flora and share boundaries with some of their protected areas (pas) extending into each other.11 half of the region’s mountain gorilla population is found in the virunga massif, a massive area of approximately 451 km2 straddling the borders of uganda, drc and rwanda. it, thus, necessitated the need for a well-coordinated joint effort in managing this tri-national environment, especially the designated pas (mgahinga gorilla national park, volcanoes national park [parc national des volcans] and virunga national park). the remaining half of the subpopulation of the mountain gorilla is found in an area measuring 331 km2 in south-western uganda in the bwindi impenetrable national park (binp).2 this tourism product (mountain gorilla) has become the leading tourism asset for these countries and presents vast opportunities for economic growth, poverty alleviation and conservation. uganda’s bwindi forest has afforded opportunities for ecotourism and economic growth through mountain gorilla tourism. gorilla-viewing or trekking tourism involves tourists visiting the great apes in their natural habitation.11,12 these tourists engage in this type of tourism for various reasons, including having an emotional connection with the gorillas as they are ‘human’s closest living relatives …’ with close genetic markers,13 a desire to be close to the apes, capture authentic experiences as well as interact with the environment amongst other motives.14 mountain gorilla tourism activities have benefited the country by protecting the primates that continue to be threatened by human activities.15 more benefits from gorilla conservation activities can be achieved when there is support from the local community. the current study examined the management of mountain gorilla tourism and its socio-economic contribution to selected stakeholders in butogota, a rural community located next to binp in uganda. the article starts by delving into the bwindi forest and presents relevant literature, offering a discussion of the impact of mountain gorilla tourism on communities. it also highlights the management strategies for monitoring mountain gorilla tourism. the article goes on to provide the research design and methodology for the study. the results are then discussed and elaborated, and finally, the conclusions and recommendations drawn from the study’s findings are presented. literature review bwindi impenetrable national park the binp is one of the world’s oldest, most complex and biologically diverse ecosystems.16 the densely forested park or the ‘impenetrable forest’ also known as the ‘the place of darkness’ – resides approximately half of the world’s gorilla population, which makes it one of the most important conservation areas.17 because of the extensive biodiversity and because several endangered species call this area home, it was named a unesco world heritage site.18 in 1991, the ugandan government designated binp as a national park, and this gave it extraordinary attention in terms of conservation and protection of wildlife.19 the decision to gazette bwindi as a national park was made in order to safeguard mountain gorillas and their natural habitat. prior to the gazettement of bwindi to a national park, rampant uncontrolled human activities (e.g. settlement, logging, hunting, gold mining/panning, honey harvesting, pit sawing, etc.) within the forest threatened biodiversity, thus prompting authorities to strengthen conservation efforts.20 during that time, forest resources were critical for local livelihoods. there was, therefore, a need for quick transformation from the nomadic lifestyle and sole reliance from the forest to subsistence farming which was new to many.20 the conservation and control measures were not favoured by communities who had lived in the forest for several years. this resulted in numerous conflicts between authorities (park managers) and locals, and in some cases, the park was deliberately set on fire, leading to approximately 5% of the pa being destroyed.21,22 bitariho et al.23 noted that some locals expressed their dissatisfaction with the park by occasionally harassing park rangers. it took quite some time and effort for locals to understand the importance of conservation, as well as the contribution of the park to improving lives, growing the economy and presenting opportunities. however, through the local empowerment initiatives such as extensive awareness campaigns on how the parks and humans could co-exist assisted in alleviating the conflicts. strategies for managing mountain gorilla tourism when it comes to dealing with the disputes that arise between the park and the locals, the uganda wildlife authority (uwa) came up with strategies to ensure that community members benefit from the pa.21 amongst these strategies were the development of tourism, the introduction of the revenue sharing initiative, the provision of law enforcement throughout the park and agricultural interventions.19 in addition, the integrated conservation and development (icd) strategy was adopted to help resolve conflicts between the park management and the disenfranchised people.22 most of the interventions and strategies were targeted at involving locals to appreciate the benefits of conservation. community involvement is interpreted from the benefits received by the community, but it is also the reinforcement required for the sustainability of tourism initiatives.24,25 benefits of mountain gorilla tourism on communities the unique mountain gorilla tourism tends to create several benefits to the host communities.12,26 amongst the benefits of gorilla tourism are job creation,27,28,29 development of infrastructure,30 improved living conditions,10 opportunities for business,28 poverty reduction27,28 and an installation of community pride, amongst other benefits.31,32 however, yanes et al.31 submit that social ills such as crime and prostitution cannot also be ruled out where tourism takes place, which can interfere with the cultural values of the local community. the revenue-sharing scheme has also benefited several communities surrounding most national parks.33 a portion of the park fees is injected into the local community to support projects, thereby allowing locals to consider the park as one of their own.26 some of the projects that have been supported range from those aimed at protecting the environment, water and sanitation, education, health care, infrastructure to other income-generating activities.34 theoretical frameworks the stakeholder theory (st) and social exchange theory (set) contextualise and guide the current study. the successful management of natural resources usually involves many stakeholders who may have a varying degree of interest. for an exchange to happen, there should be a mutual agreement between the stakeholders, thus necessitating the need to adopt two frameworks, the st and set to aid the understanding of the management strategies for monitoring gorilla tourism. the st developed by freeman35 is grounded on the basis that every entity has stakeholders that need to be managed in a certain way.36 stakeholders are described as individuals or organisations that can influence or are influenced by the operations of an organisation.35,37,38 engaging stakeholders in developing a sustainable and competitive destination is a challenging endeavour;39 however, through the stakeholder engagement process and understanding the demands of each stakeholder, a social exchange can be established. the sustainability of the destination relies on the mutual coordination of the interests of each of the stakeholders.40 hence, the set is used to further the understanding of how the stakeholders develop their interests. the set was established by ap41 and remains an instrumental theory in social science studies.42 this theory is rooted in the assumption that players or actors are involved for an exchange to occur. in this study, the exchange is between the various mentioned stakeholders and the binp. through a cost and benefits analysis that influences the interests of each stakeholder, one may either see the benefits from the binp as positive or negative. however, it is essential to note that those who perceive the benefits to be negative may work against any conservation projects in the pas. this is because they usually feel that they are not benefiting, whereas those who perceive the benefits to be positive will support tourism developments. hence, understanding the stakeholders and the socio-economic benefits they receive on any tourism project is crucial as it determines whether they will be against or in support of the projects, which in the long run guarantees the sustainability of the tourism development. in this study, the role of each stakeholder is fundamental for the conservation of endangered gorilla tourism in binp. research design and methodology study location and population the study was conducted in butogota town council in southwestern uganda from january 2019 through to april 2019, near the borders of drc and rwanda (figure 1). butogota is one of the parishes in kanungu district next to binp. bwindi, an afromontane forest, with much activity from the conservation and protection of the great apes, is part of the albertine rift.23 the uganda bureau of statistics (ubos)43 reported that a total of 19 000 inhabitants live in the butogota area, with almost equal ratios of male-to-female (49.7% – 50.3%). the bakiga ethnicity makes up around 80% of the population in butogota, with about 900 members of the indigenous batwa people.19,44 these groups of people initially used the forest as their homes. however, the gazetting of the forest as a national park in the early 1990s resulted in evictions that forced the batwa tribe to resettle in agrarian communities.45 according to ubos,43 subsistence farmers account for 37.3% of residents in the butogota town council region, whilst 3.4% of residents work in the trade industry, 1.2% of residents in manufacturing, 10.3% of residents provide services and 46.3% of residents work in other occupations. according to ubos statistics, a huge majority (72.4%) of the population in the butogota area has only a primary school education.43 the butogota area is remote with poor infrastructure requiring government’s intervention for development. donnelly et al.44 note that most people living in butogota are in rural settlements with no facilities and services such as tap water and electricity. figure 1: butogota town – the study area map46. this exploratory and qualitative research study was conducted to identify the socio-economic contributions of mountain gorilla tourism. in addition, the study recommends the management strategies that could be adopted for a sustainable future mountain gorilla tourism development in uganda. face-to-face interviews were conducted with selected stakeholder groups in the butogota area. these stakeholder groups included binp staff, government officials, business owners, church leaders, educators and/or teachers and local leaders and/or headmen. for reporting purposes, the study participants were allocated an identifying number to help link the responses to the participating stakeholder groups (business owners – p1; religious leaders – p2; educationist and/or teachers – p3; binp staff – p4; government officials – p5 and local leaders and/or headmen – p6) in the butogota area. to gather the sample for the study, convenience and snowballing sampling approaches were used.47 members of the target population who met particular requirements, such as ease of access, availability at a specified time or willing to partake in the study, were included in the study current study that made use of non-probability sampling procedures.47 an interviewer-administered questionnaire with open-ended questions was utilised as it permitted the interviewers to clarify questions and responses,48 as well as allowed probing for additional information to be gathered. participation was potentially thought to increase because of personal contact and ensured that most questions were answered.49 the questions were designed to find out what the study participants thought about the socio-economic contribution of the mountain gorillas and the strategic management of these species in butogota. in total, 187 participants were approached and interviewed at either their homes or workstations. the stakeholders who participated in the study are listed in table 1, along with their gender and the mean years of working in the study area. table 1: key stakeholders for the study. ethical considerations in complying with research ethics and ensuring the integrity of this study, the researchers first sought permission from the uwa (reference number: fod/96/02). uganda wildlife authority is a semi-autonomous government agency in uganda that deals with the management and conservation of wildlife and natural resources. secondly, the study was approved by the cape peninsula university of technology’s faculty of business and management sciences ethics committee (certificate clearance number: 2018fbrc533) as this formed part of a student’s master project. the collected data were analysed through the use of the constant comparative method. this analysis technique is frequently used to code and analyse data from the developed concepts.50 conrad et al.51 note that: [t]he constant comparative method combines systematic data collection, coding and analysis with theoretical sampling in order to generate theory that is integrated, close to the data and expressed in a form clear enough for further testing. (p. 280) four stages of the constant comparative method were followed, and these included comparing incidents, integrating categories, delimiting and writing the theory.52 in short, the process involved a data-analytic process whereby the findings and interpretations provided were compared with the literature as they emerge from the data analysis. results and discussions participant profile to guarantee that data were collected from the appropriate participants, it was critical to include a description of those who took part in the study. understanding participant profile was crucial as it provides context that could give meaning to the interpretation of the study findings. as a result, this study began by finding stakeholders or participants (p) who held the necessary and pertinent features to supply the researchers with the data necessary to accomplish the study’s purpose. a thematic analysis of 187 semi-structured interviews with specified stakeholders was done (see table 1). as revealed from the study’s findings, business owners in the study area had been operating for an average of 13 years. several community-based organisations (cbos) in the study area established a variety of tourism ventures including accommodation (hotels, lodges, b&b, etc.), arts and craft market (souvenirs shops), bottle stores, forex exchange services, tour companies and others. the local entrepreneurs and cbos had been operating in butogota for a period spanning from 1 year to nearly 4 decades. religious leaders who participated in this study had an average of 6.1 years of involvement with church activities in the study area, and this ranged from half a year to slightly above four decades. the majority of religious leaders were christians, uganda’s most widely practised religion.53 educators and/or teachers who participated in this study included those from the early childhood development (ecd) to tertiary level in butogota. the average number of years these educators and/or teachers had worked in the study area was 8 years with a minimum of 7 months and a maximum of 32 years. wardens, rangers, security personnel drivers, animal veterinary staff and tour guides made up the binp team. whilst the new employees had served for a period of at least 2 years, the longest serving binp staff had up to 35 years. meanwhile, the staff had worked for an average close to 2 decades (18.3 years). this study indicates that some individuals worked in the park prior to its designation as a national park, implying a greater understanding of park operations. in total, 21 government representatives took part in the study. these government officials included agricultural extension agents, health practitioners and social workers. the government employees have served an average of 12.5 years in the research area. headmen, ward councillors, community elders and local chairpersons were amongst the local leaders who participated in the study. local leaders have been participating in local activities in their area for an average of 23.8 years, ranging from three to 43 years. benefits from mountain gorilla tourism the study participants indicated how they benefited from mountain gorilla tourism activities in their area. the responses varied from participants with contributions that included job creation, entrepreneurial opportunities, infrastructure development and many other benefits. the researchers were interested in understanding the extent to which mountain gorilla tourism operations benefit the churches in the study area and beyond, hence religious leaders were interviewed. some religious leaders expressed satisfaction with gorilla tourism activities, for instance, one participant stated that they acquired their ‘holy book’, as reflected in this remark, ‘… we were given bibles a few years ago’ (religious leader, female, 38 years old, 4 years working as a pastor in the study area). another pastor indicated how mountain gorilla activities benefit the youth, particularly job opportunities. the theme on jobs as seen in the findings is illustrated in the following excerpt, ‘… some new creativity and innovation have been created hence improving standards of living… money is earned as some do this as full-time jobs or means of making a living’ (religious leader, male, 56 years old male, 7 years of working in study area). the majority of business respondents admitted that gorilla tourism has impacted their operations in a variety of ways. some business owners revealed that tourist activities in the area had led to the establishments of marketplaces for their products that aided in the expansion of their businesses. in addition, one business owner highlighted the significance of having tourism activities such as mountain gorilla tourism in the area as it also brings customers to business as evidenced by the following quote; ‘… tourism in this area has enabled my business to grow and mostly in a positive way … tourists have formed part of my customers’ (business owner, female, 48 years old, lived in the study area for 18 years). from the restaurant and accommodation sector, a guesthouse owner noted that tourists make use of the amenities at their establishments after the mountain gorilla-tracking activity as shown from the following quotation: ‘indeed, mountain gorilla-tourism is helpful to us business-people; look at the number of tourists who come to track the gorillas, most of them, come and have lunch and breakfast at the guest house… i am happy and would like to see this kind of tourism growth. my children are at good schools, and this is possible because of tourism who (sic) support my business….’ (business owner, male, 53 years old, lived in the study area for 16 years) as previously stated, tourism activities in the area have resulted in local tourism products and artefacts finding a market thereby increasing profits for business owners. this was supported by the following excerpt; ‘… markets have been created thus the development of the business’ (business owner, male, 33 years old, lived in the study area for 9 years), and ‘… more revenue has been realised from the tourists purchasing from our business’ (business owner, female, 28 years old, lived in the study area for 6 years). because tourism has provided villagers with several economic opportunities, it has uplifted their standard of living. local infrastructure, such as road networks, leading to the key tourist attractions, has been renovated, and this has benefited local companies that also rely on this infrastructure. the roads should, however, be maintained and improved regularly. the butogota town region has benefited from government projects, including rural electricity programs, which most stakeholders who took part in the study attributed to the area’s burgeoning tourism industry. table 2 shows selected excerpts from the study participants highlighting some of the contributions of mountain gorilla tourism activities in butogota. table 2: excerpts from study participants: benefits of mountain gorilla tourism. arts and crafts businesses in the area have been supported by activities associated with mountain gorilla tourism taking place in the botagota area through the buying of souvenirs and other artefacts. however, one responder voiced concern about severe rivalry amongst businesses as extracted from the except, ‘… some tourists buy from me, but there is also too much competition which requires us to look at ways to become competitive, for example stocking a variety of wares…’ (business owner, male, 41 years old, lived in the study area for 15 years). because of the strong competition amongst businesses, it also stimulated the delivery of quality products and services. generally, the findings revealed that whilst others perceived the benefits from mountain gorilla tourism to be more positive to them, the other participating groups do not share the same sentiments. management strategies for monitoring mountain gorilla tourism in determining the ways to improve mountain gorilla tourism activities in the study area, the participants were requested to suggest mountain gorilla tourism management strategies best suited for the sustainability of this unique tourism product. the study revealed seven themes for the desired management for mountain gorilla tourism, and these are summarised below: fighting corruption controlled access and more conservation involving more local participation infrastructure development deal with poaching training of staff local empowerment. corruption according to the study’s findings, measures for combating corruption were frequently mentioned during the interviews. some locals were concerned about corruption, particularly the unequal distribution of tourism benefits, and believed that the government should establish strict anti-corruption policies and procedures to deal with the issue head-on. the same finding corresponds with that of tumusiime et al.,54 who revealed that a widespread corruption, particularly regarding income sharing for parks, was rampant. corruption was deemed to be damaging to uganda’s tourist growth and development, necessitating collaboration amongst diverse stakeholders to find a solution. a teacher at a primary school (teacher, female, 46 years old female, 13 years living in the study area) expressed concern regarding corruption that has led to reduced community benefit ‘… if the government comes with strict measures to deal with corrupt activities, it will enable growth, and all people to benefit… stop the massive corruption!’ corruption has been cited as a significant impediment to tourist expansion, as it has a detrimental effect on the tourism businesses. the issue of removing corruption was a recurrent theme in the responses, with company owners suggesting that the government must enact stringent steps to combat it. it is widely acknowledged that corruption is widespread and more pervasive in the global south than in the global north.55 research participants shared their views on the fact that the majority of government agencies desired to control their own budgets. some business owners (business owner, male, 41 years old, 15 years of living in the study area) had the impression that foreign investors operating businesses in butogota were given preferential treatment by the government, and this was related to corrupt practices on the part of some officials in government. additionally, there was testimony from other businesses that were functioning without being properly registered. the registered business owners viewed the practice of operating illegally as unfair, thus calling for an intervention from the government (enforcement of rules on how businesses operate). the research results indicate that the ugandan government has more work to do to improve mountain gorilla management policies and strategies. some of the stakeholders appeared to be unaware of these methods, despite the fact that they are crucial. controlled access and more conservation the ugandan government established pas in an endeavour to protect the nation’s wildlife.56 these areas are meant to keep the country’s species safe. however, poaching, deforestation (logging), population growth and encroachment are all threatening wildlife, putting them at risk of extinction. the majority of those who took part in the study agreed that if gorilla tourism is to ‘expand’, there must be techniques and mechanisms in place to prevent poaching and controlled timber harvesting. one participant, a business owner, suggested that the tree-planting initiative be spread to more regions in order to benefit animals. the following quotes from the interviews demonstrate this: ‘… more work needs to be done to improve on conservation programs and including tree planting’ (headman, male, 59 years old, 22 years of living in the study area); as well as ‘encouraging conservation policies and their implementation … rather than only policy formulation’ (headman, male, 56 years old, 18 years of living in the study area). the park staff (binp staff, male, 44 years, 12 years of living in the study area) indicated the need to uphold the restrictions that include access into the park and ensure that wildlife is protected. local involvement the study emphasised the importance of involving locals in tourism development. furthermore, their participation in the management of the park was highlighted as fundamental. the participation of locals especially in tourism development is considered essential for the success of the industry.57 this is because of the fact that these local communities supply the primary services required by the tourists at a destination, such as transportation, accommodation, information, businesses, catering and a variety of other services. the study participants suggested that the community members should take control of tourism activities in their area. this can be achieved through involvement in the decision-making process, as supported by studies that advocate for community involvement in tourism planning and development. when locals are involved, it motivates them to maintain tourism facilities, support strategies and practices, which alleviates potential resistance.58 the study’s participants expressed a need for increased local involvement in mountain gorilla tourism management. local communities’ involvement can take several forms, including the creation of jobs for people, the usage of local resources, enterprises and tourism-related concepts. in the conversation, one business owner stated that the planning process must consider locals’ involvement, as seen in the following extract; ‘… local people’s ideas should also be considered while planning’ (religious leader, female, 35 years old, with four years living in the study area). some of the study participants described involvement in terms of job opportunities and other aspects (as seen in the selected excerpts ‘… encourage more local tourism …’ [business owner, male, 43 years old, with eight years living in the study area]; ‘[p]ark management should work very closely with us business owners …’ [business owner, male, 53 years old, 16 years living in study area] and ‘… employ local and well-trained people as rangers and managers of mark (sic) affairs …’ [binp staff, female, 33 years old, five years living in the study area]). local participation is crucial for the development of tourism, particularly for the management of gorillas in the bwindi forest, as this study demonstrates. infrastructure development english and ahebwa59 note that the ugandan government has done much to address the problem of poor infrastructure in the study area. however, more work is expected to be done, particularly maintaining access roads to the pas. the poor infrastructures in most of uganda’s gorilla parks could make tourists consider other tourism destinations, especially those with similar tourism products such as in rwanda and drc. consequently, potential money and jobs could be lost, thereby diminishing the economic contribution of tourism. thus, uganda’s government should continue modernising and growing tourism infrastructure in order to generate more tourism revenue. this is only achievable with enhanced infrastructure at tourism destinations that are conducive to tourism, as well as more marketing and publicity. as evidenced by the study, respondents acknowledged a need for improved road networks (‘…construct better roads’ [binp staff, female, 24 years old, 17 years living in the study area]; ‘build and expand better roads to compete effectively’ [headman, female, 40 years old, 32 years living in the study area]; ‘[w]e need the roads improved’ [business owner, male, 41 years old, 15 years living in the study area]; ‘[n]eed to improve on the road networks especial if it rains’ [religious leader, female, 30 years old, 6 years living in the study area]; ‘ some roads connecting to bwindi at times blocked because of landslides … disrupt the movement of tourists and guides in the park … can take days to get fixed’ [binp staff, male, 34 years old, with nine years living in the study area]; ‘roads, schools and hospitals in the area should be improved’ [religious leader, female, 30 years old, 11 years living in the study area)], and area development. uganda’s tourism could be more competitive in east africa if it improves its roads, air connections, communication networks, housing and facilities for tourists.59 in addition, officials from the government who took part in this study stressed the importance of the government increasing its investment in infrastructure development. to give an example, a government official who works as an agricultural extension officer stated, ‘government needs to mobilise resources to improve on infrastructure like roads, hospitals and markets’ (government official, female, 36 years, 17 years of living in the study area). a question was posed to government officials who took part in the study, asking them to identify any new methods that the government, in collaboration with the uwa, should use to improve mountain gorilla tourism in butogota. for decades, a number of strategies have been used to improve mountain gorilla management. these strategies included, complying with the group size (8 people max) rule, restricting access to sick visitors (not allowed to trek), maintaining the viewing distances (> 7 m) and many others.17 however, with the development of modern technology, new techniques may be devised. government officials were additionally asked to provide recommendations on what policies should be put in place to support gorilla trekking in uganda. during the interviews, a variety of comments were collected, and these correlated with best practices that could make uganda more competitive in terms of mountain gorilla tourism. conservation projects, such as those involving wildlife, could be increased; ‘gazetting more land for wildlife’ (headman, male, 63 years old, 27 years living in the study area), which will ultimately promote wildlife growth. dealing with poaching and training the study identified poaching as the main threat to wildlife growth. in dealing with poaching, a government representative stressed the significance of instituting unsympathetic measures to fight corruption, ‘…strict laws should be put in place to fight poachers and the people breaking the laws’ (government official, male, 54 years old, 16 years living in the study area). investment in ‘knowledgeable staff’ (teacher, male, 34 years old, 10 years living in the study area) such as rangers and guides, was identified as an alternative way of making ugandan trekking of the gorillas more competitive. it is vital for tourism, including mountain gorilla tourism, to have workers who are highly professional, ethical, transparent and willing to partake in the conservation of wildlife: ‘replace the staffs (sic) who are transferred to other centres rather than leaving a few staffs (sic) doing more work, … it is important to train more guides and other staffs (sic) and these need to come from the area – local employment ….’ (government worker, male, 54 years old, 16 years living in the study area) following the study’s findings, it is recommended that the ugandan government take additional steps to develop management plans and policies in order to better manage mountain gorillas in their natural environment. some of the stakeholders did not appear to comprehend these methods, despite the fact that they are critical. local empowerment a question on whether the business respondents thought the mountain gorilla management practices are linked to how their companies ran were beneficial or detrimental was asked. this was critical to obtain information from business owners because it might be essential for the government when developing policies that might have an impact on smalland medium-sized business. when asked this issue, the responses were diverse, with some stating that the strategies were advantageous, whilst others expressed dissatisfaction with the high levels of taxation paid on their businesses. some of the techniques, according to a business owner, were beneficial and allowed for the expansion of the company. however, some appeared unfavourable, particularly in the area of taxation, ‘… some strategies are favourable, but taxation is high hence reducing our profits’ (business owner, male, 33 years old, 9 years living in the study area). the favourable strategies cited by the participants were associated with easy access to funding as indicated in the following quotation; ‘… the government has given us loans that we have used to start up our business’ (business owner, male, 43 years old, 8 years living the in study area). businesses, in general, benefit from favourable government interventions, one of which is the decrease of product-related taxes, as illustrated in the following excerpt, ‘… there is reduced taxes on some of our imported products’ (business owner, male, 53 years old, 16 years living in the study area). however, one participant who owns an art and craft business had a different view regarding the laws that were felt to be discriminatory, ‘… the government has discriminated us and is only supporting foreign investors’ (business owner, male, 41 years old, 15 years living in the study area). as a result of the research, it was discovered that business owners had differing opinions regarding the various government policies governing gorilla tourism. the ugandan government must educate the public about its policies and strategies in order for them to better understand and appreciate this type of tourism in the future. collaboration at different levels was identified as one of the practical strategies to be adopted by the ugandan government to propel its tourism. the participants in the study were unanimous in their belief that tourism stakeholders should explore collaborating, and that these collaborative activities in tourist marketing might occur at the inter-governmental level. for example, a teacher stated that for a plan to be competitive, governments must collaborate as shown from the quote, ‘… the government of uganda should work hand in hand with the government of rwanda to improve gorilla tourism’ (teacher, female, 35 years old, 12 years living in the study area). gursoy et al.60 note the various collaborations in tourism, including partnerships and alliances, which are essential for survival and growth. from the interviews, it also became apparent that partnerships to market tourism products were critical. this included international synergies between the neighbouring countries (rwanda and drc) to market gorilla tourism activities. conclusion mountain gorilla tourism plays a crucial role in wildlife conservation and thus contributes significantly to national economies. in uganda’s parks, gorilla tracking generates vital funds for conservation programs. local communities scattered around the parks also benefit from tourism, thus encouraging them to support conservation efforts. this support has resulted in limited illegal activities such as poaching, logging and human encroaching into the park periphery as they benefit from the pa. however, more can be done to ensure that locals benefit from tourism activities in their area. this could include continuous maintenance of roads, expansion of infrastructure, ways to deal with corruption, empowerment of locals and controlled access into the pa by following the stipulated guidelines. the study should assist park authorities in partnership with relevant stakeholders to promote community-based tourism products and services that enhance local skills development, create job opportunities and offer long-term prospects for the park to exercise conservation initiatives of the mountain gorillas as they promote ecotourism. finally, the results of this study could also contribute to the body of knowledge on ecotourism and policy development which in turn could assist in improving the benefits of mountain gorillas to the local people. with the challenges that have been brought by the covid-19 pandemic, it could be recommended that a comparative study to assess the socio-economic impacts during and post the pandemic era be undertaken. this may reveal the shift in locals’ perceptions on the ways in which mountain gorilla tourism is managed in uganda and other destinations offering similar tourism products. acknowledgements the researchers would like to acknowledge the residents of the butogota town council, for participating in this study. also, a special mention goes to the uganda wildlife authority for granting permission for the study to proceed. sections of this manuscript are published in a thesis submitted by imelda amony in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of master of technology: tourism and hospitality management in the faculty of business and management sciences at the cape peninsula university of technology entitled: ‘the impact of mountain gorilla tourism: perspectives of the management of the attraction’. supervisor: professor jp spencer, april 2021. refer: http://etd.cput.ac.za/bitstream/20.500.11838/3219/1/imelda_amony_214288005.pdf. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions g.m., w.m., c.n.d. and i.a. all contributed equally to this work. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views expressed in the article are those of the authors and not of the institution or the funder. references hassell jm, zimmerman d, cranfield 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data envelopment analysis (dea) was used to estimate the technical efficiency and returns to scale of one of the largest banks in south africa. the intermediation approach was applied to classify the inputs and outputs and the analyses were conducted with both inputand outputorientation under variable returns to scale. returns to scale efficiency and technical efficiency for 37 districts over a period of 22 months were estimated. the analyses indicated that 19 districts out of the 37 districts were never fully technically efficient during the 22 months (inputand output-orientated). it appears that customers’ complaints about high service fees are justified. keywords: banking services, bank efficiency, technical efficiency, data envelopment analysis disciplines: economics, econometrics, mathematics, statistics, management sciences. 1. problem statement and motivation for this paper the south african financial sector is currently being dominated by four large banks, namely first national bank, nedbank, standard bank and absa. according to okeahalam (2006:105) these four banks are controlling over 85% of total deposits and assets in south africa. over the past 10 years bank customers have experienced relative large increases in bank service fees, and customers would like to know whether these increases are justified due to higher production costs or is it a matter of banks being inefficient. according to capgemini et td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 2, december 2008, pp. 401-417. 402 al. (2007) south africans pay more to own a cheque account than anyone else in the rest of the world. south african cheque account holders are paying, on average, r1 863 a year in fees while the global average is r732.07, the report said. cheque account holders pay more for payment services than consumers in almost all other countries paid for all banking services in total. the lack of providing financial services to everyone (hawkins, 2004:199); the inability to introduce new financial products (akinboade & makina, 2006:116); the operating costs outgrowing the bank’s income during 2000 (hawkins, 2004:196); increasing staff costs (banking supervision, 2002:50); savings accounts being costly (hawkins, 2004:200) and customers not paying fair prices for financial services (hawkins, 2004:197) led to the debate about how efficient the south african banks really are? exhibit 1 indicates the efficiency of south african banks over the period 1997 to 2002. since the year 2000, there has been a continuous increase in the cost-to-income ratio of the banks, meaning that there has been a decline in the efficiency of banks since 2000. the introduction of new enhanced service facilities, like atm’s and internet banking, and the shedding of jobs in the financial sector since 1997, may be an indication of why the operating costto-income ratio have been rising above the international benchmark of 60% (hawkins, 2004:192, 196, 200). exhibit 1: efficiency of south african banks1 1 . source: bank supervision (various years). van heerden and van der westhuizen 403 one can estimate the functionality or performance of a bank by estimating the efficiency of the bank and one possibility is to measure it in terms of the intermediation cost between the investor and the saver (hawkins, 2004:183). technical efficiency can be measured by expressing the operating expenses as a percentage of the total income (cost-to-income ratio) (hawkins, 2004:196). data also showed that operating expenses have outgrown the industry income. thus the current cost-to-income ratio may have a negative impact on the consumer, with the fact that bank interest margins have been increasing to 3.8% on average, with non-interest income increasing to about 50% (hawkins, 2004:197). this paper attempts to determine whether customer complaints about bank costs are justified by estimating the performance of one of the four largest banks in south africa. efficiency may lead to a reduction in costs, while inefficiency may lead to an increase in costs. 2. background greater competition in the domestic and international markets and the fundamental structural changes forced organizations to be more flexible and productive, focusing more on serving the customer (hartle, 1997:45). kimball (1997:24) stated that the greater specialization and focus in commercial banks were permitted by the 30 years of evolution in bank structures and management. during the 1980s organizations became more performance-orientated. an era of ‘management by objectives’ began (hartle, 1997:46). mester (2003:3) stated that the organization’s performance should be measured against an objective, because without an objective the company will have no criterion on choosing investment strategies and projects. ‘the main purpose of performance measurement is to align the goals of individual employees and the bank as a whole’ (mcdonell & rubin, 1991:56). mester (2003:3) stated that efficiency is a measure of the deviation between actual performance and desired performance. for a bank to achieve outstanding performance means that it must achieve in maximizing the shareholders’ wealth, thus the market value of a firm’s common stock (mester, 2003:3). how to measure performance still depends on each individual organization, because of different situations and circumstances (berry et al., 2005:94). most bank managers quote return on equity (roe) or return on assets (roa) or other growth rates when asked about the performance of the bank (avkiran, 1997:224). roa measures net income per dollar of average assets owned during the period (koch and macdonald, 2003:112).. however, roa provides no direct information concerning how or which of the bank’s activities contribute to the creation of shareholder value. it ignores other performance benchmarks that customer-focused managers must consider to identify the best strategies for the future (koch & macdonald, 2003:170). cost of banking services and technical efficiency td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 401-417. 404 roe measures the percentage return on each dollar of stockholder’s equity (koch and macdonald, 2003:112). the drawback of accounting roe and roa measures are that they do not include any risk adjustments (bessis, 2005:10). they can vary substantially and will be highly dependent on the industry; this is why it is best to compare them against the roe and the roa values of a similar company. this drawback is the origin of the concept of risk-adjusted performance measures. this is a reason for moving to ‘economic values’, ‘mark-tomarket’ or ‘mark-to-model’ values, because these are both riskand revenue-adjusted (bessis, 2005:10). kaplan and norton (2001a:3), de young (1997:21), eccles (1991:132), davenport and sherman (1987:35), chelst et al. (1988:7), smith and schweikart (1992:54), avkiran (1997:224), clark (1997:25) and kaplan and norton (1996a:25) stated that financial measures have flaws and should not be used as the only measurement of bank performance. financial measures should be used as an additional component to overall performance measurement. berry et al. (2005:93-94) stated that no single measure provides consistent evidence of the correlation between stockholders’ satisfaction and firm performance. verma (1992:279) stated also that traditional measures of profit were no longer appropriate for the motivation of measuring bank performance. kaplan and norton (2001:3) stated that performance indicators should be a combination of financial and non-financial measures. however the balanced scorecard (bsc), as the common non-financial measure, has some of the following limitations. the bsc will be useless if the included non-financial measures are not linked to the firm’s strategic objectives (kaplan & norton, 1996:55-56, 77); and the bsc is weak if too many performance indicators are included (gering & rosmarin, 2002:18-19). gardner and mills (1994:667) stated that most performance evaluators use accounting and other data to calculate financial conditions. during the research study for this paper it was found that the required data is not always available or the required financial statements are impossible to obtain. to overcome these limitations relative bank efficiency measurement was used. the next section discusses the concept of relative bank efficiency. 3. relative bank efficiency when economists point to efficiency they focus on scale, scope and x-efficiency, which are different aspects of performance (mester, 2003:2). scale efficiency determines if an organization is providing the most cost efficient level of outputs (mester, 1994:3). scope efficiency refers to whether a firm is producing the most cost efficient combination of products (mester, 1994:4). x-efficiency determines if an organization is using its inputs, like capital and labour, in a cost effective way to produce its outputs as cheap as possible (mester, van heerden and van der westhuizen 405 1994:5). firms that exhibit x-inefficiency are either using the wrong combination of inputs to produce outputs (allocative inefficiency), or wasting their inputs (technical inefficiency), or both (mester, 2003:3). x-efficiency can therefore be divided into two groups, technical efficiency and allocative efficiency. thanassoulis (1999:4) stated that efficiency of any firm consisted of two components, production efficiency and intermediation efficiency. production and intermediation efficiency indicate technical and allocative efficiency and is also known as the sum of total or economic efficiency (coelli et al., 1998:5). to explain technical and allocative efficiency in more detail consider figure 1. in figure 1 the two inputs x1 and x2 are utilized to produce a single output y, under the assumption of constant returns to scale (coelli et al., 1998:134). curve ss’ is the unit isoquant, which indicate all possible relative input combinations that yield maximum outputs. any point on this isoquant is technically efficient, where it is not possible to reduce the two inputs proportionately and still produce the same level of output. firms q and q’ are both technically efficient, while firm p is technically inefficient (farrel, 1957:254). figure 1: allocative efficiency and technical efficiency2 a firm that is operating at point p has technical efficiency, described by the ratio, which is the proportional reduction in all inputs without any reduction in output. this ratio has a value that lies between zero 2 . source: farrell (1957:135) & coelli et al. (1998:135). cost of banking services and technical efficiency td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 401-417. 406 (total inefficient) and one (total efficient) (coelli et al., 1998:134-135). line aa’ is an isocost line that indicate all possible input combinations that have the same cost. the allocatively efficient point, that minimizes cost, is the tangent-point between the isocost line aa’ and the isoquant ss’. the optimal production point is at point q’. the cost of inputs used at point q’ and point r is the same and is less than the cost of inputs used at points q and p. point q is technically efficient, because it lies on the efficient isoquant (coelli et al., 1998:135; farrell, 1957:135-136). point q is not on the isocost line and is therefore allocatively inefficient. allocative efficiency of the firm operating at point p is defined to be the ratio, where the distance rq is the reduction in production costs which would occur if production occurred at q’. this ratio also has a value between zero and one. economic efficiency is the sum of technical efficiency and allocative efficiency. firm q’ is the only firm that is fully cost efficient (coelli et al., 1998:135-136; farrel, 1957: 136). efficiency measurement is one aspect of firm performance, which is measured with respect to an objective. the firm’s objective can be measured with respect to the maximization of output, the maximization of profits or the minimization of costs (mester, 2003:2). mester (1994:8) stated that it was recognized that there might have been unpredicted factors that affected a bank’s cost over the period when data were collected. some of these unpredicted factors included the possibility that the data are measured with error. more focus was therefore placed upon the degree of x-inefficiency in banking. the technique required was to estimate the best-practice cost function that predicted the cost function of banks that were x-efficient (mester, 1994:9). the required technique also had to measure the degree of inefficiency relative to the best-practice, chosen as the appropriate benchmark. one of the common methodologies was therefore developed, namely the data envelopment analysis (dea) (mester, 1994:9). avkiran (1997:232) stated the main steps that should be followed in developing a performance model are as follows: � review the corporate objectives and strategies; � define branch performance in terms of corporate objectives. identify those performance variables that are critical to the bank’s success. reflect the mix of personal banking business at branches; � identify the potential variables associated with branch performance. identify those potential variables controllable by management; � determine the sources of data for performance and potential variables; � develop multivariate measures for data collection; � analyze data through multiple regression and other techniques. determining the sets of potential variables explaining each of the van heerden and van der westhuizen 407 performance variables; and � examine the results of the analysis and raising performance through reconfiguring branches. as stated earlier, the problem with measuring bank efficiency is data availability. the databases of banks accommodate only accounting procedures and not combined analyses of operational, marketing and financial data. dea was found to be an appropriate method for overcoming these problems (vassiloglou & giokas, 1990:591-592). the reason is the modelling flexibility of the dea and its ability to address qualitative and quantitative data, as well as nondiscretionary and discretionary inputs (golany & storbeck, 1999:15). the dea will now be discussed in the following section. 4. data envelopment analysis (dea) ‘dea involves solving linear programming problems that generate a non-parametric, piecewise linear convex frontier that envelops the input and output data relative to which cost is minimized’ (färe et al., 1985:193). coelli et al. (1998:140) stated that the dea involves the use of linear programming methods to construct a non-parametric piece wise frontier across the data. this frontier is therefore used to measure the relative efficiency or productivity in terms of the inputs and outputs selected by the organization (avkiran, 1999:206). this technique is called the data envelopment analysis because the data on the best-practice banks cover or envelop the data completely from the rest of the banks in the sample (avkiran, 1999:207). according to sherman and ladino (1995:63) dea determines the following: � the best-practice and most productive group of service units; � the less-productive service units compared to the best-practice units; � the amount of excess resources used by each of the less-productive units; � the amount of excess capacity or ability to increase service outputs in less-productive units without utilizing added resources; and � the set of best-practice service units most similar to the lessproductive units. dea is also used because it lends itself more easily to multiple output analysis. dea is useful in cases where the behavioural objective of the organization is clouded by, for example, government regulations or operating constraints (van der westhuizen, 2006:4). sherman and ladino (1995:61-62) stated that the dea is a powerful tool for the service businesses, because it helps the organization to identify the best-practices in complex service operations. this includes service operations that are too complex for traditional analytical techniques cost of banking services and technical efficiency td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 401-417. 408 and observations (sherman & ladino, 1995:62). the following graph is being used to illustrate dea. figure 2 shows a dea model with a solid line connecting the efficient decision making units (dmus) l, m and n that represent achieved efficiency. for example, dmu, k is classified as inefficient and needs to move to k’ on the frontier before it can be classified as efficient. unit k will be compared to units m and n on the efficient frontier with the calculation of its efficiency score (avkiran, 1999:207). in comparing one bank’s efficiency to that of another bank, one must compare each bank’s cost of producing the same outputs (mester, 1994:7). golany and storbeck (1999:16) stated that the following three steps must be followed in order to construct a dea model. firstly, the selection of a decision-making unit (dmu) which means choosing the best-practice bank that will be used as a benchmark. secondly, choosing the appropriate input and output combination and thirdly, to choosing a mathematical formulation for the dea model. figure 2: a dea model showing an efficiency frontier3 5. the model dea was used to estimate the efficiency of one of the largest banks in south africa. the lack of data about each individual branch led to the use of districts. data collected included 37 districts for 22 months covering the period july 2005 to april 2007. the deap (version 2.1) program developed by coelli (1998) was used. the following dea model developed by charnes et al. (1978:430) was used: 3. source: avkiran (1999:207). van heerden and van der westhuizen 409 objective function max e o = , (1) where o = the region being assessed from the set of r = 1, 2, ..., n districts; k = the number of outputs at the districts; m = the number of inputs at the districts; = observed output i at district r; = observed input j at district r. constraints > 1 r = 1, ..., n (2) ui , v j > 0, i = 1, ..., k, j = 1, ..., m (3) the above analysis is performed repetitively, with each district in the objective function, producing efficiency ratings for each of the n districts. the solution sought is the set of (u i , v i ) values that maximise the efficiency ratio e o of the district being rated, without resulting in an output/input ratio 1 when applied to each of the other districts in the data set. equation 1 can be interpreted as maximise , equation 2 as a boundary constraint and equation 3 as a non-negativity constraint. the intermediation approach was chosen to identify the inputs and outputs used. to define inputs and outputs in the banking industry may be the greatest problem of efficiency measurement (mlima & hjalmarsson, 2002:12). with the multi-product nature of a banking firm there is still no agreement as to the definition and measurement of banks’ inputs and outputs (girardone et al., 2004:217). berger and humphrey (1997:34) pointed out that the intermediation approach is the most appropriate approach for evaluating the entire bank. the reason is because this approach includes interest expense, which accounts for up to two-thirds of total costs. molyneux et al. (1996:152) and mester (1996:1033-1034) stated that the intermediation approach is used because it views financial institutions as mediators between the supply of and the demand for funds. elyasiani and mehdian (1990:543) also stated that the intermediation approach is preferred cost of banking services and technical efficiency td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 401-417. 410 because the quality of data benefits the intermediation approach. an ongoing debate is about deposits, whether deposits should by classified as an input or an output (resti, 1997:224). elyasiani and mehdian (1990:543) stated that deposits are better categorized as inputs than as outputs, because banks buy deposits rather than sell deposits (elyasiani & mehdian, 1990:543). with the available data the following inputs and outputs were used to analyze the 37 districts and the 10 provinces: interest expenses include cost of funds (cof) charges, which are the interest the branch must pay for loans. non-interest expenses include operating expenses, labour and fixed asset costs. operating expenses include maintenance costs and service level agreement (sla) expenditures. sla expenditures are for example costs for moving money from one branch to another. total loans include mortgage, agricultural, business, commercial and consumer loans. non-interest income includes sales commission and other non-interest income. yue (1992:36) and kao and liu (2004:2355) included deposits and non-interest expenses as inputs. rangan et al. (1988:172) included labour as an input. yue (1992:36) stated that non-interest expenses include taxes, salary expenses associated with premises and fixed assets and other expenses. yue (1992:36) also stated that these measures represent the bank’s capital, labour and operational cost. berger and humphrey (1997:34) and elyasiani and mehdian (1990:543) stated that to leave interest expenses out of the model can distort the empirical results, because it accounts for up to twothirds of total costs. both kao and liu (2004:2355), wheelock and wilson (1995:693), favero and papi (1995:390), kaparakis et al. (1994:884), rangan et al. (1988:172) and yue (1992:36) used total loans as an output under the intermediation approach. yue (1992:36) and kao and liu (2004:2355) included interest income as an output. kaparakis et al. (1994:884), favero and papi (1995:390), yue (1992:36) and kao and liu (2004:2355) included non-interest income as an output. the final step is to formulate the mathematical formula of the dea model. input-orientated, output-orientated and variable returns to scale were used to formulate the dea model. input-orientated characterizes the production technology of the organization, for producing a given output mix with the minimum inputs (coelli et al., 1998:62). output-orientated characterizes an organization in pursuit van heerden and van der westhuizen 411 of producing the maximum output bundle with the given inputs mix (coelli et al., 1998:62). constant returns to scale will not function under conditions such as imperfect competition and constraints on finance. firms may therefore be unable to operate at an optimal scale (coelli et al., 1998:150). banker et al. (1984:1086-1088) introduced the variable returns to scale (vrs) as the answer to this problem. vrs is the disproportional increase or decrease in outputs when the inputs are increased (avkiran, 1999:211). the best approach may be to run the dea model under constant returns to scale (crs) and variable returns to scale (vrs) separately and then to compare the efficiency scores (coelli et al., 1998:150). the crs efficiency score represents technical efficiency that measures the inefficiencies due to the size of operations and the organization’s input/output combination. the vrs efficiency score represents pure technical efficiency that measure efficiency without scale efficiency (avkiran, 1999:211). 6. results table 1 exhibits the technical efficiency estimates and the returns to scale for the 37 districts under both the inputand output-orientated approach. a dea analysis generates efficiency estimates that range from one (fully efficient) to zero (fully inefficient) (coelli et al., 1998:134-135). the technical efficiency estimates contain the minimum, maximum and mean values for each district. under the input-orientated approach district 26 (the best performing district under the input orientated approach) had the highest average technical efficiency estimate of 98.9%, the highest minimum technical efficiency estimate of 94.9% and was the most times (13 times) fully technically efficient during the 22 months. on average, district 26 can increase its technical efficiency by proportionally reducing its input quantities by 1.1% without a reduction in output. district 2 (the worst performing district under the input orientated approach) had the lowest average technical efficiency estimate of 72.9%, the lowest minimum technical efficiency estimate of 64.8%. this means that on average district 2 could increase its technical efficiency by reducing its input quantities by 27.1% without a reduction in output. this can result in the reduction of the number of personnel, smaller number of atm’s or the reduction in other inputs. 18 districts out of the 37 districts were at least one time fully technically efficient during the 22 months, while 19 districts out of the 37 districts were not once fully technically efficient during the 22 months. district 2 had the lowest maximum technical efficiency estimate of 78.7%. more districts were operating at increasing returns to scale than decreasing returns to scale, meaning that the scale they were operating at was too small. cost of banking services and technical efficiency td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 401-417. 412 table 1: technical efficiency estimates and the returns to scale for the 37 districts (inputand output-orientated) van heerden and van der westhuizen 413 under the output-orientated approach district 26 (the best performing district under the output orientated approach) had the highest average technical efficiency estimate of 98.2%, the highest minimum technical efficiency estimate of 92.1% and was the most times (13 times) fully technically efficient during the 22 months. district 26 can, on average, increase its technical efficiency by increasing its output quantity by 1.8% without any increase in its input quantities but only by utilizing its inputs more efficiently. this means making better use of inputs like personnel, atm’s, computer facilities and other types of inputs. district 34 (the worst performing district under the output orientated approach) had the lowest average technical efficiency estimate of 62.4% and the lowest minimum technical efficiency estimate of 50.9%. this district also had the lowest maximum technical efficiency estimate of 70.8% and was not once fully technically efficient during the 22 months. 18 districts out of the 37 districts were at least 1 time fully technically efficient during the 22 months. 19 districts out of the 37 districts were not fully technically efficient during the 22 months. more districts were operating at decreasing returns to scale than increasing returns to scale, meaning that the scale they were operating at was too large. 7. conclusion from the results presented in table1, it is clear that the districts from this bank were not as efficient as it should be. the analyses indicated that 19 districts out of the 37 districts were not at least one time fully technically efficient during the 22 months (inputand output-orientated approach). this means that more than 50% of the number of districts from this bank was inefficient. under the input orientated approach it means that these districts could proportionally reduce all its inputs without any reduction in output. reduction in inputs means lower input costs that can lead to lower production costs. under the output orientated approach it means that these inefficient districts could expand its output without altering its input quantities, but by better utilizing its inputs. better utilization of inputs can lead to lower per unit production costs. on average, 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(in bruns, w.j., jr., ed. performance measurement, evaluation and investments. boston: harvard business school. p. 279-300.) wheelock, d.c. & wilson, p.w. 1995. explaining bank failures: deposit insurance, regulation, and efficiency. review of economics and statistics, 77(4):689-700. yue, p. 1992. data envelopment analysis and commercial bank performance: a primer with applications to missouri banks. federal reserve of st louis, p.31-45, jan. cost of banking services and technical efficiency td, 4(2), december 2008, pp. 401-417. microsoft word 11 mothibe et al .docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 151-162. xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners and street vendors in louis trichardt central business district, limpopo province ka mothibi1, cj roelofse2 and t tshivhase3 abstract xenophobic attacks in south africa in 2008 and 2015 sent shockwaves through the country and the world. in these events, around 70 people were killed while thousands were displaced; and, property and products of street vendors and shop owners were destroyed. this phenomenological research project is confined to louis trichardt in limpopo province wherefrom a cohort of foreign street vendors and shop owners were interviewed. the lived experiences of being verbally and physically abused as well as of some acquaintances being killed, has clearly left them traumatised and living in fear. the article finds that contributory factors to xenophobic attacks experienced by foreign shop owners and street vendors range from competition over scarce resources, stereotypes and inter-group anxiety. finally, it offers some recommendations about education for south africans and measured police action. keywords: xenophobia, immigrants, street vendors, violence, south africa introduction after 1994, south africa became an eye-catching destination for migration. the fall of apartheid resulted in a large flood of refugees and immigrants into south africa, particularly from other african countries. estimates of the number of illegal immigrants vary from 2-8 million (hussein, 1996). this figure, 20 years later, looks reasonably accurate with estimates at 6 million (wilkinson, 2014). as a result, south africa’s freedom has since the dawn of democracy was increasingly perceived as a centre for economic opportunity (international marketing council of south africa, 2004: 1). as immigrants settled into south african communities, the latter were equally incrementally exposed to foreign nationals’ lifestyles. according to mcdonald & golden (2000: 171), this increase in numbers of refugees and other non-citizens created tension among south african citizens, rendering xenophobia a realistic cause for concern within communities. overt xenophobia among south africans was revealed in may 2008 when widespread violent attacks were carried out by crowds of south africans against african immigrants and other local citizens suspected of being foreign nationals too. globally, xenophobic violence is a serious phenomenon and it has been a persistent problem that afflicted society at all level (wilkinson, 2014). there is insufficient criminological research whether foreign shop owners and street vendors living in louis 1 department of criminology, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: kholofelo.mothibi@ul.ac.za 2 department of criminology, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: cornelis.roelofse@ul.ac.za 3 department of criminology, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: thompho.tshivhase@ul.ac.za mothibi, roelofse & tshivhase 152 trichardt community experienced and/or experience xenophobia and the form it takes. the consequences of xenophobia are far-reaching because it impacts significantly on long term and psychological wellbeing of victims. the article aims to identify the contributing factors to and types of xenophobic attacks as well as impact on foreign shop owners and street vendors. this article is drawn from material that was compiled through qualitative research, which allowed for in-depth and rich understanding of xenophobia from the perspective of the respondents and their social context. thus, the design is consistent with social constructionism. convenient sampling design was used, with great care of applicable ethics, to select a total of eighteen (18) participants from louis trichardt central business district, distributed as follows: ten (10) street vendors and eight (8) business owners, which included five (5) somalians, four (4) ethiopians, three (3) nigerians and six (6) zimbabweans. all participants were interviewed using face-to-face unstructured schedule either at their home, work and outdoors of their convenience. based on the prearranged agreement, recordings of the interviews were captured through handwritten notes and on tape. to ensure reliability and credibility the saturation method was employed. the relevance of louis trichardt for the study of xenophobia is borne out of its location along the national road n1, just 112km from beitbridge border post. louis trichardt is a picturesque town at the foot of the soutpansberg mountain range in limpopo province, south africa, often described as the centre of makhado local municipality. according to the 2011 census, louis trichardt’s population was made up of 25 360 individuals and 7 129 households. to establish the bigger picture from the body of data collected, thematic data analysis was applied. in the final analysis, the interview results were interpreted, generalised and summarised in order to make deductions, as reported in this article. theorisation of xenophobia in scapegoating theory xenophobia as a social phenomenon that is amenable to a variety of theoretical framings, inclusive of social learning and scapegoating theory. this article seeks to apply the scapegoating theory of xenophobia. one of the earliest psychological theories explains prejudice and discrimination as a means by which people express hostility arising from frustration. according to marger (1991: 94), this has also been referred to as scapegoating. in essence, this theory implies that a person becomes so frustrated in his or her efforts to achieve a desired goal that he or she tends to respond with aggression. the source of frustration is unknown or too powerful to confront, so a substitute is found to release the aggression. marger (1991: 94) notes that the scapegoating theory may at first seem convincing because of the “commonness of experience” because all individuals at some time or the other, experience frustration when needs and desires are not met. for example, if one does not get a promotion there will be feelings of frustration and anger. whereas displacing anger and frustration on a substitute does not solve the problem, it provides for a temporary relief to an individual’s anxiety. harris (2001: 5) is of the opinion that the relatively new phenomenon of xenophobia in south africa is explicable through the scapegoating hypothesis. this theory holds that foreigners are blamed for limited resources such as jobs and education, as well as for “dashed expectations regarding the transitional process”. the underlying factor, which is poverty and violence, is directed towards foreigners on the pretext that they commit crimes and take away jobs meant for south africans. the centre for the study of violence and reconciliation in xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners and street vendors td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 151-162. 153 south africa notes that discrimination against foreigners takes place in many societies, particularly in countries experiencing political or economic upheaval. it therefore becomes a convenient scapegoating for those experiencing the reality of hardship that has worsened since the arrival of zimbabweans into south africa. targeting foreigners is a matter of proximity because foreigners tend to reside in areas that are characterised by poverty and inadequate service delivery. these conditions are a precursor to xenophobic attitudes that encourage hostility, conflict and violence, as more people are competing for meagre resources (alarape, 2008: 75). defining xenophobia xenophobia is commonly defined as the hatred and prejudice against “outsiders” or foreigners (harris, 2002). further, it is also described as fear or contempt of that which is foreign or unknown, especially of strangers or foreign people. additionally, xenophobia involves the intense dislike, hatred or fear of others perceived to be strangers (nyamnjoh, 2006: 5). the word xenophobia is derived from two greek words, that is, xenos meaning stranger and phobia meaning fear. for the purpose of this article, the notions of xenophobia denoted above are held, and the victims of the attendant acts are exclusively the african immigrants in south africa. xenophobic attacks in south africa according to the southern african migration project, south africa displays one of the highest levels of xenophobia in the world (crush, 2001). in south africa, xenophobia appears to be racialised as black immigrants are the primary targets and victims (zegeye, 2009: 8), accompanied by demeaning nomenclature, name-calling and verbal abuse. a common insulting term used for foreigners by black south africans is “makwerekwere” (zegeye, 2009: 8). this word is meant as an insult and usually applied in the same line with being told to go back home. many foreigners receive constant harassment and insults from various south african nationals, like shoppers, pedestrians, passengers, neighbours and even work colleagues. harris (2001: 60) states that to most foreigners, it is a daily practice to be subject to public hostility. also, xenophobia displays itself through acts of looting and destruction of property of vulnerable groups of foreigners. in march 2014 a number of somalis and chinese allegedly fled the moletlane village in limpopo province, where they had been residing and earning a living, after their shops were looted and set alight by residents. police spokesperson, ronel otto said “43 men and 20 women were caught on sunday after five chinese-owned shops were touched out of resentment toward foreigners but also could specifically target foreign nationals on the basis of their vulnerability – for example, due to the perception that state authorities such as south african police services will not protect them. given that xenophobic violence deliberately targets people on the basis of their actual or perceived “foreignness”, it can also be seen as a form of discrimination. nkosi (2015: 1) writes that the south african police service’s operation fiela (meaning reclaim) is in fact xenophobic in itself. but despite the apparent success of the anti-crime operation, a coalition of nongovernmental organisations, including lawyers for human rights, médecins sans frontières, section 27, corruption watch, africa diaspora forum and awethu, has criticised operation fiela for perpetuating xenophobia. they say the campaign is unfairly targeting foreign nationals and mistakenly equates the presence of undocumented foreigners in south africa with crime. mothibi, roelofse & tshivhase 154 xenophobic violence is one common form of bias motivated violence (also known as “hate crime”) that can be difficult to distinguish from, and sometimes overlaps with, other forms. for example, some cases of xenophobic violence may also be related to other forms of prejudice such as racism, religious intolerance or persecution on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. according to nkosi (2015: 1), xenophobic violence, like other forms of bias-motivated violence, can often serve as a “message crime”, in that an act of violence can be intended to send a signal to other refugees or migrants that they are not welcome in an area or country. some perpetrators of violence may believe that they have the support of political leaders in their actions and this perception is affirmed if government leaders fail to speak out after major incidents of xenophobic violence or the police do not act decisively and arrest perpetrators. likewise, perpetrators of xenophobic violence may feel vindicated if their actions pressure government to conduct increased immigration raids or deport undocumented victims of the violence. according to nkosi (2015: 10), xenophobic violence can take on different forms in different regions of the world. in some states, individual attacks on foreign nationals by extremist groups may be the norm. in south africa, xenophobic violence may be perpetrated by mobs that go door to door within their own neighbourhood in search of foreign nationals. new24 (2012) argues that the xenophobic violence may also have an economic dimension in cases where foreign-owned businesses are specifically targeted for looting and robbery. there is also a gender dimension to xenophobic violence wherein foreign nationals are targeted for sexual and gender-based violence. it is evident that foreign shop owners and street vendors have endured xenophobic attacks; and, it is equally important to examine the nature of these attacks against foreign shop owners and street vendors, as presented hereunder. since south africa gained independence from the apartheid regime in 1994, numerous xenophobia-related attacks have been reported in media resulting in deaths, injuries and displacement (crush, 2008: 47). for instance, human rights watch (2008: 128) found that there was serious tension between south africans and foreign street traders or hawkers, which resulted in acts of violence and intimidation. apparently, south africans did not want to share pavements with foreign hawkers, to the extent that they embarked protest marches. on several occasions they had viciously attacked foreign hawkers with instruments like “knobkerries” (sticks with a rounded ball at the end) and “sjamboks” (flexible rubber stick). as a result, many foreign traders gave up hawking in fear of their lives. when one look at reasons for these attacks, anyadike (2015: 1) quotes steytler form the institute of race relations thus: “we don’t believe that the xenophobic violence is about foreign nationals ‘stealing jobs’. it’s about deep economic inequality and the government’s failure to implement policies that create jobs and grow the south african economy. it’s about dire socio-economic circumstances for the majority of south africans” this observation is borne out by an incidents that happened in january 2002, in the joe slovo settlement in milnerton, near cape town, where three refugees and, a day later, one local man were killed. the three refugees that were killed were then dragged into a house, which was subsequently set alight. these apparent xenophobic killings occurred because xhosaspeaking residents complained that foreigners who were also street vendors were having relationships with “their women” and stealing their jobs (anyadike, 2015: 2). the south african red cross society (sarcs) has also reported that over 500 foreign nationals have been displaced in xenophobic attacks in botshabelo in the free state (news24, xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners and street vendors td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 151-162. 155 2012). a plethora of other violent acts against immigrants and refugees, such as being thrown off moving trains and physical assault, have been reported in the media (naicker & nair, 2000: 2). evidently, xenophobia in south africa has had life-threatening consequences for many refugees and foreign nationals, who have ironically immigrated to south africa in search of work, safety and security. the impact of xenophobic attacks the impacts of xenophobic attacks are diverse and complex, ranging from the physical to the emotional. hereunder, the article narrates the impacts that are on record. death as a result of xenophobic acts neocosmos (2010: 120) argues that many people have been killed as a result of xenophobic violence. he further writes that, “in may 2008, the country exploded into an orgy of killing, looting and burning. the outcome in gauteng was 62 people dead of whom 21 were south africans.” in 2001, violent clashes broke out in milnerton between angolans and south africans wherein locals accused immigrants of taking their jobs and women. three angolans and one south african accused of killing one of the immigrants were in turn killed. in 2004, a somali shop owner was shot dead in broad daylight in his own shop on christmas day. nothing was stolen; as a result, xenophobia was thought to be the motive. in 2005, three somali refugees were stabbed to death outside their shop. the attacks were thought to be motivated by xenophobia and resentment of their successful businesses. in 2006, violent riots erupted in choba between foreigners and local residents, wherein the latter claimed that foreign nationals steal their jobs. two migrants were killed, including a zimbabwean man who was burnt to death. additionally, two zimbabweans were killed in violent clashes between south africans and foreigners in the informal settlement of olievenhoutbosch in 2006. again in 2006, at least one man was killed when violence erupted against foreigners in plettenburg bay; and, the reason was that they were stealing jobs from the local residents. in 2007, two somali men were burnt alive in their shop in mossel bay, the night after another somali man was killed by armed gangs in cape town. in january 2008, four foreign nationals broke into a spaza shop (small backyard grocery shop) owned by a local trader in soshanguwe and they were apprehended by local residents burnt one of them to death. following this incident, local residents called on all foreigners to leave. in march 2008, at least seven lives were lost in a series of attacks spanning a week in atteridgeville. the deceased included zimbabwean, pakistani and somali nationals as well as a south african who was mistaken for an immigrant. over the period between march and june 2008, several deaths of foreigners and south africans mistaken for immigrants and killed, were recorded. the causes of death include beating, stoning, burning, shooting and neck-lacing. there were more than 60 confirmed deaths the attacks subsided. the incidences outline above highlight the violent nature and extent of xenophobic violence in south africa. the incidences show that the violence was on the rise. the reasons for the rise in xenophobic attacks, which may include laxity of the criminal justice system in dealing with xenophobic violence in south africa, are yet to be fully understood. mothibi, roelofse & tshivhase 156 physical effects of xenophobia higson & suffla in o’neill (2011: 374) note that, “violence is understood as an act or situation that harms the health or well-being of oneself or others. it includes both attacks on a person’s physical and psychological integrity, and the destructive acts that do not involve a direct relationship between victims and the institution, person or persons responsible for the harm.” clearly, the effects of violence include physical harm to people and physical destruction of property. mcconnell (2008) states that, “foreign owned businesses were destroyed amounting to over r1.5 billion in damages.” mcconnell goes further to note that, although these foreign-national owned businesses contribute up to almost 25% of the gross domestic product (gdp) in south africa, government did not compensate for the losses nor offer assistance to businesses that were destroyed during the attacks. xenophobic attacks that occurred on the 11th until the 28th may 2008, left 37 500 foreign nationals displaced around the country. the attackers did not give anyone a chance to collect any valuables, instead they made sure that foreign nationals ran for their lives, leaving behind their hard-earned possessions for the looters. mcconnell (2008) argues that the media is also awash with headlines of the destruction of foreign-owned businesses and incidents of grievous bodily harm of immigrants. indeed, xenophobic attacks have far reaching physical effects that could permanently impair the victims’ ability to practice viable livelihood. psychological effects of xenophobia o’neill (2011: 377) finds that victims of horrific experiences where an individual literally faces death and extreme forms of violence such as xenophobic attacks, can develop traumatic stress disorder which results from moments of overwhelming fear, horror or helplessness. he further explains that such experiences are deeply distressing and potentially life-changing. according to o’neill (2011: 377), “traumatic stress is a phenomenon of the psychological world which is less observable and can only be understood through close examination of the behavioural changes in people who have recently survived a violent incident or through the survivors’ descriptions of their feelings and thoughts.” traumatic stress, as seen by o’neill (2011: 378), can lead to the following symptoms: • re-experiencing symptoms which are associated with thoughts, feelings, psychological responses and behaviours which remain with the person long after the traumatic event is over; and, they may take forms of memories, intrusive images or flashbacks. this will mean that, even though the incident is in the past, the mind and body may still react to triggers associated with the past traumatic event. • avoidance symptoms, which are strategies people use to try to avoid the fear and pain caused by their on-going re-experiencing of the event. very often, people stay away from people, places and activities that remind them of the nasty experience. • arousal symptoms are closely related to people’s highly developed survival mechanisms whereby following a traumatic experience, people often find it very difficult to fall asleep and are easily woken up, often hyper vigilant and quick to anger. traumatising experiences can cast a long shadow over people’s lives, including perpetrators as well as victims. that is, the effects of the experience can be radical and long lasting. xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners and street vendors td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 151-162. 157 findings and discussions the sample was made up of seven (7) female street vendors and eleven(11) males. eight (8) of the males were shop owners and (3) were street vendors. whereas a non-probability sampling design was used, it can be assumed that immigration into south africa has involved both males and females; and, they included zimbabwean, somalian, ethiopian and nigerian nationals. all participants stayed in south africa for less than fifteen (15) years. xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners and street vendors in louis trichardt causes of xenophobic attacks as seen by foreign shop owners and street vendors there were numerous themes observed from the responses of the participants, including the causes and impacts of xenophobia. most participants as foreign shop owners and street vendors believed that they were perceived as endangering the existence of individuals, socially, politically, economically and even physically. indeed, alarape (2008:75) maintains that the prevalence of xenophobia in a society is not necessarily linked to levels of unemployment. rather, the key to understanding xenophobia may be the perception of how legitimate the competition is as well as the perception about equality and difference. media danso & mcdonald (2000: 1) see media as a powerful vehicle for social transformation and development. when it comes to the issue of xenophobia and the media in south africa, respondents felt that the media vilifies them; and, one participant notes: “i strongly believe that the media also play a role in encouraging people to attack us because some stories in radios they always preach the dirty gospel about us” stealing women one of the issues cited by some authors as a reason for xenophobic violence in south africa is in the locals’ thinking that foreigners “steal” their women (mnyaka, 2003: 21). male participant in this study also stipulated they are often attacked or threatened over the relationships they have with local women. two male participants responded, thus: “when they see you they only associate you with bad things like maybe you want to sell drugs, or you want to take their women, you want to take their jobs”. “for me it was very painful because i was threated most of the time, they said i was exploiting their sisters and as results i had to break up with my girlfriend because of that.” intergroup anxiety stephan & stephan (2000) suggest that individuals in the in-group experience feelings of threat when interacting with members of the out-group in ways that challenge their selfimage (for example, being embarrassed when in contact with something unfamiliar), and this threat perception causes anxiety. the majority of the respondents believed that the attacks they have experienced were related to inter-group anxiety. two respondents mentioned that: mothibi, roelofse & tshivhase 158 “i was victimised before and from what i’ve seen since i came here they think you are a thief just because of your foreignness and i realised that the people just seem to hate us over nothing but just because i’m a foreigner” “when they see you they only associate you with bad things like maybe you want to sell drugs, or you want to take their women, you want to take their jobs”. competition over scarce resources mcconnell (2008) states that, “foreign owned businesses were destroyed amounting to over r1.5 billion in damages.” the majority of the participants believed that south africans perceived them as a threat and competition over the natural, economic and social resources. these sentiments were raised by participants as follows: “i think is because some people around here they are just selfish and they don’t have a spirit of ubuntu, so when they see us they see competition and stranded people”. “i was once arguing with a friend of mine and i asked them do you hate us so much, so they said we are taking their wives and their space of living and that we are also taking their jobs”. most participants thought that most south african street vendors and business have negative attitudes towards them, which they blamed on “jealous”, as described by three respondents: “since i arrived in louis trichardt negative attitude towards me has been a normal part of my life, more especially from my fellow business compotators they always say bad things about foreigners but there’s nothing i can do about life goes on” “i think these negative things they always say about foreigners it’s the strategy it’s a strategy to keep the customers away from our business.” “i was victimised before and from what i’ve seen since i came here they think you are a thief just because of your foreignness” forms of xenophobic attacks physical brutality most (85%) respondents mentioned having experienced some form of physical brutality at the hands of local residents and government officials. one respondent described the violence thus: “with all experiences since i came here, i’ve learned that people around here are brutal and violent, i was once being chased out here were i am selling because i was suspected of being a pickpocketing people passing by just because am a foreigner and a man on that case.” markets demolition harris (2001: 60) states that to most foreigners, it is a daily practice to be subjected to public hostility. xenophobia also displays itself through actions like looting and destruction of property of vulnerable groups of foreigners. the majority of respondents had experienced market demolition. two respondents note that: xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners and street vendors td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 151-162. 159 “early this year in march we had flee here in the town, after our shops and markets were looted and set alight by the local residents” “the last time when people where striking for service delivery around here they never gave us a warning or a short notice for not selling on the day and all my stuff were destroyed and the fruits i was selling was scatted around the streets i was left without a stock” verbal attacks participants have overwhelmingly recorded verbal attacks as their daily experience. harris (2001: 60). a common insulting term used against foreigners is “makwerekwere”. “for me working here every day is distressing because i receive constant harassment and insults from various south africans, like shoppers, pedestrians, passengers, neighbours and even work colleagues who are also selling around.” discrimination discrimination was one of the popular themes that kept emerging from the participant's individual expression. local people were described by most foreigners as not accommodative and suffering from, as phrased by one respondents, “alien-phobia”. two participants note as follows: “the first week i personally discovered that i was not appreciated or welcomed and there was this feeling of being separated from the general local population” “more especially here at the taxi rank i felt so isolated feeling like an island because people will even go to an extent where they didn’t want to buy from me because am not one of them”. effects of xenophobic attacks death the majority of respondents believe that killing of foreigners takes place as a results of xenophobic violence. neocosmos (2010: 120) states that 83 people were killed in this way, inclusive of 21 south africans, in may 2008. “last year my colleague was attacked by few people selling around here in town i was also insulted because am selling the products that they are selling with lower prices than theirs, i was also told to go sell my stuff back in somalia and unfortunately he was brutally injured and he later passed on i hospital”. “early this year i witnessed one of my fellow country man while he was being brutally beaten to death at the taxi rank where i was selling my stuff before i moved to this side, he just was suspected of selling drugs to school kids who pass by going to this high school in town just because he is nigerian”. physical effects the majority of participants reported that they have been victims of physical attacks, which has become normal and accepted among. crush (2008:55) notes this point of widespread mothibi, roelofse & tshivhase 160 xenophobic consciousness that has normalised in south africa. the following quotes reiterates incidents of physical abuse: “at first i thought this thing of xenophobia around here was just a myth and it doesn’t exist, but to my surprise i realised that am being physical abused day in day out simply because of my foreignness around here, and even the government officials they also call by offensive names around here and push us”. “i think these physical brutal things they always do to us as foreigners it’s the strategy it’s a strategy to keep the customers away from our business”. psychological impact respondents’ sentiments revealed the extent of fear associated with xenophobic attacks, thus: “personally and honestly speaking every day is a challenge to me, even when i’m selling around here i don’t feel free to do my business as i am scared”. “to me here living in fear it’s now a normal thing as i go through it every day, i have been suspected as a thief numerous times so where ever i am m always alert and scared”. “i’m always not free in my own shop and i am even scared of my own customers its hard running business here as a foreigner”. loss of income one of the aspects mentioned by most of the participants was that of loss of income. they believe that xenophobia is costly as they lose income and jobs, as evidenced in the following responses: “the year i was attacked i spent weeks surviving by asking money for food from my pastor, this was because my spaza shop here was demolished and i had nowhere to get money”. “they just demolish our markets and chase us out of this streets knowing that we won’t be able to make money anymore”. three proposals were drawn from the investigation in regard to addressing xenophobia and the attacks; and, they included awareness campaign, police visibility and harsh punishment. conclusion the article has argued that contributory factors to xenophobic attacks experienced by foreign shop owners and street vendors ranges from competition over scarce resources, stereotypes and inter-group anxiety. the impact of xenophobic attacks on foreign shop owners include death, injuries, loss of income, destruction of property and products, and looting of businesses. the article suggests that possible measures for addressing xenophobic and the attacks faced 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accepted: 25 apr. 2018; published: 11 sept. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the viability and operability of the southern african development community standby force (sadcsf) is threatened by two principal factors: overdependence on foreign peacekeeping operations and inability of the sadcsf to fund its operations. the objective of this article is to explore the challenges and prospects that create a conducive environment in which the sadcsf in southern africa is able to intervene in peace operations and become financially viable. the methodology for gathering and analysing data for this study was based on secondary data sources, namely narrative analysis, systematic quantitative literature review, social constructivism and interpretivist approach, triangulation and thematic analysis. the findings of the article revealed that the sadcsf does not have a financial model for funding peace operations in the region. it also demonstrated financial inadequacies have consequently led to the inability of the force to intervene in peace missions in southern africa. from the foregoing, it is evident that much still needs to be achieved for the sadcsf to possibly be operational, thus the identification of several indicators. the analyses from the article portray that, while much has been achieved, much more is yet to be realised in terms of fiscal viability, sustainability, responsibility and integration. it is recommended that an adequate monitoring group be established. it is also recommended that a planning commission be established for the sadcsf and that an adequate funding method be built based on each individual country’s ability to pay. finally, a separate budget for funding peace operation should be established. introduction according to kotia (nd:6), on a global scale there are six main elements of defence security in relation to social sciences, namely military security (implying the capability of a nation to defend itself and deter military aggression); political security (concerning the stability of the social order and specifically addressing threats to sovereignty); economic security (freedom to follow choice of policies to develop a nation’s economy in the manner desired; forms the essence of economic security); environmental security (dealing with environmental issues that threaten the national security of a nation in any manner); security of energy and natural resources (including water, sources of energy, land, oil and minerals) and most recently human security (such as poverty, social grants and welfare) (kotia nd:6). while all six are paramount, military security is an essential guarantee for the realisation of the other security elements. this is because several studies have linked peace and stability within a country to economic development; human development; the protection of energy and natural resources; political stability; and environmental protection (chellah 2014:4; gaddis 1982; homan 2006; nato handbook 2001:203; ndaguba 2016; weihrich 1982:2–4). based on the aforementioned, an effective, viable, sustainable and functional standby force like the southern african development community standby force (sadcsf) is of utmost concern and need. however, the activities and functionality of the sadcsf are curtailed by an overdependence on foreign peacekeeping operations in the region, by independent member states (see south african defence force) and chiefly by non-existent funding models for generating funds for the sadcsf. premised on the incidence that hampers the efficiency of the sadcsf, as described, this article explores the challenge that plagues the operability of the sadcsf and the opportunities thereof for funding the force – principally, because as allison, jackson and ndaguba et al. noted, ‘funding is key, funding is everything … it determines capability, movement, equipment and maintenance, payments to injured soldiers. if we can sort that out, the rest can follow’ (allison 2013; jackson 2013; ndaguba, nzewi & shai 2018). without an adequate funding mechanism for the sadcsf, planning, organising, staffing, training, and coordination would seem difficult, if not impossible (ndaguba 2018). this is probably the reason why the components saddled with the functionality of the sadcsf programmes are yet functional in full capacity. it is therefore important to see theories that support regional security, taking into account elements that make up functional and adequate regional security architecture. this article must be understood as one in a series of articles that deals breaks down the philosophy of a research study on financing regional peace and security in africa: a critical analysis of the southern african development community standby force this particular article deals with the prospect and challenges for funding peace operations. strategy theory there are several theories in international relations and world politics that give credence to the formation and formalisation of regional security forces globally. however, the posture of this article (and series of articles) is shaped towards the proposition of a funding model for regional security on the african continent and how these financial burdens on member states can be reduced. this article examines strategy theory in international relations and security studies and their opportunities in creating an understanding for the establishment and operability of a regional defence force. strategy theory is situated in the interdisciplinary academic field of strategic studies and strategic management (furrer, thomas & goussevskaia 2008:6). it is concerned with the study of peace, conflict strategies and strategic development of organisations (ndaguba 2016), more often than not devoting attention to the relationship between international diplomacy, geostrategy, military power, international economics, international administration and politics (gaddis 1982). the theory is useful in providing an understanding of the role of diplomacy, intelligence and international cooperation for regional security and defence operations (weihrich 1982:2–4), with a particular interest in the way a (defence) organisation can best function adequately. however, there are several uses or misapplications of the concept of strategy. for instance, in the field of strategic management and strategic planning, authors such as richard vancil, kenneth andrews, george sterner, alfred chandler and john miner focus on the part of the story dealing with the achievement of ends (chandler 1962; 2013; learned et al. 1965; lorange & vancil 1977; steiner & miner 1977), while authors such as igor ansoff, dan schendel and charles hofer place emphasis on the means through which the end is realised (ansoff 1965; hofer & schendel 1978). with some placing a higher emphasis on the final goal of the strategy, others have placed emphasis on the way and manner the ends is realised. in this article, both the ends and the means are critical because most ends undermine the humanness in conflict situations (see the biafra war 1967–1970). strategy theory is essential in decision-making (yarger 2006; 2008). hence, it hinges on the argument that well-crafted strategies are road maps that guide policymakers in making decisions that add value to society (toddzenger 2015). essentially the function of strategy theory is to ensure the advancement, pursuit and protection of interests. yarger (2006; 2008) stipulated that 15 assumptions be encapsulated in the strategy theory, which is in tandem with the arguments of trager and simonie (1973:36) and rosecrance and stein (1993:4), who argue that the strategic process is concerned with how leaders use the power available to the state to exercise control over situations to achieve objectives. in relation to strategy being about protection of interest, jordan et al. (2009), milward (1979:21) and burrowes (1996:29) argue that strategies are governed by political interest and purpose. more importantly, the design of any strategy is based on two factors, namely territorial and environmental, because every strategy is designed based on the understanding of the geography or landscape of the environment. yarger (2008:150) argues that while considering the physical and metaphysical attributes of the environment should be a priority in the conceptualisation and design of the strategic method, strategic processes must be holistic and inclusive in nature. in separate studies, yarger articulates that the emphasis of every strategy must be an inclusive approach (yarger 2006:8). to jervis, another important factor of the strategic process is loyalty (jervis 1997:60). national interests sometime compromise the global agenda; consequently, the interests and values of actors sometimes constitute a dilemma in formulating a strategy for a given area (eising 2005:223–224). however, there are several reasons for the formulation of a strategy, including strategy is to focus on finding the root causes and purposes of a conflict or problem (cimbala 2001; steiss 2003:171). some strategies have symbiotic relationship with time (jermy 2011). strategy is cumulative in the sense that properties in strategic environments are increasing from several different perspectives. strategy balances the relationship between objectives, methods and resources for achieving the goals of an operation in a hierarchical manner. every strategy intends to harmonise the ends, the means and the methods of achieving a goal (yarger 2006; 2008). the functions espoused by yarger and others can only be meaningful where the strategist takes cognisance of the following three constraints to successful implementation of strategies on a global scale: holistic: an all-inclusive approach to a situation must be taken into cognisance of a situation before intervention or the clearance for intervention is issued, such clearance to the finances; environment; timeline; communication pattern and stream; political, social and cultural dynamics; personnel; equipment; treatment facilities as well as the interactions and linkages connecting each strategic activity to the other must be established before the force is deployed (gane 2007:256). the entire strategy must be seen as one, with different parts that function effectively in maintaining the momentum of the central strategy from the onset. sustainable: this deals with the capacity of a sector to provide current and future outputs that ensure the proper flow or deployment of finances, personnel and equipment (gane 2007). equitable: equity is key in life as it is to strategy. it speaks to justice and social order. without equity no strategic activity can be accomplished, in that every strategy is premised on the central idea of a collective effort. equity reduces doubts, seizes fears and repels discrimination, which are products of confusion. for any strategy to succeed, cost must be distributed based on what was agreed at the initial stage through a fair accord; otherwise the essence of a strategy would be compromised (gane 2007). thus, every achievable strategy in military studies demands the collective effort of military professionalism in formulating, articulating, evaluating or executing the strategy (yarger 2006:ix). research methodology there is no one best way or method in social research for conducting research, either qualitative or quantitative (ndaguba 2016:12). every social research inquiry hinges on the ability of the researcher to gather reasonable data that support the topic under review. a synopsis of the mechanism for gathering and analysing data in this article can be found in table 1. table 1: summary of proposed method. the rock-bottom assumptions of desktop research are as follows: knowing where to look and what to look for; understanding the quality of the source material; ensuring you get the right information. the desktop approach was favourable in this study, premised on the following: issues on security and financing security would not be easily accessible; the possibility of gathering official financial statements owing to the non-existence of an administrative building or support staff; and the secrecy in security. data collection based on secondary data secondary data analysis is the practice of probing or scrutinising data that have already been collected by someone else, often for a distinctly different purpose (ndaguba 2016). as a research method, it ensures brevity while saving time, money and unnecessary duplication of research actions (crossman nd). an advantage of the secondary source of data collection is that it is used to gain insight about a phenomenon. its biggest weakness is the inability to generalise findings from such study. presentation of results this section discusses several challenges and prospects available for funding the sadcsf towards engendering peace in the region. no matter how careful one is in research, the researcher will never cover all the aspects in a single study, as science is ever living. this study does not pretend to cover all ramifications of financing regional peace operations in southern africa, however, it gives the strong conviction that there is a need to do something more than merely standing by, as the sadcsf has been standing by since 2007. firstly, the study is based on the southern african narrative; hence it predominantly deals with the force saddled with quick response in the region. furthermore, one may argue that this article gave much essence to challenges to its prospect of the sadcsf to be financially viable. this entirely depends on a philosopher’s perception and perspective, in that we see things differently. more so, a qualitative methodology was used because of shortage of funds, access to study location and materials, and the unavailability of resources that should have strengthened the argument even further. more specifically, this article must be seen and understood as one in a series of articles and not a standalone article on financing regional peace and security in africa: a critical analysis of the southern african development community standby force. there are several challenges ravaging southern africa, among which are poorly constituted regional integration and cooperation mechanisms, insolvent financial streams for the security force, weak political power in the world economy, the nature of its regionalism, weak institutional frameworks, weaker alignments of regional economic cooperation and so on. the first and most important challenge is the political economy of the southern african states: political economy is a science that rests on the assumption that capital, value, commodity, land, wealth and labour constitute its basic elements (jevons 1957:1). it envisions that the value of a commodity is dependent entirely on utility (jevons 1957:1). inasmuch as two parties freely agree to exchange things of value so that both benefit from the exchange, total wealth is increased. therefore, exchange depends on the value, the interest and the rationality of such exchange on the one hand, and the tendency of increasing the general wealth of both parties on the other hand, the later leads to a favourable balance of payment. without recourse to the assumption that a dominant party (or strong state) may exist, due to the interrelationship between both the strong and the weak state, the weaker party may become prey to the stronger. the notion and idea of the worldsystems economy is a better way of understanding the dominant nature of larger economies to weaker and smaller economies; the idea of the core and the periphery is a case in point. hence, among the 14 member states of the sadc, only south africa is likely to have its voice heard in the international market (though infinitesimal, of course). at the centre of any meaningful engagement in military studies is finance. according to allision (2012), cited by ndaguba and okonkwo (2017:146), ‘finance is key, finance is everything, it determines production, capacity, skill set, payment, equipment and machinery covering every facet of a functional military agency’. the existence and the operability of any force are highly dependent on the force’s ability to generate funds for the intervention. however, having no traceable or even feasible source of funds for the sadcsf constitutes a hitch in peace interventions in conflict areas in the region, resulting in the way both the political and economic structures of the region have been constituted. it is important to note that the internal budget of most of the sadc member states is far from being fiscally viable, sustainable, or responsible (see figure 1) in that most (if not all) member states run their country’s financial budget on deficit, loans and aids. this creates burdens on the institutions and governments to make internal governance subject to external scrutiny (to the lender). this is the nucleus of political economists, for they concern themselves not only with the mechanics of economics but also with the ideology that supports the translation from decision making to policy implementation. figure 1: southern african development community member states’ internal budgets, 2011–2015. according to figure 1, over 90% of member states are operating with a structured deficit. therefore, it could be argued that the feasibility of sustainable funding for interventions of the sadcsf is low and the morale for such engagement is not existent. furthermore, the notion or culture of running a structural deficit budget is not limited to member states but also affects the regional body (see table 2). table 2: southern african development community fiscal balance. the overall fiscal balance (including grants) is calculated as revenue minus total expenditure. the fiscal balance over the last 5 years has fluctuated widely in the different sadc member states. almost half of the member states end this period with a greater fiscal deficit than in 2008 (sadc 2015a). this picture is a result of the nature of regional and dependency syndrome, which has continually plagued the region and the continent as a whole. another important criteria is the nature of regionalism and regional activities in the region. there is a plethora of definitions for region, regionalism, regionalisation and regionness. each of the definitions focuses on one or more dimensions, be it geographical proximity, economic unification, political economy, cultural identity or security interdependence (buzan & wæver 2003; cantori & spiegel 1970). all definitions provoke the study of regional alternatives either as regionness or regionhood (hettne & söderbaum 2000). this article sees regionalism as state-based macro regions (three or more states), as opposed to micro regions, or territorial areas smaller than states. geographic proximity has been argued as the basis for regionalism, as opposed to regionalisation. regionalisation is often seen through the prism of regionness, which is principally for the purpose of trade but not exclusive to it. for example, the organization of the islamic conference, organization of petroleum exporting countries, united nations conference on trade and development and the world trade organization all follow or have a common identity, ideology and sometimes culture (fawcett & gandois 2010:619). though both concepts are used loosely interchangeably, this article considers the concepts as separate yet interlinked. while the former (regionalisation) refers to a process that encompasses an increase in region-based interaction and activity by state actors and non-state actors (non-state actors are usually the driving force such as individual, corporate organisations and non-governmental organisations), regionalism is simply a political project of state actors (fawcett & gandois 2010:619). the argument for regionalism is that it strengthens the whole (a collective action), in that collective action has greater effect than independent action (single action). as put simply by van langenhove (2005:5), regional integration is a ‘process in which units move from a condition of total or partial isolation towards a complete or partial unification’. in this case, the unification towards strengthening regional security forces to combat the threat and avert violence in the southern region of the african continent is necessary as the only means through which sustainable peace could be fast-tracked. with an already established interconnection between peace, security and development in the late 1980s and 1990s, international laws and academics in international development and conflict resolution agree that the roles regional economic and security organisations play in conflict management, stabilisation, peacebuilding and non-violent mechanisms are critical in averting vehemence (violence) and ensuring integration in post-war situations in africa (francis 2002). the challenges of securing africa and ensuring development of its citizens can be traced to the division of the continent for administrative convenience by the west. this consequently resulting in a completely misconceived analogy (gibb 2009:702), which campion and thayer (1987:78) refer to as ‘arbitrary grouping of activities’ and in this case ‘an arbitrary demarcation of countries’. though the essence of regionalism encompasses efforts by groups of nations to integrate and enhance their political, economic, cultural and social collaboration and to improve the living standard of the citizens through mutual interaction (chingono & nakana 2009:396; lee 2002:1). such efforts can take on different forms, including regional cooperation, market integration, development integration and regional integration. the african union (au) has continually argued that economic integration and cooperation is the engine to propel african development (ginkel, court & van langenhove 2003:1). this strengthens the idea of regionalism and regional integration as a major tool towards achieving growth and development on the continent, premised on mutual cooperation and agreement. however, the regions have not profited much from these assumptions of the regionalism and regional integration. this is a result of ideological difference, the political undertone of most issues in africa, unwillingness, inability of some member states to take a decision for their countries because of western influence or dominance, thereby stirring discrepancies in decision making among others (allison 2015; mataboge & pillay 2014). the lack of cohesiveness is the lack of finances on a regional scale as a result of the proliferation of various security institutions, programmes and budgets, which has constantly led reviews of erstwhile programmes and financing mechanisms for the continent (jentzsch 2014:2). consequently, this proliferation of security institutions (african standby force, sadc-organ on politics, defence and security cooperation, ecomog, african capacity for immediate response to crises, etc., to mention a few) has resulted in the shortage of funds, owing to five major blocs: the inadequacy of un reforms to overcome financing constraints; global financial meltdown; the insufficiency and unpredictability of voluntary contributions; restrain of contributor due to mixed track records of some peace operations; and the limited capacity of african regional organizations. (jentzsch 2014; ndaguba et al., 2018:13; sabra 2011:1) moreover, studies have shown that some member states of sadcsf are also members of other regional economic communities (recs) (cilliers 2008:2). double loyalty in security studies is no loyalty, as an order in the military is scalar; hence the saying ‘obey the last order’, because allegiance is a very important factor in financial studies, security studies and collective bargaining. another challenge is the weakness in regional integration and cooperation in the region: the basis for the integration of sadc member states was formalised in 2003 through the regional strategic development plan (risdp). the framework, though not a legally binding document, enjoys political legitimacy and is often seen as the architecture for regional integration (hartzenberg 2008:2). the risdp provides the roadmap for the establishment of free trade agreements by 2008, southern african custom union in 2010, common market in 2015, monetary union by 2016 (which did not work) and a single currency by 2018 (hartzenberg 2008:2). economic regional integration is capable of unlocking the potential for economic acceleration of the region (du pisani, erasmus & hartzenberg 2012:iii). however this has been limited by unsuitable and unsustainable formulas that do not address the challenges confronting regional integration in the region, as a result of shortages in capacity, finance, equipment and resource concerns, overlapping member states of recs in the region, lack of experts and most importantly the political will to fulfil the lofty agreement (in windboek protocol, risdp, pact, opsdc, strategic indicative plan for the organ), which have consequently reduced the volume of intra-regional trade to a large extent. the volume of trade in most african markets is small, thereby making transactions more expensive, in addition to the high risk of doing business in the region as a result of uncertainty, low trading, low economic power and deficiencies of benefits from the economies of scale among member states (njinkeu & fosso 2006, quoted in geda & seid 2015:23). regional integration has been identified as the most adequate mechanism towards continental development (geda & seid 2015), but this has been hindered by the fact that: 35 percent of the population and one-third of the economies in the continent are trapped as landlocked countries whose trade and development depend on what happens in their costal neighbors … most countries in africa are small in size and hence their economic feasibility and global bargaining position individually are highly limited. (p. 3) therefore, making the member states in the region and the continent rely otherwise, depends on the global political economy for favours, coupled with the height of political and all other forms of corruption and human rights abuses in the region. a compelling factor that cannot be ignored is the weak governance system in the region. the government system of sadc has little potential to influence decisions reached in individual member states; neither does it have the mandate to ensure compliance with its decision on security issues in member states, because most countries in the region are donor driven and because of the sovereignty of member states (nzewi 2009). this has significantly curtailed the influence the regional body has on its member states, with most of the member states being an appendage in reality to their donors, who determine the policies, projects and programmes to be implemented in these nations (söderbaum & stålgren 2009:1). one of the major characteristics of the structure of government is the stratification of power and authority. hence, the need in democracies for three arms of government – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. the sadcsf is a democratic institution, in which power is not centralised but devolved. more so, in a democratic institution there is room for the other two arms to ratify or adjudicate the decisions of the executive. however, although the sadc has an established executive figure, the legislative and judicial arms of the sadc regional governance framework are missing (au 2015; international democracy watch 2015). according to caparini and marenin (2006:217), the issue of security governance is indeed a very sensitive concept, as stated ab initio in southern africa, as it is to the entire continent. the difficulties in determining what security threats are and what security denotes have been problematic in contextualising different member states, which have culminated in greater confusion regarding who determines an act of grave consequence, intervention in member states and preventive measures and deployment for preventive purposes. with no proper governance structures, and the fact that it lacks a judicial arm for the interpretation of these events, little can be achieved, in addition to the nonchalant political will as to what constitutes security governance or reforms and security threats in the region (hänggi 2003:4–8). it would be difficult to interpret the ambiguous and vague terminology used in the sadc memoranda of understanding document of 2007 as an observation and monitoring mission, considering that the observation and monitoring exercise of zimbabwe’s election was a failure at demonstrating what the country holds sacrosanct. discussion regional or continental unification or otherwise integration has been argued as a basis for african growth and development. nkrumah, the father of pan-africanism, was the first to call for such unification and integration. in his book africa unite, nkrumah admonished the continent to unite or perish (new african magazine 2013; ojukwu 2013). the concept of african unity is based on the assumption that regional integration and cooperation is the only means through which africa can bridge the gap between the south and the north. this is one of the major aims for the establishment of new partnership for africa’s development by the au, namely ‘to promote regional economic integration by bridging africa’s infrastructural gap (au 2015)’ with the west. one of the founding members of the au, thabo mbeki, was of the view that there would be no meaningful development in the continent except where the continent are fully integrated, likewise in sadc except where member states are truly integrated, the region will not prospers and where the region does not prosper the prosperity of the continent will suffer an imbalance and vice versa (ndaguba 2016). this was the same notion shared by nkrumah during the independence speech of ghana, that ghana would not be independent until the independence of the entire continent (ndaguba et al. 2018). hence, unless the regions are properly harmonised in terms of regional economic trade unification (ndaguba & okonkwo 2017), the aim of africa’s development cannot be guaranteed and peace will remain elusive or perhaps a ghost case. in the sadcu (n.d.) context, the au vision is engendered through a: common future, a future … that will ensure economic wellbeing, improvement of the standards of living and quality of life, freedom and social justice and peace and security for the peoples of southern africa … anchored on the common values and principles and the historical and cultural affinities that exist between the peoples of southern africa. (p.21) from the sadc perspective, there are three major areas where regional integration may result in the actualisation of the visions of the au in line with regional integration and also in line with the visions of the strategic indicative plan for the organ (sipo), regional indicative strategic development plan (rispd) and organ on politics, defense and security co-operation and the sadc mutual defense pact (opdsc and mdp) in the region. these three major aspects are trade and investment, economics or political economy, and security. for the intents of this subject area, these three are perils to peace, stability, development and security in the sadc in particular and africa in general. therefore, it is a truism that trade breeds innovation, which tends to create employment, housing and empowerment that reduces dependency and poverty in a nation, region or continent, based on the improvement of science and technology, which in turn increases foreign direct investment. the political economy of regionalism establishes a direct organisation of administration, leading to the following: a balance of payment, increased labour, prudent use of land, political will, increased transactions and strengthened regional governance and capability, including security (ndaguba 2016). the nexus between security and development has long been established (chandler 2007; stern & öjendal 2010; uvin 2002), in that conflict, wars, terrorism and disharmony threaten investors’ confidence to inject funds into an uncertain economy. examples can be drawn from the 2015 xenophobic incident in south africa, the long period of war that resulted in a downward economic movement in the congo and the boko haram terror group in northeast nigeria that challenges the infusion of legitimate investors. therefore, without peace and security no economy can grow nor claim to develop (see syria, afghanistan, congo). according to bösl, regional integration as carried out by recs is the most important and successful instrument of economic growth, political cooperation, socioeconomic development and general stability in the region (sadc nd:25). the globalisation process has beclouded the region with more threats than opportunities (ouattara 1997). therefore, the region must adopt models and policy direction in terms of accommodating immigrants, employment opportunities for all, inclusive security and so forth. to avoid such threats, the region must be prepared to accommodate massive immigration, embrace technological advancement and prepare for chemical weaponry and diseases to ensure the security of the region. in addition to economic growth and viability, regional integration can perhaps also play a compelling role in pursuing and resolving matters of common concern through the recs. in this sense, regional integration and strong recs in general may pay substantial dividends in the region, especially in the context of identifying and resolving common challenges that are beyond the borders of individual states (chingono & nakana 2009; ginkel et al. 2003; ndaguba & okonkwo 2017). this may include but is not limited to transnational crimination, piracy, human rights abuses and diverse threats to peace in the region: terror groups, insurgency, xenophobia and a host of others (ndaguba et al. 2018). it can be argued that global and regional challenges ravaging the region constitutes reasons for collective action to prevail over individualistic actions in order to stimulate regional cooperation, which predominantly leads to strengthening its organs. hence there is little or no chance of any individual member states making a significant impact in the global arena. nevertheless, the nature of commodity, wealth, capital and resources has been the major pitfall of the regional integration agenda of the sadc member states conclusion from the foregoing, it is evident that much still needs to be achieved for the sadcsf to possibly be operational – thus, the identification of several indicators. the analyses from the article portray that while much has been achieved, much more is yet to be realised in terms of fiscal viability, sustainability, responsibility and integration. however, continuous adjustment, pedalling and movement are essential towards greater unification and integration in the region. the article suggests that by creating vibrant institutions and structures that determine the interaction of events and activities in the region in particular and the continent in general, there is hope for sustainable peace and the effective funding for peace operation of the sadcsf. in conclusion, though it seemed impossible for the sadcsf to become fully operational and carry out its basic responsibility of peace operations, premised on the identified pull-down factors, it is the view of this article that creating a partnership-funding model is the first step towards realising an achievable and functional sadcsf. in order for a model to be proposed from the analysis in the article, factors that are geared towards financial viability should be used for such a venture. therefore, it is important to take lessons from other regional security arrangements and the principal security agency on how it managed to fund peacekeeping or peace missions over the years, including the funding mechanisms used in financing their operations, as well. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that the has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references allison, s., 2013, standing by to standby: the african peacekeeping force with more problems than solutions, daily maverick, viewed 14 august 2012, from http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-08-14-standing-by-to-standby-the-african-peacekeeping-force-with-more-problems-than-solutions#.vxx032bpiai allison, s., 2015, ‘will south africa really go to war in the drc again?’, daily maverick, viewed 21 march 2016, from www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-01-05-will-south-africa-really-go-to-war-in-the-drc-again/#.vbp-e0xpiai ansoff, i., 1965, corporate strategy, mcgraw-hill, new york. au, 2015, the executive council, african union, viewed 07 december 2015, from www.au.int/en/organs/council bezuidenhout, h., 2016, sadc investment perspectives in a changing international investment landscape, policy insights 12, economic diplomacy, saiia, durban, south africa. burrowes, r.j., 1996, the strategy of nonviolent defense: a gandhian approach, suny press, ny. buti, m. & carnot, n., 2015, what is a ‘responsible’ fiscal policy today for europe? cepr’s policy portal, vox, viewed 26 september 2015, from http://www.voxeu.org/article/defining-responsible-fiscal-policy-europe buzan, b. & wæver, o., 2013, regions and powers: the structure of international security, cambridge university press, cambridge. campion, m. & thayer, p., 1987, ‘job design: approaches, outcomes, and trade-offs’, organizational dynamics 15(3), 66–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/0090-2616(87)90039-8 cantori, l.j. & spiegel, s.l., 1970, the international politics of regions, englewood cliffs, n.j., prentice-hall. caparini, m. & marenin, o., 2006, borders and security governance: managing borders in a globalised world, die deutshe bibliothek, deutsche. chandler, a.d., 1962, strategy and structure: chapters in the history of the american industrial enterprise, mit press, cambridge, ma. chandler, d. 2007. the security–development nexus and the rise of ‘anti-foreign policy’, journal of international relations and development, 10(4):362–386 chandler, a.d., 2013, strategy and structure: chapters in the history of the industrial enterprise, mit press, ma. 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accepted: 20 apr. 2018; published: 12 sept. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract there is little contention that gender equity continues to be a challenge in many societies across the southern african region. dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality are often reflected in school materials such as textbooks, which have the potential to socialise girls and boys into particular gender performances. the aim of the study being reported on was to examine representations of gender in a sample of business studies school textbooks. the textbooks were selected from four southern african countries: swaziland, lesotho, zimbabwe and south africa. the study employed a sociolinguistic analytical framework, namely critical discourse analysis and was guided by the tenets of feminist poststructuralism in the analysis of this phenomenon. the findings of the study reveal superficial content changes in the texts under study. gendered ideologies continue to prevail in a remarkably overt fashion. one key finding was at a semantic level, namely the mention of the male pronoun first in sentences and conversation and not the female pronoun, having the likely effect of endorsing the principle of the ‘firstness’ and superiority of the masculine. in the order of two words paired for sex such as ‘mr and mrs’, ‘brother and sister’ and ‘husband and wife’, the masculine word came first. this automatic ordering is likely to reinforce the second-place status of women. the article concludes with a discussion on the implications of these findings for pedagogy and the textbook publishing industry. the findings also have the potential to ignite debate, as it relates to re-imagining the programmatic curriculum (school textbooks) as a contested genre. introduction and background since the early 1960s, gender equity has received unprecedented attention at international forums (weedon 1997). there is a growing international understanding that gender equity is a prerequisite to achieving human and sustainable development. to this end, a number of declarations have been promulgated, for example the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (cedaw), unicef policy on gender equality, empowerment of girls and women, commonwealth plan of action for gender equality 2005–2016, the millennium development goals and the education of girls to promote gender equity. in 2010, southern african development community (sadc) leaders also committed themselves to enhancing quality education and removing gender stereotyping in the curriculum and career choices. although there has been gradual progress, many alarming issues, regarding gender discrimination, still prevail. gender equality has to be elevated to a global priority as a fundamental step in both human development and economic progress (un summit 2010:6). gender discrimination is rooted in history, tradition and culture (rosenberg 2001). research in sub-saharan africa has found that despite legislation and policies to improve gender equality, socialisation into gender roles and values reinforce gender inequality (bhana 2009; mahlomaholo 2010; morojele 2010). the dominant discourses of gender continue to give dominance to types of masculinities and femininities in ways that ‘uphold inequitable gender relations and reinforce patriarchy’ (morojele 2012:82). one way in which dominant discourses promote selective values is through school textbooks (apple & christian-smith 1991; crawford 2003; davids 2013; fan & zhu 2007; naidoo 2014; osborne 2004; pillay 2013; pingle 2010). textbooks, by nature, tend to control knowledge as well as transmit it and to reinforce selected cultural values. textbooks are therefore not only powerful, but also embedded in ideological discourses. it is this ideological discourse that becomes the official, state-sanctioned narrative from which learners are to learn certain values and beliefs (engelbrecht 2007). therefore, textbooks do not stand as neutral entities espousing agreed or accepted ‘historical truths’ (foster 2011), but rather as powerful cultural artefacts, containing the ideas, values and knowledge that influential elements in society expect students to know and embrace. they are ‘… conceived, designed and authored by real people with real interests’ (apple 2001:46). selection of textbook knowledge is therefore an intensely political activity, often leading to tension, controversy and acrimonious debates in the struggle to define what (or whose) knowledge is of most worth. with regard to school textbook selection, the state in many african countries is largely responsible for approving ‘suitable’ textbooks (eric 2011). the textbooks that are endorsed by the state need to present knowledge selections in accordance with the content listed in the prescribed curriculum of the country. ministries of education in african countries generally scrutinise the textbooks through a screening and quality assurance process at various stages of the textbook production process (eric 2011) to ensure that textbooks cover the prescribed curriculum. ministries of education also have the power to veto sections in a textbook that do not fit the educational ideology promoted by the official curriculum. for these powerful reasons there can be no certainty that gender equity will be an agenda that might be prioritised in the programmatic curriculum (in textbooks). the symbolic representations in the textbooks are connected to real power relations, and they might also represent differentiated social relations as natural and unquestionable (sleeter & grant 1991). of significance, though, is that there is limited understanding of the nature of content selections that textbook authors invoke and the subtext thereof (cameron et al. 2003). thus, it is imperative to review textbooks to uncover the hidden, underlying assumptions and stereotypes within their content (foster & crawford 2006). the focus of this article is therefore to understand the way in which gender is represented in four business studies textbooks selected from countries in the sadc region and to theorise about their particular representation. more specifically, the focus of this study is to understand how gender is represented in the four sadc textbooks so as to develop a theoretical explanation for how the phenomenon presents. the four sadc countries have introduced various policies on gender equity of which an example is the 50/50 policy underpinned by the cedaw which provides guidelines and procedures for gender equity (mukundan & nimehchisalem 2008). however, it is important to examine the extent to which the principles outlined in such policies are given effect in business studies school textbooks. while textbook research is a growing field, business studies textbook analyses are limited (collison 2003) even though international scholars have argued that commerce education texts have great potential to promote ideologies in keeping with patriarchy and discrimination (mcphail 1996; zhang 2012). in spite of these concerns, few studies have been conducted on the analysis of business studies textbooks across the selected sadc countries, and none in the last phase of high school. as such, one might infer that the knowledge and skills about critical textbook use may not have been foregrounded in teacher education programmes. the skills of a critical linguist (using critical discourse analysis [cda]) are essential if individuals (teachers and learners) wish to unearth the subtext of school textbooks. the aim of this article is therefore to illuminate ideological representations at work in the selected texts. literature review to read language as having assumed common meanings can lead to very different interpretations. words have not only explicit connotations, but also implicit connotations. for example, does the word ‘man’ refer only to a biological being, or does it also imply moral characteristics, positions of power and legitimacy that go far beyond this? words do not contain a single, present meaning; they defer their meaning to other words in the language system. as a result, meaning is always slipping and sliding, and language is therefore not an accurate tool to represent reality (foucault 1991). meanings will always be partial, contingent and contextual and open up an endless play of interpretation. sexist language entails exclusion, degradation and stereotyping of women. foucault (1991:3) argued that ‘our discourse shapes our reality’, that issues of power are invested in our discourse and languages. for foucault, symbols reflect power. as such, male pronouns, as a generic, reflect society’s views of power. these regimes of power are reflected in our ways of speaking and writing about the world, and gender is one component of the way in which power and privilege interact with language. as early as the 16th century, it was proclaimed that males should be mentioned before females: ‘let us keep a natural order and set the man before the woman for manners’ sake’, for ‘the masculine gender is more worthy than the feminine’ (eckert & mcconnell-ginet 2003:34). this ordering, reflecting a widespread perception of male supremacy, has been conventionalised and not questioned until relatively recently. the notion of the natural order has been criticised by various theorists (butler 1990; foucault 1991; sugino 1998) who refute the notion of ‘natural’, claiming that discourse is a reflection of cultural, ideological and political values of certain groups in society. ‘discourses represent political interests, and in consequence are constantly vying for status of power’ (weedon 1987:41). through webs of power, certain knowledge comes to be valorised and accepted as the norm. an early study of australian and commonwealth countries’ language textbooks revealed use of male pronouns as generic (davis 1995). this would mean that most references to the professions were to male persons (davis 1995). the same was found with the use of ‘he’ as a generic term throughout the texts of commonwealth countries in asia. the author remarks that use of the generic ‘he’ would lead the readers to believe that all of the characters were males. apple and christian-smith (1991) suggest that the inclusion and exclusion of knowledge in textbooks constructs a distinct economic and historical reality. textbooks spread ideologies while conveying facts under the guise of ‘historical legitimacy’ (davis 1995:12), a finding confirmed by foroutan (2012). the issue of ‘firstness’ of pronouns began in modern english when the meaning of ‘man’ was broadened: in seventh-century [sic] the word ‘man’ originally included and was applied to both sexes. in old english ‘man’ as a term meant ‘person’ or ‘human being’ and could not be used to identify a male person. (festante 2013:10) the ambiguous use of ‘man’, referring not only to humankind, but also to a male person in particular, caused trivialisation and degradation of women. festante (2013) maintains that, using a generic form of the word ‘man’, diminishes women to lesser importance than men. even though there are alternatives to avoid the use of gender-marked items, many textbook authors continue to apply the word ‘man’ in its generic use. likewise, a study on gender stereotypes in children’s literature in japan and america revealed the use of generic terms like ‘he’, ‘man’ and ‘mankind’ to represent human beings (swainson 2016). a masculine term was used as a generic term as proper form, thus tightly linking sexism with language (swainson 2016). whenever a generic term is needed, the masculine term is used as a proper form, compared to lesser use of ‘her’ or ‘she’. this often determines the elite and legitimate culture that textbook authors wish to pass on (apple 1991). the findings on iranian and turkish textbooks (skliar 2009) as well as swedish textbooks (mustedanagic 2010), for example, reveal that the construct of the female businessperson is largely missing. it is therefore assumed as ‘fact’ – that should be taught to children – that the world of business is a masculine space. a more recent analysis of english first language textbooks used in iran revealed that 14 personal pronouns were used to refer to females, whereas 51 pronouns referred to males (baghdadi 2012:69). frequency of usage of pronouns showed that men were more frequently portrayed and described in the textbook, although there were several examples of the generic ‘person’ being used to refer to both males and females. states baghdadi (2012:69): ‘this education should prepare the person for the job he can do best’ and ‘when someone fasts, it means he doesn’t eat’. generic usage of ‘he’ clearly delineates females as inferior to males. the sense created here is that the masculine pronoun can be used as a general word. specific use of the feminine pronoun, however, distinctly denotes that which is not masculine. in so doing, it gives effect to an unwitting othering as patterns favour masculinity as generic. firstness of pronouns is another feature of language where gender discrimination can easily be observed (eckert & mcconnell-ginet 2003). this represents a common conviction that men are more important than women in almost every society, suggesting that it is necessary to place them first everywhere. ‘firstness’ refers to the linguistic feature where one particular gender is often mentioned first (pillay & maistry 2013). analysis of gender firstness in textbooks was first undertaken in 1978 in an investigation of several textbooks published over a period of 12 years (hartman & judd 1978). the authors proposed that many texts presented needlessly stereotyped portrayals of men and women, whether through one-sided role allocation, overt put-downs or omission (hartman & judd 1978). the order of mentioning two nouns, such as ‘mr and mrs’, ‘brother and sister’ and ‘husband and wife’, was investigated – and the masculine word always came first. this automatic ordering reinforces the second-place status of women. five years later a study sought to determine whether change had occurred since the hartman and judd analysis (porreca 1984). in a quantitative investigation, focusing on female visibility and firstness in sentences where 15 textbooks were evaluated, the findings confirmed those of hartman and judd, and indicated that sexism in english first language (efl) textbooks was still a problem. women were mentioned half as often as men were, firstness for men was three times as prevalent as female firstness and women were less visible in occupational roles (porreca 1984). the author also noted that when two gender-specific nouns or pronouns appeared as a pair, like ‘mother and father’ or ‘he or she’, the one appearing first could be interpreted as having higher status. this, she maintained, reinforces the stereotypical notion of who is regarded as more worthy and important in society. textbooks therefore have a way of telling less than the truth by reflecting the ideology of the dominant worldview. similar firstness tendencies were found in a sample of hong kong textbooks (lee & collins 2010). this ordering of the male first reinforces the second-place status of women (lee & collins 2010), and these authors suggest mixing the order, because female learners will feel weak and unimportant in comparison to male learners. the ideology of masculine superiority will also affect female learners’ self-esteem. bias in efl textbooks was evident: when masculine and feminine nouns occurred together, the male noun usually came first (healy 2010). this type of language usage was regarded as conventional usage (bahman & rahimi ‎2010), an issue that might be addressed by critically engaging learners in understanding that such usage is not restricted by grammatical rules or convention and that they could choose which gender to use first (healy 2010). finally, the analysis of iranian high school efl textbooks revealed that men were mentioned before women in the majority of cases (amini & birjandi 2012:137). in one of the books, there were 12 first mentions of males and only two first mentions of females. the researchers explained this linguistic feature as representing the traditional patriarchal view of women in iranian society; deeply rooted traditions show that men always come first and that women are subordinate to men. a key omission from the findings is the authors’ failure to comment on how iran, being a ‘patriarchal’ society, ranks equally with all the other countries in terms of gender inclusivity. this omission serves to conceal issues of power and ideology. to this effect, textbooks are described as ‘both pedagogical and political’ (aronowitz & giroux 1991:215). the foregoing literature confirms the socially constructed nature of textbooks. it also signals the need for a critical approach to textbook use. of concern is the dearth of research-based knowledge on the content of business studies textbooks and the ideology that might present, in this important teaching resource, an issue that we attempt to foreground through this article. theoretical framework a feminist poststructuralist perspective was employed as a theoretical lens to examine gender representation in the selected school textbooks. the specific analytical framework was drawn from feminist cda. the specific locus of interest in feminist poststructuralism is language as a site for the construction and contestation of social meanings. feminist poststructuralists believe that language (which includes visuals) provides the means for people to think, speak and give meaning to the world around them (weedon 1987:12). through language, people internalise social norms and social perceptions of reality, thereby becoming members of society. it is through language that gender is socially constructed, as gender differences dwell in semantics. through language, the individual makes sense of social and cultural experiences and provides informative explanations of those experiences (baxter 2002; wetherell 1999). when viewed as more than vocabulary and grammatical rules, language becomes the way we construct meaning and understanding of our world (scott 1988). feminist poststructuralism challenges gender categories as dual, oppositional and fixed, arguing that gender comprises shifting, fluid multiple categories. hence, stable definitions of gender are challenged (aikman & unterhalter 2005). feminist poststructuralism seeks to explain the emergence, becoming or genesis of structures, or how systems such as language come into being, mutate through time and give meaning to the world of a particular gender. such systems are therefore neither fixed nor stable (deleuze 1988). as a common factor in any analysis of power, social meanings and construction of identities, language must be a central site of analysis. this is where actual and possible forms of social organisation and their social and political consequences are defined and contested. crucially, language is where subjectivity – which feminist poststructuralism sees as a site of disunity and conflict – is constructed (weedon 1997). feminist poststructuralist theoretical perspectives on language and discourse therefore present as a useful analytical tool with which to deconstruct the language of business studies textbooks and expose gender and other constructs embedded in the discourse. the act of deconstructing texts will help reveal the constant performance of the different elements within language, as it entails interpreting a text by exposing what is usually suppressed. methodology the study adopted a critical paradigmatic orientation as a means of exposing, underlying assumptions and gendered ideologies that serve to construct power relations via the ‘representations’ in the textbooks. the methodology employed was cda. a major concern for critical analysts is how texts can be representations of ideologies, and can contribute to social relations of power and domination. critical discourse analysis can reveal how certain ideologies are dispersed through discourses of the education system at the micro level of business studies textbooks and the macro level of a social agenda or political intervention. for this study, fairclough’s (2001) three-dimensional cda framework was used. the devices in fairclough’s (2001) three-dimensional framework used for analysis of text and discourse in this study were as follows: (1) linguistic description of the formal properties of the text; (2) interpretation of the relationship between the discursive processes and interaction, and the text, where text is the end product of a process of text production and a resource in the process of text interpretation; and (3) explanation of the relationship between discourse, and social and cultural reality. the linguistic description phase of fairclough’s three-dimensional analysis of texts was done, using a specific framework adapted from machin and mayr (2012), and selected because of the benefits it offers in categorising choices made within discourse via socio-semantic rather than lexico-grammatical meaning, as it offers an opportunity to analyse the textbooks in terms of the social context it might be used in. key analytical constructs (see table 1), used at the description phase of this study, included foregrounding, backgrounding, embellishments, assumptions, silences and omissions, nominalisation, modality, presupposition, pronoun versus noun, nomination and functionalisation, impersonalisation, personification and objectification, honorifics, aggregation, synecdoche, and register. table 1: selected categories from the social actor network and their representative meaning. in addition to using fairclough (2001) as well as machin and mayr’s (2012) representational framework, the following basic steps for using cda, as outlined by huckin (1997), guided our initial analysis. firstly, we read the chapters selected in the textbook in an uncritical manner. then we reread the chapters in a critical manner by raising questions about them and establishing how they could be constructed differently. in the next step, we looked for the perspective being presented which is referred to as framing the details into a coherent whole. finally, we closely analysed sentences, phrases and words, looking for (among other things) language that conveyed power relations, insinuations and tone – three linguistic elements between which cda particularly seeks to identify connections. in analysing and interpreting the visual data, we adapted the framework designed by nene (2014) (see box 1). her framework takes into consideration various aspects of visual representation which is useful for this study. her framework has a specific gender focus. box 1: framework for analysing visuals. the textbook sample for this study constitutes business studies textbooks from four sadc countries (south africa, swaziland, zimbabwe and lesotho) and drawn from the last phase of high school (preceding tertiary education). the textbooks were chosen on the basis of their popularity and endorsement by the ministry of education. we have chosen to analyse only the sections on the topic ‘entrepreneurship’ in order to ascertain the extent to which this historically masculine domain has engaged the gender equity agenda. entrepreneurship, as a topic, comprises a key topic in the business studies textbook content. as such, it offered a substantive data corpus for analysis. note that, although textbooks are in the public domain, pseudonyms were used to keep identities anonymous. findings in the foregoing analysis, we demonstrated how language affirms the masculine across all four business studies textbooks under study where sexist and biased language was used to reinforce male dominance. evidence of this can be seen in the recurring representation of firstness of male pronouns and use of the generic ‘man’ across the texts. firstness of the male noun reinforces gender bias ‘firstness’ refers to the mention in texts of men first before women. it is about prioritising men ahead of women. more often than not, in the order of two words paired for sex, such as ‘mr and mrs’, ‘brother and sister’ and ‘husband and wife’, the masculine word comes first. this automatic ordering reinforces the second-place status of women and is one of the ways in which the power status of men is reinforced. all the instances in which the two genders were mentioned together in the four textbooks were analysed to inspect which appeared first. the findings revealed the following: males were in the first position most times, while females were in first position in only three instances (see table 2). table 2: firstness of male and female nouns and pronouns. this pattern reinforces the stereotypical notion that womanhood has a second-place status and therefore that females are not as important as males. across all four textbooks from the four selected countries, the authors reinforce the notion of masculine firstness. of particular significance is that this pervasive ordering develops and sustains a ‘naturalness’ and a taken-for-granted ‘normalness’ of this gendered order. examples of recurring pattern of firstness of male pronouns the following examples highlight some of the recurring patterns of firstness of male pronouns across the four textbooks: men and women have equal opportunities in the workplace. they are treated with respect and dignity. (lesotho, p. 22) while the authors appear to have sought to advocate gender equality, it seems that they may have inadvertently intensified the differentiation. the text is written, using the male first person pronoun before the female noun, unwittingly according priority to the masculine. an essentialist gender polarity is created, suggesting that a person could only either be a man or woman. this normalising judgement with its distinct categorical classification does not allow for any ambiguity or ambivalence in gender identity. this sentence is written in the declarative mode which appears to assert the content as a universal truth. heterosexual sex is thus established as the norm. the declarative mode, as fairclough (2001) points out, can be an indicator of asymmetrical relations of power; in this instance, the authors are placed in the position of being the possessors and providers of knowledge while the readers are receivers. because textbooks are seen by students as holding unquestionable truths, they will accept this version of reality as the truth: if an entrepreneur wants to be successful, he or she must choose how best to use scarce resources to satisfy as many needs and wants as possible. (swaziland, p. 110) again, the male pronoun comes before the female pronoun, signalling relative importance. binary polarity is also reinforced which defines gender simplistically: ‘he or she’, in which the reader is either of the masculine or feminine gender: jalil and mayra both have equal amounts of money to invest or save. jalil chooses to save his money in a bank that pays an annual rate of interest. mayra chooses to invest her money in a small beauty salon, which is far more risky. (zimbabwe, p. 306) the identities and aspirations of jalil and mayra are depicted as polar opposites: male/female. the authors construct the idea that this woman has not given the venture of entrepreneurship sufficient thought and might be ignorant of potential risks. although the authors portray women as individuals who would like to start a business, the business is referred to as ‘small’. this example suggests that women are not likely to be sufficiently skilled to own and maintain large businesses. another phenomenon that comes to the fore is the gender-stereotyped occupations. the business to which mayra aspires is not just a small business, but also one that is typically female-orientated. learners would assume that such activities are the domain of women and not men. in the next instance, the text once again foregrounds the masculine pronoun before the female pronoun: mr and mrs gordon, owners of an upholstery factory, are certain that the strike has prevented workers from entering the plant. mr gordon announced that the company won’t stand for it and requires staff to resume work or face disciplinary action … the striking workers hung around the company singing to show dissatisfaction. (south africa, p. 195) from the quoting verb ‘announced’, we are able to draw out more precisely what is connoted. those who ‘announce’ things, appear to have power and legitimacy, and have the ability to take control. in this case, it is mr gordon as opposed to mrs gordon. there is a tendency for textbook writers to adhere firmly to the convention of mentioning males before females when husband and wife (mr and mrs gordon) are used together as generic pronouns. this order of appearance suggests male supremacy and the second-place status of women (hartman & judd 1978; lee & collins 2010). the generic ‘man’ even though there are alternatives to avoid gender-marked item usage, the authors across the four textbooks, still apply the word ‘man’ generically, diminishing women as being less important than men. examples of this are discussed in the texts below: by now, you should know that to be a successful businessman you must make a profit. (zimbabwe, p. 58) this statement reflects bias. the authors could have used a more neutral pronoun such as ‘businessperson’ instead of ‘businessman’ as a way not to favour a particular gender. in the absence of the female noun ‘businesswoman’, the authors reinforce the message that entrepreneurship and owning businesses is an exclusive entity best suited for males. as lee and collins (2010) argue, this type of presentation might reinforce stereotyped views of male and female roles and abilities among students. the adjectival clause ‘[b]y now, you should know’ implies that the balance of the sentence that follows, conveys information that is common knowledge and requires no further investigation or examination, because its import is perceived to be ‘natural’ and self-evident. the use of the pronoun ‘you’ communicates that the authors make certain assumptions about the outlook and nature of the reader. again, it also appears to convey the impression that the meaning, contained in the sentence, is a shared view held by all ‘right-thinking’ people. the deontic modal verb ‘should’ adds to this impression, denoting moral obligation of the reader to accept the statement as a fact. this perspective on profit is presented as if there are no other factors that play a significant role in becoming a successful businessman: managers should help employees feel valued. they should guide and equip workers to achieve the organisation’s goals. a democratic manager consults with his workers. (lesotho, p. 354) while the first two sentences appear to be tentative and using gender neutral language, and may be interpreted as non-specific, in the third the word ‘his’ is used which makes the gender more explicit and entrenches the view of a taken-for-granted assumption that men are managers. the writers could have chosen the phrase ‘with workers’, but the use of the pronoun ‘his’ betrays the author’s bias and proclivity for the masculine. omission of the female noun ‘manageress’ adds to this bias. along with this biased assumption of men as managers, the picture that follows this definition, foregrounds the masculine gender as managers. the modal auxiliary ‘should’ has both a relational and an expressive modality. it implies either allowing for the possibility or having the authority to make employees feel valued. the responsibilities attributed to managers denote them as important figures in an organisation. the infinitive verbs ‘guide’ and ‘equip’ suggest that the subject is pastoral in nature, while the infinitive ‘to equip’ would clearly state that the subject is aligned with what is perceived to be greater economic imperatives. the picture in figure 1 influences the biased assumption (albeit an unrealistic one) of a sexist ideology that management is a masculine occupation, and the writers do very little to trouble this perception. jake declared that many workers are unhappy … he suggested to the chairman to address this in his agenda. (swaziland, p. 218) figure 1: depicting management as a male occupation (a) autocratic manager and (b) democratic manager. the metapropositional verb ‘declared’ marks the author’s interpretation of the speaker: the word appears to be a true report and makes jake appear more assertive. the text also heightens the bias and stereotypical representation of men as chairpersons in an organisation. the authors could have been more neutral by referring to the ‘chairperson’ as opposed to ‘chairman’. the sentence could have read ‘[h]e suggested to the chairperson to address this in the agenda’ to be more gender neutral; using the masculine pronoun ‘his’ and ‘chairman’ betrays the author’s bias. no female is presented in this section as a chairperson, which reinforces this leadership position as being generically masculine. in the data below, we see how a high-level communication role is assigned a masculine status. the spokesman announced that we must ensure everyone who uses the roads pays money towards the road accident fund by buying fuel. (south africa, p. 259) the generic masculine pronoun is used. the authors once again could have been gender neutral by using ‘spokesperson’ as opposed to ‘spokesman’. the text therefore creates the impression that the spokesperson is male. discussion the linguistic choices made across the four textbooks of the four different countries create and reflect the unequal power relations between the two genders. ‘firstness’ refers to positioning of the male noun or pronoun ahead of the female noun or pronoun in sentences and conversation (sugino 1998). male firstness occurred frequently in the four textbooks. the female pronoun was consistently relegated to second-place after the male pronoun, making masculine first in importance and female second. what also emerged from the data is that the lower frequency of positioning the female noun or pronoun ahead of the male noun or pronoun in sentences and conversation was evident particularly across the lesotho, south african and swaziland textbooks. there was no mention of the female noun or pronoun ahead of the male noun in sentences and conversations in the zimbabwean textbooks. this omission is reflective of the prevailing gender insensitive ethos in zimbabwe. as such, one can therefore expect textbook writers not to digress from ‘official’ value positions (carter 2013:6). the overall trend across the textbooks from all four countries reflects frequent depiction of masculine linguistic choices before feminine linguistic choices. this marks a distinct instance of how the hidden curriculum in learning materials might foster polarised gender identities and promote gender inequality. these findings suggest what has been described as discoursal marginalisation of discourse partners, especially females which indicates male dominance and an engendering of female stereotypes as trivial or unimportant (davis 1995; hartman & judd 1978; pillay & maistry 2013; porreca 1984). such automatic ordering reinforces the second-place status of women which reflects women as unimportant and minor (festante 2013). the traditional order of mention, which is often found in texts, reflects a traditional perception of male supremacy: ‘… let us keep a natural order and set the man before the women’ (eckert & mcconnell-ginet 2003:34; hartman & judd 1978). in the texts, males also initiate more dialogue than females a phenomenon that might be relatively easy to rectify if this aspect was in the consciousness of the writer. to cite two example – in the lesotho textbook (p. 13) and the south african textbook (p. 16), men spoke more and longer than women in mixed-gender conversations. the case studies also foregrounded more masculine narratives of success in the business sector as compared to those of women. gender-free language might contribute to acceptance of each human being without dominance of one group (baghdadi 2012), because language determines the socio-cultural generalisations of a society and forms a part of society’s collective consciousness. pitting the above findings against the literature reviewed, revealed that the depiction of firstness of masculine pronoun analysed, was not unique or different from other parts of the world. because selection of subject matter for inclusion in textbooks is a highly political exercise, it is knowledge on the powerful group that dominates in the textbooks, while the less powerful group is included only in passing (apple 1991). this explains why women, as a less powerful group, are marginalised and subordinated to second-place status across the four textbooks. also evident across the four textbooks are the generic terms ‘he’ and ‘-man’. feminist linguistic scholars view this as an indirect way of excluding females (lee & collins 2010) as was evident across the four textbooks under analysis. this perspective is seen as contributing to the creation of gender roles that separate females and males, and restrict them occupationally. the association of the term ‘-man’ seems to suggest that ‘this is the natural order of things’ (fowler 1991:15). the use of gender-unfair language, especially of the masculine generic, restricts the visibility of women, and the cognitive (un)availability of female exemplars presents a barren context from which both female and female learners might benefit. the content of the text depends on the authors, and the way they see and treat gender (baghdadi 2012). when designing a textbook, authors attempt to present the most common and prevailing conceptions of gender in society. the gender-biased use of language across the four textbooks suggests that textbook authors lack high-level gender awareness and that their focus on disciplinary content takes precedence over potentially prejudicial content. this notion is supported by the findings of sugino (1998), skliar (2009), and pillay and maistry (2013). the gender bias of the generic pronoun ‘he’ and ‘-man’ used in the four textbooks has the potential to reinforce the stereotypical assumption that the world of business is an exclusively masculine space, depriving the potential reader of a richer, inclusive discourse. as lee and collins (2010:12) rightfully argue, the failure to provide equitable learning through sexist language is ‘potentially more dangerous’, because it renders women invisible by evoking mental images of males ‘as the prototype even for the sex-neutral concept’. thus, the four textbooks tend to be discriminatory by nature, as they largely represent knowledge from the dominant groups (aronowitz & giroux 1991). it therefore becomes apparent that knowledge from the powerful is what dominates the textbooks, while perspectives of the less powerful are incorporated under the umbrella of the discourse of dominant groups (apple & christian-smith 1991). conclusion we have shown in this article that women in the written and visual text of the textbooks studied are marginalised, subordinated, stereotyped and given second-place status to that of males (hartman & judd 1978; lee & collins 2010). the most common form of marginalisation was under-representation, while stereotyping largely happened through discourse marginalisation. as textbooks are foregrounded as the official and authorised texts by the state, they are considered authoritative and accurate by teachers and learners who are willing users thereof. the subliminal message projected through discourse marginalisation in the selected textbooks is that women are only deserving of second-place status. however, although the textbooks have these biased representations, teachers and learners need not remain trapped in them; they can use them as a tool to generate alternate thinking. merely changing the representation of male to female is not going to solve the problem of gender bias in society; it might require discursive practices well beyond technical cleansing. the intention of the textbook writers may not be malicious nor to deliberately subjugate women yet, it happens in a way that is implicit. critical teacher education is needed to rupture these hidden biases. there might also be a need for textbook writers to deconstruct their own ideological assumptions of gender. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions p.p. and s.m. conceptualised the study. p.p. wrote the first draft and conducted the literature review. s.m. edited the article. all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript. references aikman, s. & unterhalter, e., 2005, beyond access: transforming policy and practice for gender equality in education, oxfam, oxford. amini, m. & birjandi, p., 2012, ‘gender bias in the iranian high school efl textbooks, english’, language teaching 5(2), 134–147. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n2p134 apple, m.w., 2001, ‘educational and curricular restructuring and the 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operation. it becomes clear that most early town engineers had no formal training for the positions they held and that there was added pressure from elected councillors in both municipalities who were prone to follow assiduously how officials were spending public money. dr harri mäki is a post-doctoral researcher in the school of basic sciences at the vaal triangle faculty of * the north-west university. e-mail: harri.maki@nwu.ac.za. j haarhoff is a professor in the department of civil engineering science at the university of johannesburg. e-mail: jhaarhoff@uj.ac.za. introduction1. the relationship that existed between local decision makers and officials in establishing municipal infrastructure such as water supply and sewerage systems was, and still is, an important issue affecting the development of these services. the status of the officials in the municipal hierarchy in the early years varied a great deal. the first municipal engineers were appointed in the 1850s after municipalities were given the responsibility of developing and maintaining certain elements of infrastructure, of which water supply was one of the most important. with the discovery of diamonds and gold, large communities sprung up virtually overnight. conditions in new mining towns were unsanitary and chaotic. the role of municipal engineers during these formative years has not been studied in great detail but what is clear is that they often seem to have borne the brunt of public frustration – frequently for urban problems not necessarily related to the provision of proper municipal services. in england urbanisation began in the mid-eighteenth century, while in south africa the process was delayed for nearly a hundred years. the development of local government met similar obstacles to those municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 231 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247. encountered in england but it appears that early south african municipal engineers did not reap the benefits of the experience of their counterparts in britain. rapid urbanisation called for strong local measures to ensure a safe and comfortable urban environment, but the people moving in from the countryside had little appreciation for the necessity of proper sanitary measures. it was the municipal engineer who had to cope with this opposition with little or no protection or support from elected councils. the forging of local government was indeed a process beset with difficulties.¹ finding qualified engineers was at first far from easy because there were very few resident in south africa. this situation changed radically after the discovery of diamonds in kimberley. engineers from all over the world were lured to south africa and later this trend increased when extensive gold deposits were found on the witwatersrand in 1886. the schooling of engineers in south africa only began after 1910 so originally most engineers came from europe, especially the united kingdom. the early engineers from the united kingdom were trained via the apprenticeship system, because there was no formal training as such in municipal engineering. even if an engineer held a university degree it was usually in mathematics or a related field. in this article the focus will be on the first town engineers in johannesburg and pretoria before the establishment of the union of south africa in 1910. what were the criteria when the municipalities selected new town engineers? what were the expectations of individual candidates? how did the level of previous work experience (in the fields of water supply and sanitation works, for instance) influence the selection of a town engineer? what were the main problems they encountered and how did they deal with them? an investigation will also be made of how and why these municipal officials ended their tenures. johannesburg prior to the anglo-boer war2. william henry miles: when the first town engineer was appointed in johannesburg in october 1889, neither its sanitary board nor the mining commissioner was responsible for providing the local community with the basic services that they needed.² when local services were required, the government of the zuid-afrikaansche republiek, with its capital in pretoria, favoured the policy of granting concessions, a policy that was widely practised in the country as a whole.³ in 1887, a concession was granted for supplying water to newly established johannesburg, and the next year a waterworks company was formed to exploit the concession. a similar gas concession was granted in 1888, and was soon followed by electricity and tramway concessions in 1889. the proposal by w.h. rogers, a member of the sanitary board, that in the light of the need for public works, they should advertise for a town engineer j. haarhoff and c. james, ‘the first conference of municipal engineers in south africa on june 6–7, 1921’, 1. imesa 2009 conference, 28–30 october, 2009, cape town, 5–6. in theory sanitary board was responsible for the sanitary conditions as well as all essential services like 2. water, electricity, and transportation, but in practice in johannesburg this responsibility was limited mainly in sanitary services and street building. harri mäki, water, sanitation and health: the development of the environmental services in four south african cities, 1840–1920 (tampere: kehrämedia inc., 2008), 137−140. concessions are still a widely debated issue. see for instance, j.j. hukka and t.s. katko, water privatisation 3. revisited – panacea or pancake? (delft: irc international water and sanitation centre, 2003). mäki and haarhoff 232 with a salary of £1 000 per year, was unanimously accepted.⁴ william henry miles was chosen for this position and he assumed his duties in december 1889.⁵ miles came to johannesburg from bournemouth, england, but had worked in king william’s town and port elizabeth as an architect and engineer from 1878 to 1884.⁶ with the appointment of a town engineer and a treasurer, the single sanitary department under the sanitary board was divided into two recognisable units, so that by july 1890 a new secretarial section was born. while retaining its previous responsibilities the sanitary department had engineering added to its duties. the secretarial department was concerned with both administrative and financial matters.⁷ the district surgeon, hans sauer, informed a sanitary board meeting in july 1889 that johannesburg was second only to the panama canal region in its death rate.⁸ the climate on the witwatersrand was healthy enough, yet the circumstances under which the mass of the people lived made typhoid endemic. the condition of watercourses, drains, and the management of the town were as bad as they could possibly be. the absence of supervision allowed every hollow to become a fever-generating marsh and every watercourse a channel for miasmatic poison. the new town engineer, w.h. miles, was shocked at the deplorable sanitary state of the town when he arrived. in fact, his first task was the planning of a circular seven-man urinal on the market square. he thought that it might also be necessary to add a separate two-man contraption for black people.⁹ miles pressed for the immediate removal of building materials and refuse that had been dumped in the streets, and asked for an assistant to help with this task. he then put in a request for the purchase of a steam-roller and submitted a plan for the stabilisation of commissioner street using rubble from the mine dumps. he also hired a stone-crusher and engine, and set about supervising the production of road material. the indefatigable town engineer (some were later to say he burnt himself out) also regularised street levels and the alignment of new buildings. in april 1890 he began putting up the first street name plates and by the following month he had his 10-ton roller operating. in the same year he became the leading light in the founding of a volunteer fire brigade, and in 1891 he supervised the laying of rails for the horse-trams.¹⁰ the star4. , 29 october 1889. ‘the new town engineer’, 5. the star, 27 november 1889. this was seen as so important an occasion that the star wrote an editorial about the new appointment: ‘the man who makes a town’, the star, 12 december 1889. william henry miles, in ‘the south african built environment’, 6. http://artefacts.co.za/main/buildings/ archframes. php?archid=1086, accessed 3.7.2009; ‘death of mr w.h. miles’, the star, 4 march 1893. john r. shorten, the johannesburg saga (johannesburg: john r. shorten ltd, 1970), 450; j.s. marais, the 7. fall of kruger’s republic (oxford: clarendon press, 1961), 54; t.v. bulpin, storm over the transvaal (cape town: howard timmins, 1955), 162. quoted in l.e. neame, city built on gold (johannesburg: central news agency, [undated]), 41.8. percy ward laidler, and michael gelfand, south africa: it’s medical history, 1652–1898, a medical and 9. social study (cape town: c. struik, 1971), 407; shorten, the johannesburg saga, 568, 569. john r. shorten, ‘a history of the city engineer’s department, johannesburg 1886–1986’, imiesa, 10, 10. (1986), 17. municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 233 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 the disposal of the town’s sewage was an ongoing problem for the sanitary board. the purchase of a new municipal dump became necessary when those living near the original dumping area (hired by the board) complained that the sewage was responsible for an ‘insalubrious atmosphere’. meanwhile, the excavations at the brickfields area served as a convenient place to dispose of the dry refuse. on 26 february 1891, the town engineer submitted a comprehensive report on the issue to the sanitary board. miles estimated the total quantity of sewage at 81 tonnes a day. his report embodied a plan whereby solids might be separated from liquid waste, prior to being incinerated in special furnaces. liquid waste could be disposed of by depositing it in the outlying areas of the town.¹¹ the sanitary board accepted the report and decided to carry out the proposals as soon as the necessary funds became available. as a preliminary step in this direction, the board resolved to ask for government assistance in buying 15 morgen of ground, a portion of turffontein farm. being situated three kilometres from the market square it was thought to be an ideal dumping site. moreover, lying as it did in a hollow to the southeast of johannesburg the prevailing winds would not carry any undesirable odours towards the town. the board felt that it was unlikely that there would be any complaints on the use of the site because it bordered on the wemmer gold mine and little development had taken place in that direction. after careful consideration, the executive council decided to buy the ground on behalf of johannesburg.¹² with the dismissal of b. malraison¹³ as secretary of the sanitary board and c. serrurier¹⁴ as health inspector in 1891, m. adolfs, the treasurer, was obliged to undertake secretarial work and miles took over the duties of a health inspector.¹⁵ this was not a practical arrangement. the population of johannesburg had grown so rapidly that the town engineer objected to the additional burden of health matters. it became clear that the combined duties were too onerous for one person, so the sanitary board decided to appoint a secretary and a health inspector.¹⁶ pioneering work that miles was carrying out so effectively with the new fire brigade was cut short in july 1892 when he was dismissed by the sanitary board for alleged serious neglect of duties in his capacity as town engineer. the sanitary board found his services in road building far from satisfactory. he was sued by the board for substantial damages and it was claimed that he had certified poorly-made streets as being up to standard. the judgment of the court went against miles but according to the star the investigation did not reveal any absence of professional competence or lack of integrity on his part. in fact the star claimed that the majority of members of the sanitary board were guided by a mistaken sense of duty. miles died shortly afterwards in march 1893. the star expressed the opinion that his dismissal and the worries connected with the court case contributed in no small way to his death.¹⁷ the star11. , 27 february 1891. g.s. burt andrews, ‘valedictory address by the president’. proceedings of the south african association of 12. engineers, 13 (1907−1908), 269; m.s. appelgryn, johannesburg: origins and early management 1886–1899 (pretoria: unisa press, 1985), 84, 86. harold strange library of african studies (hereafter hsa), jma, notule [minutes] van vergadering van 13. gesondheidskomitee, 4 december 1891. hsa, jma, notule van vergadering van gesondheidskomitee, 23 october 1891.14. ibid., korrespondensie van gesondheidskomitee, staatsekretaris aan waarnemende regeringskommissaris, 25 15. september 1891. m.s. appelgryn, ‘die ontwikkeling van plaaslike bestuur in johannesburg, 1886–1899’ (ma dissertation, 16. rand afrikaans university, 1971), 163. ‘the death of mr w.h. miles’, 17. the star, 4 march 1893; appelgryn, ‘die ontwikkeling’, 173; shorten, ‘a history of the city engineer’s department’, 17. mäki and haarhoff 234 when assessing the achievements of miles as a town engineer it should be borne in mind that the central government had awarded many of the services that typically fell under a municipal engineer as concessions to private companies. in the case of johannesburg these included the provision of water, gas and electricity. miles’ job description was limited to building and maintaining roads and improving sanitary conditions in the town. in both respects he had tackled these problems virtually upon arrival. however, the range of his responsibilities seems to have been rather too narrow – he became the driving force behind a newlyestablished fire brigade and spent increasing time and effort on it – apparently to the neglect of his official duties. as far as specific achievements are concerned, the most noteworthy were the regularised street levels; the first street name plates; and his memorandum on the disposal of the town sewage. the lack of progress on the latter appears to have been a lack of money on the part of the town. the interim period: after miles’ dismissal, the engineering work was undertaken by two civil engineers in private practice, e.b.j. knox and george r. grey, who alternated as town engineer.¹⁸ on 2 december 1892, the sanitary board considered applications for the positions of town engineer, secretary-treasurer and health inspector. of the 15 applicants for the post of town engineer, grey was the unanimous choice.¹⁹ he was born in india and went to school in scotland and in the usa. he stayed on in the usa where he trained as an engineer and then worked in several south american republics. upon arrival in south africa, he worked for two years as assistant borough engineer in durban before moving to the transvaal. ²⁰ before long grey also fell foul of the sanitary board. at a meeting held on 10 march 1893 it emerged that he had turned down cheaper tenders for a particular project and accepted one that would be more profitable to him personally. the board saw this as a serious case of corruption and grey was ordered to resign immediately, failing which he would be summarily dismissed.²¹ a decision was taken to advertise for a new town engineer.²² it is difficult to give any assessment of grey’s tenure as town engineer because it was so brief. he held the post for a mere four months and understandably did not make any lasting mark on the town. charles aburrow: there were 33 applications for the vacant position of johannesburg’s town engineer within a week.²³ the successful candidate was charles aburrow,²⁴ who was appointed on 24 april shorten, ‘a history of the city engineer’s department’, 17.18. the star19. , 2 december 1892; appelgryn, ‘die ontwikkeling’, 192. men of the times: pioneers of the transvaal and glimpses of south africa (pretoria: transvaal publishing 20. company, 1905), 155. these happenings did not have any adverse effects on grey’s popularity. in 1897, he was elected as a member 21. of town council and continued in this position until the anglo-boer war. see men of the times, 155. national archives of south africa (hereafter nasa), transvaal archives (hereafter tab), ss, 3727, 22. r5089/93, extract uit de notulen van byeenkomst van het gesondheids comité, 10 march 1893 and 17 march 1893; ‘the town engineer – a curious business’, the star, 11 march 1893; ‘the town engineer’, the star, 17 march 1893. the star23. , 25 march 1893. among the applicants were g.s. burt andrews and ernst lutz, of whom more later. andrews had also applied for the position when grey was chosen four months earlier. see the star, 2 december 1892. on aburrow before and after his tenure as town engineer of johannesburg, see l. jackson and w. martinson, 24. aburrow & treeby (johannesburg: parktown & westcliff heritage trust, 1989). municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 235 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 1893.²⁵ three months later, in july 1893, g.s. burt andrews became the town’s first building inspector.²⁶ charles aburrow was born in the uk and came to south africa in 1879 to work as a chief surveyor for the london & south african exploration company in kimberley. he resigned his post in 1889 and moved to johannesburg, where he opened a private practice.²⁷ at the time, the primary functions of the town engineer were the construction and maintenance of roads and open spaces, and the strict enforcement of building regulations, which ensured that all new buildings in the town conformed to a reasonable standard. water was supplied by the privately run johannesburg waterworks company, so the town engineer had no responsibilities in that regard. his entire staff consisted of an assistant engineer, one technical assistant, a building inspector, a clerk, and a messenger.²⁸ in september 1894, the sanitary board instructed aburrow to prepare plans and make recommendations for a suitable sewer system to serve johannesburg. in response, he presented a preliminary report in may 1895.²⁹ in november, three experts, g.r. andrews (the father of gsb andrews, the building inspector), john fletcher and h.c. verner, were called in to give their opinion on aburrow’s suggestions. they submitted a written report which unanimously recommended acceptance of the scheme.3⁰ in their report they also expressed the view that only the very latest methods in the field should be used in the construction process.³¹ the plan was duly approved but unfortunately in 1898 the government interfered by trying to grant the sewerage service to a private concessionaire. the stadsraad (town council) managed to sidestep this suggestion, but because of the outbreak of the anglo-boer war in october 1899,³² no further progress could be made with the sewerage system.³³ aburrow’s work as a town engineer prior to the anglo-boer war was summarised by seven members of johannesburg town council in 1901. they mentioned the proposed sewerage scheme as his most significant contribution. they also highlighted his efforts on the surface water drainage system, the proposed refuse destructors, abattoirs, fire brigade stations, public baths, the paving of streets and water supply schemes. they regretted that due to financial constraints some of these projects were not undertaken when aburrow initially proposed them.³⁴ aburrow was chosen by 11 votes to 3 for e.b.j. knox; nasa, tab, ss, 3727, r5089/93, extract uit de 25. notulen van eene speciale byeenkomst van gesondheids comité, 24 april 1893; ibid., m. adolfs to eduard bok, 25 april 1893. hsa, jma, notule van vergadering van gesondheiskomitee, 7 july 1893.26. jackson and martinson, aburrow and treeby, 1.27. felix stark, ed., seventy golden years: sewentig gulde jare, 1886–1956 (johannesburg: municipal public 28. relations bureau, 1956), 354; george grant and taffy flinn, watershed town: the history of the johannesburg city engineer’s department (johannesburg: johannesburg city council, 1992), 60. grant and flinn, watershed town, 60.29. hsa, jma, jarch200a, report of the public works department, johannesburg, 1895, 15–16. 30. hsa, jma, jarch272, proposed sewerage scheme, johannesburg, 21 november 1895, 7.31. in some recent works, this conflict is referred to as the south african war. the debate on which name is 32. more appropriate, is continuing. mäki, water, sanitation and health, 259–60. 33. nasa, tab, gov, 19, gen 459/02, j. johnson hoyle and d.f. gilfillan to chas. aburrow, 3 july 1901.34. mäki and haarhoff 236 when the anglo-boer war began, aburrow, a british subject, left johannesburg and remained in the cape colony until october 1900. he offered his services should they be needed during the war. after the british troops had occupied johannesburg, aburrow was authorised by the new british administration of the transvaal colony to return as town engineer.³⁵ pretoria before the anglo-boer war3. ernst lutz: responsible municipal government was first mooted in pretoria in 1880 during the british annexation of the transvaal from 1877–1881. a proclamation by the then administrator, owen lanyon, gave a charter to the town and a municipal election was held. a dorpsraad (town council) was formed but the first anglo-boer war of 1880–81, which ended with the boer victory at majuba, meant that this was disbanded. in 1894 the magistrate suggested that pretoria needed the services of a town engineer and the next year the auditor-general supported this idea by proposing that a town engineer should be appointed to take care of public works.³⁶ the municipal affairs of the town, however, were controlled chiefly by the local landdrost (magistrate) until 1896. in december 1896, a temporary town council was appointed in terms of a proclamation issued by president paul kruger. the council of 11 members was assisted by landdrost c.e. schutte; captain a. schiel, the warden of the prison; gordon b. messum, the district surgeon; and ernst lutz,³⁷ the first town engineer, who was named as the government’s representatives.³⁸ despite the appointment of the council, there was little improvement in the sanitary conditions of the town. matters reached such a critical point in june 1897 that the volksraad (the elected legislative assembly of the transvaal republic) appointed a commission of enquiry to look into the matter. the commission’s report of september 1897 presented a bleak picture of the town’s sanitation.³⁹ lutz was held accountable and was also blamed for exceeding his authority in the awarding of tenders. among the reasons identified as responsible for this unsatisfactory situation were the lack of clear regulations, duties and accountability.⁴⁰ the greatest problem was that the town engineer simply did not have the necessary resources to keep the town clean. the poor state of cleanliness, drainage of water, effective removal of dirt, and the repair of the nasa, tab, cs, 18, 2157/01, charles aburrow to g.v. fiddes, secretary, transvaal administration, 5 june 35. 1901. cloete, ‘die ontstaan en ontwikkeling’, 117.36. the only information i have found about lutz was that he is not originally from transvaal; he applied for 37. citizenship in 1894. the city of pretoria and districts. an official handbook describing the social, official, farming, mining, 38. and general progress and possibilities of the administrative capital and surrounding districts (johannesburg: publicity department, south african railways, 1913), 70–1; j.j.n. cloete, ‘die ontstaan en ontwikkeling van die munisipale bestuur en administrasie van pretoria tot 1910’, archives year book for south african history, 1960, part 1 (pretoria: government printer, 1960), 133. ibid., 120.39. cloete, ‘die ontstaan en ontwikkeling’, 121.40. municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 237 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 streets and sidewalks were discussed at length. all were under the surveillance of the town engineer. in the town council minutes of 18 march 1898 a comparison was drawn between the situation in durban and that in pretoria. streets and drainage in durban were apparently in far better condition than those in pretoria. a decision was taken to ask the town council of durban if their town engineer could spend some time in the transvaal and give his pretoria counterpart some technical advice. durban agreed to this request and its town engineer, john fletcher, arrived for a week in pretoria.⁴¹ as noted above, accusations were made by the commission of enquiry that lutz had awarded tenders without authority. he was eventually exonerated of misconduct and the blame was put on poorly defined jurisdiction and procedures. nevertheless, he resigned shortly afterwards. the assessment of lutz’s tenure, as in the case of grey’s term of office in johannesburg, is hampered by a short employment period and a vague and limited description of the powers of the town engineer. august karlson: the waterworks company in pretoria supplied piped water to the town’s residents, alongside the old original supply which flowed in furrows along either side of the streets; this water was used to irrigate the gardens.⁴² h. eckstein & co. owned the monopoly to supply water and the pretoria light & water co. was formed to exploit this concession. after the creation of a temporary town board, it was proposed that eckstein’s monopoly should be terminated. a government commission was appointed by the volksraad in august 1898 and the outcome was that the government finally agreed to expropriate the company.⁴³ the provision of water, electricity, tramways, markets, and even the sanitary service, had been granted to various individuals in the form of concessions. this was the status quo when the anglo-boer war broke out.⁴⁴ by december 1898 the town council realised that they needed a new town engineer and a request to make the appointment was lodged with the state secretary.⁴⁵ august karlson, a swede, was at the time the manager of the waterworks company and the members of the temporary town board asked him to apply for the engineer’s post. the town was planning to take over the waterworks and the intention was to combine the work of the manager with the position of town engineer.⁴⁶ pretoria’s second town engineer thus took office in june 1899. s.p. engelbrecht, j.a.i. agar-hamilton, a.n. pelzer and h.p.h. behrens, eds, pretoria (1855–1955): history 41. of the city of pretoria (pretoria: city council of pretoria, 1955), 52. report of the witwatersrand water supply commission 1901–1902 (pretoria: government printer, 1902), 42. 66. a.h. duminy and w.r. guest, eds., fitzpatrick, south african politician: selected papers, 1888–1906 43. (johannesburg: mcgraw-hill 1976), 492, ref. 19. city of pretoria and districts, 72.44. nasa, tab, ss, 7594, r16031/98, j. bosch to the state secretary, 2 december 1898.45. nasa, tab, mgp, 86, 3870/01, august karlson to major-general maxwell, military governor, pretoria, 15 46. april 1901. mäki and haarhoff 238 he was exceptionally well qualified, as is apparent in his summary of his qualifications and experience, compiled in 1902: i hold a diploma as civil engineer of stockholm, sweden. i am a member of the technical institute of sweden, a member of the sanitary institute and of the royal institute of health, london. i have had eleven years’ practise as railway engineer and bridge constructor in sweden, france and the transvaal, four years on hydraulic and hydrographic work in the isthmus of panama, three years as assistant chief engineer to the municipality of bordeaux, and four years as waterworks and city engineer of pretoria. i have travelled for a considerable time in europe and the united states for professional studies. i have made up projects for water distribution and drainage for several other towns.⁴⁷ karlson had been in the transvaal since 1892, first as chief engineer responsible for surveying railway lines and then from 1898 as manager of the pretoria waterworks company, which position he continued to hold for the entire time that he was employed as town engineer, because the plans for combining the two positions were shelved during the war.⁴⁸ in 1897 he also devised a plan for a sewerage system for johannesburg in response to an instruction by state secretary w.j. leyds.⁴⁹ the immediate aftermath of the anglo-boer war4. aburrow’s dismissal: after the british takeover of johannesburg the incumbent personnel of the town council was retained on condition that, because of the uncertainty of the times, they might be dismissed on short notice once matters had normalised. on 22 may 1901, however, a decision was taken that the staff that had made themselves available would be re-appointed.⁵⁰ this decision expressly excluded the town engineer, charles aburrow. aburrow carried out the duties of town engineer until may 1901, when, in his own words: ‘to my astonishment i was informed by major o’meara that under the municipality proclamation he could not allow me to remain in office’.⁵¹ aburrow then suggested that he stay on until a successor was appointed but was informed that this could not be allowed, and the next day, 30 may, he was summarily dismissed. on 5 june 1901 aburrow complained about his treatment to g.v. fiddes, secretary of the transvaal administration.⁵² he persisted with his letters of complaint to the administrative headquarters of the transvaal colony in pretoria, but in vain.⁵³ according to w.a.j. o’meara the re-appointment of report of the witwatersrand water supply commission, 123.47. the transvaal civil service list, 1906 (pretoria: government printer, 1906), 188; nasa, tab, mgp, 86, 48. 3870/01, august karlson to major-general maxwell, military governor, pretoria, 15 april 1901. nasa, tab, ss 5742, r5582/97, august karlson: algemeen riolering plan van johannesburg.49. lionel curtis, with milner in south africa (oxford: basil blackwell, 1951), 234.50. major w.a.j. o’meara was first government commissioner and acting mayor of johannesburg from 1900 to 51. 1903; nasa, tab, cs, 18, 2157/01, charles aburrow to g.v. fiddes, secretary, transvaal administration, 5 june 1901. ibid.52. nasa, tab, cs, 25, 3286/01, charles aburrow to t.h. stopford, private secretary to the secretary of the 53. transvaal administration, 16 july 1901. municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 239 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 aburrow was impossible because he had not been able to work in harmony with the other departments. o’meara made no reference to aburrow’s competence or his technical qualifications.⁵⁴ aburrow later received a letter signed by seven members of the town council expressing their regret and saying that the appointment of the town engineer was now in the hands of the governor, alfred milner. they praised aburrow for his endeavours as a town engineer prior to the outbreak of the anglo-boer war.⁵⁵ when aburrow appealed to the transvaal secretary his response was that he did not see his way clear to interfere in a municipal matter.⁵⁶ aburrow was nevertheless advised that he could send an application to the governor (who was away at the time) for the position of town engineer of johannesburg.⁵⁷ in the light of this, he agreed to refrain from taking any further steps until the governor returned. however, he did plan to make a submission to milner on the damage to his reputation as an engineer and the pecuniary losses he had suffered because of his dismissal without the stipulated three months prior notice.⁵⁸ on 19 september, aburrow wrote to the governor pleading that his professional reputation be restored in the eyes of public.⁵⁹ however, milner replied that there was nothing he could do; he simply reiterated the opinion of the town council of johannesburg assuring aburrow that there was nothing in their decision of 29 may that reflected upon his reputation as an engineer.⁶⁰ during this entire process, aburrow kept the association of municipal and county engineers in london fully informed on the issue.⁶¹ when advised by his lawyers that there was no recourse to the law because martial law was in force in the transvaal at the time, aburrow asked the association to put the matter before joseph chamberlain, the secretary of state for the colonies.⁶² all the information was duly sent to chamberlain, asking for his assistance.⁶³ chamberlain enquired about the matter but was unable to make any headway. milner and the town council simply pointed out that none of the pre-war staff had been given a pledge that they would be re-appointed. strictly speaking aburrow had thus not been dismissed.⁶⁴ when reading lionel curtis’ book with milner in south africa, there is little doubt about who was behind aburrow’s dismissal and with whom aburrow could not work in harmony. on 11 april, curtis wrote that he was ‘most anxious that the present officials should be superseded by men of ibid., w.a.j. o’meara, to the secretary of the transvaal administration, 22 july 1901.54. nasa, tab, gov, 19, gen 459/02, j. johnson hoyle and d.f. gilfillan to chas. aburrow, 3 july 1901.55. nasa, tab, cs, 25, 3286/01, secretary of the transvaal administration to charles aburrow, 3 august 56. 1901. ibid., e.h.l. gorges for the secretary of the transvaal administration to charles aburrow, 8 august 1901.57. nasa, tab, cs, 31, 4180/01, charles aburrow to the secretary of the transvaal administration, 22 august 58. 1901. nasa, tab, gov, 456, ps 86/01, chas. aburrow to the private secretary of the governor of the transvaal, 59. 19 september 1901. ibid., private secretary to charles aburrow, 5 october 1901 and lionel curtis, acting town clerk to private 60. secretary to the high commissioner, 2 october 1901. nasa, tab, gov, 19, gen 459/02, chas. aburrow to the secretary, association of municipal & county 61. engineers, 19 july 1901, 16 august 1901 and 23 august 1901. ibid., chas. aburrow to the secretary, assoc. of mun. & county engineers, 5 april 1902.62. ibid., thomas cole, secretary of the assoc. of mun. & county engineers, to joseph chamberlain, secretary 63. of state, 3 june 1902. nasa, tab, gov, 456, ps 86/01, milner, governor of the transvaal colony, to joseph chamberlain, 64. colonial office, london, 31 august 1902. mäki and haarhoff 240 unimpeachable honesty and long experience of municipal needs’. he singles out the treasurer, town clerk and town engineer.⁶⁵ then on 25 july curtis wrote: ‘we have got rid of the men who were at the head of the treasury, the engineer’s department, the fire brigade, the health department … some of the men were corrupt heirlooms from the old administration, others had been put in by the new as a reward for political service and were utterly inexperienced in their duties’.⁶⁶ it is clear that curtis suspected that aburrow was dishonest and corrupt. a proclamation of 16 january 1901 had clearly stipulated that the important posts in the municipality were under the governor’s jurisdiction and that the town council had no authority over them. all the personnel were appointed on a temporary basis and this also applied to the town engineer. the town council could not re-appoint aburrow and milner chose not to do so, which meant that aburrow lost his job.⁶⁷ furthermore, the officials under the town council were now all english-speaking. there was a policy that without exception all the important positions were to be filled by staff from britain. this was the case as far as the assistant town clerk, town engineer, town treasurer and medical officer of health were concerned.⁶⁸ in assessing charles aburrow as a town engineer it should be remembered that he had to contend with the same limitations as did his predecessors. during his tenure the health board and later the town council were actively working towards establishing the town’s own water supply so unlike miles or grey, aburrow spent considerable time inspecting various proposals for water supply schemes, none of which were realised. among the projects he undertook were the construction of the surface water drainage system, abattoirs, fire stations, public baths and the paving of streets. his most significant achievement was his proposal for the town’s sewerage scheme. unfortunately, due to various circumstances, his plans did not see the light of day. karlson and pretoria: august karlson held office as town engineer of pretoria until 1902; was the manager of pretoria waterworks until 1903; and acted as a consulting engineer for the municipality from 1902 to 1904.⁶⁹ the reason for karlson’s transfer from town engineer to a consulting capacity was not because of any dissatisfaction about the standard of his work or his ability as an engineer. rather, it was because he was ‘wanting in organising power’, and that ‘instead of extracting from his subordinates the duties and labour due from them’, he preferred ‘being a martyr to labour himself, rather than enforce that authoritative control and direction, which ensures a proper distribution of work, and the due discharge of duty’. in other words, he was deemed unable to delegate some of his responsibilities to his subordinates. this was the explanation given by r. kelsky loveday, the chairman of pretoria municipality in 1902 when curtis, with milner in south africa, 214; see also deborah lavin, from empire to international 65. commonwealth: a biography of lionel curtis (oxford: clarendon press, 1995), 39; and elaine mayo paul, ‘lionel curtis and the unification of south africa, 1901–1909’ (phd thesis, university of south carolina, 1978). curtis, with milner in south africa, 237.66. a.j. potgieter, ‘die ontwikkeling van stedelike bestuur in johannesburg, 1900–1910’ (ma dissertation, rau, 67. 1976), 170–1. ibid., 171.68. civil service list 1906, 188.69. municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 241 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 he asked the public works department to appoint karlson as a hydraulic engineer.⁷⁰ loveday’s letter was probably in reply to karlson’s application for the position of town engineer.⁷¹ as a consulting engineer karlson’s main task was to prepare a plan for the extended water supply for pretoria. this he completed in december 1903.⁷² karlson continued to work on various projects outside pretoria during and after the anglo-boer war. in 1901–1902 he compiled a report on the water supply of potchefstroom on the orders of alfred milner.⁷³ karlson was also interviewed by the witwatersrand water supply commission of 1901– 1902. he was the only individual singled out in the introduction to their final report.⁷⁴ milner apparently valued karlson highly since he mentioned him later in 1902 as a possible candidate for the position of the first chief engineer of the rand water board.⁷⁵ in 1904 karlson was appointed as a hydrographic surveyor in the department of irrigation in the transvaal colonial government.⁷⁶ in this capacity in 1905 he recommended the building of hartbeespoort dam and was later responsible for its construction work until 1921.⁷⁷ in 1910 he issued an unsuccessful plea to the city councillors and leading citizens for fountains, flowers and attractive paving for church square. instead the square was re-designed as a tram terminus.⁷⁸ a closer look at karlson’s career shows that he was highly respected as an engineer. he did a great deal of work as a consultant before, during and after his tenure in pretoria. it appears however that he was not entirely at ease as a departmental head and was unable to delegate duties to others. furthermore, the anglo-boer war was a disruptive factor for the greater part of his tenure, so it is understandable that little progress was made in the town at the time. new men at the helm5. donald calder leitch and g.s. burt andrews: in december 1901 the administrator of the transvaal sent a telegram to joseph chamberlain asking that the colonial office advertise the post of town engineer nasa, tab, pwd, 24, 763/02, r. kelsky loveday to public works department, [first page of letter missing, 70. probably march 1902]. nasa, tab, cs, 73, 2239/02, august karlson to the secretary of the transvaal administrator, 10 march 71. 1902. report of the town engineer, in minute of his worship the mayor for the mayoral year ending 29th 72. october 1904 (pretoria: wallachs, 1904), 47–8. the decision to realise this scheme was made only in 1909. minute of his worship the mayor for the mayoral year ending 27th october, 1909 (pretoria: wallachs, 1910), 32–3. nasa, tab, tpb, 661, ta1552, august karlson, city engineer, pretoria, to the administrator of the transvaal 73. and orange river colonies and high commissioner of south africa, 4 december 1901 and 4 january 1902. report of the witwatersrand water supply commission, iv.74. nasa, tab, gov, 112, gen 244/02, milner to joseph chamberlain, colonial secretary, 15 june 1902.75. civil service list 1906, 114.76. the building of hartbeespoort dam: monument to a visionary’, kormorant, hartbeespoort’s first online 77. newspaper, 23 july 2009. http://www.kormorant.co.za/2009/07jul/23jul/hartbeespoort%20dam.htm, (accessed 29.7.2009). vivien allen, kruger’s pretoria: buildings and personalities of the city in the nineteenth century. 2nd 78. edition (pretoria: protea book house, 2007), 43. mäki and haarhoff 242 of johannesburg at a salary of £3 000 per year.⁷⁹ among the applicants for the position were thomas bennett, engineer and manager of cape town districts water works company since 1893; s.e. burgess, who had been borough engineer and surveyor to the county borough of south shields in the uk since 1898; w.p. bannister from the port elizabeth cold storage company; and william dyack, borough surveyor and water engineer of aberdeen in scotland since 1892.⁸⁰ the position was offered to t. de courcy meade, the city surveyor of manchester but he later withdrew his candidature.⁸¹ the threeman selection committee thought that the next best candidate was d.c. leitch, assistant director of the architectural and engineering works in the admiralty. at the time two other candidates from the uk were mentioned: a man called edge, from newcastle and john alexander brodie, town engineer of liverpool, who although said to be best municipal engineer in britain, was thought to be ‘too expensive’.⁸² d.c. leitch was duly appointed town engineer of johannesburg in june 1902. he was instructed that the town council desired that he should spend two or three weeks investigating certain sewage systems in the uk before leaving for south africa.⁸³ in the post-war city the returning citizens and the renascent press criticised the council as a ‘debating society’ and the imported officials as mere novices. the new immigrants included charles porter (the new medical officer), leitch (the city engineer), and lionel hichens who had returned early in 1902 as city treasurer.⁸⁴ in 1903, the control of sewerage management in johannesburg reverted to the town council and it was decided to lay down a system of sewers.⁸⁵ in 1913, g.s. burt andrews recalled that the building process was not an easy one: ‘the drainage work in johannesburg is carried out on a separate system ... although the idea is not entirely original, i believe this is the first town of any size which has adopted it generally. in the early stages of the work it gave rise to a considerable amount of hostile criticism.’ the system, however, turned out to be a success. andrews gave the credit for this to leitch, ‘who, in spite of much opposition, had the courage of his convictions and was not afraid of starting a new thing’. andrews confessed that at first he too had been sceptical about the proposal.⁸⁶ in december 1904 leitch was appointed as the first chief engineer of the rand water board and g.s. burt andrews succeeded him in johannesburg in 1905, serving until 1927. he had come to johannesburg nasa, tab, cs, 53, 7093/01, telegram from administrator to secretary of state, 4 december 1901; curtis, 79. with milner in south africa, 328. applications and references of all these applicants are available in nasa, tab, gov, 456, ps 86/01.80. nasa, tab, cs, 71, 2046/02, empty folder marked: appointment of municipal engineer, johannesburg. 81. enclosing a copy of telegram to secretary of state, re offering above appointment to meade, engineer of manchester. also next six folders (cs 73 2271/02; 76 2675/02; 79 3012/02; 81 3282/02; 82 3443/02 and 96 5603/02) dealing with the appointment of municipal engineer for johannesburg are empty. archive staff members were unable to locate them; nasa, tab, gov, 456, ps 86/01, telegram from secretary of state, london, to high commissioner, johannesburg, 7 march 1902. nasa, tab, gov, 456, ps 86/01, telegram from secretary of state, london to high commissioner, 82. johannesburg, 7 march 1902; and cablegram from administrator to secretary of state, 11 april 1902. nasa, tab, gov, 17, gen 356/02, fred graham to d.c. leitch, 15 may 1902.83. lavin, from empire, 49. 84. grant and flinn, watershed town, 61.85. g.s. burt andrews, ‘sewerage and refuse disposal in johannesburg´, the african architect, may 1913, 86. 204–5. municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 243 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 from the uk in 1889 and worked in the town engineer’s office from 1893, first as building surveyor, then as assistant town engineer under aburrow and finally as deputy town engineer under leitch.⁸⁷ earlier he had worked for four years with the bournemouth improvement commissioners and another four years at hornsey local board, in london.⁸⁸ leitch’s sole achievement as town engineer of johannesburg was overseeing the construction of a sewerage system for the town. his system was quite controversial at the time but proved highly successful. most of andrews’ tenure falls outside of the scope of this research so a full assessment of his achievements in johannesburg is not made here. hugh daniel badcock: the choice of a new town engineer for pretoria was made between two candidates in 1902. the municipal council favoured george bastable laffan, who had been town engineer of pietermaritzburg 1898–1901 and thus had experience in south african conditions.⁸⁹ the colonial government, however, preferred hugh daniel badcock, a british engineer, who was younger than laffan.⁹⁰ badcock was duly appointed, although regrets were voiced from the pretoria town council that the colonial government had not agreed to their suggestion.⁹¹ badcock had come to south africa in 1900 with the imperial yeomanry, and in october of the same year he was appointed as an assistant engineer to the town council of pretoria. in july 1901, he was appointed to the department of mines of the transvaal as an inspector of machinery in germiston district.⁹² from the outset badcock had to tackle the old problem of building and maintaining roads without surface water drainage.⁹³ granite kerbing, concrete guttering and paved footpaths were installed for the first time. sound bridges were also constructed across the streams to make the city passable during wet periods.⁹⁴ badcock also saw the need for proper channelling of the streams to avoid possible flooding. this project was started in 1905.⁹⁵ badcock also prepared a proposal for a comprehensive drainage scheme.⁹⁶ work on this scheme began report of the witwatersrand water supply commission, 60.87. ibid., 64.88. nasa, tab, cs, 73, 2196/02, r.k. loveday, to the asst. secretary to the transvaal administration, 7 march 89. 1902. ibid., acting secretary to the transvaal administration to the chairman, municipal council pretoria, 4 april 90. 1902. nasa, tab, cs, 83, 3568/02, johan s. van reesama, acting town clerk to the acting secretary to the transvaal 91. administration, 17 april 1902. nasa, tab, cs, 74, 2429/02, h.d. badcock to the assistant secretary to the transvaal administration, 10 92. march 1902. what follows is a brief overview of what badcock accomplished as a town engineer of pretoria. a more 93. detailed description will be provided in a forthcoming article on the development of water services in pretoria between 1855 and 1935, by johannes haarhoff, harri mäki and petri juuti. p.f. retief and n. de v. loubser, pretoria city engineer’s department – the first hundred years, undated 94. copy without publishing information, 17, 19. mayor’s minute, pretoria, 1909, 20.95. cloete, ‘die ontstaan en ontwikkeling’, 202.96. mäki and haarhoff 244 in june 1906.⁹⁷ the first plans for sewage collection and treatment were made between 1904 and 1906. after approval in 1906,⁹⁸ there were several delays in execution, for instance, when the governor vetoed the place suggested for a sewage disposal works.⁹⁹ nevertheless, a start was made on some of the necessary construction work.¹⁰⁰ one of the reasons why many of the projects mentioned above were delayed was the retrenchment policy adopted by the town council in 1907; certain officials were dismissed and the salaries of others were reduced.¹⁰¹ for the town engineer’s department it also meant re-organisation, with most of the previous departments combined as a new works department. the only one to survive as an independent section was a drainage department. this retrenchment might have been one of the reasons for badcock’s resignation in 1908.¹⁰² although he officially remained on as town engineer until his successor, f. walton jameson,¹⁰³ took over in march 1909, badcock did not, for example, compile the town engineer’s report for 1908.¹⁰⁴ it could be said that badcock began in pretoria with a clean slate. as was the case in johannesburg, limitations on the town engineer’s powers were removed in the aftermath of the anglo-boer war when the concessions granted by kruger’s government were cancelled. badcock made extensive plans for road building, construction of bridges, channelling of streams and improvement of the town’s drainage and sewers. however, most of these plans were sidelined and then postponed because of lack of funds. only road and bridge building were completed without excessive delay. channelling of streams was begun in 1905 and the drainage scheme in 1906 but both were still under way when badcock resigned in 1909. and although the sewerage plan was approved in 1906 only the filters were ready by 1909. there was considerable opposition to the newly approved sewerage system, especially on the location of disposal works. issues such as these continued to delay the process and eventually sewerage works were only undertaken during jameson’s tenure after 1910. indeed, it could be claimed that badcock did not achieve a great deal during his time in pretoria. as for jameson, assessment of his role, as is the case with that of andrews, falls outside the scope of this paper. hugh daniel badcock, ‘the storm-water drainage of pretoria’, minutes of proceedings of the institution 97. of civil engineers, 183 (1911), 277. retief and loubser, pretoria city engineer’s department, 23.98. minute of his worship the mayor for the mayoral year ending 30th october, 1907 (pretoria: wallachs 99. printing and publishing company, 1908), 16–17. retief and loubser, pretoria city engineer’s department, 21.100. mayor’s minute, pretoria, 1907, 51.101. badcock’s mailing address was to england from august 1908, and from march 1909 to 1913 he was a 102. commissioner of works at suva, fiji. e-mail message, carol morgan, archivist of the institution of civil engineers in london, 31 july 2009; see also joseph h. elgie, star and weather gossip concerning the heavens, the atmosphere, the sea (london: joseph h. elgie, 1915), 70. badcock also served as a platoon commander in the first world war. his career after the war is unclear. jameson served his articles as civil engineer under john fletcher, borough engineer of durban. then he studied 103. for some years in britain, canada, and the usa, and occupied professional position in england. after returning to south africa he served as a waterworks engineer in durban before he was invited to fill a position of a borough engineer of pietermaritzburg from 1902. he remained in pretoria until 1920, when he was invited to kimberley as town engineer. he remained there for 11 years. thereafter he was town engineer of krugersdorp for one year. nasa, western cape provincial archives, 3/ct, 4/1/5/778, g457/5, 14, city of cape town, application for post of city engineer and surveyor from frank walton jameson, 31 may 1933. report of the town engineer, in minute of his worship the mayor for the mayoral year ending 28th 104. october, 1908 (pretoria: wallachs printing and publishing company, 1909), 27–9. municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 245 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 conclusion5. during the period researched in this article, there were five town engineers in johannesburg and four in pretoria. two of them, badcock and karlson, had a university education. grey, aburrow, andrews and jameson had been trained through apprenticeship. the educational background of miles, leitch and lutz is unclear but it is highly probable that they also had at least a similar level of training as the others. tenure qualifications reason for exit johannesburg william henry miles 1889–1892 architect and civil engineer, member of the society of architects and of the institution of mining engineers dismissed for alleged misconduct george r. grey 1892–1893 learnt trade in the usa. forced to resign because of misconduct charles aburrow 1893–1901 no formal education, learnt trade by working dismissed donald calder leitch 1902–1904 assistant director, architectural and engineering works, admiralty; no municipal experience resigned because of the other work g.s. burt andrews 1905–1927 trained as assistant in engineer’s department, bournemouth improvement commissioners retired pretoria ernst lutz 1896–1897 civil engineer resigned august karlson 1899–1902 diploma in engineering from the university of stockholm contract terminated hugh daniel badcock 1902–1909 ma in mathematics, university of oxford resigned f. walton jameson 1909–1920 learnt trade in durban resigned because of the other work in johannesburg, all five town engineers were selected on the basis of the application process, while in pretoria only the appointments of badcock and jameson were based on formal applications. lutz was a member of pretoria’s temporary town council and possibly the only qualified engineer on the council when he became the first town engineer. when karlson was appointed in 1899, he was already a manager of pretoria waterworks and was invited to take on the responsibilities of a town engineer as well. in nearly every case, previous experience played a significant role in the selection process, lutz being the exception. miles, although working at the time in england, had previous experience in south africa. grey had been working as a temporary town engineer and had a private practice in johannesburg. as for aburrow, he had worked in south africa since 1879, first in kimberley and then in johannesburg. leitch, although lacking municipal experience, had a long engineering career in governmental organisations and andrews had been employed in the engineering department in johannesburg for 12 years. karlson had a great deal of experience and had worked in sweden, france and panama before coming to the transvaal in 1892. badcock arrived in south africa during the anglo-boer war and mäki and haarhoff 246 was assistant engineer in pretoria from 1900 to 1901, while jameson was the borough engineer of pietermaritzburg from 1902. it appears that after the anglo-boer war, in both johannesburg and pretoria (now part of the newlyformed transvaal colony) there was a tendency to opt for town engineers from the united kingdom, often at the expense of less experienced men. in 1901–1902 when this initially became evident, the transvaal was still under martial law and the decision to appoint town officials was in the hands of the colonial governor. in pretoria, for example, where the town council had their own favourite with a great deal of appropriate experience in south africa, they were overruled by the colonial administration, who simply appointed their own candidate. karlson also applied for the post but he was seen to be lacking the leadership qualities required for running the important department, although no one appeared to be questioning his abilities as an engineer. in johannesburg the situation was different. aburrow was actually dismissed. it seems that he had clashed at least on some level with the new town clerk, lionel curtis, because there were questions aired about aburrow’s ability to work with other departments and curtis virtually advocated his dismissal immediately after the war. at this time there seems to be a definite trend against those who had long experience of south african conditions. curtis, for his part, said explicitly that the need was for new men from england. if we look at the termination of the tenures of the town engineers, it seems that their task was far from easy. two of the engineers, miles and aburrow, were dismissed; and two, grey and lutz, resigned because of alleged misconduct. with the benefit of hindsight, at least in the case of aburrow, there was no misconduct on his side. of the other three, grey’s actions appear to fall under the definition of corruption; such allegations, in the case of miles and lutz, are rather less clear. lutz was exonerated of any misconduct and miles had defenders who said that the sanitary board had been too eager to see misconduct were there was none. karlson was not allowed to remain in his position. furthermore, the two engineers chosen after the war, leitch and badcock, both resigned and moved to other jobs. leitch was chosen as a first chief engineer of the newly-established rand water board and it can be speculated that one of the reasons he applied for that position was his inexperience in the politics of municipal engineering. he received a great deal of criticism, especially for his proposals for drainage and sewerage systems in johannesburg; he might well have wanted an ‘easier’, less pressurised position. in badcock’s case his resignation was probably caused by pretoria’s retrenchment policy. indeed, it was probably only andrews who went from his post as an engineer straight into retirement. in 1920 jameson was invited to take over as town engineer in kimberley and as an added bonus he was allowed to maintain his private practice. in summary, it can be said that during this period there were still some uncertainties in the job description and powers of the municipal engineer. apparently the incumbent was an important official in the municipal structure but the town council could nevertheless dismiss him or force him to resign at very short notice. in these early days, it seems, it was unclear to municipal decision makers what qualities were necessary in a successful municipal engineer. furthermore it certainly appears that the engineers themselves were unsure what was expected from them, or what kind of working environments municipal engineers johannesburg and pretoria 247 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 230-247 awaited them in south african towns. what also emerges clearly is that the members of the sanitary board in johannesburg and the town council in pretoria were taking their supervisory duties seriously. having very limited resources both in johannesburg and pretoria, a sharp and diligent eye was kept on all expenses. the projects undertaken by the engineering departments were undeniably expensive; it was imperative that the cheapest tenders be accepted because money could not be wasted. all allegations of misconduct and corruption were taken extremely seriously – perhaps far more so than they are today. 262 bloot ’n vrees vir verval? ’n mentaliteitsgeskiedenis van die kragonderbrekings in suid-afrika, januarie-april 2008 jwn tempelhoff* trefwoorde: elektrisiteit, eskom, kragonderbrekings, dienslewering. dissiplines: geskiedenis, tegnologiestudies, openbare bestuur, kommunikasiekunde. opsomming: aan die begin van 2008 was groot dele van suid-afrika geraak deur kragonderbrekings wat sporadies en oor ’n groot gebied vir 115 dae aan die orde was nadat die nasionale kragvoorsieningsinstansie, eskom, gebuk gegaan het onder wat, volgens die media, aan ongeëwenaarde kragverbruik toegeskryf is. die respons van verbruikers in alle samelewingsfere het gewissel van woede-uitbarstings tot ’n gelate aanvaarding van die toestand. beskou vanuit die perspektief van die geskiedenis van mentaliteite, was die respons simptomaties van ’n kulturele reaksie wat daarop gedui het dat gewone mense van mening was dat ’n infrastrukturele diens, soos kragvoorsiening, mos nie net tot stilstand kan kom nie. in die studie word gelet op die wyse waarop die kragonderbrekings van januarie-april 2008 gekaats kan word teen die agtergrond van ’n andersoortige ervaring van herinneringe wat, nie net in suid-afrika nie, maar ook in ander wêrelddele, manifesteer. in wese kom dit daarop neer dat daar sprake is van ’n mentaliteitsgeskiedenis wat in die hede vasgevang is. navorsingsnisarea vir die kulturele dinamika van water (cudywat) noordwes-universiteit, vanderbijlpark. * e-pos: johann.tempelhoff@nwu.ac.za. gebaseer op ’n voordrag gelewer by die jaarlikse kongres van die suid-afrikaanse vereniging vir kultuurgeskiedenis, “die toekoms van ons verlede”, pretoria, 16 mei 2008. inleiding: vrees as drywer teen verval verval, verklaar jared diamond, is die resultaat van wilsbesluite wat deur ’n samelewing geneem word.¹ aan die hand van ’n reeks historiese en kontemporêre gevallestudies uit verskillende wêrelddele, maak hy in een van sy resente werke ’n sterk saak uit vir dié standpunt. hy verduidelik dat die historiese rekord daarop dui dat optredes wat tot verval aanleiding gegee het die resultaat was van ’n onvermoë sa kragonderbrekings 2008 vir ’n besonder intensiewe reeks perspektiewe oor suid-afrika na aanleiding van die elektrisiteitskrisis, kyk 2. solidariteit, eskomstories by http://www.eskomstories.co.za/argief.htm (geraadpleeg maart-mei 2008). k boshoff, bloemfontein – redakteur, “verander sa se naam” in 3. volksblad, 2008.02.07 by http://www. news24.com/die_volksblad/briewe/0,,5-89_2266700,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08). anon., “lex column: south africa power cuts” in 4. financial times, 2008.01.29 by http://search.ft.com/f tarticle?querytext=electricity+and+south+africa&aje=true&id=080129000239&ct=0&nclick_check=1 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.05). die grootste gedeelte van hierdie teks is ten tyde van die kragonderbrekings geskryf.5. p hutton, “the history of mentalities: the new map of cultural history” in 6. history & theory, 20(3), december 1981, pp. 237-259 263 td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 om dinge te antisipeer. samelewings het in meeste gevalle bloot slegte besluitnemingsprosesse gevolg. nog meer, rampspoedige waardestelsels het in baie opsigte daartoe aanleiding gegee dat die soeke na oplossings op mislukkings uitgeloop het. die lees van diamond se werk sal vir menige, veral siniese suid-afrikaner, ’n gevoel van déjà vu gee. benewens ’n fase van stagnasie in die land se ekonomie en onstabiliteit in die leierskapsgeledere van die regerende anc-alliansie, het suid-afrika aan die begin van 2008 ’n voorheen ongekende reeks elektriese kragonderbrekings deurgemaak, soveel so dat daar in die samelewing ’n wesentlike vrees ontstaan het dat die land immanente verval in die gesig staar. vir doemprofete was die tydperk sprekend van ’n afwaartse spiraal waarin die land verkeer.² daar was mense soos byvoorbeeld ’n briefskrywer aan ’n koerant wat gemeen het dat die land se naam na matlakala (’gemors’) verander word.³ ander het weer geredeneer dat dit eintlik die resultaat was van ’n positiewe ontwikkelingsproses.⁴ dié mense het gemeen die toedrag van sake beteken eintlik dat die land besig is om uit sy nate te bars. vir die doeleindes van hierdie bespreking gaan dit nie noodwendig oor watter siening van die land korrek was nie. veel eerder gaan dit oor hoe suid-afrikaners in die hoofstroom van dinge oor die kragonderbrekings gevoel het. ook word van die standpunt uitgegaan dat dit moontlik is om vanuit ’n kultuurhistoriese perspektief van die krisis kennis te neem en om dan, aan die hand van hedehistoriese metodologiese grondslae, ’ninsig probeer kry vir ’n kontemporêre samelewingsprobleem wat hom waarskynlik in die toekoms gaan herhaal. die doelwit is om te verstaan wat die mentaliteit van die samelewing was in ’n tyd van krisis – 115 dae van landwye kragonderbrekings tussen 18 januarie en 30 april 2008. dit vereis dat strategieë wat historici tradisioneel benut om die menslike toestand in die verlede te verken, nou aangewend word om die hede te verstaan.⁵ in die besonder gaan dit oor die verkenning van die menslike natuur op ’n bepaalde tydstip en die bepaling van watter onderliggende geestesstrominge daartoe meegewerk om die denke van mense te beïnvloed. dit gaan dus oor die funksionele benutting van aspekte van die kultuuren tegnologiegeskiedenis. metodologiese vertrekpunte: mentaliteite, herinnering, hedegeskiedenis en infrastruktuur in hierdie bespreking word op drie onderafdelings van kultuurgeskiedenis gekonsentreer, te wete mentaliteite, herinnering en hedegeskiedenis. die geskiedenis van mentaliteite is ’n benadering tot wetenskaplike geskiedsbeoefening wat in die twintigte eeu omvattend deur die franse annaleskool verken is en veral op die terrein van de franse kultuurgeskiedenis ’n bepaalde invloed uitgeoefen het.⁶ vandag, word aanvaar, hou mentaliteite verband met die ervaring van herinnering en die werklikheidsbegrip wat by die gewone mens op enige gegewe tydstip aanwesig mag wees. om die mentaliteit van ’n era te verstaan, beteken dat die ideëwêreld van die alledaagse gedefinieer word om tot beter insigte te kom oor waarom mense op ’n bepaalde manier handel. førland reken dit is ook ’n kartering van zeitgeist opsigself ’n weerspieëling van die kultuurklimaat van ’n era, wat as ’n sosiale wordende toestand aangewese is op ’n tempelhoff 264 magdom gedagtes wat in ’n verskeidenheid van vorme in ’n samelewing uitkristalliseer.⁷ metodologies vorm herinnering onderdeel van beide mentaliteit en hedegeskiedenis. as gevolg van die ontginning van nuwe media van kommunikasie het herinnering as sleutelkomponent vir die verstaan van die verlede die tradisionele konsep van historiese bewussyn begrens en onder sommige omstandighede vervang. metodologies word herinnering beskou as ’n strategie om te herinner, herhaal en sodoende ’n kognitiewe raamwerk daar te stel om te interpreteer wat deur die blinders van waarneming manifesteer. in die herhalingsproses word, volgens breithaupt, die strategiese doelwitte nagestreef, om ou handelinge te herhaal wat in ’n vaste raamwerk ’n mate van stabiliteit in die hand werk.⁸ herinnering word tans merendeels gebruik in die plek van historiese bewussyn omdat laasgenoemde begrip in die konteks van meervoudige aanwending van verlede-indrukke in ’n verskeidenheid wetenskaplike rigtings, as meer gepas gereken word. hedegeskiedenis, is daarop afgestem om op sigself aan ’n begrip vir die hede ’n bepaalde historiese status toe te ken. geskiedenis as dissipline, word aanvaar, is daartoe in staat om die hede te verstaan. deur die aanloop tot die hede te verstaan, word geredeneer, is die historikus daartoe in staat om ’n basis van begrip te vestig wat konteks aan die onmiddellike gebeure te gee. dit lei tot die skepping van ’n grenslose hede, volgens harootunian.⁹ klassieke aannames oor die afbakening van geskiedenis, as synde ’n dissipline wat bloot op die verlede en die hede konsentreer, word afgetakel met die doel om ’n diskoers te skep wat ’n platform vir meervoudige tydservarings bied. spiegel reken dit is grootliks as gevolg van die paradoksale kontekste wat deur de certeau uitgewys is dat hierdie veranderinge met betrekking tot persepsies oor geskiedenis aan die orde gekom het.¹⁰ dit het in ’n groot mate ook baie te make met die wyse waarop die hede eise aan die mens in ’n bestaanswerklikheid stel waar die implikasies van opeenvolgende en onmiddellike gebeure vereis dat daar van andersoortige en selfs alternatiewe perspektiewe ook kennis geneem word. ’n magdom kommunikatiewe media, wat wissel van radio, televisie, gedrukte media (koerante en tydskrifte) tot selfoontegnologie en rekenaargebaseerde internettegnologie, (bv. blogs en youtube) het meegebring dat die hede en verlede op ’n virtuele wyse ineengeskakel is.¹¹ moderne kommunikasiemedia word gekenmerk deur ’n onmiddellikheid wat voorheen bykans ondenkbaar was. response op gebeure in die hede is dadelik beskikbaar. dit het ook ’n globale impak – afhangende van die relatiewe belangrikheid van die gebeurtenis. te førland, “mentality as a social emergent: can the zeitgeist have explained power?” in 7. history and theory, 47(1) february 2008, p, 53. f breithaupt, “the invention of trauma in german romanticism, in 8. critical inquiry, 32(1), autumn 2005, p. 83. h harootunian, “remembering the historical present” in 9. critical inquiry, 33, spring 2007, pp. 471-494. gm spiegel, “revising the past/revisiting the present: how change happens in historiography” in history & 10. theory, 46, (4), december 2007, pp. 4-5. vir meer oor aspekte van hierdie kompleksiteit wat ’n magdom metodologiese implikasies vir die dissipine 11. van geskiedenis het, kyk bv. c classen en w kansteiner, “truth and authenticity in contemporary historical culture: an introduction to historical representation and historical truth” in history & theory, 48(2), may 2009, pp. 1-4; g fogu, “digitalizing historical consciousness” in history & theory, 48(2), may 2009, pp. 103-121. in wese gaan dit daaroor dat die media wat tans bykans onmiddellik beskikbaar is om kommunikasie moontlik te maak oor ’n histories betekenisvolle gebeurtenis kan op ’n magdom maniere digital ontgin word. gevolglik is dit belangrik om kennis te neem dat hierdie vorm van geskiedskrywing baie meer op hede-indrukke vir insigte voorsiening kan maak. sa kragonderbrekings 2008 265 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 in hierdie bespreking word veral op die tegnologiese verskynsel van infrastruktuur gelet. in die onderwerp onder bespreking – elektrisiteitsvoorsiening – het dit gegaan oor volhoubaarheidskrisis van ’n noodsaaklike diens. in enige moderne samelewing is infrastrukturele goedere en dienste van besondere waarde. wat plaaslike owerheidsdienste betref, word aanvaar dat ’water en ligte’ ’n vanselfsprekende diens is wat aan plaaslike inwoners, sakelui en vervaardigingsaanlegte gelewer moet word. in wese is plaaslike gebruikers mits hulle betaal daarop geregtig om ’n betroubare instandhoudingsdiens rondom elektrisiteit, water, sanitasie, rommelverwydering, die versiering en versorging van openbare ruimtes en kommunikasieweë van die plaaslike owerheid te verwag. die elektrisiteitskrisis van 2008 was ’n besondere geleentheid om kennis te neem van die wyse waarop die samelewing reageer op klaarblyklike aanduidings van infrastruktuurverval. die etimologie van die term infrastruktuur word in die algemeen herlei na die begin van die twintigste eeu toe die begrip wat eers in die arsenaal van kennis in strategiese militêre teorie gebruik is, as gevolg van die positivistiese tendense, in algemene wetenskapsbeoefening na ’n magdom dissiplines oorgedra is.¹² dit het, soos in die geval van die term ’natuurlike hulpbronne’ onderdeel geword van ’n teoretiese glossarium van begrippe in die neo-klassieke ekonomie waar deterministiese metingsinstrumente ontwikkel is om die administrasie en bestuur van owerheidsienste verstaanbaar te maak. die gekombineerde gebruik van kennis, tussen die dissiplines van ekonomie, rekeningkunde, owerheidsadministrasie en moderne ingenieurswese het hierdie innovasies genoodsaak.¹³ in die twintigste eeu het suid-afrika ’n besondere infrastruktuur van dienste ontwikkel. by nabaat val dit op dat die land, ten tyde van die politieke omskakeling in 1994, die beste infrastruktuur in afrika gehad het. dit is nie vreemd nie. in die vorige bestel het in suid-afrika ’n sekurokratiese sisteem bestaan wat aan een van die wesentlike vereistes vir ’n gevorderde moderne tegnologiese stelsel voldoen. die tegnologiehistorikus, edgerton, bring sekurokrasie regstreeks in verband met kraginfrastruktuur. hy verduidelik dat ten einde in die vraag te voorsien word infrastruktuur (in moderne ontwikkelde state) op ’n grootse skaal gevestig. dit is interaktief en almal is daarop aangewese. gedurende die twintigste eeu this led to ever greater danger of failure since a failure could lead to total breakdown. the consequence was not only the need for vigilance and maintenance of the technology, but a society itself increasingly disciplined to avoid breakdowns. a society with nuclear power stations was, in this view a society that needed to be heavily policed.¹⁴ anon, “12. infrastructure” in online etymology dictionary by http://www.etymonline.com/index. php?term=infrastructure (geraadpleeg 2009.11.18). hierdie is ʼn proses wat vandag steeds onverpoosd voortgaan en onder meer in die dissipline van transdissiplinêre 13. navorsing aandag geniet. kyk o.m. a donovan, “thinking about engineering” in technology and culture, 27(4), october 1986, pp. 674-679; io baker, “engineering education in the united states at the end of the century” in science, new series, 12(305), 1900.11.02, pp. 666-674. d edgerton, the shock of the old: technology and global history since 1900, oxford university press, 14. oxford, 2007), pp. 76-77. kyk l venter, 15. when mandela goes: the coming of south africa’s second revolution, (doubleday, pp. 21-22. tempelhoff 266 vanaf 1994, nadat die burgerlike bevolking daarin geslaag het om die ideale van demokratiese vryheid en respek vir universele menseregte voorop te stel, het waarnemers van die post-apartheid suid-afrikaanse samelewing veral gefokus op die instandhouding en uitbreiding van infrastruktuur. die doelwit was om ’n indruk te vorm oor die wyse waarop die land besig was om te verander. die stille dinamiek¹⁵ van absorpsie en ineenskakeling van dienslewering, huisvesting en die uitbreiding van ekonomiese welvaart vir almal, het beteken dat sisteme wat oorspronklik bedoel was om ’n bevoorregte gemeenskap van nagenoeg 7 miljoen mense, hul nywerhede en handelsektore van diens te wees, nou uitgebrei moes word om tot die voordeel van meer as 40 miljoen mense in totaal te strek. elektrisiteitsdienste was een van daardie dienste. ofskoon dit meer as toereikend was tydens die oorgang in 1994,¹⁶ was die belangrikste vereiste dat dit a) in stand gehou word; en b) voortdurend uitgebrei word met die doel om, soos in die geval van ontwikkelde state ’n wesentlike rugsteunvoorraad in noodgevalle beskikbaar te hou.¹⁷ in hoeverre dit plaasgevind het word vervolgens belig. tydsverplasing en narratief verplaas uself vir ’n wyle, in die toekoms. dit is die jaar 2018. u ervaar die behoefte om, as onderdeel van ’n geskiedenis oor suid-afrika, ’n begrip te vorm van hoe die mense van weleer ’n energiekrisis ervaar het. die historikus sou tipies verduidelik dat die eerste paar maande van 2008 gekenmerk is deur ’n politieke magstryd in die geledere van die regerende anc-alliansie. die land se ekonomie het, ná ’n tydperk van ongekende ekonomiese groei, gesukkel om te midde van stygende brandstofpryse, gerugte van voedseltekorte en ’n resessie in die verenigde state van amerika, kop bo water te hou. ’n misdaadgolf wat reeds ’n geruime tyd aan die orde was, het meedoënloos duisende suid-afrikaners daagliks aan trauma blootgestel. rassisme het ook kop uitgesteek. die grondslae van ’n betreklike jong suidafrikaanse kultuur van menseregte is openlik bevraagteken. dit was onder hierdie omstandighede dat die eerste kragonderbreking op 18 januarie 2008 plaasgevind het – die soort krisis wat bodanis as ’ondenkbare chaos’ beskryf.¹⁸ die publiek is vooraf daarop bedag gemaak,¹⁹ maar die feit dat daar ’n onmiddellike en geskokte respons aan die kant van die breë samelewing was,²⁰ was die resultaat van diepliggende faktore. dit kon terugherlei word na die era van die eerste veelrassige nasionale demokratiese verkiesing in 1994. binne ’n betreklike kort tydperk het die uiterlike manifestasies van verval ingetree. staatsgeboue het agteruit gegaan. basiese diensleweringsfunksies soos a russell, “s africa eyes rationing to end power cuts” in 16. financial times, 2008.01.23 by http://search. ft.com/ftarticle?querytext=electricity+and+south+africa&aje=true&id=080123000701&ct=0&page=2 (geraadpleeg 2008.0505). g monbiot, 17. heat: how to stop the planet burning, (allan lane, london, 2006), pp. 107-09. d bodanis, 18. electric universe: the shocking true story of electricity, (little brown, london, 2004), pp. 1-2. s van wyk, “beurtkrag kom in middle januarie” in 19. beeld, http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/ beeld/2007/12/28/b1/4/svwkrag3.html c claassen, “’belaglik’; ʼnie goed nie’; ’maak seer’; ʼnaar’” in 20. beeld, 2008.01.18 by http://152.111.1.251/ argief/berigte/beeld/2008/01/19/b1/6/tcckragpt.html sa kragonderbrekings 2008 267 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 water, sanitasie en elektriese dienste het, weens ’n groot toename in gebruik en swak instandhouding, begin probleme gee. veral die swak toestand van paaie het ’n bron van kommer geword.²¹ groot slaggate het, namate die land se verkeersweë meer verkeersdruk moes dra en instandhouding verminder het, ’n gewilde onderwerp van bespreking geword. op die uitvoerende van owerheidsdienslewering, het noodsaaklike departementele dienste, soos gesondheid en welsyn, plaaslik, provinsiaal en nasionaal drasties verander. terwyl baie gedoen is om die lewe van swart suid-afrikaners te verbeter, is dikwels nagelaat om die bestaande openbare voorstedelike fasiliteite van hoofsaaklik blanke suid-afrikaners in stand te hou. reeds in die vroeë jare van post-apartheidsregering het geïsoleerde kragonderbrekings sporadies plaasgevind. dan is daar aan die kant van die kant van die staatsonderneming, die elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (eskom) in die openbaar verskoning gemaak. in die reël was daar redelike aanvaarding. opsluit het dit gegaan oor ’n nuwe bedeling en meer mense moes toegang tot dienste kry. belangriker, was die feit dat die land in ’n fase van integrale oorgang was. in die vorige bestel het die regering in die gees van ’n propaganda-sindroom van die ’totale aanslag’ omvattend voorsiening gemaak vir elektrisiteitsdienste – in so ’n mate dat daar teen 1994 letterlik ’n oormaat van elektriese krag op die nasionale raamwerk beskikbaar was.²² indien daar ’n kragonderbreking was in die jare en maande voor die verkiesing, het die land se inwoners sonder meer tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat dit ’n sekuriteitskwessie was en dat die gebeurtenis moontlik aan terreurdade gekoppel kon word.²³ in die nuwe bedeling was ’n nuwe stel kriteria aan die orde. die regering het onderneem om krag aan voorheen benadeelde mense te gee. daarmee saam het ’n mentaliteit posgevat waarin kompensasie as wesentlike motivering vir spesiale dienslewering geregverdig is. die voorsiening van infrastruktuurdienste is gereken as ’n manier om te kompenseer vir dit wat in die verlede op ’n magdom ander terreine vir voorheenbenadeeldes verstoke was.²⁴ dit was die soort mentaliteit wat volgens fisher bewustelik of onbewustelik posvat om ’n voorgestelde gebrek of tekort, hetsy geestelik of fisies op `n andersoortige manier te bevredig.²⁵ ofskoon die meerderheid nuwe kraggebruikers nie die nodige geld gehad het om daarvoor te betaal nie, het plaaslike en streeksowerhede die taak gehad om te sorg dat dienste gelewer word, al was daar nie pariteit tussen gebruiken vereffeningspatrone nie. oorbenutting van beskikbare krag het gevolg, veral vanaf 2002, toe die land ’n ekonomiese groeifase betree het.²⁶ kyk bv. anon., “grootste slaggat in afrika?” in 21. beeld, 2008.03.03 by http://www.news24.com/beeld/my_ storie/0,,3-2053_2281310,00.html noseark, “crisis? what crisis?” in 22. noseweek, 102, april 2008 by http://www.noseweek.co.za/article. php?current_article=1688 (nagegaan 2008.05/08). kyk sm fourie, die impak van militêre aktiwiteite op die vaaldriehoekse samelewing in die tydperk 1974-23. 1994 (phd, pucho [tans nwu], vanderbijlpark 2002), pp. 62-4, 364-6. m fleshman, 24. bitter inheritance: overcoming the legacy of apartheid, (africa fund, new york, 1993), p. 3. c.s. fisher, “comment on ’anxiety’: compensation in social history” in 25. journal of social history 33(1), 1999, p. 143. m peel, ”economic surge shorts out suppliers” in 26. financial times, 2007.06.05 by http://search.ft.com/ iai?referer=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ft.com%2fsearch%3fquerytext%3delectricity%2band%2bsouth%2 bafrica%26aje%3dtrue%26dse%3d%26dsz%3d&page=3&querytext=electricity+and+south+africa&lo cation=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ft.com%2fftarticle%3fquerytext%3delectricity%2band%2bsouth%2bafri ca%26aje%3dtrue%26id%3d070605000886%26ct%3d0%26page%3d3&aje=true&ct=0&id=070605000886 tempelhoff 268 gesien teen ’n breër agtergrond was die tydperk ook gekenmerk deur ’n toenemende kultuur van globalisering. mense se alledaagse beleweniswêreld is indringend daardeur beïnvloed. duisende suidafrikaners, veral jongmense, het jaarliks die land verlaat. ontevredenheid met die bewoningsruimte van die hede, het suid-afrikaners, soos mense in alle wêrelddele, aangespoor om blyplek in ander lande te gaan soek. die politieke speelveld van die hede het die terrein geword waarop mense aan die suidpunt van afrika, hulle werklikheidsbesef geskoei het. volgens harootunian word dié soort mentaliteit gekenmerk deur spontane herinneringstrategieë in die samelewing wat dui op ’n hedegeskiedenis waarin daar ’n toenemende afsondering van die self, op die voorgrond tree.²⁷ die eksistensialistiese kapsule van bestaan in die geslote lewensruimte van die werken woonplek, het vir menige suidafrikaner ’n vesting geword teen die aanslae van ’n ’onverstaanbare wêreld’ daarbuite. die grense tussen die verlede en hede het in so ’n mate verval dat toekomsverwagtinge verstar geraak het. in werklikheid was dit nie nodig vir die moderne suid-afrikaner om noodwendig in ’n bepaalde fisiese ruimte te wees waarmee daar ’n sterk historiese vereenselwiging en binding bestaan nie. veel eerder het dit gegaan oor ’n ruimte wat veralgemenend as ’n kantoor, ’n woonplek en of ’n openbare ruimte bestempel kon word. kommunikatiewe bindinge (verbindingstegnologie) met die heimat was danksy die internet volop. dit was ook virtueel en onmiddellik. anders as negentiende eeuse beriggewing oor byvoorbeeld oorlogsgeweld en natuurrampe, wat eers lank ná die tyd van die gebeurtenis onder die aandag van die publiek gebring is, het die mens van 2008 in die virtualiteit van ’n nuwe totale wêreldervaring gestaan. die enigste liggaamlike verskansing wat die mens aan die begin van die 21e eeu gehad het, was die feit dat daar van nuusgebeure, in die veiligheid van ’n bekende lewensruimte tipies voor ’n rekenaarof televisieskerm, kennis geneem is. virtuele werklikheid was in baie opsigte net so traumaties vir die waarnemer as wat dit vir die aktiewe deelnemer aan die gebeure wat in miljoene voorkamers wêreldwyd gebeeldsend is. interpretatiewe gemeenskappe het oor ’n magdom grense heen op blogs²⁸ en spesiale webwerwe²⁹ gesprek gevoer oor die vrese waarmee in verskillende wêrelddele geworstel is. ’n goeie vorbeeld is die suid-afrikaanse kragonderbrekings van 2008 wat selfs die onderwerp van ’n reeks blitsfilms wat op youtube was.³⁰ historiese oorsake vir die elektrisiteitskrisis een van die uitstaande kenmerke van die kragonderbrekings was die feit dat apartheid nie die skuld gekry het vir die agteruitgang van die kraginfrastruktuur nie. in ’n land waar voortdurend op die euwels h harootunian, “remembering the historical present” in 27. critical inquiry, 33(3) march 2007, pp. 471-494. kyk byvoorbeeld veral berigte met ʼn omstrede strekking op die webblad van 28. the times (dit is ook die webblad van sunday times) waaromheen daar lang ritse van gesprekvoering plaasgevind het. byvoorbeeld wild frontier, “electricity price hike: eskom keeps reason secret” in the times, 2008.04.08 by http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/ hartley/2008/04/08/electricity-price-hike-eskom-keeps-reason-secret/ (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13); the wild frontier, “load shedding is now a national disgrace” in the times, 2008.01.17 by http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/ hartley/2008/01/17/load-shedding-is-now-a-national-disgrace/ (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13); w swart, “get the lights off now!” in the times, 2008.02.06 by http://www.thetimes.co.za/news/article.aspx?id=699527 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). kyk bv. eskom sucks by29. http://www.eskomsucks.co.za/ (geraadpleeg 2008.05.12); solidariteit, eskomstories by http://www.eskomstories.co.za/argief.htm (geraadpleeg maart-mei 2008). voorbeelde van video-opnames is te vinde by 30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8-to2dc_v0 (nagegaan 2008.03.09). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 269 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 van apartheid gehamer is wanneer eietydse knelpunte in historiese konteks geplaas moes word, was dit vreemd om in die media waar te neem dat daar wel iets goeds was wat in die vorige bestel deur die destydse nasionale party (np) -regering onderneem is. ’n briefskrywer aan sowetan, het byvoorbeeld verklaar: (w)e cannot continue living off apartheid’s capital forever. eskom’s electricity crisis has taught us that investment and maintenance of the national infrastructure cannot be ignored forever ... now it’s time for hardnosed frugal governance. the infrastructure that makes us the most dynamic economy in africa must be maintained and improved .... ³¹ aanvanklik is die gebrek aan toereikende kragvoorsiening eenvoudig toegeskryf aan meer intensiewe gebruik as gevolg van die snel ekonomiese ontwikkeling wat die land sedert 2002 deurgemaak het. namate meer inligting in die media oor die omvang van die krisis deurgegee is, het kundiges kommentaar begin lewer. prof. anton eberhard van die universiteit van kaapstad het ’n analise gedoen van die toedrag van sake in die eskomstrukture van kragvoorsiening op die dag van 28 januarie 2008. sy berekeninge het op die volgende neergekom: eskom kapasiteit (kraginvoere bygereken) = 39 855mw;³² bedryfsreserwe = 1800mw; beoogde instandhouding = 3725mw; onderbrekings = 4235mw; verminderde kapasiteit as gevolg van bv. nat of geen steenkool) = 2694mw; en totale beskikbare kapasiteit wat nie beskikbaar was nie = 31 persent. die afleiding wat daaruit gemaak is, was dat dit op die betrokke tydstip baie sleg met eskom gegaan het.³³ in wese was dit ’n uitsonderlike toestand wat eintlik, deur doeltreffende bestuur, voorkom kon gewees het. ’n ander akademikus het tot ’n soortgelyke gevolgtrekking gekom. eskom se besuur het foutiewe aannames gemaak: the parastatal’s celebrated status as a low-cost supplier of electricity was always based in part on apartheid-era overinvestment, abundant surface coal, state debt write-offs, a high tolerance for pollution, and exemptions from taxes and dividend payments.³⁴ ingenieurs wat in kragleweringsektor werksaam was, het die knelpunt na instandhouding herlei. daar is gewys op ’n ouditverslag van die suid-afrikaanse instituut vir elektroniese ingenieurs wat reeds in 2007 inligting oor die swak instandhouding van die land se elektrisiteit-infrastruktuur verstrek het.³⁵ daar is destyds voorgestel dat r1 miljard so spoedig moontlik bestee word om die probleem korrespondensie: sowetan – redakteur, “pothole blues” in 31. sowetan, 2008.04.03 by http://www.sowetan. co.za/feedback/article.aspx?id=739371 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08). mg = megawatt.32. v de klerk, “retailers still feel eskom blues” in 33. news24, 2008.05.05 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2316870,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). a butler, “how eskom, state indecision plunged sa into darkness” in 34. business day, 2008.03.03 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a718702 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). in 2009, rondom ’n krisis waartydens die destydse hub van eskom, mnr jacob maroga, in die spervuur 35. gekom het, is bekend gemaak dat me susan olson reeds op 19 julie 2007 maroga daarvan in kennis gestel het dat die kragsentrales weens ’n steenkooltekort sou kon ineenstort. hy het agter nie daarop ag geslaan nie. kyk j de lange, “eskom-direksie wroeg oor maroga” in sake24.com, 2009.1031 by http://www.sake24.com/ articles/default/display_article.aspx?channel=news_sake-vir-leke&articleid=6-100_2559516&iscolum niststory=false (geraadpleeg 2009.12.07). tempelhoff 270 aan te spreek. voorts moes die staat jaarliks r422 miljoen bestee om noodsaaklike instandhouding te doen.³⁶ plaaslike opnames het ook die gevaartekens uitgelig. in februarie 2008 is ’n subkomitee van die kaapstadse stadsraad ingelig dat minstens 17 kragonderbrekings in 2007 deur gebreke in die toerusting veroorsaak is. arbeidstekorte en die gebrek aan tegniese kundigheid het omstandighede net vererger.³⁷ die joernalis, peter bruce, het die geskiedenis van die 2008-kragonderbrekings as volg gesien: what happened in sa is that the anc, or at least the exiled part of it, got handed the country on a plate by afrikaner nationalists for whom apartheid had become too expensive and who saw in the anc they were negotiating with some echoes of themselves… they (die nuwe regering) approached the running of some of our big institutions and industries with an insouciance that looked seriously cool for a while. this was going to be such a breeze. the whites were ushered out of hospitals and schools, boardrooms and government departments. but something important had been forgotten… it was that when things get difficult, when crises arise, only one thing matters and it isn’t the colour of your skin or even your qualifications. it’s experience — the quality of having seen such a situation before or watched someone else solve it. did the anc rush at transformation too quickly or, at least, fail properly to balance the need for legitimacy in institutions with the need to retain experience and memory? those old nat bureaucrats may have been racist but they were used to taking orders and they would have done what they were told. new black legitimacy and old white experience could have made this country impervious to economic or political storm.³⁸ nadat die era van kragonderbrekings (aan die einde van april 2008) formeel ten einde gekom het en die land se politieke leiers toenemend na die ’belhamels’ begin soek het wat na bewering vir die krisis verantwoordelik was, is geredeneer dat dit in wese oor vals voorstellings van bestuur gegaan het. verklikkers in eskom³⁹ het bewyse gehad dat die bestuur minder geld op infrastruktuur en instandhouding investeer het. jaarverslae is uitgebring wat op groot winste gedui het. bestuur het hulself daardeur bevoordeel. hulle het op groter bonusse aanspraak gemaak.⁴⁰ teen mei 2008 was die krisis so verpolitiseer dat die historiese oorsake vir die kragonderbrekings ’n belangrike tema was in die suiweringsproses wat in die geledere van die regerende anc-sakp-cosato-alliansie aan die orde was.⁴¹ m le roux, “sa facing ’multiple power crises’” in 36. business day, 2008.02.12 by http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a703946 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). a powell, “cape town neglect blamed for blackouts” in the 37. cape times, 2008.02.05, p. 1 by http://www. iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3053&art_id=vn20080205062712118c201900 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.04). p bruce, “the thick end of the wedge” in business day, 2008.03.17 by 38. http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a728374 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). die mense het teen meimaand begin deurloop onder die bestuur van eskom. kyk a schoeman, “fluitjieblasers 39. ’loop deur’” in beeld, 2008.05.11 by http://www.news24.com/beeld/kragkrisis/0,,3-2365_2320486,00. html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). anon., “eskom whistles in the dark” in 40. noseweek. 103, may 2008, pp. 7-10; m malefane, “anc probes eskom fat cats” in the times, 2008.05.13 by http://www.thetimes.co.za/news/article.aspx?id=764161 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). redaksionele kommentaar, “krag-geheime” in 41. beeld, 2008.05.12 by http://www.news24.com/beeld/opinie/ hoofartikels/0,,3-2085-65_2321157,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 271 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 samelewingsmentaliteite ’n uitstaande kenmerk van die kragonderbrekings was dat dit tot buitengewone ontevredenheid en gefrustreerdheid in groot dele van die samelewing aanleiding gegee het. een van die tergende vrae wat ontstaan is: waarom het die samelewing so gereageer? dit kon deels toegeskryf word aan die gewaarwording dat ’n alledaagse lewenswyse skielik geraak is deur ’n krisis wat mense. daar is geredeneer dat dit eintlik nie veronderstel was om plaas te vind nie. ongerief het mense kwaad gemaak. daar was ook andersoortige omstandighede. die feit dat daar nou tye was waarin mense verplig was om (tydens kragonderbrekings) niks te doen nie, het veral in die stedelike omgewing persoonlike en groepsontevredenheid – na aanleiding van kommunikasiegeleenthede – laat posvat. die elektrisiteitskrisis was grootliks ’n probleem wat in die stedelike sentra van suid-afrika afgespeel het. in ’n meningsopname wat gedoen is, het dit geblyk dat slegs 50 persent van die land se huishoudelike kragverbruikers – waarvan blankes die meerderheid uitgemaak het – wesentlik deur die kragonderbrekings geraak is. die krisis is in die ergste mate in gautengprovinsie ervaar.⁴² dié was, volgens die suidafrikaanse instituut vir rasseverhoudinge in johannesburg, die rykste provinsie in die land. in terme van lewenskwaliteit, was gauteng egter ver agter die wes-kaap – veral wanneer die lewensgehalte van welgestelde mense in ag geneem is. vir behoeftige mense was die wes-kaap weer een van die moeilikste streke om ’n menswaardige bestaan te voer.⁴³ die elektrisiteitskrisis was eintlik ’n middelklasprobleem. woedevlakke onder hierdie groepering suidafrikaners het ongekende hoogtes bereik.⁴⁴ stories van bruilofverrigtinge in die donker, sakelui wat verkies het om hul besigheid oorsee voort te sit en die kabelspoor van tafelberg wat gaan staan het, was volop – selfs in die buiteland.⁴⁵ mense het nare ervarings, soos byvoorbeeld om vir ure in hysbakke vasgevang te wees.⁴⁶ alles het om die gebrek aan krag gewentel. oral was mense wat emosies van magteloosheid in die werkplek en tuis ervaar het. simptomaties van ’n klaarblyklike toesand van menslike weerloosheid was byvoorbeeld die dosente aan ’n johannesburgse universiteit wat aangeraai is om flitse saam te dra wanneer hulle gaan klas gee sodat lesingsale ten minste ordelik tydens beurtkrag ontruim kon word.⁴⁷ op die paaie was verkeersopeenhopings motoriste se voorland. die kragkrisis het planne verydel om manon., “gauteng hit most by blackouts” in 42. news24 2008.03.18 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2290289,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). anon., “the best and the worst regions to live in” in 43. business times, 2008.05.054 by http://www.thetimes. co.za/business/businesstimes/article.aspx?id=759670 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). anon., “cuts hitting on 50% survey” in 44. news24, 2008.03.18 by http://www.news24.com/news24/south_ africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2290456,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.12). sapa, “power-cut stories flood website” in 45. news24, 2008.01.22 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2262018,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.11); anon., “lex column: south africa power cuts” in financial times, 2008.01.29 by http://search.ft.com/ftarticle?querytext=electr icity+and+south+africa&aje=true&id=080129000239&ct=0&nclick_check=1 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.05). j wicks, “think twice before you enter” in 46. the mercury, 2008.01.23 by http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_ id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=vn20080123065826710c905134 anon., “wits power memo brings back word from the dead” in 47. business day, 2008.02.14 by http://www. businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a70584 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). tempelhoff 272 ongelukke op die land se paaie te verminder.⁴⁸ motoriste in dele van groter johannesburg het konvensies oor boord gegooi en summier oor nie-werkende verkeersligte gery, sonder om stil te hou.⁴⁹ in die taxisektor van gauteng het dit chaos veroorsaak. ’n joernalis het spitstyd in `n taxi as volg beskryf: this is the time when passengers pray hard for deliverance from crashes and smashes and death. the surprising thing is that taxi drivers know the rules very well. they do not cross when they are not supposed to. but they have a tendency to go across in a group… two taxis that have the right of way will go across followed by 10 more. then the taxis will allow the other three sides to go their own way before sending another 10 through.⁵⁰ ’n gewilde vorm van vryetydsbesteding – inkopies (ook in die omgang bekend as ’kleinhandelterapie’) – is gebruik om frustrasievlakke te verlig. suid-afrikaners het na winkels gestroom om kerse, kragopwekkers, flitse, batterye en soortgelyke noodtoerusting te koop.⁵¹ donker inkopiesentra is egter vermy. die spandabelrigheid van baie mense het ook perke gehad. hulle maandelikse beursies was besig om te krimp as gevolg van rentekoersverhogings op lenings en oortrokke rekenings. daarmee saam het brandstofpryse gestyg. benewens verhoogde elektrisiteitstariewe moes suid-afrikaanse verbruikers nou ook met kragonderbrekings saamleef.⁵² hulle het dus rede gehad om ongelukkig te voel toe dit bekend geword het dat die regering reeds in ’n witskrif van 1998 daarop bedag gemaak is dat ’n elektrisiteitskrisis binne tien jaar kon heers indien die stelsel nie opgegradeer word nie.⁵³ te midde van omstandighede waarin politiek oor ’n breë spektrum op die sosiale onstabiliteit van ’n veranderende samelewing gedui het, het ’n briefskrywer aan beeld verklaar dat dit belangrik was om bewus te wees van die swaarkry en ontberinge wat swart suid-afrikaners in die apartheidsera deurgemaak het. baie mense het steeds swaar gekry.⁵⁴ aktiviste het vroeër gewaarsku dat elektrisiteitsvoorsiening en energie in die algemeen ’n luukse was wat welgestelde suid-afrikaners as vanselfsprekend aanvaar het⁵⁵. tydens die elektrisiteitskrisis van 2008 is aangevoer dat die land se behoeftige mense die nadeligste deur redaksionele kommentaar, “abandon this foolhardy plan” in 48. sowetan, 2008.03.20 by http://www.sowetan. co.za/news/article.aspx?id=730607 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). n moreosele, “load shedding throws road rules out the window” in 49. sowetan, 2008.03.04 by http://www. sowetan.co.za/columnists/nthabimoreosele/article.aspx?id=719018 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). ibid.50. anon., “gauteng hit most by blackouts” in 51. news24 2008.03.18 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2290289,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). a sookdin, “keeping sa in the dark” in 52. news24, 2008.01.17 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ mynews24/your_story/0,,2-2127-2128_2253730,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). kyk rsa, department of minerals and energy, 53. white paper on the energy policy of the republic of south africa, 1998 by http://www.dme.gov.za/pdfs/energy/planning/wp_energy_policy_1998.pdf (geraadpleeg maartmei 2008); c coetzee en c claassen, “regering het geweet dit kom” in beeld, 2008.01.23 by http://www. news24.com/beeld/suid-afrika/0,,3-975_2257371,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13); kyk ook another view, “moving beyond blame: what is required to shore up eskom” in the times, 2008.02.02 by http://www. thetimes.co.za/printedition/businesstimes/article.aspx?id=697110 geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). korrespondensie: lief vir my land, pretoria – redakteur, “onthou ook apartheid se lyding” in 54. beeld, 2008.02.19 by http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld/2008/02/19/b1/14/tulyding18feb.html kyk o.m. d hallowes and v munnik, “peak poison: the elite energy crisis and environmental justice” in 55. the groundwork report 2007, (groundwork, pietermaritzburg, november 2007). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 273 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 kragonderbrekings geraak is.⁵⁶ die media het vasgestel dat veral agtergeblewe mense aan langer kragonderbrekings as gewone huishoudelike gebruikers onderhewig was.⁵⁷ daar is kommer oor hierdie toedrag van sake uitgespreek. veral in die land se metropolitaanse informele nedersettings het swak omstandighede geheers. inwoners van die princess plakkerskamp aan die wesrand het verslaggewers van die mail & guardian vertel dat hulle reeds meer as 12 jaar ’permanente beurtkrag’ ervaar het. hulle het wel van beurtkrag kennis geneem wanneer hulle na die radio luister. in sommige opsigte was hulle beter daaraan toe as mense wat nou onder krisisomstandighede sonder krag moes klaarkom. die plakkers het reeds lank tevore geleer hoe om sonder krag klaar te kom. hulle het byvoorbeeld mekaar onderling gehelp. eienaars van yskaste (wat vermoedelik met kragparaffien werk) het hul toerusting in die reël met ander mense in die gemeenskap gedeel.⁵⁸ van owerheidsweë is kennis geneem van behoeftige mense. nadat eskom aangekondig het dat elektrisiteitstariewe verhoog moes word,⁵⁹ het die regering die versekering gegee dat lae-inkomste huishoudings nie nadelig deur hierdie reëling getref word nie.⁶⁰ met die kommunikasie van ancleierskap was daar egter probleme.⁶¹ daar was aanduidings van amptelike persverklarings wat botsende boodskappe aan die publiek deurgegee het. dit het tot verwarring aanleiding gegee. daarmee saam het die publiek vertroue begin verloor in die vermoë van die regering om die krisis aan te spreek. op die oog-af het veral mense in informele nedersettings die toedrag van sake gelate aanvaar. daar was egter tussendeur duidelike seine dat ook hulle hul woede nouliks kon onderdruk. dieselfde soort kultuur van verset en protes, wat in die 1980’s die land onregeerbaar gemaak het, het weer kop uitgesteek. soos in die ’ou bestel’, is polisie ingeroep om onrus met hardhandige optredes in die kiem te smoor. onwettige kragaansluitings by hostelle in gauteng was ’n algemene verskynsel. vier mense is by geleentheid in kwa thema deur elektriese stroom in hierdie aansluitings doodgeskok. polisie is ingeroep om onrus, wat uit die insident voortgespruit het, te onderdruk.⁶² voorstedelike treine is aan die brand gesteek omdat verkeer deur kragonderbrekings vertraag is.⁶³ dit het gegaan oor menslike behoeftes aan basiese dienste waarvoor die owerheid tradisioneel verantwoordelik was. weens die kragonderbrekings was daar nou niks. nog meer, dit het gegaan oor die realisering van menswaardigheid, selfs in agtergeblewe gedeeltes van die samelewing. die mense het verwag dat hulle pleidooi vir dienslewering ten minste gerespekteer sou word. anon., “workers pay more for bosses’ energy excess” in 56. sowetan, 2008.03.14 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/ news/article.aspx?id=726833 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). anon., “outrage mounts over power cuts” in 57. mail & guardian online, 2008.01.18 by http://www.mg.co.za/ articlepage.aspx?articleid=329931&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/ w forster en n ndlovu, “these are the shedded” in 58. mail & guardian online, 2008.01.26 by http://www. mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?articleid=330633&area=/insight/insight__national/ m klein, “electricity price may rise by 60%” in 59. sowetan, 2008.03.19 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/ business/article.aspx?id=729824 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). l ensor, “poor to be spared eskom hardship” in 60. business day, 2008.03.25 by http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a732620 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). i lekota, “eskom tariff hukes get a no from anc” in 61. sowetan 2008.03.20 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/ news/article.aspx?id=730628 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). anon., “cop injured during protests” in 62. news24, 2008.04.22 by http://www.news24.com/news24/south_ africa/news/0,,2-7-1442_2310300,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). redaksionele kommentaar, “torching trains as a vehicle of frustration delivers nothing” in 63. city press, 2008.01.26 by http://www.news24.com/city_press/leaders/0,,186-189_2259066,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). tempelhoff 274 briefskrywers aan koerante het die kragonderbrekings beskryf as ’n krisistoestand wat op verval dui. daar is geredeneer dat die kragonderbrekings net die mees opsigtelike van ’n hele reeks krisisse in die land was. daar is aangevoer: the reality is that there is a meltdown in our education system, crime and corruption are rampant, and the nation’s infrastructure in total is rapidly crumbling, so that the possibility of effective service delivery becomes more distant by the month.⁶⁴ by baie suid-afrikaners was daar aanduidings van ’n intense teleurstelling met die toedrag van sake. kragonderbrekings was die mantra van ’n bepaalde tydsgees. ’n briefskrywer aan city press, machaba matsapola van lebowakgomo in limpopoprovinsie, het verklaar: whatever happened to the beautiful democratic country that we were building together as a nation? ... one does not need a fortune-teller to see that this country is slowly but surely headed for destruction ... there is no indication that things will be corrected any time soon. it gets even gloomier when one contemplates the future because of the power cuts that are filling our hearts with darkness.⁶⁵ ’n ander skrywer het die kragonderbrekings vergelyk met terreur en van die standpunt uitgegaan dat die nadelige gevolge van onderbrekings baie meer omvangryk as blote dade van terreur was.⁶⁶ mentaliteite in die huishoudelike omgewing en die werkplek dit was in die private sfeer van die huishoudelike omgewing waar ’kragloosheid’ intens geregistreer het. vir die eerste keer in baie jare het dit weer gebeur dat gesinslede in duisende huishoudings met mekaar om die etenstafel gesels het. tv-etes was vir die eerste keer sedert 1975, toe die eerste televisiediens aangebied is, nie meer deel van ’n alledaagse lewenswyse nie. die raserigheid van ’n magdom elektroniese kommunikasiekanale in die land se woonbuurte het saans stil geword. dit het plek gemaak vir mensgeluide van gesels en dinge doen. die geur van braaivleis het plek-plek swaar gehang. voorstedelike suid-afrikaners, wat dit kon bekostig, het by restaurante gaan eet waar kragopwekkers en die nodige toerusting was om voedsel voor te berei. ander het hul lot bekla oor kos wat nie gaar gemaak kon word nie. sommige gesinne moes by geleentheid honger gaan slaap.⁶⁷ in die media is resepte gegee van kosgeregte wat sonder hitte voorberei kon word. die voordele van rou kos is beklemtoon.⁶⁸ teen mei 2008 is gewaarsku dat die elektrisiteitskrisis, wat die vooruitsig van duurder kragtariewe ingehou het, sou beteken dat ’n voorbereide r stone, johannesburg – redakteur, “mbeki’s legacy” in 64. business day, 2008.02.05 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a698856 korrespondensie: machaba matsapola, lebowakgomo – redakteur, “cry, our beloved country is falling 65. apart” in city press, 2008.02.16 by http://www.news24.com/city_press/letters/0,,186-247_2272107,00. html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). korrespondensie: d east, river club – redakteur, “power terrorists” in 66. business day, 2008.02.11 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a703166 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). p mnisi, johannesburg – redakteur, “power cuts cause lots of stress” in 67. sowetan, 2008.01.24 by http://www. sowetan.co.za/feedback/article.aspx?id=690350 (geraadpleeg op 2008.02.10.) sa kragonderbrekings 2008 275 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 bord kos besig was om ’n luukse te word wat baie mense nie kon bekostig nie.⁶⁹ in die geledere van swart suid-afrikaners is gepraat van die ’kersgenerasie’. ’n vorige geslag het die jongmense van 2008 vertel van die tyd – in die era van apartheid toe hulle net op kerskrag aangewese was. die rubriekskrywer themba molefe het verduidelik: some might still remember the tough days when, as children, they would run to mapea’s general store down the muddy street to buy two candles at 10c each because the old lady could not afford a whole packet. enough just to illuminate the most-used of the three or four-roomed houses; and maybe even save them for the next day… then there was also paraffin. many used it for their little lamps and the single hotplate equivalent of the township. remember the treasured primus stove? in the absence of coal, in many households it doubled up as a heater and for cooking.⁷⁰ molefe het gewaarsku dat daar teen mentaliteit gewaak moet word. dit sou dan bloot ’n herhaling word van die soort werklikhede waarmee die gemeenskap destyds moes saamleef. ⁷¹ suid-afrikaners het prioriteite raakgesien wanneer dit gegaan oor wie voorkeurbehandeling met kragvoorsiening moes kry. byvoorbeeld, dit was as vanselfsprekend aanvaar dat kragvoorsiening so omvattend moontlik aan die land se nywerhede en huishoudings voorsien word. in tye van krisis, het een briefskrywer aan ’n koerant verduidelik, moes die voorsiening van krag aan buurlande summier afgesny. ⁷² dit was spoedig `n politieke kwessie – veral nadat dit bekend geword het dat sommige van suid-afrika se buurlande elektrisiteit teen minder as kosprys gekoop het.⁷³ die implikasies van kragonderbrekings vir nooddienslewering het spoedig duidelik geword. kort nadat ’beurtkrag’⁷⁴ begin het, is kommer uitgespreek wat gaan byvoorbeeld gebeur by hospitale as onderbrekings moes aanhou. plaaslike owerhede het die publiek die versekering gegee dat voorsorgmaatreëls daarteen getref is.⁷⁵ dit was egter nie deurgaans die geval nie. in limpopoprovinsie het ’n vrou wat geboorte moes gee, sonder welslae by drie klinieke aangemeld. al die plekke het beurtkrag ervaar. die gevolg was dat sy, anon., “try raw food if eskom fails you” in 68. sowetan, 2008.02.21, by http://www.sowetan.co.za/goodlife/ article.aspx?id=710580 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). anon., “’disaster waiting to happen’” in 69. news24, 2008.05.02 by http://www.news24.com/news24/south_ africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2315408,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). t molefe, “the candle generation may now shed a lot of fun” in 70. sowetan, 2008.01.24 by http://www.sowetan. co.za/columnists/thembamolefe/article.aspx?id=690485 (geraadpleeg 2008.03.05). ibid.71. p mnisi, johannesburg – redakteur, “power cuts cause lots of stress” in 72. sowetan, 2008.01.24 by http://www. sowetan.co.za/feedback/article.aspx?id=690350 (geraadpleeg op 2008.02.10.) s njobeni, “household electricity ‘too pricey’” in 73. business day, 2008.04.25 by http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a756329 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.25). ’n term wat vir die doeleindes van kragonderbrekings deur eskom ingevoer is.74. t monama, “’some hospitals will have power” in 75. sowetan, 2008.03.04 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/ article.aspx?id=719210 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). tempelhoff 276 onderweg na die hospitaal op louis trichardt, aan haar kind in ’n ligte voertuig geboorte moes gee.⁷⁶ by fourways, in gautengprovinsie, het ’n pasiënt wat ’n dringende hartoperasie moes ondergaan, vergeefs gewag as gevolg van kragonderbrekings. eers nadat ’n private nooddiens die plaaslike owerheid geskakel het om op die dringendheid van die operasie te wys, is die krag weer aangeskakel.⁷⁷ dit het toenemend duidelik geword dat onderbrekings ’n wesentlike bedreiging vir die veiligheid van die burgerlike samelewing ingehou het. in kempton park is ’n vrou deur dampe van ’n kragopwekker in haar woning oorval. sy het daarvan gesterf. haar tienerkind is vir behandeling in die hospitaal opgeneem.⁷⁸ soos in die huishoudelike omgewing het kragonderbrekings in die semi-private sfeer van die werkplek ’n nadelige effek gehad. dit is veral deur simptome van depressie gekenmerk. die bestuurder van ’n eiendomsagentskap in johannesburg het ’n verslaggewer vertel dat kantoorwerkers in die eiendomsbedryf depressief geraak het. eiendomsverkope het drasties gedaal en mense was angstig om hul wonings te verkoop om na de buiteland te emigreer. tussendeur moes verkoopspersoneel met probleme van depressie worstel in ’n hoogs mededingende bedryf waar min investeringsgeld en nog minder kopers beskikbaar was. vir die bestuurder wat daagliks haar personeel moes motiveer, was dit moeilik om die taak uit te voer – veral wanneer beurtkrag in die oggend haar verhoed het om hare te was en elektronies te droog.⁷⁹ ’n voordelige gevolg van die kragonderbrekings was dat mense in kantore vir ’n slag van hulle rekenaarterminale wegbeweeg het en die tyd gevind het om met kollegas te gesels.⁸⁰ onderliggende frustrasies het egter aanwesig gebly. een kantoorwerker het in ’n brief aan die media huisgesinne versoek om kragbesparing aktief na te streef sodat sy ten minste soggens met haar werk op kantoor kon voortgaan.⁸¹ humor in die media is kennis geneem van die feit dat mense swaarkry. vir die rubriekskrywer, james clarke, was humor simptomaties van die feit dat die samelewing ’n intense krisis ervaar.⁸² ’n magdom grappe oor die onderbrekings het in kuberruimte, oor selfone, en in die gedrukte media neerslag gevind.⁸³ onder meer a matlala, “baby born in bakkie” in 76. sowetan, 2008.03.06 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article. aspx?id=720781 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). s béga, “no comment yet from eskom on poisoning” in 77. the star, 2008.04.26, p. 4 by http://www.iol.co.za/ index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3053&art_id=vn20080426082446772c772085 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.04). n nair, “eskom looking into generator death” in 78. the times, 2008.04.24 by http://www.thetimes.co.za/ news/article.aspx?id=756186 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01); s béga, “no comment yet from eskom on poisoning” in the star, 2008.04.26, p. 4 by http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3053&art_ id=vn20080426082446772c772085 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.04). s mann, “estate agents soldier on” in 79. business day, 2008.04.12 by http://www.businessday.co.za/weekender/ article.aspx?id=bd4a745204 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.12). d gemmel, “packed back-up plan for increased fitness” in 80. business day, 2008.03.26 by http://www. businessday.co.za/articles/healthnews.aspx?id=bd4a732708 (geraadpleeg, 2008.03.26 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). korrespondensie: g schroeder, enercheck solutions redakteur, “electricity saving” in 81. business day, 2008.03.18 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a729161 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). j clarke, “hey eishkom, we citizens are not amused…” in 82. the star, 2008.01.24 by http://www.iol.co.za/ general/other/lol_container.php?set_id=40&click_id=2710&art_id=vn20080124010100399c915869 sa kragonderbrekings 2008 277 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 het ’n skrywer in een van vele kletsgroepe verklaar dat die nasionale energiereguleerder net wetgewing teen kragonderbrekings kon deurvoer. dan sou die krisis iets van die verlede wees.⁸⁴ die verbruikerskultuur van ’n moderne kapitalistiese samelewing het duidelik nie in die slag gebly nie. daarvoor het die advertensiemedia en uitgeslape sakelui gesorg. een vindingryke motorhandelsonderneming in gauteng het teen die helfte van februarie 2008 geadverteer dat as kliënte elektriese kragopwekkers teen r115 000 elk koop, sou hulle ’n nuwe model motor van 2007 gratis op die koop toe kry!⁸⁵ die joernalis peter bruce, was heeltemal oorbluf deur die willekeurige gebruik van beurtkrag, sonder om die publiek behoorlik in kennis te stel. syns insiens moes suid-afrika, net soos die spanjaarde in spanje, eerder ’n siesta bedags tussen 12:00 en 17:00 invoer. mense kon dan voor en ná die siesta volstoom werk en terselfdertyd bydra om krag te spaar we can save the country. eskom gets the down-time it requires to patch up its ailing kit and the country gets to take lunch and a nap, as it were. ask any doctor – a series of catnaps during the day is healthy. and so are street lights at night.⁸⁶ spotprente was volop.⁸⁷ spotprent 1 zapiro het die eskom-effek in die 2008/9-begroting raakgesien.⁸⁸ ibid.; anon., “aussie pilot sheds loads of humour on his passengers” in 83. business day, 2008.02.07 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a700740 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). kletsgroep: “darko” in 84. the times, 2008.01.20. by http://www.thetimes.co.za/news/article.aspx?id=685437 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). advertensie: mccarthy call-a-car direct in die 85. bidvest handelaarsgroep, “koop ʼn kragopwekker … en kry ʼn gratis 2007 corolla 1400i” in motorbeeld, 2008.02.14, p. 24. p bruce, “the thick end of the wedge” in 86. business day, 2008.04.21 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/ topstories.aspx?id=bd4a752680 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.21). n jackson, “beeldforum: plan is nodig vir al die mis op straat” in 87. beeld, 2008.04,04 by http://www.news24. com/beeld/opinie/rubrieke/0,,3-2085-66_1910966,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). zapiro in iol 2008.01.21 by 88. http://gallery.iol.co.za/v/cartoons/zapiro/21_02_2008_zapiro.jpg.html (geraadpleeg 2008.04.20). tempelhoff 278 mama taxi het die vrede van buitelandse besoekers aan suid-afrika goed saamgevat. spotprent 2 mama taxi het alternatiewe apparaat se waarde omskryf.⁸⁹ spotprent 3 een van drie spotprente op die webwerf van eskomplain.⁹⁰ kommunikasiekundiges het die gebruik van humor onder krisisomstandighede aangemoedig.⁹¹ sally haw, wat kennis geneem het van die uitdrukkings op die gesigte van motoriste wat soggens werk toe ry en die liggaamshouding van mense op kantoor wanneer beurtkrag plaasgevind het, het bestuurslui aangeraai om die geestesklimaat van werknemers met humor te probeer verander.⁹² mama taxi in iol 2008.01.24 by89. http://gallery.iol.co.za/v/cartoons/mamastaxi/24_01_2008_mama.jpg. html kyk 90. http://eskomplain.co.za/fever-cartoons/ (geraadpleeg 2008.05.14). p mann, “eskom must manage outrage as well as outages” in 91. business day, 2008.03.11 by http://www. businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a725158 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). s haw, “managing workplace humour is serious stuff ” in business day, 2008.04.01 by 92. http://www. businessday.co.za/articles/management.aspx?id=bd4a738114 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 279 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 omgewingsbewustheid en innovasie een van die voordelige gevolge van die kragkrisis was dat suid-afrikaners ook in die konteks van kragvoorsiening deur omstandighede gedwing is om omgewingsbewus te raak. besparingsadvies het gewissel van komberse om warmwaterstelsels en die invoer van fleksietyd op kantoor.⁹³ akademici het daarop gewys dat enige kragbesparingsbeplanning omgewingsvriendelike strategieë in ag moes neem.⁹⁴ dit het ’n klimaat vir innovasie geskep. navorsers het aan die hand gedoen dat suid-afrika in verskillende dagligstreke gedeel word om die vraag na krag na verskillende tye van die dag te versprei. duur duplisering van energieproduksie sou ook voorkom word.⁹⁵ stedelinge het begin dink dat onvolhoubare kragvoorsiening met omgewingsvriendelike tegnologie vervang moes word. dit is as ’n prioriteit deur ’n koerantleser van hillbrow beskryf.⁹⁶ toenemend is aanvaar dat hulpbronne soos water en elektrisiteit beperk is en dat dit noodsaaklik was vir suid-afrikaners om oordeelkundig daarvan gebruik te maak.⁹⁷ briefskrywers aan koerante het staatsdepartemente, sakeondernemings en nywerhede gekritiseer wat saans die ligte van kantore in hul geboue laat brand het terwyl voorstedelike woongebiede straatligte af was om krag te spaar.⁹⁸ omgewingsjoernaliste het daarop gewys dat volhoubare energiegebruik net haalbaar was mits daar van minder besoedelende kragbronne – soos byvoorbeeld windkrag – gebruik gemaak word.⁹⁹ daar is ook met meer belangstelling as gewoonlik kennis geneem van die sienings van omgewingsaktiviste.¹⁰⁰ ’n nuwe organisasie ’green building council of sa’, is in die lewe geroep om die ontwikkeling, beplanning en stedelike bestuur op ’n meer omgewingsvriendelike lees te skoei. onder meer het die organisasie hom ten doel gestel om alternatiewe kragbronne en kragbesparende tegnologie te bevorder.¹⁰¹ ontwikkelaars van meenthuiskomplekse het spoedig gereageer op die krisis. gasstowe en sonpanele, is weens die onbetroubare dienslewering van eskom, as standaardtoerusting by nuwe behuisingskomplekse ingevoer.¹⁰² sapa, “save electricity, or else” in 93. sowetan 2008.03.04 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article. aspx?id=719701 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). t monama, “call for rationing to save energy” in 94. sowetan, 2008.01.28 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/ article.aspx?id=692842 b cloete and s truen, “lightening the power load with daylight saving” in 95. business day, 2008.02.19 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a709036 letters to the editor: s’busiso xaba, hillbrow – editor, “renewable energy is the way to go” in 96. city press, 2008.02.02 by http://www.news24.com/city_press/letters/0,,186-247_2263496,00.html. n mfusi, “sigh of relief over end to blackouts” in 97. the mercury, 2008.05.02, p. 3 by http://www.iol.co.za/ index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3053&art_id=vn20080502081246977c808193 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.04). korrespondensie: h watermeyer, lyndhurst – redakteur, “lights-out time” in 98. business day, 2008.03.18 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a729189 (2008.03.18). n jackson, “beeldforum: plan is nodig vir al die mis op straat” in 99. beeld, 2008.04,04 by http://www.news24. com/beeld/opinie/rubrieke/0,,3-2085-66_1910966,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.13). anon., “workers pay more for bosses’ energy excess” in sowetan, 100. 2008.03.14 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/ news/article.aspx?id=726833 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). anon., “new focus on ‘green building’” in 101. business day, 2008.02.13 by http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/property.aspx?id=bd4a704833 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). j gray, “boskruin development raises the bar” in 102. business day, 2008.03.28 by http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/homefront.aspx?id=bd4a734635 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). tempelhoff 280 in gemeenskapsinisiatiewe om die jeug op die noodsaaklikheid vir nuwe innovasie in die wetenskap en tegnologie bedag te maak, is reeds in januarie 2008 aan die hand gedoen dat gelet word op tegnologie wat alternatiewe bronne van krag kon voorsien.¹⁰³ daar is kennis geneem en inligting uitgeruil oor die doeltreffendste manier waarop huishoudings te werk kon gaan om elektrisiteit te bespaar.¹⁰⁴ onder meer is voorgestel dat: termostate van waterverwarmers laer gestel word; wasgoed in kouewater gewas word; swembadpompe vir bepaalde tye van elke dag afgeskakel word; en kragbesparende gloeilampe geïnstalleer word.¹⁰⁵ by geleentheid is aan die hand gedoen dat huishoudelike krag gespaar word deur warmwaterstelsels af te skakel.¹⁰⁶ dit is ’n standpunt wat spoedig omvattend deur kenners afgemaak is. interessante inligting is in die media deurgegee om kraggebruik so doeltreffend as moontlik te maak. heelwat redaksionele ruimte is in koerante daaraan afgestaan.¹⁰⁷ van owerheidsweë is stappe gedoen om ’n perk te plaas op toerusting wat krag onekonomies gebruik het. onder meer het amptenare in die departemente van mineraalen energiesake, in samewerking met die departement van binnelandse inkomste, gewerk aan wetgewing wat ’n verbod sou plaas op goedkoop huishoudelike toerusting, soos yskaste, wat ondoeltreffend krag gebruik het.¹⁰⁸ in februarie 2008 het die gautengse provinsiale regering aangekondig dat regeringsgeboue volledig van kragbesparende gloeilampe voorsien sou word.¹⁰⁹ die gebruik van kragbesparende gloeilampe is vir die eerste keer deur die owerheid ingevoer in 2006 toe kragonderbrekings in die wes-kaap aan die orde was.¹¹⁰ teen maart 2008 het dié provinsie se regering hom verbind tot die ontginning van hernubare energiebronne en ’n projek van stapel laat loop om sonligkrag vir die verhitting van waterstelsels in die woongebied kwanokuthula in te voer.¹¹¹ innoverende planne vir grootse projekte wat voorheen as blote toekomsdrome gereken is, is weer opgediep. in februarie 2008 is bekend gemaak dat westcor, die western power corridor company, (westcor), ’n maatskappy wat etlike jare tevore tot stand gebring is, in die afsienbare toekoms met die derde fase van die inga hidro-elektriese projek onder die leiding van die afrika-unie en deur die bemiddeling van angola, botswana, die demokratiese republiek van die kongo, namibië en suid-afrika gaan voer. die projek wat reeds ’n geruime tyd in die ontwikkelingspyplyn was, het teen 2008 al hoe meer lewensvatbaar geword om die toenemende vraag na elektrisiteit te bevredig.¹¹² lewensvatbaarheidstudies oor die potensiaal anon., “young minds challenge” in 103. sowetan, 2008.01.30 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/nationbuilding/ article.aspx?id=694157 korrespondensie: g schroeder, enercheck solutions redakteur, “electricity saving” in 104. business day, 2008.03.18 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a729161 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). ibid.105. redaksionele kommentaar: “source resources” in 106. sowetan, 2008.01.24 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/ feedback/article.aspx?id=690357 f forde, “a-z of load shedding” in 107. pretoria news, 2008.p01.25 by http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_ id=1&click_id=3053&art_id=vn20080125081012987c990428 l ensor, “ban looms for power-guzzling appliances” in business 108. day, 2008.02.18 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a708435 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). anon., “shilowa se planne” in beeld, 2008.02.19, p. 2.109. t monama, “energy-saving plan’s green light” in 110. sowetan, 2008.03.11 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/ article.aspx?id=724100 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). j davenport, “western cape aims to take lead in tackling climate change, energy efficiency” in 111. engineering news, 2008.05.02 by t craemer, “has inga’s time finally arrived” in 112. engineering news, 2008.05.02 by http://www.engineeringnews. co.za/article.php?a_id=131615 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 281 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 om nagenoeg 4300mw krag uit die skema in die kongorivier te ontgin was reeds aan die einde van 2007 afgehandel.¹¹³ projekte van hierdie aard is opgegee as een van die redes waarom suid-afrika nie summier kragvoorsiening aan buurlande kon opskort nie. amptenare en kundiges het daarop gewys dat kragvoorsiening deel was van ’n poging tot groter samewerking tussen buurstate. dit sou nie in die landsbelang wees om dienslewering op te skort nie.¹¹⁴ terwyl kragstasies wat vroeër uitgeskakel is weer in gebruik geneem is, het eskom bekend gemaak dat weer aan die ontwikkeling van kernkragsentrales aandag gegee sou word. ook is oorweging geskenk aan windkragturbines wat in die afsienbare toekoms in die wes-kaap ingevoer sou word.¹¹⁵ politieke mentaliteit die kragonderbreking en response oor die erns van die saak het op ’n verskeidenheid van maniere in die openbare sfeer van die suid-afrikaanse samelewing geregistreer. dit het van meet af aan politieke ondertone gehad. byvoorbeeld, binne 48 uur ná die eerste kragonderbreking op 18 januarie, het meer as 2000 mense op ’n elektroniese argief van die werkverbond solidariteit ten sterkste teen die kragonderbreking geprotesteer.¹¹⁶ bykans in alle fasette van die samelewing het die regering onder skoot gekom. die skyn van interne stabiliteit in die anc wat voor die polokwane-kongres van desember 2007 bestaan het, was nie meer daar nie. ’n nuwe demokratiese revolusie was aan die orde. deel van hierdie denkstroom was om opnuut in ooreenstemming met bepaalde populistiese prioriteite in die belang van benadeelde mense politieke besluite te neem. burgerlike ordelikheid was nie deel van hierdie mentaliteit nie. die rede daarvoor was dat daar sommige kritici van die mbeki-regering van mening was dat daar magsmisbruik deur ’n geselekteerde groepie mense aan die orde was. hulle was daarop uit om hulself te verryk. opposisiepartye het die situasie uitgebuit en summier geëis dat die regering moes bedank. daar is verduidelik dat dit ’n goeie begin sou wees as die verantwoordelike ministers en hoogsbesoldigde uitvoerende amptenare in die energiesektor, afgedank word.¹¹⁷ daar was selfs oproepe in briewe in die koerante vir die partye om saam te staan teen die regering.¹¹⁸ die anc is daarop bedag gemaak dat die c van der merwe, “construction of 4300mw hydropower project to start in next 18 to 24 months” in 113. engineering news, 2008.02.18 by http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=127200 sapa, “save electricity, or else” in 114. sowetan 2008.03.04 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article. aspx?id=719701 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). t thakali, “what now for eskom?”, in 115. pretoria news, 2008.02.23, p. 3 by http://www.iol.co.za/index. php?set_id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=vn20080223084338805c243450 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.04); eskom, “eskom to secure funding for its wind farm project” media release 29 february 2008 by http://www.eskom. co.za/live/content.php?item_id=6084 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). anon., “want to tell eskom what you think of them?” in 116. cape times, 2008.01.23, p. 5. by http://www. iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=vn20080123063445225c111252 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08); sapa, “power-cut stories flood website” in news24, 2008.01.22 by http://www.news24.com/ news24/south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2262018,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.11). w misbach, “parties want heads to roll over energy” in 117. sowetan, 2008.01.31 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/ news/article.aspx?id=695348 korrespondensie: k van der walt, winburg – redakteur, “staan nou saam” in 118. volksblad, 2008.02.06 by http://www.news24.com/die_volksblad/briewe/0,,5-89_2265894,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08); c van heerden – redakteur, “praat met ons kruisies” in volksblad, 2008.01.29 by http://www.news24.com/ die_volksblad/briewe/0,,5-89_2260343,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08); korrespondensie: ‘funnybones’ – redakteur, “we should dissolve parliament” in news24, 2008.02.13 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ mynews24/your_story/0,,2-2127-2128_2269792,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.12). tempelhoff 282 kultuur van boikot wat in die apartheidsera gekweek is, nou sy wrange vrugte begin dra. die r4,4 biljoen in uitstaande rekenings wat aan stadsrade verskuldig was vir kragvoorsiening, is voorgehou as ’n voorbeeld van dié nalatenskap.¹¹⁹ die werklike toedrag van sake was dat selfs al sou die regering van die dag bedank en ’n nuwe verkiesing uitskryf, was dit onwaarskynlik dat enige opposisieparty, of groepering van partye daartoe in staat sou wees om die bewind oor te neem. hierdie wete het die frustrasievlakke van middelinkomste voorstedelike suid-afrikaners aansienlik verhoog. feit van die saak was dat die stille meerderheid van die land se mense swart suid-afrikaners was wat steeds daarvan oortuig was dat die ideale van die regerende party ook hulle persoonlike ideale verwoord het. in die swart media, wat deur bykans geen blankes gelees word nie, is mense aangemoedig om die regering in die krisis by te staan. die wêreldbeker sokkerkompetiie van 2010 en die behoud van ’n ekonomie wat ’n inkomste vir die land se werksmag moes verseker, is voorgehou as redes waarom steun gegee moes word. in sowetan is, in die vroeë fase van beurtkrag, steun toegesê aan ’n beroep wat die regering op suidafrikaners gemaak het,¹²⁰ dat verbruikers hul kragverbruik met 20 persent verminder.¹²¹ politieke kenners het geredeneer dat die mense vertroue in die land se hoof uitvoerende politieke leier, president thabo mbeki, verloor het. die elektrisiteitskrisis kon sy swanesang wees.¹²² mense na aan die president het ruiterlik erken dat segmente van die politieke leierskap, ná die bevryding van die land in die negentigerjare, uit voeling met die massas geraak het. die huidige regering was nie daartoe in staat om die mense in die rigting van ’n bepaalde saak te mobiliseer nie.¹²³ ’n belangrike simptoom van die toestand ontevredenheid met swak dienslewering – het reeds ’n geruime tyd bestaan. onafhanklike navorsers het daarteen gewaarsku.¹²⁴ byvoorbeeld, in die tydperk 2004-2005 het 900 onwettige en 6000 wettige protesbyeenkomste oor swak dienslewering in suid-afrika plaasgevind.¹²⁵ die vinger is veral gewys na die politieke bestuur van plaaslike owerhede.¹²⁶ namate dit duidelik geword het dat die kragonderbrekings nie die land se regering tot ’n val sou bring nie, c mdletshe, “’anc to blame’” in 119. sowetan, 2008.02.22 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article. aspx?id=711782 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). a russel, “s africa eyes rationing to end rolling power cuts” in 120. financial times, 2008.01.24 by http://search. ft.com/iai?referer=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ft.com%2fsearch%3fquerytext%3delectricity%2band%2bs outh%2bafrica%26aje%3dtrue%26dse%3d%26dsz%3d&page=2&querytext=electricity+and+south+af rica&location=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ft.com%2fftarticle%3fquerytext%3delectricity%2band%2bsou th%2bafrica%26aje%3dtrue%26id%3d080124000301%26ct%3d0%26page%3d2&aje=true&ct=0&id= 080124000301 editorial comment: “shabby way to treat the nation” in 121. sowetan, 2008.01.31 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/ feedback/article.aspx?id=695490 (geraadpleeg 2008.02.03) p laurence, “president is major casualty of power crisis” in 122. the sunday independent, 2008.02.03, p. 8. n makgetla, “too many left out of search for power solutions” in 123. business day, 2007=8.02.06 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a699637. anon., “voices of anger: phumelela and khutsong: protest and conflict in two municipalities,” in 124. cde focus, 10, april 2007 (occasional papers reflecting continuing research produced for the centre for development and enterprise, johannesburg, 2007), pp. 1-18. p laurence, “president is major casualty of power crisis” in 125. the sunday independent, 2008.02.03, p. 8. editorial comment: “immoral council” in sowetan, 2008.01.30 by 126. http://www.sowetan.co.za/feedback/ article.aspx?id=694344 sa kragonderbrekings 2008 283 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 het die leier van die demokratiese alliansie (da), me helen zille, met die staatspresident onderhandel en sekere voorstelle gemaak oor die wyse waarop die krisis aangespreek kon word.¹²⁷ ironies genoeg het haar provinsiale tuiste, die wes-kaap, kort ná die samesprekinge, grootskaalse kragonderbrekings in die gesig gestaar.¹²⁸ ’n belangrike les wat politici uit die krisis geleer het, was dat dit noodsaaklik was om die waarheid te praat – wanneer dit gegaan het oor ’n saak wat al die land se mense regstreeks raak. daar kon nie doekies omgedraai word nie. me bujelwa sonjica, die minister van energie en minerale, is by geleentheid deur die media voor stok gekry nadat sy in die parlement gesê het suid-afrikaners behoort die kragonderbrekings produktief te gebruik om vroeg te gaan en slaap en slimmer te word. haar uitspraak was onmiddellik in ’n politieke stofwolk gehul. daarna het sy verklaar dat wat in die parlement eintlik gebeur het, was dat sy, terwyl sy haar toespraak gemaak het, in die rede geval is deur mnr tony leon van die da. in respons op sy tussenwerpsels het sy die gewaande woorde gespreek, het me sonjica tydens ’n radio-onderhoud verduidelik.¹²⁹ die saak is nie daar gelaat die. verslaggewers het ondersoek ingestel en vasgestel dat daar in hansard-beriggewing oor die betrokke debat, geen bewyse was dat leon haar tydens haar toespraak in die rede geval het nie.¹³⁰ sonjica het, soos haar kabinetskollega, mnr eric erwin,¹³¹ geleer dat tydens ’n elektrisiteitskrisis is dit noodsaaklik om ’n reguit paadjie met die verbruikerspubliek te loop. in ’n week waarin die parlement die president se rede intensief bespreek het, was die hoogtepunt ’n mosie van wantroue in die staatspresident en die regering van al die land se opposisiepartye. die president se respons was dat die land se mense eerder moes begin om die positiewe kant van dinge te sien en te besef dat pessimisme niemand êrens gaan bring nie. hy het in goeie afrikaans verduidelik “’n boer maak ’n plan”.¹³² ’n mosie van wantroue in de regering, het weens die getallevoordeel van die anc in die parlement, nie geslaag nie. ’n aspek van regeringsbeleid wat tydens die krisis die meeste onder skoot gekom het, was swart ekonomiese bemagtiging. kritiek op die regering en eskom tydens die krisis het van meet af aan gewentel om effektiewe dienslewering en die instandhouding van infrastruktuur. die historiese rekord van prestasies van swart ekonomiese bemagtiging was veral onder die soeklig. die grootste kritiek was vanuit blanke geledere. duisende blankes, veral geskoolde en gespesialiseerde amptenare, het vanaf 1994 die staatsdiens verlaat. ’n magdom redes het bestaan vir hulle vertrek, maar die belangrikste daarvan was dat hulle benadeel in die werkplek gevoel het. eskom was een van die semi-staatsinstellings wat die beleid van swart ekonomiese bemagtiging nougeset nagestreef het. kritici was van mening dat hulle voorspellings waar geword het sapa, mbeki, zille in heart-to-heart talks” in 127. sowetan, 2008.01.28. by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/ article.aspx?id=693635 eskom, media release 1 february 2008 by 128. http://www.eskom.co.za/live/content.php?item_id=5800 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). mededeling me sonjica, tydens onderhoud op 129. classic business, classic fm 102.7. kort ná 18:00 op 2008.02.05. j gordin and l flanagan, “hansard drops sonjica in the dwang” in 130. independent online by http://www.iol.co.za/ index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=vn20080210084225761c897104 (nagegaan 2008.02.15) w jordaan, “g’n sabotasie by koeberg, erken erwin” in beeld, 2006.08.17 by 131. http://www.news24.com/ beeld/suid-afrika/0,,3-975_1984698,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.20); w pelser, “’koeberg-verdagtes geëien’” in beeld, 2006.03.02 by http://www.news24.com/beeld/suid-afrika/0,,3-975_1891328,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.20). j de lange, “hou op kla – mbeki” in 132. beeld, 2008.02.15, p. 1. tempelhoff 284 toe eskom se beleid teen april 2008 aangepas is om voorsiening te maak vir die herindiensneming van nagenoeg 300 blanke tegnici om probleme met kraglewering te help uitwis.¹³³ ook buitelandse kundiges is op grootskaal gewerf. op die blog van ’n sondagkoerant het hierdie stap ’n kritiese respons van lesers, uit alle wêrelddele gelok.¹³⁴ swartbemagtiging het verder in die spervuur van kritiek beland nadat die prys van steenkool verhoog is. in die betrokke tyd het dit aan die lig gekom dat eskom ’n groot aantal swartbemagtigingsinstansies gebruik het om steenkool te voorsien.¹³⁵ vreemde verhale het in die pers uitgekom. daar was swartbemagtigingsmaatskappye letterlik op plase in mpumalanga, sonder toestemming, met kruiwa en graaf steenkool gemyn het.¹³⁶ kritici van swartbemagtiging het dit ten sterkste veroordeel. mense wat oor die kragkrisis kommentaar gelewer het, het beklemtoon dat hulle nie rassistiese oogmerke het nie.¹³⁷ daar was egter ook dié wat aangevoer het dat die elektritisiteitskrisis wel gevoelens van rassisme sou aanwakker.¹³⁸ ’n ingenieur het suggesties van rasgebaseerde ondoeltreffendheid as ’irrelevant’ afgemaak. in die besonder het hy verwys na die minister, alec irwin, wat duidelik nie daartoe in staat was om die krisis van kragonderbrekings behoorlik te verstaan en bestuur nie.¹³⁹ ’n eskom-advertensieveldtog om gebruikers meer sensitief te maak vir die krisis, het onder fel kritiek deurgeloop. kundiges het gereken dat vals voorstellings gemaak is en elemente daarvan het rassistiese stereotipes uitgebuit.¹⁴⁰ suid-afrikaners op voetsoolvlak, het van meet af aan ook nouliks tussen die regering en eskom onderskei.¹⁴¹ die statuur van die regering – in die besonder die kabinet – is die nadeligste geraak. ’n uitstaande kenmerk was dat eskom op ’n bepaalde manier op ’n krisis in die voorsieningsproses sou reageer.¹⁴² die regering sou òf daarmee saamstem, of ’n geringe verandering aan die hand doen.¹⁴³ kort daarna sou die anc as party ook op die krisis reageer en ’n heeltemal ander standpunt inneem.¹⁴⁴ s ngalwa, “load-shedding backfires on eskom” in 133. the sunday independent, 2008.04.27, p. 3. l steenkamp, “eskom-noodkreet” in rapport, 2008.04.27, p. 1.134. korrespondensie: t aspeling – redakteur, “paying for eskom collusion” in 135. news24, 2008.04.08 by http:// www.news24.com/news24/mynews24/your_story/0,,2-2127-2128_2301954,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). anon., “eskom whistles in the dark” in 136. noseweek, 103, may 2008, p. 10. korresponedensie: d wolpert, rivonia – redakteur, “new ineptness” in 137. business day, 2008.02.13 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a704992 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). korrespondensie: i bergh, marchand redakteur, “rassisme hier om te bly” in 138. volkslad, 2008.04.09 by http://www.news24.com/die_volksblad/briewe/0,,5-89_2303206,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08). korrespondensie: g carter, wierda park – redakteur, “beyond race lines” in 139. business day, 2008.03.20 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a730850 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). a butler, “how eskom, state indecision plunged sa into darkness” in 140. business day, 2008.03.03 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a718702 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01); p mann, “eskom must manage outrage as well as outages in business day, 2008.03.11 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a725158 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29); korrespondensie: geskok, bloemfontein – redakteur, “eskom skok met morsery” in volksblad, 2008.04.04 by http://www.news24. com/die_volksblad/briewe/0,,5-89_2299719,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.07). anon., “gauteng hit most by blackouts” in 141. news24 2008.03.18 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2290289,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). sapa, “’it’s a crisis’” in 142. news24, 2008.01.20 by http://www.news24.com/news24/south_africa/ politics/0,,2-7-12_2256435,00.html (geraadpleeg op 2008.05.11). anon., “government support 53% hike” in 143. news24, 2008.03.19 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2291351,00.html (geraadpleeg op 2008.05.12). anon., “’disaster waiting to happen’” in 144. news24, 2008.05.02 by http://www.news24.com/news24/south_ africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2315408,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 285 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 hierdie tipe van respons het die indruk geskep dat die regering (die kabinet) en eskom besig was om saam te werk. in gevalle waar die anc as party gereageer het op aankondigings, wou dit voorkom asof die kabinet en eskom in besluitnemingsprosesse teengestaan is. die rede vir hierdie toedrag van sake is toegeskryf aan die historiese ontwikkeling van die kragvoorsieningsbedryf in suid-afrika. in 1987 het die voormalige np-regering die eskomwet deurgevoer. die doel daarmee was om te verseker dat eskom in infrastruktuur belê. in ruil daarvoor was die kragvoorsiener nie meer belastingpligtig nie.¹⁴⁵ in 1998 is die eskomwysigingswet, 128 van 1998 deurgevoer. die onderneming is nou in ’n maatskappy met net een aandeelhouer – die staat – omskep. daarna is die eskom conversion act, 13 van 2001 goedgekeur.¹⁴⁷ as ’n openbare onderneming was eskom steeds, soos sedert 1998, belastingpligtig en onderhewig aan die uitbetaling van dividende aan die staat.¹⁴⁸ die onderliggende politieke mentaliteit was een waarin die regerende party se leierskap daadwerklik daarvan bewus gemaak is dat intense infrastrukturele probleme in dienslewering aan die orde van die dag was. daar is egter verwag van die burgerlike bevolking om dapper voort te gaan en struikelblokke die hoof te bied. die opposisiepartye het onbewustelik daarvan bewys gelewer dat hulle in ’n bepaalde toestand van politieke realiteitsbesef verkeer het: hulle sou nie daartoe in staat wees, selfs as ’n verkiesing uitgevaardig word, om die mag in suid-afrika oor te neem nie. hierdie gevoel het bloot tot gevolg gehad dat met kritiek volgehou is. ’n strategie van hoe hulle te werk sou gaan om byvoorbeeld as ’n koalisie van partye, die regering te bedryf, het nie bestaan nie. met ander woorde, die opposisie het magteloos gevoel, en dienooreenkomstig gefunksioneer. in die politieke diskoers wat rondom die elektrisiteitskrisis gevoer is, was dit duidelik dat daar nie plek vir arrogansie was nie. die publiek het van die politieke leierskap verwag om die probleem aan te spreek. die feit dat magsverskuiwings in die regering aan die orde was, het ’n groter bereidwilligheid laat posvat om samesprekings te voer sodat planne gemaak kon word oor die wyse waarop die krisis aangespreek kon word. in die media is die moontlikheid van samewerking tussen die twee vleuels van die anc (dié in die kabinet, en dié wat in 2009 die bewind sou oorneem) sterk in twyfel getrek.¹⁴⁹ ekonomiese mentaliteit in die ekonomiese milieu het die elektrisiteitskrisis van 2008 veral op twee terreine besonder sterk na vore gekom. eerstens het dit gegaan oor produksie in die mynbousektor. dié was aan bande gelê. tweedens het dit gegaan oor die moontlikheid dat grootskeepse werkloosheid, indien onderbrekings moes voortduur. veral buitelandse beleggers en ondernemings wat aangewese was op suid-afrikaanse minerale, het die ontluikende krisissituasie nougeset dopgehou.¹⁵⁰ sprekend van die krisis was die feit dat die prys van anon., “eskom whistles in the dark” in 145. noseweek, 103, may 2008, p. 7. kennisgewing 1669, kantoor van die staatspresident, 18 desember 1998 in 146. staatskoerant van die republiek van suid-afrika, nr 19617, 2008.12.18, pp. 1-6. notice 721, office of the presidencey, 3 august 2001, in 147. government gazette of the republic of south africa, no. 22545, 2001.08.03, pp. 2-5. anon., “eskom whistles in the dark” in 148. noseweek, 103, may 2008, p. 7. redaksionele kommentaar, “reds nou solution to power problem” in 149. business day, 2008.04.28 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a752677 (geraadspleeg 2008.04.28). m klein, “london reassurance” in 150. sowetan, 2008.02.21 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/specialreports/ budget2008/article.aspx?id=710684 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). tempelhoff 286 veral goud en platinum die hoogte in geskiet het. desondanks was die vooruitsig van werkloosheid ’n wesentlike vrees by baie suid-afrikaners.¹⁵¹ die kragkrisis het, bykans onmiddellik in die handelsektor geregistreer. reeds voor die einde van januarie 2008, was daar berigte van groot verliese wat in winkelsentrums gely is.¹⁵² die implikasies van korter handelsure en onderbrekings in dienslewering het vinnig ingesink.¹⁵³ teen april het huurders van kommersiële persele eienaars versoek om huurgeld te verlaag. beurtkrag was besig om hul handelsgeleenthede te raak. dit het bepaalde implikasies vir die inkopiesentra ingehou. die kleinhuurders was vir die eiendomsmaatskappy van besondere waarde. hulle het hoër huurgeld betaal as kettingwinkelgroepe.¹⁵⁴ die kleinsakeondernemings was nou uitgelewer en die eienaars van inkopiesentra moes opnuut besin oor hulle huurders en moontlike toegewings wat gemaak kon word. in sommige handelsektore was daar goeie besigheid. in die vroeë fase van kragonderbrekings was veral sonligverwarmingstelsels vir huishoudelike water, teen sowat r20 000 per eenheid, in groot aanvraag. die regering was vinnig om kennis te neem van die wyse waarop die chinese ekonomie en kragvoorsieningsinfrastruktuur baat gevind het by die infasering van sonpanele vir warmwatervoorsiening.¹⁵⁵ plaaslike ondernemers – veral in die loodgietersbedryf – het ook begin om van die nuwe tegnologie kennis te neem. daar was ook oorywerige kleinhandelaars wat oordeelsfoute gemaak het. teen mei 2008 was dit duidelik dat nie alle verbruikers deur paniekaankope op sleeptou geneem is nie. by een van die land se groot hardeware winkelgroepe is is die prys van petrolkragopwekkers met 20 per sent verlaag nadat die vraag na dié toerusting vinnig afgeneem het.¹⁵⁶ van meet af aan was dit duidelik dat verbruikers sou moes betaal om die land se kragvoorsiener te help. in die jaarlikse begroting het die regering aangekondig dat dit sowat r60 biljoen aan eskom die volgende vyf jaar sou gee. van verbruikers is verwag om 2 sent in die vorm van belasting te betaal vir elke kilowattuur wat krag gebruik is.¹⁵⁷ daaroor was baie ongelukkigheid. dit het belastingskwessies na vore gebring. joffre papenfus het in ’n brief aan ’n koerant aangevoer dat belastingbetalers moes verenig en weier om belasting te betaal. trouens, daar moes eintlik ’n rabat van 100 persent aan hulle terugbetaal moet n mawson, “electricity crisis may affect job market in 151. business day, 2008.03.28 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a726149 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29); staff reporter, “7000 jobs at risk” in sowetan, 2008.02.26 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article.aspx?id=713944 (geraadpleeg, 2008.05.02). s piliso en s govender, “eskom pulls the plug on southern africa” in 152. the times, 2008.01.19 by http://www. thetimes.co.za/news/article.aspx?id=685437 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). l paulsson, “investment crucial for power generation” in 153. business day, 2008.04.19 by http://www.businessday. co.za/weekender/article.aspx?id=bd4a751879 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.28). property editor, “power cuts ‘to hit listed retail property firms’” in 154. business day, 2008.04.11 by http://www. businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a746312 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.28). dr. xiaodong wang (world bank), “technical assistance for energy efficiency in south africa”, powerpoint 155. presentation government workshop, sandton, 2008.02.11. v de klerk, “retailers still feel eskom blues” in 156. news24, 2008.05.05 by http://www.news24.com/news24/ south_africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2316870,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). j avni en z mokgata, “consumers to pay more for energy” in 157. sowetan, 2008.02.21 by http://www.sowetan. co.za/news/specialreports/budget2008/article.aspx?id=710767 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 287 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 word, in maandelikse paaiemente vir die skade wat gely is tydens kragonderbrekings.¹⁵⁸ die regering het ook genoem dat krag in die toekoms duurder sou word.¹⁵⁹ briefskrywers aan koerante het gevolglik verbruikers aangeraai om kritiese vrae te stel oor uitermatige kragtariewe wat hulle aan plaaslike owerhede moes betaal.¹⁶⁰ daar was twyfel in die vermoë van die plaaslike en sentrale regering om oordeelkundig die krisis te bestuur. kort nadat die kragkrisis in januarie 2008 begin het, het die regering en sakeleiers hande gevat. op 8 februarie, by geleentheid van sy openingsrede van die nuwe jaar se parlementsitting, het pres. mbeki verduidelik dat hy daarvan bewus was dat baie mense in die samelewing ’n diepgesetelde gevoel van ongemak gekoester het. hy het wel die versekering gegee dat die krisis intensief ondersoek word en dat nywerheidsleiers van oordeel was dat die situasie nie ’n ramp verteenwoordig het nie. dit kon wel opgelos word.¹⁶¹ dit het gevolg op samesprekinge wat vroeër tussen 131 van die land se topbestuurders van 38 groot maatskappye met die regering gevoer is. die boodskap wat by die publiek tuisgebring is, het daarop gedui dat die regering, in samewerking met die privaatsektor, alles in werking sou stel om die krisis aan te spreek.¹⁶² opvolggesprekke het plaasgevind en dit was spoedig duidelik dat konstruktiewe planne aan die hand gedoen is.¹⁶³ insette deur die sakeleiers en verteenwoordigers van die wêreldbank, eskom het bepaald daartoe meegewerk dat korporatiewe stresvlakke vlakke aansienlik verlaag is.¹⁶⁴ dit wou voorkom asof sakelui die regering wou bystaan. in sakenuus is selfs verklaar dat kritiek teen die regering se hantering van die elektrisiteitskrisis ongegrond was.¹⁶⁵ die groot voordeel van samewerking was dat die sakelui ’n indrukwekkende arsenaal van navorsingsdeskundigheid kon inspan om proaktief op die elektrisiteitskrisis te fokus. byvoorbeeld, navorsers van avior het die voorbeeld van die brasiliaanse kragkrisis in 2001 gebruik en ’n futuristiese beeld van verwagte tendense in die kleinhandel weergegee. onder meer is bevind dat daar ’n afname in verbruikersvertroue gaan wees. verbruikers sou straks minder nie-noodsaaklike goed begin koop. ook kraggedrewe goedere sou minder geredelik gekoop word. daar sou eerder na alternatiewe opsies gekyk word. mense sou begin om eerder gaslampe en stowe te koop. dit sou moontlik wees dat verbruikers kleiner hoeveelhede goed begin koop deurdat hulle nie bederfbare goedere in grootmaat wou hou nie. donker winkelsentrums was sleg vir besigheid. kruidenierwinkels moes daarop bedag wees dat hulle met j papenfus, pretoria – redakteur, “demand a rebate” in 158. business day, 2008.02.06 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?id=bd4a699743 j avni, “high power bills coming: electricity users to dig deeper into their pockets in next five years” in 159. sowetan, 2008.02.22 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article.aspx?id=711748 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). h boesenberg, monumentpark – redakteur, “wat kos elektrisiteit in jou area?” in 160. beeld, 2008.02.19, by http://www.news24.com/beeld/opinie/briewe/0,,3-2085-73_2273640,00.html m&g reporter and sapa, “we shall overcome, says mbeki” in 161. mail & guardian, 2008.02.08 by http://www. mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?articleid=331814&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/ (geraadpleeg op 2008.02.15.) j visser, “eskom, sakelui vorm taakspan teen kragkrisis” in 162. sake-beeld, 2008.01.22 by http://152.111.1.251/ argief/berigte/beeld/2008/01/22/b1/1/jveskom.html mediaverklaring, “presidential joint working group on electricity” by 163. the presidency republic of south africa, 2008.02.28 at http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/main.asp?include=president/pr/2008/pr0229842.htm kyk o.m. pp-aanbiedings wat by die geleentheid aangebied is. bulk procurement of energy-efficient 164. equipment; south africa. energy efficiency policies and institutional arrangements; managing capacity and energy shortfalls – experience from california; institutional arrangements for energy efficiency; l maurer, implementing power rationing in a sensible way: lessons learned and international best practices. j de lange, “los kleinsieligheid oor eskom” in 165. sakebeeld, 2009.02.19 by http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/ beeld/2008/02/19/b1/12/jansakesiening.html tempelhoff 288 groter hoeveelhede bederfbare goedere opgeskeep sou wees.¹⁶⁶ ofskoon baie sakemense die regering – lees die kabinet – goedgesind was, en moontlik wou help, het dieselfde houding nie teenoor eskom, die kragvoorsiener, gegeld nie. die kragkrisis het die ekonomie regstreeks geraak. in die eerste drie maande van 2008 het sakevertroue in die land se vervaardigingsektor, volgens die buro vir ekonomiese navorsing, tot vlakke gedaal wat laas in 2003 geregistreer is.¹⁶⁷ in die media is die openbare ondernemingsminister, eric erwin, gekritiseer nadat hy verklaar het dat suid-afrika ’n jaarlikse groeikoers van tussen 4 en 5 persent sou kon volhou tot 2010 wanneer die sokkerwêreldbeker aangebied word.¹⁶⁸ sakelui het prontuit verklaar dat swak bestuur by eskom die oorsaak van die krisis was.¹⁶⁹ een briefskrywer aan die pers, dr lucas ntyintanyane, het eskom se bestuur gekritiseer vir die nastrewing van middelmatigheid. uitnemendheid, was nie meer relevant nie in ’n omgewing wat paradoksale waardesisteme gelate aanvaar het.¹⁷⁰ sakelui het ook dat eskom nie geweet hoe om op krisisomstandighede te reageer nie. die kragvoorsiener het hom beroep op ’n bestuurstrategie, bekend as vraagkantbestuur (in engels: demand side management [dsm]). hierdie is ’n strategiese bestuursintervensie wat in die 1980s in die verenigde state van amerika ingevoer is. in suid-afrika is vir die eerste keer in 1992 van die strategie gebruik gemaak.¹⁷¹ daar bestaan rede om te glo dat die besluit wat in 1997 geneem is om nie verdere uitbreidings aan die infrastruktuur van eskom aan te bring nie, waarskynlik deur hierdie beleid beïnvloed is. bestuurslui in die vervaardiging en handelsektor was vinnig om die vraagkantbestuurstrategie van eskom te kritiseer. dit was veral ná groot tariefverhogings (53 persent) deur eskom op 18 maart 2008 voorgestel is.¹⁷² die pessimisme van sommige sakeleiers het duidelik ’n invloed op die publiek gehad. eskom was duidelik nie daartoe in staat om met die privaatsektor om die hart en siel van die publiek mee te ding nie. die gevolg was dat voortgesette gerugte van ’n klaarblyklike gebrek aan ’n gepaste bestuurstrategie, die aansien van die kragvoorsiener nadelig getref het.¹⁷³ intussen het onenigheid tussen die leiers van die anc en die land se regering, invloedryke mense in die sakewêreld ook regstreeks beïnvloed. veral op die terrein van tariefverhogings – ’n materiële saak wat die besigheidswêreld regstreeks aangestaan het – is die gebrek aan eenheid in die regering as ’n swakheid n brand, “sa kan lesse leer uit brasiliaanse kragkrisis – navorsingsgroep” in 166. sakebeeld, 2008.02.19, p. b1 by http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld/2008/02/19/b1/1/nbretail_1342.html m isa, “hope for exports even as output dips” in 167. business day, 2008.03.18 by http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a729268 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). k seekoei, “economic myth grows as power demand recedes” in 168. sowetan, 2008.01.30. a butler, “how eskom, state indecision plunged sa into darkness” in 169. business day, 2008.03.03 by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a718702 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.01). korrespondensie: dr. l ntyintyane, cresta – redakteur, “strive for better” in 170. business day, 2008.03.31 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a736997 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). eskom, “about…” by 171. http://www.eskom.co.za/live/content.php?category_id=25 (geraadpleeg 2008.0510). anon., “eskom wants 535 tariff hike” in 172. news24, 2008.03.18 by http://www.news24.com/news24/south_ africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2290470,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.12). ʼn soortgelyke strategie (watervraagbestuur) is deur rand water, tydens die ernstige droogtetydperk van 173. die 1980’s nagevolg. ofskoon die beleid aanvanklik met welslae toegepas is, het dit tot grootskeepse verbruikersweerstand aanleiding gegee namate daar sprake was van ʼn kunsmatige verlenging van beperkings. kyk jwn tempelhoff, “from water restrictions to water demand management: rand water and water shortages on the south african landscape (1983-2003)” in ps juuti, ts katko and hs vuorinen (eds.), environmental history of water – global views on community water supply and sanitation, (iwa publishing, london, 2007), pp. 531-562. sa kragonderbrekings 2008 289 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 gesien wat aangeval kon word.¹⁷⁴ leierskap is in twyfel getrek. dit het algemene kennis geword dat selfs die openbare beskermer (ob) wat ondersoek na die kragkrisis ingestel het, het tou opgegooi nadat ’n parlementêre ondersoek na die krisis min lig op die elektrisiteitskrisis kon werp.¹⁷⁵ tussendeur is die bestuurslui van eskom deur die kommunikasiekundige peter mann, aangeraai om regstreeks beheer van die krisis te probeer neem. ferm leierskap was nodig. hulle moes minder arrogant wees. die publiek moes nie onverwags sonder krag gelaat word nie. inligting moes doeltreffend en deurlopend bestuur word, sonder dat ’n enkele woordvoerder vir al die onderneming se foute verantwoording doen.¹⁷⁶ ondanks waarskuwings dat dit noodsaaklik was om akkuraat inligting aan die publiek deur te gee oor wanneer en waar beurtkrag sou plaasvind, het eskom dit nie altyd gedoen nie. soms is groot foute gemaak en elektroniese regstellings het wantroue by die publiek geskep.¹⁷⁷ ’n voorbeeld van hierdie wantroue was die feit dat selfs toe daar aan die einde van april 2008 bekend gemaak is dat beurtkrag opgeskort is, was daar woordvoerders van plaaslike owerhede wat nie eens daarvan bewus was nie.¹⁷⁸ die ontevredenheid van mense met die kommunikasie van eskom is duidelik weerspieël in hul onwilligheid om ‘eskom-taal’ te aanvaar. in die gewone omgang is die term ‘beurtkrag’, bekend as ‘load shedding’ in engels, wat deur eskom ingevoer is, summier verwerp.¹⁷⁹ daar is verduidelik dat dit ’n ‘spindoctered’poging was om ’n alternatiewe naam vir eenvoudige kragonderbrekings te gee.¹⁸⁰ vir hillary joffe was dit ‘serial load shedding’, ‘outage slippage’ en ‘load losses’ wat eintlik net beter lig op ‘system recovery process’ en ’n ‘power conservation programme’ gewerp het.¹⁸¹ ironies is die feit dat die gebruik van eufemistiese terminologie om kragonderbrekings te beskryf, reeds aan die begin van januarie 2008 ten sterkste deur kundiges afgeraai is.¹⁸² die bestuur van eskom het hulle klaarblyklik nie aan die advies gesteur nie. tydens die elektrisiteitskrisis het ontwikkelingsinisiatiewe van die regering ook onder skoot gekom. die wenslikheid van die beplande aluminiumsmelter van rio tinto alcan by koega, naby port elizabeth, is reeds vroeg in die era van kragonderbrekings bevraagteken.¹⁸³ die projek het ten doel gehad om anon., “editors query eskom ‘secrets’” in 174. news24, 2008.04.09 by http://www.news24.com/news24/south_ africa/power_crisis/0,,2-7-2335_2303033,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). w johwa, “public protector probes reveal few answers” in 175. business day, 2008.02.15 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a706885 (geraadpleg 2008.05.01). p mann, “eskom must manage outrage as well as outages in 176. business day, 2008.03.11 by http://www. businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a725158 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29). anon, “matter will corrode before telkom gives up the loop” in 177. business day, 2008.03.04 by http://www. businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a719399 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.29); korrespondensie: j venter, pellissier – redakteur, “waarom so agterbaks?” in volksblad, 2008.03.19 by http://www.news24.com/ die_volksblad/briewe/0,,5-89_2290674,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.08). n mfusi, “sigh of relief over end to blackouts” in 178. the mercury, 2008.05.02, p. 3 by http://www.iol.co.za/index. php?set_id=1&click_id=3053&art_id=vn20080502081246977c808193 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.04). t molefe, “the candle generation may now shed a lot of fun” in 179. sowetan, 2008.01.24 by http://www.sowetan. co.za/columnists/thembamolefe/article.aspx?id=690485 (geraadpleeg 2008.03.05). n moreosele, “load shedding ignites creative naming frenzy” in 180. sowetan, 2008.01.29 by http://www.sowetan. co.za/columnists/andrewmolefe/article.aspx?id=693394 h joffe, “size of the problem will depend on nature of our solutions” in 181. business day, 2008.02.06. by http:// www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?id=bd4a699628 anon., “call a blackout a blackout!” in energy crisis – south africa, 2007.12.13 by 182. http://energycrisis. co.za/?p=3 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.10). reuters, “eskom to review coega deal” in 183. sowetan, 2008.01.31 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article. aspx?id=695346 (nagegaan 2008.02.03). tempelhoff 290 ekonomiese ontwikkeling in die oos-kaap te bevorder. vroeër het die voorgenome projek onder skoot van omgewingsbewustes en ingenieurs gekom. daar is gewaarsku dat die smeltery ’n energie-intensiewe bedryf was wat ’n omgewingsonvriendelike ontwikkeling op die suid-afrikaanse platteland sou toelaat. die produksie was ook grootliks vir buitelandse markte bestem. die fabriek sou nagenoeg 1355mw elektriese krag – sowat 4 per sent van die totale kapasiteit van die land benodig om in bedryf te bly.¹⁸⁴ teen februarie 2008 was die aanduidings dat die koega projek sou voortgaan. die staat wou graag buitelandse beleggers trek met die vooruitsig van goedkoop elektrisiteitstariewe.¹⁸⁵ daar is selfs gepoog om die publiek te paai deur bekend te maak dat ’n biobrandstof-aanleg ook by koega opgerig sou word.¹⁸⁶ tussendeur is voortgegaan om die koega-projek te gebruik om beleggerskapitaal na suidafrika te lok.¹⁸⁷ plaaslike sakelui het egter voet by stuk gehou dat die beplande ontwikkelingsprojek in die toekoms die wind van voor sou kry.¹⁸⁸ ’n voordelige ontwikkeling tydens die elektrisiteitskrisis was dat ’n ou debat, oor die privatisering van kragdienslewering, nuwe lewe gekry het. die sterkste argument ten gunste van privatisering was dat eskom nie meer oor die menslike hulpbronne en kundigheid beskik het om pro-aktief te krag te voorsien nie. dit moes eerder die taak van die privaatsektor word.¹⁸⁹ eskom het probeer terugkrabbel. binne die raamwerk van die vryemarkfilosofie, is verklaar, sou meer toegewings gemaak word. intussen het buitelandse elektrisiteitsmaatskappye planne gemaak om in suid-afrika kraginstallasies op die been te bring.¹⁹⁰ die respons van plaaslike ondernemings op die krisis was interessant. terwyl daar inderdaad belangstelling was om krag teen ’n wins te voorsien, het veral groot nywerheidsondernemings intussen strategiese beplanning gedoen om na kragvoorsiening vir hul eie behoeftes om te sien. teen die einde van april 2008 het eskom te kenne gegee dat private kragvoorsieners aktief gewerf sou word. daar het ’n vraag na 4000mw krag (4% van die land se totale energiebehoeftes) bestaan.¹⁹¹ die tyd sou leer hoe hierdie vraag aangespreek kon word. m le roux, “cheaper power lure for foreign investors” in 184. business day. 2008.02.06 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/dailymailer.aspx?id=bd4a699789. ibid.185. sapa, “soybean biofuel plant for coega?” in 186. iol, 2008.03.18 by http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_ id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=nw20080318081201325c751872 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.28). anon., “coega upbeat despite power setback” in busin187. ess day, 2008.04.08 by http://www.businessday. co.za/articles/saexporter.aspx?id=bd4a743812 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.28): r van zyl, “aluminium smelter still viable investors told, sowetan, 2008.03.17 by http://www.sowetan.co.za/news/article.aspx?id=728187 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.02). in oktober 2009 is aangekondig dat die projek wat $2,7-miljard sou kos, weens eskom se produksietekorte 188. op die langebaan geskuif is. kyk t craemer, “$2,7bn smelter becomes power-crunch casualty” in engineering news, 2009.10.15 by http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/27bn-smelter-beomes-power-crunchcasualty-2009-10-15 (geraadpleeg 2009.12.08). t cohen, “monday comment: privatising electricity generation has been a bright idea around the world” in 189. business day, 2008.02.18 by http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/bottomline.aspx?id=bd4a708301 s njobeni, “solar plant to sell electricity” in 190. business day, 2008.04.25 by http://www.businessday.co.za/ articles/article.aspx?id=bd4a756325 (geraadpleeg 2008.04.28) t craemer, “eskom issues new tender for 2100mw of independent base-load capacity” in 191. engineering news, 2008.04.30 by http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=132412 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.09). sa kragonderbrekings 2008 291 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 262-292 gevolgtrekking samelewingsontevredenheid met die elektriese kragonderbrekings wat tussen januarie en april 2008 in suid-afrika aan die orde was, kan in baie opsigte beskou word as ‘n kapstok wat gebruik was om ’n bepaalde inhoud aan ’n uitsonderlike tyd in die land se geskiedenis te gee. omstandighede van swak ekonomiese ontwikkeling het die land se mense ongelukkig gestem. die bril waarmee hulle aan die begin van 2008 na die werklikheid gekyk het, was een wat gekenmerk is deur ’n mentaliteit van swak materiële vooruitsigte. stygende rentekoerse, duurder brandstof, hoër elektrisiteitstariewe en nou kragonderbrekings, het ’n galbitter mengeldrankie voorberei vir ’n gees van ontevredenheid, frustrasie en magteloosheid. dit is interessant dat die belangrikste motiveringsprekers in die land destyds twee engelstalige mans was wat ’n groot deel van hulle lewe in koloniale en later onafhanklike afrikastate deurgebring het. die een was die skoolhoof van ’n private seunskool¹⁹² en die ander ’n aartappelboer wat prediker geword het.¹⁹³ die woorde van hierdie mense het veel daartoe bygedra om deursnee suid-afrikaners met ’n meer ruim gemoed na die ‘swaarkry van die hede’ te laat kyk. op die politieke terrein het die krisis rondom kragonderbrekings ’n groter mate van verdeeldheid en oënskynlike wanorde in die hand gewerk. gewone suid-afrikaners het die land se regering regstreeks met eskom vereenselwig. daar was ’n duidelike besef dat, ná die polokwane-konferensie van die anc, die kabinet van mbeki nie meer namens die regerende anc-alliansie gepraat het nie. die aftakeling van betroubare magstrukture het eskom as ’n openbare onderneming buitengewoon kwesbaar gemaak. dat baie van die kritiek regstreeks voor die deur van eskom gelê is, was verstaanbaar. daar was onweerlegbare bewyse van swak bestuur, verkeerde besluite wat geneem is, swak (selfs onbetroubare) finansiële besluitneming en ’n geskiedenis van politiekgemotiveerde bestuursintervensies wat nie in die belang van die land en sy inwoners was nie. in die ekonomiese milieu is die leemtes vinnig raakgesien. in ’n mededingende sektor waar wins die lewensvatbaarheid van ondernemings bepaal, het sakeleiers min genade gehad vir omstandighede wat, as gevolg van verwaarlosing, hulle winste weggeneem het. ‘n belangrike denkrigting was ‘n debat oor die privatisering van kragvoorsiening – ‘n tendens wat in die vsa in die vyftigerjare van die twintigste eeu posgevat het, toe die wêreld se voorste kapitalistiese ekonomie ongekende vooruitgang begin maak het.¹⁹⁴ dat suid-afrikaners, veral in die metropolitaanse sentra van die land, ’n waardevolle les geleer het, ly geen twyfel nie. hulle het besef dat dit noodsaaklik was om verantwoordelik met elektrisiteit om te gaan. in 2006 toe die wes-kaap onder kragonderbrekings mank gegaan het, was mense in die binneland bykans d knowles, “is there hope for sa?” in 192. daily news, 2008.04.09 by http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_ id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=vn20080409103318675c482494 (geraadpleeg 2008.05.20). n jackson, “40 000 mans bid saam in grootste saamtrek nóg”`in 193. beeld, 2008.04.17 by http://www.news24. com/beeld/suid-afrika/0,,3-975_2307951,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.20). kyk as voorbeeld, w wells, “public power in the eisenhower administration” in 194. the journal of policy history, 20(2), april 2008, pp. 227-262. tempelhoff 292 onbewus van die wesentlike implikasies van kragonderbrekings. hulle het net sydelings van die weskapenaars se lotgevalle kennis geneem.¹⁹⁵ teen 2008, nadat almal aan voortdurende kragonderbrekings vir meer as drie maande bloot gestel is, was daar aanduidings dat hulle besef het hoe noodsaaklik dit was om verantwoordelik met krag om te gaan. gemiddelde per capita kraggebruik het reeds teen februarie 2008 duidelik afgeneem. laastens, wil dit voorkom asof mense iets uit die kragonderbrekings geleer het. daar is kennis geneem van innoverende soeke na oplossings. ook het ’n gees van omgewingsbewustheid prominent op die voorgrond getree. die feit dat baie suid-afrikaners teen mei 2008 waarskynlik steeds depressief was oor die vooruitsigte van potensiële verval in die land was nie meer van uitermatige belang nie. hulle het waarskynlik ander faktore, soos die situasie in zimbabwe, belangriker gereken as ’n aanduiding van afrika se agteruitgang. dit was meer opvallend as die kragkrisis wat reeds bykans vergete was. dat hulle steeds wantrouig was, ly geen twyfel nie. die feit dat eskom teen meimaand kon voortgaan om krag te lewer, asof daar nog nooit onderbrekings was nie, het mense ’n vraagteken agter die werklike noodsaak vir beurtkrag in die eerste plek laat trek. opsluit het dit in 2008 gegaan oor politieke dinamika in die menslike milieu van alledaagse kulturele interaksie. dit was – met apologie aan george orwell – duidelik dat die mense van 2008 net in die toekoms kon sien wat in ooreenstemming met hul eie wense vir die toekoms ooreengestem het. die mees opvallende feite het hulle, net soos ons in 2018, geïgnoreer, omdat dit nie welkom was nie. dit is net verbasend dat mense destyds (in 2008) so min vir krag betaal het! m o’ connor, “krag-knope wag nog lank op kaap” in 195. beeld, 2008.03.06 by http://www.news24.com/beeld/ suid-afrika/0,,3-975_1892023,00.html (geraadpleeg 2008.05.20). http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents i original research the volatility of institutional arrangements that influence development: the case of bram fischer international airport in south africa masilonyane mokhele the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a436 | 22 january 2018 original research potential socio-economic consequences of mine closure marietjie ackermann, doret botha, gerrit van der waldt the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a458 | 26 january 2018 original research food security, wheat production and policy in south africa: reflections on food sustainability and challenges for a market economy francois de wet, ian liebenberg the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a407 | 30 january 2018 original research monitoring and evaluation: the missing link in south african municipalities david m. mello the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a409 | 31 january 2018 original research evaluation of municipal e-government readiness using structural equation modelling technique seena joseph, oludayo o. olugbara the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a356 | 26 february 2018 original research a scoping review of digital open badge ecosystems in relation to resource-constrained environments preia motheeram, marlien herselman, adele botha the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a463 | 26 march 2018 original research underlying correlates of consumers’ attitudes towards chinese apparel and relationship with purchase intention in south africa asphat muposhi, manilall dhurup, roy m. shamhuyenhanzva the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a518 | 16 may 2018 original research corporate social responsibility as a drive to community development and poverty reduction: a stakeholder approach to development in zimbabwe addmore t. muruviwa, fhulu h. nekhwevha, wilson akpan the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a440 | 07 june 2018 71 79 90 101 107 117 127 137 page i of iii table of contents i editorial transdisciplinary diversity for resolving contemporary problems? johann tempelhoff the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a644 | 10 december 2018 original research a perfect storm: the ramifications of cape town’s drought crisis wessel p. visser the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a567 | 28 november 2018 original research turning the herding lifestyle into a learning opportunity: experiences from lesotho selloane pitikoe the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a521 | 15 november 2018 original research employing sentiment analysis for gauging perceptions of minorities in multicultural societies: an analysis of twitter feeds on the afrikaner community of orania in south africa eduan kotzé, burgert senekal the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a564 | 15 november 2018 original research financing emerging black farmers for agricultural development in south africa: a wasteful and unworkable model for creating black farmers mokoko p. sebola the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a555 | 24 october 2018 original research peace operations in southern africa: challenges and prospects for the southern african development community standby force emeka a. ndaguba the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a509 | 11 september 2018 original research the poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliation andreas g. velthuizen, kate d. ferguson the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a472 | 25 june 2018 original research the taming wicked problems framework: a plausible biosocial contribution to ‘ending aids by 2030’ christopher j. burman the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a401 | 19 june 2018 1 3 13 23 34 41 49 59 vol 14, no 1 (2018) issn: 1817-4434 (print) | issn: 2415-2005 (online)the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa http://www.td-sa.net� http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents ii original research the influence of a metacognitive approach to cooperative pair problem-solving on self-direction in learning betty breed, roxanne bailey the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a516 | 11 june 2018 original research theoretical analysis of state capture and its manifestation as a governance problem in south africa maurice o. dassah the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a473 | 14 june 2018 original research rethinking corruption in contemporary african philosophy: old wine cannot fit emeka a. ndaguba, onyinye j. ndaguba, michel m. tshiyoyo, kgothatso b. shai the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a465 | 18 june 2018 original research genopolitics: the dormant niche in political science curriculum in south african universities mlamuli n. hlatshwayo, kehdinga g. fomunyam the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a470 | 26 june 2018 original research uncovering the strengths and weaknesses of outsourcing core business deliverables: the case of selected state-owned enterprises in south africa marcia magagula, robert w.d. zondo the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a475 | 26 july 2018 original research the appropriateness of the design of experiments to support lean six sigma for variability reduction robert w.d. zondo the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a469 | 27 september 2018 original research corporate governance in africa’s public sector for sustainable development: the task ahead daniel chigudu the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a512 | 11 october 2018 146 157 167 177 186 193 199 original research a content analysis of e-cigarettes selling propositions on south african retail websites asphat muposhi, manilall dhurup the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a552 | 19 november 2018 original research masculinities and femininities through teachers’ voices: implications on gender-equitable schooling for vulnerable children from three primary schools in swaziland ncamsile d. motsa the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a540 | 20 november 2018 original research greening up in logistics: managerial perceptions of small and medium-sized enterprises on sustainability in zimbabwe progress hove-sibanda, kin sibanda, peter mukarumbwa the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a559 | 27 november 2018 original research the evolution of south african wastewater effluent parameters and their regulation: a brief history of the drivers, institutions, needs and challenges kevin wall the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a581 | 29 november 2018 original research contextual factors promoting psychosocial well-being and safe sexual behaviour in african male youth: a literature review jabulani g. kheswa, chrizanne van eeden the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a375 | 03 december 2018 original research drug use and postgraduate students’ career prospects: implications for career counselling intervention strategies thabiso muswede, cornelis j. roelofse the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a523 | 03 december 2018 209 215 224 237 248 256 vol 14, no 2 (2018): transdisciplinary manifestations in humanities, social sciences and social studies education editorial editorial johan wassermann the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a635 | 03 december 2018 264 original research ‘from history project to transdisciplinary research’: district six as a case study mogamat n. davids the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a507 | 25 june 2018 266 page ii of iii http://www.td-sa.net� http://www.td-sa.net open access table of contents iii original research restorying for transdisciplinarity: a proposed teaching-learning strategy in a context of human rights education janet jarvis the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a483 | 28 june 2018 original research south african social sciences teachers’ views on the integration of history and geography in the general education and training phase leevina m. iyer the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a482 | 08 august 2018 original research the representation of the temporal notion of post-colonial africa in south african history textbooks marshall t. maposa the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a485 | 14 august 2018 original research crossing disciplinary boundaries: students’ experiences of facilitating a learning support programme at a south african university sithabile ntombela, samukelisiwe mngomezulu the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a487 | 27 august 2018 original research the ‘firstness’ of male as automatic ordering: gendered discourse in southern african business studies school textbooks preya pillay, suriamurthee maistry the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a484 | 12 september 2018 original research a transdisciplinary exploration: reading peace education and teaching english to speakers of other languages through multiple literacies theory frans kruger, rinelle evans the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a525 | 17 september 2018 274 283 290 298 305 314 original research a comprehensive model for assessing student teachers’ professional competence through an integrated curriculum approach nhlanhla mpofu, mncedisi c. maphalala the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a486 | 20 september 2018 original research linguistic challenges faced by rural tshivenda-speaking teachers when grade 4 learners transition to english rinelle evans, ipfani nthulana the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a545 | 24 october 2018 original research beginner teachers’ experiences of transdisciplinary demands of a school curriculum yolandi woest the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a488 | 13 november 2018 original research first-year history education students’ personal narratives of the history of south africa johan wassermann the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a585 | 27 november 2018 original research reflecting on more than 20 years of involvement in a postgraduate higher education qualification for academics: may i dare use an auto-ethnographic lens? pieter du toit the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 2 | a481 | 03 december 2018 reviewer acknowledgement the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa | vol 14, no 1 | a633 | 05 december 2018 321 330 339 346 354 366 page iii of iii http://www.td-sa.net� td and aosis 2016 reference footnote about the author(s) johann tempelhoff school of basic sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom campus, south africa citation tempelhoff, j., 2016, ‘the well-tempered way of transcending disciplines and solving urban problems’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 12(1), a392. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/td.v12i1.392 editorial the well-tempered way of transcending disciplines and solving urban problems johann tempelhoff copyright: © 2016. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. what does contemporary urban planning have in common with j.s. bach’s two booklets composed in 1722 and 1742 on the well-tempered clavier? judging from a recent publication by jonathan f.p. rose, the answer is: just about everything. working from the realisation that modernist urban planning is in need of substantial revision, rose a developer, town planner and innovative thinker on the concept of the city, has courageously opened up a different way for us to understand the need for linking urban dwellers up into communities who are able to comfortably and meaningfully experience the environments in which they live (rose 2016). the music of bach was responsible in the 18th century for introducing a new system of tuning musical instruments dating back to pythagoras (~570 to ~495 bce). the latter, as mathematician, was responsible for a theory of notes based on ‘the harmony of the spheres’. bach, working from zhu zaiyu’s fusion of music and calendar (1580) transmitted to western europe by matteo ricci and the subsequent work of andreas werckmeister (1687), changed the way we today understand music. bach’s well-tempered clavier is not only exquisite and fine to listen to, but most inspiring for those who can simultaneously think and listen to music. at a recent session of the long now foundation in san francisco, rose discussed the well-tempered city: what modern science, ancient civilisations, and human nature teach us about the future of urban life.1 the presentation was well received by some of the leading buffs in the united states preoccupied with contemplating the past and future on time scales extending 10 000 years. sub-saharan africa is currently one of the fastest urbanising continents on the globe, and many of our urban social-ecological problems stem from an apparent inability to learn from the past and integrated with our anticipation of what we need to have to move successfully from the present into the future. rose’s thinking is succinct. he writes with great clarity. perhaps we in southern africa can explore some current north american experiments in urban renewal, development and planning. as a planner, developer and creative thinker, rose has worked internationally in collaboration with local authorities and not-for-profit organisations to add value to the quality of human lives in an urban environment. he is sensitive to the concept of integrated urban environment where there is space for community formations that accommodate the needs of the wealthy and the less than wealthy, as well as intellectuals and those engaged in industrial and commercial activities in our cities. interestingly, he argues that after nature (the most complex system we know of) cities are increasingly becoming more complex. we need to comprehend and find solutions to issues of complicatedness in the world’s urban spaces. the city is still a great magnet for humankind in all parts of the globe. it will remain the case for the foreseeable future. therefore, we need to explore useful ways of cohabiting in these spaces. rose’s work is worth exploring for those of us who have an interest in wandering along the less explored transdisciplinary avenues of intellectual thought. td and aosis 2016 in reflecting on 2016 at td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, we are able to report that our foray into the formal publishing field of open-access publication is making good progress. some of our valued co-workers (authors, reviewers and editorial members) have queried the more it-orientated character of the journal. aosis staffers have been most helpful in assisting both authors and reviewers if and where they experienced problems in accessing and processing material. the website (http://www.td-sa.net/) is becoming more user-friendly as we respond to user queries and suggestions. there have also been comments on the higher price of publishing. on that topic, we can say much in defence of open access publishing and the relatively small price authors pay for proper peer reviewed and accredited journal articles. what stands out in the latest edition of the journal is the quality of the publication. we have certainly managed to lift the bar in terms of the page layout and design, language editing services, proofreading standards and compliance with international academic publishing standards. we are open for suggestions and recommendations. we also urge our collaborators of more than a decade to bear with us. in 2017, we are bound to be smoother and more effective in rapidly processing the latest research findings. reference rose, j.f.p., 2016, the well-tempered city: what modern science, ancient civilisations, and human nature teach us about the future of urban life, harper wave, new york. footnote 1. see ‘seminars about long-term thinking’ in the long now foundation at http://longnow.org/ abstract introduction literature review state capture situation in south africa conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) maurice o. dassah faculty of business and management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, south africa citation dassah, m.o., 2018, ‘theoretical analysis of state capture and its manifestation as a governance problem in south africa ’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a473. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.473 original research theoretical analysis of state capture and its manifestation as a governance problem in south africa maurice o. dassah received: 14 sept. 2017; accepted: 23 mar. 2018; published: 14 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract state capture became topical in south africa in march 2016 following the dismissal of the then minister of finance, nhlanhla nene, on 09 december 2015. ‘nenegate’ revealed poor understanding of state capture among politicians and the general public. the literature indicates that state capture lacks analytical clarity as there is no clear demarcation between legitimate political lobbying and state capture created by corruption. the research question addressed in this article is: what is state capture and how is it manifested in south africa? firstly, it systematically unpacks the phenomenon as a type of business–state relationship distinct from influence, corruption and lobbying and outlines its types, features and essence. secondly, the article explores state capture in contemporary south africa. methodology-wise, a combination of literature study and current research reports is used to illuminate the phenomenon and its manifestation. the article contributes to existing knowledge by not only clarifying a concept conflated with corruption but also analysing the manifestations of state capture in south africa. introduction the phenomenon of state capture was identified at the dawn of the new millennium (hellman, jones & kaufmann 2000a) as an aberration in governance, but gained topicality in south african political discourse in march 2016. on national television, then deputy minister of finance, mcebisi jonas, said the gupta brothers, who are not only friends of the president but also business partners of his son, had allegedly offered him the position of minister of finance before the then incumbent, nhlanhla nene, was dismissed on 09 december 2015 and replaced by des van rooyen. however, mounting pressure compelled the president to replace des van rooyen with pravin gordhan. nhlanhla nene’s dismissal fuelled speculation that the president’s prerogative of appointing and removing ministers is usurped by the gupta brothers. then public protector, advocate thuli madonsela, received and investigated various complaints, including possible violation of the executive members’ ethics act (1998) regarding appointment of cabinet ministers, directors and awarding of state contracts to businesses associated with the gupta brothers. in a major twist, pravin gordhan and mcebisi jonas were removed as minister of finance and deputy minister in a major cabinet reshuffle on 30 april 2017 and replaced by malusi gigaba and sfiso buthelezi, respectively. the ‘nenegate’ furore of march 2016 revealed a lack of understanding of state capture among politicians and the general public, with one politician stating that because the state consists of three organs, state capture cannot occur unless all three are captured. this article, which is based on literature study and analysis of research reports, discusses theoretical and practical aspects of state capture through the research question: what is state capture and how is it manifested in south africa? it is structured in two parts, the first of which unpacks theoretical aspects in a literature review that defines the phenomenon and uncovers its origin; outlines its theoretical basis and competing ideologies; distinguishes among corruption, influence and lobbying; and highlights its types, features and essence. part two discusses state capture in south africa by highlighting key observations made on investigative issues in the public protector’s ‘state of capture report’, discussing critical points in the ‘state capacity research project report’, including captor actors, how they are organised and their various roles in the patronage network, methods or modalities of capture and areas or targets of capture. the article also highlights issues in the south african council of churches’ (sacc’s) ‘unburdening panel process report’. literature review origin of state capture and definition the phenomenon of state capture was first observed by hellman et al. (2000a) who conducted the first business environment and enterprise performance survey in 1999 on behalf of the world bank and european bank for reconstruction and development. hellman and colleagues used the term ‘state capture’ to describe a new dimension corruption had taken in east european countries (richter n.d.:2) moving from planned to market economy. ‘state capture’ was coined and used in referring to the existence of three grand corruption aspects among political and business elites in the former communist countries of eastern europe, which involved ‘payment of bribes to gain contracts but also the purchase of political influence’ (hall 2012:4). the phenomenon derives from the notion of regulatory capture (wren-lewis 2011:148), which is about a problematic relationship between the regulator and ‘special interests’, the regulated. similarly, state capture is about a problematic relationship between politics and business in the context of transition and rooted in the market for influence (hellman n.d.:n.p.). state capture is an aberration in governance. the literature is replete with a plethora of definitions, one of the earliest being: ‘efforts of firms to shape the laws, policies, and regulations of the state to their own advantage by providing illicit private gains to public officials’ (hellman & kaufmann 2001:1). hellman et al. (2000c:4) provide the following definition: ‘the propensity of firms to shape the underlying rules of the game by “purchasing” decrees, legislation, and influence’, or ‘efforts of firms to shape and influence the underlying rules of the game (i.e. legislation, laws, rules, and decrees) through private payments to public officials’. these definitions focus on firms, but omit an important agent or captor actor (individuals in private or official capacity) and a critical means of capture (funding of political activities). consequently, the operating definition of state capture (transparency international 2014) in this article is, … one of the most pervasive forms of corruption, where companies, institutions or powerful individuals use corruption such as the buying of laws, amendments, decrees or sentences, as well as illegal contributions to political parties and candidates, to influence and shape a country’s policy, legal environment and economy to their own interests. (p. 1) by seizing of laws to the advantage of corporate business via influential political links in the parliament and government (pesic 2007:1), the legal system is rendered the opposite of what it should be as it serves illegal interests disguised in legal form. ‘capture’ is a military metaphor invested with connotation of force used by individuals or business entities to hold the state to ransom, but the capture process is, in fact, informal, subtle, covert or surreptitious in nature, not overt or characterised by violence. adams et al. (2007:1) note that although ‘capture’ may conjure images of physical capture, the process is more of capturing ‘hearts, minds and emotions’. it is the process of making laws, policies and regulations individuals or business entities seek to influence, not implementation of existing laws. as such, state capture involves subversion of public interest. in state capture situations, the nature of the business entity–state relationship is illicit, which implies that laws and regulations made or actions taken are products of corrupt acts or transactions. consequently, legality becomes a function of illegality. although captors are typically private sector individuals or business entities, public officials themselves are capable of capturing state institutions. an example is vladimo montesinos lenin, who was head of peru’s intelligence services under president alberto fujimori (1990–2000). he first captured the media and key agencies such as the judiciary and military (kupferschmidt 2009:14). thereafter, he used the military as an instrument to facilitate arms and narcotics trafficking and the tax authority to finance illicit activities and compel unwilling individuals to cooperate. private gain by individuals or business entities at the expense of the public, and in fact, subversion of public interest is the primary motive of state capture. state capture theory and ideologies stigler’s (1971) ‘theory of economic regulation’, referred to as ‘capture theory’, attributes difficulty in implementing socio-economic development in former socialist countries to negative short-term welfare effects of economic reforms. hellman et al. (2000b) overturned this view by arguing that criminal capture of state organs and policy formulation itself by politico-economic elite networks presents the main obstacle to progressive societal reorganisation, thereby establishing current state capture theory. the notion of state capture is ideologically contested. there are three schools of thought, the neo-liberal, neo-institutional economics and marxists, each with different notions of the state and economic, political and ideological understandings of state capture. the neo-liberal perspective of state capture, which currently holds sway, is propagated by the world bank and other international financial institutions. for neo-liberals, state capture occurs because policymakers are inherently corrupt and use state power for rent allocation and patronage (robison & hadiz 2004:4). neo-liberals believe in self-regulation, the economic assumption underpinning their view of state capture being that the forces of demand and supply are better determinants of interest and exchange rates, ensuring availability of capital through savings. rent-seeking and capture of economic policy by policymakers militate against efficient allocation of savings and investments, thereby hampering economic development (srouji 2005:13). new institutional economists believe in intervention of state institutions to address market failure and are opposed to neo-liberals. for them, institutions ensure efficiency and play the important role of reducing transaction costs (srouji 2005:14). state capture occurs when institutions are weak or not independent enough to enforce rules. based on this view, there are two types of capture. the first is that orchestrated by lobby and private sector groups or distributional coalitions motivated by their own interests to manipulate policy in order to increase their share of national income (haggard 1985:509). the second and more extreme type of state capture sees policymakers and rent seekers groups as having the common aim of extracting as much as they can from society, while maintaining their power base (bardhan 2001:255; evans 1985). according to new institutional economists, different kinds of states and institutions of different natures exist. for them, a ‘strong’ state with minimal government authority (‘monopoly of violence’) able to enforce property and contractual rights or a developmental state with an independent professional bureaucracy is the ideal. neither the neo-liberalist nor new institutional economists’ view adequately explains the co-existence of bureaucrats and private sector actors in the successful tiger economies of east asia, or how policies benefit some societal groups and the national economy simultaneously (srouji 2005:15). marxists believe the state is always under the control of a dominant group, class or coalition, that is, the state is viewed as serving the interests of groups, classes or coalitions. effectively then, the state is under perpetual capture (srouji 2005:16). there are two marxist views on state capture. the gramcians see the state as a force for cohesion, not an instrument of domination, while other marxists view the state as an instrument in the hands of a dominant group, especially where capitalists hold political power. for them, state capture occurs because of an ongoing struggle between different capitalists to influence economic and social policy within state institutions. this leads to a number of outcomes such as parliament making rules to ensure capitalists accumulate wealth and capitalists manipulating the state for continuous profits and seeking to sustain power by creating disunity among workers (srouji 2005:17). distinguishing state capture from corruption, influence and lobbying state capture is an aspect of systemic political corruption implicated in causing poor governance (sitorus 2011:46) in transitional democracies, with the potential of aggravating developmental problems. corruption, a governance problem globally, is a versatile umbrella concept with family resemblance to clientelism, patronage, particularism, patrimonialism and state capture, which is the most recent, but most harmful (varraich 2014:26). developed by ludwig wittgenstein, family resemblance is defined as (varraich 2014): […] a category, defined in a particular way that may fit a number of cases reasonably well, but on close examination it can become clear that for most cases the fit is not perfect. (p. 3) clientelism, patronage, particularism and patrimonialism focus on the output side of corruption, while state capture focuses directly on the input side (varraich 2014:25) and can shift corruption from the illegal domain to the legal and distort the intended effects of laws and policies. as state capture is concerned with the decision-making sphere, where laws and policies are made and implemented based on interests, it falls into the category of political or grand corruption (santos 2011:23). corruption according to sitorus (2011:47), the key distinction between corruption and state capture is that most types of corruption aim to subvert the implementation of laws, rules and regulations through acts of bribery, while state capture involves corrupt attempts to influence the way laws, rules and regulations are formed, making it synonymous with legalised corruption. although state corruption and state capture are linked, the latter is not simply widespread corruption, but essentially ‘a distinct network structure in which corrupt actors cluster around certain state organs and functions’ (fazekas & tóth 2014:3). although state capture is an aspect of corruption, it is not synonymous with grand corruption. the former refers to individuals or entities surreptitiously influencing the law-making process in order to shape formation of the basic rules of the game, whereas grand corruption involves subverting existing rules of the game governing awarding of contracts and implementation of laws (ouzounov 2004:1191). however, some forms of grand corruption, such as buying votes of members of parliament, bribing government officials or bribing judges to influence their decisions, have the overall effect of conferring undue advantages to firms within a country’s legal and regulatory framework and constitute state capture (hellman & kaufmann 2001:n.p.). another difference between state capture and corruption is that policy outcomes are not certain in the case of corruption, but known to be beneficial to captors in the case of state capture. influence influence is the capacity to have an impact on shaping and affecting the form or content of the basic rules of the game without having to pay public officials or politicians (hellman et al. 2000a:n.p.). however, firms may seek to shape and influence legislation, laws, rules and decrees through payments or ‘capture’ influential individuals through formation of close relationships. hellman et al. (2000a [summary findings]) state that influence is inherited as a legacy by large, established or incumbent firms with ties to the state, which provides them with greater security of property and contractual rights. however, according to the authors, new firms seeking influence have to buy advantages or benefits where there are formidable entry barriers or strong competition, the implication being that new firms are more likely than incumbent firms to be ‘captors’. irrespective of the type of political system, firms and groups compete against each other for influence (hellman n.d.): […] over the state to have an impact on the choice and design of laws, rules and regulations in order to shape these rules of the game to their own advantage. (n.p.) in this way, they create favourable conditions for themselves within a country’s institutional framework. influence is not inherently bad. however, a highly segmented market for influence provides fertile grounds for various kinds of distortions, including illicit acts (hellman n.d.:n.p.). lobbying state capture is an illegal activity, while lobbying is a legally acceptable practice. lobbying or ‘representation of group concerns in a political discourse in search for the greater public good’ (ricther, n.d.:9) is also different from clientelism, the protection of private interests by money or force which, together with patronage, provide a platform for institutions such as parliaments in fledgling, post-conflict democratic states to be holistically captured through the making of laws. lobbying is mainly targeted at policymaking institutions, rather than the bureaucracy (campo & giovannoni 2006:1). it is defined as ‘strategic influence exerted on a (sic) public policies and its formulation in line with the partial interests of some group or an individual’ (begović 2005:5). state capture, corruption and lobbying are all methods of rent-seeking. lobbying results in state capture and misallocation of resources (begović 2005:4). the difference between lobbying and corruption is based on jurisprudence, which varies among countries. although sharing expert advice with policymakers is clearly lobbying, another form of exerting influence such as direct financing of election campaigns by business might be lobbying in some countries and corruption in others. lobbying is done publicly and transparency is its distinguishing feature, setting it apart from both corruption and state capture, which are surreptitious. lobbying can be a substitute for or a complement to corruption because it ‘can be both an activity that makes bribing irrelevant if it succeeds in influencing policy and an activity that makes bribing easier if it succeeds in undermining law enforcement’ (campo & giovannoni 2006:1). further, evidence suggests lobbying is a more effective way of exerting influence than corruption (campo & giovannoni 2006:3) and more likely to be used by larger firms from developed countries than smaller ones in developing countries (campo & giovannoni 2006:15). types of state capture according to sitorus (2011:47), two types of state capture can be distinguished. the first relates to distinguishing among types of institutions that can be captured, which include legislative, executive, judicial, regulatory agencies and public works departments or ministries. richter (n.d.:8) states that although all types of state institutions are susceptible to capture by private actors, ‘the most important ones are where political decisions are made’ such as the legislature and the executive. the second distinction has to do with types of captors seeking to capture the state, which include large private firms, political leaders, high-ranking officials or interest groups. fazekas and tóth (2014:5) present a third type by distinguishing between the capture of a single organisation or government department (local capture) and capture of all organisations or government departments (global capture). local capture occurs when ‘only some public and private organisations enter into a capture relationship with their “islands” relatively autonomous’ (fazekas & tóth 2014:5). in global capture, ‘captured organisations are linked to each other and a national level elite controls them’ (fazekas & tóth 2014:3). in distinguishing between party state capture and corporate state capture, innes (2013:1) provides a fourth dimension on types. party state capture refers to re-politicisation of the state by political parties to achieve political monopoly, while corporate state capture is exercise of power by private interests to subvert legitimate channels of political influence mainly for private gain. the fifth type of capture relates to systemic or predatory capture (mtimka 2016:n.p.). systemic state capture refers to the impact institutions have on a state’s internal and external sovereignty, thereby preventing it from pursuing policies of its choice other than those beneficial to powerful interests or sectors. in systemic state capture, more often than not, no single captor or beneficiary can be credited with being instrumental in the capture. predatory state capture occurs when individuals or small groups ‘hold specific political figures ransom’ and bully them for personal gain (mtimka 2016:n.p.). anc today (25 may 2016) outlines a typology of three types of captured states. the occasionally captured is characterised by occasional deviations that benefit private interests and public officials. the partially captured state ‘is when there are high averages of corrupt contracts and activities but this is not the norm and the state is in the main focused on achieving its developmental objectives’, while a fully captured state ‘is when high levels of corruption directed by the dominant private interest represents the norm, and the developmental agenda is subordinated to corrupt exchanges’. features and essence of state capture richter (n.d.:8–9) outlines four key features of state capture. firstly, individuals or business entities with an agenda to capture state institutions or people in positions of power tend to focus on the political level of elected and unelected officials as captives because they are responsible for making policy decisions and laws, not on bureaucrats in the administrative stratum who implement policies and laws. secondly, it is network-based like corruption, which thrives on social and political networks through clientelism and patronage (richter n.d.:8). networks are based on informal rules among members established on the basis of authority-dominance or reciprocity-loyalty, which open the avenue for involvement of private, state or non-state and interest groups in the making of rules, some of which may not be participants in corrupt behaviour. thirdly, unlike corruption, achievement of private gain is not the primary motive for illegitimate behaviour. this means, while politicians and officials may be motivated by monetary gains, their overriding consideration is the ‘quest to gain access to power or stay in power’ (richter n.d.:8). in fact, in countries where capture is deeply entrenched, monetary transactions are subordinated to intimidation, protection and occasional violence (philp 2008:9). fourthly, camouflage or use of formal institutions to represent their interest is the stock-in-trade of informal networks. participation of various interest groups, citizens and civil society as well as the involvement of the media and political parties is essential for democracy, but the media and political parties may, consciously or inadvertently, serve as intermediaries for powerful, private actors. hall (2012:4) outlines three key features of state capture, namely involvement of systematic networks and individuals; privatisation and outsourcing of government contracts as part of the business–politicians relations; and extensive involvement in the corruption process of multinationals operating from rich and relatively corruption-free countries. from the literature, several aspects of the essence of state capture can be discerned. firstly, it is a problematic business—state relationship rooted in the market for influence. secondly, it is a deliberate and strategic choice made by new firms to give them a good chance of competing with incumbent firms. thirdly, it focuses on the input or process side to making laws, policies, regulations and decrees, not the implementation side. fourthly, the context of its occurrence is typically, but not exclusively, transitional or post-conflict countries. fifthly, captors are typically private sector individuals or entities such as business persons, oligarchs, firms, institutions, criminal groups, and occasionally, public officials. sixthly, the main targets of capture are formal state institutions such as parliament, legislature, judiciary, regulatory bodies, high-ranking public officials and politicians who play key roles in the formation of laws, policies, regulations and decrees. further, means of state capture include illicit, non-transparent, formal or informal behaviour such as bribery or private payments. finally, the main motive for capture is to subvert public interest by distorting laws, policies, regulations and decrees to achieve undue advantage or private gain. state capture situation in south africa background the term ‘state capture’ is ubiquitous in south african political and social commentary and relates to two views (chipkin 2016:1). the first is that of thamm (2016a; 2016b; 2016c; 2016d) and munusamy (2016a; 2016b), who use the term in referring to influence wielded by the gupta brothers, president zuma’s friends, in allegedly appointing cabinet ministers, senior government officials and securing lucrative state tenders. the other view is expressed by cronin (2016) and shivambu (2016) for whom the term is used in the context of influence exerted by ‘white monopoly capital’ on government, particularly the kebble and rupert families. thamm’s view of state capture is widespread in south africa, consistent with the traditional definition and the operating definition for the south african context in this article. fakude (2016:n.p.) states that ‘the so called state capture is nothing new in the south african political economy’ and that ‘the entire modern economy of south africa is based on undue influence of business over politics and vice versa’. more poignantly, chipkin (2016:1) argues that a conception of the state that has taken hold in the african context is that, increasingly, the state is becoming a vehicle for politicians and their cronies to ‘get hold of the instruments and resources of the state and use them for their own purposes’. the convergence of business interests and politicians through family ties, friendship and ownership of economic assets provides the platform for state capture in south africa. the gupta brothers’ acknowledged friendship with the president and their ownership of lucrative tenders for coal supplies to eskom, the power utility, has created tension between factions within the african national congress (anc), prompting the deputy president to describe government as waging ‘war with itself’ (georg 2016). the furore surrounding removal of nhlanhla nene as finance minister on 09 december 2015 and his replacement by des van rooyen ended when pravin gordhan replaced van rooyen on 14 december 2015. however, in a major cabinet reshuffle on 30 april 2017, pravin gordhan and mcebisi jonas were removed and replaced by malusi gigaba and sfiso buthelezi, respectively. claymore (2016) claims it has been the avowed policy of the anc to capture the state in order to realise its own political and ideological interests which, according to martin and solomon (2016:24), has largely been achieved through seizure and control of all levers of the state except the judiciary and possibly, office of the public protector and the independent electoral commission. increasing centralisation of the economy has led to a situation where ‘political power is seen as a mechanism that can be used to extract financial benefits from the state, and not necessarily to foster an environment where the needs of ordinary citizens are met’ (martin & solomon 2016:21–22). these authors further state that since 2009 there has been institutionalised capture of the economic and political segments of the state. it is claimed the gupta brothers have solid connections within the anc and wide influence in its procedures and within the state (martin & solomon 2016:24; citing shivambu 2016) and that the benefits of their influence extends to three provincial premiers (the free state, north-west and mpumalanga), popularly called the ‘premier league’, ministers and chief executive officers of state-owned enterprises (soes), the latter being targeted solely because they are the prime site for capturing tenders (martin & solomon 2016:24). the gupta brothers’ ownership of lucrative tenders for coal supplies to eskom, the state power utility, has created tension between factions within the anc, prompting then the deputy president (cyril ramaphosa) to describe government as waging ‘war with itself’ (georg 2016). state of capture report (14 october 2016) the ‘state of capture report’ resulted from investigation by the office of the public protector following complaints by the dominican order of catholic priests, mr mmusi maimane (leader of the democratic alliance and leader of the opposition in parliament) and an anonymous person following media reports that mr mcebisi jonas, then deputy minister of finance, had been offered the position of minister of finance for a consideration of r600 000.00 in cash and a promise of r600 million in exchange for loyalty by one of the gupta brothers at their saxonwold home before then minister of finance, mr nhlanhla nene, was dismissed on 09 december 2015. the aftermath of mcebisi jonas’ televised saga prompted the public protector to investigate various allegations on which the following observations, among others, were made: regarding whether president zuma improperly and in violation of the executive ethics code, allowed members of the gupta family and his son to be involved in the process of removal and appointment of the minister of finance in december 2015. the public protector expressed concern on three issues: firstly, the gupta brothers’ possible awareness of nhlanhla nene’s removal 6 weeks after mcebisi jonas had told him (nene) about the gupta’s job offer in exchange for favours; secondly, mr van rooyen’s presence at the guptas’ home area (saxonwold), at least, seven times before he was announced as minister of finance, including the day of announcement; thirdly, the fact that nhlanhla nene was actually removed after mcebisi jonas had told he would be removed. the guptas’ awareness of des van rooyen’s appointment, if they were, would violate section 2.3(e) of the executive ethics code, which prohibits members of the executive from using confidential information outside their official duties. additionally, failure of the president to verify mr nene’s allegation of job offer by the gupta brothers in exchange for favours could violate section 34 of prevention and combating of corrupt activities act (12 of 2004), which places a duty on people in positions of authority with knowledge of suspected offences to report to the police (state of capture 2016:343–344). regarding whether president zuma improperly and in violation of the executive ethics code, allowed a member of the gupta family and his son to engage or to be involved in the process of removal and appointing various members of cabinet. according to the public protector, inaction in verifying mabel petronella (‘vytjie’) mentor’s allegation of having been offered the position of minister of public enterprises by the gupta brothers violates section 195 of the constitution, and possibly, section 2.3(c) of the executive ethics code, which prohibits members of the executive from divulging confidential information acquired in their official capacity. also, failure to verify nhlanhla nene’s allegation of a job offer by the gupta brothers in exchange for favours could violate section 34 of prevention and combating of corrupt activities act (12 of 2004), which places a duty on people in positions of authority with knowledge of suspected offence to report to the police (state of capture 2016:344–345). whether president zuma improperly and in violation of the executive ethics code, allowed members of the gupta family and his son, to be involved in the process of appointing members of board of directors of soes. evidence supported the existence of a close relationship between brian molefe and the guptas and circumstances surrounding the removal of themba maseko. the public protector expressed concern about nothing having been done to verify this relationship as required by section 195 of the constitution. alleged involvement of the gupta brothers and president zuma’s son, duduzane zuma, in appointing soes’ boards of directors were backed by evidence, but no action had been taken despite a duty imposed by section 195 of the constitution (state of capture 2016:345–346). whether president zuma has enabled or turned a blind eye, in violation of the executive ethics code, to alleged corrupt practices by the gupta family and his son in relation to allegedly linking appointments to quid pro quo conditions. other than the anc and parliament having considered investigating mcebisi jonas’ allegations of having been offered a ministerial position in exchange for favouring the gupta brothers, there was no evidence the executive took any action (state of capture 2016:346). regarding whether president zuma and other cabinet members improperly interfered in the relationship between banks and gupta-owned companies, thus giving preferential treatment to such companies on a matter that should have been handled by independent regulatory bodies. cabinet’s intervention in a private dispute between the banks and oakbey, a company co-owned by the gupta brothers and the president’s son, was seen as unprecedented and could violate conflict of interest under section 2.3(c) of the executive ethics code and sections 195 and 96(2)(b) of the constitution (state of capture 2016:346). whether any state functionary in any organ of state or other person acted unlawfully, improperly or corruptly in connection with the appointment or removal of ministers and boards of directors of soes. the board of eskom was improperly appointed and did not conform to king iii’s report on good corporate governance, failed to act in the best interests of the country and no mechanisms existed to deal with actual or perceived conflicts of interest and the minister of public enterprises did nothing to prevent conflicts of interest (state of capture 2016:347–348). whether any state functionary in any organ of state or other person acted unlawfully, improperly or corruptly in connection with the award of state contracts or tenders to gupta linked companies or persons. the public protector thought the conduct of the minister of mineral resources regarding his flight itinerary to switzerland was irregular and could violate the public finance management act (pfma 1999), section 9(2) of the constitution and section 2 of the executive ethics act. tegeta was unduly favoured regarding contracts awarded to it for supplying coal to arnot power station, which enabled it to buy all optimum coal mine (ocm) shares. further, tegeta did not fulfil all obligations to ocm, which was owed r437 870 156. 91 as of 31 august 2016, constituting possible violation of sections 38 and 51 of the pfma on prevention of fruitless and wasteful expenditure and could constitute misconduct. eskom board was found to have failed to exercise a duty of care (state of capture 2016:348–349). whether any state functionary in any organ of state or other person acted unlawfully, improperly or corruptly in connection with the extension of state provided business financing facilities to gupta linked companies or persons. prepayment of r659 558 079.00 to tegeta purely to fund acquisition of all ocm shares did not conform to pfma, showed lack of duty of care on the part of the board, which could violate section 50 of pfma. also, misrepresentations by tegeta regarding the prepayment could be fraudulent. the handling of rehabilitation funds by the bank of baroda contravenes section 24p of the national environmental management act (nema) and section 7 of the financial provisions regulations: financial provision must be ‘equal to the sum of the actual cost of implementing the plans and report contemplated in regulation 8 and regulation 11(1) for a period of at least 19 years forthwith’ (state of capture 2016:349–351). given the serious implications state capture has for south africa, the public protector recommended that the president appoint a commission of inquiry within 30 days headed by a judge appointed by the chief justice to report its findings and recommendations to the president within 180 days. the president has taken the state of capture report for review and the case is set for october 2017. south african council of churches: ‘unburdening panel process report’ (18 may 2017) following mcebisi jonas and ‘vytjie’ mentor’s public allegations in 2016 about being offered ministerial positions by the gupta brothers, the sacc set up a five-member panel consisting of bishop siwa, justice yvonne mokgoro, dr brigalia bam, bishop mosa sono and bishop malusi mpumlwana to work with a team of voluntary lawyers and researchers for public good using the gospel-inspired see-judge-act approach. the ‘see’ aspect of the approach involves rigorous research to fully understand the state of an issue under investigation and calls for collaboration with research entities such as the human sciences research council and institute of justice and reconciliation. the ‘judge’ dimension involves applying the gospel in order to arrive at a value judgement call on the issue, based on what is known; and the third, ‘act’, entails taking a resolution or principled position to act based on application of gospel-inspired values. the decision is taken by a conference convened for that specific purpose. the ‘unburdening panel process report’ states that ‘south africa may be inches away from a mafia state from which there could be no return … a recipe for a failed state’. the report cites patterns of systemic undermining of governance beyond petty corruption with serious consequences for south africa’s constitutional democracy. it claims the existence of deliberately organised chaos to enable a power elite allegedly centred around president zuma’s exercise control over state systems through systematic siphoning of state assets achieved through: securing control over state wealth, through the capture of state-owned companies by chronically weakening their governance and operational structures; securing control over the public service by weeding out skilled professionals; securing access to rent-seeking opportunities by shaking down regulations to their advantage and to the disadvantage of south africans; securing control over the country’s fiscal sovereignty; securing control over strategic procurement opportunities by intentionally weakening key technical institutions and formal executive processes; securing a loyal intelligence and security apparatus; and securing parallel governance and decision-making structures that undermine the executive. ‘state capacity research project report’: betrayal of the promise: how south africa is being captured (25 may 2017) this report was released by an inter-university research partnership consisting of academics from four universities and their research teams: centre for complex systems in transition (university of stellenbosch); public affairs research institute (university of the witwatersrand); development policy development unit (university of cape town); a member of south african research chair programme on african diplomacy and foreign policy (university of johannesburg) and an independent journalist. the main argument of this report is that south africa has experienced a silent coup allegedly orchestrated by president zuma and senior government officials that has removed the anc from its place as the primary force for transformation in society (bhorat et al. 2017). they collude with a network of corrupt brokers in a project aimed at repurposing state institutions to suit rent seekers’ interest, thereby creating a ‘symbiotic relationship between the constitutional and the shadow state’ (bhorat et al. 2017:2). a constitutional state refers to ‘the formalised constitutional, legislative and jurisprudential framework of rules that governs what government and state institutions can and cannot do’, while a shadow state, according to bhoral et al. (2017), is the networks of relationships that cross-cut and bind together a specific group of people who need to act together for whatever reason in secretive ways so that they can either effectively hide, actively deny or consciously ‘not know’ that which contradicts their formal roles in the constitutional state. this is a world where deniability is valued, culpability is distributed (though indispensability is not taken for granted) and where trust is maintained through mutually binding fear. (p. 6) bhorat et al. (2017) claim the state capture situation arose from differences in strategy pursued by constitutional and radical reformers within the anc. the constitutionalists believe in building state capacity to serve as the launching pad for fulfilling the equality and development promise of the new south africa made in 1994. however, for radical reformers, subversion of constitutionally entrenched provisions is the route to fulfilling the promise. essentially, it is a difference between gradual and accelerated or radical change between working in line with the constitution and going against it in an attempt to improve the material conditions of the majority of south africans. recognising the need to quickly improve living conditions for the majority of ordinary citizens, victory of the radical reformers at the 2007 polokwane conference and inspiration of the developmental state discourse is central to their repurposing soes. this is done in order to use their procurement systems as ‘the primary mechanisms for rent-seeking at the interface between the constitutional and shadow state’ (bhorat et al. 2017:12) in the name of radical economic transformation. in the sections that follow, captor actors, capture targets and means or modalities of capture are described. modus operandi of the patronage network captor actors bhorat et al. (2017:56–57) state that a formal and informal patronage network is involved in extracting and administering rents in the state capture situation in south africa using the command and control model of ‘war economy’. the structure the patronage network is said to be as follows: at the apex are controllers or patrons who secure access, maintain control over resources and dispense favours to competing elites. at the second level are elites responsible for ‘establishing and maintaining patronage networks, which facilitate the distribution of benefits’ (bhorat et al. 2017:57), while entrepreneurs or brokers at the third level ‘facilitate the movement of funds, information and/or goods both domestically and across transnational networks, and make use of “recruitment networks, lending networks, remittance networks and smuggling networks”’ (bhorat et al. 2017:57). finally, the dealers, professional money-laundering syndicates based in hong kong, united arab emirates and other countries are responsible for moving money abroad. areas or targets of capture bhorat et al. (2017:2) state that the main targets of capture are prasa, eskom, transnet and the national treasury, which houses the financial intelligence centre, chief procurement office, public investment corporation, boards of major development finance institutions and the guarantee system that allows soes ‘to borrow from private lenders/banks without parliamentary oversight’ in the name of radical economic transformation. the claimed actors in state capture have already centralised power in seven identifiable areas (bhorat et al. 2017:): controlling soes by weakening their governance and operational structures, restructuring of soe boards and exploiting the fact that soe expenditures are not subject to the same degree of scrutiny as those of government departments as required by the public finance management act (1999); controlling the public service through the 2014 national macro organisation of state project, which focused on operational details and highlighted the creation of a capable state to implement the national development plan, respond to challenges and speed up service delivery; securing access to rent-seeking opportunities by shaking down regulations: ministers, in collusion with private interests, arbitrarily use regulatory instruments or policy decisions to ‘shake down’ existing businesses, the tegeta–glencore optimum deal being a prime example; securing control over the country’s fiscal sovereignty: the national treasury’s financial intelligence centre, which exposes illicit financial transactions, was the only intelligence unit not controlled by the network. the treasury itself controls huge sums of money handled by the industrial development corporation and public investment corporation, all of which might be strong motivation for the removal of pravin gordhan and mcebisi jonas, who were obstacles; securing control over strategic procurement opportunities by intentionally weakening key technical institutions and formal executive processes; securing loyalty of the security and intelligence services: appointing loyalists to south african revenue service, the hawks and the national prosecuting authority; securing parallel government and decision-making structures that undermine the executive, including strengthening of the ‘premier league’: delegation of critical decisions to hand-picked groups in the form of unaccountable inter-ministerial committees such as the inter-ministerial group on banks. (pp. 15–16) means or modalities of capture ‘repurposing’ refers to ‘the organised process of reconfiguring the way in which a given state institution is structured, governed, managed and funded so that it serves a purpose different to its formal mandate’ (bhorat et al. 2017:5). this process prepares target institutions not just for looting but also for ‘consolidating political power to ensure longer-term survival, the maintenance of a political coalition, and its validation by an ideology that masks private enrichment by reference to public benefit’ (bhorat et al. 2017:5). according to the authors, soe boards, including those of eskom and transnet, have been restructured to favour the interests of the gupta family and their allies (bhorat et al. 2017:12). bhorat et al. (2017:2) state that since 2012, a power elite has sought to centralise rent-seeking in order to squeeze out lower order rent-seeking competitors. further, it is said that before the national treasury came under the power elite control, consolidation of power to centralise rent-seeking had been achieved in five ways (bhorat et al. 2017): bloating a politically compliant and dependent corps of top management in the public service; replacing good police and intelligence officers with loyalists agreeable to covering up rent seeking; soes’ favouring gupta and allies’ network brokers in procurement process; establishing informally constituted elite ‘kitchen cabinets’ in place of the cabinet as the primary decision-making body, resulting in usurping of executive authority; ensuring loyalty of national executive committee members through the premier league. (p. 3) critical reading of the state of capture, state capacity research project and unburdening panel process reports suggests that the phenomenon of state capture exists in south africa. however, what remains unknown is the number of ministers and government departments and the extent to which they have been, in one way or another, involved in siphoning state resources to benefit private individuals; the number and extent to which soes have been implicated; and the number, role and culpability of serving politicians, high-ranking public servants, members of boards of state enterprises involved and its impact on the country and citizens. this can only be clarified through a thorough, impartial judicial enquiry. conclusion state capture, essentially parasitic plundering of public resources, poses a serious threat to the nascent south african democracy and needs to be taken seriously. based on the typology of captured states outlined in anc today, south african state could be categorised as partially captured, which presents some hope of reversal. the main difficulty in combating state capture is that, as an aspect of administrative corruption, it is surreptitious and defies easy solutions. a zero-tolerance approach to all types of corruption is the ultimate panacea. additionally, adoption of strong reform measures aimed at buyers and sellers of influence and opening up policymaking processes is instructive. one area for reform is widening the market for influence by reducing powers of monopolies, removing anticompetitive advantages and promoting investment through incentives. another is promoting access and transparency by involving relevant stakeholders’ participation in formal policymaking processes through public hearings, corruption impact assessment procedures, e-government consultation or public comment mechanisms, oversight or consultative bodies and enhancing accountability of public officials responsible for individual specific regulations. thirdly, strong regulatory and monitoring mechanisms governing political finance or funding are needed. laws on conflict of interest, financial disclosure and asset declaration need to be strictly enforced, coupled with sensitising politicians and public officials through sustained public education and awareness campaigns. finally, adjudication and award process for multi-million and multi-billion government tenders need to be reformed for transparency to be foregrounded and the phenomenon of ‘tendepreneurship’ discouraged. above all, with a focus on advancing citizens’ welfare and best interests, traditional african traditional governance offers a model for governance at the national level and being guided by the basics may be the best. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references adams, g., hayes, s., weierter, s. & boyd, j., 2007, 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jonas?’ daily maverick, 10 march, viewed 30 june 2017, from https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-03-10-state-capture-did-the-guptas-offer-treasurys-top-job-to-deputy-minister-mcebisi-jonas/ thamm, m., 2016b, ‘state capture: the floodgates open as deputy finance minister jonas admits guptas offered him top job’, daily maverick, 16 march, viewed 30 june 2017, from https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-03-16-state-capture-the-floodgates-open-as-deputy-minister-jonas-admits-guptas-offered-him-top-job/ thamm, m., 2016c, ‘state capture: banking and business screws on the guptas tighten considerably’, daily maverick, 07 april, viewed 30 june 2017, from https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-04-07-state-capture-banking-and-business-screws-on-the-guptas-tighten-considerably/ thamm, m., 2016d, ‘state capture: thuli’s final quest for the truth – investigating the guptas’ political influence’, daily maverick, 08 july, viewed on 30 june 2017, from https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-07-08-state-capture-thulis-final-quest-for-the-truth-investigating-the-guptas-political-influence/ transparency international, 2014, state capture: an overview, anti-corruption helpdesk, viewed 28 august 2017, from https://www.law.kuleuven.be/icr/integriteit/egpa/previous-egpa-conferences/malta-2009/matei.pdf varraich, a., 2014, corruption: an umbrella concept, working paper series 2014:04, the quality of government institute, department of political science, university of gothenburg, goteburg. wren-lewis, l., 2011, ‘regulatory capture: risks and solutions’, in a. estache (ed.), emerging issues in competition, collusion and regulation of network industries, pp. 147–169, centre for economic policy and research, london. july 2009 inside book.p65 51 legal issues concerning mine closure and social responsibility on the west rand es van eeden, m liefferink jf durand* abstract: mining and, especially, gold and uranium mining have played a major role in the economy, history, and demography of south africa. the contribution of the mines to the economy of south africa over the past century has been overvalued, while the social injustices and negative environmental impacts that accompanied mining have been underplayed or ignored by the mining houses and government. the environmental situation has worsened significantly over the past few years due to the abandonment and pending closure of most of these mines. a reluctance is perceived on the part of the mining companies, and even government, to take responsibility for the damage caused by pollution, ecological degradation, and impact on human health by mining. instead, the current informal policy appears to take smaller companies to court on minor environmental injustices to, perhaps, impress the broader public, while one of the biggest environmental concerns is stylishly treated. the inability of government to address the damage by mines effectively is in conflict with the national water act, the national environmental management act, the mineral and petroleum resources act, the national nuclear regulator act, and the constitution of south africa. the authors propose a multidisciplinary approach to address water-related environmental injustices on the west rand and far west rand. we also describe the application of the national environmental management act of south africa (act no. 107 of 1998) in the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments and the current water quality situation. keywords: environmental acts; legal environmental issues; mining closure; west rand; environmental health; wonderfonteinspruit; tweelopiespruit disciplines: history; health sciences; legal sciences; economic sciences; environmental sciences 1 introduction since the establishment of the environmental movement in 1964 abroad, the understanding of the interrelationship between humans and their environment has grown progressively more complex (benton and short, 2000; white, 1970; attfield, 1983, 1994; goudswaard, 1979). past and current actions by primary regulators, decision-makers, capitalists, * in alphabetic order: dr jf (francois) durand is a member of staff in the department of zoology at the university of johannesburg, south africa. ms mariette liefferink is chief executive director of the federation for a sustainable environment, south africa. prof. elize s van eeden is a member of the research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water at north-west university, south africa. email: elise.vaneeden@nwu.ac.za. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 5 no. 1, july 2009, pp. 51-71 52 scientists, and an ignorant public create a complex array of interactions, which is set in a political, socio-economic, scientific, and legal matrix (adler et al., 2007). to exacerbate the complexity of the situation, the injurers and injured think differently about the solution to these environmental and socio-economic problems (van eeden, 2007a; 2007b). according to funke et al. (2007), the attempts of government departments to engage mining companies in the rehabilitation of the environment have been frustrated because of their refusal to take responsibility for acid mine drainage and other environmental and health problems associated with mining (van eeden, 2006; van eeden, 2007b; van eeden, liefferink & tempelhoff, 2008). before and during the apartheid era, followed by a period of political isolation and economic sanctions, the government of the day always nurtured its relationship with the mining industry, which benefited both parties (van eeden, 2006; van eeden, 2008a). both parties always benefited economically from this relationship, while the government turned a blind eye to the environmentally and socially harmful practices of the mines. adler et al. (2007) argue that mining companies have held their production costs artificially low by opting for the deflection of certain costs such as the rehabilitation of the environment and social welfare to the state and third parties. many gold mines had been abandoned or had become insolvent before the full environmental and socio-economic impacts caused by them became evident and, thus, cannot be legally compelled to remediate these negative impacts. water-related remediation studies should include a consideration of environmental ethics, environmental responsibilities, liability, and equity (gutmann and thompson, 2006; van eeden & brink, 2007). this approach could change the situation of conflict to cooperative efforts between the gold mining companies, conservationists, activists, and inhabitants in the study area (van eeden & brink, 2007). over the past century, toxic and radioactive material have emanated from the gold mines in western gauteng (parts of the west rand) and north west province (parts of the far west rand) into the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit (spruit = stream) at concentrations that exceed average surface abundances. urbanisation in the area increased in conjunction with mining and associated industries, which were established after 1930 in the vicinity of the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit. urbanisation continued until people were living and working only tens of metres away from mine deposits, which, in 2007, were identified as radioactive sites by the national nuclear regulator of south africa (van eeden, 1992; 2008a). the closure of some mines and the non-compliance with laws stipulating rehabilitation of mine tailings, slimes dumps, and land have exacerbated the situation. water containing mine effluent is currently decanting from shafts, boreholes, and springs due to the cessation of the pumping of water from the mine void in the central rand and west rand (van biljon and krige, 2005). some communities living in the rural areas adjacent to the mines in western gauteng and north west province are dependent on groundwater from boreholes due to the lack of municipal water. the farming communities and people living in informal settlements use groundwater and surface water for drinking purposes, to water livestock, and to irrigate crops. in cases where the water used for irrigation is contaminated by van eeden, liefferink and durand 53 mine effluent, the potential exists for metal bioaccumulation in crops and consequently, this would pose a human health risk (van biljon, 2007; van eeden, 2006). environmental studies, which include water and sediment analyses, and radioactivity and biodiversity surveys have been done on the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit over the past few years (coetzee et al., 2006; fourie, 2005; 2006; graham, 2007; heyl, 2007; hobbs and cobbing, 2007; national nuclear regulator, 2007; oelofse et al., 2007; council for geoscience archive, fwrdwa, 1964-1984; council for geoscience archive, sctc, 1964-2004). 2 some negative impacts of mining on the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments this section includes a short summary of some of the major impacts of mines on the west rand on the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments (which have already been discussed in several articles) and their effect on the natural environment and the communities dependent on these water sources. 2.1 abstraction and discharging of water from gold mines mine effluent emanating from mines on the west rand affects the vaal river to the south and the limpopo river to the north, due to the fact that tributaries of both originate at the continental water divide (coetzee et al., 2006) (“intercontinental surface water divide” hobbs & cobbing, 2007). the mine effluent generated by mines on the west rand also has a negative impact on the quality of groundwater because large portions of mine land in gauteng and north west province and the rivers that flow from this land occur close to, or on top of, dolomite (coetzee et al., 2007; hobbs and cobbing, 2007). the malmani subgroup, which is dominated by dolomite, is situated in close proximity to the auriferous witwatersrand group in north west and gauteng provinces. several gold mines in the witwatersrand are situated in close proximity to karst aquifers, which in some instances had to be dewatered in order for mining to take place (morgan and brink, 1981, warwick et al., 1987). the abstraction of water from mines and decant from abandoned mines have a major negative impact on the quality of the surface water and groundwater in gauteng and north west provinces. the massive dewatering of mines since the late fifties of the twentieth century has had (and still has) a detrimental effect on the natural aquatic systems in the area one of the effects being the drying up of the springs of the witwatersrand when the dewatering of the deep mines commenced decades ago (enslin et al., 1996; dreybrodt, 1996; van eeden, 1992). in its place, megalitres of water were pumped into certain rivers, which, together with sediments, changed the flow of those affected river systems. 2.2 sinkholes the dewatering of mines and the placement of slimes dams over the past century have caused several sinkholes in the west rand and north west province (kleywegt and pike, 1982; pulles et al., 2005). many of td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 54 these sinkholes have not been rehabilitated, while new ones are still forming on the west rand (tempelhoff, 2007). karstification occurs when the carbonate rock, which constitutes the karst system, dissolves when exposed to acids such as those contained in amd or even weak acids that occur naturally. the result of this chemical decay is the formation of underground solution cavities, caves, sinkholes, and dolines. the increase of the amd in the mine void in gauteng and north west may cause excessive and rapid karstification in this area as dissolution of the dolomite takes place (fourie, 2006; hodgson et al., 2001; krige, 2006; swart et al., 2003; van eeden et al., 2008). 2.3 acid mine drainage (amd) amd is responsible for the most costly environmental and socio-economic impacts in south africa (oelofse et al., 2007). mine effluent containing bimetals (including radioactive heavy metals), acid, and sulphates issues from mines in several ways: the run-off from slimes dams and rock dumps enters the surface water streams and groundwater, while water from slimes dams enters the groundwater of the underlying karst system on which they were built (kleywegt, 1977). during 1997, south africa produced an estimated 468 million tons of mineral waste per annum. gold mining waste was estimated to account for 221 million tons or 47% of all mineral waste produced in south africa, making it the largest single source of waste and pollution. there are more than 270 tailings dams in the witwatersrand basin, covering approximately 400 km2. these dams are mostly unlined and unvegetated, providing a source of dust, as well as soil and water pollution (oelofse et al., 2007). mine effluent currently decants between 18 and 36 megalitres per day from an old black reef shaft on the old west rand consolidated mine property (harmony gold mine limited), and an unqualified volume is still escaping downstream or into the groundwater (fourie, 2006; hobbs and cobbing, 2007). the water quality of the river systems, wetlands, and groundwater in gauteng and the north west province has been deteriorating rapidly over the past five years due to mine effluent issuing from abandoned mines. after the mines on the central rand and several west rand mines were abandoned, the water table has returned to its original level in the western basin mine void, which comprises an estimated volume of 45 million cubic metres. several of the once dry springs have started to flow again since 2002, but are now issuing water polluted by mine effluent (fourie, 2005). this affects not only the local springs and streams, but also major river systems further downstream. mine effluent is already issuing from the 15 active and 29 closed mines to the north of the vaal barrage. amd may continue for centuries after mines closure (pullen, 1996). acidic mine water is currently decanting from a number of shafts into the tweelopiespruit catchment immediately to the north of the wonderfonteinspruit and flows into the local dolomitic aquifer; the water level is still rising in this area and may decant into the wonderfonteinspruit. this inflow would have a serious impact on any contaminated sites downstream, as was seen in the initial decant, where acid mine water was discharged into the robinson lake. the water decanting from the mine shaft and borehole into the tweelopiespruit in 2002 had a ph of 2.6 due to amd contamination (fourie, 2005). robinson van eeden, liefferink and durand 55 lake near randfontein had a ph of 2.2 in may 2007 (waterlab report no. 19510), and the tweelopiespruit just south of the krugersdorp nature reserve had a ph of 2.7 in june 2007 (waterlab report no. 19766). 2.4 sulphates one of the characteristics of amd is a high level of sulphates. if humans ingest more than 600 mg/l of sulphate, it may lead to vomiting and diarrhoea. the mine effluent from harmony gold had 4 500 mg of sulphates, 1 200 mg of iron, and 16 mg of uranium per litre at the point of decant into the tweelopiespruit in 2005 (fourie, 2005). hobbs (2007) reported sulphate concentrations as high as 4 918 mg/l, while heyl (2007) reported concentrations of up to 5 055 mg/l in the tweelopiespruit. 2.5 metals the mean values for the sediment in the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments exceed not only natural background concentrations, but also levels of regulatory concern. some of these that are mobilised by amd in these catchments are manganese, aluminium, iron, nickel, zinc, cobalt, copper, cadmium, arsenic, lead, radium, thorium, and uranium (venter, 1995; coetzee et al., 2006; heyl, 2007). any of these metals may be toxic depending on the time of exposure and the concentration of the metal an organism is exposed to (hodgson et al., 2001; adendorff, 1997). factors such as salinity, acidity, and hardness of the water may determine the rate of accumulation of the metals by the organism (moore and ramamoorthy, 1984). the studies done on the effect of metals in amd on organisms and ecosystems show that metals in water pose a serious health risk to invertebrates and vertebrates (venter, 1995; adendorff, 1997; jooste and thirion, 1999). the absorption of metals through the skin, gills, or ingestion may cause necrosis, tumours, cancer, and the impairment of several organ systems and, of course, death. 2.6 radioactivity some of the metals contained in amd such as uranium, thorium, radium, polonium, and some isotopes of lead are, in addition to being chemically toxic, also radioactive. uranium is identified as the principal contaminant of concern emitted by the gold mining industry. uranium is radioactive and chemically toxic with an extremely long half-life of 1010 years. its impacts, after mine closure, on persons, property, and the environment are, therefore, long term and of appreciable magnitude. the presence of uranium was reported in the wonderfonteinspruit (coetzee et al., 2006; national nuclear regulator, 2007) and in the tweelopiespruit (heyl, 2007). uranium and its daughter products have a long-term impact on the environment due to the fact that these elements accumulate in the sediments and will continue to leach out of the mine tailings and slimes dams for centuries to come (winde and van der walt, 2004; coetzee et al., 2006). plants absorb these metals readily though their roots, and from there, they are passed on into the rest of the food web. td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 56 according to coetzee et al. (2006), the slimes dams of the west rand and far west rand may contain more than 100 000 tons of uranium. coetzee et al. (2006) further estimate that as much as 50 tons of uranium is discharged annually from the gold mines of the west rand and far west rand into the receiving water courses. seepage and percolation from unlined tailings dams are responsible for the discharge of 24 tons of uranium into the receiving water courses. it was found that the uranium levels in the percolated water are 1 000 to 1 million times higher than the background uranium levels. twelve tons of uranium is released into the wonderfonteinspruit catchment from controlled and uncontrolled point discharges, and 10 tons of uranium is discharged by storm water annually. it is predicted that the sinkholes that were historically filled with uraniferous tailings will become secondary sources of uranium contamination of the groundwater and surface water after mine closure and cessation of pumping, when pre-mine flow patterns and volumes are restored (coetzee et al., 2006). the combination of the ph and redox-driven reactions resulted in a measured uranium concentration of 16 mg/l of the robinson lake and resulted in the nnr declaring the lake a radiation area. the background uranium concentration in water is 0.0004 mg/l. in terms of the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf) regulations for drinking water, the uranium concentration should not exceed 0.07 mg/l and, for irrigation, 0.01 mg/l. the sediment in the andries coetzee dam, a privately owned dam within the lower wonderfonteinspruit catchment, contains uranium levels of 900 mg/kg while the sediment of the upper wonderfonteinspruit contains uranium levels of 1 100 mg/kg. the radioactive contamination of surface water bodies and groundwater in the wonderfonteinspruit and tweelopiespruit catchments caused by the long-lasting mine water discharges and diffuse emissions of seepage and run-off from slimes dams poses radiological risks to people and the ecology. the use of water for drinking purposes may pose a direct threat to the communities dependent on the surface water and groundwater in the wonderfontein and tweelopiespruit catchments. the threat of exposure to radioactive material is even greater when these radioactive materials are bioaccumulated by livestock drinking the contaminated water or through crops that are irrigated using contaminated water. the measured uranium content of many of the fluvial sediments in the wonderfonteinspruit, including those off mine properties and, therefore, outside the boundaries of licensed sites, exceeds the exclusion limit for regulation by the national nuclear regulator (nnr), which was set at 16 mg/kg of uranium (equivalent to an activity concentration of 0.2 bq/ g) before the publication of the water research commission report no. 1214/1/06. it was found that the u-238 concentration of the sediment in the tudor dam is 10 000 100 000 bq/g; at the sluice and in the andries coetzee dam, it is 1 000 – 10 000 bq/kg; and at the donaldson dam, harry’s dam, and the attenuation dam, it is 100 – 1 000bq/g. the sites tudor dam, lancaster dam, attenuation dam, donaldson dam, harry’s dam, and andre coetzee dam had u-238 levels higher than the nuclear energy act stipulation and, therefore, have a positive tier 1 risk quotient. for approximately 50% of the 47 sites sampled, the calculated incremental doses of the respective critical group are between 1 msv and 100 msv per annum, the highest being 548 msv per annum calculated for the sample taken at blyvooruitzicht mine/bridge van eeden, liefferink and durand 57 carletonville (national nuclear regulator, 2007). the prescribed maximum radioactive dosage to which an adult may be exposed per year is 1 msv. after the publication of the wrc report no. 1214/1/06, the nnr increased the regulatory control to 0.5/bq/g. uranium-238 and its daughter products – thorium-234, protactinium234, uranium-234, thorium-230, radium-226, radon-222, polonium-218, lead-214, bisthmuth-214, polonium-214, lead-210, bismuth-210, and polonium-210 are alpha and beta particle emitters that have a damaging effect on tissues (coetzee et al., 2006; durakovic, 1999; hursh et al., 1969; kobert, 1906). the absorption of uranium may lead to kidney and liver failure (garnier and marke, 1921), and its neurotoxic effects include blindness, paralysis, and loss of coordination (verne, 1931). uranium may also cause mutations, aberrant sperm, connective tissue (including blood) diseases, changes in immune and endocrine systems, tumours, and cancer (shanahan et al., 1966; au et al., 1996; baur, 1996; conrad et al., 1996; zaire et al., 1996; 1997). the world health organisation provisionally recommended a maximum limit of 30 μg/l for uranium in drinking water in 2003. in the world health organisation drinking water standards, which were revised in 2005, the toxicological limit for uranium in drinking water was lowered to 15 μg/l. konietzka et al. (2005) concluded that the safe limit for uranium in drinking water should be 2 μg/l. the bundesrat (german federal parliament) passed legislature in 2006 that limits the level of uranium in bottled water to 2 μg/l, which it considers safe for the preparation of baby food. the maximum uranium concentration recommended in drinking water in south africa, on the other hand, is 70 μg/l (north west province, state of environment report, 2002). the uranium concentration in robinson lake is 16 mg/l. if 0.284 mg/l is exceeded, human health may be at risk due to chemical toxicity (kempster et al., 1996). 2.7 biodiversity amd leads to the decimation of aquatic life in the water bodies into which mine effluent is discharged (roback and richardson, 1969; jooste and thirion, 1999; adendorff, 1997; van staden, 2003). the sass aquatic macroinvertebrate scoring system was devised as a quick assessment of the water quality to determine its potability by looking at the diversity, numbers, and type of macroinvertebrate (according to pollution sensitivity) present in the water. according to the diminishing in diversity and numbers of invertebrates in the tweelopiespruit, the water quality rapidly deteriorates upstream along the tweelopiespruit towards harmony gold mine in randfontein (heyl, 2007; hobbs and cobbing, 2007). the pollution of the tweelopiespruit and the wonderfonteinspruit by amd not only impacted negatively on the biodiversity of the region, but also on the health of the surviving organisms that are dependent on the water from the river or groundwater in the vicinity of the mines in that region. amd-contaminated groundwater is used for irrigation in the vicinity of the mines. metals and other pollutants are accumulated in organisms as they pass through the food chain. during the process of bioaccumulation, some toxins can become more concentrated as they travel up the food chain and have a detrimental effect on higher trophic levels (kang et al., 1997). td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 58 3 legal considerations and public responsibility regarding mine closure 3.1 responsibilities, liabilities, and duties regarding mine closure under section 34 of the national environmental management act, no. 107 of 1998 (nema), if any party is convicted of an offence under an act listed in schedule 3 of the nema (which includes the national water act, no. 36 of 1998), and it appears that such a party has caused loss or damage to any other party, the court may determine the amount of loss or damage caused and may award damages or compensation equal to that amount in addition to other punishment such as the rehabilitation of the environment and taking steps to ensure that such damage would not occur again. court costs may be claimed from the guilty party. parties in such proceedings may rely on the common law remedies, including those available in terms of the law of delictual liability and the law of damages. whereas acts of parliament focus on the effects of activities, the basis of common law remedies, in negligence and nuisance, interferes with private property rights. as such, those remedies are available to the party that has suffered harm and not usually to third parties. the common law applies to all mining operations, whenever the licences or permits were obtained, unless modified by legislation. in common law, the landowner stands under no obligation to clean up contamination caused by another party on his or her property; nor is there a power vested in a local authority to order the landowner to clean contamination caused by a another party. however, should that landowner allow hazardous material that has accumulated on his or her property to escape and damage the property of another, the first landowner would be liable to the second under the rule in lascon properties (pty) ltd v wadeville investment co (pty) ltd and another 1997 (4) sa 578 (w). a remedy in nuisance would depend on the contamination escaping from the land that was subject to the mining and affecting other property. arguably, it will also require a foreseeability of harm. the usual remedies where nuisance is established are damages or interdict. even if the risk of harm to the plaintiff were foreseeable, liability would depend on what action could reasonably have been taken in all the circumstances to avert the risk. further, the standard of care required is that of a reasonable person in the circumstances, there being a higher standard of care required of persons possessing special skills or expertise. in the case of tailings dams, a number of experts would have been involved in their design, construction, use, operation, maintenance, and closure. all of these experts would have been required to exercise a degree of care commensurate with their skill and experience. a holder must apply for a closure certificate on lapsing or abandonment of his/her right/permit, cessation of mining operations, or relinquishment of any portion of land to which the right or permit relates. within 180 days from these situations occurring, the holder must complete and submit a prescribed closing plan, including an environmental risk report, to the dme regional manager. only after the chief inspector and dwaf have confirmed in writing that provisions have been complied with pertaining to health and safety and management of potential pollution to water resources may a closure certificate be issued van eeden, liefferink and durand 59 and may the financial contribution or part thereof be returned. 3.2 responsibility and liability for historic and current pollution and ecological degradation both the nema and the national water act (act 36 of 1998) stipulate that a party has to take all reasonable measures to prevent pollution or degradation from occurring, continuing, or recurring as a result of mining operations for which it is responsible. according to these acts, investigations, training, ceasing or modification of activities or processes, containment, and remediation have to be undertaken by the responsible party. the mineral and petroleum resources development act (act no. 28 of 2002) stipulates in section 38(1)(d) that the holder of the mining permit must take responsibility for the rehabilitation of the environment affected by mining to its natural state or to comply with the principle of sustainable development as far is reasonably practicable. the mineral and petroleum resources development act (mprda) deals with the responsibilities of holders of mining rights, permits, or permissions and states in section 38(1)(e) that such holder, whose mining causes or results in ecological degradation, pollution, or environmental damage that may be harmful to the health or well-being of anyone, “… is responsible for any environmental damage, pollution or ecological degradation as a result of his or her operations and which may occur inside and outside the boundaries of the area to which such right, permit or permission relates”, and in terms of section 43(1), “remain responsible for any environmental liability, pollution or ecological degradation and the management thereof until a closure certificate has been issued”. section 19 of the national water act (nwa) deals with prevention and remedying effects of pollution and states in subsection 19(1) that “an owner of land, a person in control of land or a person who occupies or uses the land on which(a) any activity or process is or was performed or undertaken; or (b) any other situation exists, which causes, has caused or is likely to cause pollution of a water resource, must take all reasonable measures to prevent any such pollution from occurring, continuing or recurring”. section 28 of the nema deals with the duty of care towards pollution prevention and remediation. under the mprda, nema, and by implication the nwa, liability is specifically extended to the director of the mining company concerned in his or her personal capacity, that is, personal liability: mprda, section 38(2): “notwithstanding the companies act, no 61 of 1973, or the close corporations act no 69 of 1984, the directors of a company or members of a close corporation are jointly and severally liable; for any unacceptable negative impact on the environment, including damage, degradation or pollution; advertently or inadvertently caused by the company or close corporation which they represent or represented.” nema, section 34(7), states that any person who is or was a director of a mining company at the time of the commission by that mining company of an offence under a provision listed in schedule 3 (this includes the nwa) will be guilty in his/her personal capacities of the offence and liable on conviction to the penalties imposed if the offence in question resulted from the failure of the director to take all reasonable steps that td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 60 were necessary under the circumstances to prevent the commission of the offence by the mining corporation. proof of the said offence by the firm under the schedule 3 provision shall constitute prima facie evidence that the director is guilty. all three statutes, furthermore, establish a joint and shared liability and prevent liability from being contracted out. the mprda, however, provides for the transfer of environmental liabilities in section 43(2) in a particular manner: on written application in the prescribed manner by the holder of a right or permit, the minister may transfer such environmental liabilities and responsibilities as may be identified in the environmental management programme and closure plan to a person with such qualifications as may be prescribed. these prescriptions are contained in regulations 58 and 59 of the mprd regulations (gnr527). the provision relating to the transfer of liability under the mprda does not, however, imply that it can be contracted out, as described above. apportionment of liability is provided for in the nema and the nwa, but not under the mprda, since the holder of the right or permit is deemed to be the responsible person. if more than one person is liable under the nwa, “the responsible authority (dwaf or cma [catchment management agency]) must apportion the liability, but such apportionment does not relieve any of them of their joint and several liability for the full amount of the costs” (section 19(8)). liability may also be apportioned by the department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat) in terms of nema, section 28(11): if more than one person is liable, “… the liability must be apportioned among the persons concerned according to the degree to which each was responsible for the harm to the environment resulting from their respective failures to take the measures required”. bosman and kotze (2005) state that an applicant for a mining right or permit must also make financial provision for remediation of environmental damage or management of negative environmental impacts in terms of the mprda prior to approval of his/her environmental management plan (emp). the liabilities and contribution to the financial provision must be assessed annually, and the minister of the department of minerals and energy (dme) may appoint an independent assessor if necessary. the requirement to maintain and retain financial provision remains in place until a closure certificate has been issued, but the minister may retain such portion of the financial provision as may be required to rehabilitate the closed mining operation in respect of latent or residual environmental impacts (section 41(5)). the mprd regulations prescribe the requirements to obtain a closure certificate. an application for mine closure (regulation 57) must be accompanied by a closure plan and an environmental risk report. the closure plan (regulation 62) forms part of the emp and must include, inter alia: � a description of the closure objectives and how these relate to the prospecting or mine operation and its environmental and social setting. closure objectives (regulation 61) form part of the draft emp (and are, therefore, established before mining commences or on application for the mining right or permit) and must identify the key objectives for mine closure to guide the project design, development, and management of environmental impacts, van eeden, liefferink and durand 61 provide broad future land objectives for the site, and provide proposed closure costs; � a sketch plan drawn on an appropriate scale describing the final and future land use proposal and arrangement for the site; � a summary of the regulatory requirements and conditions for closure negotiated and documented in the emp; � a summary of the results of the environmental risk report and details of identified residual and latent impacts; � a summary of the results of progressive rehabilitation undertaken; � the mitigation or management strategy proposed to avoid, minimise, and manage residual or latent impacts; � details of any long-term management and maintenance expected as well as a proposed closure cost and financial provision for monitoring, maintenance, and post-closure management; � a record of interested and affected parties consulted. bosman and kotze (2005) state that the mprda is the only south african act that specifically indicates the end point of remediation, which also incorporates the concept of sustainable sequential land use and use of other resources such as water in the statutory framework. it is stipulated by this act that interested and affected parties must be involved in the agreement on the future land use of areas impacted on by mining. regulation 56 of the mineral and petroleum development regulations (mpdr) prescribes the principles for mine closure as follows: “in accordance with applicable legislative requirements for mine closure, the holder of a mining right or mining permit must ensure that� the closure of a mining operation incorporates a process which must start at the commencement of the operation and continue throughout the life of the operation; � risks pertaining to environmental impacts must be quantified and managed, which includes the gathering of relevant information throughout the life of a mining operation; � the safety and health requirements of the mine health and safety act 29 of 1996, are complied with; � residual and possible latent environmental impacts are identified and quantified; � the land is rehabilitated, as far as is practicable, to its natural state, or to a predetermined and agreed standard or land use which conforms with the concept of sustainable development and � mining operations are closed efficiently and cost effectively.” this implies that, before a decision is taken on which measures to implement for remediation and closure, the objectives that need to be achieved with the implementation of such measures must be established td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 62 and agreed on. this corresponds to the mprd regulations objectives for mine closure stated above: “the land is rehabilitated, as far as is practicable, to its natural state, or to a predetermined and agreed standard or land use which conforms [to] the concept of sustainable development.” such objectives would include, from a generic perspective, the following: � immediate harm to human health and safety must be eliminated; � groundwater must be fit for current and future domestic and other uses consistent with agreed current and future land use; � surface water must be fit for current and future basic human needs and aquatic ecosystems requirements; � risk of harm to non-aquatic organisms (vegetation) must be eliminated; and � soil (property) must be fit for use consistent with current and future land use. specific objectives must be established for each of these aspects at individual sites. in this context, it is, therefore, impossible to determine whether measures taken to remediate environmental impacts with the aim of achieving mine closure are, in fact, “reasonable measures”, unless the future land use has been determined and objectives for remediation have been agreed on (bosman and kotze, 2005). 4. environmental and societal concerns and considerations in a study of destructive environmental practices such as toxic crimes and other environmental injustices, it appears evident that claims are rarely successful due to the lack of evidence (burns and lynch, 2002). therefore, research on corporate crime has been neglected for many years because of this lack of data. the effects of environmental pollution can take years to emerge as in the case of cancer that may be caused by invisible pollutants. often reports on pollution that is treated by bureaucrats as “secret” or “confidential” are purposefully kept from the public, which is directly affected by the pollution. current mine closures need to be addressed with urgency. all mines have a finite lifespan, and a large number of mines have already reached the end of production and are often left in a derelict and abandoned condition. in terms of the official statement by the dme, there are approximately 8 000 derelict and ownerless mines, which would take 800 years to rehabilitate at a current cost of r100 billion (brown, 2007). this figure is only an estimate and certainly excludes the cost of the treatment of polluted groundwater and human health, loss of earnings, and social disruption. environmental and social impacts manifest after mining commences, but worsen rapidly once mine closure is reached and no further funds are available for remediation. typically, environmental and social costs are not balance sheet items, being kept away from investors, effectively shifting the cost of rehabilitation onto society. the negative effects of the mines will reach their climax over tens if not hundreds of years. the federation for a sustainable environment made an oral and written submission of the official findings from public domain reports on 4 june van eeden, liefferink and durand 63 2008 to ms c september, the chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on water quality and pollution. in response, the minister of minerals and energy, bulyewa sonjica, said in her budget speech before parliament on 6 june 2008: “following reports of possible radiological contamination in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area, the national nuclear regulator instituted an investigation. the investigation indicated that the situation does not pose a radiological risk to the surrounding communities.” government is currently finding it very difficult to engage the mining sector regarding this problem, with many mining companies refusing to accept responsibility for amd and related environmental problems. the wonderfontein regulators steering committee (wrsc) was founded on 21 december 2007 as a result of the oppositional activism of the federation for a sustainable environment with support of the legal resource centre, cansa, the csir, and researchers and community groups such as the public environmental arbiters, potchefstroom petitioners, pelindaba working group, groundwork, earthlife, fochville concerned residents, and the randfontein environmental action group. it was aspired that this committee, together with officials of all the relevant government departments as well as from the local municipalities, would steer the whole remediation process and that the nnr would chair the wrsc. it was aspired that the nnr would have stricter control over the discharges from the mines and that dwaf would ensure that all water use licences be issued to the mines as soon as possible in an endeavour to stop contamination of the tweelopiespruit and wonderfonteinspruit. all regulators agreed that remediation of the hot spots was required. a team of experts (tox) was appointed by government to determine the priority hot spots, but this was done without public participation or community engagement. the wrsc, furthermore, aspired that the mines would be approached to contribute financially towards the remedial work to be done as per the findings of the tox and that the community would be involved in this regard. the only progress that has been made so far is the appointment of the tox. the problems that remain are: � uncertainties regarding the method followed in the appointment of this team, its terms of reference, its source of remuneration, the credentials of its individual members, etc.; � radioactive hot spots remain unrehabilitated, unremediated, unmitigated; � the public continues to be exposed to radioactive hot spots without intervention from the mines or government; � the mines are still operating without water use licences; � the majority of affected communities are still excluded from the consultation processes; � the nnr is visibly absent from all water forum meetings and committees; � point source pollution continues without enforcement of the “polluter td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 64 pays” principle; � habitual non-compliance with the dwaf and nnr directives remains unpunished; � the mines have not agreed to contribute financially towards remedial work; � affected landowners continue to suffer significant pecuniary losses and health risks. it is evident that mine closure poses a number of challenges to the environment and groundwater legislation. the gold mines within the west rand and far west rand are in close proximity, resulting in a hydrological confluence that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to consider the water-related closure risks in isolation. most of the gold mines are exposed to the inflow of extraneous water into the underground workings. the aquifers affected by the subsequent dewatering vary from one basin to the next, as do the associated environmental problems (pulles et al., 2005). from a review of mine environmental management programme reports, none of the gold mining companies (drd gold, anglogold ashanti, goldfields, harmony gold) operating within the west rand and far west rand operate according to an approved aligned environmental management plan (emp) in terms of the mineral and petroleum resources development act (act no. 28 of 2002) (kruger; rex and ellis; wookay; zorab, 2008). according to pulles et al. (2005), the surface residue deposits (tailings dams and waste rock dumps) that remain after mine closure can never be maintained in a completely reducing environment and must be considered to pose a potential water-related risk. while most mines recognise the fact that tailings dams generate amd, it is generally and incorrectly assumed that the impact will decrease to acceptable levels when mining operations cease. the assessment of long-term risks from tailings dams can at best be described as subjectively qualitative in nature, and no proper quantitative assessments are reported in any of the environmental management programme reports (empr). according to pulles et al. (2005), waste rock dumps have very large inventories of fine material that are much more permeable to oxygen than tailings dams. these authors are also of the opinion that the secondary source of contaminants that remain in the soil after a dump has been removed appears to be universally ignored, and it is assumed that removal of the dump removes all potential for pollution from that site. pulles et al. (2005) also state that most mines appear to have some monitoring programme to evaluate shallow aquifer and surface water impacts from the surface residue deposits. however, the monitoring programmes are not clearly stipulated in the empr documents, and hence, it is unclear what the extent of contaminant plumes is. very few specialist investigations appear to have been done to identify the status of the geohydrological regime, the extent of contamination, preferential pathways, and predictions regarding long-term migration. as a result, there are very limited mitigation or management options described in the emprs that specifically deal with the containment or rehabilitation of contaminated groundwater. the potential impact on van eeden, liefferink and durand 65 the groundwater from other surface contaminant sources such as the metallurgical plants and domestic and industrial waste sites is not described. many of the empr documents state that these structures will be removed or rehabilitated during decommissioning, but it is not stated whether they had an impact on the environment and whether groundwater rehabilitation is required. some of the older mines were subjected to amalgamations and changes in ownership (for example, drd gold – joint ventures with mintails, blyvooruitzicht gold mining company; harmony gold – joint venture with pamodzi holdings, known as rand uranium, and sale of assets to moira mining; goldfields’ kloof, including leeudoring, and east driefontein and west driefontein were consolidated, etc.), and in several instances, the surface infrastructure, including some tailings and rock dumps, was sold to third parties. many of the current mine empr documents exclude infrastructure that has been sold, and it is not clear whether the new owners are required to address groundwater contamination and whether it is, in fact, being done. 5 conclusion this paper has illuminated some of the many environmental and socioeconomic issues that have to be addressed by government and the mines before mine closure can take place on the west rand. it is evident that researchers from a variety of disciplines have an important role to play in order to help solve what we consider to be a national crisis. it is essential that environmental justice should triumph in order to secure a healthier environment for those who live in it, if not for the sake of the environment itself (van eeden, 2008b). in the light of the overwhelming evidence that: � the water of the tweelopiespruit and the wonderfonteinspruit is polluted by the gold and uranium mines of gauteng and the west and far west rand, � the water contains unacceptable levels of acid, sulphates, and metals, � the water and sediment contain radionucleotides such as uranium in excess of 15 micrograms per litre, which is the prescribed maximum allowed by the who for human consumption (world health organisation, 2005), � high levels of pollutants, especially in combination with one another, cause the degradation of the aquatic ecosystem, and � the pollution emanating from the mines poses a threat to the health of humans and other organisms that depend on that water source, it is incomprehensible that the department of health, dwaf, deat, and dme refuse to acknowledge this crisis in public or deal with this crisis decisively, but rather prefer to act with ignorance and rather chase smallscale industries for some kind of artificial success in the field of environmental preservation. many thousands of people and their livestock depend on the rivers and groundwater from the tweelopiespruit and wonderfonteinspruit catchments (oelofse et al., 2007; van biljon, 2007). td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility 66 the government’s refusal to take punitive steps against the mines that polluted and are still polluting this water resource and the land surrounding it or to force them to rehabilitate the areas that are affected by mining activities stands in conflict with the constitution of south africa. the constitution of south africa (act no. 108 of 1996) supersedes any other act of parliament. it is the moral duty of the government to look first and foremost at the well-being of its citizens and preservation of the environment before catering for the financial needs of multinational companies. the efforts of many specialists have failed to address and solve the problem of mine pollution, which has delayed mine closure so far because most have been working in isolation with relatively little interaction with specialists from other disciplines or the community. the cooperation between geologists, hydrologists, biologists, ecologists, health practitioners, human rights activists, sociologists, historians, environmentalists, legal practitioners, the media, and the community is necessary to address this multifaceted problem and to find a solution to one of the most serious ecological threats that faces south africa. references adendorff, a. 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(2008), harmony gold – personal communication with m. liefferink. td, 5(1), july 2009, pp. 51-71. mine closure and social responsibility about the author(s) aletta j. van as department of foundation studies: music education, wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lorayne a. excell department of foundation studies: early childhood education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa noluthando magadla department of adult, foundation phase and educational foundations education, faculty of educational sciences, walter sisulu university, mthatha, south africa neliswa gqoli department of adult, foundation phase and educational foundations education, faculty of educational sciences, walter sisulu university, mthatha, south africa citation van as, a.j., excell, l.a., magadla, n. & gqoli, n., 2021, ‘corrigendum: through the eyes of parents: culture of young children in diverse early learning spaces’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 17(1), a1128. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1128 note: doi link to the original article: https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.763 correction corrigendum: through the eyes of parents: culture of young children in diverse early learning spaces aletta j. van as, lorayne a. excell, noluthando magadla, neliswa gqoli published: 01 dec. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the version of this article initially published, van as, a.j., excell, l.a., magadala, n. & gqoli, n., 2020, ‘through the eyes of parents: culture of young children in diverse early learning spaces’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a763. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.763, the third author’s surname was spelled incorrectly. the correct spelling should be magadla instead of magadala. this correction does not alter the study’s findings of significance or overall interpretation of the study results. the authors apologises for any inconvenience caused. abstract introduction lack of educational research regarding intersex bodies theoretical framework method limitations of the study findings and discussions puberty, sex education and relationships in life orientation intersex bodies, exposure and humiliation in school bathrooms conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) anthony brown department of educational psychology, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa citation brown a. unintelligibility, personhood and curriculum silences of intersex bodies in the life orientation high school classroom: a case study. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1099. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1099 original research unintelligibility, personhood and curriculum silences of intersex bodies in the life orientation high school classroom: a case study anthony brown received: 21 june 2021; accepted: 13 jan. 2022; published: 23 mar. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract despite an increase in the research that promotes affirmative gender and sexual diversity in the south african life orientation (lo) education, there remains an uncomfortable silence on intersex bodies. in the absence of distinctive binary classifications of external genitalia, learners with variant intersex characteristics are incapable of integration into socio-educational environments. this article explores how individuals with variant intersex characteristics learn about the self in relation to society within lo lessons. it extrapolates factors that influence the educational and psycho-social agency in and around the classroom. this phenomenological study has drawn on in-depth interviews with six individuals with variant intersex characteristics post schooling. the evidence shows that the lo curriculum privileges distinct genital developments as a marker of normal human development and means of gender identification. previous studies found that the mutually exclusive biological sex characteristics drawn from xy (male) and xx (female) chromosomal development were major determinants of social sexual and gender embodiment in puberty lessons. lensed through the theory of unintelligibility, bodies that deviated from this normative development were seen as ambiguous and derogatively referred to as hermaphrodites. their personal identities were marred with constructions of freaks and abnormality. vilifying personhood rhetoric impacted the social skills of intersex learners and their peers. learners with intersex bodies were uncomfortable to engage with the gender binary curriculum content, facilities and school culture. silences on intersex bodies in the lo curriculum made these learners feel invisible which led to early school dropout. this article argues for the integration of intersex knowledge that affirms, humanises and protects all gender, sexual expressions and sex characteristics in the school context. the lo curriculum is well-positioned to disrupt problematic constructions of intersex bodies as deficit and embarrassing by including variant sex characteristic developments as a norm. keywords: intersex characteristics; unintelligibility; distinctive genitalia; life orientation; compulsory heteronormativity; comprehensive sexuality education. introduction schools are spaces that not only offer cognitive learning opportunities but also enable young people to learn about the complex realities of sexual and gender identities and the self in relation to their diverse societies they emanate from.1,2 the school site is also known to legitimise and normalise sexuality, gender and sex characteristics often through curriculum and pedagogical approaches.3 despite the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in south african schools,4 lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender youth have continuously been vilified for deviating from the privileged and valorised expression of heterosexuality.5,6,7 with reference to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (lgbti) acronym that alludes to sex, sexual and gender diversity issues, intersex research remains unexplored in the south african school context. research regarding people with variant intersex characteristics has been mainly carried out through clinical studies. moreover, a gap remains as to what the educational needs may be. the first publicly known person in south africa with an intersex variant development, the olympian medallist caster semenya, was locally and internationally subjected to relentless scrutiny because of diverse sex characteristics which was believed to privilege her unusual track performance.8 nthabiseng mokoena, an activist who reclaimed their intersex identity, shared how they were subjected to shame and embarrassment because of non-binary male/female sex characteristics, which is considered to be unnatural.9 bodies with characteristics such as chromosomes, gonads or genitals that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies are read as unreal and subjected to violence, discrimination, rejection and often killed in south africa.8 the invisibility around intersex bodies is critical in formal and public education in south africa. the general aim of the school curriculum explicitly points out that inclusivity should become a central part of the organisation, planning and teaching at each school.10 the teaching and learning space should infuse key principles of human rights and social justice as defined in the constitution of the republic of south africa. it is important to point out that the south african constitution recognises the rights of all persons irrespective of sexual orientation, gender identity and physical characteristics amongst other diversities.11 life orientation (lo) is one of the learning areas where learners would engage in issues of diversity. the life orientation learning area aims to empower learners to use their talents to achieve their full physical, intellectual, personal, emotional and social potential … it addresses skills, knowledge and values about the self, the environment, responsible citizenship, a healthy and productive life. (p. 8)12 to align with constitutional principles, the department of education has made considerable efforts to address issues of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities in using lo scripted lesson plans. this inclusion was influenced by the burgeoning research that shows violence, discrimination and vilification towards lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender identifying learners and those with variations of intersex characteristics of which the main perpetrators are their peers and teachers in and around the classroom.13,14,15 despite the comprehensive sexuality education scripted lesson plans that attempt to address aspects of sexual and gender diversity, there remains a paucity and invisibility about learners with intersex variations. intersex learners present variant chromosomal, gonadal or genitalia that do not present distinctive male or female characteristics.16 the medical fraternity discursively explains this development as incomplete or abnormal chromosomal, gonadal development of distinctive male or female genitalia and in derogatory sense, it is labelled as disorder of sex development (dsd).16 this definition points to the critical and persistent power of the medical world to categorise the normality of the body into compulsory sex/gender nexus of pre-discursive categories of maleness and femaleness.17 approximately one in 2000 children globally is born with dsd.16 some statistics suggest that this number in south africa may be much higher, with an estimate of one in 500, or even as high as one in 200.18 it is inevitable that these children will soon embark on a journey of schooling. an emerging body of literature on gender and sexuality research has shown that south african schools are producing sites of fixed gender categories in their curricula, pedagogies, ethos and resources such as textbooks.13,19,20,21,22 the lo learning area enables young people to vicariously and often overtly learn about each other, their relationships to one another and subsequently the differences amongst themselves.23 in an environment that privileges normative gender identities that align with distinctive sex developments, it is uncertain how learners with variant sex characteristics experience the lo classroom. this sheds light on the discourse of variant intersex characteristics in the school context. lack of educational research regarding intersex bodies presently, there is no curriculum, textbook or policy in south africa that offers information on the education about people with intersex variations. the newly developed scripted lesson plans on comprehensive sexuality education in lo include limited content on lesbian and gay identities in the school context. however, the equality clause in the south african constitution is all-inclusive to preserve the human rights of all persons, including those who identify themselves as lgbti, yet there remains a disjuncture between the constitution and its implementation or access to those being discriminated against.24 schools are still centres of rejection, ridicule, discrimination and dehumanised experiences for youth with counter-normative sexual and gender identities.15,25,26,27 this is because children and youth bodies are continuously categorised and regulated through discourses of ‘normality’ and those who are in need of intervention.28 despite the scholastic mandates for a dignified learning experience through the south african schools act of 1996,29 the ratification of safe and inclusive learning environments30 and the statutory responsibility of educators to refrain from discrimination, the reality of the south african schooling system is that it is riddled with repression and abhorrence towards otherness.31 the emerging body of research that explores diverse gender and sexualities in schools has shown the vilification in the presence of misaligned expressions of the sex/gender binary.15,32,33 these studies demonstrate that the school culture in south africa (re)produces and valorises normative sex/gender binaries that ensure that the performance of behaviours of bodies with distinctive genitalia are in congruence with their gender markers and associated socio-cultural scripts. there is a systemic panoptic lens that polices the embodiment of gender through dress codes, subject types, associations, gestures and voice tones.20,22 deviated scripted gender behaviour from its sexed body has been subjected to violence, discrimination, isolation, exclusion and neglect.15,25 these compulsory gender binary expressions often labelled as compulsory heteronormativity regulate identity, behaviour and expressions.13 heteronormativity enforces a romantic and emotional attraction to the distinctive opposite sex.16 with the lack of variant intersex characteristics knowledge in the recently released series of scripted lessons on sexuality education,33 this article is concerned about the inclusion and affirmation of individuals with non-binary distinctive sex or chromosomal characteristics. existing literature, globally, has focused primarily on gender assignment, psychosexual outcomes, including gender role and gender identity and ethical considerations related to treatment of intersex individuals.34 there is a paucity of international literature on the psycho-educational realities of intersex school youth. individuals with intersex variations, [s]ometimes, face significant educational barriers around puberty and secondary schooling; inclusive approaches, good quality policy and guidance are needed on the proper inclusion and that school staff (particularly, school counsellors) and students also need training on how to react to disclosures about intersex variations in a non-discriminatory manner. (p. 16)17 in light of all of the above, i question how the intersex body as a construct of abnormal diagnosis could be perceived and engaged with in the lo classroom that is mandated to promote knowledge and values of diversity and social justice. theoretical framework i employed judith butler’s intelligibility theory that provides researchers with a framework to understand how individuals are made intelligible by ascribing and conforming to normative standards of gender intelligibility.25 ‘in western culture, sex, gender, and sexual orientation are viewed as closely linked, essential qualities’ (p. 2).35 the predominant understanding is that sex is naturally binary, important and regular. this means that all bodies are required to be born with an either distinctive penis or vagina which eventually becomes the determiner of gender.26 there is a predominant belief that a baby born with a penis matures into identifying and acting like a man, with the gender roles that are predetermined by a specific culture that compels a sexual attraction to females.27 butler contests this dichotomous notion of natural sex and culturally constructed gender saying that there is nothing that guarantees that the one who becomes a woman is necessarily female or the inverse. correspondingly, an infant born with a vagina matures into identifying and acting like a woman, with the gender roles that are predetermined by a specific culture with the expectation of a sexual attraction to males.27 cultural interpretation oversimplifies sex, which results in a binary perspective, pointing to evidence regarding the substantial variability in ‘chromosomes, genitalia, and hormones, that do not always align in the expected, binary manner’.26 butler states that even biologists: [a]rgue that a binary view of human sex is overly simplistic and that sex should be viewed as a spectrum rather than a dichotomy, in terms of anatomical, hormonal and even cellular sex. (p. 2)27 therefore, biology in itself does not produce distinct binary categories.26 butler argues against the notion of a stable, pre-discursive sex that awaits gendering, claiming that the idea of natural and distinctive sex characteristics is itself a discursive construction that was conveniently produced for the sustenance of heterosexuality. schools are microcosms of society28 and emulate the values of communities. schools are found to produce and perpetuate an ethos that requires distinctive gendered scripts determined by distinctive biological sex development of a penis or vagina. for learners with unintelligent bodies because of intersex genitalia, the school environment could be a space of exile. when the body has sex characteristics that either have distinctive male and female genitals, no genitals and chromosomal development that do not align with genital development, the body is rendered unintelligible. the body becomes delegitimised, delegalised and is framed as deformed and unacceptable.26 as such, these bodies with variant intersex characteristics are invisibilised and by implication should not exist. the study reported here aimed to explore how people with intersex variations experience lo classrooms and how their bodies may (not) be acknowledged and validated in school curriculums, practice and culture because their misalignment with distinctive sex characteristic development that produce gender. method a case study approach using individual interviews explored the experiences of individuals with intersex variations. the case study method allowed for a real-life detailed, in-depth data collection with people with variant intersex developments. by employing a phenomenological paradigm, my sole objective was to understand and explore the participants’ understandings and experiences of being intersex in the school environment.29 i identified six participants with the assistance of a civil society organisation called intersex south africa (isa). the participants are members of isa where they are provided with psychosocial, educational and other social support to navigate around the realities of intersex developments. intersex south africa contacted its members to inform them of the study and only six people voluntarily agreed to participate. it is important to point out that these experiences are retrospective reflections because all participants either completed school or dropped out. the average age of participants was 25 years and they have left school in the past two to five years. embarking on this study, i was aware that the meaning and understanding around schooling experiences are explored in a setting where heterosexuality is constructed as normal and sexualities that deviate from this norm are silenced.30 this study applied pseudonyms to protect the identities of the self-identifying intersex participants. participants (pseudonyms used) sibongakonke (pseudonym) aged 21 dropped out of school at the age of 20 after repeatedly failing various grades. he attributed his failure to ongoing and untreated depression to his non-normative sexuality. sibongakonke was born without any distinctive genitals. at birth, doctors asked his parents what gender child they wish to have and they agreed to a male child. through corrective surgery, a penis was appended to his body. the penis, however, remained small and did not develop as he was growing older. as a young adult, sibongakonke still has the penis size of an infant. jacky aged 28 was born with xy (male) chromosomes with both external vaginal and testes genitalia. jacky’s parents who registered and raised her as a female insisted that she focusses only on her school work, never to make friends at school, or talk about or show her testes to anyone. jacky’s parents also prevented her from playing sports or participate in physical education. according to jacky, her testes were removed at the age of 16, which left her with visible scars around the pelvic area. jacky was injected with oestrogen hormonal treatment to enhance her external female physical characteristics such as breasts and the reduction of the male hormone progesterone. jacky completed secondary school and pursued higher education. bongs was born with both a vagina and a penis. during adolescence, bongs developed breasts and presented more as a female physically. bongs was also registered as female by her parents. she experience severe menstruation difficulties, which resulted in long periods of hospitalisation in grade 12 which resulted in bongs dropping out of school. thandi was born with a vagina and a penis but was registered as a female at birth. thandi who was raised as a female frequently questioned her mother about the ‘growth’ above her vagina. thandi was told by her mom that it should go away and was warned not to show her penis, which had grown, to anyone. thandi completed secondary school and completed a higher education diploma. jabu aged 22 was born with a fully developed vagina and a small penis. although she was assigned a female identity at birth, jabu always identified as a male. according to jabu, he preferred male clothing, chose to play with boys and told people that he is a boy. the school insisted that jabu should wear the female school uniform that caused discomfort and confrontation as jabu preferred to wear the male school uniform. jabu became extremely aggressive in fighting off bullying peers and teachers, constantly moved from one school to the other, and eventually dropped out at age 17 in grade 10. andy aged 26 was registered as male at birth as he was with a penis and vagina but with an xy chromosomal development. after failed surgery to correct the genitalia, both the vagina and penis were removed. andy grew up with an opening in the pelvic area, which required him to sit down when he had to urinate. the males in the school bathroom noticed this behaviour and through constant invasion discovered that he does not have any genitals. this resulted in unending bullying that led to violent fights that caused andy to get suspended for severely beating up another learner. he eventually dropped out of school in grade 11. data analysis critical discourse analysis was used to ascribe meaning to the data collected in this study. education researchers turned to discourse analysis as a way to make sense of the ways in which people make meaning in educational contexts. this introduced an elaborate framework for coding teachers’ and students’ discourse acts in classroom talk.2 their intention was to provide an extensive structural model of discourse organisation in classroom interactions. educational scholars describe the micro-interactions that occurred in classrooms to theorise about the ways in which social structures are reproduced through educational institutions.22 i searched for different elements within each case study and categorised them into themes that could respond to the research questions. this article will discuss two themes only, namely, puberty, sex education and relationships in lo; and from the lo classroom to school bathroom: a space of horror. ethical considerations ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee in the faculty of education at the university of johannesburg (ethics no. 2-2019-024). all participants fill out a consent form since they were above the age of 18 years. participants were informed that they could withdraw at any stage of the study and a pro bono therapist was on standby in the event of psychological support. the latter was, however, not required. all participants shared their experiences willingly and expressed an appreciation for an opportunity to have their realities voiced. limitations of the study i acknowledge that the experiences of the participants are retrospective and span over a five-year period. however, there remains a silence and invisibility in relation to learners with variant intersex bodies. the findings for present day lo education is still valid and relevant. findings and discussions these two themes extrapolated from individuals with variant intersex characteristics intended to bring an understanding to the daily realities and navigation in and around the lo classroom. the school experiences of learners are shaped either positively or negatively by the attitudes and behaviours of peers and staff, as well as general school ethos.31 these themes show how experiences with learning in the lo classroom influenced and shaped the entire schooling experience of people with variant intersex developments. the participants in this study reflected on their early childhood, and primary and secondary school experiences. participants also shared their experiences of ridicule, unacceptance, ostracism and discrimination and the impact these had during their primary and secondary schooling. it was important to explore participants’ perceptions regarding the quality of learning, teaching and issues that affect these, as such factors are significant to ensuring that all learners are involved, active and assured in their education and school experiences.32 puberty, sex education and relationships in life orientation in this theme, participants shared their experiences as these relate to core content in the life skills and lo lessons. the puberty and sex education curriculum is not inclusive as it leaves out representation of the full variety of human physical or bodily diversity.10 for all the participants, representations of distinctive and so-called ‘normal’ male and female genitalia in the textbooks were evident wherein their bodies and indeterminate genitalia were developing outside the biologically and socially expected norm. they narrated that sexual reproduction and development were taught inside the binary classification of male/female and variations seemed to be incomprehensible. such views correlate with a report that sexuality education has been deployed to regulate and discipline young sexualities, and reinforce and perpetuate gender binarism and heteronormativity.8 to these participants, the lo curriculum served as a reinforcement that they were an abnormality, which further increased their agony and need to ‘fix’ this medical and social anomaly. this decreased the desire to learn and be in the school social context, as it was discriminatory and exclusionary: ‘i realised i was different when i was very young, at the beginning of primary school. i grew up with other boys, their penises were larger than mine. i was about 7 years old. it happened when we all went to the bathrooms. it has always been a game to have a strong beam when you urinate standing away from the urinal. their bodies became visible to me and mine to them. again, i relived the stares and later the teasing. this time it was more children and they would tell other boys about my baby penis. my whole life became about my penis. they would forever talk about my small penis. as you know kids unknowingly can be cruel. i started to use the stalls to relieve myself. those who heard the rumours about my penis would lean over the walls of the stalls to see if it was true. leaving the stalls was always the most difficult because i would be faced with stares, laughter and torment.’ (sibongakonke) ‘i never learned about my kind of body in class. we were taught about the penis and vagina and nothing else about challenges in development or differences in bodies. information in the life orientation class and the textbook made me realise i had not reached puberty. i was frightened and traumatised, i had just realised my body was abnormal. the giggles from learners in my class, as they compared what they had seen or heard about my micro-penis, further added to my anxiety and fears. the textbooks confirmed what they have been saying all along. i wish i never attended those classes, as they showed how deformed i was.’ (sibongakonke) ‘over the years my doctor told me that my chromosomal make up was xy. i simply thought that it explains why i have testes and a vagina. since i focused on my school work, i suppressed this unusual growth in my body. it was in the life science class that i learned that xy means you are male and xx means female. the life orientation classroom was an additional confirmation that i am a strange. the teacher explained the chromosomal make up of different genders. internally, i was male, externally, i was female with some male organs and registered as female. it was a mess. i decided to go in a deeper isolation. no one could know about me. i was scared all the time. i had no one to talk to.’ (jacky) ‘i knew from the beginning that something was wrong with me. i had no penis nor a vagina. i knew i was a boy because i looked like one and dressed like one. when i was in primary school i would rush home to use the toilet because my school was close. this was on the instruction of my mom to hide my situation. it was until i went to secondary school that my nightmare started. i had to use the bathroom stalls which made me different from all the other boys who used the urinals. after a long questioning by the boys for using the stalls to pee, in one incident they one day pulled down my pants and discovered i have nothing. my secret was out and my nightmare started. so when the lo teacher discussed issues of puberty, the boys looked at me and laughed. the one asked the teacher what they should call people with no “tools.” i knew they were referring to me but surprisingly the teacher remained silent. that day i decided to stand up for myself and fought really hard. that was my last day at school because i was suspended and never returned.’ (andy) apart from questioning their own bodily development, their peers also pointed out their bodily deformation in the lo class. these lessons were extremely difficult as their peers stigmatised their bodies, creating in the participants a sense of bodily shame. these participants endured humiliation during sexuality education in the form of stares, silent whispers and giggles from other learners, who openly compared their bodily variation and penis size to that contained in the textbook. individuals with intersex variations, ‘sometimes face significant educational barriers around puberty and secondary schooling’ (p. 16). the unpleasant classroom and school experience resulted in some of the participants repeating school grades during high school, and some dropping out of the education system entirely. the constant teasing during puberty and sexuality lessons resulted in the participants absconding class, or they were physically present but mentally absent as a coping mechanism: ‘i would rather be at home than to be at school. i only came to school because my family forced me to be there. there was nothing to learn that is about me. learning about the others made me feel i don’t belong and that i was unimportant. for that reason i would rather be on my own.’ (jabu) ‘i met friends in a park near the school. they would smoke weed. i started smoking with them. it made me feel better than to learn how misinformed i was. they did not know about the secrets in my body. my private parts were private. i would pretend to go to school and end up in the park with my friends. this was really better than me being mocked in the presence of a teacher who didn’t care of my pain.’ (andy) ‘lo was only twice a week. that was the good thing. but those two periods felt like forever. i was happy to do the other subjects that had nothing to do with my body, like languages and maths. once i entered the lo class i zoomed out. it was as if my body was there but mentally i was absent.’ (jacky) bodily shame led to andy not attending school, whilst jacky would mentally remove herself from the classroom. taking numerous days off from school often resulted in them missing out on important schoolwork. studying from home on their own was another difficulty, which was the very source of their trauma, as the textbook could not facilitate learning. more so, there was no other material like magazines or books where they could learn about their unique bodily developments. this resulted in many of them internalising the offensive remarks that were made in the class: ‘since my parents asked me to focus on my school work, i thought i will zoom out in class and catch up later. i could not do that. the textbook did not speak to my body which was abnormal. the teacher did not speak about my body nor could i find any other information. i did not even know what to search on the internet because i did not have a name for my weird body.’ (jacky) ‘sometimes i thought i would study the work on my own at home. the only information in the textbook was about their normal bodies. my body was nowhere. i realised i was some sort of a moron, some freak from a horror movie. think about it. i am boy with no penis, no private part, just a hole. no wonder i could not be in the textbook. how do you teach people that this is a normal body? in schools we learn of normal things.’ (andy) it was difficult for them to remain focused on learning during lessons. they would be captured by memories and images of the bullying in and around the classroom. they were more concerned about what was said about them or anticipating the next attack from their peers. quiet chuckles and whispers would make them hyper vigilant. this alertness was important because their mental response needed to be prepared to go into fight or flight mode, in case another bullying stunt lurked around them: ‘the giggles from leaners in my class added to my anxiety and fears, as the textbooks confirmed what they have been saying all along. they would compare what they had seen or heard about my small penis. i wish i never attended those classes, as they made me feel like a monster.’ (sibongakonke) ‘although i kept to myself and they did not know of my deep secret, every time the lessons of puberty was taught i felt as if they could see through my clothes that i have balls and a vagina. i would be scared and would draw deeper into isolation. i was not ready that this world knows my secret. i saw what they did to other kids who are different.’ (jacky) hiv education is amongst the core content in the lo classroom to mitigate infections and mortality rates.8 lessons in lo predominantly focus on abstinence and safe sex practices.8 whenever teachers addressed knowledge on condom use, it normally was from a heteronormative perspective. condom use education focuses on distinctive genitalia. participants in this study with non-distinctive genitalia raised how they yet again were absent from sex, hiv and safety education: ‘i have a penis and a vagina. i preferred my penis even if it is small. the condoms that teachers showed in class were too big. i was always worried that i will get aids when having sex without a condom. the message in the lo class was always, no condom equals aids. i had no clue how i would protect myself from the cruelty and from hiv.’ (thandi) ‘the topic of hiv was always a topic of sex in lo. leaners would talk long after the lesson ended about sex. this was one topic that excited everyone but it would depress me. i don’t have a penis or at least if only this hole was a vagina. this was my most horrible lesson. i had nothing and this class was not for me. i wanted to die because i was not a real person. i thought i would never have sex. all i was doing was to piss and to shit. i was broken for a long time.’ (andy) ‘i wish they allowed some lessons to put ear plugs. i did not enjoy hiv education lessons. the kids would obviously talk about sex. here i was, inside a boy, outside girl with balls. before surgery [when testes were removed], i was always worried how i would explain this messed up body should i decide to have sex. that activity was off limits. again, i withdrew more and more.’ (jacky) sex is a critical topic for young people in the lo classroom and genitals are made central to this activity according to andy. the absence of these organs on his body not only makes andy feel excluded, but also inhuman. andy feels worthless with intense depression to the point that he prefers to die because of the absence of this distinctive bodily organ. similarly, jacky also feels anxious that her genital characteristics would not enable her to have a normal sex life. attending lessons that focussed on sex education was more traumatising than informative to them. it is not surprising that the participants do not recommend a curriculum that includes education regarding bodily variety or intersex, considering the ridicule, torment, shame and anxiety that they have been subjected to by their peers during learning. they prefer the silence and invisibility, not because they are not curious to learn about their developments, but rather as protection from their peers. the punishment for being different from the norm has left them with a fear of school in general. the only way to effect change in the educational system is to educate learners about body variances and differences in sex characteristic development. john dewey emphasised that ‘school curriculum was the platform from which intellectual advancement as well as social change was to occur’ (p. 1).35 therefore, sexual scripts that are exclusionary can only be transformed by instilling new social norms through education. participants would rather visit medical practitioners to acquire information regarding their bodies and possibly another operation, than learn about their intersex variation from school. these participants were desperate to ‘fix’ their bodies so as to align with what is thought of as acceptable and normal sex characteristics. it is important that school staff such as an ‘educational psychologist and students need education about intersex variations in a non-discriminatory manner’ (p. 116).10 perhaps, when schooling experiences of intersex learners are not shaped by bullying, ridicule and shame, they would be more comfortable in participating in a curriculum that describes intersex variations. intersex bodies, exposure and humiliation in school bathrooms deviating from what the society perceives as a norm is dangerous, especially if the defiance is subversive in nature. this is deemed unintelligible.26 the unintelligible person is then seen as a threat because they are regarded as disordered, unnatural or monstrous, provoking disquieting anxiety towards the seemingly unintelligible person, who is then regarded as inhuman and is subjected to disrespect, as well as violation of their rights26 likewise, those with intersex characteristics from childhood experienced considerable anxiety and dissatisfaction regarding their non-normative genitalia.16 they also internalise messages of abnormality from a very young age like sibongakonke’s penis size that has bothered him since he was 7 years old. this was when he commenced grade 1 and realised that his cousin’s penis was larger than his. he narrated how the bathroom became a site of horror. the penis seems to have a performing role in the schooling community, as it preserves models of gender binarism. the physical structure of the bathroom reinforced the binaries of gender that is determined by distinctive genitalia.16 those who are born with a penis will enter the bathrooms designated for males and those born with a vagina will enter the bathrooms designated for females. sibongakonke’s penis and the absence of normative genitalia for andy did not fit into the biomedical characteristics of a ‘normal’ developing sex organ, therefore the penis failed in its performing role: ‘i look like a boy so i go to the boys’ toilets. but i don’t have a penis that makes me to be a boy. we learned in those lo lessons what a boy looks like and what a girl looks like. girls sit down when they pee and i sit down too. am i a half boy/half girl? those lessons cause problems for every part of my life. am i even in the right toilet or is there toilet? i felt like someone on an island. that’s why when i was suspended i decided to never come back. it was like freedom for me.’ (andy) ‘boys do many things in the toilet. we learn in lo in adolescence lessons you develop sperm that could impregnate girls. so boys would go into the stalls and wank [masturbate] to show the sperm and brag that they are now men. they would chase me out of the stalls and tell me i have a baby penis i should not play with myself. i was not even using the stalls for that reason. i could not do what normal boys do.’ (sibongakonke) butler writes that gender is a performance to a social audience, scripted by prolonged observation, reproduction and adoption, creating a society that preserves and authenticates the established gender binary.29 the absence of distinctive or normative developed genitalia is a symbol of failure and non-compliance of the ‘norm’ and therefore, a threat to ancient social scripts. the above extract points to the severe punishment in the school toilets because their expectation of a penis did not fall within ‘normative’ binary standards. through these excerpts, i find that peers would police what or who is normal and acceptable, and what is unacceptable or abnormal. subsequently, such bodies would be subjected to rejection and ridicule. the regulation of the body is however learned and needs unlearning. affirming intersex education has the potential to reduce discrimination, othering, bullying and provocation because of diverse characteristics. conclusion this study has focused on the experiences of people with variant intersex developments and their experiences in lo classrooms when they were at school. through a case study approach lensed through the theory of intelligibility, this article sought how intersex developments were acknowledged and affirmed in the lo classroom which predominantly deals with knowledge of the self and society. the voices of participants in this study have demonstrated that the south african schooling environment is not ready to affirm and protect sexual diversity, and in this instance, intersex learners. this is underscored by the lo curriculum that excludes intersex development and privileges fixed binary gender categories of male and female as located through distinctive sexed genitalia. findings show that school youth with variant intersex genitalia are subjected to teaching and learning experiences that exclude them. there is an urgent need to address the exclusion of intersex identities from the lo curriculum. as this study found, sexuality education was largely exclusionary of intersex identities, and instead promoted distinctive sex developments, cisgendered bodies and compulsory heteronormative identities. the school curriculum failed to affirm intersex bodily variations, resulting in the further discrimination and unacceptance of intersex school youth amongst their peers. the silences on variant intersex characteristics education in the lo curriculum made these individuals feel excluded, miss classroom participation, or lead to their suspension or eventual dropout. additionally, they became depressed and adopted risky behaviours which resonates with the findings of literature.36 it is crucial that the south african department of basic education urgently develops a policy and guidelines to facilitate the adequate inclusion of learners with intersex variations. the lo curriculum already has a space with this knowledge and simply needs adaptation. the lo curriculum contains sections on gender constructions and society and the newly scripted lessons on comprehensive sexuality education could be ideal content areas that could respond to knowledge on intersex developments. whilst the intersex body is positioned as a site of problem and deficit, i argue for the mainstreaming through a shift in lo education and a rights-based approach to dignity that aligns with constitutional affirmation and protection. school resources such as textbooks should be developed to include knowledge of sexual orientation, gender identities and expressions and sex characteristics (sogiesc). training for lo educators and other staff members on how to affirm, protect, support and include intersex learners in the schooling environment should be provided. this study further argues that awareness of intersex individuals be facilitated amongst school-going youth to educate them on intersex bodily variation, as well as anti-bullying workshops to train peers in supporting intersex identities against bullying. furthermore, the study endorses that schools be equipped with adequate psychological support staff to assist intersexed learners in understanding and building a positive self-image with regard to their bodily variations. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. 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vandaar dus die titel van haar voordrag: kosmische symfonieën. deur gebruikmaking van die eenvoudige musiekmetafoor was dit dus vir haar moontlik om nie net die besonder komplekse werk van die astroseismoloog aan oningewydes bekend te stel nie, maar om ook iets van die opwinding van die ontdekkings in hierdie veld aan die gehoor oor te dra. opsomming: die doel van hierdie artikel is om na te dink oor ’n merkwaardige gebeurtenis waarin spitswetenskap en kuns mekaar ontmoet het: die astroseismologie van conny aerts en die komposisie van willem boogman. op die punt van ontmoeting, tussen hierdie andersins uiteenlopende praktyke, is (1) ’n nadenke oor ritme en ritmering, (2) wat tegnies bemiddel is en oor (3) die verhouding tussen die alledaagse lewenswêreld en die enormiteit van die kosmos wat daardeur getematiseer word. nadat die agtergrond van hierdie ontmoeting uiteengesit is, word ’n fenomenologiese analise van die komplekse weefsel van lewensritme uitgewerk om aan te toon hoe laasgenoemde deur vertroudheid gevorm word en wat die tegniese aard daarvan is. daar word betoog dat ’n gelukkende lewenskarakter hiervan afhanklik is. lewensritme neem egter vorm aan onder druk van sosiale interaksie en van kulturele intervensies. in ’n wêreld wat onder die invloed van westerse wetenskap staan, word mense se lewensoriëntering meesal gekenmerk deur ’n verlies aan kosmiese lewensoriëntasie. die vooruitsig dat hierdie verlore band tussen die mens en die kosmos deur wetenskap of kuns (of albei) herwin kan word, word aan kritiese nadenke onderwerp. wolff 176 daar is egter nóg ’n impak wat aerts se voordrag op ’n mens sou kon hê en dit is presies wat die geval was met die komponis willem boogman. as dit so is dat sterre musiek-voortbringende eienskappe vertoon, sou ’n mens nie met menslike musiek op hierdie sterremusiek kon antwoord nie? boogman se komposisie sternenrest (waarvan die première op 8 november 2008 plaasgevind het) is ’n kombinasie-installasie van musiek en video (laasgenoemde deur mateusz herczka), waarin boogman die sonologiese gegewens van aerts se navorsing oor die trillings van ster hd 129929¹ op musikale wyse ontgin. hierdie estetiese respons op die wetenskaplike ontwikkeling het op sý beurt by die nijmeegse filosoof chris bremmers die vraag laat ontstaan of ons moontlik hier op die drumpel staan van nuwe pogings om die alledaagse leefwêreld in die onmenslike groot heelal tuis te bring.² is dit moontlik dat die nuwe wetenskap, wat in die moderne era die mens van die heelal vervreem het, nou die weg wys na nuwe maniere waarop die mens weer ’n tuiste in die heelal kan terugvind? saam met die vraag oor die maniere waarop die verhouding tussen die mens se alledaagse lewe en die ontsaglike afloop van die kosmiese prosesse verstaan moet word, konfronteer aerts en boogman ons ook op ’n heel nuwe manier met die kwessie van sowel die verhouding tussen kuns en wetenskap as die verhouding tussen lewe en tegniek. die doel van my artikel is nie om hierdie sake voluit te deurdink nie, maar om binne die ruimte van een artikel ’n filosofiese perspektief hierop te gee. oriëntasie: alledaagse lewe, lewensritme en tegniek2. elke mens leef in ’n wêreld waarin hy of sy met ’n wye reeks dinge vertroud is. in die wêreld van ontbyt is ek vertroud met my koffie, met die ontbyttafel, met die ontbytpap, met die oggendkoerant, met my gesinsmense wat saam om die tafel sit, en dies meer. dieselfde geld vir die werkswêreld met sy eie reeks tipiese voorwerpe, vir die sportwêreld met sy toerusting, en vir al die ander wêrelde wat ek gereeld besoek. hierdie vertroudheid is die gevolg van ’n proses van vertroudmaking: op grond van bestaande vertroudhede reik ’n mens op ’n sekere tyd na relatief onbekende voorwerpe uit; en deur hulle gereeld te besoek, te manipuleer, te gebruik, raak mens met hulle vertroud. om met dinge vertroud te wees, berus dus op vertroude handelinge. om “in vertroudheid” met dinge op te tree, gee die adverbiale karakter van alledaagse optrede weer. alle mense, ook die mees kreatiewe en die mees boheemse, tree op vanuit ’n kader van vertroude handelinge. ’n ontheemde of vlugteling ly onder die trauma van die afbreek van die moontlikheid om spontaan met hierdie vertroude handelinge voort te gaan vanweë die onteiening van die vertroude dinge en vertroude wêrelde. deur die loop van ’n gewone dag onderneem mense sulke herhalende aksies, waardeur hulle in die gebruik van dinge ingeoefen word. die franse werkwoord fréquenter (dikwels besoek) sou hierdie gereelde ontmoeting met die dinge van die bekend-wordende wêreld goed beskryf. dit is as gevolg van die feit dat mense in hul verskillende wêrelde sekere objekte dikwels besoek dat die ontbytwêreld, die sportwêreld, sien c. aerts, et al. “asteroseismology of hd 129929: core overshooting and nonrigid rotations”, in science, 1. vol. 300 (2003), pp. 1926–1928. die uiteensetting van bremmers se oorspronklike “sternenrest”-program, asook meer uitgebreide gegewens 2. oor astroseismologie en oor boogman se komposisie, kan nageslaan word op http://www.sternenrest.nl. tegniek as bemiddeling tussen ritmes 177 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 175-189. sien hieroor verder my artikel “technicity of the body as part of the socio-technical system: the contributions 3. of mauss and bourdieu” (sal in 2010 in theoria verskyn). sien henri meschonnic, “rhytme [ling.]”, in 4. les notions philosophiques ii (encyclopédie philosophique universelle), sylvain auroux (dir.), paris: puf, 2002, pp. 2288–2289. volgens benveniste (“la notion de “rythme” dans son expression linguistique”, in 5. problèmes de linguistique générale i, paris: gallimard, 1966, pp. 327–335) beteken rhythmos in die oudste griekse tekste “forme distinctive; figure proportionnée; disposition” (332) en “l’arrangement caractéristique des parties dans un tout” (330) en dít veral toepasbaar op figure, op die samestelling van materie as sodanig en op die karakter van mense (die woord van democritos is besonder verhelderend: he didaché metarusmoi ton anthroopon – onderrig ritmeer of transformeer die mens (329) en so ook die gebruik by euripides: rhuthmos kakoon – die tipiese kenmerk van treur, en van passie, beskryf hy as arruthmos – dit is “disproportionnée”, dit wil sê buite verhouding (331)). meer presies, en in onderskeid van ander griekse woorde wat vorm aandui, is rhythmos gebruik om te verwys na “la forme dans l’instant qu’elle est assumée par ce qui est mouvant, mobile, fluide”, en onder andere na “la disposition particulière du caractère ou de l’humeur” (333). dit is hierdie betekenis, veral, wat dit vir my moontlik maak om die idee van rhythmos in verband te bring met dié van hexis; rhythmos sou dan “la forme improvisée, momentanée, modifiable” (333) wees van die duursame, ingeoefende instelling wat hexis (later met habitus in latyn vertaal) genoem word. eers by plato word rhythmos vir die dansende lyf gebruik, waar dit boonop aan maat en orde onderwerp word, sodat hy kan sê dat die geordende opeenvolging van stadige en vinnige bewegings (rhythmos) en die geordende opeenvolging van hoë en lae tone (harmonia) saam koorsang vorm (334). hieruit volg die idee van ritme wat soortgelyk is aan ons hedendaagse gebruik daarvan: “c’est l’ordre dans le mouvement, le procès entier de l’arrangement harmonieux des attitudes corporelles combiné avec un mètre” (334-335). dit is die tweede aspek van die konsep “ritme” wat in my gebruik daarvan weerspieël word. ons kan hier dink aan die ritme van gee en teruggee: die groet, die antwoord, die geskenk, die verskoning 6. wat te vinnig of na ’n te lang aarseling gegee word, het nie die gewenste effek nie en dreig om die betrokke sosiale interaksie te laat misluk. ek ontleen hierdie insig aan pierre bourdieu, “l’action du temps”, hoofstuk 6 van le sens pratique, paris: editions de minuit, 1980. die beroepswêreld vir hulle betekenis het. vertroudheid heet in baie kontekste ervarenheid. iemand wat in vertroudheid of met ervarenheid in ’n bepaalde wêreld optree, is nie iemand wat geen foute begaan nie, wat nooit misgissings beleef nie, wat nooit vergeet nie; maar dit is iemand wat geneig sal wees om op die tipiese situasies wat in hierdie wêrelde opduik, met kundigheid te reageer. in die sosiale teorie van bourdieu word hierdie langdurige predisposisie om vanuit ’n sekere vertroudheid binne ’n bepaalde situasie op te tree, ‘n “habitus” genoem. mens kan ook die habitus, op die spoor van mauss, ’n sisteem van “lyftegnieke” noem.³ dié aspek van die mens se alledaagse lewe wat gekenmerk word deur die vertroudheid met verskillende wêrelde en deur die vermoë daarvan om met kundigheid daarin op te tree, kan “lewensritme” genoem word. die lyftegnieke verleen aan die alledaagse lewe ’n bepaalde ritme deur die gereelde interaksie met die bekende voorwerpe in die wêreld. “ritme” is ’n verwarrende term: dit kan verwys na metrum, dit wil sê na die geneigdheid van ’n patroon van gebeure om identiese tydseenhede te herhaal; maar dit kan ook verwys na struktuur, soos die struktuur van ‘n gedig.⁴ ritme beskryf die adverbiale karakter, die vorm,⁵ van ’n aktiwiteit. deur die gereelde besoek, die alledaagse frekwensie van interaksie, met die dinge van ons verskillende wêrelde word die mens ingeoefen in die vertroudheid met daardie dinge en hul wêrelde, en in oefening daarmee gehou. met ander woorde: die alledaagse frekwensie van interaksie met dinge “ritmeer” die lewe, soos onderrig, volgens demokritos, die lewe ritmeer (sien nota 5). “ritme” verwys dus na die manier waarop die tydsaspek van die mens se vertroudheid met wêrelde gestruktureer is. met “ritme” bedoel ons meesal iets tussen blote metriese herhaling en ’n algehele afwesigheid van tydlike gestruktureerdheid. die kundigheid van alledaagse, korrekte optrede het ’n tydlike aspek wat ons as geslaagde ritme kan beskryf, terwyl ’n ritmelose bestaan een van ontheemdheid, van wêreldvreemdheid, is.⁶ wolff 178 wanneer mens die adjektief “ritmies” na analoog van die adjektief “musikaal” beskryf, word dit duidelik dat die ritme van ’n mens se lewensritme na ’n bepaalde vermoë verwys. “musikaal” noem ons iemand wat die vermoë het, of daartoe in staat is, om op grond van ’n sekere mate van vertroudheid met ’n bepaalde musiektradisie, met ’n spesifieke instrument, in ’n situasie waar dit vereis word, geneig sal wees om – in vergelyking met die onmusikale persoon – ’n bepaalde tonaal-estetiese ideaal met ’n relatief hoë mate van geslaagdheid te verwesenlik; hierdie ideaal sal beskryf kan word met verwysing na die presiesheid van toon; ’n “gehoor gee” aan die gees van die geheel van die betrokke musiek-gebeurtenis; akkuraatheid of vindingrykheid van harmonisering; ensovoorts.⁷ van die ritmisiteit van die lewensritme kan iets soortgelyks gesê word: “ritmies” is wat ons ’n lewe noem wat, op grond van ’n sekere mate van vertroudheid met bepaalde lewensfere of wêrelde, binne daardie wêrelde geneig sal wees om ’n bepaalde ideaal met ’n aanvaarbare mate van geslaagdheid te bereik. met betrekking tot ritmisiteit is die ideaal om die middeweg te vind tussen die ekstreem van ritme as die voortdurende herhaling van identiese gebeurtenis-eenhede en die ekstreem van voortdurende afwisseling van ervarings sonder enige verband van bekendheid tussen hulle. die eerste ekstreem vang die wese van die tydlike struktuur van verveling vas; die tweede ekstreem sou neerkom op totale disoriëntasie en verwarring. vir ‘n mens se lewensverhaal om sin te maak, is daar ‘n kombinasie van ritme en onverwagsheid nodig. uit hierdie beskrywing behoort dit duidelik te blyk dat die woord “ritme”, soos in “lewensritme”, nie net ’n beskrywende term is wat na die stand van strukturering van vertroude optrede in ’n bepaalde wêreld verwys nie, maar dat dit ook ’n ideaal is. dit wil sê: die “ritmisiteit” van die lewe verwys na die moontlikheid dat ’n mens se lewe ook anders geritmeer kan word; beter geritmeer kan word. die vraag na die beste manipulasie van die mens se lewensritme is ’n eeue oue vraag, waarna ons later weer terug sal kom. maar wanneer daar van lewensritme gepraat word, moet hierdie term eintlik in die meervoud gebruik word aangesien die mens se alledaagse lewe op vele wyses geritmeer word. die wêreld van ontbyt word byvoorbeeld geritmeer deur die tyd wat my broodrooster neem om die brood te rooster, die tyd wat die ketel neem om die koffiewater te kook, die tempo waarteen ek gemaklik voel om my muesli te kou, die spoed en intensiteit waarmee ek die koerant lees, ensovoorts. verder word my ontbyt natuurlik geritmeer deur die volgorde waarin ek al hierdie aktiwiteite orden. afgesien hiervan staan hierdie hele kompleks van ontbytritmes onder die invloed van my keuse van die tyd waarop ek my wekker in die oggend laat lui en die verpligting om die bus betyds te haal om werk toe te gaan. uit hierdie eenvoudige voorbeeld van die wêreld van ontbyt kan ’n hele paar eienskappe van die lewensritme afgelei word. die lewensritme is afhanklik van die wêrelde waarin die lewe geleef word. elke wêreld is ’n tegniese milieu wat my lewe ritmeer volgens die gebruik wat ek, as vertroude gebruiker, van die artefakte daarin maak. my alledaagse lewe word só deur ’n veelheid van ritmes gestruktureer. hierdie veelheid van ritmes word gevorm aan die hand van verskillende onderdele van my tipiese optrede in die betrokke wêreld, maar staan verder ook in interaksie met ander wêrelde (die tegniese sisteem van die openbare vervoer vereis ’n reëlmatige gebruik daarvan, wat ’n invloed uitoefen op die ritmes waarteen ek geneig sal wees om die verskillende elemente van my ontbyt af te handel). uiteindelik skakel al die verskillende wêrelde van my lewe op intrigerende maniere ineen om my lewensritme in ’n bepaalde fase van my lewe te vorm. nie al hierdie ritmiese elemente is van ewe veel belang in my lewe nie; nie almal van hulle werk op dieselfde skaal nie. dat musikaliteit afhanklik is van sulke tegniese elemente, moet ons nou reeds herinner aan die ou griekse 7. benaming van musiek as musiké techné – ons kom egter weer hierna terug. tegniek as bemiddeling tussen ritmes 179 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 175-189. maar van die kleinste en onbeduidendste tot die grootste en omvangrykste ritmes word my lewensritme saamgeweef. die só saamgeweefde lewensritme is ’n wesenlike faktor wat die aard of karakter van my lewe in die algemeen bepaal. in aansluiting by die vraag oor die beste manipulasie van die mens se lewensritme (waarmee die vorige paragraaf afgesluit is), moet ons hier byvoeg: nie net het elke mens ’n komplekse alledaagse ritme nie, maar is die mens ook in staat om homself/haarself af te vra oor die gewenstheid, geskiktheid of geslaagdheid van die karakter van sy of haar eie lewe. die sorg wat ’n mens dra vir die karakter van sy of haar lewe en vir dit wat as kosbaar of belangrik beskou word, word onderwerp aan ritmering (dink byvoorbeeld aan die manier waarop vroeëre slegte ervarings gereeld in die verbeelding besoek, of herleef, word in verwyt, of die manier waarop optrede geritmeer word in die begeerte om in die toekoms aan iemand of aan ’n taak getrou te bly). lewensritme vorm onder druk van sosiale interaksie en kulturele intervensies3. tot dusver het ek in die beskrywing van lewensritme op twee elemente klem gelê: die indiwidue wat deur aksie met ’n wêreld vertroud raak en die tegniese bemiddeling wat ’n rol in daardie proses speel. die lewensritme neem egter nie alleen maar vorm aan op grond van deur die enkeling se deurleefde ervaring met dinge wat gereeld besoek word nie, maar ook op grond van die indiwidu se interaksie met ander mense en die dinge wat hulle doen. die sosiale milieu funksioneer as aanbieder van sekere dinge wat gereeld besoek moet/kan word en ander wat vermy moet word, van maniere van doen, van inligting wat die hantering van dinge beïnvloed, en dies meer. sosiale interaksie is by uitnemendheid geritmeerde optrede. ek het, byvoorbeeld, vir elkeen van my vriende ’n bepaalde ritme waarvolgens ek hulle besoek. dit beteken nie dat ek ’n wiskundige formule het waarvolgens ek die getal ure tussen besoeke bepaal en wetmatig gehoorsaam nie; dit beteken dat ek vrees vir skade aan die vriendskap as ’n besoek te lank uitbly, of dat ek dalk onwelkom kan wees as ek te gou weer besoek aflê. dink byvoorbeeld ook aan die ritme wat optredes van gee en teruggee struktureer, en waarna daar reeds hierbo verwys is (sien nota 6). omdat ritme sosiaal aangeleer word en sosiaal gevormde gedrag is, is dit ook kultuurspesifiek. dit word egter in alle kulture as van groot belang geag – en boonop al sedert die vroegste tye van menslike geskiedenis – dat mense sorg moet dra om hulself en andere só te begelei dat hul die mees gepaste lewensritme, dit wil sê ’n gelukkende lewenskarakter, opneem. een van die belangrikste strategieë vir intervensie in die vorming van mense se lewensritme is die poging om die klein lewensritme van die indiwidu en die effens groter ritme van die groep op een of ander wyse te bemiddel met die afloopwyse of ritme van die kosmos. as die godsdienstige vermoede korrek is dat die kosmos as geheel intern georden is, dan kan dit die mens moontlik baat om sy of haar lewensritme in harmonie met hierdie grootse en stabiele orde te bring – so is daar byvoorbeeld in die pythagorisme geglo dat die musikologie en wiskunde as hulpmiddels dien waarmee die verhouding tussen mense en die kosmos bemiddel kan word.⁸ in die joodse en christelike godsdienste kan mens dink aan die bemoeienis om die gelowige deur die loop van die liturgiese jaar by wyse van gepaste rites (telkens met meegaande “pythagoras had taught that life should be in harmony with the divine cosmos. [...] in pythagoreanism harmony 8. (harmonia) became a central tenet and was explained through numerical relations, possibly in connection with musical theory. for example, the pythagoreans thought that the motions of the orbiting planets produced a sound which, given the belief that the intervals between the heavenly bodies corresponded to musical ratios, was harmonious.” aldus herman schibli, “pythagoreanism”, in routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, edward craig (ed.) cd-rom version 1.0, london: routledge. wolff 180 musiek en godsdienstige toebehoorsels) in pas te bring met die algemene heilsgeskiedenis. die datums van hierdie godsdienstige feeste word gekoppel aan die kosmiese reëlmaat, byvoorbeeld die sewende dag van die week of die herhaling van die liturgiese jaar, wat die wenteling van die aarde om die son volg. die sabbatof sondagviering is ’n uitnemende voorbeeld hiervan omdat die mens, as beelddraer van die skepper, die skepper se rus naboots en ook aan die skepping dieselfde rus toelaat. die verlies aan kosmiese lewensoriëntasie weens die onttowering van die werklikheid4. maar vir die meeste mense wat vandag in die weste of onder sterk invloed van die weste leef, doen hierdie tipe verhouding tot die kosmos besonder vreemd aan. in die alledaagse leefwêreld van moderne mense is dit immers heel anders gesteld met die verhouding tot die hemelruim en die kosmiese liggame. watter plek neem die heelal en die hemelliggame in mense se lewens in? in die alledaagse leefwêreld speel die verhouding tot die hemelliggame feitlik geen rol nie. die lig van die son verskyn smorens, word intenser en verdwyn dan weer, maar meesal leef mense in daglig teen ’n bepaalde temperatuur en nie in verhouding met die son nie. dieselfde geld vir die seisoene: ons verander ons kleredrag na gelang van die tyd van die jaar, pas ons by die meteorologiese verskynsels aan, maar het gewoonlik geen verhouding tot die feit dat die aarde om die son draai nie. ek tematiseer die feit dat ek op die aardbol woon feitlik nooit nie, maar ek rig my liggaam en handelinge daagliks ten opsigte van die gravitasieveld wat ek onbewustelik steeds in berekening hou. die tyd waarin ek daagliks leef, is ’n abstrakte meting van vier-en-twintig eenhede (wat nooit voldoende is nie!) en het nie veel te make met die feit dat die aarde om sy eie as draai nie. net so begeef ek my in ’n atmosfeer van dae wat verbysnel, wat op ’n kalender afgemerk kan word; maar weereens het hierdie stroom van tyd waarin ek my bevind met die beweging van kosmiese liggame nie veel te make nie. kortom, die mees opvallende verhoudings wat die moderne mens met die hemelliggame en hul omwentelings het, is van die orde van ’n deurleefde vertroudheid met die effekte van die plaaslike hemelliggame, eerder as verhoudings tot die hemelliggame self – lig, warmte, gravitasie, tyd omring my soos die atmosfeer. uitsonderings is raar: die sonbaaier waardeer die strale van die son, die swemmer hou die maangetye dop om die seegetye daarvan af te lei. en hier praat ek telkens nog net van die son, maan en aarde. van tyd tot tyd flits ’n maansverduistering of ’n komeet as rare astronomiese verskynsel op, maar oor die algemeen het die moderne mens met die verdere hemelliggame nie veel te make nie. selfs in kringe van godsdiensbeoefening is die verhouding tot die hemelliggame dermate gesekulariseer dat gelowiges nie veel meer oor die hemelliggame te sê het nie as miskien ’n opmerking oor die skoonheid waarmee die skepper die hemel sou gemaak het. weens besoedeling en stadsligte kan daar in elk geval nie veel van gesien word nie. betlehemster word waardeer as ’n fraai versiering op ’n kerskaartjie of in ’n winkelvenster, maar niemand hou die sterre dop om aanduidings vir suksesvolle lewensbestuur daaru af te lees nie. diegene wat hul lewenslot aan die sterre verbind sien, word eerder as ’n sosiale randverskynsel gesien wat kontak met die werklikheid verloor het, en selfs in hul geval is dit nie seker dat hul verhouding tot die sterre is en nie eerder tot die astrologiese teks nie. dit gebeur egter ook dat mense op verskillende wyses gekonfronteer word met die beeld wat die moderne wetenskap op die heelal bied. dit kan gebeur dat hierdie konfrontasie van so intens is dat dit die mens tot ’n heroorweging van sy of haar posisie in die kosmos dwing. in stede van ’n oriënterende uitwerking kan so ’n konfrontasie eerder ’n effek van verslae of angstige disoriëntasie en ontwrigting van die alledaagse, vertroude omgang met die omgewing hê. tegniek as bemiddeling tussen ritmes 181 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 175-189. sprekend van hierdie reaksie is die bekende woorde van pascal: wanneer ek dink oor die korte duur van my lewe, wat verdwyn in die ewigheid wat die klein ruimtetjie wat ek beslaan en selfs wat ek sien, voorafgaan en opvolg, verlore in die oneindige omvang van die ruimtes waarvan ek nie weet nie en wat nie van my weet nie – dan vul dit my met angs en verbasing dat ek my hier bevind eerder as daar, want daar is geen rede waarom dit hier moet wees eerder as daar nie, waarom dit nou moet wees eerder as op ’n ander tyd nie [...]. die ewige stilte van hierdie oneindige ruimtes vul my met angs.⁹ die vreesbevange nadenke van pascal oor sy verhouding tot die heelal is dié van ‘n mens wat die gebrekkigheid van heersende bemiddelingstegnologieë besef. onder só ’n indruk van die versaking van bemiddeling word die kosmos as indifferent of onverskillig ervaar: die klein lewetjie van pascal gaan die grote heelal nie aan nie, die heelal kan nie omgee wat met pascal gebeur nie. daarom is die “ewige stilte” van die heelal nie in die eerste plek ’n stilte wat geen geluid – laat staan nog musiek – maak nie, maar ’n stilte van dit wat oor my lewenslot en oor die karakter van my lewe niks te sê het nie, wat geen bydrae tot my oriëntasie in die geheel maak nie. op dit wat geen ritme het nie, kan nie gedans word nie. hierdie reaksie van pascal behoort ons ook nie te verbaas nie: die ekstreme grootte van die heelal, die oortuiging van die leweloosheid daarvan, die verdaging van die doelmatigheid van die kosmos deur die moderne natuurwetenskaplike verklaringswyse, laat nie veel aanknopingspunte vir ’n lewensoriënterende tegniek nie. in ’n teks waarin hy oor hierdie fragmente van pascal nadink, lewer hans jonas die volgende kommentaar: with the ejection of teleology from the system of natural causes, nature, itself purposeless, ceased to provide any sanction to possible human purposes. [...] [nature, or the universe – ew] leaves values ontologically unsupported, and the self is thrown back entirely upon itself in its quest for meaning and value. meaning is no longer found but is “conferred”. values are no longer beheld in the vision of objective reality, but are posited as feats of valuation. as functions of the will, ends are solely my own creation.”¹⁰ die verskillende maniere waarop mense te werk gaan om waardes te skep en dit aan elemente van die wêreld en die heelal toe te ken, vorm die spektrum van verskillende verhoudings wat die moderne mens tot die heelal het. hierdie spektrum is dus die variasies van betekenis tussen die pole van angswekkende disoriëntasie en gemaklike vergetelheid van die alledaagse lewe.¹¹ “quand je considère la petite durée de ma vie, absorbée dans l’éternité précédant et suivant le petit espace 9. que je remplis et même que je vois, abîme dans l’infinie immensité des espaces que j’ignore et qui m’ignorent, je m’effraie et m’étonne de me voir ici plutôt que là, car il n’y a point de raison pourquoi ici plutôt que là, pourquoi à présent plutôt que lors […] le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie.” blaise pascal, pensées, ch.-m. des granges (volgens die uitgawe van brunschvicg), paris: garnier frères, 1961 (oorspronklik 1670), fragmente 205 & 206 (my vertaling). hans jonas, 10. the phenomenon of life. toward a philosophical biology. chicago & london: university of chicago press, [1966]1982, pp. 214–215 (my beklemtoning). in wat volg, gaan ek die spektrum van strategieë waardeur die mens sinskeppend met die heelal omgaan (soos 11. in die jonas-aanhaling), beskryf aan die hand van die tegnies-wetenskaplike en estetiese wolff 182 bemiddelingsmoontlikhede. ek sal my daarin laat lei deur ’n tematiese toe-eiening van die historiese insigte in odo marquard se opstel “kant und die wende zur esthetik”, zeitschrift für philosophische forschung 16, 1962, pp. 231–243 & 363–374. marquard se argument kom op die volgende neer: ten spyte daarvan dat daar in die westerse filosofie ’n lang geskiedenis van anti-kunstenaarsentiment is, ontluik die estetika in die moderne era tot ’n besonder belangrike plek in die filosofie. dit gebeur in ’n konteks waar filosofie die taak opneem om nie vir ’n bepaalde doel te werk nie, maar sigself die taak oplê om van die “überlieferten religiösen bindungen” te ontsnap (235). twee groot rasionele emansipasiestrategieë domineer die geskiedenis van moderne filosofie: dié van die wetenskaplike denke en dié van die eties-historiese denke. die estetika kom sterk na vore – só marquard se betoog – waar die perke van die wetenskaplike rede reeds duidelik geword het (in besonder die onvermoë om oortuigend oor laaste doele van menslike optrede te praat) en waar die eties-historiese denke nog nie behoorlik die rol as dominante intellektuele mag oorgeneem het nie (vgl. 237). kant se estetika sou kenmerkend van hierdie oorgang wees: die ware wetenskaplike rede kan nie, en behoort nie, leiding aan die mens se lewe te gee nie (aldus sy verdaging van ’n sekere soort metafisika) (241), maar die morele rede, hoewel dit wel die uiteindelik gewenste menslike optrede formeel kan beskryf, beskik oor geen middele tot die verwerkliking van daardie doel nie (vgl. 365–366). van die magteloosheid van die morele rede word kant na die estetika gedryf. of die estetika, wat deur kant ten dienste van die etiek gestel word, in werklikheid ’n instrument tot die politieke verwerkliking van die morele rede word en of dit eintlik ’n plaasvervanger daarvan word, bly volgens marquard by kant onbeslis (370). ná kant groei die bewustheid dat kuns in werklikheid nie as instrument van die politieke verwerkliking van etiek funksioneer nie, en hierop reflekteer marquard soos volg: “je weniger das ästhetische und die kunst durch die soziale wirklichkeit des sittlichen und der geschichte sich definiert, getragen, gerechtfertigt fühlt, um so stärker wird ihr bedürfnis, sich durch den anschluß an eine andere, eine außersoziale und außergeschichtliche wirklichkeit zu rechtfertigen. solch eine außergeschichtliche wirklichkeit ist die natur, eine außersoziale die nicht ‘als naturwissenschaft gegebene’ natur. […] zur ästhetik gehört die latente bereitschaft, die naturphilosophie sich zu assoziieren, sie schließlich zur hauptphilosophie zu machen und damit potentiell zur lebensphilosophie überzugehen. diese bereitschaft schlummert, solange ästhetik als instrument, sie erwacht, sobald ästhetik als ersatz des geschichtlichen denkens gesucht und gemeint wird.” (371). by name die estetika van die romantiek maak sigself los van die polities-historiese ontwikkeling van die mens en laat sig bepaal deur die verhouding met die verre natuur (373). waar hierdie natuur egter as teenwoordig in stede van ver ervaar word, by schopenhauer en nietzsche, tree die “herrschaft der entzauberten interessenwelt” na vore (374). die vraag wat uit hierdie historiese argument afgelei en aan willem boogman, komponis van sternenrest, gestel moet word, is hoe sy werk binne die spanningsveld tussen natuur en geskiedenis gesitueer moet word. word die verre natuur besing onder regverdiging van die feitlikheid van die natuurwetenskaplike gegewens wat as inspirasie daarvoor gedien het, of dien die wetenskaplike gegewens tot die heroriëntasie van die mens in die groter, kosmiese konteks? ek sal hierdie vraag in die res van die hoofstuk uitwerk. twee vorme van tegniese bemiddeling: wetenskap en kuns5. vanuit die verskillende strategieë waarvolgens mense in die moderne era poog om ’n verhouding tot die hemelliggame daar te stel – dit is, maniere van bemiddeling – is twee van besondere belang wanneer daar oor die sternenrest-projek (sien paragraaf 1 en nota 2 hierbo) nagedink word: die een is wetenskap (hier by name astroseismologie) en die ander is kuns (hier spesifiek musiek). ek noem altwee hierdie vorme van bemiddeling “tegnieke”, nie om die praktyk van wetenskap en dié van musiek tot die tegniese aspekte daarvan te reduseer nie, maar ten einde klem te lê op die onmisbaarheid van tegniek in sowel die wetenskaplike as die musikale bemiddeling. wetenskaplike ontdekkings en die vorming van wetenskaplike teorieë is ondenkbaar sonder die mediasie van tegniese artefakte; insgelyks is dit wat eens op ’n tyd in griekeland musiké techné genoem is, onmoontlik sonder die tegniese middele wat die musiek moontlik maak. deur die klem te plaas op die techné of ars van wetenskap en kuns word gewaak teen die fout om te dink dat met “bemiddeling” bloot ‘n mentale aktiwiteit bedoel word én hou ons die vraag aangaande die ritmering van lyftegnieke (en só van die alledaagse lewe) in die oog. die maaksels wat deur die tegnieswetenskaplike bemiddeling voortgebring word, is wetenskaplike teorie, en die maaksels van die tegniesmusikale produksie (poiésis) is ’n estetisering van ’n bepaalde tema (meer hieroor later). tegniek as bemiddeling tussen ritmes 183 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 175-189. twee praktyke wat die moontlikheid besit om sin te skep, dit wil sê twee potensiële vorme van bemiddeling tussen mens en heelal, is dus vir ons hier van belang. aan die een kant die bemiddeling deur wetenskaplike beskrywing en teoretisering, wat sonder die voortdurende verbetering van waarnemings en meetinstrumente heeltemal ondenkbaar is (hier sal ek na conny aerts se intreerede as voorbeeld kyk); aan die ander kant die estetiese bemiddeling (waarvan willem boogman se sternenrest, wat by aerts se wetenskaplike bevindings leen, as voorbeeld beskou sal word). tegnies-wetenskaplike bemiddeling: tussen ongekendheid en bekende vreemdheid 5.1 wanneer daar eerstens na die tegnies-wetenskaplike bemiddeling van mens en heelal gekyk word, moet ons dadelik in gedagte hou dat die alledaagse, vreedsame, vergeetagtige, gesekulariseerde nie-verhouding tot die hemelruim histories deur die tegnies-wetenskaplike bemiddeling gekonstitueer is. dit is laasgenoemde wat ’n nuwe, heersende tendens in die algemene “onttowerde” beskouing van die mens se posisie in die heelal ingelui het (hierop kom ek nog later weer terug). hierdie verhouding word steeds op sekere plekke getematiseer, dit wil sê onder die aandag van mense gebring. televisie-uitsendings waarin die bevindinge van astronomie bekendgestel word, is heel gewild. kinders leer op skool minstens die basiese elemente van ons eie sonnestelsel ken. tydskrifte en wetenskapsentrums speel ook ’n rol in dié dele van die wêreld waar dit beskikbaar is. skrywers soos sagan en hawking behaal groot sukses met hul boeke. dit blyk dat daar, ten spyte van die feitlik algehele afwesigheid van ’n verhouding tot die sterrehemel, in die alledaagse lewe tog taamlik wyd aanvaar word dat dit goed is om ’n basiese kennis van die algemene gegewens te hê, en dat daar tog ’n sektor in die samelewing is wat verder daaroor gestimuleer wil word (sien ook internetwebtuistes en klubs vir amateursterrekundiges). in die naam van algemene kennis, persoonlike verryking, of bevrediging van die passie vir kennis ondergaan mense dus sporadies blootstelling – in die gedaante wat dit deur die populariseerders van eietydse astronomie aangebied word – aan die hemelruim, wat uiteindelik deel van ons kulturele gemeengoedere word. om die hoogs gespesialiseerde wetenskaplike kundigheid op ’n bevatlike manier aan ’n nie-spesialispubliek te bring, is op sigself reeds ’n groot uitdaging. afgesien van populariseringsmedia (soos boeke en tv, waarna ek hierbo verwys het) is een van die interessante aspekte van hierdie populariseringsproses die inspan van metafore uit die mens se alledaagse leefwêreld. veral die gebruik van musiekmetafore ten einde die digte vaktaal van die spitswetenskap met pedagogiese effektiwiteit aan te bied, is vir ons hier van belang.¹² naas die voordrag van conny aerts het ek toevallig op ’n ander gebruik van die musiekmetaforiek afgekom, 12. naamlik soos gebruik deur trinh xuan thuan, die viëtnamees gebore frans-amerikaanse astrofisikus, in die onderhoud “l’univers joue du jazz”, in la vie van 7–14 augustus 2008, pp. 18–24. hier antwoord thuan soos volg op die stelling “vous évoquez souvent la musique en astrophysique”: “a cause de l’harmonie qui règne dans l’univers. il y a quelques semaines, j’ai participé à un festival de jazz, où j’ai expliqué que la nature joue du jazz. l’univers est régi par des lois imposées dès la première fraction de seconde, comme la gravité, l’électro-magnétisme, etc. mais il ne s’agit pas d’un déterminisme comme newton ou laplace le pensaient au xviie siècle. l’univers brode sur les lois physiques comme un joueur de jazz brode sur une trame musicale en fonction de son inspiration, du public, et donc le morceau n’est jamais le même. la théorie du chaos, la mécanique quantique, ce qu’on appelle le flou quantique, permettent à la nature de broder sur des lois physiques et de créer du nouveau. il y a toujours du libre arbitre.” ’n mens kan nie anders nie as om hier te let op die terme wat implisiet dui op die toeskrywing van ’n soort subjektiwiteit of agentskap aan die natuur (die natuur “speel” jazz, die heelal “ontwikkel” die tema van die natuurwette, die natuur “skep”, daar (waar?) is altyd “vrye wil”). wolff 184 in haar intreerede, kosmische symfonieën,¹³ lei conny aerts haar gehoor in die basiese gegewens van die astroseismologie in. sy doen dit onder andere deur te verduidelik dat sterre “klanke” maak, omdat die trillings wat deur sterre voortgebring word, vergelykbaar is met dié wat deur musiekinstrumente voortgebring word. as daar dan eers bepaal is dat ’n ster soos ’n groot, driedimensionele snaar is, kan die wetenskaplike daaruit ’n string vrypostige en verbeeldingryke beelde ontwikkel: die ster as snaar “speel” note, soos ’n “musikant” wat “kosmische symfonieën” en “prachtige partituren” aan ’n gehoor aanbied.¹⁴ saam met die vergelyking met musiek sluip daar ’n paar ander beelde in. in die eerste twee gevalle (speel, musikant) stel die musiekmetafoor haar in staat om agentskap by die hemelliggame in te lei; in die twee volgende metafore (“kosmische symfonieën”, “prachtige partituren”) word sowel estetiese evaluasie as die herkenning van musikale vorm ingebring; en ten slotte, wanneer daar van ’n gehoor gepraat word, word die idee van die sosiale opset van die uitvoering betrek. aerts is natuurlik goed hiervan bewus en plaas daarom wyslik die betrokke terme in aanhalingstekens op dié plekke waar dit nie ooglopend metafories bedoel word nie, of waar misverstand kan ontstaan. mens moet verder daarop bedag wees dat die verdere inhoud van haar voordrag ons noop om te erken dat die musiekmetaforiek nog verder relativeer moet word. wat sy oor die “simfonie” van sterre sê, doen sy in die eerste plek op sterkte van die sukses wat behaal is met astroseismologiese studies van die son. maar oor vele ander sterre kom gegewens kort: om die selfde graad van kundigheid oor die ander sterre se “musiek” te vorm, is het noodzakelijk dat we honderden oscillaties detecteren in plaats van de enkele die tot nu toe gevonden werden, omdat zij niet toelaten een onderscheid te maken tussen stermodellen met en zonder overschieten, al of niet met starre rotatie.¹⁵ as ek aerts reg verstaan, moet hierdie uitspraak in haar musiekmetaforiek omvertaal word om te sê: van hierdie sterre weet ons nie of ons luister na ’n rockkitaarkonsert, of na ’n indiese siterkonsert, of na ’n apie wat met ’n lepel op ’n klaviersnaar slaan nie – al wat ons weet, is dat die kosmiese driedimensionele snaar op verskillende maniere tril. hierdie is ’n belangrike punt om te maak, bloot om ’n idee te vorm van hoe ver die wetenskaplike bemiddeling op hierdie “musikale” vlak tussen mens en ster strek. die ylheid van die bemiddeling, wat te wyte is aan die vlak van huidige tegniese bemiddeling tussen mense en die sterre, maak dit duidelik dat daar eintlik nie van “musiek” gepraat kan word nie – omdat daar geen musikant, geen partituur, geen musiekvorm, geen sosiale vorm van aanhoor, geen kriteria vir die evaluering van die geslaagdheid daarvan, geen aanhoorbare begin of einde, is nie en die geheel van die werklike klanke nie genoegsaam deur die beskikbare tegniese middele opgevang word nie. daarom moet mens toegee dat, ten spyte van haar pedagogies geslaagde metafoor, ook aerts ons nie veel verder bring as ’n onverskillige heelal, as die “ewige stilte van hierdie oneindige ruimtes” wat pascal so met angs vervul het nie. selfs as daar toegegee word dat sterre klanke maak, dan is dit nie musiek wat vir ons gespeel word nie, maar lukrake klanke (of klanke wat deur natuurwetmatighede bepaal word) wat op menslike skaal as’t ware van ewigheid tot ewigheid voortgebring word, sonder dat die grootste deel van die mensdom ooit daarvan bewus was. dat dít eintlik ook aerts se versweë opvatting is, kan afgelei word uit die afwesigheid van ’n aantal musiekmetafore wat heel natuurlik by hare sou gepas het: op geen letterlike of figuurlike manier conny aerts, 13. kosmische symfonieën, intreerede as besondere hoogleraar in astroseismologie aan die radboud universiteit nijmegen, 2005. kosmische symfonieën, op. cit. pp. 7–8.14. kosmische symfonieën, op. cit. p. 17.15. tegniek as bemiddeling tussen ritmes 185 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 175-189. stel sy voor dat ons die sterresimfonie met applous moet beantwoord nie, met ander woorde ons hoef nie ons dank daarvoor te betuig nie; ook word ons nie opgeroep om saam by die omringende musiek in te val of op die kosmiese musiek te dans nie.¹⁶ die klanke van die sterre het die struktuur van musiekklanke, maar sonder dat die minimum voorwaardes vir die toe-eiening daarvan vervul word. ons sou dit daarom hiëroglifiese klanke kon noem: dit het die struktuur van betekenis, sonder dat ons in staat is om betekenis daaruit af te lei. aerts se bydrae tot die tegnies-wetenskaplike bemiddeling tussen mens en sterre behels die ontsluiting van die bestaan van sterretrillings wat in struktuur soortgelyk is aan dié van iets wat ons ken: die trilling van ’n snaar (van ’n musiekinstrument). die wetenskaplik-tegnies blootgelegde tonale hiërogliewe bied uitstekende materiaal vir persoonlike verryking, vir die uitbou van algemene kennis, of die bevrediging van die passie vir kennis, maar is ondansbaar: dit leen sigself nie tot die ritmering van ’n mens se bestaan nie. estetiese bemiddeling: tussen toe-eiening en vervreemding 5.2 maar dit is nie al nie. hierdie gesofistikeerde tegnies-wetenskaplike ontdekking fasiliteer ’n estetisering van die nuut ontdekte verskynsel – of dít minstens, vir sover ’n kunstenaar die geleentheid wil aangryp. die komponis wat van hierdie hiëroglifiese tone ’n geleentheid tot komposisie wil maak, staan voor ’n besonder veeleisende taak. ’n denkeksperiment van clifford geertz¹⁷ kan as analogie dien om die aard van hierdie taak te help waardeer. veronderstel twee seuns wat elkeen die ooglid van een oog vinnig sluit en dan weer oopmaak. by die eerste is dit ’n knipoog waarmee hy ’n teken van sameswering aan ’n maat stuur (“a wink”), by die tweede is dit ’n onwillekeurige sametrekking van ooglidspiere (“a twitch”). nou kan mens die twee gebeurtenisse op twee verskillende maniere probeer beskryf. vir die “dun beskrywing” is die twee gebeure identies: dit laat ons nie toe om die twee voorvalle van mekaar te onderskei nie; die “dik beskrywing” onderskei tussen die tweede seun wat een ding doen (die ooglid knip) en die eerste seun wat twee dinge doen (die ooglid knip en só ’n teken aan ’n maat stuur). die “dun beskrywing” van altwee gevalle is dieselfde: ’n seun sluit een oog vinnig en maak dit weer oop; die “dik beskrywing” verander telkens na gelang van hoe die optrede deur die beskrywer geïnterpreteer word. my vermoede is nou dat natuurwetenskaplike spelreëls oor die algemeen, en die spelreëls van astroseismologie in die besonder, net “dun beskrywing” vir sigself veroorloof. dit streef eers, en veral, na die inwin van dit wat telkens deur enige wetenskaplike wat dieselfde waarnemingsen metingstegnologië gebruik, op dieselfde manier beskryf sal kan word. nogtans – as my analogie enigsins waarde het – kan mens uit aerts se gebruik van die musiekmetafoor aflei dat haar natuurwetenskaplike voorstelling van die sterretrillings ’n ander verhouding tot die natuur¹⁸ toelaat, dat haar “dun beskrywing” ’n “dik beskrywing”, maar as natuurwetenskaplike voorstelling alle oordeel oor sodanige “dik beskrywings” moet opskort. my mens merk hierdie punt goed op wanneer jy aerts se voorstelling van die kosmiese simfonieë met ’n 16. voor-moderne perspektief op die sterre vergelyk: in antwoord op god se skepping van die sterre, kan die sterre opgeroep word (al is dit figuurlik bedoel) om hom saam met die digter te prys (aldus psalms 8 en 148 onderskeidelik). clifford geertz, “thick description. toward an interpretive theory of culture” in 17. the interpretation of cultures: selected essays, new york: basic books, [1973]2000, pp. 3–30, veral p. 6. ek vereenvoudig geertz se denkeksperiment, wat hy van gilbert ryle oorgeneem het. sien hieroor die nota hierbo oor marquard se lesing van die estetika se aansluiting by ’n ander natuur-18. persepsie. wolff 186 bedoeling met hierdie analogie is nie om sonder meer te veronderstel dat boogman se benadering tot komposisie een van beskrywing is, so asof die enigste taak van kuns die weergee van die werklikheid is nie. wat ek wel sê, is dat sy sternenrest-komposisie daarop aanspraak maak dat dit die sterretrillings en die lewe van die ster estetiseer, en nie bloot ’n lukrake spel van klanke as inspirasie gebruik nie.¹⁹ omdat boogman die kosmiese “oogknip” (die sterretrilling) as vatbaar vir ’n “dik beskrywing”-analoë komposisie neem (dit wil sê as objek vir estetisering en nie net as objek van wetenskaplike voorstelling nie), ontgin hy die ruimte wat deur aerts vir verdere interpretasie gelaat is, en verruim hy dit verder. dit is hierdie estetisering van die wetenskaplike bemiddeling wat die toe-eiening van die nuwe ontdekking vergemaklik. die musikale verwerking of ontwikkeling op die tema van wetenskaplik-tegniese gegewens van stertrillings is, minstens in ’n eerste beweging, ’n versagting van die harde vreemdheid of andersheid van die nuwe ontdekking wat ek as tonale hiëroglief getipeer het. hierdie versagting kan gesien word aan die verskuiwing van die eienskappe van die stertrilling na die eienskappe van boogman se komposisie: in die verkorting van die duur van die klanke, in die aanbieding van die musiek in ’n menslik bevatlike akoestiese milieu, teen ’n menslik tolereerbare volume en teen hoorbare frekwensies, in die gebruikmaking van instrumente wat bekend is uit die gehoor se musiektradisie, ensovoorts. só beskou, dien die estetisering om die vreemdheid van die ontdekking te tem. die musikale estetisering van die nuwe bevindinge van die astroseismologie bevat die potensiaal om in te speel op die beeld of die stemming van die grootste horison van die mens se alledaagse lewe. dit sal seker te veel wees om te beweer dat so ’n estetisering die alledaagse lewe op ’n wesenlike manier kan ritmeer, maar daar lê in die komposisie minstens ’n suggestie daarvoor: dit wat deur die musiek as die skoonheid of uitsonderlikheid van die kosmiese musiek voorgehou word, laat ’n mooi lewe toe of spoor die hoorder dalk aan tot ’n soeke na ’n uitsonderlike lewe. of miskien: die geboorte, grootsheid en afloop van die lewe van ’n ster kan deur die estetisering daarvan bydra tot die stemming van my eie geboorte, leeftyd en sterfte. anders gestel: die ruimte vir ’n koördinasie van kosmiese en lewensritme word oopgehou. vanuit hierdie perspektief kan die sternenrest-komposisie waarskynlik nóg as instrument tot die politieke-historiese doelstellings van die mensdom, nóg as plaasvervanger van sulke doelstellings gesien word (volgens die terme wat ek aan marquard ontleen) – dit is eerder ’n plekhouer of oopruimer van die moontlikheid van ’n akkoord tussen mens en kosmos. sekerlik bly dit, soos jonas beweer, ’n menslike poging tot sinstigting: reeds die toe-eienbaarheid van die vreemdheid van die sterre sou ’n eerste stap in dié rigting wees. dit moet egter nie misgekyk word nie dat daar ’n poging is om die sterre eers te beluister, dit wil sê om sigself aan hulle bloot te stel voordat hulle met eie gedagtes, teoretisering en estetisering oordek word. dit bly waar, ook al is die toegang wat ons as mense tot hierdie tipe kosmiese verskynsels kan hê, ons beluistering daarvan, noodwendig weer tegnies bemiddel, dit wil sê die gevolg van ’n gewilde poging en prestasie van verneming. die natuurwetenskaplike ingesteldheid sorg myns insiens vir ’n waaksaamheid en ’n lewende begeerte om aan die objek self blootgestel te word: wel bewus van die ingryp wat (tegniese) waarneming maak, bly die wetenskap ’n poging om daardie ingryp so ver moontlik te verdiskonteer in ’n beweging van openheid tot dit wat die beskrewe objek ook al mag bied. sien die notas oor die realisasie: “centraal in 19. sternenrest staat glas (naar de ster hd 129929). de muziek hiervan is gemodelleerd naar de meetgegevens en uitkomsten van het onderzoek naar de ster hd 129929 zoals geformuleerd door conny aerts in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift science (2003). tot de meetgegevens behoren onder meer zes sterfrequenties en gegevens over verschillende rotatielagen en rotatiesnelheden in de ster.” (http://www.sternenrest.nl/files/muziek.html). tegniek as bemiddeling tussen ritmes 187 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 175-189. sien my bespreking van die tegniese voorwaardes vir simboliese effektiwiteit in “mediologie en 20. hermeneutiek”, in tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe 47/1, maart 2007, pp. 81-94, hier pp. 89-90. die estetisering van wetenskaplike bevindinge lei dus tot die dubbelsinnige moontlikheid van fasilitering, van toe-eiening en die oophou van die ruimte van harmonisering tussen mens en hemelliggame aan die een kant, en tot die moontlikheid van skok of disoriëntasie aan die ander kant. maar aangesien nóg hierdie spitswetenskap, nóg die avant garde-musiek deel uitmaak van die alledaagse, is kanse goed dat sowel die toe-eieningspotensiaal as die ontwrigtingspotensiaal ’n kortstondige uitwerking sal hê. die kennis van vreemde, verre stertrillings kan veilig in die kwarantyn van algemene kennis of persoonlike verryking tuisgebring word. dieselfde geld vir die estetisering daarvan: as hierdie musiek nie deur sosiale tegnieke van ritualisering tot (sekulêre) liturgie gevorm word nie, met ander woorde, as die musiek nie in die kanon van belangrike werke opgeneem word en van sowel ’n program van publieke herhalings as van ’n verklaring van die uiteindelike doel of diagnose van die menslike kondisie voorsien word nie, is daar nie veel hoop dat dit as tegniese bemiddeling simbolies effektief²⁰ sal wees nie. sonder so ’n groter sosiale tegnologie maar juis in hierdie punt lê ’n totaal ander moontlikheid van die estetisering van wetenskaplike bevindings skuil. terwyl die estetiserende ontginning van die tegnies-wetenskaplike voorstelling ’n verdere moontlikheid in die bemiddeling tussen mens en hemelliggame aandui, bly die musiekopvoering vir sy geslaagdheid afhanklik van die wetenskaplike voorstelling: die gehoor weet hulle luister na ’n estetisering van sterretrillings en dat daar, volgens die huidige stand van navorsing, werklik sulke goed bestaan – hierdie kundigheid vorm die agtergrond waarteen die musiek aangehoor word. maar onthou, ek het bevind dat die wetenskaplike bevinding goed as ’n tonale hiëroglief beskryf kan word – en dit is vanuit hierdie hiëroglief dat die estetisering sin maak. as sodanig kan mens ook sê dat die estetisering gelyktydig ’n teenoorgestelde rol speel as die fasilitering van ’n versagtende toe-eiening: die estetisering bring die ontstellende andersheid van sterre tot bý mense wat andersins deur die alledaagse vergetelheid daarteen beskerm sou wees. anders gestel, insoverre die komposisie getrou bly aan die wetenskaplike gegewens waardeur dit gevoed word, is dit nie net ’n gewaagde poging om die betekenisstruktuur te vergroot (om die kosmiese “twitch” as ’n “wink” te lees) nie, maar is dit ook ’n naderbring van die onleesbaarheid, die onreduseerbare vreemdheid, daarvan. dit is ’n vreemdheid of andersheid wat nie net geleë is in die sterre se afstand, ouderdom en grootte nie, maar veral in die feit dat hulle stom bly ten spyte van hulle klankstruktuur. die tegnies-wetenskaplike bemiddeling stel ons, deur die estetisering van sterre, in staat om die konfrontasie met die hiëroglifiese karakter van sterre nog meer akuut te maak. as sodanig speel dit ontwrigtend in op enige mistifisering of vergetelheid van hierdie vreemdheid. hierdie is ’n ingreep op die alledaagse lewensritme, ’n ontwrigting, wat tot nadenke en selfs tot heroriëntering van die lewe kan lei. maar aangesien so ’n heroriëntering gedoen moet word sonder dat dit wat ontwrigtend inwerk self reeds ’n oriënteringspunt verskaf, kan die hele ervaring maklik tot angstige vertwyfeling lei. gegewe dit wat die komponis as vertrekpunt neem, is die risiko dat die bemiddeling een sal wees wat mense uit hul gemaklike vergeet van die andersheid van die heelal ruk en voor die pascaliaanse vervreemding werp. in ’n kulturele wêreld waar daar weens die onttowering van die werklikheid geen simboliese meganismes bestaan om ’n plek te gee aan hierdie vreemdheid nie, is disoriëntasie dus die voortdurende risiko van bemiddeling tussen mens en hemelliggame, hetsy deur die wetenskap, hetsy deur estetisering. van wetenskap en kuns terug na die alledaagse6. wolff 188 waardeur mense deur gereelde blootstelling aan die estetiese ervaring ingeoefen kan word in ’n goed omskrewe ervaring, sal die ritmering van die alledaagse deur hierdie musiek ’n uitsonderlike verskynsel bly. anders gestel: vir sover hierdie musiek met die toeëieningsen ontwrigtingspotensiaal daarvan nie in ’n groter tegniese sisteem ingewerk word om daardeur effek te kan uitoefen op die karaktergewing, op die ritmering, van mense se lewens nie, is dit veel meer waarskynlik dat die aangryping deur die musiek slegs enkele individue sal raak en dat dit, as ervaring, vir die grootste gros deur die ritme van die alledaagse lewe verswelg en só vir alle praktiese doeleindes vergeet sal word. dat hierdie verswelging as ’n onderdrukking van die ervaring van angstige disoriëntasie of as ’n verdediging teen die ervaring van gefrustreerde oriëntasiepogings gesien sou kon word, lyk vir my goed moontlik. bibliografie aerts, c. et al. 2003. “asteroseismology of hd 129929: core overshooting and nonrigid rotations”, in science, vol. 300, pp. 1926–1928. aerts, c. 2005. kosmische symfonieën, intreerede as besondere hoogleraar in astroseismologie aan die radboud universiteit nijmegen. benveniste, e. 1966. “la notion de ‘rythme’ dans son expression linguistique”, in problèmes de linguistique générale i, paris: gallimard, 1966, pp. 327–335. bourdieu, p. 1980. le sens pratique, paris: editions de minuit. geertz, c. [1973]2000. “thick description. toward an interpretive theory of culture”, in the interpretation of cultures: selected essays, new york: basic books, pp. 3–30. jonas, h. [1966]1982. the phenomenon of life. toward a philosophical biology. chicago & london: university of chicago press. marquard, o. 1962. “kant und die wende zur esthetik”, in zeitschrift für philosophische forschung 16, pp. 231–243 & 363–374. meschonnic, h. 2002. “rhytme [ling.]”, in les notions philosophiques ii (encyclopédie philosophique universelle), sylvain auroux (dir.), paris: puf, pp. 2288–2289. pascal, b. [1670]1961. pensées, ch.-m. des granges (volgens die uitgawe van brunschvicg), paris: garnier frères. schibli, h. (sonder datum). “pythagoreanism”, in routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, edward craig (ed.), cd-rom version 1.0, london: routledge. sternenrest: http://www.sternenrest.nl (laaste keer geraadpleeg op 7 augustus 2009). tegniek as bemiddeling tussen ritmes 189 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 175-189. thuan, t.x. 2008. “l’univers joue du jazz” (onderhoud), in la vie 7-14 augustus, pp. 18–24. wolff, e. 2007. “mediologie en hermeneutiek”, in tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe 47/1, pp. 81–94. wolff, e. 2010. “technicity of the body as part of the socio-technical system: the contributions of mauss and bourdieu” (sal in theoria verskyn). abstract introduction research methods and design presentation and discussion of findings conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) cherese f. jones department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africadepartment of education and curriculum studies, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa charl j. roux department of sport and human movement studies, faculty of health sciences, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa citation jones cf, roux cj. values-based physical education for the intermediate schooling phase in a diverse south african context. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1092. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1092 original research values-based physical education for the intermediate schooling phase in a diverse south african context cherese f. jones, charl j. roux received: 31 may 2021; accepted: 18 july 2021; published: 27 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract participation in physical activity, physical education (pe) and sport has been recognised as a powerful learning tool for education, providing a universal language for contributing to valuable life principles. values-based education implies that learners are educated about the aspects determining their behaviour. values-based pe, physical activities and sport have the potential to transcend diversity and achieve cohesion, promote tolerance and trust and affirm respect between individuals and communities. the goal of pe can be to contribute to the acceptance of the infinite qualities of south africa’s diversity and to claim the country’s diversity as a source of strength that forms a bond of a common set of values. there has been a global change in the interaction of learners with their environment; their lives are shaped by forces that do not necessarily assist them to learn and apply values. a pe programme infused with the values of olympism and ubuntuism can offer an investment in individual and societal improvement as the co-evolutionary interaction of these values and how they affect each learner can add to the celebration of human diversity. the question this study set out to answer was how can pe be used as a tool to teach values. thus, the study aimed to inform the development of a values-based pe programme for the intermediate schooling phase. this qualitative study, from a constructivist paradigm, has enhanced the understanding of individuals’ cultures, beliefs and values, human experiences and situations. purposeful sampling, of 10 intermediate phase teachers from five different public primary schools sought information-rich cases. the theoretical perspectives of the experiential learning theory were applied to teaching pe during in-service pe teacher training workshops. the process was documented by collecting data from multiple sources. participatory action research was used, determining how data were collected, analysed and presented on an ongoing, cyclical basis. this study developed material for the intermediate phase pe curriculum that underpins the values of olympism and ubuntuism as core values, which were modelled by teachers and guided their work. the pe programme included key elements of and aligned with the study aims of the subject life skills. the outcomes of using pe as a tool to teach values propose recommendations to the department of basic education of south africa, to improve and implement a quality pe curriculum that is applicable to practice and that will optimise the chances of meeting national curriculum statement standards. further research is recommended on the rest of the intermediate phase pe curriculum over the entire year, which includes other movement phenomena infused with values. keywords: diversity; intermediate phase; olympism; physical education; ubuntuism; values-based education; values-based physical education. introduction there is a global change in the interaction of learners with their environment, their lives are shaped by forces that do not necessarily assist them to learn and apply values. thompson stated that sociocultural factors, global factors and political factors further complicate the processes of helping learners to develop positive values.1 in most countries today, the responsibility for developing values is assigned to schools in formal teaching settings. values-based education (vbe) implies that learners are educated about the aspects determining their behaviour.1 the unique challenge to educators is how to make values come alive so that learners choose to live them. khalifa, gooden and davis argued that if values are not deliberately taught it has no effect.2 australian primary school research suggests that effective pedagogical practices are based on the explicit teaching of values3 through making values tangible and concrete.4 by attempting to make values tangible and concrete the question, this study would like to answer is how can physical education (pe) be used as an educational tool to teach values in today’s society. in the south african school curriculum, known as the curriculum assessment policy statement (caps), pe is a study area within the subject life skills5 and offers a balanced methodology to educate and develop learners holistically and is consistent with the educational mission of schools globally.6 a number of authors have also alluded to the range of developmental benefits that can derive from learners’ participation in pe.7 a quality pe (qpe) curriculum provides learning opportunities for physical activity, appropriate instruction, challenging and meaningful content, learner and curriculum assessment and the employment of highly qualified pe teachers.8 in the south african context pe is taught to varied learners in diverse and unique environments. the concept of diversity, as westwood explains, entails understanding that each individual is unique and recognising each individual’s differences. these differences can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs or other ideologies.9 what each teacher brings to the pe experience in terms of these differences as well as value, qualifications and perceptions of pe is also different.10 the goal of pe in south africa can be to contribute to, as remarked by kader asmal, the acceptance of the ‘infinite qualities of south africa’ diversity and to claim south africa’ diversity as a source of strength’ that forms a universal bond of a common set of values.11 an educational strategy in the manifesto of values in south africa is founded on the potential of pe, physical activities and sport to transcend diversity and achieve cohesion, promote tolerance and trust and affirm respect between individuals and communities arbitrarily kept apart in the past. a key educational strategy of the manifesto aims at seeding values in young south africans through the educational system. the belief is that values will evolve, become rooted and flourish.12 one of the interests of physical educators should be in how social issues circumscribe and interfuse with their work13 and that a values-based (vb) pe curriculum could emphasise the celebration of human diversity. my heartfelt notion of a pe programme interrelated with the values of olympism (global context) and ubuntuism (south african context) arose from a context in which both views are concerned with the development of humankind and the oneness of humanity. olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole, the qualities of body, will and mind, blending sport with culture and education.14 olympism includes both olympic and paralympic values: excellence, respect, friendship, determination, inspiration, courage and equality.15 ubuntuism in a philosophical view means, the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.16 the values (survival, solidarity, sharing, compassion, communalism, dignity, love and respect) are the core social values practised and it has become a way of life and explains why ubuntu is ‘enormously valuable as an experience and concept because the meaning it conveys is at the heart of all human, helping relationships’.17 the values of olympism and ubuntuism unite pe, physical activity, sport and humanism and together it can result in a vb framework fit for a pe programme in a diverse south african context. a pe programme infused with the values of olympism and ubuntuism can be integrated through teacher education and teachers making it part of their practice. the aim of this study was thus to develop a vb pe programme aligned with the current intermediate phase (learners generally aged between 10 and 12 years old) pe curriculum, by offering in-service pe teacher training workshops (ttws) to intermediate phase teachers in the tshwane district of south africa. the following objectives have been formulated: firstly, to describe, discuss and conceptualise vb pe for the development of learners in a diverse pe classroom. secondly, to describe, discuss and conceptually analyse the nature, place and value of pe as an educational tool regarding the potential role thereof within the south african curriculum. the theoretical framework of this study consists of kolb’s experiential learning theory.18 the experiential learning theory is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. the theory suggests that learners need support to translate learning from one context to another.19 the educational implication is that the theory could be used by pe teachers to critically evaluate the learning provision typically available to the learners and to develop more appropriate learning opportunities. pe teachers could also ensure that pe activities are designed and carried out in ways that offer all learners the chance to engage in a manner that suits them best. designing activities in this way rules out vince’s criticism, as he believed that the experiential learning theory fails to focus on the here and now of experience, instead gives undue status to retrospective reflection.20 whilst addressing the pe lesson content that is infused with values in a context-specific learning situation based on the experiential learning theory, learners can be invited throughout the pe lesson to reflect, analyse and discuss situations with the teacher and their peers.21 reflecting on, analysing and discussing situations is a crucial part of the learning process and that is why teachers were encouraged to imitate the application of the experiential learning theory, during the school term, to put into practice what they had learned during the ttw. this study is significant as there are a limited number of researches that have examined how pe teachers can facilitate the development of values in pe learners.22,23,24 particularly in a south african context, specialised in-service teacher training about vb pe could contribute to practice by meeting the aim of the subject life skills, which is contributing to equipping learners with knowledge, skills and values that assist them to achieve their full physical, intellectual, personal, emotional and social potential.5 research methods and design this qualitative study, from a constructivist paradigm, can enhance one’s understanding of individuals’ cultures, beliefs and values, human experiences and situations and enables one to develop and reflect on the knowledge that describes these experiences.25,26,27,28 in this study participatory action research was used, which is a subset of action research. participatory action research is the systematic collection and analysis of data for the purpose of taking action and making change by generating practical knowledge.29 in collaboration with 10 participating teachers, from five different schools, through the ttw we developed a pe programme enriched with values. the location of the schools represents a variety of socio-economic areas within south africa. the participants were all employees of a south african public primary school, teaching pe to the intermediate phase at their respective schools in the tshwane district of south africa. the purposeful sampling of diverse individuals from diverse schools was to maximise the similarities and the differences of information. the purpose was to document unique and diverse variations, which have emerged in adapting to different conditions and to identify important common patterns that cut across variations.30 the cyclical process of the phases of inquiry in the action research spiral model as identified by kemmis, mctaggart and nixon is presented (figure 1).31 the cyclical process comprises planning for the ttw, taking action to present and implement the ttw and fact-finding, which is observation and reflection about the findings of the action. the process alternated between action and critical reflection. we applied the theoretical perspectives of kolb’ experiential learning theory18 to teaching pe. the spiral model allowed for constantly testing the theory against the critical responses of the participating teachers, to see if the theory could withstand criticism. the data collection methods that were used in this study are also presented in the model. figure 1: adapted action research spiral model and data collection methods. data were collected from three ttw using a variety of methods to ensure the validity of the research findings.32 the ttw was conducted before, during and at the end of the first school term, consisting of 10 weeks. before the start of the ttw, teachers completed the pre-ttw questionnaire. it presented the demographic data and background of the participants and the respective schools they are teaching at. the questionnaire assisted with the first planning cycle of the ttw, as these informed us about the teachers’ existing pe pedagogical knowledge before attending the ttw. the early cycles were used to help decide how to conduct the later cycles. in the later cycles, the interpretations developed in the early cycles were tested, challenged and refined.33 during the ttw, the researchers and the participating teachers experimented and co-learnt through participating in micro-lessons. we completed lesson plans and video recorded the lessons, which teachers could refer back to during the school term. after the ttw there were focus group interviews about olympism and ubuntuism, the teachable moments during the delivery of vb pe in a diverse, safe, motivating setting and to understand how to plan, deliver and assess vb pe. the researchers observed a vb pe lesson of each teacher once at their respective schools. the observation recording sheet helped for observations to be consistent in using the observation criteria. the criteria related to the teachers’ and learners’ non-verbal behaviour, their location, the environment and a general overview of the participating teachers’ pedagogical performance and techniques. in supporting the observations photographs were used, none of the photographs were published. the photographs were also used to validate the teacher’s views expressed during the focus group interviews. teachers were invited throughout the lesson planning and implementation to reflect, analyse and discuss situations with one another. peterson and kolb emphasised that reflecting on, analysing and discussing situations formed a crucial part of the learning process and that is why teachers were encouraged to imitate the theoretical perspectives of the experimental learning theory during pe lesson planning and implementation.34 the knowledge intervention after the lesson planning and implementation allowed the participating teachers to give feedback and reflect on the ttw and the development of a vb pe programme. during several cycles, reflections were evaluated in preparation for modifying the practices planned for the implementation of the ttw in subsequent cycles. data analysis took place throughout the data collection process through inductive analysis and constant comparison and informed the ongoing intervention. the textual, graphical and audio data were analysed using the computer software atlas.ti (version 8, 2020)35 after the data were transcribed. the textual, graphical and audio data form the basis of the themes identified across the entire data set. five interrelated themes were identified. for the purpose of this study only the theme relating to pe as a tool to teach values, will be presented and discussed in the section to follow. findings from this analysis were grounded in the tenets of the participatory action research process, that is, if something needed changing or altering, the researchers were able to make changes.33 peer debriefing was an important part of the process, the researchers analysed and critiqued the data during data collection and analysis and made a decision as to when theoretical saturation was achieved. the phases of inquiry, as explained by herr and anderson,36 were completed by achieving sufficient understanding of the problem through the development of a vb pe programme. presentation and discussion of findings the aim of this study was the development of a pe programme infused with the values of olympism and ubuntuism, aligned with the current intermediate phase pe curriculum of south africa. the pre-ttw questionnaire informed us about the teachers’ existing pe pedagogical knowledge before attending the ttw. the findings of the pre-ttw questionnaire summarised that teachers teach pe without being trained as pe teachers.37 of the participating teachers, 70% had a qualification after grade 12, whilst the majority of the respondents had an education degree, which is considered adequate to teach the intermediate phase learner. it can be argued whether the qualification is adequate to teach qpe, as five responses, related to the caps, showed that the caps was not used as a guideline to teach pe and that some had no knowledge of what the caps is. furthermore, it is questionable whether the teachers can interpret the caps, as there was no response indicating that the participating teachers had any idea of how to interpret the caps. this is alarming, as it adds to the barriers to teaching qpe as specified by the caps as a result of unqualified teachers.38,39,40,41,42,43 the pre-ttw questionnaires provided information that was relevant and provided contextual knowledge relating to the ttw and teachers’ ability to apply this to their practice. during the ttw the use of the experiential learning theory to teach pe was appropriate, as the collaboration between participating teachers had the potential to strengthen the ‘appreciation’ when teaching learners, as the teachers were conceivably aware of what they had experienced during the ttw.18 co-learning with other pe teachers was effective and beneficial in sharing one another’s knowledge.33 teachers felt responsible for teaching values and being the role model of the values framework of olympism and ubuntuism. the teachers also mentioned their awareness of the pronounced impact vb pe could have in a disconnected society. wambari argued that a school’s society has to espouse the same agreed values as those supported in schools. he highlights the kenyan context of vbe and says that it has to be viewed from three existing systems of education: formal, non-formal and informal schooling, which may be at cross purposes. wambari also stated that a school will find it hard to transmit certain values when the society of which it is a part lives according to different values.44 a participating teacher stated that in contrast to the school environment, the learner in society also poses a challenge: ‘it seems like the school environment is mars – it is isolated from the real south africa.’ (71:9, teacher, 18 march 2020) in accordance with wambari, a participating teacher during the cycle of reflection similarly referred to the school environment (planet mars) agreed on certain values and that the rest of society (planet earth) agreed on other values. the participating teacher also mentioned that the school environment feels isolated from the real south africa. the isolation can be explained in the light of widespread examples of unethical behaviour in adult sport.45,46,47 a participating teacher felt strongly that there is a need to minimise the infiltration of such behaviour into pe, physical activity and youth sport: ‘there are a lot of factors influencing our lives. the media, tv, professional sportspeople. not just the lives of our learners but our own lives, as teachers and members of society. we need to constantly do retrospection and reflect about our teaching and the example we are to the learners (model values).’ (71:29, teacher, 18 march 2020) sport and physical activity have become more professional and commercialised and there is increased pressure to win rather than simply to take part. in south africa and the rest of the world, there is a value dilemma, which is obvious in the prioritisation of values by different people and groups of people.48 two inherent characteristics of values that were particularly pertinent to the participating teachers to understand conflicts and dilemmas are as follows: firstly, whether or not learners cheat during physical activities in pe is influenced by their values framework. that refers to the relative priorities they give to different values. for example, within the values framework, the question is whether excellence or equality is more important to them or whether both are equally important. secondly, an understanding of the value structure; this is the extent to which different values are naturally compatible or conflicting. such understanding can assist to identify those situations in which values are most likely to be in conflict and also the particular values that can be promoted to reduce conflict. habermas and lovat argued that levels of understanding or ‘ways of knowing’ can assist teachers in addressing diversity in planning and teaching, as well as facilitating reflection, analysis and discussion between learners about the value being taught.49,50,51 it is important that schools continue to educate learners about values, a qpe programme creates an opportunity to teach values where learners can share their experiences. furthermore, stidder and hayes asserted that pe can be a tool to teach values that go beyond the classroom, just like the football 4 peace and rugby 4 peace programmes, taking what is learned on the sports field into everyday life.52 during the implementation of the vb pe programme, a participating teacher mentioned during the focus group interview that pe has the potential as an educational tool to teach the values of olympism and ubuntuism in today’s diverse south african society: ‘with a suggested values framework like ubuntu and olympics, i think it is a good starting point. it is simple enough for a learner to understand. if we can lay down the basics, hopefully, it can contribute to a child’s life. friendship, respect and determination, for example, are what will add value to one’ life. a framework instilled can contribute to exploring other values.’ (69:20, teacher, 12 february 2020) department of education science and training (dest) defines vbe as any explicit and/or implicit school-based activity to promote learner understanding and knowledge of values and to inculcate the skills and dispositions of learners so they can enact particular values as individuals and as members of the wider society.53 the experiential learning theory suggests that learners learned from what the teachers and other learners said and what they did as they translated the values of olympism and ubuntuism into their realities.19 one method to teach values explicitly and deliberately; as a participating teacher called it is to use a ‘values language’. teachable moments provided prime learning opportunities in a diverse classroom for teaching values by reflecting on significant situations in each pe lesson. the potential lies in the teachable moments that the physical activities create to teach and discuss values. a teacher reflected on his teachable moment: ‘when a learner is not putting in the effort you can mention, remember to excel (olympic value) you need to put in the work.’ (71:5, teacher, 18 march 2020) during observations there were always systematic interactions between learners and teachers, but it was not always evident through observation that learning took place. a notable reflection about an observation is that of a teacher who did not mention any value throughout the vb pe lesson. during the reflection at the end of the lesson, the teacher asked about a specific value; surprisingly the class identified the value. there were conflicting ideas between the researchers about deliberately teaching values. one is that the teacher should mention the values being taught. another is that a teacher should identify a teachable moment and again point out the values. yet during this specific class, the learners understood the values by just participating in the physical activity planned for the vb pe lesson. this specific observation also highlighted the potential of pe as a tool to teach values. during an observation, the participating teachers recalled that the lesson plan helped with planning for diversity in different teachable moment scenarios. the teachers said: ‘the learners are fearful of getting a bad mark, fear of not performing as well as their peers because of being overweight and not being able to keep up with the rest.’ (71:12, teachers, 18 march 2020) as well as: ‘i liked the way we stressed the importance of diversity during lesson planning to equip each learner to participate in pe in their way, to express themselves, to have fun. in this way one can find a way to personally motivate each learner according to their skill level, to improve their skill and not to be compared with higher-skilled learners.’ (69:11, teacher, 12 february 2020) stidder and hayes supported that linking specific positive behaviour to certain values aids in the development of forming a learners’ value system. physical education is often referred to as the best study area in which this is performed deliberately.52 according to bailey, to empower youth in society, educating learners in pe about the importance of their well-being will lead to well-adjusted competitive and social behaviour when participating in any physical activities for recreation or participating competitively in sport.23 trost affirmed that the role of pe as a study area within life skills in the south african curriculum remains important, as the school environment serves as an excellent setting to provide learners with daily opportunities to be physically active, to educate learners about the importance of daily physical activity for their well-being and to build skills and values that support an active lifestyle.54 the researchers reflected that the participating teachers were willing to experiment with teaching the values of olympism and ubuntuism in their pe practices. the teachers showed enthusiasm and motivation to share qpe practices, as they understood the importance of careful planning, in order not to lose the quality of vb pe. the participating teachers reflected that they felt relieved about returning to their everyday practices because the new approach put great demands on them to plan additionally, think differently and experiment with vb pe content and practice. they mentioned that: ‘values are very personal, so it is complex. one will only really know the severity of the complexity once you start teaching and over time these aspects can be addressed.’ (69:19 , teachers, 12 february 2020) during the intervention, the participating teachers made significant efforts to apply vb pe with fidelity in their practice, something that often caused them feelings of nervousness, embarrassment and uncertainty, as they had to plan for diversity. a participating teacher reflected that: ‘i get caught up in my old ways of teaching. for example teaching gender-based sporting codes, i assume from experience that boys do not want to play netball, girls do not want to play cricket. it is finding games that both genders can play, because i find learners in my school enjoy it to be mixed.’ (69:16 , teacher, 12 february 2020) teachers were brave to experiment with teaching values even when not knowing how learners would react. lesson planning was of great support to a teacher as she felt that: ‘careful planning is in order not to lose the quality of vb pe, as one tends to fall back on default and teach only what you think is important.’ (71:2, teacher, 18 march 2020) the challenges to teach values in a diverse classroom such as time and space constraints, large classes of learners, extra duty teacher obligations and lack of practical support, hindered the teachers’ efforts to reach their own predetermined teaching goals. a participating teacher emphasised that time constraints were a challenge in planning pe infused with values: ‘some learners did not understand a value, like compassion or equity, you first had to explain it to them, maybe in length, this took up time of your pe lesson.’ (69:5, teacher, 12 february 2020) relevant literature from several authors supports the given challenge by confirming that teachers struggle with time and/or managerial issues that influence their reflection practice and teaching attitudes negatively.55,56 despite some challenges, from the teachers’ responses, it became evident that the teachers tried hard to step back from their directive role and give their learners’ the chance to experiment with the values and make meaningful decisions on their own. the teachers reported that: ‘learners are engaging without any pressure to excel’ and ‘the kids are more themselves in pe, it seems like you can approach them more especially with such a personal construct as their values or their perception of values.’ (71:6, teachers, 18 march 2020) united nations children’s fund (unicef) confirms that schools aim to safeguard the growth and development of learners and to prepare them for the existence of an individual human being outside the school environment.57 it is expected that learners will use the skills and knowledge learned in the study area pe in other physical activity opportunities, such as active recess, active transportation and school sports activities. the importance of pe as a tool to teach values was encountered at the last ttw as a teacher mentioned the importance of a specific subject or subject area to teach values. she mentioned: ‘we are moving past each other as a society. and this is exactly why i like the vb pe programme in totality because there needs to be a place, a subject or study area with content that addresses values. we need to constantly address values, over and over, because it will get lost.’ (71:9, teacher, 18 march 2020) kohl and cook argued that pe programming has been identified as the foundation on which multicomponent or coordinated approaches incorporating other physical activity opportunities can be designed and promoted.58 life skills curriculum innovation focussing on pe has the potential for such a multicomponent or coordinated approach. in everyday life, one does not always witness the expression of the values that schools would generally espouse. rens stated the importance of values and vbe programmes and that it is not being ignored; throughout the world, vbe programmes are developed, despite the understanding that classrooms are not the panacea of vbe.59 espinoza contended that even teachers who welcome the return of values believe that there is a limit to what classrooms can accomplish and no end to what is expected of them. in the face of poverty, family instability and social disorganisation, parents want schools to fill a values vacuum.60 an endeavour in schools for quality in pe is stated in the caps of south africa.5 it states that participation in pe will nurture positive attitudes and values that will assist learners to be physically fit, mentally alert, emotionally balanced and socially well adjusted. through teacher education, south african teachers can integrate the values of olympism and ubuntuism in a pe programme to appeal to the learners and their societies. the values of these ideologies were not forced upon the learners; each learner found their meaning in experiencing the values. the co-evolutionary interaction of these values and how they affect each learner can add to the celebration of human diversity. conclusion and recommendations the vb pe programme enriched with the values of olympism and ubuntuism enacts effective pe teaching. díaz-del-cueto et al.,61 as well as light and fawns,62 agreed that teachers move from ‘teaching with telling’ to ‘teaching with creating the need to know’. this process seems frustrating and unrewarding, especially initially, because of the teachers’ habitual tendency to expect immediate and observable skill outcomes. a pe programme with a values framework instilled can contribute to exploring other values, as values can drive the entire learning venture. the values of olympism and ubuntuism had different meanings and appreciation for each learner, thus diversity was celebrated. with support from teachers, a pe programme based on the values of olympism and ubuntuism, can strive to ensure that the values set out in the south african constitution are part of life skills curriculum development. participatory action research (par) and its reflective practice influenced the teachers’ pe practice positively, as it assisted the researchers and the participating teachers to undertake a collective, self-reflective inquiry. campbell, mcnamara and gilroy agreed as they believed both par and reflective methods are vital and will improve teaching practices in a significant way.63 collaboration with the participating teachers was central to the reform or revision of pe infused with values that were achieved and that could be sustained over time. this study is limited as it focussed only on the first term intermediate phase pe curriculum. the key element that constitutes the pe programme, for the intermediate phase, enriched with values includes the following, and aligns with the subject aims of life skills, as prescribed by caps:5 the pedagogical approach of the pe programme is grounded in the philosophy of olympism and ubuntuism. the pe programme underpins the set of values of olympism and ubuntuism as core values that are modelled by teachers and guide their work. the use of a lesson plan as a guide acted as support to the teachers and contributed to the execution of qpe lessons. teachable moments provided prime learning opportunities in a diverse classroom for teaching values by reflecting on significant situations in each pe lesson. a reflective practice positively influenced the quality of the teachers’ pe practice. this study was designed to develop new knowledge relating to vb pe. further research is recommended on the curriculum development, infused with the values framework of olympism and ubuntuism, with all other ethnic groups in south africa to develop a comprehensive pe curriculum for all south african learners. this study represents the documentation of collaboration that generated a pe programme and may be used as a case study of not only the process but also the product of the collaboration, upon which other researchers can build and improve. the values framework should not be exclusive but rather indicative of baseline values, which might be regarded as the same for all, regardless of ethnic, religious, gender or other differences. the values can be described as ‘hooks to hang the hats on’, rather than intended to limit pe pedagogy. a document that emerged from a working group facilitated by the south african department of education, suggested an approach where democratic values are not formed through prescribing values that are communicated by teachers but by providing learners with experiences that cultivate these values.11 the participating teachers did not force the values of olympism and ubuntuism upon the learners, but each learner found their meaning in experiencing the values as pointed out by the teachers as they questioned, probed, assessed and reflected during teachable moments. using pe as a tool to teach the values of olympism and ubuntuism offers an investment in individual and societal improvement. the outcomes of using pe as a tool to teach values propose recommendations to the department of basic education of south africa, to improve and implement a qpe curriculum that is applicable to practice and that will optimise the chances of meeting national curriculum statement standards. sattelmair and ratey supported that pe is an important factor that contributes to learners’ well-being, as participation in pe inspires and instills lasting healthy behavioral patterns.64 the effect of covid-19 resulted in learners’ well-being being compromised. it was estimated in april 2020 by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation that 138 countries had closed their schools to some extent.65 van lancker and parolin confirmed that this resulted in the educational disruption of approximately 80% of learners worldwide.66 only certain study areas received priority to be taught in schools during the pandemic. pe, art and music were not first on the priority list. pe is further losing its identity as a consequence of the current covid-19 situation because of the lack of direct contact with learners. the european pe association stated that pe is being advocated internationally as a critical face-to-face experience for learners.67 varea and gonzález-calvo supported this statement acclaiming that pe cannot be unstructured physical activities over digital media.68 all stakeholders involved in the planning and implementation of pe in south africa cannot simply continue measuring the happenings inside pe without taking account of the forces outside school that are shaping the substance of what teachers teach. pe, as specified in the caps, focusses on addressing various social issues and is offered at schools to improve learner retention and academic performance.5 although pe and sport-related practices are not a panacea against entrenched social ‘ills’ (i.e. depression, obesity, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and hiv), burnett argued that there is evidence that it can contribute meaningfully to behavioural and lifestyle changes.69 acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge all relevant people, committees and authorities who were consulted, and the principles guiding this study were accepted before commencing the study. to ensure objectivity and transparency in this study and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, the authors included the following information: competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exist. authors’ contributions c.j.r. and c.f.j. conceived of the presented idea. c.f.j. developed the theory and performed the computations. c.j.r. and c.f.j. verified the analytical methods. c.j.r. encouraged c.f.j. to investigate vb pe and supervised the findings of this work. all authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript. ethical considerations all relevant people, committees and authorities were consulted and the principles guiding this study were accepted before commencing the research. to ensure objectivity and transparency in this research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct ethical clearance were received from the university of johannesburg and permission to do research from the department of basic eductation, south africa, sem 1 2019-060. funding information the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced the writing of the article. data availability raw data were generated at the university of johannesburg. derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author c.f.j. on request. disclaimer the views expressed in this article are of the authors’ own and not an official position of any institution or funder. references thompson ra. changing societies, changing childhood: studying the impact of globalization on child development. child dev perspect. 2012;6(2):187–192. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2012.00234.x khalifa ma, gooden ma, davis je. culturally responsive school leadership: a synthesis of the literature. rev educ res. 2016;86(4):1272–1311. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316630383 lovat t, clement n, dally k, toomey r. values education as holistic 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environmental crime; wonderfonteinspruit catchment; merafong; carletonville; water pollution; gold mines. disciplines involved: history; hydrology; journalism; philosophy; plant & soil conservation; geography; geology; agronomy; geoscience. environmental ethics and crime in the water affairs of the wonderfontein spruit catchment, gauteng, south africa es van eeden, m liefferink and e tempelhoff* * prof. elize s. van eeden is a member of staff in the school for basic sciences, north-west university. mariette liefferink is an environmental activist, resident in johannesburg. elise tempellhoff is an environmental journalist at beeld newspaper, johannesburg. td: the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, vol. 4 no. 1, july 2008, pp. 31-58. 32 introduction a consolidated history of the formal environmental heritage process in south africa is still due. the same applies to the role and impact on the environment of major role players such as the south african government, mining authorities, local governments, environmental activists, environmentalists in non-government positions and research/academic institutions. an undertaking such as this to obtain a balanced perspective from which departures towards future actions and solutions can be made will be huge. quite a number of focused research activities under the auspices of each of the abovementioned role players are currently in progress. this article intends to exchange and debate specific information regarding environmental ethics and crime in one such focused activity conducted by researchers in the north-west university research niche area for the cultural dynamics of water. although extensively researched from a variety of academic angles and disciplines, the management of water affairs issues in the wonderfontein spruit catchment in gauteng, south africa (formerly part of the carletonville district in the far west rand) still remains controversial and of tremendous concern. at the core of all the rumours regarding environmental destruction and pollution are the health threat and the irreversible harm done to water resources and the environmental face as a consequence. to role players still considering the wsc area as an environmentally sustainable option at present and in the future, differences and distrust prevail. if this status quo is further analysed, one gets to the heart of all the “wronggoings” and “wrongdoings” in the wsc, namely the “happy-go-lucky” environmental ethics or “gentleman’s agreement” protocol of the day between the government and the gold mines. this state of affairs has resulted in severe environmental crime scenarios. obviously, the wonderfontein spruit catchment and the wider area are not unique in this regard. examples of environmental crime areas can be found nationally and environmentally destructive “partners” are found on the international front. a uniqueness of the wonderfontein spruit catchment area is that it currently is probably the area in south africa regarded to be the most written about, environmentally in the most destructive state and probably the most dangerous area with its quiescent, tampered underground dolomitic compartments – any day and time able to show the outcomes of its new michael jackson-like environmental face: more sinkholes, more deaths, more water pollution and more health-related problems that stretch much wider than just the wonderfontein spruit catchment area. in the discussion that follows, the focus will be on: � geological features of the wonderfontein spruit catchment area; van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 33 � ethics and environmental crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment; � ethical indicators in the constitution before and after 1994; � history recalls the wonderfontein spruit catchment: key ethical and environmental beliefs and attitudes of the day; � conclusion. geological features of the wonderfontein spruit catchment area the far west rand rock formations mainly belong to the transvaal system, which can be divided into the pretoria series (shale, quartzite and lava); the dolomitic series (dolomitic limestone and chart); and black reef series (quartzite and shale). the black reef series forms the northern boundaries of the dolomite, while its southern boundaries are formed by the pretoria series. the dolomitic area is more or less the central part of the far west rand and stretches from the east to the south-west. it consists of the valley of the wonderfontein spruit that also flows from the east in a south-westerly direction. the dolomitic formations are intersected by dolerite dykes that divide the dolomitic area into separate ground water compartments, each with its distinct water table and springs that originate from the dykes. the main stream in the oberholzer compartment originated from the bank eye and had been supplemented by water pumped from the former west driefontein mine for years. gold mining activities lowered the water table in some compartments so that some “eyes” had dried up by the mid sixties. streams in these compartments have been cement-channelled since the 1950s, and some cement-channelling is regarded as being done inefficiently.1 environmental ethics and crime environmental ethics and crime and the wonderfontein spruit catchment scenario seventy-five years of gold mining (and eventually also uranium mining) activity in the wonderfontein spruit catchment has resulted 1 geo-science council archive (gsca), state coordinating technical committee (sctc), file 391-450, document 404, report, h. keersmaekers and a.p. aldridge, “a study of the quality of dolomitic water in the far west rand with special reference to the influence of mine drainage on the formation of sinkhole subsidences and underground water quality”, p. 5. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 34 in polluting natural waters with underground dolomitic waters, dewatering, the formation of sinkholes and the allowing of elevated levels of toxic and radioactive heavy metals in the wonderfontein spruit since the fifties. this happened despite the availability of more than half a decade’s (confidential and public) scientific information that was withheld from the general public, forming part of the human and environmental injustices committed in this area. urbanisation increased in conjunction with the mines and associated industries until the wonderfontein spruit catchment in the west wits line area also became densely populated. urbanisation continued until, by the 1970s, people were living and working only tens of metres away from mine dumps and slime dams that proved to be radioactive.2 the closure of some mines and the non-compliance with laws stipulating a rehabilitation of mines and mine property have worsened the situation. ground water, which has been rising gradually since some of the mines closed in the wonderfontein spruit catchment area recently, is now issuing again from springs after being dry for almost 40 years.3 the difference is that it is not merely water decanting from these springs, but acid mine drainage (amd) bearing a concoction of highly toxic and radioactive waste materials.4 people living in informal settlements in the rural areas adjacent to the mines on the west rand have to use ground water due to a lack of municipal water.5 several farming communities also use the water for drinking purposes. on farms, the contaminated groundwater is also used to 2 compare water research commission (wrc), report no 1214/1/06, h. coetzee, f. winde, p.w. wade, “an assessment of sources, pathways, mechanisms and risks of current and potential future pollution of water and sediments in goldmining areas of the wonderfontein catchment”, 2006; national nuclear regulator, “technical report, radiological impacts of the mining activities to the public in the wonderfontein spruit catchment area” [also known as the brenk report], july 2007. 3 e.s. van eeden, “die geskiedenis van die gatsrand vanaf trekkervestiging 1838 tot dorpsproklamering 1948“. nwu (ma-dissertation,1988); e.s. van eeden, ”ekonomiese ontwikkeling en die invloed daarvan op carletonville, 1948-1988: ‘n historiese studie“, (nwu, ph.d., 1992). 4 council for scientific and industrial research (csir), report csir/nre/wr/ er/2007/ 0097/c, p.j. hobbs and j.e. cobbing, “a hydrogeological assessment of acid mine drainage impacts in the west rand basin, gauteng province”, august 2007; c.j. swart, a.r. james, r.j. kleyweght & e.j. stoch, “the future of the dolomitic springs after mine closure on the far west rand, gauteng, rsa”, environmental geology, 44, 2003, pp.751-770. 5 compare m. liefferink, “corporate crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment”, international water history association (iwha) conference, 20-24 april, 2008; e. tempelhoff “groep plaas druk op regering oor spruit se water”, beeld, 4 january 2007; “mense en omgewing stik onder goudwelvaart. mynmonopolie se grumoeras”, beeld, 2 february 2007, p. 11. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 35 water livestock and irrigate crops, which eventually can pose serious health hazards to people eating this produce. with this article, the focus is to provide a social construction in understanding the application of environmental ethics and scientific knowledge of the day by those dominating the economic scene in the wrc. how and why it can be linked to environmental crime is also discussed. first, an understanding of both concepts is provided. ethics and environment6 philosopher jozef keulartz regards science as the master of ethics: ethics and morality are typically human interventions or devices that could not be derived directly from nature but had to be fought for and protected in the face of natural evolution. 7 in addition to the general opinion of keulartz and others8 about ethics, it has been stated in many ways that the main cause of our present ecological predicament results from the christian conviction that man has been granted “dominion” over the earth and may therefore exploit and use nature for his own ends.9 in contemporary ecological debates, poles that are hard to reconcile are mostly opposed, and dilemmas that call for solutions are formulated. in this way (often from a historical perspective) conservation and development, or man and nature, or ecology and economics, or ecology and hedonism, or ecology and christianity are identified as being essentially in opposition.10 as in other disciplines, a lack of a proper discussion regarding ethics and example exists and a theology of the environment has not been 6 a special note of thanks to professor p.g.w. du plessis of the north-west university for providing some of the sources and insights on eco-ethics, the christian and the future. 7 j. keulartz, struggle for nature: a critique of radical ecology [translated by rob kuitenbrouwer], (routledge, london, 1998). introductory notes. 8 also compare l.m. benton & j.r. short, environmental discourse and practice (blackwell publishers, ca 2000), p. 147. 9 p.g.w. du plessis, manuscript on “eco-ethics, the christian and the future”, potchefstroom university for che (currently north-west university), 27 may 1998. 10 compare t. roszak, making of a counter culture (new york, faber, 1968); t. roszak, persoon en planeet (amsterdam, meulenhoff, 1980); r. attfield, the ethics of environmental concern (oxford, blackwell, 1983); r. attfield, environmental philosophy (avebury, aldershot, 1994); j.a. nash, loving nature. ecological integrity and christian responsibility (nashville & washington, abingdon press, 1991). td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 36 developed.11 and in so doing shifts the earthly creation to one side? within reformational circles, it has been accepted that ethics mainly and in detail deal with man, and that the ethical mode of existence is an exclusive human issue.12 for the enlightenment, science and technology are edified as instruments of power in the hand of man so that progress can take place, and through plans aimed at growth, the environment is used and exploited for the sake of the interests of man and his society. benton and short refer to this approach as nature, as “object” becoming a conceptual container13 of whatever thinking of the day, which was rarely questioned. in the last three to four decades, a nature-centred environmental ethic was accentuated more. philosophers wrote about some environmental ethics before the first earth day in 1970.14 a strategy for growth and exploitation is being replaced by a strategy for survival and greening. relationship and not hostility between man and nature is being sought ... that the land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics ... the land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals.15 modern science and technology also operate with the assumption that progress is based on “the mastery and exploitation of nature”.16 christianity is also a strong shareholder in the prevailing humancentred approach and the mentality of exploitation towards the environment in scientific and technological circles.17 an environmental ethical approach from a purely scientific perspective, briefly defined, is to decide “what” should be preserved, and “how”.18 marshall19 referred to this method or approach as part of 11 e. conradie, rus vir die aarde (kaapstad, lux verbi, 1995), pp. 61-65. 12 w. granberg-michaelson, worldly spirituality: a call to take care of the earth (new york, harper & row, 1992), p. 3. 13 compare b goudswaard, capitalism and progress (grand rapids, eerdmans, 1979), p. 50; lm benton and jr short, environmental discourse and practice, p. 147. 14 compare l. white, “the historical roots of our ecological crisis”; a. leopold, “the land ethic”, a sand county almanac (oxford university press, uk, 1968), pp. 201226. 15 a. leopold, “the land ethic”, a sand county almanac (oxford university press, uk,1968),p 223. 16 ja nash, loving nature. ecological integrity and christian responsibility (nashville & washington, abingdon press, 1991). 17 l white, “the historical roots of our ecological crisis”, de bell, g. ed., the environmental handbook, (new york: ballantine,1970), pp.18-26; l wilkinson, “how christian is the green agenda?”, christianity today, 1993, pp. 17-20. 18 a. gutmann and d. thompson (eds), ethics and politics. cases and comments, fourth edition (australia, thomson wadsworth, 2006), pp. 261-263. 19 a. marshall, “unknown title”, journal of applied philosophy , 1993. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 37 conservation ethics because of the environment’s worth in terms of its utility or usefulness (also known as shallow ecology and not deep ecology). benton & short add a truth to this approach by saying: at its very inception the scientific idea of nature was blatantly political; this new knowledge of nature was part of a political strategy redefining the social, political and religious order. at some point modern society lost sight of this fact. scientific knowledge has become absolute and authoritative; science has been presented as objective, morally neutral and detached from social concerns…for many years the study of the environment has been dominated by physical scientists or policy analysts. we have often taken for granted that nature is an objective reality rather than in part a social creation… ‘environmental crisis’ is much a social phenomenon as a physical one…. 20 environmental crime research on environmental crime appears to be very limited and can be regarded as a field that has gained more interest from scientists in the past two decades.21 a key aspect of environmental crime on which mutual agreement apparently exists is that it boils down to violence because it is also associated with a physical confrontation that may lead to death.22 when corporations for example chemically pollute the water in an environment, they are presenting a community with a violent and physical toxic threat that can be a harmful threat to the health and well-being of the community. from a legal perspective, crime by definition simply means that the law is violated.23 in environmental crime, the scope of thinking about it may cause disagreements concerning the scope chosen. furthermore, sufficient data is required to know or to reveal something about an event, something or behaviour.24 burns refers to research of lynch, stretesky and mcgurrin in 2002, in which they point out that in a study of toxic crimes and crimes of environmental justice it always appears evident that claims fail because of a lack of data as evidence. therefore, research on corporate crime has been neglected for many 20 l.m. benton & j.r. short, environmental discourse and practice, pp. 148-149. 21 r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook (lfb scholarly publishing llc, new york, 2004), pp. 22 a definition by clifford and edwards, 1998 as quoted by r.g. burns & m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook, pp. 17,.20 23 j.s. dryzek and d schlosberg, debating the earth. the environmental politics reader, second edition (oxford university press, 2005), pp. 1-658. 24 compare r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime. a source book (lfb scholarly publishing, new york, 2004), pp. 1-24. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 38 years because of a lack of data.25 the tackling of environmental crime issues related to violence and human health consequences is mainly a 21st century effort.26 environmental pollution as a crime scenario can take years to emerge because of the length of time involved. for instance, there is a link between the outcome (e.g. cancer) and invisible pollutants.27 one may very well add that because of reports on pollution labelled as “secret” or “confidential’ in bureaucratic circles, which are not accessible to the public eye that it concerns directly, it indeed can take years to emerge. usually, ordinary people are not exposed to and are unaware of crime-related actions. in the past, pollution and the actions of pollutants were recognised as part of having technical problems instead of environmental crimes.28 however, to pinpoint exactly what constitutes crime, as it is defined, is viewed by burns & lynch as a new practice and challenging, because not all harms to the environment are recognised as crimes in a legal sense. identification of incidents, together with media coverage and continued environmentalist efforts, plays a decisive role in the criminalisation of harms against environment.29 criminologists regard contributions of industries to the pollution and poisoning of the environment as the most common form of corporate violence. in 2002 rosoff, pontell and tillman (as quoted in burns & lynch) suggested that much of the poisoned water comes not from illegal hauling of dangerous waste products but from criminal negligence of industries. in the process, governments as major polluters are not to be ignored, because they sometimes cooperate with major industrial corporations. 30 the following components are involved in environmental crime: environmental legislation. 25 compare ga barreto, “building community: an environmental approach to crime prevention”, (louisiana state university, usa,), january 2002; 2 r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime. a source book, pp. 2-3. 26 compare rebovich, 2002 as quoted in r.g. burns & m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook, pp. 2-3. 27 lynch & stretesky (2001) as in r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook, p. 2. 28 compare the voices of lowe, ward, seymour and clark, who has changed the scenario of thinking along these lines in 1996, as in r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook, pp. 17, 20. 29 a munster, “crime, policing and place: essays in environmental criminology“, journal of criminal justice, 21(4), pp. 423-425; r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook, pp. 15-17. 30 see simon (2000) and caldicott (1992)]] as quoted in r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook, pp. 18-19. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 39 enforcement. legitimate disposal alternatives. it is said that researchers have an important role to play to act as agents in changing a position by using their research to alter the course of history. this requires researchers to move beyond the traditional treatment of the affected community as “subjects” and to view this opportunity as something more than just another publication.31 it can also be added that as long as corporate bodies and governments still handle documents regarding the democratic community they serve according to an autocratic ideology, that long it will take to follow a holistic approach to data retrieval and perusal for the sake of all. an assessment of the application of environmental ethics in the past from a 21st century ethical perspective remains difficult because it can easily turn out to be extremely biased. the criteria used (depending on whether you relate to a post-modern ethical perspective or for example a christian perspective of the environment) can also make a difference in the assessment approach. the same applies to a discussion on environmental crime. ideological, economic, religious, social, and political legitimisations in a specific historical time could have directed man’s thinking and approach towards the environment spontaneously and authoritatively. if historically assessed from a 21st century ethical perspective (and from insights gained through first-hand current evidence regarding a degrading environment) the focus actually should be to recall critically the roots behind these legitimisations and not the actual day-to-day “wrongdoings” by whichever political and institutional power in a particular area. in dealing with the historical roots, one will have to re-direct the discussion to a totally different theme in history. therefore, the best that can be done is to accept the reality that this discussion of past environmental events in the wrc will involve an ethical view that held the focus that: � truth obtained from scientific knowledge should be accessible to ensure a multi-diverse solution to a problem or an approach; � what turned out to be inadequacies of the past be corrected in the present and not sometime in future; � past inadequacies that have deprived people of reasonable wealth and health be properly addressed from a 21st century ideological 31 see bullard and wright, (1993:836) as mentioned in r.g. burns and m.j. lynch, environmental crime, a sourcebook, p. 275. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 40 perspective. for south africa, a democratic vision endorses the basic ethical values spelled out above. the country’s environmental acts, as revised and adopted from the mid-nineties, reflect these basic ethical values and, based on them, it is possible to identify corporate crime. ethical indicators in the constitution before and after 1994 after south africa had become a union in 1910, the consolidation of environmental management through laws only gained momentum from 1967 with the physical planning act, later renamed the environmental planning act (compare davenport, 1991).32 even before and after 1910, the government financially supported research by experts in disciplines like geology and geography to grasp the potential richness of the country for mining exploration purposes. financially strong gold mining groups from the united states of america and britain steered the exploitation of south africa’s mineral resources to their benefit in the early 20th century (with the prominent general j.c. smuts in favour of this approach because it complemented his holistic thinking). the south african government seized these opportunities.33 since the irrigation and water conservation act no. 8 of 1912 came into effect, various attempts by government to manage dolomitic water in the wfc before 1950 were recalled.34 the powers of the ministry of water affairs increased in the 1950s when the new water act, no. 54 of 1956, stipulated that a mine be required to have a permit to discharge dolomitic groundwater beyond its boundaries.35 if this regulation had been enforced strictly, government would no longer have appeared to be placing an absolute premium on economic prosperity.36 32 trh davenport, south africa a modern history, third edition (mcmillan, china, 1991). 33 e.s. van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa: a historical glance on the west rand (gauteng province)”, international journal of water resources development, (final approved copy for publishing in nov. 2008). 34 c.j.u. swart, a.r. james, r.j. kleyweght & e.j. stoch, òthe future of the dolomitic springs after mine closure on the far west rand, gauteng, rsaó, environmental geology, 44, 2003, pp. 751-770. 35 e.s. van eeden, some human actions in the destruction and construction of culture and nature – the merafong region as a case study, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 2(2), december, 2006 pp. 409-430. 36 e.s. van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa: a historical glance on the west rand (gauteng province)”, international journal of water resources development, nov. 2008. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 41 a typical example of a lack of strict enforcement is found in a discussion in parliament in the seventies regarding the wrc. complaints by the official opposition, the united party (up), about water pollution at the time were not sufficiently addressed by cas greyling, the member of parliament (mp) for carletonville. in fact, there appears to have been a rather nonchalant approach at the time towards environmental destruction (at that stage dewatering, sinkholes and water pollution) and its socio-economic consequences.37 up member h.j. van eck queried the west rand and far west rand environmental status in 197238 (freely translated): ...then i want to discuss the pollution in the mining industry, and point out that approximately 368 mining dumps exist in the witwatersrand in the nigel and randfontein area, of which 95 are sand heaps and 237 silt dams… we also know that they [the mining companies] had to artificially fertilise the sterile steep slopes…the rain still wash salts, acids and other chemicals from these mining dumps; they pollute our rivers… these questions regarding environmental pollution still remain valid in 2008. to use a typical example from recent parliamentary debates on the wrc and water pollution. mr g.r. morgan of the democratic alliance (da) asked the minister of water affairs and forestry (dwaf): question: are there any risks to humans and animals because of contamination in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area; if not, how did her department reach this conclusion; if so, what are the relevant details? reply: the studies undertaken by the various organisations over a period of time concluded that the radioactivity levels in the river water in the area is well within the water quality safety standards. however, there is a concern regarding elevated levels of uranium and heavy metals in the sediment. the risk of exposure to humans and animals can be increased if the sediments are stirred up and are in suspension during swimming or when cattle are drinking from the river. the most recent comprehensive study that was done by the water research commission, wrc 1214 (2006) concludes that the present status quo will remain as long as the sediment remain “wet” and that, chemically, the water is fit for consumption, which conclusion is supported by the recent brenk report (2007) that was commissioned by the nnr. unfortunately the report in question is based on only a few samples taken and the interpretations in the study are seen as premature at this stage. a public health study looking at blood and urine 37 e.s. van eeden, a.b. de villiers, h. strydom & e.j. stoch, “mines, peoples and sink-holes – an analysis of the carletonville municipal area in south africa as a case study regarding policies of secrecy”, historia, 47(1), may, 2003. 38 j.c. greyling, ca 1950-1988. private collection (nwu-vaal triangle campus). td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 42 samples compared 36 individuals exposed to the “contaminated” wonderfonteinspruit with 24 individuals exposed to the “clean” mooi river in 2002 and, in essence, no difference was found in the profiles. the department has paid serious attention to the concerns raised and, as a result, has consulted widely. there are a number of different views on the subject and all are being evaluated. the conclusion reached is that while there is reason for concern, the 40 year old problem has not produced any conclusive results, or any reason for immediate action. however, in order to conform to the precautionary principle, further investigations are in process.39 although not all role players will agree, the response of government in this reply reflects a more inclusive democratic approach. the language of reporting is also used in a carefully articulated way. it accepts some negative findings but clearly underplays some findings based on “insufficient” research and/or positive outcomes of other research as well as further investigations that are in progress. from the historical outline provided further on, one cannot but wonder what new can evolve from more than 42 years of research that has just been taken for granted. however, this “democratic” approach to environmental governance has been embedded in the constitution of the republic of south africa since 1996 which, amongst others, states that people have environmental rights. these rights include entitlement to an environment that is not harmful to the health or well-being of people as well as a claim to environmental protection for the benefit of present and future generations. therefore, government is obliged to protect, promote and uphold the environmental rights of people. these rights are contained in laws that bind the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all the associated organs of state.40 the constitution of south africa provides the basis for the country’s progressive environmental legislation by guaranteeing south africans the right to a safe environment. south africa, in fact, is the first country in the world to have adopted national water legislation that serves as a tool in the transformation of society based on social and environmental justice. in combination, the water services act, 108 of 1997 and several sections of the national water act, 36 of 1998 39 parliamentary report, national assembly, question no 261, publication internal question paper, 5: mr g.r. morgan (da) to ask the minister of water affairs and forestry, 29 february 2008. 40 compare a. turton, h.j. hattingh, g.a. maree et al., governance as a trialogue: government –society-science in transition (berlin, springer verlag, 2007); r.a. adler, m. claassen, l. godfrey, a. turton, “water, mining and waste: an historical and economic perspective on conflict management in south africa”, the economics of peace and security journal, 2(2), 2007, pp. 33-41. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 43 were designed to achieve the following: … redress the inequalities of racial and gender discrimination of the past; link water management to economic development and poverty eradication; and ensure the preservation of the ecological resource base for future generations. with reference to responsibility and liability regarding pollution of water resources and ecological degradation, section 19 of the national water act states: an owner of land, a person in control of land or a person who occupies or uses the land on which: any activity or process is or was performed or undertaken; or any other situation exists which causes, has caused or is likely to cause pollution of a water resource, must take all reasonable measures to prevent any such pollution from occurring, continuing or recurring. with reference to responsibility and liability, section 38(2) of the mineral and petroleum resources development act, no. 28 of 2002, states: notwithstanding the companies act or close corporations act, the directors of a company or members of a close corporation are jointly and severally liable for any unacceptable negative impact on the environment, including damage, degradation or pollution; advertently or inadvertently caused by the company or close corporation which they represent or represented. currently several acts and structures reflect a firm (theoretical) regulating arm by government regarding the mining sector41 as seen below:42 from a historical perspective, the south african government’s awareness and involvement in a structured and formal environmental regulation is reasonably young. an advantage as latecomer is that one could learn from others and improve on the efforts of others. however, the proof of efficient water regulation does not lie in a spotless model of environmental laws and regulations but in the practical implementation of regulations.43 in turn, efficient regulation by government is influenced – and relies on – a complex scenario of 41 an interpretation of the newly adopted constitution as above by m. liefferink, 2008. 42 compare e. swart (ceo), department of mineral & energy, power point presentation on “application processing procedures”, 2007. 43 see p.s. juuti, s. katho, h.r. mäki et al., governance in water sector – comparing development in kenya, nepal, south africa and finland (juvenes print, tampere, 2007), pp. 187-191. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 44 aspects, issues and events, for example in water management.44 history recalls the wonderfontein spruit catchment: key ethical and environmental beliefs and attitudes of the day in the wonderfontein spruit catchment area, farming practices were the dominant activity between 1838 and 1930. water issues and laws were then confined to ways it should be used to ensure that all users were treated equally. issues of water pollution were far from anybody’s imagination then, even in the period 1930 to 1956, when farmers and the gold mines shared the wonderfontein spruit catchment area. owing to knowledge and new technology (such as cementation and dewatering), this status changed rapidly. the first scientific reports were made available to government and the mines in 1957 (of which some were already commissioned in 1952).45 during this time, environmental exploitation was regulated by means of the 1956 water act. with the support of a group named the jordaan commission, the department of water affairs was also investigating the merits of “total” dewatering in the wonderfontein catchment area. from the beginning, the work of the jordaan commission, which eventually comprised more than 10 000 pages, showed several weaknesses. for example, all discussions and findings were confidential and private.46 this approach was not only typical of the political and economic ideology of the time,47 but also exposed the ethical reality of sufficient knowledge the government of the time had about the fragile wfs environment. the majority of south africans had no access to the 44 compare a. turton, h.j. hattingh, g.a. maree et al., governance as a trialogue: government –society-science in transition (berlin, springer verlag, 2007); r.a. adler, m. claassen, l. godfrey, a. turton, “water, mining and waste: an historical and economic perspective on conflict management in south africa”, the economics of peace and security journal, 2(2), 2007, pp. 33-41. 45 compare chamber of mines research organisation, m. mrost, “report on an investigation into mine effluents“ (conducted by the csir), johannesburg, march 1957, pp.1-54; anglo american corporation of south africa limited & general mining and finance corporation limited, the national mechanical engineering research institute, report ucd 628.335:622.793, first report on flocculation studies of minewaters from west driefontein g.m. co., libanon g.m. co.; venterspost g.m. co., doornfontein g.m. co. (conducted by the national mechanical engineering research institute of the csir), 10 dec. 1959, pp. 1-20. 46 e.s. van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa…, international journal of water resources development, nov. 2008. 47 compare n. worden, the making of modern south africa. conquest, segregation and apartheid (uk, blackwell, 1994); s. marks & s. trapido (eds), the politics of race, class & nationalism in twentieth century south africa (london, longman group, 1987). van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 45 environmental reports,48 and this made it easier for government to “manage” regulations as it saw fit or to simply apply them as “gentleman’s agreements” regarding the goldmines. the apartheid government of the time used its position and power to work towards “envirobusing” for the sake of its own economic image.49 from an environmental perspective, the crucial years for efficient decision making in the wrc, namely the period 1956 to 1966, turned out to be its “sad years”. amongst others, the following events are recalled: � dewatering of underground compartments by the gold mines50 (committees, associations & government’s voice in action.51 rewatering even an option, but never applied with blyvooruitzich as the only mine to vote for rewatering); � sinkholes & subsidences occurred (the fatal ones on blyvooruitzicht mining area even was expected before the loss of life in august 1964);52 � slime dams & boreholes appeared by the dozens. in 1967, it was estimated that pumping costs for dewatering amounted to over r100 million.53 (research has pointed out a) the harms of slimes as a filling option that pollute natural waters with dolomitic waters;54 b) the dangers of soil imbalances in minerals such as strontium and boron and c) the eventual reducing of farming practices/selling & buying of farms in favour of mining activities; d) the possible effects heavy metal pollution might have on animals and humans if sufficient care is not taken).55 48 interview, e.j. stoch/e.s. van eeden, 16 march 2007 (prof. leslie stoch is an expert in agronomy, soil science and crop nutrition and a former inhabitant/ farmer of the carletonville area). 49 e.s. van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa…”, international journal of water resources development, nov. 2008. 50 gsca, sctc, file 391-450, document 404, report, h. keersmaekers and a.p. aldridge, “a study of the quality of dolomitic water in the far west rand with special reference to the influence of mine drainage on the formation of sinkhole subsidences and underground water quality”, 1966, pp.1-2. 51 the state coordinating technical council and the far west rand dolomitic water association were founded in 1964 with the initiative of the government. see geoscience archive (ga), pretoria, minutes of the sctc & the fwrdwa, 1964-1998. 52 see sctc minutes and reports, 1964. 53 cgs-archive, sctc, file mm50/1/17/4, disposal of dolomitic water in far west rand, part ii, letter, minister of mines/the president, chamber of mines of south africa, ca 1967-1968 54 gsca, sctc, file 37-76, document 38, letter, a. louw (consulting engineer gfsa)/jp kriel (secretary of the department of water affairs), 25 june 1964, pp. 1-5. 55 compare e.s. van eeden, „ekonomiese ontwikkeling en die invloed daarvan op carletonville, 1948-1988...“; gsca, sctc & fwrdwa documents, 1964-1998. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 46 · on numerous occasions, research has pointed out that the mines are the main polluters.56 the concern of using slimes, as mentioned above, needs accentuation. the national institute for water research (niwr) was approached during these times to provide suggestions based on its research. the acting director of the niwr and chief research officer, mr m.r. henzen, then reported [to the state coordinating technical committee in confidentiality “from future on”, as confirmed with members on 13 august 1964] on 10 august 1964: in south africa, the coal and gold deposits are intimately associated with the occurrence of iron pyrites which are either finely disseminated throughout ore bodies and the adjacent strata, or appear sporadically as concretions of sulphuric compounds. exposure of these materials to atmospheric conditions through mining activities, in slimes, sand and rock dumps, results in seepage, run-off and effluents are of a highly acidic nature [the accentuation by the authors].57 henzen then continued his report by saying: the uncontrolled discharge of these waters into the natural water courses seriously affects the biological life in the streams; imposes an intolerable mineral load on the recipient streams; results in the deposition of heavy loads of ironhydroxide; aggravates the formation of sinkholes, especially in dolomitic areas; and ultimately produces a water highly mineralized, thus imposing a serious limitation on the usefulness of the water…mining activities inevitably bring about the crushing and pulverization of the pyretic minerals, and the subsequent dumping of crushed materials in sand, rock and slimes dumps. this process of crushing increases the effective exposed surface area of the pyritic [sic] material, which tends to accelerate the processes of sulphuric acid production….the volumes and concentration of sulphuric acid, emanating from existing mine dumps, are of such magnitude that whole river systems are affected, causing ph values of below 4 in the river beds and sulphate concentrations of over 2000 p.p.m. the interaction of the sulphuritic waters from mine dumps on dolomitic subsurface formations is a subject which is presently [1964] being investigated by the national institute for water research. it may suffice to state that these sulphuritic waters, derived from mine dumps, react with the calcium and magnesium of the dolomite and produce calcium sulphate, magnesium sulphate and carbon dioxide as products of reaction, together with the sulphates of impurities which occur within the dolomites. these impurities 56 e.s. van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa…”, international journal of water resources development, nov. 2008. 57 gsca, sctc, file 37-76, document 44, minute, 5th meeting of the sctc, 10 august 1964, pp. 1-8. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 47 can either act as catalysts or inhibitors in the reaction processes…it can be assumed that the types of pyretic materials encountered over the whole witwatersrand area do not vary considerably, and that the erosion of slime dumps will depend, to a great extent on the precautionary measures adopted to combat the effects of erosion. the effective exposed surface area of pyretic materials which differ between rock, sand and slimes dumps necessarily affect the potential acid production of such dumps…“…from the aforegoing it is apparent that the materials from the slimes dumps usually contain relatively high concentrations of sulphuritic minerals, which can give rise to the production of sulphuric acid. the distribution of slimes dump materials over extensive areas for the purpose of filling cracks and subsidences, and the concomitant increase in exposed surface area of pyritic [sic] material, can only cause an increase in the effective production of sulphuric acid and its effects on the pollution of underground water, the dissolution of the dolomite and the creation of solution voids…from the available information it is considered inadvisable, therefore, to fill cracks and subsidences with slimes dump material, unless it is established that the particular material to be used for this purpose contains no sulphuritic material [the accentuation by the authors] 58 the only conclusion one can reach from a 2008 perspective is to sigh at the reading of this clear report by henzen regarding possible water pollution. nobody has done anything since (or any reports that may have resulted from research are still not freely available), so that the slime dams and the use of slimes in the wrc area have currently reached their ultimate capacity, which can be regarded as a time bomb. a warning regarding the possible effects of exposure of humans to heavy metal in the wrc has also been raised in a meeting that farmers from the merafong area, the far west rand dolomitic association (fwrdwa) as well as the mining and government officials (13 people) have attended in 1967. amongst others, the minute of 3 november states that the use of slimes to fill sinkholes was a possible cause of pollution. in the memorandum by the veterinary surgeon, dr jerry retief (the only one referred to in the minute without initials), attached to this minute, results obtained from the soil, plants, animals59 and water were discussed. in a final note in this memorandum, dr retief says:60 58 gsca, sctc, file 37-76, document 47, letter, j.p. kriel (minister of water affairs)/the consulting engineer (blyvooruitzicht gold mining co. ltd), 20 august 1964, pp. 1-2. 59 later veterinary-related reports (as used in this article) by e.j. stoch and s. joubert also based their later findings on this fwrdwa minutes and memorandum that can be regarded as a milestone meeting regarding the awareness of definite pollution because of mining activities. 60 cga, fwrdwa, memorandum dr retief, 3 nov. 1967. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 48 after discussions with various doctors, the general opinion is that it is possible that people may eventually be affected or may already have been affected in the same way as the animals mr cas greyling (lp), who chaired this meeting, summarised the outcome thereof as follows:61 as a direct result of mining activities many farmers in this area are being forced from their farms and will have to seek livelihood in towns. from the beginning we [the government] felt that this problem was a domestic one between the mine sand the farmers, and we therefore tried as much as possible to help the mines find a solution. all analyses and expert opinions were handed on to them immediately. unfortunately we did not experience the same courtesy from the mines...the [west driefontein] mine knew that the department of water affairs was at this stage [oct. 1967] engaged in taking samples of mine water, and yet it apparently did not notify the department of water affairs of this drastic change in the quality of the water. unless we [government] can obtain more co-operation from the mines, we feel that our problems cannot be settled in a peaceful way. to avoid any unpleasantness we have turned to you, and we hereby give you our assurance that we shall do all in our power to help you to arrive at a solution. clearly, government accused the mines of not complying with a basic ethically accepted “gentleman’s agreement”. water statistics available at this point in time, as proof of the pollution, were not accepted as part of the minutes of this meeting.62 from a 2008 perspective, no solution has resulted from this meeting since 1967. ironically, in the seventies mr greyling made a note on his wrc files on sinkholes and water affairs, remarking, “god het my geduld en krag gegee” (god gave me the power and patience).63 clearly, too much patience was allowed if the 21st century ethical norms and the physical outcomes are criteria to measure the past activities in the wrc. after 42 years of extensive, additional and new research reporting regarding the wrc, the 1956-1966 findings still prevail, but the situation has presently resulted into an environment: � that is permanently destructed (one major compartment; contaminated underground dolomitic water; permanent pumping costs; extensive expenses to maintain stability in the environment for further exploitation); 61 cga, fwrdwa, minute, 3 nov. 1967. 62 interview ej stoch/es van eeden, 17 may 2008. 63 j.c. greyling private collection, nwu vaal triangle campus, file wrc on sinkholes and the dept of water affairs, ca 1960-1972. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 49 � where farming is limited to a minor economical role player; the fwrdwa (mines)owns the land; � where health concerns become more evident among farming communities and informal settlement groups but, as in the past, “more evidence” was/is required to force authorities to take action; � where government is still tuning in to the weal and woes of mining companies; � in which a closure of the state coordinating technical committee on sinkholes in 1998 became a reality while more sinkholes are expected in future; � in which rumours of a closure of the far west rand dolomitic water association are also raising concern as it may provide many kinds of unique problems of its own if applied.64 the successes and failures of institutions like the dwaf institute for water quality studies (iwqs) and the dwaf loopspruit forum still need to be described. dwaf currently is heading the process of finding solutions to cope with the destructive wrc environment via committees and organs like the team of experts (tox) and the wonderfontein regulators steering committee (wrsc) under the auspices of the newly founded national regulators steering committee.65 other role players in forums like the parliamentary portfolio committee/parliamentary monitoring group, the department of environmental affairs and tourism (deat); the portfolio committee; the department of minerals and energy; national nuclear regulator (nnr) also still have to earn credibility. some critics argue that there is reason to believe that information at the disposal of these forums is not sufficiently distributed. once again, the reference to insufficient td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 6 4 conclusions are based on archival research at the cgs-archive on the sctc minutes and the fwrdwa minutes; also compare a. turton, h.j. hattingh, g.a. maree et al., governance as a trialogue: government –society-science in transition (berlin, springer verlag, 2007); r.a. adler, m. claassen, l. godfrey, a. turton, “water, mining and waste: an historical and economic perspective on conflict management in south africa”, the economics of peace and security journal, 2(2), 2007, pp. 33-41; e-mail, federation for a sustainable environment (fse), 20072008; e.s. van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa: a historical glance on the west rand (gauteng province)”, international journal of water resources development, nov. 2008; e. tempelhoff, “mynmonopolie se grumoeras”, beeld, 2 feb. 2007. 6 5 interview m. keet (dwaf)/e.s. van eeden, 9 may 2008; e-mail, m liefferink/es van eeden, 9 may 2008. 50 environmental reporting (er) was a point of debate.66 this laxity can be regarded as an environmental crime if the south african constitution is indeed taken seriously.67 a growing need for proper environmental regulation resulted in the forming of the enforcement directorate (also known as the green scorpions), which was eventually placed under the management of the deat. their assignment, among others, covered a regulation of the environmental responsibility by local governments with regard to environmental issues related to water and air pollution. despite four large departments and their respective divisions responsible for various aspects of the environment, the government’s aim of developing a strong regulatory arm is still not fully realised because of a lack of sufficient co-ordination. as a result, there are still unfortunate incidents in which the inability of the government to regulate the bigger industries as polluters properly is evident.68 interested role players, specifically in the wfs area (who actually contributed to making the local general public aware of environmental problems) are the potchefstroom petitioners (pp), the randfontein environmental action group (reag), and the wonderfontein action group (wag). 69 nationally and legally acknowledged non-governmental organisations (ngos) with an indirect wfs focus (mainly active since the nineties) are the chronicle group, green cross, groundwork, the legal resource centre (lrc), pelindaba working group, and earthlife africa. to make functioning possible, these ngos rely on governments, industries, organisations and individuals from national and international spheres to support them. an ironical aspect in this regard is that the south african government and the gold mining industry active in the merafong and broader mining area also financially support some of these organisations that have taken up the challenge in recent years and 66 compare with the findings of c.g. mitchell & n.w. quinn, “environmental reporting disclosure in south africa: a comparative study of the expectations of selected groups of preparers and users”, meditari accountancy research, 13(2), 2005, pp.17-33; e. tempelhoff, “groep plaas druk op regering oor spruit se water”, beeld, 4 jan. 2007; “mense en omgewing stik onder goudwelvaart. mynmonopolie se grumoeras”, beeld, 2 feb. 2007, p. 11; e.s. van eeden & i. brink, ”factors that determine the facilitation of stakeholders in environmental management – some philosophical-historical thoughts with the merafong area as example”, koers, 3, nov. 2007 (page numbers not available yet. in process of printing). 67 compare m. liefferink, private collection, 1980-2007. 68 e.s. van eeden, “weaknesses in environmental action in south africa: a historical glance on the west rand (gauteng province)”, international journal of water resources development, (final approved copy for publishing in nov. 2008); compare m. liefferink, private collection, 1980-2007. 69 compare m. liefferink, private collection,, 1980-2007. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 51 months of “whistle blowing” against these financial supporters concerning the environmental destruction in the wonderfontein spruit area. wessa and the lrc, for example, are partially funded by gold fields south africa, and earthlife africa is partially funded by the african national congress (anc) government.70 in addition, from a historical perspective, some environmental actions, specifically steered by the public were apparently not always as highly regarded as those initiated by government or highly respected industries and/or institutions. this perception has a historical tail linked to people in governmental periods where the majority of the public was visible, but not supposed to be heard.71 therefore, local action groups who also contributed in making the public and media more aware of their water and general environmental pollution problem72 were the potchefstroom petitioners (pp) and later the randfontein environmental action group (reag). an umbrella federation focussing on environmental issues was getting some stand from august 2007, although it is still running a solo course because of a lack of infrastructural capacity and funds.73 these well-informed groups have, since the turn of the century (and some earlier), used many opportunities for “whistle blowing” through the news media and the disclosure of environmental incidents and infractions to the human rights commission, the public protector, the director-generals of the relevant organs of government such as the department of minerals & energy (dme), the department of environment and tourism (deat), the department of water affairs and forestry (dwaf), the national nuclear regulator (nnr) as well as the ministries of the relevant organs of government.74 70 m. liefferink, private collection, e-mail letter, m. liefferink/dr e.j. stoch, 14 june 2007. 7 1 m. liefferink, private collection, e-mail letter, m. liefferink/dr e.j. stoch, 14 june 2007. 7 2 compare irin, “paying the price for mining“, http://www.africafiles.org/ article.asp?id=17261, 15 feb. 2008; m. liefferink, private collection, 1980-2007. 7 3 m. liefferink, private collection, e-mail letter, m. liefferink/multiple recipients, 12 september 2007; 21 september 2007. 7 4 compare the recent articles of the sab award-winning environmental journalist (as reported on 12 october 2007 in the beeld), e. tempelhoff, “groep plaas druk op regering oor spruit se water”, beeld, 4 januarie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “mense en omgewing stik onder goudwelvaart. mynmonopolie se grumoeras”, beeld, 2 februarie 2007, p. 11; e. tempelhoff, “gifspruit”, beeld, 3 februarie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “owerheid erken spruit is besoedel”, beeld, 8 februarie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “suur mynwater lei tot sinkgate. vreet aan dolomietkompartemente”, beeld, 24 april 2007; e. tempelhoff, “besoedeling: gif in die water. mooirivier lankal deur myne besmet,” beeld, 31 julie 2007; j. avril, “lives at risk. state knew about danger for 40 years”. sowetan: 1,4. 24 july 2007; j. avril, “report exposes high water contamination”. sowetan, 3 august 2007; j. avril, “poisoned by mines”. sowetan, 20 august 2007; anon., “sa ‘erin’ widens toxic water fight. water too dangerous for farming“, the citizen, 14 august 2007. td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 52 therefore, with more concerned or interested parties as role players on the scene, such as ngos, some moves have been made in the past two years (2006-2007) to force the mining industry and government: i) to be more explicit in their historical role in the eventual outcome of the wfs environment75 ; ii) to be clear on their intentions of how the wfs environment should be remediated;76 and iii) to promptly apply the “polluter must pay principle”, which has been so neatly constituted.77 although the availability of some scientific knowledge during the past years has instigated public reporting and whistle blowing in the media, the quiet approach of scientists regarding the mines as main environmental polluters and destructors during the past 55 years78 75 compare the recent articles of the sab award-winning environmental journalist (as reported on 12 october 2007 in the beeld), e. tempelhoff, “groep plaas druk op regering oor spruit se water”, beeld, 4 januarie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “mense en omgewing stik onder goudwelvaart. mynmonopolie se grumoeras”, beeld, 2 februarie 2007, p. 11; e. tempelhoff, “gifspruit”, beeld, 3 februarie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “owerheid erken spruit is besoedel”, beeld, 8 februarie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “suur mynwater lei tot sinkgate. vreet aan dolomietkompartemente”, beeld, 24 april 2007; e. tempelhoff, “besoedeling: gif in die water. mooirivier lankal deur myne besmet,” beeld, 31 julie 2007; j. avril, “lives at risk. state knew about danger for 40 years”. sowetan: 1,4. 24 july 2007; j. avril, “report exposes high water contamination”. sowetan, 3 august 2007; j. avril, “poisoned by mines”. sowetan, 20 august 2007; anon., “sa ‘erin’ widens toxic water fight. water too dangerous for farming“, the citizen, 14 august 2007. 76 compare the several letters and reports exchanged between environmental activist ms mariette liefferink and the mining authorities as well as with the government and academics from tertiary institutions in m. liefferink, 1988-2007. private collection.see also sabc tv, programme carte blanche, genre environment and conservation, producer carol albertyn christie, presenter devi sankaree govender, 12 august 2007; e. tempelhoff, “familie wil r53m van myn hê”, beeld, 24 junie 2004; e. tempelhoff, “inwoners moet weet van giftige gebied”, beeld, 10 augustus 2004; e. tempelhoff, “dam se water glo giftig”, beeld, 29 januarie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “wonderfonteinspruit besoedeling is `n ramp wat duisende bedreig sê da”, beeld, 20 julie 2007; e. tempelhoff, “hoe het myne siek gemaak”, beeld, 30 augustus 2007; e. tempelhoff, “myne misken menseregte, meen bizos”, beeld, 11 september 2007; e. tempelhoff, “vrae oor stowwe op rietvlei, verslag hoop op“, beeld, 7 september 2007. 77 compare the several letters and reports exchanged between environmental activist ms mariette liefferink and the mining authorities as well as with the government and academics from tertiary institutions in m. liefferink, 1988-2007. private collection. see also the reference to the 1998 constitution earlier. 78 compare council for geoscience archive (cga), far west rand dolomitic water association (fwrdwa), minutes, 1964-1967, circular no 28/67, “oberholzer irrigation canal: pollution of water“, 29 nov 1967; van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 53 cannot be excused from an ethical point of view.79 recent research also more frequently accentuates the effects of environmental pollution in the wrc on humans, animals and the biodiverse environment.80 in some way, it is a pity that the voices of concern in the 1960s were defended strategically and/or even shut with a kind of remuneration for losses.81 therefore, after 55 years of operational gold and uranium mining activities in the far west rand, the negative outcomes for the public in the wrc include, but are not limited to • dewatering; • sinkhole and doline formations; td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 79 compare n. jacobs, environment, power and injustice: a south african history (cambridge, cambridge university press, 2003); a. turton, h.j. hattingh, g.a. maree, d.j. roux, m. claassen & w.f. strydom (eds.), governance as a trialogue: government-society-science in transition (berlin, springer verlag, 2007); ra adler, m claassen, l. godfrey, a. turton, “water, mining and waste: an historical and economic perspective on conflict management in south africa”, the economics of peace and security journal, 2(2), 2007. also compare e.s. van eeden, “ekonomiese ontwikkeling ...”, (ch. 4-5; m. liefferink, 1988-2007. private collection, 2007. 80 e.j. stoch, “memorandum, [krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2]”, 13 may 2005 [draft report]; e.j. stoch, “some controversial health related issues in a karst environment (a historical perspective of the adversarial relationships between the role players in the wonderfonteinspruit with specific reference to groundwater and pollution)”, 1 aug. 2006 [draft notes to e.s. van eeden]; r. barthel, g. deissmann, & w. leotwane, “radiological impact assessment of mining activities in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area” (environment conference, pilanesberg, nwu), 23-25 jul. 2007; r. barthel & l. funke, “radiological risks of cattle watering at polluted surface water bodies in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area” (environmin conference, pilanesberg, nwu), 23-25 jul. 2007; water research commission (wrc), h. coetzee, f. winde, p.w. wade, report no 1214/1/06, “an assessment of sources, pathways, mechanisms and risks of current and potential future pollution of water and sediments in gold-mining areas of the wonderfontein catchment”, 2006; national nuclear regulator (nnr), “technical report, radiological impacts of the mining activities to the public in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area” [also known as the brenk report], jul. 2007; j.s. du toit, “background report on communities at risk within mogale city local municipality affected by mining-related activities, with special reference to radiation & toxicity”, september 2007[draft report]. 81 national archive of south africa (nasa).ngr, band 3, file 30. pollution of waters, 1952, p. 1; nasa, sab, ges, band 2522, file 523/43. pollution of water supplies, august-september, 1956; e.j. stoch, ca 1960-1970. private collection; e.s. van eeden, a.b. de viliiers, h .strydom & e.j. stoch, “mines, peoples and sinkholes – an analysis of the carletonville municipal area in south africa as a case study regarding policies of secrecy”, historia, 47(1), may 2003; e.s. van eeden, “some human actions in the destruction and construction of culture and nature – the merafong region as a case study”, journal for transdisciplinary research, 2(2), dec. 2006; l.p. graham, “the effect of acid mine drainage on the cave-dwelling amphipod, sternophysinx filaris: a case study for the use of these amphipods as bioindicators”, uj (hons. manuscript), 2007; r. heyl, “the effects of mining effluent on the aquatic environment”, uj (hons. manuscript), 2007. 54 • elevated levels of radioactivity; • radiological impacts: plants; • radiological impacts: soil;82 • pollution of shallow and deep groundwater such as dams, lakes and streams;83 • health impacts;84 • heavy metal contamination;85 • toxic and radioactive dust fallout; • acid mine drainage;86 • unfavourable soil conditions in the presence of pyretic tailings • animal mortality87 the second example of an imbalance in the water quality is acid mine drainage (amd). amd is responsible for the most costly environmental and socio-economic impacts. it may still be a problem for many years after mines have closed. amd is also associated with surface and groundwater pollution, the degradation of soil quality, harming aquatic sediments and fauna, and allowing heavy metals to seep into 82 council for geoscience, report no. 2005-0106, h. coetzee, j. venter & g. ntsume, “water pollution contamination of wetlands by witwatersrand gold mines – processes and the economic potential of gold in wetlands”, 2005. 83 dwaf, j. fourie and associates, report 16/1/7/c221/c/24, “impact of the discharge of treated mine water, via the tweelopies spruit, on the receiving water body crocodile river system, mogale city, gauteng province”, 3 december 2006. 84 compare fwrdwa, minutes, 1964-1967, circular no. 28/67, “oberholzer irrigation canal: pollution of water“, 29 nov 1967; nnr, “technical report, radiological impacts of the mining activities to the public in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area” [brenk report], july 2007. 85 compare wrc, report no 1214/1/06, h. coetzee, f. winde, p.w. wade, “an assessment of sources, pathways, mechanisms and risks of current and potential future pollution of water and sediments in gold-mining areas of the wonderfontein catchment”, 2006. 86 council for scientific and industrial research (csir), report csir/nre/wr/ er/2007/0097/c, p.j. hobbs and j.e. cobbing, òa hydrogeological assessment of acid mine drainage impacts in the west rand basin, gauteng provinceó, aug. 2007. 87 compare e.j. stoch, “memorandum, [krugersdorp game reserve: animal mortality. v2]”, 13 may 2005 [draft report]; r. barthel & l. funke, “radiological risks of cattle watering at polluted surface water bodies in the wonderfonteinspruit catchment area” (environmin conference, pilanesberg, nwu), 23-25 jul. 2007 [abstract]; j.s du toit, “background report on communities at risk within mogale city local municipality affected by mining-related activities, with special reference to radiation & toxicity”, sept 2007[draft report]. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 55 the environment. long-term exposure to amd-polluted drinking water may, amongst others, lead to increased rates of cancer and skin infections. the wonderfontein spruit valley is densely populated because of its agricultural value and presence of gold mines. the majority of the inhabitants live in informal settlements, using contaminated groundand stream water for personal hygiene and drinking. 88 with above-average infection rates of hiv/aids and chronic and acute malnutrition, this subpopulation is particularly vulnerable to additional stress of the immune system by contaminants such as uranium.89 after continuous talks and complaints by local action groups, a forum to include all role players was established. in the wfc area, the wonderfontein action group (wag) was formed by gold fields on 5 july 2006 to consolidate all stakeholders as affected/“injured” and interested parties with a key focus on finding solutions that satisfy all. not even gold field’s appointment by an independent facilitator, bigen africa, could reach expectations because the role of gold fields as a leading polluter, now in a leading reconciliation role, was not accepted by the injured parties among the role players.90 as mentioned earlier, since 2007 the dwaf has taken the lead to establish committees and groups for the wonderfontein spruit catchment area with the intention to find solutions to eventually progress actively td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 88 compare j.f. enslin & j.p. kriel, “some results obtained from a hydrological study of a dolomite catchment area in the transvaal” (proceedings of the specialists’ conference on hydrology, yaounde, camerouns, ccta, london, 14), 1959; j.f. enslin & j.p. kriel, “the assessment and possible future uses of the dolomitic groundwater resources of the far west rand, transvaal, south africa” (proceedings of the international conference on water for peace, washington, publ. 2), 1967; j.f. enslin, r.j. kleywegt, j.h.t. beukes, j.f. gordon-welsh, “artificial recharge of dolomitic groundwater compartments in the far west rand gold fields of south africa” (proceedings of the international symposium on land subsidence, anaheim, california), 1976; j.f. wolmarans & f.h. guise-brown, “the water hazard in deep gold mining of the far west rand – south africa (symposium on water in mining, siamos, granada, spain), 1978; o. pollman; l. van rensburg, f. wilson, “optimising the rehabilitation of polluted mine tailings and water by supazorb”, abstract, ca. 2006-2007; cju swart, ar james, r.j. kleyweg & e.j. stoch, “the future of the dolomitic springs after mine closure on the far west rand, gauteng, rsa”, environmental geology, 44, 2003, pp.751-770. 89 compare r.a. adler, m. claassen, l. godfrey & a. turton, “water, mining and waste: an historical and economic perspective on conflict management in south africa”, the economics of peace and security journal, 2(2), 2007; a. turton, e-mail (to multiple recipients), “mine water and strategic focus points”, 16 apr. 2007; f. winde, ”challenges for sustainable water use in dolomitic mining regions of south africa – a case study of uranium pollution. part 1: sources and pathways“, [draft publication], ca 2007. 90 compare the information obtained through e-mail: w. pepler (bigenafrica, pretoria)/e.s. van eeden (researcher), 22 october 2007. 56 towards a practical remediation process. by 2007, some gold mining companies in the wonderfontein spruit area started focussing on developing and refining their environmental management programme reports. while engagement started out as efforts by individual companies, efforts have been made to involve all gold-mining companies. to this end, the mining interest group has been established as a substructure of the wonderfontein/ loopspruit forum, through which mining companies can act in a consolidated manner in addressing catchment management issues. individual gold mining companies in the wonderfontein spruit area are using the global reporting initiative (gri) guidelines in reporting on their sustainable development performance. the purpose of the guidelines is to provide a common framework for reporting to assist organisations in meeting their non-financial reporting requirements, or for reporting on the economic, environmental and social dimensions of their activities. however, the use of these guidelines is voluntary. some mines have also applied for or obtained iso 14001 and 19011 accreditation. iso 14001 (sans 14001) is the flagship standard of the iso (international organisation for standardisation) series and is widely known. iso 19011 (sans 19011) is the standard dealing with the auditing of both environmental and quality management systems and provides guidance on principles of auditing, managing audit programmes, conducting audits, and auditor competence. gold fields, in addition, has recently committed itself to the global compact and the sustainable development principles of the international council on minerals and metals (icmm), as well as the implementation of the cyanide code. however, ngos perceive remediation and mitigation measures as ethical efforts to correct the inadequacies of the past still to be reactive rather than proactive.91 in recent years, some gold mining companies also became more environmentally responsive, by closing research and other partnerships with statutory bodies (such as the csir and the council for geoscience), authorities (such as the dwaf), ngos (such as the wildlife and environmental society of south africa wessa), the iucn and the legal resource centre. to ensure a systematic and credible process of stakeholder engagement, gold fields has even implemented the aa1000 stakeholder engagement standard of accountability (sesa) in all its operations worldwide. 92 91 interview marius keet (dwaf)/e.s. van eeden, 9 may 2008; compare e.s. van eeden, 2006-2007. private collection; m. liefferink, 1988-2007. e.s. van eeden, private collection (response by gold fields to questions posed regarding recent development for writing this article), august 2007. 92 private collection; m. liefferink, 1988-2007. e.s. van eeden, private collection (response by gold fields to questions posed regarding recent development for writing this article), august 2007. van eeden, liefferink, tempelhoff 57 conclusion the major scope for discussion was to exchange ideas on the environmental ethics of the day as mainly reflected from a general post-modern ethical perspective. amongst others, corporate crime that resulted from disregard of the ethical basis of the day. although voices of concern in the wrc featured prominently through knowledge on several podiums and in numerous meetings, no extraordinary ethical approach towards this environment could be traced. with specific reference to the wfc area and role players involved in the area through decades, the discussion indicated that norms and values regarding the environment and man’s position in the environment are determined by how the government of any given period manages the environment. ethics through knowledge do not necessarily feature prominently if the dominant motivation for environmental exploitation is an economic “goldmine”, so to speak. in the case of the wfc, an environmental policy analysis will reflect the classic choice between environmental protection and economic development. gold mining and uranium activities in the wfc area in 1988 peaked at a contribution of 18% of the total gold mining production in south africa. this even progressed in the years that followed. many authorities under government supervision for years operated in the area under a legal mandate with the environment only as an “object” to be explored with little means to be approached in reasonable ethical ways. for government to fulfil its obligations in terms of responsible environmental management, it must co-ordinate all the organs of state at all levels to ensure responsible environmental stewardship. regrettably, the south african government’s environmental regulation of the wonderfontein spruit is perceived as being fragmented, diverse, uncoordinated and administered by underresourced, ill-informed (historical amnesia) and too many different government departments with far too many different voices singing their own solo on environmental heritage. the current environmental agenda will be decelerated by this politicking, collusion between government and the gold mining corporations, injured role players and environmental activists. if unchecked, it may result in an increased threat to the wonderfontein spruit catchment and its inhabitants, and the status quo cannot even be efficiently measured on the several ethically based democratic values of the country’s constitution. lastly, the ethical strength of knowledge concerning the wonderfontein spruit catchment environment – as overwhelmingly developed by experts in the natural sciences – highlighted the way in which authorities and institutions with power influenced the validity and the availability of findings. in this sense, the general td, 4(1), july 2008, pp. 31-58. environmental ethics and crime in the wonderfontein spruit catchment 58 saying by ethical experts that “knowledge is power” appears to be a sine qua non. although the empowered authorities were unable to remedy certain past actions between the forties and sixties when key research findings on the wonderfontein spruit catchment environment indeed were available, all findings from the seventies were equally underplayed or ignored. government deliberately gave priority to the contribution of gold mining to economic growth, at the expense of the environment and people’s well-being. currently, the wsc is sometimes referred to as the toxic tsunami. the injured public voiced its concern by saying, “it is unethical to use tax payers’ money to fund numerous research reports and then follow a path of intellectual amnesia”. 93 with this enormous past baggage, it is especially up to the anc government structures to pull up their socks and ensure that newly established groups and committees indeed can live up to the ethical expectations that the recently developed south african constitution offers,94 and not to repeat the past in which the gold mines played the tune to which all danced. ngos. scientists and scientific institutions still have to voice their concerns and knowledge through the ethically based constitutional structures to assist in positively working towards creating a sustainable environment in the wonderfontein spruit catchment. the key for success or an improved environmental and human status lies in the multi-diverse and multi-disciplinary cooperation of people with knowledge and a concern to restore, support and strive towards righteousness to the environment and human beings that live in it. 93 compare e. tempelhoff & e.s. van eeden, joint paper on government and the wrc, iwha conference, drakensberg, 20-24 april 2008. 94 interview marius 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pp. 113-132. competitive intelligence in emerging economies: a comparative study between brazil and south africa n sewdass1 and asa du toit2 abstract competitive intelligence (ci) has long been recognised as a strategic management tool that could enhance competitiveness. ci is expected to play an essential developmental role in emerging economies. the need to enhance companies’ competitiveness has grown rapidly. ci is essential, and will increasingly be a challenge in the years to come, especially for emerging economies. this article will compare ci activities in south africa with ci activities in brazil. companies in these two countries have faced increased environmental uncertainty and increasingly there is a need to compete. a questionnaire survey methodology was used where questionnaires were administered to ci experts in organisations in south africa and brazil. the findings of the study revealed that only a limited number of organisations in brazil and south africa recognise the importance of a ci unit. it was also interesting to note that the ci function is more mature in south africa than in brazil. as brazil and south africa become more integrated into the global economy, it stands to reason that the global economy will have more of an impact on the countries’ economies. to this end it has become more crucial to monitor global events and trends and it is very important for both countries to develop a ci culture. keywords: competitive intelligence, competitiveness, emerging economies, global economy, competitors, knowledge economy introduction it has been stated that “the economic success of a country depends on its capacity to apply activities that create a competitive advantage, its ability to create an environment of transformation and progress, and its capacity to innovate” (canongia, 2006: 58). competitive intelligence (ci) has “long been recognised as a strategic management tool that could enhance competitiveness” (du toit, 2003: 113). this perception of ci as a strategic 1 . department of business management, university of south africa, p.o. box 392, pretoria, 0003, south africa. e-mail: sewdan@unisa.ac.za 2 . department of information science, university of pretoria, private bag x20, hatfield, pretoria, 0028, south africa, e-mail: adeline.dutoit@up.ac.za sewdass & du toit 114 tool is not exclusive to developed countries. ci is expected to play an essential developmental role in developing countries as well. the need to “enhance companies’ and by extension, countries’ competitiveness has grown rapidly. ci is essential, and will increasingly be a challenge in the years to come, especially for emerging economies” (canongia, 2006: 58). articles on ci activities in south africa (sewdass & du toit, 2014) and on ci activities in brazil (du toit & sewdass, 2014) were already published. this article will focus on a comparison of ci activities in the two countries and how these activities can increase the competitiveness of the two countries. organisations in these two countries have faced increased environmental uncertainty and increasingly there is a need to compete in the global economy and to monitor and understand their environment more accurately for survival and success. little research (dou, n.d.; dou, dou & manullang, 2005; du toit, 2003) has been done on the application of ci in emerging economies. ci is always influenced by country-specific environmental factors (calof & skinner, 1999: 21) and a questionnaire survey was conducted to compare ci activities in the two countries. the business environment is highly complex in south africa because of factors such as the country’s unique history, diversity, geography, political and institutional landscape. organisations in south africa “tend to be less dynamic and more resistant to change, compared to organisations in industrialised countries” (sewdass & du toit, 2014: 198). although ci in south africa is enjoying increased prominence, it is not on the same level as in developed economics such as canada, japan and the usa (viviers & muller, 2004: 59) and because of this competitiveness ci became a contemporary issue in south africa. within a short period of time after the democratic elections in south africa in april 1994, the international market opened up. “south africa as a net exporter of strategic minerals and the ‘gateway’ to africa has an internal environment ideally suited to the use of ci by companies to gain the competitive edge in a developing domestic economy and a challenging external environment” (viviers & muller, 2004: 54). ci is therefore enjoying increased prominence in south africa. the limited information found on ci activities in south africa and the fact that the last national comprehensive review of ci activities in south africa was conducted in 2002 led the authors to undertake this project. since 2002 no survey of all the industries was conducted and many organisations established a ci function. two universities now offer ci training and more ci professionals are entering the market (sewdass & du toit, 2014: 185). because of this, ci practices became more sophisticated since 2002 and a new survey was necessary. substantial political changes in brazil since 1990 have also led to greater information exchange and the brazilian society has been evolving into a knowledge society dealing with political changes, globalisation, new technologies, hyper competition and new global competitors, such as china. the brazilian government and brazilian companies have realized competing in a global economy requires a strong vision of what exists outside the country’s borders. as a result, “ci is becoming more accepted both as a profession and as an important business function” (libis, 2005: 238). in spite of this, the state of ci in south africa and brazil remains fragmented for decision makers who need reliable information to deploy innovative policies for economic development. competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 115 quite recently, south africa has become a reference point for some brazilian researchers. the recently formed group of heads of state (or government) of india, brazil, and south africa (ibsa) meets annually and has formed the ibsa trilateral development initiative. the identity of this seemingly disparate group is that its members are unique in that they share large populations and areas, are developing countries, and have democratic governments. cooperation has rapidly resulted in the signing of protocols to stimulate scientific research and in brazil specific research funds are becoming available (dwyer, 2009: 41). over recent years, there has been much talk about the future world role to be played by a small group of previously subaltern or marginalised countries. these countries have large territories and populations and considerable natural resources and they constitute not only large markets but will be important producer nations. most frequently referred to as the brics (brazil, russia, india, china and south africa) this loose and highly diverse group of countries play an increasing role on the world stage in cultural, economic, and political terms (dwyer, 2009: 41). competitiveness has increased in the knowledge economy. the domain of ci is broad with a synergy between the concepts ci, knowledge management, competitiveness, economics, information and technological foresight (canongia, 2006: 58). each concept is an established paradigm and has specific contextual meaning and a proper discussion of these concepts is beyond the scope of this article. ci prepares organisations for the future by way of a systematic knowledge management process (calof & skinner, 1999: 20). it creates knowledge from openly available information by use of a systematic process of planning, collection, analysis and communication that result in decision-making. “ci delineates between information and its analysis to produce intelligence” (prescott, 1999: 43). gabriel & adiele (2012: 27) report that ci can be approached from many angles such as information theory, military theory, experiential approach, problem solving in organisational theory and decision making. it is further noted that ci is also studied and used in marketing management, market intelligence, knowledge management, business management and strategic management. although ci is reported to have evolved out of marketing research, it has developed its own methods and tools that can be applied to the above disciplines as well as other business functions in organisation. according to walle (1999: 522) “ci has borrowed tools and techniques from the art of espionage” to provide relevant quality information to assist decision makers in businesses to see the holistic view of the business environment that they operate in. the field has been spurred by the computer revolution, the wealth of data available via the internet, and the need for techniques that have been specifically designed around the current situation. other technological developments, such as the availability of satellite photographs, make it possible for ci professionals to study a wealth of empirical data which until recently was completely unavailable (walle, 1999: 521). according to easton (2015), “transdisciplinarity can be regarded as a way of thinking and doing” furthermore, the author indicates that in transdisciplinary research, the researchers have the freedom to follow a problem across disciplinary boundaries. they also need to be open to collaboration and innovation and to draw on concepts and methods of other disciplines and use these to create new approaches to problems and new ways of thinking and solving current problems in society. some important properties of transdisciplinarity as identified by kroeze & van zyl (2014: 4 & 8) include its “broad evolutionary scope, its focus on complex practical problems in society and attempts to find better solutions to these sewdass & du toit 116 problems, its holistic approach to deal with knowledge from various disciplines; its goal of finding practical solutions to problems and to change the behaviour of individuals significantly”. the field of ci and the ci process in particular ties in very well with the properties of transdisciplinarity outlined above. the ci process is holistic in nature in that it makes use of human intelligence techniques, various communication techniques as well as modern technology to collect data from the internal and the external environments in which the organisations operates in. data is collected broadly from customers, stakeholders, competitors and various markets. in order to make sense of this data, different analysis methods (borrowed from other disciplines) are used and the information is then delivered to decision makers who apply practical solutions to the problems that they experience and this also involves a change in the way things are done in the organisation (processes) as well as a change in the behaviour of the individuals. this study proceeds from a transdisciplinary, exploratory perspective as it attempts to provide a comparison of the implementation of ci in two emerging economies, namely, brazil and south africa. data for this study is collected from various industries and with collaboration from experts from these industries as well as from the “institute of energy” in brazil. this will provide various perspectives and insights on the topic in order to obtain a better understanding and to compare the implementation of ci practices in these industries as well as the respective countries. objectives of the study despite the economic potential of the south african and brazilian economies, no research has been conducted comparing ci activities in these countries. the objectives of this article are: to determine the state of ci in south africa and brazil, to determine whether a relationship exists between ci and measures of business performance in these countries and to determine how these countries can use ci to improve competitiveness. furthermore, insight on the level of importance attached to ci in south africa and brazil will be discussed. an understanding of the relationship between the size of the organisations and ci practices in these countries will also be established. the study will also attempt to provide examples of how these countries use ci to increase their competitiveness in the global economy. findings could interest academics and companies in emerging economies who ponder the need and importance of ci in strategic management. ci is an integral part of overall economic health in developed economies (calof & skinner, 1999: 22), and this study could ultimately improve ci activities in emerging economies. the last national survey to determine the implementation of ci in south african organisations was conducted in 2002 by viviers, saayman, calof and muller. since then du toit (2003) conducted a survey of ci implementation in the manufacturing industry. de pelsmacker, muller, viviers, saayman, cuyvers and jegers (2005) conducted a survey of exporting companies and fatti (2013) conducted a survey of ci implementation in the pharmaceutical industry. various surveys were also conducted in specific organisations but as mentioned, the last national survey was conducted in 2002. the last national survey in brazil was in 2008 by decaup and domingues (2009) but most of the findings also concur with the study conducted by libis (2005). therefore this study is relevant and timely for both south africa and brazil. competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 117 competitiveness in the global economy competitiveness is a multifaceted concept and according to garelli (2003: 702) the competitiveness of nations “focuses on the policies implemented by nations to shape the environment around enterprises” and economic value is only created within the context of an enterprise. according to waheeduzzaman (2002: 13) the ultimate goal of competitiveness is to improve the standard of living or real income of the citizens of a country. since companies actually compete in the global economy, many authors are of the opinion that when studying competitiveness, the focus should be on companies since they are the main engines of a country’s competitiveness (garelli, 2003: 704). organisations like the world economic forum (wef) and international institute of management development (imd) rate countries annually on the basis of various competitiveness indicators. the wef publishes the global competitiveness report annually and the imd the world competitiveness yearbook. according to the wef the eight factors that determine the competitiveness of a nation are openness, government, finance, infrastructure, technology, management, labour and institutions (waheeduzzaman, 2002: 15). the imd groups criteria into eight competitiveness input factors, namely domestic economy, international, government, finance, infrastructure, management, science and technology and people (waheeduzzaman, 2002: 15). a country’s environment supports or threatens economic growth through its policies. a country like brazil manages its competitive environment by relying on assets (land, people and natural resources) but is not necessarily competitive (garelli, 2003: 706). the wef global it report notes that “although brazil exhibits relatively high levels of ict usage, with about half of its population using the internet, a well-developed e-commerce industry (30th), and a government committed to offering a significant number of its services online; a poor business and innovation environment (135th), coupled with weaknesses in its educational system (121st) — notably in the area of mathematics and science (136th) — hampers the full attainment of the economic impacts that icts can provide (64th)” (billaoosorio, dutta & larvin, 2014: 27) technology has an impact on the competitiveness of nations and south africa is leapfrogging technological infrastructures by focusing on mobile rather than fixed phones (garelli, 2003: 708). “access to mobile services continues to grow, and the prices of all communication services remain high by both african and global standards” (eldis, 2014). the wef global it report (billao-osorio, dutta & larvin, 2014: 20) indicates that south africa is improving in using icts, and the business community seems to have taken the lead, using icts vigorously in interactions with other businesses. furthermore, as “a country becomes more competitive, the standard of living or per capita income increases and this helps the reduction of inequality within the country” (waheeduzzaman, 2002: 16). competitive intelligence with the increased volatility of the business environment, “countries and companies rely on early detection of environmental changes so that they may respond with appropriate counter measures” (kahaner, 1996: 23). since they require time to adapt to the changing environment they should have the ability to anticipate changes and imagine the consequences of alternative responses to those changes. they use ci to facilitate the identification of potential sewdass & du toit 118 opportunities and threats. because ci improves decision-making, it helps a company to meet or exceed its objectives and business goals (hitt, ireland & hoskisson, 2000: 208). as companies compete in the global economy, the need for ci in a global context becomes essential for further success. companies in emerging economies who are familiar with ci practices in their local regional markets may find the requirement to extend ci practices globally very difficult to accomplish in a structured way (james, 2000: 44). the basis for ci is knowing the difference between information and intelligence. executives usually have to read through several reports and proposals before making decisions, and it is often found that they are overwhelmed with information and lack intelligence that will enable them to make more efficient decisions. therefore, “it can be said that the companies that are able to turn information into intelligence will succeed” (sewdass, 2012: 24). there are many definitions of ci. these definitions deal with the management of information to enable a country or an institution to take better decisions and to understand the relationships between partners, competitors, laws, regulations and social behaviour, which interact with their environment (dou, dou & manullang, 2005). ci is the process of developing actionable foresight regarding competitive dynamics and non-market factors that can be used to enhance competitive advantage (calof & skinner, 1999: 20). ci is concerned with the techniques used to select and filter information from a variety of sources, to interpret and analyse it, to communicate it to the right people and to use it effectively (calof & skinner, 1999: 21). competitive dynamics refers to the evolution of an organisation’s industry and the moves and countermoves of competitors, suppliers, customers, alliance partners and potential competitors (prescott, 1999: 42; waheeduzzaman, 2002: 14). nonmarket factors such as government regulation, tariffs and the culture of a country impact competitive dynamics but are not suppliers of products or services to the industry (prescot, 1999: 42-43). ci uses legally and ethically available public sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of its competitors. globally, the terms ‘business intelligence’, ‘competitor intelligence’, ‘market research’, ‘market monitoring’, ‘market intelligence’, ‘corporate intelligence’, ‘competitive information’, ‘commercial intelligence’ and ‘knowledge management’ are used by organisations (global intelligence agency, 2005: 7; mcgonagle & vella, 2002: 35). however, for the purpose of this study, ci has been chosen as it best describes the activities that the study intends to discuss. ci in emerging economies kahaner (1996: 25) states that ci has become the 'latest weapon in the world war of economics', in which many emerging economies view ci as a way to win economic wars against larger, more industrialised countries. by using their wits instead of weapons, these countries are able to turn raw information into usable intelligence to further their economic status. according to calof and skinner (1999: 20) a country will under-perform without an appropriate ci infrastructure and they quote prescott and gibbons by stating that “the key question is not whether governments should play a role in a company’s ci efforts but what should be the purposes and methods used by government.” countries such as france, sweden, japan and canada have recognised the value of government and industry working jointly in the development of an intelligence culture (calof & skinner, 1999: 22). competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 119 kahaner (1996: 28-31) sights the following reasons as why companies need ci in the global economy: • the pace of business is increasing rapidly. businesses are required to handle more projects and make more decisions with more speed than before. • information overload. technological development has developed the speed and availability of communication and information. • increased global competition from new customers. increased access to resources increased the number of competitors and decreased the importance of close physical proximity. • existing competition is becoming more aggressive. many market places are maturing resulting in companies increasing their market share at the expense of their competitors. • political changes affect companies quickly and forcefully. many countries have moved from communism or socialism to capitalism in the last decades. • rapid technological change. the last decades have seen the introduction of wireless communication, personal computers, the internet and biotechnology. apart from these reasons, hawkins (2004: 51) emphasises that companies in emerging economies should use formal processes of collecting, analysing and disseminating intelligence to successfully compete in the global economy. ci management is a well-established function in industrialised countries, because managers realise that if they do not monitor the actions and activities of their competitors, their strategic plans will fail. however, managers in emerging economies continue to be surprised by undesirable changes in the environment and it appears that the advances in managing intelligence are as yet largely unknown in these economies. apart from the above reasons why organisations need ci, various benefits can be identified. ci can do more than just providing the organisation with intelligence for decision-making purposes. “a well-designed ci system can assist the organisation in their strategic planning process as well as in determining the intention and capabilities of its competitors, so that the extent of the risk to which the organisation is exposed, can be established”(sewdass, 2009: 30). furthermore, ci implementation within an organisation can serve as a catalyst in the decision-making process by converting data elements into actionable information that can be used in strategic decisions. ci also has the ability to fill a primarily strategic role in the companies, with top managers being the most important users of ci information products. ci is also used in strategic planning and business development; continuous monitoring of the companies; and gathering of information on competitors, customers, and industries (global intelligence alliance, 2005: 18). it has further been noted that “the new paradigm in development economics is based on selfanalysis, self-reliance and self-renewal, which would seem to necessitate a developmentorientated intelligence policy in a country” (du toit, 2003: 112). currently most emerging economies are weakly integrated with the global economy. for organisations to compete globally they are facing many challenges since consumers use the internet to compare products and prices and they need to stay ahead of their competitors (sewlal, 2004). if this situation is to change, major infrastructural investment in information systems and services, as well as technical training, is required (sewdass, 2012: 12). utilising ci will enable sewdass & du toit 120 organisations in emerging economies to gain a greater market share and to compete successfully against international competitors (pellissier & kruger, 2011). the relationship between knowledge/education and competitiveness is well established in the literature and the role of ci is to create knowledge. knowledge enhances the competitive base of emerging economies while competitiveness creates an environment where knowledge can be created and grow (waheeduzzaman, 2002: 17). a skilled work force is key in providing companies with a competitive edge and there is a need in emerging economies to equip employees with the necessary knowledge and skills to enable them to adapt to accelerating technical and market changes (hosseini, 2006: 79). ifan et al. (2004: 995) state that “after a period of recession and inflation, most developing countries have to face the necessity of improving their capacities to innovate and increase the competitiveness of their industries”. furthermore, in emerging economies, the creation of new products from their natural resources is important as it has the ability to contribute to the country’s foreign direct investment (fdi) (dou, dou & manullang, 2005). in order to achieve this, the implementation of ci will be the answer. south african situation with regard to competitiveness south africa faces new socio-economic challenges and research capacity needs to be developed in the context of the global economy. before 1994 south africa was isolated from the rest of the world “as a result of the apartheid regime and this inhibited competitiveness” (viviers & muller, 2004: 54). the authors also state that “the use of ci before 1994 has mostly negative connotations since south african intelligence activities were mostly pursued by state institutions that were not trusted. information about scientific and technological innovations developed in south africa was disseminated through academic and technological journals, conferences and trade shows” (viviers & muller, 2004: 55). after 1994 the economy became more open and, along with export markets, domestic markets became increasingly larger and more competitive with increased globalisation of markets. many industries were deregulated and privatised and there was a large construction boom due to the 2010 soccer world cup (strauss, 2008: 15). to survive many south african companies needed to extensively globalise their business activities to exploit country differences and worldwide markets. this prompted companies to become more sensitive to external environments which includes monitoring political/legal, economic, technological, socio-cultural and industry forces such as competitors, customers and suppliers (strauss & du toit, 2010: 304). according to the global competitiveness report (schwab, 2013: 42) sub-saharan africa has continued its growth rate by 5 percent in 2012 and it is expected to continue to grow similarly for the next two years thereby providing a silver lining in the rather uncertain global economy. the global competitive report of 2013/2014 (schwab, 2013: 346) further indicates that south africa had an overall ranking of 53rd out of 148 countries. south africa also ranked second among the brics countries. by regional standards, south africa benefits from the size of its economy and it ranked 25th in the market size. the country’s financial market development is ranked 3rd and this indicates that there is a very high level of confidence and trust in south africa’s financial markets in other parts of the world. the global competitive report of 2013/2014 (schwab, competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 121 2013: 346) also indicates that south africa does reasonably well in areas such as business sophistication (35th) and innovation (39th). these are a few examples that indicate that south africa is the most competitive economy in the region as compared to other african counterparts such as zimbabwe (131st), kenya (96th), mozambique (137th), nigeria (120th) and ghana (114th) (schwab, 2013). in order to further enhance its competitiveness, south africa will need to address the most problematic factors for doing business. inefficient government bureaucracy, inadequately educated workforce, restrictive labour regulations and corruption in south africa are the most critical areas that pose problems for other countries doing business with south africa (schwab, 2013: 346). south africa contributed 46.5% of the total ict services market in africa in 2012 (bakker, 2013). according to the global competitiveness index 2013–2014 (2013: 43), “south africa is ranked 53rd this year, overtaking brazil to place second among the brics. south africa does well on measures of the quality of its institutions (41st), including intellectual property protection (18th), property rights (20th), and in the efficiency of the legal framework in challenging and settling disputes (13th and 12th, respectively).” brazilian situation with regard to competitiveness ci was introduced in brazil in the mid-1990s as an initiative of the national institute of technology. a ci interest group, the competitive intelligence society of brazil (abraic) was established and is sponsored by the government and industry. the growing market for ci created the development of consulting activities. various ci tools were developed (for example a national database of science competencies) (dou, n.d.: 29). according to the global competitiveness report 2013-2014 (schwab, 2013: 134), brazil is ranked 56th out of 148 countries. brazil has also benefited from several competitive strengths. these strengths include its internal market size (9th), a sophisticated business environment (39th) and innovation (55th). the country also has an efficient financial market that is ranked 50th and the rate of technology adoption is relatively high at 55th compared to other countries in its region. however, there are several problematic areas that hinder countries from doing business with brazil. factors such as tax rates, tax regulations, inadequate supply of infrastructure, inefficient government bureaucracy and restrictive labour regulations, rank high as problem areas for doing business in brazil and these factors also have an impact on brazil’s capacity to fulfil and sustain its competitive potential. summary of ci in south africa and brazil table 1 (below) provides a summary of ci implementation in brazil and south africa and it should be noted that this data is based on the study conducted by libis (2005: 237-251) in brazil and viviers et al. (2002: 27-37) in south africa. sewdass & du toit 122 t a b l e 1 . c o m p e t i t i v e i n t e l l i g e n c e : b r a z i l v e r s u s s o u t h a f r i c a brazil south africa acceptance of ci limited, ci is not widely accepted in business. brazil’s decision makers do not seem to motivate for establishing ci capabilities in their companies. however, they do have ci departments in international companies based in brazil lack of appropriate progress or structures for ci in organisations. poor in formal organisation and process for ci in organisations. few companies have a central coordinating point for ci. ci does exist in international companies operating in south africa, e.g. toyota. location of ci ci usually located in marketing departments where ci is limited to market research. hence most ci activities are tactical and focus on the creation of front-line actionable intelligence and remain far away from senior managers – detached from decision makers. strategic location in larger companies only. ci mostly located in sales and marketing divisions in organisations. marketing managers and ceos take responsibility for ci. most ci products are used widely in larger companies as they are in the position to afford them. quality of secondary sources limited secondary resources, unreliable sources and underdeveloped internet infrastructure. slow growth in online population and lack of online content published in portuguese. limited creation, dissemination and maintenance of business information by government and public business reporting in brazil is questionable hence business does not government and undertake convoluted measures to avoid tax levels, hence tainting the quality and availability of secondary research. market research that was done was corrupted and the company’s outlook and approach was so antiquated that it failed to realize what the market was doing and what competitors were up to. ci in sa emerged from the business sector and academia was not initially involved in research into ci. hence, only a few papers were written on the subject. quality of primary sources abundant access to primary research but credibility of these resources is questionable. information is power in brazil, so it is protected and hoarded in most businesses and social settings. third party referral is often used to share and gain access to information. people inside organisations use primary sources of information. little information sharing took place and people did not know what the focus of intelligence activities were. capacity for analysis limited due to the lack of acceptance of ci and limited primary and secondary resources. ci practitioners stick to basic frameworks only such as the swot, financial ration and historical analysis tools in analysis and to win support of decision makers in organisations. most ci time is spent on collecting information rather than planning and analysis. efficiency and expertise in more advanced competitive analysis tools is lacking with most analysis skills limited to basic techniques such as swot, pest, low level profiling of competitors, markets and industries. ci education & training limited. only two academic institutions in brazil offer ci education and are based on theoretical frameworks. these are not useful in the expanding business markets. two professional associations abriac & scip promotes ci awareness programmes. few formal academic programmes have been developed that offer ci training to individuals. students are usually involved in business analysis activities in large companies and government departments. ad hoc training programmes presented by local and international ci consultants and practitioners are hosted by conferences. ethics and law limited. ethical frameworks are not followed due to lack of support from government and lack of participation in industry associations. ci regarded as spying. business law loopholes are commonly exploited to reduce taxes, increase profitability and maintain competitiveness. most ci activities are outsourced to consulting companies and consultants were involved in counter-intelligence and perhaps less ethical information gathering activities also dominated ci in sa. ci was associated with industrial espionage due to the role that the security establishment had in the apartheid days and the connotations made between intelligence and spying. doubt from government for the legitimacy of ci. competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 123 research methodology since ci is a relatively new activity in emerging economies, this study is mainly exploratory in nature. it attempts to provide a comparison of the implementation of ci in two emerging economies, namely south africa and brazil. a questionnaire survey methodology was used where questionnaires were administered to ci practitioners in organisations in south africa and brazil. the organisations surveyed for the study were based on the standard industrial classification that is used worldwide and comprises of ten categories. an additional category, the oil and gas industry, was added specifically for the benefit of brazil where these industries have flourished in recent years and they have become a major player in the brazilian economy. hence the industry classification used in the study was as follows: • agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing industry • mining and quarrying industry • manufacturing industry • electricity, gas and water supply industry • construction industry • wholesale and retail trade industry • tourism industry • transport, storage and communication industry • financial, insurance, real estate and business services • community, social and personal services • oil and gas industry a combination of convenience sampling and snowball sampling were used to identify the practitioners in ci in these industries. convenience sampling refers to the procedure of obtaining respondents (units or people) who are most conveniently available (zikmund, 1994: 367). snowball sampling, on the other hand, refers to procedures in which additional respondents are obtained from information provided by initial respondents. this technique is used to locate members of rare populations by referrals (cooper & schindler, 2007: 425). ci practices in south africa and brazil are still in the early phase of development and when ci is practiced by individuals in organisations, it is still a matter of sensitivity (strauss & du toit, 2010: 311; decaup & domingues, 2009: 25). furthermore, in south africa there is no recognized list of practicing ci professionals available (viviers & muller, 2004: 56) and in brazil a similar situation exists where networking takes on an important role in the development of ci (libis, 2005: 249). thus the researchers had to rely on their personal contacts and networks in industries to identify the experts in ci. these experts were assumed to have a sound knowledge of ci, its implementation and benefits for organisations. this is perhaps a limitation of this study as some important experts practicing ci could possibly be left out of the survey. the questionnaire was structured as follows: • section a: background and demographic information • section b: competitive situation in organisations • section c: competitive intelligence implementation in organisations in order to test the questionnaire, a preliminary test was electronically distributed to six ci professionals. the aim of the pilot study was to determine the ease of understanding and the sewdass & du toit 124 time taken to complete the questionnaire and minor changes were made to the original questions. the questionnaire was then finalised and sent as an attachment via email and it was accompanied by a cover letter to all identified respondents. the completed questionnaires had to be returned to the email of the researchers. the questionnaire was also translated into portuguese for the brazilian respondents and the translation and data collection was facilitated by prof camilo augusto sequeira from the institute of energy at the universidade catolica in rio de janeiro. in south africa the questionnaires were emailed to 40 companies and 24 questionnaires were completed which represents a response rate of 60%. in brazil questionnaires were emailed to 33 companies and 13 questionnaires were completed representing a response rate of 39.3%. the data in the questionnaires was analysed using quantitative (numerical) analysis methods. according to walliman (2005: 302) quantitative research looks for patterns in what is observed and these patterns should be interpreted. the analytical approach followed in quantitative research requires descriptive statistics that describe numerical data. the questionnaire responses were processed using the microsoft excel tool to arrange the data in logical order and to analyse it. descriptive statistics were then used to summarise the findings. findings and analysis biographical data in south africa the gender of the respondents was mostly male (70%) while in brazil the gender was almost equal (53.8% male and 46.2% female). in brazil 84.6% of the respondents were younger than 50 years while in south africa 50% of the respondents were younger than 50 years. the majority of respondents in south africa had postgraduate degrees and was either top management or senior/middle management level of their organisations’ (85%), while the majority of respondents in brazil has bachelor’s degrees and were either in top management or senior/middle management level of their organisation’s (69.2%). the south african findings here correlate with the findings of du toit and strauss (2010: 312) which also found that majority of the individuals in their study had postgraduate qualifications and were situated in top management or senior/middle management levels in the organisations. in brazil the majority of the respondents (76.9%) were employed by companies with more than 500 employees compared to south africa where only 50% of the respondents were employed by companies with more than 500 employees. it is interesting to note that in south africa four companies with less than 50 companies also use ci as a strategic tool. with regard to industries the majority of companies in brazil were in the manufacturing industry (30.7%) while in south africa the majority of companies were in financial, insurance, real estate and business services (25%). competitive situation in south africa 55% of the organisations are of the opinion that they cope above average with changes in the business environment. this is an indication that organisations in sa should pay more attention to ci as a strategic business tool. in brazil only 46.1% of the organisations indicated that they cope above average. this is an indication that a large percentage of ci practitioners in brazil are probably not aware of the importance of scanning competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 125 the environment as an early-warning tool to adapt strategies. the majority of south african organisations indicated that competition in their business environment is very intense (65%) compared to the organisations in brazil where only 23% of the organisations indicated that competition is very intense. competitive intelligence function/unit according to the majority of respondents in south africa (60%), a formal ci function does exist in their organisation while in brazil a formal ci function exists at only 15.4% of the organisations. in south africa the ci function has been in existence for more than five years in 65% of the companies while in brazil none of the companies had a ci function for more than five years. this indicates that the ci function is more mature in south africa than in brazil. ci activities with regard to the five most important ci activities implemented by organisations, 85% of the respondents in brazil evaluate the reliability and accuracy of information while 61.5% of the respondents use ci to quantify/qualify strategic choices. the majority of respondents (84.6%) agreed that their staff members report back on competitor actions and 54% of the respondents use ci to achieve strategic objectives and to be aware of strategic objectives (see figure 1). f i g u r e 1 : f i v e m o s t i m p o r t a n t c i a c t i v i t i e s with regard to the situation in south africa, 25% of the respondents use ci for decisionmaking while 50% of the respondents use ci to remain cognisant with government legislative trends. twenty-one per cent of the respondents use ci to assist in the quantification/qualification of strategic choices while 17% of staff members report back on competitor actions. eight per cent of respondents interview managers to verify intelligence products. this is also an indication of the maturity level of ci in south africa (see figure 1). 0   0,1   0,2   0,3   0,4   0,5   0,6   0,7   0,8   0,9   1   cognisant with government legislative trends interview managers to verify intelligence products assist to quantify/qualify strategic choices staff members report back on competitor actions ci for decision-making ci linked to strategic objectives up to date with emerging technologies evaluates reliability of information south  africa   brazil   sewdass & du toit 126 use of secondary sources in brazil, respondents identified promotional material, information on regulatory bodies and sales forecasts as the most important secondary sources used by them (see figure 2). it is interesting that 31% of the respondents never use corporate annual reports or survey summaries (38%). f i g u r e 2 : u s e o f s e c o n d a r y s o u r c e s the most important secondary source used by south african organisations is information on regulatory bodies (see figure 2). the fact that information on regulatory bodies is so important, is an indication that restrictive regulations (enacted by the government) often contribute to a decline in competitiveness. this is in contrast with developed countries where deregulation enhances competitiveness. promotional material, internal financial information and corporate websites are also important sources. use of primary sources the most important primary sources used by organisations in brazil are direct customer feedback; suppliers and analysis of competitor’s feedback (see figure 3). this finding correlates with the findings of libis (2005: 241) that there is abundant access to primary research but that credibility of the sources is questionable. organisations therefore prefer to collect their own information directly from customers. 0%   10%   20%   30%   40%   daily weekly monthly quarterly yearly daily weekly monthly quarterly yearly b ra zi l s ou th a fr ic a survey summaries corporate websites sales forecasts internal financial information information on regulatory bodies promotional material competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 127 f i g u r e 3 : u s e o f p r i m a r y s o u r c e s the most important primary sources used by organisations in south africa are industry experts, direct customer feedback and company employees. staff who attend conferences and seminars are also important information sources. this indicates that south african organisations sensitize and train their employees to collect information on the competitive environment (see figure 3). analytical methods or models used the majority of organisations in brazil (61.5%) used competitor analysis and 46.2% of them used swot analysis and customer segmentation analysis while only 30.7% of the organisations used financial ratio and statement analysis (see figure 4). this indicates that organisations in brazil do not use sophisticated analysis techniques. f i g u r e 4 : a n a l y s i s m e t h o d s o r m o d e l s u s e d with regard to the use of ci analytical methods or models in south africa, 50% of the respondents used industry analysis while 10% of the respondents used swot analysis (see 0%   10%   20%   30%   40%   50%   daily weekly monthly quarterly yearly daily weekly monthly quarterly yearly b ra zi l s ou th a fr ic a staff attending conferences & seminars company employees suppliers industry experts direct customer feedback sales staff analysis of competitor's products 0%   10%   20%   30%   40%   50%   60%   swot  analysis   financial  analysis  and   valuaeon   financial  raeo  and  statement   analysis   customer  segmentaeon   analysis   compeetor  analysis   benchmarking   gap  analysis   industry  analysis   south  africa   brazil   sewdass & du toit 128 figure 4). benchmarking, competitor analysis and gap analysis are used by 15% of the organisations. this corroborates with the findings of viviers and muller (2004: 64) that south african organisations do not use sophisticated analysis techniques. methods used to distribute and present ci findings the majority of respondents in brazil (46.2%) used email and customer/competitor/supplier profiles to distribute ci findings. reports and market and industry audits are used by 38.5% of the respondents. presentations are used by 30.8% of the respondents (see figure 5). f i g u r e 5 : m e t h o d s u s e d t o d i s t r i b u t e & p r e s e n t c i f i n d i n g s the most popular method to distribute ci findings in south africa is presentations which are used by 27% of the respondents. briefings are used by 14% of the respondents. this is also an indication that ci is practiced on a mature level in south africa. email is used by 27% of the respondents and personal delivery and reports by 23% of the respondents (see figure 5). recommendations and conclusions as brazil and south africa become more integrated into the global economy it stands to reason that the global economy will have more of an impact on the countries’ economy. to this end it has become more crucial to monitor global events and trends and it is very important for both countries to develop a ci culture. ci analyses not just the environment but competitors and markets as well. therefore, understanding the direction that competitors are moving to in the future is essential to be able to counteract them timeously. keeping abreast of domestic and international market trends and their potential impact on organisations in both countries is vital. trend tracking needs to monitor the impact of not only product changes but also organisational changes such as future mergers and dissolutions. it is also recommended that organisations in both countries should enhance a ci culture by creating ci awareness among employees and provide ci training sessions for new employees. ci could enhance the competitiveness of south african organisations in the global economy. there is clear recognition that the world will become more competitive and will increasingly do so. whether south african managers will meet these challenges is not clear and according 0%   5%   10%  15%  20%  25%  30%  35%   e-mail presentations reports market or industry audits customer/competitor/supplier profiles personal delivery briefings south africa brazil competitive intelligence: brazil and south africa td 11(1), july 2015, pp. 113-132. 129 to the empirical survey conducted, few have actual plans to improve their ability to keep track of competitors and to enhance their competitiveness. there appears to be a degree of complacency and self-deception that is inhibiting managers from instigating effective planning to improve ci and few conduct ci in a formal systematic manner. ci should assist senior management to develop and review a set of key intelligence needs (kins). only a limited number of organisations in brazil recognises the importance of a ci unit and did not indicate the use of ci for decision-making as one of the five most important ci activities. ci should assist senior management to develop and review a set of key intelligence needs (kins). in order to provide direction to the ci function in these organisations, it is important that they should interview management on a regular basis. according to the survey organisations in brazil do not use sophisticated techniques such as blind-spot analysis and scenario analysis to analyse ci data. the use of these techniques as early warning signals is very important to get a head-start on competitive organisations in the global economy. the ci function in organisations in brazil should thus evolve from ‘providing just the facts’ (reactive) to being ‘a key component of company strategy’ (proactive). it is recommended that organisations in brazil should seek to engage proactively with the global environment by revising their strategic priorities. it is therefore evident that organisations in brazil need to redress some critical competitiveness issues, most notably the establishment of the ci function as a strategic tool. without a ci strategy, organisations will find it difficult to position themselves in the global marketplace. a limitation of this research is that a small sample was used and further research which includes a larger sample will have to be conducted. in the light of the world-wide interest in ci in developing countries and the desire to understand how south africa and brazil can improve its competitiveness, the hope is expressed that the south african and brazilian governments and industries will in future create an environment which will facilitate the competitiveness of organisations and encourage long-term sustainability. acknowledgement the authors will like to acknowledge prof c.a. sequeira, institute of energy, catholic university, rio de janeiro, brazil for his assistance in the data collection in brazil. the findings of this study were presented at the global business and technology association (gbata) fifteenth annual international conference held in helsinki, finland, july 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(2003). business research methods. 7th ed. mason: south western thomson. abstract introduction research on music listening and sport research design emergent themes focus conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) tamaryn l. aslett school of music, north-west university, south africa liesl van der merwe school of music, north-west university, south africa jaco h. kruger school of music, north-west university, south africa citation aslett, t.l., van der merwe, l. & kruger, j.h., 2017, ‘experiences of music listening among rugby players at north-west university’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a372. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.372 original research experiences of music listening among rugby players at north-west university tamaryn l. aslett, liesl van der merwe, jaco h. kruger received: 04 aug. 2016; accepted: 15 dec. 2016; published: 26 apr. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article documents a study that investigated the reasons why a group of student rugby players habitually listen to music as part of their pre-match routine. the investigation followed a hermeneutic phenomenological approach that allowed the players to verbalise their personal music listening experiences. the investigation links the music listening practices of the players with the concept of musical experience as an innate human capacity directed towards general well-being. for the players, well-being is a basic condition of happiness and optimism. achieving and maintaining this condition draws on the emotive qualities of musical sound patterns, as well as the powerful, socially situated meanings of song lyrics. consequent states of mind conceptualise a rewarding existence by integrating experiences in sport as well as in music. directed towards rugby practice, the study found that music listening is an informal, individual activity that involves the use of earphones. the sense of personal isolation this induces is a prerequisite for generating focus as well as controlled energy, a state of mind regarded as essential for effective participation in rugby. the pervasive use yet informal application of this strategy by rugby players points to an officially undervalued psychological resource. this finding has implications for fuller exploitation and incorporation of music listening into rugby training programmes. introduction it has become a common practice in professional sport to integrate physical training with mental preparation under the guidance of sport psychologists. this links with a focus in sport research on a diversity of psychological interventions, including the uses and functions1 of music in human life. although our current understanding of the musical human (homo musicus2) is intricate, there is a timeless awareness in history of the role of music in the integration of mind and body. this is widely utilised in trance behaviour (rouget 1985) and discussed famously by plato who conceptualised an integrated system of physical training and ‘musical’ education for young greeks ‘to ensure a proper harmony between energy and initiative on the one hand and reason on the other’ (plato 1987:176). music (mousicē) not only included musical performance, but also the recitation of poetry as well as proficiency in philosophical debate, and as such constituted a comprehensive education. plato argued accordingly that musical ‘rhythm and harmony penetrate deep into the mind and take a most powerful hold on it’ (1987:163). this perceptive observation of a basic psychological function of music seems to have retained limited value in contemporary society where music is regarded as non-pragmatic ‘art’, and any connection between music and the physical nature of sport is implausible. yet rugby players, like a diversity of other athletes, may increasingly be observed listening to music prior to matches, usually by means of earphones connected to a variety of small sound devices.3 the obvious question is why they do so, and thus the objective of this discussion is to explore pre-match music listening experiences among a small group of students at north-west university’s rugby institute.4 in so doing, this report hopes to provide some direction towards incorporating music listening routines into formal rugby training programmes. research on music listening and sport research in this field typically focuses on the functions of music listening as part of general psychological preparation for participation in sport events (eckard 2012; hutchinson et al. 2011; karageorghis & priest 2012a; lane, davis & devonport 2011; terry et al. 2012). music listening has been shown to accompany training (karageorghis & priest 2008; stieg 2011), enhance performance (bernardi, porta & sleight 2006; karageorghis & priest 2012b; lim et al. 2009), reduce the rate of perceived exertion (knight & whitehead 2012; shaulov & lufi 2009) and promote perseverance (eckard 2012; stieg 2011). these studies tap into long-standing research on the relationship between musical experience and psychological well-being (e.g. lee et al. 2012; logid 2011; shinn 2011; vuoskoski & eerola 2012). generally speaking, investigations focus on the beneficial effects triggered by music such as physical relaxation, emotional self-regulation (nicol 2010:352) and intense states of affection (lowis 2010:86). in a sport environment, listening to music is ‘a complex phenomenon, involving psychological, emotional, neurological and cardiovascular changes, with behavioural modifications of breathing’ (bernardi et al. 2006:445). however, this subject is under-researched, particularly from a phenomenological perspective (belcher & haridakis 2013:375; bishop 2010:35). sport psychology studies often lack data relating to athletes’ lived experiences of music (sorenson et al. 2008:3), especially their pre-competition music listening routines. such research could provide insight into the personal value athletes attach to music listening, and so contribute towards the ongoing development of psychological training programmes. research design the investigation on which this report is based (aslett 2014), followed an interpretive qualitative approach, generally designed to reveal the ways humans encounter and interact with their social worlds (merriam 2002:4). specifically utilising a hermeneutic phenomenology (see butler-kisber 2010:51; creswell 2013:79; van manen 1990:25), the inquiry analysed, interpreted and compared the lived or conscious experiences (so-called texts of life) of individual rugby players, not so much to identify some apparent ‘essence’ as to conceptualise them (creswell 2013:76; merriam 2002:4, 7; van manen 1990:4). discussions accordingly centred around three basic phenomenological issues, namely perceptions, thoughts and emotions (moustakas 1994:95), that were elicited by means of reflective essays and interviews. the atlas.ti 7 qualitative data analysis and research software was utilised to organise the data into codes, categories and themes (see creswell 2013:184–185). the group comprised 10 participants,5 most of whom played in the same team. they consented to personal interviews.6 these interviews initially were open-ended, but it soon became clear that the participants were not used to verbalising their music listening experiences. to generate ‘thick’ or detailed descriptions from them, the interviews consequently became semi-structured, following the design of smith, flowers and larkin (2009). information was elicited by means of descriptive, narrative, contrasting, evaluative, circular and comparative questions and prompts, and they typically included the following: tell me about the role music plays in your life; when first did you listen to music before a game?; where do you prefer to listen to music prior to a game?; imagine not feeling motivated or energised before a game, and describe how music listening might affect you; what would it be like if you no longer could listen to music before a game?; what kind of music do you listen to before a game?; and describe the feelings that various kinds of music stimulate in you. emergent themes four themes emerged from the investigation. the uses of music listening prior to rugby matches need clarification in relation to the (1) general musical experiences of participants and (2) well-being these experiences promote. such clarification is a prerequisite for interpreting participants’ descriptions of the psychological conditioning that music listening is perceived to induce. these descriptions involve the themes of (3) focus as well as (4) controlled energy. participant perceptions of musical experience and well-being musical experience is a concept that refers to all mental operations and physical actions involved in composing, performing, listening to and talking about music. well-being involves the states of bodily and psychological health of groups and individuals. the basic state of well-being induced by music in participants generally was described by them as feeling better or happiness. given the complex, ambiguous nature of emotional states, some participants struggled to verbalise their feelings. barend simply noted that he listens to music regularly, but that he does not know why: ‘it’s just nice’. andré was more explicit, although similarly laconic, and remarked that he is ‘crazy’ about music. danie in turn explained that certain types of music give him goosebumps. jacobus linked these kinds of experiences to the commonly perceived seat of the emotions: ‘in my heart, it (music) is like, literally, a gladness in my life, a joy’. these explanations all in some way point to the inborn human capacity to process sound, and specifically to musical sound as a form of sensual and emotional experience. emotions may be viewed as a dynamic mind–brain–body state (cross & tolbert 2009:30) which arises in response to environmental conditions and social experiences. put differently, emotions involve ‘bodily co-operation with an image, a thought, a memory – a co-operation of which the individual is aware’ (hochschild 1979:551). given that the striving for happiness is a core human concern, its realisation by means of music listening may be an ongoing practice. thabo explained that he listens to music all the time. it not only gives him pleasure but also motivates him: ‘yes, you forget (bad things). you think only about how good it (the match) is going to be, and not of all the other stuff that bothers you’. to ruan, music listening also is a strategy aimed at making his life better in the long term. in particular, it is a reaction to experiencing ‘stress’, feeling bored or just generally having a ‘bad day’. this function was confirmed by other participants. andré explained that, ‘sometimes, if i’m very stressed, i will listen to a nice song’. according to jacobus, ‘if you don’t have a very good day, then it (music listening) helps a lot’. danie agreed: ‘yes, i think it does. if a person feels bad (on a certain) day, then it makes you feel better’, while jason explained that listening to songs ‘builds him up’ by transforming negative thoughts into positive ones. of further interest is jason’s remark that music listening allows him to focus, ‘chill’ and ‘just be myself’. eben indicated similarly that music listening is an ‘escape’ from his daily problems, and that it enables him to set his ‘mind straight’. these explanations relate to the capacity of the arts to induce virtual realities, to create imaginary worlds where life is contemplated and possible solutions are explored free from constraints (see ‘focus’ section). such flights of the imagination have potential to feed back into daily existence as adaptive strategies. eben remarked that he often finds himself getting ‘caught up in (song) lyrics’ and comparing his ‘dreams and ideals with the lyrics’ of a particular artist. similarly, for jacobus, lyrics are not stories that only connect with the composer, but which can also relate to the lives of listeners. as we elaborate in the ‘controlled energy’ section, music listening by participants is a theme in their coming of age narratives in which they implicitly present themselves as young, upcoming rugby players establishing themselves in the world. while the creation of imaginary worlds in art is universal, these worlds are ultimately shaped by personal circumstances and preferences in culture-specific settings. the interviews uncovered a range of connotative or situational musical meanings that are linked to social experiences. these meanings are elicited ‘when music originally heard as part of a significant experience causes one to recall later the feelings accompanying the original experience’ (kaemmer 1993:118; also see boutcher & trenske 1990:174; denora 2000:66). rouget (1985) discusses the role of music in trance behaviour and finds that its efficacy in inducing trance primarily derives from its iconic function – in other words, not so much from its inherent musical qualities as its sonic embodiment of a spiritual entity, social experience or network. he cites philosopher jean-jacques rousseau who described the emotional trance that the famous cattle herding song ranz des vaches invoked in swiss troops because it recalled ‘their country, their former pleasures, their youth, and their whole manner of living, exciting in them a bitter sorrow for having lost all that’ (rouget 1985:168). francois remarked in this regard that: ‘look, if i have a bad day, then i will put on, like, happy music. like, i listen to afrikaans – bok van blerk, for example. he plays good music, so i put it on to feel better.’ van blerk is an icon of certain forms of afrikaner identity. he is a composer, singer and film actor who expresses the experiences and emotions of a large sector of young people who are struggling to position themselves within a turbulently changing socio-political landscape. as we explain in the ‘controlled energy’ section, well-known performers of other styles of popular music have similar iconic status for certain participants. the connotative meanings of music to participants also recall patterns of socialisation. jason noted that: ‘if you listen to a certain song, it actually reminds you of the year that song (was produced) and you listened to it, and you were on vacation somewhere with friends, and it just brings memories back.’ this experience was also identified by other participants, and it even extends to sport participation, since specific songs were linked with memories of rugby games. jason explained that, ‘in a rugby game or something – you think back to that game where you may be played well or you tackled someone hard or something like that’. to barend, ‘it brings back memories of happy times, of how you played (rugby) with your friends from school, and so on’. the explanation of the first two themes underscores that, in order to clarify the reasons why participants listen to music as part of their pre-match routines, it is necessary to account for the general value of music in their lives. to them, musical experiences are an element of existence which generate states of mind that unravel and plan life. these experiences help to induce well-being (in the basic form of optimism and happiness), often by invoking meanings linked with enjoyable social experiences. focus the themes of focus and controlled energy reveal an awareness among players of the importance of a holistic approach to match planning. eben remarked that preparation is both physical and mental, and that listening to music is therefore ‘a necessity’ for him. for jacobus, music listening similarly is a conscious, personal strategy – ‘the way in which i want to prepare myself for a game’. focus essentially involves ‘getting into the zone’. this refers to focused or ‘narrowed’ attention which may improve muscle control and reduce feelings of anxiety (karageorghis, terry & lane 1999:721; williams et al. 2011:2). ruan explained that, ‘for me, it’s not like i must listen to music to get into the zone, but it does definitely help’. jean remarked that the well-known song conquest of paradise helps him to focus before a game. the song came to his attention because it is often played at international and local rugby and cricket matches7: ‘i used to have problems focusing and switching on before a game, and this song gets me into a state where i just focus on the game and my job in the game, without letting anything distract me.’ (jean) focus is generally achieved by means of auditory detachment from extraneous noise. ruan explained that listening to music using headphones can block out ambient sound: ‘you don’t hear, like, the noise of the bus [transporting the team] or noise from other people. it cuts you off. like, if i want to concentrate, say now before the game, then [i become] very isolated from the rest of the world, from all the people around me.’ players seek a sense of isolation and may listen to music at some distance from the rest of team. danie noted that that he goes ‘to one side and sits alone’. this strategy helps to suppress negative thoughts and emotions. all players similarly strive to avoid distraction prior to a game. jason remarked emphatically that it is necessary to put ‘everything that does not concern the game out of your head’ and that, ‘as soon as you put on the music, you will get more focus’. ruan explained likewise that it is important not to allow ‘other things’ to ‘bother’ him. in fact, 80% of the participants stated unequivocally that the focus generated by listening to music helps them to drive thoughts not related to the match from their mind. for jason, listening facilitates the development of ‘tunnel vision’ – the capacity to focus on the game ahead and ignore unwanted mental interference. jean, who used to struggle to concentrate before a game, discovered that music listening enables him to ‘switch on’, that is, to stop his attention from drifting: ‘usually when i listen to (a) song, my mind doesn’t wander to things that don’t matter at the moment. i only think about the game – nothing can distract me’. while focusing by means of music applies generally to pre-match routines, it specifically also enables the visualisation of a game. such mental imaging is employed by 70% of the players who indicated that focusing prepares them for their specific roles and responsibilities. danie envisions what he is going to do on the field, while jacobus already imagines himself playing the game. andré noted that: ‘since every position has its own specific job on the rugby field, so you listen to music and then you think only about what you must do. you go through the type of movements that you must do – through the different names of movements – just to make sure you have [internalised] everything’. controlled energy controlled energy, from the perspective of participants, refers to the capacity of music listening for affect regulation – to control contrasting yet interdependent states, namely a sense of motivation or increased energy, as well as composure. this requirement not only applies to competition but also practices. danie explained that: ‘if you really don’t feel like going to practice, and then you listen to music, or you listen to a certain song, then it will just kind of psyche you up to go.’ a particularly fitting description of the link between feelings of restlessness and the energising effect of certain songs was offered by jacobus who remarked that at times ‘something is chasing me, (so) that i now must listen (to music), so that i must go and do something’ (i.e. play rugby). similarly, as soon as thabo gets into the cloakroom, he listens ‘to that music that pumps, that, like, motivates me’. andré enjoys selecting music that ‘works’ him up before a game – that gets his ‘adrenaline levels up’. francois also finds that music ‘builds’ him prior to a game: ‘it also maybe gives me that bit of adrenaline as well. i am crazy about it!’ for eben, ‘psyched-up music’ is what motivates him. generating a state of motivation obviously is a primary objective of pre-game preparation, and jean described it as ‘a feeling that i am ready to go on the field and do my job the best i can’. conversely, reflecting on the possibility of not being able to listen to music before a game, participants argued that this would result in decreased focus and energy. this was verbalised most clearly by danie who explained that ‘it’s a mental thing. i think you won’t be mentally as prepared as you usually are with music’. this feeling of incomplete preparation would take away his resoluteness and eagerness to play: ‘you won’t have that urgency in you that makes you want to play – that hunger to play’. a variety of musical styles play a decisive role in achieving a motivated, energised state of mind. players not only identified their preference for specific songs but also pointed out the effect of lyrics as well as sound patterns. song styles exploited for their musical rather than verbal content include club and trance music – pulsating, electronic dance music. when ruan needs ‘a bit more energy’, he will listen to club music. danie in turn explained that he listens to certain songs prior to a game because they ‘psyche’ him up and provide him with ‘extra energy’. for example, the song russian privjet by basshunter is ‘a very trancy song that, just if you listen to it, it just, it calms you down, but at the same time it just makes you focus and motivates you’.8 songs selected primarily for their lyrics were described by jason as ‘motivational’, as they may transmit valuable knowledge and instruct him: ‘just play good music that will teach you’. while certain lyrics energise eben, he noted that their ‘passion’ is what ‘drives’ him, and that it is important to him that they should portray triumph: ‘any song with a beat, or strong lyrics that can relate to any kind of victory’. songs that induce this condition in him include rapper r. kelly’s world’s greatest, which compares the artist’s expressive skills with the power of natural forces. not surprisingly, rap songs are especially utilised for their lyrics, although their rhythmic form of delivery is also considered important. eben explains that the song 8 mile by eminem deals with ‘someone who is with his back against the wall and must prove the world wrong. that he only has success as option, and the struggles (mentioned in the song) could refer to hard work […] where all the strenuous (rugby) practices are a struggle, but well worth the effort.’ this theme also characterises another rap song, namely remember the name (fort minor). according to jason, the lyrics of this song ‘come alive’ in him. they portray a core image in rap culture, namely that of the budding artist (often from the underclass) rising in the world against many odds. this is also an expression of the coming of age experience. it is a core concern in human narrative, and it describes the young undergoing physical, cognitive and emotional development in preparation for their expected adult roles (booker 2004). remember the name and 8-mile accordingly offer images of personal struggle and growth, and express the desire for success and recognition (hence the title remember the name). coming of age experiences in narrative engage the protagonist in a diversity of social interactions, one of which involves romantic relations (booker 2004). the love song time to say goodbye, as performed by sarah brightman, is one of jason’s favourites. he explains that he likes it because ‘it’s the way she sings, and the way the lyrics are, and the music; just everything – it just works together’. it is not improbable that this comment verbalises the subconsciously generated image of the heroine – of the popular, beautiful female singer who is idealised as an object of desire. although the concept of libido commonly is associated with sexual desire, ‘it can also be desexualized and viewed as an undifferentiated energy that is at the basis of such mental processes as thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition’ (http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/libido). the songs remember the name and 8 mile resound with images of bursting energy, and it is worth recalling jacobus’s reference to feelings of restlessness that drive him to music listening and rugby playing. put differently, the need for love and the impulse for personal development and self-assertion (in this case, as an athlete) originate from the same well-spring. denora (2000:62, 63, 70) notes in this regard that music is ‘a device or resource to which people turn in order to regulate themselves as aesthetic agents, as feeling, thinking and acting beings in their day-to-day lives’. it may help them to recognise and construe their true selves. musical experiences allow the individual to achieve self-growth and gain knowledge. this has a bearing on self-esteem (elliott & silverman 2014:382), and self-esteem that is in place – along with issues of control, competency and achievement – is a cornerstone of well-being (laukka 2007:217). while a condition of increased energy is obviously important in sport, it may also be counterproductive. jason explained that: ‘if you are [too] psyched up at the beginning of the game, you tend to make errors. whereas at the beginning of the game you should actually be more focused and relaxed so that you can get confidence in yourself throughout the game and then build yourself up.’ andré also pointed out that a player ‘must never be (too) worked up, because then you do stupid things on the field’. therefore, while there is general agreement on the importance of enhanced emotional energy prior to a game, this condition must be tempered; in other words, the ideal mental and physical state of the athlete is that of controlled energy. ninety percent of the participants indicated accordingly that music also has a calming effect on them. this is an affirmation of the primordial capacity of music to arouse as well as tranquilise. musical performance involved in trance behaviour is well-known to promote as well as terminate states of heightened emotion (rouget 1985:73). danie’s experience is that music helps him relax before an encounter: ‘you’re a little bit nervous, and maybe the music helps to, like, calm you down’. composure prepares jean for a game by ‘chilling’ him. jason prefers ‘classical’ music to calm him down: ‘for instance a song like time to say goodbye (performed by) sarah brightman – that’s one of my favourite songs actually. listening to that song just makes me calm down’. danie’s experience of the song russian privjet as inducing arousal as well as calmness seems unusual since there is a tendency among players to avoid energetic club music when they want to achieve a condition of composure. nevertheless, the function of one particular song to create a state of controlled energy is also attributed by jean to conquest of paradise. apart from its energising effect, the song also invokes ‘a certain type of calmness’: ‘a feeling that i am ready to go on the field and do my job the best i can, feeling ready and switched on. when i don’t listen to music, i feel like my mind is elsewhere and i am not in control of my ability to focus on what matters.’ (danie) conclusion the purpose of this report has been to clarify the practice of music listening prior to rugby games. its main finding is that it is an informal, individual activity that involves the use of earphones. this technology is of essential importance, as it enables a required state of isolation which effects ‘zoning’ or focusing. it generates increased energy yet simultaneously induces composure, leading to a state of balanced or controlled energy. it also promotes visualisation of the roles players are required to perform on the field. these functions of music listening currently are an important psychological resource that is exploited only informally by rugby players. our recommendation is for the incorporation and development of music listening routines in official training programmes. the investigation links the uses of music listening with musical experience as an innate human capacity directed towards general well-being. returning to plato’s perceptive observations, it is necessary to underscore his notion that a ‘harmoniously adjusted’ mind and body will ‘produce a character that is self-controlled and brave’ (plato 1987:175). the basic condition of happiness that music listening generates in participants draws on the inherent, emotive power of musical sound patterns as well as the powerful, socially situated meanings of song lyrics. these qualities and meanings appear to function as sociobiological triggers in the powerful, impulsive drive towards personal self-assertion in social settings. there is a link between popular (musical) culture and the competitive strategies of the young rugby players. their stories offer images of young men rising in the world as competent social actors. they specifically present the rugby player as young folk hero, in accordance with the status of the icons of popular music performance. this merger of identities undermines stereotypical notions of the athlete and artist. the mental state of the rugby player often is reduced to that of simple aggression. in fact, participants in this study have been shown to express a range of emotions, mental states and reflective conditions that link with musical expression. it seems that rugby balls and popular songs do go together, and that their attached identity forms 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indirect measures of affective states induced by music and autobiographical memories’, psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts 6(3), 204–213. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026937 williams, b., gluck, d., thompson, b. & simon, p., 2011, rhythms of the game: the link between musical and athletic performance, hal leonard, milwaukee, wi. footnotes 1. function ‘essentially refers to a person’s reaction to a musical event as it is experienced or remembered; use is the way meanings are incorporated into planning and realising a musical event’ (kaemmer 1993:142). 2. linked with homo narrans (the storytelling human; see e.g. niles 2010) and homo symbolicus (the symbolic human; deacon 1998), homo musicus is characterised by an innate capacity to exploit musical experiences for adaptive purposes. 3. this was, for example, the case prior to the rugby world cup final (2015) at twickenham, london, when members of the australian team were shown on television stepping down from their bus, listening to music through earphones. 4. the institute was founded in 2000. it promotes rugby on the potchefstroom campus and trains players and officials for professional careers (http://www.nwu.ac.za/rugbyinstitute). 5. their identities are protected by means of pseudonyms. 6. the interviews took place at potchefstroom from february to april 2014. some participants also corresponded by e-mail during november and december 2012, as well as november 2015. 7. jean was not aware that the song (by the greek composer vangelis) features in the eponymous film by ridley scott (1992), and that it conjures up heroic images of vision, perseverance, exploration, conquest and conflict. the lyrics are in so-called pseudo-latin and, apart from a brief reference to domination, do not contribute as strongly to the emotional effect of the song as its musical features and associated film images (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/conquest_of_paradise_(song)) 8. the song is primarily instrumental. it is characterised by repetitive, strongly pulsating, electronically produced rhythmic patterns. microsoft word 15 thram.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 208-220. understanding music’s therapeutic efficacy: implications for music education d thram1 abstract in the current era of electronic domination of human experience, be it via cell phone and/or computer addiction, or the ubiquitous television, actual participation in musicmaking is less and less common for the average person, child or adult. passive participation through listening is most often cited by people as their major experience with music in their lives. when asked if listening has therapeutic effects, it is rare for anyone to respond in the negative. likewise, for performers/active participants in musicmaking, be it solitary or as part of a group, invariably an enhanced sense of well-being from the act of making music is reported. this paper addresses therapeutic aspects of musical participation (singing, clapping, playing an instrument, dancing, listening) by providing a historical overview (12thc to present) of attitudes toward music’s therapeutic effects. it argues that music exists through the interaction of our biological capacity to make music with our cultural circumstances. how individuals benefit in all aspects their being – physical, mental and emotional – from engaging in the act of making music is illustrated with examples from field research in southern africa. finally implications for music education are explored which emphasize how more comprehensive integration of music into the curriculum can serve as an antidote to the increasing isolation and alienation of modern life. keywords. musical participation, well-being, biological and cultural interaction, music education 1. introduction in this paper2 i suggest that music’s efficacy for teaching and learning lies not only in the pedagogy of how to create music (e.g. how to play a given instrument, how to compose, how to read notation, etc.), or in the many tangential benefits that are inherent in making music (e.g. promotion of mental concentration, non-verbal communication, creative expression, 1 diane thram is associate professor and director of the international library of african music (ilam), a heritage archive and research institute at rhodes university. she has published numerous articles and book chapters from her research on the therapeutic dimension of music making in indigenous religion in southern africa. she edits ilam's accredited academic journal, african music and directs ilam research and repatriation initiatives. (d.thram@ru.ac.za) 2 a more extensive version of this paper was published as a chapter of the same title in bowman, w. and frega, a.l. (eds.). the oxford handbook of philosophy in music education. new york: oxford university press. p.192-209 (2012).. understanding music’s therapeutic efficacy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 208-220. 209 ability to memorize, etc.), or in learning to listen to music in depth, or in learning about the music of the various cultures of the world. i suggest that music’s efficacy for teaching and learning also lies in the ways in which music is therapeutic. in the current era of globally mediated electronic domination of human experience in general, and experience of music in particular, be it via cell phone with music downloads, mp3 player, computer internet addiction, cds/dvds, or mtv, actual group participation in musicmaking is less and less common for the average person, child or adult. participation by listening is cited by the majority of students in my world music classes as their major experience with music in their lives. when asked if listening has therapeutic effects, it is rare for anyone to respond in the negative. likewise and importantly, musicians/performers, be it by singing, dancing or playing an instrument, invariably report an enhanced sense of wellbeing as a result of their participation in music making. publications from field research by various ethnomusicologists and anthropologists3 speak to the unique, positive, therapeutic power of group participation in making music evidenced in indigenous cultures in which group participation carries as great or greater value than individual expertise or virtuosic musicianship. in these cultures music making is part of an everyday life in which music’s therapeutic potential is routinely activated through group participation. questioning of the western ideal of individual excellence in performance of music, engendered by the model of prize-awarding competitions and comprehensive standards for achievement found in music curriculums in most educational institutions, is gaining currency. this may be due to increased awareness that the western model excludes too many students from participation in music making and thereby from the benefit of its positive side-effects. my philosophy of music education advocates equal opportunity for group participation in music making be provided as part of the music curriculum, and further that teachers and policy makers ensure that no students be excluded from group music making activities because they are not performing at a prescribed level of competence. this is not to negate competence based activities such as school orchestras, bands and choirs, but it is to advocate the provision of group music making activities for all students because of the way they promote social bonding, break down alienation, provide a creative outlet for students, and provide opportunities for formation of positive group identity. in the brief overview that follows, music’s therapeutic effects are examined in light of historical research/historiography on attitudes toward music and its therapeutic powers from the 12th-18th centuries, as exemplified in the work of two remarkable early european musician/composer/philosophers, hildegard von bingen (1098-1179) and marcilio ficino (1433-1499). following penelope gouk’s finding (2004: 104) of a historical shift in attitude toward music’s therapeutic power during the 15th to 18th centuries, from the medieval, premodern, magical world view’s ‘nature is musical’, to the early modern (with the advent of newtonian physics), rational world view’s ‘music is natural’, i add consideration of the shift to the modern/post-modern ‘music is cultural’ paradigm. evidence from my field research of how group participation in music making serves to enhance music’s power in ritual events and also serves to heal social ills and promote social cohesion is introduced as illustrative of the ‘ethic of group participation’ (cf turino 2000, 2008) found in many indigenous cultures. 3 for contextualized studies of music’s therapeutic dimension, music and healing, and benefits of group participation in music making see barz, 2006; berliner, 1978; feld and keil 1994; friedson 1996; koen, ed. 2008; roseman 1991; thram 1999; turino 1993, 2000, 2008; and anthropologists biesele 1993; janzen, 1992; kapferer, 1986 to mention a few. thram 210 2. music’s therapeutic efficacy without foregrounding the long-standing nature-nurture debate over music’s origin, i argue that music’s therapeutic efficacy is found in its power to effect change in how human beings feel and that this power is located – regardless of particular cultural context or particular historical era – in the biological foundation of music’s therapeutic efficacy in human sensory and neurological capabilities. for this reason, i recommend that music educators embrace music’s therapeutic dimension. i contend that the power of musical participation to positively transform how people feel is one of the most salient reasons for music making to be part of every student’s school experience. i have chosen to address the nature is musical worldview through two major historical figures whose work left a wealth of insight into the earliest recorded attitudes of the medieval and early modern eras. beginning with the medieval benedictine abbess, author, composer, and visionary, hildegard of bingen (1098-1179), then moving to the florentine priest, theologian, astrologer, physician, musician and writer, marsilio ficino (1433-1499), whose revival of platonic thought made him one of the most influential scholars of the renaissance (voss 2001: 154), and ending with reference to contemporary writing on music’s place in human evolution and the role of group participation in the emergence of culture, i will elucidate some highlights of the historical trajectory of attitudes toward music’s therapeutic efficacy and suggest their potential significance for music education in the 21st century. 3. hildegard of bingen hildegard of bingen’s holistic world view is evident in her attitude toward music and its place in the cosmos and provides empirical evidence of the ‘nature is musical’ paradigm. in conformity with the early medieval music theory of boethius’s de musica and its concept of “cosmic harmony” (musica mundana), hildegard believed each element (fire, water, air, earth) retained a distinctive “pristine sound that it had at the time of creation” (schipperges 1997: 27). she thought that mankind and the cosmos were joined in a unique musical harmony which is able to bring everyone’s “hearts into consonance” as well as provide guidance for a healthy life and a foundation for “an effective system of healing and therapy” (19). to this end, she composed a cycle of over seventy songs (preserved using neume notation) that she named symphony of the harmony of celestial revelations. hildegard’s antiphons, sequences, responsories, and hymns are regarded by musicologists as a “self-contained work of art which might long ago have given rise to a theology of music” (20). her accounts of her visions on the relationship between god and humanity, the cosmos, and music’s place within it in her literary works, her sermons, and records of her meetings and copious correspondence with the religious and political leaders of her time, including pope alexander iii and emperor frederick i, were preserved by her scribe, the monk volmar (20-22) and provide an authoritative source on social and political life in 12th century europe. her treatises on natural history and the healing arts entitled causes and cures, and physica, written between 1150 and 1160 ce, display her deep understanding and empathy with the interconnectedness of all things in nature and her penetrating insight into realities of daily life including health and disease (63). she saw music as “a kind of regulator, a therapeutic agent of the first order”, and as “an especially important factor in directing a person’s inner life.” her belief was that, in earthly existence, oneness with the primal harmonies, the ‘harmony of understanding music’s therapeutic efficacy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 208-220. 211 the spheres’, had been broken, but every song served to remind its singers of the nature of the celestial harmonies and that – through their human capacity to make music – they were once in harmony with all of creation (86). for hildegard, harmony was achieved through music, and music like all art was divinely inspired. the nuns in her abbey were described, in contemporary reports of their performances, as standing in the choir with their hair flowing over their shoulders wearing white silk veils and golden wreathes or crowns and rings on their fingers – singing hildegard’s symphony of songs, with up-lifting lyrics and instrumental accompaniment on the finest instruments (20-1). that hildegard was charismatic, powerful, and highly respected in a time when the realms of religion and politics were dominated by men is well documented. she made her contribution as a composer and performer of music tangible for posterity through descriptions of her techniques according to her “laws of numbers and sound, melody and rhythm” (27). her advocacy of the use of music as a ‘therapeutic agent’ to create harmony in one’s personal life remains cogent ten centuries after her death, and points to the timelessness of the core realities of human experience. 4. marcilio ficino by the 15th century the prevailing worldview – although considered to be highly articulated and rational – remained magical in that scholars were preoccupied with trying to understand the universe in terms of unseen forces whose effects on people music had the power to regulate (horden 2000: 148-49). marsilio ficino (1433-1499), architect of the scientific practice of ‘natural magic’, tried to discover and recover the powers of music described by the philosophers of antiquity. he spawned the revival of platonic philosophy by translating and editing ancient texts in his search for the secrets to music’s therapeutic potential. intellectually his goal was to integrate platonism and christianity, and in practice “his holistic approach to healing revealed a new way of understanding and participating in the world …based on his reading of hermetic, neo-platonic and arabic texts combined with his medical, astrological and musical skills” (voss 2000: 154). viewing the human soul as the force that joined mind and body, he sought to bring it into harmony with the ‘soul of the world’, the force that joined heaven and earth. from his experience as a musician who accompanied himself on lyre as he sang the hymns of orpheus (which he knew intimately having translated them from greek into latin), ficino was convinced that the most powerful way to accomplish this unity or balance in life was through “the careful preparation and performance of music” (ibid.). during the early modern era following the reformation, which lasted more than a century after its instigation by luther in 1517, protestants and catholics alike were searching for the proper way for humans to approach the divine, and the role of music in worship and in life in general was an issue of great importance. it was generally known and believed that in ancient civilization music had great power over human morals and behavior. what was the source of this power? how could it be restored? ficino’s publications held great appeal because they dealt directly with this subject matter and tried to answer just those questions. in addition, they were considered scientific because they were informed by the ideas of proportion in nature espoused by pythagoras, the mathematical principles of vibration explained in ptolemy’s harmonics (in the 2nd century a.d.), and plotinus’s enneads (written in the 3rd thram 212 century a.d.), a neo-platonic text not known in the middle ages that he edited in 1492 (gouk 2004: 93-4, 100-02). ficino’s influence was at its height in the late sixteenth century when his di vita libri tres (three books on life), an authoritative health manual he had published a century earlier in 1489, was consulted widely because it contained “practical techniques for creating songs that will draw down beneficial planetary emanations”, thus giving specific ways for musical sound to serve as the mediator to create harmony between mankind and the divine – between earthly and heavenly domains (gouk 2004: 93, 101). di vita provided the basis for the ways europeans with the benefit of education viewed music’s effects on the mind, body, and soul well into the seventeenth century (schiesari 1992 in gouk 2004: 93). in 1462, not quite four decades after the invention of the printing press, and twenty seven years before he published his three books on life, ficino published his translations of various ancient writings thought to be authored by hermes and plato, plus his edition of the hymns of orpheus (walker 1972 in gouk 2004: 100-01). ficino’s aim was to re-capture the healing effects these magi were thought to have achieved through singing and incantation, such as curing of diseases of the soul and body, removing evil desires, and bringing the soul “into a state of virtuous harmony” (gouk 2004: 100). like hildegard, ficino sought, through music, to return humans to their original, pristine condition, when they were in harmony with the whole of creation. he found what he believed to be the source of music’s power in plato’s timaeus, where a creation myth is recorded that demonstrates “the musical principle of proportionality underlying the whole cosmos.” in the myth cosmic mind and matter are divided into the ratios of 2:1, 3:2, and 4:3. these ratios “produce the perfect intervals of octave, fourth and fifth, which were understood to represent in sound the very structure and fabric of creation” (voss 2000: 157). one wonders if hildegard’s “laws of numbers and sound, melody and rhythm” mentioned earlier were based on knowledge of these ratios. clearly, for both her and ficino, music held the key to bringing one’s self into harmony with the universe; and this balance, realized in the inherent structure of pitched sound that every human has the capacity to create, was positive proof that ‘nature is musical’. in what follows i attempt to show why ficino’s understanding of how music works in our bodies to produce positive effects is important as a precursor to the shift from the ‘nature is musical’ to the ‘music is natural’ paradigm, and why it is relevant to a question that begs an answer; the question, what is it that gives music its therapeutic power? ficino lived in a time prior to understanding of the physiology of the human nervous system, a time when the human body was believed to be a microcosm of the forces of the cosmos, a time in which the neo-platonists argued that “the heavenly bodies exert their influence on the earth (and vice versa) according to two principles, both of which are connected to the physical and mathematical properties of music” (gouk 2004: 102). the first principle, the pneuma is the world soul, “an extremely fine medium that permeates the cosmos, intermingles with earthly matter, and can bring about changes in its form” due to the tonos (tension) that gives it its dynamic quality. the way the world soul moves through earthly matter was thought to be through sympathetic vibration, just as the remaining strings of the lyre vibrate sympathetically with the string that is plucked, if tuned to the same pitch. the second principle, also deriving from the concept of vibration (as explained in ptolemy’s harmonics) contends that “the same harmonic proportions govern planetary relationships understanding music’s therapeutic efficacy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 208-220. 213 (musica mundana), the relationship between body, spirit, and soul (musica humana), and musical sound (musica instrumentalis)” (ibid.) ficino viewed music as animated, as having a life of its own. in his commentary on plato’s timaeus he says, “musical sound, more than anything else perceived by the senses, conveys, as if animated, the emotions and thoughts of the singer’s or player’s soul to the listener’s souls” (ficino, opera, vol. 1, p. 1417 in voss 2000: 164). furthermore, integrating astrology into his prescriptions for what music was most suitable for any given person, he asserted “attention must be paid to the particular energies to which he is susceptible – that is to his dominant planets at birth whose qualities the soul indelibly imprints on his spiritus, the medium through which musical sound can reach ‘the inmost recesses of the mind’” (voss 2000: 165). gouk interprets ficino’s concept of the human spiritus thus: “the spiritus, in other words is a corporeal vapor that acts as the link between the body and the incorporeal soul and serves as the instrument for sense perception, imagination, and motor activity” (2004: 102 emph. mine). from the foregoing, it is clear that ficino understood music’s therapeutic efficacy to be located in the body’s capability to hear (sense perception) and its ability to transmit what it hears to affect all potentials of human experience – physical (motor activity), mental (imagination) and emotional (incorporeal soul). thus, ficino, writing in the 15th century, understood the biological foundation of music’s therapeutic efficacy in human sensory and neurological capabilities. from published accounts of ficino’s understanding of how music moves through the body, it appears that his concept of human spiritus corresponds to what we now know as the human nervous system, since he realized transmission of sound required reception through the ear, where the auditory nerve carries sound directly to the brain and throughout the body. however, because the physiology of the ear and the nervous system were not known or understood until several centuries later, his concepts and terminology seem strange to twentyfirst century readers and require interpretation by historians familiar with the pre-modern era. ficino’s prescriptions of certain types of music for certain complaints, most notably melancholia, were highly regarded by educated europeans for three centuries beyond their publication. his work was also a precursor of the medical model in which prescriptions are given by an individual practitioner to the individual patient for specific complaints. gouk contends, “... marsilio fucino was the first ... western medical theorist who actually went beyond literary platitudes in his attempt to recreate an ancient spiritual medicine … the music-spirit theory expounded in his three books on life was taken up enthusiastically by court poets and composers in the later 16th century, but seems to have been ignored by most academic physicians of the time.” it wasn’t until the mid-18th century that medical works devoted to the effects of music and its potential benefits for mental health began to be published (gouk 2000a: 9). 5. music is natural it was the scientific revolution of the ‘enlightenment’ (17-18th centuries) that brought with it understanding of the human body according to the mechanistic model, which no longer allowed for invisible, intangible forces that could not be proven by accepted scientific methods. the existence of the soul, if allowed at all, was relegated to the realm of religion and no longer considered part of the human biological construct since its existence could not be scientifically proven. thus the paradigm shift from the magical world view’s ‘nature is thram 214 musical’ to the rational world view that ‘music is natural’ i.e. a capacity available to all humans because of their biological make-up, took place during the early modern era for those with the benefit of formal education and the ability to read what was being published at the time. another shift that deserves mention began in the 18th century with industrialization and urbanization and has continued through the 19th and 20th centuries up to the present. with the change from largely agrarian to largely urban, cosmopolitan, secularized life styles came the emergence of the elite model of rehearsed, staged performance with virtuosic performers viewed by spectators and a decrease in music events such as seasonal rituals and festivals in which everyone participated by singing and dancing.4 audience participation in staged events was confined to attentive listening, applause, and shouting either approval or disapproval of the performance. the point here is that – with the emergence of staged performance with spectators – everyone no longer danced the dance. the practice of ritual events in which everyone participated evolved into staged performances by trained experts with an audience of observers who merely watched and listened. music events with participants separated by the stage into performers and spectators became the norm during the early-modern era which also saw the emergence of another paradigm in regard to how music is understood, at least partially brought about by the emergence of two disciplines: ethnomusicology and anthropology. 6. music is cultural the practice of extended field research in non-western cultures and subsequent analysis of data gathered by researchers living in the cultural context being studied led to the understanding that music’s meaning is not universal, but rather is relative to the culture that gave rise to it. the ‘music is culture’ / ‘music as culture’ paradigm articulated by alan merriam in the anthropology of music (1964) became what might be considered the mantra of ethnomusicology. with it also came the realization that culture is not static, but rather constantly shaped and re-shaped through the interaction of tradition and creativity (cf biesele, 1993). with increased evidence that the expressive forms that constitute culture are highly elaborated throughout all cultures of the world came the realization that culture cannot be viewed on a continuum of simple to complex, as the evolutionary paradigm of the 19th century believed. by the mid-20th century scholars of culture put aside evolutionary thought as a framework for analysis of culture. the ‘music is natural’ (music is biological) paradigm, though over-shadowed by studies stressing musical meaning in specific cultural contexts, was not left behind. it was possibly more firmly established because of the influential work of ethnomusicologist, john blacking, and his seminal how musical is man?(1973) and numerous other articles in which he argues for the biological basis of our ability to make music (cf byron, ed. 1995). the co-existence of the two paradigms, ‘music is natural’ and ‘music is cultural’ is very succinctly stated by ian cross (2001: 40) when he says, “…while music may be in our biologies, our culture is in our music.” 4 cf thram, 1999: 236-45 for an analysis of the transition from ritual to art and the emergence of staged performance with an audience of spectators. the analysis of the transition from ritual to art is not intended to discount or disregard the formal concert or staged music events in general as a bona fide way to experience music and feel better as a result. understanding music’s therapeutic efficacy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 208-220. 215 thus what emerged was co-existence of the ‘music is natural’ and ‘music is cultural’ paradigms. debate over how to understand music continues, with considerable attention given to the source/origin of our capacity to make music. cross (2001, 2003) reviews current thought on music’s place in human evolution and observes that earlier evolutionary thought which believed that human behavior is determined by our genetic make-up has been replaced with the a more inclusive view which “interprets mature adult behaviors as shaped by both biology and culture” (2003: 24). pertinent to our discussion of co-existence of the ‘music is natural’ and ‘music is cultural’ paradigms is his assertion, “..given that our cultural lives are mainly evidenced in material behaviors and their traces, a clean dissociation between culture and biology – or between music and evolution – is unfeasible” (20). he goes on to argue that, although the cultures of the world produce many diverse forms of music, they cannot be reduced or knowable solely in terms of evolution, and certainly not in terms of adult musical behavior that is judged in evolutionary terms, since adult musical behavior is clearly conditioned by the culture one is born into and whatever other cultures one has contact with during the years of maturing (21). however, he demonstrates that the relationship between the various music(s) of the world and evolution is possible to understand and define if one looks to evidence from studies of infant behavior which indicate that infants possess proto-musical capabilities cross-culturally (25-27). he contends, “if evolution has shaped the human mind, it has most likely selected at the level of infant predispositions, and culture can be thought of as shaping into specific and distinct forms the expression of those predispositions” (25). the interaction of our biological capabilities with our cultural circumstances is inevitable and cannot be separated. music cannot be reduced to either one or the other, it is produced via interaction of both. furthermore, proto-musical capabilities in infants and children by their very nature lend themselves to social interaction that is cooperative and non-threatening, and since each child is able to have his/her own ‘take’ on the musical communication occurring – there is no one meaning. in addition, there is a joining together in the rhythm and movement as well as the pitched sounds taking place that produces a unique form of embodied communication that promotes shared experience of what cross calls ‘emotional body-states’(27). this propensity of music to promote social interaction and the bonding of people in group activity is why music is linked to the emergence of human culture (2001: 37-8; 2003: 27). the music of non-western, often indigenous cultures where group participation in music making is part of the fabric of social life provides convincing evidence of the therapeutic effects of making music together. such evidence, from my field research among the shona in zimbabwe, is presented to support my argument that providing opportunities for group participation in music making should be central to music education. throughout subsaharan africa, group participation in music making is a common element of the ritual practice of indigenous religions as well as performance process in secular events that feature music. the prevalence of group participation can be viewed as part of a larger cultural aesthetic that encourages everyone to participate in music-making regardless of specialized ability (turino 2000: 52-53). a familiar shona proverb, ‘if you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing’ aptly expresses the attitude behind the expectation that everyone participate. implicit in this ‘ethic of group participation’ is the expectation that everyone contributes with their individual energy to the energy being generated by the group, to create a greater force than one can achieve alone. equally common is the use of song and dance forms to heal and/or restore balance for entire communities as well as for disturbed thram 216 individuals. john blacking quotes the venda about the efficacy of their national dance, tshikona: “tshikona makes sick people feel better, and old men throw away their sticks and dance. tshikona brings peace to the countryside” (blacking 1973:51; cf friedson 1999). an example from shona culture lies in a didactic genre known as ngano, shona story-songs. ngano is a secular art form which has historically served the purpose of teaching societal values such as honesty and respect to the children. these folk tales serve as evening entertainment and relaxation for children and anyone else from the village wishing to participate. the children are expected to learn the stories and songs that comprise the ngano and perform them for their elders at these evening story-telling events. they learn ngano by listening, memorizing, and participating. in this way ngano are passed on from one generation to the next. the sarungano (storyteller) is most often the grandmother. ngano are told at the storyteller's house with all the village children as well as adults and visitors from other villages welcome. (fortune1982: 10) the sarungano's skill is developed from childhood throughout life and requires learning many stories and their accompanying songs. ngano are the domain of the common people. there is not a specialized class of storytellers among the shona, as in some other african societies. the sarungano has a good deal of freedom in how she or he builds the episodes of the stories. although the basic content of the tales is consistent, it is unlikely that any two versions of a tale are exactly the same. (fortune1974:ix-x) ngano combine two art forms: story-telling and song. the musical and narrative elements will not stand alone, a ngano is not complete without both the story and the song. importantly, the song provides the vehicle for audience participation. it provides the connecting, transitional material between episodes, adds drama to the stories, heightens the emotional response from the audience, and always contains reference to the imagery and/or metaphorical elements in the stories (mkanganwi in fortune1980: i-ii). the song is introduced by the storyteller at the end of the first episode. the sarungano will sing a line and the audience will sing a line in response, back and forth, until the song is completed, in call and response form. the song provides a concise, but elliptical or allusive summary of the story, with its content being taken from the thematic material of the story. (fortune1980: i) the performance process of ngano is similar to that in many performance events, secular and sacred, that feature call and response singing. what is distinctive is the requirement that the children not only listen, but listen attentively enough to learn both the narrative and the song and be capable of getting up and performing it themselves. the inclusiveness of this practice, the way it bridges the generations from grandparents to young children, the way all the children are expected to perform promotes cohesiveness and mutual respect. children earn the respect of their elders and peers by performing well and at the same time from a very early age they become accustomed to performing before a group. this builds self-confidence from an early age and breaks down the stage fright syndrome. the cultural aesthetic embodied in ngano is the same as that found in dandanda and the many other forms of traditional dance among the shona. it is the ‘ethic of group participation’ which carries with it the expectation that everyone contribute their individual energy to the group energy being generated. ngano serve as an example of how music is valued among the shona as a vehicle to communicate societal values to the children. this tradition illustrates the many levels in which music functions to promote well-being and societal cohesion. understanding music’s therapeutic efficacy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 208-220. 217 my research on dandanda song and dance5 among the shona documents the ‘ethic of group participation’ – the combining of individual energy to create a larger force, like that of tshikona, able to make sick people feel better and bring peace to the countryside. the shona do not conceive of music as a thing outside themselves, but rather as a dynamic process, a force with communicative power. for those who sing and dance dandanda, the power or force generated through making music together – through group participation – achieves positive effects in multiple ways. it achieves contact with the ancestral spirits at all-night ceremonies where the spirits materialize through their mediums to counsel the people about their problems, be they community, familial, or personal. berliner (1978: 191) says, “active participation in the music is characteristic of the bira …, and reflects the communal nature of the music, in which highly talented or professional musicians can express themselves without restraint within the same context as beginners.” that the ‘force’ or energy created through group performance of dandanda has a positive effect on how the individual performer feels both physically and emotionally was revealed during my field research through participantobservation and by asking participants to describe their experience when they perform dandanda. certainly staying awake all night hardly seems, to a westerner such as myself, like a therapeutic thing to do. but much to my surprise, at the close of the first bira i ever attended (august 1993), pasencia chidzere told me that the headache she had when she came to the ceremony the night before was now gone. comments such as these led me to realize that group participation in performance of music has a therapeutic dimension that i needed to address (cf thram 1999). subsequent research in the eastern cape of south africa with xhosa healer-diviners (2000-2004) that documented ritual intlombe song-dance events for the ancestral spirits and healing services in the indigenized zion church that call on the holy spirit, served to reinforce my findings among the dandanda dancers regarding the therapeutic efficacy of group participation in music making (cf thram 2006). for xhosa healers, singing and dancing at intlombe and for zion church members dancing the circular dance of their purification ritual, the motivation for participation is the same: they participate for the sense of belonging afforded by being part of a group united for a common purpose and for the improvement in how they feel when they bond together to make music. the foregoing substantiates the biological basis of our ability to experience a therapeutic effect from music making and suggests that this capacity exists in our ability, through our nervous system and our sense of hearing, to bond to the rhythmic flow when making music. careful consideration of the process involved suggests that two phenomena occur when people make music together: first, the bonding of each participant’s physical energy to the rhythmic flow of the music being created; and second, losing oneself in the act of musical expression and thereby achieving a loss of self-consciousness – a shedding of the ego as the individual becomes one with the group (thram 1999: 301). i submit that the unique way that music making allows for “the simultaneous projecting and dissolving of the self in performance” (slobin 1993: 41) is in and of itself therapeutic. the performer simply feels better throughout his or her entire being because of the letting go and bonding to group energy that takes place. 5 dandanda is an indigenous form of ritual dance with its own song repertoire and distinctive drum (ngoma) and gourd rattle (hosho) style. it is performed by the zezuru, the largest sub-group of the shona, at all-night ceremonies for the ancestral spirits (biras) and at government sponsored events including the annual regional and national traditional dance competitions. thram 218 7. conclusion in this presentation an attempt was made to locate the therapeutic efficacy of group participation in music making in both our biological capacity to make music and the presence of group music activities cross-culturally, specific to all the various cultures of the world. evidence was presented of how and why ‘music is natural’ and basic to our biological capabilities and also how and why ‘music is cultural’ and gives rise to unique communicative possibilities that involve simultaneous embodied sharing of energy made possible through the ‘group experience of the one’ (kapferer 1983) musical participation affords. that group musical activities promote social cohesion, foster positive group identity, and enhance one’s sense of well-being was used as evidence for the need to maintain and promote them as part of every child’s school experience. i am not suggesting the competitive, competence-based model found throughout the western world and, due to the colonial imprint, throughout much of the non-western world as well, must be abandoned. but, my concern is for the many students who do not participate in the music curriculum beyond primary school, and therefore have few opportunities for group participation in music making beyond being spectators at pop concerts and perhaps singing and dancing with their friends at parties. i am even more concerned for the many others who confine themselves to solitary listening via i-pods and partake in little actual group socializing such as that afforded by making music together. the present-day popularity of drum workshops held for everyone from corporate employees to retirees to school children to patients in group therapy suggests a broader understanding of the power of group participation in music making to positively affect how people feel. the fact that group participation in making music by its very nature requires ‘keeping together in time’ (cf mcneill 1995) and serves as a potent form of communication makes it an easily accessible antidote to the isolation and sense of alienation that characterizes the experience of many in today’s world. i suggest that music educators are ideally positioned to engage their students in group musical activities that can serve to ameliorate this increasingly prevalent reality of modern life. references barz, gregory. 2006. singing for life: hiv/aids and music in uganda. new york and london: routledge. berliner, paul. 1978. soul of mbira. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. biesele, meagan. 1993. women like meat. bloomington: indiana university press. blacking, john. 1973. how musical is man? seattle and london: university of washington press. byron, reginald, ed. 1995. music culture and experience selected papers of john blacking. chicago and london: university of chicago press. cross, ian. 2001. “music, cognition, culture, and evolution.” in the biological foundations of music. r. j. zatorre and i. peretz, eds. new york, ny: the new york academy of sciences. 30-42. understanding music’s therapeutic efficacy td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 208-220. 219 ______. 2003. “music and biocultural evolution.” in the cultural study of music. m. clayton, r. herbert, and r. middleton, eds. london and new york: routledge. erlmann, veit. 2004. “but what of the ethnographic ear? anthropology, sound, and the senses.” in hearing cultures essays on sound, listening and modernity. v. erlmann, ed. oxford, new york: berg. feld, steven and charles keil. 1994. music grooves. chicago: university of chicago press. ficino, marsilio. 1989. three books on life. ed. and trans. carol kaske and john r. clark. binghamton: medieval and renaissance texts and studies. fortune, george. 1980. ed. ngano. salisbury, zimbabwe: mercury press. vol. 1. 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institute. ______. 1972. the ancient theology: studies in christian platonism from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. london: duckworth. abstract introduction the origins of transdisciplinarity the role of universities the nature of transdisciplinarity at selected universities in south africa research methodology results discussion recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references appendix 1 about the author(s) chene e. ward centre of transdisciplinary studies, university of fort hare, alice, south africa nomzamo dube centre of transdisciplinary studies, university of fort hare, alice, south africa siphamandla nyambo centre of transdisciplinary studies, university of fort hare, alice, south africa christopher t. chawatama centre of transdisciplinary studies, university of fort hare, alice, south africa citation ward, c.e., dube, n., nyambo, s. & chawatama, c.t., 2019, ‘a reflection on the role, potential and challenges of transdisciplinarity at the university of fort hare’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a648. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.648 research project registration: project number: dub002 (project) original research a reflection on the role, potential and challenges of transdisciplinarity at the university of fort hare chene e. ward, nomzamo dube, siphamandla nyambo, christopher t. chawatama received: 05 dec. 2018; accepted: 04 oct. 2019; published: 12 dec. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the world is currently grappling with a myriad of challenges such as unemployment, poverty, inequality, violent crimes and hiv and aids. these challenges exist on multiple levels and are viewed from different perspectives by scholars coming from diverse disciplines, hence they demand to be tackled using a transdisciplinary approach. as part of the university of fort hare’s radical reconstruction of its intellectual project, the centre for transdisciplinary studies (cts) was established to facilitate and promote a wider intellectual engagement and research amongst academics and students across different disciplines. this research thus seeks to reconceptualise cts’ objectives through exploring the academics’ understanding of transdisciplinarity, its role, transformative potential and challenges at the university of fort hare, south africa. the research was conducted through qualitative semi-structured interviews with the university’s academic staff members representing faculties of health, law, social sciences and humanities, management and commerce, science and agriculture, education and the teaching and learning centre. data were analysed by thematic data analysis. the findings of the study concluded that there was no consensus amongst academics on the definition of transdisciplinarity. academics defined it as either the merging or collaboration of disciplines. some used the term interchangeably with interdisciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity. the findings positioned the role of cts as that of raising transdisciplinary awareness and coordinating transdisciplinary activities across different disciplines in the university. the potential of transdisciplinarity includes collaborative research, teaching and learning and dialogue across the university. challenges of transdisciplinarity proved to be first understanding the concept itself, foundations of mono-disciplinarity which promote departmental isolations, disciplinary comfort zones, heterogeneity of the university and academics’ busy schedules. in spite of the challenges of transdisciplinarity, participants indicated a willingness to engage in transdisciplinary activities. keywords: transdisciplinarity; interdisciplinarity; multi-disciplinary; collaborative research; disciplines; universities. introduction as mentioned by garutsa and mahlangu (2014), the question of what transdisciplinarity entails is of pertinence in an era where there are dilemmas in an attempt to define the concept and understand its significance. as such, concepts such as transdisciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity and interdisciplinary are often misunderstood and mistakenly used interchangeably when they are in fact different (bunders, bunders & zweekhorst 2015; ramadier 2004). according to padurean and chevereasan (2010): … while multidisciplinarity studies a topic not in one but several disciplines at the same time, whereas interdisciplinarity is concerned with the links and the transfer of knowledge, methods, concepts and models from one discipline to another, transdisciplinarity, is concerned with what is between the disciplines, across the disciplines and beyond the disciplines, within the dynamics of the simultaneous action of several layers of reality. (p. 128) although interdisciplinarity harmonises knowledge from diverse disciplines into one comprehensible whole (choi & pak 2006), multi-disciplinarity uses knowledge from diverse disciplines but remains confined within one boundary. according to jones (2009), the advantage of interdisciplinarity is the enhancement of student understanding and communication skills, while the disadvantage is integration confusion and the time-consuming curriculum preparation. when it comes to multi-disciplinarity, naturejobs (2017) outlines its advantages as being able to combine the expertise of one’s field with other fields and create a varied team, which may lead to creative and impactful research resulting in innovative solutions. naturejobs (2017) further explained that multi-disciplinarity allows people to work on projects that involve more than one discipline. cuevas et al. (2012) indicated it to be a challenge to meet the constraints of different stakeholders with different agendas and conflicting data collection requirements which may hinder the project team’s ability to meet all their members’ different research objectives. transdisciplinary moves beyond interdisciplinary by engaging with production, use of knowledge and involving both academic and non-academic stakeholders in the process (chuenpagdee 2018). thus, the transdisciplinary approach surpasses interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches as it better addresses complex problems (back, greenhalgh-spencer & frias 2015). the origins of transdisciplinarity the beginning of transdisciplinarity can be traced to the 1970 conference held at the university of nice in france, sponsored by the organisation for economic cooperation and development and the french ministry of education (bernstein 2015; mcgregor 2015; nicolescu 2010). it was first discussed following an intense debate on government-supported science and the role of higher education institutions. jean piaget, a swiss psychologist has been credited for coining the term transdisciplinarity (lópez-huertas 2013; nicolescu 2010; padurean & chevereasan 2010). in his 1972 essay ‘the epistemology of interdisciplinary relationships’, piaget concluded that there is a connection between disciplines and there should be a systematic way in which different disciplines work together without boundaries (bernstein 2015). although the early transdisciplinary dialogue was focused on the theories of knowledge production and the function of universities in the 1970s, there was a paradigm shift in the 1990s where transdisciplinarity re-surfaced as a solution to complex global concerns stretching from climate change and sustainability to social problems such as poverty and hiv and/or aids. today transdisciplinarity focuses on providing solutions to the world’s ‘wicked problems’ (bernstein 2015). its popularity has been influenced by the escalation of complex social problems that proved difficult to be solved by mono-disciplinary, interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary approaches (lawrence 2010; mcgregor 2004, 2006). transdisciplinary philosophers such as nicolescu (2002) initially built on aristotle’s paradigm of rules of good thought, which articulates the duality of life where something is either black or white (mitchell & ross 2018). in this black or white duality, the grey area is unnoticed in making sense of the world. transdisciplinary prospects thus critique the dualistic perspective of viewing the world as it views disciplines as separate entities meant to operate in silos, and ignores the overlapping grey areas. thus, transdisciplinarity goes beyond dualism, it promotes interconnectivity of the world, hence including the grey space between the black or white dualism. transdisciplinarity fights separatism by finding links between previously singular disciplines (mitchell & ross 2018). although the concept of transdisciplinarity has seemingly changed over time, this study agrees with polk (2014) and cronin (2008) that in order to confront complex issues and societal problems such as climate change or health problems, there is a need to engage in transdisciplinarity to bridge the knowledge production gap and produce robust solutions through collaborative research and knowledge integration. the role of universities according to bernstein (2015), amongst other reasons, transdisciplinarity was initially meant to give direction to the future of universities in the 1970s. thus, as the biggest suppliers and channels of knowledge (brennenraedts, bekkers & verspagen 2006), universities are expected to play an important role of providing a platform to facilitate transdisciplinarity, which engages production, use of knowledge and involvement of non-academic stakeholders across different disciplines and communities to solve problems. nicolescu (2012) argues that the need for transdisciplinarity is necessary and realistic in order for universities to survive as it forces them to interact with different stakeholders. despite numerous calls for transdisciplinarity and transdisciplinary research (davids 2018; le grange 2017), not much work has been conducted on the role, potential and challenges of transdisciplinarity in the universities of south africa. thus, this study sought to define transdisciplinarity from the participant’s perspective and locate the role of the centre for transdisciplinary studies (cts), the transformative potential of transdisciplinarity and its challenges through the lens of academic staff members at the university of fort hare, south africa. the nature of transdisciplinarity at selected universities in south africa despite transdisciplinarity being a very critical approach needed to address endemic challenges, few universities have adopted it. some educational institutions that have adopted the transdisciplinary approach in their teaching and research are the university of pretoria, rhodes university, witwatersrand university, stellenbosch university and the university of fort hare. the university of pretoria (2018) opened a new future africa campus where a community of academic and non-academic stakeholders engage and address challenges faced by africa stretching from good governance, sustainable development, human rights and citizen participation. on the other hand, stellenbosch university has advanced transdisciplinarity through offering a doctoral programme in transdisciplinary studies. their doctoral programme’s crosscutting themes include food systems, water systems, energy systems and urban systems. stellenbosch university’s (2018) centre for complex systems in transition, in collaboration with stakeholders such as the council for scientific and industrial research (csir), the human sciences research council (hsrc) and the sustainable institute (si), facilitate this doctoral programme. the global change institute (gci) at the university of the witwatersrand (2017) also uses transdisciplinarity as a corner stone to drive and engage with society. according to its website, ‘the gci addresses problems related to global change, climate change and sustainability in a multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary manner’ (university of witwatersrand 2017). rhodes university’s transdisciplinary research aims at mobilising transdisciplinary scholarship through research efforts done collaboratively by postgraduate students (rhodes university transdisciplinary research group 2016). departments that work closely and in collaboration with the transdisciplinary research group include the institute of water research (iwr), environmental learning research centre (elrc) and the development of environmental science. compared with other universities, the transdisciplinary research programme at rhodes is largely student-centred where students seek help from one another even without the involvement of staff members (rhodes university transdisciplinary research group 2016). in addition to universities advancing the transdisciplinary scholarship, the recognition for transdisciplinary work within the research field has also been created through other platforms. the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa allows publication of research papers that have been carried out by scholars from other disciplines (african online scientific information systems 2018). the cts at the university of fort hare houses a compulsory first year course called ‘life, knowledge, and action’, which was launched in 2009. the course is transdisciplinary in nature in that it bridges traditional boundaries between disciplines and practice where students across faculties collectively discuss world problems, find solutions to these predicaments and put together their knowledge from their diverse fields of study (garutsa & mahlangu 2014). research methodology semi-structured interviews were used as these act as an open platform, giving freedom to respondents to express their views and researchers an opportunity to probe whenever a need arises, hence creating a conversational two-way communication. semi-structured interviews are a reliable and comparable source of qualitative data as they are usually accompanied with follow-up questions on any matter under discussion. the semi-structured interviews comprised a list of open-ended questions scribed in the interview guide (see appendix 1) and the interviews were recorded digitally. according to de vos (2002) an interview guide is a guideline for the interviewer and contains questions and themes that are important to the research. the study employed the stratified random sampling technique in which the university’s academic population was first divided into faculties (stratas) and the respondents were randomly selected from these stratas. upon using this sampling technique the participants were randomly selected from the university’s academic staff members representing the faculties of health, law, social sciences and humanities, management and commerce, science and agriculture, education and the teaching and learning centre (tlc). once participants agreed to participate in the study, the interview took place at a time and date convenient to the participant. in total 19 academics participated in the study (see table 1). the digitally recorded interviews were transcribed and the relevant themes were sought until data were saturated. table 1: participants sampled from faculties and centres. ethical matters were discussed with respondents in terms of informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity and management of information. participants were assured that pseudonyms would be used when citing their responses. the data were analysed using thematic data analysis. data were narrowed down into parts that represented segments of raw data. the global categories retrieved from the data were then narrowed down into smaller sub-units. when units for analysis became fewer, emerging categories were continuously refined and compared against each other until saturation was reached. ethical considerations the ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the university of fort hare, centre for transdisciplinary studies (cts) (rec-270710-028-ra level 1). an ethical clearance certificate was issued by the university research ethics committee which provided assurance that all ethical standards were adhered to. results understanding of transdisciplinarity in order to solicit an understanding of the role, potential and challenges of transdisciplinarity from participants, the researchers first asked the participants their understanding of transdisciplinarity. below are the thematic views about transdisciplinarity according to the academics interviewed: merging of disciplines a number of participants from different university faculties indicated their understanding of transdisciplinarity as the merging of different disciplines. participant b said that transdisciplinarity involves: ‘… merging together various disciplines.’ (participant b, male, lecturer) participant d said: ‘… it’s incorporating knowledge from other disciplines outside your own’, while participant e replied, ‘it’s different disciplines meeting together.’ (participant d, male, lecturer) collaboration of disciplines a significant number of participants defined transdisciplinarity as the collaboration of different disciplines. participant b, for instance, said: ‘… work on a common goal, so i think that is the idea, no matter how diverse or different disciplines.’ (participant b, male, lecturer). while there has been a common consensus on the concept of transdisciplinarity amongst many participants, most of them often used it interchangeably with multi-disciplinarity/interdisciplinarity. there is evidence that some respondents failed to define the concept. participant o said the following: ‘transdisciplinarity is where people from different fields get together to get a new idea. i think i have been always confusing the two, so what i always understood to be as multi-disciplinary is transdisciplinary. so they just saying multi-disciplinary is just kind of where you have forum where people present their own disciplines.’ (participant o, female, lecturer) participant r indicated: ‘so in other words, by the interdisciplinary research we mean there is actually supposed to be a connectivity between various disciplines within the university.’ (participant r, female, lecturer) role of transdisciplinarity in the university the respondents concurred that for transdisciplinarity to be realised effectively in an institution that was accustomed to mono-disciplinarity, there was a serious need for a transdisciplinary unit to play the facilitation role. the university’s cts was deemed to be an appropriate unit to play the role. below are thematic views about the role of cts. raise transdisciplinary awareness in the university respondents consensually indicated that the cts should raise awareness in the university community on transdisciplinary research and collaborations. participant b said: ‘it is that idea of conscientising [sic] other departments with that thing of saying we may focus on real world challenges.’ (participant b, male, lecturer) facilitating and coordinating transdisciplinary activities in the university other participants articulated the role of transdisciplinarity as coordination of all transdisciplinary activities in the university. participant b said: ‘… so it becomes the transdisciplinary department’s baby to make sure that it invites people to partake in such kinds of projects because really we cannot say people are not willing as i cannot say i have been offered.’ (participant b, male, lecturer) participant n said: ‘… the role of the centre is to encourage departments to coordinate and work together and ensure that topics of research that are going across departments are collectively tackled, thus removing the limitations of uni-disciplinarirty and welcoming the notion of transdisciplinarity.’ (participant n, female, lecturer) participant i said: ‘… i mean that the cts should play an encouraging role and foregrounding a necessity and desirability of transdisciplinary approaches in the university.’ (participant i, male, lecturer) while participant s also articulates the cts’ role of facilitating different departmental collaborations as follows: ‘… the role of the centre is to facilitate interaction and build relationships between departments through organising and convening luncheons, seminars and workshops where all departments and faculty representatives as well as other stakeholders both inside and outside the university are invited to discuss this concept.’ (participant s, female, lecturer) participant k said: ‘i should think its bringing together all the different disciplines that are within the university, extra mural and academics and also the support and administrative.’ (participant k, female, lecturer) potential of transdisciplinarity collaborative research the research participants highlighted several potentials of transdisciplinarity such as collaborative research and other academic activities across different faculties. participant n said: ‘different departments can also collaborate through writing academic papers, articles and conference papers on topics that are cutting across for instance social work and other disciplines or even topics that spun across these different departments.’ (participant n, female, lecturer) after articulating the potential of transdisciplinarity in the university, most respondents showed a willingness to engage in transdisciplinary teaching and research. participant j said: ‘i will be very willing to become part of a process where we can discuss possible transdisciplinary research and even teaching.’ (participant j, female, lecturer) participant l said: ‘i think i would definitely like to be part of it, especially in research.’ (participant l, male, lecturer) while participant m said: ‘yes i’m so much interested in becoming a stakeholder and i’m interested in organising workshops and seminars where academics, researchers and people with various expertise come together to discuss topical issues.’ (participant m, male, lecturer) participant s said: ‘yes, of course, i am very interested, i would like to be organising workshops and seminars where the concept of transdisciplinarity is promoted.’ (participant s, female, lecturer) collaborative teaching participant s said: ‘there are many areas where these two can collaborate, including teaching, assessments, curriculum improvement and research and so on.’ (participant s, female, lecturer) collaborative seminars participant m stated: ‘… we can jointly hold periodic workshops and seminars highlighting the importance of transdisciplinarity.’ (participant m, male, lecturer) challenges of transdisciplinarity understanding transdisciplinarity in this study, some respondents cited the lack of understanding of the importance of transdisciplinarity as a challenge. participant a indicated: ‘i would also say people understanding its importance, i think that could also be a challange.’ (participant a, female, lecturer) participant n said: ‘another challenge that i see is that there is serious misunderstanding and misconceptions about what transdisciplinary means at this university both among the staff and also the students. if you check my responses, you can also see that i also do not have a clear picture of what transdisciplinarity really means. i am using transdisciplinary and the first year course life, knowledge, action (lka) interchangeably.’ (participant n, female, lecturer) participant s also cites lack of understanding and information on transdisciplinarity by saying the following: ‘… there is literally no circulation of knowledge regarding transdisciplinary at this university. i am sure academics do not know exactly what it is and what it is trying to achieve and its importance and so forth. therefore, some academics are obliged to naturally resist it and stick to departmental specialisation.’ (participant s, female, lecturer) foundations of mono-disciplinarity and specialisation a sizeable number of participants highlighted the ‘coming together of experts’ who specialise in homogenous departments as a huge challenge for collaboration. this is noted as departmental specialisation. participant s said: ‘… the challenge is the rigidities that come with curriculums. most departments have rigid curriculums that promote uni-disciplinarity instead of transdisciplinarity. therefore, without flexible curriculums, implementing trandisciplinarity will be a huge challenge in universities.’ (participant s, female, lecturer) transdisciplinarity demands flexibility and harmonisation of efforts by various professionals. as highlighted by pohl and hardon (2008), transdisciplinarity enables experts in various fields to come together, analyse and comprehend the complexity of problems, view problems from diverse scientific perceptions and link them to integrated knowledge systems. participant i states: ‘i think most of us as teachers were not taught that model (transdisciplinarity), we were taught within singular disciplines.’ (participant i, male, lecturer) participant l also says: ‘i also think that previous learning or teaching was very individual and in silos, so even teachers or academics struggle to see [a] connection between the different disciplines.’ (participant l, male, lecturer) mcgregor (2015) concurs on this challenge by stating that indeed the diversity of perspectives is a huge challenge for transdisciplinary research because stakeholders from different fields understand reality differently and have different methodological ways of approaching research. disciplinary comfort zones and resistance to change five respondents cited disciplinary comfort zones as a challenge to transdisciplinarity. participant d said: ‘people are not comfortable moving from their own comfort zones.’ (participant d, male, lecturer) participant j replied: ‘… one of the challenges for me that i have already encountered was that people don’t have the willingness. i think it is attitude. people are not willing to move beyond their own comfort zones. because it challenges you when you are going to work across disciplines. to be willing to move and to be willing to adapt and some people do not have that attitude.’ (participant j, female, lecturer) participant k said: ‘the challenges of transdisciplinarity in any university would be in most cases, the resistance of the people who are already in their comfort zones. for instance if somebody is in his comfort zone in the area of psychology, they might not understand the relationship between psychology, health and wellness.’ (participant k, female, lecturer) heterogeneity of the university another challenge of transdisciplinarity mentioned by respondents is the heterogeneity of the university in which people do not know each other. participant j said: ‘the other one is people do not know each other, sometimes they do not even know what other people do, that they could collaborate on and if you do not make an effort to sit down and collaborate with colleagues, i think it will be difficult for you to engage in such a research.’ (participant j, female, lecturer) two participants cited transdisciplinary publishing as a potential challenge. participant d said: ‘when it comes to publishing, you might find challenges on where to publish it (as journals are usually on singular disciplines).’ (participant d, male, lecturer) while this might be a concern for researchers, there have been strides made to accommodate transdisciplinary research internationally, as well as in south africa through journals such as the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa (african online scientific information systems 2018), the asian journal of transdisciplinary research, epiphany: journal of transdisciplinary studies, international journal of transdisciplinary research, to mention just a few. according to kueffer et al. (2006), there are more than 500 journals publishing transdisciplinary research. busy schedules some participants state that one of the challenges of transdisciplinarity is busy schedules, as participant b said: ‘… not everyone has got that time, people are busy.’ (participant b, male, lecturer) discussion defining transdisciplinarity there was no consensus amongst participants on how to define transdisciplinarity. a number of participants defined transdisciplinarity as the merging of disciplines. merging occurs when two or more units that are separate combine to create a new joint unity. therefore, this denotes quite a limited understanding of transdisciplinarity because the approach transcends beyond the mere merging of disciplines, for instance, the approach entails research efforts on problems that cut across disciplines which demands integration of methodologies from diverse disciplines. more so, the approach can refer to methodologies that are developed in one discipline and are now used in several other disciplines. a significant number of participants defined transdisciplinarity as the collaboration of disciplines. collaboration is logical when different entities work together on a common goal but remain stand-alone entities. although transdisciplinarity has been largely defined as the collaboration of diverse disciplines, it is noteworthy that participants used the term interchangeably with multi-disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. thus, the confusion surrounding the term transdisciplinary itself is a stumbling block to the full and correct implementation of this approach at the university of fort hare. it is key that academic and non-academic staff, to be involved in transdisciplinarity, be acquainted with both its theoretical and practical aspects at least within the context of this institution. role of transdisciplinarity based on the study results, participants indicated that the cts should play a facilitative role towards promoting, collaborating and creating awareness around transdisciplinarity within the university. as discussed by gehlert et al. (2010), there is a need for a centralised unit to take on the facilitative role of transdisciplinarity to bring together scholars from different disciplines to form research teams. gehlert et al. (2010) continue to state that while universities may have the structure for such a unit, they also need to adopt reward structures for transdisciplinary work. this has been done at other universities such as the university of pretoria (2018; future africa campus); stellenbosch university (2018; centre for complex systems in transition); the university of witwatersrand (2017; the global change institute) and rhodes university (2016; rhodes university transdisciplinary research group). while cts at the university of fort hare offers a module ‘life, knowledge and action’ that cuts across disciplinary boundaries, a conducive environment for transdisciplinary research seems to be a challenge as universities take pride in their collections of segmented and highly specialised disciplines functioning at their own facilities (carroll et al. 2017). this often leads students to pass through a ‘funnel’ approach in order to prosper in one specific area and continue to complete training with limited exposure to a larger context of problems and perspectives (carroll et al. 2017). potential of transdisciplinarity as the results show, the potential of transdisciplinarity is centred on collaborative research, collaborative teaching and joint seminars. pohl and hardon (2008) posited that transdisciplinary studies has the potential and capacity to alleviate life’s deep-seated challenging problems in the world as it uses integrated, practice-oriented and normative knowledge systems. this can only be done through collaborative activities as mentioned by participants in this study that allows academic engagement. pohl and hardon (2008) state that different stakeholders stand to benefit from transdisciplinarity as each individual can play a significant but unique role in the process. although participants were not asked whether they are or would be willing to engage in transdisciplinary activities in the university, a significant number of them indicated a willingness which could be a good starting point if we are to advance transdisciplinarity. challenges of transdisciplinarity understanding transdisciplinarity two participants were evidently confused regarding the meaning of the term transdisciplinarity. this corresponds with byrne, mullally and sage (2016) who indicate that there is no universal definition of transdisciplinarity. as mentioned by rousseau et al. (2018), the term has become popular with a diversity of nuanced meanings as there are differences in opinions about its nature, scope, value and potential (rousseau et al. 2018). this seems to create a lack of consensus on the definition of transdisciplinary (sakao & brambila-macias 2018). as mentioned by gibbs (2015), there have been many definitions proposed by scholars since the 1970s and therefore it becomes difficult to settle on one definition thereof. participants of this study highlighted that it meant merging different disciplines, while others defined transdisciplinarity as the collaboration of disciplines. this appears to be in line with davids’ (2018:2) understanding of transdisciplinarity as it crosses ‘disciplinary boundaries’. a practical example of a transdisciplinary project is that of davids (2018) whose research involved various researchers working at different universities in south africa. it is often described as a mode of collaborating outside your own disciplinary boundary (gehlert et al. 2010). as pohl and hardon (2008) mentioned, in transdisciplinary research projects, it is mandatory to define common goals, and this was indicated by four participants that for transdisciplinarity to occur a common goal amongst stakeholders is needed. disciplinary comfort zones and resistance to change transdisciplinary collaboration is not easy, especially for multiple stakeholders’ involvement (russel 2005). in this study, participants noted the challenge for individuals to come out of their ‘comfort zones’. this concurs with a challenge raised by gehlert et al. (2010) who indicated that individuals are more comfortable with what they know than to operate with a different viewpoint, methods of communication and knowledge that is different to their own. thus, adopting a transdisciplinary approach would extend individual’s boundaries which requires buy-in as often there are a limited number of investigators who are willing to put in their time, effort and preparation required by transdisciplinary collaborations (gehlert et al. 2010). this requires patience, time and commitment from academics and institutions (nowotny 2003). even locating and engaging with individuals to collaborate in transdisciplinary work becomes a challenge (gehlert et al. 2010). foundations of mono-disciplinarity and specialisation participants in this study noted the possible challenge of the coming together of individuals from different specialisation fields which are often rigid in nature. concurring with this challenge is carroll et al. (2017) who suggest that universities take pride in their collections of segmented and highly specialised disciplines functioning in their own facilities, hence moving beyond these disciplines is a challenge that calls for the creation of conducive environments for transdisciplinary research. this then often leads to university staff not knowing about what projects other staff are involved in, as mentioned by participants in this study. conventionally, academic advancement has been a solo journey and the tenure clock is not set to incorporate time that is taken to build and maintain transdisciplinary teams (gehlert et al. 2010). heterogeneity of university and academics’ busy schedules other challenges highlighted in this research were academics’ busy schedules and the heterogeneity of a university. a university is a large entity with the possibility that many departments are not aware of the existence of others. some of these disciplines’ roles may not overlap anyhow to allow any discussion on transdisciplinarity. to respond to the concern of busy schedules as hindering transdisciplinary research, kuaffer et al. (2006) indicate that in order to promote a culture of transdisciplinary publishing there needs to be a shift in thought and priorities of researchers, publishers, reviewers and perhaps even readers. recommendations this research recommended that cts at the university of fort hare should take the lead in facilitating and driving transdisciplinary activities in the university. although the university is generally heterogeneous, the cts should find ways to promote transdisciplinarity amongst university stakeholders. conclusion the concept of transdisciplinarity changes in meaning and evolves over time. as a way of reconceptualising the goals of cts at the university of fort hare, the article sought to explore the roles, potentials and challenges of transdisciplinarity. the challenges of transdisciplinarity as articulated by participants range from the lack of knowledge on the concept of transdisciplinarity to disciplinary specialisation and resistance to change. the role and potential of transdisciplinarity stood out as a collaborative research and the creation of partnerships with various stakeholders. respondents showed a willingness to engage with the cts which provides insight to their realisation of the importance of transdisciplinarity at the university of fort hare. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions c.e.w. conceptualised and developed the final title, argument and layout of the article and also verified and added the literature on transdisciplinarity, data collection and data analysis. n.d. conceptualised the article and developed the final title, argument and also verified and added the literature on transdisciplinarity and data collection. s.n. and c.t.c. conceptualised the article and were responsible for data collection and proofreading. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. 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https://www.up.ac.za/future-africa university of witwatersrand, 2017, ‘what we do: research, teaching and academic citizenship’, global change institute, viewed 15 march 2018, from https://www.wits.ac.za/gci/what-we-do/ appendix 1 interview guide abstract introduction literature review conceptual framework research methodology and design findings discussion conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) jabulisile ngwenya school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa orhe arek-bawa school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa citation ngwenya, j. & arek-bawa, o., 2019, ‘exploring the quality of grade 12 accounting education textbooks’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a662. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.662 original research exploring the quality of grade 12 accounting education textbooks jabulisile ngwenya, orhe arek-bawa received: 29 jan. 2019; accepted: 09 july 2019; published: 27 aug. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the availability of quality textbooks is one of the critical factors in the enhancement of teaching and learning in accounting. what makes a high-quality textbook depends on the presence of certain characteristics for specific subject area and curriculum requirements. however, following the reintroduction of textbooks into the south african school curriculum, there appear to be limited studies on the quality of textbooks particularly in accounting. this article explores the quality of grade 12 accounting textbooks in terms of content, structure and organisation, guidance and support and assessment tasks. two grade 12 accounting textbooks were purposively sampled because of their popularity and accessibility to analyse their quality using qualitative content analysis. findings revealed that although book b is found to be in line with the curriculum in terms of content, book a had a greater propensity to engage and stimulate learning as it offered better guidance and support to the teachers and learners than book b. the identified shortfalls mean that the teachers who are using book b will have to consult other books as the book is lacking in fully supporting teachers. the recommendation is that at least two textbooks should be prescribed especially in grade 12 to supplement each other. this article offers insight into the quality of grade 12 accounting textbooks used in south african schools. it is therefore imperative for accounting teachers and subject specialists to be circumspect when choosing prescribed textbooks. the article also has implications for textbook producers and the department of education in their quest to enhance learning. keywords: accounting textbooks; quality textbooks; accounting education; accounting curriculum; textbooks analysis. introduction research has shown that textbooks play a significant role in classrooms internationally (chirwa & naidoo 2016; freahat & smadi 2014; gök 2012; nasser & oqlah 2014; swanepoel 2010; tarman & kuran 2015). teachers therefore tend to depend on the textbook that is widely used in many classrooms, sometimes up to 96% (swanepoel 2010). the implication is that teachers use textbooks as the most dominant source of their teaching activities. therefore, what is taught in the classroom is predominantly guided, organised and restricted to what is contained within the textbook. the dominance of textbooks is also emphasised by the department of basic education (dbe) in south africa (department of education [doe] 2009). in its attempt to improve the quality of education in south africa, the dbe implemented the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) in 2012. this change in the curriculum has resulted in textbooks being reintroduced in classrooms as a crucial resource for learners and teachers as one of the ways of improving teaching and learning. consequently, textbooks are regarded by the dbe as effective tools to ‘ensure consistency, curriculum and assessment coverage, appropriate pacing and better quality in terms of instruction in implementing a curriculum’ (doe 2009:9). as such textbooks strongly influence what learners learn because they help teachers decide what to teach, how to teach it and what types of exercises to assign to learners (bharath 2015; sağlam 2012; yang & sianturi 2017). the importance of textbooks is also evident in accounting. accounting is a discipline that requires consistent practice because of its practical nature (abbott & palatnik 2018; barac & du plessis 2014; eskola 2011; jones & wright 2012). as the subject requires frequent application exercises, textbooks support teachers and learners in the learning process with suitable activities and a wide range of examples and applications that facilitate learner reflection while developing their skills and knowledge (abbott & palatnik 2018; adeoye & olabiyi 2011; arek-bawa 2018). as a result, accounting teachers rely heavily on textbooks in their day-to-day teaching for class activities and homework to give learners an opportunity to practise different skills learnt (davidson & baldwin 2005; gupta & marshall 2010). while the curriculum specifies the topics to be covered per grade, textbooks determine the content of instruction in detail such that some teachers scarcely refer to the curriculum (bharath 2015; sunday 2014; widodo 2007). textbooks therefore help teachers to structure their lessons and specify what is important on a particular topic. the logical sequencing followed in a textbook provides insight to the teacher in planning lessons and presenting the subject matter in an orderly and systematic sequence and to decide about the limits and depth of coverage of the content to be presented (adeoye & olabiyi 2011; bharath 2015). as textbooks are viewed as the most effective tools through which to deliver the curriculum and support assessments, teachers are more probable to follow strictly what is offered in the textbook. textbooks are likely to be the key determinant of what is taught and learnt, and hence the availability of quality textbooks is crucial. accounting contains many unique terms and abstract knowledge which are exclusive to the discipline. understanding these terms and concepts is regarded as the principal skill which serves as a foundation for application and analytical and evaluation skills in each accounting topic (arek-bawa & dhunpath 2017; dbe 2011; doe 2008). learners should be acquainted with these unique terms and concepts to communicate and solve problems within the discipline (ngwenya 2012; stephenson 2017). the textbooks should therefore provide clear definition of such key terms and concepts, while giving a detailed exposition of core knowledge with clear learning progressions to enhance the development of relevant skills. although there is extensive research on textbooks internationally (bharath 2015; liang & cobern 2013; o’keeffe 2011; sunday 2014; yang & sianturi 2017), there is a dearth of textbook research in south africa (arek-bawa & dhunpath 2017; bargate 2012) particularly in high school accounting textbooks. this article thus contributes to knowledge by addressing the gap in the existing literature in accounting, particularly on the quality of high school textbooks. therefore, the research question for the study is: what is the quality of accounting textbooks in terms of content; structure and organisation; guidance and support; and assessment tasks? literature review this section reviews relevant literature on the nature of accounting and on the quality of textbooks. accounting as a subject over time, the definition of accounting has evolved as changes emerge in the economic environment and society at large (ngwenya 2012). the focus of accounting is on measuring the performance of entities in addition to the processing and communication of financial events to interested users for decision-making (dbe 2011). the south african secondary school curriculum draws from three fields of accounting, namely ‘financial accounting, managerial accounting and auditing’ (dbe 2011:8). it is envisaged that the knowledge, skills and values acquired from these field will go a long way in preparing learners for the life of work. topics covered in the grade 12 accounting curriculum encompass accounting for company transactions, company financial statements and analysis of company accounts in term 1. the focus for term 2 is on ethics, internal controls, accounting for fixed assets, close corporation, inventory systems and reconciliations. term 3 dwells on cost accounting and budgeting (dbe 2011:29). while the caps for accounting makes provision for ethics and internal controls to be taught on their own, it recommends that the two topics be integrated when teaching other areas. like any other subject in the south african secondary school curriculum, assessments for the average grade 12 learner are both informal (daily) and formal (dbe 2011). the former that can be performed via observation, informal classroom interaction, class activity or homework can be marked by the teacher or learner or both with the aim of providing feedback to enhance learning. the latter include written reports, tests, projects and case study. in terms of examination, students are required to write the mid-year paper, trial paper and end of year examination which accounts for 75% of total marks (dbe 2011). the caps also stipulates that the formal assessments should cater for a wide range of cognitive levels with reference to bloom’s revised taxonomy (dbe 2011). basic thinking skills synonymous with levels 1 (remember) and 2 (understand) account for 30%; moderate thinking skills, that is, 3 (apply) and 4 (analyse) should be 40%; and high-order thinking skills, that is, 5 (evaluate) and 6 (create) are expected to account for 30% of total cognitive distribution of tasks. furthermore, it is expected that the examination paper should include questions that elicit problem-solving skills. as a vital educational resource, textbooks are regarded as the core definition of the curriculum in any discipline including accounting (bharath 2015; yang & sianturi 2017; yang, wang & xu 2015). as such most accounting textbooks align with the curriculum and contain many practice materials that can be used for both classwork and homework while preparing students for exams. however, the extent to which the quality of these textbooks contributes in aiding the attainment of desired educational objective in accounting education remains largely under researched. this article aims to contribute knowledge in this regard. good-quality textbooks extant literature has shown that textbooks are regarded as effective tools to ensure better quality in terms of instruction and content (chirwa & naidoo 2016; doe 2009; freahat & smadi 2014; gök 2012; nasser & oqlah 2014; swanepoel 2010; tarman & kuran 2015). however, high-quality teaching is dependent on the availability of quality and appropriate resources. this repositioning of the textbook as a crucial resource in the enhancement of teaching and learning places more attention on the quality of textbooks. this means that the availability of high-quality textbooks is one of the critical factors in the successful implementation of the curriculum (chirwa & naidoo 2016; freahat & smadi 2014; swanepoel 2010). what makes a high-quality textbook depends on the presence of characteristics for specific subject area and curriculum requirements. a good textbook is therefore one that has the features and characteristics that enable it to support the learners and teachers during the process of learning and teaching (chirwa & naidoo 2016; gupta & marshall 2010; mahmood 2011). in addition, a textbook is of good quality if the learners who use the textbook achieve the learning outcomes they are supposed to reach (jones & wright 2012; swanepoel 2010). this implies that the quality of a textbook can therefore be notable in the skills, understanding and application of knowledge attained by the learners who used the textbook. in addition, the extent to which the book guides learners in acquiring these skills and understanding determines the quality of a textbook (jones & wright 2012). such textbooks also guide the learners in practising the application of knowledge and skill acquired. consequently, the presence of the characteristics acts as an indicator of the textbooks’ effectiveness and quality. according to the literature, visual presentation, layout or structure, learning activities, content and the language of textbooks are important considerations in the analysis of quality of textbook studies (bharath 2015; gök 2012; liang & cobern 2013; mahmood 2011; nasser & oqlah 2014; o’keeffe 2011; sağlam 2012; sunday 2014; swanepoel 2010). these characteristics align with some of the attributes prescribed by united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco 2014) to be considered in the production and selection of textbooks. literature shows that there is a paucity of studies on the quality of high school textbooks in south africa particularly in accounting and this article aims to fill this gap. conceptual framework the conceptual framework for the study was developed by combining and adapting aggarwal’s framework (2001) and that of the 2013 south african dbe for analysing textbooks (dbe 2013). aggarwal (2001) suggested guidelines upon which the quality of textbooks could be evaluated. these are selection of content, organisation of content, presentation of content, verbal communication and visual communication (illustration). according to the instrument developed by the dbe in 2013, textbooks should be analysed in terms of compliance with the curriculum, content, learning activities and assessment, layout, design and overall quality and teacher guidance. in selecting the criteria for quality investigated in the selected textbooks, we considered the above guidelines provided by the dbe and aggarwal. we have drawn our quality criteria from key variables of their guidelines. the focus on these key parameters will enable us to overcome time constraints while providing the platform for a rich description of our findings in line with our interpretive paradigm. for the purposes of this article, the focus was on the content, structure and organisation, guidance and support and instructional assessment tasks. analysis and comparison of the contents of the two grade 12 textbooks were carried out by considering how they reflect the requirements of the caps curriculum in terms of content coverage, topics structure, language or terminology, accuracy and currentness of content and expertise for content development. in terms of structure and organisation, textbooks analysis was carried out according to the visible structure and format (layout) and logical organisation of topics. guidance and support provided by the books were analysed according to explicit instructions and illustrations and motivational strategies including visuals used to enhance teaching and learning. analysis and comparison of the assessment tasks were carried out to determine assessment techniques, question types and to evaluate the cognitive level entrenched in the learning activities in accounting textbooks, and whether the depth of the learning activities is aligned with the caps for accounting. research methodology and design the study adopted the interpretive paradigm as we sought to find meaning and gain understanding of the quality of the selected grade 12 accounting textbooks. the qualitative content analysis (qca) was adopted to explore the quality of two grade 12 accounting textbooks in terms of content, guidance and support, structure and organisation and targeted instructional and assessment strategies. qualitative content analysis is a flexible technique commonly used in analysing text data (elo et al. 2014; hsieh & shannon 2005). drawing from work performed by other scholars, vaismoradi et al. (2016) describe qca as a technique used in textual analysis via a ‘systematic process of coding, examining of meaning and provision of a description of the social reality through the creation of theme’ (p. 100). even though qca is widely used in textual analysis because it provides meaningful insight on the content, it is considered inappropriate in a study with open-ended research questions, or those which are exploratory in nature (kohlbacher 2006; mayring 2000). however, this limitation does not hold true in this article because the research question is rather specific and direct. to analyse the quality of accounting textbooks, two grade 12 accounting textbooks were purposively sampled because of their popularity and accessibility. because the chosen textbooks were caps prescribed, they were used by the majority of schools. in addition, as a teacher educator, my experience and observation during teaching practice showed that the two accounting textbooks were the most commonly used in schools. to confirm my observation, we conducted a small-scale informal survey with accounting education students to determine the accounting textbooks that they found to be mostly in use in schools during teaching practice in kwazulu-natal. the topic of companies across two textbooks was analysed and compared with an attempt to gain a broad perspective on content, structure and organisation, support and guidance and the assessment activities. the selection of topic – companies – was based on the fact that the topic is regarded as a major and essential topic in the grade 12 accounting curriculum. unlike other topics that are introduced in the previous grades, companies are first introduced in grade 12; as such they are regarded as an example of complex knowledge in the grade. table 1 provides some key features of each text. table 1: sampled textbooks. qualitative content analysis makes room for researchers to use or develop any coding scheme drawing from theory, the data or previous research that can be applied to answer the research question (krippendorff 2004). concepts from the conceptual framework developed were used to code the data. each parameter was rated using the ‘low to high’ rating scale. a low rating was given if the parameter was not presented or expressed, a moderate rating was given if the parameter was presented but not explicit and a high rating was given for explicit presentation of the parameter in the books. trustworthiness was mainly ensued via repeated reading and interaction with the textbooks. moreover, in line with the requirements of our qca methodology (elo et al. 2014), we endeavoured to include relevant examples from the textbooks in support of our interpretations and conclusions. ethical consideration the ethical code of conduct and requirements set for empirical research by the tertiary institution’s ethics committee were adhered to in conducting this study. issues pertaining to gatekeeper’s permission and ethical clearance were given less consideration because of the object of the research, that is, textbooks are openly available in the public domain. nonetheless, we have adopted pseudonyms (text a and b) in place of the exact names of each textbook to protect the identity of the text producers. ethical clearance for the study was also obtained from the university of kwazulu-natal. findings the aim of this study was to examine the quality of the two grade 12 accounting contemporary textbooks in terms of the four parameters: content, structure and organisation, guidance and support and assessment tasks. the findings are presented according to these parameters that compare the content analysis results of each text. content (alignment with the curriculum requirements) analysis and comparison of the contents of the two grade 12 textbooks were carried out by considering how they present content according to the criteria and reflect the requirements of the caps curriculum in terms of content coverage, topics structure and language or terminology. findings revealed that both textbooks cover all topics as specified in the caps curriculum. this is also evident in both textbooks which are ‘topic-structured’. the subject content of accounting is based on the organisation of sub-topics in the curriculum under the three main fields on the disciplines of financial accounting, managerial accounting and managing resources (which incorporates certain aspects of auditing [dbe 2011]). the caps specifically required topics such as ‘ethics’ and ‘internal control’ be integrated in the teaching of other topics (dbe 2011). this is stated in book a, while in book b, it is implied. although the content of the two textbooks is aligned with the curriculum requirements, book b reflects a structure that is more similar to the caps, as shown in table 2. table 2: comparison of naming of topics. book b, like caps, uses words and phrases to describe the topic, such as ‘analysis’ and ‘interpretation’, which obviously imply the skills involved. in contrast, in book a, topics are listed and do not give clear indications of the skills expected of learners. two examples are shown in table 2. in most cases, the language or terminology used in book a is different from book b, as indicated in table 3. book a contains more real-life connections and a larger number of technical terms that are used in the accounting discipline because of the nature of the subject. table 3: comparison of terminology used in textbooks. although the textbooks use different terminology, book b is compatible with the caps. book a provides terminology changes to update the teacher and the learners about the changes in practice. what is evident in book a is that new terminology is provided in brackets, for example balance sheet is now called statement of financial position (see box 1). box 1: new terminology. both textbooks are designed along the lines of progression within the grade from one topic to another. they both reflect increasing levels of complexity in terms of content, concept or skill as the chapter progresses. topics generally commence from understanding of basic concepts and progress through application, and ultimately analysis, interpretation, evaluation and creative problem-solving. both books are consistent with the caps in this regard. both textbooks reflect specific weeks for topics such as problem solving, reporting and control of fixed assets, ethical considerations, internal audit and control processes. furthermore, in both textbooks, business ethics and internal control related to companies are integrated under financial reporting tasks, for instance book a, page 103 and 141 and book b, section 4.3, page 14. however, book a reminds the teachers to reinforce these topics by integrating them in other topics as seen on page 12. book a contains information about names of authors and their qualifications. similarly, the names of editor, expert consultants, cover and layout designer and their qualifications are given. on the contrary, book b provides the names of authors without their credentials. structure and organisation of the textbooks analysis and comparison of the structure and organisation of the two textbooks was carried out according to the visible structure and format, and logical organisation of topics. considerable difference between the books in terms of structure was noted. both books provide a table of contents which shows all of the sub-topics in great detail with their page numbers. although topics and sub-topics are very clear, book a’s table of contents uses different fonts in different colours for attractiveness. furthermore, book a is divided into modules. on the other hand, book b is divided into four terms that are divided into units. each unit is divided into sections. this division is compatible with caps. in book b, the topic ‘financial accounting of companies’ is covered in the first term and divided into four units, while in book a, the topic is divided into five modules. the difference is because of the fact that in book a ‘gaap, year-end procedures and final accounts’ are covered separately in module 2, while company financial statements are covered in module 3. in book b, these two sub-topics are covered in one unit. book a starts by introducing the book to the learner and the teacher. the introduction reminds the teacher about the changes to the content in the curriculum because of the new companies act and the latest developments in the subject, for example international financial reporting standards and king codes. the introduction also gives information about the general structure of the textbook and instructions about how to use the book regarding the choice and variation of tasks and the depth and breadth of content. the book also provides a brief discussion on the nature and the scope of the subject of accounting. in contrast, the authors of book b do not provide a brief overview about the book to introduce the book to the teacher and the learners. in book a, each module provides a detailed introduction that gives an outline of what is covered in that particular module. the textbook also provides in-depth background information about the sub-topic. on the other hand, book b mainly provides a very brief introduction of each unit or topic. however, in some instances, there was no introduction, for instance, unit 1financial accounting of companies, page 1. furthermore, in book a, at the beginning of each module, the teacher is reminded of the prior knowledge that a learner is expected to have before attempting the new topic. this is emphasised with bold, colour treatment of font style. book a also provides detailed module outcomes and clearly stated objectives at the beginning of all sub-topics for companies. this helps students to follow the topics step by step. in contrast, book b is silent. guidance and support guidance and support provided by the books were analysed according to explicit instructions and illustrations and motivational strategies used to enhance teaching and learning. in both books every activity provides the learners with the information needed to complete the tasks and what is required as shown in box 2. box 2: example of instructions to learners. in book a, there are graphics and photographs that help to draw the learner’s visual interest and attention. this helps the learner to relate and engage more with the text and to connect new knowledge to real or daily life (sunday 2014). in addition, book a provides ‘sweat drop’ icons to assist teachers in selecting appropriate tasks according to the degrees of challenge and importance. the book also uses graphic texts in different colours and fonts to emphasise the new knowledge. it further provides a checklist at the end of each sub-topic to assist the learners to determine if they have covered all the content and skills under the sub-topic. book a provides information boxes about reflection time and the use of rubrics. in these boxes, important information about the topic is emphasised. book b presents a type of text box called note pads that were not introduced at the beginning of book b to inform the teacher about their use. book b provides formal assessment at the end of the term which helps teachers with the examples of assessment tasks that should be given to the learners at the end of each term. both books contain a glossary of technical terms used in the books. both also provide resources that include a workbook for learners, teacher guide and solutions book. assessment tasks the number and the type of assessment tasks relating to companies were analysed. furthermore, the extent to which the assessment activities cover a sufficiently wide range of intellectual and cognitive skills was also determined. in both textbooks, the assessment activities incorporate different styles of assessment such as group, peer and self-assessment. textbooks present different kinds of activities such as experiments, group studies, research, writing reports and making presentations. in each sub-topic in both textbooks, examples are followed by tasks which cover essential prior knowledge and the basics of the topic. these tasks are then followed by practice activities. however, a noticeable difference between the books is the number of assessment tasks, as depicted in table 4. although book a provides more in-text practice activities than book b, the book does not provide revision exercises at the end of the unit, while book b reflects eight revision exercises at the end of the topic term or unit. in addition, in book b, there is one formal assessment at the end of the unit which is divided into eight sections that cover all the sub-topics, while book a is silent on this point. table 4: type and the number of assessment tasks. all assessment tasks on companies were analysed to examine the extent to which the activities cover a sufficiently wide range of intellectual and cognitive skills. bloom’s revised taxonomy (anderson & krathwohl 2001) was used as an effective criterion to assess learning activities. the taxonomy was adapted to eight cognitive learning domains. application was divided into basic and advanced application, while analysis was divided into low-level and advanced-level analytical skills. in the low-level application questions, learners are required to perform or apply a standard procedure or calculation, while in advanced application questions, such as in box 3, learners are required to perform more complex accounting procedures which involve more in-depth processes. box 3: example of more advanced application question. in terms of low-level analysis, learners are needed to understand the concepts, interpret and analyse the information provided to determine the appropriate calculation. in advanced-level analysis, learners are required to make use of more advanced analytical skills in interpreting the data given in calculation of financial indicators in an unfamiliar context (i.e. companies). all assessment tasks or activities in both textbooks were classified, analysed and codified according to remembering, understanding, basic application, advanced application, basic analysis, advanced analysis, evaluating and creating to examine the extent of intellectual activity required to perform a task. the process required to perform the task and the level of cognitive demand required by the task were analysed using the framework. also, operations required by the task were analysed to determine the processes required in doing the task (see table 5). table 5: cognitive level and the percentage of assessment tasks per textbook. book a provides more in-text practice activities than book b. this is also evident in table 5 which reflects more percentage of activities in each cognitive level. evaluation questions require learners to assess financial information and draw conclusions to make judgements and then back their conclusions with evidence, as seen in box 4. box 4: example of evaluation question. the evident difference is that book b has more creative and problem-solving activities where learners are required to make evaluative judgements using the financial information provided to expand on their evaluative judgements by formulating and providing opinion and explanation for decisions made. however, both books do not have creative problem-solving questions that require learners to identify real-life problems from a range of financial information, quote the relevant information to support their opinions on the problems and provide valid and appropriate solutions. discussion the findings of the study are presented by considering how the textbooks present content, structure, support and guidance and assessment tasks according to the conceptual framework and how the textbooks reflect the requirements of the curriculum. findings revealed that both textbooks cover all topics adequately as stipulated in the curriculum. in other words, by working through the chapters relating to companies from each textbook, the learner would be exposed to the knowledge, skills and intent of the curriculum. in accounting, although the emphasis is on the progression of knowledge, there are topics that cannot be taught in isolation as they need to be integrated and taught simultaneously with other topics to strengthen the development of conceptual understanding (ngwenya 2012; umalusi 2014). this integration was evident in both books. from the findings, it was evident that textbooks lack homogeneity in some of the parameters of the quality in terms of content examined in each textbook. although there is uniformity in terms of content coverage, the depth or extent of coverage differs as indicated under data presentation. in addition, the subject content of accounting is based on the organisation of sub-topics in the curriculum under the three main fields of accounting (i.e. financial accounting, managerial accounting and auditing [dbe 2011]). irrespective of the fact that the subject consists of these three distinct fields, the curriculum emphasises a holistic approach to teaching, such that these fields are integrated to facilitate a conceptual understanding of accounting (dbe 2011; ngwenya 2016). although both textbooks cover all topics as specified in the caps curriculum, book a expressly states the three fields incorporated in the subject domain, while book b is silent. such express statements in book a could be a reminder for teachers to integrate the teaching and learning activities from the three fields thus enabling learners to make connections between the different fields towards the attainment of disciplinary expertise (ngwenya 2016). thus, in this regard, book a provides better support. to acquaint users with the realities, the nature of the subject of accounting makes it imperative for regular revision of teaching resources and textbooks to incorporate current accounting standards and legislations (bargate 2012). book a provides terminology changes to update the teacher and the learners about the changes in practice, but book b, which is heavily attuned to the caps curriculum, makes no mention of these changes. expertise for content development depends on the quality of authorship and the sources used in writing the text (tarman & kuran 2015). the inclusion of author credentials in the textbook attests to their calibre as it gives a clear indication of the authors’ experience, qualification and level of expertise in the field of accounting and society in general. this increases the credibility of the information provided in the book. in this regard, book a appears positioned as a more credible resource than book b. according to tarman and kuran (2015), the structural features of the textbook play an important role in what is taught in class. these features, which can either aid or hinder comprehension, must be designed to assist and facilitate learning the ideas presented in the text (o’keeffe 2011). they serve as clues to acquaint users with the topics included in the chapter on companies and the order in which they are presented (sağlam 2012). in both books, the structure of the content is made apparent by means of functional devices, including a detailed table of contents, chapter titles and headings. in the caps curriculum for accounting, emphasis is placed on conceptual coherence, sequence and progression of knowledge which is evident in each section and within the topic. this suggests that learning is developmental and underpinned by the notion of hierarchy of knowledge and skills (bharath 2015; dbe 2011). in both textbooks, the content is sequenced and paced in such a way as to assist the teacher with planning and teaching. this was also evident in the assessment tasks that were based on the hierarchy of knowledge and skills as they are influenced by the sequence of topics (arek-bawa & dhunpath 2017). by providing in-text assessments along with the concepts under each sub-topic, both textbooks facilitated ease of comprehension (sunday 2014; widodo 2007). the findings also revealed a lack of consistency in terms of structure and organisation in some of the parameters of the quality examined in each textbook. background information for each topic assists learners to understand the new concepts (mahmood 2011). however, book b provides a very brief introduction and is sometimes silent in this regard, while book a provides a detailed introduction of the textbook and each module as well as in-depth background information about the sub-topics. in essence, users of book b may not receive a preview of the content in each unit. on the other hand, book b is structured in a way that is consistent with the accounting curriculum in terms of the naming and structure of the topics and terminology. in addition, the fact that the topics are arranged on a termly basis in line with the caps curriculum implies that the teacher using book b may not need to refer to the curriculum regularly for guidance. book b, like caps, uses nouns that obviously imply the skills involved to describe the topic. this gives guidance on how deep the teachers are expected to go when teaching the topic. in contrast in book a, topics are listed and do not give clear indications of the skills expected of learners. research shows that better learning occurs when learners build on prior knowledge to strengthen the connections between existing knowledge and the new concepts about to be learnt (freahat & smadi 2014; ngwenya 2016; widodo 2007). in this study, textbooks showed significant difference in terms of the prior knowledge that a learner is expected to have before attempting the new topic. book a provides a detailed discussion of prior knowledge of each module or topic. furthermore, module outcomes and objectives are viewed to be essential at the beginning of all sub-topics in assisting teachers in knowing what to teach and help learners to understand what to learn, and book b was found to be silent in this regard. as such, users of book b may be unaware of the key learning points on each topic. the clarity of textbook instructions is very crucial because explicit communication of the skills to be learnt helps to improve thinking skills (sunday 2014). both books provide explicit instructions which are clear as they provide appropriate instructions on exactly how to perform the task. however, the findings revealed a lack of homogeneity in terms of visuals in both books. visuals are deemed important in the communication of accounting concepts (stephenson 2017; sunday 2014). this could be adduced to the fact that graphics are concise and memorable, and they make relationships within the information readily apparent, thereby helping in elaborating or expanding different concepts (aggarwal 2001; widodo 2007). however, chirwa and naidoo (2016) also contend that the cluttering of the textbook with irrelevant distracting features may reduce the effectiveness of the text. nonetheless, in accounting, there is a need for textbooks to contain a reasonable number of features such as balance sheets, income statements and other types of financial figures to aid the instruction and to consolidate learning. in book a, there are well-designed graphics and helpful features that support learning by presenting examples and revealing underlying knowledge structures that help learners make the required connections to take learning further. this is consistent with sunday (2014), who argues that graphics should be included in textbooks in a manner that attracts, engages meaningfully and stimulates the imagination to promote learners’ understanding. while photographs and illustrations are seen to be presenting sufficient information, book b provides minimal information. by implication, book a has a greater propensity to engage and stimulate learning by providing more guidance and support than book b. the checklist at the end of each sub-topic is regarded as an effective way of confirming that the learner has understood the section, or she or he needs more clarity on some aspects of the sub-topic (jones & wright 2012). such a checklist could be likened to sectional summaries which are found to be helpful in emphasising key concepts and learning points (sağlam 2012). in this regard, book a can be termed more user-friendly (user-oriented) than book b, as users do not have to scan through detailed topic explanations to extract vital points (sağlam 2012). on the other hand, by not providing outright summaries, book b could inadvertently be facilitating the development of higher level learning skills as students learn to discriminate and sift out relevant vital points. assessment activities must cover the content of the subject as well as the range of skills and the cognitive levels to cater for different abilities of learners (freahat & smadi 2014). although there is no balanced coverage of cognitive skills of all levels, a range of varied activities is provided. in both books, there are activities that are appropriate for the skills and knowledge described in the curriculum or learning expectations. these activities provide opportunities for students to engage in higher order thinking and problem solving, to apply concepts and procedures and to communicate their understanding. this is contrary to the outcome of o’keeffe’s (2011) and sağlam’s (2012) studies, which concluded that ireland, turkey and singapore textbooks mainly emphasised routine procedures of low to moderate complexity with little consideration for conceptual understanding. while in both books, creative thinking skills are encouraged, learners are only involved in less structured problems: there are no unstructured open-ended questions where learners are required to use deep processing critical thinking skills. conclusion and recommendations stemming from the importance of textbooks in the south african schooling system, this article sought to examine the quality of two grade 12 caps-approved accounting textbooks in terms of content; structure and organisation; guidance and support; and assessment tasks. even though an in-depth analysis of the topic related to companies revealed some similarities in relation to the parameters investigated, some differences were also identified. the publishers of the textbooks have performed well in aligning with the curriculum requirement in terms of content coverage. in both books, connections between related topics or concepts were highlighted and practice questions with real-life situations were provided to make them more understandable. both books used functional devices including a detailed table of contents, chapter titles and headings to structure the content covered. in terms of assessments, both textbooks provided a wide range of activities albeit an imbalanced load across the cognitive levels. however, book a appears more supportive as it acquainted users with the three fields of accounting incorporated in the curriculum, and consistently provided a detailed introduction to each topic with clearly stated learning outcomes. appropriate consideration was given to the learners’ prior knowledge and learning experience. book a also did well in providing suitable graphics and other features such as sweat icons to attract learners’ attention, motivate learning and stimulate thinking while guiding the teacher. by implication, book a had a greater propensity to engage and stimulate learning as it offered better guidance and support to the teachers and learners than book b. although book b was found wanting in providing the above features, it kept pace with the curriculum in structuring the topics on a termly basis such that the teacher could have limited recourse to the caps curriculum. while book b is consistent with the caps for accounting in terms of structure and naming of the topics, the book does not provide detailed introduction and in-depth background information, module outcomes and objectives and prior knowledge. nonetheless, a synopsis or summary of the key points offered in book b is known to be one of the key attributes of quality writing (jones & wright 2012). furthermore, teachers who are using book b only will not be able to provide learners with more knowledge other than what is in caps which is too prescriptive in nature (ozturk 2011; umalusi 2014). the teachers will be teaching learners to pass grade 12, in other words, teaching to the examination. this could account for the concerns by higher education institutions that learners are being coached at school to pass grade 12 examinations, instead of being taught to think critically and logically about concepts (ramatlapana & makonye 2012; stephenson 2017). the book limits the teacher’s ability to focus on a holistic understanding of the subject matter as she or he is expected to adhere strictly to the curriculum, rather than use professional judgement to think and act more spontaneously in the best interests of the learners (ozturk 2011). these shortfalls suggest that the teachers who are using the book will have to consult other books as the book is lacking in fully supporting teachers. it is recommended that at least two textbooks should be prescribed, especially in grade 12, to supplement each other. it is indeed remarkable that there were questions in every cognitive level although the percentages differed. however, it is suggested that more unstructured open-ended questions aimed at developing the student’s inquiry and creative instincts should be included in the textbooks to prepare them for subsequent tertiary learning and future work demands. this is consistent with research that some of the problems experienced by first year accounting students emanate from inadequate preparation of learners at secondary level for a tertiary education (ngwenya 2016; stephenson 2017). furthermore, accounting teachers, especially teachers who are known to depend heavily on the textbook, and subject specialists are advised to carefully consider the quality of accounting textbooks in terms of guidance and support provided to enhance learning and teaching, even though they are all caps-approved. producers of textbooks can also benefit by considering and utilising the outcome of this research to improve the quality of future accounting textbooks. as textbooks are an important controlling tool used to ensure compliance and coverage of the curriculum (ozturk 2011), teachers tend to stick rigidly to the prescribed textbooks. however, the prescribed textbooks do not adequately support teaching and learning. as such, it is suggested that teachers must be circumspect in their use of textbooks. the shortcomings in both textbooks such as the lack of creative problem-solving assessment tasks should be ameliorated by teacher interventions to attain the desired educational objectives. in addition to the use of past grade 12 matric papers, experienced educators can develop their own resources (assessments activities) or turn to other sources such as the internet. this article is not without its limitations. our analysis was based on one chapter (companies) in two grade 12 accounting textbooks as we sought insight through an in-depth review. it is possible that a wider range could yield different results. although we acknowledge the fact that there are other parameters of quality, we assessed the quality of the textbooks based on four characteristics, namely content; structure and organisation; guidance and support; and targeted instructional and assessment tasks. it is likely that the inclusion or use of other characteristics could lead to different conclusions. consequently, there is room for further research on the quality of the accounting textbooks used in south africa. subsequent research on quality could involve more textbooks and chapters. other scholars could focus on accounting textbooks used across the three grades in the further education and training phase. yet, others could increase the criteria assessing criteria in their review of accounting textbooks. a review of the quality of grade 12 textbooks with commerce disciplines will also be worthwhile. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. author’s contributions j.n. conceptualised the study. j.n. and o.a-b. analysed data. j.n. wrote the first draft and o.a-b. conducted the literature review. all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript. funding this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views 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on trigonometry content’, eurasia journal of mathematics science and technology education 13(7), 3829–3848. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00760a yang, d., wang, z. & xu, d., 2015, ‘a comparison of questions and tasks in geography textbooks before and after curriculum reform in china’, review of international geographical education online 5(3), 231–248. abstract opsomming inleiding en teoretiese onderbou teoretiese raamwerk van waarderende ondersoek konteks: motivering van keuse van oranje meisieskool navorsingsmetodologie en verloop van ondersoek uitkomste van die waarderende ondersoek implikasies en tekortkoming van die studie erkenning literatuurverwysings footnote about the author(s) jan p.h. pretorius school of mathematics, natural sciences and technology education, university of the free state, south africa okkie g.p. combrinck school of mathematics, natural sciences and technology education, university of the free state, south africa citation pretorius, j.p.h. & combrinck, o.g.p., 2017, ‘die positiewe invloed van esteties bevredigende geboue en ʼn goed versorgde skoolterrein op die skep van skoolklimaat’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a385. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.385 original research die positiewe invloed van esteties bevredigende geboue en ʼn goed versorgde skoolterrein op die skep van skoolklimaat jan p.h. pretorius, okkie g.p. combrinck received: 14 oct. 2016; accepted: 22 june 2017; published: 11 sept. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the positive influence of aesthetically pleasing buildings and well cared for school grounds on the creation of school climate. in this article the positive effect of beautiful school buildings and well-kept school grounds on a school’s learners, teachers and parents is investigated. the methodology and theoretical foundation of appreciative inquiry were used to ask learners, educators and parents of oranje girls school in bloemfontein, south africa, about their experience of the influence the school’s beautiful buildings and terrain exert on the education presented there. six appreciative questions were put to the respondents. four themes were identified from the participants’ responses: the aesthetics of gardens and buildings; the influence of the history of the school; maintenance and buildings that tell something; and the influence of the buildings and grounds on education and interaction between learners, educators and parents. the themes and responses are embedded into, and compared to existing literature about the topic to demonstrate their relevance. it is argued that the performance of south african learners can be improved by renovating schools and by beautifying school grounds. opsomming in hierdie artikel word die positiewe effek wat mooi skoolgeboue en ’n goed versorgde terrein op ’n skool se leerders, onderwysers en ouers het, ondersoek. die metodologie en teoretiese grondslag van waarderende ondersoek is gebruik om leerders, onderwysers en ouers van oranje meisieskool in bloemfontein uit te vra oor die invloed wat die skool se mooi terrein en geboue op hulle belewenis van die skool en die onderrig daar het. ses waarderende vrae is aan respondente gestel. vier temas is uit die deelnemers se response geïdentifiseer: die estetika van tuine en geboue; die invloed van die geskiedenis van die skool; onderhoud en geboue wat iets vertel; en die invloed van die geboue en terrein op onderrig en interaksie tussen leerders, leerkragte en ouers. die temas en response word ingebed en vergelyk met bestaande literatuur oor die onderwerp om hulle geldigheid aan te toon. daar word geargumenteer dat suid-afrikaanse leerders se prestasies merkbaar verbeter kan word deur skole op te knap en skoolterreine te verfraai. a teacher assigned to an old classroom stated that she almost cried when she saw her classroom for the first time, with holes in the walls, mismatched paint, and no bulletin boards. (uline et al. 2010:615) inleiding en teoretiese onderbou reeds twintig jaar gelede het earthman en lemasters (1996:11) in ’n oorsig van studies wat die verband ondersoek tussen leerders se prestasies en die toestand van die skoolomgewing en -geboue, gerapporteer dat daar in vele van hierdie studies wel ’n verband gevind is. volgens uline en tschannen-moran (2008:56, 59) en uline et al. (2010:598) is daar sedertdien groeiende bewyse dat skole se geboue en terrein (infrastruktuur en fasiliteite) ’n direkte invloed het op die uitkomste wat leerders bereik. garibaldi en josia (2015:1592) argumenteer ook dat daar ’n verhouding is tussen die beboude omgewing, die sosiale en emosionele omstandighede vir leer en leerders se akademiese en ontwikkelingsuitkomste. só is verskille van tussen 5% en 17% gevind in die gemiddelde prestasies van leerders in funksionele geboue, vergeleke met leerders in skole met swak skoolgeboue (uline & tschannen-moran 2008:56). die kwaliteit van skoolgeboue is ook verwant aan leerders se ingesteldheid en gedrag, insluitende vandalisme, afwesigheid, skorsings, dissiplinêre voorvalle, geweld en rook (bernardi & kowaltowski 2006:158; schneider 2002, aangehaal uit uline & tschannen-moran 2008:60). tanner (2008:382) voorsien ‘… hard evidence that certain aspects of school design directly affect student outcomes’. skoolgeboue is die leeromgewing waarin leerders en onderwysers hulle bevind en die gewaarwording van hierdie omgewing is belangrik vir produktiwiteit, gemak, veiligheid, onderrig en leer. dit is goed gedokumenteer dat die fisieke eienskappe van skoolomgewings, soos beligting, geraas, binnenshuise lugkwaliteit en ’n aangename temperatuur, die ouderdom en die toestand van die geboue, leer beïnvloed (li & sullivan 2016:149). dieselfde twee navorsers het vasgestel dat leerders in klaskamers met ’n uitsig op groen gedeeltes beter aandag kon gee in die klas en gouer herstel het van stresvolle ervarings as hulle maats wat nie so ’n uitsig gehad het nie (li & sullivan 2016:153–155). daarom vorm skoolfasiliteite en -tuine ’n integrale deel van die onderrigproses en die toestand daarvan affekteer alle betrokkenes. hierdie fasiliteite moet deurlopend in stand gehou word ter wille van leerders sodat hulle hul potensiaal kan bereik en van onderwysers sodat hulle effektief kan onderrig. verwaarloosde skoolgeboue en -terreine word gekoppel aan ’n klimaat van sosiale wanorde by skole. bloch (2009) beskryf die onbevredigende toestand van vele skoolgeboue en -terreine in suid-afrika: the oecd [organisasie vir ekonomiese samewerking en ontwikkeling] commented on the number of schools made from mud, without lighting or facilities, and built by communities themselves, which collapse in the first rainfall or storms. many schools do not have sports fields. schools are often physically unappealing, damp and cold, or overheated in summer, and with few facilities like computer labs or libraries that might possibly draw children willingly out of their homes. (pp. 81–82) bloch (2009:82) dui verder aan dat: 17% van suid-afrikaanse skole geen toegang tot elektrisiteit het nie 19 940 (79%) skole nie biblioteekfasiliteite het nie 60% van sekondêre skole nie laboratoriumfasiliteite het nie 68% van skole geen rekenaars het nie 31% van skole van boorgate of reënwater afhanklik is van die 9461 skole met munisipale dienste, 6% afhanklik is van mobiele tenkwaens en 30% van gemeenskaplike staanpype 61% van skole met emmerof putlatrines op geen manier van die riool ontslae kan raak nie. om hierdie probleme te vererger is skole soms die teiken van politieke onrus. so is meer as twintig skole in vuwani in die limpopo provinsie, tydens oproer oor ’n munisipale grenskwessie, verbrand (mahopo 2016: aanlyn) – sien figuur 1. figuur 1: frank mukhaswakule primary was een van die dertien skole wat deur betogers in vuwani, limpopo aan die brand gesteek is. die omvang van die probleme hierbo dui daarop dat die oorgrote meerderheid van ons skole nie plekke is waar onderwysers, leerders of ouers graag hul tyd wil deurbring nie. dit is nie net ’n suid-afrikaanse probleem nie; figueroa, lim en lee (2016:20) het byvoorbeeld groot verskille in die verspreiding van hulpbronne tussen skole in verskillende provinsies van die filippyne gevind; en uit die vsa rapporteer uline en tschannen-moran (2008:55) dat skooldistrikte sukkel om tred te hou met stygende konstruksiekoste, toenemende leerdergetalle en die behoefte aan kleiner klasgroepe. die doel van hierdie waarderende ondersoek (verder wo) is om die positiewe invloed van esteties bevredigende skoolgeboue en ’n goed versorgde terrein op die ouergemeenskap, personeel en leerders te verhelder en die invloed daarvan te illustreer. ons hoop dit sal as aanmoediging dien vir die verantwoordelike persone om iets daadwerkliks te doen om skoolgeboue, -terreine en -geriewe tot voordeel van die opvoedingsproses te verbeter. bernardi en kowaltowski (2006:156) reken dat die argitektuur van ’n skool as menslik beskryf kan word wanneer daar dekoratiewe elemente is en die plantegroei beplan en uitgelê is. skole kan dus vermenslik word deur versiering en die aanlê van tuine. ons wil aanvoer dat die teendeel ook waar is: lelike skole met min of geen tuine of plantegroei nie lei tot die verontmensliking van sodanige skole. gifford (1976, soos aangehaal in bernardi & kowaltowski 2006:156) argumenteer ook dat ‘[e]nvironmental numbness, or apathy towards the physical environment, causes a type of paralysis in the individual, where the user rarely exercises any attitude in relation to unpleasant situations’. wanneer ’n mens die vervalle toestand van die meerderheid suid-afrikaanse skole en die swak prestasie van sulke skole raaksien, wil dit voorkom of rolspelers – skoolhoofde, onderwysers, leerders, ouers en onderwysowerhede – lamgelê word deur die omvang van die probleem. dalk is ’n deel van die oplossing nie so ingewikkeld nie. dalk sal die blote oprol van moue om skole te herstel en te verfraai verrassende resultate lewer. teoretiese raamwerk van waarderende ondersoek volgens whitney en trosten-bloom (2010:2) moet die betekenis van die twee woorde waardering en ondersoek oorweeg word om te verstaan waaroor wo gaan. waardering het te doen met erkentlikheid en dankbaarheid. dit bring die beste in mense en die wêreld om ons na vore. waardering behou dinge wat lewe, gesondheid, vitaliteit en uitnemendheid gee aan lewende menslike sisteme – soos skoolterreine en ‑gemeenskappe. verder bevestig waardering die hoogtepunte, suksesse, bates en potensiaal van die verlede en hede. waardering neem ook net soos ’n belegging toe in waarde. die ondersoek verwys na die handeling van eksplorasie en ontdekking (whitney & trosten-bloom 2010:3). die gees van ondersoek is die gees van leer. dit impliseer ’n soeke na nuwe moontlikhede – terwyl die ondersoeker in ’n toestand is van nie weet nie, verwondering en gewilligheid om te leer. dit beteken om vrae te vra, om te bestudeer, om te soek en om te delf. cooperrider, whitney en stavros (2008) formuleer die volgende klassieke definisie van die proses van wo: appreciative inquiry [ai] is the cooperative co-evolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. it involves the discovery of what gives ‘life’ to a living system when it is most effective, alive, and constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. ai involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. the inquiry is mobilized through the crafting of the ‘unconditional positive question’, often involving hundreds or thousands of people. ai interventions focus on the speed of imagination and innovation instead of the negative, critical, and spiraling diagnoses commonly used in organizations. the discovery, dream, design, and destiny model links the energy of the positive core to changes never thought possible. (p. 3) omdat daar in die definisie melding gemaak word van ’n soeke na die beste in beide mense en organisasies, is hierdie artikel grootliks gefokus op mense se belewing van die beste in ’n skool se geboue en terrein, en die aanwending van ’n skool as organisasie se hulpbronne om ’n aangename onderrigomgewing vir onderwysers en leerders te skep. die positiewe beginsel as een van die grondliggende beginsels van wo (cooperrider et al. 2008:7) word gebruik as teoretiese onderbou van ons studie. kelm (2005:97) hou die woorde van william arthur ward voor om haar bespreking van die positiewe beginsel in te lui: ‘when we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves’. watkins, mohr en kelly (2011:74) sluit hierby aan: ‘momentum for change requires large amounts of positive affect and social bonding – things like hope, inspiration, and sheer joy in creating with one another’. hierdie woorde belig die positiewe, afwagtende houding waarmee ons die waardering van die skool se geboue en terrein onderneem het. reed (2007:74) noem dit ‘a process of building on “what works” rather than what is going wrong or failing’. so ’n benadering stem ooreen met wat kelm (2005) aanbeveel, naamlik: this principle suggests that positive emotion is essential for growth and optimal functioning. it creates energy and momentum for change, and provides important resources for short and long-term physical and mental health. (p. 97) positiewe emosies skep meer vreugde, maar dit is ook aan die kern van ’n produktiewe lewe (kelm 2008:68): ‘we can build momentum toward greater joy by focusing on the positive core and paying attention to what really takes us upward’. watkins et al. (2011) sluit weereens hierby aan: widespread inquiry into ‘empowerment’ or ‘being the best organization in the field’, will have a whole different long term sustainable impact for positive action than a study into ‘low morale’ or ‘process breakdowns’ done with the idea that those conditions can be cured. (p. 75) vanuit ’n navorsingsoogpunt kan die uitsluitlike of gedeeltelike fokus op die positiewe aspekte van ’n verskynsel probleme veroorsaak: kritici kan tereg daarop wys dat dit lei tot ’n selektiewe of onvolledige ondersoek (reed 2007:75). die idee dat navorsing ’n volledige prentjie moet skets, is ’n kragtige een en verleen ondersteuning aan aansprake dat navorsing nie bevooroordeeld mag wees nie. sy wys egter ook daarop dat navorsing in die algemeen op die probleme van verskynsels fokus en dat wo, deur op die positiewe te fokus, op paradoksale wyse die idees van kritiese teorie toepas: [i]f people are used to thinking of themselves as being unsuccessful, using [appreciative inquiry] to ask questions about achievements can be a valuable way of challenging those ideas, allowing people to think more critically (that is, to take a more comprehensive view) about what they do and the circumstances in which they do it. (reed 2007:75–6) ons wil daarom nie beweer dat daar geen probleme bestaan wat betref die geboue en terrein van oranje nie; inteendeel, ons sal pertinent daarop wys dat die beknoptheid en helling van die terrein van die skool problematies is. vir die doeleindes van ons waardering verkies ons egter bloot om op die positiewe te fokus omdat ons paradoksaal wil glo dat dit ’n meer positiewe bydrae tot die oplossing van probleme sal lewer as wat probleemoplossing kan doen. reed (2007:76) wys daarop dat alle navorsing in elk geval slegs gedeeltelik is deurdat dit altyd ’n fokus en area van belangstelling het en dat ’n fokus op die positiewe bloot bydra om die prentjie meer volledig te maak. ons is oortuig daarvan dat ons studie ’n bydrae in hierdie opsig kan maak indien dit saam met ander studies met verskillende vrae en benaderings gelees word (reed 2007:76). konteks: motivering van keuse van oranje meisieskool die christelike en nasionale meisieskool oranje in bloemfontein bestaan uit drie susterskole op een terrein: die preprimêre skool, die primêre skool en die sekondêre skool. elkeen van die skole het sy eie skoolhoof en beheerliggaam waarin ouers verteenwoordig word, maar daar is noue samewerking tussen die skoolhoofde en die onderskeie beheerliggame, wat gereeld saam vergader om gemeenskaplike sake te bespreek en gesamentlike projekte aan te pak en te koördineer. elke skool het sy eie klaskamers, maar die skoolsaal en sportterreine word gedeel. die skool word as gevallestudie gebruik om die positiewe invloed van geboue en terreine op die onderrigproses te waardeer. die skool is in 1907 gestig. volgens die webblad (oranjemeisies 2016) hou hulle tred met die moderne wêreld sonder om weg te doen met christelike waardes, betekenisvolle tradisies en hoëgehalte-onderwys: hulle handhaaf ’n slim balans tussen werk en speel. die gehalte van die buitemuurse aktiwiteite, soos sport en kultuur, is net so hoog soos die gehalte van akademiese onderrig. enkele voorbeelde hieronder dien ter stawing. in 2015, byvoorbeeld, is begin om tablette vir onderrig te gebruik en in 2016 begin leerders in grade 8–11 tablette in die plek van handboeke gebruik (mentz 2016:4). die skool behaal in hierdie jaar ’n 100% slaagsyfer in die provinsiale matriekeindeksamen en word aangewys as die topskool in wiskunde en fisiese wetenskap in die vrystaat. die skool behaal ook ’n eerste plek in afrikaans huistaal en engels eerste addisionele taal in die provinsie. oranje se tennisspan is aangewys as die suid-afrikaanse verteenwoordiger by die wêreldbyeenkoms in katar, indië. een van die skool se tennisbane (sien figuur 2) is vernoem na amanda coetzer, bekende suid-afrikaanse tennisspeler en oudleerling van die skool. figuur 2: oranje se tennisbane en klubhuis. in die bloemfonteinskole-hokkieliga het oranje se a-span eerste en die b-span tweede geëindig. oranje se a-span is vir die derde agtereenvolgende jaar as die topspan in suid-afrika gekroon. die skool het ’n moderne, sintetiese astrobaan tot die beskikking van sy leerders. die skool se swemspan het aan die toptien-meisieskole se aquatics-byeenkoms in durban deelgeneem en ’n derde plek behaal. ook op atletiekgebied presteer die leerders uitstekend: oranje is aangewys as die algehele wenner van die meisiesafdeling tydens die provinsiale interskolebyeenkoms in bloemfontein. die redes waarom ons spesifiek hierdie skool gekies het, behoort duidelik te blyk uit die profiel van die skool hierbo. dis ’n uitstekende skool met uitstekende fasiliteite. daar is egter ’n bykomende, ewe belangrike rede vir beide die keuse van die skool as die onderwerp van ons studie: om die onderliggende ongelykheid tussen ons land se topskole en skole in voorheen benadeelde gebiede, waarvoor die staat grootliks verantwoordelik is, uit te lig. uline en tschannen-moran (2008) se wekroep is ook in die suid-afrikaanse konteks geldig: in our efforts to ensure that all students have access to a rigorous curriculum and highly-qualified teachers, we must also face the condition of the physical environment within which teachers teach and learners learn. (p. 56) ons hoop om die onderliggende onregverdigheid (uline et al. 2010:612) van die huidige situasie in die kollig te plaas. navorsingsmetodologie en verloop van ondersoek volgens watkins et al. (2011:22) is wo in wese ’n gesamentlike, hoogs deelnemende en sistemiese benadering tot die soeke na, die identifisering van, en die versterking van die ‘lewegewende kragte’ wat teenwoordig is wanneer ’n sisteem optimaal in menslike, ekonomiese en organisasieterme funksioneer. dit impliseer dat individue en organisasies op waarderende wyse ondersoek doen na daardie praktyke en faktore wat grondliggend is aan die suksesvolle funksionering van menslike sisteme. in teenstelling met die paradigma onderliggend aan probleemoplossing – dat organisering en bestuur ’n probleem is wat opgelos moet word – word tydens wo aangeneem dat organisering ’n misterie is wat omhels moet word (watkins et al. 2011:85). tydens wo word die beste gewaardeer van wat in ’n organisasie gebeur; dit wat dalk kan wees of moontlik is, word gevisualiseer; dialoog word gevoer oor hoe en wat behoort te wees, waarna innoverende denke volg oor dit wat sal wees. volgens whitney en trosten-bloom (2010:7) begin wo met die weldeurdagte identifisering van wat bestudeer gaan word: die bevestigende onderwerp. hierdie onderwerp bepaal grootliks die agenda vir leer en verandering – wat ook verklaar waarom dit so belangrik is dat dit met groot omsigtigheid geformuleer sal word. watkins et al. (2011:86) noem dit die ‘definiëringsfase’ (sien figuur 3) van die 5d-model van wo. tydens dié fase het ons bepaal dat die doel van ons navorsing tweeledig is: eerstens om ’n verkennende waardering, deur ’n steekproef rolspelers, te onderneem van die invloed wat ’n mooi skoolterrein en geboue op die belewenis van skoolonderrig het, en tweedens om die positiewe kern van die skool te bepaal. ons wil daarop wys dat ons vir hierdie waardering slegs op die invloed van die buiteaansig van die geboue en op die terrein wil fokus; interne faktore soos byvoorbeeld die invloed van die getal leerders per klas, of die bestuurstyl van die skoolhoof val daarom buite ons fokus. figuur 3: die skoolterrein se positiewe kern. die tweede fase word die ontdekkingsfase genoem (watkins et al. 2011:87 – sien figuur 3; whitney & trosten-bloom 2010:7). whitney en trosten-bloom (2010:7) beskryf dit as die koöperatiewe soeke om ‘die beste van wat is en wat was’ te verstaan. volgens watkins et al. (2011:87) moet ‘die beste van wat is’, gewaardeer word deur te fokus op tye van uitnemendheid – toe individue die organisasie (in hierdie waardering, spesifiek die geboue en terrein) as effektief en lewend ervaar het. whitney en trosten-bloom (2010:7) stel voor dat dit tipies deur onderhoude van aangesig tot aangesig uitgevoer word, maar dit kan ook in fokusgroepe gedoen word. gebaseer op die eerste navorser se kennis van die spesifieke skool – sy eggenote is ’n onderwyseres verbonde aan die skool, en beide sy dogters was leerders daar – is besluit dat dit toepaslik is om ’n groep bestaande uit vier ouers, twee leerders en twee onderwyseresse deur die metode van doelgerigte of oordeelkundige steekproefneming (babbie 2010:193) te identifiseer. hierdie metode van steekproefneming is ook gebruik deur uline, tschannen-moran en wolsey (2009:400) in hul ondersoek na die verband tussen die kwaliteit van twee skole in die vsa se fasiliteite en die skole se onderrigklimaat: ‘the two schools, one urban and one rural, are selected purposefully for this study, maximizing learning from cases rich in information’. die volgende onvoorwaardelik positiewe vrae (whitney & trosten-bloom 2010:11) is tydens onderhoude onder vier oë deur die eerste navorser aan deelnemers gestel: wat is jou eerste of aangenaamste herinnering van die terrein van oranje en die geboue? watter gebou is jou gunsteling, en waarom? watter invloed het die geboue en die terrein op die onderrig by die skool? wat is die een ding wat die geboue en die terrein beskryf, waarsonder dit net nie dieselfde sou wees nie? as ons nou droom oor die geboue en die terrein, hoe sou jy dit oor tien jaar wou sien? wat sou jy anders of beter wou sien? wat dink jy kan ander skole leer by oranje omtrent hulle geboue en terrein? die eerste vier vrae is as deel van die ontdekkingsfase aan die deelnemers gestel. die laaste twee vrae word as deel van die droomfase (sien figuur 3) geag omdat die deelnemers tydens hierdie fase betrokke moet raak by gesprekke rakende die organisasie se roeping, sy potensiaal, asook die unieke bydrae wat dit tot die welstand van mense in die algemeen kan maak (watkins et al. 2011:87–88). volgens hierdie skrywers word verskeie stories oor die organisasie se geskiedenis gedeel en uitgelig sodat ’n nuwe geskiedkundige narratief verskyn – wat weer lewe gee aan ’n positiewe toekoms. die droomfase is daarna voortgesit deur positiewe temas uit die onderhoude te identifiseer. tydens die ontwerpfase is die raamwerk van die artikel gevisualiseer en geskryf. watkins et al. (2011:88) noem hierdie raamwerk die sosiale argitektuur van die onderneming – ’n term wat uiters geskik is om die strukturele onderbou van ons navorsingsproses te omvat. die voltooide artikel is aan die skoolhoof en bestuursliggaam van die skool voorgelê en toestemming is verleen vir die publikasie daarvan. die artikel het sy finale bestemming bereik toe dit as deel van die bestemmingsfase vir keuring aan ’n akademiese vaktydskrif voorgelê en gepubliseer is. uitkomste van die waarderende ondersoek vier temas is uit die deelnemers se response geïdentifiseer: die estetika van tuine en geboue, die invloed van die geskiedenis van die skool, onderhoud en geboue wat iets vertel en laastens die invloed van die geboue en terrein op onderrig en interaksie tussen bewoners. vervolgens gaan ons die temas een vir een ontleed en die response inbed in bestaande literatuur om sodoende die geldigheid daarvan te illustreer. die estetika van tuine en geboue estetika is ten nouste verbonde aan die ervaring van skoonheid en dit ontlok sterk emosies en gewaarwordings by mense (uline et al. 2010:618). as sodanig kan die estetiese kwaliteite van ’n skool sterk gevoelens van behoort kweek, wat op sy beurt weer entoesiasme vir leer wek (jarman, webb & chan 2004, aangehaal uit uline et al. 2010:618). sodanige entoesiasme ontwikkel vanweë die emosionele reaksies op ’n skool se estetiese kwaliteite. uline et al. (2010:597–632) het die onderlinge wisselwerking tussen die kwaliteit van die fasiliteite van drie skole in een van amerika se mid-atlantiese state en dié skole se onderrigklimaat ondersoek. hulle rapporteer dat estetika sterk figureer in die persepsies van die respondente in hul studie van skoolomgewings. by een van die deelnemende skole het ’n skoolhoof byvoorbeeld ’n dekoratiewe fontein laat oprig. toe ’n groot boom doodgaan wat voorheen op hierdie plek gestaan het, wou die studente dit graag vervang met iets wat esteties bevredigend is. ondanks pessimiste wat aangevoer het dat die leerders hul gemors daarin sou gooi, het die optimiste geseëvier en is die fontein vandag ’n fokuspunt in die gedagtes van die lede van die skoolgemeenskap (uline et al. 2010:619). die skoolhoof beskryf dit as ’n vergaderplek vir die leerdergemeenskap en ’n plek vir stille refleksie. in ons studie is daar ’n soortgelyke fokuspunt in die gedagtewêreld van die skoolgemeenskap. die le roux-huis (sien figuur 4 en 5) is die gebou waarin die skool op 2 augustus 1907 gestig is. dit is vernoem na die eerste skoolhoof en is in 1976 tot ’n nasionale monument verklaar. tanner (2008:383, 394) kon statistiese bewyse vind dat die teenwoordigheid van ’n prominente verwysingspunt soos die le roux-huis ’n positiewe bydrae tot leerderprestasie maak. figuur 4: le roux-huis, wat as koshuis en personeelkamer vir die primêre skool dien. figuur 5: die voortrekkernooientje met le roux-huis in die agtergrond. vir verskeie van die respondente in ons studie is dié gebou die mooiste op die terrein. leerder b verwoord dit soos volg in haar antwoord op die vraag watter gebou haar gunsteling is: ek dink dis le roux-huis omdat ek so lank daar is. dis regtig mooi. die bloureën as jy kom om die sirkel daar. en die klomp klein kindertjies wat altyd daarom is. en dis lekker. die ‘bloureën’ waarna die leerder verwys, is ’n wisteria sp. wat reeds in 1907 geplant is. dit is saam met die gebou tot ’n nasionale monument verklaar. ook vir ouers b en c staan le roux-huis uit. ouer c stel dit soos volg: ‘ek dink dit is die oudste gebou daar, so hy staan maar uit as jy hom sien. en my kinders moet daar bly, so hy moet vir my mooi wees’. leerder a verwys ook na die voortrekkernooientjie (sien figuur 5) voor die gebou: as mens inry by die skool, dan sien mens die mooi koshuis daar agter en die voortrekkernooientjie. […] ek dink le roux-huis, dis mooi, die tipe huis daar is vir my baie mooi. hierdie beeldhouwerk is die handewerk van laurika postma, ’n oudleerder van die skool (oranje meisieskool, ongedateerd). dit is in brons gegiet en op 19 oktober 1940 onthul. die idee agter die beeld is dat dit die leerders sal besiel om hul leuse, vooruit, uit te leef. die matrikulante het elke jaar op hulle laaste skooldag ’n seremonie by die beeld om sodoende afskeid te neem van die skool. le roux-huis en die voortrekkernooientjie dra dus sterk daartoe by om ’n gevoel van iewers behoort by die leerders en skoolgemeenskap te vestig. uline et al. (2009:401) argumenteer dat die manier waarop ’n skoolgebou ontwerp, bestuur en onderhou word, ’n boodskap oordra omtrent die waarde wat geplaas word op opvoedkundige aktiwiteite wat daarin plaasvind. al drie die skoolhoofde in die verdere studie van uline et al. (2010) spreek ook hulle besorgdheid uit oor die boodskap wat hul fasiliteite aan leerders, ouers en die groter gemeenskap uitstuur. een van die onderwysers – onderwyser a – in ons studie deel klaarblyklik hierdie besorgdheid: ek ry verby die skole waar ek op skool was – baie dae – en ek sien hoe verslons en sleg lyk die tuine en geboue, dan dink ek by myself: dit is eintlik ’n refleksie van die mense wat binne is. uline en tschannen-moran (2008) bevestig hier die siening: the manner in which a school building is designed, managed, and maintained sends a message to its occupants and community beyond, speaking volumes about the value placed on activities transpiring within its walls. (p. 67) die toestand van die skool se klaskamers is daarom ’n baie hoë prioriteit vir die skoolhoofde waarna hierbo verwys word. oop ruimtes en groen ruimtes is ook hoog op hulle agenda. een van hulle beskou die uitgestrekte teerbedekte oppervlakke van sy skool as esteties afskuwelik en beplan om binne drie of vier jaar grasperke en oop ruimtes tot die beskikking van sy leerders te stel omdat hulle desperaat is daaroor. uline en tschannen-moran (2008:58) beklemtoon ook die behoefte aan positiewe buiteruimtes. soos reeds genoem, het li en sullivan (2016:153–5) bevind dat leerders wat klaskamervensters met ’n uitsig op tuine het, beter aandag gee in die klas en dat hulle gouer herstel van stresvolle ervarings. hul bevindings toon ’n kousale verband aan: groen uitsigte lewer beter aandagspanne en groter herstel van stres by leerders. onderwyser a beklemtoon die noodsaaklikheid van tuine en grasperke en deel ook die skoolhoof hierbo se weersin in siellose oppervlakke wat in hierdie geval met sementblaaie bedek is: nou staan jy buite jou klas en jy het niks om in vas te kyk nie. jy kyk in sement vas, of jy kyk in bossies vas. jou menswees, jou siel het skoonheid nodig en ek dink dís wat skole mis: hulle mis die punt. hulle spaar die arbeid en belê in groot geboue en rugbyvelde en detail, terwyl ’n roosboompie en ’n grasperkie – gaan dalk meer vir die kinders beteken. […] beton is nie tuin nie. beton beteken ‘ek werk minder’, maar ek dink jy doen jou kinders skade. want ek dink ’n mens moet deur natuur en mooi goed omring word om te groei aan die binnekant. sy beskryf haar gewaarwordings toe sy die eerste keer by haar klas in oranje uitstap: en toe ek die oggend so uit my klas uitstap vir die eerste keer en die rooi rose was daar so voor my tuin, en hulle het so geblom en daai grasperke … dit was vir my die ongelooflikste oomblik by oranje [sien figuur 6.] daai van: ‘wow! ek stap nie net uit op sement nie. dis mooi hierso’. […] mense wat by ander skole skoolgehou het, wéét wat ons hier het. dit definieer half die skool. figuur 6: ‘en toe ek die oggend so uit my klas uitstap vir die eerste keer en die rooi rose was daar so voor my tuin, en hulle het so geblom en daai grasperke … dit was vir my die ongelooflikste oomblik by oranje.’ vir ouer a is ’n ander skool wat hulle besoek het ‘hard’ weens al die sementblaaie: toe ons daar inry, dis ’n harde skool. dit is, jy sien net geboue en sement. daar is glad nie hierdie vriendelike tuine waar die kinders kan sit nie. ek dink as kinders hier in die middae sit onder die bome (sien figuur 7 en 8) gaan jy tog ’n gevoel kry van natuur wat jy nie kry by ander skole nie. dis hard, sement. dis ’n skool wat nie lekker is nie. figuur 7: vriendelike tuine waar die kinders kan sit. figuur 8: tuine waar die kinders kan sit. uline et al. (2009) verwys in hierdie opsig na die kontraste tussen ‘harde’ en ‘sagte’ skoolomgewings: … with hard environments referring to those physical attributes and spaces that are unresponsive and unyielding, compared to soft environments that are flexible and responsive, characterized by warm colors, soft furniture, and textured floor coverings. (pp. 402–403) hierdie kwaliteite het volgens hulle inderdaad ’n effek op die skoolomgewing. die invloed van die geskiedenis van die skool daar is in die vorige afdeling verwys na die tradisie dat die matrieks van oranje op hulle laaste skooldag ’n seremonie by die voortrekkernooientjie hou om sodoende afskeid te neem van die skool. ouers woon dikwels hierdie seremonie by. die skool hou ook jaarliks ’n kransleggingseremonie by die vrouemonument in bloemfontein, waarheen oudskoolhoofde en -leerders genooi word (sien figuur 9). dit is maar twee voorbeelde van die manier waarop die skool se tradisies in stand gehou word. figuur 9: emme-lancia faro, vorige hoofmeisie van oranje, lê ʼn krans by die vrouemonument. sodanige gemeenskapsbetrokkenheid skep ’n diep en volgehoue geskiedkundige verbintenis tussen huidige leerders en oudleerders (uline et al. 2010:616). die huidige leerders raak bewus van die gemeenskap van oudleerders en hulle prestasies en word dan dienooreenkomstig gemotiveer om hulle eie nalatenskap te vestig. so word respek vir die skool en sy terrein ook gekweek, wat weer tot volgehoue instandhouding en die netheid van die fasiliteite en tuine lei. ouer a verwoord dit soos volg: so, ’n wedersydse respek is daar, want die skool het respek vir die kinders: om hulle in ’n mooi omgewing te laat skoolgaan, so dan verwag ek van my kind om respek te hê vir dit wat hier vir hulle gebied word. sy sê ook: hier is ’n omgee wat nie op ander plekke is nie. hulle is trots op hulle skool. hulle was nie van graad een af hierso nie, maar as ek sien hoe trots is my kinders op hierdie skool, verstom ek my. ouer c bied ’n verklaring vir hierdie gevoel van trots op die skool: ‘nee ek dink daar is maar geskiedenis daaraan. dis die storie daaraan. dit skep tog ’n indruk by jou. ek dink dis sy geskiedenis wat agter dit lê’. ouer c het ook waardering vir die instandhouding van die tradisies en geskiedenis van die skool: dis netjies. dis iets om op trots te wees. ek is bly hulle het nie net van waar die skool af kom vernuwe nie. dat hulle dit gehou het. en dat die skool sy tradisie in stand hou. jy kry dit nie meer nie. hier is regtig ’n tradisie wat … ek dink dít is wat die kinders so opval, want onthou ons kinders word nie meer geleer van waar hulle vandaan kom nie. maar ek dink die skool help hulle ’n bietjie daarmee. onthou, kinders sukkel deesdae. hulle weet nie meer waar hulle vandaan kom nie. […] my kinders sou nooit vrouemonument toe gegaan het [sien figuur 9) as hulle nie in die skool was nie en daai deel van die geskiedenis ook geleer het nie. dis vir my ’n geskiedkundige skool. dis regtig ’n skool wat vir my voel asof hulle kan sê dit is ’n museum en dit bewaar. dit is regtig ’n skool vir die nageslag. dis wonderlik. onderhoud, geboue wat iets vertel en ouerbetrokkenheid volgens uline en tschannen-moran (2008:69) begin ons nou maar om te begryp hoe en wanneer ’n skool se fisieke strukture die vasgestelde doelwitte van onderrig en leer versterk. ons begin verstaan waarom sekere ruimtes werk en ander nie werk nie. terwyl beleidmakers soliede bewyse hiervoor soek, is navorsers besig om te verken hoe die gekompliseerde verwikkeldhede van die fisieke hoedanighede van ’n skoolgebou [en terrein] onderrig en leer beïnvloed: considering the degree to which school climate mediates this complicated interplay of factors may help to tell a compelling story about how human comfort, pleasing appearance, adequacy of space, functional furniture and equipment, a clean and orderly environment, and regular maintenance affects occupants’ sense of wellbeing and thus their capacity to teach and learn (uline & tschannen-moran 2008:69). twee faktore hierbo het betrekking op ons studie en sal daarom verder ontleed word. die eerste is die gereelde onderhoud van oranje en sy fasiliteite as bydraende faktor om die skoolomgewing ’n aangename een te maak. hiermee saam gaan ouerbetrokkenheid, waarsonder so ’n omvangryke onderhoudspoging feitlik onmoontlik sou wees. edwards (1992), soos aangehaal uit earthman en lemasters (1996:8), het reeds bevind dat goeie ouerbetrokkenheid veroorsaak dat meer fondse vir die skool geïn word en dat sodanige skole se geboue in ’n beter toestand is as dié van skole met lae ouerbetrokkenheid. uline en tschannen-moran (2008) argumenteer ewe sterk in hierdie verband: a school with strong community engagement responds to the needs and concerns of parents and community members, and as a result should be able to marshal community support when needed. […] … the more schools were successful in keeping parents out, the lower student achievement was likely to be. (p. 61) onderwyser b verwys na die manier waarop die gemeenskap van oranje in hierdie opsig groot bydraes maak: en toe die oudste dogter in graad agt was, toe het hulle begin om vir elke graadkomitee ’n tuin te gee. toe het ons begin tuine maak en die geboue op te knap en al sulke goeters. en dan, ek is nou twaalf jaar hierso; in die twaalf jaar wat ek hier was, die geboue wat verbeter is. my eie klas het hulle verlede jaar alles uitgegooi en vir my oorgemaak en ek kon sê hoe ek dit graag wou hê. […] hulle probeer vir ons mooi maak, lekker maak om hier skool te hou, die lokale vir kinders lekker te maak, die nuutste tegnologie hier te hê, dit toeganklik te maak. hierdie noue betrokkenheid van ouers hou volgens uline en tschannen-moran (2008) ’n groot voordeel in: as communities actively engage with their schools, they come to understand the various needs associated with teaching and learning, including physical environments conducive to these primary school functions. (p. 61) ouers a en m het ook waardering vir die nougesette instandhouding van die terrein en geboue. volgens ouer a: … [is] dit mooi en hulle hou dit in stand. die tuine is nie verwaarloos nie. dit is netjies. dis skoon. ek dink dit dra by tot ’n lekker omgewing om in skool te gaan. […] ek weet hoeveel daar moet ingaan. hoeveel tyd, hoeveel geld. ek weet dit kós om dit in stand te hou. miskien moet ’n ou meer, baie meer dankbaar wees oor waar jy is. ouer m sluit hierby aan: die feit dat dit, die nasionale gedenkwaardigheid – die koshuis, dat hulle dit erken en dat hulle dit bewaar, soos wat dit veronderstel is om bewaar te word: ek het baie waardering daarvoor… as ek nou dink hoeveel plekke gaan sommer net tot niet …. leerder a, op die vraag wat die één ding is wat die geboue en die terrein vir haar beskryf, waarsonder die plek net nie dieselfde sou wees nie, sonder die netheid uit: nee, ek dink die netheid. ek dink dis baie netjies daarso. die eerste indruk wat jy sien is netheid. goed georganiseerd, goed bestuur. instandhouding. dit word in stand gehou. kos ons ouers baie geld. leerder b beskryf op intuïtiewe wyse hoe die estetiese aard van die geboue haar in staat stel om positiewe konneksies met verskeie areas te ontwikkel en hoe die kleure warmte uitstraal: ek dink die geboue: dit is mooi. dis nie asof dit … dis nie afgeskeep nie. en die plek is mooi. so – ek’s al gewoond aan dit vir twaalf jaar: oranje, dat dit regtig al deel van jou geword het. en jy kweek op elke plek ’n herinnering. en die geboue is van so ’n aard en dis lekker kleure ook, want ek meen nie soos in negatiewe en koue kleure nie. dis warm. earthman en lemasters (1996:5) rapporteer hieromtrent dat die kleur van skoolgeboue inderdaad die prestasies van leerders beïnvloed. tanner (2000) en tanner en lackney (2006), volgens uline en tschannen-moran (2008:58), beklemtoon die noodsaak van ‘… pleasing or appropriate color, defined as ageand activity-appropriate color choices’. onderwyser a verwys na die grasie van die terrein en geboue: jy gaan nou dink dis ’n snaakse woord: ‘graciousness’. dis stylvol, dis grasieus. en tog is daar ’n dankbaarheid, want ek bedoel die here is op die terrein. ja, ‘graciousness’, want dis mooi en dis styl en dis grasie. dit is tog wie ons probeer versinnebeeld. ek voel ’n vrou moet stylvol wees. sy moet grasie hê. en hou ouer jy word, ek dink omdat ek nou ouer word besef ek jy kan lelik word – óf jy kan altyd stylvol wees. en dis wat hierdie geboue is. hier is jong kinders ook, maar dis nog steeds ‘gracious’ en dankbaarheid daaroor. onderwyser b verwoord die verhouding tussen geboue en inwoners selfs meer persoonlik en intiem: ‘die geboue en terrein maak sy arms vir jou oop en sê: “hier is ek. kom in”#’. die indruk dat daar subtiele boodskappe van ’n skool se geboue en terrein waarneembaar is vir die intuïtiewe persoon word bevestig deur feldman en mcphee (2008:154) wanneer hulle verklaar dat ‘everything speaks’ in die skoolopset: ‘… every interaction, every person, every activity, every part of the physical environment, and every time interval makes a difference for learning’. hier sien ons dus ’n verpersoonliking van die interaksies, geboue en terrein. ’n interessante voorbeeld hiervan – maar aan die ander uiterste van die spektrum van skole in suid-afrika – word gevind in manenburg op die kaapse vlakte, by die red river primêre skool (sien figuur 10), waar nuwe skoolgeboue ter waarde van r60 miljoen ingewy is (jansen 2016:8). die skool is geleë in ’n area waar bendegeweld hoogty vier – ‘… reg in die middel van die kruisvuur tussen die dixie boys, die hard livings en die clever kids’. die mure van die ou skoolgebou was vol koeëlgate – selfs in die skoolhoof se kantoor was daar twee (jansen 2016:8). die nuwe skoolhoof, mnr. everett poole bly nieteenstaande die klaarblyklik onoorkombare probleme soos armoede, maatskaplike ellende, dranken dwelmmisbruik en oorvol klasse ‘… propvol optimisme: die nuwe skoolgebou vra vir nuwe maniere van dinge doen.’ [ons kursivering]. ‘ons moet die grondgebied waarin ons lank as gyselaars aangehou is, terugneem’ (jansen 2016:8). die artikelskrywer rapporteer dat poole baie idees het vir red river: kunsklasse, ’n atletiekbaan, handvaardighede en ’n sentrum vir volwasse leer. figuur 10: mnr. everett poole, skoolhoof van red river primêre skool, saam met leerders voor een van die nuwe skoolgeboue wat teen r60 miljoen opgerig is. sal poole slaag in sy planne? hy kan dalk, want uit die literatuur in ons artikel blyk dit dat hy kragtige vennote in die nuwe skoolgeboue het – en dit kan ’n groot verskil maak as hy die algemene indruk wat die gemeenskap van die skool kry, ten goede kan verander. uline en tschannen-moran (2008:59) noem die algemene indruk wat ’n leeromgewing skep ‘… a reflection of the personality of a place’. uline et al. (2009:408) sluit hierby aan en reken dat die spesifieke persoonlikheid van die ruimtes binne ’n skool ’n gevoel van behoort by die betrokkenes kan skep – en dat daar dus ’n kollektiewe toewyding aan gedeelde leerdoelwitte is. dit is waarom leerders duidelik gevormde identiteite as lede van die skoolgemeenskap het. die tweede relevante faktor waarna uline et al. (2010) hierbo verwys, is voldoende ruimte: ‘adequacy of space’. weens die steil helling van die oranje meisieskool se terrein en die ligging van die skool teen ’n koppie in ’n woongebied is daar nie veel ruimte vir uitbreiding nie en is parkering ook ’n probleem. ouer b verwys spesifiek hierna: dis ’n baie mooi, rustige indruk wat jy kry as jy ingaan – behalwe as jy moet parkeer. so, as jy nie moet parkeer nie, dan bly jy eintlik maar rustig. […] dis ’n moeilike terrein omdat dit so op en af is, jy weet. dis van bo af, as jy vat hoe moeilik dit is eintlik, die vloei van parkering is baie moeilik om te reël. ouer b sluit hierby aan: ek dink dis tradisie, want dis so deel van die tradisie van … en ek sien die parkeringprobleem is ook deel van die tradisie, want ek weet dis seker al dertig jaar wat dit so ’n gespook is met parkering. vir ouer c hou die relatiewe beknoptheid van die skoolterrein ’n groot voordeel in en daarom is sy meer positief daaroor: maar die positief, dink is, alles is bymekaar. vir my as koshuisouer is daar nie … my kind hoef nie die gronde te verlaat om aan aktiwiteite deel te neem wat die skool aanbied nie, hoef nie oor ’n straat te loop of so iets nie. so dis baie bymekaar. […] dit gaan vir ons als oor veiligheid omdat jy nie by jou kinders is nie. invloed van die geboue en terrein op onderrig en interaksie tussen bewoners uline en tschannen-moran (2008:68) argumenteer dat ’n kombinasie van gedeelde en persoonlike ruimtes waarin leerders en onderwysers werk, kan help om ’n ordelike en ernstige akademiese atmosfeer te voed. ’n mooi en goed versorgde omgewing dra dus heelwat by tot die kwaliteit van die onderrig. in antwoord op die vraag oor watter area haar gunsteling is, reageer onderwyser a byvoorbeeld soos volg: daar waar my klas-area is, want dis vir my so mooi. jy is in jou klas, jy is tussen jou vriendinne waarmee jy nou nie regtig kan kuier nie, maar jy is omring. jy stap uit en dis mooi buite. dis eintlik my gunsteling-area. dis vir my lekker in my klas. ek kan besig wees om ’n gedig te verduidelik, dan sal ek sê: ‘kyk, dís wat ek probeer sê!’ of ek sal dit kleur. ek bedoel, jy kan dit nie by ander plekke doen nie. of: ‘how do you love them? let me count the ways’. en dan sê ek: ‘kyk net daarso: hulle gee rose’. onderwyser b reken ook dat die geboue en terrein ’n positiewe invloed uitoefen op die onderrig, maar vir haar skep dit ook ’n sekere gemeensaamheid tussen personeellede en help hulle om vrolik te wees: baie positief, weet jy, want dis lekker om in ’n mooi omgewing te werk. dis lekker om skool toe te kom in die oggend en te kyk na die blomtuin. dis lekker om te sien hoe netjies alles is. […] en dan in die oggende as jy inkom in die personeelkamer, dan is almal vrolik en almal lag. en ek dink die atmosfeer en dinge, die geboue, ja die estetiese van die hele ding maak dit vir jou lekker. tanner (2008:383, 386, 394) kon ’n beduidende statistiese verband vind tussen die prestasies van leerders in leesbegrip, tale, wiskunde en wetenskap, en die teenwoordigheid van faktore wat buiteruimtes met bome, tuine, natuurlewe, heinings en gras insluit. uline en tschannen-moran (2008) waarsku verder dat ons besondere aandag moet gee aan die maniere waarop verskillende ruimtes die daaglikse interaksies tussen en onder leerders, onderwysers en ouers aanmoedig. vir leerder a gaan dit in hierdie verband – sekerlik heel tipies – oor meer as die onderrig en meer oor speel as [self] onderrig, want sy onthou hoe die tuine (sien figuur 11 en 12) hulle speelterrein was, maar ook hoe hulle die lesse wat hulle in die klas oor rommelstrooi geleer het, kon toepas: en jou ma het jou nou maar baie sport en goed laat doen. maar dan tog in die later middae het jy nou oop tyd gehad en dan het ons so in die tuine gespeel. ons het huis-huis gespeel. elke klip was iemand se bed [sien figuur 11]. daar was ’n klip wat ’n rekenaar was [sien figuur 12]. ons het daar sommer van die middagstudiekinders wat daarbo bietjie papiere gemors het, ons het die papiere verwerk in ons kombuis en later weggegooi. nee, die tuine – hoe ons in hulle gespeel het en hoe jy eintlik ook so tuis gevoel het. (p. 68) figuur 11: ‘elke klip was iemand se bed. figuur 12: ‘daar was ʼn klip wat ʼn rekenaar was.’ uline (2000), aangehaal uit uline en tschannen-moran (2008:68), reken dat ‘[i]f carefully conceived, the separate spaces of a school reinforce each other physically and aesthetically, creating rich environments where interpersonal relationships can flourish’. uline en tschannen-moran (2008:68) se argumente sluit ten nouste aan by leerder a se beskrywing hierbo van hul speletjie en hoe die tuine hulle tuis laat voel het: design features that make for flexible and responsive environments create a sense of comfort and invite occupants to actively experience school life. when students feel comfortable to move within and beyond their individual classrooms, chances are they will engage more actively in their own, and each other’s, learning. the particular personality of various spaces may encourage a sense of belonging and foster a collective commitment to share learning goals. (p. 68) implikasies en tekortkoming van die studie tydens hierdie waarderende ondersoek was die eerste gedeelte van ons tweeledige doel (sien figuur 3) om die positiewe invloed van esteties bevredigende geboue en ’n goed versorgde skoolterrein op onderrig en die belewenis van ’n skoolloopbaan te ondersoek. deur die geïdentifiseerde temas uit die positiewe response van die deelnemers is aangetoon dat die invloed van die geboue en terrein op onderrig veelvlakkig, dinamies en kompleks is. oranje meisieskool presteer op al die vlakke wat van ’n skool verwag kan word: hul akademiese en sportprestasies is van die beste in die land en die skoolterrein en -geboue is esteties bevredigend en word goed onderhou en versorg. dit lyk maklik om aan te neem dat dit ’n groot bydrae tot die skool se prestasies, positiewe onderrig en bevredigende leerervarings maak. wanneer ’n mens na li en sullivan (2016) se aanbevelings luister, klink dit byna of die gemeenskap, beplanners en bestuurders van oranje insae daarin gehad het toe die geboue en terrein ontwerp is: architects should work to ensure that every classroom has views to green space. landscape architects should consider the locations of classroom, cafeteria and hallway windows in the development of their campus designs […] in addition to classroom views, views to green landscapes from hallways and the cafeteria seem particularly important. providing views to green space in such areas will help students recover from mental fatigue and stress during their breaks and prepare students for their next class. (p. 155) bernardi en kowaltowski (2006:156) argumenteer dat skoolgeboue gedeeltelik die leeromgewing van skole skep. uline en tschannen-moran (2008:56) toon aan dat die interaksie tussen skoolgeboue en die kwaliteit van leeruitkomste ten minste gedeeltelik verklaar word deur die bemiddelende invloed van skoolklimaat. hulle voer aan dat skoolklimaat ook ’n gedeeltelike verklaring is vir die negatiewe effek wat swak skoolgeboue op leer het. vervalle, oorvol of ongerieflike skoolgeboue lei tot lae moreel en powere insette van beide onderwysers en leerders, tot verminderde gemeenskapsbetrokkenheid by ’n skool, en selfs tot mindere positiewe skoolleierskap. ’n swak skoolklimaat kan moontlik ’n bydraende faktor wees tot swak prestasie indien ’n skool se fasiliteite onvoldoende is: our results revealed that when learning is taking place in inadequate facilities, there tends not to be as clear a focus on academics, and the learning environment is less likely to be perceived as orderly and serious. where school buildings are shabby and inadequate, there is less likely to be the kind of community engagements that supports teaching and learning. teacher attitudes and behaviors are related as well, as teachers are less likely to show enthusiasm for their jobs and to go the extra mile with students to support their learning when they teach in buildings they judge to be of poor quality. (uline & tschannen-moran 2008:66) uline et al. (2009) verwys na positiewe gevolge van goed versorgde skoolterreine op die klimaat van ’n skool: the ongoing interaction between the design and reality of the built environment and the occupants of that environment helped to define the climate of the place. reciprocally, the climate helped to shape interaction between and among people and between people and the built environment. these interactions further fashioned the personality of particular spaces at both grant and newcastle1. (p. 409) hierdie interaksie lei selfs tot die versterking van bewoners se identiteit (uline et al. 2009): as building occupants shared in the creation of the environment, they revealed an individual and collective sense of themselves as members of their school community. in turn, the environment gave back, reinforcing self-identity and perhaps even changing members in some way. the result was a deeper sense of belonging within each setting. (p. 409) na aanleiding van bogenoemde wil ons graag die tweede gedeelte van ons tweeledige doel (sien figuur 3) aanroer: om die positiewe kern van die skool te identifiseer. ons kon dieselfde intieme verweefdheid en positiewe band tussen die respondente in ons studie en die terrein van oranje, waarneem. ons wil gevolglik die positiewe kern van oranje ’n aangename onderrigklimaat noem. dit is vir ouers, onderwysers en leerders ’n aangename omgewing om in te leer, te speel en saam te werk. ons studie was ten beste ’n verkennende kwalitatiewe ondersoek in samewerking met ’n geselekteerde groepie ouers, onderwysers en leerders. as sodanig sou dit onverantwoordelik wees om ons spesifieke bevindinge te wil veralgemeen. desnieteenstaande – of dalk juis daarom – is genoeg insigte verwerf wat breër kwantitatiewe en kwalitatiewe ondersoeke regverdig. dit lyk heel waarskynlik dat onderwysowerhede, deur bloot skoolterreine op te knap en in stand te hou, ’n wesenlike verbetering kan bewerkstellig 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whitney d. & trosten-bloom, a., 2010, the power of appreciative inquiry: a practical guide to positive change, 2nd edition, berret-koehler, san francisco, ca. footnote 1. die name van die twee skole in hul studie. reflective journals in training td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 248-261. when the students leave. so there is a lot of emphasis on empowering the caregivers and chws to take over the project when the students move out for the period between october and february. people living in the area experience relatively high levels of poverty and unemployment. geographically the area consists of a large basin containing many smaller hills and valleys, it is fairly densely populated and reasonably accessible through a main tarred road and access to homesteads is by dirt roads. housing varies from wattle and daub square and rondavels to some fairly sophisticated brick and tile homes. there are a scattering of community halls, schools, clinics, spaza shops and taverns and transport is mostly by minibus taxi although some have their own vehicles. the value of service learning and reflection service learning can be defined as: a method under which students learn and develop through thoughtfully organised service that is conducted in, and meets the needs of, the community and is coordinated with an institution of higher learning and with the community, helps foster civic responsibility, is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students enrolled and includes structured time for the students (and community) to reflect on the service experience and outcomes. (duncan & aulsop (2006) adapted from the american association of higher learning, 1999) service learning and its value cannot be under estimated in the training of rehabilitation professionals as a means of providing a learning context that allows students to engage at a realistic level with the communities that they serve and experience directly their needs, values, problems and realities. previously health care education was confined to the sterile and unrealistic confines of clinics, hospitals and institutions where students had little if any exposure to these realities and thus qualified with a distorted perception of the real life challenges facing the many disabled people they served. in professions such as those dealing with communication and occupational disorders, the need to have an intimate understanding of the cultural, socio-economic and geographical diversity in south africa is an essential ingredient to being able to provide sensitive and realistic interventions to overcome these problems. the theoretical framework for this particular project is that of social justice. the particular population in which the service learning takes place is an historically disadvantaged community which has had very little access to rehabilitation. as can be seen in the learning outcomes part of the students brief is to be aware of national policy and legislation and ensure that it is being properly implemented at grass roots level. braveman & bass-haugen (2008) maintain that social justice and health disparities play an integral role in the development of theory and interventions as they relate to therapists working within communities, populations, and society at large. apart from gaining realistic knowledge about the communication and occupational problems that face all south africans and learning appropriate skills and strategies for dealing with them, working in a service learning context also allows for the development of attitudinal and spiritual components of the professional “self ” that are not easy to come by in the clinical hospital or institutional settings. joubert and hargreaves 250 the outcomes of the particular service learning module under discussion are that on completion of the module the student should be able to: demonstrate sensitivity to diversity and appropriate attitude and ability to work in different • community and cultural settings; assess and analyse a community using correct assessment and screening methods;• plan and implement appropriate interventions and recommendations for different settings;• demonstrate a sound knowledge, integration, application and understanding of primary health • care and cbr principles and issues related to the district health system; be familiar with the current trends in national policy that have direct or indirect impact on a • particular community and the country as a whole; demonstrate an ability to deal with community structures and show appropriate attitude, process • and procedure for community entry and negotiation; demonstrate the ability to use appropriate referral systems;• demonstrate a thorough understanding of the needs of care providers, effectively consult and • transfer of skills to both family members and employers; advocate for the rights and needs of the communities within which they work; and• demonstrate a sound understanding and application of professional ethical principles as these • would apply in community settings. integral to the concept of service learning is the ability of the student to be reflective in his/her practice. duncan & watson (2004), describe the purpose of reflective practice as a means of revisiting occurrences of the past in order to gain a deeper understanding of them through recall. they maintain that the process of reliving these past experiences may often evoke new dimensions of understanding that were not evident at the time. johnson et al (1991) suggest that if learners are to function better tomorrow than they did the previous day then they need to reflect on how their actions could be more effective and plan how to do this in the next session. students registered for this module are required to keep a reflective journal of each day’s learning experiences. it is handed in to their fieldwork coordinator at the end of each day for reading and comment and contributes towards the formative assessment of each student. reflection in education is used as a method to develop student’s self awareness through an inner dialogue. the purpose of the end product is not directed so much at a resolution as it is at a better understanding of the problem (pavlovich, 2007). in this particular instance the use of reflective journals was directed specifically at improving the students insight into his/her service learning experiences and to develop a greater need for taking accountability for reflecting on these experiences so that they would enhance the students learning process. because of what pavlovich (2007) refers to as the students investment of both their self image and personality into their journals, the subjective element becomes extremely difficult to mark in terms of giving the students annual year mark or percentage for each journal. in this particular instance and for these reasons, students are not marked on the personal content of their reflections but reflective journals in training 251 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 248-261. rather for work habits such as handing in on time and an indication of time and effort taken to complete reflections for example a half page reflection for a whole mornings involvement versus 4 pages of reflections for the same time. thus they have a reasonable sense of freedom to express themselves openly and honestly without feeling they have to say what their tutor wants to hear. literature review. higher education institutions in the african countries are striving towards ensuring that their curricula enable students to develop specific competencies that are transferable to a variety of contexts (nygaard, hojlt & hermansen, 2008). service learning facilitates this shift towards learning that embraces the natural context. during their service learning practical, students have to integrate knowledge learnt from their community module and other modules (i.e. physical, psychosocial and paediatrics) within the community context in which they are placed. according to bringle & hatcher (2005), service learning enables students to integrate community activities with educational objectives. the students are required to practically implement theoretical knowledge. this then allows them to attach practical meaning or redefine this knowledge if necessary based on their experiences in the community. one of the outcomes for this particular module as mentioned previously relates to advocating for the needs and rights of the community. engagement with the community provides students with the opportunity to practically employ strategies that will lead to achievement of this outcome. students also gain increased appreciation of their discipline as they begin to see the significance of their role in the community (julie, daniels & adonis, 2005). in addition service learning is a mutually benefiting teaching strategy. the benefits of service learning are enjoyed by both the provider and receiver of service (mitchell & humphries, 2007). the community provides resources in terms of people and experiences of strengths and needs while the students bring academic knowledge and training that the community requires. bringle & hatcher maintain that reflection is an integral element of service learning. they defined reflection as ... consideration of an experience based on particular learning objectives (2005: 27). students have to reflect on their experiences at their community site through journal entries. this requires of them to think about their experiences in a systematic way that allows them to relate their experiences to the theory taught. when writing a reflective journal students have an opportunity to think about their experiences and attach meaning to them (hubbs & brand, 2005). students are meant to step back and reflect on the experience and not merely regurgitated on the content of the activities done. reflective journaling leads to increased self awareness and leads to development of critical cognitive strategies like reflective skills, critical thinking and integration of theory and practice (hutchings, 2006). it therefore allows the facilitator, who then reads the journals, to assess whether or not the students joubert and hargreaves 252 have adequately integrated their knowledge and thus offer appropriate feedback. hutchings (2006) also emphasised that guidance is imperative in reflective writing. the facilitator reads the journal and provides feedback to the student which is essential in reinforcing development of reflective skills. on the contrary, hubbs & brand (2005) caution that reflective journaling can have negative outcomes in cases where students reflect at a superficial level and fail to reach higher levels of critical thinking at the end of the module. hutchings (2006) also stated that students take a risk by sharing their thoughts and feelings with a facilitator who is responsible for their evaluation. students might therefore, suppress their true feelings and may write what they know will please the facilitator. for example, students might suppress their feelings about certain cultural practices that might be in conflict to their beliefs, because they are ware that they are expected to display cultural sensitivity. methodology a random selection of twelve reflective journals from all three disciplines was collected over the period from 2002 to 2006 from students who had all attended the sthandokuhle¹ support group. informed verbal consent was obtained from these students on the condition of anonymity and respect for their confidentiality in terms of storage of these journals and disposing of them after data analysis. a breakdown of the students, their race and the disciplines they came from can be seen in table 1. table 1: summary of reflective journals and their authors which were analysed for this research journal & student code year of study discipline race a 2003 audiology african b 2003 audiology indian c 2003 occupational therapy white d 2004 speech-language pathology white e 2005 occupational therapy indian f 2005 occupational therapy white g 2005 occupational therapy african h 2005 audiology african i 2005 speech-language pathology white j 2006 occupational therapy african k 2006 occupational therapy african l 2006 occupational therapy african sthandokuhle, which means “we rejoice in goodness” was the zulu name of the site where the students met 1. with the community health workers, caregivers and their disabled children. joubert and hargreaves 254 discussion of findings theme 1: emotional lability there were four basic sub categories of emotions displayed in the reflective journals. while these four sets of emotions were revealed by the students intermittently throughout the length of the practical exposure, they tended to follow a pattern of dominance of one over the others in more or less the following order: mixed emotions;• positive emotions;• negative emotions; and• emotions related to self esteem and confidence.• initially, in the early days of exposure to the service learning environment, students displayed mixed emotions of apprehension, anticipation and anxiety that were fairly rapidly replaced with those of excitement and confidence. this also occurred in the first few weeks, as some discovered that what they had anticipated as fear of a strange and possibly hostile environment had revealed a much more hospitable one. this was then replaced with positive emotions of pleasure and joy at this new discovery. later as they became used to the routine and various challenges set by the learning environment and the disappointments that arose out of not always being able to succeed in resolving problems negative emotions revealed themselves. throughout the practical from the second week onwards students periodically revealed emotions related to their own awareness of their growing confidence and self esteem within the situation. this is illustrated in the following narrative boxes providing extracts from the reflective journals of three of the students. student e 1st week: ... initially i was a bit overwhelmed at the multiple disabilities that some individuals have among all their social problems … where do we start with these individuals? … i do feel a little anxious about the community especially as i am going to be working with the toddlers and due to my decreased self esteem i feel i need to learn a lot…. 2nd week: i feel less worried about the valley than i was initially 3rd week: i feel more confident now because we seem to be moving in some direction. 4th week: i thoroughly enjoyed the home visits today. 6th week: the only thing that irritated me today was that the community members did not bring their garden tools today…… we shouldn’t get annoyed but it almost seems like the group is not motivated to start the garden. reflective journals in training 255 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 248-261. student a 2nd week : we as students are really looking forward to learn some of these skills and meeting the rest of the children.... 3rd week: i had a wonderful time today i enjoyed every moment of it. 5th week: i was chairing the meeting ….i really enjoyed it…..i think i managed very well and give myself credit for that. 6th week: the beadwork group also has started although it is going slow due to them forgetting needles…. student i 1st week: our experience at ngcolosi didn’t seem to be as exciting as was reported by other groups ….there seemed to be a general atmosphere of helplessness amongst the people there, which was slightly disappointing to observe. 3rd week: overall a lovely and well structured day! 9th week: we had a planned and organized morning for today and were all well prepared – brilliant pre-planning. 10th week: following visit to foster home of one of the children: this was honestly something that did not have a good impact on me. the new conditions that this little boy has to live in was below that what he was used to. theme 2: new learning experiences and challenges both early on in the experience and as the students progressed within the practical exposure time they reflected continuously and with some excitement on their new learning experiences. these especially included their ability to apply basic theoretical principles in the practical situation and the benefits of transprofessional interaction. it also included their growing ability to cope with working in an underresourced environment amongst people whose language most could not speak and who were mostly living in quite extreme poverty. joubert and hargreaves 256 student f 3rd week: later i got to see philile’s mom feed her. it was amazing to see this done properly. it must take lots of practice.” student g 10th week: we learned that we should practice to look to the people(sic) as a whole and work towards helping them rather than for our own benefits. student k 6th week: i learned a lot from that experience, especially on how you could assess through observing and combining activities to get different results for the different health professionals”. student b final week the biggest challenge for me, was the language barrier and working with interpreters. i feel that working/communicating via an interpreter sometimes loses the essence of what is being said and things are not always directly translated. theme 3: evolution of strategies to deal with emerging needs problem solving: a definite emergence of awareness of, and skills in, applying strategies that could be used to overcome problems that had initially seemed insurmountable is evident in most student’s reflections. this went closely together with the student’s own growing confidence and self esteem in the situation. student d 12th session 12 discussing problems related to birds eating the seedlings in the vegetable garden: during the first part of the morning we decided to make a scarecrow. having no materials with us, we looked around to find some scrap paper bags, wood and wire. from this i learnt the importance of group work in that one can share different ideas and/or plans in order to fulfill a goal. student b last session: when working in a community i’ve come to realize that things don’t always go according to plan. therefore, one needs to be well prepared for anything and be flexible enough to make adjustments, where necessary. reflective journals in training 257 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 248-261. theme 4: awareness of their role in making a difference as the students progressed and gained both skills and confidence in working in this particular community they also expressed their awareness of where and how they had observed the positive outcomes of their various interventions. this was clearly a situation in which they were able to observe their theory being put into practice and that it actually worked. this was mostly evident from the middle of the practical exposure period until the end of it. student c final week the most rewarding aspect …….to be able to see the joy of the family as a child crawls for the first time or lifts his head. when we taught ‘thombifuthi some sign language and we communicated. these moments were priceless. student j 17th week since the beginning of this year, where we started with a group since initial stage i’m proud of…. student l 14th week although i’ve always known the importance of gross motor activities before actual where there was reluctant (sic) to participate we overcome this obstacle, now our group are in cohesion which activity participation, i found that the morning exercises gives them ( the children in the group)a lot of motivation and energy. how reflections reveal the achievement of learning outcomes the reflective journals mostly revealed evidence of students achievement of outcomes related to application of their professional theoretical and clinical skills and knowledge. the following are a few examples of how this was revealed: demonstrate sensitivity to diversity and appropriate attitude and ability to work in different 1. community and cultural settings: most of the students indicated their awareness of and respect for the diversity of cultural experiences they were exposed to i.e. not only in terms of the particular community which was almost exclusively of the zulu culture and language group, but also a respect for each other as a diverse group of students from african, european and indian cultures. student e ... just to watch people really show off their culture (referring to dancing and joubert and hargreaves 258 singing) it was amazing to see children, some with severe disabilities, become so involved and move to the rhythm of the music. it really brought home the fact that one should never be judgemental of ones disability because people can really surprise you with their potential” and later: it was a humbling experience. i’ve learnt to appreciate life so much more because there are people out there that have much bigger problems to deal with yet they can still smile and make the best of life. able to plan and implement appropriate interventions and recommendations for different 2. settings. students demonstrated an ability to quickly adapt to the situation and use whatever resources were available at the time. the example of making a scarecrow is one and the following shows the ability to explore solutions to very difficult situations: student c after expressing her concern and sense of helplessness after a mother confessed the husband’s physical abuse of her and sexual abuse of her 16 year old daughter. we (the students) were thinking of maybe discussing (the formation of ) a support group for abused women, but is this culturally appropriate to a community in(sic) which women are expected to be subservient and may be chastised?….” student i working with the translator actually went so well and skills were shared both ways. i learned zulu while she was made aware of the type of questions to ask when assessing a child’s receptive language level of understanding. demonstrate an ability to deal with community structures and show appropriate attitude, process 3. and procedure for community entry and negotiation. initially students demonstrated some apprehensiveness in their ability to deal with community structures however this improved with time. student f 3rd week i chaired the meeting today. i really was embarrassed which doesn’t happen often! we are still getting to know these people and i’m sure take time before we are 100% confident chairing a meeting. reflective journals in training 259 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 248-261. student c discussing a visit to one of her children’s homes: ... wow what a success. we got the mum and gran to practice as we went along. we used the resources they had at home to form bolsters and wedges etc…..we were all given refreshments and thanked many times i feel humbled by their generosity. demonstrate a thorough understanding of the needs of care providers, effectively consult and 4. transfer of skills to both family members and employers. this was one outcome that really was repeatedly demonstrated by students. student c discussing the same home visit as above: we had a feeding session and we demonstrated the optimal feeding positions. a (speech therapy student) will help the mum make an adapted cup for when the child is older. i will organise a cp chair as soon as the child will be too big to feed on the mother’s lap. how reflections reveal the achievement of learning outcomes this research has revealed that the use of reflective journals in service learning situations not only fulfils the role of allowing students to think about and attach meaning to their experiences (bringle & hatcher, 2005), and as hutchings (2006) suggests, providing for increased self awareness and reflective skills, they also provide a very useful yardstick for assessing learning in a manner which is non-threatening and interesting for the student. it was evident from the student’s entries that they were able to interpret observations made, reflect on their practice and adapt their responses to certain situations through journaling. this is supported by this statement by shardlow & doel, as cited in smith & jack (2005) “ the record and analysis of experiences enable the students and mentor to explore the nuances of practice, their own perceptions and interpretations of these experiences, and, ultimately the appropriate professional response. the final comments from the students also revealed how a service learning situation was probably to them one of the most influential in changing attitudes and causing positive learning experiences for the students. this is supported by pavlovich (2007) who stated that the final dimension in reflection is that of realizing the influence of learning in a context, in changes in behaviour in the future. student i the skills that i have learned have made my outlook on this clinic a positive one. (in comparison to my attitude when i was first exposed to this clinic)… as i progressed throughout the year the most critical aspect of growth for me was my attitude change. joubert and hargreaves 260 student e i cannot believe that the time has gone so fast…….it was an enriching as well as a humbling experience. student b i have truly learnt so many skills that have not only improved my clinical (speech therapy) knowledge and skills, but also my general life skills. skills that i am sure will hold me in good stead for my community service experience next year. student a if we had not done this course i personally think we would not have been well prepared for the community service type of work next year…. student h initially i was not keen on skills sharing, i felt it was a breach of ethics…..but at the end of the year i can say i really read into the term ‘skills sharing’. the students’ development and their ability to meet the outcomes of the module were also evident in their reflection. this will aid facilitators in identifying learning needs which may not be accounted for in the module outcomes as the students progressed through their community experiences. according to smith & jack (2005), reflective journaling can aid in detection of learning needs. an unexpected revelation for the researchers in analysing these journals was that they also revealed shortcomings in their own expectations of the students. for example reflections throughout tended to be mostly on a fairly superficial level and thus as hubbs & brand (2005) caution, this impacted on their ability to reach higher levels of reflection which could have been facilitated by their lecturers. bibliography braveman, b., & bass-haugen, j.d. 2008. social justice & health disparaties: an evolving discourse in occupational therapy research and intervention. american journal of occupational therapy, 63(1) 7-12. bringle, r., & hatcher, j. 2005. service learning as scholarship: why theory-based research is critical to service learning. acta academia supplementum, 3: 24-44. duncan, m., & aulsop, a. 2006 practice and service learning in context. in l. m. duncan., h. buchanan. & a. alsop (eds.), practice and service learning in occupational therapy: enhancing potential in context (p.7-19). chichester.john wiley & sons, ltd. reflective journals in training 261 td, 5(2), december 2009, pp. 248-261. duncan, m., & watson, r. 2004. transforming through occupation: towards a prototype. in r. watson., & l. swartz. transformation through occupation (p.301-318). london, whurr publishers. harris, m. 2005. is journaling empowering? students’ perceptions of their reflective writing experience. health sa gesondheid, 10(2): 47-60. hubbs, d.l., & brand, c.f. 2005. the paper mirror: understanding reflective journaling. the journal of experiential education. 20(2):60-71. hutchings, c. 2006. tracking identities in transition using reflective literacy. south african journal of higher education, 20 (2): 232-244. johnson, d.w., johnson, r.t., and smith, c.t., 1991. coorperative learning: increasing college faculty instructional productivity. ashe-eric higher education report no.4, 1991. school of education & human development. george washingtom university.washington,dc. julie, h., daniels, p. and adonis, t. 2005. service learning in nursing. integrating student learning and community based service experience through reflective practice. health sa gesondheid, 10(4): 41-54. mitchell, c., & humphries, h. 2007. from notions of charity to social justice in service learning: the complex experience of communities. education as change 11(3): 47-58. nygaard, c., hojlt, t., & hermansen, m. 2008. learning-based curriculum development. higher education, 55: 33-50. pavlovich, k. 2007, the development of reflective practice through student journals. higher education research & development, 26 (3): 281 -295. shaw, s., & jolley, c.s. 2007. assessment of service learning in the deaf-blind community. the journal of experiential education, 30(2): 134-152. smith, a., & jack, k. 2005. reflective practice: a meaningful task for students. nursing standard. 19(26): 33-37. abstract introduction methodology findings and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) aletta j. van as department of foundation studies: music education, wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lorayne a. excell department of foundation studies: early childhood education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa noluthando magadala department of adult, foundation phase and educational foundations education, faculty of educational sciences, walter sisulu university, mthatha, south africa neliswa gqoli department of adult, foundation phase and educational foundations education, faculty of educational sciences, walter sisulu university, mthatha, south africa citation van as, a.j., excell, l.a., magadala, n. & gqoli, n., 2020, ‘through the eyes of parents: culture of young children in diverse early learning spaces’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a763. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.763 original research through the eyes of parents: culture of young children in diverse early learning spaces aletta j. van as, lorayne a. excell, noluthando magadala, neliswa gqoli received: 30 sept. 2019; accepted: 07 oct. 2020; published: 17 dec. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract there is a growing emphasis for early education to be both contextually appropriate and culturally responsive. in post-apartheid south africa, early childhood care and education (ecce) centres have become ‘melting pots’ of different cultures, reinforcing the call to become culturally relevant. affirming each family’s cultural norms and values is pivotal in shaping the child’s identity – especially in a multicultural society. however, there exists an absence of research investigating how parents of young children view their families’ cultural norms and values. this phenomenologically qualitative study investigated parents’ understandings of culture and their cultural aspirations for their young children attending culturally diverse ecce centres. one-on-one interviews were conducted to explore parents’ cultural narratives of how they view the cultural identities of their young children. participants comprised 19 parents who were purposefully selected from five south african provinces. findings revealed that parents were initially hesitant to articulate what culture in a democratic south africa would look like. however, when they reflected on culture as enacted in the lives of their families they responded with conviction, revealing a range of views about the topic. they described how they experienced their culture through artefacts, language, family, religion and place. parents recognised the valuable opportunities that the language-diverse ecce spaces offered for mixing languages and developing bilingualism and multilingualism. the parents’ intuitive understandings of their children’s culture confirm that there are meaningful levels of cultural knowledge to be found at the grassroots level. keywords: culture; culturally responsive pedagogy; early childhood care and education; early childhood development; young children. cultural feelings are an undertheorised area of the human experience. (schorch 2014:22) introduction the notion of culture has become more and more important in scholarly discourse, and in the lives of ordinary people as a core aspect of explaining their social reality (baldwin et al. 2006). the call to become culturally relevant is particularly echoed in early childhood care and education (ecce) where there is a growing emphasis for early education to be both contextually appropriate and culturally responsive (gordon & browne 2017). this call is highly significant in the south african ecce context where early learning centres (elcs) have become increasingly diverse since the introduction of the democratic government in 1994. prior to 1994, relatively few children had access to centre-based early learning and these children were predominately white. the recognition of the right of every child to education, including early childhood education (republic of south africa [rsa] 1996), caused an influx of young children from all cultural backgrounds to elcs. the shift to accommodate children from different racial, religious, ethnic, language and cultural groups has not only resulted in many more children accessing ecce centres but also in these centres becoming ‘melting pots’ of different cultures. at the same time, the realisation of the value of quality early learning has been increasingly recognised (e.g. bruce 2015; heckman 2013; moyles 2010). in 2013, responding to this realisation, ecce became a priority government focus in south africa (national planning commission 2012). quality ecce acknowledges the parents or guardian (primary caregivers) as the child’s first educator and thus, ideally, the centre should affirm the family’s cultural norms and values, as these are pivotal in forming the child’s identity especially in a multicultural society (woods, boyle & hubbard 1999). reflecting on and verbalising their experience of culture as personalised in their daily lives could also support parents in nurturing their young children’s cultural identities. but how does this happen if there is no or little understanding of the different cultural perspectives that form the foundation of individual children’s lives? despite the emphasis on culturally responsive teaching and learning there has been little research on what constitutes parents’ understandings of culture in diverse elcs. the investigation of parents’ views on their young children’s culture formed part of a transformative pedagogy research collaboration between nine universities. funded by the dhet and eu, the purpose of the research project was to explore the beliefs and knowledge of teacher educators, practitioners, centre managers and parents to develop a transformative pedagogy for ecce in south africa. the key objective was to activate stronger social cohesion and respectful dialogues within centres to strengthen a transformative pedagogy in south africa. this article that will only focus on the parents’ views and was framed by the following research questions namely, (1) what are parents’ understandings of culture and (2) what are their cultural aspirations for their young children? for the purposes of this paper, the children were aged between birth and 5 years and attended an intercultural ecce centre. the term ‘intercultural’ refers to interaction between people from two or more different ‘cultural’ groups (oatey 2000, cited in spencer-oatey 2012). this phenomenological study first investigates funds of knowledge (fok) theory as a conceptual framework for exploring parents’ understandings of culture. second, we examine the relationship between culture and the young child’s identity. third, we then explore the multifaceted and complex concept of culture. fourth, we present the methodology that is followed by the findings and discussion of parents’ views. finally, the paper proposes a way forward by further researching parents’ beliefs and attitudes towards diversity in south africa. conceptual framework funds of knowledge theory, developed by moll, gonzález and colleagues from the university of arizona (gonzález, moll & amanti 2005; moll & greenberg 1990) offers a conceptual framework for exploring knowledge, skills, as well as attitudes and values arising from life experiences, rather than schooling (hogg 2011). by extension fok theory provides a framework to explore how, within a global environment, people take up, or resist aspects of culture drawn from various sources (gonzález 2005). applying fok theory involves focusing on people’s strengths and skills, and emphasising engagement with individuals and evidence, rather than with assumptions (hogg 2016). having a deep knowledge about parents’ fok in relation to the cultural aspirations they have for their children, enables teachers to better implement a culturally relevant and contextually appropriate ecce programme. knowledge of a culturally relevant curriculum is especially pertinent in ecce as it is a well-recognised and accepted early-learning principle that content should be drawn from the child’s life world (gordon & browne 2017). attending to the dynamic complexities of human lives becomes therefore an important aspect of applying fok theory to practice. funds of knowledge theory should also impact the teachers’ pedagogical practices. by drawing on appropriate play-based strategies, including song, dance and story, the teacher reinforces the role of the parent as the primary educator and addresses both the cognitive and affective components of development and learning. cognitively, because teachers are able to draw on fok to ensure a culturally relevant curriculum; and affectively because teachers offer a responsive and caring relational pedagogy (camangian 2010) which is a hallmark of quality ecce practice. international studies have consistently demonstrated that when teachers learned about the rich and diverse fok held by parents, children and their families, especially the more vulnerable families, greater respect for families as legitimate sites of knowledge ensued, and improvements in teacher-child-family relationships and engagement occur (gonzález et al. 2005). culture, development and learning of young children the development of children’s understanding of their first culture starts at a very young age and is usually established by age 5 (abdullah 2009). if parents do not nurture the cultural identity of their young children who attend multicultural centres, it may hamper the children’s social and personal development (jones 2010; woods et al. 1999). young children in multicultural settings need to be secure in their own cultural identity to feel secure with their peers, and develop personal self-esteem (woods et al. 1999). in order to optimise the holistic wellbeing and development of children, teachers should have a sound insight into culturally relevant knowledge and pedagogies based on the realisation that young children have to learn to navigate the different worlds between home and school (aronson 2016). thus, teachers ought to draw upon the cultural knowledge and skills that young children bring with them from home (durden, excalante & blithc 2014). yet many teachers seem stuck in very limited and superficial notions of culture. consequently, ‘the fluidity and variety within cultural groups’ has often been lost in implementing culturally relevant pedagogy (ladson-billings 2014:77). however, for teachers to implement culturally relevant pedagogies they need to have some insight into the complexities of the concept of culture. towards an understanding of culture the word culture is regarded as ‘one of the 2, or 3 most complicated words in the english language’ (williams 1976). it has a long history from cicero’s first mention (circa 45 bce) of cultura animi – ‘cultivation of the soul’ (leonard 2018) – to contemporary postmodern interpretations. in medieval times, much of what is understood by ‘culture’ today was carried in the term ‘custom’ (thomas 1993:2). in the late 19th century, british anthropologist sir edward tylor provided a description of culture which became its foundational definition in anthropology: ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’ (tylor 1871:1). he pioneered this view of culture as learned and not a biological trait – the multifaceted sum of our social interactions, which are a qualification for being part of a society (spillman 2002). sapir disputes society as locus of culture since society itself is also a cultural construct. he identifies the true locality of culture in the interactions of individuals and ‘in the world of meanings’ which each individual abstracts from participating in these interactions (sapir 1949:515–516 cited in sarangi 2009). over time, culture has infiltrated the academic inquiry of a wide range of disciplines beyond anthropology and history (sarangi 2009), bringing an abundance of understandings and interpretations to the concept. in 1952, american anthropologists kroebel and kluckhorn provided a taxonomy of 164 existing definitions of culture. literature has been flooded by scores of definitions and interpretations of the concept. in sociology, culture is about meaning-making: how meaning-making happens, why meanings vary, how meanings influence human action and the role of meaning-making in social cohesion, domination and resistance (spillman 2002). in archaeology, culture is dynamic and evolving, a socially constructed reality that exists in the minds of members of a group. it acts as ‘normative glue’ that accommodates feasible communication and collaboration within the group (hudelson 2004). in the early 1950s, kroeber wrote ‘the most significant accomplishment of anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century has been the extension and clarification of the concept of culture’ (kroeber & kluckhohn 1952:139 cited in darnell 2001). apte (1994) disagrees ‘despite a century of efforts to define culture adequately, there was in the early 1990s no agreement among anthropologists regarding its nature’. to date, common connotations to the term by scholars of dissimilar fields are often overlapping, but can also be contradictory. the following illustrates how easily overlapping and contradiction occur: culture is a ‘collective programming of the mind’ that encourage certain ways of life which distinguish members of one group from members of another (hofstede 1994:5), compared to culture is ‘that fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs’ shared by a group which influences, but does not programme or determine the individual’s behaviour (spencer-oatey 2008: 3 cited in spencer-oatey 2012). notions of ‘high culture’ (superior education facilitating superior arts, literature, knowledge) which were passed on from the 19th century has further confused contemporary usage of culture. the idea of high culture is not found as a prominent feature in current social scientific definitions (avruch 1998). an important contributing factor to the ambiguous nature of the concept is the frequent interchangeable use of the terms culture, ethnicity and race (spencer-oatey 2012). like culture, race and ethnicity are socially constructed categories that have an effect on cultural and social interactions. the construct of race draws on superficial physical differences between groups of people, like skin colour (but not eye colour), whereas ethnic groups are defined by a shared language, religion, nationality, history or some other attribute (brown 2014). ethnicity is about difference. culture is often employed to compose and maintain boundaries between ethnic groups, where ‘the actual cultural content matters less than its ability to differentiate one group from another’ (avruch 2003:358). whilst language is not explicitly mentioned in most definitions of culture, the interrelationship between language and culture has been ‘passionately debated since the beginning of the 19th century’ (sarangi 2009:95). a person’s native language influences his/her habitual ways of thinking (whorff 1956 cited in whorf & caroll 1984). the shared meanings in a culture are communicated through language (morris 2014). language plays an important role in other elements of culture such as religion and family. religion, a close relative to culture, holds a prevailing influence on the attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviour of its members (beyers 2017). it has a collective dimension which can be a powerful cohesion agent amongst its members (unesco 2009). family, another powerful cohesive agent, provides the main context in which to view the young child who inhabits that context (tudge et al. 2000). hofstede (1994) emphasises that whilst cultural norms may be shared by a group of people, the interpretation thereof differs for each individual. in his dimensions of culture, he describes the collectivism of group culture as the tendency to foreground sociability and group orientation. individualism is defined as an inclination within a culture to focus more on the individual than on the group. this individualism-collectivism dimension of culture distinguishes between cultures that value individual endeavour versus cultures with collective group endeavours (kruger & roodt 2003). grounded in hofstede’s work, the individual/interpersonal level of culture recognises that ‘if groups are the nexus, individuals are the vectors of culture’ (tmc 2010). the individual can choose to reinforce, or alter and adjust cultural norms, including spoken or unspoken rules. this does not translate to disrupting coherence or obstructing group interest; in fact, increasing interaction between individuals can boost intercultural dialogue, and the plasticity of identities can generate ‘innovations of all kinds and at every level’ (unesco 2009:244). for schein (1984, 1990, 2004), culture manifests on three fundamental levels of increasing depths, namely: (1) artefacts, (2) values and (3) basic assumptions. artefacts would include for instance the way people dress, but also the way people interact with others. whilst easy to discern, artefacts are much more difficult to understand. beneath the artefacts lie values, which are conscious approaches, aspirations and beliefs and judgements of what is good and bad. schein explains ‘culture operates at many levels; the “how we do things around here” is [certainly] the surface level’ (schein 1984). culture should not be over-simplified. schein compares culture to a lily pond where the plant’s leaves and flowers are very visible for any visitor to see: that’s the ‘how we do things around here [or in my culture]’. to gain understanding of why things are done in certain ways, one needs to look at the root system: what is feeding it, and the history: who planted what. (p. 7) without investigating the reasons why people are doing things the way they do things, understanding of their culture is superficial (kupler 2015). the roots are the basic assumptions. they include our deepest and most comprehensive explanation of reality; perceptions of fundamental truths about people and the world (schein 1984, 1990). the underlying shared meaning within a cultural group functions as ‘ideas represented in the minds of its people, enacted in their practices, and inscribed in its institutions and artifacts’ (morris 2014:20). all these cultural actions and interactions take place in a geographical setting (varnum & grossman 2017). this article investigated the views that parents of young children have about their children’s culture and cultural roots in a specific context/setting: the multicultural elc. as a multicultural place and space (context) for learning the elcs were of interest to the study. de botton explains that ‘“the culture of place” occurs within a particular spatial context’ (2013:11). as culturally diverse spaces, it was important to examine how the concept of culture is perceived by parents from different cultural background who enrolled their children at the culturally diverse centres. in 1992, schwartz updated tylor’s definition (schwartz 1992 cited in avruch 1998): culture consists of the derivative of experience, more or less organised, learned or created by the individuals of a population, including those images…and their interpretations (meanings) transmitted from past generations, from contemporaries, or formed by individuals themselves. (p. 17) avruch identifies several virtues of this definition. the following specific virtues are significant to this article: it conceptually connects culture to experience, it locates culture simultaneously ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ individuals and it addresses agency by indicating that individuals do not only inherit or learn images of culture, but can create new images (avruch 1998:18). thus, culture clearly is neither timeless nor changeless. it is vital for ecce teachers/care givers to obtain an adequate understanding of the role of culture in the lives of the young children in their care. culture is an ‘all-encompassing force’, which is often employed to describe behaviours and shortcomings of people or groups (varnum & grossmann 2017:2). without an adequate understanding of culture and the role it plays in the lives of children, an adequate understanding of the mind of the child is hardly possible (henrich et al. 2010; wang 2016 cited in varnum & grossmann 2017). adequate understanding and mindfulness of the different cultural values and ways of acting could remove unintended barriers to children’s success in ecce spaces (zion & kozleski 2005). unfortunately, few researchers have examined young children’s understandings of their culture (ramsey 2004). even fewer researchers have examined how the parents of young children view the culture of their children, and experience the effect of their children’s intercultural interactions in diverse elcs. this is what makes the study significant at the current juncture. methodology young children in multicultural settings who are confused about their own cultural identity have a more difficult time feeling secure with their peers and developing personal self-esteem (woods et al. 1999). within the familial cultural setting, parents need to nurture their young children’s cultural identity to help them to ‘believe themselves to belong’, be comfortable with themselves and experience acceptance by their peers and significant others (jones 2010:2). the purpose of this phenomenological study was to articulate parents’ understandings of culture as it manifests in the lives of their young children who attend multicultural ecce centres. the basis of the phenomenological approach is to ‘illuminate the specific, to identify phenomena through how they are perceived by the actors in a situation’ (lester 1999); its intention is to ‘understand the phenomena…as it is experienced by the person herself’ (bentz & shapiro 1998:98). quality ecce teaching and learning embraces pedagogies that are culturally relevant. thus, the authors deliberately avoided prescribing or even suggesting a definition of culture to underpin or inform the study. sarangi (2009) observes that the term ‘culture’ usually brings to mind images of the ‘other’ being described from the viewpoint of the observer. he refers to these descriptions of culture as ‘unequal narratives’ (sarangi 2009:88). the culture narratives of the parents provided a fresh lens for investigating the cultural identities of their young children. being dominant participants in their children’s daily lives, the parents are ‘insiders’ and the only ones qualified to inform the outside world of their thoughts and feelings about their children’s cultural lives (mapp 2013). as discussed in the introduction, this phenomenological culture study formed part of a collaborative research project between nine south african universities and cape peninsula university of technology (cput). in phenomenological research, the phenomenon always ‘dictates the method and even the type of participants’ (hycner 1999:156). the sample was purposeful and depended on the willingness and availability of parents (of children in the age-group birth to 5 years who attend multicultural ecce centres) to participate in the research project. creswell (1998) recommends a sample size of 5 to 25 participants for phenomenological research. this article was informed by the cultural narratives of 19 parents drawn from both under-resourced and one well-resourced ecce centres. these centres were drawn, one of each, from five south african provinces, namely the western cape, eastern cape, free state, gauteng and northwest. the main research tool comprised of individual, semi-structured interviews. participants from all official south african racial/cultural/ethnic groups were invited to be interviewed. parents who were willing and available had the choice of being interviewed in their mother tongue and the languages chosen by parents for their interviews were english, isizulu, afrikaans and isixhosa. free state and north west participants chose to be interviewed in english, even though this was not necessarily their parent language. participants were drawn from all four official racial groupings still acknowledged in south africa today. interviews took place at the ecce centre the parent’s child/children attended. the recorded interviews with 18 mothers and one father were transcribed. interviews conducted in isixhosa and isizulu and afrikaans were translated into english. according to wertz (2005:172), phenomenological research requires ‘an attitude of wonder that is highly compassionate’. to cultivate such a compassionate attitude of wonder, the authors (who come from different cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds) implemented bracketing/epoche: the deliberate suspension of their own ‘assumptions, meanings and interpretations’ to allow them to ‘enter the unique world of the participant’ (groenewald 2004:48). through continuous engagement with the interview data, reading, rereading and assisted by the use of atlas.ti qualitative data analysis software, we became familiar with the data. initially, 18 codes to label units of meaning were identified. through further scrutinising – looking for patterns, themes, relationships and difference (de hoyos & barnes 2012), triangulated by atlas.ti analysis, whilst intentionally bracketing our own assumptions to avoid inappropriate subjective judgements (groenewald 2004:49), four themes were identified to describe parents’ views of their children’s culture: … the operative word in phenomenological research is ‘describe’. the aim of the researcher is to describe as accurately as possible the phenomenon, refraining from any pre-given framework, but remaining true to the facts. (groenewald 2004:44) the themes and the description thereof are presented below. ‘all direct quotations were obtained during the interviews with parents of young children in diverse ecce centres in 2019’. ethical consideration ethical clearance for the project was granted by cput [efec 4-6/2017]. all relevant authorities and all participants understood that participation was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the research at any time. participants completed consent forms, confirming their willingness to be interviewed and audio-taped as well as their right to confidentiality and anonymity. the ethical clearance for the national ‘transforming pedagogy in early childhood education, birth to four’ tpec research project was obtained by the cape peninsula university of technology (cput). the certificate was issued by the faculty of education and social sciences ethics committee on 21 june 2017. all accepted ethical guidelines were strictly followed. letters of approval were obtained from all provincial government authorities, early learning directors and governing body members in all the provinces represented in this article. parents were invited to participate. confidentiality and anonymity of participating parents, their children as well as the centres their children attended were safeguarded throughout the process. findings and discussion in this section, extracts from data collected in this study serve to show how parents viewed and experienced their culture and the implications thereof for their young children. the authors first explored how parents understood culture, and then investigated how they linked culture to particular cultural artefacts, language, religion and place. understanding, thinking and feeling culture discussions on ethnicity, culture and the nation are ‘a national obsession at this crucial time when south africa is still struggling to negotiate its identity’ (tinker 2010:v). it can thus be expected that parents bringing up their young children in a developing democracy will be struggling to define what culture means to and for them. as one parent observed: ‘we are very much just south africans, which is hard to define these days to what that is.’ (parent 13, gauteng) in the interviews, parents struggled to answer a question about supporting their children in developing a sense of pride in their cultural roots: ‘shoo, identity …?’ (parent 4, free state) ‘that one is kinda like difficult.’ (parent 3, north west) ‘… that one is hard.’ (parent 12, gauteng) they seemed to interrogate and make meaning of their own understanding of their culture as they spoke. this was evident in a notable increase of mutterings like ‘err’, ‘um’, ‘ar’ and ‘ur’ in the transcripts. according to one of the parents: ‘we don’t, we don’t [instil cultural pride in our child]. i, i, i don’t take any notice of that at all because um as soon as we do that then it’s err, there’s too much focus on, on, on that i, i don’t want her to have any sense of there’s pride in this, in this culture, it’s not.’ (parent 15, western cape). for parents from bicultural or multicultural families, this struggle to define culture was more pronounced. however, parents found it easier to define and discuss cultural artefacts, an observation supported by schein (2004) who says that cultural artefacts are easy to discern. observing culture through artefacts parents enthusiastically discussed cultural dress (parents 1, 3, 8, 9, 10), songs (parents 5, 6), dance (parents 3, 9) and drums (mentioned five times by parent 10). but, schein (2004) points out the values and assumptions underpinning the artefacts are more difficult to understand. in the parents’ narratives, it became clear that these cultural artefacts they had identified contained symbolism that held powerful meanings to the members of their cultural groups. parent 8 explained that when her little girl wears her cultural dress, she ‘wears the symbols of my culture’; parent 10 described that how, when her son wears his cultural clothes, it brings him pride and it is ‘like knowing himself’. artefacts could be dynamic, functional entities ‘entangled in historical and cross-cultural webs of sociality and significance’ (chua & salmond 2011:3). cultural dance was experienced as ‘dancing for our culture’. as stated by parent 10, a zulu mother of a family with sesotho as home language explained how dance revealed different cultural reference points for her son, who was aged four: ‘it is difficult but he knows how to do ndlamo.1 like this cultural things of the zulu’s. yes, ndlamo. he knows how to do ndlamo, he knows when maybe we play music of sotho, he knows how to move the shoulders [like basotho people do] and he can differentiate this one is for sotho, this one is for zulu’. it seems that observing, or participating through the use of these artefacts evoked a connection to, and/or recognition of values and beliefs that eluded non-members of the cultural group. avruch explains that the more ‘deeply internalised and affectively loaded’ images of culture are, the more these imagery ‘are able to motivate action’ (1998:19). he concludes: ‘this is the proper sense in which culture is causal’ (1998:20). it is noteworthy that not one parent included notions of ‘high culture’ in their cultural narratives. talking culture through language language is rooted in culture and serves as an anchor for family cohesion (rhoades 2008). in parents’ narratives, language was a dominant reference point for discussion in relation to culture. the languages mentioned specifically were sesotho, isizulu, isixhosa, tsonga, setswana, english and afrikaans as well as ‘many african languages’. the term ‘many african languages’ was used by one parent to emphasise the language diversity found throughout south africa. strong links were made between language, culture and ethnic identity: ‘… she definitely got the english and afrikaans cultural background.’ (parent 14, gauteng) ‘… she knows that she’s a sotho, and she is proud of it.’ (parent 11, north west) ‘my husband is greek, i am an afrikaner.’ (parent 16, gauteng) ‘they come as tswana or as xhosa.’ (parent 7, free state) parent 12 identified her family as ‘coloured’, and explained that english is her first language, whilst her husband’s first language is afrikaans. she then expressed that this complicates the culture of her children – she viewed ‘afrikaans coloured culture’ as more traditional and conservative than ‘english coloured culture’. this illustrates how ‘language could influence intra-cultural variation at individual and group level’ (avruch 1998:15). parent 10 reflects on developing her young son’s cultural identity in a conflicting home language setting: ‘we are zulus, but we speak sotho at home. ja, it’s difficult for me to make him focus on that culture. we are being a zulu and then we speak sotho and then we do sotho cultures mixing zulu.’ (parent 10, north west) according to rhoades (2008), bilingualism is a prized asset for child, family and society. parents’ responses illustrated the validity of this view through their encouragement of bilingualism in both their family and school settings. in the family context, parents from bicultural and multicultural families in the study described how social interaction was intentionally adapted, with family members being assigned particular roles to maximise their children’s language acquisition. for example, parent 12, a mother in an english home language household, told how she asked her father (the children’s grandfather, ‘fluent in many african languages’) to speak only zulu to the children, whilst she asked her (afrikaans first language speaking) husband to speak only afrikaans to them. another participant (parent10), a mother of a zulu family where sesotho was spoken as home language, explained how the family purposefully spoke isizulu to enhance wider family interaction: ‘so sometimes we have to speak zulu with him because when we go to the relatives in the free state, they speak zulu and it’s going to be difficult for him …’ (parent 10, north west) in the school context, parents recognised the valuable opportunities that the language-diverse ecce spaces offered for mixing languages and developing bilingualism. many parents, irrespective of their home language (parents 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 12) were delighted that their children had the opportunity of learning either another african language and/or english when playing with children from other language groups in the centres. more specifically, english and afrikaans speaking parents were delighted that their children had the opportunity to learn an african language from children who spoke black languages: ‘so hy kan eintlik beter by hulle leer … hy kan by hulle die taal leer. [so he can actually learn better from them … he can learn the language from them].’ (parent 1, western cape [author’s own translation]) the parents of children speaking an african language were equally delighted at the opportunity to learn another african language: ‘… now and then i hear, like other words she picks up of sotho words, like “shapa” or what, what, she pick up all that words …’ (parent 6, free state) ‘so they used to play together and you know sometimes she can raise the, the maybe a word that say “umuhle”, and when i ask her how do you know about umuhle,2 she said, no i know. it’s a zulu [word] ….’ (parent 5, free state) there has never in the past been a language spoken more widely in the world than english is spoken today (melitz 2014: 2). given this hegemonic dominance of english, parents, particularly those speaking an african language as a home language, enthusiastically expressed their approval at their children’s acquisition of english: ‘…so to me it makes me feel good inside because i know she mix with all the languages then if she’s finished with school then she’s going out with english, sotho and maybe [more].’ (parent 6, free state) ‘because here where we are staying in the location she’s attending that english medium school, especially that in the school they are speaking english… you know last time we were attending the party there at divalt, there was fred ndaba who’s child, they are speaking tsonga, you rather speak english.’ (parent 7, free state) the children of the parents interviewed were between birth and 5 years old. birth to 7 years is widely recognised as a critical period for language acquisition (kuhl 2010); the time when the brain ‘is exquisitely poised to “crack the speech code”’, allowing children to acquire one or multiple languages by eye or by ear (kuhl 2010:716). parents in this study show how they made efforts to encourage their young children to acquire language through reciprocal interrelations in both the family and school contexts, where they were both the products and producers of culture (rhoades 2008:264). kroeber and kluckhohn (1952) note that the immediate cause of cultural phenomena are other cultural phenomena. this is evident in how the social interactions in bicultural and multicultural families and between children from differing cultural backgrounds in the centres created opportunities for effective language learning in young children from birth to 5 years. believing culture through religion and faith religion and culture are integrally connected and woven into both family and social narratives. the excerpts from parents’ narratives in this theme illustrate the centrality of religion to many families’ culture. they show how religion provides the moral codes that guide how they live, even when they do not regard the traditional beliefs of their parents and communities as relevant to their everyday lives (unesco 2009). for several participants (parents 1, 2, 12, 15, 17, 18), religion was linked to family identity; they drew their values from, and based their ways of doing things, on their religion. parent 2 for example, describes her family as: ‘a christian family practicing christian values.’ (parent 2, western cape) parent 17 describes how, not only religion but also her ethnic identity as an afrikaner has shaped her family’s values and ways of being: ‘we are christian based…afrikaans speaking humans.’ (parent 17, gauteng) these are values that she would like her children to embrace: ‘it is important for [them] to be good citizens … humans, to know they have good qualities and are intrinsically good.’ (parent 17, gauteng) parent 10, who highly valued her cultural artefacts and their meanings reflected on her son’s ability to discern when music is ‘gospel’ and to dance appropriately to the music. yet she made no other mention of religious influence in her family’s lives. parent 16 described her family as ‘not religious’, but still willing to participate in important religious functions, like baptisms, out of respect for their greek and afrikaans grandparents. clearly, their parents’ traditional religious beliefs still were present in their children’s cultural roots. this finding resonates with unesco’s (2009) statement that even when people have disassociated with family and/or religious ties they adhere to specific traditions associated with these. another participant describes how religion creates the overarching glue for their racially ‘super diverse’ family: ‘look so, racially we kind of a mixture of a whole bunch of stuff on, on my side we’ve got indian, scottish, zulu, on their father’s side they’ve also got white and black and on top of that they’ve got some chinese going on. so, father’s side i … there is white and black and then there’s chinese, also their great grandfather, great-great grandfather was chinese and then on my side is scottish, um … zulu and indian … mmm, it’s a little bit of everything, they are really my rainbow children because they’ve got a little bit of everything. we are coloured, … there is no coloured culture, we don’t have our own traditions…we are christian, so that’s um … common to both sides of the family, my husband was, we are and actually from the beginning there is … nothing in my extended family that is anything but christian. so we are all christian.’ (parent 12, gauteng) this participant confirms the cohesive possibilities that religion can provide in such a racially and culturally diverse context. she also observed that ‘there is no coloured culture, we don’t have our own traditions’. whilst some ‘coloured’ people may agree, others feel strongly about their artefacts (such as songs), language, dialect and cultural ways of being and doing (crouch 2015). however, parent 12 seems content to find her family’s cultural roots in religion. only 6 of the 19 parents commented on religion in their reflections. all six spoke about christianity. this singular view of faith constitutes a weakness in the data. finding cultural meaning in place in discourses on cultural roots in south africa, ‘place’ could be loaded with various meanings stemming from our history of segregation during the apartheid era. a variety of theories and views aim to explain how spaces become ‘places’. in thinking about what leads to a place becoming meaningful, smaldone, harris and sanyal (2008:397) put forward the idea that ‘… a place is a complex concept, given life by people attaching meaning to a physical setting in a variety of ways’. parent 16 highlights this point well in the extract below. parent 16, a johannesburg mother of 3-year-old ‘loreah’ and her baby brother, surfaced the idea of place and space in her reflections on how she helps her children develop pride in their cultural roots: ‘okay, look i think pride comes from being happy in a space.’ (parent 16, gauteng) as her story unfolded, it became clear how the notion of family and space/place were intertwined in relation to loreah’s own world of meaning, and her views of her family and their interactions within a particular place. she poignantly described how, the year before the interview, her husband had to work in cape town for several months. she reflected on this as a difficult time when she, pregnant with their son, and loreah had to live alone in the house and ‘find our feet as a family of two’. during this time, loreah desperately missed her daddy, and told her: ‘mommy, this house is broken’. the mother remembers, tears welling up in her eyes, how it pained her to hear that. some weeks after loreah’s dad returned and her brother was born, loreah’s mom noted that: ‘she’s been telling me “mamma i love our home, i never want to leave this house”’. parent 16 wrapped up her reflection by saying that: ‘i think my children are happy in our home and i think they are proud of who they are.’ loreah’s narrative illustrates the complexity of the concept of place, and how it is assigned meanings, cultural and otherwise, in different ways at different times (smaldone et al. 2008). loreah’s narrative also applies to ecce spaces and places of learning. we argue if a child is to engage in meaningful interactions, their home culture needs to be acknowledged and incorporated within the ecce centre. conclusion the ‘culture narratives’ of the parents of young children learning and playing in culturally diverse ecce centres revealed the parents’ authentic thoughts and feelings about their cultures – based on their lived experience of their life worlds. in their narratives, they interrogate, reflect on and give voice to their perceptions of their young children’s culture and cultural roots. as a whole, these narratives carry specks of the multiple overlapping and contrasting understandings and definitions of culture across time and disciplines. it was interesting to find that no notion of ‘high culture’ (superior education facilitating superior arts, literature, knowledge) was present in any parent’s culture narrative. by having greater insight into parents’ understandings of their cultures and their cultural aspirations for their children, the ecce teacher will be better able to promote social cohesion, respectful dialogues and culturally responsive teaching and learning within culturally diverse post-apartheid ecce centres. furthermore, we argue that by inviting and embracing parents’ views of their culture, teachers could support dialogue between parents to enhance cross cultural interaction and the entire ecce community. the authors recognise that this study is not without limitations and that the participants’ views do not necessarily represent the views of other parents. further research (which includes a wider parent population) could strengthen ecce communities. dialogue between parents from differing cultural backgrounds in centres could strengthen social capital and norms of reciprocity between parents and within centre communities. we trust that this article will contribute to discourses on cultural feelings, which are ‘an undertheorised area of the human experience’ (schorch 2014:22). we propose to extend the contribution by investigating parents’ thoughts and feelings about the cultural diversity within the ecce centres their children attend. this could further inform and strengthen respectful dialogue and so promote meaningful, anti-bias ecce teaching and learning in south africa. acknowledgements the authors thank dr naseema shaik for coordinating the national research project that enabled this work; dr gill attwood for her suggestions, critique and editing of article and dr colwyn martin for continuous professional engagement and encouragement. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. authors’ contributions a.v.a. was one of the gauteng interviewers for data collection, main contributor to culture literature review research and writing, coordinated and directed group writing retreats, data analysis, responsible for pulling together the first draft; coordinating authors-input, revising submitted drafts and co-written the final draft. l.e. is an early childhood development specialist ensuring ecce ethos is appropriately represented throughout the process, bringing to bear her insight and astute understandings of a range of practical perspectives based on grounded experience in the field. she was responsible for all ecdrelated research and writing, contributed to refining final themes and acted as co-writer. n.m. was co-responsible for collecting data in the eastern cape. she contributed to capturing data and conceptualising the focus of the article. n.m. also contributed to identifying the initial 18 codes in the data analysis process and assisted with the research on culture and provided specific insights into cultural understandings in the south african context and was co-responsible for reviewing and correcting reference list. n.g. acted as novice researcher introduced to data collection and analyses through a developmental approach to collaborative research. co-responsible for eastern cape data collection and capturing. n.g. contributed to identifying the initial 18 codes in data analysis and also contributed to reviewing and updating references, in-text and reference list. she enriched the work with her specific insights in to cultural understandings in the sa context. funding information this publication was produced with support from the teaching and learning development capacity improvement programme, a partnership programme between the department of higher education and training and the european union. its contents are the sole responsibility of and do not necessarily reflect the views of the department, or that of the european union. data availability statement original data are discussed and analysed in this article. disclaimer the views and interpretations articulated are solely based on the views of the parents of young children who participated in this study. 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negatively. this article explores the impact of xenophobia on the operations of the informal economy on which the poor depend for socio-economic survival. for the most part of april-may 2015, the streets of durban were deserted because of the xenophobic attacks on non-south african businesses, particularly those owned by africans from different parts of the continent. fear was planted in the city of durban, which in turn led to the decline in economic activity, both formal and informal sectors, with the later bearing the most brunt. the city was turned into a battle field whereby afro-hatred was perpetuated with the intention of causing bodily harm and making deportation threats. nationals from other african countries, mainly nigerians, somalis, malawians, zimbabweans, mozambicans, ethiopians and congolese were accused of taking jobs meant for locals and suffocating their businesses as well as taking their women. in fear of their lives, non-south africans were forced to close their businesses and to go into hiding. this article argues that the impact of xenophobia is a double-edged sword and has farreaching implications for both south africans and non-south africans as the local city dwellers depend on the services provided by informal businesses. the article uses both primary and secondary data. the empirical data was extracted mainly from the street traders and hawkers eking a living in the informal sector. keywords: xenophobia-afrophobia, south africans, non-south africans, informal economy, durban cbd introduction historically, xenophobia has become a world-wide phenomenon that is orchestrated by various factors, mainly associated with social and economic conditions and circumstances, both locally and nationally. the spread of xenophobic and/or afrophobic attacks directed at non-south africans by south africans have been documented in the media since the 1 school of social work & community development, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, 4041, south africa, e-mail: tshishonga@ukzn.ac.za tshishonga 164 democratic dispensation. akinola (2014: 56) argues that in south africa xenophobia is not a new phenomenon; instead, it is the extension of other forms of violence and intolerance. various push and pull forces are at play as contributors in fuelling the psychological and physical abuses on non-south africans from the other african nations in the continent. while most african nations attained their political freedom in the immediate post-1060s period, socio-economic development lagged behind with poverty, unemployment and inequalities on the rise. these challenges are famously known as “evil triplets” or “social evils” (terreblanche, 2012: 101). this was reasserted by ramphele (2008: 21) who argues that many african countries, though politically free, continue to suffer from inadequate economic reforms to underpin sustainable socio-economic development. this gloomy situation is further aggravated by autocratic governance systems which are notorious for displacing african citizens through civil wars that dislocate nationals from their land-of-birth sources of livelihoods. unless the economic and political situation improves, oucho (2006: 57) points out, xenophobia and unfavourable policies against foreigners would persist. in the present era, poor leadership ironically underpinned by democratic values and principles, has seen people being victims of democracy deficit and greed. the notion of democracy deficit depicts the lack of political engagement and participation by the public whereby people resort to opting out of politics (crowther & martin, 2005: 213). consequently, in fear of their lives, citizens flee their homeland countries and seek refuge in african neighbouring states, with europe as the final destination of the aspirations of the majority (musuva, 2014: 383). post-1994 south africa saw the influx of immigrants, including those displaced due to political instability as well as economic hardships. additionally, akinola (2014: 59) confirms that south africa also accommodates the largest number of asylum-seekers in the world. thus, the scramble for scarce resources and job opportunities between south africans and non-south africans did not only fuel tensions but it ultimately led to xenophobia and xenophobic attacks aimed at causing bodily harm. it could be argued that this situation was further perpetuated by political illiteracy on the part of south africans with regard to african politics, including the decisive role played by other african nations in the liberation of south africa. among the ruling elite, denialism coupled with political illiteracy manifest itself through the adoption of immigration policies which instead of easing the tension, they aggravated them through exclusion. the attitude displayed by the law enforcement agencies such as police rubbed salt onto the open wounds with fatal incidents such as the one where a mozambican national, ernesto alfabeto nhamuave, who fell victim to xenophobic burning on 18 may 2008 (peberdy, 2009: 138). in an attempt to present a racism perspective to south african xenophobia against african immigrants, bekker (2010: 136), mngxitama (2008: 195), evert (2011: 7) and matsinhe (2011: 298) describe the phenomenon as “negrophobia or afrophobia”. it is against this background that this article explores the impact of xenophobia or afrophobia on the operations of the informal economy on which the poor locals and african immigrants depend on for socio-economic survival. in april-may 2015, the streets of durban were deserted because of xenophobic attacks on non-south african businesses, particularly those owned by africans from different parts of the continent. fear was planted in the city of durban, which led to the decline in economic activities, both formal and informal sectors, with the latter bearing the most brunt. the city was turned into a battle field whereby afro-hatred was perpetuated with the intention of causing bodily harm and making deportation threats. nationals from other african countries, mainly nigerians, somalis, malawians, zimbabweans, mozambicans, ethiopians, congolese and so on, were accused of taking jobs meant for locals and suffocating their businesses as well as taking their the impact of xenophobia-afrophobia on the informal economy in durban td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 163-179. 165 women. in fear of their lives, non-south africans were forced to close their businesses and to go into hiding. the renewed incidents of xenophobia in south africa has dented this country’s image, continentally and internationally. uncomfortable questions should be asked, thus: can one attribute xenophobic attacks on the tighter or discriminatory immigration policies or are people caught in quandary for socio-economic survival? the research from which this article is drawn found that xenophobic attacks have implications beyond economic insecurity because they inflict social and psychological scares and trauma among non-south africans. similarly to the rest of the country, the durban cbd experienced social dislocation with negative impact especially in weakening business networks coupled with loss of financial returns on the part of foreigners. thus, the outbreak of xenophobic attacks between aprilmay 2015 saw foreign nations going into hiding, leaving their businesses unattended. conclusively, the failure of the political economy to live up to democratic dispensation expectations resulted in irresponsible and indecisive leadership aggravated by the decline of the neo-liberal economic system. conceptualising xenophobia or afrophobia in the social and political sciences, the notion of xenophobia is often attached to the extreme dislike or hatred directed to those who are not citizens of a country; that is, the dislike or hatred of one’s nationality by the other (ramphele, 2008; sichone, 2008; akinola, 2014). from a human rights perspective, this deep dislike of non-nationals by nationals of a recipient state, including its manifestation, is abusive violation that is unconstitutional (south african human rights commission, 1998). wicker (2001 cited in sichone, 2008: 257) defines xenophobia as “one among several possible forms of reaction generated by anomic situation in the societies of modern states”. in this context, south africa is cited as one such good candidate for society in a condition of anomie. central to the escalation of xenophobia is the individual vulnerability to economic and political deprivation and underdevelopment. this in turn breeds unemployment, low income and declining standards of living (akinola, 2014: 57). nyamjoh (2006: 49) argues that xenophobia in south africa is not generally directed at all people perceived to be foreign nationals but it is africanised as afrophobia with black african foreigners being the exclusive target for xenophobic attacks and violence. in south africa for instance, xenophobia variably manifests itself through tribalism and ethnic superiority, racism and sexism pathologies (moosa, 2008). according to landau (2005: 4), xenophobia takes forms such as “discriminatory attitudes towards non-nationals” whereas musuva (2014: 382) notes that xenophobia takes place within the context of crime, poverty, inequality and unemployment. the apartheid system of divide and rule has through the years planted seeds of hatred within the and between tribal groups, which has now reached maturation through xenophobia. the notion of xenophobia has its roots from greek-xeno meaning foreign and phobos which connotes fear (petkou, 2005: 116). while xenophobia is reflective of the general fear or hatred, afrophobia is afro-hatred mainly directed at immigrants of african nationalities. from this insight, xenophobia has to do with fear or hatred of the other. in addition, those who suffer from xenophobia are crippled with enormous fear or hatred of a stranger or foreigner, described in a derogatory term, “makwerekwere”. in the context of south africa, xenophobia could be likened to an illness or virus that will continue to spread, unless it is addressed. the southern african migration project on xenophobia (2004) revealed that most south africans preferred the government to get tough on migrants and refugees. southern african migration project also shared light tshishonga 166 by highlighting that xenophobia is further exacerbated through misinformation and widespread suspicion that refugees are not genuine and that they are an economic threat and that they steal rather than create jobs as well spread diseases and epidemics such as cholera and hiv/aids. for example, in 2008, xenophobic attacks had fatal and negative effects leaving 62 people dead and thousands homeless (johnson & jacobs, 2012: 330). framing the informal economy within sustainable livelihoods approach the economy consists of two sectors known as the formal sector and the informal sector. the main differentiating characteristic between these two sectors is their relations with the monitoring mechanisms and policies in a country (philip, 2010). this article looks at the informal economic sector and the impact it has on poverty eradication and job creation. the term “informal sector” was first coined by keith hart in his study of the economic activities of the urban economy of accra, ghana, in 1973. hart used the term to refer to the low income activities of the urban poor who could not find wage employment. the term was subsequently adopted and popularised by the international labour organisation (ilo) as “informal economy” (weigo, 2012: 3). in the developing nations, the informal sector forms part of the social security for most of the poor. chant (2002: 209) points out that since the 1980s, most of the growth in informal employment has been forced by recession and neo-liberal economic restructuring. furthermore, chant & mcllwaine (1995) state that people have been pushed into informal employment through cut-backs in public employment, the closure of private firms and the increased tendency for formal employers to resort to sub-contracting arrangements. the informal economic sector could be part of the solution to provide and create jobs which government fails to create, yet it continues to regulate the sector through licences, taxes and other regulations. brown & scharfft (2011: 156) add that informal economic activities entail self-provisioning (gardening, fishing, gathering fruits and vegetables) and inter-household exchanges of a wide range of goods and services such as food stuffs, repair services, and/or household maintenance. in the light of socio-economic hardships, the sector could also be a solution to decent and sustainable jobs. the informal sector is a reality in africa and a vast, largely unutilised resource. in his study, de soto (1989) argues that if the informal sector is legalised the well-being of many poor people in lima, peru, could be improved through housing. he asserts that it could help the poor to transcend their state of impoverishment. potts (2008: 151) states that to understand the informal sector one has to look at its dualistic interpretation. meagher (2001: 54) states that the standard dualistic framework has been the bane of informal economy research since its inception. meagher (1995) blames structural adjustment programmes (saps) in africa for undermining informal enterprises and economic activities. he further argues that the informal sectors opened up by national processes favour richer entrepreneurs or enterprises from the main cities. in south africa, government has created policies that acknowledge the pivotal role informal sector can play in growing the economy and in providing a safety net for the poor and indigent. however, government has failed to protect and support the informal sector within the competitive environment dominated by big businesses. government provides gaps in the legal structures permitting stronger economies to exploit the informal labour. meagher (1995: 277) argues that permitting the informal sector to operate generates new inequalities and disempowerment in the informal sector. the impact of xenophobia-afrophobia on the informal economy in durban td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 163-179. 167 over the years, the nature and importance of the informal economy has been understood allowing for the formulation of more contemporary definitions. one of these contemporary definitions is that the informal economy is a group of “informal self-owned enterprises”, which may employ family workers, and other employees on an occasional basis (devey, skinner & valodia, 2003: 50). for operational purposes, and depending on national circumstances, this segment comprises either self-owned enterprises or only those which are not registered under specific forms of national legislation (factories or commercial acts, tax and social security laws, professional groups, regulatory or similar actions, laws or regulations established by national legislative bodies) (devey et al., 2003: 50). the informal economy consists of non-registered employees who work in small-sized enterprises. what makes the informal economy interesting is its elusive character, where some economic activities in the informal economy are legal and others illegal. also, nature and operational methods of the business establishment creates difficulties in regulating this sector and is viewed as being problematic by the state. its fluidity and ability to pop-up anywhere anytime, notwithstanding differences in ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, gives the informal economy an identity which allows the sector to adapt in almost all contexts. for smith (1989: 3), this character could probably be the secret recipe to its growth and sustainability. figure 1: the sustainable livelihoods framework source: adapted from difid, 2002, www.livelihoods.org [accessed 19 august 2015]. this article is grounded in sustainable livelihoods framework within which entrepreneurship activities take place, and potential to provide the poor and vulnerable with safety net is realistic. the concept of sustainable livelihoods originated from research conducted at the institute of development studies at sussex university (ids), uk. chambers & conway (1992: 6) in particular, define livelihood as “the capabilities, assets (stores, resources, claims and access) and activities required to secure means of living. this approach frames livelihoods in terms of people’s resources or assets, their vulnerabilities, commodities or services they require and activities or strategies they adopt (hussein, 2002). in addition, arshley & carney (1996: 6) define sustainable livelihood as a “way of thinking about the objectives, scope and priorities for development in order to enhance progress in poverty elimination”. the sustainable livelihood approach is premised on the strength of a theoretical foundation anchored on people-centred and asset-based approach to development (barrett et al., 2008). carney (1998: 8) associates livelihood with people-centred and asset-based approaches, tshishonga 168 which “comprising the capabilities and assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living”. according to hussein (2002: 14), a livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks as well as maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base. there are five basic assets or capitals namely: human, natural, social, financial and physical capital involved in the activities of the sustainable livelihood framework. in essence, the sustainable livelihood approach is a framework through which people particularly the poor are able to use their assets in order to enhance their lives. this framework groups assets into five categories or resources such as human capital, natural capital, social capital, financial capital and physical capital (dfid, 2002). in order to survive both local and foreign nationals have to depend on capital. for example, skills and knowledge acquired by individuals are put to better use, especially in growing their businesses while social and financial capital can be used to expand and sustain their enterprises. thus, the optimal utilization of these capitals could help in reducing vulnerabilities and further increase self-reliance. research methods in this article, participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis were chosen as the research techniques to obtain relevant data. the sample consisted of 20 participants whose ages ranged from 18-40. fifteen (15) participants were randomly selected through snow ball sampling technique 5 were officials especially those who were involved in organising the anti-xenophobic march and assisting foreign nationals affected by xenophobic attacks. the sample included eight (8) men and seven (7) women; and, the five (5) officials were drawn from departments of safety and security, social development, community participation & action unit, home affairs, transport and health. the sample was limited to foreign nationals especially those from nigeria, malawi, congo, zimbabwe residing in durban. the interviewees’ experiences contributed to a more balanced and complete understanding of the issues and forces behind xenophobic or afrophobic hatred and attacks. the interviews for this research were conducted in august and took two weekends, from the 21-23 and 28-30 august 2015. a workshop at west street was chosen as the central place for conducting interviews and engaging the participants whereas municipal officials preferred their offices as the meeting place. since most of the participations could not communicate in english, some of the interviews were narrated in french and translated into english. post graduate students who are french speaking were helpful in the translations. for analysis purposes, direct quotes from the interviews were incorporated to highlight and enable a deep understanding of some of the key issues on the impact of xenophobic attacks on the informal economy. this sample was targeted at foreign entrepreneurs and hawkers involved in informal economic sector. the interviews were conducted along the lines of the following questions: (1) what is your understanding of xenophobia? (2) what causes xenophobia? (3) who was behind xenophobic attacks and why? (4) how were you affected by xenophobic attacks? (5) do you feel safe operating here? (6) how did xenophobic attacks affect your business? (7) what are the social effects of xenophobic attacks? (8) is there a reason for attacking foreigners? (9) do you think that retaliation would solve socio-economic problems? (10) did you lose any stock after the attacks? (11) what were the financial loses? (12) what was the role of government in either the impact of xenophobia-afrophobia on the informal economy in durban td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 163-179. 169 stopping or perpetuating xenophobia? (13) what strategies were used by government to assist the victims of xenophobic attacks? (14) were these strategies effective and if so how? (15) how can xenophobia be stopped? findings and analysis securing people’s livelihoods through informal economy the informal sector remains a predominant source of livelihood for both south africans and non-south africans. thus, sociologists associate informal sector with informal economy underpinned by activities such as unpaid domestic work, consumption work, non-market productive labour, and community service work. a female informant revealed that: “as a foreigner, socio-economic survival is the first priority and regardless of their status and qualifications in the countries of origin, most of the foreigners seized both educational and employment opportunities in their disposal. despite all impediments we come across especially in securing formal jobs, preference and hard work pay in the end” (interviewee no 4, workshop, 22 august 2015). this was confirmed by a 29 year old male said that: “the structural barriers for foreign nationals to get jobs has created an attitude amongst south africans to believe that all foreigner are stupid, are uneducated hence they are here to take our jobs” (interviewee no 1, workshop, 21 august 2015). this myth and stereotype was dismissed by an interviewee who confidently revealed that: “in my country burundi, i am a qualified lawyer with one year of practice and due to political conflicts i had to run for life after my younger brother was killed. upon my arrival in 2009, i worked as a security for many companies and it was only in 2013 that i managed to save cousin enough to buy a container to establish three solons” (interviewee no 3, workshop, 22 august 2015). evidence from the interviews revealed that the majority of non-south africans are eking a living from activities such as hair salons and barber shops, clothing industry, nail bars, grocery, cell phone and computer stores specializing in selling and repairs. the situation facing the foreigners was described by a nigerian national as: “a double edged sword whereby foreigners are perceived as assets to the south african economy while on the other hand they are despised as either makwerekwere or aliens” (interviewee no 9, workshop, 23 august 2015). the term “makwerekwere” is derogatory, commonly used by south african nationals to describe those who cannot speak local languages or dialects (oucho, 2006: 61). the respondents in interviews attested that for the informal economy to survive the socioeconomic storm amidst political instability, it require citizen-based immigration laws committed to african regional integration based on pan africanism and african renaissance as explicated by african leaders. in order to improve the slow economic progress and marginalisation, binns et al. (2012: 239) argue that new regional development strategies and policies could provide socio-economic impetus and further advance cross-border linkages tshishonga 170 within the continent. thus, regional development integration could be pursued to achieve collective self-reliant development, facilitating trade, social, cultural and economic exchange, peacekeeping and the overall promotion of pan-africanism (binns et al., 2012). operating on the principle that “beggars cannot be choosers”, african immigrants managed to optimally utilize their natural abilities and talents to earn a living. central to the informal economy is the utilization of skills and talents for living, in this regards kertzer (2012: 117) argues that “let people themselves also come up with their talents … helping people to use their own abilities to do things for themselves”. for the immigrants, informal economic activities are compulsory for socio-economic survival; hence, oberhauser & pratt (2004 in pratt, 2006: 84) argue that informal activities have provided alternative income generating activities for the unemployed, while also enabling them to cope with poverty and local community problems. a 25 year old mechanic from congo, in narrating his history, said that: “i was taught to repair cars by my senior brother, i never went to school and due to perseverance today i cannot sleep hungry, it based on leant apprenticeship that most of us regarded as foreigners are able to survive economically. through the little we generate daily we are able to put food on the table and pay for accommodation” (interviewee no 34, workshop, 22 august 2015). evidence from this research pointed out that non-south africans in south africa endure unbearable criminalisation with derogatory names such as bogus refugees; however, their exposure has taught them to create something out of nothing (also see amtaika, 2013). in this context, binns et al. (2012: 505) opine that african immigrants tended to fill the jobs that nationals reject, with a view to saving enough money to return home and start up business. eking from the informal sector is hard. a ghanaian clothing boutique owner conceded that: “the secret to success in this sector is for one to be hands on and mastering the skills including knowing where to buy fashionable clothes for the customers. thus operating from the position of power and human capability one is able to provide necessary support and guidance for the few people employed” (interviewee no 13, workshop, 28 august 2015). for the optimal use of assets, skills and talents, weavind (2012: 1) believes that people should create their own jobs hence he argues that “entrepreneurs should be encouraged to start businesses that can generate employment and grow the economy”. this entails transforming assets and people’s resources into productive livelihoods in dealing with socioeconomic vulnerabilities exacerbated by slow economic growth and the exclusion of the poor and foreigners. impact of xenophobia on the informal economy socio-psychological dimension of xenophobia economic challenges such as poverty and unemployment have been cited as the driving force behind xenophobia and xenophobic or afrophobic attacks and violence (amtaika, 2013; the impact of xenophobia-afrophobia on the informal economy in durban td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 163-179. 171 akinola, 2014). the economic dominance has perpetuated a wide spread perception that misplace the social dimension as non-issue in the xenophobia equation. the sociopsychological dimension of xenophobia has a historical cleavage in south africa and this could be traced back to the apartheid era. apartheid was based on racial and ethnic discrimination and divisions; and, as such south africans were not only divided according to their different races but also partitioned along ethnicity and religious lines. thus, the institutionalisation of the apartheid system, according to van der zee (2007: 7), engenders the sense of alienation and marginalisation that ultimately led to social conflict. a participant highlighted that: “internal socio-economic deficiencies degenerate beyond alienating and marginalising those called outsiders or makwerekwere into physical hard portrayed through xenophobic attacks” (interviewee no 12, workshop, 28 august 2015). in this context, terreblance (2012: 79) argues that due to the legacy of apartheid, many africans remain victims of colonial and apartheid exploitation and repression, on one hand, and it nurtured a sense of solidarity and togetherness, on the other hand. an official from the department of social development expressed that: “in the prevalent of severe poverty, locals become vulnerable that they are capable of doing anything to survive including justification to kill or cause bodily harm to other people irrespective whether one is a foreigner or fellow south african” (interviewee no 15, departmental office, 28 august 2015). participants were in unison in condemning the killings and physical attacks directed at other african nationals on the basis of petty reasons such as “they are taking our women, they are drug dealers” (interviewee no 5, workshop, 22 august 2015). they pitied south africans especially those who have limited knowledge of africa’s history and its socio-economic and political challenges. common knowledge to this situation is the political instability and economic uncertainty engulfing the african continent. consequently, the hostile environment has been instrumental in displacing people to the neighbouring nations and even overseas, as refugees. the xenophobic attacks orchestrated by locals since 2008 and renewed in april–may 2015, has painted a negative image contrary to the commitment south africa has made through bodies such as the human rights commission of the united nations. it could be argued that persistence of xenophobia or afrophobia is a betrayal of south africa’s commitment and quest to create non-racialism, non-sexism and democratic society stipulated in the preamble of the constitution (rsa, 1996: 1). xenophobia dislocated foreign nationals not only from their source of livelihood (businesses) but it has also isolated them from their business partners and friends some of whom happen to be south africans. the following comments from a malawian national attest to this: “placing us at the camps in isipingo and chatsworth provided a temporary shelter including basic necessities such as food, clothing, but did not dispel the fear we have for our lives” (interviewee no 12, workshop, 28 august 2015). a nigerian national acknowledged the support received from the government and ngos as well as private companies, and had this to say: tshishonga 172 “the hospitality extended by the south african government and the ethekwini municipality was enormous, however such support generate further conflict especially when the locals blamed government for prioritising foreigners over their citizens” (interviewee no 6, workshop, 23 august 2015). evidence from this research suggests that social exclusion and marginalisation of migrants are orchestrated by locals and government by denying the existence of xenophobia or afrophobia. for fetzer (2000 cited in akinola, 2014: 58), xenophobia above all undermines social cohesion, peaceful co-existence, good governance and observance of human rights. in the post-apartheid era, attempts to reconstruct and develop south africa find expression through the notion of “rainbow nation” as advocated by anglican archbishop desmond tutu and the late president nelson mandela (in mashele & qobo, 2014: 65). a “rainbow nation” has become a measure to evaluate how well do people jell together in forging a united and democratic society. for this clarion call of “rainbow nation” (cebekhulu, 2013: 19) to be a uniting force, it should transcend racial and ethnic divisions to engender “unity in diversity” (de jager, 2013: 147) and embrace continental unity as espoused by kwame nkrumah in his book africa must unite. under imperialism, colonialism and apartheid, africans were forced to be foreigners in their own continent but now they are turning against each other, yet the only way forward to build a strong continent is for all africans to unite against colonial and neo-colonial mentality. nkrumah (1963: 174) suggests that neo-colonialism “… creates client states, independent in the name but in point of fact pawns of the very colonial power which is supposed to have given them independence”. the acts of xenophobic intolerance and attacks made a mockery of the notion of africa for africans. economic dimension of xenophobia more often, economics dominate most of the discussions pertaining to xenophobia taking place in south africa. as the strongest economy in the continent, south africa has its drawbacks especially in becoming the economic and political haven for non-south africans faced by socio-economic and political hardships and oppression (ramphele, 2008: 288). scrambling for limited economic resources has partly contributed to the wide-spread xenophobic and afrophobic attacks. thus, the hatred and anger against non-south africans by locals since the dawn of democracy has degenerated into jealousy hence the physical attacks and fatalities (masuva, 2014, akinola, 2014). evidence from the research found that most of the reasons cited for targeting “foreigners” are captured in the following quote: “they are taking our business’, their businesses are successful because they are involved in drugs’, their stuff is cheap hence people buy from foreign shops than us” (interviewee no 10, workshop, 28 august 2015). considering that xenophobic attacks were justified on economic grounds, foreign nationals were accused by locals for “competing with them for jobs, housing and other resources which the locals feel they are entitled to” (masuva, 2014: 387). these articulations underlie unhealthy competition between the locals and non-south africans. the research conducted by human sciences research council (2012: 31) shares similar findings that in most cases the resistance stage by locals against immigrants is perpetuated due to competition on local economics and public resources. these economic citations did not only sustain xenophobic or afrophobic attacks, they have also fuelled the suspicion that most of the businesses run by the impact of xenophobia-afrophobia on the informal economy in durban td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 163-179. 173 non-africans, especially black africans, are shoddy and are funded through drug dealing. a counter view was shared by one of the female respondents who said: “the reality stares us in the face in that businesses owned by so called ‘makwerekwere’ are run relatively well compared to those by locals, despite being affordable and accompanied by sound customer care based on human relationship values and principles” (interviewee no 2, workshop, 22 august 2015). an official from the department of human settlement indicated that: “locals are often frustrated by their limited stocks compare to with the non-south africans who do bulk buying and, networking and expanding their networks is central to their success” (interviewee no 12, departmental office, 28 august 2015). failure to compete at this level culminate into local businesses closing down with the option of renting them out to foreigners. in this instance, an official from community participation and action unity (cpau) revealed that: “most of the foreign business owners buy their stock at favour wholesaler. importantly, the wholesaler was helpful especially in providing stock on credit mainly for foreign shops after their small businesses were looted during the xenophobia upheaval” (interviewee no 11, workshop, 28 august 2015). in the durban cbd, the expression of xenophobia gave rise to anger and jealousy which resulted into shops and stalls belonging to foreign nationals being vandalised and their stock being looted. during this rampage, locals voiced their dissatisfaction against the municipality for supporting the businesses run by non-south africans and not by locals. the mere fact that most of the non-south africans are successful has raised eye brows, especially from the locals who concluded that foreigners are being favoured when it comes to business support. kalitanyi & visser (2010: 376) argue that the success behind immigrants’ businesses is due to the effective application of their entrepreneurial skills in both establishing small businesses and employing workers. given the prevalence of poverty and unemployment and income inequality, petrin (1994: 7) and khawar (2007: 3) argue that entrepreneurship is not instrumental in widening the economic base and grow the economy, but that it can also be a tool for strengthening the process of wealth creation. in this respect, government in general and ethekwini municipality in particular were accused by non-south africans for failure to create jobs so that at the end the locals should not entertain the attitude that immigrants are in south africa solely to take their jobs. for meyer & venter (2013: 91), the state’s failure to fulfil its developmental mandate coincide with its failure to create conducive and enabling environment to sustain small businesses and further forge employment opportunities, especially for the poor and those economically excluded and marginalised people. this failure could be validated by the amount of money which small business owners pay to operate in places such as the workshop in west street. for example, it was revealed during the interviews that for a licence, each person pays r500, for security it is r210, r240 for storage and r800 for the trolley boy per month. a total monthly amount paid by each person is r1 750, excludes remuneration for the assistants. socio-political dimension of xenophobia xenophobic or afrophobic attacks did not only dislocate people, economically, but businesses belonging to foreign national were vandalised and their stock looted. consequently, these acts created political instability where municipality and government were blamed for not doing enough to curb the plague of xenophobia or afrophobia (bekker, 2008: 136). the tshishonga 174 south african immigration policies were blamed for perpetuating violent attacks on foreigners, hence the naming of immigrants as “economic migrants" or “bogus refugees” or “aliens” (nugent, 2012: 503, 505). these names are reflective of how narrow-minded, government and its machinery can be in dealing with a sensitive matter like xenophobia. the attacks were economically triggered by local employers employing foreign nationals while the local employees were on strike demanding salary increment at umnyani mall situated at umlazi township. the utterances by zulu king goodwill zwelethini was interpreted by mainly unemployed locals as the political passport to ostracise and chase away non-south africans. a senegalese national: “blamed the king as the main cause and perpetuator of xenophobia attacks and its escalation in durban and its surrounding townships” (interviewee no 14, workshop, 28 august 2015). a lesson to be drawn in this scenario is that leadership either democratically elected or traditional should take responsibility of what they say and do. xenophobic attacks were sustained through mob-psychology where rational thinking about the real causes of the anger and hatred dissipated. instead, most of the foreigners were chased around the durban cdb regardless of their immigration status. the failure by the department of home affairs and other law enforcement agencies to reinforce immigration policies paved way for locals and foreigner to embark on criminal activities. foreign nationals in this case became the scapegoat for the socio-economic plight and deprivation. the attacks were not only xenophobic but they also had criminal elements. most participants accused government of orchestrating alienation and marginalisation of foreigners by applying “draconian measures” aimed at controlling refugees and asylum seekers; hence, akinola (2014: 64) accuses the south african state of perpetrating extreme hostility and structural hatred towards non-nationals. in this regard, ramphele (2008: 289) points out that with the persistent weaknesses in home affairs, south africa runs the risks of being labelled as a violator of the human rights of the many refugees and as such failing to protect foreign nationals in terms of obligations under united nations treaties. politicians and officials continue to deny xenophobia and blame attacks on criminal elements. a municipal official revealed that: “stall owners pay r740. 00 (56 usd) a month to the municipality which provides them with licence, space and warehouse space for their goods (interviewee no 10, municipal office, 28 august 2015). a female congolese expressed her frustration that: “those foreigners working in the hair salons are harassed daily by metro police seeking bribes and at times soliciting sexual favours, and the private security are on our case for no apparent reason (interviewee no 18, workshop, 30 august 2015). another hairdressing specialist respondent said: “at the workshop, we have made arrangements that on a daily basis we pay security guards an amount of r210, 00 per month for security and protection against local criminals and robbers (interviewee no 9, workshop, 23 august 2015). thus the failure to restore stability engenders lawlessness whereby locals, including the passer-by people, get to be preoccupied with looting of stock and destroying stalls belonging to the foreigners. the impact of xenophobia-afrophobia on the informal economy in durban td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 163-179. 175 political economy underpinning xenophobia and xenophobic attacks xenophobia can be understood and analysed by using political economy framework. stanilam (1985: 6) defines political economy as how politics determine aspects of the economy as well as the dynamics interaction between the two forces. within the african continent, the adoption of democracy as the governance system was not only underpinned by autocratic leadership, but it was accompanied by declining economy. a ghanaian national blamed poor and selfish african leaders for the plight that continue to rip africa apart saying that; “once africans leaders are elected into the position of power they either don’t want to step down or imposed themselves through forming militia groups causing civil wars and political instability” (interviewee no 15, workshop, 29 august 2015). with this mind, autocratic behaviour of african leaders accompanied by harassment and imprisonment saw most of inhabitants being dislocated as refugees, especially to those countries which are relatively peaceful and their economy stable. upon arrival, most people were shocked to discover that the land they had envisaged was unreal. immigration results into the diaspora communities either within africa itself or in the western became home for many displaced african nationals, especially from zimbabwe, somalia, rwanda, ethiopia, congo and nigeria. consequently, these migratory patterns caused “brain drain”. nugent (2012: 506) states that brain drain is persistent in robbing and disadvantaging africa of foreign investment and remittances. he went further to highlight that the refusal by many african states to recognise dual nationality resulted into the situation whereby citizens are turned into foreigners despite their self-determination and continuing support for kith and kin (nugent, 2012). in africa, political instability is, according to handelman (1996: 7), underpinned severely by political underdevelopment than by social and economic underdevelopment. the genuine integration of south africa into africa is essential for building and fostering patriotism and trust of all the african people. in this regard, maphunye et al. (2014: 23) argues that south africa’s independence will be meaningless unless the country’s democratic trajectory is intertwined with africa’s genuine socio-economic and political freedom. a zimbabwean interviewee opined that: “unless the government deals with the poverty especially the unemployment situation, xenophobia will never end in south africa rather more people foreigners will die and continue to be harassed, intimidated and face deportation (interviewee no 11, workshop, 28 august 2015). the political economy is a splinter approach in terms of understanding the exacerbation of xenophobic or afrophobic attacks on foreign nationals. democracy according to terreblanche (2012: 37), represents the political side of the dual system underpinned by capitalism, which represents the economic side. thus the strength and sustainability of the system of democratic capitalism depends on the mutual interdependence of democracy and capitalism (terreblanche, 2012: 38). politically, south africa’s quest to build a rainbow nation was frustrated by the legacy of apartheid with immigration policies that still promote exclusionary laws and treat fellow africans as aliens. peberdy (2009: 147) attests to the discriminatory policies by tracing the isolation and tension way back from the 1970s to the early 1990s which led to the reduction in the number of southern africans living in the republic. despite some changes in the immigration policies since 1994, the legacy of apartheid policies continues to keep south africa divided along racial and ethnic lines. although some of the locals interviewed agreed that attacking non-south africans and looting their stocks is not the solution to xenophobia, an ethiopian migrant warns that: tshishonga 176 “ government should stop paying lip-service to its immigration policies and start to recommit itself to reintegration of foreign nationals” (interviewee no 20, workshop, 30 august 2015). the harsh or linear policies regulating the movement of foreign nationals have been accused of causing “social and political exclusion” (neocosmos, 2010: 13). masuva (2014: 377) concurs with neocosmos that xenophobia is “politics of exclusion”; and, the state is blamed for the marginalisation of migrants through passing restrictive policies and practices. borrowing from fanon’s (1963) expression of internalisation of oppression, it appears as if south africans are the victims of the oppressive and racist apartheid regime; and, amidst the prevalent socio-economic crisis, non-south africans tend to become “secondary victims” of xenophobia or afrophobia. the failure to balance the political governance system and economic approaches adopted since 1994, has led to the escalation of poverty, unemployment and inequality (terreblance, 2012). the socio-economic exclusion and marginalisation denied locals their economic citizenship; hence, ramphele (2008: 162) argues that many refugees with high-level skills are being identified and encouraged to help the struggling public service. conclusion in this article, the notion of xenophobia or afrophobia and its impact on the operations of the informal economy was interrogated within the context of sustainable livelihood framework. economic sectors in the midst of socio-economic hardships became the last resort, not only for locals but also for non-south africans. the emergence of xenophobic or afrophobic attacks in the month of april 2015, saw the streets of durban being deserted and foreigners under siege. shops and stalls owned by non-south africans were targeted, looted and their businesses vandalised under the pretence that “makwerekwere” were taking the locals’ jobs. this article revealed that unlike sporadic xenophobic attacks in the previous years, those staged in april were structurally organised with transportation for attackers to hunt for foreigners within the durban cbd and the surrounding townships. socio-economic and political implications as discussed in this article are enormous, hence both locals and non-south africans were affected. socially, fear planted through the scourge of xenophobia overwhelmed the city of durban accompanied by the decline in both the formal and informal sector, with the later bearing the most brunt. on the one hand, the city was turned into a battle field whereby afro-hatred was perpetuated with the intention of causing bodily harm and making deportation threats. on the other hand, the closing of small businesses belonging to foreigners meant that locals were unable to access affordable goods and services. in conclusion, the article argued that both local and foreigners are victims of a weak and irresponsive political economy; 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(eds.). new southern african keywords. jacana/johannesburg: ohio university press/athens. smith, j.d. 1987. measuring the informal economy. annals of the american academy of political and social science, 493: 83-99. stanilam, m. 1985. what is political economy? new haven: yale university press. van der zee, d. 2007. from intellect to intelligence: a radical natural human alternative. pretoria: griffel media. terreblance, s. 2012. lost in transformation: south africa’s search for a new future since 1986. johannesburg: kmm review publishing company. weavind, t. 2012. creating your own job. sunday times, 12 august 2012. p.1. weiga, 2012. the informal economy: definitions, theories and policies. http://led.co.za/topic/informal-economy [accessed: 19 august 2015]. abstract introduction conceptual contestations on the post-colonial critical discourse analysis as a methodology description, interpretation and explanation of findings temporal ambiguity stemming from conceptual confusion a generalised temporal notion of post-colonial africa conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) marshall t. maposa school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation maposa, m.t., 2018, ‘the representation of the temporal notion of post-colonial africa in south african history textbooks’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a485. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.485 original research the representation of the temporal notion of post-colonial africa in south african history textbooks marshall t. maposa received: 06 oct. 2017; accepted: 23 apr. 2018; published: 14 aug. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article is premised on the current (2015–2016) developments in south africa whereby the country’s youth are increasingly engaging in discourses of south africa’s post-colonial condition and the need for decolonisation. but how do the history textbooks that they use in schools construct this contentious post-colonial period? on this basis, the main objective is to examine the temporal representation of post-colonial africa in south african history textbooks. critical discourse analysis was applied on a sample of four national curriculum statement-aligned textbooks with a focus on sections that covered content on post-colonial africa. the findings from the textual analysis show that the temporal notion of post-colonial africa is not clearly framed within a particular period. the ambiguity of the temporal notion, a fundamental concept in history, stems from the fact that the lexicalisations used as time markers in the textbooks cannot be linked to one particular date, resulting in a post-colonial africa whose beginning and – more specifically – end cannot be unambiguously determined. the textbooks also sometimes refer to the post-colonial period as singular, whereas in other cases they describe the period as consisting of different phases. i conclude that such ambiguity reveals a loophole in educating the learners about a period whose circumstances they are trying to not only engage but also transform. introduction just over 20 years after the end of apartheid, there is evidence of an increase in the discourses of decolonisation of education in south africa. the decolonisation discourses have constructed south africa as not only post-apartheid but also post-colonial, thus reigniting the post-colonial discourses that have taken place in other african countries (luckett 2016; mamdani 2011; mbembe n.d.). at the heart of the decolonisation project in africa is the experience of western colonisation, which had taken hold of the continent by the beginning of the 19th century. further to that is the assumption that political colonisation ended, yet it still is to be matched with an end to other forms of colonisation (rahaman, yeazdani & mahmud 2017). it is because of political decolonisation that africa is assumed to be in the post-colonial era. however, as shohat (1992) notes, ‘“post-colonial” renders a problematic temporality’ (p. 103). two questions that can be asked in this regard are as follows: when did the post-colonial period start?; and when did it or will it end? as young (2004) states, ‘the question arises whether “post-colonial” remains a serviceable designation’ (p. 24). if south africa is to be constructed as post-colonial, then there is a need to engage with this concept. it would be expected that the education that south africans experienced post-1994 should help them gain a good understanding of such concepts. one of the ways of finding out is analysing history textbooks, which tend to be purveyors of officially sanctioned knowledge that should help the users to gain a particular consciousness (foster & crawford 2006). this article is drawn from a bigger research project whose findings show that post-colonial africa is represented in south african history textbooks in the form of four notions: the temporal, spatial, humanised and experiential notions (maposa 2014). i will focus on only the temporal notion, which i have identified to be crucial in understanding whether south africa and the rest of africa are post-colonial. in fact, historical time is a key concept in historical understanding as ‘historical evidence itself derives its meaning from the time frame in which it is set’ (stow & haydn 2012:85). this means that the temporal notion in history provides a framework for understanding the topic under study. likewise, the understanding drawn from this study can provide another platform on which debates on the decolonisation project in south africa can be based. therefore, the purpose of this article is to understand how south african history textbooks construct this contentious post-colonial period for their users. the article will reveal the ambiguities in terms of the meanings of post-colonial africa across the analysed textbooks, which could lead to a lack of clarity of the textbook users’ conceptualisation of the period they are not only part of, but also are possibly actively trying to influence. in order to come to such conclusions, i start by reviewing literature on the contestations of the post-colonial after which i will explain the theoretical foundations of the study. this will be followed by an explanation of the methodology, after which the findings are described, interpreted and explained. the article ends with a conclusion that explains the implications of the study. conceptual contestations on the post-colonial it is important to start by clarifying how this article distinguishes post-colonial from postcolonial. as st-pierre (1997) argues: still other distinctions would have to be made. between ‘post-colonial’ with a hyphen, and ‘postcolonial’ without, for example. … hulme and iversen use the first ‘as a temporal marker’ and the second ‘to indicate the analytical concept of greater range and ambition, as in “postcolonial theory”’. (p. 11) for the sake of conceptual clarity, in this article i use ‘postcolonial’ to refer to the temporal marker, whereas ‘postcolonial’ refers to the analytical concept or theory. the latter will be expounded in the next section on theoretical considerations. one of the contentions over the use of the term ‘post-colonial’ as a temporal marker concerns the overlap of the colonial and the post-colonial. to explain this overlap, st-pierre (1997) uses the example of south africa where at least three possible dates have been suggested as temporal markers for the beginning of the post-colonial era. the first is 1931 when the british government granted south africa dominion status via the 1931 statute of westminster (1937), and the second is 1961 when south africa became a republic. the third date is 1994, as post-colonial theorists such as said (1978) and mcclintock (1993) argue that apartheid was, in fact, a form of colonisation. said equates apartheid south africa to palestine by labelling the then oppressed to be victims of victims, whereas mcclintock (1993) contends that there are two forms of colonisation: internal colonisation, whereby people are oppressed by a dominant group within the same country, and imperial colonisation, for example when european powers colonised territories in africa, asia and the americas. holistically looking at africa, there are no uniform dates for the beginning and the end of the colonial period. it is therefore folly to view history as divided into neat eras of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial. this is what shohat (1992) decries to as ‘a collapsing of diverse chronologies’. the quotation below elucidates his argument: colonial-settler states, such as those found in the americas, australia, new zealand, and south africa, gained their independence, for the most part, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. most countries in africa and asia, in contrast, gained independence in the twentieth century, some in the nineteen thirties (iraq), others in the nineteen forties (india, lebanon), and still others in the nineteen sixties (algeria, senegal) and the nineteen seventies (angola, mozambique), while others have yet to achieve it. when exactly, then, does the ‘post-colonial’ begin? (p. 103) the above quotation implies that the identification of the post-colonial hinges heavily on the identity of the subject under focus. related to this point are the contentions over who experiences post-coloniality and who does not. for example, do the former colonisers themselves not become post-colonial too (st-pierre 1997)? this line of reasoning implies that the effects of decolonisation are not limited to the formerly colonised only. yet, most post-colonial studies focus on what said (1978) refers to as the subaltern (the formerly colonised). in fact, post-colonial studies are alternatively often referred to as subaltern studies. nonetheless, tosh (2009) maintains that the empire cannot be divorced from the metropole as both parties influenced each other, no matter how skewed the colonial relationship was. this view implies that the former western colonial powers are also in a post-colonial era. in critique of the foregoing argument, mcclintock (1993) contends that postcolonialism fails to show the differences between ‘the beneficiaries of colonialism (generally the ex-colonisers) and the casualties of colonialism (generally the ex-colonised)’ (p. 86). in simple terms, everyone can claim to be ‘living in a “post-colonial epoch”’ (shohat 1992:103). however, st-pierre (1997) insists that postcolonialism is a polite way of referring to neo-colonialism, which in turn cannot exist in the absence of anti-colonial struggles. in other words, those who are not involved in anti-colonial struggles cannot claim to be either post-colonial or to be in a post-colonial condition. such a view is more problematic if one tries to apply it to mcclintock’s (1993) internal colonisation, because it implies that in countries like south africa, one part of the present population is post-colonial while another is not. not much alternatives to the use of the term ‘post-colonial’ are suggested in literature. worth noting is young’s (2004) argument that the term only emerged in the 1980s and before african countries tended to refer to themselves as ‘post-independence’. shohat (1992) suggests the continued use of post-independence on the basis that it ‘attribut[es] power to the nation-state [and] it also makes third world regimes accountable’ (p. 107). however, critiques can also be conducted on the use of post-independence, but they do not fall under the scope of this article (young 2004). the complications discussed above are testimony to the contested ground on which post-colonial studies find themselves. it is for this reason that tosh (2009) argues that the temporal notion of the post-colonial can only be applied just as a convenient, but superficial chronological marker. post-colonial theory and history textbooks history textbooks are usually not divorced from the discourses permeating through society as official history. these discourses become educational discourse which learners are exposed to as they use the textbooks (naseem 2008). history textbooks are therefore ‘a device for conveying intellectual ideas’ (kojanitz 2008:214). this means that history textbooks contain much more than historical content, but they also have underlying ideologies that they expose their users to. hence, they can, in the case of this study, provide an understanding of post-colonial societies and individuals. this understanding can be enhanced by analysing the textbooks through the lens of postcolonialism. the major contributors in the field of postcolonialism include fanon (1961), said (1978), spivak (1993) and bhabha (1994). they use this theory fundamentally to understand the nature of post-colonial societies, and this is applicable in this study’s attempt to analyse representations of post-colonial africa. as with most theories, postcolonialism has varying constructions and contestations. hitchcock (1997) claims that amongst a plethora of postcolonialisms, three are outstanding: experiential postcolonialism, materialist postcolonialism and discursive postcolonialism. in the interest of space, i will not elaborate on the first two because they are not of direct relevance to this study. suffice to say, experiential postcolonialism is ‘firmly grounded in the wake of the great decolonization movements … and that encompasses both works of theory and a huge body of heterogeneous culture’ (hitchcock 1997:233). this type of postcolonialism is useful in attempts to understand the experiences and narratives that relate to post-colonial societies. materialist postcolonialism consists of ‘theoretical approaches that seek to understand the relationship between the experience of postcoloniality and the socioeconomic restructuring of the globe’ (hitchcock 1997:233). postcoloniality here refers to the state that post-colonial societies find themselves in. materialist postcolonialism can therefore be used as an analytic tool to understand how the state of such societies is determined not just by the said societies but also by broader international configurations. the uniqueness of discursive postcolonialism is in that it ‘assesses the condition of postcoloniality as a discursive construction’ (hitchcock 1997:233). i used discursive postcolonialism as a lens in this study to analyse the history textbooks for postcoloniality because it foregrounds issues of discourse crucial to understanding postcolonialism. discourse analyses grew out of what is commonly referred to as the linguistic turn, whose basic premise is that there cannot be any meaning in the absence of language (dimitriadis & kamberelis 2006). it implies the importance of language in the construction of any meaning. indeed, scholars such as foster and crawford (2006) and firer (1998) acknowledge the constructive power of language in history textbooks. this would similarly imply that from a discursive post-colonial point of view, post-colonial africa is not only constructed by language, but it can be understood through language. however, language also gets meaning though situational and institutional context (ifversen 2003). the phenomena can be represented as subjects and objects. nevertheless, subjects and objects are never fully meaningful in the sense that they only get meaning from the interpretations of their representations. as a result, they can be referred to as ‘empty signifiers’ because they do not necessarily have meaning until society gives it to them (howarth & stavrakakis 2000:8). discourse theory explains how objects and subjects can be changed from empty signifiers to become what society understands them to be. this is a process of ‘actualisation’, where discourses transform empty signifiers into meaningful realities. according to dimitriadis and kamberelis (2006), it is within a particular context that ‘various institutions (including schools) produce discourses that then constitute what can be known or practiced relative to that body of knowledge’ (p. 112). in the case of education, the dominant discourse is then translated into becoming dominant educational discourses found in history textbooks (naseem 2008). ideas are modified into dominant discourses through a process of articulation (howarth & stavrakakis 2000). therefore, educational media such as history textbooks become tools for the dissemination of the official discourses from above. in fact, the dynamics of textbook production shows that although the state may be dominant, other powerful players, including publishers and advocacy groups, manage to infuse their discourses into the textbooks (rodden 2009). as foucault argues, people become ‘disciplined subjects’ of such discourses (dimitriadis & kamberelis 2006:112). this makes it important to analyse the text in history textbooks in terms of how it helps the textbook users to make meaning of the world they live in. critical discourse analysis as a methodology as noted in the introduction, this article is drawn from a larger scale study which focused on the analysis of the construction of african consciousness in south african history textbooks. the methodological considerations are explained in detail in another paper (maposa 2015). for this article, i analysed four history textbooks which i purposively sampled from various publishers. i analysed textbooks that were compliant to the national curriculum statement (ncs) – the south african curriculum that ran from 2003 to 2011 when it was replaced by the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). this study started when the current or contemporary caps-compliant textbooks were not yet produced. the caps grade 12 textbooks were only distributed for use in 2014, and by that time, this study was already in its final stages. the sample is represented in table 1. table 1: the research sample. data were generated from only the sections that related to post-colonial africa. in textbook 1, the relevant section was chapter 2 titled ‘uhuru’ (pp. 53–110). in textbook 2, the data were generated from chapter 2 titled ‘how was uhuru realised in africa in the 1960s and 1970s?’ (pp. 120–154), whereas textbook 3’s relevant theme was in chapter 2, ‘how uhuru was realised in africa’ (pp. 59–114). in textbook 4, the data were generated from chapter 2 titled ‘how was uhuru realised in africa in the 1960s and 1970s?’ (pp. 67–114). my criteria for analysis focused on the author’s descriptive text (verbal) and visuals (such as illustrations, photographs or pictures, maps, tables, statistics, graphs and other sources) (nicholls 2003; pingel 2010). i used critical discourse analysis (cda), a methodology that is not specifically fashioned for history textbook research, but which has contributed to a substantial body of textbook research (barnard 2003; lebrun et al. 2002). critical discourse analysis relates well to issues of language that i explained earlier to be key aspects of discursive postcolonialism. it also involves the consideration of power as a determinant of the knowledge that is sanctioned as truth in the textbooks. for instance, the decision on when south africa became post-colonial is as much an academic one as it is a power one. although scholars may debate on which date is appropriate, it is the hegemonic discourse coming from the powerful (not just political) in south africa that will end up dominating. therefore, discourses that are in the textbooks are a reflection of the power dynamics at a macro-level of discourse produced by power holders and a micro-level of discourse produced by the average citizens (van dijk 2003). what this means is that textbooks are at a meso-level of discourse where the discourses coming from above meet those from below, resulting in the fashioning of a popular discourse or discourses. fairclough’s (1995) cda provided a useful framework for analysis through three dimensions: description, interpretation and explanation. my analysis was guided by janks’ (1997) explanation of how fairclough’s cda can be practically applied. for the descriptive analysis, i selected lexicalisation, which is one of five aspects of functional grammar used in halliday’s (1985) systemic functional linguistics (janks 1997:335). i also considered the use of particular dates and their alternative lexicalisations and the use of tenses which revealed time frames. i also applied visual semiotics, which consider visuals as signs comprising signifiers that represent a particular meaning (the signified). it is important to note that the visual text in the textbooks makes little reference to time, which can be used to reflect the post-colonial dimension of africa. by virtue of the nature of visual text, most of the reference to time is either in the captions or in the accompanying verbal text. however, some visuals did exhibit dates of the actual historical activity which then revealed an idea of the time frame for post-colonial africa that the textbooks represented. the interpretation and explanation relied on literature, theory and the context. in other words, the meanings that i made of the descriptive findings were based on frames of reference guided by literature and the discourses on the context of production (south africa). description, interpretation and explanation of findings the findings are divided into three themes: (1) temporal ambiguity stemming from conceptual confusion, (2) a generalised temporal notion of post-colonial africa and (3) post-colonial africa as fragmented. these three themes respond directly to the research question on how the temporal notion of post-colonial africa is represented. the findings from both the verbal and visual text are integrated. this is informed by previous research, which shows that cda findings make better sense if the meanings from the visual text are understood together with those from the verbal text (janks 1997; maposa 2015). temporal ambiguity stemming from conceptual confusion although all four textbooks frame post-colonial africa temporally, only two refer to it explicitly. post-colonial africa is lexicalised in textbook 1 as ‘post-independence africa’ (p. 77), whereas textbook 4 refers to the phenomenon as ‘independent africa’ (p. 78). in the same regard, textbook 3 uses ‘post-colonial’ and ‘post-independence’ interchangeably (p. 102). the same conceptual period is lexicalised in textbook 2 as ‘after independence’ (p. 49). this reflects a dominant construction of post-colonial africa in the textbooks as africa in the period after independence. nevertheless, as part of this representation, the meaning of independence is not really clarified in any of the textbooks leading to two complications. firstly, independence seems to be implicitly referring to the concept of uhuru – a kiswahili word which means freedom. all the analysed textbooks unambiguously refer to uhuru as freedom in the verbal text (textbook 1, p. 53; textbook 2, p. 59; textbook 3, p. 49; and textbook 4, p. 68). this then implies a representation of freedom and independence as the same phenomenon and hence a temporal construction of post-colonial africa as africa in the period after independence or freedom. this leaves the temporal construction of post-colonial africa in all the textbooks in a fuzzy and contestable state because the concepts they use as time markers (independence and freedom) are not necessarily one and the same. the conceptual confusion on a post-colonial dimension for africa is also evidenced in textbook 1 which has dates of independence for all countries on the map of africa on page 58 – as shown in figure 1. however, the map (which excludes the islands surrounding africa with the exception of madagascar) creates some complications considering the fact that liberia, for instance is shown to have gained its independence in 1847, long before virtually the rest of africa experienced western colonisation. other notable dates of independence on the map are for egypt in 1922 and south africa in 1961. according to the same map, the last country to gain independence in africa was eritrea in 1993. textbook 3 also has a map with post-colonial dates, but in this case showing changes in governments over the continent containing dates from 1952 in egypt to 1993 in eritrea. figure 1: map of africa. the conceptual confusion relates to how independence is not a well-defined concept within the textbooks. the representation in the textbooks clearly defines uhuru which is alternatively lexicalised as freedom. the use of ‘post-colonial’ and ‘post-independence’ interchangeably would imply that the post-colonial period in africa started with the beginning of independence from western colonisation. the fact that the textbooks construct uhuru as freedom and not as independence means that independence and uhuru are not represented as being similar. the lack of clarity is particularly evident if one considers two factors: that independence for some countries did not necessarily entail freedom; and that some countries, such as eritrea and later south sudan, did not necessarily gain their independence from a western country. this is the crux of the contention over the use of the concept post-colonial with reference to south africa, for example because dates of independence such as 1961 are not associated with freedom in the country. as a result, the textbooks construct a fuzzy temporal notion of post-colonial africa whose meaning depends on how concepts are understood. a generalised temporal notion of post-colonial africa another finding from my analysis is that the textbooks fundamentally generalised the post-colonial period in africa without actually explicitly giving a time frame. in other words, the textbooks refer to the post-colonial era without being specific about its bounding dates. hence, my analysis referred to dates which were stated with reference to post-colonial events. for example, the paratext of textbook 1 identifies ghana as the first sub-saharan african country to gain independence (p. 71). similarly, the paratext in textbook 4 identifies namibia as the last country in africa to gain independence (p. 77). however, textbook 1 and textbook 4 identify the period of uhuru in africa to have been in the 1960s and 1970s and extend the post-colonial time frame to the present day. the reason for this extension to the present day is stated in textbook 1: ‘many of the issues that challenged and troubled african states in those two decades continue to do so to the present’ (textbook 1, p. 53). an analysis of the textbooks’ linguistic choices revealed a similar post-colonial time frame, albeit without explicitly stating so. for example, the constant use of the present perfect tense in textbook 3 shows how the supposed time from independence in africa to the present day is generalised into one contemporary period. a case in point of the use of the present perfect tense is in the statement: ‘from the late 1980s, africa has witnessed a dramatic shift from single-party states to multiparty political systems’ (textbook 3, p. 100). the use of the present perfect tense implies the continuation of an essentially analogous experience from the past to the present. therefore, the construction in the textbooks is that up to the present day, the post-colonial period has not reached an end yet in africa. the dates associated with the visuals in the textbooks also give a rough idea of the generalised time frame for post-colonial africa. for instance, in textbook 4, the visuals include the malawian postage stamp of 1964 in figure 2 (p. 78), the biafran war in 1969 (p. 102), the women in an ujamaa village in 1974 (p. 82) and the family fleeing burundi in 1995 (p. 91). this list of visuals and their dates reveal that the earliest reference to post-colonial africa in the visual text of textbook 4 is in 1964 and the latest in 1995. figure 2: a malawian postage stamp showing the date 1964. applying the same analysis criteria to other textbooks, the earliest date related to visual text in textbook 2 is 1960 with reference to the two cartoons of kwame nkrumah (pp. 57 and 61) with the latest being from ‘the 1980s’ when tanzanians spoke about ujamaa (p. 53). similarly, textbook 1 contains statistical tables of gross domestic product (gdp), agricultural production and industrial growth in tanzania, kenya, ghana and cote d’ivoire from 1960 to 1987 (textbook 1, p. 97). the textbook also presents graphs indicating trends in population growth and urbanisation, with the x-axis starting in 1950. as was shown in figure 3, the time frame ends with a projection up to 2054. figure 3: a graph revealing a time frame for post-colonial africa. therefore, the visual text in the selected textbooks does not construct a uniform temporal dimension for post-colonial africa. this can be illustrated in the timelines that are summed up in table 2. working with the dates in the table, the temporal notion of post-colonial africa from the visual text can be described to be ranging from 1847 to 2050. this is evidently different from the description of the verbal text which ranged from the 1960s to the present day. although the latest dates in three of the textbooks are in the 1990s, it can be seen that there is a tendency to construct the post-colonial africa in a state of temporal perpetuity. table 2: time frames for post-colonial africa from the four textbooks (visual text). as seen in table 2, the textbooks have varying time frames for post-colonial africa. this reveals a complication in the construction of post-colonial africa because a country such as liberia is represented as having been post-colonial before some countries were even colonised. such a complication lies at the heart of the contestations of post-colonial theory, especially the contestation over identification of the start and end of the post-colonial period (shohat 1992; st-pierre 1997; tosh 2009; young 2004). the contestation over the post-colonial time marker promotes the construction of a multifarious temporal notion of africa whereby it is easier to look at specific countries rather than africa as a single unit. the visual text also reveals the future projection of post-colonial africa. such a positioning is related to the arguments by st-pierre (1997) and tosh (2009) on the demise of post-colonial time. three of the textbooks deal with issues in post-colonial africa up to the mid-1990s giving an impression that the post-colonial period ended then. the exception is textbook 1, which features a visual that projects post-colonial issues to 2050, thus constructing a future consciousness for the textbook readers. shohat (1992) finds this to be ahistorical, because it entails history learners analysing 21st century events within the same historical context as the 1950s. post-colonial africa as fragmented there is a contradictory tension in the findings in terms of how the textbooks also acknowledge that the post-colonial condition in africa has not been consistently uniform, thus representing the post-colonial era in a fragmented manner. as evidence of this fragmentation, textbook 2 (p. 75) lexicalises the 1960s as ‘africa’s “troubled honeymoon”’ period meaning that there were other periods of the post-colonial era. textbook 4 (p. 107) constructs the same 1960s as a period of ‘economic progress’ in africa, with the continent falling into ‘an economic crisis’ in the 1970s. on the same issue, textbook 3 offers a more holistic perspective by characterising the 1960s as a period of ‘modest growth,’ while the decades that followed were characterised by ‘severe economic constraints’ (p. 92). these representations reveal a fragmented representation of the actual condition of post-colonial africa. although the common representation was that post-colonial africa continues to the present day, textbook 4 furthers it into the future by mentioning the bright potential that africa possesses for the future. this shows another case of fragmentation of the post-colonial era. nevertheless, the description of findings showed that in spite of the ambiguity in the verbal text, the pattern emerging from the analysis is that post-colonial africa is constructed to be ranging from the 1960s to the present day. the verbal text shows the 1960s to be a unique period where there was economic growth against great odds. it identifies the 1970s to be the beginning of crises in most of africa which climaxed in the 1980s, and the 1990s to be marking the beginning of new hope for democracy and growth. this construction shows that post-colonial africa in the textbooks is also constructed as an assortment of different temporal frames, implying that different parts of africa have not had the same temporal notion of the post-colonial condition. conclusion the purpose of this article was to provide an understanding of the representation of the temporal notion of post-colonial africa as represented in south african history textbooks. the rationale is that it is important for south african history learners and teachers to have a good understanding of the concept of post-colonial, because historical time is one of the key concepts to historical understanding. this is especially so for post-colonial africa, at a time when the decolonisation movements in south africa have characterised the country to be post-colonial. the findings described show that although post-colonial africa is constructed through a temporal notion, it is not clearly framed within a particular period. the ambiguity of the temporal notion, a fundamental concept in history, stems from the fact that lexicalisations used as time markers cannot be linked to one particular date, resulting in a post-colonial africa whose beginning and – more specifically – end cannot be unambiguously determined. notwithstanding, the textbooks revealed both generalised and fragmented conceptions of the post-colonial african period. this study therefore notes with concern the contradictions that are evident in the textbooks with reference to the temporal notion of post-colonial africa. much as textbooks should not be purveyors of single narrative propaganda, neither should they be representing conceptual chaos. instead, there is a need for a stronger conceptualisation of the temporal notion of post-colonial africa, just as should be the case with other historical concepts in the textbooks. although textbook analysts cannot necessarily predict the effects of the said textbooks on their users, research has shown that a weak understanding of time has an adverse effect on the understanding of the historical events associated with the particular time (stow & haydn 2012). this may mean that learners of south african history will not be well equipped to understand the contemporary dynamics from a post-colonial perspective. another conclusion concerns the use of colonialism as a time marker in african history, which the textbooks do. as mcclintock (1993) argues, this approach is problematic as attested by the ambiguities and differences on the meaning of post-colonial africa across the analysed textbooks. this is why tosh describes postcolonialism as nothing more than just a convenient, but superficial chronological marker (tosh 2009). this is in addition to the argument that using colonialism as a significant time marker results in giving colonialism the prominence and prestige that post-colonial textbooks are supposed to counter (mcclintock 1993; shohat 1992). this leaves open an opportunity to consider other possible time markers for african history. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references barnard, c., 2003, language, ideology, and japanese history textbooks, routledgecurzon, london. bartels, j., dlamini, n., du rand, s., ellis, p., haw, s., kurumbidza, b. et al., 2006, shuters history grade 12 learner’s book, shuter & shooter, pietermaritzburg. bhabha, h.k., 1994, the 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from http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/037278ar stow, w. & haydn, t., 2012, ‘issues in the teaching of chronology’, in j. arthur & r. phillips (eds.), issues in teaching history, pp. 83–97, routledge, london. the 1931 statute of westminster, 1937, queensland government printer, brisbane. tosh, j., 2009, the pursuit of history, routledge, london. van dijk, t.a., 2003, ‘critical discourse analysis’, in d. schiffrin, d. tannen & h.e. hamilton (eds.), the handbook of discourse analysis, wiley-blackwell, viewed 06 october 2010, from http://au.wiley.com/wileycda/wileytitle/productcd-0631205969.html young, c., 2004, ‘the end of the post-colonial state in africa? reflections on changing african political dynamics’, african affairs 103(410), 23–49. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adh003 about the author(s) andreas g. velthuizen institute for dispute resolution in africa, college of law, university of south africa, south africa kate d. ferguson institute for dispute resolution in africa, college of law, university of south africa, south africa citation velthuizen, a.g. & ferguson, k.d., 2019, ‘corrigendum: the poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliation’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a649. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.649 note: doi of original article: https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.472 corrigendum corrigendum: the poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliation andreas g. velthuizen, kate d. ferguson published: 21 aug. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the version of this article initially published, reference was incorrectly made to an interview held with pupa jan pieterse (p. 6). the interview was held with oupa jan. the published statement in the article is hereby updated and corrected as follows: ‘an interview with oupa jan, a community elder, mediator and spiritual leader, revealed that dance is typically initiated to resolve a physical or social ill that needs to be healed in a multidimensional way’. this correction does not alter the study’s findings of significance or overall interpretation of the study results. the authors apologise for any inconvenience caused. microsoft word 02 de beer on serres.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(1) july 2014, pp. 19-36. michel serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy of information and knowledge s de beer1 abstract this paper is a tribute to the formidable multidisciplinary philosophy of information of the french philosopher, michel serres. his approach is to an extent based on his statement: “let us nevertheless try to see on a grand scale, to enjoy a multiple, and by times connective, intellection”. his main focus is on the notion of intellection which can be related to human spirituality, perception, understanding and comprehension. this human quality is urgently required if we want to reflect on knowledge as a multiple phenomenon. his view of knowledge differs in a substantial way from currently held views on knowledge and information and hence his plea: let the new knowledge come. the human quality of intellection is equally important when it is realised that the phenomenon of knowledge in its multiplicity can only be properly grasped when viewed from the perspective of the extensive transdisciplinary connectiveness between knowledges, which creates room for what can significantly be called the world-mapping of knowledge and which strongly suggests the spatial character of knowledge and information. thanks to the quality and capacity of intellection it becomes possible to demonstrate certain deeply theoretical and immensely practical issues in the embracement of the idea of a new conception of knowledge. keywords: intellection, connectivity,multiplicity, new knowledge, invention 1 introduction when michel serres (1989a: 177) wrote: ‘let the new knowledge come’, it was almost as if he was expressing it as a prayer. it sounds like a great expectation on the one hand, and like a sigh of discontent with regard to its opposite, let us call it ‘old knowledge’, on the other hand. is this really the case? are we operating with old knowledge, inappropriate knowledge and inadequate knowledge? is the hope for new knowledge a realistic hope, a futile exercise, or already a reality? too many scientific discourses suggest the last option to be the case. what are the limitations of the old knowledge and the possibilities of the new knowledge? under what theoretical and methodological conditions can we expect knowledge, old or new, to emerge? it is fairly clear that they require different conditions; different in terms of assumptions, methods, and modes of thinking. this article argues in favour of this other fully legitimate level of activity and motivation which must deliberately be put outside the field of operations and operational research. the terms operation and operationalisation are representative of the empiricist approach to 1 . prof. fanie de beer is attached to the department of information science, university of pretoria, pretoria. de beer 20 research, its verification principle, and method of verification and measurement and define scientific concepts solely with a focus on those experimental procedures that can be used to establish their applicability from where and in terms of which the prominence of applied sciences in contemporary scientific work emerges. the implications, fairly sterile and unproductive, are suggested by the following questions: is scientific work justifiable in any other terms or along any other routes than the one of problem formulation and potential solutions? is this the only route and why, in case it is? is the so-called problem not enormously inhibiting, limiting, done in terms of personal interests, prescriptive, and prejudicial? who is anyhow able to formulate a problem outside these restrictions? anyone who drops the shackles of the dogmatic image of thought. this image of thought clings to problems, methods and solutions. we have to move beyond the level of the dogmatic and onto the level of the valuable in order to achieve an understanding of alternative ways of pursuing knowledge and doing science than the traditionally accepted ways, ways of value, insight, wisdom and invention. in this regard the following three publications are of immense importance: between time and eternity: the new place of the human being in natural science (prigogine & stengers 1989); the uncertain quest: science, technology, and development (salomon, et al. 1994) and thinking science or the issues of knowledge (d’espagnat 1990). it seems clear that much more room should be made for thoughtful free reflection on what is given, which may eventually prove to be certainly a much more fruitful and rewarding exercise and practice. in this case not method but a ‘beyond method’, not solution but invention, and not a problem but a situation is required. value is brought into the picture and so is freedom. it is of decisive importance to realise the limitations of this operationalistic approach and that alternatives, although denied by many, are real possibilities according to many others. the latest book by isabelle stengers, une autre science est possible! (2013) (another science is possible!), is one of the most important recent confirmations of the possibility of an alternative way, and most probably more fruitful way of doing science. the objectives of research is not as simple as merely solving a problem. it is much more and much rather a matter of taking care of the future of our profession of library and information science and work and of future knowledge workers in the sense of the expansion of these acivities in the past decades in order to include all knowledge domains and all knowledge activities. this article is prepared with this context in mind. it remains with us who are actively involved in the profession to work out a space, not only for ourselves, but for the wider community of knowledge workers as well. and this caretaking is, moreover, not merely a matter of keeping a profession going and moving forward, but of making society going and moving forward. no progress of a kind can be expected without a comprehensive understanding of knowledge as well as of knowledge work in terms of a new and different idiom. in order to facilitate this new approach to science and knowledge for the information professionals (that would certainly benefit the wider group of knowledge workers as well) we have to take a close look at the main requirements for an information professional regarding the knowledge issue in particular. mason (1990) offers excellent guidelines in this respect. he writes: ‘information professionals possess specialized knowledge about knowledge itself which they use to improve the intellectual state of people. information professionals empower their clients to understand and to know. ... this empowering information... consists of the signs and symbols that one mind uses to influence another mind... . information professionals are the people who carry out this process of influence on the mind. to be more precise, information professionals are mediators between one mind ... and another mind...’ (mason serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 21 1990: 123-124). this approach gives depth, suppleness, variety, substance and practicality, room for movement and invention, to our profession. the development of the disposition suggested here will be in compliance with the dynamics of the field of information and knowledge work and use. what is meant by dynamics of the field? at least that no rigid or inflexible approach would be able to deal with this dynamics. in a more positive tone it has to be emphasized that flexibility and suppleness in thinking and an accommodating spirit with reference to the multiple viewpoints we encounter in this dynamic field can help us to move forward in a substantial and inventive way. during the past decades developments in every area important for information science, information practice and information and knowledge work were fast and vast. institutionalized terms, conceptions and views, pertaining to our field became outdated. terms such as knowledge, information, human subjectivity, users, language, reading and writing, transmission, organization and retrieval, and management, to mention only a few, have been turned upside down and very often redefined. without taking cognisance of these developments and changes, and rethinking our practices along these lines we will remain behind and increasingly so. eventually it may become difficult, if not impossible, to catch up. we must be careful not to allow our workplace to out-develop us; we have to remain in step. we simply have to keep track and pace in an intelligent way with the developments, theoretical and practical, in and around our workplace and related to our workplace. this implies thorough rethinking of knowledge and information along new and completely different lines. knowledge work cannot be pursued without such new explorations and reflections. for this purpose it will be useful to use an example. one of the most brilliant examples regarding a conception of knowledge and a comprehensive understanding of the place of knowledge and its dissemination in and usefulness for society is most certainly the work done over many years by the french thinker, michel serres. his articulation of the understanding and promotion of knowledge in society in terms of the mythical figure of hermes, together with his development of the notion of ‘the atlas of knowledges’ (serres 1994), offer a unique and significant point of departure for our discussions. this article is a tribute to serres’ delightful philosophy of information and knowledge, with a strong focus on the intellectual challenges posed by him in the following statement regarding knowledge and information: “let us nevertheless try to see on a grand scale, to enjoy a multiple, and by times connective, intellection” (serres 1980:24). in a significant series of essays mapping michel serres, edited by niran abbas (2005), the close, intimate, but also flexible, knitting together of the three terms multiple, connective and intellection, is clearly demonstrated and shows how fundamentally important they are to the core of his philosophy and especially his philosophy of information and knowledge. 2 the intellectual pursuit of the multiple fullness of knowledge the reflection on the acritical philosophy of information and knowledge of michel serres articulated in terms of hermes, the messenger of light, makes quite exciting and lively reading. it confronts us with a new and fresh conception of knowledge. the most appropriate discussion in this regard is serres’ introduction to his book hermès 1: la communication (1968), which is the first volume in a series of five with the general title hermès i v. this introductory chapter gives an excellent overview of the most important arguments used by serres to demonstrate the difference between a critical/dialectical and an acritical/network approach. the hermes series, together with other later publications, constitutes michel serres’ philosophy of information and knowledge. according to him this de beer 22 philosophy accommodates communication as well as a philosophy of science with very clear ethical undertones. bruno latour (1987), in a brief essay on serres, introduces the most suitable and appropriate term ‘acritical’ as the main characterisation of his philosophical work. in a published interview with him a whole section of the book was devoted to ‘the end of criticism’ (serres 1995d:125-166). serres’ acritical philosophy lives under quite different assumptions than those of the critique movement. there is no centre and no substitution of one metalanguage that could overmaster all the others. the result of his commentary is a crossover, in the genetic sense, whereby characters of one language are crossed with attributes of another origin. latour sketches the implications: 1.who does not want to have or take over a centre, does not need to train a retinue of followers? and 2.be as inventive as the text, be as inventive as i am when inventing the text anew. what is our task in the information era against this background when there is no belief in metalanguage, when history has not been divided up by revolutions, when mastery has not overmastered the world? what sort of enlightenment does one get when there is no critique? what emancipation is in store? what ethical implications are to be entertained? these questions formulated by latour are indeed explored by serres’ philosophy. what should be attended to is the relationship between an acritical philosophy per se and an acritical philosophy of information and knowledge. the two belong together and will be dealt with in that sense. some crucial moments in his thinking will he highlighted. at the same time it would be necessary to understand his differentiated understanding of information and knowledge, both of them are quite complex issues in their own way, and which differs substantially from the current usage of these terms in the informationalistic context. serres as philosopher of information and as philosopher of knowledge may sound strange since we may feel that he cannot possibly be both. this remains strange until it is realised that serres is not using either knowledge or information in the current generally accepted sense in which these terms are very often used interchangeably and are even deeply violated by this. he digs down into the depths of both knowledge and information and understands them as different sides of the same coin, but certainly not merely as variants either. serres is explicit: “the greatest difficulty lies in my wish to be encyclopedic, followed by my desire for synthesis, in the hope of going everywhere, of not missing anything in order to gradually build a world. … the era of suspicion and of hypercriticism only spoke of fragments, of local pieces, of criticizing and destroying. so, it was necessary to leap aside to avoid being dragged along. assembling, accumulating facts, the voyage into the totality of knowledge and experiences – these have their difficulties, … but they also presuppose a distancing on the part of the person doing it” (serres 1995d: 126-127). regarding information theory he stated: “my true training consisted in witnessing – almost participating in – a profound change in this fundamental science [mathematical research]. from there i became highly sensitised to analogous transformations in other domains – whence my swift acknowledgement of brillioun’s work, of information theory in physics, and much later of questions of turbulence, percolation, disorder and chaos. … physics was changing, was revealing a whole new outside world. after fractal curves and strange attracters, you no longer feel the same wind, no longer see the same waves, or the same shores as before” (op. cit.: 1112). serres’ philosophical reflections on the nature and impact of knowledge and of information make him a philosopher of both information and knowledge. for him they are not serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 23 interchangeable; neither are they simply complementary; they are interweaved and interconnected in multiple ways and are most certainly not merely to be seen as variants. this understanding of information and knowledge asks for a hermes to digest knowledge as a complex and dynamic entity into clear information messages able to change and transform the world when properly distributed and translated. against the background sketched above i want to simultaneously do different things with this article: introduce the philosophy of information and knowledge of michel serres and why it deserves more reading than it receives; show that knowledge is a much more complex issue than our research endeavours and institutions, and more recently ‘knowledge management companies’ try to make out; indicate that all forms of knowledge are to be taken seriously; emphasize that humans, us, are challenged to be inventively involved with the issue of knowledge; show that knowledge (and not any deformations of it, and also not its disfigurement by powers like rhetoric, or political systems and ideologies, or colonizations, or decolonizations, nor the market), and knowledge only, is the issue that can take us (the human race and respective societies) forward in any sensible way; and emphasize these matters in such a way that it will form food for thought and further discussions. the implication of the title as well as the contents of the article, although not fully spelled out, demonstrate another form of globalization, forced on us by pure theory, as well as information technology (and not information technology). the actor/network theory, inspired by michel serres, the grounds of which werealready well articulated in 1968 (la communication), as well as his core oeuvre rotating around the hermes figure, and his neverending involvement with and indulgement in information and knowledge, all demonstrate the unlimited scope of the transgression of boundaries and the mobility of the nomad. another perspective, much more constructive and much less threatening than the economic/market version of globalization emerges in this view. this input is, however, not without intersection with the other one. as a matter of fact, much of what they have in common are there links to electronic media. we should never forget that the theoretical perspectives developed with global implications were not in its initial stages inspired or supported by electronic media. as a latecomer to the scene these media indeed reinforce, activate and intensify these theoretical views immensely. one of the more recent publications of serres, angels, a modern myth (1995a) is a particularly relevant publication in this regard since this is exactly what he articulates in this publication. reading michel serres is like visiting paradise – the garden of eden – i imagine: scintillating, jubilating, sparkling, surprising, adventurous, unknown, enriching, playful, harmonious, refreshing and joyful experiences. reading on or about him leaves one easily with this kind of experience. there is a freshness and a sparkle which reminds of the cleanest air one can only find high up in the alps. after i said to myself that this is how i experience the writings of michel serres, i read what pierssens (1979: 102) writes: “to read serres means to rest on a window pane in order to discover an immense horizon, the inexhaustible of the present; it means to receive, with one blow, the wind of a thousand hurricanes which leaves everything uncertain: the certainties of fiction, the reveries of science, the neatly argued pathos of philosophy.” and again “serres is not an aesthete, but an artist of philosophy. integrity of this beautiful art, gravity of this dance, aesthetics and logic make a complete circle” (debray 1979: 18). moreover, serres himself is not hesitant to express his views along similar lines: “knowledge is born happy. it can be shared, happy, without being able to be divided. it multiplies, of itself, fruits of rejoicing. … knowledge is born happy for the de beer 24 attentive solitary or the team at work. … now, in the institutions that manage, exploit and transmit it, for the individuals crushed by it, it feeds, in fact, the death instinct. … how can knowledge be returned to its proper nature? it is urgent to answer that question” (serres 1974:74-75), and again, to further emphasize his celebration of knowledge he writes: “drugged by knowledge? i love that knowledge gives us life, cultivates us; i love making my home in it, that it helps me to eat and drink, to stroll, to love, to die, sometimes to be reborn; i love sleeping between its sheets and i love the fact that it is not something outside me” (serres 2008:103). but then he moves in another direction: “traditional philosophy usually has either a central god who is a producer, a radiating source of life like a sun, or a story of the origin of time. my philosophy is more like a heaven filled with angels, obscuring god somewhat. they are restless, unsystematic (which you find suspect), troublemakers, boisterous, always transmitting, not easily classifiable, since they fluctuate. making noise, carrying messages, playing music, tracing paths, changing paths, carrying….” (serres 1995d:118). must i really repudiate such a mentor. who cannot and do not want to associate with this serres may be wise to take leave. in this capacity he revolutionizes our conception of knowledge by linking it to all possible other discourses. in this regard he is not alone, but certainly gives his own stamp and flavour to the process of revolutionizing knowledge. the rest of the article will elaborate on this “revolution”. another way of making the same point is a reminder of merleau-ponty (1969:34) who once wrote: “meaning is like spots of light surrounded by rugged clouds of night, glowing islands.” michel serres’ oeuvre is remarkable since it tries to link these spots of light – these islands – as well as the rugged clouds of night in a harmonious way: the web of meaning which can neither nihilistically deny light, but at the same time, in terms of which it cannot apocalyptically be pretended that all we see is light and that there is no darkness, nevertheless has to accommodate darkness. the recent debates about chaos, order and complexity are relevant here. his ‘hermes philosophy’ is about these debates. “one of the most beautiful things that our era is teaching us is to approach with light and simplicity the very complex things previously believed to be the result of chance, of noise, of chaos, in their ancient sense of the word. hermes, the messenger first brings light to texts and signs that are hermetic, that is, obscure. a message comes through while battling against the background noise. likewise, hermes, traverses the noise, toward meaning” (serres 1995d:65-66). some views along these lines which make the self-sufficiency of our generally accepted views on knowledge ludicrous and highly questionable and therefore risky are the following: jean-francois lyotard (1988), the philosopher, in peregrinations, writes about the importance of doing away with ‘the delusion of consistency’ (the attitude reflected in the so-called ‘old knowledge’) without shying away from the complexity of things. he writes: “it is time to complicate a bit our approach by opening up gaps inside what is certainly a too thick cloud of thought in order to do away with the delusion of consistency and to make ourselves receptive again to more intricate events” (lyotard 1988:28). hundertwasser, the artist, is even more explicit: “in 1953 i realized that the straight line leads to the downfall of mankind. but the straight line has become an absolute tyranny. the straight line is something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling; it is the line which does not exist in nature. and that line is the rotten foundation of our doomed civilization. even if there are places where it is recognized that this line is rapidly leading to perdition, its course continues to be plotted... . any design undertaken with the straight line will be stillborn. today we are witnessing the triumph of rationalist know-how and yet, at the serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 25 same time, we find ourselves confronted with emptiness. an aesthetic void, desert of uniformity, criminal sterility, loss of creative power. even creativity is prefabricated. we have become impotent. we are no longer able to create. that is our real illiteracy” (hundertwasser, as quoted in peitgen & richter 1986:v) . mandelbrot (1982:12), the geometrician, very clinically puts the same problem in perspective when he writes: “why is geometry often described as cold and dry? one reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree. clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line... . nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity. the number of distinct scales of length of patterns for all purposes infinite. the existence of these patterns challenges us to study those forms that euclid leaves aside as being formless, to investigate the morphology of the amorphous. mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, and have increasingly chosen to flee from nature by devising theories unrelated to anything we can see or feel.” a fairly recent publication (and the related exhibition in paris, france) entitled, measurement and the unmeasurable, edited by bernardis and hagene (1995), demonstrates in various ways to what extent the measurable is not reliable and that our decisions, even scientific ones, are very often affected and directed by what cannot be measured. we should never be tempted to confuse knowledge with the measurement of knowledge. these two entities, although they are somewhat linked, are also incompatible. these views cut deep into the heart of our knowledge culture, and consequently our information culture and calls for drastic revision, rearticulation, and rethinking. this is exactly what michel serres has been doing for the past 30 years years and is still working on currently. his works are, each of them in its own way, an effort, and a very successful effort, to articulate precisely these issues related to a new knowledge culture. see for example the book by assad (1999) in which she offers lively interpretations of and comments on some of his books. compare also a few very recent books by him on this same theme (serres 2009a; 2009b). three general and very dominant features of his project of thinking that have an impact on all his other themes should be mentioned and eventually also explored: he is an acritical philosopher; he is a philosopher of networks and invention. these two outstanding characteristics of his thinking determine the mode of his oeuvre. each work stands in the light of an acritical inventiveness. these are reinforced and inspired by connectivity. networks are enabling factors for inventions. this makes of his thinking with the focus on multiple, connective intellection something drastically different from the enlightenment philsophy and the entire tradition of the critique philosophy. 3 the intellectual establishment of multidisciplinary connectedness between knowledges in view of the above discussions, instead of subjecting his work and views on information and knowledge and his views on reality to an epistemological and an ontological critique, in line with the critique tradition, his views and conceptions of knowledge and reality, which are complementary, will be briefly exposed in its richness and fullness in order to demonstrate the multiple nature of the real and of the act of knowing. it is important, however, to take de beer 26 cognisance of his attitude towards epistemology and technical philosophical jargon in general in order to understand the absence of this way of thinking which is similarly responsible for not classifying his philosophy or relating him to other philosophers. michel serres has taken leave of technical philosophical jargon because of his conviction that they are sterile. for this reason he prefers to abstain from using terms such as epistemology and ontology. this certainly does not mean that he has taken leave of the real or of knowledge. on the contrary, he is adamant that these terms contaminate one’s understanding of knowledge and of the real. he made it clear that he “was irrevocably condemned to abandon the classical or technical style of philosophy because … it didn’t have the terms or operators capable of describing the method of moving from mathematics to style” (serres 1995d:71). he goes even further: “technical vocabulary seems even immoral: it prevents the majority from participating in the conversation, it eliminates rather than welcomes…” (op cit. 25). and then he continues: “epistemology implies that rationality exists only in the sciences, nowhere else” (op cit.:128). only scientific knowledge defined in certain terms qualifies as true knowledge. for serres this cannot be. for this reason he “took leave of epistemology (ibid.). to this he adds: “the best contemporary myth is the idea of a science purged of all myths” (ibid.). serres’ allergy to the technical vocabulary of philosophy, the fact that he has taken leave of epistemology, and his reliance on characters such as hermes and angels in no way suggest that his position is a flight into the irrational. he is very explicit about this. he has not taken up an irrationalist position. “not at all”, he says. “i am a rationalist in most of my actions and thoughts – like everyone. but i am not a rationalist if reason is defined as an ingredient only found in science. this restrictive definition is not reasonable. … yes, i am a rationalist … but this rationalism also applies to domains beyond science” (op cit. 1995:129). this differentiation must be dealt with carefully. as long as we continue to define rationality in terms of scientific rationality we limit reason in an unreasonable way since we deny reason any other valid activity. but what is more: reason in this way understood cannot per definition take us beyond the rhetoric of disciplinary work. it is made for disciplines and as such “reason never discovers, beneath its feet, anything but its own rule” (serres 1997: xiii). what happens ‘between’ the disciplines cannot be accommodated by this kind of rationality and therefore reason needs to be redefined so that hermes and the angels can be accommodated. this redefinition may sound like irrationality, but is far removed from the irrational. as serres (1997:71) explicitly stated: “the instructed-third [the mature knowledge worker, the spiritual person] owes his upbringing, his instruction, and his education – in all, his engendering – to reason, a brilliant sun that commands scientific knowledge as much as the second reason, the same one certainly, but burning in the second focus, which comes not only from what we think, but from what we suffer. this latter reason cannot be learned without cultures, myths, arts, religions, tales, and contracts. the social sciences [all sciences for that matter] are dying from having forgotten the two fundamental modes of reason, that of the sciences and that of law, the one that comes to us from thought and the one, also universal, that the problem of evil – injustice, pain, hunger, poverty, suffering, and death – inspires in us and that has produced artists, judges, comforters, and gods [producers of meaning]. there is only one authentic reason. it illuminates and mobilizes through two forms: without the first, bright, the second would be irrational, but without the second, hot, the first would be unreasonable.” it should be clear from this that the angels and hermes as used by serres would comply with the second mode of reason, an equally valid form of reason as the first. hermes represents our serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 27 ideas and our behaviour, our theoretical abstractions but also our works, our technology, our experiments, our laboratories where “everything functions through networks of complex relations between messages and people” (serres 1995d:114). closely linked to this he continues: “what could be more luminous than a space traversed with messages. look at the sky … it is traversed by planes, satellites, electromagnetic waves from television, radio, fax, electronic mail. … why shouldn’t i call it angel space since this means the messengers, the systems of mailmen, of transmissions in the acts of passing or the space through which they pass? … the angels are the messages … pure multiplicity” (op cit.:118-119). even myth contains, for him, a valid dimension of rationality but this would require an additional article. i prefer to honour serres’ views and am happy to give an overview of his views of knowledge and of the real without engaging in technical philosophical jargon and style. it would be unfair to him and his work to force his remarkable theoretical achievements in his oeuvre into ontological and epistemological analyses and classifying strategies. we need to liberate ourselves from this style and jargon if we hope to be able to engage knowledge in nondisciplinary and trans-disciplinary terms, michel serres’ speciality. epistemology and ontology, as is the case with classification and comparison, are disciplinary reflections in the critique tradition and not appropriate to be applied to serres’ philosophy of information and knowledge. michel serres’ book atlas (1994) is more or less the converging point of his views in the five books in his hermes series. the views expressed in these publications introduce to us the idea of a road map for knowledges (cf the history of science). this is the idea of giving or working on a comprehensive, all-inclusive map of the world of knowledge, which is at stake here, and what can be referred to as ‘worldmapping’ (serres 1994:109-112) in terms of the new conception of knowledge in its fullness. the history of the thinking of michel serres is a history of wrestling with the issue of knowledge. all his books centre around this theme and each one of them elaborates and highlights a particular perspective on this issue. themes addressed by his many books on themes like communication, translation, interference, distribution, passage, statue, five senses, genesis, detachment, hermaphrodite, rome, atlas, and more are all weaved around this formidable theme, so totally indispensable for the human race and at issue since the beginning of human history. compare the history of religions and cultures and the role knowledge constantly played in all these cultural traditions. knowledge and its importance for human life and existence is no new invention, least of all an invention of the sciences or of the marketplace. it certainly has not suddenly become an important theme because it is surprisingly included in the rhetoric, vocabulary and marketing strategies of big companies, or finds a strategic place in organizational politics, or in business and management contexts where it has never been a prominent issue before. serres’ deep, honest and authentic urge at the end of his book, detachment (1989a), namely “let the new knowledge come” (serres 1989a: 177) eventually culminates in the statement in one of his more recent books, atlas , in the following terms: “we should no longer run after a knowledge universe, but pursue the multiplicity of possible knowledge worlds” (serres 1994:11). in this book he unravels the zig-zag tours and detours leading to an illuminating enlightening focus point where all routes related to knowledge and to the real converge and come together in a single knot – harmonious, significant, and meaningful. in order to confirm the nature of the knot his conception of the real as articulated in his book genesis de beer 28 (1995b) should be added : the object of this book is the “multiple” (serres 1995b: 4), according to him “a new object for philosophy” (serres 1995b:2). traditionally we are fascinated by unity; unity seems rational to us both regarding knowledge and the real. that is exactly the rational aim of all epistemologies and ontologies with the implied claim “of always being right”. serres wants to subvert this focus with his “new object of philosophy” (serres 1995b: 2), namely the multiple. despite the fact that “reason still insists on ignoring it” (serres 1995b: 6), serres emphasises that it is absolutely ‘natural’. he writes: “the multiple as such, unhewn and little unified, is not an epistemological monster, but on the contrary the ordinary lot of situations, including that of the ordinary scholar, regular knowledge, everyday work, in short, our common object” (serres 1995b: 5). this knot constantly requires to be untied. in his reflections on knowledge and the real, information is never far behind and never left out of the picture. as a matter of fact it finds a very special place as it has already been indicated above. serres can indeed be called one of the most productive, imaginative and inventive philosophers of information. we need an atlas to guide us through landscapes, countries, and so forth. without it we will easily get lost. equally important is an atlas for the landscape of knowledge, and its place in culture and society. hence, his exercise in mapping the world of knowledge as comprehensively as possible. knowledge as map or atlas is needed in a much more comprehensive sense than merely for purposes of physical moving around. knowledge is the issue that enables us to find our ways and directions through life. it is indispensable for us as living beings. atlas represents a more comprehensive and open-ended notion than encyclopaedia, which is closed and finite. this rethinking of knowledge in new terms is made necessary by the development of a new conception of knowledge, which emerged during the past number of decades, with vast implications for the creation, dissemination, transmission, and utilization of knowledge for the well being of society. these new developments also pose serious new challenges for the activity of thinking, the fantasia of thinking, and the pursuit of science in the sense of nomad science. gilles deleuze and felix guattari, together with the mathematician rené thom, are key thinkers on these matters who incidentally had close connections, especially in an intellectual sense, with serres. (see de beer 1998). serres (1994:276) prefers to speak of ‘a multiplicity of possible knowledge worlds’, rather than the classical ‘knowledge universe’, and that for self-evident reasons. these reasons became prominent in solid theoretical terms but also supported by developments in the area of electronic media which certainly facilitate these new developments. hereby human thinking is confronted with dramatic challenges. in a similar way as our talking of networks of roads (represented by the idea of atlas) we can speak of networks in a more abstract sense, referring to the links between knowledges, institutions, insights and many more related issues. this calls for a clear awareness of and sensitivity towards the idea of a knowledge and information space. this does of course not mean that parts like individuality, uniqueness and other entities are destined to be neglected or even to disappear. space is important precisely because it creates the ‘space’ within which the connecting of individuals, of parts and of uniqueness can take effect in a multiplicity of intelligent ways. by establishing and changing connections room for inventions is created. inventions without the connections are impossible hence the emphasis on ’multiple connective intellection’. space in serres’ sense does not make individuals superfluous or make them disappear but grant them a special and unique place instead. serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 29 serres developed his theory of networks of communication at an early stage (hermès 1:la communication 1968). this in itself offers a model of communication more adequate and significant than the well-known linear model of shannon and weaver. he uses the term ‘tabularity’ to describe his position. this theory can be made fruitful for other linkages as well, very useful from the point of view of knowledge usage. we can easily detect from what has already been stated that the notion of space, real and/or virtual is selfevidently suggested. atlas, maps, networks are all spatial terms. knowledge space and information space will become crucial issues in this regard, and very importantly so, as a space to be inhabited! real space implies the following: does a road exist of which one could indicate the exact departure point and point of destination? virtual space, on the contrary, entails the following: if hermes carries his messages only to a unique sender ..., while leibniz, like the angels, describes the passages from whatever place towards the universe, or from this global point to such sojourn by virtual intermediaries, it becomes perfectly clear from where the idea to design these sheaves in worldmaps, in an atlas originated. his whole oeuvre rotates around this theme: communication between the sciences, between knowledges, between the sciences and societies, and movement in all directions. for this reason the notion of space is important as well as mapping knowledges in this space. a brief look at his works will somehow illustrate this. at the same time this way of articulating knowledges emphasizes self-evidently the idea of a new knowledge that is not a given but should be pursued. serres’ notion of communication involves transfers from one science to another, or from the purest science to philosophy and even poetry. communication traverses these spaces that would be much less clear and transparent than one would have believed. the titles of many of his books, like communication, interference, distribution, translation, north-west passages, lighthouses and fog horns suggest movement from place to place, movements within space. not things and operations but relations and rapports are what he is concerned about. a reading of his books may seem difficult since it always involves changes and moves. this changing and these transformations and these wanderings either follow or invent the path of a relation, relations between the sciences, between knowledges, between humans and knowledges, and between humans, knowledges and the real. the emphasis on space brings forward the space between knowledges, the space between disciplines, the connections and possibilities of connections and connectivity between knowledges, and between disciplines within this space, in the ‘between’ of knowledges and disciplines, and the relatednes or connectedness between knowledges, disciplines and the real. these relations are continuously to be established. he writes: “the space between – that of conjunctions, the interdisciplinary ground – is still very much unexplored. one must travel quickly if the thing to be thought about is complex” (serres 1995d:70). when one reviews his works it will be possible to retrace easily how he passed from mathematics to physics, from physics to the life sciences and to the human sciences, without ever leaving behind its historical component. but these movements do not make up a seamless list which occuppies a flat space. they suggest a hilly landscape, ondular pathways – chaotic and fractal, much closer to reality. in crahay (1988:13-14) we find a beautiful description of the real in line with this description: [b]eing is no longer substance but made up of appearances, of events and encounters, of relations, of qualities of meanings; the infinite remains undetermined; the ontological reality remains undifferentiated chaos, mixed multiplicities; and philosophy is the tacit place of welcome where all roads come together, get mixed and melt into one another…. de beer 30 besides utilizing concepts by which he wants to facilitate movement and communication in a successful way he also uses characters which find expression in some of the titles of his books as well. some of these characters are: hermes, parasite, hermaphrodite, harlequin, troubadour of knowledge. in these books where he meditates on successful communication, the difficulties, obstacles, and conditions pertaining to transformations, movements, communications and translations are laid down in detail and make for fascinating and exhilirating reading. a brief illustration of how michel serres in his books tries to establish relations between disciplines, but also between ideas and relations as conditions of our knowledge creations and the world in which we live and which we create in some way may help us to better understand the idea of the atlas of knowledges, the idea of the urgency of a new conception of knowledge, and why a comprehensive worldmapping of knowledges is required. how sociology is situated in astronomy (the two most distant sciences in terms of positivism’s classification) is discussed in his origins of geometry (1993). how politics is situated in physics is the great question in the natural contract (1995c). how technology and physics are both situated in an anthropology of death is the main concern of statues (1987a). the possibility of fitting together information theory, parasitology and table manners is discussed in the parasite (2007). in his book on zola (lighthouses and fog horns) (1975) he situates thermodynamics with genetics and both of them with the history of religion. the question he tries to answer in hermaphrodite (1987b) is how it is possible to link the symmetry/assymetry of left and right, of orientation and of sense in the physical and in the human sense of the word? these passages between the disciplines or sciences are explored in a very specific sense in the north-west passage (1980) and strongly recommended for teaching in the troubadour of knowledge (1997). the equal relevance of all knowledges, especially the validity of the sciences of the spirit are strongly emphasized by serres quite recently in his little book on “writers, scientists and philosophers” (2009a). nothing can be more relevant for knowledge and information workers – we simply have to undertake these journeys and on a continuous basis. this is a demanding challenge but hardly anything can be more rewarding at the same time. 4 some specific intellectual demonstrations of a theoretical and practical nature of of relevance for the spontaneous embracement of the new knowledge some core themes emerging from the reading of serres’ oeuvre and that relate to the embracement of a new conception of knowledge, deserve attention and may prove to be enlightening in more than one respect as well. in order to articulate this pursuit of the new knowledge and to engage in the processes of designing the comprehensive atlas that has been referred to, certain core areas are identified as focal points for illustrating that all of them are extremely relevant, not only for establishing links between knowledges, but also for the exploratory pursuits information science ought to get engaged in, as well as the knowledge practices that flow from this. i atlas of knowledges the issue of knowledge networks (very contemporary) immediately springs to mind. the actor/network theory in sociology emerges from these insights on networks (multiple connective intellection) and the link between knowledge and action. knowledge, information, science, literature, philosophy, labyrinth, networks, crossroads – are all linked! serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 31 let the new knowledge come (detachment 1989a:177). this formidable theme is discussed from the first volume in the hermes series to the very latest publications. it is all the time a matter of knowledge/information for michel serres – only one of a few real philosophers of information. in the middle of his publications appears this exclamation: let the new knowledge come! (ibid.).the notion of atlas of knowledges does not create room for criticism which limits freedom of movement, but for an acritical attitude which encourages movement of thought. ‘so – stand up, run, jump, move, dance! like the body, the mind needs movement, especially subtle and complex movement’ (serres 1995d:107). ii language and structure michel serres’ book, the five senses (2008), is a protest against ‘the empire of signs’ and the all-inclusiveness of language in certain circles, especially in paris under the influence of structuralism. he writes about his own book in the following words: ll around us language replaces experience. the sign, so soft, substitutes itself for the thing which is hard. i cannot think of this substitution as an equivalence. it is more of an abuse and a violence. the sound of a coin is not worth a coin; the smell of cooking does not fill the hungry stomach; publicity is not the equivalent of quality; the tongue that talks annuls the tongue that tastes or the one that receives and gives a kiss. my book les cinq sens (the five senses) cries out at the empire of signs (serres 1995d: 132). iii pragmatogony this refers to subjects who are created by objects, and not in the first place subjects manipulating and molding objects. the object is the horizon of knowledge, and not the initial reference of its exercise. in this sense the object becomes a project (serres 1972:63). felman (1979) wrote a remarkable article on this. these views open the road to an ambitious anthropology of science which emphasizes the impact of science on humans. our tools ... are simultaneously objects of this world and objects of society. every technology transforms our rapport with things ... and, at the same time, our relations among ourselves (serres 1995d:141). (see de beer (2010) for a discussion of this theme). iv messages angels and cyberspace are the issue here. from hermès 1: la communication (1968) to his publication on the body, variations sur le corps (1999), as well as his latest publications, he is dealing with this issue. hardly any theme can be closer to the point regarding the contemporary knowledge and intellectual theme than the one of message and the circulation of messages. ‘what could be more luminous’, he asks, ‘than a space traversed with messages? look at the sky, even right here above us. it’s traversed by planes, satellites, electromagnetic waves from television, radio, fax, electronic mail. the world we are immersed in is a spacetime of communication. why shouldn’t i call it ‘angel space’ (see the legends of the angels (1995a),since this means the messengers, the systems of mailmen, of transmissions in the act of passing or the space through which they pass? ... indeed, we live in the century of angels’ (serres 1995d: 118-119). de beer 32 v bodies and the five senses dare one emphasize this in ‘the age of the spiritual machines’? (kurzweil 1999). currently there are complex interplays between embodied forms of subjectivity and arguments for disembodiment throughout the cybernetic tradition. the erasure of embodiment is a feature of both the liberal human subject and the cybernetic posthuman. the parasite anticipates the notion of the posthuman. identified with the rational mind the liberal subject possessed a body but was not usually represented as being a body. how exactly is the body to be understood: as an object of control and mastery rather than as an intrinsic part of the self? fantasies of disembodied immortality are alive and fresh right now! variations sur le corps (1999) is coming in from a slightly different angle, describes the admirable metamorphoses that human bodies can accomplish like athletes, dancers, clowns, artists, etc. animals lack such variety of gestures, postures and movements. supple to the point of fluidity the human body can imitate with ease things and living beings. moreover it creates signs! the five senses are not the sole source of knowledge; knowledge emerges to a great extent from the imitations that render possible the extraordinary plasticity of the body in its entirety. in it, with it and by it knowledge commences. this view leaves the spiritual machines of kurzweil (1999) behind. vi method this is a strategy for the lazy. ‘it is reasonable to be reasonably wary of the rational’. serres is seeking a knowledge that is finally adult, a balanced wisdom, a certain forgetfulness of death... the adult person is educated in a third way... . it is the acritical individual the one who knows what it really means to read. “what is more lively than the improbable unexpectedness of findings? who is more profoundly boring than the repetitive reasoner who copies or seems to construct by constantly repositioning the same cube? ruminating on the past – what a system! repeating a method – what laziness! method seeks but does not find (serres 1997:100). vii reading reading as poaching, or even as castration versus reading as invention – this is our alternative. all knowledge is to be taken seriously. collective intelligence; sharing; reading with others; acritical reading, all these reflect the views of serres on reading (see latour 1987). latour’s views can briefly be summarised in the following way: tell me how you comment on a scripture or an inscription, and i will tell you what kind of epistemology you hold on to (op cit.: 86). and then he continues: “understanding serres’ conception of commentary is thus also a way of understanding his conception of the sciences” (ibid.). the critique tradition of literary criticism and comment the critic has a vocabulary; but so has the text under scrutiny. (1) there is a question or direction: which one does the interpretation? the critic of course in terms of his/her metalanguage that makes sense of the infra-language of the text. (2) there is a question of size: the critic’s vocabulary is enormously shorter than the text’s repertoire. this is why the metalanguage is said to explain something. with two words in the critic’s repertoire, for instance oedipus complex, many novels or plays can be explained. (3) the question of precedence or of mastery: who dominates the other? the commentator: critics are much serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 33 stronger than the texts they dominate and explain, establish and analyze. the mastery is so complete that texts, novels, plays, myths, etc are buried beneath stronger, more powerful commentaries. serres as example of a marvellous reader... an acritical reader his principle: the text under scrutiny is always more rigorous, more lively, more modern, than the commentator and always provides a richer repertoire. who turns around them? the commentator. who overmasters him? the humble and outdated texts (latour 1987:89). he would rather appeal to the pure beauty of the text beyond the boring scholarship of the critique. in this case (1) there is no metalanguage, (2) it is impossible to distinguish the provider of an explanation, the commentary, or the commented text? (3) there is no precedence and no mastery either. what he does on the relation of the commentary to the text, and of the text to things, he also does it on the relationship of texts to things and on the relations of the sciences to the world. this reading is a breaking out of the static order (the order of statues) and the embracement of chaotic fullness – the birth of a new knowledge. a move from the clarity of light to the hopeful vagueness of glimmers (serres 1987a). viii troubadour of knowledge the educated third, as presented to us in this character, to which a whole book is devoted (serres 1997). we must imagine a way to teach, with the same gesture, both the poem and the theorem, both the immortal world of scientific laws and the new age of the arts. those taught the third approach to knowledge will have chucked the death wish. this publication is not only offering a delightful model for the knowledge worker to pursue. at the same time it is specifically relevant from the point of view of invention. or in the words of assad (1999: 128): this book is a book on education in the largest possible sense of the term: the all-encompassing formation of human thought as invention; and inventive creativity as the only actvity worthy of cognitive thought. the essential characteristics of the troubadour can be stated in the following way emphasizing the special requirements for the knowledge worker, the knowledge organiser, the troubadour of knowledge given the mood of the contemporary era. 1. they should develop a sensitivity towards knowledges, all knowledges – the instructed third; 2. they should be willing to navigate, travel, search in a special mode that complies with the new knowledge dispensation; 3. there must be a keenness to become an eternal learner – who never stops, always looking for new knowledge and insight; 4. an equally eager enthusiasm to read and to read well, but to read differently, will be an essential requirement; 5. the overwhelming challenge of the contemporary situation is to excel in thinking, to refuse to merely repeat what is given, or to fall into the trap of repetitive thinking; 6. a commitment to engage in an “eternal conversation” with a willingness to cross boundaries is non-negotiable; 7. all these qualities will emerge from a well developed imaginative noetic capacity as its condition – human beings are spiritual beings and this quality should be manifested in their de beer 34 enthusiasms; 8. inevitably this would lead to inventiveness for real problem-solving in a new and not a fake way. ix invention this is a core issue for serres which he considers as the only true intellectual act, the only intelligent action. lack of invention proves the absence of works and of thought. life as invention, that is, thought is central for him. “i think therefore i invent, i invent therefore i think” (serres 1997:193). fortunately this is not how scientific work necessarily proceeds. sadly, the time has come when the sciences are letting themselves get trapped in the customary subservience of groups who are looking only to perpetuate themselves as a group. thought can only live free from these constraints. the misfortune of our times is that these constraints are precisely those of thought as such: exactitude, rigorousness, precision... hence our narrow margin, our small degree of freedom: thinking with scientific thinking, but especially thinking outside of it, knowing how to free oneself from these stifling regulations, but also knowing how to regulate this freedom. inventive reason has before it but the eye of a needle to be able to pass through, freedom tempered by rigor (serres 1995b: 105). as a matter of fact, assad (1999) highlights invention as the core, the real focus and objective of serresian philosophy, “the singular notion that may be said to traverse all of serres’ writings…” (assad 1999:7). not repetition, not memories, but invention – new beginnings, new findings ... that’s why reading him is so exciting and reading according to him is equally exciting. closed, repetitive systems smother invention. x knowledge as remedy for michel serres knowledge, in the proper sense, has a healing function. he devotes a substantial paragraph to this, entitled ‘healing at epidaurus’ (2008:85-106). he writes: i love that knowledge gives us life, cultivates us; i love making my home in it, that it helps me to eat and drink, to stroll, to love, to die, sometimes to be reborn; i love sleeping between its sheets and i love the fact that it is not something outside me (op. cit. 103). and again; “wise knowledge heals and molds the body, it embellishes” (op. cit.:105). in many places in his writings he mourns the sad condition of currently accepted knowledge in its closedness, limitations, imprisonment and even death, and finds the solution, ‘the only solution’, to this in the liberation of knowledge, which means the suppression of all forms of secrecy, of every coding, obedience and prescriptiveness and a definitve move towards invention” (serres 1974:88). auzias (1992:1996) summarises serres’ views about the anxieties of epistemology, the handing over of science by positivism in the hands of the sick who only enjoy the maximum of power, of knowledge as an exercise in the ideology of command and obedience, specialisation with its creation of closed rooms in the way of a question: is this without remedy? the answer is: no, the remedy is the joy of knowing!” the real nootherapy, however, is to be found in love, not in war. love and not war requires plenty of talent. the power that one finds in the people, a positive relationship to the life that is missing from intellectuals, serres’ multidisciplinary philosophy td, 10(1), july 2014, pp.19-36. 35 bourgoisie,the military and politicians. what is needed is a calm power, tranquil, quiet, stable and serene. tenderness. what is needed is a knowledge and a knowing capacity, this vital fortune that gives everything in a smile, this gentleness, this high geniality of greatness in bodily relations. the only art there is, is namely that of mobilising all forms of meaning. what is needed is philosophy in its fullness and wholeness, the true, the one with its feet on the earth and who deciphers the wisdom of love, an actual perception of the omnitude of the cosmos, the total fullness of human knowledge and knowing. and, you would like society to stop adoring hatred and death, in order to adopt roads of equal difficulty…” (serres 1974:94-95). this may provide the remedy so urgently needed. bibliography abbas, n. (ed.) 2005. mapping michel serres. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. assad, m.l. 1999. reading with michel serres: an encounter with time. new york: state university of new york press. auzias, j-m. 1992. michel serres: philosophe occitan. bordeaux: éditions fédérop. bernardis, m-a. & hagene, b. 1995. mesures et démesure. paris: les éditions de la cité des sciences et de l’industrie. crahay, a. 1988. michel serres: la mutation du cogito. brussels: de boeck – wesmael. de beer, c.s. 1998. op soek na wysheid: ‘n argument ten gunste van die menswetenskappe en die moontlikheid van ‘n nomadewetenskap. in focus forum, 6(3):33-39. de beer, c. s. 2010. pragmatogony: the impact of things on humans. phronimon, 11(2):517. debray, r. 1979. lart du feu. critique, 380:16-19. d’espagnat, b. 1990. penser la science, ou les enjeux du savoir. paris: bordas. felman, s. 1979. de la nature des choses ou de i’ecart a i’equilibre. critique, 380:315. kurzweil, r. 1999. the age of spiritual machines: when computers exceed human intelligence. oxford: oxford university press. latour, b. 1987. the enlightenment without the critique: a word on michel serres’ philosophy, in contemporary french philosophy, edited by a. phillips griffiths. cambridge: cambridge university press. lévy, p. 1997. collective intelligence. new york: plenum trade. lyotard, j-f. 1988. peregrinations: law, form, event. new york: columbia university press. mandelbrot, b.b. 1982. the fractal geometry of nature. san francisco: freeman. mason, h.o. 1990. what is an information professional. journal of education for library and information science, 31 (2):122-138. merleau-ponty, m. 1969. la prose du monde. paris: gallimard. peitgen, h.o. & richter, p.h. 1986. the beauty of fractals. berlin: springer verlag. de beer 36 pierssens, m. 1979. le souffle de mille ouragans. critique, 380:102-112. prigogine, i. & stengers, i. 1989 tussen tijd en eeuwigheid: de nieuwe plaats van de mens in de natuurwetenschap. amsterdam: uitgeverij bert bakker. salomon, jj.; sagasti, f r.; sachsjeantet, c. 1994 the uncertain quest: science, technology, and development. new york: united nations university press. serres, m. 1968. hermès i: la communication. paris: minuit. serres, m. 1972. hermès ii: l’lnterférence. paris: minuit. serres, m. 1974. hermès iii: la traduction. paris: minuit. serres, m. 1975. feux et signaux de brume: zola. paris: grasset. serres, m. 1977. hermès iv: la distribution. paris: minuit. serres, m. 1980. hermès v: le passage du nord-ouest. paris: minuit. serres, m. 1987a. statues. paris: françois bourin. serres, m. 1987b. hermaphrodite: sarrasine sculpteur. paris: flammarion. serres, m. 1989a. detachment. athens, ohio: ohio university press. serres, m. 1989b. literature and the exact sciences. substance, 18(2):3-34. serres, m. 1993. les origines de la géométrie. paris: flammarion. serres, m. 1994. atlas. paris: julliard. serres, m. 1995a. angels: a modern myth. paris/new york: flammarion. serres, m. 1995b. genesis. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. serres, m. 1995c. the natural contract. ann arbor: university of michigan press. serres, m. 1995d. conversations on science, culture, and time. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. serres, m. 1997. the troubadour of knowledge. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. serres, m. 1999. variations sur le corps. paris: le pommier-fayard. serres, m. 2007. the parasite. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. serres, m. 2008. the five senses: a philosophy of mingled bodies. london: continuum serres, m. 2009a. ecrivains, savants et philosophes font le tour du monde. paris: le pommier. serres, m. 2009b. temps des crises. paris: le pommier. stengers, i. 2013. une autre science est possible! paris: la découverte. microsoft word 09 dassah.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 11(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 127-142. naming and exploring the causes of collective violence against african migrants in post-apartheid south africa: whither ubuntu1? mo dassah2 abstract in south africa, attacks mainly directed at black non-south africans, is a rampant, longstanding phenomenon notwithstanding the spirit of ubuntu which is thought to permeate the social fabric. assumptions have been made in various labels describing the attacks, raising concerns about their appropriateness. further, various explanations and hypotheses have been advanced about causes of or reasons for the attacks. the root causes of the attacks need to be properly understood for lasting solutions to be found. the objectives of this article are: first, to analyse the appropriateness of various labels in order to name the phenomenon south africa is confronted with; and, secondly, to identify the root causes of the attacks. this analysis could assist in formulating policies and strategies to address the attacks. this article is theoretical, and it draws on in-depth analysis of relevant literature and empirical studies in order to addresses two research questions. first, are the attacks motivated by pure criminality, or are they manifestations of afro-phobia/negrophobia, expressions of xenophobia or indicators of outright racism? secondly, what are the causes of or explanations for the attacks? on nomenclature, the article rejects the criminality label as reductionist. to an extent, the afro-phobia/negrophobia label has merit, but the racism tag is unsustainable. xenophobia emerges as the appropriate description because empirical studies point to a significant number of south africans holding xenophobic attitudes and having expressed their preparedness to forcefully eject foreign nationals. the article concludes that xenophobia is a complex phenomenon and has multiple causes, which must be properly understood and that finding effective solutions to it requires involvement of all key stakeholders. keywords: xenophobia; afro-phobia; negrophobia; ubuntu; south africa introduction “xenophobia “ derives from the greek words “xenos “, meaning stranger’ or “foreigner” and “phobos”, “fear” and literally, it refers to irrational or unreasonable fear and dislike of strangers or people thought to be foreign (davis, 2010: 8). the literature indicates a plethora 1 . ubuntu is a zulu word meaning spirit of compassion and caring for others. it is a universal african concept that underlines several principles ranging from manners to humanity, including: fairness, compassion, honesty, trustworthiness, putting community interest above one’s own, helping others, respect for human dignity and caring for each other’s well-being, among others. in xhosa, ubuntu is expressed as umntu ngumntu ngabanye abantu, which means “people are people through other people” or “i am human because i belong to the human community and i view and treat others accordingly”. ipi ubuntu? literally means “where is the compassion, the caring about others?” 2 faculty of business & management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, p.o. box 652, cape town, 8 000, south africa, e-mail: dassahm@cput.ac.za dassah 128 of definitions of xenophobia, a few of which are examined to highlight their essence. bekker (2010: 127) defines xenophobia as “the deep dislike of non-nationals by nationals of a recipient state”. for petros, airhihenbuwa, simbayi, rawlangan & brown (2006: 74), xenophobia is: “attitudes, prejudices and behaviours that exclude and vilify others because they are considered to be outsiders or foreigners to the community, society or national identity”. crush & ramachandran (2009 cited in davis, 2010: 8) define xenophobia as: “highly negative perceptions and practices that discriminate against non-citizen groups on the basis of their foreign origin or nationality.” the sense that xenophobia is simply an attitude or a state of mind is unmistakable in these definitions. although they are clear, in the south african context, the definitions are academic and have little practical usefulness as they fail to take into account the consequences of the attitudes of dislike, fear and hatred. in other words, they fail to capture the practice of xenophobia, which involves, among other things, invented tension and violence, destruction of property, hostility and abuse, often leading to death, directed specifically at black, african migrants by black south africans in what might be called the cain-abel phenomenon. this reality of xenophobia, the lived experiences of black, african migrants, is different from attitudes such as dislike, fear and hatred that constitute the academic definitions. consequently, within the south african context and for the purposes of this article, xenophobia has to be broadly understood to be more than dislike, fear and hatred. it involves violent physical action: beating, burning, ejection and displacement, dispossession, dehumanisation and loss of human dignity, killing, looting, rape, torture and other forms of violence that constitute the experience of african migrants. in post-apartheid south africa, violence by black south africans against non-south africans, mostly blacks from other african countries, is not a new phenomenon. according to misago, landau & monson (2008: 8), since the country’s liberation from the clutches of apartheid in 1994, “hundreds of people have been attacked or killed because of their status as outsiders or non-citizens.” although some of the attacks have been directed at migrant entrepreneurs, dubbed “violent entrepreneurship” (charman & piper, 2012: 86), there are instances of attacks on black foreign nationals not involved in any business. the literature indicates unanimity that black foreign nationals have been objects of attack over the years. however, it points to differences among politicians and researchers in naming the attacks phenomenon and providing explanations or causes. the article addresses two key questions. first, are the attacks acts of pure criminality, as politicians and government officials would have us believe; manifestations of afrophobia/negrophobia (on account of their being primarily perpetrated by black south africans against their counterparts from other african countries), expressions of xenophobia (the fact that they are specifically directed at foreigners) or outright racism (discrimination against others based on perception of their inferiority)? naming the character and significance of an act, rather than disguising it under false labels, misnaming or using false language to hide its reprehensibility, is an important step in acknowledging its existence. it is essential the specific social ill represented by the attacks be named if appropriate solutions are to be devised. the second research question has to do with why the attacks happened: what are the causes or explanations and hypotheses advanced for the attacks? this question is asked so that the root cause(s) of the social ill, rather than its manifestations or symptoms, can be addressed directly. structurally, the article is organised in six sections. section one, the introduction, outlines the etymology, defines the term “xenophobia” and acknowledges that xenophobia is a global phenomenon and not a typically an african or south africa malaise. section two discusses the international dimension of xenophobia by calling up xenophobic causes of collective violence against african migrants in post-apartheid south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 127-142. 129 incidents in african countries and globally. section three provides an insight into the incidence of attacks against foreigners in south africa specifically, while section four discusses labels used to characterise the attacks phenomenon in south africa. the fifth section examines causes of xenophobia, explanations, intellectual framings and hypotheses put forward by scholars. section six, the conclusion, proposes collaboration between the south african government and key stakeholders to stem the tide of xenophobia. xenophobia: international, african and south african contexts international context xenophobia exists in both the global north and south, in democratic and totalitarian states alike in violent and non-violent forms and may be government-sanctioned or carried out by groups/collections of individuals. that xenophobic attacks against refugees, asylum seekers and migrants occur globally is attested to by the following incidents. according to human rights first (hrf, 2011: 19), in may 2011, right-wing groups attacked asians and africans in italy. further, one hundred and eighty-six assaults and 18 murders, ostensibly attributed to racism or xenophobia, occurred between january 2007 and july 2009 in italy, most of the victims being immigrants and refugees. the organisation also indicates that between 2003 and 2007, attacks against hispanics or people from latin america, increased by almost 40%, declined in 2008 and 2009 and rose by 10% in 2010. hate crimes motivated by racism and religious intolerance are generally committed against refugees (hrf, 2011:14). citing rasario (2009), the hrf (2011: 17) presents a picture of haitian refugees, migrants and stateless persons of haitian origin being assaulted and killed in the dominican republic. in india, racism towards people of african decent is common: burmese chin and somali refugees have faced attacks (hrf, 2011: 18). hrf (2011: 23) also states that migrants and refugees from burma living in thailand experience xenophobic attitudes from the population and suffer violence from government-sanctioned groups and ordinary people. migrants from central asian countries are victims of racist and ethnically-motivated russian neo-nazi skinheads (hrf, 2011: 21). similarly, burmese migrants and refugees have been long-standing victims of violent attacks and killings by government security forces and agents and individual citizens in thailand (hrf, 2011: 23), a situation similar to the experience of burmese refugees and migrants in malaysia who endure xenophobic attitudes from the population and violence from a government-sanctioned group and ordinary citizens (hrf, 2011: 20). in the ukraine, xenophobic attacks and harassment have been targeted at refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, culminating in murders between 2006 and 2008. in 2011, violent attacks were reported against dark-skinned foreigners (hrf, 2011: 24). a study, white papers of hate (2013), focusing on incidents that took place in 2012 and 2013, indicates high levels of xenophobia, ultra-nationalism, anti-semitism and hate crimes perpetuated against religious minorities and immigrants in 19 european countries. ranked from high to low levels of xenophobia, ultra-nationalism, anti-semitism and hate crimes, the countries are: greece, latvia, ukraine, estonia, maldova, lithuania, united kingdom, hungary, france, russia, bulgaria, romania, poland, czech republic, italy, finland, germany, albania and croatia. the study found that in russia, for example, half the population in big cities expressed support for the slogan “russia for russians”. according to pollmann (2015), xenophobia is prevalent in japan. following a july 8 deadline for permanent residents to switch from aliens registration cards to new residence cards, a rumour came up to the effect that failure to switch would lead to loss of residence status and possible dassah 130 deportation. consequently, there was a avalanche of calls, letters and emails went from ordinary japanese citizens to the immigration bureau turning in their “illegal” zainichi ethnic koreans neighbours who, in fact, are legal residents. african context xenophobia is rife in africa and constitutes a powerful tool in the hands of politicians. xenophobia has occurred in strong pan-africanist inspired countries such as ghana and nigeria that have been pioneering advocates of african unity since the 1960s. two features of xenophobia in africa are discernible. first, it tends to be black-on-black in nature, that is, violent action is often taken against or negative attitude exhibited towards other africans who are non-citizens in what could be likened to the cain-abel (brother against brother) phenomenon. secondly, violent action or attitude may be carried out by masses of citizens without the express blessings of government, as has happened in south africa. perhaps, the first large-scale government-sanctioned xenophobia action in africa was that of the ghana government’s aliens compliance order of 1969, which saw the expulsion of migrants from other west african countries. the irony of this action cannot be lost on anyone with a good understanding of pan-africanism. ghana gained independence in 1957, the first country in sub-saharan africa. in the 1960s, the country was an attractive destination for migrants mainly because the then president, dr kwame nkrumah, a champion of pan-africanism, declared the country the home for all africans. consequently, the nkrumah regime did not take any drastic measures to stem the tide of migration to ghana by citizens of neighbouring countries. however, after the overthrow of nkrumah in february 1966, the progress party government, faced with growing unemployment and a fall in the world price of cocoa (aremu, 2014: 79), used the aliens compliance order in 1969, to expel about 191 000 foreigners mainly from burkina faso, togo, mali and nigeria. in fact, most of them (140 000) were nigerians. another major government-sanctioned xenophobic action occurred in 1983 in the form of nigeria’s well-calculated response to ghana’s 1969 aliens compliance order. with the oil boom of the 1970s and ghana’s failing economy, many ghanaians migrated to nigeria. according to aremu (2013: 14), in 1983, faced with declining oil revenue, a devalued currency and inflation, the nigerian government revoked articles 4 and 27 of the protocol on free movement of persons and right of residence and establishment, which was ratified by member states of the economic community of west african states in 1980 and, using the medium of television, ordered more than a million unskilled foreigners living and working illegally and to leave the country in two weeks. aremu (2013: 341) states that a number of reasons were offered to justify this action, including: ensuring integrity of immigration laws, reduced foreign exchange earnings occasioned by economic recession, involvement of some foreign nationals in violent religious disturbances and involvement of some ghanaian nationals in criminal activities such as armed robbery. however, aremu (2013: 341) notes that a covert reason for the expulsion was nigerian policy-makers’ frustration at not being able to use the platform of the economic community of west african states (ecowas) to assert the country’s ambition of projecting its leadership of the west african sub-region. the third large-scale government-sanctioned xenophobic incident was idi amin’s 1972 decree expelling asians from uganda. according to tumuhairwe (2012: n.p.), before uganda gained independence, the british colonial administration had brought people of south asian decent to work as clerks or unskilled/semiskilled manual labourers on construction sites and causes of collective violence against african migrants in post-apartheid south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 127-142. 131 farms. many asians were also in the business of banking and tailoring and asians constituted 80% of doctors, lawyers and teachers. the growing prominence of indians in the economy prompted the establishment of a committee on “africanisation of commerce and industry”, which made proposals to limit the role of indians in the economic and professional spheres. owing to the asians’ distrust of president milton obote, many did not take up ugandan citizenship, while some maintained their status as british-protected persons. obote was overthrown by idi amin, who accused him of “over-concentrating on politics, at the expense of taking care of our economic life” (tumuhairwe, 2012: n.p.). kersting (2009: 12) provides three instances where the governments of congo brazzaville and zaire (now democratic republic of congo) used xenophobia to their political advantage. first, a football match between congo brazzaville and gabon in september 1962 sparked xenophobic violence. the second example is that of president of zaire, mobutu sesekoko who, in 1972, granted citizenship to all migrants burundian and rwandese immigrants who had been living in the country since 1950. however, faced with national anti-immigrant sentiment, in 1981 a bill was introduced that attempted to redefine citizenship by stating that only people living ‘on the soil’ since 1885 (the year the berlin conference was held), which was now deemed to be the year of independence, qualified to be citizens. the second example cited by kersting was the harnessing of anti-foreign propaganda by president mobutu, which led to ethnic cleansing of banyarwanda in north kivu in 1993 and an attempt to expel congolese tutsis in 1996. thirdly, according to kersting (2009: 12), in september 1977, although congolese themselves did not exhibit any xenophobic tendencies, 6000 west african migrants were deported by the government of congo brazzaville, while their shops and businesses were seized and given to citizens. this was followed by the enacting of legislation in 2005 forbidding foreigners, particularly west africans, who are described as “ndingari”, literally translated as “ticks sucking blood from the attached cattle”, from engaging in small transport, baking and street-stall businesses. south african context that south africans have strong negative attitudes towards foreigners in general, particularly black non-citizens, is indisputable. a south african migration project survey (samp, 2006) found strong indications of xenophobia: half of the participants (50%) favoured deportation of foreign nationals, irrespective of legal status; three-quarters (75%) were against increasing the number of refugees and a similar proportion (75%) favoured the idea of containing refuges in border camps, instead of being integrated into society. seven years later, in 2013, samp administered the same questions in a survey and found the following: half (50%) of south africans wanted foreigners to have their identity documents on them all the times; 63% would like to have the country’s border fences electrified; 50% favoured migrants without proper documentation to be denied police protection; 41% supported compulsory refugees’ hiv testing; 30% wanted a complete ban of migration to south africa and 14% thought all migrants enter the country in order to commit a crime. the 2006 and 2013 samp findings demonstrate a consistently negative attitude towards foreign nationals. in particular, the 2013 findings show further hardening of attitudes towards foreign nationals is discernible. one of the earliest incidents of hostile action against african migrants occurred barely three years after attainment of democracy when, in august 1997, foreign street-traders were attacked in johannesburg. in blatant disregard of the often-cited, honoured-in-words-thanin-deeds, philosophy of ubuntu, violence against african migrants has been occurring over dassah 132 the years, culminating in the may 2008 country-wide attacks that resulted in more than 60 deaths, about 700 injured and more than 100 000 internally displaced persons. the 2008 anti-foreigner violence erupted on 11 may in alexandra, johannesburg and in 16 days engulfed the whole country. the attacks have been described as the worst violence in south africa since the end of apartheid (mcknight, 2008: 8) and, for the first time since 1994, troops were deployed to curb violence in the streets (mcknight, 2008: 18). the burning of a mozambican, ernesto alfabeto nhamuave, in a johannesburg street casts a long, indelible shadow over the “rainbow nation”. unsurprisingly, but on a smaller scale, violent attacks on mainly black non-south africans resurfaced in april 2015 in durban, allegedly sparked by a statement that foreigners should go back to their countries because they are changing the nature of south africa society with their goods and enjoying wealth that should have been for local people. adjai & lazaridis (2013: 195-196) cite a litany of incidents of attacks on foreigners, mostly black africans: in 1998, three foreign nationals were thrown off a moving train in pretoria; in 1998, a taxi driver beat up a rwandan refugee on account of his being a foreigner; in 1999, the sabc reported the killing of 30 refugees and acid being poured on the body of one; in 2000, zandspruit residents in natal burnt down the shacks of zimbabweans living there; in 2001, armed men threw a sudanese refugee off a train in pretoria and 22 migrants were reported to have been stabbed in cape town for no reason other being foreigners; in 2005, zimbabwean and somali refugees were beaten in bothaville in the free state; in 2006, somali traders were driven out of a knysna township and about 30 shops damaged; a month later, foreign-owned shops in the western cape were attacked and looted, resulting in the displacement of 40 foreigners who had to be sheltered in mosques and some by friends. according to crush & ramachandran (2014: 5), in august 1997, foreign street-traders were attacked and assaulted in johannesburg resulting in loss of goods, “accompanied by angry and vitriolic anti-immigrant rhetoric”. these earlier attacks were precursors to the may 2008 attacks that left 62 dead, 22 of whom were south africans, and more than 150 000 displaced (adjai & lazaridis, 2013: 195). misago et al. (2008: 5) add that “dozens of women were raped … and property worth of millions of rand looted, destroyed or taken over by local residents.” further, misago et al. (2008: 24-25) provide an exhaustive list of recorded major xenophobic incidents between december 1994 and april 2008 characterised by violence. features of xenophobia in south africa an unmistakable feature of xenophobia in south africa is its racial undertones. black migrants, mostly from other african countries, including those from southern african development community (sadc) member states, are victims of violence, while whites of any nationality are welcome (solomon & kosaka, n.d.: 8). neocosmos (2006) attributes this racially selective xenophobia to stereotyping of the stranger of african origin against the rather ironic fact that many african countries played an important role in defeating apartheid by providing sanctuary, education and sustenance to exiled south africans who are today’s political gatekeepers (nyamnjoh, 2006). another feature is the lack of a typical profile of a xenophobic person who has strong negative attitudes irrespective of race, gender, education and socio-economic status (crush, 2008: 4). crush (2008: 15) states that: “xenophobic attitudes are widespread and entrenched causes of collective violence against african migrants in post-apartheid south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 127-142. 133 in south africa and not the preserve of a small (criminal) minority.” this means that negative towards foreigners are not confined to any identifiable single group or groups. this poses a public education challenge (solomon & kosaka, n.d.: 9). although xenophobic attitudes are stronger among whites than blacks (crush, 2008: 5), there is no recorded incident of whites attacking foreigners. according to fauvelle-aymar & segatti (2011: 75), the 2008 xenophobic violence occurred in local government wards that had: black residents, high proportion of men, many language groups, significant inequality and high proportion of people with intermediary income alongside poor groups, and higher proportion of informal settlements. labeling the attacks the first research question posed is: are the attacks acts of criminality, manifestations of afro-phobia/negrophobia, expressions of xenophobia or outright racism? in the literature and empirical studies, the attacks are named in various ways. the orthodox position of xenophobia denialists (government, politicians, state officials, some researchers and political commentators) is that violent attacks against citizens of other african countries are acts of pure criminality committed by isolated, anti-social elements (crush & ramachandran, 2014: 1). this has generated the “just crime/not xenophobia” discourse, which suggests those who attack foreigners are motivated by greed, not discriminatory sentiments. others have even gone as far as proclaiming that: “south africans are not xenophobic” (polzer & takabvirwa, 2010: 6). according to everatt (n.d.: 2), during his address at the national tribute in remembrance of the victims of attacks on foreign nationals in 2008, president mbeki, among other things, said: everything i know about my people tells me that these heirs to the teachings of tiyo soga, j.g. xaba and pixley seme, the masses who have consistently responded positively to the pan-african messages of the oldest liberation movement on our continent, the african national congress, are not xenophobic. on 13 july 2010, the then minister of police emphatically stated that: “there is no such systematic thing as xenophobia in the country” and attributed the violence against foreigners to the activities of criminal elements, following the statement “these are not xenophobic attacks... but acts of criminality...” made by the south african communist party a few days earlier (polzer & takabvirwa, 2010: 3). in april 2010, according to the authors, a police captain at gamaskop police station in mossel bay referring to the 2008 attacks said: in our area it was … more people that saw the opportunity to do housebreakings and especially at the businesses of foreigners and do it under the cover of xenophobia; so actually, although it was called xenophobia, it wasn’t actually xenophobia in our area. we believe it was more criminal activities and not xenophobia as such…. a statement such as this is symptomatic of a long-standing face-saving discourse to attribute violent attacks against mostly black non-citizens to crime (all countries have criminal elements, after all) that has taken root among some politicians and the south african police service. this argument is buoyed by the fact that in some specific cases, such as attacks against somali spaza shop owners in delft, a high level of criminality in the area and “violent entrepreneurship” (the link between business and crime and use of violence against economic opponents in emerging capitalist economies) have played a decisive role (charman & piper, 2012: 86). rather than confront the reality of xenophobia directly, xenophobia minimalists tend to blame laxity at south africa’s borders and see other issues such as lack of dassah 134 transformation and redistribution of wealth as a deeper problem, that is, competition for scarce resources (jobs, housing resources and public services), of which xenophobia is a symptom (crush & ramachandran, 2014: 2). denial of the existence of xenophobia in south africa is evident not only among politicians, but also academics, as the following extract shows: as anthropologists, we are deeply concerned, both professionally and as citizens, that these actions reflect a continuing emphasis in south african political discourse on cultural, racial and national differences. it is a discourse that, drawing on a long discarded anthropology, essentialises such differences even as it claims to celebrate them. it is a discourse that was central to colonialism, slavery, segregation and apartheid. it is a discourse that perversely persists to the present, now manifesting in the way the media labels as “xenophobia” horrendously violent acts where some south africans raise fists, swing axes and pangas, and use matches to light fires as means to attack their fellows who happen to speak different languages and allegedly look somewhat different from themselves (sharp, 2008: 2). gqola (2008) and mngxitama (2009) suggest the may 2008 attacks were manifestations of afro-phobia or negrophobia. afro-phobia is defined as fear or dislike of africans and their culture and could be associated with the attacks since they were mostly directed at migrants of african origin. negrophobia refers to fear or dislike of black people in general and their culture. the fact that there are no reported incidents of white foreigners, some who are in the country illegally, and very few asians being targets of violence (bekker, 2010: 34) seems to lend some support for the attacks being labeled afro-phobia or negrophobia. afro-phobia and negrophobia are linked to “old” racism on the assumption that black citizens visiting violence on black foreigners is based on differentiation of the “other” (foreigner) on the grounds of degree of colour through the level of pigmentation. however, it is clear and as davis (2010: 10) argues, that black foreigners are not targeted because they are of a different race, but because they are readily identifiable, by race, as foreigners. decades of enforced isolation, race-based urban migration control, designated group areas and creation of “bantustans” have made many south africans foreigners in their own country (dodson, 2010: n.d.) and strangers to their compatriots, generating bitterness among blacks, particularly. it is commonly assumed that racist views are held against people of other races. however, “racists dislike foreigners even if they are racially similar” (mattes et al., 2009: 26). tafira (2011: 115) rejects both afro-phobia and negrophobia as labels for the 2008 attacks and also rejects xenophobic label, preferring “new racism” to characterise the attacks on foreigners. the author argues that: “what happens in south africa … must be understood in the context of racism, practised by black people against other black people.” justifying rejection of the term “xenophobia”, tafira (2011: 115) explains that: xenophobia has been the term the media has used, juggled around and fed to their audiences; it is possible that the media themselves do not understand the racial nature of anti-immigrant attacks; commentators who have used the term may have done so unconsciously and inadvertently or for lack of a better term to describe anti-immigrant practices in post-apartheid south africa. i assume that it may be incomprehensible to many people that racism can be a practice between people of the same skin colour. furthermore, i suspect commentators, the media included, may fail to see the new racism, as it has unfolded, as an unfortunate misconception. they may fall into the common trap of understanding the conundrum of racism as mostly biology-based. they causes of collective violence against african migrants in post-apartheid south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 127-142. 135 have not come to see how people of the same skin colour, in this case black african immigrants and black south africans, are and have over the years been transformed into racialised subjects and how they have come to perceive each other in the light of their racial subjectivities. the crux of tafira’s (2011: 115) argument is that apartheid racism, xenophobia and the new racism are different forms of racism, since “racism is a fluid, chameleonic and delicate term”, the meaning of which changes in time. the author further argues that with the discrediting of biological conceptions of racial superiority and inferiority, the cultural aspects of racism take centre stage. tafira (2011: 116) equates biological racism to classical or inegalitarian racism (the other as inferior to be dominated and discriminated against) and cultural racism to differential racism (the “other” as a new danger to society, threat or invader that must be kept at bay, expelled or destroyed). while admitting that xenophobia could be linked to new racism as they share similarities, including perception of “… the other as a threat; discrimination and exclusion based on the other’s cultural origin; and the implementation of policies that lead to the tightening of immigration controls”, adjai & lazaridis (2013: 193) contend that the two are distinctly different: racism involves the creation of rules, laws, regulations and institutions to support it such as existed during the apartheid era. for xenophobia, existing institutions are used to exclude others; they are not established for that purpose. thus, while racism and xenophobia are related, they are different and cannot be used interchangeably. adding the word “new” to “racism” does not alter the nature of racism, just as decorating a donkey does not make it a horse. substituting “xenophobia” with “new racism” would justify exclusion of others and give racism not only a modern face, but also some respectability. explaining the attacks considering the second research question: why did the attacks happen – what are the causes, explanations or hypotheses? dodson (2010: 5-7) provides six axes of explanations. the first are economic/material and pitched at two levels. at the first level, poor black south africans perceive foreign blacks as competitors for jobs, housing and other resources. at the second level, wealthy black and white south africans detest the idea of their tax money being used “to provide shelter and services to people seen to be pouring into south africa to escape political incompetence and economic mismanagement further north” (sharp, 2008: 2). the next set of explanations are social/socio-political in nature and posit that the end of apartheid and subsequent establishment of a non-racial national identity necessarily created a “nonsouth african” identity as an opposition “other”, with this social position occupied by foreign africans in south africa. cultural stereotyping is the third basis of explaining xenophobia. it is said that contact between south africans and diverse immigrants after 1994 resulted in mutual stereotyping and exaggeration of cultural differences, leading to prejudice and antagonism. the next explanation for xenophobia is black south africans’ desire to protect their rights and benefits of citizenship from appropriation by non-citizens (nyamnjoh, 2006), who may also be “illegal”. this is held to account for anti-foreigner attitudes. further, a lack of political leadership has been blamed for producing and reproducing xenophobic attitudes among south africans. dodson (2010: 7) states that: “among senior government figures, right up to the three post-apartheid presidents, attitudes toward foreign africans in south africa have been at best ambivalent and occasionally downright negative.” during his speech on national day of safety and security in 1994, president mandela is dassah 136 reported to have said: “the fact that illegal immigrants are involved in violent criminal activity must not tempt us into the dangerous attitude which regards all foreigners with hostility” (dodson, 2010: 7), a statement with potential to encourage people to link foreigners not just with illegality, but also criminality. according to misago et al. (2008: 18), in 1997, the then minister of defence, joe modise said: as for crime, the army is helping the police get rid of crime and violence in the country. however, what can we do? we have one million illegal immigrants in our country who commit crimes and who are mistaken by some people for south african citizens. that is the real problem. the final axis of explanation is not only outright denial, but also attribution of the attacks to “naked criminal activity”, as president mbeki’s statement on 3 july 2008 makes clear: what happened during those days was not inspired by possessed nationalism, or extreme chauvinism, resulting in our communities violently expressing the hitherto unknown sentiments of mass and mindless hatred of foreigners – xenophobia …. i heard insistently that my people have turned or become xenophobic …. i wondered what the accusers knew about my people which i do not know. and this i must say – none in our society has any right to encourage or incite xenophobia by trying to explain naked criminal activity by cloaking it in the garb of xenophobia (dodson, 2010: 7). at a deeper level, hågensen (2014: 12-39) discusses three broad groupings of explanations for xenophobia: socio-cultural, structural and institutional. socio-cultural explanations encompass social identity theory, bi-cultural hypothesis and inherited culture. social identity theory is based on two key assumptions: first, individuals strive to maintain or enhance their self-esteem; secondly, social groups and membership of these groups are associated with negative and positive feelings. nationality and citizenship have assumed prominence since 1994. at the core of the bio-cultural hypothesis is the view that foreigners are targets of xenophobia because they can be easily identified. inherited culture is identical to isolation hypothesis. it blames xenophobia on isolation of south africa’s different racial groups from each other and from the rest of the world, leading to the development of intolerance of differences. structural explanations, which have some connections with socio-cultural explanations, include relative deprivation theory, theory of ethnic violence and group threat theory. relative deprivation theory examines the effect of poverty, unemployment and inequality on the collective psyche of poor south africans. the theory of ethnic violence explains states that violent actions occur when perpetrators are reasonably sure that the authorities, through law enforcement agents, will not protect victims and the latter are incapable of fighting back. group threat theory postulates that dominant groups are likely to engage in hostile action if it perceives its social position is threatened by a minority group (king, 2007: 1227). regarding institutional explanations, the state is said to have a monopoly on violence, but also has a duty to protect people’s rights. this means, the actions of the state, through its agents, is of paramount importance. as such, institutional explanations for xenophobia include the attitude and behaviour of politicians and civil servants, the gap between written policy and policy in practice and state agencies’ treatment of foreigners. in the latter respect, poor treatment of asylum-seekers by department of home affairs officials and police tearing up valid papers and deporting “illegal” migrants (crush, 2008: 14), are illustrative. causes of collective violence against african migrants in post-apartheid south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 127-142. 137 harris’ (2001, 2002) scapegoating, isolation and bio-cultural hypotheses, which explain xenophobia in the south african context, are briefly discussed. these hypotheses, which explain xenophobia in the south african context, are largely drawn from the broad sociocultural, structural and institutional explanations highlighted in the preceding section. scapegoating hypothesis according to harris (2002: n.p.), the scapegoating hypothesis derives from sociological theory and is based on the theory of relative deprivation. in the midst of unemployment, poverty and inequality, the post-apartheid era has raised expectations of most south africans to live better lives after decades of deprivation. for many, these expectation have not materialised fast and substantially enough and brings to the limelight uneven distribution of resources wealth that breeds discontent. given this background, hostility towards foreigners can be explained by competition for scarce resources such as housing, education, health care and employment as they create a “frustration-scapegoat” embodied in foreign migrants. the hypothesis combines socio-economic factors with a psychological explanation of deprivation, which arises from a subjective feeling of discontent based on the belief that one is getting less than one feels entitled to (harris, 2002: n.p.). this means citizens compare themselves to non-citizens with respect to access to the scarce resources and when they see themselves as relatively deprived they invent a “frustration-scapegoat. social ills and citizens” personal frustration and anger with life’s difficulties are then directed at the “frustration-scapegoat”, who takes the blame. drawing on the theories of aggression and frustration, a link is established between relative deprivation, xenophobia and collective violence. there is, however, little evidence behind claims that non-nationals represent a significant drain on the state’s financial resources. although the scapegoating theory is plausible, it is neither able to explain why the foreign black, specifically, must be the scapegoat for unemployment, poverty and deprivation nor why nationality is the criterion of scapegoating (harris, 2002). isolation hypothesis the isolation theory is based on the belief that apartheid-induced internal isolation of south africans of different racial groups from each other and isolation from the international community resulted in diminished ability of citizens to accommodate and tolerate differences (harris, 2002). this means south africa’s gaining of independence in 1994, which made it part of the international community and opened the floodgates for millions of migrants to enter the country, was bound to produce negative interaction outcomes. simply put, the isolation hypothesis for xenophobia is that being different is threatening and hostility towards black foreigners is based on their being foreign, unknown and different. powerful as the isolation hypothesis is, harris (2002) points out that it does not explain why 'the unknown' produces anxiety and why it culminates in aggression. the hypothesis, however, offers a nexus between south african blacks’ enforced internal isolation from other racial groups and external isolation from the wider international community, including african countries, and their suspicion of and hostility towards foreign blacks. isolation has left many black south africans with very little or no knowledge about the rest of the continent. consequently, in daily interactions, many south africans tend to portray south africa as if it is located in a different continent. dassah 138 bi-cultural hypothesis as pointed our earlier, xenophobia is not uniformly applied to all foreigners. while citizens of african countries are selectively and rampantly at the receiving end of black south africans’ hostility (hrf, 2009), in the literature, there are no reported incidents of white foreigners, some who are in south africa illegally, being targets of xenophobia. similarly, very few asians have been targets (bekker, 2010: 34). this selective and unequal targeting of foreigners is explained by the bicultural hypothesis, which “locates xenophobia at the level of visible difference, or otherness, that is, in terms of physical biological factors and cultural differences exhibited by african foreigners in the country” (harris, 2002: n.p.) such as physical features or specific biological-cultural features, comportment and inability to speak one of the local languages. biological-cultural signifiers are implicated in xenophobia as they make it easy to identify specific categories of foreigners for violent action. however, it is problematic to rely on biological-cultural markers of difference to explain otherness and consequent asymmetrical xenophobia because these signifiers also exist for whites and asians, who are relatively less at risk of xenophobic violence as african blacks. individually and collectively, however, the three hypotheses do not sufficiently explain why xenophobia in south africa is specifically directed at black foreigners. it is suggested that selective xenophobia is better explained by a nationalistic mode championed by the media that portrays foreigners exclusively in a negative light. in this respect, the main characteristics of print media are: negative references to migrants and immigrants, un-analytical, simplistic approach, referring to migrants as “illegal immigrants” and stereotyping (“job stealers”, “criminals” and “illegals”). in this light, crush (2008: 42) states that: “several research studies have shown how the media has uncritically reproduced xenophobic language and statements, time and time again. the media has certainly been complicit in encouraging xenophobic attitudes among the population.” smith (2009: 29) indicates that research has found convincing evidence that leading up to and including may 2008, the south african print media was xenophobic. while admitting that the causes of xenophobia are complex and multi-faceted, pillay (cited in hadland, n.d.: 14-16), identifies three factors, namely: relative deprivation, south african exceptionalism and exclusive citizenship, as underlying causes of xenophobia. relative deprivation, as explained earlier, focuses on the nexus between socio-economic factors such as poverty, inequality and unemployment. south african exceptionalism refers to south africa’s apartheid history creating a sense of superiority and uniting both black and white south africans against other africans who are perceived as lacking cultural and economic value. the third factor, exclusive citizenship, relates to inclusive or exclusive tendencies engendered by nationalism. in the main, the post-1994 south african state has been exclusive in the sense that while south africa sees itself as a “rainbow nation”, some south africans tend to look down on the rest of africa in spite of african countries having played a critical role in the country’s liberation struggle and opening their doors to south african businesses after majority rule. president zuma’s derogatory statement in november 2013, while defending the introduction of e-tolls between johannesburg and pretoria epitomises, par excellence, south africa’s condescension and belittling of other african countries: “we can’t think like africans in africa, generally. this is johannesburg. it’s not some national road in malawi”. causes of collective violence against african migrants in post-apartheid south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 127-142. 139 to explain south african exceptionalism, according to neocosmos (2006: 12), nationalism is an important component of xenophobia. in developmental terms, south africans, irrespective of racial group, tend to see the country as being in the same league as countries in southern europe and latin america, while the rest of africa is thought to be “characterised by primitivism, corruption, authoritarianism, poverty and ‘failed states’”, whose citizens are interested in benefiting from south africa’s resources and wealth at the expense of its citizens (harris, 2001). this, undoubtedly, feeds into the xenophobia narrative. conclusion for south africans and the government, in particular, to effectively deal with attacks against mainly black, non-south african immigrants, it is essential to identify and name the new monster the country is faced with. the importance of an appropriate nomenclature for the attacks phenomenon cannot be underestimated. a good understanding of the causes, explanations and theories surrounding the attacks is also necessary. these are the key research issues addressed in this article. different labels have been used in characterising the rampant attacks, including pure criminality, afro-phobia/negrophobia, xenophobia and outright racism. as the analyses show, while there are grounds for each label, the bulk of empirical studies suggest widespread acceptance of the term xenophobia. regarding causes of the attacks, various explanations have been advanced: economic/material, social/socio-political, cultural stereotyping, lack of political leadership, denialism and “naked criminal activity”, and “violent entrepreneurship”, among others. “frustration-scapegoating”, isolation and bicultural hypotheses are also discussed. no single or simple explanation 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recommendations. southern african peace and security studies, 2: 2. tafira, k.m. 2011. is xenophobia racism? anthropology southern africa. 34(3&4):.114-121. tumuhairwe, c. 2012. the effect of idi amin’s expulsion of the asian community in uganda on the economic and social development of the country. working paper no 2012/37. maastricht school of management. http://www.msm.nl/resources/uploads/2014/02/msm-wp2012-37.pdf [accessed: 10 september 2015]. dassah 142 white papers of hate, 2013. centrale magazine 13. http://www.centrale.be/wpcontent/uploads/2015/03/mag-387-anti-semitism-in-europe.pdf [accessed: 10 october 2015]. abstract introduction background the study objective gap analysis methodological or analytical approach literature review discussion of findings and results recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) daniel chigudu department of public administration and management, university of south africa, south africa citation chigudu, d., 2018, ‘corporate governance in africa’s public sector for sustainable development: the task ahead’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a512. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.512 original research corporate governance in africa’s public sector for sustainable development: the task ahead daniel chigudu received: 29 oct. 2017; accepted: 20 june 2018; published: 11 oct. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract investors around the world place emphasis on good corporate governance. this makes it imperative for the integration of good governance into corporate governance for sustainable development in africa. there is a high mix of business with state politics in most african countries, whereby ownership is in most cases concentrated around top political elites. as a result, other stakeholders and minority shareholders often lack adequate institutional and legal protection, while managers are unable to fully exercise their mandate or do not bear the full costs of their actions. also, even though corporations adopt international accounting standards, they hardly put them into practice breeding managerial deficiencies and abuse of discretion pervasive on the continent. interpretivist or constructivist approach informed this study through a desktop research. an interrogation of the corporate governance principles in the public sector of selected countries in west africa and southern africa was performed as prompted by the results of the various indices. results reveal that ‘excessive’ political decisions are handed down to public officials as directives from political bigwigs. good corporate governance must play a role in aligning the interests of politicians, bureaucrats and the electorate. an implementation framework is developed and recommended for sustainable development as the task ahead. introduction the african union commission (auc 2015:11) outlined seven aspirations for the ‘africa we want’ in its first 10-year implementation plan 2014–2023. while all aspirations are fundamental, this article focuses on aspiration 1 on ‘a prosperous africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development’ and aspiration 3 on ‘an africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law’. this article’s thrust is on good corporate governance in the public sector as the task ahead of africa for sustainable development to be realised. african good governance network (aggn 2010) notes that governance in africa has hinged mainly on governments and politics. however, in general, governance should not be about politics and governments according to world bank (wb) as cited in the venice commission (vc 2011). besides other institutions, the state (government) and the people (the governed) represent two actors identified within governance. as such, it is the responsibility of governments to inspire and propel the governed for sustainable development. yet, most african governments appear to have proved to be such bad examples in this regard. the civil society, other citizens and the private sector being the governed must not usurp undue advantage of weaknesses of the government or vice versa (grzeszczak 2015). it is incumbent upon the governed to be proactive and have the will to stay on the course no matter how tough it may be, even if the ship of government is wobbling. the governed must make use of available tools such as citizenship participation, vision and access to information for them to fulfil their responsibilities within the domain of governance. perhaps, if africa must attain sustainable development, good governance should be comprehensively viewed through a lens wider in scope instead of the narrow political and economic views which have overshadowed other important aspects of the lives of the african people. because of the unique stance on promoting feasible and viable governance that benefits all within and outside the african continent, the african good governance network has sought to define good governance in such a way as to provide protection for all africans and not limiting its adherence to african governments (aggn 2010). rather, africans ought to adopt genuine expressions of opinion, affection and passion on matters relating to africa. from an african perspective, good governance must extend to family, clan, ethnic and general cultural values among others. background while there is no universally agreed-upon definition for the term ‘public sector governance’ as argued by the chartered institute of public finance and accounting in collaboration with international federation of accountants (cipfa & ifac 2013), examples of bad corporate governance spread across africa. to provide the social value and articulate the knowledge gap, the study focussed more on west africa and southern africa examples. for instance in 2016, africa witnessed the remarkable redress of two disasters that had wreaked havoc in west africa. african states in collaboration with international development partners and civil society won the first battles, and prospered in terminating the outbreak of ebola (disease) in sierra leone, liberia and guinea. the world health organization (who) declared on 29 march 2016 that the crisis is over. although much remains to be accomplished, remarkable strides have been taken to safeguard lake chad basin against boko haram’s threats. while these threats remain, areas initially vanquished by boko haram have since been reclaimed by governments. in this epoch, states ought to make an introspection on the operational issues that gave rise to these disasters to intensify, not discounting good corporate governance. this includes preventive measures to ensure a repeat of the same does not happen, or if it does, putting in place mechanisms of expeditious reactions. the emergency of both boko haram and ebola in completely dissimilar geographical locations jointly share analogous governance topographies as highlighted below (jobbins 2017): persistence of local discontentment over the centre-periphery divide amidst economic growth the two calamities stood to be multifaceted regional threats manifesting in the fringes of comparatively wealthy african countries, yet in the midst of inhabitants with deep rooted suspicion of their national governance. according to the wb’s world development indicators (wdi 2016) statistical year book, the outbreak of ebola occurred in the forestry region of guinea. historically, part of the globe’s richest iron mines are known to be situated there, but ironically where some cultural and minority ethnic groups have been traditionally relegated benefiting little if any from their region’s huge naturally endowed mineral wealth. about a couple of months preceding the ebola’s outbreak, there were ethnic riots experienced in the region. the skirmishes were against strangers wandering in the region and were perceived to be beneficiaries of the state indulgence (jobbins 2017). these skirmishes spread rapidly to neighbouring areas that shared similar cultures, ethnicities and landscapes. one of the poorest areas called maiduguri in nigeria hold the origins of boko haram. boko haram emerged here, where desertification is more pronounced with wrecked infrastructure and less hope to stir social and economic prospects for the youths. the escalation of the crises and reaction by the international community security and healthy concerns in the african continent can hardly be separated from world concerns. this appears to have been confirmed in the last 4 years or more to be true (wdi 2016). it is therefore worthwhile to note that the two crises got stimulated partly by external exigencies not located in the region. that is, whether the spread of ebola to west africa, the influence of government failure in libya on weapons accessibility through the sahel, or the international extremist groups such as isis’s amplified action. boko haram eventually claimed loyalty to this group. although horrors of world extremism and epidemics activated international concerns or prompted a momentous response, those uncertainties also overturned the economic gains of a region battling to throw away an appearance of bad governance and civil unrest later diminishing tax revenue and constraining government budgets. late adoption of society-wide approach to the management of a crisis the ineptitude shown during the first response to ebola coupled with the speedy rise of boko haram is testament to flaws attributed to responses by national governances to crises. it can be argued that such ineptitude and mistrust among communities paved way for the ebola affected areas’ populace to maim and attack health employees. strangely, this continued for 18 months after the outbreak despite efforts by the health personnel made to ameliorate the situation. the surrounding area including nigeria witnessed mishandlings by armies in countering the boko haram’s recruitment drive when the insurgence began. also, the operations to combat terrorism were masked with clandestineness. notably, government together with security operatives deployed in north east nigeria did not hold meetings publicly to share security concerns in the vulnerable areas up until the midyear 2015 (wdi 2016). notwithstanding this distrust and the first flaws in the state reaction, neither calamity could have been appropriate for the nature of a considerable united nations synchronised deployment of peacekeeping troops or organisations to swap fragile states that patronised areas such as south sudan, the eastern democratic republic of congo or the central african republic. the reaction upturned the pattern in the crises, only after strategies by the government included direct involvement of other players such as civil society, faith-based organisations and traditional leaders. many similar governance issues reside in african states as those noted above. the task ahead for sustainable development on the continent is primarily located in good corporate governance of all spheres of governance institutions. the european commission for democracy through law cdl-ad-2011-009, a document published in 2011 by the vc, traces the origins of the notion of good governance and reports that the concept is a very old one traced in the works of aristotle, who referred to good governance to describe a state ruled by an ethical and just governor. but in recent times: governance has been used increasingly to define the process of decision-making and implementation of decisions in a variety of contexts, such as corporate governance, international governance, national governance and local governance. (vc 2011:3) in the late 1990s, the wb established a link between the quality of a country’s governance system and its ability to pursue sustainable economic and social development. the wb cited in the vc (2011:3) describes governance as encompassing the form of political regime; the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development; and the capacity of governments to design, formulate and implement policies and discharge functions. hence, the wb endorses good governance as a core element of its development strategy. the study objective a key corporate governance objective in the public sector is providing an enabling environment and effective regulatory framework for economic activities. the study sought to plug the gap on poor corporate governance in africa’s public sector for sustainable development to be achieved. gap analysis although governance quality is cumbersome to measure with precision, the new paradigm has been the use of proxy measures for governance capabilities. these include the rule of law and the stability of property rights (halberstam & stein 2009). such proxies involve measures like counting the number of corruption cases brought to court and those measures that use survey data from credit risk agencies. the agencies conduct perception surveys and experience of different aspects of governance from the business community. the world wide governance indicators (wgis) are the most well-known of these data sets as produced by the wb although some other data sets are now available. most countries in africa perform badly on the key areas of concern of the good governance agenda in terms of these measures (iiag 2017). for instance, the wgi indicators place the majority of african countries in the bottom 50th percentile of their six dimensions of governance. according to the wb (2008), this means that africa performed worse than any other region, except the former soviet union. also, with respect to the corruption perceptions index (cpi) produced by transparency international (ti) in africa, 30 out of the 47 were found to have rampant corruption and only three, botswana, cape verde and mauritius, scored above the global average for corruption (ti 2008). for the renewal of the continent, the practice of good corporate governance in the public sector is essential. current deficiencies or gaps located in corporate governance structures of africa indicate the urge to help africa move forward economically. this is crucial because, among other things, good corporate governance contributes to macroeconomic stability and enhances the implementation of sustainable development policies (halberstam & stein 2009). it contributes to the birth of a dependable investment climate domestically and internationally. further, it signals a regime’s devotion to principles of institutions’ desire to eradicate corrupt tendencies, providing for advantages that are competitive, and it broadens and deepens local capital markets. each african country should strive to be identified with international best practices by locating mechanisms or components well suited to their unique capabilities and environments. this enables her to achieve good corporate governance goals that are broad in nature. the trend globally is that good corporate governance has developed as a discipline that stands distinctly alone. several nations are currently treating it as a fundamental element of economic drive (wb 2008); hence, african states can only ignore it at their own peril. the ibrahim index of african governance is regarded as the world’s most comprehensive ranking of african governance. figure 1 shows the mo ibrahim index of african governance as measured in september 2007. it measured sub-saharan africa’s 48 states on the quality of governance based on safety and security, transparency and corruption, human development, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and rule of law. the best governed was mauritius with an overall score of 86.2, followed by seychelles 83.1, then botswana 73.0 with cape verde ranking fourth and south africa fifth (iiag 2007). the rest of the countries ranked below south africa as weak performers on the continent of africa. the indices have not changed significantly of late (iiag 2017). figure 1: ibrahim index of african governance. according to the 2017 ibrahim index of african governance report, in 2016, the score for mauritius declined to 79.4 despite the fact that it remained the best governed in the african continent, seychelles down to 65.0 and botswana down to 64.6 (iiag 2017). methodological or analytical approach the interpretivist and constructivist paradigm informed this work through a desktop-based study. an interrogation of the corporate governance principles in the public sector of selected countries in west africa and southern africa was performed as prompted by the results of the corruption perception indices, wgis and ti surveys. the responses were used to interpret good corporate governance deficits and construct new knowledge that was generalised and recommended for sustainable development in africa’s public sector as a task ahead. literature review the economic commission for africa (eca 2002) and sebudubudu (2010) describe corporate governance as the means employed in governing or managing privately owned or state-owned enterprises involving relationships between management and stakeholders. it also provides the structure that determines organisational goals and objectives as well as performance monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. corporate governance structures are less complicated than economic governance in view of the conceptualisation above. the economic commission for africa further describes good governance as the search of goals and objectives by both the board and management seeking to advance the securities of a company and its stockholders by effectively checking and efficiently using available resources (joiner 2010). a number of factors influence good corporate governance, fundamentally being the legal and institutional frameworks provided by states to bring good governance into existence and effect (khan 2008; mkandawire 2007). as noted by the united nations development programme (undp 2009), in trying to bring about good corporate governance, african states have an obligation to primarily provide for an environment that enables all forms of entities that are commercial and non-commercial to grow in predetermined and foreseeable non-selective application of rules (institutional frameworks). institutions stand as the mechanisms of governance as stated in the world development report (wb 2002). such governance institutions provide parameters for the management of resources while creating value. the created values impact on the performance of the national economy positively. this is illustrated in figure 2. figure 2: good corporate governance in africa: a framework illustrating relationships between the principles for good governance in the public sector. it demonstrates how the different public sector values or principles for good governance in the public relate to each other. principles a and b infiltrate implementation of principles c to g. it also portrays that good governance is dynamic. this means that the whole entity should be dedicated to improving governance on a continuous foundation in the form of an evaluation process and review. the high-level principles describing good governance in the public sector, the core, as set out below, marry a number of interrelated concepts. for instance, principles c to g are connected to each other by means of the so-called ‘plan-do-check-act’ cycle. this is also referred to as the deming cycle. it is an iterative management process typically used by organisations for the continuous improvement and control of processes and products. further to the all-embracing necessities for acting in the public interest at all times in principles a and b, achieving good governance in the public sector also calls for effective arrangements for principles c to g. good corporate governance structure specifically does a profiling of those that make decisions for investment, investments types and the distribution of returns gained. according to a strategy report by the wb (2000), ‘reforming public institutions and strengthening governance’, minority shareholders are less privileged to assert their own stakeholder rights, for example they have great difficulty asserting their shareholder rights particularly in countries whose legal frameworks are weak. the resultant effect is an ownership structure dominated by extremely concentrated proprietorship with limited and minority shareholders (ifac & cipfa 2014). it is further reported that political governance fraught with non-transparent economic and unaccountable practices gives rise to blurred lines between the private and public sectors and bad governance. this is revealed through (eca 2002) unwarranted state snooping, corrupt tendencies or state capture reflected in ‘crony capitalism’. why good corporate governance is needed in africa? on average, the continent has been improving in overall governance particularly from 2007 to 2016. an average score of +1.4 points has been recorded from 49.4 (out of 100.0) to 50.8 since the iiag’s first data year 2000 (iiag 2017). nevertheless, with an improvement over that decade at an average yearly rate of +0.16 in the last part of this period (the last five years, 2012–2016), the rate of progress fell down to an average yearly rate of +0.10. africa’s slowing overall governance continental trend in the last 10 years (2007–2016) is reflected by variations in performances in the underlying governance categories, as shown in table 1. table 1: contrasting governance performance at category level. although general governance progress over the last 10 years (2007–2016) has been driven by improved performance in three of the four governance categories shown in table 1, namely human development (+4.4), participation and human rights (+2.2) and sustainable economic opportunity (+1.3), more progress could have been realised. this has been hampered because of a decline on average, in safety & rule of law (−2.4). there is a variation of trends appearing in the last 5 years of this period (2007–2016). notably, there is still progress in human development and sustainable economic opportunity but at a slower pace. remarkable progress reflects only in the category of participation & human rights. on the other hand, deterioration in safety & rule of law is still present (iiag 2017). thus, the last column in table 1 sadly shows only one category depicting ‘increasing improvement’ with the rest showing ‘slowing improvement’ and ‘deterioration’. good corporate governance is a foundation of competitive advantage and inspires the start-up or repositioning of establishments to a specific republic (khan 2008). the reduction of poverty and prompting of economic growth can be triggered by private investment. this is an essential element for creating jobs. predictable and credible rules contribute immensely through corporate tax to the national fiscus. what is obtaining is a measly 17% of the gross domestic product (gdp) in sub-saharan africa. this gross investment falls remarkably shorter than elsewhere in the world (eca 2002; khan 2008). also, in the world economy, 1% is accounted for by sub-saharan africa. this amounts to an insignificant contribution of foreign direct investment. therefore, african states can significantly redirect themselves towards good governance in a bid for rejuvenation, while promoting foreign and domestic investment with affluence. this can also influence the global community at large. it is indisputable that going global is by all intents and purposes a strategic investment that should be embraced by african leaders (khan 2008). apart from reaching the world market, globalisation serves as a vehicle for knowledge and technology transfer. this is only possible if the notion that africa is a bedrock for poor governance is dispelled. as such africa’s leaders should be seized with the demystification of a perception that deflects the inflow of capital away from the continent. one sure way of doing that is the practice of good corporate governance in the public sector. essentially, globalisation mirrored by the international architecture of finance calls for a corporate governance system that is robust, as noted by undp (2000). the international architecture of finance is determined by key elements including broadening and deepening resident capital markets to entice investors. the united nations development programme (undp 2000) argues that capital markets are key drivers of bolstering financial systems and, in turn, contribute to key elements. the international financial architecture is necessary to broaden and deepen local capital markets that attract investors. capital markets (undp 2000) contribute to the strengthening of financial systems which then contribute to financial intermediation internationally and domestically. ultimately, savings can easily be mobilised and directed to investments that are productive. viewed from this lens, if the capital markets in africa should grow, then standards of good corporate governance ought to improve, encouraging and providing investors with assurance for protection. the emerging market economies have indicated that developing countries have an obligation to provide good corporate governance structures to prevent speculative transactions that have been demonstrated by recent financial crises (eca 2002; undp 2000). it is the prerogative of the african states to create a conducive environment that can promote savings of interests and investment while improving decision-making in all sectors of the economy. to do this, african countries can raise their financial sectors to levels of the international financial architecture. however, the significance of good corporate governance transcends the interests of shareholders’ individual corporations because benefits accrue to the state and society at large (wb 1999). it is for this reason that the eca (2002) concludes that the prelude to improved national economic performance, the effectiveness of overall corporate performance, efficient allocation of capital and monitoring of assets is good corporate governance. on the contrary, corporate misgovernance retards a country’s growth economically while reducing its competitiveness on the global market. corporate governance factors for african states the african development bank (adb 2001) observes that in africa, there is a significant degree of political influence across countries on the dynamics of good corporate governance. these political factors that influence good corporate governance vary in magnitude and direction. for instance, botswana is portrayed on the international forum as africa’s shining example of good corporate governance punctuated with sound economic policies. yet, for its neighbours, zimbabwe and malawi among other countries, the situation has not been rosy, where separation of administrative capacity and institutional weaknesses from governance issues sometimes appear absurd. the adb (2001) also observes that a dearth of commitment from government does not necessarily stand as a reflection of poor governance. it may still not be easy to eliminate corruption from within the rank and file of the bureaucratic machinery even though political leadership is perceived as honest and strong. nonetheless, amoako (2000) argues that weak political leadership is often co-located with bad practices of corporate governance. this means usually strong political leadership tends to be co-located with good practices of corporate governance. for amoako, all forms of good governance that obtain in society are influenced by strong and honest political governance mechanisms. the economic commission for africa (eca 2002:8) defines strong and honest political governance as a social state exemplified by, among other things, open, predictable and progressive policy-making; a bureaucracy filled with a specialised ethos; a robust civil society contributing to public affairs; observance of the rule of law, reverence for basic human rights and freedoms and judicial independence; dependable traditions and predictable institutions that regulate how power and authority are exercised. these include (1) the procedure for governments’ selection, how they are accountable to the public, how they are monitored and how they are replaced, (2) the ability of governments to account for resources competently, and apply comprehensive strategies and (3) the reverence of people and the management for the organisations. also, the safeguarding of a political order is (1) sincere, enjoying the support and loyalty of the people, (2) able to defend the sovereign interests of the people, (3) able to meet the fundamental interests of the people, (4) able to engage other global players that describe the world economy and (5) ability to diminish internal and cross-border conflicts. yet, on the continent, the subversion of basic human rights and freedoms coupled with bad political governance have usurped the potential economic growth and sustainable development to quite a number of countries (utz 2007). therefore, supranational bodies such as the african union (au), common market for eastern and southern africa (comesa), southern african development community (sadc), african development bank (adb) and development bank of southern africa (dbsa) among others have a duty to ensure that they capacitate those states that have remarkably fallen victim of not only poverty but also bad governance. this is benchmarked (grzeszczak 2015) against the european union (eu) and the european social fund (esf). shleifer and vishny (1997) argue that vital to the interface between political governance and corporate governance is the capability to offer obligatory institutional frameworks for supporting outcomes of good governance by the state. institutional reforms considerable capacity building and reforms are needed if africa’s public sector institutions are to operate effectively and efficiently. according to eca (2002:9), reforms are needed in the following areas: civil services and its administration; improving parliamentary oversight; supporting participatory decision-making; implementing effective measures to combat corruption and embezzlement; judicial reforms. these are tersely discussed below. administrative and civil services in most african countries, the public service sector tends to have fairly large numbers of employees exceeding the capacities of those countries. as a result, they also tend to be much costly, less productive and effective than expected (oyekan 2009; shahada 2010). furthermore, agencies and ministries become ill-equipped and poorly structured. these characteristics on the continent have presented a fertile ground for bureaucratic corruption and bad governance (emery 2000). in some countries, this has made corruption official rather than having officials who are corrupt. it becomes a norm for the public to pay a bribe in order to access government services. besides bribery, unlawful enrichment, fraud and embezzlement at the expense of the taxpayer takes centre stage (dfid 2000). therefore, reforms here must entrench aspects of integrity, honesty, transparency and accountability among others. studies across the world reveal that one of the prerequisites of good governance is a civil service that is skilled for the job, motivated and guided by professional ethos and values, although this should be complemented by other factors as it is not sufficient in itself (gray & khan 2010; khan 2008; wb 2007). the cipfa in collaboration with the international federation of accountants (ifac)’s draft of 2013 contends that empirical evidence provides that a very bad civil service breeds bad governance, although the right to accountability and other mechanisms may be in place. oversight by parliament parliament is one of those institutions with a mandate to hold the executive branch of government accountable, oversight of government and other authorities and act as a counterbalance to executive power (johnson & nakamura 1999). however, from the 20th century, there appear to have been a constant drop in the power of several parliamentary bodies. this has resulted in inadequacies of oversight impact on state affairs and the executive. in cases where there is strong representation in parliament by the opposition parties in africa, for reasons mainly of controlling state resources, the executive dictates appointment of cabinet members based on loyalty rather than ability. in this case, loyalty to individual political parties outweighs the need for legislative members to abide by the legislative institution especially in the ruling parties. as a result, mbaku (1997) contends that these parliamentarians, in most cases, ‘rubber stamp’ decisions from cabinet without applying their minds negating their oversight roles. yet, effective legislatures should contribute to good governance and sustain democracy. to enhance oversight by parliament and performance in africa, there may be need for a good will and buy in reposed in members of the legislature irrespective of political affiliation to promote good governance. adequate funding may be required to capacitate parliamentarians so that they improve the process of parliamentary oversight. most of the members of parliament assume office without rudimentary knowledge of the parliamentary oversight roles except knowledge of allegiance to their party and constituencies (mbaku 1997). the dearth of political will render anti-corruption laws inoperable. it is defiance of logic when senior government parliamentarians get arrested on charges of corruption, fraud and perjury, yet these members should be exemplary (johnson & nakamura 1999). parliamentarians ought to work in unison regardless of petty party politics in pursuit of the integrity that the parliamentary agenda provides to them. in africa, because of political polarisation, it is inconceivable how this can be achieved. perhaps, those more level headed and enlightened parliamentarians may take the lead with support from regional economic communities such as the sadc and the economic community for west africa states (ecowas). independent agencies can play a complementary watchdog role in collaboration with civil society and faith-based organisations. if truly independent, such complementary agencies may be used to gather information that would not be easily availed to parliament. decision-making that is participatory one key component of good governance is that of participatory decision-making. citizens and other stakeholders through their participation in decision-making processes enjoy a sense of belonging. this empowers them to demand accountability and transparency from government. however, for purposes of good governance, more states should promote better participatory decision-making as a gesture of inclusive democracy. for instance, hamdok (2001) argues that electoral democracy remains problematic in africa as prospective voters get disenfranchised. the example from botswana is encouraging. there is no single constitutional amendment that can be performed by parliament without subjecting such an amendment to a referendum. the citizenry have to vote ‘yes or no’ to the proposed amendment. the battle against corruption hope and chikulo (1999) observed that governance malpractices in africa have become deep rooted, cancerous and legendary. as a result, some societies have lived to believe that ‘kickbacks’ are part of governance practices. but, the problem is not only typical of african governance as it has become a global concern as well. the battle against eruption of corruption in africa has seen the establishment of anti-graft commissions and whistle-blowers, with voluminous literature to that effect (joiner 2010; mkandawire 2007; rose-ackerman 2001; undp 2009). however, the difficulty that occurs today is less on the effort to fight corruption, but lack of executive political support. for instance, the case of zimbabwe’s reported cases by the auditor general in early 2017 in which the executive ignored the audit report completely. many programmes to combat corruption have suffered too much political interference despite having the backing of statutes. the question at hand is more about engendering the apparatus to activate and cultivate political will as this appears to be lacking. it has been an exhortation by the african contributors way back at a world bank institute programme on ‘controlling corruption’ as reported in towards collective action to improve governance and control corruption in seven african countries in 1999 (wb 1999). this led to the disbandment of some anti-corruption measures in favour of corrupt innuendoes in other countries. undoubtedly, it is a must for political will to prevail in combating graft supported by leadership of high integrity in africa. it is for this reason that rose-ackerman (2001) views the potential to exterminate or curb corruption as residing more in good governance. according to undp and oecd (1998), political will denotes a demonstrable dependable resolve by political actors to uproot perceived or real causes and effects of graft at a systemic level. this may be a critical and sustainable starting point to fight corruption, or else the statements of states may merely be regarded as rhetoric and ritualistic. reforming the judiciary system judicial reform in africa (wb 2001) for purposes of realising good governance is required in order to produce and preserve judicial independence. the pillar of the rule of law is judicial independence whose tenets are impartiality, respect and independence. this means that judgements should be made without fear or favour. once judgements are handed down, they ought to be respected without prejudice to the judge’s rights. as the eca (2002) puts it, based on the foregoing characteristics, the modest meaning of judicial independence is the insulation of the judicial procedures and practices against any opinionated force to sway the conclusions of cases in favour of litigants or accused. while powerful elites may try to influence the judicial process financially or socially, the most serious threat is posed by governments to the judicial independence of some african states. sadly, for instance in zimbabwe, some judgements against the state’s land reform were disregarded and the judges who made such judiciary decisions lost their jobs. world bank (2001) notes that there are recognised endeavours by regimes to sway judicial decisions on the continent ranging from bribery, harassment, dismissals and transfers to promotions. governments have also been known to meddling in the assignment of cases to judicial practitioners or complete removal of cases from courts placing them to some tribunals that have no penchant to follow due process. corporate governance components for african states for sustainable development developing economies now identify the need for an economical corporate segment as crucial for growth and development. africa must guarantee the investor community that, what they plough in will be safe and managed efficiently on the strength of accountability and transparency. that assurance is only through good corporate governance. but african countries are often not well equipped to implement the corporate governance systems because of their political systems and excessive political decisions that are handed down as directives from political bigwigs. as noted by lazonick and o’sullivan (2000), among the major constraints in this respect are the corporate sector’s ownership structure, the financial sector’s interlocking relationships with government, weak judiciary and legal systems, coupled with limited capabilities of human resource. in terms of best practices, the improvement of good corporate governance would entail (eca 2002:34): a legal framework to deal with stated rights and obligations of a company, including its directorship, shareholding and related stakeholders. provision for the effective application of the law as well; mechanisms put in place for a corporate governance culture; a conducive environment for good corporate governance created by promoting financial disclosure requirements as well as good ownership structures; provision of arrangements that facilitate supervision while encouraging the adoption of sound practices of corporate governance; capacity building in corporate governance via in-service training and educational programmes to all levels for improving management and performance. although the thrust on corporate governance has hinged on the private sector, the same can be directed upon the public sector. developments in privatising state-owned enterprises have been encouraging but the task is far from being completed. several african states do have a considerable assortment of government owned enterprises. if they decide to dispose of them or not, what is useful is the corporate governance of these enterprises, irrespective of the ownership structure. to ensure corporatisation of state-owned enterprises (soes), the wb cited in eca (2002:35) recommended that enterprises: submit to commercial law functioning. assume one corporate form. open communication and be credible in operations. africa is obliged to consider these recommendations seriously for sustainable development. standards and codes for good corporate governance in africa the adoption of these standards should be seen as an important element in stimulating good corporate governance as this is viewed more favourably by international investors. the justification of these standards is the same worldwide. while there are 70 codes for corporate governance, the key ones are discussed in this article as given by the international monetary fund (imf 2001). the code of good practices on fiscal transparency provisions include: roles and responsibilities that are clear, availability of public information, transparent budget preparation and execution and assurances of independent integrity: roles and responsibilities that are clear: the public sector should be visibly distinguished from the rest of the economy, with well-defined policy and management roles. availability of public information: governments must be committed to the publication of fiscal information timely. transparent budget preparation and reporting: this means that budget data should be presented in such a way that it facilitates policy analysis while promoting accountability. assurances of independent integrity: there should be unquestionable integrity. in order to promote sustainability and development, there is need for fiscal information integrity which should be subjected to independent public scrutiny. fiscal discipline is one area which african states ought to embrace as highlighted above. indiscipline in this area tends to cause untoward suffering of those governed. where discipline abounds, bulleted issues above can forge a semblance of sustainability and development. the monetary and financial policies code the code depends on two simple principles: firstly, policies are made more effective when the public is well informed about the goals and if central banks together with financial agencies make a reliable promise to meeting them; secondly, good governance requires that central banks together with financial agencies are accountable, more so if these agencies enjoy a high degree of autonomy. guidelines for public expenditure management four forms of fiscal and financial discipline are required for public expenditure management to be effective: consistency with the macroeconomic constraints, which implies the controlling of aggregate expenditure to safeguard affordability; resource allocations reflecting expenditure policy priorities; delivery of public services efficiently; efficient budget execution and debt management practices. these forms may enhance public expenditure management if fully implemented and lead to sustainable development. making priority standards of good governance practices for africa formulating a prioritised list of codes and standards for other countries may be a relatively simple matter. in africa, the exercise can be much more demanding. this is because of the diversity of the continent’s countries economically and politically. for example, south africa has much higher institutional developments than in zimbabwe. in many african countries, the logic is that the more affluent can circumvent the bad governance through other means like bribery. the less privileged are unable to bear the costs of bad governance and yet constitute the majority of african society. priority should be directed to best practices that bring forth pro-poor outcomes with the eradication of poverty being the ultimate goal. with this in mind, the codes and standards should be prioritised to consolidate democracy and promote market efficiency through good governance practices. discussion of findings and results the main findings reveal that the sizes of the civil service are bigger in comparison to the countries’ population, the judiciary are less independent than expected and corruption levels are relatively high while participatory decision-making is low with weak parliamentary oversight. while some basic tenets of corporate governance in the public sector are employed, the effectiveness tends to be weakened by excessive political decisions that are handed down as directives from political bigwigs. the task ahead among others in the public sector is that of evading these ‘excesses’ which board of directors in the private sector are less predisposed to employ, in pursuit of good corporate governance practices. recommendations for good corporate governance, african states must undertake the following among other things: short term to signal a departure from excessive political decisions; to strengthen current good corporate governance structures. medium term to implement in an accountable manner public management functions; to create a working environment which attracts both domestic and international investors. long term to demonstrate a desire to achieve high levels of good corporate governance practices that promise sustainable development; to implement poverty reduction and development policies. the foregoing creates a foundation that may enhance reduction of poverty, accelerate economic growth and provide for sustainable development in africa. the proposed implementation process is shown in figure 3 for a desired outcome. figure 3: public sector good governance implementation process framework. the shortto long-term good corporate governance strategies for the public sector could be implemented as above for sustainable development as the task ahead for africa. conclusion while concerted efforts are directed towards good corporate governance in the private sector, more should be performed in the public sector by subjecting state enterprises to commercial law functioning. good corporate governance is good for africa if sustainable development is to thrive. the application of rules and policies predictably and fairly by a state attracts more domestic and foreign investment. effective institutions and efficient markets are indispensable if african countries are to ensure sustainable development. problems of corruption, weak and ineffective governance do not attract both domestic and international investors. it is imperative that african states develop political will, influenced by those enlightened leaders, and come to terms with policy agenda that fosters good corporate governance. while this may be a political process, the challenge in africa is one of determining if, indeed, governments are there to rule for narrower interests or for the public good. as such african leadership is challenged to use the political space which they occupy to influence development of good corporate governance policies for sustainable development as suggested in this article. the task ahead for sustainable development in africa’s public sector is for african countries to redirect their efforts in applying good economic and corporate governance practices as highlighted herein. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references adb, 2001, african development report 2001: fostering good governance in africa, oxford university press, new york. aggn, 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staistical yearbook, world banks’ world development indicators, washington, dc. who, 2016, management of ebola in west africa, world health organisation, washington, dc. abstract introduction the fiscal environment of south african local government measure of financial condition data and modelling ethical consideration analysis and results discussion limitations conclusion acknowledgements references appendix 1 about the author(s) abe mbulawa wits school of governance, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa citation mbulawa, a., 2019, ‘understanding the impact of financial sustainability on south african municipalities’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a656. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.656 original research understanding the impact of financial sustainability on south african municipalities abe mbulawa received: 15 jan. 2019; accepted: 22 mar. 2019; published: 30 oct. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article acknowledges the lack of skills and poor financial governance within south african municipalities but argues that these factors are an insufficient explanation of their increasing fiscal distress, which was found at over 90% by 2016. it employs the concept of financial condition to construct an econometric function for south african local government. this financial condition function confirms that the fiscal framework of south african local government is distressed. the article further concludes that as service delivery improves, so does the fiscal distress. this applies even to municipalities that receive audit outcomes without material findings. as an illustration, the article uses the collective debt incurred by municipalities to eskom – the energy utility company. the article argues that it is mathematically impossible to settle this debt within the current local government fiscal framework. the conclusion confirms the importance of constructing the financial condition function as an enabler for improved local government financial health. keywords: financial condition; service delivery solvency; good financial governance; fiscal framework; fiscal distress; municipal sustainability; audit outcomes. introduction the poor financial state of municipalities is well researched and documented across the world, starting with the united states since the new york fiscal crisis of the 1970s (clark, ferguson & shapiro 1982), as well as in recent times (wang, dennis & tu 2007). based on the essentiality of municipal functions, similar studies have been conducted in other countries, such as israel (ben-elia 1998; carmeli & cohen 2001; razin 1998), greece (kalchheim 1997), czechoslovakia (hrüza 2013) and italy (padovani, manes rossi & orelli 2010). in south africa, the local government turnaround strategy (republic of south africa [rsa], department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs [cogta] 2009a) has provided valuable insights into the country’s poor municipal fiscal health, such as the lack of skills and poor financial governance. by 2016, the number of financially distressed municipalities stood at 93% (afrika rating 2016). in concerted efforts to address this deterioration, the auditor-general of the country released findings that show deficiencies, increasing dysfunctionality and minimal increase in the number of clean audits. in south africa, a clean audit is defined as the three pillars of financial reporting, performance outcomes and compliance to laws and regulations – all without material findings (rsa 2004). the deficit in skills needs to be understood in the context of the lack of political desire to appoint highly professional senior managers. this is because they are less likely to implement questionable instructions than those who are beholden to their political principals usually through cadre deployment (netshitendzhe 1996). cadre deployment is the: … appointment of government party loyalist to an institution, as a means of circumventing public accountability and bringing the institution under the control of the party, as opposed to the state. (van onselen 2012:1) this means that the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs cannot address the skills deficit without considering the impact of cadre deployment on municipal governance (twala 2014). unlike other spheres of government and state-owned enterprises, at local government level, the executive mayor, through section 56 of the local government municipal structures act (rsa 1998), is empowered to implement the political mandate doing away with the need for cadre deployment within the administration. however, cadre deployment is not only an african national congress (anc) practice. a perusal of the websites of leading political parties (i.e. the democratic alliance and the economic freedom fighters) shows that although they do not have similar cadre deployment policies, they have similar recruitment practices as the anc. this article excludes the lack of skills and investigates systematic fiscal failure that results in negative audit outcomes as reported by the auditor-general. based on the auditor-general’s reports between 2006/2007 and the 2011/2012 administrative years, powell et al. (2014) concluded that 100% of clean audits will occur in the 2022/2023 fiscal year. given the financial environment, powell extrapolated that in the 2016/2017 fiscal year, south africa should have achieved 60% clean audits. in reality, only 13% of the municipalities received clean audits in the 2016/2017 fiscal year. this means that the expected goal of a 100% success rate will have to be extended far beyond the 2022/2023 fiscal year. this leads to the following question: will this elusive target be met, and if not, what are the influencing factors? the auditor-general’s report of 2016/2017 highlighted three key problems that need to be resolved in order to meet the elusive target: (1) addressing the lack of consequence management that leads to (2) non-compliance that leads to (3) irregular expenditure (rsa, agsa 2017). the cycle repeats annually, resulting in increased irregular expenditure and poor financial governance. the impact on municipal financial sustainability was raised in the local government turnaround strategy (lgtas) report of 2009 (rsa, cogta 2009a). this was a result of the limited success of project consolidate (2004–2009). a number of measures were put in place, including the local government municipal regulations on minimum competency levels (rsa, department of finance [dof] 2007) and the local government municipal regulations on financial misconduct procedures and criminal proceedings of the municipal finance management act (mfma) (rsa, dof 2014). despite these measures, the ability of municipalities under the project lgtas (2009–2014) to reach 30% of clean audits failed (powell et al. 2014). to address this, the back to basics programme was launched in september 2014 (rsa, cogta 2014). four years later, in 2018, the programme had achieved minimal success as predicted by powell et al. (2014). in september 2018, the cogta launched the municipal recovery plan, also referred to as back to basics programme ii (mkhize 2018). its ability in arresting fiscal distress remains to be seen. however, the failed turnaround strategies since 2004 prompt the next question: besides poor financial governance and lack of skills, are there any other key factors that cause poor fiscal health of local government? the remainder of this article is structured as follows: the ‘introduction’ and ‘the fiscal environment of south african local government’ sections present a review and discussion relating to existing works from two perspectives: south african fiscal environment and financial condition. the ‘measure of financial condition’ section deals with measurement of financial condition. the ‘data and modelling’ section discusses the data presented in the article. the analysis and results are presented in the ‘analysis and results’ section, followed by the ‘discussion’ section that provides a general discussions of the study. the ‘limitations’ section discusses the limitations of the article. the concluding remarks of the article are presented in the ‘conclusion’ section. the fiscal environment of south african local government local government, unlike the other two spheres of government (national and provincial), is the only arm that generates its own revenue to sustain its legislated mandate. this makes the economic (transactional structure) of local government aligned with state-owned enterprises, rather than with the other spheres of government that have an administrative structure (nutt & backoff 1992). this transactional authority is derived from section 156 of the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa 1996), section 64 of the mfma (rsa 2003) and chapter 9 of the local government municipal systems act (rsa, dof 2000). the national treasury mfma circular 64 (rsa 2012b) provides the local government fiscal framework that underpins a financially sustainable municipality. its aim is to improve municipal financial health by maximising revenue collection while reducing inefficiency, costs and uncollectible debt (rsa, dof 2012b). the circular offers a guideline for municipalities on how to accumulate surplus funds or cash-backed reserves through improving their financial health. good financial governance is prescribed under section 216 in the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa 1996). this is enacted by section 87 of the public finance management act (pfma) (rsa 1999) through the establishment of the accounting standards board (asb). the asb sets standards and guidelines for financial statements as mandated by section 216(a) of the constitution of the republic of south africa. it entails developing measures to ensure transparency by introducing generally recognised accounting practices (grap) in the three spheres of government as a mechanism of good financial governance. to further enhance good financial governance there is the in-year budgetary monitoring process. this commences with monthly reporting prescribed in section 71 of the mfma (rsa 2003), followed by section 52(d) for quarterly monitoring. mid-year assessment is enabled through section 72 of the mfma (rsa 2003). at this point, budget adjustment is permitted to address reallocations and priority changes. both quarterly and mid-year reporting includes service delivery performance. the three sets of reporting provide an oversight mechanism for the municipal council, cogta and national treasury. the objective of this good financial governance is to ensure financial sustainability of municipalities by proactively preventing fiscal distress. schick (1988) defines four stages of financial health, as illustrated in figure 1. when a local government is relaxed, it is prone to have vanity projects because of surplus funds. as the surplus funds deplete, it starts having chronic difficulties in balancing the budget. figure 1: stages of financial health. as this worsens, the municipality gets fiscally distressed in carrying out indiscriminate expenditure cuts at the expense of service delivery. when there is total distress, the municipality is unable to pass its budget and needs to be placed under administration. in a situation where fiscal health is found to be in distress, remedy is sought. this is done by complementary invoking section 139(5) of the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa 1996), section 65(2)(f) of the mfma (rsa 2003) and mfma circular 49 (rsa, dof 2009). mfma circular 71 (rsa, dof 2014) defines financial distress as: … when a municipality fails to make payments when due and such failures amount to 2% of the municipality’s operating budget for that year may indicate that the municipality is in serious breach of its obligations. (p. 2) municipal finance management act circular 71 (rsa, dof 2014) provides a list of indicators for evaluating the financial position of a municipality flagging fiscal distress. the indicators consist of five singular ratios: (1) total debt to revenue (excluding grants), (2) debt service coverage ratio, (3) debt to net cash ratio, (4) cash flow interest coverage, and (5) liability management ratio. these ratios are analysed descriptively in the annual state of local government report, which forms part of the auditor-general’s and national treasury’s financial viability assessments. it is noted that these indicators do not consider financial condition as defined by united states governmental accounting standards board (gasb) statement no. 44 of 2004. it defines this as the government’s capacity to fulfil its contractual obligations while continuing to provide services at both current and future states (usa, gasb 2004). financial condition incorporates the concept of service delivery solvency, which is the ability of a municipality to provide services in accordance with legislative obligations, for current and future states. with respect to revenue generation, the cost of service delivery solvency is important for south africa in that it has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. this makes the concept of financial condition as important for south africa as in the united states. the absence of financial condition as part of national treasury’s policy has resulted in limited data and academic literature. instead, lack of skills and poor governance (schoeman 2011; van der waldt 2012) are accepted as the de facto cause of municipal distress. one of the first studies on financial condition was ngwenya’s (2010) study which was confined to three metropolitan councils in gauteng between 2006/2007 and 2008/2009. this was followed by an article by ncube and vacu (2014) on 273 municipalities over the 2004/2005 to 2010/2011 fiscal years. however, ncube and vacu did not develop a composite index but applied kloha’s scale for financial health (kloha, weissert & kleine 2005). the most recent research conducted in this regard is by coetzee and kleynhans (2019), which focused on the financial conditions of 51 municipalities in kwazulu-natal from 2008/2009 to 2014/2015 using a methodology adopted from ritonga’s thesis (2014). while constructing composite scores for the individual municipalities, coetzee and kleynhans (2019) did not provide a financial condition function that can assist in determining the robustness of the local government fiscal framework. measure of financial condition the gasb defines four key indicators of financial condition: cash solvency, budgetary solvency, long-term solvency and service-level solvency (usa, gasb 2004). the first three are standard financial indicators, while the fourth, service-level solvency, is specific to local government. the rationale behind financial condition is the determination of a mechanism that can allow prevention of fiscal emergencies. this enables prompt response to emergencies (coe 2008; groves, godsey & shulman 1981; kloha et al. 2005; nollenberger 2003). financial condition is therefore predictive in nature. while financial condition in itself provides warnings about fiscal distress, the efficacy of the indicator is constrained by the measurement methodology. this challenge was addressed by the seminal work of groves et al. (1981) on financial indicators for local government in which they proposed a practical methodology, ‘financial trends monitoring system’ (ftms). the ftms was adopted by the national league of cities (nlc) to provide fiscal positions of local governments as a means to gather their financial position on an annual basis. (the nlc is the united states’ equivalent of the south african local government association [salga]). owing to it being an open financial system of both partial and uncontrollable fiscal environments, it is treated as a complex and unwieldy methodology comprising 47 ratios. to overcome this issue, berne and schramm (1986) argued that analysing the partially controllable fiscal environment provided sufficient data to determine the financial position of a municipality. the first of such methods was that of brown’s 10-point ratios (1993) that used general fund data, making it a closed financial system methodology. this was followed by mercer and gilbert’s (1996) method and chaney, mead and schermann’s (2002) method. the adoption of the concept of financial condition in gasb statement no. 44 (us, gasb 2004) led to several models, most notably kloha et al.’s (2005) model that used general fund data with socio-economic indicators, making it a pseudo-open financial system; wang et al. (2007) and maher and nollenberger (2009) used general fund data similar to brown (1993). to ensure better understanding, this article considers all related models as financial condition models, even those developed before the adoption of gasb statement no. 44 in 2004. the strength of brown’s 10-point test lies in its ability to evaluate the financial condition of local government utilising existing general fund data. the composite score assesses the financial condition of the municipality relative to the performance of other municipalities in the same basket; from among the worst to the best. this means that it does not provide an absolute interpretation of the local government, that is, whether it is financially healthy or financially distressed. thus, if all the municipalities in the basket were financially unhealthy, then this would not be reflected, only showing the relative financial state of each municipality against those it is compared to. another weakness of brown’s tool is that each ratio has equal weight, ignoring that some ratios have greater impact. despite its drawbacks, brown’s model (1993) has given rise to several offshoots, notably those of chaney et al. (2002), wang et al. (2007) and maher and nollenberger (2009). the latter initially built on the work of brown’s model opting to use altman’s (1968) multivariate discriminate analysis approach but applied linear regression. to be consistent with accounting practice, they applied ftms ratios for the four gasb composite indicators. this gave rise to the µ-matrix in equation 1: where: α = constant α1 = coefficient of financial condition indicator y1 = financial condition ratio as per gasb statement no. 44 φ = error margin. maher and nollenberger (2009) argued that the model constructs the composite matrix of µ-scores of the municipalities using the composite ratios in table 1. notably, it provides absolute gradation of financial condition as an indicator of potential distress; the lower the score, the higher the distress. table 1: financial condition ratios. data and modelling this study was limited to selecting one ratio for each of the four financial condition indicators mentioned in table 1. the first three ratios were obtained from the mfma circular 71 (rsa, dof 2014). for cash solvency, the cash ratio was used to measure the municipality’s capacity to service its current debts by comparing its net cash flows from operating activities against its total debt service obligations. the higher the ratio, the greater the cash flow available to meet service delivery demands. for budgetary solvency, the study used the operating ratio. this ratio determines the percentage of operating revenue that is available to the local government. the lower the ratio, the greater the restriction on the availability of funds for service delivery and the greater the dependency on grant transfers. for long-term solvency, the long-term debt ratio was applied. this helps to determine the extent to which a local government entity can survive as a going concern. the higher the ratio, the lower the probability that the local government will survive as a going concern. finally, for service delivery solvency, the study used capital projects per capita (griesel & leatherman 2010). the higher the ratio, the greater the funds available for service delivery. to determine the financial condition model, the financial condition function g(x) was solved using the econometric equation 2: in this weighted-sum approach, the coefficients of the indicators are assigned according to their impact on the composite index (greene 2003:257). the study selected limdep® as the econometric software to solve g(x) as a linear function of the form of altman’s (1968) z-score and ohlson’s (1980) o-score. it is opposed to coetzee and kleynhans (2019) who, like ritonga (2014), solved equation 1 using the statistical analytical hierarchical process (ahp) of saaty (1990) that results in a matrix outcome. the financial condition function g(x) determines the coefficients α1 with density as the independent variable. density was used for two main reasons. firstly, it had limited noise φ over a 5-year administrative period, thus reducing the error margin. secondly, using density was appropriate as the national census had taken place in 2010, thus providing official population figures for the study that were not dependent on local government data. figure 2 illustrates how the financial condition score was constructed. data were sourced from the national treasury which provided the audited financial statements of 233 municipalities from the 2012/2013 to 2015/2016 fiscal years. during this period, there was a total population of 233 local and metropolitan municipalities in the country. this excludes district councils as they do not deliver direct services but support local municipalities. thus, the study was not based on randomised population sampling. to provide service delivery solvency, statistical data were sourced from statistics south africa p9115 data sets for the delivery of water, energy, sanitation and roads. figure 2 presents the normalisation and modelling process to solve for financial condition function g(x). figure 2: construction of the financial condition µ-score. ethical consideration the data were sourced from the public domain in particular, the national treasury and statistics south africa websites. analysis and results regression analysis was carried out on the individual four fiscal years and then as an aggregate of the 2012/2013–2015/2016 data sets. this is the eigenvector that calculates the four eigenvalues which are the financial condition coefficients (or betas in limpdep® terminology). there were five audit disclaimers that reduced the number to 228 municipalities over the 4 years. the results can be found in figure 3. figure 3: calculation betas over the 4 years: 2012/2013–2015/2016. this gives rise to table 2. table 2: coefficients of financial condition. the financial condition function g(x) for south african local government is as follows: these individual municipal µ-scores with the following gradation scale were compared with brown’s (1993) original 10-point score and the auditor-general’s description (rsa, dof 2012a) (see table 3). table 3: comparison of financial condition index with brown’s 10-point score. from figure 4, it is clear that most municipalities fall between 0.28 and 0.57, with a negative skewedness of −0.57, which is less than −2, making it a normal distribution. this indicates that although municipalities are on average doing well, they are becoming increasingly financially distressed. thus, despite an inherently negative fiscal framework, municipalities endeavour to ensure that they become as financially sustainable as possible. this could be attributed to operation clean audit (rsa, cogta 2009b) and competency upskilling of chief financial officers through the municipal regulations on minimum competency levels (rsa, dof 2007). figure 4: financial condition by rank. the finding that 10.5% (or 24) of municipalities are financially sustainable aligns well to a study by afrika rating (2016) and confirms the findings of mkhize (2018), who stated that only 7% of municipalities are financially healthy, and the rest were either in fiscal distress (60%) or on the verge of becoming distressed. these figures exclude the five municipalities with audit disclaimers. table 4 shows that two peer-reviewed studies support the results of this research. the first is ritonga’s (2014) study on the financial condition index for indonesian municipalities. his gradation scores for indonesia are consistent with the findings of this study. this is of critical importance because indonesia shares similar developmental attributes as south africa. table 4: comparing ritonga’s index to the financial condition index. the second peer-reviewed study is a south african study by coetzee and kleynhans (2019). even though the study was limited to kwazulu-natal, it found the province to have an average index score between 0.40 and 0.44. this score is compared to this research, which has shown that the average µ-score for kwazulu-natal is 0.44, as shown in figure 5. therefore, the study supports the µ-score as an absolute score applicable to the south african local government environment. figure 5: average financial conditions by province over 4-year period. converse to this study, ncube and vacu (2014), using kloha et al.’s (2005) methodology, concluded that there was an improvement in the financial health of municipalities over the same period. this is supported by the skewness of the 139 out of 228 municipalities being above average. however, in reality, the fiscal health of municipalities has indeed regressed, contrary to their conclusion. this could have been because ncube and vacu (2014), while using kloha’s method, did not use the standard gasb composite ratios recommended by kloha et al. (2005). rather, they opted to use conventional singular ratios from national treasury under mfma circular 71 (rsa, dof 2014) that do not include service-level solvency. this view supports the need to not only consider singular financial indicators, but also incorporate service delivery solvency as defined under financial condition (figure 6). figure 6: normal distribution of financial condition scores. descriptive statistical analysis using principal component and reliability analyses gave the following determination on efficacy, robustness and consistency (see table 5). table 5: principal component analysis. the principal component analysis (pca) and the normal distribution chart show that the µ-score is dependent on the population density of the local government; the greater the density, the higher the probability that it will be financially sustainable. this finding was similar to other studies in the united states (ladd 1992; wang et al. 2007). this is provided that the municipality does not enter into large long-term obligations, as in the case of the city of johannesburg, with a µ-score of 0.10. the normal distribution chart further supports the efficacy of the results. the reliability analysis performed a cronbach’s alpha test for the fiscal years 2012/2013 to 2015/2016, the results of which are presented in table 6. table 6: scale reliability statistics. the cronbach’s alphas for the respective years are shown in table 7. an alpha score of more than 0.70 indicates that the results are reliable and consistent. the consistency spread over the 4 years makes the financial condition function g(x) robust and reliable. table 7: cronbach’s alphas for financial scores from 2012/2013 to 2015/2016. the results on financial condition that were used in this study offer a table of the µ-scores for south african metropolitan and local municipalities (see appendix 1). the single outlier, tlkowe local municipality with a µ-score of 1.24, was removed from the table. with only one outlier from 228 municipalities, this indicates that the financial condition function g(x) is robust. discussion the financial condition function g(x) for south african local government was solved as follows: this solution supports maher and nollenberger’s (2009) fiscal model that within the south african local government fiscal framework, the higher the µ-score, the greater the financial sustainability of a municipality. it is observed that the absolute value of negative coefficients (0.68) is greater than those with positive attributes: cash and budget solvency at 0.59. this means that the current fiscal framework of south african local government is negative or leads to greater fiscal distress. thus, the dysfunctionality of local government should not only be viewed as a result of poor financial governance and lack of skills but also caused by an adverse fiscal framework. on the positive side, although the fiscal framework for south african local government is distressed, most municipalities had a µ-score between 0.30 and 0.52. this indicates that despite fiscal pressures the drive by the national treasury to enforce fiscal prudence is paying off. this supports ncube and vacu’s (2014) conclusion of improved financial health but fails to explain the increasing fiscal distress recorded by the auditor-general and the skewedness of −0.57. the financial condition function g(x) ‘long-term debt’ variable has the greatest negative impact on the financial health of a municipality by a weight of 0.64. thus, any increase in the financial indebtedness of a municipality will have an adverse impact on service delivery. this is observed in the 2012/2013 and 2014/2015 fiscal years when the back to basics programme, aimed at increasing service delivery, was launched (rsa, cogta 2014). the financial condition function g(x) indicates that the best way to offset this is through improved budgetary solvency as it has a positive impact on service delivery. this confirms the current research that the greatest threat for financial sustainability of south african local government is the ability to manage expenditure and long-term obligations (salga 2015). the financial condition function g(x) shows that cash solvency has a limited impact on the financial sustainability of local government. this is contrary to the national treasury’s policy where it is used as a key financial indicator of liquidity, insisting that municipalities must have a 3 months’ cash cover. considering the constitutional mandate of local government is service delivery and not funds retention indicates that the financial condition function g(x) reflects this mandate. however, it makes the ability of municipalities to have a budgetary solvency or cash-based budgeting crucial to achieve financial sustainability. this gives impetus to revisit national treasury’s traditional financial management approach as its success is limited (hrüza 2013; ntliziywana 2013). although the coefficient for service delivery is low at 0.04, it has a negative impact on the sustainability of local government entities. thus, the greater the ability of a municipality to deliver services to its communities, the higher the probability that it will become fiscally distressed. this supports the observation that the provisioning of each utility (water, energy, sanitation and waste) is not cost reflective. this results in property tax subsidising loss-making revenue streams. as a consequence, the annual increase in property tax exceeds other tariffs. this is contrary to mfma circular 64 (rsa, dof 2012b), which assumes that, if well managed, these tariffs will result in improved revenue management. a case in point of this skewed fiscal model is illustrated through service tariffs. section 74(2) of the local government municipal systems act (rsa 2000) states that tariffs must reflect the costs reasonably associated with rendering the service, including capital, operating, maintenance, administration and replacement costs, and interest charges in deriving revenue. in the case of eskom, the largest energy supplier to municipalities, electricity cost tariffs (to the municipalities) are set at the start of the eskom fiscal year in march, but the municipality can only implement demand price tariffs (to the consumer) at the start of the local government fiscal year in july. as a result, during the winter months between march and july, municipalities subsidise consumers for a product that they sell at below cost. therefore, municipalities only receive 0.75r, where r is the total revenue possible. this loss is further worsened by the pareto principle that states that 80% of the revenue is derived from the top 20% of the consumer base (koch 1997). these are the large industrial businesses, such as mines, that have the highest price tariffs and revenue. however, they are eskom’s direct customers, leaving municipalities with commercial, government and residential customers with lower price tariffs and revenue. this maximum revenue is denoted by 0.8r while dropping to 0.2r. thus, rmin = 0.15r and rmax = 0.60r. maximum revenue rmax is not 100% because of lost streams that include the culture of non-payment among townships that are historically serviced by eskom. in the financial condition function g(x), this revenue settles the long-term debt variable such as with eskom. with the highest coefficient of 0.64 it indicates that municipalities where eskom has no presence are able to cover 0.60 of the long-term debt, leaving 0.04 of the debt settled by water and other levies. where municipalities are mining towns, their ability to cover long-term debt remains with 0.49 of the long-term debt. with electricity more than 50% of revenue generated by municipalities, this leaves an outstanding 0.34 of the long-term debt weight not covered. this results in the municipalities at this low end of the spectrum spiralling into a fiscal quagmire. even at the top end of the spectrum, the financial condition function g(x) shows that the collective debt is mathematically impossible to be liquidated without adversely affecting the health of the local governments. consequently, the number of local governments that are unable to pay eskom increases. a press release from eskom states that the debt by september 2018 stood at r34 billion of which 50% is for the townships of soweto. möller (2019:1) in this press release states: municipal debt continues to rise, and this has become unsustainable. municipal debt is no longer just an eskom problem, it is a national problem. the press release belies that when eskom demand tariffs are plotted against the consumer price index (cpi) from 1988 to 2017, they have increased by 356% compared to cpi at 74% (moolman 2018). this is indicative of poor financial governance. poor financial governance is further compounded when price tariffs are set in july; they are not cost reflective as high increases are absorbed by municipalities. this is synonymous to providing the service at a loss. added to this, eskom charges interest after 15 days on submission of invoice compared to the legislated 30 days. this results in irregular expenditure on the part of the municipality. when the municipality opts to pay as per legislation, the interest incurred is deemed wasteful expenditure. the municipal council is empowered to recoup the ‘wasteful expenditure’ from the accounting officer as prescribed in mfma circular 68 (rsa, dof 2003). the financial condition function g(x) shows that under the current local government fiscal regime, it is not possible for municipalities to comply with section 74(2)(d) and (e) of the local government municipal systems act (rsa 2000). any expectations that at some point in the future eskom will finally recoup monies owed by municipalities should be dispelled: there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. this is exacerbated by the falling in prices for going off-the-grid solutions with the lifetime cost of energy (lcoe) dropping. for example, the city of tshwane has an lcoe of r0.87/kwh over 11 years. this is lower than the average municipal electricity costs of r1.09/kwh (ayanna 2018). on the other hand, demand price tariffs keep escalating, making municipal energy services less and less economically attractive. this means that if the current fiscal framework is not reviewed, it could in the future result in an irreversible loss of municipal revenue as more consumers move off the grid. in conclusion, despite the objectives of section 73(2) of the local government municipal system act (rsa 2000), the financial condition function g(x) concludes that the current local government fiscal framework is not sustainable, leading to further fiscal distress even under good financial governance. section 139(8) of the constitution of the republic of south africa states that: ‘national legislation may regulate the implementation of this section [on fiscal distress], including processes established by this section’ (rsa 1996:98). the absence of legislation permits municipalities to invoke section 151(4) of the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa 1996), which prohibits other spheres of government interfering in the affairs of a local government. this ambiguity in legislation makes placing a municipality under administration a political rather than administrative decision. an example is the city of tshwane. with the lowest µ-score of −0.02, it should have been placed under administration in 2012/2013. to avoid this scenario, it is proposed to draft legislation to effect section 139(8) that is balanced against local governments’ qualified autonomy enshrined in section 151(3) of the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa 1996). limitations the financial condition function g(x) is based on maher and nollenberger’s (2009) methodology applied using econometric modelling. it captures the gradations of local governments’ financial condition as well as putting them in a strong position to predict fiscal distress using general fund data. however, there is critique of maher and nollenberger’s (2009) model, and econometric tools in general. these include jones and walker (2007) who posit that the use of general fund data is limited to closed financial systems and does not incorporate socio-economic conditions such as unstable or weak coalition governments. their impact is incorporated into pseudo-open and open financial systems. this debate is best resolved by setting the parameters based on the objectives of the study in question (dollery, byrnes & crase 2007). the closed financial system of four financial ratios in this article offers an explanation as to why local governments in south africa are becoming more and more fiscally unviable. this is despite the improvement in service delivery through increased community access to basic services. conclusion cooperative governance and traditional affairs has implemented three initiatives: project consolidate (2004–2009), lgtas (2009–2014) and the back to basics programme (2014–2018). their common aim was to address municipal financial sustainability, but none had tangible success. there is no indication about why the current back to basics programme ii of 2018 is expected to have a greater success without rectifying the fiscal structural defects. thus, concurrent to addressing the lack of skills capacity and poor financial governance, a review of the fiscal framework needs to be made for municipalities to attain audit outcomes without material findings that are also financially sustainable. to address the skills deficit, the anc as the ruling party should review its cadre deployment policy of 1996 by putting the interests of the state above those of the party. the national treasury’s use of traditional measurements of financial position that apply singular ratios (rsa, dof 2014) to determine financial sustainability have been eclipsed by the introduction of financial condition in 2004 which uses composite ratios (usa, gasb 2004). (this is the year after the enactment of the local government municipal finance management act [rsa 2003]). this article goes a step further by advocating the financial condition function g(x) to unpack fiscal structures that underpin financial condition. it is evident that national treasury needs to overhaul its traditional financial management approach towards local government in order for it to truly become the face of democracy. as the financial condition function g(x) illustrates, the national treasury has to intervene in an increasing number of municipalities becoming financially unviable. this results in municipalities seeking financial support from national and provincial spheres by invoking section 139 of the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa 1996), together with section 150 of the mfma (rsa 2003). as a result, it is difficult for bulk utility providers like eskom to cut off services to municipalities because of non-payment. the custodian of the mfma is the national treasury. this makes the national treasury the architect of the local government fiscal framework. in its construction, it failed to acknowledge that local government has a transactional structure as opposed to the administrative nature of the other two spheres of government (national and provincial). as a result, the focus on the skills deficit as the de facto cause of poor financial governance undermines the national treasury’s ability to make appropriate structural reforms. if this is not attended to, it will reach such levels that the national fiscus can no longer support unsustainable local governments, as required by law. this, in turn, will adversely affect south africa’s sovereign rating. it could not have been better articulated than by the minister of finance, who said; ‘south africa’s approach to tackling economic issues has not changed since the 1980’s, even though society’s structure has fundamentally changed’ (mboweni 2018). in conclusion, fiscal research focuses on the modelling of financial condition per jurisdiction and analysing the resultant data. the assumption is that the fiscal framework is robust and conducive for sustainable local government. this article stresses the importance of constructing the financial condition function g(x) as a mechanism to better understand the underlying fiscal structures. the article confirms that in the absence of an appropriate structure, financial condition analysis alone will not lead to financially viable local governments. acknowledgements competing interests the author has declared that no competing interest exists. views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references afrika rating, 2016, 60% of key municipalities in financial trouble, viewed from https://www.moneyweb.co.za/…africa/60-key-municipalities-financial-trouble-ratings. altman, e., 1968, ‘financial ratios, discriminant analysis and the prediction of corporate bankruptcy’, journal of finance 1986, 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1968.tb00843.x ayanna, m.b., 2018, energy autonomous campus solar pv plant procurement process, construction, performance monitoring and quality assurance, centre for scientific and industrial research (csir) energy centre, johannesburg. ben-elia, n., 1998, the municipal crisis in israel: the management failure and the challenge of recovery, the floersheimer institute for policy studies, jerusalem, israel. berne, r. & schramm, r., 1986, the financial statement analysis, prentice-hall press, new york. brown, k.w., 1993, ‘the 10-point test for financial condition. toward an easy-to-use assessment tool for smaller cities’, government finance review 9, 21–26. carmeli, a. & cohen, a., 2001, ‘the financial crisis of the local authorities in israel: a resource-based analysis’, public administration 79(4), 893–913. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00285 chaney, b.a., mead, d.m. & schermann, k.r., 2002, ‘the new governmental financial reporting model: what it means for analyzing government financial condition’, the journal of government financial management 51(1), 26. clark, t.n., ferguson, l.c. & shapiro, r.y., 1982, ‘functional performance analysis: a new approach to the study of municipal expenditures and debt’, political methodology 8(2), 87–123. coe, c.k., 2008, ‘preventing local government fiscal crises: emerging best practices’, public administration review 68(4), 759–767. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00913.x coetzee, c. & kleynhans, e., 2019, ‘modelling municipal financial conditions in kwazulu-natal – a unique model for kwazulu-natal’, southern african business review 23(1), 1–25. dollery, b., byrnes, j. & crase, l., 2007, ‘is bigger better? 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(no. 201104), university of pretoria, pretoria. south african local government association (salga), 2015, debt owed to municipalities. critical success factors to billing, viewed n.d., from www.salga.org.za/. twala, c., 2014, ‘the african national congress (anc) and the cadre deployment policy in the post-apartheid south africa: a product of democratic centralism or a recipe for a constitutional crisis?’, journal of social sciences 41(2), 159–165. wang, x., dennis, l. & tu, y.s.j., 2007, ‘measuring financial condition: a study of us states’, public budgeting & finance 27(2), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5850.2007.00872.x united states governmental accounting standards board (gasb), 2004, statement no. 44. economic condition reporting, viewed n.d., from http://www.gasb.org/st/summary/gstsm44.html. van der waldt, g., 2012, ‘measuring the goodness of governance: macro, intermediate and micro perspectives’, african journal of public affairs 5(1), 83–96. van onselen, g., 2012, south african political dictionary, viewed n.d., from https://inside-politics.org. appendix 1 table 1-a1: financial condition scores by rank. table 1-a1 (continues…): financial condition scores by rank. table 1-a1 (continues…): financial condition scores by rank. table 1-a1 (continues…): financial condition scores by rank. abstract introduction and background research design: context, methodology and data generation findings and discussions discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) selloane pitikoe research office, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation pitikoe, s., 2018, ‘turning the herding lifestyle into a learning opportunity: experiences from lesotho’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a521. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.521 original research turning the herding lifestyle into a learning opportunity: experiences from lesotho selloane pitikoe received: 07 nov. 2017; accepted: 31 july 2018; published: 15 nov. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article addresses the complex ways through which basotho herders acquired indigenous knowledge (ik) through their herding practice. for centuries, basotho males have practiced livestock herding as an alternative form of employment while also perceiving it as a quicker way of accruing personal livestock wealth. this socio-economic discourse has further rendered male basotho at a disadvantage in terms of education access because of the semi-nomadic nature of herding and the inaccessibility of the herding topography. the article draws on data collected using semi-structured interviews, as well as the photovoice and the transect walk techniques, conducted with a group of 30 male basotho herders aged between 18 and 45 years, representative of the highlands, foothills and the lowlands of lesotho. this article aims to address two research objectives. firstly, it interrogates how basotho herders learn through herding. secondly, it explores how the empirical findings harvested from this article can inform lesotho’s non-formal education policy and practice reform. it was discovered that herding comprises a wealth of undocumented ik, which comes in two forms: local science and local practice knowledge. finally, the article suggests ways that lesotho’s mainstream education may consider reforming the current education policy and practice. it is anticipated that this article will significantly contribute to the ik scholarship elsewhere in the world on issues pertaining to livestock herding and herders’ access to education. introduction and background this article addresses the complex ways through which basotho herders acquire indigenous knowledge (ik) through their herding practice. evidence reveals that basotho perceive herding as a cultural rite of passage that transforms males into ‘real basotho men’, who are considered responsible and resilient enough to withstand the shocks and stresses of life (johnson 2016). while in the past, herding was a binding practice for all basotho males, of lately the popularity of herding is seen and felt in the rural areas of lesotho while the urban-based males enrol in formal education programmes (pitikoe 2017). this is because animal husbandry forms the main livelihood source for rural communities as opposed to the formal labour market opportunities that the urban-based citizenry has. pitikoe and preece (2016) agree with the ministry of education and training (moet 2005) that most basotho males assume the herding role at a very tender age – from as young as 3 years, when they are legally expected to begin their pre-primary education. for basotho males, livestock herding satisfies both the social and economic needs. for instance, some males join the herding fraternity as an alternative employment where the proceeds become a resource for poverty alleviation. in lesotho and elsewhere in the world, males are culturally socialised as providers for their families; hence they become the first-line resort to look up to when families become financially incapacitated (pitikoe & preece 2016). pitikoe (2016), ratau (1988), morojele (2009) and makoa and zwilling (2005) are in agreement that the age at which herding begins and the sociocultural perception of herding coupled with poverty bear heavily on male basotho’s access to education, such that for them herding is an important remedy for addressing immediate needs while the benefits of education are enjoyed at a later stage in life. nonetheless, evidence reveals that herding generates a wealth of undocumented herding ik that basotho herders use in order to cope with their daily herding routine. this knowledge is an informal product of social learning and interaction with their peers, the environment and the elders. subsequently, the engagement that the herders have with both the conceptual and theoretical abstractions of ik construction indicates the potential contribution that ik can make in developing the curriculum of all forms of pedagogical teaching and learning in lesotho. the small country of lesotho was under british rule from 1868 until it finally became independent in 1966 (gill 1993). however, colonial development left among others a very small rugged portion of land approximated at 30 355 km2 (11 000 square miles) (ministry of health and social welfare 2009), situated at an average elevation of 1800 m, where 80% of the total area is covered with mountains that make a suitable habitat for livestock farming (mohsw 2009). there are four main geographic regions in lesotho – the highlands, foothills, the senqu river valley and the lowlands. johnson (2016:1) argues that the inaccessible topography coupled with the extreme highland weather conditions remain a challenge for herders’ access to the service providers as much as it does if the reverse is the case to providers, who are unable to reach basotho herders in order to provide them with social services such as health and education. johnson further posits that in extreme cases, this inaccessibility results in ‘at least 5–20 herdboys [who] die from being snow-trapped in the mountains, sometimes alone’. located within her only neighbour, south africa, places lesotho’s economy at the mercy of south africa in terms of import and exports. as a result, the sociocultural and political as well as economic changes that affect south africa’s economy reverberate into lesotho (government of lesotho [gol] 2015). lesotho’s male–female ratio is 1.03 (97 males to 100 females) (gol 2015). an estimated 70% out of a total population of 2 243 676 basotho reside in the impoverished rural areas of lesotho (ibid). the government of lesotho (2015) further posits that the most poverty-stricken sectors of the population are the elderly and the youth aged between 15 and 35 years old. pitikoe and preece (2016; 2017) echo (pitikoe & morojele 2017) that the patriarchal nature of basotho reinforces gendered social roles and responsibilities, where males are associated with leadership roles and the responsibility to protect and provide for their families, in the process placing livestock herding in the male domain. basotho associate herding with wealth and masculinity identity construction that every male mosotho strives for (pitikoe 2017). baloyi (2014), choabi (2016); letsosa and semenya (2011); maloka (1998), matšela (1979) and opong (1997; 2004) all agree that livestock wealth is central to cultural rituals and feasts such as funerals, appeasing the ancestors and payment of lobola – dowry. if a family experiences misfortunes or bad luck, the general belief is either that it is a manifestation of evil forces or the unhappiness of the ancestors. in such cases, a divine healer is approached to seek guidance on how to bring back luck. matšela (1979) agrees with opong (1997; 2004) that upon completion of a divine healing, the divine healer gets paid with a live cow. equally important, pitikoe (2016) agrees with ratau (1988) in the recognition of ‘male identity construction’ through livestock wealth. further important is the number and variety of livestock owned by the family head (the older male who is in charge of the family). just as important is the herding experience that a male mosotho has – his ability to withstand the adversity of herding denotes toughness that was constructed through the herding rite of passage. herding is also perceived as a potentially quicker way of accumulating personal livestock wealth, in that those who herd animals (for either their families or their employers) are remunerated with livestock as an induction process into their future role as livestock owners. such herders would, in turn, give their accrued livestock a personalised and distinct ear mark (pitikoe & morojele 2017). lefoka (2007), johnson (2016), morojele (2009) and nthunya (1996) studied herding in lesotho, where they identify herding as a convenient employment opportunity for those males who did not have an opportunity to participate in any form of education or had to drop out of the system before completion. studies on herding (makoa & zwilling 2005, nthunya 1996, ratau 1988, morojele 2009 and opong 1997) all concur that such herders usually seek employment from the local wealthy livestock owners for a minimum social contract (verbal or written) of 12 months, upon completion of which they are remunerated with live animals, whose number and type is determined by the employer such that it equates to the current market value for a live cow. it can therefore be argued that the high influx of rural-based basotho males into the herding fraternity may be driven by the need to secure personal livestock wealth so that they can befit from the public identity status of being ‘real basotho men’. the problem statement in lesotho, the education system mainly comprises formal and non-formal education (nfe) under the guardianship of the moet (2005). while the former receives full financial support from the government, the latter is considered to be a second class provision that is meant for those learners who do not qualify for enrolment in institutions of higher learning. therefore, it does not enjoy as much government will and support (pitikoe & preece 2016). it is also noteworthy that lesotho’s policy documents on nfe and open distance learning are still in their draft forms, a situation that makes it even harder for nfe programmes to be perceived as worthy of support (moet 2005). while formal education is doing well with regards to financial and resource-based support, the provision also lags behind in the enforcement of education acquisition for all basotho. lesotho has responded to the international policy environment urging poverty eradication and provision of universal and compulsory education (pitikoe 2016). to that effect, education in lesotho is indeed compulsory but not binding. this is because the education act of 2010, whose mandate is to make education binding and accessible to all children of school going age (6 years and above), has delayed its launch. this delay coupled with the current political instability leave a window of opportunity for parents and livestock owners to choose whether to take their children to formal schooling or not. while nfe remains in the periphery in terms of support, its flexible nature and limited confinement within the traditional classroom makes it a better suited provision for the herders (pitikoe & preece 2016; 2017). currently, nfe in lesotho is offered by non-governmental organisations (ngos), who are donor-funded and donor-driven (pitikoe 2017). therefore, the curriculum is donor-driven and has not been customised to meet the local education needs of basotho. indigenous knowledge has been in existence in africa and elsewhere in the world for time immemorial. it has always been recognised for its holistic nature (non-compartmentalised), where teaching and learning are incorporated into the daily routine (magni 2016). however, the oral nature of ik implies a wealth of undocumented ik and its potential contribution to teaching and learning practice. following the colonial introduction of conventional education, because of the impression that education was a foreign concept in lesotho, ik has been relegated to a lower standard to that of formal education (pitikoe & morojele 2017). this gap misinforms decision-making processes on how to tap on existing ik in order to decolonise lesotho’s current education provision. lesotho introduced free primary education (fpe) in 2000 with the intension to accommodate all school-aged out-of-school basotho children to access education (moet 2005). while fpe significantly increased lesotho’s literacy statistics, the gender disparity in education access still remains. seemingly, the introduction of fpe was premature, and hence it was unable to provide sufficient infrastructural and human capital to drive the process forward. therefore, both adults’ and children’s classes were combined. the classroom overcrowding, resulted in less time allocated for individual face-to-face consultations, in the process demotivating adult learners who had high hopes for their future; hence, there was high learner dropout to join the herding fraternity while leaving behind the girls to continue with formal education (moet 2001a; 2001b). the high male dropout rate may be attributable to some unknown attractive features of herding that are lacking in the formal provision but known only to the herders, in the process making herding more appealing to their education needs. ratau (1988), nthunya (1996) and makoa and zwilling (2005) agree on the significant contribution that herding makes to masculine identity construction. however, what is lacking in the literature is how herders learn while herding, the gap that this article seeks to address. additionally, the literature does not provide a detailed perspective from the herders on how lesotho can integrate ik into the formal provision in such a way that the mainstream provision can be more appealing to their educational needs; this will be explored further in this article. theoretical framework the findings in this article are filtered through the ik theory. recent studies on ik (frąckowiak 2017; johnson 2016; magni 2016; ngozwana 2014; nyiraruhimbi 2012; osborne, cutter & ullah 2015; pitikoe & morojele 2017) all refer to ik as localised knowledge that is generated and owned by the local communities. however, in this article i borrow the definition of ik by odora hoppers (2017a), who refers to ik as: knowledge that is held and used by a people who identify themselves as indigenous to a place based on a combination of cultural distinctiveness and prior territorial occupancy relative to a more recently arrived population with its own distinct and subsequently dominant culture. (p. 4) this definition views ik as deeply rooted within the cultural homogeneity of the indigenous community as a guide to their fundamental ways of life. recent studies (johnson 2016; ngozwana 2014) all concur that ik is dynamic and orally passed on from older generations to the younger ones. nyiraruhimbi (2012), on the other hand, identifies three types of ik as follows. firstly, ik is a local science: deliberate knowledge that has been generated over time using the local technologies – for instance using traditional herbs, also cited in moteetee and van wyk (2011). secondly, ik is the local memory: a product of socialisation and memorisation of knowledge, such as in reciting poems. the third category is that of local practice, which refers to unconsciously constructed knowledge using the trial and error technique. one example would be the decoration of the herders’ grey blanket. the global outcry for member states to appraise the significant role that ik can play in development has been underscored under goal 4 of the sustainable development goals (osborne et al. 2015). while most scholars agree that one of the limitations of ik is its oral nature, which limits its replicability beyond the local context, world bank (1998) identifies six steps through which developing member states can share ik as follows: recognition and identification: which involves discrete mixing of local technologies or cultural values. validation: which emphasises the need to assess the significance and relevance of ik in relation to its reliability, functionality, effectiveness and transferability in problem-solving. recording and documentation: while this still remains a current challenge, the world bank advocates for a strategic move that uses modern technology to capture and preserve existing ik such as tapes, audio clips, drawings, photography, as a few of the resources to tap into. storage in retrievable repositories: under this step, the emphasis is exploring other storage means that move beyond the traditional confinement into print and media-based digital storage technologies such as films, videos, blogs, books and gene banks as some of the examples. transfer: this step goes beyond a mere knowledge conveyance to application of the new knowledge in a small, controlled new environment such as pilot studies in order to test its efficacy. dissemination: for a wider consumption that benefits developmental initiatives through the impact of the ripple effect of knowledge on such knowledge transfer. indigenous knowledge scholars underscore the importance of the local communities’ voice being heard in developing initiatives that aim to change their lives for the better (preece 2013). similarly, webb (2017) underscores the need for an african research rebirth for an inclusive knowledge production. moreover, odora hoppers (2017b) suggests a need for new strategies that will disenfranchise the epistemological education into an encompassing african human development initiative that builds on the existing knowledge. these arguments place community participation on a pedestal in order to effectively promote change at community level. in this article, ik becomes a theoretical frame of reference through which the findings of this article will be filtered. the author also explores ways which lesotho can use the findings to inform the education policy and practice reform. this understanding will further inform lesotho’s nfe provision and practice in order to address the herders’ learning and educational needs. studies from lesotho (lefoka 2007, pitikoe 2016 and morojele 2009) all agree that herding is semi-nomadic and mostly practised in the hard-to-reach areas of lesotho, in the interim making social services such as education and health inaccessible (pitikoe 2016). nonetheless, more rural-based basotho males continue to move into the herding community seeking employment opportunities for poverty alleviation (lefoka 2007). while education is a basic right for every human being, seemingly, poverty is one of the impediments to education access (undp 2012). this article seeks to address two research objectives. firstly, it interrogates basotho herders’ ways of learning ik through herding. secondly, the article explores ways through which the empirical findings harvested from this article can inform lesotho’s nfe policy and reform process. in order to address these two objectives, the outline of the article is as follows. in the following sections i present the research design followed by the findings and discussions. finally, i will present the conclusion section. research design: context, methodology and data generation design this qualitative study used the interpretivist paradigm (chilisa & preece 2005) and the narrative life history approach in order to generate the herders’ data on ik constructions. the article aims to address two objectives: firstly, it interrogates basotho herders’ ways of learning through herding. secondly, it explores how the empirical findings can inform lesotho’s nfe policy reform. context the study was conducted in the highlands, lowlands and foothills of lesotho. the highlands cover 80% of the total area of lesotho, and the ruggedness of this geographic zone makes it highly suitable for animal husbandry in the form of cattle post herding because of the fertile pasture lands. the lowlands, on the other hand, occupy only 10% of the total area and they are considered arable and suitable for crop husbandry, and the foothills and the senqu river valley share the remaining 10% out of the total area (mohsw 2009). communities living in the foothills combine crop and animal husbandry. the study participants represented the following communities: in the highlands, linakeng in thaba tseka district; linakaneng in mokhotlong district; khalong la baroa in maseru district; malimong in berea district; ’melikane in qacha’s nek district and ’matšooana in thaba tseka district. the foothills communities comprised makhaleng in mohale’s hoek district; matelile in mafeteng district and nazareth in maseru district. the lowlands group came from ha tsolo in maseru district; ha motloheloa in maseru district and selakhapane in berea district. population and sampling in order to avoid selection bias, the sampling process excluded the participation of the cattle post owners, as the herders’ employers and the community leaders by virtue of their leadership and potential vested interest in the herding practice. instead, i firstly compared the characteristics of the understudied phenomenon in this case, being basotho herders, with my research objectives as highlighted in rakotsoane and rakotsoane (2007). secondly, i based my selection on the cost-effectiveness, accessibility and manageable procedural demands as my key prerequisites for a good project sample as cited in ekaju (2011). therefore, in this study a theoretical sample was adopted instead of a representative one. out of an estimated total of 22 000 (matope 2011) basotho herders, the study snowballed into 30 herders aged between 18 and 45 years. this sampling was enabled through the partnership that i had already solicited with monna ka khomo herdboys association of lesotho (gatekeepers on issues pertaining to the herders), which then came in handy in the identification of the key informants who had membership in the association. the involvement of the key informants helped me to further identify and locate other herders with similar characteristics. the eligibility criteria for participation included the following: age range of between 18 and 45 male adults cattle post life background (for both current and former herders) prior participation in formal and nfe intended for the herders. initially, i had intended to distribute the number of the participants equally across the three geographical zones. however, given the observations made during the study, some alterations were effected with regard to the numbers. for instance, while there were more cattle posts in the highlands, none existed in the lowlands, which called for a need to increase the highland numbers in order to compensate for the lowland figures. also, the richness of the data that came from the highlands herders justified the increase in numbers, as more time was spent in the highlands, where herders seemed more open and willing for their voices to be heard amidst the remoteness of their location. in the end, the representation of the participants across the three regions was as follows: i had 13 highlands participants; 10 foothills participants and 8 lowlands participants. data collection chilisa and preece (2005) assert that the findings of good research come from individualised rather than generalised responses. this notion informed the choice and use of interviews, which are categorised among the central data collection methods as stated in arthur et al. (2012). arthur et al. caution that in choosing this method, the researcher has to be familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of the tool beforehand. i selected the interview method because it enabled me to ask probing questions of the respondents, with the opportunity to ask for clarification or elaboration if required. the study employed semi-structured interviews and photovoice as well as transect walks as the data collection techniques. before embarking on the data collection process i had to carefully consider some of the potential barriers that may have hampered the process. firstly, i took into consideration the tight schedule of events for my phd study and carefully maximised the use of the limited financial resources within the tight phd programme. given the adversity of lesotho’s climate, particularly the highlands winter where heavy snowfalls are not foreign, care was taken to collect data in the highlands against the seasonal shift. the interviews were administered by the researcher onsite while the herders were busy with their daily herding routing. this approach enabled the researcher to observe the herding lifestyle while also picking up some of the non-verbal herding communication. most importantly, it enabled me to have first-hand experience of entering a male-dominated cattle post area, which is renowned for safety and security threats for females. williams and metz (2014) opine that the photovoice technique gives the voiceless members of the society an opportunity to voice issues of concern to their lives. in my study i had initially planned to purchase at least 30 disposable cameras that were to be left with each herder so that they could take pictures of things that mattered most in their herding life at their own time. it was also assumed that time would be set aside where the herders would present and elaborate more on the pictures that they took. however, given the budgetary constraints, the initial plan did not see the light of the day. instead, i used both my blackberry phone and my digital camera to take pictures. then i uploaded the pictures to my laptop and saved them using different folders that bore the herders’ nicknames. a date was set where the herders described the importance of the photos in their personal as well as herding lives. the transect walk empowers local communities with context-specific problem-solving skills (shar, kambou & monahan 1999), while also opening an opportunity for the researcher to probe further on issues that may have emerged during the interview. in this study the transect walks were conducted in the company of another herder who was identified as knowledgeable about the surrounding environment, given the length of time that he had served as a herder based in that particular location. during the tour, i sketched the route in the field journal and also did an audio recording of the conversation that took place during the tour. at the end of the tour we gathered the herders together to discuss the findings of the tour and also presented the schematic map to the herders for them to verify and fill in the missing information. these data collection tools and the participatory approach that the study employed significantly contributed in the establishment of a wealth of resourceful herding ik and the holistic manner through which herders learned from their herding practice. the onsite data collection not only established the complexities of the herding context but also examined first-hand experiences of the underlying life stories of basotho herders. the language used for collecting data was sesotho (language of basotho) in order to allow the participants to express themselves fully in the language that they were comfortable with while at the same time maintaining research integrity, trust and rapport. in her argument, odora hoppers (2017b) points to the need for research methods to promote ownership of the findings by the beneficiaries. the article used semi-structured interviews in both the participatory data collection techniques of photovoice and the transect walk. photovoice enabled the herders to express and reflect their unknown realities into the public arena to facilitate policy change (williams & metz 2014). while the transect walk empowered the local communities such as basotho herders with context-specific problem-solving skills (shar et al. 1999) it also helped the researcher to probe the herders’ perspective on the historical background of the local resources, how the resources were used and distributed and how they foresaw the future of their land use. in this study three transect walks were conducted – one per geographical region. the different geographical areas presented variations in the lifestyles of the local communities who resided in these three geographical zones. for instance, the lowlands evidenced the communities’ engagement in crop farming while the foothills and the highlands were primarily animal husbandry with minimal crop farming; hence the cattle posts were identified in larger numbers. additionally, the highlands and foothills had a massive presence of natural resources for pastureland, the feature that was lacking in the lowlands. data analysis the collected data were inductively analysed by translations from sesotho into english, carefully using the audio recorder to listen to the taped conversations and translating them verbatim. this process helped to identify similar patterns and themes on ways in which basotho herders learned through herding. the transcripts were also reread in order for the researcher to be familiar with the data and any possible emergent subthemes. the author revisited the objectives in order to link them to the collected data, the literature discussions and the interpretivist nature of the study as well as the theoretical lens of the study. in order to understand how basotho herders learned, the study used the following five questions: what is your highest level of education? what do you like or dislike about your herding job? what learning have you acquired through herding? how did you acquire that learning? how is that knowledge benefitting you in your herding practice? ethical consideration the study observed all the necessary ethical considerations during and after the study. these included seeking ethical clearance from the university of kwazulu-natal’s research office. additionally, the following stakeholders were contacted to seek their consent for the study. the ministry of education and training in lesotho – department of nfe and the lesotho distance teaching centre. additionally, lesotho association of non-forla education and the monna ka khomo [man by cow] herders association also participated in this study. in acknowledgement that herders were also human beings with basic rights, the author gave the herders a choice to freely participate in the study willingly and ensured that their rights and welfare were protected by using anonymised names in the form of pseudonyms and confidentiality. findings and discussions the findings revealed that herding was indeed resourceful in facilitating herders’ acquisition of ik. it was further found that the interaction that the herders had among themselves, the elders and their herding environment enabled informal learning that was oral in nature and relevant to address the day-to-day challenges of herding life. for instance, the herders learned how to use the traditional herbs to mitigate both human and veterinary healthcare problems. the herders also discovered the ik technologies applicable for healing their livestock. the availability of local resources such as grass and wild animals also became a resource for teaching the herders arts and crafts, where they used both grass and wild animal skins to make sunhats and warm winter hats, respectively. while nyiraruhimbi (2012) categorises ik into three groups – local science, local memory and local practice – this article will only concentrate on local science and local practice knowledge because they seemed to be common among the herders. local science knowledge the local science findings revealed that basotho herders used the traditional herbs found within the herding environment for both human primary healthcare as well as veterinary care. others talked about how they learned about the indigenous technologies from herding. most of the learning came through social interaction among herders or with their elders. in one of the stories it was indicated that some of the skills such as that of being a herbalist are learned from grandfathers: ‘when i came to maseru, i wanted to put my herbalist skills into practice in order to generate income for my family. i learned this skill from my grandfather who was a renowned traditional doctor in my community. i used to follow him around when he went out in the field to dig out the herbs. as time passed on, he became confident that i had learned enough to be able to carry out some simpler healing tasks for him. however, since i am not a spiritually called divine healer i do not consider myself competent enough to carry out complex tasks. therefore, i want my clients to consult the traditional healers first for diagnosis and then come to me for treatment. i have all the different herbs to cure most diseases and problems’. (doctor, 43 years old, male herder) the preceding story reveals the important contribution that interaction makes in ik learning. for instance the doctor did benefit from the social interaction provided through the apprenticeship method (an approach whereby an apprentice is attached to a specialist mentor) of learning, under the watchful eye and mentorship of his grandfather. this story affirms the literature in magni (2016), which underscores the resourcefulness of social interaction in providing learning support. on the other hand, alex (real name withheld), aged 28 years and a bachelor, mentioned how his knowledge of traditional herbs was an outcome of a peer-to-peer social interaction: ‘herding life taught me the different names of the various traditional herbs and the ailments that can be cured with such herbs. i also know how to dig and prepare these herbs before consumption; the knowledge which i have turned into an income-generation activity that targets the tourists. [he picked up a bundle.] this is a bunch of ralikokotoana or monna motšo – translated as ‘the black man’, it grows amongst the cheche bushes. the useful part in this herb is the black bark [hence the name monna motšo], which is used for ‘servicing’ the body. it is tasteless and can either be chewed or boiled. when the bark is chewed, the herb serves as a mild purgative that deals with gall-bladder related problems as well as discharge. it also works very well when mixed with sehala hala sa matlaka. this one is called moli or african potato, which is effective for cleaning the blood as well as blood circulation. i have also recommended qobo to new mothers because of its healing properties, particularly for those women who have just delivered their babies’. (alex, 28 years old, male herder) in this story the acquired herding ik has been shared orally and informally beyond the herding fraternity. much of the acquired knowledge included the names of the various traditional herbs, how those herbs were used and their remedial effects to different ailments. these findings affirm the oral and sharing nature of ik. the role of the peers in facilitating local science knowledge was echoed by semonkong, who further elaborated on how he prepared the herbs before consumption as follows: ‘in order to prepare the medication before boiling, i have to (tula) crush the herbs and then put them to boil for some time to be ready for drinking. then i let them cool and pour into this container to be ready for sale. i sell them either in (lihlopha) bundles so that the customer can prepare the medicine at home or i sell them already boiled and ready for drinking, like what i have in this 5-litre container’. (semonkong, 29 years old, male herder) semonkong identified the different methods that he used in the preparation of the various herbs. in his explanation he mentioned the drying, crushing, boiling and bundling of the herbs before consumption. in some stories, the herders explained the different methods through which they administered traditional herbs: ‘when i feel dizzy or suffer from gall bladder-related ailments, i mix letapisa, hloenya and lengana to induce forced vomiting (ho k’hapha). my parents taught me the effectiveness of this technique and i have been using it without fail from a very tender age because it has never failed me’. [comrade, 30 years old, male herder] on the other hand, the 24-year-old taiwan introduced additional new methods that he used to administer the herbs as follows: ‘in order for me to effectively manage flu-related symptoms, i usually mix phefo and bloukomo in hot water and steam my body (kea futha). when i have a headache, i crush poho tšehla into fine powder and then sniff that powder. the healing effects are always quick because the powder goes directly to the affected area through the nostrils. after a few sneezes, the headache is gone’. (taiwan, 24 years old, male herder) these herbs are also used to treat different illnesses that the livestock present with. some of the knowledge has been acquired from other herders while the other is passed on to the herders by the elders. for instance, linakaneng explained how he attends to his sick livestock: ‘if the animal gets sick, i mix the following: mohalalitoe, makhona tsohle and salt and either give the mixture to the sheep, dry as it is (kea li komisa), or mix with water. the other common herbs, depending on the illness for the sheep, would be sehala hala sa matlaka and monatja’. (linakaneng, 24 years old, male herder) echoed by comrade: ‘i also use some traditional herbs such as aloe, sulphur and blue stene to cure papisi on horses and use hloenya, mohalalitoe and mofifi to cure sheep’. (comrade, 30 years old, male herder) the findings regarding traditional herbs as local science revealed that the traditional herbs can effectively cure different ailments. it was also discovered that these herbs are prepared differently depending on the ailment that they are intended to cure (moteetee & van wyk 2011). basotho herders also administer the traditional herbs differently based on the intended ailments that they are prepared to cure and the desirable herbal preparation for that particular ailment and herb used. the use of local technologies as local science knowledge was also revealed, as well as the benefits in dealing with animal health–related issues. for instance, makau (real name withheld) elaborates on how he acquired ik knowledge from his grandfather as follows: ‘i grew up looking after my maternal grandfather’s livestock and that is where he [grandfather] taught me how to treat a broken leg of a cow using the local technologies. for instance if the cow has broken a rear leg, i take some strong sticks and wrap them around the fractured area for support. i then tie those sticks around the leg using a thin rope and a cloth. the cow will not go out to the grazing area together with others. after sometime when it is able to walk with the broken leg, i loosen the ropes and remove the sticks leaving only the cloth and the rope so that the animal can be able to bend the tissues. failure to do so on time results in a permanent paralysis because the tissues will be too stiff to bend’. (makau, 36 years old, male herder) this story traces the treatment of the broken leg from the onset of the treatment, and the care proceeds until the recovery phase of the animal. the story affirms the findings in recent studies (johnson 2016; ngozwana 2014), which agree that ik is passed on from older generations to younger ones using informal oral methods. local practice the findings presented under this subtheme comprise a variety of creative arts and crafts skills that the herders developed over time while herding. in some cases the herders used animal skins of the very animals that they looked after. for instance, they used cattle and sheepskin to make blankets, sleeping mats, even leather shoes. they also decorated their only universal herder identity artefact (the grey blanket). some hats were also made of mosea (a special grass that is commonly found in the highlands of lesotho) to curb the devastating effects of the sun. the creative skin-crafting skills that the herders acquire through herding are revealed in the story narrated by the 24-year-old herder: ‘among the numerous skills that i acquired through herding is that of making leather shoes – qoatho. these are sandals made out of an animal skin such as goat, cow and a horse. qoatho is a local name that we use for this shoe type in my community of linakaneng… i also make skin ropes – marapo where i use softened cow or horse hide. these ropes are reliable because of their durability’. (linakaneng, 24 years old, male herder) linakaneng’s interests also extend into decorating the herders’ grey blanket: ‘i also decorate the grey blanket as it is one item that identifies basotho herders. in order to do this i collect wool of different colours and then write different catchy english messages on the blanket using my standard 2 class english (equivalence of grade 2 in south africa). this would include the totem, pictures of cars and big houses that i aspire to own in the future. sometimes i draw my animals and guns because the high rate of livestock theft makes animals and guns inseparable’. (linakaneng, 24 years old, male herder) the story of linakaneng reveals the potential opportunity that herding ik has as an income generation initiative, which herders explore as they benefit from the proceeds of their business. he further stated how his business has finally earned him respect from his community because he was economically empowered and able to support his poverty-stricken family. in his own words: ‘batho baea ntlhompha joale [people now respect me]. whenever i go to the village, they always envy my financial achievement …’ (linakaneng, 24 years old, male herder) during the data collection, i had the honour of being invited into linakaneng’s cattle post house, where he revealed how he had transformed the bottom of a 5-litre container into a mini-washing basin just big enough to allow him to wash his face and to wash one foot at a time in order for him to look presentable when he went home for a visit or to replenish his supplies. stories such as this one indicate how herding limits the herders’ access to social services. the story also reveals the important role played by the herding environment as a learning resource for herders. their isolation and remoteness sparks creative ways of thinking and doing in order for them to cope with herding. this story also affirms the arguments presented in odora hoppers (2017b) in that knowledge production has to take into consideration the prior knowledge in order to build on the newly acquired knowledge and skills. in this story, linakaneng’s basic hygiene knowledge urged him to improvise in cases of lack of the necessary amenities that he needed in order to keep himself clean. similarly, odora hoppers (2017b) opines that knowledge has to be constructed using methods that allow for a reflexive stance that would move research out of the academic confinement into real-time application in order to facilitate change. in this article, the undocumented herding ik is collected and presented as a record, which other researchers with similar interests can access and customise to their contexts. most importantly is the applicability of these findings in facilitating change in the current nfe policy and practice in lesotho. in another story, the 43-year-old doctor, who had turned his herding ik into a family business, outlined how he learned to make the traditional grass sunhats following a disappointment that he experienced from his supplier that nearly cost him his business. he elaborates: ‘one day my regular supplier disappointed me so much that i nearly lost my business and the good rapport that i have built over time with my customers. we had agreed that he would deliver a large quantity of grass sunhats, which had been ordered for collection in johannesburg. unfortunately my supplier failed to deliver the commodity on time and i got very upset. the following morning i decided that i was going to learn how to make my own hats. it was not easy at first but i recalled the skills that i acquired from my herding experience and put them to good use. while my order was delayed because of the hiccup, i was able to complete the required quantity and supplied my customer’. (doctor, 43 years old, male herder) doctor not only learned how to make grass sunhats from herding, but he was also among the best suppliers of animal skin hats. he explained: ‘my herding experience also taught me how to knit hats using wild animal skins for myself in order to keep warm during the cold winter season. through that experience, i make and sell the best animal skin hats here. mine are different and stand out from those of other dealers, because i work the skin to make it softer before knitting. additionally, i work together with my daughter to line the hats in such a way that they are not only easy to wear but they also feel comfortable. i mainly use the skin from a male jackal because of the beauty of the skin, in the absence of which i use that of a wild cat. my customers are mainly men, especially those who have a substantial experience in cattle post herding in that the hats constantly remind them of their past …’ (doctor, 43 years old, male herder) while naturally doctor would be in despair because of the non-delivery of his goods, in his case he transformed his behaviour from the complacency stage into that of accountability and learning to be in charge of his business interests. instead of buying the hats he changed his behaviour and made his own hats. the story not only reveals the multitalent empowerment ability that comes with herding but it also highlights the holistic nature of ik. for instance, the teaching and learning practice is intertwined within the daily routine of the herders in order to help them to apply the knowledge and skills that they acquire in real life (pitikoe 2017; pitikoe & morojele 2017; pitikoe & preece 2016). the story further indicates how ik is passed on from the older generation to the younger ones. this is evidenced in the way the doctor and his daughter work together in the refinement of their product for the common economic good of all – in this case, doctor’s family. equally important, the oral and informal nature of ik becomes clear (johnson 2016; ngozwana 2014). livestock herding not only teaches the herders about arts and crafts, but it also teaches them self-defence skills through indigenous games in preparation for their future social roles as protectors for both their families and communities. this practice is elaborated in taiwan’s story. the 24-year-old bachelor from qacha’s nek district explains how they learn through games while herding: ‘herding is indeed lonely but there are other things that we do as herders during the day. for instance we play traditional games such as morabaraba [a board game that is similar to chess]; ho kalla [mock stick fights] and ho khoasa litali [rat hunting]. we also sing to prepare for the community held concerts so that we can meet with the girls and express our love intentions to them’. (taiwan, 24 years old, male herder) in other words, acquisition of herding ik comes in different forms, which include extramural activities such as games and music. what is also important in this story is the contribution that social integration and collaboration play in facilitating learning and a sense of belonging. discussion it was discovered that basotho herders mainly acquired their ik orally and informally (johnson 2016; ngozwana 2014; pitikoe 2017; pitikoe & morojele 2017). herders ‘interaction with the environment, their peers and the elders had significantly contributed to the herders’ teaching and learning practice (pitikoe 2017; pitikoe & morojele 2017). it was also found that the herders possessed two categories of valuable ik skills in the form of local science and local practice (pitikoe 2017; pitikoe & preece 2016). literature on herding in lesotho’s context is quite scarce and the available studies are descriptive in nature (makoa & zwilling 2005; nthunya 1996). what is lacking in these studies, though, is the theoretical perspective, which this article seeks to address. the literature identified some gaps in lesotho’s policy environment (morojele 2009). for instance, the delayed implementation of the lesotho education act of 2010 as an education enforcement mechanism has left room for parents and livestock owners to prioritise herding over schooling. while osborne et al. (2015) identifies the potential contribution that ik can make in teaching and learning policy and practice, lesotho has not made a very strong commitment in this field of research. nonetheless, their high level of innovation further affirmed the subjective nature of knowledge construction – there is no absolute truth; rather, truth is factual and based on values. the wisdom that comes with herding helps the herders in the management of the uncertainties that come with herding responsibilities (ratau 1988). this innovation can potentially be a resource to tap in developing an education programme that addresses the herding communities, in that it can inform appropriate teaching and learning methods that can adequately address the herders’ learning needs. while the findings reveal the herders’ willingness to learn, and the important role played by social interaction as a learning resource, the high rates of males dropping out of formal schooling in order to join the herding community are alarming, given the global outcry for the universal education provision (pitikoe 2017; pitikoe & morojele 2017). therefore, nfe becomes a better positioned provision that can cater for the herders’ education needs (pitikoe 2016). however, the provision lacks political and financial support from the government, which has resulted in lesotho’s ngos taking over the implementation process under donor support (pitikoe 2017). unfortunately, the donor funds come with donor-driven expectations on how the funds should be disbursed. most of these expectations are exotic and do not meet the local education needs. given the oral nature of ik and the limited research, not much is known on how lesotho can integrate ik into the education system. the findings from this article will shed some light to the decision-makers on the things that the herders already know that could be integrated into the current provision in such a way that it becomes attractive to the herders. the author acknowledges the significant contribution that the study has made in establishing a deeper understanding of the herding practice in lesotho and how the herders acquired ik and used it in the herding fraternity. however, this is not enough. this study may become a catalyst for a more detailed investigation on lesotho’s herding practice that would involve other methods of data collection, including participant observation. while it was anticipated that this study would establish a deeper understanding of how herders learned, the methods did not dig deeply enough because of a lack of funding, which affected the initial data collection plan. for instance, the herders did not have enough time to think over and decide on the types of pictures that they had to take in order to communicate their inner feelings about herding. conclusion this article looks at the complexity through which basotho males acquire ik through their routine herding practice. the key findings from this study revealed that herding is a male-dominated practice that males assume at a very tender age – from as young as 3 years in lesotho. while the literature categorises ik into local science, local practice and local memory (nyiraruhimbi 2012), basotho herders mostly acquired local science and local practice knowledge. the local science knowledge included different traditional herbs, which the herders used to treat minor human and livestock ailments. it was also discovered that the herbs were prepared and administered through different methods. the local science knowledge also included local technologies that the herders used to treat animal fractures. similarly, the findings regarding the local practice revealed a wealth of knowledge that the herders possessed in arts and crafts. this included hat-making using animal skins and grass, leather sandals and decoration of the grey blanket. much of the learning was oral, generational and informal, and social interaction played a significant role as a learning resource. therefore, the article suggests the following: the article found that local science knowledge comes with a wealth of undocumented local technologies that are known only to herders. therefore, more ik research is needed that would inform lesotho’s way forward on how to integrate ik in lesotho’s nfe policy and practice. while poverty is identified as one of the education impediments, herding comes with ik skills that herders use to generate income under both local science and local practice. such initiatives can be harvested, documented and included in the education programmes that target basotho herders. while evidence shows a high influx of basotho males into the herding fraternity, there is a paucity of literature on the drivers of this influx. the article suggests a need for further research to establish a deeper understanding of the factors that attract basotho males to herding practice, which may be lacking in education provision. acknowledgements this article owes its success to the university of kwazulu-natal, which committed funds in support of the final publication of the article. the author also wishes to acknowledge the mentorship, guidance and support provided by professors preece and morojele of the university of kwazulu-natal adult education department and college of research, respectively. the author also extends her sincere acknowledgements to basotho herders who committed time out of their busy herding schedules; the nfe coordinator, the staff from lesotho distance teaching centre, lesotho association of non-formal education and monna ka khomo herdboys association for their contribution in the data collection process. competing interests the author declares that there were no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced the writing of this article. references arthur, j., waring, m., coe, r. & hedges, l., 2012, research methods and methodologies in education, sage publications, london. baloyi, m.e., 2014, ‘distance no 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acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) kambidima wotela wits graduate school of governance, university of the witwatersrand, south africa citation wotela, k., 2017, ‘using systems thinking to conceptually link the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a398. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.398 original research using systems thinking to conceptually link the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy kambidima wotela received: 01 dec. 2016; accepted: 29 aug. 2017; published: 30 oct. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the monitoring and evaluation function provides for accountability and to some extent transparency and, therefore, governance. however, this function can only be effective if it is conceptually linked within development interventions and public policy. there is an explicit discussion of the middle-third tier (how to monitor and evaluate) as well as the bottom-third tier (data collection and storage, data processing and analysis, reporting results and findings, integrating results and findings into planning and implementation as well as overall decision making). unfortunately, the top-third tier that links monitoring and evaluation within development interventions (the what) and public policy (the how) is implicit, if present. the discussions often point out that monitoring and evaluation is a management and decision-making tool but they omit or fail to link it to development interventions and public policy, leadership and governance. in this paper, we interrogate literature from a systems thinking perspective to derive a model that conceptually links the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy. in doing so, we point out and link the five components (cultural, political, economic, social and environmental) and two processes (imminent and immanent) of development. similarly, we point out and link the five components (leadership, governance, political-economy, institutional arrangements and organisation arrangements) and three processes (research, decision-making and the public policy cycle) of public policy. it is in the latter that we point out, situate and link the monitoring and evaluation function. we envisage that the proposed model may be useful in reconfiguring institutional and organisational arrangements to foster effective monitoring and evaluation of development interventions. introduction at some point, the reason underlying absent or ineffective monitoring and evaluation of development interventions in some african countries was lack of political will in its broad sense so that we include influential bureaucrats and technocrats. this was partly because monitoring and evaluation sometimes provide information that is not as desirable politically (baradei, abdelhamid & wally 2014). however, as porter and goldman (2013) point out, in recent years, there is a growing demand for evidence-based decision making among politicians and bureaucrats – more so from the former as the continent becomes more democratic or as citizens increasingly demand accountability from their ruling elite (baradei et al. 2014).1 therefore, politicians in benin, south africa and uganda have thrown their weight in support of monitoring and evaluation (porter & goldman 2013). to this list, we can add kenya, ghana and rwanda. currently, it seems the political weight is a little bit too much for the civil servant who has eventually taken to monitor and evaluate development interventions for compliance rather than institutionalise or streamline the function – that is, linking monitoring and evaluation within development interventions (the what) and public policy (the how). if institutionalised or streamlined, the monitoring and evaluation function can be effective. such an arrangement can provide for effective and efficient public administration, operations management and general decision making (fourie 2006). eventually, it provides institutional and organisational arrangements that foster integrity, accountability and transparency (adejemboi 1998; labelle 2010). in this paper, we apply systems thinking to the commonly presented definitions of monitoring and evaluation to derive a model that conceptually links the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy. first, we ‘formulate the mess’ by identifying the key words or terms that need further clarification in the common definitions of monitoring and evaluation. second, we then distinguish between contextual terms versus key terms. third, among the contextual terms we identify the broadest term that encompasses the other terms. lastly, we ‘idealise or realise’ a solution by systematically linking contextual terms beginning with the broadest with other contextual and, thereafter, all the key terms. we envisage that the proposed model may be useful in reconfiguring institutional and organisational arrangements to foster effective monitoring and evaluation of development interventions. we do not explicitly discuss the importance and usefulness of monitoring and evaluation because we inherently think, without reservations, that this function is important in any development intervention. the approach – gharajedaghi’s systems methodology and fisher’s devising seminars fundamentally, ‘how can one decode an academic field of study?’ there is no obvious answer to this question but one can attempt by pointing out and then relating or linking the fundamental and contextual aspects of the academic field-of-study under interrogation. wotela (2016) has detailed an approach of decoding academic fields of study. in a nutshell, he applies systems methodology described in gharajedaghi (2006:107)2 to see ‘through the chaos and understand the complexities’ of an academic field of study. gharajedaghi’s (2006) systems thinking methodology is anchored at the centre of four foundations – that is, holistic thinking, operational thinking, self-organisation and interactive design. holistic thinking provides for a general approach to any academic field of study using a set of verifiable assumptions (structure, function and process) and how these may be interconnected. however, wotela (2016) has collapsed the concepts of structure and function into one concept and simply called it a ‘component’ but retained the concept of ‘process’. in his paper, a ‘component’ describes the independent parts of the whole. for example, the study of economics (the whole) is made up of two components – that is, microeconomics and macroeconomics. a ‘process’ describes activities or operations that help with realising the objectives of the whole and any of its ‘components’. put differently, processes are vehicles that allow for getting the products of the whole or products of the independent parts of the whole (components). for example, what one has to do (such as research) to yield economic analyses or either microeconomic analyses or macroeconomic analyses. finally, to decode an academic field of study, one should interrogate literature guided by responding to the following six questions: (1) ‘what is [insert field of study of interest]?’, (2) ‘what is the purpose of [insert field of study of interest]?’, (3) ‘what are the components (structure and function) of [insert field of study of interest]?’, (4) ‘what are the processes in [insert field of study of interest]?’, (5) ‘what are the established facts in [insert field of study of interest]?’ and (6) ‘what are the key issues and debates in [insert field of study of interest]?’ using the steps detailed in wotela (2016), we applied systems thinking or rather the six questions to suggest an initial model that conceptually links the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy. we then applied summative content analysis to interrogate literature that supports such a relationship and ended up with an initial framework which we subjected to a modified version of fisher’s (1983) ‘devising seminars’ over a period of 3 years. the ‘devising seminars’3 comprised about 300 university of the witwatersrand (wits) school of governance postgraduate students4 (divided in groups of about six students). based on their experience, they interrogated, verified and consequently modified the initial framework and assumptions until we got a satisfactory and fairly robust model that we share in this paper. identifying the mess5 – what is the problem? here we describe the problem or identify the mess to figure out how we can conceptually link the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy. to do so, we asked the postgraduate students – who by their own right are seasoned development practitioners and public administrators and managers with a notable proportion working in the south african civil service and a few from other african countries – to review the following descriptions of monitoring and evaluation and, thereafter, provide their perspectives (see box 1). box 1: common definition of monitoring and evaluation that provided a basis of the discussion. in the first iteration, the students reported that they understand monitoring and evaluation and its importance. however, when probed on the functionality of monitoring and evaluation inherit in each of these words, they noted that the several words these descriptions of ‘monitoring’ and ‘evaluation’ are not immediately clear and yet to be understood. we then suggested that maybe one should first understand all these words to truly and fully comprehend monitoring and evaluation. in the second iteration, we examined these words closely and identified two groupings. the first consists of key terms – that is, those that we cannot do without when describing monitoring and evaluation. the second group consists of contextual terms – that is, words we refer to when clarifying the role of monitoring and evaluation. figure 1 shows these two groupings of words found in common definitions of monitoring and evaluation that need clarification before one can truly understand monitoring and evaluation. we conclude that the problem is resilient because it is embedded in the descriptions of monitoring and evaluation and, therefore, easily overlooked. therefore, from a common-sense point of view, the description of monitoring and evaluation makes perfect sense but not so from a conceptual or functional point of view. figure 1: showing contextual and key terms found in common definitions of monitoring and evaluation. mapping the mess – how do we structure the solution? we then decided to discuss and link contextual and key terms inherent in the definition of monitoring and evaluation. a quick examination of the contextual terms points out development as the broadest term encompassing other contextual and key terms. therefore, we opted for this term as our starting point. besides, starting with development makes logical and practical sense, as porter and goldman (2013) have argued, monitoring and evaluation will only influence decision making and allocation of resources if it links in with the overall mandate of government – which is to foster development. we used the following six7 questions – derived by wotela (2016) using the systems thinking methodology – to guide our explicit understanding of development before mapping and linking it to the other terms in the table: what is development? what is the purpose of development? what are the components (structure and function) of development? what are the processes in development? what are the established facts in development studies? what are the key issues and debates in development studies? in as much as the definition of development is academically and politically debatable, it fundamentally entails ‘change’ in the short term, medium term and long term (summer & tribe 2008)8. effectively, development is a transition from an undesirable state to another perceived to be relatively desirable in a variety of human aspirations (slim 1995). we can group these aspirations into cultural development (burkey 1993; gereffi & fonda 1992; jack-akhigbe 2013), political development (acemoglu & robinson 2012; mcferson 1992), economic development (sachs 2005), social development (gray 2006; roseland 2000; watson 2012) and environmental development (roseland 2000; slim 1995;). in an attempt to adhere to the predefined order of systems methodology, we compared this grouping with other sources. for example, figure 2 shows that these components of development are similar to the determinants of human exclusions proposed by the united nations economic commission for africa (2014: 21). figure 2: showing determinants of human exclusion proposed by the united nations economic commission for africa. breaking down development into its components is important in monitoring and evaluation because this field is highly logical and focused because of its dependence on the theory of change, the logical framework and the results chain as well as the results framework. one can further break down each component to eventually get to the attributes (qualitative) and variables (quantitative) of each component of development. attributes and variables consequently form the basis for developing monitoring and evaluation indicators. collectively, these five sets of indicators for each component of development should comprise development indicators. lastly, as summer and tribe (2008) have argued, development processes can take two forms: immanent and imminent. the former refers to unintentional development such as the rise of capitalism and the private sector as well as street vending. the latter implies intentional or willed development that began after the second world war. this distinction is important for two reasons. first, it introduces the concept of development intervention which obviously implies intentional development. the primary concern of monitoring and evaluation is to measure changes arising from the intended development or changes emanating from development interventions. it makes no case or presents inherent challenges if we have to monitor or evaluate immanent development unless we are merely tracking assumptions or risks attached to the development intervention of interest. second, the distinction is important to summative evaluation, especially impact evaluation, which seeks to account for counterfactual changes. in short, what proportion of observed change is attributable to the intervention and which part is attributable to immanent development. figure 3 illustrates the foregoing discussion by relating development to its five components and its two processes. the figure shows that all the components and ultimately development can occur imminently or immanently. most impact evaluation text refers to the former as y1 and the latter as y0. as we have pointed out, imminent – or intentionally planned – development inherently defines development interventions – that is, a planned and desired response to a perceived cultural, political, economic, social and environmental problem or simply a desire to upgrade or upscale. figure 3: illustrating the relationship between development and its components as well as its processes. as the two diagrams in figure 4 illustrate, a development intervention depicts a change over time hence the timeline at the bottom of the two figures. as we move from the left to the right (overtime) we are moving from a current position to a desired position and this change can be from a problem to a solution as is the case in developing countries. further, figure 4a shows that an intervention can be at policy level or programme level or project level. policy interventions are usually theoretical, long-term, general and broad. on the other extreme, project interventions are action oriented, more specific, narrow and tend to unfold to fruition in the short term. in between, we have programme interventions which tend to be strategic and occur in the intermediate time scale. whatever the case, as figure 4b shows, these three levels are interlinked and interrelated. a policy intervention encompasses a number of interrelated development programmes, in turn, a programme encompasses a number of interrelated projects which, in turn, consist of interrelated development activities. figure 4: illustrating the three levels of development interventions and their distinguishing attributes and relationship. there is no doubt that for us to understand these three levels of development interventions, we need to appreciate public policy. implicitly, understanding public policy helps one to ground programme and project management of development interventions. therefore, to understand development interventions, one should also study public policy as well as programme and project management because it is at this level that policy ideals are operationalised, actualised or realised. similarly, to understand this field of study we are guided by the following six9 questions: what is public policy? what is the purpose of public policy? what are the components (structure and function) of public policy? what are the processes in public policy? what are the established facts in public policy studies? what are the key issues and debates in public policy studies? like in any social science, there are several descriptions of public policy – for example, fischer, miller and sidney (2007) describe public policy as a tool for understanding policymaking processes and a vehicle for supplying decision makers with reliable information on developmental problems. underlying these descriptions is that public policy is the how of the what – with the ‘what’ being development interventions. conceptually, it is an applied social science discipline that uses multiple methods of inquiry and arguments to identify, formulate, implement and evaluate development interventions (jann & wegrich 2007). inherent in this function is research, decision making as well as management and monitoring. notable in literature is that public policy is a complex multidisciplinary field that shares the same space as political studies. for this reason, simeon (1976) has cautioned us not to disregard political studies and economics when studying public policy. to this list, we should add leadership and governance. hill and hupe (2014) have argued that implementing public policy is but operational governance. this makes leadership, governance and political economy major components of public policy. further, though not as straightforward, interrogating public policy literature as well as personal correspondence with public policy specialists10, we can deduce that this field of study has two more components – that is, institutional arrangements or analysis and organisational arrangements or analysis. this brings the number of public policy components to five. the leadership and governance components provide for understanding the policy actors and arrangements. macroeconomic arrangements are important because we need to account for resource endowment and financial arrangements available for development interventions. further, this component is important because we need to understand the macroeconomic conditions or environment or context under or against which policies are made and managed. the last two components provide for institutional and organisational arrangements that facilitate formulation, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions. for example, porter and goldman (2013) argue that effective public reform effort focusing on results should reconfigure institutions to allow for using monitoring and evaluation data and information in all planning, budgeting and decision-making. therefore, we should point out that integrating the monitoring and evaluation function requires thorough institutional and organisational shifts to support the ideals of this function. by implication, monitoring and evaluation cannot just fit in the current ‘business as usual’ institutional and organisational structures. this probably explains the fragmented monitoring and evaluation function in african government institutions, ministries and departments (porter & goldman 2013). therefore, there is a need to relook at our institutional and organisational arrangements if we are to mainstream the monitoring and evaluation function (baradei et al. 2014). what is more pronounced in literature are the public policy processes – that is, research, decision making and the public policy cycle. as one reviews public policy literature, there is a strong temptation to treat the public policy cycle framework as a component instead of a process in public policy. research as well as stakeholder consultations generate data and information that feeds into the decision-making process (geurts 2014). ideally, this should result in enacting an intervention based on the predefined stages provided for in the public policy process. figure 5 presents the link between development interventions (the what) and public policy (the how) and their respective components and processes. the figure shows development and its five components – cultural, political, economic, social and environmental – and two processes, that is, imminent and immanent development. the description of imminent development implicitly implies that development interventions can be at three levels – namely policy, programme and project. it is this description of imminent development interventions that conceptually links development interventions to public policy. further, one would assume that an understanding of policy interventions would also facilitate an understanding of programme and project interventions. similarly, public policy has five components – leadership, governance, political economy, institutional arrangements and organisational arrangements – and three processes, that is, research, decision making and the public policy cycle. figure 5: illustrating the relationship between development (and its components and processes) and public policy (and its components and processes). because of its importance to the conceptual link of monitoring and evaluation to public policy and, therefore, development interventions, we need to detail the public policy cycle framework. probably aware of harold d. lasswell’s11 work on the public policy cycle framework, simon (1945) was the first to split decision making and the public policy process into different stages (zittoun 2009).12 however, it is lasswell who is regarded as the father of the public policy cycle. although he had presented this work much earlier in a slightly different and more detailed format, he first presented this initiative in its totality to the american political science association in his presidential address in 1956. in this address, lasswell (1956) proposed the seven stages of a policy cycle – that is, intelligence, recommendation, prescription, invocation, application, appraisal and termination. table 1 shows the activity and key questions that should guide decision makers at each of these seven stages. activities and answers to these questions at each stage as well as decisions thereof should emanate from research data and information. despite the shortcomings, central to lasswell’s stages, distinctions, and specifications is a model that we can use to understand public policy and policymaking or actualisation of development interventions because it provides greater clarity and, therefore, reduces fumbling when enacting or re-enacting development interventions. table 1: key questions that should guide decision makers at each of lasswell’s seven stages of a policy cycle. thereafter, several authors such as anderson (1975), jenkins (1978), may and wildavsky (1978) as well as brewer and deleon (1983) have proposed variations to this stage model. in these newer versions, the proposed technical stages include ‘issue formation’ or ‘diagnosis’, ‘formulation’, ‘implementation’ and ‘evaluation’ while the proposed political elements include ‘policy agenda setting’ and ‘policy adoption’. to tally it to the practice, we reduce these stages to four after incorporating ‘agenda setting’ as part of the diagnostic stage and ‘policy adoption’ as part of the formulation stage. this adaption matches with the approach the south african presidency is using after the planning commission produced the diagnostic report in july 2011 which set the agenda of the african national congress. thereafter, the commission produced the national development plan 2030 in november 2011 which the congress adopted during their 53rd national conference in mangaung (free state province) in 2012. ultimately, figure 6 – linking development (its components and processes), public policy (its components and processes) and the specified stages of the public policy cycle framework – provides a model we can use to conceptually link the monitoring and evaluation function within development interventions and public policy. first of all, even though brief, this model captures and situates the contextual and key terms found in common definitions of monitoring and evaluation. second, the model links development interventions (the what) and public policy (the how) that we should be assessing using the monitoring and evaluation function to the stages in the public policy cycle, thereby situating monitoring and evaluation in this context and revealing complex interlinkages. it actually idealises what baradei et al. (2014) term as development monitoring and evaluation (dme). they argue that dme encompasses the traditional programme and project monitoring and evaluation as well as the public policy monitoring and evaluation to foster evidence-based decision making, transparency and effective resource management or collectively governance. figure 6: illustrating the relationship between development (and its components and processes), public policy (and its components and processes) and the key stages of the public policy cycle framework. a detailed description of the four stages – diagnostics, formulation, implementation and evaluation – of the public policy cycle figure 7 amplifies the stages of the public policy cycle (the bottom part of figure 6) capturing the monitoring and evaluation function in a development intervention as a way of drawing in other important aspects of the cycle as well as other evaluation functions. as discussed earlier, imminent development inherently defines development interventions – that is, intended or desired change over time. therefore, an intervention has two important properties, namely ‘change’ and ‘timescale’. this intended change may be a desire to find a solution to a developmental challenge or simply to improve on the status quo. we divide the timescale into three different thresholds – that is, the planning stage comprising diagnostic and formulation, the implementation stage comprising two highly interlinked elements (management and monitoring) and the stocktaking stage comprising summative evaluation (outcome and impact). the multi-arrows between stages are an illustration that development interventions are not linear and exhibit a multi-loop feedback (gharajedaghi 2006). figure 7: illustrating the stages of the public policy cycle framework capturing monitoring and evaluation functions in a development intervention. the diagnostic stage in the figure is presumed to be the first port of call and should address three questions; ‘what is the problem?’, ‘who are the beneficiaries and what are their needs?’ and ‘who are the stakeholders and what are their interests?’. therefore, during the diagnostic stage, we should apply both quantitative (yang 2007) and qualitative (sadovnik 2007) research to understand the developmental problem – that is, its root causes, its symptoms and its consequences. we do so because we intend to find a solution that is effective or sufficient enough to eradicate or alleviate the developmental challenge that we are facing. this is one way of guaranteeing that, all else equal, a detailed problem analysis should deliver an effective development intervention because it exposes the root cause of the problem and is, therefore, likely to provide for an effective remedy. regardless, the solution should also be compatible with the beneficiaries or should be contextualised. we can only gauge compatibility if we understand the physical setting or context of the beneficiaries and undertake a needs assessment of the intended beneficiaries (biggeria & ferrannini 2014; da silva, clark and cabaço 2014).13 this allows us to select from among the possible alternatives a solution that will result in minimal reaction and, therefore, be relevant and sustainable. obviously, these two properties have cost implications and may determine the efficiency of an intervention. therefore, interrogating the last two questions allows for a detailed understanding of the people whose lives the intervention intends to change and will be more certain to deliver a relevant and sustainable development intervention. in sum, we recommend without reservations that the diagnostic stage is an important process that should be treated as such and should not be rushed or gamed because its results, all things being equal, have implications on an intervention’s effectiveness, relevance, sustainability and efficiency. apart from the technical side of this stage, a problem and its proposed solution should find its way onto the political and government agenda (birkland 2007; burstein 1991) before anything else or if anything else. after understanding the problem and more importantly the beneficiaries as well as their needs, we can then move to the second (formulation) stage where we provide a ‘prognosis’ to our ‘diagnosis’. first, we turn all the root causes of the identified problem into a set of possible solutions to a developmental challenge using a process described as objectives analysis (norwegian agency for development cooperation [norad] 1999). thereafter, we apply alternative analysis to select the best alternatives from the possible solutions. lastly, we use the logical framework or results chain, with its underlying theory-of-change, to strategically link the five important elements of a development intervention – that is, the perceived ‘impact’ to the required ‘outcomes’ and ‘outputs’ to their corresponding ‘activities’ and ‘inputs’ – (kusek & rist 2004). to do this, we should spell out the anticipated and desired impact (team technologies and operations core services 2005) and then chain the appropriate outcomes that will facilitate the achievement of this impact. for the outcomes to be realised, we need to have corresponding outputs (products or services) in place (görgens & kusek 2009). the outputs cannot erect themselves unless through concerted activities which definitely need an injection of inputs or resources. obviously, this process is not as straightforward as outlined here. sidney (2007) as well as voß, smith and grin (2009) have discussed some tools as well as issues to consider when formulating development interventions. for example, we need to integrate ‘transition management’ for interventions that will be implemented over periods that exceed political terms. to facilitate measurement of developmental progress, we need to attach the results framework to the results chain. figure 8 presents a framework of the important elements of the results chain and the results framework. we have already described the five elements of the results chain – that is, impact, outcomes, outputs, activities and inputs. for the results framework, described in kusek and rist (2004), we have to first define the indicators, that is, attributes (qualitative) and variables (quantitative) that we should use to track and assess the changes in the five elements of the results chain as well as identify their respective sources of information and data. second, we then collect baseline values on all the identified indicators at the beginning of an intervention to provide a benchmark which we should use to track the changes resulting from the development intervention. third, we use the baseline values to determine the target values depending on the amount of effort and duration provided for an intervention. kusek and rist (2004) provide a detailed discussion of these steps with görgens and kusek (2009) providing a variety of approaches to setting target values. figure 8: illustrating the important elements of the results chain and the results framework. assumptions and risks make up the factors outside the nerve centre of the intervention during implementation. the former describes ‘situations, events, conditions, and decisions’ that should be present if an intervention has to succeed (norad 1999:69), whereas the latter describes situations, events and conditions that should be absent if an intervention is to succeed. in the past, these external factors have been treated as one but ideally our review of theory and practice suggests that we should probably treat these factors separately. currently, the south african presidency has placed emphasis on risk management of development interventions. after stitching the results chain and the results framework, we should conclude this formulation stage by undertaking a final check of the desired plan by asking a futuristic question, ‘will this intervention work?’ to answer this question, we need to apply formative or design evaluation. fundamentally, this component of evaluation interrogates the results chain, results framework and the underlying theory of change to find out if the plan can indeed deliver the anticipated change in the proposed timeline given the inherent real-life complexities, some of which are captured in the assumptions as well as those that may arise during implementation (rodgers 2008; woolcock 2013). we can then move to the third (implementation) stage after formulating an intervention, presumed to be the most interesting stage by practitioners and some academics. pülzl and treib (2007) point out that this stage has generated research interest for two reasons. first, it is perceived to be the deliverer of change, and second, it cuts across several fields such as public administration and management as well as policy studies. further, pülzl and treib (2007) also point out the three generations of implementation research. the first wave of implementation research raised awareness that this field had challenges that deserved a detailed understanding. this was followed by conceptualisation of theoretical and other explanatory frameworks. broadly, the frameworks tease out issues of top-down versus bottom-up approaches to implementation. the last wave of implementation research focuses on bridging ‘the gap between top-down and bottom-up approaches by incorporating the insights of both camps’ to form hybrid approaches or models (pülzl & treib 2007:89). another important debate is the role of what hill (2003) calls ‘street-level bureaucrats’. she argues that it is not only state professionals who implement policy but the beneficiaries and other stakeholders who are not on the public payroll. most of these non-state implementers hardly know, at least technically, what they need to know about implementing development interventions and yet they are important in the implementation process. they contextualise the intervention to their reality and if involved in this process they would spell out what can work and what cannot work as well as how an intervention should be delivered to be effective. therefore, hill (2003) proposes that training and resourcing non-state professional implementers can be a plus in delivering the intended results of development interventions. further, under this stage, we should also discuss management and, therefore, monitoring of the implementation of development interventions. this is because the two main components of this stage are management and monitoring of ‘inputs’ and ‘activities’ in the production of ‘outputs’ meant to realise the intended ‘outcomes’ and consequently the intended ‘impact’. this is why, much more directly, monitoring is a management tool for overseeing the use of inputs, undertaking of activities and production of outputs. however, these three parameters are not an end in themselves; they need to extend to outcomes and consequently impact. more specifically, management points to operations management or public management of inputs, activities, outputs and to a limited extent the outcomes. obviously, operations management of activities points to performance management as well. the fundamental discussion on issues of operations and performance management of development interventions is a choice between the traditional public sector approach and the managerialist approach. the former is ‘rule-bound and hierarchical, built around centralised power and authority’ with pre-programmed standardised procedures emphasising compliance rather than results (dixon, kouzmin & korac-kakabadse 1998; paine 1999:49). the latter uses private sector management principles and practices to ‘get things done’ and, therefore, purports to be results oriented (dixon, kouzmin & korac-kakabadse 1998). though this debate has lost attention in recent literature, it is far from over. regardless of the management approach, one has to institute monitoring functions to manage inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes. obviously, monitoring operates during implementation hand-in-hand with management to merely point out what is happening during implementation (porter & goldman 2013). however, during this stage, we should check at critical intervals ‘if the intervention is working and why or why not’. it is a process or implementation evaluation that pursues such a question with an intention of checking up on implementation, management and monitoring arrangements of an intervention as well as comparing the intended ideals with the practical reality. process evaluation allows us to check if we are complying with implementation plans of the intervention and adjust such to the practical reality. bosch (1996) and cooke-davies (2002) have provided an enlightening discussion on this subject. lastly, after implementing an intervention for a considerable period, we should take stock of its results – outputs, outcomes and impact – by asking if the produced outputs are leading to the outcomes meant to bring about the desired impact. furthermore, summative evaluation implies asking questions such as, ‘did the intervention work?’, ‘was it effective?’, ‘was it sustainable?’, ‘was it relevant?’ and ‘was it efficient?’. there are several reports and articles on both outcomes and impact evaluations. the former applies both quantitative and qualitative research strategies cutting across the five research designs described in bryman (2012) – namely quasi-experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal, case studies and comparative. the latter is mostly confined to a quantitative research strategy as well as the quasi-experimental and comparative research design. for example, bouguen et al. (2013) employ a quantitative research strategy and comparative research design to undertake an impact evaluation of early childhood development. summative evaluation is supposedly the last stage of an intervention but only if we believe that interventions do come to an end. we should still bear in mind that there are other forms of evaluations, namely formative or design evaluation as well as process or implementation evaluation. conclusion systems methodology has definitely transformed how we understand monitoring and evaluation in the context of development interventions and public policy. there is no doubt that: the beauty of interactive design and the magic of the iteration of structure, function, and process … combined with the power of operational thinking, and … understanding of the implications of self-organising behaviour, create[d] a competent and exciting methodology.’ (gharajedaghi 2006:108) this methodology has helped us decode the complexities inherent in monitoring and evaluation as a tool to development, public policy, leadership and governance. specifically, understanding the multi-loop nonlinear feedback system of the monitoring and evaluation function and then mapping its dynamic behaviour proved to be particularly useful when linking it to the several relevant fields of study in public administration. further, other than applying systems methodology and a detailed literature review, the positive aspect of the model we propose here is that it was created with active participation of about 300 seasoned development practitioners and public administrators. therefore, our approach and product are not exclusively academically idealised but practically inspired. the model emanates from what civil servants do and, therefore, what they would want to know more in a structured or explicit approach to improve their work. obviously, it has allowed us to link and understand the contextual and key terms found in common definitions of monitoring and evaluation presented in figure 1. it is obvious, to monitor and evaluate, one needs to identify indicators – for inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts – and then establish baseline values and targets for all the identified indicators. thereafter, one needs to continuously collect and store data on all indicators that should be processed, analysed and results reported as required. in sum, the last two stages of a public policy cycle framework kick-start the description and discussion of monitoring and evaluation terminology. we envisage that eventually the model can assist us to measure development interventions much more effectively and improve on the quality of monitoring and evaluation. in turn, there should be an improvement in the quality of collecting, processing and analysing empirical evidence and, consequently, the rigour of the monitoring and evaluation function. consequently, public and private institutions might want to effectively institutionalise this function and, therefore, reap the rewards of this function rather than doing it for compliance or perceiving it as ‘something that exposes them to criticism’ (porter & goldman 2013:8). the assumption is that conceptually linking the monitoring and evaluation function will facilitate its institutionalisation and enhance the capacity to assess development interventions (the what) and public policy (the how). jointly, this will provide the much needed accountability, transparency and oversight in the use of public resources and, hence, foster good public administration. acknowledgements this research was partly funded by the carnegie large research grant facilitated by the university of the witwatersrand (wits) transformation office. i am grateful to the wits school of governance (wsg) m&e students who took part in devising seminars where we discussed earlier formats of the model we present here. i thank the wsg members of staff who attended the conversation where this approach was first presented for 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session … over an extended period’. ‘the purpose of a devising seminar is to invent mutually advantageous proposals in response to an existing or potential conflict’ (susskind and rumore 2015:226). in our case, it was a structured approach to interrogating literature on academic fields of study as well as the accompanying theoretical and interpretive frameworks. therefore, we encouraged students to unofficially share what they do understand about academic fields of study and theoretical and interpretive frameworks so that we integrate their approach in this structured approach. we then asked subsequent cohorts to comment on the visual perception recreated using comments from the preceding cohorts until we arrived at a mutually acceptable model. susskind and rumore (2015) have a more structured case in which a devising seminar was recently used. 4. who by their own right are seasoned practitioners working with the south african business and civil service with a few from other african countries. 5. note that system methodologists use the term ‘formulate the mess’. 6. the definition of the south african presidency (2007) is not different from that provided by kusek and rist (2004) and, therefore, the organisation for economic cooperation and development (2002) because the second author of ‘ten steps to a results-based monitoring and evaluation system’, ray rist was instrumental in setting up the policy framework for the government-wide monitoring and evaluation system. 7. we do not provide answers to all the questions here because of space limitations. 8. surprisingly, during our interrogation of development literature; monitoring and evaluation is mentioned implicitly, if at all. 9. we do not provide answers to all the questions here because of space limitations. 10. professors gavin cawthra and anthoni van nieuwkerk. 11. farr, hacker and kazee (2008:21) describe lasswell as ‘one of the greatest political scientists and public intellectual of the twentieth century’. 12. as we have presented them in figures 5 and 6. 13. lately this analysis has been overshadowed by environmental impact assessments. abstract introduction and background research objective literature review research design and methodology research sites sampling technique and sample size data collection instruments and procedures data analysis validity, reliability and trustworthiness of the study ethical consideration main findings recommendations conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) russ ngatse-ipangui graduate centre for management, faculty of business and management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, south africa maurice o. dassah faculty of business and management sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, south africa citation ngatse-ipangui, r. & dassah, m.o., 2019, ‘impact of social entrepreneurs on community development in the cape town metropolitan municipality area, south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a474. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.474 original research impact of social entrepreneurs on community development in the cape town metropolitan municipality area, south africa russ ngatse-ipangui, maurice o. dassah received: 18 sept. 2017; accepted: 28 aug. 2018; published: 30 jan. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract social entrepreneurs are well positioned to tackle socio-economic problems in deprived communities. the impact of social entrepreneurs is becoming important for addressing social challenges and providing innovative, sustainable and effective social solutions. although many entrepreneurs are active in the cape town metropolitan municipality area, their impact on community development remains largely unreported publicly. this article focuses on social entrepreneurs’ impact on community development and provides an understanding of their impact. it addresses the question: what impact do social entrepreneurs have on community development? it is based on a study that combines qualitative and quantitative data collection methods conducted in khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21). the sample consisted of 73 respondents representing social organisations, social entrepreneurs and individual township residents, selected by using the margin of error formula. interviews and a questionnaire were the instruments. it was found that social entrepreneurs positively impact communities’ development in several ways: improvements through training, educating and facilitating communities’ engagement in different activities such as home-based care and developing children’s mentality and creating space for people to develop their needs. despite the crucial role social enterprises play in deprived communities, their activities do not alleviate core community problems and their impact is minimal owing to shortcomings such as non-involvement of local people, unsustainability of their activities’ outcomes, lack of plans to present to communities, poor implementation of activities and weak monitoring of outcomes. to enhance their impact, social entrepreneurs should involve beneficiaries trapped within socio-economic problems in the process of community development. introduction and background today, many socio-economic problems surround communities that are associated with community development. social entrepreneurship has taken a pioneering role in tackling these problems in poor communities (barki et al. 2015:381). whether they are individuals or charitable organisations, social entrepreneurs are recognised as a powerful change agent for developing communities (dees 1998:4). social entrepreneurship acts as a bridge between businesses and traditional business (barki et al. 2015:380). besides transforming the market, the influence of social entrepreneurs is becoming more important for the world to overcome social challenges and provide sustainable and effective social innovation solutions (sassmannshausen & volkmann 2013:3). stakeholders need to be fully aware of the impact of social entrepreneurs in order to appreciate the value of the contribution they make. the cape town metropolitan municipality area presents a range of socio-economic problems in areas such as education, health and housing, which social entrepreneurs see as opportunities to initiate change. from the potential that social entrepreneurship presents for their activities to proliferate in the country, they need to design programmes with clear objectives, implement them and assess their outcomes. however, it is a challenge to assess the impact of their activities because they take some time to manifest themselves. the outcomes of clearly defined programmes undertaken by social entrepreneurs have to be sufficiently assessed to give an appropriate target of aligning social impact measurement (jafta 2013). social entrepreneurship has been described as one of the defining trends of the 21st century (mair 2010:3). in the past two decades, it has become a stylish phenomenon often shown by success stories across the world in diverse fields such as education, health, culture and so on (light 2010:351–355). according to dees (2001:1), the notion of social entrepreneurship is well suited to this era. furthermore, the author points out the importance of the innovative actions of social entrepreneurs, which lead to the resolution of social problems, while government and the charitable efforts of traditional organisations are falling short in alleviating the current social challenges. entrepreneurial activity is the process by which the efforts of individuals are united with those of certain types of organisations to solve socio-economic problems of disadvantaged areas (mair & marti 2006:36; urban 2008:349). regardless of the positive outcome of activities undertaken through social entrepreneurship in tackling socio-economic challenges in the cape town metropolitan municipality area, the impact of social entrepreneurs on community development is not fully known and, sometimes, communities perceive social entrepreneurship negatively. lack of or partial knowledge of social entrepreneurs’ impact makes it difficult for the field to contribute to development, improve cohesion in communities, gain support from communities and create institutions. this article focuses on the impact that social entrepreneurs have on community development and challenges they face in their mission to overcome socio-economic challenges in order to develop communities. research objective dearth of knowledge of the impact of social entrepreneurs on community development makes it difficult for the field of social entrepreneurship to contribute to development, improve cohesion in communities and gain support from communities. consequently, this article investigates the impact of social entrepreneurs on community development. literature review evolution of entrepreneurship entrepreneurial perspectives and roles have increased in range nowadays and include certain ventures that make the phenomenon more difficult to describe. historically speaking, the concept of entrepreneurship made its appearance during the 18th century, with a number of economists limiting the meaning to starting one’s own business (oecd 2004:8). bygrave and hofer (1992:13) define entrepreneurship as a phenomenon encompassing a number of purposes or occupations, activities related to opportunity and establishment of businesses to pursue the total activity. according to iversen, jørgensen and malchow-møller (2007:3), schumpeter (1934:4) modernised the definition of entrepreneurship, which is to bring new ventures to combine enterprises and individuals who are ready to carry out those new ventures. schumpeter linked the concept to the creation of a new venture, which he further described as: … introduction of a new product, introduction of a new method of production, opening of a new market, the conquest of a new source of supply and the carrying out of a new organisation of industry. (iversen, jørgensen & malchow-møller 2007:6) reynolds (2005:359) views the conceptualisation of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activity as the birthplace of opportunity and the conception of new economic ventures that pass through the development of a new business. cuervo, ribeiro and roig (2007:3) explain that the concept of entrepreneurship usually takes its origin of discussion under the study of entrepreneurial factors, which the authors outline as: entrepreneurial function, entrepreneurial initiative, entrepreneurial behaviour and entrepreneurial spirit. according to shane and venkataraman (2000:217), the entrepreneurial function is a new search for opportunity through developing a certain activity or creation of an enterprise. the combination abounds the concept of risk-taking and renewal. shane and venkataraman (2000:217) see the entrepreneurial function as an assessment and exploitation of an opportunity. for cuervo et al. (2007:3), entrepreneurial initiative is inventiveness and fantasy that an individual undertakes to come out with a new venture or opportunity to anticipate the market or develop the ability to innovate. this combination abounds the concept of risk-taking and renewal. cuervo et al. (2007:3) and miller (1983:770) associate entrepreneurial behaviour with the performance of management that not only achieves innovation and risk-taking but also pro-activeness. cuervo et al. (2007:3) point out that entrepreneurial spirit is a concept that highlights a certain exploration that pursues innovation and is different from opportunity management or exploitation. eckhardt and shane (2003:333) point out the reason behind different descriptions of entrepreneurship by viewing the identification and assessment of opportunity, availability of resources and strategy as key values that make the concept more dispersed. social entrepreneurship according to dees (2001:online), social entrepreneurship was first used in 1970, but the phenomenon of an organisation with a social purpose had existed long before the spread of social entrepreneurship. rapid development in social entrepreneurship in the 21st century has brought many scholars and researchers to pay attention to the field (perrini, vurro & costanzo 2010:515). over the years, many authors have tried to produce a clear definition of social entrepreneurship. however, up to now, there is no agreement on how social entrepreneurship is defined (light 2010:352; ribeiro-soriano & castro-giovanni 2012:333). despite its popularity, research conducted by choi and majumdar (2014:5–7) illustrates that academics and specialists still do not agree on the meaning of social entrepreneurship. ferri and urbano (2014:29) and chell, nicolopoulou and karataş-özkan (2010:485) state that the number of meaningful definitions of the concept of social entrepreneurship has increased. bacq and janssen (2011) define it as: … the process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities aiming at social value creation by means of commercial market-based activities and the use of a wide range of capital and resources. (p. 376) in the past, researchers focused on producing a definition of the field. nowadays, however, the shift in social entrepreneurship focuses on the purpose of social change by innovating and creating change in communities, rather than maximising profit as the main true reward (shaw et al. 2013:276). social innovation and value creation of social entrepreneurship doing different things is what many authors believe social entrepreneurship is all about. understanding the social innovation process resides in the importance attributed to the concept (lettice & parekh 2010:139–158). these authors define social innovation as ‘new ideas that seek to develop ways to improve the society’. social innovation study is constructed on social creation, social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship organisation (mair, battilana & cardenas 2012:368). the authors illustrate that social innovation is established as a sub-concept of social entrepreneurship and plays the role of persuading change in communities. positive value in social entrepreneurship contributes to the internal change of the notions (barki et al. 2015:380). creating social value has been considered as a requirement for social entrepreneurship (peredo & mclean 2006:56–65). austin, stevenson and wei-skillern (2006:1–22) and barki et al. (2015:387) state that the aspect of social value creation describes the field as social entrepreneurship based on its main beliefs, which are social vision and mission. nicholls and cho (2008:99) view social value itself as a very difficult, unclear and challenged notion. the authors note that it is very demanding to consider or evaluate the degree of what social value essentially requires and what actions or development have to be put in place in generating community significance. murphy and coombes (2009:326) describe the concept of social value creation as a value overloaded concept that encompasses honest behaviour, selfless objectives and the promotion of a social purpose to bring freedom, equality and tolerance. role of social entrepreneurship from dees’ study (2001:online), it is clear that social entrepreneurship plays an important role in society or environments concerning development. for the author, the concept of social entrepreneurship does change, innovate and determine the value of society. furthermore, the author calls a social entrepreneur a change agent. according to cherem (2013:online), the importance of the existence of social entrepreneurship resides in placing greater opportunities on certain communities in either developed or emerging countries through systematic change that actors bring in the society by selling products and delivering services. a study by mcelnea (2005:online) shows social entrepreneurship as a change agent present in many communities and a vital provider of resources necessary for these communities to overcome their inequality. moreover, the author points out that the roles related to social entrepreneurship also propel the needs of the economy by introducing more jobs and new ventures. social entrepreneurs and social organisations a clear understanding of what social entrepreneurs are and what they do gives a clear picture of individuals involved with social activities. in many cases, those involved with social activities are identified as social entrepreneurs or social workers. these individuals, according to haugh (2005:346), are people with intrinsic creativity that tend to fill, in a meaningful way, the gap of social problems left by government, private and public organisations. further, the author agrees with the view of scholarly analysis regarding the importance of individuals’ vital characteristics in the success of social entrepreneurship. these characteristics are believed not only to transform or solve the problems of a particular sector but also to maintain a sustainable transformation for a better life. over the past decade, the world has witnessed tremendous growth of social organisations. galera and borzaga (2009:214) state that not all well-planned ideas that aim to pursue a social goal are taken under the umbrella of a social organisation. a study by kerlin (2013:85) points out that within the window of progressive growth of social organisations and their positive way of changing the world, people have displayed various ways to describe the concept of social organisation and attached a meaning to use it. kerlin (2013:84) defines a social organisation as a non-governmental and market-based approach used for the purpose of social issues. furthermore, the author describes a social organisation as an entity that creates meaningful projects aimed at raising revenue only for social activities. impact of social entrepreneurship on community development for decades, issues of poverty, unemployment and health in certain communities have challenged both the governmental and non-governmental (ngo) sectors. recently, these sectors have jointly sought to address and find new approaches to reduce high levels of poverty, unemployment and ill health, which impact on communities’ economic life and freedom. the south african context of transformation since 1994 is faced with complex challenges, including economic, social and poverty alleviation (seekings 2016:1). the author notes the need to evaluate certain initiatives such as community development programmes, which require interventions, despite these challenges. according to travis, mcfarlin, van rooyen and gray (1999:185), community development in south africa is one important intervention approach in response to poverty alleviation issues surrounding the society because citizens residing in rural areas have very little and are surrounded by poverty. social conditions perpetuate violence, illiteracy and ill-health. according to a study by hart (2012:55), in the south african context, the need for effective and constructive community development is recognised as important for national development. flora and flora (1993:48) state that community development relies on interaction between people and joint action, which the authors call ‘collective agency’. cavaye (2006:online) suggests that a review of community development requires an understanding of what the concept combines, that is, ‘community’ and ‘development’. the author defines ‘community’ as a group of people with a shared identity, neighbourhood and environment. according to weyers (2011:154), the concept of community represents a system that extends with some sub-systems that should jointly work to overcome certain issues for a common good. at the same time, weyers (2011:154) defines development as change, improvement and vitality; a directed attempt to improve participation, flexibility, function, attitude and quality of life. according to lyon and driskell (2011:107) and ledwith (2005:14), the concept of community development encompasses concrete and non-concrete facets offering anticipating change in socio-economic conditions and cultures of people living in communities. economic development according to research by flora, flora, spears and swanson (1992:62), economic development regarding community development does not, in certain ways, only improve quality of life. as part of community development, economic development, in its grand aspect, is mainly conducted to improve employment and the economic base of the community. cavaye (2006:online) views economic development as part of community development because it involves different elements of community development, such as participation, rethinking and action learning, and it is gratifying, especially in a context that ameliorates the comparative position of the community. hall and midgley (2004:72) indicate that, regarding community development, different social entrepreneurs engage in both direct and indirect economic activities. in hall and midgley’s view, the combination of social and economic aspects creates economic opportunity for poor people and improves the basic condition of deprived communities in areas such as healthcare, education and nutrition. lombard (2008:327) illustrates that either a social entrepreneur or a social worker can dramatically change the economy and contribute to economic development and growth, integrated human, social and economic development. cultural conditions leopold sedar senghor was the most influential and read poet in africa. in his novel, according to maraña (2010:3), he states that: ‘… culture is the be all and end all of development’. maraña (2010:3–4) states that the difficulties surrounding the relationship which ties culture to community development, did not really receive attention until the mid-1980s. according to maraña (2010:3–4), cultural factors have a great impact on promoting the community development process. furthermore, the author illustrates that despite several studies by experts, the concept of community development devotes more attention to issues such as economic growth, education and health as human or communities’ development. nowadays, that devoted attention incorporates cultural factors for analysing community development. according to wilson (2015:1), the wholesale neglect of incorporating cultural factors into social entrepreneurship practitioners’ initiative remains critical and has always been left out in designing projects. for the author, the mistake of often not incorporating cultural factors into development plans may negatively affect the outcome of development. nowadays, in the process of community development, culture is viewed as an important factor that most practitioners combine with other factors in order to develop and promote both community development and community building. social entrepreneurship in the cape town metropolitan municipality area south africa, particularly the cape town metropolitan area, has several social entrepreneurship pioneers. according to jafta (2013:online), the cape town carnival is a venture that falls into the classification of social entrepreneurship. the author states that the launching of the cape town carnival was aimed at seizing the opportunity behind challenges facing the community’s art and culture so as to provide participants with a meaningful diversity and a training opportunity to prosper in design and costumes. watters et al. (2012:1) point out that the greenpop initiative focuses on changing the environment by protecting and maintaining it, while also providing opportunities to participants in the community. with its approach on deforestation, the greenpop initiative aims to create employment opportunities. according to moily (2012:online), symphonia, a recognised social enterprise in cape town, aims to promote innovation by developing a leadership programme that gives opportunities to business leaders and school principals to exchange ideas through co-learning and co-action partnerships. despite success stories around the cape peninsula, areas such as health, education, employment and housing in cape town’s deprived areas still need social entrepreneurship action to seize opportunities and foster change. as the impact of social entrepreneurs on community development around the cape town metropolitan municipality area remains mostly unclear and not well-received by communities, this study investigates the impact of social entrepreneurs on community development in the area. research design and methodology a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. popularly called mixed methods, this approach generates more credible and persuasive conclusions about the research problem. qualitative research is an approach for probing and understanding the meaning individuals or groups attribute to a social issue (bryman 2015:38), while quantitative research focuses on gathering numerical data and generalising it across groups of people. it is a methodical technique of inquiry and follows the scientific system of problem solving to a significant degree (thomas, silverman & nelson 2015:21). a combined approach was deemed appropriate to determine the needs and capture views of stakeholders regarding the impact of social entrepreneurs on community development. research sites this study was conducted within the cape town metropolitan municipality area, the target population being social enterprises and charitable organisations operating within the metropolis and adult residents of two townships, khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21), both of which face similar socio-economic and infrastructural challenges and where underdevelopment, poverty, unemployment and crime are rampant. these townships are major areas where social entrepreneurs operate. sampling technique and sample size the sampling technique used was non-probability. according to babbie (2013:199), this technique is relevant when conducting social research in which samples are actually selected in particular ways not recommended by the probability theory. on this basis, sample selection was based on snowball sampling. the sample size for the study was 73 participants, consisting of selected adult residents of khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21), social entrepreneurs and social organisations operating in these townships. to collect primary data, the sample was selected using the margin of error formula. for interviews, 15 participants were selected as follows: five social entrepreneurs in khayelitsha and gugulethu; five social organisations in khayelitsha and gugulethu; five residents of the areas where social entrepreneurs are operating in khayelitsha and gugulethu. the sample for the survey questionnaire consisted of 58 participants, constituted as follows: two social entrepreneurs in khayelitsha and gugulethu; six social organisations in khayelitsha and gugulethu; 50 residents of the area where social entrepreneurs are operating in khayelitsha and gugulethu. data collection instruments and procedures as the study had qualitative and quantitative dimensions, two different data collection instruments were used. the qualitative approach was used to elicit participants’ views, with interviews being the method of data collection. specifically, semi-structured interviews were used on the 15 selected participants because they facilitate extraction of maximum data based on prior idea of the study questions. the interviews were conducted to support and provide complementary data to the questionnaire. interview questions were designed in accordance with the research questions in order to obtain views regarding the impact of social entrepreneurs on community development. the quantitative approach was used to investigate and measure attributes. the data collection instrument used was a questionnaire in order to answer ‘what’ or ‘how’ questions. this was the preferred data collection technique because it was reasonably quick to collect data from stakeholders. the questionnaire was administered by handing it out to selected participants in khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21) townships. included in the questions were items regarding stakeholders’ status, workplace, contribution and community experience. questions relating to community development were asked using openand closed-ended question formats. the questionnaire was distributed to the 58 identified participants at the selected townships with a request to return them completed within a month. all 58 participants completed and returned the questionnaire. data analysis data analysis means organising, providing structure and eliciting meaning (polit & hungler 2001:online). primary data were captured, cleaned and analysed. microsoft excel was the main tool for qualitative data analysis. quantitative data were analysed by allocating ‘a’ to all participants, while data attributed to individuals were identified by numbers and each question represented by ‘q’. thus, a1 would represent responses of participant 1 and so on. quantitative data, which were summarised and presented in tables, pie charts and bar graphs, are not reflected here. analysis of qualitative data was an active and interactive process, which started soon after conducting the first interview. validity, reliability and trustworthiness of the study according to polit and hungler (2001:online), validity refers to the accuracy of the data. validity exists when the research findings reflect the perceptions of the people under study. validity is important in qualitative research as researchers are able to demonstrate the reality of the participants through detailed description of the discussion. to achieve validity in this research, methodology and data collection were carefully aligned and the interpretivism approach was used to reveal the different opinions on questions given by individuals in a social environment to understand the social impact on stakeholders. consistency is the main measure of reliability (polit & hungler 2001:online). a pilot study of the questions was performed to pre-test the questionnaire in order to enhance reliability. reliability refers to stability of data over time and over conditions. a dependable research study should be accurate and consistent. reliable data are dependable, trustworthy, unfailing, authentic and reputable, which were attained by using the mixed methods approach to deal with the research problem and research question from different angles (ivankova & greer 2015:65). the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches within a study was utilised because it generates more credible and persuasive conclusions about the research problem. ethical consideration before the study was undertaken, an ethics clearance certificate was obtained from the ethics committee of the faculty of business and management sciences at the cape peninsula university of technology. furthermore, the following ethical issues were addressed in the course of the study: voluntary participation and withdrawal: participants agreed to participate of their own free will and were assured that they could withdraw at any time if they wished. plagiarism: all sources cited are properly acknowledged in compliance with the requirements of the harvard system of referencing used at the cape peninsula university of technology. informed consent: prior to conducting the interviews and administering the questionnaire, the participants were briefed on the purpose of the study and their informed consent was obtained. privacy: the right to privacy was respected as no questions intruding on privacy were included in the interview schedule and/or questionnaire. fair treatment: all participants were treated with an equal degree of respect. anonymity and/or confidentiality: a form of coding was used such that the collected data could not be attributed to specific participants. main findings three clarifications are necessary. firstly, findings from semi-structured interviews, which supplemented the questionnaire, are not presented because the latter had key questions regarding impact of social entrepreneurs’ activities on community development. secondly, although 58 questionnaires were completed, eight of the participants were organisations (two social entrepreneurs and six social organisations) who were objects of the impact assessment. as such, findings relating to these entities are excluded. in short, then, only findings pertaining to the 50 residents of khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21) townships selected as primary informants and potential beneficiaries are presented. thirdly, these findings cannot be generalised, not only because of the small sample size but also because of its unrepresentativeness. positive role of social enterprises in community development the majority of participants (46, 92%) agreed that social enterprises alleviate socio-economic challenges by providing support to deprived communities through counselling, educating, equipping the youth and creating jobs. further, participants added that social organisations and social entrepreneurs of different sizes and profiles around the area play a significant role in the communities of khayelitsha and gugulethu by providing health care. this aligns with the state of south african non-profit organisation (npo) register report (register sosan 2012:2), which points out that since the authorisation to register non-governmental organisations after south africa attained independence, these organisations continue to have an important role in providing the residents of rural areas with services related to improving socio-economic problems such as health, education, environment and family planning. focus areas of social enterprises four main areas, namely combatting social exclusion (15, 30%), fostering local development (13, 26%), being a good source for job creation (10, 20%) and stimulating economic development (9, 18%), emerged as the main aims of social enterprises in the areas social enterprises operate. non-involvement of communities in development process social enterprises do not involve communities in the process of development, which may compromise the process of developing communities as those in need are left out. community development requires direction from those who know their needs. lombard and strydom (2011:333) state that local communities have been viewed for years as important entities for development strength and that community development has to include those classified as beneficiaries trapped within the socio-economic problem. for the authors, community development is all about local communities supporting programmes presented by social enterprises. residents of khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21) townships are willing to help social enterprises alleviate problems by providing physical support and time. such collaboration could bring positive change that would eradicate socio-economic problems. community development requires social enterprises to involve local people in the process. it can be argued that involvement of local people by social enterprises in the pursuit of community development is important because local people know what their communities need. secondly, it is through synergy that stakeholders can better solve a social problem. additionally, synergy between social enterprises and local people brings all stakeholders to have a big picture of the problem and share the same goal. weyers (2011:154) states that the concept of community represents a system that extends to sub-systems that jointly unite forces to overcome certain issues for the common good. further, the author states that the intervention must take place at a public level as community leaders and members are well placed to identify and deal with their needs and problems. social enterprises need to present plans for community development social enterprises’ plans for community development in khayelitsha and gugulethu are not presented to the communities. designating community leaders to liaise and publicise such plans could assist in this direction. ledwith (2005:15) notes that the procedure used to develop communities requires involvement of external and internal stakeholders’ initiatives that can be implemented towards improving the lives of people in the communities. by taking part in community development, social enterprises hoping to transform areas usually struggle to implement activities aimed to produce what the communities need. hall and midgley (2004:75) observe that the motivation of local communities’ participation underlines the importance of an activist style that promotes empowerment, self-determination and community-based poverty eradication programmes that place great importance on socio-economic activities. activities of social enterprises are not well implemented to develop the community an overwhelming majority of participants (34, 68%) indicated that the activities of social enterprises are not well implemented to develop communities, which aligns with the findings of ledwith (2005:16), who noted that the procedure used to develop the community requires involvement of external and internal stakeholder’s initiatives to improve the lives of people in the communities. by taking part in community development, social enterprises hoping to transform the area, usually struggle to implement their activities aimed at producing what communities need as these organisations use of resources do not result in attaining their objectives. social enterprises play a crucial role in deprived communities most of the participants (31, 62%) agreed that social enterprises’ activities meet the demands of khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21) township residents. social enterprises play a crucial role in local communities by creating new opportunities in terms of employment, income growth, enhanced provision of services, increase in local income retention and engaging the community in development programmes. other initiatives include training, workshops, counselling, sewing, providing critical information and delivering food parcels. this finding falls in line with di domenico, haugh and tracey (2010:698), who acknowledge that through education and social integration social enterprises create social value for communities as the government is usually limited in deprived areas, thereby establishing a new order. additionally, this finding is in line with ulleberg (2009:8), who observes that most activities and initiatives of social enterprises activities are designed to improve beneficiary capacity through introducing training, technical advice, exchange of experiences, research and policy advice. further, the finding links with uvin, jain and brown (2000:1409), who suggest that non-governmental organisations can boost their orientation to promote change by implementing their capacity through the use of activities and initiatives such as information sharing, training, consultancy and advice. unclear impact of social enterprises’ activities, but some palpable change less than half of the participants (20, 40%) acknowledged changes in training, people’s mentality, poverty levels and attendance of young people at school, which they attribute to activities of social enterprises. these findings are similar to evoh (2009:online), who found that through social entrepreneurs’ initiatives, social organisations impact the communities they operate in as they develop certain skills such as communication, self-knowledge and self-esteem, which are great qualities essential in today’s knowledge society. however, the majority of participants (30, 60%) indicated that they did not see any impact, which is in agreement with the findings of jafta (2013:online), who illustrated that what social entrepreneurs usually attempt to achieve is immeasurable and the impact may not be visible or appear in the future. outcomes of social enterprises’ activities trigger community development that there is a relationship between the outcomes of social enterprises activities and community development is clear from the response of 45 participants (90%), which is in line with the findings of jafta (2013:online), who used the example of the cape town carnival outcome as a tool to attempt creating employment and training opportunities in cultural initiatives and give an opportunity to communities to develop the clothing industry through art and culture. the results indicate that outcomes of social enterprises’ activities have given rise to community residents having occupations and things to do that contribute to development. residents have succeeded in fixing their needs and overall socio-economic and cultural status through outcomes of social enterprises activities such as training and education. improvement of weak monitoring of outcomes to increase impact on community development most of the participants (35, 70%) indicated that social enterprises do not monitor the outcomes of their activities, while 15 (30%) stated that they monitor outcomes emanating from their activities, with 30 participants (60%) citing the frequency of such monitoring ‘every month’, 14 (28%) ‘every week’ and 6 (12%) ‘every year’. the importance of monitoring activities and outcomes is emphasised in studies focusing on impact. as such, it is essential for social enterprises to institutionalise effective monitoring. given this, the participants suggested the following: focus more on drugs, which is causing havoc among the young generation; provide them with education bursaries; advertise the developmental approach; continue with more workshops and get communities into agriculture and culture. unsustainability of social enterprises’ outcomes most of the participants (32, 64%) indicated that the outcomes of social enterprises’ activities are not sustainable enough to trigger development as people give up quickly on these outcomes. the reason behind unsustainability is that activities relapse quickly from time to time. this finding resonates with the findings of gilliss (2011:256) who pointed out that, in practice, this is a major issue as social enterprises are unable to create sustainable activities to maintain the sustainability of their outcomes. social enterprises’ activities do not alleviate communities’ problems social enterprises’ activities do not alleviate the socio-economic issues communities are experiencing. this resonates with herrington and turton (2012:online), who show that the number of entrepreneurial activities in deprived areas is low and an upward trend has not been maintained, which can make it difficult to alleviate problems in the communities. social enterprises do not alleviate poverty. residents of khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21) townships are willing to volunteer their skills and time, as well as provide ideas in order to support social enterprises’ vision. it is claimed that social enterprises do nothing regarding poverty alleviation because they do not involve people who have ideas and instead make themselves rich, while their activities are unsustainable. recommendations the need for social impact measurement in the cape town metropolitan municipality area to highlight the role of social entrepreneurs in community development is paramount. social entrepreneurs need to monitor the outcomes of their activities to ensure potential impact on community development as they sometimes use resources to monitor measures that do not positively contribute to attain their objectives. with a view to strengthening the work of social enterprises in community development, the following recommendations are made. involve beneficiaries or local people in the process of community development social entrepreneurs must keep in mind that community development should involve those classified as beneficiaries trapped within the socio-economic problem. involvement ensures more control and balance on what needs to be done to develop the community. forms of support such as volunteering, finding sources of donations and communication from local residents are helpful. advertise or market or publicise programmes instead of waiting for local people to come and find out what programmes will satisfy their needs, social entrepreneurs should make their programmes known to local people via various means, including door-to-door distribution of detailed flyers, social media or through events. designating community leaders to liaise and publicise community development plans. conduct needs analysis to support community development, social entrepreneurs should request direction from local people, who know their needs best and how such needs might be met. plan plans for community development in deprived areas, such as khayelitsha and gugulethu townships, need to be clearly defined using simple means that communities understand. liaise with local population to realise vision it is essential to reinforce measures such as monitoring, motivation and providing advice to township residents in order to promote local development. conclusion social entrepreneurs are recognised as a powerful change agent for developing communities. the cape town metropolitan municipality area presents a range of problems related to socio-economic sectors such as education, health and housing, which social entrepreneurs see as opportunities to make a difference in the lives of residents of khayelitsha (harare) and gugulethu (section 21) townships. it is clear that although social enterprises play a crucial role in community development in these deprived communities, their activities do not alleviate the communities’ core problems and their impact is minimal owing to shortcomings such as the non-involvement of local people, unsustainability of their activities’ outcomes, lack of plans to present to communities, poor implementation of activities and weak monitoring of outcomes. it is expected that the implementation of the recommendations made will assist in improving the impact of social enterprises on community development in khayelitsha and gugulethu townships. further research using a large representative sample to facilitate generalisation would be instructive. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that they have no 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development, cambridge scholars publishing, newcastle. abstract introduction analysing divisions of knowledge labour in researching covid-19 ‘post-truths’ division of knowledge labour in covid-19: an example aim method division of knowledge labour in the infodemic research agenda the division of knowledge labour for messenger rna vaccine development world health organization ignores personal health behaviours that can reduce the risks of fatal covid-19 outcomes review findings conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) travis m. noakes department of applied design, faculty of informatics and design, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa david bell independent consultant, lake jackson, taxes, united states timothy d. noakes department of wellness sciences, faculty of health and wellness sciences, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa citation noakes ts, bell d, noakes, td. who is watching the world health organisation? ‘post-truth’ moments beyond infodemic research. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1263. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1263 review article who is watching the world health organisation? ‘post-truth’ moments beyond infodemic research travis m. noakes, david bell, timothy d. noakes received: 01 july 2022; accepted: 17 aug. 2022; published: 21 dec. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the world health organization (who) has established a public research agenda to address infodemics. in these, ‘an overflow of information of varying quality surges across digital and physical environments’. the who’s expert panel has raised concerns that this can result in negative health behaviours and erosion of trust in health authorities and public health responses. in sponsoring this agenda, the who positioned itself as a custodian that can flag illegitimate narratives (misinformation), the spread of which can potentially result in societal harm. such ‘post-truth’ moments are rife with the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) public health emergency. it provides an opportunity for researchers to analyse divisions in knowledge labour, which can help explain when ‘post-truth’ moments arrive. the first covid-19 example for this division foregrounds the development of knowledge in an academic context. added to this is the infodemic or disinfodemic research agenda and personal health responsibility, whose academic contributors are similar. in contrast, the division of labour for messenger ribonucleic acid (mrna) vaccine research foregrounds the role of vaccine manufacturing pharmaceutical companies in driving and promoting related knowledge production. transdiciplinary contribution: this analysis focuses on intergroup contradictions between the interests of agencies and their contrasting goals and across different types of knowledge division. many intergroup contradictions exist, and a few intergroup examples are also described. an overarching contradiction was identified where rushed guidance based on weak evidence from international health organisations may well perpetuate negative health and other societal outcomes rather than ameliorate them. keywords: covid-19; divisions in knowledge labour; intergroup contradictions; international health organisation; mrna vaccines; pandemic. introduction what counts as rumours, disinformation, misinformation and malinformation in health communications has emerged as an important global concern, especially during acute public health crises. already in february 2020, even before the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic had taken hold, the world health organization (who) director-general tedros adhanom ghebreyesus raised concerns that the covid-19 outbreak was already accompanied by an infodemic.1 he warned that an overflow of information of varying quality might surge during any public health event that begins suddenly and unexpectedly. he argued that this could pose a new health risk by interfering with the public’s ability to find high-quality health information with which they could better protect themselves, their families and their communities from harm. experiences with health misinformation during the ebola, human immunodeficiency virus (hiv), polio and zika epidemics have been claimed to reveal costs to public health and to health systems when rumours and misinformation are amplified.2 it is also necessary to flag that poor public health communication responses can further aggravate such negative outcomes, as can the misuse of public health. an example of the latter being the hepatitis b vaccine program’s use for identifying the children of osama bin laden’s household.3 to improve public understanding by anticipating, identifying and responding to such communication risks, the who recently established a public research agenda for managing infodemics.4 an infodemic is defined as an: [o]verflow of information of varying quality that surges across digital and physical environments during an acute public health event. it leads to confusion, risk-taking, and behaviors that can harm health and lead to erosion of trust in health authorities and public health responses. owing to the global scale and high stakes of the health emergency, responding to the infodemic related to the pandemic is particularly urgent. building on diverse research disciplines and expanding the discipline of infodemiology, more evidence-based interventions are needed to design infodemic management interventions and tools and implement them by health emergency responders.4 (p. 2) this agenda posits that addressing infodemics on digital platforms is of central importance to any pandemic response. to coordinate research on these risks in an emergent discipline, from june to october 2020, the who convened online consultations with more than 100 experts from 20 disciplines across more than 30 countries. it developed, shortlisted and prioritised research questions for the infodemic public research agenda as a novel discipline. five focus areas or ‘streams’ were identified for immediate action. these streams span: (1) the evaluation of infodemic impacts, (2) how to study them, (3) what drives them, (4) identifying approaches to better manage them and (5) considerations for developing new tools for infodemic management.4 this agenda is intended to serve as a reference point for the who, partners, research agencies and academia to build a global capacity that can better manage contemporary and future global health threats. analysing divisions of knowledge labour in researching covid-19 ‘post-truths’ the ‘covid-19 pandemic’ is a shared discourse, a way in which people talk about a global health topic as part of a shared concern. their conversation can draw on varied discourses, semiotic ways of construing aspects of the world (physical, social or mental) that can generally be identified with different positions or perspectives of various groups of social actors.5 specific discourses (such as statistical models for pandemics) are often developed by professional experts. they work in a complex division of knowledge labour to produce different forms of ‘educational knowledge’. bernstein defined such knowledge as ‘uncommonsense’ knowledge: [i]t is knowledge freed from the particular, the local, through the various languages of the sciences or forms of reflexiveness of the arts which make possible either the creation or the discovery of new realities’.6 (p. 770) bernstein pointed to the ‘pedagogic device’ as the social mechanism underpinning knowledge production.7 this device comprises three levels for analysis, either ‘distributive’, ‘recontextualising’ or ‘evaluative’: a set of distributive rules orders the regulation and distribution of a society’s worthwhile knowledge store. this knowledge store is transformed into pedagogic discourse for educational transmission through recontextualising rules. such pedagogic discourse becomes ordered by evaluative rules into a set of criterial standards to be attained. kwok et al.’s table 18 shows how the divisions of knowledge labour for covid-19 are delineated. emile durkheim’s theory for division of labour proposes that this division encompasses the separation and specialisation of work among varied personnel with different expertise.9 separation entails that various tasks in a work process become separated into various component and cofunctioning processes, which agents do. bernstein described how knowledge work is done by a network of individual human agents and socialising agencies. such agencies may comprise families, peers, groups, schools or colleagues at work.7 table 1: division of knowledge labour in covid-19. each transformation of knowledge takes place in a particular field (see table 1), within which different expert agents work. this field of knowledge production may be marked by a hierarchical knowledge structure, such as in the health sciences, whose very general propositions and theories integrate knowledge at lower levels. alternately, the structure may be horizontal, such as in the humanities. it contains a series of specialised languages and expert modes of interrogation, plus criteria for the design and sharing of texts.10 the three rules and their associated fields comprise a pedagogic device that is an arena of conflict and struggle. social groups attempt to dominate the development of educational knowledge. rival groups attempt to appropriate the device to impose their own rules via constructing particular code modalities. code refers to a ‘set of organizing principles behind the language employed by members of a social group’.11 code modality is a principle of hierarchisation. hence, the device or apparatus becomes the focus of challenge, resistance and conflict.7 kwok et al. describe how the global health crisis of covid-19 presents a fertile ground for exploring the complex division of knowledge labour in a ‘post-truth’ era.8 much has been written about ‘post-truth’, producing multiple definitions. generally, ‘post-truth’ is considered an information disorder in which rumour and disinformation blight digital platforms and other communication channels. fake news and alternative facts are spread as misinformation, which can result in negative outcomes linked to malinformation. post-truth’s advent is also marked by multiple forms of expertise and fact-checking, dog-whistle politics appealing to emotion, denial of science and consequently the return of fascism.12,13,14 in contrast to this broad conceptualisation of post-truth, knowledge production is a narrow concept useful for exploring the social conditions of knowledge. researchers can analyse divisions in knowledge labour for explaining where ‘post-truth’ moments arrive. division of knowledge labour in covid-19: an example kwok et al.’s table 1 was designed to support an analysis of the division of knowledge labour in relation to covid-19. it features the higher education (he), media and government fields. according to this framing, the distributive rules for covid-19 discourse development are driven by university experts. distributive rules govern the fields where the production of new knowledge takes place. for example, an epidemiological scholar at a university is an agent who produces a statistical model that predicts covid-19’s potential mortality and morbidity. recontextualisation can be seen as the appropriation of external discourses, where discourses are incorporated into strategies pursued by groups of social agents within the recontextualising field.15 recontextualising rules regulate the translation of knowledge and comprise the prevalent discourse to which lay people are exposed. a news journalist would recontextualise the epidemiologist’s calculations in a lead article edited for that newspaper’s audience. kwok et al.8 argue that the era of post-truth is marked by the intense and visible pressures that arise from such pedagogisation of medical knowledge. pedagogisation16 refers to the process by which specialist knowledge that is inaccessible to the public becomes translated into novel forms that nonspecialist audiences can access and understand more readily. there are many digital platforms that support such forms of recontextualisation, which can range from movie-length videos to pithy tweets. in response to this information, internet audiences can add their own comments. key opinion leaders from outside the medical field can readily access social media to recontextualise the health narrative. new recontextualisation organisations are formed in response to nonexperts’ attempts to wield power over medical discourse. these range from collaborations between public media organisations and research institutions to ‘fact-checkers’ reliant on algorithms and fast data for cross-checking relevant information. the vast increase in communication through recontextualised sources has led to the mystery and incoherence of medical knowledge becoming more obvious and more visible in the post-truth era.8 this increases the challenge to universities and commercial medical enterprises wanting to retain public trust in the scientific and medical knowledge that they have developed and the resulting public interventions. what counts as ‘valid’ knowledge and practice in the division of knowledge labour is determined by evaluative rules – according to bernstein.7 whoever can evaluate such validity is the most influential and powerful person or group in that division. as the covid-19 pandemic was predicted to cause an unprecedented number of deaths across the globe, the initial step of government health officials was to consult with selected epidemiologists who had produced predictive models of how many deaths would happen in the pandemic. only senior political officials had the power to transform the predictions of those epidemiologists into policy actions that impacted entire populations around the globe. consequently, political leaders in the upper echelons of government hold the greatest evaluative power according to this analysis of how the division of knowledge labour impacts knowledge transfer to the public. this analysis clarifies that researchers need to explore the relations between and within each division’s fields. this analysis can reveal areas of contradiction and conflict. for example, political leaders may be driven by very different concerns in the political field than epidemiologists working in academia. scholars across a variety of disciplines may disagree on the efficacy of measures taken by governments to protect citizens’ safety. as national statistics for confirmed infections and covid-19 deaths are released, epidemiologists will critique each other’s statistical models, focusing particularly on the assumptions inherent in their different models and their resulting predictions. aim exposing contradictions within and between key covid-19 divisions of knowledge labour kwok et al.’s division of knowledge labour in covid-19 foregrounds the university as the pre-eminent producer of covid-19 knowledge.8 by contrast, this article proposes that relationships with other influential knowledge development fields must be considered, for example, pharmaceutical companies that manufacture experimental therapies and direct research to determine whether these products are ‘safe and effective’. such areas of knowledge development are vitally important to analyse regarding their potential contributions to the covid-19 discourse. it is also important to consider how stakeholders may have similar aims that purport to serve public health, but in reality they prioritise agendas of expanding markets or securing new sponsorship. powerful agents can collaborate across divisions of knowledge labour for establishing an institutional oligarchy. its hegemonic collaboration can supress alternative viewpoints that contest and query powerful agents’ interests. this reflects our disagreement with the view that distributive rules in he can escape the external influence of powerful agents, such as industry and government. in contrast, we believe that it is necessary to study the silent type of collaboration that can exist between powerful agents who pursue their own, and collective, ambitions at the expense of public health and academic knowledge. as we discuss subsequently, this is glaringly evident in the narrow options that the public are presented for managing covid-19. elaborating the earlier example for epidemiologists can illustrate the influence of key agents outside the university: statistical modelers are paid by specific interests, and modelers are aware of the preferences of funders’ interests. experts whose knowledge claims achieve the highest visibility may be consulted because they are at specific institutions that benefit from funding streams whose sources are highly instrumental in politics. media have their own criteria for selecting ‘valid’ sources; models that predicted minimal change would seem ill-suited for scary headlines and selling newspapers. well-established modelers with better predictions have consequently been ignored. as a result, the pandemic models discussed at universities can strongly reflect the influence of other fields – entities in fields are not isolated while setting distributive, recontextualising and evaluative rules. in public health, this reflects the reality of clear funding streams operating to push vested interests that can be beneficial but may also be harmful. companies can exert a significant influence on what is acceptable for universities to research via funding grants provided by these firms. exploring contradictions between fields, such as commercial and academic ones, is useful to highlight major concerns with how the evidence about covid-19 is presented to the public. in particular, the ‘post-truth’ moments that scholars researching the infodemic may be unaware of should be spotlighted for investigation. method in this opinion piece, we elaborate on where ‘post-truth’ moments may arrive in three types of division of knowledge labour: the first is the infodemic research agenda (see table 2), the second is research into mrna vaccines (see table 3) and the third concerns research into individual health responsibility to protect against fatal covid-19 outcomes (see table 4) and the risk of onward viral transmission. for this public health crisis, we are concerned with the relationships between health communication, public health policy and recommended medical interventions. the second and third types of knowledge division were chosen as the guidance vetted by the who will and has had major social consequences for people’s health, especially the poor and working class in southern africa.8 table 2: division of knowledge labour in the infodemic research agenda. table 3: division of knowledge labour on mrna vaccines. table 4: survival rates for different ages infected with covid-19. following gerrard17 and malcolm’s14 call, we focus on the underlying principles that govern knowledge, its transformation and transmission via fields and organisations. special attention is given to the intergroup contradictions that are present between agencies. such ‘contradictions’ exist within and between the categories. contradictions occur between agents and agencies with different interests, which are directed by and reflected in their divergent goals. an analysis of these contradictions is helpful for broadening our understanding of where ‘post-truth’ moments lie and what disinformation the who’s infodemic research agenda might miss or neglect. division of knowledge labour in the infodemic research agenda the distributive and recontextualising rules in the division of knowledge labour for the infodemic research agenda (see table 2) are close to that of covid-19 (table 1). however, the infodemic research agenda contains different evaluators, specifically international health organisations responsible for global health. one such organisation is the who, a united nations agency whose goal is to connect ‘nations, partners and people to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable – so everyone, everywhere can attain the highest level of health’ (who, 2022). as a global health organisation, the who leads the infodemic research agenda. in this role, who positions itself as a custodian of evaluative rules for the infodemic. as a custodian, it flags narratives that it considers illegitimate (misinformation), whose spread as disinformation can potentially result in societal harm, as malinformation. this approach on the covid-19 ‘misinfodemic’ is shared by another two evaluators, both popular health organisations:18 the united nations educational scientific and cultural organisation has developed two policy guides for tackling the covid-19 ‘disinfodemic’ (2020, 2022). the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd) has also provided guidance regarding oecd policy responses to ‘covid-19 misinformation’ (2020). the evaluative rules in the infodemic research agenda follow international health organisations’ guidance regarding what constitutes false and misleading discourses. researchers are urged to study such discourse as dangerous threats that undermine these health authorities’ guidance to the public. the grand narrative that the who infodemic research agenda claims is that it exists solely for the public health benefit in building knowledge and taking actions that might prevent excess deaths and other harms in viral pandemics. the who positions itself and its partners (such as centres for disease control and prevention and public health agencies) as scientific authorities that arbitrate what constitutes medical truth or, alternatively, disinformation. accordingly, the who adopts the status of the ultimate truth provider, an organisation whose verdicts can be accepted without question. this has the potential to create an intragroup contradiction when infodemic scholars at universities research the who’s decisions but learn that these and related guidance have shifted dramatically, sometimes with no clear justification. for example, table 5 lists the key guidelines provided by the who for ‘mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza’. however, a cursory glance shows that the public health measures applied in 2019 would be radically altered just months later. this was from the very beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, so clearly before new research could have established that these previously accepted, wide-ranging guidelines would be ineffective against the spread of covid-19. table 5: world health organization recommendations for non-pharmaceutical public health measures versus epidemic and pandemic influenza. scholars who are dependent on research funding from the who or those whose funding sustains the who (including the bill and melinda gates foundation) might choose not to criticise such sudden and unexplained shifts in guidance. a linked concern is that it is unclear who the original funders of the infodemic research agenda were. there does not seem to be a line item for it in the who’s programme budget for the 2020–2021 period. scholars in the recontextualisation field whose dissent flags the weak, or nonexistent, evidence base for such shifts in the who’s guidance will also find themselves in contradiction with both the distributive and evaluative fields. the who may also face contradictions if its role as a custodian and evaluator of measures against covid-19 conflicts with those of its existing funders. the who has increased its dependence on external funders, including pharmaceutical companies and investors, particularly the bill and melinda gates foundation. organisations such as the global alliance for vaccines and immunization (gavi), the vaccine alliance and the coalition for epidemic preparedness innovations (cepi, focused on epidemics) have arisen alongside the who and have private investors and corporate entities represented directly on their boards. these entities channel further funding into the who. most privately sourced who funding is ‘directed’, meaning it is for specified programs and outcomes, for which the who staff funded by this source must therefore work. such an undue influence on the evaluation of covid-19 discourse may explain the who’s changed guidance on mrna vaccines. the pandemic provided an opportunity for the expedited approval of mrna vaccines as ‘trusted vaccines’ despite incomplete phase iii trials of unusually small size.19,20 this also required the definition of a ‘vaccine’21 to be altered so that the mrna products could be classified as ‘vaccines’ in contrast to the traditional definition accepted for decades, if not centuries. the division of knowledge labour for messenger rna vaccine development conventional division of knowledge labour diagrams (see table 1 and table 5) places the he or tertiary academic field as the leader of discourse production. by contrast, the division for mrna vaccine research (see table 3) highlights how companies manufacturing vaccines drive contemporary research and the distributive rules in knowledge labour. academic institutions are not the most important contributor to mrna vaccine innovation, as only wealthy pharmaceutical companies have the financial and other resources to drive this research, especially at the ‘lightning speed’ that became their stated, indeed over-arching, goal. this required that within just a few months, a complex combination of resources be deployed across a myriad of clinical trial sites spread across the globe. an example of this is pfizer’s clinical trials of its biontech comirnaty mrna vaccines; within just 4 months, it scaled this trial to include 46 000 participants at 150 sites in six countries.22 pfizer’s clinical development team used predictive models for covid-19 incidence at the local level to select potential sites and optimise their site selection. artificial intelligence and machine learning were used by pfizer’s scientists to ‘perform quality checks and analyse vast amounts of trial data in near real time. participants’ data could be refreshed every 4 h’. the use of supercomputing reduces ‘the computation time for complex calculations and scientific simulations by 80% – 90%’, resulting in a reduction in labour-intensive research outcomes from years to months and weeks. the production of vaccination discourse by manufacturers features very different contradictions between and within agencies than does the production of covid-19 or infodemic knowledge. in the first place, the role that pharmaceutical companies have in producing vaccination discourse is massively conflicted. conflict of interest arises in pursuing such costly research on novel mrna vaccines, because whether the company producing these therapies will ultimately benefit financially from the future sales of these therapies depends entirely on the published efficacy and safety results from their own research. well-documented failures in the pfizer trial of their covid-19 vaccine highlight the dangers of these contradictions. the original trial was scheduled to last for two years; however, after three months, the study’s patients were ‘unblinded’.23 the control group had been offered the mrna vaccines, which effectively prevented a long-term study of the treatment’s safety.24 other major flaws in the study included falsified data, the employment of inadequately trained vaccinators and slow follow-up on adverse events reported in pfizer’s pivotal phase iii trial.25 staff who conducted quality control checks were overwhelmed by the volume of problems they were finding. that study also found that all-cause mortality was higher in the ‘vaccinated’ than in the control group26 (table s4, p. 78) which should have been recognised as a safety signal. pfizer only acknowledged one excess death (16 vs. 15) in the vaccinated group in its six month safety report. it was: [s]o damning that it should have closed the case against this vaccine but captured fda officials nevertheless gave pfizer their approval; the broken vaers system and the mainstream and social media all conspired to conceal the evidence of the crime when vaccinated americans began dying in droves, and cdc implemented its own retinue of enshrouding machinations to cloak real-life carnage.26 (p. 79) pfizer responded by attempting to have all the relevant information from the trial sealed from public scrutiny for 75 years, contrary to the stated priority of providing facts to counter ‘misinformation’. following a freedom of information act request, this decision was rescinded by a federal court in the northern district of texas that ordered that the relevant data be released at a rate of 55 000 pages per month. this lack of transparency has been strongly criticised in the british medical journal (bmj):27 ‘pfizer’s pivotal covid [sic] vaccine trial was funded by the company and designed, run, analysed and authored by pfizer employees’. the company and contract research organisations that carried out the trial hold all the data. unfortunately, there is ‘inadequate availability of covid-19 vaccine trial documents and data; individual participant data will not be available for months, perhaps years, for most vaccines’.28 the widespread ‘use of interventions without full data transparency’ raises ‘concerns over the rational use of covid-19 vaccines’. indeed, original concerns about the proprietary of the pfizer covid-19 trial were raised by an employee of a large clinical research company contracted to conduct that trial.25 predictably, the whistle-blower, brook jackson, immediately lost employment. agents inside vaccine manufacturers confront an intragroup contradiction if their research produces negative findings for their employer’s products. a recent evaluation of serious adverse events of special interest observed in phase iii randomised trials of pfizer and moderna’s mrna covid-19 vaccines has recommended the need for formal harm–benefit analyses, particularly those that are stratified according to risk of serious covid-19 outcomes such as hospitalisation or death.29 this was based on the finding that the excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest surpassed the risk reduction for covid-19 hospitalisation relative to the placebo group in both trials. a major intergroup contradiction exists in evaluators, such as the cdc and european medicines agency, receiving large proportions of their budget from the industry they are supposed to regulate.30 another potential conflict of interest exists in these evaluators being entirely dependent on vaccine-producing companies for the accurate (and honest) reporting of results from their vaccine trials. the pfizer experimental product was initially promoted to stop the spread of covid-19, thereby allowing a ‘return to normality’ according to pfizer’s ceo, albert bourla.31 however, unlike previously well-tested vaccines, the mrna vaccines proved ineffective at halting transmission of the supposed infectious agent.32 moreover, the waning effectiveness of even third doses of ‘vaccinations’ soon became apparent.33,34,35 as a result, natural infection provides superior long-term protection.36 vaccine-manufacturing pharmaceutical companies need to protect their intellectual property – vaccine ingredients are proprietary. this may present a challenge to regulators’ third-party evaluations of these firms’ research. it also presents a contradiction in the recontextualisation field where sceptics can claim that mrna vaccines contain harmful substances. in stark contrast to the challenges in the recontextualisation field that an absence of information creates, releasing too much information also creates its own challenges. for example, pfizer shared 80 000 pages of information on its research trial in a ‘pfizer dump’. critics had a huge amount of information that they could recontextualise, such as in viral tweets that falsely claimed the dump to reveal vaccine efficacy as only 12%, not the 95% that pfizer claimed.37 critics of the who’s covid-19 response have flagged how its funders’ economic and ideological interests have shaped research funding into preventive or alternative treatments. the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, dr anthony fauci and nih receive substantial amounts from their patents, while the cdc sells vaccines.26 a lack of correspondence between the claims from experimental clinical trials and those in the real world led to the public’s first-hand experience of this failure. it would have been expected that international health authorities would have modified their guidelines, especially as they relate to mandatory vaccine policies. however, this was not the case. instead, the who remained silent, as they have been failing to address issues of vaccine safety.38 for example, the response to the finding that more deaths have occurred in the first year of the vaccine rollout than all the other vaccines over the past 30 years met with the excuse that ‘we had to overlook the safety measures because this was a deadly pandemic’.39 another contradiction exists between the deliberation and recontextualisation fields, where vaccine-manufacturing pharmaceutical companies can use their large online advertising budgets to influence content on digital platforms and fact-checking. with the contemporary internet facilitating control by large technology companies, a related concern is tied to their financial investments in vaccine manufacturers. large advertising payments and investments may result in hidden algorithmic influence on big tech platforms, where algorithmic amplification shapes the margins of ‘acceptable opinion’: mrna vaccines may be foregrounded in top search results that only feature positive stories. in contrast, algorithmic censorship can be applied to negative news on mrna technologies, and unfavourable reports are fact-checked. an example is the ‘fact-checking’ messaging from facebook which flagged the sharing of a legitimate bmj investigation. it described a pfizer contractor who may have falsified data and skewed findings in its original jab studies.25 this article’s facebook shares were accompanied by a ‘missing context’ warning claiming the article might ‘mislead people’. this was linked to lead stories, facebook’s fact-checker’s website. it is also pertinent to note that the division of knowledge labour for mrna vaccine development should not be considered separately from that for covid-19 or the infodemic research agenda. strong contradictions may emerge from the relationships between multinational pharmaceutical companies and agencies in the two distributive and evaluation fields. multinational pharmaceutical companies are referred to as ‘big pharma’ because of their large size and large profits resulting in their acquisition of significant political influence.40 less well known is how these same companies direct the research agenda in academia and medical research discourse through the lucrative grants that they distribute liberally. for example, each dean of a prestigious university’s medical faculty must attract funders to help cover the high running costs compounded by budgetary shortfalls resulting from shrinking government subsidies. cost recovery is achieved by placing research levies on all grants to faculty researchers. such levies can range from 20% at a typical south african university to 70% at leading medical research universities in the united states. this money helps sustain the faculty’s staffing and infrastructure. large grants from wealthy institutions are highly valued because they generate large research levies. in south africa, the three most prized funders are the national institute of health, the bill and melinda gates foundation and the wellcome trust. the latter two provide much of the funding for local vaccine-related research and their investment is large, running to hundreds of millions of south african rands, even for individual trials run by single south african universities.41 another important contradiction exists between the decolonial agenda of african governments versus the high costs of purchasing mrna vaccines manufactured overseas. localisation of vaccine manufacturing capacity by lowerand middle-income countries necessitates that most of the equipment, personnel and consumables be imported for years, further limiting benefits to the local economy.13 notwithstanding the huge advertising budgets of big pharma companies, there may be a rejection of mrna vaccine technologies within local markets. for example, africa’s first covid-19 vaccine plant led by aspen pharmacare risked closure because of not receiving orders for aspenovax.42 in exploring covid-19 post-truths, researchers should consider the discourses related to grant making and sponsorship rules (see table 6). while not constituting a pedagogical device, both are important in shaping the direction of the research that will either be encouraged or discouraged. research organisations dependent on external funding to cover their annual budget shortfalls will be more susceptible to the influence of those funders on their research programs. external funders have their own criteria for evaluating what constitutes an attractive research project, and the primary consideration will be to generate future revenues for their company as required by united states (us) law – the concern of ‘shareholder primacy’ established by the 1919 dodge vs. ford motor co. case. table 6: grant-making and sponsorship discourse activity and agents. table 7: division of knowledge labour on personal health responsibility in a pandemic. as a result, in the projects they support, there will always be the inevitable tension between the funder’s desire for an industry-favourable outcome on which future product sales are wholly reliant versus the potentially devastating effects of the finding that their product is either ineffective or harmful. or even worse, that it is both harmful and ineffective. this raises questions about pfizer’s apparent disinterest in full transparency.25,27,28 there is also a contradiction in funding research that might support the development or marketing of rival products or lead to an existing product to fail. the most egregious examples of this have been the suppression of out-of-hospital treatments shown to be potentially effective if used early in covid-19 infections, especially ivermectin.43 in part, this reluctance to pursue alternative, out-of-hospital treatments is explained by the need for vaccine manufacturers to have an experimental use application (eua) applied to their vaccines. an eua cannot be granted if alternative, effective treatments are already available. south africa provides an excellent example of the complexity of these conflicts of interest. all internationally competitive medical faculties in south africa receive very substantial funds from the three linked international organisations already mentioned that support vaccine research – the bill and melinda gates foundation, the national institute for health and the wellcome trust. indeed, one might argue that there is a direct relationship – perhaps not causal – between the international standing of the different south african medical faculties and the magnitude of the funding each receives for research into vaccines, mrna vaccines and their development. a natural consequence is that three of the most influential members of the south african president’s coronavirus command council are heavily funded by these organisations. the bill and melinda gates funding for vaccine research in africa is granted to just two south african medical faculties, who have reportedly received upwards of $154 million over the years. in addition to influencing university research, large pharmaceutical companies also have the budgets to influence academic publishers and health councils, as discussed by blaylock.39 in south africa, concerns have been raised about the independence of the south african health products regulatory authority (sahpra), which receives or has received funding from the bill and melinda gates foundation. recently, sahpra terminated the ‘compassionate use access programme’ for ivermectin in south africa. another potential site of contradiction exists where flawed interventions and policies may be coerced through global health organisations and via local government by more powerful international organisations. the who’s policy may reflect the interests of more powerful organisations, such as the world economic forum, and the influence of donors, such as the bill and melinda gates foundation.44 world health organization ignores personal health behaviours that can reduce the risks of fatal covid-19 outcomes the who document states that: [a]n infodemic can lead to confusion, misunderstanding of health information, risk-taking and behaviours that can harm health under the public health response, and lead to mistrust in health authorities. therefore, people need timely, accurate, and accessible information in the right format and amount during epidemics to adopt health-promoting behaviours to protect themselves, their families, and their communities against the infection.4 (n.p.) clearly the focus of this document is ostensibly to protect the ‘people’ – presumably the public – from harm by providing correct information that will assist them to adopt health-promoting behaviours, the goal of which is to protect everyone from infection. having stated that this is their goal, it is reasonable to expect that the who can establish clarity for the most appropriate actions for achieving these goals. this raised the question whether the who provided information that would assist individuals to alter their personal health behaviours – as opposed to the measures of hard lockdowns and border closures enforced on all. as described previously,45 very early in the ‘pandemic’ it was found that not everyone is at equal risk for a fatal covid-19 infection. this information should have been crucial in developing an appropriate global response to the ‘pandemic’ and in advising individuals of their probability of developing the disease. with this information, those at greatest risk could have prepared themselves more effectively. such covid-19 discourse seems largely been ignored in he. it was never stated that the gradient of risk for a fatal covid-19 outcome differs by more than 400-fold between the young, who are essentially at zero risk, and the elderly, especially those who live in nursing homes and in whom close to 40% of all covid-19 deaths were reported, for example, in england and wales. by contrast, the cdc suggested that this is over 8000-fold. an early study found that people above age 65 account for 91% – 95% of all covid-19 deaths in eight european epicenters for the outbreak. people younger than 65 years had a 34–73-fold lower risk than those older than 65 years. the absolute risk for covid-19 death ranged from 1.7 per million people for those younger than 65 years living in germany to 79 per million in those residing in new york city. after age 80, the risk of death rose steeply to 1 in 6000 in germany and 1 in 420 in spain. already in september 2020, the us centers for disease control and prevention in atlanta, georgia, released survival rates for different ages in the united states that suggested the risk was very low at young ages. similarly, the south african data shows exponentially increasing risk from age 49 for fatal covid-19 outcomes (see figure 1). figure 1: hazard ratios for risk of fatal outcome in covid-19 infections in the western cape.66 the second important risk factor also identified very early in the ‘pandemic’ was the presence of underlying medical conditions (comorbidities). in the netherlands, italy and new york city, respectively, 99.7%, 99.3% and 98.2% of all deaths occurred in those with one or more underlying comorbidities. the most important comorbidity is underlying poor metabolic health, characterised by the medical condition of insulin resistance, often presenting as the metabolic syndrome, visceral obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus (t2dm). in one of the very earliest studies of 5700 persons hospitalised in new york city for covid-19 infection, these comorbidities were present in the following proportions: (1) hypertension, 56%; (2) obesity, 42% and (3) t2dm, 34%. in september 2020, a large western cape (south africa) study of 501 fatal cases of covid-19 reported that just two factors – age and t2dm – massively increased the risk of a fatal outcome (figure 1). age above 50 years increased the risk between 8and 17-fold. people with t2dm and elevated hemoglobin a1c values, indicating poor diabetic control, were at 5–12 times greater risk for a fatal outcome than were those without t2dm. in contrast, a history of tuberculosis increased the risk 2.7-fold, and human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) just two-fold. other studies found other markers of abnormal metabolic control including visceral obesity (2.5–11-fold increase risk).46,47 from left: sex, age, type 2 diabetes mellitus (t2dm), other chronic diseases, tuberculosis, hiv. note that an hba1c value in excess of 7% is diagnostic of t2dm; higher values indicate more advanced disease. reproduced from data in table 5.3,48 physicians treating t2dm patients with covid-19 infections should also have been informed that any patient with an elevated blood glucose concentration on hospital admission was at a four-fold greater risk of a fatal outcome.49 patients with t2dm whose blood glucose levels exceeded 10 mmol/l during covid-19 infection had a significantly worse survival rate (98.9% versus 89.0%) than those with better glucose control. similarly, mortality measured at 60 days in patients with t2dm was 80% versus 92% in those without t2dm. elevated blood glucose concentrations in covid-19 patients with t2dm are harmful because: (1) they increase the ability of the covid-19 virus to replicate, and (2) they amplify the inflammatory response in the lungs and adipose tissue,50 among other effects.51 evidence also accumulated early in the ‘pandemic’ showing that vitamin d deficiency may be a key determinant of more severe covid-19 outcome.52,53,54 thus, some proposed early on that patients with covid-19 infections should receive supplemental magnesium, vitamin d and zinc55 and that these supplements should be taken for prophylaxis. subsequently, selenium deficiency was added as another potential nutritional deficiency that could worsen covid-19 outcomes.56 interestingly, an analysis of self-reported data found that a cohort of 18 497 persons who chose not to be vaccinated, comprising 6% of 297 618 such persons, were less likely to suffer severe covid-19 outcomes than those who chose to be vaccinated.57 in part, this might be because those who chose to be unvaccinated were more likely to adopt nutritional and other interventions known to be beneficial in preventing more serious covid-19 infections. given such overwhelming evidence for the importance of personal responsibility, what contradictions might explain why its discourses seem largely ignored in the covid-19 discourse from he and government? in the first place, personal responsibility is not a commercial site for generating large profits, some of which may be donated in supporting he research. research into effective, low-cost interventions seems to be at odds with the economic interests of both grant recipients and big pharma donors. replacing costly treatments with low-cost alternatives would not only greatly diminish the profitability of existing funders but also reduce the pool of new ones, as well as the size of future donations from all such donors. another contradiction exists in the exclusion of primary healthcare workers from the distributive rules for personal health responsibility during the pandemic. in particular, dissident health professionals and academic scholars who promote personal responsibility have faced censorship on campus and by medical authorities.58 lacking an opportunity to share their knowledge in public created a contradiction whereby marginalised experts have turned to the recontextualisation field for working around public health authoritarianism. a further contradiction exists in the scientific enterprise in he lending itself to being an arena for misinformation.59 in science, the old information of an outdated theorem’s paradigm and its axioms is an obstacle to a better understanding. such outdated understanding may be ‘low-quality’ information. however, from the perspective of orthodoxy, views that support new paradigms are unverified knowledge and potentially ‘misinformation’. any international health organisation that wishes to be an evaluator must have the scientific expertise for managing this ongoing paradox or irresolvable contradiction. organisations such as the who may theoretically be able to convene such knowledge, but their dependence on funding from conflicted parties would normally render them ineligible to perform such a task. how different modalities of knowledge become presented to the public is crucial for understanding ‘post-truth’ dimensions in a pandemic.8 this article alerts researchers to a broad range of ‘post-truth’ moments and flags the danger of relying on global health authorities to be the sole custodians of who is allowed to define what comprises an information disorder. in each case, challenges to such scientific propaganda should not automatically be (mis-) characterised as low-quality or harmful information. rather, the digital voices of responsible dissenters can be valuable in protecting scientific integrity and public health. review findings the need to watch the world health organization and other health ‘custodians’ the who describes its main goal as leading and championing ‘global efforts to give everyone, everywhere an equal chance to live a healthy life’ (2022). however, very early in the covid-19 epidemic, it was clear that this was not the case. for example, it has been claimed that of the 800 000 persons in the united states who died with a diagnosis of covid-19 infections, as many as 640 000 could have been saved had proven early out-of-hospital treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin been mandated.39,60,61 instead, ‘these knowledgeable doctors were prevented from employing otherwise safe drugs with the intention of saving covid-19-infected people’.33 thus: [n]either anthony fauci, the cdc, who nor any medical governmental establishment has ever offered any early treatment other than tylenol, hydration and call an ambulance once you have difficulty breathing. this is unprecedented in the entire history of medical care as early treatment of infections is critical in saving lives and preventing severe complications. not only have these medical organizations and federal lapdogs not even suggested early treatment, they attacked anyone who attempted to initiate such treatment with all the weapons at their disposal – loss of license, removal of hospital privileges, shaming, destruction of reputations and even worse.62 (p. 2) the who is complicit in all covid-19 deaths that could have been prevented by the initiation of early effective treatment. a probable explanation for why early treatment was not encouraged in the united states lies in the windfall that the covid-19 ‘pandemic’ brought to the us hospital companies. the federal care act provided a disincentive for out-of-hospital care of covid-19 infections by offering $12 000 for each patient admitted to intensive care units (icu) and $39 000 for each patient in the icu placed on a respirator.33 early on, it was found that 60% of patients placed on ventilators were more likely to have a fatal outcome.63 this mortality rate was reduced with time as care providers became more skilled in the use of this form of treatment. or alternatively, they realised that this form of treatment was more likely to produce a fatal outcome than was its avoidance. blaylock39 makes the point that billions in federal covid-19 aid are now being used by the hospital ‘giants’ to purchase financially endangered hospitals – an unintended consequence of the failure to promote out-of-hospital treatment with proven effective repurposed medications. with regard to vaccine harms, the mantra of ‘safe and effective’ from the who and other public health institutions is called into question through orthodox methods of review of the vaccine data provided by the vaccine companies themselves.29 the gigantic profits for investors in covid-19 vaccines have bankrolled mandatory vaccine policies that have led to significant individual harms while returning ascribed ‘benefits’ that have continually diminished in scope. conclusion it seems that the who’s advice was not evidence based, leaving plenty of scope for speculation in the recontextualisation field. we have described this and many other intergroup contradictions that exist within, and between, divisions of knowledge labour in the covid-19 pandemic. the changed nature of vaccine knowledge production is spotlighted, and its accelerated division of labour is driven by the dominating financial interests of those companies that manufacture the experimental therapies. manufacturers of these novel therapies dominate the division of knowledge labour in mrna vaccine production. these companies also exert undue influence on academic institutions and health organisations that are expected to be independent of external influences in their search for truth. the division of knowledge labour in the covid-19 pandemic regarding the promotion of vaccine uptake, and safety has influenced the who’s reluctance in tracking vaccine injuries. the who did not promote a range of relatively simply health-promoting behaviours known to improve personal resistance to infection, especially of those who are the most at risk of a fatal covid-19 outcome. we argue that the contradictions in the development of mrna vaccine production knowledge strongly influence outcomes related to personal health knowledge. most notably, the who’s failures in its acceptance of the need for vaccinating all the world’s people even before proper clinical trials establishing that these novel experimental therapies were both ‘safe and effective’. the who also failed to address the issue of personal responsibility in optimising personal health choices and behaviours. given such massive failures, to be credible, the who infodemic research agenda should open earnest discussion on whether its own choices and guidelines have contributed to ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ and even ‘malinformation’. it should also address the other covid-19 myths, which officials continue to promote (pandata, 2021).64 without such epistemic humility, this research agenda can be criticised, as the agenda’s actual goal may be to direct attention away from the multiple failures of government and health authorities in fighting a pandemic with inappropriate measures. in particular, given that prioritising vaccines over other measures has had huge social costs for africa’s poor.65 the cdc, nih and who’s endorsement of multinational pharmaceutical companies’ products is particularly troubling. it marks a ‘new normal’ of institutional capture by industry-sponsoring regulators who become their ‘lobbyists’. this contrasts to the silo efforts of external influence in the past, for example by lobbyists working for big tobacco or big food.63 they spun embedded scientific research touting the ‘benefits’ of smoking and processed foods. at the same time, evidence of harm was attacked as ‘junk science’. at least with cigarettes and ultra-processed foods, many individuals have the choice to buy or avoid paying. in stark contrast, tax-paying publics have no such option in avoiding the steep costs of mrna vaccines. public taxes pay for these treatments, while less expensive and potentially more effective interventions are ignored. paying for vaccines takes funding away from interventions that would address wider and more pressing global health needs, in particular, poverty, malaria, tuberculosis and t2dm. as outsiders and dissidents from the covid-19 consensus, we have raised several constructive criticisms of the infodemic research agenda. such concerns seem apposite to the ideology of the pro-vaccine, great reset agenda of the who and its economic stakeholders. we suspect that our unrequested advice and unwanted criticism will simply be ignored, so we welcome your feedback. acknowledgements the publication developed from a collaboration between the noakes foundation’s academic free speech and digital voices research theme and pandemics data analytics (panda). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exists. authors’ contributions t.m.n., the senior author, conceptualised the manuscript’s direction and focus; wrote the first draft and was responsible for all visualisations. t.m.n. provided the major input to all subsequent revisions. d.b. contributed to the investigation’s formal analysis, providing specialist health sociology input and reviewing and editing the final draft. t.d.n. edited all drafts; provided critical comments on the flow, meaning and content of the manuscript and assisted the investigation with specialist medical input. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references ghebreyesus ta. munich security [homepage on the internet]. world health organisation; 2020. available from: https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/munich-security-conference calleja n, abdallah a, abad n, et al. a public health research agenda for managing infodemics: methods and results of the first who infodemiology conference. jmir infodemiology. 2021;1(1):e30979. 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(2021). 20 lies. retrieved 2022/10/02 [homepage on the internet]. 2021 [cited 2022 oct 02]. available from: https://www.pandata.org/20-lies/ shaw c. the covid-19 pandemic: destroying human bonds and health as central to a larger agenda. propaganda in focus [homepage on the internet]. 2022 [cited n.d.]. available from: https://propagandainfocus.com/the-covid-19-pandemic-destroying-human-bonds-and-health-as-central-to-a-larger-agenda/ boulle a, davies m-a, hussey h, et al. risk factors for covid-19 deaths in a population cohort study from the western cape province, south africa. clin infect dis. 2021 oct 5;73(7):e2005–e2015. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1198 microsoft word 17 van as and kruger.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, special edition, 10(2) november 2014, pp. 236-252. the church organist’s rappers: redefining roles and strategies in music education r van as1 and j kruger2 abstract arts and culture teachers often are ill-equipped to meet the requirements of school music programmes. they labour especially to accommodate the diverse musical preferences of learners. this discussion accordingly describes the implementation of a once-off rap programme at an inner-city secondary school in pretoria. it shows the programme evolving fitfully into a remarkably effective synergy between a teacher (trained as a church organist), the formal schooling system, school learners as well as community musicians. however, this synergy was dependent on the teacher relinquishing her cultural and musical preferences in favour of a popular music programme linked to the social experiences of learners. the successful unfolding of this programme demanded that the teacher surrender the conventional status of omniscient, authoritative educator in accordance with the principles of learner-centered approaches. the role of the teacher consequently became that of project coordinator and facilitator, while the needs, goals and actions of learners were central to, and motivated experiential and reflective group learning. learners applied theoretical knowledge in musical creation and performance, continuously assessed their progress, and redefined their objectives as required. the consequent development by them of a combination of communicative, cognitive, emotional and social skills reveals the value in music education of oral processes of learning, as well as the role of community musicians. it also underscores the value of the school as formal setting of social interaction and education, as well as the indispensable – if redefined – role of the educator. keywords. action learning, creative arts, music education, learner-centered education, rap this discussion emanates from a rap music programme implemented at an inner city school in pretoria in 2011 (see van as, 2012). the experiences of staff and learners at this school are typical of such educational settings (see au, 2005; frierson-campbell, 2006; robinson, 1 . rosa van as is a church organist and music educator. she also teaches mathematics at a secondary school in pretoria. she researched the topic as part of her mmus degree at north-west university, potchefstroom campus in the niche entity – musical arts in south africa: resources and applications. rvanas@dinamix.co.za 2 . jaco kruger teaches musicology in the school of music, north-west university, potchefstroom campus (niche entity – musical arts in south africa: resources and applications). 10193405@nwu.ac.za the church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 237 2006). the school’s culturally diverse surroundings are manifested in the composition of both its learner and educator bodies. this diversity is attendant upon urban spatial change which is marked by the disintegration of original business hubs, and the inflow of unemployed and homeless people from peri-urban and rural areas, as well as neighbouring countries. accordingly, a significant number of learners at the school under discussion live in conditions characterised by material deprivation, fractured families, violence and substance abuse. needless to say, providing relevant, effective education to them is replete with challenges whose resolution may require innovative thinking. the challenges of school music programmes the colonial legacy in south african formal music education is that of music literacy and the study of western ‘art’ music. the well-known human sciences research council music education report of 1993 accordingly identified a “crisis of relevance” related to a “western monogenic music education programme” (smit & hauptfleisch, 1993:25-28). although this legacy has since evolved autonomously into local operatic, orchestral and choral singing practices (see e.g. operaafrica.co.za, buskaid.org.za, thutong.doe.gov.za/schoolenrichment), it continues to be redundant in many local communities: school choristers in free state province identified their music of choice as gospel and “sotho music” (dzorkpey, 2010),3 while a survey conducted by van as (2012) amongst eighty grade 8 and 9 learners at the inner city school under discussion revealed a preference for local forms of house music (37% of the sample) and rap (34%). that rap is a form of expression of knowledge and meaning for these learners is evident in a remark by one of them that [i]t is much more than dance – it is a culture [in which] you can talk about the food you eat, about money, about the person you want to marry, about everything that happens in your life. you live by it. that is what people do who believe in it. they do everything according to it.4 the current curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) for the creative arts (senior phase, grades 7-9) is a response to the constitutional mandate to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person” (caps for the creative arts, 2011:3). this it aims to achieve, inter alia, by including the study and performance of “folksongs (indigenous songs, cultural songs)”5 and popular music. while the curriculum therefore has a firm, socially-engaged philosophical foundation, its implementation remains mired in a “crisis of provision” (see smit & hauptfleisch, 1993:4970). tertiary training programmes in music education are challenged by the large number of diverse music cultures in south africa. in addition, they significantly still reflect the colonial 3 in contrast, the south african schools choral eistedfodd, a national choir competition for secondary schools administered by the department of education, includes a category for western opera ill-suited to the abilities and musical experiences of most choirs (see dzorkpey, 2010). 4 compare juslin, 2005:85. american hip-hop artist krs-one similarly remarks that "hip-hop is something you live, rap is something you do." (adaso, 2011.) all statements by learners were made during the running of the rap programme at their school during 2011. 5 prior to the 1993 human sciences research council report, a process already had been initiated to source local african musical cultures in music education (see lucia, 1986). the talking drum, an african music education resource journal, was launched in 1992, and still provides music teachers with valuable support. van as and kruger 238 legacy of classical ‘high art’. while tertiary jazz programmes have gained a permanent foothold, the same cannot be said for popular music programmes which are implemented poorly. arts teachers therefore often find themselves at a loss when confronted with the caps for the creative arts. not only do they not always share the musical preferences of learners, but they also are expected to offer tuition in dance, drama and the visual arts. creative arts education therefore often is offered piecemeal by teachers ill-equipped for their task. so, for example, instruction in music in the arts and culture programme for grades 8 and 9 at the school concerned was restricted to a non-practical overview of musical instruments. there was no specialist music teacher at the school, and musical performance took place irregularly and extra-murally under the direction of volunteers. although employed as a mathematics teacher at the school, van as is a qualified music educator, and had been conductor of the school choir for several years. she founded a music and dance festival in 2010 to showcase cultural diversity among learners. in keeping with the popular notion of timeless ethnic identity, learners and community members presented older, ‘traditional’ musical forms at the first festival. an unexpected request by a learner for the inclusion at the festival of a rap performance sensitised van as to the biased and maladaptive nature of notions of static identity, and acted as stimulus for the implementation of a rap programme at the school. implementing a rap programme: the challenge of method although a significant percentage of learners at the school expressed a preference for house music (mainly a dance form), the verbal nature of rap seemed to offer van as, as cultural ‘outsider’, more rewarding access to the experiences and worldviews of learners. the twomonth programme accordingly set out to offer learners an opportunity to develop skills in rap composition and performance, and in so doing to contribute to the development of their personal and social well-being. implementing these objectives clearly called for methodological circumspection, given the statuses as well as musical skills and preferences of those involved: van as and her learners were from different ethnic origins in a country still scarred by racial stereotyping; they also were distinguished in terms of age; although conductor of the school choir, the primary status of van as as a mathematics teacher did not correlate with her proposed involvement in the rap programme6; furthermore, van as is a church organist, and she finds the frequent explicit content of rap morally objectionable. as such, it was glaringly evident that any successful implementation of the programme would be dependent on van as relinquishing her personal and cultural preferences7 as well as any insistence on the conventional status of omniscient, authoritative teacher in favour of receptiveness towards the use of popular music in education, as well as a reconceptualised role allocation in accordance with learner-centered approaches. 6 however, van as had established prior rapport with her mathematics learners through musical activity. these learners internalised mathematical formulae and short descriptions of methods by performing them to existing melodies. this promoted learners’ interest in mathematics and helped to accommodate diverse styles of learning (see van as, 2009). 7 as this discussion shows, learners were aware that other adults also did not approve of the explicit nature of certain rap songs, and consequently avoided offensive lyrics in their school rap project. the church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 239 any one or combination of the plethora of contemporary learner-centered methods arguably would have been suitable for the implementation of the rap programme. however, the particular circumstances and objectives of the programme aligned themselves particularly well with the action learning approach.8 this pioneering approach was developed in the 1940s by reginald revans in the field of business management (see revans, 1980; 1984). in contrast to the popular notion that learning somehow precedes experience, revans argues for the practical acquisition of knowledge within particular professional environments. although mainly aimed at executive leadership training programmes, action learning applies to most contexts where learning is linked to specific outcomes. revans’s approach accordingly has been applied in music education by regelski (1981, 1983, 1986), and it has, in dynamic mergers with other learner-centered approaches, resonated in the influential praxial musical philosophy of elliott (1989; 1995; 2009), with its emphasis on music as meaningful interaction, as well as contemporary perspectives along the interface of formal and informal music education (see schippers & bartleet, 2013). pared down to their bare essence, the principles of action learning selectively applied and adapted in the rap programme were the following (see especially regelski, 1983b:48): the role of the educator was that of project coordinator and facilitator of teaching-learning in cooperation with community experts (in this case, professional local rappers); the needs, goals and actions of learners were central to, and motivated learning; group learning was a core activity; learning was experiential and reflective: learners applied theoretical knowledge in musical creation and performance, continuously assessed their progress, and redefined their objectives as required. the objective of this essay is not to provide any in-depth review or critique of the extensive writings on action learning, but a broad discussion of the application in the rap programme of the tenets of action learning as set out above. in particular, it describes how these tenets helped to redefine the conventional relationship between educator and learner, and in so doing enabled the production of a successful rap concert. in this process it illuminates aspects of the relationship between school and community, as well as formal and informal teaching. as such it also aims to contribute towards the “growing awareness and recognition of the connections between community musicians, music making, and education” and the development of alternative models of music teaching-learning “in order to widen the framework dictated by the history and structure of formal music education in terms of content, methodology and practice” (schippers & bartleet, 2013:457). applying action learning principles the programme was structured into the following operational phrases: learners from grades 8 and 9 responded to an invitation by van as to join the programme. they in turn recruited other group members. groups then met with van as to identify their objectives and strategies. following this, the groups created their rap songs under the direction of van as, and with the assistance of local professional rappers. this process evolved over a period of several weeks and culminated in a school concert that showcased the group’s compositions and acquired performance skills. 8 we are indebted to dr. liesl van der merwe for identifying this link. van as and kruger 240 the role of the educator and professional experts the first meeting between educator and learner was marked by surprises and doubt. however, this meeting, as well as the next few, were to be seminal in the unfolding of the programme. the meeting was attended by a few learners only, none of whom had rapped before. they subsequently indicated that they were excited, but nervous and shy. their anxiety was fuelled by van as’s announcement that she did not merely intend to facilitate a platform at school for rap performance, but also wanted to play an active role in the process leading to the planned concert. they distrusted her unexpected interest in their music, and one learner thought that her plans were offered as a joke. others politely expressed their skepticism in questions and statements like “ma’m, are you sure you want to learn more about rap?” and “you know, this is not holy ground!” they knew that some adults disapproved of the explicit content of some rap styles, and therefore diplomatically suggested that van as might want to implement her plans elsewhere with gospel rappers. however, van as managed to convince them of her sincerity after further negotiation, and the group somewhat reluctantly but courteously agreed to meet during school breaks to implement the programme. these meetings soon attracted the curiosity of other learners, and the group finally expanded to nineteen members. the fact that van as managed to convince learners of the integrity of her intentions does not mean that she performed her role with any modicum of ease. to the contrary, she experienced her engagement with rap as a culture shock, and she was acutely aware during the entire programme that her gender, ethnic affiliation, age and moral values often were in conflict with the conventions of rap culture. the initial phase of the programme was most challenging since van as was relatively unfamiliar with rap practices. her ignorance was met with disbelief and even boredom, and she had to field questions like “ma’m, do you really not know what the meaning of swag [confidence] is?” in addition, learners’ progress was slower than anticipated, while the programme had to be completed within a constricting time span. also, the programme met with apathy from the school’s management as well as staff. an event at the school to market the concert was disrupted by jeering, ill-disciplined non-rappers, and this impacted severely on the morale of all involved in the programme. the description of the innovative educator getting worse before getting better (green, 2008:54) accordingly correlated fittingly with constant feelings of discouragement and alienation, and van as’s immediate, subconscious response was to take refuge behind her video camera. however, the selective implementation of the principles of action learning eventually became the only effective response to these conditions and feelings. shaking off the fear of losing control over the programme required the calculated trusting of learners to achieve objectives, according a primary pedagogical role them and co-opting professional rappers into the teaching-learning process (see revans, 1981:260). nudging learners to the pedagogical centre, while stepping back, was easier said than done, and ingrained teacher-centered habits asserted themselves powerfully during the first phase. by way of introduction, van as offered learners a formal overview of rap genres, styles of rhyme and rhythm, rap themes and language (see krims, 2000). not surprisingly, learners quickly became bored, but were too reticent to express any objections. the situation called for the immediate implementation of two strategies: van as had to be true to herself by admitting ignorance about rap performance practice, and the role of learners in the teachingthe church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 241 learning process had to be reconceptualised (see regelski, 1981:373). consequently, learners played and discussed their favourite rap songs at the meeting that followed. some learners with practical rap experience even demonstrated their skills. discussion expanded to the worlds of rapping by means of an analysis of the term swag (confidence, self-assertion). as we will show, this discussion established a clear link between poverty and the materialistic values that characterise certain forms of rap. the conversation was lively, spontaneous and often changed direction. learners were so enthusiastic at the end of this session that they wanted to meet again later that day. this redefined approach to teaching-learning became increasingly fruitful: learners started sharing their knowledge with increasing freedom, and the relationship between them and van as gradually changed, resulting in constructive, often unforeseen consequences. one of van as’s first displays of her newly-acquired knowledge was the spontaneous incorporation of rap vocabulary into her speech patterns.9 this was a clear, practical sign of her commitment to the programme, and it helped to cement her bond with her learners. while van as in this way steadily accumulated knowledge of the rap genre, her lack of practical skills, as well as the subordination of the extra-mural rap programme to the school’s formal academic programme,10 necessitated a process of accelerated creativity and skills acquisition. this was achieved by co-opting local professional rappers into the programme, an indispensable reversal of revans’s strategy to involve ‘non-experts’ in problem-solving situations (see revans, 1980:30).11 these rappers had been identified by learners in the programme. they had completed their education at the school, and were now building careers as professional artists. rapper bugzito was particularly excited, remarking that he never would have dreamed a rap programme would one day be implemented at the school. accordingly, he and fellow rappers were exceedingly committed to their task.12 they faithfully attended all meetings during the week as well as over weekends, and patiently provided learners with practical advice. as we show below, the social status and skills of these rappers offered them authority as facilitators, and thus fostered the creative process. the redefinition of van as’s role, as well as the involvement of local rappers, however, did not negate her function as coordinator and facilitator. this role required the effective structuring of groups, offering advice and encouragement, ensuring progressive learning, selfassessment and the on-going reformulation of objectives, and generally creating conditions conducive to effective learning (see pedler et al., 2005; regelski, 1981; revans, 1980). 9 especially “spit your chorus!” 10 the programme had to be completed within two months so as not to interfere with the school’s academic schedule. furthermore, meetings were restricted to school breaks, and otherwise took place after hours and even over weekends. 11 revans argues that experts tend to overlook the obvious, and apply proven solutions rather than assess new situations in their own terms. this approach also may inhibit participants from developing their own solutions and problem-solving skills. 12 some of them had to walk long distances to get to the school. in addition, they struggled with their own studies, and often were so hungry that they expressed gratitude for a humble sandwich when arriving at meetings. during a conversation about possible prizes for participants, one remarked, “a meal voucher sounds wonderful to me, because all i can think of now is food.” van as and kruger 242 addressing the experiences and needs of learners in keeping with the tenets of learner-centered methods, the experiences and needs of learners is a fundamental principle of action learning. objectives are not related to imaginary situations but to actual, shared concerns which become the practical motivation for learning (revans, 1980:53). regular remarks by learners not only underscored the need for school music programmes, but specifically also those that would enable the musical expression of their social experiences, worldviews and emotional conditions, function as sites of social interaction, and help to open up professional possibilities. learners accordingly emphasised the importance of expressing themselves in a musical form of their choosing, remarking “we would not be as enthusiastic if [another type] of music was prescribed by the teacher. we are glad that we can do something to which all young people can relate, something we all enjoy.” as the remark by rapper bugzito indicates, extensive popular music programmes are rarely offered at school. learners expressed their gratitude at being able to join the rap programme, and remarked that it empowered them. contrary to the hedonistic stereotyping of rap, learners indicated that rap performance is a suitable medium for serious self-reflection: “[rap allows us to] talk about our present, our past and our future, about our dreams and the hope that lives inside us, about our experiences at school, about perseverance, and about life as an adventure.” the group unanimously formulated the theme my story, my vision, and lines from their songs accordingly stated “look up, look: the future has arrived” (jai tea: good fella), “now let’s stand together and tell all the haters we have our backs right” (toxic: rockin’ like mine), “make your mum proud, ‘coz we are the world’s future” (lesley: youth anthem), “i’m up the sky, higher than a mountain” (luyanda: success) and “with god i stay linked” (toxic: keep on going).13 learner denise was convinced that she would gain control over her turbulent emotions if she could work through them in rehearsal, and declare them openly in performance. only her close friends fully understood the verbal metaphors that expressed her feelings regarding the divorce of her parents, as well as other discouraging life experiences. she was learning to adjust to the fragmentation of her family, and compared this process to buying a new car, since it was the beginning of a new phase in her life: i’m a swagga on a zillion.14 luiy v down. like a luiy v camillion.15 i was so stree’like i live in a building. no chandeliers, i got guns hanging off the ceiling.16 brand new car. 13 stanley (1992:xxii) accordingly notes of early forms of american rap that they were “generally exuberant and upbeat” and “devoted more to uplift than to anger.” accordingly, rappers in the programme discussed here generally viewed their performance a means to educate and build community solidarity. 14 “zillion” quantifies denise’s love and admiration for her mother who is her role model. 15 “camillion” refers to a chameleon. the ability of the animal to change colour is a metaphor of denise’s need to adapt to changing circumstances. 16 a metaphor for the trauma accompanying the divorce. the church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 243 i divorced a cop.17 say brand new car, brand new car. (from brand new car) denise was the only female rapper in the programme, and for many girls at the school she eventually became iconic of how their own personal and gender struggles could be surmounted. while the rap programme therefore evolved as a means of intimate personal expression for certain individuals, it provided an opportunity for all to display social competence and selfassertion, and to impress others (especially the opposite gender) in the mastery of their mode of expression. toxic, in his song keep on going, accordingly remarked: “i got ma raps/ got ma rhymes/ got ma lyrics just in line/ got ma haters left behind”, while jai tea (good fella) boasted: “the one and only undisputed, the good fella/ the one and only casanova, with ladies/ the one and only land rover, with mcs”.18 swagga in turn remarked after the concert that his performance gave him confidence, and infused him with the emotional energy needed to meet challenges. telly gang, a group of academic underperformers, identified in their participation in the concert an opportunity to present themselves as competent learners, and their song accordingly stated: “i’m in the school of success/ the school of talent and challenge/ where champions are made.” while these notions of success were expressed in general terms, they took on specific, professional relevance for several learners who saw the programme as a professional training opportunity. jai tea accordingly stated in his song good fella: i’m not imaginary. i’m a legendary rapper in the making. i’m extraordinary. i’m a historic era. a legend forever. one day i’m gonna be on the library shelves. rapping is my best profession. living in a culture of poverty, successful local and international rappers are role models to these young inner city rappers, and learner kamogelo remarked that he specifically strives to emulate the success of famous american rap artists. in predictable contrast with their socially constructive values, these young rappers also expressed a strongly materialistic worldview in their conversations and songs. in response to the question by van as, “how does a person with swag act?”, learners remarked that people with swag have “style and self-confidence”, based on what they possess. money is especially important to rappers since most of them live in squatter camps. people want to be friends with a successful rapper “in the hope of getting something out of him. this makes him feel important. the more money someone owns, the more girlfriends he has.” (van as, 2012:57-58.) learner skhumbuzo accordingly remarked 17 denise’s father is a traffic officer. 18 mc: master of ceremonies, a reference to expert rapping. the land rover is a favourite vehicle of local political leaders and successful businessmen, and consequently symbolises power and wealth. van as and kruger 244 in youth anthem: “i want to be the bravest man like mandela/ getting all my distinctions like mugabe/ getting my cash/ firing like obama.” group learning and support central to revans’s concept of action learning is not the external expert, but those in the workplace who reflect on themselves in groups or so-called action learning sets (revans, 1980). these groups meet on a regular basis for discussion, cooperation and reflection. they ideally function consensually and take their own decisions in an environment of honesty and acceptance (see dilworth, 1998:36; regelski, 1981:296). achieving these aims in the rap programme was promoted by the circle formation. facing each other markedly promoted cooperation and feelings of coherence among all participants. this was especially the case following the disrupted marketing meeting. responding to verbal abuse by non-rappers (e.g. “any person can rap – it takes no special skill”), one of the learners in the programme remarked laconically: “you have to deal with [take] things like this.” such shared experiences and sentiments were key to the successful implementation of the rap programme. the initial euphoria induced by visions of stardom was soon tempered by the discovery that composition and performance requires hard work and perseverance. however, learners garnered strength when they realised that all faced the same problems, and they soon developed the skill of encouragement and actual assistance. support in some cases was extensive, as is evident in our discussion of the relationship between learners swagga and skhumbuzo (see “creating lyrics”). remarks by learners about the advantages of group formation pointed to intensified relationships and an awareness of interdependence and mutual responsibilities. these qualities engendered trust and feelings of security, and jay weezy noted that his group made him feel free and excited. learners generally indicated that interaction improved their sense of self-worth and helped to develop their personalities. relationships were also cemented through support and the sharing of knowledge by learners not participating in the programme. denise’s friends realised she would benefit from expressing her emotions about her domestic life in her performance, and they encouraged her to participate in the concert. jai tea’s rehearsals were even supported by his non-participating friends. they also joined his post-concert reflection session. members of the rap programme obviously were characterised by their status as learners at the same school, their musical preferences and shared programme objectives. jay weezy accordingly remarked: “i can be in contact with others due to our shared interest in rap.” more specifically, however, individual groups tended to form on the basis of friendship.19 learners joined groups who shared their specific worldviews and cooperated amicably. several groups furthermore were molded according to shared academic performance. one such group comprised learners who were repeating their grade while another, the crazy saints, consisted of four achievers who remarked: i’ve got dreams and ambitions of julius caesar. i can be cold as ice but boiling like a geyser. 19 although learners were required to work in groups, some asked to present an individual performance, so that six groups and three soloists eventually took part in the concert. the church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 245 you ain’t got nothing on me, i’m a dream reacher. on being light weight title: don’t test me, i’ll beat ya. (extract from teenagers) the group fire line was an exception in that they were composed of casual acquaintances. the conversation that led to their formation was short and to the point: “can you rap?” “yes, but preferably in my mother tongue!” “[ok] let us form a group and take part in the concert!” “yes, we can practise every break.” “ofentse can create us a beat with fruity loops20 and ot can provide sound effects with beat boxing.”21 however, not all attempts at group formation were so simple and successful. approximately a quarter of those initially interested in the programme withdrew gradually. some lacked commitment, while others found it too difficult to accommodate the pressure associated with performance. some groups therefore either disbanded altogether or lost members to other groups, a process that continued until shortly before the concert. teaching-learning is reflective and experiential reflection is cardinal in action learning, since learning and behavioural change is argued to take place most effectively when learners continuously conceptualise, test and defend their positions, and experience the outcomes of their own proposals and actions (revans, 1980). swag stars fittingly asked themselves: “what must we do to stage a successful performance? should such a performance include dance movements? if so, where can we get dance tuition from?” one of the outcomes of this reflection was that the group successfully incorporated new dance movements in their concert presentation. the entire group formulated and pursued the following main performance objectives: 1) individuals initially had to create their own rap lyrics. 2) these lyrics had to be adapted and integrated into a group composition. 3) performers had to learn how to “flow with the beat” (fit lyrics to a metre). 4) each group had to create a suitable pre-recorded instrumental accompaniment and learn to use sound equipment effectively. 5) all learners had to organise and participate in a stage performance at the end of the programme. creating lyrics professional rapper bugzito advised learners to reflect constantly on relevant life issues so as “never to be without words.” for learner piet, this translated into stating “who we are, what 20 the implication is that a box of fruity loops (a cereal) can become a percussion instrument. 21 vocal percussion. van as and kruger 246 we dream about and what gives us courage to go on.” while the choice of themes was therefore relatively self-evident, learners’ lack of experience of composition and performance required special input from van as and the professional rappers. so, for instance, van as showed learners how to analyse their social experiences, and describe them in original and interesting ways by applying linguistic devices like adjectives, synonyms, internal rhyme (alliteration and assonance) and end rhyme. one meeting was dedicated to developing the skill of replacing commonplace expressions with new and attractive descriptions. learners were asked to list five aspects of school life. each aspect had to be qualified with a list of suitable references (e.g. school break: sit, eat, conversation, laugh, friends). each of these references in turn had to be extended (e.g. soft green grass, cheese sandwich, lively chat). learners now had to construct two sentences around each reference. they then had to practise chanting these sentences to a particular metre, on a selected pitch level and at a suitable tempo. this exercise not only developed the essential skill of verbal formulation and “flowing with the beat” (see the discussion that follows), but also established the importance of an expressive delivery. this skills development drill was an important opportunity for van as to regain her confidence as educator. her additional experience as qualified language teacher had equipped her with the knowledge and authority necessary to play a leading role in this phase of the training process, one she performed with ease and spontaneity. this is not to identify this role as exclusive. swagga dedicated himself to helping his friend skhumbuzo (who belonged to a different group) to write lyrics and set them to a metre. skhumbuzo was asked to reflect on his theme and write down his ideas. these ideas were then transformed into lines, as if writing a poem. swagga then played an accompaniment and asked skhumbuzo to read the lines while superimposing them on the metre. when skhumbuzo stumbled, swagga demonstrated how he should fit the words and flow with the beat. skhumbuzo persevered until he was successful. he had learnt that his speech tempo had to correlate with the tempo of the beat. although his rhyme tended to stay somewhat forced, he had reached his personal objective, and his group (swag stars) ultimately would rap: “this is sa/ i never look back/ i hate history/22 this is my say!” the joint group initially decided that they should rap in english. a request by a learner for the inclusion of “perhaps a few words in your own [african] language to make you feel at ease” was rejected “because someone can insult your mother in another language without you being aware of it.” it was therefore confirmed that songs for the concert should only be in english, and that foul language or references to violence, sex, pregnancy, drugs or other inappropriate topics were forbidden. van as’s trust in her learners was starting to pay off since they were tempering their descriptions of their experiences, and apologised when they used the occasional explicit expression. “flowing with the beat” according to professional rapper tony, “flowing with the beat” involves the integration of lyrics, metre and tempo that gives a song its unique expressive power: “it is not what you say, 22 a negative evaluation of the ongoing racialisation of contemporary south african politics, shaped by the group’s constructive interaction with van as. the church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 247 but the way you say it.” green (2008:60) in turn describes flow specifically as the capability to sing each note at a point precisely on or around a beat (also see adams, 2009). for most participants in the programme, achieving flow was the most demanding creative challenge. this is not surprising as it involves integrating lyrics, metre, rhythm, tempo, dynamics and form (song structure). learners were advised by programme facilitators to first listen to many styles of rap, structures of flow and rhyme schemes before selecting a metre. they then demonstrated how accents may occur on weak as well as strong beats, and how to “relax while talking over the beat.” they also explained that a rapper has to develop the ability to think and take decisions in a split second. this is only possible when performers maintain the metre when introducing variation in the lyrics. such variation is one of the basic features of rap, and once it is mastered, perfect flow will be achieved. in a group context, flow is also dependent on good coordination between members. learners were encouraged and guided by the programme facilitators to experiment freely and continually reflect on their creative efforts (see dilworth, 1998:36; regelski, 1983b:47). however, good advice by the professional rappers did not invalidate the value learners attached to their own tried and tested methods. for example, little consensus could be reached about the ideal way to integrate lyrics and metre. some learners, like toxic, argued that it is best to first find an accompaniment, to determine the metre, rhythm and tempo, and then to fit the lyrics: “i listen to the beats while i write the lyrics because then i know how the beat flows.” samkele in turn argued that it is not possible for one person to teach another how to flow. several learners pointed to the importance of listening to the beat while writing lyrics. swagga remarked that he is influenced by the way that well-known rapper lill wayne’s performances flow. showcasing the songs the group’s creative efforts were showcased at a school concert at the conclusion of the programme. learners were guided in marketing the concert by word of mouth, posters and pamphlets. learners who were graffiti artists, and did not participate in the programme, designed the posters. the concert mobilised learners and staff not directly involved in the programme, and created a wider sense of ownership and participation in culture change at the school. the school’s cultural committee took responsibility for organising masters of ceremony (mcs) for the concert. these mcs included learners from senior grades, and they helped groups during their final rehearsals, prepared the school hall for the concert, and sold tickets. the school’s disciplinary committee also became involved. they roped off the front of the stage, and appointed staff who were responsible for maintaining order during the concert.23 all those who offered assistance during the concert were asked to dress in rap fashion, and this helped to visualise support and shared experience. final rehearsals quickly revealed that most performances were not yet acceptable: not all participants knew their lyrics, accompaniments had not yet been prepared adequately, the membership of some groups had changed, while there were also technical problems with recorded accompaniments. learners discovered that final preparation was very demanding 23 this included the ejection of unruly elements by physically intimidating ‘bouncers’. van as and kruger 248 and time-consuming. rehearsals in front of friends helped the young rappers to overcome their initial nervousness, acquire experience, rectify mistakes and round off their song. groups also influenced and inspired each other during these rehearsals. these strategies had prepared the groups well for their concert. the concert stood in stark contrast to the humble, doubt-ridden start of the programme. although not all performances were equally successful, the concert was a real achievement. the audience’s enthusiastic response boosted the confidence of the young performers. the performance by jai tea, the most accomplished rapper, was met with such enthusiastic response that an experienced, older mc expressed his regret at not also participating in the concert. comments from members of the audience included “i enjoyed my friend’s rapping”, “the concert was off the hook!” and “the rappers flowed with the beat like professionals.” staff who attended the concert also valued the rap performances, and the principal expressed surprise at seeing successful performers not otherwise noted for excellence in any field related to formal schooling. to him, the concert showed the need to accommodate as many learners as possible in a wider diversity of academic as well as extra-curricular programmes. “a new chorus”: assessing the programme the implementation of the rap programme has shown that the application and adaptation of specific principles of action learning in an extra-mural school teaching-learning programme may offer meaningful education. the efficacy of the programme was attendant upon the redefinition of the relationship between educator and learner, its relevance to the social experiences of learners, as well as the incorporation of dedicated professional artists. the programme equipped learners with a combination of communicative, cognitive, emotional and social skills. in terms of their cognitive skills, their acquired ability for artistic as well as interpersonal analysis and reflection was of particular importance. learners overcame the core creative and performance challenges of rap, namely creating lyrics (thus developing their literary skills) and learning to flow with the beat, i.e. to articulate their words clearly and fluently in relation to a fitting metre and rhythmical patterns. this achievement was possible because they had learnt to listen critically to, and evaluate performances. learners marketed and organised their own concert, and then performed successfully to an audience in accordance with the conventions of rap. in this process they discovered first-hand some of the basic characteristics of all successful artists, namely that they are imaginative, express authentic experiences and emotions, and strive for excellence but not necessarily perfection. in terms of social interaction, learners developed an ability to solve problems by sharing knowledge, listening to and evaluating the views of others, and making decisions that benefitted the group (see ley, 2004:40). they also learned the value of acceptance, encouragement and patience. the personal rewards of the programme for learners were particularly moving. denise explained how rap performance enabled her to overcome the hurt of her parents’ divorce, while swagga, who harboured deeply negative sentiments about his life, remarked that musical expression encouraged him, and directed his energies towards the kind of future that would make his mother proud of him. the song of his group (swag stars) was accordingly the church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 249 entitled youth anthem, and its chorus noted: “dreams come true/ lies we leave/ future we shape.” empire similarly indicated that he had experienced a “breakdown” before joining the programme: “you know, m’am, things are bad at home. thanks for the opportunity [to perform]. i worked hard.” karabo, a quiet, reticent young man who was experiencing serious stumbling blocks in his schooling, in turn often consulted personally with van as about his group (telly gang), and ultimately presented himself with confidence on stage. his remarkable personality change was mirrored in the increasing freedom and spontaneity that another learner, ofentse, had developed on stage. he was fond of catching van as’s eye, and once remarked: “m’am, you will really like our new chorus.” this remark resonated beyond its immediate utterance as a succinct summary of the life-changing process that several members of the programme had experienced. this process extended to van as who had changed her attitude about the value of popular music in education, established extant friendships with professional rappers, and experienced increased bonding with her mathematics classes, with improved academic results. conclusion south african music education has come a long way since the era of racially segregated schools, enforced knowledge systems and concomitant claims to cultural superiority, as well as a conception of the educator as authoritative dispenser of all true knowledge. elliot (1989:17) notes that, in order to accommodate greater musical ideas, processes and problems, music education should be liberal enough to go further than certain cultural preferences. this implies an accurate understanding of what music is and does, and the effective educational application of our consequent knowledge. the success of the rap programme was dependent on a strategy that generated knowledge for meaningful living. the production of musical sound must be mastered, but such sound has no objective value, and people do not transform their social environment through autonomous musical energy: they do so through human energy which is organised and released through music making. local forms of rap may be regarded as vehicles of artistic expression that link with ancient african musical practices,24 and which address contemporary experiences by tying their performers into the mass media and other global networks of value and meaning. history is not only a narrative of ruling power and mass movements, but also of humble individuals and small groups acting cooperatively and innovatively under pressing conditions. the rap programme unfolded as the remarkably effective synergy between a classically trained church organist, the formal schooling system, rappers from an inner city school, and community musicians. this synergy shows the value in music education of processes of learning in oral cultures, as well as the role of community musicians. at the same time, it underscores the value of the school as formal setting of social interaction and education, as well as the indispensable – if redefined – role of the educator. the relative success of the rap programme should not blind us to the challenges of music education. while curricula may envisage a flourishing, compassionate society in their 24 african societies historically were marked by numerous expressive forms, some of which (like praise poetry, initiation and trance music) still are practised, even in urban areas. van as and kruger 250 outcomes, they by definition do not offer effective practical strategies for providing meaningful education to populations marked by cultural diversity and various forms of conflict. process-oriented pedagogy is by no means self-evident (see schippers & bartleet, 2013: 469): its final form is shaped by specific local conditions, and it may be realised only by heroic struggles. while the rap programme arguably exceeded most of the outcomes of the caps for the creative arts (see below), it involved volunteer learners, and its efficacy in a general, diverse population of learners cannot be ensured. also, while community facilitators played a crucial role, they too were volunteers, and their kind of involvement in formal educational programmes is fraught with challenges related to institutional appointment policies and labour laws.25 the rap programme, as a mode of extra-mural teaching-learning, linked closely with the outcomes of the caps for the creative arts (grades 7-9). it not only improved the quality of life of learners and realised their personal potential, but also met several of the specific outcomes of the caps music programme: it involved listening and performing, explored metre and rhythmic patterns, “told a story” by means of lyrics, and required vocal improvisation as well as mastery of the verse and refrain structure. however, there is one outcome of the caps music programme that was not achieved by the rap project, namely the requirement of musical literacy. there is little doubt that efforts towards developing musical literacy would have been counterproductive in implementing the programme. the emphasis in the caps on literacy arguably is a colonial heritage that links with the notion of high and folk art, of illiteracy as an ostensible form of underdevelopment. however, it must be understood that literacy is not a requirement in communities where effective forms of communication have historically been, and to some extent still are, oral.26 it is our argument here that the successful implementation of music programmes in the caps is not necessarily dependent on musical literacy, and that a mainly aural method of teaching-learning may be more effective. finally, if we argue that the vision of innovative music education is to restore music making to its primordial status as a basic cultural resource, it is because we have come to learn anew that musical performance may, in the immortal words of john blacking, create a “soundly organised humanity” (blacking, 1976). modern forms of labour and their accompanying worldviews often fracture the wide variety of individual skills that our distant ancestors once possessed, and thus remove musical ritual from our daily experiences. and so we often fail to utilise and even recognise the socially constructive potential of artistic production. an impersonal, alienating world requires us to re-establish once habitual face-to-face relationships. our challenge is to show society why the creative arts should not flounder on the educational periphery. we can achieve this by flowing with the beat of our local communities without fear, and letting them experience their true selves. this has implications for the social well-being of our children, and, ultimately, the effective adaptation of our society. 25 this is particularly the case with older forms of african expressive culture, whose community practitioners typically do not possess the formal qualifications that the education system requires. 26 the requirement of literacy in some categories of the south african schools choral eisteddfod arguably is similarly counterproductive, as it leads to considerable frustration and discouragement (see dzorkpey, 2010). the church organist’s rappers td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 236-252. 251 references adams, k. 2009. on the metrical techniques of flow in rap music. music theory online: a journal of criticism, commentary, research and scholarship, 15(5). oct. http://goo.gl/djlzwd date of access: 28 apr. 2012. adaso, h. 2011. a brief history of hip-hop and rap. http://goo.gl/nizhlg date of access: 2 sept. 2011. au, w. 2005. fresh out of school: rap music’s discursive battle for education. journal of negro education, 74(3): 210-220. blacking, j. 1976. how musical is man? london: faber & faber. dilworth, r.l. 1998. action learning in a nutshell. performance improvement quarterly. 11(1):28-43. dzorkpey, t.k.a. 2010. realising the objectives of the south african schools choral eisteddfod. unpublished phd thesis. potchefstroom: north-west university. elliott, d. 1989. key concepts in multicultural music education. international journal of music education, 13. elliott, d. 1995. music matters: a new philosophy of music education. new york: oxford university press. elliott, d., ed. 2009 praxial music education: reflections and dialogues. new york: oxford university press. frierson-campbell, c., ed. 2006. teaching music in the urban classroom: a guide to survival, success, and reform. oxford: rowman & littlefield education. green, l. 2008. music, informal learning and the school: a new classroom pedagogy. hampshire: ashgate. juslin, p.n. 2005. from mimesis to catharsis: expression, perception, and induction of emotion in music. (in miell, d., macdonald, r. & hargreaves, d.j., eds.musical communication. oxford: oxford university press. p. 85-115). krims, a. 2000. rap music and the poetics of identity: new perspectives in music history and criticism. cambridge: cambridge university press. ley, b. 2004. developing musical skills. (in marks, a., ed. all together! teaching music in groups. london: royal schools of music. p. 35-45). lucia, c., ed. 1986. proceedings of the first national music educators’ conference. durban: university of natal. regelski, t.a. 1981. teaching general music action learning for middle and secondary schools. new york: schirmer books. regelski, t.a. 1983a. action learning versus the pied piper approach. music educators journal, 69(8):55-57, 64, apr. van as and kruger 252 regelski, t.a. 1983b. action learning. music educators journal, 69(6):46-50. feb. regelski, t.a. 1986. concept learning and action learning in music education. british journal of music education, 3(2):185-216. revans, r.w. 1980. action learning: new techniques for management. london: blond & briggs. revans, r.w. 1984. action learning – are we getting there? management decision, 22(1): 45-52. robinson, k.m. 2006. white teacher, students of colour: culturally responsive pedagogy for elementary general music in communities of colour. (in frierson-campbell, c. ed. 2006. teaching music in the urban classroom: a guide to survival, success, and reform. oxford: rowman & littlefield education. p. 35-53). schippers, h. & bartleet, b-l. 2013. the nine domains of community music: exploring the crossroads of formal and informal music education. international journal of music education, 31(4): 454-471. smit, e. & hauptfleisch, s. 1993. effective music education in south africa: music education policy. pretoria: human sciences research council. stanley, l.a., ed. 1992. rap: the lyrics. new york: penguin books. van as, r. 2009. ‘n interaktiewe benadering tot die integrering van musiek en wiskunde in die senior fase. unpublished honnours dissertation. potchefstroom: north-west university. van as, r. 2012. die toepassing van die aksieleerbenadering in rap-onderrigleer. unpublished master’s short dissertation. potchefstroom: north-west university. abstract introduction post-structural feminist theory research methods and design results discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) mathabo khau post graduate studies department, faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa citation khau m. exploring understandings of sexual consent amongst life orientation student-teachers through intergroup dialogue. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1093. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1093 original research exploring understandings of sexual consent amongst life orientation student-teachers through intergroup dialogue mathabo khau received: 31 may 2021; accepted: 27 july 2021; published: 29 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract in this article, the author reports on how intergroup dialogue was used amongst life orientation (lo) student-teachers to deconstruct the heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent, in the context of gender-based violence (gbv). three sessions of intergroup dialogue were arranged between third-year student-teachers and female survivors of gbv from a local non-profit organisation (npo) in exploring the perceptions of sexual consent, to deepen their understanding regarding the concepts of shaming, blaming and silencing that perpetuate gbv in communities. third-year lo student-teachers engaged in dialogue with four youth survivors of gbv from a local npo who shared their experiences of gbv and sexual consent. the heteropatriarchal views to gbv held by student-teachers were disrupted through the dialogues between the two groups thus enabling a greater understanding of sexual consent and the role played by shaming, blaming and silencing of victims in perpetuating gbv. the findings highlighted that intergroup dialogue could be a useful tool in creating norm-critical and sex-positive schools and communities. keywords: gender-based violence; heteronormativity; intergroup dialogue; patriarchy; sexual consent. introduction the incidence of gender-based violence (gbv) in south africa has been an issue of concern for many years, ultimately resulting in president cyril ramaphosa announcing that ‘gender-based violence is south africa’s second pandemic’ in june 2020.2 gender-based violence affects one in three women in their lifetime according to the world bank.3 this report draws attention to the individual and socio-economic costs of gbv for communities and highlights the fact that it needs to be addressed throughout the global north and south. evidence of the scourge of gbv has been evident in much of the global research in educational settings, proving that learning institutions are often breeding grounds for unequal power dynamics that result in high rates of gbv.4 the reality of violence for young women in colleges and universities in sub-saharan africa (ssa) is worrying. research on the barriers that girls and young women must overcome to access secondary school education or to get a chance at post-secondary education in many ssa countries highlights a struggle that is often against all odds.5 beyene et al.6 conducted a meta-analysis and systematic review of studies on gbv amongst young women in schools, universities and colleges in ssa in which they reported high rates of various types of gbv with south africa having the highest rates. as a result of the escalation of gbv in south africa, the department of women, youth and persons with disabilities (dwypd) drafted a national strategic plan (nsp) on gbv and femicide in 2020 whose aim is to provide a multi-sectoral, coherent strategic framework to strengthen and coordinate government and civil society’s response to the crisis of gbv and femicide in south africa, thus creating a femicide and gbv free country. the nsp seeks to address the challenges faced by all women in south africa irrespective of age, ability, gender, sexual identities, or migration status.7 the united nations (un) defines gbv as: [a]ny act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.8 gender-based violence has several categories depending on the type of violence or how the victim relates to the perpetrator.9 in agreement with this view, the un population fund10 has defined gbv as: [v]iolence involving men and women, in which the female is usually the victim; and which is derived from unequal power relationships between men and women. violence is directed specifically against a woman because she is a woman or, affects women disproportionately. according to muluneh et al.,11 gbv contributes greatly to the disease-burden and death of women by disproportionately affecting women and children because it comes with the added risk of sexually transmitted infections (stis), including human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (aids). hence, gbv has become a public health problem posing challenges to human health especially in developing countries. human rights abuses caused by gbv happen in developed and developing countries alike, irrespective of class, culture, or religion,3,9,12 and differ in extent, form and regularity from country to country.3 despite these assertions, gbv still remains a silent epidemic because victims are hesitant to report nor reveal their experiences of violence because of various barriers.13,14,15,16 some of the barriers pertaining to women and girls’ lack of reporting are shaming, blaming and silencing. women and girls are afraid of shame and stigma. they fear losing financial support, vengeance, ineffective law enforcement and the normalisation of violence in communities,17 whilst some lack awareness of available preventive services.2 this eventually results in lack of reporting or underreporting of gbv and challenges in accurately measuring its frequency.13,16 a multi-country study18 by the world health organisation (who), revealed that intimate partner violence (ipv) rates in urban areas were at 15% whilst the rates were at 71% in rural areas. the study revealed that the incidence of ipv was exacerbated by low socioeconomic status and limited education in developing countries of ssa.19 this is especially true for women and girls who are totally dependent on their male partners financially. in recognition of the entrenched practices of gbv against women, nations of the world adopted and ratified the sustainable development goals (sdgs) which target the elimination of all forms of violence against women such that all countries could eradicate gbv by 2030.20 thus, it is the duty of every stakeholder in each country to work collectively towards decreasing the incidence of gbv and ipv in their respective regions. global education systems have a role to play in educating communities about the ills of gbv through comprehensive sexuality education (cse). evidence of the effectiveness of cse in hiv and aids prevention has emerged.21 according to unaids,22 the number of new hiv infections have gone down worldwide. kelly23 has also highlighted the need for discussions that unpack harmful sexual practices and norms during cse. thus, there is a very real possibility of reducing the hiv pandemic prevalence, by 2030. this implies that cse can also be useful in curbing harmful practices that lead to infections and death. to achieve this milestone, there is a need for concerted efforts to sustain cse and other youth centred programmes that provide youth friendly reproductive health services and information. therefore, higher education institutions (heis) and schools must play a critical role in reducing the incidence of gbv in all its forms to prevent the further spread of hiv and femicide. this article reports on the use of intergroup dialogue as a transformative tool that enabled uncomfortable conversations to deconstruct heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent, in the context of gbv, amongst university students doing life orientation (lo). this is performed by firstly discussing post-structural feminist theory as the theoretical basis for this study. then i discuss intergroup dialogue and its usage including how it has been applied in this study. this is followed by a presentation of the results based on three themes: socially constructed heteropatriarchal norms, deconstructing heteropatriarchy and rethinking sexual consent in the context of gbv. the findings are then discussed, followed by concluding remarks and implications. post-structural feminist theory at the centre of post-structural feminism is the assumption that realities are socially created, and that close linkages exist between oppression and practices of the individual and society at large. post-structural feminism exposes both historical and contemporary oppression of women across races, organisations and societies through daily interactions that create multiple identities based on gender, social class and race.24 post-structural feminism conceptualises human beings as active agents participating in the creation of their own realities rather than as passive victims of social reproduction according to st. pierre.25 agreeing with this view, i consider the victims of gbv as active agents with power to make choices in their situations, even though they may be victims of circumstance at the same time. according to post-structural feminist theory, oppositional structures of meaning making are produced in society by experiences which are shaped by power, language and social structures.26 hence, through interactions with their environments and each other, agents perform scripts prescribed by their societal contexts. guerrero27 agreed by stating that power engineers the constructed meanings and interpretations because powerful discourses and interpretations are socially constructed through interactions. using these concepts allowed for a deeper understanding of the meanings made by gbv survivors of their experiences in relation to their environments. the survivors of gbv revealed the socially constructed versions of sexual consent in their communities and how these played out in their lived experiences. however, post-structural feminists argue that agents actively construct their social realities. they have the capability to impact upon their life-worlds, shaping theirs and their neighbours’ lives.28 consequently, power structures within communities constantly determine which standards are deemed powerful and normal. this means that agents who hold positions of power socially construct notions and scripts of proper womanhood which determine and control the performances of women in society. thus, within heteropatriarchal societies, agents such as boyfriends, husbands and men in general determine the performative scripts and control the gender order in the lives of women and girls. central to post-structural feminist theorisation is the exploration of the origin, production and regulation of social norms.29 for post-structural feminists, individuals are positioned and position themselves through social norms.30 in agreement, burman31 argued that for one group to dominate over others, it does so through the normalisation of certain social standards which determine what is permissible or not. thus, groups whose social standards have become the norm hold an advantageous position over others. social norms, therefore, are embedded with power because they can construct people’s identities or dictate ways of being right and normal.32 heteropatriarchal communities socially construct manhood and womanhood through social norms. in such communities, proper womanhood is constructed through sexual restraint and innocence whilst proper manhood is constructed through virility and sexual exploration.33,34 despite such constructions, men and women experience their lives differently and may perform their manhood and womanhood differently to the socially constructed norms because they actively shape their identities in relation to their social spaces. human agency is either enabled or inhibited through power structures which create possibilities for its expression.30 individuals can be depicted as powerful or powerless through social norms. thus, any agent can either be dominant or subservient at any given point. therefore, no one can keep or hold on to power. foucault30 highlighted this interplay by pointing out that power is always present in human relationships. he states that relations of power are malleable and can be reshaped, allowing for different expressions of power in unequal relationships. in making meaning of our lives, we use different and contradictory political norms that shape the lives we live.29 in agreement, steinberg et al. suggested that: [… i]n gender relations it is not only the relations of power between men and women that are the problem; it is the way in which masculinities and femininities are constructed as separated categories that describe and circumscribe individual persons.35 using the notion of the variability of human relations, it can be argued that masculinities and femininities can be constructed differently to suit agents and spaces. research methods and design this qualitative study, guided by the critical paradigm, employed intergroup dialogue to get narratives of the lived experiences of survivors of gbv and the perceptions of student-teachers on gbv. intergroup dialogue allows for the emotive sharing of intimate lived experiences of difference such as identities and inequality between people.36 it often involves privileged groups and those from marginalised or underprivileged groups.37 this is because intergroup dialogue allows for people from diverse backgrounds to engage in facilitated uncomfortable conversations conducive for the exploration of commonalities and differences. it should be noted, however, that the intention of intergroup dialogue is to allow open and truthful interpersonal communication and not debating different positionalities.36 through intergroup dialogue, the nature and consequences of power and privilege systems are explored to assist participants to find ways to work together.36 hence, intergroup dialogue becomes ideal in settings that privilege sexual innocence amongst women and virile masculinities for men.34 in this study, intergroup dialogue meetings became conducive spaces for gbv survivors and third-year university students to explore sexual consent and gbv issues by engaging in participatory visual activities and dialogue between the groups.38 the meetings allowed participants from the two different groups to rethink their positioning and privilege in society,37 whilst learning from each other. intergroup dialogue enabled the exploration of the socially constructed identities which afforded power to some whilst discriminating others.39 researchers using intergroup dialogue found that participants not only learnt about others, but also had freedom to speak to those they would not normally speak.40 despite this, communication between groups of different privilege status can become emotionally challenging for participants. for example, in one study researching different sexual orientations, it was discovered that intergroup dialogue encouraged participant conversations and enabled them to empathise with others whom they would never have engaged with under normal circumstances and was seen as a tool for personal growth.39,41 in another study,38 intergroup dialogue was found to be useful in developing empathy and positive relationships amongst participants, thus enabling work towards inclusive collaborations and social justice. in agreement, a study by dessel et al.41 highlighted that intergroup dialogue allows for sustained communication amongst participants irrespective of their differences, thus developing their understanding of the dynamics of difference and dominance within the group and hence encouraging commitment towards group solidarity and inclusivity. intergroup dialogue has been criticised because of the challenges it potentially poses to participants because it engages them in uncomfortable conversations and dialogues around intimate and personal experiences and feelings.37 thus researchers should be cognisant of the participants’ fear of lack of confidentiality during intergroup dialogue.41 therefore, the survivors of gbv in this study may have been worried of the possibility of disclosing of their experiences to people outside the group who might not understand the context of the discussions. it was critical, in this case, to inform participants to share only the information they felt free to share, in case their stories ended up becoming public knowledge. it also became necessary to get participants to sign a confidentiality clause which prevented them from discussing the content of the discussions with anyone who was not part of the intergroup dialogue meetings. another challenge to intergroup dialogue was to ensure that participants from the two groups understood that they needed to reserve their judgments about each other during the dialogue and only listen to gain an understanding of the different views and experiences.42 purposively selected youth members of a local non-profit organisation (npo), in the eastern cape, who are survivors of gbv formed the participant group for this study together with third-year university students training to become teachers.43 the decision to invite the npo members into the sessions was driven by student-teachers’ discussions regarding sexual and gbv during a lo session where sexual consent was a lecture topic. several student-teachers had argued that they had never interacted with anyone who had experienced gbv because people were afraid to talk about their experiences for fear of being blamed, shamed or silenced by unfavourable structures. the student-teachers who identified as having never experienced gbv assumed a privileged position in conversation with those who had been abused. i facilitated this engagement over 3 weeks in three sessions, namely, preparation, engagement and debriefing sessions, during my lo lecture periods. preparation session during the preparation session, 35 third-year lo student-teachers and four survivors of gbv from a local npo in the eastern cape met with me in separate sessions. the four members from the npo were invited to share stories of their experiences of gbv to help disrupt student-teachers’ perspectives and assumptions about sexual consent. thus, it was important for me to meet each group separately and explain the dialogue’s focus before commencement. the survivors of gbv met alone and shared their experiences amongst themselves to decide on which story each person would share with the student-teachers. during this preparatory session, i also met with the lo student-teachers and trained them on engagement strategies to use in their discussions with the gbv survivors. i asked the student-teachers to talk amongst themselves about how the survivors of gbv were perceived and talked about within their respective communities. as argued by brown,42 phrasing sensitive questions from a social angle avoids politically correct responses which could reflect student-teachers’ personal views. this could protect student-teachers from being perceived as negative towards gbv survivors.42 these two separate meetings were audio recorded with permission from the participants. engagement session the engagement session of this study involved the four survivors of gbv meeting with the third-year lo student-teachers in a facilitated discussion space. an educational psychologist was also invited to this session to provide assistance in case the survivors of gbv felt embarrassed or were retraumatised by retelling their experiences. a cellphilm depicting grade 9 boys’ understandings of gbv was screened for all participants.44 the purpose of the cellphilm screening was to allow the two groups to explore concerns around gbv presented in the video so that they could interrogate the commonalities and differences between the groups.37 after the video screening, the two groups discussed the video in terms of what they saw, what it meant, and what was missing in the depiction. then the survivors of gbv each presented an aspect of their experiences as agreed upon during the preparation phase. this was to sensitise the student-teachers of the realities of gbv and the spaces in which it occurs. it was also to engage the student-teachers on the interpretation of sexual consent within heteropatriarchal communities and how this influences society’s view of gbv and its survivors. the discussions between the two groups were audio-recorded for ease of analysis. once the engagement session between the two groups was over, the student-teachers were given a prompt to use in reflecting on their experiences of the session. debriefing session there were two separate debriefing sessions for each participant group. the debriefing session with the survivors of gbv was for them to reflect on their experiences of sharing such intimate stories of their lives with strangers and how this had made them feel. this was to ensure that the survivors of gbv had not been retraumatised by retelling their stories, despite having told these stories on several platforms. the debriefing for the student-teachers was held during lo lecture time where we discussed their perceptions about gbv before and after the intergroup dialogue. this included discussions from the preparation session where student-teachers had talked about how survivors of gbv were perceived and talked about within their communities, their reflections of the intergroup dialogue from the engagement session and reflections on their individual perceptions of sexual consent and gbv before and after the intergroup dialogue. the aim of the debriefing session with student-teachers was to identify possible shifts in their thinking and to allay any fears and questions they could have had regarding sexual consent and gbv. all data sets were thematically analysed to respond to the aims of this study.43 this study was given ethical clearance number h18-edu-ere-005 by the university’s ethics board. the survivors of gbv and the 35 student-teachers were 18 years and older and could consent to participate in the study. both groups also signed confidentiality clauses and consented to being audio-recorded and for me to use their experiences and reflections for publication, provided their identities would remain anonymous. despite their freedom to withdraw at any time during the study if they felt uncomfortable, none of the participants withdrew. ethical considerations this research project received ethical clearance from the nelson mandela university research ethics committee-human h18-edu-ere-005. results this section presents the results of this study which explored the use of intergroup dialogue as a transformative tool to enable uncomfortable conversations that deconstruct heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent, in the context of gbv, amongst third-year student-teachers doing lo. three themes were generated during data analysis and are used to present the results of the study. these are as follows: ‘(1) socially constructed heteropatriarchal norms, (2) deconstructing heteropatriarchy, and (3) rethinking sexual consent in the context of gbv’. socially constructed heteropatriarchal norms during the preparation session of this project, third-year lo student-teachers were asked to discuss how survivors of gbv were perceived and talked about within south african communities. this was based on the notion that south african communities are heteropatriarchal and use the social norms that privilege sexual innocence and restraint amongst women whilst promoting virile masculinities for men.35 in my presentation of the lecture on sexual consent and gbv with the third-year student-teachers, i used video-clips of popular south african cases of gbv which included femicide. after watching the videos, the student-teachers talked about the socially constructed notions of gbv survivors within their communities which allocated all the blame on the victims or survivors. several of them also argued that they had not experienced gbv nor engaged with anyone who had survived gbv: ‘what i know is that most women are blamed for being victims of sexual and gender-based violence. they are often asked what they were wearing; as if clothes are the ones that sexually violate them.’ (fst1, female student-teacher, october 2020) ‘but if you are wearing a mini-skirt to a party, what are you hoping for?’ (mst1, male student-teacher, october 2020) ‘brah! have you seen what these girls wear nowadays even at varsity! it’s like wow! you want to control yourself, but hey … you feel things …’ (mst5, male student-teacher, october 2020) ‘i think women are not dressing-up properly these days. that is why they get raped and then they cry that they were violated. what do you expect if you are not covering up properly?’ (fst2, female student-teacher, october 2020) ‘my sister, are you saying that women who cover-up properly do not get violated? then how do you explain cases of grandmothers and infants who are also sexually violated by males?’ (fst5, female student-teacher, october 2020) these discussions were focussed on what victims of sexual and gbv were wearing during the incidence, thus providing a glimpse into how the survivors or victims of gbv were socially perceived within communities. the student-teachers were referring to the social norms that their communities use to portray women and girls who experience gbv. however, some of the student-teachers had different views as exemplified in the following: ‘so, what causes a man to rape his wife or a boyfriend to rape his girlfriend, if you are saying it is all about clothes?’ (fst3, female student-teacher, october 2020) ‘what? do you mean a man can pay lobola and be accused of raping his wife at the same time? that is totally insane. i pay lobola for you, i own your body!’ (mst3, male student-teacher, october 2020) ‘but a boyfriend does not pay any lobola. why are there so many cases in our country where boyfriends rape their girlfriends or even kill them when they break-up with them?’ (fst4, female student-teacher, october 2020) ‘if you are my girlfriend, it means you have agreed to have sex with me whenever i want, and how i want. how can you be my girlfriend and say you don’t want to have sex with me?’ (mst4, male student-teacher, october 2020) ‘being a girlfriend does not mean i want to have sex with you all the time, or that i am always willing. what about what the girl wants? when is that discussed?’ (fst6, female student-teacher, october 2020) ‘but boyfriends also buy gifts and take their girlfriends out for entertainment. to me, that is the same as paying lobola…it means i am paying for something …’ (mst8, male student-teacher, october 2020) these discussions showed the socially constructed notions of heterosexual relationships within the student-teachers’ communities which also shaped the views held by some of the student-teachers. they highlight the privilege held by male virility and female sub-ordination. some of the student-teachers argued that husbands and boyfriends are entitled to their female partners’ bodies because of the material benefits afforded to the female partner by the male partner. thus, based on these discussions, it was clear that the patriarchal gender order of south african societies dictated how victims of gbv were viewed and talked about. male sexual entitlement was dominant over female choice for sexual engagement. the second theme from this study is presented in the next section. deconstructing heteropatriarchy during the engagement session of this study, the four survivors of gbv presented their experiences to the cohort of third-year lo student-teachers. the presentations focussed on different aspects of gbv experienced by the npo members: ‘i come from a poor rural community and my parents wanted me to get married so that they could get money to send my siblings to school. i did not want to get married because i wanted to go to school too. so, one day, the man who was supposed to marry me kidnapped me from school with his friends and raped me to force me into marriage. unfortunately, my parents supported his action and i had to stay in that marriage.’ (npo member 1, volunteer, october 2020) the experience shared by the first member of the npo did not shock the student-teachers because of some traditional practices in their communities that were used to force women and girls into marriage. such practices highlight the subordinate status of women in patriarchal societies. whilst some women eventually get married to their abusers, some others end up afraid of any intimacy with the opposite sex as exemplified by this next excerpt: ‘i was also forced into marriage through ukuthwala. my parents had refused for me to get married. so, the man who wanted to marry me kidnapped me on my way from school and raped me. this was to make sure that i would be too ashamed to go back home because i was no longer a virgin. even though my parents were against the marriage, they agreed for this man to marry me because no other man would marry a girl who had been deflowered by another man. my virginity was stolen, and i was forced to stay with a man who raped me every day. i left him after a year and ran away to the city where i got shelter. i was afraid of any sexual intimacy for many years after that.’ (npo member 2, volunteer, october 2020) these two experiences show how these women’s rights were violated sexually by the men who raped them. they also show how the parents and communities allowed such practices to take place. the two women were forced into situations beyond their choosing by the practices which positioned them as lacking capability and powerless against men and the patriarchal gender-order of their communities. for npo member 2, the privilege accorded to a virgin bride in communities stood to her disadvantage after having been abused. even if she had wanted to get married, her parents would not get the same amount of bride price (lobola) as a virgin bride. however, women’s capability is not denied in all the experiences as exemplified by npo member 3: ‘i had a boyfriend that i enjoyed having sex with. he was a good man, but he did not understand that despite enjoying sex with him, i did not want to do it all the time. when i told him that i was not ready or did not want sex, he would get angry and beat me up and then force me to have sex. the crazy thing was that he expected me to enjoy it the same way as i did when i was a willing participant…i had to leave him. i mean, forcing someone to have sex because they enjoy it is like forcing someone to drink coffee because they enjoy it. i like coffee, but i drink it only when i want it! why can’t men treat sex the same, like a cup of coffee?’ (npo member 3, volunteer, october 2020) the above experience shows that women and girls have the right to choose to have sex and enjoy it on their terms. on the other hand, heteropatriarchal communities often use social norms that represent women and girls who enjoy sex as deviant. good women are often depicted as those who never enjoy sex, please their male partners sexually and bear their children. additionally, the social norms which are used to describe sexual consent in heterosexual relationships deny women their right to choose when to have sex. once women and girls are in a heterosexual relationship, they are automatically depicted as consenting to their male partner’s sexual advances. the experience shared by npo member 4 presents a totally different setting of sexual abuse as stated below: ‘my high school friends and i decided to go clubbing after writing our matric examinations. we went to a popular night club and had drinks with some boys that we met there. i am not sure what happened, but i woke up in a strange house the next day completely naked and in pain. my private parts were sore. i realised that my three girlfriends were also completely naked. i woke them up and asked them what had happened, but they did not know. the boys had drugged us, raped us and left us in a stranger’s house. we were too ashamed to report what had happened. i later discovered that i was pregnant …’ (npo member 4, volunteer, october 2020) the experience reported by the npo member 4 is a regular occurrence in many south african institutions that sell alcohol. in such situations, the women and girls’ rights to sexual consent are taken away from them using a drug. this renders them powerless against those who abuse them. the npo member 4 argues that she and her friends were ashamed to report the incident. the fear of being shamed and blamed for their abuse led to their silence. the perceptions in communities around date rape position the victim as being at fault and thus lead to the denial of women and girls’ rights to accessing reproductive health and protective services. rethinking sexual consent in the context of gender-based violence the discussions in this section highlight the transformation of student-teachers’ thinking about gbv and sexual consent from the assumed view about sexual consent in heterosexual relationships and blaming the survivors of gbv, to being considerate of everyone’s right to choose to have sex. this came up in the reflection session by the student-teachers after their engagement with the npo members. their comments include the following: ‘i love my culture, but some traditional practices need to change. imagine if it was your child who got forced into marriage through rape!’ (mst9, male student-teacher, october 2020) ‘i always thought girls play hard-to-get when they say no. now i know that i cannot expect girls to have sex just because they enjoy it. i loved the idea of sexual consent being like a cup of coffee. i think i will use it in my lessons.’ (mst7, male student-teacher, october 2020) ‘our societies should really get educated on women and girls’ rights to sexual consent. we cannot go on thinking that just because someone is in a relationship, or married, they must have sex.’ (fst9, female student-teacher, october 2020) ‘i also love my culture, but this thing of paying more lobola for a virgin creates unnecessary shame for women and girls. nobody ever asks if the man is a virgin. why should women and girls be virgins at marriage? a man who has lots of sex is praised, but women are shamed? no man!’ (mst10, male student-teacher, october 2020) ‘imagine having to raise a child conceived from rape! i feel very sad for the lady who got pregnant from rape. she was violated on so many levels that it is difficult to believe that our south african communities condone such things!’ (fst10, female student-teacher, october 2020) these statements show how the student-teachers’ views regarding gbv and sexual consent changed after discussing with the survivors of gbv. the intergroup dialogue created a platform for them to rethink their perceptions of heterosexual relationships and women’s rights to consent to sex, whilst also allowing them to challenge the privileged status of male sexual prowess and virility. discussion the findings of this study show that human realities are socially created in context as argued by post-structural feminists.24 the experiences of the survivors of gbv highlight the historical and contemporary oppression faced by women and girls in their daily life. whilst this study focussed only on heterosexual female survivors of gbv, it does not disregard the fact that gbv also occurs to people of different sexual orientations. despite the oppressive treatment they endure, women have a right to, and freedom for pleasurable sexuality as exemplified by one of the survivors of gbv in this study. this is in line with the argument raised by st. pierre25 that human beings are active agents in the creation of their realities. during the preparation phase, the student-teachers used language and social structures that showed the power inherent in certain discourses within communities.27 these social standards created the norms which women and girls were expected to perform. for example, society represents proper womanhood as that which is sexually unknowing and innocent whilst good manhood is premised on sexual exploration and adventure.33,34 the student-teachers made an interpretation of gbv and sexual consent in relation to their environments and the socially constructed norms of what is permissible in society within heterosexual relationships. heteropatriarchal societies normalise different ways of being a woman and the survivors of gbv are expected to fit the mould. as argued by burman,31 those in power within heteropatriarchal societies such as boyfriends, husbands and men in general determine what it means to be a good woman, and any deviant expression of womanhood is seen as aberrant. these discussions highlight the need for lo teachers and teacher-educators to teach about deconstructing heteronormative and patriarchal notions within cse such that students can learn about sexual consent and violence. despite the interpretations made by student-teachers regarding gbv and sexual consent in the preparatory session, they were not passive recipients of socialisation. they actively questioned their beliefs in a quest to shape their world and their lives free from gbv.28 this questioning is crucial for future lo teachers to be critical thinkers who question their realities such that they can teach future generations to question the taken-for-granted assumptions of life. the engagement session between the survivors of gbv and the student-teachers proved to the students that the socially constructed notions of the sexually unknowing woman and the sexually explorative man are not the norm in all communities. this, according to foucault,30 is because of the interactions of different social factors that constantly shape identities in places and spaces. the survivors of gbv, in sharing their experiences with student-teachers, proved that whilst they were powerless when they were abused, they have assumed the power in their capability to educate others about gbv. this is what foucault30 meant when he said that every agent can be powerful or powerless at any given moment, because no one can hold on to power. the survivors of gbv exercised their power by choosing to share their stories with others. the student-teachers also exercised their power by choosing to rethink the interpretation they made of gbv and sexual consent after being exposed to the lived experiences of the survivors. this highlighted the crucial role played by intergroup dialogue between the two groups in deconstructing the heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent and gbv amongst third-year lo student-teachers. the use of intergroup dialogue in the lo sessions allowed for a deeper exploration of a subject that might have otherwise been glossed over. the topic of sexual violence is very sensitive and not an easy subject to deal with in class; hence there is a need to explore innovative ways of engaging in uncomfortable conversations to explore such topics in lo teaching. conclusion in this article, i presented how i engaged my third-year student-teachers in a three-session intergroup dialogue process with the survivors of gbv from a local npo to create a conducive environment for deconstructing heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent and gbv. i used post-structural feminist theory to make meaning of the findings of this qualitative study. the identified three themes highlight a transformative engagement from socially constructed heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent and gbv towards a caring and inclusive view to the promotion of sexual health and rights for all citizens, whether male or female. critical reflections on their perceptions and positions of privilege allowed the student-teachers to choose different discursive spaces and language to rethink sexual consent, thus enabling a deconstruction of female-sexuality in the context of gbv. this article has therefore highlighted the transformative value of intergroup dialogue amongst groups of different privilege positionalities towards the creation of norm-critical and sex-positive communities. acknowledgements this article is partially based on the author’s thesis1 for the degree of doctor of philosophy, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa, received september 2010, available here: https://ukzn-dspace.ukzn.ac.za/handle/10413/3476 competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. author’s contributions i declare that i am the sole author of this research work. funding information this research received funding from the south african medical research council category 3 funding. data availability the author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references motalingoane-khau ms. women teachers talk sex: a gendered analysis of women teachers’ experiences of teaching sexuality education in rural schools in the age of hiv and aids. unpublished dissertation. durban: university of kwazulu-natal; 2010. ellis e. presidential address. daily maverick [newspaper online]. 2020 [cited 2021 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histories is presented here – one being that of a professional singer whose family members were brutally murdered, and the other of a conductor whose mentor committed suicide and who was paralysed for three months after a serious motor vehicle accident. before turning the focus to the two musicians, issues pertaining to the subject of trauma are highlighted and the author “brackets out” her own experiences with particular reference to work as repétiteur for the opera winnie and postgraduate piano studies in warsaw. for the two case study participants, healing comprised a journey consisting of various phases in which music played an integral role. traumatic influence was seen to have a discernible impact on expression of emotion in music, memory for music, career choices and interpersonal relationships. it was through music that they reestablished their connection to self and others, and, after a period of struggling with emotional expression, experienced a deepening of affect. for the conductor, drumming played an essential role in recovering lost motor function and memory. counselling formed the other pillar in their recovery process, and for the conductor this also entailed a journey leading to spiritual growth. the participants offered advice to others. both these case histories provide striking examples of how musicing can first suffer in the wake of experiencing overwhelming traumatic events, yet later prove to be instrumental in restoring well-being and bringing about transformation. the experience of trauma this paper is an interpretative phenomenological analysis of two professional musicians’ journey toward full well-being in the wake of experiencing severe trauma. these individuals, a singer and a conductor, experienced events that had a profound influence on their personal and professional lives as well as their experience of their “musicing”, a term coined by david elliott (1995) encompassing various aspects of music-making. before shifting the focus to a discussion of these two musicians’ experience of, and recovery from, trauma as described by them, the concept of trauma is briefly introduced and some of the challenges in studying it are highlighted. this is followed by an outline of the aim and chosen methodology of this paper after which, in the spirit of phenomenology, i briefly “bracket out” my own experiences in acknowledgement of the fact that we can never fully remove ourselves from a situation or achieve total objectivity. 1 inette swart is a pianist, chamber musician and researcher who received a dmus by the university of pretoria in 2010. the title of her thesis was “the influence of trauma on musicians”. currently she is a post-doctoral fellow of north-west university, potchefstroom campus, doing her research in the university’s niche entity “musical arts in africa: resources and applications”. inette2@yahoo.com swart 194 the subject of trauma raises many challenges. derived from the greek trauma, meaning “wound”, the term brings to mind associations of pain, shock, disillusionment, life-altering experiences, human aggression and betrayal, and not uncommonly criminal deeds and even murder. the latter is central to the singer’s experience of trauma. physical trauma is associated with injury and often with hospitalisation and visits to the emergency room: these associations are not excluded from this discussion of emotional trauma since its consequences, if they remain unresolved, often include emotional manifestations presenting at a later stage. indeed, swallow (2002, 48) describes trauma as “a sudden and unexpected physical or psychological event which is appreciated as a threat and often associated with profound emotional disturbance”. not all traumatic events leave physical scars as even learning of events affecting others can also be regarded as traumatising, possibly leaving emotional scars or having other damaging consequences (apa, 2000). events deemed traumatic can raise difficult ethical and moral issues such as questions about blame and responsibility, and about the roles of victim and perpetrator. in essence, no matter how much the argument revolves around where the responsibility lies and who has been harmed, the words of former president nelson mandela illustrate how the collective is affected. in his autobiography long walk to freedom (1994, 751) he stressed that the act of taking away the freedom of another leads to becoming a prisoner of hatred and prejudice, robbing both oppressed and oppressor of their humanity. he believes that both are in need of liberation, of being shown the superior possibility of a way of living which honours and reinforces the freedom of others (mandela 1994). in attempts to reach reconciliation there is a danger of going so far in attempting to rectify the injustices of the past that we risk creating a new set of victims through collectively forcing a generation born after the era of injustice to bear the punishment for the effects of the actions of their predecessors – adding yet another side to the intergenerational transmission of trauma, a phenomenon discussed below. however, very often nothing is done – the survivor becomes a survivor through a process of healing, but justice is never served. debating this and other dilemmas created by trauma is not the aim of this paper. rather, the emphasis is on the possible positive outcomes of trauma, including the widely acknowledged realisation that trauma can serve to awaken us spiritually and to act as a catalyst for transformation (levine 2005). these conditions may be achieved if the experience of trauma changes our entrenched perceptions of our (previous) reality and forces us to face a (newly) uncertain world and perceive it afresh (levine 2005). trauma brings with it practical and academic challenges and its varied manifestations can make it difficult to treat. its seriousness must never be underestimated: early trauma can lie at the root of personality disorders and character disturbances (see, for example, miller 1997; nijenhuis, van der hart & steele 2004; van der kolk 1989; van der kolk & mcfarlane 1996). phenomena associated with traumatic experiences do not always appear logical at first: in understanding trauma we often need to think beyond what seems immediately apparent. consider stockholm syndrome for a moment, an example of betrayal bonding where, when survival is at stake, the victim bonds and sides with the perpetrator to ensure survival (freyd & birrell 2013). the phenomenon of “betrayal bonding” can manifest on a broad continuum and include such common occurrences as remaining part of systems we disagree with but depend on for our livelihood or our education, or staying with those who cause us emotional or physical harm, because the consequences of doing otherwise could be more severe than the status quo (smith & freyd 2013). a commonly employed mechanism during extreme trauma, i.e. dissociation, can dull the severest pain and enable people to live through how music and trauma can transform us td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 193-207. 195 otherwise intolerable experiences. in extreme cases dissociation can also cause the splitting of the personality into many separate identities, a tragic but fascinating condition called dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder (apa 2000; hartman 2009; nijenhuis, van der hart & steele 2004). in response to shock or extreme acute stressors, the body prepares a fight-or-flight reaction (cannon 1929, 195-7; bracha et al. 2004, 448). if neither of these is feasible, the subject “freezes”, also called the “immobility response”, which is a dissociative response. if one wants to understand why traumatic sequelae can be long lasting, it is extremely important to understand the function of the “freeze” response as relates to reptiles and animals in response to predation in the wild. levine explains at length the four biological functions of numbing (levine 2010, 50). these include feigning death to mislead the predator into believing the animal is already dead, possibly abandoning it for a moment and thereby allowing a moment for escape; affording the animal a degree of invisibility; enhancing group survival by distracting a pack of predators long enough to enable the other members of the herd to escape; and lastly but importantly, numbing the animal to pain and dulling terror with endorphins (akin to an analgesic effect), enabling a wounded animal to attempt escape despite injuries, or sparing the animal the full agony of being torn apart by the teeth of a predator (levine 2010, 49-50). levine states powerfully that “until the core physical experience of trauma – feeling scared stiff, frozen in fear or collapsing and going numb – unwinds and transforms, one remains stuck, a captive of one’s own entwined fear and helplessness” (levine 2010, 73-4). in addition, to move through the experience of immobility and face the fear, one risks facing anger and rage. in levine’s view this anger can be channelled in healthy ways, but since as socialised animals we find anger unacceptable, the fear of anger is often the cause why an individual would rather avoid the work of healing. trauma can be so commonplace that it can become indistinguishable from ordinary everyday life. sometimes what has become ordinary in certain parts of the world would be considered as an extreme circumstance by people from other parts of the world. this does not disqualify it from being traumatic, but might impact on the way in which society chooses to deal with it. rationale, methodology, scope and aim for a very long time trauma sequelae have not only been overlooked but actively denied. turnbull attests how the topic has until recently been brushed under the carpet even by those caring for soldiers showing adverse reactions to experiences far beyond the ordinary (turnbull 2011). however, in recent years much research has been done on the phenomenon of trauma in general and the development of a comprehensive understanding of the various kinds of trauma and their treatment (levine 2010; scaer 2005; van der kolk 1994). in turn, music therapy has been used very successfully in the treatment of trauma victims (lee 2009; sutton 2002). however, there is a gap in the literature on the influence of trauma on musicians, yet the expressive nature of their work indeed makes them an ideal population to study (swart 2010, 8, 197). at a basic level, music can be defined as ‘organised sound’ (levitin 2006, 111; swallow 2002, 45). the two musicians discussed in this paper perform western art music, or what is also commonly known as “classical music”. but the concepts regarding trauma, emotion, memory and other aspects discussed here are equally applicable to other styles of music. elliott’s description of “musicing” and “musicers” is appropriate here (1995, 49, 109). swart 196 as depicted in figure 1 below, he (1995, 40) describes music as a four-dimensional concept involving a doer which he calls a “musicer”, some kind of doing which he calls “musicing”, something done which he describes as “music” as well as the complete context in which these actions take place. his definition of “musicing” includes all five forms of music-making which he lists as performing, improvising, composing, arranging and conducting. figure 1: musicing: four dimensions (elliott 1995, 40) this paper presents an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experiences of two successful professional musicians who both suffered significant trauma. the word “phenomenology” is derived from the greek phenomenon, meaning appearance, and the suffix –ology, meaning “branch of knowledge”. husserl is regarded as the founder of phenomenology in the twentieth century (beyer 2011; vandenberg, 1997, 11). working after world war i in a milieu where european perceptions of reality had been shaken to their roots (eagleton 1983, 54), husserl placed the emphasis on how phenomena presented themselves to people’s consciousness (groenewald 2004, 4). by looking at textural descriptions of “what” was experienced and structural descriptions of “how” it was experienced, the observer arrives at the “essence” of the experience. phenomenology is particularly relevant to the arts in that vanderberg (as translated by van manen 1997, 41) calls poets and painters “born phenomenologists”, who share their insights on what messages phenomena hold for us through the use of word and image. in addition, “psychological phenomenology” is highly suitable for the investigation of psychological phenomena (moustakas 1994; creswell 2013, 273), and through its qualitative perspective it deals with “human experience in its richness” (ashworth 2003, 4). the study of fewer research subjects in interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa) allows for the detailed exploration of the meaning that experiences and events hold for participants as well as how they are making sense of their “lifeworlds”, whether personal, social or professional (smith & osborn 2009). in addition, ipa acknowledges the dynamic nature of the research process as involving a double hermeneutic: participants attempting to make sense of their world on the one hand, and the researcher, through his/her own experiences, conceptions and understanding, “trying to make sense of the participants trying to make sense of their world”, on the other (smith & osborn 2009, 53). previous research has highlighted particular aspects in which traumatic experiences influenced the music-making of musicians at different levels of accomplishment (swart 2010). in an exploration of this vast terrain, a distinction should be drawn between the how music and trauma can transform us td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 193-207. 197 various populations studied previously and factors that could affect the ways in which trauma manifests in these populations, accounting for differences. it should be stated at the outset that differences in the way that professional musicians process trauma, as compared to music learners, could be attributed to their greater accumulation of crystallised ability and years of experience. therefore, while the focus in a previous article was primarily on students and the way that teachers can be equipped to recognise signs of trauma in students (swart 2013), this paper focuses on its effects on professional musicians only. the paper attempts to fill a gap in the literature: while we do know the stories of the unsettled lives of great musicians such as beethoven, tchaikovsky, mozart and shostakovich, we generally do not know how professional musicians feel that trauma affects their music since we do not ask them directly. the professional singer and the conductor whose narratives are presented here talk about their musical background, what happened to them, which they experienced as significant life traumas, the effects of this on their lives, their relationships and their “musicing”, as well as on their journey to recovery. the purpose of this paper is not to investigate the intricate psychological mechanisms at work through which recovery took place. for descriptions of these, the reader is referred elsewhere (swart, van niekerk & hartman 2010; swart 2010). in addition to the importance of music in the recovery process, the role of spirituality is highlighted and linked with what pre-eminent trauma researchers have to say about spirituality and trauma. epoché in the spirit of phenomenology, i shall begin with a description of how my own experiences influenced my views on the subject in order to position myself, recognising that i could not completely remove myself from the situation – a process described as epoché by moustakas (1994, 84-90). i have personally witnessed the effects of trauma on previously disadvantaged learners studying music in south africa, as well as the pervasive influence on musicians in poland, who experienced the carnage of war and its effects on the city of warsaw, where i studied from 2007 to 2008. the older generation experienced world war ii first hand, while both the older and the younger generations endured the stifling effects of communism on freedom of thought, choice and action. like too many fellow south africans i have also experienced violent crime first hand. however, two events i witnessed stand out as culminating experiences, not only stimulating an interest in the subject but also contributing to a deeper understanding of it: my postgraduate piano studies in the great city of warsaw, capital of poland, and my work as one of the official repétiteurs for the vundowl production winnie the opera, an opera about the life and mission of winnie madikizela-mandela. this opera was premièred at the pretoria state theatre on 28 april 2011. through being involved in the preparation for the opera winnie and collaborating with the cast and director, i gained a deeper understanding of something that i was aware of before only as an outsider, namely black people’s collective experience of the struggle against apartheid. i gained a sense of how people of colour felt humiliated and denigrated by the oppressive regime of racial segregation – how they suffered deep wounds to their sense of identity and their humanity, and how subsequent generations are still affected through intergenerational transmission of trauma. a short discussion of inter-generational trauma is warranted at this stage: the term entails the transmission of the consequences of trauma from swart 198 one generation to the next (danieli 1998). sources making mention of and attempting to explain inter-generational trauma include levine (1997), yehuda et al. (1998), heart (2005) and danieli (1998). it is important to understand that trauma does not only affect people directly involved during the exact time of its occurrence, but that its remnants and consequences could be carried over into subsequent generations in various ways. a practical example in south africa is the inter-generational transmission of the trauma of the effects of racial discrimination among large segments of the population. the music to the opera winnie, a lady who was dubbed “mother of the nation”, was composed by bongani ndodana-breen (2011) and it helps to portray vividly some of the key events of the apartheid era. the opera is about the important role of nelson mandela’s former wife, winnie madikizela-mandela, during the freedom struggle. i acted as repétiteur while the experienced american director shirley jo finney and the singers worked long hours to polish their performances, and was fascinated by an essentially human drama unfolding, peacefully this time, and believe i benefited greatly from this in many ways. while people of all ages, races and backgrounds were working together wonderfully, one event occurred that particularly intrigued me: on the opening night, after a successful performance of this huge work, winnie herself ascended the stage, thrust her right fist into the air and immediately launched into cries of “amandla!”, a xhosa and zulu word which means “power”. this reverberated through the state theatre, the entire audience joining in. i wondered whether this strong symbolic gesture could not in itself be a manifestation of the unresolved traumas of power being taken away from her and the trauma of long years of incarceration on robben island of her husband, former president nelson mandela, together with other comrades. this experience left many unanswered questions. do these wounds go so deep that a resulting almost adlerian need for power persisted to this day and did not subside even long after liberation had been attained and a peaceful political and economic transition achieved? while the opera was about her, mrs mandela did not take part in the almost cathartic experience of producing and performing the opera and the music. one wonders whether, had she been part of the musical side of producing the opera and experienced the conciliatory experience of black and white people working together to portray this important part of history, she would not have felt the healing effects of the music and so not retained the need to display this rather aggressive gesture? without an opportunity to ask her personally and directly, one cannot know the exact meaning this rallying cry has for her. however, it remains strongly associated with protest and not with reconciliation and community. on the other hand, for those directly involved with the production of winnie the opera, the music served to help us honour and understand the experiences of those involved in the struggle. i would like to argue that music in this instance also exercised healing power. the other eye-opening experience was my postgraduate piano studies at the fryderyk chopin university in warsaw, a city that came close to annihilation during the second world war. poland was again brought to its knees during soviet occupation and under communist rule, which came to an end in 1989, only five years before apartheid was abolished in sa in 1994. through working so closely with people affected, i came to the realisation that this was a polish liberation struggle with its own dynamics and particulars, and that these people were affected to the very core of their being – high levels of justifiable paranoia persist years after, stemming from the experience of deceit and of being spied on by government agencies. i witnessed the effects of unresolved trauma by observing a person who had, in his own words, “by many miracles” survived the second world war, living in warsaw at the time. he how music and trauma can transform us td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 193-207. 199 may well have benefited from psychotherapy or debriefing, but this was not common in those days and even looked down upon. the tragedy of the lingering effects of his experiences is illustrated by his own words: “i was from my early infancy and i will to my death be under the influence of these long terrible days, years and images that i still have in my memory, in my brain.” the debate whether “shell-shock”2 was a consequence of the effect of cowardice or the physical environment contributed to the stigma around it (mc farlane & van der kolk 1996, 563). therefore it could be expected that survivors of the war would be reluctant to openly discuss any severe emotional reactions to the war. the son of a famous pianist, wladyslaw szpilman, states in the foreword to his father’s book that his father never spoke about his wartime experiences until late in his life (szpilman 1999). these experiences instilled in me a respect for survivors of trauma. the wish to better understand both the psychological mechanisms at work as well as the possibilities for facilitating recovery inspired my research into individuals who had emerged on the other end of adversity. two musical journeys through trauma to well-being five years ago the life of a professional singer was changed irrevocably by a horrific event: his mother, father, grandmother and a friend of the family were murdered in a brutal attack in their own home. he says that the shock took a while to register in his brain and that despite the circumstances he felt he needed to go forward with an opera production in which he was involved at the time. “the show must go on!” – musicians so often say. however, he did notice that despite his courage, he was human and he was affected. he had trouble memorising the music and giving his full attention on stage. even though he knew the part well, he did not think that he projected emotions as well as he should in the musical drama. it was difficult to perform at that time as he felt insecure and shocked. paradoxically, after this loss he achieved more in the professional music arena and he noticed that he could express emotions through music much better after the trauma than before. music expresses emotions; it is not neutral and human beings often associate pieces of music with people, memories, places and events (davies 2010, 18). the singer says that his parents, grandmother and his music were interlinked; they were the ones who always supported him, and that it was difficult to carry on with music without their support. sometimes he performs music which reminds him of his parents and this makes him weep. through singing and playing music he worked through emotions which he had initially been afraid to face. he mentions that one tune will always carry a negative association: when his phone first rang with the terrible news of what had happened to his family members, he had a ringtone from an opera aria. when he hears this music he still gets a fright. the interpersonal effects of trauma are very common. traumas perpetrated by other humans tend to be especially damaging (freud 1965, 14). this is evident in this case, since the singer no longer trusts people as much as he did before. temporarily devastating interpersonal effects of trauma were also reported by the conductor in the second narrative presented in this article. the singer’s journey to recovery was long and difficult – sometimes he still feels that the recovery period might never end. at first he thought that he was fine and emotionally strong, but when he went for counselling about a month after the murders he discovered that there 2 a term applied to a constellation of symptoms observed in populations of military veterans as well as active soldiers. swart 200 were still many unhealed wounds. he never took any medication as he wanted to work though the trauma by way of music and physical exercise. he says that his own music performance during the time of trauma was the single most significant factor aiding his healing process. june boyce-tillman (2013) writes at length in her book the wounds that sing about music’s healing capacity in various ancient and current traditions. while life will never be exactly the same for the singer again, returning to a fully functional state and leading a fulfilling life can be defined as “a return to well-being”. the second narrative is the recovery journey of a highly successful conductor, as described by him.3 like all conductors, he was also trained in other forms of “musicing” – particularly piano, cello, classical percussion and composition. the two events which greatly influenced the course of his career and his life were the suicide of a friend and mentor, and a serious motor vehicle accident which left him paralysed for three months. this narrative illustrates how trauma can influence the path a musician takes, even within the music profession, in addition to it possibly causing temporary interruptions in a career. the conductor’s best friend and mentor committed suicide two weeks before his final master’s degree concert – about 18 years ago. he initially dealt with the shock by starting to compose. he was also still involved in conducting and, like the singer, he noticed an emotional deepening in his musicing. however, while becoming more expressive musically, he realised that he was distancing himself from the audience at the same time. his explanation for this is that his mentor’s suicide made him very suspicious of people, an interpersonal consequence of trauma also experienced by the singer. he became increasingly aware that he was approaching his work in a much more clinical manner with too little regard for the feelings and dynamics inherent in interpersonal relationships. to counter this, he adopted an approach to life that focuses on living “in the moment”. still his fears and suspicions drove him to suspend his successful professional career for a period of time to return to his hometown in the countryside and allow time for contemplation. he subsequently became involved in didactics and methodology, and wrote books, produced albums, gave workshops and clinics, and lectured at universities and conservatories. the course of his career changed and he became involved as vice-president and teacher/conductor in an art education centre with 2 200 students. he also worked with amateur choirs and orchestras and says that the children played a catalytic role in making him a passionate person again and in regaining his love for people. this experience of sudden loss of a friend and mentor specifically helped him to understand the music of mozart and brahms at a deeper level. he received no professional treatment for the first trauma. however, the switch to classical music performances and the move to the countryside helped him to find balance within himself again, while re-entering the professional orchestra world as a conductor helped him re-establish the direction and focus of his career. after four years he started conducting musicals until the second trauma struck six years later. the conductor’s second serious traumatic experience was a severe motor vehicle accident in which he was not at fault. he says that a moment before the impact his entire body shut down, which, according to doctors, may have saved him from sustaining lethal fractures. he was presumed dead and when the emergency personnel finished sawing away the metal and 3 aspects of this narrative pertaining to how trauma can influence musicians’ memory for music were briefly touched upon in the article ‘trauma-related dissociation as a factor affecting musicians’ memory for music: some possible solutions’ published in the australian journal of music education (swart, van niekerk & hartman 2010). however, the case is presented here in its full context. how music and trauma can transform us td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 193-207. 201 took him out of the car – a process that took 90 minutes – he awoke and saw the coroner’s car. when they then saw that he was still alive, the car was sent back. during this time he had an out-of-body experience which he describes as a feeling of circling above the car and seeing all the people around the car in a “helicopter view”. he later told his wife that during the out-of-body experience he saw students wearing soccer gear standing behind the car. since he was stuck in the car with his back to the students, not able to move, this was impossible for him to observe from the position in which he lay. this experience so intrigued him that he later called the students for confirmation of these details. for him this experience raised many questions. although it generated such fascination in the conductor, this “out-ofbody” feeling is described and explained in the trauma literature. the four biological functions of numbing were described earlier (levine 2010, 49-50), the fourth of which correlates with this experience of the conductor. levine calls this form of distancing a dissociative state which has analgesic features. levine’s own description of a motor vehicle accident after which he had an out-of-body experience is very similar and he notes that such a state of analgesia makes it possible for the victim to witness the event as though from outside his or her body and make the unbearable bearable (levine 2010, 3-9, 50-52). the conductor was hospitalised for three days, after which he was discharged since the doctors determined that there was no physical cause for his paralysis. lying in the emergency room and hearing the medical personnel speculating about whether he was permanently paralysed was the most traumatic aspect of this experience. the diagnosis of his doctors was that, as a result of shock, his nervous system and body had shut down. he remained paralysed for three months – he even says that his thinking patterns had frozen during that time. his memory of music was severely affected: the moment he heard music it would “evaporate” again. “there was not one single melody in my head”, he said. after the accident he experienced a “strange spiritual awareness” and a reiki practitioner offered to help. he associates the reiki treatments with the “new age” spiritual movement. although this had positive effects on his physical recovery, he says his “soul was suffering” and he felt distanced from himself and his intellect. soon after he again regained basic mobility, a christian friend suggested that it would be good for him to play the drums. this played an integral role in his healing process. slowly he went back to his former lifestyle. starting a year and a half after the accident, he received christian pastoral counselling for an extended period during which he attempted to make sense of his experiences. this healing journey was not without its challenges and six months into treatment he became depressed and wanted to end his career. he distanced himself from others to the point of hating people and, in the capacity of conductor, wanting “use them for producing a sound”. although he wanted to make a contribution to people’s lives, he felt frustrated after every concert for not achieving this and as a result became very cynical about audiences worldwide. in addition, he struggled to make eye contact with people, became an extreme introvert and started avoiding groups of people. after an extended period of counselling and the help of his own knowledge of prior studies in neuropsychology as well as the help of others he literally rebuilt his life to encompass a renewed belief system and worldview. while christian counselling took care of his spiritual recovery, his physical recovery was aided by drumming. a friend had suggested that it would be good for him to play the drums: it felt as if he immediately “came to life” when he initially started playing the drums. for the first time after the accident, his body and brain started to move and respond to what he was hearing. this could possibly be the result of the release of swart 202 the “frozen energy” of dissociation, as described earlier with reference to the work of levine (2010), which was mobilised by drumming. drumming also had anxiolytic effects since as long as he played drums, he did not need any morphine to reduce the pain. the anxiolytic effects of music are documented by music therapy researchers (see, for example, spintge 1991, 65). within a couple of weeks after starting drumming, all functions returned, including again being able to remember scores learnt previously. he played the rhythms of music by mozart and bach on the drums to enable him to again connect melodies to the rhythm, but also played rock, pop and metal styles. he describes drumming as “conducting with drumsticks” with the difference that, unlike conducting where the conductor silently leads others to play their instruments, when engaged in drumming “every part of your body, every limb is [involved in] making a sound”. soul, body and spirit connect when playing drums. the effect of drumming on his right-brain functions helped his perceptual skills as well as his interpersonal and communication skills. the conductor states that his profession had a great influence on his spiritual journey. he has collaborated with many famous composers including “new age composers” and composers experimenting with “new mathematics”. he was exposed to both over-emotional and overintellectual approaches to the composition of music. he considers himself to be a reborn christian and states that his faith played an important role in his full recovery. through recovering from his traumatic experience and coming to terms with its significance and also the possibility that, if things were slightly different, he might not have been so lucky to recover fully, he learnt a great deal about not taking anything for granted, living “in the moment” and the value of interpersonal relationships. indeed, scaer (2005, 283) draws attention to the possibility that the trauma survivor, after having witnessed the fragility of life and being confronted with its finite nature, can experience transformation and acquire a sense of altruism in the healing process, appreciate the value of their existence and become better able to empathise with others. like the conductor’s journey in moving from treating others as objects, “using” orchestra members to create sound and becoming a vastly more empathetic human being through the experience of trauma, scaer states that knowing oneself enables one to know others. insights and advice the singer and conductor allowed us access into their personal “lifeworlds” and shared what they felt to be essential to the topic. in this phenomenological analysis we were guided by these individuals in what they wanted us to understand while learning about their experiences. apart from explanations of some of the phenomena that emerged throughout these narratives, further interpretations are redundant and could only be speculation: the purpose of this paper is to gain an insight into these musicians’ experiences and not to serve as a psychological investigation of the mechanisms of trauma. that had been done elsewhere in its appropriate context (swart 2010). the phenomenological “essence” of their experiences had been distilled by the singer and the conductor themselves. they generously provided the following thoughtful advice to others involved in musicing. • carry on with music; it is a way of expressing emotions through voice or instrument. • take nothing for granted: being able to walk or play an instrument is a gift. • love people first, then music. how music and trauma can transform us td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 193-207. 203 • primarily focus on how you can contribute rather than making competition your most important goal. • learn to self-assess when something significant happens to you: first reflect, then act and move on to the next experience. • always submit your body to your spirit. • always believe in your childhood motives to play music. • do not carry negative stuff around in your heart. • get two or three people around you to create a healthy system of accountability. • keep a balance between the various aspects of musicing. • music is a variation on silence. you don’t put silence into music. • most importantly, live in the perceptual presence, not in the past, and not in continuous anticipation. conclusion: a spiritual journey coming to terms with trauma is a process, a journey, and it often forces us on a new journey by creating unexpected detours. it might alter our plans for our lives, sometimes through necessitating change and at other times through opening our eyes to possibilities not previously recognised by us. unresolved trauma can determine our destiny without our being aware of it. however, through becoming fully present and paying attention to what lessons might be learnt from our experiences, we can become captains of our own ship, navigating the winds of adversity instead of being blown off course. distinguished writers such as levine (2005) and scaer (2005) strongly affirm this viewpoint, emphasising the opportunities for personal as well as spiritual growth. music therapist julie sutton (2002, 31) describes the journey on which trauma might cause us to embark as consisting of a series of processes. she says: “trauma does not occur due to the external factor of a single event. trauma is enmeshed in an internal process of an attempt to assimilate how the event has irrevocably affected the individual” (sutton 2002, 31). she also explains that what traumatises the individual in such a situation is primarily the loss of control and a perception that one is controlled by an event happening to one, a feeling stemming from a compromised ability to experience, act on and re-experience one’s own agency. trauma survivors can be affected to the core of their being. louise montello’s work on essential musical intelligence (emi) teaches that a person can dissociate from his/her ‘core being’ in order to protect themselves. montello (2002, 201) also believes that a person’s emi is what is at work in leading them back to their true essence or true self. she explains that emi can bring a person from a sub-optimal state of not resonating with their ideal identity towards being centred and secure in their identity as a valuable and creative human being, enabling unhindered expression of one’s identity. where human perpetrators of traumatic events are involved, we will do well to heed the advice of emeritus archbishop desmond tutu, who played a leading role in establishing a new democratic order in south africa and also chaired the truth and reconciliation commission. he cautions that forgiveness is not cheap and that real reconciliation is only possible if it is arrived at after acknowledging and discovering the truth. he says that a future without forgiveness isn’t feasible, because responding to revenge with further violence only provokes a vicious cycle of counter-reprisals and retaliation (tutu 2011, 47). swart 204 spiritual growth often occurs in the wake of trauma, and for the conductor this was particularly profound. peter levine describes trauma as a “profound compression of ‘survival’ energy” and explains that innate survival responses are geared towards activating incredible bursts of focused attention and effective action (levine 2010, 349). however, this energy is often not allowed to complete its meaningful course, since human trauma survivors don’t always carry out the natural instinct to flee for their lives or to fight the perpetrator, for which evolution intended this energy. levine explains that the ability (or lack thereof) to access the rhythmic release of this bound energy, so effectively achieved by the conductor through drumming in the case narratives presented here, makes all the difference to whether this thwarted survival energy will destroy or revitalise us. in the book why god won’t go away: brain science and the biology of belief a team of researchers argue that the brain structures that are central to the resolution of trauma are also pivotal in various “mystical” and “spiritual” states (newberg, d’aquili & rause 2002). while people often rightly associate trauma with suffering and negative experiences, it can have profoundly positive spiritual consequences. the healing journey can lead to wholeness, transformation and growth. scaer (2005, 283) emphasises that this transformation manifests not only in the form of the recovery of a degree of homeostasis, but also in a new level of perception and adaptation to the challenges life brings. this process can result in our becoming more empathetic, more adaptable, resilient, regaining an appreciation of the value of our existence, and acquiring invaluable wisdom. references american 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(ed.). 2002. music, music therapy and trauma: international perspectives. london, uk: jessica kingsley. sutton, j. p. 2002. ‘trauma: trauma in context.’ chapter 1 in j. p. sutton (ed.), music, music therapy and trauma: international perspectives. london, uk: jessica kingsley, 21-40. swallow, m. 2002. ‘neurology: the brain – its music and its emotions: the neurology of trauma.’ chapter 2 in j. p. sutton (ed.), music, music therapy and trauma: international perspectives. london, uk: jessica kingsley, 41-56. swart, i. 2014. ‘overcoming adversity: trauma in the lives of music performers and composers.’ psychology of music, 42(3), may, 386-402. swart, i. 2013. ‘south african music learners and psychological trauma: educational solutions to a societal dilemma.’ transdisciplinary research, 9(1), july, 113-138. swart, i. 2010. the influence of trauma on musicians (unpublished dmus thesis). university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa. swart, i., c. van niekerk, & w. hartman. 2010. ‘trauma-related dissociation as a factor affecting musicians’ memory for music: some possible solutions.’ australian journal of music education 2010(2), 117-134. szpilman, w. 1999. the pianist: the extraordinary true story of one man’s survival in warsaw, 1939-1945. new york, ny: picador. how music and trauma can transform us td, special edition, 10(2), november 2014, pp. 193-207. 207 turnbull, g. 2011. trauma: from lockerbie to 7/7: how trauma affects our minds and how we fight back. london: bantam press. tutu, d. m. 2011. god is not a christian: speaking truth in times of crisis. london: rider. vandenberg, d. 1997. ‘phenomenological research in the study of education.’ in d. vandenberg (ed.), phenomenology & education discourse. johannesburg: heinemann, 3-37. van der kolk, b.a. 1994. the body keeps the score: memory and the evolving psychobiology of post-traumatic stress. harvard review of psychiatry 1(5): 253-65, jan-feb. van der kolk, b. a. 1989. ‘the compulsion to repeat the trauma: reenactment,revictimization, and masochism.’ psychiatric clinics of north america, vol. 12 (2), 389-411. van der kolk, b.a. & a. mcfarlane. 1996. ‘the black hole of trauma.’ chapter 1 in van der kolk, b.a., a. c. mcfarlane, & l. weisaeth. (eds.). traumatic stress: the effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society. new york, ny: guilford press, 3-23. van manen, m. 1997. ‘phenomenological pedagogy and the question of meaning.’ in d. vandenberg (ed.), phenomenology & education discourse. johannesburg: heinemann, 41-68. yehuda, r., schmeidler, j., elkin, a., houshmand, e., siever, l., binder-brynes, k., wainberg, m., aferiot, d., lehman, a., guo, l.s. & yang, r.k. 1998. phenomenology & psychobiology of the intergenerational response to trauma. in danieli, y. (ed.). international handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma: the plenum series on stress and coping. new york: plenum, 639-655. winnie the opera. 2011. composed by bongani ndodana-breen. libretto by warren wilensky. produced by mfundi vundla. premièred at pretoria’s state theatre with the kwa zulu-natal philharmonic orchestra on 28 april 2011. abstract introduction methodology results and discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) karien henrico department of emergency medical care, faculty of health sciences, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa citation henrico k. sustaining student wellness in higher educational institutions: possible design principles and implementations strategies. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1114. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1114 original research sustaining student wellness in higher educational institutions: possible design principles and implementations strategies karien henrico received: 01 july 2021; accepted: 29 oct. 2021; published: 31 jan. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract popular discourse identifies education as the cure for many of society’s ills. however, surviving university is often seen as a period in which students face a unique array of challenges. many students begin their tertiary education as holistically-well individuals, but due to the stressors related to university, students often show incremental signs of psychological, physical and emotional distress. these often lead to a decrease in academic competence and severe professional ramifications. the aim of this study was to identify design principles and explore the perceptions of professionals concerning possible implementation strategies that could be suitable for higher educational institutions, particularly health science and medical school students. a qualitative, three-phase multi-approach design was used in this study. phase one was conducted by means of an explorative desktop literature review, there after phase 2 included a self-management, self-coaching and appreciative coaching concept map, that was aligned to concepts within the current individual wellness literature and in phase 3, appreciative inquiry based focus group discussions were held with various professional in the field of coaching, education, and healthcare. wellness programmes are impacted by the fact that higher education institutions face unique challenges such as time, financial constraints, and an already overloaded curriculum. five design principles were described, and various implementation strategies explored. there is a fundamental necessity to address the distortion of wellness within he. a key finding in this study suggests that combining self-coaching, appreciative coaching and self-management principles could facilitate a successful individual wellness programme for higher educational students. keywords: wellness; wellbeing; student wellness; higher education; individual wellness; wellness strategies. introduction both government and universities often profess that higher education (he) benefits a nation economically, culturally, and socially.1 investing in he is seen as an investment in the human capital of a nation.2 for the individual, he promises both social and economic benefits.3 it is associated with the development of personal capabilities and economic potential and is believed to considerably increase the earning potential of graduates.2 literary contributors to the discourse have indicated that participation in he often leads to an enhancement in an individuals’ sense of life satisfaction, their sense of usefulness, their worth, their wellness and health.1,2,3 attaining a he qualification carries with it societal expectations of expert knowledge and improved competency within a professional practice. therefore, graduates from departments within a faculty of health sciences and medical schools are expected to provide high quality patient care that is compassionate, appropriate, effective, and individualised whilst demonstrating various interpersonal skills in an ethical and professional manner.4 these core competencies are written in almost all qualifications in some way or another, and are articulated by some in their writings about the concept of ‘graduateness’.5 furthermore, patients have alluded to the fact that they want health practitioners to additionally have a treatment strategy planned, be sincere, receptive, and calm, and listening courteously and be caring towards the patient.4 when entering he, students often display varying degrees of emotional and physical health. this can be attributed to the challenges they faced during their schooling years.6 students mostly display a normal expectation of how the programme they enrolled for, will prepare them for their chosen career.7 students are most often of a healthy physical and euthymic state as they embark on their studies during their he career.6,8 the world health organization (who) revealed that mental health accounts for 13% of the global disease burden, and that suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst 15–29-year-olds.9 the he students are part of the most vulnerable group when considering issues of mental health, emotional disorders, and psychological problems.10,11 during their studies, a graduate student will face and cope with various psychological, personal, financial, and academic challenges in their own unique he quests.3 time constraints and financial burdens are commonly mentioned as the main sources of distress amongst students of he.12 during the first few months of university, depression and anxiety related signs and symptoms increase, particularly for female students.6,8 a previous study conducted on psychology, medicine, dentistry and nursing students identified that 52% of students suffer from some degree of depression: 25% suffer from mild depression, 19% from moderate depression and an alarming 8% of study participants suffered from major depression.13 a more recent study on anxiety and depression concluded that medical students scored 61% higher for anxiety and 70% higher for depression during, what they call, the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) era.14 a decline in mental health will negatively impact the student’s academic outcomes.10 it was also noted that medical students presented with a higher percentage of depression than the other disciplines.10 it is well-documented that he students face various academic challenges, however, one should also note that they often relocate geographically to attend university, and this often leads to a loss of social support and feeling of isolation.6 the predicaments students face impact their overall wellness. according to the who, wellness is defined as: ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity’.14 adding to the perplexity of student wellness, is the fact that many of them are suddenly living in and are exposed to socially stimulating environments which could create an environmental discrepancy for them.15 if student wellness is lacking, the outcomes could be absenteeism, desertion or even suicide.13 literature describes a range of existing strategies aimed at addressing the current wellness challenges within he. however, the researcher is of the opinion that currently no concurrent consideration exists to address this misalignment of wellness initiatives in he.10,16,17 achieving wellness: awareness or sustained behaviour modification? the demands on both the student and the university within a 21st century setting is ever changing, even more so in the current covid-19 era,14 innovative wellness education methods therefore are imperative for today’s fast paced society.7,12 numerous academic articles have tried to address the issues related to introduction of wellness initiatives into the current curricula of health professionals, which is riddled with time, financial and staff capacity confinements.8 most he institutions have various wellness strategies they offer their students, all with a common goal of achieving a sense of wellness.18 teaching wellness strategies during formal training brings noteworthy benefits for the he students.16 these benefits amongst other include: positive emotional, physical, mental, interpersonal change, and improved academic performance, to mention only but a few.16,19 higher educational educators have the responsibility to send informed and accountable citizens into the workplace, such citizens should perceive wellness as a lifetime commitment.15 academia needs to facilitate and initiate the internalisation of the lifelong learning processes that is fundamental to achieving a state of wellness.7,18 even if he students and educators value the importance of wellness initiatives, it is challenging for curriculum committees and administrators however to assign faculty resources to such programmes.6 literature suggests that strategies aimed at improving wellness can be taught, however education alone does not promote the behavioural change needed to achieve a high level of wellness.7,20 simply understanding wellness, and the associated terms and concept, does not automatically translate into the individual being ‘well’.10,15 the acknowledged benefits of wellness education in he settings are validated by several scholars in relation to the place, intended purpose, and impact of wellness strategies and courses.8,10,12,18 when wellness initiatives and methods are taught in he courses, students are offered opportunities to learn various skills and strategies that can be applied both in the classroom and beyond. many he institutions offer extra-curricular wellness initiatives, such as counselling, and wellness strategies through student affairs and student life services.8 these are valuable but there is a call and need for more inclusive and holistic wellness education within the curricula.8,21 wellness education, to some extent, is included in a few curricula activities.17,22 although wellness training programmes aim at teaching he students to recognise and alleviate the adverse effects of burnout and trauma, many students may not receive the knowledge and skills associated with promoting their own holistic professional and personal wellness.8,22 holistic wellness initiatives will best benefit he students if it allows for behavioural modification, is multidimensional, interconnected, and supports lifelong wellness learning.7,16,23 when preparing a wellness courses for undergraduate students, in particular, traditional face-to-face interactive sessions, time-consuming workshops, and individual consultations might not be suitable or feasible, because of the current overloaded curriculum.24 students should be encouraged to pursue life-long wellness education and chose to actively participate in and be accountable for their unique or individual wellness journey.7,21,25 developing lasting strategies that emphasises wellness and various prevention strategies through a personal responsibility for one’s health is the only reliable way to prepare an individual for the challenges mentioned previously and additional challenges that might be encountered in the future.3,7,21 when students deliberately engage in wellness preparation, education, evaluation, and assessment, they will foster their own wellness despite the challenges associated with being a he student.8,16,22 when wellness is cultivated at the student level, stressors associated with pursuing their education will likely be reduced.8,15 when holistic wellness approaches are internalised and learned, students will experience substantial benefits such as positive emotional, physical, intellectual, interpersonal, and attitudinal changes.19 given the well-recognised importance of wellness, it would seem sensible for employers to request holistic wellness training for he’s and seek out ‘well’ graduates as their chosen future workforce.21,26 just as any organisation needs to provide an atmosphere that promotes wellness and offer wellness initiatives, similarly academia should cultivate wellness amongst its staff, students, and graduates.15,21 engaging staff and students in wellness has always been important. but in the current covid-19 pandemic climate, it is imperative that he institutions (heis) creates an ethos that promotes wellness and personal responsibility through behavioural modification.7,21 literature has suggested that if heis fail to address the student wellness, they will face a crisis that will lead to a reduction in both pass rates and retention rates.12 this study was designed to identify design principles and explore the perceptions of professional experts concerning possible implementation strategies that could be included in a holistic individual wellness programme suitable for heis, in particular health science and medical school students. by doing so, this study theorises on design principles and allows for implementation of theory. design specifications are collections of ideas about the essence of he wellness initiatives and provide information needed to initiate wellness.27 the term ‘design principles’ is used to identify the kind of prescriptive theoretical understandings developed through this study27; this kind of theory includes predictive, explanatory and descriptive understandings that guide the formulation of a proposed wellness initiative. the primary research question focused on identifying draft design principles for holistic individual wellness initiatives and exploring ways in which universities could efficiently implement holistic individual wellness strategies based on the suggested draft design principles. methodology this study utilised a three-phase multi-approach qualitative design. figure 1 offers a pictorial overview of the study phases. figure 1: schematic representation of the study phases. during phase one of this study, data was collected via an explorative desktop literature review. this provided a contextual understanding of the concepts identified (see figure 1), and also provided a supportive understanding to the focus group discussions (fgds). numerous sources were included such as journal articles, books, and other relevant publications on medline, embase, cinahl, ebscohost, web of science and cochrane databases. a health sciences librarian was consulted to provide guidance on the search strategy and identify the various individual wellness terms and boolean phrases that were used. the focus of the literature review was, however, individual wellness within the context of health sciences and health, or medical, professionals. individual wellness was chosen as the wellness strategy, because of its holistic, individualised nature of individual wellness.19 phase two consisted of a self-management, self-coaching and appreciative coaching concept map,28 and aligning these concepts with the results of the in-depth explorative desktop review. the researcher is of the opinion that using self-management29,30 and self-coaching31 strategies within a wellness programme might address the individualised nature needed for holistic wellness. and if a future wellness programme builds on the coaching style associated with self-coaching and appreciative coaching,32 it might overcome the time and financial constraints currently associated with he. phase one and two focused on answering the following research question: ‘what draft principles should be included in a holistic, individual wellness programme suitable for he?’. in phase three, data was obtained through appreciative inquiry (ai)33 based fgds (n = 2), which were part of a larger scale qualitative design-based research study.7,27 the focus groups (fgs) were conducted to listen to and gather information from the participants.34 the fgs allowed the researcher to comprehend how the participants feel or think about implementing holistic individual wellness through a form of focussed discussion. the ai was used to phrase the questions used within the fgd; each question focussed on a phase of ai as described in the 4-d cycle of ai.35 the target population for phase three comprised of professional experts such as coaching experts, educational experts, university educators and qualified health professionals residing within two metropolitan cities in the gauteng province of south africa. participants were conveniently sampled and invited to participate. as a result of the small number of participants available within the target population (n = 11), two fgs were conducted with seven participants in fg one and four in fg two during each fg, a multi-topic discussion was facilitated. the discussion focussed on the indivisible self, evidence model for wellness (is-well),29 the concept map (that aligns with the outcomes of both phase 1 and 2 of the study), and the implementation of a holistic individual wellness programme. this article reports only on issues that related specifically to one of the open-ended questions that participants within the fg considered: ‘how can universities efficiently implement holistic individual wellness strategies?’. additionally, the researcher used theoretical and reflective notes to ensure triangulation as a form of rigour and transparency in this qualitative study.7 observations from the fg were written down by the researcher in the form of theoretical notes, this was done as any form of observation is loaded with theory.30 reflective notes were written in the form of a reflective diary to meet the ethical, methodological, and emotional challenges associated with conducting qualitative research.31 these reflective notes were continuously written throughout the process of this research study and explored the experience of the researcher and the meaning of how the data represented itself.31 open coding was used to analyse the data32 through the seven steps of tesch’s data analysis method. thereafter, the researcher met for a consensus discussion with an independent coder who had experience in qualitative data analysis. strict ethical and trustworthiness principles were adhered to during the course of this study.36 ethical considerations ethical clearance was obtained from the university of free state research ethics committee (nhrec registration number: rec-230408-011) and higher degrees committee (hdc), ecufs nr 45/2013. results and discussion this article first attempted to identify design principles that will direct initiatives to improve the wellness of he students through the explorative desktop review. next followed the results that emerged from the explorative desktop literature review and the concept map for wellness programmes, and finally the fgds and the explanatory desktop review were structured around four themes, namely, (1) intense future dream; (2) realistic he implementation for students; (3) possible implementation obstacles, and (4) implementation guidelines specifically for the he context. the results that emerged from the explorative desktop literature review and concept map for wellness programmes were the five draft design principles. the data obtained in the first two phases of the study indicates that wellness initiatives, aimed at heis, in particular health sciences and medical schools, should be ‘holistic, unique, flexible, adaptive, and effective’. holistic wellness is a holistic, multidimensional way of life that assists an individual to become conscious about and make decisions towards their optimal health and well-being.6,12 to achieve a sense of individual wellness, it is vital that wellness initiatives are holistic and incorporate the holism philosophy of wellness. wellness initiatives should be an ‘interconnected journey that aims to balance all the dimensions of wellness and manifest a relationship between various wellness factors and/or dimensions’.7 additionally, balance is vital to achieve a sense of wellness; therefore, all dimensions of wellness need to be included in a proposed wellness programme. all areas of the mind should also be included in wellness initiatives.7 it seems that the conative wellness connection is often excluded in wellness programmes aimed at heis.35 continuous self-reflection on the individuals’ current and future wellness approaches could foster balance between all the wellness dimensions. also, self-management skills and strategies should be included and nurtured.7 unique wellness initiatives aimed at heis must be unique for each individual. wellness initiatives must facilitate wellness for individual students and should consequently be as unique as the individual. the researcher would like to argue that wellness initiative has to first identify the level of wellness the individual is at, and then address their own wellness imbalance. to ensure optimal wellness, any proposed wellness initiative has to ‘be personal and fit the lifestyle of the individual student’.7,15 flexible wellness is not static, and therefore wellness initiatives are required to be flexible. individual students will continuously identify and re-identify their own wellness needs.7 these needs might even change from time to time during the wellness journey. it is important that wellness programme participants actively engage in the programme, to kindle their ‘positive core’ and continuously improve their self-management, self-care, and self-improvement tactics. wellness programmes should also allow room for expected development, maturity, and transformation in dealing with the challenges an individual is exposed to in his or her lifetime. people will naturally, as they journey through life, become more mature in how they face unanticipated challenges. it is therefore vital that wellness initiatives and programmes respond to these changes that everyone will bring along with them.7 adaptive wellness relies on context. hence, wellness initiatives should also be context appropriate and suitable for each participating student with their own contextual predicaments.7 wellness initiatives should allow the individual, who participates, to successfully implement wellness strategies within his or her own unique circumstances. wellness initiatives needs to facilitate behavioural change (hence the strong focus on self-management and ai in this study).23 when focussing on changing behaviours, perseverance, considerable amounts of time, goal achievement, introspection, and unceasing participation is necessary.7,20,23 wellness programmes should teach individuals to observe and make note of their own behaviour and feelings. effective the final draft design principle identified in this study is efficacy. during the explorative desktop study, it became clear that wellness initiatives should be time and cost-effective to allow implementation at he heis, in particular health sciences faculties and medical schools. initiatives aimed at improving wellness should be accompanied by guidelines for cost-effective and sustainable programme that facilitate individual wellness.7 this will meet the need for teaching wellness strategies and initiatives within the confinements of an he context. the overarching aim of wellness initiatives is to maximise individual well-being and adopt lifelong wellness approaches.7 the four themes that resulted from the fgds and the exploratory desktop review, namely (1) intense future dream; (2) realistic he implementation for students; (3) possible implementation obstacles, and (4) implementation guidelines specifically for the he context are discussed next, linked with the excerpts from the researcher reflective notes or verbatim transcripts of the participants (p). intense future dream the ai focuses on the positive core and discovering potential, hence the discussion allowed participants to dream about individual wellness within he.35 the experts who participated in the fgd had an intense future dream for individual wellness as mapped out in phase 2 of this study. as seen in the following excerpt from the researcher reflective notes the participants broadened the original thinking of the researcher: ‘i think i felt a reduction in my excitement towards the [study], but after conducting the focus group discussions, i felt a sense of “being alive” again. i saw a brighter future, more possibilities and even a higher sense of enthusiasm. one i have not felt in a very long time… having experts in the field affirm your thinking and dreaming with you, is truly an improving, enriching, and empowering experience, that surpasses anything i could ever have imagined.’ (researchers reflective notes) participants dreamed that a wellness programme based on the concept map from phase 1 and 2, be included in the first year of he studies: ‘i think my biggest dream that [for holistic wellness] … hmm … this programme is done within the first-year student.’ (participant 3, focus group 2, coaching expert) it is important to note that the vision held by the fg participants for including individual wellness within he was not only limited to a health-related curriculum. this could be attributed to the perceived possibilities that this approach offers the individual in achieving what they wanted to achieve in the onset of their wellness journey: ‘i think my dream will also be possibilities you know, the possibilities that is there in the programme … whatever programme, nursing, emergency medical care … what are the possibilities for me to be able to achieve what i want to achieve you know, because everybody is not being taught about, you know, self-management and things like that.’ (participant 1, focus group 1, health professional) as seen above, not all he students are taught individual wellness and self-management related topics that allow them to internalise their own well-being ‘toolkit’.7,37 literature clearly suggests that that holistic individual wellness and self-management are currently not used efficiently in he.7,17,38 by including a holistic wellness and self-management programme that is built on the five draft design principles, in he, the student will be able to identify how their future professional career and personal wellness, could be. the following excerpt clearly identifies a reason for including the individual wellness as mapped out with the relevant concepts within any course: ‘[… s]tudents will already be able to say that within [a health domain], where do i want to be so that in the next year as they build themself a brand and find themself a place, it becomes a very focus almost specialised decision, because our problem is that at any point time as we were developing to be these [care providers] we were not sure in terms of when i finished i’m going to work in a specific hospital or private practise, you know and that sort of thing. and i found that that sort of reduce the extent to which we development our careers.’ (participant 5, focus group 1, health professional) allowing students to envisage where they want to position themselves within their chosen industry will allow them to enable the progression of their careers.7 this might be because they will be more fixated on their future from the commencement of their he studies. realistic higher education implementation for students experts who participated in the fgds expressed that individual wellness could be implemented within he. participants identified a deficiency in teachings on individual wellness and self-management strategies during their own formal training.7 this view agrees with current literature.6,8,16,17,21,39 as seen in the following quote, the absence of wellness strategies could be in part because the healthcare providers are often viewed as ‘being okay’.7 it seems as if there is a distinct imbalance between knowing what is professionally expected and coping within a health-related domain:6 ‘because i doubt well … hmm … definitely not while i was training … hmm … the value of something like this … hmm … was not even touched upon … hmm … you knew what is expected of you, but not exactly how to cope with it, or maybe it’s because most people that are therapist are service-orientated people so they are always looking after others, and they tend to … a … think that they are okay and … a … maybe because that attitude … hmm … it was never brought into as a study, because i mean why would you need that because you are always okay….’ (participant 3, focus group 3, educational expert) therefore, to effectively implement individual wellness within he, participants feel that the best time to incorporate such a programme would be within the first few weeks of first-year studies. ‘[… w]ere they starting that first week, that we sort of break it down for them. you can divide into six stages in six weeks in each week just right there at the beginning because i find that as you know.’ (participant 1, focus group 2, university educator) the example given by the participant above, of separating a proposed programme into several weeks, each focusing on a principle or wellness dimension might be a feasible and simple way to introduce individual wellness into an academic programme.7 another implementation strategy shared by participants is to include the proposed programme as a prescribed module: ‘i just think that it is that is done, that we can have this in a module, that there is now a way that you can continue to pursuit self you know self-interest, because you then realise how you affect the bigger picture.’ (participant 7, focus group 1, educational expert) including individual wellness as a prescribed module might be ideal, however this might not be a viable option for all courses. the researcher believes that this could be challenging, as health sciences and medical curricula are generally already overloaded.6,7,17 if an individual wellness programme can be implemented as a module, it would facilitate reflective strategies that are important for the successful implementation of individual wellness programmes, as seen below: ‘at least go through the programme and force a reflective stage. you know, at the end of every term you have to sit with your dream buddy and go through it and just say where are you know, to check yourself, even if it is not in the course.’ (participant 2, focus group 2, university educator) implementing a holistic individual wellness programme during the first few weeks of first-year studies, would be the best route for success. as the following quote demonstrates, an individual wellness programme should be included during formal education: ‘but at least, if it is going to be for [health care], at least during the course.’ (participant 1, focus group 1, health professional). there is a maldistribution of holistic individual wellness and self-management strategies within he. it is also pertinent that heis do not ignore self-management and wellness strategies in the 21st century.7,8,12,21 therefore, the successful implementation of holistic individual wellness and self-management programmes and initiatives within heis is vital.11 implementation obstacles the third theme discussed by the fg participants were possible implementation obstacles. to ensure successful implementation of a holistic individual wellness initiative in any he curriculum, it is also important to anticipate implementation obstacles that might hamper flawless execution of the proposed initiative. the first obstacle that needs to be considered is the way in which individuals learn and at what stage of change they are when they are introduced to the individual wellness concepts and dimensions. the following two quotes identify that some individuals will wholeheartedly participate in a wellness programme whereas some will only ‘dabble’ superficially in the intended programme, where some might not engage with the programme at all. hence, the stages of change,23,40 maslow’s hierarchy of needs,41 and adult education principles36 should be included when planning possible implementation guidelines for a holistic individual wellness programme: ‘some people will receive it, some people will learn it and some people won’t … and that’s just unfortunately life.’ (participant 4, focus group 1, coaching expert) ‘[… s]ome will dabble on the surface and some might go further and some might not engage in, in it at all because they are not reflective by nature or not interest so … hmm … but i think that is a very valuable input.’ (participant 2, focus group 2, health professional) another implementation obstacle that the participants reflected on is excitement level that a proposed individual wellness programme evokes within the student. if people get enthusiastic about a programme and the wellness opportunities offered by such a programme, personal engagement will be on a deeper level. it is perceived that during the introduction stage of any holistic individual wellness programme, a strong emphasis should be placed on the life-giving and positive facets of ai: ‘i think it’s incredible but … hmm … i think something that would just maybe … uhm … be worth looking at is how to get people excited about a programme, like if they know nothing about something like that. they do have a problem and they are going nowhere slowly … hmmm … in personal wellness, but how to get them to understand a programme like that if they have no idea.’ (participant 6, focus group 1, coaching expert) lastly, fg participants predicted that the various levels of basic human needs that the individual presents with, education level and point of departure, might impact the implementation of a holistic individual wellness initiative. as the following quote illustrates, using maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs could permit a proposed programme to appeal to numerous individuals who are all starting at different stages of basic needs: ‘[… h]ow do you sell it to different levels of self … those with educational background might have insight and it’s easier, than the one … if i think of maslow’s hierarchy, you know where they … at the basic needs, taxi money, isn’t at the level where you are going to sell this to. so different levels would probably require different approach. selling it to a manager it would quite different from implementing it in an educational setting, for instance higher education.’ (participant 4, focus group 2, university expert). although fg participants did not mention it, the researcher is of the opinion that the amount of support and commitment a proposed wellness initiative receives from lecturers and management could potentially affect the implementation success of a holistic individual wellness initiative. if there is a little to no executive support, there will be a direct impairment in the successful implementation of an individual wellness initiative amongst students. thus, having full support of the managerial team when aiming to implement an individual wellness programme in any educational setting it vital for its success. implementation guidelines the final theme that emerged from the study was several implementation guidelines. both the researcher and the study participants are of the opinion that including an individual wellness programme during first year orientation might be appropriate for the health professional context. because of the current limitations on time, the availability of resources and the high demand on student commitment, a few half-day sessions during first-year orientation might be the most suitable suggestion. throughout the intended sessions, participating student should be engaged in an individualised manner. monthly group session could also prove a good add on to ensure implementation success.7 utilising departmental tutors as wellness tutors and/or mentors might also be an appropriate way to implement holistic individual wellness initiatives in the he context.42 volunteering senior students might be best suited to act as wellness tutors who mentor first-year students. these mentors would first be trained on all aspects and dimension associated with the proposed individual wellness programme prior to their appointment.7 there should be at least one wellness mentor or tutor per academic department, depending on the amount of first year students they take in. the wellness tutor has to be introduced to the first year students at the start of the orientation and be present during the duration of the orientation. it is recommended that the tutors make themselves available for individual sessions during the academic year. follow-up sessions should be arranged with students to track their progress during each term in the academic calendar.42 these sessions could be conducted in a group format and might strengthen a collaborative network that is needed for successful implementation of an individual wellness programme based on the five draft design principles discussed earlier. a study conducted by ramrung,48 determined that a student mentorship programme is effective in enabling the participating student to gain an improved understanding of a holistic wellness programme and a better understanding of the student’s self, their unique goals, and their morals.41 ramrung also indicated that scaffolding a mentorship programme could facilitate the soft skills students need to achieve success in their time at university, this includes time-management.41 using a similar methodology to implement a holistic individual wellness tutor or mentor programme, might suit the context of most health professions disciplines. if educators fail to facilitate the wellness of students during their formal training, ‘students may lack skills to self-heal in response to professional distress’.16,22 when wellness initiatives allow educators to support professional self-care and monitoring such activities, educators could potentially encourage various career supporting behaviours that are related to high levels of individual wellness.8 as mentioned earlier wellness can be learned, and when it is learned various issues associated with somatisation, psychoticism, and interpersonal sensitivity might be reduced.15 the success of individual wellness initiatives will be greater if educators give students authentic opportunities during their formal training, to practise and improve their own self-regulation strategies.18 these authentic opportunities should be three-fold: (1) it should comprise learning tasks that permit scope for self-determined outcomes, (2) it should allow the student to recognise principles of effective learning that best suit their learning style, and (3) should include various strategies to achieve a sense of wellness. these components should be arranged according to each individual student needs and not in a generic way.8,18 improving the perceived wellness level of a student during their formal training will help to encourage wellness practices early on. this in turn might reduce issues that could risk individual’s wellness and professional competence later on in their career.7,19 as mentioned earlier, education and learning about wellness interventions are important, however, more interventions are needed to ultimately change the participating student’s behaviour20,23 and commence the process of lifelong learning, which is fundamental for achieving ultimate wellness.18 authors have stated that is inappropriate for he to not provide students with a wellness understanding and a skill set that will allow them to practise wellness as part of their ‘tool chest’ when registering for their chosen course.15,16 considering the importance of wellness on the high return on investment for organisations, it seems sensible for future employers to request that he students undergo wellness education during their time at universities and pursue graduates who possess wellness competences as future employees – similar to graduate characteristics of teamwork, leadership, creativity, adaptableness, etc.7,10,21,26 not only should corporations provide an environment suited to wellness promotion, but heis must encourage holistic individual wellness amongst its staff and students.7,15,21 when companies seek out ‘well’ graduates they will reap the rewards of enhanced performance that is associated with optimal levels of wellness.7,10 all heis should have a lasting healthcare strategy that builds a healthier student body and a strategy that promotes powerful ethos of wellness.16,21 there is a dire need for an individual wellness framework that connects (1) the learner’s perspectives and wellness starting point, and (2) the current extra-curricular wellness activities offered by the university within holistic individualised wellness education model that is based on the five draft design principles.16,18 to date, no wellness model could be traced that incorporates such a holistic, individualised, approach for both the individual and university that fits within the he context and meets needs for wellness education within the constraints of the he system.7,17,18 most of the wellness programmes and initiatives aimed at he wellness education still focus on isolated variable of wellness and not the holistic approach needed for individual wellness.10,11,16,17,23 conclusion during the fgds with the health profession experts, it became clear that addressing the misalignment of wellness within he is of utmost importance especially in the current pandemic climate. the need to implement a holistic individual wellness programme, based on the five draft principles, that facilitates behavioural change is vital for both academic and professional success of he students. combining self-coaching, appreciative coaching and self-management might be a novel approach to facilitate an individual wellness within the complex context of he programmes. participants in this study particularly affirmed the pragmatic approach of these methods as a result of their self-driven nature, preventative nature, flexibility, and emotional stability these methods allow within a wellness programme aimed at he institutions. limitations as with all research studies, this study is not without limitations. the perspectives of both undergraduate and post graduate students were excluded, as it was not possible to interview them. their voices were included at a later stage of the larger qualitative design-based study. the implementation strategies emerged from the opinions of professional expert and cannot be generalised and needs to still be tested as an implementation strategy for a holistic wellness model. additionally, the researcher added personal opinions in the form of reflective notes to the discussion above and invites other researchers to respond to the suggestions of this manuscript. acknowledgements the author acknowledges the participants for giving up their valuable time to participate in the study. competing interests the author has declared that she has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. author’s contributions the author declares that she is the sole author of this research article. funding information funding was received from the health & wellness sector education and training authority (seta) for the larger phd study. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available from the author, upon reasonable request. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author. references ryan t, french s, kennedy g. beyond the iron 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challenges in qualitative interviewing in bereavement and palliative care. mortality. 2006;11(3):286–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576270600774893 creswell jw. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches [homepage on the internet]. sage, 2013 [cited 2016 jan 28]; p. 304. available from: https://books.google.com/books?id=ebogaqaaqbaj&pgis=1 bahrami z, cranney j. integrated conative model of well-being: from motives to well-being. j happiness stud. 2017;19:961–981. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9845-2 abstract introduction use of technology in mathematics teaching around the globe use of technology in mathematics teaching in african schools disadvantages of integration of computer technology in mathematics classroom conceptual framework content component methods and materials population sampling techniques data collection data analysis and presentation results and discussions conclusion and recommendations acknowledgements references about the author(s) bernard m. hlalele department of business support, faculty of management sciences, central university of technology, bloemfontein, south africa citation hlalele, b.m., 2020, ‘developing the usage index for teaching with technology: a case study for motheo district, south africa’, the journal for transdiciplinary research in southern africa 16(1), a668. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v16i1.668 original research developing the usage index for teaching with technology: a case study for motheo district, south africa bernard m. hlalele received: 09 feb. 2019; accepted: 07 nov. 2019; published: 16 mar. 2020 copyright: © 2020. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract virtual reality has taken the world by storm over the past decade where learners are allowed to gain experiences that are not possible with ordinary teaching methods. the interactive technological devices such as geogebra have made euclidean geometry easy to understand by learners. the current study aimed to investigate the use of technology in the teaching of grade 12 euclidean geometry. this study used a four-dimensional model for teaching with technology in the investigation. all responses were averaged and normalised to produce an index for the measurement of the effective technology use in teaching of euclidean geometry in grade 12. the learning style of students contributes significantly to the use of technology in classes, particularly the audio-visual learning style. bloemfontein showed a high number of learners ready to be taught through technology. however, this is in opposition to the teachers in terms of their age groups and enthusiasm to use technology. in botshabelo and thaba nchu areas that were previously resource-disadvantaged, the current government has ensured that technological teaching resources are available where unfortunately their usage is not satisfactory, ranging from ‘maybe used’ to ‘less use of technology’ in teaching of euclidean geometry in classroom. the authorities are therefore advised to hold technology workshops for senior teachers, reduce class sizes and tighten security in schools to avoid connecting and disconnecting of technological devices from one classroom to another to avoid wastage of teaching time. keywords: educational technology; euclidean geometry; mathematics; effective index; teaching with technology. introduction mathematics has always been a bridge not only between science and technology but also between other subjects offered in formal education (unesco 2000). traditionally, euclidean geometry as a whole is a difficult subject for many students because it requires them to strictly reason from axioms, postulates and theorems rather than from their own experiences and intuitive understanding. euclidean geometry in particular is a visual subject; therefore, students’ pen and paper diagrams have a limited scope in helping them make conjectures (smith et al. 2007). conjectures are mathematical statements that appear to be true based on observations, but have not been formally proven yet (oesterlé & masser 2011). in addition, stols (2012) points out that appropriate use of technological tools, such as dynamic geometry software, can enhance teaching of mathematics and conceptual development and enrich visualisation whilst also laying a foundation for deductive proof. mathspace (2016) defines deductive proof as a process of reasoning where a person makes conclusions based on previously known facts. in south africa, euclidean geometry at grade 12 constitutes approximately 33% of the final national mathematics paper which when learners perform poorly has a significant negative impact on the overall performance of learners’ paper 2 (department of basic education 2012). in 2008, the national curriculum statement (ncs) was introduced in the south african education system curriculum, where euclidean geometry was excluded. hamilton and hlabane (2016), mathematics teachers at the university of the free state, reported that one of the reasons for the exclusion of euclidean geometry was that many learners failed in it. they further said that many south african university engineering lecturers complained that learners without euclidean geometry failed and could not cope with their studies. in response to this, the south african government introduced a revised curriculum called curriculum assessment policy statement (caps) in 2012 in which euclidean geometry was brought back into curriculum. at present, this newly revised curriculum is in its fourth year of commencement, with three matriculation examinations of 2014, 2015 and 2016. in these 3 years of caps, the average performance of students in euclidean geometry in the motheo district was 43.66%, 37.75% and 40.75%, respectively (department of basic education 2014, 2015, 2016). this is clear evidence that learners hardly cope with the euclidean geometry topic. katzman (2014) suggests that the use of computers can assist learners in the learning of euclidean geometry. department of basic education (2015) cautions that for learners to do well in euclidean geometry time must be spent on making learners recognise the theorems using diagram through the use of technology. in contrast, karen (2014) states that the use of technology in learning may result in learners’ poor study habits and development of lazy attitude towards education. the free state province is one of the provinces in south africa to take initiative in introducing information and communication technology (ict), such as master maths, heymath! and an open access geogebra to increase teachers’ and learners’ productivity in mathematics (noss n.d.). despite all these initiatives, the learner performance in euclidean geometry has been facing a downward to fluctuating downward trend. therefore, the present study investigated the use of technology in the teaching and learning of grade 12 euclidean geometry. it firstly starts with the orientation of the study that sets the basis for the rest of this article. use of technology in mathematics teaching around the globe in austria, a study undertaken on teachers’ perceptions of technology in mathematics revealed positive changes over a period of 5 months of professional development under which they were subjected (yates 2016). yates (2016) further stated that these positive changes were mainly observed in access to technology in teaching and learning of mathematics, confidence in the use of technology in mathematics, and attitude and beliefs about the role and value of technology in teaching and learning of mathematics. similarly, bingimlas’s (2009), an australian secondary mathematics teacher who participated in a survey on professional needs, experiences on the use of technology in teaching of mathematics were found convincing, and he was more convinced of technology benefits for students’ support to learn mathematics more effectively than conventional methods. on the contrary, lew and jeong (2013) noted that in south korea much more work is to be carried out in having teachers’ positive perceptions towards the use of technology in teaching and learning of mathematics. these authors further assert that negative perception is rooted in the fact that teachers need more information and support to integrate technology in their teaching of mathematics. the most important finding in this study was the fact that teachers from urban areas were more confident and positive in the use of technology in teaching of mathematics than those from rural and semi-urban areas (bennison & goos 2010). use of technology in mathematics teaching in african schools in botswana, nkhwalume (2013) noted that integration of ict in teaching and learning of mathematics is faced with problems emanating from: (1) lack of or limited access to computers, (2) inadequate contact time for mathematics teaching and (3) lack of administrative support. this implies a limitation in the teaching of mathematics with technology. a study conducted by kadzera (2010) in malawi revealed similar results where teachers’ using technology in teaching of mathematics was limited because of lack of confidence in using technology and poor maintenance of computers and projectors. swaziland, on the other hand, shares the same sentiments as that of malawi and botswana, where teachers’ objections to ict integration in teaching and learning of mathematics are of external or institutional type. this implies that teachers were not using technology in their teaching of mathematics. the study by simelani (2013) found the following: (1) the student–computer ratio was as high as 41:1; (2) 72% of teachers are with diplomas without ict knowledge, (3) learners are incompetent in using technology to learn mathematics, (4) computers are outdated, (5) outdated computers are lacking maintenance and (6) lack of schools adopting ict policies. finally, the study concluded that no ict is integrated in the teaching and learning of mathematics in swaziland, thereby leading to poor results in mathematics. the implication of this is that learners are likely to perform poorly in euclidean geometry. in kenya, kamau (2014) stated that secondary mathematics teachers were found with low levels of technology skills and training. this implies that learners are likely to perform poorly in euclidean geometry in particular because the use of technology in teaching of mathematics offers visual presentation of geometric figures, hence promoting analytical geometric thinking. other obstacles to use technology in teaching of mathematics came from inadequate technology resources. in cases where there are technology resources, these resources are not used for the benefit of learners in studying mathematics but used by teachers for their private use for both teaching and learning (kamau 2014). disadvantages of integration of computer technology in mathematics classroom whilst many educational experts have been touting technology integration in the teaching of subjects such as mathematics, however, it has shortcomings that can hinder both learning and educational processes. the problems include: (1) lack of support in case of trouble-shooting, (2) inadequate teaching methodology where many teachers are not conversant with the use of technological devices in classrooms and (3) loss of time in connecting teaching devices in classrooms (akkus 2013). other challenges include the following: (1) lack of access to hardware and software, (2) no immediate repairs of computers, (3) no obligation of the department of education to integrate computers into mathematics lessons and poor timetable of computer lessons, (4) lack of knowledge of mathematics technology, which may result in teachers not perceiving the usefulness of the technology and (5) lack of in-depth professional development in technology integration, which negatively impacts teachers’ practices such as expertise in planning, classroom technology management and classroom instruction (polokoana 2012; sinclair 2003). many research scholars have quoted numerous advantages of technology integration in teaching and learning of mathematics; however, a similar number of arguments have arisen on the opposite end of this issue. parents and educators must take caution in resorting to technology use in teaching and learning because these devices do not only leave fruitful effects but also give rise to health problems (alina-marilena 2016; schwiebert 2010). the authors further add that learners usually suffer from eye strain and obesity because of lack of activity. this also hampers learners’ social interaction that also contributes to learning (psycharis & kynigos 2009). in addition, some problems include inequity and access, time to plan and implement technology and educators’ resistance to change (montano 2015; varank n.d.). factors that contribute to this inequity to access to computers are geographic location of schools, socio-economic status, gender and various kinds of handicaps (varank, n.d.). in the event learners having various physical differences, the use of technology may lead to frustration and failure, coupled with mathematics phobia (moosavi 2009). having discussed the problems encountered in the integration of technology with teaching and learning of mathematics, the next section focuses on the conceptual framework on which this study is based. conceptual framework this section introduces a model for teaching with technology that was used as a conceptual framework for this study. according to vaughan (2008), a conceptual framework is defined as a structure through which the key factors, concepts or variables of the whole study could be explained either graphically or in a narrative form based on the literature and personal experiences. the main components of the proposed model are student, content, technology and instructor. this study therefore used a ‘model for teaching with technology’ for drawing of the indicators for effective technology use in the teaching and learning of mathematics. figure 1 depicts the main components and how they link with one another. figure 1: a model for teaching with technology. each component in the framework raises a number of issues that must be considered in order to integrate technology effectively into learning and teaching (center for research on learning and teaching 2008). for instance, the student component is analysed in terms of the technology skills levels that learners possess, access to technology and the learning styles adopted as shown below. looking at the student component, humans have different ways of learning where some can assimilate in a better manner than others (franzoni & assar 2009). of the several learning styles suitable for teaching with technology there exist visual-interactive, auditory-lecture and text styles. the visual interactive learning style is central to this study, and it is defined as a style that emphasises visual presentation of information to learners in the form of pictures, diagrams and animations (pashler et al. 2016). in the visual learning style, teachers provide different media representations to each student (franzoni & assar 2009). therefore, the implication for this study is that teachers must know the learning styles that their learners use to select the most appropriate technology for teaching. the level of technology skills in learners also plays a vital role in making teaching with technology a success. learners who are able to use technology with ease do not make it easier for teachers to teach with technology but acquire a valuate skill to be used even post-school (eisenberg & doug 2002). one of the roadblocks to teaching with technology is the lack of access to these devices. prior to technology use in classes, teachers must first ensure both learners’ learning styles and their access to these devices for effective use (american federation of teachers 2008). this therefore means that learners must access technology if teaching with technology has to be a success. content component to use technology effectively in teaching, teachers must examine their: (1) course goals, (2) what they expect learners to learn from the course, (3) what skills and knowledge teachers want them to acquire by the end of the planned time, (4) the teaching strategies (lecture, discussion, group work, etc.) and (5) case studies that will best help learners achieve the lesson plan objectives. once the teacher has answered all these questions, a suitable technology could be chosen. in order to make connections between goals of technology tools, it is necessary to turn to taxonomy levels revised by arthur (2009). objectives at lower levels of taxonomy involve acquisition of factual knowledge or development of basic comprehension. higher-level learning involves skills such as analysis, evaluation and creation. methods and materials this study used a triangulation mixed-methods research approach. however, quantitative approach was used predominantly. in a quantitative research, an investigator relies on numerical data to test relationships between variables in a post-positivist philosophical worldview (creswell 2007). according to creswell (2007), qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding where the researcher develops a complex, holistic picture, analyses words and conducts the study in a natural setting. moreover, the goal of a qualitative research is to explore and understand a central phenomenon of the study in question. this approach is suitable for this study to reach the bottom of what contributes to the ineffectiveness of technology use in classes of mathematics. on the other hand, the triangulation mixed-methods design is defined as the phased design in which the researcher implements both quantitative and qualitative methods in the same timeframe with the view of best understanding the research problem (creswell 2003). the following are some of the advantages of this design and the reasons why it was chosen in the present study: firstly, it makes intuitive sense; secondly, it is mostly referred by novice researchers; thirdly, it has become a framework for thinking about mixed-methods research; and fourthly, it is an efficient design in which both types of data are collected during one phase of research at roughly the same time and each type of data could be collected and analysed separately and independently using the techniques traditionally associated with each data type (creswell 2003). this study therefore followed the triangulation mixed-methods design in which both qualitative and quantitative data were collected at the same time in order to best understand the phenomenon of interest (creswell 2009:268). population population is defined as a set all possible elements from which data could be collected, observed and measured (weiers 2010). in this study, 68 grade 12 teachers of mathematics from 82 high schools in motheo district of free state province were chosen. the included schools were from three regions. all these schools offered grade 12 studies in mathematics and had at least one technological device to use in the teaching and learning of the subject. the schools were considered as clusters in which a simple random sampling was applied to select mathematic teachers as representatives. the three selected regions were different socio-economically, and they also differed in educational resources. each region was therefore regarded as a cluster. sampling techniques sampling is defined as the process of selecting representative units from a population of choice so that after conducting the study, a generalisation could be made about the population from which the sample was selected (trochim 2008). the population size of choice for this study was 68 grade 12 teachers of mathematics from 82 high schools of motheo district. to determine a sample from this population, a confidence level must be specified. a confidence level is defined as a statistical number that expresses the degree of certainty that the selected sample of population represents from which it is drawn (weiers 2010). the author also defines the significant level or the margin of error, which refers to the possible amount of error that is allowed in the study, and this normally ranges from 3% to 5%. the research chose 95% confidence interval (95% ci) with 5% margin of error, which gives a sample of 68 schools to be selected in the study. therefore, in this study purposive sampling was used along with probability sampling techniques, and 68 grade 12 mathematics teachers were drawn from 82 represented schools of three selected regions according to the ratio of the number of high schools in each region. all the high schools per region were listed and microsoft excel was used to generate random numbers to assign each school for selection. in this way the three regions were considered as strata from which individual schools were selected and represented by a participant mathematics teacher. the following equation was used to determine the sample size: where: n = the required sample size n = population size and e = margin of error (weiers 2010:294).then the sample size was determined as: n = 82/(1 + 82 × 0.05 × 0.05) = 68 mathematics teachers from 82 schools. data collection data were collected by means of questionnaires that contain both close-ended and open-ended questions to capture quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. questionnaires are data collecting tools capable of collecting large number of data from respondents in a short period of time, resulting in less cost (popper 2009). the researcher and a few people could collect data using these tools, thereby minimising chances of invalidity and unreliability (ackroyd & hughes 1981). the questionnaires with open-ended questions were administered to participant teachers. qualitative questions have an inviting quality and encourage authentic responses as well as two-way communication in both personal and professional relationships (jo ann 2010). an enhanced level of cooperation and understanding is facilitated and an opportunity is created for others to express themselves more openly and honestly. moreover, respondents are encouraged to provide information, including their ideas, concerns and feelings, and assist in creating a positive learning and sharing experiences. data analysis and presentation an index is defined as a composite statistic that measures changes in a representative group of individual data points and aggregates multiple indicators (nardo et al. 2005). in this study, all scores per component from the selected framework were aggregated and marginal component indices were used to construct a composite technology use effectiveness index (tui) per school. in literature, indices construction methods are developed from two main methods: methods with equal weights and methods with unequal weights (bhattacharjee & wang 2010). one of the most non-biased index computation methods is the iyengar–sudarshan method (anon 2016). this is a method with unequal weights that ensures that large variation in any one of the indicators does not unduly dominate the contribution of the rest of the indicators, thereby distorting regional comparisons (anon 2016). the values of computed indices in the iyengar–sudarshan method range between 0 and 1. the values 0 and 1 indicate zero and maximum technology effective use, respectively. various variables used in most research studies bear different units, and therefore values of all indicators must be normalised according to the functional relationship each variable has with the use of technology in euclidean geometry (etzkorn 2011). for increasing and decreasing functional relationship with focal point of research, normalisation was carried out using the following respective formulae: and where xij is the value of the indicator j, corresponding to region i. after indicator value normalisation, the iyengar–sudarshan method index equation was applied as follows: where is the weight. the weight is assumed to vary inversely with variance over regions in the respective indicators on vulnerability. the weights are therefore determined as: where c is the normalising constant such that in this method, a suitable probability distribution is needed which takes values in the range [0, 1] and such a distribution is beta probability distribution, which is generally skewed. the density function of this function is given as: where β(a,b) is a beta function defined by: given the right skewness of beta distribution, the following fractal intervals could be used in technology use effectiveness stage characterisation. after index computation of each selected school as in equation 3, k-means clustering using ibm statistics spss v.24 was applied to classify schools according to their composite indices. a single index was then obtained for each cluster to fit into the stages shown in table 1 prior to k-means clustering algorithm. a factor and item analysis was applied to identify misunderstood questions from the data collection tool. table 1: fractal stages of technology use in euclidean geometry (%). a technology use effectiveness index (tuei) was calculated from quantitative data and used to compare the three regions. the calculated index was contributed by four components from the adopted conceptual framework model, namely, student, technology, content and instructor. an item and factor analysis was conducted by spss to identify and eliminate items that are too easy and difficult in order to determine the items that belong together. responses were recorded in three strata (regions), namely, bloemfontein, botshabelo and thaba-nchu. an analysis of variance (anova) was conducted to test differences in mean values between groups (regions). the quantitative results were then presented as an index in tables. schools were ranked according to their computed effective technology usage index. ethical consideration this article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. results and discussions the extent to which mathematics teachers use technology in teaching of euclidean geometry prior to determining the answer to the research question, ‘to what extent are teachers ready to use technology in the mathematics teaching?’, a cronbach’s alpha reliability test was conducted for 10 variables in three regions as indicated and recoded in table 2. the minimum accepted threshold value for cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.70. the results of reliability test revealed a cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.954, implying a high reliability of variable scores in three regions, hence the instrument used in the data collection. table 3 shows the reliability test results from three regions, each with 10 variables. table 2: cronbach’s alpha reliability test statistics. table 3: functional relationship of indicators with use of technology. in order to obtain a broad picture of the extent to which each region used the available technology in the teaching of euclidean geometry, the value of each variable was averaged per region. it could be deduced from table 4 that bloemfontein schools are the least in technology usage in the teaching of euclidean geometry in classes. thaba nchu and botshabelo seemed to have a better use of these technological devices. one striking feature in the results is that thaba nchu and botshabelo are more rural areas compared to bloemfontein. table 4: average indicator values. in any research, the collected variables bear various units which may cause difficulty in comparison. one of the most important technologies to avoid these problems is through normalisation of all participating indicator values. as indicated earlier, all variables were normalised in accordance with the effects of each on the phenomenon in question. table 5 shows the results of normalisation computed from equations 2 and 3. in order to avoid other variables dominating the final index, a weighted indicator method was employed, where the sum of all variables’ weights is a unit and constant determined to be 0.028 for all variables. table 5: normalised indicator scores across three regions. the index methodology used in this study assumes that the variables data follow a beta probability distribution. to avoid making wrong assumptions that variable values follow in beta distribution, an xlstat computer software program was used to fit these variables to determine whether a beta distribution was followed using a chi-square test criterion. table 6 shows the distribution test results with parameters. if the p-value is greater than the selected significant level of 0.05, then it is concluded that such a distribution fits well the data. the p-value = 0.297 > 0.05 implies that the study does not make assumptions but used the true results of distribution. these distribution results provide confidence to use the fractal intervals mentioned earlier for indices classification of tuei. table 6: probability distribution (beta distribution). it can be seen from table 7 that the district technology use index is determined to be 0.28, which is classified as moderate technology use in teaching and learning of euclidean geometry. this result provides answer to the question of the extent of technological devices usage in the teaching of euclidean geometry in mathematics classes in motheo district. the results contradict the socio-economic status of these three regions where thaba nchu and botshabelo are more rural than bloemfontein. this could be linked with the past political regime where rural schools had teaching resources, and the current government has bridged such gaps. the situation is that more teaching resources are now mobilised for disadvantaged schools in rural areas. table 7: regional technology use effectiveness indices for teaching and interpretation of euclidean geometry. the regional economic status to access technology in the teaching of euclidean geometry table 8 shows anova test to determine whether there were significant mean differences amongst bloemfontein, botshabelo and thaba nchu schools in terms of access to technological devices to be used in teaching of euclidean geometry throughout the day. from the table, f-value = 12.262 with a corresponding p-value of 0.000. because p = 0.000 < 0.05, it implies that the null hypothesis that all three regions have equal means is rejected. it is clear that the three regions are significantly different in terms of economic status to access technology. the used anova test statistics applied to three or more groups in a single variable assume that such variable data are distributed normally. table 8: analysis of variance test. having established that a significant difference exists amongst the three regions, the regions’ mean values were ranked for further analysis. table 9 shows the three regions’ economic viability to incorporate technology in teaching of mathematics. the results reveal thaba nchu as the most economically viable region to use technology in teaching of mathematics, followed by botshabelo and bloemfontein. the first two regions are less developed than bloemfontein. this is probably because the government mobilised more of these technological resources to the previously disadvantaged schools in these two regions. one important feature of these results is that, although bloemfontein is less viable economically to implement technology compared to other two regions, learners from this region are more ready to learn technology than those from thaba nchu and botshabelo. table 9: schools’ economic viability to incorporate technology in teaching of mathematics. challenges to implement technology in teaching of euclidean geometry some of the challenges given by teachers of mathematics from all the three regions were, but not limited to, teachers’ computer illiteracy, time consumption in moving technological devices from one classroom to another, insufficient computers for all students, overcrowding and students viewing technological devices as television. most of the schools indicated that because of lack of security of technological devices, they are forced to disconnect after every class, which leads to non-completion of syllabus. the computer illiteracy is contrary to the department of basic education’s intervention to help improve teachers’ computer literacy through the microsoft schoolnet funded by vodacom. however, these teachers suggested that computer workshops are to be held for teachers, especially for senior teachers, in order to help them implement technology usage with ease. in thaba nchu and botshabelo, most teachers indicated security in schools as a worrying factor, but teachers used these gadgets for personal use more than the intended use in classes. more stringent measures are to be taken for schools provided with technological devices for their proper usage, but there is limited use of such devices. increase in technological devices as well as reduction in class size could play a vital role in solving the problem of non-usage of technology in the teaching of euclidean geometry, thereby increasing the pass rate of this topic which has proven to be a difficult task for many students. another solution is that regular workshops should be conducted on euclidean geometry through the usage of geogebra software, which manipulates geometrical figures in an interactive manner to enhance learners’ understanding. conclusion and recommendations the analysis of this study started with the exploration of the demographics of three regions from which representative school teachers of mathematics were sampled. most of the teachers from bloemfontein were men aged between 34 and 39 years. the most frequent and available softwares used for teaching of euclidean geometry were heymaths! and geogebra. on the contrary, botshabelo and thaba nchu had respondent teachers aged 28 to 33 years, which was much lower than that found in bloemfontein. these differences account for the effective use of technology in the teaching of euclidean geometry in classes because younger group of teachers feel much more comfortable with technology than elder and senior teachers. the learning style of learners contributes significantly to the use of technology in classes, particularly the audio-visual learning style. bloemfontein showed a high number of learners ready to be taught through technology. however, this is in opposition to the teachers’ age group and enthusiasm to use technology. in botshabelo and thaba nchu areas, which were previously resource-disadvantaged, the current government has ensured that technological teaching resources are available, but unfortunately the use of technology is not satisfactory, ranging from ‘maybe used’ to ‘less use of technology’ in the teaching of euclidean geometry classes. this finding concurs with the answer to research question 2, where students of botshabelo and thaba nchu have a better access to technology than bloemfontein, although not used satisfactorily. the study concludes with recommendations versus challenges for effective implementation of technology in the teaching of euclidean geometry. the authorities are therefore cautioned to hold technology workshops for senior teachers, reduction of class size and tighten security in schools to avoid connecting and disconnecting of technological devices from one classroom to another to avoid wastage of teaching time. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that no competing interests exist. author’s contributions the author declares that he is 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conclusion references about the author(s) melvin diedericks faculty of arts, school of social and government studies, north-west university, south africa citation diedericks, m., 2017, ‘challenges in reporting on predetermined objectives to the auditor-general: the case of limpopo provincial departments’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 13(1), a386. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v13i1.386 original research challenges in reporting on predetermined objectives to the auditor-general: the case of limpopo provincial departments melvin diedericks received: 17 oct. 2016; accepted: 20 feb. 2017; published: 26 apr. 2017 copyright: © 2017. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract limpopo provincial departments like all other south african government departments are required to report on performance against predetermined objectives in terms of section 40 of the public finance management act 1 of 1999, read in conjunction with section 5.1.1 of the treasury regulations. the purpose of this article is to report on a study that was undertaken to establish the challenges faced by the limpopo provincial departments in reporting on performance against predetermined objectives to the auditor-general (ag). reporting on predetermined objectives has been a challenge over the past financial years and this is evident in the ag’s reports, in which limpopo provincial departments continued to receive qualified audit reports. the literature review carried out for purposes of this study revealed that performance management is fundamental to enhancing organisational performance. a qualitative research design was used to collect and analyse data. key findings of the study included that management should prioritise strategic planning, performance reporting, monitoring and evaluation to enable it to be in a position to make a determination as to whether what was planned by the department was actually realised. it is also of paramount importance that performance reporting is highly prioritised at strategic, tactical and operational management meetings to ensure more effective and efficient organisational performance. introduction according to the national treasury (2007a:1), performance information indicates how well an institution meets its aims and objectives, and which policies and processes are functioning effectively and contribute towards the achievement of organisational goals and objectives. performance information is the key to effective management, including planning, budgeting and implementation, monitoring and reporting. performance information also facilitates effective accountability, enabling legislators, members of the public and other interested parties to track progress, identify the scope for improvement and better understand the issues involved. performance information is essential to focus the attention of public and oversight bodies on whether departments are delivering value for money by comparing their performance against their budgets and service delivery plans, and to alert managers to areas where corrective action is required. the most valuable reason for measuring performance is that what gets measured gets done (osborne & gaebler 1992). this implies that ‘if you do not measure results, you cannot tell success from failure; if you cannot see success, you cannot reward it; if you cannot reward success, you are probably rewarding failure; if you cannot see success, you cannot learn from it; if you cannot recognise failure, you cannot correct it; and if you cannot demonstrate results, you cannot win public support’ (halachmi 2002:65, 2005:503-504; osborne & gaebler 1992). in other words, measuring performance has an impact on factors such as performance recognition, managing and correcting poor performance, as well as continuous organisational improvement. this study was undertaken to, inter alia, determine and establish how limpopo provincial government departments could effectively manage their performance by reporting accurately on predetermined objectives to the auditor-general (ag). in order to achieve this research objective, the discussion in this article is organised into providing an overview of the research objectives of this study, a contextualisation of the south african governmental process with regard to performance information reporting, a thematic discussion of the empirical findings and recommendations with regard to the accomplishment of the research objectives. objectives of the study the study under discussion addresses the following research objectives: to investigate the nature, extent and challenges of reporting on predetermined objectives by limpopo provincial departments. to provide recommendations and possible solutions on how to ensure proper reporting on predetermined objectives. motivation for undertaking the study currently, the ag performs the audit of predetermined objectives but does not express an audit opinion on the findings. the findings are reported as non-compliance matters because departments and municipalities are still struggling with accounting for their finances. moreover, the non-reliability of performance information regressed from 54% in 2008/09 to 77% in 2009/10. this means that in 2008/09, only 46% of performance information could be relied upon, whereas in 2009/10, the percentage dropped to 23%. the ag report for 2008/09 (ag 2008) indicated that only 2 out of 12 limpopo provincial departments would have received an unqualified audit of predetermined objectives if an opinion had been expressed (there are 12 provincial departments excluding the legislature and public entities). in the 2009/10 ag report (ag 2009), only 4 out of 13 departments would have received unqualified audits, 4 would have received qualified audits, another 4 would have received disclaimers and 1 would have received an adverse opinion. in the 2010/11 report (ag 2010), only 7 out of 13 departments would have received an unqualified audit opinion, 3 would have received a qualified audit opinion, 1 would have received a disclaimer audit opinion and 2 would have received adverse audit opinions. although the audit outcomes of limpopo province improved in the ag report of 2014/2015, worrisome concerns remained and would have to be addressed (ag 2014:49). however, the ag report 2015/2016 in comparison with the 2014/2015 ag report found that the financial health of limpopo provincial departments has regressed resulting in zero clean audits for 2015/2016 (enca 2016; nel & erasmus 2016). due to the aforementioned, the ag in limpopo province has placed more emphasis on the usefulness, accuracy, validity and reliability of the predetermined objectives in its annual report (ag 2014, 2015). this study therefore sought to identify the challenges and bottlenecks faced by limpopo provincial departments in reporting on performance in relation to objectives by inter alia analysing the auditor-general reports 2008–2015. it is through performance monitoring that one is able to determine whether or not the organisation is achieving its objectives. improvement in reporting on predetermined objectives is therefore of paramount importance for more effective, efficient, economical and sustainable governance. contextualising performance information reporting according to the un (2002), reporting is the systematic and timely provision of essential information at periodic intervals. a performance report is a report on the performance of a predetermined activity. such reports contain performance indicators, which measure the achievements of the organisation and its programmes. for example, for a police department the report might show the number of arrests, the number of convictions by crime category and the change in the crime rate (schwartz & mayne 2005). the purpose of performance information is to promote action. a good report should contain all the information necessary to facilitate decision-making at a strategic level. it should lead senior management to ask the right questions and initiate a chain of actions that will enhance the ability of the organisation to achieve its short-, mediumand long-term goals. finance departments are particularly important in this context, because the information they provide reflects the overall health of an organisation. thus, performance reporting has multiple audiences (fourie & opperman 2010:258). members of the legislature, the public, stakeholders and the media are all key audiences of performance reports in limpopo province. in addition, the organisation itself is an important user of performance reporting. the performance information reporting process in south africa according to the public service regulations (2001), the context for reporting on performance information in south africa inter alia involves that after a general election, the ruling party identifies five key strategic priorities upon which it will focus. these priorities then cascade into medium-term strategic priorities that inform planning in the entire administration. the said administration should ensure that what is to be delivered by the departments ultimately contributes towards the achievement of these priorities. the director-general of a province signs a performance agreement with the premier that outlines the key priorities to be achieved. the members of the executive council (mecs) will also sign performance agreements with heads of departments, and key deliverables that will contribute towards achieving the key priorities will be enshrined in this agreement. the heads of departments will also sign performance agreements with senior managers in the department. these agreements will be linked to the strategic plan, as well as the annual performance plan (app) of the department. these performance agreements are monitored quarterly through performance reviews or appraisals (sa 2001). it is against this background that the limpopo provincial government has the mandate to ensure that effective performance takes place across all of its provincial departments. the performance reports of provincial departments are subjected to auditing by the ag. performance reporting arises from objectives that are determined by the provincial strategic plan and an app. the former often indicates what will be achieved within a particular period with available resources. considering the above, it is important to note that when assessing performance information, issues of planning, and in particular strategic planning, performance management, adequate budgeting and reporting processes should be emphasised. this implies a linking relationship between planning, budgeting and reporting to be utilised by government departments in order to track and measure its performance, and to be held accountable. performance information also needs to be available to managers at each stage of the planning, budgeting and reporting cycle so that they can adopt a results-based approach to managing service delivery (see figure 1). the aforementioned planning, budgeting and reporting cycle is also referred to as the performance management process, and it emphasises planning and managing with a focus on desired results, and managing inputs and activities to achieve these results. two frameworks issued by the national treasury (2007a; 2007b) provide guidance to government departments on how to use this cycle, namely the framework for managing programme performance information (fmppi) published in 2007 and the framework for strategic plans and annual performance (fspap) plans published in 2010 (van der nest & erasmus 2011:140). the objectives of the fmppi are to enable government departments to understand the importance of performance information as a management tool and how it is linked to the government-wide monitoring and evaluation system (gwm&e). the gwm&e describes the presidency’s approach to performance management, monitoring and evaluation (the presidency 2007, 2009). furthermore, the fmppi provides a clarification of the role of performance information in planning, budgeting and reporting. the second framework, the fspap provides the context on how to align strategic and annual performance planning with an emphasis on the outcomes-oriented monitoring and evaluation approach as articulated by the gwm&e. the framework demonstrates that medium-term strategic plans and apps can play a constructive role in clarifying the relationship between broader policies and programmes, and departmental or institutional budgets (national treasury 2007b). figure 1: planning, budgeting and reporting cycle. legislative and regulatory framework for performance information reporting laws governing financial management in government departments and municipalities were enacted in 1999 and 2003. the overall specific objectives of financial regulation in south africa are securing systemic stability in the economy, ensuring institutional safety and soundness, and promoting consumer protection (falkena et al. 2001:2). important legislative and regulatory requirements pertaining to performance information are subsequently discussed in order to contextualise compliance measures in place with which limpopo provincial departments have to abide. constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996 the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996) constitutes the immediate source of ethical directions to public officials in general and public human resources in particular. section 195 (1)(b), chapter 10 of the constitution states that public administration must be governed by the democratic values and principles enshrined in the constitution, including the following principles: a high standard of professional ethics must be promoted and maintained. public administration must be development oriented. public administration must be accountable. transparency must be fostered by providing the public timely, accessible and accurate information (sa 1996). section 92 of the constitution states that ‘members of the cabinet are accountable collectively and individually to parliament for the exercise of their powers and the performance of their functions’, and they must ‘provide parliament with full and regular reports concerning matters under their control’. section 133 provides for the accountability of mecs of a province to the provincial legislature. public finance management act 1 of 1999 shall (2000:13) observes that the public finance management act (pfma) emphasises the need for accountability of performance results by focusing on outputs and responsibilities, rather than just on procedural accountability, which ensures that rules have been adhered to. in other words, in terms of budgeting and financial management, the focus is not only on compliance with the relevant appropriation act but also on obtaining value for money from each government department for every rand spent. the pfma also introduced performance management into the public sector. in terms of the act, the accounting officer must submit an annual report and audited financial statements that fairly present the state of affairs of the department, trading entity or constitutional institution, its business, its financial results, its performance against predetermined objectives and its financial position as at the end of the financial year concerned (sa 2000:50). limpopo provincial departments are required in terms of section 40(3)(a) of the act to report on predetermined objectives at the end of a financial year. by doing so, those who are managing programmes are held accountable. the importance of performance management and its appropriate application are further highlighted in that accountability for the effective, efficient and economical use of resources is not limited to the treasury department or accounting officers (the head of a department or the chief executive officer) but is also devolved to line managers who are accountable for their particular areas of responsibility. the aforementioned is detailed in section 45 of the pfma, which states that ‘an official in a department – (b) is responsible for the effective, efficient, economical and transparent use of financial resources within that official’s area of responsibility’ (sa 1999). this implies that each line manager is responsible for the resources deployed in a particular programme and it is a requirement of section 27(4) of the pfma that measurable objectives must be submitted for each programme. furthermore, line managers could also be held accountable for the outputs generated by a programme. the pfma gave rise to the treasury regulations 5 and 30, which mandate the accounting officer of an institution to establish procedures for quarterly reporting to the executive authority to facilitate effective performance monitoring, evaluation and corrective action. reporting of quarterly performance will enable limpopo departments to assess performance, that is, whether predetermined objectives have been met. public audit act 25 of 2004 the development of performance reporting is further enhanced by stipulations in the public audit act 25 of 2004 that requires performance information to be subjected to auditing by the ag south africa (sa). section 4(1) (a) of the public audit act provides that the ag must audit and report on the accounts, financial statements and financial management of all national and provincial state departments and administrations. the auditing of performance information provides assurance as to whether the reported performance against predetermined objectives produced by government institutions is useful and reliable (ag 2011:4; sa 2005). section 20(3) of the act provides the ag with the discretion to report on whether the auditee’s resources were procured economically and utilised effectively and efficiently. the act also makes provision in section 12(1) for the ag to authorise one or more persons to perform or to assist in the performance of an audit. the ag can therefore also authorise or undertake performance audits. sections 20(1) and (2) of the act further require the ag sa to provide an opinion or conclusion on the performance information reported against predetermined objectives. the importance of performance monitoring and reporting is also highlighted in the public service regulations act of 2001. public service regulations act of 2001 the public service regulations act of 2001 provides a framework for strategic planning, performance management and monitoring. part iii b states that an executing authority shall prepare a strategic plan for the department. the plan should contain the department’s core objectives, programme for achieving the objectives and how they will be monitored and measured. in addition, the plan should be linked with other government policies and regulatory mandates (sa 2001). in terms of performance management and monitoring, part viii, a, b, and c of the public service regulations act 2001 stipulate that departments shall manage performance in a consultative, supportive and non-discriminatory manner, in order to enhance organisational effectiveness, efficiency and accountability for the use of resources in the achievement of results. the regulations further mandate departmental executive authorities to determine a system for performance management, development and monitoring of employees in a specific department (sa 2001). the king report on corporate governance illustrates the importance of reporting non-financial information and is therefore also noted as important legislation for the purposes of this study. king code of governance for south africa the importance of integrated reporting, including financial and non-financial information, receives prominent attention in the king code of governance for south africa, 2009 (king iii 2009). the king iii report highlights the necessity of integrated reports to increase trust and confidence amongst stakeholders and provides legitimacy to the operations of an entity. the king committee recommended integrated sustainability performance and reporting as a norm for business practices. ‘integrated reporting’ refers to a holistic and integrated representation of a company’s performance, in terms of both its finances and its sustainability. king iii also applies to the public sector and recommends that entities should, by way of explanation, indicate whether the principles of the code have been applied or not (king code of governance for south africa 2009:16). the king iii report further states that a province should appreciate that strategy, risk, performance and sustainability are inseparable (king code of governance for south africa 2009:16). performance information reporting is also regulated in the local government sphere by the local government: municipal systems act 32 of 2000 and the local government: municipal finance management act 56 of 2003. these acts will, however, not be discussed, because the focus of this article is on provincial government departments. a concise overview of the research methodology and findings of this research is provided next. research methodology and design a qualitative approach was used for this study because the data collected needed to provide insights and generalisations about limpopo provincial departments. the fact that this study was contextual in nature and that it was aimed at arriving at an in-depth description and understanding of the challenges in reporting predetermined objectives to the ag meant a qualitative research approach was appropriate. qualitative research methodology is concerned with understanding the processes and social and cultural contexts that underlie various behavioural patterns, and is mostly concerned with exploring the ‘why’ questions of the research. qualitative research typically studies people or systems by interacting with and observing the participants in their natural environment (in situ), and focusing on their meanings and interpretations (holloway & wheeler 1996). the research design for this study, inter alia, included a study of the relevant literature and data collected through questionnaires and scientific analysis of the responses and interviews. the researchers adopted an interpretive social sciences approach by using a qualitative research design that is descriptive in nature. with qualitative research, it is important to also ensure triangulation. in this regard, data triangulation was ensured in this study by using multiple data collection methods such as a study of the relevant literature pertaining to performance information (theoretical overview), analysis of existing legislation, guidelines and protocols pertaining to performance information reporting, reviewing of limpopo provincial departments official documents and obtaining data from interviews held with identified respondents. the primary research instrument used in this study was a questionnaire comprising both closed-ended and open-ended questions. the questionnaire provided the background to the study, but over and above the questionnaire, interviews were conducted with respondents. the closed-ended questions were categorised in a likert scale formula, with scores ranging from one (1) to five (5), with one (1) being ‘totally disagree’ and five (5) being ‘totally agree’. the study was conducted in limpopo provincial departments, which constituted the population for this study. purposive sampling was used to target 36 participants for the survey, comprising of chief financial officers (cfos), planners and budget managers. the sample of 36 was based on the fact that there are 12 departments in the province (excluding the legislature and public entities), and in each department, three officials (i.e. cfo, budget manager and the planner) were purposively sampled to participate in the study. the 36 respondents were thus representative of the population, namely limpopo provincial departments. out of the 36 questionnaires that were distributed, only 30 were received back which amounted to 83% of participation in the study of those approached. sixty-three per cent of the respondents were male, whereas only 37% were female. forty per cent were cfos, 27% were budget managers and 33% were planners. the data collected from the different respondents were analysed in order to arrive at an interpretation in relation to the entire population. the analysis and interpretation of empirical data are discussed according to relevant themes outlined in the next section. research findings the empirical findings from the data obtained through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews are described below. as alluded above, the performance information reporting process in south africa focuses on the following key areas: strategic planning and performance management processes. performance reporting. performance auditing. monitoring and evaluation. the above-mentioned key areas were utilised as themes to determine the extent to which measures have been put in place in order to report timeously, effectively and efficiently on predetermined objectives to the ag. respondents were therefore probed by means of relevant statements to provide their opinion regarding the matter. strategic planning and performance management processes this particular theme was tested amongst respondents by means of four separate questions aspiring to determine, firstly, whether top management gave strategic planning processes the attention they deserved; secondly, to determine whether apps were developed in strategic planning sessions; thirdly, to observe whether targets in the apps were thoroughly interrogated and whether they met the s.m.a.r.t (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound) criteria. lastly, respondents were probed as to whether there was a link between strategic planning and the available budget of the department. a well-functioning performance management process in government departments was emphasised earlier in this article, as it links planning to desired results, and managing of inputs and activities to achieve these results. the majority of respondents (60%) agreed that top management had prioritised strategic planning processes and that apps were not merely a desk-top exercise but were developed in a strategic planning session. targets in the apps were, according to 70% of the respondents, thoroughly interrogated and adhered to the s.m.a.r.t. criteria. only 50% were, however, of the opinion that there was indeed a link between strategic planning and the available budget of the department. performance reporting one of the recommendations of the ag sa to limpopo provincial departments was that reports should be submitted timeously to the treasury. this theme therefore firstly tested whether quarterly reports were submitted on time; secondly, if achieved targets were verified and submitted every quarter; and lastly, whether the available resources were provided by management to ensure that quarterly targets were achieved. as outlined above in this article, performance reporting should promote action as it contains performance indicators, which are important in measuring the achievements of the public organisation and its programmes. the statistical results revealed that 80% of the respondents agreed with the first statement that quarterly reports are prepared and submitted to treasury timeously. there was, however, still room for improvement, because 20% of the respondents were unsure or disagreed with the statement. sixty-four per cent agreed that verification for achieved targets is submitted every quarter. thirty-six per cent of the respondents who disagreed or were unsure about the statement raised eyebrows regarding the truth of the statement. fifty-six per cent of the respondents were in agreement that the necessary resources were provided by management to ensure that quarterly reports were achieved. the 44% of respondents who did not agree or were unsure regarding the statement created doubt as to whether resources were in actual fact made available by management to ensure that quarterly reports were achieved. performance auditing performance information is subjected to auditing by the ag sa, as alluded to earlier in this article. this specific theme therefore tested the level of understanding by officials as to how the ag defines accuracy, reliability and completeness of performance information. it is important for officials to have this understanding because this enables them to report performance information as required by the ag. the statistical results revealed that 33% of the respondents disagreed with the statement, namely that there is a clear understanding of the ag’s definition of accuracy, reliability and completeness of performance information by officials. thirteen per cent totally disagreed with the statement. because both respondents who disagreed and totally disagreed were in the majority, it could be deduced that there is a lack of understanding on how the ag defines accuracy, reliability and completeness of performance information. thirty-seven per cent of the respondents totally agreed or were unsure of the veracity of the statement. monitoring and evaluation this theme firstly tried to determine whether quarterly reports submitted to treasury were in fact analysed. it is important for treasury to analyse performance reports submitted so that the gaps identified can be reported to the line departments. this gives departments the opportunity to correct performance reports before the audit by the ag sa. secondly, the theme endeavoured to ascertain whether departments reviewed their performance quarterly. quarterly reviews are important because this enables departments to monitor their achievements as per the app. fifty per cent of the respondents were not sure whether treasury analysed quarterly performance reports submitted and provided relevant feedback to departments in this regard. the statistical results revealed that the majority were unsure or disagreed with the statement. in this instance, it could be deduced that feedback is not provided on quarterly reports submitted to the treasury by provincial departments. seventy-three per cent of the respondents agreed that quarterly performance review sessions were held in their respective departments, whereas 27% disagreed with the second statement of this theme. it can thus be deduced that quarterly reviews are held in departments to ensure that performance is reviewed. respondents were also confronted with open-ended questions requesting them to express their views with regard to how performance information is managed and reported in their departments, as well as how they perceived the treasury and office of the premier in terms of providing support to achieve predetermined objectives. this is discussed in the subsequent section as confronting challenges. challenges in reporting predetermined objectives firstly, respondents were requested to indicate to what extent their strategic plan was linked to the budget and how problems relating to target setting could be linked to non-alignment of the two. all of the respondents (100%) agreed that the strategic plan should be linked to the budget. however, challenges arise as a result of the following: when budget cuts are implemented. the app is finalised and submitted before the finalisation and tabling of the budget. there are instances in which the budget allocation is reduced or cut after the app is submitted and this affects the targets as set out in the app. targets are not effectively costed per activity. the above responses indicate that although all the respondents agreed that their strategic plans were linked to the budget, challenges arise when the budget allocations are reduced or cut. it would mean that some of the targets set before the cuts are implemented and might not be achieved. targets in the app are not based on activity-based costing (abc). abc means that activities undertaken to support the achievement of the targets in the app will be costed. secondly, respondents were asked to indicate whether quarterly reports are submitted with means of verification (movs). this question was posed to determine whether movs are submitted to substantiate the targets achieved. all the respondents (100%) confirmed that quarterly performance reports are submitted with movs; however, the following challenges were highlighted: in certain instances, movs are submitted after the due date. movs are merely submitted for the sake of compliance because the quality is poor. movs are not commensurate with the claimed achievement. in light of the information provided by the respondents, it could be deduced that although movs are submitted, there is a level of non-compliance with the set submission dates and movs are not quality assured before submission. in the third instance, respondents were asked to provide comment as to whether the quality of movs was reliable. the reliability of performance information gives an indication that the achievements are tangible. ninety-four per cent of the respondents indicated that the movs were not of good quality. they indicated the following shortcomings: movs are submitted for compliance because the quality is not up to standard. the actual performance as reported does not address the target. reports and movs were not in line with planned outputs as per operational plans, and standards set out in the policy framework were not adhered to. it could therefore be deduced that although a portfolio of evidence regarding achieved targets is available, there is a shortcoming in terms of quality. the reporting of performance is not accurate because it does not address the target. a fourth question posed to respondents was to provide comment on whether organisational performance review sessions were held in their departments. this question determined whether performance reporting is being taken seriously by departments. it is through this arrangement that departments can closely monitor their own performance. all respondents (100%) indicated that they do have performance review sessions in their departments and this transpires due to senior management meetings being held quarterly. the above responses indicate that performance review sessions are held within all relevant departments. it could therefore be deduced that departments continuously monitor their performance to ensure effective service delivery. respondents were also asked to describe the support they have received from the office of the premier and treasury who are the custodians of planning, reporting, monitoring and evaluation. this question was posed to determine the level of support provided by the two departments to other sector departments. ninety-five per cent of the respondents indicated that the support received was minimal. the respondents indicated as follows: the two departments are visible at the reporting stage but not necessarily during the planning stage. the two departments do not complement each other. instead, they seem to be competing. based on the above responses, it could be deduced that the two departments are not supporting sector departments, which is vital in terms of ensuring effective, efficient and economical reporting of performance information. this would also enhance the optimal functioning of the machinery of government. in the last instance, respondents were asked to indicate if support from the office of the premier and treasury was not satisfactory, what could have been the contributing factors. this question was posed to ascertain if there was a lack of support by the two departments. eighty-five per cent of the respondents alluded to the fact that: there is lack of understanding of the business of client departments. the two departments lack capacity in terms of ‘warm bodies’ (human resources) to assist sector departments. on the basis of the responses by the respondents, it could be deduced that the two departments are not able to live up to their expectations and there is therefore a need to build capacity in terms of both technical skills and adequate human capital. discussion of findings the focus and purpose of this article was to determine the challenges in reporting on predetermined objectives to the ag sa by limpopo provincial departments. the above-mentioned empirical findings demonstrated that respondents were of the view that ineffective performance reporting was still the order of the day, due to reasons such as the lack of technical and human skills, lack of sufficient support from both the office of the premier and treasury, non-compliance with the set submission dates, movs that are not quality assured before submission and lack of understanding on how the ag defines accuracy, reliability and completeness of performance information. the research findings obtained from the questionnaires and interviews provided a picture of the status of how performance information is managed in provincial departments, especially limpopo provincial departments, taking into consideration both the internal and external environment. a qualitative approach was adopted in order to achieve the set objectives of this study. the observations were that, although limpopo provincial departments have made significant progress in reporting performance information, it is evident from the analysis that performance reporting in departments is still not receiving the necessary attention it deserves. conclusion the study was motivated by reports of the ag that showed a lack of improvement in terms of the audit outcomes for predetermined objectives. although there have been some improvements, there is still a lot to be done to improve the audit outcomes. the research revealed that limpopo provincial departments faced serious challenges in reporting performance information. in addition, the literature review revealed that limpopo provincial departments should focus more energy on planning, as this will ease performance reporting. another revelation is that performance reporting ensures that those who are in charge of service delivery to the citizens are able to account for the resources utilised. the following recommendations on how to improve reporting on predetermined objectives in limpopo provincial departments are based on the extensive literature overview undertaken for the purposes of this study and the findings of the empirical study: performance targets in the app should be interrogated so that they meet the s.m.a.r.t. criteria. limpopo provincial departments should develop policies, procedures and systems for managing programme performance reporting. quarterly performance reports should be submitted with a portfolio of evidence (movs). a workshop should be conducted by the office of the auditor-general with officials in limpopo provincial departments to establish a clear understanding of the ag’s definition of accuracy, reliability and completeness of performance information by officials. there is a need to build capacity in the limpopo treasury and office of the premier, in terms of both the number of officials and the technical ability of those officials. the quality of the quarterly reports needs to be monitored in the same way as those done at the end of the financial year, and complete audit files prepared for each quarter. this will build up to the annual report that is to be audited by the ag. an electronic performance reporting system that can enforce timeous and complete reports should also be considered. the limpopo treasury and office of the premier should understand the business of each department so that proper guidance can be provided by the two departments. accordingly, future research should investigate the following: the role of provincial treasury and office of the premier as oversight institutions to enhance effective performance reporting. the impact of reporting predetermined objectives to limpopo province citizens. competing interests the author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. references auditor-general (ag) (south africa), 2008, ag report 2008/09: general report of the provincial audit outcomes of the limpopo, auditor-general’s office, pretoria. auditor-general (ag) (south africa), 2009, ag report 2009/10: general report of the provincial audit outcomes of the limpopo, auditor-general’s office, pretoria. auditor-general (ag) (south africa), 2010, ag report 2010/11: general report of the provincial audit outcomes of the 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backwards’, polokwane observer, viewed 07 february 2017, from http://www.observer.co.za/ag-report-limpopo-slides-backwards/ osborne, d. & gaebler, t., 1992, reinventing government: the five strategies for reinventing government, penguin, new york. schwartz, r. & mayne, j., 2005, quality matters, transaction publishers, new brunswick, nj. shall, a., 2000, ‘the importance of the three e’s in the budgeting process for line managers’, ipfa journal 1(3), 13–15. south africa (sa), 1996, constitution of the republic of south africa, government printer, pretoria. south africa (sa), 1999, public finance management act 1 of 1999, government printers, pretoria. south africa (sa), 2000, guide for accounting officers: public finance management act, national treasury, pretoria. south africa (sa), 2001, the public service regulations, 2001, government printers, pretoria. south africa (sa), 2005, public audit act 25 of 2004, government printers, pretoria. the presidency (south africa), 2007, policy framework for the government-wide monitoring and evaluation, shereno printers, pretoria. the presidency (south africa), 2009, medium-term strategy fralmework: a framework to guide government’s programme in the electoral mandate period (2009–2014), government printers, pretoria. united nations, 2002, handbook on monitoring and evaluating for results, united nations development programme, evaluation office, new york, viewed 12 june 2011, from http://www.undp.org/evaluation/documents/handbook/me-handbook.pdf van der nest, d.p. & erasmus, l.j., 2011, ‘reporting on performance against pre-determined objectives: the case of south african national government departments’, african journal of public affairs 4(3), 135–151. abstract introduction literature review methodology findings of the study discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) leevina m. iyer school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa citation iyer, l.m., 2018, ‘south african social sciences teachers’ views on the integration of history and geography in the general education and training phase’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a482. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.482 original research south african social sciences teachers’ views on the integration of history and geography in the general education and training phase leevina m. iyer received: 06 oct. 2017; accepted: 30 may 2018; published: 08 aug. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract with the cessation of apartheid in 1994, social transformation was one of the key objectives of the democratic south africa. in light of this, the south african government believed that mass education would develop a democratised mindset amongst the country’s citizens. history and geography were identified as two subjects that could promote the desired societal transformation and were thus combined into one learning area: social sciences. the concept underpinning this learning area was integration. the notion of integration takes different forms in the literature, and these are explored here. this study explored teachers’ views on integration in relation to social sciences. responses from semi-structured interviews indicated that integration in social sciences varied as conceptual, physical and social processes. the study results revealed that integration in social sciences is devoid of metanarratives, as there was a degree of discongruity in teachers’ views of integration in social sciences. despite this, inherent commonalities were evident in their responses in terms of disciplinary proficiency, issues of diversity and engagement in a globalised world. these were reflected in the participants’ responses as being important to explore when integrating history and geography in social sciences. introduction this article begins with a brief overview of the south african education system during the apartheid era. this is because education under apartheid, in effect, underpinned the reasons for the move towards a democratised curriculum. during apartheid racist and separatist policies, especially within education, served to produce particular identities for its citizens depending on the role the government wanted for different groups of people to play in the society (beets & le grange 2008; msila 2007). to produce these specific identities, different levels and types of content were driven by education policies and practices. in particular, black south african learners were constrained by an education system that assisted in developing their identity as docile, subservient labourers who would submit to the rules of segregation (christie & collins 1982; msila 2007). black south african learners were exposed to the most rudimentary topics in the curriculum (msila 2007). these topics lacked depth and breadth and did not advance critical thinking and higher order cognitive skills. in this way, the apartheid education system failed to develop historical and geographical consciousness in black south african learners. in contrast, white south african learners were exposed to various topics related to local and international issues (nkondo 1979). the topics promoted active engagement and equipped learners with deep content knowledge and a wide scope of historical and geographical education. given the above educational and societal injustices of apartheid, the post-1994 democratic government aimed to use education as a tool to bring a sense of equality to all the country’s citizens (carrim 2001). policy-makers believed that the integration of history and geography would assist in achieving this equality. there were two reasons for the integration of history and geography. firstly, as asserted by the national education and training forum (netf) representatives, history and geography were fundamentally viewed as being sub-fields of human sciences and social sciences (department of basic education 2002). this meant that both subjects were viewed as having had content which, if integrated, had the potential to develop holistic thinking and achieve positive societal transformation. moreover, with the increase in globalisation (buckley & ghauri 2004), this content offered a new way of thinking and engaging particularly with economic growth. secondly, in terms of political sphere, the south african government maintained that segregation between history and geography should be replaced with a concept indicative of unification and collaboration (department of basic education 2002). this concept was integration, a reaction against the divisions created by apartheid which manifested itself in social sciences. social sciences was thus meant to initiate change in the way people acknowledged each other. rather than discriminate against differences, the post-1994 south african government wanted people to embrace their diversity, and knowledge of this diversity could be articulated to the masses via engagement with, for example, social sciences. while the integration of subjects has been explored and advocated widely within the international context, it made an appearance in the early 1990s within the political sphere in south africa (bird 2001; pawson & dovers 2003; warleigh-lack 2006). with the advance of democracy in south africa, there was a need to promote a democratic mindset. the social sciences curriculum was a way in which democratic thinking could be achieved. considering this, integration can be regarded as a political concept (pawson & dovers 2003; seekings 2002; wieviorka 2005). consequently, the aim of social sciences was to achieve a sense of oneness amongst south africans through the topics discussed in each of the two subjects. these topics revolved around personal experiences of people, lost voices of the oppressed, societal and environmental inequalities and exploitation, and quality of the environment and its impact on people – all of which help learners place south africa in the context of a globalised world (department of basic education 2012). this article is primarily based on a historical study of the social sciences national curriculum statement (ncs) – the previous curriculum in south africa. this was replaced in 2012 by the social sciences curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). against this background, the purpose of this study was to gain a sense of how 21st century teachers in the democratic south africa viewed the integration of history and geography in the general education and training phase. this phase includes grades r to nine in south african schools. teachers are primarily responsible for achieving the integration of history and geography in social sciences, therefore this study considered their views. two research questions underpinned this study. these were, firstly, to determine how social sciences teachers viewed the integration of history and geography and, secondly, to establish what topics in the social sciences curriculum teachers believed could promote integration of history and geography. essentially, this study was qualitative in nature and thus the data collection method included semi-structured interviews. what follows is engagement with literature related to integration and social sciences. literature review essentially, in the south african sociopolitical context of the time, the department of basic education (2002:107) explained that integration consists of three perspectives: ‘combining parts into a whole’, ‘coming into equal membership of society, specifically without regard to race or religion’ and ‘the ending of racial segregation’. in effect, the department of basic education has explicitly communicated the political status of integration to stakeholders through the social sciences policy documents. these stakeholders included teachers, learners, policy-makers and government departments, amongst others. essentially, the agenda driving curriculum policy documents, in particular the policy for social sciences, has served to promote social transformation. however, academic integration can occur in multiple ways, depending on the context. the abovementioned political ideals of the social sciences curriculum are consistent with the term social integration (beekhoven, de jong & van hout 2002; młynarczuk-sokołowska 2017; parker 2015). as stated by błeszyńska (2017), social integration can improve education based on people and places. parallels can thus be drawn with historical and geographical education. social integration can enhance relationship between people in the community and teachers and learners. it does not only expand learners’ knowledge of operating within social conventions but also exposes them to different behavioural perspectives. societal changes are a key objective of social sciences, especially to promote tolerance, respect, acknowledgement, citizenship and, in essence, a sense of ubuntu – an african framework that promotes unity and inclusion (maposa 2017). this idea is further emphasised by młynarczuk-sokołowska (2017) who posits that social integration can influence an individual’s identity. learners are able to develop a sense of respect and appreciation for people from diverse backgrounds by engaging with topics in the social sciences curriculum. in essence, social integration assists in developing learners who can actively participate in achieving the goals of a democratic south african society. furthermore, transdisciplinarity can also assist in achieving integration in social sciences. transdisciplinarity occurs when topics from either history or geography are analysed by experts and non-experts to create a broad understanding of underlying concepts (nicolescu 2010). for example, transdisciplinary collaboration could occur when teaching the grade 7 geography topic ‘natural resources and conservation in south africa’. in this instance, experts such as representatives from the wildlife and environment society of south africa (wessa), could be invited to present a guest lecture on the importance of conserving natural resources which would directly link to ‘cause and consequence’ as a historical concept and ‘human activities’ as a geographical concept. it is evident from the above clarification of concepts that integration between history and geography can occur through disciplinary collaborations. this suggests that, presently, integration in the 21st century social sciences curriculum not only refers to the thematic collaboration of history and geography, but also refers to the pedagogical, political, socio-economic and environmental relationships between the two subjects in an integrated manner. methodology an interpretive research design was used in this study as it looks at how people perceive their worlds within particular contexts (schwartz-shea & yanow 2013). the purpose of this study was to gain a sense of how teachers view the integration of history and geography in social sciences. moreover, symbolic interactionist theory constructed the theoretical framework for this study. at the focal point of symbolic interactionist theory is the belief that there is a relationship between authenticity, self-efficacy and self-esteem, and this determines how individuals view their role in society (reynolds & herman-kinney 2003). this framework was apposite, as this study intended to answer two key research questions: to determine how social sciences teachers view the integration of history and geography and to establish what topics in the social sciences curriculum teachers believed could promote the integration of history and geography. in accordance with the aforesaid objectives, this study was qualitative in nature, because it allowed for rich, thick, meaningful data to be elicited from participants who had expressed their personal experiences and views (trochim 2006). devlin, hansen and selai (2004) maintain that using a qualitative methodology for acquiring data is a valid and reliable way of obtaining first-hand data. in keeping with qualitative research, semi-structured interviews were conducted as part of data collection. this was chosen, because semi-structured interviews allowed for a great deal of insights into the social sciences teachers’ views in relation to integration in social sciences. semi-structured interviews are guided by structured questions. however, if a participant mentions something of interest, the interviewer can probe further and does not need to strictly follow the predetermined questions (greener 2008). this assisted when participants of this study were not clear about their responses or when their answers needed clarification. the study entailed purposive sampling, as a specific set of aspects was considered when choosing participants. four social sciences teachers from different socio-economic contexts participated in the study. the teachers taught social sciences within the general education and training phase. public schools and independently run schools were included given that the study was intended to draw on the broader system of south african schools. as the aim was to acquire in-depth data from participants, a small sample was chosen. by considering participants from different socio-economic and educational contexts, an insight was gained into how teachers of differing characteristics viewed the integration of history and geography into social sciences. to maintain the anonymity of the participants, they were referred to as teacher a, teacher b, teacher c and teacher d. table 1 illustrates the professional biography of each participant. table 1: professional biography of the participants. the analysis of the semi-structured interviews was primarily conducted through open coding (cohen, manion & morrison 2007; moghaddam 2006; rapley 2007). this entailed identifying significant issues which generate emergent theories and thus included note-taking during interviews and categorising themes from the acquired data (o’connor et al. 2003). subsequent to open coding is the process of axial coding whereby relationships were determined amongst identified themes. then, selective coding was conducted to discover how and why inter-relationships exist between identified categories and their correlation with integration. findings of the study results from the semi-structured interviews will now be discussed. responses of the participants clearly demonstrated a dissimilar understanding of integration in social sciences. the way in which they explained integration ranged from integration relating to a concept, integration as pedagogical practice, integration as social tools or integration as content, each of which was adopted by one or other teacher. making sense of integration in essence, integration meant three main attributes to teacher a. firstly, she saw integration, in the context of social sciences, as the combination of history and geography, having the status two different disciplines with their own focal point. she points out the difference between history and geography to her learners in the first social sciences lesson of the year. she states, ‘geography is the relationship between man and his environment and how does it affect you … history is people-to-people; about interpersonal relationships.’ subsequently, teacher a associated integration with communication abilities of learners. for instance, she mentioned, ‘the way they answer they don’t care about the “is” and “was.” they need to speak and write properly.’ she believes that integration in social sciences also occurs in terms of literacy skills. she is certain that such integration can help learners enhance their verbal and writing skills as well as correct the irregularity in the way they speak and write. in another attempt to explain integration, teacher a maintained that integration can exist between social sciences and other learning areas, especially with english and life orientation. this relates to her previous understanding of integration in that english and life orientation are learning areas which can complement social sciences with regard to developing learners’ reading, writing and empathic skills as well as morals and values as alluded to earlier. in contrast to teacher a, teacher b was unable to provide a description of what integration meant to her. she, instead, cited an example of an integrated topic from the social sciences curriculum: ‘when we teach the rwandan genocide in grade 9, the fact that the hutus and tutsis, for generations, lived in different little entities alongside and then the british came along and lumped them in a country called rwanda, left them and then there was a power vacuum and a power struggle … it was forced upon them, you know the geographical binding of the two tribes who have never lived together, who are now being bound together from separate little entities. and if it hadn’t been for the interlopers who came and started moving them … thousands of lives would have been saved, you know. so there always has to be a histo-geographical point of view.’ (teacher b, 56 years old) furthermore, integration, as maintained by teacher b, can be assisted by eliciting learners’ experiences. she stated that ‘a lot also comes from learners – what they know, what they bring to class, you’d be surprised at how useful their input can be’. similarly, teacher c used an example of the battle of blood river as she explained that textbooks assist social sciences teachers and learners with understanding integration in social sciences. in addition, she often referred to integration as a ‘relationship’: ‘well we normally do that relationship like when we’re doing the war; you know the landscape, um that sort of thing. sometimes you can ignore the relationship, but sometimes there is a strong relationship. you can bring in the geog with the history, but you know it is sometimes difficult.’ (teacher c, 35 years old) teacher c seemed to comprehend that history and geography share a relationship of some sort. she also understood that integration was not always evident in social sciences. the fact that she stated that ‘sometimes you can ignore the relationship’ indicates that she chose when to engage with the integration process in her social sciences lessons and was not consistent in her approach to integration. in essence, teacher d seemed to find it difficult to explain integration when asked about what he understood by integration in social sciences, as he stated, ‘not really sure how you’re gonna answer that question’. nevertheless, teacher d adopted a similar response as teachers b and c with regard to describing integration through the use of examples from the social sciences curriculum. he stated: ‘see, if you’re doing the french revolution or nazi germany you can draw parallels between that and the apartheid era. most of the things you do there seems to be overlapping in apartheid.’ (teacher d, 48 years old) teacher d appeared to be referring to the integration of topics within a specific discipline – in this instance, history. teachers’ views on the potential of topics in the social science curriculum to promote integration in essence, teacher a had learners who enjoyed topics such as global warming. she maintained that all the prescribed topics are relevant, and history and geography can be explored in an integrated manner irrespective of the topic being taught. besides the relevance of knowledge content, teachers b and a concurred that topics covered in social sciences should also aim to develop learners’ morals and values. teacher a stated that: ‘even if you draw from the media and religion … that moral development goes every day in every lesson, also that intercultural, interfaith discussion like ‘what do they say about global warming’, you know. it helps with inter-tolerance and makes them open-minded. history and geography go onto another level now.’ (teacher a, 32 years old) teacher b maintained that the french revolution is a good example of integration and it allowed her to examine and elaborate on socio-economic and political aspects with her learners. she used the french revolution to scaffold and integrate her learners’ cognitive and interpersonal skills of social sciences in addition to their moral development as advocated in the social sciences curriculum. she stated: ‘how can we, as human beings, learn from this great french revolution and become peace-lovers and to pour the oil over the water. and so, i use the examples in the past as that we can enhance their lives in the future so that they can become thinking people. um, we need to go beyond the three bear’s story-telling stage so that they can use the concepts they’ve been taught for the betterment of their lives and of others.’ (teacher b, 56 years old) a different perspective came from teacher c who felt that topics, which are more ‘current’, should be included in the social sciences curriculum so as to further promote integration. she stated that some of her learners complained that they should do current topics and that they did not find heritage appealing. in contrast to teachers a, b and c, teacher d did not express much concern over the importance of topics to promote integration in social sciences. instead, he took into account the availability of resources. he maintained that, ‘we place more emphasis on resources and looking after the environment throughout the year, even though it is covered towards the end of the textbooks’. the topic, concerning the environment, is one that teacher d believed can be integrated, as it is not subject to a few social sciences lessons only and is taught continuously throughout the year. discussion based on the findings from data generated in this study, participants held five main views of integration in social sciences. these were: educational: integration as a means of disciplinary collaboration between history and geography. political: emphasis on unity and togetherness as a means to address the ills of the pre-democratic south africa. social: use of communication in an integrated manner, in addition to developing a set of behaviours to conform to what is acceptable in society. economic: promoting participation in a contemporary globalised world. moral: emphasis on building individual character with traits of open-mindedness, tolerance and respect. in this study, all participating social sciences teachers had differing views of what integration was and what it should entail. applying the insights of literature to the data, it is evident that teachers a and b, in particular, saw themselves as what klein (2006) terms connection experts as they continuously attempted to take advantage of opportunities to integrate themes and topics into social sciences. for example, the rwandan genocide addresses issues of racism and sociopolitical prejudice. in this instance, integration has occurred through cross-disciplinary collaboration and occurs whereby multiple perspectives from history are used to enhance the understanding of other topics including those in geography (davies & devlin 2007). in addition, teacher b was able to put into context the complementary nature of history and geography in social sciences, especially as she uses a quasi-concept histo-geographical. this is important, because the knowledge to integrate history and geography is central to social sciences. to accomplish this, she used the topics in the social sciences curriculum to make sense of it. amongst all the participating social sciences teachers’ responses, there has been some mention of assisting learners in areas other than academia. for instance, the issue of reading and writing correctly was of great concern to a participant who believed that it was only through integration that difficulties of literacy could be overcome. in effect, the concept of integration has been associated with the development of communication, literacy and morals rather than the collaboration of history and geography. this demonstrates a clear move away from exclusively academic integration to a form of language across the curriculum approach. this approach seeks to improve communication skills of learners through content and skills of subjects, rather than having to rely solely on language subjects, and is viewed as a process rather than a product (van lier 2014). furthermore, the participating social sciences teachers have taken advantage of opportunities to apply integration to the south african and international communities. this correlates with namiotko and konaszewski (2017), who assert that community plays an integral part in attaining social integration. teacher b, for example, made reference to the french revolution through which she would provide disciplinary and social integration. learners were formally provided with academic content knowledge of the french revolution, whilst being given a chance to develop their interpersonal interactions. moreover, this correlates with jansen and taylor (2003), who posit that integration of history and geography in the south african education system can assist in achieving political stability. integration as a social tool and political mechanism, in this case, can be seen as inextricable with specific reference to teachers attempting to achieve social transformation through the social sciences curriculum. despite the difference in views of integration, the participants shared the principal idea of drawing upon both the history and geography disciplines. a common perspective amongst the participants is that history and geography can be integrated especially in terms of metaphysical attributes and values, irrespective of topics being taught. disciplines are said to go beyond their initial purpose or traditional nature and are now comparable and related to the daily lives of learners (beekhoven et al. 2002; lam & lidstone 2001). integration, in this instance, occurred through pluridisciplinarity collaboration whereby knowledge and skills from history and geography are drawn upon to analyse themes in the social sciences curriculum (stevens et al. 2005). furthermore, teacher a was clear in her response to the potential of social sciences topics to promote integration. she spoke about enhancing learners’ integrity and moral virtue which, she believed could be achieved particularly through engagement with issues of religion and different types of media. different knowledge systems were explored, and this extends the traditional nature of geography and history to different physical planes. hence, integration, in this case, means considering the range of moral and value compasses of learners. this correlates with pawson and dovers (2003) who believe that the aim of integration is to seek ways of complementary thinking, especially between history and geography. moreover, teacher a maintained that ‘history and geography go onto another level now’, referring to the fact that, according to her, both disciplines go beyond their sole purpose of being knowledge-centred to being more reflective, abstract and comparative to life outside the classroom. this indicates that integration in social sciences can result in the expansion of knowledge, skills and values that learners acquire. dalke et al. (2004) and guidera (2007) concur and state that through integration learners can apply what they learnt in social sciences lessons to real-life situations. on the contrary, teacher d considered resources to be more important than the topics being taught. to him, the resources used – irrespective of the topic – determine the success or failure of integration in the social sciences learning area. therefore, integration, according to him, should occur spontaneously by constantly drawing on knowledge from history and geography rather than following structured material provided in the social sciences curriculum. integration occurred through multidisciplinarity which is not discipline-specific and involves drawing knowledge and skills from history and geography (fonn 2018; klein 2006; weech & pluzhenskata 2005). conversely, there was a suggestion by teacher c to include more current topics into the curriculum. this could imply a move away from traditional topics to topics that focus on contemporary issues facing learners in this age of globalisation and rapid technological advancement. the aforementioned, although advantageous to learners in that it can help them cope and adapt to the present situation of the world, could also prove to be problematic. this is because of the fact that if less emphasis is placed on traditional topics, the structure of learners’ content knowledge could leave gaps in their understanding of the history or geography discipline and the different dynamics facilitating the engagement with these disciplines in everyday life. effectually, integration, according to kwadrans (2017), can assist learners in developing a national identity and promote citizenship education which will help learners engage in contemporary society – both nationally and internationally. this is supported by maposa (2017) and młynarczuk-sokołowska (2017), who believe that issues of ubuntu and national identity can be enhanced through social sciences. integration was thus be viewed as a broad generic term that entailed different types of disciplinary collaborations which occurred at various levels in social sciences. several meanings of integration have ranged from communication and discipline collaboration to moral and social developments. conclusion this article argues that one of the fundamental structural bases of social sciences, which can achieve complementary thinking, is integration. essentially, multiple voices emerged through an analysis of the data and there existed a degree of dissimilarity in participants’ views of integration in social sciences. in addition, participants held heterogeneous views with regard to whether topics, included in the social sciences curriculum had the potential to promote integration. ultemately, no metanarratives in relation to teachers’ views of integration in social sciences are existing. this is reflective of postmodernity, as there were different views and no objective truth. despite the fact that the participating social sciences teachers offered a plurality of meanings of integration, commonalities were evident in their responses. issues of disciplinary proficiency, diversity, open-mindedness and the importance of being able to cope in a globalised world were reflected in the participants’ responses as being important to explore when integrating history and geography in social sciences. this study is not without limitations. a broader perspective would come from bringing in learners’ views of the integration of history and geography rather than that of teachers. to gain sufficient depth in exploring participants’ views, this study focused on four social sciences teachers. future researchers could consider a larger sample and could conduct observations or focus group interviews to gain a first-hand sense of how teachers enact integration in social sciences lessons. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships which may 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pluzhenskaia, m., 2005, ‘lis education and multidisciplinarity: an exploratory study’, journal of education for library and information science 46(2), 154–164. wieviorka, m., 2005, ‘from marx and braudel to wallerstein’, contemporary sociology 34(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1177/009430610503400102 abstract introduction problem statement research objectives research methodology theoretical framework literature review conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) jabulani g. kheswa department of psychology, university of fort hare, south africa chrizanne van eeden optentia research focus area, north-west university, south africa citation kheswa, j.g. & van eeden, c., 2018, ‘contextual factors promoting psychosocial well-being and safe sexual behaviour in african male youth: a literature review’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a375. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.375 note: this article is partially based on the author’s thesis of the degree phd in the school of behavioural sciences (psychology) in the faculty of humanities at the north-west university (vaal triangle campus), south africa, with promoter prof. c. van eeden and co-promoter prof. s. rothmann, received may 2016, available here: http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/20489/kheswa_jg.pdf?isallowed=y&sequence=1. original research contextual factors promoting psychosocial well-being and safe sexual behaviour in african male youth: a literature review jabulani g. kheswa, chrizanne van eeden received: 04 aug. 2016; accepted: 28 aug. 2018; published: 03 dec. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article reviewed literature on the psychosocial well-being of adolescent males and found that there is still a dearth of research addressing their mental health and well-being in relation to sexuality. the aim of this article was to highlight the contextual factors which may play an important role in promoting safe sexual behaviour of adolescent males, especially in south africa, where sexually transmitted infections, teenage fatherhood and substance abuse continue to reach alarming proportions. for data collection, a desktop review was employed for its usefulness in identifying and addressing the gaps from previous studies. grounded in theories of human development and psychological well-being, this article concludes that provision of emotional support and healthy parent-child relationships, quality peers, constructive environment and adequate knowledge from traditional male circumcision mentors may contribute to adolescent males’ safe sexual practices, decision-making skills and mental health. introduction during adolescence, young males become more independent of parents, start to explore life’s possibilities (zastrow & kirst-ashman 2007) and vary greatly from one culture to another, and are influenced by social, economic, political and cultural factors (carroll 2016). erikson’s theory of psychosocial development through stages describes adolescence as a developmental transition between childhood and adulthood. there are four psychosocial stages before an adolescent begins to establish a stable identity, namely basic trust versus mistrust (from infancy to 12 months old), autonomy versus shame and doubt (from 1 to 2 years old), initiative versus guilt (from 3 to 6 years old) and industry versus inferiority (from 7 to 11 years old) (louw & louw 2014). during this fifth developmental stage (identity vs. confusion), adolescent males learn how to answer the question of ‘who am i’ and search for a true self (schultz & schultz 2013; swartz et al. 2016), or an identity that will lead them to adulthood, because they now have to make deliberate decisions and choices, especially about vocation, sexual orientation and life in general (schultz & schultz 2013). drawing from implicit theories of relationships developed by dweck (1996), when adolescent males believe in the destiny (i.e. compatibility) of the relationship, they may feel more satisfied and emotionally secure in prolonging their romantic relationships, whereas those who feel emptiness although they are in a relationship may end it quickly. however, through modelling when adults or parents engage in substance abuse and violence, it is most likely that adolescents would learn inappropriate behaviour such as bullying and sexually coercing girls as a sign of expressing their masculinity (pastorino & doyle-portillo 2011; peterson, janssen & heiman 2010). for example, in a study conducted in cape town among grades 8-11 learners, holborn and eddy (2011) found that 21% of adolescent males who grew up seeing verbal and physical fights between parents reported to use violence against their partners. not surprisingly, adolescent females in soweto, gauteng province, mentioned intimate partner violence and sexual abuse (makongoza & nduna 2017). in braamfischerville, soweto, seven adolescent males between 13 and 19 years of age gang raped a 17 yearold mentally challenged girl and the act was captured on their cellphones (holtzhausen 2012). the question that should be asked is the following ‘to what extent is the adolescent males’ sexual behaviour safe and how knowledgeable are they about the repercussions of gang rape’? in a study on condom use in the eastern cape province among adolescent males among the traditional xhosa culture, nyembezi et al. (2014) found that about 49% did not use condoms. astonishingly, in kwazulu natal province, adolescent males who underwent voluntary medical male circumcision (vmmc) reported resumption of anal and vaginal intercourse during the healing period with multiple sexual partners and without using condoms (george et al. 2017). problem statement the majority of the research conducted on adolescent females’ sexual behaviour focused on teenage pregnancy, transactional sex (zembe et al. 2015; zuma et al. 2016), abortion and intimate partner violence, depressive episodes resulting from maltreatment and drugs and alcohol abuse (kheswa 2017a). among adolescent males, the shift has always been on investigating their sexual aggressive behaviour, hegemonic masculinity (ratele, shefer & clowes 2012), traditional male circumcision (nkosi et al. 2015), delinquency, recidivism and effects of child sexual abuse, being reared in foster care or in dysfunctional families without providing strategies to improve their psychosocial well-being (langa 2016). for example, shai et al. (2012) found adolescent males in the eastern cape, who have been under the guidance of unscrupulous traditional nurses ‘amakhankatha’ during traditional male circumcision period, developed antisocial behaviour and sexually violated girls and belonged to gangsters. african adolescent males have undergone traditional circumcision even if at age 16, they are regarded as men and it is deemed acceptable for them to drink alcohol and have multiple sexual partners (jewkes & morrell 2017; ntombana 2011). thus, this article intends to elucidate the contextual factors relating to the promotion of psychosocial well-being among african male youth. in comparison, no research has been conducted to investigate mental health and well-being in relation to sexuality aspects of youth. research objectives based on the past literature, the research objectives of this study are as follows: to determine the factors leading adolescent males to engage in (un)safe sexual behaviour. to discuss how best the psychosocial well-being of adolescent males may be improved. research methodology this article employed the systematic review as a relevant research methodology based on several advantages. systematic reviews entail a search strategy and detailed plan, aimed at reducing bias by identifying, evaluating and synthesising all relevant studies on a specific topic (uman 2011). relative to an empirical study which commends direct involvement of the researchers, the desktop review examines literature studies from academic journals, books and internet sources to get an overview and clarify the need for safe sexual practices among african adolescent males. the researchers employed a desktop review to search for published peer-reviewed studies that explored the factors leading to risky sexual behaviour of adolescent males living in south africa. electronic searches of articles that were assessed for this study are indexed psycinfo, embase, scopus and international bibliography of the social sciences (ibss). because this research method has no restrictions, however, the articles had to meet the following inclusion criteria: (1) adolescent males whose age does not exceed 18 years, (2) affected by poverty, orphanhood, disorganised environment, culture, sexual abuse, violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and human immunodeficiency virus (hiv). in this regard, the researchers’ arguments may be important following a thorough explanation of the evaluation of the past literature. theoretical framework this article adopted a multi-–theoretical approach owing to the nature of the challenges faced by adolescent males and the intended goals. bowlby’s (1969) attachment theory, erik erikson’s psychosocial developmental stages (swartz et al. 2016), the broaden-and-build theory of fredrickson (2002), bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model, keyes’s (2009) mental health, diana baumrind’s topology of parenting styles (louw & louw 2014) and lazarus and folkman’s (1990) theory on coping and stress underpinned this literature article. literature review psychosocial well-being is the preferred concept for this study of male youth in a collective african culture. it implies an extension of psychological well-being to include interpersonal and sociocultural functioning in the concept of optimal mental and physical wellness. in this regard, weiten (2010) stated that psychosocial well-being in adolescence refers to identity formation and self-awareness with regard to sexual, moral and psychological development within a specific sociocultural context. a wellness enabling sociocultural context would feature, among other factors, discussed next. home or family life according to compton and hoffman (2013), a healthy home or family is an institution that is characterised by commitment to the psychological, emotional and social well-being of its members through encouragement of individual autonomy and responsibility. gur (2011) found that when there are respectful patterns of communication among all family members, religious orientation and clear household rules and boundaries between adolescents and parents, an authoritative rather than authoritarian or permissive parenting style may produce adolescents who are resilient and flexible against adverse events. for adolescent males in particular, compton (2005) found that households with good structure and discipline, a male role model and encouragement of emotional responsiveness contribute to their resilience. in contrast, when parents are involved in criminal acts or abusive behaviours, have disordered family communication patterns, are poor, and live in stressful and drug-friendly environments, the psychosocial well-being of adolescent males may be distorted (coon & mitterer 2010). for example, 68.9 % low–income adolescents in peri-urban areas in johannesburg reported smoking marijuana, whereas 53% indicated to have used alcohol (magidson et al. 2017). kheswa (2017b) outlined in his phenomenological study on unemployed youth in the eastern cape that exclusion of adolescent males from the economy despite good grades attained from matric results in many securing respect through drug-dealing, use of violence against women because of boredom and frustration. from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, sigmund freud’s theory posits that such males might have been neglected during oral, anal and phallic stages, when the caregivers should have provided warmth, shelter, food, toilet training and identify gender roles (swartz et al. 2016). attachment the term ‘attachment’ refers to the strong emotional bond that develops between children and their primary caregivers (i.e. parents) (pastorino & doyle-portillo 2011) and once formed early in life and maintained throughout childhood, it may contribute to life satisfaction in adulthood (armstrong, england & forgaty 2012; bowlby 1969). secure attachment is characterised by unconditional support and love that is invested by parents in their relationships with their sons (bernstein 2016) and such relationships may facilitate leadership qualities and positive well-being in youth (louw & louw 2014), as reflected by characteristics of self-esteem, emotional adjustment and physical health (kheswa 2015). kheswa (2015) emphasised that healthy bonding with caregivers may actualise adolescent males in the following psychosocial well-being–related strengths, namely social, emotional, cognitive, behavioural and moral competence, self-efficacy, self-determination and positive identity formation, spirituality, beliefs in the future, prosocial norms and involvement. drawing from the most widely used typology of attachment secure, avoidant and ambivalent attachment developed by mary ainsworth (engler 2009; louw & louw 2014), koen (2009) found that secure attachment was significantly related to positive parent–adolescent communication and to family satisfaction as experienced by adolescents. in koen’s study mentioned above, attachment anger or emotional detachment from parents was the strongest predictor of emotional distress in youth in south africa (koen 2009). also, in a 2012 study on psychosocial well-being of families in south africa, koen found that from a large group of adolescents (n = 772) only 36% reported experiencing their families as psychosocially well. an alarming percentage (64%) indicated that they were not experiencing optimal psychosocial wellness in their families. these findings were in line with an in-depth study carried out by holborn and eddy (2011) about the extent of family breakdown in south africa. in other words, it could be concluded that avoidant and ambivalent attachment experienced by adolescents contributed towards emotional and social insecurity relational incompetence because of lack of parental support (carr 2011; schultz & schultz 2009). adolescent–parent relationship substantial research documented that a sound adolescent–parent relationship not only promotes prosocial behaviour but also harnesses clear sexual values and attitudes among youth in south africa (kheswa & lobi 2017; melato et al. 2017). however, factors such as divorce and the resulting single parenthood and fatherless homes, orphanhood, homelessness, child-headed households and child abuse have the propensity to negatively impact their sexual behaviour owing to lack of emotional support and open communication about sexuality (hensels et al. 2016). roman, makwakwa and lacante (2016) found that inconsistent parenting–child behaviour outcomes in south africa lead to improper and inadequate discipline of boys; hence they often have multiple sexual partners. alternatively, adolescent males who have experienced sexual abuse or coercion from their male relatives and adults are prone to risk sexual behaviour (naidoo & sewpaul 2014) as abousselam et al. (2016) found that in mangaung, freestate province, the majority of study participants engaged in unprotected anal and vaginal intercourse. given that in child-headed households, unemployed and fatherless homes, adolescent males may struggle to survive economically (holborn & eddy 2011), there is a likelihood of resorting to male prostitution with older men in exchange for money (masvawure et al. 2016). in such instances, they may develop human papillomavirus (hpv) and anal cancer since unprotected receptive anal intercourse is 16 times more likely to transmit hiv as compared to unprotected vaginal intercourse (baggaley, white & boily 2010). as compared to developed countries which provide evidence-based programmes to its youth for responsible sexual behaviour, programmes such as stepping stones are not sufficient in south africa to reach to adolescent males especially in rural areas. the underlying reason for such concern is because hpv is asymptomatic and in cape town, 44% of young men who have sex with men (msm) were reported to be hiv positive while 91.8% had anal hpv infection (müller et al. 2016). education and healthy schools according to the national school climate council (2007), a healthy school should embody learners with the zeal to acquire knowledge, skills and values from the educators and school personnel are responsible for ensuring that a conducive climate prevails for teaching and learning and responsible parents for financial, emotional and psychological support. basson (2008) is of the opinion that educators should act as role models, sources of support and provide positive feedback to unleash the potential of every learner, whereas the south african council for educators (sace) code of conduct (macnab 2013) calls for educators to exercise authority with compassion, avoid physical and psychological abuse and refrain from any form of sexual harassment of learners. however, suldo et al. (2012) suggested that schools that are characterised by violence could be a place of misery and shame for adolescent males who may be bullied and victimised by delinquent peers to engage in risk activities such as experimentation with sex, alcohol and drugs. for fear of being ridiculed, such youth may develop defence mechanisms such as suppression, by not reporting the atrocities done to them to their educators and parents, resulting in their academic performance deteriorating because of preoccupation with their experienced anxiety, being unable to concentrate and actively participate during lessons. furthermore, the outcomes of stressful experiences by such youth may include externalising behaviours such as aggression, disturbance in sleep patterns, conflicts and break-up of romantic relationships because of their inability to cope (bach & louw 2010; donald, lazarus & lolwana 2010; mume, olawale & osundina 2011). constructive peer relationships drawing from group socialisation theory, which proposes that the most influential environmental factor in shaping the personality of an adolescent is the peer group (espelage 2014), the need to belong to and make friends with significant others outside the family is inevitable (carroll 2016). intimacy with and commitment to friends appear in early adolescence and may provide protection against risk behaviour such as alcohol consumption and smoking of tobacco, skipping of classes and rebelliousness (carlo et al. 2010). healthy peer groups could be determining factors with regard to an adolescent’s happiness and emotional well-being (johnston & krettenauer 2011). by spending quality time with such peers, adolescents’ positive thinking and setting of realistic future goals could result in the enhancement of their social world and be linked with emotional and psychological well-being (kocayörük 2010). irrespective of insecure attachment to parents as a result of divorce, poverty or inability to provide consistent support to the adolescent, bester (2009) found that by maintaining constructive peer relationships, adolescent males’ self-image can be strong. drawing from fredrickson’s (2003) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, zeman, cassano and adrian (2012) proposed that peers could be perceived as a reliable resource for adolescents’ emotional well-being in the following manner: intellectually, youth may flourish by studying in groups and develop reasoning and problem-solving skills, psychologically, they could become resilient in spite of adversity, be optimistic about the future and learn to cope in their environment, and socially, they could be provided with support to acquire physical skills. community safety and environmental support it is important to note that adolescents’ development is also connected to their social and cultural environments, especially their communities because those transmit values and attitudes necessary for healthy living (liebenberg, ungar & van de vijver 2012). according to crone and dahl (2012), the social environment in which adolescents develop plays a critical role in shaping their behaviour, attitude and sense of the self. for optimal functioning of youth, structures within the community (e.g. non–governmental organisations [ngos] and churches) should take initiatives in implementing programmes to alleviate risk factors such as instability caused by violence, crime, hiv/aids and teenage pregnancy (moshabela et al. 2016). ungar (2011) has extensively found that a supportive and enabling sociocultural ecology is a powerful determinant in the ability of youth to rebound from adversity and trauma. however, in informal settlements which are often enmeshed in violence and drug abuse owing to less social cohesion (mcllwaine 2012), adolescent males may find it hard to escape early sexual encounters in the midst of peers who are sexually active and aggressive. to appear as real men among their peers and to avoid to be labelled as gay, miller et al. 2016) found that such youth often succumb to coercive sex initiated by peers or girlfriends. according to brown, testa and messman-moore (2009) coercive sex may entail incapacitation through alcohol and drug abuse and result in unintended teenage fatherhood and high probability of sti. alcohol myopia theory asserts that alcohol consumption alters one’s reasoning and ability skill to make informed decisions; hence a disproportionate number of male youth continue to get infected by hiv owing to non-condom use during sex (walsh et al. 2017). excessive alcohol consumption has been shown to be associated with harmful notions of masculinity which encourage unsafe sexual behaviour among males (rich, nkosi & morojele 2015). in a study that rich et al. (2015) conducted in the north–west province, it became clear that in culturally embedded societies, men grow up with the mentality that females who attend taverns or social clubs wearing short skirts and drinking alcohol need sexual partners, thus they end up raping them. thus, this research article advocates the need for sex education for male youth and self-confidence for those who intend to delay sexual activities until they are emotionally, financially and psychologically ready. mental health and well-being according to keyes (2009) a state of complete mental health and well-being is one in which there is emotional, psychological and social well-being present. emotional well-being the impact of positive emotionality can be substantial, ranging from higher well-being to better romantic relationships, improved memory and attention, exhibition of altruism and generosity, more successful careers, the promotion of creativity and better health (lyubomirsky, king & diener 2005). fredrickson (2009) found that strong emotional well-being is associated with openness to new experiences, greater cognitive flexibility, and a deeper sense of meaning. such individuals are comfortable in conveying love, kindness and spending time empowering others with positive experiences. the experience of positive emotions is the fundamental feature of the broaden-and-build theory of fredrickson (2002), which posits the ability of positive emotional experiences to broaden one’s immediate thought–action repertoires. such broadening of thought-and-action builds enduring personal resources and leads to personal growth and resilience through adaptive spirals of emotion, cognition and action (carr 2011; fredrickson 2009). a large body of evidence shows the positive effect of positive emotional experiences on the well-being of youth and salutary outcomes when used in positive youth development (davidson & mcewen 2012; garcia 2011). social well-being the five dimensions of social well-being are social acceptance, social actualisation, social contribution, social coherence and social integration (keyes 1998). social acceptance refers to the degree to which individuals hold positive attitudes towards others and how they relate to one another. social actualisation refers to the extent to which individuals believe that their society can become a better place, while social contribution refers to how people believe that their involvement makes a valuable impact on their communities (zhang et al. 2011). adolescent males who show social-bonding tend to share their vision and goals and empower others, while taking charge of their lives and thereby enhancing their efficacy (christens & peterson 2012). such individuals implement meaningful changes in their environment and assist where possible to reduce antisocial acts such as crimes that involve homophobic attacks. thus, researchers such as ratele (2014) advocate socio-psychological transformation because breen et al. (2016), morrissey (2013) and müller (2016) found that in many parts of south africa, excluding white communities, sexual violence and discrimination towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (lgbti) was rampant. this means that through empowerment, a sense of collective efficacy is experienced and there is cooperation among all community members (compton & hoffman 2013). adolescent males who exhibit social wellness may ensure that their surroundings (neighbourhood, school and parks) are secured and safe (coon & mitterer 2010). self-esteem according to neff (2011), self-esteem is related to optimism in the cultural context and is composed of four features: (1) feeling that one is accepted by significant others, (2) being the recipient of positive evaluations from others, (3) believing that one compares favourably to other people or to one’s ideal self and (4) believing that one can initiate effective action in one’s world. studies have found that self-esteem is associated with less delinquency, better anger control, more emotional intimacy and satisfaction in relationships, more ability to care for others and a heightened capacity for creative and productive work (collins, haydon & hesemeyer 2007; neff 2011). for example, a south african study about sport participation and psychosocial well-being by malebo, van eeden and wissing (2007) found that sport participation was significantly related to higher levels of positive affect, sense of coherence and self-efficacy beliefs and to lower levels of negative affect, somatic symptoms and pessimistic life orientation, as experienced by a group of african students. however, men with history of sexual abuse in duncan village, eastern cape, expressed low self-esteem, risky sexual behaviour with multiple sexual partners and less affection towards their partners (icard et al. 2014). it therefore means that adolescent males should be protected from an early age from all forms of neglect and maltreatment. coping strategies the term ‘coping’ was conceptualised by lazarus and folkman (1990) as the process to describe how individuals use their cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage emotional and environmental stressors, and adaptive coping involves confronting challenges directly and reasonably in a task-oriented way. weiten (2010: 547) defines coping as ‘the active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress’ and posits that coping is clustered into two broad categories, namely problem-solving and emotive–focused coping. problem-solving efforts involve active involvement in alleviating stressful circumstances by seeking and utilising advice, assistance and relevant information from peers, educators or parents (yendork & somhlaba 2014). problem-focused coping enables adolescents to increase their self-esteem and self-regulation to buffer them against risky behaviours and to respond to traumatic life events (e.g. divorce, death of parents, child abuse and academic failure) with what martin seligman called ‘learned-optimism’ (compton 2005). emotion-focused coping involves regulation of one’s thoughts and actions to relieve the emotional impact of stress (carlo et al. 2012). emotion–focused coping as an adaptive process to counteract stress is reported to equip individuals with the self-control of emotions in the midst of challenges by enabling such individuals to comply, manage and remain focused (skinner et al. 2008). for example, as compared with adolescent males who employ avoidance strategies in dealing with their problems, ojala (2013) found that the emotionally focused youth do not sit back and do nothing; instead they become optimistic and resilient in their coping actions. however, garcia (2011) argued that adolescents are confronted by a wide range of stress-related risks such as depression, suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, hiv/aids infection, domestic violence and sibling rivalry as they interact with their peers, educators and family members. drawing from bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model, adolescent males who are raised in family settings characterised by hardships such as unemployment, divorce and substance abuse may lack coping self-efficacy to complete their schooling relative to adolescents whose parents afford to meet their educational needs (coyle et al. 2009). for example, in a study conducted by pretorius (2009) on support systems and coping strategies used by south african children of divorced parents in cape town, 46% of adolescent males indicated that divorce of their parents created in them resentment, social maladjustment and attention deficits as their academic performance deteriorated. religious coping may increase hope, positive emotions, compassion, generativity and optimism, promote personality integration and support healthy lifestyles (e.g. encouraging monogamous relationships and prohibiting alcohol consumption) (berg et al. 2009). in a south african study on adolescents’ perceptions of religion in soweto, brittian, lewis and norris (2013) reported that 70% of the participants who were rooted in some form of religion engaged in socially approved behaviour and prolonged engagement in sexual activities because their religion provided them with support, moral compass, promoted healthy development and intersections between african traditional practices and christian beliefs. hardiness is a concept used to describe how well mentally and physically an individual reacts to a stressful situation (e.g. traumatic events and sexual exploitation) (nolen-hoeksema 2008). it is defined as the combination of three cognitive factors involved with how individuals interpret their life experiences, namely a sense of control, greater cognitive flexibility and a sense of commitment (van dyke et al. 2009). adolescent males with hardiness are more inclined to take charge of their immediate surroundings and feel confident that they would cope and deactivate the stressful situation (levine et al. 2009). such youth do not procrastinate and in coping with the situation, they draw strength from their environment. this approach is what antonovsky (1987) referred to as general resistance resources (grr), a feature of a life orientation based on a sense of coherence or the beliefs that life is understandable, manageable and meaningful. because there is an inextricable link between hardiness and emotional intelligence, salovey and mayer (1990), who pioneered the original model of emotional intelligence, proposed that any adolescent male who is emotionally intelligent tends to accurately recognise what they are feeling when they are feeling it, handle interpersonal relationships, use emotions to motivate themselves (e.g. to guide their emotions to remain focused and attain their goals). finally, they tend to recognise emotions in others, and regulate their moods, handle stress and rebound after experiencing an emotional setback. conclusion it is thus concluded that although recognition is given in the literature to mostly objective indicators of sexual behaviour of african male youth such as the ages of sexual debut, certain – mostly negative – health practices such as risky sexual activities, lack of condom use, multiple partners and aggressive actions in sexual encounters, more subjective dimensions of sexuality development in youth have received little attention. also the study of well-being may seem less pressing than the obviously urgent problem-saturated developmental aspects of adolescents, such as violence, sexual risk behaviour and substance abuse. however, the lack of research into psycho-sexual health and well-being of youth limits our understanding of positive sexuality of adolescents and how their well-being in this regard could be facilitated and enhanced. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. 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africa. additionally, there is citizens’ frustrations with the perceived competition for access to the available resources, especially among poor people who are unemployed with no formal business support from government. in south africa’s twenty years of democracy, poverty and unemployment still remain critical concerns particularly among the poor in most townships and rural communities. despite the country’s initiative to identify policies and strategies that could be adopted to address the status quo, the majority has continued to live in abject poverty and demeaning unemployment. lack of economic opportunities in south africa continues to create hatred between foreign nationals and locals, sparking xenophobic attacks. south african citizens accused foreigners of stealing their jobs and other opportunities. the article recommends that south africa should create a harmonious business environment for both locals and foreign nationals running businesses. keywords: xenophobic attacks, foreign nationals, local business, poverty, unemployment, south africa introduction notwithstanding the country-wide fatal xenophobic attacks in 2008 and 2015 in south africa, the underlying causes remains unclear. however, competition for scarce resources and business contestation appear to run supreme. the discourse, both in politics and in academia, about the causes of the conflict has continued unabated as unfinished stories. for this reason, south africa is blamed for not making progress in combating xenophobic attacks following the 2008 incidences (loots, 2013). it is also not clear as to what extent have south africa done to transform its society in its two decades of democracy because persistent poverty and unemployment cannot be excluded from the driving forces for xenophobic attacks (sosibo, 2015: 2). however, wilkinson (2015: 1) argued that most foreign nationals own formal and informal business in south africa. other authors are of the opinion that the south african perceptions that foreigners are job takers and threat to the country’s scarce resource, is a myth (fuller, 2008; kalitany & visser, 2010; maistry, 2015; harrison, 2015) which is yet to be tested. however minister pravin gordhan asserts that the popular myth of foreigners stealing south african jobs can be curbed through partnership-based interventions by government and business. such interventions could include government support to improve local business through small medium enterprises. in recent years, though, government embarked on campaigns with slogans in most local communities and townships, calling on south africans 1 department of public administration, university of limpopo, private bag x1106, sovenga, 0727, south africa, e-mail: malemela.mamabolo@ul.ac.za ma mamabolo 144 to stop the attacks in order to calm the situation rather than to introduce durable strategies to reduce tensions. government campaign through print, audio and visual media too made a negligible impact on the xenophobic status quo. poverty and lack of access to resources can only affect the powerless and desperate (neocosmos, 2008). the people that are suffering from poverty and unemployment are likely to be confused and desperate to the extent of developing hatred against successful foreign nationals. perceptions and sentiments such as these have seemed to perpetrate tension that unfolded into violent abuses across south africa. xenophobia in the south african context xenophobia within the contemporary south africa has received media and political attention, which degenerated into a blame-game against south africans devoid of rational argument. like any other country in the world, south africa’s xenophobia branding is not an enjoyable experience, but it is not an isolated case. however, xenophobia in other countries is not as popular and brutal like in south africa. but it does not compare with anti-semitism in germany. according to duponchel (2013), xenophobia in south africa cannot be clearly understood without a review of the global apartheid context which continues to characterise the life of most south africans. the origins of xenophobia in south africa is older than the outbreaks of 2008, traceable to the immediate post-1994 period. the concept of xenophobia means a dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries (lerner, roberts & matlala, 2009). for south africa, the concept is necessarily linked to racism and acts of brutal violence against foreign nationals by frustrated south africans (harris, 2002; mbembe, 2015; rabkin, 2015). the latter continue to receive poor and inadequate service delivery in the contexts of claims that they have to share the limited resource with foreign nationals. linking the acts of xenophobia to colour of the victims in south africa has agitated the suggestion that it is actually afrophobia. at its height, xenophobic attacks in south africa have appeared to exclusively involve african immigrants. african immigrants from countries such as nigeria, zimbabwe, mozambique, somalia and egypt have been on the receiving end of the xenophobic attacks, which is also consistent with their characterisation as the most successful small and micro-business entrepreneurs operating in cities, townships and other localities. these sentiments have held notwithstanding the apparent successes of the formal and informal business owned by foreign nationals of other countries other than africa. hence, xenophobia in the south african context has become synonymous with violent abuses and attacks against african immigrants (olukoju, 2008; oloyede, 2008; lerner, roberts & matlala, 2009; francis & nyamnjoh, 2010). indeed, african immigrants in south africa are labelled by derogatory names such as “makwerekwere”, “makhalangas” or “magrigambas”, while in other parts of the country they are characterised as “mekgaritswana”, “makula”, “mapafo” and “makgaretein”. according to buthelezi (2009: 14), all these names are offensive against foreign nationals, largely those from africa. offensive names such as mekgaritswana, mapafo and makgaretein are inked to the business foreign nationals’ operations in most local communities. their business operations normally involve door-to-door selling of goods such as curtains, comforters and some zinc materials. apparently, these names also signify hatred of african foreign nationals (solomon & kosaka, 2014). most attacks appear to be linked to frustration over government failure to deliver postdrivers of community xenophobic attacks in south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 143-150. 145 apartheid south africa’s promise of a better life for all (bobb, 2008; ilesanmi, 2008; nell, 2008; olowu, 2008; rabkin, 2015). xenophobia in south africa is generally characterised as hatred and racist attitudes against african foreign nationals (solomon & kosaka, 2014). hence, harrison (2015) asks whether or not recent xenophobic attacks are characteristic of “swart gevaar”. south africa has a history of political violence which was always associated with blacks; and, xenophobic abuses too are taking the same shape and character. poverty, unemployment and xenophobia in south africa given the high rates of poverty and unemployment in south africa, it should be tenable to examines the causality of these factors with xenophobic attitudes and violence. despite lack of a comparable data, poverty and unemployment is perceived to have significantly increased after the country’s democratic dispensation in 1994. in 2010, poverty was reported to have increased by 57.2%, subsequently declining in 2011 by 45.5% (statistics south africa, 2014). poor people are blamed for orchestrating all acts of xenophobic attacks. however, neocosmos (2008) asserts that poverty does not justify violence, pointing to the absence of a rational argument in the xenophobic attacks that gripped south africa in recent years. whereas poor south africans are said to be fighting for the economic space, their acts of violence ironically perpetrate economic stagnation and deterioration. there is a connection between unemployment among the youth and adult the rate of immigrants in south africa. statistics from tradingeconomics.com (2015) that unemployment in south africa has increased from 24.30% in the fourth quarter of 2014 to 26.40% in the first quarter of 2015. unemployment rate in south africa averaged 25.27% over the period 2000-2015, reaching high of 31.20% in the first quarter of 2003 and a low of 21.50% in the fourth quarter of 2008 (tradingeconomics.com, 2015). wilkinson (2015: 1) reveals in a study titled “are foreigners stealing jobs in south africa” that 26.16% of “non-migrants” are unemployed while the same measure is 32.51% for “domestic migrants”. by comparison, only 14.68% of international migrants are unemployed” (wilkinson, 2015). furthermore, wilkinson (2015: 1) also show that 32.65% of international migrants are employed in the informal sector in south africa compared to 16.57% of “non-migrants” and 17.97% of “domestic migrants”. these statistical patterns reveal that there may be a connection between being foreign national and performing well in informal business sector, with the result that locals may feel aggrieved that they have not been equally or more successful. despite the fact that poverty does not justify violence, poor people tends to vent their frustrations through violence. according to nicolson (2015: 1), almost 12 million south african citizens live in poverty. however statistics south africa (2014: 12) reported that the number of people living in poverty in south africa increased from 12.6 million in 2006 to 15.8 million in 2009, dropping to 10.2 million in 2011. it is virtually impossible to objectively establish a causal link between poverty, unemployment and xenophobic attacks, notwithstanding their apparent association. this observation was highlighted by fuller (2008), mwhiti (2015) and neocosmos (2015). however, the reality of xenophobic violence in most townships and local communities appears to be fuelled by poverty and unemployment. in-depth studies are required to closely investigate the causes of the ongoing xenophobic attacks. ma mamabolo 146 “truth” and reflections on xenophobia in south africa, 2008-2015 while violent attacks against foreign nationals is critical, it should also be noted that there is meaning behind these acts. there have been campaigns pleading with south africans to stop the attacks. but government too has failed to mitigate xenophobic potential and threats. the south african history online (saho, 2015) outlined some pre-2008 cases which government seems to have ignored. hereunder are some cases that occurred as early as 2000 and were reported in the media. • in 2000 there were cases of xenophobic killings of foreign nationals from nigeria and kenya, which were reported in cape town (saho, 2015). it is not known as to whether those who were held responsible for the killings and hijacking were arrested. failure of government to act on such cases may encourage to future attacks. • in 2008 violent xenophobic attacks occurred in alexandra and diepsloot townships in gauteng province and later spread to other provinces such as free state, mpumalanga and north-west. in those attacks, almost all businesses owned by somalians, pakistanis and ethopians were looted before being burned, while houses which were suspected to be owned by foreign nationals were also burned by angry south africans. after the outburst campaigns were launched wherein ministers preached slogans that we are all africans. the truth about the 2008 attacks is that south africa failed to review policies on migration, hence the situation worsened. • the year 2013 also marked one of the horrific incident wherein a mozambican man was brutally killed by south african police officers, agitating for perceptions that government too contributed to violent xenophobic attacks. • currently, 2015 marks a year of violent xenophobic attacks, which were allegedly associated with a speech by the zulu king. with all the reflections on violent xenophobic attacks in south africa, it is not known whether this could be the last attacks that the country will see or if there are still major attacks to come. not until the government do something to address poverty and unemployment, south africa might still face major disastrous attacks which would undermine the notion of a rainbow nation (jaynes, 2008: 12). the other resentment against foreigners in south africa is over the foreign business owners who are operating local business without employing the local people (wikipedia.org, 2015). most of the outbreaks in gauteng, and pretoria in particular, are said to be driven by attractions of the major cities. south africans migrate to johannesburg for greener pastures, where they find it difficult to compete with foreign nationals for scarce resources. fuller (2008: 10) suggested that government should deal with the perpetrators of xenophobic violence by ensuring that critical witnesses are available to testify. despite the availability of such witnesses, many cases of xenophobic attacks occurred but some of the responsible individuals were not held accountable for engaging in such brutal attacks. the sentiments of all these attacks suggest that political leadership is also at fault. siko (2015) asserts that it is unsurprising that the associations of poverty, unemployment and xenophobia came at a time when south africans struggled for economic freedom. neocosmos (2008: 1) argued that “xenophobia is a political discourse and also a set of ideological parameters within which solutions to the pressing problems are being conceived”. drivers of community xenophobic attacks in south africa td, 10(4), december 2015, special edition, pp. 143-150. 147 looting, anger and frustrations: manifestations of poverty and unemployment fuller (2008) argue that south african citizens use immigrants as scapegoats for government failure to address domestic problems such as crime, unemployment, poverty and resources limitations. it is not known if poverty and unemployment are not the driving forces behind xenophobia in south africa. since 2008, outburst of xenophobic attacks occurred mostly townships rather than in urban suburbs. how best can the south african government justify both the previous and the recent attacks without giving it an angle of poverty and unemployment? the answer lies in the struggling economic problems in which the poor south africans find themselves. therefore, if the notion that poverty and unemployment among citizens are not behind the attacks, then what are the cause? according to hadland (2008: 8), south african citizens are frustrated over insufficient pace of service delivery and contestations over housing provisions in local communities. bobb (2008: 1) asserts that poverty is to blame for the 2008 attacks and failure of government to deliver social services to its citizens. hence, this article argues that south africa does not experience xenophobic violence in well-off urban areas than in townships, because most foreigners resettle therein. while south africans seek for better job opportunities, foreigners may settle for lesser working conditions. it is clear that when the south african citizens expectations are being betrayed by the government’s failure to deliver what has been promised, they respond with anger. activities such as looting and burning of businesses owned by somalians, pakistanis and ethopians occurred in gauteng, kwazulu-natal and other parts of the country. siko (2015: 2) emphasised that looting is an indication of constant poverty which community members are experiencing on daily basis. le riche (2015: 1) argued that looting of foreign business also involves people who are not yet ready to make it in the market world. despite le riche’s (2015) view, note should be taken that acts of violence do not only involve burning down foreign businesses, but that they also loot the business stock. public media has shown local people looting from foreign owned shops. siko (2015: 2) argued that most of the townships where the attacks are taking place experience high rates of unemployment and poverty. but care should be exercised in that xenophobic violence and looting can be traced back to 1994 after the country’s first democratic elections (duponchel, 2013: 6), questioning the logic of the argument of an increasingly frustrated majority that is venting anger against foreign national. perceived business competition: foreign entrepreneurs versus and locals south africa’s economic wealth also shows that the attack behind foreigners also cripples the country’s economic growth (chen, 2015: 1; le cordeur, 2015: 1). the recent attacks caught that much attention to an extent that even some of south africa’s businesses in other countries were threatened. the mail & guardian on 20 april 2015 reported that most of south african businesses that are operating in african countries also felt the heat of the threats of violent attacks. foreign nationals’ businesses appear to have presented threats to locals’ businesses with their competitive market prices. the attacks also contributed negatively to local business with the intention to expand into african countries (chen, 2015: 1). however, mwiti (2015: 1) agued that the immigrants do not necessarily threaten south african business. the argument is that it is only the local businesses that have been closed down due to the mushrooming of foreign business in most townships. most of foreign nationals’ businesses are reliable and viable. bearing in mind that the south african citizens ma mamabolo 148 operate their business with tax implications, it becomes difficult to compete with foreign business that hardly pay tax dues to the south african government. recommendations: measures for curbing xenophobic attacks the south african government did not do enough to curb the attacks and to address the causes behind them. how the xenophobic attacks relate to racism, frustrations or lack of political leadership in the country remains unknown. therefore the article recommends that: firstly, the manner in which the country deals with immigrants who are in the country for business or economic reasons must be reviewed because most foreign nationals who are in the country for business or economic reasons threatens the local business. secondly, government must not only combat xenophobia in the south african context, but also look deeper into the attitudes of nationals from other countries such as zimbabwe and nigeria. thirdly, government should check how other countries deal with xenophobia or migrants in their country. despite the statement made by chen (2015: 1) that south africa is a home to nationals from almost 53 foreign countries which gives the country a wider range of ethnic variety than other countries, the fourth recommendation drawn in this article is that even though the country failed to identify foreigners who are in the country legally, government should examine statistics of illegal immigrants and resolve it. lastly, further research should be conducted to investigate the causes of xenophobia in townships. conclusion the wave of xenophobia in south africa brought so many questions, perceptions and arguments as to what are the major causes of the violent attacks. it has been argued in this article that the country should focus more on improving and providing more poverty alleviation programmes to fight the increasing rate of poverty and unemployment. this paper acknowledges that happy mind goes with a full stomach and it is along those lines wherein the south african citizens will see those foreigner nationals as their brothers and sisters. but if they are told that they should unite with foreigners on an empty stomach they are likely to respond with anger, frustration and violence towards 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alexandra, south africa: frustration boils over into violence. the centre for the study of violence and reconciliation. www.ritecodev.co.za/.../2256-alexandrasouth-africa-frustration-boils-over-into-violence [accessed: 26 june 2015]. siko, m. 2015. unemployment, poverty xenophobiatriple threat behind spaza shops lootings: ilive. htttp://www.timelines.co.za/ilive/2015/02/05/unemploymentpoverty-xenophobia-tri [accessed: 24 june 2015]. solomon, h. & kosaka, h. 2014. xenophobia in south africa: reflections, narratives and recommendations. south african peace and security studies, 2(2): 5-29. sosibo, k. 2015. violence not that foreign, say migrants. mail & guardian online. http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-29-violence-not-that-foreign-say-migrants [accessed: 26 june 2015]. south african history online, 2015. xenophobic violence in democratic south africa. http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/xenophobic-violence-democratic-south-africa [accessed: 25 june 2015]. tradingeconomic.com, 2015. south africa unemployment rate. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate [accessed: 27 june 2015]. wilkinson, k. 2015. analysis: are foreigners stealing jobs in south africa? http://africacheck.org/2015/02/08/analysis-are-foreigners-stealing-jobs-in-southafrica-2/#sthash.cmxcabpu.dpuf [accessed: 29 june 2015]. abstract introduction moravian music heritage: a brief history moravian hymnody the moravian music tradition in south africa moravian hymnody in south africa heritage and contemporary moravian hymn composers moravian church music as a community moravian hymnody as a community conclusion acknowledgements references footnote about the author(s) devandre boonzaaier department of music, faculty of arts, university of fort hare, alice, south africa alethea c. de villiers department of music, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa citation boonzaaier, d. & de villiers, a.c., 2019, ‘the moravian heritage of community musicking’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 15(1), a641. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v15i1.641 original research the moravian heritage of community musicking devandre boonzaaier, alethea c. de villiers received: 15 nov. 2018; accepted: 04 oct. 2019; published: 28 nov. 2019 copyright: © 2019. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract in this article, the authors firstly provide a brief historical narrative of the origin of the moravian church and its hymnody. secondly, they proceed to trace the origins of moravian hymnals and their use in south africa. thirdly, they discuss the history of moravian hymnals in south africa and the contribution of south african composers and musicians. several articles and books were consulted to trace the contribution of the moravian hymnal from its origins in herrnhut in germany to genadendal, the first moravian mission station in south africa and the spread of the moravian denomination to the rest of the country. the authors also provide short biographies of selected south african moravian composers and highlight the connectedness of moravians across time through their hymnody. moreover, in this article the authors use the term, ‘musicking’ to describe the musical activity from composing to performing to listening-in-audience to singing. keywords: moravian; heritage; community; musicking; south africa; hymns. introduction the moravian church is a traditional, protestant church which promotes and maintains the legacy and practices of its founding fathers. for this reason, present day moravian composers continue with the tradition of the early german composers. these music-related traditions include, (1) the compositional style, (2) easily singable tunes, (3) numbering of hymn tunes, (4) themes of the hymns and (5) scriptural texts of the hymns. by following this tradition, contemporary composers contribute to the heritage, legacy and unity of the moravian church. these musical practises ensure unity and continuity within the christian worship from the inception of the moravian church to the present day. this also establishes a universal brotherhood and sisterhood among the worldwide congregation of moravians, irrespective of culture or race. moravian music heritage: a brief history the moravian church (herrnhuter brüdergemeine) grew under the leadership of count nikolaus ludwig von zinzendorf (1700–1760), out of the settlement of herrnhut (saxony), founded by moravian exilees in 1722 (traupman-carr 2000:17). this church continued the tradition and orders of their ancestral church, the unitas fratrum (church of the bohemian brethren). zinzendorf, a lutheran of pietist upbringing, created a unique and original christ-centred worship tradition, emphasising experience, simplicity and community, which is reflected to varying degrees in the worship followed today in 19 provinces, but which remains the source of its distinctive common features (bradshaw 2002:322). moravian hymnody the moravian hymn books currently in use today, have their origin in numerous collections of hymns spanning many centuries. reed knouse (2008:44) suggests that moravian hymnody itself had already begun before the 16th century. according to reed knouse (2008), what has been hailed as the ‘first protestant hymnal’ containing 89 hymns was printed in prague in 1501. reed knouse (2008) further suggests that it has long been claimed as a hymnal of the unitas fratrum, but its connection with the unitas fratrum is tenuous, although it did contain 11 hymns by lukas of prague, the most influential theologian of the unitas fratrum. weinlick and frank (2010:34) write that the brethren of the unitas fratrum memorised and could recite the hymns as they did with the scripture. according to weinlick and frank (2010), a characteristic of the unitas fratrum was its singing tradition, which was established long before the first protestant hymnal of 1501. the unitas fratrum relied on hymns for both inspiration and teaching. during the next 70 years, 10 different editions of their hymnals were published, five in czech, three in german and two in polish (weinlick & frank 2010). the brethren composed hundreds of hymns and published the first hymnal in 1505. some of these hymns became part of general protestant worship during the reformation (settari 1994:5). in addition, some of the hymns of the moravians date back to the ancient christian church of the 4th century. these moravian hymns provide more than just a moment for congregational singing; the moravian hymns often express the moravian faith better than any creedal statement (fries 2003:44). fries (2003) states that although new styles of music and contemporary hymns have been introduced in moravian churches, many of the hymns date back to bishop christian gregor’s 1784 tune book. christian gregor (1723–1801) is regarded by moravians as the father of moravian music. he is perhaps the most central figure, apart from zinzendorf, in the development of the musical heritage of the moravians. he has also been called ‘the first outstanding musical personality in the renewed moravian church’ (reed knouse 2008:18). j.d. grimm (1719–1760) and christian gregor (1723–1801) established the practice, still used by moravians today, of arranging and numbering the tunes according to the length of the tunes. this enables more than one tune to be used for a hymn (august 2001:ii). weinlick (2001:85) points out that during the time of zinzendorf hymnbooks were seldom used, except by visitors, because count zinzendorf was of the conviction that a hymn must be memorised to express the individual’s christian experience adequately. to this day, moravians often sing hymns from memory, especially if they grew up in the tradition of having attended a moravian school and grew up on a moravian mission station. moreover, zinzendorf’s hymns are still sung today, centuries later, in over 90 languages, including afrikaans (lewis 1962:168). the moravian music tradition in south africa the origin of the moravian church in south africa can be traced back to the establishment of a christian community, by georg schmidt, in genadendal, in the cape, in the 18th century. the adoption of distinct religious teachings and cultural (including musical) practices characterised this early christian congregation. the english translation of genadendal is ‘vale of grace’ and is the first mission station in south africa (de wet, teugels & van deventer 2014:94; gordon 1927:96). in 1832, the community in genadendal welcomed its first organ, which was first played by the missionaries who then later taught a young person from the community so that he could be the church organist. of further importance for the promotion of church music in south africa, was the establishment of a seminary in genadendal in 1838. the first director, francke was a gifted musician who established church choirs first in genadendal and then at mamre, another mission station, also in the western cape (jooste 1992:157). the seminary enabled the moravians to train both priests and teachers, which ensured that in the moravian schools all teachers, male and female, were members of the church. they made good use of the daily religious instruction periods, using a guide that was edited by the provincial board and revised several times (krüger & schaberg 1984:132–133). from 1875 to 1883, most moravian congregations in south africa, began to have more autonomy and became more independent from germany and began to establish a rich liturgical heritage, which provided many opportunities for singing and music performances. moravian hymnody in south africa the first dutch hymnal of the moravian church was published in 1773 in zeist, netherlands, and was brought to cape town by missionaries in 1792 (reichelt & de schweinitz 1886). the lutheran congregation in strand street, cape town, started using the 1826 netherlands lutheran hymnal in 1830 to replace the german hymnal of the dom church of bremen which had been in use since 1783 (laudate 1983:iv). in 1844, the rhenish missionary society published a hymnal in the dutch language for its congregations in south africa and the berlin missionary society followed suit in 1853. this hymnal and the other hymnals each had their own style and influenced the development of congregational songs and the religious songs in south africa (laudate 1983:iv). the dutch hymnal dating back to 1773, was re-edited at genadendal for the first time in 1880 and contained 800 hymns. in addition, many liturgies and litanies as well as the special services for passion week and other festive times throughout the church year gave the congregations the opportunity to participate actively in worship. hallbeck’s booklet litanijen en gezangen of 1839 was also still in use. the south african helpers entered this tradition with their remarkable musical talents and took the lead (krüger & schaberg 1984:12). over time, the need for an afrikaans hymnal was prompted with afrikaans being used as the vernacular in churches. it was difficult for many congregants to abandon the dutch hymnals. the first afrikaans hymnal, cantate, by the berlin missionary society, was the work of rev. j. baumbach and the hymnal was published in 1934. from 1935, work commenced on an afrikaans hymnal for the moravian church in south africa which was first printed in 1949 and compiled by rev. w. winckler. it was replaced in 1959 by an enhanced edition under the editorial guidance of bishop p.w. schaberg. the rhenish congregations in south-west africa used the sionsgesange (1947) of the dutch reformed missionary church. this hymnal was a work of the rhenish missionary rev. e. hartwig. in 1962, a special edition of the moravian church hymnal known as jubilate came into use. the german congregations of the united evangelic-lutheran church in southern africa progressively started using the cantate hymnal for their church services (laudate 1983:iv). the need for a communal hymnal was identified. the goal was that the content and language of the new hymnal would be an improvement on all previous hymnals and it would build on the foundation that was laid by the pioneers. the executive committee of the federation of evangelic-lutheran churches in southern africa in 1975 commissioned its committee on liturgy and church music to compile a communal hymnal. the committee consulted existing hymnals of the churches involved; especially, the rich treasure of the evangelic hymns of martin luther and paul gerhardt and their contemporaries. they also consulted the old and renewed hymns of the moravian church and specifically the hymns of zinzendorf and his fellow workers. in the selection of the hymns of the sister protestant churches in south africa, the moravians received co-operation from the reformed churches in south africa and the dutch reformed church publishers. many hymns were also translated into afrikaans and english (laudate 1983:iv–v). the tunes were numbered in a similar way to the style of the first moravian books according to length; numbers up to tune 236 were retained (laudate 1983:xi–xii). the south african moravian hymnal was published in genadendal in 1983 (laudate 1983). the hymns in the hymnal are arranged according to the following categories, (1) church calendar, (2) the church service, (3) praise and prayer hymns for all seasons, (4) hymns for special occasions and (5) hymns for eternity. the hymns in the church year calendar category are divided into the following subcategories: advent, christmas, new year, epiphany, lent, easter, ascension, pentecost and trinity. the hymns of the church service category include sunday and church srvice, god’s word, holy baptism, confirmation and holy communion. the subcategories under the category praise and prayer hymns include praise, thanksgiving, and worship; prayer; church, congregation, community; extension of the word; repent and conversion; christian faith; god’s trust and comfort; jesus’ love; charity. the hymns for special occasions include hymns for the morning, afternoon and evening; daily bread, occupation and work; marriage, home and family. the hymns for the eternity category in the hymnal are divided into the following subcategories: farewell and death; pilgrimage, coming of the lord; long for heaven; and new life from now to eternity. the hymns in the hymnal are further divided into three sections: (1) hymn 1–479 in afrikaans, (2) hymn 501–759 also in afrikaans and (3) the english hymns from hymn 801 until hymns 839. hymns 1–479 form the communal hymnal of the federation of evangelical lutheran churches in south africa (felcsa). hymns that could not be included in the general hymnal were added to the moravian hymnal with the numbering of the hymns starting at number 501 and arranged according to the same themes as hymns 1–479. the moravian hymnal also added 40 english hymns numbered 800–839 (laudate 1983). while the numbering may seem peculiar, this is how it appears in the hymnal. the chorale book of the moravian church in south africa was prepared to meet the need of having the tunes used in the south african province of the moravian church collected in a single volume (august 2001:i). previously, hymns were contained in the first printed tune book, koraalboek van die broederkerk (the green book published in 1964 for the jubilate hymnal) and a hymnal, the laudate, which was published in 1983 at a time of ecumenical co-operation within the erstwhile felcsa. this mutual effort, unfortunately, left the moravian church in south africa without a comprehensive tune or choral book, with the result that the moravian church in south africa had to make use of several tune books. these included die koraalboek van die broederkerk, ‘the choral book for the australian lutheran hymnal’ and that of the evangelisches kirchen gesangbuch (august 2001). the colour of the choral book is blue, hence its name: the blue tune book. the previous choral book was green. this blue tune book, also known as choral book of the moravian church in south africa, replaced and combined the content of the aforementioned chorale books to indicate all the tunes composed and arranged for the hymns in the laudate hymnal (l) in section b (designated by ‘w’), as well as for the popular english hymns in section c (designated by ‘t’). for the final arrangements of the tunes, use has been made of the choralbuch der evangelischen brüdergemeine (lonas 1890). some tunes are recent variations by indigenous composers (cf. d.z.l. apolles; c. hans senior; d. joorst; d. ulster and e.j. williams) while others were taken from the koraalboek vir psalms en gesange (1978) and the choral book of the lutheran church in south west africa (august 2001:i–ii). the register of the authors appears in the laudate hymnal on pages 731–753; the register of sources in laudate, page 754 and a list of melodies from pages 757–765 in the laudate hymnal. the sources that were consulted for the compilation of the english hymns are: the moravian hymn book and liturgy, 1960 from the british province of the moravian church. hymnal and liturgies of the moravian church, 1969 from the american province of the moravian church. grimm and gregor’s method was utilised to arrange the melodies (august 2001:ii). after the laudate was published, the moravian church board of south africa appointed rev. k. th. august as the coordinator for church music and entrusted him with the task of appointing a commission to revise the tune book. then, he with the assistance of the late j.c. (hansie) petersen, compiled a first working draft in 1989. a commission comprising messrs (the late) pat johannes, tyrone hitzeroth, the late albert engel and ivan liedeman from the brass band association of south africa (bbsa), as well as the late christopher hans, jonathan and antonio lawack and christo van der rheede from the moravian church choir union of south africa (mocusa), was formed with rev. august as the convenor and editor in 1997. after the late pat johannes printed a revised draft, copies were sent to the bbsa and the mocusa members of the commission who gave input. these texts were all integrated by christo van der rheede, who did extensive transcription and typesetting on the computer. the final product was printed at the genadendal printing press (august 2001:ii). the discussion so far reveals that the history of moravian hymnals is intertwined with the traditions of the related protestant denominations and the history and heritage of the moravian church. furthermore, the moravian hymnals in use in south africa today, including the laudate, are part of the heritage of modern day south african musicians and composers in so far as they have contributed to the compilation and composition of tunes for congregational worship. heritage and contemporary moravian hymn composers meskell (2012:49) writes that heritage in south africa has been called upon to fulfil numerous state-level agendas: on the domestic front, it is to provide social and economic regeneration as well as identity politics for nation-building. according to meskell (2012) on the international front, national heritage needs to connect to the rest of the continent, to constitute a precise africanity, to contribute to the narrative of origins and achievements that underpin the african renaissance and to fulfil globalists’ fantasies of self-sustainability. in this article, heritage will specifically refer to the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the south african moravians: where history is the study of the past, heritage is the many ways the past is used in the present. in this way, heritage can be understood to be an active, dynamic relationship between then and now, formed through an on-going process of renegotiation, reconstruction, and recreation of what we choose to take from the past with us into the future. (university of cambridge, n.d. n.p.) weinlick and frank (2010:111) suggest that church members of any denomination have a certain religious profile derived not just from their own immediate christian experience but also from the experience of their ancestors. according to them (weinlick & frank 2010), this is the reason why denominations are often referred to as ‘traditions’. consequently, the moravian composers’ music can be viewed as practice, tradition and heritage. moreover, the authors will use the term, ‘musicking’ as coined by small (1998). ‘musicking’ is a verb that is inclusive of different musical activities, including composing, performing, listening-in-audience as well as singing (boyce-tillman 2016:3–4). moravian church music as a community the ‘idea of community is at the heart of biblical theology’ (kunhiyop 2012:9). robinson (2014:14) quotes allen (1966) when she states that the essence of moravian belief can be found in their motto, ‘in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity’. the moravians believed that musical ability, like every other gift, was to be used in praise of christ and for the good of the community, not for the benefit of the individual (reed knouse 2008:19). moreover, hall (1981:226) states that the focus of moravian theology can be found in music making. hall (1981:227) furthermore points out that the singing of hymns and chorales formed part of the school music. the singstunde, a song session was included in every school day. in this way, the school children came to know the church’s religious beliefs and experienced musical training through the singing of hymns. as caldwell (2007:9) explains, a moravian congregation, or gemeine, encompassed all aspects of life, including schools and music. children growing up in the gemeine would be educated in its schools by teachers who were moravians and be given the skills necessary to participate in the gemeinmusik as singers in the congregation or choir, or as instrumentalists both as children and as adults, whatever their station in life. gemeinmusik, encompassing the congregation’s total repertoire of hymn-singing, liturgical singing, instrumental and sacred vocal music, was both a body of music and a program of music making that represented the moravian faith in the unity of the sacred and secular, and the oneness of the performer and the listener within the local community or congregation. gemeinmusik embraced ever-widening circles from local communities to the worldwide community of moravian churches, and to the transcendental communion of saints on the earth and in heaven. pickel (1997:32) writes that identity formation always involves a struggle between the individual and his or her self-perception, and the categorisation of the individual through others. in other words, he (pickel 1997) states that identity formation is a result of multiple forms of social interaction. he furthermore also points out that although individuals receive sets of information, roles, values and so forth, and become members of a family as well as the wider community, they retain the opportunity to reject the dominant in-group as well as out-group beliefs, habits, existing prejudices, stereotypes and social categorisations (pickel 1997). the composers under discussion in this article, and by implication to their music, reflect their adoption of the moravian identity through many forms of social interaction, both at school and in the church. the idea of the church as a community resonates very well with africans (kunhiyop 2012:145). although we are all born as individuals, we grow up and live within communities (kunhiyop 2012). none live entirely by themselves. for africans, one could even say that existence is meaningless without the concept of community, as is highlighted by the common sayings ‘i am because we are, and since we are, therefore i am’ and ‘i am because we are related’ (kunhiyop 2012). kunhiyop (2012:145) moreover expands on pickel’s (1997) notion of social interaction by stating that the community is where you get your values and beliefs and your early training in life; the community is also where you establish the deepest and most enduring relationships in life. morgan and boyce-tillman (2016:5) write that community arts activity is not new and the church choir is perhaps one of the oldest examples of this. your community is the group of people from whom you derive your name and your identity as a person. in the community, you find a sense of purpose in life because you realise that you can help make it better. ife (2013:182) writes that good community development will bring people together and ensure that all community activities can enhance community-building, by seeking to involve people as much as possible, to increase their mutual dependence for the accomplishment of tasks and to provide opportunities for both formal and informal interaction. similarly, the church is a community, and the moravian church specifically, as are the different organisations associated with it such as the moravian bbsa and the mocusa that are integral to the moravian community, where members are initiated into a community of practice. both bbsa and mocusa are unions within the moravian church in south africa having a distinct uniform which can be regarded as a sign of cultural unity among its members. it is also within these groups that people develop their identity as moravians and a sense of belonging to a community of church musicians, connected to all other moravians. it is within this moravian community, where individuals derive their name as a christian and their identity as a child of god (kunhiyop 2012:145). zinzendorf was clear that it is very difficult to be ethical without a community, whether it is at the congregational level or in smaller groups, such as bands and choirs (freeman 1998:235). community makes possible the practice of a christian life that would be difficult otherwise. freeman (1998) writes that community consists of all those who join around the crucified saviour or who share a relationship of the heart with the saviour; however, community is also with the ‘family’ of god: father, son and mother. freeman (1998) maintains that though many of the moravians were involved in extended journeys and in continuous contacts with societies all over the world, behind their endeavours there was always the community to which they could return, and the mystical community in which they shared wherever they were. weinlick and frank’s (2010) study describes what the ground of the unity,1 states about the church as a community of service, in point 8 as stated below: jesus christ came not to be served but to serve. from this, his church receives its mission and its power for its service, to which each of its members is called. we believe that the lord has called us particularly to mission service among the peoples of the world. in this, and in all other forms of service both at home and abroad, to which the lord commits us, he expects us to confess him and witness to his love in unselfish service. (pp. 123–127) moravian hymnody as a community akrofi, smit and thorsén (2007:181) maintain that hymnody forms an essential part of the religious language and (self-) expression of most believers within the christian religion. according to akrofi et al. (2007) although most believers would seldom recognise it as such, hymns are not only about religious and theological expression. they (akrofi et al. 2007) believe that hymnody also forms an important part of the cultural identities, frames of (world) interpretation, ideologies, self-concepts, symbols, moral values and the collective cultural memory of believers or christians within a nation, which means that christians within all nations have certain hymnic and hymnological identities. akrofi et al. (2007:182) cite kück and kurzke (2003) by stating that hymns are symbols and cultural identities of churches and nations. in the context of this article, it is to be noted that the aforegoing descriptions of moravian hymnody revealed that they conform to specific conventions. to expand on the thesis of moravian as a community, the authors of this article, will use two hymns by way of illustration. these two moravian hymns are part of the worldwide moravian church, including south africa. these are hymn 833 and hymn 834 (laudate 1983). these hymns reflect history and heritage in the moravian community, that include the conventions of numbering hymns, established by grimm and gregor. laudate, hymn 833, a hymn of christian love, was composed by nicolas ludwig von zinzendorf (1700–1769) in german and the text was translated into english by frederick william foster (1760–1835). the text of the hymn is provided below: 1. christian hearts, in love united, seek alone in jesus rest; has he not your love excited? then let love inspire each breast. members on our head depending lights reflecting him, our sun, christians, his commands attending, we in him, our lord, are one. 2. come, then, come, o flock of jesus, covenant with him anew; unto him who conquered for us, pledge we love and service true; and should our love’s union holy firmly linked no more remain, wait ye at his footstool lowly, till he draw it close again. 3. grant, lord, that with thy direction, ‘love each other’, we comply. aiming with unfeigned affection thy love to exemplify, let our mutual love be glowing, so that all will plainly see that we, as on one stem growing, living branches are in thee. 4. o that such may be our union as thine with the father is, and not one of our communion e’er forsake the path of bliss; may our light shine forth with brightness, from thy light reflected, shine; thus the world will bear us witness, that we, lord, are truly thine. (laudate dominum 833) nicolas ludwig von zinzendorf (1700–1760) was born in dresden and raised by his grandmother, countess von gersdorf. he received his education at the halle paedogogium from 1710 to 1716 and later proceeded to study law at wittenberg. in 1722, he gave permission for exilees from moravia to settle on his estate at berthelsdorf. over time, he came to identify more and more with these exilees and in 1727 formulated the ‘brotherly agreement’ to create unity and to reconcile differences among them. in 1735, he was ordained a lutheran minister and was consecrated a bishop of the renewed moravian church in 1737. zinzendorf visited moravian communities around the world. he was a prolific scholar, authoring numerous texts, including sermons, bible commentaries and many hymns. it can be said that zinzendorf established the theology of the 18th century moravian church (reed knouse 2008:287). frederick william foster (1760–1835), an englishman, was the second son of william foster. frederick foster was born at bradford. he was educated at fulneck, which is close to leeds in england. he also attended educational institutions in europe, in barby in prussian saxony and held many positions in the moravian church. in 1818, he was consecrated a bishop of the moravian church. he is renowned for his compilation of the moravian hymn book of 1801, its supplement of 1808 and the revised edition of 1826. he translated texts from the original german into english and composed original hymns that appear in this collection (hymnary.org, n.d.). daniel ulster (1926–1986) was born in clarkson, a moravian station in the eastern cape, and was the son of the moravian minister, rev. h.s. ulster and brother of the moravian bishop, rt. rev. ulster. he first studied medicine at the university of cape town, but later changed courses to study for his bachelor of music degree. daniel ulster qualified as a teacher and lectured at battswood college and succeeded dr. r.e. van der ross as principal. he was the principal of bellville college until his passing. furthermore, he served as an organist and choir leader at wynberg moravian church and conducted the spes bona choir and orchestra in cape town (e. williams pers. comm., 25 june 2014). the south african moravian composer, dan ulster, composed a tune, tune 167 f (see figure 1), for hymn 833, based on the original text of zinzendorf. the original tune composed by zinzendorf can be found in figure 2. figure 1: tune 167f. figure 2: tune 167a. christian hearts, in love united: seek alone in jesus rest; has he not your love excited? then let love inspire each breast. members on our head depending lights reflecting him, our sun, christians, his commands attending, we in him, our lord, are one. (laudate dominum 833) laudate, hymn 834, was written by ludolf ernst schlicht and is sung to tune 39. the south african composer, jonathan lawack, composed a tune for hymn 834: 1. what brought us together, what joined our hearts? the pardon which jesus, our high priest, imparts; ‘tis this which cements the disciples of christ, who are into one by the spirit baptised. 2. is this our high calling, harmonious to dwell, and thus in sweet concert christ’s praises to tell, in peace and blessed union our moments to spend and live in communion with jesus our friend? 3. o yes, having found in the lord our delight, he is our chief object by day and by night; this knits us together; no longer we roam; we all have one father, and heav’n is our home. (laudate dominum 834) ludolf ernst schlicht (1714–1769) attended the theological seminary at jena and arrived in herrnhut in 1738, where he served using his musical gifts primarily for the young. he was officially inducted into the moravian church in 1739. he was the accompanist for worship and composed many anthems, cantatas as well as hymn texts. in 1742, he was ordained and served in several congregations in both england and ireland. it is most likely that schlicht was the editor of the 1746 english moravian hymnal. in 1753, he was called to bedford, england, where he translated the hymnal into english and the liturgy book into english (reed knouse 2008:282). following, is the hymn as composed by schlicht. jonathan lawack (1943–) a contemporary south african composer, also worked on the revision of the moravian hymnal in south africa. he began his teaching career at the moravian mission station, clarkson in 1968, where he was also the choral conductor. lawack had completed 2 years of teacher training at the oudtshoorn teachers training college where music was part of the curriculum. he has over 40 years of choir training experience especially in primary school choirs and senior moravian church choirs. after serving for 7 years as a teacher, he was promoted to the position of principal of a small moravian school at woodlands primary school, where according to the moravian tradition, music, and specifically the practise of gemeinmusik, formed an integral part of teaching and education. after his stint at woodlands, he went to teach at the moravian church school, dr a.w. habelgaarn primary school, in port elizabeth, which later became a government school. subsequently he returned to clarkson as a principal, where music remained at the forefront of teaching and the children’s choirs played an active role in religious activities such as at services and children’s festivals. according to lawack, senior choirs in the moravian church have long been central to church services and that was the way he was brought up and that was the way he started at the clarkson moravian mission station (j. lawack pers. comm., 09 july 2014). these practises mirror the traditions of the moravian church from its earliest beginnings to the present and reveal the connectedness of moravians. in the interview, lawack also retold an incident which had a profound influence on him. this incident occurred when lawack was in standard 9 (grade 11) at emil weder high school in genadendal. they practised under the baton of the late rev. john ulster (who later became a bishop of the church). lawack was part of the hostel moravian choir and they practiced in preparation for the inaugural service of the strand girls school when the lights suddenly went out and the reverend was playing at that time. lawack was so impressed by his ability just to keep on playing that he understood, at a tender age, that you need to know your work quite well to play like that. you need to read very well but you also need to know your music by heart and that has been part of his musical upbringing so to speak. to do well you need to practice and know your notes so that you can sing it by heart. this resonates with zinzendorf’s belief, as stated previously, that the congregation had to know the music by heart as it reflected their faith. lawack still believes in that and the incident made a huge impact on his upbringing as a music teacher. rev. ulster was one of the ministers in 1964 at genadendal and he was the head of the boys’ hostel and he assembled a choir from the girls’ and boys’ hostels, in preparation for the new strand school for girls. rev. ulster was a very accomplished organist and choir master. lawack regards rev. ulster to have been one of the best organists and conductors he has ever met. rev. ulster’s musicianship made a huge impact and impression on lawack as a musician and choir master (pers. comm. lawack, j. 09 july 2014). the new tune composed by lawack, as shown in figure 3, using the text from schlicht’s original hymn, as shown in figure 4, is presented here (laudate dominum 1983): figure 3: partnership hymn: what brought us together (hymn 834). figure 4: tune 39 a. what brought us together, what joined our hearts? the pardon which jesus, our highpriest, imparts: tis this which cements the disciples of christ, who are into one by the spirit baptized. text: ludolf ernst schlicht (1714–1769) the examples of hymns of two south african composers, ulster and lawack, are similar in musical style to the original versions of the hymn tunes. both daniel ulster (1926–1986) and jonathan lawack (1948–) also display the concept of community in its broadest sense in the moravian church music, in so far as they have used the original texts, which are familiar to moravians in south africa and globally. it is a moravian tradition not to compose new hymns tunes, and to use the original text; hence, the practise of the numbering of hymn tunes described previously. both composers were active in establishing the moravian hymnal of south africa, and as practising moravians would have been familiar with the tunes and traditions of this close-knit community of practising christians. dan ulster contributed to the laudate hymnal of 1983, while jonathan lawack was actively involved with the revisions of the tune book in 1997. the music of the moravian church in south africa has enabled the promotion and development of the moravian music culture. the moravian communities have been cultural spaces where moravian music and culture could be empowered and enhanced. culture is passed down from one generation to the next through various and ever-widening channels (kabagarama 1993:24). the moravian church music culture is passed down from one generation to the next in the congregational singing and the music unions of the moravian church in south africa, namely, the mocusa and the bbsa. it is for these platforms that the composers under discussion composed their music. moreover, both composers also attended moravian schools where they participated in the traditions of singing hymns and preparing for church festivals and music festivals. they also learnt to play instruments and studied music at either university or college. moravian music was furthermore entrenched when they themselves taught music at moravian schools. within the moravian tradition, music making is linked to worship. when someone learns to play a musical instrument, they do so to fulfil a duty for the church by playing for services and special occasions. in this way, moravians grow up with the rich treasure of moravian chorales and hymns as well as the norms and values of the moravian tradition. the music that is composed then becomes part of the ‘musicking’ of the moravian church in south africa. it can be said that the composers have composed their own cultural heritage. they are moreover linked to those who have gone before, in so far as they compose music for the general church year, for a four-part mixed choir to be accompanied by an organ (reed knouse 2008:97). an analysis of the hymns shows that they are composed in the same style as the earlier hymns. the harmonisations are of such a nature that the congregation can sing the hymns a cappella in harmony but also by being accompanied by the brass band or alternatively, the organ. the texts for the hymns are written in afrikaans, while the original text in german is acknowledged. the structure of the tunes is the same as that established by grimm and gregor. reed knouse (2008:51) affirms that moravian hymnody in other languages had specifically moravian roots in this german tradition. tunes with the same metrical structure are grouped together with the same number and distinguished from each other by an alphabet, as the examples in the article demonstrate. while neither of the south african composers discussed in this article composed many hymn texts, they did compose alternative hymn tunes as is the practice in the moravian church. however, an analysis and comparison of their hymn tunes with the original tunes, that are still sung globally with many different instrumental arrangements, provide evidence of stylistic difference in their compositions. the original hymn tunes are composed in a simple, folk-like style, with easily singable melodies with mostly stepwise intervals and in manageable vocal ranges, which are also easily remembered; it is the music of the people. the ability for congregations to remember the tunes is furthermore aided by the clear patterns of form, with repetitions of melody and harmony. both the original hymn tunes are 16 bars in length, with zinzendorf’s tune begins with a section of music (a) that is repeated (a); this is followed by a contrasting section of music (b) and then the first section is repeated (a); this can be shortened to aaba form. schlicht’s tune begins with a section of music (a) which is repeated; this is followed by a contrasting section (b), which in turn is followed by a completely different section, (c); this can be shortened as aabc form. dan ulster in his version of the tune, remains true to zinzendorf’s original tune. both hymns are in the same key and meter and the first seven notes of ulster’s tune are directly borrowed from zinzendorf, but with a different rhythmic pattern. like zinzendorf’s melody, his also has 16 bars and is also easily singable, in a folk style. ulster’s hymn contrasts with zinzendorf’s tune in that it is in aabc form. this form is also common in moravian hymns, as can be seen in the example from schlicht. in contrast to ulster, jonathan lawack’s hymn tune is in a completely different key and meter to the original tune although both hymns begin on an anacrusis to match the speech inflections and emphasis of speech patterns. while schlicht’s tune is in triple meter, lawack’s is in quadruple meter. the only similarity is that both utilise the same form. schlicht’s tune is in aabc form, and lawack’s tune is in a modified version, being in aa1bc form. the interview where lawack spoke about composing was reminiscent of one that defines composers and their craft. this is evident in lawack’s composition because in true moravian tradition he has used the original text, and while the melody follows a folk-like style, the range of his tune is very high. it appears to be more suited to a four-part choir, consisting of soprano, alto, tenor and bass (satb) or an instrumental ensemble or a combination of both and in the authors’ minds represents a composition for performance more so than for congregational singing. also, to be noted is the fact that lawack belongs to a generation different from ulster; lawack is part of the new generation of moravian composers, who having been initiated into and experienced moravian tradition throughout their lives since childhood, are creating an oeuvre of hymn tunes that can be viewed as independent from the early moravian tradition, while simultaneously paying homage to their rich tradition of hymnody. conclusion the two moravian hymns, under discussion, what brought us together? and christian hearts in love united speak about christian living in community here on the earth and in heaven. these moravian hymn texts speak to the heart of moravian theology and the tunes composed by the south african composers for these two hymns show the south african moravian hymnody identity that continues the moravian heritage of composing new tunes to existing texts. in this article, we see how these composers played active roles in developing the moravian hymnody heritage in their respective moravian communities and by their example have paved the path for other composers in the moravian community. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the suid-afrikaanse kerkorrel vereniging (sakov) and culture, art, tourism, hospitality and sport sector education and training authority (cathsseta) for financial support in conducting this study as they provided bursaries for the phd study on which the article is based. competing interests this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. authors’ contributions d.b. contributed 80% of the work. his supervisor for his doctoral study, a.c.v., contributed 20%. this study is based on d.b.’s phd thesis. ethical consideration h/13/art/mus-002. funding information sakov travel bursary was used to visit the moravian community in pennsylvania, usa, and the cathsseta doctoral bursary funded the doctoral study. data availability statement data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references akrofi, e., smit, m. & thorsén, s., (eds.), 2007, music & identity: transformation & negotiation, african sun media, stellenbosch. anon, 1983, laudate, s.n., genadendal. august, k.t. 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(ed.), 2008, the music of the moravian church in america, university of rochester press, rochester, ny. reichelt, g. & de schweinitz, b., 1886, ‘the literary works of the foreign missionaries of the moravian church’, transactions of the moravian historical society 2(9), 377–395, viewed 03 june 2019, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41179756 robinson, l.a., 2014, ‘new leaves on old trees: a synthesis of early american church music through contemporary composition’, unpublished thesis, south-eastern university, lakeland, fl. settari, o., 1984, jan amos comenius – a czech hymnographist, music theorist and educationist, viewed 01 june 2019, from digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/112230/h_musicologica_19-1984-1_10.pdf small, c., 1998, musicking: the meanings of performing and listening, wesleyan university press, hanover. traupman-carr, c., 2000, ‘pleasing for our use’: david tannenberg and the organs of the moravians, lehigh press, bethlehem. university of cambridge, n.d., department of archaeology, viewed 11 october 2018, from https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/abut-us/heritage weinlick, j., 2001, count zinzendorf. the story of his life and leadership in the renewed moravian church, the moravian church in north america, bethlehem, pa. weinlick, j. & frank, a., 2010, the moravian church through the ages: the story of a worldwide, pre-reformation protestant church, rev. edn., the moravian church in north america, bethlehem, pa. footnote 1. the ground of the unity is a moravian statement of faith approved at the general (unity) synod of 1957. abstract introduction epistemological orientation research method teaching practice assessment: a literature review discussion: towards a framework for a holistic assessment of teaching practice acknowledgements references footnotes about the author(s) nhlanhla mpofu teaching and learning centre, sol plaatje university, south africa mncedisi c. maphalala department of curriculum and instructional studies, university of zululand, south africa citation mpofu, n. & maphalala, m.c., 2018, ‘a comprehensive model for assessing student teachers’ professional competence through an integrated curriculum approach’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(2), a486. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i2.486 original research a comprehensive model for assessing student teachers’ professional competence through an integrated curriculum approach nhlanhla mpofu, mncedisi c. maphalala received: 06 oct. 2017; accepted: 15 may 2018; published: 20 sept. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the purpose of this concept study was to propose a comprehensive model for assessing student teachers’ competences in teaching practice. the study answered the following question: how can student teachers be holistically assessed for teaching practice using a comprehensive model? teaching practice is a crucial component of initial teacher education (ite) preparation programmes. however, while teaching practice is one of the most widely studied areas in ite, international studies indicate fragmented trajectories in the assessment of teaching practice. in addition, very few studies in south africa have reflected on how assessment is done for teaching practice during ite programmes. in most of these programmes, performance-based, observation-based, or on-demand assessments are given preference at the expense of others. against this background, this study was designed to produce a comprehensive model for assessment of teaching practice during initial teacher preparation from the available literature. epistemologically, the study was underpinned by social constructivism and theoretically supported by an integrated curriculum approach. the study followed a narrative literature review approach, focusing on studies that explored ways in which teaching practice is assessed in ite. from this analysis, the study provided a holistic and comprehensive model for assessing student teachers’ professional competences during teaching practice. introduction teaching practice is a critical component of initial teacher education (ite). according to leke-ateh, assan and debeila (2013:279), teaching practice is a key element of student teacher preparation and professional development. they further indicate that the other two central components are theoretical preparation consisting of various educational subjects and preparation (leke-ateh et al. 2013:279). teaching practice is one of the most widely studied areas in teacher education, but very few studies have focused on how it is assessed during student teachers’ formal education. this assessment is important as it is a process that uses diverse strategies to measure the students’ progress, skill competence and achievement (wei & pecheone 2010:69). despite the challenges experienced when designing teaching practice assessment, most researchers acknowledge its importance as a tool for developing professional competences. in fact, referring to south african distance education student teachers, aldridge, fraser and ntuli (2009) note that: the organisation of practice teaching for teacher trainees presents both logistical and educational difficulties. despite this, practice teaching is regarded as a pillar of teacher education as it provides opportunities for assessing both pre-service and in-service teachers in authentic environment. (p. 147) consequently, many researchers favour either observation-based performance, which is formative in nature, or on-demand performance, which is summative in application, for assessing teaching practice competences (wei & pecheone 2010:70). the call for quality teachers is a serious preoccupation in every country. darling-hammond (2010:1) argues that the public criticism of teachers has put enormous pressure on teacher education institutions to prepare their students better for the world of teaching. she maintains that any process to strengthen teacher education programmes must include a careful study of student teaching – this is a critical component as it determines a student teacher’s overall ability to be an effective teacher. in south africa, as in the rest of the world, the credibility of the assessment process used in teaching practice has been questioned with regard to its usefulness as a tool for professional development. in their study, wei and pecheone (2010:70) discovered that one of the difficulties inherent in this process is that it often leads to a subjective assessment, which allows incompetent student teachers to graduate into the teaching profession. while an assessment model for teaching practice is elusive in the literature, this is not the case with its definition. for example, kiggundu and nayimuli (2009) observe that in south africa: teaching practice is an important component of becoming a teacher. it grants student teachers experience in the actual teaching and learning environment … during teaching practice, a student teacher is given the opportunity to try the art of teaching before actually getting into the real world of the teaching profession. (p. 345) however, in this country, as in the rest of the world, there is no agreement in teacher education on what constitutes an effective measure of student teachers’ competences resulting from field experiences. darling-hammond and snyder (2000:523) note that most assessment tools are based on the belief that effective teachers possess universal traits, which include characteristics such as voice quality and a sense of humour. the authors observe that such qualities have become permanent items on student teacher assessment scales. for example, shulman (1987:2) identifies content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge, as well as practical knowledge, as important components of the knowledge base that underlies all teachers’ actions. by contrast, maphosa, shumba and shumba (2007:297) note that in the zimbabwean context, lesson planning and delivery are given prominence in assessment during teacher preparation. for their part, darling-hammond and snyder (2000) mention that student teachers’ competences for professional practices must be embedded in the curriculum through: … the actual knowledge, skills, and dispositions desired of teachers as they are used in teaching and learning contexts, rather than relying on more remote proxies; assessments require the integration of multiple kinds of knowledge and skill as they are used in multiple sources of evidence which are collected over time and in diverse context … evidence is evaluated by individuals with relevant expertise against criteria that matter for performance in the field. (p. 527) as can be deduced from the researchers above, the strategies for assessing teaching practice are contextualised to a particular university and locale. in addition, researchers such as ali and khalid (2015:424) and manzar-abbas and lu (2015:1) indicate that student teachers’ professional practices that favour only theoretical development without experiences from the actual classroom are incomplete. teaching practice provides an opportunity for student teachers to put into practice the theoretical knowledge they have studied in the different courses in their programmes. teaching practice is necessary to socialise student teachers to become effective practitioners (ulla 2016:236). through teaching practice, students are guided in context to understand various government and school policies, become involved in extracurricular activities, perform administrative duties pertinent to teaching (ulla 2016:236), develop human relations with colleagues and parents, and display professionalism in various contexts (ali & khalid 2015:424; avalos 2011:10). in addition, shulman (1987:10) states that teaching practice should expose student teachers to knowledge of educational contexts, ranging from the workings of the group or classroom, the governance and financing of school districts, and the character of communities and cultures to knowledge of educational ends, purposes and values, and their philosophical and historical grounds. for teaching practice to be effective, trumbull and lash (2013:2) and marais and meier (2004:220) argue that it should represent a range of experiences that are integrated in practice to improve the student teachers’ effectiveness as a facilitator of learning. in addition to integrating the student’s theoretical knowledge into authentic experiences during teaching practice, ali and khalid (2015:424) and mcardle (2010:60) point to the need for effective assessment strategies to be applied. in order for student teachers to use the assessment opportunities as a learning experience, manzar-abbas and lu (2015:2) note the need for the ‘integration and alignment of practicum with other components’ in the ite curriculum. when assessing the students during teaching practice, their mentors should provide them with an opportunity to reflect on their strengths and weakness through what avalos (2011:15) calls ‘workplace learning or the formal and informal processes that take place and are facilitated by schools’. the feedback that student teachers receive from assessment opportunities should guide them in constructing their professional knowledge and philosophy (ali & khalid 2015:424). owing to the nature of teaching as a multifaceted phenomenon, if only one type of assessment is used its effectiveness will be limited (le grange & beets 2005:115). accordingly, advocates of an integrated orientation to teaching practice assessment such as manzar-abbas and lu (2015:2), ali and khalid (2015:424), çimer (2011:161), avalos (2011:15), mcardle (2010:60), aldridge et al. (2009:147) and le grange and beets (2005:115) regard it as a pragmatic approach to developing students who are better prepared for the demands of the classroom. mapped against this background, this article argues that student teachers should be assessed both formatively (during student teaching) and summatively (at the conclusion of student teaching) in order to infuse the integrated curriculum they have gone through. le grange and beets (2005:116) state in this regard that ‘calls have been made for more authentic ways of assessing learning and for assessment to become integral to teaching and learning processes’. this symbiotic relationship is such that formative assessment serves to determine student teachers’ areas of strength and weakness to inform further development and to prepare them for summative assessment. student teachers should be exposed to the assessment criteria right from the beginning of their teaching practice, because they are critical to their success as their performance is judged on the basis of these criteria (mcardle 2010:60). this article therefore aims to provide a comprehensive model for assessing student teachers’ competences during teaching practice. the article is divided into four sections: firstly, the epistemological orientation that framed the study is discussed; secondly a descriptive literature review is undertaken to examine the teaching practice assessment strategies; thirdly, the methodological approach that is used in the study is explicated and, finally, a discussion that highlights the proposed model for assessing teaching practice and reaffirms the significance of the study is provided. epistemological orientation to account for what ball, thames and phelps (2008:403) refer to as the ‘natural messiness and variability of teaching and learning’, we embraced a social constructivist paradigm in this study. by embracing social constructivism, we sought to explore teaching practice as an individual, collaborative and situated process that ‘provides students with the necessary experience towards understanding the responsibilities of a teacher’ (ulla 2016:239). the social constructivist paradigm provided the perspective we required to understand assessment as ‘active and collaborative learning rather than isolated knowledge and skills’ (sardareh & saad 2012:345). this holistic approach guided us in appreciating teaching practice assessment as an active process that students use to construct professional knowledge from authentic experiences enculturated in both theoretical situations (university courses) and practical situations (school-based practicum). in summary, by holding to a social constructivist orientation, we acknowledge that teaching practice assessment is a holistic process that finds meaning in social engagement. this orientation allows the students to engage in different roles to develop professional competencies. with the epistemic worldview ensconced in social constructivism, we positioned this study in terms of the theoretical insights drawn from the integrated curriculum approach (ica). although the term ica has been a topical issue in education research since the 20th century, savas, senemoglu and kocabas (2012:2811) state that its definition is fiercely debated. in addition, fraser (2011:18) states that both the definition and implementation of ica ‘remain largely misunderstood due to the number of varying definitions available and the confusion between this approach and others’. however, most studies consulted seem to align their definition to that of beane (2016:x), who says that an ica refers to an emphasis on the connection of a variety of study areas achieved through diminishing disciplinary focus in favour of a unified learning and teaching trajectory. on the other hand, rheault and von oppell (2003:2) point out that the strength of ica is that in its ‘emphasis on real-life themes, contextual application of knowledge, and constructivist learning, the curriculum integration approach is particularly well suited to help students integrate learning experiences into their developing schemes of meaning’. from the above definitions, it would seem that the purpose of an ica is to facilitate learning by engaging students in an authentic, meaningful and relevant scholarship that combines both theory of education and experiential practices from the field (fraser 2011:18). the current popularity enjoyed by the ica in higher education comes from a realisation that real world problems are not fragmented into the disciplines taught in schools but need to find meaning in the holistic learning experiences embedded in an array of academic subjects (savas et al. 2012:2811). the reviewed literature proposes three approaches that researchers use to underpin the study of teaching practice assessment. these approaches are multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary (drake & burns 2004:ii). a multidisciplinary approach refers to a curriculum that develops connections in discipline-based themes within two or more subject areas (rheault & von oppell 2003:2). this means that a chosen theme is discussed at the same time across different disciplines. by contrast, an interdisciplinary approach ‘[provides] connections between subject matters … [although the] perceived value in the unique characteristics and distinctions among the various disciplines’ is maintained (lederman & niess 1997:281). the third approach, a transdisciplinary approach, unlike the two approaches just discussed, does not emphasise the themes to be taught but rather the students and how they can apply theory to real-life situations (drake & burns 2004:2). what this means is that student teachers do not use one specific theme or subject during teaching but draw from all available knowledge to achieve effective learning in any given context. based on the approaches to curriculum integration discussed above, ica may be summarised as a theoretical concept premised on contextual application and authentic and constructivist learning that instils a variety of disciplines in providing meaning to the learning experiences. although most studies favour one of the approaches as the theoretical foundation, the present study advocates a coherent structure that predicates teaching practice assessment as a three-part interconnected approach – that is, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary. such a holistic trajectory as the one we hold, seeks to underpin teaching practice assessment as ‘multidisciplinary (content), interdisciplinary (skills) [and] transdisciplinary (real-life contexts)’ (rheault & von oppell 2003:8). by holding to this view we sought to understand how student teachers could be holistically assessed for teaching practice using a comprehensive model. in the context of this study, we reviewed the available literature to identify assessment strategies that student teachers use and that embody the qualities of the three approaches to curriculum integration (savas et al. 2012:2811). for this reason, we highlight strategies in the reviewed literature that integrate constructivist and traditional methods of assessment in teaching practice. research method we followed a three-step process in collecting the studies we reviewed. firstly, we gathered a list of relevant literature that focused on teaching practice assessment and an ica using the google scholar, online-journals and ebscohost search engines. using the abstracts, we retained articles that were empirical and literature based and that emphasised strategies for assessing teaching practice, an integrated approach to teaching practice assessment and an ica in teacher education. fifteen articles resulted from our search. in each selected article we recorded the findings in terms of the type of assessment suggested and recorded them in two columns, formative and summative. our literature review was largely descriptive as we identified the suggested assessment strategies to underpin our model and answer our research question. teaching practice assessment: a literature review for two reasons aligned to the purpose of our study, the literature review we carried out was narrative and largely descriptive. firstly, the current literature on teaching practice assessment is fragmented into either formative or summative discussion with a paucity of studies that focus on an integrated approach (trumbull & lash 2013:2). as this was not the focus of this article, however, we do not discuss the formative versus summative debate but describe how each type of assessment contributes to the professional development of the student teacher. secondly, the narrative approach to the review directed our identification of the assessment strategies without individually illuminating any deficiency in the approach. this engagement was critical to our constructivist orientation as it guided us to understand each assessment strategy as discussed according to its pragmatic and experiential merits. from the literature review, we identified the different types of assessment that are used in different ite programmes to develop students’ teaching practices. we also recognised two approaches to teaching practice, namely formative and summative performance assessments. by focusing on both formative and summative performance assessment we sought to understand how student teachers integrate: … a variety of elements, including a vision of their teaching practice; understandings about teaching, learning, and children; dispositions about how to use this knowledge (e.g. inquiry as stance); practices that allow teachers to act on their intentions and beliefs (e.g. simulations, cooperative learning); and tools (conceptual and practical) that support their efforts and forefront the importance of considering learning in local and broader communities. (broad & evans 2006:18) formative performance assessments based on constructivist notions, researchers in teaching practice advocate formative assessment (avalos 2016:496; sardareh & saad 2012:343). formative assessment is continuously conducted to determine student teachers’ progress towards socialisation into the teaching profession (nicol & macfarlane-dick 2005:106). it is aimed at helping student teachers to monitor their progress towards achieving the teaching practice learning objectives. in fact, brown, bull and pendlebury (2013:4) refer to formative assessment as developmental, because it is ‘concerned with improving student learning and is founded on trust between the individual and the system of assessment’. this means that formative assessment provides clear and timely feedback that helps students take charge of their learning and knowledge progression. formative methods used for teaching practice include observation-based assessments, portfolios, self-reflection and student teachers’ portfolios of evidence. accordingly, formative assessment aligns theoretically with the notion of assessment for learning. in discussing assessment for learning, buck, trauth-nare and kaftan (2010:402) note that its potency lies largely in its ability to offer two pedagogical experiences, those of modelling and practice. accordingly, student teachers are expected to use the feedback they receive from assessment to self-regulate their practice and reflect on effective strategies for teaching and learning (avalos 2016:496; sardareh & saad 2012:343). reflective journals as an assessment tool for teaching practice, the keeping of reflection journals forms the last step in the three-part assessment for learning process. firstly, through modelling, the student observes the experienced teacher as she or he conducts the lesson in the classroom (kiggundu & nayimuli 2009:346). in this observer role, the student is tasked with assessing how an experienced teacher uses teaching and management styles in class for effective learning. avalos (2016:502) notes that it is in this community of practice that the student and the experienced teacher develop ‘a shared culture, in which teaching is reflected, interpreted and socially constructed’. in order to begin to understand their professional identity as teachers, girvan, conneely and tangney (2016:130) concur that student teachers require such self-regulated and transformative opportunities as are offered by assessment for learning. secondly, the student co-teaches with the mentor teacher, gradually developing knowledge and responsibilities until the student teacher gains confidence to handle lessons alone (diana 2014:77). this scaffolded process of learning to teach resonates with the constructivist orientation, which advocates for assessment as a developmental strategy (sardareh & saad 2012:345). to assess the knowledge that the student teacher has constructed through modelling and practice, a reflective journal is used. writing up these journals comprises an assignment in which students are asked, according to knapp (2012:323), to describe, compare and critically engage with aspects that they observed during a modelling or practice lesson. the inclusion of a reflective writing journal as an assessment tool has its roots in dewey (1933:9), who states that reflection practice is an ‘active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and further conclusions to which it tends’. in addition, schön (1983:16) defines a ‘reflective practitioner’ as someone who is able to consider his or her practice reflectively, not only before and after but also during the performance of that practice (reflection on action). reflection, whether a guided or free structure, provides an opportunity for students to reconstruct, review and reanalyse their philosophy as they meaningfully observe an experienced teacher in the act of practising the profession. knapp (2012) found in her study that through writing reflective journals, her students were able to illuminate their challenges, which ultimately improved their understanding of educational psychology concepts. both knapp’s (2012:323) and cohen-sayag and fischl’s (2012:2) findings emphasise the use of reflective journals as a tool for self-expression and critical thinking to enhance the practice of teaching. classroom-based observations classroom-based observations also form part of assessment for learning. this type of observation, whether conducted by the mentor, the university supervisor or the student teacher himor herself, is an important part of assessment for teaching. the new teacher project (2013:2) argues that classroom observations remain the most promising way to help teachers get regular, honest feedback on their teaching practice so as to improve in the classroom. classroom observation may be conducted in such a way as to serve the purposes of both formative and summative assessments. thus, the nature of observation depends upon its purpose. an observation conducted by the mentor teacher will be largely informal, formative and developmental in nature and will be aimed at providing the student teacher with feedback on his or her learning progress (feiman-nemser & carver 2012:342). to benefit the student teacher’s development here, mentor teachers should be thoroughly oriented on how to use an observation tool (darling-hammond 2012:100). on the other hand, an observation conducted by the university supervisor could be formative but would generally be formal and summative in nature. when an observation is summative it seeks to assess the student teacher’s overall performance; this will subsequently be presented in a formal report to determine whether the student teacher is competent or not yet competent. based on constructivist and integrated curriculum insights, observation should include a comprehensive assessment rubric. such a rubric will include criteria that will enhance the experience, such that the student teachers are able to use the rubric to highlight their strengths and weaknesses with a view to improving their practice. it is therefore important to use a standardised, reliable and valid assessment tool that will provide student teachers with meaningful feedback about their development (brown et al. 2013:4). on the other hand, some researchers indicate the importance of reflective practice in identifying the transformation in student teachers (cohen-sayag & fischl 2012:2). therefore, a good classroom assessment tool is one that integrates both the rubrics and self-reflection practices. from the tour d’horizon1 of the rubrics for assessing teaching practice, the following themes were found to be usually measured: content knowledge; student learning; implementation of instruction; lesson preparation and planning; classroom management; learning, teaching and support materials (ltsm); and professionalism. each of these aspects will be discussed in detail below. content knowledge is measured as a way of assessing whether the student teacher demonstrates mastery of the content of the subject that he or she teaches (wei & pecheone 2010:70). mastery of content alone is insufficient; the student teacher must be in a position to interpret that content and be able to share it meaningfully with the learners (darling-hammond 2012:180). in addition, student teachers should use relevant learning materials to make subject matter accessible to all the learners, taking into consideration their level of development, individual differences, their special needs and other factors that might have an impact on their learning. learner assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process, and therefore student teachers must be able to design and administer assessment tasks and strategies appropriate to the learning context and the area of specialisation (wei & pecheone 2010:70). the student teachers must also be able to monitor learning during the teaching process to ensure that leaners are progressing towards the achievement of the learning objectives and mastering the content. we understand this to mean that the student teachers’ ability to use assessment information for diagnostic and remedial purposes to promote learning is also developed. it is also essential that student teachers have the ability to provide the learners with useful feedback for their growth and development (maphosa et al. 2007:297). the effective implementation of instruction is also used in many rubrics to indicate the student teacher’s readiness for the profession. wei and pecheone (2010:70) note that teaching involves the use of various teaching methods, resources and learning activities that address the learners’ diverse needs to ensure that learning objectives are achieved. the student teachers’ ability to communicate effectively in relaying the subject matter to the learners is important, and the teaching and learning process should be differentiated through the use of teaching strategies that cater for learners’ diverse needs and abilities (cohen-sayag & fischl 2012:2; darling-hammond & snyder 2000:527). this means that learners should be engaged in problem-solving that involves discovery learning and critical thinking to ensure that learning is meaningful and takes into consideration learners’ contextual factors. this suggests that the content, materials, language and teaching strategies student teachers use must be appropriate for the learners’ developmental level (nicol & macfarlane-dick 2005:106). we understand this to mean that through classroom-based performance observation assessments, student teachers are engaged in a developmental process meant to build their skills and competences in teaching. a lesson plan is a roadmap that guides teachers in implementing the lesson. student teachers therefore must be in a position to demonstrate how their lesson will pan out in the classroom and indicate the lesson aims, the content learners are to be exposed to, as well as the teaching method, learning activities, resources and assessment activities to be used to shape learning (darling-hammond 2012:180). according to darling-hammond, newton and wei (2013:180), the lesson plan should also indicate how the teacher will stimulate learners’ interest and motivation during the teaching and learning process, as well as accommodate and support diverse learning needs. therefore, the student teachers’ lesson plan is assessed for the appropriateness of resources, activities, content, assessment activities and lesson objectives (wei & pecheone 2010:69). classroom climate is one of the most important predictors of learner achievement (thapa et al. 2013:358). no effective teaching and learning can take place in a chaotic and disruptive classroom environment. effective classroom management involves teachers being prepared for lessons, motivating learners, providing proper and effective discipline, making learners feel comfortable, building learners’ self-esteem and designing constructive and entertaining lesson plans (williams & williams 2011:2). for an effective teaching and learning process to take place, the student teachers must be assessed on their ability to create and maintain a learning environment that is favourable and supportive for all learners (wei & pecheone 2010:70). they should be able to apply various approaches to reinforce acceptable learner behaviour and to curtail non-compliance with the established classroom rules and procedures. this will be observable when learners follow classroom procedures and routines that support a productive learning environment for all learners. this means that in teaching practice, the student’s ability to allocate teaching time effectively and maintain an environment that promotes equity, fairness and respect among the learners should be assessed (williams & williams 2011:2). the learning environment has to be safe and be able to accommodate individual and group activities and the physical resources in the classroom should be placed in an orderly manner (thapa et al. 2013:358). learning, teaching and support materials (ltsm) refers to any object used to convey learning content, skills and values during the teaching–learning process. these are also known as teaching aids, teaching media or teaching resources. student teachers must therefore be assessed on their ability to incorporate learning materials to enhance the teaching and learning process. learning materials may also include electronic devices, chemicals, print materials, physical materials, books, equipment and stationery. research has shown that the use of ltsm stimulates learners’ interest, increases the enjoyment of the lesson and in the process enriches and enhances the learning process (stephens 2016:1). student teachers should demonstrate that they can use appropriate instructional materials, equipment and suchlike effectively to promote student learning. in addition, they should be able to use ltsm to cater for individual learning needs. it is important that teachers serve as role models to the learners by demonstrating professionalism in everything they do; hence student teachers should display ethical and professional behaviour at all times. this can be demonstrated in various ways such as having a good attitude towards the learners, punctuality, being prepared for all lessons, treating learners with respect, maintaining the dress code as directed by the school policy and respecting the rights of others and their diversity (wei & pecheone 2010:71). student teachers’ portfolio of evidence from the literature, it is apparent that student teachers’ portfolios of evidence are also a formative assessment strategy. as part of their practical learning, student teachers should compile a portfolio of evidence to be submitted to the university as part of both their formative and summative assessments (darling-hammond & snyder 2000:527). as an integrated assessment tool, the portfolio of evidence allows students to collect, construct and reflect on course materials that are later assessed by the lecturer against a set rubric. for example, wei and pecheone (2010) note that the portfolio collection can include school-based assignments, samples of lesson plans, assessment tools, self-reflective reports, artefacts, resources developed, scoring rubrics, the variety of teaching strategies used, involvement in extracurricular activities, strategies to cater for learner diversity, and parental involvement in students’ learning. weldeana and sbhatu (2017:181) note that the collection of artefacts reflects the practicum experience and also serves as a self-assessment tool for the student teacher. the evidence in the portfolio can be communicated to the wider school community and other stakeholders to assist in decision-making and accountability, the administration of resources, extraand co-curricular participation and human relations and can make a contribution to school development (wei & pecheone 2010:71). summative assessments the summative assessment provides an overall judgement of the student teachers’ achievement of teaching practice objectives. it is usually formal and occurs at or near the end of a teaching practice placement, where it sums up the student teachers’ performance. according to brown et al. (2013:4), the purpose of summative assessment is to judge the performance of the student in order to promote them to the next academic level or issue them with a competence certificate. the formative element of teaching practice assessment, on the other hand, provides evidence that the student teacher is either competent or not yet competent (nicol & macfarlane-dick 2005:107). summative assessment should take into consideration the portfolio of evidence generated by the student teacher over time and the final classroom observation conducted by the university supervisor. observation rubric observation rubrics come in different sizes and shapes but they should consist of specific pre-established performance criteria to determine and describe the student teachers’ performance accurately. the rubric should be short and simple. according to the new teacher project (2013:2), many observation rubrics are too long and complex to yield accurate ratings or useful feedback. the new teacher project further argues that when observers have too much to look for and think about in a short amount of time, observations start to resemble superficial checklists. box 1 is an example of a scoring guide that could be used: box 1: example of a scoring guide. over and above the use of an observation rubric to rate the student teachers’ performance, there should be a section in the assessment tool that provides detailed feedback to help student teachers address specific development areas. pre-observation and post-observation conferences for successful and meaningful classroom observation, supervisors should hold pre-observation and post-observation conferences. the pre-observation conference is aimed at calming the nerves of the student teachers and to make sure that they are aware of what is expected of them during the observation (ochieng’ong’ondo & borg 2011:510). the discussions may also involve, among other things, the aims of the lesson, what learners should be able to know and do by the end of the lesson, the teaching strategies to be used, the assessment of learners to determine whether lesson aims have been achieved and any other concerns that the student teacher would like to bring to the attention of the supervisor or observer. post-observation conferences are mainly meant for reflection by the student teachers on their performance and for the supervisor to provide feedback on his or her observations. the discussions should be concerned with what was achieved, what was not achieved and why; what did not go well and why; what could be done differently if the lesson were to be taught again; as well as strengths and weaknesses in general and areas for further development (ochieng’ong’ondo & borg 2011:510). discussion: towards a framework for a holistic assessment of teaching practice from the literature we reviewed we developed an integrated and comprehensive model for assessing student teachers’ practice, in view of the fact that many studies do not illuminate ‘a balanced and coherent assessment system – a component that has been somewhat eclipsed by the focus on assessment for accountability purposes’ (trumbull & lash 2013:2). teaching is a complex activity consisting of multiple dimensions (clarity, teachers’ interactions with students, organisation, enthusiasm, etc.). as such, overall ratings cannot adequately represent the integrative nature of teaching (darling-hammond et al. 2013:181). they may also be more susceptible to context, mood and other potential biases than are specific items that are more closely tied to actual teaching behaviours. consequently, no single criterion of effective teaching is sufficient, and tentative interpretations of relations with validity criteria and potential biases should be assessed critically in different contexts, in relation to multiple criteria of effective teaching, theory and existing knowledge (darling-hammond et al. 2013:181). teaching practice is an important component of the process of learning to teach, as it exposes student teachers to the real teaching and learning environment in which they can practise their teaching skills in preparation for the world of teaching. in order for them to become competent teachers they need to be exposed to a range of experiences in schools during their teaching practice. however, student teachers’ development must be monitored and assessed throughout the teaching practice session to ensure that they are on the right track towards becoming professional teachers. a comprehensive and credible assessment system is therefore essential to produce competent teachers (deering 2011:67). this study has therefore proposed a model that attempts to assess student teachers’ whole school experiences rather than focusing only on classroom practice. figure 1 provides the structure of the proposed model. figure 1: a suggested model for a holistic assessment of teaching practice. our proposed comprehensive model for teaching practice is premised on assessment as an integrated, idiosyncratic and collaborative process. as an integrated process, teaching practice will include the assessment of content, professional and policy knowledge. from the model, assessment, whether formative or summative, includes knowledge of assessing student learning; the implementation of teaching; lesson planning; classroom management; use of teaching resources; content; and self-reflection for both formative and summative purposes. according to wei & pecheone (2010:71-180) and darling-hammond et al. (2013), the critical component in integrating knowledge during teaching practice assessment is progression. this means that student teachers should be guided by, for example reflective practices as formative assessment tools to identify gaps in their teaching knowledge. through problem-solving, the student teachers reconstruct their orientation to teaching and learning into effective professional philosophies. the feedback from this formative assessment should be used during the summative phase of the observation to check for the development of competences. because this process-based approach is not fragmented, the assessment is self-regulated, sustained and coherent for developing each student teacher through exposure to professional experiences. through this model, we are making a strong case for assessment to be an idiosyncratic process. as an idiosyncratic process, teaching practice assessment is unique, peculiar and particular. this is because, according to darling-hammond et al. (2009:10), ‘teachers themselves judge professional development to be most valuable when it provides opportunities to do “hands-on” work that builds their knowledge of academic content and how to teach it to their students’. what this quote suggests is that rather than being viewed as evidence of deficit, teaching practice assessment should be viewed as an opportunity for active learning. from the model, we propose active learning through aspects such as class observation that include modelling and practice as tools by which student teachers receive hands-on experience. through these hands-on opportunities, the student teachers are guided to professional noticing. professional noticing is the awareness that student teachers hold from observing the teaching and learning environment and reflecting on what, how and why they do what they are doing (mason 2011:36). we suggest that though modelling (avalos 2016:497; girvan et al. 2016:130), practice (diana 2014:77; feiman-nemser & carver 2012:342; knapp 2012:323) and reflection (cohen-sayag & fischl 2012:2; knapp 2012:323), the student teachers are guided to effective teaching and learning practices. what this suggests is that assessment should offer opportunities for collaborative assessment opportunities. a comprehensive assessment model for teaching practice is collaborative in nature. hill et al. (2010:10) state that ‘teachers develop expertise not as isolated individuals but through job-embedded professional development, and as members of collaborative, interdisciplinary teams with common goals for student learning’. teaching practice assessment is an aspect of learning to teach that can benefit from communities of practices. by incorporating self-reflection and classroom-based observation in our model, we embrace assessment opportunities that include self-reporting, peer-reporting and mentor-rating. this collaborative assessment process requires restructuring in terms of who gets to report and rate the student teacher’s competence development. as teachers, we understand the reassurance that results from having assessment opportunities that require critical examination but are self-regulated and peer observed before being rated by a mentor. this is what schön (1983:16) calls the process of reflection in action and reflection on action. the balanced assessment that results from a collaborative process is critical as a source for the student teachers’ personal developmental plan for improving teaching competences (trumbull & lash 2013:2). in summary, our proposed comprehensive model for teaching practice assessment provides the student teachers with evidence for monitoring their professional competencies. the model highlights the need for feedback from others (peers and mentors) as an important assessment for and of learning in teaching practice. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions n.m. conducted data collection by reviewing existing literature on teaching practice assessment. m.c.m. conceptualised the article. references aldridge, j., fraser, b. & ntuli, s., 2009, ‘utilising learning environment assessments to improve teaching practices among in-service teachers undertaking a 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h.n. & sbhatu, d.b., 2017, ‘portfolio of evidence: an assessment tool in promoting geometry achievement among teacher education college students’, eurasia journal of mathematics, science and technology education 13(6), 1981–2004. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.01210a williams, k.c. & williams, c.c., 2011, ‘five key ingredients for improving student motivation’, research in higher education journal 12, 1–18. footnotes 1. general survey. abstract introduction literature review methodology results discussion implications of results for policy and practice study limitations conclusion future research required acknowledgements references about the author(s) marcia magagula faculty of management sciences, durban university of technology, south africa robert w.d. zondo faculty of management sciences, durban university of technology, south africa citation magagula, m. & zondo, r.w.d., 2018, ‘uncovering the strengths and weaknesses of outsourcing core business deliverables: the case of selected state-owned enterprises in south africa’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a475. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.475 original research uncovering the strengths and weaknesses of outsourcing core business deliverables: the case of selected state-owned enterprises in south africa marcia magagula, robert w.d. zondo received: 19 sept. 2017; accepted: 10 may 2018; published: 26 july 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: the outsourcing phenomenon is one of the extensive areas of business in the world. it is a practice among both private and public organisations and an important element in business strategy. consequently, the execution of maintenance and repairs of equipment are core business deliverables of the power plant maintenance (ppm) department of the selected state-owned enterprise (soe). whilst internal employees normally perform such functions, the ppm department outsources them to external service providers. objective: this study explored the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables. method: the study was conducted in the ppm department of the selected soe. of the 152 individuals located across eight of the provinces in south africa, identified for participation in the study, 135 participated. it was cross-sectional in nature and included participants from the management of the ppm department as well as its technical officials. descriptive, correlation and regression analysis were used to test the three objectives, namely to assess the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables, to establish the effect of outsourcing core business deliverables on business performance and to examine the risks of outsourcing core business deliverables. results: outsourcing core business deliverables provide flexibility to the ppm department by enabling it to meet unexpected demands. however, it results in the leaking of confidential information to external service providers. conclusion: organisations that decide to outsource, must consider the benefits and risks carefully and take measures to mitigate the related risks. introduction outsourcing of core business deliverables has been proven to cut costs, reduce errors and improve productivity (dhall 2013). on the contrary, relph and parker (2014) argue that focusing on controlling cost may result in losing sight of considerations and benefits such as network relationships or anticipating risks. the net result may be the opposite of what is intended, namely attracting additional costs associated with loss of agility and flexibility to meet market dynamics. according to sani, dezdar and ainin (2013), outsourcing is the strategy where management utilises a special outsourcing supplier; thus establishing a strategic alliances in an attempt to reduce costs and risks as well as improve efficiency. dinu (2015) explains that organisations that choose to outsource, should consider the benefits and risks very carefully. it should take measures to mitigate the related risks and communicate the benefits of outsourcing to their personnel. outsourcing decisions were originally limited to production that had a modest technological content and was of marginal importance to the organisation (michela & carlotta 2011). however, these decisions are increasingly adopted for the deliverables that require core competencies. a growing number of organisations have outsourced production and manufacturing deliverables of all types to the external providers not only to reduce production costs, but to make their organisational structures more streamlined and flexible (michela & carlotta 2011). in the investment fraternity, for instance, discretionary fund managers (dfm) are contracted to provide the same expertise as internal financial advisors (fas) (lowe 2012). the risks may prevail and the business could be lost where the services provided are outsourced, as clients could opt to effectively cut them (the fas) out to deal directly with the dfm. khatik and khanooja (2013) state that outsourcing may result in the loss of control or the loss of core competence and a power shift to the supplier. nonetheless, the purpose of outsourcing is to take advantage of service provider expertise in non-core activity with economies of scale to enable organisations to reduce their expenses and to provide better quality of services to their clients. hence, this study assesses the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables in a selected state-owned enterprise (soe) in south africa. it examines the effect of outsourcing core business deliverables on business performance and establishes the risks associated with the outsourcing of core business deliverables. literature review this section presents the challenges of managing core business deliverables, the effects of outsourcing on business performance as well as the risks of outsourcing. challenges of managing core business deliverables the core business comprises the deliverables and services deemed fundamental to continued existence of an organisation (broady-preston & swain 2012). according to contractor et al. (2010), the characteristics of core deliverables include those elements that are of high strategic value to the organisation, are the sources of competitiveness and are impossible to separate from the value chain. shaabani, ahmadi and yazdani (2012) explain that the ability of managers to identify and exploit core competencies of the organisation has an influence on excellence. by contrast, organisations have different types of resources that enable them to develop different strategies. they can have a distinctive advantage when they develop strategies that their competitors are unable to imitate. lamminmaki (2011) suggests that managers should consciously develop their core competencies to strategically block competitors and avoid outsourcing these or giving suppliers access to the knowledge base or the skills critical to the core competencies. maelah et al. (2010) propose that hotels, for instance, should only outsource deliverables such as cleaning, laundry and housekeeping that are not core, as this would ensure that they remain in control of their core business. in addition, sani et al. (2013) explain that hotels engage in outsourcing of core as well as non-core business to cope with the competitive environment. however, there are concerns about losing control over the outsourced functions where the functions are totally transferred to external vendors. consequently, pouder, cantrell and daly (2011) suggest that, although attention has been on outsourcing as a means for an organisation to focus on its core competencies and are the most compelling reasons for strategically motivated outsourcing, empirical studies have not examined how it affects organisational performance. effects of outsourcing on business performance outsourcing is a known practice among both private and public organisations and is an important element in business strategy (dinu 2015). when an organisation desires to focus its resources on fundamental capabilities, it takes the decision to outsource some of its services that are not core to the business. bertrand (2011) provides a positive correlation between outsourcing and the overall business deliverables. he explains that outsourcing enables the organisations to become more flexible in adjusting production to fluctuations in market demand and to unforeseen changes. however, elmuti, grunewald and abebe (2010) report that the outsourcing process usually results in the loss of productivity. such productivity loss can exacerbate an already unacceptable performance level and inspire additional outsourcing. michela and carlotta (2011) claim that an outsourcing strategy has a number of advantages, including quality improvement, a greater focus on managing other core competencies, a greater flexibility and leverage regarding resources, along with the possibility of entering new markets, even ones that have a high rate of development. in addition, callahan, smith and spencer (2013) explain that outsourcing improves an organisation’s responsiveness. this results to the availability of higher quality goods and services by creating competition among suppliers. it can expand the organisation’s capacities when it does not possess all the necessary resources and competencies. dorasamy et al. (2010) add that an organisation may be able to save resources for other purposes by outsourcing certain deliverables to third parties. this enables an organisation to build its resources and maximise revenue. the results of a study by thakur (2010), which examined the movement of processes and outsourcing of core deliverables in the pharmaceutical industry, suggest that performance does improve with the outsourcing of core business deliverables. however, dinu (2015) warns that organisations that decide to outsource, must consider the benefits and risks very carefully and take measures to mitigate the related risks. hence, this study examines the risks associated with outsourcing of core business deliverables. the risks of outsourcing given the benefits that an organisation can realise from its outsourcing engagements, ravi and ramachandran (2011) emphasise the importance of management in understanding the various risks the organisation is exposed to when engaging in outsourcing. salanta, lungescu and pampa (2011) add that a serious threat does emerge in the long term where an organisation will not have the capacity to perform the functions they have been outsourcing for a long time. they explain that, over the course of time, it has been demonstrated that many organisations lose their valuable expertise because of outsourcing. this makes the outsourcing contract extremely challenging to terminate in case of either party being discontented. salanta et al. (2011) identified five additional risks to outsourcing, namely staff pinching, shirking, opportunistic renegotiation, insufficient personnel and poaching. dorasamy et al. (2010) also identified the perceived risk factors such as changes in supplier circumstances, the supplier failure and the loss of confidential information. they indicate that any sensitive information is more vulnerable and an organisation may become dependent on the outsourced providers. this could lead to problems if the outsourced providers back out of their contract unexpectedly. furthermore, maelah et al. (2010) are of the view that the decision to hand over functions to external vendors lead to risks, including the loss of managerial control as well as the risks regarding security (particularly, in areas concerning data confidentiality). they outline that it is more challenging to manage outside service providers than managing one’s own employees, working possibly in the same building. according to ravi and ramachandran (2011), outsourcing is an inevitable and critical aspect of financial institutions’ survival in a rapidly changing business environment. hence, it is important that management understands the various risks of outsourcing. they also indicate that for the banking and financial services’ organisations, outsourcing brings an additional set of risks related to regulatory violations and subsequent legal obligations, including the reputational risk. subsequently, salanta et al. (2011) outline the variety of risks in four major categories as shown in box 1. box 1: the risk categories of outsourcing. resulting from the large number of challenges and threats that organisations must consider before and after an outsourcing decision saltana et al. (2011) point out that the methods, of alleviating outsourcing-related risks must be explored. hence, this study is designed along the following research questions: what are the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables in the selected soe in south africa? what effect does the outsourcing of core business deliverables have on business performance? what are the risks associated with the outsourcing of core business deliverables? methodology the method used in this research will be discussed under the following headings, namely research design and approach, the target population, sample size, data collection as well as the measurement and analysis. research design and approach this study was quantitative in nature. bryman and bell (2007) explain that the quantitative approach involves the use of statistical procedures to analyse the data collected. consequently, after the measurements of the relevant variables, the scores were transformed using statistical methods. the study was also conclusive in design. conclusive studies are meant to provide information that is useful in decision-making (yin 2008). target population the power plant maintenance (ppm) department of the selected soe of south africa participated in the study. the target population for this study comprised 152 permanent employees of the department. the study was cross-sectional in nature and comprised ppm employees ranging from top, middle to lower levels. table 1 presents the distribution of respondents as per their job designation. table 1: distribution of respondents by job designation. table 1 shows that the senior technical officials are in the majority, followed by procurement senior advisors and the principal technical officials with 37 and 36 employees respectively. the lowest number of employees (as per job designation) was from the plant performance managers and finance practitioners with six and two employees respectively. the employees were located in eight different provinces of the selected soe of south africa. these include north west, northern cape, western cape, kwazulu-natal, free state, limpopo, mpumalanga and gauteng. sample size of the 152 permanent employees identified for participation, 135 participated in the study. this sample size was represented by individuals from the ppm department of the selected soe across eight provinces of south africa. table 2 shows the sample size per job designation. table 2: sample size by job designation. from table 2, the senior technical officials, procurement advisors and principal technical officials had more representation with 26.6%, 25.9% and 23.7% respectively. the senior supervisors, plant performance managers and finance practitioners had the least representation with 5.2%, 4.4% and 1.6% respectively. data collection the collection of data from the employees of the ppm department of the selected soe in south africa was achieved by sending the questionnaires through electronic mail. similarly, the completed questionnaires were returned to the researcher via electronic mail. one hundred and thirty-five questionnaires were returned which represent 88.8% response rate. it is considered high compared with the norm for survey responses (baruch & holtom 2008). main reasons for this high response rate were the invitation letter sent to the participants and consistent follow-up of the questionnaires through telephone calls. measurement and data analysis in line with research framework, the study measured 18 variables using the questionnaire. it employed a likert scale, ranging from one (strongly agree) to five (strongly disagree). descriptive, correlation and regression analyses were used to test the following three objectives: factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables: five items are listed in the questionnaire as the factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables as discussed by broady-preston and swain (2012); shaabani et al. (2012); lamminmaki (2011). these include the following: core deliverables of the department are functions that should not be executed by external service providers; internal employees conducting core deliverables do not give external service providers access to core competencies in the department; managers consciously develop their core competencies; keeping core business deliverables in-house is for the departments’ competitive advantage; and outsourcing of core business deliverables is effective when given to a host service provider. the effect of outsourcing core business deliverables to business performance: these variables were also measured by six items and were based on the effects of outsourcing core deliverables to business performance (bertrand 2011; dinu 2015; michela & carlotta 2011; thakur 2010). these include the following: the enhancing effect of outsourcing the repairs and maintenance of power plant equipment on the skills level of internal employees; outsourcing as practice that saves management time in decision-making; external service providers offer in-depth expertise that is not found in the department; the external providers’ expertise helps the department to perform the deliverables more effectively than in-house; outsourcing provides flexibility to the department by enabling it to meet unexpected demand; and the outsourcing activity provides competencies for the department by utilising outside expertise. the risks of outsourcing core business deliverables: the variables were measured by seven items and were based on the risks of outsourcing core business deliverables (dorasamy et al. 2010; ravi & ramachandran 2011; salanta et al. 2011). these include the following: the fact that business suffers when external service providers are entrusted with the execution of core business deliverables; the department loses control when it outsources deliverables; it is more challenging to manage outside service providers than one’s own employees working in the same building; the decisions on handing over the deliverables to the external service provider result in the loss of management control; the department is careful not to delegate work relating to core competencies when deciding to outsource; the loss of core deliverables is encountered when the department is involved in outsourcing; and the leak of confidential information is acceptable when external service providers execute core business deliverables. the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) version 23.0 was used to analyse the data. results contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables this section presents the results on the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables. the participants of the ppm department believe the institution has contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables. critical factors, as presented in table 3, include the following: internal employees conducting core deliverables do not give external service providers access to core competencies in the department at 56.3%, and managers consciously develop their core competencies at 73.3%. these factors have a bigger percentage of above 50%. the next section determines whether the frequency of outsourcing core business deliverables per month influences the contributing factors for outsourcing. table 3: contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables. frequency of outsourcing core deliverables the regression analysis was conducted to test the relationship between the frequency of outsourcing core business deliverables in the ppm department per month and the contributing factors of outsourcing. the analysis is defined as a set of statistical processes for estimating the relationships among variables (silbiger 2005). it helps to understand how the typical value of the dependent variable changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while the other independent variables are held fixed. the regression test result in table 4 shows a p-value of 0.898 which is above the critical value of 0.05. the result reveals that there is no statistically significant relationship between the frequency of outsourcing core business deliverables in the department per month and the contributing factors influencing outsourcing. these two variables are independent of each other. table 4: frequency of outsourcing core business deliverables in the power plant maintenance department per month. effects of outsourcing core business deliverables this section presents the results of participants’ perceptions about the effects of outsourcing core business deliverables on business performance. results in table 5 shows that the majority of participants do not believe that outsourcing core business deliverables have an effect on business performance. the only factor that has a bigger percentage of above 50% indicates that outsourcing provides flexibility to the department by enabling it to meet unexpected demands. table 5: effects of outsourcing core business deliverables on business performance. risk of outsourcing core business deliverables table 6 presents the results of participants’ perceptions about the risk of outsourcing core business deliverables. table 6: risk of outsourcing core business deliverables. participants believe that there are risks associated with outsourcing core business deliverables. critical factors include issues relating to the challenges of managing outside service providers rather than internal employees, the leak of confidential information when the external service providers execute core business deliverables, the department being careful not to delegate work relating to core competencies when deciding to outsource and the loss of core deliverables being encountered when the department is involved in outsourcing. these factors have bigger percentages of above 50%. they range from 53.3% to 60.8%. exploring the factors, effects and risks of outsourcing core business deliverables this section presents the results of the bivariate pearson’s correlation analysis. the analysis examined the strength of the identified association between variables (dawson 2009). it can reveal the significance of the correlation; if significant, whether it is positive or negative (i.e. the direction of the correlation) as well as the strength of the correlation. for this study, the correlation analyses have to determine any significant relationship between the following variables: factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables; the effects of outsourcing core business deliverables on business performance; the risk of outsourcing core business deliverables. table 7 presents the results of the bivariate pearson’s correlation analysis on the factors, the effects and the risks of outsourcing core business deliverables. table 7: pearson’s correlation on the factors, the effects and the risks of outsourcing. the following is a brief interpretation of the correlation results as presented in table 7: the variables relating to the risks of outsourcing core business deliverables and the effects of outsourcing on business performance have a p-value of 0.003 which is p < 0.05. they have a statistically significant correlation between them. the negative sign of the correlation coefficient in −0.264 indicates that the risk of outsourcing can be reduced by the effectiveness of outsourcing deliverables on business performance. the variables relating to the risks of outsourcing core business deliverables and the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables, have a p-value of 0.001 which is p < 0.05. they have a statistically significant correlation between them. the positive sign of the correlation coefficient in 0.038 indicates that the risk of outsourcing core business deliverables can increase (or decrease) in relation with the corresponding degree of the contributing factors influencing outsourcing. the variables relating to the effects of outsourcing on business performance and the contributing factors, influencing outsourcing core business deliverables, have a p-value of 0.038 which is p < 0.05. they have a statistically significant correlation between them. the negative sign of the correlation coefficient in −0.184 indicates that the effectiveness of outsourcing is increased with the minimal contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables. discussion the study investigated the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables in the ppm department of a selected soe in south africa. this was achieved by conducting a cross-sectional study involving 135 participants from different levels of the ppm department. results indicate that the soe managers should consciously develop their core competencies before they decide to outsource. however, salanta et al. (2011) indicate that outsourcing has serious threats that emerge in the long term where an organisation will not have the capacity to perform the functions they have been outsourcing for a long time. in this case, the company lose control over the outsourced functions where the functions are totally transferred to external vendors. although the results indicate that there are contributing factors for outsourcing core business deliverables, relph and parker (2014) argue that there is a need for commercial caution when evaluating the benefits of outsourcing. organisations should determine the total cost function of outsourcing. on the contrary, the results indicate that outsourcing the maintenance and repairs of equipment in the ppm department has a positive effect on the performance of the business. it provides flexibility by enabling the department to meet the unexpected demands. consequently, michela and carlotta (2011) explain that an outsourcing strategy has a number of advantages including quality improvement, a greater focus on managing other core competencies, a greater flexibility and leverage regarding resources, along with the possibility of entering new markets. however, the results indicate that there are significant risks in outsourcing core deliverables. this includes the loss of core deliverables to external providers as well as the risk of disclosing confidential information. hence, dinu (2015) warns that organisations that decide to outsource must consider the benefits and risks very carefully and take measures to mitigate the related risks. implications of results for policy and practice during the course of the study, many issues relating to the contributing factors, influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables, were presented. hence, the following recommendations can be made: organisations that decide to outsource must consider the benefits and risks carefully and take measures to mitigate the related risks. outsourcing can expand the organisation’s capacities when it does not possess all the necessary resources and competencies. managers should consciously develop core competencies and utilise the internal employee skills that are critical for their business’s competitive advantage. study limitations the study was limited to the ppm department of the selected soe in south africa. hence, the results can be applied to similar activities in other soes in south africa. conclusion there are minimal effects on the performance of business as a result of outsourcing the maintenance and repairs of the power plant equipment. it provides flexibility to the department by enabling it to meet unexpected demands. however, the business loses valuable expertise because of outsourcing. therefore, factors such as the loss of core deliverables and the leak of confidential information are the risks that managers should take into account when deciding to outsource. future research required based on the results of this study, further 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ainin, a., 2013, ‘outsourcing patterns among malaysian hotels’, international journal of business and social science 4(9), 63–74. shaabani, e., ahmadi, h. & yazdani, h., 2012, ‘do interactions among elements of knowledge management lead to acquiring core competencies?’, business strategy series 13(6), 307–322. https://doi.org/10.1108/17515631211286164 silbiger, s., 2005, the 10-day mba: a step-by-step guide to mastering the skills taught in top business schools, piatkus, london. thakur, p., 2010, ‘offshoring and outsourcing of core corporate activities: the global relocation of pharmaceutical industry clinical trials’, phd thesis, rutgers, the state university of new jersey, newark, nj. yin, r.k., 2008, handbook of applied research, sage, thousand oaks, ca. abstract introduction problem statement conceptual-theoretical framework empirical investigation results and findings discussion concluding remarks acknowledgements references about the author(s) betty breed department of computer science education, north-west university, south africa roxanne bailey department of computer science education, north-west university, south africa citation breed, b. & bailey, r., 2018, ‘the influence of a metacognitive approach to cooperative pair problem-solving on self-direction in learning’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a516. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.516 original research the influence of a metacognitive approach to cooperative pair problem-solving on self-direction in learning betty breed, roxanne bailey received: 03 nov. 2017; accepted: 05 apr. 2018; published: 11 june 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract preparing students for self-directed learning has become an obligation of 21st century educational institutions. this study focused on developing students’ metacognitive awareness during cooperative pair problem-solving, with the aim of enhancing their levels of self-directed learning. the research involved a class of 33 second-year computer applications technology education students in a semester module. quantitative data related to the students’ levels of self-directed learning and metacognitive awareness were gathered in a pre-test using williamson’s self-rating scale of self-directed learning and an adapted version of schraw and dennison’s metacognitive awareness inventory, respectively. during the semester, the students implemented a set of metacognitive self-questions when doing cooperative pair problem-solving tasks. at the end of the semester, the same two questionnaires were used in a post-test. the results showed that students’ metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control had increased, with both statistical and practical significance, especially with respect to procedural knowledge, planning and monitoring. the results further showed that the self-directed learning of students who initially scored moderate or low levels of self-directed learning had increased, with both statistical and practical significance in most areas of self-directed learning. seven randomly-selected participants were then individually interviewed to collect qualitative data about their experiences and views of using the metacognitive self-questions during problem-solving in cooperative pairs, and how this influenced their self-directedness in learning. the results for the qualitative data correspond with what was found with the quantitative data. based on these findings, we conclude that the use of the metacognitive self-questions during cooperative pair problem-solving positively influenced the students’ levels of self-directed learning. introduction contemporary educational institutions need to equip students with appropriate competencies and skills that will enable them to succeed in a world characterised by rapid development and changes in technology, practices and careers (francom 2010; guglielmino 2013; rashid & asghar 2016). traditionally, formal education could provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to do their jobs and practise their careers for a long period of time (oswald 2003). however, the modern technologically complex information age necessitates an ability to continuously update one’s own knowledge and skills in order to keep up with development. this requirement of lifelong learning makes it essential that ‘people must be able to adapt to current societal changes and be able to self-direct the process of developing their own knowledge and skills’ (oswald 2003:6). problem statement for the contemporary student, mere acquisition of specific content knowledge while enrolled at an educational institution is not enough (francom 2010). educators have the obligation to support students to develop skills that will enable them to effectively adapt to changes, stay up to date and develop into self-directed, lifelong learners (guglielmino 2013). the growing need to equip students with the skills to engage in self-directed learning (sdl) necessitates that educators explicitly attend to fostering these skills. educators can foster sdl through instruction that provides students with opportunities to develop and improve their ability to direct their own learning (oswald 2003; song & bank 2016). dynan, cate and rhee (2008) adjudge sdl as necessary to develop students into lifelong learners. according to guglielmino (2013), educators’ contribution to promoting sdl includes implementation of teaching and learning strategies that are conducive to development of the skills and attitudes required for moving towards sdl. francom (2010) agrees that implementation of purposeful teaching and learning activities can promote development of students’ self-direction in learning. teaching and learning activities aimed at development of sdl skills may contribute to students’ success in their current as well as their future learning (kan’an & osman 2015). the primary components of sdl include, among other things, metacognition (long & associates 2000) and effective cooperation with other individuals in a group (donaghy 2005). although the outcomes of their research were not related to students’ levels of sdl, but rather to mathematics achievement, the extended research of kramarski (2004), kramarski (2008), mevarech and fridkin (2006) and hogan et al. (2015) underscores the positive influence of purposeful development of metacognitive skills in problem-solving contexts, which is important for the context of this study. similar positive outcomes were reached with the research of kramarski (2004) and bernard and bachu (2015) relating to metacognitive instruction while students were working in groups. conscious application of metacognitive strategies during cooperative problem-solving evokes consideration and comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of different problem-solving strategies (kramarski, mevarech & arami 2002). it must be noted that the ability to choose and implement appropriate learning strategies or, as in this case, problem-solving strategies is one of the characteristic features of the self-directed learner (williamson 2007). the importance of educators implementing teaching and learning strategies that promote metacognitive development in collaborative learning environments is also emphasised by researchers, such as bernard and bachu (2015) and williams and upchurch (2001) in their research involving students who were solving problems by programming in pairs. joseph (2009) specifically recommends development of metacognitive thinking strategies during collaborative problem-solving. research on explicit metacognitive support and development when students are working in groups generally reports positive results in terms of academic achievement, but there seems to be a lack of research specifically on the influence of a teaching and learning strategy that promotes a metacognitive approach to pair problem-solving (pps) on students’ levels of sdl. the purpose of the research, which this article reports on, was to explore the influence of a metacognitive approach to pps on students’ levels of sdl. the research question was ‘how are students’ levels of sdl influenced by using metacognitive self-questions (msqs) when solving problems in cooperative pairs?’ the article is structured as follows. initially, an overview is given of the conceptual-theoretical framework on which the empirical investigation was based. thereafter, the methodology that was employed is discussed, findings are considered and recommendations are made. the article concludes with some final comments. conceptual-theoretical framework the aim of education should not only be to increase students’ knowledge of specific subject content, but also to support them in developing skills that might be beneficial beyond the specific course content (dynan et al. 2008). the information explosion of the last few decades has caused a significant change in the process of learning, in the sense that special learning skills are needed to adapt to and survive the loads of available information (saks & leijen 2014). for students to be academically and otherwise successful to their fullest potential, it has become essential that they engage in sdl (kan’an & osman 2015). self-directed learning the increased focus on sdl has led to extensive consideration of the concept since the 1970s (gassner 2009; saks & leijen 2014). song and hill (2007) point out that two schools of thought have developed over time: one focusing on the process of sdl (harrison 1978; knowles 1975; mocker & spear 1982; oswald 2003) and the other focusing on the characteristics of self-directed learners (garrison 1997; guglielmino 1978; kasworm 1988). brockett and hiemstra (1991) distinguish between ‘self-directed learning’ as the instructional process and ‘learner self-direction’ as the characteristics of the learner. they suggest that ‘self-direction in learning’ includes both the external characteristics of the instructional process and the internal characteristics of the learner (brockett & hiemstra 1991). based on the different perspectives of sdl, a number of definitions have emerged, which have been influenced by various aspects (dehnad et al. 2014). self-directed learning has been viewed from the context of educational settings, workforce productivity or learning in the broader society (bolhuis 2003). for example, from the viewpoint of sdl as a process, knowles (1975) indicates that sdl occurs when individuals take initiative and responsibility – individually or in collaboration with others – identifying learning needs, formulating learning goals, finding appropriate learning resources, implementing appropriate strategies to reach their goals and evaluating the outcomes of the process. by contrast, as an example of the viewpoint of sdl as a set of personal attributes, guglielmino (1978) lists the characteristics of a self-directed learner as the following: initiative, independence and persistence in learning; the ability to accept responsibility for own learning and to view problems as challenges, not as obstacles; self-discipline and curiosity; a desire to learn, and self-confidence; the ability to manage own learning; enjoyment of learning and goal orientation. more recently, saks and leijen (2014:198) succinctly described a sdl as being ‘able to decide what needs to be learned next and how his learning is best accomplished’. commonalities in the different perspectives of sdl are that a self-directed learner takes initiative in the learning experience, accepts responsibility for formulating and achieving learning goals, has the ability to identify appropriate resources and learning strategies, learns independently, learns from and with others and regulates their own learning. these commonalities are encompassed in the view of sdl recognised in this article. one’s propensity to grow into a sdl largely depends on intrinsic motivation, that is, the ability to perform tasks for your own sake and because you enjoy doing so (guglielmino 2013). the ability to self-direct one’s learning is present in each person to some degree (guglielmino 1978), but students differ in their levels of intrinsic motivation (cherry 2017), and therefore also in their levels of sdl (kan’an & osman 2015). intrinsic motivation is the basis of self-determination theory (gagné & deci 2005). self-determination theory (deci & ryan 2002; wehmeyer et al. 2017) suggests that individuals have the innate and universal need for competence, connectedness (relatedness) and autonomy. self-directed learning affords one opportunity to gain mastery of tasks and learn new skills (competence), to interact with others and feel accepted and connected (relatedness) and to experience the feeling of being in control of one’s own goals, decisions, choices and actions (autonomy) (guglielmino 2013). when individuals experience a sense of competence, connectedness and autonomy, they become intrinsically motivated to engage in activities that foster personal growth (cherry 2017). however, such growth requires continuous sustenance, where social support is a key aspect (deci & ryan 2002). educators’ involvement in encouraging and intentionally developing their students’ sdl skills, and in sustaining their students’ personal growth, is of utmost importance. learning activities that promote the development of sdl skills may be to the benefit of students to be successful in their current and future learning (kan’an & osman 2015). according to gureckis and markant (2012), people tend to be more successful learners when they control the learning process themselves, which means that they have the ability to self-direct their learning. educational scholarship has shown that educators can promote development of sdl skills and independent learning through purposeful implementation of relevant activities and strategies in teaching and learning (francom 2010; thornton 2010). such activities and strategies include, among other things, problem-solving and application of metacognitive strategies (havenga et al. 2013). a metacognitive approach enables students to manage their learning, which leads them to become responsible and independent learners (schraw & dennison 1994), that is, more self-directed learners. development of metacognitive awareness and skills becoming a self-directed learner necessitates a metacognitive awareness (ma) of one’s own learning processes (gassner 2009). metacognitive awareness involves knowledge of how one constructs knowledge and develops understanding, knowledge of various learning strategies, knowledge of the demands of different learning tasks and the skills to plan, monitor and evaluate one’s own learning (anderson & nashon 2007). a lack of ma and skills makes it difficult to independently take control of and manage one’s own learning, that is, to move towards sdl. supporting students to become successful self-directed learners may thus be enhanced through stimulating their metacognitive development (cotterall & murray 2009). application of metacognitive skills can change a routine learning process into a learning experience, and it is therefore considered to be important for lifelong learning in all ages and phases of life (eldar & miedijensky 2015; moseley et al. 2005). most students need to be taught and encouraged to develop metacognitive skills (joseph 2009). it seems that most students are ignorant about metacognition and are not involved in metacognitive thinking, unless they are encouraged to do so through appropriate teaching and learning activities (bransford, brown & cocking 2000; gezer-templeton et al. 2017). metacognition may automatically increase with age, but appropriate learning opportunities can accelerate metacognitive development and enhance subsequent learning (tan, biswas & schwartz 2006). educators have a responsibility to help their students develop metacognitive skills and apply them in appropriate learning situations (peters 2000). to the extent to which students make progress in using metacognitive skills, their ability to work and learn in a constructivist perspective increases. their ability to evaluate their own knowledge construction increases and becomes steady, leading to a greater degree of independence in learning and problem-solving (peters 2000). promotion of metacognition in the classroom starts by making students aware of what metacognition and its contribution to academic success are (schraw 2001). students who know the benefits of metacognitive strategies and how to apply them display a greater ability to transfer knowledge and skills acquired in other learning situations (bannert, hildebrand & mengelkamp 2009). students’ personal awareness of the available learning strategies and the conditions under which these strategies are applied differ (anderson & nashon 2007). a variety of learning strategies should therefore be presented and discussed, and students should then be guided to construct explicit knowledge about how, when and where to use the strategies (ormand 2011; schraw 2001; schraw & gutierrez 2015; wilson & johnson 2000). finally, provision must be made for students to apply and practise these new skills (ormand 2011). the metacognitive skills needed to carry out sdl activities include planning, monitoring and evaluating (van merriënboer & sluijsmans 2009). planning involves setting goals and selecting appropriate strategies to attain these goals, monitoring involves keeping track of one’s progress towards attaining the set goals and evaluating involves assessment of both the product and the process, and the extent to which the goals have been achieved (van merriënboer & sluijsmans 2009). as such, students take responsibility over the whole learning cycle, which should contribute to increasing their levels of sdl. self-directed learning and cooperative pair problem-solving since the first introduction of the concept of sdl, researchers and authors have addressed the role of collaboration in sdl. knowles (1975) opined that sdl can occur successfully with or without peer or facilitator collaboration, which was supported by the instructional model of long (1989), who viewed collaboration during sdl as possible but not necessary. other, and especially more recent, literature regards collaboration as essential in sdl, for example, brockett and hiemstra (1991), garrison (1997), oswald (2003) and strods (2010). silén and uhlin (2008) suggest that students, in their development towards higher levels of sdl, need to collaborate with and get feedback from their educators, while peers can be regarded as resources, models and guides for self-direction in learning (lee et al. 2014; oswald 2003). supporting students to become successful self-directed learners may thus be enhanced by implementing collaborative learning activities (peters & gray 2005; strods 2010). cooperative pps, a form of collaboration implemented in this research, is grounded on the principles of pair programming (pp) (williams & upchurch 2001), with incorporation of the five basic elements of cooperative learning (johnson & johnson 2013). a social-constructivist context is created, where learning occurs as a result of the interaction between the two members of the pair working together at the same computer to solve a problem. in the research that this article reports on, the problem-solving involved advanced competence in using microsoft excel. with pps (as in this research), each group member fulfils a specific role. the driver is actively involved in typing the solution on the computer (nicolescu & plummer 2003; salleh, mendes & grundy 2012), while the navigator is responsible for guiding the problem-solving process, by suggesting strategies, consulting resources, observing the driver’s work and making proposals to improve the solution (berenson et al. 2004; salleh et al. 2012). regular switching of roles ensures that both students get the opportunity to develop the different skills. in cooperative pps, the notion of social interdependence is strengthened by incorporating the five basic elements generally acknowledged as being essential for cooperative learning to be effective, as proposed by johnson and johnson (2013). the elements are: positive interdependence (group members perceive that no one can succeed unless every other member of the group succeeds), individual accountability (every group member’s individual responsibility to successfully complete their own share of the group activity), promotive face-to-face interaction (group members encourage and facilitate each other’s efforts to achieve the goals), appropriate social skills (active listening, conflict management, good communication, leadership, decision-making and trust building) and group processing (self-evaluation of group members’ cooperation, and how well they have achieved their goals). mentz, van der walt and goosen (2008) were the first to introduce inclusion of cooperative learning principles in pp – a strategy that proved to increase the success of pp considerably. cooperative pps not only affords students’ opportunity to learn from one another but may also promote students’ needs in terms of self-determination theory, as embodied in sdl. fostering of positive interdependence among group members addresses the need for connectedness (relatedness); fostering individual accountability addresses the need for autonomy; doing group processing to evaluate and realise one’s success addresses the need for competence. empirical investigation research design following a pragmatic approach, both quantitative and qualitative methods were implemented. according to ivankova, creswell and plano clark (2007), a pragmatic approach aims at better understanding of different aspects of the same problem. the quantitative part of the research entailed a one-group pre-test–post-test experiment (babbie 2007; leedy & ormrod 2005) to determine how students’ levels of sdl and ma were influenced by implementation of a set of msqs when doing cooperative pps tasks. a basic qualitative approach (merriam 2009) was followed in the qualitative part of the research, which entailed individual interviews related to the students’ experiences and views of using the msqs during problem-solving in cooperative pairs, and how it influenced their self-directedness in learning. participants the research involved a class of second-year south african students (n = 33) who were being trained as secondary level computer applications technology (cat) teachers. this sample was purposeful and convenient, because one of the authors was the lecturer for the specific module where the intervention was implemented. preand post-test questionnaires related to both sdl and ma were completed by 29 students, of which 25 were female students and four were male students, all in the age group of 20–21 years. four students missed either the preor post-test and were therefore not considered in the data analyses. the participants were from different race groups, with only one not having full command of the language of teaching and learning, but she was accommodated through provision of translation into english. intervention the overall approach of the lecturer in this module over one semester was implementation of cooperative pps. at the start of every cooperative pps session, the students were randomly divided into pairs. if an uneven number of students attended class, one of them worked individually. when doing cooperative pps tasks, the lecturer also included the use of msqs to prompt students to move beyond mere cognition. these questions were provided in electronic format as a checklist and had to be attended to cooperatively in each of the three phases (planning, practical implementation and evaluation) of the task. in the planning phase, while analysing the problem and designing a solution, the pair had to answer questions that were intended to direct their metacognitive activities in this phase, for example, ‘do we understand exactly what outcomes we have to reach with the solution of this problem?’ and ‘do we know strategies/procedures that are appropriate to solve this problem?’ during the practical implementation of their planned solution, the pair had to answer msqs such as ‘do we continuously ensure that we understand what we are doing?’, ‘do we think about how each step fits into what has already been done and what needs to be done next?’ and ‘do we monitor the progress made with the practical implementation?’ examples of msqs that the pair had to answer in the evaluation phase of the problem-solving process include ‘have we thought about whether the best possible strategies/procedures were used to solve the problem?’ and ‘did we check if the expected outcomes had been reached?’ data collection and instrumentation for the pre-test and the post-test of the quantitative data collection, williamson’s (2007) self-rating scale of self-directed learning (srssdl) and an adapted version of schraw and dennison’s (1994) metacognitive awareness inventory (mai) were used. williamson’s (2007) self-rating scale of self-directed learning williamson (2007) developed the srssdl for use in higher education to assess sdl behaviour as an indication of the level of self-directedness in learning. the questionnaire consists of 60 items, which are categorised into the five broad areas (constructs) of sdl, namely awareness (of factors contributing to becoming a self-directed learner), learning strategies (which need to be adopted to become self-directed in learning), learning activities (which one needs to engage in to become self-directed in learning), evaluation (which is needed to monitor own learning) and interpersonal skills (which are prerequisites to becoming a self-directed learner). each area includes 12 items. responses are rated on a five-point likert scale, where 1 represents ‘never’, and 5 represents ‘always’. the maximum possible total for the questionnaire is 300. individual scores from 60 to 140 represent a low (l) level of sdl, scores from 141 to 220 represent a moderate (m) level and scores from 221 to 300 represent a high (h) level (williamson 2007). the reliability of the questionnaire as a whole, as well as the five categories, was confirmed by acceptable cronbach’s alpha coefficient values (williamson 2007). the questionnaire is used frequently in sdl research in south africa. the validity of the questionnaire for the south african context has been established by researchers such as golightly and brockett (2010). in this research, the reliability of the questionnaire confirms the reliability of williamson’s (2007) srssdl. adapted version of schraw and dennison’s (1994) metacognitive awareness inventory the purpose of this questionnaire was to determine the participants’ self-reported ma, and it was based on schraw and dennison’s (1994) mai. the questionnaire was adapted to make it relevant for pps. in accordance with the mai, the questionnaire used in this research also consisted of 52 items, which were divided into two main components, with eight categories (constructs). the main component metacognitive knowledge includes the categories declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge. the main component metacognitive control includes the categories planning, information management strategies, monitoring, debugging strategies and evaluation. responses were rated on a six-point likert scale, where 1 represents ‘not at all true of me’, and 6 represents ‘always true of me’. the cronbach’s alpha values for these categories were all higher than 0.7, thus confirming the reliability of the categories for the specific population. at the end of the intervention period, seven randomlyselected participants were individually interviewed on their views and experiences of using msqs during problem-solving in cooperative pairs. the first question of the interview had five sub-questions focusing on the abilities of a self-directed learner, according to knowles’ (1975) definition of sdl. the question that the participants were to respond to was ‘how did implementation of the pps and the msqs in this class influence your ability to: identify your own learning needs (what you want or need to learn)? explain your answer. formulate your own learning goals? explain your answer. identify human and material resources for learning? explain your answer. choose and implement appropriate learning strategies? explain your answer. evaluate the extent to which you have reached the learning goals that you formulated for yourself? explain your answer’. the second interview question focused on the use of the msq, ‘please describe your experience of using the msqs during your cooperative pps activities in this class’. data-processing procedures processing of the quantitative data included, firstly, statistical techniques and methods to determine the reliability of all constructs in the two questionnaires, by computing the cronbach’s alpha values (anastasi 1988), as reported in the previous section. paired-samples t-tests were performed to determine statistically-significant (p) and practically-significant differences (d) between the categories of the questionnaires. a basic qualitative analysis approach was followed in the analysis of the qualitative data. transcription of the individual interviews was followed by utilising the computer software atlas.ti to identify relevant segments of text. these segments were linked to codes, categories and themes that emerged from the data. identification of the themes was guided by the literature and the theoretical framework used in this article. reliability of the processes was ascertained by having transcripts checked for correctness, and codes, categories and themes cross-checked by another expert in the field of study. ethical considerations ethical clearance for the larger sdl project, of which this research is part, was obtained from the relevant research ethics committee. informed consent was obtained from the students, and they were informed that they had the right not to complete the questionnaires or to participate in the individual interviews, without incurring any consequences. however, all the students experienced the intervention, as this intervention was the lecturer’s chosen teaching-learning strategy. the participants were assured that all data would be treated confidentially. data collection occurred during class time, which did not cause inconvenience to the participants. results and findings to explore the findings that address the aim of the research, results and findings will be reported under three main headings. students’ levels of metacognitive awareness before and after the intervention table 1 illustrates the results from both the pre-test and the post-test of the mai. table 1: metacognitive awareness inventory – pre-test and post-test. from table 1, it is evident that students’ metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control had increased with both statistical and practical significance. regarding the specific constructs, one sees a large practically significant change in the procedural knowledge, planning and monitoring constructs, although all other constructs had a medium practically significant difference, except for debugging (which had a small practically significant difference). it is reasonable to conclude that the intervention made a difference to students’ ma. it is not surprising that students excelled in the planning and monitoring constructs, as these activities had been deliberately stimulated in class. the lecturer required students to actively plan their solutions and afterwards complete the msqs that required them to deliberately evaluate their solutions. one could speculate that it is because of the deliberate focus on metacognition that students’ monitoring increased significantly, possibly because of the msqs becoming an instinctive activity, rather than a deliberate conscious activity. a more detailed discussion of these results is presented in the ‘discussion’ section. students’ self-directedness before and after the intervention to establish students’ levels of self-directedness in learning, the srssdl was implemented before and after the intervention. table 2 illustrates the results from the pre-test and the post-test for the srssdl. table 2: self-rating scale of self-directed learning – pre-test and post-test. from table 2, it is evident that no statistically-significant differences were observed, and only small practically significant differences were observed. as the srssdl total did not present a large practically-significant difference between the pre-test and the post-test for the whole group, we differentiated the results by dividing the results into two groups, based on participants’ individual scores. group 1 was the participants with individual scores between 60 and 220, while group 2 was the participants with individual scores between 221 and 300. table 3 presents the results for group 1, and table 4 presents the results for group 2. table 3: self-rating scale of self-directed learning – pre-test and post-test (group 1). table 4: self-rating scale of self-directed learning – pre-test and post-test (group 2). from table 3, it is evident that students who scored 220 or lower in the pre-test of the srssdl showed improvement in self-directedness, as is evident from the medium and large practically significant differences observed in four of the five constructs. the practically significant difference (d = 1.20) for the srssdl total needs to be noted. the learning activities and evaluation constructs show the largest differences. a statistically significant difference is observed for the evaluation construct. table 4 shows that the students who had scored higher than 220 in the pre-test of the srssdl did not show a significant increase in self-directedness. this is, however, not of concern, as it is more advantageous to increase the self-directedness of students who have lower levels of sdl. however, a medium practically significant difference is observed in the interpersonal skills construct. the quantitative findings reported in these two sections clearly indicate that students in this research showed an increase in metacognition, as well as in some of the broad areas of sdl. the following section will report on the qualitative findings from the individual interviews with the students. students’ experience of metacognitive self-questions during pair problem-solving to understand students’ experience of the msqs used during pps, seven randomly-selected students were asked to participate in semi-structured individual interviews at the end of the module. participants 1 and 4 were male students and the other five were female students. in this section, the results from these interviews are reported on. the seven interviewees are indicated with p1, p2, et cetera. from table 5, it is evident that three main themes emerged: cooperative learning, sdl and metacognition. in this article, we report only on the sdl and metacognition aspects, although it is clear that the intervention also influenced the students’ view of cooperative learning. table 5: codes, categories and themes identified from students’ semi-structured interviews. self-directed learning several students commented on how the msqs used in the pps had become a useful resource and that they enjoyed this way of learning (the pps). for instance, one student stated: ‘i really enjoyed the cat [module] this year […] i would not change anything’ (p1, male, 21 years old). another student commented on the fact that they understood the work better, which shows that they had experienced learning success: ‘at the end the exam was much easier than the previous times, not because the work was easier, but because i understood the work better’ (p3, female, 20 years old). students also expressed their enhanced motivation for learning in terms of aspects such as interest, enjoyment and goal setting. one of the primary aspects of sdl is taking responsibility for your own learning. the majority of students mentioned how they had learnt to take responsibility for their own learning: ‘[…] if you did not know something yesterday, and you show up the next day and you still do not know, they [the person you are working with] will notice that you are not putting in an effort, or you are not interested’. (p1, male, 21 years old) another student stated: ‘you feel responsible for the other person’s marks’ (p7, female, 20 years old), which indicates that marks are still a driving force for learning. although it may seem that fear of low achievement could be driving these students, it is still evident that they are encouraged to take more responsibility for their own learning. these findings from the individual interviews indicate how use of msqs influenced the students’ self-directedness in learning in terms of use of resources, experiencing learning success, motivation and taking responsibility for learning. these findings are related to the findings derived from the srssdl. being more motivated (which includes interest, enjoyment and goal setting) and taking more responsibility for own learning (which includes individual responsibility and positive interdependence) are related to one’s awareness of factors contributing to sdl. likewise, identification of appropriate resources and the activities resulting in learning success are related to learning strategies that need to be adopted to become self-directed in learning. metacognition as this investigation deliberately focused on fostering metacognition by implementing metacognitive self-questioning in pps, students were specifically asked to comment on their experience of the msqs. the majority of students stated that they found the msqs valuable. for instance, one student was elated when asked about the value of the msqs: ‘oh yes, it [the metacognitive self-questions] really helped a lot, to see what i did and what i didn’t do, and if i had forgotten something, to look at that next time’. (p6, female, 20 years old) another positive prospect noted by several students was the fact that the msqs can be applied in other modules too – this leads to knowledge transfer: ‘[…] it really is something that you can use in all the modules. now i have a template of it [the metacognitive self-questions], so i will definitely use it in my other modules too’. (p2, female, 21 years old) critical thinking skills require a strong sense of metacognition. it was therefore not surprising that student’s made mention of aspects related to critical thinking: ‘[…] there were a lot of things that i did not know before that i [now] learnt from other ways of thinking’ (p4, male, 20 years old). although metacognition was deliberately implemented, some students stated that they felt that the msqs had become an automatic venture: ‘[…] now and then you think “what now?” again, and then you quickly have a look [at the metacognitive self-questions], so it sinks in, but i think it is because of the repetition’. (p3, female, 20 years old) these findings from the individual interviews indicate how the use of msqs influenced the students’ ma in terms of transfer of knowledge and skills, critical thinking and automatic implementation of a metacognitive approach to learning. greater ability to transfer knowledge and skills and to think critically relates to enhanced procedural knowledge, planning and monitoring, which were the constructs of the mai that yielded significant differences. negative experiences as with all teaching strategies, students did not all have positive experiences throughout the whole module. the most frequently cited negative experience was centred on the fact that students wanted to work on the computers themselves, and not alternately with the other member of the pair. it needs to be emphasised though that no negative experience related to the msqs was cited. discussion the rationale for implementing the specific teaching-learning strategy that this article reports on is based on empirical evidence of the role of metacognition in problem-solving (christoph 2006; havenga 2015; joseph 2009) and sdl (cotterall & murray 2009; gassner 2009; long & associates 2000), as well as the role of cooperative learning in sdl (breed 2016; mentz & van zyl 2016; oswald 2003; strods 2010). this research aimed to explore the influence of using msqs during pps on students’ levels of sdl. what was observed was that the use of msqs not only positively influenced the ma of the whole group, but it also positively influenced the self-directedness in learning of students who initially scored low or moderate levels of sdl, as defined by williamson (2007). the findings of this research provide evidence that the use of msqs during pps firstly enhanced the students’ ma. both statistically significant and large practically significant differences were found, specifically regarding procedural knowledge, strategies related to planning and monitoring and metacognitive control in general. although there is a lack of evidence specifically on the influence of using msqs during pps in excel on students’ levels of sdl, the findings of this research are in line with previous research on metacognitive teaching–learning approaches in problem-solving contexts, for example, in mathematics (e.g. gama 2004; kramarski 2008; mevarech & fridkin 2006), which produced evidence of improvement of ma and skills, which, in turn, may lead to higher levels of sdl (gassner 2009). the research again underscored the fact that most students need to be purposefully taught and encouraged to develop metacognitive skills (joseph 2009), as was performed through the specific teaching–learning strategy implemented in this research. according to kramarski et al. (2002), purposeful development of metacognitive skills when students are working in groups promotes identification of different appropriate strategies to solve a problem, comparison of different strategies and analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy. these were the activities expected of the two members during pps in excel. during this research, it became evident that students who initially scored low or moderate levels of sdl benefited the most from using msqs during pps, thus corroborating the finding of shannon (2008) that students can become successful self-directed learners if their metacognitive development is stimulated. the quantitative results show medium and large practically significant differences in students’ awareness of factors contributing to becoming self-directed in learning, learning strategies that need to be adopted, learning activities that one needs to engage in and evaluation that is needed for monitoring own learning. these students’ learning motivation increased because of the teaching–learning strategy that stimulated their interest in and their enjoyment of working in pairs. this finding is in line with the research of liebenberg, mentz and breed (2012), who also found that working in pairs increased enjoyment of a task. using msqs as a resource also required on the part of the students that they set their own learning goals, which, along with their increased motivation, positively influenced their levels of taking responsibility for own and others’ learning and their awareness of factors contributing to becoming self-directed in learning. an important finding emanating from the interviews is the students’ experience of learning success because of the use of msqs, their involvement in selecting appropriate strategies to solve problems and their feeling of better understanding. the use of msqs influenced their realisation that being self-directed in learning requires engagement in specific learning activities. the most important outcome of using msqs is probably development of students’ ability to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning. using msqs during pps required of the students to plan a solution for a problem, to monitor the implementation and progress thereof and to evaluate the product and process. this continuous reflection on students’ cognitive processes during problem-solving may have instilled a disposition focused on reflection and monitoring of their learning processing, which is reflected by the statistically significant and large practically significant difference yielded by the evaluation construct of the srssdl. the teaching–learning strategy implemented during this research afforded students the opportunity to grow in their sense of self-determination. using msqs during pps created opportunities for relatedness (interacting with another student in a pair and feeling connected through mutual responsibility), autonomy (having to set own goals, make decisions and choices and take actions during problem-solving) and competence (mastering tasks and new skills, such as the ability to monitor own learning). concluding remarks this research aimed to determine the influence of using a set of msqs during pps on students’ levels of sdl. from the results, it seems that this approach to problem-solving in excel contributed to improvement of the students’ ma in general, but specifically in terms of procedural knowledge, planning and monitoring. most importantly, both quantitative and qualitative results reflected that the approach positively influenced the levels of sdl of those students who initially scored moderate or low levels of self-directedness in learning. these students showed an improvement in their awareness of factors that contribute to sdl, learning strategies that need to be adopted to become a self-directed learner, learning activities that one needs to be engaged in and the skills students need to be able to evaluate and monitor their learning process and progress. being self-directed in learning, and possessing the associated skills and attributes, is essential for the contemporary student to be able to cope in a world that changes at an exponential rate. this research suggests that sdl in educational contexts can be promoted through a combination of metacognitive approaches and cooperative learning teaching–learning strategies, such as pps. it is, however, important that cooperative activities incorporate the five elements of positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, appropriate social skills and group processing. acknowledgements competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions r.b. was responsible for implementation of the teaching strategy, data collection and analysis, report of results and critical reading of the article. b.b. was 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acknowledgements references about the author(s) thabiso muswede department of media, communication and information studies, university of limpopo, south africa cornelis j. roelofse department of criminology and criminal justice, university of limpopo, south africa citation muswede, t. & roelofse, c.j., 2018, ‘drug use and postgraduate students’ career prospects: implications for career counselling intervention strategies’, the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa 14(1), a523. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v14i1.523 original research drug use and postgraduate students’ career prospects: implications for career counselling intervention strategies thabiso muswede, cornelis j. roelofse received: 09 nov. 2017; accepted: 31 july 2018; published: 03 dec. 2018 copyright: © 2018. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract the study investigates the effect of drug use on postgraduate students’ career prospects by exploring associated risks of drug use and subsequent implications for career counselling intervention strategies within a university context. students’ awareness of the psychosocial and health risks of drug use, knowledge and use of existing drug intervention services as well as behavioural impediments to their career prospects are assessed. an exploratory design within the qualitative approach was adopted involving in-depth interviews with professional informants and drug users within the postgraduate student cohort. interpretive phenomenological analysis was applied for the synthesis and formulation of discursive themes. the article notes that denial and lack of coping strategies, improper personal conduct and unresponsive behaviour; poor academic performance and incriminating personal profiles were major potential impediments to postgraduate students’ career prospects. it was further noted that the current interventions’ continued use of scare tactics and information-based programmes needed to undergo a systematic evaluation. the article calls for more inclusive intervention strategies based on the life skills approach to address poor social coping strategies, mundane decision-making, low self-esteem and weak peer pressure resistance mechanisms to enhance students’ sober habits and competitiveness in the job market. introduction despite the dearth of reliable systems to facilitate the collection of data relating to substance abuse in south africa (kyei & ramagoma 2013), substance dependence statistics show that the consumption level of south africans is twice the global average and second to none in africa (united nations 2014). recent press reports have speculatively presented south african university campuses as unsafe for students owing to the unprecedented culture of substance abuse, particularly that associated with alcohol and drug consumption (agumba & musonda 2014). seen as a defining feature of the tertiary education lifestyle, students’ indulgence in substance abuse has significant potential to derail them from their prime focus of embarking on academic endeavours (towl 2004). this is contrary to the expected norm that a university should provide a safe, enriching and rewarding educational experience for students to develop their social and intellectual skills. despite the clear enactment of regulatory mechanisms that outlaw substance abuse in the country, especially illicit drugs, substance abuse among university students remains a major cause of concern (goreishi & shajari 2013). in certain instances, universities have experienced irregular class attendance and subsequent poor academic performance among students who abuse drugs and alcohol (kyei & ramagoma 2013). the significance of studying the effects of substance abuse, particularly drugs among young people in universities, stems from the substances’ potential to limit or obstruct the users’ ability to make good choices in life (kyei & ramagoma 2013). this entails engaging in irresponsible activities, including indulging in unprotected casual sex and binge drinking under the influence of intoxicating substances, an experience they often regret afterwards (matlou 2016). overall, drug abuse has been attributable to social settings and social influences, which suggests that most students get involved for social reasons than otherwise (tayob & van der heever 2014). in the university context, this includes special day celebrations such as birthdays, graduation ceremonies and calendar events in the form of fresher’s ball and bashes. thus, authorities have continued to struggle to contain alcohol and drug consumption among students of all levels (agumba & musonda 2014), a spectre that minimises their opportunity to enter the job market and pursue their career aspirations. because of the debilitating effects of substance abuse, there is a need to explore the risks and implications of such behaviour. data and findings on substance abuse are critical in informing the design and implementation of intervention strategies at any given time. despite the dearth of studies that have focused on the effects of substance abuse in colleges or universities in the recent past (goreishi & shajari 2013; tayob & van der heever 2014), a review of the existing few cases tend to treat the student body (including postgraduates) as a homogeneous group whose encounter with substance abuse is limited to the quantification of user’s perceptions, attitudes or prevalence-related variables. despite their invaluable contribution to the understanding of the nature of substance abuse, most of these investigations have largely been informed by the general approach, where undergraduate students are the target groups of the inquiry with little regard for postgraduate students as a significant group on their own. this study acknowledges postgraduate students’ experiences as people who are familiar with university life and are expected to operate at a level of ‘maturity’ above that of the undergraduates. this is generally expected to assist them to develop adaptive, forthright and responsible decision-making mechanisms to avoid the drug–alcohol scourge. nonetheless, indications are that drug use is on the increase among students, with the potential to negatively affect their career prospects. hence, the study aims to qualitatively investigate the effect of drug use on postgraduate students’ career prospects in a south african university context. it assesses students’ awareness of the psychosocial and health risks associated with drug use, determines students’ knowledge and use of existing drug control systems and further explores behavioural impediments of drug use on students’ career opportunities. prevalence and effect of drug abuse in universities the prevalence and effect of drug abuse among young people is an important aspect in understanding potential consequences this behaviour may have on their future career opportunities. over the years, some surveys have lamented the unprecedented rate of substance abuse in institutions of higher learning, particularly universities (peltzer & ramlagan 2009; tayob & van der heever 2014). in these studies, scholars have argued that the university in particular is a critical environmental factor that contributes to uncontrolled substance abuse, particularly alcohol and drugs. for most students, staying on campus exposes them to the bad influence of friends whose abuse of illicit substances causes them to abandon their first-year innocence carried over from their respective high schools as a product of parental monitoring (agumba & musonda 2014). often, older and experienced students induce young students to indulge in negative tendencies in a ‘follow suit’ fashion that is less common among non-full-time students (kyei & ramagoma 2013). this concurs with agumba and musonda’s (2014) views that attribute the intensity of drug abuse to freedom and experimentation resulting from the need to test the limits previously set by parental and school monitoring. in a university setting, it can be argued that academic expectations among students should be a deterrent to heavy substance abuse and associated problems (levy & earleywine 2003). nonetheless, some studies have noted that peer pressure is the most predictive variable among factors that influence substance abuse in universities (kyei & ramagoma 2013). thus, the potential for drug use to inhibit desirable academic performance and their subsequent career prospects upon completion of their studies is worrisome. like alcohol, drugs such as marijuana and cocaine do have the same effect of disturbing the sleeping cycle and may impact on the level of alertness of the user for a couple of days. furthermore, drug abuse suppresses neuronal activity in the hippocampus, resulting in problems with attention, memory and concentration (schwartz 2001), conditions that are detrimental to the mental alertness required for academic pursuits. recent studies in some african universities have also confirmed that drugs such as marijuana directly impair academic abilities, with negative results on performance. in addition, negative effects emanating from drug abuse, including stigmatisation of the users, fear of arrest, rejection from fellow students and loss of appetite, have been cited as factors that may lead to dropping out (agumba & musonda 2014; tuwei 2014). institutional drug control efforts at the university of limpopo whereas substance abuse was uncommon and rarely reported about in the pre-1994 south african era, the post-apartheid media have somewhat highlighted the consequences of both alcohol and drug use among citizens, particularly through audio-visual reportage and press coverage (mokwena 2016). in addition to governmentand civic society-driven efforts, these efforts have increased the level of awareness about the effects of drug use and behaviour transformation, particularly among youth. in most south african universities, the drug control mechanism is largely informed by the drugs and trafficking act (2014), which criminalises the selling and use of illicit drugs such as cocaine and heroin on their premises (university of limpopo 2014b). complimentary to the efforts of the south african police service (saps), campuses usually enforce these regulations through contracting safety and security services to privately owned companies responsible for law enforcement on campuses. the university of limpopo has responded to substance abuse through a multisectorial information-based approach aimed at holistically promoting, developing and creating a conducive learning environment for its students through provision of student-focused programmes. essentially, these begin with the orientation week, which targets first entering students; the first things first campaign, which informs new students particularly about hiv/aids counselling and testing; residence life talks, which promote adaptive skills for campus life, including prohibition of substance abuse; and the annual crime awareness campaign held in partnership with the saps later in the academic year (university of limpopo 2014a; 2015). nevertheless, one of the critically relevant sections of the university’s contingent efforts that deals directly with the effects of substance abuse, albeit mostly in an individually based setting, is the centre for student counselling and development (cscd). the centre ensures the availability of campus counselling support services as a link between the individual student and the university community, which function under the guidelines provided by the centre. the centre boasts professional psychologists registered with the health professions council of south africa. a group of trained peer counsellors forms an extension of student counselling services in campus to complement the effort of professional staff (mogane 2017). their services range from dealing with depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, stress and self-esteem improvement to anti-rape campaigns often provided through printed material in the form of small media such as pamphlets, brochures and leaflets. nonetheless, most of these activities make a peripheral reference to drug abuse per se and therefore have no direct bearing on the abusers, particularly postgraduate students, who are conspicuously not directly linked to the programme. population, sampling and sample size the study population consisted of users of a variety of drugs who resided at the postgraduate village on campus. sampling entailed screening for inclusion, where participants’ age and alertness to ascertain their level of soberness were observed to ensure that they understood the purpose of the study and that they could give consent to the interviewer. two staff members were purposively selected on the basis of their expertise in student counselling and development, whereas both male and female drug users studying towards their master’s qualification were the target population. this process yielded a total of nine (n = 9) participants consisting of two females and seven (n = 7) males selected using a non-probability snowball sampling technique, through which a known drug user helped to identify other users to form the sample. a former student peer educator was engaged to facilitate the recruitment and to arrange appointment times with potential participants within the selection criteria. data collection and analysis in-depth interviews were conducted with participants at a convenient area arranged by the research assistant. although interviews were conducted in the english language as participants felt comfortable to do so, some participants often code-switched to the local sepedi, xitsonga and tshivenda languages. a recording device was used to assist with the storage and transcribing process of data into english. interpretive phenomenological analysis was adopted for the development of themes, from which study findings and conclusions were drawn. this involved capturing, familiarisation and interpreting data in terms of the unique nature of the personal accounts on drug use as experienced by study informants. ethical consideration despite the predictably unrestrained behaviour of most drug users, the researcher ensured that all participants involved in the study were mentally vigilant to provide informed consent to participate in the study. informants were also assured of the confidentiality of their contributions and anonymity of their personal details. data presentation, results and discussion sociodemographics of student participants table 1 presents the biographical data of the participants. table 1: presentation of participants’ demographic information. gender, level and mode of study the participants’ demographic information yielded seven (n = 7) male and two (n = 2) female student drug users. although the study used a convenience sampling technique, this proportional bias regarding the gender of participants confirms ajao et al.’s (2014) finding that there is usually a higher percentage of drug use among males than females. all but one of the participants were in the second through fifth year of their msc or ma studies in the university. this is despite the institution’s stipulated 2-year turnaround period for full-time study and 3 years for part-time study for postgraduate students. this is an indication that suggests possible negative effects of drug use on the academic performance of drug users, as also noted by orisatoki, jayaraj and oguntibeju (2008). age, marital and employment status despite the mean age of 27 years (µ = 27), only one (n = 1) participant was married, whereas another one (n = 1) was employed on a part-time basis. in the backdrop of the participants’ socio-economic backgrounds, only two (n = 2) of the participants were bursary holders whereas (n = 3) of them confirmed having lost their bursaries because of not completing within the prescribed time. this is worrisome considering that people of this age usually are expected to be financially independent to be able to look after themselves, including financing their personal endeavours such as further academic improvement. age of onset and history of drug use the average age of onset was 17.5 years among all the participants but was higher among females (18.5 years) and lower among males (17 years), respectively. the average starting age of below 18 years concurs with orisatoki et al.’s (2008) findings that, despite gender variations, often determined by class of drugs used, substance use can start at any age in life. one of the participants (cd 3) reported using drugs at the age of 18 years and traced this behaviour back to the time when he used to smoke cigarettes at the age of 14 years because of peer pressure. this implies that some of the drug users within the current postgraduate cohort started using substances at a young age. usually, this behaviour becomes affirmed when these youngsters receive the ‘initiation experience’ (agumba & musonda 2013) upon entering the university as a result of influence from senior students who use drugs. study results also noted that the history of drug use among the participants was 9 years. the average period of 9 years of drug use among the participants indicates the addictive nature of drug use and the possible difficulty involved in quitting. this was confirmed by one of the expert interviewees (pp 2), who noted that even though most students on campus did not start early, those who had smoked for at least 5 years (>5) often become addicted and therefore can hardly respond promptly to drug abuse treatment. arguably, this situation may lead to untoward effects including failing to meet occupational obligations (pham-kanter 2006). prevalence and type of commonly used drugs all male participants concurred on the existence of a ‘community of smokers who use all sorts of drugs’ among university students. this was confirmed by the two female participants (cd 4 and cd 9), who further remarked that drug use was a ‘normal activity in campus’ among both male and female students. as also noted by ajao et al. (2014), the study noted a positive skewedness towards more males as regular drug users than females, who are occasional users, being active particularly on special days. participants further revealed that drugs mostly used by postgraduate students were dagga or weed (n = 9), followed by hubbly-bubbly (n = 4), nyaope (n = 3) and to a lesser extent cocaine (n = 1). dagga, also known as marijuana or cannabis, was reportedly the most popular drug because of both its affordability (about r30 a match box) and convenient ‘underground drug network’ supply chain, which was easily accessible at off-campus strategic points. in agreement with the above scenario, one participant remarked, without disclosing the distribution area, that: ‘… weed is as accessible as airtime around here.’ (cd 1) despite the relatively low cost of about r25–r40 a joint (or drug portion), there were contextual factors to both the distribution and accessibility networks. a participant lamented how the cost of the ‘stuff’ contributed to economic want, resulting in: ‘… need and poverty engulfing my family … because no-one is employed at home’. (cd 9) in relation to the cost, another participant said that: ‘… the stuff is much (much) affordable in jozi … they get it cheap there, unlike here and this worsens our poverty because we depend on it for solace … sometimes at the expense of food, you know!’ (cd 6) surprisingly, one participant reported in a jovial mood that the supply dynamics were sustained by tactical recruitment of potential drug users among students from affluent families, who sponsored drug purchase for: ‘… pleasure and love of creativity … just like artists … musicians and producers do.’ (cd 2) this concurs with both experts’ views that the level of prevalence was partially influenced by the accessibility, affordability as well as the communitarian leverage resulting from aided supply mechanisms. according to the respondents, nyaope was relatively not prevalent because of the negative stigma associated with its chemical composition (usually mixed with painkillers, rat pellets, spirits, benzene, arvs, etc.), whereas cocaine was prohibitively expensive for students to sustain its use. despite all student participants being dagga smokers, they acknowledged nyaope as more addictive than other drugs, a factor also echoed by health 24 (2014), which regards it as south africa’s worst drug. awareness of psychosocial and health risks of drug use all participants (n = 9) admitted to being aware of the diverse psychosocial and health risks incurred not only by users but also by their respective families as well as the entire community within which drugs are used. participants’ awareness of users’ experiences of illicit drug use, in particular, were similar in many respects, citing potential addiction as the major problem, subsequent physical discomfort after an irregular interval of not smoking and consistent relapse. although nearly all (n = 8) participants acknowledged temporary therapeutic relief from pain resulting from frequent ‘pulls’ as an easier option to dealing with concomitant distress, they admitted knowing someone or a relative whose health condition had been ruined because of drug dependence. participants were clear about the effect of drugs and subsequent consequences, including how drug use changes users’ mood and causes loss of concentration and focus in life. their remarks made vivid inferences to users’ eventual lack of emotional strength to successfully overcome the addictive nature of drug use. these experiences concur with moore, guarino and marsch’s (2014) study of opioid-dependent youth, who acknowledged the ruinous and distasteful experiences of drug abuse. the study described this experience in terms of the gradual complications that follow the initial desirable feeling and the resultant cravings that evolve with intensity of drug dependence. while psychological models on how to deal with drug abuse suggest motivational strength or determination by the addicts to quit drug abuse (mokwena 2016), five (n = 5) of the participants (cd 1, cd 5, cd 6, cd 7 and cd 9) said this tendency often leads to more cravings, which subsequently invokes a stronger indulgence or desire to get more successive pulls. hence, frequent use often results in economic consequences, where the cost of drugs end up directly competing with or impeding on the purchase of basic needs such as food and clothing. data about health risks associated with drug use by most of the participants (n = 7) indicated that some drugs, including marijuana, can enhance users’ creativity and social mood, sharpen one’s intelligence, prompt the level of focus and boost sexuality. this is analysed within the backdrop of one female participant’s claims regarding marijuana’s cosmetic attributes and value as being: ‘… very good for skin and treatment of dehydration … as well as managing weight loss.’ (cd 4) however, both expert interviewees (pp 1 and pp 2) remarked that often drug users, particularly nyaope smokers, complain of feeling sickly or sleepy, portray half-dazed looks and lack good personal hygiene. these symptoms were also noted by mokwena (2016) in her study of students’ use of nyaope at the medunsa campus, now sefako makgatho health sciences university. in addition, two participants with the longest history of drug use (cd 1 and cd 4) admitted to developing ‘darkened lips and stained teeth’ because of prolonged use of drugs. among the rest of the participants, there was general acknowledgement that drug use (particularly of an illicit nature) could lead to acute health effects such as weight loss and stomach cramps because of drug dependence. knowledge and use of existing drug management services participants reported no knowledge of any other rehabilitation centre on campus save for the cscd and the accompanying activities of peer counsellors, whom they perceived to be assigned to undergraduate students only. two participants (cd 3 and cd 9) cited mankweng hospital (outside the campus) as the referral centre but denied that drug users at their level ‘would ever need help from social workers or clinical psychiatrists or psychologists’ because they (drug users) had no problem. this was echoed by another participant, who exclaimed that: ‘… drugs do not control your mind … you do things consciously … because weed for example is not a drug, the experience is irreplaceable.’ (cd 2) one participant also retorted: ‘what for … ? psychoactive stuff generates confidence and enhances what already exists (in you). when you’re high, you calm down and forget stuff and be in the imaginary world, neh … ! no violence, isn’t it that you control the activity … you are well.’ (cd 4) the above sentiments were confirmed by both expert interviewees (pp 1 and pp 2), who noted that drug users often ‘feel like superheroes or celebrities’, who tend to display fearless and carefree attitudes towards other people including counselling personnel. in addition, three (n = 3) other participants viewed rehabilitation as a lengthy process that seems to be inconsiderate of the immediate negative experiences associated with withdrawal effects of drug use. while existing drug control systems such as the safety and security unit as well as the cscd mainly focus on individual student misdemeanours including deterring drug trading and abuse, both expert informants (pp 1 and pp 2) noted that systematic outreach campaigns targeted at larger groups of students, particularly postgraduates, were less evident. to a large extent, this confirms some of the participants’ view that the existing drug management services on campus focus mainly on undergraduate students rather than postgraduates. behavioural impediments to students’ career prospects this section addresses behavioural impediments that have the potential to obstruct possible employment prospects among postgraduate students who use drugs. although participants raised numerous disorders that can inhibit one’s career prospects, this analysis focuses mainly on denial and lack of coping strategies, improper personal conduct, unresponsive behaviour, poor academic performance, and incriminated personal profile. denial and lack of coping strategies because of the numerous social problems encountered by students, there was a strong need for them to be: ‘… calmed down, escape this body just like someone in a plane … and be carefree’. (cd 4) notably, most of the participants (n = 7) retorted that drug users who report negative outcomes of drug use such as: ‘losing control of themselves …’ [particularly after smoking dagga or weed, were] novices … who become hyperactive and careless’ (cd 1). two participants (cd 3 and cd 8) argued that although there are different types of dagga, ‘the well-prepared one, especially from swaziland, brings pleasure, invigorates … and relieves stress’. other phrases used by participants (cd 7, cd 4 and cd 9) to describe the affective experiences of smoking other forms of drugs or cocktail (including illicit substances) comprised ‘building confidence’, ‘calming down’, ‘stress relieving’, ‘stimulates creativity’, ‘rekindles dormant ideas’ and ‘sharpening one’s creativity’. these remarks are vivid denial antics showing that participants did not see drug use as a problem but rather viewed it as a recreational experience. such were sentiments made by one participant who remarked that: ‘no! this is not an intoxicant … it is a recreational drug … because it creates socialites.’ (cd 9) this scenario fits within the comments of one expert, who maintained that drug use among postgraduate students was used as part of: ‘coping strategy to boredom or idleness resulting from the students’ failure to use the ample time they have … since most of them are not attending class … but doing research only. this is further made worse by unemployment and anxiety of … what about if things go wrong or go on like this? … or other forms of frustrations.’ (pp 1) essentially, the preceding refers to the transitional and adaptive challenges evolving from poor handling of a crammed module-based curricula to a self-driven researched-based mode of learning, which most postgraduate students fail to adjust to. in the second expert’s view: ‘coursework, tests and examinations do not allow students to go for a pull … so when you eat kush (whoonga), you become hungry and this disturbs reading or writing.’ (pp 2) subsequently, the expert said this develops to an behaviour that tends to negatively affect drug users who cannot multitask, leading to late submission of academic work or total non-submission, such as: ‘… ever-partying mood or bashing.’ (pp 2) therefore, denial makes it difficult for drug users to receive treatment, while lack of coping strategies increases drug dependence. improper personal conduct and unresponsive behaviour this aspect looks at personal conduct and trainability as the defining features of a potential employee who can meaningfully contribute to the productivity of any sector in the market. both expert interviewees (pp 1 and pp 2) highlighted that some drug users, particularly males, have a tendency of displaying outright arrogance, poor personal hygiene, negligence, disrespect and potential violent behaviour because of drug abuse. two (n = 2) participants acknowledged being distressed after observing that when they were amateur drug users at the undergraduate level a few years ago, their social condition had: ‘… turned into bad taste.’ (cd 9) with the benefit of hindsight, they categorically stated that users usually become: ‘… less hygienic, careless and become reckless with their finances.’ (cd 9) another participant (cd 4) said she once dropped out and took a break from her studies because of inability to focus on her academic work. this concurs with study findings by ajao et al. (2014) and mokwena (2016), who noted low concentration, lack of interest, slow progress and strained relationships with inmates in the residences as offshoots of substance abuse. in view of this context, drug use could account for the manner in which potential employees would manage issues around punctuality to the workplace, emotional balance or stress management, teamwork and the ability to meet deadlines. academically unimpressive and incriminating personal profile a majority of the participants (n = 8) said drug use had no effect whatsoever on their academic work but rather claimed that it invigorates them and helps them to stay focused and ‘smart’. one participant (cd 2) alluded to the level of exposure and experience that postgraduate students have in dealing with academic tasks, while another (cd 5) claimed that this was owed to study progress that can be easily managed over time. however, expert knowledge from both interviewees (pp 1 and pp 2) as well as literature on the effects of drug use on academic performance show that low concentration, irregular class attendance, missing assignment deadlines and poor examination scores are consequent outcomes of drug abuse (orisatoki et al. 2008). in addition, the section on participants’ demographic profiles noted three (n = 3) students who reported being in their fourth year while one (n = 1) was in the fifth year of study towards a masters’ degree qualification. this may be an indication of students’ failure to use their academic time productively, a tendency that affected the turnaround period to complete their studies. notably, all participants acknowledged that most potential employers, including the government, prefer to recruit people with the best results and that an extended stay or delayed completion of one’s studies (usually reflected in the academic transcript) dissuades them from shortlisting weak candidates. the consequences of poor academic performance are further complicated by evidence of one having an incriminating record against one’s name, particularly if one has been found guilty of breaking the laws that regulate drug use. despite this, there are also some stereotypical perceptions, which one of the participants confirmed by saying that: ‘drug users are usually seen as untrustworthy … to most emplyees.’ (cd 2) in spite of this not being a crime, it minimises the drug users’ prospects for employability and resonates with the study findings, where some sober (not high) participants were noticed displaying drug user persona features such as being restless, hanging their fingers in the air and winking their eyes at the interviewer during the interview. one expert interviewee (pp 1) noted that professions such as teaching, social work, legal practice, the saps and various categories within the medical profession impeccably monitor unprofessional conduct, with substance abuse not being an exception. for this reason, persons who have been involved in any form of criminal activity, including possession of illicit drugs or other petty crimes, spontaneously limit their career opportunities in their respective trades. in addition, some employers do require urine tests for presence of drugs before concluding contractual agreements. although this does not mean that the user has a criminal record, it however implies partaking in illicit activities such as buying drugs. thus, in addition to a weak academic record and any form of criminal record, these issues are unfavourable elements that can inhibit a postgraduate’s career prospects. implications for career counselling intervention strategies the study noted that denial and a lack of coping strategies; an improper personal conduct and an unresponsive behaviour; a poor academic performance and an incriminated personal profile were the major potential impediments that could inhibit students’ career prospects. a combination of these factors creates an occupational ambience of barriers that can hardly be addressed through fear or scare tactics and information-based programmes often adopted by universities. while existing intervention programmes play a crucial role in creating awareness about substance abuse, their success rate and effectiveness in controlling drug use on campus are usually weakened by lack of regular review or not being subject to systematic evaluation. as one expert participant summed up: ‘despite their minimal nature, existing intervention campaigns were not specifically dedicated to addressing challenges on drug abuse and control systems.’ (pp 1) instead, they broadly assumed a generic approach to students’ collective psychosocial issues affecting their university life. notably, some of the participants (cd 1, cd 4 and cd 7) confirmed that these activities hardly attracted postgraduate students, most of whom believed that they had outgrown the scope of these interventions and therefore felt logically disengaged and were not bothered to participate. overall, this calls for more inclusive strategies on the development of social skills to address poor social coping strategies, mundane decision-making, low self-esteem and weak peer pressure resistance mechanisms. furthermore, the preceding limitations call for more creative ideal career counselling intervention programmes that are compatible with the local sociocultural contexts that include poverty ramifications. because of the large number of drug users, coupled with their unprivileged socio-economic status and shortage of rehabilitation centres, the institution needs to use a group approach rather than an individual focus to deal with the prevalence of drug use among all the students (tayob & van der heever 2014). thus, cost-free drug and alcohol abuse colloquia should be provided to help minimise drinking, smoking and administering hard drugs among postgraduate students. this should be in tandem with the thrust towards strengthening referral links between the university and community referral centres to augment efforts from the university. the effectiveness of this approach will also be determined by the collaborative nature of the interventions, which according to this study should involve specific departments and academic staff of the university where the students are registered. this could be done in the form of career development seminars that can help students to self-introspect and possibly develop a self-assessment mechanism to determine their state of drug indulgence, meanwhile monitoring their quitting behavioural patterns. conclusion owing to its multidimensional nature, the challenge pertaining to the use of psychoactive substances among postgraduate students, particularly drugs, needs to be prioritised in order to promote effective and sustainable intervention programmes in universities. noting that the experiences of drug users often degenerate to potential addiction levels in the short–medium term (masombuka 2013), this calls for urgent attention for the design and implementation of career-oriented counselling strategies from which postgraduate students could develop professionally. essentially, this should entail a review of the existing drug and alcohol use control mechanism to include career-enhancing training such as entrepreneurial skills, time management, creating job-hunting networks and interview skills. this could subsequently be augmented by colloquia located within the life skills approach to address a range of psychosocial challenges such as denial and lack of coping strategies, mundane decision-making and peer pressure resistance, meanwhile inculcating responsible personal behaviour that promotes career enhancement. acknowledgements the authors thank the university of limpopo’s centre for student counselling and development and postgraduate student association for their assistance during data collection for the article. competing interests the authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. authors’ contributions t.m. was responsible for the initial stages of the development of the research. this involved the preliminary observations from which the rationale of the study was derived, formulating the research problem and the objectives. t.m. did the initial literature review and designed the interview schedule and collected data through interviews with participants. c.j.r. assisted by expanding the literature for the article, developing themes from the data as well as the interpretation and formulating of the findings were done in conjunction with t.m. c.j.r was aslo responsible for the methodological presentation of the article and its technical construction were part of the contribution. the overall integration of the various components of the research was ensured through academic writing and logical flow of the article – there were were essential contributions to the academic soundness of the article. references agumba, n. & musonda, i., 2014, ‘perception of the effects of substance abuse among university students: a case of built environment and civil engineering students at a south african university in gauteng province’, in proceedings of the 3rd international conference on economics and social sciences (icess-2014), johannesburg, july 03–06, 2014, pp. 269–276. ajao, b., anyanwu, f.c., akinsola, h.a. & tshitangano, t.g., 2014, ‘knowledge, attitudes and practices of substance abuse among university students’, african journal for physical, health education, recreation and dance 20(1), 214–224. goreishi, a. & shajari, z., 2013, ‘substance abuse among students of zanjan’s universities (iran): a knot of today’s society’, addiction & health 5(1–2), 66–72. health 24, 2014, is nyaope south africa’s worst drug?, viewed 09 june 2016, from http://www.health24.com/llifestyle/street-drugs/news/street-drug-nyaope-classified-as-illegal-20140403 kyei, k.a. & ramagoma, m., 2013, ‘alcohol consumption in south african universities: prevalence and factors at the university of venda, limpopo province’, journal of social sciences 36(1), 77–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2013.11893175 levy, b. & earleywine, m., 2003, ‘reinforcement expectancies for studying predict drinking problems among college students’, addictive behaviors, viewed 29 october 2018, from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsbl&an=rn127853617&site=eds-live masombuka, j., 2013, ‘children’s addiction to drug “nyaope” in soshanguve township: parents’ experiences and support needs’, master’s dissertation submitted to the university of south africa. matlou, m.l., 2016, ‘binge drinking, crime and victimisation during bashes at the university of limpopo’, unpublished ma dissertation, university of limpopo, sovenga. mogane, m., 2017, centre for student counselling and development (cscd). 2017 orientation, prosper, ul printing, sovenga. mokwena, k., 2016, ‘“consider our plight”: a cry for help from nyaope users’, health sa gesondheld 21(2916), 137–142. https://doi.org/10.4102/hsag.v21i0.944 moore, s.k., guarino, h. & marsch, l.a., 2014, ‘“this is not who i want to be”: experiences of opiod-dependent youth before and during, combined buprernophine and behavioural treatment’, substance use and misuse 49(3), 303. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2013.832328 orisatoki, r.o., jayaraj, a.d. & oguntibeju, o.o., 2008, ‘substance abuse among students at a caribbean university’, medical technology sa 22(1), 9–12. peltzer, k. & ramlagan, s., 2009, ‘alcohol use trends in south africa’, journal of social sciences 18(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2009.11892661 pham-kanter, g., 2006, ‘substance abuse and dependence’, in j.l. lounge (ed.), gale encyclopaedia of medicine, 3rd edn., thomas gale, farmington, pp. 59–77. schwartz, g., 2001, ‘how do drugs and alcohol impede students’ academic progress?’, recruitment and retention in higher education 15(11), 87–101. tayob, s.m. & van der heever, h., 2014, ‘alcohol use among the students at the university of limpopo’, african journal for physical, health education, recreation and dance 1(2), 364–373. towl, d., 2004, alcohol use and tertiary students in aotearoa-new zealand, alac occasional publications university of otago, wellington, no. 21, pp. 1–40. tuwei, p.c., 2014, ‘influence of drug use on students’ academic performance in public universities: a case ausin gishu county in kenya’, a master of arts dissertation submitted to the university of nairobi, kenya. united nations, 2014, world drug report, united nations office on drugs and crime (unodc), new york, ny. university of limpopo, 2014a, university of limpopo annual report, ul printing, sovenga. marketing and communication, ul publications. university of limpopo, 2014b, university of limpopo student service guide, 2014, ul printing, sovenga. marketing and communication, ul publications. university of limpopo, 2015, university of limpopo annual report, ul printing, sovenga. marketing and communication, ul publications. abstract introduction literature review research procedures findings a conceptual framework to understand the relationship between musicking and personal and social well-being for intermediate phase learners application to the intermediate phase life skills classroom discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) rechallda j. mouton musical arts in south africa: resources and applications (masara), school of music, faculty of humanities, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa janelize morelli musical arts in south africa: resources and applications (masara), school of music, faculty of humanities, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa citation mouton rj, morelli j. a conceptual framework of the relationship between musicking and personal and social well-being for intermediate phase learners in the south african context. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2021;17(1), a1094. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v17i1.1094 original research a conceptual framework of the relationship between musicking and personal and social well-being for intermediate phase learners in the south african context rechallda j. mouton, janelize morelli received: 31 may 2021; accepted: 18 july 2021; published: 28 sept. 2021 copyright: © 2021. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract this article proposes a conceptual framework to understand the relationship between musicking and personal and social well-being for intermediate phase learners. we analysed the intermediate phase life skills curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) document to create a priori codes. we employed these codes to analyse literature on musicking and well-being. through this analysis, it became clear that it is possible to apply musicking as a means to teach personal and social well-being outcomes in the intermediate phase life skills caps provided teachers view musicking as cultural and moral education. this article presents a conceptual framework resting on nine propositions that need to be addressed if teachers wish to teach personal and social well-being through musicking. keywords: south africa; life skills; intermediate phase; well-being; conceptual framework; musicking; music education. introduction although there are studies that seek to investigate the creative arts section in life skills during the intermediate phase, as set out in the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) syllabus, and studies that investigate the personal and social well-being section of the life skills curriculum, we are not aware of any studies which investigate the integration of these two sections in the intermediate phase in the south african context. therefore, it is the purpose of this conceptual study to create a conceptual framework to understand the integration of music, in particular, and personal well-being in the intermediate phase. we synthesised this framework by following three steps: (1) creating a priori codes from the caps syllabus (particularly from the personal and social well-being section in the intermediate phase); (2) analysing applicable scholarly literature on music education, community music and well-being to create a conceptual framework which might indicate how teachers may effectively integrate these two areas in the intermediate phase life skills classroom and (3) interpreting these findings through applicable theoretical or conceptual lenses to create a rich framework. our findings culminate in a conceptual framework for teaching personal and social well-being through musicking. literature review teachers are pivotal agents in creating a safe space in which learners may experience personal well-being and engage in musicking. in this article, we will use the term ‘musicking’ to refer to a view of music not as a noun, but as a verb. musicking refers to any musical contribution including, but not limited to, performing, listening, improvising, composing and moving to music.1 furthermore, small1 views musicking as a means through which a specific community portrays the ideal form of human relationships within that society. since the life skills subject area is comprised of personal and social well-being, physical education and creative arts, we assert that this view of musicking is particularly applicable to the context of life skills in the intermediate phase classroom. creating tailored music programmes may encourage the development of such caring relationships in the classroom.2 in the context of the intermediate phase life skills classroom, such a tailored music programme will focus on incorporating all three aspects to create a programme where the creative arts (and we argue music in specific) facilitates the teaching of personal and social well-being, and physical education. throughout this article, we will be giving examples of the types of musicking which may be included in such a tailored music programme. there is also a section which draws together examples of ways in which the conceptual framework proposed in this article may be applied to create such a tailored music programme in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. given the constraints set out by the length of an article, we will only focus on facilitating the personal and social well-being section of intermediate phase life skills. carefully creating tailored music programmes may be particularly important in culturally diverse settings.3 in order to successfully deliver these tailored music programmes, it is paramount that teachers view themselves as facilitators for the kinds of relationships we wish to teach learners in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. when teachers are empowered to view themselves as pivotal characters in the creation of strong social bonds between learners, they become artistic citizens.4,5 artistic citizenship requires teachers to become more critically reflective about the actions they take in the classroom. it also requires active musicking in the classroom to be informed by such critical reflection. when teachers take on this active role as artistic citizens, it is possible to create strong relationships between them and their learners through positive interaction and musicking. therefore, the teacher plays a vital role as an ethical agent in the education world.6 once teachers understand the role they play as ethical agents in the life skills classroom, they may be empowered to facilitate the personal and social well-being outcomes effectively through the use of active musicking. research indicates that individuals employ music to promote emotional, social and physical well-being.7 music reduces anxiety8 and therefore promotes personal well-being, which may promote learning as a result. positive music education experiences may assist with self-management and development of school-aged children.9 self-management refers to learners’ ability to take responsibility for their actions and to understand which actions may contribute to positive outcomes and subjective well-being. self-management skills learners in the intermediate phase may include learning to collaborate effectively, understanding the importance of rules to ensure that groups operate in a just manner, and developing a sense of responsibility. self-management may be viewed as a skill which contributes to both emotional intelligence and self-regulation. group music classes may aid students in developing self-management by placing an emphasis on positive collaboration and helping learners to become more self-reflective. this necessitates an approach to musicking in the life skills class built upon artistic citizenship,4,5 where both the teacher and the learners engage in active reflection through questions such as: what happened? what went well? or, what were the challenges we experienced? and, what would i or we do differently next time? furthermore, when pupils collaborate creatively in instrumental group music, they experience well-being by engaging with other students.10 improvising responses to a musical call is an activity which asks of learners to collaborate creatively with their peers. other collaborative creative activities may include movement improvisation or movement mirroring to recorded music. in another study, participation through musicking in an orchestra is shown to promote health and emotional well-being in children.11 although orchestral musicking may not be feasible in many intermediate phase classrooms, learners could engage in other readily available musicking events such as expressing themselves through body percussion, beatboxing, playing on found instruments or participating in group singing. these studies point to the potentiality of music as a mechanism for well-being promotion in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. in the south african context, the relationship between musicking and well-being is central, as creative arts is placed together with personal and social well-being in the life skills caps document.12 in our experience, even specialist music teachers in the intermediate phase are, however, often unfamiliar with the approaches one could take to integrate the different components of life skills.13 there is, therefore, a great need for awareness amongst music educators and general educators about the relationship between personal well-being and musicking, to ensure that they are able to integrate these two concepts in their own teaching. as of now, there is no conceptual framework in the literature which may be used to understand the relationship between personal well-being and musicking in the life of the intermediate phase child in the south african context. it is our hope that this study will provide teachers with a conceptual framework that might empower them to teach in ways that promote the personal and social well-being of their students. similarly, we hope that this research will be used by policymakers to inform the decisions they take at a macro-level. research procedures the purpose of this conceptual study is to understand the relationship between musicking and personal well-being for intermediate phase learners (grade 4–6). the research question that guided this study is: how can the emergent themes from the related literature be integrated to generate a conceptual framework to explain the relationship between personal well-being and musicking for intermediate phase learners? data were collected using the following search terms in academic search engines: musicking, personal well-being and life skills for grade 4–6 learners. during this initial search process, we analysed 12 articles on personal well-being and 11 on life skills. after the first cycle of analysis, it was clear that we had not yet reached data saturation.14 we consulted with various colleagues in the field of music for well-being and included any sources they deemed applicable which were not yet part of the data set. after these additional data were analysed, we reached data saturation. because of the initial challenges in locating applicable scholarly literature, we used an iterative approach, tying the processes of data collection and analysis together in a cycle of repetition and refocussing. the caps document for life skills intermediate phase personal and social well-being was analysed.12 from the analyses, a priori codes were created (see table 1), which were used to analyse the literature identified throughout the data gathering stage. because of the use of a priori codes, the data analysis employed a primarily deductive approach.15 for the purposes of this article, the performing arts caps was not analysed to create a priori codes. this may be seen as a limitation in this study. table 1: a list of categories with their associated a priori codes and accompanying conceptual frames for interpretation. after we completed the initial coding phase, we engaged in the process of consolidation and reinterpretation which eventually led to the creation of three categories. these categories were: (1) cultural and moral education, (2) emotional intelligence and (3) fostering well-being. the findings are further interpreted through the lens of chosen theoretical or philosophical perspectives to elucidate the meaning of core concepts (figure 1). the category of cultural and moral education is interpreted through the lens of ubuntu as described by molose et al.16 this framework was chosen because it aligns well with the a priori codes in the category cultural and moral education. we ascribe this alignment to the general emphasis on respect for self and others, and the caring relationality described in the caps document. according to the collective-values of the ubuntu framework, the four values which serve as foundation for ubuntu are: survival, respect and dignity, compassion and solidarity. figure 1: a conceptual framework for teaching personal and social well-being through musicking in the intermediate phase life skills class. emotional intelligence is interpreted by making use of the ethically informed emotional and social competency inventory.17 we employ this framework because it places ethics at the centre of the framework of emotional intelligence, and views ethics as the foundational competency for developing the other four emotional competencies: self-awareness, social awareness, relationship management and self-management. as alluded previously, and illustrated through our findings, ethical and moral education also play a central role in our view of musicking in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. therefore, this framework is appropriate to interpret our findings through. the positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment (perma) framework were employed, to understand what fostering well-being might entail.18 the perma framework posits a theory of the elements of subjective well-being. the elements included in this theory are perma. seligman18 argues that the perma framework is appropriate for evaluating subjective well-being because the individual elements contribute to well-being and people strive towards these elements as ends to themselves. each element may lead practitioners or individuals to specific interventions to address shortcomings in their experience of subjective well-being. these perspectives contribute value to our conceptual framework by illuminating the concepts within each category. these categories, along with the illuminated central concepts, were explored through a process of abduction used to create the conceptual framework.15 during this research study, we documented our steps carefully to create an audit trail.19 as we find ourselves positioned strongly within a social constructivist paradigm,14 we also made use of an interpretive community to help us negotiate the meaning which is presented in this conceptual framework. we would like to thank all the fellow researchers and graduate students in the musical arts in africa: research and applications research niche at the north-west university for their participation in this social meaning-making process. we also adhered to the guidelines for research and academic integrity as set out by the north-west university. findings this conceptual model is the culmination of our data analysis and reflection on the integration between musicking and personal and social well-being in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. in moral and cultural education, we found that the emphasis is on how we conduct ourselves and that music binds us together socially creating empathy for one another. the literature on emotional intelligence highlighted the ways in which musicking within a supportive environment could facilitate self-awareness and awareness of others. therefore, musicking in the life skills classroom may contribute to fostering well-being by connecting us to others and ourselves, and creating a strong sense of self-awareness. the final theme, engaging in musicking for well-being, illustrates the ways in which an individual or a group of people may use musicking to achieve the elements of subjective well-being in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. cultural and moral education through musicking in the life skills classroom during our analysis of the personal and social well-being section of the caps document, cultural and moral education stood out as an important category. our understanding of the type of cultural and moral education advocated for in the caps document is influenced by molose et al.’s16 understanding of the values of ubuntu. ubuntu is seen as an ethical and moral worldview where the survival of the group is dependent on complex reciprocal relationships. respect forms the basis of all social interaction and is posited as a possible central value to address diversity within contemporary society. another central value in this view of ubuntu is compassion. compassion is seen as a means of extending one’s own experience to take the experience of others into consideration. this also means that leaders, or in our case life skills teachers, interact compassionately with those they lead by bearing witness to their experiences. the final value that molose et al.16 identify as central to ubuntu is solidarity. this refers to the inextricable link between the individual and the collective. therefore, institutions, such as schools, and collectives, such as the classrooms, serve the good of the members. an analysis of the literature echoed the intertwined nature of music, cultural education and moral education. ansdell20 states that our ‘musical life world’ is intertwined with our social and cultural ecology. therefore, we argue that the integration of music outcomes and personal and social well-being outcomes in the intermediate phase caps document cannot ignore the role of music in cultural and moral education. firstly, there is an abundance of literature showing the role of music in cultural education. in this regard, we believe that music education as and for cultural education serves as a prime example of this phenomena. denora21 further addresses the instrumental value of music, and how people apply music in their daily lives. noddings22 defines moral education as ‘referring to how we should conduct our lives and, especially, how we should interact with others’. we found in the data that there were many references to how we should conduct our lives in and through music with particular emphasis on the challenges faced by music educators in an increasingly unjust world. as such, social justice in music education has experienced a great deal of interest in recent years. although social justice was not part of our keyword search, the values and call to action are echoed in the data. bunt23 states that we can tell untold stories through musicking together. this form of storytelling may be seen as an act of caring. studies have shown that when musicians care for those they perform to, a reciprocal form of satisfaction springs forth from the caring musicking.20,24 therefore, our conceptual framework indicated that actively musicking together with children may enhance empathy and expressions of care.24 music creates a space for people to get to know one another, creating a safe and caring environment.20 through musicking, people enact the idealised social relationships within their community.1 music may speed up the process of building relationships and nurturing the other.20 thus musicking creates a space for discourse, exchange and cooperation in which the idealised form of social interaction may be expressed.1 under the right conditions, the community ties expressed through musicking relationships may contribute to the well-being of group members.25 therefore, if our ideal community ties are characterised by compassion and empathy, we need to enable learners to engage in musicking activities in which these kinds of ties are expressed. research has shown that musical engagement produces empathy in children.25 thus, musicking creates a sense of extendedness towards the other person in a non-threatening way.20 through this musical extension, learners and teachers in the intermediate phase life skills class may be able to reach intricate emotional spaces, which most other modalities cannot reach.26 cultivating emotional intelligence through musicking our understanding of the type of emotional intelligence advocated for in the life skills caps document is influenced by an ethically informed emotional and social competency inventory.17 such a view of emotional intelligence aligns with the emphasis on moral education in the caps document as it places ethics in the centre of what is understood to be emotional intelligence. furthermore, this framework argues that emotional intelligence is the result of an individual displaying competency in self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and relationship management. these competencies relate closely to the outcomes in the caps document, and are also reflected in the literature on musicking and well-being. musicking refers to a process in which people engage within a specific socio-historic moment.20 when more than one person is engaged in a musicking activity, one may think of it as a dialogue with the intent of sharing ideas without having a preconceived notion of what outcome might be. the freedom entailed in this view of musicking opens up possibilities for teachers in the life skills classroom to employ musicking as a means to explore various aspects of emotional intelligence. musicking connects people to their deepest emotions and, subsequently, may lead to intense emotional experiences.20,24 it awakens a mixture of emotions depending on the individual’s emotional state of mind at the time.24 whilst musicking, there is room and space for tolerance towards one another, and accepting and encouraging the emotional experiences of each other in a special way.20 there is a strong connection between relationship building and emotional literacy. by allowing space for the experience of different emotional realities, music positively affects our relationships.20,24 emotional literacy directly influences relationships promoting mental health through the expression of creative ideas.27,28,29 research indicates that individuals may employ music to alter their emotional states.30 when children listen to music, they feel connected to others more easily.31 in return, these children could open up about their problems, as music transported them beyond their physical worlds.20,32 thus, music can be used to positively enhance emotions.25 musicking may also be employed to alter emotional states or as an active stress reduction strategy.33 stress and tension are experiences which are very prevalent in our modern world. through singing, people may be able to find relief from these emotions.34 thus, musical interaction lowers the stress response in people, enhancing positive emotional consequences.25 engaging in musicking for well-being we view well-being as a subjective state which may be influenced by various elements. we use the perma framework as a foundation for our view on well-being.18 it states that well-being consists of five elements: (1) positive emotions, (2) engagement, (3) relationships, (4) meaning and (5) accomplishment. many of these elements have already emerged as of importance in other categories, including experiencing positive emotions, and building strong relationships. these elements of well-being are also closely reflected in the literature on musicking and well-being. musicking has the ability to elevate, stimulate and assist learners in various ways.20 it connects us psychologically to the world outside ourselves and facilitates the building of meaningful relationships.20,24,35,36 musicking may also connect us with the physical body we inhabit.31 the experience we have in the musical space is reliant on the body we inhabit, our history and accessibility of the music that forms us.31 through caring experiences of expressive movement as part of their musicking, learners are able to nourish their self-esteem.37,38 this may be particularly valuable to learners in the intermediate phase who are going through bodily changes and may feel self-conscious during this transitional period.39 through musical participation, individuals can become more mature and secure in their personal identity.20,29 through this process, they create a musical identity. this musical identity, in turn, creates a space for people to be there for one another.20,36 it has the potential to contribute a sense of oneness which, in turn, facilitates experiences of well-being in a person.20,33 empowering learners to build a positive musical identity may prove helpful to their well-being far beyond the intermediate phase. when people engage in challenging musicking activities, they become cognitively stimulated.26,40 the challenge of this cognitive stimulation may contribute to confidence building.20,41 in these instances, acquiring musicking skills may enable learners to thrive as life-long learners. within the social settings where life-long musicking engagement takes place, learners may build lasting bonds.20,33,42 these relationships enhance feelings of belonging and strengthen the individual’s sense of self, thereby facilitating experiences of subjective well-being.20,34,43,44,45,46 a conceptual framework to understand the relationship between musicking and personal and social well-being for intermediate phase learners during the data analysis proses, the personal and social well-being outcomes in the caps document were analysed to create a set of a priori codes, which were used to code the music and well-being literature. the findings are represented in a conceptual model (see figure 1). this analysis showed that musicking in the intermediate phase life skills classroom may be employed to teach the personal and social well-being section of the intermediate phase life skills caps, if the central focus of the musicking experience aligns with the cultural and moral education taught in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. the possibilities afforded through musicking form the basis for the nine propositions of our conceptual model and can be described as follows: personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if ethical knowledge and moral education are placed at the centre of the musicking experience. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if the musicking experience facilitates self-awareness. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if the musicking experience facilitates social awareness. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if the musicking experience facilitates self-management. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if the musicking experience facilitates relationship management. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if learners have the opportunity to experience positive emotions during the musicking. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if learners are actively engaged through musicking. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if musical engagement is meaningful to learners. personal and social well-being can be taught through musicking in the life skills classroom if learners experience a sense of accomplishment as a result of their musicking. application to the intermediate phase life skills classroom in this section, we illustrate how our conceptual framework for musicking in the life skills classroom as cultural and moral education may be interpreted and applied in the intermediate phase classroom to achieve both musical and personal, and social well-being outcomes. in each example, we illustrate the application of our framework to performing arts outcomes in a specific grade in the intermediate phase. in each term grade, four learners are required to reflect on other’s performances using creative arts terminology. this is an ideal opportunity for a teacher to model social awareness, relationship management and self-management to learners. a teacher may model a feedback model such as the positive sandwich, in which two positive remarks are used to frame one critique of the performance. alternatively, the teacher may model a simplified socratic method by reframing critique into questions. both of these approaches will enable the learners to become more aware of the modes of feedback they give their peers. in term one grade, five learners are required to improvise locomotor and non-locomotor movement sequences. this is a good opportunity to also teach self-management, as learners often find it difficult to share physical space with other learners. the teacher may notice that some learners seem unaware of the way their bodies move in space or may be less aware of other learners around them. this may lead to conflict. a teacher, informed by our framework, may approach this as an opportunity to teach consideration and understanding for others’ emotions, self-management and conflict management strategies. a teacher may also employ mirroring as the initial movement improvisation activity. in this activity, learners are assigned pairs. one partner takes on the role of leader, whilst the other plays the follower. the leader improvises expressive movement to recorded music, and the follower mirrors the movements as closely as possible. usually, this activity begins with mirroring hand movements, where the partners place their palms facing each other. the teacher may choose to indicate role reversals at appropriate points in time. mirroring encourages learners to become more aware of another person in their space.47 the exchange of leadership roles also serves in teaching learners how to contribute positively to a group experience while fulfilling different roles. during the second term, grade six learners are required to analyse and present a cultural dance. this is an opportune moment for a teacher to encourage intercultural understanding and model compassionate listening as the learners explore the cultural dances of various groups. this outcome may also serve to sensitise the learners to musicking in the sense that small1 describes the verb, as a means of engaging musically to illustrate and foster the ideal social relations within a given socio-cultural context. discussion in this article, we discussed our conceptual framework for teaching personal and social well-being through musicking in the intermediate phase life skills classroom. in this conceptual framework, musicking is viewed as instrumental in teaching personal and social well-being when it is seen as an act of cultural and moral education. this framework leans strongly on the values of ubuntu,16 and therefore views musicking as a socio-cultural practice31 which may be employed to teach survival, respect and dignity, compassion and solidarity. by using musicking as a means to teach this worldview, we also assert that teachers can empower students to meet the emotional intelligence17 outcomes by facilitating musicking experiences which focus on self-awareness,19,31 social awareness,4,5 self-management9 and relationship management.1,19,31 when the nine propositions of our conceptual framework are met, musicking may facilitate experiences of subjective well-being and be instrumental in the teaching of personal and social well-being outcomes. this framework has many practical implications. firstly, this framework shows that all life skills teachers in the intermediate phase may benefit from becoming competent music facilitators, as this will add valuable skills to their repertoire. these skills may be employed to teach important outcomes in the life skills classroom. secondly, this framework also underscores the importance of arts education in general, and music education in particular, for student teachers. this has various implications for higher education institutions, where arts education is often pushed to the curricular periphery. conclusion despite having important implications for practice and higher education curriculum design, there were some limitations in conducting this study. this study uses only literature as data. therefore, we cannot speak about individual experiences of south african intermediate phase life skills teachers, nor can we address the very real challenges teachers face when trying to use musicking as a means to facilitate personal and social well-being in the intermediate phase life skills class. however, this opens up various exciting possibilities for future research. it is our hope that this framework may inspire educators to become more critical of the ways in which they integrate the distinct aspects of the life skills curriculum, and that by doing so, we may see future research, addressing the limitations of this study. acknowledgements competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interest exists. authors’ contributions r.j.m. contributed to the conceptualisation of the study and collected data and engaged in the analysis thereof. r.j.m. contributed towards all sections for the first draft and created preliminary visualisations for the article. j.m. contributed to the conceptualisation for the study. j.m. acted as the supervisor during the data collection and analysis stage and during the initial write-up. j.m. re-wrote and edited the initial write-up and changed the visualisation and conceptual framework sections. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability the authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors. references small c. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press; 1998. edgar sn. an ethic of care in high school instrumental music. action, 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https://doi.org/10.1386/ijcm.10.2.121_1 murcia cq, kreutz g. dance and health: exploring interactions and implications. in: macdonald r, kreutz g, mitchell l, editors. music, health and well-being. new york, ny: oxford university press, 2012; p. 1–22. norton k. singing and well-being: ancient wisdom, modern proof. new york, ny: routledge. 2016. lindberg sm, hyde js, mckinley nm. a measure of objectified body consciousness for preadolescent and adolescent youth. psychol women q. 2006;30(1):65–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00263.x bugos ja, perlstein wm, mccrae cs, brophy ts, bedenbaugh ph. individualized piano instruction enhances executive functioning and working memory in older adults. aging ment health. 2007;11(4):464–471. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607860601086504 ockelford a, markou k. music education and therapy for children and young people with cognitive impairments: reporting on a decade of research. in: macdonald r, kreutz g, mitchell l, editors. music, health, 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university press, 2012; p. 1–29. van der merwe l, tempelhoff jw, joubert d. exploring the meanings that stakeholders of the brandfort community ascribe to their experiences of a dalcroze-inspired workshop. int j community music. 2019;12(2):249–267. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijcm.12.2.249_1 abstract introduction literature review methodology discussion conclusion acknowledgements references about the author(s) thelma louw department of quality assurance and enhancement, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa citation louw t. enablers and inhibitors of efforts to reduce scope 3 emissions – the case of an odel university. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1104. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1104 research project registration: project number: 2018_rpsc_070 original research enablers and inhibitors of efforts to reduce scope 3 emissions – the case of an odel university thelma louw received: 10 june 2021; accepted: 18 nov. 2021; published: 20 jan. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract background: the reconfiguration of the south african higher education landscape in 2003 and 2004 had a significant impact on the university of south africa (unisa) and technikon sa (both distance education institutions) which merged to form the ‘new’ unisa. aim: the aim of this conceptual study is to explore the extent to which the policies of the post-merger unisa are enablers or inhibitors of efforts to reduce its scope 3 carbon emissions. setting: staff commuter patterns between the main campuses of unisa and the policy environment that has an impact on such travel. methods: the aim is achieved by means of a case study methodology that considers the relevant policies of the university and applicable results of a 2018 unisa staff travel demand survey to determine whether the policies are incongruous with the institution’s attempts to reduce its carbon footprint in general, and its scope 3 carbon emissions in particular. the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic on defining a ‘new normal’ for the university’s operations, and the impact thereof on staff commuting, have been discussed. results: the study revealed that despite being an open distance e-learning (odel) institution, the university has not put a coherent policy framework in place that undeniably supports its efforts to limit or reduce its scope 3 carbon emissions. this was brought into stark focus by the measures the university was forced to put in place as a result of the covid-19 lockdown regulations in south africa, to ensure the continuation of its business. conclusion: the conclusions will assist unisa and other universities which have had to revisit their operations as a result of the covid-19 pandemic to define a true ‘new normal’. keywords: travel demand management; scope 3 emissions; telecommuting; distance education; sustainability. introduction ‘“[w]ork” is something you do and not a place you go to’.1 the most commonly used standard for reporting on greenhouse gas emissions (ghgs) is the greenhouse gas protocol corporate standard.2 this protocol defines three ‘scopes’ of emission sources, namely: scope 1 (direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by an organisation), scope 2 (emissions from the generation of electricity, steam or heat purchased for use by the organisation), and scope 3 (emissions which are a result of the business of the organisation and is not owned or controlled by such organisation). the carbon footprint of an organisation is the total amount of ghgs that is directly or indirectly caused by an organisation in its operations.3 the south african public higher education environment has undergone significant (albeit involuntary) change since the dawn of the new century – a process commonly referred to as the reconfiguration of the higher education landscape announced by the minister of higher education in 2003. the impact of this reconfiguration has not been similar for all higher education institutions (heis). in a series of mergers that took place in 2003 and january 2004, some institutions merged with neighbouring institutions, whilst other merging institutions were quite a distance apart. the latter was the case with the university of south africa (unisa) and technikon sa (both distance education institutions) resulting in the establishment of the ‘new’ unisa – an open distance e-learning (odel) institution. each pre-merger institution boasted significant staff and student numbers. both had campuses in all provinces, whilst their respective administrative hubs and/or main campuses were located approximately 70 km apart. this study focuses on staff travel between the main campuses of the new unisa – for the purposes of working and attending meetings – and the way in which institutional policies have acted as enablers or inhibitors of scope 3 emissions resulting from such travel. as administrative and academic functions were realigned between the two main campuses, the workplaces of significant numbers of staff were reallocated. although this reshuffle initially primarily involved unidirectional traffic (to the campus in muckleneuk, pretoria, south africa), once the expansion of facilities on the science campus in florida, roodepoort, south africa had concluded in 2013, the movement of staff between the campuses became bidirectional. prior to the merger, there had been an agreement with the local authority in pretoria that afforded the institution the use of municipal buses to transport staff on various routes and from distances as far as 50 km, to the campus. although hundreds of staff members utilised this subsidised bus service, the agreement with the local authority was terminated in 2010, forcing all staff who had travelled on these buses to find alternative transport to the muckleneuk campus. the alternative choice was private vehicles, resulting in severe parking shortages and traffic congestion at the muckleneuk campus. to alleviate this congestion, the university purchased land adjacent to the campus to build a multi-storey parking facility – a project that has not progressed beyond the planning stages. staff based at the science campus prior to the merger did not have any subsidised bus service to transport them to campus and had always arranged their own transport to and from work, and to this end primarily used private vehicles or taxis to reach the campus. in 2018, the unisa sustainability office and the worldwide fund for nature – south africa (wwf-sa) commissioned a research study to gauge commuter patterns amongst staff working at the muckleneuk and science campuses, respectively, and who were compelled to undertake intercampus commutes. the aim of the study was to arrive at a fundamental understanding of the complexities of staff commuting behaviours. the study sought to provide a basis for advising the management of the institution on effective interventions aimed at promoting responsible and sustainable transportation choices amongst staff, with a view to reducing scope 3 emissions. the researcher set out to explore the manner in which the policies of unisa act as either enablers or inhibitors in managing the university’s scope 3 emissions. these policies become determinants of the travel patterns of staff to and from the two main campuses, as reflected in the findings of the wwf-sa study. to this end, the researcher will seek to discover whether these policies and practices are incongruous with the institution’s attempts to reduce its carbon footprint in general, and its scope 3 emissions in particular. literature review travel demand management (tdm) focuses not only on influencing the travel behaviours and mode choices of commuters or broadening their scope of options, but also on measures to reduce the need for travel.4 yildirimoglu and ramezani5 found that limited changes in travel patterns, such as commuters departing 10 min earlier or later, result in better-performing commuter networks, as congestion peaks are flattened. motor vehicle traffic is one of the major and fastest-growing sources of ghg emissions,6 with some companies reporting that it accounts for more than 50% of their carbon emissions.2,7 this may highlight inefficiencies in managing staff travel and indicate areas where there is room for improvement.8 governments internationally conduct household travel surveys to inform their long-term infrastructure development plans. south africa undertook such national surveys in 2003 and 2013.9 the 2013 survey cites the objective of the 2007 public transport strategy of the national department of transport as being to ‘achieve a significant shift of work trips from cars to public transport networks by 2020’. the third south african national household travel survey was undertaken in 2020, in the months before the national lockdown as a result of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19).10 as these surveys included questions on educationand work-related travel, they were deemed relevant to this study. responsible business organisations (including universities) often evaluate their business processes11 and survey the travel patterns of their staff as part of their facilities management processes,12,13 in addition to using them to measure and manage their scope 3 carbon emissions.14,15,16 universities as contributors to traffic congestion and scope 3 carbon emissions scope 3 carbon emissions, as the third of the scopes outlined in the greenhouse gas protocol corporate standard, encompass emissions that are indirectly linked to an organisation’s activities (which includes staff commuting). it was found2 that at 79% of emissions, scope 3 emissions were the biggest and fastest-growing component of the total carbon footprint of de montford university, with staff travel contributing three times more to carbon emissions than its closest rival, international student travel. internationally, universities have put in place a range of tdm strategies on their campuses to alleviate congestion and reduce carbon emissions.12,17 such measures include reducing the number of parking spaces, facilitating carpooling and providing staff and students with passes that allow them free access to local public transport. of these, the freeride passes yielded the most marked behavioural change in terms of mode choice, whilst non-motorised transport was the least-preferred option.15,17 university staff and students are significant contributors to the general travel volumes and carbon emissions in those locations, with significant volume reductions being recorded during vacation periods.11,17,18 the dispersion effect of travel in other areas during vacation periods was not studied by these authors. it follows logically that locally and internationally, studies focusing on university campuses have found them to be intensely car-oriented environments.6 campuses are generally not known as carbon-free hubs with ample access to green energy sources, such as solar-powered charging stations for electric vehicles. traditional measures by governments to attempt to reduce vehicle use, such as increases in fuel prices,19 have had very little impact on the staff and students of those universities where alternative forms of transport (that are not dependent on fossil fuels) are generally unavailable or inaccessible, and where policies on telecommuting are not in place. millennials – a generation that is becoming a growing segment of the workforce of universities – in california, united states of america (usa) wait longer to apply for driver’s licences, own fewer cars, drive less and prefer to use alternative modes of transport when travelling.20 as these authors20 noted, commuters develop habits in terms of their choice of travel modes – older commuters, for instance, prefer to travel by car. the latter confirms the results of other studies,6,21 which investigated students’ travel patterns in kerala, india. it was also found22 that persons with graduate degrees were more likely to telecommute more often than other respondents, with between 14% and 18% of participants in their study (who had at least a bachelor’s degree) reporting that they telecommuted ‘sometimes’. telecommuting as a means of limiting scope 3 carbon emissions travel is a demand derived from people’s need to perform an activity.21 travel mode demands are more closely correlated to travel time, than to cost: commuters are willing to pay more for a quicker commute.17 this is understandable, given the limited flexibility of work schedules.5,13,23 telecommuting (or working from home or remotely) is generally regarded as a sustainable and competitive alternative to daily commuting as it saves time and cost, minimises the environmental impact, improves labour flexibility and labour market access, and does not have adverse tax implications for employers or employees.24 the uptake of telecommuting by south african universities has, however, been very low, despite traffic congestion on and around university campuses nation-wide. road transport is responsible for nearly three-quarters of all transport energy consumption.25 it has been found24 that telecommuting not only reduced travel demand but also eased peak-hour congestion – even on non-telecommuting days – given the increased flexibility of commuters’ travel patterns.4 a commensurate reduction in fatal and less serious vehicle accidents has been predicted26 as a result of a decrease in the number of vehicles on the road, once people telecommute, highlighting the multi-faceted economic imperative for telecommuting as a mode of working. the reduction and dispersion effects of traffic volumes are identified as being amongst the key benefits of telecommuting. a further benefit of eliminating the daily commute is that it saves time. in a survey involving 454 respondents,27 a saving of between 2000 and 4000 employee hours per day was calculated for professionals who telecommute. the rebound effect of telecommuting,24 namely an increase in other household travel, would not have been relevant during the south african covid-19 lockdown period, as only essential travel was allowed, but it is worth considering as part of the post-lockdown ‘new normal’. the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on commuting a developed country such as the usa has had legislation in place to promote the development of telecommuting programmes since the 1990s.28 in south africa, the first legislation on telecommuting appeared in the 2020 regulations promulgated as part of the national lockdown to curb the spread of covid-19. the ‘forced’ changes in work patterns resulting from nation-wide and international lockdowns had a fundamental impact on all aspects of commuting and mode selection, confirming the contention29 that ‘periods of disruption can often be catalysts for travel behaviour change’. it has been found24 that telecommuting resulted in behavioural changes that contributed to the well-being of telecommuters, such as shared family responsibilities, which in turn positively affected the productivity of employees. other authors30 found that more than 25% of their study’s respondents reported increased productivity whilst working from home. in similar vein, world wide worx31 noted a massive 70% increase in productivity in south african companies which had a digital transformation strategy in place prior to the lockdown. there is currently only anecdotal evidence, however, that south african university employees who started telecommuting during the covid-19 lockdown worked harder and longer hours than they normally do. travel demand management study of unisa staff as part of the literature informing this article, the unisa tdm study32 and its findings are an important source of secondary data. the tdm study investigated the transportation patterns amongst employees located at the two main campuses (muckleneuk and florida) of unisa in 2018. the objective was to investigate the daily travel patterns and behaviour of staff commuting to and from the muckleneuk and florida campuses, respectively. as mentioned, such intercampus commuting primarily arose as a result of the relocation of staff workstations, following the merger of the two distance education institutions in 2004. although emerging technologies have been used for travel data collection, with a growing interest in passive and global positioning system (gps)-based techniques,33,34 the nature of the university’s travel demand study did not lend itself to the use of such tools. an online questionnaire garnered the respondents’ demographic information and included questions relating to a number of focus areas, namely: mode of transport most often used to commute to and from the campuses; car engine capacity and type of fuel used; duration, distance and estimated cost of commute; carpool or lift club opportunities and utilisation; intercampus staff commute shuttle usage; satisfaction levels with the intercampus staff commute shuttle services and general staff perceptions regarding ‘green travel’. the research questionnaire was sent to all employees working at either the muckleneuk or science campuses of the university. the unusually high response rate of 96.6% could be an indication of how important the staff deemed the topic to be. the tdm study presented an opportunity for unisa to evaluate its environmental performance and identify areas for environmental impact reduction3 relating to its scope 3 emissions. the development of a travel model based on a bottom-up approach – in other words, on the actual behaviour of individuals – has wide-ranging support.23 with that in mind, the following findings of the unisa study32 are relevant to this article: there is an almost complete lack of telecommuting at the university. a total of 81.5% of respondents reported having to commute to their workplace five days a week; two-thirds of them used their own vehicles for this purpose. more than 80% of the vehicles used, conveyed single occupants. most shuttle users used private vehicles to reach the shuttle pickup points (adding to parking challenges) and a significant number (23.7%) used public transport for this purpose. nearly 80% of shuttle users did so for their convenience and to save on transport costs. as respondents reported that shuttle journeys usually take longer than a private car trip, this finding contradicts the assertion by another study17 that mode demand is more reactive to travel time than to cost. more than 80% of shuttle users reported being satisfied or extremely satisfied with the service. unisa policy framework as indicated earlier, the reconfiguration of the south african higher education landscape in 2003 and 2004 had a significant impact on the travel patterns of staff at many of the affected heis. this includes the two distance education institutions which merged, as their administrative hubs and main campuses were located approximately 70 km apart. despite its status as an odel institution, the relocation of administrative and academic functions between the two main campuses resulted in the relocation of the workplace of significant numbers of staff. initially, the relocation was primarily unidirectional (to the muckleneuk campus), but later to the science campus as well. these forced changes added significant travel volumes to peak-hour traffic and carbon emissions on two of the country’s busiest highways, which connect the two campuses. as a ‘large employer’ and an odel university, unisa appeared to be in an excellent position to implement tdm and telecommuting programmes. after all, as another author14 suggested, larger organisations with more employees have more options when it comes to the deployment of tdm programmes. the importance of policies for determining a university’s sustainability trajectory is emphasised in another study.35 immediately after the 2004 merger, unisa instituted a shuttle service to ferry staff between the two main campuses (muckleneuk and science campus) – in line with international trends for larger employers and universities aiming to reduce congestion and scope 3 carbon emissions.15 the number of staff making use of this service daily attests to its effectiveness as a measure to limit the institution’s scope 3 emissions from staff travel, peak-hour traffic congestion and parking challenges. as indicated earlier, its efficiency was confirmed by respondents during the institution’s travel demand study. employer policies have proven to be effective instruments for reducing congestion and scope 3 emissions.13 despite both being distance education institutions, neither of the premerger institutions had any telecommuting policy or practice in place prior to merging. this is not unusual even in developed countries, as zhu36 indicates that nearly 90% of respondents in national household travel surveys in the usa in the early 2000s indicated that they did not have the option to telecommute. the absence of significant policies on telecommuting continued after the merger, despite significant involuntary spatial changes in the commuting destinations of the relocated staff. despite having a parking policy in place,37 which states that the university aims to become a carbon neutral organisation and will continually strive to improve its carbon emissions by embarking on initiatives to curb its carbon footprint (such as promoting lift club parking to limit the number of private vehicles used to commute to work and parking fees for allocated on-campus parking), congestion has remained highly problematic, particularly on the muckleneuk campus. access control systems do not limit staff vehicle access solely to those with an allocated parking bay. this results in excessive illegal parking on campus – a situation not uncommon around the world on university campuses.12 the only solution considered thus far by the university to resolve the problem of congestion and illegal parking on the muckleneuk campus has been to plan the construction of additional multi-level parking facilities at great cost. the first policy of the university that allowed some forms of telecommuting dealt with professors working from home.38 although the concept was piloted from 2007, the policy only came into effect in 2011 – 7 years after the merger. the objective of the policy was to increase research outputs whilst simultaneously alleviating office space constraints. it was applicable to academic staff members at the level of associate professor or full professor, employed by the institution for more than 3 years, and who boasted above-average performance ratings. applicants needed to have a performance agreement in place and had to declare that they would not work from ‘an office established or maintained elsewhere’.38 approvals were subject to annual review and required five (5) hierarchical levels of consent. ultimately, fewer than 10% of professors benefited from the policy. although the policy was never revoked formally, the executive committee of the university’s council resolved in april 2019 that all professors working from home should be recalled and should return to campus on 01 june of that year, based on concerns regarding service delivery to students. the only other relevant policy of the university pertains to official working hours. this policy, which is applicable to all staff, allows for flexibility of approximately 2 h at the beginning and end of the workday. up to four hierarchical levels of approval are required for staff wishing to make use of these flexible working hours, by starting earlier or later than the official hours. as other authors3,12 pointed out, inflexible work schedules limit staff members’ ability to avoid peak-hour travel and congestion. methodology a case study research methodology was used. a case study is well suited to examine why and how phenomena occur in organisations, without disrupting the operations of such organisations. using this methodology, the researcher explored the relevant literature on the topic of enablers, inhibitors and organisational practices regarding travel demand nationally and internationally at universities and other organisations. the researcher further examined the relevant policies and operations of the university to discover whether these are incongruous with attempts to reduce unisa’s carbon footprint and its scope 3 emissions. the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on defining a ‘new normal’ for the university’s operations and staff commuting was explored, leading to recommendations for policy development that will enable a ‘new normal’. ethical considerations the use of the results of the travel demand survey as part of the literature for the case study was approved by the unisa professional research committee, research ethics workgroup, reference number: 2018_prc_rew_011. discussion there is growing interest in the travel patterns associated with university campuses6 – metropolitan campuses in particular – as the decision of staff to use their own vehicles is motivated by matters such as the desire for greater mobility, flexibility, reliability, comfort and personalisation.39 these needs, which may be regarded as selfish,40 counters the positive relationship between reducing carbon emissions and enhancing organisational reputation. if a university wants to secure the long-term trust and acceptance of its stakeholders, it must be cognisant of its carbon emissions and consciously put measures in place to reduce its carbon footprint.3 like other employers, universities have significant influence over the scope 3 emissions resulting from staff travel and should not underestimate the power of their executive decision-making to achieve reduction objectives or targets within a short period of time.22 universities are known as incubators of innovation41 and their staff members are generally highly educated and open to change.17 such incubated knowledge should be nurtured and applied to the advantage of the university as well as local, provincial and national policymaking.41 notably, authors15 found that educational facilities are less likely to participate in tdm programmes, and that worksites which lack good access to transit facilities (such as the science campus) are more likely to implement tdm programmes. unisa took a significant step in identifying and working towards sustainability goals by establishing a sustainability office in 2013. it is, to date, the only south african university to have taken this bold step which resulted in the development of master plans on waste, water, carbon emissions, alternative energy and energy efficiency. it has also played a significant role in the establishment of a sustainability community of practice for all south african universities and approved institutional research such as the travel demand survey discussed above. it is, however, evident from the institutional policies that unisa has been hesitant to include eco-efficiency principles that will significantly reduce its scope 3 carbon emissions (such as telecommuting and active staff travel interventions) as permanent features of its business model. this is somewhat contradictory to its mission as an odel institution and is not in line with international trends at universities which are attempting to reduce the use of private vehicles and encourage reliance on other modes of transport.12 some authors13 posited that the low uptake of (and even resistance to) telecommuting, on the part of employers, might be attributed to managers being afraid of losing control over employees, albeit that, in general, strict adherence to office hours does not relate positively to staff efficiency. the covid-19 pandemic should be seen as an opportunity to enter a re-organisation phase of innovation and creativity.42 this notion should be embraced by south african universities in general and unisa as an odel institution in particular. for as long as the communities around the science campus remain underserviced by public transport, staff located at, and commuting to and from that campus to the muckleneuk campus, will have little alternative but to use private vehicles for their commute if they are not allowed to telecommute. this confirms the finding of studies23 that mode choice is strongly related to network variables. it behoves unisa to introduce and retain both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ policies39 to reduce its scope 3 carbon emissions, specifically by focusing on reducing staff travel as the most significant component of scope 3 emissions. ‘hard’ policies aim to reduce the attractiveness of travelling by car, whilst ‘soft’ policies emphasise the benefits of using other modes of travel – or not travelling at all, by relying on telecommuting. limiting the commuter benefits provided by the employer, through financial disincentives such as increasing parking costs, have proven to encourage employees to change their commuting habits.43 in this regard, several authors12,17,39,43 found that subsidised public transport yielded a significant behavioural change amongst employees regarding mode choice. other authors4 advised that combining as few as two small-scale travel behaviour changes is likely to have a bigger benefit than a single large-scale change with smaller uptake. further indications are17 that a combination of travel demand measures is most effective; however, that will require significant policy changes and changes in travel time and cost to curb car use. it was further found27 that commuters who met the description of ‘professionals’ were the single largest group to use single-occupancy vehicles, which is a notable problem on university campuses.2 the modal share of motor vehicles amongst university staff was found to be more than 60%,17 making cars by far the preferred mode of transport. this is supported by lived evidence of congestion on the two main campuses of unisa and other university campuses. yet, during the covid-19 lockdown, when telecommuting was forced on the institution by national lockdown regulations, and business continued largely unimpeded, the generally highly congested campus parking areas, roads and sidewalks were practically deserted. the 2020 covid-19 pandemic as determinant of the ‘new normal’ the covid-19 pandemic and resultant world-wide lockdowns forced countries and organisations (including universities) to review and reconsider most aspects of the way work is done.44 these authors44 noted that nearly half of their study’s respondents reported being able to work from home during lockdown, and another author45 concluded that covid-19 has caused ‘an unprecedented shift in travel behaviour’. some authors42 indicated that the pandemic marked a significant ‘collapse of the human-earth system’. globally, images were shared in the popular press of clear skies in what are generally highly polluted cities, and of previously polluted waterways and canals teeming with fish. these are indicators of the positive impact a significant reduction or complete cessation of the daily commute and other travel can have on the environment. preventive measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus, including minimising (if not prohibiting) face-to-face interaction,46 are likely to remain in place at south african universities for the foreseeable future as part of the national strategy to curb the spread of infections. the success with which information and communications technologies (icts) have been used to ensure business continuity throughout most of the annual south african university cycle seems to indicate that there will be no returning to the way operations were conducted in the higher education sector pre-2020. this is the case with both residential and distance education institutions. although the learning curve for the use of icts was arguably steeper at residential institutions, it was not insignificant at unisa as it too had to refocus and upscale its ict systems to enable staff to work from home to conclude the academic year. the strides made in ict applications at south african universities may influence the uptake of other technological advances, such as vehicle automation – something which some authors25 regarded as a possible solution to challenges such as the energy intensity of commuting by car, and parking constraints. telecommuting and vehicle automation – through automated car-sharing and the productive use of travel time in particular – could be regarded as complementary future technologies, particularly on days when a university’s telecommuters need to be physically present on the campus. it is also pointed out30,44 that a fear of contracting covid-19 has resulted in a resurgence of private vehicle travel, with conditions such as depression and anxiety as a result of the pandemic increasing the likelihood of drivers making accidents. as most current vehicle commuters do not plan to change their transport mode,47 it means that traffic congestion may be worse once travel restrictions are lifted, unless policies on telecommuting are adopted and implemented, wherever possible.22 in south africa, gautrain in the economic heart of the country reported only about 14% of pre-covid-19 use when lockdown restrictions were eased,48 with the rail feeder buses down to 16% of pre-covid-19 utilisation. in 2003, it took public transport numbers in taipei, taiwan, nearly 5 months after the last reported sars death to return to pre-pandemic numbers.47 the post-covid-19 ‘new normal’ needs to be informed by life cycle thinking (lct)11 – a new normal that will be determined by aspirational thinking and the courage to discontinue workplace activities, such as the daily commute, that have been unmasked by the pandemic as either obsolete or no longer fit for the purpose.42 unisa should critically reconsider the need for staff to commute between the muckleneuk and science campuses daily, given that both campuses are located in large metropolitan areas. the positive impact of telecommuting on traffic congestion and pollution in the metros concerned would be significant.28 this can contribute significantly to reducing the university’s scope 3 carbon emissions14 and curb single-occupancy car travel.7 it was found20 that transit riders, who used public transport regularly to commute, showed the strongest support for environmental policies. the positive attitudes and intentions of university staff to adhere to sustainability principles and initiatives12 should be converted into actions, to significantly reduce the university’s scope 3 carbon emissions by means of a focused, enabling and environmentally conscious policy framework. the ‘forced’ telecommuting resulting from the national lockdown regulations in south africa fast-tracked unisa’s implementation of a digital transformation strategy, thus confirming the findings of other studies.22,31 although the telecommuting was unplanned and unprecedented, it had no significant negative impact on the operations of the university. on the contrary, anecdotal information indicates that the university’s operational costs decreased significantly and its ability to allow most staff to perform their functions remotely, together with the productivity benefits of telecommuting for the majority, was pushed to the forefront. the positive impact on the university’s scope 3 carbon emissions from reduced staff travel was also significant, as staff were prohibited from entering the campuses and required a permit from their senior manager to do so when such entry was unavoidable for business reasons. conclusion it is clear from the prior discussion that despite its status as an odel institution, unisa does not have a policy regime that can be regarded as an enabler of its efforts to reduce its scope 3 carbon emissions. in line with international best practice12 and with several studies indicating that close to 40% of companies intend to continue allowing their staff to telecommute after the lockdowns are lifted,30,31 it is recommended that policies be put in place that will allow academics and other employees of unisa to continue to telecommute as far as possible. although the ict implication of such a policy change is significant, it does not entail anything outside its odel mandate that the university did not deal with fairly successfully whilst in lockdown. office space constraints will be resolved immediately, with significant savings on rented office space. owned office space can be made available to staff who need to travel to the main campuses occasionally, via an online booking system. a policy on telecommuting will likely have a positive impact on the recruitment strategy of the university as well, allowing it to attract the best possible skills regardless of where those skills reside within the country or the world. for staff functions where telecommuting is not possible, the intercampus shuttle services and, more importantly, transit services to rail, etc. should be retained and even expanded where local authorities cannot be influenced to enhance existing transit routes past the campuses. this is feasible as 80% of unisa shuttle users who participated in the tdm study reported that they did so for their convenience and to save on transport costs, and more than 80% reported being satisfied or extremely satisfied with the service. the university can ensure the attractiveness of such functional, safe, cost-effective and convenient alternative forms of transport to staff by fully or partially subsidising these forms of transport. as reported earlier, a significant number (23.7%) of shuttle users used public transport to reach the shuttle pick-up point. with the gautrain planning loyalty programmes and additional discounts for the youth in the form of a new student product and travel card48 to boost its numbers as a result of the lockdown slump, it is opportune for the university to negotiate similar benefits for its staff. the subsidising of transit services and public transport can be funded from market-related on-campus parking fees on the muckleneuk and science campuses and from the leasing of land to the owner of the pay-parking facility on the muckleneuk campus referred to elsewhere. to eliminate on-campus congestion, it is suggested that access control at vehicle boom gates limits access to staff with allocated parking on the campus, thereby eliminating the excessive illegal parking on the muckleneuk campus in particular. it is further recommended that the university leases the land it had previously earmarked for building additional parking facilities on the muckleneuk campus to a developer for the construction of a safe park-and-pay facility. this will provide parking to visitors and telecommuting staff members who may have to access the campus from time to time. as indicated, the income generated from leasing this land to the developer can be used, amongst others, to subsidise public transport for staff members. once the critical decisions have been taken by those in positions mandated to do so, to develop and implement scope 3 carbon emission-saving policies relating to telecommuting and other staff travel, buy-in can be ensured by crafting a compelling and relevant message to raise awareness of the need for these changes. acknowledgements competing interests the author declares that she has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article. author’s contributions t.l. is the sole author of this article. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or 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behaviours in response to the covid-19 pandemic in the uk [homepage on the internet]. leicester diabetes centre; [cited 2020 sept 27]. available from: https://osf.io/download venter i. gautrain set for big loss as ridership falls owing to covid-19 [homepage on the internet]. engineering news [cited 2020 aug 24]. available from: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za abstract introduction research methodology and data analysis geographical and climatological features of beaufort west the drought of 2009–2011 the drought of 2017–2019 discussion: lessons learnt and applied conclusions acknowledgements references about the author(s) wessel p. visser department of history, faculty of arts and sciences, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa citation visser wp. water shortages in beaufort west: lessons learnt and applied during the 2009–2011 and 2017–2019 droughts. j transdiscipl res s afr. 2022;18(1), a1118. https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1118 original research water shortages in beaufort west: lessons learnt and applied during the 2009–2011 and 2017–2019 droughts wessel p. visser received: 19 july 2021; accepted: 17 dec. 2021; published: 28 feb. 2022 copyright: © 2022. the author(s). licensee: aosis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract increasing and prolonged droughts have become a feature of the south african environmental landscape. this article investigates the sustainability of water procurement to the town of beaufort west and the reasons for the town’s water provision crises during the droughts of 2009–2011 and 2017–2019. emergency measures were implemented to alleviate the serious water shortages during these droughts. data to illustrate population increases and precipitation decreases, which impacted on the town’s water resources, were collected from census records of statistics south africa and the department of water and sanitation, respectively. a number of risk factors contributed to the town’s water crises, for example, unsustainable water extraction at times of serious droughts, poor water monitoring, metering and attention to leakages, an expansion of informal settlements within the municipal boundaries of beaufort west, as well as annual rainfall patterns that became increasingly unpredictable. the article concludes that water resource development had not kept pace with demand; therefore water infrastructure should be built with enough capacity to cope with regular dry periods. equilibrium should be reached between the water expectations of the community and the water availability to avoid future social instability in water-stressed towns such as beaufort west. rainfall data indicate that precipitation patterns in the arid regions of south africa are decreasing; therefore the water shortage experience of beaufort west during the recent droughts serves as a clear and present warning that rural towns in these regions should seek and implement alternative water augmentation strategies timeously. keywords: beaufort west; drought; gamka dam; groundwater; water load shedding; reclamation plant; unsustainable water extraction. introduction the historiography of water provision has a relatively long record in southern africa, and many of these histories also focussed on the quest for water during periods of severe drought. for example, bodill referred to the augmentation of port elizabeth’s (gqeberha) vulnerable water supply from the orange river in dry periods,1 grant explained how periodic droughts and population growth in greater cape town ensured a continued search for new water sources during the 19th and 20th centuries,2 visser et al.3 sketched the story of emergency water provision to saldanha during the world war ii and musemwa discussed the hydro-politics of the zimbabwean government prohibiting political dissidents in bulawayo access to potable water during droughts.4 increasing and prolonged drought conditions have prompted urgent research on the sustainability of water procurement and provision to rural communities in the arid interior of south africa. as early as 2009, a study by le maitre et al.5 focused on the challenge to provide adequate water resources in the water scarce region of the little karoo. the research area entailed the catchment of the gouritz river system including the districts of beaufort west in the north, touwsrivier in the west, uniondale in the east and riversdale in the south. holloway et al.6 published a report on the acute water shortages that occurred in towns in the eden and central karoo district municipalities during the 2009–2011 drought. meissner and jacobs-mata7 probed the south african water sector’s long-term national drought policy and strategy to improve the country’s response to future droughts. schreiner et al.8 investigated the economic impacts of drought and water shortages on agriculture, livestock, tourism, mining, and business during 2011–2016 whereas research by tfwala et al.9 determined the occurrence and severity of droughts and interannual rainfall variability trends in the ghaap plateau, northern cape province. zhang et al.10 presented a conceptual framework within which numerical modelling of aquifer systems is operated to improve water security. visser11 investigated the chronology of cape town’s 2015–2018 drought and the various measures imposed by the city council to preserve dwindling water supplies to try and avert the so-called ‘day zero’ scenario when its water resources would be depleted. the studies mentioned above are focused on the problems experienced by predominantly agricultural communities under the strain of serious droughts and efforts to provide water security in arid regions such as the karoo, the northern cape, the west coast and even cape town as a city with limited freshwater resources. however, there is a lacuna in the literature on water studies that focus on the responses and dynamics of rural town communities with a history of coping with water provision struggles during times of severe drought duress. this article investigates the reasons for the water provision crises of the town of beaufort west in the central karoo region during the droughts of 2009–2011 and 2017–2019 and the innovative solutions reached to alleviate the problems of water scarcity. research methodology and data analysis the study is based on comprehensive research into the history and processes of water provision to water-stressed rural towns in south africa, with a specific focus on beaufort west. archival research was based on the following: beaufort west municipal council minutes, reports and documents preserved in the western cape archives and records service (wcars) in cape town. this research material was complemented with data from various published scientific articles and reports, press releases and media reports pertaining to beaufort west’s water woes covering the period 2008–2020. in addition, data were collected from the official census records, dating from 1921 to 2011 via statistics south africa. the study only made use of census records from years where a full population count was held. a graph was created to demonstrate growing population tendencies over time in beaufort west that also put pressure on the town’s available water sources during times of water duress.12 annual precipitation data were gathered from the south african weather service (saws) for the period 1993–2020. these data were used to create two graphs, the first provided a representation of annual rainfall for the area by adding the total precipitation for each year and dividing the total of all the years from 1993 to 2020 by the number of years (i.e. 27 years). the second graph is known as a standard precipitation index (spi). the saws data were processed and analysed using the spi software package of the university of nebraska’s drought mitigation centre. this was performed to calculate the average rainfall in comparison to the previous 12 months for each year over a 40-year period. the advantage of using an spi over a 12-month period is that it highlights how the rainfall in an area compares to previous years’ rainfall while using sampling data over a longer period. this makes the results more reliable and less divergent as would occur with a shorter period such as a 3or 6-month spi.13 the spi was used to calculate the average rainfall in comparison to the previous 12 months over a 40-year period. the spi generally notes years from 0 to -1 as being low rainfall years, from -1 to -2 as being severe drought years and from -2 to -3 as an extreme drought. these graphs illustrate the decreasing precipitation tendencies in the beaufort west area during the period 1993–2020.14 geographical and climatological features of beaufort west beaufort west, the primary focus of this study, was proclaimed a town in 1818 and was the first town in south africa to receive municipal status as early as 1837. the town is situated in the semi-arid central great karoo, 491 km from cape town and 961 km from johannesburg. it is the major administrative, agricultural, and economic centre of the region. the town also serves as a major road and rail transit and is a crossing to many other south african towns. beaufort west lies in a hollow between two hills and is flanked by the gamka river in the west and the kuils river in the east. both rivers, which became semi-perennial as a result of urbanisation, flow in a generally north to south direction. with an average annual rainfall of a mere 250 mm, the municipality has two main sources of water, namely groundwater and surface runoff, that is captured in two dams. the springfontein dam, an irrigation reservoir, was completed in 1869 but has run dry for several years because of diminishing precipitation. the gamka dam, completed in 1955, which provides 45% of the town’s water supply, is the town’s major freshwater reservoir but has been experiencing severe water-stressed conditions in recent years. therefore, the town’s water supply is heavily reliant on rainfall and under severe pressure. groundwater, extracted from boreholes, played an increasingly important role in the development of beaufort west. beaufort west is known for its so-called east-west trending ‘dyke’ cutting through the town. a dyke is a natural barrier to groundwater flow because of its low permeability. this barrier inhibits the southward migration of groundwater and effectively compartmentalises its flow.15,16,17,18,19 throughout its municipal history, beaufort west was plagued by occasional floods and recurring periods of prolonged drought. visser20 and vivier and vivier15 determined that during the first 143 years of municipal record-keeping serious droughts occurred in 1823, 1827, 1856–1859, 1876–1878, 1898, 1915–1916, 1926, 1942–1949, 1951 and 1955–1966. in fact, beaufort west’s first water shedding appeared in january 1946, amidst the 1942–1949 drought, when the situation became so critical that water provision to inhabitants was cut on certain days and hours of the day. in october 1949, water rationing was imposed so that the daily water supply was restricted to 2 h only.21 as explained above, groundwater supplies would become crucial in periods when the town suffered from inevitable drought and water duress. between 150 and 200 boreholes were drilled north of the dolerite dyke by the late 1940s in search of water and mainly in areas close to town.20 since the 1970s, extensive geohydrological work was conducted by the beaufort west municipality and the department of water and sanitation (dws). water is being extracted from four main municipal well fields all within a radius of 40 km from the town. the brandwag well field is situated 40 km northeast of beaufort west, tweeling well field is situated about 30 km northeast of town and lemoenfontein well field is 20 km north of town. the town well field extends from the town to about 10 km north of beaufort west. the town well field supplies the majority of groundwater to the town, and the volume of water from this well field amounts to approximately 50% of the total groundwater supply. the ratio of groundwater to surface water usage is more or less 1:1.19 over the years, more boreholes were drilled in the continued quest for more water sources. eighteen boreholes were sunk since 1985 with an average depth of 49.83 m. between 2007 and 2009, aquifer units south of the town’s dolorite dyke were successfully explored, and several boreholes became available for use by the beaufort west municipality at the hansrivier (southeast of town) and droërivier (southwest of town) well fields, collectively known as the southern well field. thus over a 50-year period, starting in the 1970s, more than 300 boreholes had been drilled in the beaufort west area, and some of these have become production boreholes for the town’s water supply.16,19 xu et al.18 established that the importance of groundwater has increased from 50% in 1978 to 55% in 2007. a decisive moment in beaufort west’s water woes was the introduction of a water-borne sewerage system. although such a sewerage scheme was considered as early as 1963 by the municipal council, the project eventually started in 1975 and was completed in 1978. the installation of flush toilets and running water to poor neighbourhoods has increased water demand, and the successful service provision had the unintended consequence of promoting further in-migration of inhabitants from under-served areas.6,16,22 secondly, sustained urban growth between 1921 and the early 2000s had implications for municipal water demand in beaufort west (figure 1). this growth was also being accompanied by significant town expansion from 1945 to 2010.6 according to nel et al.,23 the growth of larger towns in the karoo can be attributed to their jobs, touristic and retirement appeal. such towns are servicing an enlarged hinterland and a larger resident population while also providing services to an external market driven by tourism and leisure. figure 1: population of beaufort west from 1921 to 2011. field research by holloway et al.6 suggested that heavy rain patterns had shifted spatially in recent years. according to information gathered from local monitors, rainfall changes had taken place since the 1980s as rain began to fall predominantly over the town itself and not over the gamka dam mountain catchment as before. this had implications both for surface water supply, as well as access to groundwater, because of slower rates of aquifer recharge. these findings concur with the data in figures 2 and 3. figure 2: beaufort west total annual rainfall 1993–2020. figure 3: beaufort west spi 12 months 1994–2020. in addition to the declining precipitation figures, rose who conducted groundwater exploration for the beaufort west municipality between 2005 and 200819 explains that the municipality’s brandwag well field measured continuous declining borehole yields. the declining water levels were mainly because of over-utilisation and subsequent dewatering. the tweeling and lemoenfontein well fields indicated similar declining trends. according to mishra and singh,13 the droughts that struck beaufort west and its surrounding district in 2009–2011 and 2017–2019 can be described in four categories: a meteorological drought that is defined as a lack of precipitation over a region for a period of time. a hydrological drought that is related to a period with inadequate surface and subsurface water resources (lakes, reservoirs, rivers, streams and groundwater) for established water uses of a given water resources management system. it affects non-agricultural activities such as urban water consumption, ecosystem preservation, tourism and recreation. an agricultural drought that refers to a period with declining soil moisture and consequent crop failure. a socio-economic drought that is associated with the failure of water resources stems to meet water demands and thus associating droughts with a supply of and demand for water as enonomic good. socio-economic drought occurs when the demand for an economic good exceeds supply as a result of a weather-related shortfall in the water supply. the combined effect of these manifestations of drought brought serious water famine to beaufort west. the drought of 2009–2011 between 2009 and 2011, lower than normal rainfall was partly responsible for falling reservoir levels across the central karoo as the region experienced its worst drought since 1944. although the municipality had introduced new water tariffs as early as july 2008 to discourage high water consumption, restrictions became necessary in 2009. these austerity measures were gradually increased as the water crisis deepened, and the gamka dam level dropped significantly. by may 2010, the water levels of the gamka dam, beaufort west’s major water resource, fell faster than expected, resulting in the reservoir emptying completely by september 2010 (figure 4). figure 4: gamka dam with low water levels in 2017. consequently, 8500 households, representing approximately 36 000 inhabitants, had to rely on 36 boreholes that provided 3700 kl water per day. from november 2008 to december 2010, groundwater levels within the town’s important north end aquifer, normally recognised for its rapid recharge capacity, dropped from 13 m to 36 m below the ground level. as a result of the extremely hot and dry conditions, the water demand increased. the dire water situation called for emergency measures. drastic domestic water restrictions were imposed since january 2010, and a local disaster declaration was issued for beaufort-west. each household was restricted to 12 kl per month. at first, if consumers exceeded 15 kl per day consumption, a 200% surcharge was applied to their water accounts. in order to force down reduced water consumption, fines of r1000 were issued to perpetrators of water quotas. the water-stressed conditions prompted severe water load shedding from september to november 2010 when both ground and surface water supplies failed. the town was divided into 12 wards staggered in 36-h water-shedding periods to allow for the recharge of the groundwater feeding the boreholes. although the central business district, hospitals and industrial areas were not required to comply with water load shedding. water was supplied through static and roaming tanks and even household-level distribution of 5 l bottled water every 48 h. this constituted a major logistics exercise, and 90 temporary municipal staff members were locally employed for the operation. in addition, a country-wide public appeal was launched via radio and newspapers to donate potable bottled water to beaufort west.6,24,25 by january 2011, visitors and private companies had dropped off 435 000 l of bottled water.26 in january 2011, beaufort west received relief funding amounting to r24 million from the national treasury for south africa’s first reclamation plant. the project was completed within 6 months and was the country’s first direct potable reuse plant. treated wastewater effluent is conveyed directly to a water treatment facility for further treatment to drinking water standards. sludge from pit latrines is boiled to kill pathogens and generate water vapour, which passes through several filters for further treatment. this treatment includes processes such as phosphate removal, pre-disinfection, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation. the plant can process 12.3 m3 of sewage sludge and produce 10 800 l of drinking water per day. the reclaimed water is pumped up to a service reservoir and blended with water from the gamka dam and the 36 boreholes in six aquifers in a ratio of 1:4.17,27,28 nine months later, in june 2011, the gamka dam began to refill after substantial rainfall in its catchment associated with a low cut-off weather system. water restrictions were consequently lifted.6 the drought of 2017–2019 beaufort west enjoyed a reprieve of five years before the next severe drought struck again, with dire consequences for its inhabitants. according to king and karoly,29 2017 was set to be among the three hottest years on record, and by november 2018, beaufort west experienced average-day temperatures between 35 °c and 37 °c.30 by october 2017, the gamka dam was already dry. five more boreholes were drilled in late 2017 when the municipality received r23 m in emergency government funding. as in 2009–2011, water restrictions and water load shedding were imposed although the industrial area was exempted from these measures for economic reasons. water reduction devices such as low-pressure valves were also installed at schools to prevent water wastage. the reclamation plant, which had become the municipality’s alternative water source since 2011 during water-stressed conditions, could normally provide 16% of the town’s water needs. during the first half of 2018, it had been the last stable source of water but struggled to cope in the latter part of the year because less water became available to be cleaned and turned into potable water. the plant was designed to produce about 21.1 ml per day but at that rate could only produce 1 ml per day. on top of it all, the town’s main sewage pipe broke in august 2018, which stopped waste going into the reclamation plant. this situation caused parts of the town to run out of water. by september 2018, a local disaster declaration was issued.30,31,32,33,34 since october and november 2017, the council for geoscience (cgs) drilled five percussion boreholes to the east and south of beaufort west as part of the karoo deep drilling project to investigate the geology and distribution and properties of shallow groundwater in the deep zone down to a depth of 169 m. two of these boreholes had the capacity to yield good-quality groundwater and were subsequently donated by the cgs to the beaufort west municipality. by 2018 and 2019, the municipality received a r23 m government financial grant, for example, to drill new boreholes and pipe water from the region south of the town. however, these boreholes proved inadequate to meet the pressing water needs. additional water was supplied by passing tourists and non-governmental charity organisations such as gift of the givers, cape town water warriors, as well as private businesses who trucked in water (figure 5). eventually, the municipality distributed stocks of emergency water when each household received two 5 l containers of water per day.30,32,35,36,37,38 by january 2019, the municipality’s reserve water stock was critically low because of the forced distribution of emergency water. there were only 700 2 l bottles of water, donated by gift of the givers, left in its emergency storage room.39 figure 5: municipal employees filling a retaining pond with bottled water. fortunately, drought relief came for the inhabitants of beaufort west when good rains returned in may 2019 and the gamka dam rapidly filled to 44% of its capacity. water load shedding was rescinded, and water restrictions lowered to more tolerable levels. according to the municipality’s new water distribution system, each household could utilise up to 15 kl water per month.40 discussion: lessons learnt and applied there are many similarities between the beaufort west droughts of 2009–2011 and 2017–2019 and how the municipal authority dealt with severe water-stressed situations. during both drought periods, austerity measures were imposed, such as water load shedding; local disaster declarations were issued; emergency distributions of bottled water took place and external public involvement were initiated through potable water donations to beaufort west. although the consequences of the 2017–2019 drought have not been investigated officially as yet, the findings of the report by holloway et al.6 on the central karoo drought of 2009–2011 is, in essence, applicable to both drought situations. according to mahed,41 unsustainable water extraction took place in beaufort west. on average water levels in the aquifer dropped by 25 m over a period of 20 years because more water was pumped out than could be replaced by natural recharge. a long lingering problem that preceded the droughts was that the beaufort west municipality faced difficulties in monitoring leaks and illegal abstractions because of outdated equipment such as water meters and infrastructure. holloway et al.6 claim that there was widespread evidence of poor or non-existent water monitoring, with municipal water use remaining unaccounted for because of poor metering and leakages. awareness of the town’s acute water situation was, however, increased through other measures, including the publication of names of high water users in local newspapers. a number of drought risk drivers were also identified that served as warning signs for future drought situations. there was an increased water demand prior to the droughts that outpaced available supply, an under-recognition and investment in integrated water resource management (iwrm), including diversification of water supply options, and a limited capacity to understand and plan for concurrent drought and urban water scarcity risks. an important factor that delayed early signal detection of escalating water shortage risk was the inadequate understanding of what drought is and its interface with water scarcity. for example, iwrm anticipatory investment in new water infrastructure was severely limited as the gamka dam suffered unaccounted water losses of approximately 52%. as the oldest municipality in south africa, beaufort west had an ageing and crumbling infrastructure that was prone to frequent water bursts. in addition, population growth and town expansion were not matched by investments to address identified needs for improved water supply development. in beaufort west, a major risk driver was that the development of alternative water supplies had not kept pace with rising local demand. in fact, the emergency demand for water involved a tension between sustainable water resource management and basic service provision. the provision of housing and basic services to previously disadvantaged communities was identified as a key measurable municipal performance area. therefore, factors such as a steady growth in the provision of state housing, together with an expansion in both the number of new and the size of existing informal settlements within the municipal boundaries of beaufort west, all contributed to the critical water-stressed conditions during the droughts of 2009–2011 and 2017–2019. overall, annual and seasonal rainfall patterns that became increasingly unpredictable were identified as a major drought risk driver. the depletion of both groundwater and surface water from the gamka dam resulted in the municipality drawing on water supplies from the springfontein irrigation dam located in the town, with negative consequences for local small farmers who faced reduced supplies.6 according to meyer,26 tourists who had been staying over in beaufort west’s guest houses had put extra pressure on the already drained resources, which in itself put severe pressure on the water supply. but the town economy needed the tourists, therefore they were accommodated. in contrast, holloway et al.6 identified some adverse socio-economic impacts of the beaufort west droughts as the severe water restrictions and water shedding impeded the normal flow of business. bed and breakfast businesses outside of beaufort west’s town centre did suffer a loss of clientele and schools were also affected by the lack of water. a local car wash was forced to close while abattoirs suffered a downturn in production. being a water-intense industry, it was forced to reduce the number of slaughtering days. the severe water restrictions and water shedding also impeded the normal flow of restaurants at petrol stations. in response, one of these enterprises installed two 10 000 l water tanks to keep business running during scheduled water shedding. this ensured that toilets flushed, and dishes could be washed at such spots along the busy n1 autoroute between cape town and johannesburg. in addition, a borehole was sunk, in anticipation that the meagre water supply to the central town might dry up. sporting activities ceased because of a lack of available water to irrigate the school fields. in addition, an olive grove, originally planned to augment the income of one of the schools, died, because of a lack of irrigation water. furthermore, the municipality reported the adverse effects of reduced grey water on the functioning of the sewerage system. poor households noted that their gardens ‘died’ although many attempted to maintain these with grey water. the research done by holloway et al.6 indicated that home gardens augmented livelihoods directly as a source of food or indirectly as an income source from vegetable sales. the loss of home gardening as a key drought amelioration strategy constituted an additional hardship for poorer households. matthews27 discusses the pros and cons of beaufort west’s reclamation plant that was installed as a result of the 2009–2011 drought. according to her, the advantages of water reclamation are that it conserves the available water supply, which reduces the need to abstract more water from surface or groundwater sources or build new dams, all of which have environmental and financial costs. it also reduces the volume of treated effluent discharged back into aquatic systems, where it may degrade natural water quality and cause the ripple effect of ecological changes associated with nutrient enrichment. in contrast, water reclamation for drinking purposes is considerably more expensive. potable reuse plants employing reverse osmosis as a treatment method have high energy costs because the process relies on high-pressure pumping to overcome osmotic pressure. the beaufort west reclamation plant uses the reverse osmoses process as part of a multiple-barrier approach that also incorporates, as said, rapid sand filtration, ultrafiltration, uv-hydrogen peroxide and final chlorination. reverse osmosis also increases costs because of highly concentrated brine, produced as a by-product, which is difficult to dispose of. fortunately, the beaufort west plant has some extra evaporation ponds available at the wastewater treatment works and the volumes are reasonably low. conclusions in terms of its drought experiences in 2009–2011 and 2017–2019, beaufort west faced the same problems that many of south africa’s other inland towns face in the new millennium.32 holloway et al.6 ascertained that the severity of these droughts in the central karoo was amplified by interacting risk drivers that had progressively escalated the risk of a widespread water shortage. these included greatly increased water consumption prior to the onset of meteorological drought conditions, both in agriculture and in a rapidly growing town population. prior to the drought emergency, such conditions had been accompanied neither by rigorous water demand management nor systematic investment in water infrastructure and the requisite technical capacity to manage water supplies sustainably. water resource development had not kept pace with demand. these risks were further exacerbated by a lack of systematic drought risk management planning. it is quite clear that equilibrium should be reached between the water expectations of the community and the water availability in water-stressed towns such as beaufort-west. klopper42 observed that in many karoo towns local authorities will have to face a growing hostility among inhabitants should water supply become frequently unavailable. with ageing infrastructure, prolonged droughts and increasing population growth, many of these towns do not enjoy a seamless, uninterrupted water supply anymore – a sure instigator of future social instability in such communities. in the light of global change, beaufort west’s acute water shortages during the droughts of 2009–2011 and 2017–2019 should serve as a timeous precursor to other rural towns in the arid regions of south africa. it would entail comprehensive drought risk management planning and preventative strategies to empower such communities to deal effectively with future prolonged and devastating drought conditions. preventative strategies could include the following: adequate population development plans should be introduced to rural communities that will keep track with finite rural water resources because future water scarcity will have a major impact on the social and economic development on these communities. water-awareness programmes should be implemented in these towns to increase water-wise practices and an understanding of the scarcity and fragility of water sources, especially among under-educated town dwellers. the dws should also identify and prioritise rural towns with capacity deficiencies in water management. firstly, relevant municipal functionaries, as well as environmental officers and water workers, should be adequately trained in water planning strategies, water infrastructure maintenance and drought management. secondly, a compulsory environmental focus should be introduced in school curricula to sensitise the youth about water conservation. finally, innovate water preservation solutions should be pursued by the state. depending on the outcomes of the ongoing geoscientific exploration in the karoo basin on the water-bearing qualities of aquifers, the artificial recharge of suitable aquifers should be considered. this could, for example, involve the injection of excess floodwaters into boreholes or transferring water into spreading basins where the subsurface is infiltrated. acknowledgements the author would like to sincerely thank mr rouxan rademan for collecting raw data rainfall and population figures. competing interests the author certifies that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article. author’s contributions wessel p. visser is the sole author of this research article. ethical considerations this article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects. funding information this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. data availability there are no restrictions on any data availability in this article. data were collected from the department of water and sanitation. rainfall data: beaufort west. 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[cited 2020 dec 10]. available from: https://www.weathersa.co.za vivier wgh, vivier s. hooyvlakte: die verhaal van beaufort-wes 1818–1968. cape town: nasionale boekhandel; 1970. erasmus gj. sub-streek: die sentrale karoo: gebied: beaufort-wes en omgewing. navorsingsverslag. stellenbosch: stellenbosch university; 1986. marais p, von durckheim f. beaufort west water reclamation plant: project. water sanit afr. 2012;7:20–25. https://doi.org/10.10520/ejc106532 xu y, mahed g, van wyk y, et al. towards a sampling and monitoring protocol of radioactive elements in fractured rock aquifers for groundwater re-source security in beaufort west [homepage on the internet]. report to the water research commission, report no. 1694/1/12. 2012 [cited 2020 nov 27]. available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272495076 rose rp. the characterisation of fractured karoo aquifers near beaufort west [unpublished dissertation]. pretoria: university of pretoria; 2017 [cited 2021 jul 22]. available from: https://repository.up.ac.za/bitsream/handle/2263/68254/rose_characterisation_2018.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y visser wp. between drought and deluge: a history of water provision to beaufort west, ca. 1858–1955. new contree [serial online]. 2020;85:1–21. available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10394/36923 western cape archives and records service, cape town (hereafter wcars). archives of the town clerk beaufort west (hereafter 3/bfw), vol. 1/1/1/23, minutes of a special council meeting, 1946: 401–402 and wcars, 3/bfw, vol. 1/1/1/23, minutes of a special council meeting. 1949, p. 970–971. wcars, 3/bfw box 263, vol. 5/1/14, ca. louw. munisipaliteit beaufort-wes rioolskema vorderingsverslag. 1977. nel e, taylor b, hill t, atkinson d. demographic and economic changes in small towns in south africa’s karoo: looking from the inside out. urban forum. 2011;22:395. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-011-9131-z burger k. gee jou water vir beaufort. rapport [newspaper online]. 2010 [cited 2021 jun 20] dec 12;5. available from: https://www.news24.com/news24/nuus24/suid-afrika/nuus/gee-jou-water-vir-beaufort-20101212 steyn t. beaufort-wes het weer genoeg water. die burger [newspaper online]. 2011 [cited 2021 jun 20] feb 16;6. meyer w. water from sewage for karoo town. weekend argus [newspaper online]. 2011 [cited 2021 may 3] jan 1. available from: https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/water-from-sewage-for-karoo-town-1006911 matthews s. water – precious resource to be used again, and again and again… water wheel [serial online]. 2015 [cited 2021 july 24]; 14:26–29. available from: http://www.wrc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/waterwheel_2015_3_may.pdf sorensen p. the chronic water shortage in cape town and survival strategies. int j env stud. 2017;74:515–527. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207233.2017.1335019 king a, karoly d. 2017 is set to be among the three hottest years on record. the conversation [serial online]. 2017 [cited 2021 may 17] nov 6. available from: https://theconversation.com/2017-is-set-to-be-among-the-three-hottest-years-on-record-86934 lepule t. beaufort west needs water after long drought. iol [newspaper online]. 2018 [cited 2021 apr 14] nov 4. available from: https://www.iol.co.za/weekend-argus/beaufort-west-needs-water-after-long-drought-17765948 sonnekus s. beaufort-wes nog nie hééltemal droog. die burger 2017 nov 14;10. kings s, ritchie g. beaufort west runs out of water. mail & guardian [newspaper online]. 2018 [cited 2021 apr 14] aug 24. available from: https://mg.co.za/article/2018-08-24-00-beaufort-west-runs-out-of-water/ kruger j. beurtwater ingestel op beaufort-wes. die burger 2018 sep 6;6. nienaber m. wes-kaap help dié dorpe, hospitale, skole eerste met boorgate. die burger 2017 nov 25;11. kruger j. dag zero kán voorkom word. die burger 2017 dec 30;7. kruger j. beurtwater maak nog verskil in dorp. die burger 2018 sep 7;7. mosavel h, cole d, musetsha m. investigations of deep hydrogeological targets in the beaufort west municipal commonage. geoclips [serial online]. 2018 [cited 2021 oct 11];52:1. available from: https://www.geoscience.org.za/images/geoclips/cgs2018-geoclips-vol52.pdf arnoldi m. council for geoscience starts deep drilling in karoo basin. mining weekly [newspaper online]. 2020 [cited 2021 oct 11] sep 22;3. available from: https://www.geoscience.org.za/images/council-for-geoscience-starts-deep-drilling-in-karoo-basin-2020-09-22 somdyala k. beaufort west about to run out of emergency bottled water – official. news24 [newspaper online]. 2019 [cited 2021 may 1] jan 23. available from: https://www.news24.com/southafrica/news/beaufort-west-about-to-run-out-of-emergency-bottled-water-official-20190123 kruger j. beurtwater in beaufort-wes opgehef en perke aangepas. die burger 2019 may 15;1. mahed g. explainer: what there is to know about south africa’s aquifers. the conversation [serial online]. 2018 sep 5;1–3. [cited 2021 jun 20]. available from: https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-there-is-to-know-about-south-africas-aquifers-102660 klopper h. the organised expansion and permanent settlement of people in boesmanland in correlation with accessible water sources, 1760-c.1960 [unpublished dissertation]. stellenbosch: stellenbosch university; 2020 [cited 2021 jul 25]. available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/108154 felix j. water crisis: beaufort west runs out of water. iol western cape government photo [newspaper online]. 2017 nov 13 [cited 2021 jul 27]. available from: http://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/watercrises-beaufort-west-runs-out-of-water-11979994 head t. beaufort west drought: residents begin filling up reservoirs with bottled water. the south african, andrew sokolic facebook photo [newspaper online]. 2017 nov 13 [cited 2021 jul 27]. available from https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/beaufort-west-drought-water-dams/ microsoft word 00 a contents.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 6(1) july 2010, pp. 113 138. universal dignity, justice and accountability: protection of human rights and dealing with atrocities m oelofse* abstract the notion that human beings have rights as humans is part of the contemporary world and its politics. with respect to human rights, the united nations (un) plays a major role in promoting, protecting, and expanding internationally accepted rights through establishing several comprehensive agreements and mechanisms since 1945. thus, on a global level, human rights and the violations thereof have become a legitimate concern of international society. however, there is a difference between declaring and practising human rights. consequently, political changes have occurred all over the world in recent years where several repressive regimes have been replaced with democratic or semi-democratic governments. in the process, these regimes are confronted with the question of justice and that accountability is due after atrocity. the widely held belief is that crimes against humanity must be addressed and perpetrators have to be called to account, while justice has to be determined. the article will focus on what is understood by “human rights” and how the un went about to guarantee human rights and eliminate the violations thereof by implementing a network of human rights instruments and mechanisms. the article will also indicate that, in practice, there are certain difficulties with the enforcement of these un conventions. the different options to be considered by countries in dealing with a violent legacy will be examined to explain why many transitional societies prefer to establish a truth commission. keywords: human rights; united nations; conventions to promote and protect human rights; human rights violations; prosecutions; blanket amnesty; truth commissions. disciplines: history, political science, transitional justice, human rights law. 1. introduction the united nations (un) has defined a broad range of internationally accepted human rights and has also established mechanisms to promote and protect these rights and help, as well as * marietjie oelofse is attached to the university of the free state, department of history, po box 339, bloemfontein 9300. tel: 051 401-2276. fax: 051 444-5803. e-mail: oelofsem@ufs.ac.za. the author gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the national research foundation of south africa in facilitating this research. opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are the author’s own, and are not necessarily to be attributed to the national research foundation. oelofse   114 support governments in enforcing their responsibilities.1 this had led to the situation where human rights have, at present, a greater prominence in foreign policy than at any other time. however, the implementation of these mechanisms remains almost exclusively national.2 thus, instead of being guardians of human rights, states have often become the violators of human rights. as a result, the twenty-first century is characterised by the choices facing societies that emerged from a period of violence, as well as the process in which divided societies struggle to master a heritage of collective violence and severe gross human rights violations. confronted with processes and responses of how to deal with a past of human rights violations, the desire to know the truth of what happened, as well as to remember the past and to establish a clear break with the past, will influence the decisions. knowing what really happened and untangling the web of lies and manipulations may constitute a fundamental role in “coming to terms” with the past. here, acknowledgement in dealing with past wrongs that may lead to healing is considered. justification is made on the grounds that in remembering the past, forgiveness and reconciliation may be considered only when a nation has confronted the full knowledge of the past. when a period of authoritarian rule accompanied with atrocity ends, society as a whole must find a way to move forward, rebuilding shattered lives and recreate a liveable space of national peace, where former enemies reunite, as well as to secure these events in the past. in the comprehensive range of political transformations and within historical context, there is a reflection for a national desire for truth-telling and official truth-seeking.3 furthermore, human rights advocates have been pressurising the un that international human rights treaties must obligate governments to investigate and make public to victims and their families all that can be known and established about crimes against humanity.4 in dealing with a violent legacy, three options may be selected: prosecution, a blanket amnesty which results in national amnesia, or a process of setting up a truth commission. especially since the truth and reconciliation commission in south africa (trc), truth commissions as such have attracted world-wide attention and have gained ground. however, it must be noted that truth commissions are part of the broader field of transitional justice and are only one tool among others available to help societies to confront a violent past through a transitional justice process. the article will focus on what is understood by “human rights” and how the un went about to guarantee human rights and eliminate the violations thereof by implementing a network of human rights instruments and mechanisms. the article will also indicate that, in practice, there are certain difficulties with the enforcement of these un conventions, resulting sometimes in human rights violations. the different options to be considered by countries in dealing with a 1 united nations, “human rights”, <http://www.un.org/rights/morerights.htm>, 2000, (accessed 30/3/2009). 2 j. donnelly, universal human rights in theory & practice (second edition), pp. 34, 172. 3 p.b. hayner, unspeakable truths. facing the challenge of truth commissions, p. 4. 4 ibid., p. 106. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 115 violent legacy will be examined to explain why many transitional societies prefer to establish a truth commission. 2. the evolution of global human rights on a global and regional level, there are numerous conventions in relation to various human rights where different states assert to these instruments and mechanisms while non-governmental organisations make its liturgy their aim. it is a fact that human rights and the violations thereof have become more and more prominent in international discourse. the twenty-first century is marking a new epoch for the invention of new and distinctive legal forms of response against mass violence and atrocities.5 what does it mean to have a right as a human being? stewart claims that the term “human rights” is difficult to define and that no consensus exists as to what these rights should be. it seems as if the idea of human rights is not an obvious one. habibi focuses on the term “rights” and define it as protections or entitlements that individuals hold against other individuals, the state, or some other community. in turn, the rights conferrers have a corresponding obligation to non-interference or to enable the rights holders to exercise their rights.6 human rights are described as rights that we hold by virtue of the fact that we are human beings.7 for stewart, human rights are regarded generally as those “ fundamental and inalienable rights which are essential for life and which the international community recognizes as belonging to all individuals by the very fact of their humanity.8 consequently, human rights are seen as universal, thus transcending culture and place. it is categorical and without exception, which means that everyone has human rights and no one can take them away. furthermore, these rights are inalienable, indefeasible, and indefatigable as every human being is of infinite worth and dignity and should be treated as an end and never as a means only. the primary qualification for holding human rights is to belong to the human race.9 5 m. minow, between vengeance and forgiveness. facing history after genocide and mass violence, p. 1. 6 d.a. habibi, “human rights and politicized human rights: a utilitarian critique” in journal of human rights 6, 2007, p. 6. see also r.j. vincent, human rights and international relations, pp. 7-9, where the author explains the idea of rights. 7 habibi, p. 6. 8 n.f. stewart, “international protection of human rights: the united nations system” in the international journal for human rights 12 (1), february 2008, p. 89. 9 habibi, p. 7; vincent, p. 10. oelofse   116 everyone has human rights by virtue of their humanity, which are based on an appeal to our human nature. accordingly, human rights must be enjoyed not only universally, but also equally by all people, irrespective of race, gender or belief. it seems also that all basic human rights have three correlative duties which in turn will trigger each of these duties, namely, duties to avoid depriving, duties to protect from deprivation and duties to aid the deprived.10 human rights are divided further into first-generation rights, namely civil and political rights, which include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law. second-generation human rights comprise economic and cultural rights in nature. these relate to the equal treatment of citizens such as the right to employment, healthcare, housing, and protection. third-generation rights are not directly part of the universal declaration of human rights, but are consecutive instruments stated in multilateral declarations such as the stockholm declaration on human development (1972) and the rio declaration on the environment and development (1992).11 to violate the most basic human rights, is to deny individuals their essential moral entitlements, in other words, to treat an individual less than a human being as if he/she does not deserve respect and dignity. when any state or non-state actor breaches any part of the universal declaration of human rights, international treaties or other international human rights or humanitarian law, human rights violations occur. abuse of human rights often leads to conflict resulting in human rights violations. these violations are monitored by the un committees, national institutions, governments and various non-governmental organisations.12 the idea of human rights pre-dates the un. however, modern international human rights law is a post-world war ii phenomenon. during and after the second world war, more focus was given to the protection of individuals and the guarantee of human rights. human rights became a factor in public political debate. this tendency became reality when the founders of the un responded to the severe human rights violations during the second world war by giving universal and formal recognition to human rights in 1945 through the charter of this organisation.13 the preamble of the charter of the united nations declares: … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of the nation large and small …. 10 vincent, pp. 11, 13. 11 j. akokpari, “human rights and human security in post-9/11 africa” in j. akokpari & d.s. zimbler (eds), africa’s human rights architecture, p. 69. compare this also with bryan hehir’s explanation that human rights legislation in international relations has moved through three stages in harvard law school human rights program, truth commissions: a comparative assessment. an interdisciplinary discussion held at harvard law school in may 1996, p. 13. 12 beyond intractability, “human rights violations”, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/human_rights_violations/, 2007, (accessed 30/3/2009). 13 t. buergental, international human rights in a nutshell (second edition), p. 21; united nations, “fiftieth anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights”, <http://www.un.org/rights/50/broch.htm>, 1998, (accessed 30/3/2009). protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 117 in this preamble, the states and peoples of the un are committed to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. furthermore, the un charter imposes obligations upon members to protect human rights as set out in article 1 of the charter in the purposes of its organisation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion. article 13(1) of the charter emphasises that, in all of this, the general assembly shall initiate studies and make recommendations for this purpose. articles 55, 56 and 59 of the un charter set the tone further for its members concerning legal obligations (even where applicable to initiated negotiations), to promote universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. again this notion is reflected in article 76, where the international trusteeship system is set out.14 thus, the un takes as its purpose the promotion of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the members pledge to take separate and joint action in cooperation with the un to accomplish this goal.15 through the charter, the un “internationalised” human rights by making it an international concern. a new era had begun with the commitment to promoting and expanding the ideals of human rights. however, the un charter does not define and specify what is meant by “human rights and fundamental freedoms” and does not establish any specific way to ensure implementation in member states. an effort had to be made in the following years by the un to define and codify these rights.16 over the following years, a network of human rights instruments and mechanisms would be developed to safeguard the primacy of human rights and to eliminate and confront human rights violations where they occurred. following the charter, a principal policy-making body for human rights within the un system was established in 1946. this un commission on human rights reviewed human rights issues, develops and codifies new international norms and makes recommendations to governments.17 this was followed by the general assembly’s adoption of the universal declaration of human rights (udhr) on 10 december 1948. this declaration remains the first pillar of twentieth century human rights law and remains the cornerstone of the universal human rights movement, as well as the best known and most cited human rights document in the world.18 the declaration covers a comprehensive list of political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights in 30 distinct and concise articles. for the first time the rights and freedoms of individuals were set forth in detail. it is built on the fundamental principle that human rights are based on 14 i. brownlie (ed.), basic documents on human rights (third edition), pp. 3-14; buergenthal, pp. 23-26; vincent, pp. 92-93. 15 vincent, pp. 92-93. 16 buergental, pp. 22-28. 17 donnelly, pp. 129, 132-133; united nations, “fiftieth anniversary …”. 18 donnelly, pp. 22-23. oelofse   118 the “inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights” of every person. this dignity, as well as the rights to freedom and equality deriving thereof, are undeniable and have been proclaimed “as the highest aspiration of the people”.19 although the declaration was adopted as a resolution and does not have the binding force of a treaty, it has acquired universal acceptability. notwithstanding, the declaration played an important role in the adoption of a series of multilateral treaties, conventions and declarations concluded through the un on human rights, and inspired human rights activism and legislation all over the world.20 buergental emphasises the following view: the declaration … is now considered to be an authoritative interpretation of the un charter … it has joined the charter as part of the constitutional structure of the world community. the declaration, as an authoritative listing of human rights, has become a basic component of international customary law, binding all states, not only members of the united nations.21 the declaration gives equal importance to civil rights and political liberties (articles 3 to 21), as well as to economic, social and cultural rights (articles 22 to 27), and affords them the same degree of protection.22 the first two articles23 lay the universal foundation of human rights: human beings are equal because of their shared essence of human dignity; human rights are universal not because of any state or international organization, but because they belong to all of humanity. the two articles assure that human rights are the birthright of every one, not privileges of a select few, nor privileges to be granted or derived.24 article 28 to 30 adds to a larger protective framework in which all human rights are to be enjoyed universally.25 in addition to the human rights provisions of the un charter and of the universal declaration of human rights, the international bill of rights consists of the two international covenants on human rights and the optional protocols to the international covenant on civil and political 19 united nations, “universal declaration of human rights. a united nations priority”, <http://www.un.org/rights/hrtoday/declar.htm>, s.a, (accessed 30/3/2009). 20 stewart, p. 91; united nations, “fiftieth anniversary …”; united nations, “universal declaration …”. 21 buergental, p. 37. 22 centre for human rights, human rights. a compilation of international instruments, vol. 1, pp. 1-7. 23 article 1: “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”. article 2: “everyone is entitled to all rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”. see centre for human rights, p. 2. 24 stewart, p. 92. 25 centre for human rights, pp. 6-7; united nations, “universal declaration …”. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 119 rights.26 these two international covenants are the broadest legally binding human rights agreements negotiated under un auspices. it includes the international covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights (icescr)27 and the international covenant on civil and political rights (iccpr).28 both covenants were adopted in 1966 but only entered into force in 1976, making many of the provisions of the universal declaration effectively binding for states that ratified them. the preambles and articles 1, 2, 3 and 5 are virtually identical in both international covenants.29 in the following years, several human rights treaties and declarations became part of the un’s aim to deal with specific types of human rights violations. apart from the icescr and the iccpr, there are more international human rights instruments, which include: convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (adopted by the un in 1948 and entered into force in 1951);30 convention relating to the status of refugees (adopted by the un in 1951 and entered into force in 1954); convention relating to the status of stateless persons (adopted by the un in 1954 and entered into force in 1960); convention on the reduction of statelessness (adopted by the un in 1961 and entered into force 1975); convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (adopted by the un in 1965 and entered into force in 1969);31 convention on the suppression and the punishment of 26 the optional protocol to the international covenant on civil and political rights enables private parties, claiming to be victims of a violation of the covenant, to file complaints with the human rights committee. the second optional protocol aims at the abolition of the death penalty. see centre for human rights, pp. 41-49; buergental, pp. 48-51. 27 economic and social rights include the right to work and for a just reward; the right to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work; the right to form and join trade unions; the right to rest and leisure, and to periodic holidays with pay; the right to a standard of living adequate to health and well-being; the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; the right to social security, including social insurance; the right to the protection of the family; the right to education; and the right to participation in the cultural life of a community. vincent, p. 11. 28 civil and political rights include the rights to life, liberty, security of the person, privacy and property; the rights to marry and found a family; the rights to fair trial; freedom from slavery, torture and arbitrary arrest; freedom of movement and to seek asylum: the right to a nationality; freedom of thought, conscience and religion; freedom of opinion and expression; freedom of assembly and association; and the right to free elections, universal suffrage and participation in public affairs. vincent, p. 11. 29 centre for human rights, pp. 8-40; united nations, “universal declaration …”. 30 the convention declares that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or time of war, is a crime under international law for which the individual perpetrator is punishable. the genocide convention is considered as the centerpiece of international law that applies to the protection of rights of groups to exist as groups, either as minorities or majorities. article 2 sets out the acts constituting genocide. buergental, pp. 58-61; brownlie, pp. 31-34; united nations, “convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide”, <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html>, 1997, (accessed 30/3/2009). 31 racial discrimination is prohibited through this convention. article 1 defines racial discrimination as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing oelofse   120 the crime of apartheid (adopted by the un in 1973 and entered into force in 1976);32 convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (adopted by the un in 1979 and entered into force in 1981);33 convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (adopted by the un in 1984 and entered into force in 1987);34 convention on the rights of the child (adopted by the un in 1989 and the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”. article 2(1)(d) also requires from each state to “prohibit and bring to an end, by all appropriate means, including legislation as required by circumstances, racial discrimination by any person, group or organization”. centre for human rights, pp. 66-79; buergental, pp. 61-67; office of the high commissioner for human rights, “international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination”, <http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/d_icerd.htm> s.a, (accessed 30/3/2009). 32 this convention suppresses and punishes apartheid as it is proclaims as “a crime against humanity”. it further declares all inhuman acts attributable to the policies and practices of apartheid “crimes violating the principles of international law”. centre for human rights, pp. 80-86; buergental, pp. 67-68. 33 the convention is often described as an international bill of rights for women. it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to put an end to such discrimination. in its preamble, the convention explicitly acknowledges that “extensive discrimination against women continues to exist”. discrimination against women is defined in article 1 as “any distinction, exclusion, or restriction made on the basis of sex” that diminishes the “recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field”. in article 2 the state parties undertake “to embody the principle of equality of men and women in their national constitutions or other appropriate legislation” and to adopt laws or other measures “including sanctions where appropriate, prohibiting all discrimination against women”. cedaw (the committee on the elimination of discrimination against women) also addresses a wide range of problems encountered by women in their struggle for equality. centre for human rights, pp. 150-163; buergental, pp. 68-72; united nations, “convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women”, <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cdw.html>, 1997, (accessed 30/3/2009). 34 the convention defines ‘torture’ as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes, inter alia, of “obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession” (article 1(1)). this convention covers torture inflicted by government officials, as well as by private individuals or groups whose conduct such officials encourage or tolerate. thus, the convention is designed to prevent and punish torture committed “by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”. article 8 states that the state parties are required to treat torture as an extraditable offense. it is also notable that the convention affirms that there are “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever” to justify torture and that no orders from superior officers or a public authority may be validly invoked as a justification. (articles 2(2) and 2(3)). the un declared 26 june as the annual international day in support of victims of torture. centre for human rights, pp. 293-307; buergental, pp. 72-76; office of the high commissioner for human rights, “convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”, <http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm>, s.a, (accessed 30/3/2009). see also j.h. burgers and h. danelius, the united nations convention against torture. a handbook on the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment, protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 121 entered into force in 1990); and international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families (adopted by the un in 1990 and entered into force in 2003). many of these conventions established a special commission or committee directed towards monitoring the treaty’s provisions. the universal principles of human rights were also implemented on a regional basis, as this was encouraged by the un. these regions, notably in western europe, america and africa, have in turn identified themselves as the local bearers of human rights institutions in their own areas.35 western europe took the lead in the regional guarantee of human rights with the european convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms, which entered into force in 1953. this convention sought to guarantee rights, as well as to state them. a commission and a court of human rights were established for this specific purpose.36 in america, the american convention on human rights entered into force in 1978, where a commission and court, similar to those in europe, were established.37 under the auspices of the former organisation of african unity, the african charter on human and people’s rights entered into force in 1986.38 where the authors provide a comprehensive commentary on the convention, as well as its background in the context of other international efforts to the eradication of torture. 35 vincent, p. 95. 36 the council of europe, a regional inter-governmental organisation founded in 1949 by a group of western european nations, was committed to the protection of human rights and the preservation of individual freedom and democracy. the council’s human rights system has its legal source in two treaties, namely the european convention of human rights, guaranteeing basic civil and political rights, and the european social charter, proclaiming a register of economic and social rights. the rights guaranteed by the convention have been expanded by additional protocols. according to article 19 of the convention two institutions were established, namely the european commission of human rights and the european court of human rights. buergental, pp. 102-106; council of europe, “convention of human rights and fundamental freedoms”, <http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/treaties/htm/0905. htm>, s.a, (accessed 30/3/2009). 37 the organisation of american states (oas) is a regional inter-governmental organisation that has established law and institutions to promote and protect human rights. two distinct legal sources form part of the inter-american human rights systems: one is based on the charter of the oas and the other is based on the american convention on human rights. the convention also provides for the establishment of the inter-american commission on human rights and the inter-american court of human rights. the rights guaranteed by the convention have been expanded by additional protocols. buergental, pp. 174-175, 194-195, 198; department of international law. organization of american states, washington d.c., “american convention on human rights ‘pact of san jose, costa rica’”, <http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/treaties/b-32.html>, s.a, (accessed 30/3/2009). 38 the african charter on human and peoples’ rights is the regions principal human rights instrument and provides a system for the protection and promotion of human rights that is intended to function within the institutional framework of the former oau (it was replaced in 2002 with the au). according to buergental the african charter differs from the european and american conventions on human rights in a number of aspects. for example, the african charter promulgates not only rights but also duties, and the treaty is drafted in a form that allows the state parties to impose very broad limitations and restrictions on the execution of the oelofse   122 there are at present no asian organisations or conventions to promote and protect human rights. countries vary at large in their account of human rights protection and their approach thereto. consequently, there are also no regional approaches or agreements on human rights for oceania. on 20 december 1993, the post of un high commissioner for human rights was created. the high commissioner coordinates the un human rights programme and promotes universal respect for human rights. according to resolution 48/141 (1994) paragraph 4(f), the most important function of the un high commissioner is spelled out as to play an active role in removing the current obstacles and in meeting the challenges to the full realisation of all human rights and in preventing the continuation of human rights violations throughout the world.39 thus, this permits the high commissioner to tackle any human rights problem and to be actively engaged in endeavours to prevent human rights violations. the activities with regard to human rights are coordinated by the office of the high commissioner for human rights in geneva, where the office services the un commission on human rights and most un human rights treaty bodies.40 the vienna declaration and programme of action adopted by the world conference on human rights in 1993 gave high priority to preserving the integrity of the universal declaration. it stresses the universal nature of human rights and the need to fight all forms of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance. it also emphasises the rights of women, children, minorities, and indigenous people. importantly the vienna declaration states, for the first time explicitly, that all organs, programmes, and specialised agencies of the un system should have a central role in strengthening human rights.41 rights it proclaims. the charter also places great emphasis on african historical tradition. furthermore, the charter makes provision for the establishment of an african commission on human and peoples’ rights, which has promotional and quasi-judicial functions. the protocol to the charter on the establishment of an african court on human and peoples’ rights was adopted in 1998. in 2003 the protocol to the charter on the rights of women in africa, was also adopted. buergental, pp. 228-230, 239-240; brownlie, pp. 551-566. 39 united nations general assembly a/res/48/141, “high commissioner for the promotion and protection of all human rights”, <http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/48/a48r141.htm>, s.a, (accessed 31/3/2009). 40 buergental, pp. 95-97; donnelly, p. 135. 41 the declaration notes that: “all human rights are universal, indivisible, and interdependent and interrelated. the international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis. while the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural, and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of states, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.” united nations, “world conference on human rights, vienna, 14-25 june 1993. vienna declaration and programme of action”, <http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(symbol)/a.conf.157.23.en?opendoc>, 2000, (accessed 30/3/2009); united nations, “fiftieth anniversary …”; united nations, “universal declaration …”. see also office of the high commissioner for human rights, protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 123 this declaration was further underlined by the united nations millennium declaration in 2000 where the heads of state and government reaffirmed their commitment to the purposes and principles of the un charter. they also rededicated themselves to support all efforts and uphold respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as respect for the equal rights of all without distinction between race, sex, language, or religion. certain fundamental values were underlined such as freedom, equality, and tolerance. clause v of the millennium declaration elaborated on human rights, democracy, and good governance.42 in 1998, the international community met in rome to adopt a treaty establishing the international criminal court (icc) in the hague. the icc’s purpose is to prosecute individuals accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and aggression. the icc’s jurisdiction stretches to the states where the crimes are committed or the home states of the accused that have ratified the rome treaty. further, the icc will only pursue cases after 1 july 2002 when it entered into force, and when states possessing jurisdiction are unable or are unwilling to prosecute. thus, the icc is to be complementary to national criminal jurisdiction. this court does not form part of the un and is accountable to countries that ratify its statute. its statute ensures against unwarranted prosecutions. the future aim of the icc is to assist in ending impunity and deter potential war criminals.43 the icc preamble states clearly that millions of children, women, and men have been victims of unimaginable atrocities which threaten the peace and well-being of the world. it further affirms that these “serious crimes must not go unpunished” and is, therefore, determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and contribute to the prevention of such crimes.44 article 7 sets out certain acts that, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, will constitute a “crime against humanity”.45 “five-year review of the implementation of the vienna declaration and programme of action”, <http://www.unhchr.ch/html/50th/vdparev.htm>, s.a, (accessed 30/3/2009). 42 office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights, “united nations millennium declaration”, <http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/millennium.htm>, 2007, (accessed 30/3/2009). 43 s. turner, “the dilemma of double standards in u.s. human rights policy” in peace & change 28(4), october 3003, p. 543; office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights, “rome statute of the international criminal court”, <http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/criminalcourt.htm>, 2007, (accessed 30/3/2009); stewart, p. 100. 44 office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights, “rome statute …”. 45 see article 7 (1 & 2) of the rome statute of the icc for the list and explanations of acts that means ‘crime against humanity’. office of the united nations high commissioner for human rights, “rome statute …”. oelofse   124 until 2006, the un commission on human rights (unchr) was the main organ in the un for achieving the purpose of its charter, namely to promote respect for human rights and make it a general part of the business of international society at large. already in 2005, the former un secretary-general, kofi annan, argued for reforms: [t]he commission’s ability to perform its tasks has been overtaken by new needs, and undermined by the politicization of its sessions and the selectivity of its work. we have reached a point at which the commission’s declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the united nations system as a whole, and where piecemeal reforms will not be enough.46 he further called for the formation of a new human rights council that would be a society of the committed, an institution that is populated by governments that have a solid record of commitment to the highest human rights standards.47 the united nations human rights council, created at the 2005 world summit, replaced the unchr on 15 march 2006. this council has a mandate to promote and protect human rights around the globe and to investigate and address gross and systematic violations of human rights and make recommendations. thus, the council works in close cooperation in the field of human rights with a variety of governments, organisations, institutions, as well as civil society.48 apart form the un, various governmental and independent non-governmental organisations (ngos) were established to deal with human rights. since 1945, non-governmental organisations have contributed extensively to the un’s work on human rights. with this, human rights took on a “moral aura” for interpreting international humanitarian law and for judging nations. these organisations collect evidence and provide information of alleged human rights violations, highlighting these violations and contribute to the global protection thereof by applying pressure to enforce human rights laws.49 in essence, every un body and specialised agency is involved, to some degree, in the protection of human rights. for the first time in history, the creation of a comprehensive body of human 46 j.h. lebovic and e. voeten, “the politics of shame: the condemnation of country human rights practices in the unchr” in international studies quarterly 50, 2006, pp. 861-862; l. rahmani-ocora, “giving the emperor real clothes: the un human rights council” in global governance 12, 2006, p. 15. 47 ibid. 48 united nations high commissioner for human rights, “resolution establishing the council” in international debates, 4(5), may 2006, pp. 137-139. 49 habibi, p. 6. see also how habibi criticizes in this article the leading organisations of the international human rights movement that have lost sight of their own professed values and follow the politicised un. amnesty international, founded in britain in 1961, remains with it 2.2 million members the world’s largest organisation dedicated to the cause of human rights. other non-governmental organisations focusing on human rights include: human rights watch, international federation of human rights, world organisation against torture, freedom house, international freedom of expression exchange and anti-slavery international, to name but a few well-known ngos. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 125 rights law, which provides the international community with a universal and internationally protected code of human rights, one to which all nations can subscribe and to which all people can aspire, is a great achievement.50 kofi annan publicly identified human rights as a cross-cutting issue and vital component of all aspects of the un’s work including humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts.51 the affirmation of the centrality of human rights to all un programmes was further underlined by annan, stating that: i fully agree … on the centrality of human rights to united nations peace activities and on the need to integrate human rights more effectively into prevention, peacekeeping, and peace-building strategies.52 however, despite a growing awareness assisted by mass communications, of the importance and urgency for the respect of human rights, there are people around the world who, on a daily basis, suffer from some serious violation of their human rights. in practice, an immense gap exists between declaring and practising human rights. conditions are not always created whereby society may enjoy these rights as set out by the un. in theory, the un has the authority, ability, and action to respond effectively to human rights violations. unfortunately, in practice there are certain gaps and difficulties that are encountered. the next step after acknowledging human rights should be the enforcement thereof. herein lays the problem. signature and ratification of conventions do not always imply allegiance to them. the absence of any real prospect of enforcement leads to doubt in the existence of human rights, as some governments, for variety of reasons, cannot keep and enforce these rights. thus, ratification of international instruments may not even be a guide to the actual guarantee and commitment to human rights.53 it must be taken into account that international human rights accountability can only be translated into reality if authority, ability, and action are taken on a national level as the primary responsibility for implementing human rights lies with governments.54 according to amnesty international, only a few countries do not commit significant human rights violations. the amnesty international report of 2008 (covering the period januarydecember 2007), reveals the state of the world’s human rights and how far the world has to go before people truly are free from fear and human rights violations. the report indicates that the human rights promised in the universal declaration are far from being a reality for all the people in the world. human rights violations still continue, while economic and social rights remain illusory for many people. internal armed conflicts continue accompanied by abuses including 50 united nations, “human rights”, <htpp://www.un.org/rights/morerights.htm>, 2000, (accessed 30/3/2009). 51 f.d. gaer, “human rights ngos in un peace operations” in international peacekeeping 10(1), spring 2003, p. 80. 52 ibid., p. 85. 53 vincent, pp. 10, 99. 54 stewart, pp. 102-104. oelofse   126 unlawful killings, torture and rape. women’s human rights are abused and been discriminated against. consequently, the report indicates that those responsible for human rights abuses often escape being held accountable.55 the challenge facing a society confronted with human rights violations is the manner in which it treats and faces these abuses. it must be done in such a way that the culture of impunity can be ended, resulting in accountability for past violations and securing a just future. 3. to remember or forget? how to deal with atrocities of the past the question that needs to be answered about “what to do about the past” is how to deal with the atrocities of the past. it is important to deal with the past in the correct way, as one is also dealing with the future. the way one deals with the past impacts upon the shape of the future, while aiming at establishing a new political and moral order. it is, on the one hand, the political and ethical demand to confront past atrocities and on the other hand the desire to bury the past. in addition, international law allows an affirmative obligation on the part of states to investigate and punish gross violations of human rights.56 this issue of how to deal with the past raises serious questions. can entire nations be considered guilty for the acts which were committed by a minority of the population and if so, where does it end? who should ultimately be held responsible – the elite, the masses or both? should the past be exhumed, preserved, apologised for and acknowledged? whether and how do the people of a country want to remember and preserve their past – especially those who have suffered directly from past human rights abuses? how can the repetition of the atrocities of the past be prevented in the future? once the damage has been done, how will it be repaired? how will societies heal? how can a balance be reached between too much forgetting and too much remembering? questions arise concerning citizenship, responsibility, and guilt and ultimately, the question that needs to be answered: what would be the best way to deal with the past?57 to answer these questions, the debate is centred on whether truth should be the aim of accountability or whether justice should be the aim of accountability. kenneth christie and patricia hayner argue that for many political scientists the notion of ‘coming to terms with the past and dealing with it’ is fundamental to the process of democratisation in post-authoritarian governments and states which appear to be undergoing traumatic changes.58 christie indicates further that, with the aim of producing some form of 55 amnesty international, amnesty international report 2008. the state of the world’s human rights. 56 k. christie, the south african truth commission, p. 63; a.m. omar, “foreword” in m.r. rwelamira and g. werle (eds), confronting past injustices. approaches to amnesty, punishment, reparation and restitution in south africa and germany, p. ix; sunday times, 12.6.1994, p. 20. 57 christie, p. 39; hayner, p. 267; minow, p. 4; sowetan, 9.6.1994, p. 8; rapport, 26.6.1994, p. 23. 58 christie, p. 63; hayner, p. 11. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 127 collective memory of a traumatic history, the emerging democratic dispensation often sought to respond to the previous regime, typically by dismantling their apparatus of control, punishing or giving amnesty to the old officials of those regimes, providing some form of reparation for survivors and victims commemorating their struggle and sacrifice through monuments, statues and the renaming of streets and avenues in their honour.59 dealing with past injustices and human rights violations become both a political and ethical task. thus, it becomes commonplace where the past needs to be “got over” and perhaps more crucially, needs to be seen to be “got over”.60 justice in the courts is usually the most prominent of demands in how to deal with past atrocities. it is argued that truth produced by trials is much more precise and trials produce better quality information as the information has been subjected to the rigours of the legal process and the rules of evidence. in other words, the highly developed rules of evidence, procedure, and proof that rule a trial ensure that a fact established in such a setting is more likely to be true. these rules are designed to reduce the possibility of a false positive to an acceptable level, but do not claim to eliminate such a risk entirely.61 furthermore, the proponents of prosecutions believe that the population in general could benefit from a process of prosecutions as it helps to restore citizens’ dignity after years of defencelessness, based on state terror. it may also be an efficient way of ascertaining the truth where the legal process ensures that the fact-finding will be thorough and reasonably impartial. prosecutions will lead to a clear declaration of fault where the guilty will be punished or at least stigmatised. the prosecution process may also be useful in re-establishing the rule of law and providing a warning that future transgressions will not be excused.62 those in favour of prosecutions for human rights violations, such as professor stephan landsman, argue that prosecuting these human rights violations may enhance implicitly the chances of establishing the rule of law and signalling that no individual is outside the reach of legal accountability. in this sense and based on the theory that a society cannot forgive what it cannot punish, it is argued that prosecutions may be fundamental to the healing of social wounds 59 christie, pp. 63-64. 60 ibid., pp. 1, 64. compare christie’s arguments for confronting the past with the reasons set out by aryeh neier in a. boraine, et al., (eds), dealing with the past. truth and reconciliation in south africa, p. 3. 61 r.c. slye, “amnesty, truth, and reconciliation: reflections on the south african amnesty process” in r.i. rotberg and d. thompson (eds), truth v. justice. the morality of truth commissions, pp. 173-174. 62 n. roht-arriaza, “introduction” in n. roht-arriaza, (ed.), impunity and human rights in international law and practice, pp. 8-9. see also c.l. sriram, confronting past human rights violations. justice vs peace in times of transition, pp. 7-10 for a discussion on the practical and ethical bases for punishment. oelofse   128 caused by serious violations.63 the idea is to follow the nuremberg trial paradigm that was used after the second world war in the case of the defeated nazis. people in favour of this option are of the opinion that all perpetrators of gross human rights violations should bear the full brunt of the normal judicial process. they argue that, technically, pardon or amnesty should not be extended to crimes against humanity. in their view these crimes constitute an international crime that requires some form of punitive retribution and retributive justice.64 in principle, human rights watch is also opposed to granting immunity. they argue strongly that governments have a duty under international law to prosecute those guilty of gross violations of human rights. likewise, amnesty international points out that amnesty cannot be granted in cases of crimes against humanity, as well as torture and similar offences.65 a senior legal counsel at human rights watch, wilder taylor, argues that as a matter of principle, this international obligation to investigate the truth allows no caseby-case exceptions.66 however, trials are not always a workable model, taking into account several factors. firstly, the very difficult question of “who would be put on trial?” has to be answered, which in turn could place an intolerable burden on an already strained judicial system and the resources available for such a process. secondly, the time factor could also become a deterrent factor because airing details from cases of human rights abuse for too long could be distressing for many and too disruptive for the fragile peace and stability in a country. lastly, a criminal court requires the evidence produced in a case to pass the most severe scrutiny, as well as investigation and to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. in many cases, there is a lack of evidence because crimes were committed a long time ago.67 according to hayner, the attempts to prosecute and punish those responsible for severe abuses under a prior regime, are the most difficult and have seen little success. even if there is a functioning and trustworthy judicial system and no limits are placed on prosecuting the wrongdoers, which is rare, it is clear that domestic judicial systems cannot cope with the great 63 minow, pp. 57-58. see also s.p. huntington, “the third wave: democratization in the late twentieth century” in n.j. kritz (ed.), transitional justice. how emerging democracies reckon with former regimes, vol. 1, pp. 68-69 for arguments in favour of prosecutions. 64 d.m. tutu, no future without forgiveness, pp. 24, 27; christie, pp. 14, 23; m. du preez, “the price of truth” in the unesco courier 52(12), december 1999, p. 24. 65 l.s. graybill, “pursuit of truth and reconciliation in south africa” in africa today 44(1), january-march 1998, p. 114; m.r. rwelamira, “punishing human rights violations: considerations in the south african context” in rwelamira and werle, p. 8; sriram, p. 7; the natal witness, 13.12.1997, p. 7. 66 hayner, p. 183. 67 tutu, pp. 27-28; a. boraine, a country unmasked. inside south africa’s truth and reconciliation commission, pp. 281-283; christie, p. 53; j. sarkin, “the trials and tribulations of south africa’s truth and reconciliation commission” in south african journal on human rights 12(4), 1996, pp. 618-619; sriram, pp. 7-8; the cape times, 9.6.1994, p. 6. see also huntington, pp. 68-69 for arguments opposed to prosecution, as well as m. freeman, truth commissions and procedural fairness, p. 10 outlining the reasons why criminal trials alone are not sufficient. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 129 demands of accountability for massive crimes. thus, it is recognised that courts have limited reach. in addition, even successful prosecutions do not resolve the conflict and pain associated with past abuses. furthermore, trials in international courts have also been limited.68 martha minow justifies these statements further by explaining that the reasons for relinquishing prosecution relate to the inherent limitations of trials, rather than to the limitations and failures of the nation’s capacity to conduct trials.69 paul van zyl argues that trials are mostly about establishing guilt in specific instances, not about broader explanations or culpability. for him, trials have limited explanatory value. they’re about individual culpability, not about the system as a whole. a trial is not about our complicity. it makes it look they’re guilty, not us.70 lastly, tina rosenberg adds: trials that seek to do justice on a grand scale risk doing injustice on a small scale; their goal must not be justice but justice bit by bit by bit. trials, in the end, are ill suited to deal with the subtleties of facing the past.71 furthermore, it is no simple matter to obtain a conviction in a court of law. a strong possibility is that the accused may be found not guilty because of a lack of evidence. this can be a set-back for those wanting prosecutions. the malan trial especially, raised questions over the capacity and effectiveness of the criminal trials system in south africa. during 1996 former minister of defence, magnus malan and nineteen others were accused of planning and carrying out a massacre in january 1987 of thirteen people in kwamakhutha in the former hocymeland of kwazulu, now kwazulu-natal. the murder happened when a hit-squad attack was carried out on the home of anti-apartheid activist victor ntuli. after a difficult trial, all defendants were acquitted. the case collapsed because of a lack of evidence linking malan directly to the killings. since the accused was a former state employee, the state was obliged to cypay the costs of the legal defence. the costs of this seven-month trial exceeded r12 million.72 this is underlined by samuel huntington: do not attempt to prosecute authoritarian officials for human rights violations. the political costs of such efforts will outweigh any moral gains.73 68 hayner, pp. 11, 12, 14, 251. see hayner, pp. 88-89 for the many reasons why so few trials of rights abuses take place. see also j. tempelhoff, “menseregte, boetedoening en die kultuurhistoriese toe-eieningsproses” in p.h. kapp (ed.), die suid-afrikaanse verlede en die skuldvraagstuk. verslag van ‘n simposium oor die afrikaanse geskiedskrywing en die toewysing van skuld, pp. 6-7. 69 minow, p. 58. 70 hayner, p. 101. 71 minow, p. 51. 72 b. hamber and s. kibble, from truth to transformation, the truth and reconciliation commission in south africa, p. 8; hayner, p. 101. 73 a. boraine, “introduction” in boraine, et al., (eds), p. xvi. oelofse   130 a dilemma with prosecution that needs to be considered by transitional states is the fact that it could lead to political violence and/or civil war, which could weaken an already vulnerable democratic system. in other words, it may destabilise a fragile transitional government resulting in prolonged political instability or even a return of dictatorship.74 carlos s. nino warns that the consequences of attempting to punish all or some of those responsible for human rights violations may be dangerous for the stability of the democratic regime and ultimately for the preservation of those very human rights in the future.75 on the other hand, there are those who oppose the trial option and suggest that a country should rather let bygones be bygones, forget and bury the past and move on, expressing a desire to turn the page and focus on a new future. this option makes provision for a blanket or general amnesty.76 for those who want to leave the past alone, it is a case of no, we do not want to enter into the morass of conflict, hatred, and pain. we want to focus on the future, for now, the past is too much part of the present for us to examine its details. for now, we prefer silence over confrontation, over renewed pain. while we cannot forget, we would like to pretend that we can.77 for some people, this option is not so much ignoring the atrocities of the past, but rather of concern for a newly emerging democracy and a way to protect it. to point to the guilty by digging up the details of past atrocities could aggravate the situation it sought to address and lead to more pain and further divisions in society. by dwelling on the past, a deeply divided society will be unable to overcome its divisions and move forward. in other words, official investigations may do more harm than good.78 apart from these arguments, there is strong criticism against this option, which is, in effect, a call for collective amnesia. minow argues strongly that it is wrong to do nothing and that dwelling in the frozen space of inability and incapacity is unacceptable, unresponsive to victims, unavailing to the waiting future.79 archbishop desmond tutu states that, if the past is not recognised and kept quiet or lied about, it is “embarrassingly persistent, and will return and haunt us unless it has been dealt with 74 christie, pp. 62-63; roht-arriaza, “introduction” in roht-arriaza, (ed.), p. 9; the cape times, 13.2.1995, p. 2. 75 boraine, “introduction” in boraine, et al., (eds), p. xvi. 76 tutu, pp. 30-31; boraine, p. 4; k. asmal, “coping with the past. a truth commission for south africa” in mayibuye, february 1994, p. 27. see tina rosenberg’s criticism on this kind of reconciliation in t. rosenberg, “reconciliation and amnesty – latin america” in boraine, et al., (eds), pp. 66-68. 77 hayner, p. 185. see also hayner, pp. 185-186 where the author sets out the four elements that seem to be common in certain countries for a lack of desire to formally establish the truth. 78 sarkin, p. 620; roht-arriaza, “introduction” in roht-arriaza, (ed.), p. 8. 79 minow, p. 4. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 131 adequately. unless we look the beast in the eye, we will find that it returns to hold us hostage.”80 judge richard goldstone agrees, stating that: it is a recipe for national discontent and almost certainly will result in past abuses being repeated.81 there are examples of countries that made the choice for the option of simply ignoring the legacy of past crimes. for example, in mozambique there has been almost no attention given to the accountability for past crimes and the accepted belief is that the less we dwell on the past, the more likely reconciliation will be.82 however, according to richard carver, african rights expert, several countries in africa have suffered by making such a choice with distinct negative long-term consequences from failing to come to terms with the crimes of the past. he suggests different ways to address and document the past, not necessarily through a truth commission only, but as long as there are always some form of truth-telling processes.83 thus, despite calls for a process of amnesia, emphasis is placed rather on the necessity of remembering the past. philosopher george santayana explains it as follows: those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.84 richard von weizsacker, former president of west germany, goes further: whoever closes his eyes to the past becomes blind to the present. whoever does not wish to remember inhumanity becomes susceptible to the dangers of new infection.85 archbishop desmond tutu, chairperson of the south african truth and reconciliation commission, explains that unless our past was acknowledged and dealt with adequately, it could blight our future.86 furthermore, for kader asmal the danger of not dealing with the past lies in the fact that we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.87 80 tutu, pp. 30-32. 81 sunday times, 17.4.1994, p. 3. 82 hayner, pp. 186-195. 83 hayner, p. 184. see also b. baker, “twilight of impunity for africa’s presidential criminals” in third world quarterly 25(8), 2004, pp. 1487-1500 where the author examines the degree to which changes in international law, international judicial institutions and public opinion since the end of the cold war have contributed to changes in the treatment of african tyrants who have been accused of crimes against humanity. 84 tutu, p. 32. 85 boraine, p. 366. 86 tutu, p. 32. oelofse   132 for patricia hayner, the inevitable question with which any country with past atrocities is confronted is whether a society can build a democratic future on a foundation of blind, denied, or forgotten history.88 if all the arguments are taken into account, it seems that criminal trials may be unfeasible and sometimes practically impossible and that blanket amnesty is unacceptable. it is then that a third option may be considered, where a truth commission would be the “middle-road” between the alternatives of pardon or prosecution and blanket amnesty or national amnesia. in evaluating truth commissions in general and their role against a process of prosecution, minow comes to the conclusion that truth commissions are not a second best alternative to prosecutions. according to her assessment of these two processes, truth commissions emphasize the experiences of those victimized; the development of a detailed historical record; and the priority of healing for victims and entire societies after the devastation to bodies, memories, families, friendships, and politics caused by collective violence. a truth commission could generate the evidence to support prosecutions. or, when the fullest accounts and participation are sought in a nation marked by deep and historic divisions, a truth commission represents a potential alternative to prosecutions.89 allen indicates that recognition is indeed the business of law and criminal justice, as well as of truth commissions. the recognition afforded by truth commissions should serve as a complement and auxiliary to legal recognition.90 kiss accentuates these arguments, clarifying that truth commissions have demonstrated convincingly that it is not just a “second best” process to past abuses. on the contrary, truth commissions can provide a much fuller account of human rights violations of the past and establish greater accountability among perpetrators than prosecutions are able to do realistically.91 thus, trials focus more closely on identifying individual legal responsibility for specific crimes and punishing those found guilty. truth commissions have no power to initiate trials and generally investigate and report. courts and truth commissions may work with some of the same 87 a. krog, country of my skull (second edition), p. 268. see also boraine, p. 4 where he quotes lev tolstoy from cathleen smith’s book remembering stalin’s victims, where her argument follows the same lines: “people say: why recall the past? what is the good of remembering what has been swept away? what is the good of irritating the nation? how can one ask such questions? if i suffered from a serious and dangerous disease and recovered or was cured from it, i would recollect the fact with joy. i would be disturbed by it only if i was still ill or if i’d taken a turn for the worse and wanted to deceive myself”. 88 hayner, p. 5. 89 minow, p. 90. see also how this author sets out twelve more overlapping goals/aspirations with truth commissions in minow, pp. 87-88. 90 j. allen, “between retribution and restoration: justice and the trc” in south african journal of philosophy 20(1), 2001, p. 29. 91 e. kiss, “moral ambition within and beyond political constraints: reflections on restorative justice” in rotberg and thompson (eds), p. 91. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 133 material in focusing on describing the broad pattern of events, and commissions may make judicial-like decisions, but their goals, structures, and powers are contrary to one another.92 boraine and hayner argue that there are compelling reasons for the establishment of a truth commission that might contribute to justice. they set out certain points to be considered. the past cannot be ignored as it could make reconciliation even more difficult; for a forgiveness process, it is important to know what evil is being forgiven and who caused it; if dignity is to be restored to victims, knowledge of these violations have to be made known to the public; to establish an accurate record of a country’s past and thus reclaiming a country’s history and to open it for public review; to compensate victims, there must be knowledge and details of violations; knowledge of the truth must also be acknowledged officially by the state and people of a country; to contribute to accountability for perpetrators; to outline institutional responsibility and recommend reforms; if victims do not believe that their violations have been acknowledged and feel that justice will never be done, private acts of vengeance and retribution may follow; appraising the role of the courts as a whole in the system of repression and analysing what needs to change; promoting the rule of law and fulfilling international obligations.93 ratner and abrams are of the opinion that, while truth commissions as such may not provide as rigorous a determination of, or as serious a punishment for an individual’s culpability as with prosecutions, in many cases it represents the best or only alternative. truth commissions as a form of accountability may serve as valuable precursors or complements to criminal trials.94 thus, many transitional societies choose a truth commission for a variety of reasons. it seems as if it has emerged as a popular tool for dealing with a legacy of human rights abuses in postconflict situations. such a truth body may provide a more comprehensive record of a contested past, rendering an authoritative account of a specific period and/or of a specific regime, while determining the central causes of the violence and violations. in the end, such a commission of truth may make recommendations to prevent the future repetition of human rights violations. although the focus is on human rights violations that occurred, truth commissions in general have very different aims, mandates, perceptions and resources available, as well as approaches to the kind of “truth” they are searching for. this has a definite influence on a commission’s activities and on the end report and findings. consequently, if truth commissions are empowered efficiently, they can assist to accomplish some of the state’s obligations under international law to answer to human rights violations. a truth commission could be the “bridge-building process”, leading the nation away from a divided 92 hayner, p. 88. see freeman pp. 71-86, where the author debates about the significant differences and similarities between courts and truth commissions. 93 boraine, pp. 33-34; hayner, pp. 24-31, 102-106; sunday times, 17.4.1994, p. 3; the cape times, 8.6.1994, p. 8; die volksblad, 5.7.1994, p. 7. compare also these arguments of boraine with k. asmal et al., reconciliation through truth. a reckoning of apartheid’s criminal governance (second edition), pp. 10-11, 28, where the authors provide a detailed layout of how a process of collective memory will in turn, move people towards a number of crucial goals. see also freeman, pp. 37-40 setting out in detail the perceived advantages and disadvantages of truth commissions. 94 s.r. ratner and j.s. abrams, accountability for human rights atrocities in international law. beyond the nuremberg legacy, p. 193. oelofse   134 past to promoting a future based on peace and stability, the recognition of human rights and dignity, as well as national unity. to date, most truth commissions have been established in latin america and africa. the nature of political violence in latin america and africa differs. in the former it is usually between right and left political sectors, with the military and security forces who have engaged in severe, violent repressive tactics. in africa, political violence is in the form of conflict between ethnic ‘tribal’, social and religious groups. here the violent conflict is often the result of the deliberate manipulation of group identities by political leaders.95 a brief overview of certain truth commissions that have been created in specifically latin america and africa will be included to accentuate the processes, methods, successes and failures of some of these more well-known truth commissions. on 28 october 1982 the first latin american truth commission was created in bolivia, a few days after the return to democratic rule. although they were able to locate some of the remains of missing people, no cases were definitively investigated. difficulties such as limited financial support from the government, a lack of sufficient resources and political support, led to an incomplete process. after three years the commission disbanded without producing a final report.96 argentina’s truth commission was the first from the 1980s onwards to hold trials involving human rights violators. argentina moved to a democratic rule in 1983 as the military retreated from power. the argentines wanted to create a commission to investigate the violence of the seven-year military regime from 1976-1983. through the “national commission on the disappeared”, 8 960 people who had disappeared were documented and a list of 365 former torture centres were reported and published. however, though the commission submitted more than 1 800 cases for prosecution, justice was limited. from the previous military juntas that had ruled argentina, nine members were prosecuted and five were convicted. when carlos saul menem succeeded as president in 1989, he exonerated the five junta members who had already been convicted, as well as officers awaiting trial.97 the parliament of uruguay created the “investigative commission on the situation of ‘disappeared’ people and its causes” in april 1985, following eleven years of military rule. after seven months the commission reported and provided evidence on 164 disappearances and the involvement of the uruguayan security forces, which was handed to the supreme court. however, much more common than disappearances, was torture and illegal imprisonment. the limited mandate of the commission prevented it from officially investigating and documenting 95 p.b. hayner, “fifteen truth commissions – 1974 to 1994: a comparative study” in human rights quarterly 16(4), 1994, pp. 653-654. 96 ibid., pp. 613-614; hayner, unspeakable truths …, pp. 52-53. 97 hayner, unspeakable truths …, pp. 33-34; hayner, “fifteen truth commissions …”, pp. 614-615; c. smulovitz, “commissions of truth and reconciliation – argentina” in a. boraine and j. levy (eds), the healing of a nation?, pp. 56-57; j. malamud-goti, “punishing human rights abuses in fledging democracies: the case of argentina” in n. roht-arriaza, (ed.), pp. 161-170. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 135 these practices. it is self-evident that a truth commission’s mandate cannot exclude abuses that represent a large portion of the victims experiences, if it aims to be successful.98 in chile, general augusto pinochet overthrew the civilian government in september 1973, brutally repressing all opponents and ruled chile for seventeen years. president patricio aylwin assumed the presidency in march 1990 and established the “national commission on truth and reconciliation”. within nine months the commission thoroughly investigated the 2 920 cases within its mandate. the final report of 1 800 pages received wide recognition from the public and especially from human rights organisations. however, there was no real condemnation of the role of the top leadership (i.e. general augusto pinochet). the reason for this lay in pinochet’s action in 1978 when he instituted an amnesty law, which barred prosecution for almost all human rights crimes that occurred after he had taken control. the commissioners further refused to reveal the names of the perpetrators and no attempt was made to prosecute individuals. another commission, the “reconciliation and compensation corporation” was established in 1990 to further investigate the abuses under the pinochet regime, 1972-1990. a report published in 1996 found a further 899 cases of people who disappeared or died, which brought the total number of victims of political repression in chile to 3 197.99 the discussed truth commissions from latin america tended to be quite substantial affairs, where each country had different responses to its transitional process and the quest for justice, depending on local governing factors and dynamics. significantly, these latin american truth commissions interacted and affected one another by addressing the injustices of the past. many of the truth-seeking bodies in africa have tended to be smaller, less successful and sometimes less prominent. this is often the result of limited resources in the form of funds and staff. some truth commissions in african countries are also faced with political bias and/or ethnic or group-identity antagonism. uganda went through two government sponsored truth commissions. the first commission came into being in 1974 in response to the increasing public pressure to investigate the accusations of disappearances at the hands of military forces during the first years of the idi amin government. the commission faced considerable practical difficulties and operated in an unfavourable political climate. the commission had minimum impact on the practices of the government of amin and abuses by his forces increased considerably in subsequent years. the conclusion was that the commission was set up without any political will or responsibility for real change in human rights practice or policy. twelve years later, in 1986 a second commission of inquiry was established to investigate human rights violations from 1962 to 1986. major funding constraints 98 hayner, unspeakable truths …, pp. 53-54; hayner, “fifteen truth commissions …”, pp. 616-617; l. weschler, “acknowledgement, truth & justice – uruguay” in boraine, et al., (eds), pp. 41-46. 99 hayner, unspeakable truths …, pp. 35-38; hayner, “fifteen truth commissions …”, pp. 621-623; m. popkin and n. roth-arriaza, “truth as justice: investigatory commissions in latin america” in law and society inquiry: journal of the american bar foundation 2, 1995, pp. 84-86; j. correa, “dealing with past human rights violations: the chilean case after dictatorship” in notre dame law review 67, 1992, pp. 1455-1485. oelofse   136 limited and slowed the work of this commission, but a report was published in 1995, after nine years of investigation.100 rwanda presented an altogether new truth commission model. the commission was funded and entirely sponsored by international non-governmental organisations. although the government did not hinder the investigation during 1993, the government forces began killing in the days after the commission left the country and murdered an estimated 300-500 people. the final report was positively received in rwanda and internationally. however, the rwandan government reacted by launching a publicity attack on the rebels to make known their human rights violations. after this commission, rwandans engaged in 1994 in the fastest recorded genocide in history. this time the international criminal tribunal for rwanda (ictr) was authorised through the un security council resolution 955 in november 1994, to prosecute acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the geneva convention that were committed between january and december 1994.101 a commission of inquiry was established in 1985 in zimbabwe. the aim was to investigate the killing and governmental repression of an estimated 1 500 political dissidents and other civilians in the matabeleland region of the country. the commission worked under the authority of the president and was presided over by a zimbabwean lawyer. after several months of investigation, a report was submitted directly to the president. to date, the report has not been made public by the government and no one outside the government has seen it.102 from the examples used, it is clear that human rights investigations vary remarkably, both in their political context and in their legal composition, as well as in their specific investigatory mandates and powers. it is self-evident that procedures and models which are appropriate at a specific time and place will not necessarily be appropriate for another country. each country must shape a process of transition out of its own historical, political and cultural context. it was against these examples that south africa took certain guidelines in the ‘truth recovery’ from former commissions, incorporated lessons from these commissions, but used them even more as warnings. with the establishment of a truth commission, south africa had to balance the requirements of justice, stability, peace, the restoration of dignity to victims, accountability and reconciliation. means of reaching this would be to institute a commission, not on the grounds of vengeance or retribution, but one that may serve a reconciliatory, nation-building function. thus, there was decided upon a unique truth commission for south africa with the granting of amnesty to individuals, in exchange for full disclosure of the truth relating to the crime for which amnesty 100 hayner, unspeakable truths …, pp. 51-52; hayner, “fifteen truth commissions …”, pp. 611-613; 618-620; r. carver, “called to account: how african governments investigate human rights violations” in african affairs 89(355), pp. 397-400, christie, p. 62. 101 hayner, “fifteen truth commissions …”, pp. 629-632; l.s. graybill, “pardon, punishment, and amnesia: three african post-conflict methods” in third world quarterly 25(6), 2004, pp. 1120-1124; l. graybill and k. lanegran, “truth, justice, and reconciliation in africa: issues and cases” in african studies quarterly 8(1), fall 2004, pp. 8-9. 102 hayner, unspeakable truths …, p. 55; hayner, “fifteen truth commissions …”, pp. 617-618; r. carver, “zimbabwe: drawing the line through the past” in roht-arriaza, (ed.), pp. 258269. protecting  human  rights   td, 6(1), july 2010, pp. 113 – 138. 137 was being sought. it would also give an opportunity to ordinary people to tell their stories, allowing them to remember and empowering them in the process. in the end, especially from the victim’s point of view, it seems as if the truth and reconciliation commission of south africa (trc) endeavour was important and necessary. with its thorough and far-reaching investigations and inquiries, the trc is described as the largest survey of human rights violations conducted anywhere in the world. the trc was arguably the most ambitious to date and has been used as an example in many parts of the world as a new model for confronting a tormented and divisive history. however, the existence of a truth commission is no assurance that the repetition of human rights abuses will necessarily deter future occurrences thereof. it also does not necessarily indicate a commitment to real change. truth commissions as such should not be perceived as something of a panacea. at least the intention of most truth commissions is to reduce the possibility of the reoccurrence of these atrocities in the future. the hope exists that, with the publishing of an honest, accurate record of the violence, a society will learn from its past, and its more knowledgeable citizens will recognise the signs and prevent any future abuses, especially where specific recommendations for reform form part of a truth commission’s final report and contributions to constructive changes for the future can be made. it is true that truth commissions are not perfect. many times it is a high risk exercise in the political history of a country. however, one cannot ignore the fact that truth commissions contribute to the cause of justice and the protection and promotion of human rights. the functions performed by truth commissions focus on the promotion of a just, democratic and open society and they endeavour to restore the collective dignity of a state and its people. this finds an echo in international humanitarian law. 4. conclusion it cannot be denied that over the years the un has intensified its efforts to protect and promote human rights by assisting member states and monitoring human rights violations. the world has come a far way since 1945. however, the prime responsibility for implementation and enforcement of these human rights instruments as laid down by the un, remains with governments. no clear answer is possible as to which is the better way to deal with atrocities: either retributive or restorative justice. each country is different and an approach must be sought that will suit the specific situation. this requires a case-by-case, country-by-country analysis where competing interests should be taken into account before making choices. the particular context and the purposes and aims should be checked and balanced against the advantages and disadvantages of both forms of justice. nevertheless, being more thorough, revealing and in a sense successful, truth commissions may provide useful cases for analysis as catalysts of justice in specific circumstances of transitional justice. it must be realised that achieving justice with accountability is a long and difficult process. truth commissions are by no means perfect, because the stakes in dealing with the past and settling accounts are remarkably high and seldom result in an adequate satisfactory conclusion accepted oelofse   138 by all. at least transitional justice processes, including truth commissions, may make a valuable contribution to justice and democracy, as well as history. microsoft word 07 liebenbererg et al industry perceptions page proofs.docx td the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa, 10(3) december 2013, pp. 260-284. industry’s perception of the relevance of software development education j liebenberg, 1m huisman2 and e mentz3 abstract it is widely acknowledged that there is a shortage of software developers, not only in south africa, but also worldwide. despite reports, in mostly quantitative studies, of a gap between the industry needs and software development education, the view the industry has of the new graduates and the problems, challenges and solutions in respect of software development education has not been explored in detail. this article reports on a mixed methods study of the relevance of software development education from the perspective of the industry. the analysis reveals some interesting views held by the industry, as well as by the different generations on their new recruits and the problems and challenges that are faced. the following solutions to the problems are suggested: teamwork; projects and experience; work-integrated-learning and mentoring; technical and soft skills; keeping up to date; career guidance; introspection; and generational awareness. keywords software development education, industry, computing curricula 1. introduction south africa has a shortage of professionals with ict skills (harris, 2012) and this is a worldwide phenomenon (mcallister, 2012). the career junction index (cji), which monitors online employment trends in south africa, found that the it industry has the highest vacancy levels and that software development (sd) is at the forefront of the country’s significantly high it demand (careerjunction index, 2014). not only is there a shortage of sd workers, but students from computing disciplines are also graduating with a lack of the skills that companies are searching for (bateman, 2013). regarding ict skills in south africa: “not all graduates are prepared for the working environment, and don't always fit in. this is a gap that needs addressing” (mawson, 2010:1). the industry expects students to be educated in courses and projects that are professionally relevant and that prepare them well for the workplace (moreno et al., 2012) but on the other hand, the mission and role of the university should also be considered. according to reisman (2004), the mission of undergraduate and graduate programmes is educational, but that mission has steadily transformed into one of training. reisman (2004) argues that the primary qualification of new employees should be their solid undergraduate education in which the curriculum focused on a common body of knowledge; a set of basic topics and principles. employers can therefore build on that solid foundation and new employees can easily be trained by their 1 . corresponding author: janet liebenberg, faculty of natural sciences, north-west university, private bag x6000, potchefstroom, 2520, south africa; tel: +27-18-2992536, janet.liebenberg@nwu.ac.za 2 . prof magda huisman, faculty of natural sciences, north-west university, private bag x6000, potchefstroom, 2520, south africa, tel: +27-18-2992537, magda.huisman@nwu.ac.za 3 . prof elsa mentz, faculty of education sciences, north-west university, private bag x6000, potchefstroom, 2520, south africa, tel: +27-18-2994780, elsa.mentz@nwu.ac.za relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 261 employer for entry-level project work using particular (vendor) products. several researchers have studied the knowledge and skills requirements for it professionals through quantitative analysis but no mixed methods study could be found that studied the view the industry has of the new graduates and the problems and challenges connected to sd education. in addition, the solutions to the problems and challenges surrounding sd education have been discussed in papers with a view to the future but have not been researched in detail. in view of the rapid pace at which technology is changing and in the light of the shortage of software developers, the present study investigated the relevance of software development education as it pertains to the industry. the research questions were: • what is the industry’s view of its new graduates? • is there a gap between software development education and the workplace from the perspective of the industry? • what are the problems and challenges surrounding software development education and what are the solutions to these problems and challenges? the results of this study could help sd educators and curriculum developers to form a picture of the recent graduates from the perspective of the industry in order to relate the suggestions of the sd industry for relevant sd education to the academic preparation of future software developers. furthermore, the results can give an indication of the responsibility and contribution of the software industry in respect of the education of new recruits. the sd students, especially those nearing the end of their studies, could use the results of this study to prepare for the expectations of their future employers. it can therefore result in more relevant software development education with regard to the industry and it might contribute to meeting the demand for software developers. 1.1 terminology the acm, ieee computer society and ais have joined forces to regularly create and update curriculum guidelines for undergraduate degree programmes in the following computing disciplines computer science, computer engineering, information systems, information technology and software engineering. however, the dynamic nature of computing makes it difficult and potentially misleading to define the computing disciplines and related terminology (guzdial et al., 2009; gruner, 2014). for the purpose of this study, it is therefore necessary to explain and clarify certain key terms: • software development (sd) the iso (international organization for standardization) and the iec (international electrotechnical commission) define developer as an individual or organisation that performs development activities (including requirements analysis, design, testing through acceptance) during the system or software life cycle process (iso/iec, 25000, 2014). for the purpose of this study software development will refer to the process of developing software through successive phases in an orderly way. • industry – the iso and iec define software manufacturer as a group of people or organisation that develops software, typically for distribution and use by other people or organisations (iso/iec, 19770-2, 2009). for the purpose of this study, industry will refer to software manufacturers, as well as organisations where software is not the organisation’s main product but software is developed for use within the organisation. liebenberg, huisman and mentz 262 1.2 transdisciplinary research this article reports on the transdisciplinary field of research by transcending the disciplinary borders of education and computing (including the computing disciplines of computer science, information systems, software engineering and information technology). this study explored industry’s perception of the relevance of software development education and therefore ties in very well with the properties of transdisciplinarity outlined by kroeze and van zyl (2014) namely its broad, evolutionary scope, its focus on societal complexity, its holism, its practical relevance and its tangible impacts. true to transdisciplinarity, the study focused on practical relevance of software development education in society (the software industry) and aimed at finding practical solutions to the problems and challenges faced by the software industry. furthermore, this study attempted to address the call of madni (2007) for transdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary education whereby transdisciplinary education will flow from this transdisciplinary research since the identified problems and solutions can be included in curricula in order to bridge knowledge gaps. 2. literature review in this section, the background and literature regarding the new graduate in the workplace, the education new graduates received and the challenges will be discussed. 2.1 the new graduate in the workplace most new graduates belong to the so-called net generation, also known as the millennial generation or generation y. the net generation (especially people born in the us and canada from the early 1980s to the late 1990s) is characterised by people who may have never known life without the internet (oblinger and oblinger, 2005). their early and omnipresent exposure to technology has defined their styles, their modes of communication, their learning preferences, their social choices and their entertainment preferences (saiedian, 2009). in the workplace, millennials want flexible work schedules and they do not like traditional office rules and hierarchies. they want continuous performance feedback and career advice from managers and they think that managers could learn from their young employees. what could be misinterpreted as the "self-importance" attitude of millennials is actually an optimistic sense of having many new ideas and a desire to not only contribute their ideas, but also to have their skills utilised by managers. millennials want to wear jeans to work and especially in it companies, the norm is to wear casual clothes, for example jeans, sneakers, flip-flops and sweatshirts – (facebook ceo mark zuckerberg’s famous hoodie and former apple ceo steve jobs’ black turtleneck with jeans are good examples) (schawbel, 2012). the older generations, on the other hand, are more prone to believing in the importance of maintaining a standard professional look in the workplace. it seems as if millennials also prefer casual attire because they do not separate their personal and professional lives in the same way that the older generations do. however, not all today’s students can be described as the net generation, since not all students had and still have the benefit of state-of-the-art ubiquitous technology and the latter group of students exhibit a high degree of technological diversity. they may have information literacy characteristics and it skills quite different from the typical net generation. higher education comprises a highly diverse and growing student body possessing a core set of technology based skills, but beyond this core there is a diverse range of skills across the student population (lorenzo et al., 2007; jones et al., 2010; kennedy et al., 2008). relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 263 much is written about the so-called “generational gap”. young professionals or millennials are joining generation x (born 1960-1980) and boomers (born 1940-1960) in modern organisations. the three generations are inherently different they approach work, work/life balance, accountability, delegation, loyalty, authority, motivation and reward systems differently (macon and artley, 2009). however, augustine (2001) states that a popular misconception exists that the workforce consists of generational tribes engaged in rivalries and conflicts with each other. augustine (2001) admits that there might be differences, misunderstandings and tensions among workers from different generations, but the division and conflict are often exaggerated. another misconception is that millennials want to change jobs frequently (murray, 2015). millennials actually value job security more highly than previous generations and they also value job enjoyment and are inclined to leave a job they do not enjoy. there is also a misconception that money does not matter to millennials. a high-paying job is near the bottom of their list of work priorities but the same applies to other generations, in nearly equal numbers (murray, 2015). in their study soni et al. (2011) determined the differences in work commitment of software professionals from the x-generation and y-generation (millennials). the study examined generational differences for the five types of work commitment work involvement, job involvement, work group commitment, organisational commitment and professional commitment. organisational commitment and professional commitment in turn had three components each affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. soni et al. (2011) found that the two generations differed significantly on only three of the nine factors examined. continuance commitment to the profession is significantly higher for generation x than for generation y, meaning that generation x feels obliged to stay in the software profession. the generation y group of employees has higher job involvement and their continuance commitment to the organisation is significantly higher than that of the generation x group. in higher education a popular notion exists to describe students as ‘digital natives’ and lecturers as ‘digital immigrants’. students’ immersion in digital technologies creates in them a radically different approach to learning and it is expected from lecturers to adapt their methods to students’ new way of learning in order to remain relevant. however, bayne and ross (2011) call for a more cautiously critical and nuanced understanding of the effects of new technologies on the practices and subject positions of learners and teachers in higher education. 2.2 the education of new graduates according to spicer (2011), any business needs from its incoming recruits “critical cross field outcomes” the skills and abilities that the south african qualifications authority (saqa, 2000) requires to be achieved in all their registered qualifications. the saqa (2000) lists seven outcomes, namely problem solving and creative thinking; being able to work in a team; the ability to manage oneself and one’s activities, being able to critically evaluate information; good written and verbal communication; an effective use of science and technology; and being able to demonstrate an understanding of the world as a set of related systems by recognising that problem-solving contexts do not exist in isolation. these outcomes describe what can also be called soft skills or non-technical skills. several studies suggest a gap between the knowledge and skills demanded by the industry and the knowledge and skills gained by graduates of university computing courses. lethbridge (2000) analysed the relevance and depth of specific core topics that software professionals had received as part liebenberg, huisman and mentz 264 of their university education and identified a significant mismatch between software education and industry in terms of the knowledge needed by software engineers to meet the industry’s requirements. other researchers reported similar gaps (kitchenham et al., 2005; kim et al., 2006; surakka, 2007; lee and han, 2008; aasheim et al., 2009; moreno et al., 2012) and for lethbridge et al. (2007) filling them is one of the most critical challenges for sd educators. when information systems curricula were analysed from the perspective of the industry the following gaps in knowledge and skills were identified: problem-solving and project management skills, knowledge of business, it business consultancy, security, end-user computing, soft skills related to core knowledge, knowledge related to leadership and negotiation or giving presentations (lee and han, 2008; kim et al., 2006; moreno et al., 2012). aasheim et al. (2009) compared the perceptions academics have of the importance of various skills for entry-level it workers with the view that it managers have. they found that it managers place more importance on issues related to hardware concepts, operating systems, leadership skills or entrepreneurial traits than academia. however, both groups ranked broader categories of skills interpersonal skills, personal skills, technical skills, organisational skills and work experience in the same order of importance. the research of bullen et al. (2009) examined workforce trends in it-provider companies and encountered problems in the following areas: graduates who are not trained in areas that the marketplace is seeking; thin pipeline for specific technical skills; increasing pressure to source it capability; and lag in university responsiveness to the needs of the marketplace. to effectively fill this gap between the knowledge and skills demanded by the industry and the knowledge and skills gained by graduates of university computing courses, it would be necessary, on the one hand, to guarantee that the educational programmes provide the knowledge required for the job profiles suggested by industry and on the other hand, to ensure that this knowledge is taught in a manner enabling future professionals to correctly tackle the problems that they will face during their professional career (loftus et al., 2011). industry’s view on the relevance of sd education is determined not only by the knowledge and skills (technical, non-technical and business) acquired by graduates at university but also by their awareness of the proven techniques, challenges and expectations of their roles in employment. gallagher et al. (2010) investigated the skills considered critical when hiring entry-level employees and report that while both technical and non-technical skills are important, the skills most critical are non-technical skills, such as project management, business-domain knowledge and relationship skills. is professionals' competencies change as they gain experience in the workplace and they are required to have higher levels of technical skill in early stages and higher levels of non-technical skill in the later stages of their careers (lee et al., 2001). plice and reinig (2007) found that emphasising technical topics at the expense of business content may provide short-term benefits in transitioning to the workforce, but it might inhibit career advancement as graduates assume greater managerial responsibilities. emphasising communication and teamwork skills while maintaining the existing curriculum balance between business and technical content is indicated as an appropriate strategy to align the is curriculum with the needs of industry. hassan (2008) warns that as a result of the increasing breadth of content introduced into the is field, undergraduates may become multidisciplinary illiterates. the multidisciplinary nature of the content produces graduates as generalists instead of specialists. hassan (2008) further warns that without a clear body of knowledge built within a succinct codified framework for students, the is field will continue to struggle in recruiting new members into the field. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 265 software and technical developments have made remarkable strides in the last few decades. not only is the dependence on software increasing, but the character of software production itself is changing – and with it the demands on software developers (shaw et al., 2005; shaw, 2000; saiedian, 2009). the diversity of software applications requires adaptability in responding to client needs and the diversity of clients and contexts requires the ability to discriminate between criteria for success. this presents new challenges for the education of software developers (shaw et al., 2005; shaw, 2000). 2.3 challenges the challenges facing sd education have not been researched in empirical studies in detail but the british computer society (mcgettrick et al., 2004), shaw (2000), lethbridge et al. (2007) and mead (2009) reported on some of the challenges and aspirations they foresee for computing education and software engineering education. the perception of computing. computing departments experienced a decline in enrolment that has occurred since 2000, with bright minds being attracted to other disciplines. low enrolments result in low numbers of post-graduate students, which in turn will restrict the capacity for research in the field. a positive public image of computing must be promoted whereby good students are attracted and the public gains respect for the field and the professionals who practise within it (mcgettrick et al., 2004; lethbridge et al., 2007). the dimensions of the field. there are five different undergraduate degree programmes in computing covering computer science, information systems, software engineering, computer engineering and information technology. knowledge about specialties in terms of how practitioners work, the distinct roles in software development and what their different educational needs are, is needed. this will allow for better-tailored programmes, simpler models of computing and a smaller core resulting in the provision of appropriate education for each student (lethbridge et al., 2007; shaw, 2000; mcgettrick et al., 2004). real-world industrial practices. a large collective effort should be launched to establish twoway knowledge and skill exchanges with companies from more industrial sectors and with more professionals within these companies in order to communicate these real-world industrial practices more effectively to students (lethbridge et al., 2007; mead, 2009). evidence based education. computing education should ensure that everything in the design and delivery of sd education must become increasingly based on carefully-evaluated evidence from industrial practice. computing education models must be examined with workforce needs in mind (lethbridge et al., 2007). educator background. just as students and curricula have to stay updated in the rapidly changing world of technology, similarly the educators should not stay behind. educational institutions should ensure that educators have the necessary background (lethbridge et al., 2007). curriculum standards that are forward-looking. in an evolving field such as sd, the challenge is a fast response to changes in technology and designing curriculum guidelines for the future, while supporting current practice (lethbridge et al., 2007; shaw, 2000). education for existing practitioners. in addition to educating new students, the knowledge levels of the existing workforce need to be raised by providing an infrastructure to provide support and guidance on a career-long basis for practitioners (lethbridge et al., 2007; shaw, 2000; mcgettrick et al., 2004). liebenberg, huisman and mentz 266 information technology in the classroom. educators in the software field can do better at exploiting technology to support the learning process itself (shaw, 2000). educational research in computing. the prestige and quality of educational research in computing need to be raised (lethbridge et al., 2007). educational research is often not recognised as “legitimate” technical research and mead (2009) challenges educators to continue to push for recognition of educational research as a legitimate field of research. variety of delivery mechanisms. educators need to adjust from the traditional lecture format because distance delivery via a variety of mechanisms is here to stay (mead, 2009; shaw, 2000; mcgettrick et al., 2004). the literature was explored regarding new graduates, the possible gap between software development education and the workplace and the anticipated challenges faced with new graduates’ education. as these topics were not explored in detail, this study therefore investigates the relevance of software development education from the point of view of the industry. 3. research method in this section the terminology will first be explained and then the research design, the demographics of the participants, as well as the data collection and analysis are discussed. 3.1 research design and participants a mixed methods approach was used to conduct the research. tashakkori and creswell (2007:4) describe mixed methods as: research in which the investigator collects and analyses data, integrates the findings, and draws inferences using both qualitative and quantitative approaches or methods in a single study or programme of inquiry. mixed methods research can aid in the development of rich insights into phenomena of interest that cannot be fully understood using only a quantitative or a qualitative method. mixed methods research will often provide the most balanced, informative, complete and useful research results (venkatesh et al., 2013; johnson et al., 2007). creswell and clark (2007) suggested four major types of mixed methods design: (1) triangulation; (2) embedded; (3) explanatory; and (4) exploratory. in this study the type of mixed methods research was explanatory, as the objective of the qualitative investigation was to supplement the quantitative investigation and to better understand and explain the observations of the quantitative investigation. this mixed method study was conducted in south africa and for the quantitative part of the study a survey was used and the qualitative data was acquired through the comments by survey respondents. in 2013’s last quarter a convenience sample of 995 professional software developers in south africa was taken. the respondents were members of the following groups of the professional networks linkedin and mybroadband: software and web developers in south africa, sa developer.net and c# developers/architects. they were contacted via e-mail and requested to complete the anonymous online survey. some of the respondents indicated that they sent the link of the survey to their colleagues for completion. in addition, five managers at software houses were contacted and they sent the link of the survey to the software developers in their company. the number of usable responses received totalled 214, which indicates a response rate of around 21%. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 267 table 1: profile of respondents (n=214) number(%)respondents gender male 196 (92%) female 18 (8%) age category 18-24 25 (12%) 25-29 64 (30%) 30-39 94 (44%) 40-49 28 (13%) 50-59 3 (1%) >=60 0 education matric 10 (4.5%) certification 22 (10%) national diploma 30 (14%) it degree(s) 104 (49%) bsc/bcom 38 (18%) engineering degree 10 (4.5%) level of education matric 10 (4.5%) certification/diploma 52 (24%) b-degree 70 (33%) hons 54 (25%) masters 28 (13%) phd 1 (0.5%) work experience (in years) 0-4 63 (29.5%) 5-9 62 (29%) 10-14 51 (24%) 15-19 22 (10%) 20-29 13 (6%) 30-39 3 (1.5%) >=40 0 (0%) years at current employer 0-2 123 (57%) 3-4 47 (22%) 5-9 26 (12%) 10-19 13 (6%) 20-29 4 (2%) 30-39 0 (0%) 40+ 1 (0.5%) involved in hiring of new graduates? yes 99 (46%) no 115 (54%) table 1 provides a summary of the biographic data. the gender profile is a concern but not surprising with only 8% of the respondents being female and the results obtained from the females can therefore not be generalised. the age profile indicates that 42% of the respondents are young, generation y software developers, 57% are generation x software liebenberg, huisman and mentz 268 developers and a mere 1% are boomers. in terms of the respondents’ education 49% of them are in possession of an it degree or degrees, with another 22.5% having related degrees. it is not uncommon in software development to find people with few qualifications (4.5% of the respondents). there are software developers who taught themselves to program and they provide proof of their knowledge, skills and experience to employers in the software industry through their work. the level of the education of the respondents was quite high with 38.5% of them possessing a post-graduate qualification and even one with a phd. the work experience of respondents indicates that 70.5% of them have more than five years’ work experience and 46% of them are involved in the hiring of new graduates. a common trend is for software developers to not stay long in one position or workplace and this trend also surfaced in this study with only 43% of the respondents working more than two years at their current employer. 3.2 data collection, instrument and analysis an initial list of questions was developed by writing both new items and adapting items from available surveys, such as rose (schreiner and sjøberg, 2004) and the saqa’s list of “critical cross-field outcomes”. once the initial questions were generated, they were sent to industrial and academic experts to refine the instrument. feedback from this pilot study served as the basis for correcting, refining and enhancing the questions and it resulted in a questionnaire with a pool of 30 items. the first section of the questionnaire gathered information on the biographic data of the respondents as shown in table 1. the questionnaire was further divided into two domains. the first domain, “educational background of new recruits”, had 16 items and enquired on what respondents view as important in sd classes, such as industry experience of lecturers. the second domain, “career”, gathered data on sd careers, such as what is expected from a good software developer. the first and second domains were accompanied by a five-point likert response scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). factor analysis was used to investigate the 30 items in more detail to reduce the variables into a smaller number of factors. the 214 responses were examined using principal components factor analysis as the extraction technique and oblimin with kaiser normalization as the rotation method. after analysis of the results of the factor analysis, the researchers felt that some items were of lesser importance in answering the research questions, which resulted in five items being omitted. of the remaining 25 attitude items, 10 items were being handled as single research variables and the remaining 15 items yielded four interpretable factors. factors were named according to their main context. a cronbach's α coefficient was calculated for each of the four factors and was found, as table 2 shows, to be reliable (α ≥0.60). qualitative data was gathered by means of an open-ended question at the end of the questionnaire, asking for further comments on the education of software developers and 77 respondents added comments. furthermore, there were 21 respondents who felt so strongly about the topic that they gave up their anonymity and e-mailed the researchers with more comments and suggestions. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 269 table 2: factors* (with reliability coefficients) and items factor cronbach's alpha (α) critical outcomes required in software development modules. 0.718 positive attitude towards colleagues/management. 0.793 positive attitude towards tasks/work. 0.666 emotional/social skills required. 0.700 item neat and tidy appearance required. good set of exam results required. new recruits have the knowledge and skills to immediately contribute to the development of software. students know what software developers do in the workplace. new recruits have to be trained/sent for training before they can contribute to the development of software. our country needs more software developers. people from industry should be brought into software development classes. lecturers should have industry experience. in the software development modules students should learn to use science and technology effectively. projects play an important role in the education of students. * see appendix a for the items in each factor basic analysis of quantitative data was done by calculating the mean values and standard deviation of each of the 14 variables. various statistical tests were used in the analysis to match the metric being analysed. three groupings were identified based on gender, age and education. all the groupings were tested for significant differences between means in the different variables using t-tests and anova tests. chi-square tests and spearman’s rank correlation analysis were also used to analyse relationships between the groupings and the variables. when the results of the interaction analysis are reported, only the significant interactions or primary effects will typically be discussed. since a convenience sample instead of a random sample was used, the p-values will be reported for the sake of completeness but will not be interpreted (steyn et al., 1999). for the analysis of the qualitative data the atlas.ti 7.1.4 computer program was used and the data was analysed as follows: the data of the open-ended question in the online survey and the data from the e-mails were assigned to a single hermeneutic unit; the relevant information was separated from the irrelevant information; the relevant information was broken into a number of text segments; the emerging themes were coded in a process of inductive categorisation and the text segments were linked to the coded themes; the codes were grouped into code families; networks were drawn that reflect the meaning of the respondents’ views; and the networks were used to develop an overall description of sd professionals’ views of sd education. liebenberg, huisman and mentz 270 the code families and themes that emerged from the analysis were: new graduates: adaptation to the workplace; weaknesses; new graduates vs. unqualified recruits; passion; thirst for knowledge. the possible gap: true; false. the problems and challenges: who is to blame?; lacking skills and knowledge; rapid change. the solutions: teamwork; projects; experience; work-integrated-learning (wil); mentoring; tips for teaching. since the product of qualitative research is richly descriptive (merriam, 2009), the participant comments were analysed, interpreted and presented in the form of quotes. 4. results and discussion in this section, important data for each of the concepts are considered, as well as the qualitative data that provides a rich description of the information obtained. 4.1 the new graduate from table 3 it is clear that the respondents felt very strongly that new recruits must have a positive attitude towards colleagues and management, as well as a positive attitude towards tasks and work. respondents also felt quite strongly about the emotional and social skills expected from new recruits when they enter the workplace. the respondents did not feel that a neat and tidy appearance is such an important requirement and respondents had a relatively neutral feeling about the standard of the examination results of students but the deviation was quite large. table 3: basic analysis of new graduate factors and items (i)tem / (f)actor mean* standard deviation positive attitude towards colleagues/management (f) 4.44 0.562 positive attitude towards tasks/work (f) 4.55 0.458 emotional/social skills required (f) 3.75 0.720 neat and tidy appearance required (i) 2.79 1.111 good set of examination results required (i) 3.03 1.041 * likert-style responses were ranked from 1 to 5 respectively gender differences were analysed with a t-test and the female respondents felt more strongly (d = 0.47, p<0.05) about a neat and tidy appearance required in the workplace. in addition, the t-test showed that the female respondents felt more strongly (d = 0.48, p<0.05) that good examination results are important. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 271 generational differences were analysed with an anova and the results in table 4 indicate that the older software developers (generation x) differed from the young software developers (generation y) in terms of new recruits’ appearance. surprisingly enough, it was the older generations that felt that a neat and tidy appearance is not such an important requirement in the workplace. this finding contradicts the view of schawbel (2012) that the older generations believe that it is important to maintain a standard professional look in the workplace. there is a medium practically significant difference between the 18 to 24 age group and the software developers over 40 in terms of their views on academic performance. the young software developers view a good set of examination results as significantly more important than the older respondents. this might be explained by the experience of generation x where they had seen that it is not necessarily the academic giants of university that turned out to be the best and most innovative employees. in terms of emotional and social skills required, table 4 shows that there is also a medium practically significant difference between the 18 to 24 age group and the software developers over 40. the fact that the generation x software developers view emotional and social skills as significantly less important than the young respondents might be explained by one of the three items in the factor, namely: “to be a good software developer you have to have modern leadership skills, such as self-confidence and a preparedness to lead by example”. schawbel (2012) pointed out that millennials’ attitude could be misinterpreted as "self-importance" by the older generations and in the qualitative data this problem with the new recruits’ attitude emerged as well. table 4: differences between the age groups (f)actor / (i)tem age groups effect size p neat and tidy appearance required (i) 18-24 vs 25-29 0.53* 0.078 18-24 vs 30-39 0.48 18-24 vs 40+ 0.62* good set of examination results required (i) 18-24 vs 25-29 0.41 0.114 18-24 vs 30-39 0.23 18-24 vs 40+ 0.57* emotional/social skills required (f) 18-24 vs 25-29 0.25 0.061 18-24 vs 30-39 0.46 18-24 vs 40+ 0.54* * medium practically significant difference a spearman rank correlation analysis found a medium practically significant relationship (r = .416, p<0.001) between the respondents’ views of a developer’s appearance and his/her examination results. therefore, respondents who viewed a neat and tidy appearance to be important, also felt strongly about good examination results for software developer students. the qualitative data revealed the following regarding the new graduates: liebenberg, huisman and mentz 272 adaptation to the workplace new recruits adapt quickly to the workplace and they learn fast. i have several varsity graduates with bsc comp sc qualifications who graduated in the last 2 to 3 years working for me and all of them are very intelligent young people who learn fast and have proven to be valuable members of my team. having said that, however, that was not the case when they first arrived. devs need the ability to learn quickly and adapt to constraints. weaknesses respondents pointed out the weaknesses of new recruits. a great number of respondents pointed out that new recruits have theoretical but not applied knowledge and they lack problem-solving skills. lots of graduates/junior developers have excellent theory but have absolutely no clue how to implement it. graduates seem to lack the analytical, logical and problem-solving abilities required respondents felt that new recruits arrive in the workplace with a laid-back attitude and are emotionally immature. respondents experience a lack of respect from the new recruits and a lot of attitude. this finding can probably be explained by the “generational gap” because as schawbel (2012) pointed out, millennials’ attitude could be misinterpreted as "selfimportance", but millennials see no reason for a strict hierarchy and most millennials want to contribute, believing that everyone’s ideas should be heard. they have a yolo (you only live once) attitude i guess we were all young and impetuous once, but we need emotionally mature and stable professionals. starters seem to have a lot of attitude and little respect. this makes it difficult to make them productive members of a team. another weakness from the perspective of the software developers is that new recruits apply for and end up in a career that does not match their personality type. wrong career choice for their personality. software developers are usually disc "c" personalities (intx in myers briggs). project managers and architects are usually d/c i.e. "left brainers". business analysts need more people / emotional skills. new graduates vs. unqualified recruits the respondents, however, felt that new recruits without a degree had more weaknesses that probably cannot be rectified. unfortunately for the most time i have noticed a lack of architectural growth from degreeless developers in the long term, 3 years+. their work often shows signs of dirty coding and lack of interface design skills. lack of following standards and doing things the best way is often a sign of poor background. they also seem to project a type of unwarranted arrogance. passion respondents commented that the best graduates are passionate about software development and the employers find that passion is lacking in some of the new recruits. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 273 the best graduates (and thus the hardest to get) are the ones who unquestionably speak with an inbuilt passion for development. what ultimately stands out for me when i hire new people is their passion for what they do and hunger to learn more and constantly improve, as well as high quality work. thirst for knowledge in view of the rapid pace at which technology is changing, the respondents emphasised the fact that new recruits must have a desire to try out and learn new things. hunger for knowledge and the work ethic to see it through are essential i'm probably learning more every day now after 30 years than i did at university. software developers require a natural thirst to solve problems through their skills, as well as a natural want to learn new things. hard work, thirst for knowledge and learn as many technologies as possible (be dynamic not conservative). 4.2 the possible gap between software development education and the workplace table 5 shows that the respondents felt quite strongly about the shortage of software developers in south africa and they strongly agreed that further training is required for new recruits. on the other hand, the mean values of 2 variables are relatively low with the respondents feeling that new recruits cannot immediately contribute to the development of software and that students do not have a clear idea of what software developers do in the workplace. table 5: basic analysis of gap items item mean* standard deviation our country needs more software developers. 4.32 0.890 new recruits have to be trained/sent for training before they can contribute to the development of software. 4.01 0.836 new recruits have the knowledge and skills to immediately contribute to the development of software. 2.35 1.063 students know what software developers do in the workplace. 2.70 1.037 * likert-style responses were ranked from 1 to 5 respectively differences based on work experience were analysed with a t-test and a medium practically significant difference (d = 0.50, p<0.001) between the respondents with less than 10 years’ experience and the rest of the respondents was found, in terms of the new recruits’ knowledge and skills, to immediately contribute to the development of software. the respondents with less than 10 years of work experience had a significantly stronger opinion that new recruits can immediately contribute, whereas the more experienced software developers felt that new recruits do not have the knowledge and skills to immediately contribute to software development. from the above it is not surprising that the results of an anova in table 6 indicates that the older the software developers were, the more they differed with the young software developers in terms of the knowledge and skills of new recruits. the older respondents felt that new recruits lack the knowledge and skills to immediately contribute to the development of software. liebenberg, huisman and mentz 274 table 6: differences between the age groups item age groups effect size p new recruits have the knowledge and skills to immediately contribute to the development of software. 18-24 vs 25-29 0.43 <0.05 18-24 vs 30-39 0.61* 18-24 vs 40+ 0.77* * medium practically significant difference furthermore, correlation techniques were used to analyse the correlation between the variables. a spearman rank correlation analysis found a medium practically significant relationship (r = 0.376, p<0.001) between the respondents’ views of the new recruits’ knowledge and skills entering the workplace and students’ knowledge of what software developers do in the workplace. when conducting mixed methods research, a researcher may find contradictory conclusions from the quantitative and qualitative strands, but these contradicting findings are valuable in that they enrich understanding of a phenomenon but also open new avenues for future research (venkatesh et al., 2013). in the reported quantitative results above it showed that the respondents felt that there is a gap between sd education and industry needs and some of the qualitative results re-affirmed that notion. however, the comments of some respondents contradicted the idea of a gap between industry needs and sd education. true there is a gap when looking at the qualitative data, some respondents felt strongly that there is a gap between sd education and industry needs. words, such as “huge gap”, “big gap”, “definitely a gap”, “significant gap”, “massive gap” were used. in my experience there is a massive gap between university grad knowledge and realworld industry needs. i do think there is distinct disconnect between what students are being taught at varsity and what they actually need to know to work in a proper software development house and be useful and productive. a piece of paper obtained by a student in it in no way proves the skills and ability of that student. a huge misconception. it’s not a good enough test of a good developer. most of my best devs haven't finished their degrees... industry vs. training doesn't weigh up! some respondents spoke of shock and horror at the graduates’ knowledge and skills. we brought on 3 graduates on a 3-month internship. i was shocked at how poor their actual skills were. some of them knew a lot of theory but no practical application. last year we brought on 3 graduates for an internship. i was horrified at how little they knew of real software development. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 275 false – there is not really a gap however, not all respondents felt negative about the knowledge and skills of graduates and they think that graduates have a broad basic knowledge, that it is not difficult to train them and they are a great asset in the long term. computer science degrees often don't prepare an individual to go out there and start developing systems from scratch, but it gives them a long term advantage, a broad knowledge and understanding of how they should learn development and what they should try to avoid. training them to be productive real-world developers has never been a particularly difficult or time-consuming task and in general, if they have earned a bsc comp sc, it does tend to indicate that they are of a higher calibre than most candidates and will prove to be a better hire in the long run. i have noticed that university gives developers a foundation of broad computer science knowledge, that without a degree very few individuals have. a degree also shows commitment to something that will take a while to complete and shows a character that is often necessary in long-term self-development of the individual. from the above it is clear that the respondents had opposing views regarding the gap between the new graduates’ education and their workplace. these opposing views most probably originate from the respondents’ views on the mission of the university. if they view the mission as educational as reisman (2004) also pointed out, then they do not think there is a big gap, but if they view the university’s mission as one of training graduates to immediately be productive software developers, then they experience a big gap. 4.3 the challenges in software development education analysis of the qualitative data highlighted a number of challenges and problems that the software developers in the industry foresee. “we have a big problem in south africa when it comes to software writing skills”. who is to blame? some respondents laid the blame for the problems with new software developers at the door of the university. i really feel that the tertiary education system is failing them horribly. i have been attempting to convince xyz university to produce more able software developers, but nothing is changing. other respondents blamed the software industry for the problems with new software developers. no problem with the education. what falls flat is what happens with it companies after graduation. there is a shortage of developers, but companies do not want to invest in graduates as they are afraid they will leave for better salary, etc. however, those same companies go to india, etc. for developers and further add to the shortage of developers. all a vicious circle, sadly. liebenberg, huisman and mentz 276 lacking skills and knowledge respondents listed a number of skills that are lacking: “no basic troubleshooting and investigation skills”; “no working experience at all”; “a lot of theory but no practical application”; “no teamwork experience”; “too informal processes”; and “they have no concept of how real projects are managed, how projects are planned and timings are estimated”. one of the respondents echoed the claims of gallagher et al. (2010), lee and han (2008) and plice and reinig (2007), namely that the main problem is that new recruits lack business knowledge. i think it very much depends on the industry you go into. in my personal experience i have gone into investment banking (still working in it though). i felt a big gap when i entered the working world purely because i wasn't prepared from a business knowledge perspective.” rapid change respondents emphasised the continuing and rapid changes in the software industry and that the knowledge the graduates acquired at university is often outdated. some respondents felt that students should rather learn foundational principles and theories at university and others felt that university courses should regularly be updated. the world is moving ever faster what worked over the last 10 years won't necessarily work in the future ...they also tend to do things in ways that are now considered old-fashioned and outdated and often had to be taught to do things differently to what they had learnt at university. practical software development skills change rapidly so tertiary institutions should focus on general theory according to quickly changing software industry, varsity courses need to be revised every 3-4 years to keep knowledge up to date. the words of a software development manager effectively summarises the above opinions: “the general take away for me, when dealing with varsity graduates is not that they are being taught badly or incorrectly at varsity, but rather that what they are being taught always seems to be slightly out of date and behind current trends and technologies. on the plus side, i don't think that their degrees can be considered easy or of little value by any means. they clearly worked very hard to earn those degrees and they do seem to be taught a lot of solid foundational principles that can be built on very easily. the market has a severe lack of solid theoretical computer science training.” 4.4 the solutions to problems in software development education all the variables listed in table 7 have high means indicating that software developers viewed these variables as important solutions to the problems in educating software developers. respondents felt that experts from industry should be used to teach students and that the lecturers should in turn gain experience in the workplace. respondents also strongly agreed that the education of software developers requires what can be referred to as non-technical skills which in south africa are known as critical outcomes. relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 277 table 7: basic analysis of solutions (i)tem / (f)actor mean* standard deviation people from industry should be brought into software development classes (i) 4.37 0.769 lecturers should have industry experience (i) 4.43 0.752 in the software development modules students should learn to use science and technology effectively (i) 4.20 0.707 projects play an important role in the education of students (i) 4.32 0.734 critical outcomes required in software development modules (f) 4.40 0.488 * likert-style responses were ranked from 1 to 5 respectively the qualitative data revealed some interesting and useful suggestions as solutions to the problems in educating software developers. teamwork respondents felt strongly that the university and the it industry should work together in creating up to date curricula. i think it's of vital importance in the software industry, more important than any other industry, that academic institutions consult with the private sector to learn how best to equip students for their first real-world position as a software engineer. industry professionals need to be brought in for consultation on the tool chain they make daily use of in their development role. the above comments confirm the challenges lethbridge et al. (2007) and mead (2009) anticipated. projects respondents felt that students should receive more challenging practical assignments and projects during their years of study. more practicals! lots of graduates/junior developers have excellent theory but have absolutely no clue how to implement it. practical sdlc experience in a team setting (systems development projects) is a crucial part of the learning process. they need to do more stressed-for-time projects. the projects must not be just about stuff they do know. it must challenge them. experience respondents stressed the fact that the software industry is looking for people with experience and not necessarily a degree “someone with a degree and experience is the holy grail of hr managers” and a great deal of emphasis is placed on practical and real-life experience. give them the practical experience they need and projects related to current real-life environments universities should bridge this gap by integrating more experience into the curriculum. liebenberg, huisman and mentz 278 work-integrated-learning (wil) several respondents suggested that work-integrated-learning in the form of a vacation job or internship could be a solution for effective software development education. it should work the same as an engineering degree where the student needs a year of actually working for someone before the degree is awarded. software developers should have vacation jobs in relevant companies where they can get corporate experience in development. important to reward future software devs if they do well a holiday internship at a dev house would be the best reward. mentoring the education of software developers is not only the duty of the university, but the industry can play its part through a mentorship programme. graduates need to be mentored and coached in their first year of employment. this is lacking extensively! tips for teaching respondents commented on what lecturers should focus on in the education of software developers, including soft skills and technical skills. respondents confirmed the aspirations of lethbridge et al. (2007) and shaw (2000) that an important factor is for the university to keep up to date within the rapid changing technology environment. the education of software developers should emphasise soft skills as much as technical skills. lecturers should be able to teach more up to date skills to students, and open their eyes to possible exposures to methodologies. my kids will most likely also work in this industry and i hope that they will be taught the correct languages to make them appropriately skilled for the job market. one respondent pointed to the fact that software developers rarely start from scratch when writing a program and students should therefore be taught to utilise all the resources at their disposal. ...show them how to troubleshoot a problem properly and leverage the internet, google, online resources, etc. properly to their advantage. a respondent wraps up some of the sentiments unveiled above: “the most useful thing that varsities could probably do would be to try and make the material they are teaching the students more current and more in line with what is actually going on out there. i realise that it is incredibly difficult when you are trying to plan a syllabus ahead of time and the industry changes at the pace that ours does, but if you want to improve the marketability of students straight out of varsity, that's what will do it.” 5. conclusion and recommendations the first research question in this study was: what is the industry’s view of its new graduates? the software industry views its new recruits as fast adapters to the workplace who learn fast while several new recruits have theoretical but not applied knowledge. the sd industry views relevance of software development education td, 10(3), december 2015, pp. 260-284. 279 emotional and social skills as important, although some new recruits are found to be emotionally immature and disrespectful. new recruits are observed as having a “selfimportance” attitude, especially in the case of generation x. the software developers also experience that new recruits enter the workplace with their personality type not matching their career choice. however, most new graduates have a passion and thirst for knowledge, whereas unqualified recruits have weaknesses that probably cannot be rectified. new recruits’ positive attitude towards colleagues and management, as well as towards tasks and work is important as far as the industry is concerned. new recruits’ appearance is not perceived as too important, especially by generation x, but women view a neat and tidy appearance as more important than men. software developers feel relatively neutral about students’ exam results, but women and millennials view good examination results as important. the second research question posed was: is there a gap between software development education and the workplace from the perspective of the industry? some people in the sd industry feel strongly that there is a gap between sd education and industry needs and that new recruits in the sd workplace are relatively unprepared to immediately start to work on projects, resulting in a need for training before they can make a constructive contribution. some recruits do not know what the work of a software developer entails until they enter the workplace. generation x software developers do not have confidence in the abilities of new recruits. however, some people in the sd industry think that graduates have a broad basic knowledge, that it is not difficult to train them and that they are a great asset in the long term. these opposite views can probably be explained by people’s views on the mission of universities as either an educational institution or a vocational training institute. the third and last research question was: what are the problems and challenges surrounding software development education and what are the solutions to these problems and challenges? the software industry confirms that it is challenged by a shortage of software developers. the university, as well as the software industry are to be blamed for the problems and challenges surrounding software development education. the problems and challenges identified from the perspective of the sd industry are the following. graduates often lack business knowledge and they lack experience in teamwork, troubleshooting, investigation skills and general practical experience on real-life projects. the rapid pace at which technology is changing often causes the knowledge graduates acquire at university to be outdated. the following solutions to the problems and challenges are recommended in order to offer relevant software development education as far as the industry is concerned: • teamwork. the university and the it industry should work together in creating upto-date curricula. people from industry should be brought into software development classes and lecturers should acquire industry experience. • projects and experience. practical assignments and projects play an important role in the education of students and real-life and practical experience must be included in students’ education. • work-integrated-learning and mentoring. the software industry can be helpful in accommodating students to gain experience in the workplace during their studies and mentoring them once they have entered the workplace. • technical and soft skills. universities must examine their curricula to ensure that not only technical, but also soft skills are included. liebenberg, huisman and mentz 280 • up to date. universities must attempt to keep the curriculum abreast of the rapid change in technology. the challenge is a fast response to changes in technology and designing curriculum guidelines for the future, while supporting current practice. • career guidance. universities, in conjunction with the industry, should provide career guidance to students, so that they do not apply for and end up in a job that clashes with their personality type. • introspection. the mission of the university is not that of a vocational training institute but rather a higher education institute. both the software industry and the university must do introspection to establish where they are failing to contribute to the offering of relevant software development education. • generational awareness. it is clear from the study that the older software developers or generation x have a different, more negative view of new recruits. sd students, as well as new recruits or millennials must be aware of the values and beliefs of the older generations, especially since most of them will start work under a generation xer. on the other hand the older software developers must be aware of the traits, values and beliefs of the millennials in order to get the most out of their new recruits. this study contributes to the sparse empirical literature on the perspective of the sd industry of their new recruits, the problems and challenges that are faced and the solutions to the problems as far as the sd industry is concerned. in south africa some universities are significantly higher ranked than others and the same quality of education is not offered in all universities and university departments. some of the highly ranked universities might argue that the above recommendations are already implemented by them, but it is clear from this study that the sd industry perceives a gap between sd education and the workplace and consequently all universities should take note in order to further improve the quality and relevance of sd education. sd educators and curriculum developers must take the expectations and suggestions of the sd industry in the academic preparation of future software developers into account. the sd industry can ascertain which contributions towards the education of new recruits can be made by the industry. with reference to this study, the sd students can observe the perspective of the sd industry of their new recruits and 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